Book contents
- The Local Horizon of Ancient Greek Religion
- The Local Horizon of Ancient Greek Religion
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Localism and the Study of Ancient Greek Religion: The Example of the Divine Persona
- 2 Refitting the Local Horizon of Ancient Greek Religion (Including Some Remarks on the Sanctuary of Poseidon on Kalaureia)
- 3 Mycenaean Greek Worship in Minoan Territory
- 4 Hera on Samos: Between the Global and the Local
- 5 Polytheism and the Distribution of Votives in the Corinthia
- 6 Demeter Chthonia at Hermione: Landscapes and Cult
- 7 Local Variation in the Thesmophoria Festival: A Case Study of the Attic and Sicilian Thesmophoria Festivals
- 8 The Lindian Chronicle and Local Identity
- 9 Shifting Identities and Defensive Localism: Conflicts of Religious Narratives in Post-Synoikism Rhodes
- 10 Between Local and Global? Religion in Late-Hellenistic Delos
- 11 Personal or Communal? Social Horizons of Local Greek Religion
- 12 How to Write a Local History of Imperial Greek Cults: Observations from Pausanias
- 13 Panhellenic Sanctuaries: Local and Regional Perspectives
- Epilogue: A Tribute to Potnia of the Labyrinth
- Index
- References
6 - Demeter Chthonia at Hermione: Landscapes and Cult
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 April 2023
- The Local Horizon of Ancient Greek Religion
- The Local Horizon of Ancient Greek Religion
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Localism and the Study of Ancient Greek Religion: The Example of the Divine Persona
- 2 Refitting the Local Horizon of Ancient Greek Religion (Including Some Remarks on the Sanctuary of Poseidon on Kalaureia)
- 3 Mycenaean Greek Worship in Minoan Territory
- 4 Hera on Samos: Between the Global and the Local
- 5 Polytheism and the Distribution of Votives in the Corinthia
- 6 Demeter Chthonia at Hermione: Landscapes and Cult
- 7 Local Variation in the Thesmophoria Festival: A Case Study of the Attic and Sicilian Thesmophoria Festivals
- 8 The Lindian Chronicle and Local Identity
- 9 Shifting Identities and Defensive Localism: Conflicts of Religious Narratives in Post-Synoikism Rhodes
- 10 Between Local and Global? Religion in Late-Hellenistic Delos
- 11 Personal or Communal? Social Horizons of Local Greek Religion
- 12 How to Write a Local History of Imperial Greek Cults: Observations from Pausanias
- 13 Panhellenic Sanctuaries: Local and Regional Perspectives
- Epilogue: A Tribute to Potnia of the Labyrinth
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter embarks from the observation that ancient Greek settlements occupied three categorically separate yet interwoven landscapes: the natural, the human, and the imagined environment. It traces their presence at Hermione in the south-eastern Argolid to disclose multiple levels and layers of localisation and steers the investigation to places where all of these vectors combined. In the highly inclusive cult of Demeter Chthonia, the blend included communal preference, local vegetation, and a deliberately local variant of underworld conceptions. The cult of Demeter Chthonia at Hermione involved the killing of a frisky cow with sickles by four old women. It appears impossible to explain why the cow ritual took the idiosyncratic form that it did. Yet the comparison with cults of Demeter Chthonia elsewhere suggests the close interplay between agricultural and eschatological aspects. Although united with other Demeter cults under the same epiclesis and in accordance with the polymorphous nature of Greek religion, the cult in Hermione attests to lively conversations with the specific features of the local landscape, and the desire of the community to make sense of it.
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- The Local Horizon of Ancient Greek Religion , pp. 183 - 204Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023