[98] EM. 774, 56: Ὑδροφόρια· ἑορτὴ Ἀθήνησι πένθιμος (so far Hesych. too, s.v.) ἐπὶ τοῖς ἐν τῷ κατακλυσμῷ ἀπολομένοις. The feast of Chytrai was also supposed to have been a commemoration of Deucalion’s Flood. The flood was said to have subsided finally through a cleft in the earth in the Temple of Γῆ Ὀλυμπία: Paus. 1, 18, 7. Pausanias adds, ἐσβάλλουσιν ἐς αὐτὸ (the chasm) ἀνὰ πᾶν ἔτος ἄλφιτα πυρῶν μέλιτι μάξαντες. It is at least natural, with Preller, Dem. u. Pers. 229, n., to see in the Hydrophoria a part of which is described by Pausanias, a festival related to the Chytrai. Connexion of the dead with Γῆ in the Γενέσια too: Hesych. s.v.—Ὑδροφόρια a feast of Apollo at Aegina: Sch. Pi., N. v, 81 (fanciful remarks thereon by K. O. Müller, in Aesch. Eum., p. 141 [116 E.T.]).
[99] Ovid’s account of the Lemuria at Rome, F. v, shows the closest resemblances to the Athen. customs. The spirits are finally driven out: Manes exite paterni! (443). The same happens in the festivals of the dead in many places: esp. in India, Oldenberg, 553; cf. also the Esthonian customs: Grimm, p. 1844, n. 42. A parallel from ancient Prussia is given (after Joh. Meletius, 1551) by Ch. Hartknoch, in Alt- u. Neues Preussen, 1684, pp. 187–8. There on the third, sixth, ninth, and fortieth day after the funeral a banquet of the relatives of the dead was held. The souls of the dead were invited and (with other souls as well) entertained. “When the feasting was ended the priest rose from the table and swept out the house, driving forth the souls of the dead as though he were driving out fleas, saying the while: ‘Ye have eaten and drunk, O ye Blessed Ones, depart hence! depart hence!’” At the close of the lantern-feast to the dead in Nagasaki (Japan) when the entertainment of the souls was over a great noise was made all over the house “so that no single soul should remain behind and haunt the place—they must be driven out without mercy”: Preuss. Exped. nach Ostasien, ii, 22. Other examples of the expulsion of souls given in Tylor, ii, 199. The ghosts were thought of in a thoroughly materialistic fashion, and driven out by waving clubs in the air, swinging torches, etc., as in the case of the ξενικοὶ θεοί of the Kaunians: Hdt. i, 172. Compare with this the prayers addressed to Herakles in the Orphic Hymns (reproducing ancient superstitions as frequently): ἐλθὲ μάκαρ . . . ἐξέλασον δὲ κακὰς ἄτας, κλάδον ἐν χερὶ πάλλων, πτηνοῖς τ’ ἰοβόλοις κῆρας χαλεπὰς ἀπόπεμπε (12, 15–16). It will be clear how near such personified ἆται and κῆρες are to the angry “souls”, from which in fact they have arisen; cf. besides, Orph., H. 11, 23; 14, 14; 36, 16; 71, 11.—κῆρας ἀποδιοπομπεῖσθαι, Plu., Lys. 17.
[100] θύραζε Κῆρες, οὐκ ἔτ’ Ἀνθεστήρια. This is the correct wording of the formula; Κᾶρες the form common later and explained with mistaken ingenuity. Photius has it right and explains, ὡς κατὰ τὴν πόλιν τοῖς Ἀνθεστηρίους τῶν ψυχῶν περιερχομένων.—Κῆρες—is clearly a most primitive equivalent for ψυχαί which has become almost completely obscured in Homer, though it dimly appears in Β 302, ξ 207, where the Κῆρες are spoken of as those who carry away other ψυχαί to Hades. Aeschylus knew it (presumably from old Attic speech) and simply substituted ψυχαί for the Keres in the fate-weighing scene in Homer, thus turning the Kerostasia into a Ψυχοστασία (to the surprise of the Schol. A, Θ 70; A.B. X 209). See O. Crusius in Ersch-Gruber, “Keren,” 2, 35, 265–7 [Aesch. fr. 279 Sidg.].
[101] Cf. the collections in Pottier, Les lécythes blancs attiques à représ. funér., p. 57, 70 ff.
[102] Though not all of them, some at any rate of the scenes in which [200] lyre-playing at a grave is represented on a lekythos are to be taken as implying that the living provide music for the entertainment of the dead: see Furtwängler on the Sammlung Saburoff. i, Pl. lx.
[103] See Benndorf, Sicil. u. unterital. Vasenb., p. 33.
[104] How the mode of conceiving the spiritual activity of the dead and consequently the cult of the dead was at first more solemn and awestruck and completely on a par with the cult of the χθόνιοι; how in the course of time the relations of the living to the departed became more familiar and the cult of the dead correspondingly less awe-inspiring, more piously protective in character than apotropaic—all this is set out in more detail by P. Stengel, Chthonisch. u. Todtencult [Festschrift für Friedländer], p. 414 ff.
[105] The reliefs represent a man enthroned, sometimes alone, sometimes with a woman beside him, stretching out a kantharos to receive the offerings. As a rule he is approached by a group of worshippers represented on a smaller scale. The earliest examples of these reliefs were found in Sparta and go back to the sixth century. Since the investigations of Milchhöfer especially, they are now generally recognised as representing the family worship of the dead. They are the forerunners of the representations of similar food-offerings in which (following later custom) the Hero is lying on a kline and receiving his worshippers. (That this class of reliefs representing “banquets of the dead” was also sacrificial in character is proved clearly by the presence of the worshippers who in many cases lead sacrificial victims. H. v. Fritze in Ath. Mitt. ’96, p. 347 ff., supposes that they are intended to represent not sacrifices but the συμπόσιον which the dead person is to enjoy in the after life. But he can only account for the presence of the worshippers in such a forced and unnatural way [p. 356 ff.], that this alone seems to refute his theory. πυραμίδες and incense among the offerings made do not by any means contradict its nature as a sacrifice to the dead.) The same is the meaning of the reliefs found esp. in Boeotia in which the person worshipped is seated on a horse, or leading a horse, and accepting offerings (summary by Wolters, Archäol. Zeitung, 1882, p. 299 ff.; cf. also Gardner, JHS. 1884, pp. 107–42; Furtwängler, Samml. Sab. i, p. 23). The worshippers bring pomegranates, a cock (e.g. Ath. Mitt. ii, Pl. 20–2), a pig (cock and pig on Theban relief: A. Mitt. iii, 377; pig on Boeotian rel.: A. Mitt. iv, Pl. 17, 2), a ram (rel. from Patras: A. Mitt. iv, 125 f.; cf. the ram’s head on a grave monument from the neighbourhood of Argos, A. Mitt. viii, 141). All these gifts are of the kind proper to the underworld. We know the pomegranate as food of the χθόνιοι from the Hymn to Demeter; the pig and ram are the main constituents of sacrifice made to the χθόνιοι and burnt in cathartic or hilastic (propitiatory) ceremonial. In such cases the cock, of course, does not appear because it was sacred to Helios and Selene (cf. D.L. viii, 34; Iamb., VP. 84), but because it was a sacrificial animal of the χθόνιοι (and of Asklepios) and for the same reason much used in necromancy, spirit-raising, and magic [Dieterich, Pap. mag. 185, 3]. As such it was forbidden food to the Mystai of Demeter at Eleusis: Porph., Abs. 4, 16, p. 255, 5 N. Sch. Luc., D. Me. 7, 4, p. 280, 23 Rabe—Anyone who partakes of the food of the underworld spirits is forfeit to them. On their side the reclining or enthroned spirits of the dead on these reliefs are brought into conjunction with a snake (A. Mitt. ii, Pl. 20–2; viii, Pl. 18, 1, etc.), a dog, or a horse (sometimes a horse’s head only occurs). The snake is the well-known symbol of the Hero: the [201] dog and the horse certainly do not represent victims as Gardner, p. 131, thinks—their real meaning has not yet been made out. The horse occurs sometimes by the side of women and therefore can hardly symbolize a knight’s status. I regard it as also a symbol of the departed as now having entered the spirit-world, like the snake too (Grimm understands it differently: p. 841 f., 844). I can form no decided opinion as to the dog: it is not likely to be mere genre—any more than anything else in these sculptures.
[106] The χοαί, ἅπερ νεκροῖσι μειλικτήρια, of wine, honey, water, or oil, which are offered in Tragedy by children at the grave of a father—A. Pers. 609 ff.; Ch. 84 ff.; E., IT. 159 ff.—are modelled upon the food offerings to the dead in real life. Honey and water (μελίκρατον) were always the chief ingredients: cf. Stengel, Philolog. 39, 378 ff.; Jahr. f. Phil. 1887, p. 653. The ritual at the pouring of an ἀπόνιμμα—essentially a cathartic libation-sacrifice but also offered εἰς τιμὴν τοῖς νεκροῖς is described by Kleidemos ἐν τῷ Ἐξηγητικῷ (the quotation is not complete), Ath. 409 E f. (Striking similarities in ritual and language in Indian sacrifice to the dead: Oldenberg, Rel. d. Ved. 550. Something extremely primitive may be preserved in these uses.) The same is the meaning of the χθόνια λουτρὰ τοῖς νεκροῖς ἐπιφερόμενα, Zenob. vi, 45, etc. These things have nothing to do with the Ὑδροφόρια, as some have thought.
[107] The regular animal used as victim in ἐναγίσματα for the dead is a sheep; other animals occur less frequently. The black colour is general; the sacrifice was burnt completely: cf. the instances collected by Stengel, Ztschr. f. Gymnasi., 1880, p. 743 f., Jahrb. f. Phil. 1882, p. 322 f.; ’83, p. 375.—Phot. καυστόν· καρπωτὸν ὃ ἐναγίζεται τοῖς τετελευτηκόσιν (cf. Hesych. καυτόν).—The σέλινον (a plant sacred to the dead; see above, [n. 40]) probably served as food for the dead at the τρίτα and other banquets “of the dead”, and was not used as food for the living at the περίδειπνον; consequently it might never be used at the meals of the living: Plin. 20, 113, following Chrysippos and Dionysios. (In the mysteries of the Kabeiroi the ἀνακτοτελέσται had a special reason of their own for forbidding parsley αὐτόριζον ἐπὶ τραπέζης τιθέναι, Clem. Al., Protr. ii, p. 16 P.)