NOTES TO CHAPTER V
I
[1] This dual efficacy of the χθόνιοι is explained naturally enough by their nature as underground spirits. There is no reason for supposing that their influence on the fertility of the fields was a later addition (as Preller does, Dem. u. Perseph. 188 ff., followed by many). Still less have we any grounds for regarding the protection of souls and the care for the fertility of crops as a sort of allegorizing parallel (soul = grain of seed) as has been usual since the time of K. O. Müller.
[2] Ζεὺς καταχθόνιος, I 457. θεοῦ χθονίου . . . ἰφθίμου Ἀΐδεω, Hes. Th. 767 f. Evidently there is no distinction here between καταχθόνιος and χθόνιος, as Preller, Dem. u. Pers. 187, wishes to make out.
[3] Hes. Op. 465, εὔχεσθαι δὲ Διὶ χθονίῳ Δημήτερί θ’ ἁγνῇ κτλ. It is impossible even by far-fetched methods of interpretation (such as Lehrs makes use of, Popul. Aufs.2 298 f.) to make this Ζεὺς χθόνιος into anything else than a Zeus of the underworld. The god of the lower world, totally distinct from the Olympian Zeus (Ζεὺς ἄλλος, Aesch., Supp. 231), is here a dispenser of blessings to the farmer. In the sacrificial regulation from Mykonos (SIG. 615) it is prescribed to offer: ὑπὲρ καρπῶν (καμπῶν on the stone) Διὶ Χθόνίῳ Γῇ Χθονίῃ ΔΕΡΤΑ μέλανα ἐτήσια; ξένῳ οὐ θέμις (where δερτὰ = hostias pelle spoliatas, see Prott, Leg. Sacr. i, p. 17; though the addition of the colour of the no longer visible skin seems remarkable)—ὑπὲρ καρπῶν here belongs to Διί, etc., as the division-mark on the stone before ὑπὲρ shows: see BCH. 1888, p. 460 f. Evidence of this sort makes it clear how unjustifiable it would be to rule out all fructifying influence from the “idea of the chthonic” and to regard the chthonic deities as simply the power of death and destruction in the world of nature and men, as is done by H. D. Müller (who is met by serious difficulty in this passage from the Op.: Mythol. d. griech. St. ii, 40). It is, indeed, scarcely necessary to seek for an abstractly formulated “idea of the chthonic”; but if this fructifying and life-giving force does belong to the nature of the χθόνιοι as such, what becomes of H. D. Müller’s ingeniously thought-out and violently defended view according to which the chthonic only constitutes one side of the nature of certain deities who have in addition a different, Olympian, side in which they are positively creative and beneficent?
[4] Ζεὺς χθόνιος at Corinth, Paus. 2, 2, 8; at Olympia, 5, 14, 8.
[5] Thus Persephone is called Ἁγνή, Δέσποινα, etc. (Lehrs, Pop. Aufs.2 288), also Μελιτώδης, Μελίβοια; Μελινδία, consort of Hades, Malalas, p. 62, 10, Di. [8th ed., Bonn.] (? Μελίνοια, as Hekate is Μειλινόη, Orph., H. 71). Ἀρίστη χθονία, P. Mag. Par. 1450.—Hekate is Καλλίστη, Εὐκολίνη (κατ’ ἀντίφρασιν ἡ μὴ οὖσα εὖκολος, EM.), the Erinyes Σεμναί, Εὐμενίδες; their mother Εὐωνύμη (= Γῆ): Ister ap. Sch. Soph., OC. 42 (from a similar source, Sch. Aeschin. i, 188), etc. Cf. Bücheler, Rh. Mus. 33, 16–17.
[6] Πολυδέκτης, Πολυδέγμων, Ἀγησίλαος (Epigr. Gr. 195; see Bentley ad Callim., Lav. Pall. 130; Preller, Dem. u. Pers. 192; Welcker, Götterl. ii, 482), Εὐκλῆς (Bücheler, Rh. Mus. 36, 332 f.).—Εὔκολος (corresponding to the Εὐκολίνη above) as a title of Hades must be rejected if Köhler’s correction of CIA. ii, 3, 1529, is right: Ἡδύλος—Εὐκόλου. [184]
[7] Cult of Ζεὺς Εὐβουλεύς at Amorgos, Paros (insc. cit. by Foucart, BCH. vii, 402), of Ζεὺς Βουλεύς at Mykonos, SIG. 615 (Ζεὺς Βουλαῖος, Ins. Perg. i, 246, l. 49, does not belong here); of Εὔβουλος (original title of Hades: Orph., H. xviii, 12) in Eleusis (side by side ὁ θεός, ἡ θεά): SIG. 20, 39; CIA. ii, 1620 c.d. (The Athenian legend makes Eubouleus into a mortal herdsman: Clem. Al., Protr. ii, pp. 14–15 P.; Schol. Luc., De Merc., 2, p. 275, 27 Rabe.) Εὐβουλεύς simply = Hades: Nic., Al. 14; epitaph from Syros, Epigr. Gr. 272, 9, and frequently. So, too, the Ζεὺς Εὐβουλεύς (Hesych. s. Εὐβ.) worshipped in Kyrene must have been a Ζεὺς χθόνιος. Eubouleus is also a title of Dionysos as Zagreus (Iakchos), i.e. the Dionysos of the underworld.—Incidentally, what is the origin of this designation of the god of the underworld as “good counsellor” (boni consilii praestitem as Macr. 1, 8, 17, translates Εὐβουλῆα)? It can hardly have been because he was specially able to take counsel on his own behalf (this is the sense in which D.S. 5, 72, 2, takes the title); but rather because he was an oracle god, and as such dispensed good counsel to inquirers. Thus the oracle-god Nereus is called εὔβουλος in Pi., P. iii, 92; so also I. vii, 32: εὔβουλος Θέμις.
[8] Lasos fr. 1 (PLG. iii, 376), etc.—Consecration to Κλύμενος from Athens: CIG. 409.—Hesych. Περικλύμενος· ὁ Πλούτων (it is no accident that gave the name Periklymenos to the magically gifted son of Neleus). Klymenos = Hades, Epigr. Gr. 522 a 2.