Religious Mobility in the Cults of Southwestern Arkadia. Mount Lycaeum and Megalopolis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20318/arys.2025.9247Keywords:
Zeus Lykaios, Lykaia, Magalopolis, Cult Doublets, Trapezous, Great GoddessesAbstract
Several sanctuaries, whether of ancestral origin, newly founded or occasionally reinterpreted and revitalized, have played an important role in the life of the Arkadian communities, in political and social projects and in the evolutionary process of the cults themselves. Ancient cults have often been enriched through innovations that altered the original substrate, overcoming possible obstacles of religious resistance. Thus, the mobility, adaptability and capacity for renewal of the Arkadian cultic system is revealed in the context of the religious and socio-political imperatives of each historical moment. Indeed, to the reasons that made some sanctuaries focuses of popular and institutional attention, since archaic times, non-strictly religious motivations can be added, such as those of ethnic-identitary nature and those derived from political intentionality. The responses given to these challenges within the sacred precincts exalted and strengthened their role as reference spots. Important political projects, such as the founding of the Arkadian League or the synoecism and founding of Megalopolis, in the 4th century BCE, they made use of the religious substratum of the territory, revitalizing the ancient cult of Zeus Lykaios on the homonymous mountain or transplanting into the interior of the newly founded city, although expanding and updating them, the main cults of the pre-synecistic centers. Ancient religious traditions helped legitimize and consolidate this type of political projects. On the other hand, other initiatives, such as the Eleusinization of the cult of the Great Goddesses of Megalopolis, carried out in the Hellenistic era, sought to transmit a message of a social nature, in accordance with the point of view of the land-owning elites, replacing a popular, traditional agrarian cult for an elaborate Eleusinian version.
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