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A Date with Adonis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

Ronda R. Simms
Ronda R. Simms*
Affiliation:
West Chester University, Pennsylvania
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Extract

During the classical period Athenian women gathered once a year to celebrate the Adonia. With ritualised lament they shared Aphrodite's grief over the death of Adonis, her youthful lover. This was not an official festival of the state or any of its political subdivisions; it was not publicly financed or regulated. It was celebrated informally by small, ad hoc groups of women (citizens and non-citizens, friends, relatives, neighbours) on the roofs of their houses. This unusual festival has long intrigued modern commentators, who have suggested a wide variety of interpretations regarding its nature and meaning—including one recently offered by this author. My purpose in this short article is to focus on one particular aspect of the Adonia—its date. Like almost everything else about this festival, its celebration-date has been the subject of scholarly controversy. Three seasons of the year have found advocates, winter being the lone discard.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 31 , November 1997 , pp. 45 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1997

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References

1 ‘Mourning and Community at the Athenian Adonia’, forthcoming in CJ.

2 Hauser, F., ‘Aristophanes und Vasenbilder’, Oesterreichisches archäologisches Institut in Wien, Jarheshefte 12 (1909) 80-100, esp. 99Google Scholar.

3 Deubner, L., Attische Feste (Berlin 1932) 221Google Scholar.

4 Weill, N., ‘Adôniazousai ou Les femmes sur le toit’, BCH 90 (1966) 664-98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 The vase paintings of the Adonia are problematic and the scholarly discussion has a long history. Hauser, writing in 1909 (n.2), was the pioneer, the first to make a comprehensive list of the Athenian vases from the fifth and fourth centuries which he believed related in some way to the Adonia. More than forty years later Henri Metzger challenged Hauser's interpretations of the fifth-century vases (Lei Représentations dans la céramique attique du IVe siècle [Paris 1951]Google Scholar). He was followed by Wahib Atallah in 1966 (Adonis dans la littérature et l'art grecs [Paris 1966]Google Scholar), who reviewed the works of both scholars, rejected Metzger's doubts, and accepted the conclusions of Hauser completely. More recently (1981), Brigitte Servais Soyez in the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae has surveyed all the information again and presented her own list (s.v. ‘Adonis’). Meanwhile several authors, most notably Weill (n.4), Simon, Erika (‘Aphrodite und Adonis—eine Neuerworbene Pyxis in Würzburg’, Antike Kunst 15 [1972] 20-6Google Scholar) and Richter, G.M.A. (Red-Figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum [New Haven 1936] 219-20)Google Scholar have added new finds and/or interpretations of the old data. Most recently, Charles Edwards would jettison from the Adonia list all but two of the vases under consideration (‘Aphrodite on a Ladder’, Hesperia 53 [1984] 59–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar). It is Edwards’ position that the presence of a ladder in these paintings is not sufficient reason to connect the scene with the Adonia (as Weill and others have contended). The ladder was used for other purposes in Athenian homes—most obviously, to get to and from the second storey. According to Edwards, the most probable subject of most of these paintings is the Epaulia, not the Adonia.

6 Nock, A.D., review of Deubner (n.3). Gnomon 10 (1934) 289-95, esp. 291Google Scholar.

7 Weill (n.4) 675-8.

8 Atallah (n.5) 239.

9 Walton, F.R., ‘The Date of the Adonia at Athens’, HTR 31 (1938) 65-72, esp. 66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Nock (n.6) 290.

11 Broneer, Oscar, ‘Eros and Aphrodite on the North Slope of the Acropolis’, Hesperia 1 (1932) 31–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Meritt, B.D., ‘Greek Inscriptions’, Hesperia 4 (1935) 525-90, esp. 573-5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Meritt equates Mounychion 1 with April 10; hence, Mounychion 4 would be April 13.

13 Broneer (n. 11) 52-3.

14 See Boehlau, J., ‘Ein neuer Erosmythus’, Philologus 60 (1901) 321-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 According to Apollodoros (Bibliotheca 3.14.3–6Google Scholar), Adonis was killed by a wild boar while hunting.

16 Meritt (n.12) 574. Meritt's conclusions are accepted by Douglas MacDowell—see his commentary on Andokides, On the Mysteries (Oxford 1962) 187Google Scholar. See also Picard, Charles, ‘Eros, Adonis et la date des Adonies d'Athènes’, Revue Archéologique 41 (1953) 200–201Google Scholar. For an alternative interpretation of the lekythos scene, see Simon (n.5). It is Simon's theory that Eros was a hunting companion of Adonis. Here it is Eros who is being threatened by a wild female boar (no tusks). There must have been a companion scene showing Adonis being wounded by a wild male boar (with tusks). Hence, Simon does not actually view the scene as reflecting the assimilation of Eros and Adonis, as Boehlau does—merely their close association.

17 These gardens of Adonis have been the subject of much speculation by modern scholars. It is my belief that they were used during the festival as convenient funerary biers for the small Adonis images—the focus of the celebrants’ ritualised lament. For further discussion, see my forthcoming article (n.1).

18 Would not the sensible farmer, Sokrates goes on, sow his seeds in more fitting soil and be pleased if his plants reached maturity in eight months?

19 Nock (n.6) 290-1. Actually Thukydides' dating system was quite precise; that was its advantage. The first and last days of summer were fixed times of the solar year, the same every year. Both spring and autumn were formally part of Thukydides' summer. Spring began about the first week of March and autumn ended about the first week of November. Note that Thukydides tells us specifically that the envoys returned from Sicily in the spring. For a discussion of Thukydides’ dating system, see Gomme, A.W., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides 3 (Oxford 1956) 699–715Google Scholar: ‘Note on Thucydides' “Summers and Winters”’. Gomme suggests the following times for Thukydides' seasons: spring begins c. March 4 and ends early in May; autumn begins with the morning rising of Arktouros (c. Sept. 20) and ends c. November 6. See Gomme 709.

20 For a detailed discussion of Theophrastos' dating system, see Einarson, Benedict and Link, George K.K. (eds), Theophrastus, , De Causis Plantarum (Cambridge 1976) xlvi–lixGoogle Scholar: ‘The Calendar of Theophrastus’. Theophrastos, like Aristotle, divided the year into four seasons based upon astronomical observations: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The dividing line between spring () and summer () coincided with the morning rising of the Pleiades (c. May 11). See Caus. pl. 1.13.4Google Scholar for Theophrastos' discussion of the differences between these two seasons. Nock (n.6) 291 concedes that the testimony of Theophrastos is a problem. He suggests as a solution the possibility of two celebrations—one in the spring and another in the summer.

21 They were out of season, of short duration and not firmly established .

22 This is a point which both Nock and Walton fail to address.

23 According to Dover, K.J., Thukydides' middle of the summer ‘means not “at the time of the summer solstice”, but “after the middle period of the summer had begun”, an expression which could be used of any date between early May and late July’: A Historical Commentary on Thucydides 4 (Oxford 1970) 271Google Scholar.

24 As noted above (n.20), this is a possibility which Nock suggests.

25 Piganiol, A., ‘Deux notes sur l'expédition de Sicile’’, Revue des Études Grecques 50 (1937) 1–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Cumont, F., ‘Adonis et Sirius’, in Mélanges Glotz (Paris 1932) 1.257-64Google Scholar; and ‘Adonies et Canicule’, Syria 16 (1935) 46–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Piganiol (n.25) 1,8.

28 Detienne, M., The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology, trans, of Les Jardins d'Adonis (Paris 1972) by Janet Lloyd (Princeton 1993) 100Google Scholar.

29 Ibid. 106: “The stifling heat of Sirius is necessary for the rapid germination of these gardens and it is also the burning heat of the mid-point of the solar year that dries up the plants on the stems that have only just shot up. The gardening of the Adonia only assumes its full significance in the context of the Canicular period and within the framework of this astronomical situation in which the power of the sun threatens to bum up the earth.’

30 Ibid. 109.

31 Detienne (n.28) 115 postulates two separate phases of the festival: ‘During the first phase the women climb up [the ladder] in order to set out their gardens in a position exposed to the burning Sun; during the second they climb down its rungs, bringing with them the fruits of Sirius, the spices which the Dog days have brought to maturity and whose purpose is two-fold—to feed the incense-burners in honour of Aphrodite and her lover, and to provide the devotees of Adonis with the perfumes and ointments of seduction.’

32 On the vase paintings see the references given above (n.5), especially Edwards.

33 E.g., Burkert, Walter, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley 1979) 107Google Scholar; and Humphreys, S.C., The Family, Women and Death (Ann Arbor2 1993) 36Google Scholar.

34 E.g., Winkler, John, The Constraints of Desire (New York 1990) 188–209Google Scholar.

35 Meritt, B.D., Athenian Financial Documents of the Fifth Century (Ann Arbor 1932) 152-79CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and MacDowell (n.16) 189. For further discussion, see below.

36 This phrase means the old and the new, i.e., the last day of the month which consisted of two halves, one belonging to the old, the other to the new moon: LSJ s.v. (C).

37 Bell Dinsmoor, W., The Archons of Athens (Cambridge 1931) 337Google Scholar; Meritt (n.35) 160-72; MacDowell (n.16) 188.

38 If the mutilation had occurred a month earlier, it could not have happened immediately before the departure of the fleet. Diodoros (13.2.3) says that the expedition was already fully prepared when the herms were mutilated.

39 This calculation is based on IG I 2302Google Scholar (IG I 3370Google Scholar). See Meritt (n.35) 170.

40 MacDowell (n.16) 189. This late June sailing date is also accepted by Kagan, Donald, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition (Ithaca 1981) 197Google Scholar.

41 Piganiol (n.25) 8 would like to stretch out the investigation of the herm sacrilege long enough to place the departure of the fleet on July 22. This would mean a delay of approximately one and a half months, which seems unacceptably long. See also Hatzfeld, Jean, ‘Le Départ de l'expédition de Sicile et les Adonies de 415’, Revue des Études Grecques 50 (1937) 293–303CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for his criticisms of Piganiol's position. Detienne relies heavily upon Weill, who does not address the Meritt/Dinsmoor dating scheme.

42 MacDowell (n.16) 188 would prefer a date of June 6/7, pointing out that the Athenians counted their days from sundown to sundown. See also Dover (n.23) 276, who would date the heim mutilation to c. May 25 and the departure of the fleet to early June.

43 See Parke, H.W., Festivals of the Athenians (Ithaca 1977) 143Google Scholar, and Mikalson, Jon D., The Sacred and Civil Calendar of the Athenian Year (Princeton 1975) 16–18Google Scholar, who gives a detailed summary of the ancient sources.

44 For Adonis we have found no temple (not even one shared with Aphrodite), no cult statue, no priest, not one votive statue in Athens.

45 Mattingly, H.D. (‘Athenian Finance in the Peloponnesian War’, BCH 92 [1968] 450-85)CrossRefGoogle Scholar would like to date the Adonia referred to by Aristophanes to the year 413 (rather than 415) and connect it with the reinforcing expedition which was sent to Sicily under the command of Demosthenes. Zakynthians were included in this expedition, according to Thukydides (7.31.2-57.7).

46 Aristophanes would have been aware, of course, of the Adonia's actual date and the uneasiness that the celebration had caused on the eve of the fleet's departure in 415; hence, he could capitalise upon that memory—but transfer it to a more dramatic setting. See Servais, Jean, ‘La Date des Adonies d'Athènes et l'expédition de Sicile’, in Ribichini, S. (ed.), Adonis: Relazioni del colloquio in Roma (Rome 1984) 83–93Google Scholar. Servais is also of the opinion that Aristophanes has arbitrarily telescoped together the spring meeting of the ekklesia (at which Demostratos spoke) and the celebration of the Adonia—for dramatic effect.