The Monuments That Stood before Marathon: Tomb Cult and Hero Cult in Archaic Attica

Abstract

This paper seeks to relate the form of the Marathon tumulus to both tomb and hero cult as practiced in Attica in the Archaic period. Distinctions are made among various archaeological manifestations of hero cult and between two senses of the term heros in Archaic Greece. The named warrior heroes of the epic tradition are to be distinguished from the anonymous heroes whose cult was often located in or over Bronze Age tombs. The popularity or prevalence of various kinds of hero and tomb cult can be shown to change considerably between the eighth and early fifth centuries B.C., partly in response to political change. The genealogy of the Marathon tumulus can be traced back to the seventh-and early sixth-century aristocratic funerary complexes with tumulus, central cremation, and offering trench. Such practices seem to be a deliberate evocation of those described in the Iliad. This fact considerably alters our interpretation of the Marathon tumulus, which can now be seen as an example of the appropriation of aristocratic values and symbols to serve the needs of the new democracy.* The tumulus at Marathon is not one of the major architectural achievements of fifth-century Athens. To some, therefore, it may seem a perverse choice for an exercise in art-historical explanation.' But, though simple in form, this monument is not at all easy to explain. It is a monument that looks both forward to the full democracy of the late fifth century, and backward to the world of the Archaic aristocracy. It echoes in its design features of much earlier monuments, but, at the same time, anticipates forms of public commemoration that were to become current by the time of Pericles. Its role too is ambiguous, since it served to commemorate a battle, as a place of burial, and, in later times, as the locus of "hero cult." Hero cult is a complex issue, one too often treated simply as an aspect of Greek religion.2 This approach is clearly inappropriate in our case: the Marathon tumulus, no less than the Cenotaph in London, or the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., is primarily a political monument, one intimately connected with collective Athenian identity and self-esteem. As such, its genealogy, its relation to earlier and later forms of commemoration, burial, and tomb and hero cult, is a matter of some importance. Burials and hero cults have been popular topics in many recent discussions of early Greece. Many scholars have tried to link changes in mortuary practice * This is a revised version of a paper I gave at Corpus Christi College, Oxford in October 1991. I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the discussion that followed, in particular Christiane Sorvinou-Inwood and Robin Osborne. For permission to reproduce illustrations, I am grateful to the Deutsches Archaologisches Institut in Athens and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Agora Excavations. I would also like to thank Anthony Snodgrass, Nick Fisher, Hans Van Wees, Ian Morris, Sanne Houby-Nielsen, Francois de Polignac, Carla Antonaccio, and one anonym...

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