Commonplace deities were given the functions with which they were associated throughout Greece: the principal phenomenon is the lack of Arcadian distinctiveness is in this respect. Let us take the example of Megalopolis (Pausanias 8.30.2-8.32.5). The functions relating to the defense of the city and its territory were undertaken by Athena Polias and those relating to earthquakes by Poseidon Asphaleios. The urban area was placed under the aegis of the deities one would expect, those who protect politics (Zeus Soter and Tyche); human groups (Hera Teleia for marriage, Apollo Epikourios for young men); those who protect health (Asclepius and Hygieia) and the individuals’ physical development (Heracles and Hermes, near the stadium); and the gods protecting the arts and crafts (Muses, Apollo and Hermes, Aphrodite Machanitis, Ergatai gods). The protection of the sphere of fertility/fecundity and the protection of the pastoral life were assured by Demeter and the Great Goddesses, Dionysus, Artemis, and Pan. Two names here are distinctive: Epikourios (‘‘Helper’’), the epithet for Apollo (Pausanias 8.41.7), of military origin and Ergatai gods (‘‘Workers’’), a collective name for several gods associated with a citizen’s daily life. But, for day-to-day functions, the Arcadians more usually contented themselves with divine names commonplace in Greece. Thus, Zeus is Soter in Megalopolis (Pausanias 8.30.10) and at Mantinea (Pausanias 8.9.1), in connection with the protection required by a city’s foundation. When associated with the family, he is Zeus Teleios at Megalopolis (8.48.6), Zeus Patroos at Tegea (IG v.2 63) and Zeus Epidotes at Mantinea (Pausanias 8.9.2). Likewise Athena, in her role as protectress of the city, is called Polias or Poliatis, Apollo is Agyieus, and Poseidon is Hippios (Jost 1985: index).
However, even if these epithets were apparently banal, their content could be rather less so. Athena Poliatis protected the city of Tegea and her iconography draws upon Athena’s usual repertoire (Jost 1985:364-8). However, the legend attached to her sanctuary evinces a distinctive conception of her protective power. Athena Poliatis had made a gift to the city of a lock of hair of the Gorgon Medusa, which one only had to brandish above the ramparts for the enemy to take off in disarray (Pausanias 8.47.5; other sources contain the same report). Thus the goddess assured the city protection of a magical kind by means of this talisman. Another interesting case is that of Apollo Agyieus at Tegea (Pausanias 8.53.1). The epithet Agyieus reflected the god’s protection of streets; but he was also associated with the themes of an old agrarian cult: sterility sent by the gods in punishment for a murder, and rites instituted to appease them in accordance with an oracle from the Pythia (Jost, forthcoming (a)).
Poseidon Hippios’ epithet also takes on a distinctive color in Arcadia. In his Achaea book Pausanias writes, ‘‘I assume that he owes his name to his role as the inventor of riding,’’ and, after citing Homer and Pamphos, he concludes, ‘‘It is because of riding, and not for any other reason, that he received this name’’ (7.21.8-9). But in Arcadia, it was a different story. ‘‘The people of Thelpusa were the first of the Arcadians by whom Poseidon was surnamed Hippios’’ (Pausanias 8.25.7), and this time it is the birth of the horse Arion that justified the epithet: he was born from the union of Poseidon, transformed into a horse, with Demeter, who had taken on the shape of a mare. Thus the epithet is linked to the god’s theriomorphism. It should also be noted that at Mantinea Poseidon Hippios appears to have been the protective deity of the city (Jost 1985:290-2; Mylonopoulos 2003:419-20); Poseidon Hippios accordingly had functions rather more extensive than those of a mere protector of horses.
In Arcadia, then, as we can see, the ‘‘panhellenic’’ epithets of deities were often employed with a connotation of particular relevance to the sanctuaries to which they were attached.
Some names are strictly Arcadian. The Megalai Theai (‘‘Great Goddesses’’) of Megalopolis are an Arcadian invention probably connected with the foundation of the city of Megalopolis (Jost 1994; Stiglitz 1967); their name echoes that of the city. More often, it is the cultic epithet that bestows distinctiveness upon a ‘‘panhellenic’’ deity. Epithets allow us to learn about a multitude of individual local deities.
The distinctiveness of epithets is particularly clear when they witness ancient associations between local deities and deities that are basically panhellenic. In the case of Athena Alea, literary, epigraphical, numismatic, and archaeological testimonia combine to allow us to follow an evolution which led from the cult of Alea to those of Alea Athena and Athena Alea, fully within the historical period. The existence of a goddess Alea, independent of Athena, was a uniquely Arcadian phenomenon: she is attested at Mantinea (IG v.2 262 and 271: she underlies the tribal name Epalea). At Tegea, a fragment of a stele dated to around 525-520 BC records an athlete’s dedication to Alea (IG v.2 75). The name of Aleos, the founder of the sanctuary of the goddess (Pausanias 8.45.4) and that of the games called Aleaia (IG v.2 142; Pausanias 8.47.4) likewise reflect a cult of Alea. In the archaic period Athena was present in the sanctuary of Alea at Tegea, although her name had yet to appear: a bronze votive statuette represents her in arms (Jost 1975: figs 16-18). In the classical period, the Tegean goddess is still called Alea by Xenophon (Hellenica 6.5.27) but Herodotus (1.66 and 9.70) and Euripides (Auge, Hypothesis 6) call her Alea Athena. Alea is given her name in the first instance and Athena appears to be a secondary deity in her role as epithet; Alea loses her autonomy, but not her precedence. The name Alea Athena is found still in Menander (Herosline 84), and then in Strabo (C388) and in two inscriptions of the first and second centuries AD (IG v.2 81 lines 6-7 and 50 line 2). In parallel, the name Athena Alea, which privileges Athena at the expense of Alea and reduces the latter to the role of epithet, is known from the third or second centuries BC from Tegean bronze coinage. This is also the form that Pausanias used.
Thus Athena Alea is attested before the name Alea Athena disappears. Affinities of personality encouraged the rapprochement between the two goddesses. Although the etymology of the name Alea escapes us, it evidently evoked the notion of ‘‘refuge’’ that belonged to Athena in her role as protector by arms. In the role of principal deity and that of epithet alike, Alea preserves the memory of an archaic deity.
Did an analogous process operate in still earlier times? The most interesting case is that of Demeter Erinys at Thelpusa (Pausanias 8.25.4-7). The existence of a Mycenaean deity E-ri-nu, attested twice (Rougemont forthcoming), constitutes an important indication that an independent goddess Erinys had anciently existed in Arcadia. Demeter Erinys’ epithet was no longer understood in the age of Pausanias: by that time it was held to derive from an Arcadian verb erinuein, ‘‘cherish one’s anger,’’ and to refer to the emotions experienced by the goddess after being raped by Poseidon. However, an independent Erinys is attested by a scholium to Lycophron (on Alexandra line 1040): ‘‘Thelpusa: a city in Arcadia, where Erinys is worshiped’’ and Tzetzes (Commentary on Lycophron, Alexandra line 153) records that Demeter had sex with Poseidon ‘‘in the form of an Erinys.’’ The figure of Erinys was therefore initially distinct from Demeter; it is permissible to believe that the Erinys continued the Mycenaean goddess E-ri-nu and survived as an epithet of Demeter at Thelpusa (Jost forthcoming (a)).
The epithets with the most direct connections with the Arcadian land furnished the greatest number of rare epithets. On the theme of weather, so important for countrymen, Zeus Storpaos (‘‘Lightning,’’ TG v.2 64), worshiped in the fifth century at Tegea, is otherwise unknown. Zeus Keraunos (‘‘Thunderbolt,’’ TG v.2 288), attested in the fifth century at Mantinea, is equally unique. Zeus, we should note, is identified with the physical manifestation of the thunderbolt, as opposed to the thunderbolt merely being his attribute. In the sphere of fertility and fecundity, which was fundamental for Arcadia’s agricultural and pastoral economy, Demeter Melaina at Phigalia (Pausanias 8.42.1-13), Dionysus Auxites at Heraea (Pausanias 8.26.1), Apollo Kereatas either in the territory of Megalopolis (Pausanias 8.34.5) and Demeter Kidaria at Pheneos (Pausanias 8.15.1-3) were more authentically indigenous than Artemis Agrotera (Pausanias 8.32.4) or Apollo Nomios (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 3.23.57), who were widely known throughout the Greek world. In the former cases, the Arcadian occurrences are almost without parallel elsewhere. Sometimes the names are easy to understand, such as that of Dionysus Auxites, whose epithet conveys the fecund power of a deity who ‘‘increases’’ the gifts of nature; sometimes they are unusual, like Apollo Kereatas, the ‘‘Horned,’’ protector of flocks, who perhaps has a counterpart in Cyprus. We are led to recognize in Demeter Melaina a goddess ‘‘of the dark,’’ protector of the vegetation and its cycle, by the combination of the tale in which the goddess put on a black veil and withdrew into a cave and the vegetable offerings made to her. Her theriomorphic statue with a horse’s head, recalling her union with Poseidon-as-horse, demonstrates in addition her affinities with the animal world. The epithet of Demeter Kidaria at Pheneos refers to the name of a dance and a hairstyle; her ritual, which included a priest dressed in a mask of the goddess whipping the inhabitants of the underworld with birches, indicates that she was a vegetation deity (Pausanias 8.15.3; Jost 1985:320-2).
The fields of womanhood and human reproduction gave rise to two distinctive epithets. Artemis Apanchomene (‘‘Hanged’’) is unique to Kaphyai (Pausanias 8.23.7). Children had tied a thin cord round the goddess’ neck (that is to say, the neck of her effigy) and said that she had been ‘‘hanged.’’ The inhabitants of Kaphyai stoned them, whereupon a disease attacked the pregnant women, who lost their babies; the Delphic oracle ordained that they should make annual sacrifices for the children unjustly killed and call the goddess Apanchomene. The epithet has been related to the rite of hanging statuettes of agrarian deities from the branches of trees in order to guarantee fecundity. Another explanation invokes young girls who wished to remain virgins hanging themselves, and holds that the ‘‘Hanged’’ goddess protected them from such a death (Cole 2004:205-9). Women were also evoked by the epithet of Ares Gynaikothoinas, ‘‘Celebrated in women’s feasts,’’ at Tegea (Pausanias 8.48.4-6). The women had made a decisive intervention in a war against the Spartans, which they celebrated here with victory sacrifices and feasts in which men did not participate. The epithet testifies to the close relationship between the women and the god of war, and puts us in mind of the Amazons.
The legendary piety of the Arcadians was also the starting point for many local epithets that referred to cult organization. Artemis was Hiereia at Oresthasion (Pausanias 8.44.2) and Hymnia on the border between Mantinea and Orchomenus (Pausanias 8.13.1); in a sanctuary on Mount Krathis in Pheneatis Artemis Pyronia provided the Argives with a flame for their Lernaia festival, and, near Tegea, Dionysus Mystes (‘‘Initiate’’) recalled the initiation of the god at Eleusis (Pausanias 8.54.5). The biographies of the gods were equally evoked by some relatively exceptional epithets: thus Zeus Lecheates, (‘‘he who has given birth’’) brought Athena into the world at Aliphera (Pausanias 8.26.6), and Asclepius Pais (‘‘Child’’) was born at Thelpusa (Pausanias 8.25.11). We should also note three epithets of Hera at Stymphalus: Hera Pais, when she was still a virgin, Teleia, when she had married Zeus, and Chera (‘‘Widow’’), when she had separated herself from Zeus (Pausanias 8.22.2). These epithets, perhaps tied to a cult cycle centered on hieros gamos (‘‘sacred marriage’’), were explained by the episodes of the goddess’ biography (Jost 1997:88-9).
Finally, new divine names could find their origins in particular historical events. Upon the foundation of Megalopolis the Arcadians adopted an epithet to express the solidarity essential for the development of the new city: Zeus Philios (‘‘of friendship’’) had a statue sculpted by the younger Polyclitus (Pausanias 8.31.4). His epithet illustrates the philia bound, according to Aristotle (Politics 1280b) to the notion of fatherland. The statue was a composite: ‘‘shod with buskins, the god held a vessel to drink from in one hand and a thyrsus in the other with an eagle perching on it’’; the statue combined traits of Dionysus, the god of the symposium and of conviviality, with traits of Zeus, the civic god and the ruler (Jost 1996a:105).
The pantheons of the Arcadian cities were assembled from deities both commonplace or ‘‘panhellenic’’ and strictly Arcadian and local. But they were also characterized by the recurrence of particular groupings among the divine powers. Although there are expected groupings, such as that of Demeter and Kore, others contrast with a distinct local flavor. The presence of armed propoloi (‘‘attendants’’) beside female deities - the Giants beside Rhea (Pausanias 8.32.5) and Anytos beside Demeter (8.37.5-6) - may go back to an ancient substratum (Jost 1985:335-6). Also quite unusual, in mythical terms, are the appearance of Demeter and Poseidon as a pair (Pausanias 8.25.5-7) and the designation of Artemis as the daughter of Demeter at
Lykosoura. In other cases it is the balance between two associated deities that is unusual: the precedence of the daughter (Despoina or Kore) over Demeter, still perceptible in the Roman era, is a typical example of this (Jost 1996b:199).
World History
