Now this kinship with the gods to which he thus attains can only be made intelligible, if, in accordance with the analogies adduced above, we regard the μύησις (or perhaps only its highest stages) as a symbolic adoption by the divinities, suggesting or representing entrance into the divine γένος. No one will maintain that γεννήτης τῶν θεῶν is a “very unnatural phrase” (Wil.) for one who has been “adopted” by the gods, who will recall the fact that at Athens the adopted person was inscribed εἰς τοὺς γεννήτας of the adopter (Is. 7, 13; 15; 17; 43), or, which is precisely the same thing, εἰς τοὺς συγγενεῖς of the adopter (Is. 7, 27; 1). Thereby he becomes himself γεννήτης of the members of the γένος into which he thus enters; he is now their γεννήτης, or, as it is once expressed in an absolutely equivalent phrase, their συγγενὴς κατὰ τὴν ποίησιν ([Dem.] 44, 32).
Thus the fully initiated is γεννήτης of the divine family, κατὰ τὴν ποίησιν.
APPENDIX XII
MAGICAL EXORCISMS OF THE DEAD ON LATE κατάδεσμοι, φιμωτικά, ETC.
Invocations and conjurings of ἄωροι and other νεκυδαίμονες of an earlier period are mentioned above ([p. 594] f.). To a later period belong [604] the defixiones found at Cyprus (Kurion) and edited in the Proc. of the Soc. of Bibl. Archaeology, p. 174 ff. The defixiones are there called παραθῆκαι, φιμωτικαὶ τοῦ ἀντιδίκου (i, 39, and frequently), or φιμωτικὰ καταθέματα (iv, 15, etc.). φιμοῦν and φιμωτικόν in this rude Egypto-Syrian Greek are equivalent to the terms, otherwise usual for such magic charms, καταδεῖν, κατάδεσμος (see above, chap. ix, [n. 107]). See also P. Mag. Lond. (Kenyon, Greek Pap. in BM., p. 114), l. 967 ff.: in an appeal to a god (δεῦρό μοι καὶ) φίμωσον, ὑπόταξον, καταδούλωσον τὸν δεῖνα τῷ δεῖνι κτλ.—ib., p. 97, l. 396 ff.: φιμωτικὸν καὶ ὑποτακτικὸν γενναῖον καὶ κάτοχος· λαβὼν μόλυβον ἀπὸ ψυχροφόρου σωλῆνος ποίησον λάμναν καὶ ἐπίγραφε χαλκῷ γραφείῳ (bronze is a magic metal), ὡς ὑποκεῖται, καὶ θὲς παρὰ ἄωρον (see above, [p. 594] f.) here follows the rest of the barbarous text.—On these Cypriote defixiones among the other invocations regularly appear those addressed to the souls of the unquiet dead, to the δαίμονες πολυάνδριοι (vi, 17. adds πεπελεκισμένοι καὶ ἐσ[ταυρωμένοι or ἐσκολοπισμένοι? cf. Luc., Philops. 29]) καὶ βιοθάνατοι καὶ ἄωροι καὶ ἄποροι ταφῆς (τῆς ἱερᾶς ταφῆς iv, 18): thus i, 30 f., and frequently. The δαίμονες πολυάνδριοι were probably the souls of executed criminals whose bodies were thrown out into the common burial grounds—as at Melite in Athens: Plu., Themist. 22—the πολυάνδρια (cf. Perizon. on Ael., VH. 12, 21). βιοθάνατοι εἴτε ξένοι εἴτε ἐντόπιοι are invoked, iv, 4. Invocation is made in common to: τύμβε πανδάκρυτε καὶ χθόνιοι θεοὶ καὶ Ἑκάτη χθονία καὶ Ἑρμῆ χθόνιε καὶ Πλούτων καὶ Ἐρινύες ὑποχθόνιοι καὶ ὑμεῖς οἱ ὧδε κατῳκημένοι ἄωροι καὶ ἀνώνυμοι (see Rh. Mus. 50, 20, 3): i, 35, and frequently repeated with the same formula. What we have here is of frequent occurrence: a dead person is called upon to carry out a curse. An early example is CIG. 539: καταδῶ αὐτοὺς (the persons to be cursed) σοί, Ὀνήσιμε (Attica, fourth century B.C.). The tablet in Böckh, i, p. 487, admits the reading Ὀνήσιμε as well as Ὀνήσιμη. The latter (as a nominative) is preferred by Wünsch, Tab. Defix., p. ivb, p. 25 (n. 100), simply in order to expel every example of the invocation of a dead person to carry out a curse. But this is only a petitio principii; and if we accepted Ὀνήσιμη (as the name of the curser) at least the addition of some word like ἐγώ after αὐτοὺς σοί would be necessary—for which there is no room on the tablet. It will be necessary to retain the generally accepted vocative Ὀνήσιμε (to which the coming πάντας . . . τηρεῖν, l. 5–8, is much better suited than to the following Ἑρμῆ, l. 8, as in Wünsch’s version). There is nothing remarkable in the invocation here of the individual νεκυδαίμων by name (thus doubling the force of compulsion exerted; cf. Kroll, Rh. Mus., 52, 345 f.) to complete and carry out the curse: parallels are given above, [p. 594] ff., and in the above-mentioned Cypriote φιμωτικά: cf. also CIG. 5858b, δαίμονες καὶ πνεύματα (i.e. “souls”) ἐν τῷ τόπῳ τούτῳ θηλυκῶν καὶ ἀρρενικῶν, ἐξορκίζω ὑμᾶς.
The custom of burying such magic defixions was astonishingly widespread. Defigi diris deprecationibus nemo non metuit, Plin., NH. 28, 19. In the places where Latin was spoken such abominations were [605] indeed even more common than in Greek-speaking countries. (The Latin defixiones are collected now by Wünsch, Tab. Defix. xxv f.) The practice had a long life and is not quite dead even to-day. On the Roman side examples from the seventh and eighth centuries are by no means rare: see e.g. [Aug.] Hom. de Sacrileg., § 20. For a Greek example see e.g. the story ap. Sophronius, SS. Cyri et Ioannis Miracula (saec. vi), chap. 55, p. 3625 Migne: magical objects were buried under the doorstep of the victim’s house; were discovered and dug up; whereupon the death immediately followed of—not the victim but—the magician.
12th August, 1897 (= 2nd German Ed.).
INDEX
The figures indicate pages, except where they follow a Roman numeral, in which case they refer to the numbered notes.
Abarbareë and Boukolion, [xiv, ii, 105].