Protothronia

Protothronia ( ancient Greek Πρωτοθρονία "on the first throne" ) is an epicle of the Greek goddess Artemis , with whom she was worshiped on Samos and in Ephesus .

Pausanias reports that Artemis Protothronia had an altar in the temple of Artemis in Ephesus , over which the Epiclesis was written. On the surrounding wall of the altar was a statue by the sculptor Rhoikos , which the Ephesians interpreted as Nyx . Their veneration on Samos has been handed down to Callimachus of Cyrene , who calls them with this name in his hymn to Artemis . Since the supreme goddess of Samos was Hera , the passage is read as an indication that Artemis was the main goddess of Samos before Hera and that a change of cult had taken place. This also explains the passage in the Dionysiacs of Nonnos of Panopolis in which Hera is given the epithet Protothronia.

Since the representation of an enthroned Artemis is completely unknown in Greek art , it was suggested that Protothronia and the associated adjective protathronos should not be assigned to θρόνος ( thronos , "throne"), but to θρόνα ( throna ), a seldom used word for "flowers", to ask, which would mean the cult of a spring goddess. Textiles on which flowers and buds could be seen were also referred to as thrones. On Roman copies of Ephesian cult statues, there are also flower buds and bees, which indicate a corresponding decoration of the vestments attached to the cult statues.

literature

• Otto Höfer : Protothronia and Protothronos . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 3.2, Leipzig 1909, column 3186 ( digitized version ).
• Viktor Gebhard : Protothronia and Protothronos. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XXIII, 1, Stuttgart 1957, Sp. 987.

Remarks

1. ^ Pausanias 10:38, 6.
2. ↑ Callimachus of Cyrene, Hymnos to Artemis 228.
3. ^ Fritz Bornmann: Callimachi Hymnus in Dianam (= Biblioteca di studi superiori 55). La Nuova Italia, Florence 1968; Günter Dunst: On the Sami Artemis. In: Chiron . Volume 2, 1972, pp. 192-200.
4. ↑ Pierre Chuvin : Mythologie et geographie dionysiaques. Research on the oeuvre de Nonnos de Panopolis. Adosa, Clermont-Ferrand 1992, ISBN 2-86639-116-0 , p. 166.
5. ^ Nonnos of Panopolis, Dionysiaka 8, 166.
6. ↑ Helmut Engelmann : Artemis Protothronia. In: Journal of Papyrology and Epigraphy. Volume 117, 1997, p. 18 ( online )