WAR IN THE HELLENISTIC WORLD

THE AGE OF WAR: FIGHTING YOUNG MEN
the sanctuaries in the countryside, offering sacrifices on behalf of the people.
When they arrived at the grave at Marathon, they offered a wreath and a sacrifice
to those who died in war for freedom; they also came to the sanctuary of
Amphiaraos. And there they demonstrated the legitimate possession of the
sanctuary which had been occupied by the ancestors in old times. And after they
had offered a sacrifice, they returned on the same day to our own territory.
(IG II 2 1006, lines 65–71)
What at first sight seems like a harmless excursion acquires another dimension
when we take into consideration the fact that in this period the sanctuary
of Amphiaraos was not part of the Athenian territory, but belonged to
the city of Oropos. In 156 BC, the Athenians had attacked Oropos and
temporarily occupied the sanctuary and the territory (until ca. 150 BC; Paus.
7.11.4–12.3; cf. Plut., Cato maior 22). One generation later, the Athenian
ephebes marched under arms into foreign territory, using speeches to provocatively
remind the pilgrims present in the sanctuary (and themseves) that
the Athenians had been the legitimate owners of the sanctuary. This done,
they withdrew behind the Athenian border. Whether one still accepts the
tripartite structure of rites of transition established by A. van Gennep and
modified by V. Turner (rites of separation, rites of marginality, rites of
reintegration) or not, this provocative and aggressive action looks very much
like the survival of a rite of passage. The young Athenians were separated
from urban life, they lived in the marginal area on the edge of the territory,
they exposed themselves to danger by intruding into contested territory
in arms, they achieved an important deed by provocatively demonstrating
the claims of their city on the contested territory, and finally returned to
Athens and were incorporated into the citizen body.
In modern research on rituals, more attention has been paid to questions
of origins – to the reconstruction of the original form and meaning of
rituals – than to their transformation and survival in later periods, notably in
the Hellenistic and Imperial periods. When late evidence is studied, this is
usually done with the perspective of understanding earlier forms through
the late evidence, and not with the aim of placing that evidence in its
historical context. Consequently, the performance of rituals in Hellenistic
contexts is a subject to which little attention has been paid. This is not the
place for an exhaustive study of this subject, but a few selected examples
may show the importance that tratidional rituals retained in the Hellenistic
period in the context of the training of young warriors.
We have already seen that in Athens religious rituals played an important
role during the ephebeia, especially processions and sacrifices in festivals
with a patriotic nature (Theseia, Epitaphia, the Panathenaic festival, commemorative
anniversaries of great battles, etc.). Both the procession and the
sacrifice are of great significance for the construction of identities. Processions
– whether religious, military or ethnic, or demonstrations by people with
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