To Sit in Solemn Silence? Thronosis in Ritual, Myth, and Iconography

Abstract

To explain Strepsiades' initiation in Aristophanes' Clouds, recent scholars have referred to a thronosis ritual at the Eleusinian mysteries to describe the process wherein the initiate sits on a stool with head covered. The term thronosis, however, properly belongs to Korybantic initiation ritual, not to the Eleusinian Mysteries. Not only are the terms employed to describe the rituals different, but the iconographic representations of the ritual and the mythic paradigms are different as well. The purificatory silent sitting of the Eleusinian initiate should not be confused with the bewildering and terrifying treatment of the enthroned initiate in a Korybantic initiation.