Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of text-figures
- List of chronological tables
- Preface
- PART I THE PERSIAN EMPIRE
- PART II THE GREEK STATES
- 4 The tyranny of the Pisistratidae
- 5 The reform of the Athenian state by Cleisthenes
- 6 Greece before the Persian invasion
- 7 Archaic Greek society
- 7a Religion and the state
- 7b The development of ideas, 750 to 500 B.C.
- 7c Material culture
- 7d Coinage
- 7e Trade
- 8 The Ionian Revolt
- 9 The expedition of Datis and Artaphernes
- 10 The expedition of Xerxes
- 11 The liberation of Greece
- PART III THE WEST
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Index
- Map 1. The Achaemenid empire
- Map 6. Central Asia
- Map 9. The Black Sea area
- Map 11. Egypt
- Map 13. Greek and Phoenician trade in the period of the Persian Wars
- Map 15. Greece and the Aegean
- Map 18. Northern and Central Italy
- Map 19. Central and Southern Italy
- References
7a - Religion and the state
from 7 - Archaic Greek society
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of text-figures
- List of chronological tables
- Preface
- PART I THE PERSIAN EMPIRE
- PART II THE GREEK STATES
- 4 The tyranny of the Pisistratidae
- 5 The reform of the Athenian state by Cleisthenes
- 6 Greece before the Persian invasion
- 7 Archaic Greek society
- 7a Religion and the state
- 7b The development of ideas, 750 to 500 B.C.
- 7c Material culture
- 7d Coinage
- 7e Trade
- 8 The Ionian Revolt
- 9 The expedition of Datis and Artaphernes
- 10 The expedition of Xerxes
- 11 The liberation of Greece
- PART III THE WEST
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Index
- Map 1. The Achaemenid empire
- Map 6. Central Asia
- Map 9. The Black Sea area
- Map 11. Egypt
- Map 13. Greek and Phoenician trade in the period of the Persian Wars
- Map 15. Greece and the Aegean
- Map 18. Northern and Central Italy
- Map 19. Central and Southern Italy
- References
Summary
In a well-known story, Herodotus records how the Samians rescued three hundred boys whom Periander of Corinth was sending from Corcyra to Alyattes of Lydia to become eunuchs.
“They first instructed the boys to grasp the shrine of Artemis, and then refused to allow the Corinthians to drag them away from the shrine. When the Corinthians deprived the boys of food, the Samians created a festival, which they still now celebrate in the same way. At nightfall, as long as the boys were suppliants, they created groups of boy and girl dancers, and instituted a custom that they should carry cakes made of sesame-seed and honey, so that the Corcyraean boys could snatch them and keep themselves alive. This went on till the Corinthians who were guarding the boys gave up and went home.” (Hdt. III.48.2–3)
As history, the story rates low, not just because Herodotus' chronological indications are notoriously incompatible with each other, nor because an alternative tradition credits the Cnidians with the rescue (Plut. Mor. 860c), but because the story reads like a classic aetiological legend, repeated none too critically by Herodotus from his Samian friends and informants. Yet the story also has great value, in two different ways. First, it is a concentrated vignette of Greek religious ideas and customs. Age-groups of boys and girls (or youths or men or women) who dance and sing together in choroi in honour of a god recall the final scene on the shield of Achilles (Iliad xvii.590–616), provide context and subject matter for Alcman's Partheneion, form the basic element in the performance of all dithyrambic and dramatic poetry, and throughout Greece carry the social weight of symbolizing membership of a community.
Keywords
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- Information
- The Cambridge Ancient History , pp. 368 - 388Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1988
References
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