Category Archives: Dionysus

Hecate: was she a witch?

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Don’t forget! I’ll be at the Rensselaer Public Library this Saturday from 1 to 3. Six authors will discuss their works, answer questions and sign books.

Since it is Halloween, I thought I’d discuss Hecate. By Shakespeare’s time – in fact, long before, Hecate was a witch, a powerful dark force. The three Weird Sister answer to her calling on her for help and suffering from her wrath.

But in Ancient Greece, Hecate was not a witch. She was a Goddess, not a child of Zeus, but, like Dionysus, a divinity far older than even the Mycenaeans. She could slip easily between the world of the living and the world of the dead. When Hades took Persephone, Demeter asked Hecate to find her daughter, which Hecate did, locating Persephone in the Underworld.

Hecate, triple bodied, was the goddess of the crossroads, and, by extension, of boundaries. Her eyes could see into the souls of me and her torch was brighter than the moon. Since she was not a witch, she did not rely on magic or spells. (She evolved into a witch throughout the centuries.)

Hecate is usually represented holding torches, a key or snakes. That suggests to me that her roots go all the way back to Minoan times and the Priestess for whom snakes were divine. Her frequent companion was a large black dog. Together they were so fearsome that when she went to Hades, even the spirits of the dead stepped aside.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Curetes (Kouretes)

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One of the challenges of writing historical fiction, especially historical fiction that takes place as long ago as Bronze Age Crete, is the difficulty of sorting through the various myths – and the various iterations of the myths. I’ve already discussed the conflation of Zeus and Dionysus in that they share an origin story. When the tribes of mainland Greece swept over Crete after the Santorini volcanic eruption, they adopted much of the Cretan culture. Then they adapted what they’d taken to suit themselves.

Since we are familiar with the Classical Greek myths, so familiar in some case we have internalized them, we think of them as the ‘correct’ stories. Dionysus’s origin story, which became Zeus’s, is one such.

The outlines of Zeus’s story are this. Since it was predicted that one of Cronus’ children would kill him and take his position, he swallowed all of his children as soon as they were born. To protect Zeus, his mother Rhea wrapped a stone in a swaddling cloth (which Cronus swallowed) and the baby was hidden in a cave in Mt. Ida.

In the Cretan myth, it is Dionysus that is hidden in the cave. Each was described as suckled by either a nanny goat or a sow. To hide the baby’s cries, Kouretes made noise.

Who are the Kouretes? If you google the name, they are described as crested, armored warriors who clash their shields together so Cronus can’t hear the baby crying.

But this is not the whole story. According to an earlier myth, the Curetes were the first inhabitants of the Greek island of Crete. They were mythical creatures, specifically legendary benign deities who lived prior to the Minoans. According to an early Greek myth, the Kouretes were not born. They sprang out of the earth of Crete when the infant Zeus wept and his tears fell on the ground.

In this version, they made a hanging cradle for Zeus so he was not of the Earth, the sky, or the sea. He was therefore well protected from Cronus.

Because these are myths, and all things are possible, the Kouretes are supposed to have invented hunting, the first bow, dance, and even the Olympic Games.

Gods and Goddesses of Bronze Age Crete

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From the preponderance of female figures on seals and in frescoes, archaeologists believe Crete worshipped a Supreme Goddess, probably a fertility Goddess from Neolithic times. (Similar to Astarte.)There is some dispute whether the statuary depicting women with snakes in their hands are representations of the Goddess or Priestesses engaged in a ritual.

note the tiered skirt, the short-sleeved jacket and the tight belt around the waist.

Besides the Supreme Goddess, there was a pantheon of Gods and Goddesses. Poseidon, the God of the Oceans and Earthquakes, is one. (He was adopted by the mainland Greeks with almost no change.) Dionysus is another God, a very old one. A vegetation God, he is the God of wine as well as the Master of Animals. Unlike the Gods and Goddess of Classical Greece, Dionysus is not immortal. He is born each spring, grows to manhood throughout the year, and dies in winter.

One particularly interesting feature of Dionysus is his birth, in a cave and nourished by nanny goats. Sound familiar? The Cretan Zeus, a relative latecomer to the pantheon, is ascribed the same birth story. In Classical times, the same tale is told of Zeus’ birth, (although with a myth about the Titans surrounding it.) Zeus, of course, was elevated to the major God for the Classical Greeks.

The Goddesses are more complicated. Were they individuals or aspects of the Supreme Goddesses? Maybe a mix of the two? Aphrodite is connected to the Bronze Age and her name is pre-Greek. Artemis was a virgin, and the hunt was sacred to her, just as the Classical Greeks believed. Hera was another important Goddess. Shrines to her have been found in Crete. She was responsible for childbirth, a task she shared with Artemis. In the Classical Greek pantheon, she was reduced from being an important Goddess in her own right to Zeus’s jealous wife.

Britomartis meaning Sweet Virgin or Sweet Maiden, was worshipped by the fishermen. Her other name is Diktynna for the nets the fishermen used. I took her name and used the second half, Martis as the name of the protagonist in In the Shadow of the Bull and the sequels.

What about the Minotaur? Was the bull-headed man a God?We know that bulls were very very important in Ancient Crete. The statuary and frescos of bull leapers and the many representations of bulls is proof of that. But, was the Minotaur sacred? I choose to believe that the Minotaur was a creation of the Mainland Greeks, representing something they did not understand – rituals involving masked priests.

As excavations and study of this amazing culture continues, I’m sure we discover more about their religion.

Sophisticated Ancient Crete

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The society in Bronze Age Crete was extremely sophisticated. Besides toilets with running water, they had bathtubs. (found during digs).The mosaics and frescos with which they decorated their homes were expertly done and elegant. Examples of their jewelry, sculpture, metal working found in the digs display expertise. Rytons (drinking vessels) in the shape of bulls’ heads, bull dancers as they fly over a bull’s back – both types of works have been found. Gold seals with the bull and/or the Goddess have been found among the burial goods in mainland Greece as well as other places so we know that trade was going on and that these goods were valued. Crete had a robust trade in pottery, which has been found all over the Mediterranean including in Egypt.

It seems also as though when the Achaeans expanded into Crete, after the society was severely wounded by the explosion of the nearby volcano, they copied the jewelry, buildings, and religious beliefs.

Greece has been called the cradle of the theater (and probably poetry as well.) The God connected with the theater and the one who is credited with inventing it is Dionysus. He is a very old God and his name has been discovered in the texts. (Linear B was deciphered in the fifties. Linear A is still a mystery. Linear B was a very early form of Greek. But I digress.) So, if any culture can be praised for the invention of the performing arts, it would be this Bronze Age society on Crete.theater

Theseus

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Bull leaping is probably one of the most well-known -if not the most well-known – image of the Minoan civilization. Most people believe the account written in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. It is important to remember the Greeks (the Mycenae and forward) borrowed a lot from other cultures. The civilization on Crete was very important. With that said, the Minoan civilization was Goddess centered while the Mycenae were patriarchal and that made a huge difference in how the invaders viewed the rites and rituals they saw.

In the Theseus myth, Minos exacts a tribute from Athens of 7 young men and 7 maidens to face the bull and perform bull-leaping. Minos’s daughter Ariadne falls in love with Theseus and gives him a ball of string to find his way through the labyrinth under the city and kill the Minotaur, (The creation of this beast is another story). Theseus does so, thereby freeing himself and the other tributes from Crete. He takes Ariadne with him but abandons her on another island. Great guy. She lands on her feet, though. Dionysus finds her there and marries her.

While tributes may have been pressed into service as bull-leapers, the bull-leaping was an integral part of the religious ceremonies. The bull was a sacred animal and the Cretan youth performed. Secondly, although there are caves, there are no labyrinths underneath Knossos and it is thought the pattern of building residences – all interlinked and connecting rooms – gave rise to the myth of a labyrinth.

And although labyrinth now means maze, the labys (the root of the word) was the iconic Cretan double axe. It had nothing to do with mazes.

Since the Classical Greeks seem to have been a dour lot, the ending of Theseus’ journey home has a sad ending. He’d told his father if he succeeded, and still lived, he would change the ship’s sails to white. But Theseus forgot so his father, seeing the black sails, thought his son had died. King Aegeus committed suicide

Zeus and Dionysus – Cretan Version

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The Cretan Zeus is not quite the same as the Classical Greek version of the God. For one thing, the Cretan Zeus is more of a harvest God who is born again each spring and dies in the Fall. Since Classical Greeks thought all Gods and Goddesses should be immortal, they changed the attribute of the God whose name they’d taken and declared all Cretans are liars. They kept, however, the story of his upbringing in a cave after his father, Cronus in Classical Greek mythology, swallowed all his children since one was prophesied as his killer. Zeus was nursed by a nanny goat – or one of several other animals. Take your pick. I’ve now read several variations. His crying was masked by the Kouretes, a group of armed men who clashed their weapons together to hide the cries.

So what does this have to do with Dionysus? Well, the Cretan Zeus is more like Dionysus. A harvest God followed by ecstatic worshippers.

When I was in Greece at Delphi I asked our tour guide why Dionysus was so different from the Classical Greek Gods. They do not embody the Dionysian wildness and several represent rationality. She didn’t know but I have the answer now. Dionysus is a very old God. He is named in the linear B tablets. And in many, if not most, of the other Middle Eastern Bronze Age religions there are other Gods like him.

These early beliefs were concentrated on fertility – not just human fertility although in Bronze Age Crete the High Priestess, as an earthly representation of the Goddess, represented that fertility. Ritual intercourse was practiced not only in the Mediterranean but as far away as Norway. For these early farmers, fertility among the livestock and of course a good harvest meant the difference between life and death.