Most of the Greek gods were connected in one way or another with natural phenomena: Zeus was a god of rain, Poseidon of earthquakes, Artemis of wild beasts. A number of minor deities, however, were truly nature gods in the sense that they personified specific features in the landscape or phenomena in the environment. Pre-eminent among these were the river gods and the spring nymphs, whose cults appeared everywhere the Greeks lived. Closely tied to human fertility, the care of children and love of one’s homeland, these minor gods made up for their strictly local influence by their great numbers: “it is difficult for a mortal to tell the names of all, but those who dwell near them know their own” (Hes. Theog. 69-70). Babies were often given names evocative of local rivers: Asopodoros, Ismenodoros, Acheloios. In fifth-century Athens, a man named Kephisodotos (Gift of Kephisos) cofounded a shrine to the river Kephisos and other gods, including Hermes and the nymphs. The other founder, Xenokrateia, made offerings for the welfare of her son. She established an altar for a number of gods concerned with children, including the rivers Kephisos and Acheloos; the trio Apollo, Artemis, and Leto; Eileithyia; and the local nymphs. In the Iliad (23.140-51), Peleus similarly directs his prayers for his son’s safety to the local river: upon Achilles’ safe return to his dear homeland, Peleus vows that a hundred cattle and fifty rams will be sacrificed into the waters of the Spercheios, while Achilles himself will cut his hair, grown long for the purpose, and offer it to the god. The offering of a lock of hair to the local river was a widespread custom; in Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers (6), Orestes calls this offering to Inachos a threpterion, a recompense for his upbringing.20
Popular taboos and cult regulations protected the purity of rivers and springs against the taint of human dirt, excrement, and other wastes, and rituals such as hand-washing or sacrifice before crossing a river are attested.21 In the Iliad (5.77-78, 23.140-51), the cults of river deities are well developed: Skamandros has his own priest and Spercheios has an altar and sanctuary. Animal sacrifice was performed either on an altar in a sanctuary or at the river bank itself so that the blood flowed into the water. Immersion sacrifices are also attested; Homer speaks of live horses cast into the Skamandros (Il. 21.124-32).
In the early twentieth century, a Swedish team investigated the sanctuary of the river Pamisos, the major waterway of Messenia. Located at a group of warm and cold-water springs feeding the stream, it was founded in the
Archaic period and had a reputation as a place for healing. It included a small Doric temple with an unusual feature, a votive pit incorporated in the temple wall, which connected with one of the springs feeding the river. Into this pit were deposited gifts of all sorts, including a number of small bronzes, which can be divided into animal figures (primarily horses, bulls, and goats) and human figures (mainly naked youths of Classical date). There are signs that the god’s sanctuary was used in rites of maturation: a number of small lead stars were found, originally attached with wire in wreaths. These are paralleled at Lakonian sanctuaries and were apparently dedicated by ephebes. According to tradition, the kings of Messenia brought annual sacrifices to the river. If accurate, this would place the origins of the cult as early as the eighth or seventh century.22
The only river god to achieve Panhellenic status in cult is Acheloos, god of the longest river in Greece, who shared many sanctuaries with the nymphs by the fifth century. His popularity was fostered by Zeus’ oracle at Dodona, which often recommended sacrifice to Acheloos. A boundary stone marking a shrine of the nymphs and Acheloos was unearthed in Oichalia in Euboia, accompanied by a bronze of the god (c. 460), shown as a bearded, draped figure holding a cornucopia. The full anthropomorphism of this bronze seems to be characteristic of fifth-century sculpture. River gods are likewise shown in human form on pediments of the temple of Zeus at Olympia and the Parthenon in Athens, but in other media they are shown as theriomorphic, man-bull hybrids, the bull symbolizing both the terrifying force of a flooding river and the fertilizing potency of its waters. Acheloos was also worshiped in the form of a mask, (a marble example dating to about 470 was found near Marathon) and his bearded, horned face was used as an amulet in jewelry.23
The nymphs, spirits of lakes, mountains, trees, and above all springs, were ubiquitous in the ancient Greek world, and their cult was probably an Indo-European inheritance. Much as described in Homer (Od. 13.102-12, 34951; 17.205-11), they were worshiped at simple open-air spring sanctuaries and in caves formed by the action of water. Often considered the first inhabitants of the land and cited as divine ancestors, they helped define local identity in the same way as rivers, and were similarly concerned with the welfare of the young. In myth, the nymphs often appear as companions of Olympian gods including Artemis, Dionysos, and Aphrodite, but in cult they are most often linked with pastoral deities including Apollo, Hermes, Acheloos, and Pan. They were worshiped as individuals or as pluralities, usually shown in Greek art as triads. Nymph sanctuaries securely dated to the Archaic period include Saftulis cave near Sikyon, where unique examples of Archaic painting on wood were discovered in 1934. Visitors in the sixth century hung painted wooden pinakes in the cave to commemorate their gifts to the nymphs. One well-preserved pinax shows a family preparing to sacrifice a sheep at a low altar; another features a triad of women, probably the nymphs. The terracottas of pregnant women found at this cave, while not
Figure 11.2 Cave shrine of the nymphs with three nymphs led by Hermes. Pan is present in the upper right. Hellenistic. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Antikensammlung, Vienna. Erich Lessing/Art Resource.
Standard offerings to the nymphs, are consistent with the general Greek belief that nymphs aided in childbirth, the nurture of the young, and girls’ transition to adulthood at the time of their weddings. Many girls brought dolls and other toys to the nymphs when they entered adulthood, and the nymphs were among the goddesses who might receive formal prenuptial offerings. The word numphe means “bride,” so it is fitting that the nymphs were always pictured as beautiful women, divine models for mortal brides.
In contrast to the a strictly local cult at Saftulis cave, the Korykian cave of the nymphs and Pan at Delphi was famous because of its location in a Panhellenic sanctuary and contained an unusual volume of cult-related deposits. Pilgrims to Delphi brought hundreds of seashells from the Korinthian gulf as gifts for the nymphs. The cave was also a center of divination with astragaloi or “knucklebones” from sheep and goats, which were cast like dice. This form of fortune-telling was associated with Hermes, whose relationship with the Korykian nymphs is mentioned in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4.552-68).24 In the Archaic and Classical periods, the nymphs were credited with the ability to “seize” individuals and inspire them; some of these nympholepts claimed oracular powers. Others withdrew to cave shrines and devoted themselves entirely to the worship of the nymphs, tending their gardens and adorning their caves with sculptures. During the Classical period, nympho-lepts lived at caves in Attica (Vari) and Thessaly (Pharsalos).25
World History
