#hellenistic culture

[uncleclaudius]

In the Ancient Greek world aryballos (pl. aryballoi) was a small round flask containing oil or perfume. They were usually spherical or conical, but sometimes they were in animal shapes like these here: a hare, a swan, an owl, and a hedgehog, respectively.

[along-the-silkroad]

Anatolian Religion goes International: The Cult of the Goddess Kybele in the Ancient World

Bronze statuette of Kybele on a cart drawn by lions, Roman, 2nd half of 2nd century CE. MET (ID: 97.22.24).

During the Hellenistic period, mystery cults became increasingly popular. Many people found little comfort in the traditional Greek pantheon and, as a result, turned to other belief systems and forms of worship to fulfill their spiritual needs. Philosophical schools like Stoicism and Epicureanism flourished, while new religious cults emerged, often offering consolation for earthly hardships by promising rewards in the afterlife. Many of these cults were centered around foreign deities, partly due to their exotic and mysterious allure. One famous example is the Egyptian goddess Isis, whose cult quickly spread throughout the Mediterranean. These new religious practices were especially popular in various Hellenistic colonies but also gained a following on the Greek mainland. In fact, as early as the 5th century BCE, foreign cults began to make their way into classical Athens. Among these exotic deities was Kybele.

Kybele, also known as Ma or the Great Mother, was an ancient goddess of Anatolian origin. She was initially known in the Hittite world as Kubaba and was of local significance only in the city of Karkemish. During the period of the Neo-Hittite kingdoms (12th–8th century BCE), Kybele—as she came to be known in the Phrygian language—rose in prominence within the Anatolian pantheon. From then on, she was worshipped as a mother goddess, offering aid to those in need. It was in Phrygia that Kybele also developed into a goddess of raw nature, regarded as a divine force capable of taming the wild beasts that roamed the Anatolian landscape. She was often associated with the mountains and caverns that dotted the region. 

Cybele enthroned, with lion, cornucopia, and mural crown, Roman, c. 50 CE. Getty Museum

Her main center of worship was located in Pessinus, an ancient Phrygian trading hub on the high Anatolian plateau, situated along the Gallos River, a seasonal tributary of the Sakarya River. Her spirit was believed to dwell in a large black baetylus rock, which served as a sacred cult object. In 205/4 BCE, this stone was famously transported to Rome and placed in a sanctuary on the Palatine Hill after a prophecy declared that her assistance was crucial in the war against Hannibal.

As previously noted, Kybele became very popular in the Greek world. The oldest known temple dedicated to her in the Hellenic world is located on the island of Chios. The Daskalopetra monument, as it is called, was likely built sometime between the late 6th and early 5th centuries BCE. In the following decades, sanctuaries dedicated to Kybele appeared throughout the Greek world. These temples were even given a distinct name: Metroon.

One famous Metroon was in Athens, established next to the Boulè in the Agora. Its significance is evident from the fact that it was rebuilt after the Persians destroyed the original structure in 480 BCE. The Athenian Metroonalso served as a state archive, likely to invoke divine protection over the documents stored inside. Evidence suggests that the structure remained in use well into Late Antiquity. Other notable Metroa include one at Olympia and two in Asia Minor, at Kolophon and Smyrna, both of which were interestingly also used as state archives.

Excavated ruins of the Metroon in Athens.

Kybele was usually worshipped alongside her youthful consort, Attis. Attis is also a deity whose cult dates back to the Late Bronze Age. He originally was a local vegetation god associated with Pessinus. According to myth, Attis castrated himself, died, and resurrected. This was interpreted as a symbolic reference to the fruits of the earth, which die during winter and are reborn in spring. The story of Attis and Kybele was later popularized in literature through Catullus, who wrote a piece of 93 galliambic verses about Attis' self-mutilation.

Self-castration became a defining feature of the priests of Kybele. One could only be admitted to this priestly order after undergoing the harrowing ritual of self-castration. It was believed that sacrificing this body part granted the priests the power of prophecy. Another explanation for this self-mutilation was that it allowed the priests to maintain celibacy, enabling them to devote all their attention to Kybele. The priests of Kybele came to be known as Galli/Galloi, a term derived from the river Gallus, the earlier mentioned tributary of the Sakarya River, along which Pessinus was located. According to tradition, during a specific ritual, the priests drank from the stream, which inspired them with a frenzy.

In Rome, the Galli became an important college of priests, distinct from the other pontifices (priests) in that Roman citizens were completely excluded from this group. The Galli all came from Phrygia and were led by the so-called Archigallus. There were also Galloi in Asia Minor and Syria, known for traveling around and entertaining the masses with their ecstatic dances.

This ecstatic nature was also a key attribute of Kybele’s cult . She was often imagined as being accompanied by wild music and wine, followed by an entourage of men and women who had lost all self-control. This frenzy frequently led to acts of self-mutilation, an apparent reference to Attis. One theory suggests that this 'wild' aspect of Kybele’s cult originates from her association with the Cretan deity Rhea, whose worship also featured raucous, ecstatic rituals. The trance experienced by Kybele’s adherents was likely intended as a form of self-purification.

Cybele in a chariot driven by Nike and drawn by lions toward a votive sacrifice (right); above are heavenly symbols including a solar deity, Plaque from Ai Khanoum, Bactria (Afghanistan), 2nd century BCE

In literature, art, and other sources, Kybele is often depicted riding a chariot pulled by lions. One such famous representation can be admired at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The piece dates to the second half of the 2nd century CE. In this sculpture, the lions appear to have spouts emerging from their mouths, suggesting that the bronze work may have once been part of a fountain. Other theories propose that these spouts were designed to release steam or pour out other liquids instead of just water. Regardless of its original function, the piece is a remarkable example of the high quality of ancient Roman bronze sculpture and simultaneously highlights the popularity of Kybele’s cult in the ancient world, as the bronze is one of the countless artistic representations of the goddess dating back to antiquity.

Olivier Goossens

Read more: 

-Roller, L., In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele, 1999. 

-Merrill, E., Catullus, 1893. 

- Beard, M., "The Roman and the foreign: the cult of the "great mother" in imperial Rome", Shamanism, history, and the state, eds. N. Thomas & C. Hymphrey, 1994, pp. 164–190.

- Roscoe, W., "Priests of the Goddess: Gender Transgression in Ancient Religion", History of Religions, Vol. 35, 1969, pp. 195–230.

-Lane, E. (ed.), Cybele, Attis, and Related Cults: Essays in Memory of M.J. Vermaseren, 1996. 

- Alvar, J., Romanising Oriental Gods: Myth, Salvation and Ethics in the Cults of Cybele, Isis and Mithras, 2008. 

[blueiscoool]

HELLENISTIC GOLD RING WITH GALLEY GEMSTONE 1ST CENTURY B.C.-2ND CENTURY A.D.

[dreams-of-gods]

I love love love when people ask me to pray for them! yes!! I will pray for you!!!! I will pray for you so hard to every God I believe in!! I wish you all the happiness and love and joy and goodness in the world and I hope my prayers help bring that to you!

[votapublica]

Hellenistic monarch Miku- queen of onionia

Inspired by some of seleucus nicator’s statues

[artemlegere]

Daphnis and Chloe

Artist: François Gérard (French, 1770-1837)

Date: ca. 1824

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan, United States

Description

Daphnis and Chloe is a Greek pastoral novel written during the Roman Empire, the only known work of second-century Hellenistic romance writer Longus. It is set on the Greek isle of Lesbos, where scholars assume the author to have lived. Its style is rhetorical and pastoral; its shepherds and shepherdesses are wholly conventional, but the author imparts human interest to this idealized world.

[elbiotipo]

Unrelated (really, unrelated), but it's interesting that there is a conception that the Greek Gods (as in the Olympians and such) are considered the heritage of our current Western culture, when they never remained as static and "canonical" as most Greek mythology fans seem to believe. During the Hellenistic period, as Greek culture spread through Alexander's conquests and Greek colonizations the gods and their importance varied. It's really interesting that as big empires with multicultural populations (Hellenistic Egypt, the Romans) arose, there also arose "universal" gods, like Serapis and the spread of Hellenic philosophy. And then with the Romans who weren't exactly Hellenistic, but they continued these dynamics with the Interpretatio Graeca, mystery cults, the interaction with Zoroastrian beliefs. And of course, the rise of Christianity at the end of this period.

And I'm not saying this in the "the Romans were tolerant" sense, but as how religion evolved and adapted as empires spread.

Of course, I'm mostly talking in a religious sense here, as in people actually worshipping the gods. In the sense that they are "myths" and fables, that could be another way of looking at them, but that mostly, I think, dates from the interest on Grecorroman culture from the Renaissance onwards. The Middle Ages weren't as influenced by Hellenism.

[somecunttookmyurl]

wild to me that people are actually trying to defend that classification system cause my reaction whenever i see poor curation is the unshakeable urge to go get a qualification in curation just to be able to storm back in and smack everyone's hands away so i can do it properly this time (yes i know it would never be that easy, but a woman can dream)

even if it would make sense at all ever to group them all together like that (it wouldn't! if for no other reason than they aren't ordinarily labelled like that and so the natural reaction is at least some degree of confusion) there are still... literal factural inaccuracies everywhere?

It's Just Bad, Man

[uncleclaudius]

Various copies of one the antiquity's most popular statues - The Crouching Venus, portraying the goddess startled while taking a bath.

Farnese Venus, now in the National Archeological Museum of Naples.

Lely Venus, now in the British museum.

An example now exhibited at Palazzo Altemps, Rome.

A statue from Uffizi, Florence, was part of the Medici collection.

A statue discovered at Hadrian's villa in Tivoli, now in Palazzo Massimo, Rome.

So-called Venus of Vienne, now in the Louvre.

[along-the-silkroad]

The Lycian Rock Tombs, Fethiye, Türkiye, c. 4th century BCE. 

[blueiscoool]

Ancient Greek Gold Earring with Sphinx Hellenistic, 4th – 3rd century B.C.

[slutcore-starships]

Hey you should tell us things about the Trojan Horse... 🥰🥰🥰

alright strap in because i have . Thoughts™️™️

so the way the story gets taught - especially when not actually being told through the iliad and the aeneid - is that the king odysseus built the horse as a trap for the trojans and offered it as a gift; however, the wooden horse was full of greek soldiers who erupted out at night and sacked the city. its spawned its own term, a trojan horse, for something that seems like a gift but is actually a trap - its even its own sort of computer virus!!

AND ITS COMPLETE HORSESHIT

the horse isnt a gift to troy!! its a gift to the gods!! and removing that detail, boiling it down, stripping it of that context, fundamentally robs the story of its meaning!! the /entire point/ of /every/ story of the trojan war is built around the same principle - the same principle at the heart of the majority of stories and folktales from the era - and its fairly obvious from the very beginning!!

the whole thing only begins because the goddess eris throws the goddesses of olympus into chaos by pitting them against each other in a glorified beauty competition, which leads to them seeking out a mortal mediator in the prince paris. hera aphrodite and athena each appeal to the prince to choose them in exchange for an incredible reward, and /this/ is where he fucks up!!

if he just says “i hold the utmost respect for all the gods of olympus, which is why i could never be worthy of judging any of you,” then he probably just gets sent home with an olympian gift basket and the whole thing stops there, but he doesnt!! he’s suckered into the competition and takes sides between the gods, which is an /obvious/ fuck up, and pursues the lust offered to him by aphrodite!! he sacrifices his humility and grace in favor of his boner, and in exchange, he is offered the hand of a /married queen/, helen!!

(btw this is why i think the version of the story where he kidnaps her from sparta instead of just having a hell of an affair is the most impactful and likely canonical . the whole thing starts with him pursuing something that was never his in the first place!! the whole point is about his arrogance and greed and having this woman as an active accomplice, even if under some sort of spell, robs the fall of troy of some weight)

and when the war begins in earnest, arrogance and ego and pride are the defining factors of the conflict!! it is a source of division on both sides, it wrecks the greeks, it underpins the politics of troy, it is the number one reason why the named heroes who fall in battle do so!! hand in hand with that, you have the relationship between the gods and mortals!! the majority of the gods in olympus take sides during the battle - with those closest to aphrodite siding with troy and the rest rallying behind the greeks - and leaving their marks on the battlefield!! the only one who can even begin to compete with them is achilles - the most powerful demigod in the world with several gods behind him in his own right - and even though he manages to best ares (who is, quite frankly, the embodiment of arrogance and hubris in this story), he is still felled by an arrow guided by apollo!! even the man closest to divinity is not above the gods, which gives you a pretty good idea for whats about to happen to troy!!

so, when it becomes obvious that greece isnt going to be able to breach troys walls of their own accord and a few too many of their best heroes have been slain, odysseus comes up with a plan: the greeks will move to pull out and leave behind a cornucopia of offerings to the gods - most notably, a giant wooden horse to athena, goddess of wisdom on the battlefield, personal backer of odysseus, and one of the main goddesses scorned in this entire affair. the greeks gather and burn their dead, set up their shrine, pile up the offerings, and sail away.

and /this/ is where the themes of the entire story collide and bring troy to its need. drunk on hubris and the taste of victory, inflated on an ego that could lift them high above mount olympus, the trojan leadership decides that, actually, if you think about it, they /deserve/ those sacrifices, they deserve those offerings, thats a /hell/ of a horse and it should belong to us!! the priests obviously recoil, you cant just /do that/, what the fuck are you talking about, and they and those closest to them feel the way the winds blowing and dont quite drop their guard

once the trojans have looted the offerings and brought them into the city, they proceed to get absolutely shitfaced and party until they collapse, leaving only those with their faith shaken awake and alert. and we all know what happens next: the greeks spill out, slaughter their way through the troops, call the ships back, and sack troy. those who didnt put their faith in paris flee and depart for calmer waters - eventually going on to help found rome. the arrogance of troy sees it burn and the greeks emerge victorious, though a mistake on the part of odysseus - now himself drunk on victory!! - will see his path twist and turn as he must learn the humility that troy so utterly lacked. the /entire point/ of every story told about troy is that you dont place yourself above the gods - no one is infallible and no one is invincible, not achilles, not paris, not odysseus, and certainly not you!! thats the entire point!! thats the whole point of everything!! and that most crucial of themes is always completely abandoned!! the whole heart of the story is left to rot!! the cultural context is stripped away, and for what??

anyways . just a reminder that its never too late to learn something new and that arrogance and greed will never lead to anything but ruin for everyone around you, i guess

[earl-grey-crow]

rip 😭

[oaths-sworn-in-blood]

Εἰ δ’ ἀγῶνα συνθέμεν φιλεῖς,

φρένα μὴ προλέλαθ’ ἁλίου θερμότατον φέγγος,

μηδ’ Ὀλυμπίας ἀγῶνα,

ὅθεν ἀμφιβρέμει κότινος,

ἄνδρας ἀριστεύοντας ἀνάγειν ἐς θεοὺς ὁμοίους.

- Πίνδαρος

"But if you wish to sing of great deeds,

look no further than the sun,

whose rays crown the victors of Olympia,

honored among men, wreathed in glory

like the gods themselves."

- Pindar

[artemlegere]

Daphnis and Chloe

Artist: Pierre Cabanel (French, 1838–1918)

Date: 1870

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Newfields, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States

Description

Daphnis and Chloe is the story of a boy (Daphnis) and a girl (Chloe), each of whom is abandoned at birth along with some identifying tokens. A goatherd named Lamon discovers Daphnis, and a shepherd called Dryas finds Chloe. Each decides to raise the child he finds as his own. Daphnis and Chloe grow up together, herding the flocks for their foster parents. They fall in love but, being naive, do not understand what is happening to them.

Philetas, a wise old cowherd, explains to them what love is and tells them that the only cure is kissing. They do this. Eventually, Lycaenion, a woman from the city, educates Daphnis in love-making. Daphnis, however, decides not to test his newly acquired skill on Chloe, because Lycaenion tells Daphnis that Chloe "will scream and cry and lie bleeding heavily [as if murdered]."

Throughout the book, Chloe is courted by suitors, two of whom (Dorcon and Lampis) attempt with varying degrees of success to abduct her. She is also carried off by raiders from a nearby city and saved by the intervention of the god Pan. Meanwhile, Daphnis falls into a pit, gets beaten up, is abducted by pirates, and is very nearly raped by a drunkard. In the end, after being recognized by their birth parents, Daphnis and Chloe get married and live out their bucolic lives in the country.

[koenji]

“To the place of trumpeting …,” Hebrew inscription on a parapet from the Temple Mount, Western Wall excavations at the south-western corner of the Temple Mount, Jerusalem. Herodian period, 1st century BCE. Stone, H: 31; L: 86; W: 26 cm. Israel Antiquities Authority. x

This incised stone block is one of the most fascinating remains of Herod's Temple (also known as the Second Temple). It apparently fell from the southwest corner of the Temple Mount to the street below, where it was discovered by excavators. The formal inscription "to the place of trumpeting..." and the shape of the stone suggest that it was once part of a parapet that ran along the wall of the Temple complex. According to Josephus, this was the location of "the roof of the priests' chambers, where one of the priests invariably stood to proclaim by trumpet blast, in the late afternoon the approach of every seventh day, and on the next evening its close..." (Josephus, The Jewish War, 4, 9). Presumably, the trumpet blasts could be heard throughout Jerusalem – in the City of David to the south and in the Upper City to the west.

The final word in the inscription is partially missing and can be interpreted in either of two ways: "to declare [the Sabbath]" or "to distinguish [between the sacred and the profane]."