NOTES TO CHAPTER IV
[1] Porph., Abst. 4, 22, p. 268, 23 Nauck.
[2] It is not quite clear whether it is legitimate to see in what Paus. 2, 2, 2, says about the graves of Neleus and Sisyphos a first trace of the worship of Hero-relics, as Lobeck does, Agla. 284. The oracle verse from Oinom. ap. Eus., PE. 5, 28, p. 223 B, in which Lykourgos is warned to honour Μενέλαν τε καὶ ἄλλους ἀθανάτους ἥρωας, οἳ ἐν Λακεδαίμονι δίῃ—is certainly quite late, later than the ἥκεις ὦ Λυκόοργε that was known already to Herod.; earlier however than the second century, cf. Isyllos (GDI. 3342), l. 26. Oinomaos got it, like all the oracles that he used in making his Γοήτων φώρα from a collection of oracular sayings, certainly not from (or even indirectly from) Ephoros as has been groundlessly maintained.—Unquestionably the cult of Helen and Menelaos at Therapne was ancient: see Ross, Arch. Aufs. ii, 341 ff. Connexion with the legitimate pre-Dorian monarchy was eagerly sought for in Sparta; thus the bones of Orestes and Tisamenos were brought to Sparta and both honoured there as Heroes. The cult of Menelaos in Therapne has nothing whatever to do with his translation to Elysion (Od. δ).
[3] One Daites ἥρωα τιμώμενον παρὰ τοῖς Τρωσίν is mentioned by Mimn. fr. 18. Still earlier Alc. seems to refer to the cult of Achilles as a Hero, fr. 48 b: Ἀχίλλευ, ὃ γᾶς Σκυδίκας μέδεις (see Wassner, de her. cult., p. 33).
[4] θεοὶ ὅσοι γῆν τὴν Πλαταιΐδα ἔχετε καὶ ἥρωες, ξυνίστορές ἐστε, Thuc. ii, 74, 2; μάρτυρας θεοὺς καὶ ἥρωας ἐγχωρίους ποιήσομαι, Th. iv, 87, 2; cf. Th. v, 30, 2–5.
[5] Hdt. viii, 109: τάδε γὰρ οὐκ ἡμεῖς κατεργασάμεθα ἀλλὰ θεοί τε καὶ ἥρωες.
[6] Hdt. vii, 43.
[7] In the first edition of this book I could not refer to the copiously documented article by Deneken on “Heros” in Roscher’s Myth. Lex. Even now I must be content to refer the reader generally to the rich collections of material there supplied. The view taken of the nature and origin of the Hero is, however, one which I can only reject. According to that account (which in this follows the current view) the belief in Heroes arose from a weakened belief in gods, and the race of Heroes was composed of formerly divine figures who had come to be regarded in the course of time with diminished awe. But the cult of Heroes was by no means an attenuated worship of the gods: on the contrary it was fundamentally contrasted in its essence to the cult of the gods above: ἐναγίζειν can never have been derived from θύειν in however attenuated a form. Equally little can the Heroes of cult have been ever (much less frequently) derived from gods directly. The “Heroes” (as objects of a cult) are invariably elevated souls of men, not reduced divinities. This rule holds good even though a considerable number of once divine figures after they had been deprived of their godhead and made into great men, were when they died exalted, as outstanding human beings, to the rank of Hero. In this respect they did not differ from the innumerable cases before and beside them of simple mortals who had never been gods. Only when and because they had become men and been mortal could such [140] ex-divine personages become Heroes: no one stepped straight from godhood to Herohood. The Hero is regularly a promoted human spirit and nothing else.—I intend here and generally in this book to avoid further polemic against the currently accepted view of the origin of the Hero out of degraded godhead and to content myself instead with the statement of my own positive attitude in these matters.
[8] θεῶν ἄλλοις ἄλλαι τιμαὶ πρόσκεινται καὶ ἥρωσιν ἄλλαι, καὶ αὗται ἀποκεκριμέναι τοῦ θειοῦ, Arr., Anab. iv, 11, 3.
[9] Sacrifice to Heroes ἐν δυθμαῖσιν αὐγᾶν and throughout the night, Pi., I. iv, 65 ff. ὑπὸ κνέφας, Ap. Rh. i, 587 (= περὶ ἡλίου δυσμάς, Schol.). τῷ μὲν (Ἀλεξάνορι) ὡς ἥρωϊ μετὰ ἥλιον δύνατα ἐναγίζουσιν Εὐαμερίωνι δὲ ὡς θεῷ θύουσιν, Paus. 2, 11, 7. νύκτωρ κατὰ ἔτος ἐναγίζουσιν, (the Pheneatai) to Myrtilos, Paus. 8, 14, 11. By night Solon sacrificed to the Salaminian Heroes, Plu., Sol. 9.—After noon, ἀπὸ μέσου ἡμέρας, must sacrifice be made to the Heroes, D.L. viii, 33; τοῖς κατοιχομένοις ἀπὸ μεσημβρίας, EM. 468, 34 (cf. Procl. in Hes. Op. 763, Eust., Θ 65, p. 698, 36). The Heroes also are among the κατοιχόμενοι: τοῖς ἥρωσιν ὡς κατοιχομένοις ἔντομα ἔθυον, ἀποβλέποντες κάτω ἐς γῆν, Schol. A.D., Α 459.—In later times sacrifice seems to have been made to the ordinary dead even in broad daylight (see Stengel, Chthon. u. Todtencult, 422 f.), but to “Heroes”, as once to the dead (Ψ 218 ff.), always towards evening or at night.
[10] ἐσχάρα, see above, Ch. I. [n. 53].
[11] Cf. Stengel, Jb. f. Phil., 1886, pp. 322, 329.
[12] Schol. A.D., Α 459. Schol., Ap. Rh. i, 587. ἐντέμνειν, see Stengel, Zt. f. Gymn., 1880, p. 743 ff.
[13] αἱμακουρία, Pi., O. i, 90. Plu., Aristid. 21. The word is supposed to be Boeotian acc. to Schol. Pi., O. i, 146 (hence Greg. Cor., p. 215, Schaefer).
[14] Rightly (as against Welcker) Wassner, de h. cult., p. 6, maintains that the ἐναγίσματα for Heroes were ὁλοκαυτώματα.
[15] ἐναγίζειν to heroes, θύειν to gods. Pausanias in particular is careful in his use of the words, but even he, and Herodotos, too, occasionally says θύειν where ἐναγίζειν would have been correct (e.g. Hdt. vii, 117, τῷ Ἀρταχαίῃ θύουσι Ἀκάνθιοι ὡς ἤρωι). Others frequently say θύειν instead of ἐναγίζειν, which as the more special idea could easily be included in θύειν the more generic word for making sacrifice.
[16] Cf. Deneken, de theoxeniis (Berl. 1881), cap. 1; Wassner, de h. cult., p. 12. The expressions used by primitive peoples allow us to see the ideas that lie at the bottom of this mode of offering; cf. Réville, les rel. des peuples non-civ. i, 73. The ritual may be regarded as specially primitive and even earlier than the practice of burnt offering (cf. Oldenberg, Rel. d. Veda, 344 f.).
[17] See above, Ch. I, [p. 14] ff.—ἐπὶ Ἀζᾶνι τῷ Ἀρκάδος τελευτήσαντι ἆθλα ἐτέθη πρῶτον· εἰ μὲν καὶ ἄλλα οὐκ οἶδα, ἱπποδρομίας δὲ ἐτέθη, Paus. 8, 4, 5.
[18] The same is implied by the observation of Aristarchos that Homer knows no ἱερὸς καὶ στεφανίτης ἀγών, see Rh. Mus. 36, 544 f. (as to the observation there put forward that Homer in fact did not know the word στέφανος or its use, cf. further Schol. Pi., Nem. intr., pp. 7, 8 ff., Abel; see also Merkel, Ap. Rh. proleg., p. cxxvi: ἐϋστέφανος derived from στεφάνη not from στέφανος: Schol. Φ 511).
[19] Many such Agones for Heroes are mentioned, esp. by Pindar.
[20] e.g. on the command of the oracle an ἀγὼν γυμνικὸς καὶ ἱππικός was founded in honour of the fallen Phocaeans in Agylla, Hdt. i, 167. [141] Agon for Miltiades, Hdt. vi, 38; for Brasidas, Thuc. v, 11; for Leonidas in Sparta, Paus. 3, 14, 1.
[21] At the Iolaia in Thebes μυρσίνης στεφάνοις στεφανοῦνται οἱ νικῶντες· μυρσίνῃ δὲ στεφανοῦνται διὰ τὸ εἶναι τῶν νεκρῶν στέφος, Sch. Pi., I. iii, 117. (The myrtle τοῖς χθονίοις ἀφιέρωτο, Apollod. ap. Sch. Ar., Ran. 330; as adorning graves, Eur., El. 324, 511.)
[22] General statement: ἐτελοῦντο οἱ παλαιοὶ πάντες ἀγῶνες ἐπὶ τισι τετελευτηκόσι, Sch. Pi., I, p. 349 Ab. (τὰς ἐπιτυμβίους ταυτασὶ πανηγύρεις, Clem. Alex. calls the four great games, Protr. ii, p. 29 P.). The Nemean as an ἀγὼν ἐπιτάφιος for Archemoros, Sch. Pi., N., pp. 7, 8 Ab.; later offered to Zeus first by Herakles, ib., p. 11, 8 ff.; 12, 14–13, 4 (cf. Welcker, Ep. Cycl. ii, 350 ff.). Victor’s crown, since the Persian wars, of parsley ἐπὶ τιμῇ τῶν κατοιχομένων, ib., p. 10 (parsley on graves: Schneidewin on Dgn. viii, 57; see [below]. σελίνου στέφανος πένθιμος . . . Δοῦρις ἐν τῷ περὶ ἀγώνων, Phot. 506, 5). Black dress of the judges, ib., p. 11, 8 ff. Schol. Arg., N. iv, v.—Isthmian games as ἐπιτάφιος ἀγών for Melikertes and then for Sinis or Skiron, Plu., Thes. 25. Sch. Pi., I., pp. 350–2 Ab. Crown made of parsley or pine, both signs of mourning, Paus. 8, 48, 2 (and elsewhere see Meineke, An. Alex., 80 ff.). The Pythian games are said to be an ἀγὼν ἐπιτάφιος for Python; the Olympian for Oinomaos or Pelops (Phlegon, FHG. iii, 603; cf. P. Knapp, Corresp. Würt. Gelehr. 1881, p. 9 ff.). These notices cannot all be learned invention. It is a fact, for instance, that the funeral games of Tlepolemos in Rhodes, known to Pindar, O. vii, 77 ff., were later transferred to Helios (cf. Sch. Pi., O. vii, 36, 146–7, and Böckh on v, 77).
[23] “Half-gods,” ἡμίθεοι. The name does not, as is sometimes declared, imply that the Heroes were spirits who thus constituted a class of intermediate beings between gods and men. The Heroes were not called ἡμίθεοι; the name was really applied to the kings and champions of the legendary age, more especially those who fought at Troy or Thebes (Hes., Op., 160; Hom. M 23; h. Hom., 31, 19; 32, 19. Callin., fr. i, 19, and often later). It applies to them, however, as living men not as glorified spirits (thus Pla., Ap. 41 A; cf. D.H. 7, 32, 13, ἡμιθέων γενομένων [on earth] αἱ ψυχαί).—The ἡμίθεοι are a species of men not of spirits or daimones; they are those οἳ πρότερόν ποτ’ ἐπέλοντο, θεῶν δ’ ἐξ ἀνάκτων ἐγένονθ’ υἷες ἡμίθεοι (Simon., fr. 36; cf. Pla., Crat. 398 D), the sons of gods and mortal women and then their companions as well (a potiori so named). Even the idea that the great men of the past, thus called ἡμίθεοι, were naturally made “Heroes” after their death as a consequence of their half-divine nature which might give them special privileges even then—this idea has no very ancient authority. Cicero, ND. iii, 45, seems to be the first to suggest such a view. That the Greeks of the best period ever regarded semi-divine origin as a qualification for becoming a Hero is refuted by the simple fact that for the great majority of the “Heroes” descent from a god was not claimed. Of course, poetry was always ready to give a Hero a divine father in order to enhance his value, cf. Paus. 6, 11, 2; but this was never a condition of being made a Hero (rather of being raised from Hero to god).
[24] μάκαρ μὲν ἀνδρῶν μέτα, ἥρως δ’ ἔπειτα λαοσεβής, Pi., P. v, 94 f.
[25] τίνα θεόν, τίν’ ἥρωα, τίνα δ’ ἄνδρα; Pi., O. ii init. οὔτε θεοὺς οὔτε ἥρωας οὔτε ἀνθρώπους αἰσχυνθεῖσα, Antiph. i, 27. With “daimones” added: Gods, daimones, heroes, men: Pl., Rp. 392 A; 427 B; Lg. iv, 717 AB. In later times the distinction between θεοί, δαίμονες, ἥρωες, corresponded to a real and popular opinion, see e.g. GDI. [142] 1582 (Dodona), cf. also 1566, 1585 b.—There can be no question of identifying Heroes with the daimones (as Nägelsb., N. Th. 104, does). When philosophers call the dead “daimones” that is from quite a different point of view. It is a speculative idea peculiar to Plutarch himself that, in view of the transition from men to Heroes and from these to daimones, the Heroes themselves might be regarded as a sort of lower daimon (DO. 10, 415 A; Rom. 28). A Schol. on Eur., Hec. 165, quite justifiably makes a parallel between gods and daimones on the one hand and Heroes and men on the other: the gods are ὑψηλότερόν τι τάγμα τῶν δαιμόνων and this is the relation of οἱ ἥρωες πρὸς τοὺς λοιποὺς ἀνθρώπους, ὑψηλότεροί τινες δοκοῦντες καὶ ὑπερέχοντες.
[26] Aristarchos’ remark that in Homer not only kings but πάντες κοινῶς are designated as ἥρωες, was directed against the mistaken limitation of the word by Ister; see Lehrs, Aristarch.3, p. 101. Before Aristarch., however, the mistaken idea that οἱ ἡγεμόνες τῶν ἀρχαίων μόνοι ἦσαν ἥρωες, οἱ δὲ λαοὶ ἄνθρωποι seems to have been general: it is expressed in the [Arist.] Probl. 19, 48, p. 922b, 18; Rhianos, too, held it, see Schol. Τ 41 (Mayhoff, de Rhiani stud. Hom., p. 46).—It is incorrect to say that in the supposed “later” parts of the Odyssey ἥρως is no longer used of all free men, but only of the aristocracy (Fanta, Staat in Il. u. Od., 17 f.). In δ 268, θ 242, ξ 97, the word is used as an honourable title of free men of superior rank, but there is no suggestion of a restriction of the word to such use. In addition to which, the word ἥρως unmistakably appears in its wider sense also in other parts of the poem equally and rightly supposed to be late (α 272, θ 483, ω 68, etc.).
[27] So for example esp. when Pausanias speaks of the καλούμενοι ἥρωες, 5, 6, 2; 6, 5, 1; 7, 17, 1; 8, 12, 2; 10, 10, 1, etc.
[28] ἀνδρῶν ἡρώων θεῖον γένος, Hes., Op. 159.
[29] Of the “Heroes” of his fourth race the great majority fell according to Hesiod in the war of Troy or Thebes and died without any “illumination”; the few, on the other hand, who are translated to the Islands of the Blest are illuminated indeed, but have never died. To regard them as the prototypes and forerunners of the Heroes worshipped in later times (as many do) is inadmissible.
[30] Grave in the market: Battos in Kyrene, Pi., P. v, 87 ff., and frequently. Hero-graves in the Prytaneion at Megara, Paus. 1, 43, 2–3. Adrastos was buried in the market at Sikyon. Kleisthenes, to play a trick on him, brought from Thebes (the corpse of) Melanippos, who, when alive, had been his greatest enemy, and placed him ἐν τῷ πρυτανείῳ καί μιν ἵδρυσε ἐνθαῦτα ἐν τῷ ἰσχυροτάτῳ, Hdt. v, 67. Themistokles had a μνημεῖον in the market at Magnesia on the Maiander. Th. 1, 138, 5; i.e. a ἡρῷον (see Wachsmuth, Rh. Mus. lii, 140).
[31] τύμβον ἀμφίπολον ἔχων πολυξενωτάτῳ παρὰ βώμῳ, Pi., O. i, 93; i.e. the great ash-altar of Zeus. The excavations have confirmed Pindar’s description (cf. Paus. 5, 13, 1–2).
[32] Grave built in the gateway: ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ πυλῇ at Elis Aitolos the son of Oxylos was buried, Paus. 5, 4, 4; cf. Lobeck, Agl. 281 f. Grave at the boundary of the country: Koroibos, the first Olympic victor, was buried Ἠλείας ἐπὶ τῷ πέρατι as the insc. stated: Paus. 8, 26, 4. Grave of Koroibos, son of Mygdon, ἐν ὅροις Φρυγῶν Στεκτορηνῶν, Paus. 10, 27, 1.
[33] The idea of the grave as the dwelling-place of the Hero is shown in a very strange fashion by the story that the Phliasians before the feast of Demeter καλοῦσιν ἐπὶ τὰς σπονδάς the hero Aras and his sons, looking while so doing towards the graves of these Heroes: Paus. 2, 12, 5. [143]
[34] This hero (Xanthippos or Phokos) ἔχει ἐπὶ ἡμέρᾳ τε πάσῃ τιμάς, καὶ ἄγοντες ἱερεῖα οἱ Φωκεῖς τὸ μὲν αἷμα δι’ ὀπῆς ἐγχέουσιν ἐς τὸν τάφον κτλ. Paus. 10, 4, 10. Similarly at the grave of Hyakinthos at Amyklai, Paus. 3, 19, 3. The meaning of such an offering is the same in Greece as in similar cases among any “savage” tribe. In Tylor, ii, 28, we read: “In the Congo district the custom has been described of making a channel into the tomb to the head or mouth of the corpse, to send down month by month the offerings of food and drink.”
[35] Most of the examples are mentioned by Lobeck, Agl. 281 , but he omits the most remarkable case, fully reported by Hdt. i, 67–8, of the transference of the bones of Orestes from Tegea to Sparta (cf. Paus. 3, 3, 6; 11, 10; 8, 54, 4. The reason is obvious, cf. Müller, Dorians, i, 72). Besides this note: the removal of the bones of Hektor from Ilion to Thebes, Paus. 9, 18, 5, Sch. and Tz., Lyc. 1194, 1204; of Arkas from Mainalos to Mantinea, Paus. 8, 9, 3; cf. 8, 36, 8; of Hesiod from Naupaktos to Orchomenos, Paus. 9, 38, 3; of Hippodameia from Midea in Argolis to Olympia, Paus. 6, 20, 7; of Tisamenos from Helike to Sparta, Paus. 7, 1, 8; of Aristomenes from Rhodes to Messene, Paus. 4, 32, 3. Strange story of the shoulder bone of Pelops, Paus. 5, 13, 4–6. In all these cases the removal followed upon a command of the oracle, cf. also Paus. 9, 30, 9–11. Practical stimulus may have been given occasionally by the discovery of abnormally large bones in dug-up graves; we often hear of such discoveries, cf. W. Schmid, Atticismus, iv, 572 f., and it was always believed that such gigantic bones were remains of one of τῶν καλουμένων ἡρώων, Paus. 6, 5, 1 (cf. also 1, 35, 5 ff.; 3, 22, 9). It would be the business of the oracle to determine the name of the Hero concerned and see that the remains were reverently preserved. (One example may be given, though from a later period. In the dried-up bed of the Orontes a clay coffin 11 yards long was found and a corpse within it. The oracle of the Clarian Apollo on being applied to for enlightenment as to its origin answered Ὀρόντην εἶναι, γένους δὲ αὐτὸν εἶναι τοῦ Ἰνδῶν, Paus. 8, 29, 4; Philostr., H. 669 p. 138, 6–19 K.
[36] Plu., Cim. 8; Thes. 36; Paus. 3, 3, 7.—In the year 437–6 we hear of the removal by Hagnon and his Athenians, at the command of the oracle, of the bones of Rhesos from Troy to Amphipolis: Polyaen. vi, 53. The neighbourhood of the mouth of the Strymon on the western slopes of Mt. Pangaios was the original home of Rhesos: he was already known to the Doloneia as the son of Eïoneus; to later writers as the son of Strymon and (like Orpheus) a Muse—which is the same thing (see Conon, 4). On M. Pangaios he still lived as an oracular deity: this must have been the popular belief of the district which the author of the Rhesus explains after Greek fashion (ll. 955–66). He is a tribal god of the Edonians, of the same pattern as Zalmoxis of the Getai, and Sabos or Sabazios of other Thracian tribes. In the mind of the Greeks he had become since the poem of the Doloneia entirely detached from the site of his worship and was a mere mortal champion with whom fancy might do what it chose (cf. Parth. 36). The restoration of his bones to the neighbourhood of the lower Strymon (μνημεῖον τοῦ Ῥήσου in Amphipolis: Marsyas ὁ νεώτερος in Sch., Rhes. 346), and the heroic cult which was undoubtedly paid to him in connexion therewith, may have been a kind of official recognition by the Greeks of the worship of Rhesos discovered in that neighbourhood by the Athenian colonists. I see no reason for doubting the historical fact of the occurrence, though some of the details of Polyaenus’ account have a fabulous colouring. It is true Cicero says of Rhesos, nusquam [144] colitur (ND. iii, 45), and so it may have been in C.’s time: for the earlier period the close of the tragedy clearly suggests the cult of R. as a divinity, while the story of Polyaen. implies his Hero-cult.
[37] Sometimes only single parts of the body, e.g. the shoulder-blade of Pelops at Olympia (Paus. 5, 13).—In Argos on the road to the Akropolis their heads were buried in the μνῆμα τῶν Αἰγύπτου παίδων, while the rest of their bodies were in Lerne, Paus. 2, 24, 2.
[38] See Lob., Agl. 281. This only can be the meaning of Soph., OC. 1522 f. (Nauck otherwise).—A strange case is that of Hippolytos in Troizen: ἀποθανεῖν αὐτὸν οὐκ ἐθέλουσιν (οἱ Τροιζήνιοι) συρέντα ὑπὸ τῶν ἵππων οὐδὲ τὸν τάφον ἀποφαίνουσιν εἰδότες· τὸν δὲ ἐν οὐρανῷ καλούμενον ἡνίοχον τοῦτον εἶναι νομίζουσιν ἐκεῖνον (ἐκεῖνοι?) Ἱππόλυτον, τιμὴν παρὰ θεῶν ταύτην ἔχοντα Paus. 2, 32, 1. Here it seems as if the grave were not shown because Hipp. was not regarded as having died and therefore would not have a grave; he is said to have been translated and set among the stars. But there was a grave and the translation story must therefore only be an afterthought. (The death of Hipp. is spoken of clearly enough by the poets: but what happened to him after Asklepios had restored him to life again? The Italian Virbius legend seems to have been little known in Greece. Paus. 2, 27, 4, knows it from Aricia.)—Very occasionally the possession of the relics of the Hero was secured by burning the bones and scattering the ashes in the market place of the city. Thus Phalanthos in Tarentum, Justin. 3, 4, 13 ff.; Solon in Salamis, D.L. i, 62; Plu., Sol. 32. As a rule the scattering of ashes is intended to serve a different purpose, cf. Plu., Lycurg. 31 fin.; Nic. Dam., Paradox. 16, p. 170 West.
[39] A few examples: κενὸν σῆμα of Teiresias in Thebes, Paus. 9, 18, 4; of Achilles at Elis, Paus. 6, 23, 3; of the Argives who fought in the war against Troy, at Argos, Paus. 2, 20, 6; of Iolaos at Thebes, Paus. 9, 23, 1; Sch. Pi., N. iv, 32 (in the tomb of Amphitryon? Pi., P. ix, 81); of Odysseus at Sparta, Plut., Q. Gr., 48, 302 C; of Kalchas in Apulia, Lyc. 1047 f.
[40] Perhaps by ἀνάκλησις of the ψυχή? see above, Ch. I, [n. 86] (at the foundation of Messene ἐπεκαλοῦντο ἐν κοινῷ καὶ ἥρωάς σφισιν ἐπανήκειν συνοίκους, Paus. 4, 27, 6).
[41] καὶ τεθνεὼς καὶ τάριχος ἐὼν δύναμιν πρὸς θεῶν ἔχει τὸν ἀδικέοντα τίνεσθαι, Hdt. ix, 120.
[42] No detailed proof of this statement is needed. We will only remark that the attempt to conceal the grave is often met with among so-called “savage” tribes and has the same purpose as in the Greek Hero-cult: cf. on this subject Herbert Spencer, Princ. of Sociol. i, p. 176.
[43] See Helbig, D. hom. Epos aus Denkm.1, p. 41.
[45] Β 603 οἳ δ’ ἔχον Ἀρκαδίην ὑπὸ Κυλλήνης ὄρος αἰπύ, Αἰπύτιον παρὰ τύμβον.—Cf. Paus. 8, 16, 2–3.—In the Troad the frequently mentioned Ἴλου σῆμα, the σῆμα πολυσκάρθμοιο Μυρίνης which “men” call Βατίεια, were similar monuments.
[46] The ceremonial announcement of death, the καταμιαίνεσθαι of the proper persons (as usual the next of kin to the dead); the assembling of Spartiates Perioikoi and Helots (cf. Tyrt. fr. 7) with their women to the number of several thousands, the extravagant expression of grief and praise of the dead, the period of mourning (no business in the market for ten days, etc.)—all this is described by Hdt. vi, 58. He compares this grandiose funeral with the pomp customary at the burial of an Asiatic (Persian) monarch.—The Lycurgan νόμοι by these funeral rites οὐχ ὡς ἀνθρώπους ἀλλ’ ὡς ἥρωας τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίων [145] βασιλεῖς προτετιμήκασιν, Xen., Rep. Lac. xv, 9. King Agis I ἔτυχε σεμνοτέρας ἢ κατ’ ἄνθρωπον ταφῆς, Xen., HG. 3, 3, 1.—A peculiar circumstance at the burial of a Spartan king is mentioned by Apollod., fr. 36.—The burial places of the royal Houses of the Agiadai and the Eurypontidai (apart even in their death), Paus. 3, 12, 8; 14, 2 (cf. Bursian, Geog. ii, 126).—Embalming of the body of a king who dies abroad, Xen., HG. 5, 3, 19: D.S. 15, 93, 6; Nep., Ages. 8; Plu., Ages. 40.—Besides this the participation in primitive times of the whole people in the funeral of the Herakleid kings in Corinth may probably be deduced from the story told of the compulsory attendance of the Megarian subjects of Corinth at the funeral at Corinth of a king of the Bakchiad family: Sch. Pi., N. vii, 155 (cf. AB. 281, 27 ff.; Zenob. v, 8; Dgn. vi, 34). In Crete τῶν βασιλέων κηδευομένων προηγεῖτο πυρριχίζων ὁ στρατός (as at the funeral of Patroklos, Ψ 131 ff.), Arist. ap. Schol. V., Ψ 130.
[47] Εὐπατρίδαι, οἱ . . . μετέχοντες τοῦ βασιλικοῦ γένους, EM. 395, 50.—Thus the Bakchiadai in Corinth were descendants of the royal family of the house of Bakchis. The Βασιλίδαι, a ruling family of oligarch nobles in Ephesos (Ael. fr. 48), Erythrai (Arist., Pol. 1305b, 19), and perhaps Chios as well (see Gilbert, Gr. Alt. ii, 153), also traced back their descent to the old kings of those Ionic cities. Respect paid to those who were descended ἐκ τοῦ γένους of Androklos at Ephesos, Stra. 633.—The Aigid Admetos, priest of Apollo Karneios at Thera was descended Λακεδαίμονος ἐκ βασιλήων, Epigr. Gr. 191; 192.
[48] Here some reference might have been expected to Fustel de Coulanges’ brilliant and penetrating work La Cité antique. In that book the attempt is made to fix upon ancestor-worship, la religion du foyer et des ancêtres, as the root of all the higher types of worship (among the Greeks: only that part of the book concerns us here); and to show how out of these ancestor-worshipping aggregations, begun by the family, larger communities of ever-widening membership developed, and finally out of these the πόλις itself—the highest and most extensive political as well as religious community of all. For the author of that book the proof of his theory lies entirely in the simple logical consequence with which the details and, as far as we know it, the development of both private and public law follow from the original causes adopted by him essentially as postulates. A strictly historical proof that should not have to deduce the original causes from the results but should start from known beginnings and demonstrate the actual existence of every step was indeed an impossibility. The whole historical process must have been already finished when our knowledge first begins: for Homer shows us the πόλις and its component parts (κρῖν’ ἄνδρας κατὰ φῦλα κατὰ φρήτρας Ἀγάμεμνον) as well as the worship of the gods as fully established and developed. It is no disparagement of the valuable and fruitful suggestions made in that book if we say that its leading idea—as far as Greece is concerned—cannot be considered as more than an intuition, which though it may be just and true, must remain unproved. If there ever was a time when ancestor-worship was the only Greek religion at least we cannot see into that dim epoch long anterior to all tradition. To that remote period long before both the all-powerful religion of the gods and the earliest records of the Greek genius, even the narrow and slippery path of inference and reconstruction will hardly lead us. Natural as it might seem, therefore, so far as the subject itself is concerned to deal with such questions, I have taken no notice in the [146] present work of any attempts to deduce Greek religion from an original sole worship of ancestors (such as have been made by many scholars besides F. de Coulanges both in England and in Germany).
[49] Those worshipped by a γένος regarded as its progenitors, γονεῖς: AB. 240, 31 (τὰ θύματα δίδωσιν) εἰς τὰ γονέων (ἱερὰ) τὰ γένη.—Physical relationship between the γεννῆται, originally a fact though afterwards only occasionally demonstrable, is indicated by the ancient name ὁμογάλακτες applied to the members of the same clan (Philoch. fr. 91–4) and meaning strictly παῖδες καὶ παίδων παῖδες (Arist., Pol. 1252b, 18).—The word πάτρα with the same meaning as γένος (Μιδυλιδᾶν πάτρα, Pi., P. viii, 38), makes it still more clear that the members of such a group are regarded as the descendants of a single ancestor. See Dikaiarch. ap. St. Byz. πάτρα.
[50] Whose names were chosen by the voice of the Delphic oracle out of a hundred submitted to the Pythia. Arist. Ἀθπ. 21, 6. Cf. Mommsen, Philol., N.F. i, 456 f.
[51] Instead of the common ἐπώνυμοι we also find the word ἀρχήγεται used of the Heroes of the phylai: Ar. Γῆρας, fr. 126 H.–G. (AB. 449, 14); Pl., Lys. 205 D, cf. CIA. ii, 1191; 1575. It is even plainer that the Hero is regarded as the ancestor of his φυλή when he is called ἀρχηγός: thus Oineus was the ἀρχηγός of the Oineïdai, Kekrops the ἀρχηγός of the Kekropidai, Hippothoön ἀρχηγός of the Hippothoöntidai in [Dem.] 60, 30–1. The ἀρχηγὸς τοῦ γένους is its physical forebear and progenitor, Poll. iii, 19: thus Apollo ἀρχηγὸς τοῦ γένους of the Seleucids, CIG. 3595, 26; cf. Isocr. 5, 32. Thus too the members of a phyle are actually described as the συγγενεῖς of their Hero eponymos: [Dem.] 60, 28.
[52] Thus we know of both δῆμος and γένος of the Ionidai, Philaïdai, Boutadai (for the intentional distinctness of the Eteoboutadai see Meier, p. 39), Kephalidai, Perithoïdai, etc.: Meier, de gentil. Attica, p. 35. Such demes were called ἀπὸ τῶν κτισάντων, others ἀπὸ τῶν τόπων: Arist. Ἀθπ. 21, 5 (in which case a name as much like a personal name as possible was extracted out of the place-name and made into the local Hero: cf. Wachsm., Stadt Athen, ii, 1, 248 ff.). Similar conditions existed at other places. In Teos the same names occur as πύργοι (= δῆμοι) and συμμορίαι (= γένη), e.g. Κολωτίων, τοῦ Ἀλκίμου πύργου, Ἀλκιμίδης (also names which differ Ναίων, τοῦ Μηράδου πύργου, Βρυσκίδης), CIG. 3064, where see Böckh II, p. 651. In Rhodos a πάτρα as well as its larger inclusive group (κτοίνα) is called Ἀμφινεῖς: IGM. Aeg. i, 695, Ἀμφινέων πάτραι· Εὐτελίδαι, Ἀμφινεῖς, etc. (Ancestor worship προγονικὰ ἱερά in the Rhodian κτοῖναι is vouched for by Hesych. κτύναι: see Martha, BCH. iv, 144.)
[53] Thus the descendants of Bakchis in Corinth traced their descent to Aletes (D.S. 7, 9, 4; Paus. 2, 4, 3); the descendants of Aipytos in Messenia to Kresphontes (Paus. 4, 3, 8), the descendants of Agis and Eurypon in Sparta to Eurysthenes and Prokles. The real ancestors were in these cases well known and could not be entirely eclipsed (being too deeply rooted in cult); thus later, as well as in the earlier period, these same families are called Βακχίδαι, Αἰπυτίδαι, not Ἡρακλεῖδαι (D.S., loc. cit., Paus. 4, 3, 8); the Spartan royal families are still Agidai, Eurypontidai, while the fictitious ancestors Eurysthenes and Prokles never quite achieved the status of ἀρχηγέται: Ephoros ap. Str. 366. In many other, perhaps more numerous, cases the fictitious ancestor may have ousted the real and once better known from men’s minds altogether.
[54] [Arist.] Mirab. 106. [147]
[55] See Paus. 10, 4, 10. In an oracle ap. Plu., Sol. 9: ἀρχηγοὺς χώρας θυσίαις ἥρωας ἐνοίκους ἵλασο.
[56] Plu., Arist. 11, names seven ἀρχηγέται Πλαταιέων; Clem. Al., Protr. ii, 35 P., gives four of these (Κυκλαῖος seems to be a mistake). Androkrates seems to have been the most prominent; his τέμενος is mentioned by Hdt. ix, 25, his ἡρῷον Thuc. iii, 24, 1; it stood in a thick grove, Paus. loc. cit.
[57] Paus. 6, 24, 9–10.
[58] A.R. ii, 835–50, says that this Hero was Idmon the prophet, others called him Agamestor. Sch. ad 845: λέγει δὲ καὶ προμαθίδας, ὅτι διὰ τὸ ἀγνοεῖν ὅστις εἴη ἐπιχώριον ἥρωα καλοῦσιν οἱ Ἡρακλεῶται. He was the local daimon worshipped on the spot before the colony came, and then taken over by the colonists for their own. Cf. the case of Rhesos, above, [n. 36].
[59] Paus. 6, 20, 15–19. It was a round altar, according to many τάφος ἀνδρὸς αὐτόχθονος καὶ ἀγαθοῦ τὰ ἐς ἱππικήν—the grave and altar being one as was the grave and altar of Aiakos at Aegina, Paus. 2, 29, 8—whose name was Olenios. Acc. to others it was the grave of Dameon son of Phlious and of his horse; or the κενὸν ἠρίον of Myrtilos set up in his honour by Pelops; or of Oinomaos; or of Alkathoös son of Porthaon, one of the suitors of Hippodameia—to say nothing of the learned suggestion of the ἀνὴρ Αἰγύπτιος given by Paus. l.c. as a last resort. Acc. to Hesych. ταράξιππος it belonged to Pelops himself, acc. to Lyc. 42 f. to a giant called Ischenos (see Sch. and Tz.). Besides all this a ταράξιππος seems to have been almost indispensable on the racecourses of the great games. The Isthmus and Nemea had theirs as well (Paus. § 19)—and Paus. 10, 37, 4, mentions it as something unusual that the course at Delphi had no ταράξιππος. Cf. Pollak, Hippodromica, p. 91 ff., 1890.
[60] ἥρως εὔοδος, CIG. 4838b, cf. Welcker, Rhein. Mus., N.F. vii, 618—καλαμίτης ἥρως (Dem. 18, 129, with Sch. and Hesych. s.v.)—ἥρως τειχοφύλαξ ἐν Μυρίνῃ, Hesych.—ἥρως ἐπιτέγιος, CIA. iii, 1, 290, and 1, 194–206, see Hiller v. Gärt., Philol. 55, 180 f.—With place-names ὁ ἐπὶ βλαύτῃ ἥρως, Poll. vii, 87—ἥροιν ἐμ πεδίῳ, Att. ins. ap., Leg. Sacr. i, p. 5.—In Epidauros on an architrave occurs the inscr. ἥρωος κλαϊκοφόρου, F. d’Epid. i, n. 245. τῷ κλαϊκοφόρῳ also occurs in an inscr. from Mt. Ithome, Leg. Sacr., p. 36 (n. 15, l. 11).—Probably to this class belongs the ἥρως πάνοψ at Athens, Pl. Lys. init.; Hesych. Phot. s.v.
[61] ἥρως ἰατρός in Athens, CIA. ii, 403–4, see [below].—A ἥρως στρατηγός is mentioned by a (late) ins. Ἐφ. Ἀρχ., 1884, p. 170, l. 53. From their activities are named also the Heroes Matton, Keraon in Sparta, Deipneus in Achaea (Polemon: Ath. ii, 39 C; iv, 173 F).—The Στεφανηφόρου ἡρῷον was mentioned by Antiph., στεφανήφορος ἥρως by Hellan., but his name was unknown: Harp. Phot. Suid. s.v.; AB. 301, 19 ff. Cf. Böckh, Econ. of Ath.2, p. 144 Lew.; CIG. 1, p. 168.
[62] In Phaleron there was an altar, καλεῖται δὲ “ἥρωος”—the learned declared it to be an altar of Androgeos the son of Minos: Paus. 1, 1, 4.—Cf. 10, 36, 6: Χαραδραίοις (at Charadra in Phocis) Ἡρώων καλουμένων (i.e. they were called “the Heroes”) εἰσὶν ἐν τῇ ἀγορᾷ βωμοί, καὶ αὐτοὺς οἱ μὲν Διοσκούρων, οἱ δὲ ἐπιχωρίων φασὶν εἶναι ἡρώων.—ἡρωι, ἡρωΐνῃ a sacrifice is offered at Marathon: sacrificial Calendar of the Attic Tetrapolis (fourth century B.C.) in Leg. Sacr. i, p. 48. ἡρωι, ἡρωΐνῃ, ib., p. 2; CIA. i, 4: fifth century.—Decree ordering a record to be set up in the Peiraeus παρὰ τὸν ἥρω, SIG. 834, 26; CIA. ii, 1546–7: ἥρῳ ἀνέθηκεν ὁ δεῖνα. Roehl, IG. [148] Ant. 29: (Mykenai) τοῦ ἥρωός ἠμι, cf. Furtwängler, Ath. Mitth. 1896, p. 9; ib. 323; ἀνέθηκαν τῷ ἡρωι (Locris).—On the different superimposed layers of stucco on the so-called Heroön west of the Altis at Olympia were the ins. Ἥρωος, Ἥρωορ, and once also Ἡρώων. There seems to me to be no reason to suppose that this nameless Hero was Iamos in particular, the ancestor of the Iamidai (as Curtius does, Die Altäre v. Olymp., p. 25, Abh. Berl. Ak. 1881). For what reason should the name of this highly honoured oracular Hero—which had by no means been forgotten—be suppressed? The name of the Hero was not given for the simple reason that it was unknown. Nameless ἥρωες ἐπιχώριοι, who according to some had set up the great sacrificial altar of Zeus in Olympia, are mentioned by Paus. 5, 13, 8. In some cases the namelessness of a Hero is explained by the fear of uttering awful names, which esp. in the case of the spirits of the lower world are very frequently suppressed or referred to by a circumlocution (cf. Erinyes and spirits of the dead, Rh. Mus. 50, 20, 3): cf. Ant. Lib. 13, p. 214, 19 W. This was perhaps why Narkissos was called ἥρως σιγηλός, Str. 404. On the other hand, it was a special form of respect, at the sacrifice to a Hero, to call out his name: τῷ Ἀρταχαίῃ θύουσι Ἀκάνθιοι ἐκ θεοπροπίου ὡς ἥρωϊ ἐπουνομάζοντες τὸ οὔνομα, Hdt. vii, 117. Ὕλᾳ θύουσιν καὶ αὐτὸν ἐξ ὀνόματος εἰς τρὶς ὁ ἱερεὺς φωνεῖ κτλ. Anton. Lib. 26 fin. Cf. Paus. 8, 26, 7; ἐπικαλούμενοι τὸν Μυίαγρον.—No one will miss the obvious analogy with the worship of the gods. In many places in Greece nameless (or merely “adjectival”) gods were worshipped, ἄγνωστοι θεοί, as at Olympia, Paus. 5, 14, 8, and elsewhere. At Phaleron βωμοὶ θεῶν τε ὀνομαζομένων ἀγνώστων καὶ ἡρώων (sc., ἀγνώστων?) Paus. 1, 1, 4. (ἀγνῶτες θεοὶ Poll. viii, 119. Hesych. s.v.: βωμοὶ ἀνώνυμοι in Attica D.L. i, 110.)
[63] Τλαπολέμῳ ἀρχαγέτᾳ Pi., O. vii, 78; P. v, 56. The regular custom is mentioned by Ephorus ap. Str. 366: οὐδ’ ἀρχηγέτας νομισθῆναι· ὅπερ πᾶσιν ἀποδίδοται οἰκισταῖς.
[64] Δημοκλείδην δὲ καταστῆσαι τὴν ἀποικίαν αὐτοκράτορα. Official decree about Brea: CIA. i, 31 [Hicks and Hill2, n. 41, l. 8].
[65] Pi., P. v, 87 ff.
[66] Hdt. vi, 38.
[67] D.S. 11, 66, 4.
[68] Hdt. i, 168.
[69] Thuc. v, 11.—Thus in the fourth century at Sikyon Euphron the leader of the demos has been murdered by some of the other party, but οἱ πολῖται αὐτοῦ ὡς ἄνδρα ἀγαθὸν κομισάμενοι ἔθαψάν τε ἐν τῇ ἀγορᾷ καὶ ὡς ἀρχηγέτην τῆς πόλεως σέβονται, Xen., HG. 7, 4, 12.
[70] Worship of the law-givers of Tegea as Heroes: Paus. 8, 48, 1.
[71] In the case of Sophokles the “heroizing” had a special superstitious reason. He had once received Asklepios as a guest into his house (and established a worship of A.) and was therefore regarded as especially favoured by heaven and after his death worshipped as Hero Δεξίων: EM. 256, 7–13. (In the temple of Amynos, an Asklepiad daimon, on the west of the Akropolis an honorific decree dating from the end of the fourth century B.C. has been discovered, referring to the ὀργεῶνες τοῦ Δεξίωνος together with those of Amynos and Asklepios: Ath. Mitt. 1896, p. 299.) In this way many mortals who had entertained the gods as guests were themselves made Heroes, cf. Deneken, de Theoxen. c, ii.
[72] In the examples collected in [n. 35] above the removal of the Hero’s bones was in each case commanded by the Delphic oracle. Typical examples of the foundation of an annual festival of a Hero on [149] the recommendation of an oracle: Hdt. i, 167; Paus. 8, 23, 7; 9, 38, 5.
[73] Plu. Cim. 19—his authority is Nausikrates ὁ ῥήτωρ the pupil of Isokrates. The god ordered μὴ ἀμελεῖν Κίμωνος. Kimon’s spirit was thus expressing its anger at the “neglect” by sending pestilence and γῆς ἀφορία—he wanted a cult.
[74] Appearance at the battle of Marathon, command of the oracle τιμᾶν Ἐχετλαῖον ἥρωα, Paus. 1, 32, 5.—Swarm of bees in the severed head of Onesilos at Amathos; the oracle orders his head to be buried Ὀνησίλῳ δὲ θύειν ὡς ἥρωι ἀνὰ πᾶν ἔτος, Hdt. v, 114.
[75] Before the battle of Plataea: Plu., Arist. 11. Before the occupation of Salamis the oracle ordered Solon ἀρχηγοὺς ἥρωας ἵλασο, Plu. Sol. 9.
[76] The Persian Artachaies, of the family of the Achaimenidai, was given a burial of great pomp after his death, by Xerxes at Akanthos: θύουσι Ἀκάνθιοι ἐκ θεοπροπίου ὡς ἡρωι ἐπουνομάζοντες τὸ οὔνομα, Hdt. vii, 117 (—the Ἀρταχαίου τάφος remained a well-known spot, Ael., HA. xiii, 20). It is hardly likely that the unusual size of the Persian of which Hdt. speaks was the cause of his being made a Hero by the oracle.
[77] Paus. 6, 9, 6–7. Plu., Rom. 28. Oinom. ap. Eus., PE. 5, 34, p. 230 C (Vig.). Celsus c. Xt. also refers to the miracle, Or., Cels. iii, 33, p. 292 L. Cf. iii, 3, p. 256; iii, 25, p. 280.
[78] Kleomedes μοίρᾳ τωὶ δαιμονίᾳ διέπτη ἀπὸ τῆς κιβωτοῦ, Cels. ap. Orig., Cels. iii, 33, p. 293 L. Oinom. ap. Euseb., PE. 5, 34, 1, (p. 296 Giff.): οἱ θεοὶ ἀνηρείψαντό σε ὥσπερ οἱ τοῦ Ὁμήρου τὸν Γανυμήδην. Thus the gods, acc. to the popular opinion derided by Oinom., gave Kleomedes immortality, ἀθανασίαν ἔδωκαν, p. 297 Giff.
[79] We rarely hear of other oracles directing Heroes to be worshipped. But cf. Xenag. ap. Macr. 5, 18, 30: on the occasion of a failure of the crops at Sicily ἔθυσαν Πεδιοκράτῃ τινὶ ἥρωι προστάξαντος αὐτοῖς τοῦ ἐκ Παλικῶν χρηστηρίου.—This Hero is probably the same as Pediakrates, one of the six στρατηγοί of the ἐγχώριοι Σικανοί in Sicily who were slain by Herakles and μέχρι τοῦ νῦν ἡρωϊκῆς τιμῆς τυχάνουσιν. D.S. 4, 23, 5: from Timaeus?
[80] The lines of the oracle about Kleomedes may very well be ancient (ἔσχατος ἡρώων κτλ.) simply on the ground that its assertion had not been fulfilled. If oracles that come true are rightly regarded as subsequent to the events which they profess to foresee, then it is only reasonable to regard an oracle which is proved incorrect by later events as earlier than the events which contradict its prophecy.
[81] οὗτος γὰρ ὁ θεὸς περὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις πάτριος ἐξηγητὴς ἐν μέσῳ τῆς γῆς ἐπὶ τοῦ ὀμφαλοῦ καθήμενος ἐξηγεῖται, in the words of Plato, Rp. 427 C.
[82] γίνεται ἐν Δελφοῖς ἥρωσι ξένια, ἐν οἷς δοκεῖ ὁ θεὸς ἐπὶ ξένια καλεῖν τοὺς ἥρωας, Sch. Pi. N. vii, 68.
[83] Plu., Arist. 21.—Grave of the Megarians who had fallen in the Persian wars, erected in the market of that city: CIG. 1051 (= Sim., fr. 107 PLG.), Paus. 1, 43, 3. We hear nothing of the Hero-worship of these men, but it is natural to suppose it.—Thus in Phigaleia in the market place there was a common grave of the hundred Oresthasians who had died fighting for Phigaleia, καὶ ὡς ἥρωσιν αὐτοῖς ἐναγίζουσιν ἀνὰ πᾶν ἔτος, Paus. 8, 41, 1.
[84] Paus. 1, 32, 4: σέβονται δὲ οἱ Μαραθώνιοι τούτους, οἳ παρὰ τὴν μάχην ἀπέθανον ἥρωας ὀνομάζοντες. They lay buried on the field of battle, Paus. 1, 29, 4; 32, 3. Every night could be heard the neighing [150] of horses and the sound of battle. Those who attempted to witness the doings of the spirits suffered for it, Paus. l.c. The sight of the spirits made men blind or killed them. This is well known of gods—χαλεποὶ δὲ θεοὶ φαίνεσθαι ἐναργῶς. As to the results of seeing a Hero cf. the story in Hdt. vi, 117.
[85] Pi., I. iv, 26 ff.; cf. N. iv, 46 ff.
[86] Hdt. ii, 44, has recourse to the idea that there was a difference between the god Herakles and the Hero Herakles the son of Amphitryon: καὶ δοκέουσι δέ μοι οὗτοι ὀρθότατα Ἑλλήνων ποιέειν, οἳ διξὰ Ἡράκλεια ἱδρυσάμενοι ἔκτηνται καὶ τῷ μὲν ὡς ἀθανάτῳ Ὀλυμπίῳ δὲ ἐπωνυμίην θύουσι, τῷ δὲ ἑτέρῳ ὡς ἥρωϊ ἐναγίζουσι. Combination of θύειν and ἐναγίζειν in one sacrifice to Herakles, at Sikyon: Paus. 2, 10, 1. Herakles ἥρως θεός Pi., N. iii, 22.
[87] Varying worship of the same person as Hero and as god, e.g. Achilles. He was a god in Epirus for example (called upon as Ἄσπετος, Plu., Pyr. 1) in Astypalaia (Cic., ND. iii, 45) in Erythrai (third century ins. SIG. 600, 50, 75), etc. As Hero he was worshipped in Elis where an empty grave was erected to him ἐκ μαντείας, and where at his annual festival at sunset the women κόπτεσθαι νομίζουσιν, i.e. lament over him as dead. Paus. 6, 23, 3.
[88] I shall not multiply examples and only note Plu., M. Virt., p. 255 E: τῇ Λαμψάκῃ πρότερον ἡρωϊκὰς τιμὰς ἀποδιδόντες, ὕστερον ὡς θεῷ θύειν ἐψηφίσαντο.
[89] In the well-known lines ἥκεις ὦ Λύκόοργε κτλ. Hdt. i, 65.
[90] Thus Eupolis calls the Hero Akademos θεός, as Sophokles does the Hero Kolonos, and others do the same, see Nauck on Soph., OC. 65.
[91] οἱ ἥρωες καὶ αἱ ἡρωίδες τοῖς θεοῖς τὸν αὐτὸν ἔχουσι λόγον (i.e. for dream-interpretation), πλὴν ὅσα δυνάμεως ἀπολείπονται, Artemid. iv, 78.—Paus. 10, 31, 11: the ancients considered the Eleusinian mysteries as τοσοῦτον ἐντιμότερον than all other religious ceremonies ὅσῳ καὶ θεοὺς ἐπίπροσθεν ἡρώων.
[92] Machaon’s μνῆμα and ἱερὸν ἅγιον at Gerenia, Paus. 3, 26, 9. His bones had been brought by Nestor when he came home from Troy: § 10. Cf. Schol. Marc. and Tz. Lyc. 1048. The first to sacrifice to him was Glaukos the son of Aipytos: Paus. 4, 3, 9.—Podaleirios. His ἡρῷον lay at the foot of the λόφος Δρίον by Mt. Garganus 100 stades from the sea, ῥεῖ δὲ ἐξ αὐτοῦ ποτάμιον πάνακες πρὸς τὰς τῶν θρεμμάτων νόσους, Str. 284. The method of incubation given in the text is described by Lyc. 1047–55. He also speaks of a river Althainis (so called because of its medicinal properties, cf. EM. 63, 3, from Schol. Lyc.), which cured disease if one sprinkled oneself with water from it.—? from Timaeus, cf. Tz. on 1050. (Cf. also the spring by the Amphiaraion at Oropos: Paus. 1, 34, 4.)
[93] Paus. 2, 38, 6.—The brother of Polemokrates, Alexanor, had a heroön at Titane in the territory of Sikyon: Paus. 2, 11, 7; 23, 4; but we hear nothing of sick-cures (though his name would lead us to suspect such).—Other Asklepiadai: Nikomachos, Gorgasos, Sphyros (Wide, Lac. Culte, 195).
[94] Sanctuary of Ἥρως ἰατρός near the Theseion: Dem. 19, 249; 18, 129; Apollon., V. Aesch., p. 265, 5 f. West. Decree about melting down silver votive-offerings (third and second century), CIA. ii, 403–4.—Acc. to Usener (Götternamen, 149–53) Ἰατρός is to be regarded as the proper name of this Hero (really a functional “Sondergott”) and not as an adjectival description of a nameless Hero (as in ἥρως στρατηγός, στεφανηφόρος, κλαϊκοφόρος—this last in two different places, like ἥρως ἰατρός, see above, [n. 61]). Acc. to [151] his view Ἰατρός was given the adj. title ἥρως to distinguish him from a θεὸς Ἰατρός. But this would only be possible if there existed a god who was not merely an ἰατρός and so called by this title, like Ἀπόλλων, Ποσειδῶν ἰατρός, but whose proper name was Ἰατρός. But there was no such god. Usener (151) infers the existence of a god Ἰατρός out of the proper name Ἰατροκλῆς. But this would only be justifiable if there were not a whole host of proper names compounded with -κλῆς, the first part of which is anything but a god’s name (list in Fick, Griech. Personennamen2, p. 165 ff.).—There seems no real reason for understanding the name ἥρως ἰατρός differently from the analogous ἥ. στρατηγός, ἥ. τειχοφύλαξ, etc.—There existed besides even νύμφαι ἰατροί, περὶ Ἠλείαν. Hesych.
[95] CIA. ii, 404, distinguishes the Hero referred to by the decree as the ἥρως ἰατρὸς ὁ ἐν ἄστει. This clearly implies a second ἥρως ἰατρός, outside Athens. But the Rhet. Lex. in AB. 262, 16 f. (cf. Sch. Dem., p. 437, 19–20 Di.), speaks of a ἥρως ἰατρός called Aristomachos ὅς ἐτάφη ἐν Μαραθῶνι παρὰ τὸ Διονύσιον, who it is clear cannot be the ἥρως ἰατρὸς that Demosthenes meant—for he is ὁ ἐν ἄστει; but the description applies very well to the Hero Physician worshipped in Attica outside the ἄστυ. See L. v. Sybel, Hermes, xx, 43.
[96] Cenotaph of Kalchas in Apulia near the heroön of Podaleirios, Lyc. 1047 ff.—his body was said to be buried in Kolophon: Νόστοι; Tz. Lyc. 427; Schol. D.P. 850. ἐγκοίμησις at his heroön, sleeping on the skin of the sacrificed ram: Str. 284; the same as, acc. to Lycophron, in the temple of Podaleirios. It almost looks like a mistake in either Strabo or Lyc. But the ritual may quite well have been the same in both temples and we find it again in the dream-oracle of Amphiaraos in Oropos, Paus. 1, 34, 5.—At the present day the Archangel Michael is worshipped at Monte Sant’ Angelo beneath Mt. Garganus. He appeared there during the fifth century and in a cave which is perhaps rightly regarded as the former site of the incubation-oracle of Kalchas: Lenormant, à travers l’Apulie, i, p. 61, Paris, 1883. S. Michael had in other cases also taken over the duties of the ancient incubation mantic, and continued them in a Christian form—though the task belonged more often to SS. Cosmas and Damian—e.g. in the Michaelion in Constantinople, the ancient Σωσθένιον: see Malal., pp. 78–9 Bonn.; Soz., HE. ii, 3.
[97] Lyc. 799 f. Arist. and Nicand. in Schol. ad loc. Was there a legend that made Odysseus die there? Lyc. himself, it is true, gives quite a different story a little later (805 ff.), much to the amazement of his scholiasts. Perhaps in 799 f. he was thinking, in spite of the dream oracle, only of a κενὸν σῆμα of Odysseus in Aetolia (as in the case of Kalchas).
[98] Grave of Prot.: Hdt. ix, 116 ff.; Lyc. 532 ff. ἱερὸν τοῦ Πρωτεσιλάου Thuc. viii, 102, 3. Oracle: Philostr., Her. 678, p. 146 f. K. It was esp. also an oracle of healing: ib., 147, 30 f. K.
[99] An oracle “Sarpedonis in Troade” is mentioned in a cursory enumeration of oracular sites by Tert., An. 46. It is difficult to imagine how Sarpedon, the Homeric one—no other can be meant here—whose body had been so ceremoniously brought to Lykia, can have had an oracle in the Troad. It may be merely a slip of the pen on Tertullian’s part.—At Seleucia in Cilicia there was an oracle of Apollo Sarpedonios, D.S. 32, 10, 2; Zos. 1, 57. Wesseling on D.S. ii, p. 519, has already called attention to the more detailed account in the Vit. S. Theclae of Basilius bishop of Seleucia; see the extracts given by R. Köhler, Rhein. Mus. 14, 472 ff. There the oracle is described [152] as a dream-oracle of Sarpedon himself who was consulted at his grave in Seleucia. It is also certain, as Köhler remarks, that Sarpedon, the son of Europa and brother of Minos, is meant. (This Cretan Sarpedon appears first in Hesiod and is quite distinct from the Homeric one: Aristonic. on Ζ 199. Indeed, Homer knows no other brother of Minos except Rhadamanthys: Ξ 322. In spite of this he was often regarded as the same as the Homeric Sarpedon who came from Lykia [cf. the name Zrppädoni on the Obelisk of Xanthos: Lyc. Inscr. tab. vii, l. 6]; acc. to [Apollod.] 3, 1, 3, he lived through three γενεαί, cf. Schol. V., Ζ 199: which seems a marvellous feat much in the manner of Hellanikos. Others made the Cretan Sarp. into the grandfather of the Lykian: D.S. 5, 79, 3.) The oracle belonged properly to Sarpedon; Apollo seems merely to have been an intruder here and to have taken the place of the Hero as he did with Hyakinthos at Amyklai. That Sarpedon, however, was not therefore quite forgotten is shown by the Christian notice of him. Perhaps Apollo was regarded as merely the patron of the oracle whose real guardian was still Sarpedon. It certainly indicates community of worship when Ap. is there called Ἀπόλλων Σαρπηδόνιος; so too in Tarentum—brought thither from Sparta and Amyklai—there was a τάφος παρὰ μέν τισιν Ὑακίνθου προσαγορευόμενος, παρὰ δέ τισιν Ἀπόλλωνος Ὑακίνθου (in which no alteration is necessary), Plb. 8, 30, 2. In Goityn there was a cult of Atymnos (Solin. 11, 9, p. 73 Mom.), the beloved of Apollo (or of Sarpedon): he too was worshipped as Apollo Atymnios (Nonn., D. 11, 131; 258; 12, 217).
[100] The inhabitants of Gadeira sacrificed to Men.; Philostr., VA. 5, 4, p. 167, 10 K. τὸ Μενεσθέως μαντεῖον on the Baetis is mentioned by Str., p. 140. How it got there we do not know.
[101] Str. 546. Autol. came there as a sharer in the expedition of Herakles against the Amazons and with the Argonauts. A.R. ii, 955–61. Plut., Luc. 23.
[102] For Anios see Meineke, An. Alex. 16–17; Wentzel in Pauly-Wissowa Anios. Apollo taught him the mantic art and gave him great τιμάς: D.S. 5, 62, 2. He is called μάντις also by Clem. Al., Strom. i, p. 400 P. Perhaps he was also a mantic Hero in the cult that was paid to him at Delos; in giving a list of the δαίμονας ἐπιχωρίους, Clem. Al., Protr. ii, p. 35 P., mentions also παρὰ δ’ Ἠλείους Ἄνιον, which Sylburg corrected to παρὰ Δηλίοις. A priest of Anios ἱερεὺς Ἀνίου at Delos is given CIA. ii, 985 D 10; E 4, 53.
[103] D.S. 5, 63, 2. There she is identified with Molpadia, daughter of Staphylos. In that case ἡμιθέα would more probably be an adjectival title of a Heroine whose real name was unknown, like the names of the unknown Heroes mentioned above, [nn. 60]–2. The daughter of Kyknos of the same name is quite a different person.
[104] Plut., Agis, 9, cf. Cic., Div. i, 43. At Thalamai we hear of a dream-oracle of Ino in front of which was a statue of Pasiphaë: Paus. 3, 26, 1. This probably means, as Welcker, Kl. Schr. iii, 92, says, that the same oracle had once belonged to Pas., but had then been afterwards dedicated to Ino. (Not of course that Pasiphaë = Ino, and this is not suggested by W., but merely that Ino may have taken the place of Pas.) A μαντεῖον τῆς Πασιφίλης is also mentioned by Apollon., Mir. 49: see also Müller, FHG. ii, 288 [see Keller, Paradoxogr., p. 55, 15].
[105] Something of the kind seems to be suggested by Pi., P. viii, 57: I praise Alkmaion γείτων ὅτι μοι καὶ κτεάνων φύλαξ ἐμῶν ὑπάντασέ τ’ ἰόντι γᾶς ὀμφαλὸν παρ’ ἀοίδιμον μαντευμάτων τ’ ἐφάψατο συγγόνοισι [153] τέχναις. Those much-discussed words I can only interpret as follows. Alkmaion had a ἡρῷον near Pindar’s house: he could only be “Guardian of his possessions” if he were either the guardian spirit of his neighbour or if Pindar had deposited money for safe keeping in his temple—the custom is well known, see Büchsenschütz, Besitz in Cl. Alt., p. 508 ff. As Pindar was once thinking of going to Delphi “Alk. applied himself to the prophetic arts traditional in his family” (τέχναις to be connected with ἐφάψ., a construction common in Pind.): i.e. he made him a revelation in a dream—on what subject Pindar does not say—as was customary in the family of the Amythaonidai, though not generally undertaken by Alkmaion (elsewhere) who unlike his brother Amphilochos nowhere seems to have had a dream-oracle of his own. (It seems to be a mere slip when Clem. Al., Str. i, p. 400 P. attributes the Oracle in Akarnania to Alk. instead of Amphil.)
[106] Plu., Q. Gr., 40, 300 D.
[107] Thus no herald might approach the heroön of Okridion in Rhodes, Plu., Q. Gr., 27, 297 C. No flute-player might approach, nor the name of Achilles be mentioned in the heroön of Tenes at Tenedos, ib., 28, 297 D. How an old grievance of a Hero might be continued into his after-life as a spirit is shown by an instructive example given by Hdt. v, 67.
[108] Paus. 9, 38, 5. The fetters were no doubt intended in such cases to fasten the statue (as the abode of the Hero himself) to the site of his worship. Thus in Sparta an ἄγαλμα ἀρχαῖον of Enyalios was kept in fetters. About this the γνώμη τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων was that οὔποτε τὸν Ἐνυάλιον φεύγοντα οἰχήσεσθαί σφισιν ἐνεχόμενον ταῖς πέδαις, Paus. 3, 15, 7. Similar things elsewhere: Lob., Agl. 275; cf. again Paus. 8, 41, 6. The striking effect of the statue fastened to the rocks may then very well have given rise to the (aetiological) legend of the πέτραν ἔχον εἴδωλον.
[109] Hdt. vii, 169–70.
[110] Hdt. vii, 134–7.
[111] Sanctity of trees and groves dedicated to a Hero: Ael., VH. v, 17: Paus. 2, 28, 7; but esp. 8, 24, 7.
[112] The story of the wrath of the Hero of Anagyros is told, with a few variations in detail, by Jerome ap. Suid. Ἀνάγ. δαίμων = Apostol. ix, 79; Dgn., Prov. iii, 31 (in cod. Coisl., p. 219 f. Götting.); cf. Zenob. ii, 55 = Dgn. i, 25. Similar stories of a δαίμων Κιλίκιος, Αἴνειος, are implied but not related by Macarius, iii, 18 (ii, p. 155 Gött.).
[113] The story in Suid. goes back to Hieron. Rhod. περὶ τραγῳδιοποιῶν (fr. 4 Hill.), who compared the story with the theme of the Euripides Phoenix.
[114] According to Paus. the ghost was explained to be one of the companions of Odysseus. Strabo says more particularly Polites, who was one of these. But a copy of an ancient picture representing the adventure called the daimon Lykas and made him black and grim-looking and dressed in a wolf-skin. The last is probably merely symbolic and represents full wolf-shape such as belonged to the Athenian Hero Lykos: Harp. δεκάζων. Wolf-shape given to a death-bringing spirit of the underworld, as often: cf. Roscher, Kynanth. 60–1. This must have been the more ancient form of the legend and the daimon was only subsequently changed into a Hero.
[115] The story in its general outline recalls esp. the other Greek legends in which similar rescues occur; we are reminded not merely of the stories of Perseus and Andromeda or Herakles and Hesione, but also of the fight of Herakles with Thanatos for the sake of Alkestis, [154] in Eurip., Alc., and of Koroibos’ struggle with the Ποίνη in Argos. But the story of Euthymos and the Hero of Temesa agrees even in its details with a story coming from a far distant locality, Krisa at the foot of Mt. Parnassos, where lived the monster Lamia, or Sybaris, who was overthrown by Eurybatos—as it is told in Nikander’s Ἑτεροιούμενα, ap. Ant. Lib. viii—and is even to this day related as a fairy-tale; see B. Schmidt. Gr. Märchen, 142, 246 f. It is unnecessary to suppose imitation of either legend by the other; both independently reproduce the same fairy-tale motif, which is in fact very common everywhere. The monster overcome by the champion is regularly a chthonic being, a fiend from below: Thanatos, Poine, Lamia (which is the generic name, Σύβαρις being apparently the special name of this particular Lamia) and the ghostly “Hero” of Temesa.
[116] Paus. 6, 6, 7–11, the main source; Str. 255; Ael., VH. viii, 18; Plut. Paroem. ii, 31; Suid. Εὔθυμος. The “translation” occurs in Paus. Ael., and Suid. According to Aelian he went to the River Kaikinos near his old home Locri and disappeared: ἀφανισθῆναι. (The river-god Kaikinos is regarded as his real father: Paus. 6, 6, 4.) Perhaps the heroön of Euthymos may have been near the river. “Heroizing” of Euthymos by a flash of lightning is confirmed by his statue: Callim., fr. 399; Pliny, NH. 7, 152; Schol. Paus. Hermes, 29, 148. Inscription on base of statue of E. at Olympia: Arch. Zeit., 1878, p. 82.
[117] Paus. 6, 11, 2–9; D. Chr. 31, 340 M. [i, 247 Arn.]. Cf. Oinom. ap. Eus. PE. 5, 34, p. 231–2 V. Oinomaos 232 C refers to a similar legend of the pentathlos Euthykles and his statue, at Locri.
[118] The story of Mitys (or Bitys) in Argos is known from Arist. Po. 9, p. 1452a, 7 ff. (Mirab. 156). A few more such stories are recorded in Wyttenbach, Plu. M. vii, p. 316 (Oxon.); cf. also Theoc. 23. Just as in the story of Theagenes, the statue was punished as responsible for the murder, so, too, the attribution of a fetichistic personality to inanimate objects lies at the bottom of the ancient customs observed in the Athenian murder laws, by which judgment was given in the Prytaneion περὶ τῶν ἀψύχων τῶν ἐμπεσόντων τινὶ καὶ ἀποκτεινάντων: Poll. viii, 120, after Dem. 23, 76, cf. Arist. Ἀθπ. 57, 4. Such judgments cannot originally have been merely symbolical in meaning.
[119] Luc., D. Conc. 12; Paus. 6, 11, 9.
[120] Luc., l.c. On Polydamas see Paus. 6, 5, and among many others Eus. Chron. Olympionic., Ol. 93, p. 204 Sch.
[121] His victory was won in Ol. 6 (see also Eus. Chron., Ol. 6, p. 196); the statue erected to him only in Ol. 80; Paus. 7, 17, 6.
[122] Paus. 7, 17, 13–14.
[123] Plu., Thes. 35.
[124] Paus. 1, 15, 3; 32, 5.
[125] Hdt. viii, 38–9.
[126] Hdt. viii, 64. The difference should be noted: εὔξασθαι τοῖσι θεοῖσι καὶ ἐπικαλέσασθαι τοὺς Αἰακίδας συμμάχους. So, too, we are told in Hdt. v, 75, that both the Tyndaridai ἐπίκλητοι εἴποντο the Spartans into the field. (The Aeginetans sent the Aiakidai to the help of the Thebans, but as they proved unprofitable the Thebans τοὺς Αἰακίδας ἀπεδίδοσαν. Hdt. v, 80).
[127] Plu., Them. 15.
[128] Hdt. viii, 121.
[129] Kychreus: Paus. 1, 36, 1. The Hero himself appeared as a snake, as also e.g. Sosipolis in Elis before the battle, Paus. 6, 20, 4–5; Erichthonios, Paus. 1, 24, 7: for οἱ παλαιοὶ μάλιστα τῶν ζώων τὸν δράκοντα τοῖς ἥρωσι συνῳκείωσαν, Plu., Cleom. 39. The temple snake, [155] the Κυχρείδης ὄφις kept at Eleusis, was undoubtedly the Hero himself; though acc. to the rationalizing account in Str. 393–4 it had merely been reared by Kychreus.
[130] Themistokles in Hdt. viii, 109.
[131] Xen., Cyn. i, 17.
[132] The Dioscuri helped the Spartans in war, Hdt. v, 75; the Locrian Aias the Locrians in Italy: Paus. 3, 19, 12–13; Conon 18 (artistically elaborated and no longer naive legend but both taken from the same source).
[133] Hdt. vi, 61 (hence Paus. 3, 7, 7); grave of Helen at Therapne, Paus. 3, 19, 8.
[134] Hdt. vi, 69. Thus, too, the Theagenes mentioned above was regarded in Thasos not as the son of Timosthenes, τοῦ Θεαγένους δὲ τῇ μητρὶ Ἡρακλέους συγγενέσθαι φάσμα ἐοικὸς Τιμοσθένει, Paus. 6, 11, 2.—Everyone will be reminded, too, of the fable of Zeus and Alkmene. But it should be noticed how near such stories as that so naively told by Herod. approach the risky novel-plot in which some profane mortal visits in disguise an unsuspecting woman and plays the part of a god or spirit-lover. That in Greece, too, such stories were current we may perhaps deduce from Eur., Ion, 1530 ff. Ov., M. iii, 281; says outright: multi nomine divorum thalamos iniere pudicos. An adventure of this sort is told by the writer of [Aeschines] Ep. 10, and he is able to produce two similar cases which he certainly has not invented himself (8-9).—In more recent times both western and Oriental nations have delighted in telling such stories; a typical Oriental example is the story of “the Weaver as Vishnu” in the Panchatantra (see Benfey, Pantsch. i, § 56); in the West there is the story of Boccaccio dealing with Alberto of Imola as the angel Gabriel, Decam. iv, 2—Very suspicious, too, seems the account of a miracle that occurred in Epidauros: a barren woman comes to the temple of Asklepios to seek advice by ἐγκοίμησις. A big snake approaches her and she has a child. Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1885, pp. 21–2, l. 129 ff.
[135] ἐκ τοῦ ἡρωίου τοῦ παρὰ τῇσι θύρῃσι τῇσι αὐλείῃσι ἱδρυμένου, Hdt. vi, 69.
[136] Hero ἐπὶ προθύρῳ, Callim., Ep. 26; a Hero πρὸ πύλαις, πρὸ δόμοισιν, late epigram from Thrace, Epigr. Gr. 841; ἥρωας πλησίον τῆς τοῦ ἰδόντος οἰκίας ἱδρυμένους, Artemid. iv, 79, p. 248, 9 H. This, too, is how Pindar’s words about the Hero Alkmaion as his γείτων are to be understood: Pyth. viii, 57, see above, [n. 105]. An Aesopian fable dealing with the relations of a man with his neighbour-Hero begins ἥρωά τις ἐπὶ τῆς οἰκίας ἔχων τούτῳ πολυτελῶς ἔθυεν, 161 Halm.; cf. also Babr. 63.—A similar idea is at work when a son put up a monument to his father at the doorway of his house—see the fine lines of Eur., Hel. 1165 ff.
[137] Κύπρῳ ἔνθα Τεῦκρος ἀπάρχει. Aias ἔχει Salamis and Achilles his island in the Pontus; Θέτις δὲ κρατεῖ Φθίᾳ, and so, too, Neoptolemos in Epirus: Pi., N. iv, 46–51; ἀμφέπει used of a Hero, P. ix, 70; τοῖς θεοῖς καὶ ἥρωσι τοῖς κατέχουσι τὴν πόλιν καὶ τὴν χώραν τὴν Ἀθηναίων: Dem. 18, 184.
[138] Cf. Alabandus whom the inhabitants of Alabanda sanctius colunt quam quemquam nobilium deorum: Cic., ND. iii, 50 (in connexion with an anecdote relating to the fourth century)—Tenem, qui apud Tenedios sanctissimus deus habetur, Cic., V. ii, 1, 49.
CHAPTER V
THE CULT OF SOULS
Greek civilization as we see it reflected in the Homeric poems strikes us as so variously developed, and yet so complete in itself, that if we had no further sources of information, we should naturally suppose that the characteristic culture of the Greeks there reached the highest point attainable under the conditions set by national character and external circumstance. In reality the Homeric poems stand on the border line between an older development that has come to complete maturity and a new, and in many ways differently constituted, order of things. The poems themselves offer an idealized picture of a past that was on the point of disappearing entirely. The profound upheavals of the following centuries can be measured by their final results; we can guess the underlying forces from a study of the individual symptoms. But the fact remains that in the very imperfect state of our information about this period of transformation, we can do little more than recognize the existence of all the conditions necessary for a complete reorganization of Greek life. We can see how the once less-important races in Greece now come into the foreground of history; how they set up new kingdoms by the right of conquest on the ruins of the old, and bring into prominence their own special ways of thinking. Colonization over a wide area meant the expansion of Greek life; while the colonies themselves, as is so often the case, traversed all the stages of development at a much faster rate. Commerce and industry developed, calling forth and satisfying new demands. New elements of the population came to the fore, governments began to fall and the old rule of the kings gave way to Aristocracy, Tyranny, Democracy. In friendly and (in the West especially) hostile relationship the Greeks came into contact more than formerly with foreign peoples in every stage of civilization who influenced them in many directions.
All these great movements must have produced many fresh currents in intellectual life too. And in fact the attempt to get free from tradition, from the long-standing culture that seemed, when reflected in the Homeric poems, so permanent and [157] complete in itself, is seen most clearly in the sphere of poetry. The poets threw off the tyranny of the epic convention. They ceased to obey its formal verse-rhythm. And with the freedom thus gained from its vocabulary of stock words, phrases, and images, it was inevitable that the point of view also should change and gain in width. The poet no longer turns his gaze away from his own time and his own person. He himself becomes the central figure of his poetry, and to express the ferment of his own emotions he invents for himself the most natural rhythm, in close alliance with music which now becomes an important and independent element in Greek life. It is as though the Greeks had just discovered the full extent of their own capacities and dared to make free use of them. In every branch of the plastic arts the hand of the artist wins in the course of the centuries an ever greater capacity to give visible shape to the imagined world of beauty. Even the ruins of that world reveal to us more plainly and impressively (because less mixed with conscious reflexion) than any literary achievement, the thing that is of permanent value in Greek art.
It was impossible that religion, alone unaffected by the general atmosphere of change, should remain unaltered in the old paths. But here, even more than in other directions, we must admit that the inward reality of the change remains hidden from us. We can see indeed many external alterations, but of the directing spirit which called them forth we hardly catch more than a glimpse. It is easy, by comparing the later condition of religion with the Homeric, to see how enormously the objects of religious worship have multiplied. We can see how much more sumptuous and elaborate ceremonial has become and observe the development in beauty and variety, in conjunction with the fine arts, of the great religious festivals of the different cities and peoples of Greece. Temples and sculpture bear unmistakable witness to the increased power and importance of religion. That an inward and far-reaching change had come over religious thought and belief might have been already guessed from the fame and importance which belonged to the oracle at Delphi, now coming into real power; and from the many new developments in Greek religious life taking their origin from this spiritual centre. At this time there grew up, under the influence of a deepening moral sense, that new interpretation of religion that we meet with in its completed form in Aeschylus and Pindar. The age was decidedly more “religious-minded” than that in which Homer lived. It is as though the Greeks then went through a period such as [158] most civilized nations go through at some time or other, and such as the Greeks themselves were to repeat more than once in after centuries—a period in which the mind after it has at least half succeeded in winning its freedom from disquieting and oppressive beliefs in invisible powers shrinks back once more. Under the influence of adversity it feels the need of some comforting illusions behind which it may take shelter and be relieved in part of the burden of responsibility.
The obscurity of this period of growth hides also from our sight the origin and development of beliefs about the soul very different from the Homeric. The results of the process are however visible enough and we can still discern how a regular cult of the disembodied soul and eventually a belief in immortality fully worthy of the name were being built up at this time. These things are the result of phenomena which partly represent the re-emergence of elements in religious life which had been submerged in the previous period, and partly the entry of fresh forces which in conjunction with the resuscitated old give rise between them to a third and new creation.
I
CULT OF THE CHTHONIC DEITIES
The chief new feature revealing itself to comparative study in the development of religion in the post-Homeric period is the worship of chthonic deities, that is, of deities dwelling in the interior of the earth. And yet it is an undoubted fact that these divinities are among the oldest possessions of Greek religious faith. Indeed, bound as they are to the soil of the country, they are the true local deities, the real gods of home and country. They are also not unknown to Homer; but epic poetry had transferred them, divested of all local limitation, to a distant subterranean region, inaccessible to living men, beyond the limits of Okeanos. There Aïdes and the terrible Persephoneia rule as guardians of the dead. From that distant and unapproachable place they can have no influence upon the life and doings of men on earth. Religious cult, too, only knows these deities in connexion with particular localities and particular groups of worshippers. Each of these worships the deities of the underworld as denizens of their soil and their countryside alone. They are untroubled by any considerations of a general and uniform kingdom of the gods such as the epic had set up; nor are they disturbed by similar and conflicting claims made by neighbouring [159] communities. And only in these local cults are the gods of the lower world seen in their true nature as they were conceived by the faith of their worshippers. They are the gods of a settled, agricultural, inland population. Dwelling beneath the soil they guarantee two things to their worshippers: they bless the cultivation of the ground and ensure the increase of the fruits of the soil to the living; they receive the souls of the dead into their underworld.[1] In certain places they also send up from the spirit-world revelations of future events.
The most exalted name we met with among these dwellers below the earth is that of Zeus Chthonios. This is at once the most general and the most exclusive designation of the god of the lower world; for the name “Zeus” had in many local cults thus preserved the generalized meaning of “god” in combination with a particularizing adjective. The Iliad also once speaks of “Zeus of the lower world”; though by this is meant none other than the ruler of the distant realm of the dead, Hades. Hades too, in the Hesiodic Theogony is once called “Zeus the Chthonian”.[2] But the agricultural poem of Hesiod bids the Boeotian countryman, when preparing his fields for sowing, pray for a blessing to the Chthonic Zeus. Zeus Chthonios was also sacrificed to in Mykonos for the “fruits of the earth”.[3]
But, more frequently than under this most general and exalted title,[4] we meet with the god of the living and the dead under various disguises. The gods of the underworld were generally referred to by affectionate or cajoling nicknames that laid stress on the lofty or beneficent character of their rule and threw a veil over the darkest side of their nature with conciliatory euphemism.[5] Thus Hades had many flattering titles and special names.[6] So, too, in many places Zeus of the underworld was worshipped as Zeus Eubouleus or Bouleus,[7] at other places, especially Hermione, as Klymenos.[8] Zeus Amphiaraos, Zeus Trophonios we have dealt with already in their capacity of Heroes, but they are really nothing else but such earth deities with honourable titles, who have been deprived to some extent of their full status as gods[9] and have on that account developed all the more strongly the oracular side of their powers. Hades, the ruler of that distant kingdom of darkness, is one of this class of manifestations of Zeus Chthonios that vary in name according to the different localities of their worship. The king of the shadows in Erebos as he appears in Homer has no altars or sacrifices made to him[10]; but these things belong to him as the local god of particular places. In the Peloponnese there were local centres [160] of his worship in Elis and Triphylia,[11] sites of a very ancient civilization; and it is probable enough that tribes and clans having their origin there contributed by their wanderings to the spread of their native cult of the chthonic deity in other Greek countries as well.[12] Hades, too, was for his Peloponnesian worshippers a god of the fertility of the earth just as much as a god of the dead.[13] And in the same way he was the lord of the Souls as well, in those places where “in fear of the name of Hades”[14] he was called, in honour of his beneficent powers, Plouton, Plouteus, or Zeus Plouteus.
The welfare of the living and the dead was also the concern of the female deity of the underworld called by the name of the earth itself Ge or Gaia. At the places where she was worshipped she was regarded as one who brought fruitfulness to the fields, but she held sway over the souls of the dead as well, in conjunction with whom prayers and sacrifice were offered to her.[15] Her temples remained in honour, especially at Athens and at the primeval centre of ancient worship of the gods, Olympia.[16] But her personality had never been quite reduced to definite and intelligible outline from the enormous vagueness natural to primitive deities. Earth-goddesses of more recent and intelligible form had supplanted her. She retained longest her mantic powers which she exercised from beneath the earth, the abode of spirits and souls, at ancient oracular sites—though even here she often had to give way to oracular gods of another description, such as Zeus and Apollo. A poet indeed mentions her once side by side with the great ruler of the lower world,[17] but in actual worship she was seldom found among the groups of male and female deities of chthonic nature such as were worshipped together at many places. Above all, at Hermione there flourished from primitive times a solemn cult of the lower-world Demeter in conjunction with the lower-world Zeus, under the name of Klymenos, and with Kore.[18] At other places Plouton and these two goddesses were worshipped together, or Zeus Eubouleus and the same two, etc.[19] The names of the underworld god vary indefinitely, but the names of Demeter and her divine daughter appear every time unchanged. Either alone or together, and worshipped in connexion with other related deities, these two goddesses have by far the most important place in the cult of the underworld. The fame and widespread popularity of their cult in all Greek cities of the mother-country and in the colonies proves more than anything else that since Homeric times a change must have taken place in the sphere of religious emotion and service of the gods. [161]
Homer gives no hint of the character or importance of the later cult of Demeter and Persephone. For him Persephone is simply the grim unapproachable Queen of the dead, Demeter invariably (and solely) a goddess of the fertility of crops[20]; she stands apart indeed from the rest of the Olympians, but no reference to a close association with her daughter is ever made.[21] Now, however, both goddesses appear in various and changing activity, but always closely associated, and it seems as if they had come to share some of their previously distinct characteristics. Both are now chthonic deities who together have in their protection the growth of the crops and the care of the souls of the dead. How in detail the change came about we can no longer discover. It may be that, in the times of the great migrations, from various centres of the worship of the two goddesses, such as had existed from great antiquity in the Peloponnese especially,[22] there issued forth this faith that differed so essentially from the Homeric-Ionic view of things. It must have spread just as in later times the special variety of the cult of the closely associated goddesses that was practised in Eleusis was widely propagated by regular missions. It also seems that Demeter, in whose name there was early a tendency to recognize a second “Mother Earth,” in many places took the place of Gaia in religious cult, and thereby entered into closer connexion with the realm of the souls below the earth.