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books2024-01-17 10:34 pm
marycatelli) wrote in books2024-01-17 10:34 pm
Portrait of a Priestess
Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece by Joan Breton Connelly
A bit of a misnomer. The author is pulling together evidence over the entire known history of ancient Greek, Homeric, Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and even Roman, right up to the conversion, and seeing what is known or can be deduced, including changes.
Heavy emphasis on the differences. For instance, any given priesthood was a job like a magistrate's. It could be held for a year, or even just a festival. Particularly the ones for the unmarried maidens, as they would go on to marry. (Many dedications by priestesses of Artemis mention their mothers had also been priestesses.) Longterm priestess posts were compatible with marriage and children. Longterm celibate ones were for the elderly and widowed. A woman could hold several, for different goddesses, over the term of her life.
Again like magistrates, the roles were part of your family's tradition, and the priestesses were often related because theirs were the powerful families that put them forth and sometimes even bought the priesthood for them. (The Python at Delphi was an unusual exceptions.) Selling them was one known way to fill them, we have inscriptions of advertisements for selling them. Though you could also get one because a relative was a benefactor of the city, supplying the festival, and choose you. There were also elections, selections from hereditary priestly families, sortition (choosing by lot). Their prerogatives and powers. Two priestesses were used date events at sanctuaries -- the fifth year of her being the priestess of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis. One city even used a priestess to date secular events in the city.
Changes were known. All dedications for "hearth initiates" at Eleusis from Classical times are for boys; only two of them in Hellenistic, as girls apparently took over. On the other hand, that we have evidence in the form of dedicated seats in the theater only in Hellenistic times is not proof that they did not attend earlier.
What they wore is an elaborate subject matter. Many sumptuary laws. Many of them dressed as the goddess they served. Given that many tales recount the goddesses appearing in the guise of priestesses, it greatly complicates interpretation of images. Priestesses are often identified because they carry a temple key, such as would unlock the temple with its rich votives. Priests, on the other hand, carried knives for sacrifice; actually slaughtering the sacrifice was so male that a Greek writer is carefully to assure his readers that the exception he had wrote about had occurred, and he had seen the chairs where the old women responsible sat while the victim was brought in.
And much more.
A bit of a misnomer. The author is pulling together evidence over the entire known history of ancient Greek, Homeric, Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and even Roman, right up to the conversion, and seeing what is known or can be deduced, including changes.
Heavy emphasis on the differences. For instance, any given priesthood was a job like a magistrate's. It could be held for a year, or even just a festival. Particularly the ones for the unmarried maidens, as they would go on to marry. (Many dedications by priestesses of Artemis mention their mothers had also been priestesses.) Longterm priestess posts were compatible with marriage and children. Longterm celibate ones were for the elderly and widowed. A woman could hold several, for different goddesses, over the term of her life.
Again like magistrates, the roles were part of your family's tradition, and the priestesses were often related because theirs were the powerful families that put them forth and sometimes even bought the priesthood for them. (The Python at Delphi was an unusual exceptions.) Selling them was one known way to fill them, we have inscriptions of advertisements for selling them. Though you could also get one because a relative was a benefactor of the city, supplying the festival, and choose you. There were also elections, selections from hereditary priestly families, sortition (choosing by lot). Their prerogatives and powers. Two priestesses were used date events at sanctuaries -- the fifth year of her being the priestess of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis. One city even used a priestess to date secular events in the city.
Changes were known. All dedications for "hearth initiates" at Eleusis from Classical times are for boys; only two of them in Hellenistic, as girls apparently took over. On the other hand, that we have evidence in the form of dedicated seats in the theater only in Hellenistic times is not proof that they did not attend earlier.
What they wore is an elaborate subject matter. Many sumptuary laws. Many of them dressed as the goddess they served. Given that many tales recount the goddesses appearing in the guise of priestesses, it greatly complicates interpretation of images. Priestesses are often identified because they carry a temple key, such as would unlock the temple with its rich votives. Priests, on the other hand, carried knives for sacrifice; actually slaughtering the sacrifice was so male that a Greek writer is carefully to assure his readers that the exception he had wrote about had occurred, and he had seen the chairs where the old women responsible sat while the victim was brought in.
And much more.