Brauron - Mythology and History

Mythology and History

As the Greek fleet was preparing to sail to Troy to force the return of Helen, they gathered in Aulis near the Euripus Strait. While there, king Agamemnon killed a stag sacred to the goddess Artemis. The enraged deity caused a contrary wind and eventually forced the king to agree to sacrifice his daughter Iphigeneia in order to ensure a favorable wind for the Greek fleet. In one version of the myth, a surrogate sacrifice was provided through the divine intervention of Artemis, and the saved girl then became a priestess of the goddess among the Tauri, a people living near the Black Sea in the Crimean peninsula. Subsequent to these events, Iphigenia returns from among the Tauri with the assistance of her brother Orestes. In Euripides' version of the myth, the goddess Athens reveals that Iphigenia will make landfall in Brauron and there be the priestess of Artemis, die, and be buried:

ATHENA:
And Orestes, learn well my commands – for you hear
the voice of the goddess although she is not present –
set forth taking the (sacred) image and your sister,
and when you reach god-built Athens,
there is a place on the outermost borders
of Attica, a neighbor of the Karustia ridge,
sacred, and my people name it Halai.
Build a temple there and set up the wooden image
– named for the Tauric land and for your struggles,
which you endured wandering through Greece
due to the goads of the Furies. And in the future mortals
shall sing hymns to the goddess Artemis Tauropolos.
And set up this law: whenever the people keep the festival
as a payment of your sacrifice, hold a sword
at a mans throat and draw blood,
so that by this the goddess may have her holy honors. And you, Iphigenia, beside the holy stairs
of Brauron you must hold the keys for the goddess herself:
where you will die and be buried, and – as a delight for you –
they will dedicate the finely woven material of woven cloth
which by chance women having lost their lives in childbirth
abandon in their homes. I command you to send forth
these Greek women from the ground
due to their correct intentions.
Euripides, Iphigeneia in Tauris 1446–1468.

The poet asserts a close connection between the nearby sanctuary of Artemis Tauropolos at Halai (modern day Loutsa) and the Sanctuary at Brauron, where Iphigenia is to receive honors in the cult of Artemis. As is often the case, there were multiple competing versions of the relevant myths, but the mythical connection between the three coastal sanctuaries of Artemis is clear. Halai Araphenides (the Salt Fields of Araphen, modern Rafina) was the ancient name of modern Loutsa, a beach resort half-way between Rafina and Vravrona, where the ruins of a small temple to Artemis Tauropolos have been excavated from underneath the sand dunes originally covering the area.

Cult activity is known from the 8th century BCE forward from dedications in the sacred spring, and a temple was built in the 6th cent. BCE. In the 420s BCE, there was a period of significant architectural activity at the site, including the addition of the Π-shaped stoa, the bridge and reconstruction work on the temple. Since Artemis was connected in myth to both plague and healing — as was her brother Apollo — it may be that this activity was taken as a result of the plague that struck Athens in this period. The unfortified site continued in use until the 3rd century BCE, when tensions between Athens and the Macedonians caused it to be abandoned, perhaps after the site was damaged in a flood. In the 2nd century CE the periegetic writer Pausanias has uncharacteristically little to say concerning the Sanctuary at Brauron or its mythology/history, but what he does relate contradicts Euripides:

Brauron is some way from Marathon, they say that Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon, having fled from the Taurians bearing an image of Artemis made landfall at this place. They say that she left the image here and went herself to Athens and then later to Argos. This xoanon (wooden image) of Artemis was ancient, but I will reveal just who — in my personal opinion — has the one taken from the Barbarians in another discussion.
Description of Greece 1.33.1

The author does not describe a visit to the sanctuary or enumerate its structures since there was apparently nothing impressive to see at that time. The site was preserved from dilapidation by the silting of the nearby Erasinos river; however, a Christian basilica was built in the 6th century CE on the other side of the valley using spoliated material from the sanctuary. After that time, no archaeologically significant activity occurred at the site until the erection of a small church dedicated to Hagios Georgios in the 15th century CE was erected immediately adjacent to the temple platform on the southwest side, perhaps on the remains of a small shrine.