Rather surprisingly in view of his origins as a sky god, many cults of Zeus are chthonian or semi-chthonian in character. One of the most widespread was that of Zeus Meilichios (the Mild). Like many chthonian gods, Meilichios bore a euphemistic name. In truth he was by turns angry and kindly, a deity who required regular appeasement in order to keep the beneficial side of his personality to the fore. By calling him “mild” or “kindly,” his worshipers expressed their hopes rather than their fears. Because they governed the fruitfulness of the earth, chthonian deities had the power to be givers of good things if properly propitiated. Xenophon (An. 7.8.3-6) describes how he once fell short of money while working as a mercenary commander in Asia Minor. A seer told him that his financial straits were due to his failure to sacrifice to Zeus Meilichios. Xenophon admitted that, although he had regularly sacrificed when living at home, he had not done so since leaving Greece. The next day, he sacrificed two pigs and burned them whole for the god, and his piety was immediately rewarded with the return of a horse he had been forced to sell.
Personal or family offerings to Zeus Meilichios were the rule in the Greek world, but in Athens there was an important public festival for this god, the Diasia.15 In early spring, people gathered just outside the city at the banks of the river Ilissos for the rites, which involved bloodless offerings of agricultural produce and pastries shaped like animals. For the average citizen, the festival was a time to gather with family members and to enjoy a fairground atmosphere. In Aristophanes’ Clouds (864), Strepsiades recalls how he bought a toy cart for his young son on this occasion. Yet Meilichios was also an awesome and somber deity. On votive reliefs, he usually appears not in human form, but as a huge coiling snake, rearing up to meet his worshipers. (In Greek art, the snake as companion or attribute often indicates that the deity or hero in question belongs to the underworld. Such theriomorphic epiphanies, in which the gods took animal form, were unusual among the Greeks.) Zeus Meilichios was recognized in the Pompaia (Procession), another Athenian festival that took place while the fields were being plowed and the crops sowed. At this crucial time, it was important to be sure that the land was purified and free from evil influences, such as those introduced by the shedding of a kinsman’s blood. Therefore, a ram was sacrificed and its fleece, known as the Dios kOiidion or Fleece of Zeus, was carried in procession.16 We have already seen that the fleeces of rams sacrificed to Zeus carried special powers; their purifying function was one of the most important.
As an upholder of social norms, Zeus presided over the purification rituals conducted when a homicide took place. Persons who had killed, even accidentally, could not participate in family, religious, or political life until they were purified. They turned for help to householders in neighboring communities, or to sanctuaries, where they were protected by divine law from the vengeance of angry relatives. The role of Zeus in purifications is illustrated in one of the oldest extant sacral laws, a mid-fifth-century inscription from Selinous in Sicily dealing with procedures to be followed by a man who has killed and “wishes to be purified against the avenging spirit.” The killer is to announce his intentions, provide a meal for the hostile spirit, and sacrifice a piglet to Zeus Meilichios at his own expense.17 From other sources we know that in such rituals, the piglet’s blood was allowed to flow over the killer, since the participants believed that blood could wash away blood.
A person in need of this purification was known as a hiketes, “one who comes,” but the angry ghost of his victim was similarly a “visitant,” hikesios.
Figure 2.2 Zeus Meilichios as serpent, votive relief from the Peiraieus, c. 400. Berlin, Staatliche Museum. Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.
Zeus Hikesios, the god of “ones who come,” protected suppliants and guests from violence, but could himself be a supernatural avenger. He and Zeus Meilichios are invoked in rock-cut inscriptions made by family or clan groups in Thera, Kos, and Kyrene. His importance to the extended family arises from the belief that the religious impurity of one member affected the entire group.
Other manifestations of Zeus as a chthonian deity were common in domestic and public cult. Zeus Philios (the Friendly) was similar to Meilichios but more concerned with banqueting and friendship, and his cult was of more recent origin. He is shown on a fourth-century votive relief in a pose usually reserved for heroes, reclining at a banquet and accompanied by his consort, Good Luck (Tyche Agathe). He too can be depicted as a huge snake.18
World History
