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

viii] Eniautos-Daimo7i mid King 323
the revelling komos. We are never told that the winner in the
Oschophoria was called basileus, but in Plutarch's pseudo-history
the truth comes out. The messenger meets 'many who were
lamenting the death of the king and others who rejoiced as was
meet and were ready to receive him with kindness and to crown him
on his safe return.' The words are in our ears : Le
Roi est mort;
Vive le Roi. ^Egeus the old king dies; Theseus the new king
reigns. The old Year is over, the new Year is begun. The
festival looks back to a time and a place when and where the year
ended with the final harvest and the new yea • began in academic
fashion in the autumn 1
or early winter.
In the Oschophoria the winner of the race is, as at Olympia, an
Eniautos-daimon and a basileus in one. He dies as an individual
and revives as an eternally recurrent functionary. The contra-
dictory cries Eleleu Iou lou are now clear enough 2 . There
is
'terror and confusion' when the old Year, the old King, dies; there
is libation, a paean, and a joyful cry when the new Year, the new
King, is crowned. One curious detail looks back to still earlier
days. At the Oschophoria the herald (ayyeXos) does not crown
himself, he crowns his Kerykeion and his herald's staff with the two
snakes entwined. This surely looks back to the time when the
Eniautos-daimon was a snake or a pair of snakes, and the crown
was for the symbol of the sn&ke-daimon not for his human
correlative.
Another ritual element points to early days—the JJeipnophoroi
or foodbearers who supplied the chosen epheboi with provisions,
took part in the ceremony, and then 'played the part of the
mothers' of the youths on whom the lot fell (d7ro/j.i/j,ov/j.ei'ai tcls
n.r)Tepas iicelv