Greek hero cult
Encyclopedia
Hero cults were one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion
. In Homeric Greek, "hero
" (heroes) refers to a man who was fighting on either side during the Trojan War
. By the historical period, however, the word came to mean specifically a dead man, venerated and propitiated at his tomb or at a designated shrine
, because his fame during life or unusual manner of death gave him power to support and protect the living. A hero was more than human but less than a god, and various kinds of supernatural figures came to be assimilated to the class of heroes; the distinction between a hero and a god was less than certain, especially in the case of Heracles
, the most prominent, but a typical hero.
The grand ruins and tumuli
remaining from the Bronze Age
gave the illiterate Greeks of the 10th and 9th centuries BC a sense of a grand and vanished age that was reflected in the oral epic tradition, which would be crystallized in the Iliad
. Copious renewed offerings begin to be represented, after a hiatus, at sites like Lefkandi
, even though the names of the grandly buried dead were hardly remembered. "Stories began to be told to individuate the persons who were now believed to be buried in these old and imposing sites," observes Robin Lane Fox.
Greek hero-cults were distinct from the clan-based ancestor worship from which they developed, in that as the polis
evolved, they became a civic rather than familial affair, and in many cases none of the worshipers traced their descent back to the hero any longer: no shrine to a hero can be traced unbroken from Mycenaean
times. Whereas the ancestor was purely local, Lewis Farnell observed, the hero might be tended in more than one locality, and he deduced that hero-cult was more deeply influenced from the epic tradition
, that "suggested many a name to forgotten graves", and provided even Dorians a connection to Mycenaean heroes, according to J.N. Coldstream. "Coldstream believed the currency of epic would account for votives in Dorian areas, where an alien, immigrant population might otherwise be expected to show no particular reverence for Mycenaean predecessors". Large Mycenaean tholos tombs that betokened a grander past, were often the site of hero-cults. Not all heroes were even known by names.
Aside from the epic tradition, which featured the heroes alive and in action rather than as objects of cultus, the earliest written reference to hero-cult is attributed to Dracon, the Athenian lawgiver of the late seventh century BC, who prescribed that gods and local heroes should both be honoured according to ancestral custom. The custom, then, was already established, and the multiplicity of local heroes. The written sources emphasise the importance of heroes' tombs and the temenos
or sanctuary, where chthonic
rites appeased their spirits and induced them to continue to favour the people who looked to them as founders, of whom founding myth
s were related. In the hero's restricted and local scope he "retained the limited and partisan interests of his mortal life. He would help those who lived in the vicinity of his tomb or who belonged to the tribe of which he himself was the founder," observes Robert Parker, with the reservation that Heracles, with his pan-Hellenic scope was again the exception.
James Whitley interpreted the final stage, in which hero-cult was co-opted by the city-state
as a political gesture, in the archaic aristocratic tumulus
surrounded by stelae, erected by Athens to the cremated citizen-heroes of Marathon
(490 BC), to whom chthonic cult was dedicated, as the offering trenches indicate.
On the other hand Greek heroes were distinct from the Roman
cult of dead emperors
, because the hero was not thought of as having ascended to Olympus or become a god: he was beneath the earth, and his power purely local. For this reason hero cults were chthonic
in nature, and their rituals more closely resembled those for Hecate
and Persephone
than those for Zeus
and Apollo
: libation
s in the dark hours, sacrifices that were not shared by the living.
The two exceptions to the above were Heracles
and Asclepius
, who might be honored as either heroes or gods, with chthonic libation or with burnt sacrifice. Heroes in cult behaved very differently from heroes in myth. They might appear indifferently as men or as snakes, and they seldom appeared unless angered. A Pythagorean
saying advises not to eat food that has fallen on the floor, because "it belongs to the heroes". Heroes if ignored or left unappeased could turn malicious: in a fragmentary play by Aristophanes
, a chorus of anonymous heroes describe themselves as senders of lice, fever and boils.
Some of the earliest (eighth century BC) hero (and heroine) cults well attested by archaeological evidence in mainland Greece include shrines in Laconia
to Helen and Menelaus
(the Menelaion at Therapne near Sparta
) and one to Agamemnon
together with Cassandra
at Mycenae
, or Alexandra
at Amyklai, perhaps a shrine to Odysseus
in Polis Bay, Ithaca
. Little is known of the cult of Erechtheus
on the Acropolis, Athens. The cult of Pelops
at Olympia dates from the Archaic period.
and Semele
), daughter of a hero-father. As Moses I. Finley
observed of the world of Odysseus
, which he reads as a nostalgic eighth-century rendering of traditions from the culture of Dark Age Greece,
Where local cult venerated figures such as the sacrificial virgin Iphigeneia
, an archaic local nymph
e has been reduced to a mortal figure of legend
. Other isolated female figures represented priestess-initiators of a local cult. Iconographic and epigraphal evidence marshalled by Jennifer Lynn Larson combine to depict heroines as similar in kind to heroes, but in androcentric Greek culture, typically of lesser stature.
Oikist cults of founders. Such cults arose in colonies in the Hellenic world
in Magna Graecia
and Sicily
at the grave of the founder, the oikos. In the case of cults at the tombs of the recently heroised, it must be assumed that the identity of the occupant of the tomb was unequivically known. Thucydides
(V.11.1) gives the example of Brasidas
at Amphipolis
. Battus
of Cyrene
might also be mentioned. "Such historical examples," Whitley warns, "have clearly colored the interpretation of certain tomb cults in the Archaic period." Such Archaic sites as the "heroon" at Lefkandi
and that close to the West Gate at Eretria
cannot be distinguished by archaeological methods from family observances at tombs (tomb cults) and the cult of ancestors.
Cults to named heroes. A number of cult sites known in Classical times were dedicated to known heroes in the Greek and modern senses, especially of the Iliad
and other episodes of the Epic Cycle. Whitley makes two points here, first that the earliest heria associate the male hero with earlier and stronger female presences, and second, that figures such as Odysseus, Agamemnon and Menelaus all have strong local connections. The cults of Oedipus
at Athens and Pelops
at Olympia
.
Cults to local heroes. Such local figures do not figure among the Panhellenic figures of epic. Examples would be Akademos
and Erechtheus
at Athens.
Cults at Bronze Age tombs. These are represented archaeologically by Iron Age deposits in Mycenaean tombs, not easily interpreted. Because of the gap in time between the Bronze Age collapse
and the earliest votive objects, continuity appears to be broken. A sherd from above the Grave Circle
at Mycenae is simply inscribed "to the hero", and Whitley suggests that the unnamed race of the Silver Age
might have been invoked. In Attica, such cults are those associated with tholos tombs at Thorikos and Menidhi.
Oracular hero cults. Whitley does not address this group of local cults where an oracle
developed, as in the case of Amphiaraus
, who was swallowed up by a gaping crack in the earth. Minor cults accrued to some figures who died violent or unusual deaths, as in the case of the dead from the Battle of Marathon
, and those struck by lightning, as in several attested cases in Magna Graecia
.
divided the Athenians
into new deme
s for voting, he consulted Delphi
on what heroes he should name each division after. According to Herodotus
, the Sparta
ns attributed their conquest of Arcadia
to their theft of the bones of Orestes
from the Arcadian town of Tegea
. Heroes in myth often had close but conflicted relationships with the gods. Thus Heracles
's name means "the glory of Hera", even though he was tormented all his life by the queen of the gods. This was even truer in their cult appearances. Perhaps the most striking example is the Athenian king Erechtheus, whom Poseidon
killed for choosing Athena
over him as the city's patron god. When the Athenians worshiped Erechtheus on the Acropolis
, they invoked him as Poseidon Erechtheus.
Ancient Greek religion
Greek religion encompasses the collection of beliefs and rituals practiced in ancient Greece in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices. These different groups varied enough for it to be possible to speak of Greek religions or "cults" in the plural, though most of them shared...
. In Homeric Greek, "hero
Hero
A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...
" (heroes) refers to a man who was fighting on either side during the Trojan War
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
. By the historical period, however, the word came to mean specifically a dead man, venerated and propitiated at his tomb or at a designated shrine
Shrine
A shrine is a holy or sacred place, which is dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon or similar figure of awe and respect, at which they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines often contain idols, relics, or other such objects associated with the figure being venerated....
, because his fame during life or unusual manner of death gave him power to support and protect the living. A hero was more than human but less than a god, and various kinds of supernatural figures came to be assimilated to the class of heroes; the distinction between a hero and a god was less than certain, especially in the case of Heracles
Heracles
Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...
, the most prominent, but a typical hero.
The grand ruins and tumuli
Tumulus
A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn...
remaining from the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
gave the illiterate Greeks of the 10th and 9th centuries BC a sense of a grand and vanished age that was reflected in the oral epic tradition, which would be crystallized in the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
. Copious renewed offerings begin to be represented, after a hiatus, at sites like Lefkandi
Lefkandi
Lefkandi is a coastal village on the island of Euboea. Archaeological finds attest to a settlement on the promontory locally known as Xeropolis, while several associated cemeteries have been identified nearby. The settlement site is located on a promontory overlooking the Euripos, with small bays...
, even though the names of the grandly buried dead were hardly remembered. "Stories began to be told to individuate the persons who were now believed to be buried in these old and imposing sites," observes Robin Lane Fox.
Nature of hero cult
Polis
Polis , plural poleis , literally means city in Greek. It could also mean citizenship and body of citizens. In modern historiography "polis" is normally used to indicate the ancient Greek city-states, like Classical Athens and its contemporaries, so polis is often translated as "city-state."The...
evolved, they became a civic rather than familial affair, and in many cases none of the worshipers traced their descent back to the hero any longer: no shrine to a hero can be traced unbroken from Mycenaean
Mycenaean Greece
Mycenaean Greece was a cultural period of Bronze Age Greece taking its name from the archaeological site of Mycenae in northeastern Argolis, in the Peloponnese of southern Greece. Athens, Pylos, Thebes, and Tiryns are also important Mycenaean sites...
times. Whereas the ancestor was purely local, Lewis Farnell observed, the hero might be tended in more than one locality, and he deduced that hero-cult was more deeply influenced from the epic tradition
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
, that "suggested many a name to forgotten graves", and provided even Dorians a connection to Mycenaean heroes, according to J.N. Coldstream. "Coldstream believed the currency of epic would account for votives in Dorian areas, where an alien, immigrant population might otherwise be expected to show no particular reverence for Mycenaean predecessors". Large Mycenaean tholos tombs that betokened a grander past, were often the site of hero-cults. Not all heroes were even known by names.
Aside from the epic tradition, which featured the heroes alive and in action rather than as objects of cultus, the earliest written reference to hero-cult is attributed to Dracon, the Athenian lawgiver of the late seventh century BC, who prescribed that gods and local heroes should both be honoured according to ancestral custom. The custom, then, was already established, and the multiplicity of local heroes. The written sources emphasise the importance of heroes' tombs and the temenos
Temenos
Temenos is a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to kings and chiefs, or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, a sanctuary, holy grove or holy precinct: The Pythian race-course is called a temenos, the sacred valley of the Nile is the ...
or sanctuary, where chthonic
Chthonic
Chthonic designates, or pertains to, deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Greek religion. The Greek word khthon is one of several for "earth"; it typically refers to the interior of the soil, rather than the living surface of the land or the land as territory...
rites appeased their spirits and induced them to continue to favour the people who looked to them as founders, of whom founding myth
Founding myth
A national myth is an inspiring narrative or anecdote about a nation's past. Such myths often serve as an important national symbol and affirm a set of national values. A national myth may sometimes take the form of a national epic...
s were related. In the hero's restricted and local scope he "retained the limited and partisan interests of his mortal life. He would help those who lived in the vicinity of his tomb or who belonged to the tribe of which he himself was the founder," observes Robert Parker, with the reservation that Heracles, with his pan-Hellenic scope was again the exception.
James Whitley interpreted the final stage, in which hero-cult was co-opted by the city-state
City-state
A city-state is an independent or autonomous entity whose territory consists of a city which is not administered as a part of another local government.-Historical city-states:...
as a political gesture, in the archaic aristocratic tumulus
Tumulus
A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn...
surrounded by stelae, erected by Athens to the cremated citizen-heroes of Marathon
Battle of Marathon
The Battle of Marathon took place in 490 BC, during the first Persian invasion of Greece. It was fought between the citizens of Athens, aided by Plataea, and a Persian force commanded by Datis and Artaphernes. It was the culmination of the first attempt by Persia, under King Darius I, to subjugate...
(490 BC), to whom chthonic cult was dedicated, as the offering trenches indicate.
On the other hand Greek heroes were distinct from the Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
cult of dead emperors
Imperial cult (Ancient Rome)
The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority of the Roman State...
, because the hero was not thought of as having ascended to Olympus or become a god: he was beneath the earth, and his power purely local. For this reason hero cults were chthonic
Chthonic
Chthonic designates, or pertains to, deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Greek religion. The Greek word khthon is one of several for "earth"; it typically refers to the interior of the soil, rather than the living surface of the land or the land as territory...
in nature, and their rituals more closely resembled those for Hecate
Hecate
Hecate or Hekate is a chthonic Greco-Roman goddess associated with magic, witchcraft, necromancy, and crossroads.She is attested in poetry as early as Hesiod's Theogony...
and Persephone
Persephone
In Greek mythology, Persephone , also called Kore , is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest-goddess Demeter, and queen of the underworld; she was abducted by Hades, the god-king of the underworld....
than those for Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
and Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
: libation
Libation
A libation is a ritual pouring of a liquid as an offering to a god or spirit or in memory of those who have died. It was common in many religions of antiquity and continues to be offered in various cultures today....
s in the dark hours, sacrifices that were not shared by the living.
The two exceptions to the above were Heracles
Heracles
Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...
and Asclepius
Asclepius
Asclepius is the God of Medicine and Healing in ancient Greek religion. Asclepius represents the healing aspect of the medical arts; his daughters are Hygieia , Iaso , Aceso , Aglæa/Ægle , and Panacea...
, who might be honored as either heroes or gods, with chthonic libation or with burnt sacrifice. Heroes in cult behaved very differently from heroes in myth. They might appear indifferently as men or as snakes, and they seldom appeared unless angered. A Pythagorean
Pythagoras
Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him...
saying advises not to eat food that has fallen on the floor, because "it belongs to the heroes". Heroes if ignored or left unappeased could turn malicious: in a fragmentary play by Aristophanes
Aristophanes
Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...
, a chorus of anonymous heroes describe themselves as senders of lice, fever and boils.
Some of the earliest (eighth century BC) hero (and heroine) cults well attested by archaeological evidence in mainland Greece include shrines in Laconia
Laconia
Laconia , also known as Lacedaemonia, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the southeastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. Its administrative capital is Sparti...
to Helen and Menelaus
Menelaus
Menelaus may refer to;*Menelaus, one of the two most known Atrides, a king of Sparta and son of Atreus and Aerope*Menelaus on the Moon, named after Menelaus of Alexandria.*Menelaus , brother of Ptolemy I Soter...
(the Menelaion at Therapne near Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
) and one to Agamemnon
Agamemnon
In Greek mythology, Agamemnon was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra, and the father of Electra and Orestes. Mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area...
together with Cassandra
Cassandra
In Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy...
at Mycenae
Mycenae
Mycenae is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 11 km to the south; Corinth, 48 km to the north...
, or Alexandra
Cassandra
In Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy...
at Amyklai, perhaps a shrine to Odysseus
Odysseus
Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
in Polis Bay, Ithaca
Ithaca
Ithaca or Ithaka is an island located in the Ionian Sea, in Greece, with an area of and a little more than three thousand inhabitants. It is also a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of the regional unit. It lies off the northeast coast of Kefalonia and...
. Little is known of the cult of Erechtheus
Erechtheus
Erechtheus in Greek mythology was the name of an archaic king of Athens, the re-founder of the polis and a double at Athens for Poseidon, as "Poseidon Erechtheus"...
on the Acropolis, Athens. The cult of Pelops
Pelops
In Greek mythology, Pelops , was king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus. He was the founder of the House of Atreus through his son of that name....
at Olympia dates from the Archaic period.
Heroes and heroines
Hero cults were offered most prominently to men, though in practice the experience of the votary was of propitiating a cluster of family figures, which included women, the wife of a hero-husband, mother of a hero-son (AlcmeneAlcmene
In Greek mythology, Alcmene or Alcmena was the mother of Heracles.-Background:Alcmene was born to Electryon, the son of Perseus and Andromeda, and king of Tiryns and Mycenae or Medea in Argolis. Her mother was Anaxo, daughter of Alcaeus and Astydamia, daughter of Pelops and Hippodameia...
and Semele
Semele
Semele , in Greek mythology, daughter of the Boeotian hero Cadmus and Harmonia, was the mortal mother of Dionysus by Zeus in one of his many origin myths. In another version of his mythic origin, he is the son of Persephone...
), daughter of a hero-father. As Moses I. Finley
Moses I. Finley
Sir Moses I. Finley CBE, FBA was an American and English classical scholar. His most notable work is The Ancient Economy , where he argued that status and civic ideology governed the economy in antiquity rather than rational economic motivations.-Early life and career:He was born in 1912 in New...
observed of the world of Odysseus
Odysseus
Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
, which he reads as a nostalgic eighth-century rendering of traditions from the culture of Dark Age Greece,
PenelopePenelopeIn Homer's Odyssey, Penelope is the faithful wife of Odysseus, who keeps her suitors at bay in his long absence and is eventually reunited with him....
became a moral heroine for later generations, the embodiment of goodness and chastity, to be contrasted with the faithless, murdering ClytaemnestraClytemnestraClytemnestra or Clytaemnestra , in ancient Greek legend, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Mycenae or Argos. In the Oresteia by Aeschylus, she was a femme fatale who murdered her husband, Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan princess...
, Agamemnon's wife; but 'hero' has no feminine gender in the age of heroes.
Where local cult venerated figures such as the sacrificial virgin Iphigeneia
Iphigeneia
Iphigenia is a daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra in Greek mythology. In Attic accounts, her name means "strong-born", "born to strength", or "she who causes the birth of strong offspring."-Post-Homeric Greek myth:...
, an archaic local nymph
Nymph
A nymph in Greek mythology is a female minor nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. Different from gods, nymphs are generally regarded as divine spirits who animate nature, and are usually depicted as beautiful, young nubile maidens who love to dance and sing;...
e has been reduced to a mortal figure of legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
. Other isolated female figures represented priestess-initiators of a local cult. Iconographic and epigraphal evidence marshalled by Jennifer Lynn Larson combine to depict heroines as similar in kind to heroes, but in androcentric Greek culture, typically of lesser stature.
Types of hero cult
James Whitley distinguished four, perhaps five, essential types of hero cult:Oikist cults of founders. Such cults arose in colonies in the Hellenic world
Colonies in antiquity
Colonies in antiquity were city-states founded from a mother-city—its "metropolis"—, not from a territory-at-large. Bonds between a colony and its metropolis remained often close, and took specific forms...
in Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia
Magna Græcia is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that were extensively colonized by Greek settlers; particularly the Achaean colonies of Tarentum, Crotone, and Sybaris, but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neapolis to the north...
and Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
at the grave of the founder, the oikos. In the case of cults at the tombs of the recently heroised, it must be assumed that the identity of the occupant of the tomb was unequivically known. Thucydides
Thucydides
Thucydides was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC...
(V.11.1) gives the example of Brasidas
Brasidas
Brasidas was a Spartan officer during the first decade of the Peloponnesian War.He was the son of Tellis and Argileonis, and won his first laurels by the relief of Methone, which was besieged by the Athenians . During the following year he seems to have been eponymous ephor Brasidas (died 422...
at Amphipolis
Amphipolis
Amphipolis was an ancient Greek city in the region once inhabited by the Edoni people in the present-day region of Central Macedonia. It was built on a raised plateau overlooking the east bank of the river Strymon where it emerged from Lake Cercinitis, about 3 m. from the Aegean Sea. Founded in...
. Battus
Battus I of Cyrene
Battus I of Cyrene was the founder of the Greek colony of Cyrenaica and its capital, Cyrene. He was the first king of Cyrenaica, the first Greek king in Africa, and the founder of the Battiad dynasty.-Background:...
of Cyrene
Cyrene, Libya
Cyrene was an ancient Greek colony and then a Roman city in present-day Shahhat, Libya, the oldest and most important of the five Greek cities in the region. It gave eastern Libya the classical name Cyrenaica that it has retained to modern times.Cyrene lies in a lush valley in the Jebel Akhdar...
might also be mentioned. "Such historical examples," Whitley warns, "have clearly colored the interpretation of certain tomb cults in the Archaic period." Such Archaic sites as the "heroon" at Lefkandi
Lefkandi
Lefkandi is a coastal village on the island of Euboea. Archaeological finds attest to a settlement on the promontory locally known as Xeropolis, while several associated cemeteries have been identified nearby. The settlement site is located on a promontory overlooking the Euripos, with small bays...
and that close to the West Gate at Eretria
Eretria
Erétria was a polis in Ancient Greece, located on the western coast of the island of Euboea, south of Chalcis, facing the coast of Attica across the narrow Euboean Gulf. Eretria was an important Greek polis in the 6th/5th century BC. However, it lost its importance already in antiquity...
cannot be distinguished by archaeological methods from family observances at tombs (tomb cults) and the cult of ancestors.
Cults to named heroes. A number of cult sites known in Classical times were dedicated to known heroes in the Greek and modern senses, especially of the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
and other episodes of the Epic Cycle. Whitley makes two points here, first that the earliest heria associate the male hero with earlier and stronger female presences, and second, that figures such as Odysseus, Agamemnon and Menelaus all have strong local connections. The cults of Oedipus
Oedipus
Oedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family...
at Athens and Pelops
Pelops
In Greek mythology, Pelops , was king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus. He was the founder of the House of Atreus through his son of that name....
at Olympia
Olympia, Greece
Olympia , a sanctuary of ancient Greece in Elis, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi. Both games were held every Olympiad , the Olympic Games dating back possibly further than 776 BC...
.
Cults to local heroes. Such local figures do not figure among the Panhellenic figures of epic. Examples would be Akademos
Akademos
Akademos was an Attic hero in Greek mythology. The tale traditionally told of him is that when Castor and Polydeuces invaded Attica to liberate their sister Helen, he betrayed to them that she was kept concealed at Aphidnae...
and Erechtheus
Erechtheus
Erechtheus in Greek mythology was the name of an archaic king of Athens, the re-founder of the polis and a double at Athens for Poseidon, as "Poseidon Erechtheus"...
at Athens.
Cults at Bronze Age tombs. These are represented archaeologically by Iron Age deposits in Mycenaean tombs, not easily interpreted. Because of the gap in time between the Bronze Age collapse
Bronze Age collapse
The Bronze Age collapse is a transition in southwestern Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age that some historians believe was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive...
and the earliest votive objects, continuity appears to be broken. A sherd from above the Grave Circle
Grave Circle A, Mycenae
Grave Circle A in Mycenae is a 16th century BC royal cemetery situated on the southeast of the Lion Gate, the main entrance of the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae, southern Greece...
at Mycenae is simply inscribed "to the hero", and Whitley suggests that the unnamed race of the Silver Age
Silver age
A silver age is a name often given to a particular period within a history, typically as a lesser and later successor to a golden age, the metal silver generally being valuable, but less so than gold.-Greek myth:...
might have been invoked. In Attica, such cults are those associated with tholos tombs at Thorikos and Menidhi.
Oracular hero cults. Whitley does not address this group of local cults where an oracle
Oracle
In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination....
developed, as in the case of Amphiaraus
Amphiaraus
In Greek mythology, Amphiaraus was the son of Oecles and Hypermnestra, and husband of Eriphyle. Amphiaraus was the King of Argos along with Adrastus— the brother of Amphiaraus' wife, Eriphyle— and Iphis. Amphiaraus was a seer, and greatly honored in his time...
, who was swallowed up by a gaping crack in the earth. Minor cults accrued to some figures who died violent or unusual deaths, as in the case of the dead from the Battle of Marathon
Battle of Marathon
The Battle of Marathon took place in 490 BC, during the first Persian invasion of Greece. It was fought between the citizens of Athens, aided by Plataea, and a Persian force commanded by Datis and Artaphernes. It was the culmination of the first attempt by Persia, under King Darius I, to subjugate...
, and those struck by lightning, as in several attested cases in Magna Graecia
Magna Graecia
Magna Græcia is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that were extensively colonized by Greek settlers; particularly the Achaean colonies of Tarentum, Crotone, and Sybaris, but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neapolis to the north...
.
Heroes, politics, and gods
Hero cults could be of the utmost political importance. When CleisthenesCleisthenes
Cleisthenes was a noble Athenian of the Alcmaeonid family. He is credited with reforming the constitution of ancient Athens and setting it on a democratic footing in 508/7 BC...
divided the Athenians
History of Athens
Athens is one of the oldest named cities in the world, having been continuously inhabited for at least 7000 years. Situated in southern Europe, Athens became the leading city of Ancient Greece in the first millennium BCE and its cultural achievements during the 5th century BCE laid the foundations...
into new deme
Deme
In Ancient Greece, a deme or demos was a subdivision of Attica, the region of Greece surrounding Athens. Demes as simple subdivisions of land in the countryside seem to have existed in the 6th century BC and earlier, but did not acquire particular significance until the reforms of Cleisthenes in...
s for voting, he consulted Delphi
Delphi
Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...
on what heroes he should name each division after. According to Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
, the Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
ns attributed their conquest of Arcadia
Arcadia
Arcadia is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the central and eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas. In Greek mythology, it was the home of the god Pan...
to their theft of the bones of Orestes
Orestes (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Orestes was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek plays and of various myths connected with his madness and purification, which retain obscure threads of much older ones....
from the Arcadian town of Tegea
Tegea
Tegea was a settlement in ancient Greece, and it is also a former municipality in Arcadia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Tripoli, of which it is a municipal unit. Its seat was the village Stadio....
. Heroes in myth often had close but conflicted relationships with the gods. Thus Heracles
Heracles
Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...
's name means "the glory of Hera", even though he was tormented all his life by the queen of the gods. This was even truer in their cult appearances. Perhaps the most striking example is the Athenian king Erechtheus, whom Poseidon
Poseidon
Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...
killed for choosing Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
over him as the city's patron god. When the Athenians worshiped Erechtheus on the Acropolis
Acropolis, Athens
Acropolis is a neighborhood of Athens, near the ancient monument of Acropolis, along the Dionysios Areopagitis, courier road. This neighborhood has a significant number of tourists all year round. It is the site of the Museum of Acropolis, opened in 2009....
, they invoked him as Poseidon Erechtheus.
List of heroes
- AchillesAchillesIn Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....
at LeuceSnake Island (Black Sea)Snake Island, also known as Serpent Island, , is a Ukrainian island located in the Black Sea near the Danube Delta.The island is populated. A rural settlement of Bile was established in February 2007, which is part of the Vylkove city, Kiliya Raion, Odessa Oblast... - AeneasAeneasAeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...
- AjaxAjax- Mythology :* Ajax , son of Telamon, ruler of Salamis and a hero in the Trojan War, also known as "Ajax the Great"* Ajax the Lesser, son of Oileus, ruler of Locris and the leader of the Locrian contingent during the Trojan War.- People :...
- AkademosAkademosAkademos was an Attic hero in Greek mythology. The tale traditionally told of him is that when Castor and Polydeuces invaded Attica to liberate their sister Helen, he betrayed to them that she was kept concealed at Aphidnae...
- Alexander the Great at Alexandria
- AmphiarausAmphiarausIn Greek mythology, Amphiaraus was the son of Oecles and Hypermnestra, and husband of Eriphyle. Amphiaraus was the King of Argos along with Adrastus— the brother of Amphiaraus' wife, Eriphyle— and Iphis. Amphiaraus was a seer, and greatly honored in his time...
- AtalantaAtalantaAtalanta is a character in Greek mythology.-Legend:Atalanta was the daughter of Iasus , a Boeotian or an Arcadian princess . She is often described as a goddess. Apollodorus is the only one who gives an account of Atalanta’s birth and upbringing...
- AsclepiusAsclepiusAsclepius is the God of Medicine and Healing in ancient Greek religion. Asclepius represents the healing aspect of the medical arts; his daughters are Hygieia , Iaso , Aceso , Aglæa/Ægle , and Panacea...
- BattusBattus I of CyreneBattus I of Cyrene was the founder of the Greek colony of Cyrenaica and its capital, Cyrene. He was the first king of Cyrenaica, the first Greek king in Africa, and the founder of the Battiad dynasty.-Background:...
at CyreneCyrene, LibyaCyrene was an ancient Greek colony and then a Roman city in present-day Shahhat, Libya, the oldest and most important of the five Greek cities in the region. It gave eastern Libya the classical name Cyrenaica that it has retained to modern times.Cyrene lies in a lush valley in the Jebel Akhdar... - ErechtheusErechtheusErechtheus in Greek mythology was the name of an archaic king of Athens, the re-founder of the polis and a double at Athens for Poseidon, as "Poseidon Erechtheus"...
at Athens - HectorHectorIn Greek mythology, Hectōr , or Hektōr, is a Trojan prince and the greatest fighter for Troy in the Trojan War. As the first-born son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, a descendant of Dardanus, who lived under Mount Ida, and of Tros, the founder of Troy, he was a prince of the royal house and the...
- HeraclesHeraclesHeracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...
- HomerHomerIn the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
, venerated at Alexandria by Ptolemy IV PhilopatorPtolemy IV PhilopatorPtolemy IV Philopator , son of Ptolemy III and Berenice II of Egypt was the fourth Pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt... - JasonJasonJason was a late ancient Greek mythological hero from the late 10th Century BC, famous as the leader of the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcus...
- Leonidas
- OdysseusOdysseusOdysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
- OedipusOedipusOedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family...
at Athens - OrionOrion (mythology)Orion was a giant huntsman in Greek mythology whom Zeus placed among the stars as the constellation of Orion....
at BoeotiaBoeotiaBoeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. It was also a region of ancient Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, the second largest city being Thebes.-Geography:... - OrpheusOrpheusOrpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who...
- PenthesileaPenthesileaPenthesilea or Penthesileia was an Amazonian queen in Greek mythology, the daughter of Ares and Otrera and the sister of Hippolyta, Antiope and Melanippe...
- PelopsPelopsIn Greek mythology, Pelops , was king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus. He was the founder of the House of Atreus through his son of that name....
at OlympiaOlympia, GreeceOlympia , a sanctuary of ancient Greece in Elis, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi. Both games were held every Olympiad , the Olympic Games dating back possibly further than 776 BC... - PerseusPerseusPerseus ,Perseos and Perseas are not used in English. the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty of Danaans there, was the first of the mythic heroes of Greek mythology whose exploits in defeating various archaic monsters provided the founding myths of the Twelve Olympians...
- Philippus of CrotonPhilippus of CrotonPhilippus, son of Butacides was a citizen of Croton. Having married the daughter of Telys, king of the rival state of Sybaris, and being obliged in consequence to leave his country, he sailed away to Cyrene ; and, when Dorieus, the Spartan prince, son of Anaxandridas II, set forth from the Libyan...
- TheseusTheseusFor other uses, see Theseus Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were...
- TantalusTantalusTantalus was the ruler of an ancient western Anatolian city called either after his name, as "Tantalís", "the city of Tantalus", or as "Sipylus", in reference to Mount Sipylus, at the foot of which his city was located and whose ruins were reported to be still visible in the beginning of the...
- ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
See also
- DemigodDemigodThe term "demigod" , meaning "half-god", is commonly used to describe mythological figures whose one parent was a god and whose other parent was human; as such, demigods are human-god hybrids...
- Culture heroCulture heroA culture hero is a mythological hero specific to some group who changes the world through invention or discovery...
- Epic hero
- Imperial cult (Ancient Rome)Imperial cult (Ancient Rome)The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority of the Roman State...
- BodhisattvaBodhisattvaIn Buddhism, a bodhisattva is either an enlightened existence or an enlightenment-being or, given the variant Sanskrit spelling satva rather than sattva, "heroic-minded one for enlightenment ." The Pali term has sometimes been translated as "wisdom-being," although in modern publications, and...
- DeificationApotheosisApotheosis is the glorification of a subject to divine level. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre.In theology, the term apotheosis refers to the idea that an individual has been raised to godlike stature...
- Heros (Thrace)
- Relics in classical antiquity