as to the "matriarchal" aspect of Hera. However, it seems to me that an ancient amour of Hera and Heracles may be fairly derived from the evidence. "Cette hypothèse," remarks M. Graindor, "expliquerait mieux la réticence de Callimaque, et surtout le rapprochement du cas d'Héra avec la coutume Naxienne." The correspondence of atriov and custom would be complete if, against a story that Heracles was the earlier mate of Hera, we place a ceremony which simulated the prenuptial intercourse of a bride with another than her future husband. My third objection to interpreting the Naxian rite in the light of sympathetic magic has to do with the passage in Pollux (iii. 39-40) which Puech first cited in connection with the ceremony at Cydippe's wedding. The sentences in question are as follows: ἀπαυλία ἐν ᾗ ὁ νυμφίος εἰς τοῦ πενθεροῦ ἀπαυλίζεται ἀπὸ τῆς νύμφης. And further: καὶ τῷ μὲν νυμφίῳ τότε ἐν τοῦ πενθεροῦ παιδίον ἀμφιθαλὲς θῆλυ συγκατακλίνεται, τῇ δὲ νύμφῃ ἐν τοῦ yaμßρoû äppev. In treating this passage Mr. Stuart (pp. 305 f., 311 ff.) rightly insists upon the distinction between ȧravλía and éπavλía, and holds that the ȧravλía refers to a prenuptial ceremony. Furthermore, he recognizes (pp. 311 f.) that the part played by the bridegroom in the notice in Pollux is not easily brought into agreement with his interpretation of the Naxian rite. For, as he truly observes, "when simulation is resorted to as a prophylactic or a remedial measure against sterility, it is the woman on whom the magic influence is centered." I may add that the pairing of the bridegroom with a female child speaks emphatically against the interpretation of the Naxian rite as a magical means of obtaining male offspring. Here Mr. Stuart is "inclined to think that the lexicographer's account simply incorporates a tradition of the Naxian custom with various embellishments as to details, the source of which it is impossible to fix." But, on critical grounds, such a treatment of the passage should be adopted only when all other expedients fail. The theory which I have proposed above can be more easily brought into harmony with the statements of Pollux. As he describes the ȧravλía, I should be disposed to interpret it as follows: In order to avoid certain dangers which threaten them, especially at the time of first sexual contact, both bride and bridegroom go through a sort of proxy wedding, each with a child of the opposite sex. These children are immature, hence harmless; and being audioaλeis, their presence betokens long life and general good fortune for the bridal pair (cf. Frazer Adonis, p. 423). It is quite true that the danger, in so far as it is connected with conjugal intercourse, usually directs itself against the man, a circumstance which has been referred to physiological causes (Crawley The Mystic Rose 188-91, 307, 347; Reinach Mythes, Cultes, et Religions I, 88, 115; cf. Hertz "Die Sage vom Giftmädchen," p. 212 [in Gesammelte Abhandlungen 156-277]). But we shall see presently that vague dangers are sometimes imagined to hang over both parties, who therefore make use of proxies to evade them. And besides, the notion that the marital approaches of some men may be dangerous seems to be attested among the Greeks by certain curious legends about Minos (Anton. Lib. 41, § 4 f.; Apollod. Bibl. iii. 197 f. Wagner). Such, then, are the reasons why another explanation seems preferable to Mr. Stuart's. It is now necessary to discuss the alternative theory somewhat more fully, and set forth the grounds upon which superstitions such as would give rise to the Naxian rite may be assumed to have existed among the Greeks in remote times. It should be stated in advance that we are not to suppose that the Greeks, at the time when we know them, were obsessed by such ideas of "sexual danger" as are to be discovered among savage tribes; and the custom of ceremonial defloration would undoubtedly have seemed barbarous to them. Of the Naxians the most that can be said is, that they thought it luckier that the bride should pass the night before her marriage with a young boy; and perhaps they added "as Hera had shared her couch with Heracles before she became the wife of Zeus." A few scattered passages may perhaps be used to show that the idea of peril from the contact of the sexes was not unknown to the Greeks. Thus Artemidorus in his Dream-Book (ii. 65) says yaμeiv παρθένον τῷ νοσοῦντι θάνατον σημαίνει· ὅσα γὰρ τῷ γαμοῦντι συμβαίνει, τὰ αὐτὰ καὶ τῷ ἀποθανόντι. Of course we are not One may also refer to obliged to accept the reason he assigns. Pindar's allusion to the death of Hymenaeus at his marriage. But this mutilated fragment (139) can hardly be used as evidence. Crawley thinks that the stealthy manner in which the Spartans visited their wives under cover of night was prompted by a desire to lessen a possible danger (The Mystic Rose, p. 328;] Plut. Lyc. xv. 4-6). But on the whole, we are forced to look abroad for evidence. The material illustrating the superstition in question is best collected in the treatise of Hertz which has been already cited (195 ff.); see also Frazer Adonis2, p. 52, n. 2. Hertz has shown that the fear of danger from the woman led to various practices of having her deflowered by another than her husband; but he is careful not to assign this fear as the actuating motive in all cases. This same superstitious awe is given an important place in Crawley's The Mystic Rose (chaps. viii, ix, xiv, especially pp. 320–49). Indications of this superstition among the more civilized peoples of Western Asia, who came into contact with the Greeks, are not free from ambiguity. Traces of it have been found in certain customs which required a surrender of virginity to a stranger in connection with religious observances, as in the Babylonian rite in the temple of Mylitta (Herod. i. 199), at Heliopolis in Syria, in Armenia, and apparently in Cyprus (cf. Nilsson op. cit. 365 f.). But the authorities are not entirely clear about certain critical points, and these customs may have been confused with continued religious prostitution at temples, which is probably of different origin. In consequence, these strange rites have been the subject of a vigorous controversy, into which space does not permit, nor does the occasion. justify, our entering. Those who are curious about the origin and development of the customs in question must be referred to the investigations of professed students of anthropology. In addition to the works of Hertz and Crawley, the following discussions are of special importance: Farnell in Archiv für Religionswissenschaft VII, 74, 86-88; Nilsson op. cit. 365 ff., Frazer Adonis2 32 ff., 50 ff., Hartland "Concerning the Rite at the Temple of Mylitta," in Anthropological Essays Presented to E. B. Tylor 189-202.1 I must content myself with adopting the view conveniently stated by Farnell (op. cit., p. 88): "The explanation that fits the facts far 1 Gruppe's remarks (Griech. Mythol. und Religionsgesch., p. 916) about the origin of the sacrifice of virginity are not convincing. better is that we are here [referring to the Babylonian and similar rites] dealing with a special modification of a widespread custom, the custom of destroying virginity before marriage so that the bridegroom's intercourse should be safe from a peril that is much dreaded by men in a certain state of culture; and here as in other ritual it is the stranger that takes the peril upon himself." This view is accepted by Nilsson (loc. cit.) and Cumont (Les religions orientales dans le paganisme Romain 286 ff.), and more recently by Samter (Geburt, Hochzeit, und Tod 113) and Fehrle (Die kultische Keuschheit im Altertum 41). Hartland (p. 201) finds the theory of the danger of sexual contact questionable, and treats ceremonial defloration as a puberty rite, a formal introduction into sexual life. This, however, does not account so well for the delegation of the act to a stranger. Frazer's two most valid objections, namely the religious connections of the custom, and the payment of money by the stranger, are met by Hartland (pp. 195 and 198) and Nilsson (p. 367). Assuming, now, that a superstition which had its outcome in ritual defloration existed among peoples in close touch with the Greeks, we may find a softened form of the savage custom in the Cretan observance of first putting the bride to bed beside an image (Anton. Lib. 17. 6).1 Nilsson (p. 367, n. 2) calls attention to the use of a phallic symbol in Roman marriages. It is another form of softening the ancient and barbarous custom when, as in Naxos, the bride sleeps with a male child. One word more regarding the account of the ȧravλía in Pollux, according to whom in some part of Greece, we know not where, the bridegroom, on the occasion of the ȧravλía, slept with a female child. The theory which I have adopted in explaining the Naxian rite lays special stress upon the danger apprehended from the bride, so there remains a difficulty in explaining the bridegroom's part in the notice of Pollux. One might perhaps argue that it is a double precaution-while the boy is supposed to remove the danger that attaches to the bride, the bridegroom by intimate proximity to an 1 Simulated intercourse with a god may reasonably be interpreted as a magic rite with fertility as its object. So Dümmler Philol. LVI, 22–32, Gruppe op. cit., p. 856, n. 3, Fehrle op. cit., p. 10. Nor is it impossible that a human being might be imagined to represent the god. But as Fehrle saw (p. 10, n. 4, p. 41), when the rite involves or implies devirgination, the explanation is probably different. immature, and so harmless, girl, is rendered less vulnerable to the influence proceeding from the mature woman. Crawley, however, contends that sexual danger affects both parties, and instances the Hindu ceremony by which both bride and groom are previously married to inanimate objects, especially trees (op. cit. 340 f.). An interesting account of these tree-marriages is given by Crooke in his Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India II, pp. 115-21. In some of them Crooke recognizes a fertility charm, the couple taking to themselves the vigor and fecundity of the tree. In others there is clearly indicated an effort to transfer to the tree an evil influence— bad luck, the evil eye, etc.-especially when it is said that the tree dies after the marriage (Crooke II, 120 f., and so Frazer Golden Bough3 II, 57, n. 4). The double proxy in the rite described by Pollux might thus be explained as a substitution for the real parties, who are especially liable to evil influences, of children who, being aμpilareîs and lucky, are able to bid defiance to demonic terrors. Certainly the common custom of substituting some disguised person for the bride, or (less commonly) for the bridegroom is rightly regarded as a means of misleading demons or ill-disposed people who might cast a malignant influence upon the real bridal pair. See Crooke op. cit. II, 6–8; Reinach Mythes, Cultes, et Religions I, 117; Samter op. cit. 98-108, especially 105 f. and 218. But the simulated cohabitation which is indicated by the Pollux passage does not appear, I believe, in any of the "false bride" customs, and the analogy of the tree-marriage is imperfect here. Hence Crawley's idea that both parties are dangerous to each other seems best to explain the Greek ceremony. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN |