The Hero Cult: A Spectacle of World History That Changed Civilization 3447116099, 9783447116091

Table of contents :
Cover
Title Pages
Table of Contents
Maps and figures
Introduction: The spread of the cult of heroes, their encounter with goddesses ...
1 Setting the stage for the encounter: The world of Old Europe and subsequent cultures
Athena’s divine genealogy-On the longevity of Old European soundings
Stage 1: Old Europe and its cultural heritage
The ancient Europeans and their Pelasgian descendants
Stage 2: The subsequent cultures (‘daughters’) of Old Europe (Minoan, Cycladic, Pelasgian)
Stage 3: The emergence of Greek culture
2 Pre-Greek goddesses versus Indo-European gods: Confrontation, crisis and solution of crisis
Proliferation of the concept of divine femininity: From the One-ness to multiplicity ...
Processes of cultural fusion of two contradicting worldviews
The goddess Gaia and her intervention in the power struggle among the gods
Demeter and Persephone: Overcoming male humiliation
3 The protagonist on stage: The pre-Hellenic supergoddess Athena
From the mistress of the Acropolis to the icon divinity of the Athenian state
Athena’s main attribute, the owl, and its significance
Athena and her gift of the olive tree
Athena and her gift of weaving
The political impact of myth: Athena and Erechtheus in the foundation myth of the Athenian state
4 The emergence of the cult of heroes among pastoralists in the Eurasian steppe-Manifestations ...
Roots of a warrior caste among steppe pastoralists
Early affiliations of the warrior caste with divine patronage
Visual manifestation of the cult of heroes
The Indo-European elite in action: Taking control over the trade center at Varna
5 The advent of heroes and their image in poetry-From oral performance to the epic genre
An archaic variety of epic poetry in the Indo-European homeland
The encounter with Athena-Heroes under the patronage of goddesses
Heroes in epic poetry of the archaic era
Interactional patterns of gods and heroes in Greek theater
6 Odysseus, the deviant figure in epic literature-Searching for “heroes” in the world of Old Euro
Features of deviant epic poetry, the Odyssey, and of its protagonist, Odysseus
(i) Debating Homer’s authorship of the Odyssey
(ii) The pre-Greek source for the name of Odysseus
(iii) The maritime environment
(iv) The pre-Greek sources for the musical instruments of the bards
(v) The pre-Greek sources for the “Greek” hexameter
(vi) The skills of an adventurer vis-à-vis the vicissitudes of life
Odysseus and his patron Athena: An intimate companionship
Seafaring and shipbuilding: On the longevity of pre-Greek traditions
Old European soundings-The hexameter and its pre-Greek origins
7 Heroes and their role in historiography-Herodotus and his mytho-historical world
How to relate to experienced time and how to record it
Engaging in historiography in a world imbued with mythical traditions
Herodotus and his hero Cleisthenes: Crafting a myth about the rise of Athenian democracy
The pragmatic-political framework set up by Cleisthenes in his reforms
The covert trend of self-administration and self-determination in the village communities (demes)
Heroes and myth-making in the Histories
8 Heroïnes and the primacy of the Common Good-Sacrificing one’s life for the sake of divinely ...
The role of heroïnes in mythical genealogies (Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women)
Female sacrifice: giving one’s life for the Common Good
Iphigeneia-the tragic heroïne
Antigone-defender of customary law
Makaria-savior of Athens
The heroïne as companion of a male hero
9 Athena’s patronage over the Common Good-Heroism for the protection of basic values
Heroes in the Hall of Fame
The metopes of the west frieze
The metopes of the east frieze
The monumental statue of Athena Parthenos and her role for Hellenic self-identification
The Great Panathenaia of Athens-A showcase of divinely inspired political governance
Athena as patron of democratic institutions in the Athenian state
The National Assembly (ekklesia)
The Council (boule)
The High Court of Appeal (areopagos)
Plato, the hero Hekademos and Athena: mythical considerations to choose a place for his Academy
The mythical association
The spiritual association
10 Heroes and their role as founders of mythical lineages
The problem of continuity: How to describe events since Deukalion and the Great Flood?
Chepalyga’s flood
Ryan’s flood
The iconicity of Aeneas and the popularity of mythical genealogies-The intercultural network ...
Epilogue: Changing consciousness-Switching heroism from egocentrism to communal solidarity
Bibliography
Appendices
Appendix I: References to the goddess Athena in the Odyssey (George 1999a)
Appendix II: References to the goddess Athena in Plato’s dialogues (George 1999b)

Citation preview

The hero cult A spectacle of world history that changed civilization by Harald Haarmann and LaBGC

Harrassowitz

The hero cult

© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11609-1 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39102-3

© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11609-1 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39102-3

Harald Haarmann and LaBGC

The hero cult A spectacle of world history that changed civilization

2021 Harrassowitz Verlag · Wiesbaden

© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11609-1 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39102-3

Cover: Athena © Archäologisches Institut der Universität Göttingen, Foto: Stephan Eckardt

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über https://dnb.de abrufbar. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at https://dnb.de.

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© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11609-1 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39102-3

Table of Contents Maps and figures ........................................................................................

IX

Introduction: The spread of the cult of heroes, their encounter with goddesses and the dynamics of divine patronage ......................................................

1

1 Setting the stage for the encounter: The world of Old Europe and subsequent cultures ............................. Athena’s divine genealogy—On the longevity of Old European soundings ...................................................................... Stage 1: Old Europe and its cultural heritage ....................................... The ancient Europeans and their Pelasgian descendants .......................

Stage 2: The subsequent cultures (‘daughters’) of Old Europe (Minoan, Cycladic, Pelasgian) ................................................................... Stage 3: The emergence of Greek culture ...................................................

2 Pre-Greek goddesses versus Indo-European gods: Confrontation, crisis and solution of crisis ......................................... Proliferation of the concept of divine femininity: From the One-ness to multiplicity of individual figures ....................... Processes of cultural fusion of two contradicting worldviews ............... The goddess Gaia and her intervention in the power struggle among the gods .................................................................................... Demeter and Persephone: Overcoming male humiliation .................... 3 The protagonist on stage: The pre-Hellenic supergoddess Athena ............................................... From the mistress of the Acropolis to the icon divinity of the Athenian state ............................................................................

© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11609-1 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39102-3

7 8 10 16 18 19

21 21 23 24 26 29 30

VI

Table of Contents

Athena’s main attribute, the owl, and its significance ........................... Athena and her gift of the olive tree ..................................................... Athena and her gift of weaving ............................................................. The political impact of myth: Athena and Erechtheus in the foundation myth of the Athenian state ...................................... 4 The emergence of the cult of heroes among pas­to­ralists in the Eurasian steppe—Manifestations of Indo-European ideology in monuments and imagery ................................................................. Roots of a warrior caste among steppe pastoralists ............................... Early affiliations of the warrior caste with divine patronage ................. Visual manifestation of the cult of heroes ............................................ The Indo-European elite in action: Taking control over the trade center at Varna ............................................................... 5 The advent of heroes and their image in poetry— From oral performance to the epic genre ............................................ An archaic variety of epic poetry in the Indo-European homeland ...... The encounter with Athena—Heroes under the patronage of goddesses .......................................................................................... Heroes in epic poetry of the archaic era ................................................ Interactional patterns of gods and heroes in Greek theater ................... 6 Odysseus, the deviant figure in epic literature— Searching for “heroes” in the world of Old Europe ............................ Features of deviant epic poetry, the Odyssey, and of its protagonist, Odysseus ........................................................... (i) Debating Homer’s authorship of the Odyssey ....................................... (ii) The pre-Greek source for the name of Odysseus ................................... (iii) The maritime environment ................................................................ (iv) The pre-Greek sources for the musical instruments of the bards ............. (v) The pre-Greek sources for the “Greek” hexameter ................................. (vi) The skills of an adventurer vis-à-vis the vicissitudes of life ...................... Odysseus and his patron Athena: An intimate companionship ............ Seafaring and shipbuilding: On the longevity of pre-Greek traditions ......................................................................... Old European soundings—The hexameter and its pre-Greek origins ...

© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11609-1 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39102-3

32 33 34 37



43 44 46 47

53 61 61 63 66 73 77

78 78 78 79 80 80 80 82

85 89

Table of Contents

VII

7 Heroes and their role in historiography— Herodotus and his mytho-historical world ......................................... 95 How to relate to experienced time and how to record it ....................... 96 Engaging in historiography in a world imbued with mythical traditions ....................................................................... 100 Herodotus and his hero Cleisthenes: Crafting a myth about the rise of Athenian democracy .................................................. 103 The pragmatic-political framework set up by Cleisthenes in his reforms .......... 104 The covert trend of self-administration and self-determination in the village communities (demes) ........................................................... 108

Heroes and myth-making in the Histories ........................................... 113 8 Heroïnes and the primacy of the Common Good— Sacrificing one’s life for the sake of divinely infused communality .... 117 The role of heroïnes in mythical genealogies (Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women) ........................................................... 117 Female sacrifice: giving one’s life for the Common Good ..................... 119 Iphigeneia—the tragic heroïne .................................................................. 119 Antigone—defender of customary law ....................................................... 120 Makaria—savior of Athens ...................................................................... 121 The heroïne as companion of a male hero ............................................. 121 9 Athena’s patronage over the Common Good— Heroism for the protection of basic values .......................................... 123 Heroes in the Hall of Fame .................................................................. 123 The metopes of the west frieze .................................................................. 126 The metopes of the east frieze ................................................................... 126 The monumental statue of Athena Parthenos and her role for Hellenic self-identification .............................................................. 127 The Great Panathenaia of Athens—A showcase of divinely inspired political governance ................................................................ 129 Athena as patron of democratic institutions in the Athenian state ....... 133 T h e National Assembly (ekklesia) ............................................................... 134 The Council (boule) ................................................................................. 136 T h e High Court of Appeal (areopagos) ....................................................... 137 Plato, the hero Hekademos and Athena: mythical considerations to choose a place for his Academy ........................................................ 138 The mythical association .......................................................................... 140 The spiritual association ........................................................................... 140

© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11609-1 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39102-3

VIII

Table of Contents

10 Heroes and their role as founders of mythical lineages ...................... 143 The problem of continuity: How to describe events since Deukalion and the Great Flood? ................................................. 143 Chepalyga’s flood .................................................................................... 145 Ryan’s flood ............................................................................................ 145 The iconicity of Aeneas and the popularity of mythical genealogies—The intercultural network of Greek-Roman relations ...... 151 Epilogue: Changing consciousness—Switching heroism from egocentrism to communal solidarity ............................................................................. 159

Bibliography .............................................................................................. 163 Appendices ................................................................................................ 177 Appendix I: References to the goddess Athena in the Odyssey (George 1999a) ....... 177 Appendix II: References to the goddess Athena in Plato’s dialogues (George 1999b) ... 182

© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11609-1 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39102-3

Maps and figures Maps

Map 1: The trade network involving the core area of Old Europe and extending across Europe, into western Asia and northern Africa (LaBGC & Haarmann 2019) Map 2: Stone stelae of the Bronze Age in the regions of Europe (Martínez Rodríguez 2011: 82) Map 3: The spread of horse-headed scepters in the steppe zone (Dergachev 2007: 144, 147) a) The geographical spread b) A schematic spatial-temporal trajectory Map 4: Varna and its hinterland in the fifth millennium BCE (Gimbutas 1991: 92) Map 5: Out-migrations of steppe pastoralists (Kurgan II and III) (fourth and third millennia BCE; Gimbutas 1991: 368) Map 6: The Acropolis with the reconstructed Parthenon (courtesy of Manolis Korres) Map 7: The Athenian Agora in the fifth century BCE (reproduced with permission from the American School of Classical Studies: Agora Excavations) Map 8: The Pnyx and its location in the ancient city of Athens (reproduced with permission from the American School of Classical Studies: Agora Excavations)

Figures

Figure 1: The assemblage of figurines and ritual artifacts from Ovcharovo (Bulgaria); Karanovo culture, fifth millennium BCE (Gimbutas 1989: 72) Figure 2: The continuation of Old European leitmotifs in the Bronze Age (third millennium BCE) a) A figurine from Lerna (Runnels and Murray 2001: 58) b) Clay seals with linear signs from Lerna (Dickinson 1994: 190)

© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11609-1 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39102-3

X

Maps and figures

Figure 3: Symbols with contrasting values in Old European and Indo-European mythologies (Gimbutas 1991: 400) Figure 4: The Acropolis of Athens (aerial view) (photo: Nikos Daniilidis) Figure 5: An Athenian silver coin (tetradrachm “owl“); fourth century BCE, © Bildarchiv Foto Marburg / Albert Hirmer; Irmgard ErnstmeierHirmer Figure 6: The Earth Goddess Gaia hands the baby Erechtheus to Athena who becomes his foster mother (Cup from Tarquinia, c. 440 BCE; Berlin, Antikensammlung; Staatliche Museen F2537.bpk) Figure 7: Copper axes from the Varna Necropolis (Slavchev 2009: 201) Figure 8: Stela from Saint Sermin sur Rance (ca. 3300 BCE; Barile 2019: 30) Figure 9: Hera suckling Herakles (red-figure vase, c. 370 BCE; British Museum 1846,0925.13) Figure 10: Herakles makes his appearance at Olympus (Athena, approaches Zeus, leading Herakles by the hand; Attic black-figure cup; British Museum 1867,0508.962) Figure 11: The statue of Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon temple (Reconstruction in the Museum of the goddess Athena; ) Figure 12: The mythical genealogy of Deukalion and his lineage (Gantz 1993: 806)

© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11609-1 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39102-3



“The history of fame is about nothing less than the history of Western civilization. It is also about the history of the individual, and therefore it is about the history of human psychology, too” (Giles 2000: 12)

Introduction: The spread of the cult of heroes, their encounter with goddesses and the dynamics of divine patronage Heroes are strong, brave, clever, defeat enemies, avenge offences against honor, free mortals, mostly women, from the clutches of all sorts of monsters. Heroes are like gods. Yet, heroes are vulnerable. What they fear most is dying without having achieved fame. The cult of heroes has been called “celebrity culture” (Barron 2014). Only those warriors were declared heroes who enjoyed glorious victory. The life of warriors is dangerous, a threat. Fear has to be suppressed to function. No wonder that they looked for patronage, for divine support in their strife for fame. In its expansion, the cult of heroes went global and has infused the mindset of many people around the world. Greek antiquity provides the stage for the interaction of heroes and gods, with female divinities in particular. It is noteworthy that the cult of heroes did not originate in ancient Greek society but elsewhere, and much earlier, at a time when Greek antiquity as we know it did not yet exist. The land of origin is the Eurasian steppe, and the trail of the cult of heroes will be traced here, monitoring the stages of its transfer from the steppe to southeastern Europe, where the ancient Europeans, an egalitarian society, already prospered peacefully for millennia. There it took root and shaped the oral and literary tradition. The cult heroes entered and changed civilization (Haarmann and LaBGC, 2021). With their patriarchal structure and clear hierarchy the Indo-Europeans from the Eurasian steppe took advantage or their warrior caste and won the fusion process with the ancient Europeans. The cult of heroes eventually became an institution amidst the afterglow of a much older civilization, of Old Europe.

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2

Introduction

Due to the dramatic changes the descendants of the ancient Europeans finally made their input and established the interconnection with their goddesses who took the warriors and heroes of the Indo-Europeans, so to speak into “divine custody”, providing them with patronage. The story of the cult of heroes begins with the setting of the stage, the world of the pre-Greek divinities, and it continues by widening the perspective to address the advent of the cult of heroes as an essential ingredient of Indo-European society. The main focus is the dynamics of cultural fusion that occurred when the cult of heroes was established as an institution in a bicultural milieu. What makes the environ­ ment bicultural is the symbiotic interaction of Indo-European hierarchy orien­tated ideology, manifested in the cult of heroes, with religious traditions, embedded in the equality and common good orientated society of Old European coinage. We are told in numerous accounts that the heroes in Greek mythology crave a goddess as patron. The association of male heroes with goddesses seems odd in the first place and the modern observer may become suspicious of the origins of such a relationship. The heroes do not worship Ares, the god of war. Instead, they venerated one of the Old European goddesses, Athena in particular, as patron divinities. How come that the strong men, hailed in epic literature, worship fe­male divinities? Here, the story of their affection for divine femininity is told. The stage will be opened for the supergoddess Athena, the patron of heroes in a multi­faceted range of functions. Does the cult of heroes stem from the same source as the patronage of goddesses? In fact, the participants engaged in this relationship originally belong to different trajectories of cultural history, and they became interconnected in a sec­ond­ary process of cultural transformation. The intersection of the two trajectories occurred at a certain period, thousands of years ago. This study elaborates on the causes and various stages of interaction between heroes and divinities. What is the measure of cultural distance between the two trajectories of cultural history in question? This distance can hardly be any greater than what has been reconstructed for the world of Old Europe (the Danube civilization), on the one hand, which was definitely non-Indo-European, and traditions of Indo-European coinage as well as the affiliation of Indo-European regional cultures, on the other. The potential for conflict was enormous when these two worlds collided. And yet, the representatives of the two worlds eventually came to terms with one an­ other and their cultures experienced transformations. Of these transformations, the patronage of female divinities over heroes is of central significance for the understanding of the distinctive mindsets involved and how they accommodated under the auspices of a newly emerging society, with a fabric of hybrid features, continuing both Indo-European and non-Indo-European traditions. In this study, the association of the cult of heroes with female patron divinities will be highlighted in its role as a showcase to demonstrate that the process of Indo-

© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11609-1 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39102-3

Introduction

3

Europeanization of Europe was not unidirectional, with Indo-European patterns unilaterally overforming traditions of the Old European layer, but rather bilateral, with the emergence of structures that have been rightly termed “marble cake” (Gimbutas 1991: 352). The focal points of the two trajectories may be characterized in the following way: – The cult of heroes emerged under the auspices of Proto-Indo-European culture, in close connection with the cult of a horse goddess. It is conclusive that the cult of heroes in association with a horse goddess could not have origina­ted in Old Europe, for the simple reason that horses were unknown in that region of Europe before the intrusion of Indo-Europeans, in the fourth millennium BCE. In this study, the conditions for the emergence of the hero cult among steppe pastoralists will be outlined. – The various cults of goddesses known from Greek mythology had their origin in pre-Greek times which makes these goddesses part of a typically non- or pre-Indo-European legacy. Athena is not just any figure among the panorama of goddesses in Greek mythology, she is perhaps the one that is the most shining with all her outstanding qualities. Athena assumes the role of an icon for Athenian statehood and for its institutions. There is no other goddess with so many skills in various fields of handicraft, in genres of figurative art and in domains of intellectual know-how that would match Athena. By her name and by the characteristics of her cult Athena can be identified as a figure dating to the layer of the Old European culture in southeastern Europe. In this study, the qualities of this supergoddess and her aptness for comprehensive patronage of heroes will be addressed. There have been heroes since antiquity. Among the first heroes known by name is the Sumerian Gilgamesh who was most likely a historical figure, a king in the city-state of Uruk in Mesopotamia, in the third millennium BCE. Scholars of classical studies believe that the Epic of Gilgamesh (recorded in the late second millennium BCE) exerted some influence on the epic literature in ancient Greek, in particular on Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey (Szlezák 2012). Yet, the heroes in the realm of Indo-European culture are much older than the heroes in the Mesopotamian tradition. The cult of heroes among the Indo-Europeans is closely associated with an institution of pastoralist society that is known as the warrior caste, attested already for the time when Proto-Indo-Europeans were still living in their homeland in the Eurasian steppe. The earliest evidence for the functioning of a warrior caste is related to the first out-migration of pastoralists, to the fifth millennium BCE (Haarmann 2012). For more than 5000 years people have grown up with narratives of heroes. De­ pending on the region of their origin, social conditions, culture and the purpose

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4

Introduction

for being told these narratives differ in a great variety of aspects. Yet, there is universal consensus regarding the focal point: in all stories we find admiration and praise for the hero. What do we know about the when and why of the origin of sagas focusing on heroes and their deeds? It is conclusive to assume that the members of the warrior caste already told stories about heroes, and those stories and heroic themes made their way, as part of the cultural package of the migrants leaving the steppe, into southeastern Europe. The first to give a detailed description of the social conditions for the emergence of a warrior caste and for the spread of the cult of heroes was Marija Gimbutas. It was transferred with the Indo-European pastoralists who left their homeland in the Eurasian steppe, in several consecutive waves, originally termed “Kur­ gan mi­grations” and also addressed as “out-migrations”. The basic assumptions, made by Gimbutas, about the movements of steppe people into southeastern, cen­tral and western Europe, from the fifth to the third millennium BCE, have been corroborated, in principle, by modern archaeological and genetic studies. The first migration (Kurgan I) was not populous and genetic research has not yet succeeded in pinpointing the exact changes in local areas. On the other hand, ar­chaeological findings and insights from historical linguistics have produced evidence for the takeover of Varna, a major trade center on the eastern fringe of Old Europe, by steppe pastoralists (see below). The successive migrations (Kur­ gan II and Kur­gan III) were more populous. Genetic data are now available to document the changes in the population structure, in particular the consequences of the third out-migration (Kur­gan III) that can be identified by genetic data for the period around 2500 BCE. The magnitude of those changes that occurred is confirmed in the category of “massive migration” from the steppe by geneticists (e. g. Haak et al. 2015, Lazaridis et al. 2017, Mathieson et al. 2018). In the eye of the modern observer, the historical migration movements unfolded under the auspices of a destructive spirit, with hostile behavior on the side of the intruders who wedged their way into areas of Old Europe with agrarian populations, spurred by a sense of aggressiveness that stood in marked contrast to the peace-oriented conditions of community life in the wide, interconnected regions there. And yet, it would be too simplistic to suggest that all pastoralists who left the steppe were driven by an aggressive incentive. Rather, such an evaluation blurs a realistic view on the big picture. Aggressiveness is neither a stable psychological disposition nor a characteristic feature of social behavior, neither individual nor collective (e. g. of an ethnic group). The social psychologist Erich Fromm, in his seminal study The anatomy of human destructiveness (1973), distinguishes between what he calls “defensive aggression” and “destructive aggression” (or destructiveness). Defensive aggression is the readiness to defend oneself, members of one’s family and one’s home against hostile attacks. This feature in our psyche is what humans share with

© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11609-1 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39102-3

Introduction

5

other animal species. Destructiveness, the readiness to intentionally attack others, is a disposition by which humans distinguish themselves from other living beings. It is essential for any discussion about aggressiveness to observe the fundamental distinction between the defensive and the destructive (or offensive). In order to get a constructive grasp on what happened it is necessary to have a closer look at the two cultures (agrarian Old Europe and pastoralist steppe socie­ ty) that began to come into conflict around 4600/4500 BCE, with the first small wave of migration and clashed with the second around 3500 BCE and the third and biggest wave of migration after 3000 BCE. Therefore we will interweave descriptions of both, life in Old Europe and life in Indo-European societies, each time taking the stand of an insider. Thus, the anatomy of pastoralist lifeways with the conflict potential among competing clans will be inspected, the emer­gence and role of the warrior caste in Proto-Indo-European society and its transformation into the cult of heroes will be highlighted. Of particular interest is the later fusion process of how the Indo-European cult of heroes merged with the cult of protective goddesses of Old European descent and how communities used to egalitarian conditions of community life experienced a change. Old Europe was a cooperative society, following the principle of gender equality, where communal affairs were organized and governed by both women and men—elected for their authority and characterized by integrity, reliability, prudence and foresight, with their capacities mobilized for the Common Good of the community. The Indo-European newcomers brought with them ideas of a patriarchal overlay which, however, did not eradicate the cooperative principle altogether. The fusion of cultural traits enhanced the development of the profile for a new entity, with the Old European legacy merging with Indo-European traditions. Ele­ ments of merging are also discernible with respect to gender distribution among heroes. In ancient Greek literature, in addition to male heroes, female heroes are celebrated. Their role is markedly distinct from that of the warrior-heroes. Heroïnes defend customary law and other basic values of antique society. The actions of heroïnes are inspired by a high moral code, and they are prepared to sacrifice their lives for the Common Good (see chapter 8). The conditions and consequences of the fusion process have been investigated in recent studies from the standpoint of cultural development (Haarmann 2011, 2013a, 2014, 2017b, 2019a). In the present study, for the first time, a special show­case of the fusion process is introduced, and that is the integration of Old European themes of oral literature into the cycle of epic poetry in the archaic era. Of the two best-known epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the latter stems from roots that are older than the contents of the Iliad (see chapter 6). The narrative accounts about the adventures of Odysseus, the protagonist of the Odyssey, echo maritime experiences from the world of Old Europe (i. e. ship-­

© 2021, Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. KG, Wiesbaden ISBN Print: 978-3-447-11609-1 - ISBN E-Book: 978-3-447-39102-3

6

Introduction

building and sea-faring; Haarmann 2018). Nowhere else in the epic literature do we find such an intimate companionship between the hero interacting with his patron divinity, Athena. When taking into consideration that the origin of the poetic meter, the hexameter, has been identified as dating to pre-Greek times, the Hellenized fashion of the Odyssey reveals its fabric as a sublime case of cultural fusion. Greek historiography (Herodotus in his Histories) presents a heroic figure in its own class to us, and this is Cleisthenes, the founder of democratic governance for the Athenian state (see chapter 7). Although Herodotus was ignorant of the origin of the principle of egalitarian governance his account nevertheless echoes the soundings of Old European community life. It seems only conclusive that the pre-Greek goddess Athena would be associated with the institutions of democracy in Athens which continue, in their functions, the basic values of community life in Old Europe (see chapter 9). This is true for the National Assembly (ekklesia) and for the High Court (areopagos). The Greeks of the classical era celebrated founding heroes of their lineages, and they took pride in the great antiquity of ancestral history. This tradition continued far into the Hellenistic Age. There is one founding story which relates to a catastrophic event that changed world history, the Great Flood. Research on historical climate change has produced insights about the birth of the Black Sea as a consequence of rising sea levels and massive flooding through the Bos­po­ rus Straits. This event, called Noah’s flood (1998) by William Ryan and Wal­ter Pit­man, the geologists who discovered it and dated it to the seventh millennium BCE. The catastrophic happenings left their mark in the cultural memory of ancient populations in the regions around the Black Sea, the most famous accounts being the Gilgamesh epic and the biblical story about Noah and the deluge (Haarmann 2003, 2013b). There was a flooding also in Greece, in the historical region of Thessaly, predating the Great Flood. One of the Greek myths relates to this happening. According to this myth, Deukalion and Pyrrha are the only survivors of the flood. Among their descendants is Hellen which the Greeks celebrated as their mythical ancestor. In the Greek flood myth is encapsulated the memory of events that produced a theme in local folklore, and this tradition from the times of Old Europe fused with myth-making among the Greeks of antiquity (see chapter 10). Beside the broad panorama of hero stories about fights, victories and defeats with which the oral and literary tradition in the western civilization became infused, it offers instances of heroism asso­ciated with a moral engagement of heroes and heroïnes for the Common Good and the defence of democratic principles. There is much space for us in the modern world to pick up the threads of moral engagement in heroism for the vital interest of humanity and the preservation of basic values and to eliminate the use of the mask of heroism to disguise destructiveness as defence.

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Setting the stage for the encounter: The world of Old Europe and subsequent cultures

When we look for the land of the goddesses who became patrons of the heroes we find it in southeastern Europe, a region with a long tradition of cults of female divinities, and this tradition extends from the Neolithic Age into Greek antiquity. It was in that region that the world’s earliest civilization originated: Old Europe (the Danube civilization). Marija Gimbutas called Old Europe The civilization of the Goddess (1991), and here opens the stage for the great spectacle: the heroes who arrive with the cultural package of the Indo-European pastoralists encounter the goddess and seek her patronage. Before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans in southeastern Europe and before the establishment of the cult of heroes in that region community life unfolded under the auspices of egalitarian society, where the concept of the Common Good was associated with beliefs in the protective supervision of a female divinity. This society had no need for heroes, neither with nor without horses. Anyway, horses, as animal species, were unknown in southern Europe during the Neolithic period. In this society, people did not wage war. There is an archaeological indicator for this lack of violence: the lack of weapons in the graves. Weapons as typical grave goods date to later periods (Bronze Age and Iron Age). The abundance of female figures in the Greek pantheon bears witness to the cultural heritage of the pre-Greek inhabitants of Greece. The Greeks were surrounded, in their mythology, by figures of the ancients, and, in their daily lives, they worshipped goddesses whose cults they had adopted from their predecessors. For the study of Greek mythology and religion it is irrelevant whether the ancient Greeks were conscious of the scale of the pre-Greek impact on their mythopoetic world or not. What is relevant is the significance of myths associated with female divinities that can be identified by modern scholarship as indicators of ancient culture contacts involving contrasting worldviews. The traditions of the strong women of Greek mythology lived on and later fused with the cult of the Virgin Mary who absorbed functions and authority of the ancient goddesses and attracted their worshippers. Among those Greek divin-

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Setting the stage for the encounter

ities whose characteristic features were absorbed by Mary, Athena may be the most revered: ”By the time the Parthenon of Athens was dedicated to Mary as Mother of God in the sixth century, she had taken on many of the images and honours of the ancient goddesses as well as moving into many of their temples” (Shearer 1996: 118). The ancient Greeks whose ancestors had migrated from the Eurasian steppe to southeastern Europe were of Indo-European affiliation and heirs of mythological traditions with a dominance of male divinities. Thus, it may seem puzzling to observe that, in the Greek pantheon, there are so many goddesses. This prominence of female figures makes the impression as if the attention of the ancient Greeks shifted from a former dominance of male gods to a new kind of order in which the authorities of male and female divinities were in a balance. This impression holds true in light of recent findings in cultural sciences and historical linguistics that call for a revision of perpetuated old-fashioned knowledge about the fabric of ancient Greek civilization. Ancient Greek civilization, in fact was a mosaic of distinctive cultural trends, of Old European origin, on the one hand, and of genuine Indo-European tradition, on the other (Haarmann 2014, 2017).

Athena’s divine genealogy— On the longevity of Old European soundings The divine figures of the ancient Europeans were not distant and they did not people the sky; the pre-Greek divinities were all-present and everything living was imbued with their spirit. These divinities “… dwelt on the earth, in its waters, or in its surrounding air: spirits of sacred trees, especially the oak; Nereids, Naiads, Oceanids, in rivers, lakes, or the sea; gods gushing forth as wells or springs, or flowing as stately streams like the Maeander or the Spercheus; gods of the wind, like Boreas, Zephyr, Notus, and Eurus, with their master Aeolus; …” (Durant 1966: 177)

This description recalls the all-embracing qualities of the Great Goddess of Old Europe which have been illustrated by Marija Gimbutas: “The Goddess in all her manifestations was a symbol of the unity of all life in Nature. Her power was in water and stone, in tomb and cave, in animals and birds, snakes and fish, hills, trees, and flowers. Hence the holistic and mytho­poeic perception of the sacredness and mystery of all there is on Earth.” (Gimbutas 1989: 321)

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9

The figure of the Great Goddess that can be reconstructed, as a religious concept, was no novelty, introduced by living-conditions associated with the “agrarian package”, that is with farming. This concept originated at a much earlier time, in the horizon of Eurasian cultures after the ice age (Haarmann and Mar­ ler 2008: 33 f.). “It is important to consider, however, that an exceedingly ancient perception of the living world as divinely spirited was not eclipsed by the sociocultural changes associated with the transition to Neolithic lifeways. The deep cultural memory of a sacred life-giving and life-sustaining force, personified in female forms, fused with innovations of the developing agrarian society.” (Marler 2018: 68)

In the horizon of experienced time, the figure and the cult of the Great Goddess of Old Europe did not continue as an entity beyond the Neolithic era, but it went through a prolonged process of transformations, from the One-ness to di­vine multiplicity which produced new entities. Despite being variations these new entities remain firmly linked to the fabric of the original complex. The trans­formations unfolded in the course of several millennia, until the unique mo­saic of female divinities of the Greek pantheon had gained the profile we know from Greek antiquity. The process of transforming an existing complex into subsequent entities was comprehensive in that the organic whole of features of the divine image was involved. In the following differential typology, major markers of functional ranges are highlighted: (i) anthropomorphic identifications of the female principle of giving and supporting life (e. g. female guardian-spirits in everything living; the Virgin Mary as prototype of the Divine Mother) (ii) hybrid images with anthropomorphic and zoomorphic features (e. g. the Bird Goddess, the Bear Goddess) (iii) the anthropomorphic expression of abstract ideas (e. g. Themis representing social order, Dike representing justice, Eirene representing peace) (iv) conceptualizing the One and the Many (kinship relations: e. g. the Arte­ misian siblings—The Ephesian Protectress of the City vis-à-vis the Di­vine Hun­tress of mainland Greece; role relations: e. g. the Great Goddess of Old Europe as Mistress of the Vegetation Cycle, Divine Mother, Patron of Weaving, etc.) (v) intercultural parameters of functional equations (e. g. the Corn Mother as De­meter in Greek mythology; the Earth Goddess as Gaia, the Patron of Weaving as Athena; etc.) The goddesses interact with mortal heroes in many ways like humans would interact. Yet, the divinities have special skills that testify to their association with

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Setting the stage for the encounter

the realm of the supranatural, the ability of shape-shifting, for one. For instance, in the Odyssey, it is said that Athena “winged away in an eagle’s form and flight” (Odyssey, book 3.371). Going through various stages, the transformations from Old Europe into Greek antiquity followed certain trajectories, with prominent markers of cultural distinctiveness for each: – chronological parameters of cultural evolution (divine genealogies and their proliferation: e. g. the Great Goddess of Old Europe >>> H.E.R. Daughters in ancient Crete, the Cyclades and Cyprus >>> H.E.R. Grand-Daughters in ancient Greek mythology) – the stage of complete anthropomorphism (conceptualizations of the divine agent as distinct personality with specific functions; e. g. Demeter, Artemis, Aphrodite, Athena) In the following, different stages in the process of transformation will be investigated, connecting observations with the major trajectories as specified in the typology. Stage 1: Old Europe and its cultural heritage In the extended regions of Old Europe, the earliest advanced civilization of the world, (which according to today’s borders include Hungary, Croatia, BosniaHer­ ze­ govina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania, Northern Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldavia, Ukraine) people lived in peace and without devastating conflicts for about 3000 years. They were enormously creative and productive, exchanging goods, ideas and concepts with neighboring settle­ ments. In addition, they embarked on long trading ventures (to the Atlantic Ocean in the West, to Southern England and the Baltic area, from the steppes of South­ern Russia to Anatolia and Northern Africa), and new products, ideas and concepts were brought and transmitted within the network of contacts. The trading cycle was contributed to by all in a responsible manner and all profited from the trade. All. Because, the common good was the natural orientation in feeling, thinking and acting. Experience had paved the way towards stability, progress and prosperity (LaBGC and Haarmann 2019) (map 1). The first overall survey of this ancient civilization was presented by Marija Gim­ butas who called it “Old Europe” (Gimbutas 1972, 1991). Likewise, the term “Dan­ube Civilization” is used because of the big waterway for interregional trade and communication (Haarmann 2011, 2014, 2020a). Old Europe presents a series of first-time achievements:

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Map 1: The trade network involving the core area of Old Europe and extending across Europe, into western Asia and northern Africa (LaBGC and Haarmann 2019)

Athena’s divine genealogy

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Setting the stage for the encounter

– The world’s first extended trading network, stretching over thousands of kilometers and connecting hundreds of settlements (river trade, sea-borne trade), (see Haarmann 2014: 113 f. and 2018 for ship-building and maritime trade). The river trade played an important role in Old European (see Haar­mann 2011: 81 ff. for a documentation), and water as the elixir of life formed an integral part of the religious symbolism (Gimbutas 1991: 246, 292, etc.). Judging from the assemblage of human figures in boats in imagery, it may be con­jectured that the Old Europeans had communal boat processions (see Haarmann 2014: 113 f. and 2018 for ship-building and maritime trade). – The invention of the two-storey furnace with an upper chamber for burning ceramic ware and a lower chamber for heating; – The invention of the potter’s wheel; – The smelting of copper (beginnings around 5400 BCE in todays Serbia); – The working of gold (the world’s oldest artifacts made of gold from Varna in todays Bulgaria, dating to c. 4500 BCE); – The world’s first urban agglomerations (the cities of the Copper Age in Old Europe emerged hundreds of years earlier than the first Sumerian cities of Mesopotamia); – The world’s first two-storey buildings and condominiums; – The world’s first sign system for writing numbers; – The world’s first writing; – The world’s first egalitarian society under the auspices of a high culture. The communities of Old Europe were firmly linked by trade along the Danube and its tributaries as well as along the coasts of the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea. The motivation for trading commodities was not the strife for economic sur­plus as controlled by a few (the ruling elite) but sharing in the surplus on an egalitarian basis. The traders engaged in peaceful competition. This kind of com­petition was described by a special term in the language of the ancient Dan­u­bians, and this expression was borrowed into ancient Greek in the form amilla. This trading network evolved in the spirit of an oecumene, kept up by the ancient people with their egalitarian society, and its role may be compared to a kind of Commonwealth, forerunner of the European Union. We can only speculate about the attitudes of the ancient Europeans and we cannot possibly know how much of a competition there was between individual in­terests and the values of the common good. One thing we know for sure is that all the necessary means enhancing sustainability were activated to safeguard group cohesion in the village communities because those communities prospered uninterruptedly over a long duration.

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Social cohesion was of vital importance to ensure the intactness of social and econ­omic networks on an regional and interregional scale. A major medium to ri­tualize social cohesion among the villagers were figurines, and these were in­ stru­mentalized in “… rituals assisting intra- and inter-settlement social cohesion. … figurines, model clay furniture, and animals could be assembled in one building within the community into a dramatic scenario, where they formed an attention-focusing device for community religion (…). After the ceremony, the set was dispersed into separate households, perhaps as a related symbolic activity linking families to the community, and to allow individual models to act as ‘apotropaic’ (warding off evil) devices to protect or bless the household or its goods. They could also be stored in house models. Hearths, ovens, storage areas, and generally settlement domestic debris, seem typical contexts for Neolithic figurines, whilst their female dominance emphasizes a focal role for women and the home in their symbolism (Marangou 2001).” (Bintliff 2012: 76)

With its formative period beginning around 6000 BCE, the ancient oecumene flourished between c. 5500 and c. 3500 BCE (extending into the third millennium BCE in some areas), under the auspices of a varified ritualistic life which can be reconstructed from the testimony relating to rituals and from the ample manifestations of religious imagery. An abundance of figurines have been retrieved from all the settlements of Old Europe that have been excavated during the past decades. Figurines play the role of a leitmotif for identifying chronological layers and cultural strata with their variations in space and time. The great majority of the figurines—made of burnt clay, stone, bone and/or metal (e. g. gold)—are female, and the message they convey to the modern observer is that they once crystallized around the concept of a central divinity, identified by many archaeologists as the Great Goddess. “And because people could get in touch with this force better when they held some­thing in their hands, they formed figurines to speak to and to ask for protection by keeping misfortune away from them. Such figurines were common everywhere in the world and still are—some we ask for advice and help to this very day” (LaBGC 2019).

This figure, the Great Goddess, already appears in the most archaic genre of myth, in the myth of origin. Documentation for Greek mythology stem from the archaic age. The mainstream Greek cosmogonical myths (i. e. myths of origin) are collected in the epic work Theogony, composed by the Greek poet He­siod around 700 BCE, although there are other cosmogonies categorized as “de­viant” (Gantz 1993: 739 ff.). Among the “deviant” cosmogonies is the so-called “Pelasgian” myth of pre-Greek origin which is of high age. According to this version, the first divinity

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to emerge from the primordial chaos is Eurynome (“wide wandering”), the goddess of all things, whose first task is to divide heaven from the eternal waters. She cannot find a place to rest, so she wanders south on the waves. Eurynome is followed by the north wind, Boreas, who takes the form of a snake. His longing for a female companion culminates in a sexual union with the goddess who becomes pregnant. Eurynome experiences a metamorphosis, turns into a water fowl and places an egg on a patch of land. From this egg emerge all the things of this world, living and non-living. In this version, the central position of the goddess as creator of the world is indicative of the pre-Greek origin of the cosmogonic myth. Moreover, Eurynome originally presided over Olympus before she is dethroned by Zeus and the other Greek Olympians. In the cultural milieu of the Danube civilization, figurines are among the prominent markers of religious imagery. They outline the focus of veneration for the goddess, the giver of life and the patron of the vegetation cycle. The abundance of figurines and their location at places of major female activities in the homestead (indoors as well as outdoors) is evidence for the significance of domestic rituals throughout all regions of the Danube civilization and throughout all pe­riods of its existence. Gimbutas identified figurines as media in cult practices relating to the reverence of ancestors, and the validity of this assessment has been reconfirmed in recent pronouncements where it is stated that “the rituals represented by female figurines seem to have emphasized the dominant role of women inside the house, and perhaps were connected with ancestor cults centered on their mothers and aunts” (Anthony 2009: 45). At some places one can observe an astounding continuity in figurine production and use, spanning periods of several thousand years. The association of figurines with the religious sphere is widely accepted. Modern scholarship has confirmed the validity of Gimbutas’ fundamental insights about the significance of figurines, and there seems to be consensus among scholars that “… many everyday household practices, such as sleeping, food storage, grinding, and cooking, were embedded in domestic ritual, as indicated by the figurines often deposited nearby each practice” (Chapman 2009: 82). Also other findings from Gimbutas’ works enjoy a reappraisal among modern scholars, for instance, her assessment of the function of figurines for ritual life. “One aspect of Gimbutas’ analysis that probably does reflect Old European reality is her recognition that a great many different varieties and kinds of ritual behavior and religious symbolism are represented in the figurines of Old Europe” (Anthony 2009: 45). The layout of houses in Neolithic southeastern Europe with rooms in a linear sequence of control from outer living-space to inner space underscores the prominence of women in the homesteads and as crystallizing foci of lineages (Hodder 1992: 66 f.). In this light, the role of figurines for ritual behavior is enhanced.

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Figure 1: The assemblage of figurines and ritual artifacts from Ovcharovo (Bulgaria); Karanovo culture, fifth millennium BCE (Gimbutas 1989: 72)

Scenes of human beings engaged in group activities are known from the assemblages of ritual artifacts and imagery in Old European sanctuaries, at Ovcharovo in todays Bulgaria, Scânteia, Isaiia and other places in todays Romania, but the exact role of the anthropomorphic figures in the scenes remains ambiguous. As for the particular assemblage from Ovcharovo (figure 1), four different identifications may be suggested: – the figures are worshipers performing rituals; – the figures are priestesses performing rituals in front of a crowd of worshippers (not seen in the assemblages); – the figures are visualized spirits of revered ancestresses who act in the role of worshipers performing rituals, thus communing with the living; – the figures are epiphanies of the goddess, a visual metaphor of the Principle of Life and Regeneration. The ritual character of the assemblages is emphasized by enigmatic proportions of certain categories of figurines and artifacts that form part of the cult complexes. There are striking similarities between the assemblages at Isaiia and Poduri (both in todays eastern Romania), concerning the number of objects and their attributes. This may point at an awareness of magical conceptualizations, with manifestations in ritual activities and/or festivities. At Isaiia and at Poduri, the assemblages illustrate the following identical conventions: “21 statuettes (…), 13 chairs (…), 15 decorated statuettes, 4 statuettes with stitches on legs (…) etc. The conclusion is that there was a magic of numbers

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Setting the stage for the encounter

in Precucuteni culture, with unitary forms of expression, as part of a unitary religious system.” (Ursulescu and Tencariu 2006: 136)

The connection of figurine-making with Greece is well-documented. As in other regions of Old Europe, in Greece, too, there was continuity in figurine-production from the Palaeolithic onward through the Neolithic. “Another mystery of the Greek Neolithic is the meaning of the immense variety of figurines in clay and stone that have tantalized, amazed, and puzzled a generation of archaeologists. … White marble, plain clay, and clay painted with red or brown abstract designs are the principal media used in the manufacture of figurines. The pure abstraction of the crosslike or violin-shaped marble figures changes in time to the startling realism of heads with detailed and recognizable features, painted red, and resembling the face of a newborn child.” (Runnels and Murray 2001: 58 f.)

The ancient Europeans and their Pelasgian descendants The Pelasgians spoke their own language and they had their own culture, and both were different from how the ancestors of the Greeks spoke and from their customs. Until recently, the investigation of Pelasgian language and culture was treated as a special field of Indo-European studies because the majority of scholars were convinced that the pre-Greek population of Greece must have been of Indo-European ethnic stock. Many attempts have been made to identify Pelasgian as a distinct branch of Indo-European while as many attempts have been made to deny this. The contributions of Georgiev (1966) and Hester (1966) are illustrative for the contradicting standpoints as manifested in the older literature. More recent documentation can be found in the essay presented by Beekes (2004). Those who adhere to the notion of Pelasgian being an old form of Indo-European in the Balkans assume a separate set of sound changes by which Proto-Indo-European words would have developed to form the lexical elements of the Pelasgian vocabulary. The opponents of the Indo-European hypothesis point to the existence of formative elements (i. e. suffixes) that cannot be explained as stemming from Indo-European and to the fact that, in many of the pre-Greek lexical items, the assumed sound changes cannot be applied at all or are only manifested in a rather fragmentary way. And yet, despite unsurmountable barriers separating the adherents of the two schools of scholarship, there seems to be agreement as to the identification of the pre-Greek stratum with a distinct ethnic group, that is, with the Pelasgians. “Such a people, as the speakers of the newly discovered

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Pre-Greek language have been, can, …, very confidently be identified with the Pelasgians of ancient literature” (Katičić 1976: 77). Those who advocate an Indo-European affiliation for Pelasgian have to deal with the problem of how to differentiate between a pre-Greek substratum of Pelasgian (i. e. Indo-European) origin and another layer of pre-Greek lexical borrowings in Greek that point to an indigenous non-Indo-European language which is identified under different names in the etymological dictionaries and scholarly literature, as Aegean, Mediterranean or Old European. None of the Indo-European scholars denies the independence and divergence of that ancient language from the Indo-European phylum. In light of the hopeless reconstructions of an alleged Indo-European affiliation for Pelasgian it is conclusive to identify this pre-Greek language as non-Indo-­ European, and this insight opens the path for a comparative investigation of Aegean and Pelasgian as affiliated languages. Ever more linguistic material has been collected and investigated which allows for a definite statement about the characteristic features of Pelasgian. Robert Beekes, in the introduction to his monumental Etymological dictionary of Greek (2010: xlii) the author makes a cate­ gorical statement: “Pre-Greek is non-Indo-European”. This scholar is not the first to make a case for Pelasgian being of Old European (i. e. non-Indo-European) affiliation, but he may be the last who has to do that. In another context, Beekes calls for the demise of the notion of Pelasgian as an Indo-European language: “The ‘Pelasgian’ theory has done much harm, and it is time to forget it. The latest attempt was Heubeck’s ‘Minoisch-Mykenisch’ (discussed by Furnée [1972] 55–66), where the material was reduced to some ten words; the theory has by now been tacitly abandoned.” (Beekes 2010: xvi)

Beekes has broadly documented the phonetic and morphological structures of the substrate language, based on a scrutinous analysis of the early lexical borrowings in ancient Greek. If Pelasgian, as a non-Indo-European language, is related to the linguistic layer of the indigenous Palaeo-European population then we can distinguish between an older form of Palaeo-European and a younger form which is Pelasgian. Roughly, the older form of Palaeo-European would represent the language of the early agrarian population in southeastern Europe and would be associated with the Neolithic and Copper Ages (i. e. spanning a period from the sixth to the fourth millennia BCE). The younger form of Palaeo-European, Pelasgian, would be associated with the people of the Bronze Age in the third and second millennia BCE. The transformation from the older to the younger form might have been a prolonged process that started already in the fourth millennium BCE. The motivation for linguistic change may be sought in the sociopolitical turbulences resulting from the intrusions of people from the Eurasian steppe (Anthony

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Setting the stage for the encounter

2007, Haarmann 2012). In a third wave of out-migrations that began in the late fourth millennium BCE, Indo-European pastoralists from the Eurasian steppe moved south and west. The movement lasted for several centuries. Stage 2: The subsequent cultures (‘daughters’) of Old Europe (Minoan, Cycladic, Pelasgian) The selective transformation of Old European traditions into insular (i. e. Aegean) and continental (i. e. Pelasgian) patterns was a process of an iterative con­ti­nui­t y of pertinent features of the Old European culture, rather than a frag­ ment­iza­tion of the original entity. The continuity was repetitive in the sense that, after a time of political unrest (caused by the Indo-European out-migrations from the steppe) and after a period of cultural instability, the Old European canon repeated itself in the Aegean civilizations and on the mainland, and its major characteristics continued to be significant as constitutive elements of Cy­ cla­dic, Pelasgian, ancient Cretan (i. e. Minoan) and (Mycenaean-)Greek culture (Haarmann 1995: 57 ff., 2014). And this is true also for religious and spiritual concepts that persisted—via various transformations—into classical antiquity. It is no exaggeration to assume that concepts like these could not be lost since “… these most persistent features in human history were too deeply implanted in the psyche” (Gim­bu­tas 1989: 318). This statement made by Gimbutas is crucial because it points at the heart of the problem of cultural continuity in the horizon of time. It is noteworthy that, for the key term psyche (“psyche” = “life; vitality; soul”) in ancient Greek, no cognate parallels can be found in other Indo-European languages. In addition to being isolated among cognate languages the phonetic structure of this ex­pression points to pre-Greek origin (Beekes 2010: 1671 f.). This means that the idea of psyche had been conceptualized by the pre-Greek population and that the Indo-European immigrants to the region showed themselves impressed and adopted the idea together with the word for it from their predecessors. The vivid continuity of Old European features in later periods (i. e. the Aegean Bronze Age) has given rise to the idea that the Minoan civilization of ancient Crete (third and second millennia BCE) and the Pelasgian culture on the conti­nent (second millennium BCE) were daughters of the Old European mother culture. There is scattered evidence which points in the direction that Old European customs continued, and this is true for the memory of religious imagery as well as for linear signs and their former use that was kept alive by people in southern Greece. This can be concluded from the finds of two categories of leitmotif in the archaeological record from the Early Helladic II (2500–2200 BCE) and Early Helladic III periods (2200–2000 BCE), and these are terracotta figurines (figure 2a) and linear signs on seals (figure 2b) and on pottery.

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Figure 2: The continuation of Old European leitmotifs in the Bronze Age (third millennium BCE) a) A figurine from Lerna (Runnels and Murray 2001: 58) b) Clay seals with linear signs from Lerna (Dickinson 1994: 190)

Stage 3: The emergence of Greek culture The Indo-European (Helladic) tribes who arrived from the north “merged with the indigenous population, which tradition holds were the Pelasgians” (Servi 2011: 12). The newcomers called the natives Pelasgoi (“those living in the neighborhood; neighbors”) because they became their new neighbors (derived from pelas “nearby”). The Pelasgoi were the descendants of the indigenous European population, the Old Europeans. Already in antiquity, there was an awareness among the Greeks that their predecessors were not akin to them. Herodotus (writing his nine-volume Histories in the fifth century BCE), called the father of historiography, was the first to state that the Pelasgians were non-Greek and that the Athenians descended from them. “Herodotus not only elides the autochthony myth—the basis of many Athenian essentialist claims—but also reports that the Athenians were originally Pelasgian (I.57–58). … The Pelasgians are judged to be barbarians on the basis of their language, which according to Herodotus is non-Greek.” (Lape 2010: 152 f.)

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Setting the stage for the encounter

In a more general view, Herodotus points to Pelasgian origins for all Greeks except the Dorians (Histories I.56.3–58). This may be paraphrased as meaning that Herodotus was conscious of the wide spread of the pre-Greek population in the regions of Hellas. Language is a prominent vehicle of culture and Herodotus perceives language shift as a major marker in the assimilation process of the preGreek population into the community of Greek-speaking people. “If therefore all the Pelasgians (spoke) this way [that is, their own language], then the Attic people (to Attikon ethnos), being Pelasgic, must have changed their language too at the time when they became part of the Hellenes.” (Histories I.57.3)

The native European (Old European/Pelasgian) population left many traces of their former existence, and not only an extensive layer of lexical borrowings in ancient Greek (see Haarmann 2014). Modern human genetics has managed to pinpoint the gene pool of the pre-Greek population which extends on both sides of the Aegean Sea. The people that lived there left their genetic “fingerprints”, and these testify to an ethnic identity distinct from that in surrounding areas. In the genetic map, a distinct genomic profile is discernible which the geneticists call the “Mediterranean outlier” in southeastern Europe, with its core area on both sides of the Aegean Sea and with gradients extending into todays Ukraine (Cavalli-Sfor­za et al. 1994: 301). This is a so-called local genetic “outlier” because it differs markedly from surrounding patterns. In addition to their genetic “fingerprints” the Old European population of south­eastern Europe left linguistic traces of their presence. The Old European elements which can be identified in the names of places (toponymy), rivers (hydronymy) and phenomena of the natural environment form part of the most ancient onomastic residue. Characteristic of the onomastic roots of non-Indo-European origin are certain suffixes (i. e., -ss-, -nd-, -nth-). The formative element -ss- is common to all these names: Assa (Macedonia), Bybassos (Caria), Passa (Thrace), Sardessos (Troad), Termessos (Pisidia), Kabassos (Lycia), Larissa (Thessaly), etc. (Otkupshchikov 1973: 7 ff., 20 ff.). It is noteworthy that the pre-Greek names include many designations for towns and cities. “From this fact can be concluded that the speakers of Greek found at their arrival the Aegean urbanization already in full development. This observation fits well with the inference from archaeological evidence according to which the first peak of urban life in the Aegean World was reached already in the Early Bronze Age, whereas Greek-speaking tribes invaded the area only at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age.” (Katičić 1976: 55)

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Pre-Greek goddesses versus Indo-European gods: Confrontation, crisis and solution of crisis

As a result of the third wave of out-migrations of Indo-European pastoralists, directed from the Eurasian steppe to the south and west (Kurgan wave III c. 3000–2800 BCE), the Indo-Europeans infiltrated into most of southeastern Europe and came to dominate the major areas where Old European civilization once flourished (Gimbutas 1991: 351 ff., Anthony 2007: 225 ff., Haarmann 2016: 127 ff.). The changes of customs and religious life did not arise all of a sudden, and it cannot be assumed that the new social order would have completely replaced the older one. The Old European civilization did not disintegrate under the Indo-European overlay, but patterns of a selective continuity are successively derived from the ancient foundations. This continuity is anchored in a kaleidoscope of domains, of material culture as well as in spiritual conceptualizations. Key technologies of crafts such as pottery, metallurgy, architecture, ship-building and others were adopted by the Greeks together with pertinent elements of their terminologies (see Haarmann 2014 and 2017b for surveys).

Proliferation of the concept of divine femininity: From the One-ness to multiplicity of individual figures Eventually, the all-embracing figure of the Old European Goddess transformed into many different divine personalities, distinguished according to their functions. For the ancient Aegean cultures of the Bronze Age, the presence of a major female deity—presiding over a pantheon of gods—can be reconstructed. The pre-Indo-European heritage of the goddess cult is best known from ancient Crete with its Minoan civilization that flourished in the second millennium BCE. The opinions of scholars are divided over the fabric of Minoan religion. Some assume the presence of one mighty female divinity while others reconstruct a pantheon of gods and goddesses. Even if Minoan religion knew various

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Pre-Greek goddesses versus Indo-European gods

divinities, the prominence of female deities among them remains striking. ”That a powerful goddess of nature was the chief deity of the Minoans ... has never been seriously questioned” (Marinatos 1993: 147). Something that strikes the eye of everybody who engages in the study of ancient Greek mythology and religion is the abundance of female divinities (Haarmann and Marler 2008: 48 f.). This impression holds true not only with respect to the classical era, that is from the fifth century BCE onward, but also for the remote past. The pantheon of the Mycenaean Greeks in the second millennium BCE was as peopled by female divinities. “The most noticeable characteristic of Mycenaean Greek religion is the preponderance of female deities. The most important of these is po-ti-ni-ja /Potnia/ as both the mother of the Earth and the protectress of animals. Her sanctuaries are to be found in different places and from their names she becomes known as A-ta-na-po-ti-ni-ja /Athanai Potniai/, Da-pu-ri-to-jo-po-ti-ni-ja /Laburinthoio Potnia/, …” (Ilievski 2000: 365)

The preponderance of goddesses in Greek mythology stands in stark contrast to the male-dominated pantheon of Proto-Indo-European coinage (Mallory and Adams 2006: 408 ff.). When the early Greeks absorbed the cultural heritage of the ancient Europeans they also adopted the cults of female deities. The mag­ni­tude of this process of adaptation to Old European cult life may be reflected in a pertinent deviation of Greek terminology from the nomenclature in most other branches of Indo-European. This concerns the key term ‘god’. It is noteworthy that “… at an early stage the Greeks seem to have dropped the term *deiwós, ‘god’, attested in nearly all branches of the Indo-European family, which is a deri­va­ tive of IE *dyew-/diw-, which denoted the bright sky or the light of day. In­stead they opted for theós, originally ‘having the sacred’, cognates of which have been recognized in Armenian and, rather recently, in Lycian, Lydian and Hi­ ero­glyphic Luwian. The change must have happened at an early stage of Greek history, as it had already taken place in Mycenaean times, the oldest period for which we have evidence regarding the gods of ancient Greece, …“”(Bremmer 2010: 1)

Indeed, the concept ‘having the sacred’ (theos, rendered as te-o in Linear B texts of the Mycenaean era) applies to the whole range of pre-Greek divinities—most of them chthonic (i. e. earthbound)—that were integrated into the Greek pantheon, but any association with the bright sky and the light of day does not reflect their true nature. The figure of Athena around which Bronze Age traditions crystallize illustrates the decisive phase of transition from the late Bronze Age to the Iron Age. PreGreek Athena does not stand alone since also the archaeology of other divini-

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Processes of cultural fusion

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ties of pre-Greek times (e. g. Hera) confirms the grand theme of continuity of artifact production and of mentifacts (cultural and religious concepts). Cultic continuity “… includes the megaron on the acropolis of Tiryns, supposedly reconstructed to house a cult of Hera which continued a palace-based religion, besides the cult of Athena on the Athenian Acropolis, which also takes up a palace cult. The same scenario is proposed for Athena at Mycenae. The assumption that citadel sanctuaries carried on palace-centred Mycenaean cult is ultimately based on the presumed divinity of the Mycenaean king, grounded in two Homeric passages (Iliad 6. 546–51, Odyssey 7. 80–1).” (Antonaccio 1994: 88 f.)

Processes of cultural fusion of two contradicting worldviews Interaction between the two (ethnically distinct) groups, indigenous Old Europeans and Indo-Euro­ pean migrants settling in Hellas, re­sulted in a prolonged process of fusion when the cultural traditions, the linguistic systems and myth­ ol­ ogies in contact ex­ perienced contact-induced interferences. This fu­sion process can be re­con­ structed for Pelasgian-Greek con­tacts, for boun­dary-crossing of lin­­guistic systems and for “the hy­bridi­zation of two very different culture systems” (Gim­­­butas 1991: 401). Re­­flections of these differences clearly show in the meanings and values which the na­tive Euro­­peans and the Indo-Euro­pean Figure 3: Symbols with contrasting values in new­­comers associated with elemen­tary Old European and Indo-European mythologies (Gimbutas 1991: 400) sym­bols (figure 3). Greek civilization offers a kaleidoscope of facets of fusion, of pre-Greek el­e­ments with Greek items, that can be ob­served in various domains of culture and in a broad layer of borrowings, from the substrate language, in the vocabulary of ancient Greek. Recent research in historical linguistics has confirmed that the substrate language is Old European (= pre-Indo-European) and not related to Greek (see chapter 1 for the identification of Pelasgian; Beekes 2010:

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Pre-Greek goddesses versus Indo-European gods

xlii). The number of pre-Greek lexical elements exceeds 2,000, according to a data base established by the author of this study. This inventory includes some 1,700 expressions in general use and also items of specialized terminologies as well as several hundreds of names (names of persons and places). These preGreek elements are not simply scattered, as single and isolated expressions, throughout the lexicon of ancient Greek. Instead, they are interrelated through their meanings and form part of terminological networks by which cultural domains distinguish and individualize themselves. A major domain where the fusion process can be observed is mythology and the religious terminology related to various cults of divinities. Classical mythology is a cultural domain which we so readily address as ‘Greek’ despite its abundance of pre-Greek figures, motifs and narrative strategies. The female figures, with their attributes and epithets, offer insights into the pre-Greek Old European heritage. In addition, the mythic narratives about the goddesses and their interaction with male gods reflect various phases of the fusion process in the course of which the male protagonists of the Greek pantheon marked their range of power vis-à-vis their female counterparts. In a comparative view of attributes that were valued by the ancient Greeks in association with gods and goddesses, the relativity in the importance of individual motifs is revealed. Although physical strength is the stereotyping asset of male gods and heroes, this aspect is not the decisive agent for a successful career. Apparently, female wisdom and diplomatic skills provide the underpinnings of power struggle for many a mythic narrative.

The goddess Gaia and her intervention in the power struggle among the gods Among the innumerable sacred precincts relatively few housed oracles, that is facilities where oracular revelations were uttered. Of particular fame in the ancient world were the oracles of Dodona, Didyma, Larissa, Claros and some others. The most famous oracle of all was undoubtedly the one at Delphi, with its umbilical stone (omphalos), symbolizing the center of the world. This identification is widely understood as referring to all the regions populated by human beings. But such a cosmopolitan connotation is a modern projection which does not reflect realities of antiquity. For the ancients the umbilical stone at Delphi marked the center of the Greek world in particular (without taking into consideration the world of the barbarian peoples). In the archaic period, that is at the times of Homer, the world inhabited by the Greeks, known as Hellas, was relatively small.

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The goddess Gaia and her intervention in the power struggle among the gods

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“Between the time of the Iliad (ca. 750 BC) and the Odyssey (ca. 725 BC), the conception of Hellas has broadened from indicating a specific region south of Thessaly to designating central Greece generally. It is not, however, until the time of Alkman in the later seventh century that the term can be used to describe the whole of mainland Greece, while its broadest application to embrace the whole of the Greek world is not attested until the time of Xenophanes in the third quarter of the sixth century.” (Hall 2002: 156)

The popularity of Delphi and the significance assigned by worshipers to its oracle are reflected in antique sources, and there is ample literary documentation of the contents of particular oracular pronouncements (Parke and Wormell 1956 for oracles at Delphi). Famous writers of antiquity dedicated parts of their work to the description of sacred activities performed at Delphi. Those who are mentioned, in the literary sources, as visitors to Delphi are not only living people but also figures of Greek mythology. Delphi is in focus in Sophocles’ play Oedipus, in the works of Herodotus one finds the story of Croesus, king of Lydia, and the well-known pronouncement made by the oracle at Delphi that a kingdom would fall should he cross the river Halys to engage in war with the Persians. Indeed, a kingdom fell, namely Croesus’ own because he was defeated by the Persian king Kyros. Delphi’s fame reached far beyond the Greek world and, once all of Greece had been integrated into the Roman empire, also many Romans visited Delphi. Among them was Cicero (106–43 BCE), the famous orator and writer who discussed the oracles of Delphi in his work On divination. Plutarch (45–120 CE) wrote essays about Delphi. All great figures of Athenian history frequented the sanctuary of Delphi to consult the oracle. Among them was also Cleisthenes who, while exiled from Athens, made inquiries at Delphi about what the future might hold for him. The oracle encouraged him to remain steadfast and envisaged Cleisthenes’ successful return. Cleisthenes did return to Athens and carried out his reform work which safeguarded the persistence of the principle of democratic governance on the communal and state level (see chapter 7). In the mythical tradition of how the Greeks explained their world the sacred space at Delphi is associated with Gaia, the Earth Goddess, who was the original owner of the sanctuary. In this role, Gaia was venerated by all who visited Delphi. Gaia is no Greek name but derived from a pre-Greek word stem meaning “earth”. Variations of this pre-Greek word are ge- and de- (as in Demeter, name of the Grain Goddess, with De- as a pre-Greek element and meter “mother” as an Indo-European component). The Greek word for earth is chthon which lives on in our cultural vocabulary (i. e. in the derivation chthonic “earthbound”). In the association of a pre-Greek goddess with the sanctuary of Delphi, its preGreek Old European heritage is revealed.

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Pre-Greek goddesses versus Indo-European gods

In a scrutinous analysis of myths focusing on Gaia as a female divinity, the pivotal role of this figure has been highlighted for establishing a balanced relationship with the male gods, with Zeus in particular whose succession to become the mightiest of gods was orchestrated by Gaia. “In Hesiod’s Theogony, physical strength is less of a motivating force in succession than is generational strife, in the sense that a female figure, either a wife or a mother, always interferes in the process of succession. Although the physical strength of Zeus is often mentioned in the Theogony, in fact it is Gaia who is the dominant figure in plotting the succession and who plays the decisive, i. e. motivating, role.” (Yasumura 2011: 77)

The most prominent example of the competition among female and male divinities is perhaps the relationship of Zeus and Hera although there also is a “third” player in this relationship which is little known. The union of Zeus and Hera in Greek myth can be interpreted in metaphorical terms as marking the shift from pre-Greek to Greek cultural dominance. When this interpretation is embedded in the archaeological record of early Greece then one finds that the Old European goddess Hera competed with the “first wife” of Zeus who was an Indo-European goddess. “His wife is Hera, a pre-Greek goddess of fertility. Diwia—the Indo-European partner of Zeus—was still worshipped in Mycenaean times and had her own shrine in Pylos, but was obviously replaced by Hera who appears together with Zeus and receives offerings at Zeus’ sanctuary.” (Ilievski 2000: 365)

Hera won the competition, and this can be interpreted as the resilience with which the pre-Greek substrate culture infused the structures of Greek civilization. At Olympia, Hera is worshipped on equal terms with Zeus, and this did not change until the advent of Christianity.

Demeter and Persephone: Overcoming male humiliation Another strong female figure occupies a key role in the world of agriculture. Basic conceptualizations about fertility in a spirited world, related to the soil that produces crops, to animals that played a role in animal husbandry and to women as givers of life, persisted in many agrarian communities into the times of classical antiquity. In some religious traditions, the mindset of early sedentary people still echoes. This is true for the cult of the Greek goddess Demeter, the Grain Mother, and her festivities. The name of the goddess is a hybrid com-

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Demeter and Persephone: Overcoming male humiliation

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pound, constructed of a pre-Greek expression for “earth”, de-, and the expression meter “mother” (of Indo-European coinage). A clear reference to Demeter in her association with the cultivation of grain is given by Homer in his epic Iliad (XIII 322, XXI 76, V 500). In the cult practices of Demeter, the pig (particularly the suckling pig) played a prominent role. When the crops were sown in autumn, the festival of Thesmophoria was held in honor of Demeter. The Thesmophoria ”give an impression of extraordinary an­tiquity” (Burkert 1985: 13). During this festival, which was performed and attended by women only, piglets, among other votive gifts, were offered to the goddess. Another festival, called Skirophoria, was also associated with Demeter. Virgins received figurines of suckling pigs (Greek skira), and these were left after the ceremonies in the shrine dedicated to Demeter. In the rites of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the pig was the basic symbol of purification. What makes the mythical narrative about Demeter particularly dramatic is the account about the abduction of her daughter Kore (“the maiden”) by Hades into his realm, the underworld. As Persephone, a name of pre-Greek origin, she becomes the queen of the underworld and takes care of the souls of the dead. Although forced to spend her life in the underworld, Persephone is allowed, for three months each year, to return to the surface of the earth and to be reunited with her divine mother. Her advent was celebrated at the time of the autumn sowing. In feminist approaches of the 1990s to interpret the myth of Persephone, the event of abduction is viewed as symbolizing the destructive force of the patriarchal order that overthrows the older worldview oriented to the Great Goddess of prehistory. The act of abduction is infused with a male mindset, and this “… is inscribed consistently in the patriarchal symbolic order that has established itself precisely on the erasure of the symbolic order of the Great Mother. This paternal order reigned unchallenged in the age of Plato, and claimed masculine deities as its own symbolic figures of rule-givers. … According to Luce Irigaray’s interpretation in Sexes and Genealogies (1993b: 131) the myth of Demeter speaks precisely of an interruption in a feminine genealogy, violently overpowered by the patriarchal order.” (Cavarero 1995: 58 f.)

Such one-sided interpretation is problematic since it blurs our understanding of the persistence of the cults of the two goddesses, Demeter as “Grain Mother” and of her daughter Persephone as spring goddess. These symbiotically interacting cults predate the Olympian pantheon and are a manifestation of the persistence of the heritage of the Old European Great Goddess. In her role as Queen of the Underworld and patroness of the dead, Persephone was not degraded. On the contrary, she was worshipped both by women and men who

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Pre-Greek goddesses versus Indo-European gods

summoned her as the patron of the dead, their ancestors, and protectress of their souls (Gantz 1993: 64 ff.). Persephone ranged among the divinities with a special prominence. It was she who was worshipped, not Hades: “She appears as Lady of Hades, who controls the access to the Meadows of the Blessed, before whom initiates come as suppliants and to whom they address their declarations of purity and liberation” (Bernabé 2010: 437). As the Queen of the Underworld, Persephone is sometimes depicted as a goddess sitting on her throne. The myth of Persephone occupies a special place in the fabric of Socratic philosophy. Among the essential experiences of a philosopher is the descent to Hades, “where acquaintance with the myth of Persephone provided the eschatological function of immortality” (Adluri 2006: 411). In Plato’s dialogue Phaedo, Socrates defines philosophy as an initiation into the mysteries: “It is likely that those who established the mystic rites for us were not inferior persons but were speaking in riddles long ago when they said that whoever arrives in the underworld uninitiated and unsanctified will wallow in the mire, whereas he who arrives there purified and initiated will dwell with the gods. There are indeed, as those concerned with the mysteries say, many who carry the thyrsus but the Bacchants are few. These latter are, in my opinion, no other than those who have practiced philosophy in the right way. I have in my life left nothing undone in order to be counted among these as far as possible, as I have been eager to be in every way.” (Phaedo, 69c-d)

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The protagonist on stage: The pre-Hellenic supergoddess Athena

The goddess Athena (A-ta-na in Mycenaean Linear B texts) was the most powerful of all the female divinities of the Greek pantheon. As the figurative and literary documentation shows—starting in the archaic era—Athena became the most popular goddess among the heroes, introduced by the Indo-European newcomers to Hellas. As a divine patron she determines the fate of Achilles, Odysseus, Herakles and other heroes. As a protectress, Athena watched over the safety of Athens and the well-being of its citizens (Queyrel 2003: 247 ff.). What makes her a divinity in her own class, a supergoddess, is the plethora of her functions and capacities, and of her various roles in the mythical traditions among the Greeks. Athena was the patron goddess of olive cultivation, one of the corner-stones of economic life in antiquity. She had multiple skills in various domains of handicraft, of pottery, of weaving, of ship-building. Athena was the patron of the arts and, relating to her intellectual capacities, she was the goddess of knowledge and of science. The goddess was skilled in martial arts and a valiant warrior and, in this function, she took responsibility for the protection of the town of Athens and of the historical landscape called Attica. Athena was also associated with democratic institutions in the state of Athens. She was honored as the founder of the Areopag, the Supreme Court, and as patron of the National Assembly (ekklesia). Perhaps the most sublime of her roles was Athena’s affiliation with heroes, mythical or human, as their divine patron (see chapters 4 and 5). The Athenians were aware that the goddess whom they venerated, Athena, had been worshiped long before their arrival. There is linguistic evidence for this, and this is the suffix -n- in the goddess’ name (Katičić 1976: 51 f.). Other names with this suffix are Mykenai and Aigina. This element belongs to the word formation of the substrate language. Modern assessments of Athena and her central role stress her unique features but are, quite commonly, ignorant of the pre-Greek origin of this divine figure. “Even though she [Athena] partook of

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The protagonist on stage

certain attributes of other Olympian goddesses—notably Demeter, Hera, and Hestia—she was unique and, more than that, uniquely Greek” (Bell 1991: 88). The indigenous Athenians, the Pelasgoi, worshipped various local divinities, and the Greeks continued their cults. In Athens, there were several goddesses, and these divine figures fused into one which was mighty Athena. In the Greek name of the city, the multiplicity of divinities is still recognizable: Athenai (plural form of Athena; literally “the Athenas”).

From the mistress of the Acropolis to the icon divinity of the Athenian state As pre-Greek as her name are the expressions for certain attributes associated with the goddess: Moria epithet of Athena (moriai “holy olives in Athens”) glaux “little owl (Athene noctua)” (attribute of Athena) molouros “snake” (attribute of Athena) The major place to worship Athena was the Acropolis, the high rock formation that dominates the view over the city (figure 4). The name by which we know this place, Acropolis, is a composite name (i. e. akros “highest, topmost” + polis “city”, corresponding to English “uptown” or Ger­man Hochstadt). The rock formation in the central part of Athens has been called Acropolis since the fourth century BCE. But this is not the oldest name. Since the native Europeans (i. e. the Pelasgians) had worshipped Athena on the Acro­polis, her sacred abode, before the advent of the proto-Greeks, they had their own pre-Greek name for it, and they called it Krana(a) “the rock”. The presence of the Pelasgians on the Acropolis left traces in the Greeks’ cultural memory. They were aware that some of the old architectural structures on the sacred rock had been built by the Pelasgians, and the Greeks called those structures Pelasgikon (Greco 2010: 54). One of the names for Athens that is found in antique sources is Kranaa polis (“rocky city” or “city of the rock”). The Athenians were sometimes called Kra­ naoi “the rock people”, and an adjectival form (i. e. kranaos “hard, rocky”) is preserved in ancient Greek (Beekes 2010: 770). So, for the ancients the Acropolis was known as “THE rock” or “the Sacred Rock” (Valavanis 2013: 18, Connelly 2014: 3 ff.). In Greek mythology, the name of one of the mythical kings of Athens is given as Kranaos (Gantz 1993: 234). In the cultural memory of the

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From the mistress of the Acropolis to the icon divinity

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Figure 4: The Acropolis of Athens (aerial view) (photo: Nikos Daniilidis)

Greeks, the old name is still resounding, and it has been revived in various contexts (e. g. in the name of a publisher, “Krene” Editions, in Athens). Athena had a special relationship with the landscape around the sacred rock, Atti­ka. In some contexts, Plato associates ecological conditions with virtuous ca­pacities. In his dialogue Timaios (24c), Plato recounts the story of an Egyptian priest who told Solon “… that the goddess Athena chose Attika on which to bestow her patronage because she perceived that it had a ‘blended climate’ which would produce the wisest of men—a concept echoed in Kritias (109c), where Attika is chosen by Hephaistos and Athena as being naturally suited to excellence (arete) and practical wisdom (phronesis).” (Hall 2002: 212)

In the cultural memory of the Greeks, Athena’s status was conceived as that of a primordial goddess who had resided on the Acropolis since times immemorial, and Athena had been present when the proto-Greek migrants arrived. The Greeks joined the Pelasgians in their worship, and they continued to venerate Athena even after the Pelasgians had assimilated and ceased to exist as a distinct ethnic group. In mythology, the goddess Athena chose the Greeks as her people, arranged for them to have a strong king and she became the patron of the city and of all of Attica. On a metaphorical level, Athena’s persistence from ancient

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The protagonist on stage

times onward can be seen as reflecting the persistence of a cultural current that did not disintegrate under the overlay of Greek customs and preferences. In Greek myths—as in literature and in public life—competition assumed a pivotal role for the direction of progress, and this also extended to the world of the gods (Fisher and van Wees 2011: 85 ff.). Pre-Greek Athena won a competition over a strong Indo-European opponent which was Poseidon. According to myth, Kekrops, the first mythical king of Athens to rule the city, had challenged Athena and Poseidon to engage in a competition about who could offer the Athenians the best gift. Athena made an olive tree sprout on the slope of the Acropolis and taught the Greeks the know-how of olive cultivation. Poseidon, in turn, offered the Athenians the horse, the typical animal of the Indo-European pastoralists. Kekrops decided that Athena’s gift was worth more than Poseidon’s horse (Gantz 1993: 234). So Athena became the unrivalled mistress of the city. As the patron of olive cultivation, the goddess Athena was revered as Athena Moria (see below). The association of olive cultivation with a pre-Greek divinity is conclusive since this domain of agriculture was already practiced by the ancient Europeans and later adopted by the Greeks. Pre-Greek origin is attested linguistically for the word designating the olive, elaia for which no Indo-European cognate root can be given. Athena is known as the virgin goddess who never marries and remains without a child of her own. Although unmarried Athena gets along well with men and even helps them with their endeavor without ever getting sexually involved. For instance, she gives Odysseus advice how to build his ship. The epithet intrinsically linked to the goddess is parthenos which means “young unmarried woman”. The origin of this word is as pre-Greek as is the name (i. e. Athena) with which it is associated (Beekes 2010: 1153).

Athena’s main attribute, the owl, and its significance The most typical attribute of Athena is the owl. There were various species of owls in ancient Greece and they all have their own name. Athena’s owl was not any of those owls but only a certain species, of small size. The name for this little owl is glaux in ancient Greece, and the close association of this particular species shows in the scientific name given in Latin (i. e. Athene noctua). Since the name of the goddess is of pre-Greek coinage it can hardly be surprising to learn that a pre-Greek lexical root has been identified for glaux. Around the middle of the sixth century BCE Greek city-states started to mint their own coins. The most popular coin in the Athenian state was the so-called “owl”, a four-drachma piece, that became the brand of Athenian coinage (figure 5).

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Athena and her gift of the olive tree

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Figure 5: An Athenian silver coin (tetradrachm “owl“); fourth century BCE

“Athenian coinage was conservative in terms of its types: obverse (bust of Athe­na) and reverse (owl, olive branch, ATHE); the standard coin used in trade was the tetradrachm (four-drachma piece). … A genuine ‘owl’ (as the coins were called, after the image of Athena’s owl stamped on the reverse) was thus dependable as an exchange medium, … Although Athenian owls, like all Greek silver coins, were exchanged primarily on the basis of their commodity value (the worth of the silver itself), they also possessed a ‘fiduciary value added’ in the Athenian state’s guarantee of precious metal content and standard weight.” (Ober 2008: 227 f.)

In addition to the stem word glaux, derivatives from this borrowed root can be found in the Greek vocabulary, for instance glaukos (“blueish, green color”). In epic literature and poetry, Athena is described as “owl-eyed” (glaukopis) which may have referred both to the color of her eyes and to her sharp gaze. In the Iliad and in the Odyssey this attribute (i. e. owl-eyed) is referred to dozens of times.

Athena and her gift of the olive tree Olives and olive oil have been characteristic ingredients of the Greek cuisine as we know it since antiquity and this cuisine finds its origins in the Old European heritage of earlier millennia. In the archaic era (eighth and seventh centuries BCE), Greek aristocratic families established their wealth and influence through

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the trade with olive oil. The Greeks also learned the know-how of scented oil from their predecessors, and aromatic olive oil ranked among the most prestigious commodities, highly appreciated by the urban population of classical antiquity. The olive tree and its fruits were perceived by the Greeks as gifts of the gods, of Athena in particular, and sacred olive trees grew in the precincts of many sanctuaries. The exact location and the history of the sacred olive tree on the Acropolis are shrouded in mythological allusions. Myth has it that the Persians who conquered Athens and devastated the Acropolis in 480 BCE cut down the sacred olive tree but Athena made it sprout again from its stump. Pausanias, in the second century CE, claims to have seen the sacred tree on a slope of the Acropolis. Olive leaves became the symbol of the victors in the sporting competitions at Olympia, and wreaths of olive twigs were given to the victorious maidens of the Heraia contest and also to the male athletes of the Olympics. The olive tree was celebrated during festive events. The most significant festival in which the olive tree was in focus was the Panathenaia. This festival was celebrated in the month of Hekatombaion which corresponds to July/August of the modern calendar. “In a dramatic gesture, the most coveted prize at the Panathenaia is sacred olive oil which continues to flow from the original moment when Athens’ autochthonous king-founder adjudicated between Poseidon and Athena and found in favour of the goddess. The very token of Panathenaic victory is thus not only a materially valuable object for the victor, but the political capital for the Athenian polis of oil from the very trees which literally sprouted from Kekrops’ judgment.” (Brown 2012: 148)

Athena and her gift of weaving Weaving is a handicraft with a long tradition. Weaving was among the technologies that are attested for southeastern Europe as far back as the Early Neolithic Age (seventh millennium BCE). Evidence for the use of the vertical loom comes from the loom-weights that have been found in the southern and western parts of southeastern Europe. Barber (1991: 98) sees “connections southward into the Aegean as well as northwestward into Hungary.” During the sixth millennium BCE, weaving spread throughout the whole area of the Danube civilization and into adjacent regions. Spindle-whorls and loom-weights have been unearthed in the culturally developed provinces of the Danube civilization extending as far as the eastern Trypillya culture in the western part of todays Ukraine. Weaving was the most noble craft professed by Greek women.

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“For as the Phaeacian men are skilled above all others in speeding a swift ship upon the sea, so are the women cunning workers at the loom, for Athena has given to them above all others skill in fair handiwork, and an understanding heart.” (Odyssey, book 7.110)

Classical literature abounds with references to the craft of weaving. Already in the earliest Greek texts, from Mycenaean times, women are mentioned in connection with spinning and weaving; e. g. pe-ki-ti-ra (pektriai) “wool-carders”, a-ra-ka-teja (alakateiai) “spinning women”, i-te-ja-o (histeaon, gen. plur.) “weavers”, te-pe-ja “makers of te-pa (a heavy type of cloth, “rug, carpet”), we-we-si-je-ja (werwesieiai) “wool-workers”, ri-ne-ja (lineiai) “flax-workers” (Ilievski 2000: 363). Like all the major hallmarks of civilization, weaving was considered to be a gift of the gods, of one goddess in particular. In Greek mythology, Athena is credited with having taught the women on earth how to produce yarn from wool and weave textiles. To honour the goddess for her gift, the Athenians introduced a festival, the Great Panathenaia, and on that occasion a woven garment, a peplos, was presented to Athena. “Once every four years, at the moment when the cranes give the signal to the Greek peasant to begin his labors (namely in mid-November), two young Athenian girls called arrephoroi begin weaving the peplos destined to cover the statue of Athena nine months later, on the occasion of the goddess’s birthday. … The task of these female weavers, …, is to weave the peplos for the ancient statue of Athena Polias, which is reputed to have fallen from the sky and was kept in the Erechtheum at the Acropolis.” (Scheid and Svenbro 1996: 18)

The Panathenaia was established to celebrate and enhance pan-Hellenic unity, and the weaving of a garment for the goddess may well be understood in a metaphorical sense: an interlacing of otherwise loosely hanging threads to produce a solid fabric where all components are intertwined, this fabric being a united Greek society. A similar spirit governed ritual performances at Olympia where a garment was woven to cover the statue of Hera in her temple (Connelly 2007: 43). The figure of Athena, the multi-talented goddess, produced many myths and stories about her doings. In connection with weaving, some very human emotions are revealed in her divine character, namely those of envy and wrath. In a tale that has come down to us through the works of Roman writers, of Vergil (G 4.246–47) and of Ovid (Met 6.5–145), Arachne (Arakhne) challenges the goddess Minerva (the Roman equivalent of Athena) and calls for a competition of the two to demonstrate who is the most skilful weaver. After the two women have finished weaving their textiles, Athena inspects Arachne’s work and has to admit that this fabric is perfect without any flaw. The goddess gets furious with envy and turns Arachne into a spider so that she may continue weaving in the

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air (Gantz 1993: 86). This myth may be very old since not only the name of the goddess (Athena) but also that of her contestant (Arachne) is of pre-Greek origin (Beekes 2010: 123 f.). Weaving was not only a practical craft, popular among the women in their private domain (i. e. the household) but also the activity of textile production in the wider economic sector was important for trading and commerce. Weaving was a preferred metaphor for representing manifestations of collective Greekness. Cleisthenes, in 507 BCE, succeeded in uniting the demes of Attica to form a state organization that was based on the same principles of communal governance. The model of communal self-administration as manifested in the local demes was transposed to the political level of the polis. “Among the representations the Greeks made of society, of the bonds between men and the cohesion of human groups, or even of the city, there is one that seems to fabricate society more than any other: weaving. Domestic or political, profoundly ritualized, weaving brings into play an ensemble of notions capable of being inscribed in the collective memory, gestures that allow one to grasp, to touch, social organization. As much as sacrifice, whose gestures of sharing and distribution define the society in terms of commensality, the practice of weaving—furnishing men and gods with clothing and blankets—offers a simple model to the mind seeking ideas about the nature of social cohesion: how is it that the human group, the family alliance, and the city can hold together?” (Scheid and Svenbro 1996: 9)

Cleisthenes engaged in weaving the interests of the numerous demes together into the fabric of an overarching city-state and provided the inhabitants of Attica and the urban population of Athens with a corporate design of Greekness on the foundation of a democratic order, that is with a set of customs which was composed of traditional (including pre-Greek) and innovative elements (Haarmann 2014: 183 ff.). The terminology related to weaving developed over a long span of time and proliferated according to specializations that occurred on the long trail from Old Europe to ancient Greece. This terminology may serve to illustrate the multi-faceted patterns of integration and linguistic fusion. It is noteworthy that the ancient Greek vocabulary contains an abundance of borrowings that survived from pre-Greek times. These borrowings of Old European origin are not isolated in the lexicon but have been integrated into the language, forming a broad layer of terminology that is symbiotically interconnected with expressions based on Indo-European cognates. In the lexical structures, two patterns of integration can be discerned that attest to the symbiotic interplay of elements from two linguistic systems, the substrate language and Greek.

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– Terminology with complementary representation of pre-Greek (Old Euro­ pean) and Greek expressions (with cognates in other Indo-European languages). The terminology relating to weaving contains some expressions of Indo-European origin and others of pre-Indo-European origin; the expressions are complementary rather than synonymous (Barber 1991: 280): – Greek lenos / pre-Greek mallos “wool“; Greek netho / pre-Greek klotho “to spin“; Greek atraktos / pre-Greek elakate “spindle“; Greek stemon / pre-Greek etrion “warp“; Greek histopodes / pre-Greek keleontes “loom uprights“; Greek pene / pre-Greek rhodane “weft“, etc. – Terminology of different origin, with a duality of pre-Greek and Greek terms with specific meanings (Barber 1991: 278 f.): – Greek histos “loom“, antion “cloth beam“, pleko “to plait“, hyphaino “to weave“, etc. pre-Greek merinthos “thread“, laiai / agnythes “loom-weights“, spon­dylos “spindle whorl“, kanon “heddle bar“, kairos “shed bar; the right moment to move the shed bar”, stypo “to scutch“, etc. The complex patterns in which pre-Greek terms interact with Greek expressions of Indo-European coinage illustrate the process of fusion that ultimately produced the fabric of classical Greek culture with its multiple pre-Greek sources. “Clearly some of the new textile vocabulary of the Greeks came from the people and language(s) of the southern Aegean. On the basis of semantics, I would suspect that at least some of the ‘unknown’ and C( C )V Ch-groups [word structures with consonant (+ consonant) + vowel + Chi] of loans were coming specifically from the central Balkans, from the region that developed the warp-weighted loom and its products so richly in the Neolithic and Bronze Age—from the region of the ‘Old Europeans.’ But whatever the precise origin of the languages, here among the textile terms of Greek we can see them casting some remarkably distinctive shadows.” (Barber 1991: 281)

The political impact of myth: Athena and Erechtheus in the foundation myth of the Athenian state Unique among the local Greek myths was the Athenian foundation myth (aition of origin), and of all foundation myths of Greek communities “the story of Athens was the most complex” (Harding 2011: 184). The writing of the local history of Athens developed a genre of its own, called the atthides (atthis “local history of Athens and Attica”), and those authors who wrote in that genre are known as atthidographers.

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Although a virgin goddess, Athena became the foster mother of a boy named Erechtheus (Loraux 1981). According to the early tradition, the child was entrusted to Athena’s care by the earth goddess, Gaia. In a later version of the myth, Hephaistos was named as the boy’s father. According to this later version, Hephaistos sought comfort in the arms of Athena while his wife, Aphrodite, was indulging in one of her many affairs. He attempted to rape her, but Athena escaped. From Hephaistos’ seed which fell on the soil grew a child who was raised by Athena. The specific association with the soil gave rise to an alternative name for Erechtheus, Erichthonius, in which the central element was popularly associated with chthon (earth). “A closer look at the myth of Erichthonios’ birth uncovers even more about Greek attitudes toward females, divine and mortal, and about Athenian self-representation. The myth is intriguing not only because of the autochthonous origin of Erichthonios, who went on to become king and found one of the most illustrious lines in Athenian history, but also because of the emphasis placed on Athena and Hephaistos, the two deities associated with arts and crafts or techne (including weaving), who are parents (indirectly in the case of Athena) of this chthonic figure, founder of the Athenians. In other words, techne is embedded in the Athenian character. Athena naturally resists the challenge to her virginity (…), yet she is a pivotal figure in the myth—necessary for the birth of Erichthonios and also serving as kourotrophos or nurse after his birth (cf. Hom. Il. 2.547–548), a position she hastily relinquishes.” (Barringer 2008: 102 f.)

The myth of autochthonous origins may have nurtured, in the minds of the ancient Athenians, an awareness of the pre-Greek foundations of Athens and the sacred rock, the Acropolis. Historical linguistics informs us that the name form Erechtheus is of pre-Greek coinage (Beekes 2010: 460) which means that this name was adopted from the substrate language. In concord with the story of autochthonous origins of the city are the pre-Greek names of the protagonists: Erechtheus and Athena. The Athenian myth of origin was just one among a number of myths. Crucially, however, the Athenians derived their state ideology from this Athenian aition. The mythical genealogy of the Athenians, the “House of Athens”, presents itself in the following way (Gantz 1993, Appendix—genealogical table 12: p. xxxvii): Mythical ancestor: Erichthonios Descendant (first generation): Pandion I Descendant (second generation): Erechtheus Among the later descendants are Theseus and Eurynome.

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Figure 6: The Earth Goddess Gaia hands the baby Erechtheus to Athena who becomes his foster mother

The myth names Erechtheus as the first king of Athens and the surrounding Attica. The Athenians extended the myth by claiming they were direct descendants of the ancestral hero. The fact that Erechtheus grew from the earth (gegenes “born from the earth”) was interpreted as meaning the Greek settlements in Attica were aboriginal. With Athena as the powerful protectress of the city and the historical landscape of Attica, the Athenians and their homeland were ensured of protection against destruction or defeat (Kinsley 1989: 145 ff.). Thus, a direct link between mythical ethnic origins and territoriality is established (figure 6). The Athenians knew that Athena had resided in Athens and Attica before the arrival of the Greeks and they were also aware of the great age of the Earth Mother Gaia. “The first Athenian was born by Ge (the Earth) in Attica. That is where the Athenians had lived ever since—the city had not been founded by any single act. This is what the Athenians themselves have told us, and they are not likely to have told anything completely incompatible with what they observed round themselves.” (Isager and Skydsgaard 1995: 126)

Modern research in historical linguistics has confirmed that the names of all the agents involved in the Athenian myth of origin are of pre-Greek origin. This is true for Athena, Erechtheus, Gaia and Hephaistos. Markers of pre-Greek origin may be morphological (e. g. the non-Greek suffix -n- in Athena) or sound variations (e. g. Gaia with alternative forms such as Ge and De, as in Demeter

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“goddess of grain”); (Beekes 2010: 29, 255, 269). In the story of Athena and Erech­theus, genuine elements of the pre-Greek past, mythical and linguistic, fuse to form a unique matrix of cultural memory, the Athenian myth of origin. The concepts of divine origin and aboriginality were key to the Athenians’ consciousness of themselves as a civilized people. The Athenians developed a cult of their aboriginality. They hailed the pureness of their ethnic descent as a noble marker of their distinctiveness from other Greek tribes. In many of the classical sources the notion of noble aboriginality is highlighted as, for instance, in one of Plato’s dialogues, expressed by the famous rhetorician Aspasia in her funeral speech: “We [the Athenians] are pure Hellenes, who have not mixed with barbarians (amigeîs barbáron). For we are not like the descendants of Pelops or Kadmos, Aigyptos or Danaos, nor many others who, being barbarians by nature (phúsis) and Hellenes by convention (nomos), dwell among us (sunoikoûsin hemîn)— we reside here as genuine Hellenes, not as half-barbarians (meixobärbaroi).” (Plato, Menexenos 245d)

The idea of Greekness (Hellenicity) was related by many writers and historiographers to processes of acculturation, so that being a Hellene was perceived as the final stage of a process when a foreigner adopted the Greek language and became accustomed to a Greek way of life. Greekness could thus be understood as a matter of ethnic diffusion. “… Herodotus, who believed that Hellenicity was a matter of diffusion, was only too happy to inform the Athenians that their pride in being autochthonous was double edged. If Hellenicity was a matter of becoming, that meant they could not possibly have originally been Hellenes but rather Pelasgians.” (Malkin 2011: 60)

Athena enjoyed continuous veneration as the protectress of the Athenian state and, as patron of crafts and democratic institutions, the National Assembly for one. There was another divine figure who shared, with Athena, patronage for the crafts, for metal-working in particular. “Plato describes the two deities [i. e. Athena and Hephaistos] as siblings, …, who share a common nature—their love of wisdom and artistry—and hold one portion of land, Athens, as their common territory. And Plato also assigns them a tutelary role with regard to the city: the two divinities taught order (ten taxin) of the polis to the autochthonous race of Athenians, which stems from the two deities (Kritias 109c-d).” (Barringer 2008: 140)

The meaning of the Athenian aition was further developed to include elements of self-glorification and, consequently, a negative categorization of others, thus

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establishing the defensive mechanism of Greek ethnicity. Other Greek tribes (e. g. Dorians, Ionians, Spartans) were considered by the Athenians to be less prestigious representatives of Greek civilization simply because they were not aborigines, but immigrants in their homeland and, more specifically, “a motley rabble tainted with foreign blood” (Parker 1990: 195). The central role of Athens, politically and culturally, for the overall development of Greek civilization can hardly be overestimated. “The focal point of intellectual life, which became increasingly homogeneous throughout Greece, being experienced similarly by the government official of Philip of Macedon and the personal physician or strategist of the Persian king, was Athens. Attic prevailed as the generally understood literary language, while Athenian philosophical or literary and rhetorical institutions of education provided the world with intellectuals.” (Dihle 1994: 174)

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4 The emergence of the cult of heroes among pas­to­ ralists in the Eurasian steppe—Manifestations of Indo-European ideology in monuments and imagery The cult of heroes, materializing around the central concept of horse-riding war­ riors, originated in another world, one which was so different from the fabric of Old Europe. The earliest traces of a warrior caste and of a cult focusing on hero-­ warriors are found among the pastoralists—themselves of Proto-Indo-European affiliation—in the Eurasian steppe. What do we know about the emergence of warriors and their role within the Indo-­European society? In the steppe zone of what is now southern Russia during the early Neolithic of the seventh millennium BCE, a shift occurred from hunter-gatherer subsistence to a pastoralist economy with sheep, goats and horses (and later also cattle) as the basis of animal husbandry. They were nomads, who moved with their animals and they were bound to their pasture grounds. The living conditions in pastoralist groups promoted the development of hi­er­ar­chical structures with a system of clans, strong leadership and territorial con­trol over pastures and water reserves and the rise of elite power. The type of leadership that emerged is a manifestation of social stratification with principle status, the exertion of power, and wealth for clan leaders and clear gradation for leaders. The tendency toward social stratification and authoritarian leadership seems to have developed already during the Mesolithic, with origins in the Late Palaeo­ lithic. It has been argued “that the Late Palaeolithic society on the East European Plain consisted of residential groups, varying in size between twenty and sixty per­sons. These groups displayed a social hierarchy, with ‘high-status’ individuals allegedly located at ‘cold-weather base camps’” (Dolukhanov 2008: 298). “The speakers of Proto-Indo-European had institutionalized offices of power and social ranks, […] Chiefs first appeared in the archaeological record of the Pontic-Caspian steppes when domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats first became widespread, after about 5200–5000 BCE. An interesting aspect of the spread of animal keeping in the steppes was the concurrent rapid rise of

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The emergence of the cult of heroes among pas­to­ralists in the Eurasian steppe

chiefs who wore multiple belts and strings of polished shell beads, bone beads, beaver-tooth and horse-tooth beads, […].” (Anthony 2007: 160)

Comparisons between the patriarchal structures of pastoralist society and the social patterns of animals are instructive.

Roots of a warrior caste among steppe pastoralists In order to give emphasis to major factors promoting social stratification and sub­ sequent ranking in nomadic communities in prehistoric Europe one may specify core elements in a typology of pastoralism and society. The following over­view is an extended version of the typology presented by Kristiansen (1998: 186): 1 Task demands: control and movement of animals (to secure water and grass), danger and hardship. This demands military prowess and protection. Raiding is an intrinsic part. Raiding might have been one of the motivations for the domestication of the horse and its use for horseback-riding. Once raiding becomes a regular practice this activity requires the training of men to use arms and how to carry out such raids in an organized fashion. The riders who controlled the herds of their own clan group sometimes gathered to carry out raids in the areas that were under the control of other clans. Those horseback-riders who carried out raids were also responsible for protecting their own clan against intruders. The activities of armed riders were of a dual nature: offensive (aggressive) action as in raids, defensive action as in the protection of the own clan. It was only a matter of time before the bands of armed horseback-riders became organized as a regular instrument in a clan’s struggle for territorial control and, in the form of manifestation of the warrior caste. An important reason for raids was to gain control over freshwater resources that were sparse in the arid steppe. Clan chiefs had to take care that there was enough fresh water available for the animals in their own herd. Therefore, springs, brooks and small ponds easily became the object of quarrel and armed conflict among the clans, which had to be resolved by their warriors. 2 Social nexuses: stock linkages including inheritance, brideprice, wergild (the price set upon a man according to his rank, paid by way of compensation for fine in cases of homicide and certain other crimes to free the offender from further obligations or punishment) and clientship (contracts); segmented pa-

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trilineages (revering a male ancestor as founder of a lineage) and age sets (young boys prior to initiation, marking the transition into adult age). 3 Career factors: herd building (high mobility), network formation, military skills (especially among young men), animals; bride-purchase for establishing families and producing progeny. Here individual action leads directly to status. 4 Attitudes: self-determination and independence, explicit self-interestedness, concern with high status; the objectification of persons, and the acting out of hostile impulses. 5 Religious practices: rites of passage such as initiation (with body modification, physical endurance, spirit placation). Probably the oldest divine figure among the Proto-Indo-European pastoralists was the pastoral god Pan (PIE *pehauson). The memory of this figure from pre­ historic times has been most clearly preserved among Indo-European popula­tions on the outer peripheries of the area of their spread. Among the ancient Greeks, the pastoral god is known as Pan and in the Old Indic mythology as Pusan. In far eastern Europe, Neolithic transitions produced a trend that favored neither agrarian lifeways nor social egalitarianism. In this clearly stratified society, a group became second in hierarchy after the status of the chief: the caste of warriors. In order to solve the multitude of conflicts horseback riders who controlled the herds where trained to fight and became the caste of warriors with high status within the clan. With the caste of the warriors, the need to protect one’s own clan and to gain advantages for one’s own folks may have nurtured the motivation for domination and the exercise of power. Cohesion within the warrior caste was enhanced by kinship links between the warriors, belonging to the same lineage or clan. The kinship principle of the warrior class is well known from the Thracians, also of Indo-European origin and descendants of the first wave of immigrants to the eastern periphery of Old Europe, to Varna. The role of kinship is believed to have been a factor in the effectiveness of the Thracian army. “Fighting in groups with your relatives and neighbours at your side improves an army’s cohesiveness and valour” (Webber 2011: 137). And it is conclusive to assume that the awareness of cohesiveness through kinship ties was also valid among the members of the caste of pastoralist warriors. The warriors constituted the major instrument for power control for pastoralist clans. A tripartite paradigm, as developed by Georges Dumézil (1958, 1968–73), can be reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European mythology and social structures, with the chief representing the status of elite power, the warrior caste ranking second and, ordinary herdsmen representing the third, basic level. This princi-

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ple of tripartition finds its continuous manifestation in regional Indo-European mythologies of later periods. The ideology of elite power and its control through a warrior caste produced a value unknown in egalitarian societies, that of personal possession, and this value kept growing in importance. And political influence and power control needed to be shown, celebrated and confirmed. In the continuous process of solidifying social hierarchy, leaders—in their role as icons of power—were elevated to become acknowledged as powerful heroes associated with heroic places of worship, which attracted spiritual awe. The intrinsic connection between myth and society becomes evident as “the myths of a people were not only to some extent ciphers of their (often archaic) social structures, but they also reinforced social behaviour and served as divine charters for political realities” (Mallory 1989: 130). For example, in the society and mythology among Indo-Aryan people, that is among those Indo-Europeans who moved into India and called themselves Aryans, the warrior class functions as a pivotal category in the system of tripartition. The ksatriyas (“warriors as protectors of the community”) are a late—and at the same time vivid—reflection of the warrior bands among the Proto-Indo-European pastoralists in the Eurasian steppe. “Whatever the theories that have been propounded concerning a ProtoIndo-European social organization, the group or segment operating in what Georges Dumézil [1958] identified as the fonction guerrière, his Warrior or Second Function, that is, the function dedicated to the forcible defence or armed expansion of any given society, is one that evidently appears early and occupies an important social and possibly a political role.” (Miller 1997: 631)

So the significance and function the cult of heroes changed over the centuries: it was promoted and increasingly politically instrumentalized—and sanctioned by the respective religion—and, depending on the sides, celebrated with pride or grief after each military conflict and each war.

Early affiliations of the warrior caste with divine patronage Given the primacy of pastoralist subsistence it seems conclusive that the early concept of divinity among the people in the eastern steppe zone would be a pastoralist god (see above). It also seems conclusive that there would emerge a concept of divinity relating to the animal of greatest importance for the pastoralists, which was the horse. In fact, there was a divinity relating to the horse, and this was a female figure.

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“Various Indo-European mythologies reflect the existence of a Horse goddess. Although the names of the divinities are not always cognate with one another, there are enough shared linguistic elements to reveal a common structural theme … The horse goddesses are best represented in Old Indic tradition and among the Celts as the Gaulish Epona, the Welsh Rhiannon and the Irish Macha.” (Dexter 1997: 279)

It can only be conjectured that the Proto-Indo-European horse goddess may have been the patron divinity of horse-riders and horseback warriors. In the regional culture of the Celts, we find a clue to this assumption, namely in the cult practices relating to Epona. “Horses were of fundamental importance to the Celts, in terms of economics, transport, war, power prestige and religion. The Gaulish cavalry in the Roman army formed a large group of worshippers; Epona may have been perceived as a protectress of horsemen and their mounts. … She was a patroness of horses, cavalrymen and the craft of horse breeding at one level; at another, she reflected the deep mysteries of life, death and rebirth.” (Green 1992: 92)

In the association of the horse goddess Epona with horseback warriors and the life cycle we recognize a linkage that resembles the configuration of heroes in Greek antiquity under the patronage of female divinities at a later period in Greek antiquity. Obviously, a shift occurred at the time when the early IndoEuropean migrants moved into southeastern Europe, and this shift concerns the personality of the goddess that provides protection for warriors. The ancestors of the Greeks did not transfer the figure of the Proto-Indo-European horse goddess from the steppe to their new homeland, Hellas. Instead, they turned to the powerful local goddesses—representing the Old European legacy of the divine—for protection (see chapter 5).

Visual manifestation of the cult of heroes When contrasting the world of the ancient Danubians, Old Europe, with the world of the steppe pastoralists we recognize the significant differences concerning the value systems in the two realms. Among the people in Old Europe, community life was balanced and oriented to the maxim of the Common Good. Women and men were in charge of communal organization, elected and assigned authority because of their skills. Life among the steppe people differed fundamentally, with the patriarchal order favoring the image of strong political leadership associated and with male individuals dominating. It was in the milieu

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of male power relations among the Proto-Indo-Europeans that male egocentrism came to be celebrated, along with evidence of clan chiefs who consolidated ruling power, promoting the cult of heroes with symbols of power. This cult came to dominate historical developments in Europe—after the demise of the Danube civilization—as a consequence of the increasingly aggressive intrusions of steppe pastoralists (Kurgan II around 3500 BCE and Kur­gan III after 3000 BCE) into areas where peaceful communities had once flourished. With the slow but constant change of the Old European culture the newly introduced symbols of power started to spread from the eastern fringe of Old Europe to the South and to the West of prehistoric Europe. As a new aspect in the cultural landscape of Europe the cult of heroes emerged long before classical Greek antiquity (fifth and fourth centuries BCE) and it also predates the rise of Mycenaean Greek culture (c. 1600–1100 BCE). How is it possible to determine the time depth for the origins of the cult of heroes? In fact, there is abundant “physical” evidence of how the cult originated and spread throughout prehistoric Europe, and these are stone stelae dating to the Copper Age. Around the middle of the fourth millennium BCE, a new type of sculpture made its appearance in Europe, this being a stone stela with a sculpted surface, carved in the form of a relief. These stelae were erected in many regions of Europe from Ukraine in the East to the Iberian peninsula in the West (map 2). A common feature in the appearance of the erected stelae is the depiction of a male human being, although the sculptures differ greatly as to the degree of abstractness. Some stelae are highly abstract while others show the head, contours of the body, and arms. Legs are commonly not represented. The motifs, ornaments and/or symbols found on the stelae differ in style and accuracy with which sculpted human features were executed. Among the depicted accessories of the figures are weapons, daggers and short swords in particular. While the stelae in most regions functioned as sculptures standing on the ground, in Ukraine, some 300 stelae are known to have been used as stone slabs, covering the burials of the local Yamna people. These are sculptures with only rough outlines of an anthropomorphic shape and with scarce ornamentation, such as belts or contours of foot-prints. Scholars believe that the function of the stelae as covering slabs is not original and that standing stelae, originally erected by the predecessors of the Yamna people, were used by the latter for a secondary purpose. It is believed that the original function is to carry symbolic weight, emphasizing the combined political-military power of the head of a warrior band and the spiritual infusion of his authority and therefore presumably was associated with a place, a sanctuary, and rituals of worship. The erected stelae did not function as gravestones or markers of burials, the Yamna people reused them for burials.

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Map 2: Stone stelae of the Bronze Age in the regions of Europe (Martínez Rodríguez 2011: 82)

Visual manifestation of the cult of heroes

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Beside the stone stelae there is another symbol for the cult of heroes. As a central component of her hypothesis of Indo-European origins, Gimbutas identifies a particular genre of imagery as typical of the culture of the steppe people: horse-headed scepters made of stone (Gimbutas 1991: 362). In archaeological research, these scepters have assumed the role of a leitmotif (diagnostic item) to identify local groups of Indo-European pastoralists. There is consensus that such scepters “… were symbols of power, very probably reflecting the spread of a new type of social organization—strongly hierarchical chieftainship—which was instrumental even in the further spread of the early IE [Indo-European] languages” (Parpola 2012: 125). Anthony (2007: 234) calls such scepters “steppe symbols of power” and Dergachev (2007: 179 ff.) sees scepters as existing “in a system of power ritual”. Valentin Dergachev has located the epicenter of this genre of imagery (i. e. the Middle Volga basin) and the spread of scepters in the Caspian-Pontic region. Three directions of spread can be discerned: – on the lower Volga and to the northwestern coastal area of the Caspian Sea; – toward the south to an area bordered by the Caucasus; – extending to the southwest and west into the area of the Cucuteni-Trypillya culture and into the heartland of Old Europe. Horse-headed scepters constitute a diagnostic cultural item for tracing the migratory movements of the steppe people from their homeland in the PonticCaspian region to the southwest (map 3). Dergachev points out that the spread of horse-headed scepters into the regions of the Cucuteni and Gumelnitsa cultures (nowadays Romania and Bulgaria) during the Middle Copper Age is consistent with an increase in the number of horses (as documented by bone remains at various sites). The conclusions “… from the analysis of the archeozoological and the very archeological sources correlate completely with the conclusions, formulated on the basis of the autonomous analysis of the stone head scepters. And it means that these categories of the sources completely confirm the migration concept of M. Gimbutas independently and separately in its main theses” (Dergachev 2007: 461). Sculptural art, manifested in the stone stelae, of the people living in the Eurasian steppe (today southern Ukraine and southern Russia) differed fundamentally from the artistic traditions in Old Europe where a great variety of architectural forms and works of art were produced, but stelae are absent from the record. The human body is depicted in statuary associated with altars in sanctuaries and in the many thousands of figurines, made of stone, clay and also gold. Each house in the Old European communities had at least one of these figurines as archaeological finds show. They did not only mark spiritual locations but were also

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Visual manifestation of the cult of heroes

Map 3: The spread of horse-headed scepters in the steppe zone (Dergachev 2007: 144, 147) a) The geographical spread b) A schematic spatial-temporal trajectory

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pop­ular trade goods and also served to confirm relationships, among relatives as well as between groups trading with one another. A major medium to ritualize social cohesion among the villagers were figurines, and these were instrumentalized in “… rituals assisting intra- and inter-settlement social cohesion. … figurines, model clay furniture, and animals could be assembled in one building within the community into a dramatic scenario, where they formed an attention-focusing device for community religion (…). After the ceremony, the set was dispersed into separate households, perhaps as a related symbolic activity linking families to the community, and to allow individual models to act as ‘apotropaic’ (warding off evil) devices to protect or bless the household or its goods.” (Bintliff 2012: 76)

Deliberately broken figurines were like a contract whose fragments then symbolised a mutual link. The intentional breaking of figurines and the transfer of fragments as gifts formed a ceremonial exchange of artifacts with symbolic meaning. This custom of ceremonial exchange has been identified as fragment enchainment. “The term ‘enchainment’ is a basic form of gift exchange, in which the person who gives an inalienable object (…) to another person establishes a relationship in which s/he acquires part of the receiver’s aura and never altogether loses the gift, while the receiver acquires part of the giver’s aura as well as the gift.” (Chapman 2001: 223)

Having travelled with the traders figurines and their fragments may be found far away from the place of their production, in western Europe and in Anatolia. It is obvious that the people who crafted art works in Old Europe were by then still unrelated ethnically to those who erected stelae in the steppe zone, and ancient DNA evidence has proven this to be true. Against the background of the role of a warrior caste in early Indo-European society, the manifestation of this social body in figurative art—expressed in pictures of men with their weap­ons—seems conclusive. And in close association with the tradition of stone stelae to celebrate outstanding warriors, such stelae serve to visualize the origins of the cult of heroes. This observation stands in stark contrast to the societies of Old Europe whose figurative imagery lacks the motif of warriors, for the simple reason that there were no warriors who would have been organized in a caste like among the pastoralists. The erected stelae as well as the horse-headed scepters carried symbolic weight, emphasizing the combined political-military power of the head of a warrior band and the spiritual infusion of his authority. In their function as memorials

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(the stelae) and regalia (the scepters), both showed longevity from the Copper Age into the Bronze Age. In the course of time, from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, the function of stone stelae shifted from memorial stones of venerated warrior chiefs to grave stones of brave soldiers who had gained fame in battle and finally to graves of countless soldiers who fell victim to geopolitical and economic interests in wars declared either as sacred or necessary for defence—“Where have all the flowers gone …“.

The Indo-European elite in action: Taking control over the trade center at Varna Through trading activities carried out by people from the Danube civilization with the early Indo-European pastoralists in eastern Europe a trading network had been established that reached beyond the core area of Old European settlements (see map 1). In her assessment of the sociopolitical changes that occurred on the eastern periphery of Old Europe in the fifth millennium BCE, Gimbu­ tas (1991: 338) gives the following explanation: “I consider this change a result of rapidly rising trade activities of the inhabitants of the Black Sea coast with the Dnieper-Volga steppe population who were wedging their way into territories west of the Black Sea”. This movement, directed toward the trade center of Varna, triggered the first out-migration (Kurgan I). Varna on the eastern periphery of Old Europe (founded in the early fifth millennium BCE) is a special case among Neolithic settlements in that it developed a vibrant economy and attracted people throughout the region. Located pivotally at the intersection of a trade route over land and a maritime trade route along the western coast of the Black Sea, Varna held a key position as a trade center, connecting the settlements in the south (of the regional Karanovo culture) with those in the north (of the regional Cucuteni and Trypillya cultures). All the commodities that were produced by craftswomen and craftsmen in the workshops of the economic centers of Old Europe were transported and offered along the eastern trade route: flint blades, artifacts such as rings and beads made of spondylus, small stone axes, metal objects etc. Copper had been worked before 6000 BCE in the form of cold-hammering. Having been developed around 5400 BCE in southern Serbia (according to finds at the sites of Rudna Glava and Belovode), the craft of smelting copper spread rapidly across the economic zone of Old Europe, and objects made of copper are among the trade goods that passed through Varna (map 4). Gold was also traded, and this innovation was introduced a short time before Indo-European pastoralists set out to establish their elite power at Varna.

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Certain artifacts produced by the ancient Danubians have been found as far east as the Volga basin (Anthony 2009a: 38). Among the finds are breastplates, which became items of prestige among the steppe people. The pastoralists were certainly impressed when getting to know goods they had never seen before and dis­covering the value of metal objects. The ancient Danubians offered metal tools, but the warriors among the steppe people may have felt inspired by the idea to produce weapons from metal. And so in addition to the constant need to find new pastureland there was another reason why to turn westward where the people of Old Europe lived and obviously prospered. And another sought after product was available in Varna. The people in the re­gion of Varna had access to a resource that was in short supply elsewhere: salt. Ar­chaeol­ ogical investigations carried out since 2005 have uncovered a salt-production site at Tell Provadia-Solnitsata, some 6 km southeast of the town of Pro­vadia (Varna District), on the Provadia plateau. Analyses of large vessels used for “dry-boiling” salt water that was collected from salt springs nearby puts the date for the beginning of salt production in the region at c. 5400 BCE, which makes this site the earliest center for the production of salt in all of Europe (Ni­ko­lov 2008). The wealth of Varna as a trade center and the presence of prestige goods there, in particular, may have tipped the scales and after some time the steppe people set out to take influence and to seek control over the region. How did they manage to achieve that goal? There is evidence for the presence of steppe nomads in the Varna region around 4500 BCE. But since there are no signs of destruction at Varna for that time it can be assumed that the takeover by steppe nomads was not hostile. And why should they seek destructive confrontation? It would have been to the detriment of the immigrants who wanted to benefit from both, the technological know-how of the old-established communities and their wealth. The question remains: how did the steppe people gain control? Most certainly, one factor was the peaceful attitude of the inhabitants of Varna. Why should a community without experience of hostile behavior and destruction have been suspicious when people from the steppe whom they traded with wanted to settle in Varna? It is easy to imagine that, being certainly proud of their prospering town, they rather welcomed the groups from the north east. And there might have been another factor for unhesitating acceptance of the new­comers. The ancient Danubians may have gazed at the horse-riding lot with admiration. So far they had only heard of horses described by the traders who had seen these animals on their tours to the Indo-Europeans. But in those days, horses were not known in Old Europe. Life in Varna, as in other communities throughout Old Europe, was built on trust, that we can assume. Had they not trusted each other, their communities would not have thrived the way they did and they would not have remained stable. They would have needed walls to protect their settlements. They would have

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Map 4: Varna and its hinterland in the fifth millennium BCE (Gimbutas 1991: 92)

needed warriors and weapons. None of this was found in Old Europe before the intrusion of Indo-Europeans. Certainly, they had a system to handle conflicts between individuals and groups. This system was the ‘municipal council’ in each local settlement. The name for such a settlement in the language of the an­cient Danubians has survived as a lexical borrowing in ancient Greek: kome. The trust of the inhabitants of a kome in their municipal council, that is in the elected representatives of this body, was evidently justified by their integrity, re­liability, prudence and foresight, so that their decisions were approved by the ma­jority of the community (LaBGC & Haarmann 2019). How could the inhabitants of Varna with their orientation at the Common Good suspect the coming reversal of values which had been their natural orienta­tion for communal interaction for generations? Quite differently, the people from the steppe. For generations they had experienced hierarchy as helpful for their way of life and therefore accepted orders from their leaders without discussion. These leaders were used to quick assessment of changing situations. For example, in case of rivalries with neighboring clans, that is in situations where the clan leader had to make a stand how to handle the conflict, the option was available to fight immediately without hesitation.

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They could rely on their warriors and expect them to obey orders instantly. Ac­customed to the hierarchical organization of clan life the pastoralists took ad­vantage of the admiration they met with the locals and of the communal struc­ture of the kome in each district of Varna by presenting themselves as helpful and trustworthy new members of the community. When the warriors on horse­back showed up, this sufficed to underscore the combat potential that the pas­toral­ists had on their side. Since open conflict was useless, the locals accommodated to the changing conditions, now favoring co-existence under the political leadership of the newcomers. The basic attitude of the pastoralists to take control without any escalated conflict seems to have prevailed already prior to the Varna takeover when IndoEuropeans started to intrude into the lands of agriculturalists in the regional Trypillya culture: “… the chiefs who migrated from the steppe did not intend to destroy the Trypillya culture, but rather to participate in and control it. The introduction of the chiefdom system into the Trypillya culture probably also resulted in an effective language shift.” (Parpola 2008: 37)

All speaks in favor of the warriors’ capacity of potential—yet unpractised—intervention as the decisive factor which gave the early Indo-Europeans the edge for their successful takeover (Haarmann 2012: 95 ff.). The graves of people who had experienced the political change give important clues. The Neolithic (Copper Age) cemetery at Varna is among the largest known from prehistory, and its hundreds of graves contain a vast amount of artifacts and information about communal life and the social status of the individuals who were interred there. Among the most sensational finds of the Varna necropolis were objects made of gold, the oldest in the world, predating Egyp­ tian or Mesopotamian gold artifacts by at least two thousand years. The distribution of gold objects in the graves at the Varna cemetery suggests that this metal was a prestigious item among the newly established elite of steppe pastoralists. For the first time in the history of burial culture, there was a clear distinction between graves richly equipped with goods and other graves which contained only a few objects of less material value. The arrangement of graves in the cemetery and the distribution of grave goods testify to the emergence of a society stratified with classes and to differences in social status, with an elite ruling over the general populace. Accordingly, the appearance of gold objects at other places can be interpreted as evidence of the spread of the elite system of political control, in which the ruling minority used visual signifiers (i. e. scepters as status symbols) to ritualize its power over local agriculturalists, craftswomen and craftsmen and traders who ex­pe­ri­enced a shift from egalitarian to stratified society. The Varna cemetery

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“illustrates the early stage of the emergence of a class-segregated society, …” (Slav­chev 2009: 203). The Varna cemetery also provides information about the relationship bet­ween the new ruling class and the old-established local population. Archeological finds prove the differences. Before the leaders from the steppe installed themselves and their hierarchical system at Varna the graves in the regions of the Danube civilization had not shown any distinction between poor and rich; the grave goods were equally distributed without any hint on social classes. There was no distinction between the status of men and women, except for a few women whose graves contained more grave goods than the usual ones did. These women might have had highly valued qualities such as in the domain of healing or spirituality. What also had not been found in the graves of Old Europe were regalia insignia such as scepters or artifacts having a heraldic-symbolic function that would identify the deceased as ruler or as belonging to a leading clan (LaBGC & Haarmann 2019). The graves of the ancient Danubians contained the remains of a single deceased person, either male or female. However, among the graves of the rich in the Varna necropolis, there are some in which members of both sexes are buried. The grave goods of the male exhibit the typical signifiers of steppe culture (i. e. metal axes, symbolic items demonstrating elite status), while the grave goods of the female are typical of Old Europe before the takeover (i. e. female figurines, spindle whorls). The existence of items in graves of the rich associated with both cultures, that of Old Europe and that of the pastoralists, suggests that leaders of the steppe people married women from the community where they assumed power as rulers, thus establishing ethnically mixed marriages. In this way, members of the local population were incorporated into the ruling elite through intermarriage. The phenomenon of interethnic marriages became a vehicle for promoting sociocultural change and at the same time erasing possible resistance on the side of locals in the community. Step by step the society with orientation at the Com­mon Good and gender equality experienced a transformation toward a patriarchal system with leadership as a claim without contradiction. The system that ensured survival in the steppes, chiefdom, had been transferred to a new environment, and this system, initially forced upon the local population, came to dominate social relations in the intergenerational chain. The Varna graves point to the earliest manifestation of weaponry as status symbols for a ruling class. The abundance of copper axes in the graves of the Varna Necropolis is a striking feature. It was previously unknown in the burial culture of Old Europe for the grave goods in a single grave to include a multitude of axes, as was the case with graves of males at Varna (figure 7).

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Figure 7: Copper axes from the Varna Necropolis (Slavchev 2009: 201)

The majority of the axes are of copper, which underscores the importance which this type of artifact had to the deceased during his lifetime. Along with finds of axes, a number of spearheads made of copper have been found. It can be reasonably concluded that the abundance of weapons made of metal reflect the zeitgeist of an early warrior elite. The weapons have been understood as “an indication of how control was maintained by the elite and a direct testament to the connection between power and military leadership” (Slavchev 2009: 206). The Varna takeover was peaceful though enforced under the impression of potential threat exerted by the presence of a warrior elite. This case may serve as a prototype model to understand the change brought about by immigrating groups of pastoralists during the first out-migration. But it probably became less popular during consecutive migrations (Kurgan II and III during the fourth and third millennia BCE) when the warriors engaged in open conflict with locals. Such conflicts speeded up the processes of spread of Indo-European groups throughout Europe. Warrior elites paved the way for ordinary migrants to follow (map 5). In the case of the takeover of the Varna trade center by steppe pastoralists and their warrior elite it is not far-fetched to assume that the leader of the clan assumed power as king-priest and the head of the band of warriors assumed power as head of the king’s security forces, and both married women from local families to sanctify relations between migrant-newcomers and local people. The cult of heroes—with the ideology of fame associated to it—established itself to stay, becoming transformed and eventually assuming its role as the most typical pattern for individual pursuit and scope of life, a leitmotif not only of

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Map 5: Out-migrations of steppe pastoralists (Kurgan II and III) (fourth and third millennia BCE; Gimbutas 1991: 368)

western civilization. “Human alientation from the vital roots of earthly life ensued, the results of which are clear in our contemporary society” (Gimbutas 1989: 321).

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5

The advent of heroes and their image in poetry— From oral performance to the epic genre

As we saw, the institution of a warrior caste among the Indo-European pastoralists is documented by archaeological finds. Those warriors certainly created their own stories about successful raids and fights. Those stories were told and lived on in oral literature but they were not written down at the time of the Varna takeover because the early Indo-Europeans did not practice writing. The ancient Danubians possessed writing technology but their writing was used in the spiritual domain, for rendering ritualistic formulas, invocations or dedicatory in­scriptions on ritual vessels, figurines and miniature altars (Haarmann 2010). Whatever stories of the warrior elite that might have been transferred to subsequent generations, they can no longer be identified in the steady flow of oral tradition of antiquity. And yet, there is evidence for oral literature associated with the cult of heroes already in the communities of pastoralists in their homeland.

An archaic variety of epic poetry in the Indo-European homeland The evidence draws on findings from comparative investigations in the field of historical linguistics of Indo-European languages. “It is in fact the case that in the oldest poetry of the Indo-European family, especially that of Indo-Iranian and Greek, formulae have been discovered which are composed of etymologically related words …” (Beekes 2011: 42)

Such formulaic phraseology must have existed in the Indo-European protolanguage, and this early poetic language use was inherited by the descendants of the pastoralists who had set out on their out-migrations. Certain formulae refer to the heroes and their fame: Sanskrit aksitam sravas : ancient Greek kleos aphthiton “immortal fame”

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San­skrit mahi sravas : ancient Greek mega kleos “great fame” (exemplified in Ho­ mer’s Iliad as klea andron “the famous deeds of men, heroes” which corresponds to the formulaic phrase sravas nrnam in the Indic Rigveda) Stories about valiant heroes were written down much later, starting in the archaic era of Greek antiquity when the cult of heroes is well documented. Greek mythology abounds with mortal and immortal heroes, and there are many stories about their adventures. What would Greek epic literature be without heroes such as Achilles or Odysseus? The epic literature of antiquity offers a mirror image of the cult of heroes, deeply rooted in the Indo-European psyche, and this tradition continues beyond antiquity into the Middle Ages. The epic genre has been defined as “… a long narrative poem in elevated style presenting characters of high position in adventures forming an organic whole through their relation to a central heroic figure and through their development of episodes important to the history of a nation or race.” (Holman and Harmon 1999)

The epic poems that have been preserved in writing since antiquity all derive from oral literature as an older stage. Once the stories of oral literature were trans­posed into written form they gained in length. For instance, Homer’s epic Iliad, in its written form, represents a version that may be four or five times longer than the original oral poem. The longest epic poem ever written is the Ma­habha­rata. Its text in Old Indic is comprised of more than 200,000 lines, with addi­tional longer passages in prose. This epic is about four times longer than the other famous Indian epic, the Ramayana. Compared with the epics of Greek antiquity, the Mahabharata appears to be monumental in size, with its text volume amounting to ten times that of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey combined (Shar­ma and Gaur 2000: 137). Since ancient times, epic poems have formed a major part in the literary traditions of many people, producing stories about heroic figures in specifically local contexts. Many of such epic narratives have become famous specimens of world literature; e. g. Homer’s epics Iliad and Odyssey, the Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes, the Indian Mahabharata and Ramayana, Virgil’s Aeneid, the Old English Beowulf, the French Chanson de Roland, Dante’s La Divina Commedia, the Spanish Cantar de mio Cid, the Portuguese Os Lusíades, the German Nibe­ lun­genlied, the Icelandic Edda, the Russian Slovo o polku Igoreve (“The song of Igor’s campaign”). The epic genre is also found in cultures outside the world of Indo-­Europeans; e. g. the Sumerian Gilgamesh, the Tamil Silappatikaram, the Finnish Kalevala.

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The encounter with Athena— Heroes under the patronage of goddesses What does the epic literature of antiquity reveal about the relationship between the hero and women? Once again we go back in time to the initial phase of the fusion between the cul­ ture and spirituality of ancient Dan­ ubians and that of the IndoEuro­peans. That was still long before the Indo-­Europeans adopted writing tech­nol­ogy and started recording the stories about their heroes in written form. In the monuments of visualized cul­tural memory, we recognize a shift in focus from the depiction of heroes in arms to motifs that are fa­ mil­iar from the Old European heritage: wo­men without weapons. The resemblance with the Indo-Euro­­ pean stone stelae is striking. Yet, the major motif (a female figure) stands Figure 8: Stela from Saint Sermin sur Rance in stark contrast to the theme of the (ca. 3300 BCE) male hero. A splendid example is the stela called La Dame de Saint Sermin sur Rance (figure 8). From the canon of Indo-European studies, the investigation of such stelae is ex­cluded since the dominating female figure and major symbols (i. e., the spiral) cannot be reconciled with the tradition of Indo-European culture. ”Many of the west Mediterranean stelae play little or no role in discussions of the early Indo-Europeans as they are assumed to depict female deities which cannot be convincingly accommodated by our evidence for Indo-European religion.” (Mallory 1997: 544)

But from the canon of art in Old Europe one get’s a clue. The prominence of goddesses was the characteristic spiritual guidance of society in Old Europe before the advent of the Indo-Europeans. Basic ideas of this zeitgeist—the guidance by the Great Goddess—may have fused with the cultural traditions of Indo-Europeans when they began to settle in the core area of Old Europe and

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continued to infiltrate more and more regions of prehistoric Europe. The members of the warrior caste, sensing the potential of divine protection, began to place themselves under the protective patronage of goddesses. Old-established sculptors adopted the idea of stelae but modified its major appearance to accommodate the spirit of the goddess of Old Europe, thus producing a female figure instead of a male one. Eventually, this new “hybrid” theme of the stela developed into a genre of figurative art in its own category, and it spread via the different trading routes to the south and to the west. Whether deity or venerated female shaman, the stelae as memorial may have expressed the mindset of people, in a zeitgeist when women were assigned authority in community life, where the allegory of the primordial life-force expressed by the vegetation cycle was central to religious beliefs. This life-giving force is the reality that is advocated as the figure of the Great Goddess by Marija Gimbutas in her germinal works. And the idea of the hero seeking the protection and blessing of a female divinity made its way into Greek mythology, where we find stories in which goddesses are associated with heroes. There is a popular scene in Greek art, and this is the suckling of the hero Herakles by the goddess Hera (figure 9). Among the many stories collected in Homer’s epic works, there are accounts of interactions, either direct or indirect, between goddesses and heroes. The Iliad, the collection of epic stories about the Trojan War, begins with Homer summoning the goddess: “The rage of Achilles—sing it now, goddess, sing through me the deadly rage that caused the Achaeans such grief and hurled down to Hades the souls of so many fighters, …” (Iliad, book 1.1–3)

The goddess is not called by her name. Is it Thetis, the mother of Achilles, or Themis? One of the special events told about the Trojan war is the campaign by the Trojan hero Diomedes who is supported by Athena. The goddess steers the chariot of the hero (Iliad, book 5.825 ff.): “Speaking to him then answered the goddess bright-eyed Athena: “Ty­deus’ son Diomédes, in whom my heart is delighted, neither should you fear Ares in this way, nor any other deathless god—so am I now to you a sup­ port­er and helper. But come, straightway at Ares direct your single-hoofed horses, strike at close range and do not be in awe of impetuous Ares thus ram­ paging, perfected in evil, a treacherous turncoat, who just recently speaking to me and to Hera declared that he would battle the Trojans and give his support to the Argives; now he consorts with the Trojans; the promises he has forgotten.”

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Figure 9: Hera suckling Herakles (red-figure vase, c. 370 BCE; British Museum 1846,0925.13)

The protective aspect of divine pa­tron­age is highlighted in various ways, and also in a very direct way when the goddess deflects a deadly arrow to save the hero’s life (Iliad, book 4.118–21): “But then, Menelaus, the blessed gods did not forget you. Athena stepped out before you and with her hand deflected the deadly arrow, brushing it off as a mother brushes a fly from her sleeping child.”

The supergoddess Athena is the patron of many heroes. She supervises the construction of the ship for Ia­son, the Argo, and provides it with a “speaking beam”. Under the leadership of Iason, the Argo and its crew, the Argonautai, set out on the voyage to the land of Aietes in search of the Gol­den Fleece, as told in the Argonautika by Herodoros in the fifth century BCE. Athe­na is also known to have given advice to Odysseus how to build a ship (Odyssey, book 5.234 ff.).

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Divine patronage of heroes was a role assigned to female (not male) divinities and in this function goddesses find a firm place in the cultural memory of people in Greek antiquity. Hera and Athena are indigenous goddesses that had been already venerated by the local population, before the Indo-European ancestors of the Greeks migrated to the region which they called Hellas and chose as their homeland (Haarmann 2014: 25 ff.). At first sight the interaction of a male hero with an ancient goddess may seem puzzling. It would be too simplistic if we suspect some sort of chauvinism here, if we imagine the heroes making the goddesses their accomplices. An approach from another angle is much more promising. The heroes—caught in their own psychological straightjacket of being in need to become celebrities—intuitively feel that all their quests would be futile without the life-supporting force that only a female divinity can provide. There is one thing that heroes fear the most: dying in the absence of glory. These strong, yet fragile men, albeit ready to die, are not prepared to die without having achieved their ultimate goal: fame and glory. So the heroes summon higher instances, the benevolent forces that may grant the warrior a heroic fate. The cults of Hera and Athena—descendants of their divine ancestress, the Great Goddess of Old Europe—are shining in the afterglow of the cultural legacy of the Danube civilization. The patronage of pre-Indo-European female divinities over Indo-European heroes provides the ground for an amalgam of elements from both worlds that enter a state of fusion being woven into tapestries of different cultural contexts. Here they keep their role in the psyche as the universal and archetypical power.

Heroes in epic poetry of the archaic era The literary manifestation of the cult of heroes proliferates into a variety of heroic personalities with particular roles and functions. The heroic figures represent three basic types, so to speak a functional triad of heroism: (i)

The egocentric hero seeking fame and glory the warrior-hero; (e. g. Achilles, Herakles; see above) the valiant slayer of monsters; (e. g. Theseus; see chapter 9) the adventurer in search of bounty (e. g. Jason; see chapter 9)

(ii) The adventurer vis-à-vis the vicissitudes of life (e. g. Odysseus; see chapter 6)

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Figure 10: Herakles makes his appearance at Olympus (Athena, approaches Zeus, leading Herakles by the hand; Attic black-figure cup; British Museum 1867,0508.962)

(iii) The hero(ïne) and his/her contribution to the Common Good the hero(ïne) serving communal interests (e. g. heroïnes sacrificing their lives; see chapter 8) the rescuer-hero (e. g. Hekademos; see chapter 9) the founder of state governance (e. g. Cleisthenes; see chapter 7) the founder-hero of a city (e. g. Erechtheus; see chapter 3) the founder-hero of a lineage (e. g. Aeneas, Deukalion; see chapter 10) Epic poetry was at the very heart of the ancient Greek world and its centrality lasted throughout antiquity, from the archaic age to the Hellenistic era. In epic poetry, gods and mythical heroes interact. The great majority of mythical figures, immortal divinities and mortal heroes alike, produced their own particular myths or, in other words, mythic narratives crystallized around certain figures. Certain divinities (such as Athena) and heroes (such as Herakles) attracted more attention from myth-makers than other figures (figure 10).

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Contrasting with the popular Athena as companion of heroes, Ares, god of war, is a figure that only rarely appeared in narratives and was worshipped only in a few places. In Greek art, and particularly in vase painting, the great variation in popularity shows. And there is another aspect to the visual arts that emphasises the ubiquity of divinities in Greek life. “On a large number of Attic vases from the fifth century BC a god (or gods) is shown libating (pouring out a drink as an offering to one or more gods), and the question arises whether these scenes are connected with myth or not. The most likely answer is no, and that these pictures and others of the gods performing timeless, isolated activities are Daseinsbilder, images that indicate the timeless presence of the gods but are not connected with any particular myth or narrative.” (Oakley 2013: 41)

Whether in association with myth or simply symbolically acting in some ritual, the presence of the gods—wherever a Greek lived and whatever activity he/she may have been engaged in—constantly nourished the imagination of a world imbued with divine spirit and filled with vividly interacting gods. Epic poetry reflected this state of being. For a modern observer, this statement about the pop­ularity of the content and motifs of epic poetry refers to literary works. In all probability, epic narration played a pivotal role for Greek community life much earlier, that is, prior to the introduction of the Greek alphabet in the eighth century BCE. “We encounter poetic activity at all levels of society, some of the most prominent archaic leaders left poetry and poetry forms our main contemporary literary evidence. The image of the archaic poets is, in their own words, one of wisdom and moral authority, deserving of a semi-religious awe: in one modern formulation, the period is the ‘lyric age of Greece’, …” (Thomas 1995: 104)

The most common way of communicating epic narratives was through story-­ telling. The Iliad “… is conveyed by a wide variety of narrative techniques, ranging from direct narration, to symbolic re-enactment, to passing allusions fitting the ‘jig-saw’ as it has been pieced together so far. Always the poet controls the sequence and the developing picture perceived by his hearers.” (Taplin 1995: 83)

Before the content of the Iliad was written down, wandering poets recited their stories in towns, and this happened often, if not exclusively, to the accompaniment of an archaic string instrument. Homer was one of those wandering poets, and among the most famous. “An important draw for professional poets and singers at all periods were musical competitions held at local and pan-Hellenic festivals. These were particu-

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larly widespread in the Hellenistic and imperial periods, though their origins go back much earlier: the first musical contest of which we know was that held at the funeral games of Amphidamas at Chalcis in Euboea, to which Hesiod travelled the short distance from his home and where he claims to have won a tripod (Works and Days 654–7), a claim which (in part) gave rise to the famous story of ‘the contest of Homer and Hesiod’.” (Hunter and Rutherford 2009a: 6)

Homer earned immortality in the cultural memory of posterity because his works were preserved in writing, exhibiting the exquisite quality of his compositions. “We know almost nothing about the Trojan War, which seems to have taken place around 1200 BCE, and we know very little about Homer. He was prob­ a­bly born around 700 BCE in one of the Greek colonies on the west coast of present-day Turkey or on one of the islands in the eastern Aegean Sea, and he almost certainly wasn’t named Homer. He was trained in the ancient tradition of oral poetry, and he used a traditional language that had evolved over centuries, bearing signs of its history in its many archaic features and its mixed dialect. As an epic singer, he went from town to town, or from noble house to noble house, to find new audiences, and he sang his poems to them in partly extemporaneous performance, accompanying himself on the phorminx (a fourstringed lyre), like the bards described in the Odyssey.” (Mitchell 2011: xxi)

It would be unrealistic for us modern observers to imagine that wandering poets would have performed in its entirety the Iliad that has come down to us in its written form, divided into 24 books. The original version of this epic work might have been only a quarter (i. e. 25 percent) or even one fifth (i. e. 20 percent) of the written volume. The original version was performed orally, and when the story of the Trojan War was later recorded in writing (perhaps dictated by the blind Homer himself), more and more characters of heroes were introduced and more and more extensions were added to the narrative mainstream. The tenth book is considered by scholars to be the work of some other poet than Homer (Mitchell 2011: 417 ff.). The timeframe for the emergence of Homeric poetry is calculated by modern scholarship as extending from the latter part of the eighth to the first half of the seventh century BCE. An intriguing parallel between early epic poetry and art styles has been pointed out. “The eighth-century Greek world was relatively closed and regulated under the tight control of groups of chieftains. This is, on the whole, the sociology and morality of Hesiod, who may, indeed, be seen as reasserting good old values in the face of their breakdown. Geometric decoration epitomizes this relatively stable, regulated world. The seventh century was, on the other hand, an age of expanding horizons in almost every sense, including the broadening of social structures and the rapid development of the polis.” (Taplin 1995: 34)

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The figure of Homer is shrouded in mysterious darkness, and the scarce infor­ ma­tion about his life contrasts sharply with the fame of his epic works. No wonder that Homer has become a target of much speculation. In the nineteenth cen­tury when the chronology of Greek history had not yet been established, dis­tinguishing the period of the Bronze Age from the Iron Age, Homer was iden­tified as a contemporary of Agamemnon, as if the poet had lived at the time of the Trojan war. Although such identification carried all manner of a myth baggage, one observation associated with it is of great interest. In the episodes of the Iliad, there are many descriptions of medical conditions, of the wounds that the warriors inflict on each other, of the cause of death of a hero, of the measure of pain that a wounded soldier may suffer. A surgeon in the staff of the Royal Saxon Army, H. Frölich (1879), speculated that, given the abundance of medical information, Homer must have been a phy­sician in the service of Agamemnon’s army when he laid siege to Troy. “The Homeric poems afford us a glimpse of medical ideas and practices long before any of our strictly medical literature, and although their information cannot be taken back to the heroic days of Agamemnon and Odysseus, it can be used to illustrate what the poet’s audience would have expected or taken for granted in the late eighth century. We may note the complex vocabulary for types of wound with which Homer expected his readers to be familiar, and the graphic descriptions of injuries, not all of which are the result of poetic imagination.” (Nutton 2013: 37)

From the antique sources where musical competitions and performances of epic poetry are described we learn that, for the organizers, it was of special concern to have poets elaborate on mythical motifs that would be suitable for honouring local deities and their sanctuaries (see Guarducci 1929: 650 for the Delians honoring Demoteles of Andros for his poetry on ‘local myths’). In the early days, the most popular genres for performance would be kitharody, that is, poems sung to the accompaniment of the kithara, and rhapsody, that is, the recitation of epic poetry in the Homeric style (Hunter and Rutherford 2009a: 6). For the epic poets, mythos assumed a special meaning as a technical term of poetic language use. “In Homer and the early Greek poets, mythos signified the ways words are treated on the surface level of the text, their ornamental or fictional use, or the beauty of arrangement of the words in a literary work” (Doty 2000: 6). In Greek epic literature we find the names of heroes that were celebrated by the contemporaries who listened to the stories presented by bards to an interested audience. As for the relationship of Mycenaean names vis-à-vis names in the epic poetry of the archaic era, in earlier studies on Greek myth, one finds statements according to which a break must have occurred in the mythical tradition because the names of heroes in the epic literature of the eighth and seventh cen-

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turies BCE were names of ordinary people in Mycenaean times, as recorded in the Linear B texts. Such assumptions about a break in tradition must be counted as unfounded since there is a reasonable explanation for the differences in the social status of name-holders. “Linear B texts indicate the importance of the Mycenaean civilization for the development of Greek mythology. A great number of Greek mythological and heroic names have their parallels in Mycenaean names, e. g.: A-ki-re-u / Akhilleus/, E-ko-to /Hektor/, De-u-ka-ri-jo /Deukalion/, Te-se-u /Theseus/, etc. The bearers of these names in the Linear B texts are ordinary people of the middle and lower social classes, but later, in the so-called ‘Dark Ages’, the Greeks idealized Mycenaean society and maintained that only Mycenaean names were worthy of their heroes. The cult of these heroes originated with the emergence of urban settlements and were considered the founders of their cities. At festivals in honour of these heroes poets competed in composing poems about them.” (Ilievski 2000: 367 f.)

Encapsulated in the epic stories is an ideological frame for the cult of heroes, ideologizing the individual’s drive for gaining fame at the risk of encountering death at an early age. A warrior’s mindset is infused with the credo “… that a man’ s reputation is more valuable than anything else, even his life. A warrior dedicates all his efforts to winning honor and glory among his peers and hopes that his fame will last forever, through the songs of endless generations of poets.” (Mitchell 2011: xxiii)

A landmark of epic poetry is Homer’s Iliad, dating to the eighth century BCE, that ranges among the works of world literature, and this because prominent per­ sonalities from cultural history have given great applause to the elegance of the language used to tell the story of the heroes of the Trojan war. Among those who held the Iliad in high esteem was Alexander the Great who is purported to have called it “a treasury of all military virtue”. No matter whether the value of the contents of the epic is appreciated or looked at from a critical distance, there seems to be consensus when it comes to the appreciation of the power of Homer’s language. In the Iliad, Achilles discloses the ideological foundations of an honorable life for a hero: “My mother, Thetis, tells me that there are two ways I might die: if I stay here and keep fighting around the city of Troy, I can never go home, but my glory will live forever; but if I return in my ships to my own dear country, my glory will die, but my life will be long and peaceful.” (Iliad, book 9.412–17)

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The way of the hero is not one of leading an honorable life by engaging in constructive activities for promoting the well-being of fellow citizens in community-life. The Platonic ideal of individuals striving to improve the quality of the Common Good through their deeds is a far cry from the ego-oriented mindset of warriors (Haarmann 2017a). No, such achievements are not sought. Instead, the way of the hero is the egocentric strive for glory, to gain fame. Homer’s epic abounds with accounts of men driven by an unstoppable urge to engage in battle, like in the scene where two brothers, Ajax the Smaller and Ajax the Tall, share their mental disposition (Iliad, book 13.76–81): Ajax the Smaller: “My heart has been struck by a jolt of courage, I feel my body tingling all over, my arms and legs, surge with strength, and I long to go into battle.”

Ajax the Tall: “I feel that too. A current runs through my hands, they long for a spear, my legs want to sprint, my body feels stronger than it has ever been, and I can’t wait to meet Hector and fight him in all his fury.”

Homer is well aware of the deconstructive aspects of warfare and its consequences. In his description of militant actions, the epic poet uses vocabulary that pic­ ture the horrors of war; e. g. argaleos “gruesome, cruel, bitter”, deios “deadly”, dyse­ leges “bringing much grief”, kakos “evil”, leugaleos “wretched”, lygros “miserable”, oloios “ruinous”, polydakrys “bringing many tears”, phthisenor “man-destroying”. In Homer’s vivid account, the reader is stunned by the violent sceneries, by “… an uproar of war cries and battered shields and helmets, spears clashing against shields, shields grinding into other shields, warriors yelling for help or shouting in agony or triumph, the whole battlefield strewn with mangled, gore-covered corpses, the air loud with the cries of killers and killed, the whole earth, it seems, drowning in blood. Panic can suddenly grip a whole army; when a hero approaches, lesser men are terrified and flee, and even the heroes themselves can be terrified or heartsick or overwhelmed with despair.” (Mitchell 2011: xxvii)

But when one draws the sum of all the elements in Homer’s description of warfare, then there is the paramount scope of fame for the individual that counts. War is kydianeira “man-glorying” and heroes are philoptolemos “war-loving”. The greatest of heroes in the Iliad is Achilles. He is eager to earn eternal fame by fierce fighting. But he aspires more than simple kleos (immortal glory), fame assigned to heroes by mortals. No, Achilles strives for a higher level of fame.

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“The narrator says Achilles is “pressing on to earn kudos, ‘glory,’ his unapproachable hands stained with gore.” Achilles is not pursuing kleos, the immortal glory of present and future generations remembering and retelling great exploits. No, Achilles pursues kudos, the glory that only the gods bestow.” (Anhalt 2017: 85)

The cult of heroes has flourished ever since Greek antiquity, in many transformations. The Iliad ranges among the most famous works of world literature and this piece finds its worthy companions in the Indian and other epics. No wonder that the icon of the fame-seeking bellicose hero has dominated the image of manly pride throughout the world. The wandering poets sang songs and, by singing songs of valiant heroes, the poets established the heroes’ eternal fame. The cult of heroes was enhanced by skilful singers who eternalized themselves in Greek society. It is not far-fetched to speak about a “cult of poets” in the Greek polis (Clay 2004).

Interactional patterns of gods and heroes in Greek theater The contents of myths were told by story-tellers and narrated by epic poets. An additional dimension opened up for the perpetuation of myths, and this was their enactment in stage plays. The deeds of the gods and the activities of heroes under the patronage of divinities were dramatized, in theatrical performances associated with processions, as well as in specifically designed spaces, the theaters, from the sixth century BCE onward. The oldest genre of theatrical plays was tragedy. Even when theatrical performance had been separated from the performance of ritual processions, it remained associated with the tradition of mythical narration. “Tragedy is not only an art form; it is also a social institution that the city, by establishing competitions in tragedies, set up alongside its political and legal institutions” (Vernant and Vidal-Naquet 1990: 32 f.). The earliest theatrical performances in Greek style were organized in the context of competitions as part of ritual processions on the occasion of the Great Dionysiac festival that was held at the end of March. The first competition in tragedy that we know of was held in 532 BCE. The genre of the tragedy continued to be popular also during the era of democratic rule in Athens. “Fifth-century Attic tragedy, like archaic epic poetry, took its subjects almost exclusively from myth. Tragedies on nonmythical themes were never more than experimental. … Tragedy was also influenced by the treatment of myth in epic poetry. Even ancient authors called Homer the father of tragedy, and

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Aeschylus reportedly said that he worked with the crumbs from Homer’s table (TrGF vol. 3, T 112a–b). The tragic poet deliberately situated himself in the epic tradition of mythical narration.” (Graf 1996: 142)

Comedy was introduced much later; the first competition to feature this genre was organized in 486 BCE. Since theatrical performances evolved out of earlier forms of dramatic enactment, it is not surprising to find dance and song at the very core of early theater. “As part of rites, they are devices for conveying events from the past—cosmic or historical—handed down in the form of myth, that were thought to have bestowed blessing or averted disaster. Their cult repetition is intended to reproduce these effects in the present.” (Dihle 1994: 91)

Theater in Greek antiquity is a forum where the dynamics of social relationships, both realistic (interaction between human beings) and imagined (interaction between immortal gods and mortals), were played out. In plays, we find a reservoir of mythical motifs, figures and narrative strategies that form a colourful mixture of what was real, might be real and was deemed to be desirable in Greek society. “Elegiac, lyric, and tragic poets all draw on the common stock of mythology; but while creating literature out of mythical themes, they treat these themes with great freedom, adapting them to fit their needs and sometimes even attacking them in the name of some new ethical or religious ideal.” (Vernant 1990: 212)

Extrapolating from observations in the study of oral literature in traditional cul­tures, one may conclude that the impact of the verbal strategies utilised in theatrical performances in ancient Greece were most probably characterized by similar functions and structures, both in the context of processions and in the newly devised space, the theater. This means that the texts were oriented towards the formulaic use of language that was typical of rituals. The use of formulaic language made it easier for the spectators in the theater to identify with the contents of the scenes since they were accustomed to such presentations from their experience of processions. “Structural familiarity and conventionality are those factors in the process of memorisation which are also apparent when studying the complex composed of formulaic systems and families of formulae, typical scenes and themes. The supply of formulaic vocabulary, scenes and plots is structured with the help of interconnecting links in the same way as information stored in the memory generally. Particular formulae and the systems formed from them are grouped together thematically, some image elements and ideas link up with each other, some scenes have a tendency to attract certain details, etc. Tradition-oriented

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members of a culture (both performers and listeners) are thus more easily able to assimilate and reproduce elements organised formulaically.” (Harvilahti 2000: 59 f.)

Another conclusion is evident. In the early stage of development of theatrical performance, independent of processions, the spoken texts and the staging of scenes were much simpler than those produced by the Greek theater in the classical period. Elaboration and sophistication of language use and narrative lay in the future, with great names such as Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Sophocles and Euripides (Mastromarco and Totaro 2012: 68 ff., 94 ff., 120 ff., 192 ff.). For a modern student of ancient Greece, there may seem to be an obvious distinction between plays as literary works and the theatrical performance of their contents. The reality of cultural life in Athens from the fifth century BCE suggests a different view. Priority lay with the performance; plays were written to be performed in the theaters that were constructed in Athens and other cities of Attica. One theater stands out because of its unrivalled attraction. “Most, if not all, extant Greek tragedies were written for the Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus in Athens” (Wiles 1997: 23). “It cannot be stressed enough that the ancient theater was wildly popular. Athenians were known to wake up early and walk a ‘very long way to see a comedy.’ Socrates is reported to have frequently attended the theaters, especially when Euripides competed with new tragedies; when the poet was competing at the Rural Dionysia in the Piraeus, Socrates even went down there. … Beginning in the later fifth century there is evidence for an increasing number of dramatic festivals and theaters across Attica. Enthusiastic ‘theater lovers’ went around to all the Rural Dionysia, and tragic poets are represented as ‘gathering crowds’ (Pl. Republic 475d, 568b).” (Roselli 2011: 21)

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Odysseus, the deviant figure in epic literature— Searching for “heroes” in the world of Old Europe

The trail of the warrior-heroes from the Eurasian steppe is clearly marked, name­ly by their major attribute: the horse. Horseback riding was common among the Indo-European pastoralists when they set out on their migrations, and they brought the domesticated horse to the regions of Old Europe. When the migrants from the steppe arrived in the region which their descendants called Hellas the horse which they brought with them was a novelty for the local people. In the stories of the local population, the Pelasgians, the horse could not play any part since it did not form part of animal husbandry in Old Europe before the advent of the steppe people. In the stories among the locals, there were other items from the natural surroundings that were associated with local figures of prominence. The indigenous Pelasgians certainly had their own stories about men and women of Old Europe. Story-telling and mythical figures are universal features in human culture which means that these ingredients can be found among whatever culturally distinct populations of the world. Were all the stories which had been popular among the Pelasgians lost when the Indo-European newcomers settled down and the former communal order was overformed by Indo-European patterns of social hierarchy and class distinction? Were the old stories buried under the overlay of tales about horseback riding heroes or were older stories integrated into the canon of Indo-European narratives and adjusted to new standards of story-telling? It is conclusive to assume that the Old European heritage of oral narrative survived, in whatever transformed way. If elementary symbols of old Europe did not lose their significance in religious life (see chapter 2), why would elementary themes of the narrative tradition have disappeared without leaving any traces? But if such narrative elements survived how can we retrieve motifs and narrative patterns of stories which are older than the Indo-European stories about warrior-heroes?

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Features of deviant epic poetry, the Odyssey, and of its protagonist, Odysseus In fact, we may find clues evidencing the connection between epic literature in Greek antiquity and the tradition of story-telling among the people in the Dan­ ube civilization. These clues are hidden in the Odyssey, the epic poem featuring Odysseus as protagonist. The figure of Odysseus is somehow deviant because it does not fit in the patterns of the cult of heroes of Indo-European coinage (see chapters 4 and 5). In the features of this character and in the description of environmental specifics (maritime landscapes) where events take place we can distinguish topics and motifs that link the epic story to the distant past, back in time and long before the beginnings of Greek history. The panorama of clues documenting such linkage is multi-faceted: (i) Debating Homer’s authorship of the Odyssey It is common practice to attribute the Odyssey, as an epic work, to Homer, dating to the eighth century BCE (e. g. Howatson 2011: 403). And yet, consensus regarding Homer’s authorship only exists for the other famous work, the Iliad, while the role of this poet as author of the Odyssey has been a matter of scholarly debate (Graziosi 2002, Michalopoulos 2016). The alternative option for identification is the assumption that the narrative theme of the seafaring Odysseus had existed before Homer’s lifetime and that this poet became attracted to the stories about this figure. The pre-Greek narratives featuring a seafaring protagonist were raised to epical center-stage by Homer’s poetic skills (Jensen 1980). And there is evidence supporting the view that the oral-formulaic version of the epic story originated in the pre-Greek era. (ii) The pre-Greek source for the name of Odysseus What strikes the modern observer is the plethora of variant forms for this name: Odysseus, Odyseus (in epic literature), Olys(s)eus (> Latin Ulysses), Olut(t)eus, Oliseus, Oulixeus (> Latin Ulyxes) The derivatives are based on the forms with -d- and -l-: Odysseia “Odyssey” (name of the epic poem), Olisseidai (name of a family in Thebes and Argos).

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There have been various attempts to reconstruct an Indo-European root word as source of the name. However, such attempts have remained unsatisfactory and the results have been classified as folk etymology. “The name is typically PreGreek (…) on account of the many variants” (Beekes 2010: 1049). It is noteworthy that also the name of Odysseus’ wife, Penelope (Penelopeia), is of pre-Greek origin. It is related to penelops “wild goose with coloured neck” (Beekes 2010: 1186). Another pre-Greek name is that of the nymph Calypso, derived from the verb calypto (kalypto) “cover, hide” (Beekes 2010: 628 f.). Calypso is the one who hides. (iii) The maritime environment Odysseus is the protagonist in adventures that relate to seafaring. In the conventional handbooks on maritime trade, on seafaring and colonization in antiquity, the origins of Greek shipbuilding and the sources of technological know-how remain unexplained. Archaeological finds of remainders of Mycenaean ships date to the latter half of the second millennium BCE. There are no earlier finds that would date to the era when the ancestors of the Greeks learned the craft of ship­ building. Since there are no Semitic loanwords in this domain of ancient Greek the know-how must have come from a source other than the Near East. This ancient source is the language of the traders of Old Europe who had established a network of maritime trade relations already in the fifth millennium BCE, in a period when the ancestors of the Greeks were still living in landlocked communities. In the beginning, the Greeks were no seafarers because their immediate ancestors, the Indo-­European pastoralists, came to Greece on inland routes (Anthony 2007, Haar­mann 2016: 131 ff.). The development from a pastoralist society to a seafaring nation is quite amazing and raises many questions. How come that people who originally lived in a landlocked environment set out to sea? What might have been the motivation for them to set their minds to seaborne trade? It is clear that the shift from inland orientation to seafaring did not happen overnight. In all probability, for such a process to unfold one has to take a span of time of many generations into consideration. It is unrealistic to imagine the shift to have occurred as a rapid leap. Rather, we have to do with a kind of transitional process that unfolded in a step-by-step progression. Seafaring was a domain that remained excluded from the life experiences among the pastoralists in the Eurasian steppe. It is not surprising to learn that there is no terminology for shipbuilding or navigation in the Proto-Indo-European vo­ cab­ulary (see below). In short, the heroes of the early Indo-Europeans did not embark on maritime voyages simply because their activities were unrelated to the sea. This means that Odysseus could not possibly have been an Indo-Euro­ pean hero of the first day.

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Was this figure then a “secondary” hero that originated in the period of Greek colonization along the coasts of the Aegean Sea and the western Mediterranean? No, he wasn’t. Instead, there is a connection with the legacy of Old European, and there is more to this connection than only the name Odysseus. The earliest layer in the terminology of shipbuilding in ancient Greek is comprised of lexical elements, borrowed from the pre-Greek substrate language. And these borrowings date to the pre-Greek period (see below). (iv) The pre-Greek sources for the musical instruments of the bards The terms for the instruments which were used by Homer and other bards in the archaic age, the kithara and the phorminx (phormigx), for the presentation of their epic songs are not Greek. The terms stem from the substrate language and, thus, ultimately derive from the language of the indigenous Europeans (Beekes 2010: 694 f., 1587). Since the names of these instruments are pre-Greek, it is most probable that the Greeks adopted the instruments from the Pelasgians, together with the names and the skills to play them. (v) The pre-Greek sources for the “Greek” hexameter The typical literary meter for epic poetry is the hexameter. For the Greek poets applying the rhyme patterns of the hexameter to epic texts was a cumber­some business because this meter does not fit the ancient Greek language well. No need to wonder why this is so. The explanation is simple: the hexameter is not originally Greek but it was adopted from the bards and poets of the pre-­Greek age. Before it entered the sphere of Greek culture, the hexameter was applied to a language not akin to Greek (see below). (vi) The skills of an adventurer vis-à-vis the vicissitudes of life Odysseus does not fit in the patterns that can be reconstructed for the typical Indo-European heroes. He is no warrior nor is he interested in warfare. Odys­ seus does not seek fame in fights with enemies. He does not slay neither men nor women just for gaining fame, unlike Achilles in the Iliad who kills Hector and Pentiseleia, the queen of the Amazons. Odysseus is no adventurer like Jason, leader of the Argonauts who sets out in search of bounty (i. e. the golden fleece). Odys­seus is described as a man coping with changing conditions of life and coping with obstacles of all kinds. Thanks to his skills and cleverness Odysseus escapes the nymph who had captured him (i. e. Calypso; Odyssey, book 9) and he does not fall victim to the charms of supernatural seductresses, the Sirens (Odyssey, book 12).

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The lack of militant pride and of egocentric fame-seeking make Odysseus a figure that fits the image of the peace-loving ancient Europeans. When taking the characteristic deviant features of the Odyssey and of its protagonist, Odysseus, into consideration (i–vi) the overall picture of epic poetry of Old European coinage gains in profile. This “deviant” tradition was skilfully adopted by the Greek poets of the archaic age and integrated into their own purely Indo-European repertory of hero stories. Although there were no kings in Old Europe and social hierarchy did not exist, the character of the pre-Greek hero is adapted to social distinctions in Greek society of the archaic age, making him a king (of Ithaka). The result is a symbiotically interwoven organic whole which has come down to us as “Greek” epic poetry. The transfer of mythological themes from one culture to another and their transformation into epic literature that becomes world-famous is known from another cultural environment, namely from courtly society of the Middle Ages in France. This is the tradition of Arthurian legend, with the epic romances of Chrétien de Troyes (c. 1130–c. 1190) as highlights of medieval literature: Erec et Enide (“Erec and Enide”); Cligés; Le chevalier de la charrette (“The Knight of the Cart” or Lancelot); Le chevalier au lion (“The Knight with the Lion” or Yvain); Le conte del Graal (“The story of the Grail” or Perceval). “Certain common threads run through Chrétien’s romances, despite differ­ ences of tone, subject matter, and artistic maturity. The most obvious of these threads is the Arthurian setting and the author’s literary exploration of Ar­thu­ rian chivalry.” (Lacy 1991: 89).

The epic literature that originated in medieval France is traditionally divided into three thematical trajectories: (i) the Matter of France (the epics or chansons de geste), (ii) the Matter of Rome (the romances of antiquity), (iii) the Matter of Britain (the lais in the Breton tradition and romances focusing on the central figure of Arthur). The historical Arthur (Arturius in Latin) was a high-ranking officer of Celtic descent in the Roman army at the time when Britain was a Roman colony (until the early fifth century CE). After the Romans had left Britain the Christianized Arthur led Celtic troops to fight against the invading Saxons and Angles. As the defender of Christianity in Britain Arthur gained fame. King Arthur and his quests form a firm part of the mythical tradition, but also shed some light on historical developments in Dark Age Britain (Castleden 2000). According to legend, he established a round table for his knights who were sent into the world to fight for basic values. “On account of his noble barons , each of whom thought himself the best and none of whom accounted himself the worst, Arthur made the Round Table,

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of which Britons tell many fabulous tales.There sat his vassals, all noble and all equal; they sat equally at table and were equally served. No one of them could boast of sitting higher than his peer.” (Wace, in his Roman de Brut 9, 747–758; composed in 1155)

The Celts in Britain and the Bretons in Brittany (northwestern France) invented many tales about the deeds of king Arthur and his knights. People in France were in direct contact with the Celtic population of Brittany and they learned about the narrative tradition and the presentations of bards. “Tales of king Arthur existed in Wales as well as in Brittany well before the Norman romances seized upon them; but it is from the Norman stories that the legend grew, retold in succeeding ages in words and sentiment adapted to changing taste. … The core of the story has always been melancholy regret for a strong and just ruler who protected his people against barbarism without and oppression within, but was in the end defeated by treachery and disunity.” (Morris 1995: 118 f.)

The tales were adopted by French authors and the themes developed further, until literary activity experienced its absolute height with the works of Chrétien. The medieval courtly tradition took influence on courtly life in Germany, and the literary masterpieces of Arthurian romances in Middle High German reached the standards of the French originals on which they were molded. Through French and German literature the Arthurian tradition became known worldwide. When comparing the transformation of Celtic folk tales into French medieval literature with the transition of the presumed Old European tradition of stories about a mythical hero with the Old European name of Odysseus to the domain of epic literature among the ancient Greeks we know quite a bit of the former but little about how the connection worked in practice in case of the latter. We are left with a grid of conclusive evidence, though indirect, that does not reveal many details. And yet, in sum, it speaks in favor of the assumption of Old Euro­ pean soundings in the epic poem Odyssey.

Odysseus and his patron Athena: An intimate companionship Odysseus is no slayer of monsters but he wounds a monster. According to the mythical account, Odysseus meets the cyclops Polyphemos in a cave where he offers the monster wine to make him drunk and then blinds him with a wooden stake (Odyssey, book 9). This is no act of uncontrolled violence carried out by Odysseus but a move to save his companions, who accompany Odysseus on his

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voyages. Without the intervention of Odysseus the cyclops would have devoured his ship’s crew members. The cyclops is the son of Poseidon, god of the sea. Po­ sei­don gets enraged and his mind is clouded by aspirations to take revenge for the harm Odysseus has done to Polyphemus. On the god’s behalf Odysseus is prevented from returning to his home in Ithaka for ten years. During this time, he has to endure hardship of all kind: “For his sake Poseidon, shaker of the earth, although he does not kill Odys­ seus, yet drives him back from the land of his fathers.” (Odyssey, book 1.74)

It turns out that Athena, the patron goddess, becomes the closest companion for Odysseus. The goddess herself explains her preference to function as a guardian for the hero: “We both know tricks, since you [Odysseus] are by far the best among all men in counsel and tales, but I among all the Gods have renown for wit [metis] and tricks.” (Odyssey, book 13: 360–362)

King Nestor, an attentive observer, makes an insightful comment on the relationship between Odysseus and Athena: “… for I never saw the Gods showing such open affection as Pallas Athena stood by him for all to see.” (Odyssey, book 3: 214)

Throughout the accounts about happenings in the Odyssey, Athena takes the role of a messenger and mediator, and only on rare occasions does the goddess intervene in concrete action (e. g. when Odysseus and Telemachus fight with the suitors in book 22). Athena is not only the companion of Odysseus, and his guardian, but she is empathic also with his family members, with Telemachus, the son of Odysseus, and with Penelope, his wife. This feature of character, empathy and compassion, makes Athena’s companionship with Odysseus so very special. One may even advocate the idea that Athena is a protagonist of the Odys­sey on equal terms with her companion. The goddess even amuses herself by dressing and adorning her companion Od­ ys­seus to form an image of the hero that pleases her: “But when he [Odysseus] had bathed all, and anointed himself, with olive oil, and put on the clothing this unwedded girl had given him, then Athena, daughter of Zeus, made him seem taller for the eye to behold, and thicker, and on his head she arranged the curling locks that hung down like hyacinthine petals. And as when a master craftsman overlays gold on silver, and he is one who was taught by Hephaistos and Pallas Athena in art complete, and grace is on every work he finishes, so Athena gilded with grace his head and his shoulders, and he went a little aside and sat by himself on the seashore, radiant in grace and good looks; …” (Odyssey, book 6.227–237)

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Reference to Athena in the Odyssey is made 162 times (see Appendix I). The range of activities of the goddess, in the spirit of companionship with Odysseus, is wide: – The goddess communicates with other divinities (e. g. with Zeus, her father, and with Poseidon); – The goddess communicates directly with Odysseus, his son Telemachus and his wife Penelope; – The goddess communicates with the crew members of Odysseus’ ship; – The goddess calms the storm and the waves and helps the shipwrecked hero to reach dry land; – The shape-shifting goddess appears to Odysseus in the guise of a young maiden (7.19); on other occasions she speaks to the hero in the guise of a man (8.193; 13.221); – The goddess gives Odysseus manifold advice how to continue his journey and how to proceed; – The goddess helps Odysseus to find out which of the suitors were righteous and which lawless; – The goddess participates in the fight against the suitors; she deflects the spears that the suitors throw at Odysseus by holding up her aegis; – The goddess makes peace and expects all to obey her orders. The role of Athena as peace-maker deserves special attention: “And now would they [Odysseus and his son Telemachus] have slain them [the treacherous suitors] all, and cut them off from returning, had not Athena, daughter of Zeus, who bears the aegis, shouted aloud, and checked all the host, saying: “Refrain, men of Ithaca, from grievous war, that with all speed you may part, and that without bloodshed.” (Odyssey, book 24.529–532) “Then flashing-eyed Athena spoke to Odysseus saying: “Son of Laertes, sprung from Zeus, Odysseus of many devices, stay thy hand, and make the strife of equal war to cease, lest haply the son of Cronos be wroth with thee, even Zeus, whose voice is borne afar.” (Odyssey, book 24.533–544) “So spoke Athena, and he obeyed, and was glad at heart. Then for all time to come a solemn covenant betwixt the twain was made by Pallas Athena, daughter of Zeus, who bears the aegis, in the likeness of Mentor both in form and in voice.” (Odyssey, book 24.545–548)

It is in the Odyssey that the topic of peace-making is addressed whereas there is no mention at all of any peace-making arranged by the goddess in the Iliad. In the Iliad, peace comes with the Achaian Greeks having achieved victory over the Trojans, that is with one of the warring parties left as losers of the conflict. When Athena declares peace in the Odyssey this means concluding peace among

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equals with the demand of abstaining from further armed confrontation. Here, the goddess takes the role of a guarantor of peace. Such conditions of peace-restoring under divine surveillance recall the spirit of life conduct in Old Europe. For the ancient Europeans, peaceful community life ranged among the basic values. Whatever conflict might have occurred, the ancient Europeans trusted in the authority and blessing of the goddess for peaceful conditions to be restored. So it is not surprising that the Greeks adopted the expression for the key concept ‘peace’ from the language of their predecessors: eirene. In the awareness that the figure of Odysseus, the theme of seafaring and the poetic recording of epic stories in the hexameter have pre-Greek origins, the assumption seems conclusive that the exceptional affection of the goddess Athena as patron—in light of her divine pre-Greek genealogy—may ultimately be motivated by the intrinsic linkage of hero and goddess with the same cultural milieu, the world of Old Europe. Seafaring and navigation were alien to the Proto-Indo-European pastoralists in the steppe. Therefore, it is obvious that stories about maritime adventures like those presented in the Odyssey could not possibly have originated among the land­locked pastoralist communities. But does this mean that the adventures of Odysseus are a theme that emerged as late as the period when the ancestors of the Greeks had settled Hellas, that is in the second millennium BCE? On the contrary, the theme of the Odyssey is much older and is associated with the era when the ancient Europeans practised seafaring and navigated the Aegean Sea, the Ionian Sea and other parts of the Mediterranean, and also the waters along the western litoral of the Black Sea. In all probability, Odysseus is a figure that was created by bards in the world of Old Europe. Reference to seafaring, shipbuilding and navigation is made about 400 times in the Odyssey, and among the terminology used are elements of the oldest layer of loanwords in ancient Greek, of pre-Greek origin (see below).

Seafaring and shipbuilding: On the longevity of pre-Greek traditions The ancient Greeks are known for their mercantile endeavors in the areas surrounding the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, and in the antique sources we find much information about how they conducted business with other Greeks and foreigners. Those Greeks also founded colonies abroad already during the “dark ages”. The first to start the colonial enterprise were the Spartans who established a trading center on the Cycladic island of Thera (modern Santorini) around 1000 BCE (Osborne 1996: 121). Those Greeks who explored the coastal

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areas of the Mediterranean were not the first to frequent sea routes. There had been other Greeks before them to engage in seafaring and colonization. Many Greek settlements outside the Greek mainland had been established by the Mycenaeans hundreds of years earlier. Mycenaean-Greeks settled on the Ionian coast of the Aegean, in Asia Minor, and Mycenaean merchants explored the sea route to the west and founded trading-posts in southern Italy where re­ mains of Mycenaean pottery have been unearthed. The Mycenaeans did not only conduct trade but they also built ships to wage war. The most famous of those wars for strengthening Mycenaean political power in the region was the Trojan war whose agents, the heroes of the Trojans and the Achaians, gained immor­tality in Homer’s epic work Iliad. Seafaring was not just any practice among the skills of the Greeks. On the contrary, all activities relating to nautical techniques found a broad repercussion in the Greek way of thinking. “The constant and close reliance on the sea, and on the ships that sailed it, could not have failed to influence the language of the ancient Greeks, the metaphors and pictures in which their ideas were expressed. The result is that passages of Greek poetry and prose writing are often inscrutable without a knowledge of the nautical practice which lies behind them, and modern ignorance has led on occasion to corruption of the text.” (Morrison and Williams 1968: 1)

At the time when the ancient Greeks started to build ships and explored the coastal waters there had been no contact between the Greek mainland and Egypt. Also, the Near Eastern connection is not valid. It is often claimed that the Greeks learned the know-how of shipbuilding from the Phoenicians. If this were true one would expect a considerable layer of Semitic loanwords in this lexical domain of ancient Greek. And yet, “none of the words for parts of ships in Greek derives from a Semitic root” (Hall 2014: 12). The sources of inspiration and of technical vocabulary for the Greek shipbuilders have to be sought elsewhere. In fact, neither the know-how of shipbuilding nor of seaborne trade could have come from the Near East because the sources of Greek specialized technology are much older than the beginnings of Phoenician seafaring. This kind of knowhow originated in the world where the early Greeks and the ancient indigenous Europeans engaged in cultural exchange. In this milieu of bicultural and bilingual contacts the agents have to be sought that are responsible for an extension of the Greek mind to explore the world beyond the mainland. The first step, though, was the exploration of the new homeland which the newcomers came to call Hellas, with its multifaceted coastline. After the ancestors of the Greeks had arrived in the south and had begun settling down they got to know an environment that was strange in the first place

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because the newcomers had not have any experience with marine conditions. The indicator that reflects the early Greeks’ lack of experience is their language. The newcomers learned many words from the natives for phenomena that they did not know, starting with the most general expression for a marine environment, thalassa (with a variant thalatta). This expression which has survived to this day in modern Greek is the word for “sea”. Thalassa is not related to any of the inherited expressions for sea in Indo-European languages. The original inland orientation of the early migrants is “supported by the fact that those stocks actually living adjacent to an open sea (e. g., the Greeks, the Germans and the Indo-Aryans) had borrowed words for the body of water from non-IE sources, e. g., Grk thalatta ‘sea’, OE sæ ‘sea’ (> NE sea), Goth saiws ‘sea’” (Mallory and Adams 1997: 503). The first impulse to learn from the natives about marine life seems to have been the curiosity among the early Greeks to go out fishing to catch foodstuff. Catching fish from small boats stood at the very beginning of the Greeks’s experience with the sea. In the ancient Greek vocabulary, a term from the substrate language has been preserved: aspalieus / aspalous “fisherman”. In the specialized terminology of utensils needed for fishing one finds the following substrate terms: gaggamon / gaggame “small round net for catching oysters”, sagene “large fishing net, trawl”. Learning the know-how of native fishermen and becoming fishermen is one thing, but setting out to sea as merchants for engaging in marine trade is quite another. The occupation of fishermen requires the knowledge to manage seaborne vessels. The native Europeans had ample experience with that. What is also required is the know-how of crafting boats and building ships, and the native Europeans had much experience in this domain either. We do not know how the Old Europeans constructed boats and seafaring ships but they must have developed technical skills that remained unrivalled among their contemporaries. Some pictures and clay miniature models of the fifth and fourth millennia BCE show details of vessels that were used (Ra­dun­cheva 2003: 292). In the fourth and third millennia BCE boat-types were developed on the Cycladic islands that were driven by up to 25 oarsmen. Images of such boats are found on Cycladic pottery and on the plates which are known as “frying-pans”. “The images prevent us seeing if the hull was a tree dugout or a clinker (constructed from overlapping planks); the former is possible for the small shape, but might be difficult for the larger. A notable feature is a high stern sometimes decorated with a large fish.” (Bintliff 2011: 105).

The ship-building skills in the other ancient civilizations (i. e. Egypt, Meso­po­ tamia) developed much later. Some of the useful know-how of Old European ship­builders found its way—through manifold transformations—into Greek crafts­manship, and some technical terms of the pre-Indo-European substrate

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language survived in the specialized vocabulary of ancient Greek (according to the entries in Beekes’ Etymological dictionary, 2010): (i)

parts of the ship aphlaston “curved poop of a ship, with its ornaments“ (cf. the decorated sterns of ancient Cycladic boats; Bintliff 2011: 105) boutani “part of the ship to which the rudder is tied“ kanthelia “curved pieces of wood at the back of a ship“ kindynos “bench in the prow of a ship“ korymbos “uppermost point of a ship“ lenos “socket into which the mast fitted“ selis “crossbeam of a ship“ stamines “vertical side-beams of a ship“ traphex “board of a ship“ phalkes “board, rib of a ship“

(ii)

parts of the equipment of the ship agkyra “anchor“ eune “anchor stones“ laipha / laiphe “sail made of skin“ sipharos “topsail, topgallant sail“

(iii)

material for shipbuilding kalon “wood for building ships“ malthe “mix of wax and pitch, used to caulk ships“ ptakana “boat mat (used in boats called kanna)“

(iv)

type of boat or ship kanna “small boat” kydaros “small ship“ paron “light ship“

(v)

terminology relating to seafaring kybernao “to steer (a ship)“

The pictures and clay models of Old European ships do not reveal many details that would help understand the principles of how Neolithic vessels were constructed (Raduncheva 2003: 292). Since those crafts were made of organic material (i. e. wood) and this decays in time there are no remains of very old ships. The oldest surviving evidence dates to the Mycenaean era, to a period when the Mycenaean trade network experienced its greatest expansion, reaching as far west as southern Italy and Sardinia (Cultraro 2011: 224 ff., 228 ff.). The oldest shipwreck so far discovered in the world is the so-called Uluburun ship which was named after the site where it was found, off the southern coast of

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Turkey. According to dendrochronological dating, this ship sank around 1320 BCE. Something that strikes the eye of an experienced underwater archaeologist is the special kind of construction, reflecting a long-standing tradition of shipbuilding. “Initial indications suggest that the Uluburun Ship was a robust and ancient example of the shell-first mode of construction that was to dominate the construction of wooden ships in classical antiquity and to influence later ship construction in that region as well” (Gould 2011: 130). It is from the Mycenaean era that we find the earliest mention of the profession of “ship-builders” (naudomoi, written as na-u-do-mo in the Linear B texts, derived from naus “ship”). Other terms referring to seafaring are “rowers, oarsmen” (eretai, written as e-re-ta in Mycenaean texts) and “sailor, mariner” (pontilos, as poti-ro in Linear B). Also various personal names, recorded in Mycenaean texts, are derived from the stem naus: e. g. O-ti-na-wo (Ortinawos), Na-u-si-ke-re-we (Nausiklewes “One who is famous because of his ships”), Na-wi-ro (Nawilos “Sailor”), O-ku-na-wo (Okunawos “Someone possessing a fast ship”), E-u-o-mo (Euhor­mos “Someone possessing a good harbor”); (Ilievski 2000: 364, 369). By the time when the Mycenaean Greeks entered the competition of marine trade with the Phoenicians, the technology and terminology of shipbuilding among the Greeks had already been well-established. The Greeks continued a legacy of seafaring that had persisted since the era when the Danube civilization flourished in southeastern Europe, during the Neolithic and Copper Age.

Old European soundings— The hexameter and its pre-Greek origins In the beginning, stories about heroes were told to selected crowds by trained narrators (bards), and the narrative expression did not lose its importance at the time when those stories were recorded in writing. The written form was just another media to convey the contents of epic stories. The situation of the narrator who went from town to town, being invited to the homes of noblemen to entertain the guests at banquets is described in the Odyssey (book 8.62–73) where the blind poet (i. e. Homer) is escorted into the banquet hall and asked to perform: “And the herald approached, leading the honored poet whom the Muse loved beyond all others, granting him both good and evil: she deprived him of sight but gave him the gift of sweet song. The herald, Pontonous, set out for him a large chair, studded with silver, in the midst of the banquet and leaned it against a tall pillar,

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and he hung the beautiful clear-toned lyre on a peg a little above the singer’s head, and he showed him how to reach up and take hold of it in his hands. And he put on a table beside him a basket of food and a cup of wine to drink when he felt the urge to. And they all reached out for the feast that was set before them. And when they had enough of eating and drinking, the Muse moved the poet to sing of the glorious deeds of heroes.” “No image for the process of composing or enacting a poem is as common as that of a journey, sometimes, …, a flight above the earthbound, pedestrian (pe­zos) world of prose. The idea is strikingly thematised in the Argonautica of Apol­lonius Rhodius in which, as has been well recognised, the wanderings of the heroes are overtly linked to the wandering paths of song and the narrator almost travels as an extra Argonaut himself.” (Hunter and Rutherford 2009a: 7 f.)

The language of the ancient Europeans provided the many pre-Greek elements that we find, as items of the substratum, in the vocabulary of ancient Greek as well as in personal, tribal and geographical names. Borrowed are also the names for the instruments which were used by Homer and other bards in the archaic age, the kithara and the phorminx. Since the names of these instruments are pre-­Greek, it is most probable that the Greeks adopted the instruments from the Pelas­gians, together with the names and the skills to play them. This raises the question whether the tradition of oral poetry also has pre-Greek origins. There is a weighty argument in favor of such a conjecture, namely modern assessments about the origin of the most popular meter of Greek epic poetry, the hexameter. Criteria for identifying the origin of the hexameter come from within the tradition of Greek literacy, of early poetic language in particular. Findings in the comparative study of local Indo-European literary traditions point to similarities, on the one hand, and to isolated phenomena in Greek poetic patterns, on the other. Similarities have been observed when comparing the line pattern of eleven syllables in the poems of the Greek poetess Sappho, from Lesbos, and in the Rig Veda, first noticed by Antoine Meillet in his seminal work Introduction à l’ étude comparative des langues indo-européennes (1937). Within the Greek poetic tradition, Sappho’s pattern corresponded to a certain genre of poetry from which the other genre, the epic style, deviated. “The Sapphic line characterized the so-called Aeolic poetry. It is important to note that both single (…) and double (…) short can come in between the long syllables. In the Homeric hexameter, to take another case, this is not so. There it is possible for two shorts to take the place of one long syllable (isochronism), something which does not occur in Aeolic or Old Indic poetry. Meillet for

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this reason wondered whether the hexameter had been borrowed from non-Indo-European inhabitants of Greece.” (Beekes 2011: 44)

When inspecting the formulaic pattern of the hexameter in relation to the linguistic structures of the Greek language, one is surprised to find that this meter is somehow awkward, as if it does not really fit the syllable patterns of ancient Greek. Why would the Greeks have chosen a highly complex meter as a vehicle for oral poetry? A much simpler medium would have served the purpose, as in the case of other cultures with rich traditions of oral poetry. Perhaps the hexameter is not originally Greek and was adopted by the Greeks to enhance their literary repertoire. This would, at least in part, explain the awkwardness of this meter. Where can we look for the origins of the hexameter? In other words: who possessed literacy at an early age and could have influenced early Greek culture? The only candidate for literacy that could have an impact on shaping Mycenaean oral and written literature is Minoan. The Greeks of antiquity believed that the idea of codifying written laws originated in Crete and was adopted by the Greeks on the mainland. Could it be that also the oldest meter of Greek poetry was adopted from a pre-Greek culture? Following Meillet’s line of argumentation a more recent approach to identify the pre-Greek origin of the hexameter has been made by C. J. Ruijgh (1988) who demonstrated that this metrical pattern was not developed by Greek poets. His conclusion is that the model for the hexameter has to be sought in a literary tradition where it had existed in pre-Mycenaean times, that is in Minoan literary tradition of ancient Crete. No extant epic literature of Minoan has come down to us but the allusions in antique sources make it highly probable that such a literary genre once flourished in ancient Crete. “The Minoan origin of the hexameter could explain why epic diction is such an artificial combination of dialects and linguistic stages: since Minoan is not Greek, the Mykenaian (i. e. Greek) development of the epic which Ruijgh proposes implies that the language had to be adapted to an external metrical structure. The development of epic diction is thus seen as extending from a hypothetical Minoan prehistory as far as the metrical form is concerned, via a pre-Mykenaian, a Mykenaian, an Aiolic and an Ionian phase, down to the eighth and seventh centuries in Euboia.” (Blok 1995: 188)

The rooting of pre-Greek elements—that is, of elements which are not Semitic, not Near Eastern, not Anatolian but related to the language and culture of native Europeans—in the epic poetry of ancient Greece points to a cultural-linguistic influx of great age. The impact of the mythical tradition on early Greek literature is definitely related to this influx from the pre-Indo-European substra-

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tum. The assumption has been made earlier that elementary motifs of mythical narrative may well date to pre-Mycenaean times, to the third millennium BCE in particular. This observation is in accordance with recent archaeological insights concerning the origins of the hero cult as evidenced by burial practices. The proto-Greeks brought an ancient poetic language variety for recording myths, evidenced by Beekes (2011: 42 f.), with them and, in the course of contacts with the ancient Europeans (who possessed their own mythic tradition), the early Greeks adopted the originally non-Greek meter to give their epic language a formulaic framework. Mycenaean civilization played a pivotal role for the continuity of myths and legends about the heroic deeds of the ancestors. After the decline of the Mycenaeans’ political power, the cultural memory of the golden age of Mycenaean society did not vanish but rather its contents was trans­formed, in the intergenerational chain, to assume mythopoetic proportions. “Greek epic poetry about legendary persons from Mycenaean times grew in the same way as did folk songs about mediaeval heroes in the Balkan countries during the Turkish domination. Greek legends were especially vivid among the descendants of those Mycenaean families who escaped the Dorian violence and emigrated to the Aegean islands and to Asia Minor. Homesick for their mother country, they did not forget the famous leaders and founders of their cities and colonies. These heroic legends became the base of the Homeric poems which glorify the brave Achaeans, i. e. Mycenaeans.” (Ilievski 2000: 371)

The third millennium BCE was a period of unrest and conflict between the settled agrarian population of Greece, the Old Europeans, and the Indo-Euro­ pean migrants (proto-Greeks) who, coming from the northern Balkan region, pushed south. In all probability, stories about heroes and their quests would have emerged among both population groups and later fused into one mainstream, once the immigrants had settled down, come to terms with the natives, begun engaging in social contacts and established family relations. In the light of such processes of cultural fusion it is not surprising to find heroes with pre-Greek names in the epic poetry and to receive the content of this poetry in a meter adopted from the indigenous population. The hexameter is not the only poetic meter that the Greeks adopted from their predecessors in Hellas. Another popular meter is the iambus, and this is also of pre-Greek origin (Beekes 2010: 572). All in all, the awareness of the great age of the cult of heroes and of stories crystallizing around mythical figures bears witness to how firmly the epic genre and its mythical outfit had permeated Greek culture long before its height in the classical age. Greek myths about the heroic age survive through the classical era into the Hel­le­nistic period. This survival may seem surprising. And yet, the basic concept ‘hero’ is transformed into new, contemporary figures, and the hero cult is

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revived in the process. And this process of survival and revival assumes many forms and modes. “The durability of Greek myth in architectural sculpture persists through the Hellenistic period; in some ways, this is surprising considering the proliferation of images of individual rulers, many of whom are publicly likened to heroes and gods in visual form, as well as in terms of address and sometimes hero worship.” (Barringer 2008: 206)

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Heroes and their role in historiography— Herodotus and his mytho-historical world

In Greek antiquity, history was understood as an alignment of the deeds of he­ roes and strong men. For centuries, historians of antiquity followed the path of historiography of the classical authors for whom “the history of the ancient classical world was primarily the story of great men and their battles” (Foxhall 2013: 1). This mentality still echoes strongly in the description of Friedrich Ja­ cobs in his work on Greek history (Jacobs 1852) and, in the twentieth century, we find lingering traces of such a stereotyping image of what history is allegedly about in Oswald Spengler’s approach to world history (Spengler 1923). Modern historiography, in turn, tends to marginalize the mythopoetic conditions with which life in ancient Greece—both daily activities and intellectual endeavors— was imbued. Early historiographers and philosophers—despite their claims that their endeavours were innovative and independent enquiries—drew heavily on the tradition of epic poetry and of mythical narrative. For instance, in Herodotus’s Histories. “… the Iliad is not only used as a source, but also figures as a backdrop for Herodotus’ way of reconstructing the past. Herodotus makes Homer resemble himself insofar as he knows and mentions different traditions, but marks that, unlike the Iliad, his account is the product of a critical approach that employs autopsy, the evaluation of sources and the assessment of plausibility according to rationality. While the epics claim to stem from the Muses, Herodotus’ work is the product of historie. Though not being named ‘historiography’, Hero­do­ tus’ Histories reveals an awareness of presenting an approach to the past that is distinct from poetic accounts.” (Grethlein 2010: 156)

Reflections about the beginnings of historiography start from a precondition that is usually not reflected upon, simply because it is not considered worthwhile by most modern observers. One can formulate this precondition in a question: “Is the writing of history at all possible?” or “Is it reasonable to engage in the endeavour of writing a history of the past?”. To a mind which is conditioned by

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the traditional values of western education such questions may seem odd, since the study of history is among the canonical subjects of orientation. And yet, there are the voices of skeptics saying “that our overinformed age makes an objective and inclusive history increasingly impossible, replete as our world is with abundant documentation of varying quality, decentralized modes of rapid and far-flung communication, and a vigorous resurgence of small-group identities.” (Dewald 2011: 89 f.)

How to relate to experienced time and how to record it When we think of how to write history and how history has been written since antiquity, we have to reflect on another precondition that is usually not reflected upon. This, too, can be formulated in a crucial question: “What made people notice the phenomenon of ‘time’ and how did they experience it (that is, the phe­nomenon and time itself)?” Before engaging in any investigation of time and what it does to people, there has to be the awareness of its existence (see Gell 1992 on time perception and cultural constructions of time). Awareness or con­ sciousness of time is a tricky concept. “Our immediate awareness is as clearly present as it is resistant to definite characterization. Consciousness—and not coincidentally, … is much as Augustine said of time in his Confessions: we seem to understand it quite well until we are asked about it, and precisely then do we find ourselves confused. While our own consciousness has its definite thanes, our very participation in every­day social reality seems to require that we look through it and not at it. So again there is the parallel with time, which, it has been said (Pöppel, 1988), is what we notice when nothing else is happening—implying that there will be cir­ cum­stances when consciousness as such becomes manifest and is noticed.” (Hunt 1995: 3)

There is something that anyone has to be aware of who engages in the endeavour of describing past events, and this is the awareness that the temporal horizon of the one who consciously approaches past events and the happenings themselves are separated. This state of separation produces certain limitations in any attempt to investigate events which the historian has not experienced himself. ‘Experienced time’, that is the experience by individuals of what happens in the flow of time, is a phenomenon which is always present when events happen. Once what happened in the past is reported by someone in a later period the concept of ‘experienced time’ somehow becomes distorted. Since the evidence that we may retrieve in order to reconstruct events of the distant past lacks the

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dimension of personal experience, we have to rely on the instrumentarium that our language provides. “Much of what history is for us is firmly ensconced in the rhetorical mode. … We are reminded of the assertion of ancient and medieval grammarians and logicians that words are the only means we have of ‘touching’ things once experienced and now recalled.” (Coleman 1992: 611)

To reconstruct the zeitgeist of past eras is perhaps the greatest challenge for every historian. What comes to mind, as an allegorical image for this dilemma of the historian, when he/she seeks to reconstruct a particular space in the horizon of time without having experienced it, is the series of “distorted” watches, painted and/or sculpted by Salvador Dalí. The first context in which a distorted watch appears in his work is the painting The persistence of memory, of 1931. Later works echo the basic motif of the distorted watch in various contexts, perhaps most impressively in Dalí’s bronze sculpture Profile of time, of 1977 (Descharnes 2004: 238). The watch, symbolizing the distortion of experienced time, is hanging in the branches of a tree. The greatest risk to which a historian is exposed, whether formerly or nowadays, is that he/she may succumb to the lure of projecting a contemporary zeitgeist onto the world of the past. Many modern interpretations of Greek antiquity are deficient because of the biased image that is created about ways of life in ancient Greece. It must seem ironical that those European intellectuals in western Europe—Germans, in particular—who, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, shaped a modern myth about Greek ingenuity and about the uniqueness of Greek achievements, were, at the same time, the strongest opponents of myth-making. A central figure in the process of myth-making about Hellenism, though unaware of the impact he would cause, was Johann Joachim Winckelmann who, in 1755, published his seminal work on Greek art. “Winckelmann articulates a metanarrative which came to dominate study and attitudes towards the Classical past. A metanarrative is a grand system, often taking form as a structure of emplotment, but may also be a body of theory or explanation, often approaching myth, which lies in the background of particular accounts and provide general orientation, framework and legitimation, conferring meaning. One of the operative metanarratives in Classical archaeology is Winckelmann’s Hellenism.” (Shanks 1996: 58)

In the early nineteenth century, Friedrich August Wolf laid the foundations for classical studies (Alterthumswissenschaft), and with them he crafted the fabric of a modern Greek myth (Griechenmythos). With special reference to Greeks and Romans, Wolf states:

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“We would prefer to embrace all those peoples [of antiquity] in one unique science. However, it is necessary for various reasons to make a distinction which urges us to deny to the Egyptians, the Jews, the Persians and to other nations of the Orient to be placed on the same level as the Greeks and Romans.” (Wolf 1807: 15 f.)

According to Wolf, all the named ancient peoples reached the cultural level of “civilization” (Civilisation), and yet, only Greeks and Romans achieved the level of “intellectual culture” (Geistescultur). Literature is identified by Wolf as the major vehicle for this high status. Wolf stipulates that the formation of an extensive literature “has not been generally produced among any people before the Greeks: none of the other peoples managed to achieve this superior culture, that is spiritual or literary (…).” (Wolf 1807: 17 f.) In our modern educational curriculum, a strong echo of those early days of Alterthumswissenschaft still resonates. The myth of Greek antiquity has conditioned the minds of many generations of Europeans for more than two hundred years, and not only in the domain of education. Classical studies have also developed under the umbrella of this persistent myth (Andurand 2013: 84 ff.). The myth of Greek antiquity did not only impress Europeans but it also resonated among the intellectuals of America, throughout the nineteenth century and into the period between World War I and World War II. “When Americans decided to become classical scholars, it was still to the Ger­ mans that they went for both education and inspiration—not quite as uniformly as in the nineteenth century, but with considerable frequency nonetheless. The earliest American classicists like Edward Everett [d. 1865] and George Bancroft [d. 1891] had traveled dutifully to Göttingen to import its scholarly wares to their intellectually underdeveloped homeland, and the phenomenon continued throughout the century.” (Roberts 1994: 295)

The Greek myth will, most probably, continue to condition the minds of future generations since it is hard to replace self-sustaining imaginings by a realistic picture of cultural history. An “expedition” in this direction has been undertaken, which eventually resulted in the formulation of a new paradigm for research into antiquity (Haarmann 2014). The history of Greek antiquity has been studied from many different angles, and scholars of antiquity usually investigate topics by observing the traditional boundary-marks of individual disciplines, so that the wide array of topics concerning ancient Greece is heavily fragmented. According to their training in dif­ferent fields, scholars of political history, archaeologists, experts in antique lit­erature, religion and mythology, philosophers, cultural anthropologists, art his­torians and also representatives of disciplines such as economics, architecture

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and juridical science have all engaged with the study of antiquity. Those who investigate Greek civilization in the light of cultural history will profit from the findings of each of the specialized disciplines, provided data and insights are set in perspective which enables us to map out the organic whole that is ancient Greece. The aim of modern mythology is exactly that, although, as a branch of science, this is not found among the established disciplines of the humanities. Histories tend to be written in accordance with a given zeitgeist. “Traditionally, modern histories of historiography concentrate on the great authors and on the two main lines, one inaugurated by Herodotus, the other by Thucydides (…). All the rest are either relegated to forerunners (as in the overvaluation of Hecataeus’ alleged rationalism) or placed in the indistinct lim­bo of minor historiography (including, …, local and regional historiography, an­ti­quarianism, monography, and biography). This outlook is wrong in two aspects: what has survived is due to the tastes of the public in several crucial ages and to the fortuitous chances of destruction; …” (Nicolai 2011: 18)

There is another aspect of the mosaic of classical studies that reinforces the insight that the traditional approach to the history of historiography is wrong, name­ly the underestimation and marginalization (or the complete absence) of the mythical tradition as an agency in the shaping of, and reasoning about historiography. For a realistic approach to Greek history it is essential to take into account the impact of foundational myths on Greek identity, and other myths that reflect the process how Greeks modelled a mental framework for their cultural memory. In order to understand the position of the early historiographers in Greek society—Herodotus for one—it is essential to assess realistically the meaning of the concept ‘history’ among the ancients. It is evident “… that the idea of history underlying Herodotus’s work resembles what we know from non-historiographic genres of memory. Much as Herodotus calls attention to the innovation of his approach, the understanding of human life in the Histories belongs to the tradition formed by poetic and rhetorical accounts of the past.” (Grethlein 2010: 187)

Myth as an agent of Hellenic identity had a considerable impact on community life in the Greek cities (see chapter 3 on the foundation story of Athens). Greek historiographers of the classical and Hellenistic eras conformed with the zeitgeist that required, for instance, the acknowledgment of the Athenian foundational myth and the authority of the goddess Athena as patron. Given the close relationship of myth with community life and political agenda, this linkage has to be addressed as a necessary ingredient of modern historiography dealing with Greek antiquity.

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Historiography in antiquity could not rely on measurements of absolute time for individual periods as these are provided by modern archaeology. Since the nine­teenth century, archaeology has unearthed the prehistory of Greece and it has illuminated the history of classical antiquity to the extent that it had not been described in ancient sources. The overall image that modern observers may shape in their minds—on the basis of the insights from archaeological research—about early periods of Greek history has no equivalent in the world of the ancient Greeks who could not distinguish between the various eras and did they have any idea of the dynamics of cultural development? “Prehistoric societies were dynamic, in a state of constant change, even if this change has to be measured in centuries or millennia. Nearer to the present time, the pace of change accelerated continuously until change itself became the usual state of affairs. From the beginning of the Neolithic period to the end of the Bronze Age ever more complex forms of social organization took shape, sometimes succumbing to disorder and chaos for a while, only to reemerge again later.” (Runnels and Murray 2001: 154)

Engaging in historiography in a world imbued with mythical traditions In the views that ancient historiographers produced, manifold conflations of historical trends are revealed. For instance, Greek historiographers had no idea about the span of time that separated the period of the Trojan war from the archaic period. In absolute chronology this span of time amounts to half a millennium. In Thucydides’ work History of the Peloponnesian war (edited and published by contemporaries after 411 BCE) we find an account about the migrations of Greek tribes after the Trojan war which does not reflect any such depth. “Even after the Trojan war there were still migrations and colonizing movements, so that lack of peace inhibited development. The long delays in the return of the Greeks from Troy caused much disturbance, and there was a great deal of political trouble in the cities: those driven into exile founded cities. … Eighty years after the Trojan war the Dorians with the sons of Herakles made themselves masters of the Peloponnese. It was with difficulty and over a long period that peace returned and Greece became powerful; when the migrations were over, she sent out colonies, the Athenians to Ionia and many of the islands, and the Peloponnesians to most of Italy and Sicily and some parts of the rest of Greece. All these places were founded after the Trojan war.” (Thucy­­dides 1.12)

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Thucydides could not assess the role of Mycenaean city-states and their political power because of the lack of reliable information in his time. He did not (could not) know that the Ionian colonization movement occurred much earlier than the later movement to Italy and Sicily, and he projects the zeitgeist of his time (his perception of political unrest) onto the past. “Thucydides is performing the same operation as a modern historian, attempting to construct a historical narrative out of myth and heroic poetry by applying the standards of explanation accepted in his own day. And in the legends and folk memory available to him, he could see much the same general pattern as we can.” (Murray 1993: 10)

Thucydides draws on an older tradition of myth-making, both from the repertory of epic poetry and from historiography before his time. As for his abilities, Thucydides has been characterized as “a rather sly narrator who has taken extensive classes on prose composition with Homer and Herodotus” (Grethlein 2010: 279). In the early stage of historiography and philosophy, Greek authors approached the remote past via the medium of myth. Myth has no individual author and it stems from the most general source, oral tradition, “… and is located outside of the normal frame of chronicled time (whence it cannot be verified). The nature of these kinds of narrative, as Aristotle would say, is to provide a representation or imitation (mimesis) of the original actions and events. The imitations are meant to serve as an authoritative account, linking us to a time that can no longer be accessed.” (Werner 2012: 26)

When talking about ‘history’ we have to be aware that our modern understanding of this concept finds no parallel in the inquiring endeavor of the ancient historians. “… when historians try to get at the truth of events, they will often say they are trying to expose ‘the real story.’ In the same way, detectives working on a crime might say they are trying to get at the story of what happened, and cosmologists are trying to reveal the story of the universe. In every case, what is being said is that events really happened, …” (Abbott 2008: 36)

The main difference lies in the way the relationship between historical events and the sources that contain information about past events is defined. “Whereas current handbooks of historical method define evidence as the objective, material medium between the historian and past reality and tend to formally exclude as subjective means the various capabilities and activities of the researcher, Greek theory—as far as it can be reconstructed from the most representative pronouncements of the historians—appears to focus precisely on those ‘subjective means.’” (Schepens 2011: 44)

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Writing history does not start with Herodotus’s Histories (with the ancient literal meaning of historia “learning by inquiry”, “knowledge obtained by inquiry”) but with Hecataeus (c. 550–c. 490 BCE) of Miletus. Hecataeus is the ancient author that is the most quoted by Herodotus. As in the case of Thucydides, historians of the New Era took Hecataeus’s proclamation at face value, according to which he would critically separate what is true (i. e. mythoi ! in Hecataeus’ usage of terminology) from fantastic or improbable stories (i. e. logoi !): “Hecataeus employed prose because he was writing in a spirit of scientific enquiry and with the purpose of presenting factual material, not of exercising creative imagination. But it is not in this departure from literary tradition that his main importance lies: he possessed the chief quality which distinguishes the mere story-teller from the true historian—scepticism. He undertakes to tell only what seems to him credible for, as he says, ‘the stories of the Greeks are many and ridiculous, as it seems to me.’ In practice, the principle turns out to be more impressive than its application, so that on occasion Hecataeus seemed gullible and naive even to his contemporaries.” (Usher 1970: 2 f.)

Herodotus presents his accounts as logoi, and he avoids the term mythos. From his work it becomes evident “that some bodies of historical tradition are presented in logos form, i. e., separate narratives” (Dihle 1994: 159) and that he equates logos with mythos, since he speaks about the Amazons, about the legendary Jason and the Argonauts, about Priam, the mythical king of Troy, or about Minos, the legendary king of Crete, in the same way—as if referring to historical personalities—as he speaks about Croesus, the king of Lydia, or about Solon, the lawgiver of Athens. The absence of the term mythos from Herodotus’s work is not evidence that he abstained from using myths altogether; on the contrary, it illustrates that Hero­ do­tus did not draw a dividing line between the mythical tradition and logoi as a product of reasoning. His concept of logoi transcends the boundaries between the two categories (i. e. the mythical tradition vis-à-vis rationalizing mythical accounts). For instance, Herodotus’s account of the Trojan War is as imbued with concepts of mythical narrative as is Homer’s epic Iliad. However, when it comes to clarifying whether Helen had been in Egypt or not before she was re-­ captured and taken to Troy, Herodotus applies other criteria to the account of the Egyptian priest than Homer. “What is most interesting is that Herodotus’ discussion of the Homeric evidence creates a juxtaposition of the Histories with epic poetry as different media of memory. Herodotus applies to Homer an interpretatio Herodotea, which throws into relief the crucial differences that define the Histories against poetic accounts of the past.” (Grethlein 2010: 154)

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Herodotus transcends other boundaries within the realm of mythical information itself. In his ample use of stories and legends he is confronted with the methodological question of how to distinguish between myth as useful knowledge and fantastic stories. Herodotus, aware of the need to distinguish, leaves this to the judgment of his readers. On one occasion he comments on his own way of composing history: “Now, those who find such things credible must make what they will of the stories told by the Egyptians. My own responsibility, how­ever, as it has been throughout my writing of this entire narrative, is simply to record whatever I may be told by my sources.” (Histories 2.123) Despite Herodotus’s claim that he remains neutral vis-à-vis the evaluation of myths as probable accounts or fantastic stories, he makes ample use of myths also with the intention of presenting arguments. A deliberate insertion of a myth­ical narrative is at the center of reflections on the conditions of the outbreaking of the war with the Persians. “In the Histories myth can be used as an argument. Herodotus’ Persians systematically exploit myths (Nesselrath 1995–1996: 283–288) either to shift the blame for the beginning of evils to others (Phoenicians or Greeks in the prologue) or to persuade the Argives that it would be wrong for them to wage war against the Persians who are their offspring via Perseus, father of Perses (7.150).” (Saïd 2011: 83)

Herodotus and his hero Cleisthenes: Crafting a myth about the rise of Athenian democracy Since Herodotus dealt with mythical traditions extensively, it is not surprising to learn that he engaged in crafting myths himself. Nomen est omen: The translation of Herodotus’ name is imbued with mythical meaning: “Gift of the goddess Hera”. Myth-making is not an intentional aim of Herodotus’ endeavour but, rather, the unconscious outcome of his individualistic way of handling second-hand information. Among the myths that Herodotus crafts in his Histories, the one with the greatest echo among historians of all ages is perhaps the myth of the establishment of democracy in Athens by Cleisthenes in 507 BCE. In Herodotus’ narration, he celebrates Cleisthenes as the hero who is credited for having introduced democratic governance to Athens, a form of government that was, allegedly, unique and without precedent in history (Histories 5.65–78). According to the western canon of cultural and political history “… the Greeks are the ancestors of the West, the people who invented democracy, freedom of thought, science, philosophy, drama and naturalistic art, and whose literary

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works stand as the foundation of Western literature; …” (Vlassopoulos 2013: 1). This modern statement echoes the long tradition of what has been called “the Greek myth of the Germans” (Andurand 2013) that was shaped by German intellectuals and their works, representatives of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century and of the romantic movement in the early nineteenth century (i. e. Johann Joachim Winckelmann 1764, Wilhelm von Humboldt 1807, Fried­ rich August Wolf 1807, Friedrich Jacobs 1852). Highlighting democracy as the unique invention of ancient Greece and hailing democratic governance as a product of Greek ingenuity is common place in the academic literature. It has been stressed “that democracy was a new idea, still in its formative stage, and that the people were slow to realize that sovereign power really belonged to them when meeting in assembly” (Fine 1983: 383). The rise of the polis is associated with this great theme that “concerns the origins and development of Greek political institutions, the continuing process of change and reform towards a form of political rationality which seems unique in world history” (Murray 1993: 63). As far as the character of participatory democracy is concerned, one finds praise of its uniqueness: “Never before had the world seen so liberal a franchise, or so wide a spread of political power” (Durant 1966: 126). There are two elementary aspects of the introduction of democracy in Athens in 507 BCE. One is the pragmatic-political aspect of the overt measures taken by Cleisthenes to achieve stability for the new political order. Since, for Herodotus, history is the memory crystallizing around famous men and aristocratic families and their deeds, he could analyze the concrete measures of a reshuffling of political order in Athens, enacted by Cleisthenes and enhanced by his heroic charisma. The other aspect is the working of a covert sociocultural trend that provided the model for democratic governance. But Herodotus did not possess the refined methodical tools to analyze covert trends in Greek society. On the one hand, the Greeks’ factual knowledge about developments prior to the archaic period, that is during the “dark age”, was fairly limited. On the other hand, models of society as we discuss them did not form part of the contemporary discourse in Herodotus’ time. What makes Herodotus’ account about the reform work of Cleis­thenes a myth is his ignorance of the covert trend that paved the way for democracy to be established. –

The pragmatic-political framework set up by Cleisthenes in his reforms

After the dismissal of the last of the Peisistratid tyrants Cleisthenes reshuffled the administrative system in Athens. In order to understand the motivation for this reform, its implications and consequences, it is necessary to map out the dramatic events that set the stage for Cleisthenes’ work.

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The conditions under which political changes occurred in Athens toward the end of the sixth century BCE were fairly complex and rather confusing (Os­borne 1996: 292 ff., Ober 2008: 57 ff.). Until 510 BCE the Athenian state was ruled by representatives of the Peisistratid family. After one of the sons of Peisistra­tos had been assassinated in 514 BCE autocratic rule turned into merciless tyranny (Azoulay 2014: 29 ff.). The Athenians called Sparta for help, and Spar­tan troops occupied the city. In 510 BCE, backed up by the Spartan military, the Athenians overthrew the last of the Peisistratid tyrants, Hippias. The Spartans, who had supported the revolt with a military unit, withdrew from Athens and left it to its citizens to establish a new leadership. In the state of disorder that followed the aristocratic families could not reach any agreement and factional opposition caused negotiations to end in a deadlock. Isagoras, leader of the pro-Spartan faction, called for Spartan support and a detachment of the Spartan army came to back up Isagoras’ campaign. Isagoras used his power to have the opposition expatriated. Around 700 families of the anti-Spartan faction had to leave Athens, among them the Alcmaeonids to which Cleisthenes belonged. When Isagoras tried to dissolve the Council of 400 the Athenians feared he could assume control over the city and rule, as an autocrat, like Hippias before him. The Athenians called Cleisthenes who had been exiled back to Athens and appointed him leader of a movement, with the intention of coping with the threat of governance in the Athenian state to degenerate anew into tyranny. When Cleisthenes, with the help of the Athenians, overthrew Isagoras, in 507 BCE, the outcome was anything but certain. This rebellion under the leaders­hip of Cleisthenes quickly turned into a massive movement which neither Isagoras’ followers nor the Spartan military managed to control. Things got out of hand, and Isagoras, his followers, together with the Spartans, withdrew to the Acro­ polis where they took defensive positions against the armed Athenians. Within a few days, after running out of food and supplies, Isagoras and the Spartans gave in and they were driven out of the city by the enraged Athenian citizens. The Athenian rebellion under the leadership of Cleisthenes was blessed with good luck (Dillon and Garland 1994: 121 ff.). The endeavour could have easily failed, had the Spartans called in a relief force from their home city to crush the rebellion and reinstall their sphere of political influence. But everything happened so quickly that there was no time for thorough reflection on tactical manoeuvers or strategic plannning on the side of the military that had supported Isagoras. And there was not much time either on the side of the victorious Athenians who backed up Cleisthenes, investing him with the task of carefully mapping out a new system of governance, to guard against the scourge of a renewed tyranny. Time was short because everybody was aware of the imminent danger of an external threat: an invasion by the Spartan army, profiting from

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the weakness of its adversary at a time when Athens was busy reorganizing its society and state. This threat was real, not imagined. Sparta had formed a strong alliance with several other Greek tribes, with the Euboeans and Boeotians, and with the pro-­ Spartan forces in Athens. The balance had tilted after the rebellion by which Athens had cut off contact with Sparta. It could well be expected that Sparta—as the spearhead of the alliance and in the prime of its military might—would act by sending an army to reinforce its political hegemony in the region. Cleisthenes foresaw the danger of a Spartan military intervention and he therefore focused on the Athenian military, for his first major reform to materialize. In practice this meant the application of the newly devised division of Greek tribes to the divisions of military units. The ten tribes became represented by ten generals, and also the soldiers in the various units were gathered according to their mem­ ber­ship in a particular tribe. This new form of organization was intended to enhance ethnic cohesion by furthering the fighting spirit among kinfolks. Indeed, this reform paid off in the wars that started soon after the army had been restructured. The year 507 BCE marks a radical change and the beginning of a new era. In an historical retrospective the change from autocracy to democratic governance is explained as a development associated with the expectations of the Athenian public: “Cleisthenes’ comrade-constituents, the demos that had recalled him from exile, expected a system of government suited to their newly expressed iden­tity as participating members of a political community” (Ober 2008: 139). Here, the projection of modern reasoning about democracy into the world of an­cient Athens is evident. Cleisthenes’ comrades enjoyed solidarity within the anti-Spartan faction but they were hardly conscious of being members in a participating political community. Cleisthenes’ followers were much interested in him taking the lead and control of state affairs. At the same time, it lay in the vital interest of the anti-Spartan faction to oust Isagoras’ followers and prevent them from taking influence in Athenian politics. It was precisely the exclusion of Cleisthenes’ opponents that occupied the minds of his followers, rather than the membership of a political community of equal citizens. How did Cleisthenes come to terms with the political opposition? He did not make compromises by assigning certain key positions in the new administrative body to opposition members, to placate them. Cleisthenes devised a reform of administrative units that would change the local power bases of opponents. The influential families in Athens used to mobilize their followers in the rural settlements when there was an occasion for a political rally. Cleisthenes, through his administrative reform, restructured the network of administrative units so that previous constellations of political allegiances were disrupted and newly arranged. This means that Cleisthenes kept up the priority to introduce a demo-

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cratic system which, at the same time, was modelled according to his aspirations “to undermine regional tendencies” (Dillon and Garland 1994: 139). What was new was the grouping of earlier extant demes according to tribes, and Cleisthenes reshuffled the network of tribes anew, dissolving what were his­torically four tribes and creating ten new ones. Here we find the key to the prag­matic solution devised by Cleisthenes to neutralize possible opposition. The aristo­cratic families had been grouped along subethnic boundary lines of the his­torical Ionian tribes (phylai), related to the sons of the mythical Ion (i. e. Geleon, Aegicores, Argades, Hoples; Histories 5.66). In Cleisthenes’ order, the loyalties of village communities were associated with the newly created tribes, not with individual aristocratic families. According to Aristotle, it was not Cleisthenes who chose the names for the new tribes but these were selected from a longer list by the Pythia in the oracle at Delphi (Constitution of the Athenians 21.6). Cleisthenes did not abolish the tribal system as such but gave it a new infrastructure which served to strengthen specifically local (i. e. earth-bound) ties in the network of demes. What was new from the standpoint of the demes was their association with a particular tribe. In the new order, tribes were activated in terms of overarching political units. “The Ionian tribal names had no local reference, but the new tribal names were derived from eponymous tribal heroes who are important figures in Athenian Myth-history: Erekhtheus, Aigeus, Pandion, Akamas, and Kekrops were among the legendary kings of Athens; Leos, son of Orpheus, sacrificed his daugh­ters to save Athens at time of plague; Hippothoon was son of Poseidon; and Aias is the great hero of the Iliad from Salamis. To institute these new tribal names was to make all the various actions which Athenians performed in tribes, whether military, festival, or political, redolent of an Athenian past.” (Os­borne 1996: 300)

Herodotus elaborates on the motives for the introduction of the new tribal order and he draws a parallel: “Now, I have a theory that this policy was copied by Cleisthenes from his grandfather on his mother’s side, the Cleisthenes who was the tyrant of Sicyon” (Histories 5.67). The older Cleisthenes had a rival in his own territory of whom he got rid by special organizational means, depriving him of honours and festive duties which Cleisthenes bestowed on some of his followers. The rival, in the end, lost all markers of a privileged status. In addition, Cleisthenes changed the official names of the tribal network to which his rival belonged. Herodotus highlights the parallels that he sees in Cleisthenes’ policies to create a new tribal order for Athens. “So these were the policies of Cleisthenes of Sicyon, which Cleisthenes of Athens, who was both his namesake and the son of his daughter, seems to me to have copied—with the aim, contemptuous as the younger Cleisthenes appears to have been of the Ionians, of ensuring that the Athenians would not

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have tribes as the Ionians did. The evidence for this is that once he and his faction had secured the support of the mass of the Athenian people, who until that point had been kept disenfranchised, he changed the names of the tribes and increased their number. Whereas previously there had been four tribal leaders, he now created ten, and divided up the demes between them. With the people won over to his side, the members of the opposing faction were put thoroughly in the shade.” (Histories 5.69)

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The covert trend of self-administration and self-determination in the village communities (demes)

“The constitution established by Kleisthenes was definitely democratic in character, …” (Dillon and Garland 1994: 122). There is nothing wrong with calling democracy an achievement of Greek antiquity. What is wrong, though, is its identification as a Greek invention. This is not only a gross generalization but also an incorrect statement based on false evaluation of historical facts or, rather, based on ignorance of historical facts. Cleisthenes laid the foundation for a system of participatory democracy. This was not a natural consequence of the political upheaval of which he assumed leadership. Cleisthenes could have taken charge as the supreme archon and exercised political power in the form of covert autocracy. The task of archon was not strange to Cleisthenes because he had, once before, served in that function under the tyrant Hippias in 524 BCE (Queyrel 2003: 72). Evidently, the magisterial status of archon had been quite independent, and the archon’s decision-making seemed to have unfolded without interference from rulers in the pre-democratic period. In view of the independent status of the archon the Athenians did not validate Cleisthenes’ service under Hippias as an impediment for the former to function as protagonist of the reform work through which democracy was established in the polis. For his political reforms to flourish Cleisthenes did not choose the alternative of becoming archon for another tenure but he aimed for a truly democratic order. This act of establishing a new administrative order in the Athenian state is generally hailed as Cleisthenes’ creation, and democracy as a genuine invention of world history, of a truly Greek fabric (e. g. Anderson 2003, Raaflaub et al. 2008, Meier 2011). Such an assessment is in line with the canon of the Hellenophile tradition, engendered in the nineteenth century, that takes the appraisal of antique writers who celebrate Greek (and, in particular, Athenian) achievements of civilization at face value. According to the self-exaltation of Hellenistic writers “… the Athenian demos had been the originator of all good things, bringing humans from animal life to civilisation; the Athenians had established bonds of community among the humans by introducing the tradition of the mys-

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teries; thus, they had taught the Greeks that the greatest benefit for humans is intimacy and trust among each other; after receiving from the gods as gifts the cultivation of crops and the laws concerning humanity and education, the Athenians shared these presents with the Greeks.” (Chaniotis 2009: 256)

The notion of democracy as a product of Greek ingenuity is rooted in the interpretation of Greek history that was initiated by the German Romantic Move­ ment in the early nineteenth century. Political events such as the Greeks’ war of independence of 1823, waged against the colonial rule of the Ottoman Turks, fuelled a wave of Hellenophile empathy among European intellectuals for the Greek cause, and this empathy was associated, in the minds of many idealists, with the striving for a renewal of the model of democratic governance in nineteenth century Europe. Democracy has been deemed to be the prime achievement of Greek antiquity and one of timeless value, according to Friedrich Jacobs (1852) in his appraisal of the Greeks as a Kulturnation. As such, the institution of democracy is hailed in the tradition of European school education up to the present (Andurand 2013: 115 f.). The model of democracy that Cleisthenes introduced was no invention. Cleis­ the­nes did not devise democratic governance out of the blue but he could look back on ample experience with communal self-administration in the village communities in the region of Attica. The innovative changes that were brought about by Cleisthenes’ reforms are widely misunderstood as relying on a newly organized system of village communities, the demes as basic political units (sing. demos “village (community)”, plur. demoi). The demes existed before the times of Cleisthenes as a result of millennia of experience in the communities in Old Europe. Before the ancestors of the Greeks arrived, as newcomers, in the regions of Hel­las, a network of village communities existed throughout the regions which were later named Hellas. They were called kome which, as a term borrowed from the pre-Greek substrate language, continued to be used in ancient Greek (Beekes 2010: 814). Throughout Attica, this network of rural communities (comprised of kome villages) had been in place long before the archaic era, and these communities were self-governed. Communal self-administration was also characteristic for the villages in the Peloponnese. Life in these villages did not unfold in isolation; vivid contacts among the communities unfolded through trade and interregional interaction. Local cult centers attracted people from all around, like the sanctuary of Hera at Argos (northeastern Peloponnese), the Argive Heraion. “Whatever the regional diversity in conditions of life and social organization, and whatever the ultimate destiny of these sanctuaries, most of the major rural cults can be considered, like the Heraion, to have originally been rallying and meeting points for the local populations. They were the locations of festivals

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which is tempting to liken to fairs, those ritual gatherings … occasions for exchanging hospitality and for sharing between the neighboring communities which participated in them on a relatively equal footing, and which found in them an opportunity to settle trade deals, arrange alliances and marriages, and to compete in rustic games.” (De Polignac 1994: 5)

The stage was prepared for Cleisthenes’ enterprise of democracy since the participants in this enterprise, the future citizens, had practised democratic order in the communal nuclei (the village demes) and in inter-communal gatherings. Another division that Cleisthenes adopted for his administrative reform, the di­ vi­sion of each tribe into “thirds”, was no innovation either. The Greek term for “third” is trittys. The concept trittys refers to a distinction of forms of landscape, and the original meaning is “three-fold division, division according to thirds”. When the new tribal order—with the distinction of ten Greek tribes—was established by Cleisthenes, he determined that the demes were grouped according to a three-­ fold division so “that in each tribe demes from the city would constitute one third, demes from the inland region another third, and demes from the coastal region the final third” (Osborne 1996: 299). There were altogether 30 trittyes of which 18 are known and several others can be identified. “The trittys markers are found in Athens and the Peiraieus, and they do no actually mark boun­daries between trittyes; …” (Dillon and Garland 1994: 139). The trittys sys­tem provided the distribution of marshalling stations for men to gather for ser­vice in the army and the navy. In all probability, the division into thirds was no innovation devised by Cleis­the­ nes but rather he drew on a habit of dividing demes into overarching groupings that was practised by the native Europeans. A clear indication of this is the preGreek origin of the concept and the word trittys (Beekes 2010: 1510). “These new tribes would play important roles in the new political system. They would also become key markers of Athenian identity. … The tribes and their constituent ‘thirds’ were the institutional bridges by which a stable local identity (…) was linked to a desired national identity (‘participatory citizen of Athens’).” (Ober 2008: 140 f.)

Cleisthenes achieved something that Solon, many decades before him, did not. Cleisthenes succeeded in uniting the demes of Attica to form a state organization that was based on the same principles as communal governance. The model of communal self-administration as manifested in the local demes was transposed to the political level of the polis. Cleisthenes engaged in weaving the interests of the numerous demes together into the fabric of an overarching city-state. “Among the representations the Greeks made of society, of the bonds between men and the cohesion of human groups, or even of the city, there is one that seems to fabricate society more than any other: weaving. Domestic or political,

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profoundly ritualized, weaving brings into play an ensemble of notions capable of being inscribed in the collective memory, gestures that allow one to grasp, to touch, social organization. As much as sacrifice, whose gestures of sharing and distribution define the society in terms of commensality, the practice of weaving—furnishing men and gods with clothing and blankets—offers a simple model to the mind seeking ideas about the nature of social cohesion: how is it that the human group, the family alliance, and the city can hold together?” (Scheid and Svenbro 1996: 9)

Cleisthenes succeeded in providing the inhabitants of Attica and the urban population of Athens with a corporate design of Greekness on the foundation of a democratic order, that is with a set of customs which was comprised of traditional (including pre-Greek) and innovative constituents. This design has been identified as nomina. “In general, nomina constituted a set of practical, organizing data for society, such as names and numbers of tribal divisions or magistracies and their terminology. They also regulated society’s relations with the gods through sacred calendars, festivals, and the constitution of a polis pantheon.” (Malkin 2011: 189)

Cleisthenes, in his reforms, took a clear stand as far as people’s rights to participate in political decision-making were concerned. Cleisthenes linked the ways of life of previous cultures with the state organization in the model of the Athenian democracy by basing it on three main pillars (Haarmann 2013a: 185, LaBGC and Haarmann 2021: 29): – isegoria (“equal speech“, referring to the right of every Athenian citizen to speak freely about political affairs); – isonomia (“equality before the law“, regardless of social status); – isopoliteia (“equal participation in political activities“, regardless of membership in social groups) However, none of the three pillars was of absolute value. The women of Athens had their status as citizens but were excluded from the right to vote and from public offices. The only exception was the office as priestess in the state cult of Athena and other public cults. Even before the law, women had less rights than men. A distinction was also made between the free and the unfree, whereas the unfree people, the slaves, had absolutely nothing to say. Thus, Athenian democracy was only a fragment, a form of state in which a minority set the political tone (LaBGC and Haarmann 2021: 30). However, the achievement of isopoliteia on the level of political governance of the polis was a novelty in Cleisthenes’ reforms because male thetes (members of the lowest social class in Greek society) had not been granted equal participation

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in political activities before. In Solon’s model of democracy, devised in the 590s BCE, the thetes had been barred from public offices. The ritualistic character of the ingredients that made Athenian democracy echoed far on into successive periods and various approaches were made to explain what actually held the community of Athenian citizens together. In Plato’s works one finds a statement about the role of musical education for enhancing stability in a democratic society. In Plato’s Laws, the “Athenian Stranger”, taking the part of the analyst, reflects on this issue. “The Athenian Stranger finishes his examination of Megillus by discussing de­mocracy in ancient Athens. He says that the ancient Athenians placed great em­phasis on music and music education. Moreover, those who had knowledge regulated the sacred music very carefully and forbade innovations and misuse. When the music was performed, the people listened reverently, in solemn silence, and lived in an orderly way (Laws 700a-d).” (Lutz 2012: 87)

Cleisthenes was celebrated by European republicans of the seventeenth century and, later, by the representatives of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century and of the romantic movement in the early nineteenth century for having highlighted the basic democratic virtues. “In the seventeenth and early eighteenth cen­turies Athens provided a heartening model to many English republicans seeking instructive analogues for increasing the accountability and moral tone of government in their own day” (Roberts 1994: 156). It is true that Cleisthenes was the first to formulate these key concepts of democratic governance but, in practice, in the Athenian democracy did not come into play what would have made it truly democratic and possibly given it duration or at least a beneficial further development. It is by no means an exaggeration to affirm that without the knowledge adopted from the ancient Aegean cultures and passed on in their cultural memory, the Greeks would hardly have been capable of building their own civilization within a record time. In other words: The Greek civilization owes its dynamic rise to the impulses conveyed by the pre-Greek regional cultures of the Bronze Age, the daughters of Old Europe (LaBGC and Haarmann 2021: 147) In the communities of Old Europe, isegoria meant the right of each villager to talk about communal matters, isonomia guaranteed equal treatment in juridical matters according to customary law and the obligation for everyone to respect the behavioral norms of the ancestors, and isopoliteia referred to the equal right to be elected as a member in the village council. Cleisthenes’s principles meant, in fact, a confirmation of a system of communal governance that had been in place before his time (including self-determination in juridical affairs); (Haarmann 2013b: 63 ff.).

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Heroes and myth-making in the Histories Herodotus challenges the reader of his Histories with a skilled integration of mythical accounts that are woven into the flow of his narrative. Herodotus— like other historiographers of the classical era—“selected or often constructed a probable version of the mythical past, suppressing from the tradition traits that were contrary to nature, incredible, or improbable” (Saïd 2011: 81). When one asks what criteria Herodotus applied to select and construct plausible stories, it may be surprising to learn that the major arbiters were “critical analysis (historie) and authorial self consciousness” (Gehrke 2001: 298). For Herodotus it was beyond doubt that historical events were the result of the ways in which the gods intervened in the affairs of the mortals. “Religion is everywhere in his book; no one would write such a thing were they not, at the least, profoundly interested in the gods and their role in human history” (Fowler 2010: 319). The religious embedding of Herodotus’s Histories provides the resource for his selection of mythical narrative about how everything happens through divine intervention. When comparing the way Thucydides writes history (excluding the gods and their power of intervention) one could be inclined to view the religion-oriented approach of the older Herodotus as a precursor of a more developed (at the same time more mundane) view on history in the work of the younger Thucydides. This, however, proves wrong when taking into consideration further historians in the chronological sequence of historiographers: Herodotus (gods included), Thucydides (gods excluded), Xeno­phon (gods included). “These differences show that we are dealing with individual preference, not (as it was once popular to suppose) evolution from superstition to reason, from mythos to logos” (Fowler 2010: 319). Although it may seem easy to distinguish, in Herodotus’s Histories, individual myths on the basis of their specific narrative features and motifs, the interpretation of deeper levels of the mythical narrative requires quite some scrutiny to coordinate data from cultural history and archaeology. Arguably, behind most myths told by Herodotus there is some sort of historical core, only there may be several layers of possible interpretations. In several sections of the first and fourth books of his Histories, Herodotus elaborates on the mounted horsemen in the Eurasian steppes. Herodotus had travelled as far as Olbia (in the delta of the Dnieper, east of Odessa in southwest­ ern Ukraine). While the bulk of the accounts given about the Scythians concern their wars against the Persian empire, Herodotus also collects ample in­formation about the Scythians’ customs, their mythology and geographical ex­pansion. At a time when the archaeological study of nomadic cultures did not yet exist, the Histories were the only early source from which information about the steppe cultures could be retrieved.

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“Since the nineteenth century Herodotus’ history has served as a source not only for historians but also for archaeologists. Three significant questions come to the fore: Where was the nucleus of the Scythians? Where was the royal necropolis of Gerrhos? Did the descriptions of spectacular burial rituals corres­ pond to reality? Despite doubts, archaeology has confirmed the third question practically in its entirety, revealed a kernel of truth in the partially fantastical geographic descriptions and developed a plausible hypothesis in response to the second question.” (Baumer 2012: 172)

Although Herodotus locates the royal necropolis at the rapids of the Dnieper, this may have been a misunderstanding of second-hand information on his side. There are several kurgans (burial mounds) in the vicinity of the rapids but these date to a time after Herodotus’ death (424 BCE). Most probably, the royal necropolis has to be sought in the area of the Kuban (along the Sula river, a tributary of the Dnieper) where burial mounds with rich grave goods have been found. These sites date to the seventh and sixth centuries BCE. That area was the heart­land of the Scythians in Herodotus’ time. Among the mythical narratives in the Histories there is one of considerable complexity, and this is the myth of the Mother of the Gods and how her cult spread to different parts of the Greek world and to neighbouring countries. “The Scythians are strongly opposed to adopting foreign customs, even those of other of their own tribes, but especially those of the Greeks, as the stories of Anacharsis and also afterwards of Scyles proved. When Anachar­sis was com­ ing back to the Scythian country after having seen much of the world in his trav­els and given many examples of his wisdom, he sailed through the Helles­ pont and put in at Cyzicus; where, finding the Cyzicenes celebrating the feast of the Mother of the Gods with great ceremony, he vowed to this same Mother that if he returned to his own country safe and sound he would sacrifice to her as he saw the Cyzicenes doing, and establish a nightly rite of worship. So when he came to Scythia, he hid himself in the country called Woodland (which is beside the Racetrack of Achilles, and is all overgrown with all kinds of trees); hiding there, Anacharsis, carrying a drum and hanging images about himself, celebrated the whole festival for the goddess.” (Histories 4.7)

Cyzicus was a Greek colony on the shore of the Sea of Marmara (called Pro­ pon­tis in antiquity), and the settlement stretched on the slopes of Mount Din­ dy­mon. The connection of Cyzicus with the cult of the Mother of the Gods, in He­ro­do­tus’ account, was not accidental. There is archaeological evidence that the community of Cyzicus was the first Greek city to adopt the cult that had originated in Asia Minor. Whether this was known at the times of Herodotus is un­certain. In any case, the association with Asia Minor led the early historiogra-

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pher into the right direction. In Herodotus’ story of Anacharsis, it is emphasized that the festival in honor of the Mother of the Gods deeply impressed the Scy­ thians. In this context, the modern observer may sense the magnitude of cult life surrounding the goddess, in antiquity. “The festival at Cyzicus clearly involved the community as a whole, rather than just a group of initiates. The literary accounts of the cult indicate that it took place in and around the sanctuary on Mount Dindymon. Like most city festivals, there will have been a central role for animal sacrifice. Apollonius men­ tions young men dancing in armour, and this was presumably a regular part of the festival: like the tambourine, this kind of dance seems particularly associated with the Mother of the Gods and her attendants. Music will have been created with flutes and drums, and this will have been loud and raucous—not the quieter music associated with the lyre.” (Bowden 2010: 87)

The figure of Anacharsis seems somehow controversial because, according to He­ro­dotus, he was the one to adopt the cult of the Mother of the Gods but, at the same time, he is reported to have remained isolated with his wisdom among the Scy­thians. “When Herodotus visited the Black Sea, there was one Scythian he knew about already: this was the famous Anacharsis, about whom various stories circulated among Herodotus’ Greek contemporaries. Herodotus appears surprised that the Scythians seemed to know nothing about this famous Scythian; his explanation was that the Scythians refused to acknowledge him, because they abhorred the adoption of foreign customs and Anacharsis was guilty of this particular sin.” (Vlassopoulos 2013: 206 f.)

It is not far-fetched to speak of a symbiotic relationship between the two major forces in the Athenian state, democracy and imperialism. “The interplay of these two forces—imperialism and democracy—was so great that it is impossible at times to be sure of the cause and effect relationship, for, if imperialism influenced the growth of democracy, it is equally true that democracy fostered imperialism” (Fine 1983: 383). One of the new myths that served both democracy and imperialism and which gained political weight was the transformation of the older myth of Theseus who had slain the Minotaur in the labyrinth of the palace of Knossos (Crete). The oracle at Delphi urged the Athenians to retrieve the bones of the ancient hero Theseus and establish a new cult for him as a divine hero. This task was assigned to a young general, Cimon. He set out on a search for Theseus’ bones. On the Cycladic island of Skyros, he unearthed bones from an ancient grave and brought them to Athens where they were kept in a sanctuary dedicated to The­seus. What followed was myth-making.

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“Athenians inherited many myths from the remote past, but when current de­vel­opments, such as the rise of the navy, seemed to cry out for mythical precedents, they readily invented new ones. Cimon abetted the process. Among the creative artists whom he patronized was a genealogist and my­thog­rapher named Pherecydes. He had already traced Cimon’s family tree back to the hero Ajax of Salamis. Now Pherecydes rewrote the Theseus myth. In this exciting new account, a desperate Theseus rushes back to the harbor near Knossos after killing the Minotaur and ensures a safe escape by ramming the hulls of the Cretan ships so that they cannot pursue him. A later mythographer named Demon improved the tale by transforming the Minotaur into a Cretan general named Taurus and claiming that Theseus defeated him in a naval battle —the first naval battle in Athenian history!—at the mouth of the harbor. Thus Theseus metamorphosed into a true naval hero, with exploits that foreshadowed naval warfare of Cimon’s own day.” (Hale 2009: 85 f.)

When the navy set out on its campaigns in the Aegean there was a saying that became proverbial among the mariners: “Not without Theseus!” In the course of the fifth century BCE, the Athenian city-state enlarged its sphere of military and political supremacy in successive seasonal campaigns, also with the intention of securing economic resources: “… desire for precious metal and ship-timber was part of the explanation for aggression against, and settlements at, Thasos, Thurii, and Amphipolis. Above all there was tribute, in ships or money (increasingly the second was preferred by all parties)” (Hornblower 1988: 127).

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Heroïnes and the primacy of the Common Good— Sacrificing one’s life for the sake of divinely infused communality

The female heroic figure (heroïne) in Greek myth is not conceived as a one-toone equivalent to the male hero. The heroic female is a figure with characteristics of its own fabric, emphasizing qualities of the female sex that are either differently marked or absent in the mythical image of male heroes. The heroic valiant woman who volunteers for ritual sacrifice becomes the companion of the heroic male warrior who fight the enemy in the battle-field where women are not allowed to act. Both women and men are honored for their heroism, each in their own sphere. “The contribution of each sex is clear: sacrifice is required of all children of suitable age (and a corresponding sacrifice from parents): eligible boys must stand in the battle-line; eligible girls may be called upon for human sacrifice to promote victory.” (Wilkins 1990: 180)

The role of heroïnes in mythical genealogies (Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women) In a special epic poem—though only attested in fragmentary form—gender issues of collective genealogies are addressed. This is the Catalogue of Women (or simply Catalogue). This work is also called Ehoiai after the formula e’ hoie “or such as” by which narratives about individual women were introduced). For instance, a new line of descent is presented by introducing the daughters of Por­ thaon in the following way (Catalogue 26.5–9): “Or such as (e’ hoiai) the maidens sired by Porthaon, three, like goddesses, skilled in all-beautiful works,

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whom Laothoe the blameless Hyperian queen once bore, entering Porthaon’s blooming bed: Eurythemiste and Stratonice and Sterope.”

The Catalogue was attributed to Hesiod by ancient authors although there seems to be consensus among modern scholars who doubt this poet’s authorship. Some of the poem’s contents point to a period after Hesiod’s lifetime, for instance the narrative about Cyrene, founding ancestress of the colony on the northern coast of Lybia in 631 BCE. And yet, critical editions and analyses often associate Hesiod with the Catalogue of Women (e. g. West 1985, Hirschberger 2004, Ormand 2014). The original title was expanded in the Christian era, in the Suda (an encyclopedia of the tenth century CE), to Catalogue of Heroic Women. The Suda gives some information on the epic poem which was written in dactylic hexameters and may have contained between 4000 and 5000 lines. The connection of the Catalogue with Hesiod may have seemed pervasive to an­ cient authors because its infrastructure resembles the way in which the geneal­ ogies of the gods are presented in Hesiod’s Theogony. While the latter work fo­cuses entirely on the kinship of divinities, the genealogies in the Catalogue reflect the interaction between gods and humans, thus covering “the whole of the heroic age” (West 1985: 3). The Catalogue of Women is composed of narratives about mortal women who mingled with the gods, and their offspring. The first of these women or heroïnes was Pyrrha, wife of Deukalion, the only woman who is said to have survived the flood at the end of the (mythical) Bronze Age. The scope of the Catalogue could be interpreted as a collection of noble genealogies in the female line, that is reflecting matrilineality. Although Greek society was oriented to patrilineality, the narratives in the Catalogue may reflect memories of social conditions in the period when the immigrants from the North, the Proto-Greeks, encountered the ancient Europeans, the Pelasgians, with their tradition of prominent women as founders of lineages (see Haarmann 2013b: 72 ff.). The Catalogue is well-anchored in the cultural environment of archaic Greece, and the genealogies and related stories enjoyed popularity throughout antiquity. The focus on female heroic figures is in accordance with the prominence of female divinities in the ancient Greek pantheon. Among the heroïnes about whom one finds narratives in the Catalogue are some who gained fame through the medium of the works of other poets who picked up subjects and stories from the Catalogue. One of the best-known figures is Iphi­genia, a variant of the original name Iphimede (see below). Iphigenia is one of the two daughters of Klytaimnestra and Agamemnon. A prophecy casts a shadow over Iphigenia’s life since she is supposed to be sacrificed so that the fleet of the Greeks could leave for Troy. The goddess Artemis saves Iphigeneia and transforms her into Artemis Enodia (i. e. Hekate). This dramatic story is told by

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Euripides in his Iphigeneia in Aulis, a work which has inspired poets and writers into our days (Günther 1988). Mythical genealogies do not distinguish themselves—nor were they distinguished by the ancient Greeks—by particular features from available facts about historical ancestors. Mythical and factual elements were interwoven to craft the overall fabric of a genealogy. For the ancient Greeks it was of no relevance to separate mythical heroes from historical personalities, once they formed part of the same lineage. The main concern was to produce a lineage that was imbued with prestige, and this prestige was instrumentalized within Greek society of antiquity in order to promote social status and for political ends.

Female sacrifice: giving one’s life for the Common Good One particular domain where heroism associated with women comes to bear is Greek literature of the classical age. Insights about the significance of protag­ onists and plots in Greek tragedies for the concept of female heroism have been produced only recently, namely in Joan Connelly’s study on the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis (2014). This author draws our attention to the motif of female sacrifice and how Greek tragedians elaborated on it. The sacrifice of a young noble woman, to help end a state of social crisis, is a recurrent theme in many mythic accounts and, in the genre of tragedy, this theme is dramatized. In those stories, the victims of sacrifice are not just passive objects of male sacrificial activity. Instead, the maidens chosen for this extreme ritual act go into their death voluntarily and, in most cases, commit ritual suicide. Stories about maidens that are scarified (that is, sacrifice themselves) to avert catastrophe crystallize around the mythical history of Greek towns. There is the myth of Andro­ kleia and Aleis, daughters of Antipoinos, who commit suicide to fulfill the oracle’s verdict that only a female sacrifice would save the town of Orchomenos from being attacked by Herakles and the Thebans. A similar story was told about Athens. The inhabitants were stricken by an epidemic (or famine), and the daugh­ters of Leos were sacrificed to end the suffering. In both cases, in Or­cho­ me­nos and in Athens, shrines were erected to honor the heroic women who gave their lives to rescue their home cities. Iphigeneia—the tragic heroïne The heroïne who occupied the minds of the Greeks and whose story has been retold many times since antiquity is Iphigeneia who sacrifices herself for the good of the community. Iphigeneia became the protagonist in two master-pieces

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of tragic literature, in the Agamemnon (458 BCE) of Aeschylus and in the Iphi­ geneia at Aulis (405 BCE) of Euripides. Agamemnon’s fleet cannot leave for Troy, and the ships idle in the coastal waters, waiting for favorable winds. The seer Kalchas makes a pronouncement according to which the weather con­di­ tions would change only if the king’s daughter is sacrificed. In Aeschylus’ play, emphasis is on the rage of Iphigeneia’s mother, Klytaimnestra, while, in Euri­ pides’ tragedy, Iphigeneia is willing to become the victim of sacrifice, telling her mother: “You bore me for all the Greeks not yourself alone”. There is a clear shift in emphasis that can be observed when comparing the two plays, and this shift has most probably to do with the development of a particular sense for female heroism during the time of the Athenian democracy. “In the wake of the Persian Wars, themes of heroism and self-sacrifice gained popularity on the Athenian stage. … But it is during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 B.C.) and the plague at Athens (430, 429, 427/426 B.C.) that we see a great eruption of interest in these stories. Perhaps their retelling helped to acknowledge the burden of loss and sacrifice shared by the women of Athens during these troubled times.” (Connelly 2014: 145)

Antigone—defender of customary law Sophocles (ca. 496–406 BCE) was successful as a tragedian and he won several competitions. His work Antigone (presented ca. 442 BCE) addresses the topic of female bravery and steadfastness which, in his play, is associated with the pro­ tagonist Antigone. King Oedipus, former king of Thebes, leaves his kingdom after having killed his father, accidentally, and married his mother. His sons, Eteo­k les and Polyneikes, rally an army and try to topple the new king, Oedi­pus’ brother Kreon. The attack on the city fails and the two brothers are killed. Kreon pro­hibits the bodies of the insurgents to be buried. Antigone, the sister, defies Kreon’s order and buries her brother Polyneikes. Formally, Antigone breaks the law dictated by Kreon, but righteousness and morality are on her side. Kreon condemns his niece Antigone to death and she is secluded in a cave whose entrance is blocked by a newly erected wall. After a while, Kreon feels regrets about his decision, but when the wall is torn down to free Antigone, she is already dead. Plato admired Socrates for being a model citizen, and there are essential features in his attitude that strongly resemble that of the figure of headstrong Antigone in Sophocles’ play: bravery and righteousness. Antigone’s bravery was hailed to inspire others, also men, to follow her example.

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Makaria—savior of Athens Makaria is the protagonist in one of Euripides’ tragedies, in the Children of He­rakles. This tragic figure is a sublime example of female heroism: the heroine gives her life for the benefit of the whole community, to save the town of Athens from destruction. Makaria is one of the children of Herakles. Euripides tells the story of the children of Herakles, of Makaria and her brothers, who take refuge at Athens after having been expelled from Trachis. Their uncle Eurystheus intends to attack Athens whose king, Demophon, is advised by an oracle that the city can be saved under one condition only, namely that one of the children has to be sacrificed. “Makaria valiantly volunteers. … As Makaria marches stalwartly toward the altar of her death, she delivers a compelling treatise on virgin sacrifice, exalting it as an opportunity for female heroism.” (Connelly 2014: 145)

In the words of the poet, Makaria gives her life to the rescue of the city, as a testament to her patron, the goddess Athena, to express solidarity with the citizens of Athens. “Lead me to the place where it seems good that my body should be killed and garlanded and consecrated to the goddess [Athena] ! Defeat the enemy ! For my life is at your disposal, full willingly, and I offer to be put to death on my brothers’ behalf and on my own. For, mark it well, but not clinging to my life I have made a most splendid discovery, how to die with glory.” (Euripides, Children of Herakles 528–534)

At Marathon, Makaria is remembered for her sacrifice: a spring is named for her.

The heroïne as companion of a male hero The character of the woman who possesses magic power is best known from the myth of Argon and the golden fleece, Medea. She has been eternalized by the tragic poet Euripides in his play Medea (431 BCE). Medea who helps Jason and the Argonauts to obtain the golden fleece is pictured as the mistress of serpents (or dragons) and she moves in a chariot driven by serpents, originally two, later four, sometimes winged, sometimes without wings. The scenes with Medea driving the chariot always evoke a ride in the air. The earliest pictures date to the seventh century BCE. Medea, at the intersection of both real and magic-induced action, makes the impression of a figure retrieved from the remote mythical past, a woman perhaps re­presenting “a mythical archetype underlying subsequent notions about the

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Hes­perids and Medea alike, or even a generic dragon-tending virgin” (Ogden 2012: 269). Medea becomes the companion of the Argonauts. In a kind of division of labor, Jason and Medea act together, Jason slaying the dragon that guards the golden fleece, and Medea taking it. Aeëtes, the king of Colchis, tells Jason about the fleece and the place where it is kept. He intends to make the Argonauts fall asleep and then kill them, but Medea crosses his plan by using her magical power. She applies a drug to make the dragon dizzy and another to make Jason invincible. In one of Pindar’s odes, the fourth Pythia (462 BCE), the poet dramatizes the event and elaborates on the “co-operation” of the brave hero and the heroïne: “Immediately Aeëtes, the amazing son of Helios, told him [Jason] of the shining skin and the place in which the sacrificial knives of Phrixus stretched it out. But that was a labour that he did not expect him to complete. For it lay in a copse, adjacently to the aggressive jaws of a dragon (drakon), which surpassed in breadth and length a fifty-oared ship, fashioned by the blows of iron tools … with devices (technais) he slew the grey-eyed dappled-backed snake (ophis), Arcesilaus, and he stole away Medea with her co-operation, Medea the slayer of Pelias.” (Pindar, Pythia 4.242–250)

The myth of the Argonauts points to ancient outside connections of the Greek world that might be older than the colonization movement that starts in the eighth century BCE. Modern scholarship does not rule out the possibility that early explorations of the shores of the Black Sea by Greek sailors may date to Mycenaean times, that is many hundreds of years before the systematic colonization began (Lordkipanidze 2008: 26). The Argonauts visit Colchis where Medea, the local king’s daughter, helps the adventurers to reach their goal. There is consensus among modern scholars who identify ancient Colchis with the region of Vani in western Georgia, bordering on the coast of the Black Sea. “The tale of Jason’s voyage with the Argonauts from Iolcus in Thessaly in search of the Golden Fleece, and the help he received from Medea, daughter of Aeëtes, king of Colchis, has indeed survived the centuries. It was told in antiquity, in its canonical form by Apollonius of Rhodes, and lives on today in the name of the Georgian TV channel Ayeti, in the Garden of Medea at Vani, and in the colossal bronze statue of Medea erected at the Georgian seaside resort of Batumi in 2007.” (Vickers 2008: 29)

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Athena’s patronage over the Common Good— Heroism for the protection of basic values

If we look for the factors that dominate Greek self-identification in the classical era, we find them in the concerted functioning of the cult of heroes and its inter­ action with the patronage of this towering divinity: Athena. The city of Athens provided the space and the means to amply celebrate this union between the iconized heroes and their patron. Athens is the place where this union materializes: – in architecture (the Parthenon Temple on the Acropolis); – in figurative art (the pictures in the friezes of the temple; the monumental statue of Athena); – in festivities meant to ritualize communal solidarity and glorifying Hel­le­ nicity (the Panathenaia festival); – in cultural memory relating to the institutions of the Athenian state. In addition, the union of the cult of heroes and their patron finds a sublime ex­pression in the choice of an ideal location for one of the most prominent institutions of intellectual life in Greek antiquity: the Academy founded by Plato in the fourth century BCE. For the selection of that location a combination of two motivational strands came to bear: one was the cultural memory of a mythical hero, Hekademos (associated with Athenian history), the other was the spiritual link to Athena. A sacred olive grove in that area was dedicated to the goddess.

Heroes in the Hall of Fame The Parthenon Temple on the Acropolis in Athens is undoubtedly the most fa­mous sacral monument ever built to honor the goddess Athena. Parthenon means “temple of the virgin goddess”. In the mythological tradition, Athena is a virgin (parthenos) and she never marries. This quality of being a virgin is also attributed to another of the pre-Greek goddesses who was adopted by the ances-

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tors of the Greeks into their pantheon, and this is Artemis. The characteristic features of these two virgin-goddesses are clearly divided. While Artemis is the guardian of wild animals and the patron of the hunt, Athena personifies various crafts and intellectual capacities. The greatness of the Parthenon manifests itself in its early name which was ho naos (“THE temple”) in the fifth century BCE. The temple was called Heka­ tompedos (“the hundred footer”) by its architects (i. e. Iktinos and Callicrates), not alluding to its size but to its majestic impression (map 6). As a model of classical architecture, the Parthenon developed into an icon of western civilization. On the site where the Parthenon was built archaeologists found remnants of a small shrine, suggesting that the place had already been considered sacred in the pre-Greek era. An earlier sanctuary dedicated to Athena is located in the north of the Acropolis (Hurwit 2000). This sanctuary housed the wooden statue of Athena, carved from olive wood, that was brought to Piraeus on the coast every year, in a ritual, and bathed in the sea. The construction program, initiated by Pericles in Athens around the mid–5th century BCE—comprising the Parthenon and other buildings on the Acropolis (i. e. the Propylaia, the Erechtheion, the temple of Athena Nike) -, had truly imperial proportions. That was a period when the political power of the Athenian state was at its height, and the Parthenon became the symbol of mighty Athens, seat of the Delian League. Foreign diplomats were brought to the temple for them to become impressed by the majestic proportions and also by the splendor of the monumental chryselephantine statue of Athena, made of ivory and gold, that dominated the interior. The temple was built between 447 and 438 BCE, and work on the decorative friezes and sculptures was completed as late as 432 BCE. The Parthenon was never used for sacrificial rituals, as was the rule for other temples, and there were no altars for sacrifice inside the building, only a representational altar featuring icons of the ten Greek tribes. Offerings to Athena were made in the open, at a large altar that was situated between the Parthenon and the temple of Erech­ theus (i. e. the Erechtheion). The Parthenon was not any temple. It was an icon of Hellenicity that rose amidst “… the landscape that so shaped Athenian consciousness of place and time, of reality itself (…). It is out of Attica—the greater territory surrounding Athens— that the forces of nature and divinity, of human drama and history, issued. To commemorate their favorable resolution required nothing less than what the Parthenon would be: the largest, most exquisitely planned and constructed, lavishly decorated, and aesthetically compelling temple that the Athenians would ever build. It would also be a monument steeped in carved images retelling vibrant stories from the city’s mythical past.” (Connelly 2014: 5)

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Map 6: The Acropolis with the reconstructed Parthenon (courtesy of Manolis Korres)

Heroes in the Hall of Fame

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The Parthenon is decorated with a plethora of reliefs, images and statuary in which both the offensive and the protective functions of warfare are manifested. The valor of the Greeks is celebrated, of those who engage in combat with attacking enemies or fight against supernatural beings. The metopes of the west frieze These metopes show scenes of the fights with the Amazons. Myth has it that Theseus abducted the Amazon queen, Antiope, an event which mobilized the Amazons to wage war against the Athenians. “The west metopes show mounted Amazons furiously battling (and killing) Greeks. But, once again, there emerges a tale of civilized Hellenes defeating exotic “others”, in this case, savage fighting women from the East, a thinly veiled reference to the Athenian triumph over the Persians.” (Connelly 2014: 103)

The metopes of the east frieze In the metopes of the east frieze the conflict between the Gods and the Giants (Gigantomachy) is illustrated. In these scenes, we see a sublime concerted action of the famous hero and the patron divinity. “Athena and Herakles fought side by side in battle, valiant warriors who made an excellent team. Athena so distinguished herself that she became known as Gigantoleteira or Gigantoletis (“She who destroyed the Giants”).” (Connelly 2014: 64 f.)

The names of three giants, slain by Athena, are given in the mythic story recounting the fierce battle: Drako, Aster and Enkelados. The figure of the goddess Athena appealed to women and men alike: – Athena was the patron of many a handicraft: as the patron of the craft of weaving she was in the hearts and minds of women; she was the favorite di­ vin­ity summoned by potters, shipbuilders and architects; – as the patron of democratic institutions Athena was venerated by law-makers, judges and politicians; – as the patron of intellectual achievements she was praised by poets and philosophers; – in her role as the patron of the arts she drew the special attention of artists to her cult; – and the armed Athena (with spear and shield), the protectress of the city of Athens and guarantor of safety for everyone in the Athenian community, was revered by members of both sexes.

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The monumental statue of Athena Parthenos

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When the ancestors of the Greeks, as migrants, arrived in the region of Attica they may have been puzzled by the presence of a mighty goddess whose abode was the Acropolis in the already existing town of Athens. This goddess with her pre-­Greek name, Athena, was venerated by the descendants of the ancient Dan­ubians and had prevailed even through times of turmoil and unrest (Deacy 2001, 2008). The newcomers to Attica sensed that it would be futile to try to mar­ginalize this powerful divinity and they tried to find a way to accommodate her and adopt her cult. They created a somehow adventurous myth about her birth. According to the mythical tradition, told in early literature (Homer, Iliad, book V, Hesiod, Theo­ gony), Zeus married Metis, “wisest among gods and mortal men” (Hesiod, Theo­ gony 885–900). Zeus received disturbing news from an oracle, revealing to him that he may have a son who would displace him as the mightiest of gods. In his fear, Zeus panicked and devoured Metis. Yet, the goddess had already conceived. After a while, Zeus suffered from a terrible headache and, one day, a child sprang off his head; and this was Athena, in full armor. Following the account of her birth thus recorded, Athena is described as having no mother and only a father. This somehow artificial separation of the child from her mother might have been a reflection of a traumatic reaction on the side of the new­comers to cover the insights of Athena as a mighty pre-Greek goddess with a prolonged genealogy, leading as far back in time as the Great Goddess of Old Europe. Perhaps this “smoke-screen” hiding her noble origins and, at the same time, enhancing her ties to their patriarchal Indo-European tradition (from her father’s side) made it easier for Greek men to acknowledge Athena’s overall high status as a divinity. There is the special case of a prominent figure, Plato, who truly worshiped Athe­ na in her manifold roles. Among all the goddesses, Plato, in his dialogue Cra­ ty­lus (407b), praises the goddess in her elevated status as the guarantor of world order, “as mind (nous) and [divine] intellect (dianoia)”. There could be no higher status than this, attributed to Athena in philosophical reasoning about the world (Haarmann 2019a: 79 f.).

The monumental statue of Athena Parthenos and her role for Hellenic self-identification Inside her temple was erected the monumental statue of Athena Parthenos, created by the most famous artist of Athens, Pheidias, in the fifth century BCE. The Athena Parthenos was among the tallest statues of Greek antiquity; it measured 12.8 m (figure 11).

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In the Athenians’ cultural memory, the goddess Athena always occupied a central place, and her statue—a mon­ ument (statue) in a monument (temple)—represents an architectural class of its own.

Figure 11:

The statue of Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon temple (Reconstruction in the Museum of the goddess Athena;)

“What he [Pheidias] achieves is the impossible: the material cannot represent the ideas, that is to say the immortal gods. None the less he is able to create by material means a representation of the immaterial ideas. Pheidias is as creative as the ideas are creative; his image is living, it breathes god’s aura, majesty and importance, it effects pathos in the people who come into the temple. Phei­dias’ image is not bad materiality but effects in people the vividness and creative­ness of the god, who is present through the image.” (Auffarth 2010: 468)

In the perception of contemporary spectators, “the image was regarded not as a representation of the deity but as the divine essence itself” (Connelly 2014: 68). Pheidias’ Athena may serve as a model artifact to illustrate the ideal of an intermediate transformer that makes the immaterial idea of a divinity resound in the spectators’ minds by means of animated materiality. If animated materiality is imbued with divine spirit—as in this case with Pheidias’ statue of Athena—then the presence of the Divine crystallizes in the Beauty of the spirited piece of art, as Form within. In the Parthenon temple we can recognize the extension of the cult of the individual hero into the realm of collective self-glorification, of heroic Hellenicity. It is in the Parthenon with its most impressive monumental statue of Athena that the intimacy between fame-seeking heroes and their divine protective patronage, personified in the figure of Athena, found its sublime expression. It is Athena that is neatly accommodated with the hero cult, and her patronage gains in importance as an essential ingredient, a conditio sine qua non of the way of the hero. One may say that the splendor of Athena as a descendant of the Goddess of Old Europe produces an afterglow that is stronger than the glow of the revered ancestress. Unfortunately, the glow and glory dazzles the eye and fades the pur-

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pose of this beautifully designed goddess venerated in the precious statue of the Parthenon to impress as a symbol of power demanding respect and devotion from the leaders of Athens as well as subjugation to the leadership of Athens. The fusion of the cultural heritage of Old Europe and the Indo-European traditions, including the social hierarchy introduced by pastoralists is characteristic of the cultural mosaic in many regions of Europe (as documented for the roots of ancient Greek civilization and for Roman civilization by Haarmann 2014, 2017b, 2019b). In a transformed way, the ancient beliefs (i. e. the pivotal role of goddesses in everyday life) kept their place in the mindset of people that celebrated the cult of heroes and markedly impacted the visual arts with its imagery (i. e. stone stelae and vase-painting) relating to the cult of heroes—heroes well equipped with weapons and protected by the patronage of goddesses, ready to fight for fame and glory. The Parthenon with its Athena Parthenos was a place intended to show off the might of the Athenian empire. In this light, the temple and its monumental statue served as symbols of political power, and the iconic status of both lived on, throughout the ages, in cultural memory. The image of sacred monumentality persisted, even after the statue had disappeared and the temple, used by the Ottoman Turks as an ammunition depot, had been ripped apart by an explosion caused by the bombardment of Venetian canons in September of 1687.

The Great Panathenaia of Athens— A showcase of divinely inspired political governance Among the “vibrant stories” that were visually enacted in the picture friezes on the Parthenon featured the processions of the most impressive festivity that was organized in the Athenian state, the Great Panathenaia of Athens (Brelich 2013: 340 ff.). There was nothing comparable in all of Greece to the grandeur with which the Great Panathenaia was performed. Everything was on display, the worship of Athena as patron of Athens and the celebration of political union because this was “a festival which highlighted the actions of the Athenians as a political body and exhibited their preparations to face the outside world” (Os­ borne 1987: 172). The overall significance of the Panathenaic festival can hardly be overrated. “In its inclusiveness, it exemplified the city’s participatory democracy; in its contests it demonstrated the competitive spirit of its people; with its prizes it displayed the skills of its artisans and the wealth of its produce; and above all it celebrated Athena as the divine protectress of a glorious city” (Neils 1992a: 27). At the very core of the Panathenaia was the mythical narrative about the Athenian past.

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The thematical pictures of the Panathenaia on the East Frieze of the Parthenon formed a symbiotic union with the architectural monument: “And so the deep history that informed Athenian consciousness was every year enacted kinetically, just as throughout the year it was attested in the immobile marble of the Parthenon” (Connelly 2014: 273 f.). It is noteworthy that the role of Athena for self-identification of the political body of Athenians was not only vital for the period under democratic governance, but also in the earlier context of tyrannic rule. The two contexts are in­vestigated by Connor (1987: 47 ff.) in terms of a relationship between civic cer­emony and politics, based on two episodes in Herodotus’ Histories: “The first was Peisistratos’ return to power in the 550s with which is associated the tradition of his entry into Athens in a chariot accompanied by a statuesque young woman (parthenos), Phye, dressed as Athena (Hdt. 1.60.2–5). Connor dismisses Herodotus’ incredulity and offers a plausible explanation based upon the shared religious mentalité of Peisistratos and the Athenians and the in­volve­ment of the populace in a ‘shared drama’ which, inter alia, was familiar with the traditions of Athena riding in the chariots of her favoured heroes and mortals. The second episode was the establishment by Solon of a census system based on agricultural production and wealth expressed in medimnoi (pentakosio­medimnoi, hippeis, zeugitai and thetes, Aristotle Ath. Pol. 7.4) from which Connor argued that one of the roles of festival processions was to provide a means for both the display, and perhaps the determination, of the wealth of its citizens, especially its rich citizens.” (Phillips 2012: 204)

And there was a particular facet that linked the intellectual life of the Athenians to the Panathenaia festival, and this was the concept of the organic whole. During the performances of the Panathenaia that lasted for five days living-conditions and the religious worldview of the Athenians were dramatically enacted. Modern research has revealed the association of the Panathenaia picture frieze with the ways of describing the organic whole of human existence in ancient philosophy. The picture frieze “is serving as a vessel, a context through which to render philosophy in visual form” (Mark 1984: 336). The visual impression of the Panathenaia performances was reinforced by the sound of music (i. e. singing and playing instruments) and by a particular kinetic charge: dancing. Most popular was the choral dance. On the fifth day of the festival, the pyrrhic dance was performed, a war dance imitating movements from combat. According to the mythic tradition, this war dance (pyrrhike) was introduced by Athena herself who had sprung from the head of Zeus in full armor. Plato assigns to the choral dance a pivotal role for the education of the young: “… choral dancing constituted the entirety of education” (Laws, 672e).

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The religious tradition, mythical beliefs and the political reality of participatory democracy were intrinsically intertwined to create a network of sociopolitical cohesion, and this cohesion was celebrated in intervals, in the four-year rhythm of the Panathenaia. During the golden age of Athenian imperial power, in the course of the fifth century BCE, “the Panathenaia had evolved into a kind of recapitulation of the history of democratic Athens” (Shapiro 1994: 128). In the course of time, democratic Athenian society became a “performance culture”, and the sequence of performances of the Great Panathenaia was accompanied by changing political conditions and the input of memorable events steadily in­ creased (Kavoulaki 1999). When setting the dates (in intervals) of the Great Panathenaic festival in perspective and associating them with political events of the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, an historical panorama unfolds, starting in 594 BCE (when Solon was archon in Athens) until 402 BCE when democracy was restored (Phillips 2012: 205 f., 208 f.): 594/3 BCE (Solon is archon in Athens), 590/89—every four years—566/5 (reorganization of the Great Panathenaia by Peisistratos), 562/1 (Peisistratos strategies: war against Megara), 558/7—every four years—546/5 (third, successful attempt at tyranny by Peisistratos), 542/1—every four years—514/3 (assassination of Hipparchos), 510/09 (first Great Panathenaia after the tyranny; Great Panathenaia becomes linked to anti-tyrant sentiments), (508/07— Cleis­ thenes’ tribal reforms), 506/05 (first Great Panathenaia after tribal reforms), 502/01—every four years—490/89 (battle of Marathon), 486/5— every four years—462/1 (reforms of Ephialtes), 458/7, 454/3 (transfer of the Delian League treasure to Athens), 450/49—every four years—438/7 (completion and dedication of Pheidias’ statue of Athena Parthenos at the Great Pana­thenaia), 434/3, 430/29 (plague epidemic at Athens), 426/5—every four years—410/09—every four years—402/01 (first Great Panathenaia of the restored democracy) The Panathenaia were celebrated until 391 CE when “pagan” festivities were forbidden.

The grandeur of the Panathenaia that became one of the most prestigious festivities in all of Greece can partly be explained by the popularity of contests and competitive performances associated with it. Competitiveness was a significant ingredient in Cleisthenes’ new arrangement of the tribal and communal divisions which has been emphasized by Aristotle (Politics 1319b, 19–27) as a kind of “mixing-up” of the population in order to erase encrusted factionalism and rivalry between the ancient tribes in pre-democratic society. Competitions (athletic, musical, dramatic or other) were instrumentalized, by the architects

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of Athenian democracy, to enhance citizens’ solidarity with their city and its democratic governance. “Kleisthenes and his successors, through their creative use of expanded and carefully regulated competitions, achieved a transformation in co-operative social relations between elite and less elite members of the community (…), which came to make a significant contribution to lessening the dangers of stasis arising both from geographical and status divisions.” (Fisher 2011: 183)

If sporting competitions played a pivotal role for the interaction between members of different social groups then these events needed specially designed spaces to accommodate larger crowds of people. The idea was to provide open space for contests similar to the center in all Greek cities—on the Greek mainland, in Magna Graecia in southern Italy and in the colonies around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea—which was the agora serving as a space for conducting business, for convening in political gatherings and for participating in ritual processions. “Lefebvre once characterized the space of the Greek agora as one left physically open so as to allow for the gathering of the citizen body (Lefebvre 1991: 237). … This Classical model of open, unelaborated space can be paralleled in other types of civic space, particularly areas of sporting competition and preparation; even the famous gymnasia of Athens were, for the most part, un-monumentalised park spaces for the majority of the Classical Period (…).” (Scott 2013: 161)

The Agora of Athens was the center of all the activities typical of Greek lifeways under the democracy (map 7). “On any given day, the fifth-century B.C. Athenian Agora was peopled with Athenian adult males attending the democratic assembly; worshipers making offerings at shrines and altars; merchants hawking their wares to a mixed populace of freeborn and slaves, both male and female; young aristocratic men talking and walking with their philosopher mentors; civic officials hurrying to and fro, conveying documents and information to the Council House, the Assembly, and the Archives; bronzeworkers forging metal for armor, utensils, and votive dedications; and citizens consulting the latest news on the ‘bulletin board’ of the Eponymous Heroes Monument. On special festival days, this same space was filled with crowds cheering young male athletes competing in athletic games in honor of the patron goddess Athena, processions of hundreds of the city’s men and women bringing offerings and animal sacrifices to the Akro­polis, or would-be initiates gathering to make the 14-km walk to Eleusis to be inducted into the Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone.” (Barringer 2008: 110)

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Map 7: The Athenian Agora in the fifth century BCE (reproduced with permission from the American School of Classical Studies: Agora Excavations)

Athena as patron of democratic institutions in the Athenian state The Athenians always remained aware of the religious implications of their governmental affairs as an organic whole. Athena was celebrated as the patron of all the major institutions of the Athenian state. According to the mythic tradition, the goddess had founded the Areopagus, the high court of Athens. The National Assembly convened under the patronage of Athena and the elected representatives of the local demes held speeches and made decisions with a mindset that put the goddess in the position to preside over the sessions.

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“The citizen Assembly and the People’s Courts are generally regarded as signature institutions of the Athenian democracy, and their effective functioning is certainly among the most mysterious aspects of Athenian political organization.” (Ober 2008: 161)

The National Assembly (ekklesia) This democratic institution was founded by Solon in 594 BCE. Its elected members were representatives of their local communities (demes), and these were adult male citizens who had served two years in military service. Since the times of Cleisthenes’ reforms (507 BCE) all social groups were represented, including the thetes. Whether the latter group had representatives in the Assembly be­fore the reforms of Cleisthenes is as yet unclear. The number of members of the Assembly ranged from a minimum of 6,000 to more than 8,000. The Assembly was the main decision-making body and it also nominated members of the magistrates (Hansen 1987). Decisions were made according to the principle of majority votes by a show of hands. The agenda of the Assembly was set by the Council. Decisions were recorded in writing, the debates that preceded decision-making were not. Sessions of the Assembly were originally held once a month (during the times of Solon). In the fifth century BCE, after the Persian Wars, the Assembly convened three or four times per month. The elected representatives of the citizens of Athens, the National Assembly, convened on the plateau on the top of a hill, some 500 meters west of the Acro­ polis. The name of this hill is Pnyx, dating from pre-Greek times, and its original meaning might have been “rock with a flat top”. The hill has preserved its name up to the present (map 8). The Greeks learned the name Pnyx from the “native” Athenians, that is the pre-Greek inhabitants of the city. The perseverance of the name form among the Greeks may well be a reflection of the significance that the Pnyx had, as a meeting place, for the native Old Europeans. Since at the time of the Greeks only male citizens could be elected to the Assembly, the hilltop was consequently reserved for men only. The flat hilltop, the original meeting-place for the members of the Assembly, was remodeled in several phases (Forsén and Stanton 1996), until, in the mid fourth century BCE, the round retaining wall created conditions of intervisibility as in the other circular structures of the Athenian democracy. “In the fifth century the people of Athens looked down on their politicians, and saw as a backdrop the Agora spread out beneath. Symbolically, the politician was in a subordinate position vis-à-vis the populace, and the focus of debate was not the individual politician but the needs of the city that lay constantly in view. In the fourth century, all changed: the politician was on a level

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Map 8: The Pnyx and its location in the ancient city of Athens (reproduced with permission from the American School of Classical Studies: Agora Excavations)

with the people, and against the backdrop of rock the people could focus pin his personality. … In the mid fourth century the Pnyx attained its present form. More of the hill-side was cut away, the retaining wall moved outwards, and a harmonious fan-shaped auditorium was created, symmetrical save for the sanctuary of Zeus on the left-hand rock face. The speaker stood on a high rock podium in front of a semi-hewn square of rock of uncertain purpose. An axial line passes from the single central entrance-way through the speaker and the unhewn rock to a huge altar placed on the crest of the slope above, used for sacrifice at the start of an assembly.” (Wiles 1997: 35 f.)

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And yet, also the women of Athens, convened at the Pnyx, but the place and the function of the women’s meeting differed fundamentally from those of the men. The women convened at the foot of the Pnyx to celebrate the Thesmophoria and the Stenia which formed part of the cult of the goddess Demeter. These ritual activities took place in autumn (in the month of Pyanopsion, corresponding to September/ October). The participation in these festive events was exclusive for women. The Pnyx was the only place in the Athenian state where both men and women performed in public: the men on the hilltop taking care of communal-political affairs, and the women at the foot of the hill engaging in earthbound rituals with their roots in the pre-Greek past. During the classical era, one could see the focal points of Athenian life from the top of the Pnyx: the Agora in the northeast, the Areopagus (seat of the Supreme Court) at a short distance to the northeast, the Acropolis with the monumental Parthenon temple in the east and the theater of Dionysus on the southeastern slope of the Acropolis. All the mentioned sites have their own pre-Greek history, except for the theater. Theaters as a genre of architecture made their appearance in Greek times, starting in the sixth century BCE, while theatrical performances had a long tradition, as a part of religious processions, in the pre-Greek era. The symbiotic inter­play between drama and ritual can be reconstructed for a world where the early Greeks who mixed with the Old Europeans became interested in their ritual traditions. Processions in the archaic period in which both men and women participated were more comprehensive than later in the classical era, when theatrical performances were restricted to men only. In ancient Athens, processions ended on the Agora which played an important role as a political meeting place and cult center. Theatrical performances, in the archaic period, marked the final phase of processions, and it is important to perceive “the position of the ‘theatre’ as end-point of a procession. The procession was the core of the rural Dionysia, and theatrical performances an addendum” (Wiles 1997: 26). The Council (boule) Originally, the boule had 400 members (according to Solon’s reforms). Later, the number was set at 500. “According to Cleisthenes’ plan, the new Council of 500 was to be made up of ten fifty-man delegations—one delegation from each of the ten newly created tribes. The members of each tribal delegation were in turn selected at deme level, serving for one year. Each year every deme sent forward a certain number of councilors, based on the deme’s citizen population.” (Ober 2008: 143)

In the fifth century BCE, the boule functioned as the main administrative and judicial body of Athenian democracy (Rhodes 1972). The members of the boule

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(bouleutai) supervised the finances of the Athenian state and examined officials before and after their terms in office. The leading body of the boule was comprised of 50 men, selected from the overall 500. The 50 men who presided over the Council were called prytaneis (a pre-Greek term). The seat of the boule was on the western periphery of the Agora. The Council maintained an archive where the written recordings (i. e. laws and regulations, decisions of the Assembly and of law suits) were kept. This was the older building of the Council (bouleuterion I) which was dedicated to the Great Mother (Megale Meter), Rhea, the mother of the gods. The archive building was known as the Metroon. The High Court of Appeal (areopagos) At some distance from the Acropolis in the north-west rises a rock formation that became the seat of the Athenian High Court of Appeal. The Greek name areopagos or Areios Pagos literally means “Rock of Ares”. According to Greek myth, Ares the god of war, had to stand trial on this rock for the murder of Alir­ ro­thios, Poseidon’s son. The institution of the areopagos itself is linked to Athe­na who organized the court and presided over it. One of the episodes of the Iliad is associated with the areopagos, the story of Orestes which is best known from the trilogy Oresteia, Aeschylus’ tragedy (Agamemnon, the Choephori or Liba­tionBearers and Eumenides) that was performed first in 458 BCE (Graf 1993: 157 ff.). After returning home from Troy, Agamemnon, Orestes’ father, is murdered by his wife, Klytaimnestra, and her lover, Aigisthos. Inspired by the god Apollo Orestes kills his mother and the murderous intruder into the family. Orestes is tried at the areopagos. When the judges cannot reach a majority verdict Athena gives her vote, which is a vote of acquittal (Dihle 1994: 102 ff.). In Greek juridical terminology the saying “the vote of Athena” was used to refer to a vote of acquittal. This was the custom in the voting process of the Court (heliaia). Membership in the areopagos was restricted to persons who had held high offices and, after retiring, could be elected to serve, as judges, in the areopagos. The court was comprised of nine members who were called archons (archontes). Solon, himself an archon, was given authority by the other members of the areopagos to carry out the first democratic reforms in the city in 594 BCE. Judging from these conditions of membership and the association with the goddess Athena it is reasonable to assume that the areopagos was the meeting-place for the council of the elders of pre-Greek Athens. While, in the network of democratic institutions devised by Solon, the areopagos held a top-level supervising function, its role changed with the introduction of Cleisthenes’ reforms. The supervising function was assigned to the Council (boule) and the areopagos retained its function as high court.

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Plato, the hero Hekademos and Athena: mythical considerations to choose a place for his Academy Plato is a man who cherishes tradition. This implies reverence for divinities and supernatural beings, such as the muses. In light of such inclination toward the spiritual side of life, it is not surprising to learn that, in his dialogue Republic, Plato makes reference to the gods more than a hundred times. “Plato’s account of the gods is firmly rooted in tradition. Moreover, Plato sets all kinds of activities, as well as the characters of persons, under the auspices of the gods. Philosophy itself is described as the best cult of the Muses (Phaedo 60e–61a), and, famously, as the initiation into the rites of Eros (Symposium, 210a).” (van Riel 2013: 57)

From Plato’s dialogues, a genuine reverence for divinities irradiates. Judging from the ways Plato refers to the gods in his dialogues, this philosopher shows a preference for female divinities, in particular for those figures whose traditions are ancient and date from pre-Greek times: Athena, Artemis, Demeter, Hera, Hestia. Plato’s views on the role of divinities regarding the fate of mortals and their social order form a wholeness that can be subsumed under the heading of “Plato’s theology”. As a philosopher, Plato’s assessment of the gods’ activities resembles the descriptions given in Greek poetic literature. “… we find in Plato a view on the gods that is closely akin to the doctrines of the tragic poets and, for that matter, of traditional religious belief. The gods, in this traditional view, are individually existing beings who have a certain impact on the world, but who are subject to forces that govern the universe. Gods cannot alter fate or change necessity.” (van Riel 2013: 66)

The abundance of female figures in the Greek pantheon bears witness to the cultural heritage of the Old European inhabitants of Greece. The Greeks were surrounded, in their mythology, by figures of the ancients, and, in their daily lives, they worshipped goddesses whose cults they had adopted from their predecessors. For the study of Greek mythology and religion it is irrelevant whether the ancient Greeks were conscious of the scale of the pre-Greek impact on their mythopoetic world or not. What is relevant is the significance of myths associated with female divinities that can be identified by modern scholarship as indicators of ancient culture contacts involving contrasting worldviews. And among the ancient philosophers it is Plato who, with greater scrutiny than others, selects those myths that contain knowledge of the ancients and teachings that were transferred in the intergenerational chain. Plato expresses his veneration for Athena in several of his dialogues: Alcibiades 2 (150d), Cratylus (404b, d, 407a–b, 418a), Critias (109b–c, 112b), Euthydemus

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(302d), Greater Hippias (290b), Laws (626d, 745b, 796b–c, 806b, 848d, 920d–e, 921c), Menexenus (237c), Protagoras (321c-e), Republic (327a, 378c, 379e), States­ man (274c), Symposium (197b), Timaeus (21b, e, 23d, 24b-d, 26e); (see Ap­pen­ dix II). Plato celebrates Athena as the guardian of wisdom and the patron of philosophy. In his dialogue Cratylus, Plato engages in a folk linguistic exploration of Athe­ na’s name and qualities. It is noteworthy that the stress is on the goddess’ intellectual capacities (407b). Plato Cratylus 406d (Loeb) Hermogenes: Still there remains Athena, whom you, Socrates, as an Athenian, will surely not forget; there are also Hephaestus and Ares. Socrates: I am not likely to forget them. Hermogenes: No, indeed. Socrates: There is no difficulty in explaining the other appellation of Athena. Hermogenes: What other appellation? Socrates: We call her Pallas, you know. Hermogenes: Yes, of course. Socrates: Those of us are right, I fancy, [406e] who think this name is derived from armed dances. For the elevation of oneself or anything else above the earth, or by the use of the hands, we call shaking (pallein), or dancing. Hermogenes: Yes, certainly. Socrates: So that is the reason she is called Pallas. Plato Cratylus 407a and 407b(Loeb) Hermogenes: And rightly called so. But what can you say of her other name? Socrates: You mean Athena? Hermogenes: Yes. Socrates: That is a graver matter, my friend. The ancients seem to have had the same belief about Athena as the interpreters of Homer have now; [407b] for most of these, in commenting on the poet, say that he represents Athena as mind (nous) and intellect (dianoia); and the maker of names seems to have had a similar conception of her, and indeed he gives her the still higher title of “divine intelligence” (hê theou noêsis), seeming to say: This is she who has the mind of God (Theonoa); here he used the alpha as a dialectical variety for eta, and dropped out the iota and sigma. But perhaps, however, the name Theonoe may mean ‘she who knows divine things’ (Theia noousa) better than others.

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To a decisive extent, the awareness of Athena as the patron of olive cultivation determined Plato’s choice for a patch of land to establish his Academy. When Plato looked out for a site that would be suitable to establish a school of learning he carefully chose a place that was imbued with sacredness reminiscent of the great patron of Athens, the goddess Athena. The future site of the Academy was located north of the city, outside the city walls, at a distance of about 1.5 km from the Dipylon gates. In the Greeks’ cultural memory, there were special associations by which this place was singled out. One was mythical, the other spiritual: The mythical association The old name of the area was Hekademeia, simplified in the classical era to Aka­demia. According to local legend, the site was named after an Athenian hero, called Hekademos (Akademos). In a mythical story, Akademos is linked to Theseus then king of Athens. When the king was about 50 years of age he became overwhelmed by the beauty of Helen who was still a child, aged 12. Helen was abducted twice, as a child of 12 by Theseus and, later, abducted by Paris when grown up as the beautiful woman we know from the Trojan myth. Helen had twin brothers, Castor and Pollux. They got enraged about the abduction and set out to liberate her sister. Before the brothers started their attack on Athens Akademos disclosed the place where Theseus had hidden Helen which was Aphidnae. The Athenians venerated Akademos as savior of their city. Outside the city walls (in northwestern direction) was a piece of land owned by Akademos. This was called Hekademeia. A shrine was erected there in his honor and, as legend has it, the hero was buried on his land (Howatson 2011: 1). The spiritual association The place was also closely associated with Athena. Archaeological excavations have brought to light the remains of a shrine dedicated to the goddess and dating to the Bronze Age. The linkage to Athena was manifested in a sacred grove where olive trees reminded visitors of the goddess’ presence. The sacredness of the site was perceived and acknowledged by the Athenians, and also by foreigners. When the Spartans invaded Attica, they did not destroy “the groves of Academe” (Plutarch, Life of Theseus xxxii). When Plato, around 387 BCE, tried to negotiate with the officials in the Athe­nian administration about the found­ing of a school at Hekademeia, he was confronted with juridical problems. “… Plato acquired a plot of land and a building that would remain the secure property of the school, and he gave to the school itself a clear juridical status. … Because the laws of the Athenian state were far from foreseeing the

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possibility of the kind of community which Plato had in mind to construct, the philosopher chose the unique way that at the time would allow him the legal execution of his plan: he had his Academy recognized as a community consecrated to the worship of the Muses and Apollo, the head of the Muses. A community of study that assembled to cultivate the highest knowledge would rightly be thought of by the Greeks and, in particular, by the Athenians under the general conception of a community sacred to the worship of the Muses. In this way something truly novel and of incalculable importance arose in the history of Greece and the West.” (Reale 1985: 59)

For Plato, spirituality was inseparable from the responsibility of policy for a community and he acted according to his convictions. After he had opened his academy, he naturally accepted women in accordance with his understanding of the law. In his political utopia of an ideal society, women are equal to men, that is, they have equal rights and can take on tasks in all domains of public life just like men. Revolutionary was Plato’s demand to grant a woman the right to hold high offices in the state administration (e. g. to hold the office of a guardian of the rule of law). The prerequisite for this was that candidates for office became extensively familiar with the applicable legal norms with the traditional customary law. (Haarmann and LaBGC, 2019) As official “owners” of Hekademeia, the Muses were registered, and the building that would serve as their home was called the mouseion. And yet, the furniture of the interior and the donations made to the Muses were considered property of the school that operated in the mouseion (Caruso 2013: 34). Many Athenians would not know what kind of a school Plato established at Hekademeia and they might have thought that Plato and his pupils were indeed a congregation of worshipers of the Muses. The religious aspect of the community might have been exaggerated by early scholars (e. g. Wilamowitz 1881), but the juridical status of the sacred property was retained as long as the Academy sojourned at this site, that is from its foundation in 387 BCE until its activities came to an abrupt end (Dillon 2003, Nails 2009). Philo of Larissa was the last head of the Academy at the old place. He fled to Italy and died in 83 BCE. That was a time of turmoil when Rome tightened its grip on Greek territories. In 86 BCE, Athens was besieged by Lucius Cornelius Sulla’s army. He had the trees in the sacred grove surrounding the mouseion cut down and the Academy building destroyed. The school was not rebuilt but re­mained deserted. Its fame, however, outlived its existence. “That Platonic institution proved to be a living community which, in more than one respect, deserved to be called, if not the first university in the world, …, at least a predecessor which in some way prefigured what would later be called a university” (Reale 1985: 59).

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10 Heroes and their role as founders of mythical lineages

Early Greek historiography had to rely on what was purported, in the mythical tradition, about the beginnings of history in Greece. To some extent, “the Greeks distinguished between myth and history, but not as categorically as we do—they rather regarded them as ancient and recent past” (Grethlein 2010: 110). The ancient past in Herodotus, for example, is identified as the “mythic plupast” (Baragwanath 2012). The cult of heroes is again and again represented in the mythical accounts of heroic figures which served the purpose of the Greeks’ collective self-awareness and the definition of Greekness. “Down to the end of antiquity, it was self-evident to most Greeks that heroic myth, if not divine myth as well, related the events of their past, and that this historical reality could be detected in myths or reconstructed from them. From the late sixth century onward, the Greeks tended increasingly to regard divine myths as veiled representations of physical processes no less real (…).” (Graf 1996: 121)

The problem of continuity: How to describe events since Deukalion and the Great Flood? The mythical narrative about Deukalion and the Great Flood had the value of a foundational myth that claimed to convey the truth, and there was no way for the ancients to verify or falsify its contents. Deukalion has been compared to the Sumerian Atrahasis and to the biblical Noah, both survivors of a great flood and the ancestors of a new race of humankind. According to Greek myth, Deukalion was the son of Prometheus and first ruler of the mythical kingdom of Phthia in Thessaly. His wife was Pyrrha, daughter of Pandora.

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The location of the mythical first kingdom in northern Greece may be a distant reflection in the Greeks’ cultural memory who were aware that their ancestors had arrived from the north. There is something mysterious and fascinating about the association of the flood story with the region of Thessaly. The Thessalian plain saw the earliest agrarian settlements, and geologists do not exclude the possibility that this plain might have been flooded as a consequence of sea-level rise of the Aegean the water reservoir of which was filled with melt-water at the end of the last Ice Age. If the flood myth featuring Deukalion as protagonist is a distant reflection of a possible flood event in Thessaly, this would be an astounding long-term transmission of items of cultural memory in the intergenerational chain among people in the region (see Haarmann 2011: 22 ff.). Such an assumption of long-term memory does not seem far-fetched in the light of recent findings in the fields of geology, archaeology and ethnographic folklore. Flood myths are found in the narrative traditions of Mesopotamia, the Near East and southeastern Europe. The Greek flood myth is akin to other flood myths and the parallelisms found in the stories are striking. The basic motif of the flood ”could fit several locations both in Greece and Turkey, but the mother of the legend could have been super floods surging either way between the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean” (Oppenheimer 1998: 261). For a very long time, the origins of the Black Sea were shrouded in mystery. During the past hundred years, the historical conditions of this large water basin have been studied by natural scientists who made sensational discoveries near the turn of the twenty-first century. The Black Sea was not always connected with the Marmara Sea and—via the Dardanelles—with the Aegean Sea. There is consensus among archaeologists and geologists about the fact that a land bridge once existed between Europe and western Asia. That was in prehistoric times, during the early transitional phase from hunting and gathering to agriculture. The first settlers who brought the “agrarian package” to Europe most probably did not have to cross the Aegean but they arrived moving over the land bridge. What is still debated, however, is the question whether the land bridge broke as the result of a catastrophic flood or in the course of gradual flooding (see Marler and Haarmann 2006 and Yanko-Hom­ bach et al. 2006 for different positions). According to recent findings, the most dramatic geological events experienced in the regions around the Black Sea were two massive inundations which occurred at different times, with movements in different directions. These flood events are named after those who discovered them:

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Chepalyga’s flood The first was an inundation that took place between c. 15–13,000 BCE (“Che­ palyga’s flood”). The spillwater of this early flood was directed from the east (Caspian depression) via the Manych-Kerch spillway (900 km long, 10–50 km wide) to the Black Sea depression in the west (Chepalyga 2005). This inundation is evidenced by the remains of fresh-water fauna in the sediments on the shallow shelf of the Black Sea. Ryan’s flood The second was the inundation of c. 6700 BCE (”Ryan’s flood”) in which the spillway was directed from the south (Mediterranean Sea) via the Dardanelles and the Marmara Sea north to the Black Sea (Ryan and Pitman 1998). These massive inundations caused long-term repercussions in the ecology of the regions around the Black Sea (i. e. in the circum-Pontic area), and the resulting environmental changes had an impact on the human ecology of the populations that lived in and near the area where flooding occurred as well as in a larger geographical region. From the perspective of archaeology and cultural history, the Pontic area can be divided into a southern and a northern zone. The northern Pontic zone is the area stretching from the lower Dnieper basin eastward to the northeastern coast facing the Caucasus. This region includes the Caspian depression and borders on the basin of the Middle Volga. The southern Pontic zone refers to the cultural area along the southern coast of the Black Sea extending to the west as far as the lower Danube basin. The southern Pontic zone includes the Balkan peninsula and Greece on the European side as well as Anatolia on the Asian side. The eastern part of Anatolia borders on the Caucasus as its geographical outlier. The easternmost part of the southern Pontic zone opens to the historical landscape of Mesopotamia. Within the wider region, there has been cultural interaction, since prehistoric times, between the West (Europe and western Anatolia) and the East (southern Caucasus region and Mesopotamia). In a simplified way one can say that Chepalyga’s flood was an arbiter of the formation of Mesolithic cultures in the northern Pontic zone while Ryan’s flood contributed to an acceleration of the process of Neolithization (that is to the spread of agrarian lifeways) in the southern Pontic area. The geological discovery in the 1990s of the Black Sea flood—“the event that changed history” (Ryan and Pitman 1998)—has spurred a lively debate about the changing ecological conditions in the eastern Mediterranean region. These findings which continue to accumulate challenge traditional patterns of research on Old World civilizations. How did the flooding of the prehistoric freshwater Euxine Lake and the extension of its coastline to the present size affect the

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surrounding environment, and what was the human response to the ecological changes that occurred? Ryan and Pitman (1998) initially dated the catastrophe to c. 5600 BCE. In the light of new geological evidence, the date had to be revised to a time frame between c. 6700 and c. 6400 BCE, and the new date was first announced by Ryan in a personal communication to Harald Haarmann, co-author of the present study, on the occasion of a conference in Italy in June of 2002. A crucial issue in connection with the flood hypothesis is the change in salinity of the waters connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The dating of the flood is intrinsically associated with the measurement of changes from a state of fresh water in the prehistoric Euxine Lake to the diagnostic value for global seawater in the newly emerged Black Sea (Ryan et al. 2003). The new timeframe corroborates the sensational insight that the process of Neo­ lithization in the southern Pontic zone, especially in Southeastern Europe, accelerated around the mid-seventh millennium BCE. A period of great ecological change began with the warming of the climate toward the end of the last Ice Age, eventually causing a sea-level rise from melting ice in the Mediterranean and, at the same time, a desiccation of the Pontic area. How can these processes which stood in opposition to one another be explained? As a result of the melting of the continental glacier after 11,000 BCE, several large fresh water lakes emerged, most of them in the north. Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega are the remnants of these ancient lakes. In the south, the Caspian Sea, Lake Aral and the precursor of the Black Sea (New Euxine Lake) were formed. The water reservoir in these lakes steadily increased with the flow of water melting from the ice-shield. The prehistoric Danube, Dnieper and the Don rivers provided most of the water for the great southern lake. At that time, the Marmara Sea was not connected to the Aegean Sea, because the passage through the Dardanelles had not yet opened. Most probably, there were other smaller lakes in the area which made the impression of a “lake district” (Yakar 2011: 243). Around 9,400 BCE, a second meltwater spike began. The waters which were then released from the melting ice-shield, however, cascaded into the Caspian Sea, into Lake Aral and accumulated in the northern great lakes, but did not reach the Euxine Lake. The waters of the second spike did not flow south because the level of the earth’s crust south of the former glacier lay higher than the land that had been pressed down under the mass of ice. The meltwater pooled in this depression then flowed west into the North Sea and east into the Caspian Sea and Lake Aral. As a result, the Euxine Lake steadily evaporated. Toward the end of the tenth millennium BCE, the level of the Euxine Lake had dropped below the level of the external ocean. Global warming after the Ice Age was the decisive factor for the rise of sea-level in the great oceans and, particularly, in the Mediterranean Sea. By c. 6700 BCE, the difference between the level

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of the Euxine Lake and that of the Marmara Sea was about 70 meters. At that time, the absolute level of the Euxine Lake was 85 meters below the present-day sea level which itself lay about 15 meters lower than it is today (William Ryan, personal communication). It was only a matter of time before the collected mass of ocean water would break through the Bosporus Strait. The flooding of the Black Sea basin may have been triggered by a major earthquake combined with volcanic activity in the Aegean (such as the one that ripped the island of Thera apart c. 1610 BCE), or by a series of major earthquakes like the ones that shook northwestern Turkey in the summer and autumn of 1999. Recall that the passage that links the Mediterranean with the Black Sea (i. e. the Dardanelles and the Marmara Sea) is the area of the world with most seismic activity during the last 30 ky (i. e. 30,000 years). Once the land bridge separating the ancient Sea of Marmara and the Euxine Lake had broken under the pressure of the high-level water masses in the south, marine water began to cascade into the fresh water reservoir below ”traveling at a speed of up to fifty miles per hour through the narrowest constrictions. The water rushing into the Black Sea would have raised its surface half a foot per day” (Ryan and Pitman 1998: 160). The cascading of marine water through the Bos­porus Strait into the former Euxine Lake continued for years. As a result of the flooding, the surface of the Euxine Lake widened and its waters became interconnected with the tides and flows of the ocean waters further south. Apart from the geological evidence relating to the event of the Black Sea Flood that has been produced since the end of the twentieth century, there is the multi-faceted mythopoetic tradition of flood myths that have originated in the cultures around the Aegean and the Black Sea. These flood myths vary in their contents from one culture to another. Myths which record events of prehistory do not contain any exact information about what occurred and how things happened. Myths nevertheless hold information that is encapsulated in their core and which reflect to varying degrees of how the flood event impacted the cultural memory of the people who experienced it and of how such information was transmitted to subsequent generations. Eventually, the collective memory of innumerable generations crystallized in the moulds of flood myths that have come down to us. The Black Sea Flood is central for the understanding of how the agrarian package reached Europe, and the mythic tradition relating to that traumatic event informs us about the everlasting traces that it left in people´s cultural memory. Flood myths form an integral part of how the past is experienced and events are reworked in the course of time. This makes flood myths part of the package of cultural knowledge which people carry in their minds and which is transmitted from one generation to the next.

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If the European and Mesopotamian traditions of flood myths have common roots, there is a high probability that those roots are linked to the natural disaster that happened c. 6700 BCE. This would represent an incredibly long trajectory of cultural history comprising many millennia in which the story of the flood was imprinted in people’ memories from one generation to the next. The narrative potential of that event has assumed an intercultural magnitude with repercussions even in regions where there have been no actual floods. An example of this is the pre-Christian sea-flood motif found in certain carols and dirges of Romanian folklore. It is noteworthy that, in a seemingly paradoxical way, the farther from the sea such narratives about the flood are recorded, the more pregnant is their sea symbolism (Poruciuc 2006). The basic theme of all flood myths that have been written down stems from earlier narrative versions. The oral preservation of mythic stories is a collective process in which items of memory are typified. The memory of concrete events are also stereotyped in this way. What we find in the flood myths is not an accurate account of the Great Flood of c. 6700 BCE but a typified construct of the event which lives on in manifold variations. In recent years, folkloristic research has produced findings that testify to the role of variation as a major arbiter in all thematic issues of the oral and written traditions (Honko 2000). Variation is relevant not only in an intercultural comparative framework of thematic settings in myths but also in the concrete recording of an individual text (oral or written) in the horizon of time. It is practically impossible to reconstruct, from existing oral versions of a myth, a proto-version dating to prehistoric times. Therefore, we will never know with any certainty which were the first thematic and local variations of the flood myth that emerged after the Great Flood because we have to assume that variations were lost in the transition from one generation of storytellers to the next, even from one performance to the next. And yet, myths originate from stories that assume a typified form. According to the Greek flood myth, Deukalion and Pyrrha were representatives of the Bronze Race of human beings, successors of the races of Silver and Gold (Gantz 1993: 164 ff., 806). The people of the Bronze Race were warlike and had unpleasant habits, except for Deukalion and Pyrrha. Zeus decided to destroy the Bronze people by sending a flood and to rescue the ruler of Phthia and his wife. Zeus asked Deukalion to build an ark and save himself and his spouse. When the earth was flooded Deukalion and Pyrrha made their way to Mount Parnassos where they waited for the waters to recede. After consulting the oracle at Delphi as to how they should repopulate the earth, they were advised to cast stones (symbolically the bones of Mother Earth) from which sprang men and women. To the Greeks of antiquity, this event marked the beginning of history, and historiographers who recorded the history of humankind referred to Deukalion and the Great Flood as an item of truth that was not questioned.

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Figure 12: The mythical genealogy of Deukalion and his lineage (Gantz 1993: 806)

Legends surrounding the two figures that survived the flood abound in antique literature. There are accounts in the works of Hesiod, Pindar, Epicharmos, Strabo, Apollodorus, Ovid and others. “… Deukalion and Pyrrha themselves do not account for all the figures that populate the myths, but they do play a major part in the beginnings of the human race. The one other legend in this regard, that the gods created men from earth and fire and called on Epimetheus to distribute to these and other creatures their various qualities (with Prometheus then stealing fire to compensate for the failure to properly equip mortals), survives first in Plato (Prot 320–21), and may well be largely that philosopher’s own invention, if he did not find it in one of the Presocratics.” (Gantz 1993: 166)

The beginnings of Hellenism were associated with the lineage that Deukalion and Pyrrha established (figure 12). The most famous of their children was Hellen, the eponymous (i. e. name-giving) king of the early Greeks (i. e. Hellenes). In some accounts, Zeus is mentioned as the father of Hellen which would point to divine and, therefore, most noble descent for the Greek ethnos (Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.7.2) The myth of Deukalion and the Great Flood is significant for understanding the relationship between the tradition of mythical narration and early historiog­ raphy. For the ancient Greeks, the flood story associated with Deukalion was as historical as was the Trojan War (as described in Homer’s Iliad) or the voy-

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age of the Argonauts. Testimony of this intrinsic relationship can be found in extant mon­uments of Greek antiquity, in the composition of the text of the Parian Chronicle (Parian Marble, respectively), an inscribed marble stele from the island of Paros. The extant fragments of that stele are among the exhibits in the Ash­molean Museum at Oxford. The stele was most probably erected in 264 BCE or 263 BCE. The text on the stele lists events from the year 1582 BCE to 299 BCE. The first date given in the chronicle is that for Deukalion’s flood (i. e. 1582 BCE). In the chronicle, much attention is given to events of the Heroic Age which remain outside the realm of certifiable historical events. It has been observed that “the Parian Marble uses chronological specificity as a guarantee of truth” (Green 2007: 30). It is noteworthy that the basic attitude by which myth and history are intertwined had remained popular in the Hellenistic era, that is at the time of the erection of the stele, and this attitude may be paraphrased in the following way: “the mythic past was rooted in historical time, its legends treated as fact, its heroic protagonists seen as links between the ‘age of origins’ and the mortal, everyday world that succeeded it” (Green 2007: 14). Social interaction in ancient Greek society was imbued with mythical conceptualizations, and these penetrated all levels, from the private sphere to political life. Mythical beliefs and popular religious sentiments were prone to be manipulated for political ends and, in fact, they were. A famous instance of manipulation is reported by Herodotus who describes the return of Peisistratos to power in the 550s BCE, organizing for himself an escort by Athena herself. “In the village of Paeania there was a woman called Phya, who combined stature—she was almost 6 feet tall—with great beauty. The conspirators [Megacles and Lykurgus who backed up Peisistratos] dressed her up in full armor; then they put her in a chariot, showed her how to hold a striking pose and drove her off to town. Runners were sent ahead, serving her as heralds and broadcasting all the way to Athens a carefully scripted proclamation. ‘Athenians,’ they cried out, once they had arrived in the city, ‘take Peisistratus back into your hearts! For Athena herself has chosen to honor him above all mankind! Why, she is even now escorting him from exile back to her very own acropolis!’ Such was the report they delivered all over town—and straightaway the news began to spread like wildfire back out into the countryside that Athena was bringing Peisistratus back home. Meanwhile, in the city itself, men were so convinced that Phya was indeed the goddess that they received her with their prayers, and Peisistratus with open arms.” (Histories 1.60.2–5)

The way in which Herodotus introduces this account illustrates that he himself is incredulous and ridicules the Athenians for letting themselves be lured into becoming the victims of a treacherous trick. And yet, there might have been a

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factor at work that could explain why the Athenian populace could be tricked. This factor is the prevalence of a mythical mentality which governed the Greek mind, and not only in Athens of the pre-democratic era (Connor 1987: 41 ff.)

The iconicity of Aeneas and the popularity of mythical genealogies—The intercultural network of Greek-Roman relations Explaining the infrastructure of any given society, historical or recent, as kinbased is an axiom of modern anthropology. There have been attempts to invalidate this fundamental insight but visions of the collective social body—extending beyond kinship—that one finds in some traditional societies testify not so much to a marginalization of kinship relations as to an awareness of a wider range of social relations beyond them. Consanguinity is an elementary criterion, according to which kinship relations are identified by members in a society, and social bonds established through blood ties are the most realistic way to relate to kinship. The social ties of kinship were at the core of Greek society although the Greeks of antiquity had a different idea about what a family is and who belongs to this social network. “Within the framework of tribes (phyla) and clans (gene) Greek society was essentially based on the family, on the oikos (or household), which was composed of a combination of free people and slaves. The family was under the power of the head of the household, and it was a tightly bound unit with complex hierarchical relationships. The term oikos covered not only the members of the nuclear family, but the whole physical and economic unit, including property, slaves and land, and there was strict limitation of succession by inheritance, … The oikos was also a religious unit, which placed particular emphasis on maintaining the tombs of the family’s ancestors.” (Dillon and Garland 1994: 373)

Kinship has its specific infrastructure which extends from the present into the past since the ancestors directed the ways in which social relations would unfold in subsequent generations. Looking back into the past means recording the history of kinship in genealogies. In traditional (= illiterate) cultures genealogies crystallize around stories about the ancestors and their doings. In literate cultures, there is the additional resource of genealogies relying on written doc­uments, in as far as these contain information about earlier generations. It should be pointed out that literacy in a society does not automatically give rise to patterns of re­cording genealogies that would differ fundamentally from those in societies which lack literacy. The lessons from cultural history teach us that, in literate socie­ties as well as illiterate ones, story-telling remains a firm part of recording

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ge­ne­alogies. This is true for all ancient civilizations: Old Europe, ancient Egypt, Mes­opotamia, China and those of pre-Columbian America (Haar­mann 2020a). Narration does not stop where documentary evidence for the factual identity of ancestors becomes available. Narration reaches much deeper into the past and it opens a portal to the mythical dimension of kinship. Ancestors are not simply remembered as human beings in the framework of their epoch, but stories are told about them as founding heroes, and these stories may well contain elements, woven into a narrative, that may or may not correspond to the realities of the ancestor’s life. In such narratives we find the stuff that shapes cultural me­mory and which does not necessarily reflect accurate historical truth. The human memory is a mysterious device that may render the doings of an ancestor as heroic although there may not be anything heroic about that particular person from the standpoint of outsiders. Personal memory is prone to shape realities according to the wishful thinking of the one who remembers, and this may produce a distorted view of historical realities. Wishful thinking may transcend any boundary set by reality. Such a process of extreme transcendence is reflected in mythical genealogies of the kind we find in many cultures, historical and recent. An example of this is the attitude of Japanese people vis-à-vis the personality of the emperor. The godlike status of the Tenno, the Japanese emperor, was abandoned in 1945, as a consequence of Japan’s defeat in World War II and the opening of the country’s public life to American influence. And yet, in the minds of many Japanese, the image of the emperor is still exalted and the imperial lineage is still perceived as being linked to Japanese mythology. According to the Japanese mythical tradition (recorded in the Kojiki of the early eighth century CE) the Japanese imperial lineage was founded by Ninigi, grandchild of the sun goddess Amaterasu (Schultz and Yamamoto 1993). A Westerner might be inclined to evaluate the Japanese foundation myth of the imperial lineage and its persistence in the minds of today’s Japanese people as an irrational reflection of Asian people’s ad­ herence to mythical-magical traditions. And yet, the western world also knows instances of the crafting of mythical genealogies, with long-term repercussions into subsequent periods, and even up to the present. In the quest for noble origins to one’s lineage, gods and heroes enjoy special appreciation as the protagonists in mythical genealogies, aristocratic and royal, and such extended genealogies were not only popular among members of the elite in societies of antiquity and the Middle Ages. The pursuit of noble origins in the mythical past has persisted into the New Era. One of the most popular mythical genealogies is the myth of Aeneas. The imagination of a lineage related to the hero Aeneas as ancestor had a remarkable impact on European royalty via various cultural links.

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Originally, the myth of origins related to Aeneas was celebrated by the Etrus­cans. The Romans appropriated the Etruscan tradition and claimed that they were the descendants of Aeneas, the last Trojan to leave the burning city. According to myth, Aeneas is of divine descent, being conceived during a liaison between the goddess Aphrodite and a mortal. After the fall of his native Troy, Aeneas was entrusted with a divine mission to lay the foundations for civilization and statehood in Italy. On his journey to Italy, Aeneas enjoyed the hospitality of the Carthaginians, whose queen Elissa-Dido fell in love with the hero and asked him to stay in Carthage. But Aeneas adhered to his mission, and the desperate Dido committed suicide by throwing herself into a ritual fire. “Behind this myth of ElissaDido perishing amid the flames, we can see the outlines of the religious practice of self-sacrifice which a Phoenician king or queen was obliged to carry out in a grave crisis [...]” (Lancel 1995: 24). In the belief system of the Romans, heroic descent played a more important role than aboriginality. Among the Romans and other Italic tribes, aboriginality assumed a quality which differed markedly from its role in the identity of the Athenians. The Athenians celebrated autochthony as a noble asset to their mythical descent (see chapter 3). The image of aboriginality was different, though, among the Italic tribes (see Capuis 1993: 26 ff. on the Veneti). To the Romans, this concept carried various connotations connected with a barbarian way of life. It had associations that are not dissimilar to the concept of primitiveness among European colonialists in the age of imperialism. In order to accentuate the prestige of their own descent, the Romans claimed that they were not indigenous, but the Etruscans, who they considered less valorous, were indigenous. Thus, the political ideology of the Roman myth of origin emerged in the context of sociocultural rivalry with the Etruscans (Sammartano 2012: 50 ff.). According to Roman myth and literary rhetoric, the legitimation of the Roman state lay in the fact that the migrant hero Aeneas had followed his destiny and settled down in Latium. Latium had remained under Etruscan supremacy into the fifth century BCE. Lavinium (Laurentum) was the main religious center in Latium. The primary mythical symbol of heroic origin for the Etruscans was a tumulus grave at Lavinium which since the sixth century BCE had been widely believed to be the grave of Aeneas. After the Romans had established their supremacy in Latium, they appropriated the Trojan myth for themselves, and Lavinium’s fame continued in Roman form. As with the Athenians, the Roman myth of origin assumed political significance in times of war, such as the war with Carthage. The first literary version of the Aeneas myth (Bellum poenicum) was composed by Gnaeus Naevius toward the end of the Second Punic War (218–201 BCE). In the second century BCE, Quintus Ennius composed his epic about the history

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of Rome (Annales). Heroic ancestry and Aeneas’s founding of kingship in Italy are the themes of the first three books. Ennius has been referred to as the Roman Homer because he deliberately tried to follow the Greek epic tradition. Ennius’s work remained influential for one and a half centuries before it was surpassed by Vergil’s Aeneid, which the poet worked on for twelve years prior to his death in 19 BCE. This masterpiece of Latin poetry has remained a thematic source of literary influence ever since, and its influence has extended far beyond antiquity. This work became a central element in Roman national pride. Julius Caesar, who declared himself a descendant of Aeneas, established the imperial cult for the worship of the Julio-Claudian gens. Augustus elevated this to a fully-fledged ancestral cult. Indeed, the idea of divine ancestry stemming from Aeneas was attractive enough to last beyond the Julio-Claudian gens. “Although the Aeneadae died out with Nero, the last of the Julio-Claudians who chanted a Trojan threnody as Rome burned, his Flavian successors set the pattern for the future by appropriating the Trojan ancestry. Whatever form the genealogies took in the following centuries—and they were updated to ac­com­modate Constantine, Theodosius, Charlemagne, and each subsequent em­peror of Rome—one factor remained constant to the genre: the Trojan descent.” (Tanner 1993: 69)

Prudentius (who died after 405 CE) hailed Theodosius as the representative of the reign of God, thereby extending the concept of mythic descent (as previously employed by Virgil) to Rome’s imperial mission to unite the Christian world, which was supposedly sanctified by the Almighty. The Christian emperor of Rome would bow his knee only to Christ on Judgment Day. The sequence of Christian rulers with divine descent and a divine mission continued into the modern era. The mythic image of the emperor was revived by Charles V (who died in 1558), who was emperor of the Habsburg Empire from 1519 and was designated “Last World Emperor”. The last emperor to claim descent from Aeneas was Philip II (1527–1598), son of Charles V. The lineage of Aeneas enjoyed particular interest among English and French genealogists during the Middle Ages. Although indirectly, a connection of the Royal House of Britain with Aeneas and the Trojan past was constructed via the link of Brutus, the mythical grandson of Aeneas. Brutus and king Arthur feature in the Historia Regum Britanniae, compiled by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and in later works with adaptations of Geoffrey’s accounts; i. e. the Estorie des Engles (“History of the English”; c. 1136) by Geffrei Gaimar and the Roman de Brut (c. 1155) by Wace. King Arthur has remained a central figure in the British Royal Genealogy and is treated as the founder of the Royal House of Britain (see chapter 6 for the transfer of Arthurian themes from the Celtic oral tradition to medieval French literature).

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In ancient Greece, genealogies of aristocratic families played an important role for social networking, for establishing social status for the members of a kinship group in society and for obtaining and preserving lineage-oriented privileges. The figure of the ancestor of a lineage was the focus of cultural memory and of rituals performed to honour the dead. In ancient Greek, the concept ‘ancestor’ is expressed by the term kokuai (“forefathers”) which is an expression adopted from the Pelasgian substrate language (Beekes 2010: 733). Judging from the pre­sence and popularity of a pre-Greek term for such a central concept in Greek cul­tural memory, it may be inferred that mythical genealogies had been popular al­ready among the Old Europeans and influenced the understanding of kinship of the immigrating Greeks who became theirs neighbors (see Haarmann 2014: 87 f. for borrowed kinship terms of pre-Greek origin in ancient Greek). Genealogies functioned as a tool for self-identification, for boundary-marking vis-à-vis other families. Such functions even transcended the narrow circle of family members and extended onto the tribal level, with implications for the constitution of local populations and tribal configurations. “What makes genealogies particularly suitable vehicles, however, for expressing ethnic relationships (and, incidentally, furthers the claim that certain genealogies served ethnic functions in ancient Greece) is their adaptability to changing circumstances. As relationships between contemporary groups change, so relationships within genealogies are modified through the addition, omission and substitution of certain names, or a reconceptualization of the relations between existing names.” (Hall 2002: 27)

Within the framework of kinship relations, the roles of men and women are of elementary significance, and this is true in a global comparison of cultures. “It is therefore not possible to understand kinship relations without analyzing the place occupied by men and women, and in a broader perspective the social attributes attaching to each, and which make them different genders” (Godelier 2011: 74). The identification of the founding ancestors of lineages may be female-oriented (i. e. matrilineal) or male-oriented (i. e. patrilineal). The principle of matrilienality has been clearly identified by Marija Gimbutas (1982, 1989, 1991) for the egalitarian society of Old Europe. Patrilineality is known from many cultures, from ancient Greek society, for one. It is noteworthy that the mythical ancestors of genealogies in male-oriented so­­cieties may well be female figures, provided they offer attributes of noble ori­ gin and prestige to the members of the lineage. The fabric of genealogies in Greek antiquity even offers illustrative cases of noble lineages in two equally famed lines, the male and the female. The linkage of genealogies to divine ori­ gins is established through goddesses in the myth of Aeneas and in the myth of Erechtheus (see chapter 3) although the protagonists are male figures. In the

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former myth, Aphrodite as Aeneas’ mother establishes the linkage while, in the latter myth it is Athena, as foster mother of the hero, who blesses the lineage. In the epic tradition, the protagonists of the heroic age have goddesses as mothers. The most illustrious figure in Homer’s Iliad, Achilles, is the son of the immortal Thetis while his father, Peleus, is a mortal. Throughout antiquity, mythical genealogies were popular among aristocratic fam­ ilies and some even employed professional genealogists to create noble ancestors for their lineages. The mythical hero Herakles was especially popular, and his association with a particular lineage could even carry political weight (Gantz 1993: 374 ff.). The most famous case of the adoption of a mythical geneal­ogy linked to the Herakleidai is the founding myth of the Royal House of Macedon which was initiated and propagated by Philip II (ruled 359–336 BCE), father of Alexander the Great. This royal genealogy is of special interest since it pursues a double agenda. First, it aims at the creation of a noble origin for the royal lineage. Second, via the relationship with a genuine Greek hero, the Mace­donian élite established themselves as Hellenes which, in ethnic terms, they were not. The demonstration of belonging to the noble Herakleidai legitimized the Macedonians’ claim to rule over all of Greece, a goal which they eventually achieved. Mythical descent was construed beyond the level of individual lineages in order to explain the emergence of the collective ethnic body (ethnos). Greek ethnicity was associated with the eponymous Hellen, son of Deukalion. All Greeks of antiquity traced their descent as far back as Hellen, and presenting themselves as Hellenes was of the highest prestige vis-à-vis the barbarians (see above for the lineage of Hellen). “The functions of the ‘Hellenic Genealogy’ is to express the relationships between Dorians, Aiolians, Akhaians and Ionians—represented by their eponymous founding fathers—as well as to signal the participation of all four groups within a broader Hellenic identity embodied in the figure of the eponymous king Hellen, son of Deukalion. In addition, the genealogy presents a system of ranking: the credentials of the Dorians and Aiolians are in some senses pro­ moted over those of the Akhaians and Ionians by having the eponyms of the former ranked as Hellen’s sons and those of the latter as his grandsons.” (Hall 2002: 27)

Mythical genealogies do not distinguish themselves—nor were they distinguished by the ancient Greeks—by particular features from available facts about historical ancestors. Mythical and factual elements were interwoven to craft the overall fabric of a genealogy. For the ancient Greeks it was of no relevance to separate mythical heroes from historical personalities, once they formed part of the same lineage. The main concern was to produce a lineage that was imbued

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with prestige, and this prestige was instrumentalized within Greek society of antiquity in order to promote social status and for political ends. The strategies for instrumentalizing—for political ends—genealogies anchored in the mythopoetic past paved the way for the spread of the Greek world-view across the eastern Mediterranean and beyond. “A medium like Greek mythology and genealogy and a shared imaginary world in order to link together hundreds of independent Greek communities spread across the Mediterranean; but due to its location in space and time Greek mythology included foreign space and foreign heroes among its inherent features.” (Vlassopoulos 2013: 276)

Social networks were established by people through their mythical imaginations, and this functioned on all levels of society, provided a family was important enough to create a genealogy for its members. Neither was the tradition of mythical genealogies rejected by poets, playwrights, historiographers or philosophers. Writers made use of genealogies to assign the protagonists in their stage plays their proper place in a plot; historiographers used genealogies for identifying the origins of local populations; and philosophers referred to genealogies for comparison when reasoning about the doings of gods and men. Closely associated with mythical genealogies were the foundation myths of Greek communities. The significance of heroic mythical ancestors increased with the establishment of Greek colonies on the shores of the Mediterranean and of the Black Sea. More than three hundred works are known in which local his­tory is treated by ancient writers. “Every Greek community traced its origin to a founder. Sometimes this would be a ‘real’ person, the oikistes of a colony, like Battus in Cyrene or Archias for Syra­cuse, men who became heroized on death as the source of identifying cha­racteristics of the community (not least its laws and sacred rites) and whose heroic status was celebrated in cult thereafter. More often a state’s founda­tion would be attributed to a ‘mythical’ character, like Cadmus in Thebes, or some hero from the epic cycle. Usually, a god would be involved in some way as a catalyst or inspiration for the foundation. In the case of many colonies Apol­lo served this function, through the intermediation of Delphi.” (Harding 2011: 183 f.)

Genealogies had very practical functions, and these involved social advancement in public life, the legitimacy of hereditary claims and the application for ci­tizenship. In these contexts, descent in the sense of blood ancestry was the main criterion. Belonging to an autochthonous lineage (genos) was a prerequisite for attaining high offices in the Athenian state, in the state bureaucracy and in the influential priesthood. This fact and the resulting patterns of political action

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have been described as “kinship nationalism” or “racial identity” in recent research on Greek politics (see, for example, Lape 2010: 249 ff.). Blood ancestry was a crucial criterion for obtaining citizenship in the Athenian state, an agenda with which many foreigners had to cope who had the intention of becoming naturalised. With the rise of the Athenian sea power in the fifth century BCE the territory of the Athenian state—the city of Athens in particular—attracted foreigners as residents. Thousands of foreign residents, called metics (after Greek metoikos “resident alien settled in a foreign city, immigrant”) settled down in Athens and other urban centers of Attica. Most of these metics were merchants who were engaged in trade with Greeks or who traded for Greek aristocratic families. Other groups of metics included mercenaries who served under Greek command, artisans and specialized craftsmen. “Although there was considerable variation over time in Athens’ desirability as an immigration destination, if it could be averaged over the course of the democratic era (508–322), Athens would probably rank at the top of the list of all poleis as a chosen destination. That would not be the case in the two centuries preceding or following the democratic era.” (Ober 2008: 43)

Metics had no right to own property, they had to pay taxes (while Athenian citizens would be exempted), and they were not allowed to vote for, or be elected to, the National Assembly. Before a metic could settle down he/she had to be assigned an Athenian citizen as guardian. While Athenian citizens who committed a criminal offence were either fined or imprisoned, metics, once found guilty, were fined and extradited. The laws regulating Athenian citizenship, which changed throughout the antique period, oscillated between strict autochthony and the naturalization of for­eigners into the Athenian community. Although women played no role in Greek public life their status was nevertheless crucial for the determination of Ath­enian citizenship. A foreigner residing in Athens could not obtain Athenian citizenship through marriage with an Athenian woman. And yet, the right to obtain Athenian citizenship shifted to the next generation. If a foreigner’s wife was a born Athenian then his children would become citizens of Athens. A foreigner would always remain a foreigner unless he was “adopted” by an Athenian and included into that person’s family as equal. “Yet, despite the ideological importance of adoption in reproducing the Ath­ enian family, kinship perceived to be rooted in blood (genos) rather than only in law was clearly preferred. This helps to explain the tendency of Athenian juries to privilege the claims of blood relatives over those of adopted children (and of nearer blood relatives over more distant relatives who had been adopted).” (Lape 2010: 251)

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Epilogue: Changing consciousness—Switching heroism from egocentrism to communal solidarity Originally people lived in peace. This is the powerful message learned from interdisciplinary research. Through millennia humankind had deduced from experience what was helpful to improve life conditions and develop a social system for togetherness and led to prosperous communities. Roughly between 6500 and 3000 BCE this developed into the first advanced culture of the world: Old Europe. On equal footing women and men cooperated successfully as agrarians, house constructors, potters, smiths (metalworkers), shipwrights—developers and producers of all kinds of goods—and traders exchanged these goods on a barter basis within the vast area of Old Europe and within an impressively broad network for trade and communication (see map 1). That altered with the successive takeover by the hierarchically structured IndoEuropean pastoralists. First slowly over generations, then rapidly life in Old Europe changed from an egalitarian to a patriarchal class system with the important class of warriors—trained to obey orders and fight according to their leaders carrying out plans of the leading class. What the newcomers maintained was the successful communal structure of the demes (formerly kome)—upheld farther than antiquity—but now reserved for men only. What the newcomers also maintained was the spiritual orientation. The veneration of goddesses continued to be a vital part of life and, additionally, goddesses were now seen as patrons to the warriors accompanying and protecting them on their way to become heroes. The takeover of Old Europe and of Old European life ways by Indo-Europeans had altered the society dramatically. For Gimbutas her early studies on IndoEuropeans were a nightmare, whereas the later research on Old Europe was a revelation. When asked 1989 about her study Bronze Age Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe (1965) she said she felt miserable at the amount of arms found at Indo-European sites that she hardly can bear to recall her work at the locations where the Indo-Europeans had transformed the peaceful culture of Old Europe: “Weapons, weapons, weapons! It’s just incredible how many thou-

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sands of pounds of these daggers and swords were found from the Bronze Age. This was a cruel period and the beginning of what it is today—you turn on the television, and it’s war, war, war, whatever channel.” (The Goddess Theory, Los Angeles Times, 1989). Joseph Campbell, a master of the analysis of heroes and hero myths, goddesses and goddess myths across cultures, wrote in his foreword to Marija Gimbutas The Language of the Goddess (1989): “… in contrast to the mythologies of the cattle-herding Indo-European tribes that, wave upon wave, from the fourth millennium B.C. overran the territories of Old Europe and whose male-dominated pantheons reflected the social ideals, laws and political aims of the ethnic units to which they appertained, the iconography of the Great Goddess arose in reflection and veneration of the laws of Nature. Gimbutas’s lexicon of the pictorial script of that primordial attempt of humanity’s part to understand and live in harmony with the beauty and wonder of Creation adumbrates in archetypical symbolic terms a philosophy of human life that is in every aspect contrary to the manipulated systems that in the West have prevailed in historic times. One cannot but feel that in the appearance of this volume at just this turn of the century there is an evident relevance to the universally recognized need in our time for a general transformation of consciousness. The message here is of an actual age of harmony and peace in accord with the creative energies of nature which for the spell of some four thousand prehistoric years anteceded the five thousand of what James Joyce has termed the “nightmare” (of contending tribal and national interests) from which it is now certainly time for this planet to wake.” (Campbell 1989)

That was 1989. Now is 2020. High time to wake up. It is important to shed light on the distant past the awareness of which was not lost but remains encapsulated in our cultural memory. We have to unlock it to reactivate this dormant awareness of life experience among the ancients. The significance of an approach to reactivate elements of an awareness of life experience of the past (associated with Old Europe), dormant in the unconscious, was vital for a famous philosopher whose world of ideas comprised the organic whole of life. This philosopher was Plato who draws on the cultural memory of highly knowledgeable intellectual women, at the oracle at Delphi (personified by the Py­t hia) and in the mystery cult at Eleusis, the initiation rites of which were super­ vised by the high priestess of the goddess Demeter (Haarmann 2020b). “There has been a long, enigmatic, and complex transformation of a kind of thought which did not take into consideration the consciousness of the past; …” (Barile 2019: 19).

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In our study, we have directed the spot light to the earliest advanced culture in human history and we have contrasted it with the ideology of the cult of heroes, in order for this knowledge to enter the canon of education, of curriculums and schoolbooks for every new generation. The look into the past by contrasting the civilization of Old Europe with Indo-European cultures may stimulate the discussion about our present and it may inspire visions for our future. This is about re-thinking togetherness (LaBGC and Haarmann 2021).

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Appendices Appendix I: References to the goddess Athena in the Odyssey (George 1999a) ATHENA IN THE ODYSSEY

1) 1.44 – Athena questions Zeus about Ulysses  2) 1.80 – Athena proposes the return of Ulysses to his own home  3) 1.118 – Telemachus invites Athena and clasps her right hand 4) 1.125 – Telemachus bores the spear of Athena 5) 1.130 – Telemachus leads and seats Athena herself on a chair 6) 1.156 – Telemachus speaks to Athena holding his head close 7) 1.178 – Athena prophesies the return of Ulysses  8) 1.221 – Athena criticizes the shameful acts of Penelope’s suitors 9) 1.252 – Athena prophesies the punishment of Penelope’s suitors 10) 1.314 – Athena asks Telemachus to stop her no longer 11) 1.319 – Athena puts strength and courage in his heart 12) 1.327 – The minstrel sings the sorrowful return from Troy which Pallas Athena laid upon the Achaeans 13) 1.364 – Athena casts sweet sleep upon Penelope’s eyelids 14) 1.444 – Telemachus ponders in his mind upon the journey which Athena had shown him 15) 2.12 – Athena causes a wonderful grace to fall upon Telemachus  16) 2.116 – Athena endowed Penelope with knowledge of fair handiwork and an understanding heart, and stratagems 17) 2.261 – Telemachus prays to Athena  18) 2.267 – Athena incites Telemachus to prepare his journey  19) 2.296 – Telemachus did nor delay long after he had heard the voice of the Goddess  20) 2.382 – Athena goes throughout the city, and to each of the men she draws near and speaks her word  21) 2.390 – The Goddess makes more cheerful each man  22) 2.396 – Athena incites Telemachus to start his journey  23) 2.405 – Telemachus follows in the footsteps of the Goddess 

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24) 2.416 – Athena seats down in the stern of the ship, and near her seats Telemachus  25) 2.420 – And Athena sends them a favorable wind  26) 3.10 – Athena leads the way  27) 3.14 – Athena incites Telemachus not to feel shame 28) 3.25 – Athena tells Telemachus that he was born and brought up with the favor of the Gods 29) 3.29 – Telemachus follows in the footsteps of the Goddess  30) 3.42 – Libations and prayers are made to the immortals 31) 3.51 – Athena prays to the God Poseidon 32) 3.76 – Athena puts courage in Telemachus heart  33) 3.145 – Agamemnon wants to appease the dread wrath of Athena, —fool!  34) 3.218 – “Ah, would Athena might choose to love you even as then she cared exceedingly for glorious Ulysses“  35) 3.222 – “For never yet have I seen the Gods so manifestly showing love, as Pallas Athena did to him, standing manifest by his side“  36) 3.229 – Easily might a God who willed it bring a man safe home  37) 3.330 – “Even now it is not fitting to sit long at the feast of the Gods“  38) 3.343 – When they had poured libations, then truly Athena and godlike Telemachus were both willing to return to the ship  39) 3.356 – Athena goes to the ship and heartens her comrades  40) 3.371 – Athena departs in the likeness of a sea-eagle  41) 3.385 – Nestor prays to Pallas Athena, and she hears him  42) 3.394 – Nestor bade a bowl be mixed, and ardently he prayed, as he poured libations, to Athena  43) 3.419 – “That first of all the Gods I may propitiate Athena, who came to me in manifest presence“  44) 3.435 – Athena comes to accept the sacrifice  45) 3.446 – Then Nestor begins the opening rite of hand-washing and sprinkling with barley grains, and ardently he prays to Athena  46) 4.289 – Pallas Athena leads away Helen from the Trojan horse  47) 4.341 – “O father Zeus and Athena and Apollo“  48) 4.502 – Aias hated of Athena  49) 4.752 – “Pray to Athena, for she may then save him even from death“  50) 4.761 – Penelope prays to Athena  51) 4.795 – Athena makes a phantom and sends it to Penelope  52) 4.828 – The phantom speaks to Penelope about Pallas Athena 53) 5.5 – Athena speaks to the Immortals about Ulysses  54) 5.108 – The offense of the warriors against Athena  55) 5.382 – Athena helps Ulysses on the sea 56) 5.427 – Athena puts a thought in Ulysses’ mind  57) 5.437 – Athena gives prudence to Ulysses 58) 5.491 – Athena sheds sleep upon Ulysses eyes 

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References to the goddess Athena in the Odyssey

59) 6.2 60) 6.13 61) 6.22 62) 6.41 63) 6.112

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– Athena goes to the land and city of the Phaeacians  – Athena contrives the return of great-hearted Ulysses  – Athena speaks to Nausikaa  – Athena goes to Olympus  – Athena takes the counsel that Ulysses might awake and see the fairfaced maid  64) 6.140 – Athena puts courage in the heart and takes fear from the limbs  65) 6.229 – Athena makes Ulysses taller to look upon and mightier, and from his head she makes the locks to flow in curls like unto the hyacinth flower  66) 6.233 – Athena sheds grace upon the head and shoulders of Ulysses  67) 6.291 – Ulysses rests in the goodly grove of Athena  68) 6.322 – Ulysses prays to Athena in the glorious grove, sacred to Athena  69) 6.324 – Athena hears Ulysses prayer; but she does not yet appear to him face to face  70) 7.14 – Athena with kindly purpose, casts about Ulysses a thick mist  71) 7.19 – Athena meets Ulysses in the guise of a young maiden 72) 7.27 – Athena speaks to Ulysses  73) 7.37 – Athena leads the way quickly, and Ulysses follows in the footsteps of the Goddess  74) 7.40 – The heart of Athena is kind towards Ulysses  75) 7.47 – Athena advises Ulysses  76) 7.78 – Athena departs over the unresting sea and enters the well-built house of Erechtheus 77) 7.110 – Athena gives to women above all others skill in fair handiwork, and an understanding heart 78) 7.140 – Ulysses is wrapped in a thick mist which Athena sheds about him  79) 7.311 – “O father Zeus, Athena and Apollo“  80) 8.7 – Athena goes to each man’s side, speaks and rouses the spirit and heart of each man  81) 8.18 – Athena sheds a wonderful grace upon the head and shoulders of Ulysses  82) 8.193 – Athena in the likeness of a man speaks to Ulysses  83) 8.493 – The Trojan horse was made with Athena’s help  84) 8.520 – Ulysses braved the most terrible fight and in the end conquered by the aid of great-hearted Athena  85) 9.317 – Athena grants glory 86) 11.547 – Ulysses had won the contest for the arms of Achilles; and the judges were the sons of the Trojans and Pallas Athena  87) 11.626 – Hermes and Pallas Athena were the guides of Hercules when he went to the house of Hades 88) 13.121 – Ulysses sets out for home through the favor of great-hearted Athena 

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89) 13.190 – About Ulysses the Goddess, equable Pallas Athena, sheds a mist that she might render him unknown, and tell him all things 90) 13.221 – Athena draws near Ulysses in the form of a young man  91) 13.236 – The Goddess Athena answers Ulysses  92) 13.251 – Ulysses is glad, and rejoices as he hears the word of Pallas Athena  93) 13.287 – Athena smiles and changes herself to the form of a woman, comely and tall, and skilled in glorious handiwork  94) 13.300 – Pallas Athena “ever stands by your side, and guards you in all toils“  95) 13.329 – Athena answers: “I cannot leave you in your sorrow“ 96) 13.360 – Athena answers again: “Be of good cheer“ 97) 13.370 – Pallas Athena sets a stone at the door of the cave  98) 13.374 – Athena urges Ulysses to take thought how he may put forth his hands on the shameless Penelope’s suitors 99) 13.389 – Athena answers Ulysses: “I will be with you, and will not forget you“ 100) 13.420 – Ulysses answers Athena: “Your mind knows all things “ 101) 13.429 – When Ulysses and Athena had taken counsel together, they parted 102) 14.2 – Athena shows Ulysses the place where to go 103) 14.216 – Ares and Athena give courage, and strength that breaks the ranks of men 104) 15.1 – Pallas Athena goes to spacious Lacedaemon to remind the glorious son of great-hearted Ulysses of his return, and to hasten his coming 105) 15.9 – Athena urges Telemachus to return home  106) 15.222 – Telemachus prays and offers sacrifice to Athena  107) 15.292 – Athena sends a favorable wind  108) 16.156 – Athena appears near Ulysses in the likeness of a woman, comely and tall, and skilled in glorious handiwork  109) 16.166 – Athena makes a sign with her brows, and Ulysses perceives it, and goes forth from the living room, and stands before her  110) 16.172 – Athena touches Ulysses with her golden wand  111) 16.207 – The return of Ulysses is the work of Athena  112) 16.233 – Ulysses follows the advice of Athena  113) 16.260 – The two helper Gods, Athena with father Zeus, rule over all men alike and the immortal Gods 114) 16.282 – Ulysses acts when Athena, rich in counsel, puts it in his mind  115) 16.298 – Pallas Athena and Zeus, the counselor, delude Penelope’s suitors 116) 16.451 – The Goddess Athena casts sweet sleep upon Penelope’s eyelids 117) 16.454 – Athena taps Ulysses with her wand  118) 17.60 – Wonderful is the grace that Athena sheds upon Telemachus  119) 17.132 – “O father Zeus, Athena and Apollo“  120) 17.360 – Athena rouses Ulysses to go among Penelope’s suitors and learn which of them were righteous and which lawless 121) 18.69 – Athena draws near and makes greater the limbs of Ulysses

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122) 18.155 – Athena sets in bonds Amphinomus so that he might be slain outright at the hands of Telemachus and by his spear 123) 18.158 – The Goddess, bright-eyed Athena puts it in the heart of wise Penelope, to show herself to the suitors, that she might set their hearts a-flutter  124) 18.187 – Athena gives Penelope immortal gifts, that the Achaeans might marvel at her 125) 18.235 – “O father Zeus, and Athena and Apollo“  126) 18.346 – Athena does in no wise suffer the proud Penelope’s suitors to abstain from bitter outrage 127) 19.2 – Ulysses plans with the help of Athena the slaying of Penelope’s suitors 128) 19.33 – Pallas Athena bearing a golden lamp, makes a most beautiful light  129) 19.52 – Ulysses plans with the help of Athena the slaying of Penelope’s suitors 130) 19.479 – Athena turns Penelope’s attention  131) 19.604 – Athena casts sweet sleep upon Penelope’s eyelids 132) 20.30 – Athena comes down from heaven and draws near to Ulysses in the likeness of a woman, and she stands above his head, and speaks to him  133) 20.44 – The Goddess Athena speaks to Ulysses  134) 20.72 – Athena teaches skill in famous handiwork  135) 20.284 – Athena does in no wise suffer the proud Penelope’s suitors to abstain from bitter outrage  136) 20.345 – Athena rouses unquenchable laughter  137) 21.1 – The Goddess Athena puts it into the heart of wise Penelope, to set before the suitors the bow and the gray iron, to be a contest and the beginning of death  138) 21.358 – Athena casts sweet sleep upon Penelope’s eyelid  139) 22.205 – Athena draws near Ulysses, like unto Mentor in form and voice, and Ulysses sees her, and is glad  140) 22.210 – Athena, the rouser of hosts  141) 22.213 – Agelaus rebukes Athena  142) 22.224 – Athena grows angry  143) 22.256 – Athena deflects the spears  144) 22.273 – Athena deflects the spears  145) 22.297 – Athena holds up her aegis, the bane of mortals  146) 23.156 – Athena sheds beauty on Ulysses’ head and shoulders 147) 23.160 – Hephaestus and Pallas Athena teach all manner of craft, and full of grace is the work human being produces 148) 23.242 – Athena holds back Dawn 

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149) 23.344 – When Athena judges that the heart of Ulysses had had its fill of dalliance with his wife and of sleep, straightway she rouses from Oceanus golden-throned Dawn to bring light to men 150) 23.371 – Athena hides them in night, and swiftly leads them forth from the city 151) 24.367 – Athena makes Laertes better to behold in comeliness and in stature 152) 24.376 – “O father Zeus, and Athena and Apollo“  153) 24.472 – Athena speaks to Zeus  154) 24.487 – Zeus rouses Athena  155) 24.502 – Athena draws near them and Ulysses is glad at sight of her 156) 24.516 – Athena says to Laertes to make a prayer to the bright-eyed maiden and to father Zeus 157) 24.520 – Pallas Athena breathes into Laertes great might  158) 24.529 – Athena refrains the men of Ithaca from grievous war  159) 24.533 – Athena speaks and pale fear seizes them  160) 24.541 – Athena orders Ulysses to stay his hand and make the strife of equal war to cease  161) 24.545 – Athena speaks and Ulysses obeys, and is glad at heart  162) 24.547 – Then for all time to come a solemn covenant between the two is made by Pallas Athena 

Appendix II: References to the goddess Athena in Plato’s dialogues (George 1999b) ATHENA IN PLATO

Plato Alcibiades 2 150d – But I think, as Homer relates how Athena removed the mist from the eyes of Diomede, “That he might well discern both God and man,” so you too must first have the mist removed which now enwraps your soul, and then the means may be given to you whereby you may distinguish between good and evil. For at present I do not think you could do so. Plato Cratylus 404b – Very well; what shall we say of Demeter, Hera, Apollo, Athena, Hephaestus, Ares, and the other Gods? Plato Cratylus 406d – Still there remains Athena, whom you, Socrates, as an Athenian, will surely not forget Plato Cratylus 407a-b – The ancients seem to have had the same belief about Athena as the interpreters of Homer have now; for most of these, in commenting on the poet, say that

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he represents Athena as mind (nous) and intellect (dianoia); and the maker of names seems to have had a similar conception of her, and indeed he gives her the still higher title of “divine intelligence” (hê theou noêsis), seeming to say: This is she who has the mind of God (Theonoa) Plato Cratylus 418a – You bring out curious results, Socrates, in the use of names. Just now, when you pronounced boulapteroun, you looked as if you had made up your mouth to whistle the flute-prelude of the hymn to Athena Plato Critias 109b – In the days of old, the Gods were taking over by lot the whole earth according to its regions, —not according to the results of strife (between Poseidon and Athena): for it would not be reasonable to suppose that the Gods were ignorant of their own several rights, nor yet that they attempted to obtain for themselves by means of strife that which more properly belonged to others.  Plato Critias 109c – Now in other regions others of the Gods had their allotments and ordered the affairs, but inasmuch as Hephaestus and Athena were of a like nature, being born of the same father, and agreeing, moreover, in their love of wisdom and of craftsmanship, both obtained as their common portion this land, which was naturally adapted for wisdom and virtue; and there they implanted brave children of the soil, and put into their minds the order of government; their names are preserved, but their actions have disappeared by reason of the destruction of those who received the tradition, and the lapse of ages. Plato Critias 112b – Outside the Acropolis and under the sides of the hill there dwelt artisans, and by such of the husbandmen as had their farms close by; but on the topmost part only the military class by itself had its dwellings round about the temple of Athena and Hephaestus, surrounding themselves with a single ring-fencelike the garden of a single house. Plato Euthydemus 302d – The name of “ancestral Zeus” is not to be found among the Ionians, neither we nor those who have left this city to settle abroad: they have an “ancestral Apollo“, there is, who is the father of Ion, and a “family Zeus“, and a “Zeus guardian of the phratry“, and an “Athena guardian of the phratry“. But the name of “ancestral Zeus” is unknown to us.

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Plato Greater Hippias 290b – Pheidias did not make the eyes of his Athena of gold, nor the rest of her face, nor her hands and feet, if, that is, they were sure to appear most beautiful provided only they were made of gold, but he made them of ivory Plato Laws 626d – O Stranger of Athens, what shall we say, for you seem to deserve rather to be named after the Goddess Athena herself, seeing that you have made the argument more clear by taking it back again to its starting-point Plato Laws 745b – The lawgiver must divide the city into twelve portions, first founding temples to Hestia, to Zeus and to Athena, in a spot which he will call the Acropolis, and surround with a circular wall Plato Laws 796b – And at Athens, too, our Virgin-Lady (Athena) delighting in the amusement of the dance, thought it not fit to amuse herself with empty hands; she must be clothed in a complete suit of armour, and in this attire go through the dance. Plato Laws 796c – And youths and maidens should in every respect imitate her, esteeming highly the favour of the Goddess (Athena), alike for service in war and for use at festivals. It shall be the rule for the children, from the age of six until they reach military age, to make processions and supplications to all the Gods in goodly array, armed and on horseback, in dances, and marches, fast or slow, offering up prayers to the Gods and to the sons of Gods. Plato Laws 806b – Or shall we take a middle course letting the girls share in gymnastic and music, while the grown-up women, no longer employed in spinning wool, are hard at work weaving the web of life, which will be no cheap or mean employment, and in the duty of serving and taking care of the household and bringing up children, in which they will observe a sort of mean, not participating in the toils of war; and if there were any necessity that they should fight for their city and families, unlike the Amazons, they would be unable to take part in archery or any other skilled use of missiles, nor could they, after the example of the Goddess (Athena), carry shield or spear, or stand up nobly for their country when it was being destroyed, and strike terror into their enemies, if only because they were seen in regular order? Plato Laws 848d – Everywhere we shall erect temples to Hestia, and Zeus, and Athena

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References to the goddess Athena in Plato’s dialogues

Plato Laws 920d Plato Laws 920e Plato Laws 921c

Plato Menexenus 237c

Plato Protagoras 321c Plato Protagoras 321d Plato Protagoras 321e Plato Republic 327a

Plato Republic 378c

Plato Republic 379e

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– Sacred to Hephaestus and Athena is the class of craftsmen who have furnished human life with the arts – To Ares and Athena belong those who safeguard the products of the craftsmen by arts of defence; rightly is this class also sacred to these deities – If one lets out work to a craftsman and fails to pay him his wage duly according to the legal agreement, disregarding Zeus, the Patron of the State, and Athena, who are the partners in the constitution, —thereby dissolving great partnerships through love of a little gain, —then, with the help of the Gods, this law shall lend aid to the bonds that unite the State. – Our country is deserving of praise, not only from us but from all mankind, first, and above all, as being dear to the Gods. This is proved by the strife of the Gods (Athena and Poseidon) who contended over her and their judgement testify to the truth of our statement. And how should not she whom the Gods praised deserve to be praised by all mankind? – Prometheus, in his perplexity as to what preservation he could devise for man, stole from Hephaestus and Athena wisdom in the arts – Prometheus entered unobserved the building shared by Athena and Hephaestus – Prometheus carried off Hephaestus’ art of working by fire, and also the art of Athena, and gave them to man – I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon, that I might offer up my devotions to the Goddess (presumably Bendis, though Athena is hreos for an Athen­ ian), and also because I wanted to see how they would celebrate the festival, since this was its inauguration. – Neither must we admit at all that Gods war with Gods and plot against one another and contend—for they are not true—if we wish our future guardians to deem nothing more shameful than lightly to fall out with one another; still less must we make battles of Gods and giants the subject for them of stories and embroideries (on the Panathenaic peplus of Athena), and we shall be silent about the innumerable other quarrels of Gods and heroes with their friends and relatives. – But if any one asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties, which was really the work of Pandarus, was brought about by Athena and Zeus, we will not ap-

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Plato Statesman 274c

Plato Symposium 197b

Plato Timaeus 21b

Plato Timaeus 21e Plato Timaeus 23d

Plato Timaeus 24b

Plato Timaeus 24c

Plato Timaeus 24d

Plato Timaeus 26e

prove, nor that the strife and contention of the Gods was instigated by Themis and Zeus – Men were in great straits; and that is the reason why the gifts of the Gods that are told of in the old traditions were given us with the needful information and instruction, —fire by Prometheus, the arts by Hephaestus and the Goddess who is his fellow-artisan, Athena, seeds and plants by other deities. – If Apollo invented archery and medicine and divination, it was under the guidance of Desire and Love; so that he too may be deemed a disciple of Love as likewise may the Muses in music, Hephaestus in metal-work, Athena in weaving and Zeus “in pilotage of Gods and men.“  – This tale will be a fitting monument of our gratitude to you, and a hymn of praise true and worthy of the Goddess (Athena) on this her day of Festival. (The Lesser Panathenaea, held early in June.) – The citizens of Sais in Egypt have a Goddess whose Egyptian name is Neith, and is asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athena. – You are welcome to hear about them, Solon, both for your own sake and for that of your city, and above all, for the sake of the Goddess (Athena) who is the common patron and parent and educator of both our cities. – A further feature is the character of their equipment with shields and spears; for we were the first of the peoples of Asia to adopt these weapons, it being the Goddess (Athena) who instructed us, as in your part of the world first to you. – All this order and arrangement the Goddess (Athena) first imparted to you when establishing your city; and she chose the spot of earth in which you were born, be­ cause she saw that the happy temperament of the sea­sons in that land would produce men of supreme wisdom. – So it was that the Goddess (Athena), being herself both a lover of war and a lover of wisdom, selected and first of all settled that spot which was the most likely to produce men most like unto herself, and this first she established. – This story will be admirably suited to the festival of the Goddess (Athena) which is now being held, because of its connection with her; and the fact that it is no invented fable but genuine history is all-important. 

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