[52] Schol. ad Iliad, xi. 690—οὐ διὰ τὰ καθάρσια Ἰφίτου πορθεῖται ἡ Πύλος, ἐπεί τοι Ὀδυσσεὺς μείζων Νέστορος, καὶ παρ᾽ Ὁμήρῳ οὐκ οἴδαμεν φονέα καθαιρόμενον, ἀλλ᾽ ἀντιτίνοντα ἢ φυγαδευόμενον. The examples are numerous, and are found both in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Iliad, ii. 665 (Tlêpolemos); xiii. 697 (Medôn); xiii. 574 (Epeigeus); xxiii. 89 (Patroclos); Odyss. xv. 224 (Theoclymenos); xiv. 380 (an Ætôlian). Nor does the interesting mythe respecting the functions of Atê and the Litæ harmonize with the subsequent doctrine about the necessity of purification. (Iliad, ix. 498).
[53] Herodot. i. 35—ἔστι δὲ παραπλησίη ἡ κάθαρσις τοῖσι Λυδοῖσι καὶ τοῖσι Ἕλλησι. One remarkable proof, amongst many, of the deep hold which this idea took of the greatest minds in Greece, that serious mischief would fall upon the community if family quarrels or homicide remained without religious expiation, is to be found in the objections which Aristotle urges against the community of women proposed in the Platonic Republic. It could not be known what individuals stood in the relation of father, son or brother: if, therefore, wrong or murder of kindred should take place, the appropriate religious atonements (αἱ νομιζόμεναι λύσεις) could not be applied, and the crime would go unexpiated. (Aristot. Polit. ii. 1, 14. Compare Thucyd. i. 125-128).
[54] See the Fragm. of the Æthiopis of Arktinus, in Düntzer’s Collection, p. 16.
[55] The references for this are collected in Lobeck’s Aglaophamos. Epimetr. ii. ad Orphica, p. 968.
[56] Pausanias (iv. 1, 5)—μετεκόσμησε γὰρ καὶ Μέθαπος τῆς τελετῆς (the Eleusinian Orgies, carried by Kaukon from Eleusis into Messênia), ἔστιν ἅ. Ὁ δὲ Μέθαπος γένος μὲν ἦν Ἀθηναῖος, τελετῆς τε καὶ ὀργίων παντοίων συνθέτης. Again, viii. 37, 3, Onomakritus Διονύσῳ συνέθηκεν ὄργια, etc. This is another expression designating the same idea as the Rhêsus of Euripidês, 944.—
Μυστηρίων τε τῶν ἀποῤῥήτων φάνας
Ἔδειξεν Ὀρφεύς.
[57] Têlinês, the ancestor of the Syracusan despot Gelô, acquired great political power as possessing τὰ ἱρὰ τῶν χθονίων θεῶν (Herodot. vii. 153); he and his family became hereditary Hierophants of these ceremonies. How Têlinês acquired the ἱρὰ Herodotus cannot say—ὅθεν δὲ ἀυτὰ ἔλαβε, ἢ αὐτὸς ἐκτήσατο, τοῦτο οὐκ ἔχω εἶπαι. Probably there was a traditional legend, not inferior in sanctity to that of Eleusis, tracing them to the gift of Dêmêtêr herself.
[58] See Josephus cont. Apiôn. ii. c. 35; Hesych. Θεοὶ ξένιοι; Strabo, x. p. 471; Plutarch, Περὶ Δεισιδαιμον. c. iii. p. 166; c. vii. p. 167.
[59] Plato, Republ. ii. p. 364; Demosthen. de Coronâ, c. 79, p. 313. The δεισιδαίμων of Theophrastus cannot be comfortable without receiving the Orphic communion monthly from the Orpheotelestæ (Theophr. Char. xvi.). Compare Plutarch, Περὶ τοῦ μὴ χρᾶν ἔμμετρα, etc., c. 25, p. 400. The comic writer Phrynichus indicates the existence of these rites of religious excitement, at Athens, during the Peloponnesian war. See the short fragment of his Κρόνος, ap. Schol. Aristoph. Aves, 989—