#eunostos

[rossodimarte]

Master of the Griselda Legend, Eunostos of Tanagra, 1490-1499

[diioonysus]

greek mythology | gods & goddesses | Ευνοστος

→ eunostos was a goddess whose image was set up in mills, and who was believed to keep watch over the just weight of flour.

[nehetisingsforhekate]

Obscure Gods: Eunostos/Promylius

Eunostos/Promylius:

 God/dess of the mills, who watches over the weighing of flour. The name means “Good Yield.”

The Suda tells us that She is also known as Promylaia, and was worshipped in the mills themselves. Yet other sources show a masculine figure for Eunostos. Either way, the icon was set beside the grinding stones.

The name Eunostos is also given to a Hero in Tanagra, whose cultus forbade women. This hero was the grandson of Kephisos. Farnell says he is the son of Elieus of the marsh and Skias of the shade. The surviving story seems to revolve around a false accusation of rape by his cousin Ochna, making him a problematic figure for the world today. His shrine included a grove, and Dillon believes that his origin lay as an agricultural deity. It was said that if a woman were to enter his sanctuary Tanagra would suffer earthquakes, droughts and other signs of the Hero’s displeasure. Diokles tells that Kleidamos had an epiphany of Eunostos being in need of purification by bathing in the sea because a woman had entered the sanctuary.

Scholars have noted the gender confusion between the different accounts of Eunostos and have tried to associate the name with various deities as an epithet as well as speculating that both may have been closely associated early in history.

One of the harbors at Alexandria was called the Eunostos Portus in the Hellenistic Era, and played a major role in the wars between Caesar and Antony. Therein the name translates as “Happy Return.” Bevan posits that the harbor was named after Ptolemy I’s son-in-law, Eunostos the Cypriot Basileus. It was this harbor that took in the larger ships, and as such served prominently in Alexandria’s role as a hub for trade. The grain that fed Greece and Rome (and later Byzantium) often left Egypt through these waters.

As a study, Eunostos shows just how little we know sometimes. Male? Female? Unless we find some source for more information, we may never know. As a hero, I can’t personally approach him both because of his backstory and because of my status as a woman. Additionally, few today grind their own grains, or would know how to begin. If we resurrect the cult of Eunostos the God/dess of the Mill, perhaps it could be as a measurer of the grains when cooking? Do we approach them as an epithet of one of the other agricultural Gods? Or is this one of those deities that we overlook? (and theoi.com proved a difficult and even slightly deceptive source for this one!)

 This is another one of those Gods that requires us each to decide individually, I think. For myself, I may whisper a prayer to the God of the Mills when I’m sifting my flour for a cake that the balance of ingredients be true, but the Hero will go un-tended.

 Sources:

Theoi.com

Bennett, R. and E. John. History of Corn Milling, vol. 2, Simpkin, Marshall, & co. 1898.

Bevan, Edwyn. A History of Egypt Under the Ptolemaic Dynasty, Routledge, 2014.

Cook, Arthur Bernard. Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, Biblo and Tannen, 1965.

Dillon, Matthew. Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion, Psych, 2003.

Farnell, Lewis Richard. Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of Immortality, Clarendon, 1970.

Fossey, John M. et al. Actes de Troisième congrès international sur la Béotie antique, Gieben, 1985.

Haas, Christopher. Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict, JHU, 2006.

Papantoniou, Giorgos. Religion and Social Transformations in Cyprus: From the Cypriot Basileis to the Hellenistic Strategos, Brill, 2012.

Parker, Robert. On Greek Religion, Cornell, 2011.

Roller, Duane W. Tanagran Studies: The Prosopography of Tanagra in Boiotia, Gieben, 1989.

Schachter, Albert. Cults of Boiotia: Acheloos to Hera, Univ. London, 1981.

Sherwood, Andrew N., et al. Greek and Roman Technology: A Sourcebook, Routledge, 2003.

Snyder, Jane McIntosh. The Woman and the Lyre: Women Writers in Classical Greece and Rome, SIU, 1991.

 Images:

Mayo, Nicola George. “Egyptian Felouk at Alexandria – boatman, a man in charge of a small boat.” Photo, 2008. Via wikicommons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Felouka.JPG

Zde, “Millstones,” photo from the Milos Mining Museum. Via wikicommons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Millstones,_Milos_Mining_Museum,_153009.jpg

[loluuig-may-blog]

Religion from the lexicographers

The Geek lexicographers (Suidas, Stephen of Byzantium, Hesychius, Polydeuces, I'm sure there's others I don't know about) are a positive gold mine of information about ancient religion, unfortunately rarely mentioned and largely untranslated. Suda Online is a marvellous exception. I'll quote some entries of the lexicographers below that I stumbled upon. The translations are mine unless otherwise noted. Unfortunately, this also limits me to articles which are easily translatable, as my Ancient Greek is not the best and therefore doing a good job of it takes me forever.

Hesychius s.v. Bakchoan

Bacchoa:

Bothros (Aeolian). [Bothros is the ritual pit for libations]

I thought this was quite interesting. According to what the entry strictly tells us, Bacchoa was the Aeolian term for bothros, a pit for libations; but it seems obvious to me that it must have been a specific kind of bothros, probably a bothros in a Dionysiac context; I'll give you one alternative, that it was a bothros for wine as opposed to other libations, like blood or milk. We'll never know, I suppose, as the word apparently is not used by any other author (as far as I could find out).

s.v. Heresides

Girls who take care of the bathing of Hera

I am interested in these rituals where gods' images were bathed. There is a future blog post on that waiting to be written.

s.v. Aphrodision

Image of Aphrodite, artwork of Aphrodite.

Aphrodision was also a town, and a word for sanctuaries of Aphrodite.

Polydeuces 1.37: On the festivals named after the gods honoured

Of the Muses, Museia. Of Hermes, Hermaia. Of Zeus, Diasia and Pandia. Of Athene, Panathenaia. Of Hera, Heraia. Of Demeter, Demetria and Tesmophoria (from her epithet meaning Law-Giver) and Eleusinia. Of Kore among the Sicilians, Theogamia (Divine Marriage) and Anthesphoria (Gathering of Flowers). Of Artemis, Artemisia and Ephesia (Artemis was particularly honoured in Ephesus). Of Kronos, Kronia. Of Asklepios, Asklepieia and Asklepia. Of Apollon, Delia (Delos was sacred to Apollo). Of Hekate, Hekatesia. Of Trophonios, Trophonia. Of the Dioskouroi at Athens, Anakeia (from Anakes, meaning 'the lords' or 'kings', a title of the Dioskouroi).

They should be put together also with those of the periods of time [the reference is not clear to me], and those of the famous games, the Olympia and the others that are left.

THE MILLING DEITIES PROMYLAIA AND EUNOSTOS, PERHAPS IDENTICAL

Hesychius, s.v. Eunostos

A cheap statuette (agalmation) in the mill-houses, he is held to watch over [them?]

Suda, nu 501. Translation Suda Online

Nostos:

In common use "sweetening," in the case of foods. As if from the return and coming back to one's home; from the sweetness of the homeland. For nothing is sweeter than one's fatherland, according to Homer. But from nostos in the customary usage comes nostimon, "pleasant," and Eunostos, a certain deity, they say, of milling. But the poetic nostos comes from [the verb] neo: as, "Now since I shall indeed not go home . . ." that is, I do not return. There is also a verb nosto, from which come compounds palinosto "I return" and aponosto "I come home."

Suda, pi 2519. Translation Suda Online

Promylaia:

A deity presiding over milling (epimylios), whom they worshipped in mills, like Eunostos.

Eustathius, Commentary on Homer, 214.18

Both places in Eustathius comment on the word nostos, meaning 'return', and give the same etymological explanation as Suda, that it is so called because of its sweetness.

That also a deity of the mill (epimylios) was called Eunostos is written in those [commenting] on the Odyssey. [the passage seems to be based on Suda, nu 501, as the sentence before also replicates the information there]

1383.42

Polydeuces 7.180: On [the words] 'dance-master', 'throne-maker', [etc]

[...] Miller, mill-house, mill, epimylian ode (literally song at the mill, apparently a song sung while grinding). Also a deity Promylaia (she before the mill), also Eunostos (one of good produce, good yield). [...]

SOME EPITHETS

Hesychius s.v. Euklês

Haides, also named [thus]. Also Eueidês (well-shaped, comely one).

s.v. Eulochia

Artemis.

s.v. Stathmia

An epithet of Athene.

s.v. Euporia

Artemis in Rhodes.

s.v. Aphrattos [corrupted?]

Hekate among the Tarantines.

s.v. Agreus

Pan among the Athenians, as Apollodorus [says]

s.v. Ogenidai

The Okeanidai; for [Ogen is] Okeanos.

s.v. Aphrodite psithyros

(no actual entry, but see here)