Nephalia

In Greek, (Greek pronunciation: [/neː.pʰá.li.a/ → /nɛːˈɸalia/ → /niˈfalia/]; Ancient Greek: νηφάλια, nēphália)

This article is about the Hellenic religious offering. For the moth genus, see Chilo (moth).

In Hellenic religion, nēphália is the religious name for libations and drink offerings where wine was not given or where the use of wine was explicitly forbidden. Liquids such as water, milk, honey and oil libated together or as a combination - however especially a mixture of honey with water or milk (Ancient Greek: μελίκρατον melíkraton), were performed as nēphália. Nēphália was offered both as a separate offer in conjunction with other sacrifices (that could be an animal sacrifice). and as a separate offer. They are documented in the works from Aeschylus to Porphyrius.

Ancient Greek: νηφάλια μειλίγματα, nēphália meilígmata = wineless libations, sober appeasements offerings of water, milk, and honey to the Eumenides; to the Muses and Nymphs, κρατὴρ νηφάλιος; νηφάλιαι εὐχωλαί, νηφάλιαι θυσίαι

Etymology

Ancient Greek: νηφάλια, nēphália is believed to have originated through the verb Ancient Greek: νήφω, nḗphō to be sober or to drink no wine, (and by extension to be self-controlled), Ancient Greek: νηφάλιος, lit. 'sober'. There was the word nephalist and nephalism in use in English from 1862 with the meaning of a teetotaler, or the practice of completely abstaining from all alcohol. There is the verb Ancient Greek: νηφαλιεύω nēphalieúō meaning to offer nēphália libations

There is a known history of honey based libations (Ancient Greek: μελίσπονδα melísponda), including libations of mead ((Ancient Greek: μέθυ méthy) or other honey based drinks ((Ancient Greek: μελίτειον melíteion)

Apollo pouring a libation from a phiale onto the omphalos, with his sister Artemis attending; a bucranium hangs above

Libations in Ancient Greece

(Greek: σπονδή, spondȇ, [spondɛ̌ː]) was a central and vital aspect of ancient Greek religion, and one of the simplest and most common forms of religious practice.[1] It is one of the basic religious acts that define piety in ancient Greece, dating back to the Bronze Age and even prehistoric Greece.[2] Libations were a part of daily life, and the pious might perform them every day in the morning and evening, as well as to begin meals.[3] A libation most often consisted of mixed wine and water, but could also be unmixed wine, honey, oil, water, or milk.[4]

The typical form of libation, spondȇ, is the ritualized pouring of wine from a jug or bowl held in the hand. The most common ritual was to pour the liquid from an oinochoē (wine jug) into a phiale, a shallow bowl designed for the purpose. After wine was poured from the phiale, the remainder of the oinochoē's contents was drunk by the celebrant.[5] A libation is poured any time wine is to be drunk, a practice that is recorded as early as the Homeric epics. The etiquette of the symposium required that when the first bowl (krater) of wine was served, a libation was made to Zeus and the Olympian gods. Heroes received a libation from the second krater served, and Zeús Téleios (Ζεύς Tέλειος, lit. "Zeus who Finishes") from the third, which was supposed to be the last. An alternative was to offer a libation from the first bowl to the Agathos Daimon and from the third bowl to Hermes. An individual at the symposium could also make an invocation of and libation to a god of his choice.

Libation generally accompanied prayer.[6] The Greeks stood when they prayed, either with their arms uplifted, or in the act of libation with the right arm extended to hold the phiale.[7]

In animal sacrifice, wine is poured onto the victim as part of their ritual sacrifice and preparation, and then onto the ash and flames..[8] This scene is commonly depicted in Greek art, which also often shows sacrificers or the gods themselves holding the phiale.[9]

Scene of sacrifice, with a libation poured from a jug (Pothos Painter, Attic red-figure krater, 430–420 BCE)

The Greek verb spéndō (σπένδω), "pour a libation", also "conclude a pact", derives from the Indo-European root *spend-, "make an offering, perform a rite, engage oneself by a ritual act". The noun is spondȇ (plural spondaí), "libation." In the middle voice, the verb means "enter into an agreement", in the sense that the gods are called to guarantee an action.[10] Blood sacrifice was performed to begin a war; spondaí marked the conclusion of hostilities, and is often thus used in the sense of "armistice, treaty." The formula "We the polis have made libation" was a declaration of peace or the "Truce of God", which was observed also when the various city-states came together for the Panhellenic Games, the Olympic Games, or the festivals of the Eleusinian Mysteries: this form of libation is "bloodless, gentle, irrevocable, and final".[9]

Libations poured onto the earth are meant for the dead and for the chthonic gods. In the Book of the Dead in the Odyssey, Odysseus digs an offering pit around which he pours in order honey, wine, and water. For the form of libation called choē (Ancient Greek: χεῦμα, cheuma, "that which is poured"; from IE *gheu-),[11] a larger vessel is tipped over and emptied onto the ground for the chthonic gods, who may also receive spondai.[12] Heroes, who were divinized mortals, might receive blood libations if they had participated in the bloodshed of war, as for instance Brasidas the Spartan.[13] In rituals of caring for the dead at their tombs, libations would include milk and honey.[14]

The Libation Bearers is the English title of the center tragedy from the Orestes Trilogy of Aeschylus, in reference to the offerings Electra brings to the tomb of her dead father Agamemnon.[9] Sophocles gives one of the most detailed descriptions of libation in Greek literature in Oedipus at Colonus, performed as atonement in the grove of the Eumenides:

First, water is fetched from a freshly flowing spring; cauldrons which stand in the sanctuary are garlanded with wool and filled with water and honey; turning towards the east, the sacrificer tips the vessels towards the west; the olive branches which he has been holding in his hand he now strews on the ground at the place where the earth has drunk in the libation; and with a silent prayer he departs, not looking back.[15]

Hero of Alexandria described a mechanism for automating the process by using altar fires to force oil from the cups of two statues.

References
  1. Louise Bruit Zaidman and Pauline Schmitt Pantel, Religion in the Ancient Greek City, translated by Paul Cartledge (Cambridge University Press, 1992, 2002, originally published 1989 in French), p. 28.
  2. Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (Harvard University Press, 1985, originally published 1977 in German), pp. 70, 73.
  3. Hesiod, Works and Days 724–726; Zaidman and Pantel, Religion in the Ancient Greek City, p. 39.
  4. Zaidman and Pantel, Religion in the Ancient Greek City, p. 40; Burkert, Greek Religion, pp. 72–73.
  5. Zaidman and Pantel, Religion in the Ancient Greek City, p. 40.
  6. Burkert, Greek Religion, pp. 70–71.
  7. William D. Furley, "Prayers and Hymns," in A Companion to Greek Religion (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), p. 127; Jan N. Bremmer, "Greek Normative Animal Sacrifice," p. 138 in the same volume.
  8. Zaidman and Pantel, Religion in the Ancient Greek City, p. 36; Burkert, Greek Religion, p. 71.
  9. Burkert, Greek Religion, p. 71.
  10. D.Q. Adams and J.P. Mallory, entry on "Libation," in Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture (Taylor & Francis, 1997), p. 351. From the same root derives the Latin verb spondeo, "promise, vow."
  11. Adams and Mallory, "Libation," p. 351.
  12. Burkert, Greek Religion, p. 70.
  13. Gunnel Ekroth, "Heroes and Hero-Cult," in A Companion to Greek Religion, p. 107.
  14. D. Felton, "The Dead," in A Companion to Greek Religion, p. 88.
  15. Summary by Burkert, Greek Religion, p. 72.
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