Section 2. Artemis and Hippolytus.
I HAVE said that the Arician legends of Orestes and Hippolytus, though
worthless as history, have a certain value in so far as they may help us
to understand the worship at Nemi better by comparing it with the ritual
and myths of other sanctuaries. We must ask ourselves, Why did the
author of these legends pitch upon Orestes and Hippolytus in order to
explain Virbius and the King of the Wood? In regard to Orestes, the
answer is obvious. He and the image of the Tauric Diana, which could
only be appeased with human blood, were dragged in to render
intelligible the murderous rule of succession to the Arician priesthood.
In regard to Hippolytus the case is not so plain. The manner of his
death suggests readily enough a reason for the exclusion of horses from
the grove; but this by itself seems hardly enough to account for the
identification. We must try to probe deeper by examining the worship as
well as the legend or myth of Hippolytus. 1
He had a famous sanctuary at his ancestral home of Troezen, situated
on that beautiful, almost landlocked bay, where groves of oranges and
lemons, with tall cypresses soaring like dark spires above the garden of
Hesperides, now clothe the strip of fertile shore at the foot of the
rugged mountains. Across the blue water of the tranquil bay, which it
shelters from the open sea, rises Poseidon's sacred island, its peaks
veiled in the sombre green of the pines. On this fair coast Hippolytus
was worshipped. Within his sanctuary stood a temple with an ancient
image. His service was performed by a priest who held office for life;
every year a sacrificial festival was held in his honour; and his
untimely fate was yearly mourned, with weeping and doleful chants, by
unwedded maids. Youths and maidens dedicated locks of their hair in his
temple before marriage. His grave existed at Troezen, though the people
would not show it. It has been suggested, with great plausibility, that
in the handsome Hippolytus, beloved of Artemis, cut off in his youthful
prime, and yearly mourned by damsels, we have one of those mortal lovers
of a goddess who appear so often in ancient religion, and of whom Adonis
is the most familiar type. The rivalry of Artemis and Phaedra for the
affection of Hippolytus reproduces, it is said, under different names,
the rivalry of Aphrodite and Proserpine for the love of Adonis, for
Phaedra is merely a double of Aphrodite. The theory probably does no
injustice either to Hippolytus or to Artemis. For Artemis was originally
a great goddess of fertility, and, on the principles of early religion,
she who fertilises nature must herself be fertile, and to be that she
must necessarily have a male consort. On this view, Hippolytus was the
consort of Artemis at Troezen, and the shorn tresses offered to him by
the Troezenian youths and maidens before marriage were designed to
strengthen his union with the goddess, and so to promote the
fruitfulness of the earth, of cattle, and of mankind. It is some
confirmation of this view that within the precinct of Hippolytus at
Troezen there were worshipped two female powers named Damia and Auxesia,
whose connexion with the fertility of the ground is unquestionable. When
Epidaurus suffered from a dearth, the people, in obedience to an oracle,
carved images of Damia and Auxesia out of sacred olive wood, and no
sooner had they done so and set them up than the earth bore fruit again.
Moreover, at Troezen itself, and apparently within the precinct of
Hippolytus, a curious festival of stone-throwing was held in honour of
these maidens, as the Troezenians called them; and it is easy to show
that similar customs have been practised in many lands for the express
purpose of ensuring good crops. In the story of the tragic death of the
youthful Hippolytus we may discern an analogy with similar tales of
other fair but mortal youths who paid with their lives for the brief
rapture of the love of an immortal goddess. These hapless lovers were
probably not always mere myths, and the legends which traced their spilt
blood in the purple bloom of the violet, the scarlet stain of the
anemone, or the crimson flush of the rose were no idle poetic emblems of
youth and beauty fleeting as the summer flowers. Such fables contain a
deeper philosophy of the relation of the life of man to the life of
nature-a sad philosophy which gave birth to a tragic practice. What that
philosophy and that practice were, we shall learn later on. 2