the semi-fixed nature of greek domestic religion

8/3/2019 The Semi-Fixed Nature of Greek Domestic Religion

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UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

Date: 3 February 2006

I, Katherine M. Swinford ,

hereby submit this as part of the requirements for the degree of:

Master of Arts

in:

Department of Classics of the College of Arts and Sciences

It is entitled:

The Semi-Fixed Nature of Greek Domestic Religion

This work and its defense approved by:

Chair: Kathleen M. Lynch

Jack L. Davis


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A thesis submitted to the

Division of Research and Advanced Studies

of the University of Cincinnati

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

in the Department of Classics

of the College of Arts and Sciences

2006

by

Katherine M. SwinfordB.A., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2002

Committee: Kathleen M. Lynch, Chair

Jack L. Davis


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iABSTRACT

The present thesis is concerned with household religion practiced during the Classical period in

ancient Greece. In the past, the study of domestic cult was overlooked, and instead scholars

focused on the public religion of the Greeks. These studies used literary evidence in order to

describe civic religion. However, ancient texts also provide evidence for rituals practiced and

gods revered in the Greek household. Literary sources indicate that domestic rituals did not

require specialized equipment, and therefore, such equipment is difficult to identify in the

archaeological record. This study attempts to identify such implements and examines material

excavated from domestic contexts in three cities: Olynthus, Halieis, and Athens. The integration

of literary sources and archaeological evidence demonstrates that common household items were

used as the implements of domestic ritual. Thus, it seems that everyday, household objects

assumed religious significance in certain contexts.


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Katherine M. Swinford, M. A.

University of Cincinnati, 2006

Copyright 2006 by Swinford, Katherine M. All rights reserved.


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iiiACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My sincerest thanks go to Kathleen Lynch, not only for her practical advice and direction, but

also for offering the brilliant seminar, Greek Houses and Households, whence this paper

originated. Her encouragement has been invaluable. I especially thank Barbara Breitenberger

for her guidance and knowledge in all aspects of ancient Greek religion.

Thanks are due to the wonderful staff of the Classics Library, as well as to the patient Graduate

Committee.

Without the confidence of the ladies on the metal side and the steady smiles of Joel and Lula, I

would never have accomplished this task - thank you.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract _____________________________________________________________________ i

Acknowledgements ___________________________________________________________ iii

Table of Contents _____________________________________________________________1

List of Tables _________________________________________________________________3

List of Plates _________________________________________________________________4

Chapter 1. Introduction ________________________________________________________5

PreviousScholarship____________________________________________________________6Methodology _________________________________________________________________10

Literary Evidence _____________________________________________________________11Iconographic Evidence _________________________________________________________12

Chapter 2. Household Gods ____________________________________________________14

Domestic Deities______________________________________________________________14

Hestia ___________________________________________________________________14The Hearth in Public________________________________________________________17

Zeus Ktesios ______________________________________________________________18Zeus Herkeios _____________________________________________________________21

Doorway Gods ____________________________________________________________22

Chapter 3. Domestic Rituals ___________________________________________________25

The Sacred Hearth_____________________________________________________________25

Amphidromia______________________________________________________________25

Gamos ___________________________________________________________________26Last Rites_________________________________________________________________28

Miasma _____________________________________________________________________30

Birth Pollution ____________________________________________________________31

Death Pollution____________________________________________________________33

Ritual Pyres_______________________________________________________________33

Ritual Washing _______________________________________________________________34

Chapter 4. Domestic Religion in Practice_________________________________________37

Three Cities__________________________________________________________________40Olynthus _________________________________________________________________40


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Halieis___________________________________________________________________42Athens ___________________________________________________________________43

Artifact Analysis ______________________________________________________________44

The Hearth-Altar___________________________________________________________44

Louters __________________________________________________________________48Thuribles _________________________________________________________________49

Ritual Implements_____________________________________________________________49Domestic Sacrifice _________________________________________________________49

Ritual Washing ____________________________________________________________50The Apparatus of Ritual Washing ______________________________________________51

Chapter 5. Conclusions________________________________________________________53

Tables ______________________________________________________________________55

Works Cited_________________________________________________________________60

Plates ______________________________________________________________________65


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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Comparison of built and portable hearths and altars in Athens, Halieis, andOlynthus ____________________________________________________________________55

Table 2. Olynthus: Distribution of ritually significant artifacts by house name _____________56

Table 3. Halieis: Distribution of ritually significant artifacts by house name _______________58

Table 4. Athens: Distribution of ritually significant artifacts by house name _______________59


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LIST OF PLATES

Plate 1. Map of Greece_________________________________________________________65

Plate 2. Attic red-figure loutrophoros (Oakley and Sinos 1993, fig. 18). Jerusalem, Bible Lands

Museum 4641;ARV2

1102, no. 2;Add2

329______________________________________66

Plate 3. Attic red-figure loutrophoros (Oakley and Sinos 1993, fig. 19). Jerusalem, Bible Lands

Museum 4641;ARV2

1102, no. 2;Add2

329______________________________________67

Plate 4. Attic red-figure cup by the Amphitrite Painter (Oakley and Sinos 1993, fig. 91). Berlin,Antikensammlung F2530;ARV

2831, no. 20, 1702;Add

2295________________________68

Plate 5.1. White-ground pyxis by the Splanchnopt Painter (Oakley and Sinos, fig. 97). London,

British Museum D11;ARV2

899, no. 146;Add2

303 _______________________________69

Plate 5.2. White-ground pyxis by the Splanchnopt Painter (Oakley and Sinos, fig. 98). London,British Museum D11;ARV

2 899, no. 146;Add2 303 _______________________________69

Plate 6. Marble louter from the Villa of the Bronzes at Olynthus (Olynthus XII, pl. 218) _____70

Plate 7. Plan of Olynthus (Cahill 2002, fig. 6)_______________________________________70

Plate 8. Plan of Halieis after Boyd and Jameson 1981, fig. 2 ___________________________72

Plate 9. Plan of the Agora Excavations in Athens afterAgora XXIV, pl. 3 ________________73

Plate 10.Plan of the Late Archaic Athenian Agora, showing the distribution of wells and debrispits after Shear 1993, fig. 1___________________________________________________74

Plate 11.1. Built hearth in House A vi 10 (Olynthus VIII, pl. 52.2) ______________________75

Plate 11.2. Restoration of the built altar in House A vi 5 (Olynthus VIII, pl. 73) ____________75

Plate 12.1. Brazier from House A xi 10 (Olynthus VIII, pl. 52:1)________________________76

Plate 12.2. Altars from from the House of the Tiled Prothyron; left: red clay, right: stone

(Olynthus XII, pl. 188:1-2) ___________________________________________________76

Plate 13.1. Red-figure column krater (Ginouvs 1962, pl. 18:53). Vienna, KunsthistorischesMuseum 2166;ARV

2 1111, no. 1;Add2 330______________________________________77

Plate 13.2. Red-figure lekanis by the Eleusinian Painter (Oakley and Sinos 1993, fig. 44). St.

Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum ST1791;ARV2 1476, no. 3;Add

2 381 ____________77

Plate 14. Plan of House A iv 9 at Olynthus after Cahill 2002, fig. 24 _____________________78


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CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

(Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, 1604)

They bathed him and dressed him in the way which was customary.1

Much of ancient Greek religion comprised ephemeral aspects, such things as burnt sacrifices and

spoken prayers, and of these two, little archaeological evidence survives.2

These features of

ancient religion were apparently so well known in ancient Greece that contemporary authors

rarely describe every component of the rite and instead note that ritual progressed according to

what was customary, just as Oedipus daughters prepare him for his death in the quote above.

Heretofore, the study of ancient Greek religion has focused upon the remains of public

sanctuaries and extant literature and inscriptions which describe the rituals of the ancient Greeks.

By analyzing these references, scholars focus on the festivals and rites that defined the public

religion of the ancients. These studies often overlook cultic activity that took place in the ancient

household, or oikos. Some ancient texts, however, do portray rituals taking place in the home,

and archaeological evidence exists that might support some of these literary references. At

times, the literary and archaeological evidence are in agreement about household ritual practice,

while at others, there is disjunction. For example, the literature might embellish the character of

a ritual to suit the dramatic context, while the archaeological evidence indicates that the ritual

occurred, but in a more attenuated or ad hoc manner. In other cases, archaeological evidence

documents rituals on which literature is silent. Thus, it is my intent to examine and synthesize

1All translations are my own.

2Some ancient prayers are documented. See Pulleyn 1997.


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both types of evidence, ancient literature and archaeological material, in order to describe more

clearly aspects of ancient Greek domestic religion. In particular, this synthetic view of ancient

evidence reveals an important temporal component to household religion. My analyses will

show that the implements within a house were both multi-functional and often portable. The

multi-functional household objects in this study served at least one ritual use beyond their other

functions. Domestic spaces including the entire structure also bore ritual specific meaning,

but only at certain times.3

It is important to note that these implements and space assumed their

religious significance as necessary, that is, they were ritually significant only when household

ritual required them to function as sacred objects or environments.

Previous Scholarship

There is a plethora of scholarship concerning the study of ancient Greek civic religion. Walter

Burkerts Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche, first published in 1977

and in English in 1985, is a popular, accessible handbook for any student of Greek religion.4

The

1999 bookReligions of the Ancient Greeks, by Simon D. Price, uses literary, epigraphical and

archaeological evidence to explore ancient Greek religious practices from the eighth century

B.C.E. to the fifth century C.E.5

While books like these contain ample information regarding

Greek civic religion, they often lack sections devoted exclusively to domestic cult.6

3The concepts of multi-functionality and portability will be discussed further in Chapter 4. They refer to an

individual household object being used for various activities and assuming a unique identity for each activity.

4Burkert 1985.

5Price 1999, pp. 89-99. In his chapter entitled, Girls and Boys, Women and Men, Price does mention a few

domestic rites in the context of coming of age rituals.

6Burkert discusses small cult chambers in Minoan houses and palaces. In the section of the book devoted to

individual gods, he mentions briefly the domestic epithets of these gods: Zeus, p. 130; Hestia, p. 170; Hekate, p.

171.


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Early studies of household religion focused primarily on literary sources. In 1940, Martin P.

Nilsson published Greek Popular Religion, a volume which explores the beliefs and religious

practices of whom he calls the commoner or rural peasant.7

Nilsson dedicates one chapter of

his book to The House and the Family. In a review based largely on literary evidence, Nilsson

examined the gods which occurred in household religion. In 1954, Nilsson wrote an article

entitled Roman and Greek Domestic Cult which compares and contrasts Roman and Greek

household religion.8

While both his book and article are based largely on literary evidence, they

do employ some epigraphical and archaeological evidence. Three years later, Heidrun Rose

expanded Nilssons article, in The Religion of a Greek Household.9

The literary examples

employed by Burkert and Nilsson demonstrate the broad range of sources available for this type

of study, from Homers epic poetry to the speeches of fifth-century B.C.E. orators.

In the more recent decades, scholars have focused less on the grand public festivals and more on

the everyday religion practiced by the ancient Greeks. In his 1983 volume,Athenian Popular

Religion, Jon D. Mikalson discusses the religion of the city, defining popular religion as public

or civic religion. He separates the sources for ancient Greek religion into two types: the poetic

and philosophic and the scholastic and archaeological.10

While he does not specifically discuss

domestic religion in Athens, his methods of employing different types of evidence helped to

shape my own. Like Mikalson, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood seeks to definepolis religion.11

7Nilsson 1940 [1961].

8Nilsson 1954.

9Rose 1957.

10Mikalson 1983, p. 1.

11Sourvinou-Inwood 1988 and 1990.


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Unlike Mikalson, she discusses oikos religion, although, it is entirely within the framework of

describing the interconnected subdivisions ofpolis religion.12

The present study focuses

specifically on the religion practiced in the oikos, and will incorporate not only literary sources,

but also archaeological evidence.

Excavations in the Athenian Agora and in the ancient cities of Olynthus and Halieis, among

others, provide archaeological evidence for the oikos. These undertakings primarily focused on

typologies and analyses of domestic architecture. Artifact assemblages were reported in site

summaries and excavation reports. However, in these early publications, household assemblages

were not rigorously examined. In 1981, Charles K. Williams II, director of the excavations at

Corinth, published a paper in the journalHesperia in which he discussed the domestic religion of

ancient Corinth.13

This article was the first archaeology-based, rather than text-based, discussion

of household cult.

David M. Robinson and J. Walter Graham, in the eighth volume of the Olynthus publication,

titled The Hellenic House, report the results of archaeological investigation of the many houses

at the site with limited reference to relevant literary evidence.14

The authors briefly mention

household religion when describing the altars found in Olynthian households.15

12Sourvinou-Inwood 1988, pp. 271-273.

13Williams 1981.

14Robinson does include an appendix of testimonia relevant to the Greek house in Olynthus XII, pp. 399-452.

15OlynthusVIII, pp. 321-325.


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Nicholas Cahill restudies the artifacts from Olynthian houses in his 2002 book, Household and

City Organization at Olynthus, based on his 1991 dissertation.16

This groundbreaking study

looked specifically at the household assemblages, in each room, in each house. Within his study,

Cahill noted a few assemblages that may be indicative of domestic religion.

The Olynthus volumes, along with Cahills books, provide the bulk of the archaeological

evidence used in my research of Olynthian households.17

I will expand on Robinson and

Grahams archaeological descriptions and analyze the ritually significant artifacts in light of

literary evidence.

Like Cahill, Bradley Ault also studies household assemblages. He tackles household religion at

Halieis in his 1994 dissertation, Classical Houses and Households: an architectural and

artifactual case study from Halieis, Greece.18

Both Cahill and Ault examine household

assemblages in order to determine their cultural functions. Their methods have influenced my

study of domestic religion in Greek houses.

To this trend ofoikos-based scholarship, this paper will contribute a discussion of household

religion in ancient Greece specifically, and more generally, a model for analyzing the multi-

functionality of domestic artifacts. Unlike objects that seem to have been purpose-made, such as

pinakia (voting ballots) found in the agora, household artifacts often serve more than one

purpose. It is not intuitive to assume, for instance, a grill or brazier would be used as an altar in

16Cahill 2002.

17Olynthus II 1930, VII 1933, VIII 1938, XII 1946, XIV 1952; Cahill 1991 and 2002.

18Ault 1994.


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religious rites, or that a washbasin before an oikos door meant the house was polluted. Thus, the

ritual function of domestic artifacts is not immediately apparent. Instead, it is necessary to

analyze the literary evidence for domestic ritual and ritually significant artifacts in order to

determine these less than obvious religious functions.

Methodology

It is my intent to draw upon both types of evidence, literary and archaeological, to produce a

coherent synthesis of domestic cult in ancient Greece as well as to substantiate the idea that

domestic religion had an aspect of multi-functionality and portability. Nevertheless, such an

undertaking is replete with problems. In aiming to describe the domestic religion of ancient

Greece, I would be assuming that there existed a pan-hellenic concept of religion which

permeated every ancient community in a country which did not exist until the nineteenth

century.19

If literature indicates that a ritual or belief existed in one city-state, it does not mean

that the practice was the same in all city-states. Because most of the literary evidence that I

utilize in this study originated in Athens, where the complementary archaeological evidence does

not survive, the picture of domestic religion I propose will largely be that of Classical Athens.

Therefore, in order to present a broader view of domestic cult and to look for trends and shared

characteristics, I have included archaeological case studies of three cities: Athens, Halieis and

Olynthus (Plate 1). These three Classical and Hellenistic cities represent mainland sites that

have been well-excavated and well-published. The two non-Athenian cities will provide a

supplement to the Athenocentric view of domestic religion illustrated in ancient literature.

19Price 1999, p. 3.


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Literary Evidence

In this study, I have employed references from comedy, tragedy, oratory, lyric poetry and

historical writings. Each of these genres can provide valuable clues about the daily life of the

ancients, but it is essential to consider the context in which the work originated; all authors have

their own biases and assumptions which may not be explicitly stated in their work. I have

attempted to limit my use of sources to those from the 6th

to the 4th

centuries B.C.E. At times,

the dearth of evidence has forced me to use examples beyond these limits.20

In these

circumstances, they are used to illustrate a point which I have already demonstrated with

evidence from within these chronological boundaries. A few of the later sources, such as

Pausanias, a mid-second century C.E. periegetic writer, and Athenaeus, who wrote in the late

second century C.E., preserve fragments of earlier writers, and therefore, preserve remnants of

daily life in an earlier time.

Oratory, comedy and tragedy share one characteristic: they were written for public delivery and

performance. Kenneth Dover further subdivides these into four genres, one of which, forensic

oratory, Jon Mikalson, inAthenian Popular Religion, asserts is the best evidence available for

popular religious beliefs.21

Speakers in law courts, who surely had property or rights at stake,

would attempt to appeal to as much of the jury as possible by making familiar and indicative

political, moral or religious statements. Political oratory may be just as informative as forensic

oratory, if treated with slightly more skepticism. Demosthenes, for example, probably used

20I have also made use of scholia to these literary genres. Scholia were later copyists or scholars who wrote

comments, usually explanatory, in the margins of earlier texts. Sometimes, later scholia were commenting on the

comments of earlier scholia.

21Dover 1994, pp. 5-8; Mikalson 1983, p. 7.


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religious references as persuasive devices rather than as mechanisms to influence religious

beliefs.22

Comedy, on the one hand, parodies daily life and is an exaggeration of itself. However, it can be

used to create a vision, albeit a skewed one, of some aspects of ancient Greek life. Like oratory,

comedy was was meant to appeal to the average audience member. Tragedy, on the other hand,

comprises fictional characters in fictional situations.23

Tragedy cannot be used without a more

individual interpretation, given its often mythological framework and enigmatic dialogue.24

While ancient literary sources carry their own set of limitations, the evidence they provide is

invaluable. Ancient authors provide significant clues about the daily lives of their

contemporaries, and I have confidently incorporated their texts while allowing for the

aforementioned caveats.

Iconographic Evidence

Vase-painting provides another important source for domestic religion, but not without its own

interpretive challenges. The only extant evidence for several of the household rituals described

in ancient literature comes from vase-painting imagery. Due to the restricted space available on

vase shapes, vase-painters employed a wide range of iconographic conventions in order to

convey extended meaning in a very compressed image, and it must be remembered that these

shorthand representations are not snapshots of daily Greek life. Some types of pots had very

22Mikalson 1983, p. 8.

23Parker 1997, p. 148.

24Dover 1994, pp. 18-19.


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specific functions, such as funerary vases which were decorated and then interred with the dead.

It is also important to consider where Greek vases were painted. Attic vase-painting most likely

reflects Athenian ritual practices, and therefore, does not reflect practices throughout all the

cities of ancient Greece.25

With these limitations in mind, it is possible to use vase-painting

iconography cautiously as evidence for some of the rituals portrayed in ancient literature.

In the following chapters, I attempt to synthesize literary and archaeological evidence in order to

clarify some aspects of ancient Greek domestic religion. I first address the mostly literary

evidence for the presence of specific gods in the household. I examine the literary and

archaeological evidence for rituals occurring in the home, a study which also draws upon vase-

painting iconography. I then present case studies of the three Classical/Hellenistic, mainland

Greek sites: Athens, Halieis and Olynthus. Finally, I analyze the archaeological data in light of

the aforementioned caveats and present concluding remarks.

25Sparkes 1996, p. 10.


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CHAPTER 2. HOUSEHOLD GODS

In this chapter, which is primarily based on literary evidence, I will consider the gods whose

household cult is mentioned prominently in ancient sources. These gods include Hestia, Zeus,

Hermes, Hekate and Apollo Agyieus. Hestia is also the central focus of many household rituals

which will be discussed in Chapter 3.

Domestic Deities

Hestia

.(Homeric hymn to Hestia, 29.4-6)

For mortals have no feasts without you where the libation-pourer does not begin

by offering honey-sweet wine to Hestia in first place and last.

In literature, Hestia is the Greek goddess of the hearth and is the metonymic symbol for an entire

household. Diodorus Siculus, a historian writing in the first century B.C.E., recounts that Hestia

invented the building of houses, thus she has a shrine in every home and receives her share of

worship and sacrifices within these homes (Diodorus Siculus 5.68.1). The hearth not only serves

as the locus for domestic activities such as cooking and heating, but also as the sacred center of

the household, or oikos. Because the hearth is an altar within the oikos, Hesiod instructs

household members to act accordingly around the hearth, saying,


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.(Hesiod, Op. 734)

Do not expose yourself befouled by the fireside in your house, but avoid this.

Hestia is often invoked first among the gods, in private as well as public rituals.26

Socrates

suggests to Hermogenes that in making an announcement to the gods, they shall start with

Hestia, according to the custom (Plato, Cra. 401b). A priest, when beginning his sacrifices to the

gods, calls first upon Hestia (Aristophanes, Av. 865ff).27

To begin from Hestia became a

proverb due to its indication of a prosperous or well-omened beginning.28

These examples

demonstrate the prominent position Hestia held among the gods.

Ancient literature provides further evidence for the sanctity of the hearth. Sacrifices took place

at the hearth of the household, which is corroborated by different genres of literature.

Klytaemnestra mentions the victims awaiting sacrifice at the central hearth (Aeschylus, A. 1055-

1057).29

Oaths sworn upon the hearth or to Hestia were powerful. Herodotus writes that the

Scythians mightiest oaths were sworn at the kings hearth. They believed that if the king fell ill,

the cause was a falsely sworn oath made at the kings hearth.30

In Aristophanes Plutos,

26Demosthenes, 2.45f.; Aristophanes Av. 865-868; Vesp. 846-847 and schol. ad 846, pp. 134-135 (ed. Koster);

schol. ad Ar. Thesm. 299, p. 266 (ed. Dbner); Euripides TGrF5.2 F781.35; Homeric Hymn to Hestia 29.4-6;

Pausanias 175; Plato Cra. 401b; Leg. 745b.

27See also Aristophanes, Vesp. 846 and schol. ad 846, pp. 134-135 (ed. Koster); schol. ad Ar. Thesm. 299, p. 266

(ed. Dbner); Euripides, F781.35; Homeric hymn 29.

28Pausanias 175.

29See also Plato,Resp. 328c.

30Herodotus 4.68.1ff.


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Blepsidemos makes Chremylos swear by Hestia that he is telling the truth (Aristophanes, Pl.

395). It is clear, from these examples, that oaths sworn to Hestia were held in the highest regard.

Hestia, as the guardian of the hearth, served as the protector of the household and its occupants.

Euripides Alkestis, before she sacrifices her life in exchange for her husbands, invokes Hestia

to protect and provide for her children (Euripides,Alc. 158ff). According to references in

Aristophanes and Plato, symbols of Hestias protection of the oikos, in the form of idols, were

placed on or near the hearth in order to protect the household and keep its members safe and

healthy.

31

Hestia provides shelter not only for the members of a household, but also for

outsiders. The hearth, as an altar of the goddess, functions as a refuge for suppliants, and those

who seek refuge at the hearth are protected, just as those who seek haven at altars within temples

are inviolable.32

Themistokles sits at the hearth of Admetus as a suppliant, though the two were

not on friendly terms, and is thus safe from Admetus wrath when he returns home.33

Euphiletos,

while trying to convince the jury that he has justly killed Eratosthenes, states that the perpetrator

never took refuge at the hearth.34

These examples from ancient literature demonstrate that the

hearth and its protector, Hestia, were the sacred focus of the household. The hearth, and by

extension, Hestia, was a safeguard for members of an oikos, and even for individuals outside the

oikos. Gustave Glotz discusses how the hearth is symbolically sacred to an extended household:

31Aristophanes,Av. 435; Plato,Leg. 931a. It is unclear if terracotta figurines recovered from domestic contexts were

used as idols, but this function might provide one interpretation.

32See also Aeschylus,Ag. 1587; Supp. 77; and Sophocles, OC. 629.

33Thucydides 1.136.1ff.

34Lysias1.27.


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To overthrow this house, to demolish the altar (within it), is a punishment whichstrikes at the same time at the living generation and at all the line of dead

ancestors and of descendants yet to be born.35

Thus, the hearth, as an altar of Hestia, represents and preserves households past, present and

future.

The Hearth in Public

Not only was the hearth the ritual center of the ancient Greekoikos, but it also served to

represent the home to the rest of the community. When Kleomenes banishes from Athens the

Kleisthenic faction, which consisted of Kleisthenes and seven hundred Athenian households,

Herodotus refers to the banished households by using the word epistia.36

Literally, epistia means

those at the hearth, i.e. the household members. Thus, in Herodotus, epistia indicates the

households. This demonstrates that in Athens, oikoi were referred to by their hearth and that the

hearth, indeed, metonymically represented the oikos.

As an extension of the private hearth, Greek communities had a public hearth, which represented

the center of the polis. When Mantitheus and Apsephion were accused of involvement in the

mutilation of the herms in Athens, they took sanctuary upon the hearth of the Council in order to

avoid punishment.37

Hestia was also the guardian of the public hearth, which was housed in the

Prytaneion.38

The hearth in the Prytaneion was considered a symbol of the city, just as the

household hearth symbolized the entire household.39

When founding a colony, colonists brought

35Glotz 1904, p. 477.

36Herodotus 5.73.1-2.

37Andokides 1.44.2.

38PindarNem. 11; Aeschines 2.45.

39Miller 1978, pp. 13-16.


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a spark from the hearth of their metropolis Prytaneion in order to kindle the public hearth in

their new city.40

The public hearth would represent and preserve the city, just as the private

hearth did the oikos.

While Hestia occupied the central focus of domestic ritual, there were other gods who played a

role in household religion. Zeus appears in the Greek home in two different epithets, Ktesios and

Herkeios. In addition, a representation of Hermes in the form of an ithyphallic post with an

attached head may have stood before the doors of private dwellings, alongside or instead of an

altar to Apollo Agyieus or a shrine to Hekate, in order to protect the members of the household.

Zeus Ktesios

Zeus Ktesios, or Zeus of the property,41

guards and increases the provisions and wealth of the

Greek house.42

This seems to be reflected in early tragedy, where the king in Aeschylus

Suppliant Women states that when property is plundered from a home, other goods may be

provided by the grace of Zeus Ktesios (Aeschylus, Supp. 443-445). Lexicographers wrote that

the ancients used to install Zeus Ktesios in their storerooms.43

Philemon, a late third, early

second century author, states that the kadiskos is the vessel in which they set up Ktesian Zeus.44

40schol. ad Aelius Aristides 103.16, pp. 47-48 (ed. Dindorf).

41 A.B. Cook dedicates an appendix (H) of his monumental 1964-1965 work,Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion , to

Zeus Ktesios.

42LSJ2 defines , I. belonging to propertyII. domestic, . the protector of house and property. For

further etymology, see Pierre Chantraine,Dictionnaire tymologique de la Langue Grecque, Paris, 1999.

43Harpokration K85, pp. 156-157 (ed. Keaney); Suda, s.v. .

44Philemon apud Athenaeus 11.473.b-c. SeeREXXXVIII, col. 2137 (13), s.v. Philemon (J. Sieveking).


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A fragment of theExegetikon from Antikleides, a 3rd

century B.C.E. historian, describes or

prescribes how one should make the installation of a kadiskos to Zeus Ktesios.

(Antikleides 140 F22 FGrH)

It is necessary to set up the symbol of Ktesian Zeus: a new, two-eared kadiskos,

wreath the ears with white wool, a saffron-thread from its right shoulder to its

front and put into it whatever you find and pour into it ambrosia. Ambrosia ispure water and oil andpankarpia. Pour in these.

While this vessel must have represented the cult of Zeus Ktesios in the household, there is no

explicit archaeological evidence to support this identification. The vessel itself (kados, or its

diminutive form kadiskos) often shows up in archaeological excavations and is even listed on the

Attic Stelai.45

The Attic Stelai record the sale of the personal property of those who mutilated

the herms on the eve of the Sicilian expedition in 415 B.C.E. The kados is a coarse-ware

container with no painted decoration. It seems to have been an all-purpose vessel with an

ergonomic shape and light weight.46

The appearance of the kadoi on the Attic Stelai and also in

the fill of many of the wells around the Athenian Agora demonstrates that they were a common

household item.47

Because the kados is an ordinary domestic vessel, it is appropriate that the

form becomes the locus for Zeus Ktesios, who protects the stores of the house, and

sympathetically ensures the protection of all household items.

45Amyx 1958, pp. 186-190.

46Agora XII, pp. 201-203.

47Amyx 1958, pp. 189-190;Agora XII, p. 201.


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There is textual evidence for the worship of Zeus Ktesios in the household. A reference from

Aeschylus indicates that Zeus Ktesios had an altar within the home. In theAgamemnon, he has

Klytaemnestra order Kassandra to stand inside the house at the side of the altar of Zeus Ktesios

(Aeschylus, A. 1035-1038). Furthermore, there is evidence that sacrifices, libations and incense

were dedicated to Zeus Ktesios. In a fifth century B.C.E. oration by Antiphon, Philoneos and his

companion make a sacrifice to Zeus Ktesios, pouring out libations and placing incense on an

altar.48

In a mid-fifth to mid-fourth century B.C.E. speech by Isaeus, two granddaughters,

describing their relationship with their grandfather, state that whenever he sacrificed to Zeus

Ktesios, they went to his house and participated in the ritual, placing their offerings side by side

with his.49

To complement these literary examples for worship of Zeus Ktesios in the home,

there are a few inscribed dedications to Zeus Ktesios found on altars and relief sculptures. There

is an inscription from the Asklepion in Athens that names Zeus Ktesios.50

A small, Hellenistic

altar from Thera is dedicated to Zeus Ktesios,51

and a stele from Thespiai in Boeotia, dating from

the 3rd

century B.C.E., contains a relief of a snake and is inscribed as belonging to Zeus

Ktesios.52

Nilsson posited that Zeus Ktesios is represented by a snake as a remnant of an earlier

belief that the storeroom and its contents were protected by the house snake. The Greeks did

not condone the worship of theriomorphous gods, and so transferred to Zeus the responsibilities

of the house snake, that is to protect the stores of the house.53

48Antiphon 1.16-19.

49Isaeus 8.16.

50IG III ii 3854.

51IG XII iii Suppl. 1361; Thera III, p. 154.

52Nilsson 1908, pp. 279-288; Harrison 1927, p. 297.

53Nilsson 1954, p. 79.


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Zeus Ktesios seems to have been an important domestic deity. The literary, archaeological, and

epigraphical evidence indicates that Zeus Ktesios and his rituals occupied a key role in

household religion.

Zeus Herkeios

Zeus Herkeios is the god of the enclosure or courtyard. This epithet must indicate another

domestic aspect of the same god, Zeus, that is different from his other household guise. The

scholia to Plato say that the Athenians called their homes herkos,

54

the enclosed area or

courtyard, and so they have a ZeusHerkeios, whom they installed in their houses for

protection.55

A fragment from Aristophanes might describe an offering to this aspect of Zeus,

where it is recommended that the head of a squill be buried by the courtyard door (PCG 3.2

F266).56

It seems that Zeus Herkeios was another household god whose worship demanded

certain rites and shrines; when men returned from military service or war, they paid honor to

their Zeus Herkeios,57

and during the examination of officials who wished to hold office, the

potential official was asked if he had a Zeus Herkeios and where his shrine was.58

This latter

reference suggests that a shrine to Zeus Herkeios was commonly found in the home of Athenian

citizens.

54LSJ

2p. 690, defines fence, enclosure; also, the place enclosed, court-yard.

55schol. ad Pl.Euthyd. 302d, pp. 124-125 (ed. Greene).

56Perhaps another indication that Zeus Herkeios protected an enclosed area is the boundary stone found at Caria, in

Asia Minor, which was dedicated to Zeus Herkeios, along with Zeus Ktesios and Zeus Patroos (SEG2

576).

57Cratinus Jr. CAF2 F9.

58Aristotle,Ath. Pol. 55.3.


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The better-known guise of the god, Zeus the Olympian, does not appear in the Greek household.

Instead, his domestic cult is rather homely. There are no extant temples or statues for the Zeus

Ktesios or Herkeios, rather, there are the simple kadiskoi shrines of Zeus Ktesios, or small altars

dedicated to the domestic Zeus.

Doorway Gods

While Hestia and Zeus were venerated within the house, a few gods, such as Hermes, Apollo

Agyieus, Apollo of the streets and Hekate, received their due directly outside the Greek home.

Literature describes the shrines or altars to these gods, who were guardians of the pathways and

of traveling, as standing before the doorways of private dwellings.59

These shrines functioned as

protection against illness, enemies and other types of evil.60

Doorway gods were significant to the ancient Greeks, judging from the outrage caused in Athens

by the mutilation of the hermai at the end of the 5th

century B.C.E.61

Another example of the

sanctity of doorway shrines is that Klearchos of Methydrion, a pious man, took care to garland

and clean his Hermes and Hekate each month.62

This reference indicates that individuals may

have had more than one doorway shrine which may have been dedicated to more than one god.

The herm, the embodiment of the god Hermes, was a square shaft topped with a head and was

always ithyphallic. Herms were often used as boundary markers and stood outside of public

59Aristophanes Plut. 1152-1154; Vesp. 804 and 875; schol. ad Eur. Phoen. 631, pp. 175-176 (ed. Dindorf);

Sophocles TGF4 F370; Thucydides, below n. 61.

60Faraone 1992, p. 8.

61Thucydides 6.27.1 ff. and Andokides 1.37 ff.

62Theopompous FGrH140 F22.


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sanctuaries, between the city and the country, as well as before the doors of private dwellings.63

In Aristophanes Plutos, Hermes requests that Kario set him up before the door (Aristophanes,

Pl. 1152-1154). An Attic red-figure loutrophoros depicts a procession coming home from the

fountainhouse (Plates 2-3).64

Standing before the doorway of the house is an altar and a bearded

herm (Plate 2). The altar may have been an altar to Hermes, or perhaps it functioned to represent

one of the two other doorway gods. In Wasps, Philokleon mentions the altars of Hekate, set up

before the doors of every citizen (Aristophanes, V. 804). The scholia to Aristophanes note that

the altars erected to Apollo Agyieus were square in shape.65

While these doorway gods are mentioned in literature and depicted in vase painting, there is little

archaeological evidence which corroborates the existence of doorway shrines. While herms have

been found inside the Late Hellenistic houses at Delos, no remains of doorway shrines, nor their

bases, have been found in situ before the doors of houses in the three cities which comprise this

study.66

Michael Jameson posits that a shallow recess near the street-side door, which he

identifies as a feature common to many Classical houses, may have served as the locus for such

shrines.67

It is plausible that such installations were made of perishable materials and therefore

nothing is extant, or that they were small figurines set into niches near the doorway.68

63Thucydides 6.27.1 ff. and Plato, Hipparch.228.

64Jerusalem, Bible Lands Museum 4641; ARV

21102, no. 2; Oakley and Sinos 1993, figs. 16-19.

65schol. ad Ar. Thesm. 489, p. 267 (ed. Dbner).

66Sanders 2001, pp. 90-93. Herms are also found as dedications in public spaces; see Agora XI, pp. 108-124.

67Jameson 1990a, p. 105.

68Faraone 1992, p. 8; Charitonides 1960; Maier 1961. Apotropaic figurines were set into niches found in the city

walls near gates, such as the fourth-century B.C.E. niche in the city wall near the main gate at Messenian

Megaopolis (Faraone 1992, note 40). Perhaps houses had similar niches for apotropaic figurines.


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The contents of this chapter have indicated that numerous gods were honored in the ancient

Greek household. There may have been other deities who played a role in domestic religion, for

which neither literary nor archaeological evidence survives. The gods mentioned here have been

included in the discussion because their presence was documented in some way, and it seems as

though they might have enjoyed more prominence than other gods in the home. While literature

has provided evidence that the oikos took care to worship and revere its domestic deities, they

also describe several household rituals which are discussed in the following chapter.


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CHAPTER 3. DOMESTIC RITUALS

This chapter considers the different rites known to have occurred within the oikos and

superstitions associated with the oikos. It begins with the rituals which focus upon the hearth of

a household and continues with others which take place in the home, though not necessarily at

the hearthside. There follows a discussion of the ancient Greek conception of ritual pollution, or

miasma, which is often directly linked with several household rites.

The Sacred Hearth

Hestia, as observed in the previous chapter, stands both literally and figuratively at the center of

household religion. It seems that her cult occupied an important position in domestic worship

and was manifest in rituals which focused upon the physical embodiment of Hestia, the hearth.

Three hearth-centered rituals are associated with transitional stages of life: birth, marriage, and

death.

Amphidromia

In many homes, both ancient and modern, a newborn baby must pass through a rite of initiation

for acceptance into the household, rites such as a baptism, naming, or some other ritual. In

ancient Athens, if a baby survived through its first few days of life, the household performed the

amphidromia, a ceremony which welcomed the child into the oikos and introduced it to the

deities of the oikos. On the fifth or tenth day after its birth (there is an unhappy tangle of

conflicting and deficient lexicographical evidence concerning on which day the amphidromia


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occurred),69

the child was carried at a run around the family hearth.70

Heidrun Rose suggests that

this exposed the child to the beneficent radiation of Hestia, and emphasized the connection

between the baby and the adults who were to be his kin.71

On this day, too, those who were

involved in any way with the birth performed ritual washing. This was to eradicate the birth-

pollution. Robert Parker states that the amphidromia probably served to unite symbolically the

newborn with the sacred center of the house, much like the katachysmata, a ritual which served

to join brides and newly-bought slaves to their new homes.72

Later in a male childs life, he

would gain membership in other social units outside the oikos, such as the deme andphratry.

The amphidromia, a domestic ritual, mirrors the public rites which accompany acceptance into

these extra-oikos social groups.73

Gamos

The wedding procession, or gamos, began and ended with the hearth and marked the brides

transition into her new oikos. Vase paintings often show both mothers; the brides mother

carried torches lit from her home-hearth, which protected her daughter during the procession,

while her mother-in-law, who held torches lit from her respective hearth, received the bride into

her new husbands home.74

An Attic red-figure cup by the Amphitrite Painter, depicts both of

the mothers flanking the newlywed couple (Plate 4).75

John Oakley and Rebecca Sinos conclude

69Parker 1983, p. 51; schol. ad Pl, Tht. 160e, p. 240 (ed. Hermann); schol. ad Ar.Lys. 757, p. 258 (ed. Dbner).

70Plato, Tht. 160e.

71Rose 1957, p. 110.

72Parker 1983, p. 51. The katachysmata is discussed below.

73Golden 1990, pp. 25-29.

74Oakley and Sinos 1993, p. 26.

75Berlin, Antikensammlung, F2530; ARV

2831, no. 20, 1702; Add

2295; Oakley and Sinos 1993, fig. 91.


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that the mothers of the bride and groom direct the transfer of the bride to her new home.76

Carrying the wedding torches was a significant role for Greek mothers. For example, in

Euripides Phoenissae, Jocasta laments that she was unable to raise the wedding torches at her

sons wedding.77

After the bride left her mother, and thus, the protection of her household hearth, she joined her

new oikos in the rituals of incorporation. The first ritual, the katachysmata, is mentioned in a

fragment of the 5th

century B.C.E. comedian Theopompous,

(Theopompus, F15 PCG VII=F14 CAFI)

Bring the katachysmata; quickly pour them over the groom and the bride!

According to Hesychius and the scholia to Aristophanes Ploutos, this ritual took place at the

hearth.78

There is a depiction of this rite on a red-figure loutrophoros by the Phiale Painter, 450-

425 B.C.E.79

This painting is fragmentary and does not depict the ritual taking place at the

hearth, though Hesychius describes it as such. The katachysmata was also poured over the heads

of another category of household inductees, newly-bought slaves. This mixture contained dates,

coins, dried fruits, figs, and nuts and was meant to represent good seasons, and thus good

auspices for the new member of the household.80

76Oakley and Sinos 1993, p. 26.

77Euripides, Phoen. 344-346.

78Hesychius s.v. ; schol. ad Ar. Plut. 768a, p. 366 (ed. Dbner).

79Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 10.223; ARV

21017, no. 44; Add

2315; Oakley and Sinos 1993, figs. 60-61.

80schol. ad Ar. Pl. 768a, p. 366 (ed. Dbner); Suda s.v. ; Sutton 1989, pp. 353-354.


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There is vase-painting evidence for an introduction ritual occurring at the hearthside; a white-

groundpyxis, by the Splanchnopt Painter, 470-60 B.C.E., depicts a groom leading his bride

toward a flaming altar (Plate 5.1-2).81

In this instance, the flaming altar must represent the

hearth of the grooms household.82

A female figure holding a scepter stands behind the altar

(Plate 5.2). She is also distinguished by her himation, or cloak, of deep purple. Some scholars

interpret this figure as the goddess Hestia.83

In the same way that the image of the elaborate,

built altar is conceptual, so too is the presence of the goddess. This image, then, probably refers

to the groom leading his new wife to the sacred hearth of her new oikos. Perhaps this scene

portrays an introduction rite which parallels the amphidromia for newborn children. The bride,

like the newborn or slave, is a new member in the oikos, a transition which demands the proper

hearthside rites for acceptance into the oikos.

Last Rites

Several rituals associated with death and burial preparations occur in the ancient Greek home.

First, when a family member dies, the home is polluted. This pollution requires its own cathartic

rituals, which I will discuss below. Second, the washing and laying out of the corpse takes place

within the oikos. Third, after the funeral, the oikos must be cleansed of the death pollution, and

the sweepings of the home are offered to Hestia in the hearth-fire.

81London, British Museum D11;ARV

2899, no. 146;Add

2303.

82Built altars are comparatively rare in classical Greek houses. In Chapter 4, I discuss other alternatives to built

altars for domestic rituals.

83Oakley and Sinos 1993, pp. 34-35.


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Several tragic characters have prior knowledge of their deaths and carry out some of the

necessary rituals beforehand. In EuripidesAlkestis, the title character knows that she is going to

sacrifice her own life for her husbands.84

Sophocles Oedipus, too, has foreknowledge of his

death. Both of these characters perform their own last rites: they bathe in ritual water, array

themselves in the proper funereal attire, say a prayer to the goddess of the hearth, Hestia, and bid

farewell to their loved ones.85

These characters actions are dramatic because they perform for

themselves the rites customarily performed for the deceased.86

After a member of the oikos died, the surviving members of the household washed the body.

87

Often, women were charged with this task.88

Most likely, this was considered a womans duty

because it fell within the domestic sphere, and thus, within the sphere of the women of the

household. The prothesis, or the laying out of the body, also occurred within the house.89

The

body was laid on a kline, or couch, and lekythoi, or other small jars of oil, were placed around

it.90

After the funeral took place, it was necessary to cleanse the house where the death had occurred.

For example, an inscription from Keos, dating to the second half of the fifth century B.C.E.,

states that the house was purified the day after the funeral with seawater and the ceremony

84Euripides,Alc. 158ff.

85Above note 84; Sophocles, OC1586 ff.

86Garland 2001, p. 24.

87Euripides, Phoen. 1667.

88Plato, Phdr. 115a; Kurtz and Boardman 1971, pp. 143-144.

89Pseudo-Demosthenes 43.56-62; Plutarch, Vit. Sol. 21.

90Aristophanes,Eccl. 538 and 996; Berlin, Antikensammlung, F2684;ARV

21390, no. 3;Add

2373; Kurtz 1975, pl.

54:2.


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terminated with offerings to Hestia at the hearth.91

This final rite, the offering to Hestia, must

have concluded an ancient Greeks circle of life. From the first rite of life, the amphidromia,

which centered around the hearth,to the last, the final cleansing of ones soul from the house in

which it died, returned back to Hestia. These rituals emphasize the importance of the household

hearth as the focus of the domestic cult practiced in ancient Greek oikoi.

Miasma

Pollution, or miasma, wholly occupies the thoughts of Theophrastus Superstitious Man.

92

He is

an extreme example and goes to incredible lengths to protect himself from incurring pollution.

The Superstitious Man is constantly calling out curses, performing anti-pollution rituals, and

cleansing himself and his household in order to protect them from pollution. If this is the routine

which the overly Superstitious Man lived by, his contemporaries probably performed similar

rituals, though in a less compulsive manner.93

Ancient Greek houses were considered polluted when a death or birth occurred within. In order

to avoid these types of pollution, the Greeks created cleansing rituals. Water is the most

widespread agent of purification in Greek cathartic rituals. It was required that a person was

ritually clean before sacrificing or pouring libations, and by extension, this requirement probably

applied to other religious activities.94

One prescription for purification was to wash ones hands

91LSG 97 A15-18.

92Theophrastus, Char. 16.

93Rose 1957, p. 109.

94Homer,Il. 6.266-268.


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or bathe. The water for ritual washing often had to be drawn from a specific source, most often a

source from outside the house. For example, Thucydides tells us that in Athens, the source for

water for religious ceremonies is the Enneakrounos, the fountainhouse for the spring

Kallirrhoe.95

Outside of homes where a birth or death had occurred, the household set up a perirranterion, a

basin which stood on a pedestal, filled with water (Fig. 6).96

Not only did this basin serve as

water for the purification of those entering and leaving the house, but it also served as a token of

warning to those who wished to avoid coming into contact with impure, or polluted, households.

Perirranteria have been found in the excavations of Greek houses as well as in sanctuaries,

which is indicative of their sacred associations.97

In the inventories of these excavations, the

basins are sometimes called louters and can be made of stone or terracotta.98

The broad basin is

usually supported by a stand of the same material.

Birth Pollution

While the birth of a child temporarily polluted the ancient Greek household, pregnant women

were sometimes the cause of, and also subject to, miasma. During the first forty days of

pregnancy, a pregnant woman was not allowed to enter a shrine. However, in the later stages of

95Thucydides, 2.15.5.

96 Burkert 1985, p. 77.

97Louters have been found in the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore in Ancient Corinth, Corinth XVIII, part 3; on the

Athenian acropolis, Raubitschek 1949, pp. 370-413.

98Amyx 1958, pp. 221-225, discusses the terms and . He presents that in domestic

contexts the basin have be called , and in sanctuaries , but that such a distinction is

unnecessary.


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pregnancy, women were urged to visit the sanctuaries of those deities who oversee childbirth.99

When outside of her oikos, a pregnant woman was not a source of pollution to others, but instead

must be wary of incurring the pollution ofothers.100

Iphigenia, while leading the polluted

Orestes through the streets, calls out a warning to three types of people: priests, pregnant women,

and those about to marry.101

Pregnant women and those who are about to marry are two classes

of people who stand on the cusp of an important transition and are thus susceptible to pollution.

There is a cathartic law from Cyrene, dating from the end of the fourth century B.C.E., which

specifies that those who came into the house where a pregnant woman lay were polluted for three

days.102

This birth-pollution could not be passed on and after three days the impure person was

cleansed of the miasma. Other purificatory measures were taken in order to eradicate the

household of birth-pollution. A babys naming ceremony and its amphidromia took place on

either the fifth or the tenth day after birth.103

Each of these initiation rites for the newborn was

accompanied by rituals and sacrifices. These rites, which probably took place in the courtyard of

the house,104

might have served not only to introduce the child to the oikos, but also to purify

anyone involved in the birth, as well as the entire oikos.

99Aristotle, Pol. 1335b 13-17.

100Parker 1983, p. 49.

101Euripides,IT1226-1229.

102SEG ix 72 A16-20 = LSS 115 A16-20

103Above note 69.

104Plato,Resp. 328c.


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Death Pollution

The ancient household was polluted when a death occurred within. Similar to childbirth, at this

time a basin of water, drawn from a specific source, was placed before the door of the house as a

token of warning to those who wished to avoid miasma. It also functioned as water with which

visitors could purify themselves after having encountered the pollution within the house. In

EuripidesAlkestis, the chorus exclaims:

(Euripides,Alc., 97-99)

I do not see before the gates the basin for hand-washing which is customary at the

doors of those who have died.

As aforementioned, water was the primary cathartic element in purificatory rites. In order to

eliminate the pollution incurred after coming into contact with a polluted household, one needed

only wash his or her hands with purifying water. This was similarly true for the house which

was polluted by death. After their family member was buried, the family cleansed the house

with seawater.105

This rite served to purify the house of residual miasma.

Ritual Pyres

David Jordan and Susan Rotroff have recently re-examined an unusual class of mostly fourth and

third centuries B.C.E. deposits from the houses and workshops around the Athenian Agora.106

The deposits show evidence of burning and contain a range of shattered, usually miniature,

105Above note 91.

106Agora XXIX, pp. 212-217; Jordan and Rotroff 1999, pp. 147-154. Such deposits have also been found in the

Kerameikos, indicating some funerary significance, as well. See Knigge and Kovacsovics 1981, pp. 385-396.


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vessels and sometimes tiny fragments of calcined bone.107

Originally interpreted as infant

cremations, the bones have been identified since as animal bones, not human.108

The evidence

indicates that the associated ritual may have involved sacrifice, burning, the smashing of pottery,

and perhaps a libation.109

Rotroff posits that the deposits might represent a ritual associated with

the remodeling of a building after a death within it, a commemoration of ones ancestors, or the

new construction of a building.110

Perhaps such deposits, especially those that are dug through

the original floors of the building,111

serve to purify or cleanse the space from some type of

miasma.

Ritual Washing

Several domestic rites have a component of ceremonial bathing or hand-washing. During her

wedding preparations, the brides ritual bath required elaborate ceremony. The loutrophoros,

which literallymeans one who carries bathwater, was a vessel used specifically for

transporting the water for prenuptial baths from the source prescribed for religious

ceremonies.112

Vase-painting preserves many scenes of these processions, which are more

common than scenes of the actual bath. Furthermore, because of the loutrophoross unique

function, unlike the all-purpose hydria or amphora, it came to indicate marriage-related scenes in

vase-painting iconography. The women of the family joined the bride to parade to the

fountainhouse, usually with a young girl carrying the vase; a red-figure loutrophoros, depicts this

107Agora XIV, p. 16;Agora XXIX, p. 212.

108See Young 1951, pp. 111-112 for the original interpretation.Agora XIV, p. 16, re-interprets the pyres.

109Agora XXIX, p. 212. Rotroff notes that the pyres frequently contained drinking cups.

110Agora XXIX, p. 213; Jordan and Rotroff 1999, p. 147.

111Agora XXIX, p. 213.

112Thucydides 2.15.5.


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procession (Plates 2-3). After the procession, the bride would bathe in preparation for her

upcoming nuptials. The loutrophoros, which symbolized the ritual prenuptial bath, became

synonymous with ancient Greek marriage. For this reason, the vessel shape, either ceramic or

stone, came to be used as a grave marker or funerary offering for someone who died before he or

she was married.113

The death of a family member also necessitated ritual washing. The corpse was given a ritual

bath by the women of the oikos.114

Seawater was the primary cathartic element in funerary rites,

and so, it was the type of water used for washing the body.

115

This rite could be compared to the

ritual bathing of the bride and groom before their marriage. While the latter bath serves as a

ritual in the transition from one stage of life to the next, the bathing of the corpse marked the end

of a life, itself a transition.116

This chapter has outlined the different rites which occurred within the ancient Greekoikos, based

on literary sources. However, it has not addressed how archaeologists can discern ritual

behaviors in the archaeological record. Ancient texts are not explicit about what implements

were used during domestic rituals. They give the impression that sacred implements were

113Pseudo-Demosthenes 44.18; Harpokration, s.v. ; Pollux 8.66. Travlos 1971, p. 361 mentions that

loutrophoroi were often dedicated by unwed girls, and also by a bride after her wedding, to The Nymph or

Artemis Brauronia, two goddesses who preside over young girls and their maidenhood. Kurtz and Boardman 1971,

pp. 111, 241, 315. Kurtz and Boardman note that loutrophoroi commonly appear in funerary relief sculpture, pp.

127, 134, 167-168. Beyond wedding imagery, funerary scenes are also a common iconographic style of

loutrophoroi, Kurtz and Boardman 1971, pp. 129, 149.

114Discussed above, p. 28.

115Euripides,Hec. 610 and 780;IT1193.

116Garland 1985, p. 24.


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everyday, household objects which took on religious significance when they were being used for

domestic ritual. Chapter 4 will examine the multi-functionality of sacred objects and how they

served domestic functions beyond their religious role.


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CHAPTER 4. DOMESTIC RELIGION IN PRACTICE

Ancient literature provides extensive evidence for the gods worshipped and the rituals performed

in the oikos. However, these texts do not always detail the implements required for domestic

rites. How then, are we to identify what artifacts in the archaeological record were used for

household ritual? By integrating evidence for domestic deities from Chapter 2 with the evidence

for household rituals from Chapter 3, it is possible to identify the tools of household cult

excavated from domestic contexts.

Through the examination of ancient texts which detail household ritual, the following types of

artifacts have been determined to be ritually significant: altars, hearths, louters, vessels which

hold, transport and pour liquid, and thymiateria (also called thuribles).117

There is little literary

evidence for the use of figurines and miniature vessels in domestic ritual.118

Aristophanes and

Plato both mention idols being placed near the hearth in order to protect the oikos (Aristophanes,

Av. 435; Plato, Leg. 931a). This might suggest at least one ritual use of figurines in the house.

Ancient literature is also ambiguous about the use of miniature vessels in domestic rites. Some

ancient texts refer to a ritual implement in its diminutive form. The vessel associated with the

worship of Zeus Ktesios is called kadiskos, which is the diminutive form ofkados.119

It is

dubious if this refers to a miniature vessel, or simply a smaller form of the usual kados.120

117Thuribles have not yet been discussed; they are not specifically referred to in ancient sources. There are literary

references to burning incense, but it is unclear if the ritual occurs in a domestic setting.

118Although both types are associated with ritual in public sanctuaries.

119Antikleides 140 F22 FGrH.

120For a discussion of the kados, see Amyx 1958, pp. 186-189.


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Many of the artifacts which served a ritual function may have served an ordinary day-to-day

function, as well. Lisa Nevett, in her 1999 bookHouse and Society in Ancient Greece, analyzed

a sample of artifact types that appear in various iconographic contexts on vases. She

demonstrated that the same objects were depicted in different contexts and that some objects

seemed to have had a wider range of potential uses.121

While these objects are depicted in

vase-painting, by extension such objects might correspond to archaeologically recovered

artifacts. Objects like louters, hearths, and pouring vessels must have had multiple uses. Thus,

because of their multi-functionality, it is limiting to define these objects in terms of a single use.

Amos Rapoport, in his 1990 article entitled, Systems of Activities and Systems of Settings,

describes a type of analysis which looks at the many functions of a single artifact in order to

determine the different human behaviors attending those functions.122

He conceptualizes the

past environment as consisting of different feature elements: fixed, semi-fixed, and non-fixed.

The fixed-feature, or built, elements include floors and walls. The semi-fixed-feature elements

consist of interior and exterior furnishings of all sorts, such as tables, dishware and drapery.

Non-fixed-feature elements denote people and their behavior. He notes that within the built

environment, the semi-fixed-feature elements act as cues for human behavior. In the study of

past society, unavoidably, people and their behavior are absent. Thus, the analysis of semi-fixed-

feature elements is crucial for understanding human behavior in the past.123

The ritually

significant artifacts in the following discussion are semi-fixed-feature elements. Furthermore,

the cultural function of an artifact at a given time determines the behavior of its users and the

121Nevett 1999, pp. 43-49.

122Rapoport 1990.

123Rapoport 1990, p. 13.


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reverse is also true. For example, on the one hand, the household hearth may be used for

cooking, in which instance the occupants of the house will attend to the hearth in its function as

the place for food preparation. On the other hand, if the same hearth is being used for ritual, the

occupants will interact with the hearth in its function as the religious center of the home. This

multi-functionality is indicative of situations where a semi-fixed-feature element had no single,

fixed function or meaning, but modulated between meanings defined by the culturally significant

purposes it served.

The theoretical approaches in the research of Nevett and Rapoport have inspired the framework

for this thesis.124

The concept of multi-functionality and the analysis of semi-fixed-feature

elements are crucial for recognizing different ancient behaviors. While textual and iconographic

sources help to shape the picture of ancient Greek behavior they do not include many of the

incidental details relating to domestic life.125

Therefore, the following analysis will explore how

the multi-functionality of semi-fixed-feature elements in the archaeological record might reflect

ritual behavior in domestic settings.

After identifying the implements of household ritual in ancient literature (see Chapter 3), I then

isolated them in the published excavation reports of Classical and Hellenistic houses in three

cities - Athens, Halieis and Olynthus, and then analyzed. In total, artifacts from sixty-seven

houses, and twenty-one pits and wells, are examined in this study. Athens provides a wealth of

124Nevett 1999; Rapoport 1990.

125Nevett 1999, pp. 34-35.


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ancient source material for domestic religion, but the archaeological evidence is scanty.126

Alternatively, Halieis and Olynthus supply more archaeological evidence than literary sources,

due to the larger numbers of houses excavated in these cities.127

The different methods of deposition and subsequent disturbance at each site have influenced the

context of ritually significant, as well as all other, artifacts. On the one hand, at Olynthus and

Halieis, household artifacts can be studied as from near primary contexts, since these cities were

abruptly abandoned and their inhabitants left behind their household possessions just as they

were. On the other hand, Athens has been continuously inhabited, and houses of the earlier

periods were reused, remodeled, or destroyed to make way for later construction. Thus, most of

the domestic material from ancient Athenian houses is not in its primary use context. In order to

clarify the different depositional processes at work in these three cities, a short description of

each site and its state of preservation follows, preceding the artifact analysis.

Three Cities

Olynthus (Plate 7)

The Classical city of Olynthus, on the Chalcidic peninsula in northern Greece, was occupied

from the later fifth to fourth centuries B.C.E.128

In 348 B.C.E. the polis was violently destroyed

by Philip II of Macedon. Olynthus was largely abandoned at this time. The Olynthians left their

126Only two houses from Athens provided relevant data for this thesis, while the twenty-one wells and pits which

contain material from the Persian destruction of Athens contributed the bulk of Athenian data considered in the

present study. See Table 4.

127Material from fifty-eight houses at Olynthus (Table 2) and seven houses at Halieis (Table 3) has been considered

in this study.

128There was a settlement on the south hill at Olynthus for the first half of the first millennium B.C.E.


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homes nearly intact, leaving behind objects which they would have brought along if the city had

been peacefully abandoned.

Between 1928 and 1938, much of the city was excavated by David M. Robinson. The results of

these campaigns were published in fourteen volumes.129

Nicholas Cahill restudied and analyzed

many of the household assemblages in his 2002 volumeHousehold and City Organization at

Olynthus, which was based on his 1991 dissertation.130

The thorough excavation and publication

of Olynthus, its sudden destruction and abandonment in 348, and the good preservation of house

plans makes the site exceptional for the study of the Classical Greek house.

I have already mentioned that Olynthian houses contain unique assemblages due to the fact that

these houses were quite suddenly abandoned. Nevertheless, there are many human and natural

processes that have disturbed the preservation of artifact assemblages in these houses. The

citizens of Olynthus must have lived for a time under pressure from Philip II which must have

affected what constituted their household property. Perhaps expensive or more useful

implements were sent away to relatives homes. Citizens may have abandoned their houses

before the siege and taken with them their most valuable items. Another human influence on the

context of the household assemblages is looting. After the capture in 348, the city was looted to

a large extent, not only by Philips soldiers, but also by later foragers. The northwest corner of

the city seems to have suffered the most disruption from later occupation.131

Plowing, erosion

129Olynthus I-XIV (1929-1952).

130Cahill 1991 and 2002.

131Olynthus IX, p. 370. Prior to 1934, Robinson argued that Olynthus was never reoccupied after 348 B.C.E.

However, after the season of 1934, the excavators found coins dating to the reigns of Alexander the Great and his

successors in the Northwest Quarter, which forced them to admit that this area of the city saw later activity.


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and other natural disturbances have affected the archaeological context. Generally, houses

buried under a deeper layer of fill (greater than 20 cm to 2 m) than others have preserved a larger

number of artifacts.132

Cahill demonstrates that household deposits buried deeper than half a

meter were not significantly affected by erosion, plowing or looting. Those that were closer to

the modern ground surface were more affected by such processes and thus must be interpreted

with care.133

Halieis (Plate 8)

The city of Halieis sits on the southern side of a harbor at the southern end of the Argolic

peninsula.134

The water in the harbor was 3-5 meters shallower in antiquity, and at present the

northern section of the site lies underwater.135

While there are unstratified finds from earlier

periods at Halieis, the first architectural remains of a settlement are from the Archaic period.

Shortly after the destruction of the Archaic settlement in the early sixth century B.C.E., the

Classical city was planned on an orthogonal grid and was occupied until the late fourth or early

third century B.C.E., when it was thoroughly abandoned. Scholars associate the abandonment

with Demetrios Poliorketes; however, there is little evidence of a widespread destruction in the

city.136

An alternate theory for the abandonment of the city is one of natural, rather than cultural,

agency. John McK. Camp suggests that much of Greece suffered a severe drought in the late

fourth century B.C.E., which caused the abandonment of Halieis, and the southern Argolid, in

132Cahill 2002, pp. 68-70, fig. 11.

133Cahill 2002, pp. 68-69.

134Rudolph 1984, p. 144.

135Ault 1994, pp. 32-33.

136There is some destruction on the acropolis, see Jameson 1969, pp. 320-321.


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general. He bases this theory upon evidence from Athenian houses; in the late fourth century

B.C.E., household wells were replaced with cisterns.137

The artifactual assemblages at Halieis share the unique fortune of those at Olynthus of being

quite suddenly abandoned. However, like those at Olynthus, the artifacts at Halieis have endured

cultural and natural processes that have disrupted the primary context of their deposition.

Specifically, there was a late Roman presence at the site, and an early Byzantine bath was built

over the now submerged Hermione gate.138

Athens (Plate 9)

The state of preservation of the Late Archaic/Early Classical city of Athens is quite different

from that of Olynthus and Halieis. The city has been continuously inhabited since prehistoric

times and presents interpretive difficulties for archaeologists. Houses were reused and

remodeled, or simply demolished to make way for ancient buildings and modern structures.

However, in the area of the Classical Athenian Agora it is possible to investigate Late

Archaic/Early Classical Athenian houses. The houses have been excavated and published over

the last seventy-five years by the American School of Classical Studies in Athens.139

Due to the

different cultural processes in and around the Agora, houses are preserved to varying degrees.

For example, the houses at the north foot of the Areopagus hill are better preserved toward the

south, where hillslope erosion silted them over more quickly and deeply than those to the north,

137Camp 1977, pp. 145-159; 1982, pp. 15ff.

138Jameson 1969, p. 325.

139Young 1951a, 1951b; Thompson 1954, 1959; Shear 1969, 1973, 1993; Agora XIV.


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which have been almost totally destroyed by modern building activity.140

Houses atop the

Areopagus were nearly obliterated by the construction of a Roman Basilica.141

Just southwest of

the Agora, the plans of two Classical houses were recovered, though the area is much disturbed

by later construction and pit digging.142

While the preservation of Athenian houses is not as ideal as at Olynthus and Halieis, it does have

its own unique source of evidence for Late Archaic/Early Classical houses. In and around the

Agora there are a series of twenty-two wells and pits which contain closed deposits dating from

just after the Persian destruction of Athens in 480 B.C.E. (Plate 10).

143

It seems that after the

attack, the Athenians swept up the debris from their wrecked homes and dumped it into well-

shafts which they no longer considered a suitable source of water. T. Leslie Shear Jr. explains

that these deposits contain absolutely homogenous material, plainly thrown into the open well

shaft at one time, and that the majority of the material undoubtedly originated in the china

cupboards of Athenian households.144

These deposits provide scholars of Athenian houses with

a quantity of evidence for domestic ceramic assemblages in Late Archaic/Early Classical Athens.

Artifact Analysis

The Hearth-Altar

Chapter 3 outlined the different rituals practiced in the ancient Greek home according to literary

sources. Many of these rites focus around the hearth of the household and others require the use

140Thompson 1959, p. 99.

141Shear 1973, p. 138.

142Young 1951b, p. 187;Agora XIV, pp. 174-177.

143This paper considers only the twenty-one deposits examined in Shear 1993.

144Shear 1993, p. 393.


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of an altar. Today, we tend to think of the hearths and altars mentioned in ancient literature as

built or fixed-feature elements in a setting. The extant built hearths at Olynthus, Halieis and

Athens are usually curbed by stone or earth and are often filled with layers of ash, potsherds,

bones and other household debris (Plate 11.1).145

Built altars, which have been found at

Olynthus, are classified as ceremonial altars by Yavis (Plate 11.2).146

In most Olynthian houses,

the position of the built, or ceremonial, altar is indicated by a base of stone, or a rectangular or

square-shaped gap in the pavement of the room.147

Many of the houses in Athens, Halieis, and

Olynthus did not contain evidence for a fixed-feature altar nor hearth (Tables 2-4). However,

portable, or semi-fixed-feature, hearths and altars have been found during the excavations of

these three cities (Table 1).148

An alternative to built hearths are portable ones, called braziers or eschara (Plate 12.1).

Aristophanes illustrates the portability of the hearth, having Dikaeopolis request,

(Aristophanes, Ach. 887-888)

Servants, fetch me forth the brazier and the fan.

Both terracotta and metal braziers have been found in archaeological investigations. In House A

xi 10, at Olynthus, a brazier was buried in the floor of room i, presumably to protect it from

145OlynthusVIII, p. 187; Ault 1994, pp. 99 and 167.

146Yavis 1949, pp. 177-183.

147OlynthusVIII, p. 159.

148However, each city does not contain every category of hearth and altar. See Tables 1-4.


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being looted.149

This example demonstrates that the portable hearth must have been valuable

object.

Small altars, or arulae, are more common than built altars at Olynthus, Halieis and Athens.

Arulae can be of stone or terracotta, painted or plain, the stone worked or unworked (Plate 12.2).

The shape and size varies as well; those found in houses are usually shorter than half a meter

high,150

as opposed to the fixed-feature altar found in House A 10 at Olynthus.151

Arulae,

regardless of their exact dimensions and material, are moveable and light enough that a capable

person could lift them. The portability of the arula and the brazier would facilitate the

interchangeable ritual relationship that I suggest below.

Not every house in this study contains both an altar and a hearth, a fact that might indicate that in

household ritual the hearth or altar may have been used instead of, or substituted for, the other.

Constantine Yavis defines an altar as any object or structure, temporary or permanent, which

served the purpose of receiving the fire in which flesh offerings for the god were burned.152

According to Yavis definition, the hearth is a type of altar. Therefore, it could have functioned

as an altar in the rituals described in ancient literature. However, if a house contained a proper

altar, preference might have been given to this object in domestic ritual. Nonetheless, it seems

that the hearth and altar may have enjoyed an interchangeable relationship. Perhaps then, their

meaning and function in household ritual can be shared, or even substituted for one another.

149OlynthusVIII, p. 129.

150The portable altars at Olynthus range from 12 to 25 centimeters in width,

the semi-fixed nature of greek domestic religion

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