As the sovereign and father of the gods, Zeus presided over normative civic, social, and family relationships. He endorsed the power of early chieftains and kings (in Hom. II. 2.100-8, for example, Agamemnon’s scepter is an heirloom from the god), but in the later age of the Greek polis, Zeus was the upholder of civic authority. Zeus Polieus (of the City) was worshiped in many Greek cities, often with Athena Polias, the citadel goddess, as his partner. The Athenians preserved an ancient and curious ritual for this god, carried out on the Akropolis at his annual festival, the Dipolieia. Already considered old-fashioned by the Classical period, the Dipolieia ritually linked Zeus’ Archaic role as an agricultural deity with his civic function as a guarantor of justice. According to Pausanias (1.24.4):
They put barley mixed with wheat on the altar of Zeus and leave no guard there. The ox that they have ready for the sacrifice goes to the altar and touches the grains. They call one of the priests the Ox-Slayer (Bouphonos); [after striking the ox] he drops the axe and flees, for this is the custom. And refusing to recognize the man who did the deed, they put the axe on trial.
The ritual has received attention for its special focus on the ox: many sacrifices included oxen, but only this one had a special priest known as the Ox-Slayer, and the alternative name of the festival was the Ox-Slaying or Bouphonia. This indicates that the festival was concerned with the value of the ox as a domesticated animal. The ritual expresses tension between the ox’s value as a meat animal and the need to keep oxen alive as draft animals, vital for agriculture. Hence, the man who kills the ox commits a “crime,” but also reenacts the first sacrifice and the pleasurable sacrificial meal of meat.
The location of the altar on the Akropolis and the priest’s use of a double-edged sacrificial axe (pelekus), well known from Bronze Age Aegean iconography, suggest that this ritual has roots in Mycenaean religion. The Swiss ethnologist Karl Meuli, followed by Burkert, would take the origins of this rite back much further, to the time before cattle were domesticated. A later but more detailed source for the Dipolieia says that after the sacrifice, the hide of the dead ox was stuffed and set up as if it were still alive. This reminded Meuli of the customs of tribal peoples who subsist by hunting; often the hunter tries to maintain the goodwill of the animal and its kind by shifting blame for the kill to others, or even to a weapon. Attempts to reconstruct the animal symbolically, so as to ensure its future abundance, are also attested.8
Under other titles associated with civic functions, such as Boulaios (of the Council) and Agoraios (of the City Center), Zeus preserved order and oversaw the political and legal systems of the Greek polis. He is also associated with victory in battle. After a battle, soldiers honored Zeus Tropaios (of the
Rout) by setting up an effigy in the form of a pole with armor placed on it. The first literary description of this practice occurs in Sophocles’ Antigone 141-47, where the chorus describes how six of the Seven Against Thebes “left behind their bronze armor for Zeus Tropaios.” Such images were normally temporary, but Zeus Tropaios appropriately possessed a sanctuary of his own in warlike Sparta.9
Cults of Zeus Eleutherios (of Freedom) were instituted on special occasions when Greeks believed they had experienced divine deliverance from tyranny. After the battle of Plataiai in 480, an altar was built for Zeus Eleutherios to commemorate the united defense of Greece against the invading Persians. The poet Simonides wrote an epigram (fr.15 Page, FGE) to be inscribed on the altar, including the words: “Having driven out the Persians, they set up the altar of Zeus Eleutherios, a free (eleutheron) ornament for Hellas.” The commemorative games instituted at this time, which included a race of fully armed men around the altar, were still observed hundreds of years later. An existing altar in the Athenian agora, most likely belonging to Zeus Soter (Savior), was rebuilt c. 430 together with a stoa, which formed a new sanctuary of Zeus Eleutherios/Soter. The timing of the construction suggests that the power of Zeus was now being invoked against the invading Spartans. In Sicily, the cult of Zeus Eleutherios was first established when the tyrant Thrasyboulos was overthrown in 466. The city of Syracuse erected a colossal statue of Zeus and, as at Plataiai, founded games.10
The cult of Zeus Soter was more geographically widespread, and similarly marked occasions when disaster was averted or battles won. Zeus Soter was also invoked broadly as a god who saved individuals in times of trouble. At his temple in the Peiraieus, which was shared with Athena Soteira, sailors made offerings upon returning home from dangerous journeys, and the ephebes, or young warriors-in-training, rowed trireme races in his honor at an annual festival, the Diisoteria. Finally, Zeus Soter was an important god of the household. With other deities such as Hygieia (Health) and Agathos Daimon (the Good God), he traditionally received the third libation at symposia. The first libation was poured to Zeus and the Olympian gods, who represent the cosmos; the second to the heroes, who stand for the city; and the third to Zeus Soter, the patron of home and family. In his Suppliants and Oresteia, Aeschylus alludes several times to Zeus Soter as the deity who upholds the authority of the male head of the household, and the physical integrity of the home itself, which were felt to be interdependent.11
World History
