Eubuleus
Encyclopedia
In ancient Greek religion and myth
, Eubuleus (Greek Εὐβουλεύς, Eubouleus, "Good Counsel") is a god known primarily from devotional inscriptions
for mystery religions
. The name appears several times in the corpus of the so-called Orphic gold tablets
spelled variously, with forms including Euboulos, Eubouleos and Eubolos. It may be an epithet
of the central Orphic
god, Dionysus
or Zagreus
, or of Zeus
in an unusual association with the Eleusinian Mysteries
. Scholars of the late 20th and early 21st centuries have begun to consider Eubuleus independently as "a major god" of the mysteries, based on his prominence in the inscriptional evidence. His depiction in art as a torchbearer suggests that his role was to lead the way back from the Underworld
.
of Eubuleus. He is not mentioned in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter
. Differences among genealogies and cross-identifications with other gods raise the question of whether all the sources using a form of the name refer to the same figure. Diodorus Siculus
says that he was a son of Demeter
and the father of Karme
, thus grandfather of Britomartis
. One of the Orphic tablets identifies him as the son of Zeus
, as does one of the Orphic Hymns. Hesychius
identifies him with Plouton
, who is also hailed as Euboulos in the Orphic Hymn to Plouton, but other contexts distinguish the two.
. Both are often depicted with a "dreamy" or "mystical" expression, and long hair styled in a particular manner. Both figures can also be represented as torchbearers. Eubuleus is sometimes identified as one of the figures on the so-called Regina Vasorum
("Queen of Vases"), a mid-4th-century BC hydria
from Cumae
that depicts various figures from Eleusinian myth.
A sculptural head most often attributed to the Athenian artist Praxiteles
has sometimes been identified as Eubuleus. Uncovered by archaeologists in 1883 in the Ploutonion
of Eleusis, it may instead represent Triptolemus. Alternatively, the head could be an idealized portrait of the type frequently made of Alexander, perhaps of Demetrius Poliorcetes, as it agrees in respects with Plutarch
's description. The identification as Eubuleus is based on comparisons with other sculptural heads that have the name inscribed, and the presence of the name on a base found separately but also within the Eleusinian Ploutonion.
says that Eubuleus was a swineherd who was feeding his pigs at the opening to the underworld when Persephone
was abducted by Plouton. His swine were swallowed by the earth along with her. The scholiast presents this narrative element as an aition
for the ritual
at the Thesmophoria
in which piglets are thrown into a sacrificial pit (megara) dedicated to Demeter and Persephone. Ritual attendants called "bailers" (ἀντλήτριαι, antlêtriai) then descended into the pit and retrieved the decayed remains, which were placed on altars, mixed with seeds, then planted. Pits rich in organic matter at Eleusis have been taken as evidence that the Thesmophoria was held there as well as in other deme
s of Attica
.
In keeping with his ritualist approach to myth
and other preoccupations in The Golden Bough
, J.G. Frazer thought that the pigs, rather than merely accompanying Persephone in her descent, were an original feature of the story, representing the "corn spirit
" that was later anthropomorphized
as the young goddess.
, Theos (God), Thea (Goddess) and Eubolos. The inscription with the Lakrateides relief
identifies the person making the dedication as a priest of the God and Goddess — that is, of the King and Queen of the Underworld, in reference to mystery cult — and of Eubouleus. In the Orphic tablets, Eubuleus is invoked four times along with Eucles ("Good Fame"), following a declaration in the first line to the Queen of the Underworld, Persephone. He is also invoked in the Gurôb Papyrus of the mid-3rd century BC.
Because Eubuleus seems to be a human being in the narrative alluded to by the scholiast to Lucian, he has sometimes been considered a hero who received cult veneration
, as are Triptolemus and even Iacchos.
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
, Eubuleus (Greek Εὐβουλεύς, Eubouleus, "Good Counsel") is a god known primarily from devotional inscriptions
Epigraphy
Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...
for mystery religions
Greco-Roman mysteries
Mystery religions, sacred Mysteries or simply mysteries, were religious cults of the Greco-Roman world, participation in which was reserved to initiates....
. The name appears several times in the corpus of the so-called Orphic gold tablets
Totenpass
Totenpass is a German term sometimes used for inscribed tablets or metal leaves found in burials primarily of those presumed to be initiates into Orphic, Dionysiac, and some ancient Egyptian and Semitic religions...
spelled variously, with forms including Euboulos, Eubouleos and Eubolos. It may be an epithet
Epithet
An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...
of the central Orphic
Orphism (religion)
Orphism is the name given to a set of religious beliefs and practices in the ancient Greek and the Hellenistic world, as well as by the Thracians, associated with literature ascribed to the mythical poet Orpheus, who descended into Hades and returned...
god, Dionysus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
or Zagreus
Zagreus
In ancient Greek religion and myth, the obscure and ancient figure of Zagreus was identified with the god Dionysus and was worshipped by followers of Orphism, whose late Orphic hymns invoke his name....
, or of Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
in an unusual association with the Eleusinian Mysteries
Eleusinian Mysteries
The Eleusinian Mysteries were initiation ceremonies held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at Eleusis in ancient Greece. Of all the mysteries celebrated in ancient times, these were held to be the ones of greatest importance...
. Scholars of the late 20th and early 21st centuries have begun to consider Eubuleus independently as "a major god" of the mysteries, based on his prominence in the inscriptional evidence. His depiction in art as a torchbearer suggests that his role was to lead the way back from the Underworld
Greek underworld
The Greek underworld was made up of various realms believed to lie beneath the earth or at its farthest reaches.This includes:* The great pit of Tartarus, originally the exclusive prison of the old Titan gods, it later came to be the dungeon home of damned souls.* The land of the dead ruled by the...
.
Genealogy and identity
Literary texts provide only scant evidence of the mythologyGreek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
of Eubuleus. He is not mentioned in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter
Homeric Hymns
The Homeric Hymns are a collection of thirty-three anonymous Ancient Greek hymns celebrating individual gods. The hymns are "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the same epic meter—dactylic hexameter—as the Iliad and Odyssey, use many similar formulas and are couched in the same dialect...
. Differences among genealogies and cross-identifications with other gods raise the question of whether all the sources using a form of the name refer to the same figure. Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian who flourished between 60 and 30 BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca...
says that he was a son of Demeter
Demeter
In Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains, the fertility of the earth, and the seasons . Her common surnames are Sito as the giver of food or corn/grain and Thesmophoros as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society...
and the father of Karme
Carme (mythology)
Carme, the Latinized form of Greek Karmê , was a female Cretan spirit who assisted the grain harvest of Demeter's Cretan predecessor. According to the Olympian mythology, she was the mother, by Zeus, of the virginal huntress Britomartis, also called Diktynna, whom she bore at Kaino...
, thus grandfather of Britomartis
Britomartis
Britomartis , was the Minoan goddess of mountains and hunting. She is among the Minoan goddess figures that passed through the Mycenaeans' culture into classical Greek mythology, with transformations that are unclear in both transferrals...
. One of the Orphic tablets identifies him as the son of Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
, as does one of the Orphic Hymns. Hesychius
Hesychius of Alexandria
Hesychius of Alexandria , a grammarian who flourished probably in the 5th century CE, compiled the richest lexicon of unusual and obscure Greek words that has survived...
identifies him with Plouton
Pluto (mythology)
In ancient Greek religion and myth, Pluto was a name for the ruler of the underworld; the god was also known as Hades, a name for the underworld itself...
, who is also hailed as Euboulos in the Orphic Hymn to Plouton, but other contexts distinguish the two.
In art
In visual representations, Eubuleus resembles IacchosIacchus
In Greek mythology, Iacchus is an epithet of Dionysus, particularly associated with the Mysteries at Eleusis, where he was considered to be the son of Zeus and Demeter...
. Both are often depicted with a "dreamy" or "mystical" expression, and long hair styled in a particular manner. Both figures can also be represented as torchbearers. Eubuleus is sometimes identified as one of the figures on the so-called Regina Vasorum
Regina Vasorum
The Regina Vasorum or Queen of Vases is a 4th-century BC hydria from Cumae depicting Eleusinian divinities with gilded flesh in polychrome relief. It is held in the collections of the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg...
("Queen of Vases"), a mid-4th-century BC hydria
Hydria
A hydria is a type of Greek pottery used for carrying water. The hydria has three handles. Two horizontal handles on either side of the body of the pot were used for lifting and carrying the pot. The third handle, a vertical one, located in the center of the other two handles, was used when...
from Cumae
Cumae
Cumae is an ancient Greek settlement lying to the northwest of Naples in the Italian region of Campania. Cumae was the first Greek colony on the mainland of Italy , and the seat of the Cumaean Sibyl...
that depicts various figures from Eleusinian myth.
A sculptural head most often attributed to the Athenian artist Praxiteles
Praxiteles
Praxiteles of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attic sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue...
has sometimes been identified as Eubuleus. Uncovered by archaeologists in 1883 in the Ploutonion
Ploutonion
In ancient Greek religious topography, a Ploutonion , Latinized as Plutonium, was a sanctuary dedicated to the god Plouton , often in a location that produced mephitic emanations and thus representing an entrance to the Underworld....
of Eleusis, it may instead represent Triptolemus. Alternatively, the head could be an idealized portrait of the type frequently made of Alexander, perhaps of Demetrius Poliorcetes, as it agrees in respects with Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
's description. The identification as Eubuleus is based on comparisons with other sculptural heads that have the name inscribed, and the presence of the name on a base found separately but also within the Eleusinian Ploutonion.
Myth
The Scholia to LucianLucian
Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....
says that Eubuleus was a swineherd who was feeding his pigs at the opening to the underworld when Persephone
Persephone
In Greek mythology, Persephone , also called Kore , is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest-goddess Demeter, and queen of the underworld; she was abducted by Hades, the god-king of the underworld....
was abducted by Plouton. His swine were swallowed by the earth along with her. The scholiast presents this narrative element as an aition
Origin myth
An origin myth is a myth that purports to describe the origin of some feature of the natural or social world. One type of origin myth is the cosmogonic myth, which describes the creation of the world...
for the ritual
Myth and ritual
In traditional societies, myth and ritual are two central components of religious practice. Although myth and ritual are commonly united as parts of religion, the exact relationship between them has been a matter of controversy among scholars...
at the Thesmophoria
Thesmophoria
Thesmophoria was a festival held in Greek cities, in honor of the goddesses Demeter and her daughter Persephone. The name derives from thesmoi, or laws by which men must work the land. The Thesmophoria were the most widespread festivals and the main expression of the cult of Demeter, aside from the...
in which piglets are thrown into a sacrificial pit (megara) dedicated to Demeter and Persephone. Ritual attendants called "bailers" (ἀντλήτριαι, antlêtriai) then descended into the pit and retrieved the decayed remains, which were placed on altars, mixed with seeds, then planted. Pits rich in organic matter at Eleusis have been taken as evidence that the Thesmophoria was held there as well as in other deme
Deme
In Ancient Greece, a deme or demos was a subdivision of Attica, the region of Greece surrounding Athens. Demes as simple subdivisions of land in the countryside seem to have existed in the 6th century BC and earlier, but did not acquire particular significance until the reforms of Cleisthenes in...
s of Attica
Attica
Attica is a historical region of Greece, containing Athens, the current capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea...
.
In keeping with his ritualist approach to myth
Myth and ritual
In traditional societies, myth and ritual are two central components of religious practice. Although myth and ritual are commonly united as parts of religion, the exact relationship between them has been a matter of controversy among scholars...
and other preoccupations in The Golden Bough
The Golden Bough
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer . It first was published in two volumes in 1890; the third edition, published 1906–15, comprised twelve volumes...
, J.G. Frazer thought that the pigs, rather than merely accompanying Persephone in her descent, were an original feature of the story, representing the "corn spirit
Vegetation deity
A vegetation deity is a nature deity whose disappearance and reappearance, or life, death and rebirth, embodies the growth cycle of plants. In nature worship, the deity can be a god or goddess with the ability to regenerate itself. A vegetation deity is often a fertility deity...
" that was later anthropomorphized
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
as the young goddess.
Cult role
The "First Fruits Decree" (5th century BC) requires sacrifices for Demeter and Kore ("the Maiden," usually identified with Persephone), TriptolemusTriptolemus
Buzyges redirects here. For the genus of grass skipper butterflies, see Buzyges .Triptolemus , in Greek mythology always connected with Demeter of the Eleusinian Mysteries, might be accounted the son of King Celeus of Eleusis in Attica, or, according to the Pseudo-Apollodorus , the son of Gaia and...
, Theos (God), Thea (Goddess) and Eubolos. The inscription with the Lakrateides relief
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
identifies the person making the dedication as a priest of the God and Goddess — that is, of the King and Queen of the Underworld, in reference to mystery cult — and of Eubouleus. In the Orphic tablets, Eubuleus is invoked four times along with Eucles ("Good Fame"), following a declaration in the first line to the Queen of the Underworld, Persephone. He is also invoked in the Gurôb Papyrus of the mid-3rd century BC.
Because Eubuleus seems to be a human being in the narrative alluded to by the scholiast to Lucian, he has sometimes been considered a hero who received cult veneration
Greek hero cult
Hero cults were one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion. In Homeric Greek, "hero" refers to a man who was fighting on either side during the Trojan War...
, as are Triptolemus and even Iacchos.