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Hero cults were one of the most distinctive features ofancient Greek religion. InHomeric Greek, "hero" (ἥρως,hḗrōs) refers to the mortal offspring of a human and a god. By the historical period, the word came to mean specifically adead man, venerated and propitiated at his tomb or at a designatedshrine, because his fame during life or his unusual manner of death gave him power to support and protect the living. A hero was more than human but less than agod, and various kinds of minor 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 ofHeracles, the most prominent, but atypical hero.[1]
The grand ruins andtumuli (large burial mounds) remaining from theBronze Age gave the pre-literate Greeks of the10th century BC a sense of a once grand and now vanished age; they reflected this in the oralepic tradition, which would become famous by way of works such as theIliad and theOdyssey. Copious renewed offerings begin to be represented, after a hiatus, at sites likeLefkandi,[2] 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", observesRobin Lane Fox. In other words, this is a clear cut example of an origin story for Heroes and what they meant to the Ancient Greeks.
Greek hero-cults were distinct from the clan-basedancestor worship from which they developed,[3] in that as thepolis 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 fromMycenaean 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 theepic tradition, that "suggested many a name to forgotten graves",[4] and provided evenDorians a connection to Mycenaean heroes, according toColdstream.[5] "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".[6] Large Mycenaeantholos 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 ofcultus,[7] the earliest written reference to hero-cult is attributed toDracon, 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 there were multiple local heroes.[8] The written sources emphasise the importance of heroes' tombs and thetemenos or sanctuary, wherechthonic rites appeased their spirits and induced them to continue to favour the people who looked to them as founders, of whomfounding myths 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,[9] with the reservation that Heracles, with his pan-Hellenic scope, was again the exception.
Whitley interpreted the final stage, in which hero-cult was co-opted by thecity-state as a political gesture, in the archaic aristocratictumulus surrounded bystelae, erected by Athens to the crematedcitizen-heroes of Marathon (490 BC), to whom chthonic cult was dedicated, as the offering trenches indicate.[10]On the other hand, Greek heroes were distinct from theRomancult 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 werechthonic in nature, and their rituals more closely resembled those forHecate andPersephone than those forZeus andApollo:libations in the dark hours, sacrifices that were not shared by the living.
Two exceptions to the above wereHeracles andAsclepius, 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. APythagorean 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 byAristophanes, a chorus of anonymous heroes describe themselves as senders of lice, fever and boils.
Some of the earliest hero and heroine cults well attested by archaeological evidence in mainland Greece include the Menelaion dedicated toMenelaus andHelen atTherapne nearSparta, a shrine atMycenae dedicated toAgamemnon andCassandra, another atAmyklai dedicated toAlexandra, and another inIthaca's Polis Bay dedicated toOdysseus. These all seem to date to the 8th century BC.[11] The cult ofPelops at Olympia dates from the Archaic period.
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 who were wives of a hero-husband, mothers of a hero-son (Alcmene andSemele), and daughters of a hero-father.[12] AsFinley observed of the world ofOdysseus, which he reads as a nostalgic eighth-century rendering of traditions from the culture of Dark Age Greece,
Penelope became a moral heroine for later generations, the embodiment of goodness and chastity, to be contrasted with the faithless, murdering Clytaemnestra, Agamemnon's wife; but 'hero' has no feminine gender in the age of heroes.[13]
Where local cult venerated figures such as the sacrificial virginIphigeneia, an archaic localnymphe has been reduced to a mortal figure oflegend. Other isolated female figures represented priestess-initiators of a local cult. Iconographic and epigraphal evidence marshalled byLarson combine to depict heroines as similar in kind to heroes, but in androcentric Greek culture,[14] typically of lesser stature. This is consistent with the role that women played in not only Ancient Greece, but the ancient world as a whole — more in the shadows and service-oriented than focused on personal development and relaxation.
Whitley distinguishes four or five essential types of hero cult:[15]
All acrossGreece and sometimes intoTurkey lay burial mounds. Sometimes on ancient battlefields or just in a frequently visited common area lay giant mounds of earth. Scholars call these mounds "tumulus". Many wondered why people built these mounds and what greater purpose they served. One notable example is following theBattle of Marathon in 490 BC. The Athenians, having defeated the Persians, needed to bury their dead. 192 dead in total,[18] they were buried on the same field on which they had died and under a giant mound. This particular mound became what is known as theMarathon Tumuli. These mounds began popping up all over Greece as a gesture of respect to the dead, and as many scholars believe, it was also a way to connect them with the earth.[18]
Most commonly inAncient Greece, these mounds could have had any 1 of 3 main components, composed in a staircase-like format, within the mound. This staircase like structure may have 1 or 2 steps that would help carry out various ceremonial functions as well as serve as storing places for valuable items. The first step would be used forcremation and the ashes piled in after that while the second step would hold any votives or items of sentimental value. Then the whole thing would be covered by a giant mound. In the case of the Athenian monument they also surrounded it with tall, skinny stone slabs that may read an honoring message or be dedicated to any one 'hero'.[19]
Much of the scholarship that has been done surroundingHeroes,Gods, and thePolitics that plays a role in much of what we know about them today has all come from either written accounts or archeological findings. In fact, in many cases both types of evidence may contradict each other. Written evidence can be biased or incomplete, and archeological findings do not always tell us a definitive story. However, hero cults may be a case where they collide positively. First, despite the numerous written accounts of these heroes, hero shrines are few in number and peculiar in pattern. This is proof that the cults were widespread on Greece, with multiple cities having their own iterations of each Hero to fit their own needs.[20]
Another way in which the Cults were used was for political propaganda and manipulation. Sparta's propping up of many hero cults was out of recognition of the fact that their population reacted to them in such a way that would allow them to use the hero shrines as political propaganda.[21] For example,Lewis Farnell believed that, because of the fact hero cults are often not found in a hero's home territory, there is a greater chance that the cults were widespread and common among most Greeks. Whereas other cults may be ancestral dating back to even the 8th century.[20]
Only Laconia has evidence of assigning its shrines to specific heroes meaning that the rest of the shrines were not to any one specific hero but allowed for worship to a hero via one shrine. Unlike the Roman beliefs it was thought that the Heroes did not ascend to the skies and be with the gods of Olympus, but rather they would go down into and become one with the earth. This impacted not only how the Greeks treated the Heroes, but thought about them in a political sense. They were respected and worshiped, but could even at times turn vicious if ignored and be the supposed cause of diseases or mishaps.[20]
Hero cults could also be of the utmost political importance beyond propaganda too. WhenCleisthenes divided theAthenians into newdemes for voting, he consultedDelphi on what heroes he should name each division after. According toHerodotus, theSpartans attributed their conquest ofArcadia to their theft of the bones ofOrestes from the Arcadian town ofTegea. 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, whomPoseidon killed for choosingAthena over him as the city's patron god. When the Athenians worshiped Erechtheus on theAcropolis, they invoked him asPoseidon Erechtheus.
The term 'hero' had a technical sense in Greek religion: a hero was a figure less powerful than a god, to whom cult was paid. He was normally conceived as a mortal who had died, and the typical site of such a cult was a tomb. But various kinds of minor supernatural figure came to be assimilated to the class and, as in the case of Heracles, the distinction between a hero and a god could be uncertain.