Page 17 - GALIET THESMOPHORIAS AND EUPHORIAS: Of Eyes and Funnels, Of Tracks and Traces IV

Galiet & Galiet
fertility magic by Deubner in Burkert’s essay (244). Burkert connects the mixing of dough and grains with an early Neolithic age, thereby connecting pig and dough. The phallic symbols can either represent phallic adoration or phallic rejection. The snakes may equally represent re-birth or doom. We are reminded that Persephone bears Zeus a son in the form of a snake and this may bear on these cultic practices.
It is not clear whether the cult gathering at the Athenian Thesmophoroi was large or small, aristocratic or middle-class or a combination of both. Dillon reveals the importance of location of the Thesmophoroi in revealing whether participants belonged to an aristocratic or non-aristocratic circle of women. Burkert confirms that a few archaeological sanctuaries have been unearthed outside the city and on the slope of the Acropolis. This evidence suggests that, in Athens, the Thesmophorion is not too far from the Pnyx. The Pnyx on the slopes of the acropolis is suggested in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriasuzae. Dillon and Burkert agree that if the Thesmophoroi was held at the Pnyx, thousands were accommodated while if held at the Thesmophorion shrine, only a few hundred devotees gathered. Since the main ritual appears to have been held in the Thesmophorion, we can infer that only a small number of devotees participated. Similarly, women arrived at dawn with their young children and without their slaves. Aristophanes’ chorus also speaks that participants were wellborn. Dillon, however, questions whether the attendees constituted an aristocracy of eugeneis or whether, in virtue of democracy, all women were deemed wellborn. On the other hand, Lysias’ lawcourt speech suggests that middle-class women attended the festival. Burkert tells that only infants are allowed while older children and virgins stay away. The status and role of hetairai or courtesans and slave women remain obscure.
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