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Immortals are mortal, mortals immortal, living the others' death, dead in the others' life.
--Heraclitus (frg. 62 Diels-Kranz trans. C. H. Kahn)
[¶4.] A defining feature of heroic figures is their similarity and proximity to the gods, with whom they are intimately but ambiguously connected. Numerous myths detail the relations of heroes and heroines with gods who are their parents, lovers, or protectors, and not infrequently their enemies. Much has been written about the relations of gods and mortals, but little about the role of gender in determining the character of these interactions. Not only can such a role be demonstrated, but this demonstration will also help to define the category of heroine, causing it to stand out in sharper relief.
[¶5.] This chapter analyzes the structure of relations between heroized and divine figures in Greek myth and cult. After a discussion of several passages of early Greek poetry about relations between mortals and immortals, we proceed to an overview of these relations as they appear in myth. Although this chapter is structured as an analysis of mythic patterns, cult evidence will be introduced wherever possible. Often fragmentary, and serving different purposes from the mythic accounts, this evidence at times allows for a more nuanced reading of the mythic material. In particular the concept of "ritual antagonism" discussed below centers on the relationship between myth and cult. In order to bring issues of gender to the foreground, I examine in turn god-hero, goddess-hero, god-heroine, and goddess-heroine pairs.
[¶6.] If a close relationship with the gods is one of the most characteristic features of the hero, certainly the other, even more marked, is the fact of mortality. As has been frequently observed, heroes are distinguished from most other mythic beings by their "obligatory relationship with death."1 Death defines the difference between god and hero, and death is the source of the inequality inevitable in any relationship between200,1 them.
[¶7.] This inherent inequality between those subject to death and those who are not provides many of the myths with their tragic denouement. These pairings, even when characterized by the affective relations of parenthood, erotic love, or friendship, are nonetheless highly charged with ambivalence and are often marked by hybris and betrayal reflecting an underlying rivalry between the participants. Even ostensibly positive relationships may have a background or undertone of hostility.2 Where the identity of the two figures is closest, the relationship is cast in even more explicitly hostile terms. Some heroes have both a divine protector and a divine antagonist who simultaneously represent the opposing tendencies of closeness and antagonism.
[¶8.] The opposition between hero and god may be presented as enmity of the god toward the hero or as presumption or hybris on the part of the hero. The myth of Herakles revolves around the hatred of Hera for the son of Zeus by a mortal woman, a hatred that the hero himself has done nothing to incur. Odysseus' troubles with Poseidon stem from the blinding of Polyphemos, an act committed in self-defense. Odysseus' conduct in this episode shows incautious arrogance, but not deliberate defiance of Polyphemos' father, the god Poseidon. Frequently, then, the enmity of a god seems, if not unmotivated, at least undeserved. Some heroes, on the other hand, openly challenge the god. The theomachos, the hero who dares to fight with a god, is a recurring theme in the Iliad. The hybris he represents is more often threatened than carried out, but he exists as a cautionary figure to whom both gods and mortals refer. Apollo warns Diomedes (5.440-42), Patroklos (16.707-9), and Achilles (22.8-13) against continuing to oppose him on the battlefield. Dione comforts Aphrodite after her encounter with Diomedes by saying that those who fight the gods do not live long:
Not long for this world is he who fights with the gods,
nor will his children at his knees cry out "Papa"
when he returns from terrible battle.
(Iliad 5.407-9)
[¶11.] Shortly thereafter (6.130ff.), Diomedes himself repeats the lesson to Glaukos, citing the cautionary tale of Lykourgos, who dared to challenge the god Dionysos, with predictable results.3
[¶12.] The theomachos continues to be a significant figure throughout Greek myth and literature.4 Heroic opposition to the gods takes various, often less physical forms. Occasionally these transgressions are inadvertent, as when Philoktetes accidentally treads on ground sacred to Chryse, but more often they are reckless or even deliberate. Atalante and her husband defile the grove of Zeus by having intercourse there; the daughters of Proitos refuse to worship Dionysos, staying home while all the other women celebrate his rites.5 Other forms of hybris include challenging the divinity to some sort of contest, or boasting to exceed her at whatever activity is most typically hers. Thus Orion claims to be a better hunter than Artemis; his wife Side challenges Hera to a beauty contest.6
[¶13.] Whether the offense is deliberate or not, the opponent of the gods is liable to pay with her life. Death frequently comes to heroes at the hands of the gods, as in the story of Lykourgos told by Diomedes. Nor is overt hostility a necessary component of these myths. The theme of accidental killing (phonos akousios) may be invoked to explain why, for example, Apollo kills his beloved Hyakinthos.7 Since gods kill even heroes of whom they are very fond, one may suspect that the killing is the essential element and that the myths of hostility have grown up around this central fact.
[¶15.] When these myths are read in the light of cultic evidence, a more complex and even contradictory pattern emerges. While a heroine is frequently represented as the object of a particular god's hostility, the cult evidence shows her co-existing in close proximity with that same divinity, sharing a sanctuary, a festival, and sometimes even a name. Ancient texts offer more than a few examples of heroic tombs in the temples of gods.8 Pfister, who has collected many of these references, lists four ways that ancient writers account for this apparent violation of the usual taboo against introducing reminders of human mortality into a sanctuary of a god. The hero was either a cult-founder or priest of the god; or a son, protégé, or beloved of the god; or was buried in the temple as a kind of expiation; or finally, performed some extraordinary service to the community.9 These explanations cover much of the ground but leave unexplained those instances, such as the burial of Erechtheus in the sanctuary of Poseidon in Athens, which unite two figures presented as hostile to one another in myth.10
[¶16.] Scholars of Greek religion have come to varying conclusions about the meaning of this bewildering complex of associations, depending on the particular theories they hold about the origin of heroes as a class. Since heroes occupy an intermediate (though not mediating or intercessory, pace Farnell) position between gods and mortals, many attempts have been made to explain this category by reducing it to a development of one of the other two.11 Thus heroes are either real human beings elevated or gods demoted. The first of these positions is sometimes identified as "euhemerist," after the writer of the late fourth or early third century who imagined that the gods were merely extraordinary human beings glorified after death. The "neo-euhemerists," similarly, imagine a once-living human being lurking behind heroic myths and cult practices, although they would reject such explanations if applied to the gods. Farnell, who in seeking the origin of a heroic figure frequently rejects "invention by the poet" in favor of "reality," is probably the last great proponent of this explanation. The "faded god" theory, advanced by Usener among others, is no longer in fashion, although it is occasionally and convincingly revived not as a global explanation, but in order to clarify a particular mythic figure.12
[¶17.] Until recently scholars have sought exclusively historical explanations for this discrepancy between hostile relations in myth and co-existence in cult, sometimes attempting to establish the priority of one figure over the other. Particularly perplexing are cases in which the god bears the hero's name as an epithet. Has the god taken his name from the hero, or is the hero a back-formation resulting from a detached, and personified, epithet of the god?
[¶18.] One of our best witnesses for ancient cult, although a latecomer, Pausanias offers us many examples of hero-name epithets for gods, and it would be interesting to know how he resolved this problem for himself. Unfortunately, he is inconsistent or perhaps feels no need for a unified explanation. He attributes the name of the temple of Athena Aiantis to a dedication by the hero Aias (1.42.4), that of Hera Bunaea to its foundation by a hero Bunus (2.4.7), and that of Artemis Knagia to the hero Knagos, who induced her priestess to run away with him and bring the cult-image along (3.18.4-5). He also cites a temenos of Zeus Messapeos, named after a priest of Zeus by that name (3.20.3). Nonetheless, he insists that Kalliste is an epithet of the goddess Artemis and refuses to repeat another explanation he has heard (1.29.2), even when the sanctuary of this goddess is located above the burial mound of the heroine Kallisto (8.35.8). In 2.35.1 he mentions the temple of Artemis "surnamed Iphigeneia" at Hermione, again with no attempt at explanation, although elsewhere he speaks of Iphigeneia as distinct from Artemis.
[¶19.] On the subject of Artemis and Iphigeneia, Farnell himself explicitly changed sides.13 Although he is willing to entertain the possibility of an original identity between god and hero, his hypothesis does not expand to accommodate any ambivalence in the relationship as expressed in myth. For him, hostility in myth is positively a counter-argument against any relationship of identification. Time and again, he brings up, only to reject it, the idea that the two might coincide. For example, between Athena and Telemonian Aias he finds not "intimacy" but "occasional discord," and on the subject of Helen, he says, "We might with Herodotus regard her as a double of Aphrodite; but far from the legend justifying such an approximation of the two, it suggests at times an antagonism between them."14 Marie Delcourt, on the other hand, sees the tension between hostility and identity as proof of a historical process. In her discussion of the role of Pyrrhos in the cult of Apollo at Delphi, she takes him to be a local daimon eclipsed by the arrival of a Panhellenic deity, and reduced thereby to the role of paredros (consort). She comments that legends of heroes conquered by gods generally include an element of antagonism, which is not found in cult, where the two figures are honored side-by-side.15
[¶20.] Attempts to understand these phenomena historically have followed two divergent paths. Either the myth of hostility between god and hero has been taken as the trace of an actual conflict between the "indigenous," possibly pre-Greek cult of a hero or local divinity and the invading cult of a Dorian, Panhellenic, or non-Greek god;16 or the myth of hostility has been interpreted as arising from a misunderstanding caused by the burial of the god's priest within the temple precinct.17 Each of these theories may be plausible in specific cases but betrays its weakness when generalized. The first theory assumes a model of constant cultural conflict, while providing a slot for the favored bogeyman of the moment. Thus Apollo may be Dorian or Lycian, but he is always an invader. Theories of this kind tend to be short-lived.18 Even if the model of cultural conflict is not to be completely discounted, its workings are perhaps more subtle than some scholars have allowed. Burkert has observed that the model of the "iron curtain" is less apt than one of peaceful co-existence.19 The second theory, that earlier burial practices were misinterpreted, assumes a lapse of cultural memory that is highly unlikely. In all periods city-founders and others honored by the city were buried in public places where tombs were otherwise forbidden. A hero's tomb in a temple would not by itself suggest a violent end at the hands of the resident divinity, but instead high honor.20
[¶21.] Similar explanations are advanced in cases where a god and hero share a name. When a goddess bears the heroic name as an epithet, like "Artemis Iphigeneia," the goddess Artemis is said to have taken over and absorbed the cult of a local goddess Iphigeneia. This explanation harmonizes with the cultural conflict theory above. But "Iphigeneia" the heroine has also been explained as a personification of the epithet of Artemis, which had become detached from the goddess to live a life of its own. Here again we are asked to fall back on the explanatory power of misunderstanding. This may be an appealing solution for modern scholars faced with scant information, but it would be a mistake to project our own frustrations onto the ancient Greeks, who had access to the syntax, as it were, of their own complex polytheism.21 The traditions evolve through time, it is true, but they do so according to that syntax, the internal logic of the system. To explain the salient features of hero cult as a series of misunderstandings is to underestimate the Greek mythic and religious imagination and to overestimate our ability to explain things by reference to their origins.
[¶22.] The search for a unified explanation has largely gone out of fashion, clearing the way for a necessary redefinition of the problem. Nilsson cheerfully accepts the varied nature and origins of heroes.22 Brelich, indicating a direction that has since proved productive, rejects altogether the quest for the origin of the hero in favor of a more purely phenomenological approach. He argues for the construction of a morphology founded on the known evidence, rather than on preconceptions about the nature of heroes.23
[¶23.] The ritual significance of the antagonism between mortal and immortal has been elaborated by Burkert, Nagy, and others. For Burkert, the polarity between god and hero is expressed in the idea of the hero as both mirror-image and sacrificial victim.24 Nagy's understanding of the intersection between ritual and myth is reflected in the term "ritual antagonism," which he considers "a fundamental principle in Hellenic religion." In his words, "antagonism between hero and god in myth corresponds to the ritual requirements of symbiosis between hero and god in cult."25 Such phenomena occur most often when the god and the hero are similar in nature, and thus usually of the same sex. Instances such as the hostility of Apollo toward Achilles so central to the plot of the Iliad come readily to mind.26 In the case of Hera and Herakles, although the myths tell of enmity, the names of the participants themselves hint at a different story, as we shall see.
[¶24.] The heroes, when we first encounter them in epic, are men and women who lived in an age when the gods still mingled freely in human lives: on the battlefield, at table, in bed. Strictly speaking, by the "dramatic" time of the Homeric poems, the gods no longer share meals with mortals, since that ended with the sacrifice of Prometheus.27 Nor do they usually still mate with them. Nonetheless, it is clear from the number of heroes of divine parentage that such events had taken place in the very recent past.28 That Plato has Socrates derive heros (êrôs) from eros (erôs), from the love of gods for mortal women and of mortal men for goddesses, shows that this association retained its force.29
[¶25.] The heroes who receive particular mention in the epic tradition are those whose special qualities attract the notice of the gods. These isotheoi or antitheoi are, by virtue of strength, beauty, and cleverness, worthy partners of the gods in love and war.30 Worthy, but not truly equal, as we see from the depressing regularity with which these encounters end in disaster for the mortal. (For the gods there are no disastrous endings.) As we have noted above, this similarity to the gods is doubly dangerous, because it attracts their jealousy as well as their admiration.
[¶26.] The way the gods themselves feel about these encounters is also clearly mapped out in the archaic texts. At times, mortals are erotic conquests to be listed in comic fashion (cf. Zeus' catalogue of mortal lovers in Iliad 14). In other instances, usually when the relationship is parental, the mortal is cherished and protected, like Aineias (Iliad 5.312ff.), or deeply mourned, like Sarpedon (Iliad 16.433ff.). Aphrodite's words in Homeric Hymn 5 (198-99) are the most explicit statement of the gods' distress at contact with mortality:
His name will be Aineias, because of the terrible (ainos) pain
which I felt, falling into the bed of a mortal man.31
[¶30.] The passages discussed in this section present episodes of erotic or hostile contact between gods and mortals, and in so doing, shed light on an ideological problem central to Greek religious thought, the necessity and difficulty of maintaining the boundaries that separate and define these two classes of being.
Hera, you may go there later,
but now come, let us turn to lovemaking.
For never did such desire for goddess or woman
ever flood over me, taming the heart in my breast,
not even when I loved Ixion's wife,
who bore Peirithoös, the gods' equal in counsel;
nor slim-ankled Danae daughter of Akrisios,
who bore Perseus, most renowned of men;
nor the daughter of far-famed Phoinix,
who bore Minos and godlike Rhadamanthys;
nor even Semele or Alkmene in Thebes--
one bore stouthearted Herakles;
the other, Semele, bore Dionysos, joy for mortals;
not for Demeter, the fair-haired queen
nor for glorious Leto, nor even for you
has such sweet desire ever taken me!
[¶34.] A comically self-aggrandizing attempt at seduction, and the first example of a genre culminating in Leporello's aria in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Zeus' list of conquests reveals something of sexual politics on Olympos, but even more about relations between mortals and immortals.32 In a carefully structured catalogue, the objects of Zeus' previous desires are listed in a progression from mortal women who bear mortal offspring to goddesses who bear children immortal like themselves.33 Inevitably, each one of these encounters results in a child, for "the beds of the gods are not unfulfilled" (ouk apopholioi eunai / athanaton, Od. 11.249-50).
[¶35.] The catalogue consists of a series of pairs. First are mortal women who bear mortal children: Dia, the wife of Ixion (317-18), mother of Peirithoös, and Danae, the daughter of Akrisios, mother of Perseus (319-20). Each heroine is clearly identified by a family affiliation, although in the case of Dia, not by name. The heroes themselves, the sons of Zeus, are clearly named. Next come Minos and Rhadamanthys, sons of Europe, the daughter of Phoinix (321-22). Again, the heroine is identified only by family affiliation--here a patronymic and the names of her sons. She is mortal, as are her sons. They do, however, live on in the Underworld as judges, a position that allows them a share of power and thus a special relation to death. The next pair, Herakles and Dionysos, are introduced in chiastic order after the names of their mothers, Semele and Alkmene (323-25). These two are the paradigmatic examples of mortals who cross the divide to divinity, although they are represented very differently in the tradition, which stresses the mortality of Herakles and the immortality of Dionysos. These divine offspring lead to the final pair.
[¶36.] Here, however, our expectations are thwarted, for the next two names, of the goddesses Demeter and Leto, are not followed by the names of their divine offspring at all. This transition from heroines to goddesses, among the loves of Zeus, leads up to Hera herself, in line 327, at which point the symmetry breaks down. In the transition from divine offspring to divine lovers, the pivot is Semele, whose name is mentioned a second time, in the same line in which her son Dionysos is called "a joy for mortals" (charma brotoisin). Semele is the only female figure in this catalogue who was worshiped as both heroine and goddess, and her pivotal placement in the catalogue corresponds to her ambiguous position in cult.
[¶37.] An examination of this list reveals that the sons of Zeus stand out among heroes in their relation to death, progressing in pairs toward immortality. Peirithoös and Perseus, although great heroes, do not transcend the barrier of mortality.34 Minos and Rhadamanthys become more powerful in death than in life, as the judges of the underworld. Herakles is transported to Olympos and immortalized, although he never quite ceases to be, simultaneously, a hero. The history of his worship is complicated and includes both heroic and divine elements. Most notably, Dionysos becomes a god, losing all taint of mortality. His extraordinary second birth from the thigh of Zeus is perhaps the source of his ability to make the transition. Despite the unusual status of these sons of Zeus, they are in no way spared the tribulations of heroic existence. Herakles, in fact, suffers far more than most heroes.
[¶38.] Although Peirithoös and Perseus are lowest on the ladder to immortality, and there is no evidence of divinization or cult for them, some features of their myths unite them in their relation to mortality. The Odyssey (11.631) seems to provide our earliest allusion to Peirithoös' ill-conceived attempt, abetted by Theseus, to steal Persephone from Hades to be his bride.35 The attempt fails and Peirithoös must stay in Hades, while Theseus returns. Although Perseus never attempts a katabasis, or trip to the Underworld, his helmet of invisibility connects him with Hades, perhaps reflecting an original meaning or folk etymology of Hades as Aïdes, "the invisible one."36 Even more relevant is his resistance to the cult of Dionysos, which results in physical violence and even the murder of the god.37 If these traditions about Perseus are old enough to be relevant to our reading of this passage (also of indeterminate age), they suggest an interesting conclusion. The mortal offspring of Zeus with which his catalogue begins are not only theomachoi but are also opponents of Zeus' divine offspring, Persephone and Dionysos, one of whom is named and the other alluded to in this very catalogue. In these myths the rebellious quality of the hero is distilled--Zeus' mortal sons cherish murderous or lustful designs against Zeus' immortal offspring and try to bridge the unbridgeable gap between them through rape and homicide. Ultimately, the structure of Zeus' catalogue presents a hierarchy from mortal to divine and reveals the peripheral place of both heroines and goddesses in that system.
Nor did Lykourgos, the powerful son of Dryas
live long, who fought against the heavenly gods,
that time when he chased the nurses of raving Dionysos
down the sacred hill of Nysa; for they all
threw their wands on the ground, struck
by the ox-goad of murderous Lykourgos
and Dionysos, terrified, dived into the sea-swell,
and Thetis received him, frightened, in her lap,
for a powerful trembling seized him at that man's cry.
And then, the easy-living gods were angered at him
and the son of Kronos made him blind. Nor did he
live long after that, hated by all the gods.
And so I would not wish to fight with the blessed gods,
but if you are mortal and eat the fruit of the earth
come near so that I may send you the quicker to destruction.
[¶42.] Diomedes tells Glaukos the story of Lykourgos' attack on Dionysos to explain why he will not fight before assuring himself that he faces a mortal opponent. An exchange of genealogies establishes that the heroes are linked by the friendship of their grandfathers. They decline to fight, and instead renew their bond with an exchange of armor. The episode is an extraordinary display of the power of guest-friendship (xenia), but for our purposes its interest lies in the exemplary tale with which it begins. Lykourgos' downfall belongs to the myths of resistance to Dionysiac worship, and here we see how closely related ritual antagonism and hybris can be. Diomedes' point is clear. "It's dangerous to fight the gods--look at what happened to Lykourgos. But once I know you are mortal, look out!"
[¶43.] It is interesting that in this version of the resistance myth, the mortal is actually able to provoke fear in the god, as well as in his mortal associates. We notice, moreover, that Lykourgos' punishment comes to him not directly at the hands of the god he has offended, but from the other gods, and explicitly from Zeus. This may be due to the marginal status of Dionysos in the Iliad.38 In any case, the effect is to suggest the physical equality of god and mortal, or perhaps even to diminish the god who can be scared by a mortal. Apollo's warnings to Achilles and Patroklos not to challenge him in battle similarly hint that a mortal might upset the balance of fate by winning such a contest. While Greek myth generally tends to suppress the idea that a mortal might physically overcome a god, here we see traces of the idea that the hierarchy of power is neither self-evident nor immutable.39
[¶45.] The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite is an essential text for our understanding of eros between gods and mortals and its treatment in the tradition of early Greek poetry.40 Aphrodite's power is specified as the ability to force the gods to mate with mortal women.41 It is for this reason that Zeus desires to humble her, precisely by forcing her in turn into the same kind of relation. Her encounter with Anchises emphasizes this issue once again. The shepherd's first thought is that he is in the presence of a goddess, and he is careful to address her in the form of a prayer (92-102). When his fears have been allayed, Anchises declares that no one, neither man nor god, can keep him from the immediate consummation of his passion. This consummation brings together the two terms goddess (thea) and mortal (brotos) so that they are side-by-side in the line as well as in the bed.42 Once Aphrodite has actually revealed herself, Anchises is terrified, as well he might be.43 He knows that men who sleep with goddesses fare badly and begs her to spare his manhood. (Impotence is a frequent sequel to such encounters.)44 She comforts him and tells two stories about love between mortals and gods. The fate of Ganymede (202-14) suggests that there can be a happy resolution of such relations. But the fate of Tithonos (218-38), a mortal lover condemned to live forever without eternal youth, is clearly meant as a cautionary tale. If Aphrodite offers this story as an explanation of her abandonment of Anchises, it is a rather feeble one. One may wonder why she does not simply remember to avoid Eos' mistake and ask Zeus to grant her lover both immortality and eternal youth. This formula is after all rather standard.45
[¶46.] But from its beginning this text is concerned with defending boundaries. This it accomplishes in part by obsessively defining and redefining them. The poem is remarkable for the density of repetition of words for mortal (thnetos, katathnetos, brotos) and immortal (theos, athanatos), which occur altogether seventy-two times in 293 lines. Every actor is clearly defined and given the appropriate tag. In lines 50 to 52, these terms are piled up, as gods mate with mortal women who bear them mortal sons, and goddesses mate with mortal men. In each case some form of katathnetos is used. While it is true, as Segal observes, that the hymn is concerned with mediating the two categories of mortal and immortal, it also seems that this need for mediation is established through a kind of exacerbation of the contrast.46
[¶47.] Aphrodite emphasizes that her passion for Anchises has brought her pain (achos, 199), and that it is a reproach (oneidos, 247) to lie with a mortal:
But there will be great shame for me among the immortal gods
for all time to come, on account of you . . .
(Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 247-48)
[¶50.] These are the feelings induced in an immortal by too close contact with a mortal being, and hence with mortality.47 And unlike the penthos of Tros at the loss of his son, her pain cannot be assuaged by gifts from Zeus. This pain and shame will be commemorated in the name given to the child, discussed above. That there will be a child goes without saying, for the beds of goddesses are apparently no more likely to be "unfulfilled" than those of gods. Meanwhile, the problem of boundaries and category separation will be solved by a series of mediating and distancing manoeuvres. First of all, the baby Aineias will be placed in the care of foster mothers, kourotrophoi, who will care for the child until he reaches a certain age.48 These are to be nymphs, a special kind of nymphs unknown to any other text, who are neither ordinary mortals nor precisely immortal (259).49 In this way the sharp line separating Aineias' parents from one another will be mitigated to a certain extent, although there is never any doubt that the child will be mortal.50
[¶51.] The other feature of the story minimized in this way is the maternity of the goddess. The physical ramifications of childbearing are completely elided in this account. Here once again are the traces of a fear, seen elsewhere in Greek myth, of divine female fertility, and specifically a fear of the offspring of goddesses.51 Both Metis and Thetis must have their reproductive threat in some way neutralized, and in the case of Metis, the solution involves the usurpation of the childbearing function by Zeus. More often the maternity of a goddess is simply displaced, as we see, for example, in the kourotrophic role of Athena in the Erichthonios myth.52
[¶52.] Finally, Aphrodite warns Anchises against bragging (epeuxeai) about having slept with her and threatens him with Zeus' lightning bolt if he does. She herself has gotten into this trouble as a result of bragging (epeuxamene, 48) about her powers over the gods. Anchises will not be able to resist doing the same, and he will suffer the punishment. The poem seems to preserve traces of a version in which Anchises becomes a victim of the goddess, directly or indirectly, as do many other paredros figures. Eustathius (commenting on Iliad 12.98) reports a tomb of Anchises on Mt. Ida, to which shepherds brought offerings. Pausanias, however, reports (8.12.8-9) that the inhabitants denied that Anchises was buried there, and even if he was, divine retribution is not necessarily implied.53
[¶53.] To sum up, these three texts share a preoccupation with the necessary differences in the human and the divine condition, and the dangers inherent in any kind of rapprochement between the two. Erotic and hostile contact are equally dangerous, for if Dione (or Diomedes) knows that the man who fights with the gods does not live long, Anchises is just as sure that the man who lies with a goddess will not flourish. With these paradigmatic passages as a backdrop, we turn now to an examination of heroic and divine interactions which interrogates the consequences of the gender of the participants.
[¶55.] Relations of gods and male mortals in myth may be parental or erotic, or neither, and they may fit anywhere along the spectrum of patronage and enmity. Where cult evidence is available, it usually conforms to the model traditionally interpreted as displacement of the hero by the god--in other words, that tension between identity and hostility referred to as ritual antagonism.
[¶56.] Zeus, the father of gods and mortals, engenders more heroes on mortal women than does any other god. The exuberant paternity of Zeus is an essential part of his characterization in myth, but the multiplicity of claims is also partly explained by the universal desire for a local or family connection to the god. For present purposes, however, we will bracket the question of the role of propaganda in the development of myth, since even the most flagrant examples are constructed according to an essentially conservative mythic pattern. As we have seen, when Zeus catalogues his exploits with mortal women, he enumerates the heroes born from those unions--Peirithoös, Perseus, Minos, Rhadamanthys, Herakles, and Dionysos (Iliad 14.317-25). Clearly the making of heroes is an important element in his affairs.
[¶57.] Zeus cares for his mortal sons, but often his power to help them is limited. In the case of Herakles, he must contend with the implacable enmity of his wife Hera. She also persuades him not to rescue Sarpedon, on the grounds that it will upset the balance of things and all the other gods will blame him. Although he cannot save Sarpedon, he takes special care in the handling of the body and sends Sleep and Death to carry him home.54
[¶58.] The one clear example of an erotic relationship between Zeus and a hero has come down to us in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, a text explicitly concerned with the issue of eros between gods and mortals.55 The rape of Ganymede results in his being installed on Olympos among the gods and granted immortality. As has been noted by Pfister, myths of translation (removal to Olympos or some other location) usually correspond to the absence of a tomb or any other proof of death.56 And yet, there is a tradition that Ganymede was buried near the temple of Zeus.57 The Homeric Hymn makes much of his immortality, in contrast to the inevitable mortality of Anchises. Why then this conflicting tradition?
[¶59.] In most, but not all, versions of the myth, Ganymede is raped, either by Tantalos, Minos, or Zeus himself.58 Another persistant feature of his myth, burial in the temple of Zeus, occurs independently of the aggressor's identity, as for example in the scholia to Iliad 20.234, where Tantalos is the rapist. In another version Ganymede has been sent to make a sacrifice to Zeus Europaios and dies on the way, again finding burial in the temple of Zeus.59 Since erotic relations between a god and a hero often hint at ritual antagonism, as with Hyakinthos, it is striking that in no surviving version does Zeus directly cause the death of the young man, even inadvertently. Only in this last-mentioned case, in which Ganymede dies in the service of the god, does Zeus have any responsibility, however indirect. Nonetheless, a clear connection is made between Zeus and Ganymede, whether erotic or not, and in contexts suggestive of cult.
[¶60.] For Zeus, there are relatively few explicit examples of ritual antagonism. The "father of gods and men" is the most apt of all the gods to stand in parental relation to mortal men, and overt hostility to heroes is relatively rare. His majesty makes him relatively immune to trivial challenges, such as those that occasionally worry the other gods.60 Under his jurisdiction, however, fall the major acts of hybris such as Ixion's attempt to rape Hera, or Asklepios' raising of the dead.61 Heroes who run afoul of Zeus are often engaged in inherently subversive acts, the success of which would attack the very foundations of the mortal/immortal distinction.
[¶61.] The relations of Apollo with mortal men fall more clearly into the pattern of ritual antagonism. Nagy has in fact articulated this principle with specific reference to Apollo and Achilles, a hero who has been characterized as Apollo's "Doppelgänger" by Burkert.62 Here very close identification of hero and god coincides with implacable hostility, ending when Apollo helps to bring about Achilles' death. Following the work of Delcourt, Nagy has also discussed the process by which Pyrrhos-Neoptolemos, the son of Achilles, becomes the hero of Delphi, entering into the same relation of ritual antagonism with Apollo as his father before him.63 The antagonism is partly displaced in the case of Hyakinthos, the young hero whom Apollo loves and accidentally kills while they compete at throwing the discus. Hyakinthos' cult is closely tied to that of Apollo and has been shown to conform to a pattern linking Apollo to a number of mostly prophetic heroes at different cult-sites.64
[¶62.] Although the erotic part of the Hyakinthos myth has most appealed to the imagination of poets such as Ovid, Schachter argues that it is a nonessential element. He cites examples in which the hero is either priest or son of the god, as evidence that the fact of a connection between mortal and god is more important than the nature of the connection. This kind of structural analysis can be useful, but taken alone, it risks eliminating some of the interesting specificity that enlivens the myths. Sergent notes that Apollo is involved in more homoerotic relations than any other god.65 In the case of Dionysos, as I argue below, the god's erotic choices are revealing. Why should not the same be true of Apollo? In the end the choice between "essential" and "nonessential" may be a false one. Mythic narrative necessarily expresses relationships in personal terms, while cult depends on other kinds of associations, arising from the physical proximity of two shrines, or the encroachment of one cult on the other and their eventual reconciliation. But cult geography may also be the expression of a conceptual link between two figures. The narrative requirements of myth demand that there be some sort of relationship between god and mortal, while allowing a great deal of variation about the details. Nonetheless the specifics of the relationship can still reveal something about the figures involved.66
[¶63.] In the relations of Poseidon with heroes, a different pattern emerges. Apart from the single homoerotic relation with Pelops, to which Pindar alludes in the same ode in which he speaks of the rape of Ganymede (Olympian I), the most notable connections are with Odysseus and Erechtheus.67 Both of these relationships conform to the pattern of ritual antagonism, with a myth of opposition and a cult geography suggesting identification. In each case the hero is caught in the cross-fire between Athena and Poseidon.68
[¶64.] Dionysos has few sons and no protégés. He most frequently enters into hostile relations with figures who oppose the spread of his worship. We have already discussed Lykourgos, who for Homer is the paradigmatic theomachos, as well as Perseus. To these we may add Pentheus, whose disastrous encounter with Dionysos is the subject of Euripides' Bacchae.69 This opposition stems from Dionysos' unique mythic role as the permanent stranger, always arriving, bringing with him a new kind of intoxication and a new way of worshiping. The arrival of the cult of Dionysos in any Greek city presupposes a myth of opposition; or put another way, the foundation myth of the cult of Dionysos in any Greek city must include the element of opposition. Even when the relation of the god to his hosts is friendly, it has a disastrous effect, as for example, in the Attic myth of Ikarios and Erigone.70 Unlike Apollo, Dionysos does not have a heroic double, a figure who threatens the god by virtue of close resemblance. The enemies mentioned above, Pentheus, Perseus, and Lykourgos, could theoretically fit into this pattern, but the sources do not encourage this interpretation. These heroes do not particularly resemble the god, and their hostility always occurs in the context of resistance to his cult.71 Unlike Zeus or Apollo, moreover, Dionysos has virtually no homosexual adventures. There is only the strange (and as always somewhat suspect) report by Clement of Alexandria that the god promised to submit sexually to Prosymnos in return for directions to the Underworld, a promise that, due to Prosymnos' death, could only be fulfilled symbolically.72 We will to return to these anomalies of the god Dionysos in considering his relations with heroines.
[¶66.] The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite and the speech of Kalypso to Hermes in Odyssey 5.117ff. catalogue the different outcomes of an erotic encounter between a mortal and a goddess.73 If the story of Aphrodite and Anchises is relatively benign, the mating of Eos and Tithonos comes to a sinister conclusion. Kalypso's speech to Hermes in Od. 5.117-44 serves quite a different purpose, since she is bent on proving the jealousy of the gods toward goddesses who mate with mortals:
Oh you vile gods, in jealousy supernal!
You hate it when we choose to lie with men--
immortal flesh by some dear mortal side.
(Odyssey 5.118-20, trans. Fitzgerald)
[¶69.] The effect of this is to give the goddess a point of view that harmonizes with that of mortals. She provides the examples of Eos and Orion, Demeter and Iasion, and concludes with the argument that her rescue of Odysseus and her intention of making him deathless and unaging (athanaton kai ageraon) give her rights over his future. A comparison of her examples with Theogony 965ff. is instructive. Here we find, among others, Demeter and Iasion (969-74); Eos and not Orion, but Tithonos (984-85); Aphrodite and Anchises (1008-10); and finally, Kalypso herself paired with Odysseus (1017-18). It is striking that the Theogony passage omits the negative elements of these stories and emphasizes instead the offspring of these couples, children like gods (theois epieikela tekna). Thus there is no mention of Iasion's killing by Zeus, nor of the shriveled old age in which Tithonos must eke out his immortality, nor the laming of Anchises, nor, of course, the grief of Kalypso at Odysseus' departure. The comparison does in fact highlight the difference between her own case and those she cites. Odysseus is never made to pay for his proximity to a goddess, and perhaps this is due in part to her relatively low status compared to the Olympians. That mating with a goddess can be read as hybris is clear from the later reinterpretation of Iasion's connection with Demeter as a rape punished by Zeus (Apollod. 3.12.1).
[¶70.] We have already alluded to the relationship between Hera and Herakles, which provides one of the best illustrations of ritual antagonism.74 The events in the myth of Herakles are motivated by the unrelenting hostility of Hera toward Zeus' illegitimate son. Her efforts to eliminate him begin with his babyhood. Nonetheless, the etymology of his name as "the glory of Hera" is unmistakable, at least as the Greeks understood it.75 Not only that, the later part of his story includes a reconciliation on Olympos in which Herakles marries Hera's daughter Hebe. At the Heraion in Argos, Pausanias (2.17.6) saw a relief depicting this marriage, which takes place under the protection of Hera. Even more confounding is the story that Athena tricked Hera into suckling the baby Herakles, and that this was the origin of his immortality, although Hera is supposed to have pushed him away when he bit her.76 The breast-feeding story can be taken as evidence of an original bond between the two figures, or as an explanation for the goddess's hostility.77 It has been postulated, by Pötscher and others, that the original state of affairs was a close relation between the two and that the myths of hostility result from a later misunderstanding.78 But, as Burkert, Nagy, and others have shown, the paradoxical commingling of hostility and affinity permeates heroic myth. Misunderstanding may have helped this paradox to arise but cannot be a sufficient explanation for its persistence.
[¶71.] The companionship of a goddess may help a man, as Aphrodite helps her son Aineias, and Athena, her mortal counterpart Odysseus. Aphrodite rescues not only her son but also her favorite Paris from danger on the battlefield. In Paris's case, her assistance serves to lead him into folly and destruction, but she continues to protect him as long as it is in her power to do so. Athena's relationship with Odysseus, whatever measure of ambivalence there may be, is founded on affinity. As the poet of the Odyssey has her say:
No more of this, though. Two of a kind, we are,
contrivers, both. Of all men now alive
you are the best in plots and story-telling.
My own fame is for wisdom among the gods--
deceptions, too.
(Odyssey 13.296-99, trans. Fitzgerald)
[¶74.] There is room for both hero and goddess in this system, since each is best in the appropriate class--all mortals (broton hapanton) and all gods (pasi theoisi), respectively. Thus the rivalry between them is defused and Athena's aid allows Odysseus' safe return home.
[¶75.] While the companionship of Athena is usually positive, that of Artemis can be fatal. Every bit as virginal as Artemis, Athena is nonetheless rarely involved in the enforcement of virginity, or the rules governing the leaving of it, and plays only a small role in initiation for boys or marriage rites for girls.79 Artemis, on the other hand, embodies a vigilant and defensive virginity, which she expects from her followers as well. This characterization of the goddess is the mythic reflex of her role in cult as the goddess under whose sign the transition to adulthood or marriage is most frequently made.80 Prolonged contact with this "embodiment" of feminine independence is destructive for men, who cannot negotiate an acceptable path between it and their own sexuality. Orion, once a companion of Artemis, is destroyed by the goddess, whom he has offended by boasting or an attempted rape.81 Hippolytos is destroyed because his exclusive devotion to Artemis leads him to offend Aphrodite.82 They err in opposite directions, Hippolytos in his rejection of adult sexuality, and Orion on the other hand because of a violent and immoderate sexuality directed, moreover, toward an inappropriate object. Sexual trangression, whether rape or inadvertent voyeurism, brings about Aktaion's destruction by Artemis, despite her close friendship with his mother.83 Taken together, these myths point clearly to the danger of even apparently friendly contact with Artemis for men. Companionship with her is ultimately incompatible with mature male sexuality.
[¶76.] The companionship of Hippolytos with Artemis is the other side of the coin from his opposition to Aphrodite. This relationship takes the classic form of hostility in myth and identity in cult. The prologue of the Hippolytos tells us of a temple to Aphrodite epi Hippolutoi. We also have the testimony of Pausanias for the temple of Aphrodite Kataskopia, which commemorates Phaidra's destructive passion for Hippolytos.84
[¶78.] Heroines and gods mostly come together for erotic and procreative purposes. The heroic genealogies are full of the fruits of these encounters, as are accounts of local traditions passed down to us by Pausanias and others. These sources often preserve only the divine parentage, and a name for the mother, who may have no independent mythic existence. Nor does the tradition distinguish much between rape, seduction, and consent on the part of the heroine in question.85 All the male Olympians (with the exception of Hephaistos) are ascribed paternity in varying degrees bearing little relation to their depiction as lovers in myth and art.86 Poseidon, who is almost never protrayed as a lover, appears to be the most prolific. Zeus, who is always successful in his pursuit, and Apollo, who rarely is, are credited with a roughly equal number of offspring, while Hermes and Ares are assigned less than half as many.87
[¶79.] The catalogue of Zeus' affairs in Iliad 14 has affinities with a passage in the Theogony, which recounts the wives of Zeus. The lines that deal with Semele and Alkmene (940-44) are particularly close to the Iliad passages, also emphasizing the offspring of the unions. Typically, the child of the god is male. Zeus' catalogue mentions only male heroic offspring and then trails off, omitting the names of the divine children, both male and female, of Demeter and Leto. The only heroine whose father is said to be Zeus is Helen, and her status is equivocal and unique. In general, the Olympians seem to engender male children, but none so consistently as Zeus. The other gods do occasionally father daughters who reflect some aspect of their father's nature: Apollo is said to be the father of several prophetic figures, while Ares is the father of Amazons.88 Diodorus Siculus goes so far as to maintain that in at least one instance Zeus high-mindedly pursued a heroine entirely for the purpose of making children, and not because of any erotic desires on his part (4.9.3).
[¶80.] Apollo's erotic encounters are particularly ill-starred and usually have a rather sinister outcome. We have only to think of Kassandra, Koronis, and Daphne, to name a few, to see that here the heroine's pattern of transgression and transformation is in full force.89 Despite some differences, many of the story lines are quite similar, centering around a heroine who rejects a sexual relationship with the god. Kassandra, having agreed to accept Apollo as a lover, thinks better of it, and for this is cursed with the disbelief of all who hear her prophecies. Koronis is killed for betraying her divine lover for a mortal husband, and Daphne is willing to accept total loss of her humanity to avoid the union. Koronis' fiery death may be compared with that of Semele, especially since in each case the divine father sees fit to rescue his child from the burning body of the mother. These rejections of Apollo are at times characterized as a kind of hybris, although one that is passive in nature. As we have observed earlier, it is this passive type of hybris which is most commonly associated with the heroine. She has little power to oppose a god, and her crimes are mostly those of refusal--refusal to sacrifice, or refusal to submit sexually to the god.
[¶81.] The only god who repeatedly has nonerotic contacts with women is Dionysos. Taking on a part of the hero's biography, he returns to Thebes to defend the honor of his mother, as the character of Dionysos explains in the prologue to Euripides' Bacchae. Many of the myths of resistance to his cult involve the defiance of women, usually groups of sisters, like the daughters of Kadmos, who deny their sister Semele's claim to have borne the child of a god, and the Minyades, all of whom suffer madness as the price of refusing his worship. In both cases the madness leads to the murder of one of their children. On the other hand, Dionysos is frequently accompanied by a band of women who worship and defend him, as in the Lykourgos passage or in the Bacchae.
[¶82.] The one explicitly erotic relationship with a mortal woman consistently ascribed to him is that with Ariadne, who is among the heroines who are also honored as goddesses.90 We may note that she shares this characteristic with the heroines who are closely connected with Dionysos in nonerotic ways, namely his mother Semele and his nurse Ino. It is interesting that Dionysos is the only male divinity whose nature seems to contain within it elements of the feminine. This is shown in vase-painting, where his long hair and dress assimilate him to the maenads who follow him.91 We have already remarked on this god's unusual relationship to mortality. Dionysiac cult temporarily breaks down the barriers of the self, allowing the worshiper to partake of the power of his divinity. As I will argue at greater length in Chapter 4, one might say that Dionysos' relation to his female followers involves an exchange, in which he partakes of their femaleness and they of his immortality.
[¶84.] When Achilles rejects Agamemnon's offer of marriage to one of his daughters, he sketches the features of a desirable wife in these terms:
I would not marry the daughter of Agamemnon, son of Atreus,
not even if she rivaled golden Aphrodite in beauty,
and were as skilled in handiwork as Athena,
(Iliad 9.388-91)
[¶87.] That a woman should be compared to a goddess is at once natural and dangerous. The gods are always available as the highest standard of comparison for mortals, and such comparisons frequently occur in the Homeric poems. Odysseus meeting Nausikaa suggests, with perhaps unequal measures of flattery and caution, that he is addressing a goddess. When, however, the individual makes him or herself the object of such a comparison, this is hybris. It is precisely the attempt to approach the conditions of divinity that brings mortals into difficulty. At the same time, as we will see in Chapter 4, an identification between goddess and heroine at times serves as the central focus for both myth and ritual.
[¶88.] In general the distinctive features of the Olympian goddesses signal the ways in which mortals will come into conflict with them. Athena is most often challenged in contests of skill in crafts and martial arts, while Hera's rivals claim equal marital happiness or they claim Zeus himself. The specificity breaks down, however, when it comes to beauty, for although it is clearly the province of Aphrodite, it is not hers alone. Side is punished for competing with Hera in beauty (peri morphes), while Medousa, the wife of Pisidos, is killed by Athena for a similar challenge (peri kallous). Andromeda is left to the depradations of a sea-monster because her mother Kassiopeia had dared to compare her own beauty to that of the Nereids.92 These small-scale beauty contests may call to mind the Judgment of Paris, in which the contestants peri kallous were Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite.93 From its conclusion we know that goddesses are not eager to share their reputation for beauty even with one another.94
[¶89.] Not all relations between goddesses and heroines are purely competitive or hostile. Heroines, like heroes, may have a goddess for a protector. When Hypermestra is acquitted of impiety for disobeying her father's orders to murder her husband, she honors Aphrodite, although the relationship is never presented as a personal one (Paus. 2.19.6; 2.21.1). In fact, here the heroine is shown acting like an ordinary mortal saved from disaster. On the rare occasions when the goddess intervenes personally, the assistance may be double-edged. The terrifying scene between Helen and Aphrodite in Iliad 3 shows how ambiguous and even sinister such a relationship can be. Yet the Helen who is bullied and threatened by Aphrodite may also be seen as a hypostasis--a double--of the goddess.95
[¶90.] Rarely is the relationship between heroine and goddess described as a bond between friends or companions. What would it mean to be a friend of a goddess? In those few cases where the language of philia is used, consideration of the mythic context renders this language ironic. A scolion (drinking song) quoted by Athenaeus credits the Attic heroine Pandrosos with bringing victory over the Persians, because of her friendship with Athena (hos philen Athenan), but omits mention of the destruction that befell her and her sisters at the hands of the goddess.96 A fragment of Sappho (frg. 142 L-P) calls Niobe and Leto true companions (hetairai), pointing to a time before Niobe's hybris shattered their friendship, with grim consequences for her family.97 The irony only suggested in these examples resounds clearly in Callimachus' hymn, "The Bath of Pallas." Chariklo, Teiresias' mother, is Athena's much-loved and constant companion (5.57-67). Even so, many tears awaited her, although she was a very pleasing companion (katathumion hetairan) to the goddess (68-69). The tears will be the result of Athena's harsh punishment of Chariklo's son when he inadvertently sees the goddess naked. This last example makes explicit the inequality of the situation. Mortals cannot help giving offense, either directly or through the actions of their families, and when they do, prior friendship with the offended divinity offers no protection.
[¶91.] Athena and Hera most often come into conflict with heroines who are in some way rivals, and with whom there are no bonds of affection.98 We have already alluded to Hera's rivalries with the various lovers of Zeus, whom she persecutes in a variety of interesting ways, often involving metamorphosis.99 What can be seen in human terms as the wife's jealousy of the mistress can also be read more abstractly as a kind of ritual antagonism. These heroines, by sleeping with Zeus and bearing him sons, act out the role of "wife of Zeus," which by rights belongs to Hera. Thus assimilated to her, they invade her sphere of action as wife and in some sense threaten her sovereignty. Her power resides in her exclusive claim to marriage with Zeus. That jealous protection of her position is not unjustified is shown by Pausanias' comment (2.31.2) that he could not bring himself to believe that Semele had died, since she was the wife of Zeus. The degree to which Hera is associated with marriage, not only as wife of Zeus, but as the goddess of marriage is made clear by her punishment of Aedon, who claimed to be happier in marriage than the goddess herself.100 That union with Zeus involves assimilation to Hera becomes particularly clear in the myth of Io, who was a priestess of Hera before she caught the eye of Zeus.101
[¶92.] Athena's relations to heroines, as we have noted, tend to fall into the agonistic category. The areas of contention are the technai (arts, skills) of weaving and of war. Athena, as we might expect, shows her greatest hostility to women who challenge her in contests of skill at handiwork or martial arts. The story that comes most readily to mind in this context is that of Arachne, who challenges Athena to a weaving contest and is turned into a spider. Although its earliest appearance is in the Metamorphoses of Ovid (4.5-145), the tale is commonly assumed to go back to a Hellenistic model and could be even older.102 A similar story with more ancient attestation is that of Iodama, apparently a priestess of Athena, who challenges the goddess and meets with death at her hands. According to one version, the arena of competition is the armed dance, the pyrrhike. According to Simonides, Iodama and Athena are actually sisters, both being daughters of Itonos. Another similar story is told about Pallas, the daughter of Triton, whose death Athena caused indirectly while they were practicing martial arts. In Apollodorus' account Pallas is also a sort of stepsister of Athena, who is being raised by Pallas' father Tritonos.103 These sibling relations between goddess and mortals are extraordinary, not least for the genealogical and theological difficulties they would create if taken seriously. Nothing similar is found between gods and heroes, nor for any other goddess. The sibling relationship may provide a way to express a closeness and similarity that in its male versions would more likely be expressed as an erotic connection.
[¶93.] While relationships between goddesses and female mortals do not usually have happy endings, those involving Artemis are particularly likely to end in disaster--and it is always the same disaster of sexual transgression. These are in essence stories about the wrong way to make the transition from virginity to marriage, which is to say, by means of illicit relationships that do not allow for the ritual appeasement of the goddess who presides over this transition. Whether the transgression is inadvertent does not matter. Thus a heroine like Kallisto, a companion of the goddess who is seduced or raped by Apollo, may be punished by Artemis.104 These particular connections often end in death for the heroine.
[¶94.] Here the conventional role of Artemis in bringing death to women must be considered. Artemis is associated with the correct time for transitions in women's lives, including childbirth and death.105 Andromache's mother is killed in her father's halls by Artemis (Iliad 6.428). When Penelope wishes for death (Od. 20.61f.), it is to Artemis that she appeals. When Odysseus encounters his mother in the Underworld, she tells him (Od. 11.198-99) that she did not die by the arrows of Artemis, as if that would be the normal course of events. In the myth of Niobe, it is Apollo who kills the male children and Artemis who kills the female ones (Iliad 24.603-6). The same goddess also presides over transitions in social status, which may themselves be enacted as a ritual death.106
[¶95.] The case of Iphigeneia, to be discussed further in Chapter 5, constitutes an exception to the paradigm of sexual trangression. Unlike the heroines just mentioned, Iphigeneia remains a virgin. She is not held directly responsible for her destruction, nor does that destruction come directly at the hands of the goddess. It is rather her father's transgression that conforms to type and destroys her. Indeed, in some versions Agamemnon is said to have offended Artemis by boasting, like Orion, of his hunting skills. Meanwhile, the theme of marriage enters in the form of the ruse he uses to induce his wife to bring his daughter to Aulis, where she is in fact to be sacrificed. It is almost as if Artemis wishes Agamemnon to compound his crimes by misuse of the delicate transitional state of the young girl from virginity to marriage. Artemis' rescue, Iphigeneia's subsequent role as priestess and cult-founder, and her apotheosis introduce the theme of identification of goddess and heroine, which will be taken up at greater length in Chapter 5.
[¶97.] As we have seen, a hero or heroine may occasionally be caught in the crossfire between a divine antagonist and a divine protector. Not surprisingly, these arrangements correspond to antagonisms among the gods, which often reflect local cult traditions. For example, Athena and Poseidon, whose battle for Attica is a staple of the local tradition there, are on opposing sides vis-à-vis Erechtheus and Odysseus.107 Although Clay has suggested that there is ambivalence in the relationship between Odysseus and Athena, her role as Odysseus' supporter nevertheless places her in clear opposition to Poseidon in the Odyssey. Her connection with Erechtheus is commemorated in the Iliad (2.547-49).108
[¶98.] An erotic connection with a god, even one inclined to be generous, may bring the mortal into direct conflict with some other divinity. Semele, Io, and Alkmene, all lovers of Zeus, find themselves the object of Hera's hatred. Even in cases where the erotic element is only implicit, such as Hippolytos' exclusive connection with Artemis, a conflict may arise.
[¶99.] Hera and Zeus are as famous for their marital strife as for their marriage. Burkert notes that discord between the divine couple has many reflections in cult, among them the three temples of Hera at Stymphalos, each one dedicated to a different phase in her development. These were Pais, the girl; Teleia, the wife; and Xera, the widow. The local tradition associates this last not with literal widowhood but with a quarrel and separation from Zeus (Paus. 8.22.2). Another interesting cultic manifestation of the hostility between Zeus and Hera discussed by Burkert is the Boeotian festival of the Daidala at Plataea, in which a wooden "wife of Zeus" is burned. The accompanying myth tells of a trick to induce Hera to appear by dressing up a wooden plank and staging a "wedding" in which Zeus was to have married "Plataia" or "Daidala."109 This myth, analogous to the other myths of persecution by Hera referred to above, has been interpreted as an attempt at harmonizing a local tradition about the wife of Zeus with the Panhellenic one.110
[¶100.] Another triangle occurs for heroic figures caught between Artemis and Aphrodite, by virtue of their representing fundamentally opposing tendencies. Some heroines who are caught between these two divinities are Helen, Ariadne, Polyphonte, and Hypermestra.111 Not surprisingly, a devotee of one of the two goddesses, because of the mutually exclusive nature of these attachments, incurs the wrath of the other goddess, as is the case, for example, with Hippolytos. When confronted with his inattention to the goddess Aphrodite, Euripides has Hippolytos reply, "To each their own, for gods and mortals" (alloisin allos theôn te kanthrôpôn melei, Hipp. 104). The violence of the goddess's response teaches that this seemingly reasonable stance is untenable for mortals, although it very accurately reflects the behavior of the gods. For normal worship of the gods as practiced by ordinary mortals is inclusive and follows a prescribed pattern.112 The worshiper, while honoring all the gods, falls under the jurisdiction of particular ones at moments of transition from one state to another. A mortal who chooses to worship, and thereby to emulate, only one of the gods neglects the all-important and dangerous transitions of life, particularly those having to do with maturation, and risks coming to resemble that god in a way that is perilous.113 Thus it is not surprising that the patron god does not always choose to save the protégé from the anger of the slighted divinity.114
[¶101.] That such difficulties are not always chosen by the mortals themselves might be illustrated by the story of the Judgment of Paris, who, for all his shortcomings, is emblematic of the human dilemma in dealing with the gods. It is tempting to moralize his choice, but only because we are ignorant of what troubles might have resulted had he slighted Aphrodite. Here the point is not simply that everything happened in accordance with the will of Zeus, but that it is regularly pleasing to the gods to entrap mortals in situations in which they cannot win.
[¶102.] We have seen that for female characters in Greek myth, the range of action is decidely more limited than for heroes and the price of stepping out of line, higher. While connection with a god, whether erotic or not, may be beneficial to a hero, who may prevail and be exalted under divine tutelage, similar contact for heroines is almost always disastrous, resulting in transformation often of a radical and unwelcome kind. For example, an Apulian vase in the Getty Museum shows Kallisto staring in horror as her hands grow furry and become paws, in a particularly eloquent portrayal of the horrors of metamorphosis (figure 6).115 These images call into serious question the consolatory value of the many transformations by which Greek myths resolve an impasse. As we observed in Chapter 2, the heroines who manage to survive these experiences are those who have no story. Heroines rarely have a choice of whether or not to have a story, or whether or not to sleep with a god. One of the few to have such a choice is Marpessa, who when allowed to choose between Idas and Apollo (each of whom had in turn carried her away by force, it should be noted), chooses the mortal over the god.116 An implicit choice is, however, made by Koronis, who takes a mortal lover or husband after her impregnation by Apollo. Her right to self-determination has not been agreed to by the god, whose vengeance is swift and terrible.
[¶104.] Figure 6: Kallisto becoming a bear, Apulian red-figure Chous, close to Black Fury Painter, c. 370-350 B.C.E. (J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California 72AE 128).
[¶105.] In the remaining two chapters, we consider several interactions between heroines and divinities that deviate in some measure from these restrictive patterns, giving greater scope of action to female mythic figures and expanding to some degree the range of mythic roles for women. Chapter 4, on Dionysiac heroines, returns to the subject of gods and heroines, while a detailed treatment of goddesses and heroines, as exemplified by the case of Artemis and Iphigeneia, is taken up in Chapter 5.
FOOTNOTES:
1 For the hero's "rapporto obbligatorio con la morte," see I. Chirassi Colombo, "Heros Achilleus--Theos Apollon" in Il mito greco, ed. Gentili and Paione (Rome, 1977) 231. See also A. Brelich, Gli eroi greci (Roma, 1958) 80-90; G. Nagy, Best of the Achaeans (Baltimore, 1979).
2 See J. S. Clay, The Wrath of Athena (Princeton, 1983) passim. I find her presentation of this phenomenon more convincing than her application of it to the relationship between Athena and Odysseus.
3 G. A. Privitera, Dioniso in Omero e nella poesia greca arcaica (Rome, 1970) 53-74; R. Seaford, Reciprocity and Ritual: Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-State (Oxford, 1994) 316.
4 J. C. Kamerbeek, "On the Conception of Theomakhos in Relation to Greek Tragedy," Mnemosyne s. 4, I (1948) 271-83.
5 For Atalante, see Appendix. For the Proitides, who in some versions offend Hera, see Hesiod frg. 131 M-W = Apollod. 2.2.2; Pherec. in FGrH 3 F 114.
6 On the theme of agon between gods and mortals, I. Weiler, Der Agon im Mythos (Darmstadt, 1974). For Side, see Apollod. 1.4.3. For Orion, see Od. 5.121-24, as well as Apollod. 1.4.3-5, where the challenge is to a game of discus-throwing. Here also his crime is rape. See Brelich (1958) 260-64 for this feature of heroic hybris.
7 See Brelich (1958) 89 for a discussion of the deaths of heroes. He discusses involuntary homicide for the most part as a feature of heroic, not divine, behavior, but see p. 359 for Apollo as a killer of heroes.
8 Pausanias has Aigyptos (7.21.13), Hippolytos (1.22.1), Kallisto (8.35.8), Orestes (3.11.10) all buried in, or next to, a temple. See also the list of Clem., Protr. 3.45.1.
9 F. Pfister, Der Reliquienkult im Altertum (Geissen, 1912) 2:450-57.
10 For Erechtheus, see R. Parker, "Myths of Early Athens," in Interpretations of Greek Mythology, ed. J. Bremmer (London, 1987) 202f.
11 L. R. Farnell, Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of Immortality (Oxford, 1921) 371 suggests that heroes who were originally priests or cult-founders, or who were buried in the temple of a divinity, might "play the r;afole of mediators or intercessors with the higher power, thus fulfilling part of the function of the mediaeval saint in Christian theology." I know of no evidence to support this claim.
12 H. Usener, Götternamen (Bonn, 1948). For Helen's divine origins, see L. Clader, Helen: The Evolution from Divine to Heroic in Greek Epic Tradition (Leiden, 1976) 72-82.
13 Farnell (1921) 56ff. Having put forth the notion that Iphigeneia was the original goddess in The Cults of the Greek States (Oxford, 1896) 2:438-41, here he inclines to the view that she is a heroized priestess.
14 Farnell (1921) 309, 324.
15 M. Delcourt, Pyrrhos et Pyrrha: Recherches sur les valeurs du feu dans les légendes helléniques (Paris, 1965) 45-46.
16 For this theory as applied to Hyakinthos and Apollo, see B. C. Dietrich, "The Dorian Hyakinthia: A Survival from the Bronze Age," Kadmos 14.2 (1975) 133-42. See also J. Mikalson, "Erechtheus and the Panathenaia," AJP 97 (1976) 141-53.
17 Delcourt (1965) 45-46.
18 W. Burkert, "Apellai und Apollon," RM 118 (1975) 21, cites evidence that Apollo was in fact a foreign god to the Lycians. His epithet Paian appears on Linear B tablets, suggesting an early presence for Apollo in Greece. See W. Burkert, Greek Religion trans. John Raffan (Cambridge, Mass., 1985); M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek, 2d ed. (Cambridge, 1973) 311-12, doc. 208. Dionysos was similarly held to be a late-arriving foreigner, until his name was found on two Linear B tablets, demonstrating his presence in Greece from an early date (127, 411).
19 Burkert (1975) 17. See also J. Chadwick, "Who Were the Dorians?" PP 31 (1976) 103-17.
20 See Roland Martin, Recherches sur l'agora grecque (Paris, 1951) 194-201; F. de Polignac, La Naissance de la cité grecque (Paris, 1984) 132ff.
21 Burkert (1985) 218, in an eloquent comment on the limits of our own understanding of the Greek material, says that "the language of polytheism can only be learned passively."
22 "Eine sehr bunte und gemischte Gesellschaft verschiedenen Ursprungs" (a very motley and mixed company of various origins), M. Nilsson, Geschichte der Griechischen Religion (Munich, 1967) 1:185.
23 Brelich (1958) 16-20.
24 "Der Heros als umdunkeltes Spiegelbild des Gottes in der unauflöslichen Polarität des Opfers," Burkert (1975) 19. This theme is also central to his book Homo Necans (Berkeley, 1983). The issue of hero as ritual substitute is particularly relevant to the discussion of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia in Chapter 5.
25 Nagy (1979) 120.
26 See Chirassi Colombo (1977). Nagy (1979) 143-47 discusses the "thematic and formal convergences" between these two figures, as well as those between another hostile pair, Athena the goddess of the city, and Hector, whose function as bulwark of Troy is revealed in the name of his son Astyanax, as well as in his own.
27 The sharing of meals with the gods, from the time of Prometheus, is purely symbolic. See F. Pfister, "Theoxenia," RE A10 (1934), 2256-58.
28 The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite has been interpreted as indicating the end of an era of mating between gods and mortals. The encounter of the goddess with Anchises results in the birth of Aineias, a hero of the Trojan war, but it does not lead to the immortalization of the human lover. The time for such transformations is presumably over. See Peter Smith, Nurseling of Mortality (Frankfurt, 1981). Clay (1983) also makes this point explicitly, 142n.22. The absence of apotheosis may, however, be more a reflection of generic convention, the "realism" of epic.
29 [See print edition for Greek] Crat. 398d: "All of them sprang either from the love of a god for a mortal woman, or of a mortal man for a goddess. Think of the word in the old Attic, and you will see better that the name heros is only a slight alteration of Eros, from whom the heroes sprang." Trans. Jowett in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, ed. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns (Princeton, 1966).
30 To Robert Lamberton I owe the observation that the term antitheoi was "conveniently misread in late antiquity (by Christians and Pagans alike) as `opposing the gods, impious."'
31 Here, the name Aineias is treated as if derived from ainos, "terrible, awful."
32 Although this passage has been suspected as an interpolation, no one has ever suggested that it was not an authentic piece of early Greek poetry. For this reason, it is useful for our purposes. See R. Janko, The Iliad: A Commentary (Cambridge, 1991) vol. 4, 201-3.
33 See M. L. West, The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (Oxford, 1985) 94 and Hesiod, Theogony, ed. and commentary (Oxford, 1966) 39 on the differing principles of organization that govern the Catalogue of Women and the end of the Theogony, where descending order of status prevails.
34 There is an apparently late tradition that Perseus became a star (Hyginus Fab. 224). This is, however, rather different from true immortality.
35 Cf. Pausanias 9.31.5 citing Hesiod.
36 W. Leaf, The Iliad, ed. and commentary (Amsterdam, 1971) on Iliad. 5.845. See Stanley A. Pease, "Some Aspects of Invisibility," HSCP 53 (1942) 26.
37 Schol. T. Iliad 14.319. Pausanias 2.20.4 and 2.22.1 describe the tombs of the women who came to Dionysos' aid.
38 See Privitera (1970) 13; Seaford (1994) 328-30.
39 See discussion below of the contest between Idas and Apollo for Marpessa.
40 On the hymn, see J. S. Clay, The Politics of Olympus: Form and Meaning in the Major Homeric Hymns (Princeton, 1989) 152-201; C. P. Segal, "The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite: A Structuralist Approach," CW 67 (1974) 205-12, and Smith (1981). For the background of the poem, see Inni omerici, edition and commentary by F. Càssola ([Milan], 1975) 227-52.
41 pukinas phrenas exapaphousa / rêidiôs sunemixe katathnêtêsi gunaixin (Deceiving his shrewd mind, she easily made him mate with mortal women), 38-39, cf. 50-52.
42 The proximity of the two terms in the original can only be preserved at the cost of a certain artificiality in English: "Unwittingly he lay with an immortal goddess, mortal man though he was" (athanatê parelekto thea brotos, 167). At Iliad 2.821 we find a similar collocation recounting Aineias' parentage: Idês en knêmoisi thea brotô eunêtheisa (the goddess having lain with a mortal in the folds of Mt. Ida).
43 For Near Eastern influences on this episode, see Robert Mondi, "Greek Mythic Thought in the Light of the Near East," in Approaches to Greek Myth, ed. Edmunds (Baltimore, 1990) esp. 147-48. These influences do not make the text any less relevant for our analysis of ancient Greek religious ideology, for as Edmunds remarks in his introduction to Mondi's article, "[W]hat is diffused from one people to another is not the whole parcel but only that aspect or those aspects which at a given time are wanted and acceptable." (142)
44 See Clay (1989) 182-83.
45 Cf. Hesiod's Theogony, where Zeus makes Ariadne athanaton kai ageron (949), and Herakles is made apemantos kai ageraos (955). In the Odyssey he is athanaton kai ageraon (5.136), discussed below. In this passage, Kalypso makes it clear that she knows better than to make the same mistake as Eos. Clay (1989) 190 argues that Aphrodite is unwilling to ask Zeus for any favors.
46 Clay (1989) 193 notes that two opposing sets of terms, mortal/immortal and subject to age/unaging, are at work throughout the poem, but especially in lines 257-73.
47 This could be compared to the lament of Thetis at Iliad 18.429-34 that she alone has been forced into marriage with a mortal. For the importance of this theme for the poem as a whole, see L. Slatkin, "The Wrath of Thetis," TAPA 116 (1986) 1-24, and now, The Power of Thetis: Allusion and Interpretation in the "Iliad" (Berkeley, 1991).
48 He will also be removed from contact with his father, as Segal (1974) 209 observes.
49 Segal (1974) 209 and Smith (1981) 92-95ff. for significance of the nymphs.
50 See Slatkin (1986) and (1991) on the inability of goddesses to pass on immortality to their children.
51 See F. I. Zeitlin, "The Dynamics of Misogyny: Myth and Mythmaking in the Oresteia," in Women in the Ancient World: The Arethusa Papers, ed. Peradotto and Sullivan (Albany, 1984) esp. 178-80, 189-90n.21.
52 See N. Loraux, The Children of Athena: Athenian Ideas about Citizenship and the Division between the sexes, trans. Caroline Levine (Princeton, 1993 [Paris, 1984]), especially 58-59. On kourotrophic figures see T. Hadzisteliou-Price, Kourotrophos: Cults and Representations of the Greek Nursing Deities (Leiden, 1978), together with Loraux's well-founded criticisms (71n.175).
53 Càssola (1975) 243 discusses the implications of Pausanias' testimony.
54 Iliad 16.440-457. See Chapter 1,n.4.
55 In one version of the rape of Chrysippos, the abductor is Zeus instead of Laius, but the attestations are few, and in the case of Clement, suspect. Cf. Praxilla, frg. 751 Campbell = Athenaeus 13.603a; Clem. Al., Protr. 2.33.5.
56 Pfister (1912) 2:481.
57 T. Schol. Iliad 20.234; Suda s.v. Minôs. See the discussion in Pfister (1912) 2:451. This tradition does hint at Zeus' responsibility, while absolving him of blame.
58 P. Friedländer, "Ganymedes," RE 7.1 (1912) 737-49.
59 Suda s.v. Ilion.
60 Brelich (1958) 262 cites the rare example of Salmoneus who poses as Zeus, lord of the lightning bolt, although, one imagines, not for long.
61 Ixion: Pindar Pyth. 2.21-48, Aesch. Eum. 717-18, etc. For Asklepios' punishment: Pindar Pyth. 3.55ff., Eur. Alk. 3-4, 122ff.
62 Nagy (1979) 62-64 and throughout; Burkert (1975) 19.
63 Delcourt (1965) 37-43; Nagy (1979) 119-21.
64 For Hyakinthos, Paus. 3.19.3f.; Eur. Helen 1465ff., Apollod. 3.10.3, etc. See A. Schachter, "A Boeotian Cult Type," BICS 14 (1967) 1-16; Dietrich (1975). Mikalson (1976) has attempted to extend this type into the area of Athenian cult as well, taking it out of the specific sphere of Apollo.
65 B. Sergent, Homosexuality in Greek Myth, trans. Goldhammer (Boston, 1986) 85ff. connects this with Apollo's role in initiation in an interesting work whose claims at times exceed the evidence. Plutarch in his Life of Numa 4.8 lists the following eromenoi (beloveds) of the god: Phorbas, Hyakinthos, Admetos, and Hippolytos of Sikyon (see Sergent, 150ff.)
66 For example, Larson, Greek Heroine Cults (Madison, 1995) passim makes a strong case for the importance of familial relations in the cults of heroines.
67 See Sergent (1986) for a different view of the importance of homerotic relations between gods and heroes. Nagy ("Pindar's Olympian 1 and the Aetiology of the Olympic Games," TAPA 116 [1986] 71-88) finds in Pindar's telling of the myth a fusion of two equally traditional versions. See also T. K. Hubbard, "The `Cooking' of Pelops: Pindar and the Process of Mythological Revisionism," Helios 14 (1987) 3-21.
68 See Mikalson (1976).
69 Pentheus first appears in Hekataeus (frag. 31) and in pictorial art, on a psykter in Boston (MFA 10.221), red figure, attributed to Euphronios, c. 520/510. See LIMC s.v. "Galene" II. Paintings in the oldest sanctuary of Dionysos in Athens apparently showed Pentheus and Lykourgos paying for their hybris toward the god (Paus. 1.20.3).
70 See M. Massenzio, Cultura e crisi permanente: La "Xenia" dionisiaca (Rome, 1970). For sources for this myth, see Erigone in the Appendix.
71 Euripides, with great psychological insight, recasts the antagonism between Dionysos and Pentheus in personal terms, playing on their potential similarity as Pentheus is beguiled into assuming the effeminacy of dress he had despised in Dionysos. See F. I. Zeitlin, "Playing the Other: Theatre, Theatricality, and the Feminine in Greek Drama," Representations 11 (1985) 63ff., now in a revised version in Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature (Chicago, 1996) 305-74.
72 Protrepticus 2.34.3-4. Cf. Paus. 2.37.5, where there is no hint of sex. See Burkert, Homo Necans, trans. Peter Bing (Berkeley, 1983) 70. Ovid, in the Fasti 3.409-14, tells of the love of Dionysos for one Ampelus, after whom the vine takes its name. Frazer in his edition (Hildesheim, 1973) 3:95, remarks that "the myth is threadbare, for the name Ampelos is simply the Greek word for `vine."'
73 On a pattern of relations between goddesses and mortals, see D. Boedeker, Aphrodite's Entry into Greek Epic (Leiden, 1974) 64-84. and Slatkin (1986) 5-6. For specifically erotic relations, see E. Stehle, "Sappho's Gaze: Fantasies of a Goddess and Young Man," differences 2.1 (1990) 88-125.
74 G. Dumézil, The Stakes of the Warrior, trans. D. Weeks (Berkeley, 1983 [Paris, 1971]) 124-31.; W. Pötscher, "Der Name des Herakles," Emerita 39 (1971) 169-84; N. Loraux, "Herakles: The Super-Male and the Feminine," trans. R. Lamberton in Before Sexuality, ed. Halperin, Winkler, and Zeitlin (Princeton, 1990) 40-48, rept. in The Experiences of Tiresias (Princeton, 1995) 116-39.
75 Joan V. O'Brien, The Transformation of Hera: A Study of Ritual, Hero, and the Goddess in the "Iliad" (Lanham, Md., 1993) 119 glosses the name as "he who wins fame from Hera." The suggestion that the name actually derives from the Near Eastern Erragal or Nergal "rests on uncommonly slippery grounds," according to Walter Burkert, "Oriental and Greek Mythology," in Bremmer (1987) 17.
76 Diod. 1.24 and 4.9.6ff. for the outlines of the story; Lycoph. 1328 for Hera's suckling as the origin of his immortality. O'Brien (1993) discusses Hera as nurse of heroes and monsters, as well as the goddess Thetis (66-9; 93-111), and reproduces an Etruscan mirror that shows Hera nursing Herakles (109), without linking this tradition to that of the breast-wound, which she discusses elsewhere (189n.32).
77 Loraux (1990) 48 calls them "adversaries too well-matched to get along without each other" and suggests further that "each of them is placed in confrontation with the element of the other sex contained within the adversary."
78 Pötscher (1971); also his "Der Name der Göttin Hera" RM 108 (1965) 317-20 and "Hera und Heros" RM 104 (1961) 302-55. See also Burkert (1985) 210, Loraux (1990).
79 See C. Calame, Les Choeurs de jeunes fille en Gréce archaïque (Rome, 1977) 235 for Athena's limited role in initiation.
80 Two of the cults of Artemis concerned with the transitions of women's lives, those at Brauron and Mounichia, will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5. For rites of proteleia associated with marriage, see Burkert (1983) 62-63 with n. 20.
81 While the rape version predominates, some versions of the Orion myth make this into a classic tale of human presumption, in which the mortal claims equal skill with the god, in this case in hunting. See J. Fontenrose, Orion: The Myth of the Hunter and the Huntress (Berkeley, 1981) 5-20.
82 His destruction arrives by a rather circuitous route. See W. Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley, 1979) 112, on the "curiously complicated method Aphrodite uses to take her revenge."
83 The more familiar version, memorably recounted by Ovid, has Aktaion accidentally coming upon the goddess while she bathes, but Stesichorus apparently knew another, in which he was punished for an erotic attempt on Semele (frg. 59 PMG = Paus. 9.2.3-4).
84 Hippolytos: IG IV 754; Paus. 1.22.1. For his cult, see the preface to W. S. Barrett's Euripides. Hippolytos, ed. and commentary (Oxford, 1964) 3-6.
85 See Adele Scafuro, "Discourses of Sexual Violation in Mythic Accounts and Dramatic Versions of `the Girl's Tragedy,"' differences 2.1 (1990) 126-59. Pierre Brulé, La Fille d'Athènes: La Religion des filles à Athènes à l'époque classique (Paris, 1987) 289 lists as "recidivist" rapists Hermes, Apollo, Zeus, and to a lesser degree Boreas.
86 On fifth-century Attic vase-painting, Zeus is by far the most active pursuer of women. See S. Kaempf-Dimitriadou, Die Liebe der Götter in der attischen Kunst (Berne, 1979) 22.
87 Exact numbers are impossible to come by. See Appendix for examples.
88 Apollo is said to be the father of Phemonoe, the naiad Chariklo, and the Leukippides. Ares is the father of the Amazons Antiope (2), Hippolyte, Melanippe (possibly three names for the same figure), Otrere, and Penthesilea, of Alkippe, Milye, and of Harmonia, who may be a goddess. Heroines said to be daughters of Poseidon include Euadne, Rhode, Thoösa (2), Aithousa, Eirene, and Lamia. Hermes is not mentioned as the father of daughters, so far as I have been able to determine.
89 See Chapter 2; Appendix under Kassandra, Daphne; J. Davreux, Le Légende de la prophétesse Cassandre (Paris, 1942).
90 There are a few others that appear to be purely local traditions, most notably Physkoa, mentioned by Pausanias (5.16.6) as the lover of Dionysos and his first worshiper, in whose honor a chorus of women was established at the Heraea. Pausanias takes this to be an ancient Elean tradition.
91 E. Simon, Festivals of Attica (Madison, 1983) 90-91; F. Frontisi-Ducroux and R. Lissarrague, "From Ambiguity to Ambivalence: A Dionysiac Excursion through the `Anakreontic' vases," in Halperin, Winkler, and Zeitlin (1990) 211-56. See now also Michael Jameson, "The Asexuality of Dionysus," in Masks of Dionysus, ed. Carpenter and Faraone (Ithaca, 1993) 44-64.
92 Side (Apollod. 1.4.3); Medousa, Andromeda (Apollod. 2.4.3). See Weiler (1974) 100-114 for an extended discussion of the theme of contests of beauty and skill between goddesses and heroines.
93 Kypria (Proclus p. 17 Kinkel). See also Iliad 24.25ff., which may refer to the episode; Apollod. Ep. 3.2, etc.
94 Despite the omission of Artemis from this contest, necessary for reasons of plot, beauty is clearly not an inessential attribute for her, since she has the cult title Kalliste, "the most beautiful," and an antagonistic double Kallisto.
95 Clader (1976) 12-13; also 54 on the sharing of epithets by these two figures.
96 15.694d skolion 5. The phrase ôs philên Athênan may be an intrusive gloss. See the remarks of C. B. Gulick, ed., Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists (Cambridge, Mass, 1941) 7:221 note b. Perhaps this verse reflects the version in which Pandrosos alone of the sisters obeyed Athena's injunction not to look in the basket that contained the baby Erichthonios (Apollod. 3.14.6).
97 This fragment is discussed at greater length at the beginning of Chapter 5.
98 For an exception, see Myrmex in the Appendix.
99 Some transformations for which Hera is responsible: Io--cow; Aedon--nightingale; Kallisto--bear; Antigone--stork; Galinthias--weasel. See the individual Appendix entries.
100 For Hera as wife, see Pötscher (1961, 1965). Also Calame (1977) 209-24, who remarks that her marriage with Zeus constitutes "the paradigm of all human marriages" (209). For this version of Aedon's myth, see Ant. Lib. 11.3 with the comments of Burkert (1983) 185. Earlier versions are similar to the myth of Prokne; see Appendix.
101 The theme of identification of a goddess and her priestess will be considered in Chapter 5.
102 Wagner, "Ariadne," RE 2.1 (1895) 367, thinks the story ancient. Weiler (1974) 100-101, adduces as evidence for its antiquity a Corinthian aryballos dated to ca. 600 (Corinth Museum, CP 2038), for which see G. D. Weinberg and S. S.Weinberg, "Arachne of Lydia at Corinth," in The Aegean and the Near East, Studies Presented to Hetty Goldman, ed. Saul S. Weinberg (Locust Valley, N.Y., 1956) 262-67, pl. 33 and fig. 1. The LIMC article on "Arachne" stresses, however, the absence of any securely identified depiction of this myth.
103 For Iodama: Simon. (FGrH 8 F 1.1 = schol. Lycoph. 335) and Paus. 9.34.1. See Gunning, "Iodama," RE 9.1, 1839-41. For Pallas: Apollod. 3.12.3; Tzetzes, schol. Lycoph. 355, which also mentions Iodama. The similarity of the names Triton and Tritonos suggests contamination between the two stories. See Burkert (1983) 67.
104 See Appendix for Kallisto. Among the other heroines said to have been killed by Artemis are Ariadne, Laodameia, and Koronis. An interesting case is the priestess of Artemis Triklaria who defiles the temple by making love with Melanippos. See Appendix under Komaitho, and J. Redfield, "From Sex to Politics: The Rites of Artemis Triklaria and Dionysos Aisymnetes at Patras," in Halperin, Winkler, and Zeitlin (1990) 114-34.
105 H. King, "Bound to Bleed: Artemis and Greek Women," in Images of Women in Antiquity, ed. A. Cameron and A. Kuhrt (Detroit, 1983) 119-22.
106 See A. van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, trans. Vizedom and Caffee (Chicago,1964) 75 on the ritual death of the initiate. On the distinction between physiological and social transitions, see p. 46. See the extended discussion in Chapter 5 of this volume.
107 For this contest, see Hdt. 8.55, Plut. Them. 19, Paus. 1.24.5; Apollod. 3.14.1.
108 Mikalson (1976) adheres to the model of cultic displacement: Poseidon displaced Erechtheus, but then Athena displaced them both. Others read the contest not as the record of a historical displacement of Poseidon's cult, but rather a justification for the disenfranchisement of women. See S. Pembroke, "Women in Charge," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 30 (1967); P. Vidal-Naquet, "Slavery and the Rule of Women in Tradition, Myth and Utopia," in Myth, Religion and Society, ed. R. Gordon (Cambridge, 1981) 187-200; Loraux (1984). D. Castriota, Myth, Ethos, and Actuality: Official Art in 5th-Century B.C. Athens (Madison, 1992) 145-51 applies the work of these authors to an interpretation of the west pediment of the Parthenon.
109 Burkert (1985) 133-35. S. Mizera, Unions Holy and Unholy: Fundamental Structures of Myths of Marriage in Early Greek Poetry and Tragedy (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1984) 11-17.
110 See also W. D. Furley, Studies in the Use of Fire in Ancient Greek Religion (New York, 1981) 201-10.
111 For Ariadne's connection with Aphrodite, see Calame (1977) 226-27; Boedeker (1974) 44. For Helen, Polyphonte, and Hypermestra, see Appendix. Polyphonte's story sounds like that of Kallisto reversed.
112 See Burkert (1985) 216f.
113 See van Gennep (1964) for the perceived danger of transitional states and the ritual means to mitigate that danger as practiced in a number of cultures.
114 Burkert (1985) 216 cites Artemis' words at lines 1328-30 of the Hippolytos in this connection.
115 See A. D. Trendall, "Callisto in Apulian Vase-Painting." AK 20 (1977) 99-101 and plates 22, 1-5.
116 This seems to be a later rationalization of an earlier story in which the mortal defeats the god in a physical contest for the woman, according to J. Tamburnino, "Marpessa," RE 14.2, 1916-17, who points to Iliad 9.557-64, in which there is clearly a contest of arms. The struggle is also depicted on a red-figure psykter by the Pan Painter c. 480 (Munich, Antikensammlungen 2417), illustrated in J. Boardman, Attic Red Figure Vases: The Archaic Period (London, 1975) n. 338. See Marpessa in Appendix.
