Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia
The sanctuary of Artemis Orthia was one of the most important religious sites in the Greek city of Sparta .
The sanctuary
The sanctuary is located in a natural basin between the Spartan Limnai district and the west bank of the Evrotas River . The oldest finds, ceramic pieces from the late Greek Middle Ages , indicate that the cult was likely to have existed since the 9th century BC. Has existed. Originally, the cult rituals were held on a rectangular earthen altar. At the beginning of the 8th century BC The Temenos was laid out with river stones and was surrounded by a trapezoidal wall. Later, an altar made of wood and stone and the temple were built. The work on it was financed from the spoils of the Spartan wars.
A second temple was built in 570 BC. Built during the double kingship of Leon and Agasikles , when further military successes made funds available. The area was filled up and leveled. An altar and a temple made of limestone was built, which was aligned with the previous system. The perimeter wall was also enlarged and assumed a rectangular shape. In the 2nd century BC A second temple was completely rebuilt in the 3rd century BC, but the altar was renovated in the 3rd century when the Romans built a theater to accommodate the onlookers for the Diamastigosis .
The cult
Primitive cult elements
Originally the cult of Orthia was a pre- Olympic religion. The inscriptions simply mentioned "Orthia".
The cult turned to a xoanon , a simple wooden statue with a reputation for evil. It is said to have come from Tauris , where it was stolen by Orestes and Iphigenia . Pausanias describes the origin of diamastigosis (ritual flagellation ):
- “I will provide further evidence that the Orthia in Lacedaemonia is the wooden image that came from the strangers. First of all, Astrabacus and Alopecus , the sons of Irbus (son of Amphisthenes, son of Amphicles, son of Agis ) went mad when they saw the picture. Second, the Spartan Limnatians, the Cynosurians, and the Mesoa and Pitane people fell into a quarrel while sacrificing to Artemis, which also led to bloodshed; many were killed before old age and the rest died of disease.
An oracle then prophesied that they should stain the altar with human blood. Whoever the lot fell on was to be sacrificed, but Lycurgus changed the custom that the ephebe should be flogged, hence this is how the altar is stained with human blood. Next to these stands the priestess holding the wooden picture. Now that is small and easy, but when the torturers loosen their rods because of the boy's beauty or his high rank, the statue becomes so heavy that the priestess can hardly carry it. She then blames the floggers and says it is their fault that she is depressed. Since the sacrifice celebrations in Tauris, the image has retained its preference for human blood. They not only call it Orthia, but also Lygodesma - "Lygosbound" because it was found in a Lygos scrub , and the surrounding bushes made the picture stand up. "(Pausanias, travel report from Greece 3, 16, 9-11)
According to Plutarch in his book Life of Aristides (17, 8), the ceremony is a reenactment of an episode in the Persian Wars .
In addition to flogging the diamastigosis , the cult consisted of solo dances by young men and choral dances by girls. For the young men, the price is a sickle, which implies an agricultural ritual.
The existence of votive offerings proves the popularity of the cult: clay masks representing old women or hoplites , bronze and terracotta figures depict men and women playing the flute, lyre or cymbal or mounting a horse.
The Artemis Orthia was worshiped in the four villages that made up the urban area of Sparta. The fifth village, Amyklai , had no part in the cult.
Diamastigosis
The cult of Orthia led to Diamastigosis (from diamastigô = "heavy whipping"), where Ephebe were whipped, as reported by Plutarch , Xenophon , Pausanias and Plato . Cheese was piled on the altar and guarded by adults with whips. The young men were instructed to take the cheese away despite the whips. At least up to the Roman era, the priestess could determine the force of the flogging; According to Pausanias , she wore the xoanon during the rite, and if it was too difficult for her, she blamed the whipers for beating too weakly.
During the Roman period, the ritual degenerated into a bloody spectacle with occasional death, as reported by Cicero ( Tusculanae disputationes , II, 34). Spectators came from all over the Empire. In the 3rd century a theater had to be built to accommodate the tourists. Libanios suggests that the spectacle attracted the curious until the 4th century.
Excavation of the site
The site was excavated from 1906-1910 by the British School at Athens . At the time, the site appeared to consist only of the ruins of a Roman theater, which was largely looted after the founding of modern Sparta in 1834 and was on the verge of falling into the river. Archaeologists, led by Richard M. Dawkins , soon found evidence of Greek colonization. Dawkins writes: "The Roman theater was effectively able to ... preserve a large number of ancient objects that shed light on primitive Sparta and thus gave this excavation capital significance." Another cleansing campaign took place at the sanctuary in 1928.
Remarks
- ↑ This article is largely based on the French and English contributions on the subject.
- ↑ There are different spellings such as "Orthria"; the poet Alkman ( Partheneion , I, v. 61) called them Aotis .
- ↑ "... to this day the ceremonies are celebrated as a full rite of whipping the young warriors around the altar of Sparta, followed by the procession of the Lydians." Plutarch, Life (3, 17, 8). Translation of the text from the Perseus project
bibliography
- Richard M. Dawkins: The sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta: excavated and described by members of the British School at Athens 1906-1910 . London 1929. Full text on the Internet
- Henri Jeanmaire: Couroi et Courètes: essai sur l'éducation spartiate et sur les rites d'adolescence dans l'Antiquité hellénique . Lille, Bibliothèque universitaire, 1939.
- John Boardman: Artemis Orthia and Chronology . In: The Annual of the British School at Athens . Volume 58, 1963, 1-7.
- AS Spawforth: Spartan Cults Under the Roman Empire . In: Philolakon: Lakonian Studies in Honor of Hector Catling . London 1992, pp. 227-238.
- P. Bonnechère: Orthia et la flagellation des éphèbes spartiates: un souvenir chimérique de sacrifice humain . In: Kernos . Volume 6, 1993, pp. 11-22.
- Paul Cartledge: Sparta and Lakonia. A Regional History 1300 to 362 BC . 2nd Edition. New York 2002, ISBN 0-415-26276-3
- Edmond Lévy: Section: histoire politique et sociale jusqu'à la conquête romaine . Paris 2003, ISBN 2-02-032453-9
Coordinates: 37 ° 4 ′ 58 ″ N , 22 ° 26 ′ 6 ″ E
Web links
- Sparta and Laconia, British School at Athens ( Memento from June 26, 2002 in the Internet Archive )