The Tempering Goddess: A phenomenological and structural analysis of the Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia...

THE TEMPERING GODDESS: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL AND STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF

THE BRITOMARTIS-DIKTYNNA-APHAIA MYTHOLOGEM

by

JAMES BENTON HARROD

B.A., Williams College, 1968 M.A., Claremont Graduate School, 1970

DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in

Religion in the Graduate School of Syracuse University, June, 1975

Approved Date May 27, 1975

© 1974 James Benton Harrod All rights reserved

ii

ABSTRACT

This dissertation analyzes and interprets the mythologem1 of the ancient Kretan Nature

Goddess, Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia, as found in the myth variants of' Kallimachos and

others.

Interpretation of this mythologem has been cursory. L. R. Farnell and subsequent

scholars have interpreted the goddess as a variant of Artemis and Artemis as a form of a

matriarchal, chthonic, orgiastic Great Mother Goddess. They believed the Diktynna plant ritual

promoted fertility and expressed the wildness and abundance of nature or the seasonal cycles of

vegetation. At the same time, they made no effort to interpret central images of the myth (e.g.,

oaks, nets), and they admitted their inability to comprehend the specific elements of the ritual

(e.g., pine, mastich).

I have used a method both phenomenological and structuralist. For the most part, I have

applied a procedure Claude Lévi-Strauss used in his “The story of Asdiwal,” namely, to analyze

a myth into its levels, in relation to its transformations, and in its ethnographic context. In this

way, I have arrived at the following thesis. It is fourfold.

(1) That the image of nets, which finds its primary significance in a technological schema

which delineates the making of nets from rushes, is central for interpreting the myth of

Britomartis -- so that the Lady of Nets has a twofold tempering essence, i.e., elemental energy

and fruitful abundance, as well as limit and measure;

1 By “mythologem” I mean a group of myths and rituals having a structural unity of allegorical levels or planes like the planes of a crystal, i.e., a precious “gem.”

iii

(2) That the Diktynna ritual plants find their primary significance in terms of a

technology both trephological2 and medicinal--so that pine and mastich signify “the idea of

resins,” i.e., independence and cyclical growth by means of self-healing inner heat, a process

which indirectly heals others--and so that Nature is characterized by interlinkages, by timed

quantum leaps of energy, by measured flow, and by kairos;3

(3) That the Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia mythologem as a whole is composed of some

ten metaphorically interwoven levels (the primary metaphor being contest marriage) and is triply

constituted by (a) a limited number of narrative sequences, (b) an analogical law, and (c) a

structural triangle (including the “idea of resin”), which constitution overcomes and reconciles

the contradictions between “taking,” “keeping,” and “giving;”

And (4) that the myth and ritual—indeed, the mythologem as a whole—have as their

central theme that Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia, the Goddess of Nature, is tempering—so that

Nature is tempering and this temperance is the harmony of elemental energy (including gift

exchange), invincible in its fruitfulness, and self-regulating limit and measure, a harmony

grounded in a process of cyclical transformation and kairos.

This thesis could be reduced to a single sentence: that Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia, or

the Lady of Nets, is the Goddess of Nature’s tempering art. (Here the word “art” suggests both

the tempering “way” in which she acts and the “artistic” manner of that action.) The formula

indicates that Nature, temperance, and technê (art) are inextricably intertwined in the myth of the

Goddess and that a technological code, as well as metaphor of marriage contest, is key to the

myth and ritual of the Lady of Nets.

2 The word “trephological” is coined from the Greek verb trephô: to grow, to nurse, to raise, to live, to be. 3 Kairos: right time or season, critical moment.

iv

FOR THE GODDESS

“I am a net”

v

“Where has not Artemis danced?”4

4 Proverbia Aesopi #9, Corpus paroemeogr. graec. II, p. 229, cited in Nilsson, MMR, 503.

vi

CONTENTS

Preface ………………………………………………………………………… vii

Abbreviations…………………………………………………………………. viii

I. INTRODUCTION ………………………………………… 1

II. PRIMARY SOURCES ……………………………………… 17

III. KALLIMACHOS’ BRITOMARTIS MYTH ……………….. 22

Geophysical Level; Technological Level; Integration with Ingression on the Art of Fishing; Economic Level; Biological: Childbirth Level with Ingression on the Art of Childbearing; Integration; Sociological: Martial Level with Ingression on Marriage; Integration; Sociological; Political Level; Sacrificial Level; Integration.

IV. KALLIMACHOS’ DIKTYNNA RITUAL …………………. 80

V. MYTH AND RITUAL ……………………………………… 103

VI. THE OTHER VARIANTS …………………………………. 112

VII. THE STRUCTURE OF THE MYTHOLOGEM …………… 137

VIII. PROLEGOMENON TO THE ARTEMIS MYTHOLOGEM.. 150

IX. CONCLUSION ……………………………………………… 158

APPENDICES:

A. ETYMOLOGICAL DIGRESSION ………………………….. 179

B. THE ARTEMIS MYTHOLOGEM: EPITHETS, CULTS AITIA, AND FESTIVALS ………………………….. 182 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………… 193

vii

PREFACE

This dissertation will analyze and interpret the mythologem of Britomartis-Diktynna-

Aphaia, the ancient Kretan Nature Goddess, found in the myth variant of Kallimachos and

others. Interpretation of this mythologem has been cursory. Scholars have confessed their

inability to comprehend its ritual. Critical images in its myths have been relegated to

insignificance. I will seek for her in her own realm, in the sphere appropriate to her uniqueness. I

will use a method phenomenological and structuralist as is fitting the mythological and

theological realm of the goddess. Open to the imaginative, I will let the mythologem speak for

itself. Listening is the task.

The ideas in this dissertation have benefited from the stimulus of association with

members of the Religion faculty of Syracuse University, especially Dr. David L. Miller, my

advisor. I also wish to thank the other two members of my Dissertation Committee, Dr. Donald

Mills (Classics) and Dr. Susan Wadley (Anthropology), for their insights and encouragement.

J.B.H. Waterville, Maine 1973

viii

ABBREVIATIONS

C.D. The Classic Greek Dictionary Erdmann, Ehe

Walter Erdmann, Die Ehe im alten Griechenland

Farnell, Cults

L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States

R. Holland

Richard Holland, “Britomartis,” Hermes

KP.

Der Kleine Pauly

Lacey, E∆NA

W. K. Lacey, “Homeric E∆NA and Penelope’s KYRIOΣ,” Journal of Hellenic Studies

Lacey, Family

W. K. Lacey, The Family in Classical Greece

Lévi-Strauss, ESK

Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures of Kinship

Lévi-Strauss, SA

Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology

L-S.

Liddell, H. C. and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon

Nilsson, Feste

Martin P. Nilsson, Griechische Feste von Religiőser Bedeutung mit Ausschluss der Attischen

Nilsson, MMR

Martin P. Nilsson, The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion and its Survival in Greek Religion

O.C.D.

The Oxford Classical Dictionary

M. Papathomopoulos

Manolis Papathomopoulos, translation and notes to Antoninus Liberalis, Les Métamorphoses

Pernice, Privatleben

Erich Pernice, “Griechisches und Romisches Privatleban” in Einleitung in die Altertumswissenschaft, ed. by Alfred Gercke and Eduard Norden

Polunin

Oleg Polunin and Anthony Huxley, Flowers of the Mediterranean

R-E.

Pauly’s Real-Encyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft

ix

Willetts, ACSH

R. F. Willetts, Ancient Crete: A Social History

Willetts, ACAC

R. F. Willetts, Aristocratic Society in Ancient Crete

Willetts, CCF

R. F. Willetts, Cretan Cults and Festivals

Wolff, Marriage

Hans Julius Wolff, “Marriage Law and Family Organization in Ancient Athens,” Traditio

All classical sources are abbreviated as in the Liddell-Scott Lexicon. All translations are mine, except where otherwise indicated. In translating Greek into English, I have deleted all diacritical marks except most all η are anglicized as ê, acknowledging that this ˆ is not the distinctly different Greek but only to indicate a long ‘e’.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

This dissertation analyzes and interprets the mythologem of the ancient Kretan1 Nature

Goddess, Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia2, as found in the myth variants3 of Kallimachos and

others4.

To the world “mythologem” I give a special and technical meaning. Its definition will

help characterize: (1) the nature of the phenomenon to be analyzed and interpreted and (2) my

methodology and style of argumentation.

1For accounts of her cult see Willetts, CCF, p. 179-93; M. Guarducci, Inscriptiones Creticae (Roma: La Libreria dello Stato, 1939), 2, pp. 128-38; Barclay V. Head, Historia Numorum (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1911), pp. 460-75. These sources indicate that Britomartis had cults at Khersonesos, Olous, Gortyna, Dreros, Lato, Lyttos, Delos, and perhaps Sparta, Kephallenia, and Argos. Evidence for the cult is as early as 370 B.C. at Khersonesos (coin, Head, p. 460) and as late as about A.D. 170 at Olous (Paus. 9.40.3). The most famous cult of Diktynna was the Diktynnaion in northwest Krete, founded by Samians (Hdt. 3.59) between 524-519 B.C. The cult still existed during the reign of M. Aurelius (IC 4, 334), i.e., A.D. 161-180. During this period there is epigraphical and numatistic evidence for cults at Polyrrhenia, Lisos, Kydonia, Aptera, and possibly Phalasarna. Diktynna cults were also at Sparta, Lakonian Las, Phokian, Ambrossos, Athens, Astypalaia, Massilia, and perhaps Troizen. Aphaia had a cult on Aigina. For an archeologist’s reconstruction of her temple there see Adolf Furtwängler, Aegina das Heiligtum der Aphaia (München: Verlag der K. B. Akadamie der Wissenschaft, 1906). A Diktynna cult probably preceded the arrival of the Samians and probably extended into Byzantine times (Guarducci, p. 128). Linear B documents so far translated do not mention Britomartis, Diktynna, or Aphaia as being among the Mycenaean pantheon; the titles, of course, may turn up in the future. The “Diktaion Zeus” is mentioned (Kn 220=Fp1). The cult of Britomartis Diktynna is accepted as a survival of the Minoan goddess (Willetts, CCF, p. 184, Nilsson, MMR, pp. 509-13; Farnell, Cults, pp. 476-77). Although Euripides and Aristophanes identify Diktynna with Artemis, the treaty oaths of Dreros (3rd c. B.C.), Lato (2nd c. B.C.), and Lyttos (2nd c. B.C.) indicate that Britomartis and Artemis were two distinct goddesses. In the Lisos treaty oath (3rd c. B.C.), Diktynna is mentioned, but not Artemis. Detailed accounts of epigraphical and literary evidence for the cults of Britomartis, Diktynna, and Aphaia are given in R-E., s.v. Diktynna and W. H. Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und romischen Mythologie (Leipzig, 1884-1937), s.v. Britomartis. 2 Literally, “Sweet Catch – Lady of Nets – Invisible” (cf. Appendix A; Kall. (lg); and p. 152). The hyphenated title is to indicate that the goddesses belong to a single mythologem. 3 The dissertation explores the meaning of myths, not the history of a cult. Primary sources are myth-variants, as opposed to archeological, epigraphical, numatistic, and plastic art data. Chapter II does include besides myth-variants some dramatic, historical, and geographical literary sources which given symbolic material relevant to interpreting the myth and which help the reader to fill out the myth’s context. 4 These are presented in Chapter II. By and large, the cult flourished from the sixth century B.C. to the third century A.D. They myth-variants were recorded during this same period. In addition, the culture-historical ethnographic data which I will use to illumine the myth fall in this period, e.g. Gortyn Law Code (c. 480-460 B.C.) to Oppian Hal. (A.D. 206).

2

A “mythologem” is a group of sacred stories or myth-variants (“mythos”) having a

general law (“logos”) and also a cluster of planes (levels of potential meaning) latent in the

variants as a whole (“gem”). A mythologem is an essence (form, phenomenon) which is a mutual

dependence of two types of wholes.

Firstly, a mythologem is a “group” of myth-variants. A myth-variant is a genre of poetic

language which narrates sacred stories, i.e., stories about gods and heroes. These variants are

written in various times and places: the group extends over a period of historical time. Variants

are indentified as belonging to a particular “group” by tradition, i.e., the criticisms and

reflections of mythographers and theologians as well as the historical unfolding and articulation

of the variants. To claim that a particular collection of myths is a “group” of variants is to claim

that the collection exhibits an invariant structure, a law for the group, which can be formulated in

general:

Fx(a) : Fy(b) :: Fa-1(y) : Fx(b) or (a-1)

Where “x” and “y” are characters (subjects, agents) of the myth and “a” and “b” are verbs

(actions).5 Thus, though a group might include seemingly contradictory narrative actions (e.g.,

the maiden was rescued by nets, the maiden was captured in nets), these are reducible to four (or

five). Those interpretations which subsume a group of myth-variants under one category or class

(genus, species, as e.g., fertility cult, vegetation deity) oversimplify the interpretation of the

group to the extent that its formalization is not acknowledged.

Secondly, each variant is itself a world-view, a vision which is a whole analyzable into

parts, name (1) planes (levels of meaning) along with their schemata, and (2) aspects, such as

symbols, narrative units (sentences, mythemes), and metaphors (the latter including allegories,

5 See infra, Chapter VII; compare Claude Lévi-Strauss, “The Structural Study of Myth,” SA, p. 225.

3

analogies, and topologies).6 A mythologem is like a crystal, a cluster of planes and aspects, a

precious “gem.” Metaphors serve to interlink various levels.

Thus, there are two axes or dimensions which define a mythologem in general, i.e., myth

as phenomenon. The group with its invariant law articulates itself along a temporal or historical

dimension. The crystalline structure of the mythologem articulates itself in a depth or eternal

dimension. The four “moments” expressed by a myth’s invariant law belong to a third realm of

fictive or narrative time.7 While historical time is linear and irreversible, eternal time is

“timeless.” A myth can be “dead” and yet “still speak” to us. Narrative time is reversible; it

combines both historical time and eternity and it can combine them because it exists in a realm

which is purely imaginary.

A mythologem is the intersection of two wholes, the one expressible in a mathematical

formula, the other composed by means of metaphors, i.e., irreducible poetic visions. A

mythologem intertwines theoretical truth and aesthetic beauty.

Given the nature of a mythologem, it must be a first principle of interpretation that a

myth be interpreted as a self-consistent and coherent whole. If allowed, it will articulate itself in

its wholeness. The interpretation of a mythologem as a complex whole (a whole of wholes,

system) involves a twofold hermeneutical circle. To understand the whole (a myth-variant) one

must also understand its parts (levels), and to understand the parts (whether levels or variants)

one must understand the whole (the law for that group). For example, a narrative action in any

one variant acquires full meaning only in relation to the invariant law for the group of variants.

6 For more on this last type of exegesis see the last section of the Introduction. 7 Compare Claude Lévi-Strauss, op. cit., p. 205 and Frank Kermode, Sense of an Ending (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 69ff., where he distinguishes (a) eternity, neither beginning nor end, (b) aevum, the realm of the fictive, the narrative ordering of events into past, present, and future, which co-exists with time, and (c) time.

4

A mythologem is neither an essence which gives itself as a simple and already constituted

whole (as with Husserl) nor a construct synthesized by means of an a priori category (as with

Kant). A mythologem is a system of relations, a plurality constituted by a general law. It does not

have a single “center” definable by a unique predicate or attribute. As phenomenon, a

mythologem is a co-presentation of two types of wholes which emerge simultaneously and

which are mutually defining and co-originating. The interpreter analyzes a given mythologem

into its parts and then re-constructs it. In doing so the mythologem yields up its meaning. The

interpreter is a “participant observer” in the myth’s meaning. In a sense, his interpretation is

itself a variant of the myth. The interpreter is neither the father nor the mother of the

phenomenon, but rather its midwife.

The articulation of the meaning of a mythologem is a process of logical reasoning which

can be called “mythologic.” Mythologic is the logic which corresponds with and to the logical

structure of a myth. The relation of mythologic to the traditional dialectical syllogism defined by

Aristotle (Top. 1) can be expressed by the following analogy:

dialectical problem theorema

: argument opinion belief

: argumentation dialectical syllogism

::

experience of being and existence

region of the Imagination task

: mythologem thema theorema

: mythologic and thesis

For the mythologist a mythologem is not a proposition about the world which can be proved or

disproved; it is not an issue for assent or dissent; rather it is a poetic and mathematical expression

of a world. A mythologem is a coherent and duplex whole. It is a theorema (thing seen and

contemplated, a vision) which thematizes a region of human experience. The mythologist uses

the mythologem as a premise for mythological reasoning, and, in turn, this reasoning illumines

5

human experience. When mythological reasoning arrives at a thesis which defines the nature of a

god, this reasoning is “theological” and the thesis is like a theologian’s symbolum (creed).

I have indicated that a mythologem is a framework (model, structure) for understanding

being and existence, and in order to interpret any particular variant composing this framework, it

is necessary to clarify the framework of the whole mythologem by analyzing out its levels and

formulating its general law. Accordingly, a “mythological” analysis will have four “moments”

which are structural, ontological, hermeneutical, and phenomenological. I use such a fourfold

analysis on the Britomartis mythologem as follows.

(1) I will analyze a group of myth-variants, namely the Britomartis, Diktynna, and

Aphaia variants. This group has been identified as such by tradition, e.g., Kallimachos,

Pausanias, Antoninus Liberalis. I will analyze this group according to the rules of structural

analysis outlined by Claude Lévi-Strauss and Nicholas Trubetzkoy. According to Lévi-Strauss,8

a strict structural analysis of a myth-variant must follow three rules: (1) it must never be

interpreted on just one level, (2) it must never be interpreted alone, but together with other myths

which comprise a group of transformations, (3) it must be interpreted with reference to the

culture in which it exists and with reference to other groups of myths. The Britomartis

mythologem has some ten levels (geophysical, technological, economic, childbirth, marital,

political, trephological, and medicinal). I take the myths of Britomartis, Diktynna, and Aphaia as

constituting a “group of transformations,” i.e., a mythologem. I will use culture-historical

ethnography and other groups of myths (especially the Artemic group as a whole) where relevant

for illumining elements in the Britomartis mythologem. 8 “Religions Comparees des Peuples sans Ecriture” in Problemes et Methodes D’Histoire des Religions, p. 5. Compare his analysis of the Oedipus myth in “The Structural Study of Myth,” SA, pp. 208-28. Marcel Detienne cites and follows Lévi-Strauss’ three rules in Les Jardins D’Adonis, the first major structuralist work on Greek mythology. Besides Detienne, other classicists using the structuralist method include Pierre Vidal-Naquet and Jean-Paul Vernant.

6

I will also follow Trubetzkoy's four principles:9 (a) clarify unconscious infrastructures,

(b) begin an analysis not with terms, as if they were independent entities, but with relations

between terms; (c) place these relations in the context of systematic structures; (d) elucidate

general laws which govern these structures. In the case of mythologems, “terms” are symbols

and personifications (e.g., nets, myrtle, mountain, the number nine, Minos). “Relations” are

juxtapositions of symbols by the mythologem’s structure, narrative units (sentences, actions,

“mythemes”), and sequences of these units. I have already formulated the “general law” for a

mythologem (see above). “Unconscious infrastructures” are such things as levels, metaphors,

schemata, latent symbols. These are “unconscious” only in relation to their manifestation in other

variants. The unconscious is not absolute, but only relative.

(2) I will assume that myth-variants dramatize events of a holy, transcendental, and

ontological realm which is a realm of human experience, of human being. For example,

Britomartis, Minos, the fisherman, mountains, and sea are all parts of one’s Self; and the myth

narrates the Self’s relation to itself. If this is so, then the “group law” for a mythologem will be a

psychological-ontological law. A mythologem lies in a region of pure human experience, a realm

of dreams, a primordial time and a time of beginnings.10 In this realm all beings (mountain, rock,

tree, net, woman, fisherman) are luminous with a pure energy; they are pure vitalities.

(3) The thesis will announce, in summary form, the meaning of the Britomartis

mythologem.

The thesis will not focus on the history of the Britomartis cult -- a history already

adequately handled by others -- but rather on the meaning of the mythologem associated with

9 “La Phonology actuelle: in Psychology du langage (Paris, 1933), paraphrased by Claude Lévi-Strauss, “Structural Analysis in Linguistics and Anthropology,” in SA, p. 31. 10 Compare Mircea Eliade’s concept of in illo tempore, Patterns of Comparative Religion, pp.388 ff.

7

this cult.11 My thesis challenges interpretations of the mythologem given by such scholars as

Farnell, Nilsson, and Willetts.12 Further, one could interpret myth-variant as if it were disguised

history, unmask it, and then use it to illumine historical facts such as a cult history, political

history, etc. This would be “euhemerism.” One could interpret a myth as if it made a truth-claim

or judgment about cultural facts (social, economic, botanical, etc.). In this case, myth is treated

as “ideology.” This dissertation interprets the Britomartis myth neither euhemeristically nor

ideologically, but rather “mythologically.” In this light, myth and cultural-historical data have a

dialectical relationship.13 I will take into account cultural-historical data as it illumines myth, but

not the reverse relation (how myth might illumine culture and history). I leave the latter to histor-

ians and ideologists.14

Myth-variants are an imaginative and poetic genre of language. To articulate their

meaning I will use a hermeneutic which is open to the nuances of poetry. I will listen to the

mythologem and let it reveal and bestow its message (thesis) on its own terms. Accepting the

demands of the myth, I will let it speak of its own accord. By beginning with the myth and

letting its archê rule over and guide the discourse of its interpretation, anarchical associations

will be tethered. “Free association” will be avoided, yet the imagination will be free to the extent

11 This thesis is not a thesis in source or higher criticism; it does not determine what sources or threads of myth were woven by a particular author at a particular time, e.g., whether Kallimachos wove together a myth of Diktynna with a myth of Britomartis. The thesis is not a thesis in redaction criticism; it does not establish a particular redactor's stylization of a received myth. The thesis is not a thesis based on a new discovery in archeology, epigraphy, etc. Since the argument is not “historical,” it is not essential that the thesis take into account such historical data as the Aphaia temple pediments, inscriptions, etc. See footnote 1, p. 1 for a summary of this data. 12 One must not be confused by the fact that these scholars often treated their interpretations of the Britomartis mythologem as if they were propositions about the historical evolution of the cult. For more on their “evolutionary paradigm” see the Conclusion. 13 Compare the account of Lévi-Strauss, “The Story of Asdiwal,” The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism, esp, p. 29 where he says that the relation of a myth to “given (empirical) facts” is “not as a re-presentation of them. The relationship is of a dialectical kind.” 14 In the various “Ingressions” (a play on the word “digression”) and elsewhere, I examine historical-cultural data, i.e., ethnography, relevant to (“entering into”) the interpretation of the Britomartis mythologem. The works of Hippocrates, Xenophon, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Pliny, Galen, and Oppian as well as the Gortyn Law Code all fall within the period during which the cult of Diktynna flourished and during which the main myth-variants evolved.

8

that it gets its “poetic license” from the mythologem itself. Finally, because of the duplex nature

of a mythologem, interpretation requires not only a methodic technê, but also a rhapsodic

attunement to the poetic meaning of a myth. Are not the gods but names for facets of song?

After a myth is analyzed into its structure, its meaning can be deciphered.15 The

seemingly sparse and fragmentary symbols of the Britomartis mythologem are actually full, even

bursting, with meanings. These the interpreter must unpack. The range of possible meanings for

any mythical symbol is suggested by ethnography, by the role of the symbol in variants of that

myth, and especially by the symbol’s relation to other symbols in the same myth. In any given

variant, a symbol’s specific meaning(s) is limited and determined by the symbol’s relations to

other symbols in the myth, relations established by narrative order, levels and schemata, and the

general law. An isolated symbol is virtually meaningless; it is like a musical note isolated from

its melody, chord, harmony, and rhythm. Meaning dwells fundamentally in the whole.16

A mythologem originates meaning. Hermeneutics analyzes metaphors into constituent

relations which it translates into propositional language. For example, from the point of view of

the childbirth schema, it translates the plot into a statement about childbearing. Hermeneutics

also articulates the meanings which emerge like a spark from the friction of symbols juxtaposed

by the manifest narrative or latent structures (general law, relation of myth to ritual, levels and

schemata, etc.), e.g., the contrast between pine and myrtle or kings and fishermen. The

juxtaposition of symbols gives rise to language, to thinking. It gives rise to various theses which

interpret those symbols. By being juxtaposed, images become meaningful and function

15 Compare Claude Lévi-Strauss, “The Story of Asdiwal,” op cit., p. 21. 16The meaning of a myth resides not in isolated elements but in combinations of elements, and not in isolated relations but in bundles of relations or “mythemes” (Lévi-Strauss, “The Structural Study of Myth,” SA, pp. 206-207. “The world of symbolism is infinitely varied in content, but always limited in its laws (Lévi-Strauss, “The Effectiveness of Symbols," SA, p. 199.

9

symbolically on various levels. Both the analysis of metaphors and the synthesis of symbols

yields relations convertible into sentences (statements, propositions, mythemes).

As the precise significance of each symbol is determined, the meaning of the

mythologem as a whole announces itself as thesis. Meaning emerges as proclamation, poetic and

oracular utterance. Analysis is prologue to hermeneutics. With the interpreter’s aid, the myth

interprets itself. In addition, since the symbolically and metaphorically latent becomes manifest

as sentence, hermeneutics, verges on phenomenology.

(4) I will bring to light latent aspects of the Britomartis mythologem by imagining latent

imagery, clarifying latent schemata (a schema is the plot viewed from a particular level), and

displaying the metaphors which interlink these levels. In “bringing to light” the latent, making it

manifest, my method is “phenomenological.”

Interpretation will proceed by re-telling each myth-variant in terms of its levels

(technological, political, etc.). Because the interpretation of a myth involves re-telling that myth

and sometimes imagining latent imagery, the interpretation is not only “phenomenological,” but

also, strictly speaking, “mythological.” As the myth is told on each of its levels, the metaphors

which link these levels can be displayed in a linear and prose manner. Structural analysis aids

phenomenology by its systematic procedure for opening up and unfolding the highly condensed

and rich poetry of myths.

That which is “latent” is only so in relation to its being “manifest” elsewhere. For

example, the latent “marriage contest” metaphor of the Kallimachos variant is manifest in other

Artemis myths such as Orion; the “rush” symbol latent in the same variant is manifest in the

myth of Akontios and Kydippe; and, the technological level of the Kallimachos variant is the

manifest mytheme of the Diodorus Siculus variant.

10

Levels and their schemata are detected by noting symbols juxtaposed by the narrative.

These symbols may be manifest or latent. For example, the Kallimachos variant juxtaposes the

manifest symbols “king” and “fishermen.” The myth contrasts political roles and, thus, makes a

political level significant for interpretation. The political contrast is illumined and reinforced by

cultural-historical data (e. g., the feudal caste system in Krete). The technological schema of the

Kallimachos variant is latent because one of its symbols is latent. The myth says that the

fishermen hunt with “nets.” The structure of the myth leads one to ask: how does Minos hunt

(Minos being the “opposite” of fishermen)? The myth compels one’s imagination to answer:

with bare hands. Hence the technological schema relates two symbols, namely, “bare

hands/nets.” To interpret a myth, the interpreter must let the myth call into play and inform his

imagination. A mythologem demands a mythologic.17

As noted earlier, when one make s a “mythological” analysis, one becomes a “participant

observer” in establishing a myth’s meaning. I become such an observer when I interpret the

Britomartis mythologem. On the one hand, I begin with the hypothesis that “nets” and contest

marriage, which previous scholars considered insignificant, are integral to interpreting the myth.

I return to the myth its legitimate imagery, hoping that by giving to the myth aspects which

belong to it, it will give that which belongs to itself as a whole, namely its meaning. On the other

17The category “manifest/latent” is secondary (a) to the general law for a mythologem and (b) to the “literal” narrative, which, in happening in a primordial realm, is neither manifest nor latent. In other words, there can be la-tent levels and imagery because “literally” the myth is not the description of a historical event, but rather a phenomenon of the Imagination, a metaphorical construction.

The mutual dependence of mythologem and mythological method enfranchises the interpreter’s imagination and empowers its use. Further, his imagination is required not only to detect latent imagery and schemata, but also (a) to analyze a mythologem into its elements, schemata, metaphors, etc. (see list in Conclusion) and, then, to re-image these aspects back into the whole, and (b) to rearrange narrative units into bundles and elucidate a myth’s general law.

The so-called “hermeneutical circle” is not a vicious circle, but rather the harmonious interplay of interpreter and myth. By descending into this “circle,” the interpreter learns to abandon any incongruous paradigms or designs which he may have imposed on a myth. At the same time, he transcends naïve subjectivism which projects an interpreter’s arbitrary emotional state into his interpretation. He heeds the words of Rilke’s Fourth Elegy: “Wir kennen den Kontur des Fühlens nicht, nur was ihn formt von aussen.”

11

hand, my mythologic is itself like a votive “net,” a flexible and manifold gift, cast into the sea to

make an abundant catch of meaning. It is like a hunting net used in a “contest” to win the prize

of meaning. Thus, the Britomartis mythologem and its mythologic maintain a poetic

correspondence.

This concludes the outline of my method in four parts: the structural, the ontological, the

hermeneutical, and the phenomenological. Applied to myths, this method is a “mythological”

method. I have designed it in order to capture the essence of a mythologem as a duplex whole. A

mythologem is such a whole since it is the intersection of two wholes, the one expressible in a

mathematical formula, the other composed of irreducible metaphors, the formal substance of

poetic vision.18

* * *

Using my mythological method, I arrived at the following four-part thesis:

(1) That the nets image, which finds its primary significance in a technological schema


Britomartis—so that the Lady of Nets has a twofold tempering essence, i.e., elemental energy

and fruitful abundance as well as limit and measure;


technology both trephological19 and medicinal -- so that pine and mastich signify the “idea of

resin,” i.e., independence and cyclical growth by means of self-healing inner heat, a process

18Compare Werner Heisenberg, Natural Law and the Structure of Matter (London: Rebel Press, 1970), esp. pp. 43-45 where he says that the language of the poets (image, metaphor) is as important as that of the mathematicians (symmetries) in describing phenomena, especially the One. 19 The word “trephological” is coined from the Greek verb trephô to grow, to nurse, to raise, to live, to be.

12

which indirectly heals others -- and so that Nature is characterized by interlinkages, by timed

quantum leaps of energy, by measured flow, and by kairos;20

(3) That the Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia mythologem, as a whole is composed of some

ten metaphorically21 inter-woven levels (the primary metaphor being contest marriage) and is

triply constituted by (a) a limited, number of narrative sequences, (b) an analogical law, and (c) a


the contradictions between “taking,” “keeping,” and “giving.”

And (4) that the myth and ritual--indeed, the mythologem as a whole--have as their

central theme that Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia, the Goddess of Nature, is tempering--so that


exchange), invincible in its fruitfulness, and, self-regulating limit and measure, a harmony

grounded, in a process of cyclical transformation and kairos.

Because of the nature of my method and because the mythologem is a multi-faceted

imaginative structure, it is virtually impossible to resolve the thesis into a single proposition.

Nevertheless, if one were to dare such, one could say that Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia, or the

Lady of Nets, is the Goddess of Nature’s tempering art. (Here the word “art” suggests both the

temper “way” in which She acts and the “artistic” manner of that action.) This formula indicates

that Nature, temperance, and technê (art) are inextricably intertwined in the myth and that a

technological code, as well as marriage contest metaphor, is key to the myth and ritual of the

Lady of Nets.

20 kairos: the right time or season, the crucial moment. 21 See next page for definition of a metaphor.

13

In the process of analyzing the Britomartis mythologem, I have described how various

levels or schemata “interweave” and “resonate” with each other my means of metaphors.22 For

example, the economic and marital schemata are interwoven by a metaphor which I have labeled

“marriage by contest.”23 This metaphor resonates the themes of hunting and loving (getting

married); e.g., rhetorically,24 a woman is seen as a “sweet catch.” This rhetorical metaphor takes

on its full meaning within a schema which contrasts it with its inverse, an “anti-contest”

metaphor; two rhetorical metaphors are thus juxtaposed. The “marriage contest” metaphor as a

whole includes both itself and its inverse, and this “whole” can be called a systematic, structural,

and transformational metaphor, in short, a “meta-metaphor.”25 It presents the “difference

between similarities.”

Speaking of symbol and metaphor in myth, Lévi-Strauss says:

The effectiveness of symbols would consist precisely of [an] “inductive property,” by which formally homologous structures, built out of different materials at different levels of life—organic processes, unconscious mind, rational thought—are related to one another. Poetic metaphor provides a familiar example of this inductive process….Thus we can note the significance of Rimbaud’s intuition that metaphor can change the world.26

The schemata of the Britomartis myth being “inversions” are homologous to each other; the

myth presents a homology of “differences.” In the words of Lévi-Strauss: “it is not resemblances,

22For a list of schemata in Kall. (1g) see the end of Chapter III. For various “resonances” see those sections entitled “Integrations,” also pp. 197-99. 23For a more detailed account of the “contest” metaphor as well as such terms as “inversion,” “transformation,” and “metaphor,” see pp. 62-3. 24By rhetorical metaphor I mean e.g., a metaphor by analogy or a metaphor by common third term, the transferring of a term from one thing to another (Arist. Po. 21, 22; Rh. 3.4). 25 A meta-metaphor is a mythic metaphor. For an account of contemporary efforts to re-define metaphor, see e.g., Interpretation: The Poetry of Meaning, ed. Stanley Romaine Hopper and David L. Miller (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1967); Philip Wheelwright, Metaphor and Reality (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962). 26 “The Effectiveness of Symbols,” SA, p. 197.

14

but differences which resemble each other.”27 He also notes that “a metaphorical structure is in

general characteristic of myths.”28 The homology of schemata and systematic metaphors are

together bound up by the general law of the mythologem.29

* * * *

The above thesis is a statement about what a particular mythologem means. It is also a

description of the structure of that mythologem as well as a statement about the essence of a

goddess and of her realm (Nature). This manifold thesis has a manifold importance.

With respect to the study of religion, the dissertation presents an example which can be

studied in regard to several current problems (1) for religion and mythology, a case study of

mythologem heretofore inadequately interpreted, and a contribution toward defining

“mythologem” and “mythic metaphor;” (2) as articulating an ancient and eternal view of Nature

(a Nature intertwined with technê and art, a tempering Nature), the myth speaks to such topics as

religion and ecology, a theology of Nature, nature and technology, art and technology; (3) as

giving an example of how technology functions symbolically in myth (religious vision), an

example for the theology and technology debate; (4) as articulating a mythologem about a

goddess of Nature and thus illumining a region of human experience, a contribution to that topic

which the depth psychologist calls “the feminine principle,” the political scientist, “woman’s

liberation” or Justice and Liberty, and the ethicist, the “natural” in human nature.

With respect to anthropology, my thesis confirms, with regard to new subject matter, the

fruitfulness of the structuralist method, while adding a few modifications, e.g., (a) clarifying the

metaphorical and analogical linkages between schemata and their relation to the analogical law

of myth, (b) modification of the general law of myth and addition of the “structural triangle” and 27 Totemism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963), p. 77. 28 Ibid., p. 27. 29 For an account of general law, see Chapter VII.

15

the concept of “irreversible” and finite narrative sequences, (c) concern for poetic symbolism

when analyzing short (minimal) myths indistinguishable from poems (or dreams), e.g.,

Kallimachos’ variant, (d) the distinguishing of a technological from an economic level (avoiding

a Marxist confusing of levels), (e) application of schematic (level) analysis to ritual, (f)

possibility that the relation of a myth to a ritual can be one of complementarity.30

With respect to philosophy, my thesis is evidence for a tentative rapprochement between

structuralism and phenomenology.

With respect to classical philology, the thesis challenges previous interpretations of the

mythologem, i.e., previous statements about what the myth means, and thereby provides new

material for the historians of Greek religion in general and the Britomartis Diktynna cult in

particular.31 I would add that since nets were actually invented in the Mesolithic period, some

parts of my thesis are relevant for reconstructing the nature of Mesolithic religion.

With respect to literary criticism, my dissertation contributes toward the re-definition of

“metaphor” and the clarification of its relationship to symbol, analogy, and myth.

* * * * *

In the specific procedure of my analysis, I have adhered to Lévi-Strauss’ three rules

(noted earlier). First, in Chapter III, I analyze the Kallimachos variant into some six levels:

geophysical, technological, economic, biological (childbirth), sociological (marital and political),

and sacrificial. In the Antoninus Liberalis variant an additional nautical level appears. Following

30 The complementarity of myth and ritual raises a whole host of questions not only for anthropology but also for psychology and physics. Compare Gerald Holton, “The Roots of Complementarity,” esp. the relation between Bohr’s theory and William James’ accounts of the stream of consciousness and hysteria, pp. 1034-38. I might add that if myth is analogous to dream, then this thesis is evidence that dreams can be subjected not only to the traditional phenomenological and symbolic analysis, but also a structural analysis. 31 For a detailed critique of previous interpretations by L. R. Farnell, M. P. Nilsson, H. J. Rose, Wolfgang Fauth, R. F. Willetts and others see Chapter IX. Chapter VIII presents a prolegomenon for further research on the Artemis mythologem as a whole.

16

Lévi-Strauss’ analysis of the story of Asdiwal32 I diagram the “schema” for each of these levels,

the schema being the (latent) plot as viewed from a particular level.33 In Chapter IV, I analyze

the ritual into two levels, the trephological and the medicinal. Second, I have taken the

Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia myths as comprising a “mythologem” or “group of

transformations,” and, after considering various variants (and related sources) in Chapter VI, I

analyze the “general law” (Trubetzkoy) of the mythologem in Chapter VII. Thirdly, in the course

of the dissertation I note certain constellations of myths, Artemic and otherwise, which are

transformations of the Britomartis group. Chapter VIII gives a brief prolegomenon toward a

structural analysis of the whole Artemis mythologem. Finally, I interpret the mythologem with

reference to historical-cultural ethnography. Relevant ethnography is presented in “Ingressions”

and elsewhere. The Conclusion (Chapter IX) elaborates the thesis and critiques previous

interpretations of the mythologem.

In addition, I will use a multi-level exegesis, comparable to the Medieval quadriga. The

narrative sequences and my themes listed in Chapter VII (perhaps even the geophysical level) is

the “literal” aspect. Note that “literal” does not mean historical. The time, place, characters, and

events of the myth occur in the region of Imagination. “Allegory” and “analogy” are latent in the

myth. Allegorically, Britomartis is seen as a rush, a net, a hunter’s catch, a bridal nymph, justice,

and a semi-deity. Anagogically, nets are seen as the structures engyê, nomos, and euchê.34 The

exegesis of the ritual is a “tropology.”

I have chosen to begin with the Kallimachos variant for several reasons. First, it is the

first extant linguistic myth variant. Second, it is the only variant which describes the Diktynna 32 “The Story of Asdiwal,” op. cit., pp. 1-47. 33 Ibid., pp. 7, 13, 17, 21: “the obvious narrative (the sequences)” are distinct from “the latent content of the myth (the schemata)” (p. 21). The narrative takes place on all levels simultaneously, the description of the movement at any one level being called a “schema.” 34 For these allegories and anagogies see infra, pp. 50, 51-57, 63-64, 68, 70-78, 159, etc.

17

ritual. Finally, Kallimachos variant possesses a beautiful simplicity, while, at the same time,

presenting a wealth of imagery, levels, schemata, and metaphors as well as a full complement of

mythemes. Bruno Snell also observes of Kallimachos:

His exaggerated ironical pathos is so lively and rich in nuances, and behind it all there is so much genuine joy in the naïve and the primitive, so much charm and grace in spite of his raillery, that the finished product is as intriguing as it is hard to puzzle out.35

* * * * * *

. . . that poetry is a possession of the whole world, of the people . . .

(Goethe)36

CHAPTER II

PRIMARY SOURCES

Our first primary source37 is Herodotos. It and the remaining sources are listed

chronologically.

(1a) … they [the Samians] themselves founded Kydonia in Krete, though they had voyaged not for this purpose, but rather to drive the Zakynthians out of the island. Here they stayed and prospered for five years; indeed, they built the sanctuaries that are now in Kydonia, including the temple of Diktyna.

(Herodotos, The Histories, 3.59; c. 446 B.C.)

35 “Art and Play in Callimachus,” Discovery of the Mind, p. 271. 36 Cited in ibid., p. 277. 37 “Primary sources” includes as well as variants of the Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia mythologem some related sources (historical, dramatic, and geographical), which give symbolic material relevant to interpreting the myth and which help the reader fill out the myth’s context.

18

(lb) or do you waste away for offenses to Diktynna of many animals not sacrificing with rites the pelanos; for she roves through lakes [limnai] and dry land and over saltwater seas in swirling rains.

(Euripides, Hippolytos, 145-50; 428 B.C.)

(lc)

oh sandy beaches of my country oh mountain thicket of oaks, where with hounds swift footed he slew beasts accompanying august Diktynna.

(Euripides, Hippolytos, 1127-30; 428 B.C.)

(1d) then it’s best for me to gnaw through the net [diktyon] and pardon me, Diktynna, for the net.

(Aristophanes, Wasps, 367-68; 422 B.C.)

(1e)

oh child of Leto, mountain Diktynna,

(Euripides, Iphigeneia in Tauris, 126-27; 414 or 411 B.C.)

(1f)

now, O Kretans, children of Ida, seize your bows, come to the rescue, move your limbs, and circle the house. at once, Artemis Diktynna pretty girl come, take your puppies through every room.

(Aristophanes, Frogs, 1355-62; 405 B.C.)

19

(1g)

and beyond others you love Gortyna’s nymph, sharp-aiming fawn-slaying Britomartis, of whom Minos was once mad for love and ran through the mountains of Krete and the nymph would hide here under shaggy oaks and there in bottom lands , and for nine months he roamed over steep crags and cliffs and ceased not pursuing until, all but caught [marptomenê], she strayed near the sea and headlong from the heights she leapt into fishermen’s nets [diktya], which saved her. thus afterwards the Kydonians call the nymph Lady of Nets [Diktyna] and the mountain from which she leapt Nets [Diktaion], and setting up altars they do sacrifice. the garland on that day is pine and mastich, but the hands touch not myrtle. for a myrtle branch, entangled in the maiden’s robe as she fled, whence she was greatly angered at the myrtle.

(Kallimachos, Hymn to Artemis, 3.189-203; 310-235 B.C.)

(1h)

According to myth, Britomartis, also called Diktynna, was engendered in Kretan Kainos by Zeus and Karme, daughter of Euboulos, son of Demeter. She invented the nets used in hunting, whence she bas been called Diktynna, and she spends her time with Artemis, this being the reason some think Diktynna and Artemis are the same. This goddess was honored with sacrifices and temples by the Kretans.

(Diodorus Siculus 5.76.3; 63 B.C. to A.D. 24)

(1i) Nor is Kallimachos right, they say, that Britomartis, fleeing the violence [bia] of Minos, leapt from Diktê into fishermen’s nets and because of this she herself was called Diktynna by the Kydoniatae and the mountain Diktê; for Kydonia is not at all in the neighborhood of these places, but lies near the western limits of the island. However, there is a Mt. Tityros in Kydonia, on which is a sanctuary, not the Diktaion, but the Diktynnaion.

(Strabo 10.4.12, 479; 63 B.C. to A.D. 24)

20

(1j) The Kretans say--for the story is from their land--that Euboulos was the son of Karmanor, who purified Apollo from the murder of the Python, and his daughter Karme bore Zeus a child named Britomartis. Her pleasure was running and hunting and she was the dearest friend of Artemis. Fleeing Minos, who had fallen in love with her, she threw herself into nets [diktya] let down [apheimena] for hunting fish. She was made a goddess by Artemis, and not only the Kretans worship her, but also the Aiginetans, who say that Britomartis appears [phainesthai] to them in their island. Her title among the Aiginetans is Aphaia and in Krete Diktynna.

(Pausanias 2.30.3; A.D.150-70)

(1k)

… indeed, in those days certain human beings were changed into gods and they are honored to this day; Aristaios and Britomartis of Krete and Herakles, son of Alkmene, and Amphiaraos, son of Oikles, and Polydeukes and Kastor as well.

(Pausanias 8.2.4; 150-70 A.D.)

(1l) Farther on is the monument of Tainaros, after whom they say the cape jutting out in to the sea was named, and there are sanctuaries of Poseidon Hippokourios and Artemis Aiginaia. On the way back to the club is a sanctuary of Artemis Issoria; they title her also Limnaia, although [ousan] she’s not Artemis, but Britomartis of Krete, whom I discussed in my account of Aigina.

(Pausanias 3.14.2; 150-70 A.D.)

21

(1m) 1 Kassiepeia, daughter of Arabios, and Phoenix, son of Agenor, engendered Karme. Zeus united with her and engendered Britomartis. She, fleeing the converse of men, was well-pleased to remain a virgin forever. 2 From Phoenicia she came first to Argos unto Byze, Melite, Maira, and Anchirhoe, the daughters of Erasinos; then from Argos she went up to Kephallenia and the Kephallenians named her Laphria and celebrated her rites as a goddess. 3 Then she came to Krete and Minos saw her and falling in love pursued her. She took refuge among fishermen, who plunged her under nets and on account of this Kretans named her Diktynna and offered her sacrifice. Having escaped from Minos, Britomartis arrived at Aigina by ship with the fisher Andromedes. 4 And he desiring to be united with her took her in hand, but Britomartis stepping out of the ship fled into a woods, where her sanctuary is now, and where she disappeared and they named her Aphaia. In the temple of Artemis appears a statue. The Aiginetans consecrated the place in which Britomartis disappeared and named her Aphaia and accomplished sacrifices as to a goddess.

(Antoninus Liberalis 40; second century A.D.)

(1n) And they say that some nymph called Britomartis, while hunting, by chance fell into some nets [diktya] and was rescued by Artemis, and she established a sanctuary to Artemis Diktynna.

(Scholiast on Aristophanes, Frogs, 1355-62)

(1o)

Bryte38 who was pursued by Minos leaped into the sea. Her body was recovered by fishing nets, and in order to bring to an end the pestilence which was sent as punishment a temple was erected to Artemis Diktynna.

(Vatican Mythographer II.26)39

38 A shortened form of Britomartis (Myth. Vat. III, p. 929). 39 Cited from Jessen article on Diktynna in R-E, p. 586.

22

CHAPTER THREE

KALLIMACHOS’ BRITOMARTIS MYTH

(1g)

and beyond others you40 love Gortyna’s nymph, sharp-aiming41 fawn-slaying42 Britomartis, of whom Minos was once mad for love and ran through43 the mountains of Krete. and the nymph would hide here under shaggy44 oaks and there in bottom lands,45 and for nine months he roamed over steep crags and cliffs and ceased not pursuing until, all but caught [marptomenê], she strayed near the sea and headlong from the heights she leapt into fishermen’s nets [diktya], which saved her. thus afterwards the Kydonians call the nymph Lady of Nets [Diktyna] and the mountain from which she leapt Nets [Diktaion], and setting up altars they do sacrifice , the garland on that day is pine and mastich, but the hands touch not myrtle. for a myrtle branch46 entangled47 in the maiden’s robe as she fled, whence she was greatly angered at the myrtle.

(Hymn to Artemis, 3.189-203)

The significant elements in Kallimachos’ myth can be diagrammed thus:48

40 i.e. Artemis. 41 euskopos can be derived from both skopeô (keen-sighted, watchful) and skopos (straight-shooting, unerring aim). 42 ellophonon appears to be a play on words. ὁ ἐλλός means a young deer or fawn; ἡ ἐλλός means mute, an epithet of fish; τό ἔλος means low ground by rivers; marsh-meadow; generally, marshy ground. 43 katedramen; its sense is violent, to run down, to attack, to lay waste, to ravage, to overrun. 44 lasios: (of men) hairy, shaggy; (of plants) bushy. 45 eiamenê: riverside pasture or meadow, bottom land, marsh. 46 oxos: branch, offspring. 47 enechô: to catch, to pierce, to entangle in. 48 For alternative diagrams see infra, p. 36.

Mountain Crags &

Cliffs

Shaggy oaks (Plain) Nets Bottom lands 9 months

Heights

Sea

23

While this diagram is not a 1:1 transcription of the sequence of events as narrated by

Kallimachos, it does set forth the fine geometrical symmetry which informs the beauty of the

myth. Also the diagram juxtaposes opposing symbols. Finally it suggests a number of schemata

which help constitute the myth’s meaning. These schemata will become clear as the myth is

structurally analyzed into its levels or codes.

GEOPHYSICAL LEVEL

Britomartis’ flight was from one geographical extreme to another, from the mountains to

the sea. This is a schema built upon two oppositions, high/low and land/water.

mountains —————––––––– sea high —————–––––––––––– low land —————–––––––––––– water

One might expect both the “mountain –––––– sea” schema and the high/low opposition

to be mediated by a “plain,” but the myth leaves this element unspoken, except as the place

where Britomartis was “all but caught.” In its place are two mediators,49 shaggy oaks and bottom

lands. A bottom land lies between mountain and sea, high and low, and is a place where earth

and water mix, yielding fertile soil and rich alluvial deposits. Shaggy oaks would thrive along the

riverside or in marshy meadows.

Another geophysical schema is discernible. On one side, Britomartis is hiding; one can

imagine50 her as bent over, crouching, twisted, doubled-up, or even lying flat under shaggy oaks

or in bottom lands. In addition, her flight is downward, down crags and cliffs (downhill), and

49 A “mediator” is a thing, tool, person or action which reconciles opposites (a coincidentia oppositorum); cf. infra, ftn. 106, p. 37; pp. 76-77. 50 Formulas like “one can imagine” imply an imagining of “latent” imagery guided by the structure of the mythologem and confirmed by “manifest” imagery in other variants and transformation groups. Here the manifest motif is prênês. Prênês means both (a) bent forward, headfirst, opp. to huptios, and (b) downhill, downward, opp. to orthios. Its opposite is orthos-orthios, upright-upward. By homology to other schemata, the inverse of prênês is orthos. The validity of orthos is confirmed by (1) resonance with the political level (dikê), (2) parallel epithets of Artemis, i.e., Orthia and Orthosia, (3) especially, the “fit” of the image itself.

24

prênês (“headlong”) leaping51 from heights. On the other side Britomartis is saved by nets;

imagine52 her brought up from below, out of the sea, in nets, standing upright, orthos. Thus, the

schema is

anti-orthos —————––––––– orthos.53

The bent up and falling becomes straight and upright. While the myth is lacking in reference to

the four compass directions, it does particularize two other world dimensions, namely, up and

down. This vertical dimension has an ethical connotation. The word orthos means righteous, just.

Minos’ unethical behavior corresponds to Britomartis doubled-up, perhaps from fear or

cowardice, an unethical stance.

In the remainder of this section we will explore the shaggy oaks and bottom lands

mediators. Just what do shaggy oaks and bottom lands mean? What do they mean for the Greeks

in general and what do they mean in this myth?

Britomartis hid under “shaggy oaks” (lasioi dryes). This may indicate a cluster of oak

bushes or a certain type of oak. In the former case, the sense is one of a thicket or dense tangled

underbrush, twisting in all directions, disordered and chaotic, young plants, profuse and wild. In

the latter case, to which oak would Kallimachos refer? Of the kinds of oaks described by

Theophrastus, two might be called shaggy, the true oak and the phêgos (Valonia oak). Neither

upright (orthos) or tall, they are stunted, very leafy or bushy (perikomos) and twisted

(epestrammenê) with many branches (polymaschalos).54 Whether “shaggy oaks” refers to a

51 The “sea-leap” image primarily acquires significance in its schema. Isolating the image in order to compare it to other myths (e.g., Hyakinthides, Dew Sisters, Narkissos, Saronia) or to interpret it as reflecting a rite of immortality, purification, or initiation (R. Holland, p. 64; M. Papathomopoulos, ftn. 11, p. 162) does injustice to the structural context of the image. 52 See footnote 52 above. 53 See footnote 52 above. 54 Thphr. HP. 3.8.4.

25

cluster or a kind of oak, the motif of non-uprightness is evident. Just as Britomartis hid crouched

up under shaggy oaks, so the oaks themselves are not upright, but twisted and stunted.

Kallimachos, in using the verb marptô, links the theme of the myth to the name of the

nymph, Britomartis or Britomarpis.55 Hesychius says marptys means hybristês,56 i.e., ravisher.

Hybris means,57 with respect to others, to outrage, to insult, to commit wanton violence; and, in

legal terms, to rape, to assault. Hybris is the opposite of sophrosynê (temperance, moderation).58

Now, hybris also means, with respect to plants, to grow over-rank, to run riot. In this

sense, “shaggy oaks,” twisting in all directions and in wild profusion, are oaks of hybris.

Thus, while “shaggy oaks” likened to Britomartis were not upright, twisted, and stunted

(infantile?), now—such is the ambiguity of the image—they are oaks of hybris, the hybris of

Minos who attempted to ravish Britomartis.59

If we turn to the various oak people who inhabit Greek mythology, the motif of violence,

hybris, and savagery is again evident. The masculine name Dryas applies to (1) a Lapith, (2) the

son of Ares, who helped hunt the Kalydonian Boar, (3) the father of Lykourgos who resisted

Dionysos and dismembered his son, also named Dryas, and (4) a man, who, in a foot race, was

tripped and slain by his rival. Three of these men named Dryas—(2), (3), and (4)—are

Thracians, a people generally considered savage by the Greeks. Lapiths are a warlike tribe from

Thessaly. A Dryops was king of the Dryopides, a Pelasgic, pre-Greek, people from Thessaly.

The voices of mythology are unanimous. An oak man is a man uncivilized, violent, intemperate.

Minos, the hybristês, can be likened to these oak men.

55 For more on this etymology see infra, Appendix A. 56 Hsch. s.v. 57 CD, s.v. For more on the legal aspects see infra, pp. 66ff. 58 For a general account of temperance and hybris see Helen North, Sophrosyne. 59 Note that Kallimachos uses the verb katetrechô, which means to attack, to run down, to ravage, to lay waste. To capture this sense of violence, I translated the verb as “ran through,” which can mean with (a) ran among or through, or (b) ran through as with a sword, i.e. pierce. Compare the various meanings of enechô.

26

Again and again, we see that “shaggy oaks” signifies intemperance.

Shaggy oaks also suggest, on the feminine side, the hamadryads, the nymphs who dwell

in oaks and vitalize them. There is the mythical Dryope who became a hamadryad after being a

son to Apollo,60 and who, as a nymph, bore to Hermes the nature god Pan.61 Oak nymphs are the

fruitfulness of Nature. Britomartis, hiding under oaks, can be likened to an oak nymph; Minos’

violence is violence against Nature.

Britomartis also hides in bottom lands. Eiamenê means bottom land, riverside pasture or

meadow, and marsh.62 In this realm Britomartis is an eiamenaiad.63 She hides as rich alluvial

deposits might hide along streams. Meadows and marshes are also rich in plant and animal life.

Such riches are like the fertility of oak nymphs and like the wild profuseness of shaggy oaks

which is an obstacle to Minos.64

TECHNOLOGICAL LEVEL

Minos chased Britomartis; she leapt into the fisherman’s nets and was saved. On one

side, the myth presents nets. A net is an artfully fabricated tool designed by craft, i.e., both a

mêchanê and a technêma.65 Apparently, Minos uses no tool or weapon; one can imagine him

grasping bare-handed for the nymph. Thus, the technological schema is:

bare hands —————–––––––––– nets.

60 Antoninus Liberalis 32. Cf. the variant of Ovid in which Dryope is turned into a tree for picking a lotus (met. 9.324ff). The lotus is a marsh plant. Cf. the water lily nymph Side who appears in the Orion myth. 61 For the oak myths noted above, see R-E, s.v. More on Pan infra. 62 L-S, s.v. 63 In rocky and sea realms she is a petraiad and a nereid or oceanid. For more on Britomartis as nymph, infra, p. 74 ff. 64 For variations on the “bottom lands” image, see my comments on Hdt (1a) and the Samian Aphrodite of Marshes, Rushes, or Reeds; Eurip. (1b), Diktynna and Limnaia; Paus. (1l), Britomartis and Limnaia; A.L. (1m), Britomartis as potamid. Cf. the various epithets of Artemis such as Limnaia, Limnatis, Heleia, Nemydia, Potamia. 65 For more on hunting tools, see my comments on the Economic Level. Mêchanê = a way or means to an end; a machine or instrument; any artificial means. Technê = a way of means to an end; and art, a skill, a regular method of making something; a craft or trade; a work of art (a technêma). Thus the word technê denotes a system of transformation, both the rules governing such and the thing which results (the transformation).

27

By analogy, hands are to nets as directness to indirectness. Minos hunts using only his

hands. His way is direct and overbearing. Fishermen use nets which are like beneficent powers

lightening their burden. The fisherman’s method is indirect; the nets catch the fish or the fish

catch themselves in nets. Hence, Kallimachos says not that the fishermen saved Britomartis, but

that the nets did. The saving power resided in the nets.66

The nature of Minos’ hands contrasts with the nature of nets. The fingers can point. In a

sense, they are linear, unwoven. Nets connote roundness and flexibility. They are woven of knots

or loops. Minos’ hands can be characterized as over-eager, and violent; nets, as patient and

temperate.67

INTEGRATION

The initial diagram of Kallimachos’ myth suggests a sequence from shaggy oaks and

bottom lands to fishermen’s nets. Britomartis who is concealed by and in the former mediators

surrenders herself and is revealed in the latter mediator. This gives us an implicit schema

between the geophysical and technological levels or codes of the myth:

shaggy oaks and —————––––––– nets bottom lands To understand the rich nuances of this schema it is helpful to consider the way the ancients

fished and something of the ancient technology of nets.

66 Such an attitude, i.e. “Not I, but the nets did it,” is typical of primitive hunters. See Adolf E. Jensen, Myth and Cult Among Primative Peoples, pp. 163-64; Adolf Friedrich, “Die Forschung über das Frühzeitliche Jägertum,” pp. 21-27; Karl Meuli, “Griechische Opferbräuche,” pp. 225-30, 248-51. 67 In the Artemic myth of the Aloadai, a direct transformation of the Britomartis myth, the manifest weapon of the ravishers is a javelin, a land-hunting tool. It is perhaps no coincidence that the triple connotations of Minos’ hands—over-eager, sharp, and violent—are found in the threefold semantic field of spears: (1) aissô (to shoot quickly, dart, glance, be eager after), (2) nouns aichmê (spear point), akǒn (javelin, dart), akontizô (to dart, pierce), akê (point, edge), (3) verbs aichmê (a spearhead assault, war in general, a warlike spirit), akontizǒ (to hurl a javelin, hit, strike, wound). In the transformation, the Aloadai spear image replaces Kallimachos’ oak image. Technologically an etymologically, speak and oak are virtually synonymous. The Greek word for spear (dory) and for oak (drys) have a common PIE root (*dorw) and this common root suggests that oaken spears were part of PIE technology (Paul Friedrich, Proto-Indo-European Trees, pp. 144, 159). Spears could also be made of ash (Ibid., p. 159) and cornel wood (Xen. Kyn. 10.3).

28

INGRESSION ON THE ART OF FISHING

Oppian in his Halieutica gives a rich account of the art of fishing.

He describes seven ways or devices for fishing.

Fourfold modes of hunting their prey in the sea have fishermen devised. Some delight in Hooks [ankistron]; and of these some fish with the well-twisted line of horse hair [euplokos hippeios, hormia] fastened to long reeds [donakes]68, others simply cast a flaxen cord …. Others prefer to array Nets [diktya]; and of these there are those called casting-nets [amphiblêstra] and those called draw-nets [griphoi]—drag-nets and round bag-nets and seines. Other they call cover-nets, and with the seines, there are those called ground-nets and ball-nets and the crooked trawl: innumerable are the various sorts of such crafty-bosomed Nets [dolorrapheôn lina kolpôn]. Others again have their minds set rather upon Weels [kurtê] . . . Others . . . the . . . Trident . . . .69

Besides hook, net, basket, and trident, the fisherman uses the torch, whose oily flame attracts

fishes which are then taken with the trident,70 the sickle [harpê, drepanê] for cutting sponges,71

and, finally, poison.72

Of these seven ways of fishing, the Britomartis myth speaks only of the net.

As such, a net is a fabric of thread or cord the intersections of which are looped or

knotted to form a mesh. Netting is related to weaving, knitting, plaiting and lacemaking. It is one

68 CD. Gives for donax: (1) a reed, (2) anything made from a reed, dart, arrow, (3) shepherd’s pipe, (4) fishing rod or limed reed used for fowling, (5) bridge for a lyre. The myths and technology of reed belongs to another group of Artemic myths, including the Amazons at Ephesos, the , and Pan and Syrinx. 69 3.72-89; Loeb translation by A. W. Mair. 70 4.640-43. Artemis invented the pine torch (Kall. 3.116-18). The torch is an iconographic attribute of Artemis. Cf. her epithets Selasphoros, Phosphoros, Pyronia, Hegemone. 71 5.612ff: harpê (637), drepanê (653). Along with the sickle the sponge diver uses rope, weights, and olive oil. The drepanê is a prize given in the games for Artemis Orthia. 72 4.647ff. The fisherman, by the noise of oars, poles, and missiles, drive the fish into a cove, and smear the area with poison made from white potter’s clay (argilos) and cyclamen root. The fish made drunk, rise up, and are easily caught. White potter’s clay is associated with the cult of Artemis Alpheiaia, see infra, p. 185. According to Thphr. 9.9.3, cyclamen can be used to suppurate boils, dress wounds, purge the head, and as a pessary for women; it conduces to drunkenness and makes a good love potion as well as a good charm for inducing rapid delivery. Compare Pliny 25.67-69: one variety of cyclamen kills fish, another is good against evil spells and serpent injuries, causes intoxication, but has the deleterious effect that if a pregnant woman passes over it, she will be sure to miscarry. Cyclamen is the antithesis of myrtle, which delays delivery.

29

of the most ancient and universal of arts.73 In general, primitive netting was fabricated with twine

twisted from vegetable fibers and animal tissues. Needles and net gauges, used in netmaking,

were made from wood, ivory, bone, antler and shell.

Oppian aside, one can distinguish three kinds of nets: (a) entangling gill nets, (b) seine

nets, used near the water’s surface, including beach and purse seines and trawls, and (c) self-

acting trap nets with labyrinthian chambers, for shores and estuaries. Given this, the net which

saved Britomartis would be a beach seine. Gill nets are ruled out because they are “entangling.”

In the Kallimachos variant, an “entangling” myrtle branch is associated with Minos, not with

fishermen. Similarly the “trapping” aspect of trap nets does not fit the fact that Britomartis

escaped from being trapped by Minos. She was thus saved by a seine; the locale of her leap

suggests a “beach” seine. Hesychius himself defines diktyon as sagênê (seine).

Further, according to Oppian, seine nets are a species of draw nets (griphoi). The

dictionary tells us that griphoi are made of rushes.74 Given this, the net which saved Britomartis

would be a “rush” net, a rush seine.75 The “rush” symbol is important for interpreting the

Britomartis mythologem. To help determine its possible significance, we turn again to ancient

ethnography.

As for the plant itself, Theophrastus says it is smooth and without joints or knots76 and its

habitat rivers (potamoi), marshes (heleis), and ponds or lakes (limnai).77 He distinguishes three

73 The net was invented by hunters and gatherers during advanced Paleolithic times. The oldest known piece of netting, a knotted seine net, was made from twined threads of plant baste and used by Mesolithic fishermen. Along with the arrow, the net is one of humankind’s first inventions. See also Grahame Clark, World Prehistory, pp. 70. 74 CD. S.v. griphos: a fishing net or basket, made of rushes; anything intricate, e.g., a dark saying, riddle. Weels are also made of rushes (Op. Hal. 4.53; Nic. Alex. 625; A. W. Mair, footnote to Hal. 3.86). 75 This deduction is weak. Nets in ancient times were made of flax as well as rushes. For example, Oppian uses two terms for nets, diktyon and linon (i.e. something made of linen). Ethnography that I am aware of mentions no other material for netmaking. My “rush” deduction for the Britomartis nets will be confirmed as we proceed; the structure of the myth requires “rushes” instead of “flax” symbolism. See e.g., infra, pp. 29 ff. 76 It differs from the reed which is jointed. 77 Thphr. HP. 1.5.3; 1.8.1.; 4.8.1.

30

varieties of rushes: the barren and sharp oxyschoinos, the fruiting or blackhead rush, and the

fleshy and pliant holoschoinos; the latter being used for wickerwork.78 He notes:

. . . the ‘sharp’ rush and the ‘entire’ rush grow from the same stock, which seems extraordinary, and indeed it was strange to see it . . . for from the same stock there were growing ‘barren’ rushes . . . and also a few ‘fruiting’ ones. This then is a matter for further inquiry.79

This passage is contradictory. It is as if, in spite of his distinction between three kinds of rushes,

Theophrastus’ imagination sees only the opposition: barren, sharp / fruiting, pliant, whole.

If we turn to the dictionary definition for rush (schoinos), we find that the word is

metaphorically applied to things made from rushes. Here we can discern two contrasting

technologies. On the one hand, there are arrows, javelins, and spits of sharp-rush; on the other,

are things twisted or plaited of rushes, such as ropes, cords, fences or wicker baskets.80

When Pliny speaks of rushes, he starts out from the same opposition: there are hard and

firm rushes, which can be made into sails,81 and frail rushes, used for thatch, mats, candles, and

funeral torches.82 Among the frail rushes is the holoschoinos, the suppleness of which makes it

useful for basketwork, wheels, and lamp wicks.83 Also, as we have seen, it may be used for

making fishing nets.

Considering Theophrastus, the dictionary, and Pliny, rushes are indeed “extraordinary.” I

see three aspects to this. First, there is a habitat of rushes, along river banks, in wet soil, and

shallow waters. The realm of rushes is where land and water mix; the rush unites two realms.

Second, there is the marked opposition between two kinds of rushes: sharp, piercing, hard,

78 Ibid., 4.12.1-3; the fruiting rush has qualities in between those of the other two rushes. 79 Ibid,. 4.12.2; Loeb translation by Sir A. Hort; Thphr. Does not make this “further inquiry” in the HP. 80 CD. S.v.; L-S. s.v. 81 The process, presumably, is like that for working flax, i.e., soaking, sunning, and beating. 82 Plin. HN. 16.70. 83 Ibid., 21.69. Pliny’s syntax makes it unclear if the whole rush is included among the frail rushes—it is indeed frail—or is a third type of rush. I interpret him to mean inclusion.

31

barren/soft, frail, fruitful, fleshy, supple, pliant, and whole. Third, this opposition reappears on

the technological level, e.g. arrows, javelins/ropes, nets. Together these aspects constitute, as it

were, a “metaphysic” of rushes. Systematic difference is grounded in elemental unity. Violent

and gentle, intemperate and temperate, “from the same stock” and "extraordinary . . . strange.”

The mythology of rushes belongs to Artemis.84 The Boiotian Atalanta, daughter of

Schoineus, was called the Rush Maiden (Schoineia virgo).85 The maidens who danced for

Artemis Karyatis wore wreaths of sharp-rushes or reeds.86 Artemis herself bears epithets related

to marshes.87 Highly significant is Kallimachos’ Aitia 3.1 in which Kydippê’s refusal to marry

corresponds to Artemis’ not bathing after the hunt and not “weaving rushes in Amyklai’s

shrine.”88 Kydippê eventually marries Akontios, who is descending from priests of Zeus

Aristaios, a god of men who go fowling with nets. Britomartis is herself pared with the god

Aristaios.89 Finally, there is the myth about Theseus’ slaying of the murderer Sinis Pityokamptês

(Pine-bender). The latter’s daughter, Perigounê, fled to a thicket of rushes (stoibai)90 and

asparagus. These she invoked, vowing never to burn or destroy them if they hid her safely. When

Theseus promised to care for (epimeleomai) her and do her no violence (adikê), she emerged.

84 A mythology of reeds also belongs to Artemis; see pp. 191, 192. On the other hand, a mythology of flax belongs to Apollo; the hero Linos, who is exposed and dismembered is the son of Apollo. Note also R-E s.v. Schoineis: Aphrodite is titled Schoineis (Schoiniis, Schoinis) and the rush was said to be an aphrodisiac; Zwicker says “Schoinis” is derived from schinos (mastich). He takes no note of the Diktynna ritual. See also Hdt. (1a), infra, p. 138. 85 R-E s.v. Schoineus. 86 See infra, p. 157. 87 See supra, ftn. 2 to p. 22. 88 Note the metaphors: bathing after hunting is like the marital rite of bathing; the weaving of rushes is like the weaving motif of generalized marriage exchange (see infra, p. 58). Amyklai is situated in a low marshy area near the river Eurotas. 89 Paus. (1m) variant. 90 B. Perrin, Loeb translation, translates stoibai as rushes. Stoibê = pheôs or phleô, an undershrub with spines and leaves (Thphr. HP. 6.1.3) which grows on land and in water (in marshy regions) and which is used in basket work, for food, and for soap powder (Ibid., 4.10.1-8).

32

They begot Melanippos who begot Iôxids, and ancestor of the Karian Iôxids, who venerate (and

do not burn) rushes and asparagus-thorn.91

* * * * *

Theophrastus’ “metaphysic” of rushes is a clue for discovering the latent mediator of the

technological schema,92 i.e., rushes. The distinction between “sharp” and “pliant” rushes is

analogous to that between “bare hands” and “nets.” Thus “rushes” is a coincidentia

oppositorum.93

Theophrastus tells us that rushes inhabit rivers, marshes, and lakes; we can add a similar

habitat, “bottom lands.” Keeping in mind this habitat and the “rush” mediator, we can now

decode the meaning of the schema

shaggy oaks and —————––––––– nets. bottom lands

The schema is a “mythological syllogism;” it proceeds from “premise” (bottom lands) to

“conclusion” (nets) by means of a missing term (weaving).94 The schema presents the weaving

of rushes, a plant found in bottom lands, into nets. Like a hand weaving a net, Britomartis

“weaves” this way and that in her flight. The technê of nets is not only the nets themselves (as

mêchanai, technêmata) but especially the transforming process, the rhythmical weaving of

91 Plu. Thes. 8; cf. J. J. Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht, section 38. Asparagus-thorn and stoibê are both spiny or thorny plants which hide a maiden. Cf. infra, Ingression on Aphos, for another thorny plant (aphos, tragakantha, goat thorn) which hides a maiden. Asparagus-thorn is used medicinally for kidney and stomach ailments, as a diuretic, and as an aphrodisiac (Plin. HN. 20.43, cf. 20.42, 19.42). Rush is also an aphrodisiac (Tz. Ad Lyc. Alex. 832, cf. supra, ftn. 84, p. 31). The Sinis myth is a transformation of the Britomartis myth, a transformation which involves an inversion of symbols from “pine-/rush+” in the Sinis myth to “eiamenê-/pine+” in the Britomartis myth. 92 For more on the concepts of “mediator” and “transformation” see infra, pp. 90-91, 34b; also Claude Lévi-Strauss, “The Story of Asdiwal,” op. cit., and “The Structural Study of Myth,” SA pp. 202-228. 93 Thus “rush” is a more fitting mediator than flax. Indeed, flax has its own distinct mythology (see supra, ftn. 84, p. 31). Also, flax is cultivated in a clean, loamy soil; this habitat is incompatible with the habitat required by the geo-technic level, i.e., marshy bottom lands; again, “rushes” are a fitting mediator. 94 Structurally speaking, the “transformation” from bottom lands to nets is effected by the “weaving” mediator.

33

nets.95 Nets are made by a human technê (craft, craftiness, artistry); human caring infuses the

rhythm of weaving. The duality of the “rush” mediator throws light on the “weaving” mediator:

involved in the human act of weaving is the human choice of the pliant over the sharp for the

purposes of weaving.96

Allegorically, Britomartis is both rush and net. She is like the idea of nets, their final

cause, hidden in bottom lands, or better, “seen” in rushes. She who hides in bottom lands

surrenders herself and is revealed in nets.

Diktynna’s fishermen would choose the soft and pliant rush; from the whole-rush they

plait their nets. A plant without knots is knotted; many knots (or loops) are linked to make a net.

The net in itself is remarkable. It is loose and flexible, woven of the gentle, yet it is more fruitful

in catching fish than pointed, piercing things. Its power is, in part, due to its being the

accumulation of many loops and knots. These give it substance. Like the mixing region in which

rushes live, the net itself is both solid and fluid.97 The net allows the waters to flow through it—

it is penetrable—yet makes a big catch. Its strength is from the interweaving of many tender

things.

Now, what of the “shaggy oaks” image? Just as rushes can be woven into nets, so oak

wood, which is “shaggy,” i.e., disordered and twisted in all directions, can be carved into the

tools needed to make nets, i.e., needless and mesh gauges. In other words, such wood can be

made into things straight, symmetrical, measured, and measuring.98 Thus, the myth tells the story

of tools for making tools, in other words, the story of a meta-technology. Its messages is that the

95 Compare the definition of technê, supra, p. 27. 96 The technology of flax has contrasting elements; flax is soaked, dried in the sun, and beaten (Plin. HN. 19.1-3). Its technê is brutally violent. Correspondingly, the hero Linos is exposed and dismembered; a weaving motif is absent. 97 For more on the dialectic of solid and liquid in the Diktynna ritual, see infra, pp. 101 ff. on resins and cheeses. 98 The rush can also be “measuring”; a schoinos was a land measure equal to about 60 stadia. The cork oak, unmentioned up to now, can be used to make floats for anchor lines and fishing nets, as well as plants, woman’s winter shoes and wheel axles (Plin. HN. 16.3; Thphr. HP 3.17.1).

34

straight, which guides and measures, must be used to make the harmonious interweaving of

threads, the net.

In the light of the above paragraphs, the implicit schema “shaggy oaks and bottom lands

——— nets” has been clarified. It represents the weaving of nets from rushes. The implicit

“weaving” schema is the manifest mytheme of the variant of Diodorus Siculus (1h), which says

that Britomartis invented the nets used in hunting. This confirms our analysis.

The “shaggy oaks and bottom lands ———nets” schema, as a movement from

something unstructured and untransformed to something structured and transformed, can be

classed as a schema of the type “anti-structure ——— structure.”99

Also, the schema is a transformation between the image of shaggy oaks and the image of

nets. In this sense, they myth may be paraphrased: When Minos acts arrogantly, Britomartis

hides under shaggy oaks. When fishermen act temperately, She reveals herself in nets.

In the first episode, she hides under that which is chaotic, disordered, twisted, as well as

profuse and wild. For Minos, nature has become impenetrable, an obstacle, an enemy frustrating

his designs.

In the second episode, she reveals herself in the nets themselves. From the chaos of

nature, by means of human care and inventiveness, arises a natural order. Nature becomes

measured. She becomes an artifice, a network, and a thing both pliant and strong. Here Nature is

beneficial; she provides what a human can use for their own needs. Britomartis also is revealed

by nets; she is a dryad caught in them. She represents the fertility of Nature, its overflowing

abundance; sea and nets teeming with fish.

99 For other such schemata, see infra, ftn. 104, p. 37.

35

To the man of intemperance and arrogance, avarice and lust, Nature presents only

obstacles. For the man of temperance, she has a double nature, representing abundance and

fertility, as well as artifice and limit.100 The folly of the tyrant confuses these natures. Their

discrimination is a fisherman’s wisdom.

Thus, there are, at least, three ways to interpret the “shaggy oaks and bottom lands

——— nets” schema.

This transformation has corresponding to it a change in human nature. The violent and

arrogant Minos is replaced by the patient and wise fishermen. In botanical terms, the barren and

inflexible sharp-rush is replaced by the fleshy, pliant, and fruitful whole-rush. Intemperance is

replaced by temperance.

The making of nets has prerequisite not only the pliant and flexible whole-rush, but also

the upright and straight oak needle and mesh gauge. Thus, allegorically, these signify two sides

of a temperate character.

In reviewing the schema of netmaking—as presented over the last few pages—one can

see the schema “non-uprightness ——— orthos” resonating behind the schema “shaggy oaks

and bottom lands ——— nets.”

Furthermore, each time Britomartis hide doubled up, or better, knotted up with fear, she

is like a knot or loop, from a series of which, nets are made.

In turn, the series of up and down and doubling up motions by which a net is woven is

like the zigzag movement of the thread of the myth’s plot:

100 Compare Goethe’s Faust 6882-84: “Thus is the essence of things: / For the natural the universe is barely enough / What is artificial desires limited space.” The Greek would not distinguish artifice and nature. They see Nature as involving both. I fully agree with K. Kerenyi when he contrasts the modern, romantic concept of Nature to the ancient and says that for the ancients Nature is “the artful inventress” (“Die Gottin Nature” in Niobe, pp. 87-135, esp. 87). Compare infra, the Ingression on Childbearing, where we note Galen’s view that Nature is “artistic.” At the conclusion of his essay, Kerenyi analyzes the Orphic Hymn to Physis; its first line contains the epithet “polymêchane Mêter.”

36

The unfolding of the myth is like the crafting, the actualization of nets. Thus, the myth

interweaves geophysical and technological schemata.

In this section we have seen how the geophysical and technological levels are integrated

by the “shaggy oaks and bottom lands ——— nets” schema, a schema which moves from a

geophysical image to a technological image, and we have seen that this schema has a latent

mediator, rushes. Kallimachos’ myth is latently an aetiological tale about the “origin,” i.e. the

technê or the invention, of nets.

ECONOMIC LEVEL

The myth says that Minos “pursued” Britomartis. The verb diôkô also means “to chase”

or “to hunt.” On the one hand, the myth presents Minos “hunting”101 for a woman; and on the

other, it implies102 men hunting for fish. Minos, instead of hunting animal game, hunts human

101 The juxtaposition of Minos with fishermen—I call this the “anti-hunt —— hunt” schema—validates my choice of the metaphorical meaning of diôkô. See the “contest marriage” metaphor (infra, pp. 62-3) for further confirmation. 102 Though the given is “nets which saved her,” one can imagine the fishermen casting and retrieving their nets. Also, structurally, this “net” mytheme belongs to the fourth “bundle” which concerns mens’ acts (see the mytheme chart, Chapter VII).

Mountain Crags & Cliffs Hill or Heights

Shaggy oaks Nets Bottom lands

(rushes)

Sea

37

game.103 His perverse action can be labeled an “anti-hunt,” and the economic schema

diagrammed thus:

anti-hunt —————–––––––––––– hunt.104

Geophysically, this schema also involves a “land hunting/sea hunting” distinction.

Besides hunting for improper game, Minos uses neither the proper mêchanê (tools,

means) for hunting, e.g. nets, nooses, staves, javelins,105 nor the proper technê (art, skill, craft,

wile). Instead, he hunts bare-handed. Structurally, the “nets” symbol is the “mediator”106 which

effects the movement, the “transformation,”107 from anti-hunt to hunt. With respect to means and

103 Britomartis is treated like a hare. Its habitats are mountains, plains, and marshes (Xen. Cyn. 5.17). To hunt hares one drives them downhill (Xen. Cyn. 5.15-16; Op. Cyn. 4.425-32). The cave in the sanctuary of Diktynna has a statue of Pan carrying two hare-staves (AP. 16.258). 104 The “anti-x —— x” pattern is repeated on another level of the Britomartis myth. Note the schemata “bare hands —— nets,” “anti-contest —— contest,” “anti-engyê —— engyê,” “cheirôn nomos —— dikês nomos,” “anti-euchê —— euchê.” (See list at end of Chapter III.) Elsewhere I refer to some of these schemata under the more general pattern “anti-structure ——structure.”

A. Julien Greimas distinguishes a subclass or genre of narratives-in-general which he calls “dramatic narratives.” These are characterized by a dichotomy into before vs. after, and the myth moves, by a reversal of the original situation, from an “inversed content” to a “posed content,” a movement called “inversion.” (“The Interpretation of Myth: Theory and Practice,” in Maranda and Maranda, The Structural Analysis of Oral Tradition, pp. 83, xx-xxi.) The Kallimachos variant is a good example of “inversion.” The inverse content is “chase and flight,” the posed, “saved by nets.” The various schemata which I have designated “anti-x —— x” and “anti-structure —— structure” are examples of inversion. Maranda notes that inversion must not be confused with the pattern “the cheater cheated” which is a secondary expression of inversion mechanisms (Ibid, p. xx). On the economic level such a secondary expression is: “Sharp-aiming, fawn-slaying” Britomartis, the huntress, is herself hunted by Minos. Or, by imaginative extrapolation, in hunting human game, Minos is, so to speak, a “wild beast” (worthy of being hunted). 105 Xen. Cyn. 2-4 mentions as principal equipment hounds and nets, purse nets (arkya), road nets (enodia), and hayes (diktya). Artemis herself bears the epithet Enodia as well as Diktynna. Other items mentioned are houndleash, collar and noose (6.1), javelins (akontai) and foottraps (podstrabai) made of yew, with crowns of nails, spartum nooses, and oaken clog, for hunting fawn and deer (9.2, 11-13), and spears with shafts of cornel wood for boar-hunting (10.1,3). In big game hunting in foreign lands one uses poison, horses, and pits with goat decoys (11.1-4). Nets are used in hunting all kinds of games. Oppian in his Cyn. mentions javelins, hunting bill (drepanai, this same tool is a prize at the games of Artemis Orthia), hounds, horses (1.91-96), purse nets (arkya), well-twisted withies (eustrepheas lugous, cf. the epithet of Artemis Lygodesma), sweep nets (panagroi), hayes (diktya), net props (schalides), nooses (brochoi), spears, lances, hair staves, arrows, swords, axes, tridents, hooks, crooks, cords of twisted spartum, foottraps, ropes, net stays (stalides, made of reeds), and seine nets (1.147-57). He also notes that purse nets, nooses, and hayes were invented by Hippolytos (2.24-25). Hippolytos is a transformation of Britomartis. 106 A “mediator” effects the passage from inversed to posed contents; it is a reconciler of opposites and a clue to the code of a myth (Ibid., p. xxi). A “mediator” is any person, thing, tool, or action which symbolizes a coincidentia oppositorum. 107 For “transformation” as a general characteristic of “structures” or “systems,” see e.g. Jean Piaget, Structuralism. A myth variant is a “transformation” under fixed (invariant) rules, namely the general law of the mythologem which

38

end, Minos’ anti-hunt fails. His direct pursuit is of no avail; it yields nothing. On the other hand,

the fishermen succeed at an unintended purpose; they win a woman.

Furthermore, Minos’ anti-hunt signifies intemperance. This interpretation is confirmed by

Xenophon’s Kynegetikos. Xenophon opens the work saying: “The hunt and hounds are

inventions of the gods, Apollo and Artemis.”108 As a whole, the work celebrates hunting as a

form of paideia (education) which produces men of arête (virtue), “good in war and in all things

requiring fair thoughts, words, and deeds.”109 The chase is a sport of the aristocracy (the

kaloskagathoi). He lists its heroes, many from Artemic myths, such as Kephalos, Herakles,

Meleager, Hippolytos, Prokris, and Atalanta, whose virtues include love of toil (philoponia),

temperance (sophrosynê), holiness (hosia), and piety (eusebeia).110

The rewards of hunting are paideia for war, health in soul and body, and youthfulness.111

He says that those

Whose toils root out (aphaireô) whatever is base (aischra) or violent (hybristikos) in soul and body and make desire for virtue (aretê) flourish in their place--they are the best (aristos) for they will brook no injustices to their own city nor evil sufferings to their own soil.112

The paideusis of the hunt teachers men the need for law and to speak and hear of justice.113

Temperance (sophrosynê) and not recklessness (thrasos) is the proper hunting companion.114 The

hunter’s virtues of goodness and piety are again mentioned, along with grace115 and wisdom.116

contains that variant. A schematic movement can also be called a “transformation,” and “inversion” would be a subcase of transformation. 108 1.1 Oppian opens his Cyn. with a dialogue between himself and Artemis (1.16-46). He also mentions among those who invented the technê of the hunt, such Artemic heroes as Meleager (combat), Hippolytos (nets, nooses, hayes), Atalanta, the daughter of Schoinos, (arrows), and Orion (snaring by night) (2.22-29). 109 1.18 110 1.6-16, 13.18. 111 12. 1-2 112 12.9 113 12.14 114 13.15 115 13.16

39

Xenophon counsels against improperly hunting. One must not be overzealous

(hyperballô); “to do everything possible to effect a quick capture shows love of toil (philoponia),

but it is not hunting.”117 He also notes that before beginning any hunt one must vow a share of

the spoils to Artemis Agrotera and Apollo.118

We can see an intimate link between these two counsels. The opposite of quick or eager

is slow and slow in the sense of establishing a sure ground, a good beginning for an enterprise. It

is not just man’s desire, but a god’s will that is involved in the success of the hunt. If this is

forgotten, rash hybris and overshooting the mark (hyperballô) results. Temperance, as opposed

to recklessness, is the most important of the hunter’s virtues. Without timing (kairos) there can

be no excellent catch.

In the light of Xenophon’s account, Minos’ intemperance stands clear. He is reckless,

without goodness, grace, or wisdom. He is overzealous and takes not thought for the gods. He is

the paradigmatic hybristês.

Besides kairos there is another quality which characterizes the hunter’s temperance,

namely craft. So Oppian tells us. The fishermen’s art is to resort to technê, such as “crafty-

bosomed Nets.” Craftiness is a power revered and used by fishermen; it is the god of fishermen.

Oppian lists various gods of fishermen, such as Poseidon, Nereus, Phorcys,119 Pan, who keeps

the art (technê) of the depths,120 and trickster Hermes.121 The fisherman himself must be a man of

cunning wit, a contriver of all sorts of snares and devious devices.122

116 13.13. Many of these virtues are also found in Platonic dialogues. 117 6.8 118 6.13; cf. infra, Sacrificial Level. 119 2.35-37. Compare D. Page, Alkman’s Parthenaion, pp. 38-39. He says the “Porkos” of the poem was probably an old Lakonian sea god, “a miraculous catcher of fishes” and notes that the noun porkos means a fishing net. 120 3.15 121 3.1-49 122 3.41-43, 92-97, 18, 1. These passages use the words mêchanê, technê, and dolos. Dolos itself originally meant bait for fish.

40

In feeble hairs and bent hooks of bronze and in reeds and nets the fishers have their strength.123

The cunning and craftiness of the fisherman is not grounded upon a falsehood or lie, but

rather upon the power to discover something of great strength in that which seems small or weak.

Central to the fisherman’s work is patience and waiting. The fisherman is like the hunter

who must

excel [hyperballô] in toils, inventive stratagems [enthymeme], and attentive care [epimeleia], . . . 124

Each waits for things to take their course, attending to the natural. The fisherman hunts

indirectly; it is the net which catches the fish; it lies in ambush. Whether of the self-acting or

manipulated type, the net and the fish conspire. The fish catches itself in the “crafty-bosomed

Nets.” Similarly, in angling, the fish fights against pole and line and tires itself out, defeating its

own purpose. The more wildly it fights, the more easily it is caught. The fisherman triumphs in

the end, not with a wild and reckless hubris, but with a patient and wily temperance.125

123 1.54-55; Loeb translation by A. W. Mair. 124 Xen. Cyn. 13.13. Epimeleia is a central virtue in Plato’s Alkibiades I, a dialogue about paideia. 125 Compare the Greek semantic field tlaô, telmosynê, tolma, structured by the opposition patience, long-suffering/daring, recklessness.

41

BIOLOGICAL: CHILDBIRTH LEVEL

Minos hunted Britomartis for nine months,126 until, almost caught, she leapt into the nets

of fishermen and was saved, or, in the present case, delivered. Thus, the myth gives a biological

schema of childbearing:

conception —————––––––––– delivery.

Britomartis is presented ambiguously as both a mother and a child, who on being delivered

received a sacred name. As the child, she is, again, the hidden who in time is revealed; and, as

the mother, she is the one who must surrender herself to the powers that are releasing the child.

These releasing powers are of two kinds, the natural process of the internal organs and the

external aid of the midwife.

INGRESSION ON THE ART OF CHILDBEARING

Galen’s On the Natural Powers (Peri Physikôn Dynameôn) is a primary and quite

relevant source for the ancient Greek understanding of childbirth.

In the third book of this work, Galen argues inductively that: “Nature is artistic and

provident for living beings.”127

For evidence he points to the activity of one of the largest and most hollow organs, the

uterus.128 The uterus possesses two opposed (enantia) powers,129 the retaining (kathektikê) and

the separating (apokritikê) or propelling (proostikê).130 For nine months the neck of the womb

126 For other occurrences of the number nine in Artemic myth see: (a) the 9 year old Aloadai, (b) 9 years old as the prime age for yoking oxen (Hes. W.D. 437), (c) 9 days of Leto’s travail over Apollo (Apol. Hymn I. 91), (d) the 9 days of Niobe’s mourning over her slain children, (e) 9 years for a reed to grow (Thphr. HP. 4.11.2), (f) the 9 years Hephaistos spent in the Lemnian Grotto guarded by Thetis and Eurynome (Hom. I1. 18.394-409 and 1.586-94), and (g) Artemis’ choir of Oceanids, all 9 years old (Kall. 3.13-14). 127 3.1.145: “tou technikên einai tên physin kai tou zoon kêdemonikên ” 128 3.2.146. The uterus and the stomach are his paradigm cases for the natural powers of the human organism. 129 3.3.150. 130 3.1.145; 3.3.149.

42

remains closed and confines the embryo.131 At the appropriate time, the separating power expels

the fetus as the mouth of the uterus opens. The functioning of the organ is the actualization of its

two potentialities. The closure of the mouth and the stay of the fetus are determined by the

necessity of the activity (energeia)132 as a whole.

For it is not by chance or without reason that Nature is able to arrange for retaining and confining the embryo in the uterus, but in order that the fetus arrives at a proper size.133

Nature is concerned to bring the embryo to its goal (telos). The critical factor in the process of

childbirth is the closing and opening of the uterine mouth. Galen describes this mouth as “a

wonderful device of Nature [thaumaston ti tês physeôs sophisma].”134 In sum, “the art of Nature

[hê technê tês physeôs]” has not only given a double power to the organ, but it has devised with

the foresight the “proper time [kairos]” of its activities.135

The theme of kairos leads to the subject of temperance. When the separating power sets

to work, the whole organ squeezes so as to propel the embryo. Galen notes that

In many women who immoderately use this power violent labor pains force the whole womb to prolapse.136

Here we are in the semantic field of temperance: “immoderation,” “violence,” “force.” Galen

compares such prolapses to wrestling contests in which, in our eagerness to overturn and throw

another, we are ourselves sent under.137 Here hybris outdoes itself. Such is the tragic pattern. For

131 3.3.148. 132 3.2.147. 133 3.3.148. 134 3.3.151. 135 3.3.148. 136 3.3.151: “kai pollais tôn gunaikôn odines biaioi tas mêtras holas ekpesein ênagkasan ametros chrêsamenais tê toiautê dynamei.” Note that the word for prolapse in Greek, ekpesein, also means to be shipwrecked. Compare variant (1m), Antoninus Liberalis. 137 Loc. cit. Galen draws a verbal likeness between prolapse and the wrestler being sent down; both are a falling down.

43

Galen the clue to understanding the excess of intemperance is timing (kairos); the attempt to

force the issue results in a counter force which is self-defeating and self-destructive.

It is here that the midwife plays her role; she palpates the uterine mouth to determine

when it has sufficiently dilated to allow the fetus to pass, at which time she takes the patient from

the bed to the obstetric chair to begin the process of bearing down, which aids the delivery.138

The midwife helps ascertain the right time for the transition from the first to the second stage of

labor. She presides over the uterine mouth, that “wonderful device of Nature.” The natural

process of delivery requires the mutual contribution of mother and midwife. It is not a divine

nature operating independently of man, but a human response appropriately timed to a

providence of Nature, which brings about a fruitful issue.139

* * * * *

In the light of Galen, we may elaborate the schema of childbearing:

expanding, ————> contracting ————> propelling, retaining delivering.

This schematic transformation has both a manifest mediator, namely nine months, and a latent

mediator,140 the uterine mouth. This mouth is structured by the simple opposition open/closed,

which involves the basic opposition of two natural powers, retention and propulsion.

The opening and closing of the mouth symbolizes the diastole and systole in the Nature

of things. The midwife’s wisdom is that even retention and contraction further the ends of new

life.

138 3.3.151-52. 139 Compare one of the fundamental principles of Hippocratic medicine: “All the physician can do for the patient is to give nature a chance, to remove by regimen all that may hinder nature in her beneficent work.” (W. H. S. Jones, “Introduction” to the Loeb translation of Hippocrates, p. xvi.). Compare Goethe’s view of the peristalsis, the diastole and systole, of life. 140 For a summary of kinds of mediators in Kallimachos’ myth, see infra, pp. 90-91.

44

INTEGRATION

The biological schema is intertwined with each of the preceding schemata; with them it

strikes a threefold resonance.

First, one is struck by the analogy between the childbearing schema and the geophysical.

The expansive phase parallels Britomartis’ flight through the mountains and over crag and cliff;

the contractive phase, the moment when Britomartis is cornered at the brink and almost caught;

and, finally, bearing down, her desperate, surrendering leap.141 Both movements end in delivery.

Second, just as the digression on the art of fishing uncovered the latent rush mediator, so

the digression on childbearing, with Galen’s aid, diagnosed another latent mediator, the womb,

or more precisely, the uterine mouth. Theophrastus called the rush “extraordinary” and

“strange,” while Galen called the mouth “a wonderful device of Nature.” Both things present a

structural opposition contributing to a message of temperance. As rushes were both sharp and

pliant, so the contractions of labor can be painfully sharp or the muscles can be relaxed. Used

violently rush or womb can brings violence, but as naturally flexible and yielding each can have

a fruitful issue. Each divine gift calls for a human response that it might arrive at its fulfillment.

Furthermore, the mediator “nine months” makes manifest the central place of temporality

and timing in the ancient understanding of temperance. It reinforces our interpretation of that

theme on the technological and economic levels. The hunter’s or fisherman’s recklessness draws

violence or failure down upon himself just as a mother who labors violently may bring about a

prolapse.

Third, the childbirth level resonates with the hunt level. Here Minos is the personification

of the threatening or actual pangs of birth which are oppressing the woman in labor. It is as if the

141 When Apollo was born, he “leapt” forth from the womb (Hom. Hymn to Delian Apollo). He came forth standing, upright.

45

sharp pangs were hunting her down.142 Meanwhile, the midwife-fisherman casts her nets for the

children of the sea.143 In the end, the mother surrenders herself to the nets. At the right time, the

child breaks through the waters into life.

Childbearing seen as hunting or fishing is the constitutive metaphor of the realm of

Artemis Locheia.144 The word lochos has two meanings: (1) a place for lying in wait or ambush,

the lair of wild beasts; or the act of lying in wait, and (2) a lying in, childbirth. A corresponding

distinction holds for the verbs lachaô-lochizô (to waylay or ambush) and locheuô (to bring forth

or bear).145 Thus, common usage preserves the same metaphorical ambiguity that is found in the

Artemic cult.

That a hunting/childbearing metaphor structured the Greek imagination is evident from

votives. The sharp pangs of labor could be seen as wounding arrows and Artemis Locheia as a

huntress. Also the pangs could be seen as an intolerably oppressive weight. In the former case,

delivery would be rescue or escape from ambush; in the latter, release from burden. Travail

could also be seen as a battle in which the sufferer called for aid.146 Of the four votive

dedications in the Greek Anthology to the childbirth Artemis, two speak of escaping147 the

142 Robert Graves says that Artemis’ midwifery, along with her arrows of death, belong under the mask of the crone (The Greek Myths, 22.1). This is apt with respect to a negative masculinity. 143 The phrase “children of the sea” is from a fisherman’s votive to Pan (AP 6.11). This is similar to the myth of Perseus, where he and his mother were fished out of the sea by Diktys. The genealogy of Britomartis given by Antoninus Liberalis (1m) associates her story with the Phoenician milieu of the Perseus myth. R. Holland, p. 63, also connects the names Diktynna and Diktys. 144 See the related epithets: Lochia, Lechô, Eileithyia, Lysizônos, Soôdina, Chitône, and Bolosia (infra, Appendix B). Cf. Kallimachos Iamb. 12, which apparently involves Artemis Eileithyia and associated with her the “Diktynnaion.” It is inadequate to define Locheia simply as a goddess of childbirth (as does Farnell, Cults, p. 444 and Karl Hoenn, Artemis, p. 195.), without noting the hunt motif. One must also distinguish various Eileithyias (e.g. Hera, Kretan, Olympian, Artemis) by their peculiar metaphors. For example, the Kretan Eileithyia, as associated with a Priestess of the Winds, would be a metaphor of childbearing and having sailed; compare Iphigeneia at Aulis. This last suggests the type as divided by the geographical axis: land hunting/sea hunting/air hunting. 145 CD. s.v. 146 Kall, 3.21 says Artemis visits women struck by “sharp labor pains” if they “call for aid.” 147The votives use the verb pheugô (escape, flee) just as does the Kallimachos variant (1g) with respect to Britomartis.

46

grievous weight of travail,148 while two speak of the bow of Artemis: one of the latter calls on

her to lay aside her bow in the lap of the Graces, to wash in Inopos’ stream, and then to come

and release149 a woman from harsh birth pangs;150 the other says Artemis came with her bow but

then sweetly extended her hands.151 This last votive presents a reversal of Kallimachos’

technological schema. Bare hands and technê have reversed their respective value signs under a

transformation of character from Minos to Artemis; violent hands become sweet helping

hands.152

148 AP. 6.201 and 272. 149 A play on louô, luô. 150 AP. 6.273. 151 AP. 6.271. 152 For further aspects of the Locheia metaphor compare her role in the Oresteia (esp. A. 134-38). See also Philip Wheelwright, “Thematic Imagery in the Oresteia” and Paul Vidal-Naquet’s “Chasse et Sacrifice dans l’Orestie d’Eschyle” which views the play under chase and anti-sacrifice themes. Compare also the close relation between the slaying and rebirth of animals in Paleolithic and contemporary hunt cultures (e.g. in Adolf Friedrich, “Forschung,” and Adolf Jensen, Myth and Cult).

47

SOCIOLOGICAL LEVEL

Now we examine the relationship between Minos and the nymph and the fishermen and

the nymph in sociological terms. This can be done either in terms of marriage and kinship or

politics. On the one hand, Britomartis is a bridal nymph; on the other, she is comparable to Dike,

the nymph of justice.153

SOCIOLOGICAL: MARITAL LEVEL

INGRESSION ON MARRIAGE

In general, marriages in aristocratic, Homeric society were arranged by fathers for

daughters. According to W. K. Lacey, there were two basic marriage patterns: (1) a daughter was

sought by gifts (dôra) and offers of hedna154 to her father. An agreement being reached, she was

surrendered along with hedna to the son-in-law. If the girl ceased to be a wife for cause other

than her death or her husband’s, hedna could be reclaimed. (2) a King took a son-in-law into his

own house or realm, giving a daughter in return for military service. In this case, hedna were not

exchanged.155 Lacey notes variations on these two patterns: (a) a bride captured in battle,156 (b)

marriage by contest, (c) a king promises a daughter to a warrior in return for his aid, (d) a father

seeks a bride for his son, (e) a father makes gifts of his daughter to a chieftain to be one of a

number of wives.157

153 See CD. s.v: a nymph is (1) a bride, a young wife, a married woman, a marriageable maiden, (2) a semi-deity, (3) a moth chrysalis. The Seasons (Hôrai) are also nymphs. The seasonal, or better, kairotic, aspect and the bridal are combined in the phrase parthenos gamon hôraia (a maiden ripe for marriage). 154 Hedna are traditionally translated as “brideprice,” but this translation is hotly debated. Cf. Lacey, E∆NA, passim; Lacey, Family, p. 41, A. R. W. Harrison, The Law of Athens, p. 45. Gifts given by the bride’s father to the groom were called hedna or meilia (Harrison, p. 45). 155 Lacey, E∆NA, p. 60. 156 Regular marriage was also, as a surrendering of a bride, a “capturing” or “winning” of a bride. Contest marriage (e.g. Pi. O.1) was clearly so. This symbolic capture and capture in battle are both correlated with patrilineality. On the mistaken view that bride capture is correlated with matrilineality, see R. Needham’s “Introduction: to C. S. Wake’s The Development of Marriage and Kinship, esp. xx-xiii. 157 Lacey, Family, pp. 39-41.

48

The giving of hedna was a means by which the giver displayed his virtue. Lacey says that

hedna

Expressed the giver’s quality, and this in turn carried the assumption that to be outdone in έδνa, as in gifts, would incur a slur on a man’s rank and quality as an ἁγαθός.158

Marriage by contest was a means by which a father could determine which suitor was the

most virtuous. For example, Kleisthenes, king of Sikyon, held a trial of suitors (c. 575 B.C.) to

determine the most excellent in “valor [andragathia], temper [orge], upbringing [paideusis], and

character [tropos].” During this event, one Hippokleides by over-drinking and dancing while

standing on his head upon the marriage table “danced away his marriage”159--such was his

intemperance.

Thus, both hedna and contest are a means (mêchanê) for displaying virtue. They

demonstrate the wealth—economic and ethical respectively—of the suitor. They indicate his

capacity to protect his wife-to-be. In the case of Penelope’s suitors, the wooing involves both

hedna and contest.

In contest marriage a woman might marry a man from the same class, or she might marry

a meritorious man of lower social status (an act called hypogamy).160

158 Lacey, E∆NA, p. 55. 159 Hdt. 6.128; the quote could also read: “nobility, passion, education and temper.” Lacey gives as e.g. of Homeric contests: Pero, daughter of Neleos, won by Melampous and Penelope who chose to select her second husband by her contest of the bow (Family), pp. 40-41). 160 Claude Lévi-Strauss closely links contest marriage (he denotes it with the Indian term swayamvara) and hypogamy: “And yet swayamvara, the marriage of chance, merit, or choice, can really only have meaning if it gives a girl from a superior class to a man from an inferior class, guaranteeing at least symbolically that the distance between statuses has not irremediably compromised the solidarity of the group, and that the cycle of marriage prestations will not be interrupted. This is why the lower classes have a major interest in the swayamvara, because for them it represents a pledge of confidence. They then become the jealous guardians of the rules of the game and right up to contemporary folklore the drama—or the comedy—of swayamvara marriage will lie alternatively, according to the viewpoint of the narrator, either in the opportunity offered to natural gifts, or in the adroitness of the great in getting round the law (ESK, p. 476).

49

Homeric marriage was a contract—most likely informal161—between a bride’s father and

a groom. This contract was formalized in Athenian law where it was called an engyê.162

An engyê conditionally transferred a bride from one kyrios163 to another. According to H.

J. Wolff, the verb form

Was used to denote the actions of the kúpios who gave the bride in marriage, and of the creditor who accepted the guarantee,… [It] points to an act of conveyance which originally must have been common to the contracts of marriage and suretyship.164

Athenian law specified a vow by which a father surrendered his daughter, its form being “I engyê

(promise to surrender, entrust) my daughter to ‘x’.”165 This vow required witnesses.166 Wolff

emphasizes that “the aim of the ἐγγύη was to entrust rather than to alienate the object.”167 The

woman was not ‘sold,’ rather she was ‘on loan.’ The wife had a dual attachment; she was in the

legal power of her husband, yet remained a member of her family.168

The contract itself was fulfilled by the ekdosis, the surrendering or giving away of the

bride; this consummated the marriage. The transformation from engyê to marriage was not

sharply defined by law.169

161 Wolff, Marriage, pp. 51, 53. 162 In Homer, engyê is used only of suretyship. The word next appears in Hdt. 6.129-130 (Kleisthenes’ vow). This might be a reflection of Herodotos’ own times. Engyê first appears in law in Perikles’ Citizenship Law. This law confined engyê marriage to citizens. It was the engyê and not marriage which legitimized the children as heirs and as citizens of the polis (Harrison, pp. 1-9, 61-81; Lacey, Family, pp. 104-106, esp. ftn. 15, and 110-112). Wolff says that if Greek marriage was only marriage by purchase, the Athenian law modified sale into surety (Marriage, p. 51). 163 kyrios = lord, master, the legal head of a household. 164 Wolff, Marriage, p. 52. Cf. Harrison, pp. 1-9. 165 N. D. Fusel de Coulanges, The Ancient City, pp. 44-45; Lacey, Family, p. 105; Hdt. 6.129-130. The engyê vow clearly contrasts with marriage by joint vows and mutual consent. 166 Lacey, Family, p. 105 and ftns. 22 and 23 thereto; in one case witnesses are uncles of the groom. 167 Wolff, Marriage, p. 53. Wolff (p. 50) says: “the woman was, so to speak, only lent out from one family to another for the purpose of bearing offspring to maintain it. Accordingly, her legal relation with that family was severed by mere operation of law if the purpose was not fulfilled because of divorce or death of the husband.” 168 Ibid., p. 53. 169 Harrison, pp. 2, 6-7, and ftn. 3 to p. 8; the vagueness being in part because marriage could easily be dissolved by either party. Greek had no one word to signify “marriage” (Ibid., p. 1; Lacey, Family, p. 110). Ekdosis could be accomplished by gamos, a formal wedding ceremony, as was the case with the upper class (Lacey, p. 110; O.C.D. s.v.; Erdmann, Ehe, pp. 250-261; Penrice, Privatleben, pp. 51-57); by gamêlia, the formal presentation of the new

50

The classical engyê usually involved, through this was not obligatory, the bestowal of

dowry (proix).170 The dowry had two functions: (1) to insure the maintenance of the daughter or

sister given in marriage, (2) to procure for the children of the woman a share in the estate of their

maternal family.171 Like the bride, the dowry was transferred conditionally and was revocable.172

Dowry was attached to both kin and affine: the wife had title to it, but the husband usufruct.173

Generally speaking, an engyê allows the bride no freedom of choice.

The bride was the passive object of the contract; her consent to it was not necessary, and in ἐγγύάι during the classical period at least even her presence was not required.174

However, as Lacey notes:

a few instances are known in which a woman is said to have chosen her own husband, but in every case it is clear that it was unusual…all these women belonged to the highest social class, …175

In such marriages—as well as in synoikein marriages176—surrender by the bride’s father was

replaced by the bride’s self-surrender, by her ‘self-engyê.’

wife to the phratry (Harrison, p. 7; Lacey, pp. 111-12; Erdmann, Ehe, pp. 261, 267); or simply by a man and woman living together (Harrison, pp. 7, 2; Lacey, pp. 110-11). 170 Harrison, p. 8; Lacey, p. 108. The relation between hedna and dowry is hotly debated (cf. e.g. Lacey, E∆NA, pp. 60-61; Harrison, p. 45). It seems that hedna given to the groom includes dowry (cf. e.g. Hom. Il. 9.146-48). In the classical period, the groom no longer gave hedna, and the earlier hedna given to the groom was not called dowry (proix). Note that both hedna and proix are revocable. Compare contemporaneous Levantine marriage contracts which involved both the bride piece and a dowry (Lacey, E∆NA, pp. 66-68). 171 Wolff, Marriage, p. 62. A large dowry prevented a woman’s being divorced, helped her win a husband, and supported her should she become widowed (Harrison, p. 45; Lacey, Family, pp. 107-110). Compare Harrison, p. 45; the dowry gives the woman “a stake in the οἶκος” to which she is transferred. 172 Harrison, p. 45-46. 173 Wolff, Marriage, p. 53. 174 Harrison, p. 21. 175 Lacey, Family, p. 107; Cimon and his sister Elpinice chose spouses of their own free will (Plut. Cimon IV.9,7) and the daughter of Peisistratos married for love (Plut. Moralia 189C); Kallias gave his daughters the gift of free choice (Hdt. 6.122). Also Icarios gave Penelope her own choice (hedna and contest were also involved!). The laws of Charondas allowed a divorcee to freely choose a husband (Diod. Sic. 12.18). Cf. Lacey, p. 108: widows had a degree of free choice at Athens. 176 Wolff postulates—the point is controversial—that in classical Athens marriages without solemn engyê (so-called synoikein marriages) were legally recognized. Such marriages were legally inferior to engyê, were by mutual consent, and were without dowry. The wife could freely divorce. She could not participate in the cult of her husband’s oikos. He had legal control over her and her property. (Marriage, pp 65-75). Hellenistic law permitted free

51

The marriage system in Krete177 was peculiar in having several features which, it appears,

allowed women more freedom. First, it gave legal recognition to marriage between a free

(aristocratic) woman and a male serf (though it appears not between a free male and a female

serf). If a man lived with the woman (but not in the reverse case) the children were free.178 Such

marriages were probably by mutual consent.179 Second, it allowed a patroiokos (heiress), if no

successor wished her hand, to marry anyone she pleased.180 Finally, a woman had greater rights

over her dowry than an Athenian woman had and was entitled by law to a fixed share of the

paternal estate.181

The Greek marriage system in general can be seen as evolving out of a system of

generalized exchange.182 In defining generalized exchange, Lévi-Strauss says:

Generalized exchange establishes a system of operations conducted ‘on credit.’ A surrenders a daughter or a sister to B who surrenders one to C, who, in turn, will surrender one to A. This is the simplest formula. Consequently, generalized exchange always contains and

marriage, as did Germanic and Roman law; and evidence of free marriage is found at Gortyn and Delphi (Ibid., pp. 44-45). 177 As reconstructed from the Gortyn Law Code (c. 480-460 B.C., though some laws may have descended from Minoan times). In general, Kretan society is aristocratic and had a dowry system. Britomartis was “Gortyna’s nymph"! 178 Willetts, ASAC, pp. 34-36 (here he thinks the law a matrilineal, matrilocal survival); ACSH, p. 92 (but here he drops the hypothesis). The law could be a survival of Katchin type (patrilineal, patrilocal) generalized exchange. 179 Wolff, Marriage, p. 44. 180 Willetts, ASAC, pp. 70-81; ASCH, pp. 90-91: the order of succession was father’s brother, father’s brother’s son, anyone in the tribe, anyone outside it. Athenian law prescribed successors to an epiklêros (heiress) so as to allow her no freedom of choice (cf. Harrison, pp. 130-149). 181 Lacey, Family, pp. 215-216; Willetts, ASAC, p. 76, 82; ASCH, pp. 92-93. 182 Lévi-Strauss (ESK, p. 472-474) argues--and I think persuasively--that “Europe, in its present state, or in the still recent past, provides, or provided, a body of structural features all relating to what we have called generalized exchange, . . .“ As evidence he cites: Germanic dual marriage class, similarities between Scythian and Katchin—the Katchin are paradigmatic for generalized exchange—mythology, the German avunculate, the German brideprice, the assertion of feminine rights typical of Germanic and Celtic institutions. I can note other Katchin-Greek correspondences: the ball of thread in Katchin myth and Ariadne’s thread, the Katchin three-generation vendetta cycle and the same in Aeschylus, similar adultery laws, similar parental control of the married daughter. Also, there is the obvious similarity between brideprice and hedna, the underlying concept of trust and loan in generalized exchange and in the Greek engyê, the tripartite phratrai of Greek tribes as a feudal variant of the fivefold Katchin system, and, finally, collective marriage and what appears to be a survival of dual marriage classes in Krete. (On the last point see Willetts, ACSH, pp. 90, 113; Strabo 10.482). Artemis Triklaria and the three cities she protects can be taken as evidence for ternary generalized exchange. A generalized exchange model might clarify such obscure words as tritokourê, tritogenês, tritopatorês (contra Jane Harrison, Themis, pp. 499-500).

52

element of trust . . . There must be confidence that the cycle will close again, and that after a period of time a woman will eventually be received in compensation for the woman initially surrendered. The belief is the basis of trust, and confidence opens up credit. In the final analysis, the whole system exists only because the group adopting it is prepared, in the broadest meaning of the term, to speculate . . . Generalized exchange gains ‘at every turn,’ provided, of course, it takes the initial risk.183

Brideprice is a typical feature of generalized exchange.

The stages of evolution seem to be: (1) generalized exchange with brideprice, (2)

Homeric society, hedna (gift exchange) and no matrilateral cross-cousin rule, (3) the Solonic

Athenian system with dowry, epiklêroi (heiress), and no hedna,184 (4) the Athenian democratic

system with engyê, dowry, epiklêroi, and no anisogamy since no social classes, (5) Hellenistic

free marriage. Contest marriage would exist during (2) and (3).

Both hedna and contest, by displaying virtue, show a bride’s father that the prospective

son-in-law can be respected and trusted. Hedna and contest, along with engyê (surety, loan,

trust), reflects facets of generalized exchange, a system grounded in trust.

The evolution of generalized exchange is part and parcel of the innate contradiction and

instability of generalized exchange as such. Lévi-Strauss says that generalized exchange

presupposes equality of partners. The wife-giver trusts that if he surrenders a daughter (and

dowry) in marriage, after some time, the cycle will close, and his line will receive back what it

had given. On the other hand, the speculative character of the system, including the widening and

multiplying of cycles, the preference for short cycle immediate returns as against long term risks,

and the making of alliances for political or economic advantages, gives rise to inequalities in

183 ESK, p. 265. 184 Because of the Gortyn Code’s provisions for patroiokoi and dowry, the Kretan system would seem to fall in stage (2) or (3), i.e. in the same realm as contest marriage.

53

wealth and accumulation of women at some stage of the cycle and anisogamy,185 factors tending

to rupture the system and force its downfall.186 The system will then evolve towards endogamy

and/or hypogamous contest marriage.187

Both these directions are found in the Greek system. The endogamic tendency is

evidenced in the rule requiring heiresses (Athenian epiklêroi, Kretan patroiokoi) to marry next of

kin.188 Lacey notes that “marriages within the anchisteia or wider family were extremely

common,”189 Contest marriage—I here use the phrase in its wider sense to include marriage by

merit, change, or choice190—is an alternative to endogamous marriage. This is evidence in myth

and history. When the Danaids, who were epiklêroi, begged Danaos to free them from the

slavery of marrying their cousins, he got them to murder their cousins and then set a contest to

marry them off. If scholars are correct in assuming that Kleisthenes’ daughter was an

epiklêroi,191 then, it seems, he showed the same paternal concern as Danaos, to prevent a forced,

endogamous marriage and to open up the field of suitors. In sum while endogamous marriage is

185 For a general account of anisogamy (hypogamy and hypergamy) see Lévi-Strauss, ESK, pp. 240-41, 266-67, 397-99, 419-20, 473-77; Robin Fox, Kinship and Marriage, pp. 212-214. 186 ESK, p. 266. 187 ESK, pp. 474-77: examples of the endogamous solution are India, which systemized endogamy into caste, consanguineal marriage in Egypt, the Iranian system, and the Greek daughter-heir; a third alternative is regression to restricted exchange, e.g. the China, Assam, Tungus, and Manchu systems. 188 Harrison (pp. 21-22) says this rule is “very clearly…endogamic.” Solon’s laws on epiklêroi were designed to prevent the amalgamation of estates by men take epiklêroi in marriage (Lacey, Family, pp. 89-90). Cf. Erdmann, Ehe, 179-89). 189 Family, p. 106: e.g. half-brothers and half-sisters, uncles and nieces, cousins and cousins; Isaeus argued it a sign of ill-will that a father of two daughters married neither to a first cousin. Some of these marriages were caused by the epiklêros law which required marriage within the anchisteia, others seem to be by choice. 190 It is in this wider sense that Lévi-Strauss uses the term swayamvara (e.g. ESK, p. 476). Note, just as contest involves chance (whoever shows up) and a freer choice (or even merit) one chooses the “best”). 191 Lacey, Family, ftn. 29 to p. 276: scholars note e.g. that the marriage was “accomplished for Kleisthenes” (which sounds like an epidikasia) and that Agariste’s son was named Kleisthenes.

54

seen as subjugation, contest marriage is seen as the means by which new liberty breaks into the

system.192

* * * * *

Now we are in a position to define the marital schema of the Britomartis myth.193 The

schematic transformation is:

anti-engyê —————––––––––– self-engyê, ekdosis

The Britomartis myth presents one transformation, one sub-cycle in the system of cycles which

constitutes generalized exchange.194 Sociologically speaking, Minos’ attempted violation of the

nymph is an anti-marriage, an anti-engyê. Britomartis’ surrender to fishermen’s nets presents an

ekdosis.

In trying to seize by force the object of the exchange, Minos would violate the very

structure which makes marriage possible, the engyê. He violates the contract between bride’s

father and groom or, in the case of self-engyê, bride and groom. In doing so, he rejects the trust

which grounds generalized exchange. This is a theft, a robbery against the body social. By

definition, he must fail his goal. Britomartis hides; she does not surrender.

The goddess’ descent to and leap into the sea which parallels a rejection of the king and a

rescue by fishermen of the serf class is like hypogamy which marries a woman of high social

status to a man of lower status. As we have noted above, hypogamous marriage was legally

192 Perhaps it is no paradox that the son of the famous contest marriage set by Kleisthenes became the man who overthrew the feudal system which made that contest marriage possible. Contest marriage is indeed the midwife of new liberty. 193 In the following I assume a direct relation between the myth and the social reality to which it refers. Of course, it is possible that the myth bears no direct analogy to historical reality. Its relationship may be dialectical and the society it portrays may be imaginary, wished for (cf. Claude Lévi-Strauss, “The Story of Asdiwal,” pp. 29ff; and “Structure and Dialectics” in SA, pp. 229-38). If this were so our myth would represent the oppressive nature of arranged marriage (the violence of Minos) and a fantasy of freedom (Britomartis’ self-surrender, free choice). But this cannot be so in our myth. The anti-engyê is not an “oppressive” form of marriage, but an anti-marriage, a violation of the very possibility of marriage. 194 For more on cycle imagery, see infra, pp. 57 and 116ff on the Diktynna ritual.

55

recognized in Krete. The very act of hypogamy, by mixing the extremes of upper and lower

class, is tempering. It weaves the network of society. Britomartis’ hypogamous surrender can

also be seen in the context of contest marriage.195 Further, the leap, as an act of self-surrender, is

like one of those rare—though less rare in Krete—occurrences when an aristocratic woman

freely chose her husband.

Finally, Britomartis surrenders to fishermen’s nets, to that flexible, open-ended structure

woven of rushes, which is a perfect simile of generalized exchange.196 Claude Lévi-Strauss

speaks of the “subtle and harmonious cycle” of generalized exchange,197 its formula being

capable of being “widened indefinitely,”198 having “inexhaustible potentialities for the formation

of more and more extensive cycles.”199 Thus, it is like a fishing net. Indeed, Lévi-Strauss likens

generalized exchange to imagery in Katchin mythology, a “thread” or “a ball of twine which

unwinds.”200 It is also “a thread which runs through a piece of fabric,”201 or, quoting an African

proverb, “the action of the needle for sewing roofs, which, weaving in and out leads backwards

and forwards the same liana, holding the straw together.”202

The same simile occurs in the Greek eiresione song:

We come to the house of a rich man. Let the doors be opened, for Wealth enters, and with him Joy and Peace. Let the jars always be filled and let a high cap rise in the kneading trough. Let the son of the house marry and the daughter weave a precious web.203

195 See infra, pp. 59ff. 196 Including the evolved form of this exchange. 197 ESK, p. 255. 198 ESK, p. 268. 199 pp. 451-52. 200 p. 260. 201 p. 467. 202 p. 479. 203 From the Biography of Homer, as cited by M.P. Nilsson, Greek Folk Religion, p. 37. But compare Homeric Epigram #15; here it is the son’s bride who is at the loom.

56

Or weave the net of engyê and ekdosis of generalized exchange.204

INTEGRATION

We have already seen how imagery on the marriage level can be likened to that on the

geophysical and technological levels. We have now to integrate the marriage level with the

economic and childbirth levels.

The Greek marriage contest, in the case where such a contest involves a hunt, is a

metaphor between love and hunt. It interweaves marital and economic levels. Marriage (love)

can be taken as a hunt or a hunt can be related to marriage. This gives the schema

anti-contest —————––––––––– contest.

In pursuing human game, Minos is engaged in an anti-contest. His direct assault is

attempted murder, his passion is all devouring. In pursuing a woman as if she were some game

animal, Minos violates not only the engyê but also the elemental humanity of Britomartis.

Forcing the issue, ekdosis becomes impossible. Her choice is denied; his violation of free will is

rape.

On the other hand, the fishermen win Britomartis by means of a double indirection. First,

they weave nets; then they cast these nets for fish. A woman is caught by chance. They win at an

unintended purpose. The directness of Minos fails, yielding nothing, while the fishermen

indirectly succeed; a woman yields. Their luck is not only by chance; it is also by merit. We have

seen, in the previous section, how the marriage contest functions to display the suitor’s virtue.

The Britomartis myth correlates the gift of the bride with the fishermen’s display of the virtue of

204 Our interpretation of the marriage schema explains two peculiarities of the fishermen episode. First, the plurality of fishermen signifies the systematic aspect of the marriage schema, and not, as one might imagine, some sort of “primal promiscuity.” Second, since no marriage, or intercourse, takes place between the nymph and the fishermen, but only a rescue, one might imagine the myth referred to the “chastity” of the goddess—this would read Antoninus Liberalis’ variant into it. However, the myth does not represent conjugal relations; it represents an allegory of generalized exchange, of engyê, ekdosis and contest.

57

temperance.205 The opposite of hybris is not modesty,206 rather it is the display of such virtue as

leads the goddess to surrender herself. The fishermen display temperance with nets.

Corresponding to the double indirection by which the fishermen hunt is the double virtue of nets.

They “display” temperance in their very construction. They display it in the way they are used.

The fisherman is patient; he allows the fish to catch themselves, and in their own time. In the

Britomartis’ myth, the goddess is won by chance, merit, and choice, i.e. by all three kinds of

contest marriage.

While Minos confuses a woman and an animal of the chase, the marriage contest is a

social form which functions to differentiate these two terms. Thus, besides being a mêchanê for

demonstrating the suitor’s virtue (his “means”), the marriage contest functions to humanize the

suitor. One must hunt and capture, and in some cases, slay, a wild beast in order to win one’s

bride. In his confusion, Minos misses the “in order to,” the conjunction, the factor of

relationship.

To confirm our analysis, we need only turn to Xenophon who speaks of the hunt as a

form of passion and as a marriage contest.

As for passion, he concludes his discussion of hare hunting by saying:

So charming is the sight that to see a hare tracked, found, pursued, and caught is enough to make any man forget his heart’s desire.207

The Britomartis myth contrasts the wild erôs of Minos with the tempered passion of the

fishermen.

205 Note that in the story of Kleisthenes’ trial of the suitors, of the four cardinal virtues, the focus is on that of drink, that is, on temperance in its most strict Aristotelian sense. 206 Compare Plato’s Charmides, in which the argument refutes Charmides’ contentions that modesty or self-restraint or quietness constitute temperance. Also compare Euripides’ Hippolytos, in which Phaidra takes revenge on the hybris of the “modest” Hippolytos. 207 Cyn. 5.33; Loeb translation by E. C. Marchant. Of all the animals of the chase, the hare is most closely associated with Minos’ land hunting. See supra, p. 34 ftn. 1

58

In an aside, Xenophon distinguishes between the sophist and the philosopher. The

former, he says, attacks his friends and hunts the rich and young, while the latter attacks wild

beasts.208 Here Xenophon makes the same anti-hunt/hunt distinction which we made when we

analyzed the hunt schema.

Looking back at the Kynegetikos as a whole, we see that Xenophon’s vision of the hunt

is set in a framework, not only of paideia and arête, but also of marriage by contest. The opening

praise of the heroes of the hunt speaks of the marriages of many of these heroes. It mentions

brides won by marriage contest and military valor. Xenophon repeats the contest theme at the

work’s conclusion. The hunt is seen as a contest to win the bride Virtue. He states that arête is

desired by all, but it takes much toil to win her and many fall away.209 Unless the hunters

excel [hyperballô] in toils, inventive stratagems [enthymema], and attentive care [epimeleia], they will not win the catch.210

The hunt is a common Artemic marriage task. These tasks include such labors of

Herakles as the Keryneian Hind, , Kretan Bull, Erymanthian Boar, Lernaian Hydra, and

Antipoinas’ daughters, as well as those of Alkathous, Admetos for Alkestis, Pelops for

Hippodameia, Orion for Merope, Orestes for Erigone or Hermione, and Meleager for Atalanta.211

Minos’ erotic chase after Britomartis is like a hunter’s chase, while the rescue of Britomartis in

fishing nets, a winning of a bridal nymph. These two events are two rhetorical metaphors, each a

simile and each the inversion of the other. Although each simile is between “to hunt” and “to

love,” each tertium comparationis is different. In the first case, the tertium comparationis is the

208 Ibid. 13.8-12. 209 Ibid. 12.18-19. 210 Ibid. 13.13. Epimeleia is a central virtue in Plato’s Alkibiades I, a dialogue about paideia, which, incidentally, ends with a sacred marriage. 211 In Dorian Krete there is a ritual by which an older boy “captures” a younger, after which they hunt and feast for two months (Strabo 10.4.20-21; cf. Willetts, ACSH, pp. 115-17; Lacey, Family, pp. 211-12). Here hunt follows cap-ture, rather than vice versa. This reversal corresponds to a reversal in sexual terms.

59

violent passion (erôs) of both loving212 and hunting; while in the second, it is the patient,

attentive care (epimeleia) of both hunting and loving. The intemperate character of Minos is the

“inverse” of the temperate character of fishermen. Erôs and epimeleia are two “third terms”

which have their own common “third term”--a tertium comparationis to the second power,

namely, “character.”213 The schema “anti-context ——> contest” juxtaposes the two rhetorical

metaphors and grounds them in the schematic “inversion.”214 The two metaphors together

compose an overall “structural” metaphor, which I call the “marriage by contest” metaphor.215

The “marriage by contest” metaphor is a primary metaphor of the myth,216 and its message is that

only those who fish temperately with nets make a “sweet catch.”

Now we turn to the interrelationship between the marriage and childbirth levels.

We described above the instability and evolutions of generalized exchange. Lévi-Strauss

says:

Undoubtedly swayamvara marriage has a basis in general or in previous institutions. Its appearance would have been inconceivable but for the latent conflict between the ostensibly matrilateral orientation of systems of generalized exchange, and the patrilateral nostalgia which secretly undermines them, or, in other words, but for the unconscious beliefs in the security of short-cycle systems which is always found in societies engaged in the hazards of long-cycle systems. Indeed, since our study of the Katchin system we have seen that this internal contradiction is expressed in a resurgence of feminine lines, an assertion of female rights, sanctioned by custom.217

212 The underlined term is the emphasized or “manifest” term. 213 Compare Cedric H. Whitman’s definition of the Homeric simile: “The simile may begin at a pinpoint of external similarity, but it ends in character” (Homer and the Homeric Tradition, p. 116). Richmond Lattimore says of one of the Homeric similes: “The ultimate effect is not of likeness, but contrast” (“Introduction” to The Iliad of Homer, p. 43). If the Homeric simile belongs to the Geometric period, does the Britomartis myth belong in the same period? 214 For the concept of “inversion” see supra, pp. 38-39. 215 This “structural” or “systematic” metaphor relates two relations, two “third terms” which are inversions of each other. The whole is a harmony of similarity and difference. As erôs is “transformed” or “inverted” into epimeleia, the structural metaphor can also be called a “transformational” or “inversional” metaphor. 216 It is also the primary metaphor of the mythologem as a whole; it is integrally related to the general, analogical law that “taking : keeping :: giving : accepting (infra, 201, 217, and Chapter VII). Minos takes erôs; fishers give (care). 217 ESK, pp. 476-477.

60

Between endogamous marriage and marriage by contest is an antinomy crucial for understanding

the Britomartis myth, Lévi-Strauss says that the innate contradiction of the hypergamous rule:

rigidifies the cycle of generalized exchange. The cycle is interrupted, the indefinite chain of prestations and counterprestations seizes up. The partners mark time, and placed in a position where it is impossible for them to fulfill their prestations, keep their daughters by marrying them to their sons until a miracle sets the whole machine going again.218

On the other hand, since

generalized exchange engenders hypergamy, and hypergamy leads either to regressive solutions (restricted exchange or endogamy), or to the complete paralysis of the body social, an arbitrary element will be introduced into the system, a sort of sociological clinamen, which whenever the subtle mechanism of exchange is obstructed, will, like a Deus ex machina give the necessary push for a new impetus.219

This clinamen is contest marriage (swayamvara), the marriage of chance, choice, or merit.

The turnabout is necessary in the case of a king’s daughter in a hypergamous system,

since “she would be denied a spouse if the social rule were strictly observed.”220 Also, we have

mentioned the cases of Danaos and Kleisthenes in which contest was the antidote to an

obligatory and endogamous epiklêroi marriage. Contest replaces a constricted field with an open

field.

Rigidity, seizure, obstruction, paralysis of the social body, constriction, new impetus,

release, openness—these marital terms are equally descriptive of the childbirth schema of the

Britomartis’ myth. We can posit a metaphorical relationship between marital and childbearing

schemata. Its formula can be read variously: (1) a near seizure of a sovereign lady (where a semi-

deity nymph = a king’s daughter) is followed by a surrendering to fishermen, (2) painful

218 Ibid., pp. 474-475. 219 ESK, pp. 474-75. 220 Loc. cit.

61

contractions, by delivering release, (3) a seizure of “the body social”, by a “new impetus,” (4)

constriction, by openness. Ekdosis is childbirth. The propelling power is marriage by contest.

What goddess would be more appropriate to put a ‘twist’ into marriage than a deus ex machina

named Diktynna?

SOCIOLOGICAL: POLITICAL LEVEL

Because of the nature of ancient Greek legal theory, an analysis of the political level is

bound up with preceding levels. From the outset, our analysis will be integrative.

The political schema contrasts the injustice of Minos with the justice of fishermen.

Minos’ attempted rape would be a clear violation of law.221 The schema, then, is:

adikê —————––––––––– dikê

In Greek law, the defendant at a trial is called the “dikên pheugôn” and the prosecutor,

the “dikên diôkôn.”222 Our myth uses the verb pheugein of Britomartis, diôkein of Minos. It uses

terms which resonate between hunt and law, just as does the Greek law court.223 Anti-hunt and

rape are unjust, illegal. Lawsuit and trial place a mirror before a man in order to turn his deed

back upon him that he may see it for what it is. The hybristês224 is himself subject to graphê

hybreôs or dikê biaiôn.225 The anti-hunter becomes the hunted.226 In such a scheme, justice itself

is the prey of fishermen.

221 For laws against rape in the law code of Gortyn, see Willetts, ASAC, pp. 33, 85ff; Willetts, ACSH, p. 94; Lacey, Family, p. 209. Rape was punishable by fine, graded according to social class. 222 CD. s.v. 223 In Greek culture, law and marriage also resonate. The legal trial (agôn) is like a marriage contest (agôn); in the latter, it is the suitor who is on trial. 224 See supra, pp. 24-25. In popular idiom, hybris and justice are opposites (Werner Jaeger, Paideia, p. 103 and footnote 18 thereto). Hybris and temperance are also opposites (CD. s.v.); hence, justice is a kind of temperance. In Plato’s Republic (399b-c) the opposite of temperance is uperêphanos (arrogance, extravagance) and bia (force, com-pulsion, violence). 225 These are, respectively, public and private lawsuits (Harrison, PP. 32-38).

62

In the light of the technological level, one can discern another schema. It corresponds to

the fundamental distinction in Greek legal theory between “the law of the hand (cheirôn nomos)

and the law of justice” (dikês nomos).227 Minos exercises the rule of force; the fishermen, the rule

of law. This gives a schema having the same anti-structural/structure as the marriage schema:

cheirôn nomos —————––––––––– dikês nomos

Fishermen’s nets are like just laws.228 Just laws are nets which weave together persons and

classes into a harmonious whole. Just laws are flexible and open-ended. They allow for the just

man’s liberty, while being rigorous enough to catch the lawbreaker. It is the wisdom of justice

that it lets the lawbreaker catch himself. On the other hand, laws woven by fishermen rescue

justice. Laws like nets can be artfully designed; both are technêmata. If it is true that dikê and

diktyon have the same root, it is no accident.229

Hesiod’s parable of Dikê uses a schema similar to the cheirôn nomos ——> dikês nomos

schema. He says that Dikê is one of the three Seasons (Horai), along with Fair Laws and

Peace.230 He says she is a virgin and daughter of Zeus and those who are unjust to her pay for

their folly.231 While fish and beasts and birds devour each other, being without justice, Zeus gave

226 Maranda and Maranda note that the motifs of the pattern the-cheater-cheated are “secondary expressions of inversion mechanisms” (“Introduction” to Structural Analysis of Oral Traditions, p. xx). Such is the case here, since the hunter-hunted motif is secondary to the overall anti-structure/structure schema. Compare Aeschylus’ drasanti pathein (who does, shall suffer) (Ch. 313, A. 1564). 227 CD. s.v. nomos. 228 This is not to be taken lightly; one need only compare the nets-of-justice image in Oresteia. This image, or rather metaphor, is one of great religious depth. Its origin may go back to the net-like structure of generalized exchange which not only has a marriage cycle, as we have already discussed, but also a vendetta or revenge cycle. For this latter cycle see Lévi-Strauss, ESK, pp. 255-56; he describes it among the Katchin, who even, like Aeschylus, believe in a three generations curse. 229 Frisk s.v., L-S s.v., E.M. 275.22-31. 230 T. 901. The Seasons are associated with Artemis in iconography. For Artemis in general as a city goddess and guardian of laws see Kallimachos’ Hymn (3.120ff) where Artemis shoots her first arrows at four targets, an elm, an oak, a wild beast, and a city of unjust men, and (3.29ff) where Zeus gives her three times ten cities. See infra, Appendix B for some city epithets. 231 O. 256-62.

63

her to men and it is the best thing they have.232 In the Britomartis’ myth, the maiden flees the

devouring passion of Minos, who hunts her down as if she were an animal to be slain and eaten.

If there were a trial of justice, Minos would himself be hunted as a beast. On the other hand,

Britomartis surrenders to fishermen as Dikê was surrendered to men. In personifying justice as a

woman and daughter surrendered in marriage, Hesiod sees every injustice as anti-hunt and rape.

Similarly, in the Britomartis myth, rape and anti-hunt are paradigm for injustice; engyê and

ekdosis, as well as the marriage contest, paradigm for justice.

Britomartis can also be seen as all allegory of the power which constitutes a regime. A

polity can be seen as a system of exchange. It is like a marriage system, except that the item of

exchange is not a bride, but power. Using the Britomartis myth as a point of reference, one can

construct a rough formula for political structure: “You give me the power, and ‘x’ shall233 do

something for you234 ——> Now, ‘x’ shall do something for me, since I gave you the power,”

where ‘x’ is any citizen of the polity. In this formula the four parts of rule are evident: (1)

executive, command, authority, liberty, taking initiative, risk, borrowing, (2) legislative,

decision, aim,235 vow, responsibility, debt, (3) judiciary, obligation, compulsion, right of

repayment, and (4) source of power, loan, credit.236 The kind of regime determines who or what

class plays which of the four voices: parts may overlap or be duplicated. The whole structure is

232 O. 276-80. 233 See e.g. the future tense of oaths, esp, of vows to uphold laws (And. 91, 97, 98) and the “shall” of laws (And. 87, 96). In the latter examples, the English “shall” translates Greek perfect infinitives, and, in one case, which has a variant reading in the future indicative, a present imperative. 234 The “you” can include the speaker, since the aim of rule is the common good. No leader would lead if he didn’t have a stake in the action. 235 Arist. Pol. 1253a14-15: “…the power of speech is intended to set forth the expedient and the inexpedient … the just and the unjust.” The distinction between expediency and justice is intrinsic to politics. Compare the first two parts of our formula. Power is the means, justice the end. 236 The two voices of the formula correspond to law and lawsuit. Military and police are included in the concept of power—indeed, they are reduced to power by a sort of anti-personification. Men become dehumanized; they become “armed forces.” Power is the ability to move men. The source of power depends upon the regime, i.e., people, barons, the king. The king’s power is a limiting case; it comes from the gods.

64

constituted by the surrendering of power from one agent to another. The “‘x’ shall” of politics is

actualized by a surrendering of power comparable to the ekdosis which accomplishes the marital

engyê’s “I will.” In marital terms, political authority sues for power. But authority may surrender

the bride without her consent. The kind of regime determines how (whether justly or unjustly, by

consent or by force) power is given. The Britomartis myth gives us the general principles of

politics, that power freely surrenders itself to the nets of just law. Here, Aristotle’s statement

applies:

… justice is the bond of men states, for the administration of justice … is the principle of order in political society.237

By nature, an unjust regime is one which is self-destructive. It undermines its own basis of

power. Minos attempts to force the surrender of power and power flees. Just laws are grounded

in freely given power.

The political schema places injustice, unfair laws, and war on one side, justice, fair laws,

and peace on the other. It contrasts government by force with government by consent.

Government by force is comparable to rape, government by consent to engyê and ekdosis.

Britomartis allows the just nets of fishermen to rescue her. She allows them to have a

beneficial power over her. She comes under the spell of justice, becomes lawful. She lets herself

be won, or in the present case, won over. Thus, her surrender signifies persuasion,238 reciprocity,

and consensus. It signifies that which establishes the exchange structure of a regime.

The myth tells us that the direct pursuit of power is intrinsically unjust. If government

makes just, fair, and temperate laws, then the power necessary to enact such laws, will appear

237 Arist. Pol. 1253a37-39. 238 There is a cult of Artemis Peithô (Persuasion) at Argos. In its aitia the Danaid Hypermnestra undergoes both a marriage ritual and a legal trial.

65

(whether by chance, merit, or choice). In a regime true to itself means are subordinate to ends;

power, to justice and temperance.

Besides being an allegory of regime in general, the Britomartis myth can refer to a

particular regime or regimes. First, it can refer to class relationships in one kind of regime. The

myth by associating netmaking with fishermen, allegorically, associates an artisan class with a

food producing class.239 It places these two classes beside an aristocracy, signified by the king,

Minos. This arrangement corresponds to actual relationships in Minoan-Mycenaean society, and,

also, in Dorian Krete.240 The myth says that artisans and commoners are just, the king unjust and

tyrannical. The myth might express the resentment of Dorian serfs against their conquerors.241

Second, the allegory contrast two types of regimes, an unjust kingship and a just democracy.

Thus, it particularizes the general allegory of regime. Third, the myth presents an allegory of

revolution, with command being surrendered, de facto, by the king to the people.242

Finally, the allegory of power resonates with the geophysical schema “doubled up,

twisted ——> orthos.” The unjust regime of the tyrant is doubled up in contradiction to itself,

while the orthos regime stands upright, rooted in the springs of its power.243 It is true to its

239 The plurality of fishermen takes on a new meaning. 240 On the feudal structure of Minoan-Mycenaean society and its similarity to Indo-European society in general, see L. R. Palmer, Achaean and Indo-Europeans, passim, and Mycenaeans and Minoans, pp. 91-98. In this system land was divided into aristocratic individual holdings and village common land. Artisans received their land from the village. Such is also the case in Hittite legal texts, where artisans are called “men of the tool” (Palmer, Achaeans, pp. 10ff). The Dorian conquerors of Krete took over the Minoan-Mycenaean system, displacing the ruling elite and placing a tributary system over the village commune system (Willetts, ASAC, pp. 61, 161, 170, 251-52; ACSH, p. 51, 150). In the Gortyn Code, artisans were classed with metics, i.e. aliens, and both dwelled in Latosion, an old quarter of the city, possibly a sanctuary of Leto (Mother of Artemis); neither could become full citizens (Willetts, ASAC, pp. 40, 160; ACSH, pp. 107-108, 150). 241 Compare a similar resentment expressed in Hesiod’s parable of the hawk and the nightingale (O. 202-12). The nightingale, being a songbird, stands for the artisans as well as the farmers. 242 The myth, in this case, cannot refer to history; a democratic revolution never occurred in Krete (Willetts, ASAC, p , 170; ACSH, p. 150). For an example of a temporary, de jure surrender of power by a righteous king to his people, see Aeschylus’ Suppliant Maidens. 243 One could also say that an evolving cycle of regimes, such as that described Plato’s Republic, is like the series of knots or loops woven into a net; i.e. an evolving fabric of regimes.

66

constitution. Such is the city of Gortyn when it casts nets of just law for its goddess Britomartis-

Diktynna.

SACRIFICIAL LEVEL

Not only is Britomartis a bridal nymph and a nymph of justice, she is also a semi-deity, a

mediator between gods and men.244 Minos’ attempted violation of Britomartis is an impious

sacrilege, a theological hybris. It is an assault on that which links god and man. In contrast, the

fishermen’s nets save this mediator which relates them to the gods. Minos acts in desperation,

striving to catch, to seize, the divine, as if the divine could save him; while, paradoxically, it is

the nets of mortal fishermen which save the divine.245 Such is the theological law disclosed by

the myth.

In terms of piety (sebeia), the myth has the schema

asebeia —————––––––––– sebeia.

244 By semi-deity is meant a goddess of lower rank than “the immortals.” Nymphs include oreads, meliads, dryads, hamadryads, leimoniads, petraiads, potamids, Nereids, Oceanids, Hyades, and Muses. Nymphs are not immortal gods, yet they live longer than mortals (Hom. h. Ven. 1.259ff). As such they belong to that set of deities who mediate between gods and men, including daimonic heroes, satyrs, genii, etc. To be a nymph of Artemis means to belong to her realm, and to each level of this realm. Thus, Britomartis is a virgin, but also a woman giving birth; hence she falls under the sign of protection. A nymph is also a nurse; see e.g. Hes. Th. 347: Apollo, Rivers and the Potamids are kourotrophoi; and Hom. h. Ven. 1.257-275: oreads and hamadryads nurse Aeneas. In this hymn Aphrodite is herself described as a nymph of Artemis transformed into the lawful wife of Anchises. For Britomartis-Diktynna as nurse, see infra. pp. 112 ff. 245 That a mortal may stand above the divine is quite Greek. Not only can he protect and save his relationship to the divine, he can even command the divine itself. See infra, ftn. 2, p. 67.

67

Since, a sacrifice (thysia, an Olympian sacrifice) is a gift to the gods246 and accomplishes man’s

relationship to them, the schema could also read:

anti-thysia —————––––––––– thysia.

The thysia begins with a euchê (prayer vow). This sets forth the particular intent of the sacrifice.

Its general formula is: “If you (the god) do ‘x’ for me, I will do ‘y’ for you,” where ‘y’ is

commonly a sacrifice, a votive to the gods.247 The euchê institutes an exchange.

Both sacrifice and politics have an exchange structure, but these structures differ. The

political involves a third party, while the sacrificial is direct. Men and gods exchange gifts. A

man may command a gift, but he must give in return. In marital terms, he—like the god—is both

suitor and bride’s father in one. In political terms, he is both author of law and source of power.

He rules himself and is ruled by himself. He must vow to give, before he is given gifts.

The euchê is the means, the mêchanê, by which man places himself in relationship with

the gods. In terms of the euchê, the sacrificial schema is:

anti-euchê —————––––––––– euchê

Since the euchê establishes exchange, this schema has an anti-structure/structure nature like that

of the marital and political schemas.

246 O.C.D. s.v, sacrifice. Kallimachos says the Kydonians erected a bômos to the goddess. Since chthonic deities have only hearths, Britomartis-Diktynna receives an Olympian thysia. Kallimachos’ myth is not an expiatory aitia although it can be transformed into such, witness the variant of the Vatican Mythographer (1o). Evil is not slain, Minos is not sacrificed. Instead, Minos stands in the light of pathos. Compare the myth of Pan and Pitys, infra pp. 123 ff. For a concise account of Greek sacrifice see R. K. Yerkes, Sacrifice of Greek and Roman Religions and in Early Judaism, pp. 97-109. The thysia, as a festive sacrifice to the gods of the above, is the antithesis of the sphagia, a chthonic, expiatory sacrifice (Ibid., pp. 51-55). Compare also Karl Meuli, “Griechische Opferbräuche” in Phyllobolia für Peter von der Mühll, which demonstrates that the religion of stone age hunters is the proper background for understanding Greek sacrifice. Yerkes stresses that the euchê (vow) is at the center of Greek sacrifice (Ibid., pp. 100-103). However, Meuli makes no mention of it when he takes up the steps of the sacrifice. 247 Compare Yerkes, Ibid., pp. 61-62, 100-103. In Pin. O.1, Pelops commands Poseidon. Thus, one can distinguish, alongside of the common euchê, a heroic euchê, the former conditional, the latter imperative. The heroic formula is: “God, do ‘x’ for me (e.g. Give me power), and I will do ‘y’ for you,” where ‘y’ is some deed in the world (e.g. triumphing over enemies.) The hero does not use the “if,” he commands the god to give. Compare the Palaikastro hymn in which the dancers command Zeus. Jane Harrison finds this magical, irreligious, and un-Olympian (Themis, p. 10); but the opposite is true. Compare also Menelaos who masters a god (Hom. Od. 4.397).

68

On the formal level of this schema, the nets of the Britomartis myth are a symbol of

prayer. Fishermen cast forth their nets as men cast down the names of the gods as foundations for

euchê. The euchê is itself net-like, interweaving men and gods. Minos arrogantly tries to

approach the gods without prayer. He assaults the divine itself. He violates the only possibility a

man has for approaching the divine. He necessarily fails, just as he failed in politics and

marriage.

While nets can be seen, formally, as a symbol of sacrifice in general, they can also be

seen, materially, as a thing vowed and given to the gods. The Greek Anthology contains fifteen

variations of a votive in which the fisherman Kleitor dedicates his net to the god, sometimes as a

thank offering, sometimes as a petition, for a good catch.248 In a sense, he exchanges nets for

animals. Nets complement animals just as do the two sides of the Lady of Nets--on the one hand,

measure and limit, on the other, elemental power and fruitfulness.

Besides the techno-economic votive of the hunter, the Britomartis myth also mentions a

political votive. The Kydonians erected an altar to the goddess and did sacrifice. They vowed

and gave a temenos (sanctuary).249 In Minoan-Mycenaean society, the religions temenos, like

that of the artisans, came from the village.250 The same situation is found in the Britomartis

myth. There the Kydonians, i.e. the villagers, dedicated the temenos. The sacrifice gives the

goddess a domain of her own over which to rule; it gives her liberty. The votive may be likened,

248 AP. 6.11-16, 179-87. The god is Pan; it could just as well be Artemis or Diktynna. In these votives, three brothers, hunters of land, air, and sea, dedicate their three kinds of nets. In 14, 180, and 181, these nets are called their technê. In 11, Kleitor’s net is metaphorically called a chitôn (tunic); one woven thing substituted for another. In exchange for their votives, the hunters ask for (a) a good catch or an abundance of animals (11, 12, 14, 183-85, 187), (b) a good aim (16, 181), (c) power (182—here the god is called a “daimon”) and aid (180). Or, their gift is itself in thanks for a good catch (14, 179, 186). Recall Xenophon’s counsel that before a hunt one should vow a share of the spoils to Artemis Agrotera and Apollo, supra, pp. 39-40. These sacrifices are all of the thysia type. 249 The word temenos comes from a root which means to cut, to divide; it, generally, refers to a portion of land. 250 Palmer, Achaeans, p. 12.

69

to a dowry which gives a woman a stake in her new oikos.251 In Athenian law--the case may be

generalized to Krete,

a woman and her chastity are hardly protected in their own right, but only because she is the humble but necessary vehicle for carrying on the oἴkos.252

Chastity and temenos are sociologically related:253 the one yields to the other. The religious

concept of hagnos (pure, holy, sacred, chaste, virgin) is thereby associated with liberty of rule.

The virginity of Britomartis—as well as such Artemic epithets as Hagnê—must be seen in the

context of realm and Liberty. A temenos is a fitting sacrifice to the maiden Britomartis.

Minos’ attempted rape corresponds to his not-vowing a temenos. He attempts to rule a

land not his own, to seize possessions not his. His hands are unclean. In contrast to such impiety,

to vow net or temenos is to recognize the respective spheres of power which enable an exchange

of gifts.

As a net or a temenos could be a votive, so could a hymn which weaves praise for a

god,254 Kallimachos’ Hymn to Artemis, as an invocation and gift, is a poetic votive.

Nets, temenos, and hymn—these are all tokens of sacrificial exchange.

Finally, Britomartis-Diktynna is she who receives the votives. She is nymph and goddess

of the hunt. She is a “Mistress of Animals,”255 a guardian who keeps or releases the game

251 (house); see supra, ftn. 171, p. 50. 252 Harrison, p. 38. 253 In the Gortyn Code a provision states for cases of marriage between a free woman and an unfree man that if the latter lives in the woman's house, the, children shall be free, but if the free woman lives with the unfree man, the children shall not be free. (Willetts, ASAC, pp. 34-36). Here the feminine oikos liberates and legitimizes the children. Willetts takes this as a matrilineal-matrilocal survival. One can as well assume it is no survival, but reflects hypogamy. 254 There is a cult of Artemis Hymnaia at Arkadian Orchomenos. There a priest and priestess dedicated their lives to chastity and never entered a private house (Paus. 8.13.1). Note the conjunction of chastity and oikos. Also, in Arkadian Kleitor is a river in which the fish sing like thrushes, especially when netted (Paus. 8.21.2, and Peter Levi's footnote 146 thereto, pp. 420 of his translation). It is striking that no cult was associated with these fish. 255 The phrase “Mistress of Animals” translates the potnia thêrôn of Hom, Il. 21.470, where it is an epithet of Artemis. For an account of the “Mistress of Animals” type, its history and its present status in research on Greek

70

depending upon the hunter’s virtue. We have discussed, at the economic level, virtues associated

with hunting. Most crucial is the hunter’s piety. For the fishermen, their hunt is grounded by a

euchê between them and their goddess. The hunters barter with Diktynna over the creatures of

the sea. Theology and economics meet. The exchange system is self-regulating; its end is

equilibrium. Diktynna is the mistress of the dialectic between vaunt and dearth, between the

extremes of too large and too small a catch. The hunter’s votive moderates things. He vows to

give up a share of his spoils before the hunt, or he does so afterwards. From an abundant catch he

returns some, or gives some other votive, to the goddess. If he catches too few, he must make

expiation, giving, that the goddess might give. The euchê establishes temperance. Hybrizein is to

glory in too large a catch, to take what is not rightfully one’s own, to keep it all to oneself. Or,

like Minos, it is to make no beginning vow and, thus, to fail at any catch.

The true hunter fears that he has taken too many of Nature’s creatures. The “wanton

killing of animals” is “an offense against the god …”256 The hunter even feels shame at the very

act of killing and has elaborate rituals for displacing the blame from himself to others, the god,

his arrow or spear, accident, etc.257

Adolf Jensen says:

The “Master of Animals” is protector of all game. At the same time he leads it to the hunter and generally determines the relationship between the hunter and prey, since without him there can be no successful hunt. The significance lies in the limited and measured taking of animals and the observance of many rules; their violation would transgress the religious ethos.258

Religion, see Nilsson, MMR, pp. 360-61, 506-13, et passim. For a general account of the master or mistress of animals in primitive religion, see Jensen, Myth and Cult, pp. 138-40, 163-64. 256 Jensen, Myth and Cult, p. 138. 257 Friedrich, “Forschung,” pp. 21-25; Jensen, pp. 163-64; Meuli, “Griechische Opferbräuche,” pp. 225-33; 248-52; 154, 266, et passim. Even in the Britomartis myth, success is ascribed to the nets, not to the fishermen. 258 Jensen, p. 138, emphasis added JBH. Jensen goes on to say that these rules are often to effect a rebirth of the slain animal (p. 138, cf. Friedrich, passim; Meuli, passim) and to restore equilibrium as if there were a finite and fixed number of creatures. He also stresses that the hunt god intervenes in man’s life to maintain order (pp. 139-40). It is sometimes said that primitive hunt rituals are magical means to increase the food supply (see e.g., E. O. James, Myth

71

This passage is applicable to the Britomartis-Diktynna complex. The key which unlocked the

previous levels of the Britomartis myth, unlocks the sacrificial level, namely temperance.259

Earlier,260 we described a twofold, aspect of the Lady of Nets. As nymph caught in the

nets, she signified overflowing abundance, the fertility of nature, nets teeming with fish. As the

lady who rules over nets, she signifies artifice and limit, order and measure. Now, these two

sides of the goddess have reappeared on the sacrificial level. The hunters vow for an abundant

catch and call on the divinity for beneficial powers. The providence of the goddess is such that

the catch must be limited and measured. Such is the temperance of Britomartis-Diktynna.

Elemental power and limit harmonize in the serene beauty, in the grace or the Goddess.

INTEGRATION

The sacrificial level is our last level for analyzing the Britomartis myth. We have already

shown some of its integrations with previous levels, namely, nets as a technê sacrifice, temenos

as a political sacrifice, and the hunt sacrifice to the Mistress of Animals.

We have also touched on the common vow structure of marriage, politics, and sacrifice.

The whole system of marriage exchange, which is a self-regulating system of temperance which

functions to maintain the circulation of daughters without imbalance or accumulations by any of

the partners, is, at the same time, a, sacrificial system. Engyê is euchê. The father, who would and Ritual in the Ancient Near East, pp. 21-31; G. Rachel Levy, Religious Conceptions of the Stone Age, pp. 40-41). One could as well say that the rituals are means to decrease the supply. The goal is neither one nor the other, but equilibrium and. temperance. Jensen says (p. 138): “Hunting magic should be spoken of in full awareness of the fact that the term explains nothing, that something inexplicable is given a name and probably a wrong one at that.” Indeed, in our case the term “magic” would miss euchê exchange and temperance. 259 Vidal-Naquet criticizes Meuli for not differentiating primitive hunt ritual from the later aristocratic chase (“Chasse et Sacrifice,” p. 404). Note, however, in the Britomartis myth, chase and hunt are in a structural opposition, with a positive value attached to the latter. Thus, we assume that what is said of the primitive hunt god is applicable to Britomartis-Diktynna. One could fruitfully complement Meuli’s analysis of hunt survivals in Greek sacrifice with the concept of euchê and temperance. The apportionment of the victim shows such. 260 See supra, pp. 34-35.

72

tyrannize his daughter, is himself subject to the rule of exchange which demands that he

surrender her. In political terms, the source of power is subjected to the rule of law. The father is

called to rule over himself, to subdue his own incestuous desires, to sacrifice them to the whole,

and, in so doing, to establish that inward and public proportionality which is the mark of

temperance.261

In the following we will consider several Greek sacrificial rituals, the thysia aparchê, the

bridal hairclipping proteleia, and the Athenian marriage ceremony. Each of these may be

clarified by (and, at the same time, help enrich and confirm) our interpretation of the Britomartis

myth. These three rituals form a complex which interweaves sacrificial, marital, and geophysical

levels and which, like the Britomartis myth, uses “shaggy oaks” imagery.

In the light of the Britomartis myth, two steps of the thysia are striking.262 In the second

of the preparatory stages of the thysia, after the purification, underground barley grains are

scattered over the victim and altar (an act called oulochutai);263 oak leaves may substitute if

barley is not available. Then, after a euchê264 some hair is clipped from the forehead of the

victim and cast into the fire (an act called aparchê265). Then the animal is killed.

261 For a provocative account of the relationship between virginity, marriage, and sacrifice see John Layard, “The Incest Taboo and the Virgin Archetype,” Eranos-Jahrbuch, XII, 1945, pp. 254-307. It should be compared to the massive account of the same phenomenon given by Claude Lévi-Strauss in his The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Both works were written at approximately the same time and arrived at very similar conclusions. 262 For an account of the thysia see Yerkes, Sacrifice, pp. 97-109, esp. 100; Meuli, “Griechische Opferbräuche,” pp. 264-70; also Hom. Od. 11.257-58; E. Ph. 1525; E. Or. 96. 263 Meuli, pp. 256-66, finds both the oulochutai and the aparchê inexplicable. Oddly, he does not take aparchê as a survival of hunt ritual, a share of the catch returned. Yerkes, pp. 100-101, finds the oulochutai obscure, its continuance due to “religious conservatism.” He views it as a survival from a time when harvest rituals involved the returning of first fruits to the earth (i.e. he calls the oulochutai an aparchê, using the latter term in its sense of first-fruits offering). Ancient authorities defined oulai as “whole, unground” grain: more recent scholars, likening it to the Roman mola, as “bruised or coarsely ground” grain (L-S. s.v. oulai). 264 Yerkes, pp. 100-103, says that a prayer is made between oulochutai and aparchê; Meuli makes no mention of this. 265 The word aparchê is the technical term for this act. The word also means first-fruits offerings, the beginning of a libation, and, in general, the beginning of a sacrifice.

73

Here oak leaves are associated with animal hair and both with the theme of sacrifice. In

the Britomartis myth oak leaves and hairiness were combined in the “shaggy oaks” image. In the

myth this image signified violence and hybris. In the thysia the oak leaves are a substitute for

unground barely grains, i.e. grains which are still in their natural, uncivilized state. Oak leaves

are in a similar state. The scattering of oak leaves suggests the autumn, violence destroying

growth. The casting of oak leaves into the fire is, paradoxically, the casting of seeds into the

earth. This is a metaphorical inversion. The ending of violence is the beginning of planting. A

euchê makes for temperance. The gods become guests at the feast. In addition, we can say that

the movement from oak leaves to hairclipping is analogous to the mythic movement from shaggy

oaks to the implicit cutting of rushes.266 The cutting of rushes, as the beginning step in the

making of nets, is literally, an aparchê (a beginning) of temperance. While shaggy hair is a sign

of arrogance, clipped hair is a sign of temperance. Pliny says that hair is a mark of puberty, no

hair a mark of sterility.267 Both the aparchê and the myth place fertility in a context of sacrifice

and temperance. Pliny also says that hair clippings cure gout.268 The clippings of hair make for

flexibility.

The above interpretation of the aparchê sheds some light on the significance of the

widespread proteleia in which a bride clips a lock of hair as a votive to marriage deities.269 At

266 If one here substitutes for rushes, reeds--a transformation from sea hunting to fowling—one finds a second analogy. In ancient times the proper time for cutting reeds, which were to be used for flutes was in Boedromion, about the rising of Arcturus (Thphr. HP 4.11.4), i.e. about the time of the trees began to lose their leaves. Shaggy oaks lost their leaves when reeds were cut for song. Compare also the belief criticized by Theophrastus (HP. 4.11.2) that a reed must grow 9 years before it is ready for cutting. Nine years is half the eighteen at which a youth became an ephêbe at Athens. It was common in Greece that a boy on becoming an ephêbe might have his hair clipped. Compare the Hyperborean ritual at Delos; the case of Orestes, A. Ch. 7. Nine years of natural growth, nine more till a full citizen, a social growth. 267 Plin. HN. 11.94. 268 Ibid., 28.9. 269 Proteleia is the first of the three days which comprised the marriage ceremony; in general, proteleia are any sacrifice made before a solemnity. Literally, the word means “beginning” just as does aparchê.

74

Delos, both ephêbes and bride dedicate locks to the Hyperboreans.270 That the aparchê and the

proteleia had similar meanings is confirmed by Hesychius. He says that the day before a

wedding is one of feast and sacrifice, including proteleia, aparchê, and hairclippings to the

gods.271 Of the meanings of aparchê, only its thysia use would make sense here, and then only if

it were being metaphorically applied to the bridal hairclipping ritual. Note also that Hesychius,

instead of using a word such as keirô (to clip, cut short), uses the more suggestive aphairesis

(deprivation, robbery).272 The robbery motif we have already seen in the Britomartis myth. The

shaggy Minos attempts to rob Britomartis of her love. She steals away to a more virtuous

lover.273 Minos is left empty-handed as if he himself were robbed.

Finally, the Athenian marriage ceremony,274 like the thysia and the Britomartis myth, is

marked by a movement from shaggy oaks through sacrifice to civilized, temperate technê.

The wedding lasts three days, and on the eve of the second day a feast, which precedes

the procession, is held at the house of the bride’s father. During this feast the bride is veiled and

eats with her handmaidens at a table separate from the main table. During the meal a pais

amphithalês (boy with both parents living), wreathed with thorny plants and oak leaves, hands

out loaves of bread from a liknon basket and says: “ephygon kakon heuron ameinon.”275

The veiling of the bride is associated with the wild oak leaves276 and sharp thorns,277 just

as the nymph hid under shaggy oaks. The pais amphithalês is like one ruled by Artemis

270 Hdt. 6.31-36; Paus. 1.43.4. Also cf. Alkathous’ shrine of Iphinoe (Paus. 1.43.4); Troizen (Paus. 2.32.1). 271 Hsch. s.v. proteleia and gamôn ethê. 272 Compare supra, p. 40, where Xenophon uses the same verb to speak of “rooting out” baseness and hybris. 273 Britomartis’ leap into the sea might correspond to a bridal path; it is usually taken on the day of proteleia. Erdmann makes such an association (Ehe, footnote 17 to page 253). However, as we have noted time and again, Kallimachos and others say that Britomartis leapt not into the sea, but into fishermen’s nets. The sea-leap is only a significant image in the last variant by the Vatican Mythographer. 274 For an account of the ceremony, see Pernice, Privatleben, pp. 51-57; Erdmann, Ehe, pp. 250-66. 275 “They fled evil, they found (discovered, invented) the better” (Zenobius Proverbia, 3.98; Athen. 5. 185B). 276 Leaves are only mentioned, not fruits. Leaves signify, not the fruitful, but that which, though a part of growth, withers and falls into oblivion.

75

Paidotrophos. The transition from evil to better is one from oak leaves to sharp thorns to bread.

This signifies a movement from violence to sterility to domestic society.278 The “transition to

bread” also suggests the technê of breadmaking. In this case, the transition to a new life involves

the ‘inventing’279 of bread. Raw grains280 must be ground to flour, flour used to make dough, and

dough kneaded281 and baked. The schema “oak leaves and sharp thorns ——> grains ——>

bread” is like the schema of the Britomartis myth “shaggy oaks and bottom lands ——> rushes

——> nets.” Both are tempering processes. Finally, note that the bread itself is dispersed from a

liknon, a basket which could be woven like a net, from rushes.282

With the casting of the “shaggy oaks” image into a context of sacrifice and temperance,

our hermeneutic of the Britomartis myth has come one full circle.

The various levels, schemata, and mediators of this variant can be summarized as follows:

277 For more on the motif of sharp thorns, see infra, pp. 160ff. 278 Marcel Detienne gives an excellent interpretation of Greek marriage as a transition from “nature to culture,” thorns signifying nature, and bread, Hera and Demeter’s domesticity (Les Jardins D’Adonis, pp. 215-19). He analyzes the ritual in terms of a Demeter/Aphrodite opposition. We analyze the ritual in relation to Artemis, and we stress the technological level. 279 The verb heuriskô (to find, discover) has a secondary meaning: to invent. Cf. exheuriskô (to find, discover, invent). 280 Compare the oulochutai. 281 In the making of pottery, the kneading of the clay is called “tempering.” 282 In the marriage procession the bride carries a pan for grilling grains; an infant accompanies the procession and carries a sieve (koskinon); and the parents hang a pestle on the nuptial door. In this ceremony, the technê motif is triply accented. The pan signifies that the bride now works with her own hands (autourgia) or earns her own daily bread (alphitourgia) (Solon acc. Pollux 1.246; Pollux 3.37). The pestle suggests the making of bread. A sieve held by an infant could be a cheese sieve (talaros), made of withies or rushes. For more on cheese, children and the trephological code of the Diktynna ritual, see infra, pp. 112ff. Also, another name for sieve is a diktyon (Hsch. s.v. diktyon).

76

Kallimachos’ Britomartis Myth (1g): Levels and Schemas

Geophysical mountains —— bottom lands ——> sea high ——–––– and —––––—> low land —–— shaggy oaks ——> water anti-orthos ———————–——> orthos

Technological bare hands —––— rushes —–––—> nets

Geo-technological shaggy oaks —— technê of —–—> nets bottom lands weaving

Economic anti-hunt —––––— nets ——––––> hunt

Biological expanding, —— contracting —–—> releasing, retaining (opening of ejecting, os uteri) delivering (9 months) * * * * *

Marital anti-engyê ——————–—––—> self-engyê ekdosis

Eco-marital anti-marriage ——————–——> marriage contest contest

Political king’s adikê -——————–––—> fishermen’s cheirôn nomos —————–——> dikês nomos

Sacrificial asebeia –———–––—–————> eusebeia anti-thysia ————––——–——> thysia anti-euchê ————––——–——> euchê

Reviewing this chart, it is evident that there are two distinct kinds of schemata. In the first group,

each mediator is a coincidentia oppositorum. For example, bottom lands are “midway” between

mountain and sea or land and water; rushes as sharp/flexible are a mediating analog between

bare hands and nets; nets are a mêchanê combining pliancy and power; the uterine mouth, a

mêchanê which combines contracting and opening. In the second group, each mediator is a

77

dialectical structure relating persons (who are by nature not “opposites”). Each mediator is both a

mêchanê (means, instrument) to some end and the end itself, a telos (a technêma, a poiêma). It is

both a system of exchange and the medium of exchange (the token which establishes that

exchange).283 For example, nomos is both an instrument to some end and that which structures

polity as such. Schemata of this second group are of the type “anti-structure –––> structure,”284

in other words, transformations from unmediated to mediated states, discontinuous leaps into

system. Unmediated states are not negative states but rather “inverse” states, undifferentiated,

paradoxical in value, mysterious.

The myth—and myth in general?—in possessing two sorts of schemata is simultaneously

a reconciliation of opposites and a differentiation into relationship. In terms of its mediators,

which are coincidences of opposites, mêchanê, and technêma, a myth exists in itself as a pure

theoretical truth, a vision, for others as an instrument for praxis, and for itself as a beautifully

designed and crafted artwork, a pure pleasure.285

The two implicit schemata have mediators which are not of either group. The technê of

weaving is less a coincidentia oppositorum and more a rhythmical swaying, pure motion,

gesture. The marriage context is not an end in itself, but solely a means for displaying virtue,

passion which is tempered. Along with weaving, the primal, latent action of the myth, and

marriage context, the primal, latent metaphor of the myth, I add rushes, the primal, latent symbol

of the myth. The rush signifies that power found in an apparently weak thing. Weaving, contest,

283 Compare the fourfold complex of words descended from the I.E. root *me- (to measure): (1) *mei- (exchange and barter), means, medium of exchange; (2) *med- measure, divide, middle, mediate, mediator, mean average, means to do something; (3) *main- meaning, medication, meditation; (4) *megh- might, main, may, means, machine, mechanism. 284The anti-orthos and anti-hunt schemata are not quite of this type. 285A myth is both science and poetry, intellect and feeling, form and action, intuition and sensation. It is scalpel, surgery and healing--it is pure spirit.

78

rushes--these are triple aspects of the myth.286 Gesture, virtuous passion, power—here meaning

has descended into pure energy.

Two of these aspects, namely the “rush” symbol and the “contest” metaphor are

analogous to the two aspects of the Nature Goddess, which we have already discerned.287 She

signifies a personification of elemental energy, a dryad, a power of fertility, an abundant catch of

fish: and, as she who rules over nets, she signifies measure and limit, order and artifice. Thus, the

central message of the myth would be that Nature is tempering. This holds for all of Nature,

rushes, fish, and man—plant, animal, and human. It is of the utmost importance to this thesis that

two aspects of temperance be discriminated. Nature’s temperance is both energy and limit.

Plato says that for a man to establish a healthy and temperate relationship to himself, he

must feed desire according to its needs, place spirit within measure, and feast reason on beautiful

arguments. Thus, a man sees the truth and has lawful dreams.288

For Plato temperance is twofold; it is a measured surrender, a yielding and a limiting.

This accords with the fishermen’s wisdom and with the tempering Goddess.

But, is Nature tempering? What of Minos? Was he not violent and intemperate? What

then of Nature?

While Minos would seize Britomartis, his attempt fails. Intemperance defeats itself, and,

in so doing, like a shaggy oak, paradoxically, serves to protect Britomartis. She remains

concealed in rushes. She is only revealed by means of temperance. The mystery is that the

maiden is not forced, that there is no violation. This is a central mystery of the myth: there is no

excess. It has no substance in reality. Being unnatural, it is without nature. In terms of

286 And of the mythologem as a whole, compare the chart of “imaginative data” in the Conclusion. 287 See supra, pp. 34-35, 72. 288 Rep. 571c-72b. Cf. 398b, 410d-e, 430d-432a, 443d-e. I use the word “measure” for the Platonic “metrios” (within measure, moderate, temperate).

79

childbearing, what pains there are, are, if truly seen, the very rhythm of birth. In essence things

are a question of timing. In reality there is nothing in excess. Man cannot approach the gods, it

would be excess. Yet, the beautiful, the desired, presents itself to man, in its own proper time. It

may not be seized otherwise. Nature is measured.

Thus, besides the Delphic inscriptions “Know thyself” and “Be temperate,” is that which

now rings true:

Mêden agan˙ en kairoi panta prosesti kala.289

289 Chilon acc. D.L. 1.41; cf. Arist. Rh. 1389b4, Solon acc. D.L. 1.63. Traduttore-Traditore. Literally: “Nothing in excess; at the proper time all beautiful (or good) things are present (or are at hand).” Or, “all beautiful things are involved in (or, belong to) kairos.” Cf. Thgn. 335: “Push nothing to excess; in all things the mean is best. And in this, Kyrnos, you will have virtue, which is hard to get hold of.”

80

CHAPTER IV

KALLIMACHOS’ DIKTYNNA RITUAL

We must now consider Kallimachos’ account of the festival at the Kydonian

Diktynnaion. He says that on that day the garland is pine (pitys)290 and mastich, but “the hands

touch not myrtle,” because a myrtle branch entangled in the maiden’s robe as she fled Minos and

she was angered at it.

The meaning of this ritual lies in obscure, if not dangerous, waters.

I say “obscure” because, so far, the meaning of the ritual has not been properly clarified.

Jessen, in his article on Diktynna,291 finds the meaning of this rite “still not cleared up.” M. P.

Nilsson can only agree with him.292 E. Maass and R. Holland do not discuss the rite. L. R.

Farnell only speaks indirectly of “some ritual practiced in the worship of the divinity of

vegetation.”293 H. J. Rose, a student of Farnell, in his article for the Oxford Classical Dictionary,

makes no mention of the ritual, while elsewhere he regrets that we know little about it.294 R. F.

Willetts likewise does not mention the ritual.295 Wolfgang Fauth, in his article on Diktynna,296 is

also silent on the issue, although in his Hippolytos und Phaidra, he does say that myrtle is a

symbol of Aphrodite and thus hated by Britomartis the virgin.297

I say “dangerous” for several reasons. First, it is dangerous to interpret the ritual by

comparing it only to the Britomartis myth. This danger can be avoided by treating the rites in

290 The pitys, or Aleppo pine, can be distinguished from the peukê, or Corsican pine, and the elate, Silver fir. These are the three main pines of ancient Greece (Thphr. HP. passim). 291 R-E. s.v. Diktynna. 292 Feste, p. 227 and footnote 1 thereto. In his MMR, Nilsson discusses the myth of Britomartis but makes no mention of the ritual (pp. 509-13). 293 Cults, p. 478. 294 O.C.D. s.v. Britomartis; A Handbook of Greek Mythology, p. 118. 295 That is, not in ASCH, CCF, or ACSH. 296 KP. s.v. Diktynna. 297 P. 505. His interpretation is clearly influenced by the topic of the work as a whole.

81

isolation and seeking to discover their inner coherence.298 A second danger is leaping from an

element in the ritual to the same element in some other myth or ritual and supposing that the

elements means the same thing in each case. Fauth succumbs to this temptation when he

supposes that myrtle signifies the same thing in the Phaidra myth as in the Diktynna ritual. A

third danger is the indiscriminate use of the preconceived interpretive categories from such fields

as comparative religions or anthropology. Farnell’s “divinity of vegetation” is such a category.

Its vagueness, rather than clarifying matters, impedes research. Our hermeneutical principle will

be that of phenomenological consistency. We must consider the ritual as coherent and

meaningful in itself, as a structural whole, which, if allowed, will tell its own unique tale.

To interpret the ritual, we must ask what myrtle, pine, and mastich signify for the

ancients. We can learn this from their ethnography.

First, we will consider the appearance and habitat of the plants themselves. In this case,

myrtle stands in marked contrast to pine and mastich. The former is an evergreen shrub whose

smooth, egg-shaped leaves are dotted with glands which are aromatic when crushed.299 The

pine300 and mastich are both resinous evergreens on which form dakrua (tears) of resin.301 The

pine has needle-shaped302 or “hair-like”303 leaves; the mastich, blunt, lance-like leaves and a

strong acrid smell.304 They myrtle is a fragile, cultivated (hêmeros) plant requiring much

298 Nur Yalman, “The Structure of Sinhalese Healing Rituals,” follows a similar procedure. He notes that “the question of the interrelationship between myth and ritual is still wide open; he cites both Lêvi-Strauss who says that the relationship is not one-to-one but a dialectic and Nadel who doubts any connection between the two realms (p. 115 and footnote 2 thereto). 299 Oleg Polunin and Anthony Huxley, Flowers of the Mediterranean, pp. 133-34. 300 Kallimachos’ “pitys” I take to be the Aleppo pine; see supra, footnote 290, p. 80. Compare Polunin, Flowers, pp. 53-54. 301 Thphr. HP. 9.1.1-4. 302 Polunin, pp. 53, 119. Thphr. says pitys leaves are “like the teeth of a comb” (1.10.4) and spiny at the tip (1.10.6). 303 So the Arkadians say (Thphr. HP. 3.9.4). 304 Polunin, pp. 53, 119.

82

pruning, pungent manure, and much water.305 It is abundant in the well-watered “plains” of

Latium.306 Along with sweet bay (daphnê), it is the least able of cultivated plans to thrive in cold

regions.307 The pine is a wild (agrios) plant.308 It does not submit to being cultivated and even

deteriorates under such conditions.309 The Idaeans call it parhalian (seaside pine) to distinguish it

from the pines which grown on Mt. Ida.310 It is very drought resistant311 and thrives in cold,

northern regions.312 Its ability to grow well in cold regions, one might surmise, is due to its resin,

which, like all resins, including that of the mastich, is, by nature, “warm.”313 The mastich, like

the pine, grows wild;314 so does the pine thistle (ixinê), a spiny, thistle-headed undershrub, found

only in Krete, and from which “thorn mastic” is made.315

According to Theophrastus, the opposition hêmeros/agrios, which can be used to

distinguish myrtle from pine and mastich, is equally applicable to animals and, even, to man.316

The realm structured by this opposition, a realm of plant, animal, and human nature, is the realm

of Artemis Hemeros and Artemis Agrotera.317 The motif of taming combines economic (having-

caught) and political (having-ruled) levels.

305 Thphr. HP. 1.14.4; 2.7.2-3. 306 Thphr. HP. 5.8.3. 307 Thphr. HP.4.5.3. 308 Thphr. HP.3.9.4. 309 Thphr. HP.1.3.6. 310 Thphr. HP.3.9.1. 311 Polunin, p. 119. 312 Thphr. HP. 4.5.1. 313 Plin. HN. 24, 28, 23; Arist. Mete. 4.8. 314 Plin. HN. 15.31 speaks in derogatory terms of those who would cultivate mastich. 315 Thphr. HP. 6.4.3-5, 9; 9.1.2-3; Plin. HN. 12.36. The ixinê is also called ixia (Thphr. HP. 9.1.3), a name which is also applicable to mistletoe. Another spiny plant, native to Krete, whose gum is like that of the mastich, is the goat thorn (tragakantha), see infra, pp. 160ff. 316 Thphr. HP. 3.2.2, 1.3.6. See C.D. s.v. hêmeros. 317 See Appendix B. Cf. Artemis Aitolia, to whom the Veneti, famed tamers of horses, sacrificed (Hoenn, Artemis, p. 45 and footnote 34 thereto; Frazer, Golden Bough, I, I, p. 27; cf. Alcm. Partheneion. We saw the Mistress of Animals as keeper of the game; she is also the Tamer. Cf. Charles Picard, Éphèse et Claros, pp. 377, 499ff; Jules Herbillon, Artémis Homérique, p. 50, on Od. 6.99ff, where Nausicaa is compared to Artemis, a virgin “untamed” or “unwedded,” with a metaphor between taming and marriage.

83

The myrtle is the fragile, exotic plant dependent upon external water and warmth and

upon man for pruning and pungent manure that it may flourish. Its own sweet perfumes, though

by nature hot,318 are not enough for it to live. Mastich and pine are untamed, sturdy, strong,

enduring. They have needles and thorns. They depend upon their own inner resources, their inner

heat, for survival.

The distinctive contrast between myrtle and mastich-pine can be deepened by analyzing

the contrasting uses of each, namely perfumes and resins. The name pitys is itself one whose

Prot-Indo-European root denoted “resin, gum,” and was used to differentiate resinous trees from

the rest.319 “Myrtle” is not a PIE word.320 It is part of a semantic complex which denotes

aromatic plants and their perfumes; the word is of Arabian321—indeed, “exotic”—origin.

Myrtle bark, flowers, and leaves, when crushed, produce an aromatic which can be used

to make a perfume,322 and one which is etymologically, as well as mythologically, related to

myrrh.323 Myrtle is a panacea, esp. for wounds and ulcers, because of its warm, astringent

nature.324 Its berries were used as a seasoning before pepper was imported.325 Oil extracted from

the berries was smeared on strainers to purify wine.326 The oil itself could be made into a wine

which was “never inebriating.”327

318 Spices and perfumes are hot, astringent, and bitter (Thphr. Od. 32-34). Their hot, drying, astringent powers are useful in medicines (Ibid. 35-36). Cf. J. Innes Miller, The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire, pp. 3-5; Marcel Detienne, Les Jardins d’Adonis, pp. 28-30, et passim. 319 See P. Friedrich, Proto-Indo-European Trees, pp. 34-35, 159; the radical *pytw defines that class of trees which produce resin. 320 Ibid., p. 161. 321 Webster’s, s.v. 322 Polunin, pp. 133-34; its present day name, “Eau d’Anges.” 323 For the myth of Adonis’ birth, see infra pp. 120ff. On Adonis, Aphrodite, and perfumes in general, see Marcel Detienne, Les Jardins d’Adonis. 324 Plin. HN. 15.37, 23.81, 23.82; it cures sores, ulcers, eruptions, burns, and wounds, esp. of “humid parts of the body,” gripping pains of stomach and bowels, and it prevents prolapse of the uterus. 325 Ibid. 15.35. 326 Ibid. 15.37; a latent simile between strainers and nets? 327 Ibid. 23.81; Polunin, p. 133, says that myrtle wine is “acidic.”

84

While the myrtle aromatic is gathered by crushing the leaves, which perforates the glands

which dot them, resins are obtained by a variety of means. To get resin from a mastich the stem

is punctured.328 The pine is tapped by removing a section of bark and resinous wood. Pliny

emphasizes that this is not “an incision” but “a wound.”329 One sees that Pliny himself would

read the collecting of resins in terms of a medicinal code. Theophrastos says:

The holes for the pitch fill up, so that the pitch can be again removed, in good firs in a year…330

The resinous juices converge on the wound,331 which they heal.

The self-healing power of resinous trees is surely another case of the benevolent foresight

of Nature, and one from which the woodsman takes good advantage.

In Syria, pitch is gathered by applying fire topically to the trunk,332 in Macedonia, by

cleaving the tree into short logs, piling them up, and setting the whole ablaze under a mound of

earth,333 by placing red hot stones along with resinous wood in troughs of oak,334 or by boiling

extract.335 The heating and burning of the tree increases the tearing until it flows like a stream.

In sum, cutting and applying fire are the two basic methods of collecting pitch. Cutting,

which wounds, yields a substance which heals wounds, so that the one who is wounded finds the

power to become the healer. On the other hand, since healing is, in part, constituted by a

328 Polunin, p. 119. 329 HN. 16.23. Thphr. HP 4.16.1-2 notes the inverse, that the cutting of the tree (here, a peukê) does not injure it—a complementary miracle, especially since in 9.2.8 he implies that after a few harvests the tree dies. 330 HP. 9.2.3. 331 Plin. HN. 16.23. 332 Thphr. HP. 9.3.4, 9.2.2. 333 Ibid. 9.3.1-3; sacrifice is made for abundant pitch. 334 Plin. HN. 16.22. 335 Plin. HN. 16.22.

85

temperate application of heat and is a process the tree can activate from within, burning is a

wounding which is, at the same time, an extreme and external case of healing.336

The healing virtue of pitch is due to its hot and dry nature. Aristotle says that pitch, like

birdlime (mistletoe, ixia), is more hot than cold and more airy than wet; it can never be

solidified,337 and, one may add using Aristotle’s own categories, never completely liquefied.

Aristotle’s two oppositions are solidifiable/not-solidifiable (dispersed), whose determinant is hot

or cold drying, and liquefiable/not-liquefiable, whose determinant is hot or cold moistening. The

neither/nor viscosity of pitch constitutes a sort of un-mediator338 which may be diagrammed

thus:

solidifiable

unliquefiable

unsolidifiable liquefiable

The qualities of pitch are (a) its heat which tends to unsolidify, loosen, and disperse, and (b) its

airiness which tends to unmelt and dry. In addition Aristotle defines viscosity:

A thing is viscous when it is ductile339 as well as being liquid and soft. And this characteristic belongs to all bodies with interlocking parts, whose composition is like that of chains; for they admit of considerable extension and contraction.340

Such an interlinkage of solid and void has a property which belongs neither to solids which are

tight, without gaps, nor to things made of dispersed particles. According to Aristotle, flexibility 336 For burning as the ultimate case of healing compare the Artemic myth of Broteas, brother of Niobe, who sought immortality, i.e. invulnerability, by leaping into a fire. He failed where Herakles succeeded. See also the Eleusinian Demophoon. 337 For this and the following, Arist. Mete. 4.8. 382b17, 385b5-6, et passim. That pine thistle, a source of mastic, has the same name as mistletoe is evidence that for the Kretan imagination, mastich signifies viscous resin. 338 Not an anti-mediator, since it does not divide; yet it is not a coincidentia oppositorum. 339 Ductility is the property of being extended, stretched, without breaking, and is characteristic of hair, leather, sinew, dough, birdlime, and phlegm (Arist. Mete. 4.9.386b13-17). 340 Ibid. 4.9.387a11-14; Loeb translation by H .D. P. Lee.

86

is the capacity to be bent, to be alternately shaped into concave and convex curves, and is a

characteristic of reeds and withies,341 and, indeed, rushes. In terms of contemporary physics,

resin and rushes, latent mediators of the Britomartis myth and ritual respectively, are related as

longitudinal and transverse waves. In any case, viscosity is similar to flexibility; both are

qualities of temperance. The qualities of resins are summarized in these triangles:

Resin and pitch have also a bitter taste; this is related to their astringency (i.e. capacity to

contract and bind) and mordancy (i.e. capacity to bite).342 These qualities lead us to the medicinal

uses of resin. Pliny says:

The curative properties of resins consist in their tendency to close wounds, to act as a detergent upon gatherings and to disperse them, and to cure affections of the chest.343

Gum in general coagulates the blood and heals wounds and burns.344 Pliny prescribes mastich

resin for sores, “humid ulcerations,” skill excoriations, and, generally, for “all causes in which

desiccatives and calorifices are needed.”345 Resin is a multi-purpose liniment.346 Pitch cures

341 Ibid. 4.9.385b27-38a9. 342 Compare Thphr. Od. 21, 35-36 on the medicinal virtues of things, hot, dry, astringent (styptikos), and mordant (dêktikos), esp. spices and perfumes. Resins are comparable. Thus, Thphr. HP. 9.1.2, 9.4.7 compares the appearance of mastich resin to that of frankincense and myrrh. Styptikos is from the verb styphô, meaning to contract, draw together, bind (CD. s.v.). The pine name peukê is related to the word pikros (bitter) (Frisk s.v.). The name of the birds is related to styptikos. 343 Plin HN. 24.44; see “astringency” in 24.22, 28, 64. 344 Ibid. 24.64, 22. 345 Ibid. 24.28.

>cold, >moisture

heat air

viscous

unsolidifiable unmeltable

87

sores, ulcerations, and tumors; it even makes new flesh.347 Pitch liniment heals lichens of the

skin.348 Resin, pitch, and mastich are effective upon humid areas of the body, such as stomach,

chest, genitals, and uterus.349 Resin removes obstructions from the uterus and purges it.350 Pitch

has “a warming, cicatrizing tendency” and is a remedy for catarrhs, coughs, and other phlegmatic

diseases, as well as consumption.351 Pitch cures alopecy.352 Mastich cures headaches; it is

diuretic and an anti-diarrhetic,353 while other resins are laxatives.354

The medicinal virtues of resins are paradoxical, if not marvelous. On the one hand, acting

astringently, they can heal wounds and sores. Referring to the resin triangles above, we can say

that the bleeding wounds are “unmelted”; they are dried so that the fibers may appear that bind

up the wound. The wound, a cut, is, so to speak, “un-cut.” The astringent quality also makes

resin an anti-diarrhetic. On the one hand, acting detergently, resins disperse gatherings and

obstructions; they are anti-catarrhal and clear up chest ailments such as coughs and phthisis. In

this respect, they “unsolidify,” uncongeal, unthicken, break and loosen up. This, one may say, is

due to the mordancy of resins; they bite into things and cut them up. This attribute is allied to the

hot fiery element. Plato says that fire has a pyramid shape because of its mobility and its sharp,

cutting nature.355

346 Plin HN. 24.22,23. 347 Ibid. 24.23. 348 Ibid. 24.23. 349 Ibid. 24.22,23,28. This remedy like some others resembles that of myrtle. 350 Ibid. 24.22,23. 351 Ibid. 24.23; cf. 22,28. 352 Pitch, in curing alopecy which is a form of baldness, grows hair. Its shaggy effect refers us back to the “shaggy oaks” image; though, as we will see, the wildness of pine and oak are quite distinct. Pitch is also a depilatory (Ibid. 24.23,26). 353 Ibid. 24.28; cf. 22. 354 Ibid. 24.22,23. Some of these curative powers, in the above paragraph, have been scientifically verified. Pine resins (and their bacteria) cure pulmonary infections and bronchitis (Henri Leclerc, Précis de Phytothérapie, p. 213). Terebinth resin is used as a liniment for sprains and bruises, as well as for pleurisy and bronchitis; distillated pine resin (rosin) is used in soaps and pharmaceutical plasters and ointments. Is this “vegetation magic” or, rather, a proto-science of medicine and of the imagination? 355 Timaeus, 56b-57a.

88

The contrasting medicinal powers of resins can be partially explained if one uses the

doctrine of humours as found in Hippokrates. Phlegm is wet and cold, while blood is wet and

hot.356 Pitch, as noted, is dry and hot. By such a medical arithmetic,

Pitch applied to phlegm disperses it; applied to blood dries it up. Hippokrates says that each

season has its peculiar diseases; phlegmatic belongs to winter, bloody to spring.357 The former

are exemplified by catarrhs, pleurisy, pneumonia, lethargies, colds, sore throats, coughs, pains of

side, chest and loins, headaches, dizziness, and apoplexy;358 the latter by dysentery, nose

hemorrhaging,359 melancholia, madness,360 epilepsy, bloody flux, angina, colds, sore throats,

coughs,361 skin diseases such as leprosy, lichens, whites, ulcers and tumors, and, finally,

arthritis.362 Many of these diseases, Pliny lists as being cured by resins. Resin is like a yellow

bile which is also hot and dry. Hence it is an antidote. It heals by balancing humours.363 In doing

so, it affects an act of medicinal temperance.

The diuretic and laxative properties of resins do not seem to fit this opposition. These

properties constitute a third virtue of resins, namely the capacity to make things flow more

freely. Considering the case of strangury (slow urination by drops and with sharp pain), one can

say that resins “un-sharp” or “un-cut.” The fluid viscosity of resin smoothes out the hot sting,

356 Hp. Nat. Hom. 7. 357 Hp. Nat. Hom. 7. 358 Hp. Aph. 3.23. 359 Hp. Nat. Hom. 7. 360 Nic. Alex. 301 says that pitys counters madness and intestinal troubles, as well as chameleon poison. 361 A duplication probably due to the wetness of both seasons. 362 Aph. 3.20. 363 Health is the due proportioning (metrios) of the humours (Nat. Hom. 4.5).

Phlegm Blood

wet and cold wet and hot + dry and hot + dry and hot

0 0 0 hot

89

while its natural appearance as tear drops increase the flow. Both urine and excrement are cold

and moist,364 and thus their fluidity is increased by the resin’s moisture and heat, the heat acting

to melt things.

All medicinal uses of resins can be summarized in a triangle which reflects back upon the

two triangles of resin qualities.365

As a liniment for joints and arthritis, the heat of resin loosens up muscles and tendons, making

them flexible, while the viscosity of resin takes away the sharp pains. It is fitting that

Britomartis, whose pleasure is “running and hunting,”366 is associated with the pine, whose resins

are a liniment and vulnerary.

Pliny describes a plant call tragonis (Goat) or tragion (Little Goat) which grows only in

Krete and which is probably a Kretan variety of the mastich.367 Besides its value as a liniment, it

is “remarkably efficacious for healing wounds made by arrows;”368 its gum or seed “taken in

364 Arist. Mete. 4.3.380b1-13; 4.7.384a12-34. 365 See supra, p. 87. 366 See Pausanias’ variant (1j). 367 HN. 27.115; 13.36, and the footnotes to each passage in the Bostock ed. 368 Ibid. 13.36.

laxative diuretic

unsharps, uncuts

disperses, loosens,

cuts up binds, dries

uncuts

liniment detergent

anti-catarrhal anti-consumption

anti-winter diseases

astringent vulnerary

anti-diarrhetic anti-spring diseases

90

drink, expels pointed weapons from the flesh.”369 Furthermore, it increases the flow of milk in

nursing woman and is “a sovereign remedy” for breast diseases.370 Aristotle lists milk, along

with urine, excrement, and catarrhs, as wet and cold.371 Just as resins are diuretics and laxatives,

so tragonis resin is a laxative. The viscosity of pine and tragonis functions to increase fluid flow.

The threefold powers of tragonis confirms our analysis of resins into a medicinal triangle.

Along with the Kretan habitat of the plant and its Artemic associations,372 all this supports our

thesis that resins are key to the Diktynna ritual.

Not only does pine provide resin useful in the tempering art of medicine, but pine has

other virtues which can be used to tempering purposes.

Pine, whose wood was durable and flexible, was a prime source of timber for the ancient

Greeks. It was used to build houses and ships, and especially for the bent work of triremes.373 In

terms of Diktynna, house and ship are interweavings of pine. In addition, pine was used to make

torches. The fiery and airy resin readily burst into flame. Pine, whose pitch can be obtained by

fire, is itself a source of fire. Pliny describes a “torch tree” used to kindle fires and give

torchlight in religious ceremonies.374 The torch is an attribute of Artemis; she made her first

torch from a pine.375

If one may assume pine wood was made into arrows,376 then the juxtaposition

pine/tragonis says that that which can be made into wounding arrows can also be made into a

369 Ibid. 27.115. 370 Ibid. 27.115. 371 Mete. 4.3.380b3-11. 372 Artemis is a goat goddess and huntress with bow and arrows. 373 Thphr. 5.7.1,3,5; cf. Polunin, p. 53. Compare the word elatê which means “fir,” and by synecdoche, “ship.” 374 HN. 16.19. 375 Kall. 3.116-118; peukê. Note such Artemic epithets as Pyronia, Peitho (and Beacon Festival), Phosphoros, Selenephoros, Selasphoros, and Laphria. 376 I find no classical source which can verify this, but archeology tells us that the first arrows, from the Mesolithic period, were made from pine wood (G. Clark, World Prehistory, p. 70).

91

balm for arrow wounds. This conjunction of injuring and healing virtues puts a new twist on the

same conjunction in the technology of collecting resins.

Pine tar was used to coat and caulk ships377 and pitch wine vats.378 Ships and vats were

sealed just as wounds of trees and men were sealed. The invention of nature is applied to the

inventions of man. While the aroma of myrtle diffuses through the air, viscous resins prevent

diffusion of water and wine. Myrtle fills by diffusing, resin by congealing.

While its virtue of keeping water out and wine in may seem intemperate, in fact, various

forms of pine resin were used to season and temper wine. On the one hand, resin tamed and

“subdued” wine, taking away its “harshness,” while on the other, it could make the wine “more

brisk.”379 Such a dialectical and tempering power contrasts with the puritanical absolutism of

myrtle wine which “never inebriates.”380 Wild and tamed is an opposition within the realm of

temperance.381

We may summarize our analysis of the ritual plants of Diktynna in the following sets of

semantic opposition:

377 Plin. HN. 16.21. 378 Ibid. 16.22. Was Dionysos said to have come by ship because both vats and ships were tarred? 379 Ibid. 16.22; 14.25. 380 For wine names associated with Artemis, note Oineos and Meleagros, Oinopion and Orion, Oinomaos and Pelops; on Dionysos and Artemis, see e.g. Artemis Triklaria; Ariadne. 381 In addition, the resin of mastich is today used in varnishes and as a color vehicle for oil paints (Polunin, 119, Encyclopedia Britannica s.v. resins). The art of temperance is, thus, extended to painting. Resin was also used in the encaustic wax process used by ancient Greek painters (Encyc. Brit. s.v. painting).

92

MYRTLE PINE, MASTICH, IXINÊ, TRAGONIS

Trephological

1.

Smooth, egg-shaped leaves, dotted with aromatic glands, sweet, fragrant

Needles, spines, thistles thorns, hair-like, teeth-like, acrid smell and taste

2. Fragile, thrives in warm, well-watered plains

Sturdy, loves the cold, drought-resistant, likes seaside

3. Cultivated, tamed, dependent upon man for pruning and pungent manure

Wild, untamed, rebellious independent, resists cultivation, even deteriorates under it

Medicinal 4. When crushed diffuses

an ethereal aromatic Natural tears of viscous

resin (unsolid/unliquid) and resin flows when wounded

5. Glands of hot aromatic on outside

Inner heat of resin inside, in inwardness

6. Heals others or for others through its own destruction

Heals itself and in doing so heals others, self-regulating, self-sustaining

7. Perfume, spice, astringent, purifies wine, a non-intoxicating wine

Vulnerary, astringent, bent work, caulking, liniment, diuretic, laxative, tempers wine

Once arranged, the ethnographic data begins to speak for itself. The two columns are like

two actors in a dialogue. We need only listen to decipher the Diktynna ritual. The two columns

may be split horizontally into two levels, one comprising (1) through (3), the other (4) through

(7). We have shown that the latter level is to be read as a medicinal message about the temperate

art (technê) of healing and the art of healing by tempering. How are we to understand the former

level? Its meaning is self-evident. It treats the appearance and growth of the plants, their coming

to be. It distinguishes how a plant is raised, whether tamed or left wild. It concerns the art of

domestication.

93

This second level is difficult to label with one word: however, taking off from a semantic

field which includes the word trephô, we can call it the trephological level. The verb trephô

means to make grow, increase, wax, thrive, to nourish, feed, nurse, rear, bring up, maintain,

support, or, simply, to live, to be. The verb is applicable to plants and animals, as well as men,

just as is, as we have seen, the hêmeros/agrios opposition. The secondary meaning of trephô, i.e.

to make firm, solidify, congeal, thicken (as in tyron trephein, to raise a cheese382), is

metaphorical.383 The metaphor is easily reversed; to raise children is to solidify them.

A child is raised like a cheese. Beginning with milk, which is predominantly cold and

wet,384 the watery element is separated and dried up. Aristotle tells us385 that this was commonly

done by adding rennet, which we may liken to resin, and boiling, which, as he says elsewhere,386

draws off the moisture so that the substances matures of its own inner heat. Aristotle gives us a

sort of metaphysical fusion of a technology of cheeses, an art of cooking, and physis in general.

He says that all growth and maturation takes place by pepsis (concoction) and

Its beginning is by the thing’s own heat, even though external aids may contribute to it.387

A matured substance is one that has dried and cooked. Its water has been mastered; and, it has

acquired consistency.388 Its opposite, immaturity or rawness, is characterized by unconcocted

382 A trophalis is a fresh cheese. The phrase trephein komên means to wear the hair long. Compare pêktos, meaning fixed, solid, congealed, curdled (of milk), and planted (of plants). Even more Artemic, a pêktê is a cream cheese and a bird cage. 383 C.D. s.v. 384 Arist. Mete. 384a12 ff, 382b13. 385 Ibid. 384a21-24. But in 384a12-16 he places milk in a list of things solidified by drying with cold. 386 Ibid. 380b13 ff. 387 Ibid. 479b18-23. 388 Ibid. 379b33-34; 380b6-8.

94

moisture; it is wet, cold, lacking in consistency.389 All of this helps us understand the

trephological code of the Diktynna ritual.390

The semantic field which include trephô, also includes words such as tittheuô (to suckle,

wet-nurse), tithênê (nurse), tithêneô (to tend, nurse, foster), titthasos (cultivated of plants, tamed

of animals, temperate of men), tithêmi (to place, fix, establish), and trophê (a maintenance,

livelihood, means of living, or an act of rearing children, tending animals, or a child, nursling,

brood).391

All these connotations are constituents of a trephological code whose signifiers are myrtle

and pine-mastich. Its sub-codes involve solidifying or fixing, wet-nursing, taming, cooking, and

making a living. One could say that this level is the realm ruled by Artemis Paidotrophos.392 One

need only review our structural analysis of myrtle and pine-mastich to see a correspondence

between its elements and those of the semantic field of trephô, a correspondence which makes

the label “trephological level” quite appropriate.

Botanical, technological, trephological, and medicinal levels are marvelously interwoven.

Healing, like childbearing, is a “natural act.” We can, again, affirm Galen’s observation: “Nature

is artistic and provident for living beings.”

Now that the levels (medicinal and trephological) of the Diktynna ritual have been

distinguished, we are in a position to decipher their message. We begin by asking: why is there a

389 Ibid. 380a27-b13. 390 And vice versa. Plin. HN. 11.96 says that cheese cannot be made from the milk of animals with teeth. This seeming nonsense we can explain by our resin triangle: biting is an opposition to congealing. 391 C.D. s.v. 392 Artemis Orthia also rules here. Coins indicate that Diktynna was a nurse of Zeus (R-E s.v. Diktynna, II.584). A coin from the time of Trajan shows a child in the lap of a nymph, Kouretes on both sides, and the inscription “Diktynna Kretôn” (Catal. of coins in British Museum, Crete, pl. I, 9, cited in Nilsson, MMR., p. 538, footnote 10 thereto). Clearly the coin would link Diktynna with the story of the Zeus birth on Mt. Diktê, a link already suggested by Kallimachos.

95

taboo—the word athiktos means pure, untouchable, sacred, holy—against myrtle and a

prescription to make wreaths from pine and mastich?

The medicinal remedies derived from myrtle and pine-mastich are too much alike to

answer our question. Both oil and resin, for example, are astringent, anti-dysentery, and anti-

prolaptic agents.

It is not the kind of medicines, but their technology, the way in which they are made,

which distinguishes the two kinds of plants. Myrtle heals others through its own destruction,

while pine heals itself and in so doing heals others. Pine heals its own wounds and makes itself

flexible. This is the message of the healing code.

This message is reinforced by that of the trephological level. The two levels are

metaphorically interrelated by the common term “inner heat.” The inner warmth which heals is

that which begins the process of growth and maturation.393 Pine matures by a process whereby it

heals its own wounds. Myrtle is dependent upon the cultivating parent. Pine, being essentially

dependent upon its own inner resources, its innate heat, becomes independent. Myrtle is a child,

too soft, too watery, and too exotic—in short, spoiled; pine is temperate, flexible. Pine’s

astringency unmelts; it tends to dry and sober, while its inner heat prevents extreme

solidification--it unsolidifies.

Pine grows in a cycle or spiral, each loop of which is marked by a wound and a secretion

of resin which heals that wound. Each loop is, so to speak, a binding back and together, a

tethering.394 The closing of the loop is, at the same time, a re-opening. The cycle of woundings is

393 Compare the alimentary metaphor in English, one “cures” cheeses. 394 For tethering as an Artemic motif, see infra, p. 185-186. Also compare the etymology of “religion,” religare, to bind back, together.

96

like the opening and closing of the body’s hollow organs--recall Galen’s account of the womb--

or of the mouth in song.395

In addition, pine, in healing itself, yields a gift for others; and it does this, if one may say

so, by accident. In the same way, the fishermen received into their nets the gift of Britomartis, by

chance.

The position that there are two levels to the Diktynna ritual, namely the medicinal and

trephological, and that these have a metaphorical interrelationship is confirmed by the case of the

tragonis (Kretan mastich). This plant yields medicines which both heal wounds and aid wet-

nursing. Its medicinal powers, which coincide with the medicinal triangle of resins, in terms of

our dichotomy between myrtle and pine-mastich, can be represented thus:

vulnerary lactative liniment

Since among the Greeks weaning was replaced by wine drinking, we have, on the one side,

rawness and a cold and wet liquid, and, on the other, a warm liquid matured by heat.

Medicinally, wine is remarkable for its ambivalence. It is sometimes greatly beneficial and

sometimes deadly; much depends upon whether it is used temperately.396 It is fitting that resin

tempers wine for human use, while myrtle wine, like milk, is non-intoxicating. The wine of the

grape signifies extremes and a dialectic similar to that associated with pine.

395 Curiously, the resin-like rennet which congeals cheeses is found in a hollow organ, the stomach of calves. The artifice of human culture is itself like such a self-healing secretion. For Galen, see supra, pp. 42-44, esp. footnote 139 p. 44. For the song motif, note Artemis Hymnia. 396 Plin. HN. 23.19-25, esp. 19. In a list of miraculous wines, we find an Arkadian wine which makes women fruitful and men mad, while the wine of Troizen makes women sterile (14.22).

97

In sum, we see that pine and mastich signify independence and cyclical growth by means

of self-healing inner heat, a process which indirectly heals others. Such is the meaning of

temperance, as deciphered from the medicinal and trephological codes of the Diktynna ritual.

In the light of the medicinal and trephological significance of the ritual plants, the

significance of the taboo and prescription becomes clarified.

In contrast to myth levels, the ritual level has no schema; rather, it presents a

discontinuity, an either/or, two ideal types. One does not move from one ideal type to the other.

The ritual does not present a transition from childhood to adulthood—such a leap, the myth tells

us, is a fantasy—the ritual gives the source of youthfulness.397 The “beginning” of growth—the

beginning of movement and not the movement itself—is precisely what the ideal type “pine-

mastich” signifies. Ritual, as opposed to myth, has, to use terms from the Medieval

hermeneutical quadriga, a moral or tropological sense. It tells what must be done, i.e. not this,

but that.

The Diktynna ritual places a taboo on myrtle. Myrtle is, so to speak, “bracketed.” The

effect of the ritual is to taboo that which is signified by myrtle, namely altruistic healing by being

destroyed, an exotic nature too tame and too watery, dependence upon external heat and

nourishment for growth, the loss of centeredness—in short, intemperance. Myrtle as well as its

characteristics are athiktos (holy, untouchable, pure, sacred).

As sacred (athiktos, heiros), myrtle is that which must be “sacrificed,” that which must be

given to the deity—in this case, Diktynna. Myrtle is sacrificed for pine, which is hosios

(permitted for man’s use); the divine is exchanged for the mortal. As that which altruistically

heals others through its own destruction, myrtle is an ideal victim for sacrifice. Its character is 397 Paradoxically, while the verb pêgnymi means to fix or to solidify, the noun pêgê means a fount or source. An associated word Pêgasos = the winged horse whose hoof struck forth the springs of the Helikon. The first cult to the Helikon Muses was founded by the Aloadai (Artemic heroes).

98

like that of the Greek hero,398 the daimon who rules Hades,399 and who, as a mediator between

gods and men, is essentially sacred.

The opposite of myrtle is that which is permitted to man; indeed, it is prescribed. The

ritual prescribes that man make wreaths of pine and mastich. On the one hand, it prescribes an

act of weaving, i.e. a deed of temperate humanity; on the other, it prescribes the woven itself,

which as a circle is associated with the cyclical growth of resinous trees and as a crown is a

symbol of authority and of having oneself as the center.400

So much for the Diktynna ritual. It is not difficult to conclude that our analysis of this

ritual transcends previous analyses. It transcends that of L. R. Farnell which would explain the

cult with only the phrase “worship of the divinity of vegetation.”401 It transcends the only other

important interpretation, that of Wolfgang Fauth. He believes that the myrtle was hated by

Britomartis because it was a symbol of Aphrodite and she, Britomartis, was a virgin.402 Our

analysis must contradict this. The significance of myrtle is on quite other levels.403 Here we may

add that the myth of Aristaios confirms our interpretation. Pausanias pairs this myth with that of

Britomartis.404 Its hero, Aristaios, is raised by myrtle nymphs, who teach him the arts of cheese-

making, bee-keeping, and olive-cultivating.405 Here, as in the Diktynna ritual, myrtle finds its

significance on the trephological, as well as technological, level.406

398 On the “self-destructive” as primary quality of the Greek hero see Cedric H. Whitman, Sophocles: A Study of Heroic Humanism, p. 59-60, et passim. 399 In this primitive ritual the “chthonic” is taboo. 400 In Homer, two of the thirteen epithets of Artemis are eustephanos (sweet-garlanded) and euplokamos (sweet-braided); see list in Jules Herbillon, Artémis Homérique, p. 59). 401 Cults, p. 478. 402 Hippolytos und Phaidra, p. 505. Clearly his interpretation is influenced by the topic of the work as a whole. 403 For myrtle’s significance in terms of marriage, see infra, the next paragraph. 404 Paus. 8.2.4. 405 Graves, The Greek Myths, 82d. 406 Note, the reversal from heroine to hero is accompanied by a reversal in the significance of myrtle. Here it signifies growth (cultivating, “raising” cheeses). Beekeeping signifies political community, morality, industry and energy, “neither tame nor wild” (Plin. HN. 11.4).

99

It is not inappropriate, at this point, to consider two myths, one about the origin of myrtle,

the other about the origin of pine wreaths. Each of these myths can be related to the marriage

level of the Britomartis myth.

One variant of the tale of Adonis’ birth says that his mother Myrrha (or Smyrna) was

transformed into a myrtle, the fruit of which was Adonis, i.e. the perfumes of love.407 His father

was also Myrhh’s father; Adonis was the fruit of father-daughter incest. Thus, myrtle is

associated with the unsurrendered bride, or the woman who remains the daughter and who

harbors an incestuous love for her father.408

The Adonis myth casts and aura of incest about the fragile myrtle of the Diktynna

ritual.409 There are differences, however, between the Adonis myth and the Diktynna ritual. From

the myth to the ritual is a reversal of sex: myrtle connotes a child’s dependence upon its mother,

not the clinging—indeed, the desire for union—of the daughter to the father. Also, in the Adonis

myth the active agent is the daughter, while in the Britomartis myth it is implicitly the father, the

one who will not surrender her. In sum, comparison to the Adonis myth indicates that the

Diktynna myrtle has a latent significance, i.e., father-daughter incest.410

407 Servius Danielis, in Verg. Aen. 5.72, cited in Marcel Detienne, Les Jardins d’Adonis, pp. 122-123. 408 Two other myths of myrtle, along with the Adonis tale, are enough to caution against “Euripidizing” Artemis as sexual chastity and Aphrodite as its opposite. Serv. Aen. 3.23 says that once upon a time Myrine, a beautiful maiden and priestess of Aphrodite, was turned into a myrtle because she desired to marry and give up her chastity. Geop. 11.6 tells of Myrsine, most beautiful of maidens and athlete better than all the men her age, who was slain out of jealousy. Athena, out of love for her, turned her into a myrtle. We have already seen—supra, p.70—how chastity has no significance for the Greeks except in the context of marriage and kinship. Here we see that it is not chastity/sex which is the significant opposite, but incest/marriage. Even the tale of Phaidra at Troizen, pricking the myrtle leaf (that she may be intoxicated by the perfumes of love), must be considered in the context of adultery. To confound matters, there is the tale of the founding of Boiai at the place where a rabbit hid under a myrtle plant. 409 The Adonis-myrtle myth is sufficient to indicate a ‘latent’ incest motif in the Diktynna ritual. One need not resort to the excesses of Freudianism to find ‘latent sexuality.’ Indeed, Freudianism itself uses in an a priori way the Narkissos myth; it could only cause misunderstanding in any attempt to decipher Artemic mythology. 410 In Attica, myrtle wreaths were used as a symbol of the newly married (Ar. Av, 160-161). Thus myrtle has three significances in Greek culture: father-daughter incest, mother-son incest, and marriage.

100

The motif of father-daughter incest is found in other Artemic myths, especially those

about marriage contests. A paradigm is the Orion myth in which Merope’s father refuses to

surrender her to Orion.

In the Diktynna ritual, incest becomes marked as the outwardly ethereal and aromatic and

as the inwardly cold; it stands opposed to the inward warmth and flexibility of growth. Ritually

speaking, incest is not a moral evil. It is athiktos (sacred), characterized by untouchability and

sebas (awe, honor, respect, wonder). Incest is that which is to be “sacrificed.”411

Now, Wolfgang Fauth says that the Diktynna myrtle signifies Aphrodite. His

interpretation errs in two ways. First, the hermeneutic he uses allows myrtle only one level of

significance. In effect, this relegates the symbol to no significance at all. We have seen how in

the Diktynna ritual myrtle functions on several levels, of which the trephological and medicinal

are primary. Compared to these the marital level, though central to the myth, is only ‘latent’ in

the ritual. Fauth’s too hasty comparison of elements from one myth complex to another fails to

take into account local usages. Secondly, he has misunderstood the one level he did decipher, the

marital. He mistook the significant opposition to be chastity/sex, when, in fact, it was

incest/marriage or adultery/marriage.

The second of our origin myths concerns pine wreaths. Pan tried to violate chaste Pitys.

She escaped by being metamorphosized into a pine tree, a branch of which Pan wore as a chaplet

to console himself and which later became one of his attributes.412 Instead of the surrender of

Britomartis, we have the disappearance of Pitys. Temperate fishermen do not appear. They myth

411 My analysis of the ritual confirms Mircea Eliade’s association of the “sacred” with such concepts as “taboo,” “danger,” “ambivalence,” “choice,” and “incest” (Patterns in Comparative Religion, pp. 12-19). On the other hand, his theory of “hierophany,” which holds that one thing, such as a stone or tree, manifests the sacred as a whole and as ambivalent (Ibid., pp. 23-30, 266-67, 446-52) is not applicable to the Diktynna ritual. This ritual has not one “cosmic tree” but two trees, one sacred and the other human! 412 Tale cited in R-E. s.v. Pitys, from Nonn. D. 2.108, 118; 42.258. For an example of the chaplet attribute, see AP. 6.253, a hunter gives a votive to rock nymphs, Hermes, and Pan, “the pitys crowned.”

101

focuses on the ravisher’s failure, love lost. Pan fails to get hold of Pitys, i.e. the inwardness of

pine. In the Diktynna ritual the pine wreath signified centeredness and cyclical growth; here it

means the internal circle which turns back upon itself and yields nothing new. The transposition

in the key of Pan lacks the schematic oppositions and character changes which give depth to the

Britomartis myth and Diktynna ritual.

Both Adonis and Pitys myths indicate that the Diktynna ritual has a latent level, namely

marital. Also, they indicate that this level is structured by the opposition incest/growth, where

growth includes the passage rite of marriage.

Even without these myths, one can see a marvelous resonance between the Diktynna

ritual and the marital level of the Britomartis myth. First, the cycles signified by pine can be

likened to the cycles of generalized exchange. The self-healing inner heat of pine is the father’s

inward sacrifice which complements the outward sacrifice of his daughter in marriage.413 Outer

and inner incest are overcome simultaneously. Second, the viscosity of resin—it is both fluidity

and resistance—is like the contradictory nature of generalized exchange.414 The trust which

keeps the system fluid is undermined by speculation’s resistances: (a) hot, feverish gambling

(“widening and multiplying” cycles, shortening cycles, alliances for economic gain) which seeks

to take as much as it can, and (b) vain, airy, empty speculation, indeed, the ceasing of speculation

when daughters are kept back and married within the family. The former kind of speculation tries

to speed up the cycles and prevent the system from solidifying, but causes inequities among

clans and classes, accumulations of women, general fragmentation of the system; the latter tries

to keep back daughter and dowry for fear the whole system is dissolving and causes the system

to tighten up and seize up. On the other hand, trust, in surrendering the bride, is like a releasing 413 We noted already the twining of marriage and sacrifice themes, supra, pp. 71-72 and ftn. 261, p. 72; John Layard gives a provocative account of the inner and outer sacrifices. Also, we noted the sacrificial level of the ritual. 414 Recall the two triangles of resin qualities, supra, p. 86.

102

of cool waters, a quenching of thirst.415 It is like a flowing of waters, a flowing like the viscosity

of resin, in slow meandering, full of twists and turns and weaves, full of resistances met and

overcome as the waters descend. And contest marriage is like a medicinal power which releases

and makes fluid. All these resonances are summarized in the following diagram:

In conclusion, the Diktynna ritual’s pine and mastich signify independence and cyclical growth

by means of self-healing inner heat, a process which indirectly heals others. This significance we

may call “the idea of resin.” In the light of this “idea,” Nature is characterized by interlinkages,

by timed quantum leaps of energy, by kairos. The essence of Nature, as well as the nature of

things, is measured flow.

In leaving the Diktynna ritual, we might imagine a whole host of people gathered at the

festival. They can be marked by their trophai (ways of making a living): woodcutters and

carpenters, sailors, perfumers and vintagers, fishermen and hunters, doctors, and, finally,

415 Compare the opening simile of Pi. O. 7: the marriage libation along with the imagery of votive prayer, the quenching of “song-thirst,” and the waters of Dirkê.

cold, wet viscous

unsharps, uncuts

trust, surrendering of the bride, marriage by

contest

heat prevents solidifying cuts up, disperses

air prevents liquefying binds, uncuts, dries

hot, feverish speculation

aiming to take what it can airy speculation endogamy as the

cessation of speculation

103

children who are playing and running about. Each responds in his or her own way to the Nature

Goddess Diktynna and her tempering powers.

CHAPTER V

MYTH AND RITUAL

Having considered the ritual, we now turn to examine the relationship between it and the

myth proper. Kallimachos adds—it seems an afterthought—the ritual aitia.416 As Britomartis

fled, a myrtle branch entangled in her robe.417 She was angered at the myrtle. Thus, myrtle was

placed under the negative sign of taboo, while wreaths (and the robe) were positively valued.

Clearly, there is no one-to-one correspondence between myth and ritual. Pine is not

manifest in the myth; oak, net, and robe are not in the ritual. Even the myrtle of the aitia does not

directly correspond with the myrtle of ritual. The two kinds of myrtle must be carefully

distinguished. This can be done by grasping each in relation to its opposite. In ritual, myrtle is in

opposition to pine and mastich; the one is taboo, the other prescribed. The sentence “a myrtle

branch caught (or entangled) in the maidens robe” places a myrtle branch in opposition to a robe.

While the myrtle branch would pierce and break open, the robe would enclose, cover, and

protect.

The robe is a woven piece of cloth, so woven as to be solid with no holes, while a wreath

is a woven circle, one which is open with only one hole. Both the robe and the wreath are

technêmata, the one secular, the other sacred. With respect to technê, the myrtle is taboo

416 aitia= an aetiological tale, the origin of a ritual. 417 The myrtle episode took place “when she fled.” It could have occurred on the plain, where she was almost caught before leaping into nets. This supposition is confirmed by Theophrastos’ statement that myrtle grows well in well-watered plains. If our assumption is correct, then myrtle can be likened to the sharp-rush, both in sharpness and habitat.

104

(untouchable), while the myrtle branch remains in its natural state, untouched by technê. Thus,

the aitia and ritual oppositions can be expressed in an analogy.

myrtle branch : robe : : myrtle : pine wreath

natural : secular technê : : taboo : sacred technê

Or, in a metaphorical structure:

Also, the myrtle branch damages the robe (designed to protect from damage), while the

taboo prevents myrtle from being damaged (which would yield perfume) and men weave

wreaths or crowns which signify wholeness (as well as authority and centeredness). Thus there is

an analogy of function:

damages : prevents damage : : undamaged : whole.

Finally, the myrtle branch entangles so as to unbind, while men entangle pine sprigs so as

to entwine (bind). And they bind as doctors use pine resin to bind up wounds.

The diagram above indicates a metaphorical relation between the mythical myrtle branch

and the ritual myrtle.418 A “branch” (offshoot) is metaphorically an offspring, a child. The

“branch” motif resonates on the childbirth level of the myth. A child is “entangled in” or caught

up in the cloth; a child is breaking through into life. Further, childbearing is like healing. A

widening, whether of womb or wound, is followed by a contraction and then by “salvation.” The

418 Embedded in the metaphor is a metonymic relation between the myrtle branch and myrtle as such.

secular technê (robe)

taboo (myrtle)

natural (myrtle branch)

sacred technê (pine wreaths)

105

healer’s application of an astringent, like the midwife’s call to bear down, may bring momentary

pain—it may see threatening—but it serves the long-range goal of life; the human element

completes the process of Nature. In this light, Britomartis’ anger seems unnecessary, a

misunderstanding.

Life is not so perfectly and tightly organized as not have some loose ends, or, as not to let

new life break through. The myrtle branch justly points out the human factor, the

incompleteness, the unfinished nature of a man’s life.

Childbirth, medicinal, and trephological (growth) levels are interwoven. Giving birth, like

healing and maturing, “takes time.” What may seem like a delay or obstacle is, in fact, the kairos

of Nature.419

The myrtle branch, then, has positive as well as negative aspects. (Or maybe neither

valence is fitting.) It is new power that is breaking into the old order;420 and, like the rush, it

awaits its being transformed into a new harmony.

The diktamnon (Dittany),421 like the tragonis an herb said to be found only in Krete,

confirms our reading of a metaphorical relationship between the healing level of the Diktynna

ritual and the childbearing level of the Britomartis myth. The very name of the plant is related to

Diktynna and Mt. Diktê. Like the pine, this plant has medicinal virtues due to its innate heat.422

Theophrastos says the plant is “marvelous in its power and useful for many purposes, especially

for women in childbirth.”423 The leaves given in drink ease a difficult labor or make the pains

419 Myrtle prevents premature delivery by closing the uterus (Plin. acc. George Thomson, Studies in Ancient Greek Society, Vol. 1, p. 218). Pine resin is a uterine purgative and abortive. 420 Compare Mircea Eliade on the “irruption” of the sacred into the profane (The Sacred and Profane, p. 45; Patterns in Comparative Religion, pp. 14-19). 421 For an account of the diktamnon see KP. s.v.; also Fauth, Hippolytos und Phaidra, pp. 503-504. Fauth says that in Greece the diktamnon was called Artemidion. 422 Plin. HN. 25-53; its taste is “hot and acrid;” and 20.55. Compare Thphr. HP. 9.16.1. 423 Thphr. loc. cit.; he likens it to a pennyroyal (blêchôn). Plin. HN. 20.55 says it is wild pennyroyal and called so because of the bleating of goats who eat it. Hsch. s.v. diktamnoeides = a kind of pennyroyal (glêchôn).

106

cease entirely.424 The plant is quite rate because goats are fond of it; and, it is said that “if goats

eat it when they have been shot, it rids them of the arrow.”425

Like the tragonis, the diktamnon “expels arrows,” but unlike it, the nursing function is

replaced by a childbearing one, Paidotrophos by Locheia.426

In addition, there is a “false diktamnon” whose powers are inferior to those of true

diktamnon. Theophrastos thinks that the two plants are the same, but the false diktamon’s virtues

are weaker because it is raised in rich soil, while the true diktamnon “loves rough ground.”427

Likewise, Pliny says that true diktamnon lives only “in rugged, uncultivated spots.”428 The

uncultivated nature and rugged habitat of the diktamnon is like that of the pine. This likeness

helps confirm my interpretation of “pine” in the Diktynna ritual.

The virtue of diktamnon is preserved by being kept in a hollow fennel or reed.429 By the

“logic” of metaphor, this hollow must itself be warm, like the hollow of the stomach or the

womb, a place of innate heat. This “logic” is validated by science and technê, since, in fact, the

inner pith of the fennel makes good tinder.430 It is also validated by myth, since Prometheus is

said to have brought the spark of fire to man concealed inside a fennel. Since the rush is like

fennel and reed in nature and habitat, “logic” says the rush also harbors an inner warmth. Indeed,

from such warmth comes the net of Diktynna.

Besides the metaphorical relationship between healing and childbirth, a relationship

confirmed by the diktamnon, the aitia of Kallimachos resonates between the trephological and

424 Cf. footnote 423 above. 425 Thphr. loc. cit.; cf. Arist. HA. 9.7.1 and Mir. 4; Plin. HN. 25.53. 426 Tragonis, tragakantha, and diktamnon are each associated with goats, a creature of Artemis Aiginaia. Plin. 25.53, besides the goat story adds another, a hind wounded by arrows and seeking a remedy discovered the diktamnon. 427 Thphr. HP. 9.16.2. 428 Plin. HN. 25.53. 429 Thphr. loc. cit.; Plin. loc. cit. 430 Polunin, p. 137.

107

geophysical codes. The entangling of the myrtle may be likened to the twisted oak which

presents an obstacle to Minos. Its opposite is uprightness. The goal of child-raising is to educate

the character of the child, to make him or her not only independent, but also just and upright. The

anti-type is the twisted character. The directional schema thus corresponds to the process of

education whose two character types are displayed in the Diktynna ritual.431

We have considered Kallimachos’ myrtle branch aitia as distinct from the taboo which is

intrinsic to myrtle as such. The analogical relationship between these two myrtles and the

valences ascribed to them is: myrtle branch— : robe+ : : myrtle— : pine wreathes+. We have

also considered some metaphorical relationships between levels of the myth and the ritual.

Now consider more deeply the relationship between the ritual and the myth. Manifestly,

the main images of the ritual are the two plants and these are ordered by the aitia-myth analogy

thus: myrtle— ––––> pine+. The first half of the myth is dominated by the “shaggy oak” image,

while the second half by the “nets” image. They myth orders and values these two images thus:

oak— ––––> nets+. The four images (myrtle, pine, oak, and net), as ordered into their respective

oppositions, emerge into a comprehensive relationship which links the Britomartis myth and its

accompanying ritual and which has, as we shall see, a marvelous complementarity.

This complementarity becomes clear when we consider the significance of each image in

structural terms. We saw earlier432 that a majority of the Britomartis myth’s schemata had an

anti-structure/structure nature. The “shaggy oak” (an oak of violence and hybris) is an ideal

representative of anti-structure, and harmoniously woven nets, of structure. Pine is wild,

431 Compare Artemis Orthia, whose ritual involves ephêbe initiations and cheeses (see infra, p. 189) and the Artemis of Homer. Nausicaa is compared to Artemis in “form and height and stature” (Od. 6.152) and Artemis’ gift to the daughters of Pandareos is “height” (Od. 20.71). Jules Herbillon concludes his Artémis Homérique with reference to these passages. For Herbillon, the essence of the Homeric Artemis is serenity, self-possession, moral beauty, and majesty (p. 55). 432 See supra, pp. 77-79.

108

independent, and untamed; it grows by a cyclical process of damage and self-healing. Pine is

neither structure nor anti-structure, yet it signifies a renewal of structure. It can be labeled a

“counter-structure.” Myrtle signifies fragility, dependence, and tamedness. In a sense, it is

incomplete structure. It is dependent upon or lives “in” a higher order structure (human

cultivation). Myrtle is “in-structure.” In addition, the ambivalent myrtle branch, which seems to

be anti-structure (it tears the robe) but really is a breakthrough of new power, we can call “un-

structure.” The ambivalent robe signifies both the protective and the overly structured, i.e. “over-

structure.”

Thus, the comprehensive relationship between myth and ritual is:

We can see that the aitia must not be confused with the ritual. The aitia, with its

ambivalent images, mediates between the four main images of the myth and the ritual. In a sense

of the aitia’s message is a moral warning: structure is fine, but not too much structure; and de-

formation may have a positive value if it marks the irruption of new energy. The aitia warning

urges and aims at temperance.

In general, the images of myth and ritual form a fourfold complementarity,433 which in

itself is a temperate harmony. Both nets and pine have essences which are a dialectic between

433 The fourfold nature of this complementarity is analogous to that postulated by Niels Bohr for quantum physics and to that symbolized in the Taoist yin-yang emblem. For an account of physical complementarity see Hans Reichenbach, Philosophic Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, esp. pp. 32-44. I have been influenced by this

(A) oaks- —————––––––––– nets+ (anti-structure) (structure) (B) myrtle branch

(un-structure) - + + -

robe (over-structure)

(C) myrtle-

(in-structure) —————––––––––– pine+

(counter-structure)

109

solid and liquid. Also, the net, which signifies a structure of order and fruitfulness, is

complemented by the pine, which signifies counter-structure, wildness, and cycles of self-

healing. The oak, which signifies anti-structure, violence, and hybris, as well as the

impenetrable, disorder of Nature, complements the myrtle, which signifies incompleteness,

dependence, and tamedness.

The interrelation of the Britomartis myth and the Diktynna ritual is like a cloverleaf.

— +

— +

Any term has latent in it, or is capable of converting into, its diagonal term. The wildness of pine

may turn into brute force; or, the warmth, which pine could bring to heal itself, might conceal

itself in outrage. On the other hand, the image of woven nets could become an image of

something too fragile and delicate. Thus, oak and myrtle form a negative shadow to nets and

pine. Again, we have a warning, the aim of which is temperance.

The making of nets, in contrast to the passive, tamed nature of myrtle, can be seen as an

evocation of the tamer. Using “tamer,” “tamed,” and “wild,” the complementarity of the myth-

ritual can be diagrammed thus:

(A´) violence- —————––––––––– weaving of temperate nets; tamer+ (C´) (tamed)-1 —————––––––––– wild+ The tropological meaning of the ritual is that (C´) is the antidote to (A´); their blending restores

balance and establishes a complementarity of wholeness. account in trying to decipher the myth-ritual relationship. For an account of the influence of Taoism on Niels Bohr’s theory see Gerald Holton, “The Roots of Complementarity,” pp. 1015-1055.

110

The message is that temperance is not humility, not self-restraint, not quietness,434 but

rather includes wildness, endurance, virility, and self-healing inner warmth. Temperance is

wildness plus the inverse of being tamed, i.e. the evocation of the tamer.

This is precisely analogous to the view found in Plato’s Republic. Socrates counsels

Glaucon that the philosophic nature not become too tamed and soft nor the spirited nature too

savage and hard; it is by complementing the one nature with the other that “the soul of man thus

harmonized is moderate and courageous.”435 Temperance involves both the intricacies of nets

and the warmth of pine. Socrates says that temperance, unlike courage and wisdom which reside

only in parts, resides in both rules and ruled, and thus “stretches throughout the whole.”436

With respect to oak, net, myrtle, and pine, which may be called the primal images of the

myth and the ritual, it can be said that contraria sunt complementa.

Earlier, when we examined the myth of Britomartis as a whole, we found a schematic

complementarity between the primal and latent symbol of rushes and the primal and latent

metaphor of the marriage contest. This complementarity may be juxtaposed with that between

the four primal images of the myth and ritual. In this light, all the analytical levels, and their

respective schemata, crisscross and intertwine. They shine and reverberate marvelously.

Geophysical descent and childbirth cluster about the symbol of rushes; technê, hunt, marriage,

law, and sacrifice, about the metaphor of contest; healing and growth, about the images of ritual.

All of these reflect back and forth upon each other. They create those resonances we have

analyzed and displayed in all that precedes.

434 To take three definitions given by Charmides and refuted by Socrates (Pl. Chrm). 435 Rep. 410d-411a. 436 Ibid. 431e, 432a.

111

In all this, there is the general theme of Nature. The essence of Nature can be summarized

under three aspects.437

(1) First, nature is elemental energy, symbolized in rushes and personified by the

nymph. It is the power and strength found in that which is often thought weak, whether in rushes

or in the feminine. It is the power of fruitfulness, overflowing abundance, seas and nets teeming

with fish. It is the penetrable.

(2) Second, the message of the Diktynna ritual was that the essence of Nature is the

“idea of resins,” i.e. measured flow, timed quantum leaps of energy, kairos. It is cyclical growth

by means of self-healing inner heat.

(3) Finally, Nature is limit and artifice, a measured network, flexible, open-ended,

pliant, and strong. It is, like generalized marital exchange, a self-regulating, self-generating, and

self-transforming system of cycles grounded in trust. As system, Nature can be used and

transformed by man.

These are the three aspects of Nature’s energy, elemental, universal, and systematically

changing. To this Nature man can respond in two ways. Like Minos, he can unnaturally violate

each of its aspects. Such is the folly of intemperance. Or, he can respond with the patient and

tempering wisdom of the fisherman. In this way, Nature shows herself as beneficial, supplying

man with the means for his own good. In Galen’s words, “Nature is artistic and provident for

living beings.”

437 See supra, pp. 34-35, 72, 78-79, 103.

112

CHAPTER VI

THE OTHER VARIANTS

We now turn to the other primary sources for the Britomartis-Diktynna mythologem. We

will take them up in chronological order. Each will be considered briefly and in its relationship

to the analysis we have already made of Kallimachos’ variant.

Herodotos (1a)

. . . they the Samians themselves founded Kydonia in Krete, though they had voyaged not for this purpose, but rather to drive the Zakynthians out of the island. Here they stayed and prospered for five years; indeed, they built the sanctuaries that are now in Kydonia, including the temple of Diktyna. (The Histories, 3.59; c. 446 B.C.)

The validity of Herodotos’ historical account of the origin of the Kretan Diktynna cult

receives confirmation on mythological grounds. On the island of Samos, one finds a cult of

Aphrodite of Rushes (Schoiniis). She is also called Aphrodite in the Reeds (en Kalamois) and

Aphrodite in the Marsh (en Helei).438 The geometrical symmetry of the myth suggests its

formative stage was earlier than the sixth century B.C., perhaps in the eighth or ninth century. Its

content, of course, has much deeper roots in the Bronze Age, if not into the Upper Paleolithic

Era. It is noteworthy, in light of the next source, that Diktynna is not associated with Artemis.

Euripides (1b)

or do you waste away for offenses to Diktynna of many animals not sacrificing with rites the pelanos; for she roves through lakes [limnai] and dry land and over saltwater seas in swirling rains. (Hippolytos, 145-50; 428 B.C.)

438 R-E. s.v. Schoineis: Tz. Ad Lyc. says the rush is an aphrodisiac and mentions a goddess named Schoinis. Zwicker connects this title with the mastich. He makes no mention of the Diktynna ritual.

113

(1c)

oh sandy beaches of my country oh mountains thicket of oaks, where with hounds swift footed he slew beasts accompanying august Diktynna (Hippolytos, 1126-30)

(1e) oh child of Leto mountain Diktynna (Iphigeneia in Tauris, 126-27; 414 or 411 B.C.)

Euripides, our first literary source, associates the Diktynna cult with that of Artemis and

Hippolytos. In 1(c), Euripides, it seems, considers Diktynna a goddess equivalent to Artemis, as

if Diktynna were an epithet of Artemis. In (1b), Diktynna could be a goddess separate from

Artemis. The context of (1e) clearly points to an identity between them.

Passage (1b) associates Diktynna with limnai (large pools of standing water, esp. a

marshy lake), as well as with land and sea. Elsewhere Phaidra invokes “Lady Artemis of the Salt

Lake [Limnê].”439 Artemis herself bears the epithets Limnaia, Limnatis, Heleia, and Nemydia.

Euripides fuses Diktynna with Artemis Limnaia.440 A limnê is a mediator between land and

439 Hipp. 227-31, cf. 1131-1133. Hippolytos’ chariot wreck occurred by the Saronian Gulf (1201). There was a cult of Saronian Artemis by a stagnant, marshy lake which bordered the Gulf (Paus. 2.30.6). It was near the wild olive which tangled in the reins of Hippolytos’ chariot (Paus. 2.32.10). The name Saronia is an ancient word for oaks and an oak grove once surrounded the Gulf (Plin. HN. 4.9; Hsch. s.v.). On the coast beyond Kenchreai is a harbor called Schoinous (R-E. s.v. and Plin. loc. cit.). 440 A cult of Limnaia was at Sparta (Paus. 3.14.2, i.e. our source variant [1l]. The Spartan sanctuary of Artemis Orthia was called the Limnaion (Paus. 3.16.7). It was built in a marshy area along the Eurotas. There was also a sanctuary of Limnaia at Corinthian Sicyon (Paus. 2.7.6). Limnatis had a cult at the border between Messenia and Lakonia, at a place called Limnai, near the village of Kalamai (Paus. 3.2.6, 4.31.3, 4.2.2-3). Spartan virgins danced in its festival (Paus. 4.4.2-3). Limnatis cults were found between Boiai and Epidauros Harbor (Paus. 3.23.10); near Arkadian Tegea (Paus. 8.53.11); and at Patrai (Paus. 7.20.4, cf. Jules Herbillon, Les Cultes de Patras, pp. 109-117). Pausanias says that the cult comes from Sparta; Preugenes and his slave having stolen the image and carried it to Patrai. A festival commemorates this. In the marketplace of Patrai there is a statue of Preugenes—also of Patreus and Atherion—as a child (Paus. 7.20.3). Artemis Heleia had a sanctuary managed by Arkadians and located in a marsh near the river Alpheios (Strabo 8.3.25.350). Artemis herself has an epithet Alpheiaia. Artemis Nemydia had a cult in Eleian Teuthea (Strabo 8.3.11.342). A helos is a low ground by a river or a marsh; a nemos a wooden pasture or grove. Like limnê, helos and nemos are associated with eiamenê.

114

water. That this symbol is central for Euripides’ account of Diktynna confirms the significance

we attached to the bottom lands (eiamenê) image in the Kallimachos variant.

There is a Limnatis cult at Limnai, near the village of Kalamai, which had a festival in

which Spartan virgins danced. Alkman’s Partheneion sings of two rival choruses held, it seems at

the Orthia festival.441 These virgins would represent the nymphs who are said to dance about the

goddess Artemis; Artemis herself is a dancer.442 We can assume that maidens danced at the

Diktynna festival. Indeed maidens did dance at the Britomartia at Delos.443 In a votive from the

Greek Anthology, a bride dedicates a pre-marriage sacrifice (proteleia) consisting of things

which represent her childhood (ball, hair net, and doll) to Artemis Limnatis.444

Thus, in the cult of Artemis Limnaia, we find the same motifs (virgins, dancers,

proteleia, marsh mediator) and the same levels (marital and geophysical) as in the cult of

Britomartis Diktynna. Euripides’—and also Kallimachos’—fusion of Diktynna and Artemis

finds as much justification on these levels as it does on the economic level of the huntress.

It is fitting that the sacrifice mentioned in (1b) is the pelanos. A pelanos is a mixture of

meal, honey, and oil; it generally refers to any half-liquid mixture.445 Thus, the pelanos is itself a

mediator between liquid and solid, land and water, just as is a marsh—or even a resin.

Euripides (1b) associates Diktynna with stormy seas (whirlpools, eddies, Notos rains).446

Shipwreck images occur throughout the Hippolytos. The rainy autumnal south wind marks the

441 The imagery of rivals maids and Venetian horses occurs in both the Partheneion and the Hippolytos (1131-41), the rival maids of the latter no doubt referring to Artemis and Aphrodite. Artemis Aitolia was goddess of the Veneti. 442 Hom. h. Ven. I, passim; Hom. h. Di, II. 443 Nilsson, Feste, p. 209 and footnotes 4 and 6 thereto; during the Artemisia, on the day preceding the Britomartia, a choir of women danced with torches and ropes. 444 AP. 6.280. A kekryphelos (hair net) is also the pouch of a hunting net. The bride dedicates a hair net after she has been captured by love. 445 CD. s.v. pelanos. 446 My translation of dinais en notiais as “in swirling rains” is figurative. Literally it reads “amid the wet eddies” (W. S. Barrett). A notia is a rain, esp. a rain brought by Notos, the autumnal southwest wind. Compare the curious epithet of Pan, “sea-roving” (Soph. Aj. 645).

115

end of the sailing season. Euripides (1b) indicates that the Diktynna mythologem has a

navigational level. This level is suggested by Herodotos’ account of the sea-faring Samians and

Kallimachos’ fisherman motif; it is manifested in the variant of Antoninus Liberalis. Artemis

herself has such epithets and Nêossoos, Euporia, and Ekbatêria.447

Passage (1b) stresses the saltiness of the sea. Phaidra invokes Artemis of Salt Marshes. In

the Ephesian Daiitis festival the maiden Klymene descends to the sea—recall the descent of

Britomartis—carrying an image of Artemis on a bed of wild celery and other medicinal herbs,

while ephêbes take salt from a marsh and offer it to the goddess.448 Like rushes and reeds, salt is

a product of marshes, a marsh technology.449 This is a confirmation of our diagnosis of a latent

rush symbol in the Britomartis myth.

Finally, the mountain/beach opposition of (1c) serves to designate the two main realms of

the goddess, land and sea. The “thickets of oak” image recalls the “shaggy oaks” of Kallimachos.

447 i.e, Saver of Ships, Safe or Easy Harbor, a Disembarking, respectively. Artemis Munychia has a sailing festival which commemorates the battle of Salamis (L. Deubner, Attische Feste, pp. 204-207). The Bear constellation used by navigators is an Artemic figure. A sea voyage is a manifest motif in such Artemic myths as Iphigeneia at Aulis and Orion. The Phokians who colonized Massalia were led by Artemis “Star of the Sea (Charles Picard, Éphèse et Claros, pp. 316-17). The main character in the aitia for the Ephesian Daiitis festival is Klymene. Picard identifies her with the sea nymph Klymene and speculates that once there was a maritime cult of Artemis (Ibid., pp. 316-20). There were three other Klymene’s, each associated with Artemis. One was wife of Kephalos; one, mother of Atalanta; and one, granddaughter of Minos. This latter married Nauplios, a celebrated navigator who was named the Wrecker because he lit false beacons for the Greek ships returning from Troy. He was a descendent of the Argive Nauplios who invented the art of navigating by the Bear. The false beacons are an anti-type of those in the Beacon Festival of the Argive Hypermnestra in honor of Artemis Peithô. There is an altar of Diktys and Klymene, the saviors of Perseos, at Seriphos (Paus. 2.18.1). The Mysteries of Samothrace, which save men from shipwreck, were founded by the Amazon Myrine (Myrtle). The Sirens, who lure sailors to their death and who are associated with Artemis Aptera in Krete and the Stymphalides, have a name related to seira (a rope, cord, noose), a deadly, entangled weaving of rushes. 448 E.M. s.v. Daiitis; for an account of this festival see Charles Picard, pp. 312ff. 449 Wild celery, which exudes a gum like myrrh, cures strangury and woman’s diseases (Thphr. HP. 7.6.3-4; cf. Nic. The. 599, 649). It was a remedy held in “universal esteem” and cured breast tumors, woman’s problems (being a diuretic), and lumbago (being a liniment) (Plin. HN. 20.44). H. Leclerc classes it as a diuretic, noting that in Medieval times it was used to banish melancholy (p. 43). Salt was an astringent (Thphr. Od. 8.35-36). “The higher enjoyments of life could not exist without salt: indeed, so highly necessary is this substance to mankind, that the pleasures of the mind, even, can be expressed by no better term than the word “salt,” such being the name given to all effusions of wit (Plin. HN. 31.41; Bostock transl.).

116

Thus, Euripides gives both of the central images of the first half of the Britomartis myth, namely

oaks and marshes. (1e) also mentions the “mountain” image.

Aristophanes (1d) then it’s best for me to gnaw through the net [diktyon], and pardon me, Diktynna, for the net. (Wasps, 367-68; 422 B.C.)

(1f) now, O Kretans, children of Ida, seize your bows, come to the rescue, move your limbs, and circle the house. at once, Artemis Diktynna pretty girl come, take your puppies through every room. (Frogs, 1355-62; 405 B.C.)

With respect to (1d), two points are in order. First, Philokleon calls on Diktynna as the

goddess who has charge over nets. The association of Diktynna with nets and the play on words

(“Diktynna,” “diktyon”) might be Aristophanes’ invention or they might be taken from earlier

tradition. Second, taking the passage in context, Aristophanes associates nets of justice with nets

of Diktynna. Philokleon sees Diktynna as a judge before whom he may plea. The net he would

gnaw is the giant net which his son has cast around the house to prevent him from escaping to

perform jury duty. The nets are ‘poetic justice’ and penalty for Philokleon’s “addiction.”450

I have already delineated the allegory of justice in the Kallimachos variant; now (1d)

confirms this, as well as the stress I placed on the centrality of the “nets” image.451

450 The juror is himself trapped in the nets of justice; the wasp who would sting, threatened by skewer-wielding slaves. Note the image juxtaposition: nets/skewer-stinger-stylus. Compare the net/spear contrast, supra, p. 23 and ftn.3. 451 Compare the justice theme in Vat. Myth. (1o), infra, p. 132.

117

In (1f) Artemis and Diktynna are identified on the hunting level; Artemis Diktynna is

goddess of the chase. In (1d) Diktynna alone is invoked.

Diodorus Siculus (1h) According to myth, Britomartis, also called Diktynna, was engendered in Kretan Kainos by Zeus and Karme, daughter of Euboulos, son of Demeter. She invented the nets used in hunting, whence she has been called Diktynna, and she spends her time with Artemis, this being the reason some think Diktynna and Artemis are the same. This goddess was honored with sacrifices and temples by the Kretans. (5.76.3; b. 63 B.C., d. 24 A.D.)

In noting the “friendship” between Artemis and Britomartis Diktynna—a motif taken,

perhaps, from Kallimachos—Diodorus stresses their distinctness. He criticizes the “some” who

would identify the two.452 His genealogy supports this contention. It differs from that in

Euripides (1e). Not Leto is mother, but Demeter.

In a passage which follows (1h), Diodorus rejects the story that Minos pursued

Britomartis and that she was rescued by fishermen’s nets as “utterly missing the truth,” since it

slanders both the power of the gods—what need have they of men—and the well-known justice

of Minos. Diodorus would reject the Kallimachos variant, while keeping the etymological

association between Diktynna and nets. Diodorus gives a new role to nets; Britomartis invented

the hunting net—fishing nets are replaced by hunting nets. The manifest mytheme about the

invention of nets confirms my analysis of the Kallimachos variant’s latent schema “eiamenê —

— nets,” i.e., the making of nets from rushes.

452 Euripides and Aristophanes so identified them. Note that in a treaty oath between Knossos and Dreros, Britomartis and Artemis are mentioned separately (IC 1.1X.1 A 29, cf. 26; cited in Willetts, CCF, p. 179). There are thus three terms (Britomartis, Diktynna, and Artemis) each distinct yet interrelated at certain levels with the others.

118

Strabo (1i) Nor is Kallimachos right, they say, that Britomartis, fleeing the violence [bia] of Minos, leapt from Dikte into fishermen’s nets, and because of this she herself was called Diktynna by the Kydonians and the mountain Dikte; for Kydonia is not at all in the neighborhood of these places, but lies near the western limits of the island. However, there is a Mt. Tityros in Kydonia, on which is a sanctuary, not the Diktaion, but the Diktynnaion. (10.4.12,479; b. 63 B.C., d. 24 A.D.)

Strabo takes issue with Kallimachos for geographical reasons;453 Mt. Dikte cannot be the

scene of Britomartis’ leap since Kydonia lies far to the west of Mt. Dikte. One might add that

Mt. Dikte is not near the sea.

M. P. Nilsson would resolve the matter two ways. The leap could be associated with Mt.

Dikte, if the nets motif were discarded. This he finds unsatisfactory since it splits Britomartis

from Diktynna and the nets etymology. On the other hand, following Rapp and Jessen, one could

take Kallimachos’ diktaion as a short form of diktynnaion. Nilsson objects that this would break

the “tempting” connection between Britomartis-Diktynna and Mt. Dikte.454

I would only add that though there may be some geographical incompatibility between

the Britomartis myth and Mt. Dikte, both the Diktynna ritual and Diktaian Zeus birth story both

share a nursing level.

453 Cf., Strabo 10.5.1,484, also 10.4.6. Also, if Strabo is correct, his criticisms would hold for Iamb. 12.2 in which, it appears, Kallimachos refers to the Zeus Diktaion as the “Diktynnaion.” 454 MMR., pp. 511-12 and Feste, pp. 225-26. A Trajan Era coin pictures Diktynna as a nurse of the Diktaion Zeus (see supra, footnote 393, page 95).

119

Pausanias (1j) The Kretans say—for the story is from their land—that Euboulos was the son of Karmanor, who purified Apollo from the murder of the Python, and his daughter Karme bore Zeus a child named Britomartis. Her pleasure was running and hunting and she was the dearest friend of Artemis. Fleeing Minos, who had fallen in love with her, she threw herself into nets [diktya] let down [apheimena] for hunting fish. She was made a goddess by Artemis, and not only the Kretans worship her, but also the Aiginetans, who say that Britomartis appears [phainesthai] to them in their island. Her title among the Aiginetans is Aphaia and in Krete Diktynna. (2.30.3; 150-70 A.D.)

(1k) … indeed, in those days certain human beings were changed into gods and they are honored to this day: Aristaios and Britomartis of Krete and Herakles, son of Alkmene, and Amphiaraos, son of Oikles, and Polydeukes and Kastor as well. (8.2.4)

Pausanias gives a genealogy like that of Diodorus, but without Demeter and with

Karmanor.455 The “running” motif recalls our discussion of resin liniment. Also, Pausanias

accepts Kallimachos’ variant, the friendship of Artemis and the myth of Minos and the

fishermen. Like Kallimachos he makes no mention of the sea; the focus is on nets. Perhaps

Pausanias would have us associate the title “Diktynna” with diktya (nets) and even the title

“Aphaia” with apheimena (let down, let go).456 In both (1j) and 1k), Pausanias notes the

apotheosis of Britomartis, a motif implicit in Kallimachos. Finally, the coupling with “Aristaios”

helps confirm our interpretation of the Diktynna ritual.457

455 Antoninus Liberalis gives Karme but not Karmanor. A Karmanor, son of Dionysus, was slain by a boar on Mt. Karmanorion in Lydia, later re-named Mt. Tmolos when Tmolos was slain by a bull, sent by Artemis, because he raped Arhippe. 456 W.H.S. Jones in his Loeb translation assumes the validity of these two suppositions; he puts the Greek words in parentheses. But Pausanias also uses phainesthai; cf. (1m). 457 See supra, p. 99.

120

(1l) Farther on is the monument of Tainaros, after whom they say the cape jutting out into the sea was named, and there are sanctuaries of Poseidon Hippokourios and Artemis Aiginaia. On the way back to the club is a sanctuary of Artemis Issoria; they title her also Limnaia, although [ousan] she’s not Artemis, but Britomartis of Krete, whom I discussed in my account of Aigina.458 (3.14.2)

This passage has several ambiguities. First, Artemis Aiginaia can be an epithet referring

to goats or to the isle of Aigina.459 Goats were a common sacrifice to Artemis. If it refers to

Aigina, are Aiginaia and Aphaia the same? Pausanias himself suggests the latter in what

follows.460 Second, the participle ousan could mean not “although” but “since.” The latter case

would imply that the Spartan’s identify Limnaia and Britomartis. We found such an

identification in Euripides (1b). If we take ousan as “although,” then Pausanias asserts that

Limnaia and Britomartis must be distinguished, the former being an epithet of Artemis, the latter

not Artemis. The distinction is supported by Kallimachos and even Pausanias in (1j). But why

object when the Spartans themselves identify Issoria and Limnaia? Pausanias gives no

explanation. Third, the “also” could refer to what follows it, “Limnaia”, as if to say she is not

Artemis, but Britomartis. This is possible if Aiginaia refers to Aphaia. This third ambiguity is

doubled by the ousan ambiguity.461

458 Pausanias attests a cult of Diktynna at another spot in Sparta (3.12.8). Also he notes an Artemis Diktynnaia at Phokian Ambrossos which has an Aiginetan statue (10.36.3); an Artemis Diktynna at Lakonian Las by the sea and near a cult of Artemis Daphnaia and Asklepios (3.24.9); a statue of Britomartis by Daidalos at Olous (9.40.2). For other cults see Appendix B. 459 Jones (Loeb) and Levi (Penguin) say goats; Farnell, Cults, pp. 469, 582, says she is a city goddess of Aigina. 460 And where is the Aiginaia cult? Farnell says Sparta (p. 560), but also Troizen (p. 431)—the latter is impossible. Farnell further confuses things by placing the Issoria cult “on the south coast of Lakonia,” while, at the same time, citing Hsch. to the effect that it is in Sparta. Farnell seems thrown by the reference to the Tainarian cape and the fact that there is a second cult of Issoria at Teuthrone, as well as a Poseidon cult (Paus. 3.25.4). 461 Issoria had a festival at Teuthrone (Hsch. s.v.). R-E s.v. Issoria, argues that a mountain goddess (Issoria) can be identified with a marsh goddess (Limnaia). I agree. R-E adds that Paus. 3.14.2 is ambiguous: “her” may refer not to Issoria, but to Artemis. If so, we have a fourth ambiguity!

121

In general, it suffices to leave the ambiguities and questions open. One need only note

that Issoria was called variously Limnaia or Britomartis. This suggests that Issoria possessed

some quality shared by both the other goddesses.462 We have seen, with Euripides’ aid, what

some of the common elements are, e.g. marshes. In sum, passage (1l) serves to emphasize a

complex of metaphorically interrelated goddesses, which includes Britomartis, Diktynna,

Aphaia, Limnaia, Issoria, and Aiginaia.

Antoninus Liberalis (1m) 1 Kassiepeia, daughter of Arabios, and Phoenix, son of Agenor, engendered Karme. Zeus united with her and engendered Britomartis. She fleeing the converse of men, was well pleased to remain a virgin forever. 2 From Phoenicia she came first to Argos unto Byze, Melite, Maira, and Anchirhoe, the daughters of Erasinos; then from Argos she went up to the Kephallenia and the Kephallenians named her Laphria and celebrated her rites as a goddess. 3 Then she came to Krete and Minos saw her and falling in love pursued her. She took refuge among fishermen, who plunged her under nets and on account of this Kretans named her Diktynna and offered her sacrifice. Having escaped from Minos, Britomartis arrived at Aigina by ship with the fisher Andromedes. 4 And he desiring to be united with her took her in hand, but Britomartis stepping out of the ship fled into a woods, where her sanctuary is now, and where she disappeared and they named her Aphaia. In the temple of Artemis appears a statute. The Aiginetans consecrated the place in which Britomartis disappeared and named her Aphaia and accomplished sacrifices as to a goddess. (40; second century A.D.)

Antoninus Liberalis begins his account with yet another genealogy. It traces Britomartis;

line back to the Phoenician Kassiopeia, whose daughter Andromeda became the wife of Perseus.

The child Perseus and his mother Danae were fished from the sea by Diktys.463 The name

Andromeda is the feminine of Andromedes.

462 Farnell interprets the passage that Britomartis was given the title Limnaia (p. 477). 463 See supra, footnote 143, p. 46. R. Holland also connects Diktynna with Diktys and Perseus (p. 63). Perseus, after leaving Seriphos, visited Diecterion on Samos (Robert Graves, The Greek Myths, 73f). Compare Herodotos on the Samian origin of the Diktynna cult.

122

Britomartis flees the converse of men and desires eternal virginity.464 Antoninus then

associates her with an unspecified Argive cult involving the River Erasinos and potamids or

Nereids,465 and then with Artemis Laphria at Kephallenia. These associations seem arbitrary.466

Antoninus gives two related adventures, the Diktynna and the Aphaia episodes. It is the

only extant variant of the latter. The two episodes repeat the same schema, i.e. revealment

followed by concealment. The stress is on the disappearance of the goddess; the name Aphaia is

taken from aphanês (invisible, hidden, vanished).467 Thus, (1m) reverses the pattern of

Kallimachos (1g):

(1m) revealment—————–––––––––concealment came, among fishermen, saw under nets

revealment—————–––––––– concealment arrived at into a woods

(1g) concealment—————––––––– revealment under oaks, upright, in bottom lands in nets

On the basis of this analysis, we must agree with Richard Holland that Antoninus’

account is not a careless, but rather well arranged composition.468 On the other hand, we must

disagree with Holland on certain crucial points.

464 See a similar wish by Artemis in Kall. 3.6. Compare R. Holland, pp. 61-62. 465 Erasinos is an Argive River; Melite and Maira are Nereids of Thetis; also a Maira was one of Proitos’ daughters (M. Papathamapoulos, p. 161). Proitos’ daughters is an Artemic myth. There is an Artemis Potamia at Syracuse. Cf. Kall. 3. 13-15 where Artemis asks for a choir of Oceanids and nymphs of the River Amnisos for handmaidens. R. Holland assumes Antoninus Liberalis used Kallimachos as a source (pp. 61-62). 466 Artemis Alpheiaia would be more likely association; the myth of Artemis and Alpheios is a transformation of the Antoninus Liberalis variant. Yet, according to N. Platon, rituals similar to those of Artemis Laphria are attested in Krete (Κρητ. Χρον, V, 1951, pp. 151-53, cited in M. Papathamapoulos, footnote 9, p. 162). Could this be connected with a method of collecting pitch by fire? 467 But compare Pausanias (1j) who traces it from apheimena or, perhaps, phainesthai. For other Artemic disappearance myths see e.g. Artemis Alpheiaia, Ktesylla, Aspalis, Pan and Pitys, Pan and Syrinx. 468 Holland, pp. 59, 61.

123

The word katadusan469 does not fit right. Traditionally, it has been translated as “hid.”

The fishermen (on dry land) hid her under their nets. Holland would take this for a misreading.

He would say Britomartis was “plunged” into nets (into the sea) and the fishermen saved her. He

even asserts that Antoninus and Kallimachos are saying the same thing; and he criticizes

Usener’s distinction between two variants, a sea leap and concealment.470 Holland would

emphasize the motif “leapt into the sea;” and this leads him to believe that Britomartis stepped

from Andromedes ship and walked on the waters to reach land. To support this he criticizes the

accuracy of the text itself471 and uses Euripides’ sea-roving Diktynna as proof.

Holland would even go so far as to assert that the etymology of Aphaia is aptô or anaptô

(to light up, kindle) and not—as Antoninus himself suggests—aphanês. He says, “not

disappearing, but quite the opposite appearing must lie in the name.”472

The extremity of his position is here evident. It clearly contradicts the schemata which

structure the myth. These indicate that the focus is on the motif of disappearance, just as

Antoninus says. No speculative reconciliation of Antoninus’ variant with Kallimachos is possible

or necessary; their schemata are diametrically opposed. Essentially, the reason for Holland’s

misunderstanding is that he wishes to make the sea, or sea leap, the central image of both the

Kallimachos and Antoninus Liberalis variants; when in fact, Kallimachos, as well as Pausanias,

says only that Britomartis leapt into nets. There is no difficulty in moving from this fact to the

motif of Antoninus, that she was plunged under nets (with no reference at all to the sea).

469 I translated it “plunged.” Kataduô means (casually) to sink, as to wink or disable a ship; (intransitively) to sink, to set, to plunge, as the sun and stars plunge into the sea; also, to lie, to keep hidden (with dative, as opposed to accusative of [1m]). The root verb duô means (casually) to put clothes on, to dress; to enter, to sink, to plunge into, to go in, as to go in among suitors; to come upon or steal over, as would madness or weariness; (absol.) to sink, to dive, to set, as sun and stars set. 470 R. Holland, pp. 59-60. 471 He says exiketo (arrived at) is “not right” and proposes as alternatives anêgeto, êpeigeto, or exikesthai (p. 60), i.e. “pressed hard on,” “led up to,” “having arrived.” 472 p. 64. Holland might have drawn on Pausanias (1j) for support.

124

Britomartis acts only to take refuge among fishermen. Holland does not mention this motif at all.

Thus, there is no reason to criticize the given text. Britomartis did arrive at Aigina; walking on

the water is irrelevant to the schema.

We must leave Holland aside and, keeping the structure of the myth in mind, look for the

real contribution of Antoninus Liberalis.

Beginning with the verb kataduô, we see that it can function metaphorically on two

levels, nautical and astronomical. A sinking ship is like a setting sun; both plunge into the sea.

The root verb duô has a clothing and a marital level, along with an astronomical level.473

The two episodes of (1m) present a variety of levels, nautical, fishing, political,

sacrificial, and, especially, marital. Antoninus uses the verb kataduô to metaphorically bind these

levels. The sentence may be paraphrased several ways. Britomartis was “sunk like a ship . . . into

nets.” There is a sense of reversal, turnabout. Or, she was “sunk like the sun . . . into nets,” as if,

there might be someone who fishes the sun out of the sea and back up into the sky at dawn.474

Or, she “went in among (a net of) suitors.” This suggests marriages by contest. Suitors would

cast temperate nets to demonstrate they could protect her. They would clothe her in raiment.475

Or, “she went in among (a sea of) suitors.” The plurality of fishermen reflects a number of

473 Clothing plays a significant role in Greek marriage. At the marriage feast, the bride sits at a separate table and is veiled. Later occurs the anakalyptêria (unveiling) (Anec. Gr. I. 200.6, cited in Pernice, Privatleben, p. 54). It is accompanied by groom gifts (Ibid.). According to Pherekydes, frag. 54, the first unveiling occurred when Zeus gave a gift of embroidered cloth to Chthonie, her bride. This cloth was embroidered with Earth and Ocean and was found in a winged oak (frag. 56, 57). Also, on the day after the wedding, the epaulistêria chlanis (a finely embroidered mantle) was given by the new husband to the bride’s father (Pollux, 3.39), no doubt a token of generalized exchange. Kallimachos (1g) can be seen as an unveiling; Antoninus Liberalis presents the reverse, a being clothed. 474 We can now see that Holland’s wish to read the sea motif into Antoninus Liberalis; variant has some ground in these metaphors. There is a sense in which Britomartis does plunge into the sea. On the other hand, the text manifestly says she was hidden under nets (on the land). 475 Compare the robe of Britomartis in Kallimachos (1g).

125

suitors.476 They are myriad, an ocean of suitors. They overwhelm her like the sea. Yet they

would protect her, even support her as the sea supports a ship. The myth contrasts these suitors

with those like Minos and Andromedes. They are myriad too, but their sea is a wild, raging sea

of shipwreck.

The marital level is linked metaphorically to the nautical. Getting married is like

voyaging to safe harbor. In the Andromedes episode, Britomartis, having fled Minos, arrived at

Aigina. The image of a plunge into nets, i.e. of a sinking ship, is replaced by that of a safe

harbor. The goddess accompanies Andromedes as if she were his guardian, his guiding star.

The marital level latent in the verb kataduô is more evident in the verb encheirizô. I

translated it as “to take in hand,”477 so as to emphasize both its violent sense, i.e. to seize, and its

primary sense, i.e. to put in one’s hand, to entrust to another. Recalling the engyê, it seems that

Antoninus is being ironic.478 Antoninus gives us two cases of anti-engyê. Minos attempted to

seize her; Andromedes desired to unite with her, rather than be united with her in marriage. He

would take her in hand, rather than let her take refuge in his arms.

In terms of its astronomical code, the Minos and Andromedes episodes may be likened to

the pursuit of the Pleiades by Orion. This Artemic myth speaks of the setting of the Pleiades in

the fall and spring.

If we take the two adventures of (1m) and ask what levels of manifest and shared by both,

the seafaring, astronomical, and economic fade, brining to the foreground the marital, political,

and sacrificial levels. For Antoninus Liberalis the myth of Britomartis is primarily a myth about

476 Compare Kallimachos’ variant in which the plurality of fishermen signified the systematic nature of generalized exchange, a plurality of individuals or a network of groups. In Antoninus, the stress is on individual suitors. It would be misleading, indeed slanderous, to speak here of some sort of “primal promiscuity.” 477 It also has a moral sense in the middle voice, to take control of oneself. 478 Engyê literally means to put something in one’s hand. Also recall that “trust” is the basis which allows generalized exchange to function.

126

marriage. Kallimachos’ variant had marriage by contest as its primal metaphor. In the latter myth

of Antoninus, the hunt motif is no longer manifest—in part because the mountain/sea opposition

is absent and because the fishermen are not engaged in their trade. Hence, the contest motif has

also become latent. Furthermore, the marital, political, and sacrificial levels are not presented—

as in Kallimachos’ variant—in terms of anti-structure/structure, but rather in terms of two kinds

of anti-structure:

marital: over-rating marriage / under-rating marriage (rape) (virginity) political: assault / flight sacrificial: anti-sacrifice / anti-sacrifice

The marital and political levels merge to yield a dichotomy between hybris and modesty,

between violence and humility, and between over-reaching and under-reaching. The dichotomy

presents the two sides of temperance.

As we saw earlier, the essence of Greek sacrifice is the gift. Each episode of (1m)

presents a confrontation between a ravisher who tries to take, to seize, and a maiden who tries to

keep away, to keep her virginity.479 Neither is a giving; each is an anti-sacrifice. Antoninus’

variant assigns a plus valence to virginity—indeed, to eternal virginity.

This contrasts with Kallimachos (1g) in which a positive value is given to engyê, to

giving away the bride. The variants of Kallimachos and Antoninus Liberalis share on the

sacrificial-marital level three terms, each the opposite of the other, which can be arranged in a

triangle:

479 One might say Britomartis “sacrificed her marriage,” but this would be the use the word “sacrifice” in a quite un-Greek manner.

127

giving

taking keeping

This triangle resonates with and confirms the validity of the resin triangles we have seen

in the Diktynna ritual. There is the hot devouring passion of the ravisher who would take. In

contrast is the unmeltability of the maiden who would keep her virginity. The airy nature of resin

corresponds to Britomartis vanishing into thin air. The virgin is transformed into her element.

Finally, as we have noted,480 the giving or surrendering of the bride is like the flowing of cool

waters which can be seen—like Britomartis, like hypogamy, descending down to the sea.

The juxtaposition of taking and keeping, which is at the center of Antoninus’ myth, is

like an oxymoron. While Kallimachos presented a primal metaphor, Antoninus Liberalis presents

a primal oxymoron. Rather than a metaphor of hunt and marriage, we have an oxymoron of

marriage and sacrifice.

Besides this difference in structure between (1m) and (1g), there are other differences.

Some of the (1g) levels and mediators are absent altogether in Antoninus, such as childbirth,

uprightness, and marshes. Some levels have had their oppositions weakened, e.g. geophysical

(mountain/sea) and economic (land/sea). On the other hand, two new levels have appeared, that

of seafaring and or astronomy, levels which concern, respectively, the passages of men and of

stars.

Because of their structure, the two adventures of Antoninus’ Britomartis end on

ambivalent, if not dissonant, notes. The motif of concealment, disappearance, or keeping to

480 See supra, pp. 102-103.

128

oneself, negatively valued in relation to their natural opposite, i.e. revealment, is, as an escape

from assault, positively valued. Furthermore, she who disappears is also she who may appear

again. Thus, in the myth, at the place where she disappeared, their appeared a statue. This may be

taken as a token.

It may be taken as a token of the two messages of Antoninus’ myth. From one point of

view, it is a token of she who forever flees our grasp, she who is always just beyond reach, yet,

paradoxically, she who has always been with us. Indeed, she whom we have hidden. From

another point of view, it is a token of she who cannot be taken by injustice, she who is untamable

and invincible.

INGRESSION ON APHOS

Antoninus Liberalis says that Britomartis received the name Aphaia because she became

aphanês. We have noted the other derivations of Pausanias and criticized that of Holland.

Wolfgang Fauth suggests that Aphaia comes from a thorny plant called aphos.481

Although Fauth’s etymology is not that specified by Antoninus, in the light of our

analysis of the Diktynna ritual, it is a clue worth pursuing.

Hesychius says that aphos is tragakantha (Goat thorn): Etymologicum Magnum gives the

same identification and adds that it purges water in the chest.482 EM. Lists aphos in the context

481 Hippolytos und Phaidra, pp. 514-15; he cites Hsch. and EM. to confirm the existence of this plant, a form of tragakantha (Goat thorn). For Fauth, Aphaia is she who inhabits the aphos, the spiny plant of the “outside.” (This “outside” is part of a sort of Hegelian framework of interpretation.) He characterizes Britomartis’ disappearance as a “transition from Dasein to Latency.” Threatened with violation she draws back into the “outside.” The goddess is a Rhamnusia Virgo (Virgin of Thorns). Finally, Fauth believes the aphos etymology “disproves” the “popular etymology” given by Antoninus. However, is such “disproof” possible? Only if we can determine why the plant was named aphos. The plant name might well have come from association with the Aphaia cult, i.e. both Aphaia and aphos could be derived from aphanês! It must also be noted that Aphaia is the adjectival form of Apha (I.G., IV, 1582, cited in Nilsson, MMR, footnote 11, p. 512). 482 Hsch. s.v. aphos; EM. 178, 55 ff.

129

of words related to aphosioô (to purify, expiate, liberate from guilt). If this context is not

coincidence,483 the plant metaphorically binds healing and sacrificial levels.

While Theophrastos does not mention aphos,484 he does list tragakantha. In a section on

resinous plants, he says gum is produced by the Kretan ixia485 (pine thistle) and the tragakantha

which formerly grew only in Krete,486 but now grows in Achaia, and elsewhere.487 It is also

included in a list of medicinal herbs and is described as “beautiful.”488

Pliny speaks of tragakantha and tragonis in the same section; both are Kretan plants and

have similar names. The former yields gun mastic; the latter, gum tragakanthe.489 He lists the

medicinal remedies derived from the plant. It has highly astringent properties. It is an anti-

diuretic, a diuretic—“a property, in fact, which belongs to most substances which act astringently

upon the bowels”—and cures dysentery and boils.490

All these properties we encountered in our analysis of the medicinal triangle of resins.491

The likeness of tragakantha and tragonis (Kretan mastich) in habitat, name, and powers serve to

illumine the cult of Aphaia—assuming the name Aphaia refers to the tragakantha, which seems

quite plausible—as well as confirm our interpretation of the Diktynna ritual.

483 However, it is unlikely aphos is derived from aphosioô. Was Fauth misled by this when he postulated that the Aphaia ritual concerned sin and expiation? A sacrificial level is not manifest in (1m), though it is in variant (1o). 484 He lists aphia (Lesser celandine); it seems unrelated to our topic. Nicander also makes no mention of aphos. 485 See supra, p. 83. 486 Like tragonis (supra, p. 91) and diktamnon (supra, p. 106). This, of course, may be fabulous. 487 HP. 9.1.3; 9.15.8: in Astragalus Creticus and Parnassi. 488 9.15.8. 489 HN. 13.36. 490 HN. 26.29; Bostock translation. 491 See supra, p. 90.

130

Pliny says the tragakantha has a flower like the Hyacinth—“beautiful” was

Theophrastos’ word—and grows only in stony localities, equally exposed to sun and snow, such

as Pheneos in Arkadia.492

The stoniness of its habitat is like the rugged habitat preferred by the diktamnon.

Tragakantha’s flower is a sign of beautiful and healing powers which miraculously grow amidst

rock and stone. Equally exposed to sun and snow, the plant exemplifies balance and temperance.

It is a plant untamed and invincible.

Returning to this note of “invincibility”493 confirms our analysis of the primal oxymoron

of Antoninus Liberalis’ myth; this is the proof of the spiny tragakantha.

Scholiast (1n) And they say that some nymph called Britomartis while hunting, by chance, fell into some nets [diktya] and was rescued by Artemis, and she established a sanctuary for Artemis Diktynna. (on Aristophanes, Frogs, 1355-62)

In Aristophanes (1d), Philokleon desired to be liberated from entrapping nets. He invoked

Diktynna to use her power over nets to release him. Strikingly, the variant cited by the scholiast

on (1d) has this one schema:

capture –– —————––––––––– rescue+ (nets)

The variant’s two levels, i.e. hunting and sacrifice, meet in its only metaphor, i.e. rescue.494 The

variant’s only mediator is the nymph as semi-deity, the intercessor between man and god.

492 Op. cit. Pheneos is the site of the cult of Artemis Eurippa, the Artemis who helped Odysseus find his lost horses (Paus. 8.14.5). 493 See supra, p. 129. Compare the pediments of the Aphaia temple on Aigina: the goddess among battling warriors. She is victory, the prize of contest; she is the healer amidst the wounded. Further confirmation is the stoibê, a spiny rush-like plant; see supra, ftn. 84, p. 31. 494 The verb ruomai = rescue, save, free, deliver, and also protect, defend, shield, cover. The scholiast uses its first sense; the latter are more appropriate to (1m).

131

It is unique to (1n) that the nymph herself sacrifices to the goddess. For the first time in

any variant, Artemis plays an active role. She delivers the nymph from the nets. The divine

delivers or redeems itself from being seized; it delivers its mediator, its relationship to men. This

reverses the earlier variants in which man protected his own relationship to the divine. In short,

the action of the myth takes place in the economy of the divine. Mortals have become a mere

occasion for divine acts.

Also, this is the first variant in which capture-in-nets is valued negatively, although

Kallimachos gave a negative value to land-hunting as such. What was only implicitly anti-

hunting in (1g) is now manifest. Likewise the marriage contest motif is manifest. The phrase “by

chance” points to marriage by contest, a general name we have used for marriage by choice,

merit, or chance.

While in Kallimachos, temperance was signified by winning a good catch, now it is

signified by the loss of an unjust catch. The Mistress of Animals is both giver and keeper of

game. That the scholiast’s variant complements Kallimachos’ variant on this point confirms our

analysis of sacrificial temperance.

Finally, the scholiast has fused Artemis and Diktynna into one goddess, Artemis

Diktynna.

Vatican Mythographer II (1o) Bryte who was pursued by Minos leaped into the sea. Her body was recovered by fishing nets, and in order to bring to an end the pestilence which was sent as punishment a temple was erected to Artemis Diktynna. (II.26)

132

The Vatican Mythographer’s variant can be analyzed into two schemata:

anti-healing —————––––––––– healing (disease)

(no temple) —————––––––––– temple

These schemata are intertwined with a political motif. This motif vaguely appears when we are

told Minos pursued Bryte; this could refer to rape or assault, as is likely considering her

subsequent drowning. In any case, we may analyze out a level of injustice. The myth has two

mediators, a sacred disease and a sanctuary,495 the latter replacing the former in the myth’s plot.

The variant has several metaphors: murder as plague, disease as injustice, a plague as an

overwhelming sea, injustice as an overwhelming sea. The building of a temple is seen as an act

which justifies and heals. The sacrifice is a medical and political act which restores temperance.

The variant manifests the penalty motif only implicit in the Minos episodes of

Kallimachos and Antoninus Liberalis. In these episodes, Minos wins only his futility; he gains

nothing. In the Vatican Mythographer’s variant, Minos wins a harsh penalty, a disease. The

variant manifests the purification motif latent in Antoninus’ Aphaia ritual.

Artemis, as in the Scholiast’s variant, is an active agent in the myth; here she acts directly

upon men. She sends disease and she heals. While in (1g) the healing motif was found in the

ritual; here it is part of the myth proper.496 The healing motif has replaced the surrendering motif

of the preceding variants. The gift of Britomartis is not the gift of health. The story of Bryte is an

allegory of health or, in sacrificial terms, an allegory of salvation. The various motifs of (1o)

comprise a triangle, which may be compared to preceding ones:

495 For the sanctuary as mediator, cf. supra, pp. 77 ff. 496 Compare the literary source (1b).

133

giving of health purification

murder recovery of body blood pollution

The Vatican Mythographer’s variant stands to the earlier ones497 as chthonic expiatory

sacrifice (sphagia) to Olympian festal sacrifice (thysia). The thysia, which takes place at an altar

(bômos) during daylight and whose victim is partially eaten and partially burnt, is an act of

communion with music and dance. The sphagia, which takes place during the night at a pit

(eschara) into which is drained the blood of a victim to be wholly burnt, buried, or cast into

waters, is an act of placation and aversion performed in silence.498 The Vatican variant as a

whole stands in a black and morbid light. At last, death makes his appearance.

Notably, this is the first myth in which a sea leap clearly occurs. While the “recovery of

the body” by a play on words can mean healing, in this case it means a corpse. Healing follows

only after an expiation for murder. Thus, a sea leap is associated not with initiation or

immortality, but with murder by drowning and expiation. The sea motif is appropriate to the

497 Perhaps excepting (1n) with its redemption motif, which can be seen as a transitional variant to (1o). 498 See Yerkes, Sacrifice, pp. 51-55. The two types of sacrifice can be distinguished in terms of the structure of votive exchange. Thysia establishes a contractual exchange. This relationship (often called communion) is both uniting and distinguishing. Though not united, the partners commune. Each retains his separateness from which he is able to give. As opposed to the time before the contract, god and man are more intimate. The sphagia eliminates an exchange relationship which is negative. It eliminates a sacrifice by displacing the destructive work of the god, which hss been victimizing man, upon a scapegoat. The wrath, the projection or imputation of evil, is transferred to and wholly consumes the new victim. The god has given a negative gift, which, by means of the sacrificial victim, he takes back, refunds, recovers, redeems. Unlike the thysia, it is not something a man does, but something that is done for him. Man is passive; the redemption is an action in the economy of the divine. The sphagia constitutes the turning point between the projection and the introjection of divine wrath. The sphagia is a movement from negative union to positive separation, While thysia concerns metaphorical structure, sphagia concerns symbolic substitution.

134

expiatory motif; in the sphagia water functions to devour evil. The sea leap is hardly the positive

symbol asserted by R. Holland and M. Papathamapoulos.499

We are no longer in the world of nymphs and heroes, but of Bryte the mortal. In the place

of a theological mediator, man has an immediate relationship to the divine. Yet, this immediate

relationship is also indirect. How the divine relates to men depends upon how men relate to each

other. The goddess avenges injustices among men.500

Finally, we note that for the Vatican Mythographer the nets image seems irrelevant,

having perhaps no other significance than to explain the epithet Diktynna. The primal metaphor

of marriage by contest has vanished, as well as the classical symmetry of Kallimachos’

variant.501

So ends the trajectory of the myth of Britomartis-Diktynna.

Our review of the other variants of the Britomartis Diktynna mythologem has brought out

many points. In relation to our earlier interpretation of the Kallimachos variant, the most

important of these are as follows.

First, that the limnê is central for Euripides’ account of Diktynna and is, it seems, the

ground for his fusing Diktynna and Artemis Limnaia confirms the significance we attached to the

bottom lands image in the Kallimachos variant. Pausanias (1l), in the light of Euripides, indicates

the Spartans themselves identified Britomartis and Limnaia. Marshes, virgin dancers, marriage

proteleia, and, through Orthia, child-raising are all associated in the Limnaia complex just as

499 See supra, footnote 49, p. 23. 500 Artemis has become like the Zeus to whom one could appeal for vengeance against the injustices of other men. Compare Hesiod’s Dike who mediates between men and Zeus. In this case, men have a mediate and indirect relationship to Zeus. 501 The elements of the Britomartis myth now take on significance in relation to Christianity, a religion of redemption, of a murdered fishermen, whose body was never recovered.

135

they are in the Britomartis Diktynna complex. Aristophanes establishes that the nets image was

central to the tradition of Diktynna prior to his time, as well as that of Kallimachos. The variant

of Diodorus Siculus in saying that Britomartis invented nets manifests the technological code

which, though latent, was a vital key for deciphering the Kallimachos variant. The mythological

role of salt as marsh technology—noted with respect to Euripides (1b)—helps confirm our stress

on the mythological significance of nets as a marsh technology.

Second, if the Aphaia of Antoninus Liberalis (1m) is connected with aphos, then it

confirms our thesis that resins and the medicinal triangle of resins (i.e. the technology of pine

and mastich) are key for deciphering the significance of the plants in the Diktynna ritual. The

healing motif of that ritual is mythically manifest in the Vatican Mythographer’s variant. That

Pausanias (1k) pairs Britomartis with Aristaios, whose myth links technological, trephological,

and myrtle elements, again confirms our analysis of the ritual. Variants (1m) and (1k) give us the

two distinctive levels of the ritual, i.e. medicinal and trephological. The controversial relation of

Diktynna and Mt. Diktê—Kallimachos versus Strabo—confirms the mythological significance of

the trephological (nursing) level.

Third, Herodotos, Euripides, and Antoninus Liberalis add to the levels of the Britomartis

Diktynna mythologem a navigation level, including sea-faring and astronomy. Antoninus

supplements the primal marriage contest metaphor of Kallimachos with a primal oxymoron. In

the light of both, emerged the marriage and sacrifice triangle (take, keep, and give), which

confirmed previous similar triangles and showed in structural terms how the two variants

supplemented each other. The Scholiast’s “by chance” motif manifested the marriage contest

motif of earlier variants.

136

Fourth, our interpretation that Kallimachos’ nets image signified temperance is confirmed

by Aristophanes (1d) in which nets function in terms of the opposition injustice/justice, i.e.

temperance. The solid/liquid opposition which structures the images both of nets and of resins

reappeared in Euripides (1b)’s pelanos motif. Antoninus’ theme of invincibility and

untamability, as well as virginity, which is evident with respect both to the myth and the aphos is

virtually synonymous with temperance.

Finally, with respect to Chapter Eight below, we can note that starting with Euripides—

our first literary source—Britomartis Diktynna and Artemis have been associated in one form or

another. Diodorus Siculus was the first to raise the theological question in their identity.

137

CHAPTER VII

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MYTHOLOGEM

Now that we have reviewed the variants of the Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia

mythologem, what is the structure of the mythologem as a whole? To discover this structure, we

analyze all the variants into “mythemes”502 (see next page). The mythemes fall into four

“bundles” which can be summarized in an analogy of value and theme:

man hunts° : Britomartis flees° :: the surrender or+ : man gives+ grasps hides giving of Britomartis+ nets, seizes disappears by god sacrifice

(hybrizô) by herself or (by man) man hides Britomartis +

This can be simplified:

man hunts° : Britomartis flees° :: giving of Britomartis+ : man gives+ Lévi-Strauss calls such an analogy the “law of the group.”503 It is the structural law for a group

of variants. Note that the “law” is not an “ideal” or “original” myth; it cannot be since an analogy

cannot express narrative order. In fact, considering the variants, hunt can follow or precede

flight, just as man’s giving can follow or precede the giving of Britomartis. Hunt evokes flight

and flight hunt, as prestations evoke counterprestations. The two relations of reciprocity

dominate the mythologem as a whole.504

502 For the method of analysis into mythemes and bundles see Claude Lévi-Strauss, “The Structural Study of Myth,” SA, pp. 222-28. Using this method, no variation is discarded as inauthentic and no reconstruction is made of some “ideal” myth. 503 Ibid., p. 225. 504 Their opposite valences recall the “anti-structure/structure” schema of the Kallimachos variant.

138

MYTHEME BUNDLES

° ° + + Kall. 1(g) Mi. pursued

Br. in mtns. Br. hid

Mi. pursued Br.

(crags & cliffs) Br. strayed near the sea

Br. leapt into nets fishermen’s nets saved her

Myrtle entangled

in Br. robe Br. angry at the myrtle

Kyd. sacr. to Br. Dkt.

D. S. (1h) Br. invented

hunting nets (men) called Br. Dkt.

Paus. (1j-k) Br. loved running

& hunting

Mi. fell in love

with Br. Br. fled Br. leapt into nets (fishermen)

let down nets Br. made goddess

by Artemis Krt. & Aig.

worship her

A. L. (1m) Br. fled men to remain a virgin

Br. came to Krete

Mi. saw, fell in

love with and pursued Br.

Br. took refuge among fishermen

fishermen plunged her under nets

Br. escaped Mi. Br. arrived at Aig.

in ship of Andromedes

Krt. called her Dkt. & sacrificed

Andr. to unite with

Br. took her in hands

Br. stepped out, fled, disappeared in wood

a statute of Art. appears in sanct. (aphos)

Aig. called her Aphaia, dedicated sanctuary

Scholiast (1n) Br. was hunting

Br. fell into

hunters’ nets Br. rescued by Artemis

Br. est. sanctuary to Art. Dkt.

V. M. (1o) Mi. pursued Br. Br. leapt into sea

Body recovered by

fishnets (Art.) sent pestilence

Art. sent health (men) est. temple to Art. Dkt.

139

MYTHEME SEQUENCES

Note: the above sequences are reducible to seven, namely:

Bg Mt A. L. (2) Bg Mk A. L. Bg Mg Kall., Paus., D. S., A. L. (implicit) Bk Mt Paus., Scholiast?, V. M.? Bk Mg A. L. (2), V.M. (implicit) Mg Bg Kall., Paus., V. M. Mt Bk Kall. (2), Paus., A. L. Scholiast (implicit), V. M.

505 In the case of Kallimachos and Pausanias, since Britomartis leapt “into nets,” the nets were there first. Thus, the real sequence is “Mg Bg”, although the sequence is “by accident.”

Kall. (1g) Mt Bk Mt Bk Mg505 Bg (Mk) Mg D. S. (1h) Bg Mg Paus. (1j) Bk Mt. Bk Mg Bg (Mk) Mg A. L. (1m) Bk Bg Mt Bg Mk Bk Mg Bg Mt Bk (Bg) Mg Scholiast (1n) Bk Mt Bk (Bg) (Bg) V. M. (1o) Mt Bk (Mt) (B)k Mg Bg Key. B = Britomartis; M = man; t = “take”; k = “keep”; g = “give”

140

One advantage of arranging variants into bundles is that it indicates each poet’s

perspective. By highlighting and juxtaposing certain themes, each mythographer gives his

peculiar “slant” on the mythologem. For example, Kallimachos emphasizes the stark contrast

between Minos’ hybris and the giving of Britomartis. The clash of these two mythemes gives one

a sense of injustice; one feels outraged. On the other hand, Antoninus Liberalis places

Britomartis’ flight next to man’s giving of protection and sacrifice. Antoninus sees the maiden’s

flight not as humility, but as invincibility. Man gives honor or respect, which is invincibility’s

due. In the light of this feminine invincibility—we can extrapolate—it would be the folly of

arrogance (a masculine trait) to think itself invincible. We might call Kallimachos’ perspective

“masculine” and Antoninus’ “feminine.” Each man has his own “vision” of mythologem.

Since the verb triangle of marriage and sacrifice resonates with the resin triangles and the

resin triangles with generalized exchange,506 the verb triangle simultaneously structures myth

and ritual. Using this triangle, the structural law of our mythologem can be reformulated:

Thus, the verb triangle is constitutive of the very structure of the mythologem, including variants

and Diktynna ritual. The various triangles are superposed in this diagram:

506 See supra pp. 87, 90, 102-110, 127-128.

man takes° : Britomartis flees° :: giving of Britomartis+ : man gives+

141

cold, wet viscous

unsharps, uncuts

trust, surrendering of the bride, marriage by contest

gives

takes keeps

heat prevents solidifying

cuts up, disperses

air prevents liquefying binds, uncuts, dries

hot, feverish speculation,

aiming to take what it can airy speculation, i.e.,

endogamy as the cessation of speculation

hot, devouring passion of the hybristês

ethereal and unmeltable virginity

While we can analyze the variants into mythemes and show the analogical relationship

between these mythemes, we can also analyze the variants with respect to narrative order, i.e.,

the sequential ordering of mythemes (see table, page 140).

Letting “take” equal “t,” “keep” equal “k,” “give” equal “g,” “Britomartis” equal “B,”

and “man” equal “M,” the various sequences (each with a male and a female subject) are

reducible to seven, namely:

Bg Mt Bg Mk Bg Mg Bk Mt Bk Mg Mg Bg Mt Bk

142

Using one or more of these sequences, each poet composes his variant. Now, if we bracket the

subjects, that leaves four verb sequences:

g t g k507 g g k t

These verb sequences can be arranged around the verb triangle:

give

take keep

Clearly, of the four basic verb sequences, three are reversible and one is irreversible, namely “g

t.”

What does the irreversibility of “g t” mean and how does its meaning relate to the

mythologem as a whole? “G t” is irreversible for two reasons. First, Britomartis is not a

subject of this sequence; “Bt” is never a mytheme. This means that Britomartis never takes; there

is only the hiding or giving of Britomartis. This emphasizes that Britomartis personifies

elemental energy; she is a source. Her two modes of action (hiding and giving) are like the two

modes of energy, potential and kinetic. She is reached only by giving. She gives only in

exchange for gifts. Second, “g t” is irreversible because “Mt” never yields “Bg.” The latter

507 On the case “g k” (and not in the next two cases) the verb sequences are reversible, but the subjects are not, because “Mk” never begins a sequence. “Mk” never evokes a response from Britomartis. Also, there is no sequence “Mg Bk.”

143

sequence never happens.508 This means that man’s taking never yields the giving of Britomartis.

It yields only her flight or hiding. Man’s taking is futile; it fails of its goal--a goal which can only

be ‘achieved’ by a gift. The non-existent story, the absent sequence, is the “masculine” pathos

which underlies the whole mythologem and especially the variant of Kallimachos. That “Mt”

never yields “Bg” only highlights the fact that “Bg” does yield “Mt” (though it can also yield

“Mk” and “Mg”). This means that the giving of Britomartis might be followed by man’s taking.

In other words, her gift may be taken with ingratitude. Imagine her contempt, if not disgust, for

such “brute,” “animal” behavior; her disdain borders on self-righteousness. In fact, the pattern

“Bg Mt Bk” occurs in Antoninus and subsequent mythographers. It is the “feminine”

pathos which underlies the mythologem.

Now, we have analyzed the mythologem two ways, according to an analogy of mythemes

and according to the sequence of mythemes in narrative. Our twofold analysis conforms to the

way poets themselves set about composing their myths, sometimes juxtaposing one mytheme

against another and sometimes emphasizing one sequence of mythemes instead of another. By

the first activity the poet gives his own unique “slant” to the mythologem, by the second, his own

“twist.”509

What does the structure of the mythologem says about temperance? Claude Lévi-Strauss

theorizes that

508 Since there is one story which never happens, can we not say that its not-happening allows all others stories to happen, that its not-happening makes possible the happening of other stories, or that because one story does not happen, all other stories are allowed to happen? 509 For an example of “slant,” note how nets are used in the various mythemes: Britomartis was discovered by nets (1g, 1j), covered by nets (1m), recovered from nets (1n, 1o), and she discovered nets (1h). There are so many variations on heuriskô (to find, discover). Or, that Britomartis’ desire for virginity might itself be provocative is a “twist” presented in the variants of Pausanias and the Scholiast. Considering that a myth has four aspects—as my procedure has indicated, namely (1) mythemes (functions), (2) the analogical law of the variant group, (3) reversible and irreversible mytheme sequences, and (4) the story which never happens (an unconscious structure?)—such popular distinctions used in structural analyses as “paradigmatic/syntagmatic” and “diachronic/synchronic,” are inadequate.

144

the purpose of myth is to provide a logical model capable of overcoming a contradiction (an impossible achievement if, as it happens, the contradiction is real), … 510

In the Britomartis mythologem “contradictions” are overcome by temperance. Whether one

considers—and we shall in the following—the analogical formula, the mytheme sequences, or

the structural triangle, all of which are “logical models,”511 the very structure of the mythologem

informs a message of temperance.

The formula of the myth is: take° : keep° : : give+ : give+. The inverse relation is

to intemperance as the positive is to temperance. Since Kallimachos juxtaposes man’s hybris and

the giving of Britomartis,512 he would have us infer that hybris (as rape)513 is intemperance. This

is the “masculine” side of intemperance. Since Antoninus Liberalis juxtaposes the maiden’s

flight and man’s giving, he would have us infer that temperance is not humility. Finally, we note

that the contradiction (oxymoron?) between taking and keeping is overcome by exchange and

reciprocity, i.e. temperance.

We have seen that the verb sequences stressed three points. We take each up in relation to

temperance. First, since “Bg Mt,” insult (ingratitude) is intemperance.514 This is the

“feminine” side of intemperance. Second, since “Mt” never yields “Bg,” intemperance is self-

defeating; temperance is invincible and is such without force, without striving. Third, sine “Bt”

does not exist, Britomartis personifies elemental energy. Thus temperance is invincible or

overflowing energy, an energy grounded in exchange.

510 “The Structural Study of Myth,” SA, p. 226. The parenthetical statement refers to the contradiction between life and death. This opposition appears frequently in the structural analyses of Lévi-Strauss and his followers. Since the death motif (and by extrapolation the life/death opposition) occurs in only one of our variants, namely (1o), it played little part in our analysis as a whole. I doubt that it is a universal opposition of mythology. 511 Lévi-Strauss considers only the analogical formula; and, even in that case, he does not consider the possibility of an ambiguous function, i.e. a sort of ‘fifth’ function. 512 See supra, p. 141. 513 hybrizô= to rape or to insult. 514 hybrizô= to rape or to insult.

145

In addition, the oscillation of masculine and feminine subjects and of active and passive

roles, i.e., “m f m …”, as well as such balancings as “Bg Mt Bk” and “Mt Bk

Mg Bg”, are indicative of a tempering process or of creative energy as tempering process.

Also, as one opposing term follows another in the narrative line, contradictions are overcome.

For example, a contradiction between keeping and giving is overcome by a change of character.

Sometimes Britomartis keeps to herself; sometimes she surrenders. A contradiction between

taking and giving is overcome by a change of characters. Minos is replaced by fishermen.

Now turn to the structural triangle.515 The reciprocity of givers and the idea of resin

signify temperance. As reciprocal giving overcomes taking and keeping, so viscosity overcomes

the contradiction between heat and air, and so the cool waters of trust (especially in contest

marriage) overcome the contradiction of generalized exchange.516 Trust, the surrendering of the

bride, is like a releasing of cool waters, a flowing like the descent of Britomartis—like

hypogamy—down to the sea, a flowing like the viscosity of resin, a slow meandering, full of

twists and turns and weaves, full of resistances met and overcome as the waters descend.517

Now we look again at the analogical formula for our mythologem:

Mk or Mt : Bk : : Bg : Mg

Letting “x” equal “man,” “y” equal “Britomartis,” “a” equal “takes,” “b” equal “keeps,” and “a-

1” (i.e. the opposite of “a”) equal “gives,” the analogy can be formalized:

515 See supra, p. 141. 516 See supra, pp. 102-110, 127-128. 517 In addition, note how taking, keeping, and giving are all reconciled in the Greek heroic euchê. The hero commands the god’s gift, takes it, promising to give a votive in return. He “takes” a risk that he can repay the gift, and the god expects its right to repayment to be honored, kept.

146

Fx(b) or

Fx(a) : Fy(b) : : Fa-1(y)518 : Fx(a-1)

This is similar to Lévi-Strauss’ formula for the “law of the group,”519 but for two points. First, in

our myth “b” is the opposite of “a,” so that all three terms are in a triangle of opposites.520

Second, there are five functions.521

The right-hand relation with its ambiguous fourth function, which is derived from the

following mytheme sequence:

Mk Bg Mg

overcomes a contradiction between keeping and giving. We take up each sequence in turn.

First, the sequence “Bg Mk” (found only in Antoninus) stresses that Britomartis

surrenders herself to men for protection. She does this by choice. Allegorically, she is a bride or

Dikê, a man is a husband or statesman. She is protected by means of nets. The sequence is

irreversible, since “Mk” never starts a sequence, i.e. Britomartis is inactive if she is hidden or

concealed.

Second, since “Mk” is also the “giving of protection,” i.e., “Mg,” “Bg Mk” is

effectively “Mg Bg”. “Mg Bg” means that Britomartis surrenders herself to nets, i.e., to

temperance. This is the pattern in Kallimachos and Pausanias. While “Bg Mk” was by choice,

518 In this function, “a-1” and “y” have been inverted—it can be paraphrased as “the surrendering of Britomartis”—to account for the fact that Britomartis can be subject or indirect object of “giving.” It leaves the giver unspecified so as to include: (1) Artemis, who gives a mediator (Britomartis, health) to men, (2) Britomartis, who gives herself, nets, sacrifice, here Fy(a-1)= Fa-1(y), and (3) men, who allegorically, surrender Britomartis every time a daughter is surrendered in marriage this case = Fx(a-1). 519 Op. cit., p. 225: Fx(a) : Fy(b) = Fx(b) : Fa-1(y). 520 For a general account of triangles of oppositions in structural analysis, see Edmund Leach, Claude Lévi-Strauss, pp. 15-30. 521 The seven mytheme sequences are themselves composed from these same five functions. Compare “Structure and Dialectics,” SA, pp. 236-37. His use of “symbol” is ambiguous.

147

this sequence is by accident. Allegorically, Britomartis is a good catch; man is a fisherman. The

means for her surrender is, again, nets, temperate nets. The power which “saves” her resides in

the nets. In the variant of the Vatican Mythographer, Britomartis is, allegorically, health, and

man is an offerer of a sanctuary (as opposed to nets). She surrenders ‘by expiation.’522

The sacrifice motif takes us to a third sequence, “Bg Mg.” This occurs in Kallimachos,

Pausanias, and Diodorus. In each case the sequence is a movement from myth (surrender) to

ritual (sacrifice in thanksgiving for the giving of Britomartis), and it is a movement “by merit,”

since thanksgiving is a sign of virtue. In sacrifice men give either sacred wreaths or divine

names.523 A sacred name, in this case Diktynna, is given to the maiden Britomartis. Giving or

celebrating a divine name is a kind of protection: compare Pausanias (the apotheosis of

Britomartis falls in bundle “Bk”) or the Vatican Mythographer (giving an expiatory sacrifice

‘protects’ the divine name from slander). Thus, “Mg” equals “Mk,” and this returns us to our

first sequence, “Bg Mk.”

Thus the three kinds of relations between the three mythemes overcome and reconcile the

contradiction between giving and keeping. And note that the interplay of “chance,” “choice,” and

“merit” in this reconciliation is the same interplay connoted by “contest marriage.”

The contradiction between giving and keeping is also overcome, on man’s side, by a

movement from “Mk” to “Mg.”

man’s keeping

man’s giving

This sequence occurs in Antoninus (after protecting Britomartis with nets, they give sacrifice)

and, implicitly, in Kallimachos and Pausanias (“saving” nets are followed by sacrifice), and in 522 Compare the combination of “by chance” and “by expiation” in the Christian doctrine of atonement. 523 Of course they may also dedicate nets or parts of the catch, as we have seen from epigrams in the Greek Anthology, supra, p. 77.

148

each case it is a movement from myth to ritual sacrifice. As one who protects (keeps), a man is a

shepherd-like statesman; he husbands his resources. The gifts a man gives might be wreaths

made from pine and mastich, nets made from rushes, a sanctuary, or a divine name. In giving a

sanctuary or a divine name, one gives realm and recognition. Weaving wreaths is an educating

and healing deed. Weaving and casting nets is a tempering deed. These offerings are like gifts

from a groom; they are demonstrations of temperance by which a bride is won. In general, the

sequence “Mk Mg” stresses man’s deed. It stresses not so much the gift of Britomartis as the

gift of humanity.

The movement from myth to ritual per se can be seen as one in which a ritual deed

follows on a mythic deed. The protected or hidden becomes the given. This may be taken as an

allegory of man’s self-expression. Inward words, feelings, and deeds become outward words,

feelings, and deeds. Innate gifts are given; innate powers, exercised. In a sense, this is a

movement from potential to actual, dynamis to energeia. The mythologem thus equates energeia

and praxis (transaction). Energy is essentially a structure of exchange, an invincible polarity of

givers and gift as well.

The dialectic between man’s keeping and man’s giving is like the idea of resin, i.e., the

ancient view that Nature signifies independent, cyclical growth, characterized by quantum leaps

of energy, by kairos. The viscosity of resin is both a guarded flowing and a measured giving. In

the ideal, giving is not altruistic or extravagant, nor is it parsimonious to treasure the beautiful.

The movement from myth to ritual is a token of human freedom and responsibility within

the whole of Nature. The tempering acts of man complement the tempering passion of Nature.

Man places himself in harmony with the tempering nature of the whole by doing deeds of

temperance (and is placed in harmony by the giving of the Nature Goddess). Thus, a myth is not

149

only a logical model—as Lévi-Strauss says—it is also an ethical model; and, hence, it overcomes

“real contradictions.”

Finally, the movement from man’s keeping to man’s giving might be seen as a change of

characters,524 from a father who would keep his daughter, to a groom who gives gifts of

temperance to win a bride. This is a movement from man’s concealing (over-protecting) of

Britomartis to man’s giving, to an exchange of gifts. In this case, the contradiction between

man’s keeping and his giving is overcome by man’s deed of temperance and the gift of

Britomartis.

In sum, whether we consider the analogical law, the structural triangle (including the idea

of resin), or the mytheme sequences, the structure of the mythologem as a whole signifies that

temperance is elemental energy, an exchange of gifts, invincibility, independence, and cyclical

growth by means of self-healing inner heat, which indirectly heals others, and that this

temperance, whether by man’s deed or the surrender of Britomartis, overcomes and reconciles

the contradiction between taking, keeping, and giving.

We even see that the transition from myth to ritual entails that transaction in which by

means of vowing one’s own gift, the gift of Britomartis is surrendered. Indeed, when Fx(a-1) =

Fa-1(y) and a man embraces his wife, the two motions are identical.

Thus, we repeat the proverb:

Mêden agan˙ en kairôi panta prosesti kala.

524 Compare the change of characters, supra, p. 146.

150

CHAPTER VIII

PROLEGOMENON TO THE ARTEMIS MYTHOLOGEM

The analysis we have made of the Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia mythologem can serve

as a guide which gives clues for future research into the mythology of Artemis. Below, we list

some areas and themes for this research. The list is not designed to be complete but rather to

suggest, in a few cases, how this dissertation can serve as a prolegomenon to new analyses.

Basic metaphors of the Britomartis myth are found in many Artemis myths.

The metaphor of marriage by contest is found in the cult legends of Artemis Agrotera at

Megara (Alkathous and the Lion of Kithairon) as well as Artemis Eukleia at Thebes (Herakles

and Antipoinos’ daughters). Heraklean labors related to Artemis may be seen as marriage tasks.

These include the Keryneian Hind, the Erymanthian Boar, the Stymphalides, the Kretan Bull,

and the Lernaian Hydra. Orion engaged in an unwinnable contest for Merope. Admetos won

Alkestis by yoking a lion and a boar to his chariot. The rope dance to Artemis Kordax celebrated

Pelop’s winning of Hippodameia. A rope dance was also held at the Delian Artemisia. Artemis

Peithô presided over the marriage of Hypermnestra and Lynkeus.

Variations on the theme of the anti-contest, including the metaphor of hunting as rape, are

found in the myths of (1) Artemis and Alpheios, (b) Arethousa and Alpheios, (c) Pleiades and

Orion, (d) Artemis and the Aloadai, (e) Syrinx and Pan, (f) Pitys and Pan, (g) Daphnaia and

Apollo, and (h) Leto and Tityos. The myth of Artemis and Alpheios can be seen as a metaphor

between healing (leprosy, “whites”) and pottery making, for which the mediator is kaolin

(potter’s earth) which is left on the banks as Alpheios recedes. In the myth of Artemis and the

Aloadai, javelins are a mediator in the metaphor between hunting, marriage, and song-making

(the Muses, the metaphor here being similar to Pindar’s “arrows of song”). Artemis Daphnaia

151

has a cult associated with both Artemis Alpheiaia and Artemis Diktynna. A key to the Daphnaia

myth is a medicinal herb, the wild bay (onothêras), used to make men temperate.525

Related to the marriage by contest myths is a myth-festival complex involving the

capturing and yoking of bulls. Artemis Taurô is associated with the Taurians whom Osiris taught

to yoke bulls for plowing. She is again associated with Artemis Tauropolia526 and the legend of

Orestes and Iphigeneia. The motif of capturing and yoking is metaphorically allied with getting

married. Thus, both Orestes and Iphigeneia are married after establishing the cults at Halae and

Brauron. Analogous is the taurokathapsia (bull-tethering), which took place at such festivals as

the Artemisia at Ephesos. In this event a bull was wrestled to the ground and tethered. The

technological imagery here is that of ropes, nooses, knots, and wreaths.527 The Artemis myth of

Tmolos and Arhippe gives us an anti-kathapsia and an anti-marriage contest. Tmolos takes

Arhippe by force and Artemis sends a wild bull which gores and tosses him to his death.

Artemis’ slaying of Adonis is an inverse myth. On the Mycenaean Vapheio Cups are two scenes

which epitomize the significance of the bull-yoking and bull-tethering motifs. One scene shows a

man attempting to seize a bull by force which results in his being gored. The other scene shows a

man capturing a bull by using a net and a cow for bait. The Vapheio Cups tells the same message

as the Britomartis myth, namely temperance, and temperance by means of technê.528

There are a group of Artemic myths in which the heroine hangs herself, e.g. Phaidra,

Ariadne, Arhippe, and Aspalis. These are related to the Erigone myth which is the aitia for the

525 Thphr. HP. 9.19.1 526 The ending –polia is from poleuô (to plow). 527 In AP. 9.543 “noose” is mentioned; in Heliodorus of Ephesus 10. 28-39 the men’s arms are like “wreaths”; they attach two “ropes,” one to each horn. Axel W. Persson, The Religion of Greece in Prehistoric Times, p. 177, compares the event to Minoan gems which depict bull’s horns tied with sacred knots. For a related type, the goddess who rides the bull, see Werner Technau’s “Die Göttin auf dem Stier.” 528 For a closer link of Britomartis and bulls note (a) Minos and the Minotaur, and (b) the 150 clay bulls found at the temple of Aiginetan Aphaia (see Willetts, CCF., p. 182).

152

Aiora festival and which is itself a myth of temperance with respect to wine. There is also a cult

of Hanging Artemis at Kondylea. Since the heroine, rather than being saved by nets is hung by a

rope, these myths can be seen as a structural inversion of the Britomartis myth. They are based

on a metaphor between anti-marriage and anti-birth. Both processes fail because of a “noose,”

the noose by which the father refuses to surrender his daughter or by which she refuses to

surrender herself and the tight “noose” of the uterine mouth which forbids delivery. The anti-

type of this is the easy and fruitful delivery sent by Artemis Lysizônos (She Who Loosens the

Girdle). The noose symbol is bound up with a cluster of symbols, including the thread of

Ariadne, the swing of Phaidra, and the rope in general.529

Childbirth and hunting are metaphorically related in another group of myths. We have

seen this metaphor in the Britomartis myth and assigned it to Artemis Locheia. The symbol of

the bear which occurs in the myth of Kallisto and at the cult of Brauron should be considered in

terms of this metaphor. The mediators here are (a) the account of the nature of bears in

Oppian,530 (b) the scaring rope (marinthos), to which feathers were attached, used to ambush

bears,531 and (c) the ôkypteros, a hawk whose feathers were used in childbirth magic.532

While the Kallisto myth can be taken as a land-hunting permutation of the Britomartis

myth, the myth of the Stymphalides can be taken as an air-hunting (fowling). The central

metaphor of the Stymphalides myth is between fowling and healing and its mediator is the birds

of the Stymphalian Marsh. These birds are fowling hawks, fever demons, and, since their name

connotes astringency, healing birds. That behind the sanctuary of Artemis Stymphalia are

529 Compare the painting by Polygnotos which depicts Phaidra on a swing and Ariadne watching and which stands next to a picture of Oknos plaiting rope (Paus. 10.29.1-3). A series of articles by Nilsson, Deubner, and Picard on the Aiora and the Hanged Goddess motif fail to do justice to the technological level of the imagery. For example, Picard, who introduces Polygnotos’ painting into the Aiora debate, fails to consider the Oknos scene. 530 He says bears do violence to Eileithyia in their pursuit of Aphrodite (Opp. C. 3.154 ff). 531 Ibid., 4.384 ff. 532 D’Arcy W. Thompson, A Glossary of Greek Birds, s.v.

153

statutes of virgins with bird legs should not surprise us. The cult of Aphaia has taught us to see

the healing power of virginity. The Stymphalian virgins also refer us to the cult of Wingless

Artemis at Aptera, the locale of the contest between the Muses and the Sirens. The Sirens, who

lured sailors to their death, have a name related to seira (a rope, cord, noose), a deadly,

entangling weaving of rushes. Sirens may be likened to decoy doves used in fowling to lure prey

into nooses.

Having sacrificed and giving birth comprise the depth metaphor of the Niobe

mythologem. Niobe esteems her large number of children over the divine quality of Leto’s two

children; such is her intemperance.

The states of having-sacrificed and of having-married unite in a metaphorical structure

which underlies the hair sacrifice proteleia at Troizen and Delos. The significance given “shaggy

oaks” by the Britomartis myth throws new light on the meaning of this rite (as well as the thysia

aparchê). A hypothesis can be made that the rite marks a passage from a state of violence and

hybris to one of peace and temperance. A key to the Delos ritual is the fact that the locks of hair

are “twisted” around a blade of grass or a spindle. This may be compared to the winding of

wreaths in the Diktynna ritual, an act which signified flexibility and a cyclical healing process.

Trephological and technological levels combine in the three rituals associated with the

cult of Artemis Orthia, namely, the whipping of ephêbes, the stealing of cheeses, and the making

of cheeses for sacrifice.533 We have seen how the trephological level of the Diktynna ritual

resonates with the “doubled-up, twisted ——> orthos” schema.534 The Orthia ritual, at least

before the Roman period, is not as ‘barbaric’ as is usually supposed.

533 Nilsson, Feste, p. 194, is unable to interpret the cheese theft rite. 534 See supra, p. 107.

154

The Ephesian Daitis festival—as we noted earlier535—combines nautical and healing

imagery, its mediators being salt and wild celery, both products of marshes. The many-breasted

Ephesian Artemis of Hellenistic times metaphorically combines political and trephological

levels. Nautical and marital levels combine in the central metaphor of Iphigeneia at Aulis.

From the above paragraphs we can see that all the levels into which we were able to

analyze the Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia mythologem can be found in various guises in other

Artemis myths. These levels and their respective eidetic structures might be definitive for

Artemic mythology as a whole. Confirmation of this is a theme for further research.

Turning to central messages and themes, one can project that the central theme of the

whole Artemis mythologem is that of the Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia mythologem, i.e.

temperance. Such is suggested by the fact that all the levels of the latter are in the former. The

Troizenian and Delian marriage rituals would help confirm this. If the myths of Hippolytos and

Narkissos are seen as transformations of the Britomartis myth under inversion of sex roles, that is

further confirmation. This is so because the plot of Euripedes’ Hippolytos, with Phaidra’s false

accusation of rape, concerns the theme of sôphrosynê and eukleia. The key to the Narkissos myth

is the Narkissos plant, one medicinal use of which is the curing of arthritis. It blooms at the death

of the inflexible hero.

Recalling the main images and symbols of the Britomartis myth, e.g., marsh, oak, rush,

net, womb, one sees that these or similar elements are repeated throughout Artemic mythology.

Just a few of numerous examples are: “marsh” (Ephesos, Stymphalides, Narkissos, Artemis

Limnaia, Artemis Kolôênê); “oak” (Amazons at Ephesos, Artemis Saronia); “reeds” (fowling

myths, Pan and Syrinx, Amazonian syrinx dance at Ephesos), “canoe” (Orion), “javelin”

535 See supra, p. 116.

155

(Aloadai); “salt and herbs” (Artemis Daphnaia, Ephesian Daitis, Narkissos); “cedar” (Artemis

Kedreatis); “nut tree” (Artemis Karyatis); “wild bay” (Artemis Daphnaia); “willow” (Artemis

Lygodesma and Orthia).

In the case of the Saronia cult a botanical code is key. The oak of Saronia is either a sea

bark oak or a cork oak. The former is a moist, heartless, hollow tree, and one implicated in the

death of Hippolytos—indeed he is this tree. The latter yields a technology the inverse of the main

motif of the myth, i.e. the death of King Saron by drowning. The cork oak is used to make floats

for anchor lines and fishing nets.536

The technological code, so central to the Britomartis-Diktynna mythologem, is found in

many Artemic myths besides that of Saronia. One need only peruse the above list or recall the

kaolin-pottery motif in Artemis Alpheiaia. The closest example to netmaking is the withy motif

associated with Artemis Lygodesma.

By comparing Theophrastos’ account of marsh plants537 with Xenophon’s and Oppian’s

accounts of the technology of the hunt538 one could construct a long list of products classifiable

as “marsh technology.”

In general, one should be on the look out for that region of technology which includes

such things as: nets, ropes, nooses, threads, clothing, arrows, javelins, fishing lines, sails, sail-

ropes, outriggers, canoes and other small sailing craft, herbs, salt, tethers, leashes, traps and

snares, bird nets, bird lines, mistletoe, limed fowling reeds, syrinxes, wheat straw, cheeses made

with the aid of sieves, baskets, mats, fences, yokes, axles, circumpolar stars, and wreaths. These

items are all woven into a topos whose central theme would be temperance.

536 Cf. Thphr. HP. 3.8.5; 3.17.1; Plin. NH. 16.13. It can also be used to make woman’s winter shoes, wheel axles, and planks. 537 Thphr. HP. 4.8.1 through 4.12.4. 538 Xen. Cyn. and Opp. C., passim.

156

Even the two central symbols of the Britomartis-Diktynna mythologem, namely rushes

and resin, make appearance in Artemic myths. We give three examples, in concluding this

chapter.

In his account of the wedding of Kydippê and Akontios, Kallimachos refers to Artemis as

“weaving rushes in Amyklai.”539 Amyklai itself is in a low area near the River Eurotas. Thus,

Kallimachos directly links Artemis to the technology of marshes.

Pausanias, describing Mothone in Messenia, says:

There is also a sanctuary of Artemis here and water in a well mixed with pitch.540

While he goes on to list all kinds of waters and “wonderful” springs,541 he misses, it seems, an

obvious connection between pitch-water and Artemis. In the light of our interpretation of the

Diktynna ritual, we are able to see the well as a natural epiphany of Artemis—indeed, of Artemis

Diktynna. The epiphany consists of a metaphor between the well, a source of water which give

life, and the pitch hole, a wound which is a source of warm healing powers both for itself and

others. Metaphorically, this pitch tempers, sometimes subduing and sometimes making more

brisk, the springs of life.

At Lakonian Karyai there is a sanctuary of Artemis Karyatis, where a yearly festival and

dance is held.542 The maiden dancers are depicted as wearing wreaths made of thin, pointed

leaves, apparently sharp-rushes, or reeds.543 In the Kolôê Marsh near Sardis, Artemis Kolôênê

has a sanctuary where a festival dance, the kalathoi (wicker baskets), is held in honor of the 539 Call. Aet. 3.1.24. The word we translate “rushes” has two readings. A papyrus gives thrios (a reef rope for sails), while G. R. Mair, following A. S. Hunt gives thryon (a rush). Since the former would be woven from the latter, either reading suffices. 540 Paus. 4.35.8. 541 Ibid. 4.35.9-12. 542 Ibid. 3.10.7. 543 See Reinhard Herbig, “Philister und Dorier,” pp. 73 ff., esp. Abb. 12, p. 75. Herbig notes that similar crowns were worn by dancers in the Karyatis, Orthia, and Karneian cults. Cf. Karl Hoenn, Artemis, pp. 31-37, 40. Herbig says “schilfblätterkrone” (leaf crowns of rush, reed, sedge, etc.). I interpolate “sharp-rush” as most appropriate.

157

nymph Kalaminê (a name derived from kalamoi, reeds).544 Juxtaposing the sharp-rush or reed

crowns of the Karyatis cult with the wicker baskets of Kolôênê, gives us a technological schema

analogous to that of the Britomartis myth. Each schema is a transformation by weaving.

544 Strabo 13.626; R-E., s.v. kalaminê. R-E interprets Strabo to the effect that the dancers danced in harmony with or as representing the reeds of the sea. Karl Hoenn, Artemis, pp. 49-50, follows R-E on this point. Nilsson, Feste, p. 253, says that kalathoi must refer to baskets (a kalathos is a basket used by woman to carry wool, etc., and originally made of kalamoi, reeds) worn as head-pieces by the dancers. While Nilsson, Feste, pp. 196-199, Herbig, op. cit., and Hoenn, op. cit., compare the Karyatis and Kolôênê cults, they treat the marsh plants as fertility symbols. They miss the technological level. Perhaps this level is a clue to the obscure Attic hero, Kalamites, of whom little but a name remains.

158

CHAPTER IX

CONCLUSION

Let us now gather the main points we have made in the course of this dissertation.

This thesis has demonstrated that the nets image is central for interpreting Kallimachos’

myth of Britomartis. It is central to the myth’s plot, the symmetry of which is, in part, constituted

by saving nets. The nets image finds its primary significance in a botanical-technological

schema, i.e. a schema in which rushes are woven into fishing nets.

The nets image metaphorically binds together all the levels into which the myth can be

analyzed. Take for example the marriage, political, and sacrificial levels. Using allegorical,

literal, and anagogical aspects, their exegesis can be summarized as follows:

marriage a) Britomartis = bride b) Minos would rape Britomartis c) nets = engyê political a) Britomartis = Dikê b) Minos assaults Britomartis c) nets = nomos sacrificial a) Britomartis = semi-deity b) Minos blasphemes Britomartis c) nets = euchê

Engyê, nomos, and euchê are all interwoven metaphorically by means of the image of nets.

Also, the nets image functioned in a fourfold complementarity with oak, pine, and myrtle,

a complementarity which was constitutive of the interrelationship between the Britomartis myth

and the Diktynna ritual. In this context, nets signified structure and were complemented by the

counter-structure, both inwardly warm and independent, of pine.

A review of the other variants indicated that the nets image was significant for the

mythologem as a whole and that it was probably significant at the beginning of the tradition.

159

Only in the variant of the Vatican Mythographer—at the end of the tradition—is the nets image

virtually irrelevant. Also, we found that the latent symbol of rushes and the implicit

technological code (i.e. the making of nets from rushes) play significant roles in the other

Artemic myths.

Finally, the nets image, both intrinsically and in its various anagogies, contributes to the

overall theme of the mythologem, i.e., temperance. The title Britomartis-Diktynna and the title

“Lady of Nets”—image her appearing in fishing nets—suggests the twofoldness of the Nature

Goddess: as a nymph she signifies elemental energy, the fertility of Nature, overflowing

abundance, the penetrable, nets teeming with fish; and as a goddess or inventress of nets, she

signifies artifice and limit, interweaving and exchange, order and measure. As symbolized by

rushes, she signifies the power and strength found in that which is seemingly weak. Yet, with

respect to Minos, she signifies the wild profuseness of Nature, disordered and twisted in all

directions, an obstacle, dense and impenetrable. The double aspect of the Lady of Nets—nymph

and goddess of nets—is exemplified in the Hunt Goddess or Mistress of Animals, who both

provide the game and limit the catch.545

We have seen—with the help of ethnographic data—that the Diktynna ritual, whose

elements are manifestly botanical and implicitly technological, finds its primary significance on

trephological and medicinal levels. Pine and mastich signify independence and cyclical growth

by means of self-healing inner heat, a process which indirectly heals others. This significance we

have called “the idea of resins.” In the light of this “idea,” Nature, the realm of Britomartis

Diktynna, is characterized by interlinkages, by timed quantum leaps of energy, by kairos. The

essence of Nature and the nature of things is measured flow. Thus, the “idea of resins” is bound

545 See supra, pp. 35-36, 72, 78-79, 108-110.

160

up with a theme of temperance.546 That the ritual has such a significance is confirmed by the

significance of the aphos of Aphaia, by Pausanias’ pairing of Britomartis and Aristaios, and by

the association of Diktynna with Mt. Dikte.

We have seen that the Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia mythologem as a whole is

constituted by some ten levels metaphorically interwoven by means of some eleven “eidetic

structures.”547 These levels and structures are:

Level Eidetic Structure geophysical geographical botanical technological technical having-designed nautical having-voyaged economic having-caught biological childbirth having-delivered medicinal having-healed trephological having-raised having-tamed having-nursed sociological marital having-married political having-ruled sacrificial having-sacrificed

These eidetic structures supply the verbs which are used in the various plays on words and

metaphors that interrelate the levels. The primary metaphor of the mythologem is that between

hunting and getting married, i.e. the marriage contest. Here, in a play on words, a woman is “a

good catch.” Another important metaphor is that between hunting and childbearing, i.e., the

546 See supra, pp. 96-97, 103, 111-112. 547 The phrase “eidetic structure” is appropriate because an event such as getting married can be see both as a phenomenological eidos and as a transformational structure as defined by structuralism. The eidos and the structure both share a common linguistic form, i.e. “…ing-ed”. (Compare Edmund Husserl, Ideas, pp. 237-238, 257, with Jean Piaget, Structuralism, pp. 10-12.) The “…ing-ed” form stresses the twofold aspects of process and structure. Eidetic structures are teleological; they have goals which can be attained or deviated from. One can catch too much, too little, or just enough.

161

realm of Artemis Locheia.548 We discovered that a verb triangle (combining “opposite” verbs,

i.e., take, keep, and give), which structured marriage and sacrifice levels, harmonized the primal

metaphor of marriage by contest and the ritual “idea of resin.” We found that the mythologem as

a whole has a threefold constitution: (a) limited kinds of narrative sequences (seven verbal

sequences of which one was irreversible, the irreversible sequence indicating that temperance

involves a “masculine” and “feminine” pathos), (b) an analogical law, namely, take° : keep° : :

give+ : give+, which indicates that intemperance is hybris (rape or insult) and that temperance

involves gift exchange and invincible energy, and (c) a structural triangle combining the verb

triangle and the idea of resin. This threefold “constitution” informs a message of temperance and

reconciles the contradictions between “taking,” “keeping,” and “giving.”549

Finally, we have seen that myth and ritual—indeed the mythologem as a whole—has as

its central theme that the Goddess of Nature, Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia, is tempering. The

tempering Goddess has three aspects, elemental, universal, and systematic.550 First, she is the

elemental energy of Nature symbolized in rushes and personified by the nymph. She is the

strength found in that which is apparently weak. She is a power of fertility, an abundance of fish.

Second, she is the goddess whose universe or realm is Nature, Nature whose essence is “the idea

of resins,” i.e., cyclical growth by self-healing inner heat and with a measured flow, timed

quantum leaps of energy, and kairos. This “cycling” motif resonates with the primal action, the

technê of weaving; tempering is a weaving and spiraling process. Third, as inventress and

goddess of nets, she is limit and artifice, interweaving and exchange, order and measure. She is

the flexible, open-ended, pliant, and strong, like a net, being made of a series of loops. She is like

548 See supra, pp. 45-47, 78-79. 549 See supra, pp. 145-146, 150. 550 See supra, pp. 35-36, 72, 78-79, 103, 112.

162

the cycles of generalized exchange. She signifies the self-regulating and self-transforming. In all

three of her aspects, she is not only a goddess of Nature, she is also a goddess of temperance. By

corollary, Nature itself is tempering. To quote Galen once again, “Nature is artistic and provident

for living beings.” A second corollary is that the temperance of Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia is

multi-faceted. It is the interweaving of measured abundance and fruitful order. It is elemental

power bounded by the artifice of dialectical reciprocity. Energy and limit harmonize in the

serene beauty, in the grace, of the Goddess. Finally, temperance involves kairos, in accordance

with the oracle: “Mêden agan˙ en kairôi panta prosesti kala.”551

The imaginative data of the Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia mythologem can be

recapitulated as follows:

Material oaks and marshes nets Primal images myrtle pine and mastich-tragonis

also aphos-tragakantha diktamnon Primal symbol rushes also uterine mouth Primal idea resin

In-formal Primal action technê of weaving Central message Nature and the Nature Goddess is tempering Formal Primal metaphor marriage by contest

(having caught/having married) also Artemis Locheia

(having caught/having delivered) Verbal triangle taking, keeping, giving Analogical law: man takes° : Br. Keeps° : : giving of Br.+ : man gives+

551 See supra, pp. 78-79, 112.

163

The preceding points are basically four in number and comprise four parts of the thesis of

this dissertation:



Britomartis—so that the Lady of Nets has a twofold tempering essence, i.e., elemental energy

and fruitful abundance as well as limit and measure;

(2) That the Diktynna ritual plants finds their primary significance in terms of a

technology both trephological and medicinal—so that pine and mastich signify the “idea of

resin,” i.e., independence and cyclical growth by means of self-healing inner heat, a process

which indirectly heals others—and so that Nature is characterized by interlinkages, by timed

quantum leaps of energy, by measured flow, and by kairos;

(3) That the Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia mythologem as whole is comprised of some

ten metaphorically interwoven levels (the primary metaphor being contest marriage) and is triply

constituted by (a) limited number of narrative sequences, (b) an analogical law, and (c) a


the contradictions between “taking,” “keeping,” and “giving;”


central theme that Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia, the Goddess of Nature is tempering—so that


exchange), invincible in its fruitfulness, and self-regulating limit and measure, a harmony

grounded in a process of cyclical transformation and kairos.

164

* * * * *

In the light of this thesis, certain hypotheses which scholars have made concerning our

mythologems are inadequate.

L. R. Farnell and M. P. Nilsson are the leading interpreters of the Britomartis-Diktynna-

Aphaia mythologem. They have been followed, with minor variations, by H. J. Rose, R. F.

Willetts, Richard Holland, Karl Hoenn, and Wolfgang Fauth.

All the research takes Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia as a sub-type of Artemis, and, in

turn, they interpret Artemis as a ‘hypostasis’ of a ‘pre-Hellenic’ ‘Mother Goddess.’ Their

interpretations are in accord with their general hypothesis about the nature of Greek religion, a

hypothesis central to the work of such late nineteenth and early twentieth century researchers as

J. J. Bachofen, Sir James Frazer, Charles Picard, R. M. Dawkins, as well as Farnell and Nilsson.

These men attempted to reconstruct a historical evolution of the Artemis cult. The hypothesis

that was paradigmatic for these researchers can be summarized from Farnell’s account of

Artemis: there was an evolution from a promiscuous earth-fertility goddess through a matriarchal

Great Mother to the spiritualized patriarchal virgin of classical Greek poetry and myth. This

paradigm is found, to some degree or another, in the writings of each of the above noted men.

Farnell says that the “aboriginal Artemis” was not Homer’s goddess of chastity, but:

… [a] divinity connected with the waters and with wild vegetation and beasts; reflecting in her character the life of her worshippers who were still in the savage state….552

She was

a divinity of the fertilizing waters, who fostered the wild growths of the earth and the sucklings of the beasts of the field, ….553

552 Cults, p. 427. 553 Cults, p. 446.

165

… it seems reasonable to conclude that Artemis in the earliest Greek religion was an earth-goddess, associated essentially and chiefly with the wild life and growth of the field, and with human birth.554

Farnell can even state:

It is rare to find the worship of Artemis associated with any of the arts of life, and none of them are attributed to her discovery or teaching.555

And finally,

Such is the main account of the Greek worship of Artemis; and it appears from it that, while in the imagination of the poet and artist the character of the goddess possessed a high spiritual value, the cults have comparatively little connexion with the moral and intellectual or even the higher material life of the nation or individual. The conceptions of purification from sin, of legal trial and satisfaction for homicide, of the sanctity of the suppliant and the strange, which fostered the growth of early Greek law and religion, and which we find in the worships of Zeus and Athena, play little or no part in this.556

Karl Hoenn’s Artemis: Gestaltwandel einer Gőttin, published in 1949, fifty years after

Farnell’s Cults, gives the finishing touches to the evolutionary paradigm—the “gestaltwandel” as

he calls it. In the beginning, says Hoenn, Artemis was in the circle of “the Mother and Earth

Goddess” who is the “Giver of Fertility.”557 When the goddess became the sister of Apollo, as

attested in the Homeric Hymns, “the general presentation of Artemis changed”; the mother

goddess became the virgin goddess.558 Finally, Artemis participated in one last great change. As

Apollo became the Light God, she became the Moon Goddess.559 Thus, she was “ethicalized”

554 Cults, p. 456. 555 Cults, p. 471. 556 Cults, p. 472. 557 Artemis, p. 17. 558 Ibid, p. 75. 559 Ibid, p. 83.

166

and “sublimated” by poets and artists.560 Kallimachos, heir to the “humanizing” tendency,

“eliminated all the dark shadows form the image of the Goddess.”561

The basic outline of the paradigm used by the late nineteenth and early twentieth century

researchers should now be clear. Next, let us see how these researchers have interpreted the

Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia myth. It should not be difficult to see how and where their

evolutionary paradigm has informed, if not prejudiced, their hermeneutical efforts.

With respect to the myth and its central images scholars agreed that the net image is not

very significant. Farnell says that, although the Kretan Goddess is associated, like the Arkadian

Artemis, with “waters”—his evidence is the sea-faring nature of the Samians and Pausanias’

association of Britomartis and Limnaia562—the legend of her rescue by fishing nets “might

perhaps have arisen from the popular derivation of the name Diktynna.”563 Similarly, Nilsson

says:

The etymological school in antiquity tried to explain the name of the goddess Diktynna from the net, diktyon, used in hunting and fishing.564

Fauth believes that:

The Hellenistic poet and antiquarian Kallimachos…mixed—should we expect otherwise?—old and well-established mythic traditions with playful combination: the hunt-loving nymph Britomartis was determined by the type of Artemis Agrotera, the fish and net goddess Diktynna by association with the folk etymology diktyon.565

560 Ibid, p. 84-85. 561 Ibid, p. 98. 562 Farnell does not notice the “bottom lands” image in the Kallimachos variant. 563 Cults, p. 477. 564 MMR., pp. 510-11. 565 Hippolytos und Phaidra, p. 502; my translation. The same thesis is found in his article, KP., s.v. Diktynna. For an account of Kallimachos “the playful” see Bruno Shell, The Discovery of the Mind, pp. 264-280; Hoenn, Artemis, pp. 113-20.

167

On the other hand, while rejecting the significance of the net image, these researchers

would thrust secondary images to the fore. For Farnell, fishing nets only signify the sea and

“waters” in general, which, in turn, signify fertility.566 Fauth looks behind the nets image to those

things which “stand in the shadows,” i.e. “the transformation medium of the sea,” the “fertility

symbol of fish,” and the religion of the Mother.567

Paradoxically, none of these researchers take note of the “bottom lands” imagery in the

myth itself!

As for marsh imagery in the cult of Artemis, they are generally agreed. For example,

Nilsson says that Artemis Limnaia was:

a form of the fertility goddess who ruled in the abundant vegetation of marshy and water-rich low-lands.568

In a section on Orthia, Limnaia, and Karyateia, Hoenn says that the title Limnaia

points to the relation of the Goddess to fertility [Fruchtbarkeit] in general. Bachofen has emphasized in his “Symbols of Nature” the religious significance of this setting: “Out of the slime, the interpenetration of earth and water, sprout up wild reeds, without any of man’s doing, eternally renewing themselves, growing and dying, without being seeded or harvested . . . In the marsh-cult the essential motherhood of primordial matter found its expression [Im Sumpfkult hat das Muttertum des Urstoffs seinen Ausdruck gefunden].569

Willetts is the only exegete who notes the “nine month” motif. This he uses as evidence

for his basic thesis concerning the myth, namely, that it represents an initiation ritual, a transition

from marriageable maiden to mother.570 Fauth takes a similar position and says that the myth

566 Cults, p. 477. Because of the water symbol, Farnell classes the Kretan Goddess with the ‘original’ Artemis, a divinity of “fertilizing waters” (pp. 446, 456, et passim). 567 loc. cit. The sea symbolizes a “chthonic realm” (p. 514). 568 Feste, p. 210. 569 Artemis, pp. 31-32; my translation; he cites J.J. Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht, section 38, in Gesammelte Werke, pp. 237-38. 570 CCF, pp. 188, 182.

168

expresses the “polar tension,”571 the “ambivalence,”572 and the “transition”573 between virgin and

maternal fertility. The “sea leap” is the “cultic equivalent of a maiden sacrifice,” a “test of

purity,” and “a reintegration into the waves of the Great Goddess.” The sacrifice of virginity is a

“sacred death, a return to origins, which purifies, strengthens, and renews.”574

With respect to the Diktynna ritual, Jessen, in his article on Diktynna, says that the

meaning of rite is “still not cleared up.”575 Nilsson can only agree with him.576 Erich Maass and

Richard Holland do not discuss the rite. Farnell only says:

And there is evidence that, like Artemis, Aphrodite, and Cybele, she [Diktynna] was a divinity connected with the earth and its vegetative powers. In her ritual the wild trees appears to have been consecrated to her as to Artemis. The story of the leap into the sea577 was told not only of Diktynna, but of Aphrodite herself, the fish goddess Derketo, and the Carian maiden Rhoio, another form of Artemis Aphrodite, and may have arisen from some ritual practiced in the worship of the divinity of vegetation.578

Rose, a student of Farnell, in his article on Britomartis, makes no mention of the ritual.579

Elsewhere he states:

Probably if we knew more of her ritual we should see that the story of the flight and search was invented to explain details of it. If Britomartis was a power of fertility, as is highly likely, considering the company she keeps, there is nothing absurd in supposing that her worshippers used annually to go and look for her, probably in spring, when fertility is coming back again after the barrenness of winter, just as to this day in some places in Maypole, which is a sort of embodiment of spring, is sought and found in the woods.580

571 Op. cit., p. 506. 572 Article in KP., s.v. Diktynna. 573 Hippolytos und Phaidra, pp. 504, 514-515. 574 Ibid. p. 507. 575 R-E., s.v. Diktynna. 576 Feste, p. 227 and ftn. 1 thereto. MMR, pp. 509-13, discusses the myth of Britomartis but says nothing of the rite. 577 Again, the researchers emphasize the sea-leap over all else. 578 Cults, pp. 477-78. 579 O.C.D., s.v. Britomartis. 580 A Handbook of Greek Mythology, p. 118.

169

Willetts makes no mention of the ritual.581 Fauth, in his article on Diktynna, is also silent on the

issue, 582 although in his Hippolytos und Phaidra, he says that myrtle is a symbol of Aphrodite

and thus hated by Britomartis the virgin.583

As for the sociological level of the myth, all the researchers’ positions are typified by that

of Willetts when he says the cult has strong “matriarchal elements.”584

With respect to the theology and central theme of the Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia

complex, there is, again, a general consensus. Farnell says that Britomartis and Diktynna were

“pre-Hellenic” goddesses of Krete, there before the arrival of the Samians, and probably similar

in nature to the orgiastic Great Mother of Asia Minor, Kybele, although later identified with the

more chaste Artemis.585 Britomartis was once a goddess like the original Artemis, i.e. not a

virgin goddess but a non-Greek mother goddess.586 For Nilsson, Britomartis-Diktynna was, like

the original Artemis, a fertility goddess (Fruchtbarkeitsgöttin). This Artemis had a twofold

essence as “the Goddess who ruled over Free Nature” and “the potnia thêrôn, the Great

Huntress.”587 Hoenn takes up the same theme. He classes Diktynna and Britomartis with nature

(mountain peak) cults; Britomartis as nymph is a “feminine nature god” and “fertility giver.”588

Finally, Fauth says the Diktynna is a form of the Great Mother; and, Aphaia, too, is a “feminine

hypostasis of the Great Goddess.”589

581 That is, not in ASAC, CCF, or ACSH. 582 KP., s.v. Diktynna. 583 p. 505. 584 CCF., p. 181. 585 Cults, pp. 476-77. 586 Handbook of Greek Mythology, pp. 117, 112. 587 Feste, pp. 179, 188, 225-26. 588 Artemis, p. 47. 589 Hippolytos und Phaidra, pp. 502, 504, 514.

170

Thus the researchers applied their evolutionary paradigm to the mythologem of

Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia. Farnell has stated about Artemis—and this includes the myth of

Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia:

Perhaps no other figure in the Greek Pantheon is so difficult to understand and explain, not because the conceptions that grew up in her worship are mystic and profound, but because they are, or at the first sight appear, confusing and contradictory.590

For Farnell and the rest of the researchers we have mentioned the enigma of the Nature Goddess

was thought to be resolved by means of their evolutionary paradigm.

New discoveries in archeology and new methods in anthropology and in the study of

religion have called that paradigm into question and demanded that research be taken up anew.

We list three of these. First, the decipherment of Greek Linear B by Ventris in the early fifties—

which confirmed Nilsson’s hypothesis of the Mycenaean origin of Greek Mythology—and of

Semitic Linear A by Gordon in 1957 both indicated that a common Mediterranean Bronze Age

culture extended from Minoan-Mycenaean areas to Ugarit and that this culture had a polytheistic

religion591; no religion of the Great Mother is evident. Second, the late forties saw a clarification

of prehistoric and contemporary hunt culture,592 which set a background for the huntress figure.

Third, in 1949 two major studies of kinship structure—Claude Lévi-Strauss’ The Elementary

Structures of Kinship and George Murdoch’s Social Structure—revolutionized our

understanding of ‘primitive’ society. The models formulated by such men as McLennan and

Bachofen,593 models upon which the evolutionary paradigm was based, were proved inadequate.

590 Cults, p. 425. 591 See e.g., L. R. Palmer, Mycenaeans and Minoans; Cyrus Gordon, The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations; Cyrus Gordon, Evidence for the Minoan Language. 592 See e.g., Adolf Friedrich, “Die Forschung über das Frühzeitliche Jägertum”; Karl Meuli, “Griechische Opferbräuche”; Adolf Jensen, Myth and Cult Among Primitive Peoples; Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. 593 See e.g., John F. McLennan, Primitive Marriage; J. J. Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht.

171

The social structure of European Bronze Age culture was one of patrilineal, generalized

exchange. This was confirmed by Dumézil’s studies of Indo-European mythology and society.594

Each of the above three events has contradicted the accepted reconstruction of Aegeen pre-

history. Finally, the new philosophical methods which are open to the ambiguous and

polyphonous nature of myth (such methods as phenomenology, structuralism, hermeneutic, and

depth psychology) are more aptly suited to the “confusing and contradictory” phenomenon of the

Nature Goddess than is the presumed a priori evolutionism of the previous researchers.

Thus, since the first half of the twentieth century, there has been a subtle—if not

radical—change in the way we would understand the origins, the roots, of Western and European

culture. The evolutionary paradigm has foundered on the rocks of a new reality. But this is only

background for our thesis. We must now turn to consider the specific case of the Britomartis-

Diktynna-Aphaia mythologem. How adequate is the exegesis of this myth by the previous

researchers? We must take up our thesis, again, point by point.


which delineates the making of nets from rushes, is central for interpreting the myth

of Britomartis—so that the Lady of Nets has a twofold tempering essence, i.e.,

elemental energy and fruitful abundance as well as limit and measure.

If so, there is no reason to assume, as do Farnell, Nilsson, and Fauth, that the popular

etymology for the name Diktynna is not valid or that the name does not mean Lady of Nets.

Further, to judge that the nets image is insignificant is to do injustice to the myth. It is a first

principle of our hermeneutic that a myth is to be respected as coherent and consistent within

itself. We began this dissertation by pointed out the fine symmetry of the myth and the place of

594 See e.g., Georges Dumézil, L’Ideologie Tripartie des Indo-Europeans.

172

nets in that symmetry. In the course of the dissertation we indicated how the net image

functioned on a number of allegorical levels. Its primary significance was on the technological

level, i.e., the making of rush-nets. The devotees of Diktynna were not “savages” (Farnell), with

no sense of “art” (Farnell). They knew a proto-science and a proto-technê; they were versed in

Nature’s tempering “art.”

In rejecting the image of Britomartis rescued in nets, the previous researchers were

unable to see the twofold nature of the Goddess of Nets. Hence, they exaggerated the “fertility”

motif, at the expense of the “limit” motif. They brought to the fore secondary images, the sea-

leap and water. The extent of their distortion is evident in Fauth’s hypothesis that Britomartis

sacrificed herself in order to be reintegrated into the maternal waters. Farnell, Nilsson, and Fauth

would abandon the nets image, would go beyond even the dismal variant of the Vatican

Mythographer, and take us into a sort of sacred suicide.

The distortion is again evident in the treatment of the marsh image. In the case of our

myth, the marshes do not signify “fertilizing waters” (Farnell). Indeed, the marsh is the place

where Britomartis hides to keep her virginity! It is not surprising, then, that all the researchers

failed to take note of the marsh image when interpreting the Kallimachos variant. The “religious

significance” that Bachofen attaches to the symbol of the marsh can only apply to the

Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia cult. It is not even likely—as Hoenn supposes—that it applies to

the Orthia-Limnaia-Karyateia complex. In the case of Britomartis, the “bottom lands” image

signifies a place mediating mountain and sea, a place both liquid and solid. Most importantly it

signifies the habitat of rushes, of that which men can weave into fishing nets.

173

The twofold essence of the Lady of Nets is not that proposed by Nilsson for Artemic

figures, i.e. Goddess of Free Nature and Huntress. That would confuse allegorical levels—

botanical and economic—with thematic essence.


technology both trephological and medicinal—so that pine and mastich signify the “idea

of resin,” i.e., independence and cyclical growth by means of self-healing inner heat, a

process with indirectly heals others—and so that Nature is characterized by interlinkages,

by timed quantum leaps of energy, by measured flow, and by kairos.

This aspect of our thesis is a fundamental contribution to our topic. Until now the ritual,

if not avoided altogether, was, in general, considered to be inscrutable. Farnell’s hypothesis—

“some ritual practiced in the worship of the divinity of vegetation”—only restates the obvious.

Rose’s supposition that the ritual concerns the return of fertility in spring only obscures matters.

Myrtle, pine, and mastich are all evergreens! Furthermore, what is of interest to the followers of

Diktynna is not plants in general—this is just one allegorical level and trivial by itself—but

precise differences between precise kinds of plants. It was in analyzing without preconceptions

these concrete differences that we discovered “the idea of resins.” We also found that there was a

complementary relationship between myth and ritual; one did not “explain” the other as Farnell

and Rose supposed. Finally, we have already noted how Fauth’s interpretation of myrtle—

arbitrarily influenced by the Phaidra mythologem—was inadequate.595

As with the myth, so with the ritual—the researchers failed to take into account the all-

important technological key which unlocks images. They missed the ancient distinction between

595 See supra, pp. 101-102.

174

wild and tamed plants. They missed the perfumes, the resins, the medicines. George Thomson

has said:

Ancient Greek herbal lore, which can be studied in the pages of Dioskorides and Pliny, has not received as much attention as it deserves from students of Greek religion.596

We concur and have remedied the matter with respect to one mythologem of Greek religion.

(3) That the Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia mythologem as a whole is composed of some

ten metaphorically interwoven levels (the primary metaphor being contest marriage) and

is triply constituted by (a) a limited number of narrative sequences, (b) an analogical law,

and (c) a structural triangle (including the “idea of resin”), which constitution overcomes

and reconciles the contradictions between “taking,” “keeping,” and “giving.”

That there are these ten levels stands contrary to the old school of research whose

hermeneutic used a predefined allegory and one which functioned on two levels only. This

allegory combined a botanical level, predefined as the seasonal cycles of growth, death, and

renewal, with an economic level, predefined as agricultural. Such a hermeneutic led Farnell to

believe that Artemic cult—which would include our mythologem—had “comparatively little

connexion” with morality, law, and spiritual values and that Artemis discovered none of the “arts

of life.”

The inadequacy of his hermeneutic was both formal and material; it had too few levels

and a prescribed content. One need only note that the Diktynna ritual plans have botanical,

technological, medicinal, and trephological levels—seasonal cycles are irrelevant to their

significance—and that the economic level of the myth concerns not agriculture but hunting. The

evolutionary allegory necessarily failed to decipher the all-important technological code.

596 Studies in Ancient Greek Society, Vol. 1, p. 218.

175

With respect to the numerous allegorical levels of our myth, we can generalize that a

myth is not so much a “total social fact”597 as a total visionary fact.

Since marriage by contest is so central a metaphor, one must conclude that the

mythologem is meaningless except in the context of a system of generalized marriage exchange

which is both patrilineal and hypogamous. There is no reason to assume that the mythologem

reflects “matriarchal elements” (Willetts).

Since the metaphor of contest marriage and the idea of resin harmonize with the verb

triangle and since there is a fourfold complementarity of significations between myth and ritual,

one must conclude—at least for the case of our mythologem—that there is no evidence for

Farnell’s assertion that between myth and ritual—the one reflecting chastity, the other fertility—

there is a “strange contradiction.”598


central theme that Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia, the Goddess of Nature is tempering—so

that Nature is tempering and this temperance is the harmony of elemental energy

(including gift exchange), invincible in its fruitfulness, and self-regulating limit and

measure, a harmony grounded in a process of cyclical transformation and kairos.

This part of our thesis, a part which combines aspects of the three preceding parts, stands

contrary to those interpretations which would suppose that “wildness” is the essence of the

Goddess. Bachofen emphasizes the “wild reeds” of the marsh; Nilsson, “abundant vegetation”

and “wild life and growth.” Fauth even considers the original Artemis not “human” or “ethical.”

On the contrary, the essence of the Goddess is, at least, twofold. She is the harmony of fruitful

abundance and measure. She is self-regulating process, the proportioning of two aspects, i.e.

597 Marcel Mauss, The Gift, pp. 1-2, 76-78. 598 Cults, pp. 143-47.

176

temperance. She signifies not “wild growth” but one seen under the idea of resins, i.e. flowing

yet measured, a growth bound up with kairos. The previous researchers played up the “wildness”

motif at the expense of the order and measure signified by the nets image. They were oblivious

to the ancient understanding of Nature as “artistic and provident.” Furthermore, they

misunderstood the nature of the Goddess’ temperance. In part, they were misled by interpreting

temperance as sexual chastity and as the opposite of fertility. By applying the analogy

wild : temperate : : fertility : chastity

they could only misunderstand the cult of Britomartis-Diktynna. Take for example the

significance of “shaggy oaks.” Temperance is not chastity; it is energy and fruitfulness, as well

as measure and limit. Or, consider the sacrifice to the Huntress, the Mistress of Animals. Is it not

for the purpose of establishing temperance? In addition, the arbitrary paradigm of evolution,

whose schema is “wild promiscuity ——> chaste temperance,” cannot be applied to the myth of

Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia. It is even questionable, given our prolegomenon for future

research into the Artemis mythologem, if it can be applied to other Artemic myths.

The technology of nets and of resinous plants is integral to the Tempering Nature

Goddess, Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia. This integration implies three things. First, it implies

that Nature is bound up with technê. In Galen’s words, “Nature is artistic and provident for living

beings.” Nature is an inventress and she has provided that the natural harmony of things is

beneficent for men. She is, as the Orphic Hymn to Physis says, polymêchane. Second, it implies

that her technê is bound up with temperance. This is evident in the case of nets. Third, it implies

that Nature is bound up with temperance. This is evident in the “idea of resins,” i.e. in cycles,

interlinkages, and kairos.

177

To repeat, the Lady of Nets has a tempering essence which is a harmony of elemental

energy and fruitful abundance with self-regulating limit and measure, a harmony which takes

place in self-transforming and cyclical kairos. If one divorces the two sides of the Tempering

Goddess, if one exaggerates one side at the expense of the other, then one is left in a situation

like that recorded in the following fragment:

When Timotheus, singing in the theatre called Artemis “frantic, mantic, corybantic,” Cinesias shouted back “such be your own daughter!”599

In splitting one side from the other, one loses the kairos, the measured rhythm and flow of

things. The harmonizing of the two sides, which is both self-regulating and self-transforming, is

a process which only and necessarily takes place in time. Temperance is intrinsically temporal.

* * * * *

The four parts of our thesis are interlocked like a resin and interwoven like a net—as is

appropriate for a mythologem which is itself metaphorically interwoven and for a method which

is open to the nuances and interlinkages of structure—so that it is virtually impossible to resolve

these parts into one universal thesis. Such a conclusion would diminish the whole and obscure

the reasoning involved in the thesis itself, a thesis which concerns a multi-faceted product of the

imagination. Nevertheless, if one were to dare such an attempt, one could say that the Lady of

Nets is the Goddess of Nature’s tempering art. (Here the word “art” suggests both the tempering

“way” in which She acts as well as the “artistic” manner of that action.) The formula indicates

that Nature, temperance, and technê (art) are inextricably intertwined in the myth of the Goddess

and that a technological code as well as marriage contest metaphor is key to the myth and ritual

of the Lady of Nets.

599 Plu. How the Young Should Listen to Poetry, 4, cited in Lyra Graeca (Loeb translation by J. M. Edmonds).

178

The thesis of this dissertation concerns a goddess less like that imagined by those

evolutionist researchers noted above and more like that described in the following passage about

Minoan art.

Motion is its ruling characteristic; figures move with lovely grace, the decorative designs whirl and turn, and even the architectural composition is allied to the incessant movement becoming multiform and complex. The art is ruled by conventions, and yet it looks equally naturalistic. The secret life of nature is outspread in man’s creation, which imbues it with a special charm and grace. A hymn to Nature as Goddess seems to be heard from everywhere, a hymn of joy and life. The agony of death, so familiar in prehistoric civilization, is not perceptible here.600

It is in the grace of the Goddess, Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia, that fruitfulness, measure,

and kairos are harmoniously interwoven—and, Her grace granting, in this dissertation, a

dissertation designed like a net, informed by temperance, a votive to the Lady of Nets.

600 N. Platon, A Guide to the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion, 3rd ed. Heraklion, 1959, pp. 28-29, as cited in Willetts, ACSH, p. 3.

179

APPENDIX A

ETYMOLOGICAL DIGRESSION

Various interpretations of the name “Britomartis” have been suggested.

Solinus601 says it means “sweet virgin,” Hesychius defines Britomartis as “Artemis in

Krete” and, in the next sentence, says brity is the Kretan word for “sweet.”602 He defines marptis

as hybristês.603 Etymologicum Magnum defines the word Briton as “good” and associates the

first half of Britomartis’ name with Brisais604 and the other half with marnomai.605 Thus, for EM.

The full name would mean “superior” or “strong fighter.”606

Inscriptions indicate that the Kretan spelling of the name was with a “p,” thus,

“Britomarpis.”607 Spyridon Marinatos compares the second half of the name to Marpêssa,

mother-in-law of Meleager, and to Marpêssos, a city, in ruins, on Trojan Mt. Ida.608

Wolfgang Fauth, taking off from the insight of Marinatos, considers the radical marp- to

be a transformation of marm-, which is the root of the Greek marmaros (sparkling rock or stone,

marble). Thus, he would explain the city name as derived from the geology of Mt. Ida, and,

likewise, the feminine personal name. He traces brito- through bryta to *pruta-, the last form

being the base of such words as prytane. This he confirms by the Vatican Mythographer’s

“Bryte” and by Kretan inscriptions which use word brytane for prytane. Thus, he concludes, the

601 11.8: “Britomarten . . . quod sermone nostro sonat Virginem dulcem,” as cited in footnote 85, Hsch., p. 400. 602 Hsch. s.v. Βρitómaρtis˙ ἐν Κρητη ἡ Ἄρτεϻίς˙ Bρitὔ˙ γλυκυ˙ Κρῇτες˙ 603 Ibid. s.v. µαρπτίς˙ ὑϐρίςτής. 604 This is a form of brithô (to be heavy, heavy laden, weighty; to prevail in battle, to be a superior fighter). Cf. bruô (to swell, teem, burst) and brux (the deep, i.e. the depths of the sea). 605 EM. 214, 23-30. 606 These connotations would carry over to the word “good,” i.e., a good fighter. 607 For a concise account of inscriptions, see Willetts, CCF, pp. 179-80. They belong to the second century B.C. 608 S. Marinatos, Arch. Delt. 9, 1924-1925, pp. 79 ff., as cited in Fauth, Hippolytos und Phaidra, p. 508 and Papathamapoulos, footnote 3, p. 161. Compare Paus 4.2.7 (Marpêssa) and 10.12.3 (Marpêssos). It is curious that this Marpêssa is associated with Meleager, an Artemic myth related to Laphria.

180

original form for Britomartis was *Prutamarpis or *Prutamarpessa, literally, High Sparkling

Rocks or Lady of White Rocks respectively.609

Fauth’s argument is strikingly inconclusive. Granted that Marinatos is correct, i.e., that

-marpis is related to Marpêssa and Marpêssos, this relationship may be explained as well, if not

better, by turning to the radical *marpt-, rather than to *marm-. There are several reasons for

this.

First, since the Greek name for the goddess ends in –martis and the Kretan in –marpis,

one may assume an earlier ending –marptis which gave rise to both.

Second, the –marptis ending is quite appropriate for the Britomartis mythologem with its

themes of rape, engyê, and marriage by contest.

Further, considering the Greek marriage system, it is more likely that a woman would

have a name suggestive of “catch,” “embrace,” etc., than “white rocks” or “marble.” This applies

as much to Britomartis as to Marpêssa.

Finally, we note that Kallimachos himself uses the verb marptô in his variant to describe

Minos’ attempt to seize Britomartis.

As for *pruta, Fauth’s opinion seems confirmed by EM., though not in the sense of

“high” or “mistress,” but in the sense of “strong,” “prevailing.” We are reminded of Antoninus

Liberalis’ Britomartis, the “invincible.”

Yet, if we accept it as reasonable that the other half of the name was originally –marptis,

how can it be combined with *pruta-? Both Fauth and EM. Fail to clarify this name of

Britomartis.

609 Fauth, op. cit., pp. 507-14.

181

Hence, it appears that there are only two solutions. We can salvage the root *pruta, if we

take Brito- to be related to brux.610 Then, Britomartis would be she who is caught up from the

depths. Or, we can follow Hesychius and Solinus, taking the word Brito- as meaning “sweet,”

and as derived from some unknown root.611 Then it is she who appears a bitter catch for Minos,

yet for fishermen, makes a sweet catch.

Either may be true, but surely it is the Britomartis we have now encountered, she who

appears in the interweavings of this dissertation.

610 i.e., the deep, the depths of the sea. 611 It is curious that the sacred plant of Diktynna, the diktamnon, is a glêchôn (pennyroyal), since this word is etymologically related to glykys (sweet). This, again, is related to the mythological Glaukos (gleaming). One such Glaukos was an Anthedonian, a fisherman, who, after eating an herb (was it the glêchôn?) became mad and leapt into the sea. He was transformed into a sea deity. Another Glaukos, son of Minos, drowned in a jar of honey (what could be sweeter?) and was brought back to life by an herb (glêchôn?). Both myths have many motifs also found in the Britomartis mythologem. Axel W. Persson, The Religion of Greece in Prehistoric Times, pp. 163-164, et passim, uses the Glaukos mythologem as a paradigm for interpreting Minoan religion in general.

182

APPENDIX B

THE ARTEMIS MYTHOLOGEM

Epithet Cult Site Aitia Festival

Aggelos Syrakuse * Agoraia Altis-Olympia in Eleia Agrotera Attica * Agrai in Attica * Megara in Attica * Aigeira in Achaia * Lakedaimonia Megalopolis in Arkadia Olympia Artamition in Euboia Pontos Thêraia Epidauros Toxia Aigion and Pellene in Achaia Aulis Aiginaia Sparta Aithôra Argos Aitolia Naupaktos in Phokis Venetia Akria Akrai Alpheiaia Letrinoi in Eleia * * (-onia, -ousa) Olympia in Eleia Ortygia in Sicily Amarynthia Amarynthos in Euboia * Athens * Athmon in Attica Amarysia = Amarynthia Aphaia Aigina * Apobatieria Asia Minor *

183

Epithet Cult Site Aitia Festival Aptera (-aia) Aptera in Krete * * Aristê Aristobule Athens (Melite) Rhodes (?) Aspalis Ameilêtê Phthia * * Hekaergê Astias Iasos in Karia Astrateia Pyrrichos in Lakonia * Astyrene Astyra in Antandros (Asia Minor) * Miletos Aulideia Aulis in Boiotia * Tanagra in Boiotia Bolosia Geraistion in Euboia Boreitene Thyatira in Lydia Boulaia Athens * Miletos Boulêphoros Miletos (Skiris) Braurônia Brauron * * Athens (Lemnos) Chelutis Sparta Chitônê Miletos * (-ônêa) Syrakuse Daitis = Ephesia * * Daphnaia Elis and Olympia in Eleia * * (-ia) Hypsoi in Lakonia Delphinia Athens * Thessaly

184


Dereatis Dereion in Lakonia Dêlia Delos * * Diktynna Diktynnaion in north-west Krete * * (-aia) Polyrhenia Lisos Kydonia Aptera Phalasarna (?) Sparta Lakonian Las Phokian Ambrossos Athens Astypalaia Massilia Troizen (?) Drymonia Eileithyia Chaironeia, Thisbe, Lebadia, Orchomenos, Thespiai, and Tanagra (all in Boiotia) Delos Ekbatêria Siphnos Elaphêbolos Pamphylia (Attica, Iasos, Apollonia, * Phokian Hyampolis) * Elaphiaia Letrinoi and Elis in Eleia * Eleusinia Sikelia Eleuthera Myra in Lykia (Asia Minor) Enodia Thera in Thessaly (in Euboia) Epêkoos Epidauros Samothrace

185


Ephesia Ephesos * * Skillous in Eleia * * Ankyra (baths) Smyrna Aphrodisias Panticapaios Chios Megalopolis in Arkadia Alea in Arkadia Epipyrgidia Athens Euakoos Krete Eukleia Thebes * * Delphi * Corinth Plateia Paros Athens (?) Euporia Rhodes Eupraxia Tyndaris Eurippa Pheneos in Arkadia * Eurynome Phigalia in Arkadia * Gazoria Roman Thrace and Macedonia Hagêmô Asia in Krete Hêgemone Sparta Tegea in Arkadia * Akakesion in Arkadia Ambrakia Miletos Athens (?) Hekate Athens Heleia Helos in Messenia

186

Epithet Cult Site Aitia Festival Hêmera (-asia) Lousoi in Arkadia * * Hiereia Oresthasion in Arkadia Hipposia Pheraia Hyakinthotrophos Knidos (Asia Minor) * Hymnia Orchomenos in Arkadia * Hyperboreia Hypsiste Iokallis Leros Iolkia Magnesia Iolchos Iolchos Iphigeneia Hermione in Korinthia Issoria Sparta * Teuthrone in Lakonia Kallistê Akademia near Athens Trikolonoi in Arkadia * Kallistô Samos Kaprophagos Syria Karia Karia Karyatis Karyai in Lakonia * * Kaukasis Chios Kedreatis Orchomenos in Arkadia Kekoia Kekoia in Rhodes Kelkaia Athens

187

Epithet Cult Site Aitia Festival Kindyas Kindya Klaria Kolophon Knagia Sparta Knakalêsia Mt. Knakelos, Kaphyai in * Arkadia Knakeatis near Tegea in Arkadia Kokkaka Olympia Kolainis Myrrinous in Attica Kolôênê Kolôênê near Sardis * Kondyleatis Kondylea in Arkadia * * Kora Thessaly Kordaka Elis in Eleia * * Koria Lousoi in Arkadia Koryphaia mountain near Epidauros Korythalia Sparta * Koureotis Kourotrophos Athens (?) Krêsia Krêsia Ktêsylla Hekaergê Keos * * Kydianreia Kyndyas Bargylia Kynegos

188

Epithet Cult Site Aitia Festival Kynthia Mt. Kynthos Kyrene Kyrene in Libya * * Laphria Kalydon in Aitolia * * Patrai in Achaia Ithome in Messenia Heirapolis Kephallenia (Phokis and Doris) Leukophryene Magnesia (Asia Minor) * Athens Krete Amyklai Limnaia Sikyon Messene Sparta Limnatis Limnai, border Messenia and Lak. * Epidauros Patrai * Tegea in Arkadia near border Lak. Locheia Phthiotis in Thessaly Lechô Sparta Lochia Pergamon Lousiatis in Achaia Lyaia Syrakuse * Lygodesma Sparta = Orthia Lykeia Troizen * Lykoatis Lykoa in Arkadia Lysizônos Athens Mesopolites Orchomenos in Arkadia Metopontina Icarios *

189

Epithet Cult Site Aitia Festival Monogisênê Monogisa in Karia Mundia Mundia in Karia Munychia Athens * Pygela near Ephesos Kyzikos and Plakia Mysia Sparta Nemydia (-idia) Teuthea in Arkadia Nêossoos Nyktiphaneia Oinôatis Oinoa in Argolis Oinaia in Attica Olympia Opis Krete (Ôpis, Oupis) Ephesos Troizen Sparta Opitais Zakynthos Ôraia Athens Orsiloche (-ia) Orthia Sparta * * (Borthia, Mt. Lykone on Tegea-Argos Road Borsea) Epidauros Orthosia Mt. Orthosia in Arkadia Elis (Orthis-Orthosia) Megara Mysia (Asia Minor) * Athens Byzantium Olynthos

190

Epithet Cult Site Aitia Festival Oulia Troizen * Paidotrophos Korone in Messenia Pamphylaia Epidauros Patriôtis Pleia Patrôia Sikyon in Korinthia Parthenos (-eia) Tauroi * * Thasos Karia Samos Leros Patmos Neapolis in Thrace Paros Peithô Argos * * Perasia Kastabala (Asia Minor) Pergaia Perge in Pamphylia Lindos Persike Hierocaesarea, Hypaepa in Lydia, (Perseia, Philadelphia, Koloe, Nana, Altaleia Persia, Anaiitis) Phakelitis Syrakuse * * Tyndaris Pheraia Pherai in Thessaly Sikyon in Korinthia Argos Athens Acharnania Philomeirax Elis in Eleia Phosphoros Messene Munychia

191

Epithet Cult Site Aitia Festival Podagra Lakonia Polo Thasos Polyboia Potamia Syrakuse Priapinê Priapus Propylaia Eleusis Sikyon (?) Propyrgidia Prosêôa Artamision in Euboia * * Prostateria Prothyraia Epidauros Protothronos Pythia (-ê, -os) Delphi Ephesos Harbor Miletos Pyronia Mt. Krathis near Pheneos in Arkadia Sardiane Sardis (Asia Minor) = Kybele (?) Sarônia Troizen * * Selasia Selasia Selasphoros Phlya in Attica Pholegandros Skiaditis Skia near Megalopolis in Arkadia Soôdina Chironeia in Boiotia

192


Soteira Troizen * * Megara in Attica Pagai in Megara Pellene in Achaia Boiai in Lakonia Phigalia in Arkadia * Megalopolis in Arkadia Thisbe in Boiotia Athens Anaphe Strophaia Eurythrace Stymphalia Stymphalos in Arkadia * * Taurô (-ikê) Tauroi * * Tauropolos Halae in Attica * * Lemnos,

Cappodocia at Comana

Themiscyra, Rhodes, Seleuceia, Laodoke, Icaria, Amphipolis, Smyrna, Magnesia, Pergamon, Phocaea, Anchos, Persian Icaria Taygete Mt. Taygetos in Lakonia Thermaia Mitylene on Lesbos (*) Thymoandreia Triklaria Patrai in Achaia * * Tychê Gerasa in Syrian Dekapolis Urania Note. The above list is a compilation of Pausanias, Farnell, Graves, Hoenn, and Preller. My aim was to make it one of the most comprehensive lists of Artemis cults available. For future research I especially suggest scholars perform a phenomenological-structuralist account of those cult sites of Artemis that have both myths and rituals (festivals). These are surprisingly infrequent, and in addition to Diktynna include: Alpheiaia, Aptera, Aspalis, Braurônia, Daphnaia, Dêlia, Ephesia, Eukleia, Hêmera, Karyatis, Kondyleatis, Kordaka, Ktêsylla, Kyrene, Laphria, Orthia, Parthenos, Peithô, Phakelitis, Prosêôa, Sarônia, Soteira, Stymphalia, Taurô, Tauropolos and Triklaria. These total 27 of 179 cult site epithets.

193

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

CLASSICAL SOURCES

Primary Antoninus Liberalis. Les Métamorphoses. Translated and notes by Manolis Papathomopoulos.

Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1968. Aristophanes. Translated by Benjamin Bickley Rogers. London: The Loeb Classical Library,

1963. Callimachus. Hymns, Epigrams, Fragments. Translated by G. R. Mair. London: The Loeb

Classical Library, 1921. Diodorus of Sicily. Translated by C. H. Oldfather. London: The Loeb Classical Library, 1935. Euripides. Translated by A. S. Way. London: The Loeb Classical Library, 1964. Herodotus. Translated by A. D. Godley. London: The Loeb Classical Library, 1935. Lyrae Graeca. Translated by J. M. Edmonds. London: The Loeb Classical Library, 1928. Pausanias. Description of Greece. Translated by W. H. S. Jones. London: The Loeb Classical

Library, 1961. Scholia Graeca in Aristophanem. Edited by Fr. Dübner. Paris: Editore Ambrosio Firmin Didot,

1855. Strabo. The Geography. Translated by H. L. Jones. London: The Loeb Classical Library, 1923.

Secondary

Aristotle. Meteorologica. Translated by H. D. P. Lee. London: The Loeb Classical Library, 1962. Galen. On the Natural Faculties. Translated by A. J. Brock. London: The Loeb Classical Library,

1928. Hippocrates. Translated by W. H. S. Jones. London: The Loeb Classical Library, 1923. Oppian. Cynegetica, Halieutica. Translated by A. W. Mair. London: The Loeb Classical Library,

1953. Pliny. The Natural History. Translated by J. Bostock and H. Riley. London: Bell and Sons, 1893.

194

Theophrastus. Enquiry into Plants. Translated by A. Hort. London: The Loeb Classical Library, 1961.

Xenophon. “On Hunting.” Scripta Minora. Translated by E. C. Marchant. London: The Loeb

Classical Library, 1925.

SECONDARY SOURCES

Dictionaries and Encyclopedias The Classic Greek Dictionary. Prepared by George Ricker Berry. Chicago: Follett Publishing

Company, 1962. Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1955. Liddell, H.G., and R. Scott. A Greek-English Lexicon. New edition revised by H. S. Jones.

Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1940. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1970. Pauly’s Real-Encyclopedia der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. Edited by G. Wissowa and

others. Stuttgart: 1894-. Preller, Ludwig. Griechische Mythologie, I: Theogonie und Götter. Edited by Carl Robert.

Berlin: Weidmannsche, 1964.

Books and Articles Bachofen, J. J. Gesammelte Werke. Basel: Benno Schwabe, 1948. Barrett, William S. Euripides: Hippolytos. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1964. Clarke, Grahame. World Prehistory: An Outline. Cambridge: At the University Press, 1962. Dawkins, R. M. “The Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta.” Journal of Hellenic Studies,

Supplement 5, 1929. Detienne, Marcel. Les Jardins d’Adonis. Paris: Gallimard, 1972. Deubner, Ludwig. Attische Feste. Hildesheim: George Olms, 1966. ------- . “Attischer Frühlingszauber.” Festschrift für P. Clemen. n. p., 1926, pp. 113-121.

195

Dumézil, Georges. L’Idéologie Tripartie des Indo-Européens. Bruxelles: Latomus, Revue D’Etudes Latines, 1958.

Eliade, Mircea. Patterns in Comparative Religion. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968. -------. Sacred and Profane. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1952. -------. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964. Erdmann, Walter. Die Ehe im alten Griechenland. München: C. H. Beck’sche, 1934. Farnell, L. R. The Cults of the Greek States. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1896. Fauth, Wolfgang. Hippolytos und Phaidra. Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur in

Mainz. Wiesbaden: F. Steiner Verlag, 1958 (#9, vol. 1) and 1959 (#8, vol. 2). Fox, Robin. Kinship and Marriage. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1967. Frazer, Sir James. The Golden Bough: The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, Vol. 1.

London: Macmillan, 1913. Friedrich, Adolf. Die Forschung über das Frühzeitliche Jägertum. Paideuma, 2, 1941-1943, pp.

20-43. Friedrich, Paul. Proto-Indo-European Trees: The Arboreal System of a Prehistoric People.

Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970. Fustel de Coulanges, N. D. The Ancient City. Anchor Books. Garden City: Doubleday, n.d. Gordon, Cyrus. The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations. New York: W.

W. Norton, 1962. -------. Evidence for the Minoan Language. Ventnor, N.J.: Ventnor Publishers, 1966. Harrison, A. R. W. The Law of Athens. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1968. Harrison, Jane E. Themis. New York: World Publishing, 1927. Herbig, Reinhard. “Philister und Dorier.” Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Institute, 55,

1940, pp. 58-89. Herbillon, Jules. Artémis Homérique. Luttre: Alfred Balsacq, 1927. -------. Les Cultes de Patras. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1929. Hoenn, Karl. Artemis: Gestaltwandel einer göttin. Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1946.

196

Holland, Richard. “Britomartis.” Hermes, LX, 1925, pp. 59-65. Holton, Gerald. “The Roots of Complementarity.” Daedalus, Fall 1970, pp. 1015-1055. Husserl, Edmund. Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. Translated by W. R. B.

Gibson. London: Collier-Macmillan, 1931. Jaeger, Werner. Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, Vol. 1: Archaic Greece: The Mind of

Athens. Translated by Gilbert Highet. New York: Oxford University Press, 1945. James, E. O. Myth and Ritual in the Ancient Near East. New York: Praeger, 1958. Jensen, Adolf E. Myth and Cult Among Primitive Peoples. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1963. Kerenyi, Karl. Niobe: Neue Studien über antike Religion und Humanität. Zurich: Rhein Verlag,

1949. Lacey, W. K. The Family in Classical Greece. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968. -------. “Homeric EΔNA and Penelope’s KYRIOƩ.” Journal of Hellenic Studies, 86, 1966. Lattimore, Richmond. “Introduction” to his translation of The Iliad of Homer. Phoenix Books.

Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1951. Layard, John. “The Incest Taboo and the Virgin Archetype.” Eranos-Jahrbuch, XII, 1945, pp.

254-307. Leach, Edmund. Claude Lévi-Strauss. New York: The Viking Press, 1970. Leclerc, Henri. Précis de Phytothérapie. Paris: Masson, 1935. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969. -------. “Religions Comparees des Peoples Sans Ecriture.” Problemes et Methodes D’Historie des

Religions. Paris: Presses Universitaires de Paris, 1968, pp. 1-7. -------. Structural Anthropology. Anchor Books. Garden City: Doubleday, 1967. -------. They Structural Study of Myth and Totemism. New York: Tavistock Publications, 1967. Levy, G. Rachel. Religious Conceptions of the Stone Age and their Influence upon European

Thought. Harper Torchbooks. New York: Harper and Row, 1963. Maass, Erich. “Diktynna.” Hermes, LVIII, 1923, pp. 175-86.

197

Maranda, P., and Maranda, E. K. Structural Analysis of Oral Traditions. Philadelphia: University

of Pennsylvania Press, 1971. Mauss, Marcel. The Gift. Translated by Ian Cunnison. New York: W.W. Norton, 1967. McLennan, John R. Primitive Marriage. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1865. Meuli, Karl. “Griechische Opferbräuche.” Phyllobolia für Peter von der Mühll. Basel: Benno

Schwabe, 1946, pp. 185-288. Miller, J. Innes. The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1969. Needham, Rodney. “Introduction” to C. S. Wake, The Development of Marriage and Kinship.

Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967. Nilsson, Martin P. “Die Anthesterien und die Aiora.” Eranos, 15, 1916, pp. 181-200. -------. Greek Folk Religion. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1961. -------. Griechishe Feste von Religiőser Bedeutung mit Ausschluss der Attischen. Stuttgart: B. G.

Teubner, 1957. -------. The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion and its Survival in Greek Religion. Lund: Gleerup,

1951. -------. The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology. Berkeley: University of California Press,

1932. North, Helen. Sophrosyne. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1966. Page, Denys L. Alcman: The Partheneion. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1951. Palmer, Leonard R. Achaeans and Indo-Europeans. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1955. -------. Mycenaeans and Minoans. London: Faber and Faber, 1961. Pernice, Erich. “Griechisches und Romisches Privatleben.” Einleitung in die

Altertumswissenschaft. Edited by Alfred Gercke and Eduard Norden. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1922.

Persson, Axel W. The Religion of Greece in Prehistoric Times. Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1942. Piaget, Jean. Structuralism. Harper Torchbook. New York: Harper and Row, 1968.

198

Picard, Charles. Éphèse et Claros. Paris: Boccard, 1922. -------. “Phèdre ‘a la Balanḉoire’ et le Symbolisme des Pendaisons.” Revue Archéologique, 1928,

pp. 47-64. Polunin, Oleg, and Huxley, Anthony. Flowers of the Mediterranean. London: Chatto and

Windus, 1965. Reichenbach, Hans. Philosophic Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1965. Rose, H. J. A Handbook of Greek Mythology. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1959. Snell, Bruno. The Discovery of the Mind. Harper Torchbooks. New York: Harper and Bros.,

1960. Technau, Werner. “Die Gőttin auf dem Stier.” Jahrbuch des Deutsches Archäologisches Institut,

52, 1937, pp. 76-103. Thompson, D’Arcy W. A Glossary of Greek Birds. Oxford: University Press at London:

Humphrey Milford, 1936. Thomson, George. Studies in Ancient Greek Society, Vol. 1: The Prehistoric Aegean. London:

Lawrence and Wishart, 1949. Ventris, Michael and Chadwick, John. Documents in Mycenaean Greek. Cambridge: At the

University Press, 1959. Vidal-Naquet, Paul. “Chasse et Sacrifice dans l’Orestie d’Eschyle.” Parola del Passaio: Rivista di

Studi Antichi, Naples, 1969, pp. 401-425. Wheelwright, Philip. “Thematic Imagery in the Oresteia” in The Burning Fountain.

Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1968. Whitman, Cedric H. Homer and the Heroic Tradition. New York: W. W. Norton, 1965. -------. Sophocles: A Study in Heroic Humanism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951. Willetts, R. F. Ancient Crete: A Social History. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965. -------. Aristocratic Society in Ancient Crete. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1955. -------. Cretan Cults and Festivals. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1962.

199

Wolff, Hans Julius. “Marriage Law and Family Organization in Ancient Athens,” in Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought, and Religion. Edited by J. Quasten and S. Kuttner. Vol. II, 1944, pp. 43-95.

Yalman, Nur. “The Structure of Sinhalese Healing Rituals,” in Religion in South Asia. Edited by

Edward B. Harper. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964. Yerkes, R. K. Sacrifice in Greek and Roman Religions and Early Judaism. New York: Scribner’s

Sons, 1952.

200

BIOGRAPHICAL DATA Name: James Benton Harrod Date and Place of Birth: February 14, 1946; Washington, D.C. High School: Walter Johnson Senior High, Bethesda, Maryland; Graduated 1964. B.A: Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts; Graduated 1968. M.A. Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California; M.A., 1970. Ph.D. Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York

The Tempering Goddess: A phenomenological and structural analysis of the Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia...

Documents

Transcript of The Tempering Goddess: A phenomenological and structural analysis of the Britomartis-Diktynna-Aphaia...