1. Piggott, Stuart, Wagon, Chariot and Carriage. Symbol and Status in the History of Transport (London: Thames and Hudson, 1992), pp. 79–80.
2. The cavalrymen played a major role in overthrowing Athenian democracy and supporting the oligarchy of 404–403 BC . See Bugh, Glenn Richard, The Horsemen of Athens (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 122–9; Spence, I.G. The Cavalry of Classical Greece (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 216–24.
3. Alföldy describes the Equestrians as ‘the nouveaux riches , who began to form themselves into a separate social group, the equestrian order’: Alföldy, Géza, The Social History of Rome , translated by David Braund and Frank Pollock (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), p. 45.
4. ‘The horse […] became a part of the mystique of kingship’, Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 74. In Classical Athens, Xenophon notes the psychological impact of a horseman on the general public ( De Re Equestri 11: 8–9), and that horsemen are well-off and govern most states (Xenophon, De Re Equestri 2, 1).
5. The ‘stables of Augeias’ were cow-sheds, which makes this Labour even more difficult and revolting.
6. Valerius Maximus 1: 8, 1. See Chapter 7 for this and other stories about the horse gods in Rome.
7. See below, ‘Horses’.
8. To this very day, if anyone is born between 22 May and 21 June, the horse gods help them decide what to do with their lives, because they are the twins of the zodiac sign Gemini.
9. Farnell, Lewis Richard, Greek Hero Cults and the Ideas of Immortality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921), pp. 179–80; Gonda, Jaan, The Dual Deities in the Religion of the Veda (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1974), pp. 49–50; Zeller, Gabriele, Die Vedischen Zwillingsgötter. Untersuchungen zur Genese ihres Kultes (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1990), pp. 15–22, 47, 151, 154, 158.
10. Harris, James Rendel, The Cult of the Heavenly Twins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1906), p. 152.
11. Sternberg, Leo, ‘Der antike Zwillingskult im Lichte der Ethnologie’, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 61 (1929), pp. 152–200 (this is a German translation of his Russian article, which appeared in 1916); Sidney Hartland, Edwin, ‘Twins’, in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1955), pp. 491–500.
12. Farnell calls Harris’s work ‘among modern treatises by far the most hopeful and helpful’, Farnell: Greek Hero Cults , p. 179. Ward accepts his notion of ‘Universal Dioscurism’. See Ward, Donald, The Divine Twins (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1968), pp. 3–8. Gonda cites him frequently. See Gonda: Dual Deities , pp. 34–7. Zeller regrets that ‘the significance of Harris’ rich material and conclusions are still unrecognized in Indology’, Zeller: Die Vedischen Zwillingsgötter , p. 17. Wiseman alone is sceptical, though he is concerned only with Harris’s theory about the Roman twins, Romulus and Remus. He declares, somewhat prematurely, that ‘Rendel Harris is a forgotten man’: Wiseman, T.P., Remus: A Roman Myth (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 30.
13. Harris: Heavenly Twins appears in the bibliography to Bianchi's article on twins. See Bianchi, Ugo, ‘Twins’, in Jones, Lindsay (editor), Encyclopedia of Religion (Detroit, MI: Macmillan, 2005), vol. 14, p. 9418. In Chemery's article on meteorological beings, the Cult of the Heavenly Twins and Boanerges of Harris are praised as ‘two old but still fascinating studies’: Chemery, Peter C. ‘Meteorological Beings’, in Jones, Lindsay (editor), Encyclopedia of Religion (Detroit, OH: Macmillan, 2005), vol. 9, p. 5996. The Cult of the Heavenly Twins has been cited above (note 6), Boanerges is Harris, James Rendel, Boanerges (Cambridge: University Press, 1913).
14. Harris, James Rendel, The Dioscuri in the Christian legends (London: C.J. Clay, 1903), pp. 20–2.
15. Harris: Dioscuri in Christian legends , pp. 38–9.
16. Harris: Heavenly Twins and Boanerges .
17. In Boanerges , he argues for a primitive trinity of the thunder-god and his twin assistants. He believes that polytheistic belief is ultimately based on the fear of thunder and the fear of twins. ‘We might almost say that on these two dreads hang nine-tenths of subsequent religion,’ Harris: Boanerges , p. 30. Harris himself believes in a future Reformation that will free Christianity from its Dioscuric ‘veil of error’, Harris: Heavenly Twins , p. 154.
18. Krappe, Alexandre Haggerty, Mythologie Universelle (Paris: Payot, 1930).
19. Harris: Boanerges , pp. 198 and 208. He uses the term ‘Assessor’ in its literal meaning of ‘one who sits beside’ (God).
20. Harris: Boanerges , pp. 20–48. Krappe believes that the worldwide twin gods were originally worshipped indifferently as horses, woodpeckers, or oaks. See Krappe: Mythologie Universelle , pp. 67–80. Krappe also emphasizes that the Indo-Europeans must have worshipped them in all three forms before they dispersed to their later habitations. See Krappe: Mythologie Universelle , pp. 71, 76–7 and 79–80.
21. Harris: Heavenly Twins , p. 152.
22. Leis, Philip E., ‘The Nonfunctional Attributes of Twin Infanticide in the Niger Delta’, Anthropological Quarterly 38 (1965), p. 98. On the one hand, Peek encourages us to look at positive attitudes to twins in Africa, and Lawal points out that the Oyo Yoruba had originally killed twins, but started to honour them by the nineteenth century. On the other hand, Renne notes that twin infanticide was still occurring among other Yoruba peoples in the twentieth century, and that conversion to Christianity played a major role in its abolition. See Peek, Philip, ‘Introduction: Beginning to Rethink Twins’, in Peek, Philip M. Twins in African and Diaspora Culture. Double Trouble, Twice Blessed (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011), pp. 6 and 19–20; Lawal, Babatunde, ‘Sustaining the Oneness in Their Twoness: Poetics of Twin Figures (Ère Ìbeji) among the Yoruba’, in Peek, Twins in African and Diaspora Culture : pp. 87–90; Renne, Elisha R. ‘The Ambiguous Ordinariness of Yoruba Twins’, in Peek, Twins in African and Diaspora Culture : pp. 307–9. Harris had noticed the great diversity in attitudes to twins, but he had attributed it to ‘the perplexing and contradictory mind of primitive man’ (Harris: Heavenly Twins , p. 22). He was perplexed that their behaviour was contradicting his grand theory.
23. Ball, Helen L., and Hill, Catherine M. ‘Reevaluating “Twin Infanticide”’, Current Anthropology 37 (1996), p. 857.
24. For evidence of contemporary twin infanticide, visit the website omochild.org, and see Alessandra Piontelli, Twins in the World. The Legends They Inspire, the Lives They Lead (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 65–6 (nineteenth-century Japan), p. 80 ( Indios of Venezuela), pp. 101–6 (Ethiopia), p. 110 (Philippines), pp. 120 and 127 (Madagascar), pp. 131–3 (Laos), pp. 141–2 and 147–8 (Gran Chaco), pp. 153–6 (Guinea Bissau). Piontelli, a medical doctor with vast experience in this field, gives a very humane account of the inhuman conditions endured by people at the bottom of the global economy. Her work is a breath of fresh air (and a dash of cold water) to people like myself who tend to romanticize or intellectualize the world views of people located at a safe distance. I am grateful to Kimberley Patton for introducing me to this moving book.
25. Sternberg: ‘Der antike Zwillingskult’, pp. 166–9; Krappe: Mythologie Universelle , pp. 53–99 (‘le Dioscurisme’); Ward: Divine Twins , pp. 3–8 (‘Universal Dioscurism’).
26. Pots often act as surrogate wombs in Vedic thought. See Jamison, Stephanie, The Ravenous Hyenas and the Wounded Sun. Myth and Ritual in Ancient India (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 231 and 236–9.
27. Vasiṣṭha is called Maitrāvaruṇa at RV 7: 33, 11a, and both Agastya and Vasiṣṭha are Maitrāvaruṇi in later texts (commentaries and epic).
28. Agastya finds a family for Vasiṣṭha, by having him adopted by the Tṛtsus, the family of the Bharata kings whom the upstart Vasiṣṭhas will serve as royal priests ( purohitas ): ‘Agastya brings you to the people ( viś ),’ RV 7: 33, 10d; ‘respect him benevolently, Vasiṣṭha is coming to you, Pratṛds’, RV 7: 33, 14cd. The Pratṛds are the Tṛtsus (the Vasiṣṭhas are called Tṛtsus at RV 7: 83, 8). The Vasiṣṭhas needed to be introduced to this family because they were recent immigrants from Eastern Iran. See Witzel, Michael, ‘Rgvedic History: Poets, Chieftains and Polities’, in Erdosy, George, The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia. Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1995), pp. 334 and 335, and note 80 on p. 335. In a later work, Witzel suggests that the Vasiṣṭhas may have belonged to or been adopted into the Agastya family, which once again indicates a subordinate position to Agastya and his family. See Witzel, Michael, ‘The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools: The Social and Political Milieus’, in Witzel, Michael (editor), Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 289 note 145.
29. Taittirīya Saṃhitā 5: 1, 5 ⁵ ; Taittirīya Saṃhitā 7: 1, 1 ² ; Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 4: 9, 3; Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 6: 3, 1 ²³ .
30. It is not immediately clear from the Taittirīya Saṃhitā itself whether humans are like male asses or mares, whether the ability to produce twins lies in the man who has his ‘double semen’, or the woman who is ‘doubly reproductive’. In either case, only one father would, of course, be required to produce twins. Other texts make it clear that the power to produce twins does, in fact, belong to the mother.
31. For relevant texts and discussions see Tewari, Premvati, Āyurvedīya Prasūti-Tantra Evaṃ Strī-Roga. Part I. Prasūti-Tantra ( Obstetrics) (Delhi: Chaukhambha Orientalia, 1986), pp. 173–7. I would like to thank Martha Selby at the University of Texas at Austin for this reference.
32. Homer tells us that they are brother and sister ( Iliad 20: 71) and that Lētō is their mother ( Iliad 24: 605–609). The first explicit description of them as twins ( didumoi , a relatively rare word in early and Classical Greek and nowhere used of the Dioskouroi!) appears in Pindar, Olympian Odes 3: 35, which dates from 476 BC .
33. Krēthōn and Orsilokhos ( Iliad 5: 548–549) are the twin sons of Dioklēs; Aisēpos and Pēdasos are the twin sons of Boukoliōn ( Iliad 6: 21–26).
34. They are called twins ( didumoi ) at Iliad 23: 641; sons of Aktoriōn and Molionē ( Aktoriōne Molīone paide ) at Iliad 11: 750. They are the sons of Poseidōn implicitly at Iliad 11: 751, and explicitly in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women , fr. 17b MW=fr. 14 Most. The Moliones are depicted as conjoined twins in Greek art and in later Greek literature ( Catalogue of Women , fr. 18 MW=fr. 15 Most).
35. Krēthōn and Orsilokhos are killed by Aineias ( Iliad 5: 541–542); Aisēpos and Pēdasos are killed by Eurualos ( Iliad 6: 21–28); the Moliones are killed by Hēraklēs (Ibycus fr. 285 Campbell; Pindar, Olympian Odes 10: 26–34).
36. Herodotus 6: 52.
37. The only comparable case is that of Zeus and Semelē, the mother of Dionusos. In this case too ‘a mortal woman gave birth to an immortal’, as Hesiod says at Theogony , 942.
38. Pindar, Nemean Odes 3: 22.
39. Homer is already aware of this paradox, and he tells us that the ghost of Hēraklēs is down in the Underworld with all the other dead mortals, but Hēraklēs himself , the god Hēraklēs, is among the other gods with his wife Hēbē ( Odyssey 11: 601–604).
40. In the Iliad (18: 117), he is human, but he is a god in the Odyssey , so his divine cult has already been established by the eighth century BC , though the more conservative Iliad chooses to ignore it.
41. Homer, Iliad 14: 323–324 and Iliad 19: 97–105; Hesiod, Theogony 943–944. Hesiod does, however, mention Iolaos (the son of Iphiklēs) as the companion of Hēraklēs at Theogony 317.
42. Hesiodic Shield of Hēraklēs 53–56. It is Iolaos, the son of Iphiklēs, who acts as the charioteer and constant companion of Hēraklēs.
43. Homer, Iliad 3: 236–244. According to the rules of Ancient Greek myth, if a mother is mortal, it does not matter whether the father is human or divine. In either case, the offspring would be human. According to the rules of Dioscurism, this could only happen if the fathers of both twins were human. Greek myth violates both the Dioscuric principle that all twins must have a human father and a divine one, and the Dioscuric principle that the divinity of a father must lead to the birth of a divine son.
44. Homer, Odyssey 11: 298–304.
45. It does refer to them as Tundaridai in line 2, but the narrative makes it clear that Zeus is their father.
46. Hesiodic Catalogue of Women fr. 24 MW=fr. 21 Most.
47. Homeric Hymn 33 (to the Dioskouroi): 10.
48. Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion , translated by John Raffan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 200
49. Stasinus, Cypria fr. 9 West.
50. In their great work on Asklēpios, the Edelsteins contrast real kings and heroes with a physician like Asklēpios. See Edelstein, Emma J., and Edelstein, Ludwig, Asclepius (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), vol. 2, pp. 2–5 and 9–10. The same objection applies to the sons of Asklēpios. ‘Machaon and Podalirius are physicians rather than warriors, craftsmen rather than kings,’ Edelstein and Edelstein: Asclepius , vol. 2, p. 9.
51. Taittirīya Saṃhitā 6: 4, 9 ¹–² .
52. ‘The glorious hero is also a slave, a woman, and a madman. The son of Zeus is no Zeus-honoured king, but is from the very outset subject to Eurystheus, the king of Mycenae, who is in turn subject to Hera, the goddess of the Argolid.’ Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 210.
53. As we shall see later, it is not really certain that the sons of Zeus are divine or that the sons of Tundareos are mortal. See below, Chapter 5, ‘Between Gods and Men’.
54. Atharva-Veda 3: 28, 1–2.
55. Atharva-Veda 3: 28, 2–4. Harris discusses this passage, but spends most of his time denouncing the Brahmins for their greed in confiscating the cow, which he assumes to be the main purpose of this practice. See Harris: Boanerges , pp. 183–4.
56. Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 7: 9.
57. Yamī not unreasonably points out to her brother that he is the only male human in the world, and that she has no option but to sleep with him ( RV 10: 10, 3). Yama rejects her proposal, but the hymn does not explain where humans came from in that case. There is a similar problem with the children of Adam and Eve, but the composers of Genesis seem to have accepted the inevitability of primitive incest with quiet Stoicism.
58. Zeller: Die Vedischen Zwillingsgötter , pp. 47–8.
59. The circuit ( vartis ) of the Aśvins is ‘man-saving’ ( nṛpāyiyam ), RV 8: 9, 18d and 8: 26, 14b.
60. Homer describes their team-work in a chariot-race – one works the reins while the other uses the whip (Homer, Iliad 23: 641–642). A contemporary vase-painting (735–720 BC ) shows the conjoined twins climbing onto a chariot in a battle-scene ( LIMC ( Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae ), vol. 1, part 1: 473; LIMC , vol. 1, part 2: 364, image 3).
61. When they beat Nestōr in a chariot-race, he complains, ‘they got ahead of me by force of numbers’ (Homer, Iliad 23: 638–639), but they fill him with envy rather than horror.
62. Herodotus 6: 52. The more prestigious Agiad family was descended from Eurusthenēs, the twin who was born first; the other royal family, the Eurupontidai, derived from the second twin, Proklēs.
63. The saying is attributed to ‘inspired poets born long ago’ ( viprāso […] purājāḥ , RV 1: 118, 3d).
64. They save several heroes from a trap (Antaka, Atri, Saptavadhri and Vandana), and two from the sea (Bhujyu, and Rebha).
65. They supply dehydrated devotees with water (Gotama and Śara) and with milk (Atri, and Śayu).
66. They rejuvenate Cyavana and Kakṣīvant.
67. They arrange happy marriages for Ghoṣā, Puraṃdhi, and Vadhrimatī.
68. They replace one devotee's leg (Viśpalā) and restore eye-sight to others (Kaṇva, Ṛjāśva).
69. They bring to life Dadhyañc (who had been beheaded) and Śyāva (who had been cut to pieces).
70. Taittirīya Saṃhitā 6: 4, 9 ¹–² . See Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 4: 1, 5 ¹⁴ .
71. ‘Therefore a Brahmin should not practise medicine, for the physician is impure, unfit for a sacrifice.’ Taittirīya Saṃhitā 6: 4, 9 ² .
72. It was based on a lost Greek original, and we know that several Greek playwrights produced comedies called Twins ( Didumoi ).
73. Plautus, Menaechmi 18–21.
74. Some Indian thinkers felt that the Aśvins as a pair represented the twilight, so they could be analysed separately as gods of night and day. The nighttime twin was the son of Vivasvant (later worshipped as a sun-god) and Vasāti (Night), and the daytime twin was the son of Dyaus (Sky) and Uṣas (Dawn). See Yaska, Nirukta 12, 2 and Geldner, Karl Friedrich. Der Rig-Veda, aus dem Sanskrit ins Deutsche übers. und mit einem laufenden Kommentar versehen von Karl Friedrich Geldner (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951), vol. 1, p. 261.
75. Keith, Arthur Berriedale, The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925), p. 329.
76. Turner, Victor W., ‘Paradoxes of Twinship in Ndembu Ritual’, in The Ritual Process , pp. 44–93 (Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing Company, 1969), p. 45.
77. This discrepancy disappears when Poludeukēs voluntarily surrenders his immortality so that he may die with his brother (Pindar, Nemean Ode 10, 57–59), and both of them become part-time gods, spending every second day on Olumpos (Pindar, Nemean Ode 10, 55–57).
78. Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 43. The Greeks knew that horses were happier on open plains. See Griffith, Mark, ‘Horsepower and Donkeywork: Equids and the Ancient Greek Imagination’, Classical Philology 101 (2006), p. 197 note 49.
79. Anthony, David W., The Horse, the Wheel, and Language (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 136.
80. Levine, Marsha, ‘The Origins of Horse Husbandry on the Eurasian Steppe’, in Levine, Marsha et al., Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe , (Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 1999), p. 24.
81. Anthony, David, and Brown, Dorcas R., ‘The Origins of Horseback Riding’, Antiquity 65 (1991), p. 32; Levine: ‘Origins of Horse Husbandry’, p. 5; Anthony: Horse, Wheel, and Language , p. 247.
82. Anthony and Brown: ‘Origins of Horseback Riding’, p. 32; Anthony: Horse, Wheel, and Language , pp. 247–8. Originally, Anthony and Brown had also believed that the inhabitants of Dereivka invented horseback riding but this turned out to be incorrect. See Anthony: Horse, Wheel, and Language , pp. 213–16.
83. Levine points out that if horses are being raised for their meat (as still happens in Kazakhstan and Mongolia), they will not be killed off during their prime reproductive years from four to fifteen. See Levine: ‘Origins of Horse Husbandry’, pp. 24, 27, and 31. At Dereivka, in contrast, most of the horses were killed and eaten between the ages of five and eight, which suggests that they were not domesticated. See Levine: ‘Origins of Horse Husbandry’, p. 36; Hyland, Ann, The Horse in the Ancient World (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), pp. 3–5.
84. Using the same methodology, Levine had concluded that the horses at Botai in Kazakhstan (3700–3000 BC ) were hunted. See Levine: ‘Origins of Horse Husbandry’, pp. 43–4. Recent archaeological discoveries show, however, that they were domesticated. See Outram, Alan K. et al., ‘The Earliest Horse Harnessing and Milking’, Science 323 (2009), pp. 1332–5.
85. Anthony: Horse, Wheel, and Language , pp. 216–20; Outram: ‘Earliest Horse Harnessing and Milking’.
86. Anthony: Horse, Wheel, and Language , p. 200.
87. Khazanov (an expert on pastoral nomads) is quoted at Levine: ‘Origins of Horse Husbandry’, p. 14. See Anthony: Horse, Wheel, and Language , p. 221.
88. Levine: ‘Origins of Horse Husbandry’, p. 10.
89. The size of the horses shows that they were domesticated. See Outram: ‘Earliest Horse Harnessing and Milking’, p. 1333. Dental damage reveals that they had been ridden with bits. See Outram: ‘Earliest Horse Harnessing and Milking’, pp. 1333–4. Since the bit would have been made of organic materials such as rope or leather, some scholars do not believe that it could have caused this dental damage. See Hyland: Horse in Ancient World , p. 55; Drews, Robert, The Coming of the Greeks (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 19–20 and 83–5.
90. Traces of fat from mare's milk were found on the pottery. See Outram: ‘Earliest Horse Harnessing and Milking’, p. 1334–5.
91. Hyland: Horse in Ancient World , p. 5.
92. Ludwig, Arne et al., ‘Coat Color Variation at the Beginning of Horse Domestication’, Science 324 (2009), p. 485.
93. The first rigid saddles were developed in Siberia between the fifth and third centuries BC . See Levine: ‘Origins of Horse Husbandry’, p. 52; Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 75. They reached China by the fourth century AD and Western Europe by the ninth century AD . See Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 75.
94. The stirrup was invented in India in second century BC . It was widely used in China by the fifth century AD , and came to Western Europe in the eighth century AD . See Hobson, John, The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 103; Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 89.
95. Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 16; Anthony: Horse, Wheel, and Language , pp. 69–72.
96. Piggott points out that the heavy solid-wheeled ox-cart cannot have developed on the steppes or in a semi-desert region. See Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 17.
97. Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 18.
98. Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 18.
99. Hodges, Henry, Technology in the Ancient World (New York, NY: Barnes and Noble, 1970), p. 86; Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , pp. 39–40; Anthony, David, and Vinogradov, Nikolai B., ‘Birth of the Chariot’, Archaeology 48 (1995), p. 40; Hyland: Horse in Ancient World , p. 9.
100. Hyland: Horse in Ancient World , p. 9.
101. The stiff horse collar was invented by the Chinese in the third century AD , and it reached Europe by the tenth century AD . See Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , pp. 67 and 137; Hobson: Eastern Origins , p. 102.
102. As with oxen, the main function of the horse was to provide milk and meat. See Drews, Robert, Early Riders: the Beginnings of Mounted Warfare in Asia and Europe (New York, NY: Routledge, 2004), pp. 12–14 and 24–5.
103. Anthony and Vinogradov: ‘Birth of Chariot’, pp. 36–41.
104. Anthony: Horse, Wheel, and Language , pp. 222–3; 460.
105. Drews: Early Riders , p. 51.
106. Falk, Harry. Bruderschaft und Würfelspiel. Untersuchungen zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des vedischen Opfers (Freiburg: Hedwig Falk, 1986), p. 54.
107. Falk: Bruderschaft und Würfelspiel , pp. 64–5.
108. Boyce, Mary, ‘Priests, Cattle and Men’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 50 (1987), p. 513.
109. Falk, Harry, ‘Das Reitpferd im vedischen Indien’, in Hänsel, Bernhard, and Zimmer, Stefan (editors), Die Indogermanen und das Pferd. Festschrift fur Bernfried Schlerath (Budapest: Archaeolingua Alapítvány, 1994), p. 95.
110. Falk: ‘Das Reitpferd im vedischen Indien’, p. 101.
111. Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , pp. 18 and 48; Drews, Robert, The End of the Bronze Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1993) p. 104.
112. Anthony and Vinogradov: ‘Birth of Chariot’, pp. 36–8.
113. Anthony and Vinogradov: ‘Birth of Chariot’, p. 38; Anthony: Horse, Wheel, and Language , pp. 376 and 402.
114. Anthony and Vinogradov: ‘Birth of Chariot’, p. 38.
115. Marsha Levine makes an important distinction between the invention of the chariot, and our first discovery of chariots as socially (and archaeologically) visible articles that are preserved in graves. The chariot must have been invented long before the chariot-burials. See Levine: ‘Origins of Horse Husbandry’, pp. 9–10.
116. Their trotting speed would have been 10–14 km/h. See Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 18s.
117. From the root ar , ‘construct’. In Mycenaean, harma means ‘wheel’. See Plath, Robert, ‘Pferd und Wagen im Mykenischen und bei Homer’, in Hänsel, Bernhard, and Zimmer, Stefan (editors), Die Indogermanen und das Pferd. Festschrift fur Bernfried Schlerath (Budapest: Archaeolingua Alapítvány, 1994), pp. 110–11. See also DELG ( Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque ), p. 106.
118. Oldenberg, Hermann, Die Religion des Veda (Berlin: Hertz, 1894), p. 2 note 1.
119. Speaking of northern India, Staal points out that ‘chariots were imported there by a small number of people through their minds ’: Staal, Frits, Discovering the Vedas. Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights (New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2008), p. 17. Drews also notes that the formulas for horse-training must have been brought to the Hurrians of Mitanni. ‘Being illiterate, Aryan speakers must in person have brought such terms as aika vartanna to the attention of the Hurrians’: Drews, Robert, The Coming of the Greeks (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), p. 145. The horse-trainers actually spoke Indic, not Indo-Iranian (which Drews calls ‘Aryan’). See Parpola, Asko, ‘The Problem of the Aryans and the Soma: Textual-linguistic and Archaeological Evidence’, in Erdosy, George, The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia. Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1995), p. 358; Staal: Discovering the Vedas , pp. 11–13; Watkins, Calvert, How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 159; Witzel, Michael, ‘Early Indian History: Linguistic and Textual Parameters’, in Erdosy, George, The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia. Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1995), pp. 109–10.
120. Drews: Coming of the Greeks , pp. 90 and 145. The Hittite translation is the only version of Kikkuli's work that survives.
121. Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 48; Kuhrt, Amélie, The Ancient Near East (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 104.
122. Kuhrt: Ancient Near East , p. 298.
123. Drews: Coming of the Greeks , pp. 44–5.
124. Anthony and Vinogradov: ‘Birth of Chariot’, p. 40.
125. Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 69; Hyland: Horse in Ancient World , p. 15.
126. Hyland: Horse in Ancient World , p. xv.
127. The Kassites used them to defeat the Babylonians around 1600 BC . See Hyland: Horse in Ancient World , p. 21.
128. Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 57; Hyland: Horse in Ancient World , pp. 14–15.
129. Hyland: Horse in Ancient World , p. 13.
130. Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 60; Dickinson, Oliver, The Aegean Bronze Age (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 203.
131. The Hittites had 3,500 chariots at the Battle of Kadesh in 1285 BC . See Drews: End of Bronze Age , pp. 132–3; Hyland: Horse in Ancient World , pp. 86–7. Knōssos on the island of Crete had 1,000 chariots, and even the little Greek state of Pulos had several hundred. See Drews: End of Bronze Age , pp. 107–10.
132. Drews believes that it is the Sanskrit word marya with a Hurrian suffix, but Boyce and Kuhrt believe that it is a Hurrian word. See Drews: Coming of the Greeks , p. 155; Boyce: ‘Priests, Cattle and Men’, p. 509; Kuhrt: Ancient Near East , p. 298.
133. Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , pp. 45–8; Drews: End of Bronze Age , pp. 110–13.
134. Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 57; Decker, Wolfgang, ‘Pferd und Wagen im Alten Aegypten’, in Hänsel, Bernhard, and Zimmer, Stefan (editors), Die Indogermanen und das Pferd. Festschrift fur Bernfried Schlerath (Budapest: Archaeolingua Alapítvány, 1994), p. 263; Hyland: Horse in Ancient World , pp. 75–6.
135. For the Mycenean world, see Chadwick, John, The Mycenean World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 164 (Mycenean Greece); Plath: ‘Pferd und Wagen im Mykenischen’, p. 113 (Homeric description, but Plath believes it is based on Mycenean tradition); Dickinson: Aegean Bronze Age , p. 203 (Mycenean Greece and West Asia). For West Asia, see Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 57; Falk: ‘Das Reitpferd im vedischen Indien’, p. 101.
136. Drews: End of Bronze Age , pp. 119–29. Anthony shows that chariots were already used by archers in the Sintashta culture. See Anthony: Horse, Wheel, and Language , pp. 397–405. Drews points out that northern Greece was ‘a society of infantrymen’, so it would have been impossible for the epic tradition to have preserved any accurate knowledge of chariot warfare. See Drews: End of Bronze Age , pp. 117–18.
137. Drews: End of Bronze Age , p. 117.
138. Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 48.
139. Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , pp. 45–8 and 56–7; Decker: ‘Pferd und Wagen im Alten Aegypten’, p. 265.
140. Falk: ‘Das Reitpferd im vedischen Indien’, p. 95–6.
141. Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 47.
142. Piggott: Wagon, Chariot and Carriage , p. 57–8.
143. 1 Kings 1: 5.
144. ‘In general, the chariot pulled by two horses is above all a status symbol, that cannot be dispensed with if someone wants to display his social rank.’ Decker: ‘Pferd und Wagen im Alten Aegypten’, p. 264.
145. Decker: ‘Pferd und Wagen im Alten Aegypten’, pp. 264–5.
146. Decker: ‘Pferd und Wagen im Alten Aegypten’, pp. 263–5.
147. Dickinson: Aegean Bronze Age , p. 49.
148. Falk: ‘Das Reitpferd im vedischen Indien’, pp. 95 and 98.
149. Köhne, Eckart, Die Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst von der Archaik bis zum Ende des 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr (Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovač, 1998), p. 173.
150. Falk: ‘Das Reitpferd im vedischen Indien’, p. 98.
151. As Falk points out, the reference to heels make it clear that someone rode the horse rather than drove it in a chariot. See Falk: ‘Das Reitpferd im vedischen Indien’, p. 93.
152. Riding into a place to steal a few cows is disreputable; invading a territory in chariots and stealing all its cows is a glorious achievement. Vedic wars are cattle raids. See Rau, Wilhelm, Staat und Gesellschaft im alten Indien. Nach den Brāhmaṇa-texten dargestellt (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1957), p. 102. Similarly, the Greek heroes at Thebes die ‘fighting for the sheep of Oidipous’ (Hesiod: Works and Days , p. 163).
153. Falk: ‘Das Reitpferd im vedischen Indien’, p. 98.
154. Falk: ‘Das Reitpferd im vedischen Indien’, pp. 95 and 99.
155. This use of the word marya to mean ‘servant’ brings out the difference between the low status of a young man ( marya ) and the social success of the mature chariot-owner.
156. When a Vedic student becomes a graduate ( snātaka ), he drives a chariot. A Vedic sacrificer should ideally travel by chariot. See Heesterman, J.C., The Broken World of Sacrifice: An Essay in Indian Ritual (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 170. His chariot ride ‘is the impoverished remnant of the royal chariot-borne raid’, Heesterman: Broken World , p. 163. The admirable cattle raid of a king driving a chariot can be imitated by the impoverished chariot-ride of a sacrificer; both are quite different from the disgraceful cattle raid of a young man riding a horse.
157. Falk: ‘Das Reitpferd im vedischen Indien’, p. 98.
158. Hopkins, Edward W., ‘The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 13 (1889), p. 263.
159. Hyland: Horse in Ancient World , p. 79.
160. Hyland: Horse in Ancient World , p. 73.
161. Schulman, Alan Richard, ‘Egyptian Representations of Horsemen and Riding in the New Kingdom’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 16 (1957), pp. 264 and 271; Hyland: Horse in Ancient World , p. 79.
162. Schulman: ‘Egyptian Representations of Horsemen’, p. 267.
163. Decker: ‘Pferd und Wagen im Alten Aegypten’, p. 264 footnote 53.
164. There were some experiments with mounted warriors in Mycenaean Greece. See Worley, Leslie J., Hippeis. The Cavalry of Ancient Greece (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 7–11. There is, however, no real cavalry until the eighth century BC . See Worley: Hippeis , pp. 19–20.
165. ‘The art of riding […] was deliberately excluded by the author from his depiction of the heroic age,’ Plath: ‘Pferd und Wagen im Mykenischen’, p. 110. Delebecque specifies that Homer was excluding military riding from his epics, rather than riding in general. Homer would therefore be correct in believing that the military use of horses was a recent innovation. See Delebecque: Cheval dans l'Iliade , p. 236.
166. Homer's account of Bronze Age behaviour is supported by Ancient Egyptian sources. A chariot could easily crash, so the horses were trained to accept riders too. Even if the chariot was lost, the warrior and charioteer could escape on horseback. See Decker: ‘Pferd und Wagen im Alten Aegypten’, p. 264; Drews: Early Riders , pp. 52–3.
167. Pausanias tells us that cavalry was used in the First Messenian War (Pausanias 4: 7, 4–5) and Aristotle that it was used in the Lelantine War (Aristotle fr. 98 Rose = Plutarch, Erotikos 17). Both of these wars occurred in Homer's lifetime. The Assyrians had abandoned the military use of chariots by 700 BC . See Drews: Early Riders , p. 66.
168. Sappho, fr. 16 Campbell.
169. Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 173 and footnote 649.
170. Homer feels obliged to account for their absence – they died before the Trojan War ( Iliad 3: 243–244).
171. Our first evidence for the Dioskouroi comes from Sparta (which was always regarded as the homeland of the Dioskouroi) and Ionia (where they were viewed as sea-faring gods).
172. Parpola, Asko, ‘The Nāsatyas, the Chariot and Proto-Aryan Religion’, Journal of Indological Studies 16–17 (2004–2005), pp. 10–12.
173. Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 107.
174. Watkins, Calvert, ‘New Parameters in Historical Linguistics, Philology, and Culture History’, Language 65 (1989), pp. 784–785.
175. Indo-European *wiro peku → pecudesque virosque (Latin), pasu-vīra (Avestan), vīra-pśa (Sanskrit). See Benveniste, Émile, Indo-European Language and Society , translated by Elizabeth Palmer (Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1973), pp. 40–2; Watkins, Calvert, The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), p. 63. The same idea lies behind the contrast between Greek tetrapodon (four-footer) and andropodon (man-footer = slave), and between Sanskrit catuṣpad (four-footer) and dvipad (two-footer = slave).
176. For the general theme, see Watkins, Calvert, How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 297–303. Stories based on this theme will usually include formulaic words that derive from *oghi (snake) and *g w hen (kill).
177. Erdosy, George, ‘Ethnicity in the Rigveda and its Bearing on the Question of Indo-European Origins’, South Asian Studies 5 (1989), pp. 35 and 37–8. Erdosy and Arvidsson cite Müller's famous attack on the conflation of race with language, in which he asserted that linguistic racism and racist linguistics are equally absurd: ‘it would be as wrong to speak of Aryan blood as of dolichocephalic grammar.’ See Erdosy: ‘Ethnicity in the Rigveda’, p. 35; Arvidsson, Stefan, Aryan Idols (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2006), p. 61.
178. Poliakov, Léon, The Aryan Myth. A History of Racist and Nationalist Ideas in Europe , translated by Edmund Howard (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1974), pp. 191–202.
179. Poliakov: Aryan Myth , p. 193.
180. Poliakov: Aryan Myth , p. 191; Arvidsson: Aryan Idols , p. 108 note 122.
181. Schlegel himself incorrectly believed that it was related to the rather more aristocratic German notion of Ehre (honour). See Poliakov: Aryan Myth , p. 193; Arvidsson: Aryan Idols , pp. 20–1.
182. Witzel points out that India itself, the homeland of the aryas , has always been relatively free from ‘race-madness’ ( Rassenwahn ). See Witzel, Michael, Das alte Indien (Munich: Beck, 2003), p. 11.
183. For the fantasy of finding ‘white Englishmen’ in a suitably remote region (‘Kafiristan’, modern Nuristan), see Rudyard Kipling's story, The Man Who Would Be King (New York, NY: Doubleday and McClure, 1899). A scholarly version of this fantasy, where the ‘Aryans’ are corrupted by sultry India, can be found in Lanman's popular Sanskrit Reader and in Oldenberg's standard introduction to Vedic religion. See Lanmann, Charles Rockwell, A Sanskrit Reader (Boston, MA: Ginn, Heath, and Company, 1884), pp. 352 and 357; Oldenberg: Religion des Veda , p. 2. Their celebration of ‘Aryan’ aggressiveness is typical of the late nineteenth century, though it is usually contrasted with Jewish humanitarianism rather than with Indian quietism. See Arvidsson: Aryan Idols , pp. 149–56 and 162–5.
184. Arvidsson: Aryan Idols , pp. 5–8. As Arvidsson points out, even Müller himself was to some extent creating myths for the nineteenth century as much as discovering myths from Vedic India. See Arvidsson: Aryan Idols , pp. 87–90. Of course Müller's myths were not racist myths.
185. Heine's poem, ‘Die Götter Griechenlands’, captures the romantic nostalgia for a lost world of liberated naturalness, and by its equation of the clouds and the Greek gods, it might well be classified as a typical work of the Nature School! The connection with the romantic movement can also be found on the scholarly side. In his work on the Baltic myths, Mannhardt cites German romantic poetry and European folklore as sources for ancient pagan thought! See Mannhardt, Wilhelm, ‘Die lettische Sonnenmythen’, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 7 (1875), pp. 73–104, 209–44, and 281–329. Many nineteenth-century scholars were, however, ambivalent about the merits of the liberal romantic tradition. See Arvidsson: Aryan Idols , pp. 87–90.
186. Since these scholars were all men, they were naturally swept off their feet by the Vedic hymns in which the Dawn goddess reveals her breasts to a delighted humanity. See Oldenberg: Religion des Veda , p. 237; Macdonell, Arthur Anthony, Vedic Mythology (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. 1898 [2002]), p. 47. Oldenberg assures us that this has nothing to do with ‘sultry and decadent sensuality’, but I hope he did not really believe this.
187. By the twentieth century, it was quite acceptable for scholars to dismiss Roscher and Müller, two great champions of the school. ‘As early as the fifth century B.C. Metrodorus of Lampsacus was putting forward the doctrine which inspires the earlier volumes of Roscher's Lexikon , that all Greek legend is disguised cosmological myth and consists essentially of highly obscure talk about the weather […] people like Macrobius anticipated Max Müller in discovering the Sun God beneath every divine personage’: Halliday, W.R. Indo-European Folk-Tales and Greek Legend (Cambridge: University Press, 1933), p. 3. For the decline and fall of the Nature School, see Arvidsson: Aryan Idols , pp. 129–31.
188. Erdosy: ‘Ethnicity in the Rigveda’, p. 45. Erdosy is criticizing the belief that the speaking of Sanskrit implies an ‘Aryan’ invasion of India.
189. Momigliano, Arnaldo, ‘Georges Dumézil and the Trifunctional Approach to Roman Civilization’, in Momigliano, Arnaldo, On Pagans, Jews, and Christians (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1987), pp. 311–12.
190. The classes do not appear until the late hymn, RV 10: 90. Witzel refers to this as a ‘ new [my italics] stratification of society into four classes’ and shows that it is an innovation of the Kuru kingdom. See Witzel, Michael, ‘The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools: The Social and Political Milieus’, in Witzel, Michael (editor), Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 295.
191. Dumézil's interest in these three classes may have been inspired by a monarchist desire to restore the three feudal estates, since he had in his youth joined the Action Française of the vicious traitor Charles Maurras. See Momigliano: ‘Dumézil and the Trifunctional Approach’, p. 293; Arvidsson: Aryan Idols , pp. 240–1.
192. Dumézil, Georges, Mythe et épopée. I. L'idéologie des trois fonctions dans les épopées des peuples indo-européens (Paris: Gallimard, 1968 [1986]), pp. 31–257. Its most exasperating flaw is the extraordinary respect it shows for Colonel de Polier's version of the Mahābhārata , but this demonstrates Dumézil's love for a particular telling of a story rather than for general schemata.
193. Hiltebeitel had translated Dumézil's work into English, and his Ritual of Battle uses Dumézil's approach to analyse the Mahābhārata from an Indological perspective. See Hiletbeitel, Alf, The Ritual of Battle. Krishna in the Mahābhārata (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990).
194. Dumézil: M&E I. L'idéologie des trois fonctions , pp. 259–437.
195. In the field of Classics, his work inspired the committed Marxist Vernant and the human rights activist Vidal-Naquet, neither of whom could have agreed with Dumézil's admiration for the Action Française or for Charles Maurras. Vernant had spent the war-years resisting the friends of Maurras, and Vidal-Naquet's parents had been sent to Auschwitz by those friends.
196. Lincoln, Bruce, Priests, Warriors, and Cattle: A Study in the Ecology of Religions (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981).
197. Arvidsson: Aryan Idols , pp. 149–56.
198. When Dumézil writes about ‘epic types’, he discusses the hero, the magician, and the king alone. See Dumézil, Georges, Mythe et épopée. II. Types épiques indo-européens: un héros, un sorcier, un roi (Paris: Gallimard, 1971 [1986]). Grotanelli notes the neglect of the third function by Dumézil and his followers. See Grotanelli, Cristiano, ‘Dumézil, the Indo-Europeans, and the Third Function’, in Patton, Laurie L., and Doniger, Wendy. Myth and Method (Charlotesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1996), pp. 131–2.
199. This rather obvious point was already noted in the Taittirīya Saṃhitā : the Vaiśyas are ‘more numerous ( bhūyāṃsas ) than the others’ ( TS 7: 1, 1 ⁵ ), and more famously in Periklēs' definition of Athenian democracy as ‘governing in the interest of the majority’ (Thucydides 2: 37, 1).
200. Yasna 29 (The Plaint of the Ox): 6. Translated and discussed at Lincoln: Priests, Warriors, and Cattle , pp. 140–2 and 149–51.
201. Hesiod: Theogony 26.
202. Hesiod: Works and Days , pp. 39, 221 and 264.
203. Nagy, Gregory, Greek Mythology and Poetics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 56–60. Impoverished poets can be intimidated by their local audience, but poets with a Panhellenic reputation are free to tell the truth. See Nagy: Greek Mythology and Poetics , pp. 42–6.
1. ‘The correct etymology derives the name from the root nes , from which we have neomai , nostos , and Nestor . They are the saviours who guarantee the traveller's or warrior's safe return, whether on land or on sea.’ See Skutsch, Otto, ‘Helen, Her Name and Nature,’ Journal of Hellenic Studies 107 (1987) p. 189. Mayrhofer, Wagner and Zeller also support this etymology: EWA ( Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen ), vol. 2, p. 30 under nas and p. 39 under nāsatya ; Wagner, Noerber, ‘Dioskuren, Jungmannschaften und Doppelkönigtum’, Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 79 (1960), p. 1; Zeller: Die Vedischen Zwillingsgötter , p. 5.
2. Dumézil: M&E I. L'idéologie des trois fonctions , p. 49; EWA , vol. 2, p. 39 under nāsatya ; Parpola: ‘Aryans and soma’, p. 18.
3. Bergaigne, Abel, La religion védique d'après les hymnes du Rig-veda (Paris: F. Vieweg, 1883), vol. 2, p. 434.
4. Macdonell: Vedic Mythology , pp. 20 and 54.
5. Macdonell: Vedic Mythology , pp. 20, 88 and 104.
6. Macdonell: Vedic Mythology , pp. 20 and 49.
7. RV 3: 58, 6a and 6c.
8. ‘Why do the ancient poets say, o Aśvins, that you come most readily to deal with misfortune?’ ( RV 3: 58, 3cd; these lines are identical with RV 1: 118, 3cd).
9. Bergaigne: La religion védique , vol. 2, pp. 434–5. He compares their rescue operations again later in his work, this time emphasizing the similarities. See Bergaigne: Religion védique , vol. 2, pp. 495–8.
10. Bergaigne starts off his analysis of the Aśvins by declaring that they are ‘morning gods’: Bergaigne: Religion védique , vol. 2, p. 431.
11. Bodewitz, H.W., The Daily Evening and Morning Offering (Agnihotra) according to the Brāhmaṇas (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1976), p. 3.
12. See below, Chapter 4, ‘The Morning Prayer ( prātaranuvāka )’, and ‘The Twilight Chant ( saṃdhistotra ) and the Aśvin Hymn ( āśvinaśastra )’.
13. She may be their mother at RV 3: 39, 3, if Geldner has solved this riddle correctly: ‘the twin-bearing mother has given birth to twins.’ See Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 1, p. 381, translation and note to 3a. Since the Aśvins emerge from the dawn, they must be her children. There is a well-established tradition that Dyaus slept with his daughter Uṣas, so she could very well be both the mother and the sister of the Aśvins.
14. The Aśvins were usually identified as a representation of twilight. See Myriantheus, L., Die Açvins, oder arischen Dioskuren (Munich: Theodor Ackermann, 1876), p. 36. Other scholars identified them with the morning-star. See Oldenberg: Religion des Veda , pp. 210–13. Similar identifications of their ‘physical basis’ are discussed at Macdonell: Vedic Mythology , pp. 53–4, and at Hillebrandt, Alfred, Vedic Mythology , translated by Sreeramula Rajeswara Sarma (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1980), vol. 1, pp. 39–44.
15. These are the stages in which the universe develops, but Yaska does not present them in this order (he mentions Stage 3 between Stage 1 and Stage 2).
16. The adjective vāsātya means ‘of Vasāti’. Böhtling's Sanskrit dictionary and its translation by Monier-Williams suggest ‘dawn’ as the probable meaning of Vasāti, but this would obliterate Yaska's distinction between the two Aśvins. If we derived it from the verb vas vasati ‘dwell’ rather than vas ucchati ‘shine’, Vasāti could be translated as Night, because this root means ‘stay overnight’ in Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages ( EWA , vol. 2, p. 531 under VAS ³ ). The related noun vasati can also mean ‘night’, though it usually means ‘dwelling’ and ‘passing the night’.
17. This process is described in the creation hymn, RV 10: 129. In the beginning, the universe is like a womb filled with liquid ( ambhas , 1d; salila , 3b), darkness ( tamas , 3a), and emptiness ( tuchya , 3c). From inside this womb emerge heat ( tapas , 3d), desire ( kāma , 4a), and semen ( retas , 4b). From the interaction between the moist empty darkness and the hot desiring semen, Oneness (That One, tad ekam , 3d) or Being ( sat , 4c) is born ( ajāyata , 3d). Yaska ignores the sexual imagery, confining himself instead to moist darkness and hot light.
18. RV 10: 129, 1ab.
19. RV 10: 37, 3cd.
20. Dumézil: M&E I. L'idéologie des trois fonctions , p. 78.
21. Harris: Boanerges , p. 236; Zeller: Die Vedischen Zwillingsgötter , pp. 33–5.
22. ‘Makha is indeed the sacrifice’ ( ŚB 6: 5, 2 ¹ ). See Buitenen, J. A. B. van, The Pravargya, an Ancient Indian Iconic Ritual (Poona: Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute, 1968), p. 19.
23. Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 1, p. 261, translation of RV 1: 181, 4.
24. Zeller: Die Vedischen Zwillingsgötter , pp. 33 and 35.
25. Several hymns refer to the incestuous relationship between the sky god Dyaus and his daughter Uṣas ( RV 1: 71, 5 and 8; RV 3: 31, 1; RV 10: 61, 7). See Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 1, p. 261, note to RV 1: 181, 4; Doniger, Wendy, Hindu Myths (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975), pp. 25–6.
26. Zeller dismisses the notion that they could be the sons of Dawn and Night. See Zeller: Die Vedischen Zwillingsgötter , p. 32 note 201. Yaska is not, however, presenting this as his own personal theory, he is quoting an apocryphal Vedic hymn.
27. Harris: Boanerges , p. 236.
28. Zeller: Die Vedischen Zwillingsgötter , p. 31.
29. Normally, the Aśvins are indistinguishable. ‘In general, they are praised together, appear at the same time, and perform the same activities’ (Yaska, Nirukta 12, 2). ‘This passage is the only example in the entire literature where the Aśvins have different functions, even though they are extremely vague ones,’ Zeller: Die Vedischen Zwillingsgötter , p. 33.
30. Zeller: Die Vedischen Zwillingsgötter , p. 34.
31. The two parents appear again at at RV 10: 10, 4c, where they are referred to as ‘the Gandharva in the waters’ and ‘the young woman of the waters’.
32. In the Vedic period, Indian scholars believed that if you were warned not to ask a question that surpassed your intellectual abilities, and persisted in doing so anyway, your head would explode ( Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3: 6, 1). See Witzel: ‘Early Indian history’, especially pp. 408–13; ‘The case of the shattered head’, Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik (1987), pp. 363–4 and 377–89.
33. Geldner, in his note on this passage, suggests that budhne (‘bottom’) should be treated as a preposition and translated as ‘after’. Instead of ‘at the base of the heat of the fire’, these words would mean ‘after the heat of the fire’, Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 1, p. 381, note to RV 3: 39, 3d.
34. As the offspring of Dyaus and his daughter they would indeed be both the sons and the grandsons of Dyaus.
35. Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 3, pp. 149–50, note to RV 10: 17, 1ab; Jamison: ‘Rigvedic Svayaṃvara’, p. 303 note 1.
36. Bloomfield, Maurice, ‘Contributions to the Interpretation of the Veda’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 15 (1893), p. 175; Zeller: Die Vedischen Zwillingsgötter , p. 24. Technically, Vivasvant should be the only mortal at the wedding, since the ancestors of the human race have not yet been born, but the poet Devaśravas has decided to ignore this. Similarly, in the Yama–Yamī hymn, there is no other mortal for Yamī to marry apart from her brother Yama and her father Vivasvant, and yet Yama tells her, ‘find another husband apart from me’ ( RV 10: 10, 10d).
37. Under the entry ‘ Vivasvat ’, Geldner's index states, ‘Name des Sonnengottes’: Geldner, Karl Friedrich, and Nobel, Johannes. Namen- und Sachregister zur Übersetzung. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), p. 140. This is slightly misleading because Vivasvant is human throughout books 1–9; he is a sun god only at RV 10.39.12d, and perhaps at RV 10: 65, 6d, where he receives offerings along with the other gods.
38. Bloomfield: ‘Interpretation of Veda’, pp. 176–7; Macdonell: Vedic Mythology , pp. 43.
39. ‘Being married’ ( pariuhyamānā ) is a present participle, so it literally means ‘while being married’. Zeller rather wickedly suggests that Saraṇyū was already pregnant with Yama during the wedding, Zeller: Die Vedischen Zwillingsgötter , p. 25. If we insisted on taking the participle literally, it would imply that Saraṇyū ran away in the middle of the wedding ceremony.
40. This ambiguity has been pointed out by modern scholars. See Bloomfield: ‘Interpretation of Veda’, pp. 173 and 178; Zeller: Die Vedischen Zwillingsgötter , p. 25–6.
41. This story lies behind RV 10: 10, but the hymn rejects it, because the marriage between Yama and Yamī would be incestuous. See Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 3, p. 133, introduction to RV 10: 10.
42. Witzel sees this story about Yama as further evidence for the newcomer status of Vasiṣṭha. See Witzel: ‘Development of the Vedic Canon’, pp. 289 note 145.
43. We hear of Manu Vivasvant ( manau vivasvati , RV 8: 52, 1) and Manu the son of Savarṇā ( Sāvarṇya at RV 10: 62, 9c; Sāvarṇi at RV 10: 62, 11c). See Bloomfield: ‘Interpretation of Veda’, pp. 178–80; Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 2, p. 374, note to RV 8: 52, 1a, and vol. 3, p. 232, introduction to RV 10: 62. As Bloomfield points out, it does not matter greatly whether the poet was thinking of the original Manu, or a particular descendant of Manu; the important point is that in order for anyone to bear the name Manu Sāvarṇya or Manu Sāvarṇi, the original Manu must have been the son of Savarṇā. See Bloomfield: ‘Interpretation of Veda’, p. 180.
44. Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 3, p. 149, introduction to RV 10: 17.
45. As we saw, savarṇā is ambiguous at RV 10: 17, 2b. Yaska may have felt he was clarifying the intention of the poet Devaśravas, rather than giving the word a new twist.
46. Bloomfield: ‘Interpretation of Veda’, p. 175.
47. Bloomfield: ‘Interpretation of Veda’, p. 178.
48. Zeus in the form of a gander rapes Nemesis, and she gives birth to Helenē; as a swan, Zeus rapes Lēdē, who gives birth to Helenē and the horse gods; Poseidōn changes into a horse and rapes Dēmētēr or Erinus, who gives birth to the first horse. See below, Chapter 6, ‘The Birth of Helenē’, and ‘3. The Birth of the Horse’.
49. Bloomfield: ‘Interpretation of Veda’, pp. 178 note.
50. Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 3, p. 349, note to RV 10: 121, 10.
51. Notice how Vasiṣṭha denounces demons ( yātavas , RV 7: 21, 5a) and phallus-worshippers ( śiśnadevās , RV 7: 21, 5d). He declares that they can have no part in soma sacrifices. The earlier gods ( devās pūrve , RV 7: 21, 7a) have submitted to the new order.
52. For Plato's disapproval of metamorphosis, see Republic 2: 380d–381d.
53. See note 43 above for Ṛgvedic references to ‘Manu Vivasvant’ and ‘Manu the son of Savarṇā’.
54. The main body of the Bṛhaddevatā dates to the early Puranic period (first to fifth centuries AD ), but some additions are as late as the seventh to eleventh centuries. See Patton, Laurie L., Myth as Argument. The Bṛhaddevatā as Canonical Commentary (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1996), p. 12.
55. Bloomfield: ‘Interpretation of Veda’, pp. 178.
56. The name has, of course, nothing to do with the noun nas (nose), but is rather derived from the verb nas (‘reach home safely’). See EWA , vol. 2, p. 30 under nas and p. 39 under nāsatya .
57. ‘The legends of the Nirukta and the Bṛhaddevatā […] on the union of Vivasvat and Saraṇyū have every appearance of having been invented, perhaps however with pre-existing mythical elements, to explain these two stanzas’, Bergaigne: Religion védique , vol. 2, p. 506 note 4. He is referring to RV 10: 17, 1–2.
58. Taittirīya Saṃhitā 6: 4, 9.
59. This formula ‘she mounted your chariot’ ( ā vāṃ rathaṃ sthā ) is found at RV 1: 116, 17; RV 1: 118, 5; RV 5: 73, 5; and RV 8: 8, 10. Slightly different versions are found at RV 1: 34, 5 and RV 6: 63, 5. See Jamison: ‘Rigvedic Svayaṃvara’, p. 306 for this formula. Jamison sees it as a formula for a svayaṃvara rather than an elopement.
60. ā sūriyeva […] rathaṃ gāt ( RV 1: 167, 5). The usual verb ( ā-sthā ) reappears in the following stanza, ‘the Maruts help her to mount ( āsthāpayanta ) their chariot’ ( RV 1: 167, 6).
61. For this reversal of the normal formula, see Jamison: ‘Rigvedic Svayaṃvara’, p. 307 note 8.
62. yānam yena patī bhavathaḥ sūriyāyāḥ ( RV 4: 43, 6).
63. ‘A marriage with mutual desire ( icchayā ’nyonyasaṃyogaḥ ) of a young woman and a suitor, for sexual pleasure and arising from desire ( maithunyaḥ kāmasaṃbhavaḥ ), is known as a gāndharva union’ ( Laws of Manu 3: 32). See Dumézil, Georges, Mariages indo-européens (Paris: Payot, 1979), pp. 31–45.
64. If heat ( ghṛṇā ) is instrumental, the line would be even more explicit in blaming Sūryā's lack of concern for the poor horses of the Aśvins: ‘they keep (Sūryā) away from burning them with her heat.’ See Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 2, p. 78, note to RV 5: 73, 5d.
65. Independent heiresses were quite exceptional in Vedic India; a woman could only become an independent heiress if her father had no sons and died before marrying her off. If she followed the Vrātyas , her status could be reduced to that of a concubine or even a prostitute. See Witzel, Michael, ‘Little Dowry, No Satī. The Lot of Women in the Vedic Period’, Journal of South Asia Women Studies 2 (1996), pp. 162–3. For the equation of Vrātyas with Maruts, see Heesterman, J.C., ‘Vrātya and Sacrifice’, Indo-Iranian Journal 6 (1962), pp.16–17, and Falk: Bruderschaft und Würfelspiel, p, 190.
66. In arguing that Sūryā's wedding is a svayaṃvara , Geldner focuses on the competition among her suitors, Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 1, p. 264, note to RV 1: 184, 3a. Jamison emphasizes Sūryā's personal choice and the formulaic phrase svayaṃ sā vṛṇite , ‘she herself chose’, Jamison: ‘Rigvedic Svayaṃvara’, p. 304–9. Jamison is right in saying that Sūryā did indeed make her own choice, but it is not clear that she chose marriage.
67. It is true that Draupadī ends up with five husbands in the Mahabhārata , but that is not her fault. She chose Arjuna alone at her svayaṃvara and was perfectly well-behaved until her mother-in-law interfered.
68. It is unclear whether they are attracted by the splendour of Sūryā's beauty, or she is drawn by theirs. See Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 1, p. 476, note to RV 4: 44, 2ab. Sometimes it is clearly the splendid beauty of all three. See Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 2, p. 166, note to RV 6: 63, 6b. Whether the beauty is masculine, feminine, or both, the motivation for the relationship is always the splendour of beauty ( śrī ): RV 1: 116, 17d; RV 1: 184, 3a; RV 4: 44, 2a; RV 6: 63, 5a and 6a; RV 7: 72, 1d.
69. Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 2, p. 150, note to RV 6: 49, 8b.
70. Macdonell takes RV 6: 58, 4 to mean that Pūṣan actually married Sūryā, Macdonell: Vedic Mythology , p. 35. Even if we accepted his interpretation, this strange marriage would not be a svayaṃvara since ‘the gods gave him, overcome with desire, to Sūryā’. The marriage would be based on his choice and theirs, not on the free choice of Sūryā.
71. Compare yad ayātaṃ vahatuṃ sūriyāyās tricakreṇa saṃsadam icchamānā ( TS 4: 7, 15 ⁴ ) with yad aśvinā pṛchamānāv ayātaṃ tricakreṇa vahatuṃ sūryāyāḥ ( RV 10: 85, 14). The lines are identical in wording apart from the phrases saṃsadam icchamānā , ‘wishing to sit together’ and aśvinā pṛchamānāv ‘Aśvins asking (for her)’. As friends of the groom, the Aśvins should be supporting Soma's request for Sūryā's hand, which has already been granted by her father Savitar, but perhaps they have already decided that Sūryā should run off with them instead. This is certainly implied by the phrase ‘wishing to sit with (her)’.
72. ‘In the wedding hymn Sūryā never chooses anyone or anything…,’ Jamison: ‘Rigvedic Svayaṃvara’, p. 308.
73. The term vara is ambiguous, since it can mean both ‘suitor’ ( Freier ) and ‘matchmaker’ or ‘spokesman for the groom’ ( Freiwerber ), as Geldner points out. See Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 3, p. 268, note to RV 10: 85, 8c.
74. Vadhūyu is used in the literal sense of ‘bridegroom’ only of Soma here at RV 10: 85, 9a and of the successful suitor in a real-life svayaṃvara among human beings at RV 10: 27, 12a. See Jamison: ‘Rigvedic Svayaṃvara’, p. 309. The only other uses of vadhūyu are in metaphors comparing Indra and Agni to men who have a wife ( RV 3: 52, 3c and RV 9: 69, 3a). The terms vadhūyu (husband, suitor) and vadhu (bride, young woman) come from the Indo-European root *ṷedh meaning ‘to lead’ (no connection with English ‘wed,’ which comes from *ṷadh meaning ‘promise’). For the change in meaning from Indo-European ‘lead’ to Indo-Iranian ‘marry,’ compare the Latin verb dūcere , which means both ‘to lead’ and ‘to marry’.
75. ‘She mounts an even more characteristic wedding vehicle, ánas- “wagon”’, Jamison: ‘Rigvedic Svayaṃvara’, p. 306. Her marriage wagon ( anas ) is also mentioned at RV 10: 85, 10a.
76. The Aitareya Brāhmaṇa explicitly dismisses the possibility of polyandry: ‘therefore one man has many wives; one woman does not have many husbands’ ( AB 3: 21).
77. The bride is equated with Sūryā here at 20c, again at 35c (her wedding-dress), and 38b (the Gandharvas bring her to the husband).
78. Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 4: 7; Kauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa 18: 1.
79. Note the dual, patī . Both of them will be her husbands.
80. The phrasing is almost identical: viśve devā anv amanyanta ( RV 1: 116, 17c), viśve devā anu […] ajānan ( RV 10: 85, 14c).
81. She chooses them for their ‘beauty’ ( śrī ) – RV 1: 117, 13d; RV 6: 63, 5a; RV 7: 69, 4a.
82. Vahatu implies a legitimate marriage, see Bloomfield: ‘Interpretation of Veda’, p. 181. In its literal sense of a real wedding, vahatu is used only of Vivasvant's marriage with Saraṇyū ( RV 10: 17, 1a) and Soma's marriage with Sūryā (five times in RV 10: 85 and also at RV 1: 184, 3b). The other occurrences of vahatu are metaphorical.
83. RV 1: 34, 5; RV 1: 116, 17; RV 1: 117, 13; RV 1: 118, 5; RV 1: 119, 5; RV 4: 43, 2; RV 4: 44, 1; RV 5: 73, 5; RV 6: 63, 5; RV 7: 68, 3; RV 7: 69, 4; RV 8: 8, 10; RV 8: 22, 1.
1. ‘These two are impure, they associate with human beings ( manuṣyacarau ),’ TS 6: 4, 9 ¹–² .
2. Indra ‘comes most readily with help’ at RV 6: 52, 5 and 6 ( avasā āgamiṣṭhaḥ ); the Aśvins ‘go most readily to any misfortune’ at RV 1: 118, 3c ( praty avartiṃ gamiṣṭhā ) and ‘come most readily with help’ at RV 5: 76, 2c ( avasā āgamiṣṭhā ). RV 4: 43, 2a asks ‘who comes most readily?’ ( katama āgamiṣṭho ) and compares the Aśvins with Indra ( RV 4: 43, 3b). We find a strange use of the formula in two hymns. At RV 3: 58, 9d ( āgamiṣṭhaḥ ) the chariot of the Aśvins and at RV 5: 76, 2a ( gamiṣṭhā ), the Aśvins themselves ‘come most readily’ for offerings! This playful adaptation shows that the rescue formula was well known. RV 5: 76, 2 has, in fact, both the new adaptation and the original formula: the Aśvins ‘go most readily’ for offerings ( gamiṣṭhā , RV 5: 76, 2a), they ‘come most readily with help’ ( avasā āgamiṣṭhā , RV 5: 76, 2c).
3. RV 1: 112, 6b and 20b; RV 1: 116, 3–5; RV 1: 117, 14–15; RV 1: 118, 6c; RV 1: 119, 4ab and 8; RV 1: 158, 3ab; RV 1: 180, 5ab; RV 1: 182, 5–7; RV 6: 62, 6; RV 7: 68, 7; RV 7: 69, 7; RV 8: 3, 23; RV 8: 5, 22; RV 10: 39, 4cd; RV 10: 40, 7a; RV 10: 65, 12; RV 10: 143, 5.
4. Böhtlingk's dictionary and its translation by Monier-Williams take arāvā here as a synonym of arvan , ‘horse’. Griffith therefore translates this line as ‘your horse delivered him, your devoted servant’, Griffith, Ralph T.H. The Hymns of the Rig Veda. (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1896 [1973]), p. 369. It seems more natural to take arāvā yaḥ yuvākuḥ together (‘the arāvā who was your devotee’), and since this is the only case cited by Böhtlingk where arāvan means ‘horse,’ Geldner is surely right in taking it to mean ‘the malicious man who was your devotee’, Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 2, p. 244, translation of RV 5: 68, 7 and note to RV 7: 68, 7c.
5. Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 2, p. 244, note to RV 7: 68, 7c.
6. Referring to this passage (in a comment on another hymn), Geldner remarks: ‘We can conclude that there was a temporary cooling of the friendship between Tugra and the Aśvins,’ Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 1, p. 158, note to RV 1: 117, 14. In fact, the term arāvan ( RV 7: 68, 7) might suggest malice or hostility towards the Aśvins as well as towards his son. See Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 2, p. 244, note to RV 7: 68, 7c.
7. RV 1: 116, 4d; RV 1: 117, 15c; RV 8: 5, 22c. At RV 1: 158, 3a, their chariot is not explicitly mentioned, but Geldner points out that the adjectives peru , pajra , and yukta probably refer to a chariot: peru =saving, pajra =reliable, and yukta = yoked (to winged horses). See Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 1, p. 216, note to RV 1: 158, 3ab.
8. The ‘bird-horses’ are usually called simply ‘birds’ ( vi at RV 1: 119, 4a; RV 6: 62, 6a; RV 8: 3, 23c; RV 8: 5, 22c), or ‘winged ones,’ a common synonym for birds ( patratrin at RV 6: 62, 6d; RV 7: 69, 7c; RV 10: 143, 5c; pataṃga at RV 1: 116, 4b).
9. RV 1: 116 is a little confusing on this point. We have the magic living ships at 3cd and 5d, but three chariots at 4d.
10. ‘With animated ships’ ( naubhir ātmanvatībhir , RV 1: 116, 3c); ‘an animated ship’ ( plavam ātmavantam , RV 1: 182, 5b). These ships have a soul ( ātman ).
11. Compare ‘ samudrasya dhanvan ārdrasya pāre ’ (‘to the shore of the ocean, on the other side of the water’, RV 1: 116, 4c) with ‘ samudra ā ́ | rajasaḥ pāra ’ (‘in the ocean, on the other side of the atmosphere’, RV 10: 143, 5ab).
12. Détienne, Marcel, and Vernant, Jean-Pierre, Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society , translated by Janet Lloyd. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 221–2.
13. ūhathuḥ appears 20 times in the Ṛgveda , mostly in stories where the Aśvins bring people out of danger (ten times), or bring assistance to them (five times). Such help includes a horse, gods, and a wife, Kāmadyu.
14. RV 1: 118, 6c and RV 1: 182, 6d.
15. This formula, ‘we have crossed to the far side of darkness’ ( atāriṣma tamasas pāram asya ), occurs at RV 1: 92, 6a; RV 1: 183, 6a; RV 1: 184, 6a; and RV 7: 73, 1a.
16. upo adṛśran tamasaś cid antāḥ , RV 7: 67, 2a.
17. RV 1: 112, 7 and 16; RV 1: 116, 8; RV 1: 117, 3; RV 1: 118, 7; RV 1: 119, 6; RV 1: 180, 4; RV 5: 73, 6; RV 5: 78, 4; RV 7: 68, 5; RV 7: 69, 4; RV 7: 71, 5; RV 8: 73, 3, 7, and 8; RV 10: 39, 9; RV 10: 80, 3.
18. Jamison: Ravenous Hyenas , p. 229 note 149. Geldner had also considered this interpretation. ‘In the Atri myth however, it means the fire (or the hot pot) into which Atri fell,’ Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 1, p. 258, note to RV 1: 180, 4ab.
19. ‘They let Atri go’ ( RV 1: 112, 16ab), ‘they released Atri from the pit’ ( RV 1: 117, 3b).
20. aṃhas ( RV 1: 117, 3a; RV 7: 71, 5c).
21. tamas ( RV 7: 71, 5c).
22. Words based on the root oman are used almost exclusively in the Atri story (five times); otherwise they are used twice of medicines (administered by the Aśvins at RV 1: 34, 6c and by the Waters at 6: 50, 7a), and once of Agni's helpers (5: 43, 13b). Except for the last case, the oman -words will in effect mean ‘cool(ing)’, as Jamison points out. See Jamison: Ravenous Hyenas , p. 230 note 152. Geldner refers to oman as ‘a catch word in the Atri myth’, Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 1, p. note to RV 1: 34, 6c.
23. Jamison: Ravenous Hyenas , pp. 240–1.
24. Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 1, p. 258, note to RV 1: 180, 4ab.
25. RV 5: 30, 15; TS 1: 6, 12 ² .
26. This line could also mean, however, that they ‘(made) the cooking-pot sweet, and kept it away from Atri.’ See Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 1, p. 259, note to RV 1: 180, 4ab.
27. Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 2, p. 243, note to RV 7: 68, 5a.
28. More properly, this early and simpler Ṛgvedic form of the Pravargya ritual should be called the Gharma ritual. See Houben, Jan E.M., ‘On the Earliest Attestable Forms of the Pravargya Ritual: Ṛg-Vedic References to the Gharma-Pravargya, especially in the Atri-family Book (Book 5)’, Indo-Iranian Journal 43 (2000), p. 2.
29. Viśvāmitra reminds Indra that his people always offer hot milk, unlike the impious Kīkaṭa people: ‘What do the cows do for you among the Kīkaṭas? Those people do not draw milk to be mixed (with soma), they do not heat up the hot milk (or cooking-pot, gharma )’, RV 3: 53, 14b.
30. ‘Heat it up’ could refer to the hymn itself, or to the sun. If it means the sun, this would support van Buitenen's view that the Pravargya ritual is partly designed to encourage the heat of the sun. See Buitenen: Pravargya , pp. 28, 30, and 37.
31. ‘You released Atri from the pit with his people’ ( gaṇena ; RV 1: 117, 3); ‘you brought him up with all his people’ ( sarvagaṇam ; RV 1: 116, 8d).
32. Buitenen: Pravargya , p. 102; Staal, Frits, Agni, the Vedic Ritual of the Fire Altar (Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1983), p. 368.
33. Buitenen: Pravargya , p. 22.
34. The same thing happened to the unfortunate Antaka, ‘perishing in a pit’ ( jasamānam āraṇe ; RV 1: 112, 6a), and to Vandana, whom ‘you two raised from a pit’ ( ṛśayād ud ūhathur ; RV 10: 39, 8c). Such illtreatment of travellers was common in Vedic India and elsewhere. See Rau: Staat und Gesellschaft , pp. 29–30, and the story of Joseph at Genesis 37: 23–4.
35. Jamison: Ravenous Hyenas , pp. 233–5.
36. This possibility is briefly mentioned by Geldner and Jamison. See Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 3, p. 192, note to RV 10: 39, 9cd; Jamison: Ravenous Hyenas , p. 229, note 150.
37. ‘The story of the ṛbīsa is transferred to Saptavadhri of the Atri family’, Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 2, p. 400, note to RV 8: 73, 9.
38. RV 1: 116, 16d; RV 1: 157, 6a; RV 8: 18, 8a; RV 8: 86, 1a; RV 10: 39, 3d; RV 10: 39, 5b.
39. It is found in eight hymns: RV 1: 116, 10d; RV 1: 117, 13ab; RV 1: 118, 6d; RV 5: 74, 5; RV 5: 75, 5; RV 7: 68, 6; RV 7: 71, 5a; RV 10: 39, 4ab.
40. Witzel, Michael, ‘On the origin of the literary device of the ‘Frame Story’ in Old Indian literature’, in Falk, Harry (editor), Hinduismus und Buddhismus, Festschrift für Ulrich Schneider (Freiburg: Hedwig Falk, 1987), pp. 386–7.
41. See bhuvanacyavānāṃ ghoṣo devānām , ‘the noise of the earth-shaking gods’ ( RV 10: 103, 9c). In this sense of ‘shaking,’ cyu can be used of sexual activity, which may explain the name Cyavana. See Witzel: ‘Origin of the Frame Story’, p. 387.
42. punar yuvānaṃ cakrathuḥ ( RV 1: 117, 13b and, with the same words in a different order, RV 1: 118, 6d); yuvā kṛtaḥ punar ( RV 5: 74, 5c); and with the verb takṣ , which has the same meaning as kṛ , punar yuvānaṃ takṣathuḥ ( RV 10: 39, 4b).
43. jujuruṣo at RV 1: 116, 10a and RV 5: 74, 5a; jurate at RV 7: 68, 6a; jarantam at RV 1: 117, 13a; and the noun jaraso at RV 7: 71, 5a.
44. vavrim prāmuñcatam drāpim iva , RV 1: 116, 10ab; vavrim aktam na muñcataḥ , RV 5: 74, 5b.
45. See the famous account of transmigration at Bhagavadgītā 2, 22.
46. Jamison: Ravenous Hyenas , p. 174.
47. Jamison: Ravenous Hyenas , pp. 190–1.
48. Jamison: Ravenous Hyenas , pp. 156–7.
49. Jamison: Ravenous Hyenas , pp. 146.
50. See below, Chapter 4, ‘The Pravargya (Heating Ritual)’.
51. The eagle brings soma to the followers of Indra ( Indrāvataḥ , RV 4: 27, 4a), just as Mātariśvan brought fire to the human race. The eagle's gift of soma and Mātariśvan's gift of fire are explicitly compared at RV 1: 93, 6ab.
52. When it is discussing the soma sacrifice, the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa interprets honey ( madhu ) as meaning soma (ŚB 4: 1, 5 ¹⁷–¹⁸ ). In its account of the Pravargya ritual, on the other hand, it cites RV 1: 116, 12cd and says that honey is the secret doctrine of the Pravargya (ŚB 14: 1, 1 ²⁵–²⁶ ). Behind this second interpretation lies the later equation of the Pravargya with the head of Dadhyañc.
53. ‘Indra is the one and only soma-drinker, Indra is the life-long juice-drinker, among gods and men’ ( RV 8: 2, 4).
54. Anthony and Vinogradov: ‘Birth of Chariot’, p. 41.
55. This does not imply that the Ṛgvedic story-tellers, or their predecessors, had practised or even witnessed such a ritual, but stories about it had entered their tradition.
56. Central Asian *atharwan (priest)→Vedic atharvan , Avestan athravan . See Witzel, Michael, ‘Linguistic Evidence for Cultural Exchange in Prehistoric Western Central Asia’, Sino-Platonic Papers , 129 (Philadelphia, PA: Deptartment of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania, 2003), p. 38; Witzel, Michael, ‘Early Loan Words in Western Central Asia: Indicators of Substrate Populations, Migrations, and Trade Relations’, in Mair, Victor H. (editor). Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World. (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006), p. 173.
57. Central Asian *anću (soma plant)→Vedic aṃśu , Avestan ąsu . See Witzel: ‘Linguistic Evidence’, p. 27; Witzel: ‘Early Loan Words’, p. 173; Staal: Discovering the Vedas , pp. 28–9.
58. Sanskrit hotar is cognate with Avestan zaotar , and both the Indian and the Iranian priests know how to extract soma juice (Sanskrit soma , Avestan haoma ) from the soma plant (Sanskrit aṃśu , Avestan ąsu ). From this shared terminology, we can conclude that the Indo-Iranian *jhautar priests were taught by the Central Asian *atharwan priests how to get Indo-Iranian *sauma from the Central Asian soma plant ( *anću ). This is not simply a Vedic myth. The story is Central Asian and Indo-Iranian, and it must date from before the twentieth century BC when the common Indo-Iranian language was replaced by the separate Indian and Iranian languages.
59. Witzel: ‘Development of the Vedic Canon’, pp. 291–3.
60. Oldenberg: Religion des Veda , pp. 359–60; Thite, Ganesh Umakant, ‘Animal-Sacrifice in the Brāhmaṇa Texts’, Numen 17 (1970), p. 144; Witzel, Michael, ‘The case of the shattered head’, Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik (1987), pp. 390–1; Heesterman: Broken World , pp. 72–3. See below, Chapter 4, ‘The Āśvinagraha (Aśvin Cup)’.
61. Thite: ‘Animal-Sacrifice’, pp. 151–2. For the substitutions running from man to goat to rice, see Smith, Brian K., and Doniger, Wendy, ‘Sacrifice and Substitution: Ritual Mystification and Mythical Demystification’, Numen 36 (1989), pp. 199–203. Witzel cites the late Vedic Vādhūla Brāhmaṇa , which tells how the gods agreed to accept a horse instead of a man (as in the story of Dadhyañc), then a goat instead of a horse, and finally an animal figurine made of rice, barley or clay. See Witzel: ‘The case of the shattered head’, pp. 391–2. For a modern example of substitution (rice flour for goats) see Staal: Agni , vol. 1, p. 303, and vol. 2, p. 465.
62. Thite: ‘Animal-Sacrifice’, pp. 148–51; Witzel: ‘The case of the shattered head’, p. 412 note 103. We find similar substitutions elsewhere – a ram is substituted for Isaac in Israel, a deer for Iphigeneia in Greece.
63. ‘The heroes (the Maruts) went to Śaryaṇāvant with its good soma’ ( suṣome śaryaṇāvati , RV 8: 7, 29). Indra, a connoisseur whose judgement may be trusted, enjoys drinking soma there ( RV 8: 36, 9; RV 8: 64, 11; RV 9: 113, 1).
64. See Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 3, p. 207, note to RV 10: 48, 10ab.
65. See below, Chapter 4, ‘The Pravargya (Heating Ritual)’.
66. ‘Indra and the Aśvins represent the two main types of divine intervention in human affairs’, Oldenberg: Religion des Veda , p. 56 note 1.
67. Yama and Manu are alternative ancestors of the human race, though their father, Vivasvant, is also included among ‘mortals’ at RV 10: 17, 2a. Avestan texts have Yima alone as the first human, and the Ṛgveda views Manu alone as the ancestor of the living. Yama, in contrast, is the first dead person, the king of all dead ancestors.
68. See the related word, sajātya (‘man of the same family’, ‘clansman’) at RV 8: 83, 7a, where Indra, Viṣṇu, the Maruts and the Aśvins are asked to look after the poet's clansmen ( sajātyānām ). The term also occurs at RV 10: 39, 6c, where Ghoṣā laments that she is without clansmen ( asajātyā ).
69. RV 8: 18, 19c says that the Kāṇva poets and the divine Ādityas belong to the ‘same family’ ( sajātiye ). RV 8: 27, 10a goes even further, because now the Kāṇvas belong to the ‘same family’ ( sajātiyam ) as all the gods and enjoy ‘friendship’ ( āpiyam ) with them. These exaggerated claims and the implicit acknowledgement that sajātiyam does not mean much more than ‘friendship’, warn us not to take too seriously any claims of belonging to the same family as the gods.
70. Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 2, p. 78, note to RV 5: 73, 4d.
71. This phrase ‘at the criticial moment’ ( paritakmiyāyām ) occurs only six times in the Ṛgveda . It refers to timely interventions by Indra ( RV 4: 41, 6d; RV 5: 31, 11a; and RV 6: 24, 9d) and by the Aśvins ( RV 1: 116, 15b; RV 4: 43, 3b; and RV 7: 69, 4b). All other instances of the word paritakmyā (apart from these six occurences in the locative case) refer to stories involving Indra ( RV 5: 30, 13d and 14a; RV 10: 108, 1c).
72. Dadhyañc is the son of Atharvan, the first fire-priest ( dadhyaṅ […] ātharvaṇo , RV 1: 116, 12c; ātharvaṇāya dadhīce , RV 1: 117, 22; dadhiaṅṅ ṛṣiḥ […] atharvaṇaḥ , RV 6: 16, 14ab). Dadhyañc himself is one of the first humans to offer soma ( RV 9: 108, 4a).
73. RV 1: 116, 16d; RV 1: 157, 6a; RV 8: 18, 8a; RV 8: 86, 1a; RV 10: 39, 3d and 5b.
74. RV 8: 9, 6b; RV 8: 22, 10d.
75. Contrast the dangerous Rudra ( RV 2: 33, 4ab; RV 5: 42, 11a; RV 7: 46, 3ab and d) with the healing Rudra ( RV 2: 33, 4cd; RV 5: 42, 11b; RV 7: 46, 3c).
76. ‘You two killed the son of Viṣvāc with poison’ ( RV 1: 117, 16d).
77. In the Brāhmaṇa period, carpenters are regarded as impure and are not allowed to perform a sacrifice. See Rau: Staat und Gesellschaft , p. 28.
78. The Hotar priests of the Ṛgveda form an alliance with the doctors of the Atharvan tradition against the Adhvaryu priests, whose Yajurvedic texts denounce medicine. See Witzel: ‘Development of the Vedic Canon’, pp. 292–3.
79. Agni is typically described as the divine Hotar corresponding to the human one.
80. Presumably, one of the Aśvins acts as the Adhvaryu, and the other as his assistant, the Pratiprasthātar.
81. Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 1, p. 106, note to RV 1: 83, 3ab.
82. Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 1, p. 202, notes to RV 1: 144, 3ab and 4ab. Geldner suggests that ‘the two of equal age’ might refer to the two arms of the priest lighting the fire (note to 3ab).
83. Oldenberg: Religion des Veda , pp. 388–9. The word ‘Hotar’ means the priest who makes libations ( hu, juhoti ). See EWA , vol. 2, p. 821 under hótar- and hótrā . He was later restricted to reciting Ṛgvedic verses, and his other tasks were assigned to the Adhvaryu. See Oldenberg: Religion des Veda , p. 386.
84. The adjective supāṇi occurs eight times in the Ṛgveda . It is used of Tvaṣṭar (three times), and also of the Aśvins (here alone) and Savitar (twice). The Aśvins and Savitar appear together in the Sāvitra formula of the Adhvaryus: ‘on the impulse of Savitar, with the arms of the Aśvins, with the hands of Pūṣan.’ The remaining two occurrences refer to Mitra and Varuṇa.
85. Suhasta/suhastya occurs 16 times in the Ṛgveda , six times of the Ṛbhus and eight times of an Adhvaryu priest.
86. Witzel, Michael, ‘Early Sanskritization. Origins and Development of the Kuru State’, Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 1–4 (1995), pp. 9–10; Witzel: ‘Development of the Vedic Canon’, pp. 266–8.
1. Witzel: ‘Early Sanskritization’, pp. 11–12. This division is based on culture (Witzel: Das alte Indien , p. 28) and on religious behaviour (Witzel: ‘Early Sanskritization’, p. 260 note 16). So a man with a Sanskrit name may be called an ‘outsider’ ( dāsa ), while someone with a non-Sanskrit name may be included as an ārya . See Witzel, Michael, ‘Rgvedic History: Poets, Chieftains and Polities’, in Erdosy, George (editor), The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia. Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1995), pp. 325–6. Parpola suggests that the ‘outsiders’ (Dāsas, Dasyus, Paṇis) were people who spoke a different dialect of Indo-Iranian (or perhaps merely a different Sanskrit dialect) and worshipped different gods. See Parpola: ‘Aryans and soma’, pp. 367–9. In either case, the division between ārya and dāsa has nothing to do with race.
2. Rau: Staat und Gesellschaft, pp. 34–5 (the Vaiśyas are ‘food’), p. 36 (the Brahmins and Kṣatriyas must co-operate because they exploit the same ‘food’). See Witzel: ‘Early Sanskritization’, p. 9 (four classes), and pp. 5 and 9 (Brahmin-Kṣatriya alliance); Witzel: ‘Development of the Vedic Canon’, p. 267 (four classes), and p. 294 (Brahmin-Kṣatriya alliance).
3. Witzel: ‘Early Sanskritization’, pp. 8–16.
4. Śruta means ‘heard’, so the term śrauta means those traditional beliefs that had been handed down orally and ‘heard’ by each new generation.
5. Witzel: ‘Origin of the Frame Story’, pp. 382–4; Jamison, Stephanie, and Witzel, Michael, ( www.people.fas.harvard.edu/witzel/vedica.pdf , 1992) p. 37.
6. Bloomfield, Maurice, Hymns of the Atharva-Veda (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1897 [2000]), pp. xxvi–xxvii; Witzel: ‘Development of the Vedic Canon’, p. 277 note 85. The Aṅgiras and Bhṛgu families are the most important composers of the Ṛgveda and of the Atharvaveda . See Witzel: ‘Development of the Vedic Canon’, p. 292; Witzel: ‘Ṛgvedic history’, p. 316. For the medicinal magic ( bheṣaja ) of the Atharaveda , see Bloomfield: Atharva-Veda , pp. xxviii–xxi;. The word bheṣaja can even be used as a synonym for the Atharvaveda , see Bloomfield: Atharva-Veda , p. xxi.
7. Witzel: ‘Development of the Vedic Canon’, p. 291.
8. The Atharvaveda Saṃhitā usually refers to itself as the ‘Veda of the Atharvans and Aṅgirasas’ ( atharvāṅgirasaveda ), or simply the ‘Veda of the Atharvans’ ( atharvaveda ). See Bloomfield: Atharva-Veda , pp. xvii–xviii.
9. Witzel: ‘Development of the Vedic Canon’, pp. 291–2.
10. Witzel: ‘Development of the Vedic Canon’, p. 275 and note 77.
11. Witzel: ‘Development of the Vedic Canon’, p. 291.
12. Caland, Willem, and Henry, Victor. L'agniṣṭoma (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1906), pp. 162–4.
13. Caland and Henry: L'agniṣṭoma , pp. 169–81. It is called the Outdoor Chant because, unlike all the other chants, it is sung outside the Recitation Hut ( sadas ) of the priests; and it is the Purifying Chant because while the Samavedic priests are singing it, others are purifying the soma from the main vat by pouring it through a filter into a vat called the Container of the Purified (Soma), the pūtabhṛt .
14. Caland and Henry: L'agniṣṭoma , pp. 182–3.
15. TS 6: 4, 7–8.
16. Heesterman, J.C., ‘Vrātya and Sacrifice’, Indo-Iranian Journal 6 (1962), pp. 18–19; Heesterman: Broken World , p. 72; Schmidt, Hans Peter, ‘Vedic Pāthas ’, Indo-Iranian Journal 15 (1973), pp. 35–8. The gruesome detail, that bits of flesh would stick to the post and hatchet during a beheading, is presented as perfectly normal ( RV 1: 162, 9). See Schmidt: ‘Vedic Pāthas ’, p. 37.
17. RV 10: 171, 2. The passage emphasizes the gory elements. See Witzel: ‘Early Indian History’, p. 391.
18. Oldenberg: Religion des Veda , pp. 359–60; Thite, Ganesh Umakant, ‘Animal-Sacrifice in the Brāhmaṇa Texts’, Numen 17 (1970), p. 144; Witzel: ‘Early Indian history’, pp. 390–1; Heesterman: Broken World , pp. 72–3.
19. This development is somewhat similar to the way in which the American and Chinese governments have adopted the discreet ‘medical’ procedure of lethal injection, whereas the Saudi and Iranian governments have maintained more explicit ways of killing their victims.
20. TS 2: 3, 11 ²–³ ; TS 2: 6, 3 ⁶ ; TS 4: 1, 7 ⁴ ; and TS 5: 3, 1 ¹ .
21. In the passage that describes the Aśvins as ānujāvara , Keith strangely translates it as ‘infirm’, Keith, Arthur Berriedale, The Veda of the Black Yajus School, Entitled Taittiriya Sanhita (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914), p. 578. Elsewhere, however, he translates it as ‘youngest’ ( TS 6: 6, 11 ² ), ‘low(est) in rank’ ( TS 2: 3, 4 ²–⁴ ), and ‘inferior’ ( TS 7: 2, 10 ² ).
22. The cup for Indra and Vayu should be first if a man wants harmony among his offspring or is ill (the Indra–Vayu cup is, of course, first in a normal soma sacrifice); the cup for Mitra and Varuṇa should be first if someone dies; and the cup for the Aśvins should be first if the sacrificer is inferior in rank ( TS 7: 2, 7 ¹–² ).
23. Immediately after the passage about Indra, we hear that if a Brahmin is lower in rank, he must offer rice-shoots to Bṛhaspati ( TS 2: 3, 4 ⁴ ). In this case, however, there is no suggestion that Bṛhaspati himself suffers from any feelings of inferiority, temporary or otherwise. The ‘lower-ranking’ Brahmin prays to him simply because he is the god of the Brahmins.
24. In the case of the ‘low-ranking’ Brahmin, as with Indra's ‘low-ranking’ warlord, Bṛhaspati leads him to the forefront of his colleagues ( agraṃ samānānām ), in other words, to the forefront of the top-ranking Brahmins.
25. The warlords and the priests were united in their contempt for the rest of the population. See Rau: Staat und Gesellschaft, pp. 117–18; Falk: Bruderschaft und Würfelspiel , p. 192. Witzel: Early Sanskritization’, p. 9; Witzel: ‘Development of the Vedic Canon’, p. 294.
26. TS 2: 6, 4 ¹ ; TS 6: 2, 10 ¹ ; TS 6: 3, 6 ³ ; and TS 6: 4, 4 ¹ .
27. Witzel: ‘Development of the Vedic Canon’, p. 267 note 46.
28. Dumézil: M&E I. L'idéologie des trois fonctions , pp. 48–52 and 57–9.
29. Oldenberg: Religion des Veda , p. 386; Jamison and Witzel: Vedic Hinduism , p. 37; Witzel: ‘Development of the Vedic Canon’, p. 291.
30. Elsewhere, madhu will be identified not as soma, but as the hot milk offering in the Pravargya ritual ( ŚB 14: 1, 1 ²⁵ ).
31. He no longer plays a role in the soma sacrifice, but he is given the new function of teaching the Aśvins about the Pravargya ritual ( ŚB 14: 1, 1 ²⁵ ).
32. We are promised (at ŚB 4: 1, 5 ¹⁵ ) that the explanation will come ‘in the chapter on the Verses Chanted by Day’ ( divākīrtyas ). In fact, it comes in the chapter on the Pravargya ( ŚB 14: 1, 1).
33. In the Ṛgveda this right is not questioned, but in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa it has to be explained and justified, because the earlier Yajurvedic tradition represented by the Taittirīya Saṃhitā had already declared the Aśvins ineligible.
34. Houben: ‘Earliest Pravargya Ritual’, p. 2.
35. Witzel: ‘Early Sanskritization’, p. 15 note 93; Houben: ‘Earliest Pravargya Ritual’, pp. 6–7.
36. Gonda, Jaan, ‘A Propos of the Mantras in the Pravargya Section of the Ṛgveda Brāhmaṇas’, Indo-Iranian Journal 21 (1979), pp. 248 and 262.
37. Sacred grass (Sanskrit barhiṣ , Avestan baresman ) was spread out on the ground in Indian and Iranian rituals.
38. The victim's omentum (the membrane protecting its stomach) was offered to the gods, both in Indian and Iranian sacrifice. See Oldenberg: Religion des Veda , pp. 360–1.
39. Paradoxically, but not surprisingly, the Atris themselves are ignored. See Witzel: ‘Development of the Vedic Canon’, p. 292 note 155.
40. Buitenen, J. A. B. van, The Pravargya, an ancient Indian iconic ritual (Poona: Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute, 1968), p. 31; Houben: ‘Earliest Pravargya Ritual’, pp. 3–4.
41. Gonda: ‘Pravargya Mantras’, pp. 249–51.
42. Houben argues that the Pravargya had already been incorporated into the soma sacrifice during the Early Vedic period, see Houben: ‘Earliest Pravargya Ritual’, pp. 3 and 13–14; Gonda is doubtful, see Gonda: ‘Pravargya Mantras’, p. 237; and van Buitenen believes that this does not happen till after the Ṛgveda and Atharvaveda have been compiled, see Buitenen: Pravargya , p. 6.
43. Witzel points out that the Pravargya has merged with the soma sacrifice by the time of the Yajurveda Saṃhitās . See Witzel: ‘Origin of the Frame Story’, p. 390 and note 27.
44. Buitenen: Pravargya , p. 6; Witzel: ‘Origin of the Frame Story’, p. 408.
45. Buitenen: Pravargya , p. 2.
46. Caland and Henry: L'agniṣṭoma , pp. 283; Buitenen: Pravargya , pp. 142–4.
47. Buitenen: Pravargya , p. 3.
48. Buitenen: Pravargya , p. 4.
49. The Pravargya of the Pressing Day, a tiny episode of the soma sacrifice, had merely balanced the Dadhigharma , another minor episode. The elaborate Upasad Pravargya , however, is now balancing all the episodes of the entire soma sacrifice! In each case, Indra represents the other side of the comparison (Indra's Dadhigharma , Indra's Soma Sacrifice).
50. Caland and Henry: L'agniṣṭoma , p. 55.
51. Caland and Henry: L'agniṣṭoma , p. 77. They aptly describe this removal ( pravargyodvāsanam ) as the ‘banishment’ of the Pravargya .
52. Caland and Henry: L'agniṣṭoma , p. 78.
53. Caland and Henry: L'agniṣṭoma , pp. 110–16.
54. Gonda: ‘Pravargya Mantras’, pp. 253–5 and 263. He tentatively suggests that they ‘wished to bring about by means of its recitation an analogous psychical process’, Gonda: ‘Pravargya Mantras’, p. 255.
55. The words describing their activities are almost identical (except that the verb ‘put’ is past with the gods and present with the priests): ‘they put it together, and after having put it together they spoke.’ taṃ saṃjabhrus, taṃ sambhṛtyocur (gods and sacrifice); gharmaṃ sambharatas, taṃ sambhṛtyāhatur (Adhvaryus and Pravargya ).
56. Malamoud discusses this acquisition of a new body in the context of the soma sacrifice. See Malamoud, Charles, Cooking the World. Ritual and Thought in Ancient India , translated by David White (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 101 and 183.
57. Witzel: ‘Early Sanskritization’, p. 15 and note 93.
58. The mahāvira pot ‘overshadows […] the hot milk offering itself’, Buitenen: Pravargya , p. 9.
59. Apastambha Śrauta Sūtra 15: 7. The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa says that the Pravargya is the head of the sacrifice and soma is its body, so the head must be higher than the body ( ŚB 14: 1, 3 ¹² ). The Emperor's Throne is higher (shoulder-high, ŚB 14: 1, 3 ¹⁰ ) than the King's Throne (navel-high, ŚB 3: 3, 4 ²⁸ ), but the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa uses this contrast between head and body to explain why the Emperor's Throne is placed to the north ( uttara , geographically ‘higher’) rather than why it is physically higher ( uttara ) from the ground ( ŚB 14: 1, 3 ¹² ).
60. ‘This restriction, which is repeated throughout the texts, recalls an earlier Agniṣṭoma where the Pravargya was unheard of’, Buitenen: Pravargya , p. 6.
61. In a sattra , ‘they [the participants] make an agreement with him [their leader] to share all its benefits’, Falk: Bruderschaft und Würfelspiel , pp. 34–5.
62. This part is borrowed from the explanation of the Aśvin Cup at Taittirīya Saṃhitā 6: 4, 9. See Witzel: ‘Origin of the Frame Story’, p. 391 note 29; Houben, Jan E.M., The Pravargya Brāhmaṇa of the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka: an Ancient Commentary on the Pravargya Ritual (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1991), p. 106 note 8.
63. Houben: Pravargya Brāhmaṇa , pp. 45–8.
64. Coomaraswamy suggests that this should be translated as ‘Soma-Makha’ or ‘Makha-Viṣṇu’. See Coomaraswamy, Ananda K., ‘Angel and Titan: an Essay in Vedic Ontology’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 55 (1935), p. 376. It is true that Soma, Makha, and Viṣṇu will be equated in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa , but it ruins the story if this is stated right from the beginning.
65. The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa goes on to explain that this is the etymology of Indra's name Maghavān (‘generous’).
66. RV 10: 171, 2.
67. Houben: ‘Earliest Pravargya Ritual’, p. 17.
68. There is some dispute over whether the man to be initiated is a young student priest, learning how to perform the Pravargya , or a mature householder.
69. The exact same wording appears once again towards the end of Chapter 19, and also at Apastambha Śrauta Sūtra 15: 20, 2 and 8.
70. Witzel: ‘Origin of the Frame Story’, pp. 404–5.
71. Witzel: ‘Origin of the Frame Story’, pp. 390–1.
72. Witzel: ‘Origin of the Frame Story’, pp. 407–8 and 412–3.
73. If the Hotar has been trained in the Aitareya school, this prayer is 100 stanzas long; if he belongs to the Kauṣītaki school, it goes on for 360 stanzas. See Caland and Henry: L'agniṣṭoma , pp. 130–2 and 417–59.
74. Both the Recitation Hut ( sadas ) and the Soma Hut ( havirdhāna ) are rooms inside the Great Altar Hall ( mahāvedi ). Another exception to the general rule is the Outdoor Purifying Chant ( bahiṣpavamānastotra ), which is sung at the north-eastern corner of the Great Altar Hall ( mahāvedi ) rather than in the Recitation Hut ( sadas ).
75. Apastambha Śrauta Sūtra 12: 3, 14.
76. Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 2: 15.
77. Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 2: 16; Kauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa 11: 4.
78. Kauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa 11: 8.
79. devāh prātaryāvāṇaḥ ( Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 2: 15).
80. Bodewitz: Agnihotra , pp. 2–3.
81. Kauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa 11: 2.
82. Usually, the three representative gods are Agni, Indra or Vāyu, and Sūrya. See Nirukta 7: 5; Bṛhaddevatā 1: 5; Macdonell: Vedic Mythology , p. 19.
83. Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 2: 15; Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa 1: 211. It is very common for Brāhmaṇas to represent a ritual as a battle between the gods and the Asuras.
84. The chant is called the Agniṣṭoma chant, see Caland and Henry: L'agniṣṭoma , pp. 369–71; the hymn is the Āgnimārutaśastra , Caland and Henry: L'agniṣṭoma , pp. 372–9.
85. Staal: Agni , vol. 1, pp. 680–2.
86. Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa 1: 208.
87. Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa 1: 212.
88. The Morning Prayer is 100 or 360 verses long, depending on what school the Hotar belongs to, see note 74 above.
89. Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 11: 5, 5 ⁹ . The Maitrāvaruṇa priest should recite the Morning Prayer under his breath while the Hotar is reciting the Aśvin Hymn ( Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 11: 5, 5 ¹⁰ ). This will counteract the error of ‘pushing the Morning Prayer from its place’.
90. Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa 1: 210. It had explained the Twilight Chant in the same way.
91. In the Ṛgvedic Brāhmaṇas the married couple are Soma and Sūryā ( Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 4: 7; Kauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa 18: 1); in the Samavedic Brāhmaṇa, they are Bṛhaspati and Uṣas ( Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa 1: 213).
92. Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa 1: 213.
93. Aitareya Brāhmaṇa 4: 8; Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa 1: 210 and 213.
94. The particular type of surā used in the Sautrāmaṇī rite may have been a stronger form of distilled alcohol, one that was almost poisonous ( viṣa ). See Oort, Marianne S., ‘Surā in the Paippalāda Saṃhitā of the Atharvaveda’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 122 (2002), pp. 355–60.
95. When it was performed on its own as a cure for soma sickness, it was called the kaukilī-sautrāmaṇī ; when it was performed after a royal consecration, it was called the caraka-sautrāmaṇī .
96. ‘You are soma’ ( TB 2: 6, 1), etc. See Dumont, Paul-Emile, ‘The Kaukilī-Sautrāmaṇī in the Taittirīya-Brāhmaṇa’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 109 (1965), p. 311; and ĀpŚS 19: 1, 1 and 19: 5, 7.
97. A similar bath in broth was part of the Irish coronation ceremonies (Gerald of Wales, Topographia Hibernica 3: 25). Although in Ireland the victim was a horse, this part of the Irish ritual is closer to the Sautrāmaṇī or the Rājāsūya than it is to the Aśvamedha , with which it is often compared. This comparison with the As´vamedha is rightly rejected by Zimmer. See Zimmer, Stefan, ‘Die Indogermanen und das Pferd – Befunde und Probleme’, in Hänsel, Bernhard, and Zimmer, Stefan (editors), Die Indogermanen und das Pferd. Festschrift fur Bernfried Schlerath (Budapest: Archaeolingua Alapítvány, 1994), p. 31.
98. Keith: Religion and Philosophy , pp. 352–4; Dumont: ‘Kaukilī-Sautrāmaṇī’, pp. 309–11.
99. ‘The surā is in general not employed in çrāuta- practices; it is lāukika , not vāidika , and everywhere in the worst repute possible,’ Bloomfield: ‘Interpretation of Veda’, p. 152. In the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa , soma is for Brahmins (12: 7, 2 ² ), milk for Kṣatriyas (12: 7, 3 ⁸ ), and surā for Vaiśyas (12: 7, 3 ¹⁵ ).
100. Bloomfield translates these lines as ‘you two Açvins, drinking yourselves into a surfeit of surā with the āsura Namuci’, Bloomfield: ‘Interpretation of Veda’, pp. 148–9.
101. ‘ vi-pā means: to drink one liquid alone out of a mixture of liquids’, Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 3, p. 363, note to RV 10: 131, 4a. He mentions the belief that if geese were presented with a mixture of milk and water, they could extract the milk, leaving the water behind.
102. Geldner says that it means ‘the power (effect) of brandy’ or ‘having the effect of brandy, spiked’, Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 3, p. 363, note to RV 10: 131, 4a. In effect, surāma is a cocktail, a mixture containing surā as its active ingredient.
103. ‘Namuci overpowered Indra at first by means of brandy. He probably offered him soma mixed with brandy, which the god could not tolerate […] Because of this mixture, the soma became impure […] The weakened Indra and the contaminated soma had to be healed […] The blended soma could only be restored, that is made drinkable, by means of vipānam (compare andhasor vipānam Śat. 12, 7, 3, 4)’, Geldner: Rig-Veda , vol. 3, p. 363, note to RV 10: 131, 4a.
104. ‘In like manner, too, the priest is directed to draw the cups of soma and of surā so that they shall be interlinked or “married”…,’ Fowler, Murray, ‘The Role of Surā in the Myth of Namuci’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 62 (1942), p. 40. The passage he cites ( Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 12: 7, 3 ¹⁵ ) clearly refers to milk (equated with the warlords, kṣatra ) and surā (equated with the people, viś ), not soma and surā .
105. Dumont: ‘Kaukilī-Sautrāmaṇī’, p. 310.
106. Bloomfield: ‘Interpretation of Veda’, pp. 151–2.
107. From Mahidhara's commentary on Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā 10: 33, cited at Bloomfield: ‘Interpretation of Veda’, p. 152.
108. The full mantras are given at Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa 2: 6, 1d-e. See Dumont: ‘Kaukilī-Sautrāmaṇī’, p. 311.
109. Compare asyendriyaṃ vīryaṃ […] harāṇi (12: 7, 1 ¹⁰ ) with etasmāt […] indriyaṃ vīryaṃ krāmati (12: 7, 2 ¹ ).
110. Dumont: ‘Kaukilī-Sautrāmaṇī’, p. 310.
111. The priest ‘makes it ( surā ) a form of soma’ ( somarūpaṃ evaināṃ karoti , 12: 7, 3 ⁶ ).
112. ‘By faith alone he makes it ( parisrut ) soma’ ( śraddhayaivainaṃ somaṃ karoti , 12: 7, 3 ¹¹ ).
113. ‘This drink surā seems inauspicious indeed for a Brahmin; he makes it auspicious, and takes it inside himself, saying “I am drinking king soma here”’ (12: 8, 1 ⁵ ). Brahmins constantly denounced surā , and some Brahmins even hired a substitute to drink it for them at the Sautrāmaṇī ’, Bloomfield: ‘Interpretation of Veda’, pp. 152–3.
114. ‘Milk is indeed soma […] by milk alone he gets soma’ ( somo vai payo […] payasaiva somapītham avarunddhe , 12: 7, 3 ⁸ ); ‘the cups of milk are soma’ ( somo vai payograhāḥ , 12: 7, 3 ¹⁷ ).
115. For example, in the five mantras recorded by Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa 2: 6, 1, all of which speak of ‘soma’ alone, the first refers to surā , the second refers to a mixture of milk and surā , the third to milk, and only the fourth and fifth (which speak of vomiting and diarrhoea) refer to real soma! See Dumont: ‘Kaukilī-Sautrāmaṇī’, p. 311.
116. As always, ‘the mantras recited for the original also remain unchanged when there is a substitute’, Smith and Doniger: ‘Sacrifice and Substitution’, p. 204. In the Sautrāmaṇī soma is the ‘original’ and surā is the ‘substitute’.
1. There was a fourth child, the equally famous Klutaimnēstra, but she is not associated with the Dioskouroi in early Greek art or literature.
2. This indoctrination was called the Spartan agōgē (guidance, direction). The young Spartans were treated almost like slaves, and were trained to endure violence and brutality. For the training, see Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 16–18 and 24–5; Forrest, W.G., A History of Sparta (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1968), pp. 51–3; Cartledge, Paul, The Spartans. The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and Collapse (Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 2003), pp. 69–72. For the tension between their slave-like humiliation and preparation for full citizenship, see Vernant, Jean-Pierre, Mortals and Immortals: Collected Essays , edited by Froma I. Zeitlin (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 229–43.
3. Forrest: History of Sparta , pp. 30–1; Cartledge: Spartans , pp. 28–32 and 72–6.
4. For the gratuitous killing of Helots by young Spartans, see Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 28; Vidal-Naquet, Pierre, The Black Hunter: Forms of Thought and Forms of Society in the Greek World , translated by Andrew Szegedy-Maszak. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), pp. 149–50; Cartledge: Spartans , pp. 72.
5. Burkert: Greek Religion , pp. 262–3; Parker, Robert, ‘Spartan Religion’, in Powell, Anton (editor), Classical Sparta. Techniques Behind Her Success (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), pp. 148–50.
6. Pausanias 3: 17, 1–2; Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 140; Parker: ‘Spartan Religion’, p. 142; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 156 note 590. As patron of the city, Athēna was called Athēna Protector of the City ( Athēna Polioukhos ) and Athēna of the Bronze House ( Athēna Khalkioikos ). The latter title comes from the temple itself, which was of bronze.
7. Burkert: Greek Religion , pp. 144–5 (Apollōn) and pp. 150–1 (Artemis); Parker: ‘Spartan Religion’, p. 149.
8. Pausanias 3: 18, 9–19, 5; Parker: ‘Spartan Religion’, p. 146.
9. Parker points out that over 100,000 votive offerings were found at the temple. See Parker: ‘Spartan Religion’, p. 148.
10. The altar itself commemorated his transition from hero to god with a relief showing several gods escorting Huakinthos to heaven (Pausanias 3: 19, 4).
11. Nilsson, Martin P., Geschichte der griechischen Religion. Erster Band. Die Religion Griechenlands bis auf die griechische Weltherrschaft (Munich: C.H. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1955), pp. 316–17; Nilsson, Martin P., The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1972), p. 76.
12. Pausanias 3: 19, 3; Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 531.
13. Originally, the boys were divided into teams. One team had to steal cheese from the altar of Artemis while a second team used whips to stop them (Xenophon, The Spartan Constitution 2, 9). In later times, this competition was changed into an endurance test, during which all the young men were flogged till they bled (Pausanias 3: 16, 10–11). See Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , pp. 488–9; Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 152; Parker: ‘Spartan Religion’, p. 148.
14. David, Ephraim, ‘Laughter in Spartan Society’, in Powell, Anton (editor), Classical Sparta. Techniques Behind Her Success (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), pp. 11–12; Parker: ‘Spartan Religion’, pp. 151–2; Vernant, Jean-Pierre, and Vidal-Naquet, Pierre, Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece , translated by Janet LLoyd (New York, NY: Zone Books, 1988), pp. 199–200.
15. The word gumnopaidiai is usually interpreted as the Festival of Naked Boys, from paides , ‘boys’, but Parker suggests that it really means the Festival of Naked Dances, from paidiai , ‘games’. See Parker: ‘Spartan Religion’, pp. 149–50. In this context the term ‘naked’ ( gumnos ) probably means ‘unarmed’, which was a common way of distinguishing a young man from a mature hoplite warrior, who would be fully clothed in armour. See Vidal-Naquet: Black Hunter , pp. 113 and 117.
16. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , pp. 531–3; Burkert: Greek Religion , pp. 234–6; Parker: ‘Spartan Religion’, pp. 146 and 148.
17. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 531; Parker: ‘Spartan Religion’, p. 148.
18. Pausanias 3: 11, 9; Xenophon Hellenica 6: 4, 16.
19. mimēma […] stratiōtikēs agōgēs (Demetrius of Scepsis fr. 1 Gaede = Athenaeus 4: 141e). The connection between the religious festival and the military training is so close that Forrest uses the Karneia to help date the constitution of Lukourgos. See Forrest: History of Sparta , p. 58.
20. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 406; Nilsson: Mycenaean Origin , pp. 76–7; Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 212; Hermary, Antoine, ‘Dioskouroi,’ in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Zurich: Artemis, 1981), vol. 3, part 1, p. 567.
21. Hermary: ‘Dioskouroi’, p. 567.
22. Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 212.
23. The tomb of Tundareos was on the Spartan acropolis, and he was the legendary founder of the bronze temple of Athēna Polioukhos , Athēna Protector of the City, also known as Athēna Khalkioikos , Athēna of the Bronze House (Pausanias 3: 17, 4). Tundareos therefore plays a similar role to that of Erekhtheus in Athens. Erekhtheus was likewise an ancient king and shared a temple with Athēna Polias , Athēna Protector of the City (Homer, Iliad 2: 546–551).
24. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 406; Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 213; Parker: ‘Spartan Religion’, p. 147; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 67.
25. Parker: ‘Spartan Religion’, p. 149; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 64.
26. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 408; Parker: ‘Spartan Religion’, p. 142; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 67.
27. Nilsson remarks that the Dioskouroi were ‘almost national gods’, Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 408.
28. A thousand miniature reliefs were found at the shrine of Agamemnōn and his Spartan wife Alexandra, see Parker: ‘Spartan Religion’, p. 147. Pausanias notes how the Spartans alter Greek myths and take over heroes from other places (Pausanias 3: 13, 2). He pointedly refers to the Spartan shrine of Agamemnōn as ‘a tomb which is supposedly that of Agamemnōn’ (Pausanias 3: 19, 6). Pausanias had, of course, seen the ‘real’ tomb of Agamemnōn at Mycenae (Pausanias 2: 16, 6).
29. Parker: ‘Spartan Religion’, pp. 147–8. When other Greek states turned historical figures into semi-divine heroes, it was usually athletes that they worshipped! See Parker: ‘Spartan Religion’, p. 167 note 30.
30. The Delphic oracle is typically ambiguous on this matter, but decides on balance that he probably was a god (Herodotus 1: 65, 3). The Spartans have no doubts, erect a temple to him, and worship him as a god (Pausanias 3: 16, 6).
31. Alkman fr. 7 Campbell; Pindar, Pythian Ode 11: 63; Pindar, Nemean Ode 10: 56. Homer, speaking more loosely, says that they come from Lakedaimōn, without specifying which part of the state they come from ( Iliad 3: 239).
32. Pausanias 3: 20, 2. A poem by Alkman of Sparta mentions the Dioskouroi in connection with a festival called the Phoibaia (Alkman fr. 5, 1 Campbell).
33. Alkman fr. 7 Campbell; Herodotus 6: 61, 3; Pausanias 3: 19, 9.
34. Alkman fr. 7 Campbell.
35. See LSJ (Greek-English Lexicon), under ‘Phoibeios ’. The entry specifically mentions the temple at Therapnē as sacred to Phoibos, citing Herodotus 6: 61, 3, which speaks of the temple of Phoibos ( Phoibēion hīron ) near the temple of Helen? ( Helenēs hīron ). Phoibaion is the local, Doric form of Phoibeion .
36. Farnell: Greek Hero Cults , p. 231.
37. Artemis is Phoibē, just as her brother Apollōn is Phoibos, and one of her titles is Artemis of the Wetlands ( Artemis Limnaia ). There is a sanctuary of Artemis of the Wetlands near the theatre at Sparta (Pausanias 3: 14, 2), and the famous temple of Artemis Orthia is in the Wetlands Sanctuary ( Limnaion , Pausanias 3: 16, 7). At Troizēn, the temple of Artemis Sarōnis is in the Wetlands of Phoibē ( Phoibaia limnē , Pausanias 2: 30, 7). This is the place where Hippolutos, the eternal adolescent, rides his horse and worships Artemis (Euripides, Hippolytus 228–31). Phoibē, Artemis Limnaia, and adolescence are connected in Greek thought.
38. As we saw above, the young men have to go through the flogging initiation and they also perform masked dances at the Temple of Artemis Orthia. In Greek myth, it is also the place from which Thēseus abducts Helenē. She is dancing for Artemis (Plutarch Theseus 31), which suggests that young women dance there as well as young men. See Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 489.
39. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 493–4.
40. Pausanias 3: 14, 9 and 3: 20, 2. Burkert strangely states that the young men of Sparta sacrifice a dog to Phoibē, see Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 213. One of the texts he cites (Pausanias 3: 14, 8f, cited at Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 433 n.15) says that they sacrifice a puppy to Enualios, and the other (Pausanias 3: 16, 1) speaks of young women worshipping Phoibē and Hilaeira in Sparta itself, not in the Phoibaion at Therapnē.
41. Pausanias 3: 19, 7. Köhne suggests that this ancient statue of Arēs Thēritas was in fact the statue of Enualios in the Phoibaion, see Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 62.
42. Pausanias 3: 14, 9–10.
43. Pausanias 3: 20, 1.
44. Pausanias 3: 13, 1. The tomb reminds us that Kastōr was often regarded as the only mortal twin, but Pausanias tells us that in Sparta both twins had been mortal, and both had been elevated to divinity forty years after their death.
45. Pausanias 3: 12, 10.
46. Pausanias 3: 14, 6.
47. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 532; Burkert: Greek Religion , pp. 234–5.
48. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 499.
49. Pausanias 3: 14, 7.
50. Plato Laws 7: 796b.
51. Epicharmus, Mousai fr. 92 PCG.
52. Spartan Museum Inscription 544. See Tod, M.N., and Wace, A.J.B., A Catalogue of the Sparta Museum (Rome: ‘L'Erma’ di Bretschneider, 1968), p. 70.
53. Pausanias 4: 27, 2.
54. The Dioskouroi are ‘the stewards of Sparta with its spacious dancing-floors’, and along with the super-athlete Hēraklēs and the young god Hermēs, they ‘make sure that the principles of athletic competition prevail’ (Pindar, Nemean Ode 10: 52–53).
55. Pindar, Olympian Ode 3: 36.
56. Farnell: Greek Hero Cults , p. 230.
57. Pausanias 3: 16, 1–2.
58. Pausanias 3: 16, 1.
59. Parker: ‘Spartan Religion’, p. 150. The White Horse Girls and the Girls of Dionusus sacrifice to the hero who first introduced the cult of Dionusus to Sparta (Pausanias 3: 13, 7).
60. Tod and Wace: Catalogue of the Sparta Museum , p. 43, Spartan Museum Number 220.
61. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 215. In Sparta, ‘the two gods’ can only be the Dioskouroi.
62. See below on the Athenian girls who served as the ‘bears’ of Artemis at Braurōn, and the Spartan boys who are ‘bullocks’ and ‘foxes’ in the wild countryside of Lakōnia.
63. Pausanias 3: 1, 5–6. The twins Eurusthenēs and Proklēs were the first Dorian kings of Sparta because their father, Aristodēmos, died before he saw the promised land.
64. Farnell: Greek Hero Cults , pp. 195–6; Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 410; Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 212; Parker: ‘Spartan Religion’, p. 147.
65. Herodotus 5: 75, 2.
66. Herodotus 5: 75, 2.
67. ‘In Sparta, however, the Dioskouroi experienced a metamorphosis that reminds us of the one that changed the Minoan house and snake goddess into the military protector of the king and the city,’ Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 410.
68. Pausanias 3: 13, 6.
69. Farnell: Greek Hero Cults , p. 192. Instead of using the generic term boulē , the Spartans called their council the Gerousia , or Council of Old Men ( gerontes ).
70. Vidal-Naquet: Black Hunter , pp. 113 and 141.
71. Vidal-Naquet: Black Hunter , p. 149 and p. 156 note 66.
72. Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 262; Vernant: Mortals and Immortals , p. 241. In the dictionary of Hesychius, the phouaxir is defined as ‘the physical training in the countryside before they are whipped’ (Hesychius, under phouaxir ).
73. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 214 and 485–6; Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 263. The Suidas dictionary defines this period as the ‘ritual dedication of young women to Artemis Mounikhia or Artemis Braurōnia before their marriage’ (Suidas, under arkteusai ).
74. Women are under the legal control of a guardian throughout their lives. See Pomeroy, Sarah B., Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves. Women in Classical Antiquity (New York, NY: Shocken Books, 1975), p. 62; MacDowell, Douglas M., The Law in Classical Athens (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978), p. 84.
75. See the discussion between Sōkratēs and Iskhomakhos about training a very young wife, who is only 15 years old! (Xenophon, Oeconomicus 7: 4–8.)
76. Aristotle makes this quite explicit when he declares that adult men are rational creatures, but children, women and slaves are not ( Politics 1260a12–15). Since the function of a human being is to live a rational life ( Nicomachean Ethics 1008a7–12), children, women, and slaves cannot be fully human in his system.
77. Farnell: Greek Hero Cults , pp. 182–3 and 196–8.
78. Harris: Heavenly Twins and Boanerges . Farnell acknowledges his debt to the theories of Harris, see Farnell: Greek Hero Cults , pp. 176 and 179–80. He regrets only that Harris did not apply them consistently enough and that he had been partly seduced by the possibility that the Dioskouroi might have an Indo-European origin! See Farnell: Greek Hero Cults , p. 180.
79. See Chapter 1, ‘2. Twins’.
80. See Chapter 6, ‘1. The Status and Parentage of the Dioskouroi’.
81. Iliad 3: 243–244.
82. Pausanias 3: 13, 1.
83. ‘Many leather shields and helmets / fell in the dust, as did the race of semi-divine men’ ( Iliad 12: 22–23). Homer may have felt that it would be ‘anachronistic’ (a violation of the epic tradition) to refer to his heroes as semi-divine. They were merely heroes ( hērōes ) in the epic tradition, even if they were half-gods ( hēmitheoi ) in the cult of Homer's contemporaries. See Nagy, Gregory, The Best of the Achaeans (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), pp. 159–61.
84. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 316–17 and 531; Nilsson: Mycenaean Origin , p. 76. The very tomb of Huakinthos, the proof of his mortality, depicted his introduction to Olumpos as an immortal god! (Pausanias 3: 19, 3–4.)
85. Homeric Hymn 33 (to the Dioskouroi): Dios kourous (line 1), arnessin leukoisin (line 10).
86. Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 200.
87. Pausanias uses the word ‘temple’ ( naos ) to describe the shrines of the Dioskouroi at Therapnē (Pausanias 3: 20, 2) and Argos (Pausanias 2: 22, 5).
88. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 410.
89. Their low status as young, horse-riding messenger-boys made them barely eligible to be gods. Compare the expulsion of the deformed, working-class Hēphaistos from Olumpos ( Iliad 18: 395–399), and the contempt he inspires in the other gods ( Iliad 1: 599–600).
90. As pre-Greek divinities, they would not have fitted very well into the usual Greek categories of men, heroes, and gods.
91. Alkman fr. 7 Campbell.
92. kōma siōn, asanatas teletas (Alkman fr. 7 Campbell).
93. Pausanias 3: 20, 2.
94. Tod and Wace: Catalogue of the Sparta Museum , p. 66, Spartan Museum Number 447. Farnell suggests that Pleistiadas was afraid of the Dioskouroi because he had cheated at the games. See Farnell: Greek Hero Cults , p. 196.
95. Homeric Hymn 33 (to the Dioskouroi), 1–3.
96. Pausanias 3: 18, 14.
97. Pausanias 3: 18, 11.
98. Pausanias 3: 17, 3.
99. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 215 note 5.
100. Spartan Museum Number 5380. See Steinhauer, George, Museum of Sparta. (Athens: Apollo Editions, 1975), Fig. 37; LIMC vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 461, Dioskouroi 58; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 46–9, number A2.
101. (1) The relief set up by Plesitiadas with the inscription quoted above: Tod and Wace: Catalogue of the Sparta Museum , p. 178, Spartan Museum Number 447; LIMC vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 461, Dioskouroi 65; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 51–2, number A3.
(2) A relief with two amphoras between the Dioskouroi: Tod and Wace: Catalogue of the Sparta Museum, p. 191, Spartan Museum Number 575; Steinhauer: Museum of Sparta, pp. 52–3; LIMC vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 461, Dioskouroi 59; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst, pp. 53–5, number A5.
(3) Part of a Dioskouroi relief from the Temple of Artemis Orthia: Spartan Museum Number 1991; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst, p. 56, number A8.
102. Tod and Wace: Catalogue of the Sparta Museum , p. 166, Spartan Museum Number 319; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 52, number A4.
103. Farnell: Greek Hero Cults , pp. 190 and 194–5; Tod and Wace: Catalogue of the Sparta Museum , p. 115.
104. Nilsson compares them with the household god, Zeus Ktēsios, who could also appear as a snake. See Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 409–10.
105. Burkert thinks that the snakes are participating in a Theoxenia festival for the Dioskouroi. See Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 213.
106. Tod and Wace: Catalogue of the Sparta Museum , p. 196, Spartan Museum Number 613; LIMC vol. 3, pt. 1, p. 587, Dioskouroi 226; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 55–6, number A7.
107. Farnell 1921: 195; Tod and Wace: Catalogue of the Sparta Museum , p. 115; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 56.
108. ‘Several monuments depict these Theoxenia of the Dioskouroi […] The amphoras represent an abbreviation of the cult,’ Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , pp. 384–5; ‘a couch with two cushions is prepared; two amphorae are set out’ for the Dioskouroi, Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 213.
109. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 409 and plate 29 number 2.
110. Tod and Wace: Catalogue of the Sparta Museum , p. 193, Spartan Museum Number 588; LIMC vol. 3, pt. 1, p. 587, Dioskouroi 224; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 47, number A6.
111. Plutarch On Brotherly Love , 478ab. Plutarch uses a description of the dokana to start off his essay on brotherly love.
112. ‘Tombs in Lakedaimōnia; from receiving the Tundaridai, having the appearance of opened tombs,’ Etymologicum Magnum under ‘dokana ’.
113. Farnell: Greek Hero Cults , p. 190; Tod and Wace: Catalogue of the Sparta Museum , p. 115.
114. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 409.
115. Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 213. In ancient Rome, there was a similar structure called the Tigillum Sororium (‘the Beam of Puberty’). It consisted to two vertical posts with just one horizontal beam resting on top. The young Romans had to march under this structure in order to become adult warriors. See Scullard, Howard Hayes, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), p. 190.
116. Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 50–1.
117. Pausanias 4: 27, 2–3.
118. Pausanias 4: 16, 9.
119. Plutarch, Life of Lysander 12, 1. Stars were not used to symbolize the Dioskouroi until the Hellenistic age. See Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 58 note 200. They must represent St Elmo's fire in this monument. See Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 177. In the original version of the story, the eye-witnesses must have seen flashing lights, not actual stars.
120. Pausanias 10: 9, 7.
121. Plutarch, Life of Lysander 18, 1.
122. Pausanias 4: 26, 6
123. The untranslateable word xenos means that someone is both a friend and a stranger.
124. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 135; Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 107.
125. Aristophanes makes fun of this physical separation at Birds 187–193. It is precisely because the gods are so distant that the birds can impose a blockade and prevent any sacrificial aromas from being imported into heaven.
126. The gods were ‘expressly entertained as guests at a meal’, Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 107.
127. As Köhne remarks, the Theoxenia imply that the human host is equal to the Dioskouroi. See Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 130.
128. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 135.
129. The twin horse gods are invited to sit on the sacred grass ( barhis ) at Ṛgveda 1: 47, 8. This carpet of sacred grass was a regular feature of all Vedic and Persian rituals. See Oldenberg: Religion des Veda , pp. 341–5.
130. Burkert points this out, and he suggests that the Greek theoxenia and Roman lectisternium may have something to do with the Indo-European nature of the Dioskouroi. See Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 107.
131. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 135; Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 107.
132. Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 107.
133. ‘The real guests at the entertaining of the gods, theoxenia , are the Dioskouroi,’ Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 107.
134. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 410 and plate 29, number 5.
135. Pindar Olympian Ode 3: 1–2.
136. Tod and Wace: Catalogue of the Sparta Museum , p. 158, Spartan Museum Numbers 201–3; Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 408 and plate 29 number 1. On Spartan Museum Number 202, the Dioskouroi are standing beside their horses on either side of the statue.
137. Tod and Wace: Catalogue of the Sparta Museum , pp. 18–20.
138. Tod and Wace: Catalogue of the Sparta Museum , p. 33; Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 408.
139. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 409; Tod and Wace: Catalogue of the Sparta Museum , p. 18.
140. Tod and Wace: Catalogue of the Sparta Museum , pp. 19 and 33–4.
141. Tod and Wace: Catalogue of the Sparta Museum , pp. 19 and 34.
142. Pausanias 3: 16, 2–3.
143. His son was one of the suitors for Agaristē, the daughter of Kleisthenēs, dictator of Sicyon (Herodotus 6: 127, 4).
144. Herodotus 6: 127, 4; Farnell: Greek Hero Cults , p. 209; Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 409.
145. Pindar, Nemean Ode 10: 49–51.
146. Pindar, Olympian Ode 3: 38–40.
147. Bacchylides, fr. 21 Campbell.
148. Chionides, Ptōkhoi fr. 7 PCG .
149. Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 133.
150. LIMC vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 465, Dioskouroi 111; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 131–2, number K1.
151. LIMC vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 465, Dioskouroi 112; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 132, number K2.
152. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 410; LIMC vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 465, Dioskouroi 113; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 133, number K3.
153. Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 121–2.
154. Aristotle says it took place in the Thēseion ( Constitution of Athens 15, 4), but Polyaenus, writing in the second century AD , locates the event in the Anakeion (Polyaenus 1: 21, 2).
155. Pausanias 1: 18, 1; Farnell: Greek Hero Cults , p. 211; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 123.
156. FGrH 328 Philochorus F73; Farnell: Greek Hero Cults , p. 211.
157. Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 127. Until the fifth century BC , Athens relied mainly on Thessalian horsemen. The Athenians were forced to create a new cavalry of 300 men after they were abandoned by the Thessalians at the Battle of Tanagra in 457 BC . See Bugh, Glenn Richard, The Horsemen of Athens (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 39–52.
158. According to Pollux, Athens used to have a small force of 96 horsemen to patrol its borders. See Bugh: Horsemen of Athens , pp. 4–5.
159. Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 126–7.
160. LIMC vol. 3, pt. 1, pp. 581–3 and vol. 3, pt. 2, pp. 469–70, Dioskouroi 165–73 and 179–88; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 92–107, numbers A23–A28.
161. LIMC vol. 3 pt. 2, p. 470, Dioskouroi 165, 181 and 182; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 92–3 and 99–101, numbers A23, A26, A29 and A30.
162. LIMC , vol. 1 pt. 2, p. 320, Aischines 1; LIMC vol. 3 pt. 2, p. 469, Dioskouroi 180; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 93–5 and 104–5, numbers A28–A29.
163. LIMC vol. 3 pt. 2, pp. 469–70, Dioskouroi 166 and 183; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 96–9, numbers A31–A32.
164. Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 92 and 102–3, numbers A23 and A25. Mounted hoplites suited the terrain of Greece better than chariots. See Worley, Leslie J., Hippeis. The Cavalry of Ancient Greece (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 18–19. They were also more suitable than regular cavalry. See Bugh: Horsemen of Athens , pp. 37–8.
165. LIMC , vol. 3 pt. 2, p. 469, Aischines 1; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 104–5, number A28.
166. For the connotations of chariot and hoplite on vase-painting, see Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 113. Köhne regards these paintings as ‘paradigms for the aristocracy’, Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 92. The aristocratic hippotrophoi (horse-breeders) who entered their horses at Panhellenic games were not, however, identical with the cavalrymen who fought in wars. See Bugh: Horsemen of Athens , pp. 23–4 and 36–7.
167. Pausanias 2: 22, 6; Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 407.
168. There were horses in the sculpture group too, but it is not certain that anyone was on horseback (Pausanias 2: 22, 5).
169. The Argive story told that Thēseus had got Helenē pregnant in Attica; she escaped to Argos where she gave birth to Iphigeneia, and then she built a temple to the birth goddess, Eileithuia. See below, Chapter 6, ‘The Abduction of Helenē’.
170. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , pp. 414–15.
171. Both Nilsson and Burkert regard this as the primary way in which they saved people: ‘this is why they were called soteres ’, Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , p. 410; ‘Not least, they prove their worth in battle,’ Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 213.
172. Homeric Hymn 33 (to the Dioskouroi), 6–8.
173. Homeric Hymn 33 (to the Dioskouroi), 12–16.
174. Alcaeus fr. 34 Campbell.
175. LIMC vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 456, Dioskouroi 2; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 146, number K19.
176. Xenophanes 21 A 39 Diels-Kranz.
1. Iliad 3: 238.
2. Iliad 3: 243–244.
3. Gernet, Louis, and Boulanger, André, Le génie grec dans la religion (Paris: Albin Michel, 1932 [1970]), pp. 95–6; Burkert: Greek Religion , pp. 121–2. Gernet notes Homer's disrespect for the solemn ritual of throwing a sacrificed pig into the sea at Iliad 19: 266–267. See Gernet, Louis, Droit et Institutions en Grèce antique (Paris: Flammarion, 1968 [1982]), p. 60 note 167. Perhaps Homer is really the most religious poet of all – nobody thinks of Isaiah as irreligious when he mocks the practice of animal sacrifice (Isaiah 1: 11–14). Homer's apparent secularism may be a way of distancing the gods from practices that are merely human, and his rejection of hero-cult may be his way of upholding the sanctity of the gods and ensuring that their company is not infiltrated by men.
4. Homer mentions that his heroes are semi-gods (hēmitheoi) only once, at Iliad 12: 22–23). See Nagy: Best of the Achaeans , pp. 159–61. Gernet and Boulanger attribute this absence to the lack of ancient hero-cults in Ionia: ‘the cult of heroes did not have roots any more: the Heros becomes Held – a character in a saga. The gods tend to cut themselves off,’ Gernet and Boulanger: Génie grec , p. 94.
5. As Akhilleus faces his own approaching death, he explicitly compares himself with the equally mortal Hēraklēs ( Iliad 18: 117–121).
6. Odyssey 4: 561–569.
7. Odyssey 11: 601.
8. Odyssey 11: 601–604.
9. Odyssey 11: 298–300.
10. Hōs phato, tous d’ ēdē katekhen phusizoos aia ( Iliad 3: 243); tous amphō zōous katekhei phusizoos aia ( Odyssey 11: 301).
11. Odyssey 11: 301–304.
12. The related adjective isotheos means ‘godlike’ and is often used in the expression isotheos phōs , ‘a godlike human being’. It does not imply that the person is a god.
13. Homeric Hymn 33 (to the Dioskouroi): 10. As we saw already (Chapter 5, ‘Between Gods and Men’), the sacrifice of white lambs implies that they are Olympian gods.
14. Homeric Hymn 33 (to the Dioskouroi): 1–5.
15. The word ‘Tundaridai’ does not seem to mean ‘Sons of Tundareos’ in this hymn.
16. IG IX 1 ² , 4, 1566= IG IX,1 649, but the second text has Eusoida(s) for Exoida(s).
17. The daughters were Timandra, Klutaimēstra, and Phulonoē ( Catalogue of Women , fr. 23a MW=19 Most, lines 9–10).
18. Catalogue of Women , fr. 24 MW=21 Most.
19. See the chart in Chapter 1, ‘Twins’.
20. According to the Spartans, the Dioskouroi were not worshipped as gods until forty years after their death (Pausanias 3: 13, 1).
21. Ibycus fr. 294 Campbell.
22. Cypria fr. 9 West.
23. They are differentiated in this way on the sixth-century Chest of Kupselos, but neither of them is named. See Eitrem, S., Die göttlichen Zwillinge bei den Griechen (Christiania [Oslo]: A. W. Brøggers Buchdruckerei, 1902), p. 6; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 71.
24. Pindar, Nemean Ode 10: 79–81.
25. Pindar, Nemean Ode 10: 86–88. These words are addressed to Poludeukēs, so all the occurrences of the pronoun ‘you’ are singular.
26. Pindar, Pythian Ode 11: 62–64; Nemean Ode 10: 55–56.
27. Pindar, Pythian Ode 11: 62.
28. He continues, ‘they penetrate below and above, near and far; they do not elude death’, Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion , translated by John Raffan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 208. His remarks bring out their double nature excellently, but even in the cautious last words, ‘they do not elude death,’ he is perhaps being more definite than their ambiguity would allow.
29. First Vatican Mythographer 3: 201.
30. Hermary: ‘Dioskouroi’, p. 592.
31. Lycophron, Alexandra 506–507.
32. This is, of course, an argument from silence. A different pair of ‘white-horsed’ twins, the Moliones, are already described as ‘born in a silver egg’ by the sixth-century BC poet, Ibycus. See Ibycus, fr. 285 Campbell.
33. Cypria fr. 10 West, lines 2–12.
34. Cypria fr. 11 West.
35. Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 152.
36. Sappho fr. 166 Campbell.
37. Cratinus wrote a comedy about it called Nemesis , which could only have raised a laugh if everyone knew the story.
38. LIMC vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 471, Dioskouroi 185–186; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 152–9, numbers K21 and K23–35.
39. The Dioskouroi are absent from a few of the early vases with Helenē's egg (about 450 BC ), but once the theme becomes really popular (430–400 BC ) they are always present. See Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 154.
40. Cratinus, Nemesis fr. 115 PCG .
41. Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 153, numbers K22 and K36.
42. Pausanias 1: 33, 7.
43. Pausanias 1: 33, 8; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 154–5.
44. Eitrem: Die göttlichen Zwillinge , p. 41. Eitrem himself believes that Nemesis (indignation) and Helenē at Rhamnous match Aidōs (shame) and Pēnelopē at Sparta, each pair representing modesty and abduction. See Eitrem: Die göttlichen Zwillinge , pp. 41 and 23–4.
45. Loraux, Nicole, The Children of Athena: Athenian Ideas about Citizenship and the Division between the Sexes , translated by Caroline Levine. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 57–8.
46. Aristotle, History of Animals 559b6–15. The Greeks did not know about the human ovum , which was not discovered until the nineteenth century.
47. See discussion and illustrations in Loraux: Children of Athena , pp. 61–4 and Plates 3–5.
48. The myth tries to eliminate the contrast between the feminine geographical land of Attica and the masculine political state of Athens. It conflates the two by the mediation of a masculine ‘fatherland’, patris gaia , and a masculine goddess, Athēna. For the ‘neutralization of the power of Mother Earth by “the earth of the fathers”’, see Loraux: Children of Athena , pp. 15–16. For the masculinity of Athena, the ‘reassuring image of femininity entirely dedicated to the service of andreia ’, see Loraux: Children of Athena , p. 18.
49. For an analysis of women's mobility and the virgin goddess Hestia's immobility, see Vernant, Jean-Pierre, Myth and Thought among the Greeks , translated by Janet Lloyd (New York, NY: Zone Books, 2006), pp. 164–5.
50. Tēlemakhos tells Athēna that no man can be sure that he is really his father's son (Homer, Odyssey 1: 215–216), and Helenē from Attica will give birth to a Spartan princess. Women undermine the illusion that a man has the power to produce his son and heir.
51. Euripides, Helen 16–21.
52. Cypria fr. 10 West: 6.
53. Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 185.
54. Dēmētēr is called Dēmētēr Erinus because of her ‘fury’ at the way Poseidōn has treated her, see Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 138. The feelings of Nemesis are similar, and as with Dēmētēr Erinus , her name (‘indignation’) is identical with her feelings.
55. Onkos was the local ruler, who later gave the horse Areiōn to Hēraklēs.
56. Pausanias 8: 25, 5 and 7.
57. Thebais , fr. 11 West. See Burkert, Walter, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berekeley, CA: University of California Press, 1979), pp. 127–8; Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 138.
58. Iliad 9: 568–571. Aeschylus made their terror famous in the Eumenides , where a mother once again invokes the Furies against her own son, but Homer nicely captures the earthy (and unearthly) aspect of an Erinus.
59. The Furies are black ( melainai ) at Aeschylus, Eumenides 52; Dēmētēr puts on black robes ( melainan esthēta ) at Pausanias 8: 42, 2.
60. The Furies themselves make this distinction: ‘We keep our hands away from the immortals, none of them / can dine or share with us. / I have no part or share in white robes’ (Aeschylus, Eumenides 349–352).
61. Dēmētēr is filled with anger ( thumos ) and grief ( penthos ) at Pausanias 8: 42, 2. Athēna, in converting the enraged Furies into benevolent Eumenides, urges them to ‘put to rest the bitter anger ( menos ) consisting of a black wave ( kelainou kumatos )’, at Aeschylus, Eumenides 832.
62. After putting on her black robes, ‘she entered a cave ( spēlaion )’ (Pausanias 8: 42, 2); the Furies at Athens will live ‘in an ancient cavern ( keuthos ) of the earth’ (Aeschylus, Eumenides 1036).
63. Pausanias 8: 42, 1–2.
64. Pausanias 8: 42, 2–3.
65. There is something truly horrifying about the way in which Pausanias suddenly springs the bad news on us: ‘She is sitting on a rock, and she looks like a woman in every way, except for the head: she has the head and mane of a horse, and there are sculptures of snakes and other creatures growing out of her hair.’ (Pausanias 8: 42, 4). Snake-hair is, of course, typical of Furies.
66. Matthews, Victor J., Antimachus of Colophon: Text and Commentary (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996), p. 139, Thebaid fr. 31 (32 Wyss).
67. Matthews: Antimachus of Colophon , pp. 143–4.
68. These stories come from Ancient Greek commentaries, and are discussed at Nagy: Greek Mythology and Poetics , p. 232.
69. Herodotus 7: 129, 1 and 4.
70. Pausanias 1: 30, 4. At the end of his Oedipus at Colonus , Sophocles describes the disappearance of Oidipous at this very hill, Kolōnos.
71. The myth of Pēgasos once again has Poseidōn raping a terrifying, snake-haired goddess, Medousa, who gives birth to Pēgasos only after she has been beheaded (Hesiod, Theogony 279–281). West remarks that Medousa belongs to the underworld monsters that are descended from the sea (Pontos), ‘not because they have any connexion with the sea, but because they could not be put among the descendants of Uranos’. See West, M.L., Hesiod. Theogony (Oxford: Clarendon, 1966), p. 244, commentary on lines 270–336.
72. Decker: ‘Pferd im Alten Aegypten’, p. 265.
73. Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 138.
74. Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 44; Plath: ‘Pferd und Wagen im Mykenischen’, p. 106.
75. Burkert: Greek Religion , pp. 44 and 139.
76. The version of the story told by Antimachus of Colophon may have been asexual, but the combination of autochthonous and sexual birth is common in myth. See the discussion of human autochthony in Lévi-Strauss, Claude, Anthropologie structurale (Paris: Plon, 1974), pp. 236–9; and Loraux: Children of Athena , pp. 57–8.
77. Détienne and Vernant: Cunning Intelligence , pp. 191–3.
78. Hesiod, Theogony 278–282.
79. The name of the spring is already known to Hesiod ( Theogony 6); Pausanias tells the story of Pēgasos at 9: 31, 3.
80. Poseidōn created the spring on the Acropolis of Athens (Herodotus 8:55), the spring of Dirkē in Thebes (Aeschylus, Seven against Thebes 307–310), and others elsewhere. See Burkert: Greek Religion , pp. 138–9.
81. Bellerophōn is thrown by Pēgasos (Pindar, Isthmian Ode 7: 43–47) and spends the rest of his life wandering alone and avoiding the company of men ( Iliad 6: 200–202).
82. This myth is already on the Throne of Amuklai, which was sculpted around 550 BC (Pausanias 3: 18, 7).
83. Pindar, Olympian Ode 13: 63–86. See Détienne and Vernant: Cunning Intelligence , pp. 187–9.
84. Pausanias 2: 4, 1; Détienne and Vernant: Cunning Intelligence , pp. 195–9.
85. Homeric Hymn 5 (to Aphroditē) 12–13. Athēna also subjects the sea to navigation, warfare to tactics, and the Erinues to the power of the court system. See Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 141.
86. Détienne and Vernant: Cunning Intelligence , pp. 203–4.
87. Détienne and Vernant: Cunning Intelligence , pp. 199–206.
88. Pisani, Vittore, ‘Elena e l’ Eδωλoν’, Rivista di Filologia e di Istruzione Classica 56 (1928), pp. 497–8; Grotanelli, Cristiano, ‘Yoked Horses, Twins, and the Powerful Lady: India, Greece, Ireland and Elsewhere’, Journal of Indo-European Studies 14 (1986), pp. 127–30; Skutsch: ‘Helen, Her Name and Nature’, p. 190; Jackson, Peter, The Transformations of Helen: Indo-European Myth and the Roots of the Trojan Circle (Dettelbach: Röll, 2006), pp. 87–8; Walker, Henry John, ‘The Greek Aśvins’, Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 88 (2007), p. 112.
89. Mayrhofer rejects any connection with Helenē and derives Saraṇyū's name from sar , ‘run’ ( EWA , vol. 2, p. 707, under saraṇyú ). On the other hand, he derives Sanskrit sar from Indo-European *sal , ‘jump’ ( EWA , vol. 2, p. 706, under SAR ), which brings Saraṇyū's name closer to Helenē's. Pokorny and Watkins separate these roots as *ser , ‘flow’, and *sel , ‘jump’, which would make any etymological connection impossible. For *ser , ‘flow’, see Pokorny, Julius, Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Bern: Francke, 1959), p. 909; Watkins: Indo-European Roots , p. 76, under ser- ² . For *sel , ‘jump’, see Pokorny: Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch , p. 899; Watkins: Indo-European Roots , p. 75, under sel- ⁴ . Mayrhofer's rejection of any link between Helenē and Saraṇyū is strange, given his equation of Sanskrit sar and Indo-European *sal . If Sanskrit sar derives from *sal , as Mayrhofer suggests, then Helenē (from *sel ) and Saraṇyū (from sar , *sal , and ultimately *sel ) could well be connected.
90. Watkins: Indo-European Poetics , p. 49.
91. For these parallels see Pisani: ‘Elena e l’ Eδωλoν’, p. 395; Skutsch: ‘Helen, Her Name and Nature’, p. 189.
92. Hesiod fr. 358 MW=298 Most.
93. Stesichorus fr. 190 Campbell.
94. Helenē explains the whole story at Euripides, Helen 31–55.
95. Stesichorus fr. 192 and 193 Campbell.
96. In the Indo-Iranian story of Yama and Yamī, man and woman have been created at the same time, so humans are the product of an incestuous marriage between a brother and a sister ( RV 10: 10). In the Indian story of Manu, the first woman Īḍā is created later ( ŚB 1: 8, 1 ⁷ ), so humans are the product of an incestuous marriage between a father and his ‘daughter,’ Īḍā ( ŚB 1: 8, 1 ¹⁰ ).
97. Cypria fr 1 West, lines 3–5. The same reason for the war is given by Helenē at Euripides, Helen 40.
98. This version is first recorded by Lycophron ( Alexandra 506–507) in the third century BC .
99. For artificial insemination in India, see the story of Vasu Uparicara and Adrikā ( Mahābhārata 1: 57, 39–48), the ancestors of both sides in the battle at Kurukṣetra. The insemination of Adrikā may be unusual (she has been turned into a fish), but note that Vasu Uparicara wanted to artificially inseminate his wife, Girikā, rather than let his semen go to waste, so he considers it a fairly normal procedure.
100. The story of Erikhthonios is not really a case of artificial insemination, because the earth is fertilized by the semen of Hēphaistos; the goddess Gaia herself is not inseminated. It is also the earth ( khthōn ) that produces Erikhthonios; the goddess Gaia does not go through a pregnancy and does not give birth.
101. Euripides, Hippolytus 618–624. The dream is never fully realized, of course, because the pregnant father, Zeus, is an incubator for a prematurely born baby rather than a parent giving birth to one. The goddesses Mētis and Semelē are the real mothers, they bear the embryonic Athēna and Dionusos in their wombs, and Zeus only takes over this role after he has killed the mothers.
102. There is, however, the strange birth of Vasiṣṭha and Māna Agastya ( RV 7: 33, 11–13), discussed above at Chapter 1, ‘Twins’. The gods Mitra and Varuṇa are sexually aroused by the Apsaras Urvaśī, just as Hēphaistos was aroused by Athēna; they ejaculate into a pot, and he ejaculates onto the earth; Vasiṣṭha and Māna Agastya are born from the pot, just as Erikhthonios is born from the earth.
103. Zeus often adopts the form of an animal to mate with women or goddesses, who produce sons and daughters for him in the usual way. In India, the metamorphoses of Prajāpati and his consort give rise to the various species, but the offspring are produced in the usual way: ‘he mated with her, and x was born’ ( Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1: 4, 4).
104. Aeschylus, Agamemnon 415–416.
105. Rgveda 10: 10, 4c.
106. poluanoros amphi gunaikos (Aeschylus, Agamemnon 62).
107. Cypria fr. 1 West, lines 1–7, especially line 4: ‘he planned to relieve the all-nourishing earth of men.’ See Euripides, Helen 40.
108. Aphroditē brutally reminds Helenē how unimportant she is at Iliad 3: 414–417.
109. Homer, Iliad 3: 125–128 ( hethen heineka , 128).
110. Saraṇyū gives birth to Yama and Yamī, and the rules ( vratāni ) of Tvaṣṭar command the twins to sleep together so that the human race will continue ( RV 10:10, 5). The plan ( boulē ) of Zeus ordains that Helenē's abduction must lead to war and lower the population of the earth ( Cypria fr. 1 West, line 7).
111. Nilsson: Geschichte der griechischen Religion , pp. 476–7; Nilsson: Mycenaean Origin , pp. 170–1; West, M.L., Immortal Helen (London: Bedford College, 1975), pp. 5–6; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 159.
112. Kearns, Emily, The Heroes of Attica (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1989), p. 158.
113. Stesichorus fr. 191 Campbell.
114. Pausanias 2: 32, 7.
115. Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 159, number K 39.
116. West, M.L., Hesiod. Works and Days (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), p. 213, commentary on lines 225–247. See Hesiod, Works and Days 226–237 and Homer, Odyssey 19: 109–114.
117. From the roots iph (power) and gen (birth).
118. Burkert: Greek Religion , p. 244.
119. Pausanias 2: 35, 1.
120. Pausanias 7: 26, 5.
121. Catalogue of Women , fr. 23a MW=19 Most, lines 25–26.
122. Catalogue of Women , fr. 23b MW=20 Most.
123. Pausanias 1: 33, 1.
124. Pausanias 3: 16, 7.
125. Plutarch, Life of Theseus 31.
126. Dēmētēr's daughter, Korē, never completes the transition to womanhood either. She is, of course, abducted by Hadēs and lives with him, but she always remains Korē, the adolescent girl, and never has any children.
127. Pausanias 2: 22, 6.
128. LIMC vol. 3, pt. 1, p. 582, Dioskouroi 179; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 80–2, number A 18. Since the husband is not identified by name, there is a remote possibility that this vase might represent the marriage of Thēseus and Helenē. See Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 81.
129. Catalogue of Women fr. 197 MW=154(b) Most, lines 3–5; fr. 198 MW=154(c) Most, lines 5–8; fr. 199 MW=154(d) Most, lines 1–3.
130. Theocritus 18: 13–14.
131. West: Immortal Helen , p. 17 note 5.
132. Theocritus 18: 39.
133. Theocritus 18: 40–41.
134. Theocritus 18: 43–48.
135. The girls emphasize this by repeating the word pratai (‘first’) at the beginning of the lines where they describe their ritual actions (Theocritus 18: 43 and 45).
136. West: Immortal Helen , pp. 5 and 12.
137. The son of Orestēs and Hermionē is Tisamenos (Pausanias 2: 18, 6).
138. Nilsson: Mycenaean Origin , pp. 170–1.
139. Nilsson: Mycenaean Origin , pp. 74–6.
140. West: Immortal Helen , pp. 4–5, 7–8, and 13–14.
141. Euripides, Helen 44–48.
142. Iliad 3: 144.
143. Cypria fr. 12 West
144. Ilious Persis fr. 6 West.
145. Pausanias 5: 19, 3; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 71.
146. Alcman fr. 21–22 Campbell.
147. Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 120.
148. Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 82–3, number A 19.
149. FGrH 323a (Hellanicus) fr. 18.
150. Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 15, 3.
151. Cartledge, Paul, Spartan Reflections (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001), p. 116.
152. Nilsson: Mycenaean Origin , pp. 172–4
153. Apollodorus, Library. Epitome 1: 24. Plutarch presents us with a historicized version at Life of Theseus 31: 4.
154. West: Immortal Helen , pp. 9–13, West, M.L., Indo-European Poetry and Myth (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 230–2.
155. In some Latvian songs ( daina 33794 Barons =416 Jonval), Saule's Daughter marries both the Sons of Dievs, which Biezais explains by arguing that they are the Morning Star and the Evening Star, and therefore only one god, so this is not a case of bigamy. See Biezais, Haralds, Die himmlische Götterfamilie der alten Letten (Uppsala, Sweden: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1972), pp. 446–5.
156. Eitrem: Die göttlichen Zwillinge , pp. 31–3; Clader, Linda Lee, Helen. The Evolution from Divine to Heroic in Greek Epic Tradition (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1976), pp. 50–3. Eitrem regards the sons of Atreus as a divine pair of brothers, like the Dioskouroi themselves.
157. Helenē appears both as Helenē and Whelenē in Homer, but the ratios are the opposite to what we would expect if her name were originally Whelenē alone: 32 per cent with ‘W’, 68 per cent without, whereas the usual ratio of words with a ‘w’ (digamma) is 85 per cent with ‘w’, 15 per cent without. Her double name in Homer suggests that she is a conflation of two different persons, *Swelenā (sun goddess) and *Selenā (literally, ‘jumping woman’).
158. mēlōn henek’ Oidipodao (Hesiod, Works and Days 163).
159. Helenēs henek’ ēükomoio (Hesiod, Works and Days 165).
160. ‘Kastōr the tamer of horses and Poludeukēs the athletic champion’ ( Cypria fr. 11 West, line 6).
161. Iliad 3: 237, identical with Odyssey 11: 300.
162. According to Stesichorus, Leukippos is the brother of Tundareos, so the goddesses would be first cousins of the Dioskouroi (Stesichorus fr. 227 Campbell).
163. Cypria fr. 15 West. Stasinus must have equated ‘White Horse’ Leukippos with Apollōn, and felt that Phoibē could only be the daughter of Phoibos Apollōn. See Farnell: Greek Hero Cults , p. 228.
164. A papyrus fragment has the words ‘Poludeukēs’, ‘Kastōr’, ‘fleeing’ and ‘sister’. It is probably from a commentary on a poem about the abduction (Alcman fr. 5, papyrus fr. 1a Campbell)
165. A papyrus fragment gives their name on one line and Apollōn's on the next (Alcman fr. 8 Campbell).
166. Pausanias 3: 17, 3 and 3: 18, 11.
167. Bacchylides, fr. 61 Campbell.
168. Burkert: Greek Religion , pp. 150–1.
169. Anacreon, fr. 417 Campbell.
170. The Greek root dam (English ‘tame’) means to tame a horse or other animal, to marry a woman, and to kill a man in battle. The root zeug (English ‘yoke’) means to yoke a horse or other animal, to marry a woman (the man ‘yokes the woman to marriage’), or to fight as a team ( zeugitēs , ‘hoplite warrior,’ zugon , ‘battle line’). As always, ‘what marriage is for a girl, war is for a boy’. See Vernant, Jean-Pierre, Problèmes de la guerre en Grèce ancienne (Paris: Mouton, 1968), p. 15.
171. There is one archaic vase and eleven from the fifth century BC with this theme. See Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 72–4 and 135–41, numbers A15 and K7–K17.
172. LIMC vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 473, Dioskouroi 201–202; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 134–5, number K16.
173. Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 139.
174. LIMC vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 472, Dioskouroi 197; Köhne includes this mixing-bowl in his list, but does not discuss it, see Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 134, number K13.
175. LIMC vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 472, Dioskouroi 199; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 139, number K15.
176. Köhne compares it with Amazon scenes, but he believes it is so violent that it cannot represent the abduction of the Leukippides. See Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 139.
177. Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 15, 3.
178. LIMC vol. 1, pt. 2, p. 699, Apharetidai 4; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 30, number A1.
179. Pausanias 3: 13, 1. Pausanias did not believe his tour-guides and says the battle must have taken place in Messenia (Pausanias 3: 13, 2).
180. Pausanias 3: 14, 7.
181. The Spartans told the story to Pausanias (Pausanias 3: 13, 1), and the battle with the Apharētidai may also have appeared in Alcman fr. 7 Campbell. The fragment only has the first letters of their name ‘apha…’.
182. Stasinus of Cyprus, Cypria fr. 16 West.
183. Stasinus of Cyprus, Cypria fr. 17 West.
184. Pindar, Nemean Ode 10: 55–90. This is similar to the arrangement in the Odyssey , where they are dead and alive every second day, but in the Odyssey it seems that they spend their living days in the grave rather than on Olumpos.
185. Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 30–6, number A1.
186. The episode appears on a Corinthian vase. See Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 69–70, number A13. Apollonius of Rhodes has Phineus lamenting that his blindness is incurable ( Argonautica 2: 444–445).
187. This episode appears on three vase paintings from the fifth century BC – LIMC , vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 475, Dioskouroi 220; LIMC , vol. 7, pt. 2, p. 583, Talos 4–5; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 163, numbers K41–43. Apollonius of Rhodes tells the story of Talōs at Argonautica 4: 1659–1688, but in this version the Dioskouroi play no part in his death; Mēdeia kills him from on board the ship with long-range magic spells.
188. Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 70, number A14.
189. Pausanias 5: 17, 9.
190. The boxing-match appears on a fifth-century BC vase painting, Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 162–3, number K40. It is also described by Apollonius of Rhodes at Argonautica 2: 35–97.
191. See Chapter 5 pages 129–130 and note 41 for the possible identification of this statue of Arēs Thēritas with the statue of Enualios in the sanctuary of the Dioskouroi at Therapnē.
192. On two archaic Athenian vases they drive a spear or trident into the animal's bottom, LIMC , vol. 6, pt. 2, pp. 208–9, Meleagros 7 and 13; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 85–6, numbers A20–21. On another Athenian vase, they attack him from the front, LIMC , vol. 6, pt. 2, p. 209, Meleagros 19; Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 85–6, number A22.
193. Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , p. 89.
194. Their battle alongside Hēraklēs against the family of Hippokoōn is shown on two fifth-century BC Athenian vases, Köhne: Dioskuren in der Griechischen Kunst , pp. 165–7, numbers K49–50.
195. Pausanias 3: 1, 5. Hēraklēs had a private grievance against them (Pausanias 3: 15, 3–6).
196. Plato, Republic 380d–381e.
197. The fourth-century historian Timaeus ( FGrH 566 F 11) wrote that slaves took over the tasks originally performed by young men, tous neōterous . See Vidal-Naquet: Black Hunter , p. 170. In Sparta, adolescents were treated like slaves. See Vernant: Mortals and Immortals , p. 235.
198. Vernant: Mortals and Immortals , pp. 231–9. The young men are between slaves and citizens, between Helots and Homoioii .
199. Plato, Republic 523Bb–524d.
200. Plato, Republic 479a–e.
1. At this time, Sparta was involved in a long war against Argos over the disputed territory of Tegea. See Bicknell, Peter, ‘The Date of the Battle of the Sagra River’, Phoenix 20 (1966), p. 298 note 20.
2. 580–570 BC , Bicknell: ‘Date of Battle of Sagra’, pp. 295–8; 560 BC , Poulsen, Birte, ‘Ideologia, mito e culto dei Castori a Roma: dall'età repubblicana al tardo-antico’, in Nista, Leila (editor), Castores. L'immagine dei Dioscuri a Roma (Roma: Edizioni de Luca, 1994), p. 91; mid-sixth century, Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane, ‘The Votum of 477/6 B.C. and the Foundation Legend of Locri Epizephyrii’, Classical Quarterly 24 (1974), pp. 189–92. According to Strabo the Lokrians were outnumbered by 130,000 to 10,000! (Strabo 6:1,10).
3. Sourvinou-Inwood: ‘Foundation Legend of Locri Epizephyrii’, pp. 191–2.
4. Strabo 6: 1, 10.
5. Sourvinou-Inwood: ‘Foundation Legend of Locri Epizephyrii’, p. 190; Guzzo, Pier Giovanni, ‘I Dioscuri in Magna Grecia’, in Nista, Leila (editor), Castores. L'immagine dei Dioscuri a Roma (Roma: Edizioni de Luca, 1994), p. 27. One set of statues shows the Dioskouroi with the sea-god Tritōn. This may celebrate their arrival across the sea from Sparta, see Sourvinou-Inwood: ‘Foundation Legend of Locri Epizephyrii’, p. 190.
6. FGrH 115 (Theopompos) F 392. See Bicknell: ‘Date of Battle of Sagra’, 295–296.
7. He had supposedly been wounded by no less a person than the hero Aias.
8. Pausanias 3: 19, 12–13. This story also helps to date the battle, since Stesichorus was dead by the middle of the sixth century BC . See Bicknell: ‘Date of Battle of Sagra’, 296–297.
9. Stesichorus came from Himera on Sicily (Stesichorus T1 Campbell), or from Metauros (Stesichorus T1, T9 Campbell), which was near Lokroi Epizephurioi.
10. Chapter 6, ‘Goddesses on the Run’.
11. Bicknell: ‘Date of Battle of Sagra’, 296–297.
12. Guzzo: ‘Dioscuri in Magna Grecia’, pp. 27–9.
13. Pedley, John Griffiths, Paestum. Greeks and Romans in Southern Italy (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990), p. 97.
14. Wonder, John W., ‘What happened to the Greeks in Lucanian-occupied Paestum? Multiculturalism in Southern Italy’, Phoenix 56 (2002), p. 40 note 2.
15. Guzzo: ‘Dioscuri in Magna Grecia’, p. 30. Both Guzzo and Wonder date these coins to the fourth century BC , see Guzzo: ‘Dioscuri in Magna Grecia’; Wonder: ‘Greeks in Lucanian-occupied Paestum’. Horsnaes dates them to the period of the Roman colony of Paestum, after 273 BC . See Horsnaes, Helle W., The cultural development in North-Western Lucania: c. 600–273 B.C. (Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2002), p. 22. The new Latin name Paestum or Paistom usually appears as Pais on Roman coins.
16. Sanza di Mino, Maria Rita, ‘Il culto dei gemelli divini in ambito medio-italico’, in Nista, Leila (editor), Castores. L'immagine dei Dioscuri a Roma (Roma: Edizioni de Luca, 1994), p. 53.
17. Weinstock, Stefan, ‘Two Archaic Inscriptions from Latium’, Journal of Roman Studies 50 (1960), p. 112.
18. Starzzulla, Maria Josè, ‘Attestazioni figurative dei Dioscuri nel mondo etrusco’, in Nista, Leila (editor), Castores. L'immagine dei Dioscuri a Roma (Roma: Edizioni de Luca, 1994), pp. 40–3.
19. Grummond, Nancy Thomson de, Etruscan Myth, Sacred History, and Legend (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2006), pp. 189–93.
20. Starzzulla: ‘Dioscuri nel mondo etrusco’, p. 39; Grummond: Etruscan Myth , pp. 188–90.
21. LIMC Vol. 3, Pt. 1, p. 598; Starzzulla: ‘Dioscuri nel mondo etrusco’, pp. 48–9; Grummond: Etruscan Myth , p. 189.
22. LIMC Vol. 3, Pt. 1, p. 606.
23. Grummond: Etruscan Myth , p. 190 (shields); LIMC Vol. 3, Pt. 1, p. 607 (horses).
24. LIMC Vol. 3, Pt. 1, pp. 607–8; Starzzulla: ‘Dioscuri nel mondo etrusco’, pp. 44–5; Grummond: Etruscan Myth , p. 191.
25. Grummond: Etruscan Myth , pp. 125–6.
26. While Thēseus (Etruscan These ), the future abductor of Helenē, looks on, the god Hermēs (Etruscan Turms ) gives the egg to Urphea . See Grummond: Etruscan Myth , p. 130, Figure VI.19.
27. Starzzulla: ‘Dioscuri nel mondo etrusco’, p. 45; Grummond: Etruscan Myth , pp. 126 and 128.
28. Bottini, Angelo, ‘I Dioscuri e il mito: la nascita di Elena tra Atene e occidente’, in Nista, Leila (editor), Castores. L'immagine dei Dioscuri a Roma (Roma: Edizioni de Luca, 1994), pp. 34–5.
29. Grummond: Etruscan Myth , pp. 192–3 and 194, Figure VIII.23.
30. Grummond: Etruscan Myth , p. 31.
31. This is ‘the Etruscan ritual pose’ for prophets, and de Grummond has several illustrations of such prophets. They include Pava Tarchies (Latin Tages ) who taught prophecy to the Etruscans, see Grummond: Etruscan Myth , pp. 24–7 and 24, Figure II.2; the divine winged prophet Chalchas (Greek Kalkhas) , see Grummond: Etruscan Myth , pp. 30–2, and 32, Figure II.9; Odysseus ‘with left leg raised in the prophecy pose’, see Grummond: Etruscan Myth , pp. 37, Figure II.15; and the prophet Umaele, see Grummond: Etruscan Myth , p. 39 and Figure II.17.
32. Grummond: Etruscan Myth , pp. 33–7.
33. Grummond, Nancy Thomson de, ‘For the Mother and for the Daughter: Some Thoughts on Dedications from Etruria and Praeneste’, in Chapin, Anne P. (editor), XAPIΣ . Essays in Honor of Sara A. Immerwahr. Hesperia Supplement 33 (Athens: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2004), p. 364.
34. Wiseman, T.P., The Myths of Rome (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2004), p. 93.
35. Wiseman: Myths of Rome , p. 114.
36. Weinstock: ‘Two Archaic Inscriptions’, pp. 112–14; Dumézil, Georges, Archaic Roman Religion , translated by Philip Krapp (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1970), pp. 413–14; Bertinetti, Marina, ‘Testimonianze del culto dei Dioscuri in area Laziale’, in Nista, Leila (editor), Castores. L'immagine dei Dioscuri a Roma (Roma: Edizioni de Luca, 1994), pp. 59–60.
37. Dumézil: Archaic Roman Religion , p. 414.
38. Bertinetti: ‘Dioscuri in area Laziale’, p. 60.
39. Weinstock: ‘Two Archaic Inscriptions’, p. 113 and Plate XIII.1; Scullard, Howard Hayes, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), pp. 65–6.
40. Timaeus used the phrase ‘Trojan pottery’ ( keramon Trōikon ) for this practice at Lavinium, FGrH 566 (Timaeus) F 59; Livy and Plutarch used the word ‘jars’ ( doliola and duo pithous respectively) in speaking of the Penates at Rome. See Weinstock: ‘Two Archaic Inscriptions’, pp. 113–14.
41. Weinstock: ‘Two Archaic Inscriptions’, pp. 113–14 and Plates XII.3 and XIII.2–5.
42. Cancellieri, Margherita, ‘Le aedes Castoris et Pollucis in Lazio: una nota’, in Nista, Leila (editor), Castores. L'immagine dei Dioscuri a Roma (Roma: Edizioni de Luca, 1994), p. 65.
43. Cancellieri: ‘Le Aedes Castoris ’, pp. 65–6.
44. Cancellieri: ‘Le Aedes Castoris ’, pp. 66–7.
45. Cicero, De Natura Deorum 2: 2; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 6: 13; Valerius Maximus 1: 8, 1. See Dumézil: Archaic Roman Religion , p. 412; Scullard: Festivals and Ceremonies , pp. 65–6.
46. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 6: 13. See Scullard: Festivals and Ceremonies , p. 164.
47. Dumézil: Archaic Roman Religion , pp. 412–13; Guzzo: ‘Dioscuri in Magna Grecia’, p. 29; Poulsen: ‘Ideologia dei Castori’, p. 91. Cicero mentions the Battle on the River Sagra (but not the intervention by the Dioskouroi) immediately after he tells about the apparitions of Castor and Pollux at Lake Regillus and after the Battle of Pydna (Cicero, De Natura Deorum 2: 2), so Cicero felt there was some connection between these events.
48. The original temple of 484 BC was rebuilt several times (first half of the second century BC , 117 BC , and finally AD 6). For the first three temples, see Nielsen, Inge, ‘Il tempio del Foro Romano: l'età repubblicana’, in Nista, Leila (editor), Castores. L'immagine dei Dioscuri a Roma (Roma: Edizioni de Luca, 1994), pp 106–12. For the final version, see Sande, Siri, ‘Il tempio del Foro Romano: l'età augustea’, in Nista, Leila (editor), Castores. L'immagine dei Dioscuri a Roma (Roma: Edizioni de Luca, 1994), pp. 113–18. The three pillars that still survive are from the Augustan version, which was dedicated by the future emperor Tiberius. The temple honoured Tiberius himself and his recently deceased brother Drusus. See Sande: ‘Tempio del Foro: Età Augustea’, p. 113.
49. The phrase Aedes Castoris (‘the temple of Castor’) in the Latin Res Gestae of the Emperor Augustus is translated as ναὸς τῶν Διoσκoύρων (‘the temple of the Dioskouroi’) in Greek versions of the Res Gestae. See Bertinetti: ‘Dioscuri in Area Laziale’, p. 61.
50. Cult not supervised by Decemviri , see Scullard: Festivals and Ceremonies , p. 66; Bertinetti: ‘Dioscuri in Area Laziale’, p. 59. Temple inside pomerium , see Dumézil: Archaic Roman Religion , p. 412; Cancellieri: ‘Le Aedes Castoris ’, p. 63; Bertinetti: ‘Dioscuri in Area Laziale’, p. 59.
51. Dionysius of Halicarnassus 6: 13; Scullard: Festivals and Ceremonies , pp. 164–5.
52. Taylor, Lily Ross, Party Politics in the Age of Caesar (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1966), pp. 25–8; Scullard: Festivals and Ceremonies , p. 66–7.
53. Poulsen: ‘Ideologia dei Castori’, pp. 93–4.
54. The other god they swore by was Hercules ( hercle , ‘by Hercules’) He was another Greek god who had been accepted as fully Latin within the pomerium , and he too was popular with ordinary people, especially merchants.
55. He was the grandfather of the future Caesarian, also called Publius Vatinius, who would be elected Tribune in 59 BC and Consul in 47 BC .
56. Cicero, De Natura Deorum 2: 2; Valerius Maximus 1: 8, 1.
57. Valerius Maximus 1: 8, 1.
58. Pope Gelasius I, Adversus Andromachum Senatorem (Migne, Patrologia Latina , vol. 59, col. 114A).
59. Parisi Presicce, Claudio, ‘I Dioscuri Capitolini e l'Iconografia dei Gemelli Divini in Età Romana’, in Nista, Leila (editor), Castores. L'immagine dei Dioscuri a Roma (Roma: Edizioni de Luca, 1994), pp. 156–7.
60. Parisi Presicce: ‘Dioscuri capitolini’, pp. 157–60.
1. attā vai kṣatriyo, 'nnaṃ viḍ ( Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 6: 1, 2 ²⁵ ). Similar phrases date back to the mantra period. See Rau: Staat und Gesellschaft, p. 34. Under the Kuru kings, the warlords and brahmins unite against the rest of the people. See Witzel: ‘Early Sanskritization’, p. 9, and ‘Development of the Vedic Canon’, p. 294.
2. dōrophagoi basilēes (Hesiod, Works and Days 39, 221, and 264).
3. dēmoboros basileus (Homer, Iliad 1: 231). Akhilleus is probably thinking of his peers alone when he speaks of the ‘people’, but we do not find the dangerous term dēmoboros again for almost a millennium, when it is used to attack the Emperor Caligula (Philo, Embassy to Gaius 108).
4. somo 'smākaṃ brāhmaṇānāṃ rājā ( Taittirīya Saṃhitā 1:8,10 ² ).
5. Whitaker's Almanack (London: A & C Black, 2010), p. 42.
6. Lincoln: Priests, Warriors, and Cattle , pp. 47–8. Note that the Nuer have the moral right to raid the Dinka, because they are superior warriors; the Dinka can only retaliate by ‘stealing’ cattle from the Nuer in an underhand fashion. See Lincoln: Priests, Warriors, and Cattle , pp. 21–2 and 27–8.
7. Witzel: ‘Rgvedic history’, pp. 333–4.
8. In Latvia, the sons of Dievs travel with Saule's daughter in a sleigh across the snow ( daina 34011 Barons =417 Jonval).
9. Agni is the Hotar priest of the gods, Indra is their king. The Aśvins do not belong to this lofty sphere, and when they are finally accepted as soma-drinking gods, they are equated with the lowly Adhvaryu priests. These priests do the hard physical work of the sacrifice at the command of the Hotar priest and under the patronage of the king.