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Women and Sacrifice in Classical Greece

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Robin Osborne
Robin Osborne
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Oxford
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Extract

There is no doubt that a person's gender could make a difference to their role in Greek sacrifices. But did it normally make a difference in Greece? And why did it make a difference? Two inscriptions from the island of Thasos neatly illustrate the problem. First, one dated to around 440 and found in the sanctuary of Herakles:

[Ἡρα]κλεῖ Θασῖωι

[αἶγ]α οὐ θμισ, οὐ–

[δ] χοῖρον οὐδ γ–

[υ]ναικ; θμισ οὐ–

[δ]' νατεεται οὐ–

δ γρα τμνετα–

ι οὐσ' θλται1

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , December 1993 , pp. 392 - 405
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1993

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References

1 1G 12 Suppl. 414, LSS 63. See also Bergquist, B., Herakles on Thasos. The archaeological, literary and epigraphic evidence for his sanctuary, status and cult reconsidered (Uppsala, 1973) especially Part II pp. 65–90Google Scholar. The most recent discussion, although not interested in the exclusion of women, is Courtiles, J. Des and Pariente, A., ‘Problèmes topographiques et réligieux à I'Hérakleion de Thasos’, in Étienne, R. and Dinahet, M. T. Le (edd.) L'Espace Sacrificiel dans les civilisations méditerraneennes de l'antiquteé (Paris, 1991) 67–73Google Scholar.

2 First published by Rolley, C., BCH 89 (1965) 441–83 n. 6 at p. 447 with translation on pp. 462–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the commonly agreed translation and interpretation see Casabona, J., Recherches sur le vocabulaire des sacrifices en Grec (Aix-en-Provence, 1966) 349–50Google Scholar.

3 Farnell, L. R., Greek Hero Cult and the Idea of Immortality (Oxford, 1921) 162–3Google Scholar. The exclusion of women from sacrifices to Agamemnon relates to Taras: [Aristotle] De Mir. Ausc. 106 840a8–10 ‘At Taras…they hold a separate sacrifice for the Agamemnonidai on their own on another day at which it is not lawful for women even to taste what is sacrificed to them’.

4 Sokolowski, F., ‘Herakles Thasios’, HTR 49 (1956) 153–8 at 157CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Martha, J., Les sacerdoces athéniens (Paris, 1882) 81Google Scholar.

6 Nilsson, M., Greek Popular Religion (New York, 1940) 96Google Scholar.

7 Sacrificer may be used in several senses, in the sense of ‘slaughterer’, in the sense of the person officiating, and in the sense of ‘one who causes an animal to be sacrificed’, but it is the slaughterer who is in question here. Detienne distinguishes between the sacrifier (French ‘sacrifiant’), who offers, and the sacrificer (French ‘sacrificateur’), who carries out the sacrifice, including the cutting up of the meat, Detienne, M. and Vernant, J.-P. ed. The cuisine of sacrifice (trans. P. Wissing, Chicago 1989; French edition Paris, 1979) 11Google Scholar.

8 Burkert, W., Greek religion Archaic and classical (Eng. trans. Oxford, 1985) 56–7Google Scholar.

9 Burkert, W., Greek religion Archaic and classical (Eng. trans. Oxford, 1985) 254Google Scholar.

10 Detienne, M., ‘The violence of wellborn ladies: women in the Thesmophoria’, in Detienne, M. and Vernant, J.-P. (edd.), The cuisine of sacrifice (trans. P. Wissing, Chicago, 1989; French edition Paris, 1979) 129–47 at 131Google Scholar. Detienne's article collects and discusses almost all the material which I discuss here, and is far and away the most thorough and most interesting treatment of the subject to have appeared in print.

11 Detienne, M., ‘Culinary practices and the spirit of sacrifice’, in Detienne, M. and Vernant, J.-P. (edd.), The cuisine of sacrifice (trans. P. Wissing, Chicago, 1989; French edition Paris, 1979) 3Google Scholar, who talks of ‘the absolute coincidence of meat-eating and sacrificial practice. All consumable meat comes from ritually slaughtered animals’. Although this view is widely shared it crucially blurs the distinction between two different sorts of ritual killing and neglects the evidence for the availability of meat not slaughtered in any ritual way. Berthiaume, G., Les rôles du mageiros Mnemosyne Supplement 70 (Leiden, 1982) 62–70Google Scholar has shown that, although butcher's meat and sacrificial meat do not form two separate categories, and sacrificial meat was sold in butchers' shops, it was possible to kill animals other than at an altar, even if the slaughter was still ritualised and compasssed about with certain offerings to the gods. He acknowledges that in the anecdote told in [Aristotle] Oikonomika 1349b12 13 σφττειν is used without any religious overtones. Berthiaume also acknowledges (pp. 79–93) that there was meat which came from animals which could be sacrificed but which had not been killed in any ritual way although he suggests that (p. 89) ‘il faut dire que cette consommation de bêtes “non sacrificables”, ainsi que celle d'animaux “non sacrificiés” dont nous parlent Athenée [179b–d] et Sémonide [7.56], pour réelles qu'elles furent, n'en restérent pas moins essentiellement marginales, et que la manducation de la viande provenant du reseau normal du sacrifice et de l'abattage rituel dans les boutiques des bouchers resta privilégié.’ That it was less respectable does not, of course, mean that it was at all times and in all circumstances rare. In addition to the evidence discussed by Berthiaume, I draw attention to the questions arising when sacred laws call for purchase of several animals but only order one to be sacrificed: as with SIG 3 1024.9–10 (quoted below in n.20) with Dittenberger's note.

Detienne's view that the killing by butchers in their shops was also ‘sacrifice’, in the full sense, combines with his view that women were excluded from sacrificial meat to require us to believe that women did not eat meat bought in butchers' shops.

This question also affects the interpretation of visual evidence. A black-figure vase in Boston shows a crowned figure cutting up a joint of meat. This has traditionally been taken as a scene of butchery (cf. Boardman, J., Athenian Black Figure Vases. A handbook. (London, 1974) fig. 287)Google Scholar, and Sparkes used the scene to illustrate the chopping block (πξηνον) and the butcher's knife (κοπσ), remarking of the presence of a tree that this perhaps indicates an ‘open-air barbecue’ (Sparkes, B. A., ‘Illustrating Aristophanes’, JHS 95 (1975) 122–35 at 132 and pl.16b)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Durand, however, takes the ‘chopping block’ to be an altar and the scene to be that of cutting up sacrificial meat (so first ‘Figurativo e processo rituale’, DdA n.s. 1 (1979) 16–31 at 17–19 with plate on p. 118Google Scholar, a later version of which appears as ‘Ritual as instrumentality’ in Detienne, M. and Vernant, J. P. (edd.), The cuisine of sacrifice (trans. P. Wissing, Chicago, 1989; French edition Paris, 1979) 119–28 at 122–3Google Scholar, and see further now Durand, J. L., ‘Images pour un autel’ in Etienne, R. and Dinahet, M. T. Le (edd.), L'Espace Sacrificiel dans les civilisations méditerranéennes de l'antiquité (Paris, 1991) 45–55)Google Scholar. I find it impossible to see any distinguishing features of an altar about the block on which the meat is being cut, which is unlike any other altar on a vase. On other vases the cutting up of joints after sacrifice seems to be shown being done on the trapeza, not on the altar. Durand claims that in this image the meat is not being jointed but merely having the thigh-bone removed to be burnt to the gods, but that seems to me to be far from clear. The table behind the block in this image is itself unlike the trapeza shown on other vases. I therefore suspect that this is indeed a butchery scene and that the crown indicates the minimal ritual which attended butchery.

12 One might compare the early Roman prohibition on women grinding or preparing meat, Scheid, J., ‘The religious roles of Roman women’, in Schmitt-Pantel, P. (ed.), A History of Women. Volume I. From ancient goddesses to Christian saints (Harvard, 1992) 379Google Scholar. Scheid takes the view that Roman women ‘were forbidden to participate in sacrificial rituals’ (Scheid, J., ‘The religious roles of Roman women’, in Schmitt-Pantel, P. (ed.), A history of women. Volume I. From ancient goddesses to Christian saints (Harvard, 1992) 377–408 at 379)Google Scholar, but Valérie Huet has persuaded me that the Roman evidence is actually no more convincing than the Greek for a blanket exclusion.

13 Zaidman, L. Bruit, ‘Pandora's daughters and rituals in Grecian cities’ in Schmitt-Pantel, P. (ed.), A History of Women. Volume I. From ancient goddesses to Christian saints (Harvard, 1992) 338–76 at 338–9Google Scholar. Bruit Zaidman begins the third paragraph ‘This picture is much too simple,’ but then immediately goes on: ‘It is correct to say that women were generally excluded from blood sacrifice and the handling of meat’; she then again says at the beginning of the fourth paragraph ‘Furthermore, while women were generally excluded from blood sacrifice…’ The reader is thus told not once but three times in the space of less than one side that women were excluded from blood sacrifice, though never told exactly what that means. Compare also Loraux, N., Annales ESC 36 (1981) 614–22 at 617Google Scholar: ‘les femmes n'ont généralement accés à la viande qu'indirectement par le mari.’

14 Detienne, M., ‘The violence of wellborn ladies: women in the Thesmophoria’, in Detienne, M. and Vernant, J. P. (edd.), The cuisine of sacrifice (trans. P. Wissing, Chicago, 1989; French edition Paris, 1979) p. 131Google Scholar: ‘As a general rule, by virtue of the homology between political power and sacrificial practice, the place reserved for women perfectly corresponds to the one they occupy – or rather, do not occupy – in the space of the city’, and 132 ‘At a sacrifice, particularly a blood sacrifice, women cannot function as full adults. It is precluded by the reciprocity established in the city between a meat-eating diet and political practice.’

15 Detienne, M., ‘The violence of wellborn ladies: women in the Thesmophoria’, in Detienne, M. and Vernant, J. P. (edd.), The cuisine of sacrifice (trans. P. Wissing, Chicago, 1989; French edition Paris, 1979) 147Google Scholar. For other comparisons between menstrual and lochial flows and blood shed at sacrifice see King, H., ‘Bound to bleed: Artemis and Greek women’ in Cameron, A., Kuhrt, A. (edd.), Images of women in antiquity (London, 1983) 121–2Google Scholar, and compare also Girard, R., Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore, 1977) 33–8Google Scholar.

16 Detienne, M., ‘The violence of wellborn ladies: women in the Thesmophoria’, in Detienne, M. and Vernant, J. P. (edd.), The cuisine of sacrifice (trans. P. Wissing, Chicago, 1989; French edition Paris, 1979) 143Google Scholar.

17 As well as Iphigeneia, consider Makaria, daughter of Herakles, or the daughter of Embaros. See Kearns, E., The heroes of Attica BICS Supplement 57 (1989) 56–63Google Scholar and Kearns, E., ‘Saving the city’ in Murray, O. and Price, S. R. F. (edd.), The Greek city from Homer to Alexander (Oxford, 1990) 323–44 esp. 337–8 with n. 24Google Scholar.

18 Pertinent remarks on the one-sidedness of many traditional discussions of sacrifice can be found in Bloch, M., Prey into hunter. The politics of religious experience (Cambridge, 1992) Chapter 2Google Scholar.

19 In what follows I will concentrate on epigraphic evidence, although I believe that the literary evidence of e.g. Euripides, Bacchae 224Google Scholar or Pausanias 2.35.5–8 on the cult of Demeter Chthonia at Hermione is not irrelevant.

20 LSS 88: a) ['Αθνα]ι 'Αποτροπαα[ι] οἶς θυτω ρχιερο|θτας τ θυθντα | αὐτεἶ καταχρσθαι | γυναιξ οὐχ οσια b) σμινθου τρται π δκα | Ζην ‘Αποτροπαωι κριΌσ,| 'Αθναι 'Αποτροπααι οἶσ | θει ρχιεροθτασ τα θυ[θντα αὐτεἶ καταχρεἶσθα(ι) | γυναιξν οὐκ σια LSS 89: 'γακιν[θο]υ νδε |κται δι 'Αμαλ[ι] κπροσ ξμην[οσ], |θὑει Ὶαροθτασ | ΑῚγλιοσ γυναιξ | κ σια. Sokolowski restores such prohibitions in LSA 42.A.3 and LSS 66 and suggests that they are also involved in LSS 68.

21 SIG 3 1024.8–10 (LSCG 96): τι αὐτι μεραι ποσει[δνι φυκωι μνῸσ λευκῸσ νΌρχησ γυναικ οὐ θμισ κα| πῸ τλουσ τν Ὶχθ[υ]ων βουλ πριαμνη Ίερεα εἲκο|σι διδΌτω

22 SIG 3 979: ν τὂι Fα|νακεοι |; θοντα | σκαν | γυναἶκα | μ παρμε[ν] (Elateia); IG 12.5.183: [] ροσ 'γπτο [τε|λ]στοι οὐ θμ[ι]σ οὐδ γυναικ (Paros, quoted by Dittenberger in commentary onSIG 3 979).

23 LSA 42 (fragmentary). Sokolowski restores such a prohibition also in LSS 66 and suggests in his commentary that such a prohibition also belonged in LSS 68.

24 LSA 83 prohibits burial but makes no mention of women.

25 LSS 56, ID 2180.

26 LSS 32.1–2: [ΕῚκαν γυ]ν σετοι ξτεραἶον λοποσ, | [ῚερῸ]ν εναι δματρι τι ιεσμοφΌροι.

27 LSS 33.1–8:[δα]| ματροισ τσ γ[υ]ν[α]| κεσ μτε χρυσον ἔ| χεν πλον δελου λ| κν, μηδ λωπον ποικἶ| λον, μτε πορφνραν, | μτε ψημνθιοσθα| μτε αὐλν

28 LSCG 68 (IG V.2.514). The Peloponnesian dominance of this evidence is remarkable. A later example occurs in the Mysteries regulations from Andania (LSCG 65) which imposes a cash limit on the price of clothing and prohibits jewelry.

29 LSS 28.1–3: [ντο μεσ εμῸ [νυφ]ασσθο, τ μ πο[λι| ανΌμ]οσ ἔθεκε

30 LSS 115 (SEG 9.72) for Cyrene; LSS 91 for Lindos. Cf. LSS 119 (Ptolemais in Egypt) and the examples quoted by Sokolowski in his commentary on LSCG 99.

31 For sacred laws mentioning death as polluting see Parker, R. C. T., Miasma. Pollution and purification in early Greek religion (Oxford, 1983) ch. 2 and esp. p. 37 n. 17Google Scholar.

32 Cf. Parker, R. C. T., Miasma. Pollution and purification in early Greek religion (Oxford, 1983) p. 37 n. 18Google Scholar ‘Documents like the Cyrene law regulate what conditions pollute and for how long; there is no question of being pure enough to visit one shrine but not another’. He also remarks (p. 37): ‘it is most implausible that rules of this kind should have been confined to one cult: all our evidence suggests that all the Olympian gods were equally concerned to keep the natural pollutions at a distance.’

33 SIG 3 1015 (LSA 73): Lines 4–25 read: [] πράμε| [νο]ς [τ]ν ἱερητείαν τς 'Αρτέμδος τς Περγαίας πα| [ρέ]ξετα ἱέρεαν στν μϕοτέρων π| [τρε]ῖς γενες γεγενημένην κ[α] πρς πατρς κα πρς | [μη]τρός δ πραμένη ἱεράσετα π ζως τς αὑτς | κα θύσε τἱερ τ δημό[σ]ακα τ ἰδωτκά, κα λήψε|τα τν θυομένων δημοσία ϕ'κάστου ἱερείου κω|λν κα τ π κωλ νεμόμενα κα τεταρτημορ| δα σπλάγϰνων κα τ δέρματα, τν δ ἰδωτ|κν λήψετα κωλν κα τ π κωλῇ νεμόμενα | κατεταρτημορίδα σπλάγϰνων. τοὺς δ ταμ|ίας δδόνα τοῖς πρυτάνεσν εἰς τν θυσίαν | τς 'Αρτέμδος ντελε(ῖ)ς δραϰμς τράκον|τα παρασκευάζεν δ τν θυσίαν τς γυναῖκας | τς τν πρυτάνεων, λαβούσας τ κ τς πό[λ]εως | δδόμενον, τν πρυτανευόντων τμ; μνα τν | 'Ηράκλεον. τν δ θυσίαν συντελείτω μηνς 'Ηρα|κλείου δωδεκάτη. ἔστω δ ἱέρεα ἰσόμορος [ν] | ταȋς γυναξν τν πρυτάνεων τν θυομένων | δημοσία. ποείσθω δ ἱρεα καθ' κάστην νου|μηνίαν πκουρίαν ὑπρ πόλεως, λαμβάνουσα | δρακμν παρ τς πόλεως. Note also Souda s.v. 'Η Περγαα 'Αρτεμς.

34 SEG 21.541.144–51: ['Ε]λαϕηβολνο|ς ἕκτη π δέ|κα, Σεμέλη, π| το αὐτο βω|μο (i.e. ν ἄστε ν “Αγρας), αἴξ, γυνα|ξ παραδόσμ|ος, ἱερέας τ τ|δέρμα, οὐ ϕορά, Δ and 433–40: 'Ελαϕηβολν|ος ἕκτη π |δέκα, Δονύσ|ω, 'Ερϰ, αἴξ. | παραδό: γυνα|(α)ξί, οὐ οὐϕορά, ἱερέα τ δέ|ρμα, Δ, for women; 245–51, 331–7, 531–8 for the Pythaistai.

35 LSS 20 17–23 (Hesperia 11 (1942) 282–7 n. 55): [Δ|νέμεν] δ τ κρέα τοῖς <ος> ργεσ τοῖς παροσ κατοῖ[ς] | [πασ τν] εἰς μίσεαν κα ταῖς τν ργέω[ν|ων…]ους ταῖς λευθέρας τν ἰσαίαν κα ταῖς θυγ[α|τράσ τν εἰς ἠμ[ί|σεαν παραδονα δ τ}ωῖ νδρ τς γυνακς τνμε|[ρίδα]. This inscription was subject to full discussion by Ferguson, W. S., ‘The Attic orgeones’, HTR 37 (1944) 61–140CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Nock, A. D., ‘The cult of heroes’, HTR 37 (1944) 141–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar reprinted in A. D. Nock, Essays on religion and the ancient world, Z. Stewart (ed.) (Oxford, 1972) 575–602.

36 Detienne, M., ‘The violence of wellborn ladies: women in the Thesmophoria’, in Detienne, M. and Vernant, J. P. (edd.), The cuisine of sacrifice (trans. P. Wissing, Chicago, 1989; French edition Paris, 1979) 133 and 132Google Scholar.

37 Pausanias 5.16.2–4, 8.48.4–5.

38 See Herond. 4.13 for a woman paying; [Demosthenes] 59.116 for a case where only the priestess is allowed to pray.

39 Casabona, J., Recherches sur le vocabulaire des sacrifices en Grec (Aix-en-Provence, 1966) 77 and compare 86Google Scholar.

40 Casabona, J., Recherches sur le vocabulaire des sacrifices en Grec (Aix-en-Provence, 1966) 78–9Google Scholar.

41 Casabona, J., Recherches sur le vocabulaire des sacrifices en Grec (Aix-en-Provence, 1966) 79Google Scholar.

42 Cf. LSCG 151. A.40–44 (Cos, fourth century) ‘Let the heralds choose among themselves one to slaughter the ox’. Sokolowski restores the reward of a sausage to the slaughterer in IG i3 244, but this restoration is quite uncertain.

43 Berthiaume, G., Les roles du mageiros (Leiden, 1982)Google Scholar.

44 Priestesses certainly might be given part of the innards to take away, and that would seem to be incompatible with their exclusion from tasting the innards on the spot. Exactly what the priest(ess) got in the way of innards seems to have varied from cult to cult and may be specified when the conditions of a priesthood are laid down: see SIG 3 1013.3, 8 (Chios, fourth century), 1015.11 (Halikarnassos, priestess, quoted above n. 32), 1016.3 (Iasos, fourth century). Cf.explicit shares of meat for the priestess among other perquisites inIG ii21356. See now, GuenPollet, B., ‘Espace sacrificiel et corps des bêtes immolèes. Remarques sur le vocabulaire dèsignant la part du prêtre dans la Grêce antique de l'èpoque classique á l'èpoque impèriale’ in Ètienne, R. and Dinahet, M. T. Le (edd.), L'space Sacrificiel dans les civilisations mèditerrane'ennes de l'antiquitè (Paris, 1991) 13–23Google Scholar.

45 SEG 35 (1985) 923 A.) [Πρυτνεων γν]ώμη [ε]ρ[αι 'Ελει|θη]ς []ν πλις ποιῇ, γ[]εςθ|[αι] παρτὂγωγ[ι] λφτωννυσ|υκτως []ί[]ō μεκτον ἤν δἰδ|ιώτης ποι[ῇ], δδοσθαι ǰπ τι ἱε|ρ[ι], στες [τ] λ[]κνοννθεῖ[ν]αι | [μ]οῖραν καἰ γλσσαν | [καιτδε ǰναλ[ι]σκεσθαι αὐτο μ|[ε]τα τν γυναικν τν π[ο]ι[η]σασ|[ων] τ ἰρ εἶναι [δ] ταὐττατ|α, καōταν ἱρν καθαιρωσινκ|α σπ[ον]δ[ν] πο[ιωσιν] I am grateful to Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood for drawing my attention to this inscription, and to George Forrest and Robert Parker for help in interpreting it. For the sense of ναλσκεσθαι compare LSS 94.13–14 κρ αὐ7tau;ι ναλται (Kamiros, third century B.C.). There seems to be no parallel for a priest(ess) being required to consume her perquisites on the spot. That the sacrifices involved here are to Eileithuia might suggest that the physiological argument is not entirely without force.

46 Detienne, M., ‘The violence of wellborn ladies: women in the Thesmophoria’, in Detienne, M. and Vernant, J. P. (edd.), The cuisine of sacrifice (trans. P. Wissing, Chicago, 1989; French edition Paris, 1979) 135Google Scholar.

47 Detienne, M., ‘The violence of wellborn ladies: women in the Thesmophoria’, in Detienne, M. and Vernant, J. P. (edd.), The cuisine of sacrifice (trans. P. Wissing, Chicago, 1989; French edition Paris, 1979) 136Google Scholar.

48 ML 44. That this priesthood was a highly exceptional doctrinaire democratic innovation does not affect the issue discussed here.

49 Scheid, J., ‘The religious roles of Roman women’, in Schmitt-Pantel, P. (ed.), A History of Women. Volume I. From ancient goddesses to Christian saints (Harvard, 1992) 378, 384Google Scholar.

50 It is also worth noting that the sons and daughters for whom a share of sacrificial meat is also in some cases explicitly provided would also share women's political incapacity.

51 It must be admitted that women are, with one famous Dionysiac exception discussed by Detienne, notably rarely important actors in those scenes on painted pots which show episodes close to the moment of slaughter, although they are clearly present in processions leading to sacrifice and are often prominent in votive reliefs. But since it is clear that the scenes of sacrifice which appear on pots are not a random sample of snapshots, but are carefully selected, consciously and unconsciously, discussion of this absence belongs more to considerations of visual ideology than to considerations of actual practice. It needs to be noted that, in addition to the famous Dionysiac scene discussed by Detienne, a fragment showing a woman wielding a knife about to sacrifice a goat has recently been published from German excavations in Athens of what was apparently a brothel. The excavator suggested that the sacrifice shown might be to Aphrodite, on the basis of Lucian Dialogues of courtesans 7.1 (U. Knigge, ‘στρ τς ‘Αϕροδίτης AM 97 (1982) 153–70 at 153 and 168 n. 17; PL 32.1, Inv. no. 5662). I am grateful to James Davidson for drawing my attention to this piece.

52 Menander, , Dyskolos 262–4Google Scholar. There is an excellent discussion of the sacrificial meal in the Dyskolos in Dalby, A. K., Unequal feasts. Food in its social context in early Greece (London, Ph.D. Thesis, 1992)Google Scholar.

53 Detienne himself argues that scholars have traditionally underestimated the political importance of sacrifice, ‘Culinary practices and the spirit of sacrifice’ in Detienne, M. and Vernant, J. P. (edd.), The cuisine of sacrifice (trans. P. Wissing, Chicago, 1989; French edition Paris, 1979) 1–20 at 3–5.1Google Scholar do not dissent from the proposition that religious cult activity is central to the ‘life of the polis’ and is ‘political’ in that sense.

54 Compare Bloch, M., Prey into hunter. The politics of religious experience (Cambridge, 1992) Chapter 2, esp. 43–5Google Scholar.

55 IG ii2 334.8–16.

56 IG i3 82 (the same is true in the deme of Skambonidai, i3 244); SIG 3 958.

57 Athenaios, Deipnosophistai 138f–139bGoogle Scholar.

58 See Sourvinou-Inwood, C., ‘Further aspects of Polis religion’, AION 10 (1988) 259–74 at 267–70Google Scholar.

59 This paper was originally written for Jane Sherwood's Corpus Christi Classical Seminar on Religion and Society. I am grateful to Jane, and to Paul Cartledge, Robert Parker, Richard Seaford, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, and participants at the seminar for comments on an earlier draft of this paper.