Restricted access. Parts of the text on this page have been culled from Burkert, W. Greek Religion, Cambridge, Ma., 1985. Only students enrolled in this course may access them.
Gods of initiation (among others): Apollo, Artemis, Athena.
Holy couple: Zeus and Hera.
Apollo and Artemis: archetypes of adolescence. Often together,
but they also had their own
sanctuaries (at Delos, Artemis; at Delphi, Apollo).
Hephaistos and Athena, both gods of handicrafts, are united in the fake procreation of Erichthonius. Athena has a statue in the temple of Hephaistos (Agora) and fire in the temple of Athena may represent Hephaistos.
Athena (just as Artemis) demands a period of service in her temple from young girls, but requires a married woman for her priestess. Athenaís arrhephoroi ("carriers of dew") go from the Acropolis to the sanctuary of Eros and Aphrodite.
FESTIVALS
New Year Festival.
Cult image of Athena is taken from the Erechtheion and washed. Women
from a noble family take off the robe and veil the image with a cloth.
Myth of Erichthonius and Arrhephoria1
A month before the Panathenaic procession a mysterious nocturnal festival called Arrhephoria (the "carrying of dew") takes place. Two young girls, the Arrhephoroi, who have lived for almost a year on the Acropolis, conclude their term of priestly service.
An ancient author describes their actions as follows:
They place on their heads what the priestess of Athena gives them to carry, but neither the priestess knows what it is she is giving them, nor do the girls who carry it. But in the city there is a sacred precinct not far from that of Aphrodite in the Gardens, and through it there runs a natural underground passage: here the virgins descend. Down below they leave behind what they have brought and take something else and carry it, veiled as it is. Then the two virgins are discharged forthwith.
Excavations on the north slope of the Acropolis have revealed a steep stairway, and to the east of this, a small shrine of Eros in the rock face. In the myth of Erichthonius the daughters of the Athenian king who see the infant are named Aglauros, Herse, and Pandrosos.
What was carried down in the closed baskets, and what was brought up wrapped in a veil, can only be guessed at; Arrhephoros seems to mean dew carrier, with dew symbolizing both impregnation and new offspring. The excavations on the north slope of the Acropolis have revealed a steep stairway - which originally, in the late Mycenaean citadel, led down to a spring and, to the east of this, a small shrine of Eros in the rock face; thus far the pathway of the Arrhephoroi may be traced.
The ritual is mirrored in the myth of the daughters of Cecrops, the very first king of the Athenian citadel, half-snake and half-man. Athena gave the daughters Aglauros, Herse, and Pandrosos a basket, strictly forbidding them ever to open it; but at night, when Athena was absent, curiosity got the better of them. Aglauros and Herse opened the container and saw Erichthonios, the mysterious child of Hephaistos, but at the same time one or two snakes darted out of the basket causing the girls to fall in terror over the north face of the Acropolis to their death. There at the foot of the rock wall lies the sanctuary of Aglauros; Pandrosos, whose name also contains the word dew, drosos, and who in the myth remains free of guilt, has her precinct in front of the Erechtheion, where the sacred olive tree grows; moist with dew, it embodies the continuity of the order of the city. This order is also expressed by the almost year-long service of the Arrhephoroi who also start the work of weaving the robe for the Panathenaic festival.
One version of this myth says that Athena used wool to wipe Hephaistos' semen from her thigh, and threw it on the earth, and the earth gave birth to Erichthonios. Where the hidden child within the virginal precinct comes from, neither the priestess of Athena nor the young girls must know - but their nocturnal pathway takes them to Aphrodite and Eros. The snake belongs to Athena, terrifying and yet fascinating - also in the sense of phallic impregnation; that the snake was an epiphany of Erichthonios-Erechtheus was said and believed. Because the goat is an enemy to the olive tree no goat could be driven onto the Acropolis, except once a year for the 'necessary' sacrifice. It is tempting to associate this exception with the uncanny festival of the Arrhephoria. The mythical death of a maiden and goat sacrifice correspond elsewhere.
1 Click here
to see a vase representing Ajax the Lesser about to snatch Cassandra from
the wooden altar of Athena. Does the box that the young woman on
the left holds suggest a reference to the Arrhephoria?
