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6 - Demeter Chthonia at Hermione: Landscapes and Cult

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2023

By
Diana Burton
Edited by
Hans Beck  and
Julia Kindt
Hans Beck
Affiliation:
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany
Julia Kindt
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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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.

Keywords

DemeterHermionePausaniaslocation and localitylocal topographyunderworldeschatology
Type
Chapter
Information
The Local Horizon of Ancient Greek Religion , pp. 183 - 204
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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