SBL 2019 Review Panel | Food and Pharmaka

Food and Pharmaka:

Reflections on Warren’s Concept of Hierophagy in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses

In her new book, Food and Transformation in Ancient Mediterranean Literature, Meredith Warren identifies a literary genre that she calls “hierophagy” and notes that this genre concerns “a category of narrative level transformative eating” (1).[1] “Hierophagy” means literally “the eating of holy things,” but she expands the term to refer to the “consuming of something otherworldly,” i.e., a substance that belongs to a realm other than the earth, is only consumed by those who dwell in that realm, and is connected with crossing the boundary, that is, the transition, from one realm to another (2-3, 9-10). That substance, Warren notes (2), may not always be what we consider “food,” but in any case is something tasted by the tongue and ingested. She goes on to identify three core characteristics of hierophagy (3): it binds the eater to the other world in which the substance originated; it transforms the eater psychologically, physically, or ontologically; and it transmits otherworldly knowledge to the eater. I shall call these three core characteristics translocation, transformation, and transmission.

In addition, Warren identifies several other common characteristics of hierophagy that occur regularly but are not critical to the concept. Two of these pertain to the otherworldly substance. First, this substance usually has a heavenly origin (9). Secondly, it is perceived as particularly pleasant - presumably because the substance comes from this “higher” realm – as evidenced by its sweet taste (12-14). Another characteristic of hierophagy is that it generally involves a being of higher ontological status (a god or angel) giving this heavenly substance to one of lower ontological status, i.e., a human being (57, 67, 101). Thus, Warren identifies the following generic pattern for hierophagy (69): “a heavenly being offers something heavenly for a mortal to eat which brings about the transformation of the eater in some way.” To illustrate these ideas, she presents an in-depth study of a number of ancient texts from Jewish, Christian, Greek, and Roman sources. As a classicist, I found most interesting her ideas about the myth of the Rape of Persephone, as told in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and Ovid’s poems the Fasti and Metamorphoses, as well as Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. In this paper, I will indicate some problems with how Warren’s concept of hierophagy plays out in these texts and offer my own ideas on how this concept can be expanded to fit them more accurately.

Let us begin with the myth of the Rape of Persephone. First, a brief summary: Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, is snatched up forcibly by Hades and taken to his realm of the underworld to be his wife. Demeter, not knowing where her daughter has gone, wanders the earth searching for her. Ultimately, she discovers the truth and brings famine upon the earth in an attempt to force the other gods to return Persephone to her. Demeter’s anger and its earthly manifestation last until Zeus agrees that her daughter may be released from the underworld, provided that she has eaten nothing there. Persephone, however, has eaten one or more pomegranate seeds in the underworld, and so by Zeus’ decree she is allowed to return to the upper world for a portion of the year, but then must return to Hades.[2] Warren (19-36) reads the eating of the pomegranate seed in the various literary versions of this myth as an example of hierophagy.

There are some problems, however, with this analysis, and certain ways in which the story points out differences between the Greek/Roman and the Jewish/Christian texts that Warren has studied. A hierophagic substance is supposed to mark or even facilitate the transition from one realm to another, usually earth to heaven, and so it is generally of divine origin. Indeed, in all of the Jewish and Christian examples that Warren discusses, this is the case. However, in these literary versions of the Persephone myth, the eating of the pomegranate seed restricts rather than facilitates Persephone’s transition; here that transition is from the underworld to the earth, the reverse of the usual pattern; and finally the substance itself originates in the underworld rather than heaven. Warren gets around the latter problem by describing the hierophagic substance here as “otherworldly” rather than heavenly, although she elsewhere tends to characterize it as heavenly (55, 68-69, 77-79, 138-141). She also points out that this substance is called “honey-sweet” (meliēdēs) in the Homeric Hymn, which, she suggests (24-26), indicates its “otherworldly” status, that is, its origin in the underworld. However, the “sweetness” of a substance should connect it to the heavenly realm, not the underworld. As Warren notes (11-12, 23-24), the food and drink of the Greek and Roman gods, that is, ambrosia and nectar, are often described as sweet, as are the various heavenly substances eaten in the Jewish and Christian texts that she has analyzed. It is peculiar that the pomegranate seed from the underworld is described in this way, and I will return to this issue later. Also, this incident in the Persephone myth does not meet one of the three core concepts of hierophagy: the transmission of knowledge. Persephone does not receive any new knowledge as a result of eating the pomegranate seed, as Warren notes (152). This incident also does not transform Persephone physically or psychologically, although it does so ontologically: Persephone becomes a chthonic deity once she has eaten the seed. The pomegranate incident also does not satisfy one of the common characteristics of hierophagy: the giving of the substance by a being of higher ontological status to one of lower such status. As Warren notes (35), both Hades and Persephone have the same status, that is, chthonic divinity. I suggest that this incident in the Persephone myth matches only one of the core characteristics of hierophagy completely, that is, translocation: it binds Persephone to the underworld, the realm in which the substance originated, although, it should be noted, not permanently, or perhaps better, not consistently so.

If we turn now to the incident that Warren identifies as hierophagic in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses we can see that it too is problematic. The basic story is this: the main character of the novel, Lucius, is transformed into an ass by his meddling with a magical substance produced by the Thessalian witch Pamphile and mistakenly provided to him by her assistant Photis. Almost immediately, Photis tells him that all he has to do is eat roses and he will be transformed back into a human being; however, despite numerous attempts to do so (Met. 3.27, 3.29, 4.2-3) during a series of adventures that take up the bulk of the novel, Lucius is unable to perform this act. Finally, in the last book, following instructions given to him by the goddess Isis in a vision, Lucius the ass eats a garland of roses offered to him by an Isiac priest during a public procession and is transformed back into a human. He then dedicates the rest of his life to serving Isis, including a series of initiations into her cult and that of Osiris, which close out the novel.

According to Warren (101-127), Lucius’ eating of the roses is a hierophagic event, but again there are significant inconsistencies in the story for this analysis. The eating of the roses certainly leads to a transformation, but in this case from animal to human, rather than human to divine. Both human and animal exist on the same plane, that is, the earth, and so, I would argue, this event does not match the other examples of hierophagy considered by Warren, where there is a transition from one worldly realm to another. The eating of the roses also does not transmit new knowledge to Lucius; in fact, he seems clueless after the event, and any new knowledge that he receives would have to come from his subsequent initiations into the Isiac cult, not the hierophagic event itself (cf. 104-106, 116-117). Warren identifies Lucius’ lack of knowledge after the hierophagic event as an “inversion” of the characteristic transmission of knowledge, and so finds that it fits with her schema (125, 127); I, however, do not find this argument convincing. I believe that the eating of the roses does not affect the knowledge of Lucius at all. The character has in fact been remarkably stupid about most things since the beginning of the novel, and I believe he remains so all the way to its end.[3] In fact, it is his persistently unsuccessful search for knowledge (his infamous curiositas) that leads him into trouble in the first place and keeps him falling into it throughout the story.[4] The eating of the roses also does not bind Lucius to a new realm. The roses are earthly substances; that is, they exist on the same plane as Lucius himself, and so by eating them, Lucius does not experience translocation. This may be signaled by the fact that the taste of the roses is not mentioned in the text, and so they are not described as sweet, as a heavenly substance often is. Finally, the roses are given to Lucius by someone on the same worldly plane as himself, i.e., a priest. Warren proposes (121-124) that this is an acceptable variation in the pattern, since Isis’ priest is a stand-in for Isis herself, and so ultimately it is a figure from the divine realm that gives the substance to one in the earthly one. Again, I do not buy this argument. In Warren’s Jewish and Christian examples, the hierophagic substance is given to a human by a divine being, either God or an angel. So, as with the Persephone myth, the Lucius story seems not to meet many of the major characteristics of hierophagy as defined by Warren.

This does not mean, however, that I think that she is wrong in identifying a significant connection between these Greek/Roman texts and the Jewish/Christian ones. I would define that connection, however rather differently: in all of these stories, a character is transformed when some kind of substance is applied to his/her body, and this transformation often signals a transition to another realm, whether heaven, earth, or underworld. I identify the substance as a pharmakon in Greek or venenum in Latin, a term that is usually translated as “drug” or “poison” in English, but has rather different connotations in the classical context.[5] The second century Roman jurist Gaius, as quoted in the later Justinian Digest, notes that a pharmakon or venenum is anything that is applied to something that “changes the nature of that to which it is applied.”[6]

Qui "venenum" dicit, adicere debet, utrum malum an bonum: nam et medicamenta venena sunt, quia eo nomine omne continetur, quod adhibitum naturam eius, cui adhibitum esset, mutat. cum id quod nos venenum appellamus, graeci farmakon dicunt, apud illos quoque tam medicamenta quam quae nocent, hoc nomine continentur.

One who says “venenum” ought to add whether it is good or bad, for also medicines are venena, because in this word is contained everything which, after it is applied, changes the nature of that to which is applied. For that which we call “venenum”, the Greeks call “pharmakon”; among them (the Greeks) the word includes medicines as well as those things which harm.

Gaius in Dig. 50.16.23

Transformation is thus at the heart of what a pharmakon is.[7] The substance itself could vary considerably: it could be derived from herbs or plants (their juice, roots, leaves, fruit, or seed), human or animal body parts or by-products (blood, feces, earwax, mucus, spit, venom), and even be non-living objects (jewels, stones, amulets). Pharmaka could be applied to a body in many ways: eaten, drunk, rubbed on, inhaled, and even simply carried. They also were used in classical antiquity for a variety of purposes, which we might categorize as medicinal, magical or religious, including: healing, causing, or averting physical or psychological illness; causing abortion or conception; stimulating or deadening sexual desire; cleansing pollution; causing or reversing invisibility or metamorphosis into an animal; rejuvenating the old, killing the living, or reviving the dead; and finally facilitating contact with the divine. Indeed, the source of the power that these substances had was thought to be divine: Herophilus (Fr. 248b-c, von Staden) called pharmaka the “hands of the gods” (divum manus / theōn cheiras) and Pliny the Elder (NH 19.21) called the healing properties of such substances a “mighty and hidden work of divinity” (opus ingens occultumque divinitatis). The knowledge of these substances was widespread in classical antiquity and was held by a variety of people: high-class intellectuals, such as Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny the Elder and Galen; low-class practitioners, such as the rhizotomoi (root-cutters) and pharmakopōleis (drug-sellers) of ancient Greece; and legendary or mythical characters, including the sorcerers and witches of classical literature. Knowledge of pharmaka in ancient Greece goes back at least to the time of Homer, who noted in a famous line that these substances could be either helpful or harmful:

φάρμακα, πολλὰ μὲν ἐσθλὰ μεμιγμένα πολλὰ δὲ λυγρά

pharmaka, many on the one hand, having been mixed, good, but many, on the other hand, baneful

Hom. Od. 4.230

Homer also provides us our first literary portrait of a “witch” using these substances: in the Odyssey (10.230-238, 388-396), Circe gives pharmaka to the men of Odysseus in order to make them forget their former lives and transform them into pigs and then back again to humans.

It is in this context that I think we should think of the transformative substances administered in the various literary versions of the Persephone myth and in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius. The pomegranate seeds eaten by Persephone and the roses eaten by Lucius are pharmaka, substances applied to the body for magical purposes. This is particularly clear in the case of the roses in Apuleius, for they are an antidote to the magical ointment that Lucius applied to himself that turned him into an ass, and their effect is similar. His transformation back to a human in the novel (Met. 11.13) is described in almost the same terms as when he was transformed into an ass (Met. 3.24). Indeed, roses and particularly rose oil were commonly used as ingredients in healing/magical potions.[8] It should also be noted that the roses are supplied to Lucius by an Egyptian priest, whose colleagues in fact were well known for their knowledge of such magical substances.[9] Moreover, it is clear from the text that Lucius could have obtained this antidote without the intervention of any divine being: he tries to eat roses several times during his adventures, but is prevented by circumstances, which he characterizes as the workings of various divine personifications, especially Fortune. Although Warren sees Lucius’ references to such personifications as ultimately revealing the power of Isis, “… who is the only deity able to bestow Lucius with the remedy to his predicament” (122), I believe that Lucius is simply trying to find others to blame for his own stupidity. Lucius could have obtained the roses, the magical antidote to his transformation, at any time, but he finally eats them at the festival of Isis at Kenchreai and is immediately transformed back into a human being. The roses in Apuleius’ story are clearly, then, a type of pharmakon.

The pomegranate seeds in the Persephone myth, however, represent a more complex issue. I would like to close this paper by considering more closely one of texts that Warren has examined relating this myth, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. This text is the oldest literary version we have of the myth, dating from the seventh to the sixth century BCE, and many scholars believe that it is in part the basis for the Roman poet Ovid’s versions in the Fasti and Metamorphoses, which date to the early first century CE.[10] In her chapter on the Persephone myth (19-36), Warren analyzes these three literary versions almost as if they were a single text, using elements from each of them to show how the outline of the story fits her schema for hierophagy. I believe that this methodology is problematic for a number of reasons. First, there are substantial cultural as well as temporal differences between the Greek text and the Roman ones. In defense of her approach, Warren notes (4) that since she sees “…texts as representatives of cultural ideas about the relationship of between this world and other worlds,” this means that “. . . specific dates for textual production do not play a significant role in [her] analysis.” Cultural ideas, however, do change over time and certainly between different societies (Greek vs. Roman), and it seems mistaken to me to ignore this. Moreover, all of the other examples that Warren analyses in her book are specific texts, not a synthetic modern outline of a myth. In my analysis of Warren’s arguments above, I have taken her explication of the “Persephone myth” as a given, but I believe that it is off the mark in these important ways. In my own treatment below, I deal with one text: the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. I believe that if we apply the Greek concepts associated with pharmaka to this text along those of hierophagy as defined by Warren, we can illuminate some hitherto murky aspects of the poem. I propose that in the Hymn a variety of transitions from one of the three worldly realms to another occurs, that these transitions are often facilitated by pharmaka, and that they generally mark the ontological transformation of those to whom these pharmaka are applied.

Significantly, the division of the world into three realms is referenced several times in the Hymn. First, as Richardson has noted in his commentary, at the beginning, the three divinities who are behind the plot to abduct Persephone are named as representative of each of these realms: Zeus, lord of the heavens, who makes the plan; Hades, ruler of the underworld, on whose behalf it is made; and Gaia, the earth goddess, who executes it:[11]

Γαῖα Διὸς βουλῇσι χαριζομένη Πολυδέκτῃ.

Gaia, by the plan of Zeus, in order to please He Who Receives Many (that is, Hades)

Hom. Hymn Dem. 9

Later, when Demeter seeks information about her daughter from Helios the sun god, he tells her that Hades has taken her daughter to the underworld, but she should be happy with this, since as ruler of one-third of the world, he is a worthy son-in-law:

… ἀμφὶ δὲ τιμὴν

ἔλλαχεν ὡς τὰ πρῶτα διάτριχα δασμὸς ἐτύχθη

… and concerning honor, he (Hades) obtained it when the division of spoil in three ways was first made.

Hom. Hymn Dem. 85-86

In addition, I suggest that the repeated references in the poem to Persephone’s required stay in the underworld for one-third of the year concern not so much the agricultural cycle, but rather the three realms of the world; that is, Persephone must remain in the realm of the underworld for four months, and then spend the other eight months in the realms of earth and heaven.[12] These references all point to the importance of the three realms in the context of the poem.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Proserpine (1874) Tate Britain [Wikimedia]

Three characters in the Homeric Hymn cross over the boundaries of these realms through the application of pharmaka: Persephone, Demeter, and the human child Demophoön. At the beginning of the poem, Persephone triggers her own descent to the underworld when she plucks a flower:

νάρκισσόν θ᾽, ὃν φῦσε δόλον καλυκώπιδι κούρῃ

Γαῖα Διὸς βουλῇσι χαριζομένη Πολυδέκτῃ,

θαυμαστὸν γανόωντα: σέβας τό γε πᾶσιν ἰδέσθαι

ἀθανάτοις τε θεοῖς ἠδὲ θνητοῖς ἀνθρώποις:

τοῦ καὶ ἀπὸ ῥίζης ἑκατὸν κάρα ἐξεπεφύκει:

κὦζ᾽ ἥδιστ᾽ ὀδμή, πᾶς τ᾽ οὐρανὸς εὐρὺς ὕπερθεν

γαῖά τε πᾶσ᾽ ἐγελάσσε καὶ ἁλμυρὸν οἶδμα θαλάσσης.

ἣ δ᾽ ἄρα θαμβήσασ᾽ ὠρέξατο χερσὶν ἅμ᾽ ἄμφω

καλὸν ἄθυρμα λαβεῖν: χάνε δὲ χθὼν εὐρυάγυια

Νύσιον ἂμ πεδίον, τῇ ὄρουσεν ἄναξ Πολυδέγμων

. . . a narcissus which Gaia grew by the design of Zeus, courting favor with the One Who Receives Many, as a trick on the bud-like girl —a marvelous, gleaming thing. It was awesome for all to see, whether the deathless gods or mortal men: from its root it generated one hundred heads and its scent was very sweet, and all wide heaven above and all the earth laughed, and the salty swell of the sea. And so she, astounded, reached out with both her hands at the same time to seize the beautiful plaything: and the wide-pathed earth gaped open on the plain of Nysa, and the lord, the One Who Receives Many, rushed forward upon her…

Hom. Hymn Dem. 8-17

The narcissus is a magical plant, a pharmakon. The fact that its root is emphasized in the text supports this interpretation, since roots were an important ingredient in magical potions, and those who dug them up, the rhizotomoi, were the consummate makers of such potions.[13] The poet notes that this narcissus smells very sweet, recalling the sweet taste that Warren identified in hierophagic substances and so suggesting a connection to the divine realm. The mention of the root of the plant, however, also points to its connection to the earth, and when Persephone plucks the flower, the underworld gapes open. The narcissus thus connects all three realms and makes Persephone’s passage from earth to underworld possible.

As we have seen, the goddess later binds herself to the underworld by eating a pomegranate seed. Although this pomegranate originates in Hades, it may have a divine connection as well. As Warren has noted (24-25), the Hymn describes the pomegranate seed as “honey-sweet” (meliēdēs). perhaps suggesting a connection with the divine realm. The seed, I think, is marked as something special by this sweetness: like the narcissus, it is a pharmakon. The magical connotations of the seed may also be suggested by the rather strange wording of this passage:

. . . αὐτὰρ ὅ γ᾽ αὐτὸς

ῥοιῆς κόκκον ἔδωκε φαγεῖν μελιηδέα, λάθρῃ

ἀμφὶ ἓ νωμήσας, ἵνα μὴ μένοι ἤματα πάντα

αὖθι παρ᾽ αἰδοίῃ Δημήτερι κυανοπέπλῳ.

But he himself (Hades) gave her a honey-sweet seed of the pomegranate tree to eat, having turned around himself secretly (lathrēi amphi he nōmēsas), so that she might not remain all the days there with revered dark-veiled Demeter.

The meaning of the phrase “having turned around himself secretly,” is disputed, but some scholars think that it refers to some kind of magical rite by which Hades binds Persephone to himself.[14] If this is true, then the pomegranate seed is doubly magical, both by nature, signaled its abnormal sweetness, and by the ritual that Hades performs with it. As a pharmakon, the pomegranate has the magical effect of binding Persephone to Hades, both in the sense of the underworld and of the god who rules it, but in a way it also serves as the mechanism whereby she is released to the upper world. As Zeus decrees, since Persephone has only eaten a small part of the pomegranate, she can return to the upper world. The pomegranate is thus a pharmakon that ultimately connects the underworld and the upper world.

Persephone’s mother Demeter makes use of another pharmakon, which in this case facilitates her transition from heaven to earth and her transformation from divine to human. While she is seeking her daughter and wandering the earth in the form of an old woman, Demeter is invited to the palace of King Keleos and Queen Metaneira at Eleusis. Initially, when she enters the palace, she appears as a goddess to those within, and Metaneira treats her with religious awe, respect, and fear, even offering up her own seat to her:

… ἣ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐπ᾽ οὐδὸν ἔβη ποσὶ καὶ ῥα μελάθρου

κῦρε κάρη, πλῆσεν δὲ θύρας σέλαος θείοιο.

τὴν δ᾽ αἰδώς τε σέβας τε ἰδὲ χλωρὸν δέος εἷλεν:

εἶξε δέ οἱ κλισμοῖο καὶ ἑδριάασθαι ἄνωγεν.

But she (Demeter) stepped on the threshold and her head hit the ridge-pole and she filled the doorway with divine light. But reverence and awe and pale fear seized her (Metaneira) and she gave up her seat to her and told her to be seated.

Hom. Hymn Dem. 188-91

Somewhat unexpectedly, however, she then treats Demeter as a normal human guest. The queen offers her a cup of “honey-sweet” wine, which the goddess rejects and asks instead for kykeōn, a special drink of barley, water, and pennyroyal, a medicinal/magical herb:

τῇ δὲ δέπας Μετάνειρα δίδου μελιηδέος οἴνου

πλήσασ᾽: ἣ δ᾽ ἀνένευσ᾽: οὐ γὰρ θεμιτόν οἱ ἔφασκε

πίνειν οἶνον ἐρυθρόν: ἄνωγε δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἄλφι καὶ ὕδωρ

δοῦναι μίξασαν πιέμεν γλήχωνι τερείνῃ.

ἣ δὲ κυκεῶ τεύξασα θεᾷ πόρεν, ὡς ἐκέλευε

And Metaneira filled a goblet with honey-sweet wine and gave it to her (Demeter); but she shook her head, for she said it was not lawful for her to drink red wine. But she (Demeter) ordered her to give barley groats and water to drink, mixed with delicate pennyroyal. And she (Metaneira) made the kykeōn ready and offered it to the goddess, as she commanded.

Hom. Hymn Dem. 206-212

The fact that the wine is called “honey-sweet” (meliēdēs) is particularly interesting, given the fact that the only other time the term is used in this hymn is to describe the pomegranate seed that Persephone eats. In fact, the term in the Homeric period is most commonly associated with wine, so its use to describe the pomegranate seed is anomalous in this way as well.[15] Perhaps this description of the pomegranate seed is to link it to the wine which Demeter rejects and suggest that Persephone also should have rejected the pomegranate seed and not broken her fast in the underworld. In any case, after Demeter drinks the kykeōn with pennyroyal, Metaneira offers her the job of nursing her infant son, thus treating her as a human servant and of a rank below her own. This type of kykeon was administered to initiates in the Eleusinian Mysteries, and, I suggest, was a pharmakon given to facilitate interaction between human and divine.[16] In the Homeric Hymn, after Demeter drinks the kykeon, the goddess is able to interact with Metaneira as one human being to another, despite her innate divinity. The kykeon therefore effects a transformation in the goddess, helping her to cross the boundary from divine to human.

Later in this episode of the Hymn, Demeter attempts to cause another such transformation, here from human to divine. When she is given care of the young prince Demophoön, the goddess promises Metaneira to protect him from harm caused by magic:

παῖδα δέ τοι πρόφρων ὑποδέξομαι, ὥς με κελεύεις,

θρέψω κοὔ μιν, ἔολπα, κακοφραδίῃσι τιθήνης

οὔτ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐπηλυσίη δηλήσεται οὔθ᾽ ὑποτάμνον:

οἶδα γὰρ ἀντίτομον μέγα φέρτερον ὑλοτόμοιο,

οἶδα δ᾽ ἐπηλυσίης πολυπήμονος ἐσθλὸν ἐρυσμόν.

And I will receive your child gladly, as you urge me; I will raise him and, I hope that not by any folly of his nurse will any bewitching or (root)cutting harm him: for I know a great and better remedy for the (herb)cutting and I know a good safeguard for baneful bewitching.

Hom. Hymn Dem. 226-230

The references to root and herb cutting in this passage clearly are connected with the production of pharmaka, and the mention of “bewitching” also signals their magical nature.[17] After this promise to protect the child against evil pharmaka, Demeter uses good pharmaka in an attempt to make him divine: by day she anoints him with ambrosia and breathes upon him with her divine breath:

… ὃ δ᾽ ἀέξετο δαίμονι ἶσος,

οὔτ᾽ οὖν σῖτον ἔδων, οὐ θησάμενος [γάλα μητρὸς

ἠματίη μὲν γὰρ καλλιστέφανος] Δημήτηρ

χρίεσκ᾽ ἀμβροσίῃ ὡσεὶ θεοῦ ἐκγεγαῶτα

ἡδὺ καταπνείουσα καὶ ἐν κόλποισιν ἔχουσα:

νύκτας δὲ κρύπτεσκε πυρὸς μένει ἠύτε δαλὸν

λάθρα φίλων γονέων: τοῖς δὲ μέγα θαῦμ᾽ ἐτέτυκτο,

ὡς προθαλὴς τελέθεσκε: θεοῖσι γὰρ ἄντα ἐῴκει.

… and he grew like a divine being, but not eating food nor sucking mother’s milk, for by day beautifully garlanded Demeter rubbed him with ambrosia as if he were born of a god, blowing sweetly down on him and holding him in her lap: and at night she hid him in the might of the fire, as if a firebrand, without the knowledge of his parents; it was for them a great wonder how precociously he grew, for he seemed like the gods.

Hom. Hymn Dem. 235-241

The ambrosia and divine breath are divine/magical pharmaka. At night, the goddess also puts the child in the fire, presumably to burn away his mortal nature. The results of the application of these pharmaka are clear: the parents marvel at how precociously he grows, resembling a god. And indeed, we are told, Demeter would have made Demophoön into an immortal, if his mother had not in ignorance stopped her from completing the magical spell. In response to Metaneira’s lamentations when she sees her child placed in the fire, Demeter throws him to the ground and angrily tells the queen that she would have made her son ageless and immortal, granting him divine privilege, but now he must remain mortal and die. Nevertheless, she says, she will grant him the privilege of an annual festival in his honor at which the Eleusinians will carry out special rites:

ἀθάνατόν κέν τοι καὶ ἀγήραον ἤματα πάντα

παῖδα φίλον ποίησα καὶ ἄφθιτον ὤπασα τιμήν:

νῦν δ᾽ οὐκ ἔσθ᾽ ὥς κεν θάνατον καὶ κῆρας ἀλύξαι:

τιμὴ δ᾽ ἄφθιτος αἰὲν ἐπέσσεται, οὕνεκα γούνων

ἡμετέρων ἐπέβη καὶ ἐν ἀγκοίνῃσιν ἴαυσεν.

ὥρῃσιν δ᾽ ἄρα τῷ γε περιπλομένων ἐνιαυτῶν

παῖδες Ἐλευσινίων πόλεμον καὶ φύλοπιν αἰνὴν

αἰὲν ἐν ἀλλήλοισιν συνάξουσ᾽ ἤματα πάντα.

. . . I would have made your dear child deathless and ageless for all days and I would have given him imperishable honor; but now there is not a possibility that he might avoid death and ruin. But imperishable honor will be upon him forever, because he came upon our knees and he slept in our arms. And for him, at least at the time of the returning anniversary, the children of the Eleusinians will gather together for all days among themselves in war and dread battle cry.

Hom. Hymn Dem. 260-267

The result of the attempted transformation from human to divine is to make the child into a hero, a being in between a human and a god who receives special cult after his death.[18] After this incident, Demeter again reveals herself as divine to Metaneira and her servants, emphasizing the distance between immortal and mortal, and thus restoring the boundaries that temporarily had been crossed, from divine to human and from human to divine:

ὣς εἰποῦσα θεὰ μέγεθος καὶ εἶδος ἄμειψε

γῆρας ἀπωσαμένη: περί τ᾽ ἀμφί τε κάλλος ἄητο:

ὀδμὴ δ᾽ ἱμερόεσσα θυηέντων ἀπὸ πέπλων

σκίδνατο, τῆλε δὲ φέγγος ἀπὸ χροὸς ἀθανάτοιο

λάμπε θεᾶς, ξανθαὶ δὲ κόμαι κατενήνοθεν ὤμους

αὐγῆς δ᾽ ἐπλήσθη πυκινὸς δόμος ἀστεροπῆς ὥς

Having spoken thus, the goddess changed her size and her appearance, thrusting away old age: beauty breathed all around her and an enchanting scent spread out from her fragrant robes, and from a distance a light shone from the divine skin of the goddess, and her golden hair spread down from her shoulders, and the tightly packed house was filled with bright light like lightning.

Hom. Hymn Dem. 275-279

I believe that there is one more transition and transformation that occurs in the poem: Persephone’s move from earth to heaven and from newly chthonic divinity to Olympian goddess. As far as I know, this aspect of the poem has not been noted by previous scholars. In this case, the changes are not directly mediated by a pharmakon, but, I would suggest, this is not surprising. As we noted above, pharmaka were considered the “the hands of the gods,” possessing divine powers that humans could use, but these substances were not usually employed by the gods themselves, who had such power innately. When we first see Persephone in the Hymn, she is gathering flowers along with the daughters of Okeanos, the personification of the sea:

νόσφιν Δήμητρος χρυσαόρου, ἀγλαοκάρπου,

παίζουσαν κούρῃσι σὺν Ὠκεανοῦ βαθυκόλποις

ἄνθεά τ᾽ αἰνυμένην, ῥόδα καὶ κρόκον ἠδ᾽ ἴα καλὰ

λειμῶν᾽ ἂμ μαλακὸν καὶ ἀγαλλίδας ἠδ᾽ ὑάκινθον

νάρκισσόν θ’ . . .

Apart from Demeter of the golden sword and shining fruits, she (Persephone) (was) playing with the deep-bosomed daughters of Okeanos and gathering flowers, roses and crocus and beautiful violets in a soft meadow, and irises and hyacinth, and narcissus …

Hom. Hymn Dem. 4-7

Persephone seems here to be a nymph like the Okeanids, minor divinities connected with the earthly realm.[19] As we have seen, after her rape and eating of the pomegranate seed, she becomes a chthonic divinity associated with the underworld. Because she has only eaten part of the pomegranate, however, she is allowed to ascend from the underworld to the earth above. She rides in the chariot of Hades, driven by Hermes, and they meet Demeter at her temple:

στῆσε δ᾽ ἄγων, ὅθι μίμνεν ἐυστέφανος Δημήτηρ,

νηοῖο προπάροιθε θυώδεος. . .

Leading (the horses), he (Hermes) stopped, where well-crowned Demeter stood fast in front of the fragrant temple . . .

Hom. Hymn Dem. 384-385

This is presumably the temple that the people built for the goddess at Eleusis to assuage her anger after the Demophoön incident (Hom. Hymn Dem. 296-302). Once Persephone has been restored to her mother on earth, the two goddesses discuss her rape and her stay in the underworld, including her eating of the pomegranate seed. Zeus then sends a message to them via the goddess Rhea, the mother of both Zeus and Demeter:

ταῖς δὲ μέτ᾽ ἄγγελον ἧκε βαρύκτυπος εὐρύοπα Ζεὺς

Ῥείην ἠύκομον, Δημήτερα κυανόπεπλον

ἀξέμεναι μετὰ φῦλα θεῶν, ὑπέδεκτο δὲ τιμὰς

δωσέμεν, ἅς κεν ἕλοιτο μετ᾽ ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσι:

νεῦσε δέ οἱ κούρην ἔτεος περιτελλομένοιο

τὴν τριτάτην μὲν μοῖραν ὑπὸ ζόφον ἠερόεντα,

τὰς δὲ δύω παρὰ μητρὶ καὶ ἄλλοις ἀθανάτοισιν.

And to them loud-thundering, all-seeing Zeus sent a messenger, the lovely-haired Rhea, to bring dark-cloaked Demeter among the tribes of the gods, and he promised that he would give her the honors which she might seize among the immortal gods; and he gave a nod that on the one hand her daughter was to go down for a third part of the revolving year to the murky darkness, but on the other hand for two parts (of the year) (she would be) with her mother and the other immortals.

Hom. Hymn Dem. 441-447

Zeus thus reaches a compromise with Demeter: she herself will have honors among the gods and although her daughter must return to the underworld for a third of the year, she may spend the rest of the time with her mother and the other gods, presumably on earth and on Mt. Olympus, where the great gods dwell. Indeed, after Demeter has restored fertility to the earth and taught her mysteries to the Eleusinians, the poet tells us:

αὐτὰρ ἐπειδὴ πάνθ᾽ ὑπεθήκατο δῖα θεάων,

βάν ῥ᾽ ἴμεν Οὔλυμπόνδε θεῶν μεθ᾽ ὁμήγυριν ἄλλων.

ἔνθα δὲ ναιετάουσι παραὶ Διὶ τερπικεραύνῳ

σεμναί τ᾽ αἰδοῖαι τε. . .

Then they (Demeter and Persephone) went to Olympos to go among the gathering of the other gods. There they dwell, holy and revered, beside Zeus, He Who Delights in Thunder.

Hom. Hymn Dem. 483-486

The new chthonic goddess Persephone becomes an earthly and a heavenly divinity as well and thus a much more important one, since she now is a divinity of all three realms. I agree with those scholars who suggest that Persephone’s transformation into this potent divinity is signaled earlier in the poem, when Hades describes to Persephone the powers that she will have once she ascends to the upper world:

… ἔνθα δ᾽ ἐοῦσα

δεσπόσσεις πάντων ὁπόσα ζώει τε καὶ ἕρπει,

τιμὰς δὲ σχήσησθα μετ᾽ ἀθανάτοισι μεγίστας.

τῶν δ᾽ ἀδικησάντων τίσις ἔσσεται ἤματα πάντα,

οἵ κεν μὴ θυσίῃσι τεὸν μένος ἱλάσκωνται

εὐαγέως ἔρδοντες, ἐναίσιμα δῶρα τελοῦντες.

… being there[20] you will rule over all as many as live and move, and you will have the greatest honors among the immortals. And there will be punishment of those who did injustice for all days who do not appease your power with sacrifices, acting purely, offering the proper gifts.

Hom. Hymn Dem. 364-369

The first two lines of this passage refers to Persephone’s power over mortals on the earth, the next line to her role among the gods on Mt. Olympos and the last three to her rule over the dead in the underworld. Persephone is a divinity who has crossed the boundaries of all three realms and has thus become bound to each of them.

These episodes in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter show the connection of many characteristics that Warren identified in hierophagy with those ascribed to pharmaka in classical texts, including transition from one worldly realm to another and transformation from an inhabitant of one realm to that of another. Pharmaka are the larger category to which Warren’s hierophagic substances belong, and this concept, I have argued, fits better with the classical texts. With this modification, however, Warren’s analysis of the significance of the texts she has studied holds true. These texts reveal several important ideas held in common by ancient Mediterranean societies, including Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian: the world is hierarchically ordered into separate realms; those who dwell in one realm are different from those who dwell in another; the boundaries between those realms are porous; they may be bridged by the application of a special substance to the body; and finally this application transforms the receiver in certain ways that generally make him/her more connected to the other realm. Warren’s book thus represents a significant breakthrough in the scholarly understanding of commonalities in the religion and philosophy of ancient Mediterranean societies. As she notes (154), “As scholars of antiquity, we need constantly to remind ourselves and our conversation partners of the fluidity of cultural exchange and to actively reflect it in our work.” Meredith Warren has done an excellent job doing just that in this stimulating new book.

[1] Warren 2019. In what follows, the numbers in parentheses refer to pages in Warren’s book.

[2] In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Persephone eats one seed, in Ovid’s Fasti three, and in Ovid’s Metamorphoses seven.

[3] I thus follow the satirical reading of the novel, which has become popular with scholars in recent years. See Fredouille 1975: 13; Winkler 1985: 215-23; Van Mal-Maeder 1997; Harrison 2000: 239-52; Keulen 2003: 126-35; Murgatroyd 2004; Libby 2011; Keulen 2015: 6-7, 356-57, 485-86.

[4] So Frangoulidis 2008: 154-55, although he argues that Lucius ultimately receives knowledge through his initiations, an argument consistent with a “serio-religious” reading of Book 11.

[5] Cf. Warren 6, n. 8: “I must emphasize that hierophagy is not the pharmacological altering of an individual's state through a drug. Part of the reason why this is not the case is that the items consumed in hierophagy are frequently not considered edible, or they would be considered edible but for some small modification (e.g., a cup full of liquid is ordinarily consumable, but a cup full of flames is not).” Warren is here considering as a drug only a substance that has empirically proven physiological or psychological capabilities, not the many magical ones attributed to pharmaka/venena in Greek and Roman texts.

[6] All translations in this article are my own. I thank my colleagues Bill Hutton and Linda Reilly for sharing their expertise in Homeric Greek with me when I was preparing them.

[7] On the following characteristics of pharmaka, see: Scarborough 1991; Longrigg 1998: 157-67; Scarborough 2006; Irwin 2006; Collins 2008: passim see index; Ogden 2009: passim see index; Gordon 2015; Wallace 2018.

[8] Roses and particularly rose oil were commonly used as ingredients in healing/magical potions: see Osmun 1975: 116.

[9] On Egyptian priests/magicians, see Dickie 2001: 203-05; Ogden 2009: 52-60; Pinch 1994: 47-60.

[10] See Hinds 1987: 51-98.

[11] Richardson 1974: 145. It is interesting that Poseidon, the lord of the sea, and the one to whom the other one-third of the world was assigned according to Homer (Il. 15.189–193) does not appear in this Homeric Hymn. It seems that Gaia here is the divinity in charge of the realm of the earth.

[12] So also Foley 1994: 58; Shelmerdine 1995: 54.

[13] On magical roots and the rhizotomoi, see especially Scarborough 1991: 149-50; Scarborough 2006; Irwin 2006; and Wallace 2018: 53-58.

[14] So Foley 1994: 56. Warren 23, n. 12 disagrees with this interpretation.

[15] The term occurs three times in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, twice in reference to the pomegranate seed that Persephone eats, and once to the cup of wine offered by Metaneira. According to the Perseus database, elsewhere in the Homeric Hymns, the word is used only once: in the Homeric Hymn to Hestia, (4-6) to refer to wine. In the Iliad,, the term is used 9 times: 5 times for wine (4.346, 6.258, 10.579, 12.320, 18.545), twice for life (thumos,: 10.495, 17.17), once for wheat (10.569), and once for fruit (grapes: 18.568). In the Odyssey, the word is used 13 times: 7 times for wine (3.46, 9.208, 14.78, 16.52, 18.151, 18.426, 21.293), once for life (thumos,: 11.203) and once each for grass (6.90), fruit (9.94), homeward journey (nostos,: 11.101), beeswax (12.48), and sleep (19.551). It is interesting that the word is not used to describe either ambrosia or nectar, the food and drink of the gods, at least in the Homeric poems.

[16] On the kykeōn at the Eleusinian Mysteries, see Richardson 1974: 344-48. Foley 1994: 47.

[17] On the references to magic in this passage, see Richardson 1974: 229. On the meaning of ὑποτάμνον and ὑλοτόμοιον, see also Allen, Halliday, and Sikes 1936: 155-57.

[18] On Greek hero cult, see Farnell 1921; Antonaccio 1995; Larson 2001; Ekroth 2002.

[19] On the Okeanids and nymphs in general, see Larson 2001: 3-34.

[20] On the meaning of "there" (entha) in line 364, see Richardson 1974: 269.

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Barbette Stanley Spaeth is Professor of Classical Studies at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She is the co-founder and former president of the Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions. Her current research interests are in Roman religion, ancient Mediterranean religions, witchcraft and magic in the ancient world, and digital humanities.