initiation
initiationis the set of rituals which transforms girls and boys into adults. In Greece, these rituals were the combined product of the Indo-European heritage and indigenous traditions, as the Minoan frescos show (see Minoan civilization). In historical times full rituals can be found only in Sparta and Crete, but scattered notices from other cities and the mythological tradition about the ‘career’ of heroes, such as Achilles and Theseus, suggest that puberty rites once existed all over Greece. Apollo and Artemis were the most important gods connected with these rites.
The Greeks had no term for initiation, but various cities used the term agōgē, literally ‘the leading of a horse by one's hand’, and related words. This view reflects itself not only in archaic poetry, where boys and girls are often addressed as...
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