In Search of the Dioskouroi. Image, Myth and Cult

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. Starting out: the research and its aims

Introducing Kastor and Polydeukes, the Greek Dioskouroi

Designing the study

Methodology

The context of past scholarship

Chapter 2. First steps on the journey: searching for the Dioskouroi in Greece from the time of Homer

Who were the Dioskouroi?

Sources for myths of the Dioskouroi: literature, vases, and temple decoration

Images of the Dioskouroi from Greece

Buildings and sacred space

Summing up

Chapter 3. The Dioskouroi at home: in the Peloponnese

An introductory tour

Sparta

The literary evidence for cult

Pausanias at Sparta

The archaeological evidence for sacred space at Sparta

Votive reliefs and inscriptions

Characteristics of the Dioskouroi at Sparta

Messene

The archaeological and literary context

Sources for history and cult at Messene before Epaminondas: interpreting Pausanias

A Messenian mythography of the Dioskouroi

The archaeological evidence for cult of the Dioskouroi

Sanctuary Ω–Ω and the Dioskouroi

Argos

The literary record

The equestrian images of the Dioskouroi at Argos

The archaeological evidence

Cult of the Fanakes and the Dioskouroi at Argos

The cavalier relief

Cult of the Dioskouroi at Argos and in the Argolid

Chapter 4. The Dioskouroi abroad: some early appearances in the eastern Mediterranean

An introduction

Thera

Kyrene

The literary evidence for cult of the Dioskouroi

The archaeological evidence for a sanctuary of the Dioskouroi at Kyrene

A Dioskourion at Kyrene?

The Dioskouroi, Dioskoureia and dining

Kyrene, Sparta and Thera

The provenance of cults of the Dioskouroi at Kyrene

Naukratis

Cult of the Dioskouroi at Naukratis: gathering the evidence

The pottery finds

A temple of the Dioskouroi?

Interpreting the finds

Summing up

Thasos

Delos

Overview

The evidence for cult

The evidence for a Dioskourion

Additional material evidence for cult of the Dioskouroi on Delos

Cult of the Dioskouroi on Delos

The evidence from Delos in the wider context

Chapter 5. Journey’s end

Drawing together the threads

Summing up: reflections on the journey

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Sarah V. Graham (née Fraenkel) holds a Master’s degree and a Doctorate in Classical Archaeology from the University of Oxford, where she studied Ancient Greek vase-painting with Professor Donna Kurtz. Her first degree was in Modern History from the University of Edinburgh. She also undertook postgraduate research at Oxford in eighteenth-century French history under the late Professor Richard Cobb before embarking on a career in Government, including a spell as a Director in the then Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit at No.10. Subsequently she was the founding Chair of a social enterprise employing people who had been in prison. She has been drawn afresh to academic study by a love of Greece, ancient and modern. She currently lives and works in Oxford, where she is an associate member of Wolfson College and co-directed its Ancient World Research Cluster.