Aphrodite and the Olympian/chthonian Binary

This graphic of Aphrodite's origin shows some of her chthonian attributes;
 her violent birth from the sea/earth through the castration of her 'father' Ouranos,
who was of the older generation of gods

The separating of ancient Greek deities into the two categories of Olympian and chthonian is, as with every aspect of ancient Greek religion, I am discovering, extremely complex and without a simple solution.  The debate surrounding what makes a god either Olympian or chthonian and which deities belong in each category has been waging “for as almost long as there has been a conception of ‘Greek Religion’ as a subject of scholarly endeavour” (Deacy: p.N/A). However, the question I wish to concentrate on is whether or not these two classifications should even be used to separate the gods, in scholarship.

As far as I am aware, there have been no ancient sources discovered which provide a definitive list of which gods the Greeks themselves regarded as Olympian or chthonian. Therefore, it could be argued that the categories were created anachronistically by western scholars who, consciously or not, were affected by the Christianised ideas of Heaven and Hell. I believe this can be seen in the characterisation of Olympian gods as good, sky or mountain-dwelling, distant from mortals and worshipped as opposed to the chthonian god’s portrayal as dark, earth or underworld-dwelling, lesser, older, closer to mortals and feared (Deacy: p.N/A). The notion of the Earth and underworld being ‘lesser’ than the sky-realm is arguably one that the ancient Greek’s did not hold and is instead heavily influenced by the Christian ideas of Heaven being superior to Earth and Hell.

The argument I see against the categorisation of the gods into these two groups is not only the Christian anachronism but that the gods are too complex to neatly fit into either category and therefore, arguably, it is a pointless endeavour to try! As this blog focuses on Aphrodite, I will use her as an example to try and substantiate this admittedly bold statement. Aphrodite, as one of the 12 major Olympians, is a goddess who has always, arguably, sat quite comfortably in the Olympian group. However, using the criteria which has been set out to judge which group a deity belongs to, it could be argued that even ‘golden girl’ Aphrodite has some chthonian qualities.

As I stated before, one of the Chthonian characteristics is that they are usually seen as older, more primitive and earthly. The birth story of Aphrodite, as set out in Hesiod’s Theogony, explains that the goddess was born on the god Ouranos- two generations older than Zeus and the other Olympians. She was born in a primitive manner through the violent castration of her father by his son Kronos and she was born from the Earth, without a mother, rising from the sea onto the shore of Cyprus. Another chthonian quality discussed in our lecture was that they are often localised gods and, whilst worship of Aphrodite was surely widespread, she remained very close to her Cyprian roots as she often carried the name Cypris (Hesiod: L.190-206). Already, cracks begin to show in Aphrodite’s classification as an Olympian goddess.

An issue that has arisen in my Olympian/Chthonian research is the notion that chthonian gods are more concerned with ‘earthly’ matters. How does one define what is earthly? Usually it translates to a dominion over the harvest, however I would suggest that mortals are just as earthly a matter as the harvest is. Therefore, any gods who have a strong dominion over mortal concerns could be suggested to have chthonian qualities. This resonates especially with Aphrodite as it is often romanticised that she holds dominion over matters of love, as if ‘love’ is dealt out from a distance with her having no direct involvement with the mortals. However, she also has a strong holding in the baser pleasures of lust and sex amongst both gods and mortals, with the goddess herself taking mortal lovers such as Anchises. As well as having dominion over lust on Earth, it could be suggested that Aphrodite’s powers reach even deeper, into the Underworld as Hades is clearly a slave to desires as is seen in the kidnapping of Persephone (Hesiod: L.912-15). Links with the Underworld are often thought to be a chthonian trait. The argument here is that lines between what is considered normal for Olympian and Chthonian deities is not always clear.

 One of the methods used by scholars to determine whether a deity was considered chthonian is to investigate the sacrificial rituals performed for them and determine if there are any anomalies from the ‘normal’ sacrificial rites (Scullion and Parker: p.284-286). However, as Scullion illustrates there are many anomalies within the sacrificial rituals of a variety of gods; both those considered Olympian and chthonian. It is interesting that the use of a particular epithet could lead to chthonian aspects appearing in the sacrifice, for example, Aphrodite Ourania was recorded to have has ‘sober’ sacrifices where no wine was poured in libation (Henrichs). Scullion suggests that this could mean that the gods became chthonian when particular epithets were used. Another way Parker explains it are that the gods could be seen as part-Olympian and part-chthonian simultaneously (Parker: p.82).

Thus, the debate surrounding the Olympian/chthonian binary supports what has arguably been the main theme of this course: the study of ancient Greek religion is incredibly complex and there are no straight forward answers to any aspect of it. There appears to be no black and white solution to which gods fit into each category, or even what exactly each category means. I would argue that any attempt to settle this debate with a clear chart depicting where each god should be listed would result in a chaotic mess of arrows and asterisks! Therefore, it could be argued that we, as scholars, should stop trying to justify these categorisations and continue to study the gods as the complex beings that they were instead of trying to pigeonhole them into the over simplistic labels of Olympian gods and chthonian gods.

References

Deacy, S. (forthcoming) ‘Gods: Olympian or chthonian’ in Eidinow, E. and Kindt, J. (eds.) Oxford Handbook on Greek Religion, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Henrichs, A., (1984)’The Eumenides and wineless libations in the Derveni papyrus’ Congresso Internazionale di Papirologia, vol XVII, p255-68

Hesiod (1973) ‘Theogony’ in Hesiod and Theognis, Baldick, R., Jones, C. A. and Radice, B. (eds.), Wender, D. (trans.) Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd.

Parker, R., (2011) On Greek Religion, New York: Cornell University Press

Scullion, S., (1994) ‘Olympian and chthonian’, Classical Antiquity, Vol 13, (No 1), p115-116, available at: Jstor.org

Vergil (1990) The Aeneid, West, D. (trans), London: Penguin Group