Greg Nagy
Last updated at
July 10, 2020, 6:51 p.m.
{"blocks":[{"key":"90f5m","text":"The details given here about the procession of paides, here referring to both boys and girls, are most telling. The collocation of the verb pherein in the sense of ‘carry [a sacred object] in procession’ with the verb agein in the sense of ‘lead [someone] in procession’ is comparable to other contexts where Pausanias is describing a procession, as at 1.27.3. I comment on that related text of Pausanias in the posting for 2018.04.05. As for the text here at 7.20.1, the ritual of a procession where the priest of Dionysus ‘carries’ a sacred object, indicated by the verb pherein, is a re-enactment of the myth of human sacrifice to Artemis, which would have featured a primal procession where the people ‘lead’, as expressed by the verb agein, a boy and a girl who are destined to become the annual sacrifical victims. The set of boys and girls who participate in re-enacting the myth in the yearly ritual are likewise being ‘led’ in procession. We see here a merger in identifying Artemis Laphria/Triklaria as the recipient of sacrifice. At 7.18.11, the recipient was called Laphria, but here at 7.20.1 the recipient is called Triklaria.","type":"unstyled","depth":0,"inlineStyleRanges":[{"offset":47,"length":6,"style":"ITALIC"},{"offset":140,"length":7,"style":"ITALIC"},{"offset":218,"length":5,"style":"ITALIC"},{"offset":573,"length":7,"style":"ITALIC"},{"offset":739,"length":5,"style":"ITALIC"}],"entityRanges":[{"offset":424,"length":10,"key":0}],"data":{}}],"entityMap":{"0":{"type":"LINK","mutability":"MUTABLE","data":{"href":"https://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/a-sampling-of-comments-on-pausanias-1-24-8-1-27-3/","url":"https://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/a-sampling-of-comments-on-pausanias-1-24-8-1-27-3/"}}}}