Jan N. Bremmer

Becoming a Man inAncient Greece and Rome

Jan N. Bremmer

Becoming a Man in AncientGreece and Rome

Essays on Myths andRituals of Initiation

Mohr Siebeck

Jan N. Bremmer, born 1944; Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Groningen. orcid.org/0000-0001-8400-7143

ISBN 978-3-16-159008-5 / eISBN 978-3-16-159009-2DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-159009-2

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In gratitude

Ken Dowden

Fritz Graf

Pierre Vidal-Naquet (1930–2006)

Preface

Many scholars have special interests that drive them to return again and again to specific subjects. Throughout my career I have remained fascinated by an-cient myths and rituals of initiation, mainly those involving the transition of boys into manhood. This interest may well have something to do with my own coming of age during the 1960s, a period that saw an unprecedented explosion of youth culture. It was certainly in the late 1960s that the most influential stud-ies of ancient initiation first appeared, attracting the attention of a number of classical scholars belonging to roughly the same age group: Claude Calame, Fritz Graf, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood (1945–2008), Jack Winkler (1943–1990) and myself. Despite the added impetus provided by the ongoing cultural revolution of the time, scholarly interest in this topic was not a wholly new phenomenon. Rather, it had its origins in two different approaches, the ethno-graphical and the Indo-European, which, as we shall see below, merged in the course of time.

Before considering the matter in more depth, it will be useful to state briefly what I mean by male initiation. Unlike in contemporary Western society, where reaching adulthood is often a protracted and, not infrequently, difficult process, most tribal societies proclaimed their young men to be adult at a specific mo-ment in time. They effectuated this sudden transition by making the boys pass through a special ritual, initiation, which varied in detail from tribe to tribe and from community to community, but which nevertheless shows a remarkable family resemblance in structure and content all over the world. After this tran-sition, the boys were treated as adults and were expected to behave accordingly. The initiation of girls has received much less attention from anthropologists, not least because most of the earlier students of initiation were male. It seems that both male and female initiation shared many of the same characteristics, but that the initiation of girls was more closely connected to the first menstrua-tion and/or to marriage.1

The structure of tribal initiatory rituals usually follows the famous triad de-lineated by Arnold van Gennep: rite of separation, liminality, and rite of incor-

1 For an exemplary analysis of girls’ initiation, see A. Richards, Chisungu: a girl’s initiation ceremony among the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia (London, 1957). For Greece, see K. Dowden, Death and the Maiden (London and New York, 1989); C. Calame, Les Choeurs de jeunes filles en Grèce ancienne (Paris, 20193).

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poration (rite de séparation, rite de marge and rite d’aggrégation).2 First, the adolescents were separated from their family, often by way of abduction. After this separation, they had to pass through a time that was, in some cases, com-pletely different from either childhood or their future adult life. During this period, which could last in different places for anywhere between a few days and several years, novices underwent changes in hairstyle, clothing, food, place of habitation and behaviour. They were often subjected to various kinds of hu-miliation and tests of their powers of endurance. In this same period, however, they were also introduced into the social, cultural and religious traditions of their tribe, usually by way of singing and dancing, and they were prepared for their future role as husbands. Among some tribes, this marginal period was even conceived of as a kind of death, and the initiates were accordingly sym-bolically buried or addressed as ‘shades’. Finally, the return of the novices into society, which was occasionally seen as a rebirth, often took place via a public procession during a great festival.3

In tribal societies, then, these rites of initiation performed functions similar to those of schools in modern society. Through this formal education, the new generations learned how to behave and how to guarantee the continuation of their society. In this sense, initiation and modern education are not essentially different. Schematically, we could say that they are rather the two extremes of a spectrum which runs from initiation in tribal societies, which usually contains a maximum of symbolism and a minimum of instruction, to education in West-ern industrialised societies, which are characterised by a maximum of instruc-tion and a minimum of symbolism. In all cases, however, the formation of the new generation was and still is treated as an important focus of attention for the whole community.

The Greeks had no specific term for ‘initiation’, although the names of vari-ous initiatory rituals and festivals have survived.4 As with ritual in general in

2 A. van Gennep, Les rites de passage (Paris, 1909), translated as The Rites of Passage (Chi-cago and London, 1960). For van Gennep (1873–1957), see N. Belmont, Arnold van Gennep: the creator of French ethnography (Chicago, 1979); D. Fabre and Ch. Laurière (eds), Arnold Van Gennep: du folklore à l’ethnographie (Paris, 2018).

3 The best survey of tribal male and female initiation is still A. Brelich, Paides e parthenoi (Rome, 1969) 13–112; see also J. L. Brain, ‘Sex, Incest and Death: initiation rites reconsidered’, Current Anthropology 18 (1977) 191–208 (with rich bibliography); J. P. Schjødt, Initiation between Two Worlds: structure and symbolism in Pre-Christian Scandinavian religion (Odense, 2008) 22–49. For the difficulty of adapting these rites to modern times, see H. Janssen, ‘Initi-ation Rites in Africa: tradition and crisis’, Zs. f. Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissen-schaft 64 (1980) 81–92.

4 See, especially, H. Jeanmaire, Couroi et Courètes (Lille, 1939); Brelich, Paides e parthenoi, 112–480; P. Vidal-Naquet, Le Chasseur noir (Paris, 19832) 125–207; W. Burkert, Greek Reli-gion (Oxford, 1985) 260–64, 448–49 (excellent short survey); A. Moreau, ‘Initiation en Grèce antique’, DHA 18 (1992) 191–244; F. Graf, ‘Initiationsriten in der antiken Mittelmeerwelt’, Der altsprachliche Unterricht 36.2 (1993) 29–40 = ‘L’iniziazione nel mondo mediterraneo’,

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Greece, we, as modern scholars, construct a whole and use comparative terms, while the ancient Greeks were more occupied with the individual parts.5 When we use the term ‘initiation’, we therefore apply an etic term, which is inspired by the ethnographic evidence. Keeping this in mind, let us now turn to the histori-ography.

Modern research starts with Heinrich Schurtz’s Altersklassen und Männer-bünde, published in 1902, which shows the importance of men’s societies and men’s houses for non-European peoples.6 However, it seems that this book only became influential in the wake of the 1908 publication of Primitive Secret So-cieties by the American sociologist and anthropologist Hutton Webster.7 Just a few years after Webster’s work, there appeared, almost at the same time, three studies which compared the initiatory systems of Crete and Sparta with those of tribal societies.

In 1912, the creative, but at times over-speculative, Jane Harrison published her Themis, which begins with a detailed analysis of the famous hymn to Zeus from Cretan Palaikastro.8 The book contains the typical catchwords of the time, such as ‘mana’, ‘totemism’ and ‘tabu’, but also ‘initiation’. The latter is the key concept for Harrison’s interpretation of the hymn, which praises Zeus as ‘most mighty youth’ (1: kouros); it also describes the leaping and dancing of his young followers, whom later sources unanimously identify as the Kouretes, the male youths on the brink of adulthood (see below).9 While our sources provide

Aufidus 7 (1994) 23–35. Old but still useful: L. Grasberger, Erziehung und Unterricht im klas-sischen Alterthum, 3 vols (Würzburg, 1864–81).

5 See also J. N. Bremmer, Greek Religion (Cambridge, 20212) 44.6 Graf, ‘Initiation’, 5, cf. H. Schurtz, Altersklassen und Männerbünde: Eine Darstellung

der Grundformen der Gesellschaft (Berlin, 1902). For Schurtz (1863–1903), who was Assistent in the Bremen Museum für Völker- und Handelskunde, see the obituaries by F. Ratzel, Deutsche geographische Blätter 26 (1903) 51–63 and V. Hantzsch, Biographisches Jahrbuch und deutscher Nekrolog 8 (1905) 30–34; note also J. Reulecke, ‘Das Jahr 1902 und die Ur-sprung der Männerbund-Ideologie in Deutschland’, in G. Völger and K. Welck (eds), Männer-bünde–Männerbande, 2 vols (Cologne, 1990) 1.3–10. For the Greek appropriation of the men’s house, the leschê, see J. N. Bremmer, Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible and the Ancient Near East (Leiden, 2008) 154–67.

7 H. Webster, Primitive Secret Societies (New York, 1908). For Webster (1875–1955), see his Genealogical and Autobiographical Notes (Palo Alto, 1952), which, curiously, does not mention his book on secret societies.

8 J. E. Harrison, Themis: a study of the social origins of Greek religion (Cambridge, 1912) 1–29. For the hymn, see W. D. Furley and J. M. Bremer, Greek Hymns, 2 vols (Tübingen, 2001) 1.65–75, 2.1–20. For the sanctuary: K. Sporn, Heiligtümer und Kulte Kretas in klassischer und hellenistischer Zeit (Heidelberg, 2002) 45–49; M. Prent, Cretan Sanctuaries and Cults (Leiden, 2005) 350–53. For Harrison (1850–1928), see Bremmer, The World, 533–37 (with bibliography).

9 Eur. Bacch. 120–25; Corinna, PMG 654i 12–16; Call. H. Zeus 52–53; Strabo 10.3.11; Diod. Sic. 5.65, 70; Hyginus, Fab. 139.3; Apollod. 1.1.6; schol. Pind. O. 5.42b; this volume, Chap-ters 1.5 and 4.1. The statue of a beardless Zeus on Crete, probably in the sanctuary of Palaikas-tro, supports the connection with local initiation, cf. Et. Magnum 276.19: ἐνταῦθα δὲ Διὸς ἄγαλμα ἀγένειον ἵστατο.

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very little information about Cretan dances, it is plausible that the ecstatic danc-es of the Kouretes belonged to the final stages of their adolescence, as the ethno-graphic sources mention that dances occurred at the end of the initiation.10

Whereas the hymn is from Crete, it was Sparta that served as the focus of a much more detailed study in the same year by Martin P. Nilsson, the authority on Greek religion during the middle of the twentieth century. Like Harrison, Nils-son explicitly mentions Schurtz and Hutton, and also compares the Spartan initi-ation rituals to those of indigenous societies, such as the Namibian Herrero and Australian Aborigines. But unlike Harrison, he additionally observes that the oldest cohort of young males can develop into the retinue of a chief’s son, noting the similarity of this occurrence with the Cretan initiation, in which the son of an elite Cretan assembles other boys around him (Chapter 11.1: see also below).11

Nilsson briefly mentions the Spartan krypteia in his analysis and remarks that it reminds him of the cruel and crafty Red Indians of the Indianerbücher, which he, presumably, had read in his youth, as I did myself. Only one year later, Henri Jeanmaire concentrated on the same Spartan institution by compar-ing it to the initiatory practices that emerge from the evidence presented by Schurtz and Webster,12 although paying more attention to the ethnographic ma-terial than to the Greek evidence.13 After the First World War, however, such anthropological comparisons went out of fashion.14 Classics turned inwards and social anthropology moved away from the kind of big armchair compari-sons found in Frazer’s Golden Bough, instead adopting the functionalist para-digm and propagating field work as the correct approach to the study of tribal communities.15

10 Ephoros FGrHist 70 F149 apud Strabo 10.4.21; Janko on Il. 16.617–19 (Cretan dancers); F. Graf, ‘Tanz und Initiation in der griechisch-römischen Antike’, in M. Möckel and H. Volk-mann (eds), Spiel, Tanz und Märchen (Regensburg, 1995) 83–96; A. L. D’Agata, ‘The Power of Images: a figured krater from Thronos Kephala (ancient Sybrita) and the process of polis for-mation in Early Iron Age Crete’, SMEA 54 (2012) 207–47, and ‘Warrior Dance, Social Order-ing and the Process of Polis Formation in Early Iron Age Crete’, in K. Soar and C. Aamodt (eds), Archaeological Approaches to Dance Performance (Oxford, 2014) 75–83.

11 M. P. Nilsson, ‘Die Grundlagen des spartanischen Lebens’, Klio 12 (1912) 308–40; more recently: N. M. Kennell, The Gymnasium of Virtue: education and culture in ancient Sparta (Chapel Hill and London, 1995); J. Ducat, Spartan Education: youth and society in the Classi-cal period (Swansea, 2006). For Nilsson (1874–1967), see Bremmer, The World, 13–16 (with bibliography).

12 H. Jeanmaire, ‘La cryptie lacédémonienne’, REG 26 (1913) 121–50; see also this volume, Chapter 8.1. For Jeanmaire (1884–1960), see L. Gernet, REG 73 (1960) xxxviii–xxxix; A.-J. Festugière, ‘Henri Jeanmaire’, École pratique des hautes études, Section des sciences religieus-es. Annuaire 1960–1961, 62–64. For the krypteia, see this volume, Chapter 8, note 27.

13 As observed by M. Lupi, ‘Sparta Compared: ethnographic perspectives in Spartan stud-ies’, in A. Powell and S. Hodkinson (eds), Sparta: beyond the mirage (Swansea and London, 2002) 305–22 at 307 f.

14 See also the observations by M. Mauss, Oeuvres III (Paris, 1969) 451–54 (19351).15 Classics: H. Flashar (ed.), Altertumswissenschaft in den 20er Jahren: neue Fragen und

Impulse (Stuttgart, 1995). Anthropology: H. Kuklick, The Savage Within: the social history of

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What is noteworthy, in retrospect, about these early studies is that they all concentrated on the Dorian areas of ancient Greece, as if the ethnographic par-allels on which they drew had nothing to contribute to a better understanding of other parts of Greece. It is also striking in retrospect that they all concentrat-ed on ethnographic parallels. This was the era of the Indian summer of coloni-alism, and reports from travellers and missionaries were flooding in thick and fast, providing scholars with a wealth of sources with which to work. Yet much evidence had already disappeared or was in the process of disappearing. For example, in the early eighteenth century, the erudite Jesuit Father Lafitau could still compare ancient Spartan and Cretan customs with those actually observed among, for example, the Hurons and the Iroquois. But around 1900 many native American tribes had already disappeared because of white violence or European illnesses, and analogous situations prevailed in many other parts of the world .16

The work of Schurtz and Webster also had an influence on students of In-do-European societies, our second historiographical strand. This development began in the later 1920s and earlier 1930s with German and Austrian studies of Germanic and Scandinavian rites of initiation and men’s societies.17 These works were often driven by an idea of Germanic continuity, an over-accentua-tion of the tie between men’s societies and the dead, and sympathy with the Nazi movement.18 Yet despite conveying ideas that are, to say the very least, politically nefarious, these studies still offer some interesting suggestions and associations.19 In the later 1930s, ideas about initiation and men’s societies began to influence various Scandinavian scholars, mainly as a result of their personal

British anthropology, 1885–1945 (Cambridge, 1991); J. Goody, The Expansive Moment: an-thropology in Britain and Africa, 1918–1970 (Cambridge, 1995). Field work: J. N. Bremmer, ‘De genealogie van de term veldwerk’, in C. Gietman et al. (eds), Huis en habitus (Hilversum, 2017) 33–35.

16 J.-F. Lafitau, Moeurs des sauvages amériquaines comparées aux moeurs des premiers temps, 2 vols (Paris, 1724) 2.283–96. For Lafitau (1681–1746), see the excellent annotated Eng-lish translation: Customs of the American Indians Compared with the Customs of Primitive Times, tr. W. N. Fenton and E. L. Moore, 2 vols (Toronto, 1974–1977); A. Motsch, Lafitau et l’emergence du discours ethnographique (Sillery, 2001); M. Mulsow, ‘Joseph-François Lafitau und die Entdeckung der Religions- und Kulturvergleiche’, in M. Effinger et al. (eds), Götter-bilder und Götzendiener in der Frühen Neuzeit (Heidelberg, 2012) 37–47.

17 See, especially, L. Weiser, Altgermanische Jünglingsweihen und Männerbünde (Bühl, 1927); for Weiser (1898–1989), see H.-P. Weingand, ‘“Sonst ist es natürlich sehr still und ein-sam für mich, aber die Bücher helfen gut.” Lily Weiser-Aall und ihre Handlungsräume im besetzten Norwegen 1940–1945’, SAV 115 (2019) 41–60; O. Höfler, Kultische Geheimbünde der Germanen I (Frankfurt, 1934); for the controversial Höfler (1901–1987), see, for example, H. Birkhan, ‘Otto Höfler. Nachruf’, Almanach der Österr. Akad. d. Wiss. 138 (1988) 385–406.

18 Cf. H. Junginger (ed.), The Study of Religion under the Impact of Fascism (Leiden, 2008); S. D. Corrsin, ‘“One Single Dance Form like the Sword Dance Can Open Up a Whole Lost World”: the Vienna ritualists and the study of sword dancing and secret men’s unions between the World Wars’, Folklore 121 (2010) 213–33; C. Ginzburg, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method (Baltimore, 20132) 114–31.

19 For a brief, balanced evaluation, see Schjødt, Initiation between Two Worlds, 49–52.

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contacts with the most influential scholar of this ‘school’,20 Otto Höfler. These scholars showed the existence of such practices among the ancient Indians and Iranians, although in doing so they perhaps over-accentuated the importance of the men’s societies.21 In the case of Celtic traditions, by contrast, interest in these topics did not take root until the latter part of the twentieth century, al-though recent decades have seen the appearance of several fine studies that have concentrated in particular on the tales about the boyhood deeds of CúChulain and of Finn and his fian.22

The Indo-European studies were not taken into account by the two notable scholars who still applied the initiation paradigm: Henri Jeanmaire and Louis Gernet.23 Both were rather shy men who spent most of their career working at the margins of French academia, and, as a result, did not achieve any great influ-ence during their lifetimes. However, unlike in his earlier study on the krypteia, in his wide-ranging study of Greek initiation rites published in 1939, Jeanmaire looked beyond the Dorian areas of Greece. The title of this work, Couroi et Courètes, refers to the male youth on the brink of adulthood, to whom we shall return in several places in the present volume (Chapters 1.10, 4.2, 15.2). In addi-tion to considering Crete, Sparta and Delphi, Jeanmaire also included Athens in his study by focusing on Theseus. Theseus’ youth is indeed replete with initia-tory motifs, such as his education by his mother’s father (Chapter 13.1), his fem-inine outfit (Chapter 8) and sacrifice of a bull,24 his wandering with Peirithoos (Chapter 6), the trip to Crete with the battle against the Minotaur and the return

20 Cf. M. Gasche, ‘Die Beziehungen deutscher und skandinavischer Orientalisten im Schatten des Nationalsozialismus: Von traditionellen Banden, weltanschaulichen Brüchen und (teils) getrennten Wegen nach 1945’, Studia Orientalia Electronica 4 (2016) 53–70.

21 Especially S. Wikander, Der arische Männerbund (Lund, 1938); for Wikander (1908–1983), see M. Timuş, ‘La bibliographie annotée de Stig Wikander (1908–1983)’, Studia Asiatica 1–2 (2000) 209–34 and S. Arvidsson, ‘Stig Wikander och forskningen om ariska mannaför-bund’, Chaos 38 (2002) 55–68; G. Widengren, Hochgottglaube im alten Iran (Uppsala and Leipzig, 1938) 311–51 and Der Feudalismus im alten Iran (Cologne and Opladen, 1969); for Widengren (1907–1996), see A. Hultgård, ‘Geo Widengren’ = https://iranicaonline.org/arti cles/widengren-geo, accessed 15-11-2020. Recent evaluation: T. Daryaee, ‘The Iranian Män-nerbund Revisited’, Iran and the Caucasus 22 (2018) 38–49.

22 Cf. J. F. Nagy, The Wisdom of the Outlaw. The Boyhood Deeds of Finn in Gaelic Narra-tive Tradition (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1985); K. McKone, ‘Hund, Wolf und Krieger bei den Indogermanen’, in W. Meid (ed.), Studien zum indogermanischen Wortschatz (Inns-bruck, 1987) 101–54; this volume, Chapters 1.7, 5.2 and 15.2.

23 L. Gernet, Anthropologie de la Grèce antique (Paris, 1960) 154–71 (‘Dolon le Loup’, 19361); many references to initiation also in the posthumously published notes of his Poly-valence des images, ed. A. Soldani (Pisa, 2004). For Gernet (1882–1962), see M. Freedman in M. Granet, The Religion of the Chinese People (Oxford, 1975) 4–5; S. C. Humphreys, Anthro-pology and the Greeks (London, 1978) 76–106, 283–88; R. Di Donato, Per una antropologia storica del mondo antico (Florence, 1990) 1–130; Bremmer, The World, 12–13.

24 Cf. F. Graf, ‘Apollon Delphinios’, MH 36 (1979) 2–22 at 14–18, who shows the close connection of Theseus with the life of the Athenian ephebes.

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to become king.25 The antiquity of the Theseus myth, which probably goes back to the Bronze Age,26 suggests the early existence of rites of initiation in ancient Greece, even though these have not (yet?) been attested in the Linear B texts.

The publication of Jeanmaire’s book at the beginning of the Second World War did not help to spread his ideas or stimulate interest in initiation. Indeed, it was not until the end of the 1960s that initiation again appeared on the scholarly agenda. In 1968, Pierre Vidal-Naquet published his ‘The Black Hunter and the Origin of Athenian Ephebeia’,27 in which he argued that the ephebe was a kind of anti-hoplite. His use of the terms ‘cooked’ and ‘raw’ betrays the influence of Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009). More crucially, it has been justly argued against him that, instead of a simple opposition between ephebe and hoplite, we should rather think of ‘the existence of a broad band of youthful status, rather than a polarity between marginal youth and incorporated adult: incorporation and socialisation take place over time’.28 Nevertheless, Vidal-Naquet conclu-sively demonstrated that ancient rites of initiation had survived within Atheni-an civic practices, even if they had undergone various transformations.

Vidal-Naquet’s influence in French academia and his excellent contacts with the Anglo-Saxon scholarly world contributed to his article becoming perhaps the most famous modern contribution to the study of ancient initiation. It cer-tainly overshadowed the much more wide-ranging study of Greek male and female initiation by the Italian (but son of a Romanian father and a Hungarian mother)29 Angelo Brelich. Having shown an interest in initiation in his early lectures and his still-fundamental work on the Greek heroes,30 in 1969 Brelich went on to publish a study, Paides e Parthenoi, that paid considerable attention to the topic. His work began with a long discussion of global initiation rites that

25 Jeanmaire, Couroi et Courètes, 228–378, whose analysis is refined by C. Calame, Thésée et l’ imaginaire athénien (Paris, 20183) 69–139.

26 Cf. Fowler, EGM 2.468–71. For an origin of the Kouretes in the Bronze Age, see F. Graf, ‘Ephesische und andere Kureten’, in H. Friesinger and F. Krinzinger (eds), 100 Jahre Öster-reichische Forschungen in Ephesos (Vienna, 1999) 255–62 at 260.

27 P. Vidal-Naquet, ‘The Black Hunter and the Origin of the Athenian Ephebeia’, PCPhS NS 14 (1968) 49–64, which also appeared in French and Italian and received its definitive form in id., Le Chasseur noir (Paris, 19832) 151–75; see also his ‘Alexandre et les chasseurs noirs’, in P. Savinel, Arrien, Histoire d’Alexandre le Grand (Paris, 1984) 355–65; ‘The Black Hunter Revisited’, CCJ 32 (1986) 126–44; ‘Retour au chasseur noir’, in J.-P. Vernant and P. Vidal-Naquet, La Grèce ancienne 3: Rites de passage et transgressions (Paris, 1992) 215–51 and his Mémoires, 2 vols (Paris, 1995–1998) 2.222–30. For Vidal-Naquet (1930–2006), see his Mé-moires and F. Dosse, Pierre Vidal-Naquet. Une vie (Paris, 2020); note also O. Murray, ‘The Reception of Vernant in the English-speaking World’, History of Classical scholarship 2 (2020) 131–57.

28 Thus, incisively, J. Ma, ‘The Return of the Black Hunter’, CCJ 54 (2008) 188–208 at 190.29 Cf. V. S. Severino et al., ‘Angelo Brelich, incroci tra Italia e Ungheria’, Historia religio-

num 12 (2020) 41–86.30 A. Brelich, Gli eroi greci (Rome, 1958) index s.v. iniziazioni, and Le iniziazioni. Parte

seconda: sviluppi storici nelle civiltà superiori, in particolare nella Grecia antica (Roma, 1961).

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was based on much more solid ethnographic foundations than was Jeanmaire’s discussion. Brelich then analysed Sparta, Crete, Arcadia and Athens, as well as a series of Greek festivals, to limit myself here to his treatments of male rites. He also persuasively argued that various religious festivals, such as the Hyakinthia and Karneia, incorporated features of initiation rituals, albeit reinterpreted. A very young Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood concluded her review of the volume as follows; ‘Paides e Parthenoi is undoubtedly written by a very brilliant man, and in masterly style. Its apparent authority should not disguise the fact that it must be used with caution’.31 This is certainly correct. Yet it is also true that Brelich was a pioneer in analysing many Greek initiatory festivals and rites as having a basis in an initiatory past – analyses that have stood the test of time.32

Gradually, then, the whole of the Greek world was becoming the subject of studies of initiation, and not only the Dorian areas that had been focussed on at the beginning of the twentieth century. Brelich had cast his net widely, but there were still gaps in his survey, with Macedonia and Thessaly being perhaps the most important areas not to be considered. This vacuum was first filled in 1994 when the Greek ancient historian and Macedonian specialist Miltiades Hatzo-poulos published a book on rites of passage in Macedonia in which he shows that the Macedonians also had their own initiatory rites for girls and for boys and that these were remarkably similar to those performed elsewhere in Classi-cal Greece.33 Inspired by him, subsequent studies have now also demonstrated the existence of comparable age classes and rites of passage in Thessaly.34

In the meantime, Fritz Graf, inspired by the warrior exploits of medieval Swiss youths,35 had also embarked on a series of studies of initiatory rites in Greece, to which he compared the Indo-European evidence.36 It is my acquaint-ance with him that led me in the same direction (Chapters 1, 5.2 and 15). Com-

31 C. Sourvinou-Inwood, review of Brelich, Paides e parthenoi, JHS 91 (1971) 172–77. For Sourvinou-Inwood (1945–2007), see the obituary by Robert Parker, The Guardian 31 May 2007; A. Kavoulaki (life and bibliography) in ead. (ed.), Πλειών. Papers in Memory of Christia-ne Sourvinou-Inwood (Rhetymno, 2018) 1–20.

32 Brelich, Paides e parthenoi. For Brelich (1913–1977), see the autobiography in his Storia delle religioni, perché? (Naples, 1979) 21–115; M. G. Lancellotti and P. Xella (eds), Angelo Brelich e la storia delle religioni: temi, problemi e prospettive (Verona, 2005).

33 M. B. Hatzopoulos, Cultes et rites de passage en Macédoine (Athens, 1994).34 See, especially, S. Kravaritou, ‘Cults and Rites of Passage in Ancient Thessaly’, in M.

Kalaitzi et al. (eds), Βορειοελλαδικά … Essays in honour of Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos (Athens, 2018) 377–95 (with thanks to Onno van Nijf).

35 Cf. F. Graf, ‘Von Knaben und Kämpfern. Hans-Georg Wackernagel und die Riten-forschung’, in M. L. Heyer-Boscardin (ed.), Wider das “finstere Mittelalter”. Festschrift für Werner Meyer zum 65. Geburtstag (Basel, 2002) 237–43.

36 Cf. F. Graf, ‘Apollon Delphinios’ (1979); Nordionische Kulte (Rome, 1985) 89–90, 219–27, 415–17; ‘Apollo Lykeios in Metapont’, in A. Kalogeropoulou (ed.), Praktika tou 8. Dieth-nous Synedriou Hellenikes kai Latinikes Epigraphikes, 2 vols (Athens, 1984–1987) 2.242–45; Greek Mythology (Baltimore, 1993) 74, 107–09; ‘Initiationsriten’ (1993); ‘Ephesische und an-dere Kureten’ (1999); ‘Initiation’ (2003) and Apollo (London and New York, 2009) 103–29.

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bining both the ethnographic and the Indo-European approach,37 it seems rea-sonable to conclude that the proto-Greeks, when arriving in Greece sometime in the second millennium, brought with them a system of initiation that may plausibly be thought to be related to those that have been identified for the an-cient Celtic, Germanic and Indo-Iranian peoples.

Which rites, then, did the early Greeks bring with them? It is obvious that such questions cannot be answered with any certainty and that our answers can, at best, only strive for plausibility. They certainly would have had a system of age sets,38 which started perhaps around 16, if not sometimes earlier, and will have ended around 20. This system will have comprised the teaching of weapon skills, running, hunting, singing, dancing and, not to be forgotten, cunning, as we witness in the later sources for Crete and Sparta. However, it may have orig-inally also included other aspects of Greek life, such as oaths, healing and sacri-fice, given that these are mentioned as parts of the teaching of Cheiron, the mythical initiator par excellence.39

The early rites may have involved pederastic relationships as well (Chapters 11 and 12), but if they did not then we have no idea at what point pederasty was incorporated into initiation. Towards the end of the initiation, just before the rite d’aggrégation, there will have been a kind of transvestism (Chapters 8 and 9) and a period spent outside the civilised community, whether in outlying border areas or wandering further afield, a theme we will encounter repeatedly in this book (Chapters 1.7, 5.2, 6.3, 15.2). It seems that sometimes a group did not re-turn to their original society. Instead, like the Roman ver sacrum,40 they estab-lished a new community elsewhere, presumably not in an altogether peaceful manner (Chapter 15). One may even wonder whether such groups played a role in the Greek colonisation of Asia Minor, given the prominence of the Kouretes in Ephesus and of the Molpoi in Miletus, who seem to have been a comparable group.41

37 For the Indo-European evidence, the best survey is Widengren, Feudalismus, 64–101, but also see the balanced surveys in R.P. Das and G. Meiser (eds), Geregeltes Ungestüm. Bru-der schaften und Jugendbünde bei indogermanischen Völkern (Bremen, 2002).

38 Cf. N. M. Kennell, ‘Age-Class Societies in Ancient Greece?’, Ancient Society 43 (2013) 42–61.

39 Cf. Titanomachia F 11 Bernabé = 6 Davies; Hes. F 283–85; Pherecrates F 162; C. Brillante, ‘Crescita e apprendimento: l’educazione del giovane eroe’, QUCC NS 37 (1991) 7–28; this volume, Chapter 3.3.

40 Most recently, H. S. Versnel, Transition & Reversal in Myth & Ritual (Leiden, 1993) 304–09; F. Bartol, ‘El ver sacrum del 217 a. C.’, Revista General de Derecho Romano 11 (2008) 1–12; F. Diez de Velasco, ‘Una interpretación ecológico-religiosa del ritual ver sacrum’, in J. A. López Férez et al. (eds), Πολυπραγμοσύνη. Homenaje al Profesor Alfonso Martínez Díez (Madrid, 2016) 183–90; L. Sacco, ‘VER SACRVM. Osservazioni storico-religiose sul rito ital-ico e romano’, Chaos e Kosmos 17–18 (2016–2017) 1–26.

41 Kouretes: Graf, ‘Ephesische und andere Kureten’. Molpoi: A. Herda, Der Apollon-Delphinios- Kult in Milet und die Neujahrsprozession nach Didyma. Ein neuer Kommentar der sogenannten Molpoi-Satzung (Mainz, 2006). Kouretes and Molpoi: Graf, Apollo, 110–13.

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Our understanding of these early stages is complicated by the fact that, as the case of Theseus illustrates and as can also be seen in the ethnographic literature, the initiation of princes or elite youths sometimes seems to have differed from that of their peers.42 These cases are even more complicated as we have to recon-struct them from myth, which not only reflects, but also refracts, clarifies, sim-plifies or dramatises reality.43 Yet there seem to be certain patterns that are so close to ritual that it is plausible to think that they reflect once-practised rites. I would like to mention three examples.

First, in a number of cases, the sons of kings or members of the elite are edu-cated by shepherds or are depicted acting as shepherds themselves. We find this theme not only in Greece, but also in Rome and in Persia (Chapter 6.3). This is probably a status reversal, which is a recurrent theme in depictions of the mar-ginal period between adolescence and adulthood in Greece, as elsewhere.44 A clear example is provided by the young Cretan boys who had to wear dirty clothes, sit on the ground in the men’s house and wait on the adults, just as elite boys had to do at symposia in Athens and elsewhere (Chapter 12.1–2).

Second, several myths relate the defeat of a monster by a prince, such as Od-ysseus’ defeat of the Cyclops (Chapter 2), Oedipus’ defeat of the Sphinx (Chap-ter 10), Theseus’ of the Minotaur,45 Perseus’ of the Gorgon,46 and Meleager’s victory over the monstrous Calydonian Boar (Chapter 4).47 These myths sug-gest that the killing of an important enemy or dangerous animal was among the obligations that had to be fulfilled before attaining proper manhood. Such tests are even widespread in fairy tales, in which they have also been interpreted, at least partially, as initiatory motifs.48 The Hellenistic author Hegesandros (apud Athen. 1.18a) reports that, among the Macedonians, a man could recline at din-ner only when he had speared a boar without a hunting-net. In other words, he could only join the ‘club’ of adults after he had singlehandedly killed a boar during a hunt. It seems plausible to suppose that our myths reflect, albeit in

Neither Graf nor Herda compares the Athenian Eumolpids, who may well go back to a simi-lar group.

42 For various examples, see Brelich, Paides e parthenoi, 28, with notes 38–39.43 Cf. R. Buxton, Imaginary Greece (Cambridge, 1994) 87–88.44 For Turner’s influential studies, see this volume, Chapter 1, Introduction.45 Theseus and Minotaur: Fowler, EGM 2.468–74; G. and E. Giudice, I frammenti Beazley

dal Persephoneion di Locri Epizefiri. Una ricostruzione iconografica (Rome, 2018) 166–67 (iconographical evidence).

46 Cf. L. J. Roccos, ‘Perseus’, in LIMC VII.1 (1994) 332–48; D. Ogden, Perseus (London and New York, 2008); E. Karamanou, Euripides Danae and Dictys: introduction, text and commentary (Leipzig, 2012) 1–17, 119–31; Fowler, EGM 2.253–58; M. H. Jameson, Cults and Rites in Ancient Greece (Cambridge, 2014) 22–40; D. Angileri, ‘La metis di Perseo e Dedalo sull’oinochoe di bucchero della collezione Casuccini’, Mètis NS 18 (2020) 221–31.

47 For the boar hunt, albeit not always persuasive on the topic, see M. L. West, ‘The Caly-donian Boar’, in J. Dijkstra et al. (eds), Myths, Martyrs, and Modernity. Studies in the History of Religions in Honour of J. N. Bremmer (Leiden, 2010) 3–11; this volume, Chapter 4.

48 K. Horn, ‘Prüfung’, in Enzyklopädie des Märchens 11 (Berlin, 2004) 1–5.

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dramatised form, this kind of requirement for youths of the elite. A likely vari-ant of this theme is the fetching of a valuable and incredibly hard-to-acquire object, such as the Golden Fleece.49 Indeed, the myth of Jason and the Argo-nauts is full of initiatory motifs, such as the wearing of one sandal,50 the young age of the participants (Apoll. Rhod. 1.341, 448; 3.118, 246, etc.), the group of 50 (Chapters 8.2, 15.2),51 and the presence of maternal uncles (Apoll. Rhod. 1.45, 201: Chapter 13.2).

Third, and last, after the defeat of the monster, Perseus marries Andromeda, just as Oedipus does Iocaste, whilst Jason weds Medea after returning with the Golden Fleece. In other words, in these myths there is a common connection between marriage and the end of the initiation. Indeed, we also hear that this was the case in Crete (Strabo 10.4.20), Samos (schol. Il. 14.296a) and the Troad (Ps.-Aeschines , Ep. 10.3–5); the collective marriage of the Danaids suggests the antiquity of such marriages, as, probably, does the myth of the Proitids.52

All these examples demonstrate that there is no straight line from myth to ritual, but that we have to continuously keep in mind that narratives have their own laws and logic. Narratives can even contain initiatory motifs without re-flecting the whole or many elements of the initiatory ritual; employ them in wholly different constellations; or concentrate on specific elements, such as the birth of a hero or his stay in the wilderness. In the end, we should never forget that Greek myths were meant to tell a good story, with which the poets or other narrators had to entertain their listeners and readers.53

There are three more aspects of myths related to initiation that I would like to mention in this respect, as they feature in various of the chapters collected here. First, a number of myths relate that the prince, Oedipus for example, was not educated by his own parents but was, rather, fostered by another family until the puberty rites started. Often, this other family was his mother’s rela-tives, either an uncle or the maternal grandfather. The common thread across

49 For Jason, the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece see, most recently, J. N. Bremmer, Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible and the Ancient Near East (Leiden, 2008) 303–38; M. L. West, Hellenica I (Oxford, 2011) 277–312; Fowler, EGM 2.195–234; A. Debiasi, Eumelo, la saga argonautica e dintorni. La documentazione papirologica (Rome, 2020).

50 Fowler, EGM 2.206–08, with older bibliography; add E. P. de Loos-Dietz, ‘Le Mono-sandalos dans l’Antiquité’, BABESCH 69 (1994) 175–97; R. Carboni, ‘Divagazione sul tema del sandalo: significato e valenza tra la sfera celeste e quella ctonia’, Gaia 16 (2013) 113–31; S. Blundell, ‘One Shoe off and One Shoe on’, in S. Pickup and S. Waite (eds), Shoes, Slippers, and Sandals: feet and footwear in Classical Antiquity (Abingdon and New York, 2018) 216–28.

51 For other crews of 50, see Il. 2.719, 22.421–22; Od. 10.203–09; J. N. Bremmer, ‘Oor-sprong, functie en verval van de pentekonter’, Utrechtse Historische Cahiers 11 (1990) 1–11.

52 Danaids: T. Gantz. Early Greek Myth (Baltimore, 1993) 203–06. Proitids: Fowler, EGM 2.169–78; Bremmer, The World, 40–41. Collective weddings: see the suggestive observations of Gernet, Anthropologie, 39–45, 203.

53 As stressed by Fowler, EGM 2.xx-xxi; see also K. Dowden, ‘Initiation: the key to myth?’, in id. and N. Livingstone (eds), A Companion to Greek Mythology (Oxford, 2011) 487–505; S. I. Johnston, The Story of Myth (Cambridge, MA and London, 2018) 34–64.

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myths seems to have run even deeper, with several myths mentioning a role for maternal uncles during the initiatory rites, as in the case of the Argonauts (Chapters 13 and 14). Apparently, when the coming-of-age rituals came to be organised by the polis, this family aspect disappeared, for it is no longer men-tioned in historical times.

Second, as the myth of the Argonauts shows, Jason went to Colchis with a following of about 50 youths, just as Telemachos went in search of his father with a group of hetairoi, ‘comrades’, youths of the same age (Od. 3.363–64). It seems to have been a recurrent phenomenon until well into the Archaic Age that a prince was accompanied by a group of youths at the end of his coming-of-age period.54 However, the disappearance of the noun kouros, ‘youth’, from spoken Ionic, as can be seen in Homer,55 suggests that such groups were already disap-pearing in Homeric times (Chapter 1.10). It is likely that there was simply no longer any room for such enterprising groups of youths in the politically better ordered Archaic era.56 Yet the fact that in Crete a young son from the elite was initiated together with boys of clearly lower social status suggests that the cus-tom did survive into historical times in a version that was adapted to suit the political and social requirements of the period (Chapter 11.1).

Finally, whereas the ethnographic evidence collected by Schurtz and Webster often mentions the role of the adult males of the tribe as initiators of the youths, this aspect is almost invisible in ancient Greece. Perhaps the only trace of it is to be found in the myth of the Centaurs, where it is given prominence in the tradi-tion concerning the Centaur Cheiron, who probably ‘survived’ as a result of his part in the myths of Achilles and Heracles. Burkert has called Centaurs ‘the wild men of the woods who still belong to the context of initiation’,57 and their being a group does suggest a kind of men’s society. But their location on Mt Pelion indicates a hoary antiquity, as does their relatively early disappearance from our tradition, and that is all we can say on the matter (Chapter 3).

With the Centaurs we come to the end of our survey. It should be obvious that this is a sketch in very broad strokes, as we cannot differentiate our myths in virtue of time or place due to lack of sources. In any case, many local commu-nities and ethnê must have begun to develop their own characteristics already at

54 Cf. Ch. Ulf, Die homerische Gesellschaft (Munich, 1990) 131: ‘Der Kern der sich um eine Führungsfigur gruppierenden Hetairoi dürfte sich in der Regel aus Gleichaltrigen rekrutier-en’, comparing Il. 5.325–26, 18.251; Od. 22.208–09, although this does not exclude the pres-ence of older males (133–34).

55 Cf. A. Hoekstra, Epic Verse before Homer (Amsterdam, 1981) 76–78.56 Compare the fate of the returning Trojan heroes, who could no longer find a place in the

newly established order of the late Geometric period: R. L. Fowler, ‘The nostoi and Archaic Greek Ethnicity’, in S. Hornblower and G. Biffies (eds), The Returning Hero (Oxford, 2018) 43–63.

57 W. Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley, Los Ange-les, London, 1979) 30.

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an early stage as it would otherwise be very hard to explain the striking differ-ences between, say, Athens and Sparta. These differences were not static; with changing political and cultural circumstances, the initiation of the young will surely also have changed. The case of Sparta’s militarisation is too well known to need discussion here, but it has been less noted that we have a close parallel for the militarisation of initiation rites in the tribe of Native Americans known as the Crow Nation, amongst whom we can observe the same development to an often surprisingly close degree.58 In Athens, the training of the youth was put on a new footing in the later fourth century, although one that was not without roots in earlier practices,59 while in Macedonia in the Hellenistic period the male rites became increasingly influenced by those of Athens.60 In Hellenistic times, the gymnasion became the place for military training.61 Even seemingly age-old institutions are not beyond the forces of history.

Having looked at the rites of initiation and their historiography, we now turn to the present book. This is not a systematic analysis of the ancient rites of male initiation. Originally, the articles should have been part of the second volume of my Collected Essays.62 However, their inclusion would have swelled the volume beyond an affordable size, so they are published here in their own collection. All of the articles gathered here discuss elements of ancient rites of initiation, but they offer a kaleidoscopic view rather than a systematic analysis. The reason is plain: they were all written for different occasions, ranging from a volume on wilderness (Chapter 3) via one on ancient descents into the underworld (Chap-ter 6) to a collection on the symposium (Chapter 12). Yet they all discuss initia-tory aspects of ancient myths and rituals, and at the end of the book the reader should have a good idea, albeit through the prism of myth, of, especially, the earlier forms of those rites.

The book starts with an analysis of the myths of the Trojan War. It is evident-ly the adventurous analysis of an early-career scholar, written ‘in high spirits’ as

58 Cf. J. Lear, Radical Hope: ethics in the face of cultural devastation (Cambridge, MA and London, 2006), whose analysis would reward a comparison with Sparta’s education and train-ing of the young.

59 J. L. Friend, The Athenian Ephebeia in the Fourth Century BCE (Leiden, 2019).60 Cf. M. B. Hatzopoulos, ‘Comprendre la loi ephebarchique d’Amphipolis’, Tekmeria 13

(2015–2016 [2017]) 145–71; D. Rousset, ‘Considérations sur la loi éphébarchique d’Amphipo-lis’, REA 119 (2017) 49–84. This Athenian influence went further than Macedonia alone; cf. A. S. Chankowski, L’Éphébie hellénistique (Paris, 2010) and ‘Ideology of War and Expansion? A Study of the Education of Young Men in Hellenistic Gymnasia’, in M. Champion and L. O’Sullivan, (eds), Cultural Perceptions of Violence in the Hellenistic World (London and New York, 2017) 39–57.

61 See D. Kah, ‘Militärische Ausbildung im hellenistischen Gymnasion’, and M. B. Hatzo-poulos, ‘La formation militaire dans les gymnases hellénistiques’, in D. Kah and P. Scholz (eds), Das hellenistische Gymnasion (Berlin, 2004) 47–90, 91–96, respectively.

62 J. N. Bremmer, The World of Greek Religion and Mythology = Collected Essays II (Tübingen, 2019).

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Martin West commented.63 In the original version, I concluded that ‘the origin of the complex of the Trojan War is for an important part to be looked for in ancient rituals of initiation’.64 I would now qualify this conclusion to a certain extent. The direct shift from an epic poem to practised rituals is certainly too simplistic. I would now say that the backstories of important protagonists of the Trojan War – whether from the Iliad itself or from the Epic Cycle – such as Achilles, Hector, Neoptolemos/Pyrrhos, Odysseus, Paris and Philoctetes, con-tain many references to initiatory motifs or, as in the case of Hector and the ‘Hectorean hairstyle’, have been connected with such motifs. This had not been argued before and still seems to me to be the case.

An explanation is more difficult. In addition to the initiatory role of poets in Archaic Greece, I would now add the youthful age of the Greek army before Troy, which was mostly made up of kouroi, ‘youths’ (Chapter 1.10). Before the rise of the hoplite army, the role of youths in war must have been more impor-tant and their rites of initiation of particular interest to them. In a way, the ex-pedition against Troy looks like the dramatisation of a raid organised with young men, such as the expedition of the Argonauts. The dual leadership of Agamemnon and Menelaos, which finds parallels in Rome (Romulus and Remus) as well as among the Anglo-Saxons (Hengist and Horsa) and Vandals (Ambri and Assi), is another archaic feature, although one that is still very pres-ent in Homer.65

The next four examples (Chapters 2 to 5) look at myths that can plausibly be thought to have preceded Homer. The case of the Cyclops is much debated, but most scholars would probably agree that the poet of the Odyssey had forerun-ners whose tradition he had appropriated. I follow Burkert in seeing the Cy-clops as being modelled on the Lord of the Animals, a traditional figure in many tribal initiations (Chapter 2). Some connection with initiation is also supported by a ritual in Magnesia where youths dressed in sheepskins ascended to the cave of Cheiron, the great initiator (Chapter 3.3, but see also 1.4). The latter was al-ready known to Homer (Il. 4.219, 11.832, etc.), as were the Centaurs (Chapter 3). The case of Meleager is one of the most frequently discussed examples of Homer’s innovations with regard to traditional material, but themes in his

63 West, ‘The Calydonian Boar’, 8 note 18.64 J. N. Bremmer, ‘Heroes, Rituals and the Trojan War’, Studi-Storico Religiosi 2 (1978)

5–38 at 35.65 H. W. Singor, Oorsprong en betekenis van de hoplietenphalanx in het archaische Grie-

ken land (Diss. Leiden, 1988) 138 compares, amongst others, Il. 4.274 (2 Aiantes) and 4.393 (2 leaders of a group of 50 kouroi), 5.592–95 (Hector and Ares), 12.196 (Poulydamas and Hector) and 330 (Sarpedon and Glaukos); Od. 14.237 (Idomeneus and Odysseus) as well as adducing Germanic and Celtic examples; add Il. 2.511–16 (Askalaphos and Ialmenos), 517–26 (Schedios and Epistrophos), 676–80 (Pheidippos and Antiphos); Paulus Diaconus, Hist. Long. 1.7 (Vandals); R. Caprini, ‘Hengist e Horsa, uomini e cavalli’, Maia 46 (1994) 197–214; M. L. West, Indo-European Poetry and Myth (Oxford, 2007) 190.

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myth, such as the hunt, the Kouretes (Chapter 1.5) and the maternal uncles (Chapter 13), undeniably bring him close to actual Aetolian ritual practices (Chapter 4). This is less so in the case of Orpheus. Although he is not mentioned in our surviving literature before Ibycus (F 306), there can be little doubt that he preceded Homer, as there is general agreement that he took part in the expedi-tion of the Argonauts, which was known to Homer.66 After the loss of his wife, Eurydice, he is portrayed as wandering the countryside with a group of young men. We cannot tie this aspect of his tradition to a specific local community, although we can probably narrow it down to Macedonia or Thracia, but we do find here the motif of the wandering youths (Chapter 5).

We find the same motif of wandering youths in the myth regarding Theseus and Peirithoos. They are already mentioned in a line in the Odyssey (11.631) that has often been suspected to be a later insertion, although probably wrongly,67 but they are certainly attested in the Archaic Age. We can only wonder to what extent their wandering as a pair is a variation of that by groups of youths (Chap-ter 6). And what about the tradition of the stay in the wild by only one Arcadian youth, as related by various authors?68 Was this a further development of the stay in the wild by groups of youths or of the wandering by only two? Or did the myths perhaps concentrate on only one youth while failing to relate that he was, in reality, accompanied by a larger group of lower status youths, as hap-pened in Crete (Chapter 11.1)? It is clear that myths can vary considerably in their focus. Similarly, we hear of the fight of just one hero against a monster (Perseus), that of a hero with a small company (Theseus went to Crete with a group of about 14 youths), and that of a hero with a full retinue (Jason with the Argonauts). However this may be, the plausibility of a Bronze Age origin for Theseus (above) makes it likely that here, too, we are considering a pre-Homer-ic motif. If this motif is indeed Athenian, this would point to very early initia-tory rites in Athens and, consequently, among the Ionians.

We can be less certain about a pre-Homeric initiatory stage of Heracles’ life (Chapter 7). Undoubtedly, some of the motifs with which he is associated are rather old, such as his education by shepherds, but the sources are relatively late (fifth-century mythographers), and it is difficult to locate such a popular hero in a specific area of Greece. On the other hand, it is clear that the myths about his youth bristle with initiatory motifs, which in itself is suggestive of an early tra-dition in this respect.

The next two chapters focus on the theme of transvestism (Chapters 8 and 9), which was perhaps the earliest initiatory motif identified as such for Greek my-thology (Chapter 1.1). The discussion of Dionysos collects the evidence for

66 Fowler, EGM 2.211–12; F. Graf and S. I. Johnston, Ritual Texts for the Afterlife (London and New York, 20132) 167 f.

67 Fowler, EGM 2.470 note 67.68 Cf. Bremmer, The World, 358–70.

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transvestism in myth and ritual and shows that it could be used in various nar-rative ways: representing a male youth who was dressed as a girl either as look-ing feminine or as having actually changed into a girl. At the same time, these cases illustrate that what happened in ritual could also be transferred to tales about the gods (Chapter 8). The discussion of Kaineus is a specific example of such transvestism. His belonging to the Lapiths and his Thessalian origin sug-gest that a local ritual lies in the background of the myth – this must have been quite old, as is witnessed by the mention of Kaineus in the Iliad (1.264) – with the myth dramatising a ritual act by turning transvestism into a sex change (Chapter 9).

The studies of initiatory motifs in myth conclude with an analysis of Oedi-pus, arguably one of the most intriguing of ancient mythical figures (Chap-ter 10). Although most modern interpretations and discussions focus on his marriage to his mother, it is his life prior to that fatal event that is of interest to us here. The reports of Oedipus’ youth contain several initiatory motifs, such as his discovery by shepherds (Chapter 7.3) and his fosterage by the king (Chap-ter 14). Meanwhile, Oedipus’ defeat of the Sphinx, which leads to him taking both the throne and the hand of the queen, looks like a narrative employment of initiatory motifs rather than a close reflection of ritual.

We now turn to history and ritual. The next two chapters (11 and 12) overlap to a certain extent, as both are concerned with problems and practices of Greek pederasty. The theme has long been a bone of scholarly contention, starting in the early twentieth century with Erich Bethe’s famous article on ‘Dorian peder-asty’.69 I first argued for a connection between pederasty and Indo-European initiation in an article in which I, in retrospect, overemphasised the Indo-Euro-pean connection, partially because the article was meant for an Indo-European issue of the journal Arethusa.70 However, I would still maintain that our evi-dence suggests that pederasty was part of early Greek initiation rites and this view has been strengthened by the discovery of bronze plaques in the sanctuary of Hermes and Aphrodite in Cretan Kato Symi. One of these, nowadays pre-served in the Louvre, depicts a bearded hunter face-to-face with a beardless youth and clutching his arm. Robert Parker persuasively notes that even if we do not want to connect this scene with Ephoros’ description of Cretan initiation (Chapter 11.1), ‘the case for associating the plaques with maturation rituals can stand independently of it’.71 As the plaques with erotic content go back to the

69 E. Bethe, ‘Die dorische Knabenliebe’, RhM NF 42 (1907) 438–75; this volume, Chap-ter 11.2.

70 J. N. Bremmer, ‘An Enigmatic Indo-European Rite: paederasty’, Arethusa 13 (1980) 279–98.

71 R. Parker, On Greek Religion (Ithaca and London, 2011) 235; see also the balanced dis-cussion by A. Duplouy, Construire la cité. Essai de sociologie historique sur les communautés de l’archaïsme grec (Paris, 2019) 242–53 (pederasty), 266–73 (young wine-pourers).

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seventh, if not the eighth century BC, their chronology suggests that pederasty was an integral part of initiation at a very early date, even though we do not know exactly when it became incorporated into the ritual. As texts and vase paintings show in abundance, boys were present at symposia where erotic rela-tions took place with older men, who sometimes instructed them via didactic poetry. It seems that with the disintegration of the older forms of initiation, some of its parts were preserved and transferred to the symposium.

The final chapters (13 to 15) elaborate on issues that have been touched upon elsewhere in the volume. We start with the importance of the maternal family, of which we have seen several examples in the expedition of the Argonauts (above), but which can also be noted in the boar hunts with maternal uncles by Odysseus (Chapter 1.4) and Meleager (Chapter 4). The close relationship be-tween uncle and nephew lasted well into Byzantine times, and its educational aspect clearly survived the disappearance of initiation as an institution. Earlier scholars considered the avunculate an Indo-European phenomenon, but this is clearly not the case as it has been found, in varying forms, from Native North America through Africa to Fiji.72 However, its incorporation into rites of initi-ation does seem to have been more frequent among Indo-Europeans (Chap-ter 13).

Maternal uncles sometimes played a role in fosterage (Chapter 14), a practice that did not survive the Archaic period in Classical Greece. It did, however, continue to be practised in Macedonia, although in a different way, as it was used to tie important families to the court through so-called alliance fosterage.73 This is one of those old elite institutions that long survived in Europe in outly-ing areas, such as in medieval Ireland, and, albeit gradually, developed into the public school system that continues today in the United Kingdom. The promi-nence of the old Etonians David Cameron and Boris Johnson, who both served as prime minister in the last decade, shows the lasting influence of this institu-tion.

The final chapter (15) moves from Greece to Rome. Here, the fortuitous dis-covery of an archaic Latin inscription enables us to see the contours of a group of young men in action in the full light of history, instead of in myth as with our Greek sources. The discovery has also thrown new light on historical Italic fig-ures, such as Coriolanus and the Vibenna brothers, and is therefore a fitting conclusion to our search for traces of ancient practices of initiation. Admittedly, our search has only been able to find individual elements and never a ‘thick de-

72 D. Potts, ‘The Epithet “Sister’s Son” in Ancient Elam. Aspects of the Avunculate in Cross-cultural Perspective’, in K. Kleber et al. (eds), Grenzüberschreitungen. Studien zur Kulturgeschichte des Alten Orients: Festschrift für Hans Neumann (Münster, 2018) 523–55 at 536–40.

73 Cf. P. Parks, ‘Fostering Fealty: a comparative analysis of tributary allegiances of adop-tive kinship’, CSSH 45 (2003) 741–82.

XXIV Preface

scription’ of an ancient initiatory ritual. Still, I hope that my discussions have shown that knowledge of rites of initiation of tribal and other Indo-European peoples does in fact throw light on traditions of the ancient world which would otherwise remain obscure.

I would like to thank the friendly and efficient staff of Mohr Siebeck, Rebekka Zech in particular, for making this such a nicely produced book. My thanks also to Brill (Leiden), Droz (Geneva), De Gruyter (Berlin), Habelt (Bonn), Japadre Editore (Rome), Labor et Fides (Geneva), Les Belles Lettres (Paris), Les Études Classiques (Namur), the Norwegian Institute at Athens, Oxford University Press and Routledge (London) for their permission to reprint the articles in-cluded in this collection. It is of course impossible to completely redo one’s own research of more than four decades. Yet I do not wish to reprint views that I no longer support or to offer the reader out-of-date references. I have therefore updated the bibliographies, made a number of small changes and corrections, removed overlaps where possible, and added more evidence when available. Naturally, this could not be done in every case, but I have always tried to bring the volume up to date with regard to the more important issues. In two chapters, on Meleager (Chapter 4) and Heracles (Chapter 7), I have adapted the original English text instead of reprinting the French translations.

The many debts I have incurred in the course of the years spent writing these articles I mention at the end of each chapter. Here I would like to single out Ken Dowden and Fritz Graf, whose own writings often moved along similar lines, and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, with whom I had personal contacts in the 1970s and 1980s.74 His work as a scholar, a public intellectual and a fearless opponent of torture remains a monument to a remarkable man.75

74 In the front matter of the second edition of his Le Chasseur noir he thanks ‘tous ceux qui m’ont signalé des erreurs et notamment mon collègue néerlandais J. Bremmer’.

75 I am most grateful to my friends Laura Feldt, Bob Fowler and Julia Kindt for their com-ments, to Tobias Stäbler for saving me from several mistakes, and to Paul Scade for his skilful and insightful correction of my English.

Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VIIAbbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XXVII

Section IMyths

1. Initiation and the Heroes of the Trojan War . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32. Odysseus versus the Cyclops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293. Demons of the Wilderness: the Centaurs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454. The Myth of Meleager in Homer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655. Orpheus: from Guru to Gay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 816. Theseus’ and Peirithoos’ Descent into the Underworld . . . . . . . 957. Initiating Heracles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1078. Transvestite Dionysos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1259. Kaineus the Invulnerable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14310. Oedipus and the Greek Oedipus Complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Section IIRituals

11. Initiation and Greek Pederasty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17712. Adolescents, Symposion and Pederasty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19113. Maternal Uncles and Grandfathers as Initiators, Educators

and Role Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20514. Fosterage, Kinship and the Circulation of Children . . . . . . . . . 21915. The Suodales of Poplios Valesios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

List of First Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251Index of Names, Subjects and Passages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Abbreviations

ABV J. D. Beazley, Attic Black-figure Vase-Painters (Oxford, 1956)

AC L’Antiquité Classique AJA American Journal of ArchaeologyAJPh American Journal of PhilologyANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt ARG Archiv für ReligionsgeschichteARV2 J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters

(Oxford, 19632)ARW Archiv für ReligionswissenschaftASAA Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di AteneASNP Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di PisaBABESCH Bulletin Antieke Beschaving – Annual Papers on Mediter-

ranean ArchaeologyBCH Bulletin de Correspondance HelléniqueBICS Bulletin of the Institute of Classical StudiesBremmer, The World J. N. Bremmer, The World of Greek Religion and Mythology

(Tübingen, 2019)CA Classical AntiquityCCJ Cambridge Classical JournalCJ Classical JournalC&M Classica et MediaevaliaCPh Classical PhilologyCQ Classical QuarterlyCR Classical ReviewCRAI Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions

et Belles-LettresCSSH Comparative Studies in Society and HistoryDHA Dialogues d’Histoire Ancienne FGrH F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker

(Berlin and Leiden, 1923–1958)G&R Greece & RomeGRBS Greek, Roman, and Byzantine StudiesHSCP Harvard Studies in Classical PhilologyIC Inscriptiones CreticaeIG Inscriptiones GraecaeJAC Jahrbuch für Antike und ChristentumJDAI Jahrbuch des deutschen archäologischen Instituts JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies

XXVIII Abbreviations

JIES Journal of Indo-European StudiesJÖAI Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen InstitutsJRS Journal of Roman StudiesLEC Les Études ClassiquesLIMC Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae

(Zürich and Düsseldorf, 1981–2009)MD Materiali e Discussioni per l’analisi dei testi classiciMEFRA Mélanges de l’École française de RomeMH Museum HelveticumMSS Münchener Studien zur SprachwissenschaftPCPhS Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological SocietyPMG D. Page, Poetae Melici Graeci (Oxford, 1962)PP La Parola del PassatoQUCC Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica RE Paulys Realenzyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissen-

schaft (Stuttgart, 1884–1973)REA Revue des études anciennesREG Revue des études grecquesREL Revue des études latinesRhM Rheinisches MuseumRHR Revue de l’histoire des religionsRIDA Revue internationale des droits de l’antiquitéRPh Revue de philologieSAV Schweizerisches Archiv für VolkskundeSEG Supplementum Epigraphicum GraecumSMEA Studi Micenei ed Eegeo-AnatoliciSMSR Studi e Materiali di Storia delle ReligioniSO Symbolae OsloensesTAPA Transactions of the American Philological AssociationThesCRA Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum

(Los Angeles, 2004–2012)VigChris Vigiliae ChristianaeWJA Würzburger Jahrbücher für die AltertumswissenschaftWS Wiener StudienZPE Zeitschschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik

Section I

Myths

Chapter 1

Initiation and the Heroes of the Trojan War

Whereas our ancestors could believe in the historical reality of the Trojan War, our own generation has grown more sceptical. It is hard to disagree with Moses Finley (1912–1986) when he concludes his analysis of that great war by saying: ‘We certainly do not try to write medieval French history from the Song of Roland or medieval German history from the Nibelungenlied. Why should we make an exception of Homer’s Trojan War?’1 Neither will we find the story of the Trojan War in ancient ruins, whatever we may hope,2 nor can the discovery of a single Hittite word, such as Wilusa (Ilion?), explain the contents of Homer’s epic.3 But if this is the case, the question of the material on which Homer drew becomes more urgent. Where did he and his predecessors find their inspira-tion?4 The aim of this chapter is not to provide the final answer to this question (if that were in any case possible), but to contribute towards a solution to this problem by studying the nature of the most important heroes involved in the war. We will concentrate on the protagonists of the Trojan War in the Iliad, Achilles (§ 1) and Hector (§ 7), and on those whose presence and help were a conditio sine qua non for the fall of Troy, Pyrrhos/Neoptolemos (§ 2) and Philoctetes (§ 3). At the same time, however, we will also pay attention to that other iconic hero of the war: Odysseus (§ 4).5

Every analysis presupposes certain conceptual tools. I take it that the reader is acquainted with initiation, rites of passage and men’s societies,6 but I will

1 M. I. Finley, Aspects of Antiquity (Harmondsworth, 1972) 31–42.2 For recent evaluations of the archaeological publications, see D. F. Easton et al., ‘Troy in

Recent Perspective’, Anatolian Studies 52 (2002) 75–109; J. Haubold, ‘Dream and Reality in the Work of Heinrich Schliemann and Manfred Korfmann’, in D. J. Bennett and E. S. Sherratt (eds), Archaeology and Homeric Epic (Oxford, 2016) 20–34. For Schliemann (1822–1890), see A. Louis, L’invention de Troie. Les vies rêvées de Heinrich Schliemann (Paris, 2020).

3 Note the skeptical discussion by D. Schürr, ‘Ist Troja das Wilusa der Hethiter? Über Namensassoziationen und ihre fatale Rolle bei der Historisierung Hisarlıks’, Gephyra 18 (2019) 33–57.

4 For an older but detailed state of the questions, see A. Heubeck, Die Homerische Frage (Darmstadt, 1974) 153–77; more recently, J. Burgess, The Tradition of the Trojan War in Homer & The Epic Cycle (Baltimore, 2001) 47–85; B. Currie, Homer’s Allusive Art (Oxford, 2016) 55–62, 242–43.

5 Achilles: Apollod. 3.13.8; schol. Il. 19.326. Pyrrhos/Neoptolemos: Soph. Ph. 113 ff; Apol-lod. Ep. 5.11; Philostr. Jun. Imag. 18.3. Philoctetes: Ilias Parva, Arg. 2b West = Arg. 1 Bernabé; Soph. Ph. 604 ff; Ovid, Met. 13.320; schol. Pind. P. 1.100.

6 See this volume, Preface.

4 Section I: Myths

briefly explain the idea of liminality. When Arnold van Gennep (1873–1957) published his classic study of the rites of passage, he concentrated primarily on the rites of separation and reintegration, but the in-between period hardly received his attention.7 This transitional stage between the old and the new sit-uation has been brilliantly analysed by Victor Turner.8 Turner shows that the liminal period, as he calls this period of transition, is characterised by a confu-sion or reversal of status and a series of other reversals, such as differences in hairstyle, clothing, behaviour and place of habitation. Such liminal situations occur during the major events of the life-cycle – birth maturity, marriage, par-enthood and death – but also during all kinds of transitional stages, such as the change from the Old to the New Year, from peace to war, from impurity to purity, and the movement from one territory to another. In this study, I will use Turner’s analysis by arguing that the major heroes of the Trojan War are all characterised in their tradition as being in such a transitional state.9

Every analysis also presupposes certain rules of the game, certain principles that are consciously or, more often, unconsciously applied. In addition to the normal rules that are relevant to the analysis of Greek mythology, we also have to follow a number of others: (1) the point of departure of an analysis must always be that the story is not a tale told by an idiot. It is, consequently, not enough to catalogue the single motifs and look only for parallels to these. We must, rather, also look for the internal coherence of the different motifs and take into consideration the possibility of an underlying pattern or structure. (2) An explanation should not ignore important details, as is usual for those scholars who want to retain the Trojan War but have no place for Achilles and the other heroes.10 (3) Myth, legend and fairy-tale are not concepts that are mutually ex-clusive, but they can contain the same motifs.11 It is, therefore, a case of explain-ing obscurum per obscurius when the one is explained only in terms of the other. But enough of methodology! Let us now turn to the actual protagonists.

7 A. van Gennep, Les rites de passage (Paris, 1909); this volume, Preface, note 3.8 Cf. V. W. Turner: The Forest of Symbols (London, 1967) 93–111; The Ritual Process (Har-

mondsworth, 1974) and ‘Comments and Conclusions’, in B. A. Babcock (ed.), The Reversible World (London, 1978) 276–96. For Turner (1920–1983), see B. Babcock and J. J. MacAloon, ‘Victor W. Turner (1920–1983): commemorative essay’, Semiotica 65 (1987) 1–27.

9 For Turner’s influence on Fritz Graf, Henk Versnel and myself, see H. S. Versnel, ‘Een klassiek antropoloog in de klassieke wereld’, Anthropologische verkenningen 13.4 (1994) 46–56.

10 Cf., with bibliography, H. Geiss, ‘Troja – Streit ohne Ende’, Klio 57 (1975) 260–67. 11 Cf. J. de Vries, Betrachtungen zum Märchen besonders in seinem Verhältnis zu Helden­

sage und Mythos (Helsinki, 1954) and ‘Märchen, Mythos und Mythenmärchen’, in K. Ranke (ed.), Internationaler Kongress der Volkserzählungsforscher in Kiel und Kopenhagen 1959 (Berlin, 1961) 464–69; G. Widengren, Religionsphänomenologie (Berlin, 1959) 171–83; V. Propp, Morphology of the Folktale (Austin, 19682) passim; F. Hampl, Geschichte als kritische Wissen­schaft II (Darmstadt, 1975) 1–60; H. Bausinger and K. Ranke, ‘Archaische Züge’, in Enzyklo­pädie des Märchens I (Berlin, 1977) 733–43.

5Chapter 1: Initiation and the Heroes of the Trojan War

1. Achilles

Knowing that Troy could not be taken without Achilles, the Greeks fetched him from the island of Skyros where he stayed at the court of Lycomedes, dressed up as a girl.12 As early as 1897, this disguise was recognised as a typical feature of the rite of passage from boyhood to adulthood, an interpretation that has generally been accepted since.13 For our purpose we deduce from this inter-pretation that Achilles’ arrival at Troy fell in that transitory period of his life.

2. Pyrrhos/Neoptolemos

When Achilles’ son Phyrrhos/Neoptolemos was still a boy,14 he was fetched from Skyros (Od. 9.508), where, in typical Indo-European manner,15 his moth-er’s father was educating him.16 This boyhood must have been a clear character-istic of Pyrrhos, for the Greeks considered him to be the inventor of the pyr­rhichê, the armed dance of the boys.17 He received his name Neoptolemos from his tutor Phoenix (Paus. 10.26.4), but formerly he was called Pyrrhos. Marie Delcourt persuasively interpreted this change of name as belonging to the rites of initiation. And indeed, a change of name is mentioned for a number of heroes and always in their youth.18 Jason received his name from his tutor Cheiron (Pind. N. 4.119), whom he left at the age of twenty (ibid., 104). According to one tradition, Theseus received his name after having been acknowledged as a son by his father Aegeus (Plut. Thes. 4.1), when he was a meirakion,19 ‘lad’ (ibid., 6).

12 Cypria F 19 Bernabé, but M. L. West, The Epic Cycle (Oxford, 2014) 104, rejects the ascription to the Cypria; Polygnotos apud Paus. 1.22.6; Eur. F 585–86; Bio 2; schol. Il. 19.326 (Cyclic poets); E. Crawley, ‘Achilles and Scyros’, CQ 7 (1893) 243–46; A. Kossatz-Deissmann, ‘Achilles’, in LIMC I.1 (1984) no. 94–185 and ‘Achilleus’, in LIMC, Suppl. 1 (2009) 2–15 at 4–5; P. Grossardt, Achilleus, Coriolan und ihre Weggefährten (Tübingen, 2009) 76–88 (who notes its early character); this volume, Chapters 8.2 and 9 (later passages).

13 Some examples: H. Jeanmaire, Couroi et Courètes (Lille, 1939) 354–55; A. Brelich, Gli eroi Greci (Rome, 1959) 242; L. Gernet, Antropologie de la Grèce antique (Paris, 1968) 203; J.-P. Vernant, Mythe et société en Grèce ancienne (Paris, 1974) 39; H. S. Versnel, Transition & Reversal in Myth & Ritual (Leiden, 1993) 56; W. Burkert, Kleine Schriften VI (Göttingen, 2013) 17; M. González González, Achilles (Abingdon and New York, 2018) 58–62.

14 For Neoptolemos’ ephebic nature in Sophocles’ Philoctetes, see J.-P. Vernant and P. Vidal- Naquet, Mythe et tragédie en Grèce ancienne (Paris, 1973) 159–84 (by PVN).

15 J. N. Bremmer, ‘Avunculate and Fosterage’, J. Indo­Eur. Stud. 4 (1976) 65–78; this volume, Chapters 13 and 14.

16 Il. 19.326–27; Soph. Ph. 239–44; Strabo 9.5.16; Apollod. Ep. 5.11; O. Touchefeu-Meynier, ‘Neoptolemos’, in LIMC VI.1 (1992) 773–79 at 777.

17 Archilochus F 304; Lucian, Salt. 9; Et. Magnum 699.1; P. Ceccarelli, La pirrica nell’an­tichità greco­romana (Pisa, 1998) 187–218.

18 M. Delcourt, Pyrrhos et Pyrrha (Paris, 1965) 34. For Delcourt, see Chapter 10, note 5.19 The Greek word corresponds with the Indo-Iranian terms marya-, mairya-, marika

(maryaka), mérak, terms for members of men’s societies, cf. G. Widengren, Der Feudalismus

6 Section I: Myths

Achilles was called Ligyron before Cheiron gave him the name Achilles (Apol-lod. 3.13.6). Bellerophon used to be called Hipponoos or Leophontes (schol. Il. 6.155; schol. Lycophron 17). Paris’ name was Alexandros when he was a neaniskos, ‘young man’,20 and it should be noted that his education, as told by Apollodorus (3.12.5), strongly resembles the initiatory education of Cyrus.21 Heracles was first called Alcaeus, Alcides or Neilos.22 In Western Europe, a change of name in an initiatory context is testified in the legend of Cúchulainn and in the ceremonies of the guilds.23 Moreover, a change of name as rite of passage is well known from the monastic world.24 Such a change of name could be acted out very seriously. Among the African Sara, the returning novices had to be introduced to their parents, who were no longer supposed to know them.25

Finally, the ephebic nature of Neoptolemos cannot be separated from the Pyrrhos who was killed in Delphi, in the realm of Apollo.26 Burkert has pointed out how this killing happened in the way of the men’s societies and how ‘wolf-ish’ the killers behaved.27 It can hardly be accidental that this murder was thought to have occurred in the realm of Apollo. What Burkert states regarding the relation between the ephebic god Apollo and Achilles, must also apply to the relation between the god and Achilles’ son: ‘Der Heros als umdunkeltes Spie-gelbild des Gottes in der unauflöslichen Polarität des Opfers’.28

im alten Iran (Cologne and Opladen, 1969) 83; R. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2 vols (Leiden, 2010) 2.921–22. Paus. 6.23.8 mentions an Aphrodite Philomeirax, ‘Loving boys’, near a gymnasium in Elis.

20 Apollod. 3.12.5; Ennius F 20 Jocelyn = 16 Manuwald: quapropter Parim pastores nunc Alexandrum vocant; Ov. Her. 16,359–60 paene puer caesis abducta armenta recepi/ hostibus et causam nominis inde tuli; for further discussion, see I. Karamanou, Euripides,“Alexandros” (Berlin and Boston, 2018) 6 f.

21 A. Alföldi, ‘Königsweihe und Männerbund bei den Achämeniden’, SAV 47 (1951) 11–16; G. Binder, Die Aussetzung des Königskindes Kyros und Romulus (Meisenheim, 1964) and ‘Aussetzung’, in Enzyklopädie des Märchens 1, 1048–65.

22 See this volume, Chapter 7.1.23 Cúchulainn: A. and B. Rees, Celtic Heritage (London, 1973) 247; the other great Celtic

hero, Finn, was first called Damne: K. Meyer, ‘Macgnimartha Find’, Revue Celtique 1 (1881–83) 195–204 at 201, c.18. Guilds: H. Grotefend, ‘Die Handwerksnamen’, Korrespondenzblatt des Gesamtvereins der deutschen Geschichts­ und Altertumsvereine 1911, 81–98. For guilds and Hansa as deriving from ancient men’s societies, see E. Benveniste, Le vocabulaire des in­stitutions indo­européennes, 2 vols (Paris, 1969) 1.70–79.

24 See the brief but excellent discussion of the ‘rite de passage’ elements during the novitiate period by R. Molitor, ‘Symbolische Grablegung bei der Ordensprofess’, Benedikt. Monatss. 6 (1924) 54–57. Greek monks often choose a name starting with the same letter as their old name, see J. F. Boissonnade, Anecdota nova (Paris, 1844) 24; Analecta Bollandiana 14 (1895) 153, note 4.

25 R. Jaulin, La mort Sara (Paris, 1967) 115.26 Pind. Paei. VI.116–20, N.7, 40–47 (with schol.), 58, 62; Sophocles, Hermione, p. 192

Radt; Eur. Andr. 49–55 and 1122–57, Or. 1654–57; O. Touchefeu-Meynier, ‘Neoptolemos’, in LIMC VI.1 (1992) 773–79 at 777–78; Fowler, EGM 2.557–60, with full bibliography.

27 W. Burkert, Gnomon 38 (1966) 440.28 Burkert, Kleine Schriften VI, 17.

7Chapter 1: Initiation and the Heroes of the Trojan War

3. Philoctetes

A much more complicated case is the one of Philoctetes. The legend is well known. The Thessalian prince Philoctetes was with the other Greeks on his way to Troy when he was bitten on his foot by a snake. Because of the un-bearable smell of the wound, he was left all alone with his bow on the island of Lemnos,29 where he had to live from the hunt for nine years, which suggests a skilful archer. In the tenth year, Odysseus and Diomedes fetched him because it was prophesied that Troy could not be taken without him. After his arrival at the battlefield, he killed Paris who was then the great hero of the Trojans.30

We take as our point of departure for the analysis the bad smell, which we will discuss separately from the wound in the foot since it is typical of stories to project simultaneity into succession and to turn a relation into causality.31 In Greece, the bad smell could undeniably belong to a liminal period. One day in the year, the women of Lemnos kept their men away by means of a terrible smell, just as Athenian women did during the Skira festival.32 The bad smell does not mean that humans naturally smelled nicely: that was reserved for the gods.33 This suggests the following scheme as regards the place of smell in Greek life. Liminal humans (= non-humans): normal humans: gods = bad smell: no smell: nice smell: humans as mediators between non-humans and the gods.

The wound in Philoctetes’ foot links up with the theme of the wound in the leg, a recurrent feature in stories with a special pattern. In the Grimm fairy-tale Eisenhans (KHM 136), of which Otto Höfler has argued the initiatory pattern,

the hero, called Goldener because of his golden hair, is wounded in his leg, a wound by which he is recognised and which establishes his identity.34 Similarly, in the Normandian legend Robert le Diable, of which Höfler also argued the initiatory structure, the hero is recognised by a wound he had received in his thigh.35 Odysseus, whose adventures contain a plausibly initiatory pattern (§ 4),

29 See also M. L. Napolitano, Philoktetes e l’arco della Magnesia all’Oeta (Rome, 2002).30 Cf. C. Robert, Die griechische Heldensage III.2 (Berlin, 1923) 1207–17; T. Gantz, Early

Greek Myth (Baltimore and London, 1993) 635–39; M. Pipili, ‘Philoktetes’, in LIMC VII.1 (1994) 376–85; S. L. Schein, Sophocles, Philoctetes (Cambridge, 2013) 1–10; E. Giudice, ‘Filottete in Etruria’, in E. and G. Giudice (eds), Studi miscellanei di ceramografia greca IV (Catania, 2018) 11–28.

31 Thus, persuasively, L. Brisson, Le mythe de Tirésias (Leiden, 1976) 33.32 Lemnos: Myrsilos FGrH 477 F1; ?Kaukalos FGrH 38 F2; Dio Chr. Or. 33.50; Apollod.

1.11.17; schol. Apoll. Rhod. 1.609. Skira: Philochoros FGrH 328 F89.33 Hom. H. Dem. 277–78; Hom. H. Hermes 231; Hes. F 140; Theognis 9; Aesch. PV 115;

Eur. Hipp. 1391; E. Lohmeyer, Vom göttlichen Wohlgeruch, SB Heidelberg 1919; W. Déonna, ‘EYΩΔIA. Croyances antiques et modernes: l’odeur suave des dieux et des élus’, Genava 17 (1939) 167–263.

34 O. Höfler, Germanisches Sakralkönigtum I (Tübingen, 1952) 205–13. For Höfler, see this volume, Preface.

35 E. Löseth (ed), Robert le Diable (Paris, 1903) line 3485: car (la lance) Robert feri en la quisse, cf. Höfler, ibidem, 243–47.

8 Section I: Myths

had a scar above the knee, surely the thigh (Od. 19.450), ‘that was to reveal his identity’.36 Heracles was bitten in the leg during his visit in the underworld, and in Tegea there was a statue of him showing a wound in his thigh.37 Athena, the goddess par excellence to be associated with young heroes, had a statue in Teuthis with a wound in the thigh, which was bound with a crimson bandage (Paus. 8.28.6).

Elsewhere the marking of the leg is connected with Apollo, the god closely associated with initiation.38 Each of the Seleucids, who considered themselves to be descendants of Apollo,39 had a birthmark on the thigh (Justinus 15.4.3–9), and the Ethiopians were reputed to have a golden thigh with an image of Apollo on the knee cap of their children (Lydus, Mens. 4.53). The most famous case is Pythagoras, who was reputed to have a golden thigh on which an image of Apollo was imprinted (schol. Luc. 124, 6–7 Rabe).40 If really old, the tradition uses initiatory themes without us being able to really explain this particular usage. However this may be, the wounds in the leg/thigh seem to reflect an an-cient, possibly Indo-European, practice of marking the leg of the passant from boyhood to adulthood.41

It has been repeatedly observed that wounds inflicted on novices were some-times a sign of death.42 The wounds in the leg may once have had the same mean-ing in Greece, too, as we find the wound in the leg connected with death in two figures, who are both closely associated with initiation: the Centaur Cheiron (Ch. 3.3) was fatally wounded around the knee (Apollod. 2.5.4) and Achilles in the heel (Hyginus, Fab. 107; P. Köln 10.402); in medieval exempla, with an initi-atory pattern, young men are killed by fire starting in their feet and thighs.43 The

36 W. Burkert, Homo necans (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1983) 120.37 Tegea: Paus. 8.53.9, cf. W. Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cam-

bridge MA, 1972) 160.38 For Apollo’s ties with initiation, see F. Graf, Nordionische Kulte (Rome, 1985) 56–57

(A. Delphinios), 220–27 (A. Lykeios) and Apollo (Abingdon and New York, 2009) 103–29; M. H. Jameson, Cults and Rites in Ancient Greece (Cambridge, 2014) 41–61 (A. Lykeios).

39 For the connection of Apollo and the Seleucids, see L. Robert, Laodicée du Lycos (Québec and Paris, 1969) 295 and Fouilles d’Amyzon en Carie I (Paris, 1983) 141; K. Nawotka, ‘Apollo, the Tutelary God of the Seleucids, and Demodamas of Miletus’, in Z. Archibald and J. Haywood (eds), The Power of Individual and Community in Ancient Athens and Beyond: essays in honour of John K. Davies (Cardiff, 2019) 261–84.

40 For recent bibliography, see C. Macris, ‘Pythagore de Samos’, in R. Goulet (ed.), Dic­tionnaire des philosophes antiques VII (Paris, 2018) 681–884 at 814.

41 Cf. Höfler, Germanisches Sakralkönigtum, 212, note 470 on the wounds in the leg of Goldener and Robert le Diable: ‘Ein alter “Merkungs “Brauch”?’ The ‘rite de passage’ charac-ter of the wound is also noted by K. Spiess, ‘Ferse, Abschlagen der’, in L. Mackensen (ed.), Handwörterbuch des deutschen Märchens II (Berlin, 1939–40) 92–104.

42 Brelich, Paides, 80 note 85 (with bibliography); M. Eliade, Australian Religions (Ithaca and London, 1973) 90–91; V. Propp, Die historischen Wurzeln des Zaubermärchens, 19461 (Munich and Vienna, 1987) 110 f.

43 J. C. Schmitt, Le Corps, les rites, les rêves, le temps (Paris, 2001) 153–82 (‘“Jeunes” et danse des chevaux de bois’). In tales of the Middle Ages, the wound in the leg was a frequent-

9Chapter 1: Initiation and the Heroes of the Trojan War

wounding of the heel as a symbol of killing may also be assumed in the case of the Austrian Lutzelfrau, a figure akin to Percht and always enacted by young men. During Christmas time, she goes round threatening to cut off the heels of naughty children,44 but also with the threat of gastrotomy and cutting off the head.45

The wounding of a hero in the leg during his visit to the underworld, as in the case of Heracles, may also be a sign of the close connection between wound and death. The connection is frequent in a type of folktale, especially found in Cen-tral-Europe, where the hero just escapes the slamming door of the underworld or a magic mountain, but he loses his heel(s) in the process.46 The connection between the slamming doors and the loss of the heel(s) seems to be a later devel-opment47, so what we seem to have is the connection of the wounded heel and the underworld.

The origin of the idea of wounding the thigh or knee probably is to be looked for in the world of the hunters. From such far away parts of the world as the native Americans, African Bushmen and Laotian Koui, Frazer collected evi-dence that hunters cut out a piece or removed a sinew from their game’s thigh or hamstrung it. As in all these cases, the practice is connected with the idea of laming the game or the hunter.48 The idea of wounding the heel probably also originated in the world of the hunters, as Eurasian hunters caught their game by cutting the Achilles’ heel so that they could not run away.49 The same hunting method is testified by Strabo (16.4.10) for the Elephantophagoi and by Diodorus (3.26.2) for the Elephantomachoi. We can hardly separate this hunting method from the cutting of the sinews of Zeus’ hands and feet by Typhon (Apollod. 1.6.3), the hamstringing of the smith Wayland in the Icelandic Völundarkviða (17, pr. 1) and Yahweh’s command to Joshua to hough the horses of his oppo-

ly occurring phenomenon, and in medieval plays the loser was often hurt in his leg or started to limp, see F. Socolicek, ‘Der Hinkende im brauchtümlichen Spiel’, in H. Birkhan and O. Gschwantler (eds), Festschrift Otto Höfler, 2 vols (Vienna, 1968) 1.423–32.

44 On Percht: J. Hanika, ‘“Bercht schlitzt den Bauch auf”: Rest eines Initiationsritus?’, Stifter Jahrbuch 2 (1951) 39–53; L. Schmidt, ‘Berchtengestalten im Burgenland’, Burgen­ländische Heimatblätter 13 (1951) 129–61; R. Bleichsteiner, ‘Perchtengestalten im Mittelasien’, Arch. f. Völkerkunde 8 (1953) 58–75; L. Schmidt, Perchtenmasken in Österreich (Vienna, 1972); K. Meuli, Gesammelte Schriften, 2 vols (Basel, 1975) 1.102–14.

45 Cf.. A. Haberlandt, ‘Zu einigen Problemen der österreichischen Gegenwartsvolks kun de’, Mitt. Antrop. Ges. Wien 83 (1953–54) 191–99 at 196–99; L. Kretzenbacher, Santa Lucia und die Lutzelfrau (Munich, 1959) 60–65.

46 Many examples in P. Sartori, ‘Der Schuh im Volksglauben’, Zs. Ver. f. Volkskunde 4 (1894) 412–27 at 416–17; A. H. Krappe, Balor with the Evil Eye (New York, 1927) 106–13; Spiess, ‘Ferse, Abschlagen der’.

47 Sartori, ‘Der Schuh’, 417; Krappe, Balor, 11 f.48 J. G. Frazer, Spirits of the Corn and the Wild II (London, 1913) 264–67.49 B. Gunda, ‘Das Abhauen der Achillessehne der Tiere in der eurasischen Jagdkultur’,

Zs. f. Ethnologie 70 (1938) 454–56.

10 Section I: Myths

nents (Joshua 11.6).50 Originally, the wounding of the leg probably was a sym-bolic laming to contrast the novices with the adult hunters, for whom running was of such great importance. Running is also a frequently mentioned quality of the young warriors in the Iliad, most often of course of Achilles, the paradig-matic young warrior,51 and in Crete the free adult males were even called ‘run-ner’ (δρομεύς).52

The wound of Philoctetes did not heal on Lemnos. The detail is not unimpor-tant since in this way Philoctetes is separated from the non-wounded (the non- initiated) but also from those who have already passed their initiatory period. His stay on Lemnos lasted nine years and he could leave the island only in the tenth. The period of time seems to be significant. In primitive Arcadia, it was told how the Olympian victor Demarchos was changed into a wolf and became human again after nine years.53 And a certain Euanthes relates how in an Arca-dian family – presumably his own – once in a while a boy was selected, taken to a lake where he undressed, swam across the lake and disappeared into the wil-derness where he lived on as a wolf. If he had not become a cannibal, he could become human again in the ninth year. This nine-year period is illuminatingly compared by Burkert with the nine-year period Odysseus had to stay away before he could return home in the tenth.54

Philoctetes’ stay was imagined to be in complete isolation from civilisation. He had to live by hunting, an activity which for the Greeks had an ideological aspect. In a number of myths, the hunt precedes agriculture.55 As the coming of agriculture – on a mythological level sometimes represented by the arrival of Demeter56 – constituted the beginnings of civilisation, the hunter, consequently, will have been considered as someone outside civilisation. This is also attested by Greek vocabulary which closely associates ‘hunt’ and ‘non-cultivated area’.57 In addition, his bow was rated an inferior weapon, which a normal Greek male would consider to be below his dignity.58 Finally, the hunt is characterised by

50 See also Genesis 49.6; 2 Samuel 8.4. Among the ancient Arabs: J. Wellhausen, Reste des arabischen Heidentums (Berlin, 18972) 181.

51 Achilles: πόδας ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεὺς (about 30 x), but also note Polites (2.792), Meriones (12.249), Antilochos (15.570, 23.756; Od. 3.112 = 4.202), Euphorbos (16.808) and Polydoros (20.410); Ch. Ulf, Die homerische Gesellschaft (Munich, 1990) 67.

52 Y. Tsifopoulos, ‘“Hemerodromoi” and Cretan “Dromeis”: athletes or military person-nel ? The Case of the Cretan Philonides’, Nikephoros 11 (1998) 137–70.

53 Paus. 8.2.6. Olympic Victor: Paus. 6.8.2 = L. Moretti, Olympionikai (Roma, 1957) no. 359.54 Arcadia: Burkert, Homo necans, 84–93, 133 (Odysseus); Bremmer, The World, 358–70

(Arcadia).55 The myths are discussed by G. Piccaluga, Minutal (Rome, 1974) 77–94; see also M. De-

tienne, Dionysos mis à mort (Paris, 1977) 64–77. 56 F. Graf, Eleusis und die Orphische Dichtung Athens (Berlin and New York, 1974) 160–63.57 P. Chantraine, Études sur le vocabulaire grec (Paris, 1956) 40–65.58 See this volume, Chapter 7.2.

Index of Names, Subjects and Passages

Achilles– and Cheiron 234– death 77– heel 8, 153– initiation 54– and mitra 128– name change 6, 109– runner 10– and sister’s son 210– in Statius 52– transvestism 5, 18, 136, 148–49acorn eaters 14Actaeon 53Acusilaus, fragments, FGrH 2/FowlerF 22 = 22F 143, 155–56F 23 = 23F 14 F 26 = 26F 145F 33 = 33F 53Adrastus 206–07Aeneas 28Aeschylus, fragments, ed. Radt– Choephoroi 602–12 73– Prometheus Vinctus 115 7– Seven against Thebes 529–37 137, 151– Fragments F 61 127 F 78a.67–68 127 F 83 154 313 17Agathon, fragments, TGrF 393 17Aithiopis 71Ajax, invulnerability 153–54Alcaeus, fragments, ed. Voigt

F 311 194F 356 99F 447 199Alföldi, A. 249Amazons 138Anacreon, fragments, ed. Page/

Bennsdorff, West2

PMG 359 203PMG 504 = F. Eleg. 3W2 11Anaxilas, fragments, ed. Kassel/AustinF 37 20Antimachus, fragments, Lloyd-Jones/

ParsonsF 77 35Apollo– Delphinios 149– prototypical ephebe 183– and initiation XIV, 8, 199– and Seleucids 8Apollodorus1.1.2 341.2.1 341.1.6 IX1.3.2, 3 83, 891.6.3 91.9.1 2301.9.8 1171.9.11 2281.9.26 152–531.11.17 71.22.2 2072.2.1 352.3.4 522.4.5 2062.4.9–10 108–09, 1132.4.11 1112.5.4 8, 60–61, 1442.5.12 98, 103

254 Index of Names, Subjects and Passages

2.16.2 2082.7.7 593.1.1 1123.3.7 1643.4.4 533.5.5 1173.6.8 393.10.4 343.12.5 63.13.6 6, 533.14.8 2283.15.8 210– Epitome 1.22 145–46 1.24 98, 103 3.3 208 3.31 152 5.11 5, 206Apollonius Rhodius1.45 XVII1.57–64 1511.63 1561.195 701.201, 318 XVII1.341, 448 XVII1.466–70 1512.571–73 1034.1646–48 1524.1679–80 152– Scholia 1.609 7Archemachos, fragments, FGrH 424F 9 17archery, contempt of 112Archilochus, fragments, ed. West2

F 3 150F 177 151F 286–88 58F 304 5Argo/Argonauts 76, 103, 117, 223Aristaeus 53Aristophanes, fragments, ed. Kassel/

Austin– Clouds 350 54– Thesmophoriazusai 134ff 127

– Wasps 1202 76– Fragments F 773 137 F 972 54Aristophanes, fragments, FGrH 379F 8 112Artemis – at Aegeira 134– anger 75– Knagia 134– Knakeatis 134– Laphria 73, 77–78– Limnatis 137–38– priestesses of 134– Tauropolos 73– Triklaria 134– xoanon 134Athena– in Elateia 135– as huntress 138–39– Ilias 132– Kranaia 135– leg wound 8– in Tegea 129, 135avunculate XXIII, 209–15Axionicus, fragments, ed. Kassel/AustinF 9 76

Bacchylides, fragments, ed. Maehler5 735.95–154 705.126 7411.77 35– Fragments F 27 52 F 44 56 F 56 56 F 64 58Bachofen, J. J. 205, 210, 213Bellerophon 6, 109, 208, 230Benveniste, É. 227Berserks 154Bethe, E. 186boar 154, 197

255Index of Names, Subjects and Passages

Brelich, A. XIII–XIVBurkert, W.– on Centaurs 42, 47– on Männerbund 249– on Meleager 77– on myth and ritual 107– on Odysseus 12, 14– on Oedipus 166–67– on Polyphemus 38–40Buxton, R. 45–46, 62, 126

Caesar– De bello Gallico 5.55.3 243 6.23.6 242 6.35.6 242 7.4.3 243 7.37.1 243 7.40.7 243Calame, C. VII, 107, 110, 133, 136, 184Callimachus, fragments, ed. Pfeiffer/

Harder– Hecale 219– Hymn to Artemis 46ff 34 215–20 78– Hymn to Zeus 52–53 IX– Fragments F 2a 85 F 68.1 186 F 86–89a 25 F 191 14 F 194.34–36 25 F 237, 281, 345, 361 219 F 692 111Calydonian boar 78Catlin, G. 15cattle-raids 242, 244–46Centaurs XVIII, XX, 24, 45–62– and animals 49– birth of 50–51– death of 59–62– hairy 48– vs. Lapiths 55–58, 150– and mountains 47–48– and pederasty 54

Cheiron 51–55– and Achilles 234– birth of 51– and cannibalism 41–42– cave XX, 52– equine shape 51– gift of spear 151– initiator par excellence XV, XVIII,

24, 53, 62, 113– leg wound 8– married 54–55– and music/singing 53, 115– and pederasty 42, 54– and Peleus 53– and Mt Pelion 42 – running 53coniuratio 238–39Conon, FGrH 26 F 1.7 88F 1.45 84, 89F 16 182–83Corinna, ed. Page– PMG 654 IXCoriolanus XXIII, 249Coste-Messelière, P. de la 85Cratinus, fragments, ed. Kassel/AustinF 156 37Crete– andreion 181– dances X– hetairoi 248– initiation 180–83– pederasty 89, 182Critias, TrGF 43 F 1–7 103–05Croiset, M. 73crossroads 164Crow Nation XIXCúchulainn, name 6Cyclopes XX, 29–44– as builders 35– death 33– and Dede Korkut 30–31– and Dolopathos 31–32– parallel stories 29–34

256 Index of Names, Subjects and Passages

– Polyphemos 3, 36–37, 40– as smiths 34

Danaids XVII, 118, 133Delcourt, M. 5, 76, 160Diez, H.F. von 30Diodorus Siculus3.26.2 94.10.6 2304.12.8 614.14.3 1224.25 814.26.1, 63.4 1034.29.3 1184.31.1–2 564.36.4–5 594.62 2074.70 525.65, 70 IXDiogenes, Cynic 110–11Diomedes 28Dionysos– (Eri)Kryptos 130– hidden in Euboea 130–31– feminine 130– initiation 102– and mitra 128– Pseudanor 128, 130– and Silenos 102, 114– transvestism XXI–XXII, 102, 125–41Dodds, E. R. 125Dolon/Doloneia 26, 27Dover, K.J. 177, 200, 214Dowden, K. 138Duby, G. 13Dumézil, G. 24, 46, 241Durkheim, É. 192

Eliade, M. 249Ennius, fragments, ed. Jocelyn,

Manuwald– F 20J = 16M 6Ephoros, fragments, FGrH 70 F 31b 25

F 149 X, 17, 120, 135, 148, 176, 180

Eratosthenes, fragments, FGrH 242– Catasterismi 24 81 39 35 40 42, 54– Fragments F 41 11Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 230–31Euripides, fragments, ed. Kannicht– friendship in 105 – Alcestis 8 117 357–62 81 449 26– Andromache 49–55 6 6– Bacchae – and Pentheus 140 43 206 113 128 120–25 IX 181 209 213 206 236 127 250–54 209 330 140 353 125 438 127 453–59 125 694 128 748–68 129 973–76 139 1185–87 140 1318ff 209– Cyclops 20 34– Hercules Furens 15 35 364–74 61 969–1001 75 1272–73 61– Hippolytos 11 209 1391 7

257Index of Names, Subjects and Passages

– Iphigeneia in Aulis 705 52 1054ff 132 1499 35– Iphigeneia in Tauris 425–26 132– Orestes 462–65 222 1654–57 6– PhoenissaeHypothesis 23044 164655 1281107–09 781156–57 39– Rhesus 208–15 26– Fragments F 72 230 F 358 231 F 448a.30 220 F 495 76, 210 F 558 230 F 752g.21–26 112Eurydice, wives and queens 83–85

Fabius Pictor, fragments, Peter/CornellF 5 = 4C 145family, Greek– endogamy 227–29– patriarchy 229– patrilineal 230–32– patrilocal 230felt (cap) 12festivals– Apaturia 195– Ekdysia 132, 148– fire 74– Karneia 26, 136– Lykaia 110– Oinistêria 121– Oschophoria 135–36– Periblêmaia 148– Pyanopsia 136– Septerion 23, 25– Skira 7, 26–27

Finley, M. I. 3, 235Finn/fian– as Männerbund 248– name change 6– wandering 86, 101–02, 243–44fosterage XVII–XVIII, XXIII, 232–35Fustel de Coulanges, N. D. 191

Ganymede 181, 199–200Gennep, A. van VII, 4genos/gens 191Gernet, L. XII, 18, 165, 191, 206Gilgamesh, and Enkidu 95–96Giovio, P. 13Glaukos 28Graf, F. VII, XIV–XV, 74, 77, 81–93

(passim), 131

Harrison, J. IX, XHecataeus, fragments, FGrH 1/FowlerF 367 = 367F 36Hector 19–22– hairstyle 20Hegesandros, apud Athen. 1.18a XVI,

12, 76, 119, 197Hellanicus, fragments, FGrH 4/FowlerF 47 = 47F 14F 71 = 71F 11F 88 = 88F 35, 37F 148 = 148F 152F 168 = 168F 100Henrichs, A. 125, 183Heracles– anger 118– as archer 111–12, 118– in Attica 121– and Cheiron 113–14– children 74–75– descent underworld 97, 103–05– educators 110–16– and Geryon 39– and gymnasium 122– initiation XXI, 107–23– and Iolaus 211

258 Index of Names, Subjects and Passages

– leg wound 8– and Linos 114–15, 123– and Lord of the Animals 39– name change 6, 109– and Nessos 58–59– and pederasty 54– and Pholos 59–62– and sex 118–19– and shepherds 116–17– size of 117–18– Theban 112, 121– in Theocritus 24 109–10– and Visvarupa 39– and weapons 120– and wine pourer 199Heraclides, ed. Pfister2.8 41, 52Hermes, as wine pourer 199Herodotus1.36 761.71.3 1651.173 2082.115.1 233.68, 88 1655.67 2077.239 2287.61 2067.92 138.138 102Hesiod, fragments, ed. Merkelbach/West– Shield 131 122 178–90 54, 150 182 98 186 47–48– Theogony 140, 142, 146 33 341 58 352–56 228 504–05 34 996 151 1002 51– Fragments F 10a.55–57 213 F 25.12–13 71, 74 F 25.17–22 58 F 30.12–19 151 F 40.2 52

F 42 55 F 43bc 146 F 54b 117 F 60.3 183 F 87 144–45 F 123.3 16 F 140–(141) 7, 112 F 171.8 183 F 197.1–5 101 F 204.87 52 F 212a 224 F 237 152 F 250 154 F 280.2 71, 99Hesychius, ed. Hansen/Cunninghamα 5702 147ε 1745 20ι 335 19ι 823 110κ 225 54κ 838 26κ 3533 19κ 3728 19hetairoi XVIII, 238, 241, 245, 248Höfler, O. XI–XII, 7, 249Hoekstra, A. 249Homer– Iliad 1.263 50 1.264 XXII, 150 1.267–70 56, 150 2.43 47 2.511–16 XX 2.517–26 XX 2.542 17 2.604 65 2.642 71 2.676–80 XX 2.714 52 2.719 XVII 2.742–43 56, 61 2.766 117 2.792 10 3.144 99 4.217–19 52 4.219 XX, 53 4.274, 393 XX, 133

259Index of Names, Subjects and Passages

5.290 71 5.325–26 XVIII, 245 5.412 227 5.592–95 XX 5.782 48 6.191–93 230 6.21–25 117 6.423–24 117 7.256 48 8.362(–69) 65, 97 9.186 53 9.529–99 16, 65, 74 9.524 68 9.567 68 9.832 51 10.234ff 245 10.260–65 154 10.266–67 65 11.221–22 206, 220, 227 11.369ff 153 11.479 48 11.670ff 246 11.832 XX, 52, 55,

113 12.128 150 12.196, 330 XX 12.249 10 12.466 118 13.417–25 155 14.121 230 14.321–22 112 14.444–45 117 15.421–22 224 15.430–39 245 15.543 224 15.570 10 15.576–78 224 15.605–09 155 16.157 48 16.173–76 210 16.570–76 245 16.717 210 16.808 10 18.251 XVIII, 245 19.193 16 19.326–27 5, 206, 220 20.39 183 20.188–90 245 20.410 10

21.418–19 117 22.421–22 XVII 22.539 71 23.756 10 schol. 14.296a XVII– Odyssey 3.112 10 3.363–64 XVIII, 245 4.202 10 7.63–66 228 7.206 40 7.264 14 8.294 11 9, passim 35–37 9.508 5 10.203–09 XVII 10.5–12 168 11.271–80 172 11.273 165 11.277–78 171 11.621–26 97 11.631 XXI, 98 12.69–72 65 13.323 117 14.162 14 14.237 XX 14.247 245 15.123–27 145 19.307 14 19.390–466 12 19.394 76, 209 19.401, 412 209 19.414, 418–19 76, 209 19.429–31 210 19.450 8 21.295–304 56, 150 22.208–09 XVIIIHomeric Hymns, ed. West– Aphrodite 53–56 117– Apollo 134 183– Demeter 277–78 7– Dionysos 46 48– Hermes 224 48 231 7

260 Index of Names, Subjects and Passages

– Hymns 7.3–4 126Huizenga, J. 233hunt– and agriculture 10– and ruse 11Hyginus, – Astronomica 2.7 84, 88– Fabulae 14.4 144 31.11 56 33.1–2 56 49 34 66.2 163 79 103 107 8, 153 125 32 139.3 IX 157 39, 152 173 144 176 78 178 112 186 210 242 144 273 152

Ibycus, fragments, ed. Page/DaviesF 40.4 48F 290 66F 309 152incest, and parricide 168–69initiation of boys– and age sets XV, 182, 241–47– and age sixteen 13, 126, 136, 149, 219– and age twenty 5, 117– in Arcadia XIV, XXI, 10, 28, 43, 110,

195– and Argonauts XVII–XVIII, XXIII,

76– in Athens XII, XIII, XIX, XXI, 122,

187–89, 197–98, 200– cattle-raids 242, 244–46– among Celts XII, XX, 6, 16, 86, 133,

198, 220, 238–39, 243– and common meals 193– content XV

– on Crete X, XVIII, XXI, XXII, 10, 120, 147–48, 180–83, 193, 195, 200

– dances X, XV, 17– and death VIII, 25– and defeat monster XVI, XXII,

164–65– and Dorian areas XI– and dual leadership XX, 136– and ephebeia XIII, XIX, 188, 195– and exposure 163– and the Flood 14–15– Germanic 102, 114, 155, 210, 224, 242– girl-young man-warrior 147– groups of fifty XVII–XVIII, 118–19,

132–33, 241– hairstyle 17, 19– and hunt 76– in India 17, 241, 246– Indo-European XIV–XV, 21, 77, 133,

241–47– in Iran 17, 21, 28, 86, 101, 116–17, 133,

195, 198, 217–18, 246–47– in Ireland 21, 86, 101, 133, 243–44– Jungmannschaft 248–50– *koryos 87–88– kryptoi 101, 130– leg, wound in 7–8– in Macedonia XIV, XIX, 87, 133,

196–97– and marriage XVII, 118– by maternal family XXIII, 76,

205–18, 222– and menial tasks 54– and men’s house IX, 18, 191– and men’s societies IX, 191– monosandalos XVII– and music 115– and name change 6 – and nine years 43– pederasty XV, XXII–XXIII, 149–50,

177–90, 200–04– and peripoloi 21, 101– and poetry 28– and priests 133–34– of princes/elite boys XVI, XXI,

135–36– and rebirth VIII– in Rome 14, 116, 195, 198, 237–50

261Index of Names, Subjects and Passages

– ruse 23– and schools VII–VIII– by shepherds XVI, XXI, 116–17– in Sparta X, XIV, 111, 183–84,

193–94, 200– and status reversal XVI– structure VII–VIII– in Thebes 200– in Thessaly XIV– and transvestism XV, XXI, 140–41,

148–49– and wandering XV, XXI, 20–22,

86–87, 101–02, 183– receiving weapons 181, 188, 200–01– and wine pourers 181, 197–99– wolfs/dogs 244– of youth by older man 102, 114, 183initiation of girls VII – and Amazons 138– groups of fifty 118–19– and hunt 138–39– in Macedonia 128 – and ‘maiden’s tragedy’ 145– and priestesses 133–34, 145– running 134– as warriors 128–29, 138– and wine pouring 194, 198–99Ino 130inscriptions– IC III ii 2 17– IG IX 1, 139 135 IX 2, 1128 52 XIV.716–17 127– I. Magnesia 215 126– SEG 1.248 52 26.1123 145 30.1254 34 32.503 89 33.303 114 34.1308 34 36.336 75 37.59 89 44.332A 114iuvenes/jeunesse 21, 28, 86, 102, 224

Jacoby, F. 17Jason, name 5Jeanmaire, H. X, 54, 102, 165, 191, 245

Kaineus 143–57– death 155–56– invulnerability 152–55– and Poseidon 144, 149– sex change 144– spear 150–51– Thessalian 144– transvestism XXII, 137Kakridis, I. 67, 71–72kardakes 247–48Kindt, J. 107konnos/Konnidas 19, 220Kouretes 16–18– and colonisation XV– on Crete IX – dances X, 16–17– ethnic group 16, 20– and fertility 17– and fire festival 74– gods 16– hairstyle 17, 20– and initiation 76– megaron 18 – and Meleager 68– and mother 77– and pilos 12– transvestism 18kouroi XVIII, XX, 245, 250– and Troy 28Kresphontes 206, 220krypteia X, 130Kyknos– feminine appearance 152, 183– invulnerability 152

Lafitau, J.-F. XILapis Satricanus 237–50leschê IX, 18, 102, 191Lemnos 7–11, 118Leto Phytia 132, 147

262 Index of Names, Subjects and Passages

Leukippos 132, 136, 138–39 (Elean)Livy– Ab urbe condita 1.5.7 240 1.8.5 241 2.3.2 240 2.49.3–6 238–39 3.14.3 238 9.39.5 238 21.31.6–7 243 42.2.1 239Locrian Maidens 27, 132Lord/Lady of the Animals 38–39lusus Troiae 27lycanthropy 154Lycophron56 111455–56 154458 111– Scholia 50 59 237b 152 482 14lyssa 154, 202

mallos/Mallion/Komallos 19Mandan Sioux 15Mannhardt, W. 46Mars 237maternal family– and adoption 224–25– importance 205–18– and paternal family 215, 232Mauss, M. 235 Melampus 85Meleager XVI, XX–XXI, 65–79– adolescent 70– and Althaea’s curse 69–70– and Atalanta 70– death 70–75, 77– and fire-brand 72–75 – and gifts 66– and maternal family 68–69, 76, 210– myth pre-Homeric 65–67, 75–78– and wife 69–70

Meropis 154Meuli, K. 249Meyer, E. 191milk, drinking 57Minyas 71, 99, 102–04Molpoi/Eumolpoi XV–XVImoon, new 14mountains 45–47, 62–63, 128Murray, G. 23Murray, O. 192myth– and exemplum 78– and folktale 72– and ritual XVII, 107–08

Nikophon, fragments, ed. Kassel/AustinF 6–12 35Nilsson, M. P. X, 47Nonnos – Dionysiaca 3.90–93 162 3.204–08 14 7.125 100 7.215 50 9.40, 47, 484 164 12.70–75 169 14.143–67 130–31 20.229–30 130 27.23 127

Odysseus– and Cyclopes 29–44– initiation of 12–16– leg wound 7–8, 12– maternal family 12, 209– name 12, 209– and pilos 12– and raft 14– scar 12, 210– wandering 16Oedipus 159–74– blindness 171– death 171– and Demeter 167– exposure 161–63– fosterage XVII

263Index of Names, Subjects and Passages

– foster mother 82, 163– and Freud 172–74– and Lévi-Strauss 159–60, 166– mother, name of 83, 170– origin of myth 171–72– and Sphinx 164–65Ogygos/ia 14Old and New Testament– Genesis 49.6 10– Joshua 11.6 10– 1 Samuel 18 230 – 2 Samuel 2.4 10– 1 Chonicles 2.26 224– Daniel 1.3–4 234– Acts 23.16 224Orestes, as matricide 77Orpheus 81–93– as adolescent 85– and Argonauts 91– etymology 88– and Eurydice 81–85– gay? 88–90– grave 89– as initiator 85–88– Macedonian/Thracian 84– and Orphism 90–93– pre-Homeric XXI, 92–93– as singer 91– wandering XXI, 86– and women 90Ovid– Heroides 11.3–130 169– Ibis 403–04 53– Metamorphoses 2.628–30 53 8.260–545 70 8.298–328 69 8.380–444 78 8.739–79 146 9.101–65 59 9.666–797 147 10.83–85 88 11.89–105 102 12.72 152 12.140–43 152

12.189 144 12.209 144 12.219–536 56 12.497 144 12.523 156 13.162 148 13.320 3

Pan 53–54Paris– exposure 162– name change 6, 109Parker, R. XXII, 107parricide, and incest 167–71Parthenopaios 137, 140, 151Paulus Diaconus, – Historia Longobardorum 1.7 XX 1.23–24 242Pausanias1.19.1 1361.27.7 206, 2192.4.9 1102.5.7 2062.6.6 2072.16.1 2082.25.8 352.33.2 1453.18.4 1344.31.9 744.33.3 836.8.2 107.18.1 567.18.11–13 738.2.6 108.5.7 2118.47.2 788.53.9 89.3.1 209.29.5–6 1149.30.4–12 899.30.5 869.31.1 8510.10.2 21010.26.4 510.31.3 7010.34.4 135

264 Index of Names, Subjects and Passages

pederasty– agrios 204– in Albania 185– in Athens 187–89– copulation 182, 185, 189– on Crete 180–83– and homosexuality 177– and Papuans 178–80– and Rangdemonstration 186–87– in Sparta 183–86– among the Taifali 185Peirithoos– Lapith 60–61– and Theseus 95–105– Thessalian 100Pelion Mountain 42Periklymenos 39–40Perseus 222–23– and Andromeda XVII– and Danae 208, 222– defeats Gorgon XVI– exposure 162– succession to throne 207Phanocles, ed. Powell/HopkinsonF 1P = 1133–60H 88Pherecydes, fragments, FGrH 3/FowlerF 12 = 12F 35F 14 = 14F 75F 35 = 35F 34F 46 = 46F 34F 50 = 50F 51F 93 = 93F 163Philochoros, fragments, FGrH 328F 18 103F 100 11F 111 208Philoctetes 7–11Photius, ed. Theodoridisα 259 54Phrynichus, TrGF 3 F6 73Pindar, fragments, ed. Maehler/

Rutherford– Isthmian Odes 1.7 183

4.65–67 75 5.39 152 6.47 154 6.57 211 7.24 211 8.42–43 52– Nemean Odes 3.43.-55 53 4.62ff 75 79–81 211 4.104, 119 5 5.41 211 7.40–47, 58, 62 6– Olympian Odes 1.42–45 199 2.82 152– Paeans VI.116–20 6 X 25– Pythian Odes 1.97 195 2.33–48 50 2.45 52 3.1–3 51, 61 3.4 52 3.5 48 3.5–8 52 3.15 183 4.102 52 4.115 51 4.119 51 6.22 51 8.35.38 211 9.30 51, 52 111–12 133– Fragments F 128f 156 F 166 57 F 169a.7 35 F 175 100 F 266 34 F 291 109– Scholia N. 9.57a 39 O. 5.42b IXPlato– Euthydemos 272c 115

265Index of Names, Subjects and Passages

– Laws 636b 193 666a 198 666d 28 808e 173 838c 169 873c 164 944d 150– Phaedrus 229d 61– Respublica 359–60b 24 399c 115 571c 173– Symposion 179de 81 219e 154– Timaeus 21b 196plokamos 17, 19Plutarch– Life of Nicias 3 126– Life of Pelopidas 7 111 9.5 173– Life of Theseus 4 5, 19, 206 5 18, 20 6 5 35.5 131– Moralia 10d 211 234e 112 244ad 74 245c 129 293c 25 387d 114 405b 112 417e–418d 25 491f–492a 211 492d 213 566c 81 577 113 595b 173 639f–640a 111 647a 54

761b 120, 181, 183, 194–95

766d 183 1032e 216 1163a 25Poseidon– and Arion 50– character of 150– in Ephesos 197– and Kaineus 137– and male associations 150– and Mestra 146– and monsters 61– and Pelops 145, 199– Phytalmios 147– and Polyphemos 39–40Proitids XVIIPropp, V. 41, 160pyrrhichê 5Pyrrhos/Neoptolemos 5–6

Rhadamanthys 112–13Robert, C. 164, 167Romulus and Remus XX, 116, 162–63,

207, 240–41Roscher, W. 46

Saintyves, P. 40–41Sanctis, G. de 191Sappho, fragments, ed. Voigt– on brother 197F 141 199F 169a 147F 203 199F 206 99Scaliger, J. 127Schmidt, M. 116Schurtz, H. IX–XI, 191Segal, Ch. 125Simonides, fragments, ed. PageF 510 196F 564 70skollus 17, 19

266 Index of Names, Subjects and Passages

sodales 238–41, 243, 249Sophocles, fragments, ed. Radt– in love 199– Antigone 53–54 171 350 48 1183ff 82– Hermione p. 192 6– Oedipus Rex 211, 209, 438 128 775, 790 163 806–13 164 1263–64 171 1418 212– Philoctetes 144 11 239–44 5, 206– Trachiniae 555–58 59 565–81 59 714–15 51 837 48 1095–96 61– Fragments F 227 35 F 380 144 F 500–501 152Sourvinou-Inwood, C. VII, XIVSteinmetz, S.R. 233Stesichorus, fragments, ed. FinglassF 22 60F 90 23F 91a–j, 180–81 73F 183–84 73F 226 153F 270, 272, 281 73Strabo, ed. Radt7, fr. 10a 897, fr. 15 888.3.7, 10 198.3.19 608.6.8 359.4.8 489.5.9 2109.5.12 619.5.16 5, 206

9.5.19 52, 6110.3.8 1810.3.11 IX10.3.18 2810.3.23 8910.4.12 18210.4.16 1710.4.20 XVII10.4.21 135, 18015.3.18 24716.4.10 9symposium– Athenian boys at XVI– and pederasty 200–04– and didactic poetry 194–96– pre-history of 192–93– sitting at 196–97

Tacitus– Germania 5 242 13–14 242, 245 38 18Talos 152–53Telesilla, poetess 129Thamyris 88– pederasty 89Theognis9 7309 1931002, 1211ff 1981295, 1307, 1379 194Theophrastus, fragments, ed. Forten-

baughF 560 182F 576 198F 600 143, 151Theopompos, fragments, ed. Kassel/

AustinF 92 54F 105 117, 247Theseus XII–XIII– and abductions 100– and age sixteen 13, 126, 136, 149, 219– dedicating hair 139– descent underworld 98–99

267Index of Names, Subjects and Passages

– effeminate appearance 136, 149– fosterage 219–20– hairstyle 18–20– and initiation 166–67– lifting rock 219– and Medea 77– and Minotaur XIII, XVI, 166– name 5– and parricide 222– and Peirithoos XXI, 95–105– and pilos– trip to Crete 25, 99, 208– wandering XXI, 101, 114throne, succession to 206–07, 221Thucydides4.34 136.2 34Titanomachy, fragments, ed. Davies/

Bernabé 33F 6 = 10/11B 55F 9 = 10B 51Troy– and initiation 27–28– and labyrinth 22–23 – Trojan Horse 22–24, 63– Trojan War XIX–XX, 3–28Turner, V. W. 4

underworld, descents 97–99Usener, H. 23, 26, 167

ver sacrum XV, 86Vernant, J.-P. 125Versnel, H.S. 107, 125, 237Vibenna brothers XXIII, 249Vidal-Naquet, P. XIII, 122

Webster, H. IX–XIwedding gifts 145–46

Weiser, L. XIWelcker, F. 66West, M. L. XX, 50, 91, 99, 101, 103,

126; S. 112Widengren, G. XII, 246, 249Wikander, S. XII, 249Wilhelm, A. 216Williams, F. E. 178Winkler, J. VIIWittgenstein, L. 107women– and maternal uncle 224– and war 129

Xenophon– Anabasis 1.2.13 102 7.3.21 196– Cyropaedia 217 4.3.17 61– Lak. Pol. 2.12 183 2.13 184 3.5, 5.5 194– Symposium 1.5.8 196 3.1 115 8.31 105

youths, as servants 233

Zeus– Agoraios 152– Akraios/Aktaios 42, 52, 54– beardless IX, 134– and Chthonie 145– on Crete IX– hymn to IX– in Aegion 133–34– sinews cut 9