The Wilderness Experience. Liminality and Cosmogony in Ancient Greece Kingship Narratives

In Greek imagery, both the mountain and the cave embody “what comes first” (as regards civilization) and “what is placed outside” (from civilized urban spaces). For their marginality and wildness, these natural spaces are particularly useful as symbolic agents in discursively forged mythical contests dealing with birth events, stages of transition and changes in status. In this perspective, the myths of childhood as well as of sovereignty of Zeus reflect and refract the cultural reality of a society which was used to build its own identity “on the borders” by means of initiation practices mirroring, on the ritual performance level, the idea that, in terms of adulthood, to become a man it is necessary to experience the “otherness” of wildness. Furthermore, reaching adulthood, together with the acquisition of manhood, provides for – and involves on the mental plane – a better awareness of oneself, the enhancement of the skills that define one’s human state. The path is therefore simultaneously external and internal: in this latter case, self-awareness is obtained by dealing with the darkness. By these premises, we aim to discuss the “constitutive rhetoric” of environmental markers of high and deep places such as mountains and caves, in order to point out their cultural value in Greek religious mindset and experience.