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

ix] The Stepteria an Eniautos-Festival 427
Clearly Plutarch has here no belief in the aetiological myth
which in the Quaestiones he doubtfully accepts. It is often
assumed that the hut which was burned contained a serpent 1
,
but of this there is no evidence. Had Plutarch known of any
such serpent he would never have argued as he did, and no one
was better acquainted than Plutarch with the details of Delphic
ritual. We must give up the serpent. The Stepterion consisted
of a secret attack with lighted torches on a hut' 2
,
which though
apparently it is made of wood or reeds had somehow—a piece of
purple drapery and a wreath would do it—the semblance of a
king's palace. The boy who lit the fire fled to Tempe, was
purified and feasted there, and returned in triumph crowned and
carrying a laurel branch.
We know that boy with both his parents alive. He carries
the Eiresione ; he is the young New Year. But the burning of
the hut ? It is the old, old Eniautos-festival, but enacted here
at the end of a Nine-Years Year, one of the periods arranged to
fit together the course of Sun and Moon 3 . Le
Roi est mort, so
his kingly palace is burnt, the table of his first-fruits overturned 4
and the celebrants fly as the slayers of the holy ox fled at the
Bouphonia 5 . They
have incurred an agos. The cry of le Paian
is heard 6 . Vive le roi ; the new, young king appears from Tempe
or from anywhere 7 , crowned and bearing his branch.
It is from yElian 8 , in his account of the ceremonies at Tempe,
that we get the fullest details of the carrying of the laurel
branch, and it is through iElian that we realize that this bringing
in of the new laurel, this carrying it and wearing it in wreaths,
9 ' .'
gave to the Festival its name Stepterion, Festival of Wreathers
1 I was misled by this myself in treating of the Stepterion before, Prolego-
mena, p. 113.
2 The hut at Delphi does not of course stand alone. The burning of the booths
at the Tithorea festival, followed by departure in haste, is a close parallel. See
Paus. x. 32. 17. At Tithorea the festival was held twice a year—once in the spring,
once in the autumn.
3 Supra, p. 223. 4 5 Supra, p. 426.
Supra, p. 142.
6 Ephoros (F.H.G. i. 225, p. 70, quoted by Strabo ix. p. 422) the Euhemerist
says that Python was a x