1The article examines two passages in Herodotus: a) his description of the ziggurat at Babylon (1.181.5–182.1–2 and 1.199), which has been often quoted as corroborating evidence for the practice of “sacred marriages” in the ancient Near East;¹ and b) his description of the custom of Babylonian temple prostitution at 1.199, which locus has generally been interpreted as a claim that all Babylonian women were required to prostitute themselves once in their life for religious purposes.² Although Herodotus’ purported ethnocentrism, as advanced by earlier Herodotean scholars, has been seriously challenged in more recent scholarship,³ the aforementioned loci are still used as evidence of Herodotus’ supposed inherent bias against what he allegedly imagined as the culturally inferior peoples of the East, or at the very least, his uncritical reliance on earlier Greek writers espousing such viewpoints.⁴ Thus, in line with recent more nuanced readings of the Histories, it is possible to argue that, with respect to the two loci of interest to us, Herodotus did not wish to criticize the Babylonians — or Near Eastern peoples in general for that matter — on an ethnic basis, but rather was trying to make a general comment about the extremes of human nature and religious superstition. Moreover, the alleged Greek bias against the Babylonians as one of the oriental peoples supposedly lacking the cultural sophistication of the Greeks seems to have been imposed on Herodotus’ text by later authors writing under the Roman Empire, such as Strabo and Curtius Rufus (discussed below, p. 18–20). Their views were further privileged and propagated by modern scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, who had in mind Aristotle’s explicit bias against oriental peoples,⁵ and who read Herodotus’ work through a distinctly colonial lens. It is important to note that our observations are limited to the topics of “sacred marriage” and “sacred prostitution” and therefore, we do not wish to deny Herodotus’ cultural bias in the Histories in general — in our view, each Herodotean narrative suspected of bias deserves to be examined in its own right.

2The “sacred marriage” ritual,⁶ staged by Near Eastern kings since the time of the Sumerians as a means of establishing their rule or re-affirming divine patronage, has been often perceived as a primitive way of worshipping the divine and, accordingly, as symptomatic of the lack of sophistication of the early societies that celebrated it.⁷ The surviving royal hymns and inscriptions reporting the ritual refer in very explicit language to the passionate sexual affair between the king and the goddess Inanna, which was modeled on the affair of the goddess with her divine consort Dumuzi.⁸ In the ritual re-enactment of this affair, the king played the role of Dumuzi, and the priestess that of the goddess — hence they were allegedly expected to have actual rather than merely symbolic sexual relations during the ceremony.⁹ In this vein, Smith defined “sacred marriages” as “sexual relations between humans as a ritual imitation of sexual relations on the divine plane, designed to promote fertility, or symbolic representation or evocation of these sexual relations.”¹⁰ Indeed, the ritual was part of the annual re-establishment of the cosmic order during the New Year Festival, for which the king was responsible. The “sacred marriage” demonstrated the king’s exclusive privilege to modulate the fertility of the goddess and therefore maintain the cosmic balance. Although, by the first millennium, the king and priestess were probably replaced by cultic statues,¹¹ the use of sexual ecstasy as a valid means of communicating with the god was never eradicated from ancient Near Eastern societies, which continued to celebrate “sacred marriages” in various forms, especially at times of crisis.

3Herodotus, who related the customs of the Babylonians in the first book of the Histories, published around 425 BCE, was aware of this and described two incidents referring to “sacred marriage.” However, unlike earlier attempts, such as those of Cooper and Lapinkivi, to explain the “sacred marriage” literally,¹² i.e., as a symptom of humanity’s attempts to communicate with the divine, we argue that the meaning of “sacred marriage” was likely metaphorical from the beginning, and that Herodotus was perfectly aware of it — as was Xenophon, who wrote one generation after Herodotus (see various passages in Oeconomicus discussed below, p. 15–17). After all, the Greeks did celebrate similar theogamia between Zeus and Hera, as well as between Dionysus and Ariadne, his Cretan bride, with these theogamia typically being enacted in some form by the priest and/or priestess of these deities.¹³ Since, in all probability, actual intercourse was not involved in any of the celebrations of “sacred marriage,” Herodotus did not mention it as a sign of Babylonian moral decline, as later writers such as Diodorus and Strabo understood it to be; rather, he regarded the described practices as an extreme example of religious naïveté, especially on the part of those believing that divine will can be readily harnessed to attend to human hopes and desires. Nevertheless, Herodotus’ alleged cultural bias against the Babylonians, promoted by later Roman historians who claim or imply that Herodotus was their source both for what they report, and their interpretation of the material, has had a longstanding influence on the way in which modern scholars have appreciated the ritual of “sacred marriage” and its potential connection to “sacred prostitution.”

4In fact, as we shall see, modern scholars commonly associated Herodotus’ description (1.199) of the “sacred marriage” ritual with his reference to “sacred or cultic prostitution” performed at the temple of the Assyrian goddess Mylitta. Although both descriptions fall under the customs of the Babylonians described in Book I, Herodotus himself does not encourage their fusion, which nevertheless lingers in modern scholarship. Saggs, for example, who wrote a popular treatment of Babylonian culture, argued that “the third millennium royal ritual concerning sacred marriage of a god and goddess had by the first millennium degenerated into the practice of lower grades of priestess offering themselves to strangers.”¹⁴ However, a close reading of the text in question will reveal that Herodotus was not shocked by the practice of prostitution per se, for the Babylonians were hardly different from the Greeks or other ancient Mediterranean or Near Eastern peoples in their approach to it. Rather, he was astounded by the presumption of respectable, freeborn wives that a goddess’ favor could be sought by participating in such activities. Of course, our argument does not refute the existence of “sacred prostitution” in antiquity overall, but we are keen to cast doubt on the use of Herodotus’ 1.199 as unequivocal evidence for this practice by pointing out how the Roman historians’ readings of the passage have influenced our interpretation of the Greek text.

5Herodotus’ much-quoted text on “sacred marriage” refers to a male god, here compared to Ammon Zeus, wishing to sleep with a mortal. Given that the Babylonian Marduk was identified with Zeus, it makes sense to understand the god in the text as the Babylonian Bel Marduk (Lord Marduk).¹⁵ It is worth citing the passage verbatim:¹⁶

6Herodotus concedes that the god “chooses” the woman (ἕληται) and that he “rests” upon the bed (ἀμπαύεσθαι ἐπὶ τῆς κλίνης), thereby implying that the god sleeps with the priestess. But the text lacks the explicit vocabulary that would allow us to assume with confidence that a sexual relationship was meant to take place here, unlike the few occasions where the verb is used with clear sexual connotations.¹⁹ In fact, what the priests most probably say here, using the figurative language that servants of gods typically employed,²⁰ is that the god visits the woman and inspires her while asleep with one of his oracles. The phenomenon was apparently known, as Herodotus stresses, in Egyptian Thebes and Lycia. It could, therefore, be argued that the practice refers to cases of incubation in search of the divine will, a practice popular throughout the ancient Near East.²¹ In fact, it was generally believed that divine dreams could be precipitated by sleeping at the temple of the god,²² a notion familiar to the Greeks of the Hellenistic period, who similarly believed in therapeutic incubation. This was especially so in connection with the cult of Asclepius, as attested by Pausanias and Strabo.²³ Diodorus also mentions this form of incubation in connection with the Egyptian Isis.²⁴

7In the tradition of the ancient Near East, such dreams often had a connection to legitimizing the king’s rule, and were attested from the earliest times.²⁵ For example, Gudea of Lagash (ca. 2144–2124 BCE) explained on his famous cylinder how he sought a dream from the god Ningiršu, which he then related to his mother, a dream interpreter, for further analysis.²⁶ Often, the dreams resulted in requests from the gods for bigger, better temples that the king ought to build for them. From the time of Gudea to the time of Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244–1208 BCE), building temples was a sign of divine favor and a way of securing the king’s immortality.²⁷ In one case, the goddess Ištar sent a message, in the form of a dream, to the Assyrian king Aššurbanipal (685–627 BCE) through a professional dream interpreter, who was then to pass it on to the king. The dream occurs during the war against Elam, and was presumably received in the temple of the goddess. While Aššurbanipal prays, obviously awake, and indeed receives comforting words from the goddess herself, the goddess also sends a dream to a šabrû (a male dream interpreter), with specific instructions concerning what Aššurbanipal should do. Since message dreams can be used to justify political actions, Butler interprets them as “propaganda.”²⁸ For example, the dream of Gudea explains the motivation behind building a temple (Gudea Cylinder A). Having received an unsolicited dream from the god Ningiršu, Gudea, seeking further help, offers bread and water to the goddess Gatumdug. He then sets up a bed next to her statue and sleeps there, but not before praying to Gatumdug for a sign and calling on the goddess Nanše, the interpreter of dreams, to interpret it for him. All the dreams relate to the building of the temple. The Hittites had a similar practice, with the receiver of the dream being either the king himself, or a prophet or priestess.²⁹ One might well recall the case of Nabonidus (556–539 BCE), mentioned briefly in the Histories as Labynetus,³⁰ who interpreted a lunar eclipse on the thirteenth of the month Elul as a celestial sign that the Moon-god “desired” a priestess, understood to be the god’s “mistress” (īrišu enta).³¹

8The question to be asked, here, is whether the ancient Greeks, including Herodotus, understood these reports to imply actual sexual activity between the god and the priestess. Herodotus’ description seems to be quite close to the figurative speech found in cuneiform sources, such as the clay cylinder of Nabonidus, reportedly from Ur.³² In addition, Herodotus does not seem to comment specifically on the nature of the relationship between the god and his chosen priestess, probably because he appreciated the allegorical language of the priests.³³ What he doubts, though, is that any actual epiphany took place in this instance, or even whether divine epiphanies could be achieved at all by this means.³⁴ Hence, Herodotus’ objection does not relate to the “sacred marriage” ceremony. Instead, it relates to the rite’s effectiveness as a means of communicating with the divine. Such a reading is compatible with recent evaluations of Herodotus and his employment of religion as a way of explaining the downfall of powerful rulers — it is not the god who is at fault, of course, but the mortal worshippers who fail to interpret the signs correctly.³⁵

9Of particular interest to us is that a number of texts accuse Nabonidus of cultic innovations that had not been demanded by the gods at all.³⁶ Indeed, Nabonidus’ religious piety had already been systematically exaggerated in the autobiography of his mother, Adad-guppi, as a way of legitimizing her son’s claim to power. The god’s “desire” for a priestess, who was in fact Nabonidus’ daughter, should be understood in the same light, as is argued by Melville.³⁷ Obviously, then, in the first millennium BCE, the need for “sacred marriages” as a means of communicating with the divine did not wane. Much later, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Seleucid king of Syria, is said to have enthusiastically celebrated a number of “sacred marriages” across his kingdom.³⁸ Thus, Antiochus was able to pose as restorer of ancient pre-Hellenistic practices and defend his legitimacy as ruler of all the areas under his sway. When one takes into account the considerable challenges that Antiochus faced in establishing his rule,³⁹ it is little wonder that he resorted to reviving Near Eastern rites to emphasize his legitimacy. As Pongratz-Leisten argues, “marriage between mortal king and goddess finds direct Babylonian precedents and appears to cement the Seleukid king firmly within a Semitic religious context.”⁴⁰

10The ideology of the “sacred marriage,” as it survived in the first millennium BCE, can also explain the preoccupation of kings with building projects, and particularly the notion of constructing magnificent royal gardens. The “sacred marriage” typically takes place in the “holy garden” of the goddess, which the king is required to tend as its “gardener.”⁴¹ Thus, in Sumerian “sacred marriage” hymns, the goddess sings of her vulva, her “uncultivated land” and asks “who will plough it?” Dumuzi, as expected, offers himself up for the task.⁴² Furthermore, the importance of gardens in Near Eastern palace architecture is also reflected in the tale of Inanna and the Huluppu Tree where the legendary hero-king Gilgamesh poses as the gardener of the goddess;⁴³ in his steps, numerous historical ancient Near Eastern kings propagated myths about their humble origins as gardeners.⁴⁴ In reflection of the cosmic order, the king’s palace is the heart of the world and the focal point of communication between gods and humans.⁴⁵ Hence, palaces tend to boast elaborate gardens, which symbolize unbreakable divine favor and evoke the “sacred marriage” between the king and goddess.⁴⁶

11Herodotus describes such a beautiful palace at Celaenae in Phrygia,⁴⁷ which Xenophon had also visited.⁴⁸ The Persians were especially adept at creating such gardens which were known as Paradises (παράδεισοι) and were invested with considerable political significance.⁴⁹ Xenophon describes how Astyages the Mede offered his grandson Cyrus the privilege of hunting in his paradise as a gesture of recognizing his legitimacy — the boy was destined to be a king.⁵⁰ Xenophon is also appreciative of the relationship between kingship and agriculture, as exemplified in the tale of Cyrus the Younger and his paradise at Sardis, related in the Oeconomicus.⁵¹ There, we read that, when Lysander was shown around this magnificent royal garden, he was surprised to realize that the king himself toiled regularly in the garden and was responsible for the impeccable alignment of its rows. According to Critobulus, another of Socrates’ interlocutors in the treatise, the king “pays as much attention to husbandry as to warfare,”⁵² a statement to which Socrates responds as follows:⁵³

12Cyrus⁵⁴ swears by the Sun-god, who often poses as the patron of ancient Near Eastern kings,⁵⁵ that he engages daily in some task of war or agriculture. In response, Lysander concedes that Cyrus deserves his happiness on account of his virtues.⁵⁶ At Oeconomicus 5.2, Socrates explains that the earth, typically identified with the fertility goddess, as we saw in the “sacred marriage” context, yields to the cultivators “luxuries to enjoy” (καὶ ἀφ᾽ ὧν τοίνυν ἡδυπαθοῦσι, προσεπιφέρει). Yet, at the same time, the earth “stimulates armed protection of the country on the part of the husbandmen, by nourishing her crops in the open for the strongest to take.”⁵⁷ Moreover, she “willingly teaches righteousness to those who can learn; for the better she is served, the more good things she gives in return.”⁵⁸

13Xenophon’s observations, put in the mouth of Socrates, accurately explain the ideology of the “sacred marriage” often allegorized in ancient Near Eastern myths about good and bad farmers and/or gardeners who please or displease the goddess with their labor. In these tales, the king poses as the farmer/gardener and lover of the goddess in the footsteps of her consort Dumuzi.⁵⁹ If the king is successful in continuously pleasing the goddess, he will maintain his position. If not, there will be a breakdown in their relationship. Indeed, she is often discussed in connection with a usurper, who is likely to take over as the next king and, of course, will become her next ‘lover’. The concept is made clear in several mythic tales, including the myth of the gardener Shukaletuda.⁶⁰ Shukaletuda, we are told, enjoys the trust of the goddess for a brief period and is appointed as her gardener, but he uproots the plants of her sacred garden and rapes the goddess while she is asleep in her garden. As soon as Inanna wakes up and realizes what has happened to her, she vows that the Sumerian people, among whom Shukaletuda hides himself to avoid divine retribution, will “drink blood.” In other words, her punishment of the people will come in the form of an enemy army that, under her auspices, devastates every city it attacks.⁶¹ In similar spirit, at Oeconomicus 5.19–20, Socrates admits to Critobulus that the gods control the operations of agriculture no less than those of war.

14As mentioned previously, the “sacred marriage” custom is generally studied in tandem with that of “cultic” or “sacred prostitution,” at which point Herodotus’ description of the “shameful” Babylonian custom (1.199) is often discussed. According to this locus, at least if we follow the scholarly consensus on the translation of the passage, every woman ought to have sex with a stranger once in her life in honor of Mylitta, the Assyrian equivalent of Aphrodite. More recently, however, our understanding of the phenomenon of “cultic/sacred prostitution” has been revisited, with some scholars, including Assante, maintaining that there is no hard evidence for “sacred prostitution” in Mesopotamia.⁶² In the following pages, we discuss Herodotus’ attitude to the phenomenon of prostitution to demonstrate that he did not find it shameful per se. Rather, this interpretation of Herodotus’ 1.199 lies mainly in the later rehashing of his description in Roman times. Finally, we suggest that a different appreciation of the word order of the relevant passage could allow much more choice to the Babylonian women compared to our current understanding of it, which privileges what is generally accepted as the obligatory nature of the custom. In line with this new point of view, Herodotus only wished to castigate human superstition and the desperate, naïve and misguided attempts of humans to appeal to the gods to gratify their desires. He did not wish to single out the moral standards of the Babylonians, but used the example of the Babylonians as symptomatic of human credulity more generally, something of which the Greeks could also be guilty. Let us start with the passage in Herodotus that is regularly invoked:

15That Herodotus is not shocked by the practice of prostitution altogether is clear from the fact that, a few lines above, at 1.196, he discussed it as an excellent device, which shrewd Babylonians had used in the past for marrying off their daughters. After the conquest of their land and the general poverty suffered in its aftermath, the Babylonians supposedly often prostituted their girls, especially those of the lower classes, in the hope of some relief from poverty.⁶⁴ Although the practice had fallen into disuse by Herodotus’ day, we are told, he passes no judgment, but solely records the information he had been given. So, what is the factor that makes the custom described at 1.199 so shameful? Previous explanations of the institution include cases of female infertility that (even if temporary) always posed a threat to the social status of women, or the obscure case of the kezertu women, who could be of high status, in accordance with Herodotus’ report, but prostituted themselves to fulfill debt-related obligations.⁶⁵ MacLachlan suggests that Herodotus documented “this most shameful practice” to demonstrate the moral superiority of the Greeks, who did not participate in such rituals.⁶⁶ Strabo, writing in the first century BCE, seems to have read this passage in exactly this spirit. He wrote at 16.1.20:⁶⁷

16In relating the custom of “sacred prostitution” among the Armenians, Strabo made another reference to Herodotus, this time by name. His text at 11.14.16 reads:⁶⁸

17Pompeius Trogus, a contemporary of Strabo, seems to have misread Herodotus in exactly the same way, pointing to a kind of “orientalism,” to use Said’s term,⁶⁹ which held an appeal for the Roman upper classes in the first century BCE. In his version of the Babylonian customs, Herodotus (1.199, final line) adds that, in Cyprus, Aphrodite was worshipped in similar terms.⁷⁰ Pompeius Trogus (Epit. 18.5) seems to enhance Herodotus’ reference to this custom by claiming that

18In the first century CE, Curtius Rufus (5.1.36–38) discussed the unparalleled moral corruption (nihil urbis eius corruptius moribus) of the Babylonians, with specific references to their habit of prostituting their girls and women: liberos coniugesque cum hospitibus stupro coire, modo pretium flagitii detur, parentes maritique patiuntur. It is worth noting that Curtius omits the religious framework in which Herodotus made his comments and simply focuses on the corruptible nature of the people, now additionally presented as drunkards who have surrendered to their innate lasciviousness: Babylonii maxime in vinum et, quae ebrietatem sequuntur, effusi sunt. He states that this customary display of immorality, which included the appearance of naked married women (matronae) and even girls (virgines) at dinner parties, posed a major threat to the character of Alexander the Great and his men. Indeed, we are told that Alexander spent more time there than in any other of his conquests, and that military discipline was seriously undermined as a result of this extended stay.⁷²

19Furthermore, as Budin has pointed out, the only two inscriptions that provide evidence of “sacred prostitution” come, not from Mesopotamia, but from Roman Tralleis in Caria, where women describing themselves as pallakides make dedications to Zeus.⁷³ Notably one of these women, L. Aurelia Aemilia, says that she became a pallakē because of an oracle. The term pallakē is understood as somewhere between a wife and a concubine,⁷⁴ and is probably used here as a term evoking a “sacred marriage” context so as to refer to the devotion of these women to their cultic duties. Still, Ramsay understood the term pallakē to mean a “sacred prostitute.”⁷⁵ Ramsay was influenced in his interpretation by Strabo 12.3.36 and 17.1.46, which loci discuss “sacred prostitution” in the Black Sea and Egypt respectively. Furthermore, Robert accepted Ramsay’s interpretation and referred to the dedication as “émanant d’une prostituée sacrée.”⁷⁶

20The important phrase that led scholars to think that Strabo’s 17.1.46 refers to “sacred prostitution” is αὕτη δὲ καὶ παλλακεύει καὶ σύνεστιν οἷς βούλεται, which is typically translated as “she prostitutes herself with whom she pleases.”⁷⁷ However, the expression συνεῖναι πράγμασι (+ dative) can also mean “to be engaged with.”⁷⁸ Accordingly, by offering a totally non-sexualized translation of the text, Budin suggests that the term pallades, taken to correspond to the pallakides of the Roman inscriptions, probably refers to young girls serving as handmaidens of the goddess until menstruation made them ready for marriage.⁷⁹ Hence, these servants of the goddess, dedicated by their fathers and often of high social status, did not “have sex with whomever they wished,” as Strabo’s text is often translated and understood, but rather “engaged in whatever service to the goddess they chose.” As will be argued here, 1.199 of Herodotus’ Histories may represent another example of this tendency to adopt translations that entail pejorative insinuations about the morality of Near Eastern cultures in antiquity.

21The other relevant text of Strabo (12.3.36) refers to the city of Comana in the Black Sea, which he compares to Corinth.⁸⁰ His lines were understood to provide clear evidence for expensive temple prostitutes at Corinth, whose fees McLachlan estimates to have cost up to 1,000 drachmas.⁸¹ Likewise, Ferguson insists that “not only was prostitution a recognized institution, but through the influence of the fertility cults of Asia Minor, Syria, and Phoenicia it became a part of the religious rites at certain temples.”⁸² He adds, by way of example, that “there were one thousand ‘sacred prostitutes’ at the temple of Aphrodite at Corinth.” However, Strabo is probably reporting a custom of the past with some exaggeration — he says that the temple had “more than a thousand temple-slaves,” even though the location, as Beard and Henderson point out, would not have been large enough to accommodate so many slaves.⁸³ Here, the phrases that convinced scholars that Corinthian women were engaged in “sacred prostitution” was Strabo’s description of them as ἐργαζομένων ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος (“working with their bodies” but often translated as “make a gain from their persons”⁸⁴) and the use of the word hetairai for the multitude of women who were dedicated to Aphrodite (τὸ πλῆθος τῶν ἑταιρῶν, αἳ τῆς Ἀφροδίτης ἦσαν ἱεραί). Budin says surprisingly little about this passage given her conviction that ancient “sacred prostitution” was a myth. A closer reading, however, indicates that the women’s labor is mentioned in association with the cultivation of the vines, which could well be referring to them working in the fields as part of their cultic engagements. Ancient temples often controlled lands used for the sustenance of their cultic personnel and even for gain, similar to the way modern monasteries operate. As for their address as hetairai, a word with undeniable sexual connotations in ancient Greek texts,⁸⁵ it could be argued that Strabo uses the term similarly to the word pallake in the previous text. It seems apparent that sexually charged terms were used to evoke the devotion of these servants to their divine patrons — Zeus in the previous text, Aphrodite here. Inanna was also known as the hierodule (nu-gig-an-na) of An, a cultic title which Beaulieu interpreted as indicating that “Inanna is also the mistress of An, in addition to being his wife and daughter.”⁸⁶ Yet, given the metaphorical tone employed in ancient Near Eastern literary texts and inscriptions, to be the “companion” or the “attendant” of a god does not imply prostitution.

22Another source allegedly depicting “sacred prostitution” at Corinth is Pindar (fr. 122 = Athen. 13.573e–f),⁸⁷ a poem commissioned to acknowledge Xenophon’s fulfillment of his vow to dedicate 100 “prostitutes” to Aphrodite’s temple in Corinth if he won at the Olympic Games. But, as Budin suggests, Pindar refers to his poem as a skolion, a drinking song and, hence, unsuitable for a religious dedication.⁸⁸ Budin understands Pindar’s reference to the grove of Aphrodite to mean the andron, the men’s space, where they probably held a party after his victory involving prostitutes. She further points out that it was Athenaeus who, in citing Pindar’s poem, added that it related to an old Corinthian custom allegedly presided over by Aphrodite Urania, thus leading modern scholars in reading the poem as a reference to “sacred prostitution.”⁸⁹ However, Budin’s interpretation of Pindar’s skolion, which supposedly refers to a celebratory orgy after an Olympic victory, seems to be equally farfetched. It is more likely, in our view, that Xenophon vouched that he would dedicate a number of cultic servants to the goddess if she favored him and granted him victory. This explanation is perfectly compatible with the Athenian Xenophon’s discussion of the goddess and her royal worshippers discussed at the beginning of the article. Moreover, sports and war are often conflated in ancient Greek thought since both involved the pursuit of manly excellence (ἀρετή). Our interpretation does not discount the fact that prostitution was a widespread phenomenon of the ancient world, often practiced around temples that attracted numerous visitors, especially during festive days; yet, by drawing attention to the use of explicit sexual language to describe religious devotion in antiquity, from the most sensual near eastern examples, discussed above, to the survival of the trend in Greek cultic titles, we seek to challenge the prevailing historical appreciation of the institution of “sacred prostitution,” which is based, by and large, on a rather inflexible reading of a handful of ancient texts (all analyzed in the current article).

23So far, our analysis indicates that Herodotus, despite being arguably misread, by ancient writers and modern scholars alike, did not necessarily refer to organized “sacred prostitution,” but to a custom that he found shameful because it involved women who were not permanent members of the cultic personnel of Ishtar’s temple at Babylon. The fact that the women wore wreaths made of rope signifies their special status as being under the influence of the goddess, probably for the duration of their pilgrimage, regardless of whether we see this rope as a symbol of the feminine girdle (also worn by the goddess).⁹⁰ In the Agushaya hymn exalting Ishtar, the goddess holds in her hand the nose-rope of heaven and earth (ṣer-ret AN-e u KI-tim = ṣer-ret same ^e u erṣeti ^ti ),⁹¹ while she is also depicted in art as using a rope to lead her lion.⁹² Likewise the holy jump-rope of Inanna/Ishtar is part of a dance enacted in her festivals.⁹³ Hence, in all probability, the women dedicating themselves to the goddess, even for a short period of their lives, believed that they shared her qualities, or at least hoped to be benefited by her influence to the point of being willing to sleep with a stranger. In our view, it is the religious credulity of the Babylonians that Herodotus primarily castigates, rather than what was perceived by later Greco-Roman authors as a barbaric custom.

24Herodotus’ relationship with his sources has been long discussed in the bibliography, with Fehling arguing that the citation of his sources should be treated as a literary device (though he does not argue that Herodotus invented all of the stories he reported),⁹⁴ and Pritchett accusing him of totally fabricating the details of his stories.⁹⁵ Although the modern historians’ debate on Herodotus’ veracity and the reliability of his sources has tirelessly focused on his physical description of the city of Babylon, not the customs he reported, Rollinger has defended Herodotus’ familiarity with Near Eastern traditions and his accurate transmission of them to his Greek-speaking audiences.⁹⁶ Thus, if we entertain the idea that Herodotus reported fairly accurately the tradition of temple prostitution at Babylon, his hyperbolic reference to the need of “every local woman” to prostitute herself is likely designed to emphasize the credulity of the people who observed this custom — though not on the basis of their ethnic origin.⁹⁷

25Furthermore, there may be something to be said about our usual translation of the relevant Herodotean text. Although Strabo clearly refers to all women performing this rite, Herodotus’ text may not necessarily support this view. The phrase δεῖ πᾶσαν γυναῖκα ἐπιχωρίην ἱζομένην ἐς ἱρὸν Ἀφροδίτης ἅπαξ ἐν τῇ ζόῃ μιχθῆναι ἀνδρὶ ξείνῳ has been often translated as “every local woman must sit in the temple of Aphrodite and have intercourse with some stranger once in her life,” which means that translators have understood the participle ἱζομένην as circumstantial and in connection with the impersonal verb δεῖ.⁹⁸ Of course, in ancient Greek, when an obligation or command concerns two actions, one of the actions tends to be subordinated and presented as a circumstantial participle.⁹⁹ On occasion, the participle has been understood as temporal but, again, translators assumed that the ritual applies to all women.¹⁰⁰ Herodotus employs the combination of the impersonal δεῖ + infinitive + participle nineteen times in the Histories;¹⁰¹ sixteen of these participles are circumstantial, but only four can be understood as expressing one of two actions that must be carried out (the other action being expressed by an infinitive).¹⁰² On four occasions, Herodotus employs circumstantial participles to denote manner/means;¹⁰³ on two, to denote time,¹⁰⁴ on three, cause;¹⁰⁵ one is merely descriptive,¹⁰⁶ and one expresses condition.¹⁰⁷ Herodotus also uses this structure with three attributive participles, accompanied, as is the case often, by the article.¹⁰⁸ The participle in the sentence of interest to us (ἱζομένην) does not have an article, but attributive participles are not always accompanied by the article, especially when used in indefinite sense.¹⁰⁹ Herodotus does use attributive participles without the article elsewhere in his work.¹¹⁰ If, however, we appreciate the participle as attributive, translating as “every local woman sitting” or even “seated,” given that the verb is middle-passive,¹¹¹ this translation implies that not every Babylonian woman ought to sleep with a stranger, but only those who chose to sit at the temple for the purposes of securing divine favor¹¹² — something which, if we read Herodotus with nuance, can only be done once in a lifetime. From this point of view, it would make more sense for Herodotus to castigate as shameful a custom that permits some otherwise ordinary women to think that they can claim divine favor by sleeping with a stranger.