[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.