Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

vn] The Olive-branch 237
in their dreams they might draw oracular wisdom from the Earth 1 ,
Olympia also had its Earth oracle and its cult of Demeter
Chamyne 2 , whose priestess sat enthroned in a place of honour and
witnessed the Games of Zeus.
The theory, of course, presupposes that the Olympic Games,
like the Karneia, the Panathenaea, the Heraea, and others, were
annual before they were penteteric ;
for the penteteris, as we have
remarked, is an astronomical cycle independent of the yearly
upspringing and decay of vegetation 3 . The supposition is very
probable, when we consider the late and artificial character of
periods which combine the sun calendar with the older reckoning
by the moon. In discussing that combination we agreed with
Dr Frazer that from its introduction the Olympic victor repre-
sented the Sun united in marriage with the Moon. Even if there
were no further evidence, it would still be a reasonable conjecture
that in earlier days, the sacred marriage, here as elsewhere, had
been an annual feast, and its protagonists instead of being related
to the celestial bridegroom and bride, had embodied the powers
of fertility in a more primitive form directly associated with the
seasonal life of nature. If that is so, the new penteteric festival in
the late summer may have attracted to itself features, such as the
single combat and the foot-race for the olive branch, from feasts
which under the older systems of time-reckoning would naturally
belong to winter or to spring. We are therefore untouched by
objections based on the time of year of the historic Games—
time fixed solely with reference to the Sun and Moon. We are at
liberty to suppose that the winner of the foot-race represented the
fertility-cfcu'raow, before he represented the Sun. As one mode of
time-reckoning supersedes another, so in the sphere of religion
emphasis is successively laid on Earth, with her changing seasons
and meteoric phenomena, on the Moon, and on the Sun. This
line of enquiry may set at rest many old-standing controversies.
1 Horn. II. xvi. 234. This analogy is pointed out by Weniger, Der heilige
Olbaum, p. 19.
2 Gruppe, Gr. Myth. u. Eel. i. 142, calls attention to the probable identity
of Iasios, one of the Idaean Daktyls called the brothers of Herakles in the Elean
legend, with Iasion who lay with Demeter on the ground (Hes. Tlieog. 969,
Od. v. 125).
3 We here welcome the support of Professor Ridgeway, who, as reported in the
Athenaeum, May 20, 1911, ' pointed out that the astronomical cycles, such as the
Metonic, were late, and may have come in with the remaking of the games, which
must have existed long before b.c. 776 at Olympia.'
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