Washing Your Sins Away (original) (raw)

One recurring theme in Greek mythology is that of ritual purification for someone who’d committed a crime. There’s a pattern in some stories of a person doing a heinous act, being exiled from their home, and going to someone in another place who would be willing to perform the ritual. There are some indications that this was an actual practice, not just something made up for the myths, although I couldn’t say how common it was. It appears that the process included both a symbolic washing and the sacrifice of an animal, a kind of propitiation to the gods. There’s an idea in cultures that practiced animal sacrifice that shedding innocent blood was necessary to atone for the initial bloodshed, which kind of seems like two wrongs making a right to me. But then, requesting that the gods turn away their wrath might have been different from what was done to appease the victim’s family and society. There was no official separation of religion from law, but I’m sure people still recognized that there were different matters at hand. It does seem strange if capital crimes were punished way less harshly back in a time I normally associate with Hammurabi’s eye for an eye. Yeah, that was Mesopotamia, not Greece, but there was some overlap. We see such a ritual with Jason and Medea, who, after leaving Colchis with the Golden Fleece, travel to Circe’s island of Aeaea in order to receive purification for the killing and dismemberment of Medea’s brother. Apollodorus of Rhodes actually shows us some of the process, with Circe killing a newborn piglet and pouring its blood on Medea and Jason’s hands, then performing food and drink offerings to Zeus in hopes of his forgiveness.

When she learns the true severity of their crimes, however, she refuses hospitality to them. Bellerophon is said to have been exiled for Corinth after accidentally killing his brother, and was purified by Proteus of Argos (not the same as the shape-shifting sea god), but then got kicked out of there as well after his wife falsely accused him of rape. There’s a story in Herodotus about Adrestus of Phrygia, who accidentally killed his brother, and sought purification from Croesus of Lydia. He then accompanied Croesus’ son Atys on a boar hunt and accidentally caused his death as well. Croesus forgave him for it, but he killed himself anyway.

While naked, apparently.
Heracles, after killing his family in a fit of madness brought on by Hera, is purified by Thespius, the same king whose fifty daughters he impregnated. He then is told by the Oracle of Delphi to make penance by performing labors for Eurystheus of Tiryns, a cousin and rival of his who was favored by Hera. The labors are apparently not part of the purification, but still necessary for his redemption. But Eurystheus must have known something about the ritual, as he performed it for a guy named Copreus, who then stayed as his herald. His name might possibly be related to dung, fitting with his unpopularity. Homer mentioned how much better his son was than him. And Oedipus is purified at Colonus for his crimes in Thebes of killing his father and having an incestuous relationship with his mother.

He could claim ignorance of the family relations, but not of the fact that he definitely killed someone, and a king at that. I have to wonder if things might have been different for these people because they’re all essentially nobility of some sort, many of them related to kings, but maybe not.

This entry was posted in Greek Mythology, History, Magic, Mythology, Religion and tagged adrestus of phrygia, animal sacrifice, apollonius of rhodes, argonautica, atys of lydia, bellerophon, circe, copreus, crime, croesus, eurystheus, exile, hammurabi, hera, hercules, herodotus, homer, iliad, jason, laius of thebes, law, medea, murder, oedipus, oracle of delphi, proteus of argos, purification, ritual, sacrifice, thespius, zeus. Bookmark the permalink.