The Country Dionysia of Attica, as its name implies, was a decentralized celebration that focused on Dionysos as an agricultural deity. Throughout the winter month of Posideion, villagers in the various demes of Attica organized processions such as the one described in Aristophanes’ Acharnians (237-79), which includes a basketbearer with a sacred cake, slaves holding a large phallos on a pole, and the protagonist Dikaiopolis as a reveler, singing a ribald hymn to Phales, personification of the phallos. According to Aristotle (Poet. 1449a), comedy developed from these phallic songs. Many of the demes had their own theaters and presented comic and tragic performances. Ikarion, a wine-producing village at the northern foot of Mt. Pentelikon, had a unique status among the Attic demes as the first to receive Dionysos. According to legend, Ikarios welcomed the god and received the gift of wine, which he offered to his unsuspecting fellows. When they passed out from overindulgence, their relatives thought Ikarios was a poisoner and killed him. His daughter Erigone discovered the body with the help of Ikarios’ faithful dog, and in her grief, she hanged herself from a tree. As a result of their impiety toward Dionysos, the villagers were struck with a plague, and the Delphic oracle directed them to hang up a female effigy to swing in the trees as an appeasement of Erigone. This story was connected with a purification ritual called the Aiora (Swinging), during which girls sat in swings suspended from trees. It has sometimes been assigned to the Anthesteria, though similar rituals involving boys and girls may have taken place at other times in the year.19
Its material remains show that Ikarion was indeed the home of a venerable Dionysiac cult. Beneath a Byzantine church were found the fragments of a massive cult statue once housed in the Dionysion. This marble image is dated to about 520, making it one of the earliest known cult statues in stone (most early examples were sculpted in wood or ivory). The seated, draped god held a kantharos and originally measured 2 m from head to foot. His history can be tentatively reconstructed with help from several inscriptions detailing the
Figure 10.1 Head of Dionysos cult statue from Ikarion, Attica, c. 520. Athens, National Archaeological Museum. Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.
Cult and the system of liturgies for the presentation of dramatic performances in Ikarion. A fifth-century inscription (IG I3 254) mentions that the choregoi, the demesmen organizing the dramas for the Country Dionysia, were sworn in with one hand on a statue - presumably that of Dionysos. Ancient repairs to the statue are suggested by the present state of the head (which has sometimes been mistaken for a mask) and confirmed by a fourth-century inscription (IG II2 2851). When first sculpted, this statue would have been one of the most impressive in Attica. It was certainly housed in a temple, though the extant architectural remains are not complete enough to tell us more.20
World History
