spread from end to end of the Greek world during the hellenistic period, the goddess
being invoked occasionally in a private context as embodiment of family harmony, but
most often as patron of concord within and between cities, the popularity of this
public figure making perfect sense in the politically turbulent hellenistic world.
Particularly striking is the cult of a ‘‘Concord of the Hellenes’’ at Plataea, first
mentioned in an honorific decree of the mid-third century BC (Etienne and Pie ́rart
1975). It seems to have been integrated into the older cult of Zeus the Liberator,
established in 479 BC to celebrate the final defeat of the Persians, and is plausibly
explained as promoting the ideal of Greek unity by reference to this paradigmatic
instance of cooperation between Greek states.
At Athens, three political personifications appear in an important inscription of the
late 330s, which records income from the sale of skins of animals sacrificed at various
state festivals (IGii^2 1496; Parker 1996:227–37). The skins from the sacrifices to
Peace (Eirene) fetched between 713 and 874 drachmas in different years, which puts
her festival on a par with the City Dionysia and means that, at a very rough estimate,
at least eighty oxen were slaughtered in Peace’s honor. By the same estimate Dem-
ocracy (Demokratia) received at least forty oxen, and Good Fortune (Agathe Tyche)
at least ten. Peace was already a familiar figure in literature and art (see, e.g., Figure
4.1), and in 421 BC the idea of instituting a cult in her honor had provided the
central plot of Aristophanes’Peace, but we have a fair amount of evidence to suggest
that the official cult was actually established in the mid-370s, with an annual festival
celebrated on 16 Hecatombaeon (Stafford 2000:173–97). The statue-group of Peace
holding the child Wealth by Kephisodotos, ca. 375–360 BC, seen in the Athenian
agora by Pausanias (1.8.2) and much copied in the Roman imperial period, is usually
associated with the cult, but in the simple message which it conveys – that peace
nurtures wealth – it also represents an important step in the development of visual
allegory on a monumental scale. Democracy has some small pedigree as a personifi-
cation in late fifth- and fourth-century art, but the skin-sale record is the first certain
attestation of her cult. It specifies that the sacrifice was in the month Boedromion
(August/September), possibly commemorating the anniversary of a ‘‘thanksgiving
for freedom’’ first celebrated on the restoration of democracy on 12 Boedromion 403
BC (Plutarch,The Glory of Athens 7 ¼Moralia349f). Inscriptions of the late third
century further attest a priest of Democracy and a procession in her honor (IGii^2
5029a;SEG29.116). We have the base of a statue of Democracy which stood in the
agora, dedicated by the Council in 333/2 BC (IGii^2 2791); this has sometimes been
associated with the large-scale female torso Agora S2370, though the identification is
problematic (Palagia 1994, 1982). The earliest extant image of Democracy shows the
goddess crowning The People (Demos) on the relief which accompanies Eukrates’
anti-tyranny decree of 337/6 BC (SEG12.87), and the two figures are obviously
closely related. Mikalson (1998:172–8) argues that it is indeed the idea of democracy
that is expressed by the cult of the divine Demos and the Graces which was estab-
lished in the late third century in a prominent position in the northwest corner the
agora, not far from the Dipylon Gate, where the family of Eurykleides and his son
Mikion served as priests.
The last of the three, Good Fortune, certainly had a public aspect, as the skin-sale
record itself attests. In addition, the fourth-century political leader Lycurgus men-
tions a temple of Good Fortune in a speech about his administration, there is
Ogden / Companion to Greek Religion 1405120541_4_004 Revise Proof page 82 30.10.2006 4:25pm82 Emma Stafford