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Mastrocinque ( A. ) , Giuffré Scibona ( C. ) (edd.) Demeter, Isis, Vestra, and Cybele. Studies in Greek and Roman Religion in Honour of Giulia Sfameni Gasparro . (Potsdamer Altertumswissenschaftliche Beiträge 36.) Pp. 248, ills. Stuttgart : Franz Steiner , 2012. Paper, [euro]54. ISBN: 978-3-515-10075-5 .
Reviews
This volume of fourteen essays is a Festschrift for Giulia Sfameni Gasparro, the prolific historian of religion. Reflecting the research focus of the honoree, the volume is devoted to four female divinities, Demeter, Isis, Vesta and Cybele. Divided into four sections, one for each goddess, the volume explores the goddesses' diverse facets along with their intercultural features. While the essays employ a variety of methodologies and approaches (e.g. archaeological, literary and linguistic) and cover a wide range of time periods and locations, from the Archaic age to Christianity and from Greece to the western part of the Roman Empire, coherence is successfully achieved through pervasive emphasis on phenomena of intercultural religious appropriation, syncretism and innovation. That coherence would have been enhanced if there was a dialogue among the papers devoted to each goddess, as for example in the case of the discussion of the Thesmophoria, which is described in detail in three essays and employed for different purposes.
The first essay by A. Bernabé, 'A Brave Netherworld: the Orphic Hades as Utopia', argues convincingly that the underworld for the initiates of Orphism is not only 'a model of a perfect world', a utopia, but also 'an alternative reality', a real life, which serves as 'an antithesis of the imperfect life' (p. 11). Drawing from various sources Bernabé illustrates the benefits of thiasos in the underworld, where in the absence of personal and social shortcomings the initiates assume a godly state.
J.N. Bremmer, 'Demeter in Megara', provides a fresh overview of Demeter's cult in Megara, its approximation to and differentiation from the Thesmophoria. He aptly shows the goddess' important role in the city, along with Megara's competition with Athens as it appropriates the traditional myths in Eleusis.
In 'Koré-Perséphone entre Déméter et Hadès' L. Bruit Zaidman discusses the role of Kore/Persephone...