The ritual year of athena: The agricultural cycle of the olive, girls' rites of passage, and official ideology

Journal of Religious History

Volumn 36, Issue 2, 2012, Pages 256-284

  Hãland, Evy Johanne ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS   (Greece)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 85027948319     PISSN: 00224227     EISSN: 14679809     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9809.2011.01169.x     Document Type: Review

References (214)

1. I would like to thank Dr Marie Wells for useful recommendations on conveying my thoughts and helping to clarify my English. I would also like to thank the two readers of the article for useful recommendations. All the remaining errors are, of course, my own. The transliteration of modern and ancient Greek follows the rules of the Nordic Library, Athens. Greek names are not Latinized with the letter c which does not exist in the Greek alphabet. The article is based on "The RitualYear of Athena: The agricultural cycle of the olive, girls' passage rites, and official ideology," (keynote address presented at the Third Conference of the SIEF Working Group on The Ritual Year, The Ritual Year and History, Stražnice, Czech Republic, 26 May 2007)
2. E. J. Haland, Greek Festivals, Modern and Ancient: A Comparison of Female and Male Values (Kristiansand: Norwegian Academic Press, 2007). An English version, translated by Dr Marie Wells and to be published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing is forthcoming, in which chapters 5-6 give a comprehensive presentation and discussion of the Panathenaia, primary sources and secondary literature. Space does not permit me to reproduce the whole discussion here.
3. See also E. J. Haland, "The RitualYear as aWoman's Life: The Festivals of the Agricultural Cycle, Life-Cycle Passages of Mother Goddesses and Fertility-Cult," in First International Conference of the SIEF Working Group on The Ritual Year. In Association with The Department of Maltese, University of Malta, Junior College, Msida, Malta, 2005: Proceedings, edited by G. Mifsud-Chircop (Malta: Publishers Enterprises Group Ltd, 2006), 303-26
4. E. J. Haland, "Athena's Peplos: Weaving as a Core Female Activity in Ancient and Modern Greece," Cosmos: The Journal of the Traditional Cosmology Society 20 (2006): 155-82.
5. The latter is represented by A. C. Brumfield, The Attic Festivals of Demeter and their Relation to the Agricultural Year (Salem, NH: The Ayer Company, 1981)
6. but her focus is on Demetrian festivals. On women's roles in rituals to Goddesses, see J. E. Harrison, Themis (London and Cambridge: Merlin, 1977, or. 1912)
7. J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (London and Cambridge: Merlin, 1980, or. 1903) is an early exception, while contemporary studies are more frequent
8. see for example J. B. Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007).
9. cf. also J. J. Winkler, The Constraints of Desire: The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece (New York and London: Routledge, 1990). For shorter presentations and discussions of my methodological/theoretical approach to women and gender research
10. see E. J. Haland, "Greek Women and Death, Ancient and Modern: A Comparative Analysis," in Women, Pain and Death: Rituals and Everyday-Life on the Margins of Europe and Beyond, edited by E. J. Haland (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), 34-62
11. E. J. Haland, "Greek Women, Power and the Body: From Fieldwork on Cults Connected with the Female Sphere Towards a Deconstruction of Male Ideologies, Modern and Ancient," Mediterranean Review 3, no. 1 (2010):31-57.
12. In addition to Haland, Greek Festivals, Modern and Ancient, ch. 6
13. see also E. J. Haland, "Rituals of Magical Rain-Making in Modern and Ancient Greece: A Comparative Approach," Cosmos: The Journal of the Traditional Cosmology Society 17, no. 2 (2005): 197-251 for the importance of the agricultural aspect in Greek festivals. See further n. 64 infra and part two of this article.
14. E. J. W. Barber, "The Peplos of Athena," in Goddess and Polis. The Panathenaic Festival in Ancient Athens, edited by J. Neils (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 113.
15. For a discussion of the age of the Arrephoroi, see W. Burkert, "Kekropidensage und Arrhephoria," ["The myth about the Kekropidai and the Arrephoria"] Hermes 94, no. 1 (1966): 3-6
16. cf. W. Burkert, Homo Necans. The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1983), 150
17. J. Neils, "The Panathenaia: An Introduction," in Neils, Goddess and Polis, 17
18. F. I. Zeitlin, "Cultic Models of the Female: Rites of Dionysus and Demeter," Arethusa 15, no. 1, 2 (1982): 129-57.
19. Pausanias, Description of Greece, vols 1-2, translated byW. H. S. Jones (London: Heinemann, 1939-1954, or. 1918, 1926) (hereafter cited as Paus.), 1.26,6.
20. Liddel, H. G./Scott, R./Jones, H. S., A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996, or. 1883).
21. N. Robertson, "Athena's Shrines and Festivals," in Worshipping Athena: Panathenaia and Parthenon, edited by J. Neils (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996), 48-52.
22. Plutarch, Lives, vol. 4, translated by B. Perrin (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1950, or. 1916) (hereafter cited as Plut. Vit. Alc.), 34.1.
23. E. Simon, Festivals of Attica: An Archaeological Commentary (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), 46-48
24. W. Burkert, Greek Religion. Archaic and Classical (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell and Harvard University Press, 1985), 228
25. R. Parker, Miasma. Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), 26-28
26. B. S. Ridgway, "Images of Athena on the Acropolis," in Neils, Goddess and Polis, 124
27. cf. 120-27 for the following. For another focus, see the androcentric description of statues given by R. Osborne, "Looking on Greek style: Does the Sculpted Girl Speak to Women too?" in Classical Greece: Ancient Histories and Modern Archaeologies, edited by I. Morris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994): 81-96, who nevertheless does not mention the most holy statue of Athena.
28. For Athena, see also Connelly, Portrait of a Priestess, although she has different focus to mine, discussed in Haland, "Greek Women and Death, Ancient and Modern"; and "Greek Women, Power and the Body." Connelly's focus is also found in B. E. Goff, Citizen Bacchae:Women's Ritual Practice in Ancient Greece (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), who has a traditional feminist perspective (i.e., using a traditional Western model, which is lacking in ancient Greece and generally also in modern
29. cf. M. Alexiou, After Antiquity: Greek Language, Myth, and Metaphor (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002).
30. Concerning iconography, although S. Lewis has claimed (The Athenian Woman: An Iconographic Handbook (London and New York: Routledge, 2002)) that most Athenian vases were made for export, and are difficult to use to reconstruct Athenian gender ideology, the pictures are similar to those found on vases not made for export, and might illustrate similar ancient values.
31. Aristophanes, vol. 1: The Acharnians, The Knights (Eq.), The Clouds, TheWasps (Vesp.), vol. 2: The Peace, The Birds (Av.), The Frogs, vol. 3: The Lysistrata (Lys.), The Thesmophoriazusae, The Ecclesiazusae (Eccl.), The Plutus, translated by B. B. Rogers (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1946, 1950, or. 1924) (hereafter cited as Lys.), 641-48.
32. Cf. Fr. Dübner, Scholia Græca in Aristophanem (Paris: Ambrosio Firmin Didot, 1855) (hereafter cited as Schol. Ar. Lys.), 643.
33. Some scholars don't take the lines in Lysistrata literally, others do, for example Neils, "The Panathenaia: An Introduction". The same source (Ar. Lys. 642-647) constitutes the point of departure for N. Kaltsas and A. Shapiro, "Introduction," in Worshiping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens, edited by N. Kaltsas and A. Shapiro (New York: Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, 2008)
34. I have compared the actual lines with other available sources, such as dedicatory inscriptions from the Akropolis, Lysias, Menander, Pausanias, Plutarch, references in lexicographers (particularly Harpokratio), and have given a longer discussion of the available material in Haland, Greek Festivals, Modern and Ancient, ch. 5
35. cf. also Burkert, "Kekropidensage und Arrhephoria." Although there is not space to detail the whole discussion here, I hope that this article will also illustrate that it should not be a problem to use, for example, Aristophanes and Pausanias as sources although they were far from each other in time. In my opinion their usefulness is confirmed by the intermediary sources.
36. Cf. Plutarch, Moralia, vol. 10, translated by H. N. Fowler (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1936.) (hereafter, Plut. Mor.), 839c.
37. Cf. Paus. 1.27,3.
38. Cf. n.1 and 4 supra, also for the following. See further, A. Motte, Prairies et Jardins de la Grèce Antique: De la Religion à la Philosophie (Bruxelles: Palais des Académies, 1973), 130, 133 n. 224
39. cf. The translation by P. Levi, Volume 1: Central Greece (London: Penguin, 1984)
40. J. Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens (London: Thames and Hudson, 1971), 228-32.
41. These and other references are discussed in Haland, Greek Festivals, Modern and Ancient, ch. 5, n. 261.
42. Arrephoria was dedicated to both Athena and Aphrodite, cf. Simon, Festivals of Attica, 43.
43. Apollodorus, The Library, vol. 2, translated by J. G. Frazer (London: Heinemann, 1939, 1946, or. 1921) (hereafter cited as Apollod. Bibl.), 3.14,6
44. cf. Paus. 1.18,2. See Burkert, Homo Necans, 151
45. Zeitlin, "Cultic Models of the Female," 150 f.
46. N. Robertson, Festivals and Legends: The Formation of Greek Cities in the Light of Public Ritual (Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 109 and n.74 for the connection.
47. For the Dew Goddess, see Burkert, Greek Religion, 50
48. cf. Simon, Festivals of Attica, 45, the "dew-sisters."
49. For dew in ancient Greek religion in general, see D. D. Boedeker, Descent from Heaven: Images of Dew in Greek Poetry and Religion (Chico, CA: California Scholars Press, 1984) with a particular focus on dew and Athenian Authochthony: ch. 5.
50. "GreekWomen, Power and the Body"
51. see also discussion of N. Loraux, Les enfants d' Athéna. Idées athéniennes sur la citoyenneté et la division des sexes [The children of Athena: Athenian ideas about citizenship and the division between the sexes] (Paris: La Découverte, 1984)
52. who has another approach. K. Kerényi, Athene: Virgin and Mother: A Study of Pallas Athena (Woodstock, CT: Spring Publications, 1978)
53. E. Leach, Culture and Communication: The Logic by which Symbols are Connected: An Introduction to the Use of Structuralist Analysis in Social Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 35.
54. J. P. Spradley and D.W. McCurdy, Anthropology: The Cultural Perspective (NewYork:Wiley, 1980), 385.
55. On women's initiation rites, see also B. Lincoln, Emerging from the Chrysalis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).
56. R. M. Keesing, Cultural Anthropology: A Contemporary Perspective (Fort Worth, TX: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981), 334.
57. Ar. Lys. 641-48.
58. S. B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity (New York and London: Schocken Books, 1995), 68
59. cf. Parker, Miasma. Pollution and Purification, 79 f.
60. Ar. Lys. 645.
61. K. Dowden, Death and the Maiden. Girls' Initiation Rites in Greek Mythology (London and New York: Routledge, 1989), 31 f.
62. Dowden, Death and the Maiden, 62.
63. F. Sokolowski, Lois Sacrées des Cités Grecques. Supplement, [Holy (sacred) laws of the Greek city-states] École Française d'Athènes. Fasc. XI (Paris: Boccard, 1962) (hereafter cited as LSS.), 115.B.1-8, 9-14, 15-23
64. Dowden, Death and the Maiden, 113 f.
65. Schol. Ar. Lys. 641.
66. Scholia in Lucianum, [Scholia (commentaries) to Lucian] edited by H. Rabe (Leipzig: In aedibus Teubneri, 1906) (hereafter cited as Schol. Luc. Dial. Meret.), 2.1, Rabe: 276.13-18.
67. Cf. Nonnus, Dionysiaca, vol. 3, translated by W. H. D. Rouse (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1940)
68. hereafter cited as Nonnus, Dion. 41.64.
69. Zeitlin, "Cultic Models of the Female," 152
70. cf. Burkert, "Kekropidensage und Arrhephoria" and Homo Necans, 150.
71. E. Ardener, "Belief and the Problem ofWomen," in PerceivingWomen, edited by S. Ardener (London: Malaby Press, 1975), 10.
72. See also Schol. Luc. Dial. Meret. 2.1, Rabe: 276.21f. and 13-15
73. cf. S. Eitrem, "Eleusinia, les mystères et l'agriculture," Symbolae Osloenses 20 (1940), 144
74. see also Motte, Prairies et Jardins de la Grèce Antique, 134 f.
75. Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, [The Banquet of the Learned] vols 1-25, translated by C. B. Gulick (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1927-1955) (hereafter cited as Ath.) 3.114a-b tells of a particular bread baked for the Arrephoroi. Does this indicate a link to the grain harvest?
76. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 131
77. Burkert, "Kekropidensage und Arrhephoria"
78. cf. Homo Necans, 150-54
79. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, vols 1 and 3, translated by C. F. Smith (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1952, or. 1921-1928) (hereafter cited as Thuc.), 6.56-57
80. Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution, the Eudemian Ethics, On Virtues and Vices translated by H. Rackham (London: Heinemann, 1952, or. 1935) (hereafter cited as Arist. Ath. Pol.) 18.2
81. Paus. 1.29,1.
82. Ar. Av. 1550, Eccl. 732-34.
83. Cf. M. Lefkowitz, "Women in the Panathenaic and Other Festivals," in Neils, Worshipping Athena, 78-105
84. C. Vlassopoulou, "113 Cast of Slab V of the East Frieze of the Parthenon," in Kaltsas and Shapiro, WorshipingWomen, 251
85. O. Palagia, "Athena:Women in the Cult of Athena," in Kaltsas and Shapiro, Worshiping Women, 32.
86. Burkert, Homo Necans, 149
87. H. W. Parke, Festivals of the Athenians (London: Thames and Hudson, 1986), 157.
88. versus S. Scullion, "Festivals," in A Companion to Greek Religion, edited by D. Ogden (Malden and Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 196, who is not, however, convincing. Paus. 1.1,4 tells about the sanctuaries dedicated to Athena Skiras and Demeter at Phaleron
89. Cf. Euripides, vol. 1: Iphigenia at Aulis, Rhesus, Hecuba (Hec.), The Daughters of Troy, Helen, vol. 2: Electra, Orestes, Iphigeneia in Taurica (IT), Andromache, Cyclops, vol. 3: Bacchanals, Madness of Hercules, Children of Hercules (Heracl.), Phoenician Maidens, Suppliants, vol. 4: Ion, Hippolytus, Medea, Alcestis translated by A. S.Way (London: Heinemann, 1946-1953, or. 1912)
90. (hereafter cited as Eur. Heracl.), 782.
91. Robertson, Festivals and Legends, ch. 3.
92. Cf. W. C. Green, ed., Scholia Platonica [Scholia (commentaries) to Plato] (Haverford PA: American Philological Association, 1958)
93. (hereafter, Schol. Pl. Resp.) 327a.
94. Cf. Haland, "Athena's Peplos"; Vlassopoulou, "113 Cast of Slab V." J. B. Connelly, "Parthenon and Parthenoi: A Mythological Interpretation of the Parthenon Frieze," American Journal of Archaeology 100 (1996): 53-80, states (not, however, convincingly), that the Parthenon frieze depicts the sacrifice of the daughters of king Erekhtheus.
95. Cf. Ar. Vesp. 544
96. Xenophon, vol. 4: Memorabilia and Oeconomicus (Oec.), translated by E. C. Marchant (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1938, or. 1923)
97. (hereafter cited as Xen. Symp.), 4.17.
98. J. Neils, "Festivals: Adonia to Thesmophoria:Women and Athenian Festivals," in Kaltsas and Shapiro, Worshiping Women, 248. Palagia, "Athena," 32-36 also gives an alternative and very interesting analysis of the Ergastinai/Partenoi in the frieze. She argues that the Ergastinai are not leading the procession, on the other hand, the peplos scene (i.e., the two girls approaching the priestess of Athena Polias, carrying objects on their head) are leading the procession (Fig. 1b). She argues that these girls are basket-bearers leading the Panathenaic procession. But could they perhaps carry the peplos?
99. Ar. Eq. 566.
100. Pindarus, The Odes of Pindar, translated by J. Sandys (London: Heinemann, 1919, or. 1915) (hereafter cited as Pind. Nem.) 10.35 f.
101. Arist. Ath. Pol. 60.2-3.
102. Robertson, Festivals and Legends, 108
103. see also Arist. Ath. Pol. Fr. 5
104. Aristotle, Politics translated by H. Rackham (London: Heinemann, 1944, 1950, or. 1932) (hereafter, Pol.), 6.1319b
105. Ath. Pol. 21
106. C. W. Hedrick Jr., "Phratry Shrines of Attica and Athens," Hesperia 60 (1991): 241-68.
107. Lysias, Orationes [Orations] translated by W. R. M. Lamb (London: Heinemann, 1957, or. 1930) (hereafter cited as Lys.), 7, that there were many hundreds of these trees on private land all over Attica and that over the four-year cycle of the Greater Panathenaia they produced very large quantities of oil
108. (cf. L. J. Shear, "Prizes from Athens: The list of Panathenaic Prizes and the Sacred Oil," Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 142 (2003): 96 ff.), much more than twelve trees could possibly have done. Olives produce a full crop only in alternate years.
109. Paus. 1.24,3
110. cf. Herodotus, vols 3-4, translated by A. D. Godley (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1946, 1950, or. 1922, 1924) (hereafter cited as Hdt.), 8.55.
111. J. D. Mikalson, "Erechtheus and the Panathenaia," American Journal of Philology 97 (1976): 141-53
112. A. Mommsen, Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum, geordnet nach Attischem Kalender [Festivals of the Ancient city-state of Athens organized after the calendar of Attica] (Leipzig: Teubner, 1898)
113. Cf. P. Veyne, Le Pain et le Cirque: Sociologie historique d'un pluralisme politique [Bread and circuses: historical sociology and political pluralism] (Paris: Seuil, 1976).
114. Eur. Hec. 465-74
115. IT. 222-24.
116. cf. for example Homer, The Odyssey, vol. 2, translated by A. T. Murray (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1919)
117. see also J. Scheid and J. Svenbro, Le metier de Zeus: Mythe du tissage et du tissu dans le monde gréco-romain [The craft of Zeus: myths of weaving and fabric in the Greco-Roman world] (Paris: Errance 2003), but from another approach. For the importance of the weather Gods, see also Robertson Athena's Shrines and Festivals."
118. Cf. Burkert, Homo Necans, 156.
119. Cf. also Eur. Ion. 469, 1008 for Erekhtheus, and 269 f., 999 f. for Erichthonios born from the earth. Concerning figure 2, there are several interpretations of "The Olive Tree Pediment"from the Akropolis museum of Athens: A. Shapiro, "Heroines: Cults of Heroines in Ancient Athens," in Kaltsas and Shapiro, Worshiping Women, 167, figure 6 suggests that "The Olive Tree Pediment" illustrates the Pandroseion on the Akropolis and that the figures of young women could themselves be the daughters of Kekrops. According to J. M. Hurwit, The Athenian Acropolis. History, Mythology and Archaeology from the Neolithic Era to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1999), 113-15, it is perhaps a generalized image of the Panathenaic procession nearing its conclusion at the temple of the Goddess. The female figure may, in that case, perhaps be one of the Arrephoroi, perhaps even bearing the sacred peplos itself on her head. Since the Arrephoroi were little girls, and this seems to be a woman, I would rather suggest that it may be an earlier representation of one of the Ergastinai than the one given at the Parthenon frieze from ca. 432 BCE, or, for example, the priestess of Athena Polias, the most prestigious religious function an Athenian aristocratic woman could obtain. One may also suggest that this is the Goddess in her temple waiting for the procession.
120. Cf. Paus.1.26,5 (sacrifices dedicated to Erekhtheus at the altars of Poseidon) and Euripides, Nova Fragmenta Euripidea. [New fragments of Euripides] In Papyris Reperta edited by C. Austin (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter and Co, 1968)
121. (hereafter cited as Eur. Erech. Fr.), 65.92-94
122. see also Burkert, Homo Necans, 149
123. Mikalson. Erechtheus and the Panathenaia 143, 147.
124. Cf. H. A. Thompson, "The Panathenaic Festival," Archäologischer Anzeiger 76 (1961): 227-31
125. Neils, "The Panathenaia: An Introduction", 20
126. see E. J. Haland, "An Historical Analysis of the Relationship between Greek Death Cult, Today and in the Ancient World," Historisk Tidsskrift 4, no. 83 (2004): 559-91
127. cf. "Greek Women and Death, Ancient and Modern," 42 n. 20
128. versus G. Ekroth, "The Sacrificial Rituals of Greek Hero-Cults in the Archaic to the Early Hellenistic Periods," (PhD diss., Stockholm University, 1999).
129. Robertson, Festivals and Legends, ch. 8. Robertson, "Athena's Shrines and Festivals," 43, has also argued that Erekhtheion is a shrine to Athena alone, but must then invent a second olive tree at Erekhtheus's "new" shrine. 63. Paus. 1.27,2 f.
130. Cf. Demosthenes, Orationes, [Orations] vol. 1, translated by J. H. Vince (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1930) (hereafter cited as Dem.) 19.303 f. 65.
131. M. Dillon, Girls andWomen in Classical Greek Religion (London and NewYork: Routledge, 2002), gives a good account of women's importance within Greek religion, but has a restricted view of fertility rituals. The same view is found in Goff, Citizen Bacchae
132. A. Tzanetou, "Introduction. Ritual and Gender: Critical Perspectives," in Finding Persephone:Women's Rituals in the Ancient Mediterranean edited by M. Parca and A. Tzanetou (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007), 3-26
133. Cf. for example, A. Jacobson-Widding and W. van Beek, eds., The Creative Communion: African Folk Models of Fertility and the Regeneration of Life (Uppsala: Uppsala Studies in Cultural Anthropology, 1990).
134. for a discussion of the topic, "From Death to Fertility: Agricultural Cycle, Life-Cycle Passages of Goddesses and Fertility-Cult," and n. 144 also for references discussing the connection between the agricultural cycle and women, for example Brumfield, The Attic Festivals of Demeter; Zeitlin Cultic Models of the Female 140
135. H. P. Foley, Preface and Acknowledgments. Part 1. The Text and Translation, Commentary, and Background. Part 2. Interpretive Essay on the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. In The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Translation, Commentary, and Interpretive Essays edited by H. P. Foley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), xi-xvi, 1-178.
136. Contrary to these, L. Foxhall, "Women's Ritual and Men's Work in Ancient Athens," in Women in Antiquity: New Assessments, edited by R. Hawley and B. Levick (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), 97
137. argues that although the connection between agriculture, seasonality, fertility, and women may constitute a significant matrix, their integration, and hence the precise meaning of the matrix, is seriously problematic. Therefore, she asserts that it is difficult to say anything sensible about what the significance of the relationships between these elements might be. The same sceptical view is found in the polemical study of N. J. Lowe, "Thesmophoria and Haloa: Myth, Physics and Mysteries," in The Sacred and the Feminine in Ancient Greece, edited by S. Blundell and M. Williamson (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), 149-73.
138. For more up-to-date views more relevant to the Greek reality, see Alexiou, After Antiquity; E. Psychogiou, "Maurege" kai Elene: Teletourgies Thanatou kai Anagenneses ["Maurege" and Elene: Chthonic Mythology, Ceremonies of Death and Rebirth in Contemporary Greece]. Demosieumata tou Kentrou Ereunes tes Ellenikes Laographias, 24 (Athens: Academy of Athens, 2008). The importance of fertility rituals in rural communities in general and ancient societies in particular, will also be underscored in the next section of this article.
139. Athena as a motherly figure is also mentioned by S. Deacy, "Famous Athens, Divine Polis," in Ogden, A Companion to Greek Religion, 226
140. Xen. Oec. 5.19-20.
141. Brumfield, The Attic Festivals of Demeter, 17
142. Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants and Minor Works on Odours and Weather Signs, vol. 1, translated by A. Hort (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1948, or. 1916)
143. (hereafter cited as Theophr. Hist. Pl.), 2.7,3.
144. S. Isager and J. E. Skydsgaard, Ancient Greek Agriculture. An introduction (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), 39 f.
145. Trees were already watered in Homer, The Iliad, vols 1-2, translated by A. T. Murray (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1946-1947, or. 1924-1925) (hereafter cited as Il.), 21.257 ff..
146. L. Foxhall, email message to author, 15 March 2004; see also Foxhall, "Women's Ritual and Men's Work in Ancient Athens," 97-110; and L. Foxhall, Olive Cultivation in Ancient Greece: Seeking the Ancient Economy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 127, for an overview of agricultural jobs and festivals in Attica.
147. Isager and Skydsgaard, Ancient Greek Agriculture, 112.
148. My thanks to Professor C. I. Moutzouris, Director of the laboratory of HarbourWorks of the Civil Engineering Department, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). Also, my thanks to V. K. Tsoukala, Dr Civil Engineer, Laboratory of Harbour Works, School of Civil Engineering, National Technical University of Athens for the information about dew in Greece ("Vicky Tsoukala, email messages to author, April 5 and 6, 2004"). My thanks also to Endre Skaar, Researcher, Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen for calculations about dew fall. We had longer discussions via emails (during spring 2004 when finalizing my PhD-dissertation on which my book from 2007 is based), and he based his estimations from the following sources: http://gogreece.about. com/ (weather/Detailed weather links/Athens weather - Charts, The New York Times Company, i.e. in 2011, last accessed 21 December 2011
149. http://www.sailingissues.com/climate.html Greek climate/Weather stations, copyright 2000-2011 Diederik Willemsen, last accessed 21 December 2011
150. http://www.crystalinks.com/greekclimate.htm (site discontinued). I then checked with the aforementioned Greek researchers, formerly published material and ancient sources.
151. One may, for example, also find further information online at http://hoa.ntua.gr/, i.e. The Hydrological Observatory of Athens, National Technical University of Athens, i.e. NTUA, last accessed 21 December 2011. When writing my dissertation I also had access to other websites which I don't find today (for example I found figures giving exact information about dew fall) which is very useful to compare with information from earlier periods (both ancient and later)
152. Burkert 1983, 151. L. Deubner, Attische Feste [Festivals of Attica] (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1932), 20
153. L. Deubner, Attische Feste [Festivals of Attica] (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1932), 20, argues that the ritual occurs during the Kallynteria/Plynteria, by the end of Thargelion
154. Following Deubner, Attische Feste, 14
155. cf. Isager and Skydsgaard, Ancient Greek Agriculture, 166.
156. J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, vols. 1-2. 2nd Ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), hereafter, Beazley, ARV2 240,42. Concerning offerings, the Gerolanos amphora in the Piraeus Museum (cat. no. 7341) shows olive oil being poured in the presence of Athena.
157. J. D. Beazley, Attic Black-figure Vase-Painters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956)
158. hereafter, Beazley, ABV 296,4.
159. Isager and Skydsgaard, Ancient Greek Agriculture, 166.
160. Brumfield, The Attic Festivals of Demeter, 156. Robertson, "Athena's Shrines and Festivals," 28, connects Athena's festivals with the grain cycle (cf. 36, 52 ff. and see the procession to Skira as a ritual to avoid rain, 52), but I argue that the olive is more central.
161. Cf. Haland, Greek Festivals, Modern and Ancient, ch. 5 f.
162. Parke, Festivals of the Athenians, 26 f.
163. Simon, Festivals of Attica, ch. 3.
164. L. Gernet, The Anthropology of Ancient Greece (Baltimore and London: John Hopkins, 1981), 17.
165. Cf. Burkert, Greek Religion, 266
166. D.S. Loukatos, Ta Phthinoporina [The autumn (customs/festivals)]. Laographia - Paradose 4 (Athens: Ekd. Philippote, 1982), 87 ff. for rain-making rituals at this period
167. cf. F. van Straten, Hierá kalá: Images of Animal Sacrifice in Archaic and Classical Greece (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 199 89. Hdt. 5.82-86.
168. cf. J. C. B. Petropoulos, Heat and Lust: Hesiod's Midsummer Festival Scene Revisited (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1994).
169. Cf. Robertson, "Athena's Shrines and Festivals," 29, which identifies the striding Athena Promachos represented on Panathenaic amphoras as Athena Hygieia. A similar logic is found in Haland, Greek Festivals, Modern and Ancient, 438 and n. 886.
170. Cf. H. M. Bower, The Elevation and Procession of The Ceri at Gubbio. An Account of the Ceremonies (London: The Folk-Lore Society, 1896), 41
171. Leach, Culture and Communication, 79
172. Harrison, Themis, ch. 8
173. Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, translated by H. N. Fowler (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1990, 1966, or. 1914) (hereafter cited as Pl. Phd.), 70c-d, 102e.
174. Cf. Plato, The Last Days of Socrates. Euthyphro, The Apology, Crito, Phaedo, translated by H. Tredennick (London: Penguin, 1987), 195 n. 12.
175. In the Orthodox calendar, the birth celebrations of Christ and St John are at opposite points of the calendrical compass, as are the celebrations of their conceptions, so that together, the four feasts mark the beginnings of the four seasons: L. K. Hart, Time, Religion, and Social Experience in Rural Greece (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1992), 231.
176. See for example, A. Kyriakidou-Nestoros, Oi 12 Menes: Ta Laographika [The 12 months: the folklore] (Athens: Malliares-Paideia, 1986), 113
177. cf. Arist. Pol. 7.1335a36 ff.
178. Strabo, Geography, vol. 7, translated by H. L. Jones (London: Heinemann, 1930) (hereafter cited as Strab.), 15.733,17.
179. Parker, Miasma. Pollution and Purification, 79.
180. For Panagia see E. J. Haland, "The Dormition of the Virgin Mary, on the Island of Tinos: A Performance of Gendered Values in Greece," Journal of Religious History 36 (Forthcoming 2012).
181. E. J. Haland, "Take Skamandros, My Virginity: 'The Ideas of Water' in Connection with Rituals Linked to Life-Cycle Passages in Greece, Modern and Ancient" (paper delivered at the Third InternationalWater History Association Conference, The History of Water and Civilization: "The Ideas of Water," Alexandria, Egypt, 11-14 December 2003).
182. For a recent version, "Take Skamandros, MyVirginity: Ideas ofWater in Connection with Rites of Passage in Greece, Modern and Ancient," in The Nature and Function of Water, Baths, Bathing, and Hygiene from Antiquity through the Renaissance, edited by C. Kosso and A. Scott (Leiden: Brill, 2009): 109-48
183. We also have rites of girls racing, such as in connection with Hera's Games, when a running match between virgin girls took place, Paus. 5.16,2.
184. Paus. 5.13,7, 5.14,6, 5.17,7.
185. Paus. 3.12,1.
186. Paus. 3.12,2.
187. Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, translated by H. G. Evelyn-White (London: Heinemann, 1950, or. 1914) (hereafter cited as Hes. Th.), 276-83.
188. E. H. C. Haspels, Attic Black-Figured Lekythoi, vol. 1 (Paris: École Francaise d'Athènes, 1936)
189. hereafter, ABL 235,71.
190. Petropoulos, Heat and Lust
191. D. S. Loukatos, Ta Kalokairina (Athens: Ekd. Philippote, 1981).
192. P. Bourdieu, Le Sens Pratique [The practical reason] (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1980).
193. P. Bourdieu, "The Sentiment of Honour in Kabyle Society," in Honour and Shame. The Values of Mediterranean Society, edited by J. G. Peristiany (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1966), 191-241
194. Bourdieu, Le Sens Pratique, ch. 3.
195. Hes. Op. 383-617.
196. Hippocrates, vol. 4, translated by W. H. S. Jones (1931; repr. London: Heinemann, 1953) (London: Heinemann, 1953, or. 1931), 27.1-6
197. Aristotle, Problems, vol. 1, translated byW. S. Hett (London: Heinemann, 1953, or. 1926) (hereafter cited as Arist. Pr.) 4.879a26-35.
198. cf. Sc. 393-400 for the season.
199. Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, translated by H. Rackham (London: Heinemann, 1962, or. 1926)
200. (hereafter cited as Eth. Nic.), 8.1160a19-30.
201. Aristotle, Generation of Animals, translation by A. L. Peck (London: Heinemann, 1963, or. 1942)
202. (hereafter cited as Arist. Gen. An.), 765a35-765b26
203. see also 716a2-24, 728a19-22, 766a17-30, 783b26-784a12; Aristotle, The Metaphysics, vol. 1: books 1-9, translated by H. Tredennick (London: Heinemann, 1961, or. 1933)
204. cf. Plutarch, Moralia, vol. 5, translated by F. C. Babbit (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press 1936)
205. (hereafter cited as Plut. Mor.) 370e-f.
206. M. Detienne, Les Jardins d'Adonis. La mythologie des aromates en Grèce [The gardens of Adonis : Spices in Greek mythology] (Paris: Gallimard, 1989)
207. F. I. Zeitlin, "The Dynamics of Misogyny: Myth and Mythmaking in the Orestia," in Women in the Ancient World. The Arethusa Papers, edited by J. Peradotto and J. P. Sullivan (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), 159-94.
208. Cf. also Boedeker, Descent from Heaven.
209. Haland, "Athena's Peplos."
210. Hart, Time, Religion, and Social Experience, 243
211. cf. 102, 181. In contemporary Mani in the Peloponnese, urbanized Maniat women return to their natal villages for two events: olive harvesting and mortuary ceremonies, C. N. Seremetakis, The Last Word: Women, Death, and Divination in Inner Mani (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991).
212. According to R. S. Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings: Women's Religions among the Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 22 Goddesses played a more central role in the religious lives of ancient Greek women than male deities
213. see T. Koumarianos, "Elaion: e chrese tou sten orthodoxe Ekklesia," [Oil: its use in the Orthodox church]. In A. Polymerou-Kamilaki, ed., E elia kai to ladi apo ten archaioteta eos semera [The Olives and the oil from the ancient time until today]. Praktika Diethnous Synedriou. Demosieumata Kentrou Ereunes tes Ellenikes Laographias 19 (Athens: Akademia Athenon, 2003), 113-120, 440, fig.1.
214. My point, then, has been to go deeper than, for example, Gernet, The Anthropology of Ancient Greece, 17, and also see the ancient world from a perspective other than that seen in Robertson, Festivals and Legends, where the emphasis is on the male ideological use of the rituals in ancient society, which, in my opinion, should be reconsidered. This can be done by a new investigation into the role of women and a consideration of the real importance of folk beliefs.