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Ceremonies of Ancient Greece

Ceremonies of Ancient Greece encompasses those practices of a formal religious nature celebrating particular moments in the life of the community or individual in Ancient Greece. Ancient Greek religion was not standardised and had no formalised canon of religious texts, nor single priestly hierarchy, and practices varied greatly. However, ceremonial life in pre-Christian Greece generally involved offerings of a variety of forms towards gods and heroes, as well as a plethora of public celebrations such as weddings, burial rites, and festivals.

Offerings

Libation

A man pours out a libation as depicted on an Attic terracotta cup

A libation is an offering involving the ritual pouring out of a liquid. In ancient Greece, such libations most commonly consisted of watered down wine, but also sometimes of pure wine, honey, olive oil, water or milk. It was a basic aspect of religion in ancient Greece, and possibly the most common religious practice. It was common to perform libations at the beginning and end of every day, and also at the beginning of meals, and was customarily paired with prayer to the gods, which was performed while standing upright and sometimes with their arms raised up.

Libation commonly involved the pouring of wine from a handheld vessel. It was common to pour the substance from a wine jug into a bowl known as a phiale. Then, a part of the substance was poured from the phiale as an offering and the remainder is consumed. This ritual was repeated whenever wine was served. It was typical for libations from each bowl to be dedicated for a specific purpose. During a symposium, it was customary to serve three successive bowls of wine, where libations from the first bowl were usually dedicated either to the Olympians or to Agathos Daimon, libations from the second were usually dedicated to the heroes of Greek myth and libations from the third bowl were dedicated either to Zeus Teleios or to Hermes. Individuals could also make additional dedications to gods of their own choosing.

It was common to also to perform libation as a part of animal sacrifices, where wine was poured onto the animal during the leadup to its sacrifice. Also, once the animal had been killed and burned, wine was poured onto the fire.

Libations were also poured into the dirt, as a ritual to honour both the humans and gods who reside in the underworld. The Odyssey explains one such offering, where a hole is dug by Odysseus in the earth, and water, honey and wine are spilled around it. Such libations could also be performed by tipping over a large vessel containing the substance to be offered. Libations would include blood in order to honour heroes who participated in war, while offerings at tombs would more commonly have involved milk or honey.

Animal Sacrifice

A scene depicting men sacrificing a pig on Ricci Hydria

A key aspect of ceremonial life involved the sacrificing of domestic animals. This was performed at an altar usually located outside of temples. Animal sacrifices were also accompanied with singing and with prayer. The animal was chosen, and should be of good stock and in good health, and bulls were preferred over other animals, though sacrifices could involve cows, sheep, goats, pigs and birds, however sheep were the most common animal that was sacrificed. The animal was adorned with garlands and led by a girl towards the altar. This girl concealed the sacrificial knife in a basket that she held over her head. Libations would also be poured over the animal. Various hymns were sung and prayers said as the animal was killed, and once the animal is slain, women were supposed to cry out loudly. The animal was butchered and its components were used for different purposes. The hide was usually bequeathed to the temple to sell, while the blood was poured over the altar. The meat is prepared to be consumed by the celebrants while all the remaining inedible parts are gathered together and burned as an offering to the gods. Libations might also be poured on the fire at this time. When honouring the gods of the underworld however, animal sacrifices were quite different, and the whole of the animal was burned as in a holocaust.

Animal sacrifices were practised at feasts in relation to the slaughtering of animals and the consumption of their meat. However, animal sacrifices were also used in order to win the favour of the gods, and so were used in times of disaster or before setting out upon some important mission, such as a military conflict.

Pharmakos

Pharmakos refers to the ritualistic sacrifice of a human scapegoat. This practice was used especially during times of disaster in order to appease the gods and to purify the community. However, it was also practised on a regular basis, such as on the first day of the Thargelia in Athens. Hipponax of Kolophon describes this process, where the two ugliest men that can be found were chosen to be sacrificed. Then, at the start of the Thargelia, the men were paraded around wearing fig-necklaces and beaten in the genitals using sticks from fig-trees. They were led to the seashore, where they were to be sacrificed, and killed by being stoned to death, then the corpses were burned and the ashes either cast into the sea or scattered onto the fields. Yet, there has been some contention about how reliable Hipponax's account was, especially given the time between when the ritual was performed and when Hipponax wrote.

Over time, this sacrificial ritual changed to a less severe form of atonement for a criminal act. So at sites like Lefkada, criminals would sometimes be taken to be cast down from a cliff side, but he would be watched and caught underneath by men in boats, and his descent would be slowed by attaching birds or feathers to him. This reflected a distinctly non-lethal form of the scapegoat ritual which some scholars have used to support the idea that the pharmakos ceremony was never practised as an execution, and even in its earlier form, only involved stoning and severe beatings, but never to the point of death.

Weddings

There were smaller rituals that would be performed before the wedding itself, such as a bath of purification, offerings and sacrifices made at the temple and a prenuptial feast. Among the different city-states of Ancient Greece, it was most common to perform the wedding ceremony after dusk. And at that time, the bride would be escorted by her family on the back of a chariot as it moved slowly toward the groom's house. This process of the bride leaving her father's house and joining her husband's was signified by the removal of the bride's veil. Another important ritual in the wedding ceremony was the offering up of an apple by the groom's family to be consumed by the bride. The wedding ceremony was formalised by the bride moving in to her husband's house as well as by the bride's father giving a dowry to the groom.

Marriage ceremonies in Sparta differed greatly from the rest of the Greek city-states. Unlike in the rest of Greece, Spartan women had to consent for the marriage to be valid and not just her parents. The ceremony itself was also quite simple and short and would involve the bride and the groom engage hand-to-hand combat until the groom is able to overpower his bride and carry her back to his home. After the ceremony was complete, like in the other city-states, the families of the couple would celebrate over a feast.

References

• Bremmer, J 1983, Scapegoat Rituals in Ancient Greece. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 87, 299- 320.
• Burkert, W 1985, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0674362810
• Christopher A. Faraone. (1993). Molten Wax, Spilt Wine and Mutilated Animals: Sympathetic Magic in near Eastern and Early Greek Oath Ceremonies. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 113, 60-80. doi:10.2307/632398
• Mikalson, J 2009, Ancient Greek Religion, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ
• Sarah, H 2009, King of Sacrifice: Ritual and Royal Authority in the Iliad
• Zaidman & Pantel, 1989, Religion in the Ancient Greek City