[167] E g. offering of cakes, sacrifice of drink-offerings without wine, burning of the materials of sacrifice; cf. the description of ἱλασμός (in this place clearly distinguished from καθαρμός) in A.R. iv, 712 ff. Similar account (offerings without wine, etc.) of the ἱλασμός (which is, however, improperly called καθαρμός, l. 466) of the Eumenides at Kolonos which the chorus recommends to Oedipus, S., O.C. 469 ff. No one might eat of the expiatory sacrifice: Porph., Abst. 2, 44. It is burnt completely: Stengel, Jahrb. f. Phil. 1883, p. 369 ff.—The [214] clash of bronze was used πρὸς πᾶσαν ἀφοσίωσιν καὶ ἀποκάθαρσιν: Apollod. fr. 36 (and in offerings to Hekate, Theoc. ii, 36; as protection against ghosts, Luc., Philops. 15; Sch. Theoc. ii, 36; Tz., Lyc. 77. Clash of bronze in this apotropaic sense occurs, too, in the dance of the Kouretes, etc.; see [below]). The ritual of expiation was affected in many ways by admixture of foreign superstitions from Phrygia and Lydia. Its chief source is to be found in the Cretan worship of the (chthonic) Zeus. Thence it seems to have spread all over Greece assisted by the Apolline oracle of Delphi. This is why the ram, the peculiar victim of Ζεὺς χθόνιος, is the principal victim in expiatory sacrifices, its fleece, the Διὸς κώδιον, receiving the various materials of expiation, etc.
[168] On the chthonic character of the deities of expiation see in gen. K. O. Müller, Aesch. Eum., p. 139 ff. (112 ff.). Chief among them is Ζεὺς μειλίχιος (a euphemistic title; cf. above, [n. 5]), who is unmistakably a χθόνιος. Hence, like all χθόνιοι he is represented as a snake on the votive tablet to Ζ. μειλ. discovered in the Peiraeus (certainly the Athenian god and not a foreign deity identified with this god whom all Athenians knew well from the feast of the Diasia): BCH. 7, 507 ff.; CIA. ii, 1578 ff. On a votive insc. from Lykia we have, side by side with the chthonic Hekate, Διὶ Μειλιχίῳ καὶ Ἐνοδίᾳ, BCH. 13, 392. Other θεοὶ μειλίχιοι in Lokris were worshipped with nocturnal sacrifice (as regularly in the case of underworld deities): Paus. 10, 38, 8. The δαίμονες μειλίχιοι as χθόνιοι are contrasted with the μακάρεσσιν οὐρανίοις in the oracle verses ap. Phlegon, Macr. iv, p. 93, 5 Kel.: deis milicheis Acta Lud. Saecul. Tab. A l. 11 [= CIL. vi, 32, 323; see Mommsen, Ges. Schr. viii, 570].—Then come the ἀποτρόπαιοι: their nature can be guessed from the fact that they were worshipped together with the dead and Hekate on the thirtieth day of the month (see above, [n. 88]). After a bad dream offerings were made to the ἀποτρόπαιοι, to Ge and the Heroes: Hp., Diaet. 4, 8, vi, p. 652 L. Ζεὺς ἀποτρόπαιος must have been a χθόνιος, but we have side by side with him an Ἀθηνᾶ ἀποτροπαία (and an Apollo ἀποτρ. too): ins. from Erythrai, SIG. 600, 69; 115: the provinces of Ὀλύμπιοι and χθόνιοι were not always kept absolutely distinct.—An ancient and hereditary service of the propitiation deities belonged to the Attic family of the Phytalids who had once purified and offered expiatory sacrifice for Theseus after the murder of Skiron and others (ἁγνίσαντες καὶ μειλίχια θύσαντες): Plu., Thes. 12. The gods to whom this family offered sacrifice were Demeter and Zeus Meilichios: Paus. 1, 37, 2–4.—Isoc. 5, 117, makes a clear distinction between the θεοὶ Ὀλύμπιοι and the gods to whom only an apotropaic cult, ἀποπομπάς, was offered; these being the gods of expiation (cf. ἀποδιοπομπεῖσθαι in propitiatory sacrifices; ἀποπομπαῖοι θεοί: Apollod. ap. Harp. ἀποπομπάς. Cf. also ἀποπομπή of evil daimones in contrast to the ἐπιπομπή of the same: Anon. Vir. Herb. xxii, 165. See Hemsterhuys, Lucian ii, p. 255 Bip.; Lob., Agl. 984, ii).
[169] e.g. in the description of the ἱλασμός of Medea by Kirke in A.R. iv, 712 ff.
[170] K. O. Müller, Dorians, i, 328, 336; cf. the same ancient custom of flight for nine years and penance for the slaying of a man in the legend and cult of Zeus Lykaios; cf. H. D. Müller, Myth. d. gr. St. ii, 105. See [below].
[171] Cho. 1055–60. Eum. 237 ff., 281 ff., 445 ff., 470.
[172] The Delphinion, the court for trying φόνος δίκαιος, and the ancient dwelling of Aegeus (Plu., Thes. 12), was at the same time [215] (and perhaps originally) an expiation site. Expiatory sacrifice was there made for Theseus after his fights with the Pallantidai and the highway robbers (ἀφοσιούμενος τὸ ἄγος, Poll. viii, 119).
[173] Plu., Ser. Num. 17, p. 560 EF. Note the expressions: ἱλάσασθαι τὴν τοῦ Ἀρχιλόχου ψυχήν, ἱλασασθαι τὴν Παυσανίου ψυχήν. Suid. Ἀρχίλοχος, from Aelian: μειλίξασθαι τὴν τοῦ Τελεσικλείου παιδὸς ψυχήν, καὶ πραῧναι χοαῖς.
[174] The three ἐξηγηταὶ πυθόχρηστοι, οἷς μέλει καθαῖρειν τοὺς ἄγει τινὶ ἐνισχηθέντας, Tim. Lex. p. 109 R.
[175] Pl., Lg. 865 B: the agent in a φόνος ἀκούσιος (of a special kind) καθαρθεὶς κατὰ τὸν ἐκ Δελφῶν κομισθέντα περὶ τούτων νόμον ἔστω καθαρός.
[176] I set down here the expressions occurring in the speeches and the (at any rate contemporary [see [Appendix iv]]) Tetralogies of Antiphon, which throw light on the religious ideas lying behind the procedure in trials for murder. In the prosecution of the murderer the following are concerned: ὁ τεθνεώς, οἱ νόμοι, and θεοὶ οἱ κάτω, Or. 1, 31. The vigorous prosecution of the case on the part of the relations of the dead is βοηθεῖν τῷ τεθνεῶτι: 1, 31. Tetr. 1 β, 13. The condemnation of the murderer is τιμωρία τῷ ἀδικηθέντι, his personal revenge: 5, 88 = 6, 6. The accusing relatives come before the court as representatives of the dead man, ἀντὶ τοῦ παθόντος ἐπισκήπτομεν ὑμῖν, as they say to the judges, Tetr. 3 γ, 7. The duty of accusing as well as the ἀσέβημα of the deed of bloodshed rests upon them until satisfaction is made for it: Tetr. 1 α, 3. But the μίασμα of the deed attaches to the whole city in which the murderer lives. All who sit at table with him, or live under the same roof, even the temples he walks in, are polluted by his mere presence: hence come ἀφορίαι and δυστυχεῖς πράξεις on the city. It is to the greatest interest of the judges to avert this pollution by giving a propitiatory judgment: Tetr. 1 α, 10; Or. 5, 11, 82; Tetr. 1 α, 3; 1 γ, 9, 11; 3 γ, 6, 7. Above all it is necessary to find the real criminal and to punish him. If the relatives of the dead prosecute some one other than the real doer of the deed, it is they, and not the judges (on account of their wrong decision), who will have to bear the wrath of the dead man and of the avenging spirits: Tetr. 1 α, 3; 3 α, 4; 3 δ, 10; for in this case the murdered man is deprived of his τιμωρία: 3 α, 4. But perjured witnesses and unjust judges are liable to a μίασμα, too, which they then introduce into their own houses: Tetr. 3 α, 3; or at least, if they give a false condemnation (but not a false acquittal) of the accused, they incur the μήνιμα τῶν ἀλιτηρίων acc. to Tetr. 3 β, 8—i.e. that of the falsely condemned person (whereas the murdered man still continues angry with his own relatives). If they knowingly acquit the murderer contrary to justice, the murdered man becomes ἐνθύμιος to the judges and no longer to his relatives: Tetr. 1 γ, 10.—The source of the resentment is said to be the dead man himself: προστρόπαιος ὁ ἀποθανών, Tetr. 1 γ, 10; cf. 3 δ, 10; where he is parallel with τὸ μήνιμα τῶν ἀλιτηρίων. The murdered man leaves behind him τὴν τῶν ἀλιτηρίων δυσμένειαν (and this is what the μίασμα really is—not as some modern writers have imagined, any sort of “moral” pollution—as is clearly stated in this passage: τὴν τῶν ἀλιτ. δυσμένειαν, ἢν . . . μίασμα . . . εἰσάγονται): Tetr. 3 α, 3; cf. Again 3 β, 8; 3 γ, 7. In this case the avenging spirits substitute themselves for the soul of the dead man (just as in the case where a προστρόπαιος τοῦ ἀποθανόντος is spoken of: cf. above, [n. 148]). The προστρόπαιοι τῶν ἀποθανάντων become themselves δεινοὶ ἀλιτήριοι of the dilatory relatives: [216] Tetr. 3 α, 4. There is no essential distinction between the two (cf. Poll. 5, 131). Elsewhere we hear of τὸ προστρόπαιον as the special attribute or feeling of the murdered man himself: Tetr. 2 δ, 9. Thus also we have the alternatives ἐνθύμιος ὁ ἀποθανών (1 γ, 10) and τὸ ἐνθύμιον (2 α, 2; 2 δ, 9). In this connexion it is clear that ἐνθύμιον (as the fixed and conventional expression for these superstitions) means the indignant memory, the longing for revenge of the murdered man (—ἐνθύμιον ἔστω Δάματρος καὶ Κούρας, GDI. 3541, 8). The proper understanding of this word will help us to see what is meant by the expression ὀξυθύμια used of the meal offered to the dead and Hekate, and the almost identical purificatory offerings, that after the religious cleansing of a house were thrown out at the cross-roads (Harp. s.v. Phot. s.v. Art. 1, 2, 3; AB. 287, 24, 288, 7; EM. 626, 44 ff.). They are intended to appease the easily awakened anger of the souls (and of their patroness Hekate), their ὀξύθυμον, a stronger version of ἐνθύμιον, by apotropaic sacrifice.