Butes - a hero of Athena

B u t e s - a h e r o o f A t h e n a
To understand why the hero Butes had his cult in the Erechtheum [Text and Views: The Erechtheum] it would be sufficient to know that he was honored as the founding ancestor of the family which served as priestesses of Athena and as priests of the God associated with her, i.e., Poseidon Erechtheus in historical times. He was the ancestor of the Butadai, or more strongly accentuated, of the Eteobutadai, the "true Butadai." Besides this it is noteworthy that Butes, whom the old genealogies made into a son of Poseidon, expresses a special relationship to cattle. Most likely it was the same relationship as the one which necessitated the very ancient and intricately executed cattle offerings to Zeus Polieus, which was also a name in the fortress for the masculine partner of Athena Polias. This relationship was certainly different from that to plow oxen, which was represented in the area of Pallas Athena's cult by another hero, Buzyges, the "cattle yoker," and by another family, the Buzygai. The Buzygai undertook the sacred plowing at the foot of the Acropolis, which occurred third in a series of sacred plowings of the Athenians [Image: Worshipping Athena]. The two different heroes, Butes and Buzyges, describe two stages within the Athena cult of the domestication of cattle. In the earlier stage, cattle were sacred and nor yet used to do work, but they were killed in certain festivals. Several families took part in the sacred slaughtering of the bull on the Acropolis, among them the Kentriadai, which is indicated by their name ("the goaders"). They probably represent a rudiment of prehistoric bull-fighting as it was practiced in Crete.

The origin of the sacred slaughtering of the bull certainly lies in the old-Mediterranean level of Greek religion and could well be Minoan. In contrast, the Buzygai were the bearers not only of a later stage of domestication -- yoking cattle and plowing with them -- but also of a relatively new orientation: they would allow no cattle whatsoever to be killed. This attitude may have played a part in the formulation of the bull-killing on the Acropolis -- the Buphonia. The slaughtering of the bull belongs to the period before the second stage of full domestication, before the Buzygian stage. The hero Butes cannot be either contemporary with or later than the hero Buzyges: one must place him and the bull in an older period of the Athena cult. Athena received cattle offerings on the Acropolis no less frequently than Zeus Polieus, and she received them in the aspect which was different from the bright Pandrosus. After one had offered a cow, one had to sacrifice a sheep to Pandrosus. If Erechtheus and Zeus were celebrated with cattle offerings, it was also true that the Goddess in her dark aspect belonged to a divine partner who had the form of a bull. It is not without reason that she shares the epithet Hellotis, which she bears in Marathon and Corinth, with Europa, the bride of Zeus, whom he abducted after he had taken the form of a bull. And it is certainly no accident that a black-figured Attic vase shows Athena on one side and the "Goddess on the bull" on the other. The recognized function of Athena's servants Trapezo and Kosmo can be connected to the receiving of the sacred bull, which preceded the Buphonia, the sacrifice of the bull to Zeus Polieus. The slaughterer of the bull, too, was among the servants of the Goddess. Among the names which are handed down for the first killer of the bull, Diomos is a short form of Diomedes [Image: Diomedes with the Palladium], as that favorite hero of Athena, cultic comrade of Aglaurus, and double of Ares was otherwise called. It seems to have been a self-contradictory cultic drama in which the Goddess confronted the bull-formed one: she was ambivalently bound to him.

Athena, Virgin and Mother in Greek Religion

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