Pausanias Description of Greece 7.20.1

The details given here about the procession of paides, here referring to both boys and girls, are most telling. The collocation of the verb pherein in the sense of ‘carry [a sacred object] in procession’ with the verb agein in the sense of ‘lead [someone] in procession’ is comparable to other contexts where Pausanias is describing a procession, as at 1.27.3. I comment on that related text of Pausanias in the posting for 2018.04.05. As for the text here at 7.20.1, the ritual of a procession where the priest of Dionysus ‘carries’ a sacred object, indicated by the verb pherein, is a re-enactment of the myth of human sacrifice to Artemis, which would have featured a primal procession where the people ‘lead’, as expressed by the verb agein, a boy and a girl who are destined to become the annual sacrifical victims. The set of boys and girls who participate in re-enacting the myth in the yearly ritual are likewise being ‘led’ in procession. We see here a merger in identifying Artemis Laphria/Triklaria as the recipient of sacrifice. At 7.18.11, the recipient was called Laphria, but here at 7.20.1 the recipient is called Triklaria.