The sacrificial rituals of Greek hero cults in the Archaic to the early ...

5. The heterogeneity of heroes
The heterogeneity of heroes 335
The scant attention paid to the dead character of the heroes in cult and the
limited extent to which the hero’s mortality can be demonstrated as reflected
in the actual sacrificial rituals contradict the traditional notion of hero-cults
as connected with the cult of the dead and the sacrificial rituals performed to
heroes as a development or reminiscence of the practices of tomb-cult. The
fact that thysia sacrifices followed by dining can be shown to have been the
principal ritual in hero-cults constitutes a further objection to the belief that
hero-cults originated in the cult of the dead and preserved particular traits of
such cult.
Of relevance for the understanding of the sacrificial rituals in herocults
is the fact that the heroes form a highly mixed group, to a large
extent depending on the varying origins of di�ferent heroes. 89 The complex
question of the origin of hero-cults at large cannot, of course, be fully
explored here, but a few remarks as to the origins should be made, since
the background of the heroes is pertinent to the understanding of the rituals
and any connections with the cult of the dead.
As early as in the Archaic period, a substantial distinction between the
rituals used in the cult of the dead and in hero-cults can be discerned and the
written evidence suggests conscious attempts to limit the scope of both the
funerary rituals and the monuments for the dead, a process which continues
in the Classical period. 90 If hero-cults are to preserve the rituals of the cult
of the dead, it has to be the rituals used in the funerary cult of a distant
past, i.e., a period about which we have very little information. The extant
descriptions, for example, the burial of Patroklos in the Iliad, may have been
influenced by contemporary practices used in hero-cults or simply constitute
a mixture of both. 91 It is possible that the rituals performed at the burials of
exceptional individuals and the subsequent tending of their graves can have
89 One of the trends in the study of hero-cults has been to focus on a particular category of heroes,
for example, athletes (Fontenrose 1968; Bohringer 1979); eponymous heroes (Kron 1976);
former enemies transformed into heroes (Visser 1982); heroes from a certain region, such as
Corinth (Broneer 1942) or Attica (Kearns 1989); heroines (Larson 1995). See also Nagy, 1979,
on the separation of heroes of epic and heroes of cult, often referred to in modern studies. The
idea of dividing heroes into categories can be traced back to Farnell’s work in 1921 and has
been characterized as a result of the long-standing, scholarly concern to “introduce some order”
among the heterogeneous group of heroes (see Bruit Zaidman & Schmitt Pantel 1995, 180).
Cf. Coldstream 1976, 8: “Greek hero-worship has always been a rather untidy subject, where
any general statement is apt to provoke suspicion”.
90 For the funerary laws, see Seaford 1994, 74–86; Toher 1991; cf. Parker 1996, 133–135. For
grave monuments, see Morris 1992, 128–155.
91 On the heroic burials, see Antonaccio 1995a, 221–243; Antonaccio 1995b, 5–27.