Büttner (Geschichte der politischen Hetærieen zu Athen. p. 65), though very brief, takes a fairer view than Wachsmuth.
[246] Pausanias, i, 17, 1; i, 24, 3; Harpokration v, Ἑρμαῖ. See Sluiter, Lectiones Andocideæ, cap. 2.
Especially the ἀγυιατίδες θεραπεῖαι (Eurip. Ion. 187) were noted at Athens: ceremonial attentions towards the divine persons who protected the public streets, a function performed by Apollo Aguieus, as well as by Hermes.
[247] Herodot. viii, 144; Æschylus, Pers. 810; Æschyl. Agam. 339. The wrath for any indignity offered to the statue of a god or goddess, and impatience to punish it capitally, is manifested as far back as the ancient epic poem of Arktinus: see the argument of the Ἰλίου Πέρσις in Proclus, and Welcker, Griechische Tragödien, Sophoklês, sect. 21, vol. i, p. 162. Herodotus cannot explain the indignities offered by Kambyses to the Egyptian statues and holy customs upon any other supposition than that of stark madness, ἐμάνη μεγάλως; Herod. iii, 37-38.
Timæus the Sicilian historian (writing about 320-290 B.C.) represented the subsequent defeat of the Athenians as a divine punishment for the desecration of the Hermæ, inflicted chiefly by the Syracusan Hermokratês, son of Hermon and descendant of the god Hermes (Timæi Fragm. 103-104, ed. Didot; Longinus, de Sublim. iv, 3).
The etymological thread of connection, between the Hermæ and Hermokratês, is strange enough: but what is of importance to remark, is the deep-seated belief that such an act must bring after it divine punishment, and that the Athenians as a people were collectively responsible, unless they could appease the divine displeasure. If this was the view taken by the historian Timæus a century and more after the transaction, much more keenly was it present to the minds of the Athenians of that day.
[248] Thucyd. viii, 97; Plato, Legg. ix, pp. 871 b, 881 d. ἡ τοῦ νόμου ἄρα, etc. Demosthen. Fals. Legat. p. 363, c. 24, p. 404, c. 60; Plutarch, Solon, c. 24.
[249] Dr. Thirlwall observes, in reference to the feeling at Athens after the mutilation of the Hermæ:—
“We indeed see so little connection between acts of daring impiety and designs against the state, that we can hardly understand how they could have been associated together as they were in the minds of the Athenians. But perhaps the difficulty may not without reason have appeared much less to the contemporaries of Alcibiadês, who were rather disposed by their views of religion to regard them as inseparable.” (Hist. Gr. ch. xxv, vol. iii, p. 394.)
This remark, like so many others in Dr. Thirlwall’s history, indicates a tone of liberality forming a striking contrast with Wachsmuth; and rare indeed among the learned men who have undertaken to depict the democracy of Athens. It might, however, have been stated far more strongly; for an Athenian citizen would have had quite as much difficulty in comprehending our disjunction of the two ideas, as we have in comprehending his association of the two.