ancient Greek religion Religious practices in ancient Greece encompassed a collection of beliefs, rituals, and Greek mythology, mythology, in the form of both popular public religion and Cult (religious practice), cult practices. The application of the modern concept ...

, Kanathos () in the

Argolid The regions of ancient Greece were sub-divisions of the Hellenic world as conceived by the ancient Greeks, shown by their presence in the works of ancient historians and geographers or in surviving legends and myths. Conceptually, there is no cl ...

was the spring at Nauplia, where

Hera In ancient Greek religion, Hera (; ; in Ionic Greek, Ionic and Homeric Greek) is the goddess of marriage, women, and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. In Greek mythology, she is queen of the twelve Olympians and Mount Oly ...

annually renewed her

virginity Virginity is a social construct that denotes the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. As it is not an objective term with an operational definition, social definitions of what constitutes virginity, or the lack thereo ...

. There, Pausanias noted, was "a spring called Kanathos where, so say the Argives, Hera bathes every year and, by so doing, becomes a maiden; it is this story which is of the secrets connected with the rites which they perform to Hera." The unspoken nature of the ritual forbade its being embodied openly or directly in

Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

. S. Casson suggested that it was the obscure subject of the so-called " Ludovisi Throne", generally considered to represent the parallel, and far better-known, renewal of

Aphrodite Aphrodite (, ) is an Greek mythology, ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretism, syncretised Roman counterpart , desire, Sexual intercourse, sex, fertility, prosperity, and ...

, bathing in the sea at

Paphos Paphos, also spelled as Pafos, is a coastal city in southwest Cyprus and the capital of Paphos District. In classical antiquity, two locations were called Paphos: #Old Paphos, Old Paphos, today known as Kouklia, and #New Paphos, New Paphos. It i ...

. At Samos, the ritual bathing of the goddess was represented in

cult Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term ...

thus: the archaic wooden

cult image In the practice of religion, a cult image is a Cultural artifact, human-made object that is venerated or worshipped for the deity, Spirit (supernatural entity), spirit or Daimon, daemon that it embodies or represents. In several traditions, incl ...

of Hera at Samos, originally an iconic plank of wood, or '' xoanon'', was taken out annually and ritually washed in the sea, for which an '' aiton'' was offered in the form of a mythic anecdote. "The bathing of a statue of a goddess is a commemorative re-enactment of the bath which the goddess took herself", G. W. Elderkin remarked of the bathing rituals of Aphrodite's priestess called the ''loutrophoros'', "carrier of the washing-water". For

Jane Ellen Harrison Jane Ellen Harrison (9 September 1850 – 15 April 1928) was a British classical scholar and linguist. With Karl Kerenyi and Walter Burkert, Harrison is one of the founders of modern studies in Ancient Greek religion and mythology. She ...

, simply recalling that a triple Hera, perhaps of

Pelasgian The name Pelasgians (, ) was used by Classical Greece, Classical Greek writers to refer either to the predecessors of the Greeks, or to all the inhabitants of Greece before the Greeks#Origins, emergence of the Greeks. In general, "Pelasgian" h ...

origin, was venerated at Stymphalos in Arcadia as maiden child, wife and even widow, was sufficient "to enable us to recognize in her the year-goddess in the three Greek seasons, spring, summer-autumn and winter. At Nauplia too (Pausanias ii.38.2), year after year she renewed, as every year-deity must, her youth and maiden-hood by bathing in the Kanathos. The exclusive matron-hood, familiar to us in the ''Iliad'', is but one aspect, emphasized to complete the literary Olympian family circle." The water of the Eleutherion by the

Heraion of Argos The Heraion of Argos () is an ancient sanctuary in the Argolid, Greece, dedicated to Hera, whose epithet "Argive Hera" (Ἥρη Ἀργείη ''Here Argeie'') appears in Homer's works. Hera herself claims to be the protector of Ancient Argos, A ...

was also used for ritual bathing.Pausanias, ii.17.1.

References

{{coord missing, Greece Argolis Ancient Greek religion

See also

References