CLAS 445 Final Study Guide

Arkhon Basileus

• Chief religious figure and high priest over Greek city-states

• Presided over the Areopagus, homicide trials, religious rites, festivals, and sacrifices

• Managed and led procession for Lenaean Dionysia

• Manged contests of the torch-race and administered all ancestral sacrifices

• Presides on ritual purification and fast programs

Pontifex

• member of the Pontifical College, a council of priests in Rome

• name literally means “bridge maker,” building a bridge between the gods and humans, and comes in part from “potens,” meaning powerful

• nothing is more renowned than their decision on the worship of gods

Temenos

• Greek word referring to a marked-off space or sanctuary

• sacred precinct or sanctuary that is a fenced-off area surrounding a temple

• literally means to cut, to cut off, “temein”

Templum

• A Latin word for a consecrated space

• a sacred sanctuary or shrine, and by extension, the building the sanctuary was built in

Aiskhrologia

• ritual obscenity in words and gestures, sometimes in chorus

• the suspension of normal behavior and speech in some festivals

Arrephoria

• the 3rd ? of Skirophorion, last month of the old year July/June

• Young girls place on their head what the priestess of Athena gives them to carry

• neither the priestess nor the girls know what she is giving them

• the virgins descend down a natural underground passage in a sacred precinct close to the Aphrodite in the Gardens

• they leave behind the items they have brought and take another veiled object and carry it

• two virgins are then “discharged”

Anthesteria

• celebrated in the month Anthesterion, Feb/March

• Greek anthos, flower

• celebrated in the sanctuary of Dionysus

1st day of Anthesteria, Pithoigia

• Athenians bring the new wine from pithoi and mix it for the god, then take it for themselves

• the new wine was mixed and drunk with water for the first time

• then they celebrate Dionysus with songs and dancing

• address Dionysus with the names Flowery, Dithyrambus, the Frenzied One, and the Roarer

2nd day of Anthesteria, Khoes

• from Khous, wine jug

• miara himera, day of pollution

• silent drinking and separate tables—-connected with the Orestes myth

• Aiskhrologia, obscene language, riding on carts, masked revellers

• hieros gaos, sacred marriage, of the god Dionysos and the basilinna (wife of the askhon basileus) this night

3rd day of Anthesteria, Khutroi

• pots, from Khutros, earthenware dish

• funerary-type earthenware dish of “all grains” in honey

• ancient commentators make associations with the flood myth and earliest conditions of mankind

• swinging of girls in swing and the myth of Erigone, swinging in a noose?

• people who had been saved from the flood called the festival by the name of the day on which they took heart

• people present prayed to Hermes on behalf of the dead

Thesmophoria

• in Athens celebrated in the middle of the month Pyanopsion, Oct/Nov

• Thesmos + phor (carry), carrying of unspeakable things?

• thesmos: something placed

• alternate women’s world

• temporary settlement of huts separated from male world

• mirroring of all-male assembly

• cakes and dough in the shape of genitalia

• connection with piglet and female genitalia—-Khoiros, piglet, is slang term for female genitalia

• theme of abstinence

• Aiskhrologia in practice

1st day of Thesmophoria, Anodos

• “The way up”

• walking up to the sanctuary, use of term to mean coming up from the underworld

• piglet sacrifice/disposal in pits for Demeter and Kore

• obscene objects, mixtures of decayed piglets with grain

• connections to myth of Demeter, abduction of Kore, disappearance of swineherd Eubouleus and pigs under the earth

2nd day of Thesmophoria, Nesteia (fast)

• creation of primitive, precivilization state, beds on ground made of anaphrodisiac plants

• grieving and mourning

3rd day of Thesmophoria, Kalligeneia (good birth)

• sacrifice and feasting

• women use sacrificial instruments and knives

• Aristomenes story

Parilia

• in honor of the god Pales

• april 21

• change from rural festival of purification of herd and flocks and herdsmen to celebration of the founding of Rome

• the birthday of their country

• sacrifice no living creature

• keep it pure without the stain of blood

Lupercalia

• 15th of February

• resembles a purification

• fest of purification

• solemnised on dies nefasti, non-court, days

• goats killed, and two young noblemen’s sons brought

• their foreheads are stained with the bloody knife

• others wipe it off with wool dipped in milk and young boys must laugh when their forehead is wiped off

• the goat skin is cut into thongs and the boys run around naked, lashing all they meet

• young wives are meant to not avoid their strokes, as it is thought help with conception and childbirth

• sacrifice of a dog, representative of Romulus and Remus?

Lemuria

• May 9, 11, 13 of Parentalia in Feb

• festival of lemures—-spirits of the dead

• on the culminating day of Lemuria, May 13, in 609 or 610 CE, Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Pantheon at Rome as a church to the Blessed Virgin and all martyrs

Pythia

• High priestess at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi

• evidence for different types of oracles

• Oracles with yes/no answer to a question

• Oracles with a ritual response to a question

• Responses in simpler forms and responses in verse form

• distinction between responses which prescribe ritual and response in which oracle predicts future

Auspicium

• etymological connection with bird signs

• taken by magistrate, not by augur, who only acts as adviser

• magistrates accept and reject signs, establish significance

• distinction between auspicia impetravita, signs deliberately sought, and auspicia oblativa, signs observed by chance

prodigium

• to show forth, to bring forth

• Roman portent

• a sign or omen

Mustes/mystes/mustai/mystai

• “an initiate”

• group of mystai initiates are privy to secret knowledge and are the basic element of most mysteries

• gather at Phaleron by the sea for bathing

musterion/mysterion/musteria/mysteria

• “place or ritual of mysteries”

• secrets of the kingdom, of the mystery cult

Katadesmos

• aggressive magic using curse tablets

• “binding-downers”

• binding spells

• used in:

  • law courts

  • athletic competition

  • chariot racing

  • amphitheater (gladiatorial combat, beast fighting)

  • business rivalry

  • love