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

322 Daimon and Hero [ch.
two elements, the actual agon the contest, in this case a race, and
then, second in time but first in importance, the procession and the
komos. The somewhat complicated details of the race seem to
epheboi chosen from each of the ten
have been as follows 1
. Two
tribes raced against one another. The ten victors, after being
feasted, formed into procession, one of them leading the way as
keryx, two following, dressed as women and carrying branches, the
remaining seven forming, as at Delphi, the choros. The prize is,
in the Oschophoria, a cup of mingled drinks, manifestly not a
thing of money value but of magical intent, a sort of liquid
panspermia, or pankarpia, meet for a vintage feast. The blend
of cheese and wine and honey may not commend itself to our
modern palates, but Demeter, save for the wine, drank the same in
her holy kykeon.
The branches were carried, Plutarch conjectures, to do honour
to Dionysos 'on account of the myth' (8ia top fivdov). The myth
of Naxos may have done honour to Dionysos ; how it could reflect
credit on Theseus or form a suitable element in his cult it is not
easy to see The fivOos proper 2 , the word or tale spoken at a
vintage ceremony, would no doubt—when a god had once been
projected—do honour to the vintage god and his bride; but
Plutarch, or his authorities", must of necessity connect it with
his hero, so the disreputable legend of Naxos has to be tolerated 4 .
But Plutarch suspects the real truth. No Greek as keen about
ritual and religion as he was could fail to know that the Oschophoria
was part of a vintage festival, but again the awkward hero has to
be dragged in, so we have 'or rather because they came back when
the fruit harvest was being gathered in.'
In his account of the origin of the Olympic games Mr Cornford 5
^as made it abundantly clear that the winner issued in the king,
who, in one aspect, was but the leader of the choros, the head of
1 See Mommsen, Feste d. Stadt Athen (1898), p. 285 ; and for the number seven
in the Theseus legend cf. Verg. Mn. vi. 21 septena quotannis Corpora i.atorum.
2 For the precise nature of a primitive /xDOos see infra, p. 327.
:; Mommsen thinks that the Oschophoria and the Dionysos myths were attached
to Theseus quite late, i.e. after the Persian war.
little importance to my argument.
The date of the contaminatio is of
4 The mythology of Ariadne cannot here be examined, but it is interesting to
note in passing that in the legend of the desertion Theseus and Dionysos are
obvious doubles.
5 See supra, chapter vn.