Riddles and ritual symposium in female cults

Abstract

The act of posing riddles, within the Greek cultural tradition, is usually associated with the context of the symposium, which is a typical male institution. On the other hand, some ancient authors (Plutarch, in his Quaestiones Conviviales, and Athaeneus, in his Deipnosophistai) provide evidence of riddling practice in female ritual sympotic contexts: this study offers a collection of the ancient sources and some observations about the forms and functions of riddles within the context of the cults in which they are framed (the Adonia of Samos and the Agrionia of Chaeronea), to arrive at some general considerations.