Thriae
Encyclopedia
Jane Ellen Harrison
Jane Ellen Harrison was a British classical scholar, linguist and feminist. Harrison is one of the founders, with Karl Kerenyi and Walter Burkert, of modern studies in Greek mythology. She applied 19th century archaeological discoveries to the interpretation of Greek religion in ways that have...
called them) in Greek mythology
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...
who were able to see the future and interpret the signs of nature and omens, a gift they taught Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
, who passed it to Hermes
Hermes
Hermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and a guide to the Underworld. Hermes was born on Mount Kyllini in Arcadia. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves, of orators and...
. They received names Melaina
Melaina
In Greek mythology, Melaina was a Corycian nymph, or member of the prophetic Thriae, of the springs of Delphi in Phocis, who was loved by Apollo bearing him Delphos. Her father was the local river-gods Kephisos, or Pleistos of northern Boeotia. Her name meant the black suggesting she presides over...
("the Black"), Kleodora
Kleodora
In Greek mythology, Kleodora was one of the prophetic Thriai, nymphs who divined the future by throwing stones or pebbles. She and her sisters lived on Mount Parnassus in Phocis and was loved by Poseidon. With Poseidon , she became the mother of Parnassus. Her father was the local river-god...
("Famed for her Gift"), and Daphnis ("Laurel"); however, in the page in the Corycian nymphs, the third sister is listed as Corycia. The Homeric Hymn to Hermes
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...
places them in Mount Parnassus
Mount Parnassus
Mount Parnassus, also Parnassos , is a mountain of limestone in central Greece that towers above Delphi, north of the Gulf of Corinth, and offers scenic views of the surrounding olive groves and countryside. According to Greek mythology, this mountain was sacred to Apollo and the Corycian nymphs,...
, where they have taught the art of divination
Divination
Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic standardized process or ritual...
to the youthful Apollo who addresses Hermes in the hymn:
- "There are three holy ones, sisters born - three virgins gifted with wings: their heads are besprinkled with white barley meal, and they dwell under a ridge of Parnassos. These are teachers of divination apart from me, the art which I practised while yet a boy following herds, though my father paid no heed to it. From their home they fly now here, now there, feeding on honeycomb and bringing all things to pass. And when they are inspired through eating yellow honeyEntheogenAn entheogen , in the strict sense, is a psychoactive substance used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context. Historically, entheogens were mostly derived from plant sources and have been used in a variety of traditional religious contexts...
, they are willing to speak the truth; but if they be deprived of the gods' sweet food, then they speak falsely, as they swarm in and out together. These, then, I give you; enquire of them strictly and delight your heart: and if you should teach any mortal so to do, often will he hear your response - if he have good fortune. Take these, Son of MaiaMaia (mythology)In Greek mythology, Maia is one of the Pleiades and the mother of Hermes. The goddess known as Maia among the Romans may have originated independently, but attracted the myths of Greek Maia because the two figures shared the same name.-Birth:...
... ' So he spake. And from heaven father Zeus himself gave confirmation to his words, and commanded that glorious Hermes should be lord over all birds of omenAuspiceAn auspice is literally "one who looks at birds", a diviner who reads omens from the observed flight of birds...
... and also that he only should be the appointed messenger to AidesHadesHades , Hadēs, originally , Haidēs or , Aidēs , meaning "the unseen") was the ancient Greek god of the underworld. The genitive , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades". Eventually, the nominative came to designate the abode of the dead.In Greek mythology, Hades...
, who, though he takes no gift, shall give him no mean prize." —Homeric Hymn IV, to Hermes, lines 550-563, Hugh G. Evelyn-White, tr., 1914.
"They are in a word 'Melissa
Melissa
Melissa is a given name for a female child. The name comes from the Greek word μέλισσα , "honey bee" and from μέλι , "honey". Compare Hittite melit, "honey"....
e', honey-priestesses, inspired by a honey-intoxicant
Entheogen
An entheogen , in the strict sense, is a psychoactive substance used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context. Historically, entheogens were mostly derived from plant sources and have been used in a variety of traditional religious contexts...
; they are bees, their heads white with pollen." Jane Harrison observed.
A fragment of Philochorus
Philochorus
Philochorus, of Athens, Greek historian during the 3rd century BC, , was a member of a priestly family. He was a seer and interpreter of signs, and a man of considerable influence....
quoted by Zenobius
Zenobius
Zenobius was a Greek sophist, who taught rhetoric at Rome during the reign of Emperor Hadrian .-Biography:He was the author of a collection of proverbs in three books, still extant in an abridged form, compiled, according to the Suda, from Didymus of Alexandria and "The Tarrhaean"...
additionally makes them nurses of Apollo, of which Jane Ellen Harrison observed "Save for this mention we never hear that Apollo had any nurses, he was wholly the son of his father. Is it not more probable that they were nurses of 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...
?" and she noted from the Sudas
Sudas
Sudās was a king in the Rig Veda. His name means "worshipping well", an s-stem, either from a root dās, or with the extra s added to avoid an archaic root noun in ā, Sudā-, which would easily be mistaken for a feminine name....
a remark "they call the madness of poets thriasis. Through a doubtful etymology William Smith asserted the Thriae were "believed to have invented the art of prophecy by means of little stones (thriai), which were thrown into an urn" (Smith 1870) and the assertion is often repeated, though Philochorus makes it plain that the mantic pebbles were named after the three Thriae, rather than the other way round. The earliest mention of the Thriai, in a fragment of Pherecydes
Pherecydes
Pherecydes was the name of:*Pherecydes of Syros, a pre-Socratic philosopher and author from the island of Syros, by some believed to have influenced Pythagoras...
simply states that they were three in number, whence their name. Susan Scheinman argues that the bee-nymphs should be disassociated with the Thriai, "by the omission of any reference in the Hymn to the chief attribute of the Thriae, their mantic pebbles." (Scheinman 1979:14); she prefers the reading Semnai for the three bee-maidens.
The Thriai may have been conflated in the Homeric hymn with the Coryciae, nymphs of the prophetic springs of Mount Parnassos, and in such a connection thought of as "daughters" of Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
.
"The Thriai inspired the old crow [either a bird, or an old seeress]." Callimachus
Callimachus
Callimachus was a native of the Greek colony of Cyrene, Libya. He was a noted poet, critic and scholar at the Library of Alexandria and enjoyed the patronage of the Egyptian–Greek Pharaohs Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Ptolemy III Euergetes...
, Hecale (Fragment 260). Callimachus also alludes to the Thriae in his Hymn to Apollo (line 250)
The Rhodes gold plaques of bee-goddesses are not unique; a relief in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...
also depicts a goddess with the head of a woman and the body of a bee.
Sources
- Harrison, Jane EllenJane Ellen HarrisonJane Ellen Harrison was a British classical scholar, linguist and feminist. Harrison is one of the founders, with Karl Kerenyi and Walter Burkert, of modern studies in Greek mythology. She applied 19th century archaeological discoveries to the interpretation of Greek religion in ways that have...
1922. A Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 3rd edition, pp. 441–43. - Robbins, Frank Egleston Robbins 1916. "The Lot Oracle at Delphi" Classical Philology 11.3 (July 1916), pp. 278–292.
- Smith, William, 1870Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology: "Thriae".
- Scheinberg, Susan 1979. "The Bee Maidens of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes" Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 83 (1979), pp. 1–28.