ground was supposed thereby to secure a good crop! The rest of the scholion is obscure, and perhaps corrupt, but the following seems to be the sense. The ceremony above described was called the arretophoria [the carrying of things which must not be spoken of], and was supposed to exercise the same quickening and fertilizing influence on men as on fields. Further, along with the pigs, sacred cakes made of dough, in the sha of serpents and of phalli, were cast into the caverns, to symbolise the productivity of the earth and of man. Branches of pines were thrown in' for a similar reason.
The custom described in this important scholion is clearly the same as that referred to by Clemens Alexandrinus (Protrep, ch. ii.) p. 14, ed. Potter] and Pausanias (ix. 8, 1). From the latter we learn that the pigs were sucking pigs, and from the former (if we adopt Lobeck's emendation, ufydpots § '<'I.»v-ras for pfyapifowes) that they were thrown in alive. From Pausanias we may further perhaps infer (though the passage is corrupt) that the remains of the pigs thrown down in one year were not fetched up till the same time next year (cf. Paus., x. 32, 14). The question remains, At what point of the Thesmophoria did the ceremony described by the scholiast on Lucian take place? Rohde thinks that it formed part of the ceremonies at Halimus, his chief ground being that Clemens (Protrep., 34) and Arnobius (Adv. Gentes, v. 28) mention phalli in connexion with the “mysteries at Halimus ”; but it is not certain that these mysteries were the Thesmophoria. The legend 'oft Eubuleus seems to show that the ceremony commemorated the descent of Persephone to the nether world; and, if we are right in our interpretation of the name Kathodos as applied to the first da of the Thesmo horia proper, the ceremony described would naturally fall on that d)ay. Further, if our interpretation of Pausanias is correct, the same day must have witnessed the descent of the living pigs and the ascent of the rotten pork of the previous year. Hence the day might be indifferently styled Kathodos or Anodos (“ descent " or “ ascent ”); and so in fact it was.
It is usual to interpret Thesmophorus “ lawgiver ” and Thesmophoria “ the feast of the lawgiver." But the Greek for “ lawgiver " is not Thesmophorus but Thesmothetes (or Nomothetes, when nomos displaced lhesmos in the sense of “law ). If we compare such names of festivals as Oschophoria, Lampadephoria, Hydrophoria, Scirophoria (“ the carrying of grapes, of torches, of water, of umbrellas ) with the' corresponding Oschophorus, Lampadephorus, Hydrophorus, also Thallophorus and Kanephorus, we can scarcely help concluding that Thesmophoria must originally have meant in the literal and physical sense the carrying of the thesmai, and Thesmophorus the person who so carried them; and, in view of the ceremony disclosed by the scholiast on Lucian (compared with the analo 'ous ceremony observed by the Arrephoroi at Athens), we are strongiy tem ted to suppose that the women whom he calls Antletriai may fiave been also known, at one time or other, as Thesmo horoi, and that the thesrnoi were the sacra which they carried and) deposited on the altar. The word would then be used in its literal sense, “that which is set down.” How the name Thesmophorus should have been transferred to the goddess from her ministers is of course a difficulty, which is hardly disposed of by pointing to the epithets Amallophorus (“ sheaf-bearing ”) and Melophorus (“ apple-bearing ”), which were applied to men as well as to the goddess.
As to the origin of the Thesmophoria, Herodotus (ii. 171) asserts that they were introduced into Greece from Egypt by the daughters of Danaus; while, according to Plutarch (Fragments, p. 55, ed. Diibner [Frag. Incerta, 841), the feast was introduced into Athens by Orpheus the Odrysian. From these statements we can only infer the similarity of the Thesmophoria to the Orphic rites and to the Egyptian representation of the sufferings of Osiris, in connexion with which Plutarch mentions them. The Thesmophoria would thus form one of that class of rites, widely spread in Western Asia and in Europe, in which the main feature appears to be a lamentation for the annual decay of vegetation or a rejoicing at its revival. This seems to have been the root, e.g., of the lamentations for Adonis and Attis. See W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feld-Kulte, . 264 sq.
On the Tliesmophoria, see Meursius, Graecia Feriata, p. 151 sq.; L. Preller, Demeter und Persephone (1837), p. 335 sq., Griech. Myth., 3], i. p. 639 sq.; Fritzsche's ed. of the Thesmophoriazusae (1838), p. 577 sq.; Aug. Mommsen, Heortologie (1864), p. 287 sq.; Rheinisches Museum, xxv. (1870), p. 548; Gazette Archéologique (1880), p. 17; Andrew Lang, “ Demeter and the Pig, " in Nineteenth Century, April 1887; j. G. Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 44; J. E.
1 This, as Andrew Lang has pointed out, resembles the Khond custom of burying the flesh of the human victim in the fields to fertilize them. The human victim was with the Khonds, like the pig with the Greeks, a sacrifice to the Earth goddess. See M ernarials of Service -in India . . of Major S. C. Macpherson, ed. William Macpherson (1865), p. 129.
2 Reading éuBd)}ou<n, with Rohde, for Rau/Sévoum. Compare the custom of Miletus supra. The pine-tree played an important part in the worship of Cybele. Cf. Marquardt, Staatsverwaltung (1385), iii. 371.l
Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903); and especially the exhaustive articles by L. C. Purser in Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities (ed. 3, 1891) and by F. Lenormant (on Ceres) in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités. (J. G. Fr.; X.)
THESPIAE, an ancient Greek city of Boeotia. It stood on level ground commanded by the low range of hills which runs eastward from the foot of Mount Helicon to Thebes. The deity most worshipped at Thespiae, according to Pausanias, was Eros, whose primitive image was an unwrought stone. The town contained many works of art, among them the Eros of Praxiteles, dedicated by Phryne in her native place; it was one of the most famous statues in the ancient world, and drew crowds of people to Thespiae. It was carried off to Rome by Caligula, restored by Claudius, and again carried off by Nero. There was also a bronze statue of Eros by Lysippus. The Thespians also worshipped the Muses, and celebrated a festival in their honour in the sacred grove on Mount Helicon. Remains of what was probably the ancient citadel are still to be seen, consisting of an oblong or oval line of fortification, solidly and regularly built. The adjacent ground to the east and south is covered with foundations, bearing witness to the extent of the ancient city. The neighbouring village Eremokastro, on higher ground, was thought by Ulrichs to be probably the site of the ancient Ceressus. In 1882 there were discovered, about 1200 yds. east of Eremokastro, on the road to Arkopodi (Leuctra), the remains of a polyandrion, including a colossal stone lion. The tomb dates from the 5th century B.C., and is probably that of the Thespians who fell at Plataea, for those who fell at Thermopylae were buried on the field.
History.—Thespiae figures chiefly in history as an enemy of Thebes, whose centralizing policy it had all the more to fear because of the proximity of the two towns. During the Persian invasion of 480 B.C. it stood almost alone among Boeotian cities in rejecting the example of treason set by the Thebans, and served the national cause with splendid devotion. Seven hundred Thespians accompanied Leonidas to Thermopylae and of their own free will shared his last stand and destruction. The remaining inhabitants, after seeing their city burnt down by Xerxes, furnished a force of 1800 men to the confederate Greek army at Plataea. In 424 B.C. the contingent which the Thespians had been compelled to furnish sustained heavy losses at Delium, and in the next year the Thebans took advantage of this temporary enfeeblement to accuse their neighbours of friendship towards Athens and to dismantle their walls. In 414 they interfered again to suppress a democratic rising. In the Corinthian war Thespiae sided with Sparta, and between 379 and 372 repeatedly served the Spartans as a base against Thebes. In the latter year they were reduced by the Thebans and compelled to send a contingent to Leuctra (371). It was probably shortly after this battle that the Thebans used their new predominance to destroy Thespiae and drive its people into exile. The town was rebuilt at some later time. In 171 B.C., true to its policy of opposing Thebes, it sought the friendship of Rome. It is subsequently mentioned by Strabo as a place of some size, and by Pliny as a free city.
See Herodotus, v. 79, vii. 132–ix. 30; Thucydides, iv. 93, 133, vi. 95; Xenophon, Hellenica, iv. vi.; Pausanias, ix. 13, 8–14, 2, 26–27; Strabo, ix. pp. 409–10; B. V. Head, Historia Numorum (Oxford, 1887), pp. 479–80; Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, ii. 479 sq.; Dodwell, Tour through Greece, i. 253; Bursian, Geogr. von Griechenland, i. 237 sq.; Ulrichs, Reisen u. Forschungen in Griechenland, ii. 84 sq.; Mitteil. d. deutsch. archäol. Inst. in Athen (1879), pp. 190 sq., 273 sq.; Πρακτικὰ τῆς ἀρχ. Ἑταιρίας (1882), pp. 65–74.
THESPIS (6th cent. B.C.), Greek poet, of Icaria, in Attica, generally considered the inventor of tragedy, flourished in the time of the Peisistratidae. According to Diogenes Laërtius (iii. 56), he introduced for the first time in the old dithyrambic choruses a person distinct from the chorus, who conversed with the leader, and was hence called ὑποκριτής ("answerer").[1]
- ↑ According to another explanation, he was so called from repeating the words of another—the poet or composer.
