The sacred groves of ancient Greece
2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 29; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14601170802260252
ISSN1943-2186
Autores Tópico(s)Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. The published literature on the sacred groves of ancient Greece is sparse. Only an unpublished thesis treats of the subject specifically. See D. E. Birge, Sacred Groves in the Ancient Greek World, PhD diss., Department of Ancient History and Archaeology, University of California, Berkeley, 1982. For a shorter but published treatment see D. Birge, ‘Trees in the Landscape of Pausanias' Periegesis’, in Susan Alcock and Robin Osborne, Placing the Gods: Sanctuaries and Sacred Space in Ancient Greece (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). Birge focuses on the religious, social and political background of sacred groves rather than on their more physical aspects. Some references to sacred groves can be found in articles on the ancient Greek garden. See Massimo Venturi Ferriolo, ‘Homer's Garden’, Journal of Garden History, ix/2, 1989, pp. 86–94, and Maureen Carroll‐Spillecke, ‘The gardens of Greece from Homeric to Roman times’, Journal of Garden History, xii/2, 1992, pp. 84–101. 2. Archaeological evidence for sacred groves is also sparse. Some is only indirectly related. The discovery of planting pits around the Hephaiston in Athens and at the temple of Zeus in Nemea provides evidence only of the planting of trees in the vicinity of temples and not of independent sacred groves. 3. The religious aspects of sacred groves, especially in connection with the ritual of sacrifice, are treated in Rod Barnett, ‘Sacred Groves: Sacrifice and the Order of Nature in Ancient Greek Landscapes’, Landscape Journal, 26/2, 2007, pp. 252–269. 4. D. Birge as in Alcock and Osborne above. 5. Alsos is an ancient Greek word often used to refer to a sacred grove. 6. Homer, The Iliad (ed.) Samuel Butler (Project Gutenberg edition, 1898), book 23, line 138. 7. Homer, The Odyssey (ed.) Samuel Butler (Project Gutenberg, 1898), book 17, line 2004. 8. Homer, The Iliad, as above, book 2, line 505 9. Homer, The Odyssey, as above, book 20, line 275. 10. Ibid., book 8, line 359. 11. Homer, The Iliad, as above, book 8, line 41 and The Odyssey, as above, book 6, line 289. 12. Homer, The Odyssey, as above, book 6, line 316. 13. Anonymous, ‘Hymn 5, To Aphrodite’, The Homeric Hymns (eds) Thomas Allen and E. E. Sikes (London: Macmillan, 1904), card 174. 14. Anonymous, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica (trans.) Hugh. G. Evelyn‐White (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1914), card 225. 15. Sappho, Poems and Fragments (trans.) Stanley Lombardo (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 2000) fragment 6. 16. Pindar, ‘Nemean 2, For Timodemus of Achranae Pancratium’, Odes, 1990. 17. See above for Homer's references to altars, presumably sacrificial altars, in a grove. 18. Pindar, ‘Olympia 5, For Psaumis of Camarina, Mule Car Race’, Odes, 1990. 19. Sophocles, Trachiniae (ed.) Sir Richard Jebb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1892), line 750. For a detailed treatment of a sacred grove in one of Sophocles' plays, see D. Birge, ‘The Grove of the Eumenides: Refuge and Hero Shrine in Oedipus at Colonus’, The Classical Journal, 80, pp. 1–17. For a wider treatment of the landscape in Greek drama, see Jim Roy, ‘The Landscape in Classical Greek Drama and Isolated Farms in Dramatic Landscapes’ (eds) Graham Shipley and J. B. Salmon, Human Landscapes in Classical Antiquity (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 98–118. 20. Sophocles, The Electra of Sophocles (ed.) Sir Richard Jebb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1894), line 565. 21. Sophocles, The Oedipus at Colonus of Sophocles (ed.) Sir Richard Jebb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1889), line 120. 22. Herodotus, The Histories (trans.) A. G. Godley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1920), book 6, chapter 75, section 3. 23. Aristophanes, Women at the Thesmophoria, The Complete Greek Drama, Vol. 2 (ed.) Eugene O'Neill Jr. (New York: Random House, 1938), line 1148. 24. Aristophanes, Frogs (ed.) Matthew Dillon (Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University), www.perseus.tufts.edu, line 438. 25. Plato, Plato in Twelve Volumes, 9 (trans.) W. R. M. Lamb (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1925), page 111. 26. Plato, Plato in Twelve Volumes, 10 and 11 (trans.) R. G. Bury (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1967 and 1968), page 761. 27. Xenophon, Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 3 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1980), book 5, chapter 3, section 12. 28. Polybius, Histories (trans.) Evelyn S. Shuckburgh (New York: Macmillan, 1889), 18.6. 29. Ibid. In the same section is a reference to a grove near Pylus dedicated to Demeter. 30. Strabo, The Geography of Strabo (ed.) H. L. Jones (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1924), book 7, chapter 7, section 6. 31. Strabo, op. cit., book 8, chapter 3, section 14. 32. Strabo, op. cit., book 8, chapter 6, section 22. 33. Strabo, op. cit., book 14, chapter 1, section 20. These were probably Greek date palms, Phoenix theophrastus. A small relict population is still found on Crete and on the Turkish coast at Patara. 34. Strabo, op. cit., book 9, chapter 2, section 23. 35. The sacred grove is also referred to in myth and drama. In the myth of the Golden Fleece, the fleece is hung on an oak tree in a grove dedicated to Ares, the god of war. See Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, 2 (ed.) Sir George James Fraser (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1921), book 1, chapter 9, section 1. In Euripides' drama, Iphigenia in Aulis, a grove of Artemis is referred to as a location of sacrifices. See Euripides, The Plays of Euripides, 2 (trans.) E. P. Coleridge (London: George Bell & Sons, 1891), lines 185 and 1540. 36. Pausanias, Guide to Greece (trans.) Peter Levi (London: Penguin, 1971). 37. Susan Alcock, ‘Minding the Gap’ (eds) Susan Alcock and Robin Osborne, op. cit., p. 258. 38. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/II, p. 220. 39. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/IX, p. 355. 40. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/IX, p. 369. 41. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/III, p. 98. 42. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/VIII, p. 451. 43. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/VIII, p. 458. Although a sacred wood usually belonged to one city, a grove near Patrai was held in common by the Ionians of the cities of Aroe, Anteia and Mesatis. See Pausanias, op. cit., 1/VII, Achaia, p. 276. 44. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/VII, p. 283. 45. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/III, p. 35. 46. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/II, p. 156. 47. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/X, p. 511. 48. Pausanias, op. cit.,1/IX, p. 361. 49. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/VII, p. 305. 50. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/VII, p. 283. 51. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/VII, p. 285. 52. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/VIII, p. 461. 53. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/I/II, p. 82. 54. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/VII, p. 304. 55. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/VII, p. 290. 56. A more detailed treatment of acts of violation of sacred trees and groves and their consequences can be found in Aslak Rostad, Human Transgression – Divine Retribution, Dr. Art thesis, University of Bergen, Norway, 2000, pp. 118–122. 57. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/II, p. 197. 58. Pausanias, op. cit., 2VIII, p. 451. 59. For a treatment of trees in everyday practical use in ancient Greece, see Russell Meiggs, Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982). 60. These were probably Cupressus sempervirens, natural forests of which still survived in Greece at that time. 61. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/II, p. 134. 62. Pausanias, op. cit.,1/II, p. 160. 63. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/VIII, p. 478. 64. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/VIII, p. 500. 65. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/IV, p. 105. 66. These were probably Quercus robur, of which there were extensive natural forests in ancient Greece. 67. Pausanias, op. cit.,1/IX, p. 360. These were probably the native Mediterranean evergreen oak, Quercus ilex. 68. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/II, p. 220. These were probably the oriental plane, Platanus orientalis, a native of Greece. 69. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/VII, p. 243. 70. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/X, p. 511. 71. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/VIII, p. 459. 72. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/VII, p. 305. 73. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/I, p. 61. 74. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/IX, p. 359. 75. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/II, p. 196. 76. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/VII, p. 285. 77. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/VII, p. 304. 78. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/VII, p. 451. 79. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/VII, p. 465. 80. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/II, p. 193. 81. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/V, p. 241. 82. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/II, p. 160. It was not uncommon to have small sanctuaries within the boundaries of a grove. See the enclosure dedicated to Bellerophon in the cypress grove before Corinth. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/II, p. 134. 83. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/IX, p. 369. 84. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/II, p. 131. 85. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/V, p. 222. 86. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/VIII, p. 426. 87. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/I, p. 19. 88. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/IX, p. 392. 89. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/II, p. 195. 90. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/IX, p. 375. 91. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/VII, p. 285. 92. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/II, p. 135. 93. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/VII, p. 285. 94. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/IX, p. 360. 95. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/II, p. 195. 96. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/IX, p. 359. 97. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/IV, p. 182. 98. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/II, p. 220. 99. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/II, p. 135. 100. Pausanias, op. cit.,1/VII, p. 283. 101. Pausanias, op. cit., 6/I, p. 280. It was probably an archaic figure that was preferred to a more durable stone figure because of the weight of tradition behind it. 102. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/IX, p. 369. Another example of statuary placed before the entrance to a sacred grove rather than within the grove is that of the grove of the Great Goddesses at Megaloplis before which statues of Demeter and her daughter were erected. The reason for this placement in front of the grove was that access into this particular grove by anyone was forbidden. 103. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/VIII, p. 478. 104. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/IX, p. 392. 105. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/IX, p. 359. 106. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/IV, p. 173. 107. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/VII, p. 305. 108. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/III, p. 82. 109. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/VIII, p. 466. 110. Aristotle, ‘Athenian Constitution’, Aristotle in 23 Volumes, 20 (ed.) H. R. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1952), chapter 60, section 2. 111. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/VIII, p. 500. 112. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/VIII, p. 404. 113. Pausanias, op. cit., 2/VIII, p. 425. The chaste tree is probably Vitex agnus‐castus. 114. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/IX, p. 348. 115. Pausanias, op. cit., 1/X, p. 353.
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