All of the above were classified as “honors” (τιμαί), and it is as “honors” that they are intelligible within the Greek tradition at both the human and divine levels. According to Plutarch (Dem. 8.1), Antigonos and Demetrios wanted to give freedom to all Greeks “for the sake of their own glory and honor” (ὑπὲρ τῆς εὐδοξίας καὶ τιμῆς). What was this “glory and honor” to be? “Honor” may, of course, be given to men; more important, in Greek popular religion “honor” is what, fundamentally, pious men were expected to render to the gods. Each god had one or several functions (τιμαί), and for the performance of these and for his power in these areas received “honor” (τιμή) from mortals. The god then might choose to “honor” the person or city who “honored” him. Elsewhere I have argued that this relationship of man to god was very similar to that of subjects to their king.[17] Kings had functions to perform and the power to perform these. The subjects honored the king for these and showed their honor in the form of gifts. Essentially, in the Greek tradition the same emotion and thought are involved in the honor shown both to men and to gods, but the functions of the human and divine honoree are qualitatively different. One can honor a man for a multitude of civic, social, military, and athletic activities. One renders honor to the gods for what, basically, lies wholly or partially beyond human control: safety in war, at sea, and in other dangers; health; and economic prosperity.[18] And one exhibits this “honor” through the gifts of sacrifice, prayer, hymns, dedications, and festivals.
It must have seemed to the pro-democratic faction in Athens that Antigonos and Demetrios were, unlike any humans before them, providing just such “divine” benefits to them: safety from the assaults of Cassander and his like; food to ensure physical health;[19] and, with the restoration of the democracy and Piraeus, the prospect of economic good times. In addition to these traditional gifts the Antigonids were also providing “autonomy” and “freedom” of the state.[20] Antigonos promised these to all Greeks in 314, reasserted their importance in his settlement of 311 with Cassander, Ptolemy, and Lysimachos, and had his son Demetrios deliver them to Athens in 307/6.[21] In the fifth century Athenians had taken largely into their own hands the preservation of their freedom and autonomy, but since Chaeroneia in 338 Athenian international political status was beyond their control, determined by the actions of Macedonian generals such as Antipater, Cassander, and Antigonos. For foreign affairs the Athenians were as dependent on them as they were on the gods for health, safety, and prosperity, and the Macedonian generals alone could—as Antigonos alone did—give Athenians their precious autonomy. But we should be careful not to limit Athenian gratitude and divine honors to Antigonos and Demetrios solely to these political services. They are important in understanding the Athenian response, but also important are the safety in war, food, and prosperity traditionally attributed, in part, to the gods. It is for all of these elements—some more traditional, some relatively new in this period—that Athenians rewarded Antigonos and Demetrios with the same “honors” that they had previously given the gods: altars, sacrifices, and festivals. In retrospect this was a momentous step in Athenian religious history, but one understandable in the political circumstances and religious traditions of the time.
As Hellenists raised on Homer, Greek tragedy, and Greek philosophy, we are inclined to see the fundamental distinction between gods and men lying in the immortality of the former and all that follows from it. That is essentially a theological distinction, to be found in the literature of the archaic and classical periods. Always more central to popular religion were the functions of the various deities, whether the deities be ouranic or chthonic, divine or heroic. And it is because of similarity of function, not of physis, that Antigonos and Demetrios could be ranked among the gods. The Athenians were receiving from Demetrios and Antigonos what formerly they could expect only from their gods.
Antigonos and Demetrios were to be the Soteres of the Athenians, and the epithet Sōtēres describes, as divine epithets often did, precisely what the new “gods” provided—that is, “safety” in the physical, economic, and political realms. If, as I have claimed, the model for human piety toward the gods was the relationship of a subject to his king, it may be not coincidental that the Athenians, first of the Greeks and simultaneously with these divine honors, proclaimed Demetrios “king” (Plut. Dem. 10.3).[22] Certainly not consciously, but in accord with their religious (though not political) traditions, the Athenians were fitting Demetrios into a model that would allow them to give him divine honors.
Despite Plutarch’s disapproval of the divine honors given to Antigonos and Demetrios, his account of them and of the times suggests that they were bestowed willingly, sincerely, and relatively spontaneously. In other, contemporary documents we see that such honors came to Antigonos and Demetrios also from varying segments of Athenian society. IG II2 3424 records a list of eleven Athenian citizens who, at their own expense, dedicated statues of the Soteres; there were originally even more contributors. The surviving remnants of the closing poem (lines 12–19) may suggest that these Athenians intended their dedication to be an example for others to follow. In SEG 30.69 of 304/3 the state undertakes to pay the prytanists of the tribe Akamantis for the costs (300 drachmas) of cattle sacrificed to the Soteres, Athena Nike, and, probably, Agathe Tyche on behalf of Athenians who were on campaign with Demetrios.[23] Here there is discussion of the former “slavery” of the Greeks and of their current freedom and autonomy (lines 7–9). The Akamantid sacrifice to the Soteres is to be repeated each Elaphebolion hereafter as a memorial of successes reported at this time (19–23). The best preserved of these texts, SEG 25.149 of the same period, describes honors to be rendered to Demetrios by Athenian volunteers serving with him on campaign:
These three texts from different groups in the years just after 307/6 confirm the associations the Athenians as a group had made between their safety and freedom, Greek freedom, democracy, and the divine honors they were giving to Demetrios. The feeling of gratitude is almost palpable even on these formal, stone records. If we can trust the restorations, IG II2 3424 and SEG 25.149 even reveal a proselytizing spirit completely uncharacteristic of classical religion. SEG 25.149 differs from the others in that new honors are awarded only to Demetrios, not to his father; that agrees with the contemporary development of the cult of the Sōtēres. Demetrios was the Sōtēr present in the land and minds of the Athenians, and he quickly dominated and soon monopolized the cult he initially shared with his father.[25]The select volunteers voted: [whereas,
Demetrios] the Great [previously] came into [Attica with a naval and infantry] force and [threw out] the opponents of [democracy and set free] the land of the Athenians and [most other Greeks, and now] has stood by [the Athenians] to help with an [even greater] force,
and, having overcome [his enemies, has already aligned] many cities under the kingship [of his father Antigonos, himself enduring every] danger and labor,
and he honors [those with him] and is very concerned [with their safety,] and he leads those in need of [freedom and helpfully takes part with us] in the affairs in the Peloponnesos,
and he [immediately went there with select volunteers] and threw out the [enemy] from the land,
[with good fortune] it was voted by the select volunteers [to praise because of his virtue and goodwill] Demetrios, son of Antigonos, a king, [son of a king, and to erect] an equestrian [statue of him] in the Agora next to Demokratia,[24] and [to encourage Athenians and] the other Greeks to set up [for Demetrios altars and sanctuaries], and for those participating in the sacrifices [performed on behalf of Antigonos and Demetrios] to sacrifice also to Demetrios Soter, [presenting] the most sacred and beautiful [victims for sacrifice,] and to [proclaim the honors] given to the king by the select volunteers [so that, just as they themselves] have honored their benefactors [at their own expense, so also others] may follow and honor [them with the most illustrious] honors.
Demetrios also received rewards like those of the gods, it seems, in the symposia of high society. Alexis (116 KA) in a comedy represented symposiasts toasting Demetrios just as they did Aphrodite and Eros.[26] The playful spirit of this society, in which Demetrios and Stratocles themselves no doubt participated,[27] is apparent. For the divine Demetrios Alexis was willing even to break the conventions of his genre in order to provide such topical, graceful compliments. And thus from the Ekklesia to the sanctuary of the tribal hero Akamas, from the theater to the symposium, praises and divine honors were being showered upon Demetrios.
After Demetrios’ departure in 307 Athens entered into the Four Years’ War with Cassander. Athens enjoyed some initial successes, but by 304 Cassander had established control over Boeotia and the Athenian forts at Panacton and Phyle by land and over Salamis by sea. Preparing to face a siege, Athens summoned Demetrios. Demetrios landed at Aulis and recovered Boeotia, Phyle, Panacton, and Salamis. He had again “saved” Athens and spent the winter of 304/3 there. During this time he also restored to power the party of Stratocles.
The political outlook of Stratocles and his followers appears, however, to have changed significantly between Demetrios’ first arrival in 307/6 and his second visit in 304/3. Previously staunchly democratic, they appear to have become, in the course of the exercise of and loss of their power, more oligarchic and, after their previous successes with Demetrios, strongly pro-Macedonian and pro-Demetrian. In 303/2 there was apparently an unsuccessful democratic uprising against them, an uprising resulting in the exile of Demochares (303/2) and Philippides (302/1). The extension and elaboration of the divine honors given to Demetrios in 304/3 and in subsequent years were all probably due to this oligarchic party of Demetrios’ supporters. The honors of 307/6 had, as we have seen, widely based support, but that is not necessarily true of the honors we now examine.
In 304/3 a cult of Demetrios Kataibates (“Descender”) was established at the very spot in Attica where Demetrios had dismounted from his chariot.[28]Kataibatēs was the epithet usually reserved for Zeus, to designate the Zeus cults founded at spots hit by Zeus the god of lightening. In such a way Zeus “descended” to earth.[29] To apply the epithet to Demetrios, for his descent from his chariot, might be viewed as a wordplay, a pun—one of several such puns we shall see applied to the cults of Demetrios. Some Athenians were, surely, deeply grateful to Demetrios, but even in their expression of gratitude they, or the ones responsible for these honors, could not, perhaps, restrain their wit.
Demetrios therefore had, on his arrival in 304, three distinct cults in Athens: as Sōtēr with his father Antigonos, as a tribal eponym, and as Kataibatēs. He was thus ranked with the major deities and heroes of Athens, with Athena Polias, Zeus Olympios, and the likes of Ajax and Erechtheus. In 304, however, unlike in 307, Demetrios appears to have taken these honors literally. He began to act, in Athens, as though he were a god. And among the divine models he might have chosen, he picked Dionysos. According to Plutarch (Dem. 2.3), Demetrios emulated Dionysos because Dionysos was the god most terrifying (δεινότατον) in warfare but in peacetime most suited for delights and graces (τρέυαι πρὸς τὴν εὐφροσύνην καὶ χάριν ἐμμελέστατον). One thinks of the two sides of the Dionysos of Euripides’ Bacchae, the god who also happened, by force at times, to win the whole Greek and much of the Asian world to his service.[30]
On his way to Athens in 304, Demetrios had, probably for a brief time, taken up quarters in the temple of Apollo Delios,[31] an unparalleled act in Greek religious history to this point. In Athens he chose the residence of his older sister (as he liked her to be called; Plut. Dem. 24.1), Athena Polias, and was quartered in the opisthodomos of the Parthenon.[32] This was again an unparalleled act which could only be taken by detractors of Demetrios as gross impiety, but which followed logically from the honors the Athenians themselves had awarded the Macedonian king. Athena was, it was said, entertaining him as a xenos (“foreign guest”), but, as Plutarch describes it (Dem. 23.3), Demetrios was not a “very orderly xenos ” nor one behaving “gently as befits a virgin (παρθένω)” hostess. This new, young, handsome Dionysos reputedly devoted himself wholeheartedly to debauchery and affairs with freeborn wives and sons of the Athenians and with a bevy of beautiful courtesans.
Demetrios’ residency in the opisthodomos (not in the cella, at least) of the Parthenon and his behavior there must have shocked many Athenians, as it did Plutarch four hundred years later. That the divine honors the Athenians had awarded to Demetrios had led to this should be viewed largely as the fault of Demetrios. In his dress,[33] in his choice of lodging, and in his behavior he chose to indulge fully in his newfound divinity. The Athenians of 307/6 could have imagined no such abominations resulting from the honors they were awarding their benefactor and savior.
Demetrios’ Athenian agents in all of this were quite likely Stratocles and his party, in part because they were grateful for the restoration of their influence when Demetrios’ returned, in part perhaps because some of them shared the symposia and courtesans that Demetrios provided. Stratocles carried the seemingly boundless honors one step further by proposing that Demetrios be treated as an oracular god: that “everything which King Demetrios bids be considered holy in respect to the gods and just in respect to men” (Plut. Dem. 24.4–5). Henceforth ambassadors to Demetrios were to be considered theōroi (as were ambassadors to Delphi), and Demetrios’ responses were to be viewed as oracles (Plut. Dem. 11.1, 13.1–2; Mor. 338A). On this very point we hear of the first Athenian opposition to the divine Demetrios. Demochares, son of Laches, of Leukonoion (APF 3716), staunchly pro-democratic, spoke against the proposal (Plut. Dem. 24.5). For this and no doubt other anti-Demetrian sentiments he was exiled.[34] Demetrios and his Athenian supporters around Stratocles were in absolute control, and those who opposed them on political or religious grounds were clearly well advised to bide their time. The wait, it turned out, was for only three years.
In the interval, probably in 302/1, the Ekklesia voted heroic honors for three important generals and agents of Demetrios: Adeimantos of Lampsacos, Oxythemis of Larissa, and Bourichos. Each had provided valuable services for Athens in the past, and Adeimantos, a close friend of Theophrastos (D.L. 5.57), had already received a crown from the Athenians in 302 (SEG 14.58). Oxythemis had been given Athenian citizenship in 304/3 (IG II2 558).[35] According to Demochares (FGrHist 75 F 1), these men were then given altars, heroa (hero sanctuaries), libations, and paeans. Since King Demetrios was a god (θεός), his lieutenants must be given the lesser, heroic honors.[36] These hero cults, if ever in fact established, probably did not outlive Demetrios’ defeat at Ipsos in 301, for, apart from Demochares’ complaint, they have left no record.[37] Upon hearing the news of these honors for his subordinates, Demetrios reportedly was surprised and commented that in his time, no Athenian “was great or strong in spirit” (Demochares, FGrHist 75 F 1). Such, perhaps accurately, was the attitude of the new deity toward his devotees in 302/1. The disaffection was shared by the devotees. When Antigonos was killed and Demetrios suffered a serious defeat at Ipsos in 301, the Athenians revolted from their divine patron and established a moderate government.
As he was returning to Athens from an expedition to the Peloponnesos, probably that expedition extolled in SEG 25.149 of ca. 303/2 (above, pp. 84–85), Demetrios turned his attention to the Eleusinian Mysteries:
That Demetrios, as a man, wished to be initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries is not surprising, but his request that the Mysteries be accommodated to his schedule, and not vice versa, was unprecedented. But Demetrios now, seemingly, viewed himself as one of the Athenian gods. It might seem odd that a god should want initiation into another deity’s mysteries, but as the “new” Dionysos Demetrios had the model of the “old” Dionysos. The “old” Dionysos alone of the Olympians had, according to Eleusinian lore, been initiated into these mysteries.[40] Demetrios could also feel affinity with Demeter through his name and, perhaps more important, by similarity of function. He, like Demeter, provided the Athenians grain. In 307/6 B.C. his father had sent to Athens 150,000 medimnoi of grain; Demetrios himself was to send another 100,000 medimnoi in 295/4 (Plut. Dem. 34.4); and, no doubt, throughout his association with Athens he facilitated or controlled the shipment of the desperately needed grain from abroad. We shall soon see how the Athenians, perhaps in gratitude for the grain shipment of 295/4, tied Demetrios even more closely to the cult of Demeter.And then, departing for Athens, Demetrios wrote that he wished, as soon as he arrived, to be initiated and to receive the whole initiation, from the Small Mysteries through the Epopteia.[38] This was something not permitted and had not happened before, but the Small Mysteries were performed during (the month) Anthesterion, the Great Mysteries during Boedromion. And (initiates) celebrated the Epopteia after leaving an interval of, at the least, one year from the Great Mysteries.
After (Demetrios’) letter was read, only Pythodoros, the dādouchos (“torchbearer”), dared to speak in opposition, and he accomplished nothing. But after Stratocles proposed that they, by vote, call Mounichion Anthesterion, (the Athenians) performed the Small Mysteries at Agrai for Demetrios. And, after this, Mounichion, having just become Anthesterion, was made Boedromion, and Demetrios received the remaining rites and, at the same time, he received also the Epopteia. And for this reason Philippides (the comic poet), attacking Stratocles, wrote:
The man who compressed the year into one month. and, about (Demetrios’) lodging in the Parthenon, The man who took the Acropolis to be a hotel and introduced courtesans to the virgin (τῇ παρθένῳ). (Plut. Dem. 26)[39]
From Plutarch’s account of this episode a bit more of the opposition to Demetrios emerges. Pythodoros, the Eleusinian dādouchos, expressed, probably in the deliberations of the Ekklesia, his opposition to the manipulation of the program of the Mysteries at which he officiated. This criticism comes, naturally, from the priestly quarter. Philippides, however, the long-standing opponent of Demetrios, on the comic stage ventured an attack not on Demetrios but on his Athenian agent Stratocles (Plut. Dem. 26 above Philippides frag. 25 KA).[41] The witticism on the manipulation of the calendar is perhaps harmless, but there lies just below the surface of the barb about the courtesans and the virgin Athena the desecration that Stratocles’ accommodations of Demetrios had occasioned. In 302/1 the result of such criticisms for Philippides, as for Demochares, was exile.
Within a few years, however, the Parthenon was to suffer even more. In the period of Athenian independence and neutrality after the battle of Ipsos in 301, Lachares (PA 9005), an Athenian of unknown family and deme, gained political power in a civil war and became a virtual tyrant.[42] It was to drive him out and to restore his own control that Demetrios returned to Athens in 295/4: “Again Demetrios attacked Attica, and, having gotten control of Eleusis and Rhamnous, he was pillaging the land. He captured a ship holding grain and bringing it to the Athenians and hung its merchant and captain, and, as a result, others turned away in fear. A serious famine occurred in the city and, in addition to the famine, a lack of other supplies” (Plut. Dem. 33.3). Pausanias gives a fuller account of the career and fall of Lachares:
The siege of Athens by Demetrios in 295/4 forms another important episode in the religious history of Athens, as the result of both Lachares’ actions and the further honors given to Demetrios. According to Pausanias, Lachares removed the golden shields dedicated on the Acropolis and the “removable” adornment (τὸν περιαιρετὸν κόσμον) of the statue of Athena. He may have done this, as modern tyrants do, to provide a treasure for his life in exile, but he apparently used the gold and silver also to pay his mercenaries (POxy. 17.2082 = FGrHist 257a). A few pages later Pausanias, after describing Lycourgos’ contributions to Athens, says, “Lachares, having become a tyrant, stole all these things which were made of silver and gold. But the buildings were still there even in my time” (1.29.16). The comic poet Demetrios II in his Areopagites (1 KA) had a character claim that “Lachares made Athena naked.”Cassander—for he had a terrible hatred toward the Athenians—made into a close friend Lachares who, up to that time, was a leader of the Demos. Cassander persuaded Lachares to plan for a tyranny, and of the tyrants we know Lachares was the harshest in matters that concern men and the most unsparing toward the divine. Demetrios the son of Antigonos already had a quarrel with the Demos of the Athenians, but even so he did away with the tyranny of Lachares. And, as the city wall was being captured, Lachares ran off to the Boeotians. It was suspected that Lachares was well supplied with money, for he had taken down the gold shields from the Acropolis and had stripped off the removable jewelry and decoration from the very statue of Athena. For the sake of this (money) the men of Coronea killed him.[43] (Paus. 1.25.7)
What had Lachares done? Quite probably, if we combine the two passages of Pausanias, he had removed and melted down all the gold and silver stored on the Acropolis. This would have included the golden shields, the jewelry and perhaps even the gold of the chryselephantine statue of Athena Parthenos by Phidias, and the many dedications recorded on the inventories of the fourth century.[44] Centuries of precious dedications were lost, and, tellingly, the last surviving inventory of Acropolis dedications dates to 303/2.[45] The blow to the cults of Athena Polias and other Acropolis deities must have been enormous, not so much in economic terms—for dedications such as these generated no income—but in prestige, respect, and τιμή. Athena and her colleagues were unable to protect even their own property.[46] We shall see later that after Athens’ successful revolt from Demetrios in 288/7, there was a period of disorder for the cult of Athena Polias, and it was slow to regain its former prominence. Eventually the Panathenaia was reinstated and would continue to be celebrated throughout antiquity, but damage had been done. The Athena Polias cult represented and promoted by Lycourgos was now in decline and, apart from the Panathenaia, would remain so for some time.
In 295/4, after his expulsion of Lachares, Demetrios installed a pro-Macedonian oligarchy in Athens, and from them he received new honors.[47] Plutarch (Dem. 12) claims that the proposer of the decree surpassed even Stratocles in his servility. Demetrios was, as often as he visited Athens, to be received with the hospitality usually shown Demeter and Dionysos. Money for a dedication was to be given to the citizen who excelled in the splendor and cost of this reception. The month Mounichion was to be named Demetrion, and the last day of the month was to be called Demetrias. Thus, henceforth, Mounichion 30 would be known as the Demetrias of Demetrion. The City Dionysia was to be, according to Plutarch, renamed the Demetrieia.[48] According to Duris (FGrHist 76 F 14), in the theater of Dionysos, where the Demetrieia was to be celebrated, Demetrios was represented (ἐγράφετο) on the proscenium “riding on the world.”
In 304/3 Demetrios had been the xenos (guest) of Athena Polias, but henceforth, as often as he visited, he was to receive gifts of xenia from the whole state, and these gifts were to be those usually reserved for Demeter and Dionysos—prayers, hymns, and sacrifices. Demetrios’ self-identification with Dionysos was discussed previously, but here his identification with his namesake Demeter becomes obvious. He had been initiated into her mysteries, however irregularly, during his last visit, and, like her, he provided essential grain to the Athenians, especially after the devastation of the crops and near starvation caused, this very year, by Lachares and Demetrios himself. Demetrios now, like Demeter, controlled Athens’ grain supply, and like her he should be honored whenever he came to town.
In 307/6 B.C. Demetrios had arrived in Piraeus on Thargelion 26 (Plut. Dem. 8.3–5), and hence neither the month (Mounichion) nor the day of the month (the thirtieth) was named after him because of the events of his first visit.[49] Mounichion was, however, the month the Athenians manipulated so that Demetrios could celebrate all three stages of the Mysteries in 303/2, and naming the month after him may have had a touch of humor.[50] The new Demetrion was, according to Philochoros (FGrHist 328 F 116), to be a “holy month,” celebrated as one long festival. Demetrias, as each thirtieth day was to be named, was no doubt to be Demetrios’ monthly festival day, like those of Apollo (the seventh) and Artemis (the sixth). Unlike the sacred days of the Olympians it fell in the last half of the month, in fact at the “moonless” time usually reserved for evil spirits and regarded by the Athenians with some trepidation.[51] Could this too have been an in-joke? There is, however, no evidence that the renaming or sanctification of the month and day was ever effected. Contemporary inscriptions retain the traditional names for both, and business continued to be transacted in Mounichion and on the thirtieth days.[52]
The City Dionysia was, apparently, not renamed the Demetrieia, as Plutarch claims, but the name “Demetrieia” was added to the name “City Dionysia.” [53] A day or more of celebration for Demetrios may have been added to the traditional City Dionysia, as Habicht suggests (1956, 53), or—more likely in view of Demetrios’ identification with Dionysos—existing elements of the festival may have been remodeled to accommodate the new Demetrios/Dionysos. This amalgamation of the Demetrieia and City Dionysia was, however, short-lived, and after Athens’ revolt from Demetrios in 288/7 the City Dionysia appears again alone (without the Demetrieia) on inscriptional records (IG II2 653, 654, 657). The Demetrieia of Demetrios, as Habicht has argued (1956, 53–54), is distinct from the cult of the Soteres because it is here Demetrios/Dionysos, not Demetrios Soter, who is receiving worship. After 288/7 the Athenians continued to need sōtēria (“safety”), and a cult of the Soteres, as we shall see, survived—but with different Soteres. Clearly the Athenians were happy then to be rid of the Dionysiac Demetrios, and the Demetrieia was abandoned.
In 291/0 Demetrios returned to Athens from Leukas and Cephallenia. The Athenians, according to Demetrios’ enemy Demochares, received him with incense, wreaths, libations, processional dances, and ithyphallic poetry accompanied by dancing (FGrHist 75 F 2). One of these ithyphallic poems is summarized by Demochares and preserved by Duris of Samos (FGrHist 76 F 13).[54] This hymn, though often treated as a unique and uncharacteristic document in Athenian religious history, is a natural product of its immediate times. We have already noted that songs were sung about Demetrios in the symposia, and we learn from Philochoros (FGrHist 328 F 165) that the Athenians sang paeans “over” (ἐπί) Antigonos and Demetrios. A competition was held for the composers of such songs, and Hermippos of Cyzicus was judged the victor.[55] This recalls the prize the Athenians in 294/3 had decided to award the citizen giving the most lavish and costly hospitality to the Macedonian monarch (above, p. 92). If we take this song to be the song of Hermippos, which is not unlikely, then the poet was a foreigner as were most of the lyric poets writing in Athens at the time.
The opening lines of the hymn, containing probably an exhortation to begin the singing, are lost, but the rest seems complete:[56]
Duris laments, as have several modern scholars, that the Athenians, those who two hundred years previously killed a man showing obeisance to the king of Persia and who slew countless Persians at Marathon, used to sing this song not only in public but also at home.
1 The greatest and the dearest of the gods are present for the city, for good fortune brought together here Demeter and Demetrios. 5 She comes to perform the sacred mysteries of Kore. He is present handsome, laughing, and cheerful, as a god ought to be. It is a revered sight—his friends all in a circle, himself in the middle, 10 as if his friends were stars, he the sun. Hail, son of Poseidon, most powerful god, and of Aphrodite. The other gods are either far distant, or do not have ears, or do not exist or pay no attention to us, 15 But we see you present, not made of stone or wood, but real. We pray to you: First, dearest one, create peace, for you have the authority. 20 And especially punish the Sphinx that tramples over not Thebes but all Greece, the Aetolian who sits on a rock, like the old Sphinx, and snatches up and carries off all of us. I am unable to fight him. 25 It is an Aetolian characteristic to rob neighbors, but now they do it to those far away. If you will not do it yourself, find some Oedipus who will throw this Sphinx off a cliff or will make it a pile of ashes.
The song is, as Victor Ehrenberg notes, “not a specimen of high poetry.” The Greek text is characterized by “simplicity and humdrum triviality” (1946, 180–81). Only the extended conceit of the Aetolians as the Sphinx gives it some life. Its primary interest to us is as a poetic expression of the attitude that at least some Athenians had developed toward the divine Demetrios over the past seventeen years. At points of emphasis, at the beginning of the song and immediately before the prayer, the actual, physical presence of the god Demetrios is emphasized, in contrast to the traditional gods who are (or whose statues are) made of wood and stone, who may or may not exist, and who, at best, are distant and pay no heed to us. Demetrios was there, in person, in Athens.[57]
The importance of Demeter (lines 3–5) to grain-starved Athens is self-evident, and, as we have seen, Demetrios had courted association with her and her Mysteries. The friends who encircle Demetrios (8–10) are quite likely Adeimantos, Oxythemis, and Bourichos who, as new heroes, were like stars to the sun Demetrios. The solar imagery was characteristic of Demetrios’ self-established role. In the theater of Dionysos he was represented as “riding on the world” (above, p. 92), and near the end of his career he was having a cloak woven for himself that would depict the entire cosmos and the heavenly bodies, a cloak that, according to Plutarch (Dem. 41.4–5), no later Macedonian king chose to wear.
The divine Demetrios is handsome, laughing, and cheerful (lines 6–7), probably real traits of Demetrios (e.g., Plut. Dem. 2.2–3) but also virtues of a symposiast and reminiscent of the “youthful” and “sweetest king” (above, p. 85 n. 26). In the symposia Eros and Aphrodite were his fellow deities, here Aphrodite is his mother, and the lover Demetrios had no doubt demonstrated mastery of his mother’s art in the orgies in the Parthenon. In other ways too the song displays the playfulness of symposiastic literature. Two puns have been noted: the true god (ἀληθινόν) as opposed to the stone ones (λίθινον), and the Sphinx (Σφίγγα) made into an ash (σποδόν).[58] The mating of Poseidon and Aphrodite, unique to this poem, may be explained prosaically as uniting Demetrios’ two areas of competence, the navy and sex,[59] but taken in light of the mythological tradition Poseidon and Aphrodite form a ludicrous pair. And, as we have seen, to be called the son of Poseidon was not necessarily a compliment (see chapter 1). Such playfulness in the song, if we are not imagining it, recalls the similarly playful and sophisticated “heliomorphic” Demetrios of Phaleron, Demetrios Kataibates, and perhaps Demetrion, Demetrios’ much-manipulated Mounichion. These and the Sphinx conceit should make us wary of attributing great religious seriousness to this song, however much it was performed publicly or privately. The song was quite probably composed by a foreigner, and the lack of specifically Athenian religious traditions and deities (apart from Demeter) in it is noteworthy and in this regard may be compared to Aristotle’s hymn on Hermeias.[60]
Critical to understanding the divine Demetrios, however, is the prayer of the song.[61] Here, as before, Demetrios is asked to provide for the Athenians what they themselves could not: peace and, more particularly, escape from harassment by the Aetolians to the north (lines 17–29). These Demetrios with his army and navy could, if he so chose, give. In fact, soon thereafter Demetrios mounted a successful expedition against these Aetolians.[62] The song to Demetrios did, in a primarily literary and perhaps playful way, raise pressing Athenian issues of life and death, issues that at that time could be addressed only by one greater and more powerful than themselves, only by a god more immanent and active than traditional gods.
That the “immanence” of the divine Demetrios was not just a literary cliché is suggested by the contemporary decree of Dromocleides.[63] In 340 the Athenians had remounted on the newly rebuilt temple of Apollo at Delphi their dedications of golden shields made from booty captured from the Persians at Plataea in 479. Now, in the late 290s, the Aetolians controlled Delphi and had removed or were planning to remove these prominent dedications. Normally in such a situation the Athenians would consult Apollo through the Pythia, and, in such a matter, Apollo’s command would be decisive. But the Aetolians, hostile to Athens, controlled Delphi. The Athenians therefore turned to the new oracular god whom they had recently created: Demetrios. The decree of Dromocleides proposed that the Athenians elect a representative to go to Soter (Demetrios) and “ask him how most piously and best and most quickly the Demos could make the restoration of the dedications, and that the Demos do what he as an oracle bids (χρέση) them to do” (Plut. Dem. 13.2). The language of the decree suits only the consultation of a deity, and Demetrios here, in 292/1, was given, and no doubt took on, the oracular role of Apollo Pythios.
Demetrios similarly took on the role of Apollo Pythios in the Pythia of 290/89. For centuries this festival had been celebrated quadrennially, in the third year of the Olympiad, in Delphi, in the god’s honor. The festival included, in addition to customary sacrifices and processions, extensive and varied musical compositions featuring the hymn to the god. It had also a full range of athletic competitions modeled on the Olympic games. Like all such festivals it was inextricably tied to one sanctuary and one god. Demosthenes, in the middle of the fourth century, calls it “the shared competition of the Greeks,” and he is indignant that Philip, a Macedonian, is administering it. To Demosthenes that is an act of extreme hybris (9.32). In 290/89 the hated Aetolians controlled Delphi, and Demetrios and the Athenians apparently thought the Pythia was no longer accessible to them. Demetrios, according to Plutarch, chose to do a “very new and strange thing” (πρᾶγμα καινότατον), to hold the Pythia and its contests in Athens. He did so on the pretext that Apollo Pythios was especially “honored” in Athens as their “ancestral” (patroös) god and as the “founder of their race” (Plut. Dem. 40.4).
There were, indeed, cults in Athens of Apollo Patroös (in the Agora) and Apollo Pythios (near the Ilissos).[64] Apollo’s close ties to Athens and his paternity of the Ionic peoples had been dramatized as early as Euripides’ Ion in the late fifth century. Some Athenians regularly traveled to Delphi for the quadrennial Pythia, and we have seen that Lycourgos was among the ten hieropoioi who supervised the sending of a special delegation (Pythaïs) to Delphi in 326/5 (chapter 1, p. 34). What is, in Plutarch’s judgment, most new and odd is for Athenians, at Demetrios’ behest, to stage the Delphic festival in their own city. It was tantamount to stealing an old and prestigious festival from a god’s own people. And, at the least, it indicates diminishing respect for the tie of such festivals to their gods, priesthoods, and places. Increasingly such agonistic festivals must be thought of in terms of international politics and entertainment, and this is the first unmistakable indication of a development that we shall see continuing throughout the Hellenistic period. There was still a bond between such a festival and the god’s cult, and this bond remained throughout antiquity, but it was not as strong as it had once been.