8.23.7). Children had tied a thin cord round the goddess’ neck (that is to say, the
neck of her effigy) and said that she had been ‘‘hanged.’’ The inhabitants of Kaphyai
stoned them, whereupon a disease attacked the pregnant women, who lost their
babies; the Delphic oracle ordained that they should make annual sacrifices for the
children unjustly killed and call the goddess Apanchomene. The epithet has been
related to the rite of hanging statuettes of agrarian deities from the branches of trees
in order to guarantee fecundity. Another explanation invokes young girls who wished
to remain virgins hanging themselves, and holds that the ‘‘Hanged’’ goddess pro-
tected them from such a death (Cole 2004:205–9). Women were also evoked by the
epithet of Ares Gynaikothoinas, ‘‘Celebrated in women’s feasts,’’ at Tegea (Pausanias
8.48.4–6). The women had made a decisive intervention in a war against the Spar-
tans, which they celebrated here with victory sacrifices and feasts in which men did
not participate. The epithet testifies to the close relationship between the women and
the god of war, and puts us in mind of the Amazons.
The legendary piety of the Arcadians was also the starting point for many local
epithets that referred to cult organization. Artemis was Hiereia at Oresthasion
(Pausanias 8.44.2) and Hymnia on the border between Mantinea and Orchomenus
(Pausanias 8.13.1); in a sanctuary on Mount Krathis in Pheneatis Artemis Pyro ̄nia
provided the Argives with a flame for their Lernaia festival, and, near Tegea, Dionysus
Myste ̄s (‘‘Initiate’’) recalled the initiation of the god at Eleusis (Pausanias 8.54.5).
The biographies of the gods were equally evoked by some relatively exceptional
epithets: thus Zeus Lecheate ̄s, (‘‘he who has given birth’’) brought Athena into
the world at Aliphera (Pausanias 8.26.6), and Asclepius Pais (‘‘Child’’) was born
at Thelpusa (Pausanias 8.25.11). We should also note three epithets of Hera
at Stymphalus: Hera Pais, when she was still a virgin, Teleia, when she had
married Zeus, and Che ̄ra (‘‘Widow’’), when she had separated herself from Zeus
(Pausanias 8.22.2). These epithets, perhaps tied to a cult cycle centered onhieros
gamos(‘‘sacred marriage’’), were explained by the episodes of the goddess’ biography
(Jost 1997:88–9).
Finally, new divine names could find their origins in particular historical events.
Upon the foundation of Megalopolis the Arcadians adopted an epithet to express the
solidarity essential for the development of the new city: Zeus Philios (‘‘of friendship’’)
had a statue sculpted by the younger Polyclitus (Pausanias 8.31.4). His epithet
illustrates thephiliabound, according to Aristotle (Politics1280b) to the notion of
fatherland. The statue was a composite: ‘‘shod with buskins, the god held a vessel to
drink from in one hand and a thyrsus in the other with an eagle perching on it’’; the
statue combined traits of Dionysus, the god of the symposium and of conviviality,
with traits of Zeus, the civic god and the ruler (Jost 1996a:105).
The pantheons of the Arcadian cities were assembled from deities both common-
place or ‘‘panhellenic’’ and strictly Arcadian and local. But they were also character-
ized by the recurrence of particular groupings among the divine powers. Although
there are expected groupings, such as that of Demeter and Kore, others contrast with
a distinct local flavor. The presence of armedpropoloi(‘‘attendants’’) beside female
deities – the Giants beside Rhea (Pausanias 8.32.5) and Anytos beside Demeter
(8.37.5–6) – may go back to an ancient substratum (Jost 1985:335–6). Also quite
unusual, in mythical terms, are the appearance of Demeter and Poseidon as a pair
(Pausanias 8.25.5–7) and the designation of Artemis as the daughter of Demeter at
272 Madeleine Jost