[63] The Sibyl is overcome by the furor divinus in such a way ut quae sapiens non videat ea videat insanus, et si qui humanos sensus amiserit divinos assecutus sit, Cic., Div. ii, 110; cf. i, 34. νοσήματα μανικὰ καὶ ἐνθουσιαστικά of Sibyls and Bakids Arist. Prob. 30, 1, 954a, 36. The Sibyl prophesies μαντικῇ χρωμένη ἐνθέῳ, Pl., Phdr. 244 B. μαινομένη τε καὶ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ κάτοχος, Paus. 10, 12, 2. deo furibunda recepto, Ov., M. xiv, 107. There is in her divinitas et quaedam caelitum societas, Plin., NH. vii, 119. κατοχὴ καὶ ἐπίπνοια [Just.], Co. ad. Gr., 37, 36 A. So, too, in our collections of Sibylline oracles the S. often speak of their divine frenzy, etc.; e.g. ii, 4, 5; iii, 162 f., 295 f.; xi, 317, 320, 323 f.; xii, 294 f., etc. Frenzy of the Cumaean S.: Vg., A. vi, 77 f.—Bakis has his prophetic gift from the Nymphs (Ar., Pa. 1071), he is κατάσχετος ἐκ νυμφῶν, μανεὶς ἐκ νυμφῶν (Paus. 10, 12, 11; 4, 27, 4), νυμφόληπτος (cf. θεόληπτος, φοιβόληπτος, πανόληπτος, μητρόληπτος; Lymphati: Varro, LL. vii, p. 365 Sp., Paul. Fest., p. 120, 11 ff., Placid., p. 62, 15 ff. Deuerl.).
[64] Σίβυλλα δὲ μαινομένῳ στόματι κτλ.: Herakleitos ap. Plu., Pyth. Or. 6, p. 397 A. fr. 12 By. = 92 Diels (the words χιλίων . . . θεοῦ are not H.’s but Plutarch’s. Cl. Al., Str. 1, 15, p. 358 P. uses only Plu.). To regard Herakleitos’ Sibyl as the Pythia (with Bgk., etc.) is absurd apart from the fact that the Pythia is never called Σίβυλλα. It is excluded by the way Plu. introduces the word in this passage, and connects chap. 9 with chap. 6. It is true, though, that Pl. draws a parallel between the nature of the Sibyl and that of the Pythia.
[65] Homer knows Kassandra as one of the daughters of Priam and indeed as Πριάμοιο θυγατρῶν εἶδος ἀρίστην, Ν 365; probably that it why she is allotted to Agamemnon as his share of the spoil and why she is slain with him, λ 421 ff. The Κύπρια is the first to tell of her [317] prophetic skill. Was it the narrative of Ω 699 which first suggested to the νεώτεροι the idea of her knowledge of the future? (In reality that passage alludes rather to the συμπάθεια of the sister and daughter and not to mantikê: Sch. B. ad loc.) Her prophetic gifts were elaborated later in many stories: e.g. Bacchyl. xiv, 50 = fr. 29 Bgk. (Porph. on Hor. O. i, 15). Aesch. represents her as the type of the ecstatic prophetess (φρενομανής, θεοφόρητος, Ag. 1140, 1216). As such she is called by Eur. μαντιπόλος βάκχη, Hec. 121. φοιβάς 827. τὸ βακχεῖον κάρα τῆς θεσπιῳδοῦ Κασσάνδρας 676. She wildly shakes her head like the Bacchants ὅταν θεοῦ μαντόσυνοι πνεύσωσ’ ἀνάγκαι, IA. 760 ff.
[66] About the Arcadian Bakis (Kydas or Aletes by name) Θεόπομπος ἐν τῇ θʹ τῶν Φιλιππικῶν ἄλλα τε πολλὰ ἱστορεῖ παράδοξα καὶ ὅτι ποτὲ τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων τὰς γυναῖκας μανείσας ἐκάθηρεν, Ἀπόλλωνος τούτοις τούτον καθαρτὴν δόντος, Sch. Ar., Pa. 1071. The story is closely parallel to that of Melampous and the Proitides, see above, [nn. 22]–5.
[67] Cf. e.g. Hippocr. π. παρθενίων (ii, p. 528 K.; viii, 468 L.). Upon their recovery from hysterical hallucinations the women dedicate valuable ἱμάτια to Artemis κελευόντων τῶν μάντεων. This is the regular name for the μάγοι, καθαρταί, ἀγύρται (cf. Teiresias δόλιος ἀγύρτης, S., OT. 388; Kassandra is accused of being φοιτὰς ἀγύρτρια, A., Ag. 1273). Hp. speaks elsewhere also of their manner of healing epilepsy, i, p. 588 K. (vi, 354 L.).
[68] καθαρμοὶ . . . κατὰ τὴν μαντικήν, Pl., Crat. 405 AB. The μάντεις are able e.g. to drive away by magic the mist that is so dangerous for the olive-trees: Thphr., CP. 2, 7, 5. The μάντεις καὶ τερατοσκόποι, ἁγύρται καὶ μάντεις possess the arts of μαγγανεύματα, ἐπῳδαί, καταδέσεις and ἐπαγωγαί which compel the gods to do their will, Pl., Rp. 364 BC; Lg. 933 CE. These μάντεις correspond in all essentials to the magicians and medicine men of savage tribes. Prophet, doctor, and magician are here united in a single person. A mythical prototype of these Greek “medicine men” is Apis, of whom we hear in Aesch., Sup. 260–70. (The μάντεις also officiate as sacrificial priests, esp. where the sacrifice is combined with a special sacrificial mantikê—quite unknown to Homer—in which the will of the gods is inquired: Eur., Hcld. 401, 819; Ph. 1255 ff. and frequently. Hermann Gottesdienstl. Alterth. 33, 9.)
[69] The clearest evidence for this is Hp., Morb. Sacr. (vi, 352 L.). See below, [n. 81]. Assistance in the case of internal diseases is naturally sought in ancient times from magicians, for such diseases arise immediately from the action of a god: στυγερὸς δέ οἱ ἔχραε δαίμων, ε 396 (cf. κ, 64), is said of an invalid who lies δηρὸν τηκόμενος. Cf. νοῦσος Διὸς μεγάλου, ι 411. In such cases help is sought from the ἰατρόμαντις (A., Sup. 263) who is at once μάντις and τερατοσκόπος and καθαρτής like his divine prototype Apollo: A., Eum. 62–3. In a long illness King Kleomenes I of Sparta resorts to καθαρταὶ καὶ μάντεις, Plu., Ap. Lac. 11, p. 223 E.
[70] Α 313 f.; χ 481 ff. Kathartic practices, however much they may contain a primitive core, were fairly late in attaining popularity in Greece (or in regaining a lost popularity): as is shown esp. by the all but total absence of any mention of such practices and the superstitions underlying them from Hesiod, Op., which otherwise preserves the memory of so much countryside superstition (something rather like it is perhaps to be found in Op. 733–6).
[71] Nothing is said in Homer of the purification of the murderer or the homicide: see above, chap. v, [n. 166].
[72] Thus at the ἀμφιδρόμια all who have had anything to do with [318] the μαίωσις, ἀποκαθαίρονται τὰς χεῖρας (Suid. s.v.). But even the child is lustrated: it is carried in the arms of a grown-up who runs with it round the altar and the altar fire: clearly a vestige of the ἀποτροπιασμὸς καὶ κάθαρσις of the child by sacred fire of which so many relics have been observed: see Grimm, p. 625; Tylor, ii, 430 f.—Uncleanness of the pregnant woman until the fortieth day after the child is born: Welcker, Kl. Schr. iii, 197–9. At the birth of a child crowns of olive-branches or woollen fillets (ἔρια) were in Attica hung up on the house-door; just as cypress-branches were hung on the doors of houses where a corpse lay (see above, chap. v, [n. 39]): for kathartic purposes strings of onions (squills) were suspended on house-doors; see [below]): Hsch. στέφανον ἐκφέρειν. Both are lustral materials. Use of olive branches at καθαρμός: S., OC. 483 f.; Vg., A. 230. When a mother gives her child that is to be exposed a crown made of olive branches (as in Eur., Ion, 1433 ff.), this, too, has an apotropaic purpose as also has the Gorgon’s head on the embroidered stuff that also accompanies the child (l. 1420 f.): see on this O. Jahn, Bös. Blick, 60. The olive is also sacred to the χθόνιοι (hence its use as a bed for corpses: see above, chap. v, [n. 61]; cf. τοῖς ἀποθανοῦσιν ἐλαᾶς συνεκφέρουσιν: Artemid. iv, 57, p. 236, 20 H. κοτίνῳ καὶ ταινίᾳ the goddess crowns Chios in his dream and points the man thus dedicated to death to his μνῆμα: Chio, Epist. 17, 2). This makes the olive suitable for lustration and ἀποτροπιασμοί. The house in which the child lay was thus regarded as needing “purification”. The “uncleanness” felt to exist in this case is clearly expressed by Phot. ῥάμνος· ἀμίαντος ἡ πίττα· διὸ καὶ ἐν ταῖς γενέσεσι τῶν παιδίων (ταύτῃ) χρίουσι τὰς οἰκίας, εἰς ἀπέλασιν δαιμόνων (see above, chap. v, [n. 95]). It is the neighbourhood of these (chthonic) δαίμονες that cause the pollution.