Susan Guettel Cole

7/30/2019 Susan Guettel Cole

1/4

Susan Guettel Cole

(Chapter 21) analyzes the cults of the ever-mobile and adventitious (though actually

already Mycenaean) Dionysus. His willing worshipers experienced him through a

positive form of ritual madness, which was radically distinguished from the wanton

and destructive madness experienced by those who resisted his cult. Wine was

originally the primary concern of Dionysiac ritual. The consumption of wine, like

Dionysus himself, could lead to a pleasant and harmless madness, when done in orderly and ritual

fashion, but it could induce the more dangerous and destructive

form of madness when done without order. The increasing importance of Dionysus

in the archaic and classical periods reflected the increasing importance of wine and the

circumstances of its communal consumption, in symposiums and elsewhere, to the

developing Greek state. Dionysus was above all a god of transitions. Dionysiac scenes

on Attic vases, particularly those offering distinctive, challenging frontal faces, address

the theme of transition to an altered state, be this by means of wine, frenetic dance,

sleep, or death. In Dionysiac ritual his worshipers took on the roles of characters from

his myths, and the (transitional) donning of costume was integral to and constitutive

of his rites; hence his association with masks and the theater. The so-called Orphic

gold leaves, buried with the dead to guide them through the underworld, are now

recognized to be in fact Dionysiac. Death was a final transition over which the god

presided, and across the Greek world people had themselves initiated into his rites in

preparation for it.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Homer

presents Themis as a regular denizen of Olympus, described like many other female

characters as fair-cheeked; she offers wine and sympathy to Hera, who tells her to

rule over the gods in their house at the fairly divided feast (Iliad 15.8792), and


2/4

she summons assemblies, both of the gods (Iliad 20.46) and of mortals (Odyssey

2.689).

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

At the cremation or burial site the family would make offerings of

food, wine, olive oil, and various household possessions such as weapons for the

men or jewelry for the women burning or burying them with the body, the idea

being, at least in part, that the dead person might have use for these items in the

afterlife.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The one-day Genesia, however, was a relatively minor festival for the dead com-

pared to the three-day Anthesteria. This holiday, the name of which derives from the

Greek anthos, or flower, was a major festival honoring the god Dionysus, but the

last two days, particularly the third day, were devoted to the dead. Unlike the Genesia,

during which the Athenians reverenced and remembered their dead, part of the

Anthesteria was evidently intended to appease the dead and avert any evil they

might intend toward the living. The Anthesteria took place on the 11th, 12th, and

13th of the month of Anthesterion (our late February/early March), the time in

spring when flowers come into blossom. The festival consisted of three phases: the

Pithoigia, the Choes, and the Chytrai. On the Pithoigia, the day of jar-opening,

new wine was tasted and offered to Dionysus (Parke 1977:1078).

The Choes, or day of wine-jugs, the main day of the Anthesteria, included a

procession and sacrifices in honor of Dionysus, followed by evening parties to which

guests brought their own wine (quite different from the usual Greek symposium, at

which the host provided the drink). On this second day of Anthesteria, however, the

ghosts of the dead were believed to roam the city and stay until they were intention-

ally driven away by certain rituals at the end of the festival. Because the living and the


3/4

dead were supposed to remain separate, as the extramural burials suggested, the

possibility of contact with the spirits made the last two days of the Anthesteria

unlucky, and to avoid pollution by contact with the dead businesses closed,

temples shut down, and people stayed home. For protection against the unseen

spirits, the Athenians smeared their doors with pitch (to which the spirits would

stick if they tried to enter the house) and chewed hawthorn leaves (which were

supposed to have some sort of protective quality, perhaps similar to the alleged

power of garlic against vampires).

On the third day of the Anthesteria, the Chytrai, or day of pots, each family

made its own offerings to the dead, cooking a meal of mixed grains in a pot and

offering it to chthonic Hermes (Hermes of the underworld) for the sake of the dead.

At sunset, the head of the household went through all the rooms shouting, Out the

door *spirits+! Anthesteria is over. In short, the Greek Anthesteria seems to have

served a function similar to Halloween, a night when ghosts are believed to wander

the earth. If the spirits are not appeased by the ritual offering of food (treat), they

may cause harm to the living (trick). In the case of the Anthesteria, it is not entirely

clear how or why the ghosts wandered the earth, or even whose spirits they were,

except perhaps for one. On the last day of the Anthesteria a meal was offered to the

ghost of Erigone, a legendary maiden who hanged herself after the death of her father

Icarius, to whom Dionysus had given the gift of wine (Burkert 1985:241; Johnston

1999a:21924).

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The natural terrain dictated the form of village adaptation and

agrarian enterprise: cattle husbandry and grain cultivation in northern

Greece, while in the southern regions extensive cultivation of grapes and

olives. Dry farming predominated, irrigation beingminimal and used in or-


4/4

chards and gardens. The earliest evidence of olives (c. 3900 b.c.e.) comes

from Crete. Wild grapes were indigenous over much of northern Greece;

however, the history of Greek winemaking is imperfectly understood. By

Mycenaean times winemaking was well developed, and trade in wine, in

addition to olives, was central to the Mycenaean economy.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Documents

Susan Guettel Cole