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2024-09-10

A Re-interpretation of the Anthesteria

and Its Eclectic Ceremonies

Leo, Kingston Tyler

Leo, K. T. (2024). A re-interpretation of the Anthesteria and its eclectic ceremonies (Master's
thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.
https://hdl.handle.net/1880/119676
Downloaded from PRISM Repository, University of Calgary
 UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

A Re-interpretation of the Anthesteria and Its Eclectic Ceremonies

by

Kingston Tyler Leo

A THESIS
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN GREEK AND ROMAN STUDIES

CALGARY, ALBERTA

SEPTEMBER, 2024

© Kingston Tyler Leo 2024

 ABSTRACT
Scholarship on the Anthesteria, an Athenian festival held in late February and celebrated

new wine in honour of the wine-god Dionysos, are at odds with how to interpret this festival,

given that its various ceremonies contrasted each other in terms of their themes. Most notably the

Anthesteria had joyous drinking festivities as well as a sacred wedding ritual between Dionysos

and the basilinna (the archon basilieus’ wife). Held at this festival was also the morose Aiora

ceremony, a rite wherein young Athenian women swung on makeshift swings to honour the

death of the maiden Erigone. Given this contrast of the Anthesteria’s events, previous scholars,

such as Walter Burkert, have demarcated the festival’s gloomy rites from its more cheerful and

sacred rituals by placing them on separate days, which still encompassed the Anthesteria. More

recent scholars, on the other hand, have excised the Aiora and holy wedding ceremony from the

festival on the grounds that these two ceremonies are unrelated to the jovial and wine-centric

events of the Anthesteria.

Contradicting these scholars, my thesis offers an alternative interpretation of the

Anthesteria, in which this festival could be both a gloomy and joyous occasion that was held on

one day and hosted festive drinking events in conjunction with the gloomy Aiora ritual and

sacred wedding ceremony. I shall argue that these seemingly contrasting events were

interconnected and had a unifying purpose of ultimately promoting both agrarian and female

fertility. As I discuss the fertility-promoting properties of the Anthesteria and its events, I shall

compare this festival to Artemisian coming-of-age rites that promoted female fertility.

Additionally, I will interpret this festival through the perspective of Hippocratic medicine, an

interpretation overlooked by previous scholars, given that its ceremonies resemble Hippocratic

treatments for gynaecological illnesses that affected a female’s fecundity.

i
 PREFACE
This thesis is an original, unpublished, and independent work by the author Kingston Tyler Leo.

ii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to my supervisor,

Professor James Hume, for his excellent guidance and help over the last two years. Ultimately,

this thesis would have not been possible without him, given that I was inspired to study the

Anthesteria for my thesis after taking his Greek Religion class in the Fall of 2021, wherein he

discussed this festival in great detail.

I would also like to thank my committee members Dr. Lesley Bolton, Dr. Peter Toohey,

Dr. Craig Maynes, and Dr. Frank Stahnisch for serving as my examiners. My gratitude especially

goes out to Dr. Lesley Bolton, who provided me excellent advice on Hippocratic medicine.

Though not related to my thesis, I would like to show my appreciation to Dr. Joy

Palacios, who gave me several opportunities to work with her on several of her projects. I

learned a lot while working with her.

I want to thank my parents, Wayne Leo and Connie Zhu, for continuously supporting me

throughout this long venture. I would have not completed this thesis without their love and

support.

Lastly, I want to acknowledge the emotional support that I have received from my

friends. Most notably, Greg, Tyler, Erik, Josh, and Preston come to mind, given their continuous

encouragement and interest in my thesis and the fact that I was able to clear my mind from any

stress whenever I jammed with them.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................................... i
PREFACE ....................................................................................................................................... ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................... iv
LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... vii
ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................................................ ix
INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction and Literature Review ............................................................................................ 1
The Problem and My Solution, Methodology and Thesis Layout .............................................. 3
CHAPTER 1 A NEW SCHEMA OF THE ANTHESTERIA ....................................................... 10
1.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 10
1.2 Pithoigia ...............................................................................................................................11
1.3 Choes and Chytroi............................................................................................................... 15
1.3.1 Choes Market, and Private and Public Wine-Drinking ................................................ 16
1.3.2 The Choes and Chytroi: A One-day Celebration ......................................................... 19
1.4 Day of Pollution .................................................................................................................. 24
1.5 Miscellany: Ship-cart Ritual ............................................................................................... 26
1.6 The Location of the Choes Market, Contest and Feast and Who Was Involved................. 27
1.7 The Location of Dionysos’ Limnaian Precinct .................................................................. 32
1.8 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 36
CHAPTER 2 THE AIORA, WINE-MIXING RITUAL AND THE SACRED WEDDING ........ 38
2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 38
2.2 An Introduction to the Basilinna and the Gerarai .............................................................. 39
2.3 The Location of the Boukoleion and Its Association with Nuptial Banquets ..................... 40
2.4 The Premarital Sacrifice of a He-goat at Limnai ................................................................ 43
2.5 The Premarital Aiora and Wine-mixing Ritual .................................................................. 48
2.5.1 Aiora: The Swinging of Young Women and Dionysos’ Mask ..................................... 49
2.5.2 Wine-mixing Ritual Depicted in the “Lenaia Vases” ................................................... 61
2.6 The Sacred Wedding .......................................................................................................... 71
2.6.1. Vase-paintings of an Anthesterian Wedding Procession ............................................. 71

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 2.6.2 Vase-paintings of a Wedding Feast at the Boukoleion ................................................. 74
2.6.3 Consummation of the Sacred Wedding ........................................................................ 77
2.7 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 78
Chapter 2 List of Figures .......................................................................................................... 79
CHAPTER 3 THE AIORA AS A RITE OF PASSAGE ................................................................ 88
3.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 88
3.2 Rite of Passage .................................................................................................................... 89
3.2.1 Definition of a Rite of Passage by Arnold van Gennep ............................................... 89
3.2.2 The Ancient Greek Concept of Social and Physical Development .............................. 90
3.2.3 The Aiora as a Rite of Passage ..................................................................................... 94
3.3 The Aiora and an Artemisian Mock Hanging with the Zone .............................................. 98
3.3.1 The Strangled Goddess ................................................................................................ 99
3.3.2 Lysizonos, the Zone and Rites of Passage .................................................................. 100
3.3.3 An Artemisian Mock Hanging, the Aiora and the Zone ............................................. 102
3.4 Clothing and Mock Hangings That Promoted Fertiltiy .................................................... 104
3.4.1 Nudity, Clothing and Hanging ................................................................................... 104
3.4.2 Fertility Rite of Adorning and Hanging Artemis’ Image on Trees ............................. 107
3.4.3 Similarities Between the Aiora and the Figurine Rituals ........................................... 109
3.5 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................114
CHAPTER 4 THE ANTHESTERIA’S PROMOTION OF FEMALE FERTILITY FROM A
MEDICAL PERSPECTIVE ........................................................................................................117
4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................117
4.2 Conceptualizing Mental Disorders in Hippocratic Medicine ............................................118
4.3 The Womb as a Vessel in Hippocratic Gynecology .......................................................... 120
4.4 The Opening of the Womb-vessel in Homer and the Anthesteria ..................................... 123
4.4.1 The Opening of the Womb-vessel in Homer.............................................................. 124
4.4.2 The Opening of the Womb-vessel in the Anthesteria................................................. 126
4.5 A Case of a Closed Womb in Diseases of Virgins and the Aiora ...................................... 127
4.6 Uterine Movement ............................................................................................................ 133
4.6.1 The Non-Hippocratic Tradition of Uterine Movement in the Greek World .............. 134
4.6.2 Hippocratic Concepts of Uterine Movement ............................................................. 136
4.7 Scent Therapies for Uterine Movement ............................................................................ 140
4.7.1 Hippocratic Scent Therapies for Uterine Movement ................................................. 141

v
 4.7.2 Fumigations for Uterine Movement in the Myth of the Proitids ............................... 143
4.7.3 Uterine Movement in the Aiora Myth and Fumigation in the Aiora.......................... 146
4.8 Pitch and Its Significance in the Anthesteria .................................................................... 150
4.9 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 153
CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 155
BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 159

vi
 LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1 Goat sacrifice at the Fountain-house Enneakrounos, late 6th cent. BCE, Attic black-
figure skyphos. Athens, National Museum 12531. Image taken from Ferrari (2003), fig. 14a-b.
Figure 2.2 Women fumigating garments on a swing, ca. 420-10 BCE, Attic red-figure chous.
New York, Metropolitan Museum 75.2.11. Image taken from:
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/244817
Figure 2.3 Older woman pushing an older girl on a swing, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic red-
figure hydria. Berlin, Antikensammlung F2394. Image taken from:
https://www.carc.ox.ac.uk/record/4E5B11A4-3C26-4857-AEC0-FCF25A2A4D74
Figure 2.4 Older girl on a swing while pushed by a satyr, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic red-figure
skyphos. Berlin, Antikensammlung F2589. Image taken from:
https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/ACA06D2E-929D-4795-B04F-72459F5A3301
Figure 2.5 Bearded man placing s young boy on a swing, last half of fifth century BCE, Attic
red-figure chous. Athens, National Museum VS319. Image taken from:
https://www.namuseum.gr/en/monthly_artefact/a-child-on-the-aiora/
Figure 2.6 Bearded mask of Dionysos on a liknon, ca. 430-20 BCE, Attic red-figure chous.
Athens, National Museum VS318. Image taken from:
https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/15CAE858-AB79-41B2-970F-27167669DBC3
Figure 2.7 Frenzied women dancing and playing instruments in front of Dionysos’ image, ca.
490-480 BCE, Attic red-figure kylix. Berlin, Antikenmuseen F2290. Image taken from:
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/artifact?name=Berlin%20F%202290&object=Vase
Figure 2.8 Women ladling wine in front of an image of Dionysos, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic
red-figure stamnos. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 90.155. Image taken from:
https://collections.mfa.org/objects/153877/lidded-jar-stamnos-depicting-women-congregated-
about-an-id?ctx=07eacd3e-8c78-4802-a6f1-6a224d3bf747&idx=3
Figure 2.9 Wine-ladling scene with a liknon, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic red-figure stamnos.
San Antonio, San Antonio Museum of Fine Arts 86.134.64. Image taken from:
https://sanantonio.emuseum.com/objects/5297/stamnos-jar-with-women-performing-rites-for-
dionysos?ctx=3c51fded-9b4b-4866-9c3b-f24781edae13&idx=0
Figure 2.10 Women wearing patterned chitonai in front of Dionysos’ image, mid-fifth century
BCE, Attic red-figure stamnos. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale H2419. Image taken
from: https://www.carc.ox.ac.uk/record/1A4F5987-8F07-4724-9420-64BBBC44BA54
Figure 2.11 Dionysos holding a thyrsos looks back to a satyr carrying the klismos and a
kantharos, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic red-figure skyphos. Moscow, Pushkin State Museum of
Fine Arts, II 1b 600. Image taken from:
https://collection.pushkinmuseum.art/entity/OBJECT/732105?otdel=9&index=37

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Figure 2.12 Women holding a kantharos and thyrsos follows a satyr carrying a klismos and
kantharos, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic red-figure bell-krater. Paris, Louvre G 422. Image taken
from: https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010270272
Figure 2.13 Veiled woman tending to Dionysos seated on a klismos, mid-fifth century BCE,
Attic red-figure stamnos. Louvre G 406. Image taken from:
https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/BF765DB1-1264-4759-A57A-71930BB8131B
Figure 2.14 Diadem-wearing woman crowning Dionysos, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic red-
figure kalyx-krater. Copenhagen, The National Museum of Denmark ABC 1021. Image taken
from: https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/CA84F082-0714-4BB8-A041-1B15318E8AF3
Figure 2.15 Young Dionysos seated on a klismos and offered grapes and meat by a woman and
satyr, ca. 420-10 BCE, chous decoration. Image taken from Isler-Kerényi (2014), fig. 82, p. 145.
Figure 2.16 Dionysos stumbling to a woman, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic red-figure kalyx-
krater. Tarquinia, Tarquinia, Museo Nazionale Tarquiniese RC4197. Image taken from:
https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/70B5C797-18A8-44D1-B613-5D648C618EDB
Figure 2.17 Dionysos in bed with Ariadne, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic red-figure kalyx-krater.
Tübingen, Eberhard-Karls-Universität, Archäologisches Institut 5439. Image taken from:
https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/D3AEBBC8-797D-46CE-A23C-43BB965CD96C

viii
 ABBREVIATIONS
Abbreviations of ancient works follow the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th ed. Abbreviations
cited in the footnotes are cited as below.

ARV2 J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-figure Vase Painters, 2nd edn. (1963)

ABV J. D. Beazley, Attic Black-figure Vase Painters (1956)

BCH Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique

CMG Corpus Medicorum Graecorum (1908– )

FGrH F. Jacoby, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (1923– )

GGM C. Müller, Geographici Graeci Minores (1855–61)

IG Inscriptiones Graecae (1873– )

Kühn K. G. Kühn, Medicorum Graecorum Opera

Loeb Loeb Classical Library

LSAM F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrées de l'Asie Mineure (1955)

LSCG F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrées des cités grecques (1969)

PGM K. Preisendanz and others (eds.), Papyri Graecae Magicae: Die

griechischen Zauberpapyri, 2 vols., 2nd edn. (1973–4)

POxy. Oxyrhynchus Papyri (1898– )

SEG Supplementum epigraphicum Graecum (1923– )

Additional abbreviations not following the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th ed. are found below.

Aret. Aretaios of Kappadokia

CSAD De Causis et Signis Diuturnorum Morborum

L Littré edition of Hippocrates Oeuvres complètes d’Hippocrate

T Owsei Temkin (1956) Soranus’ Gynecology

ix
 INTRODUCTION
Introduction and Literature Review

The Anthesteria was an Athenian festival that happened in the month of Anthesterion

(roughly February) and celebrated new vintage in honour of the wine-god Dionysos. This festival

was comprised of various events that thematically ranged from jovial, namely feasts and a public

drinking competition, to holy, such as a sacred wedding ceremony between Dionysos and the

archon basileus’ wife (the basilinna), and even to gloomy, most notably the Aiora (Swinging)

ceremony in which Athenians swung on makeshift swings to honour the dead maiden Erigone.

The Aiora was especially morose in character, given that the swinging rite was meant to mimic

Erigone, who, according to the rite’s etiological myth, hanged herself, causing previous Athenian

girls to die in a similar manner and thus incurring pollution in Athens. An aspect of miasma also

loomed over the Anthesteria’s joyous celebrations, given that similar myths involving death and

pollution defined such events.

Because of the miasmic and gloomy character of some of the Anthesteria’s rites, scholars

studying the festival have struggled to connect these ceremonies, especially since the sacred

wedding ceremony clashes with the ghastly and pollution-associated Aiora. Walter Burkert

unifies these seemingly disparate ceremonies by interpreting the Anthesteria through a miasmic

lens, wherein he equates blood sacrifice with new wine and therefore suggests that Athenians

celebrated the festival to honour Dionysos, while atoning for the impurity and guilt of sacrificing

the god’s grapes for wine-making.1 He further argues that the festival spanned three days (11–13

1
Walter Burkert, Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth, trans. Peter Bing
(Berkeley; California: University of California Press, 1983), 220-23. This guilt embodies his central thesis of “blood
guilt”, which explains how cultures, such as that of the ancient Greeks, came to terms with killing animals for
hunting and religious purposes, both of which affected them psychologically. Burkert follows Martin Nilsson, who

1
Anthesterion), with each day called the Pithoigia (Jar-Opening), Choes (Wine Jugs), and Chytroi

(Pots) respectively. The Choes was a day of pollution dedicated to propitiating Dionysos and

cleansing the impurity that enveloped the festival. The Chytroi, on the other hand, was the

“sacred day” devoted to the holy wedding ceremony, not the Choes, since, he says, “the day of

pollution…would be out of the question.2 This wedding concluded the festival and signified that

Dionysos was appeased with the Athenians’ dedication of a bride to him.3

There are, however, issues with Burkert’s schema of the festival, namely that the “sacred”

Chytroi also hosted the morose Aiora ceremony and another sombre ritual which commemorated

the Deukalion flood, an issue Burkert even acknowledges.4 Furthermore, Burkert assigns the

holy wedding to the night of the Choes, but argues that the night of this day technically falls on

the beginning of the Chytroi, based on his idea that the festival’s celebrants followed the sacred

calendar, wherein a new day began at dusk as opposed to dawn,5 a hypothesis criticized by

scholars after him.6

Recent scholars contradicting Burkert have unlinked the sacred wedding and Aiora from

the Anthesteria and argued against the festival’s supposedly miasmic character. Richard

Hamilton, for example, surveying the ancient accounts and vase-scenes associated with the

festival, suggests that there is a lack of ancient testimonia supporting both ceremonies’ ties with

the festival.7 Furthermore, the fifth-century BCE vase-paintings that may depict these rituals

similarly views the festival as inauspicious. See: Martin Nilsson, “Studia de Dionysiis Atticis” (PhD Dissertation,
Sweden, Lund University, 1900), 115.
2
Burkert 1983, 233.
3
Burkert 1983, 235.
4
Burkert 1983, 240.
5
Burkert 1983, 215–17.
6
See below.
7
Richard Hamilton, Choes and Anthesteria: Athenian Iconography and Ritual (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1992), 55–56.

2
have iconography that either references Dionysian ritual not exclusive to the Anthesteria or are

completely unrelated to Dionysos.8 Hamilton also posits that the miasmic elements of the festival

are exaggerated by ancient authors, as with the case of the tragedian Euripides’ etiology of the

festival’s drinking contest and feast, and the scholars who adhere to these authors. He thus argues

that the festival and its ceremonies were likely a joyous occasion.9 Lastly, he criticizes Burkert’s

three-day schema of the festival, most notably because Burkert’s hypothesis of the festival

following the sacred calendar is never attested by ancient sources.10 Furthermore, the accounts

that do mention the festival’s length suggest that it was most likely a one-day celebration,

making it possible that there was no separate day of the festival dedicated to cleansing pollution.

Sarah Humphrey, in a more recent study of the Anthesteria, similarly follows Hamilton in

unlinking the Aiora and sacred wedding from the festival. She further argues that the accounts of

these two rites were contrived by ancient authors.11 Like Hamilton, she discredits the ceramic

representations of both ceremonies for the same reasons stated above. She does, however,

believe that the miasmic and gloomy character of the Anthesteria could co-exist with the

festival’s jovial events.12 She also adheres to the festival’s three-day scheme.

The Problem and My Solution, Methodology and Thesis Layout

Given the conflicting modern interpretations of the Anthesteria, we are left to question

whether some of the festival’s events were associated with the Anthesteria. Furthermore, our

overall understanding of the festival’s themes and its supposed days is obscured by this contrast

8
Hamilton 1992, 68–69,
9
Hamilton 1992, 27.
10
Hamilton 1992, 47–48.
11
Sarah Humphrey, The Strangeness of Gods: Historical Perspectives on the Interpretation of Athenian Religion
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 233, 237, 271.
12
Humphrey 2004, 268–70.

3
of scholarly opinion. My study, therefore, proposes an alternative interpretation of the

Anthesteria that underscores the multivalence of the festival and its diverse ceremonies to prove

that these seemingly disparate events did in fact happen at the festival and were even connected

and held in conjunction with each other, rather than on separate days. Thus, I shall argue that the

Anthesteria was both a festive and gloomy occasion that was celebrated by Athenians as a single-

day festival on 12 Anthesterion. Athenians took part in the Anthesteria not only to honour

Dionysos and his gift of viticulture but also commemorated the dead in a sombre manner, two

aspects which had a unifying purpose of promoting both vegetal and female fertility in Athens.

This dichotomy and function of the Anthesteria were notably exemplified in the Aiora and sacred

wedding ceremony, which, I shall assert in my thesis, were part of the festival and interconnected

with the festival’s other events.

To prove how the Aiora and sacred wedding ceremony were linked with the Anthesteria

and served as rituals that promoted agrarian and female fertility, I shall adopt a multidisciplinary

approach, wherein I examine textual, iconographical, and archaeological evidence pertaining to

these two ceremonies and their ties with the festival. The reason why I incorporate various forms

of ancient evidence in my discussion of these rites and the festival is because each type of source

on its own only provides a limited amount of information. Thus, studying a wide variety of

evidence and comparing them to each other helps in filling in any potential holes that one type of

source may exhibit, and therefore better our understanding of the Anthesteria and its ceremonies.

There are, I acknowledge, limitations to analysing several types of ancient evidence,

since they may vary in time periods. Furthermore, the Anthesteria and its respective rituals,

which existed throughout various periods of ancient Greece, likely changed over time in terms of

function and meaning. Thus, my interpretation and schema of the Anthesteria and its rites will be

4
within the time frame of the Classical period (ca. 510-323 BCE), wherein I shall primarily

examine evidence pertaining to the festival from this era. Whenever I rely on later evidence, I

shall indicate their potential problems. Additionally, especially as I discuss the fertility-

promoting aspects of the Aiora and sacred wedding rite, I will compare Artemisian coming-of-

age rites with the Aiora in particular, given, as we shall see, their similarities in terms of their

fertility-promoting properties. Furthermore, the gynaecological texts of fifth- and fourth century

Hippocratic doctors will be juxtaposed to the Aiora, sacred wedding ceremony and other

Anthesterian rites, since these ceremonies parallel Hippocratic cures for two common

gynaecological illnesses that affected the fertility of females. These doctors and their medical

theories were prevalent during the Classical period, which coincides with the ancient evidence

supporting the Aiora’s and sacred wedding’s ties with the Anthesteria. This intersection suggests

a point in ancient Greece’s history wherein medicine and ritual shared similarities with each

other, at least within the context of the Anthesteria.

With these methods in mind, I shall in the first chapter conduct a textual analysis of the

various ancient accounts of the Anthesteria’s more well-attested events, such as a public drinking

contest and feast, to highlight that they were all held in the Agora, indicating that it is possible

for multiple events to have been held in the one-day festival. Furthermore, my examination of

such events will also prove how the Anthesteria was both a gloomy and festive celebration that

could be held on one day. As we shall see, all of these ceremonies, based on ancient accounts and

archaeological finds, were connected to or took place at or near Dionysos’ Limnaian precinct,

which was located in the Agora and open on 12 Anthesterion, a day considered to be

inauspicious by ancient sources.

5
 Following a similar approach as Chapter 1, Chapter 2 re-evaluates both the literary and

iconographical evidence from the Classical period to prove that the Aiora and sacred wedding

ceremony were part of the Anthesteria. Especially regarding iconographical evidence, I shall

argue how various mid fifth-century ceramics depicting a swinging ritual, contrary to Hamilton

and Humphrey, do represent the Anthesterian Aiora performed by the basilinna and Athenian

girls. I shall further posit that the Aiora was connected to the sacred wedding, given the re-

occurring depictions of Dionysian objects that also had marital connotations, namely the liknon

(winnowing fan) and klismos (reclining chair), on vases representing the Aiora. As we shall see

later in this chapter, another set of fifth-century ceramics that likely depict the sacred wedding

also includes these same objects in its iconography, something which Hamilton and Humphrey

have not accounted for.

Chapter 2 as a whole also suggests that the basilinna and Athenian girls participated in

the Aiora, which took place near Dionysos’ Limnaian precinct. These same celebrants at the

same location then performed a wine-mixing ritual to honour Dionysos, since another group of

fifth-century BCE vase-scenes, known as the “Lenaia Vases”, which has also been unlinked from

the Anthesteria by scholars, again portrays this rite with the aforementioned Dionysian and

marital objects. Lastly, the section concludes that the basilinna, with the help of her husband (the

basileus) and the celebrants of the Anthesteria’s drinking festivities, sacrificed a he-goat at

Dionysos’ sanctuary as a premarital rite and then marched from there to the Boukoleion (Bull’s

Hall) to celebrate her wedding ceremony with Dionysos. At the Boukoleion was likely a wedding

banquet, based on dinnerware found at the supposed site of this building and fifth-century BCE

vase-scenes depicting a nuptial feast. As will be noted, the basilinna’s bridegroom was likely the

basileus. The couple, through their mimicking of an etiological myth of a Dionysian nuptial rite

6
that promoted viticulture, participated in this wedding in order to welcome Dionysos and thus

promote the next grape harvest in Athens.

Chapter 3 explores how the Aiora and the Anthesteria as a whole promoted both female

and vegetal fertility. I shall first examine how the Aiora served as a coming-of-age rite for the

Anthesteria’s young female celebrants,13 wherein they honoured the premature deaths of

previous Athenian girls so that they could marry and have children in the future. Additionally, the

Aiora may have had an apotropaic purpose of protecting its female participants from disease and

other dangers that affected their ability to fully mature and take part in marriage and childbirth,

since the etiological myth that defined the Aiora involved Athenian girls suffering from a divine

affliction sent by Dionysos, which compelled them into suicide. Similar mock hangings

performed by Artemis’ young female followers will be compared to the Aiora to confirm that the

Aiora served as an apotropaic ritual that protected young women from disease. In comparison of

these two rites, I shall also assert that the Aiora could simultaneously promote vegetal and female

fertility, given that both types of fecundity were entwined with each other, especially in the

Artemisian rites.

Complementing the Aiora’s apotropaic properties that warded off illness, Chapter 4

discusses in greater detail how this very ritual may have had, at least from a Hippocratic

perspective, a prophylactic purpose and was thus performed by young Athenian women to cure

13
I shall note that boys may have also participated in the Aiora as a rite of passage (see 2.5.1 and 3.4.1). That said,
my primary focus is on how this ceremony, a coming-of-age of rite mainly for young women, could also promote
female fertility, since both aspects were intertwined with each other. For a detailed discussion on how the
Anthesteria may have served as a rite of passage for boys, see Greta Ham, “The Choes and Male Maturation Ritual
in Attic Dionysiac Cult” (PhD Dissertation, Texas, The University of Texas at Austin, 2008) passim. Greta Ham,
however, argues that based on fifth-century choes depicting young boys, the ceremonies of the Choes, the second
day of the Anthesteria (at least in Burkert’s schema of the festival which she follows), served as initiation rites for
boys. The Aiora, on the other hand, had a similar function, albeit for girls only. Given that my thesis primarily
focuses on the Aiora and other female-dominated rites of the Anthesteria, I shall not discuss these choes that depict
young boys, which have no association with the Aiora or other female rites of the Anthesteria.

7
gynaecological illnesses affecting their fertility to which they were particularly susceptible. I

shall discuss two notable disorders mentioned by Hippocratic doctors, uterine movement and a

disease endemic to prepubescent girls, both of which may be represented by the divine affliction

that the Athenian girls from the Aiora myth experienced, given their similarities in symptoms.

This resemblance between two disorders and the affliction in the Aiora myth has been noted by

previous scholars.14 However, unlike these writers, I shall further argue that the Hippocratic

treatments for these two ailments, such as scent therapies comprised of fetid and aromatic

odours, parallel a particular fumigation ritual also performed at the Aiora. Furthermore,

Hippocratic doctors prescribe sex and childbirth as cures for these two disorders, which share

similarities with the Aiora’s function as a coming-of-age ceremony that allowed young women to

take part in such actions. As will also be noted, both the Aiora and the medical treatments for

such disorders emphasized the need for females to have the passages of their womb remain open

in order to maintain general and reproductive health.

Of course, I must acknowledge that there are limitations in basing the functions of the

Aiora and other Anthesterian rites with Hippocratic gynaecology, since Hippocratic medicine

came into prominence well after these ceremonies existed. Additionally, myth and ritual

perceived disease differently than Hippocratic doctors, especially in relation to their cause; the

former suggested that disease was caused by the gods while the latter argued that it was due to

imbalances in the human body.15 That said, I am merely comparing the Aiora, both the ritual

itself and its etiological myth, and other Anthesterian rites with Hippocratic gynaecology to

14
Eva Cantarella, “Dangling Virgins: Myth, Ritual and the Place of Women in Ancient Greece,” Poetics Today 6, no.
1/2 (1985): 91–101; Federica Doria and Marco Giuman, “The Swinging Woman. Phaedra and Swing in Classical
Greece,” Medea (Cagliari) 2, no. 1 (2016): 1–34; cf. Helen King, "Bound to Bleed: Artemis and Greek Women," in
Images of Women in Antiquity, ed. Averil Cameron and Amelie Kuhrt (London: Croom Helm, 1983): 109–127.
15
See 4.1 for a full discussion on the differences between Hippocratic medicine and ritual in relation to their
perception of diseases, especially those that affected the mind.

8
highlight how such ceremonies may had female fertility-promoting properties, given that both

Anthesterian ritual and Hippocratic medicine both acknowledged that women could suffer from

common diseases that affected their fertility, which could be cured with similar procedures. Of

course, we also cannot fully prove that the female participants of the Anthesteria believed that

the festival’s rituals could cure them of gynaecological disorders, since each participant may

have perceived such rites differently. Ultimately, I can only argue that the Anthesteria having a

prophylactic element was part of the many possible meanings that Athenians celebrating the

festival may have had in mind.

9
 CHAPTER 1 A NEW SCHEMA OF THE ANTHESTERIA
1.1 Introduction

As mentioned above, Walter Burkert asserts that the Anthesteria spanned three days (11-

13 Anthesterion) and assigns the Pithoigia, Choes, and Chytroi to each of these days

respectively.16 He bases this three-day schema on the tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia

Suda, which cites Apollodoros of Athens, who mentions these three days.17 There are, however,

issues with assuming that the Anthesteria was a three-day festival, since ancient sources often

conflate these three supposed days as a one-day celebration. Even more problematic is that

Burkert adheres to the idea that the festival needed to have a day dedicated to cleansing the

miasma that surrounded the festival and thus assigns a single day (Choes) devoted to ghastly

events as a way to separate them from the festival’s holy wedding ceremony held on the “sacred

Chytroi”.18 However, as I have already highlighted, the morose Aiora rite was held on the same

day as the holy wedding. This section instead proposes an alternative one-day scheme of the

Anthesteria, in which the Pithoigia, Choes, and Chytroi are all components of a one-day

Anthesteria held on 12 Anthesterion, wherein joyous and ghastly events could all be held on that

day. As it will be seen in this chapter and the next, the majority of the festival’s events, including

the Aiora, happened at or near Dionysos’ Limnaian precinct, which was open only on that day.

This precinct was located by the fountain-house Enneakrounos at the southeast corner of the

Agora, which is in close proximity to where the other Anthesterian events were held, making it

possible that various events could be held during a one-day Anthesteria.

16
Burkert 1983, 213-43; cf. Noel Robertson, “Athens’ Festival of the New Wine,” Harvard Studies in Classical
Philology 95 (1993): 208–12.
17
Suda, s.v. “choes”.
18
Burkert 1983, 218, 239–40.

10
1.2 Pithoigia

The so-called first day of the Anthesteria, the Pithoigia, is attested by a few sources that

are late, especially when compared to the authorities of the festival’s other days, the Choes and

Chytroi. The ancient accounts supporting the Pithoigia as an individual day of Burkert’s three-

day Anthesteria are dubious, making it unlikely that the Pithoigia was its own separate day but

instead a component of a one-day festival held on 12 Anthesterion. Our only source of the

Pithoigia as a separate day of the festival is Plutarch, whose description of it has notable flaws.

According to Plutarch, the Pithoigia is dedicated to the opening of new wine on the eleventh day

of the month Anthesterion. On that day Athenians prayed and then poured a libation before

drinking wine.19 There are, however, problems with Plutarch’s account since he does not specify

which god was honoured or at what precinct, if there was one, this rite was performed. Also, he

never explicitly links this rite with the Anthesteria. Instead, he compares the Pithoigia with a

Boiotian festival celebrated on 6 Prostaterios (late February), which was the corresponding date

to 11 Anthesterion. In the Boiotian celebration, people drank wine in honour of the Agathos

Daimon (Good Spirit); however, Plutarch never specifies whether this ritual was done at home or

in a festival setting. Thus, we cannot use his description as solid evidence for the Pithoigia being

a full-day celebration that was part of the Anthesteria’s three-day scheme. We can, however,

assume that the opening of wine-vessels that are not pithoi, which still evokes the name

Pithoigia, the drinking and mixing of wine and the pouring of libations did happen in the

Anthesteria, but only as part of the festival’s Choes, a point I will return to in the next chapter.

19
Plut. Quest. Conv. 3.7.1, 8.10.3.

11
 The twelfth-century CE author Tzetzes and an undated scholium to Hesiod’s Works and

Days also mention the Pithoigia. Supposedly, it was a festival dedicated to Dionysos in which the

“Greeks” drank wine. According to both sources, slaves were permitted to take part in the

drinking festivities.20 Other than associating the celebration with Dionysos, neither writer

specifies its exact date, or whether it was held in Athens and was part of the Anthesteria. Another

author, Hesychios (5th cent. CE), does say that the Pithoigia was a festival conducted in Athens,

but offers no other explanation about its rites or ties with the Anthesteria.21 Thus, as with

Plutarch, these three sources are not fully informative. If we are to associate these accounts with

the Anthesteria, the drinking and participation of slaves in Tzetzes’ and the scholium’s account

are, as we will see later, conflated with the Choes and Chytroi.

Lastly, we may have another attestation to the Pithoigia existing as a celebration of the

Anthesteria. However, this account, which comes from the fourth-century BCE author

Phanodemos by way of Athenaios (3rd cent. CE), may be a tenuous allusion to the Pithoigia,

given that he never mentions the Pithoigia by name. According to Phanodemos, Athenians

brought wine from a pithos (wine-jar) to an area near the sanctuary of “Dionysos-in-the-

Marshes” (Dionysos en Limnais),22 in which wine was mixed with water and then drunk. The

pithos, however, is not explicitly mentioned by him as being opened. Dionysos garnered the

epithet “Marshy” (Limnaios) because wine was mixed with water in this area. The streams that

20
Schol. Hes. Op. 368 and Tzetz. Op. 368. Hamilton is correct to assume that both sources, as with Plutarch, are
likely referring to a Boiotian rite. See Richard Hamilton, Choes and Anthesteria: Athenian Iconography and Ritual
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992), 8.
21
Hsch. s.v. “pithoigia”.
22
The phrase “πρὸς τῶι ἱερῶι” should be translated as “near the sanctuary”, not “at/to the sanctuary”. For a
grammatical explanation of this phrase, see Ludwig Deubner, Attische Feste (Berlin: Verlag Heinrich Keller, 1932),
127. However, as Deubner 1932, 94, n. 5 also points out, the ceremonies not being celebrated at the precinct should
not preclude them from being associated with this sanctuary. He posits that they, like other Dionysian rites, are akin
to a “block party” that took place in the streets (e.g. Eur. Bacch. 87). As we will see, Dikaiopolis and other
celebrants of the Anthesteria march throughout Athens to continue their festivities, with one of their destinations
being Dionysos’ sanctuary. I will call this precinct Limnai as a shortened form throughout this thesis.

12
were near the temple were called “Nymphs” and “Nurses of Dionysos”, since nymphs

supposedly nourished the god in his youth, and thus the adding of water to wine represented the

god’s growth. Songs and dance were also dedicated to the god who was invoked as Bacchos,

Bromios, Dithyrambos and Euanthes.23

Though the reference to the pithos and its implicit opening may refer to the Pithoigia,

Phanodemos’ account of this celebration is most likely an allusion to the Choes, especially when

we examine Dionysos’ precinct that he speaks of. According to Thucydides and [Demosthenes],

this specific sanctuary of Dionysos was open only on 12 Anthesterion,24 which was the day that

was allotted to the so-called second day of the Anthesteria, the Choes.25 Thucydides states that

this day is when the “older Dionysia” is celebrated, which is commonly accepted by scholars to

be in reference to the Anthesteria.26

Phanodemos also speaks of this precinct in relation to the Choes. According to him,

Athenians, after taking part in feasts and drinking contests, during the Choes festival tied

garlands around their drinking jugs and then dedicated them to the priestess stationed at the same

sanctuary of Dionysos. The rite was established because the Athenian king Demophon invited

Orestes to a feast, who visited Athens during the Choes festival. Since Orestes was polluted from

his matricide, the king, not wanting Orestes to go to holy areas or participate in libations, ordered

that every temple be closed except for Dionysos’ sanctuary “in the marshes”. Furthermore, he

mandated that every guest, including Orestes, have their own separate chous for drinking. At this

feast, guests took part in a drinking contest in which those who drank a chous of wine the fastest

23
Ath. 11.465a–b = Phano. FGrH 325 F12.
24
Ps-Dem. Con. Nea. 59.76; Thuc. 2.15.4.
25
Hesch. s.v. “twelfth”: “a festival in Athens, which they called the Choes”. Translation from Hamilton 1992, 43.
26
Hamilton 1992, 44.

13
were awarded cakes. After the party, the king then ordered the guests to take off their garlands

and tie them around their drinking vessels because they were drinking and dining under the same

roof as the polluted Orestes. Thus, these guests went to Dionysos’ precinct to purify their jugs

and garlands, and complete “other sacrifices” dedicated to the wine-god.27

Already, we see that Phanodemos’ description of Dionysos’ precinct opening on the

Choes aligns with Thucydides’ and [Demosthenes’] account of this same area opening only on

12 Anthesterion, which is when the Choes happened. Thus, it is unlikely that Phanodemos’

previous statement, which is concerned with wine-mixing, drinking, and performances near

Dionysos’ precinct, is related to the Pithoigia. The Pithoigia, at least according to Burkert,

happened on the eleventh, which is when Dionysos’ precinct was still closed. Phanodemos’

reference to Orestes harks back to Euripides’ earlier Orestean etiology of a Choes celebration,

which describes Orestes drinking wine from his own jug and eating from a separate table as he is

being hosted by the Athenians, who dine and drink wine in silence.28 This myth along with

Phanodemos’ account has been associated by modern scholars with the wine-drinking

competition on the Choes, which will be discussed later. In any case, the mixing and drinking of

wine and performances at Dionysos’ sanctuary, which Phanodemos alludes to earlier, likely

refers to the other sacred rites that the dinner guests had to complete after consecrating their

wreathed jugs on the Choes. Thus, wine-mixing was enacted on the Choes, not the Pithoigia.

Burkert, in his attempt to connect the Pithoigia to the Anthesteria by explaining how

Dionysos’ precinct may have been opened on the eleventh, argues that the days of the

Anthesteria were aligned based upon the sacred calendar. In this timing system, a new day would

27
Ath. 10.437c–d = Phano. FGrH 368 F14.
28
Eur. IT. 943–60.

14
have begun at dawn instead of dusk on the civic calendar.29 However, if we use this system that

Burkert espouses to explain the sanctuary opening on the eleventh, there cannot be two

transitional nights. Otherwise, the precinct would have been closed at dusk on the twelfth.

Supposedly, people went to this same spot on the festival’s third day, the Chytroi, which

contradicts Burkert’s notion. Furthermore, no ancient authority has ever discussed the difference

between the two dating systems in relation to the dating of religious festivals, making this issue

more of a modern construction.30 Some have theorized that the Pithoigia became its own separate

day in later periods well after the Classical period.31 However, the Pithoigia is often ignored by

other later sources, thus making this day irrelevant to our festival. Thus, it makes more sense to

assume that the Pithoigia was not its own dedicated day of the festival. As we shall see later in

this chapter and next, its associated rituals were actually part of the celebration of the Choes.32

Given the dubious nature of the Pithoigia, we should now focus on what Burkert thought was the

second of the festival, the Choes.

1.3 Choes and Chytroi

Now that we have seen that the Pithoigia was unlikely its own separate day, we are left to

discuss the Anthesteria’s two other components, the Choes and the Chytroi. This section posits

that these two events, separated by Burkert, are likely conflated with each other by our ancient

sources, who were probably referring to a one-day Anthesteria that happened on 12 Anthesterion.

The festival’s events happened at or near Dionysos’ precinct, which was open only on that day.

29
Burkert 1983, 215–17.
30
Hamilton 1992, 47–48.
31
Paul Foucart, Le Culte de Dionysos en Attique (Imprimerie Nationale: C. Klincksiek, 1904), 113. An unknown late
second-century CE commentator on Thucydides 2.15.4 states that the Anthesteria had three days, with the Pithoigia
happening on the festival’s first day (P.Oxy. 6.853, col. x.7ff).
32
Hamilton 1992, 9.

15
This section also addresses the gloomy aspects of the festival’s drinking events as described by

Euripides, which, I argue, are still relevant to these festivities and the Anthesteria, contrary to

Hamilton. However, I shall unlink a sombre rite that commemorated the Deukalion flood, which

is associated with the Anthesteria by Burkert, from the festival due to dubious evidence.

1.3.1 Choes Market, and Private and Public Wine-Drinking

Concerning the Choes, most of our accounts come from late sources. However, a notable

source is Aristophanes’ fifth century BCE comedy, the Acharnians, which highlights three events

that likely took place during the Choes: a market, a public drinking contest, and a public feast.

This play provides us with a basic model for the events of the Choes and the rest of the

Anthesteria. The protagonist Dikaiopolis holds a private market on the day of the Choes which

customers attend. Various ceramics are sold in the market (719+2977), some of which may be

used for the drinking festivities of the Choes.33 Along with this market is a public feast held

during the Choes. At the market a messenger approaches Dikaiopolis, letting him know that the

priest of Dionysos has invited him to a feast (deipnon; 1085).34 Dikaiopolis likely has a role in

this feast, given that prior to his invitation he mentions that he is preparing for a dinner (deipnon;

988), which is probably in reference to the one he is invited to.35 He later on he makes

arrangements for this dinner party by preparing various foods, drinks, and baskets (1098–1133),

which he immediately does after his invitation. These food items likely supplement what

33
Ps-Scyl. Peripl. 112 (GGM 1.94): “Skylax” says that Phoenicians in Ethiopia carried Attic choes that they bought
when they attended the Choes; Robertson 1993, 214.
34
There seems to be two Choes feasts in the play, since a slave on behalf of General Lamachos approaches
Dikaiopolis to let him know that Lamachos is about to celebrate a Choes feast (959-62), suggesting a different,
private dinner-party. However, the slave is probably referring to the same celebration, since Lamachos, after hearing
about Dikaiopolis’ invitation, expresses his jealousy (1090ff) since he is notified shortly before Dikaiopolis’
summoning that he is about to be sent to war and will thus miss the party (1071ff).
35
Hamilton 1992, 12.

16
Dionysos’ priest will not provide in his party, since the priest, as per his messenger, will only

provide snacks, furniture, and entertainment (1085–94).

Other than the feast, there is also a public drinking contest, which is declared by a herald

(1000ff) before the announcement about the dinner-party. Dikaiopolis, after preparing for the

feast, goes on to participate in the drinking competition (1142ff). After the contest, he attends the

very public dinner-party that he helped prepare. During this party, he says that he won a drinking

contest, in which he and the rest of the contestants drank unmixed wine in front of judges

(1229ff). Whoever drank the chous of wine the quickest was deemed the winner by these judges,

with the king then providing a wineskin as a prize (1224ff).

Given that the dinner-party and the public drinking contest are announced around the

same time and that Dikaiopolis attends the contest first and then the party, the two festivities, as

Hamilton suggests, may be interconnected and reflect actual events held at the festival.

Athenians likely participated in the public competition first, which was probably at a centralized

location, and then went to attend the feast.36 Hamilton, however, believes that this dinner-party

was mostly private, since later sources do state that dinners were held at people’s private homes

during the Choes.37 Of course, it is likely that private dinners were also held during the real-life

Choes. However, the feast co-hosted by Dikaiopolis and Dionysos’ priest is probably

representative of a public festivity during the Choes. Furthermore, Dikaiopolis, while he is at this

supposedly private feast, demands to be taken to the judges and the king in order to claim his

prize for winning the drinking competition (1224–34). This statement would imply that the king

36
Hamilton 1992, 12–13.
37
Plut. Ant. 70; Ath. 7.276c–77c.

17
attended this party or was at least within the vicinity, suggesting that this feast was not a

domestic celebration.

Since Dikaiopolis attends and organizes both the public feast and takes part in the

competition, is likely that the real-life guests of both events also helped organize and sponsor

these festivities.38 A late second-century CE inscription says that two ephebes conducted the

Chytroi as agoranomoi.39 Though this inscription associates the agoranomoi with the Chytroi

and not the Choes, it does provide evidence for Athenians taking part in the Anthesteria as

organizers, such as Dikaiopolis in the Acharnians.

Based on the Acharnians’ description of the drinking contest, Hamilton suggests that it is

unlikely that Euripides’ account of Athenians dining and drinking wine in silence is connected to

the real-life drinking contests held on the Choes, something which previous scholars espoused.40

He also points out that it would be strange to associate quiet dining and wine-drinking with a

likely rowdy drinking contest; thus, the Acharnians provides a more probable account of this

event being joyous, while Euripides’ gloomy etiology is merely contrived.41 Hamilton’s points

are cogent; however, I do not see why the contest could not have had a moment of silence before

the actual event. Furthermore, there is a possibility that silent dining and wine-drinking happened

at private feasts celebrating the Choes. Additionally, as we shall in the next chapter, there was a

sombre feast near Limnai that involved the basilinna, who, prior to her wedding rite, honoured

38
The fourth-century BCE Macedonian writer Hippolochos, as preserved in Ath. 4.128c–130e, wrote of a
Macedonian wedding in which ministers of the Chytroi participated, and probably helped with organizing this event.
The event parallels the drinking contest of the Choes in the Acharnians with regard to prizes being given out to
those who drank wine the fastest.
39
IG II2 2130.66–69; the root word of agoranomoi, agora, would translate to “market”, and thus Dikaiopolis setting
up a market and organizing a Choes feast may be representative of the agoranomoi’s role in the Anthesteria.
40
E.g. Burkert 1983, 222 says that Euripides’ etiology of the Choes drinking is “artificial”. However, he still
associates the Choes as a day of pollution, making Euripides’ etiology still relevant to the drinking contests.
41
Hamilton 1992, 24–25.

18
the Dionysian bride Erigone, a mythical girl associated with Orestes,42 by taking part in the Aiora

and then mixing wine, pouring libations and dedicating food for the girl and Dionysos’s image.

Since Phanodemos references wine-mixing near Limnai in relation to Euripides’ etiology, we

may suppose that Euripides’ aition was prevalent in the Anthesteria, both in its drinking contest

and feasts, and even the Aiora and wine-mixing ritual.

1.3.2 The Choes and Chytroi: A One-day Celebration

An issue arises concerning where the drinking competition and public feast took place,

since its location is not stated by Aristophanes in the Acharnians, a problem I shall address in

Section 1.6. Another problem is when they happened since the Choes, to which Aristophanes

assigns these two events, is not dated by him. In the Frogs, another of Aristophane’s plays,

drunken revelers along with a chorus go to Dionysos’ Limnaian sanctuary on the Chytroi. Again,

Aristophanes does not specify date for the Chytroi.43 The Chytroi is mentioned once by one

character in the Acharnians, Lamachos, who states that he was called to a battle before the Choes

and Chytroi (1076). Lamachos does not mention the exact time of both celebrations.

That said, we may note that the Acharnians concludes with Dikaiopolis, like the revelers

from the Frogs, marching with a chorus to an unknown location after his Choes dinner-party. It is

logical to suppose that Dikaiopolis is also going to Dionysos’ precinct, i.e., Limnai,44 which was

open on 12 Anthesterion, at least according to Thucydides. Therefore, we can assume that, based

42
We may note that Erigone was associated with Orestes, since in some myths, albeit later than Euripides’ etiology,
Erigone is the daughter of Klytaimnestra and Aigisthos, whom Orestes kills. Orestes also attempts to kill Erigone.
See: Marm. Par. 40; Apollod. Ep. 6.25; Etym. Magn. s.v. “aiora” and “aletis”; Hyg. Fab. 122
43
Ar. Ran. 211–19.
44
Martha Habash concludes that the Acharnians and Frogs are connected. However, she suggests that Dikaiopolis
initially celebrates the Choes and then takes part in Chytroi by marching to Limnai in a similar manner to the
revelers from the Frogs. See “Two Complementary Festivals in Aristophanes’ Acharnians.” The American Journal of
Philology 116, no. 4 (1995): 570–71.

19
on his two plays, Aristophanes is referring to both the Choes and Chytroi as one celebration held

on 12 Anthesterion. There may have been multiple names for the Anthesterian festivities held on

that day, hence why Aristophanes conflates the names Choes and Chytroi when describing the

same events. A scholium to Acharnians 1076, citing the antiquarian Didymos (1st cent. CE), may

confirm this dating and conflation, since it does state that the Choes and Chytroi were both

celebrated on a single unspecified day at Athens.45 The fact that choruses accompany Dikaiopolis

and the revellers from the Frogs as they march to an area that we may suppose is Limnai calls to

mind Phanodemos’ account about songs and dances performed near this same precinct.

Kallimachos and other ancient sources also speak of choruses who enacted songs in honour of

Limnaian Dionysos.46 Thus, the choruses from both plays likely reflect real-life performers who

conducted similar songs and dance at or near the sanctuary with other celebrants of the

Choes/Chytroi.

Considering Phanodemos mentions that Athenians consecrated their wreathed choes at

Limnai, we have two notable events that were connected to this sanctuary on 12 Anthesterion:

the dedication of choes and performances. It would be logical to assert that these occasions

happened in succession of each other and were a continuation of the preceding Choes contest and

feast. Therefore, it is likely that Athenians on 12 Anthesterion, as part of the Anthesterian

Choes/Chytroi, attended a market and then the subsequent public drinking contest and feast.

Later in the day, they marched to Limnai to dedicate their jugs.47 Then, either at this same

45
Schol. Ach. 1076–77 = Philochoros, FGrH 328 F84; Theopompos, FGrH 115 F347.
46
Schol. Frogs 216 = Callim. Hekale fr. 305 Pf.; Steph. Byz. s.v. “limnai”.
47
Hamilton 1992, 46 and Robertson 1993, 227 believe that Athenians dedicated their choes after the contest, not the
feast. However, people could have dedicated their jugs anytime during the Choes. Dionysos’ precinct is most likely
open throughout the whole day, given that, as we have already and will continue to see, multiple rituals and
celebrations are happening at or within the vicinity of this sanctuary throughout the whole day.

20
precinct or an area near it, they watched performances, with some of these same celebrants also

taking part in these spectacles.

We must, however, acknowledge a potential issue with assigning both the Chytroi and the

Choes to a single celebration held on 12 Anthesterion. The same scholium to Acharnians 1076

that cites Didymos also mentions that on the Choes/Chytroi, Athenians in a solemn rite boiled a

pot (chytra) full of panspermia (all-seeds) for Dionysos and Hermes. The Chytroi derived its

name from this pot.48 This same scholium, also citing the historians Theopompos (4th cent. BCE)

and Philochoros (3rd cent. BCE), says that this rite originated from the survivors of the Deukalion

flood boiling a pot of panspermia at the Choes, in contradiction to our knowledge of the Choes,

on 13 Anthesterion. The all-seeds were dedicated to Chthonic Hermes to propitiate the dead,

presumably those who died in the flood. The detail involving the date comes from Philochoros,

while the pot is attested by Theopompos.49 Similarly, the scholium to Frogs 218 also speaks of

the all-seeds rite dedicated to Hermes, but specifies that it was held on the Chytroi, not the Choes

There are notable problems with associating this all-seeds rite that was performed on 13

Anthesterion with the Choes/Chytroi of the Anthesteria. Dionysos was never linked to the

Deukalion flood, either in myth or in other rituals.50 It is likely, then, that Philochoros and

Didymos mistakenly link this rite with another festival that was unrelated to the Anthesteria and

instead dedicated to Chthonic Hermes in honour of the Deukalion flood. This is especially true if

we consider that Plutarch, in his account of Sulla’s sack of Athens on the Kalends of March

(March 1st), speaks of multiple rites happening in Athens that were in commemoration of the

48
Schol. Ach. 1076–77 = Philochoros, FGrH 328 F84; Theopompos, FGrH 115 F347.
49
The Estensis and Laurentianus manuscripts mentions the date 13 Anthesterion, which is attested by Philochoros,
but the Ravennas manuscript does not; cf. Suda, s.v. “Chytroi”, which notes that that this rite is performed both on
the Choes and Chytroi in one day. The exact day, however, is not specified by the Suda.
50
Robertson 1993, 201.

21
victims of the Deukalion Flood. These religious memorials took place in the month of March,

which, at least according to Plutarch, aligned with the month of Anthesterion.51 Plutarch, in

another work, also notes that a Delphian ritual honouring this flood was performed on 7 Bysios,

which was the corresponding month to the Athenian Anthesterion.52 All of these celebrations,

however, have nothing to do with Dionysos in terms of the actual ritual or its etiological myth.53

A likely reason why the authors in the above scholia mixed up these rituals

commemorating the flood with the Anthesteria may be that Athenians celebrated such rituals

near Dionysos Limnaian sanctuary on 13 Anthesterion, a day after the Anthesteria. Pausanias, for

example, describes Athenians, albeit on an unspecified date, at the sanctuary of Ge mixing wheat

meal with honey to create a putty-like substance, which they then threw into a chasm from which

the water of the flood supposedly dissipated.54 Ge was a counterpart to Themis, who was

worshipped by Deukalion and Pyrrha.55 The mixing of honey with wheat meal parallels the all-

seeds mixture boiled on the Chytroi/Choes for Chthonic Hermes. Perhaps the panspermia rite

happened on 13 Anthesterion and was assumed to be performed on Chytroi/Choes due to their

closeness in date. Ge’s sanctuary was mentioned by Thucydides to be within the vicinity of

Limnai.56 Furthermore, Dionysos’ precinct was by the fountain-house Enneakrounos, which was

in the same area and may have housed a statue of Dionysos and Hermes, at least based on one

51
Plut. Sulla. 14.10; Martin Nilsson, Geschichte der Griechischen Religion I2 (Munich: Beck, 1955), 596 suggests
that Plutarch did not “consult the Athenian calendar”. However, it would be odd for someone who served as a priest
of Apollo, albeit in Delphi, to not look at it, let alone not know the equivalent dates. As Robertson, 1993, 201, n.6
points out, Plutarch probably knew the Athenian equivalent of March by heart.
52
Plut. Quaest. 9.292 D-E = Callisthenes FGrH 124 F49, Anaxandridas 404 F3. This would make Plutarch well-
aware of the Athenian and Delphic equivalent to the Roman month of March.
53
Apollonios of Archarnai (late 2nd cent. BCE) mentions another Athenian festival known as the Hydrophoria
(water-carrying), which some scholars have associated with the Anthesteria (Suda s.v. “hydrophoria”). However, this
festival, as with the above examples, have nothing to do with Dionysos.
54
Paus. 1.18.7.
55
Robertson 1993, 202.
56
Thuc. 2.15.4.

22
vase-painting of this fountain-house;57 hence, a possible reason for the conflation of Chthonic

Hermes with Dionysos.58 Thus, the pot of panspermia must be boiled at Ge’s sanctuary, which

the authors in the scholia confused with Dionysos’ sanctuary and festival because of their

closeness in location and dating.59 We should, therefore, excise the panspermia rite from the

Anthesteria.

Other than the issue regarding the all-seeds rite on 13 Anthesterion, Kallimachos

describes an Anthesteria-like festival that was celebrated in Alexandria by his Athenian friend,

who carried the Athenian tradition to Egypt. He states this festival had three components which

modern readers may interpret as three separate days: a “Pithoigic dawn”, an “Orestean Choes” in

which slaves participated in unspecified festivities, and an annual purification rite dedicated to

Erigone.60 However, he does not specify the exact days, let alone the month that these

celebrations were held. We may instead assume that these three categories were likely part of a

single-day Anthesteria celebration held on 12 Anthesterion, since Kallimachos, as mentioned

above, refers to choral performances dedicated to Dionysos at Limnai during the Athenian

Anthesteria, indicating that this Athenian version was held on the twelfth. If the Alexandrian

Anthesteria replicated the Athenian one, it is likely that the former was also held for one day on

that date as well. A wine-mixing rite, which evokes the name Pithoigia (Jar-opening), and the

Aiora dedicated to Erigone were also held near Limnai during the Athenian festival, making it

probable that the Alexandrian festival operated in a similar manner.61 Thus, we may conclude

that the Anthesteria was a one-day celebration held on 12 Anthesterion.

57
See n. 136.
58
Of course, Hermes and Dionysos were linked in myth (e.g. Apollod. 3.4.2), which also explains this conflation.
59
Robertson 1993, 202-3.
60
Callim. fr. 178.1–5. Pf.
61
See Chapter 2.5.

23
1.4 Day of Pollution

Now that we have constructed a likely schema of the Anthesteria in which the Pithoigia,

Choes, and Chytroi were all components of a one-day Anthesteria, we must address whether the

festival needed an extra day to celebrate ghastly rites, since Euripides’ gloomy etiology of the

Choes contest and feast and the morose Aiora ritual were likely associated with the festival.

Given the gloominess of the Anthesteria and its rites, it is unsurprising that the late lexicographer

Photios (8th cent. CE) considered the Anthesteria a miasmic festival. He states that the Choes was

a day of pollution, where spirits of the dead roamed; thus, Athenians smeared pitch on their doors

and chewed buckthorn as part of an apotropaic ritual to ward off these spirits.62 Photios also

describes a proverb in which people shooed away keres (spirits of death) by chanting “to the

doors keres”, since souls of the dead wandered throughout the festival. On the grounds of

Photios’ account, Burkert assumes that the Choes was the day that celebrants of the Anthesteria

dedicated to cleansing pollution.63

Scholars interpreting this phrase, however, have argued against the miasmic nature of the

festival, given that Photios and the early second-century CE compiler Zenobios also attribute the

above phrase to evicting Karian (kares) slaves from Athenians’ homes during the Anthesteria,

who took part in private drinking festivities but were thus sent back to work once the festival was

over.64 Slaves have been attested by other sources to participate in the festival. In a fourth-

century BCE record book of the overseers at Eleusis, slaves are allotted drinking vessels and

wine for the Choes.65 We have also noted that Kallimachos mentions slaves participating in the

62
Phot. s.v. “miara hemera”; cf. Hsch. s.v. “miarai hemerai”.
63
See n. 2
64
Phot. s.v. “thyraze keres”; Zen. s.v. “thyraze kares”.
65
IG. II2 1672.204.

24
Anthesteria, albeit a different version in Alexandria. Given the ancient accounts attesting slaves’

involvement in the Anthesteria, Noel Robertson assigns the above phrase to the latter

interpretation, since Karian slaves were common throughout Athens, as attested in fifth- and

fourth-century BCE Attic inscriptions.66 Robertson, therefore, also denies the possibility that the

aforementioned passage refers to spirits of the dead or a polluted Anthesteria, since he, as with

Hamilton, views the festival as a non-gloomy occasion.67

Though the passage may refer to Karian slaves, I fail to see why the phrase could not also

indicate that the celebrants of the Anthesteria perceived this festival as miasmic, wherein they

thought that keres roamed throughout the festival. As we shall see in the following chapters, the

keres were believed by the Greeks to have caused disease and affected the fertility of Athenian

women; thus, Photios’ described ritual of Athenians at the Anthesteria smearing pitch on their

house’s doors may have warded off these disease-causing spirits. Additionally, the Aiora was a

gloomy ceremony performed by young women to propitiate the premature deaths of Erigone and

previous Athenian maidens and protect themselves from gynaecological ailments perhaps caused

by the keres. Thus, both meanings of the phrase should not affect our perception of the festival.

Given the miasmic character of the Anthesteria, should we, like Burkert, assume that the

Anthesteria had another day dedicated exclusively to celebrating gloomy rituals? I believe that

an extra day is unnecessary, especially if we consider that there is no other ancient Greek festival

that separates its jovial events from its sombre ones.68 Furthermore, as we have already seen and

will continue to see, all of the Anthesteria’s ceremonies are within the vicinity and connected to

66
For a full bibliography of Karian slaves, see Roberston 1993, 205.
67
Robertson 1993, 203–205.
68
As Ham 1998, 275 rightly points out. See n. 154 for a notable festival that holds both its festive and gloomy
events in conjunction with each other.

25
Limnai, which was open for a day and, according Phanodemos, operated during the polluted

Choes, when all other temples were closed. Thus, there is no need for the festival to have a

separate day for cleansing pollution and to demarcate its festive events from its sombre ones.

1.5 Miscellany: Ship-cart Ritual

In Ionia, there are inscriptions that detail a ship-wagon rite in which Dionysos’ priests and

priestesses lead the god [probably his image] via ship back to the Agora of the cities that worship

him.69 This ritual seems also to have been celebrated in Athens, albeit at a later period, since we

only have proof from a second-century CE inscription.70 Based on the above inscriptions and

black-figure vases depicting Dionysos on a ship led by satyrs, Burkert posits that the ritual

reflected a wedding procession on the night of 12 Anthesterion, where the basilinna marched

from Limnai to the Boukoleion to meet the newly-arrived Dionysos for their wedding.71 These

inscriptions, however, do not associate the rite with the Anthesteria. Furthermore, the vase-

scenes that Burkert relies on may instead be associated with the City Dionysia, another

Dionysian festival held on the month Elaphebolion (March or April), which was a better month

for sailing.72 Thus, it is unlikely that such a ceremony was ever performed during the

Anthesteria.73 As with Burkert, I do believe that there was a wedding procession for this

marriage ceremony, albeit one that was unrelated to this ship-cart rite. I will discuss this nuptial

procession in Chapter 2.

69
In Miletos and Priene respectively: LSAM 48.21-23 (3rd cent. BCE); LSAM 37.19-24 (2nd cent. CE).
70
IG II2 1368.111–17.
71
Burkert 1983, 238. He suggests that the wife of the basileus was actually a priestess who held the position for one
day (232), which seems unlikely to me.
72
Robertson 1993, 218 suggests as much. However, he does say that if the ship-cart ritual did actually happen
during the Anthesteria, it was likely on the supposed first day of the festival (11 Anthesterion) as part of the
“meeting” between the basilinna and Dionysos at the Boukoleion. As I stated above, the three-day scheme is
unlikely, making the likelihood of this ritual being performed at the festival improbable as well.
73
Pace Hamilton 1992, 58.

26
1.6 The Location of the Choes Market, Contest and Feast and Who Was Involved

Now that we have a solid reconstruction of the dating of the Anthesteria and its primary

events, we must closely examine where exactly the celebrations of the festival were performed in

relation to the layout of Athens, which, I argue, were located in the classical Agora. Furthermore,

the roles and identities of Dionysos’ ministers, such as the king and priest portrayed in the

Acharnians, must be analyzed to get a better idea of how the festival and its celebrations

operated. The king in particular is representative of the archon basileus, who had a role in

organizing the Anthesteria’s events, such as the feast and contest. Since the festival likely lasted

one day, with its events happening in quick succession to each other, the logistics of going from

place to place needs to be explored in order to validate the proposed one-day scheme of the

Anthesteria and create a more vivid picture of how these various festivities flowed in one day.

The aforementioned Choes feast may have been located in a building called the

Thesmotheteion (Legislator’s Court), since it was a building that hosted public officials,

matching Aristophanes’ description of the Choes feast attended by these officials. Plutarch, in an

alternative myth explaining the Choes dinner party, says that Orestes attended a feast in this

building.74 Though Plutarch does not mention what the occasion was for, he later remarks that

the sons of King Demophon hosted Orestes in a Choes feast that followed similar procedures

portrayed by Euripides and Phanodemos in their etiological myths of the Choes feast and

contest.75 Plutarch further notes that the Thesmotheteion is an assembly place that is exclusive to

aristocrats holding powerful positions. The building is grouped with a similar building known as

the Prytaneion (Town Hall).76 [Aristotle] also speaks of an un unlocated Thesmotheteion, which

74
Plut. Quaest. conv. 1.1.2.
75
Plut. Quaest. conv. 2.10.1.
76
Plut. Quaest. conv. 7.9.1.

27
housed the thesmothetai (legislators); this building is likewise mentioned in conjunction with

other older places that were used for meetings like the Prytaneion and Boukoleion. The archon

basileus had possession of the Prytaneion and Boukoleion, which were near each other. The

latter building, which will be explored later, served as a venue for the wedding ceremony

between the archon basileus’ wife, the basilinna, and Dionysos that was held during the

festival.77

The archeological records pertaining to the Thesmotheteion provide evidence for

aristocrats dining there, perhaps for events such as the Choes feast. Though the exact location of

the Thesmotheteion is not specified by Plutarch, archeologists excavating the classical Agora

have possibly identified two sites with the Thesmotheteion, which may have served as a meeting

spots and public dining facilities (syssitia). One place located near the South Stoa I on the south

side of the Agora was identified by P.J. Rhodes with the Thesmotheteion, on the grounds that a

fourth-century BCE inscription found there has the name “The[smotheteion]” written on it.78 The

word on this inscription, however, is damaged and merely a restoration of what the word may be.

Because of this inscription, some critics are not convinced that this building is the

Thesmotheteion and argue that it was located at the Akropolis.79 That said, more recent

excavations of the northwest corner of the Agora have discovered a discard pit full of dining

pottery behind the Stoa Basileios. More than 800 vessels dating from the last half of the fifth

century BCE were found, including wine-vessels such as choes, oinochoai, and amphorai.

Vessels used for mixing wine with water, like stamnoi, were also found. This has led the

77
Ps-Arist. Ath. Pol. 3.5.
78
P.J. Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 667;
H.A. Thompson and R.E. Wycherley, Athenian Agora 14: The Agora Athens: History, Shape and Uses of an Ancient
City Center (Princeton; New Jersey: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1972), 77–78; IG II2 46.63.
79
Robertson 1993, 215, n. 46, is a notable example.

28
publishers of these findings, John Oakley and Susan Rotroff, to associate this building with the

Thesmotheteion, which, they argue, may have been used as both a meeting place and a public

dining facility for people who held distinguished political positions.80

Considering that kings were often depicted in myth hosting either Choes feasts or contest,

with the former event taking place in the Thesmotheteion, Oakley’s and Rotroffs observations

about the Thesmotheteion may be correct. The king in the Acharnians and the kings from the

Orestean etiologies of the Choes dinners and contests are most likely inspired by the real-life

archon basileus, whose office was the Stoa Basileios,81 a building near the supposed spot of the

Thesmotheteion. Given that the Choes dinner party in the Acharnians has the king in attendance

and a priest of Dionysos hosting this event, other high-ranking officials must have attended the

actual Choes feast. The nine archons, which included the archon basileus, the thesmothetai and

other officials, conducted their legal business in the Stoa Basileios and swore their official oath

in front of this building.82 Since the Stoa Basileios was close to the supposed site of the

Thesmotheteion, we may suppose that the nine archons used the latter building as a dining centre

after they finished their duties at the former spot.83 It would be appropriate, then, for this elite

group to attend and organize a Choes dinner-party at the Thesmotheteion during the Anthesteria.

This same group of officials must have also had a role in the public drinking contest since

there are administrators who serve as judges for the Choes drinking contest in the Acharnians.

80
Susan Rotroff, and John Oakley, Debris from a Public Dining Place in the Athenian Agora (Princeton; New
Jersey: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1992), 38–40.
81
Paus. 1.3.1.
82
Ps-Arist. Ath. Pol. 7.1; Poll. 8.86, as Rotroff and Oakely 1992, 38 point out. The building also served as an
archive for laws (Ps-Arist. Ath. Pol. 7.1; Andoc. 1.82ff; IG I2 115.4–8).
83
In the Ekklesiasouzai, Praxagora joked that she was going to turn the lawcourts and stoas into dining areas by
tricking people with the kleroterion to go into dining facilities instead of the former group of buildings, Arist. Eccl.
676ff; Rotroff and Oakley 1992, 40 notes that this passage does not explicitly say that lawcourts and stoai were used
for dining.

29
Since the nine archons had legal responsibilities, it would be appropriate for them to assume a

similar role in officiating and deciding the winner of such a competition. Of this group of judges,

the archon basileus, after whom the king archon in the Acharnians is modelled, was tasked with

handing out a prize to the winner. This was not, however, his only role in the competition. It

would make sense for him to host the contest, even if Aristophanes never explicitly mentions that

he does. The archon basileus was tasked with holding most public rituals and this probably

extended to hosting festivities in honour of Dionysos during the Anthesteria.84

Though it is Dikaiopolis who held his own private market during the Choes, the archon

basileus must have had a role in this fair, especially if it was held in an area near the Stoa

Basileios. Athenaios, in his discussion of the allotment of resources throughout various cults,

notes that the archon basileus provided an allowance of barley “from the store” (ek tes

boukolias) to his assistants. These assistants then distributed the barley to the priests of various

gods.85 In Aristophanes’ Ekklesiazousai, a group of Athenians are ordered to go to an unnamed

stoa that sells barley. This unspecified building is grouped with the Stoa Basileios and other stoai

surrounding it.86 Thus, the archon basileus was not only in charge of the contest and feast but

also supplying food, wine, and ceramics from his stores, which were located in or by the Stoa

Basileios, for nearby Choes events. Thus, his assistants, such as the agoranomoi mentioned

above, the priest of Dionysos, and other unnamed organizers, were given an allowance to help

organize these events on behalf of the king. This would explain how Dikaiopolis and Dionysos’

priest in the Acharnians are able to fund and supply food and drinks for their feast that they

organized. There are public accounting records that detail expenses for wine and other supplies

84
Ps-Arist. Ath. Pol. 3.3, 57.1.
85
Ath. 6.234d–235d.
86
Ar. Eccl. 684–86.

30
dedicated to Choes events.87 Since the archon basileus was assigned to organize most public

rituals, he would need to have had access to these stores, given that festivals, with the

Anthesteria being no exception, promoted the prosperity of a city’s goods.88

Since the Agora was a public area in which businesses operated, it would make sense for

the Choes market, drinking contests, and public feast which elites attended to take place there.

Dikaiopolis goes from one event to another without delay and thus all these celebrations must

have been within the same vicinity. We may assume that the market was held earlier in the day,

while the contest and feast later that same day, perhaps in the late afternoon. The dedication of

choes at Limnai by the celebrants of the competition and banquet probably happened later in the

evening after these events. With the presence of elite officials, primarily those who were

lawmakers, it would make sense that all of these events were in the northwest corner of the

Agora, where lawcourts and stoai were also located. Since the dinner party was held in the

Thesmotheteion, which is identified as being behind the Stoa Basileios, the drinking contest was

probably nearby, since so many wine-vessels have been discovered in the excavated pit there.

These ceramics, however, would not only be from the dinner party. The Choes market was within

the same vicinity and sold various ceramics, as seen with Dikaiopolis’ Choes fair.

87
IG II2 1672.204; IG II2 1211 B; cf. Plutarch (Plut. Prae. ger. reip. 25), describes the 4th-cent. BCE statesman
Demades giving citizens a 50 drachmae allowance for the Choes.
88
Roberston 1993, 216–17. From the same pages, Robertson argues that Athenaios’ phrase “ek tes boukolias” should
be changed to “ek tou boukoleiou” (“from the Boukoleion/Bull’s Hall”). Since the archon basileus also had
possession of the Boukoleion in which his wife, the basilinna, was given as bride to Dionysos (ps-Arist. Ath. Pol.
3.5), Robertson posits that the Boukoleion was also used as a certain type of storehouse. However, there is no
ancient evidence for this building ever being used as one. His argument is contingent on the fact that there was a
well-known myth of Eleian women in the festival Thysia calling Dionysos to come “as a bull” after wine was
miraculously filled. This myth, however, is irrelevant to the allotment of resources and store areas.

31
1.7 The Location of Dionysos’ Limnaian Precinct

As mentioned previously, Dionysos’ Limnaian sanctuary was also near the location of the

Choes events, which we have tentatively assigned to the northwest corner of the Agora. Thus, we

should explore a probable location of the god’s precinct, which was not only connected to the

festivities of the Choes, but also to the Aiora and the preliminary rites associated with the

wedding between the basilinna and Dionysos, both of which will be discussed in the next

chapter. This section posits that Limnai was at the southeast corner of the Agora and served as a

midpoint for the participants of the Choes events to perform other rituals and for the basilinna to

enact her premarital rites before heading to the Boukoleion for her wedding ceremony.

Hints for where Dionysos’ sanctuary was comes from Thucydides, who states that it was

south of the Akropolis,89 an area far away from the Agora. Robertson assigns the location of the

precinct to an area near the fountain-house Enneakrounos, on the grounds that wine was mixed

with water near this sanctuary and therefore needed to be near a source of water.90 Though not

mentioned by Robertson, Dionysos’ association with fountain-houses has been attested by late

sixth and early fifth-century Attic hydriai (water vessels). Of these vessels, one depicts women

drawing water from a fountain-house that have an image of Dionysos and Hermes standing on

each side. On another, women are drawing water in a fountain-house called the “Dionysian

fountain” (Dionysia krene).91 Often these hydriai are assigned by some scholars to the fountain-

house Enneakrounos.92 According to Thucydides, this fountain-house was also south of the

89
Thuc. 2.15.4.
90
Roberston 1993, 242; cf. Christoph Auffarth, Der Drohende Untergang: “Schöpfung" in Mythos und Ritual im
Alten Orient und in Griechenland am Beispiel der Odyssee und des Ezechielbuches (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991), 209.
91
Fountain-house with Dionysos’ and Hermes’ image: British Museum B 332, ABV 333.27; Dionysian Fountain:
Rome, Torlonia 73, ARV2 30.2.
92
See Renate Tölle-Kastenbein, "Kallirrhoe und Enneakrunos," Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen
Instituts 101 (1986): 55–73; Paga 2015, 383, suggests that these scenes should also be associated with a fountain-
house that is also called Enneakrounos, but was located in the southeast corner of the Agora.

32
Akropolis as Limnai. It was given its name after the Peisistradid tyrants modified it in the mid-to-

late sixth century BCE. Originally it was called Kallirrhoe, which was name of the spring that

sourced its water. Its waters were used for wedding ceremonies and other sacrifices.93 The exact

location of the building, however, is not specified by Thucydides.

Other ancient sources note that this fountain-house was near the River Ilisos but offer no

exact spot.94 Robertson provides a more exact location of the fountain-house and the precinct; he

says that it was southwest of the Olympieion, an area also far from the Agora. He cites a decree

found there that speaks of a Dionysion in this area serving as a catchment site for rainwater. He

then references a modern discovery of a deep layer of mud found underneath this area, which he

argues was caused by the residue of this supposed catchment or “pool”. Robertson then attempts

to conflate the other meaning of limne, “pool”, with krene, which is often translated as “spring”

or “fountain”.95 Though Robertson’s claim is alluring, his evidence for this exact location of the

Enneakrounos and Limnai is scant. Furthermore, his conflation of krene and the whole fountain-

house with a “pool” is a weak attempt to counter the fact that there is no archeological evidence

of there being an actual fountain-house in any of these three suggested areas.96

There is, however, another fountain-house located in the southeast corner of the Agora

that also assumed the name Enneakrounos, which, I argue, is where Limnai was. According to

Pausanias (2nd cent. CE) and Isokrates (4th cent. BCE), the fountain-house “Enneakrounos” was

located somewhere in the Agora. Pausanias also associated the building with the Peisistratids,

93
Thuc. 2.15.5.
94
Etymn. Magn. s.v. “enneakrounos”; Kratinos (fr. 186 Kock) gave the River Ilissos the epithet dodekakrounon; cf.
Suda s.v. “dodekakrounon”: “dodekakrounon, in Athens was a fountain which Thucydides (called) Enneakrounos.”
95
Roberston 1993, 242-3; restored decree: IG I3 84.34–7; evidence of pools: Robertson 1993, 243, n. 127.
96
For a discussion on where the fountain-house Enneakrounos was, see E.J. Owens, “The Enneakrounos Fountain-
House,” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 102 (1982): 223–24.

33
who supposedly embellished it. Isokrates notes that Athenian youth used to go to this area to

chill their wine.97 Excavations of the Agora in the 1950’s have discovered a fountain-house

located in the southeast corner of the Agora near the Panathenaic Way and River Eridanos. It has

been dated by previous archeologists to the sixth century BCE during the reign of the

Peisistradids, based upon Thucydides’ statement and remnants of a private well found from that

era.98 However, recent scholarship on this fountain-house suggests that this building may have

been from the early fifth century, either during or slightly after the Persian War, based upon the

building’s architecture. Furthermore, the remnants of the private well were from a home that was

demolished to make way for the construction of public buildings at the Agora, such as this

fountain-house. There was also a dump area where dining ceramics from this period, such as

amphorai and skyphoi, were found.99

Considering that Thucydides locates the Enneakrounos to the south of the Akropolis and

links the building with the Pesistradids, E.J. Owens posits that there were two fountain houses

with the name “Enneakrounos”. One was in the Agora while the other one was by the River

Ilisos. The fountain-house by the River Ilisos was the older one that was modified by the

Peisistradids. However, it was destroyed by the democrats when the Thirty Tyrants were deposed

in the last years of the fifth century, since the building was linked to tyranny. Furthermore, the

democrats may have used the Lykeion and surrounding buildings, such as this fountain-house, as

a stronghold. Thus, the name was transferred to the Agora fountain-house.100 Jessica Paga, on the

97
Paus. 1.14.1; Isoc. 15.287; cf. Alk. Epist. 3.13.1 who suggests that Enneakrounos was near the deme Kerameikos,
which extended to the Agora.
98
H.A. Thompson, “Excavations in the Athenian Agora: 1952,” Hesperia 22 (1953): 32.
99
For the alternative dating of the Agora fountain house, see Jessica Paga, “The Southeast Fountain House in the
Athenian Agora: A Reappraisal of Its Date and Historical Context,” Hesperia: The Journal of the American School
of Classical Studies at Athens 84, no. 2 (2015): 355–87.
100
Owens 1982, 225; Xen. Hell. 4.24, 4.27.

34
other hand, suggests that the transference of names could have happened earlier since political

and economic activity, which were originally based in buildings east of the Akropolis, started to

shift to the Agora at the end of the sixth century and beginning of the fifth century. The creation

of a fountain-house in the Agora around that timeframe was indicative of this shift.101 This

earlier shift may explain why the two fountain-houses are confused with each other, and why

there is a lack of physical evidence for Thucydides’ fountain-house in the southern sector of

Athens. Dionysos’ Limnian sanctuary may have experienced a similar issue, where it was

initially located in the Akropolis but was moved to the Agora, since it needed the waters from

Enneakrounos for the celebrants of the Anthesteria to mix wine with water. It is likely, then, that

in his description of Limnai and Enneakrounos, Thucydides was stating the old locations of both

buildings.

Given the archeological evidence, it is more likely that Dionysos’ sanctuary was located

at the fountain-house in the Agora. As with the fountain-house south of the Akropolis, the one in

the Agora was near a stream and thus people could mix wine with water. Isokrates’ account of

boys chilling their wine there suggests that wine may have been mixed in the same area, thus

associating the spot with Limnai. Since it was within proximity to the Thesmotheteion and Stoa

Basileios, which housed the Choes feast and market, people could easily march from the

northern Agora to Limnai while carrying choes and other items to dedicate to the wine-god. As

we will see in the next chapter, an animal was sacrificed at this precinct, and thus the trek from

the Choes events to Limnai needed to be easy. The supposed area of Limnai is close to the

Panathenaic Way, which was connected to the Boukoleion as well as other religious sites such as

101
Paga 2015, 379.

35
the Eleusinion.102 Thus, it would be logical for people to lead a sacrificial animal to the precinct,

given its proximity to a road that leads to other religious sites. Thus, Ludwig Deubner’s assertion

that the Anthesteria was a sort of “block party” which happened in the streets has some

validity.103 Limnai being connected to various roads was important, since the Boukoleion that

hosted the wedding ceremony between the basilinna and Dionysos was far away from the

location of the Choes festivities.104

Though choes were not found at the excavation site of the Agora fountain-house, where

Limnai was likely located, [Skylax] describes Phoenicians who lived in Ethiopia carrying Attic

choes from the Choes festival.105 His statement implies that instead of handing their choes to a

Dionysian priestess at Limnai, as described by Phanodemos, celebrants of the festival kept their

choes as souvenirs. They probably, as we shall see in the next chapter, dedicated their leftover

wine as a libation for an animal sacrifice instead of these vessels. Furthermore, this sacrifice was

a preliminary nuptial rite for the basilinna right before her wedding ceremony at the Boukoleion,

both of which involved the participants of the Choes, whose dedication of wine from their wine

jugs at Limnai was connected to the basilinna’s prenuptials. Thus, Limnai served as a mid-point

for these celebrants to meet with the basilinna and assist in her wedding ceremony, which will be

discussed in the next chapter.

1.8 Conclusion

Given that our ancient sources describe a public feast, public drinking contest, and choral

and dance performances all happening at or in an area near Limnai, which was open on 12

102
Paga 2015, 359.
103
See n. 127.
104
See 2.3.
105
See n. 30.

36
Anthesterion during the Choes/Chytroi, it is very likely that the Anthesteria was a one-day

festival held on that day, where the names Choes and Chytroi were used by Athenians to describe

the same festival and its events. Since the festival’s activities were within the classical Agora,

which housed Limnai, and happened in succession to each other, it is very possible that they

could fit into a one-day timeframe. Dubious events unrelated to the sanctuary, such as the boiling

of all-seeds and a ship-cart ritual should not be considered as part of the Anthesteria, due to the

lack of evidence for their association with this festival. Furthermore, the gloomy and miasmic

aspects of the Anthesteria, such as the Aiora ceremony and the presence of the keres, need not be

separated from the festival’s joyous events, since Limnai, near which the Aiora was performed,

was open during the supposedly polluted Choes when no other temples were operating.

37
 CHAPTER 2 THE AIORA, WINE-MIXING RITUAL AND
THE SACRED WEDDING
2.1 Introduction

As I have briefly mentioned, the Aiora and a wine-mixing ritual recounted by

Phanodemos were premarital rites for the basilinna which was held near Limnai and preceded

her sacred wedding rite with Dionysos at the Boukoleion. This section, therefore, examines this

wedding as well as the rites preceding it. As I discuss both these ceremonies, I shall first explore

the basilinna’s involvement in the Anthesteria, since recent scholars have argued that her duties,

namely her sacred wedding ceremony, were unrelated to the festival. Her assistants, the gerarai,

will be discussed in a similar manner due to the same reasons stated above. Next, the location of

the Boukoleion will be examined to explain how this wedding celebration may have been

celebrated at this building, based on dinnerware found at its supposed site.

I will then explore how the Aiora served as a prenuptial ceremony for the basilinna and a

coming-of-age rite for Athenian girls and boys, which was held in an area near Limnai. Objects

such as garments, grapes, and a mask of Dionysos were also swung during the swinging rite.

Phanodemos’ description of a wine-mixing ritual will be assigned as a continuation of the

basilinna’s prenuptials near Limnai, where, based on vase-scenes, the swung garments and

Dionysos’ mask were placed onto a pillar by the basilinna and the other female celebrants of the

Aiora for which they dedicated cakes and libations to welcome Dionysos before the wedding. A

goat sacrifice performed by the basilinna and the gerarai will be noted, since this sacrifice

served as another premarital rite for the basilinna. Lastly, I shall examine the wedding ceremony,

where, based on various fifth-century BCE vase-scenes, a wedding procession that spanned from

Limnai to the Boukoleion was held. Additionally, these ceramics indicated that a wedding

38
banquet was conducted at the Boukoleion as well. As it will be noted, Dionysos was actually the

basilinna’s real-life husband, the basileus, who performed this ceremony with his wife to

celebrate their marriage and promote Athens’ viticulture.

2.2 An Introduction to the Basilinna and the Gerarai

I previously noted that, based on [Aristotle’s] account, a marriage ceremony between

Dionysos and the wife of the archon basileus occurred at the Boukoleion on an unspecified date.

[Aristotle], however, never specifies the exact details of her role in the wedding. He also states

that she had an undefined meeting (summeixis) with the god at the same building at an unknown

time.106 His mention of the summeixis implies that it was a ceremonial meeting separate from the

wedding.107 [Demosthenes] speaks of a similar rite in which the basileus’ wife, the basilinna,

was given to Dionysos as his wife. [Demosthenes] never specifies the details of this marriage and

the basilinna’s role in it. He does say, however, that the basilinna conducted sacrifices that were

“secret” and “holy”, and entered places where no other Athenians could go. Furthermore, she

went to Limnai to swear in her assistants, the gerarai (older/venerable women), who gave an

oath to her at the precinct’s altar before they could preside over sacrifices. They swore their oath

as they carried sacrificial baskets (kanea) to the altar.108 [Demosthenes] does not say anything

else about the gerarai; however, later sources do note that they were fourteen in number,

completed sacrifices at Limnai, and were appointed by the basileus.109 The length of term of both

106
Ps-Arist. Ath. Pol. 3.5.
107
Hamiliton 1992, 56, n. 147; Robertson 1993, 213. Burkert 1983, 235 assumes that this summeixis was a meeting
where the basilinna and Dionysos consummated their marriage. It is likely that the couple did perform such an act
(Section 2.6.3); however, this word refers to another meeting. See pg. 41 for the summeixis.
108
Ps-Dem. Con. Nea. 59.73–75.
109
Pollux, 8.108 s.v. “gerarai”; Hsch. s.v “gerarai”. Etym. Magn. s.v. “gerairai” [sic] mentions the women were
fourteen in number and each were assigned to an altar of Dionysos. Having an altar for each “gerairai” seems
unlikely.

39
the gerarai’s and basilinna’s position is not stated by our ancient sources, but the latter’s is likely

a year, since she was the wife of the archon basileus, who was elected annually.110

Given two ancient authors’ accounts, Burkert assumes that the basilinna’s duties, such as

the oath and wedding, happened on the night of 12 Anthesterion during the Anthesteria.111

However, there are those who doubt whether these tasks took place during the festival. In the

case of [Demosthenes] and [Aristotle], critics argue that duties of the basilinna and the gerarai

are merely listed, not necessarily connected to each other by date or their relationship with the

Anthesteria.112 Despite these valid criticisms, I believe that the wedding did occur during the

festival on the night of 12 Anthesterion and was connected to the basilinna’s and gerarai’s other

duties, especially if we consider that the Boukoleion may have hosted wedding banquets, and, as

we shall see later, the basilinna performed rites at or near Limnai that both preceded and were

connected with her wedding ceremony.

2.3 The Location of the Boukoleion and Its Association with Nuptial Banquets

The Boukoleion likely hosted the Anthesterian sacred wedding ceremony, especially if we

consider that there is evidence for dining at the neighbouring Prytaneion, which probably

encompassed nuptial banquets. No definitive place has been assigned to either building by

modern scholars; however, an inscription dating from the mid-fifth century BCE was found at a

plot of land at 32 Tripidon St. in the Plaka, which is about 150m east of the East Slope of the

Akropolis.113 The inscription may prove that this plot of land was home to the Prytaneion, given

110
Foucart 1904, 125 assumes she is a yearly official. For the term of the basileus, see: P.J. Rhodes, The Greek City
States: A Sourcebook (Cambridge University Press, 2012), 121. Burkert 1983, 232 suggests that the basilinna held
her position for a day, which was the entirety of 12 Anthesterion when the wedding was held.
111
Burkert 1983, 233. Technically this wedding, according to him, happened on the thirteenth, if we follow the
sacred calendar.
112
E.g. Hamilton 1992, 56.
113
Inv. No. II. 1247.

40
that it has the words “prytaneion” and “prytaneis” inscribed on it multiple times. The former

term likely refers to the building Prytaneion while the latter describes a group of people who

held their office in this building. The inscription itself may be a text concerned about the

regulations of the building and the officials who used it.114 The existence of such officials can be

confirmed by [Aristotle], who says that the prytaneis received daily food allowances.115 Thus, it

is likely that this site was the Prytaneion, which then suggests that the Boukoleion was in the

same area by the East Slope of the Akropolis.

Considering that the prytaneis received food allowances, it is plausible that feasts were

held at the Prytaneion, since a dump pit containing hundreds of fourth-century BCE dinnerware

was also discovered at its supposed site. Burn marks were found on the pottery, which implies

that they were regularly thrown out and replaced with new ones. Thus, there may have been

feasts in this building that happened earlier than the fourth century BCE.116 Considering the close

proximity of the Boukoleion and Prytaneion, we may suppose that both buildings hosted

banquets, since the pit could have been used by the residents of both sites. The Boukoleion may

have hosted wedding dinners, perhaps for the Anthesterian sacred wedding, since feasts were

common in wedding ceremonies.117 Regarding nuptial dinners within a ritual setting, there is

evidence for such banquets held at the Heraion at Argos, where dining rooms were discovered.118

This particular sanctuary was frequented by married and unmarried women and men who

114
George Kavvadias and Angelos Matthaiou, "A New Attic Inscription of the Fifth century BC from the East Slope
of the Acropolis," Ἀθηναίων ἐπίσκοπος. Studies in Honour of Harold B. Mattingly (2014): 62–63.
115
Ps-Arist. Ath. Pol. 43.3, 62.2.
116
Kavvadias and Matthaiou 2014, 55–56.
117
Isabelle Clark, “The Gamos of Hera: Myth and Ritual”, in The Sacred and the Feminine in Ancient Greece, ed.
Sue Blundell and Margaret Williamson (London: Routledge, 1998), 13; Men. Sam. 287–88; Ath. 14.644d.
118
For the archeological evidence of dining rooms at the Heraion, see Laurie Kilker, “Dining Like Divinities:
Evidence for Ritual and Marital Dining by Women in Ancient Greece” (PhD Dissertation, Ohio, Ohio State
University, 2008), 40–47.

41
worshipped the sacred marriage of Hera and Zeus,119 given that this divine couple may have had

their wedding at Argos.120 Laurie Kilker, surveying the evidence for ritual dining, especially

those performed by women, posits that the Heraion may have served as a venue for wedding

receptions or for married couples to celebrate their wedding anniversaries by hosting a nuptial

banquet to mimic the sacred marriage of Hera and Zeus.121

It is probable, then, that there was a sacred wedding ceremony at the Boukoleion, which

had a feast component and was held by Athenians for similar reasons. The basilinna, as it will be

noted later, imitated Ariadne and other Dionysian brides. In a similar manner, Dionysos in this

ceremony was probably the archon basileus, the basilinna’s actual husband, assuming the role of

the god.122 This nuptial event, therefore, had two purposes: to celebrate union of the king and

queen by having a feast, and to welcome Dionysos by symbolically offering the king’s wife to

him as a bride, a theme common in myth. The latter aspect is especially true when we consider

that the Aitolian king, Oineus, hosted Dionysos by offering his wife to him. He left the city so

that his wife could marry the god. As thanks for the king’s hospitality, the god bestowed upon

him the art of wine-making.123 Though not a complete parallel, a similar pattern can be found in

the myth of Theseus, who similarly abandoned Ariadne. As a result, she became Dionysos’

bride.124 Thus, it is likely that the basilinna and the basileus imitated a mythical union between

Dionysos and one of his lovers to promote Athens’ own viticulture, since the festival celebrated

wine. We need not to take the myth of Oineus too literally and assume that the basileus left

119
Men: Hdt. 1.31. Married and unmarried women: Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.21.
120
Theoc. Id. 17.131.
121
Kilker 2008, 56–61, 189; cf. Clark 1998, 18–19. Kilker 2008, 28–32 also notes that women were notably allowed
to take part in banquets at sanctuaries, such as nuptial ones, with men.
122
Deubner 1932, 107-9, 116-17.
123
Hyg, Fab. 129; Eur. Cycl. 38–39; Robertson 1993, 218, n. 56.
124
Erika Simon, Festivals of Attica: An Archaeological Commentary (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1983), 97.

42
Athens while his wife married “Dionysos”, whoever that may have been. As king Kephalos was

about to marry Prokris, he left the city and returned disguised as a commoner.125 The same can be

applied to the basileus, but he instead conceals himself as the wine-god.

Since the summeixis was also at the Boukoleion, it is likely that the basilinna and the

basileus met at the same building earlier in the day on the twelfth to plan their wedding and other

events pertaining to the festival. Afterwards, both went to Limnai to swear in the gerarai, since

the group of women were picked by the basileus and sworn in by his wife. The queen and king

performed other tasks near Limnai, namely the Aiora ceremony.126 We are reminded by

Phanodemos that an unnamed priestess at Limnai collected wine from the revelers of the Choes

events later in the day. This priestess must have been the basilinna,127 since she was already at

this precinct to enlist the gerarai. It would make sense for her to stay there and perform

preliminary marital rites before heading to the Boukoleion at night. Some of the same partiers

may have headed to the building with her to attend and assist in her wedding ceremony and its

associated rituals. Their dedication of wine was part of the basilinna’s premarital rites, especially

if we consider that their wine may have been used to sacrifice an animal.

2.4 The Premarital Sacrifice of a He-goat at Limnai

As I have mentioned above, the basilinna was most likely the priestess of Dionysos

stationed at Limnai, who collected leftover wine from dedicated choes to use as a libation. I have

already suggested briefly that this libation was incorporated in an animal sacrifice. This section

suggests that a he-goat, based on myths and a vase-scene, was sacrificed at Limnai, where a

125
Pherekydes, FGrH 3 F34.
126
See Section 2.5.1.
127
Matthew Dillon, Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion (London: Routledge, 2001), 103.

43
libation was poured on its head. This sacrifice was conducted by the basilinna as part of a

premarital rite that preceded her marriage ceremony and was supervised by the gerarai, who

aided in the queen’s nuptial ceremonies.

We know from [Demosthenes] that the basilinna and gerarai conducted sacrifices at

Limnai. These sacrifices, however, are never specified by him. A fragmented deme inscription

from the third century BCE lists sacrifices as an expenditure at the Choes.128 However, the

inscription does not specify what was sacrificed or who conducted them, making the basilinna’s

and her assistant’s involvement in them seem unlikely.

We may have an idea of what was sacrificed during the Anthesteria from two ancient

sources, and thus assign sacrifices as a duty of the basilinna and her assistants with regard to

prenuptial rituals. A calendar from the Attic deme Thorikos mentions that a young he-goat was

sacrificed to Dionysos on 12 Anthesterion.129 Male goats were dedicated to Dionysos in other

areas of Greece such as Mykonos on dates that were equivalent to the one at Thorikos.130

Hyginos speaks of Ikarios, who was associated with another ritual of the Anthesteria that will be

discussed later, slaughtering a billy-goat after it chewed on Dionysos’ sacred vines.131 There were

attestations of a similar sacrifice happening at another Dionysian festival, the City Dionysia, in

which a he-goat was often slaughtered as a prize after tragic performances.132 Though where it

happened is not stated explicitly, Plutarch does mention that people during a Dionysian

128
IG II2 1211 B.
129
IG I3 256 = SEG 33.147.
130
BCH 87, 604–610; Robertson 1993, 219, n. 62.
131
Hyg. Poet. astr. 2.4.2.
132
e.g. Marm. Par. FGrH 239 A 39, 43. For a full bibliography, see Robertson 1993, 221.

44
procession dragged a goat from somewhere while carrying an amphora of wine and a vine

branch.133

There is a possibility that the above rite was mixed up with the City Dionysia since goats

were sacrificed after tragedies were performed at this festival. However, the Anthesteria was

called the “older Dionysia” (arkhaiotera Dionysia) by Thucydides,134 and, as Robertson points

out, the City Dionysia was established by the late sixth century, and thus the rituals of the City

Dionysia may have been influenced by the older Anthesteria.135 Tragic performances during the

Choes/Chytroi may have been performed,136 and, therefore, probably shaped similar

performances at the City Dionysia. However, unlike the City Dionysia, a goat was not sacrificed

after tragic performances. Instead, this sacrifice was held after the Choes feast and contest since

Phanodemos mentions that Athenians, after going to Limnai from their Choes parties to dedicate

their choes, also performed “other sacrifices”. These “other sacrifices” were clearly the sacrifice

of a he-goat.

Since amphorai were found at the supposed spot of Dionysos’ Limnaian precinct, we

may assign Plutarch’s account of the goat sacrifice to a rite performed at Limnai. The basilinna

collecting wine for libations was connected with this goat sacrifice, especially if we consider

other versions of the myth involving the he-goat that bit Dionysos’ vine. In a couple of versions

recounted by various ancient sources, Dionysos’ vine threatens to sacrifice the goat by pouring a

libation over its head after the goat gnawed on it.137 Given the above myths and Plutarch’s and

Phanodemos’ accounts, it is likely that the revelers, as they came from the Choes events, dragged

133
Plut. De Cup. Div. 8.527 D.
134
Thuc. 2.15.4.
135
Robertson 1993, 221–23.
136
Diog. Laet. 3.56.
137
E.g. Aesop 404, Halm; Mart. Ep. 3.24.1–2, and 13.39. For a full bibliography, see Robertson 1993, 222, n. 70.

45
a goat from the northwest corner of the Agora to Limnai while carrying their choes and amphorai

full of wine, which was used as a libation. They met up with the basilinna, who pooled the wine

together and then poured it onto the goat. The revellers, who were men, most likely slaughtered

it, given that male tragoidoi (goat singers) often sacrificed goats to Dionysos.138 Of these

revellers was the basileus, who returned to Limnai to meet his bride and participate in this

sacrifice by killing the goat, since he organized most public sacrifices. The other partiers assisted

him by holding choes and amphorai full of wine and other ritual objects.

A late sixth-century black-figure skyphos may confirm the existence of such a ritual at the

supposed Enneakrounos fountain-house and therefore at Limnai, since the precinct was located

there. On the vase, a naked man drags a sacrificial goat by its horns to an altar (Fig. 2.1).139 This

man may represent the basileus. Behind him are two men, most likely the revellers, carrying a

basket full of cakes. An aulos (double flute) player is behind them who is probably part of this

group. Another one standing in front of the basileus carries what appears to be a chair which, I

argue, is a klismos. On the reverse side, two women are in a fountain-house. One of them, who

wears a crown, jumps as part of a ritual dance in anticipation of this rite. Behind the women are

two other partiers carrying amphorai. The two women are probably the basilinna and one of the

gerarai, the latter who were also said by [Demosthenes] to oversee sacrifices as well. The crown

on the jumping woman may indicate that she is the basilinna in bridal wear, given that this

adornment was worn by brides at their wedding.140 The man dragging the billy-goat and the two

men carrying amphorai clearly resemble Plutarch’s description of a Dionysian goat sacrifice.

Therefore, the vase scene should be interpreted as a representation of the basileus and the group

138
Pind. Ol. 13.19; Burkert 1985, 102.
139
Gloria Ferrari, “Myth and Genre on Athenian Vases,” Classical Antiquity 22, no. 1 (2003): 47; Athens, National
Museum 12531. A photo of the skyphos can be found in Ferrari 2003, fig. 14a–b.
140
Richard Seaford, “The Tragic Wedding.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 107 (1987): 107.

46
of Choes revellers going to Limnai to sacrifice a billy-goat, with the basilinna and one of the

gerarai overseeing the sacrifice.

The depiction of cakes and a klismos on this vase reappears in other ceramics depicting

both the Aiora and wine-mixing rite, both of which were held at an area near Limnai and were

effectively two sub-rituals that happened before the sacrifice and encompassed one large

ceremony meant for the basilinna as a premarital rite. The goat sacrifice was part of the

basilinna’s prenuptials, considering that she later took part in a marriage ceremony with the

basileus. Her sacrifice of a goat may have been a proteleia, a common preliminary rite in ancient

Greek weddings in which the bride and the groom sacrificed an animal and other things to their

patron deities who had aided in their upbringing. Nymphs were worshipped by the bride as part

of this ceremony.141 Given that the waters of Limnai were called nymphs in relation to Dionysos’

upbringing, it is likely that the basilinna and the basileus dedicated a he-goat to these deities

along with Dionysos as part of their proteleia.142 It would especially be appropriate for the

basileus, who mimicked Dionysos, to sacrifice to nymphs who nourished the “god” to the point

where he could “marry” the basilinna. Limnai would especially be appropriate for this premarital

sacrifice, since the waters of Enneakrounos, which neighbours Limnai, were used for

weddings.143 The fact that the crowned female figure from the above sacrifice scene may portray

the basilinna in bridal attire further highlights that this sacrifice was likely a premarital rite.

141
Nymphs: Men. Dysk. 37–41. The bride also dedicated animals to Athena (Suda, s.v. “proteleia”), Artemis, and
Hera (Pollux, 3.38). Artemis received sacrifices from both the bridegroom and bride (Plut. Arist. 20.7–8). The groom
sacrificed to Aphrodite Kourotrophos before leading his bride in their wedding procession (Anth. Pal. 6.318).
142
We are not sure if goats were sacrificed during the proteleia. However, goats were sacrificed to nymphs as
childbirth deities. See: Susan Wise, “Childbirth Votives and Rituals in Ancient Greece” (PhD Dissertation, Ohio,
University of Cincinnati, 2007), 228. Given that nymphs were worshipped in both marital and childbirth contexts,
which were interconnected, it is likely that a goat was also sacrificed during the proteleia.
143
Thuc. 2.15.5. Thucydides is probably referring to the waters being used for nuptial baths, which usually preceded
the wedding ceremony. The basilinna may have taken a bridal bath at Limnai before the goat sacrifice, likely during
the Aiora (see n. 175).

47
 If we are to assume that this sacrifice was a prewedding ritual, especially for the

basilinna’s wedding, the gerarai’s involvement in the rite, then, would resemble a common role

for a group of older women who oversaw the initiation and premarital rites of young women.

This is especially true if we consider they were fourteen in number.144 Their being a group of

fourteen women who assisted in the basilinna’s proteleia resembles the sixteen women of Elis,

who organized a race for girls in the Peloponnese during the Heraia festival as a coming-of-age

rite to prepare them for marriage.145 The gerarai’s name, which may translate to “older women”,

emphasizes that they were most likely married and thus the perfect candidates to guide the

basilinna in her marriage rites.146 We should note that Athenian girls at a marriageable age as a

rite of passage also participated in two soon-to-be discussed events near Limnai preceding the

goat sacrifice, the Aiora and a wine-mixing rite, both of which the basilinna performed, albeit as

a premarital rite for herself, and the gerarai oversaw as well. Thus, gerarai may have also aided

young girls in their initiations during the Anthesteria.

2.5 The Premarital Aiora and Wine-mixing Ritual

Other than the goat sacrifice, the wine-mixing rite that Phanodemos describes and the

Aiora served as premarital rites for the basilinna, which were overseen by the gerarai. This

section examines ceramics that depict what are likely these two rituals performed by various

women, who, I argue, are the gerarai and basilinna. Based on these vases, the two rituals served

as both a multi-step premarital ritual for the basilinna and a coming-of-age rite for Athenian

144
Hsch. s.v. “gerarai”.
145
Paus. 5.16.6–7; Plut. Mor. 251e–f; Jan Bremmer, "Greek Maenadism Reconsidered," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie
und Epigraphik (1984): 282–83.
146
Dillon 2001, 103 is right to point out that the gerarai were probably not elderly women, since their oath that they
swore the basilinna involves their abstention of sexual activity (Ps-Dem. Con. Nea. 59.78), implying that they were
still young enough have sex for the sake of bearing more children.

48
girls, which the gerarai and, to some extent, the basileus supervised. The first part was the Aiora,

which involved objects such as Dionysos’ mask being swung on a makeshift swing near Limnai

by the gerarai, Athenian girls, and the basilinna. The basilinna, as part of the Aiora that

encompassed her premarital rites, renewed her maidenhood by taking part in the swinging

ceremony with Athenian girls at a marriageable age. Boys may have also participated in the

Aiora. The next step, as part of Phanodemos’ described wine-mixing rite at this same area,

pertained to Dionysos’ swung mask being fastened by the female participants of the Aiora to a

pillar for which they then mixed wine and then poured as a libation, and consecrated cakes. This

ritual was meant to host Dionysos symbolically before his nuptials. The last part, at least for the

basilinna, was the aforementioned goat sacrifice, which took place at Limnai.

2.5.1 Aiora: The Swinging of Young Women and Dionysos’ Mask

The first step of this multi-step ritual was the Aiora, a swinging ritual that involved

Athenians swinging on a makeshift swing. Our earliest source for this rite comes from Athenaios

who, citing Aristotle, speaks of the Aiora festival at Kolophon, which honoured the maiden

Erigone, in which women sang a song dedicated to this girl. The song was called Aletis

(Wanderer).147 This tune was performed at the Aiora in Athens, at least according to

Hesychios.148 Hyginos, citing the third-century BCE mathematician Eratosthenes, provides an

etiological myth of the swinging ritual performed at the Aiora in honour of Erigone. Ikarios,

Erigone’s father, was given a sack full of wine by Dionysos. The wine-god ordained that the man

share his gift with others. When Ikarios encountered a group of Athenian shepherds, he shared

the wine with them, making them drunk. Since they had never drunk wine, they thought that

147
Ath. 14.618e.
148
Hsch. s.v. “aletis”. Hesychios cites the late fifth-century BCE comic poet Plato (fr. 212).

49
Ikarios was poisoning them. Thus, they killed the man and left his body by a tree. Erigone, who

was travelling with Ikarios but not part of the altercation, discovered her father’s body after she

searched for him. In her grief, Erigone hanged herself on the tree that stood over her father’s

body. Dionysos, in response to the girl’s and man’s deaths, inflicted madness upon Athenian girls

who then met a similar fate to Erigone’s. As mandated by the Pythia, the only way for the

Athenians to atone for Ikarios’ and Erigone’s deaths was to institute the Aiora ceremony, which

was also called Aletis. As part of the ceremony Athenians had to dedicate libations for the father

and the daughter, and swing on a makeshift swing to replicate Erigone’s suicide.149

An Attic red-figure chous from the Meidias Painter, dating to the last quarter of the fifth

century BCE (Fig. 2.2) may depict the Aiora.150 Portrayed on the vase are two older women who

are wearing a chiton and a coif. In between them are a swing hanging from above and a wood

fire underneath it. One of the women places garments, which appear to be chitones, on the swing.

These clothes are patterned similarly to the one that the other woman wears. Beside her is a

klismos with garments on top of it, which will make a reappearance in other vase-paintings

depicting the other steps of the basilinna’s premarital rituals. The other woman pours liquids

onto the wood fire. A young boy stands to the left of this woman, the significance of which will

be discussed later. Considering the women’s attire and older appearance, we may suppose that

they are the gerarai. The one gerara that pours liquids onto the fire is performing a fumigation

ritual to cleanse the garments with smoke, a ritual common in ancient Greece which involved

pouring odorous substances onto the flames of a fire to cleanse objects or people.151

149
Hyg. Fab. 130; Hyg. Poet. astr. 2.4.5 = Erat. Cat. p. 79.
150
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 75.2.11, ARV2 1313.11.
151
Doria and Giuman 2016, 19.

50
 We may wonder why the woman in this scene is purifying clothes and how it relates to

the Aiora. The swinging ritual performed by Athenians at the Aiora were clearly meant to purify

the deaths of Ikarios and Erigone. Suicide was especially pollution-inducing, and could spread to

others.152 It is unsurprising, then, that the madness which the Athenian maidens were suffering

from was a direct result of this pollution. Their symptoms are akin to sacred disease, which was

an illness commonly viewed by the Greeks to be inflicted by the gods and thus a form of

pollution. According to Hippocratic doctors, young girls were prone to a variant of this disease

which caused them to hang themselves. When they were cured of it, women sacrificed garments

to Artemis in thanksgiving.153 The significance of this type of sacred disease and its subsequent

Hippocratic treatments for it will be compared to the Aiora in Chapter 4. In any case, given this

dedication of garments, we may assume that Meidias’ chous represents the real-life gerarai

fumigating garments on behalf of the young female participants of the Aiora to dedicate to

Dionysos for the purpose of purifying the death of Erigone and previous Athenian girls and to

appease Dionysos’ anger. The purified garments were then placed on an image of Dionysos after

the Aiora during the subsequent wine-mixing rite, indicating that these clothes were meant for

the god as part of this atonement and cleansing ritual. We may also note that the purification

properties of Aiora are notably highlighted by Kallimachos, who speaks of a yearly “purification

rite” and feast dedicated to Ikarios and Erigone.154

The question, now, becomes how the Aiora, now established as a purification ritual,

served as a premarital rite for the basilinna. Erigone hanging herself and the subsequent Aiora

rite that came from it resembles similar premarital and coming-of-age rites practiced in Artemis’

152
Robert Parker, Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 42;
LSCG 154 B 33–36; Plut. Them. 22.2; Harp. s.v. “oxuthmia”; Aesch. 3.244.
153
Hippocr. Virg. 8.468–70.
154
Callim. fr. 178.1–5. Pf.

51
cult in which girls performed mock hangings that were also defined by etiological myths of girls

killing themselves in similar manner. I will compare these Artemisian rites to the Aiora with

regard to such rites in the next chapter;155 however, we should note that the dead girls who were

honoured by young women in these rites were at a marriageable age before their death. Thus, the

participants of these rites, who were also primed for marriage, commemorated these girls who

were unable to marry by mimicking them through a mock hanging, so that they themselves could

take part in this milestone.

As mentioned above, the basilinna mimicked King Oineus’ wife, a Dionysian bride, as

part of her sacred wedding rite with “Dionysos”. It is unsurprising, then, that the basilinna also

imitated Erigone during her premarital Aiora ceremony to make herself eligible as a bride of

“Dionysos” for her sacred wedding ceremony. Erigone, at least according to Ovid, was also a

lover and perhaps bride of the god since Dionysos seduced her by disguising himself as a grape

vine.156 Erigone was not the only romantic partner of Dionysos who also hanged herself and was

thus honoured by young women during their premarital and coming-of-age rites. Ariadne, for

example, was honoured in a Dionysian festival by young women, at least according to Plutarch.

These celebrants erected statuettes of Ariadne to commemorate her death, either because she

hanged herself after being abandoned by Theseus or died in childbirth.157 Plutarch and other

ancient authors before him also note that Ariadne became the bride of Dionysos after she was left

behind by Theseus or was in danger of being killed.158 In the case of Ariadne, we can see a

pattern in myth where Dionysos saves Ariadne from a premature death, which then allows her to

155
See Chapter 3.
156
Ov. Met. 6.125.
157
Plut. Thes. 20.1–5. This festival, as with the Anthesteria, had revels and other joyous festivities that took place in
conjunction to the gloomy dedicated to Ariadne, further supporting my point that the Anthesteria did not need a
separate “day of pollution” to separate its morose rituals from its festive ones.
158
Plut. Thes. 20.1–5; Diod. Sic. 5.51.4; cf. Hes, Theog. 947–49.

52
become his bride. The same may be applied to Erigone, who in one myth dies via suicide, but in

another story lives to become the bride or lover of the god who may have saved her from a

premature death. In the instances where Ariadne or Erigone were not saved by Dionysos, girls at

a marriageable age must have honoured these girls, whose death defined their propitiatory and

initiatory rites, such as the Aiora. The basilinna, though not a girl and in fact married, likely

renewed her girlhood by mimicking these Dionysian brides at the Aiora in order to marry the god

in her sacred wedding rite.

The basilinna’s involvement in the Aiora may be confirmed by the Washing Painter’s

red-figure hydria from the mid-fifth century BCE (Fig. 2.3), 159 which depicts a premarital

swinging rite that we may assign to the Aiora. The chous depicts a young woman on a swing

comprised of a diphros (stool). Hanging over the swing is a fillet. She is pushed by an older

woman who stands by a basket. The two female characters wear a chiton. The young woman on

the swing has her hair unbound, while the older woman’s hair is bound with a coif. Underneath

the swing appears to be a vessel.160 The woman pushing the young woman may represent one of

the gerarai, since her overall appearance indicates that she is an older woman.

This scene may represent the premarital Aiora rite for the basilinna, given that the

depicted basket in the vase-painting is a kalathos, which was a basket used in weaving and thus a

symbol of women and the education of young women approaching matronhood.161 The latter

significance of the kalathos is especially appropriate for young women who were nearing the

stage of their life where they would learn how to weave baskets. Furthermore, the basket along

159
Berlin, Antikensammlung F2394, ARV2 1131.172.
160
Burkert 1983, 241, n. 11 identifies this vessel as a pithos; however, it is unlikely given its conical shape, contrary
to the usual wide shape of a pithos. See Humphrey 2004, 244, n. 54.
161
Doria and Giuman 2016, 18, n. 57.

53
with the hanging fillet and diphros (stool) evoke wedding iconography on vases which show the

bride preparing for her wedding.162 The Washing Painter, who created this hydria, made other

ceramics with marital scenes, most notably a lebes gamikos (wedding vase) which portrays the

kalathos and a bride sitting on a diphros as she prepares for her wedding,163 thus suggesting that

the Aiora, through the artist’s marital depiction of this ritual, was likely a nuptial rite. A similar

idea of weaving, a task often associated with a girl’s preparations for marriage and matronhood,

can be applied to the clothes placed on the swing, as depicted on the previous chous.

The swinging figure on the Washing Painter’s vase is likely, then, representative of the

“maiden” basilinna, given that her appearance appears to be that of a young woman at a

marriageable age. Her free-flowing hair especially indicates her nubile status, which will later be

bound and adorned with a wedding crown, as seen in the vase-scene of the later goat sacrifice. In

any case, since the swinging figure in the Washing Painter’s ceramic is pushed by an older

woman while surrounded by wedding paraphernalia, this same figure should be viewed as the

basilinna participating in the Aiora as a premarital ritual while assisted by one of the gerarai.

Of course, the basilinna herself was already married and considered a woman. However,

since she was essentially mimicking a nubile maiden such as Erigone and Ariadne, she may have

been represented as a young woman on vase-paintings such as the Washing Painter’s. Since the

marriage ceremony at the Boukoleion celebrated the divine union of Dionysos and his lover, we

may compare the nuptial rite and its preceding ritual to the myth of Hera going to Nauplia in the

Argolid to renew her virginity, so that she could re-marry Zeus as a maiden.164 As I have noted

162
Victoria Sabetai, "Playing at the Festival: Aiora, a Swing Ritual," in Play and Games in Classical Antiquity.
Definition, Transmission, Reception, ed. Véronique Dasen and Marco Vespa (Liège: Presses Universitaires de Liège,
2021), 67. An example of a nuptial scene with these objects, see: London, The British Museum E 773, ARV2 805.89.
163
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 07.286.35.
164
Paus. 2.38.2-3.

54
above, married couples from Argos, which neighbours Nauplia, may have visited the Heraion to

celebrate their wedding anniversaries by perhaps re-enacting the marriage of Hera and Zeus.165

Thus the basilinna, as with Hera and her worshippers, symbolically renewed her virginity to

marry “Dionysos” as a way to celebrate her own wedding anniversary with the basileus while

emblematically becoming Dionysos’ bride in order to honour the god during his festival.

One may ask how the scene above portrays the basilinna swinging or even the Aiora,

given that this depiction seems to have no Dionysian and Anthesterian allusions.166 We may

compare this vase-painting to a red-figure skyphos from a similar period which shows a satyr

pushing a young woman on a similar swing setup (Fig. 2.4).167 The presence of satyr indicates

that the scene is within the Dionysian realm.168 By the female figure are the inscribed letters

ΑΛΗ (ale), which may refer to Aletis, the name of the song dedicated to Erigone during the

Aiora.169 Even more telling is the reverse of this skyphos, which shows a veiled woman holding a

parasol who is escorted by a satyr. The satyr inexplicably wears a crown, which would unlikely

designate him as the basileus, given that the king mimics Dionysos and is portrayed as the god in

vase-art depicting the Anthesterian sacred wedding ceremony.170 In any case, we may assume

that both female figures on the skyphos represent the basilinna, who performs the Aiora ritual

first, and then later dresses up in bridal attire and heads to her wedding ceremony at the

Boukoleion.171 As we shall see in a later section, another set of vase-scenes depicts a bride,

whom we may identify as the basilinna, led by a satyr to her nuptials. Though the scenes depict

165
See n. 116.
166
Scholars who adhere to this criticism: Hamilton 1992, 68–69; Humphrey 2004, 242.
167
Berlin, Antikensammlung F2589, ARV2 1301.7.
168
Sabetai 2021, 67.
169
Doria and Giuman 2016, 25, n. 76.
170
Robertson 1993, 241, calls what the satyr is wearing a “festive headdress”, but it is clearly a costly crown. See
Section 2.6 for the basileus depicted as Dionysos.
171
Burkert 1983, 238, n. 31.

55
mythical satyrs, its allusions to Dionysian worship highlight that the Aiora was performed by the

basilinna as an Anthesterian ritual.

The basilinna was not the only one to participate in the Aiora since a red-figure chous,

which is attributed to the Eretria Painter from the last half of the fifth century BCE, portrays an

older bearded man placing a young boy on a swing (Fig. 2.5).172 There is a klismos with

garments, patterned similarly to the ones the gerarai in Meidias’ chous wear, placed on top.

Underneath the chair is a table with three cakes and a bowl. To the left of the swing is a worried-

looking girl clinging to a boy, both of whom look at the swing. All figures shown wear an ivy

wreath, indicating that this scene involves Dionysian ritual and thus represents the Aiora. The

reappearance of a klismos especially confirms the scene’s allusions to the premarital Aiora, given

that this chair is depicted in vase-scenes of a bride preparing for her wedding ceremony.173

The identity of the bearded man may be the basileus, who assisted in the Aiora ritual. His

placing a young boy onto the swing may display his attempt to convince the anxious girl to

participate in the swinging ceremony.174 However, it does not mean that the boy placed on the

swing is not a participant of the rite. Hyginos’ etiology of the Aiora indicates that Athenians took

part in the rite, without specifying the sex of the participants. Since boys are shown on this chous

and the chous from the Meidias Painter, it is probable that the ritual also had young male

participants. As we have tentatively established, the basilinna performed the Aiora as a

prewedding rite. It is unsurprising, then, that the Aiora had a similar purpose for a select group of

Athenian girls and boys, but as a coming-of-age ceremony instead.175

172
Athens, National Museum, VS319, ARV2 1249.1.
173
E.g. London, The British Museum E 774, ARV2 1250.32.
174
Dillon 2001, 70.
175
See 3.4 for female and male rites of passage in Artemis’ cult that are similar to the Aiora.

56
 Other than the swinging of Athenians and clothes, the Aiora may have had another

component. Portrayed on a mid-fifth century BCE chous, also from the Eretria Painter, is a mask

of a bearded Dionysos adorned with an ivy wreath and bound with ivy to a liknon, which sits on

top of a table (Fig. 2.6).176 A young woman with bound hair holds a kantharos, which may hold

wine extracted from a kalyx-krater behind her. There is another young woman with braided hair

and an ivy wreath over her head offering grapes to the mask. Behind this young woman appears

to be a younger girl, since she is smaller than her. The young girl seems to be holding a vessel.

We do not, however, have a full depiction of her since her top half is missing. The two older

female figures wear patterned garments similar to the ones that the gerarai wear on Meidias’

chous. Their patterned garments, however, unlikely designate them as the gerarai. The female

with braided hair appears to be too young to be one of the gerarai. The young woman with the

kantharos is likely the basilinna since she wears a zone (girdle), which was an object worn by

brides in wedding ceremonies,177 and thus appropriate for her later nuptials. Furthermore, as we

shall see in depictions of a Anthesterian wedding procession, a woman analogous to the

basilinna has her hair bound and holds a kantharos in a similar manner to this figure.

Given the basilinna’s slightly different attire and bound hair in the above scene, we may

assume that Eretria’s chous represents a continuation of the Aiora, wherein, after swinging, girls

and the basilinna, who has changed into bridal wear,178 place Dionysos’ image in a liknon. This

176
Athens, National Museum VS318, ARV2 1249.13.
177
We may also note that this figure’s attire parallels a bride, as depicted on a red-figure lekythos, wearing similar a
garment and a zone. In this scene, she seems to be dedicating her zone to Artemis (Syracuse, Museo Archeologico
Regionale Paolo Orsi 21186, ARV2 993.80). The zone will be discussed with regard to weddings and Artemis in 3.2.3
178
According to a scholium to Frogs 216, there was a house (oikos) at Limnai. This house is a likely place where the
basilinna could have changed into bridal attire, probably with the help the gerarai who also served as her bridal
attendants. She could have also taken her nuptial bath at this house. A pyxis from the last quarter of the fifth century
BCE portrays a bride changing into bridal attire and the various steps involved with it. Most notably she binds her
hair and wears a zone with the help of her attendants (New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972.118.148).

57
liknon ritual is likely connected to the Aiora, since the two older figures in this vase scene wear

similar clothes to the women in Meidias’ Aiora scene. The inclusion of both a young girl and

young woman in this depiction also connects the two rites, since children are also seen in the

portrayals of the Aiora. Of course, the Eretria Painter created both this liknon scene and the

aforementioned Aiora portrayal, further highlighting the connection between the two rites. We

may also note that the liknon, as with the woven garments and kalathos in the Aiora scenes, had

marital connotations, since it is depicted in vase-paintings of wedding processions.179

Furthermore, this object was used to winnow grain, a task, like weaving, often performed by

women.180 Given that the previous Aiora scenes depict items associated with weddings and

matronhood, it is no surprise that the depiction of this liknon ritual on Eretria’s chous was a

premarital rite and thus linked with the basilinna’s prenuptial Aiora.

Considering the connection between the liknon rite and the Aiora, it is likely, then, that

the liknon-encased image of Dionysos was also swung by the basilinna and the other female

celebrants of the Aiora. These participants swinging Dionysos’ image in a liknon may have

promoted the grape harvest while purifying the death of Erigone, especially if we consider the

object’s significance with regard to Dionysos and a fertility ritual. In myth, a baby Dionysos

slept in a liknon as if it were a cradle. The reason why the infant slept in one was so that he could

be hidden from Hera, who intended to harm him. The concealed god was sent to Mount

Parnassos to be raised by the nymphs there.181 Because Dionysos was raised on that mountain, a

trieteric festival at Delphi was established in his honour in which ecstatic maidens visited the

179
E.g. London, British Museum B 174, ABV 141.1.
180
Anne Carson, “Putting Her in Her Place: Woman, Dirt, and Desire,” in Before Sexuality: The Construction of
Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World, ed. David Halperin, John Winkler, and Froma Zeitlin (Princeton;
New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990), 152.
181
Plut. De Is. et Os. 365; cf. Serv. ad. Georg. 1.166. For a full discussion of the myth, see Karl Kerényi, Dionysos:
Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life (Princeton; New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1976), 44.

58
god’s tomb to wake him up as if he were his infant self who slept in the liknon.182 This ritual may

have promoted agrarian fertility since Kallimachos mentions another ritual in which an unknown

divine infant sleeping in a liknon was awakened by those who swing it. The reason why they

swung the object was so that they could ensure a bountiful grain harvest, probably on the

grounds that the child was a fertility god and could cleanse the seeds.183 The identity of

Kallimachos’ divine child is contested by scholars.184 That said, we may assume that the

Dionysian liknon ritual in Delphi had a similar purpose, based on the myth of this divine child.

Given Dionysos’ association with the liknon and a fertility ritual involving this object, the

swinging of Dionysos’ mask in a liknon at the Aiora may have served as both a purification and

fertility rite by promoting the grape harvest and purifying the death of Erigone, the latter of

which was caused by wine-drinking. Since grapes caused Erigone’s death, they were probably

placed in the liknon, hence why we see grapes depicted in Eretria’s chous, to be swung during

the Aiora as a way to purify this death, which would then promote the grape harvest.185 We are

reminded by Kallimachos that there was a yearly purification rite in honour of Erigone at the

Anthesteria hosted in Alexandria. Furthermore, Hyginos highlights that a libation of new wine

182
Plut. De Is. et Os. 365.
183
Callim. Hymn 1.48; cf. Schol. Aratus. 268.
184
Dietrich argues that the child cannot be Dionysos since Greeks in the Hellenistic and Roman periods evoked the
sleeping infant Dionysos in his mystery cults in relation to the god’s ascent from the underworld, not vegetal
fertility. See B.C. Dietrich, “Dionysus Liknites,” The Classical Quarterly 8, no. 3-4 (1958): 244–48. I do not see
why the child could not be Dionysos, since Dietrich, in a later article, says that Dionysos’ liknon-encased mask was
swung to purify grapes and thus promote fertility.
185
B.C. Dietrich, “A Rite of Swinging during the Anthesteria,” Hermes 89, no. 1 (1961): 42, 47. Similarly a girl
named Charila hanged herself, which caused a famine in Delphi. The reason for this famine was because she was
denied grain by the Delphian king, who harshly rejected her pleas for grain, causing her to hang herself. The famine
was relieved when the Delphians performed a mock hanging festival involving grain to honour the girl (Plut.
Quaest. Graec. 293 E). As with Charila, Erigone’s death was associated with agriculture. It is no coincidence, then,
that her subsequent hanging rites are associated with the grape harvest.

59
was poured as part of the Aiora in Athens. Thus, grapes were likely cleansed at the Aiora, which

both served as a premarital ritual and purification rite that promoted the grape harvest.

It is important to note that in the Aiora myth, wine-drinking also caused, albeit indirectly,

Athenian girls who were nearing an age to start bearing children to die prematurely, causing a

fertility crisis in Athens. It is logical to assume that the Aiora encouraged not only plant, but also

female fertility, given that the fecundity of women and plants were often compared to each

other.186 The basilinna performing this rite would refer to her future fertility, since she was a

young woman who was going to have more children or was awaiting to conceive her first

child.187 Since she mimics Erigone by swinging, the basilinna, too, was fertilized by “Dionysos”

who was said by Ovid to disguise himself as a grapevine to seduce Erigone. Furthermore, in

other visual representations of Aiora, a satyr or Eros is portrayed pushing the girl on the swing,

implying that there are sexual and, therefore, procreational connotations to performing this

swinging ritual.188

It is also no coincidence that the basilinna and Athenian girls were swinging Dionysos’s

image in an object associated with the god’s infancy, which probably hinted at their future

childrearing. The story of Dionysos being hidden in a liknon and sent to nymphs to be raised also

shares similarities to Phanodemos’ etiology of the Dionysian wine-mixing rite in which an infant

Dionysos was nursed by nymphs. Both accounts emphasize childrearing and refer to the fertility

of women. It is unsurprising, then, that the wine-mixing ritual was the next step that followed the

186
See 3.4.3.
187
We do not know whether the basilinna was a mother or not. [Demosthenes] notes that the basilinna could only
assume her role if she had been a maiden before she married the basileus. Furthermore, she could not have been
already married prior to marrying the basileus (ps-Dem. Con. Nea. 59.78). His statement, however, does not help us
in identifying if she already had children when she assumed her role.
188
Doria and Giuman 2016, 26. Depiction of Eros pushing a girl, see: Paris, Louvre CA2191, ARV2 1131.173 (red-
figure Attic hydria from the mid fifth century BCE).

60
swinging ritual of garments and Dionysos’ image, since the wine-mixing rite, too, was linked

with nymphs. Also, both swung objects and the liknon are depicted on vases portraying this rite.

2.5.2 Wine-mixing Ritual Depicted in the “Lenaia Vases”

We may find similarities in the vase-scenes of the Aiora with another set of vase-

paintings that depict women ladling wine in front a bearded mask of Dionysos bound to a pillar

and covered in garments. The latter scenes match Phanodemos’ description of a wine-mixing rite

performed near Limnai. Therefore, by comparing the previous portrayals of the Aiora to this

ladling ritual, we can connect the real-life practice of the Aiora to the actual wine-mixing ritual,

both of which served as a premarital rite, near Limnai, for the basilinna during the Anthesteria.

We must first acknowledge that the scenes depicting the ladling women are problematic.

Previous scholars examining these vase-paintings have assigned them to another Dionysian

festival that happened a month before the Anthesteria, the Lenaia, on the grounds that they

portray bacchai, the ecstatic female worshippers of Dionysos, who also supposedly celebrated

the Lenaia. Thus, the vases from which these scenes originated were bestowed with the name

“Lenaia Vases” by August Frickenhaus, who first studied them.189 One particular “Lenaia Vase”

is a red-figure kylix (cup) from the first quarter of the fifth century BCE and attributed to the

Makron Painter (Fig. 2.7),190 which displays a group of bacchai performing an ecstatic ritual

synonymous with those portrayed in myth. The women on the cup are disheveled in their

appearance and dance in a frenzied manner in front of an image of Dionysos. Some hold thyrsoi

189
E.g. August Frickenhaus, Lenävasen (Winckelmannsprogramm 72, Berlin: 1912); Deubner 1932, 127–32; Simon
1983, 100–101. Scholars after Frickenhaus have argued that these vases portray no specific Dionysian festival,
whether it be the Lenaia or the Anthesteria, since their iconography may reference various aspects of Dionysian
worship, e.g., Hamilton 1992, 134-8; Françoise Frontisi-Ducroux, Le Dieu-Masque: Une Figure du Dionysos
d'Athènes (Paris: Éditions La Decouverte, 1991), passim.
190
Berlin, Antikenmuseen F 2290, ARV2 462.48.

61
(staffs used by bacchai), which identify them as bacchai, while others play musical instruments.

One holds a deer perhaps to tear it apart, possibly in reference to the sparagmos (act of tearing

apart) portrayed in Euripides’ play, The Bacchai (e.g. 1124–37). They may also be drunk, given

their demeanor and the fact that they hold skyphoi (wine-cups).

Despite Makron’s kylix portraying bacchai performing ecstatic rite, the majority of the

“Lenaia Vases” from the last half of the fifth century BCE portray women who perform a more

reserved wine-ladling ritual while standing in front of Dionysos’ image. Though they are likely

depicted as bacchai, since the women on them sometimes hold thyrsoi, their appearance and

demeanor indicate that they are performing a ritual that may reflect real-life Anthesterian rites.

Within this set of later vases, we see a notable pattern of the portrayed bacchai performing what

is likely a sacrifice, in which they mix wine and dedicate cakes, meats, libations and prayers to

Dionysos’ image. This depiction parallels Phanodemos’ account of a wine-mixing rite near

Limnai. Furthermore, there are marital allusions in these scenes, since the liknon and klismos,

which are depicted in portrayals of the premarital Aiora rite, make a reappearance. Also, the

klismos appears in scenes depicting the holy wedding, indicating that the Aiora and the wine-

mixing rite are both prenuptial rituals that were interconnected.

One ceramic of interest is a mid-fifth century BCE Athenian red-figure stamnos from the

Villa Giulia Painter (Fig. 2.8),191 which portrays a ritual similar to Phanodemos’ description of an

Anthesterian wine-mixing rite. The vase shows an ivy-wreathed mask of a bearded Dionysos

attached to a pillar and covered with a garment. In front of the image is a table with two stamnoi

on opposite ends of the table. On the table are also cakes. Two older women wearing headbands

191
Boston, The Museum of Fine Arts 90.155, ARV2 621.34.

62
flank the table, who may represent the gerarai: one ladles wine from one of the stamnoi into a

skyphos, the other holds a skyphos in the palm of her left hand as she gestures with her opened

right hand in veneration of Dionysos’ effigy. The way she holds the cup suggests that she may be

drinking the wine, based on other vase-scenes of men performing a komos (drunken procession)

who hold skyphoi in a similar manner,192 the significance of which will be discussed soon. Since

the women ladle wine from stamnoi that were used for mixing,193 it is likely that the wine in the

depicted stamnoi is mixed. Thus, this vase evokes Phanodemos’ account. Of course, Phanodemos

mentions that wine was extracted from pithoi, not stamnoi, to be mixed. However, stamnoi, like

pithoi, were lidded vessels that could hold wine.194 Also, Phanodemos never describes what

vessels were used to combine wine with water. Thus, we should not preclude the possibility that

stamnoi were used as part of his described wine-mixing ritual.

We may also assign the above scene to Plutarch’s statement that prayers and libations

were performed as a prerequisite before wine drinking during the Pithoigia, which we noted was

associated with the Anthesteria, but not as a separate day of the festival that involved the opening

of pithoi. It is likely that Plutarch, with his own errors, is referring to the same rite near Limnai

that Phanodemos describes. The women on the vase-scenes not only ladle wine in stamnoi to mix

it with water, as with Phanodemos’ account, but also to use as a libation before drinking it. The

woman portrayed on the Villa Giulia Painter’s stamnos gestures her opened right hand in a way

that signifies that she is offering a prayer and libation to Dionysos.195 Though there are no

phialai (libation bowls) depicted in this scene, other similar portrayals from this set of vases do

192
Cf. Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 4023, ARV2 542.34. See Sarah Peirce, “Visual Language and
Concepts of Cult on the ‘Lenaia Vases,’” Classical Antiquity 17, no. 1 (1998): 69-70.
193
Robertson 1993, 229 suggests that the vessels were likely used for mixing.
194
Robertson 1993, 229, n. 89.
195
Cf. London, The British Museum E 452, ARV2 1073.9, which shows a woman with a similar open-hand gesture,
who, as Peirce 1998, 75 argues, is offering a prayer before a libation.

63
portray women ladling wine into phialai.196 Thus, we may assume that these women are opening

stamnoi both to mix wine with water and to extract the mixture from the vessels to dedicate

libations and prayers. Their opening of stamnoi evokes the name Pithoigia (Jar-Opening),

indicating that Plutarch is likely describing the same ritual as Phanodemos’.

The other side of this same vase is notable since it connects the Aiora and our discussed

wine-mixing rite. As with the depictions of the Aiora, the klismos is portrayed. In front of the

chair are three dancing women: the one in the middle dances while holding a parasol. She wears

a crown, possibly a nuptial tiara, indicating that this figure may be the basilinna in bridal attire

performing the wine-mixing rite after the Aiora. Flanking her are two women who hold skyphoi

and wear similar headbands to the ones on the previous side of the vase, making them gerarai

and associated with the scene on the front of the vase. There are also two women in similar attire

depicted between the handles of this red-figure stamnos, indicating that they are part of this

group. One plays an aulos while the other dances. Since the klismos, women representing the

basilinna and gerarai, and Dionysos’ mask reappear on the iconography of this vase, it is

probable that the wine-mixing ritual that this scene portrays is a continuation of the Aiora, and

thus part of the same premarital rite that the basilinna performed with the help of the gerarai.

The connection between the two ceremonies is especially apparent in another red-figure

stamnos from a similar timeframe to the vase above but attributed to the Chicago Painter (Fig.

2.9).197 As with the previous scenes, an older woman with similar attire to the gerarai portrayed

above stirs wine from a stamnos with a ladle to mix its contents while standing in front a similar

image of the god. Similarly, the stamnos stands on top of a table, which has cakes, meat, and

196
E.g. Paris, Louvre G 409, ARV2 628.5.
197
San Antonio, San Antonio Museum of Art 86.134.64, ARV2 628.6.

64
another stamnos on it. A female aulos player, who is probably a hired musician since she wears

different clothing compared to the other woman, sits on a klismos. One notable difference from

the previous scene is the presence of a liknon near the chair and Dionysos’ effigy, which is

depicted on the aforementioned Aiora scenes.

It is important to note that, in one variation of the wine-ladling scene from the Dinos

Painter (Fig. 2.10),198 Dionysos’ image is covered in garments patterned similarly to the ones

worn by the basilinna and gerarai depicted on the vase-scenes associated with the Aiora, namely

the previously discussed choes of Eretria and Meidias. We may assume that after Dionysos’

image and clothes were swung by the basilinna and gerarai, they affixed the image to a column

and adorned it with these garments, which shares similarities to other female prenuptial rites.

Furthermore, it is likely that the basilinna herself may have worn these swung garments as bridal

wear during the Aiora, considering how her clothes, as seen in Eretria’s chous, matches the one

on the swing. I will return to these points in Chapter 3 as I discuss coming-of-age and premarital

rituals with regard to garments in greater detail.

Thematically speaking as well, the Aiora and wine-ladling rite are also associated since

both reference life and death. Stamnoi, which the “Lenaia Vases” are made up of and depict in

their iconography, were also used to collect the ashes of the dead.199 A mother along with an

older girl and young woman are also depicted on one of the “Lenaia Vases”, and therefore

reference childbearing and female maturation.200 If these vases do depict the wine-mixing rite,

198
Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. H2419, ARV2 1151.2.
199
Isler-Kerényi 2014, 129.
200
Warsaw, National Museum 142465, ARV2 1019.82 depicts young women dancing. The mother in question is an
older woman holding a baby satyr, who is interpreted by Peirce 1998, 78 to represent a human child, who is a
citizen. Isler-Kerényi 2014, 134-5 has a similar interpretation, but argues that baby satyr is analogous to a human
baby born out of wedlock. The child, however, is integrated into the polis by being present at this ceremony.

65
we may assume that both this ritual and the Aiora juxtapose new life, through the participation of

nubile girls and children in these rituals, with death, represented as either crushed grapes, vessels

for burials, or hanging girls. In both rites, death led to new life through the creation of wine or

nubile and fertile young women.201 Thus, based on vase-scenes that portray the Aiora and wine-

mixing rite, we can tentatively conclude that the two rituals are part of the same rite.

There is, however, one issue we must address, which is that the women depicted on these

vases appear to be drinking wine. Women are not attested by our ancient sources to have drunk

wine during the Anthesteria, indicating that the above scenes seem not to be related to our above

discussion about the basilinna’s premarital rites, let alone the rituals of the Anthesteria. Based on

the wine-drinking and instrument-playing women in the above scenes and other similar

representations which depict kanea (sacrificial baskets) and a table with piled meat on top,202

Sarah Peirce argues that these vase-paintings do not reflect Anthesterian ritual or any real-life

Dionysian rite. Instead, these scenes are a mythical and gender-inverted depiction of a Dionysian

theoxenia (ritual welcoming of a god), which encompasses a thysia (sacrifice), feast, symposion,

and komos, all activities usually performed by men. She bases her point on the fact that astai

(female citizens), were especially prohibited from taking part in symposia,203 making it unlikely

that these scenes represent real-life ritual. She also posits that the women in these vase-paintings

who appear to be bacchai are bacchic nymphs,204 indicating that these scenes are mythical.205

201
Cf. Isler-Kerényi 2014, 129, who associates crushed grapes with death, but also the creation of wine as a symbol
of rebirth, at least in a Dionysian context.
202
Kanoun: London, The British Museum E 452, ARV2 1073.9. Meat on table: Paris, Louvre G 407, ARV2 1073.10.
203
Peirce 1998, 60, 78.
204
Peirce 1998, 66, notes the similarities between these nymphs and bacchai and argues that the former served as a
model for the later.
205
Peirce 1998, 76.

66
 Peirce is correct in suggesting that these scenes depict some kind of theoxenia comprised

of a sacrifice and banquet for Dionysos. However, I believe that the vases’ allusions to a

theoxenia may refer to an actual one performed during the Anthesteria, which was connected

with both the Aiora, wine-mixing rite and sacred wedding. The Anthesterian theoxenia may have

a nuptial aspect, since King Oineus welcomed Dionysos by offering his wife to be the god’s

bride. We may assume that the king’s wife along with her bridal attendants hosted the god by

performing a sacrifice and feast before their nuptials. Given that the marriage between the

basilinna and “Dionysos” parallels this myth, the portrayal on the vase-scenes of women

dedicating food to Dionysos’ image could easily refer to the gerarai and basilinna symbolically

hosting Dionysos by offering his image food and mixed wine via libations.

The presence of a liknon and the klismos in the “Lenaia Vases” indicates that the

Anthesterian theoxenia had a nuptial aspect since both the basket and chair were linked with

weddings ceremonies, which I have pointed out above. The klismos, in particular, is depicted on

another set of vases portraying the later sacred wedding rite at the Boukoleion, in which

Dionysos sat on this chair while tended by the basilinna and her assistants as part of a wedding

banquet.206 It is likely, then, that before the wedding, the basilinna and gerarai during this

theoxenia placed the klismos in front of Dionysos’ image to signify that Dionysos was seated as

they hosted him with food and wine. They perhaps “served” the god food with the liknon given

that this basket was used as a food tray in dining rituals in Demeter’s cult, which may have had

marital aspects.207 The basilinna performing this theoxenia, therefore, hinted at her actual

206
See Section 2.6.
207
Terracotta likna were found in Demeter’s Korinthian sanctuary. At this same precinct are dining rooms dating
from as early as the late sixth century BCE (Dillon 2001, 126). Terracotta figures depicting reclining couples and a
veiled woman, perhaps identified as Persephone, were discovered there as well. Kilker 2008, 142–43 suggests that
this sanctuary, based on these figurines and the evidence of dining at this precinct, may have hosted wedding
banquets or celebrations that honoured the union between Persephone and Hades.

67
wedding ceremony later in night of the Anthesteria, where she and her husband dined at their

wedding.

The kanoun in other depictions from the “Lenaia Vases” may refer to the ritual object that

the gerarai and basilinna used in the premarital goat sacrifice, further emphasizing the

Anthesterian theoxenia was a prelude to the basilinna’s later nuptials. According to

[Demosthenes],208 both the basilinna and gerarai swore their oath at Limnai in front of these

same baskets which they used for sacrifices. The portrayal of the basket in the vase-scenes likely

references the later sacrifice of a billy-goat supervised by the gerarai and basilinna at Limnai,

which would encompass the thysia aspect of the theoxenia. Since an animal sacrifice was part of

the basilinna’s premarital proteleia, we may assume that the portrayal of this basket in the above

scenes is referencing a marital theoxenia at the Anthesteria, which would have been succeeded

by the subsequent prenuptial goat sacrifice.

Regarding the “Lenaia Vases” depicting women dancing, playing instruments, and

seemingly drinking wine, we are reminded by Phanodemos that Athenians near Limnai danced

and sang songs in honour of Dionysos as part of the wine-mixing ritual. Furthermore, according

to him and Plutarch, Athenians also mixed wine with water, and offered prayers before drinking

wine, all of which are represented in the above scenes. It is true that women did not

recreationally drink wine in public, especially in a sympotic setting; however, we may assume

that the women in these scenes represent the basilinna and gerarai merely tasting and

distributing wine to the male celebrants of the Anthesteria,209 who may perhaps use this allotted

208
See n. 103.
209
As Nilsson 1955 587–59 suggests. Peirce 1998, 67 is skeptical of Nilsson’s point, since there are no other Greek
ritual that involves the tasting and distribution of wine. That said, she ignores Plutarch’s account about Athenians
offering prayers before drinking wine, which may suggest that such an action did occur. Throughout her article, she

68
wine for the later goat sacrifice. As these women were performing the above actions, they also

danced and performed songs to honour Dionysos as part of a nuptial theoxenia.

Lastly, the supposed identification of the women in the above vase-scenes as either

bacchai or bacchic nymphs should also not designate these vase-paintings as only depictions of a

made-up and gender-inverted theoxenia. These supposedly mythical women may represent the

basilinna and gerarai imitating bacchic nymphs and bacchai while performing a nuptial

theoxenia in honour of Dionysos during the Anthesteria. Participants of a fourth-century BCE

Macedonian wedding organized by administrators of the Anthesteria dressed as nymphs and

bacchai.210 Also, albeit from a later period, Philostratos (3rd cent. CE), says that Athenian women

dressed as bacchai during the Anthesteria.211 Given that the basilinna mimicked Dionysian

brides such as Ariadne and Erigone, it would be unsurprising for her and the gerarai to mimic

nymphs and bacchai as well while they host Dionysos. Their mimicking these characters may

explain why some of the women in these scenes hold thyrsoi. Phanodemos’ account notably also

comes to mind, since he discusses the wine-mixing rite in relation to the nymphs who nourished

Dionysos. The female participants of this ritual may have thus imitated these nymphs by holding

thyrsoi and “nourishing” Dionysos with food and wine as they host him.

Therefore, it is likely that the “Lenaia Vases” do in fact represent Anthesterian ritual,

namely the wine-mixing rite, on the grounds that their iconography matches our ancient accounts

of such rites. Furthermore, the visual representations of the Aiora and wine-mixing ritual both

portray objects such as Dionysos’ image, the klismos and the liknon, indicating that the two real-

highlights that the women depicted on these vases are venerating Dionysos via prayer (75), which, unbeknownst to
her, evokes Plutarch’s account of real-life Anthesterian ritual.
210
Ath. 4.128c–130e.
211
Philostrat. V A 4.21.

69
life versions of both rites were connected to each other, with both encompassing a nuptial

theoxenia dedicated to Dionysos.212 Given that the Aiora and wine-mixing rite were components

of this theoxenia, the ritual welcoming not only honoured Dionysos, but also the Dionysian bride

Erigone, further emphasizing its nuptial connotations. We are reminded by Athenaios, Hyginos,

and Hesychios that feasts, libations, songs, and dances were dedicated to Erigone, all of which

encompass this theoxenia. As mentioned above, the garments and liknon used in the Aiora and

wine-mixing rite had marital connotation. Therefore, it is logical to suppose that the wine-mixing

rite and the Aiora were premarital rites that were part of an overarching nuptial theoxenia

dedicated to Dionysos and Erigone.

Based on our above discussion about the connection between the Aiora and the wine-

mixing rite, we may assume, then, that the basilinna and gerarai at a site near Limnai swung a

mask of Dionysos, garments, and other objects on a makeshift swing, likely during the day. They

then fastened the mask and garments onto a pillar. Afterwards, they, while imitating bacchai and

bacchic nymphs, offered prayers and consecrated cakes and meat to this image to welcome the

god. Furthermore, they mixed wine with water in stamnoi to use as a libation, and performed

songs and dances dedicated to Dionysos and Erigone. Since girls are portrayed in depictions of

the Aiora and we have one vase-scene depicting a girl performing the wine-mixing ritual, it is

probable that girls at a marriageable age participated in the latter rite for their initiation. Boys

and men, however, seem to be excluded from the latter part due to the lack of visual evidence for

their participation. Afterwards, probably in the evening, the basilinna and gerarai went to

Limnai, and oversaw the sacrifice of a billy-goat as part of the former’s proteleia, which the

212
Sabetai 2021, 71 similarly concludes that the Aiora served as a premarital theoxenia in honour of Dionysos
during the Anthesteria; however, she does not connect the wine-mixing rite to the Aiora.

70
revelers from the Choes events, including the basileus, assisted in. Since the vase-scene of the

goat sacrifice portrays a crowned basilinna awaiting revelers to walk up to an altar as they drag a

goat and carry baskets full of cakes and a klismos, we may suppose that the goat sacrifice was the

last part of the basilinna’s prenuptial ceremonies.

2.6 The Sacred Wedding

Now that we have established a likely scenario where the basilinna performed the Aiora,

wine-mixing rite, and goat sacrifice as premarital rites, we must discuss the wedding ceremony

between the basilinna and “Dionysos”. This section suggests that the basilinna and “Dionysos”,

as part of a wedding procession, walked from Limnai to the Boukoleion with the gerarai and the

Choes revelers. Furthermore, the couple, once they arrived at the building, celebrated their

wedding by having a feast, which then resulted in their consummating their marriage. The

section examines three sets of vase-scenes that may confirm the existence of such nuptial events.

The first set depicts the wedding procession, since a Dionysian train marches somewhere as they

carry objects used in the premarital Aiora and wine-mixing rite. The second portrays the feast,

with Dionysos sitting on a klismos while attended by women and satyrs who provide him wine

and food. The third involves the depiction of Dionysos in bed with Ariadne, representing the

consummation of the sacred wedding between “Dionysos” and the basilinna.

2.6.1. Vase-paintings of an Anthesterian Wedding Procession

Other than in the already discussed scenes, the klismos is often portrayed in other fifth

century ceramics that exhibit Anthesterian ritual, which is likely representative of a wedding

procession performed at the sacred wedding. Usually, Dionysos and a boy satyr carrying the

71
chair over his own head as he follows the god are portrayed.213 In one particular version of this

formula, as depicted on a kalyx-krater, a himation-clad Dionysos holding a thyrsos looks back to

a satyr carrying the klismos and a kantharos (Fig. 2.11).214 On the reverse side, a fragmented

himation-clad woman holding a torch follows behind a different satyr who looks back at her

while holding nothing. Since the woman is depicted behind a different satyr on the reverse side

of the vase, she is likely following the god and the chair-carrying satyr as part of a procession.

This portrayal of a ceremonial parade, however, was likely representative of a wedding

procession for the basilinna and “Dionysos”, especially if we compare it to another scene from a

red-figure mid-fifth-century bell-krater (Fig. 2.12).215 On it, a himation-adorned woman wearing

a coif follows a satyr, who looks back to her while carrying the klismos and a barbitos (lyre-like

instrument). She herself has a kantharos in one hand and a thyrsos in the other. Dionysos,

however, is not depicted in this particular scene. Her appearance resembles the himation clad-

woman following a satyr, whom we tentatively identified as the basilinna, as portrayed on our

previously discussed skyphos (Fig. 2.4). Thus, the scenes on both the bell-krater and kalyx-krater

probably represent the basilinna who marched with “Dionysos” (the basileus) to her wedding

ceremony at the Boukoleion. The satyrs represent the Choes revelers who assist the couple in

their nuptials by carrying the klismos to the couple’s marriage ceremony at the Boukoleion. We

already saw this same chair incorporated in the basilinna’s premarital Aiora, wine-mixing rite,

and goat sacrifice. It would make sense for the klismos to be used as part of the wedding

ceremony, since, as we shall see soon, the chair was used for “Dionysos” to sit on during the

banquet held there. Thus, the chair needed to be taken from Limnai to the Boukoleion.

213
E.g. London E 465, ARV2 1057.102.
214
Moscow, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, II 1b 600.
215
Paris, Louvre G 422, ARV2 1019.77.

72
 It is important to note that male Athenian citizens were often depicted as satyrs in vase-

art from the mid-fifth century BCE that showed Dionysian ritual, especially if the scenes

involved excessive wine-drinking and debauchery, which were considered taboo for them.216

Given that the Choes revelers were citizens and drinking excessively at the Choes events, they

are the likely candidates to be disguised as satyrs in vase-art such as the ones above.

Alternatively, we may also assume that the satyrs in these scenes also represent Choes revelers

dressed as satyrs during the Anthesteria, since Philostratos also mentions that Athenian men

during this festival dressed up as such characters.217

The convoy heading to the Boukoleion also included the gerarai and other officials,

especially if we consider a bell-krater from the last half of the fifth century BCE that depicts a

similar representation in which a woman adorned in a peplos holds a torch and thyrsos, and leads

the klismos-carrying satyr.218 A himation-clad Dionysos holding a kantharos and ivy branch

stands between them. This woman at the front must be one of the gerarai who assisted the

basilinna in her wedding ceremony by leading the train with her torch. On the back of the bell-

krater are three himation-clad men. Though not conclusive, we may assume that they are

officials at the Boukoleion who await the basilinna, basileus, gerarai and their other assistants to

arrive, so that they can start and aid in their wedding ceremony. They most likely did not

participate in the previous drinking or other festivities of the Anthesteria, which may explain

why they are not portrayed as satyrs.

216
Isler-Kerényi 2014, 141.
217
See n. 200. Burkert 1987, 166 based on this account, posits that there were “masked mummers” who imitated
satyrs and other mythical Dionysian characters during the Anthesteria. Plato (Pl. Leg. 815b) also mentions that there
was a Dionysian rite in which its participants dressed as nymphs, bacchai, and satyrs, indicating that the mimicking
of such characters was common in Dionysian ritual.
218
London, Collection S. Rosignoli.

73
 We may further associate all the above vase scenes portraying this Dionysian train with

the Anthesteria. A particular scene from a chous shows this same vessel sitting between Dionysos

and the klismos-carrying satyr following him. The depiction of this specific jug indicates that the

scene shows a rite associated with the festival, particularly the Choes whose name is derived

from this jug.219 However, unlike the other portrayals of this visual motif, no woman is depicted

following behind or leading the satyr.

2.6.2 Vase-paintings of a Wedding Feast at the Boukoleion

There is another set of vase representations that show Dionysos, who holds a kantharos,

seated on the chair while greeted by women and satyrs. One woman usually pours wine into the

god’s kantharos from her oinochoe while satyrs flank the scene carrying torches, with one or two

holding a barbitos.220 These scenes probably represent a wedding feast at the Boukoleion during

the Anthesteria. This may especially be the case if we examine two notable ceramics of this type

of scene.221

The first vase is a red-figure stamnos from the last half of the fifth century BCE that

portrays a wedding feast. It shows the god sitting on a klismos with a kantharos in his hand.222 A

veiled woman with the name “Arain…”, a name which Cornelia Isler-Kerényi associates with

Ariadne,223 is seen pouring wine into the god’s vessel with an oinochoe (Fig. 2.13). She wears a

219
Isler-Kerényi, 2014, 141.
220
See Isler-Kerényi, 2014, 146-152 for a full bibliography of these vases and their respective scenes. She believes
that these vase-representations portray a sort of ceremony during the Anthesteria that celebrates Dionysos’ arrival at
Athens. However, she does not assign this rite to any of the ancient accounts of the festival’s events.
221
We must acknowledge that, as John Oakley and Rebecca Sinos highlight, there are no vase-scenes of regular
wedding banquets, see: John Oakley and Rebecca Sinos, The Wedding in Ancient Athens (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1993), 24. We should not, however, associate the below dinner scenes with symposia, given that
astai are likely depicted on them, who, as mentioned above, could not attend symposia. Furthermore, we know that
women, other than the bride, also took part in wedding feasts (e.g. Plut. Quaest. conv. 666f–67a; Men. Sam. 287–88;
Ath. 14.644d). Oakley and Sinos in the same passage also note that wedding feasts were similar to symposia.
222
Paris, Louvre G 406, ARV2 1028.12.
223
Isler-Kerényi, 2014, 147.

74
peplos that has decorated edges. Given her veil, dress, and possible association with Ariadne, the

woman may also represent the basilinna, who was replicating Dionysos’ lover and bride and

taking part in a wedding feast. We already noted that the basilinna was mimicking Erigone,

another bride of Dionysos, during the Aiora by symbolically hanging herself as a premarital

rite.224 Thus, it would be unsurprising that the basilinna at her sacred wedding ceremony and

feast was also assuming the role of the Dionysian bride Ariadne as she married “Dionysos”, who,

in reality was her actual husband, the basileus. In this vase, we also see two satyrs flank the

couple. On the reverse side of the vase, three older women are standing: the one on the right

holds a torch, the middle a thyrsos, and the left an oinochoe. These women are probably the

gerarai, while satyrs are the revelers assisting in the nuptial feast by serving the “god”. Given

that the klismos appears in this scene and the depictions of the Aiora, wine-mixing rite, and the

convoy, it is likely that the chair was brought from Limnai to the Boukoleion.

Paralleling the scene above is an Attic red-figure kalyx-krater from a similar period

which also represents our discussed wedding feast. On the ceramic, Dionysos sits with a

kantharos that is filled with wine by a peplos-adorned woman (Fig. 2.14).225 The woman holds a

thyrsos in one hand and an oinochoe in the other, making her part of the gerarai. Another peplos-

clad woman wearing an expensive diadem stands behind the god. She holds an ivy wreath that

she places over the god’s head to crown him. Due to her crown, she is most likely the basilinna

crowning her husband disguised as Dionysos. Flanking the women and the god are two young

224
As stated above, Ariadne also hanged herself in myth, albeit a later one recounted by Plutarch. That said, Ariadne
may have been linked with hanging as early as the fifth century BCE. According to Pausanias, the fifth-century BCE
painter Polygnotos created a wall painting at Delphi in which Ariadne sits on a rock beside her sister Phaidra, who is
on a swing (Paus. 10.29.1). Phaidra, like Ariadne, also hanged herself (Eur. Hipp. 769–77). This scene with the two,
then, calls to mind the Aiora, where swinging was synonymous with hanging, perhaps linking Ariadne with the
Aiora as well. Thus, the basilinna may have also mimicked and honoured Ariadne during the Aiora.
225
Copenhagen, The National Museum of Denmark ABC 1021, ARV2 1035.2 and 1037.1.

75
satyrs: one stands on the far right with a barbitos, while the other stands on the far left with an

aulos. On the opposite side of the vessel is a woman, probably one of the gerarai, who stands in

the middle and wears a himation while holding a thyrsos. Flanking both her sides are two

himation-clad satyrs: the one on the right holds a kantharos, and the one on the left a torch. The

satyrs on both sides of the kalyx-krater are again part of this Dionysian band of partiers. This

time, however, some of them are hired as musicians and entertainers for their wedding banquet.

An Attic chous decoration from the last years of the fifth century BCE is comparable to

the above vase-paintings. It shows a youthful Dionysos sitting on a klismos as he holds a thyrsos

(Fig. 2.15).226 To the left of the god is a woman with coiffed hair wearing a chiton and an animal

skin, who offers him a plate full of grapes. Behind Dionysos is a table that looks similar to the

table depicted on the Aiora scene, which portrays a boy on a swing.227 Thus, it is likely that the

depictions of the Aiora and this banquet are connected, making it probable that the real-life

ceremonies of both were interconnected. Behind the table is a satyr with a plate of meat, which

further suggests that the chous-painting portrays a sort of banquet.

Given the previous example, we may suppose that the chous decoration depicts a nuptial

feast during the Anthesteria in which the gerarai and the Choes revelers offer “Dionysos” meat

and grapes at the Boukoleion. This offering of food was initially portrayed in our previous

depictions of the Aiora and subsequent wine-mixing ritual, where the basilinna and gerarai

offered food to Dionysos’ image near Limnai to welcome the god. However, the vase-scenes in

this section reference an actual feast at the Boukoleion. Since dinnerware was discovered at the

Description and image of the chous found in Isler-Kerényi 2014, 145.

226

As Isler-Kerényi 2014, 145, rightly points out. She, however, does not associate this scene with the sacred
227

wedding or even the Aiora.

76
supposed location of the Boukoleion, we may suppose that a wedding feast may have taken place

at this building, which are further attested by the previously discussed vase-scenes.

2.6.3 Consummation of the Sacred Wedding

Lastly, we may conclude this section by discussing two particular vase-paintings that

potentially portray the aftermath of the sacred wedding feast in which “Dionysos” and the

basilinna consummate their marriage. The first scene comes from a kalyx-krater made by

Polygnotos group, dating from a similar time period as our aforementioned scenes (Fig. 2.16).228

It depicts a nude Dionysos holding a kantharos and drunkenly stumbling to the entrance of a

house. By this entrance, stands a woman, whom we may assume represents the basilinna waiting

for her god-disguised husband at their home, so that they can consummate their “sacred” union.

Given that “Dionysos” holds a kantharos that is depicted in the visual representations of the

wedding feast and procession, it is likely that the “god” in this vase represents the basileus who

is returning home from the drinking portion of the wedding feast, an event that the basilinna

unlikely took part in,229 to have sex with his wife as a way to celebrate their marriage and the end

of the Anthesteria. Another kalyx-krater from this same artist group confirms this consummation

since it portrays Dionysos and Ariadne sitting on a bed while served by Eros (Fig. 2.17),230 a

representation likely analogous to an actual consummation during the sacred wedding ceremony

between the basilinna and her husband.231

228
Tarquinia, Museo Nazionale Tarquiniese RC4197, ARV2 1057.96.
229
Though we have one account of women taking part in recreational wine-drinking at a wedding banquet (Men.
Dysk. 949), it is likely that women, as Kilker 2008, 37 points out, did not partake in such events during martial or
even regular feasts due to a lack of evidence.
230
Tübingen, Eberhard-Karls-Universität, Archäologisches Institut 5439, ARV2 1057.97.
231
Simon 1983, 97 comes to a similar conclusion; however, she thinks that Dionysos returned from the Choes
contest. Furthermore, she suggests that “Dionysos” is a priest of the god, not the basileus.

77
2.7 Conclusion

The duties of the basilinna, such as her marriage with “Dionysos”, were related to the

Anthesteria, since they were connected to or took place at or near Limnai. She swore in the

gerarai at Limnai, so that these women could help her with her marriage ceremony with

“Dionysos”, who was in fact her real husband disguised as the god. The wedding ceremony

welcomed Dionysos to promote Athen’s viticulture while also celebrating the marriage between

the basilinna and her real husband. Similar to her husband, the basilinna mimicked Dionysian

brides and other characters associated with the god, such as nymphs and bacchai, during the

Anthesteria. The gerarai, too, imitated bacchai and nymphs. After swearing in her assistants, the

basilinna, gerarai, and young Athenian boys and girls took part in the Aiora ceremony near

Limnai, which served as a premarital and coming-of-age rite for the basilinna and this young

group of Athenians respectively. The female celebrants of the Aiora then placed an image of

Dionysos and garments, both objects swung in the Aiora, on a pillar for which they dedicated

food, mixed wine, prayers, libations, songs, and dance as a way to honour Erigone and

symbolically host Dionysos as a premarital rite. Once this ceremony was over, the basilinna and

her assistants at Limnai met up with her husband and participants from the Choes feast and

competition in order to sacrifice a he-goat, which was a preliminary martial dedication before her

and the basileus’ wedding ceremony. This same group of people marched to the Boukoleion to

perform the wedding ceremony at night, which resulted in a wedding banquet and, later, the

basilinna and “Dionysos” consummating their marriage, signifying the end of the festival.

78
 Chapter 2 List of Figures

Figure 2.1 Goat sacrifice at the Fountain-house Enneakrounos, late-sixth century BCE, Attic black-figure skyphos.
Athens, National Museum 12531. Image taken from Ferrari (2003), fig. 14a-b.

Figure 2.2 Women fumigating garments on a swing, ca. 420–10 BCE, Attic red-figure chous. New York,
Metropolitan Museum 75.2.11. Image taken from: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/244817

79
Figure 2.3 Older woman pushing an older girl on a swing, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic red-figure hydria. Berlin,
Antikensammlung F2394. Image taken from: https://www.carc.ox.ac.uk/record/4E5B11A4-3C26-4857-AEC0-
FCF25A2A4D74

Figure 2.4 Older girl on a swing while pushed by a satyr, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic red-figure skyphos. Berlin,
Antikensammlung F2589. Image taken from: https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/ACA06D2E-929D-4795-B04F-
72459F5A3301

80
 Figure 2.5 Bearded man placing young boy on a swing, last half of fifth century BCE, Attic red-figure chous.
Athens, National Museum VS319. Image taken from: https://www.namuseum.gr/en/monthly_artefact/a-child-on-
the-aiora/

Figure 2.6 Bearded mask of Dionysos on a liknon, 430–20 BCE, Attic red-figure chous. Athens, National Museum
VS318. Image taken from: https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/15CAE858-AB79-41B2-970F-27167669DBC3

81
Figure 2.7 Frenzied women dancing and playing instruments in front of Dionysos’ image, ca. 490–480 BCE, Attic
red-figure kylix. Berlin, Antikenmuseen F2290. Image taken from:
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/artifact?name=Berlin%20F%202290&object=Vase

Figure 2.8 Women ladling wine in front of an image of Dionysos, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic red-figure stamnos.
Boston, Fine Museum of Arts 90.155. Image taken from: https://collections.mfa.org/objects/153877/lidded-jar-
stamnos-depicting-women-congregated-about-an-id?ctx=07eacd3e-8c78-4802-a6f1-6a224d3bf747&idx=3

82
Figure 2.9 Wine-ladling scene with a liknon, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic red-figure stamnos. San Antonio, San
Antonio Museum of Fine Arts 86.134.64. Image taken from:
https://sanantonio.emuseum.com/objects/5297/stamnos-jar-with-women-performing-rites-for-
dionysos?ctx=3c51fded-9b4b-4866-9c3b-f24781edae13&idx=0

Figure 2.10 Women wearing patterned chitonai in front of Dionysos’ image, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic red-
figure stamnos. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale H2419. Image taken from:
https://www.carc.ox.ac.uk/record/1A4F5987-8F07-4724-9420-64BBBC44BA54

83
Figure 2.11 Dionysos holding a thyrsos looks back to a satyr carrying the klismos and a kantharos, ca. 470–440
BCE, Attic red-figure skyphos. Moscow, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, II 1b 600. Image taken from:
https://collection.pushkinmuseum.art/entity/OBJECT/732105?otdel=9&index=37

Figure 2.12 Women holding a kantharos and thyrsos follows a satyr carrying a klismos and kantharos, mid-fifth
century BCE, Attic red-figure bell-krater. Paris, Louvre G 422. Image taken from:
https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010270272

84
 Figure 2.13 Veiled woman tending to Dionysos seated on a klismos, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic red-figure
stamnos. Louvre G 406. Image taken from: https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/BF765DB1-1264-4759-A57A-
71930BB8131B

Figure 2.14 Diadem-wearing woman crowning Dionysos, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic red-figure kalyx-krater.
Copenhagen, The National Museum of Denmark ABC 1021. Image taken from:
https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/CA84F082-0714-4BB8-A041-1B15318E8AF3

85
Figure 2.15 Young Dionysos seated on a klismos and offered grapes and meat by a woman and satyr, ca. 420-10
BCE, chous decoration. Image taken from Isler-Kerényi (2014), fig. 82, p. 145.

Figure 2.16 Dionysos stumbling to a woman, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic red-figure kalyx-krater. Tarquinia,
Tarquinia, Museo Nazionale Tarquiniese RC4197. Image taken from:
https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/70B5C797-18A8-44D1-B613-5D648C618EDB

86
Figure 2.17 Dionysos in bed with Ariadne, mid-fifth century BCE, Attic red-figure kalyx-krater. Tübingen,
Eberhard-Karls-Universität, Archäologisches Institut 5439. Image taken from:
https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/D3AEBBC8-797D-46CE-A23C-43BB965CD96C

87
 CHAPTER 3 THE AIORA AS A RITE OF PASSAGE

3.1 Introduction

As I mentioned briefly in Chapter 2, young Athenian women participated in the Aiora as

a rite of passage, where they performed a mock hanging to make themselves eligible for

marriage, and, later, childbearing, while honouring Erigone and previous Athenian girls who

hanged themselves and were thus unable to partake in these milestones. This chapter highlights

that the Anthesteria promoted the fertility of its young female celebrants through its Aiora

ceremony, which allowed these participants to mature into nubile and fertile women. I shall first

examine what constituted a rite of passage for ancient Greek girls in relation to their social and

physical development and thus classify the Aiora as such a rite. As I outline the parameters of a

rite of passage, I will underscore that ancient Greek girls performed this ritual to relinquish their

status as “maidens” (parthenoi) to make themselves eligible for marriage, which indicated their

social and even physical development. A special emphasis will also be placed on how the Greek

participants of a rite of passage experienced a pseudo-death as they performed the ceremony in

order to abandon their previous status and obtain a new one. They “died” as maidens (parthenoi)

by performing the rite and were subsequently “reborn” as brides (nymphai), eventually leading

them to become women (gynaikes) in the future once they had children.

Throughout this chapter, I shall compare the Aiora to similar rites of passage performed

in Artemis’ cult, where girls enacted a mock hanging by suspending images of themselves and

Artemis on trees. These rituals, with the Aiora included, protected young girls from dangers,

such as disease, that prevented them from maturing and thus inhibiting their fertility. In my

comparison of Aiora and these Artemisian rites, I shall also highlight how the Aiora not only

88
promoted the reproductive health of young Athenian women but also agrarian fertility, given that

the Artemisian mock hangings were performed by girls in the context of Artemis’ vegetation

cults. Furthermore, female and vegetal fecundity were entwined with each other in mock

hangings, with the Anthesteria and its Aiora ceremony being no exception.

3.2 Rite of Passage

This section discusses what was entailed in a rite of passage, especially in relation to how

the ancient Greeks conceptualized the various life stages of a female’s life and how she

transitioned from each stage both socially and physically. The Aiora is discussed in relation to

these two concepts, with particular attention placed on how a maiden performing a mock

hanging experienced a pseudo-death, in which her maidenhood “died” via a temporary marriage

with Hades, so that she could be reborn as a bride (nymphe) and eventually a woman (gyne).

3.2.1 Definition of a Rite of Passage by Arnold van Gennep

The concept of a rite of passage is closely examined by Arnold van Gennep, who, in his

study of various initiation rituals throughout various societies, which include ancient Greece,

suggests that it was a type of ceremony that allowed an individual to move from one social status

to another. Such a rite included marriage, puberty, and funerary rituals.232 Within a rite of

passage were three stages: rites of separation (pre-liminal rites), rites of transition (liminal rites)

and rites of incorporation (post-liminal rites); however, some of these stages may have been

emphasized while others were not.233 In the first stage, the initiand, who was not considered a

proper and active member of their society, left their home and community to stay with other

232
Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, trans. Monika Vizedom, and Gabrielle Caffee (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1960), 3.
233
Van Gennep 1960, 11.

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initiands and those who would initiate them. The last phase reintegrated them back into their

communities as fully functioning participants of their societies, who, from then on, would fulfil

their societal tasks.234 During the middle (liminal) phase, the individual performing a rite of

passage may alter their appearance by wearing costumes such as masks.235 Furthermore, in this

same stage, a person may have undergone a mock death and rebirth, where their “death” marked

the end of their old status, while their “resurrection” signified their newly attained position.236

Sometimes, when the initiand was “dead”, they stripped themselves naked to highlight their

liminality.237

3.2.2 The Ancient Greek Concept of Social and Physical Development

The above parameters fit well with the Aiora; however, before associating the Aiora with

a rite of passage, we must first address one potential issue in relating this schema to how the

ancient Greeks may have conceptualized a rite of passage for girls. Van Gennep notes that a rite

of passage emphasized an individual’s social progress, or what he calls “social puberty”, given

that, for example, marriage could change a person’s social standing. Especially in relation to

girls, their “social puberty” was not predicated on their “physiological puberty” (e.g. menarche,

development of breasts) since the former could precede the latter. A notable ancient Greek

example is that a girl could marry at the age of fourteen or earlier, making it likely that she was

not fully developed physically at the time of her marriage.238

234
Van Gennep 1960, 35.
235
Van Gennep 1960, 71–75; cf. Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago: Aldine,
1969), 172–77.
236
Van Gennep 1960, 71–75.
237
Van Gennep 1960, 81.
238
Van Gennep 1960, 65–66; cf. Helen King, Hippocrates’ Woman: Reading the Female Body in Ancient Greece
(Oxford: Routledge, 1998), 77. It is important to note that the physical changes of a girl (or boy) during puberty do
not happen all at once, making it even more difficult to align a rite of passage with these physical developments, a
point which van Gennep highlights in the same passage.

90
 Although van Gennep is correct in that a Greek girl most likely experienced marriage, a

social change, before her complete physical development, he does not account for the fact that

the Greeks used various terms to categorize a female as she was living in the various stages of

her life, which were linked with both her social and physical development. Some of these terms

are parthenos and gyne which denote a maiden and woman respectively. Tentatively speaking,

the major difference between the two seems to be that they only indicated a female’s marital

status, with the former signifying that she was unmarried, while the latter denoted that she was

legally married.239 Similarly the word kore, often translated as girl, also described a maiden and

was used in relation to her marriage status. However, the term was applied in a slightly different

context compared to parthenos. Kore denoted a young female who was under the legal authority

of her father. A female relinquished her status as kore once she married a man, with her marriage

then signifying that she was no longer her father’s kore, but instead her husband’s gyne.240 Thus,

there was a transfer of male guardianship once a kore became a gyne.

Considering the above definitions of parthenos, kore, and gyne, we may assume that all

stages spanned the time from when a female was unmarried to when she was married, with the

first two terms denoting the former, while the last representing the latter. There are, however,

problems in differentiating each stage with regard to a female’s marriage status. In between the

stages of parthenos/kore and gyne was a period called nymphe, which signified that a female was

either a bride, young wife, or a young girl at a marriageable age.241 Already, we see the potential

meanings of nymphe overlap with both parthenos, kore and gyne, since nymphe not only

encompassed married but also unmarried females. Thus, if we only use a female’s marriage

239
Ken Dowden, Death and the Maiden: Girls’ Initiation Rites in Greek Mythology (London: Routledge, 1989), 2.
240
Dowden 1989, 2.
241
Dowden 1989, 104–105.

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standing as an indicator of her social status, the distinctions between all three categories are

vague.

Other than a female’s nuptial status, we have yet to consider the sexual status of a female,

which further complicates the meanings of each stage. For example, parthenos, often denoting a

female who was a virgin, was also used to describe an older unmarried woman, or even an

unmarried woman who had a child.242 Giulia Sissa notes that a parthenos’ standing was not

defined by her maintaining her parthenia (virginity), since the ancient Greeks could not test if a

female lost her virginity, unless, of course, she admitted to losing it or there were witnesses.

Ancient Greek medical doctors were not aware of the rupture, let alone the existence of the

hymen,243 which, from our modern perspective, indicates when a female was no longer a

virgin.244

Considering the issues of separating each stage based upon marriage and sexual status,

Helen King proposes a different way of differentiating each period, where a female’s social

status was entwined with her physical growth. She first proposes that a female’s formative stages

spanned from right before she was betrothed all the way to when she gave birth to her first child.

Nymphe was the “latent period” which spanned the time from when she was marriageable to

when she was actually married. Parthenos/kore was the point before her betrothal and eligibility

for marriage. She only became a “true” gyne when she, while married and thus already legally

considered a gyne, bore her first child, since childbearing was a gyne’s societal role and thus

242
Koronis, who has a child with Apollo, is called a parthenos by Pindar. See Pin. Pyth. 34. For an older unmarried
female called a parthenos, see Hippoc. Mul. 2.127, L 8; King 1983, 112.
243
Giulia Sissa, “Une Virginité sans Hymen: Le Corps Féminin en Grèce Ancienne,” Annales: Histoire Sciences
Sociales 39, no. 6 (1984): 1125–30.
244
Of course, at least in our current understanding of the hymen in modern medicine, the hymen does not always
rupture during or after sexual intercourse.

92
defined her status.245 King then suggests that a female experienced uterine bleeding as she

transitioned from each successive social stage of her life, which she calls “transitional bleeding”.

Menarche usually happened in between the parthenos/kore and nymphe stage while lochial

bleeding happened between the nymphe and gyne phase. However, these bleedings, she argues,

were not necessarily a legal indicator of a female’s transition from each stage of her life. They

did, however, highlight a female’s physical development along with her social progress.246

Though perhaps not representative of a common opinion in ancient Greece, Hippocratic

doctors associated uterine bleeding with the normal bodily and, more importantly, reproductive

functions of gynaikes, which supports King’s theory of “transitional bleeding” representing a

female’s transition into a “true” gyne. The Hippocratics emphasized that a gyne needed to bleed

regularly via menstruation in order for her to function normally and maintain good general and

reproductive health.247 Heavy and regular menstrual flow was especially important for

nourishing a foetus to full term, given that the Hippocractics viewed it as nourishment for a

growing fetus.248 As with menstruation, lochial flow expelled after a gyne bore her first child was

important to how a gyne’s body should normally function. A lack of this flow could endanger her

life and affect her ability to have children in the future.249 Lochia was often conflated with

menstrual blood by these doctors,250 emphasizing how the two types of bleeding are related to

each other and associated with a fully developed and fertile gyne. Given that childbearing

245
King 1983, 112; cf. Dowden 1989, 201.
246
King 1983, 121. King rightly points out other signs that marked a female’s “ripeness” for marriage such as voice
changes and the development of breasts (Arist. HA. 581a 31-b 24) could happen before one of these bleedings
started (e.g. menarche). Furthermore, as seen above, a female who expelled lochia by giving birth to a child could be
considered a parthenos if she was not married. She also associates defloration and the rupture of the hymen as part
of these bleedings. We must note that her article preceded Sissa’s work on the hymen in the ancient Greek world.
247
Hippoc. Mul. 1.6, L 8. 30; cf. Mul. 1.78, L 8.190.
248
Hippoc. Nat. puer. 15–16, L 7.494-6; 30, L 7.534.
249
Hippoc. Mul. 1.29, 40–41; King 1983, 121.
250
Hippoc. Mul. 1.6, 1.72, 2.113; Nat. puer. 18.

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defined a gyne, it is unsurprising that the Hippocratics deemed one as healthy based on her

ability to bear children without any issues, which required her to bleed regularly from her womb.

These bleedings will be connected in a later section to maidens hanging themselves, especially in

relation to Artemis’ cult and her role in guiding young girls to bleed as they progress into the

next stages of their life. Also, I will discuss such bleedings in the next chapter with regard to

gynaecological disorders which blocked menstrual flow, affecting a female’s fertility.

3.2.3 The Aiora as a Rite of Passage

Considering Van Gennep’s schema of a rite of passage and King’s suggestion of how the

Greeks perceived social and physical development, we may see notable similarities between the

Aiora and the two scholars’ theories. Athenian parthenoi/korai participated in this ceremony in

order to become nymphai, i.e., young women eligible for marriage. Though the basilinna,

another participant of the Aiora, was married to the basileus and thus legally a gyne already, she,

too, underwent a, albeit temporary, social change, since she, as I argued before, was renewing her

status as parthenos to take part in the Aiora and later marriage ceremony with her husband. In

any case, the female participants of this ceremony were in an area near Dionysos’ precinct, which

was away from their paternal or marital homes and thus resembles a rite of separation. As I have

already noted, a girl (kore) was under the legal authority of father and only became a woman

(gyne) by having her husband become her guardian, instead of her father, via marriage.251 This

transfer of authority may have been represented when a newly-married woman moved from her

paternal home to her husband’s during her wedding.252 Thus, when the female participants of the

Aiora left their home to perform this rite, they were effectively entering a liminal period, where

251
Dowden 1989, 2.
252
Seaford 1987, 124, 128.

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they were neither under the care of their father nor husband. Instead, they were under the

temporary guardianship of the gerarai, who would have guided them in their rite of passage.

The participants of the Aiora mimicking of Erigone’s hanging through swinging

encompasses a rite of transition, since they undergo a symbolic death. This “death” represents

their abandonment of their maidenhood, which “dies” as they prepare for marriage and

motherhood. This is especially true if we consider that the parthenos Persephone, in the Homeric

Hymn to Demeter, descends into the underworld and abandons her status as a parthenos by

becoming the bride (nymphe) of the god of the underworld, Hades.253 After her marriage, she

ascends from the underworld back into the world of the living, solidifying her newly obtained

status.254 Her descent, then, represents her symbolic death as a maiden, while her ascent signifies

her rebirth as a nymphe and eventually gyne once she has children.

In real-life wedding ceremonies, a nymphe on her wedding night underwent a pseudo-

death as she was about to become, at least legally, a gyne. During her wedding, a nymphe was

treated in a similar manner to a corpse at a funeral: both were ritually washed, adorned with a

garments and crown, and physically removed from their kin and transferred into the hands of a

male who was not their father.255 Thus, a nymphe, who was treated as a corpse, symbolically died

on her wedding night and was then reborn as a gyne after her nuptials.

Considering the above examples, maidens who performed the Aiora ceremony underwent

a “death” through their “hanging” and were thus in a temporary union with Hades, where their

maiden selves died with their marriage to the god of the underworld, causing them to be reborn

253
Hom. Hymn Dem. 75–85.
254
Hom. Hymn Dem. 370ff.
255
Seaford 1987, 107.

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as females eligible for marriage, i.e., nymphai.256 Their undergoing a mock death through

hanging, then, was paradoxical for two reasons: they had to “die” in order to be “reborn” as a

bride through their union with death and, as part their transition into womanhood, underwent a

bloodless death (i.e. hanging), so that they could later marry and, more importantly, bleed in

childbirth and thus become true gynaikes. We must also note that the basilinna, who was also a

participant of the Aiora, performed a marriage ceremony right after the hanging ritual. In her

nuptials, she, despite already being married, assumed the role of a maiden in order to marry

“Dionysos”, who had associations with the underworld and Hades.257 Thus, she married a

chthonic god, indicating that her maiden self “died”, which then caused her to be reborn, or more

specifically, reinstated as a legal gyne once her mock union with the “god” was complete.258

When a young woman actually hanged herself, she failed to become a woman and was

forever doomed to be a perpetual maiden or a bride, an inverse outcome to the mock hanging of

the Aiora. Erigone and the Athenian girls in the Aiora myth were parthenoi. By hanging

themselves, their premature deaths signified their inability to become nymphai and gynaikes

since they were unable to marry or have children and experience uterine bleedings linked with

these two stages. Instead, they were in an eternal union with Hades where they would not bleed.

Especially in tragedy, a young woman’s hanging was associated with her marriage with

the god of the underworld, defining her inability to abandon her formative stages, which was

necessary for her to reach the final stage of gyne. In Aischylos’ The Suppliants, the nymphai

256
Doria and Giuman 2016, 23.
257
Paus. 2.31.2. Dionysos descends into the underworld to save his mother Semele. He makes a similar descent in
Ar. Ran. (passim), but for slightly different reasons. For a compilation of ancient sources that link Dionysos with
Hades, see Karl Kerényi, Eleusis, Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter, trans. Ralph Manheim (New Jersey;
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 40, 149–62.
258
As stated in the last chapter, we are not sure whether the basilinna would have already had children when she
assumed her role. Thus, we are not certain if she was a “true” gyne.

96
Danaids, after refusing to marry their Egyptian bridegrooms, threaten to hang themselves while

stating that they yearn for a union with Hades as opposed to an actual marriage.259 In Sophokles’

play, Antigone, a nymphe, evokes Hades as her groom before she hangs herself.260 When she

does kill herself, the area where she performed this deed is called a tomb and bridal chamber by

the chorus.261 Especially in the case of Antigone, her suicide prevents her from taking part in

real-life marriage and childbearing, the latter of which would cause her to bleed. Her suicide

through hanging, a bloodless death, therefore defined her inability to bleed, a point I will return

to in the next section. The Danaids, though they do not hang themselves in Aischylos’ play, do

hint at their unwillingness to take part in marriage and childbirth, wishing instead to remain as

nymphai or even going further to revert into parthenoi by reneging their engagement.

As I mentioned in the previous chapter, the basilinna, a gyne, renews her parthenos status

by taking part in the mock hanging of the Aiora. This renewal of her maiden status calls to mind

the gyne Phaidra, who, like the basilinna, reverts into a state of a parthenos through her hanging.

In her pursuit of Hippolytos, she yearns to break off her union with her husband and move into

the realm of Artemis, the wilderness,262 an area that signified her separation from her marital

home and was where parthenoi practiced their rites to the goddess.263 However, her reverting

into this state is permanent when she, as opposed the basilinna’s mock hanging, actually hangs

herself, where she is rendered as a perpetual bride to Hades. She kills herself in her bridal

chamber and is thus called an “unhappy bride” (kakonymphe) by the chorus.264

259
Hanging: Aesch. Supp. 465. Hades: Aesch. Supp. 790ff.
260
Soph. Ant. 810ff.
261
Soph. Ant. 816, 891. Seaford 1987, 108 notes that the funeral hymn dedicated to Antigone, which is also
addressed to Eros, has marital associations, and thus hints at Antigone’s marriage with Hades.
262
Eur. Hipp. 210–30.
263
Often Artemis’ precincts, in which her maiden followers performed rites dedicated to her, were located in places
of nature (e.g. Brauron). See Dowden 1989 passim.
264
Eur. Hipp. 755–56, 765ff.

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 Interestingly, in Aeschylus’ Suppliants, the Danaids, as they threaten suicide, claim that

they will use their own girdles (zonai).265 Later on, they also invoke the parthenos Artemis to

help preserve their unmarried status and perhaps change them back into parthenoi.266 Their

invocation of the goddess and their desires to remain unmarried to the point of hanging

themselves with their zonai calls to mind an epithet of Artemis’, lysizonos (releaser of the zone),

which is named after this girdle. The zone was representative of Artemis’ and her young female

worshippers’ status as parthenoi, which was also connected with the goddess’ coming-of-age

rites practiced by these followers. This same object, based on one aforementioned vase-scene of

the Aiora, was worn by the basilinna and perhaps the other female participants of this ceremony;

thus, we should now compare the Aiora to rites practiced in Artemis’ cult.

3.3 The Aiora and an Artemisian Mock Hanging with the Zone

This section examines two epithets of Artemis’, apanchomene (the strangled one) and

lysizonos (releaser of the girdle), in relation to the goddess’ and maiden followers’ status as

parthenoi. I will further connect these two epithets to the goddesses’ role as a nurturing deity

who guided her maiden followers into adulthood by having them paradoxically “strangle”

themselves with their zone through a mock hanging, thus abandoning their maidenhood. These

rituals, in an apotropaic manner, also protected its maiden performers from dangers, such as

sexual assault, that compelled them to hang themselves with their girdle, an issue especially

endemic to young women which prevented them from fulfilling their predetermined destiny of

marrying and having children. The Aiora will then be compared to these Artemisian rites to

265
Aesch. Supp. 457–65.
266
Evoking Artemis: Aesch. Supp. 674ff, 1030ff.

98
indicate how the Aiora had a similar function of protecting its participants from similar dangers

that inhibited their maturation.

3.3.1 The Strangled Goddess

Artemis was also notably associated with parthenoi who committed suicide via hanging.

The goddess herself had a sobriquet linked with hanging. In a story recounted by Pausanias,

Artemis’ maiden followers at her Arkadian sanctuary in Kaphyai bequeathed the title

apanchomene onto an image of the goddess as they tied ropes around it. The goddess’ older

female followers (gynaikes) disapproved of this deed and thought it was an act of impiety. Thus,

they punished the girls by stoning them to death. The older women who killed the girls

experienced stillbirths as punishment from the goddess. In order to propitiate the goddess’ wrath,

the Pythian priestess ordained that these women must properly bury the dead maidens and

dedicate annual sacrifices to them. Furthermore, they needed to address Artemis as

apanchomene.267

This epithet is appropriate to the goddess when we consider that the maiden Danaids

threatened to hang themselves while invoking Artemis. This situation, however, is not the only

example where hanging was closely related to the maiden followers of Artemis. Pausanias speaks

of another myth in which Lakonian parthenoi performing a festival at Artemis’ precinct in

Karyai hanged themselves on nut trees after Messenian soldiers attempted to rape them.268 As

King notes, suicide via hanging was one of the many ways for girls, whether mythical or real-

life, in which they could avoid sexual assault and unwanted sex. Furthermore, hanging oneself

was a bloodless death. For a maiden to kill herself in such a way prevented her from reaching the

267
Paus. 8.23.6–7.
268
Paus. 3.10.7, 4.16.10.

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stages where she bled through menarche and childbirth, which, at least symbolically, usually

signified her eventual transition into a nymphe and gyne. A bloodless death like hanging was the

true embodiment of the eternal parthenos Artemis, who did not shed her own blood through the

above acts and therefore may be considered “strangled”. Thus, a maiden hanging herself

emphasized that she, like her patron goddess, was “strangled” and thus a perpetual parthenos.269

3.3.2 Lysizonos, the Zone and Rites of Passage

Though Artemis may not bleed, she did shed the blood of others, whether through

hunting, or more importantly, by guiding her followers into marriage and motherhood as a

nurturing deity who presided over her older maiden followers on the cusp of abandoning their

maidenhood. Girls wore girdles (zonai), which were emblematic of their various stages in their

lives. A parthenos was considered “ungirdled” initially but wore one once she reached puberty

and was about to marry.270 On the day she was married, she wore a special zone with a religious

knot that was released by her husband on her wedding night, which was then dedicated to

Artemis afterwards.271 As a woman was in labour, she, too, wore this girdle that she loosened as

she was about to give birth. She then consecrated it to Artemis after giving birth.272 With

Artemis’ association with the loosening of these girdles, the goddess was given the epithet,

lysizonos. This epithet was especially invoked by women when they were in labour, who called

upon Artemis-Eileithyia.273 Given the above examples, a girl wearing the zone signified that she

was a parthenos like Artemis. However, unlike her patron goddess who was eternally “strangled”

with her zone and never bled, a girl would abandon her maidenhood by being unleashed from her

269
King 1998, 83–84.
270
Call. fr. 620A.
271
King 1998, 85.
272
King 1998, 84–85; Anth. Pal. 6.200, 202, 272; cf. Sor. Gyn. 2.6, T 74.
273
Theoc. Id. 17.60–61; Eur. Hipp. 166–69.

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girdle in marriage, indicating that she became a nymphe. Later on, she would loosen this same

object in childbirth to signify that she has become a gyne. Especially in this last stage, she

underwent a “transitional bleeding” in the form of expelling lochial blood after childbirth.274

In the context of marriage, sex and the subsequent loosening of the zone was lawful in

Artemis’ cult, 275 since girls, who waited to have sex after marriage, practiced the preliminary

rites leading to their marriage and childbearing which then resulted in their dedicating their zone

to her. However, premarital sex was considered sexual misconduct. Artemis herself could be “a

lion among women”,276 and dangerous to her female followers if they did not conduct

themselves properly with regard to their sexuality. Girls who had sex prior to their prerequisite

coming-of-age and marital rites were punished, as seen with Kallisto.277

Along with premarital sex, a girl remaining a perpetual maiden was, paradoxically,

another form of sexual misconduct. A female worshipper of Artemis using the zone to hang

herself prevented her from marrying and bearing children. Thus, the zone in this context

eternalized a girl’s maidenhood as seen in the above examples from myth. Though a girl hanging

herself may seem appropriate to their patron goddess who was “strangled” and an eternal

parthenos, her dying as a maiden would be an extreme form of maidenhood that should only be

exclusive to Artemis,278 even if her reason for doing so was meant to protect herself from hazards

such as sexual assault. A female’s societal duty was to have children and thus her dying

274
At Artemis’ Orthian sanctuary near Sparta boys, too, underwent a ritual where they bled by being flogged, which
signified their transition into manhood. See: Paus. 3.16.10–11.
275
King 1998, 85; Anth. Pal. 7.164, 324; Eur. Alc. 177.
276
Hom. Il. 21. 470ff.
277
The parthenos Kallisto was turned into a bear by Artemis after being raped by Zeus (Hes. fr. 3; cf. Ov. Fast.
2.401–531).
278
Though Hippolytos was a male follower of Artemis, his extreme form of chastity was seen as a negative trait to
have by Euripides. See Eur. Hipp. passim.

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prematurely by hanging herself would be a form of sexual misconduct, since it would inhibit her

predetermined destiny.

3.3.3 An Artemisian Mock Hanging, the Aiora and the Zone

A mock hanging performed by young women in Artemis’ cult may have reflected a

solution to this problem of maidens hanging themselves, which would have also precluded them

from marrying or giving birth to children. A notable example is Artemis sanctuary at Meliteia in

Phthia, where girls venerated Aspalis, a girl who, in an etiological myth, hanged herself to avoid

rape. After she committed suicide, her body disappeared and was relocated to Artemis’ temple in

the form of a statue. An annual ceremony was commemorated in which maidens hung a goat

from this image of Aspalis to replicate Aspalis’ death.279 This mock hanging rite may have

protected young girls who were vulnerable to premature death, whether it was caused by rape,

suicide, or both.280 Thus, the participants of this rite honoured a fellow maiden, who was unable

to transition into the next stages of her life, in order to promote their own ability to do so. They

performed such a ritual under the watchful eye of their patron goddess, who would ensure their

protection from these dangers as well.

The rites enacted at Artemis’ Meliteian precinct parallels the Aiora, since both are a rite

of passage in which girls nearing a marriageable age replicated the suicide of a worshipped

maiden(s). In alternative myths, Erigone, as with Aspalis, was also associated with Artemis since

she was the goddess’ follower.281 Given that Aspalis and Erigone were linked with Artemis and

the fact they were worshipped by parthenoi, we may assume that the Aiora dedicated to Erigone

279
Ant. Lib. 13 = Nic. fr. 44.
280
Susan Cole, Landscapes, Gender, and Ritual Space: The Ancient Greek Experience. (Berkeley; California:
University of California Press, 2004), 207.
281
Marm. Par. 40; Apollod. Ep. 6.25; Etymn. Magn. s.v. “aiora” and “aletis”; Hyg. Fab. 122.

102
had a similar purpose to the ritual which honoured Aspalis: as mock hangings both rites were

performed by maidens to honour a girl of similar status who was unable to become a woman, so

that they themselves could transition into the next stages of their life.

Since Erigone and Aspalis were connected with Artemis, we may assume that they

hanged themselves with the zone, with their subsequent rites dedicated to them also

incorporating this very object. Before Aspalis’ body disappeared, her brother took off her

garment (stola) to prevent those who threatened to rape her from cutting her corpse down.282 His

taking off her clothes implies that she may have used her clothes as a noose, such as her zone.

Thus, girls who honoured her may have hung a goat, which represented Aspalis, on her statue

with a zone. The hanging of this goat with the girdle signified their own maidenhood. It is likely

that they, after the ceremony, needed to unhang or untie the goat from the zone, which probably

signified their own undoing of this same object in the future during their wedding night or when

they would give birth to their first child.

In relation to the Aiora, we have iconographical evidence of the basilinna donning the

zone during this rite.283 It is likely that she wore this girdle as she “hanged” herself to emphasize

her maidenhood by mimicking the death of Erigone and even the Athenian maidens in the Aiora

myth, who likely killed themselves with the same object. Given that she performed a marriage

ceremony right after the Aiora, her zone was likely released during her wedding by her groom

“Dionysos”, signifying her symbolic transition into a nymphe/gyne. Though the younger female

participants of the Aiora did not participate in a wedding ceremony, we may assume that they

wore the same girdle during the Aiora since they were replicating the above mythical maidens.

282
Ant. Lib. 13 = Nic. fr. 44.
283
See 2.5.1.

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However, unlike the basilinna, their wearing the zone emphasized that they were ready for

marriage and hinted at their eventually releasing this same object in their future wedding.

3.4 Clothing and Mock Hangings That Promoted Fertiltiy

Just as the zone was related to maidens hanging themselves and important to a girl’s rite

of passage in Artemis’ cult, so too were garments. Girls dressing and undressing themselves was

important to the coming-of-age ceremonies practiced in Artemis’ cult, where, in certain

instances, these same participants may have also created images of themselves and Artemis to

dress with clothing and hang on trees to honour a dead maiden as a mock hanging. These

particular mock hangings may have had a purpose of protecting young women from ailments that

caused them to die prematurely, preventing them from having children. Furthermore, the above

rites promoted vegetal and female fertility, given that the two types of fecundity were entwined,

and the fact these mock hangings were also performed in Artemis’ vegetation cults. Thus, such

rites will also be compared to the Aiora with regard to the Aiora’s prophylactic and fertility-

promoting properties, since the adornment of Dionysos’ image with clothes was also integral to

the mock hanging of the Aiora. The god’s image was also associated with his vegetation cults.

3.4.1 Nudity, Clothing and Hanging

Garments were notably important to Artemis’ cult and the goddess’ rites of passage. At

Miletos the goddess herself garnered the epithet chitone, which was named after the Ionian

garment, the chiton.284 A festival held there was called the Neleis in which girls at a marriageable

age wore this garment while they danced in front of their entire community. The festival was

named after its eponymous founder Neleus, who married his son to the daughter of the king of

284
Hdt. 5.86–87.

104
Myus to settle a war between the two factions. The couple danced as part of their wedding

ceremony.285 The ceremony of dancing while dressed in the chiton mimicked the union between

the two and was most likely a mock marriage which would serve as a rite of passage for Milesian

girls.286 Clothing and especially the chiton were an indicator of a girl’s transition from

maidenhood into wifehood, especially when we consider their dressing in this type of clothing

would also signify their association and perhaps mimicry of their patron marital goddesses such

as Artemis. At neighbouring Ephesos select girls in a prenuptial rite dressed as Artemis by

wearing a chiton akin to hers. As with the Milesian rite, there was a group dance between boys

and girls,287 indicating that a mock marriage was performed as well.

Having a young female worshipper of Artemis dress up in clothing sacred to Artemis as a

premarital rite would entail the girl stripping herself naked in order to change into this new set of

clothes. In relation to rites of passage pertaining to girls, nudity, as noted above, marked a state

of liminality. At Brauron, where another sanctuary of Artemis stood in which young women

practiced coming-of-age rite, girls, as depicted on vessels dedicated at this site, may have run

naked in a race.288 After running nude, these girls may have donned the saffron robe sacred to

Artemis, the krokotos, as part of their rite of passage.289 The maidens at Miletos probably

participated in a similar ritual in which they stripped themselves naked and wore a chiton. The

difference between the Milesian ritual and the Brauronian ceremony is that girls performing the

former rite also participated in a group dance that signified a mock marriage.

285
Aristainetus Ep. Erot. 1.15; Plut. Mor. 253f–254b.
286
Cole 2004, 224–25.
287
The maiden Anthia, who took part in this rite, further imitates Artemis by wearing a nebris (fawnskin) and
holding a bow and quiver (Xen Ephes. 1.2.2–7).
288
Dowden 1989, 30; Cole 2004, 223.
289
Ar. Lys. 641–47.

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 Girls undressing and dressing themselves as part of these Artemisian coming-of-age

rituals may have been entwined with myths of girls hanging themselves. In one myth, a woman

rudely evicted a visiting Artemis from the Ephesian king’s dwelling. In retaliation, Artemis

turned the woman into a dog, but in an act of pity transformed her back into a human. The

woman in her shame hanged herself with her own zone. Artemis then stripped herself naked and

adorned the corpse of the woman with her clothes and named it “Hekate”.290 In another myth,

albeit unrelated to Artemis, there was a crisis at Miletos in which parthenoi experiencing some

kind of suffering (pathos) had the urge to hang themselves, with some fulfilling the deed. They

were eventually stopped after the Milesians threatened to strip their corpses naked and parade

them throughout the city if they hanged themselves.291

These two myths, however, are not connected by our ancient sources to any ritual

practice performed in Artemis’ cult. Despite their lack of ritual associations with Artemis, we

may suppose that these stories were an aitia for a rites of passage that Ionian girls practiced in

which they dressed up images of themselves and then hung them on trees at Artemis’ precinct.

Though not related to Artemisian ritual, the third-century CE biographer Diogenes Laertios

describes a story in which Diogenes of Sinope (4th cent. BCE) sees figurines of girls hung on

trees.292 This story implies that this practice of hanging female statuettes may have had ritual

purposes and were common. As mentioned above, Aspalis became an image associated with

Artemis that was suspended in some way. It is also important to note that in the myth of Aspalis,

the clothing on her corpse was taken off before it eventually disappeared and became a statue,293

which shares similarities with the tale of the Milesian girls and “Hekate”. The corpse of

290
Call. fr. 461 = Eust. ad Od. 12.85; Phot. s.v. “agalma hekates”.
291
Plut. Mor. 249b–d.
292
Diog. Laert. 6.52.
293
See n. 264.

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“Hekate” especially parallels the body of Aspalis, given that both become associated with

Artemis.294 “Hekate”, despite a being gyne in the above story,295 may be a parthenos, given that

she uses, as with most parthenoi like Aspalis, a zone as noose to hang herself. The Milesian

maidens may have attempted to hang themselves in a similar manner.

Based on the example of Aspalis, Sarah Iles Johnston suggests that fuller versions of the

“Hekate” and Milesian girls myth may have involved the corpses of both turning into statues and

were worshipped in Artemis’ cult, where girls as a rite of passage undressed and re-dressed these

images. She further bases her point on the fact that cult images were unclothed and clothed,

albeit during the cleaning of them,296 and how clothing, such as the chiton, was notably

important for maidens who wore them in the aforementioned premarital rites enacted in

Artemis’ Ionian sanctuaries.297 Considering Diogene’s story, which Johnston does not account

for, we may assume that these statue-turned girls were also hung on trees and thus influenced a

real-life ritual performed in Artemis’ cult.

3.4.2 Fertility Rite of Adorning and Hanging Artemis’ Image on Trees

As with the Ionian figurines of Artemisian girls, statues of Artemis were adorned with

clothing and then hung on trees. At Orchomenos in Arkadia a wooden image of Artemis was

hung on a cedar tree.298 Though not suspended on trees, another wooden effigy of the goddess

was located in Miletos and adorned with fruit and jewellery.299 Images of the goddess either

294
Hekate was often conflated with Artemis’ identity by being an epithet of hers (Aesch. Supp. 674ff).
295
Johnston notes that gyne could refer to any female as well. Sarah Iles Johnston, Restless Dead: Encounters
Between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece (Berkeley; California: University of California Press, 1999),
242.
296
The image of Athena Polias had her clothing taken off as she was being washed in a cleansing ritual (Xen. Hell.
1.4.12; Plut. Alc. 34.2).
297
Johnston 1992, 234, 243.
298
Paus. 8.13.2.
299
Schol. Callim. Jov. 77.

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covered with fruit or hung on trees, or perhaps both, has led previous scholars to associate her

epithet apanchomene to her role as a vegetation deity.300 However, with our previous discussions

on the significance of apanchomene, the title was also representative of the goddess’ role of

guiding her maiden followers into marriage and motherhood by metaphorically strangling them

and then un-strangling them via their zone.

This symbolism was also manifested with her mythical and real-life followers having

either images of themselves or Artemis suspended on trees. The Milesian statue of Artemis that

was adorned with clothing may have been hung by girls as well, given the tales of the Milesian

girls and the body of “Hekate” and the fact that the practice of suspending female figurines on

trees has also been attested throughout ancient Greece.301 By suspending an effigy of themselves

or Artemis, a girl was metaphorically strangling herself, which was indicative of her and her

patron goddess’ maiden status. Her hanging such images had further implications for her future,

since she would have adorned these images with clothing that had marital connotations, such as

the chiton. Furthermore, it is likely that the girl also unhung these images from trees after she

completed this ritual, which is analogous to how she would have also bound and unbound her

zone on her wedding night, and then loosened her girdle once she had a child.302 Therefore, the

practice of hanging figurines of girls and their patron goddess Artemis on trees should be seen as

another custom of promoting not only vegetal fertility, but also guiding girls in to wifehood and

motherhood.

300
e.g. Lewis Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States (Oxford: Clarendon press, 1896), 428; Nilsson 1955, 487.
301
See n. 277.
302
Artemis also has the epithet hemere (the one who tames) which works in tandem with her epithet lysizonos as part
of her role of guiding her female followers to wifehood and motherhood. Girls were also considered to be wild and
untamed, and were thus “yoked” (or symbolically bound) in marriage under Aphrodite’s yoke. King 1998, 77, 82.

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 3.4.3 Similarities Between the Aiora and the Figurine Rituals

Returning to the Aiora, we have previously noted that garments, which appear to be

chitones, and an image of Dionysos were swung by the young women during the ritual. These

same women placed Dionysos’ effigy onto a pillar and adorned it with the swung clothes. The

most notable similarity between the above Artemisian rites and the Aiora, is the fact that both

involve young women who were at a marriageable age adorning images of their patron gods with

garments. As I have noted with the Artemisian ceremonies, this dressing up of cult statues often

had marital connotations. The same may especially be applied to the Aiora, given that the

basilinna, who would take part in a wedding ceremony afterwards, was one of these women who

dressed up Dionysos’ image. The association between adorning a gods statue with women’s

clothing and marriage is especially clear, given that a statue of Hera, the goddess of marriage,

had her Samian statue adorned with bridal garments by young women as a premarital rite.303

The clothing used in the Aiora, however, may have also been worn by its female

celebrants as seen in the previously discussed vase-scenes. Their wearing garments during the

ceremony, which was also dedicated to their patron god Dionysos, shares similarities with the

clothing rituals performed by girls at Artemis’ Ephesian and Milesian cult sites. We must also

note that the Aiora had both young male and female participants, which again parallels these

Artemisian rites in Ionia. Given the similarities between the two rituals and the fact that songs

and dance were enacted by the participants of the Aiora, we may also assume that a group dance

303
Lactant. Div. inst. 1.17.8. In the same work, In the same work, Lactantius calls Samos “maidenly” (partheneia),
since he reports that the maiden Hera married Zeus on the same island.

109
between the ceremonies’ young male and female celebrants were performed at the Aiora, which

may have served as a mock marriage ceremony.304

Another connection between the Aiora and the Artemisian rituals is how the etiological

myths of both ceremonies involve maidens who hanged themselves while experiencing an

affliction which affected their mental faculties and caused their suicide. These depictions of

erratic girls hanging themselves resemble a common gynaecological condition described in the

Hippocratic work Diseases of Virgins,305 in which girls suffer from mental disturbances that

compel them to hang themselves. As we shall see in greater detail in the next chapter, the work

cites the sufferer’s inability to release menstrual blood as the cause of this illness. This particular

cause and symptom of the patient desiring to hang herself underscores how a girl’s hanging was

related to her inability to bleed, which is related to our discussion about the bloodless nature of

this type of death and how mock hangings served to make girls bleed as part of their maturation.

This Hippocratic work does note also that, when these girls were cured of this illness,

women, whether they were the cured patient or someone else,306 dedicated garments to Artemis.

Considering that young women performed hanging ceremonies to protect themselves from

dangers to which they were particularly vulnerable, such as disease, ancient Greek girls and

women may have also been cognizant of the fact that they were prone to ailments that caused

them to die prematurely. Thus, they “hanged themselves” by either swinging, as seen in the

Aiora, or hanging images of themselves or Artemis, as with the Artemisian rites, to enlist the

304
It is probably no coincidence that these Artemisian rites are similar to the Dionysian Aiora, given that, as
Soteroula Constantinidou highlights, there are close parallels between Dionysian and Artemisian cult, at least in
Sparta, with regard to both cults hosting coming-of-age rites that involved group dances between boys and girls.
See: Soteroula Constantinidou, “Dionysiac Elements in Spartan Cult Dances,” Phoenix 52, no. 1/2 (1998): 15–30.
305
Hippoc. Virg. L. 8.466–70.
306
The text is vague with the identity of these women. King 1983, 114 argues that these women are the cured girls
who grew up.

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protection from their patron deities to prevent themselves from succumbing to disease or, as

stated above, rape, both of which threatened their ability to transition into the stages of their life.

They dedicated garments to these gods for similar reasons, with the clothing itself representing

their ability to transition into matronhood, since garments in this context had marital and

womanly connotations. Given the similarities between the Dionysian Aiora and these Artemisian

rituals, it is no surprise that scholars, such as Richard Seaford, see parallels between Artemis and

Dionysos in terms of both gods serving as the patron deities for young women in their rites of

passage and premarital ceremonies.307

Unsurprisingly then, the Aiora, as with the rites involving Artemis’ image being hung on

trees by her female followers, also promoted vegetal fertility. I mentioned in the last chapter that

an image of Dionysos along were grapes were swung in a liknon by the female celebrants of the

Aiora as part of this mock hanging ritual. This swinging of the image and grapes in the liknon, an

agricultural tool associated with fertility rituals, purified grapes to ensure a bountiful grape

harvest next year. It is unsurprising that this Anthesterian ritual promoted viticulture, given that

the festival celebrated wine. The Aiora’s ties with promoting the grape harvest is especially

apparent given that Dionysos’ image was often worshipped in the god’s vegetation cults.308 We

307
Seaford compares Artemisian rites of passage, wherein girls ventured into the wild to perform such rites and were
thus “yoked” in marriage once they completed them, to Dionysian ecstatic ritual, in which gynaikes and, more
importantly, parthenoi performed rites dedicated to Dionysos and then returned home to re-instate their married
status, as in the case of the gynaikes, or later took part in marriage to become legal gyaikes, as with the parthenoi.
Seaford points out that Dionysos was called by Aischylos the “yoker” (Aesch. fr. 382) of these ecstatic followers,
emphasizing the god’s marital connections. See: Richard Seaford, “Dionysus as Destroyer of the Household: Homer,
Tragedy, and the Polis,” in The Masks of Dionysus, ed. Thomas Carpenter and Christopher Faraone (Ithaca; London:
Cornell University Press, 1993), 121–22.
308
Dietrich 1961, 48. As Dietrich also notes, Dionysos was associated with “tree-cults” and garnered the epithets
dendrites (Plut. Quaest. conv. 675F) and endendros (Hesych. s.v. “endendros”). Dionysos was also called meilichios
at Naxos due to his associations with the fig-tree. At this place he had one mask made from the fig-tree and another
made from the vine (Ath. 78c).

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may also note that in later traditions of the Aiora, images of Athenians and Dionysos may have

been suspended on trees, further linking the aforementioned Artemisian rites with the Aiora.309

Of course, we should not demarcate the Aiora’s grape-promoting properties from the fact

this same ritual also served as a rite of passage for Athenian girls to mature into adult women.

The female celebrants of the Aiora honoured Erigone both to make themselves marriageable and

to promote the grape harvest by purifying grapes, whose byproduct of wine caused Erigone’s and

her father’s death. Since the ceremony could serve as both an agrarian fertility ritual and a rite of

passage, it is, then, unsurprising that childbirth, the end result of coming-of-age rites, was

associated by the ancient Greeks with vegetal fecundity.310 Hesiod, for example, connected

females with the ground, since the first woman, Pandora, was made from the earth.311 In the

Hippocratic Corpus, pregnant women were compared with the earth, since they bore children as

if the ground produced plants.312 Outside of medical texts, the term for sowing, aroun,313 was

used to describe conception, especially in relation to women taking in male seed (sperma) to

produce offspring (gone). Sperma and gone could refer to the seed of plants and vegetation

grown from the earth respectively.314

309
According to the fifth-century CE commentator Servius, puppets or masks (oscilla) of Athenians were suspended
on trees by the participants of the Aiora. This tradition was established because the Athenians looking for Erigone,
who already hanged herself, climbed on trees to look for her (Serv. ad Georg. 2.389). Servius’ account of the Aiora
is derived from his own commentary on a passage from Vergil’s Georgics, wherein masks (oscilla) of Liber
(Dionysos) are suspended in the same way (Verg. Georg. 2.389), perhaps indicating that images of Dionysos were
hung on trees in this later tradition of the Aiora.
310
Cantarella 1985, 97.
311
Hes. Op. 61.
312
Hippoc. Nat. puer. 22.1, L. 7.544, 27.1, L. 7.528; cf. Arist. GA. 739b35. Cole 2004, 171 argues that the Greeks
viewed pregnant women as the ones “most like the earth”.
313
E.g. Men. Dysk. 840ff; Pl. Tim. 91d. See Cole 2004, 147–71 for the various agricultural metaphors that were used
by the Greeks in relation to childbearing.
314
Cole 2004, 154.

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 This symbolism between female and agrarian fertility was exemplified in mock hanging

ceremonies. Eva Cantarella suggests that girls who performed such rites were symbolically

separated from the earth as they were suspended from the ground. Thus, they would experience a

period of separation from earth in which they would re-emerge symbolically as a women and

mothers by being linked with the ground again.315 The celebrants of Aiora, of course, would be

no exception to this temporary separation and eventual return to the ground as way to promote

their own fertility. It is no coincidence that these same participants during their swinging ritual

not only swung Dionysos’ image encased in a liknon to ensure a bountiful grape harvest, but also

to promote their childbearing. As mentioned in the last chapter, the liknon was associated with

the infant Dionysos being raised by nymphs. The celebrants swinging this effigy and basket,

therefore, hinted at their future children, given that they imitated the nymphs who raised

Dionysos while performing the wine-mixing rite which succeeded and was connected to the

Aiora. Additionally, in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, children were depicted sitting on a

liknon while being swung as part of an initiation ceremony for Dionysos’ mystery cults.316

Though these mystery rites were later, we may suppose that the female celebrants of the Aiora

swinging the liknon referred to their future children, whom they would initiate into other aspects

of Dionysian worship, perhaps the Aiora itself, since children participated in this event.

Given the Aiora’s fertility-promoting properties, it is unsurprising, then, that the

Anthesteria, which took place in the late winter, was a spring festival in which Athenians likely

celebrated and promoted new life, whether it be grapes or newborns, in anticipation of spring, a

season representative of new beginnings. Paradoxically, the festival, through its Aiora ceremony,

315
Cantarella 1985, 97–98.
316
Dietrich, 1961, 47.

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also acknowledged the infertile winter, a period of the year wherein life, more so agriculture,

ceased to exist. The fact that young women in the middle of winter honoured the dead maiden

Erigone, whose name we may translate as “born in spring”, to promote fertility, both their own

and that of the grapes, highlights this paradox. From the perspective of this paradox, death

ultimately paves the way for new life and thus it is no surprise that the young female participants

of the Aiora paradoxically underwent a pseudo-death to be reborn as fertile women. In a similar

manner, these same participants also “hanged” Dionysos’ image and his grapes to honour

Erigone and, more importantly, symbolize the death of the god, who would then be reborn as a

vegetation deity and thus bestow grapes and wine to the Athenian population.317

3.5 Conclusion

In relation to a female’s maturation, the ancient Greek viewed a rite of passage as a

ceremony that allowed a female, who was initially ineligible for marriage as a parthenos, to

become a nymphe, a female now eligible for marriage. Her new status paved the way for her to

become a gyne by marrying and then having children in the future. Bleeding in the form of

menstruation and lochial flow were indicative of a female’s maturation as she, especially in the

case of her expelling lochial flow in childbirth, represented her truly obtaining her gyne status.

As part of a female’s rite of passage, she underwent a mock death where her maiden

status died, allowing her to be reborn with a new status (i.e. nymphe). Regarding the Aiora, a girl

hanged herself to obtain a similar result. Her symbolic suicide also honoured a parthenos who

was unable to both socially and physically become a nymphe and gyne, since her premature death

317
We may also note that in myth, Dionysos was killed by Titans and eventually reborn (e.g. Paus. 8.37.3; Diod. Sic.
3.62). John Garthwaite compares Dionysos to the Sumerian god Dumuzi, who, like Dionysos, was a vegetation deity
who died and was reincarnated. Dumuzi was similarly worshipped by girls and women. See, John Garthwaite, “The
‘Keres’ of the Athenian Anthesteria and near Eastern Counterparts,” Scholia: Natal Studies in Classical Antiquity 19,
no. 1 (2010): 11–12.

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precluded her from taking part in marriage and childbirth and experience each event’s respective

bleedings. A maiden who died by hanging herself, especially if she used her zone, was

emblematic of her perpetual maidenhood, given that this type of death was bloodless and

solidified her perpetual union with death (Hades). At least in tragedy, a maiden who hanged

herself (or threatened to), invoked the maiden Artemis, further underscoring her static

maidenhood.

The eternal parthenos Artemis was known as the “strangled” goddess and was also

unable to bleed via menstruation or childbirth, an attribute only exclusive to her. When a maiden

hanged herself while invoking Artemis, she was committing an illicit sexual act that was

contrary to Artemis’ role as a nurturing deity. The goddess herself was meant to “un-strangle”

her followers from their zone by guiding them into their marriage and childbirth, in which this

object was released, allowing her followers to bleed. Thus, Artemis herself had mock hanging

rites where this object was incorporated. Additionally, young women performing such rites

adorned images of themselves and Artemis with marital garments to signify the end of their

maidenhood. Similarly, the celebrants of the Aiora wore the zone while performing a mock

hanging and also adorned Dionysos’ image with marital garments, likely for the same purposes.

The celebrants of the Aiora, like those who participated in the Artemisian rituals,

honoured a mythical dead maiden(s), especially one who died prematurely via disease, sexual

assault, suicide, or all of the above, so that they could protect themselves from these potential

dangers, allowing themselves to mature into women. Both the Aiora and these Artemisian rites

also promoted vegetal and female fertility. For the former aspect, Artemis and Dionysos had

vegetation cults where their images were worshipped, with the Aiora being no exception since

Dionysos’ image was swung on a liknon, an agricultural tool, in this rite. Female fecundity was

115
linked with the agrarian fertility especially in the context of these Dionysian and Artemisian

mock hanging rituals, given that the participants of both rites were temporarily separated from

and then reconnected with the earth, which was often compared by the Greeks to vegetation and

fertile women. Given the Aiora’s similarities with these Artemisian rites, we may conclude that

the Anthesteria, being a spring festival, and its Aiora ceremony not only ensured a bountiful

grape harvest in Athens since the festival celebrated viticulture, but also promoted the

reproductive health of Athenian girls and women, a point I will further emphasize in the next

chapter.

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 CHAPTER 4 THE ANTHESTERIA’S PROMOTION OF
FEMALE FERTILITY FROM A MEDICAL PERSPECTIVE

4.1 Introduction

In Chapters 1 and 3, I pointed out that young women during the Anthesteria took part in

the Aiora and subsequent wine-mixing rite to promote their fertility. Especially in the latter rite,

which may have been called the Pithoigia (Jar-Opening), these same participants ceremonially

opened wine-vessels to mix wine with water. As we shall see in this chapter, the opening of these

vessels and the mixing of fluids in them represented the womb of the ceremonies’ young female

participants and, through their performance of these rites, their desire to open up their womb for

conception and childbirth. In relation to this significance, I will highlight that the ancient Greeks,

such as Homer, Hesiod, and Hippocratic doctors, viewed the womb as a type of vessel that opens

and closes in menstruation, procreation and childbirth. For their part, the Hippocratics, especially

in their gynaecological work Diseases of Virgins (Virg.),318 note that when this womb-vessel is

not functioning properly its mouth (stoma) is unable to open (anestomomenon) and thus remains

closed, causing blocked menstrual flow. This blockage causes the sufferer then to experience

mental disturbances and hang herself, preventing her from having children.

In the previous chapter, I already pointed out that the symptoms of this condition parallel

the maidens from the etiological myth of the Aiora, who also suffer from erratic behaviour and

commit suicide in the same way, preventing them from experiencing indicators of their

maturation such as uterine bleeding in menstruation and childbirth. I have briefly suggested that

I am using the Loeb translation of Virg., see: Paul Potter, trans., Hippocrates, Volume IX: Coan Prenotions.
318

Anatomical and Minor Clinical Writings, Loeb Classical Library 509 (Cambridge; Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 2010).

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the female celebrants of the Aiora performed the rite to protect themselves from diseases, such

the one in Virg., that would have prevented them from moving into the next stages of their life.

Thus, this chapter will explore how female celebrants of the Aiora and Pithoigia, based on

analogues from Hippocratic gynecology, may have enacted these rituals to promote their fertility

by curing disorders, like the one above, which prevented them from growing up as adult women

and having children. As we shall see, the Hippocratic treatments for a closed womb (e.g. sex,

scent therapy, pitch ointment), an issue connected with the above condition in Virg. and uterine

movement, the latter of which will also be discussed throughout this chapter and connected with

Virg., resemble some of the rituals performed at the Anthesteria’s Aiora and wine-mixing

(Pithoigia) ceremonies.

4.2 Conceptualizing Mental Disorders in Hippocratic Medicine

Before we examine how the rituals of the Anthesteria share similarities with Hippocratic

treatments of a closed womb, we must acknowledge how the Hippocratics conceptualized and

defined mental disorders, since their perspective differs from how we label such conditions.

Furthermore, a female suffering from a closed womb exhibits symptoms that we may associate

with some sort of mental illness. First, the Hippocratics did not view mental and physical

disorders as two separate diseases; they treated both as a bodily ailment.319 Second, these doctors

usually did not define mental disorders, or any ailment for that matter, by a specific name,

something which we do in modern medicine. Instead, they described a collection of symptoms

Chiara Thumiger, A History of the Mind and Mental Health in Classical Greek Medical Thought (Cambridge:
319

Cambridge University Press, 2017), 421–22.

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that were caused by certain issues pertaining to different body parts, with a treatment prescribed

to the affected areas.320

Regarding the last point, however, the Hippocratics did use the term sacred disease (hiere

nousos), which we may in modern medicine associate with something akin to epilepsy, to

describe certain disorders affecting the mind. Especially as the Hippocratics describe the

symptoms of the condition in Virg. (e.g. night terrors and fever) and uterine movement (e.g.

“difficulty breathing” [pnix], speechlessness, eyes rolling back, foam expelled from the mouth,

erratic behaviour), they explicitly compare these symptoms to sacred disease, which

encompassed such symptoms.321 Therefore, I shall use this term throughout this chapter as I

connect uterine movement to the condition in Virg in relation to both illnesses exhibiting

symptoms of sacred disease.

We may also note that both the Hippocratics and non-medical Greeks acknowledged the

existence of sacred disease. The former, however, did not believe that it was an affliction from

the gods as a form of divine pollution,322 contrary to what was viewed as a popular opinion

during their time.323 They instead suggested that the disease was caused by an imbalance of

phlegm and bile in a person’s body.324 This prevalent opinion of sacred disease being divine, as it

will be noted in this chapter, is represented in the Aiora myth, since the Athenian maidens are

afflicted by Dionysos with mental disturbances that share similarities to sacred disease, which

are also exhibited in uterine movement and the condition described in Virg.

320
King 1998, 220.
321
For these symptoms of sacred disease, see Hippoc. Morb. Sacr. 1, L. 6.352, 9–10, L. 6.371–74.
322
A notable example of sacred disease caused by the gods in tragedy is Soph. Aj. 450, where Athena inflicts Ajax
with madness.
323
Hippoc. Morb. sacr. 1–3, L. 6.352–59.
324
Hippoc. Morb. sacr. 5, L. 6.366.

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4.3 The Womb as a Vessel in Hippocratic Gynecology

One notable feature of Hippocratic gynecology is that it describes the womb as a sort of

container that can hold a certain amount of menstrual blood. It deems a womb healthy if it

releases about two Attic kotyles (approximately a pint) of menstrual blood during a female’s

monthly period.325 Regular and heavy monthly periods are requisites for good health. If menses

do not flow, a female is prone to disease.326 This belief is governed by the Hippocratic’s humoral

theory, in which the body’s four internal humours and their associated attributes, phlegm (cold

and wet), blood (hot and wet), bile (hot and dry), and black bile (cold and dry) need to be in

equilibrium.327 The Hippocratics state that females have a natural inclination towards the last

mentioned humour, given that they are able to retain hot menstrual blood easily due to their

loose-textured (araios), spongy (chaunos) and wool-like (eirion) bodies, making their bodies

moist and hot.328 Those who have not given birth yet have denser and firmer bodies than those

who already gave birth, causing the latter to be prone to greater discomfort when menstrual flow

is obstructed. Those who have not given birth, then, also needs to have regular and heavy

periods.329

The emphasis of the womb holding and releasing a certain measurement of blood, which

was often based upon the capacity of actual ceramics, implies that the womb can be filled or

emptied like a vessel.330 The Hippocratics’ likening the womb to a vessel is made more explicit

325
Hippoc. Mul. 1.6, L 8. 30; cf. Mul. 1.78, L 8.190. The womb holding about a pint of blood is way above what we
now know to be approximately two to three ounces, as King 1998, 30 notes.
326
Hippoc. Gen. 4, L 7.476.
327
The humours (phlegm, blood, bile, and black bile) are each assigned to an individual season (winter, spring,
summer, and autumn respectively), which explains, albeit based on modern inference, why each humour is
associated with the above traits. See Hippoc. Nature of Man 4-7, Loeb IV, 11-19.
328
Hot menstrual blood: Hippoc. Reg. 1.34, Loeb IV, 281. Retaining moisture: Hippoc. Glands 16, L 8.572–73.
329
Females having hot bodies, with those who are childless having denser bodies: Mul 1.1, L 8.10-14. Need for
regular and heavy periods: Aer. 21, L 2.75–77.
330
King 1998, 30.

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when they compare it to actual containers, such as a wineskin (askos) or a jar (angos).331 The

latter is especially evoked in the context of pregnancy and childbirth.332 Generation 9, for

example, says that the womb holds a growing child in a similar fashion to an angos holding a

growing cucumber. Diseases of Women (Mul.) describes the difficulties of child delivery and

likens it to shaking a large stone out of the narrow mouth of a lekythos, an oil container.333

The Hippocratics, however, were not the only ones, let alone the first, to associate the

womb with a vessel, especially in relation to pregnancy. In Hesiod’s Works and Days, the first

woman gifted to man by the gods, Pandora, is described as a pithos, a large, lidded storage

vessel.334 When she opens up a pithos, she, as Froma Zeitlin suggests, is opening up her womb

for sex and conception. Her closing the vessel later on represents the womb closing itself in

pregnancy.335 The Hippocratics describe the womb-vessel operating in a similar manner during

conception and pregnancy. When a woman conceives, the womb closes up. Blood, which would

otherwise be released in menstruation, slowly fills the womb to nourish the growing embryo

inside it. Once she gives birth, the womb will open again to resume her monthly periods.336 The

womb serving as a vessel to nourish a growing child explains why the Hippocratics also state

that a female who releases a smaller amount of menstrual blood during her period will have

trouble nourishing a foetus to full term when she is pregnant.337

331
Wineskin: Hippoc. Mul. 1.61, L. 7.124, 2.61, L 8.350. Lesley Dean-Jones argues that the wineskin metaphor was
more applicable to the Hippocratics’ idea of the womb, since it is described as “soft” in Nat. puer. 30, L. 7.532. See
Lesley Dean-Jones, Women’s Bodies in Classical Greek Science (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1994), 65. However, she
acknowledges that both analogies could be applied to the womb, depending on certain cases and contexts (65, n. 85).
332
Explicitly called a “jar”: Hippoc. Epid. 6.5.11, L 5.319.
333
Hippoc. Gen. 9, L 7.482; Mul. 1.33, L. 8.78; King 1998, 35.
334
Hes. Op. 94.
335
Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1996) 66. After beheading their bridegrooms, the Danaids, as punishment, are sent to Tartaros to
carry leaky vessels, which are analogous to their defective wombs, to fill a pithos with water (Ps-Pl. Axioch. 37le).
336
Womb closing up: Hippoc. Aph. 5.51. Womb nourishing embryo with blood: Hippoc. Mul. 1.34, L 8.78.
337
Hippoc. Nat. puer. 15–16, L 7.494–96; 30, L 7.534.

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 Given the Hippocratics’ description of the womb as a vessel that opens and closes, it is

no surprise that they perceived the womb as like a vessel. Mul. provides a more vivid picture of

the womb-vessel, where the womb, as with a vessel, has a neck that is a pathway running from

the mouth and nose area down to the vagina. The womb is connected in between, thus dividing

this pathway into the upper and lower neck. This neck, however, is never specified by the

Hippocratics but implied,338 given that at each end of the neck is a mouth (stoma): one at the top

of this neck that is an intermediary between the orifices of the head and the body of the womb,

the other at the bottom of it that is an intermediary between vagina and body of the womb.339 The

latter mouth is either called “the mouth of the vagina” (to stoma tou aidoiou) or “the mouth of

the exit” (to stoma tes exodou), since it is located near the vagina and serves as the opening for

menstrual blood to exit. The womb having two mouths seems odd for a traditional vessel,

especially one that is ceramic; however, as mentioned above, the Hippocratics also

conceptualized the womb as something similar to a wineskin, which is a container that has two

resealable openings.

In relation to the overall construction of the womb-vessel, the Hippocratics see a

connection between the orifices of the head and the vagina. They believe that the top mouth of

the womb has to align with the bottom mouth in order for menstrual blood to be released

properly through the pathway that connects them.340 This pathway must be free of obstructions

as well. Otherwise, a female will have trouble expelling menses, or even conceiving since the

seed cannot reach the womb.341 A way to test that the path is not blocked is to place garlic or

338
Paola Manuli calls this neck a hodos (pathway), which is only exclusive to females. See Paola Manuli,
“Fisiologia e Patologia del Femminile negli Scritti Ippocratici dell’Antica Ginecologia Greca,” in Hippocratica.
Actes du Colloque Hippocratique de Paris, ed. Mirko Dražen (Paris: Eds de CNRS, 1980), 399.
339
Hippoc. Mul. 2.146, L 8.322; 2.162, L 8.338.
340
“The mouth of the vagina”: Hippoc. Mul. 1.40, L 8.96; Ep. 2.4.5; “the mouth of the exit”: Hippoc. Virg. L 8.466.
341
Hippoc. Aph. 5.59; King 1998, 31.

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other foul-smelling substances on the vagina. If the smell comes out of the mouth, the

passageway is clear.342 The connection between the head and the womb is especially apparent

when the Hippocratics describe how the nostrils become blocked and dry as the womb closes up.

A female also feels pain in her throat when her period starts.343 Furthermore, when she loses her

virginity, her voice changes.344 The treatments of a closed womb involve applying scent

therapies to both the womb’s bottom and top mouths.345

4.4 The Opening of the Womb-vessel in Homer and the Anthesteria

The vessel metaphor of the womb extends to the Anthesteria, given that its three

components, the Pithoigia, Choes, and Chytroi, all reference a type of vessel. The Pithoigia,

whose name translates to Jar-Opening, is of notable interest. During this rite, Athenians,

according to ancient authors, opened pithoi full of wine which they then mixed with water and

dedicated to Dionysos as a libation before drinking it. In Chapter 2, I pointed out that young

women used stamnoi instead of pithoi for this rite. However, the former jar, as with a pithos, was

lidded, making the name Pithoigia still relevant in terms of opening up wine-vessels. Though the

name Pithoigia was in direct reference to wine, given that the Anthesteria celebrated new

vintage, the opening of wine-jars and the mixing of their contents are analogous to opening the

womb through the breaching of a maiden’s chastity and her resulting pregnancy.346 This is

342
Hippoc. Mul. 2.146, L.8.322; Nat. mul. 96, L 7.412–14.
343
Closed womb causing a blocked nose: Hippoc. Mul. 2.133, L 8.282. Period causing throat pain: CP 537, L 5.706.
344
See Ann Hanson and David Armstrong, “Vox Virginis,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical
Studies 33 (1986): 97–100; cf. Ps-Arist. Sterility. 634b35; 636b17–18; 637a21–35, which describe the path from the
vulva to the womb as something similar to the pathway from nostrils to the larynx; King 1998 28.
345
King 1998, 28.
346
Ann Hanson , “The Medical Writers’ Woman,” in Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the
Ancient Greek World, ed. David Halperin, John Winkler, and Froma Zeitlin (New Jersey; Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1990), 325–26.

123
especially true if we examine a passage from the Odyssey, which depicts a rite similar to the

Pithoigia in relation to the opening of the womb-vessel.

4.4.1 The Opening of the Womb-vessel in Homer

In the third book of the Odyssey, Nestor hosts some guests. Prior to his guests’ arrival,

Nestor’s housekeeper “loosened the seal” (kredemnon eluse) of an unopened jar of ten-year-old

wine, which Nestor then poured into a mixing bowl with water to dedicate to Athena as a libation

before they drink the mixed wine.347 The phrase kredemnon eluse is of note since it not only

references the opening of wine-vessels, but also the opening of a maiden’s womb through the

breaching of her virginity. We may apply these two meanings to the Jar-Opening ceremony of

the Anthesteria, wherein young women opened wine vessels and mixed wine in them.

The second meaning of kredemnon eluse is noted by the eleventh-century CE

commentator Eustathios who, in his commentary on the section of the Odyssey from which the

above phrase originated, associates this excerpt with a maiden having her virginity breached. He

bases his point on the fact that Homer in his Iliad uses this same expression to describe a maiden

loosening her covering as the walls of Troy are being breached.348 Homer, however, does not

explicitly link the breached walls of Troy with the breaching of a maiden’s virginity. That said,

Eustathios, as Ann Hanson notes,349 may have been influenced by Euripides, who directly

compares the penetration of Troy’s vulnerable walls to the violation of maidens in both non-

sexual and sexual contexts. For the former scenario, Polyxena’s “upper neck” bleeds when she is

sacrificed at Achilles’ grave. Her sacrifice happened after the walls of Troy were broken through.

347
Hom. Od. 3.390–94.
348
Eust. ad Od. 3.392; Hom. Il. 16.100; Hanson 1990, 326, n. 8.
349
Hanson 1990, 326.

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An example of the latter involves Agamemnon who, after capturing Troy, deflowers Kassandra,

whose “lower neck” bleeds.350 Already, we see the breaching or opening of the maidens’ necks

described in a similar manner to the Hippocratics’ description of the womb having an upper and

lower “mouth” and “neck” that are connected to each other and open and close in procreation.

We may further tie kredemnon eluse with the defloration of a maiden and thus the

opening of her womb, since, as I already noted in the last chapter, the verb luein, which makes

up the above phrase, was often referenced in sexual contexts, especially as a maiden lost her

virginity. The verb was used to describe when a young woman’s zone was loosened on her

wedding night.351 On the night of her wedding, a woman’s husband unfastened her girdle as they

had sex, causing her to lose her virginity. This action not only breached her virginity but also

opened up her womb for conception. She would then, in theory, give birth to her child as result

of this action, wherein she would loosen this same girdle as the passages of her womb would

open up, so that her child could be delivered.

Returning back to kredemnon eluse in relation to the Odyssey, it is important to note that

the housekeeper who opens up the wine-vessel is a woman. However, Nestor, a man, takes over

in mixing the wine in a wine-vessel. Thus, in an alternative interpretation of this scene, we may

associate the opening of wine-jars and the mixing of its contents with water as something

analogous to conception, where a woman lay bare her opened womb to receive male seed.352

350
Polyxena: Eur. Hek. 536–38. Kassandra: Eur. Tr. 308–13; cf. Aesch. Ag. 1437–43.
351
See Chapter 3 for a detailed discussion on the significance of the loosening of the zone.
352
Hanson 1990, 327.

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 4.4.2 The Opening of the Womb-vessel in the Anthesteria

The opening of wine-vessels and subsequent mixing of wine with water in the Pithoigia

ceremony calls to mind the dual meanings of the above phrase from the Odyssey. Young women,

as described by Plutarch and Phanodemos and depicted in aforementioned vase-scenes, opened

lidded stamnoi at the Pithoigia, which encompasses the phrase’s first meaning. Unlike in the

Odyssey scene, these same women who opened stamnoi also mixed the wine. Their mixing the

wine may render the Pithoigia’s association with the sexual connotations of kredemenon eluse

void, since no men were involved. However, this mixing was done at Dionysos’ sanctuary “in

the marshes”. The streams at this precinct were called the “nymphs and nurses of Dionysos”

since adding water from this stream to wine, which was a metonym for the god, increased its

amount and therefore represented nymphs nourishing the infant god in myth.353 Though the myth

is in relation to an infant and not an embryo, the mixing of wine in containers may be analogous

to an embryo growing inside the womb-vessel. By adding water to the womb-vessel, its contents

inside, like an embryo, grow. Thus, this metaphor is rich in many ways, since it refers to the

nourishment of a child, whether it is Dionysos as an embryo in the womb or as an infant outside

the womb.

Considering fertile Athenian women, both young (parthenoi) and older (basilinna and the

gerarai), performed this wine-mixing and imitated bacchic nymphs, they may have performed

this ritual to hint at their own future children, whom they would nourish in a similar manner.

Dionysos was also said by Plutarch to be the “lord and bearer of all moist nature” and connected

to the phallos and semen.354 Thus, by opening wine-vessels (their womb) and mixing Dionysos’

See Chapter 1.
353

Moist nature: Plut. De Is. Et Os. 35 [365 A]. Phallos and semen: Aug. De civ. D. 7.21. Froma Zeitlin, “Cultic
354

Models of the Female: Rites of Dionysus and Demeter,” Arethusa 15, no. 1/2 (1982): 135.

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sacred waters (semen) inside them, they were symbolically fertilizing themselves, which fits

nicely with the sexual interpretation of the kredemnon eluse.

It is important to note that after the Pithoigia the basilinna took part in a marriage

ceremony with “Dionysos”, where she likely consummated her union with the “god”. Her

performing the rite before her nuptials, therefore, was an allusion to her eventually procreating

with the “god” himself. Since she along with some of the other female celebrants were fertile and

nubile, it is no surprise that they were also promoting their own fertility. The Aiora, an

apotropaic ritual preceding the Pithoigia, as I outlined in the previous chapter, was practiced by

these same women, so that they could grow up, marry and eventually have children in the future.

The Pithoigia, in the same way, was enacted by them to promote their reproductive health.

Given that the Hippocratics believed that a female’s womb and its passages needed to be

free from obstructions to procreate, their performing the ritual that symbolized they were

opening their womb up for conception in the future, or, in the basilinna’s case, immediately.

This ritual may have also treated certain instances in which their womb was unable to open,

since there was a common gynaecological ailment that caused the wombs of womenm to close,

causing them to die prematurely and thus preventing them from bearing children.

4.5 A Case of a Closed Womb in Diseases of Virgins and the Aiora

As previously stated, the maidens from the Aiora myth suffering from erratic behaviour

and suicidal thoughts in the Aiora myth, parallel a condition described in Virg. in which maidens

are prone to experiencing mental disturbances that cause them to hang themselves.355 This

section, therefore, examines the disease described in Virg. in greater detail. Throughout my

355
Hippoc. Virg. L 8.466–70.

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discussion of this work, I shall explore the cause and symptoms of the above illness, at least

according to the author or Virg., and then relate them back to the etiological myth of the Aiora

and the ceremony itself. The writer of Virg. attributes the cause of the condition to an influx of

menses that is unable to escape because the womb-vessel’s mouth has yet to open, since the

patient’s body, who is usually a parthenos, is immature. His proposed cure for such an illness

involves the patient opening her womb’s passages by procreating, allowing for her to expel

menstrual flow properly, which in turn causes her womb to function as a mature female’s

(gyne’s) womb should operate. This cure will be compared to the aforementioned mock hangings

rituals, with the Aiora being no exception, since both prevented young women from experiencing

mental disturbances and hanging themselves and promoted their ability to bleed in sex and

childbirth as part of their development.

According to the writer of Virg., the cause of this condition is an accumulation of

menstrual blood in a patient’s womb that is unable to be released, since her womb’s lower mouth

(stoma exodou) has yet to open from her first period. Thus, a pre-menarchic girl is prone to

suffering from this illness. Since menses cannot be released, more blood continues to accumulate

in her womb. When her womb can no longer hold anymore blood, the excess blood rushes to her

heart and lungs, which then become clogged and inflamed, causing compression (piexis) around

her chest. As a result, the patient experiences lethargy and feelings of weakness and numbness in

her heart. The author notes that her phrenes are affected by this blood flow, a body part which

encompasses the lungs and lower chest area and, as some modern scholars have argued, may

have been associated with the mind.356 It is also important to note that in Mul., the womb is also

356
Mary Lefkowitz and Maureen Fant, Women’s Life in Greece and Rome (London: Duckworth, 1982), 317, n. 20;
King 1998, 76. Thumiger 2017, 400–401 highlights how the Hippocratics often did not describe the phrenes (sg.
phren) in relation to the mental faculties of an individual. She does, however, acknowledge that Virg. is one of the
few cases where the Hippocratics mentioned the phrenes in this context. We may also note that Homer (e.g. Il.

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in sympathy with thinking and a part connected to the brain, such as the gnoma (intelligence) and

bregma (bone directly above the brain),357 which lends to the idea that the womb and its blood

could affect the mind and its associated parts.

It is unsurprising, then, that the writer of Virg. later says that this blood flow affecting the

general chest area, which originated from the womb, causes the patient to suffer from mental

disturbances such as aimless wandering, night terrors and visions. Furthermore, he hints at the

patient’s mental issues being akin to sacred disease, since he opens his work with a discussion on

types of sacred disease that compel females to hang themselves to which he then compares to the

illness described above.358 He especially associates this illness with this type of sacred disease

when he notes that the sufferer “yearns for death” (erai tou thanatou), and how the compression

around her chest makes her want to hang herself (anchesthai) and throw herself down wells.

Already, we see from the above text that the womb serves as a vessel. It can only hold a

certain amount of menses before it overflows from the pressure and thus needs to empty itself

through monthly periods. Furthermore, it highlights how the blocked passages of the lower parts

of the body affect the upper parts. This is notably true when the writer says that a sufferer of this

illness desires to hang herself (anchesthai). The verb anchein often denotes exerting pressure on

one’s neck by hanging oneself.359 The author’s emphasis of the patient having an inexplicable

desire to add further pressure to her breathing passages by hanging herself evokes the womb’s

1.102–103), Herodotos (e.g. Hdt. 3.134.3), and fifth-century BCE tragedians such as Sophokles (e.g. Soph. Aj. 868)
talk about the phrenes with regard to the state of an individual’s mind, indicating that the ancient Greeks refer to this
body part in relation to the mind, despite the Hippocratics not describing the same part in such a context.
357
Hippoc. Mul. 1.38, L. 8.94. Bregma as a bone above the brain: Arist. HA. 495a10.
358
King 1998 77; Flemming and Hanson 1998, 243–47, highlight that the Hippocratic work discussing sacred
disease, On Sacred Disease, shares similarities with Virg in terms of vocabulary. Nancy Demand highlights that the
author of the former work cites blocked passages as the cause of sacred disease, which shares similarities to the
cause of the condition described in Virg. See Nancy Demand, Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece
(Baltimore; Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 97.
359
King 1998, 80.

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physical connection to the throat and diaphragm, especially since he also mentions the patient’s

closed womb creating pressure around her chest and lung area.

If we consider this connection between the upper and lower passages of a female’s body,

it is unsurprising that the author of Virg. later suggests that the sufferer is cured of her illness

once she opens up the mouth of her womb with sex and childbirth.360 This is especially true

when he recommends that the patient, as a quick remedy for her illness, should marry a man and

have sexual intercourse with him to conceive a child. Prior to his suggestion, he also states that a

cured patient has nothing impeding the “downward flow of blood”. Though the writer does not

explain how sex or childbirth open up the womb and releases its pent-up menses, we already

know from other Hippocratic works that as a woman is pregnant, the embryo feeds on menstrual

blood, which would get rid of this excess blood. Furthermore, as a woman is in labour, the

bottom mouth of her womb is forced to open up once she gives birth to her child. Thus, if a

sufferer of this disease follows the above prescribed cure, her uterine mouth should open up from

childbirth and thus have consistent periods from now on.

We may conclude that this prescribed cure of sex and childbirth acts as a catalyst for a

young girl’s womb to reach full maturity and functionality,361 since both menstrual and lochial

bleeding in Hippocratic gynecology are an embodiment of a healthy gyne, which I have outlined

earlier in this chapter and in the previous one. We see similarities between this cure and the

aforementioned rites of passage that involved girls performing mock hangings. As I noted in the

last chapter, parthenoi in their coming-of-age rites paradoxically underwent a bloodless “death”

by hanging themselves, so that they could in the future bleed by expelling menstrual blood and

360
King 1998, 81.
361
As Hanson 1990, 324 suggests.

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lochial flow as gynaikes. One notable aspect of these rituals is that the female celebrants, as part

of their “hanging”, symbolically married Hades to signify that their maidenhood “died” and were

thus reborn as brides and later women, contrary to those who actually hanged themselves and

were thus perpetual maidens since they were in an eternal union with the god.362

A maiden’s union with death (Hades) through her hanging calls to mind how the author

of Virg. notes that a girl suffering from the above disease may “yearn for death” (erai tou

thanatou) and thus hang herself. King alternatively translates this phrase as “[she] yearns for

death as if it is her lover”,363 and later relates the excerpt to the author of the work suggesting

that the patient’s sexual desire for death is indicative of her need to open up her womb with sex

and childbirth.364

Given that the author of Virg. cites the patient’s inability to expel menstrual blood as the

catalyst for her sexual desire for death and urge to hang herself, and the fact that he urges the

patient to take part in sexual acts that ultimately make her bleed, we see parallels between the

Hippocratic treatment for the above illness and the aforementioned hanging rites such as the

Aiora. Both these rituals and the Hippocratic cure prescribe sex and childbearing to young girls,

so that they could experience uterine bleeding, probably on the grounds that their uterine

passages open up through these acts. The only difference is that in Hippocratic medicine the

treatment is more direct, while the rituals hangings are more the opposite since these rites protect

the one performing it from this disease and other dangers, so that she could later grow up and

take part in sexual acts that would open her womb for bleeding. The Aiora, however, may have

362
See 3.2.3.
363
King 1998, 78, n. 8. Her translation is based on a translation of a similar phrase ouk apothanein erontes (not in
love with death) from another Hippocratic work, Art. 7 (Loeb II, 200). The verb eran could denote desiring
something in a sexual way when it is paired with a person in the genitive, as with thanatou in the excerpt from Virg.
364
King 1998, 81.

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had a more direct effect, since its participants (the basilinna, the gerarai and Athenian parthenoi)

performed the Pithoigia ceremony afterwards, indicating that they may have attempted to open

the mouths of their womb by opening wine-vessels that, to them, represented their womb. The

basilinna herself performed a marriage ceremony after the two rituals, and probably had sex to

open up her womb for conception, making her bleed in the near future via childbirth.

The Aiora, based on its etiological myth, may especially represent a scenario where the

ritual was established to cure maidens suffering from the disease described in Virg. Since the

Athenian maidens from the Aiora myth are afflicted by a god (Dionysos) with mental

disturbances, we may consider their affliction a form of sacred disease, at least from a non-

Hippocratic point of view. Given that the author of Virg. compares the above condition with

sacred disease, it is likely that the Aiora myth portrays Athenian maidens suffering from this

condition, since the symptoms of their affliction, such as their desire to hang themselves, share

similarities with the disease’s. Thus, the real-life Athenian parthenoi who performed Aiora,

which was established because of these mythical maidens’ death, may have enacted this

ceremony not only as a coming-of-age rite, but also as a treatment for the above disorder. They

were likely susceptible to this illness, since they may have not experienced their first period. As I

noted, the Aiora allowed Athenian parthenoi to take part in marriage and childbirth in the future,

two actions that would have opened the passages of their womb. The fact that these same

maidens after the Aiora participated in the Pithoigia, which involved their opening vessels

symbolic of their womb, indicates that they performed these two ceremonies to treat an illness,

such as the one in Virg., wherein their womb was unable to open.

Considering that the above disease was endemic to parthenoi, we must acknowledge

whether the basilinna, a married participant of the Aiora and Pithoigia, performed these two

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ceremonies to treat such an illness. The author of Virg. does state that married women who are

barren can experience this disease. In Chapter 2, I noted that basilinna may or may not have had

children, since ancient sources never specified that she was a mother. It is possible that her

performing the Aiora and Pithoigia, along with her subsequent marriage to “Dionysos”, treated

her sterility and this illness. Additionally, her marriage with a god associated with the death calls

to mind those suffering from the illness described in Virg., may desire death in a sexual

manner.365 However, the likelihood of her performing these rites to treat this particular illness

seems dubious. That said, there is another gynaecological disorder described by the Hippocratics

that affects older women and shares symptoms with the illness in Virg. Furthermore, these same

doctors may have thought that the former disorder could cause the latter.

4.6 Uterine Movement

The Hippocratics describe an unnamed gynaecological condition affecting either

childless women who are married or older women who do not have sex with their husbands, in

which the patient’s womb moves to other organs in her body because it is dry. I will call this

condition uterine movement.366 This particular condition, as with the disorder described in Virg.,

has symptoms that are akin to sacred disease, such as troubles breathing (pnix), erratic behaviour,

365
See 3.2.3. As previously mentioned, Erigone, another maiden who hanged herself in the myth and whose suicide
also established the Aiora, is a bride of Dionysos in other myths, emphasizing how a maiden hanging herself was
particularly associated with a sexual and marital union with gods of the underworld (e.g. Dionysos and Hades).
366
Galen, a later doctor from the second and third century CE, used the term hysterika to denote disorders related to
the womb. In relation to a condition analogous to uterine movement that has pnix as a symptom, Galen (Kühn
17b.824–5) labelled it as hysterike pnix (uterine suffocation), a title which later ancient Greek medical writers used
for a similar disorder (e.g. Aret. CSAD. 2.11.1, CMG 2.32. Soranos: Sor. Gyn. 3.26–9, T 149–54). This term has led
writers from the nineteenth century and onwards to associate the above condition with hysteria (for the hysteria
tradition see King 1998, 213–14), a condition with some similarities to hysterike pnix but notably different. Given
that my primary focus is on the Hippocratic treatments of a moving womb and the fact that these same doctors did
not use hysterike pnix to label such a condition, I shall throughout this chapter use the phrase “uterine movement”
instead. Also, I will not discuss hysteria in this thesis, given that hysteria is a modern disorder not recognized by the
Hippocratics or any ancient Greek person, and is unrelated to uterine movement since the movement of the womb is
not a symptom of hysteria.

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foam expelling from the mouth, and eyes rolling back. This section, therefore, notes that uterine

movement and the disease in Virg. are interconnected, since the former in some cases could

cause the latter to happen by closing the womb. Prior to my discussion of the Hippocratics’

description of uterine movement, I shall briefly outline the non-Hippocratic perspectives of the

same condition, since, as we shall see in this section and later ones, they are also exemplified in

the myths of the Proitids and the Aiora.

4.6.1 The Non-Hippocratic Tradition of Uterine Movement in the Greek World

Regarding uterine movement, the ancient Greeks commonly viewed the womb being

animal-like and sentient as the cause for such an illness. For example, Plato, a contemporary of

the Hippocratics, describes a similarly unnamed condition, which we may associate with uterine

movement, in which the womb moves throughout a female’s body, obstructing her breathing

passages and preventing respiration. He notes that other diseases are caused by this movement,

but he never specifies which ones. He later states that the womb is “an animal desirous of

childbearing” (zoon epithymetikon enon tes paidopoiias) and moves because it is dissatisfied

from a lack of sex. Thus, Plato suggests that sex will cause the womb to move back to its original

place,367 a point I will return to once I discuss how the myth of the Aiora and the Proitids served

as etiologies for premarital rites for young women, where sex was the outcome of their

performing these rituals.

Plato’s perspective of a sentient and animal-like womb that moves and causes the

symptoms of uterine movement was prevalent in the later periods of the Greek-speaking world.

A third- or fourth-century CE papyrus contains a spell to cure a “womb that has ascended” (pros

367
Pl. Tim. 91c.

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metras anadromen) to the heart. The spell orders the womb not to “gnaw at the heart like a

dog”.368 Other spells from a similar time frame often calls to mind the womb as an animal. For

example, magical amulets, which were used to cure womb-based ailments and often have

depictions of the womb drawn on them, portray the womb as a snake or an octopus.369

Some later medical doctors well after Plato, however, rejected the idea of the womb

moving like an animal and thus obstructing a female’s breathing passage, which was still a

prevailing notion in their time. Soranos, a doctor from the second century CE, denounces this

notion. Instead, he suggests that the womb is anchored by ligaments, an idea which had already

been suggested by Aristotle (4th cen. BCE) through animal dissection and later confirmed via

human dissection by the Alexandrian doctor Herophilos (3rd cen. BCE).370 The womb shifts due

to an inflammation of the womb’s ligaments,371 which causes pnix in the patient.372 Soranos’

rejection of this idea is within the context of his criticism of the “ancients” and his

contemporaries from different medical sects who believe that the womb ran away from foul

odours and who thus employ scent treatments comprised of fetid materials such as pitch to make

the womb move back to its original place. As it will be noted later section, the Hippocratics also

employed similar odour therapies to treat uterine movement, albeit for reasons different than

those criticized by Soranos.

Galen, a near contemporary of Soranos, also rejects Plato’s perspective of the animal-like

womb and instead suggests, like Soranos, that the womb is held by ligaments. In his discussion

368
PGM VII 260–72.
369
For an analysis on magical amulets and spells that depict the womb as an animal, see Heta Björklund, “Classical
Traces of Metamorphosis in the Byzantine Hystera Formula," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 70 (2016): 151–66.
370
Herophilos discovered ligaments via human dissection, which was allowed in Egypt by the third century BCE.
Herophilos’ discovery is preserved in Sor. Gyn. 3.29, T 153. Arist. GA 720a12–14
371
Sor. Gyn. 1.8, T 9.
372
Sor. Gyn. 3.29, T 153.

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of hysterike pnix, he posits that the issues with breathing that are often associated with this

condition are caused by the retention of blood or what he calls “female semen”, not uterine

movement.373 Despite Galen’s and Soranos’ criticism of perspectives such as Plato’s, it is clear

even from their comments that the ancient Greeks, regardless of their profession or what time

period they were from, favoured the idea that the womb moved and was animal-like. Aretaios, a

doctor contemporary to Soranos, adheres to this idea despite being aware of uterine ligaments,

and even says that the womb is “like an animal inside an animal” (hokoion ti zoon en zooi) and

could move,374 and thus should be treated with odour therapies comprised of aromatic and fetid

substances. As with the other two doctors, he states that this movement could cause pnix and

symptoms similar to what we may associate with sacred disease.375 He also notes that younger

females are prone to uterine movement, since their lifestyle and way of thinking are “somewhat

wandering”, and thus their wombs are roving (rhembodes) in a similar manner,376 I will return to

this last point as I discuss the Proitids and the Aiora myth.

4.6.2 Hippocratic Concepts of Uterine Movement

As with Plato, the Hippocratics thought that the womb did move, for which they cite,

unlike Plato, a womb’s dryness as the cause of such movement. These points are especially noted

in Mul. 1.2,377 which describes a young, childless woman experiencing uterine movement. The

cause of this condition is that her womb became empty and dry from a lack of moisture. This

373
Gal. De loc. aff. 6.5, Kühn. 8.425–26; Rudolph Siegel, trans., Galen On the Affected Parts: Translation from the
Greek Text with Explanatory Notes (Basel: Karger, 1976), 184.
374
Aret. CSAD. 2.11.1–2, CMG 2.32.28–33.1; Francis Adams, trans., The Extant Work of Aretaeus, the Cappadocian
(London: Wertheimer and Co., 1856), 285–286.
375
Aret. CSAD. 2.11.2, CMG 2.33.1. Knowledge of ligaments: CSAD. 2.11.5, CMG 2.33.29.
CMG 2, 1.28; 6.10.1, CMG 2, 139.27.
376
Aret. 2.11.1–2, CMG 2.32.28–33.1. He compares these “wandering” women and their wombs to older women
who are more stable in their way of life and thus do not experience uterine movement (Adams 1856, 285–86).
377
Hippoc. Mul. 1.2, L 8.14–23. Translation of Mul., see: Paul Potter, trans., Hippocrates, Volume XI: Diseases of
Women 1–2, Loeb Classical Library 538 (Cambridge; Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2018).

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dryness was due to the patient not having sexual intercourse with her husband, which would have

moisturized her womb. As a result of its dryness, the womb turned itself to the side and pressed

on the abdomen (koilie), causing its mouth to not be aligned with the vagina and therefore

making it closed (memukos). The closing of its mouth results in the patient having blocked

menstrual flow, which then causes the womb to be filled with this blood. The menses eventually

overflows and travels to the lungs, since the womb can no longer contain all of this blood.

There are some notable similarities between Mul. 1.2 and Virg. in relation to the closing

of the womb and its vessel-like construction. As with Virg., this text notes that the closing of the

womb’s mouth causes an accumulation of menses. Though the reasons behind the womb’s

mouth closing are different, both texts treat the womb as a vessel that can become overfilled with

menstrual flow, which then overflows to the lungs. Since both lead to a similar outcome of

overflowing menses, it is clear that the two illnesses are interconnected. This is especially

apparent when the writer of Mul. 1.2 also notes that excess menses can pass through the anus, a

symptom which is, according to him, described in Virg.378 However, this particular symptom is

never mentioned in Virg. Though this apparent incongruity may be due to an incompleteness

either of Mul. 1.2 or Virg., the Hippocratics thought that that two conditions were related to each

other.

Considering that both uterine movement in Mul. 1.2 and the disease described in Virg.

lead to similar outcomes, it is no surprise that the two affect the upper and lower passages of the

body. The former text says that the patient experiences fever, throat pain, teeth grinding, and loss

of speech and consciousness. She also suffers from periodic pnix and extreme thirst due to a

378
Hippoc. Mul. 1.2, L 8.22–3.

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burning sensation from her abdomen that is caused as her womb fills up with blood. The

emphasis of pain in the throat caused by the displacement and blockage of the womb harks back

to Virg. highlighting how a closed womb affects the upper passages of the body, which then

serves as an indicator that the womb needs to be opened up. This connection is made more

apparent in Mul. 1.2 when it assigns a closed womb filled with menses, which is a result of its

turning and then pressing itself on the abdomen, to the cause of the patient’s thirst and burning

sensation in her abdomen. The patient’s thirst is indicative of the womb’s dry and sealed nature,

given that the nostrils, as mentioned in another Hippocratic passage, become dry when the womb

is closed. The burning sensation may emphasize the build-up of menses since blood was said by

the Hippocratics to be hot.

The symptom of pnix also underscores the connection between the top and bottom parts

of a female’s body and the need for the bottom part to be opened via sex and childbirth, an

emphasis which again connects uterine movement with the condition in Virg. Though the

anatomical reasons behind pnix are not explained in Mul. 1.2, Mul. 1.7 provides an explanation.

In Mul. 1.7,379 an older woman’s womb, as a result of a lack of sex, falls against (epiballousi)

the liver which is full of moisture. As her womb forcefully moves to the liver, her airway

becomes obstructed from the physical pressure created by this movement, causing her to

experience pnix and mental disturbances. This explanation resembles how the patient in Virg.

experiences pressure in her lungs which causes similar mental problems. We also note that Mul.

1.2 hints at this pressure affecting the lungs, when it mentions that the womb presses on the

abdomen as it moves, which likely affected the lung area. However, unlike Virg., both of these

excerpts from Mul. do not prescribe sexual intercourse or childrearing as a treatment. That said,

379
Hippoc. Mul. 1.7, L 8.32–3.

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marriage and the conception resulting from it are prescribed as a cure for an older fertile woman

suffering from uterine movement with pnix as a symptom.380 We may also note that uterine

movement, as in Mul. 1.2 and Mul. 1.7, is caused by a lack of sexual activity, which calls to mind

Plato’s theory of this illness being caused by a similar reason and thus cured with sex. Therefore,

the pressure exerted onto nearby organs and passages from either uterine movement or the

disease in Virg., or both, at least according to the Hippocratics and their contemporaries,

highlights the female bodies’ desire to open its passages through sex.

A last parallel between the condition in Virg. and uterine movement, is the symptom of

mental disturbances, which are akin to sacred disease. In Mul. 1.7, pnix along with loss of

speech, teeth grinding, saliva overflowing from the mouth, and the patient’s eyes rolling back are

all symptoms of the womb moving to the liver and the hypochondria. The author describes these

signs as similar to the symptoms often associated with Herakles’ disease, a form of sacred

disease, given that its name references Herakles becoming mad and experiencing similar

symptoms as a result of an affliction sent by Hera.381

Though not explicitly compared to sacred disease, Mul. 2.201 describes a patient’s womb

moving up and lodging itself in her phrenes, causing similar symptoms to the ones described

above. Her kardia is also suffocated by this movement, although the actual reasons behind it are

not explained.382 However, in the section before, the suffocation of the kardia is caused by the

womb compressing it when it moves there.383 In any case, the fact that her kardia and phrenes

380
Hippoc. Mul. 2.127, L 8.273, 2.128, L. 8.276; cf. Hippoc. Mul. 2.169, L 8.349–51.
381
In Eur. Heracl. 860ff, Herakles’ eyes roll back, and he experiences troubles breathing and speaking.
382
Hippoc. Mul. 2.201, L 8.384–86.
383
Hippoc. Mul. 2.200, L 8.382–83.

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are pressurized by this movement parallels how the disease in Virg. affects these same body parts

with pressure.

In all the above cases of uterine movement, pressure exerted on the upper abdomen,

phrenes, kardia, and head, all of which are often connected to the womb and, sometimes, mind

in Hippocratic medicine,384 cause symptoms akin to sacred disease. These symptoms and their

cause, pressure, parallel how maidens experience visions and other mental disturbances because

of the pressure exerted on their phrenes from menses travelling there. Thus, both diseases cause

the pressurization of areas associated with the mind, resulting in sacred-disease-like symptoms.

Though the condition in Virg. mostly affects maidens who have yet to have their first period

while uterine movement seems to affect younger and older women, the Hippocratics also state

that womb movement is the cause for a young girl having delayed menarche, which in turn

causes mental disturbances.385 Furthermore, as I have already outlined, uterine movement can

obstruct menstrual flow by blocking or closing the mouth of the womb.386 Though not related to

womb movement, when the mouth of the womb closes, the patient also experiences pnix.387

Thus, we may conclude that the uterine movement described in Mul. is associated with and even

causes the ailment mentioned in Virg.

4.7 Scent Therapies for Uterine Movement

Considering uterine movement and the condition in Virg. are interconnected and exhibit

symptoms that encompass sacred disease, we should now consider the Hippocratics’ use of scent

therapies to treat uterine movement, which involve the burning or vaporization of both foul- and

384
See n. 342–3.
385
Hippoc. Superfetation 34, L 8.504-6; Demand 1994, 98.
386
Hippoc. Places in Man 47, L 5.344–46; Mul. 2.133, L 8.284-86; Mul. 2.203, L 8.388–90.
387
Hippoc. Mul. 2.163, L. 343.

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sweet-smelling substances that are applied to the orifices of the head and the vagina. These same

therapies were used in cleansing rituals, most notably to treat the Proitids, who were the

daughters of King Proteus of Argos and became mad after angering Hera or Dionysos. These

girls, I argue, experienced mental disturbances afflicted by gods, an affliction which we consider

a form of sacred disease and therefore associate with the above uterine movement. In a similar

manner to the Proitids, Erigone and the Athenian maidens from the Aiora myth may exhibit

symptoms of this disease. Especially in the case of actual Aiora rite itself, I shall argue that its

female celebrants, based on the ceremony’s etiological myth and the previous vase-scenes

depicting this rite, performed scent therapies during this ceremony to treat uterine movement.

Pitch,388 which was used as an ingredient in both the ritual and Hippocratic scent therapies, will

also be discussed in this section and then later related in a different section to another ceremony

of the Anthesteria.

4.7.1 Hippocratic Scent Therapies for Uterine Movement

Considering the Hippocratics believed that the upper and lower passages of a female’s

body were connected to each other, it is unsurprising that their scent therapies for uterine

movement, like procreation, affected both of these areas. One of the more detailed Hippocratic

descriptions of their scent therapies comes from Mul. 2.133,389 which describes a woman whose

womb moves up to her hip joint, causing her womb to close up, resulting in the symptoms

described above. Because of her condition, the text prescribes that seal oil and garlic, both fetid

substances, should be placed in a ceramic pot with water, which is lidded and has a hollow reed

388
The “pitch” (pissa) described in this chapter, especially in relation to the scent therapies from the Hippocratic
Corpus, ritual fumigations, and the smearing of it on doors during the Anthesteria, refers to pine resin. Pliny the
Elder notes that pine resin (pix) was used for fumigations and treatments of uterine movement (Plin. NH. 24.23).
389
Hippoc. Mul. 2.133, L 8.284–86.

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inserted into it. This vessel is then placed onto hot coals. Once the reed of the pot emits vapours,

the patient should then insert this reed into her vagina, so that the vapour can flow into the lower

half of her womb. According to this text, this particular treatment should cause the patient’s

distended womb to stand upright and inflate (pephusesthai). This inflation of the womb should

then open it up. Once the womb becomes upright and open, fennel roots, which are fragrant, are

vaporized and applied to the vagina in a similar manner, causing the womb to move forward.

From the above passage, we see that both the upper and lower passages need to be treated

to cure uterine movement. Furthermore, fetid and aromatic smells, at least according to this

Hippocratic treatment of uterine movement, can repel and draw in the womb respectively. These

respective properties are especially apparent in Mul. 2.125.390 The text prescribes that a patient

who experiences uterine movement should expose her nose with foul odours in increasing doses.

It does not specify how this procedure is done, and which substances are used, but Mul. 2.201

says that wool is dipped in pitch, castoreum, and asphalt and thrown into a fire to emit smoke.391

The writer of Mul. 2.125 warns that the patient should not inhale these fumes all at once, since

the womb can rush downward, causing further problems. Thus, he recommends that her vagina

should be enveloped with aromatic fumes to balance out the previous treatment. Again, it is not

specified how this procedure is done, but we may assume it is enacted with a similar apparatus as

the one described in Mul. 2.133.

Given the above examples of these scent therapies, one may assume that the

Hippocratics, like Plato, viewed the womb as a sentient being and thus employed these therapies

to make the womb run away or towards certain odours, something which was criticized by

390
Hippoc. Mul. 2.125, L 8.268–70.
391
Hippoc. Mul. 2.201, L 8.385.

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Soranos. However, the Hippocratics do provide, albeit very briefly, a medical explanation for

these therapies in the aforementioned Mul. 2.133, which says that the fetid odour treatment of

seal oil can cause the womb to “inflate”. Other than this explanation, no other medical reason is

stated by the Hippocratics for their use of scent therapies.392 Despite our inability to decipher

what the exact medicinal attributes of these treatments were, we can conclude that the womb was

not viewed by the Hippocratics as a living being or animal-like.393

4.7.2 Fumigations for Uterine Movement in the Myth of the Proitids

Since the Hippocratics used scent therapies consisting of fetid substances such as pitch to

treat uterine movement, we should now consider a similar type of procedure that was

incorporated in cleansing rituals to treat what we may consider uterine movement. A notable

example of this ritual treatment comes from myths, before and after the Hippocratics, of the

Proitids, who became mad and wandered throughout the Peloponnese. Their madness was caused

by a divine affliction after they had rebuffed the statue of Hera or, in some renditions, rejected

the worship of Dionysos. In the Dionysian version, women from Argos also lost their minds and

abandoned their families to join the Proitids in their wanderings.394 Regardless of the versions,

the Proitids and the women of Argos were cured of their madness when the seer Melampous

purified them by performing a fumigation ritual in which he burned foul-smelling substances

comprised of pitch and sulphur and exposed them to its fumes.395 As part of their treatment

392
Hanson suggests that these scent therapies embodied the Hippocratic “precept that opposites cure opposites”. See
Ann Hanson, “Talking Recipes in the Gynaecological Texts of the Hippocratic Corpus,” in Parchments of Gender:
Deciphering the Bodies of Antiquity, ed. Marina Wyke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 72, 86. Her theory,
however, is an oversimplification. For example, based on Mul. 2.133, we may assume that fragrant odors deflated
the womb. However, in Mul. 2.202, L. 8.387, a womb that is inflated (anemothosin) is treated with fragrant
substances, albeit in the form of an unguent.
393
Hanson 1990, 319.
394
Hera version: Serv. ad. Ecl. 6.48; Apollod. 2.2.2; Bacchyl. 11.47–52. Dionysian version: Hes. fr. 37.10–15. For a
detailed analysis of the various versions of the myth, see Dowden 1989, 73-5.
395
Diphilos fr. 125 Kassel-Austin.

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Melampous also chased them to the mountains of Sikyon. Afterwards, the Proitids married the

seer and his brother Bias and bore children with them.396

The Proitids and the women of Argos may represent a situation where they were

suffering from sacred disease, since their illness was caused by gods. Furthermore, their

treatment comprised of fetid fumigations was a common practice in cleansing rituals, where

similar foul-smelling substances were burned to cleanse polluted people or objects.397 The use of

noxious materials in these rituals to cleanse impure things was emblematic of ritual and

sympathetic magic in which like purified like.398

Alternatively, we may consider their affliction as something akin to uterine movement

and the disease in Virg. As I have already outlined above, both illnesses, which are connected

with each other, have symptoms that encompass sacred disease. The maiden Proitids and the

women of Argos roaming throughout the Peloponnese as they were in a frenzied state resembles

how the parthenos patient in Virg. wanders as she experiences mental issues. Furthermore, their

roaming calls to mind Aretaios’ suggestion that younger females experienced uterine movement

because their lifestyles were “wandering”, causing their womb to rove as well.399 Since this band

of roaming females comprised of both maidens (the Proitids) and married women with children

(women of Argos), it is logical to suppose that the former experienced the disease in Virg. while

the latter suffered from uterine movement, based on the Hippocratics’ theories of both disorders.

However, Plato also cites a lack of sexual intercourse as the cause of uterine movement, which

396
Apollod. 2.2.2.
397
See Heinrich von Staden, “Women and Dirt,” Helios 19 (1992): 7–18 and Heinrich von Staden, “Matière et
Signification: Rituel, Sexe et Pharmacologie dans le corpus Hippocratique,” L’Antiquité Classique 60 (1991): 42–
61.
398
Parker 1983, 228.
399
We do not know what this “wandering” lifestyle that Aretaios describes entails. It could perhaps mean that the
patient overexerts herself, since the Hippocratics do mention that strenuous physical activity can dry out and
displace the womb (Hippoc. Mul. 2.138, L. 8.310–12).

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suggests that females, regardless of whether they are younger, married, or childless,400 may

suffer from uterine movement. Since Plato’s theories of uterine movement seem to have been

popular during and after his time, we may associate both groups of females with suffering from

uterine movement and thus roamed as their womb did.

The fact that the Proitids and these women were treated with fetid fumigations reminds us

of the Hippocratic treatments for uterine movement, which incorporated similar scent therapies.

Of course, these Hippocratic treatments were meant to treat married women suffering from

uterine movement, not prepubescent girls afflicted with the disease described in Virg. However, I

have noted that Plato and perhaps other Greeks thought that uterine movement could affect both

young and older women. Furthermore, uterine movement can cause symptoms such as an

obstruction of the womb’s passages that results in blocked menstrual flow, which were

exemplified in the disease in Virg. Therefore, scent therapies such as fumigation may have been

incorporated to treat both ailments.

Whether the mythographers were aware of Hippocratic theories on uterine movement and

the illness endemic to parthenoi cannot be proven, since they either predate or are well after the

Hippocratics. However, sacred disease (i.e. afflictions from the gods that cause mental

disturbances) was closely linked by the Hippocratics with these two illnesses, although they

argued that sacred disease was not divine. It is also important to note that fumigation predated

the Hippocratics, given that it was attested as far back as the seventh century BCE.401 Since the

Hippocratics and later doctors used fumigations for uterine movement, there is an indication that

they were influenced by folk-medicine, and religious and purification rituals predating their

400
Plato, from this same passage, says that gynaikes suffer this ailment. However, he does not specify whether they
are married or have children. Gyne could also refer to any female, regardless of her age or status, see n. 280.
401
Doria and Giuman 2016, 19, n. 60.

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medical theories.402 Thus, the Proitids, regardless of whether Melampous thought their illness

was divine or merely a common gynaecological disorder, were cured with treatments that were

meant to counteract both types of ailments.

Another parallel between Hippocratic medicine and the myth of the Proitids that we must

address is the fact that the Proitids married Bias and Melampous after their purification. I stated

above that the Hippocratics prescribed marriage and procreation as a cure for uterine movement.

It is also important to note that they recommended these two things after the patient underwent

scent therapy.403 As with the Hippocratics, Plato, too, recommended sex as a cure for uterine

movement, albeit due to his own hypothesis that the womb moved because it was sentient and

desirous of sex, contrary to the Hippocratic’s point of view of this illness. Of course, these same

doctors prescribed the same cure to treat the illness described in Virg. Therefore, we may assume

that the Proitids and the women of Argos may have suffered from gynaecological diseases that

share notable similarities with sacred disease, whether they were considered divine or not, and

were thus cured with “medical” treatments for such illnesses.

4.7.3 Uterine Movement in the Aiora Myth and Fumigation in the Aiora

As with the Proitids, Erigone in the Aiora myth roamed throughout Athens while

frantically looking for her father. Hyginos, who speaks of this myth, calls Erigone a mendicant

(mendica) and notes how the Aiora was also called Aletis (Wanderer) in reference to her roving.

Those who performed this rite were also called wanderers (aletides).404 In the previous sections, I

highlighted how the Athenian maidens in this same myth may have exhibited symptoms akin to

402
Sissa argues that the tripods which the Pythia used to gain prophetic inspiration may have been associated with
odor therapies such as fumigation. See Giulia Sissa, Greek Virginity (Cambridge; Massachusetts: Harvard University
Press, 1990), 41-52.
403
Hippoc. Mul. 2.127, L 8.273, 2.128, L. 8.276.
404
Hyg. Poet. Astr. 2.4.5.

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the illness in Virg., and thus the Aiora was established to cure such a disorder. However, we

should also consider that Erigone and these same maidens also displayed symptoms of uterine

movement, given that this illness was connected with the disorder in Virg and how non-

Hippocratics may have viewed uterine movement as an illness that affected maidens as well.

Thus, Erigone and the Athenian girls in the myth, despite being maidens, could have suffered

from a disorder that usually, at least according to the Hippocratics, affected married women.

Thus, their wanderings, as with the Proitids were indicative of their mobile wombs.

Zeitlin, while discussing Plato’s and the Hippocratics’ perspective of uterine movement

and then relating them to myths of young women frantically wandering such as Io, suggests the

Greeks often thought that females were at the mercy of their sexual desires, and thus exhibit

symptoms of this illness to be cured through sex. She further connects these wanderings and its

sexual cure to Dionysian ecstatic worship, where the women worshipers of Dionysos left their

homes to go to the mountains and perform rites that involved sexual activity. Their returning

home after enacting these rites indicates that their wanderings were cured when they performed

these sexual acts while worshipping Dionysos, a god associated with the phallos and semen.405

We may apply Zeitlin’s hypothesis to the myth of the Proitids and the Aiora but within

the context of Dionysian coming-of-age and premarital rites that cured gynaecological

illnesses.406 The myth of the Proitids is probably an etiology for a coming-of-age rite, since,

according to Hesychios, there was a Dionysian festival at Argos called the Agriania in which

young women travelled to the mountains to honour Iphinoe, one of the Proitids who was unable

405
Zeitlin 1982, 134–35.
406
Bremmer 1984, 282–86 most notably posits that Dionysian ecstatic rituals may have had premarital origins since
both women and maidens were participants of these ecstatic rites (Diod. Sic. 4.3.3).

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to be saved by Melampous.407 It is important to note that Melampous was associated with

Dionysos, since Herodotos says that he was a disciple of the god who introduced his phallic rites

from Egypt to Greece.408 Given that he married and had children with one of the Proitids after

treating their uterine movement-like ailment, it is likely that the ceremonies of the Agriania

mimicked this myth, where, as with the Aiora, young women performed a coming-of-age rite

which resulted in a marriage ceremony to honour a maiden who was unable to take part in

marriage. Furthermore, this Agriania may have treated uterine movement, since sexual activity

was likely enacted due to the festival’s association with Melampous and his ties with phallic

rites. Sex, as I have especially noted, was recommended by the Hippocratics and Plato as a cure

for this disease. If this festival did mimic the above myth, we may consider that fumigations

were employed to treat its female celebrants suffering from the aforementioned disorders.

As with the case of the Proitids and its subsequent Agriania festival, the Aiora was a rite

of passage that allowed young women later to take part in marriage and childbirth while also

potentially curing the above illnesses, since, as stated above, the maidens in the ceremony’s

etiological myth exhibited symptoms of such ailments. The fact that they took part in the

Pithoigia afterwards, where they opened vessels that are analogous to their wombs, hinted at

their future sexual activity, which could treat the aforementioned diseases. The gerarai were also

celebrants of both rituals and, given that they were older, fertile women, may have performed

these rituals for similar reasons. The basilinna, a participant of both ceremonies, took part in a

marriage ceremony to consummate her union with “Dionysos”, which may have indicated that

407
Hsch. s.v. “agriania”.
408
Hdt. 2.49.1–3.

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she, a married woman who was likely susceptible to the above ailments as well, had sex to treat

this condition.

Especially if we re-examine the aforementioned vase-scenes that depict the Aiora, we see

a parallel between the Aiora and Hippocratic cures for uterine movement, since these scenes

indicate that fumigations were performed at the ceremony. In Meidias’ chous (Fig. 2.2), I

pointed out how the depicted woman pouring liquids over an open fire indicates that she is

performing a fumigation ritual to purify garments that sat on top of a swing over an open fire.409

We may assume that other than garments the female participants were fumigated, especially if

we consider that in Eretria’s chous (Fig. 2.5) a vessel is portrayed right beside an open fire, both

of which are underneath the swing. This depicted vessel is also found in another portrayal of the

Aiora (Fig. 2.3), albeit with the absence of an open fire. In any case, Eretria’s depiction of a

vessel standing beside an open fire reminds us of how the Hippocratics in their scent therapies to

treat uterine movement used a heated earthenware pot full of foul- or sweet-smelling material to

emit fumes that were exposed to the patient’s vagina. It is logical to suppose that, based on the

fact that fumigations were also performed in the Aiora, a similar procedure was enacted, where

the above vessel was filled with odorous substances such as pitch that was then heated up to emit

fumes. We are not sure whether the participants of the Aiora would have sat on the swing to be

fumigated from below or simply stood over this heated vessel and fumigated the passages of

their head, which is something the Hippocratics also recommended, albeit in a slightly different

manner.

409
See 2.5.1.

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 If such a procedure was performed at the Aiora, we may also parallel this situation with

the Proitids, who were also fumigated to treat an illness that was analogous to uterine movement.

In a situation where the celebrants of the did fumigate themselves to treat similar illnesses, we

may also connect the Proitids’ marriage that happened after their treatment to the basilinna, who

participated in the Aiora and then took part in a marriage ceremony. We must remind ourselves

that even the Hippocractics themselves prescribed that a sufferer of uterine movement, after

undergoing scent therapies, should marry and procreate. Thus, though we cannot fully prove that

the Aiora incorporated fumigations or scent therapies to treat gynaecological disorders, we must

consider the possibility, based on my above discussion.410

4.8 Pitch and Its Significance in the Anthesteria

As I conclude this chapter, it is important to consider that pitch, used in both the

Hippocratic scent therapies for uterine movement and ritual fumigations, was also incorporated

in another ritual of the Anthesteria. The festival’s female celebrants smeared pitch on doors to

ward off supernatural forces that were associated with disease, particularly sacred disease, which

had ties with the aforementioned gynaecological ailments. Their smearing of this substance on

doors, which could represent the womb, parallels how the Hippocractics used pitch as an

ointment that they smeared on the vaginal area (i.e. the lower mouth of womb) of women

suffering from uterine movement and other gynaecological illnesses that inhibited their fertility.

Thus, this section concludes that, other than the Anthesteria’s Aiora and Pithoigia ceremonies,

410
If this possibility is true, the Aiora may have influenced Hippocratic treatments for gynaecological disorders,
since this ceremony and the festival that hosted it predated Hippocratic doctors. Thucydides (2.15.1–4) notes that the
Anthesteria was an ancient Athenian festival. Athenians who migrated to Ionia celebrated this festival in this region,
which was where the Hippocratics may have originated (either in the Ionian islands of Kos or Chios). We know that
Aiora was celebrated in the Ionian city Kolophon, at least according to Athenaios, who cites Aristotle (see n. 144).

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the festival as a whole may have treated ailments endemic to women as way to promote their

fertility.

I previously noted that Athenians during the Anthesteria used pitch to anoint the doors of

their homes to ward off keres (spirits of the dead) that roamed during the festival.411 Considering

my previous discussion of sacred disease and its ties with uterine movement and the disease in

Virg., we may also consider that the keres are said by Plato to cause sacred disease.412

Furthermore, these supernatural beings were considered by the ancient Greeks as an embodiment

of illness.413 Thus, Athenians, in an apotropaic manner, may have smeared pitch on their home’s

doors to repel disease. Athenian girls and women may have especially performed this ritual to

avoid contracting illnesses such as the one described in Virg., and uterine movement, given the

keres’ associations with sacred disease and how they may have caused them.414

Interestingly, Photios, from whom we get the account of this ritual practice, also states

that the rite was generally performed when a child was born.415 We may therefore associate this

particular ritual with the Anthesteria, given that post-partum women were likely in Athens during

the festival and may have performed the rite to ward off illnesses that they were especially

susceptible to after giving birth. This is notably true if we consider that their smearing of pitch on

doors may be analogous to this same substance being applied to areas near their womb to treat

ailments endemic to them as post-partum women. In ancient Greek comedy, the womb was

411
See 1.4.
412
Plat. Leg. 937d.
413
B. C. Dietrich, Death, Fate, and the Gods : The Development of a Religious Idea in Greek Popular Belief and in
Homer (London: University of London. Athlone Press, 1965), 242; Hes. Op. 92.
414
Also, we may alternatively consider that these same females may have burned pitch as part of the fumigation
ritual during the Aiora in order to ward off the keres who embodied disease, given that there is a white-ground
lekythos which depicts Hermes Psychopompos (Guide of souls) releasing keres out of a vessel that looks like the one
used in the Aiora (Jena, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität 338, ARV2 760.41).
415
Phot. s.v. “miara hemara”.

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associated with doors.416 Especially in a context where the womb was anointed with pitch after

childbirth, the Hippocratics used an ointment made from this substance to treat a post-partum

woman whose womb has prolapsed, affecting her fertility.417 We may also note that, at least

according to the Hippocratics, pregnant women can suffer from uterine movement, causing her

to die prematurely.418 In relation to a pitch-based treatment for uterine movement, a suppository

made from this material was inserted into the vagina.419 In similar fashion, these suppositories

were also used as an emollient, so that it could help open up a closed womb which has rejected

male seed, thus promoting a female’s fecundity.420

We may note that the insertion of suppositories and the rubbing of ointments on the

vaginal area of post-partum women, both made from pitch, indicate that these two treatments

may have simulated sex to cure their ailments,421 especially if we consider that the Hippocratics

also prescribed sexual intercourse as a cure for uterine movement. Therefore, it is likely that

these pitch-based treatments cured post-partum women who could suffer from illnesses that

affected their recovery and thus their ability to have more children in the future. In a similar

manner to the above treatments, these same types of women during the Anthesteria may have

smeared pitch on their doors not only to ward off disease, but also cure, in an apotropaic manner,

any illnesses that affected their overall reproductive health by applying pitch to doors that were

analogous to their womb.

416
For a collection of doors associated with the womb in ancient Greek comedy, see Henderson 1975, 137.
417
Hippoc. Mul. 2.144, L 8.317–19.
418
Hippoc. Mul. 1.32, L 8.76.
419
Hippoc. Mul. 2.124, 8.268–69; 2.203, L 8.388.
420
Hippoc. Mul. 2.158, L 8.336.
421
Contra King 1998, 221, who is skeptical that these treatments were prescribed by the Hippocratics as an indirect
form of “sexual gratification”, since procreation was not commonly recommended by them.

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 Of course, this smearing of pitch on doors, as mentioned above, also applied to the

female celebrants of the Anthesteria who were not post-partum, especially given that they

performed other rituals during the festival’s Aiora and Pithoigia ceremonies, which possibly

promoted their fecundity and cured gynecological ailments.422 Since these younger celebrants

took part in the Aiora and Pithoigia, both of which involved the use of wine-vessels, it is

important to note that the inner lining of such containers were covered in pitch.423 Since these

same vessels were analogous to a female’s womb, we may associate the practice of Athenian

girls and women smearing pitch on doors, another object associated with the womb, as a ritual

that treated womb-based illnesses.

4.9 Conclusion

The Aiora and the Pithoigia ceremonies of the Anthesteria were performed by females,

both young and old, to promote their fertility and treat any gynaecological disorders that affected

their reproductive health or caused them to die prematurely. Ritually speaking, the Aiora

protected girls and women from experiencing these ailments with their propitiation of a dead

maiden, allowing them to be eligible for marriage. The subsequent Pithoigia, then, allowed them

to open up their wombs for procreation in the future by opening up wine-vessels that were

analogous to the womb, according to both the Hippocratics and non-Hippocratics. Based on

analogues from Hippocratic gynaecology, the Aiora in particular may have treated both younger

and older women with illnesses such as uterine movement that they were susceptible to, since

they may have fumigated themselves by burning pitch, a therapy that was used in the

422
Johnston 1999, 215, argues a similar idea of state sponsored festivals promoting female fertility; however, she
interprets that these festivals warded off actual spirits of the dead, who could interfere with the fecundity of females.
423
Marco Giuman and Frederica Doria, "«Θύραζε Κᾶρες, οὐκ ἔτ'ʼΑνθεστήρια» Alexipharmaka e Apotropaia nei
Rituali dei Choes Ateniesi,” Otium 2 (2017): 10; Geopon. 6.3, 6.7.

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Hippocratics’ treatment for such a disorder. Uterine movement was also associated with sacred

disease, a divine or supernatural affliction that was also cured with ritual fumigations comprised

of the same substance. The fact that these same celebrants also smeared pitch on doors during the

Anthesteria suggests that they were attempting to ward off and cure themselves from

gynaecological ailments, given that doors could represent the womb, with the womb itself often

covered with this substance to treat similar disorders. Thus, it is likely that the Anthesteria was

celebrated by girls and women to treat gynaecological disorders that affected their reproductive

health, which falls in line with the Anthesteria serving as a festival that promoted both agrarian

and female fertility.

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 CONCLUSION
Contrary to the recent and conflicting scholarship of the Anthesteria’s seemingly

disparate themes and ceremonies, my study has re-examined the literary and material evidence to

explore how this festival functioned as a one-day celebration that was both a joyous and even

sombre occasion that promoted viticulture in Athens and the reproductive health of Athenian

women. The Aiora and sacred wedding ceremony, in particular, each of which modern critics

have unlinked from the Anthesteria due to supposedly inadequate evidence for their association

with that festival, was integral to this dichotomous festival and its fertility-promoting properties.

In my re-examination of the textual evidence of the Anthesteria’s ceremonies and

temporal layout, the festival’s drinking contest and feast were likely held on 12 Anthesterion, a

day considered miasmic by our ancient sources when all temples were closed. On the other hand,

on this inauspicious day Dionysos’ Limnaian precinct (Limnai) was open, a sanctuary to which

the celebrants of the festival’s well-attested Choes feast and contest marched after their

festivities. Given that contest and feast were associated with gloomy etiological myths and held

on a miasmic day, and the fact that no other ancient festival separates its joyous events from its

gloomy one, it is likely that the Anthesteria was one a single-day, not three-day, celebration that

could host various types of events, both jovial and gloomy. Since Dionysos’ sanctuary was,

based on archaeological finds, likely located in the Agora, where all these ceremonies were also

conducted, it is logistically possible for multiple events to happen on one day.

In Chapter 2, I re-appraised the literary and iconographical evidence to highlight how the

sacred wedding ceremony and its preceding rites, such as the Aiora, were part of and integral to

the Anthesteria and its drinking activities. Imitating the marriage between Dionysos and Oineus’

wife, the basilinna and her real-life husband, the basileus, performed the sacred wedding

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ceremony during the Anthesteria to symbolically welcome Dionysos in order to promote

Athenian viticulture. As part of this wedding and symbolic welcoming of the god (theoxenia),

the basilinna enlisted the help of her assistant gerarai to perform preliminary wedding rites, such

as the Aiora and subsequent wine-mixing ritual and goat sacrifice, at or near Limnai. Especially

in the case of the goat sacrifice and the following wedding rite, the celebrants of the Anthesterian

drinking events aided the basilinna in her nuptials. We know that these premarital rituals were

connected to each other and the sacred wedding, since various fifth-century BCE ceramics

depicting all these rites have the basilinna, gerarai, and drinking celebrants, along with the

liknon, klismos and various other Dionysian and nuptial objects all portrayed on them.

Chapter 3 underscores how the Aiora was a rite of passage and fertility ritual for the

female celebrants of the Anthesteria. The participants in the Aiora underwent mock death

through a “hanging” in order to become marriageable so that they could marry and have children

in the future. Their “passing” was paradoxical in that it symbolized the death of their maiden

selves and their rebirth as adult women. This paradox involved these same girls, who were likely

prepubescent and did not experience uterine bleeding via menstruation, undergoing a bloodless

death by “hanging” themselves in order to develop into adult women who would have bled in the

future through menstruation and childbirth. Based on my comparison of the Aiora with

Artemisian mock hangings, the Aiora may have had an apotropaic purpose of protecting its

female participants from disease and other dangers that affected their ability to fully mature and

bear children in the future. Additionally, the Aiora promoted vegetal fertility, more specifically

the grape harvest, given that Dionysos’ image was swung during the rite, which shared

similarities with these Artemisian rites, where the goddess’ image was hung on trees to promote

agriculture. The dual function of such mock hangings, with the Aiora being no exception,

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indicates that female and agrarian fecundity were interconnected, further suggesting that the

Anthesteria was a festival that promoted both types of fertility.

Chapter 4 further highlights the fertility-promoting properties of the Anthesteria and its

ceremonies in that the Aiora and wine-mixing rite cured gynaecological illnesses that affected

the female reproductive health. Girls and women, according to Hippocratic doctors, were prone

experiencing issues where the passages of their womb were unable to open or were blocked,

causing them to have blocked menses and experience mental disturbances akin to sacred disease,

which then compelled them to hang themselves. The Hippocratic cures for these ailments were

procreation and childbirth, which opened up the passages of the womb so that menstrual blood

could flow, or scent therapies comprised of foul or aromatic odours. These gynaecological issues

parallel the etiological myth of the Aiora, wherein young Athenian women experienced similar

ailments and died, preventing them from bearing children. Similarly, the Hippocratic prescription

of sex and childbirth as a cure for such ailments mirrors how the female celebrants of the Aiora

and wine-mixing rite symbolically opened up their womb for conception. The former rite

allowed them to take part in marriage, an act that opens up the womb for procreation, while the

latter ritual referenced the symbolic opening of their wombs through their opening of wine-

vessels, which the ancient Greeks, with the Hippocratics, being no exception, associated with the

womb.

In the Aiora, fumigations were performed by its female celebrants, which parallels the

Hippocratic treatment for the aforementioned disorders. Pitch, which was an ingredient in ritual

fumigation and Hippocratic scent therapies, was also smeared on the doors of Athenians’ home

during the Anthesteria to ward off the keres, who were perceived by the Greeks to roam during

the festival and cause disease, which likely included the aforementioned gynaecological

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disorders. Thus, the female celebrants of the Anthesteria may have smeared pitch on their

houses’ doors, which could represent the womb, to ward off diseases that affected their womb

and reproductive health. Given that the Anthesteria’s ceremonies promoted female fertility

through their prophylactic properties, it is likely that the festival had a medicinal purpose, an

interpretation not proposed by recent scholarship of this same festival.

By re-examining the ancient testimonia, material and archaeological evidence pertaining

to the Anthesteria and its ceremonies, I have provided an alternative interpretation of the festival

in which its seemingly disparate events were all related and could operate in conjunction with

each other. This thesis has highlighted the flaws in modern scholarship which discounts ancient

evidence, whether textual or material, based on modern preconceived notions about ancient

Greek ritual that likely have no bearing on real-life ancient Greek religious festivals such as the

Anthesteria. Thus, future studies on the Anthesteria or any religious Greek festival for that matter

should entertain the possibility that the eclectic ceremonies of such religious events were

polyvalent and could have multiple functions and meanings for its celebrants and, therefore,

should not be excised from our understanding of these rites or festivals. Furthermore, I have

incorporated the discipline of ancient Greek medicine in my attempt to conceptualize the

Anthesteria as a festival that also promoted female fertility. Thus, other ancient Greek festivals,

especially those that are Dionysian and seemingly have no medical functions, should be

examined through this medical lens, given that this perspective may enrich our understanding of

such events.

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