Prayers
Greeks prayed standing up, not kneeling down, with arms raised (see e. g. Demosthenes 21.52), or with a libation-bowl poised. It is possible that, in Athens and perhaps elsewhere, they prayed to the many Hermes statues distributed through the city as divine messenger between humans and gods. Vases show petitioners touching Hermes on the chin as they supplicate him to hear their prayer and perhaps pass it on to the right address on Olympus (Furley 1996:13-30). There were various verbs, with corresponding nouns, to denote the act: euchomai (euche or eucholei), araomai (ara) lissomai (lito), hiketeuo (hiketeia). Pulleyn (1997:59-66), in discussion with Aubriot-Sevin (1992:405-94), places these on a descending scale according to how much charis the person(s) praying thinks he has with the god(s). The type of prayer (eucho according to Aubriot-Sevin 1992; Pulleyn [1997: 63] talks about ‘‘xenia-prayers’’) which draws on a perceived store of charis as argument to sway the god(s) is at the top of this scale, hiketeia at the bottom because the person praying is like a suppliant throwing himself on the mercy of the god(s) without any charis reserves to draw on, whilst litai occupy a middle position. To put this a little differently: people turn to litai and hiketeia when they are in dire straits and are in no position to bargain with the gods by citing their previous, present, or future piety (Figure 7.2). They pray with emphasis on reciprocal charis when they hope to secure a favor from god(s) based on their generous worship. Ara tends to have the connotation of‘‘curse’’ in prayers uttered with respect to other people (Corlu 1966:285-8), but it can also (in Homer) simply mean ‘‘prayer.’’ Euchomai in Homer sometimes seems to mean ‘‘boast’’; Pulleyn (1997:60-1) says that the original sense was simply ‘‘say solemnly,’’ which was then used in the specific context of prayer. A passage which combines two nuances of prayer is Iliad 9.497-501, in which Phoenix implores Achilles to listen to their prayers as ‘‘even the gods can be swayed, and their honor, strength, and valor is greater. Men sway them through sacrifice and gentle prayers [eucholeiis aganoisi], through libation and the smoke of burnt offerings when they entreat them [lissomenoi] after a man has transgressed and done wrong.’’ In
Figure 7.2 ‘‘A prayer is heard.’’ Alkmene prays to Zeus for protection as Amphitryon and
Antenor light the pyre. Clouds answer her prayer by pouring (rain-)water from urns. Paestan bell-krater from St. Agata dei Goti; ca. 340 BC. London, British Museum F 149
Particular one notes the apotropaic force of prayers called litai: they serve to avert divine wrath following a human transgression (Pulleyn 1997:64).
Another taxonomy suggested by Pulleyn (1997:156-95) concerns the occasion of prayer. There is relatively little evidence for daily prayers at certain times (as in Islam; Pulleyn calls these ‘‘hour-glass’’ prayers); one might call prayers uttered in certain standard situations which tend to recur, such as plague, drought, before marching into battle, or before embarking on a ship, ‘‘situational’’; finally, prayers uttered in an unforeseen, unique situation might be called ‘‘adventitious.’’ At one extreme we hear of individuals who, like Theophrastus’ superstitious man, pray in all possible eventualities to ward off harm (Characters 16); at the other we hear of rogues who ridiculed the gods’ sacra in public to show their disdain for conventional behavior (Lysias,
Against Kinesias). One might think that there was an essential difference between public and private prayer (the one conspicuous, the other secluded), but in fact private prayer tended to be like public prayer only on a smaller scale: members of the household gathered to say, and witness, the prayers spoken by the family head.
Hymns
A first meaningful distinction is between the hymnic mode used by rhapsodes as prelude (technically prooimion) to their performances of epic, and hymns sung (usually by a chorus) as an element of cult (Race 1990:102-11). The Homeric Hymns fall in the first category: they consist largely of narratives about the god’s birth and/or exploits and finish with a brief prayer to the god to receive the song graciously before the singer turns to another - presumably epic - song (Allen, Halli-day, and Sikes 1936). The mode of these rhapsodic prooimia - dactylic hexameters, diction similar to that of Homer, epic narrative - was imitated (with the exception of the fifth Hymn to Athena) by Callimachus and adapted for later forms such as the Orphic Hymns (Quandt 1962), Proclus’ Hymns (Van den Berg 2000), and the hymns we find dispersed through the magical papyri (Preisendanz, Heitsch, and Henrichs 1973-4:II.237-66). Such texts are usually about the god in the third person, describing his or her attributes and achievements rather than preparing the ground for a specific request (Race 1990:103). They may originally have been sung, like epic itself, then recited. They were, presumably, composed principally for performance at panhellenic song competitions. Clay (1989) is quite right that, collectively, they have the effect of charting the Olympians’ prerogatives relative to Zeus and each other.
Cult hymns, on the other hand, were meant for performance during religious ritual, whether calendrical festival or special event. Here one can make distinctions using functional criteria (which cult? which god?), sometimes supported by formal characteristics (typical refrain, style etc.). Ancient taxonomies of cult hymns such as that of Proclus tend to associate hymn types with certain gods. Thus the dithyramb is said to be an excited type of cult song performed for Dionysus, whilst the paean and nome are more dignified songs performed in Apolline worship. With its typical refrain ie Paian, addressed to Paieon, an originally independent healer-god, and its continued association with the family of Olympian healers (Apollo, Asclepius, his sons and Hygieia herself), the paean may be thought to constitute a very distinctive class of supplicatory hymn. The core use of the paean seems to have been entreaty of a savior god by humans facing peril in, for example, battle or plague (Kappel 1992). The Theban daphnephorikon was a form practiced by Pindar for a specific Theban cult of Apollo. Artemis typically had her Partheneia, or girls’-songs, and oupingoi (“we hear’’).
Another ancient distinction is that between the ‘‘hymn proper’’ performed round the god’s altar and the “processional hymn’’ (prosodion) performed on the way there. Incidentally, we should not be misled by Alexandrian editions of Pindar’s cult songs in separate books of paeans, dithyrambs, prosodia, daphnephorika, and hymns (!) into thinking that the first types were not hymns; they were all hymns according to the general sense of the word hymnos; a separate book of hymnoi existed, presumably, as catch-all for compositions which were not recognizably paeans, dithyrambs, etc.
Cult hymns usually address the god(s) directly in the second person. Often they begin with a subsidiary invocation to the Muses or a local divinity ‘‘hosting’’ the presence of the god(s) addressed, or (in Euripides) by theological concepts such as ‘‘Holiness’’ (hosia) called in to mediate the intended communication between worshipers and gods. This preliminary bow to a secondary deity offsets the tripartite form of invocation-argument/narrative-prayer so commonly described. Hymnic address is usually more rhetorically and poetically finished than plain prayer. In particular, it is ‘‘eulogistic,’’ weaving a web - the metaphor is common in Greek texts - of laudatory words evoking the god(s) power and glory (Furley 1995). The attributes chosen are often material: a beautiful throne for Aphrodite; a golden bow or lyre for Apollo; a beautiful garment for Athena. Here there is aesthetic crossfertilization between word and visual art: cult statues of gods were no doubt modeled on descriptions of gods in canonical texts such as Homer and Hesiod; once these splendid agalmata of the gods existed and were on show they served in their turn as models for poetic description (Gladigow 1990). A suggestive form of adulation is also, as already described, narrative of past actions illustrating power or special gifts; the narrative acts as charter for the divine power which the hymn-singers wish to evoke on a specific occasion. Genealogical narratives such as we find in, for example, hymns to Asclepius praise the god by highlighting his or her impressive ancestry. Accounts of accession to a rightful place on Olympus such as we commonly find in hymns to Apollo (Furley and Bremer 2001:1.77-138, 2.21-100), for example, or the Epidaurian hymn to the Mother of the Gods (Furley and Bremer 2001: no. 6.2), show how a god achieved greatness and fitted into the cosmic scheme chaired by Zeus.
Most of the Greeks’ cult poetry is lost. Until the late archaic masters of choral lyric - Simonides, Pindar, Bakchylides - raised the traditional forms of paean and dithyramb to new artistic heights, the majority of cults songs were, presumably, anonymous, traditional songs going back generations. A good example is perhaps the Cretan Hymn of the Kouretes (Furley and Bremer 2001: no. 1.1) which celebrates the birth of Zeus as the ‘‘Greatest Kouros.’’ Owing to papyrus finds we now possess a fair amount of Pindar’s paeans and dithyrambs and Bakchylides’ dithyrambs, and can see how in the hands of these authors cult poetry became ‘‘literary.’’ In particular, fifth-century dithyramb became a competition event notably at Athens, stimulating poets and choruses to ever higher poetic flights of fancy and ornament; plain, simple religiosity is lost as a result. This is not entirely true of Pindar’s paeans, which combine elaborate structure and mythical ornament with a genuine feeling for Apol-line majesty (Rutherford 2001). Pindar enjoyed a position of honor at Delphi, a position earned no doubt by the excellence of his compositions for festivals there. Then in the fourth century the texts of cult hymns began to be written down on stone at the major sanctuaries, Delphi and Epidaurus particularly, Athens to a lesser extent. It is a common observation that the epigraphical texts from this period (fourth to first centuries BC) are fairly primitive compositions without much poetic merit; whilst it is true that Isyllos’ paean to Apollo and Asclepius (Furley and Bremer 2001: no. 6.4) is a dismal piece of writing, the same does not hold true for the famous paeans to Apollo with musical notation from Delphi, for example (Furley and Bremer 2001: nos 2.6.1, 2.6.2), one of which is datable to 128 BC. These show confident use of a meter (cretic-paeonic) and language which draw on traditional elements of Apolline worship, an interesting ‘‘historical’’ narrative of how Apollo helped defeat the invading marauder Brennos, and then modulation into aeolic measures for what is perhaps the prosodion mentioned in one title. There have been modern ‘‘recordings’’ made of the music of these hymns (e. g. Gregorio Paniagua and the Atrium Musicae de Madrid’s Musique de la Gr'ce antique [1979]). One can well imagine a chorus moving up the Sacred Way toward the temple of Apollo repeatedly singing these hymns. The Athenians were so pleased with them that they had them inscribed on the walls of their ‘‘treasury’’ at Delphi.
So one cannot write a history of cult song in ancient Greece. We possess fragments of varying poetic merit which have survived more or less fortuitously from what must have been a mass of hieratic poetry. I doubt there was a heyday of cult poetry; it was a continuous stream with notable stretches created by individual talents such as Pindar (or indeed the Athenian dramatists). There was fluctuation owing to rising or waning popularity of particular cults, and local tradition must have been extremely important. Sometimes Euripides refers to the founding of cults - for example of Hippolytus at Troizen, Iphigeneia at Brauron - with their attendant myths. One can be sure that cult at these localities featured hymns celebrating the interplay of divine power with heroic fates. I might close this essay with a challenge to the reader: to review in his or her mind the elements suitable for a prayer or hymn in the following situation: one has arrived as an army commander at the Peneus river in Thessaly. It is in flood owing to a recent deluge in the mountains inland and impassable for the troops. What animals should best be sacrificed and how should a prayer or supplicatory hymn be formulated to rectify the impasse?
GUIDE TO FURTHER READING
For prayers see above all the standard study of Pulleyn 1997, and also Des Places 1959, Corlu 1966, Versnel 1981b and Aubriot-Sevin 1992. For hymns see above all Furley and Bremer 2001 (two volumes of texts, translations, and commentaries), and also Bremer 1981, Devlin 1994, and Furley 1995 and 2000. For paeans see Kappel 1992 and Rutherford 2001 and for dithyrambs Zimmermann 1992. Bremer 1998 discusses the notion of reciprocity in Greek worship.
World History
