Honouring the Goddess: Philicus' Hymn to Demeter

Abstract

Students of early Greek i'oc[jisoc have generally seen the encounter between Demeter and lambe narrated in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter as significant for the cultic background of the genre (1). Most later references to lambe are to the familiar figure of Eleusinian myth. One exception, however, is found in the tattered remains of what seems almost certainly to be a hymn to Demeter by Philicus. Although much obscured by interpretative difficulties, Philicus' treatment of the meeting of Demeter and lambe seems to constitute an important and illuminating contrast to the familiar version. Owing to the nature of the evidence, we must preface our discussion of this scene with a full discussion of the extant remains of Philicus' poem. In this way we might form some impression of the character of the Hymn, and have some sense of the context in which the goddess meets lambe.

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