[157] Poll. 8, 117, καθ’ ἕκαστον δὲ μῆνα τριῶν ἡμερῶν ἐδίκαζον (the judges on the Areiopagos) ἐφεξῆς, τετάρτῃ φθίνοντος, τρίτῃ, δευτέρᾳ.
[158] οἱ Ἀρεοπαγῖται τρεῖς που τοῦ μῆνος ἡμέρας τὰς φονικὰς δίκας ἐδίκαζον, ἑκάστῃ τῶν θεῶν μίαν ἡμέραν ἀπονέμοντες, Sch. Aeschin. 1, 188, p. 282 Sch. This certainly implies that the limitation of the number of the Erinyes to three (and not two for example)—which first appears in Eurip., but was certainly not his own invention—was officially current in the worship of the city.—Since these three days were sacred to the Erinyes, as goddesses of Hades, they counted as ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι: EM. 131, 16 f.; Et. Gud. 70, 5 (the thirtieth day of the month is for that reason φαύλη πᾶσιν ἔργοις acc. to “Orpheus” fr. 28 Ab.).
[159] Paus. 1, 28, 6.
[160] The Erinyes are the accusers of Orestes not only in Aeschylus (and thence in Eurip. too, IT. 940 ff.), but also in the varying accounts derived from different sources, in which the twelve gods served as judges ap. D. 23, 66 (cf. 74, and Dinarch., adv. Dem. 87).
[161] The Erinyes are said ἀπὸ ζῶντος ῥοφεῖν ἐρυθρὸν ἐκ μελέων πέλανον, A., Eum. 264 f.; cf. 183 f.; 302; 305. In this they closely resemble the “vampires” which we hear of especially in Slav popular mythology, and the Tii of the Polynesians, etc. These, however, are the souls of the dead returned from the grave and sucking men’s blood.
[162] The Erinyes say to Orestes: ἐμοὶ τραφείς τε καὶ καθιερωμένος καὶ ζῶν με δαίσεις οὐδὲ πρὸς βωμῷ σφαγείς, A., Eum. 304 f. The matricide is divis parentum (i.e. their Manes) sacer, their sacrificial victim (θῦμα καταχθονίου Διός D.H. 2, 10, 3), in the older belief of Greece, too.
[163] See Rh. Mus. 50, 6 ff.
[164] The fact that after receiving the αἴδεσις of the dead man’s relatives the agent of a φόνος ἀκούσιος was still required to offer the expiatory sacrifice as well as undergo purification (ἱλασμός and καθαρμός) is alluded to by Dem. 23, 72–3, in the double expression θῦσαι καὶ καθαρθῆναι, ὁσιοῦν καὶ καθαίρεσθαι (cf. Müller, Aesch. Eum., p. 144 [122, n. 2, E.T.]).
[165] See Philippi, Areop. u. Eph. 62.
[166] In the Iliad and the Odyssey there is a total absence not only of all reference to purification from blood-guiltiness but of the necessary conditions for it. The murderer goes freely among men without there being any fear of others suffering from a μίασμα attaching to him. Cf. the case especially of Theoklymenos, ο 271–8. Lobeck rightly emphasizes this, Agl. 301. K. O. Müller’s attempts to prove in spite of everything that purifications from the stain of murder were a Homeric custom, are failures. See Nägelsbach, Hom. Theol.2, p. 293.—The oldest examples of purifications from murder in the literature are (Lobeck 309): purification of Achilles from the blood of Thersites in the Αἰθιοπίς, p. 33 Kink.; refusal of Neleus to purify Herakles from the murder of Iphitos: Hesiod ἐν καταλόγοις, Sch., Il. Β 336.—Mythical exx. of such purifications in later accounts: Lob., Agl. 968–9.