Conclusion

The personifications which appear throughout Greek art and literature take on new life when we consider the place that so many of them had in actual religious practice. In the archaic period, epic poetry provides a basic mythological pedigree for many figures which would later acquire cult status, and a few of these cults can be traced back to at least the sixth century. Cults first attested in the fifth century are less dependent on the epic tradition, but often involve close association between the personification and a more major deity, in some cases even being attested as a cult title. In the fourth century and later, we see the introduction of personification cults entirely independent of such association, sometimes with little or no prior development in literature and art, which probably owe their existence to contemporary political concerns. The figures discussed here certainly do not constitute a comprehensive list, but are just a selection of some of the better-documented cases, and even these have been only briefly outlined. In particular, there has not been space to elaborate on the historical circumstances which form the context for each cult’s inception and subsequent development, and provide the most interesting avenue for further study. I hope, however, to have demonstrated that even the most abstract of concepts could quite easily be conceived of as a fully personalized deity, worthy of worship by individuals and the state, and to have justified my opening assertion that personification played an important part in Greek religion.

GUIDE TO FURTHER READING

Though they have been superseded by more recent studies in some particulars, Deubner 1902-9, Nilsson 1952b and Hamdorf 1964 are seminal works on the place of personification in Greek religion, while Foucart et al. 1917 is the first to set the Greek material in the broader context of Egyptian, Roman, and Semitic personification. The fullest recent discussion, however, is my own book (Stafford 2000), which includes more detailed consideration than has been possible here of general issues - definitions, problems of evidence, ancient analysis of the phenomenon, the question of personifications’ predominantly feminine gender - as well as case studies of the cults of Themis, Nemesis, Persuasion, Health, and Peace. Various aspects of Greek personification are discussed in papers collected in Stafford and Herrin 2005; in addition to papers cited individually in this chapter, see Parisinou on personifications of celestial light, Burton on the gender of death, Kovaleva on Eros at the Panathenaea, Lazongas on the odd case of the personified pomegranate, Allan on the cult of Opportunity, Murray on the Muses, Seaman on representations of the Iliad and Odyssey, and Yatromanolakis on the personified city. Shapiro 1993 provides an accessible and fairly comprehensive survey of personifications in Greek art between 600 and 400 BC; the story is continued into the fourth century in Aellen’s (1994) richly illustrated discussion of the role of personification in south Italian vase-painting. Individual personified characters usually have an entry in LIMC, which gives a summary of the figure’s place in literature and cult before cataloging her (or his) appearances in Greek (and Roman) art; entries in the older RE can be useful, though they are inevitably outdated in some areas. Gombrich 1971 and Webster 1954 are still worth reading for overviews of Greek personification, while Whitman 1987 provides a good account of allegory in Greek literature. Specific points may be pursued by following up references in the text.