[ back ] 1. Athena begins with the queen (δέσποιναν μὲν πρῶτα κιχήσεαι ἐν μεγάροισιν, “you will come upon the mistress first in the halls,” Odyssey 7.54), and ends with her (Odyssey 7.75–77):

Nausicaa earlier told Odysseus to bypass the king and supplicate the queen (Odyssey 6.310–311): τὸν παραμειψάμενος μητρὸς περὶ γούνασι χεῖρας / βάλλειν ἡμετέρης, ἵνα νόστιμον ἦμαρ ἴδηαι, “pass by him and throw your hands around the knees of my mother so that you may see your day of return.”

[ back ] 2. Athena introduces the Phaeacian genealogy as if to explain the queen; having told Odysseus that he will encounter the queen first in the palace Athena gives her name and says that she has the same progenitors as the king (Odyssey 7.54–55): Ἀρήτη δ’ ὄνομ’ ἐστὶν ἐπώνυμον, ἐκ δὲ τοκήων / τῶν αὐτῶν, οἵ περ τέκον Ἀλκίνοον βασιλῆα. The genealogy follows, in the course of which it becomes clearer with each new generation that this is actually Nestor’s genealogy in disguise. A climax is reached in Odyssey 7.63, which says that Nausithoos had two sons, Rhexenor and Alcinous, for this line, as we have seen, contains the core of Nestor’s twin myth, which is never presented in such overt terms of Nestor himself. It is precisely at this moment of maximum clarity that the genealogy becomes an enigma. Rhexenor, who by his name alone, “breaker of men,” re-embodies the essential nature of Nestor’s warrior brother Periklymenos, immediately loses all correspondence to Nestor and his family by being father to Arete, whom Alcinous marries when his brother dies. Clarity and enigma are in fact totally intertwined at the end of the genealogy, where Alcinous’s warrior brother is the subject of an expansion (Odyssey 7.64–66):

The fact that Rhexenor died reflects Nestor’s twin myth, but the fact that he fathered Arete does not; the fact that Alcinous took his brother’s place with respect to Arete cuts both ways (cf. §2.115 above).

[ back ] 3. As Zeus’s daughter Athena has the epithet koúrē Diós, which is all but exclusively hers (see n3.56 below).

[ back ] 4. It is striking that Athena, having traveled to Athens, simply vanishes once she arrives. Hainsworth ad loc. (Heubeck et al. 1988) comments on the contrast with Aphrodite’s withdrawal to Paphos in Odyssey 8.362–366, where the goddess is shown reveling in her cult:

[ back ] 5. The pólis, “city,” to which Athena’s epithet poliás refers is what later became known as the akrópolis, or “high city”; Pausanias 1.26.6 has the cult title Athena Polias in mind when he refers to Athena’s old image as follows: Ἀθηνᾶς ἄγαλμα ἐν τῇ νῦν ἀκροπόλει, τότε δὲ ὀνομαζομένῃ πόλει, “the image of Athena on what is now the acropolis, but then was called the pólis (city)” (cf. n3.23 below). Other cities besides Athens had cults of Athena Polias (several in Ionia did; cf. Lenschau 1944:225), but the connection between the goddess and the city named for her (not the reverse; cf. Nilsson 1967:434) was of a special order; in Odyssey 7.80, where the city’s name occurs in the singular form Ἀθήνην, and is therefore identical with the name of the goddess, the identification between city and goddess is particularly strong. Presumably there was once a similar relationship between the nymph named Mukḗnē in Odyssey 2.120 and the city named Mukḗnē in Iliad 4.52, Odyssey 3.304, etc.; the plurals Mukē̂nai and Athē̂nai are “elliptic” in origin, similar to the “elliptic” duals discussed in n1.119 and n1.132 above; see Nagy 1997:167–177. The exceptional position of Athena Polias in Athens has something to do with the unusual continuity of early Athenian history. Polignac 1995:86, referring to “the historical peculiarity of Athens, which the violent upheavals of the end of the Helladic period did not affect with such intensity as other regions of Greece,” continues as follows: “In Athens, the palace monarchy, although possibly weakened by those upheavals, was not swept away but probably found itself caught in a general movement of recession that undermined its authority little by little. That increasingly tenuous continuity would account for the exceptional importance, in the city of Athens, of the only acropolis where a truly poliad deity really did take over from the last vestiges of a disintegrating royal house.”

[ back ] 6. The parallel between the two palaces is noted by Nagy 1997:173. The male figures inside the two palaces are equally at issue; the worship of Athena Polias was closely connected with the worship of Erechtheus, who shared the same sacred space on the Acropolis. But what the relationship was between the goddess and the primordial king is as open to question as the nature of Athena Polias in Athens in the Homeric era; the two questions are in fact intimately related. Odyssey 7.81–82 is again our only primary evidence, and this passage suggests that the pairs Athena/Erechtheus and Arete/Alcinous are equivalent. The only other Homeric evidence for Athena and Erechtheus as a pair is the Athenian entry to the Catalogue of Ships (Iliad 2.546–551), but this passage in my view (and in the view of others) reflects later circumstances than does Odyssey 7.78–81 (see §3.86–§3.89 below).

[ back ] 7. If the purpose of her trip to Athens is this, it explains why she simply vanishes into the palace; we see inside this palace by following Odysseus into the Phaeacian palace.

[ back ] 8. Examples of this are the repeated word kasígnētos, “brother,” in Odyssey 8 (see §2.129–§2.130 above) and the two parts of the catalogue of heroines in Odyssey 11. The correspondence in such cases is, figuratively speaking, a rhyme, which immediately calls attention to itself, and which thereby invites reflection and interpretation. Leonard Muellner’s analysis of the succession myth in Hesiod’s Theogony (Muellner 1996:52–93) provides an interesting comparison for this phenomenon: Muellner shows that key concepts in the succession myth such as basileús “king” and mē̂tis “cunning” are first exemplified in action but are named only when they recur (“a concept is namable upon its recurrence, as against its first instance,” Muellner 1996:71; the concept of “king” is discussed pp. 67–68, 71, 91n93; mē̂tis is discussed pp. 71, 80; cf. also pp. 94–95). Muellner, who develops an approach to myth used by the anthropologist P.-Y. Jacopin and based on the idea of “metonymy,” calls the principle defined above “metonymic nominalism” (Muellner 1996:71). I see an analogy with the cases that concern us insofar as naming implies meaning, and meaning is established by recurrence.

[ back ] 9. Anthony Snodgrass, when I outlined my argument about Athena in relation to the Phaeacian queen, suggested the interesting parallel of mystery novels in which the question arises why two people are never seen together, and the answer is that they are in fact the same person. The exception in the Odyssey is that Athena appears together with the sleeping Nausicaa; one might say that the Phaeacian shadow-play does not begin until Nausicaa awakens. Nausicaa and Arete are themselves kept separate from each other in the Odyssey (Nausicaa’s interaction is all with her father) and this, I think, is for a related reason (cf. also n3.19 below).

[ back ] 10. Nilsson 1967:443: “The juxtaposition of Athena and Erechtheus on the Acropolis is to be understood quite differently…than as a matrimonial bond. Erechtheus became the representative of the Mycenaean king, in whose house the city goddess dwells” (“Das Nebeneinander von Athena und Erechtheus auf der Akropolis ist ganz anders zu verstehen…als eheliche Verbindung. Erechtheus ist zum Vertreter des mykenischen Fürsten geworden, in dessen Haus die Burggöttin wohnt”). For the war goddess, see Nilsson 1921:16 (and elsewhere later), arguing that the Mycenaeans adopted the palace goddess of the Minoans, but changed her into a war goddess, and that this explains the strange fact that the Greeks had a war goddess in the first place. In Nilsson’s view the palace goddess was the personal protectress of the king, whose protection passed from father to son. The Homeric Athena continues in this role insofar as her protection of Odysseus extends to his son Telemachus and her protection of Diomedes is inherited from his father Tydeus (Iliad 5.800–808). Nilsson contrasts Zeus, who protects the institution of kingship rather than the person of the king, and whose protection is therefore not inherited. Athena shows signs of her origins as a palace goddess in the second half of the Odyssey, where she openly supports Odysseus, his son, and his father in their homeland, and where her bird epiphany in the rafters of the palace before the battle with the suitors seems to take us back to Minoan times. There is no doubt that Athena relates to her favorites as a war goddess (as when she mounts Diomedes’ chariot and rides beside him in Iliad 5) but this does not answer the question about Athena Polias in Athens.

[ back ] 11. Pausanias 5.3.2, who preserves the aítion for this cult title: once when Elis was bereft of young men the women prayed to Athena to conceive immediately upon having sexual relations with their husbands, and when their prayer was answered they founded a temple of Athena Mḗtēr (τῶν δὲ Ἠλείων αἱ γυναῖκες, ἅτε τῶν ἐν ἡλικίᾳ σφίσιν ἠρημωμένης τῆς χώρας, εὔξασθαι τῇ Ἀθηνᾷ λέγονται κυῆσαι παραυτίκα, ἐπειδὰν μιχθῶσι τοῖς ἀνδράσι· καὶ ἥ τε εὐχή σφισιν ἐτελέσθη καὶ Ἀθηνᾶς ἱερὸν ἐπίκλησιν Μητρὸς ἱδρύσαντο). Unlike Farnell, who minimizes the evidence of the Elean cult (Farnell 1896, vol. 1, 303), Nilsson insists on giving it full weight (Nilsson 1967:443); Nilsson is particularly impressed by the aítion for the title Μήτηρ. Nilsson’s conclusion nonetheless does not differ significantly from Farnell’s.

[ back ] 12. οἱ δὲ ἐπὶ τοῖσδε δώσειν ἔφασαν ἐπ’ ᾧ ἀπάξουσι ἔτεος ἑκάστου τῇ Ἀθηναίῃ τε τῇ Πολιάδι ἱρὰ καὶ τῷ Ἐρεχθέϊ (Herodotus 5.82.3).

[ back ] 13. Scholia to Demosthenes 22.13: [ἄγαλμα] ἐξ ἀρχῆς γενόμενον ἐξ ἐλαίας, ὅπερ ἐκαλεῖτο πολιάδος Ἀθηνᾶς, “[the image] made from the beginning from an olive tree, which was called that of Athena Polias”; Athenagoras Legatio pro Christianis 17.4: τὸ τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς [εἴδωλον]…τὸ ἀπὸ τῆς ἐλαίας τὸ παλαιόν, “the [idol] of Athena…the one from the olive tree, the old one.” Other writers confirm that the image was of wood: “Apollodorus” 3.14.6 (xóanon); Plutarch Moralia fr. 158 Sandbach (xúlinon); cf. Frazer 1913 on Pausanias 1.26.6.

[ back ] 14. Herodotus reveals this detail when he tells the subsequent history of the images, after the Aeginetans stole them from the Epidaurians. The Aeginetans, the images’ new owners, refused to continue the Epidaurians’ practice of sending yearly sacrifices to Athens in compensation for the sacred olive wood, and the Athenians sent an unsuccessful party to Aegina to remove the images. As the Aeginetans told the story, when the Athenians began to haul the images from their bases, the images fell to their knees as if in supplication and remained like that ever after: ἐς γούνατα γάρ σφι αὐτὰ πεσεῖν, καὶ τὸν ἀπὸ τούτου χρόνον διατελέειν οὕτω ἔχοντα (Herodotus 5.86.3). Although Herodotus seems unaware of it, these are goddesses of childbirth, as parallel examples of their pose show (cf. Dümmler RE ‘Auxesia’ 2617). In Tegea Αὔγη ἐν γόνασι, “Auge on her knees,” was an eponym of Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth (it is clear from the aetiological myth that Auge, the mother of Telephos, was the original goddess of childbirth in Tegea: it was said that, while being led away on her father’s orders to be drowned, she fell to her knees and gave birth—πεσεῖν τε ἐς γόνατα καὶ οὕτω τεκεῖν—at the temple of Eileithyia in the agora, in which her cult image was still to be seen in Pausanias’s day [8.48.7]). In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo Leto is similarly described in the act of giving birth to Apollo: ἀμφὶ δὲ φοίνικι βάλε πήχεε, γοῦνα δ’ ἔρεισε / λειμῶνι μαλακῷ, “throwing her arms around the palm tree she propped her knees on the soft meadow” (Homeric Hymn to Apollo 117–118). In Rome goddesses of childbirth called the Nixae (Ovid Metamorphoses 9.294, cf. von Basiner 1905:619n1 for the form) or Di Nixi were represented on their knees (Festus 174–177: nixi di appellantur tria signa in Capitolio ante cellar Minervae genibus nixa, velut praesidentes parientium nixibus, “Di Nixi is the name given to three statues in the Capitolium in front of the temple of Minerva propped [nixa] on their knees, as if keeping watch over the travail [nixūs] of those giving birth”; they were brought to Rome after the defeat of Antiochus according to some, after the defeat of Corinth according to others).

[ back ] 15. We can be sure that Athena’s image, little as we know of it, did not represent her in the act of giving birth (cf. §3.13 below). Like Damia and Auxesia, Athena Polias was concerned with the success of crops, as certain old festivals show, for example the Procharisteria: in this festival, which took place when the grain sprouted at the end of winter, Athena was offered a sacrifice in which all the leading magistrates took part (Suda s.v.). The old agrarian significance of Athena is particularly clear here as Deubner 1932:17 notes (the festival became associated with Kore’s return from the underworld after the Athenian reception of the Eleusinian cult; cf. Deubner 1932:17 with nn2 and 3 on Lycurgus 7, fr. 1 a-b Conomis). As Herodotus tells the story of the Epidaurians, their problem was a crop failure so that no more than an interest in the success of crops is strictly implied for Athena (or for Damia and Auxesia). This, I think, is too narrow a view (see n3.16 below).

[ back ] 16. In Herodotus’s account a crop failure motivates the Epidaurians to found a new cult to the two goddesses (Ἐπιδαυρίοισι ἡ γῆ καρπὸν οὐδένα ἀνεδίδου, Herodotus 5.82.1), and once the Epidaurians have made and set up the new images the crops return (ἀγάλματα ἐκ τῶν ἐλαιέων τουτέων ποιησάμενοι ἱδρύσαντο· καὶ ἥ τε γῆ σφι ἔφερε, Herodotus 5.82.3). But the fact that the images represented the goddesses in the act of childbirth suggests that the Epidaurians faced a more general crisis of fertility involving human reproduction too (famine and childbirth failure are in fact closely related). The omission of this aspect of the story in Herodotus is consistent with the fact that he no longer seems aware that these were goddesses of childbirth; this aspect of the story had simply been forgotten. The events narrated by Herodotus, while they are probably legendary in part and are difficult to date, clearly belonged to an early period. The context for the earliest events, the establishment of the cult of Damia and Auxesia in Epidaurus and the negotiation between Epidaurus and Athens for the olive trees, may have been the Calaurian Amphictyony. The war between Athens and Aegina that followed the termination of the sacrifices to Athena Polias and Erechtheus (Herodotus 5.85–88) probably took place in the seventh century BC, but in any case not later than the early sixth century BC. The chronology of the events narrated by Herodotus and the nature and extent of cults of Damia and Auxesia more generally are considered in EN3.1. The annual sacrifices to Athena Polias and Erechtheus were perhaps still offered by the Epidaurians in the Homeric era, in the late eighth and early seventh centuries BC, and this possibility puts Odyssey 7.80–81, the only Homeric text to feature the two Athenian figures at their old cult site (for Iliad 2.546–551 cf. n3.6 above), in an interesting light. For the festival at which Athena Polias and Erechtheus received such sacrifices (an uncertain matter for so early a period) see §3.81 below; cf. also n3.197 below.

[ back ] 17. Cf. Hainsworth in Heubeck et al. 1988, vol. 1, 316–317, who identifies and discusses two major unanswered questions regarding Arete’s role: Why is the importance of her role so emphasized in advance when in the event she actually does very little? Why does she remain silent for so long after Odysseus’s direct appeal to her? Both questions, I think, are answered by her hidden identity.

[ back ] 18. For the location of Athena’s ancient image, which must never have changed, see §3.48–§3.51 below. The statement in the text above is, I think, accurate, but it is not the same as the orthodox view, namely that Athena’s image (and shrine) were in the Erechtheum; in contrast to Athena’s shrine and image the shrine of Erechtheus did not, I think, remain fixed in one location (see §3.52–§3.54 below).

[ back ] 19. When she finally breaks her silence 84 lines after Odysseus’s appeal to her (Odyssey 7.237–239) it is to ask him pointedly who he is, for she recognizes the clothes given to him by Nausicaa. Before that Arete’s only presence in the poem, apart from her introduction by the disguised Athena, is as a static figure who sits and spins, and who must be supplicated by Odysseus. In this she contrasts sharply with Alcinous, who interacts vividly with Nausicaa before her laundry expedition; Arete, on the other hand, does not come to life in the poem until she finally addresses Odysseus.

[ back ] 20. This sense is clear from the compound adjective πολυάρητος, “much prayed for,” as in Odyssey 19.403–404, where Odysseus is called πολυάρητος to his grandfather Autolykos when Eurykleia bids Autolykos name Odysseus at his birth:

In Homeric Hymn to Demeter 220 Metaneira uses the adjective of her son Demophon with an even more explicit indication of its meaning: τὸν ὀψίγονον καὶ ἄελπτον / ὤπασαν ἀθάνατοι, πολυάρητος δέ μοί ἐστιν, “whom the gods have given, late born and unexpected, and he is much prayed for by me.” The masculine name Ἄρητος occurs of two figures in Homer: a Trojan (Iliad 17.494 and 535) and a son of Nestor (Odyssey 3.414 and 440). Feminine Ἀρήτη occurs in Hipponax of a figure who was apparently a courtesan (frs. 20.2, 22.2, 23.1, 24 Degani); the name is probably a conceit modeled on the Phaeacian queen (cf. Hawkins 2004:223).

[ back ] 21. For this suggested meaning of the name see Stanford 1959 on Odyssey 7.54; cf. also Hainsworth (Heubeck et al. 1988) ad loc. Another instance of the adjective πολυάρητος shows how the meanings “prayed for” and “prayed to” might be combined in the poet’s mind. In Odyssey 6 Nausicaa tells Odysseus not to let the Phaeacians see him with her lest they say that he is her intended husband, either a wandering mortal, or else “some god has come πολυάρητος in answer to her prayers, descending from the sky”: ἤ τίς οἱ εὐξαμένῃ πολυάρητος θεὸς ἦλθεν / οὐρανόθεν καταβάς (Odyssey 6.280–281). Since the reference is to a god it is not clear whether the meaning is simply “much prayed for,” or there may also be a suggestion of the meaning “much prayed to.” The same ambiguity seems to surround the name Arete, depending on whether she is thought of as Athena’s double or simply herself. It seems significant that the ambiguous verse just quoted occurs not long before Arete, and her name, are first introduced.

[ back ] 22. The phrase ἠλάκατα στρωφῶσ’, “spinning the distaff wool,” implies holding the distaff (ἠλακάτη) in one hand and spinning with the other hand.

[ back ] 23. Pausanias says that the image was much older than the legendary synoecism of Theseus, in which the Attic demes were united into one state; he connects what was said about the image’s divine origin with this high antiquity: τὸ δὲ ἁγιώτατον ἐν κοινῷ πολλοῖς πρότερον νομισθὲν ἔτεσιν <ἢ> συνῆλθον ἀπὸ τῶν δήμων ἐστὶν Ἀθηνᾶς ἄγαλμα ἐν τῇ νῦν ἀκροπόλει, τότε δὲ ὀνομαζομένῃ πόλει· φήμη δὲ ἐς αὐτὸ ἔχει πεσεῖν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, “The object considered holiest by all many years before they formed a union from the demes is the image of Athena on what is now the acropolis, but then was called the pólis (city); a legend regarding it has it that it fell from the sky” (Pausanias 1.26.6).

[ back ] 24. Plutarch Moralia fr. 158 Sandbach says that the image was set up “by the autochthons”; for other references to the image’s antiquity cf. Kroll 1982:72–73. From the legend that the image fell from the sky some have inferred that it was little more than an aniconic slab of wood (Kroll 1982:73–75; Robertson 1996:29; cf. Shapiro 1989:25). That such an inference cannot be made is shown by traditions for the palladion of Troy, which was famously said to have fallen from the sky when Troy was founded (diipetḗs/diopetḗs is the adjective regularly used of it, as in Clement of Alexandria Protrepticus 4.47.6: τὸ διοπετὲς καλούμενον, “the so-called ‘sky-fallen’ [image]”), but which was also believed to represent an armed Athena; cf. “Apollodorus” 3.12.3, who calls the image diipetés and says that it held a spear in its right hand and a distaff and spindle in its left hand. The image of Artemis in Ephesus was also called τὸ διοπετές (Acts of the Apostles 19.35); the image of this exotic mother goddess is unlikely to have been aniconic.

[ back ] 25. The locus classicus for the aegis and gorgoneion (here part of the aegis) is Iliad 5.733–742, where Athena takes off her péplos, which she herself made, and puts on the khitṓn and aigís, which she borrows from her father, “aegis-holder Zeus”:

[ back ] 26. The inventories are of the arkhaîos neṓs (“old temple”) from about 370–340 BC. There is virtually no variation in the ornaments of Athena Polias over the thirty-year period, and this suggests that the items had been in place for some time already (cf. Frickenhaus 1908:20, who contrasts cult images of Artemis Brauronia on which the ornaments were frequently changed in this period). The golden aegis, which played a role in the festival of the Gamelia (the priestess of Athena visited newlyweds with it) probably did not originate later than the sixth century BC. The golden gorgoneion figures in a story about the evacuation of Athens in 480 BC (Plutarch Themistocles 10.4); even though the story was probably fabricated by the Atthidographer Kleidemos (Jacoby, commentary on Kleidemos FGrHist 323 F 21; McInerney 1994:35; cf. Frost 1980:120–121), it still perhaps indicates that the gorgoneion existed at the time. Cf. Ridgway 1992:124: “It would seem as if a relatively neutral wooden image…was gradually transformed by the Athenians through the addition of attributes into a more ‘typical’ Athena with war-like connotations…. Since the gorgoneion may have existed by ca. 480, so would the aegis, implying that the transformation had already taken place within the sixth century. The reorganization of the Panathenaic festival, in ca. 566, may provide a suitable date for these additions to the statue.” Cf. also Casson 1921:330, 332.

[ back ] 27. There were conflicting stories as to whether or not the conspirators had already left Athena’s protection when they were executed; in the pro-Alcmaeonid version reported by Plutarch Solon 12.1 the conspirators attempted to keep contact with the image by means of a thread as they left the Acropolis, but the thread broke near the temple of the Erinyes and the conspirators were thereby delivered up to their just fate. It may be noted that Thucydides, in an account that seems to correct Herodotus on a point (cf. Gomme on Thucydides 1.126.8), says that the conspirators fled to Athena’s altar, not to her image (καθίζουσιν ἐπὶ τὸν βωμόν, Thucydides 1.126.10; cf. ἵζετο πρὸς τὸ ἄγαλμα, Herodotus 5.71.1). For the question of whether a temple of Athena existed at the time of the Cylonian conspiracy see Herington 1955:22n4, with a reference to Judeich 1931:262n2.

[ back ] 28. This episode (Iliad 6.264–312) also offers insight into how the relation between the goddess and her image may have been perceived, for the two are not at all distinguished: the Trojan priestess lays the robe on Athena’s knees and supplicates her, but Athena shakes her head in rejection (ἀνάνευε δὲ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη, Iliad 6.311); cf. Donohue 1988:23–24 and 41n99. Although this episode is sometimes attributed to an Athenian poet because a péplos was offered to Athena at the Panathenaia (so Lorimer 1950:442–449), I think that the opposite is more likely to be the case, i.e. that the Athenian ritual was influenced by Homer (cf. n3.244 below).

[ back ] 29. The type has been studied by Eckstein-Wolf 1952 and Simon 1953; for the phiálē see Luschey RE Supplement 7 ‘Phiale’ 1030; Patton 1992 is a comparative study of the phenomenon of libations by gods. The evidence for the image of Athena Polias is the phrase φιάλη χρυσῆ ἣν ἐν τῇ χειρὶ ἔχει, “a gold phiale that she holds in her hand,” in the inventories (IG II² 1424a lines 365–366 [371/70 BC]; cf. IG II² 1425 line 312 [368/7 BC] and IG II² 1424 line 16 [374/3 BC]; cf. Harris 1995:209 no. 20).

[ back ] 30. Luschey RE Supplement 7 ‘Phiale’ 1030 dates the type to the beginning of the fifth century; so too Eckstein-Wolf 1952 and Simon 1953. Apollo is the god most often represented with a phiálē: Simon discusses a particular type of the group Leto, Apollo, and Artemis, which in the sixth century focuses on Apollo’s kithara, but in the early fifth century focuses on a new element in Apollo’s hand, a phiálē (Simon 1953:19). Since the studies in the early 1950s of Luschey, Eckstein-Wolf, and Simon new finds have reopened the question of the earliest date of the Apollo type. A bronze koûros found in Piraeus in 1959 and identified as Apollo apparently held a bow in the left hand and a phiálē in the right hand: the statue has been taken as an Archaic sixth-century piece, of the decade 530–520 BC, but it is more likely to be a late archaizing piece; for a detailed analysis of this still controversial piece, see Fuchs 1999:18–21, who dates it to c. 90 BC; cf. also Mattusch 1996:138–140, Palagia 1997:180–185, and Hemingway 2004:13, 21 (for additional bibliography see Fuchs 1999:10 and Lambrinudakis et al. LIMC ‘Apollo’ no. 432). A few bronze statuettes of koûroi dated to the late sixth century seem to have held a bow in the left hand and a phiálē in the right hand, and may represent Apollo: LIMC ‘Apollo’ no. 431 (525–500 BC), no. 433 (c. 510 BC), no. 434, with bow intact (c. 500 BC). A bronze statuette dated to the first half of the sixth century is conjectured to have held a phiálē in the right hand (LIMC ‘Apollo’ no. 430, Settis 1971:57), but such an early date would be truly exceptional for the type (Fuchs 1999:19 argues that even in the 520s a phiálē in the hand of the “Piraeus Apollo” would be “exeptionell”; see Fuchs 1999:19n139 for references). The question of why gods received the phiálē as an attribute in the late sixth or early fifth century does not directly concern us, but I note with interest Simon’s argument that Apollo functioned as a priest, and as an intermediary between his father Zeus and men (Simon 1953:25). Did Athena Polias, in her new guise, likewise mediate between her people and her father Zeus? The connection between Athena as a war goddess and Zeus as her father in sixth/fifth-century Athens is discussed §3.42–§3.47 below. With respect to the golden phiálē of Athena Polias, it is worth noting that it is a valuable adornment like the other golden adornments recorded in the fourth-century inventories; it is no more part of the original statue than they are.

[ back ] 31. Eckstein-Wolf 1952:65; so also Frickenhaus 1908:23 (end of the sixth century). Eckstein-Wolf points out that artistic representations which seem to relate to the Athena Polias are not shown holding a phiálē until after the type (“spendende Götter”) had already appeared on other vase paintings. See n3. 33 below for artistic representations that seem to relate directly to the Athena Polias.

[ back ] 32. Figure 1, a seated girl spinning, is a reconstruction of a terracotta plaque from the Athenian Acropolis, c. 500 BC. The reconstruction, after Le Lasseur 1919:104, figure 48, is based on two fragmentary copies from the same mold, Acropolis Museum nos. 1329 (new numbering 13054) and 1330 (new numbering 13055). In no. 1329 the right hand and spindle are still intact; in no. 1330 the raised position of the left arm is still evident despite loss of most of the arm, including the left hand and distaff. Photographs of the fragments of both plaques are in the print volume, Plates 1 and 2; photograph of no. 1329 is in Hutton 1897, plate VII, no. 1, and of no. 1330 in Ridgway 1992:139, figure 92. The same position of the two hands, with a distaff in the left hand and a spindle below the right hand, appears consistently in examples of spinning women in Greek art. I cite the following three examples. Plate 4 of the print volume (Plate I here) is a frontal view of a seated woman, spinning, on a fifth-century Attic red-figure cup attributed to the Euaion Painter, c. 475–425 BC. A profile view of a seated woman, spinning, is seen on an Attic red-figure hydria by a painter close to the Clio Painter, c. 475–425 (London, British Museum, E215; photograph in the print volume, Plate 3; Leader 1997:687, figure 1). Female wool workers engaged in various parts of the wool working process are seen on an Attic black-figure lekythos attributed to the Amasis Painter, c. 575–525 BC (New York, Metropolitan Museum, no. 31.11.10; photograph and rollout drawing in Keuls 1983:215, figure 14.11 a–c; partial rollout drawing in print volume, Plate 5). In this example the woman spinning is shown standing; three other women, one seated and two standing, are shown “drawing a roving,” the step prior to spinning in the wool working process. The position of the hands of the women drawing a roving is the same as for the woman spinning. For demonstrations of the ancient wool working process see Edmunds, Jones, and Nagy 2004.

[ back ] 33. Frickenhaus 1908. The first example, Figure 2, is a reconstruction of a terracotta plaque from the Athenian Acropolis, c. 500 BC (same provenience as for Figure 1). This reconstruction, after Le Lasseur 1919:98, figure 47, is again based on two fragmentary copies from the same mold, Acropolis Museum nos. 1337 (new numbering 13056) and 1338 (new numbering 13057). In no. 1337 the phiálē in the figure’s right hand is still intact; in no. 1338 the raised left hand appears to have held a spear, which must have been painted in (cf. Hutton 1897:307, 310); in Figure 2 the spear has been added to Le Lasseur’s reconstruction. Photographs of both plaques are in the print volume, Plates 6 and 7; photograph of no. 1337 is in Casson 1921:419, and of no. 1338 in Hutton 1997, plate VII no. 2, Casson 1921:420, and Ridgway 1992:139, figure 93. The photograph in Frickenhaus 1908 (plate following p. 20, no. 1) is a composite of both plaques. For the identification as Athena Polias (there is no distinctive attribute in the image itself) see Hutton 1897:310–311 and Frickenhaus 1908:21. The other three examples adduced by Frickenhaus are the following: Plate 8 in the print volume (Plate II here) is a drawing of an Attic black-figure kalpis by the Nikoxenos Painter, c. 500 BC, which was once on the art market in Rome, and is now lost. For the identification as Athena Polias with phiálē note the altar, the sacrificial bull, and the priestess in front of what must be a seated goddess. The next example is an Attic white-ground lekythos, attributed to the Athena Painter, c. 500-450 BC (Athens, National Museum, no. 1138; photograph in the print volume, Plate 9; Frickenhaus 1908, plate following p. 22; LIMC ‘Athena’ no. 579, plate p. 761; Shapiro 1989, plate 10 d-e). For the identification as Athena Polias with phiálē note the altar and the two owls flanking the seated goddess; for two other examples of the same subject by the same painter see Shapiro 1989:31n102 and plate 11 a-b. Shapiro points out that the owl perched on Athena’s shield indicates that a cult statue rather than an epiphany of Athena is represented. The last example is seen in the fragments of an Attic red-figure column crater signed by Myson, c. 500–450 BC (Athens, National Museum, Acropolis Collection, no. 2.806; photograph and drawing of reconstructed fragments in print volume, Plates 10 and 11; photograph in LIMC ‘Athena’ no. 578a, plate p. 761; drawing in Verbanck-Piérard 1988:225, figure 1). The left arm appears slightly less elevated in this example than in the other examples. In front of the goddess is a sacrificial scene (“Opferscene”, Frickenhaus 1908:21); a separate (but related?) fragment of the vase shows an altar (see drawing in print volume, Plate 11; Verbanck-Piérard 1988:225, figure 1). In this example, and in the Attic white-ground lekythos (Athens, National Museum, no. 1138), the helmet worn by Athena is the artist’s free invention, unrelated to the image of Athena Polias; see Frickenhaus 1908:21. The goddess’s left hand holds a helmet on the Attic black-figure kalpis (Plate II), and a spear in the three other examples; on the Attic black-figure kalpis a spear leans against the goddess’s shoulder.

[ back ] 34. Frickenhaus 1908:22; cf. Eckstein-Wolf 1952:65.

[ back ] 35. Compare the examples cited in n3.32 and n3.33 above. The correspondence between Figures 1 and 2 in the text above is especially clear. Hutton 1897:310, who published these line drawings, drew attention to “the obvious connexion” between them, but had no reason to pursue the connection further. It is interesting that the hands are again in the same position on a series of Athenian coins which Kroll 1982:70–72 refers to the image of Athena Polias; on these coins the figure is standing (Kroll thinks that the Athena Polias also was standing) and the left hand holds an owl. The fourth-century inventories of Athena’s ornaments include a golden owl, which has no other obvious place to go on the Athena Polias. But there are problems in referring the coins to Athena Polias: the fourth-century inventories include a golden crown (stephánē) of the goddess, whereas the coins show a helmeted figure; I, for my part, do not believe that the Athena Polias was standing. If the position of the two hands on the coins nevertheless refers to the Athena Polias, it would appear that the old distaff held in the left hand was replaced by a succession of items: first perhaps a spear (as in Figure 2 above, and in print volume Plates 9 and 10–11); then perhaps a helmet (as in Plate II); then by the time of the fourth-century inventories a golden owl.

[ back ] 36. It was the work of the sculptor Endoios, Pausanias 7.5.9: ἔστι δὲ ἐν Ἐρυθραῖς καὶ Ἀθηνᾶς Πολιάδος ναὸς καὶ ἄγαλμα ξύλου μεγέθει μέγα καθήμενόν τε ἐπὶ θρόνου καὶ ἠλακάτην ἐν ἑκατέρᾳ τῶν χειρῶν ἔχει καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς πόλον· τοῦτο <Ἐνδοίου> τέχνην καὶ ἄλλοις ἐτεκμαιρόμεθα εἶναι καὶ ἐς τὴν ἐργασίαν ὁρῶντες ἔνδον τοῦ ἀγάλματος, κτλ., “There is also in Erythrai a temple of Athena Polias and a wooden image of her of large size and seated on a throne, and she has a distaff in each of her hands and a polos on her head; that this is Endoios’s craftsmanship we could tell by other things, but especially by observing the work inside the image,” etc. The working life of Endoios is dated c. 540–500 BC by Raubitschek 1949:495. Images of Athena with distaff are not common in art. On a terracotta relief in Syracuse dated to the last quarter of the fifth century BC Athena holds a distaff in her left hand (right arm is missing; Demargne LIMC ‘Athena’ no. 54; Keuls 1985:251, figure 229). On Hellenistic coins from Asia Minor (LIMC ‘Athena’ no. 58) Athena Ilias (named on no. 58a) holds a distaff in her left hand and a spear in her right hand. Other possible examples (LIMC ‘Athena’ nos. 43, 45, 46) are all uncertain: no. 43 is the terracotta relief of a seated young girl spinning represented in Figure 1 in §3.14 above and discussed in n3.32 above; no. 46 is a terracotta statuette of Athena of c. 500 BC with extended right hand (left arm, which may have held a distaff, is missing). No certain example of Athena with distaff survives from Attica (cf. Keuls:1985:250).

[ back ] 37. Relevant also are loomweights discussed by Barber 1992:106: “A tangible indicator of the close tie between Athena and weaving comes in a number of loomweights from the Greek colonies in Italy. On these weights Athena herself appears in the form of an owl, her sacred bird, spinning wool from a wool basket in front of her. The owl is shown with a pair of human arms and hands (in addition to the expected wings and feet) to do the work, as on a late fifth-century weight from Tarentum” (photograph p. 107); as noted on p. 151 (where a lower date of c. 300 BC is given for the object) the owl also holds a distaff. Wuilleumier 1939:439 classes this object with various others as having a commercial purpose; Herdejürgen 1971:73–74 identifies the objects in question as tags for goods rather than as loomweights.

[ back ] 38. A seated Athena Polias is argued by Frickenhaus 1908:24 and is accepted by Nilsson 1967:436n4; cf. also Fehrle 1910:199, following Frickenhaus. In arguing for a standing figure Kroll 1982:67 relies on two pieces of indirect literary evidence. The Christian writer Athenagoras (Legatio pro Christianis 17.4; cf. n3.13 above) refers to a “seated” statue of Athena on the Acropolis by the sculptor Endoios; Kroll takes the description “seated” of this statue as meant to contrast with the Athena Polias, which Athenagoras also apparently attributed to Endoios. But the reason that Athenagoras calls the first statue “seated” is that he borrows the entire description of the statue, including the seated pose, from Pausanias 1.26.4 (see Snodgrass 2003); no inference can therefore be drawn for the pose of the Athena Polias. The evidence of Athenagoras is discussed further in EN3.2. The other piece of literary evidence adduced by Kroll to show that the statue of Athena Polias was standing is the failure of Strabo to mention the statue when, in a discussion of the seated pose of the Athena Polias in Troy, he says that “many ancient wooden statues of Athena are seen to be seated, such as those in Phocaea, Massilia, Rome, Chios, and several other places” (Strabo 13.1.41). The absence of the Athena Polias in Athens from this list is rather striking, but to explain it perhaps it is enough to note with Herington 1955:24n1 that Strabo’s list is “a very haphazard one, and does not claim to be complete.” But it also seems significant that Strabo does not mention the image of Athena Polias even when he describes Athena’s old temple on the Acropolis, although he mentions a lamp known to have been next to it (see n3.40 below); the image of Athena Polias apparently impressed Strabo considerably less than Pausanias, and this may account for its omission in the list of 13.1.41.

[ back ] 39. The text does not make clear whether she is seated on a chair or on the ground; the latter perhaps seems inconsistent with her status as queen. For Alcinous, who sits next to Arete drinking wine like a god, a thrónos is explicitly mentioned by Nausicaa (Odyssey 6.305–309):

For the translation of the phrase ποτικέκλιται αὐτῇ, in which αὐτῇ may refer to the column or to Arete, or perhaps, by brachylogy, to Arete’s chair, see Stanford 1959 ad loc. and cf. Cunliffe 1924 s.v. προσκλίνω. How a seated wooden figure, if it was very old, would have been constructed, is not clear. Ridgway 1977:23–25 (= 1993:27–28) imagines that in working with wood it would have been expedient to piece a statue together from several parts, and that this explains a similar technique in later (mid-seventh century on) stone statuary (cf. Donohue 1988:213 and 230). Ridgway’s speculation about early wooden statuary envisions standing rather than seated figures (Ridgway 1977:37, quoted by Donohue 1988:193): “Large-scale wooden statuary seems to have existed even in prehistoric times and was probably made during the Eighth and Seventh centuries. Presumably ill-shaped at first, it eventually became anthropomorphic but colossal in that the lower part was column-like or shown as if tightly enveloped in a garment. Since religion was probably dominated by female deities, such renderings were highly appropriate for female figures” (in Ridgway’s 1993 edition, p. 41, the first two sentences are modified as follows: “Sizable wooden statuary seems to have existed even in prehistoric times and was probably made during the Eighth and Seventh centuries, especially for cult images, which could be adorned with real jewelry and clothing. Some of them may have been ‘colossal’ in that the lower part was columnlike or shown as if tightly enveloped in a garment”). Ancient theories of the origin of Greek statuary posited aniconic images to begin with, and this has influenced modern conceptions, but less so now than formerly. As Donohue 230 states: “It is not likely that any study undertaken today of the origin of Greek sculpture would adopt an approach modelled on that of the literary sources, treating Greek statuary as an undifferentiated production traceable to simple beginnings ex nihilo.” Rather, aniconism and the figural representation of the gods are different phenomena, which can coexist (cf. Donohue 226; Donohue 229–230 cites among others for this view Deonna 1930, vol. 1, 53–56, who “rejected neat schemes of logical developments from primitive forms; believing instead in the completeness of Greek figural vision from the earliest times, he attempted to trace the technical progress in the rendering of the fully realized human form”).

[ back ] 40. Strabo 9.1.16 mentions the lamp as the very hallmark of Athena’s old temple: he begins his brief description of the Acropolis by saying that it (the Acropolis) is Athena’s sacred space (τὸ τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς ἱερὸν), and that it comprises “both the old temple of the Polias, in which is the inextinguishable lamp (ὅ τε ἀρχαῖος νεὼς ὁ τῆς Πολιάδος ἐν ᾧ ὁ ἄσβεστος λύχνος) and the Parthenon, which Ictinus made, in which is Pheidias’s ivory statue, the Athena.” (As noted above, for Strabo the image of Athena Polias, in contrast to the statue by Pheidias, does not merit mention, and this makes it less surprising that he omits it from a list of seated Athenas in 13.1.41; cf. n3.38 above.) Pausanias, who calls the old wooden image the holiest object in Athens and says that according to legend it fell from heaven, mentions the lamp immediately after it; he says that he will not comment on the truth of the legend about the origin of the image, but he knows who made the lamp, namely Callimachus, and he goes on to give details about it. The lamp is dated by its maker, who was active in the last third of the fifth century (cf. Gross Der Kleine Pauly ‘Kallimachos 5’). The lamp was lit night and day, and was fed with oil but once a year on the same day. In order to draw the smoke off from the lamp a bronze palm tree reaching to the roof was used. Although Pausanias credits Callimachus with technical innovations, he does not put him in the first rank of artists.

[ back ] 41. Frazer 1913 on Pausanias 8.53.9, “the Common Hearth of the Arcadians,” collects the evidence.

[ back ] 42. There are many references to the hearth in Apollo’s temple at Delphi, especially in tragedy. For the location of the hearth inside the temple, see especially Diodorus Siculus 16.56.7, an account of how the Phocians in 347/6 BC, having heard that a great treasure of gold and silver was buried inside the temple, set about digging up the ground around the tripod and hearth (ἑστία) until they were frightened off by an earthquake. It was also at this ἑστία that Neoptolemos was supposed to have been slain by the priest of Apollo (Pausanias 10.24.4). For the perpetual fire on this hearth, see e.g. Aeschylus Libation Bearers 1036–1037, where Orestes, haunted by furies, declares his intention to set out for Apollo’s temple at Delphi (μεσόμφαλόν θ’ ἵδρυμα, Λοξίου πέδον) and “the firelight called undying” (πυρός τε φέγγος ἄφθιτον κεκλημένον).

[ back ] 43. Plutarch Numa 9.5 speculates that Numa entrusted the perpetual fire in Rome to the Vestal Virgins because fire and vigins are either both pure or both barren, and to support the connection with barrenness, he notes that “wherever in Greece a perpetual fire is kept, as at Delphi and Athens, it is committed to the charge, not of virgins, but of widows past the age of marriage.” To support the connection with purity, Plutarch Numa 9.6 notes that when perpetual fires are allowed to go out they must not be kindled again from other fire, but directly from the rays of the sun, and his two examples are occasions when the same two fires, in Athens and in Delphi, went out.

[ back ] 44. Pollux twice refers to the hearth in Athens: εἰσὶ δ’ ἐν αὐτῇ [the Acropolis] πρυτανεῖον καὶ ἑστία τῆς πόλεως, “there are on it [sc. the Acropolis] the prytaneion and the hearth of the city” (Pollux 9.40); [ἑστία] ἡ ἐν πρυτανείῳ, ἐφ’ ἧς τὸ πῦρ τὸ ἄσβεστον ἀνάπτεται, “[the hearth] in the prytaneion, on which the inextinguishable fire is lit” (Pollux 1.7). Pausanias 5.15.9 describes the hearth in Olympia: [τῷ πρυτανείῳ] ἔνθα σφίσιν ἡ ἑστία…. ἔστι δὲ ἡ ἑστία τέφρας…πεποιημένη, καὶ ἐπ’ αὐτῆς πῦρ ἀνὰ πᾶσάν τε ἡμέραν καὶ ἐν πάσῃ νυκτὶ ὡσαύτως καίεται, “[the prytaneion] where their hearth is…. The hearth is made of ash, and on it a fire burns every day and likewise every night.”

[ back ] 45. In Theocritus this is the second of two proverbial expressions for sleeplessness (21.36–37): ἀλλ’ ὄνος ἐν ῥάμνῳ τό τε λύχνιον ἐν πρυτανείῳ· / φαντὶ γὰρ ἀγρυπνίαν τάδ’ ἔχειν, “an ass in thorns and the lamp in the prytaneion; for they say that these things have sleeplessness”; λύχνιον may here be a lampstand (= λυχνεῖον, so LSJ), but this does not change the point. Dionysius II, tyrant of Syracuse, dedicated an elaborate lampstand (λυχνεῖον) in the prytaneion of Tarentum (Athenaeus 15.700d citing Euphorion), which Frazer takes to be another example of perpetual fire (Frazer 1913 on Pausanias 8.53.9). The lampstand had the capacity “to burn lamps” for every day in the year (λυχνεῖον δυνάμενον καίειν τοσούτους λύχνους ὅσος ὁ τῶν ἡμερῶν ἐστιν ἀριθμὸς εἰς τὸν ἐνιαυτόν). Frazer assumes that this contrivance could burn for a year without being fed, a more plausible interpretation than to think that 365 lamps were lit simultaneously.

[ back ] 46. Cook 1995 makes this passage the cornerstone of his argument that the Odyssey as a whole was first composed in sixth-century Athens. While I disagree with so broad a conclusion, and instead place the formative phase of the Homeric poems a century and a half earlier in Ionia, I think that Cook is right to connect this passage with the lamp of Athena in her temple on the Acropolis. What parts of the poems originated in sixth-century Athens (I include this passage as well as the expansion of the catalogue of heroines in Odyssey 11) is an open question; another possible example is briefly considered in EN3.3. For further discussion of Athena’s lamp in Homer and on the Acropolis see Parisinou 2000: 5–8 (Homer) and 20–31 (the Acropolis). For a date in the early sixth century BC for the transformation of the image of Athena Polias into a warrior goddess cf. n3.26 above and n3.111 below.

[ back ] 47. The phrase θεὸν ὥς, “like a god,” in Odyssey 7.71 does not identify Arete as a god, but compares her to one, just as the phrase ἀθάνατος ὥς, “like an immortal,” in Odyssey 6.309 does not identify Alcinous as an immortal, but compares him to one (cf. the phrase θεοῦ δ’ ὥς δῆμος ἄκουεν, “the people listen to him like a god,” in Odyssey 7.11, also said of Alcinous). Comparisons of mortals to immortals are not at all unusual in Homer: the accusative phrase θεὸν ὥς occurs nine times (including Odyssey 7.71); the nominative phrase θεὸς ὥς occurs six times (five times in the phrase θεὸς δ’ ὥς τίετο δήμῳ, “he is honored like a god by the people”); constructions with the dative θεῷ occur ten times (cf. n3.64 below); the phrase ἰσόθεος φώς, “a man equal to a god,” occurs 14 times. Two verses in particular resemble the comparison of Arete to a god in Odyssey 7.71–72: in Odyssey 8 Odysseus says to Euryalos that the people regard a man who commands respect in the assembly by his words as a god when he walks through the city (ἐρχόμενον δ’ ἀνὰ ἄστυ θεὸν ὣς εἰσορόωσιν, Odyssey 8.173); in Iliad 22 Hecabe, lamenting Hector, recalls what help (ὄνειαρ) he was in the city (κατὰ πτόλιν) to the men and women of Troy, “who greeted you like a god” (οἵ σε θεὸν ὣς / δειδέχατ’, Iliad 22.433–435). The comparison of Arete to a god is clearly within the limits of what can be said about a mortal, but at the same time more seems suggested. This is like the phrase θαῦμα ἰδέσθαι, “a wonder to behold,” which follows the description of Arete as seated by the hearth spinning wool (ἡ δ’ ἧσται ἐπ’ ἐσχάρῃ ἐν πυρὸς αὐγῇ, / ἠλάκατα στρωφῶσ’ ἁλιπόρφυρα, θαῦμα ἰδέσθαι, Odyssey 6.305–306). The phrase θαῦμα ἰδέσθαι focuses attention on something extraordinary, but not necessarily godlike. The word θαῦμα is normally used of objects and situations, rarely of people; if we exclude the Cyclops in Odyssey 9.190 (a special case), it is used of only one person besides Arete: Neleus’s daughter Pero is called a θαῦμα βροτοῖσι in the context of her wooing by all her neighbors, Odyssey 11.287, and here the context gives the phrase its point (cf. n2.137 above). When Arete is called a θαῦμα ἰδέσθαι in lines that describe her in terms of the image of Athena Polias, it is worth bearing in mind other wondrous objects that get the phrase, such as the clothes in which the Charites clothe Aphrodite after her bath in Paphos, Odyssey 8.366 (see n3.4 above), or the tripods of Hephaistos which move on their own into and out of divine assembly, Iliad 18.377.

[ back ] 48. Hainsworth (Heubeck et al. 1988) on Odyssey 7.81–132: “This elaborate passage invites the suspicion of rhapsodic reworking.” West 2000:485–487 proposes that the passage was shifted from a different context by one of the Homeric poets using written texts. I agree with Hainsworth that parts of the passage may be “post-Homeric” (cf. n2.16 above), but I have no specific reason for such a judgment. The description of Alcinous’s palace delays Odysseus’s entrance into the palace and his encounter with Athena’s substitute Arete, but this does not weaken the identification of Arete with Athena; that identification is firmly established when, in the space of two lines, Athena enters the palace of Erechtheus in Athens and Odysseus heads for the palace of Alcinous in Scheria (Odyssey 7.81–82). We know where Odysseus is going and why, and a narrative retardation devoted to the wonders of the Phaeacian palace does not change that.

[ back ] 49. Athena occurs as the goddess of crafts (érga) in both Homer and Hesiod. In the Odyssey the daughters of Pandareos are said to have received gifts from Hera, Artemis, and Athena; Athena’s gift was to teach them érga, “crafts” (ἔργα δ’ Ἀθηναίη δέδαε κλυτὰ ἐργάζεσθαι, Odyssey 20.72). In Hesiod’s Works and Days, when Pandora is created, Zeus instructs Athena to teach her érga, “crafts,” particularly weaving (αὐτὰρ Ἀθήνην / ἔργα διδασκῆσαι, πολυδαίδαλον ἱστὸν ὑφαίνειν, Works and Days 63–64). Here and elsewhere Athena is particularly associated with the production of clothing; in Homer she is said to have made her own péplos (πέπλον… / ποικίλον, ὅν ῥ’ αὐτὴ ποιήσατο καὶ κάμε χερσίν, Iliad 5.734–735; cf. n3.25 above). In Hesiod Theogony 573–575 her contribution to Pandora is to adorn her in “shining raiment” (κόσμησε θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη / ἀργυφέῃ ἐσθῆτι), including a wondrous veil (κατὰ κρῆθεν δὲ καλύπτρην / δαιδαλέην χείρεσσι κατέσχεθε, θαῦμα ἰδέσθαι). Arete has exactly the same concern for clothing in the Odyssey; she first breaks her silence after Odysseus’s supplication when she recognizes his clothes, which she and her maidservants made (Odyssey 7.233–235):

Thus Arete, whose silence has marked her out as Athena, breaks her silence in a context that maintains or is at least consistent with this hidden identity. Cf. Barber 1992 for Athena’s close connection with weaving. Barber 1992:105–106 cites the Arachne myth, first told in extant sources by Ovid Metamorphoses 6.5–145, but pictured on a Corinthian jug of c. 600 BC; see Weinberg and Weinberg 1956.

[ back ] 50. Arete shows that Athena Poliás, the city goddess of Athens, and Athena Ergánē are closely related figures; for the original unity of Athena Poliás and Athena Ergánē see Hutton 1897:308, and cf. Le Lasseur 1919:102–103. It is worth noting that Pausanias 1.24.3, to prove that the Athenians paid more attention to religious matters than others, says that it was the Athenians who “first gave Athena the name Ergánē” (πρῶτοι μὲν γὰρ Ἀθηνᾶν ἐπωνόμασαν Ἐργάνην). Nilsson, with his understanding of Athena Poliás as a warrior goddess, cannot explain Athena Ergánē any more than he can Athena Mḗtēr. His explanation of both is that Athena is female, and as such she was invoked by women in connection with their typical concerns: “I would sooner believe that [in Elis] women, who in their concerns, especially their desire for children, turned to a long list of goddesses simply because they were female and they felt united with them by the bond of sex, also once turned to Athena. This is the only way to explain how Athena became the guardian of female technical skills” (“Eher würde ich glauben, dass die Frauen, die sich in ihren Angelegenheiten, und zwar besonders in ihrem Verlangen nach Kindern, an eine lange Reihe von Göttinnen wandten, nur weil diese Frauen waren und sie sich mit ihnen durch das Band des Geschlechts vereint fühlten, sich auch einmal an die Göttin Athena wandten. Nur so kann erklärt werden, dass Athena zur Beschützerin der weiblichen Kunstfertigkeit geworden ist,” Nilsson 1967:444; cf. n3.11 above).

[ back ] 51. Athena later says as much to Odysseus when she reveals herself openly to him in Ithaca (Odyssey 13.299–302):

[ back ] 52. Odyssey 5.426–427.

[ back ] 53. The form ἠρᾶτο, which occurs a total of thirteen times in Homer, occurs seven times of prayers to Athena: four times in the Iliad (5.114, 6.304, 10.277, 10.283) and three times in the Odyssey (the two verses quoted above and Odyssey 4.761). The two occurrences of the verb that do not concern Athena in the Odyssey are ironic: Athena, in disguise, prays to Poseidon, and Telemachus, following her example, does so as well (Odyssey 3.62 and 64); the four occurrences that do not concern Athena in the Iliad follow no pattern: a prayer each to Apollo (Iliad 1.35), the gods (θεοῖσι, Iliad 9.567), Spercheios (Iliad 23.149), and the winds (Iliad 23.194). Although I have not considered other forms of this verb, I note that in Iliad 17.568 Athena rejoices because Menelaus “prayed,” ἠρήσατο, to her first of all the gods. It is the form ἠρᾶτο that particularly echoes the name Ἀρήτη, and that therefore seems pointedly used to anticipate Arete’s appearance in Odyssey 7. The other times that ἠρᾶτο is used of prayers to Athena in Homer reinforce this connection.

[ back ] 54. Cf. §3.7 above.

[ back ] 55. It is fitting that two figures rather than one represent Athena inasmuch as one figure would not be able to sustain the weight of the part. I think of the musical play of Igor Stravinsky called The Flood, in which two bass voices together sing the part of God.

[ back ] 56. On Olympus Athena is Zeus’s daughter. The phrase koúrē Diós, “daughter of Zeus,” is used 17 of 20 times of Athena in Homer; she is also called Diòs thugátēr, “daughter of Zeus,” eight times in Homer, but this phrase is used more often of Aphrodite. The one time that the word koúrē is used by itself of Athena Zeus is mentioned in the same line: εὐξάμενος κούρῃ γλαυκώπιδι καὶ Διὶ πατρί, “praying to the grey-eyed maiden and to [her] father Zeus” (Odyssey 24.518), and three lines later the full phrase Diòs koúrē occurs: εὐξάμενος δ’ ἄρ’ ἔπειτα Διὸς κούρῃ μεγάλοιο, “praying then to great Zeus’s daughter” (Odyssey 24.521). Used by itself the word koúrē means not “daughter,” but “maiden”; this meaning too fits Athena, as in Odyssey 24.518, quoted above. In the Phaeacian episode the word koúrē in the meaning “maiden” is repeatedly used of Nausicaa (ten times in Odyssey 6, once in Odyssey 7, and once in Odyssey 8). It is in fact the first word used of Nausicaa in the poem, when Athena enters her bed chamber (Odyssey 6.15–16):

It is also the last word used of Nausicaa in the poem, at the end of Odysseus’s farewell speech to her, after he credits her with bringing him back to life (Odyssey 8.464–468; cf. §3.30 below):

[ back ] 57. In the phrase meíxesthai gumnós per eṓn the particle per is concessive (“although”), but per can also be intensive (“since”). There is thus a double ambiguity: “he was about to mingle with them although he was naked” is the intended primary meaning; “he was about to have intercourse with them since he was naked” is a possible secondary meaning. For the threat of sexual violence in this episode see Karakantza 2003, with bibliography; the author explains the non-violent outcome in this case by a “strange reversal of the societal code, that puts the man in an inferior position and the maiden in self-confident control” (p. 10; cf. p. 20). Nausicaa’s “self-confident control,” which is anomalous according to this analysis, calls for an explanation, and for this I would look behind Nausicaa to Athena. For bridal imagery in the encounter between Nausicaa and Odysseus cf. also Segal 1994:23n13 with bibliography.

[ back ] 58. Note that Odysseus fears her anger (mḗ…kholṓsaito, Odyssey 6.147).

[ back ] 59. For Athena’s own thársos cf. Iliad 21.395, where Ares calls her thársos áēton ékhousa, “having fierce boldness.” Athena often puts thársos into the hearts of her favorites: Diomedes (Iliad 5.2), Menelaus (Iliad 17.570), Telemachus (Odyssey 1.321, 3.76); the daímōn who inspires thársos in Odysseus in the Cyclops’s cave (Odyssey 9.381) is not named, but this too suggests Athena; in Odyssey 14.216 Odysseus, in his lying tale to Eumaios, says that Ares and Athena once both gave him thársos. When Athena puts thársos into her favorites this of course does not give them a hidden identity. What is different about Nausicaa is that she is female like Athena; traditional epic means are here used to a special end and with a special meaning (the comparison of Arete to a god is similar in this respect; cf. n3.47 above).

[ back ] 60. Artemis was characterized especially by her tall stature (mē̂kos); this was the gift that she gave to the daughters of Pandareos according to Odyssey 20.71 (μῆκος δ’ ἔπορ’ Ἄρτεμις ἁγνή; cf. n3.49 above). In Homeric Hymn to Apollo 197–199 Artemis is conspicuous among other goddesses in the dance on Olympus (τῇσι μὲν οὔτ’ αἰσχρὴ μεταμέλπεται οὔτ’ ἐλάχεια, / ἀλλὰ μάλα μεγάλη τε ἰδεῖν καὶ εἶδος ἀγητὴ, “not ugly or small she dances among them, / but very big to look on and wondrous in beauty”); scenes like this may have made Artemis a typical comparison for girls who led the dance (cf. Segal 1994:23 and Calame 1977:90–92), and this would certainly have been a factor in the comparison of Nausicaa with Artemis.

[ back ] 61. In the two passages comparing Nausicaa to Artemis note that in one the nymphs in Artemis’s retinue are called koûrai Diós (Odyssey 6.105) and in the other Artemis herself is called Diòs koúrē (Odyssey 6.151); Diòs koúrē is Athena’s characteristic epithet (see n3.56 above), and Nausicaa’s hidden identity with Athena is the real point in both passages. Nausicaa’s resemblance to Artemis does not preclude her resemblance to Athena; Nausicaa is compared to “goddesses” in general for her stature and appearance when Athena first comes to her bedchamber and appears to her in a dream (Odyssey 6.15–16):

The plural athanátēisi, “immortal goddesses,” opens the question, to be returned to later in the story, as to which goddess in particular Nausicaa is meant to represent.

[ back ] 62. The plant comparison is first introduced in Odyssey 6.157, where Nausicaa is called a thálos, “shoot”; the poet, speaking as Odysseus, clearly already has in mind that he is about to compare Nausicaa to an érnos, a “sapling,” in Odyssey 6.163. The sacred palm tree is doubtless the one that Leto grasped when she bore Apollo on Delos (Homeric Hymn to Apollo 117; cf. n3.14 above).

[ back ] 63. Leto gave birth to Artemis on Ortygia, which is distinguished from Delos in Homeric Hymn to Apollo 16, but is identified with Delos in later sources (Apollonius of Rhodes 1.419, Callimachus Hymns 4.40, etc.). Ortygia is mentioned in Odyssey 15.404, where it has been identified both with Delos and with Syracuse by modern commentators. Strabo 10.5.5 identifies Ortygia with Rheneia, suitably close to Delos to be the birthplace of Apollo’s twin. Such proximity is perhaps the point of the comparison of Nausicaa to Apollo’s sacred tree on Delos: the tree is related to, but separate from, the goddess Artemis and her place of birth. Palm trees are associated with Artemis herself in art, especially in scenes of erotic pursuit leading to sexual consummation; cf. Karakantza 2003:14, following Sourvinou-Inwood 1985 and 1987:141, 144–145. The comparison of Nausicaa to Apollo’s palm tree thus continues to suggest Artemis even when Artemis is no longer directly at issue.

[ back ] 64. Cf. n3.47 above. The line at Odyssey 8.467 occurs again at Odyssey 15.181, where Telemachus tells Helen that he will pray to her like a god if Zeus accomplishes what she has just foretold about Odysseus. There are nine other comparisons of humans to gods in Homer that entail use of the dative θεῷ: Achilles says of Hector that the Trojans prayed to him like a god (θεῷ ὣς εὐχετόωντο, Iliad 22.394); Odysseus is said to have been cared for like a god by Calypso (κομιδή γε θεῷ ὣς ἔμπεδος ἦεν, Odyssey 8.453); Odysseus calls on Athena, disguised as a mortal, to save him and his possessions, saying that he prays to her like a god (εὔχομαι ὥς τε θεῷ καί σευ φίλα γούναθ’ ἱκάνω, Odyssey 13.231). There are three examples of the phrase θεῷ ἐναλίγκιος: the herald Talthybios is called “like a god in voice” (θεῷ ἐναλίγκιος αὐδὴν, Iliad 19.250); Telemachus and Menelaus are called “like a god in person” (θεῷ ἐναλίγκιος ἄντην, Odyssey 2.5 and 4.310). Finally there are two verses with ἶσος and θεῷ: Phoenix says to Achilles that the Achaeans will honor him like a god (ἶσον γάρ σε θεῷ τίσουσιν Ἀχαιοί, Iliad 9.603); Telemachus says that the Ithacans regard Eurymachus like a god (ἶσα θεῷ Ἰθακήσιοι εἰσορόωσι, Odyssey 15.520).

[ back ] 65. In the event Nausicaa does indeed wash clothes for herself, as the dream has instructed her, but it is Odysseus rather than a future husband who also receives clean clothes from her.

[ back ] 66. In 408 BC Alcibiades returned to Athens on the day of the Plynteria, regarded as among the unluckiest days in the year, and two sources, Xenophon and Plutarch, give information about the festival’s rites in connection with this ill-omened event. Plutarch Alcibiades 34.1 says that the rites, which he calls ἀπόρρητα, “not to be spoken of,” were performed by the Praxiergidai, who removed the ornaments from the statue of Athena and veiled it (ᾗ γὰρ ἡμέρᾳ κατέπλευσεν, ἐδρᾶτο τὰ Πλυντήρια τῇ θεῷ. δρῶσι δὲ τὰ ὄργια Πραξιεργίδαι Θαργηλιῶνος ἕκτῃ φθίνοντος ἀπόρρητα, τόν τε κόσμον ἀφελόντες καὶ τὸ ἕδος κατακαλύψαντες. ὅθεν ἐν ταῖς μάλιστα τῶν ἀποφράδων τὴν ἡμέραν ταύτην ἄπρακτον Ἀθηναῖοι νομίζουσιν, “On the day on which he sailed back the Plynteria were being celebrated for the goddess; the Praxiergidai celebrate these rites on the sixth day of the end of the month of Thargelion, removing the ornaments and covering the statue. Because of this the Athenians consider this day to be among the unluckiest and unsuitable for business”). Xenophon Hellenica 1.4.12 also speaks of the statue’s being veiled and of the care taken not to conduct important business on this day ([Alcibiades] κατέπλευσεν εἰς τὸν Πειραιᾶ ἡμέρᾳ ᾗ Πλυντήρια ἦγεν ἡ πόλις, τοῦ ἕδους κατακεκαλυμμένου τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς, ὅ τινες οἰωνίζοντο ἀνεπιτήδειον εἶναι καὶ αὐτῷ καὶ τῇ πόλει. Ἀθηναίων γὰρ οὐδεὶς ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ οὐδενὸς σπουδαίου ἔργου τολμήσαι ἂν ἅψασθαι, “He [Alcibiades] sailed back to the Peiraieus on the day on which the city was celebrating the Plynteria, the statue of Athena being covered, which some took as an unpropitious sign both for himself and for the city. For none of the Athenians would dare to undertake any serious work on this day”).

[ back ] 67. For the removal and return of the péplos, note the following: 1) an entry in Hesychius says that the Praxiergidai (who conducted the Plynteria, cf. n3.66 above) had the task of “clothing” the old statue of Athena (Hesychius s.v. Πραξιεργίδαι· οἱ τὸ ἕδος τὸ ἀρχαῖον τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς ἀμφιεννύντες); 2) a fragmentary inscription detailing the tasks of the Praxiergidai uses the same verb “clothe” with péplos as object (ἀμφιεννύουσιν τὸν πέπλον, IG I³ 7 line 11). It is inferred that this inscription refers to the ritual of the Plynteria (cf. Deubner 1932:19n11, Robertson 1996:72n74; Herington 1955:30n2 regards the inference as very probable but not certain; for further discussion of the inscription, see Parker 1996:307–308). That the péplos was washed can only be inferred from the name Πλυντήρια of the festival itself, which must refer to washing a garment and not to bathing the statue. This issue is discussed in EN3.4.

[ back ] 68. See Robertson 1996:51 (Athena is partnered by Aglauros in both festivals); for a fuller description of the evidence for these festivals see Robertson 1983:281–282 and n113.

[ back ] 69. Strictly speaking, we do not know that the implied festival of the Plynteria on these islands belonged to Athena; thus Nilsson 1906:469 lists the festivals on the islands of Chios and Paros under “unknown gods” (“unbekannte Götter”).

[ back ] 70. Nilsson 1906:469: “It is surprising that a festival, whose content in Athens seems to be only the purification of the temple and cult image, is found in other places as well, and this seems to point to an earlier wider meaning” (“Es ist auffallend, ein Fest, dessen Inhalt nur die Reinigung des Tempels und des Xoanon in Athen zu sein scheint, an anderen Orten wiederzufinden, und dieses scheint auf eine einstige weitere Bedeutung hinzuweisen”).

[ back ] 71. When Nausicaa asks her father for a wagon, she repeats the verb “to wash” in nearly identical form but suppresses the context of marriage (Odyssey 6.57–61):

[ back ] 72. The plunoí are mentioned again when Nausicaa and her companions reach them (Odyssey 6.85–87):

The verb plúnō also occurs again when the maidens have cleaned the clothes and set them out to dry (Odyssey 6.93–94): αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ πλῦνάν τε κάθηράν τε ῥύπα πάντα, / ἑξείης πέτασαν παρὰ θῖν’ ἁλός, “but when they had washed and cleaned all the dirt, they spread them out side by side by the shore of the sea.”

[ back ] 73. Odyssey 6.36–38:

[ back ] 74. The Homeric epithet eǘpeplos occurs more often in the plural of groups of women than in the singular: sisters-in-law (εἰνατέρων ἐϋπέπλων occurs three times in the Iliad) and Achaean women (Ἀχαιϊάδων ἐϋπέπλων occurs once each in the Iliad and the Odyssey); besides its use of Nausicaa in Odyssey 6 there is only one other use in the singular, in Iliad 6.372 of a serving woman (ἀμφιπόλῳ ἐϋπέπλῳ).

[ back ] 75. Note that Athena wears the péplos on Olympus in the Iliad, twice shedding it on her father’s threshold when she arms for battle (Iliad 5.733–735 = 8.384–386):

The péplos is of course the usual female garment; the unarmed Aphrodite wears it on the battlefield in Iliad 5.315, hiding Aeneas in one of its folds. For the péplos as a specifically bridal garment see Lee 2003/2004:256–257, 269, 272, 273. For another interpretation of the Plynteria and the role of the péplos in it, see Connelly 1996:78–79, who interprets the festival as a funerary rite in honor of Aglauros, and the garment as a sacrificial robe.

[ back ] 76. See n3.14 above for Auge’s myth, and for a statue of the goddess of childbirth called Aúgē en gónasi, “Auge on her knees,” in the temple of Eileithyia in Tegea. Euripides wrote a tragedy called Auge, according to which the title character, as Athena’s priestess, was washing the goddess’s garment when she was seized by Heracles. We know this from a fragmentary argument to the play and from Pompeian wall paintings inspired by the play. Ludwig Koenen first studied the papyrus fragment and identified it as the hypothesis to Euripides’ Auge, and his restoration of the text established the argument’s essential content (Koenen 1969). The text was improved by Wolfgang Luppe, who recognized that the length of the lines should be shortened (Luppe 1983). From this evidence we infer, first, that Arcadian Tegea had a festival like the Attic and Ionic Plynteria, whether or not the Tegean festival had this name, and, secondly, that the washing of the goddess’s robe at this festival was associated with a loss of virginity of the most violent kind. The crucial lines of the restored argument tell us that Auge was “washing the garment of Athena near the fountain” when Heracles seized her. Line 10 of the fragment has the crucial letters ητα πλυν, restored as ἐσθῆτα πλύνουσαν, describing Auge as “washing the garment” of the goddess. As Koenen (p. 18) comments, one can assume that the author of the hypothesis was not the first to make a connection with the Athenian Plynteria by using the verb plúnō (or a word of the same stem). In the next line the letters ησιον κρ(η), restored as πλησίον κρήνης, specify a location “near the spring.” Pausanias 8.47.4 mentions this spring, which was just north of the temple, and says that according to the local version of the myth this was where Auge’s rape took place: ἔστι δὲ ἐν τοῖς πρὸς ἄρκτον τοῦ ναοῦ κρήνη, καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ βιασθῆναι τῇ κρήνῃ φασὶν Αὔγην ὑπὸ Ἡρακλέους, οὐχ ὁμολογοῦντες Ἑκαταίῳ τὰ ἐς αὐτήν, “In the area north of the temple there is a spring, and they say that Auge was raped by Heracles at this spring, not agreeing with Hecataeus’s account of her.” Euripides clearly followed the local version of the myth (as opposed to that of Hecataeus) in making the Plynteria the occasion of Auge’s rape (cf. Koenen, p. 10). Excavators have found a large basin with marble sides and steps where Pausanias locates the spring, just north of the temple (Robertson 1996:50 citing Dugas et al. 1924:69–71). The Pompeian wall paintings, inspired by Euripides, depict a more natural setting. Auge and a friend sit at the water’s edge dipping a garment into the pool as Heracles enters the scene and lays hands on Auge. (Koenen, p. 13, reproduces the line drawings of Reinach 1922; specific references in Koenen p. 12n4). For a vivid depiction of the rape on a Thracian gilt silver bowl see Boardman 1994:184–185, figure 6.1. For a different perspective on Auge’s myth see Burkert 1966:15n3, who classes it with other stories of virgins at the well.

[ back ] 77. There is disagreement as to how Athena’s mythic priestesses relate to Athena herself. Fehrle 1910:193–194 argues that the sexual union in Athena’s temple of figures like Auge, Aithra, and Medusa must come from local cults of these figures which Athena at an early point absorbed (cf. Athena Alea in Tegea, where Auge’s father is called Aleos; for temples of Alea in Arcadia and Laconia, and a town Alea in northern Arcadia, see Nilsson 1967:434); when the fertility aspect of such cults no longer harmonized with Athena’s character, only the original goddesses, now demoted to the status of heroines, retained some form of their old sacred marriages. Nilsson 1967:443 rejects the implication of this argument that Athena’s original character is revealed by that of her priestesses, believing that the connection of these figures to Athena may be based on external circumstances rather than internal relationships. Aglauros, who is featured as Athena’s priestess in aetiological myths of the Plynteria in Athens (Photius Lexicon s.v. Καλλυντήρια καὶ πλυντήρια), is analogous to Auge, Athena’s priestess in a similar festival in Tegea (cf. Robertson 1983:282 and n116). Nilsson, consistently with his argument, does not draw conclusions for Athena from Aglauros, who has mother goddess features. With respect to Auge’s rape by Heracles, Koenen 1969, developing the evidence of the argument to Euripides’ Auge, follows Fehrle rather than Nilsson. Koenen’s argument is discussed in EN3.5.

[ back ] 78. The image of a female figure spinning wool could represent a virgin as well as a matron; cf. the daughters of Pandareos, whom Athena taught érga, “works” (i.e. women’s work, weaving) before Aphrodite sought a marriage for them (Odyssey 20.72–74; cf. n3.49 above); cf. also Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 14–15, where Athena is said to teach érga to tender maidens: ἡ δέ τε παρθενικὰς ἁπαλόχροας ἐν μεγάροισιν / ἀγλαὰ ἔργ’ ἐδίδαξεν ἐπὶ φρεσὶ θεῖσα ἑκάστῃ, “she also teaches soft-skinned maidens splendid works, putting them in the minds of each.” The terracotta reliefs from the Acropolis of a girl spinning (see Figure 1 in §3.14 and cf. n3.32 above) provide an example of such an image.

[ back ] 79. Note that Nausicaa’s part in the story concludes just as Arete’s part begins, and that the division between the two parts is marked by Odysseus’s prayer to Athena in her sacred grove; this point of transition between the two figures is exactly the right moment for Athena, who stands behind both figures, to be invoked in her own persona. In answer to Odysseus’s prayer she continues herself in Nausicaa’s role by appearing as a young maiden and directing Odysseus toward Alcinous’s palace; at the same time she introduces Arete and takes on the role of mother goddess by departing to Athens and entering Erechtheus’s palace. Athena changes from the role of maiden to the role of mother goddess just when the figures representing her do. Athena is not the only Greek goddess to move back and forth between virginity and motherhood. Hera, the wife of Zeus, was said to become a virgin again each year when she bathed in the spring Kanathos in Nauplia; according to Pausanias the account of this was among “the things not to be spoken of” (tō̂n aporrḗtōn) in the initiation rites of the Argive Hera: ἐνταῦθα τὴν Ἥραν φασὶν Ἀργεῖοι κατὰ ἔτος λουμένην παρθένον γίνεσθαι. οὗτος μὲν δή σφισιν ἐκ τελετῆς, ἣν ἄγουσι τῇ Ἥρᾳ, λόγος τῶν ἀπορρήτων ἐστίν, “The Argives say that every year Hera, being bathed here, becomes a virgin. This account, from the rite which they perform for Hera, is among the apórrhēta” (Pausanias 2.38.2–3); cf. Nilsson 1906:44–45 and 47–49 for a bathing of Hera’s statue as the likely ritual to restore the goddess’s virginity in both Argos and Samos. In the argument above I have stressed the washing of clothes performed by Nausicaa and her companions, for this is what the Odyssey stresses, but Nausicaa and her companions also bathe afterwards in the river (λοεσσάμεναι, Odyssey 6.96), and this too suits the marriage context evoked by the episode: cf. the ritual bathing of marriage-age girls in the Scamander river in the Troad and their prayer to the river to take away their virginity (“Aeschines” Epistle 10.3–5); cf. also Thucydides 2.15.5 on the Athenian spring used from archaic times for ritual purposes before marriages.