#lokri

[callmealioness]

One question: what was Persephone from Locri like? Was she very different from the continental version? (if there are any differences)

Not really! It seems that the “character” of Persephone was the same — daughter of Demeter, married to Hades, carried to the underworld, and connected to agriculture.

The main difference in how she was venerated in Locri in contrast to the rest of Greece was the emphasis on her marriage. Locri had a more positive? reverential? view of the Persephone-Hades union, which essentially made her a goddess of marriage. I already shared 2 articles about this:

- Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane. “Persephone and Aphrodite at Locri: A Model for Personality Definitions in Greek Religion.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 98 (1978): 101–21. https://doi.org/10.2307/630195.

- Mackin, Ellie. “Girls Playing Persephone (in Marriage and Death).” Mnemosyne 71, no. 2 (2018): 209–28. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26572910.

But enough of that marriage. Here’s a great one I read recently about Persephone in her role as chthonic queen:

-Life, Death, and a Lokrian Goddess: Revisiting the Nature of Persephone in the Gold Leaves of Magna Graecia https://journals.openedition.org/kernos/2388?lang=en

In short, Lokrian Persephone is very much the usual Persephone but amped up to 11

[callmealioness]

The consensual ‘abduction’ of Persephone in Lokri

Pinakes of Persephone driving the chariot or embracing Hades as he abducts her

A fun fact that I love about Persephone and Hades is that in the city of Lokri (Modern Italy), they were seen as the ideal marriage. Women who were about to get married reinterpreted the myth of the abduction of Persephone so it would reflect their current situation, e.g: women who were happy with their future husband made a pinake (a tablet of painted wood or terracotta) where Persephone was driving the chariot and participating in her own ‘abduction’; on the contrary, women who were forced into their marriage would make a pinake where Persephone was fighting against her captor.

“The pinakes were most likely dedications made by young girls in the lead-up to their weddings. In this sense, it is understandable that the chosen god does not completely undergo the transition process. The dedications served the function of seeking Persephone's blessing and protection for their marriages, and they were dedicated before the marriage had taken place. So the image of the goddess that was being invoked and imitated in the abduction scenes was the goddess in the same state as the dedicating girls: the state immediately before marriage. […]

The most common pinax types are the 'divine' and 'imitation' scenes. In both cases, these range from unambiguous abductions where the maiden clearly struggles against her captor to images in which it appears the girl is complicit in her own kidnapping sometimes even taking charge of the chariot herself. The range can be accounted for because, as James Redfield points out, "no doubt some brides felt more abducted than others".”

- Mackin, Ellie. “Girls Playing Persephone (in Marriage and Death).” Mnemosyne 71, no. 2 (2018): 209–28.

[callmealioness]

Nossis of Locri and Aphrodite

I love to learn about how women worshipped the gods in ancient times. Nossis was a poet from Locri (modern Italy) in 3th century B.C who dedicated many poems to Aphrodite.

Left: Bust of Nossis | Right: Clay tablet depicting Aphrodite and Eros made in 475 B.C Locri

“Let’s leave for the temple and go to see Aphrodite’s

Sculpture—how it is made so finely in gold.

Polyarkhis dedicated it after she earned great

wealth from the native glory of her body.”

＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿

“I expect that Aphrodite will be pleased to receive

As an offering from Samutha, the band that held her hair.

For it is well made and smells sweetly of nektar,

That very nektar she uses to anoint beautiful Adonis.”

＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿

“There is nothing sweeter than love: all other blessings

Take second place. I even spit honey from my mouth.

This is what Nossis says. Whomever Kypris¹ has not kissed,

Does not understand her flowers, what kinds of things roses are.”

¹ Kypris is another name for Aphrodite. It means Cyprian.

[callmealioness]

“We can now see how Aphrodite relates to, and is differentiated from, Persephone at Locri: she relates to Persephone first through Persephone's connections with fertility, a concept associated with that of love as a demiurgic force represented by Aphrodite; secondly, through Persephone's role as protectress of marriage, because Aphrodite represents and presides over the demiurgic aspects of love and sex which are very important for marriage. But there is also a clear differentiation between the types of love which concern the two goddesses. Persephone, and Persephone and Hades as a bridal pair and married couple, presided over its institutionalized forms operating within the polis and harnessed to the needs of society. Aphrodite—and her lover Hermes—stands for love and sex as a cosmic principle, which includes all its manifestations, that is also its illicit and 'aberrant' forms which do not serve society, love unconfined by institutions.”

- Sourvinou-Inwood, C. (1978). Persephone and Aphrodite at Locri: A model for personality definitions in Greek religion. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 98, 101-121.

[pink-lemonade-rose]

"The myth of Persephone, archetypal _korē_, archetypal bride, is often referred to as the most important myth of the ancient world affecting the lives of women. It is best known to us from the account in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, but since the unearthing of _pinakes_ from the Locrian shrine by Orsi more than a century ago, we have been conscious of the difference between what is for us the canonical version of the Persephone story and what the pinakes reveal about the Locrian version. In these terracotta plaques, dating from the Classical period, the daughter’s separation from Demeter is suppressed, and Korē is depicted as willing bride and powerful underworld queen."

Bonnie MacLachlan, “Women and Nymphs at the Grotta Caruso“ in Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia

[wal-haz]

Ancient Greek Cults, Jennifer Larson

[pink-lemonade-rose]

The Lokrian Persephone, as we can understand her through the pinakes, evokes a communication between the experiences of life and death even as her presence thins the boundary between the worlds of human and divine experience. A powerful underworld goddess, the Lokrian Persephone is also a beloved protector who accompanies her worshippers through the smaller deaths that accompany each self that is left behind.

Hanne Eisenfeld, “Life, Death, and a Lokrian Goddess”

[pink-lemonade-rose]

Through her association with Persephone the maiden achieves a fluidity in the boundaries of her experience, temporarily entering a decontextualized or mythologized space. Her encounter with the goddess has led her, briefly, beyond the world of human experience and allowed her to join in the company of the gods.

Hanne Eisenfeld, “Life, Death, and a Lokrian Goddess”