Pragmatic cognitive science, rooted in Dewey's epistemology and models of distributed cognition, offers new hypotheses for the emergence and decline of the Mithraic rites. These models foreground the responsiveness of the rites to their economic and social environment, generating new form-meaning pairs through multimodal engagements inside the Mithraic caves. These moments of cognitive blending answered the needs of the early social catchment of the rites, which was predominantly freedmen and soldiers benefitting from the upward mobility of the thriving second century CE. Within the caves, multimodal engagements with the triumph of light over dark physical movement, imagery, gesture, role playing, and interaction with cult equipment - aligned the experience of the initiate with Mithras' cosmological triumph. The caves are also a confluence of mechanisms for social mobility that were broadly familiar in the imperial period, including patronage, symposia, engagement with exotic cultural forms and philosophical speculation. The decline of the rites was coincident with the dissolution of the economic opportunities that enabled the rise of the Roman middle class and of the social currency of these practices. The language of euergetism yielded to the language of service to the poor, and the cosmological imagery that characterized the caves shifted into the restricted spheres of exchange among competing princes. This model of the rites suggests dynamics with Christianity focused less on theology than on responsiveness to the economic and social transformations.
Samothrace abounds in traditions of heroes who come to the island for initiation into the mysteries of the great gods. Far more numerous than in other cults, these legendary figures crowd into the island’s imagination of itself as the recipients of its greatest ritual treasure – divine protection for travel at sea. Their number seems, at the simplest level, a reflection of the cult’s most singular promise for its initiates, and one naturally suited to the needs of a hero. That promise emerges naturally as well from the island’s location and geology – set in characteristically rough seas, and possessing but one poor harbor, Samothrace nevertheless offered the highest beacon of the northern Aegean – Mt. Phengari, at 5,459 feet, visible from 100 miles away. This would be significant aid for navigators, who relied on easily visible landmarks. 2 The promise, and the heroes, may thus be easily accounted for as a response to the cult’s location and the tendencies of Greek heroic legend.
Classical studies of the Idaian Daktyloi rely on evolutionary and survivalist models which assume prehistoric smiths as the locus of their meaning. More recent anthropologies of technology evaluate technological symbols for their integration of technology into the intellectual, ritual, historical and economic structures of the subject culture. A fragmenta incerta of Pherekydes affords a testing-ground for this approach to the Daktyloi. The investigation reveals adaptability and integration into Pythagorean tradition, magical practice, and Cretan history. This offers more cogent reasons for the daimones’ longevity than previous models, and corrects the assumption that a fragmentary record reflects cultural insignificance.
What are the heuristic potentials for Rappaport’s cognized and operational models when applied to craft at the intersection of cultures – specifically iron metallurgy between Greeks and Thracians on the northeastern Aegean shores? And what are their implications for rethinking the ‘economic’ aspects of metal production? The southern Thracian shore was exceptionally rich in ores and local skills. Distinctions among local ores demanded different operational approaches to production. Kostoglou has used the material evidence to demonstrate that these operational models also constructed local community identities, among which production remained at the household and workshop level, even through the Roman period. Rappaport’s models help us recover some of the complexities in indigenous frameworks for the industry whose cultural function went far beyond production and trade. The Greek economic partners of these Thracians made both cosmological and ritual use of the daimones they constructed as the nonGreek, pre-Greek inventors of metallurgical craft in this region. The integration of these uses into our understanding of the evidence for emic, Thracian uses of metal production as a second level signifier helps move us toward a more complex model of that craft’s social function as simultaneously a locus of indigenous identity, and a means of enabling interaction with their non-Thracian economic partners in the region.
Day 3: Night falls around your ship, a dark sky illuminated by multiple constellations above the outline of the Aegean coast. Passing the headland of Tisaia, you watch for the crags of Pelion to guide your way: you are heading northwest to the Tomb of Dolops. Suddenly one crewmember falls ill, then another – the ship’s water has gone foul, and you lose five men before you can get to port. Are your funds sufficient to hire their replacements?
Day 7: Your crew suddenly feels uneasy, so you drop anchor, though there are no pirates or storms in sight. After prayers to Poseidon for your good fortune, a group of dolphins jump about the ship, playing for a moment before disappearing. Your crew takes it as a good sign and their spirits are lifted. As they begin to raise anchor, you notice the ship feels a bit faster than before. The waters seem to push you forward: this is both fortunate and suspicious!
Maritime safety in the ancient Greek world was created through symbols and social practice as well as the science of seafaring. The human connections forged through ritual, myth and image enabled communication and granted authority to the civic institutions that offered legal and economic benefits. A gaming application offers a route to modelling the triangulation of seascapes, civic institutions, and narratives through which people and goods moved around the ancient Mediterranean. The game was inspired by the promise of maritime safety given to initiates into the mystery cult of the Great Gods of Samothrace, where grants of proxenia and theoria represent the civic counterparts of mystic promises and tales of supernatural intervention. The flexibility that characterizes ancient proxenia recommends the framework of a game; the bridge between imagination and strategic outcomes that characterizes serious games maps onto the ancient realities of the maritime success enabled through ritual force and civic institutions.