The Cult of Damia and Auxesia (and Respective Variants): A Linguistic Approach

The paper discusses the literary, epigraphic, and exegetical sources providing evidence for the cult of Damia and Auxesia in ancient Greece. The commentary identifies the human agents involved in the cult and the denomination (informers who speak about the cult, collectors of cultic information, inventory compilers, worshippers, and ritual operators). It also provides knowledge about mythological and aetiological traditions, local rituals, and cultic details: they help interpret the divine names, for which the sources show a noteworthy variety. The second part of the paper deals with the etymologies of the detected onomastic variants. All names indicate a strict relationship between the divine pair, the territory, and the civic community. Amaia and Azesia could have agricultural competencies, the former overseeing harvest time (cf. ἁμάω 'to reap') and the latter avoiding drought (cf. ἄζω 'to parch up'). Damia (and its Allegro-variants Dmia and Mnia) and Auxesia are etymologically related to growth (from the root of δέμω 'to build' and ἀέξω, αὐξάνω 'to (let) grow', respectively): they are responsible for vegetal ripening, human growth, and civic development.