the intersection of death and sexuality

According to Diodorus Siculus (27.4.2), Persephone’s sanctuary was considered “the most renowned temple in Italy, preserved as holy for all time by the inhabitants.” Livy (29.18.3) reports that in 204 B.C.E. envoys from Locri addressing the Roman Senate could assume that their audience was fully aware of its religious importance. One of the most striking aspects of the worship of Persephone at Locri, at least to modern observers, is its conflation with the cult of Aphrodite, as evidenced by the type-scenes found on the pinakes. In this series of images, which are manifestly associated with the ritual activities of women and are frequently regarded as “wedding ex-votos” (MacLachlan 210), the symbolism of the two deities is amalgamated, often provoking considerable controversy as to which goddess is meant. In this plaque (Figure 3), for example, a girl presents a ball and a rooster to a seated divinity, while a goose flexes its wings beneath an offering table. While roosters are chthonic birds prominently linked to Persephone on the Locrian pinakes, geese are elsewhere closely tied to Aphrodite—although at Locri they have connections with Persephone as well (Sourvinou-Inwood 109). The perceived identity of the goddess then determines the import of this scene, which has become the focus of several conflicting readings. Interaction between Persephone and Aphrodite is likewise subject to opposing interpretations. Is the relation of the two antithetical, with Persephone presiding over the domain of legitimate marriage and child rearing, and Aphrodite standing for socially “illicit and ‘aberrant’” modes of sexuality, as Sourvinou-Inwood (120) proposes? Or are their operations wholly integrated, so that the goddesses, in MacLachlan’s formulation, “meet at the intersection of death and sexuality” (218)? Redfield postulates that the Locrian fusion of nuptial and funerary imagery reflects an Orphic concept of marriage and death as parallel rites of passage, each involving transformation to a blessed state (367–69, 384–85). Certainly the unique character of women’s religious activity there, involving joint worship of deities normally treated as quite distinct, confirms the importance of Sourvinou-Inwood’s stipulation (101–03) that study of Greek divine personalities must take account of local difference and base its findings upon a non-Panhellenic, community-oriented approach to cult.

For more, click here to read Nossis and Women’s Cult at Locri.