Editors of Lysistrate have regarded this passage as a kind of cursus honorum of a well-brought-up young Athenian lady: the chorine first served at the age of seven as a bearer of the sacred casket ; then at the age of ten as miller of corn for Athena Archegetis ; then followed service as a ‘bear’ of Artemis at the Brauronia; finally, she returned to Athens as a basket-bearer , holding a string of figs, when a fair young girl. After (...) this, presumably, she married. There are several difficulties in this interpretation: notably, the intrusion into service apparently wholly devoted to Athena of a spell as one of Artemis' servants at Brauron; moreover, the evidence is that Artemis' ‘bears’ were pre-pubescent, not young girls on the verge of marriage, as the above interpretation seems to require them to be. Another weakness lies in the period of service as an arrephoros: this passage seems to be the only direct evidence that arrephoroi might be seven-year-old, rather than adolescent, girls. A more extreme interpretation is that of A. Brelich, who regarded this passage as proof that there existed in fifth-century Athens a system of universal female initiation, based on four successive grades, arrephoria, aletria, arkteia and kanephoria. I do not propose to comment in detail upon Brelich's hypothesis, but critics of it might begin by questioning the age and number of the arrephoroi, and the function and location of the kanephoroi. (shrink)

Une mention d’Athéna Archegetis dans un passage fragmentaire du papyrus P.Hib. I 15 conduit à déterminer l’histoire de l’épithète, attestée dans la tradition littéraire et épigraphique entre la fin du ve siècle et la période impériale. À partir de la fin du iiie siècle avant J.-C., l’usage d’archegetis s’étend à d’autres divinités qu’Athéna en dehors d’Athènes (Magnésie, Xanthos, Éphèse, Samos, Attaleia, Myra…). Cette étude passe en revue et reconsidère la documentation disponible sur ce terme afin d’en préciser — quand c’est (...) possible — le sens et les fonctions, surtout (mais pas seulement) en contexte athénien. En règle générale, l’épithète souligne le caractère identitaire d’une divinité particulière en un moment de changement ou de renouveau politique ou religieux. (shrink)

In Eum. 1028–9 the Furies mark their transformation into Eumenides by donning red robes over their black costumes in imitation of the robes worn in the Panathenaea by metics . Greek epic was sensitive to the symbolic value of clothing and Aeschylus had experimented in the Persians with the greater scope that drama offered for clothing-symbolism. Scholars have detected a wealth of associations in the Furies' robing-scene: this culmination of the trilogy echoes the red carpet upon which Agamemnon walks to (...) his death in the first play, which is actually referred to as ‘garments’ , and the net in which Agamemnon is caught , which is brought on stage in the middle play . Another series of stage-actions of equal importance in preparing for the robing of the Furies has not been so well explained. (shrink)