BMCR 2009.04.28: Pirenne-Delforge on Budin, The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity

Stephanie Budin, The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity.  New
York:  Cambridge University Press, 2008.  Pp. xi, 366.  ISBN
9780521880909.  $90.00.

Reviewed by Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge, Fonds de la Recherche
Scientifique--FNRS (Belgium)--Universite/ de Lie\ge
([email protected])
Word count:  3891 words
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In a contribution to the Blackwell Companion to Greek Religion edited
in 2007 by Daniel Ogden, I complained that the question of "sacred
prostitution" was still hindering studies on "the religion of women" in
ancient Greece, such as was the case in Matthew Dillon's book on the
subject. I confess that my lament was rather self-centered, insofar as
I had addressed this topic in my own PhD on "L'Aphrodite grecque",
which was published in 1994.[[1]] In the chapter on Corinth, I refuted
what I called then "the historiographic myth of sacred prostitution",
building my argument on a close assessment of the literary and
epigraphic evidence. In 2007, I took up the case again, summarizing the
argument from 1994, which had been rarely addressed till then. I
concluded that other controversial occurrences, such as the sanctuary
attributed to Aphrodite at Gravisca in Etruria or the sanctuary of Eryx
in Sicily should be seriously studied too. These preliminary
reflections are intended to show how welcome a book entitled "The Myth
of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity" can be, extensively broadening the
focus that I had limited to Corinth. Stephanie Lynn Budin has taken the
opportunity to challenge this old problem in a synthesis that is not
the first to consider "sacred prostitution" as a "mythe
historiographique" (as D. Arnaud had already called Babylonian
prostitution in 1973 [[2]]), but she conveniently provides almost every
piece of evidence and confronts this complex dossier as a whole.

The thesis supported by the author is clearly stated at the very
beginning: "Sacred prostitution never existed in the ancient Near East
or Mediterranean" (p. 1). The question of definition is addressed in
the first chapter called "Introduction". However, there is some
ambiguity in searching for the definition of a practice that is
supposed to be nonexistent. Budin is conscious of this situation but it
does not prevent her from pointing out that "three separate types of
sacred prostitution are recorded in the Classical sources" (p. 3), that
is once-in-a-lifetime prostitution and/or sale of virginity in honor of
a goddess, professional prostitutes owned by a deity's sanctuary, and
temporary prostitution, before marriage or during certain rituals. It
would be more correct to state that these three situations have been
interpreted as instances of "sacred prostitution" by modern scholars.
Confronting different existing definitions of sacred prostitution, the
author offers her own: "Sacred prostitution is the sale of a person's
body for sexual purposes where some portion (if not all) of the money
or goods received for this transaction belongs to a deity" (p. 3). Let
us immediately remark that such a broad definition implies that many
epigrams gathered in the Greek Anthology could have referred to "sacred
prostitution" insofar as prostitutes and courtesans are often shown
dedicating some part of their gains to Aphrodite. In this sense, the
cultic veneration by prostitutes of Aphrodite should be called "sacred
prostitution", an extension which is not present in the scholarship
discussed by Budin. As "sacred prostitution" is said to be a modern
construct, why should it be necessary to give a definition which is
broader than such a construction? On the other hand, she rightly
underlines that several scholars confuse sacred prostitution, which
implies an economic aspect, with "sacred sex", which would refer to
more specific categories of intercourse in sacral contexts. She also
rightly emphasizes the fact that the interdisciplinary shape of the
issue makes it particularly difficult to grasp. Scholars in Classics
are told by their familiar evidence that sacred prostitution existed in
the Near East, although the specialists of Near Eastern areas do not
perceive it so clearly in their own evidence. Budin's investigation
particularly succeeds in pinpointing the discomfort of many scholars
referring to "sacred prostitution" and the number of contradictory
statements this subject entails. Budin's Introduction also refers to
the most popular theory on this matter, by R.A. Oden Jr., who sees
sacred prostitution as a literary motive used to denigrate an "Other".
Even though the interpretation fits pretty well with Christian apology
and its criticisms of paganism, Budin correctly calls this view into
question as a general interpretive clue that would be appropriate in
each case. The ten chapters following the Introduction, except for the
last one, collect and analyze the ancient evidence on which the "myth"
has been built, from the Near Eastern, Greco-Roman, as well as
Christian corpus of texts.

Chapter Two addresses the Near Eastern evidence, consisting of a meager
number of texts, which use terminology open to various interpretations.
These texts are Sumerian, Akkadian, Ugaritic, and Hebrew, and have been
extensively studied by S.M. Hooks in his unpublished dissertation on
"Sacred Prostitution in Israel and the Ancient Near East" (1985). This
text is nearly impossible to find and this situation would be a good
reason to reassess the evidence and the negative conclusions that can
be drawn regarding the existence of "sacred prostitutes". Classicists
will find in Budin's study a convenient access to all these texts, but
are invited to look at the studies of specialists (e.g. p. 20-21, note
36). The conclusion of Budin's Chapter Two rests in just one sentence:
"There were no sacred prostitutes in the ancient Near East" (p. 47). A
sharp statement, indeed!

Chapter Three ("The so-called 'evidence'") points out the main paradox
related to sacred prostitution: there is no evidence for sacred
prostitution within the Near Eastern evidence but the Classical corpus
provides a lot of texts rooting such a practice there. Therefore, the
chapter brings together, in the most popular translations available,
"the more blatant examples, where there is at least a word or
description that might summon images of sacred prostitution" (p. 48).
These translations are interesting, since they are often saturated by
preconceptions about what the translator believes to be "sacred
prostitution". A typical circular problem well denounced by Budin.

Chapter Four ("Herodotos") addresses the core of the case for sacred
prostitution, that is Herodotus' account of Babylonian customs. In
1.199, he describes "the most shameful" of these customs. Every local
woman must sit in the sanctuary of Aphrodite once in her life to have
intercourse with a foreign man outside the sanctuary. The silver given
at this occasion becomes sacred.[[3]] Once discharged of this
obligation, the women may go home, quickly for the prettiest of them,
after several years for some others. This passage is correctly seen by
Budin as the touchstone of the "myth of sacred prostitution".
Therefore, it deserves close attention and the whole chapter tries to
understand "how Herodotus' notion of the Babylonian women's
prostitution came about, what the story's origins are, and why it came
into being" (p. 60). Budin extensively records the current debates
about Herodotus' work and his way of working, with regard in particular
to the veracity of his narratives and the accuracy of his sources. The
"Liar's school" is knocking on the door... This patchwork of opinions
remains unquestioned and ends both on a statement that "Herodotos is
complicated" and that "chapter 1.199... is a unique passage in a unique
text". Accordingly, this chapter is evaluated as "one of the very few
instances where one might argue that Herodotos did in fact construct
his data for the sake of effect" (p. 66). If Herodotus effectively
created the "Babylonian custom", the next step is to explain how and
why. The first question is resolved by the statement that it would be
"an inversion of Greek sacred and sexual moeurs" (p. 71). As Greek
married women enacted rituals such as Thesmophoria, Budin assumes that
Herodotus used this Greek ritual as a contrastive model. This is all
the more speculative as the other question ("why") is in no way related
to this first answer. What was "the deeper, poetic meaning of sacred
prostitution?" (p. 76). This would be a poetic description of the
conquered state of Babylonia: bastardy and ethnic miscegenation
("intercourse with a foreigner"), religious impurity, effeminization
and rape would highlight the defeat of Babylonia. Whereas Budin
forcefully underlines that the respect of the nomoi of the others is a
rule of Herodotus' work, she infers a "possible disdain for the
Babylonians" from chapter 1.199, as they are portrayed accepting their
"defeated, passive, penetrated (!) status..." (p. 84). I confess that I
do not easily adhere to the conclusion that "the image of all local
women penetrated by foreigners, desecrated, yet compliant, accepting
money for their services as demanded by the gods, must ultimately have
served as a harsh lesson on the vicissitudes of fortune and divinity
and the wages of war and defeat for its Greek audience" (p. 89). Even
though Herodotus' account of Babylonian customs (bride auction in 1.196
and prostitution in 1.199) is open to discussion, Budin's analysis does
not end the debate.

Chapter Five ("In the footsteps of Herodotos: Lucian and "Jeremiah"")
is shorter and demonstrates with good arguments that both authors of
the chapter's title have been influenced by Herodotus' statements about
Babylonian "sacred prostitution". Lucian's description of the ritual in
Byblos is seen as a homage to the father of history and the apocryphal
Letter of Jeremiah that evokes Chaldean women, "consciously or
subconsciously" (p. 111) included the Herodotean account of the
subject. His text cannot be taken as evidence for actual sacred
prostitution.

Chapter Six ("Pindar Fragment 122") addresses one of the main texts
upon which the case for sacred prostitution in the Greek city of
Corinth has been constructed. I completely agree with the conclusion of
this chapter, which I had already proposed fourteen years ago: sacred
prostitution never existed in Corinth. Beyond this minimal consensus,
there are so many discrepancies between my own argument and Budin's
analysis that a close discussion would be expected. This is also the
case for Claude Calame's paper on the subject.[[4]] We are both cited,
with others, in the chapter's introduction with the statement that we
"do not offer satisfactory alternate interpretations of the poem" (p.
114) but our respective interpretations are never addressed. I shall
return to this point below.

Chapter Seven ("Strabo, confused and misunderstood") addresses the
different places in Strabo's Geography where he refers to sacred
prostitution. Budin rightly underlines that 25% of our classical
sources on this issue come from Strabo and that some words he used have
been misunderstood by the modern audience. This is particularly true
for the term hierodoulos, which only refers to a slave consecrated to a
god, mostly after a manumission procedure, and was too often translated
as "sacred prostitute". The Babylonian issue is also dealt with by
Strabo and Herodotus' influence is once more almost certain. As far as
Corinth is concerned, Strabo speaks of the rich sanctuary of Aphrodite,
possessing more than a thousand sacred slaves in the form of courtesans
dedicated by men and women to the goddess. It was therefore easy for
shipowners to ruin themselves there and this is the reason for the
proverb that states "It is not given to every man to cross to Corinth"
(8.6.20). Strabo returns to the subject when, in book 12 (3.36 = C559),
he describes Comana in Pontus and the veneration for the goddess Ma.
Comana is interpreted as a "mini-Corinth". His remarks on Corinth are
on each occasion confined to the past, whilst the circumstances in
Comana in Pontus--Strabo's home territory--belong to the present. Budin
supports this analysis and extensively presents the three definitions
of hierodoulos, two coming from ancient Egyptian and Anatolian
traditions, the third referring to manumission. Strabo's
misunderstanding of the Corinthian setting might be rooted in the
practice of manumission, and in its conflation with ancient traditions
about Corinth.

Strabo also provides a piece of evidence regarding the sanctuary Eryx
and its "plethora of sacred bodies" who have left the sanctuary
(6.2.6). Budin produces some elements of comparison from Cicero, who
speaks of the "Venerii", that is the slaves of Erycine Venus. This
could be the origin of Strabo's statement. Regarding the situation of
Thebes in Egypt (17.1.46), where Strabo also mentions a female
prostitute who was priestess of Zeus, the words used by the geographer
are usually understood as belonging to the semantic field of pallake^,
understood as "concubine". Budin argues that palladas is more correctly
connected with pallas but other words in this passage clearly refer to
pallake^. A good parallel is provided by some inscriptions from
Tralles, already studied by Budin in a previous article, demonstrating
that the inscriptions mentioning pallakesin this city had nothing to do
with sacred prostitution. This could have been the case for the
Egyptian setting of the term. One last occurrence of the alleged
"sacred prostitution" is located in Armenia by Strabo (11.14.16), in
the cult performed in honor of the goddess Anaitis. Another piece of
evidence attests that girls became hierodules of the goddess, probably
after a procedure of sacral manumission. But the apparent sacred
prostitution of upper-class Armenian girls to which Strabo refers
appears in no other evidence and Budin subscribes to Beard and
Henderson's conclusion that it is "nothing like any form of
prostitution" (p. 203).[[5]] And this is how  a local custom,
misunderstood by Strabo, came to be related to prostitution. We can
subscribe to Budin's conclusion that Strabo was sometimes confused and
misunderstood, especially by modern scholars. The close analysis of
Eryx's case is particularly welcome.

Chapter Eight ("Klearkhos, Justinus, and Valerius Maximus") addresses
these authors, with the preliminary assessment that, for them,
"historical accuracy was not as important as usable exempla" (p. 211).
Some fragments of Clearchus of Soli have been used to support the
existence of sacred prostitution in Lydia, Cyprus, and Epizephyrian
Locris. Valerius Maximus is generally connected with the idea of sacred
prostitution practiced by Punic women in Sicca, and Justinus, whose
text has been epitomized by Pompeius Trogus, provides evidence of this
practice in Cyprus and Locri, once more. In fact, "sacred prostitution"
is here essentially associated with "prenuptial intercourse with
foreigners" or "intercourse with slaves", in the same way as the Lydian
queen Omphale with Heracles. This is not exactly the same background as
a prostitution related to a specific deity in his/her sanctuary, as
discussed in the previous chapters. What remains, however, is the
contrast between the girls' and women's expected reserve and chastity,
and the scandal of having sex outside the regulated context of
marriage, even far away from religious settings or prostitution in its
technical sense. A close analysis of all these texts leads Budin to
support the thesis that "sacred prostitution" is a myth. She explains,
in particular, how the vow of the Locrian maidens, well studied by
Fritz Graf three decades ago, was in fact "a historiographical
construction combining certain motifs of 'human dedication' in the
Greek tradition with evidence from Klearchos and Pindar" (p. 228).
Unfortunately, Graf's own argument is not addressed. In 2000, his paper
was reprinted in translation by Richard Buxton in the Oxford Readings
in Greek Religion. It deserves more than a slight footnote (p. 213, n.
9).[[6]] Whatever credit may be assigned to the alternative
explanations provided by Budin regarding all these texts, she is right
in concluding that they do not support the existence of any "sacred
prostitution".

Chapter Nine ("Archaeological 'Evidence' from Italy") opens with the
statement that few scholars still consider Etruscan Pyrgi and Italic
Rapino as places where sacred prostitution was practiced. However, this
myth is still present in some publications, on the one hand, and on the
other hand, its application to the archeological material is
interesting in seeing how the vicious circle of reasoning functions.
This little chapter is welcome, but Budin does not mention Mario
Torelli's archeological work and his interpretation in terms of "sacred
prostitution" of some of the buildings recovered in his excavations.
Since this professor of Perugia has been one of the main influential
archeologists in Italy for the last thirty years, a close study of his
work would have been expected and useful. The main place he alleged to
be related to "sacred prostitution" is the sanctuary of the emporion of
Gravisca in Etruria,[[7]] where some items have been interpreted as
testimonies of this practice allegedly coming from Cyprus (a nude
crowded woman, a graffito that would seem to attest the name of a
prostitute, a bathing scene) and associated to Aphrodite, considered as
the main deity of this sanctuary. These testimonies are too ambiguous
to support the thesis, on the one hand, and, on the other, it has been
recently suggested that Hera was the main deity of the place.[[8]] A
look at Gravisca would have supported Budin's point of view.

Chapter Ten ("The Early Christian Rhetoric") brings together Christian
evidence related to "sacred prostitution", which is clearly, in this
case, an accusation of lustful paganism. But was it really pertinent to
wonder whether the Christians believed the accusation? To address such
an insoluble problem, Budin must draw a distinction between the authors
(from the time of Herodotus), who did not really believe what they
wrote, and their readers who were ready to accept everything. In
conclusion, she writes "the myth of sacred prostitution probably dates
back to the fifth century BCE, when some fellow went home to tell his
family what he heard from Herodotos today ("You won't believe what they
do in Babylon...!)" (p. 286).

Chapter Eleven ("Last Myths") is an anthology of modern texts,
extensively quoted, which contributed to giving substance to the myth
of sacred prostitution and which were produced by historians as well as
novelists. Finally, under the title of Antithesis Budin briefly
addresses the different studies which, since the 1960s, have called
into question this "myth". In this respect, writing as she does that
"Pirenne-Delforge... accepts its [of sacred prostitution] existence in
the east, using Herodotos' silence on the matter of Corinthian sacred
prostitution in contrast with his frank discussion of it regards (sic)
to Babylon as evidence for its absence in the civilized west" (p. 334)
is dishonest. The "civilized west" is a very curious interpretive tool
and I never induced such a concept myself. It belongs exclusively to
Budin.

Before concluding, let us return to Pindar to illustrate the
discrepancies mentioned above. Pindar's fragment is quoted by Athenaeus
writing on Corinth and its courtesans. This fragment concerns the vow
that Xenophon of Corinth made to the local Aphrodite to bring her a
hundred girls if he won the victory at Olympia. Pindar composed the
skolion sung during the sumposion held after the thanksgiving prayer.
Just before this quotation, Athenaeus mentions the supplication that
Corinthian prostitutes had addressed to the Aphrodite of the
Acrocorinth just before the battle of Salamis in 480 and that was
immortalized in an epigram. The treatise On Pindar by Chameleon of
Heraclea is one of his sources. This event is also mentioned by
Plutarch and a scholion to Pindar. The last two texts, deriving from
Theopompus, associate the supplication with Corinthian women and the
scholiast attributes the epigram to Simonides. Each author has adapted
his quotation to his own aims. Plutarch and the scholiast have
constructed a tight parallel between the warriors and their wives,
whilst passing over the courtesans in silence. Athenaeus made no
mention of the Corinthian wives because the parallel he constructed was
of another sort: the 480 supplication constitutes the counterpart at
the public level to the vow made by Xenophon of Corinth at the private
level, which is the subject of Pindar's fragment.

This fragment is extensively discussed by Budin, who correctly states
that it does not prove anything as far as sacred prostitution is
concerned. Therefore, she looks for another way of explaining what she
considers, in fact, to be an outrageous attitude subtly denounced by
Pindar. There are a lot of misunderstandings in Budin's argument about
Pindar's text: she confuses the distinction between prostitutes and
courtesans, a point well-argued by Calame's study, she associates
symposium and orgy (p. 130: "the orgy has not yet begun") and, finally,
she imposes, what in my opinion, is an incorrect interpretation of the
text. For example, the mention of poluxenai neanides at the beginning
of the scolion would bring to mind Polyxena, the Trojan princess,
introducing therefore the themes of sacrifice, sex, and orientalism
into the poem (p. 120-121). These three themes supposedly introduced by
Pindar are therefore extensively pursued ad absurdum. Even the word
alsos, which only refers to the sacred place in the open air, is seen
as contributing to "the bestialization of the prostitutes while
contributing to the overall sacral imagery within the poem" (p. 125).
Furthermore, Pindar supposedly suggested in his poem that an improper
sacrifice was being made, the victims (i.e. the girls) having not
offered their assent!

The main problem with this chapter is the fundamental misunderstanding
of the religious background of these various events related to the
Corinthian cult of Aphrodite. For Budin, "Pindar's skolion celebrated
the 'bringing' of prostitutes to a bunch of drunken Corinthians,
misinterpreted by Khamaileon as a Corinthian custom (and so implicating
Simonides), misread by Athenaios probably as sacral manumission" (p.
284). The alsos mentioned by Pindar was therefore an andron, the
recipients were mortals, and the overall tone festive and
tongue-in-cheek" (p. 140). Budin does not understand the context, that
is the vow made by Xenophon of Corinth, before competing at Olympia,
'to bring courtesans to the goddess should he be victorious'. The
skolion that Pindar composed to celebrate the victor was actually sung
at the time of the symposium offered alongside the courtesans. But
Xenophon's vow concerned both a sacrifice in thanks to Aphrodite, who
was the chief deity of these girls and enjoyed their offerings, and an
aristocratic feast under the protection of the same goddess. The point
that makes Budin uncomfortable is the idea that courtesans, who are
here confused with prostitutes, took part in the private and official
feasts of Aphrodite at Corinth. This problem clearly arises from the
analysis of the supplication of 480. In Budin's book, this complex
affair becomes even more complicated as she does not admit two facts:
firstly, that a supplication before a battle might have been addressed
to a goddess involved in sex and love affairs; secondly, that the city
courtesans (who are systematically called prostitutes) might have been
associated to private or civic rituals as intensifiers of prayers
directed to Aphrodite. Therefore, Theopompus and Chameleon of Heraclea
are assumed to have invented the whole story. The "Liar's school" takes
up an incredible proportion in this book. But one piece of evidence has
been forgotten. Still discussing Corinth, Athenaeus mentions a passage
of Alexis (F255 K-A  = Athenaeus 13.574b-c), who stipulates that the
free women and the courtesans each celebrated their own feast of
Aphrodite organized by the city. Therefore, we must accept the fact
that, when facing the risk of Persian invasion, these two groups of
female worshippers addressed to the poliadic goddess of Corinth the
supplication on behalf of the city, which made a thanksgiving
consecration in her honor after victory. Why would this scenario be a
lie, unless it does not fit with some received conceptions about
Aphrodite and entails the association of Greek citizen women and
courtesans in the same kind of worship?

To conclude, this book usefully provides the evidence leading to the
conclusion that sacred prostitution did not exist in the ancient
Mediterranean area and reconsiders the various data that contributed to
building this "myth". However, when some new interpretation of the
"actual" meaning of various texts and documents is offered, it deserves
caution.


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Notes:


1.   Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge, "Something to do with Aphrodite: ta
aphrodisia and the sacred," in D. Ogden (ed.), Blackwell Companion to
Greek Religion, London, 2007, p. 311-323; Matthew Dillon, Girls and
Women in Classical Greek Religion, London, 2002, p. 199-202; Vinciane
Pirenne-Delforge, L'Aphrodite grecque, Kernos supple/ment 4 (1994).

2.   Daniel Arnaud, "La prostitution sacre/e en Me/sopotamie, un mythe
historiographique ?", in Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, 183 (1973),
p. 111-115.

3.   The Greek term used by Herodotus to define such a sacredness is
not themis but hieros (p. 60). The translation of this passage (p. 59)
is not correct. Cf. p. 82 where themis is translated as "sacred".

4.   Claude Calame, "Entre rapports de parente^ et relations civiques :
Aphrodite l'He^tai+re au banquet politique des hetai^roi", in Aux
sources de la puissance. Sociabilite^ et parente^, Rouen, p. 101-111.

5.   Mary Beard, J. Henderson, "With This Body I Thee Worship: Sacred
Prostitution in Antiquity", in M. Wyke (ed.), Gender and the Body in
the Ancient Mediterranean, Oxford, 1998, p. 56-79.

6.   Fritz Graf, "The Locrian Maidens", in Richard Buxton (ed.), Oxford
Readings in Greek Religion, Oxford, 2000, p. 250-270 [German original
in 1978].

7.   Archaeological reports were published by Mario Torelli in the
Italian journal Parola del Passato between 1971 and 1982. On "sacred
prostitution", see PP 1977, p. 428, and 1981, p. 182.

8.   Marie Laurence Haack, "Phoce/ens et Samiens a\ Gravisca", Bulletin
van de antieke beschaving, 82 (2007), p. 29-40.