[118] ἵλεως ἔχειν (τοὺς τελευτήσαντας): Pl., Rp. 427 B.
[119] That the ἥρωες δυσόργητοι καὶ χαλεποὶ τοῖς ἐμπελάζουσι γίγνονται (Sch. Ar., Av. 1490) applies equally to the “Heroes” properly so called—see above, chap. iv, [§ 11], the legends of the Hero Anagyros, the Hero of Temesa, etc.—and to those who gradually came to be called “Heroes” in later times by an extension of the term, viz. the souls of the dead in general—χαλεποὺς καὶ πλήκτας τοὺς ἥρωας νομίζουσι, καὶ μᾶλλον νύκτωρ ἢ μεθ’ ἡμέραν: Chamaileon ap. Ath. 461 C (and hence the precautions taken against nocturnal [203] apparitions: Ath. 149 C). Cf. Zenob. v, 60. Hesych. Phot. s. κρείττονες.—That the ἥρωες do, and are responsible for, evil only and never good (Sch. Ar., Av. 1490; Babr. 63) is a late belief; it does not apply either to Heroes or ordinary dead in the conceptions of earlier ages. Originally the “gods”, just as much as Heroes and the dead, shared in the violent and malignant nature of the unseen. This was later confined more and more to the lower classes of the κρείττονες and came to be attached to them so exclusively that it could in the end be regarded as a sufficient ground of distinction between them and the gods (as it certainly had not been to start with) that malice is excluded from the nature of the gods and benevolence on the contrary from that of Heroes and the dead.
[120] Ar., Tagenist. fr. 485, 13: καὶ χοάς γε χεόμενοι (to the dead) αἰτούμεθ’ αὐτοὺς τὰ καλὰ δεῦρ’ ἀνιέναι (intended as a παροιμία or at any rate imitated from a tragedian—apostrophe to a dead woman ἐκεῖ βλέπουσα, δεῦρ’ ἀνίει τἀγαθά, Sch. Ar., Ran. 1462—and reproduced in this passage by the interpolator of Aristoph.). This “sending-up blessings from below” is to be understood in the widest sense (cf. A., Pers. 222); but it is natural to be reminded by such a prayer to ἀνιέναι τἀγαθά of Demeter ἀνησιδώρα (Paus. 1, 31, 4; Plu., Smp. 9, 14, 4, p. 745 A), and of Γῆ ἀνησιδώρα. διὰ τὸ καρποὺς ἀνιέναι (Hesych.); S., OT. 269, εὔχομαι θεοὺς μήτ’ ἄροτον αὐτοῖς γῆς ἀνιέναι τινά.—That the dead who dwell beneath the ground were really expected to assist the growth of the soil we may learn especially from a very interesting statement in the Hippocratic work περὶ ἐνυπνίων (ii, p. 14 Kühn; vi, p. 658 Littré [π. διαίτης iv, 92]). If a person in his dream sees ἀποθανόντας dressed in white, offering something, that is a good omen: ἀπὸ γὰρ τῶν ἀποθανόντων αἱ τροφαὶ καὶ αὐξησιες καὶ σπέρματα γίνονται. There was a custom at Athens of strewing seeds of all kinds over the newly-made grave: Isigon., Mir. 67; Cic., Lg. ii, 63. The reason for this (evidently religious) is variously given (another, no more convincing, is suggested by K. O. Müller, Kl. Schr. ii, 302 f.). It seems most natural to suppose that the seed of the earth is put under the protection of the souls of dead who have now themselves become spirits inhabiting the earth. (Note besides the entirely similar custom in ancient India, Oldenberg, Rel. d. Veda, 582.)
[121] Electra in A., Ch. 486 ff., makes a vow to the soul of her father: κἀγὼ χοάς σοι τῆς ἐμῆς παγκληρίας οἴσω πατρῴων ἐκ δόμων γαμηλίους· πάντων δὲ πρῶτον τόνδε πρεσβεύσω τάφον.—As chthonic powers the Erinyes also send blessings on agriculture and the bringing-up of children. Rh. Mus. 50, 21. Prayer was also made to Γῆ by those who desired to have children.
[122] Φανόδημός φησιν ὅτι μόνοι Ἀθηναῖοι θύουσιν καὶ εὔχονται αὐτοῖς ὑπὲρ γενέσεως παίδων, ὅταν γαμεῖν μέλλωσιν, Phot. Suid. τριτοπάτορες.
[123] The form of the word itself shows that the τριτοπάτορες are simply πρόπαπποι. τριτοπάτωρ is the earliest ancestor, ὁ πάππου ἢ τήθης πατήρ (Arist. ap. Poll. 3, 17). Just as μητροπάτωρ is ὁ μητρὸς πατήρ and πατροπάτωρ ὁ πατρὸς πατήρ (Poll. 3, 16), προπατώρ the forefather, ψευδοπάτωρ = ψευδὴς πατήρ, ἐπιπάτωρ the stepfather (μητρομήτηρ = μητρὸς μήτηρ)—in the same way τριτοπάτωρ is the third forefather, the father of the πατροπάτωρ, i.e. the πρόπαππος. The τριτοπάτορες have an alternative form τριτοπάτρεῖς, Philoch. ap. Suidas τριτοπάτορες: SIG. 443; Leg. Sacr. i, p. 49, l. 32, 52: in Orphic verse this form alone, and not τριτοπάτορες, could be used: see Lobeck, Agl. 764. They were in fact the τρίτοι πατέρες (just as [204] the τριτέγγονοι are the τρίτοι ἔγγονοι, the ἔγγονοι of the third generation). But the “third forefathers” are in fact the first ancestors (Lobeck, 763 f.), οἱ προπάτορες (Hesych.), οἱ πρῶτοι ἀρχηγέται (AB. 307, 16)—the ancestors of the individual first of all, his bodily γονεῖς (the series of whom was not generally counted beyond the πρόπαππος—Is. 8, 32—i.e. the τριτοπάτωρ), and then the “ancestors” of the human race in general (acc. to the explanation of Philoch. ap. Phot. Suid. τριτοπ.; cf. Welcker, Götterl. iii, 73).—We cannot do more than refer here to the completely analogous ideas of the ancient Indians about the “three-fathers”: the father, grandfather, great-grandfather, as the Sapinda-fathers beyond whom the line of ancestry was not traced (Kaegi, Neunzahl, pp. 5, 6).
[124] The Tritopatores are most distinctly referred to as ἄνεμοι: Demon ap. Phot. Suid. τριτοπ. cf. δεσπόται ἀνέμων Phot. τριτοπάτωρ; Tz. Lyc. 738. Orphic poetry made them θυρωροὺς καὶ φύλακας τῶν ἀνέμων. This is already a free interpretation; the Attic belief, expressed by Demon, knows nothing about this. It can only have been learned invention that limited their number to three (as in the case of the originally unlimited number of Horai, Erinyes, etc.), and gave them definite names (Amalkeides, etc., Orph. fr. 240, Ab.) or identified them with the three Hekatoncheires (Kleidemos in the Ἐξηγ.). The genuine and ancient belief about them can still be discerned through all the confusion of misinterpretation and misunderstanding, and according to this the τριτοπάτορες were the souls of ancestors who were also wind-spirits. People prayed for children to these spirits: and Lobeck, Agl. 755 ff., is right in connecting with this custom the Orphic doctrine that the soul of man comes into him from without with the wind. Even this, however, is only a speculative embellishment of the popular belief about the Tritopatores (which the Orphics cannot, as Welcker thinks, Götterl. iii, 71, have “invented”: they only explained it after their fashion and consequently must have found it already existing). When we have stripped off all speculative accretions we find the Tritopatores to have been the souls of ancestors who have become wind-spirits and travel in the wind like other ψυχαί (whose name even is derived from the breath of the wind). From these as from real πνοιαὶ ζῳογόνοι their descendants hope for aid where the entry into life of a new ψυχή is concerned. It is not hard to understand the connexion between souls and wind-spirits; it is merely that such conceptions were rare among the Greeks and for that reason these isolated wind-spirits surviving in popular belief were turned into individual daimones—the Tritopatores no less than the Harpies (see Rh. Mus. 50, 3 ff.).
[125] The words of Orestes in A., Ch. 483, give very naive expression to the belief. He calls to the soul of his father: οὕτω (if thou sendest me aid) γὰρ ἄν σοι δαῖτες ἔννομοι βροτῶν κτιζοίατ’· εἰ δὲ μή, παρ’ εὐδείπνοις ἔσει ἄτιμος ἐμπύροισι κνισωτοῖς χθονός. Thus we see that the belief ridiculed by Luc., Luct. 9, was true of earlier times as well: τρέφονται δὲ ἄρα (the dead) ταῖς παρ’ ἡμῖν χοαῖς καὶ τοῖς καθαγιζομένοις ἐπὶ τῶν τάφων· ὡς εἴ τῳ μὴ εἴη καταλελειμμένος ὑπὲρ γῆς φίλος ἢ συγγενής, ἄσιτος οὗτος νεκρὸς καὶ λιμώττων ἐν αὐτοῖς πολιτεύεται.
[126] Epicurus devotes by will certain definite πρόσοδοι to the yearly offering of ἐναγίσματα to his parents, his brothers, and himself: D.L. x, 18.—To the end of the third century belongs the “Testament of Epikteta”, i.e. the inscription recording the foundation by Epikteta (who came from Thera as we know now for certain: Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1894, p. 142) of a three-day sacrificial feast to be performed every year for [205] the Muses and “the Heroes”, i.e. for her husband, herself, and her sons; and the institution for this special purpose of a κοινὸν τοῦ ἀνδρείου τῶν συγγενῶν (together with women of the family). The inscr. gives also the rules of this sacrificial society (Michel n. 1001; CIG. 2448).—The offerings to the dead in this case (vi, 6 ff.) consist of a ἱερεῖον (i.e. a sheep) and ἱερά, especially ἐλλύται of five choinikes of wheaten flour and a stater of dry cheese (ἐλλ. are a kind of sacrificial cake specially offered to the deities of the lower world, as for ex. to Trophonios at Lebadeia: GDI. 413 with n., p. 393), and in addition to these garlands are mentioned. The following are to be sacrificed: the customary parts of the victim, an ἐλλύτης, a loaf, a πάραξ (= βάραξ, βήρηξ: interchange of tenuis and media as frequently) and some ὀψάρια (i.e. small fishes: cf. the ἀποπυρίς for the dead, GDI. 3634 Kos). The rest was probably consumed by the religious society: these special portions the person offering the sacrifice, we are told, καρπωσεῖ, i.e. (he) shall offer them to the Heroes by burning them entire. Cf. Phot. καυστόν· καρπωτόν, ὃ ἐναγίζεται τοῖς τετελευτηκόσιν (καρπῶσαι, κάρπωμα, ὁλοκάρπωσις, etc., are frequent in the LXX) and Phot. ὁλοκαρπούμενον and ὁλοκαυτισμός. καρποῦν = ὁλοκαυτοῦν in the sacrificial calendar from Kos, GDI. 3636; cf. Stengel, Hermes, 27, 161 f.
[127] See Is. 1, 10.