{"id":4569,"date":"2010-12-01T01:10:11","date_gmt":"2010-12-01T06:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=4629"},"modified":"2010-11-30T13:59:43","modified_gmt":"2010-11-30T18:59:43","slug":"principles-of-paganism-lesson-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2010\/12\/01\/principles-of-paganism-lesson-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Principles of Paganism, Lesson 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

Principles of Paganism<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lesson 6: \u00a0Greek Domestic Religion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/p>\n

Those of us interested not only in studying but emulating ancient religion naturally take an interest in the domestic religion of ancient peoples, for unless we live among surviving or revived pagan communities, we are reduced to celebrating ancient piety in solitude, or with our families.\u00a0 Judging by recent scholarship, there has been a steady increase of interest in sacra privata<\/em>, the sacred privacies, and though evidence for such is scanty compared to that available for ancient civic religion, more is being revealed by the efforts of arch\u00e6ologists, epigraphists and scholars as time goes on.<\/p>\n

The information available on domestic religion in ancient Greece and Rome, though fragmentary, is far too voluminous for a single lesson, and I have limited the topic to those things that apply to the home and its immediate environs, and to those activities most adaptible to modern use.\u00a0 Thus, while both the Greek guardian of the family storehouse, Zeus Ktesios, and the genii loci<\/em> or genius<\/em> and juno<\/em> of the Roman household were depicted as snakes, and there is ample evidence of household snakes (harmless grass snakes where the species is known) from ancient Crete to medieval Lithuania and even later, most of us are unlikely to take up this age-old custom of keeping one in the house or under the front porch.\u00a0 So passing mention will be made of the practice only to illustrate certain features of the guardian spirits later conceived, at least in Rome and partly, in human form.<\/p>\n

Allowances must also be made for the differences in ancient and modern architecture, especially as regards the hearth, when seeking to import Greek or Roman domestic religion into today\u2019s homes.\u00a0 Those of us who are fortunate to have a fireplace can set up a shrine there to Hestia or Vesta and the ancestors and guardian spirits, but in most modern homes fireplaces are ornamental even when fully functional, and do not replace the stove or central heating.\u00a0 Currently I have no fireplace and so maintain a small shrine in the kitchen, getting it as close to the stove (and as far from the smoke alarm) as possible.<\/p>\n

Finally, I have limited this study to Greek and Roman households, even though the material from other cultures (for instance, the Ainu of Sakhalin before WWII) is richer, in some cases assigning sacred meanings to all features or areas of a home.\u00a0 Those who have ancestral or far memory links to other cultures are encouraged to extend this study to those peoples.<\/p>\n

I had originally intended to present both Greek and Roman domestic religion in a single lesson, but the material is too extensive.\u00a0 So this one will be on Greek domestic religion, and the Roman will appear in January, after the mid-term examination.<\/p>\n

Greek Domestic Religion<\/p>\n

The material presented in this section is derived from a recent Master\u2019s thesis presented to the University of Cincinnati by the scholar Katherine Swinford.\u00a0 Her primary interest was in the implements employed in Greek household religion, but her introductory material on the religion itself is well presented and documented.<\/p>\n

Household Gods<\/p>\n

The Greeks differed from the Romans in installing the major deities of Olympus in household worship, giving them domestic epithets indicating their functions there, whereas the Romans tended to identify their domestic deities by function alone.\u00a0 For this reason, H. J. Rose preferred to characterize Roman (and Italic) religion as a polydaemonism (concerned with little, or demi-gods) rather than a polytheism, at least at the domestic level.<\/p>\n

In Greece, the gods whose household cult is mentioned prominently in ancient sources include Hestia, Zeus, Hermes, Hekate, Apollo Agyieus (Apollo of the Streets), and Herakles.<\/p>\n

Hestia is often invoked both first and last among the gods, in private as well as public rituals. \u00a0If an animal was slaughtered and a sacrifice was performed in the house, the first pieces of the sacrificial meal were offered to her, just as at all meals a few pieces were laid on the hearth. This is the reason why it seems to have been customary to offer the first pieces of all sacrifices, even public ones, to Hestia. The position of Hestia is also reflected in semiphilosophical speculations, in which it is said that Hestia is enthroned in the middle of the universe, just as the hearth is the center of the house.<\/p>\n

Hestia is the Greek goddess of the hearth and is the metonymic symbol for an entire household.\u00a0 The typically Greek explanation for this is that she invented living in houses.\u00a0 For this reason, a house was regarded primarily as a hearth, just as the community of houses was symbolized by the public hearth, in Athens located in the Prytaneion.<\/p>\n

In the middle of the great living room of the Greek house, the megaron<\/em>, was a fixed hearth. The hearth served not only as the locus for domestic activities such as cooking and heating, but also as the sacred center of the household, or oikos<\/em>.\u00a0 Sacrifices took place there, and oaths sworn upon the hearth or to Hestia were powerful.\u00a0 The newborn babe was received into the family by being carried around the hearth, a ceremony which was called amphidromia<\/em> and took place on the fifth or tenth day after birth.<\/p>\n

As the guardian of the hearth, Hestia served as the protector of the household and its occupants.\u00a0 The hearth, as an altar of the goddess, functioned as a refuge for suppliants, and those who sought refuge at the hearth were protected, just as those who sought haven at altars within temples were inviolable.<\/p>\n

The Greeks before a meal offered a few bits of food on the hearth and after it poured out a few drops of unmixed wine on the floor. The libation was said to be made to Agathos Daimon, the Good Daemon, the guardian of the house, who appears in snake form. It is not stated to whom the food offering was made, but if someone is to be mentioned it must be Hestia, the goddess of the hearth.<\/p>\n

To overthrow the house, to demolish the altar within it, incurred a punishment which struck at the same time at the living generation and at all the line of dead ancestors and of descendants yet to be born.\u00a0 Thus, the hearth, as an altar of Hestia, represented and preserved households past, present and future.<\/p>\n

Zeus Ktesios, Herkeios, Kataibates<\/p>\n

Zeus Ktesios, or Zeus of the property, guarded and increased the provisions and wealth of the Greek house.\u00a0 The ancients used to install Zeus Ktesios in their storerooms.\u00a0 He was kept in a kadiskos<\/em>, a small, two-handled, unadorned earthenware container.\u00a0 The handles were wreathed with white wool and a saffron thread, and ambrosia, that is, water and olive oil and a variety of fruit, was poured in.\u00a0 The depiction of Zeus Ktesios as a snake led Nillson to speculate that the physical guardian of the stores was a snake used to frighten away thieves, and the contents of the kadiskos were a sacred meal provided to it regularly.\u00a0 We\u2019ll get back to snakes when we discuss the Romans.<\/p>\n

Zeus also appeared in two other guises in or around the Greek house.\u00a0 The Greek word for fence is herkos<\/em>, and herkeios<\/em> is an epithet of Zeus. According to Homer, the altar of Zeus Herkeios generally stood in the courtyard before the house, where sacrifices and libations were offered to him.\u00a0 By the classical era, houses in towns were built wall to wall, and the shrine of Zeus Herkeios was usually found in the megaron<\/em>, or large living room common to Greek homes.\u00a0 As Zeus Kataibates (he who descends), Zeus protected houses against strokes of lightning, and his altar was found before the house or within, next to that of Zeus Herkeios.<\/p>\n

Doorway Gods<\/p>\n

While Hestia and Zeus were venerated within the house, a few gods, such as Hermes, Apollo Agyieus, \u201cApollo of the streets\u201d and Hekate, received their due directly outside the Greek home. Literature describes the shrines or altars to these gods, who were guardians of the pathways and of traveling, as standing before the doorways of private dwellings. These shrines functioned as protection against illness, enemies and other types of evil.<\/p>\n

Doorway gods were significant to the ancient Greeks. Klearchos of Methydrion, a pious man, took care to garland and clean his Hermes and Hekate each month. This indicates that individuals may have had more than one doorway shrine which may have been dedicated to more than one god.<\/p>\n

The herm, the embodiment of the god Hermes, was a square shaft topped with a head and was always ithyphallic. Herms were often used as boundary markers and stood outside of public sanctuaries, between the city and the country, as well as before the doors of private dwellings.\u00a0 An Attic red-figure loutrophoros <\/em>depicts a procession coming home from the fountainhouse. \u00a0Standing before the doorway of the house is an altar and a bearded herm. The altar may have been an altar to Hermes, or perhaps it functioned to represent one of the two other doorway gods. In Wasps, <\/em>Philokleon mentions the altars of Hekate, set up before the doors of every citizen (Aristophanes, V<\/em>. 804). The scholia to Aristophanes note that the altars erected to Apollo Agyieus were square in shape.\u00a0 A shallow recess near the street-side door, a feature common to many Classical houses, may have served as the locus for such shrines.<\/p>\n

In later times, Herakles was regarded as a guardian of the house.\u00a0 Above the entrance to the house was placed the inscription “Here the gloriously triumphant Herakles dwells; here let no evil enter.”<\/p>\n

Rites of Passage<\/p>\n

As mentioned above, a newborn child was carried around the hearth in a rite called the amphidromia<\/em> on its fifth or tenth day of life (which is uncertain).\u00a0 Heidrun Rose suggests that this exposed the child to the \u201cbeneficent radiation of Hestia,\u201d and emphasized the connection between the baby and the adults who were to be his kin. \u00a0On this day, too, those who were involved in any way with the birth performed ritual washing. This was to eradicate the birth pollution.<\/p>\n

Robert Parker states that the amphidromia <\/em>probably served to unite symbolically the newborn with the sacred center of the house, much like the katachysmata<\/em>, a ritual which served to join brides and newly-bought slaves to their new homes.<\/p>\n

The wedding procession, or gamos<\/em>, began and ended with the hearth and marked the bride\u2019s transition into her new oikos<\/em>. Vase paintings often show both mothers; the bride\u2019s mother carried torches lit from her home-hearth, which protected her daughter during the procession, while her mother-in-law, who held torches lit from her respective hearth, received the bride into her new husband\u2019s home.\u00a0 Carrying the wedding torches was a significant role for Greek mothers.<\/p>\n

After the bride left her mother, and thus, the protection of her household hearth, she joined her new oikos <\/em>in the rituals of incorporation. The first ritual, the katachysmata<\/em>, is mentioned in a fragment of the 5th century B.C.E. comedian Theopompos: \u201cBring the katachysmata<\/em>; quickly pour them over the groom and the bride!\u201d\u00a0 This ritual took place at the hearth. The katachysmata <\/em>was also poured over the heads of another category of household inductees, newly-bought slaves. This mixture contained dates, coins, dried fruits, figs, and nuts and was meant to represent good seasons, and thus good auspices for the new member of the household. The groom led his new wife to the sacred hearth of her new oikos<\/em>, where Hestia waited, sceptre in hand, to unite her with the hearth and thus receive her into the household.\u00a0 This is an artistic representation; Hestia herself had no religious image.<\/p>\n

Several rituals associated with death and burial preparations occur in the ancient Greek home. First, when a family member dies, the home is polluted. This pollution requires its own cathartic rituals, which I will discuss below. Second, the washing and laying out of the corpse takes place within the oikos<\/em>. Third, after the funeral, the oikos <\/em>must be cleansed of the death pollution, and the sweepings of the home are offered to Hestia in the hearth-fire.<\/p>\n

Several tragic characters have prior knowledge of their deaths and carry out some of the necessary rituals beforehand; they bathe in ritual water, array themselves in the proper funereal attire, say a prayer to the goddess of the hearth, Hestia, and bid farewell to their loved ones.<\/p>\n

After a member of the oikos <\/em>died, the surviving members of the household washed the body. Often, women were charged with this task. The prothesis, or the laying out of the body, also occurred within the house. \u00a0The body was laid on a kline<\/em>, or couch, and lekythoi<\/em>, or other small jars of oil, were placed around it.<\/p>\n

After the funeral took place, it was necessary to cleanse the house where the death had occurred. For example, an inscription from Keos, dating to the second half of the fifth century B.C.E., states that the house was purified the day after the funeral with seawater and the ceremony terminated with offerings to Hestia at the hearth. \u00a0This final rite, the offering to Hestia, must have concluded an ancient Greek\u2019s \u201ccircle of life.\u201d From the first rite of life, the amphidromia, <\/em>which centered around the hearth, to the last, the final cleansing of one\u2019s soul from the house in which it died, returned back to Hestia.<\/p>\n

Miasma (Pollution):<\/p>\n

Ancient Greek houses were considered polluted when a death or birth occurred within. In order to avoid these types of pollution, the Greeks created cleansing rituals. Water is the most widespread agent of purification in Greek cathartic rituals. It was required that a person was ritually clean before sacrificing or pouring libations, and by extension, this requirement probably applied to other religious activities. \u00a0One prescription for purification was to wash one\u2019s hands or bathe. The water for ritual washing often had to be drawn from a specific source, most often a source from outside the house.<\/p>\n

Outside of homes where a birth or death had occurred, the household set up a perirranterion<\/em>, a basin which stood on a pedestal, filled with water. \u00a0Not only did this basin serve as water for the purification of those entering and leaving the house, but it also served as a token of warning to those who wished to avoid coming into contact with impure, or polluted, households.<\/p>\n

While the birth of a child temporarily polluted the ancient Greek household, pregnant women were sometimes the cause of, and also subject to, miasma<\/em>. During the first forty days of pregnancy, a pregnant woman was not allowed to enter a shrine. However, in the later stages of pregnancy, women were urged to visit the sanctuaries of those deities who oversee childbirth. When outside of her oikos<\/em>, a pregnant woman was not a source of pollution to <\/em>others, but instead must be wary of incurring the pollution of <\/em>others. \u00a0Pregnant women and those who are about to marry are two classes of people who stand on the cusp of an important transition and are thus susceptible to pollution.<\/p>\n

Those who came into the house where a pregnant woman lay were polluted for three days. This birth-pollution could not be passed on and after three days the impure person was cleansed of the miasma<\/em>. Other purificatory measures were taken in order to eradicate the household of birth-pollution. A baby\u2019s naming ceremony and its amphidromia <\/em>took place on either the fifth or the tenth day after birth. \u00a0Each of these initiation rites for the newborn was accompanied by rituals and sacrifices. These rites, which probably took place in the courtyard of the house, might have served not only to introduce the child to the oikos<\/em>, but also to purify anyone involved in the birth, as well as the entire oikos<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The ancient household was polluted when a death occurred within. Similar to childbirth, at this time a basin of water, drawn from a specific source, was placed before the door of the house as a token of warning to those who wished to avoid miasma<\/em>. It also functioned as water with which visitors could purify themselves after having encountered the pollution within the house.<\/p>\n

In order to eliminate the pollution incurred after coming into contact with a polluted household, one needed only wash his or her hands with purifying water. This was similarly true for the house which was polluted by death. After their family member was buried, the family cleansed the house with seawater. This rite served to purify the house of residual miasma<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Ritual Washing<\/p>\n

Several domestic rites have a component of ceremonial bathing or hand-washing. During her wedding preparations, the bride\u2019s ritual bath required elaborate ceremony. The loutrophoros<\/em>, which literally means \u201cone who carries bathwater,\u201d was a vessel used specifically for transporting the water for prenuptial baths from the source prescribed for religious ceremonies.\u00a0 The women of the family joined the bride to parade to the fountainhouse, usually with a young girl carrying the vase. \u00a0After the procession, the bride would bathe in preparation for her upcoming nuptials. The loutrophoros<\/em>, which symbolized the ritual prenuptial bath, became synonymous with ancient Greek marriage. For this reason, the vessel shape, either ceramic or stone, came to be used as a grave marker or funerary offering for someone who died before he or she was married.<\/p>\n

The death of a family member also necessitated ritual washing. The corpse was given a ritual bath by the women of the oikos<\/em>. \u00a0Seawater was the primary cathartic element in funerary rites, and so, it was the type of water used for washing the body. \u00a0This rite could be compared to the ritual bathing of the bride and groom before their marriage. While the latter bath serves as a ritual in the transition from one stage of life to the next, the bathing of the corpse marked the end of a life, itself a transition.<\/p>\n

Bibliography<\/p>\n

Swinford, Katherine M,\u00a0 The Semi-Fixed Nature of Greek Domestic Religion<\/span>,<\/p>\n

Master\u2019s thesis submitted to the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati, 3 February 2006.\u00a0 http:\/\/etd.ohiolink.edu\/view.cgi?acc_num=ucin1155647034<\/a><\/p>\n

Internet site: Greek Popular Religion, The House and the Family.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.sacred-texts.com\/cla\/gpr\/gpr08.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

Study Questions for Lesson 6:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0 What was the Greek explanation for the prominence of Hestia in household religion?<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0 Where was the fixed hearth located in a Greek home?<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0 What was the Greek rite before a meal?<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0 Who guarded and increased the provisions and wealth of the house?\u00a0 How was he depicted?<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0\u00a0 Five outdoor or door guardians of the Greek home are mentioned.\u00a0 Name 3.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0\u00a0 Name and describe 3 rites of passage performed in the home.<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0\u00a0 What was miasma<\/em>?\u00a0 How did the Greeks typically purify themselves of miasma<\/em>?<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0\u00a0 Name 2 sources of miasma<\/em>.<\/p>\n

9.\u00a0\u00a0 Name 2 occasions on which Greeks performed ritual washing.<\/p>\n

Answers to Study Questions for Lesson 5:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0 What was the religious error of the people of the Ur III Empire?<\/p>\n

Assuming that the gods would always promote their own political interests.\u00a0 They thought they had them \u2018in their pockets\u2019.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0 According to Woolley, how did the residents of Ur react to the fall of empire and the Elamite occupation?<\/p>\n

They withdrew from whole-hearted participation in the civic religion and began practicing a private religion centering on the ongoing spirit of the family.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0 Why were the ancestors buried in the family vault not provided with grave furniture?<\/p>\n

Because they resided in the house right alongside the living inhabitants.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0 What did the teraphim in Abram\u2019s family represent individually?\u00a0 What collectively?<\/p>\n

Individually each probably represented one of the ancestors.\u00a0 Collectively they represented the ongoing spirit or god of the family, the future Yahweh.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0\u00a0 When did Abraham\u2019s family stop worshipping temple deities?<\/p>\n

When they passed beyond the borders of those deities\u2019 land, traveling to the Mediterranean coast.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0\u00a0 Why did his family refuse to integrate with Syrian worship when they reached the Mediterranean coast?<\/p>\n

Because their worship included human sacrifice, considered barbarous by the Hittites and their subject peoples.<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0\u00a0 Why, according to Woolley, were the Hebrews segregated from Egyptian society?<\/p>\n

Because they were shepherds, and shepherds and sheep were abominated by the Egyptians, possibly because of their association with the Hyksos.<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0\u00a0 What religious identification did Moses make in Midian?<\/p>\n

He identified the nameless family god of the Hebrews with the popular west Semitic Yahweh, derived from the Canaanite (and before them the Eblaite) pantheon.<\/p>\n

Exercise:<\/p>\n

When you first move into a house or apartment, it seems cold and unfriendly.\u00a0 After you have lived there awhile and personalized your surroundings, it feels warm and hospitable.\u00a0 According to the ancient view, this is because your household guardian spirits have taken up residence there with you.\u00a0 Try burning incense to the threshold and hearth guardians, radiating back to them the same friendliness you feel from your home.\u00a0 In other words, make the warm atmosphere of your home reciprocal.\u00a0 Bask in the warmth awhile and see if any subtle changes occur in your perception.<\/p>\n

This concludes the first half of the course.\u00a0 There will be a mid-term exam, consisting of a question from each of the six lessons presented so far.\u00a0 It will not be difficult if you have worked the study questions.\u00a0 If you want a certificate at the end of the course, you will have to submit the mid-term to me via email and get at least four of the questions right.\u00a0 I will also require a one-page (minimum 3 paragraphs) account of what this course has meant to you up till now.\u00a0 You can respond critically if that is your sincere feeling.\u00a0 Include also a recommendation for the final six lessons.\u00a0 I will try to consider your wishes.\u00a0 The mid-term should appear in about a week on paganpages.org.\u00a0 You can send in your copy with responses anytime before February 1st<\/sup>.\u00a0 Send your mid-term to me at the following address: quicksilver101445@yahoo.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Principles of Paganism Lesson 6: \u00a0Greek Domestic Religion Introduction Those of us interested not only in studying but emulating ancient religion naturally take an interest in the domestic religion of ancient peoples, for unless we live among surviving or revived pagan communities, we are reduced to celebrating ancient piety in solitude, or with our families.\u00a0 Judging by recent scholarship, there has been a steady increase of interest in sacra privata, the sacred privacies, and though evidence for such is scanty compared to that available for ancient civic religion, more is being revealed by the efforts of arch\u00e6ologists, epigraphists and scholars as time goes on. The information available on domestic religion in ancient Greece and Rome, though fragmentary, is far too voluminous for a single lesson, and I have limited the topic to those things that apply to the home and its immediate environs, and to those activities most adaptible to modern use.\u00a0 Thus, while both the Greek guardian of the family storehouse, Zeus Ktesios, and the genii loci or genius and juno of the Roman household were depicted as snakes, and there is ample evidence of household snakes (harmless grass snakes where the species is known) from ancient Crete to medieval Lithuania and even later, most of us are unlikely to take up this age-old custom of keeping one in the house or under the front porch.\u00a0 So passing mention will be made of the practice only to illustrate certain features of the guardian spirits later conceived, at least in Rome and partly, in human form. Allowances must also be made for the differences in ancient and modern architecture, especially as regards the hearth, when seeking to import Greek or Roman domestic religion into today\u2019s homes.\u00a0 Those of us who are fortunate to have a fireplace can set up a shrine there to Hestia or Vesta and the ancestors and guardian spirits, but in most modern homes fireplaces are ornamental even when fully functional, and do not replace the stove or central heating.\u00a0 Currently I have no fireplace and so maintain a small shrine in the kitchen, getting it as close to the stove (and as far from the smoke alarm) as possible. Finally, I have limited this study to Greek and Roman households, even though the material from other cultures (for instance, the Ainu of Sakhalin before WWII) is richer, in some cases assigning sacred meanings to all features or areas of a home.\u00a0 Those who have ancestral or far memory links to other cultures are encouraged to extend this study to those peoples. I had originally intended to present both Greek and Roman domestic religion in a single lesson, but the material is too extensive.\u00a0 So this one will be on Greek domestic religion, and the Roman will appear in January, after the mid-term examination. Greek Domestic Religion The material presented in this section is derived from a recent Master\u2019s thesis presented to the University of Cincinnati by the scholar Katherine Swinford.\u00a0 Her primary interest was in the implements employed in Greek household religion, but her introductory material on the religion itself is well presented and documented. Household Gods The Greeks differed from the Romans in installing the major deities of Olympus in household worship, giving them domestic epithets indicating their functions there, whereas the Romans tended to identify their domestic deities by function alone.\u00a0 For this reason, H. J. Rose preferred to characterize Roman (and Italic) religion as a polydaemonism (concerned with little, or demi-gods) rather than a polytheism, at least at the domestic level. In Greece, the gods whose household cult is mentioned prominently in ancient sources include Hestia, Zeus, Hermes, Hekate, Apollo Agyieus (Apollo of the Streets), and Herakles. Hestia is often invoked both first and last among the gods, in private as well as public rituals. \u00a0If an animal was slaughtered and a sacrifice was performed in the house, the first pieces of the sacrificial meal were offered to her, just as at all meals a few pieces were laid on the hearth. This is the reason why it seems to have been customary to offer the first pieces of all sacrifices, even public ones, to Hestia. The position of Hestia is also reflected in semiphilosophical speculations, in which it is said that Hestia is enthroned in the middle of the universe, just as the hearth is the center of the house. Hestia is the Greek goddess of the hearth and is the metonymic symbol for an entire household.\u00a0 The typically Greek explanation for this is that she invented living in houses.\u00a0 For this reason, a house was regarded primarily as a hearth, just as the community of houses was symbolized by the public hearth, in Athens located in the Prytaneion. In the middle of the great living room of the Greek house, the megaron, was a fixed hearth. The hearth served not only as the locus for domestic activities such as cooking and heating, but also as the sacred center of the household, or oikos.\u00a0 Sacrifices took place there, and oaths sworn upon the hearth or to Hestia were powerful.\u00a0 The newborn babe was received into the family by being carried around the hearth, a ceremony which was called amphidromia and took place on the fifth or tenth day after birth. As the guardian of the hearth, Hestia served as the protector of the household and its occupants.\u00a0 The hearth, as an altar of the goddess, functioned as a refuge for suppliants, and those who sought refuge at the hearth were protected, just as those who sought haven at altars within temples were inviolable. The Greeks before a meal offered a few bits of food on the hearth and after it poured out a few drops of unmixed wine on the floor. The libation was said to be made to Agathos Daimon, the Good Daemon, the guardian of the house, who appears in snake form. It is not stated to whom the food offering was made, but if someone is to be mentioned it must be Hestia, the goddess of the hearth. To overthrow the house, to demolish the altar within it, incurred a punishment which struck at the same time at the living generation and at all the line of dead ancestors and of descendants yet to be born.\u00a0 Thus, the hearth, as an altar of Hestia, represented and preserved households past, present and future. Zeus Ktesios, Herkeios, Kataibates Zeus Ktesios, or Zeus of the property, guarded and increased the provisions and wealth of the Greek house.\u00a0 The ancients used to install Zeus Ktesios in their storerooms.\u00a0 He was kept in a kadiskos, a small, two-handled, unadorned earthenware container.\u00a0 The handles were wreathed with white wool and a saffron thread, and ambrosia, that is, water and olive oil and a variety of fruit, was poured in.\u00a0 The depiction of Zeus Ktesios as a snake led Nillson to speculate that the physical guardian of the stores was a snake used to frighten away thieves, and the contents of the kadiskos were a sacred meal provided to it regularly.\u00a0 We\u2019ll get back to snakes when we discuss the Romans. Zeus also appeared in two other guises in or around the Greek house.\u00a0 The Greek word for fence is herkos, and herkeios is an epithet of Zeus. According to Homer, the altar of Zeus Herkeios generally stood in the courtyard before the house, where sacrifices and libations were offered to him.\u00a0 By the classical era, houses in towns were built wall to wall, and the shrine of Zeus Herkeios was usually found in the megaron, or large living room common to Greek homes.\u00a0 As Zeus Kataibates (he who descends), Zeus protected houses against strokes of lightning, and his altar was found before the house or within, next to that of Zeus Herkeios. Doorway Gods While Hestia and Zeus were venerated within the house, a few gods, such as Hermes, Apollo Agyieus, \u201cApollo of the streets\u201d and Hekate, received their due directly outside the Greek home. Literature describes the shrines or altars to these gods, who were guardians of the pathways and of traveling, as standing before the doorways of private dwellings. These shrines functioned as protection against illness, enemies and other types of evil. Doorway gods were significant to the ancient Greeks. Klearchos of Methydrion, a pious man, took care to garland and clean his Hermes and Hekate each month. This indicates that individuals may have had more than one doorway shrine which may have been dedicated to more than one god. The herm, the embodiment of the god Hermes, was a square shaft topped with a head and was always ithyphallic. Herms were often used as boundary markers and stood outside of public sanctuaries, between the city and the country, as well as before the doors of private dwellings.\u00a0 An Attic red-figure loutrophoros depicts a procession coming home from the fountainhouse. \u00a0Standing before the doorway of the house is an altar and a bearded herm. The altar may have been an altar to Hermes, or perhaps it functioned to represent one of the two other doorway gods. In Wasps, Philokleon mentions the altars of Hekate, set up before the doors of every citizen (Aristophanes, V. 804). The scholia to Aristophanes note that the altars erected to Apollo Agyieus were square in shape.\u00a0 A shallow recess near the street-side door, a feature common to many Classical houses, may have served as the locus for such shrines. In later times, Herakles was regarded as a guardian of the house.\u00a0 Above the entrance to the house was placed the inscription “Here the gloriously triumphant Herakles dwells; here let no evil enter.” Rites of Passage As mentioned above, a newborn child was carried around the hearth in a rite called the amphidromia on its fifth or tenth day of life (which is uncertain).\u00a0 Heidrun Rose suggests that this exposed the child to the \u201cbeneficent radiation of Hestia,\u201d and emphasized the connection between the baby and the adults who were to be his kin. \u00a0On this day, too, those who were involved in any way with the birth performed ritual washing. This was to eradicate the birth pollution. Robert Parker states that the amphidromia probably served to unite symbolically the newborn with the sacred center of the house, much like the katachysmata, a ritual which served to join brides and newly-bought slaves to their new homes. The wedding procession, or gamos, began and ended with the hearth and marked the bride\u2019s transition into her new oikos. Vase paintings often show both mothers; the bride\u2019s mother carried torches lit from her home-hearth, which protected her daughter during the procession, while her mother-in-law, who held torches lit from her respective hearth, received the bride into her new husband\u2019s home.\u00a0 Carrying the wedding torches was a significant role for Greek mothers. After the bride left her mother, and thus, the protection of her household hearth, she joined her new oikos in the rituals of incorporation. The first ritual, the katachysmata, is mentioned in a fragment of the 5th century B.C.E. comedian Theopompos: \u201cBring the katachysmata; quickly pour them over the groom and the bride!\u201d\u00a0 This ritual took place at the hearth. The katachysmata was also poured over the heads of another category of household inductees, newly-bought slaves. This mixture contained dates, coins, dried fruits, figs, and nuts and was meant to represent good seasons, and thus good auspices for the new member of the household. The groom led his new wife to the sacred hearth of her new oikos, where Hestia waited, sceptre in hand, to unite her with the hearth and thus receive her into the household.\u00a0 This is an artistic representation; Hestia herself had no religious image. Several rituals associated with death and burial preparations occur in the ancient Greek home. First, when a family member dies, the home is polluted. This pollution requires its own cathartic rituals, which I will discuss below. Second, the washing and laying out of the corpse takes place within the oikos. Third, after the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4569\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}