Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion

Chapter VII The Union of Gods and Men

The similitude of death with sleep is an idea of ancient date and of wide distribution, which for many of mankind, whatever be the creed professed, has mitigated the fears or lightened the uncertainties which attach to the cessation of this life. Adopted by the founder of the Christian religion as an illustration of the doctrine that men ‘shall rise again with their bodies,’ the thought has become a part of the heritage of Christendom, and in our own language the word ‘cemetery’ bears testimony to it. But the idea had been evolved by pagan thought long centuries before the dawn of Christianity, and probably enough by the thinkers and poets of many nations independently one of another. In the oldest literature of Greece we meet with the thought already fully developed and evidently familiar. ‘To sleep an iron slumber1358’ is already in Homeric language a simple and natural synonym for ‘to die’; and so too we are told that in the far off golden age men ‘died as it were overborne by sleep1359.’ And in yet plainer terms, where Death and Sleep are personified, they are spoken of as twin brethren1360, the children of Night1361. This conception seems too to have been a favourite in art[1362], and provided one of the scenes on the renowned chest of Cypselus1363.

When we turn to the folk-songs of the present day, we cannot of course hope to find the imagery of Death and Sleep pourtrayed as infants sleeping in the lap of Night, nor indeed, so far as I know, are they even described as brothers; for the personification of them by the modern peasants is rare. But the old resemblance between them is still recognised, and, quite apart from Christian influence, the thought finds natural expression in those largely pagan improvisations of mourning in which the name of Charon is to be heard more frequently than the name of God. It will suffice to quote but one stanza from one of the most simple and touching of these funeral-songs:

δὲν εἶν’ πεθαμένη,
τὴν ὄψι τηρᾶτε,
κοιμᾶται, κοιμᾶται,
εἰς ὕπνο βαθύ1364.

Not dead lies the maiden,
Doubt not, but behold her,
’Tis sleep doth enfold her
In slumber profound.

Now this idea, born in some long-forgotten pagan age, fostered by Homer and Hesiod and no less tenderly by the Christian Church, familiar to every Greek mind for full three thousand years, harmonizes well with the belief that body as well as soul survives death. Beyond the superficial resemblance in the inert figures of the dead man laid out for burial and of one who sleeps soundly, there was another and profounder resemblance in the manner of their waking to fresh activity, the one in this world, the other in the under-world. Homer, with his belief that the soul alone, survives, notes only the first resemblance. The twofold property of laying men to sleep and of raising them therefrom resided fitly in the wand of Hermes the escorter of the dead; but though he escorted men’s souls to the house of Hades and might at will summon their souls thence1365, there is no suggestion of a bodily awakening from the sleep of death. But Virgil, even in his close imitation of Homer, adds to the Homeric description of Hermes’ wand one phrase of his own. ‘Therewith doth he summon forth from Orcus the pale spirits of the dead, and others doth he send down to gloomy Tartarus; therewith he giveth sleep and taketh it away’—so far does Virgil follow Homer, but he adds—’and unsealeth men’s eyes from death1366.’ The Homeric picture is enriched by a new thought, foreign to the Achaean religion but proper to that other belief which inspired Pindar’s description of the future life, the thought that after death and dissolution, men’s eyes should open upon a brighter world and a life of renewed bodily activity.

Such was the thought with which the pagans of ancient Greece had comforted themselves long before Christianity availed itself of the same imagery. But the Hellenic religion went yet further, and found in this thought not only peace and contentment but vivid joy. The sleep of death was the means whereby men should attain to closer communion with their gods. The grave was a bed, but a bed of delight rather than of rest, a bridal bed. They should not sleep alone, but in the very embrace of the gods to whom in this life they had striven to draw nigh. The darkness of the tomb was but the wedding-night. Full union in the other world should be the consummation of partial communion in this. The marriage of men with their gods was the ideal to which Greek piety dared aspire.

Such an ideal may well seem bold even to the verge of impious presumption. But Greek religion, even in its highest developments, was the natural and spontaneous expression of the beliefs and hopes of a whole people; it differed from all the great religions of the modern world in having no founder. Great teachers no doubt arose, as Orpheus or Pythagoras, who influenced the course of religious thought; but they were not the founders of new religions. The old self-grown faiths of the people were the stocks upon which they grafted, as it would seem, even their new doctrines; they founded schools indeed, but schools which did not sever themselves from the received religion and become sects. The Orphic mysteries differed so little from the old Pelasgian mysteries of Eleusis that Orpheus was sometimes even reputed to be their founder too; yet, as we shall see, the Eleusinian rites were merely one presentment of a conception common to the whole Greek people. If then this ideal of marriage between men and gods in the future life was no invented or imported doctrine, but simply the highest development of purely popular aspirations towards close communion with the gods, its audacity is less surprising. From time immemorial down to this day1367 Greece has had its popular stories of nuptial union even in this life between gods and mortal women, between goddesses and mortal men; and educated Greeks, who could not credit such occurrences in their own times, might well believe that a joy, which had been granted to the brave men and fair women of a former and better age even during their life-time upon earth, was still reserved for the righteous in the world to come. Pausanias tells us with a wonderful simplicity that in his time owing to the increase of iniquity in all the world no one was changed from a man into a god, and that the wrath of the gods against the unrighteous was laid up against the time when they should quit this earth1368. If then there was believed to be a postponement of punishment for those who offended the gods, there might well be a reservation of blessedness for those who pleased them. It would have imposed no strain upon the faith of such as Pausanias to look forward to the enjoyment in a future life of the same bliss as had been enjoyed in old time upon earth by men ‘who by reason of their uprightness and piety sat at the same hospitable board as gods, and whom the gods openly visited with honour for their goodness even as they visited the wicked with their displeasure1369,’ men who, as many an old legend told, had shared not the board only but even the bed of deities.

This curious Greek conception of death as a form of marriage was first borne in upon me by the funeral-dirges of the modern peasants. Examples may be found in any collection of Greek folk-songs. The actual expression of the thought varies considerably, but it would probably be hard to find in Greece any professional mourner in whose elaborations the idea did not occupy an important place. It is utilised with equal frequency in regard to persons of either sex, whether married or unmarried at the time of death. The two following specimens from Passow’s collection are fairly representative.

‘Ah me! ah me! the hours of youth and days all past and over,
Haply shall they return again, those hours of youth regretted?’
‘Nay when the crow dons plumage white, when crow to dove is changèd,
Then only shall they come again, those hours of youth lamented.’
‘Oh fare ye well, high mountain-tops and fir-trees rich in shadow,
For I must go to marry me, to take a wife unto me;
The black earth for my wife I take, the tombstone as her mother
And yonder little pebbles all her brethren and her sisters1370.’

Here evidently we have the funeral-dirge of an old man, and, as is usual in these poems, a large part of the words are put into his mouth. In this fragment the first two lines are the dead man’s complaint, the next two are an answer returned to him, and then again he takes up his parable. The second example which I will give is from a lamentation for a young girl. The first few lines are addressed by the father and mother to their dead child, and with a quaint directness contrast the gloom of the lower world with the simple joys of a peasant’s life here above; while the last three lines are an answer put into the dead girl’s mouth.

‘Dear child, there where thou purposest to hie thee down, in Hades,
There, sure, no cock doth ever crow, nor hen is heard a-clucking,
There is no spring of water found, nor grass in meadows growing.
Art hungered? nought thou tastest there; athirst? there nought thou drinkest;
Would’st lay thee down and take thy rest? of sleep no fill thou takest.
Then stay, dear child, in thine own house, stay then with thine own kindred.’
‘Nay, I may not, dear father mine and mother deep-beloved,
Yesterday was my marriage-day, late yestere’en my wedding,
Hades I for my husband have, the tomb for my new mother1371.’

In this dirge, it may be noticed, there is no complaint on the part of the dead girl; the lamentation and the gloomy description of Hades are assigned to her parents. And indeed her reply is, I think, intended to be by way of consolation. It is true that she does not deny their cheerless prognostications nor attempt to paint a brighter picture of the nether world, but she represents her death as no greater breaking of old ties than is marriage; at an actual marriage indeed the same kind of distressful presages are chanted by the girl’s companions, and even the bride herself is bound by propriety to exhibit a sullen and regretful demeanour. Very true of Greek marriages and of Greek funerals is the proverb, μηδ’ ἀπὸ τὴ λύπη λείπουν γέλια μηδ’ ἀπὸ τὴ χαρὰ τὰ κλάμματα1372, ‘Mourning hath its mirth and joy its tears.’ But the consolatory tone is far more pronounced in some other passages from the same collection. A good example is found in the message which a Klepht—one of those patriot-outlaws who struggled against Turkish domination—is made to send, as he lies dying, to his mother:

‘Go, tell ye now my mother dear, my mother sore-afflicted,
Ne’er to await me home again, ne’er to abide my coming;
Yet tell her not that I am slain, tell her not I am fallen;
Nay, tell her then that I am wed—wed in these wilds so weary.
The black earth for my wife I took, the hard rock my bride’s mother,
And all the little pebbles here I took for my new kindred1373.’

The feeling displayed in these lines (which are credited by Passow to the town of Livadia (Λεβαδεία) in Boeotia) finds closely similar expression in a recently-published Macedonian folk-song. The latter however is not a mere copy of the former. Its metre is different, and further it is a folk-song of the romantic order, whereas the lines which I have quoted belong to an historical ballad. A youth is lowered by his brothers, so runs the story, into a well to get water for them, but the well proves to be haunted by a snake-like monster (στοιχειό1374) from whom they try in vain to rescue him. In this plight he cries to them:

    ‘Oh leave me, brothers, leave me, go ye on your way,
    And say not to my mother dear that I am dead,
    But tell her, brothers, tell her how that I am wed;
The black earth for my wife I took, the tombstone my bride’s mother,
And all these little blades of grass her brethren and her sisters1375.’

Even more remarkable in its total absence of grief is a fragment given by Passow under the title of ‘the Wedding in Hades.’ The lamentation—for technically at least the poem falls into the class of ‘dirges’—is sung by a mother for her son, and she speaks of her own mother, who is already dead and in the nether world, as making preparation for the boy’s wedding in Hades.

‘My mother maketh glad to-day, she maketh my son’s wedding,
She goeth for water to the springs, for snow unto the mountains,
To fruit-wives in their garden-plots for apples and for quinces.
“Ye springs,” she saith, “give water cool, and give me snow, ye mountains,
Ye fruit-wives in your garden-plots, give apples and give quinces.
For unto me a dear one comes down from the world above us;
Not from a strange land cometh he, nor from among strange people,
He is the child of mine own child, right dear and deep-beloved.”1376’

From these passages and from many others conceived in the same spirit it will readily be seen that the thought of death as a kind of marriage, however mystical it may seem to us, is familiar to the modern Greek peasants. Nor has that thought become crystallised into a set form of words to be repeated without heed or understanding of their meaning. The very variety of treatment given to the idea proves that we are not dealing with a mere traditional expression or unmeaning commonplace, but with a vital belief still capable of stirring the ballad-maker’s imagination. Further it is this thought which almost alone strikes a note of cheerfulness and of hope in the popular dirges. The usual picture of the lower world is nothing but gloom and despair. It is a place of darkness on which the sun never shines, a place of ice and snow, and full of cob-webs. There are no churches there with bright golden icons; no quoits for the young men to throw; no looms for the women to ply. Hunger is not appeased, thirst not quenched, and sleep is denied. All is mourning and regret for the warm stirring life of the upper world, and anxious fears for wife or children left behind. Happy those who are allowed even to taste of the river of death, and to forget their homes and orphaned little ones. Thus with strange medley of ancient and modern is the dirge-singer wont to describe that lower world to which all the dead without distinction go. Yet even into these dirges, which—in order to excite the mourners to wilder displays of grief—purposely emphasize the gloomiest aspects of death, there is allowed to enter the one cheering thought that the departed for whom lamentation is made is not dead nor yet fallen on eternal sleep, but wedded in a new world; and it is worthy of notice that it is with this thought that many of the dirges end, as if this one consolation and hope were designed to assuage the pangs of sorrow which the first part of the dirge had excited.

Thus a brief study of the modern Greek dirges reveals to us the curious fact that a mystic conception of death is widely prevalent among the simple-minded peasants of Greece, and that, with all their naïveté in pourtraying the horrors of the lower world, it is from a recondite doctrine that they draw consolation. How came they to be the stewards of a doctrine so strange, so remote from the primitive simplicity of their ordinary life?

Once more we must look back to a pre-Christian antiquity, and seek again in Greek Tragedy the evidence of popular belief. Just as Aeschylus above all others has preserved to us the awful doctrine of future retribution for the deadly sin of blood-guilt, so from Sophocles we may learn the more comfortable doctrine that death, while it involves a parting from friends in this upper world, is also the means of drawing nearer, in an union as it were of wedlock, to the denizens of the lower world. The locus classicus for this conception is the Antigone. Throughout the latter part of that play, when once the doom of Antigone has been pronounced, the thought of her death as a wedding, and of the rock-hewn tomb where she is to be immured as a bridal-chamber, finds repeated and emphatic expression.

Of course it may be said that Antigone was the promised bride of Haemon, and that the poet in speaking of her tomb as a bridal-chamber was seeking to accentuate the pathetic contrast between her hopes and her destiny. That is true; but perhaps it is not the whole truth; perhaps Sophocles rather utilised the evident pathos of the situation for the purpose of covert allusion to doctrines which were in themselves unspeakable, such as Herodotus would have passed over with the words εὔστομα κείσθω. For we must not forget that the majority of an Athenian audience, initiated as they naturally would be in the Eleusinian mysteries, were familiar with religious teachings of which none might make explicit mention in the pages of literature open to the profane, but at which a poet might well hint in words which beneath their superficial meaning hid a truth intelligible to such as had ears to hear. Aeschylus indeed had once ventured too far in his allusions to the mysteries1377; but there is no improbability, or rather there is on that account an increased probability, in the supposition that a discreet and veiled allusion to unspeakable doctrines was permitted to the Tragic poet. Let us turn to the actual passages of the Antigone.

The first suggestion of the thought comes ironically enough, though it is but a faint suggestion, from the lips of Creon, who to Ismene’s exclamation, “Wilt thou indeed bereave thine own son of her?” retorts “’Tis Hades’ part to arrest this wedding1378.” The thought is taken up later by the Chorus, who, after their hymn in honour of unconquerable Love, revert to words of pity for the woman there before them, and tell how they can no longer check the founts of tears, when they behold Antigone drawing near to ‘the bed-chamber where all must sleep’ (τὸν παγκοίταν θάλαμον)1379. Here the expression of the idea is becoming plainer, and it is no accident that the word θάλαμος, so commonly used of the bride-chamber, is here selected. But yet clearer words are to follow; for Antigone herself, in response to these words of compassion from the Chorus, interprets more boldly that at which they hint. ‘Me doth Hades, with whom all must sleep, bear off yet alive to Acheron’s shore, me that have had no part in wedlock, whose name hath never rung forth in bridal hymn, but ’tis Acheron I shall wed1380.’

Nor does this clear pronouncement stand alone; thrice more, as the play advances, the same thought is echoed in unmistakeable tones. First comes the opening of that half impassioned, half sophistic, speech of Antigone, from which some critics would delete her argumentative estimate of a brother’s claims as against those of a husband; but the removal of those lines would still leave intact that outburst, ‘Oh tomb, oh bride-chamber, oh cavernous abode of everlasting durance1381.’ And then again in the speech of the messenger, who bears tidings of the fate of both Antigone and her lover, the same thought is pressed upon us with double insistence. First he tells how, having given Polynices his full rites of burial, they turned to go next ‘unto the vaulted chamber where on couch of rock the maiden should be wed with Hades’ (πρὸς λιθόστρωτον κόρης νυμφεῖον Ἅιδου κοῖλον), and from afar is heard the voice of loud lament beside ‘the bridal chamber unhallowed by funeral rites’ (ἀκτέριστον ἀμφὶ παστάδα1382). And later in the same narrative, when we have heard how that voice of loud lament was stilled, Haemon is pictured as lying dead in Antigone’s dead embrace, having won his bridal’s fulfilment only in Hades’ house (τὰ νυμφικὰ τέλη λαχὼν δείλαιος ἐν γ’ Ἅιδου δόμοις)1383.

The reiteration of a single thought through all this series of passages is most remarkable. What does it mean? Did Sophocles intend merely to enhance the tragedy of Antigone’s doom by constant comparison of that which might have been with that which was? Or did each phrase in which the thoughts of marriage and of death were blended contain a further and a subtler appeal to his hearers’ emotions? Did each phrase strike also a note which set vibrating in his listeners’ hearts responsive chords of mystic hope?

For my part, as I draw near the end of these studies in Greek religion, I find it more and more difficult to set down as mere casual coincidences the close resemblances between Greece in the past and Greece in the present. I have found a belief in the supernatural beings of Ancient Greece still swaying the minds of the modern peasants; I have seen the customs of antiquity repeated alike in the small acts of every-day life and in the ceremonies of its greater events; I have heard the same thoughts expressed in almost the same turns of phrase as in ancient literature; I have traced the popular conceptions of the present day concerning the relations of body and soul, and their existence after death, back to native pre-Christian sources. Have I then not a right, am I not bound, to abjure coincidence and to claim for the past and the present real identity? When I find in Sophocles the same thought, almost the same words, which may be gathered to-day from the lips of any unlettered lament-maker the whole Greek world over, I am compelled by my conviction of the continuity of all things Greek to believe that Sophocles adapted to his own use a thought which in his time even as now was uttered in many a funeral-dirge, and that while the phrases of the Antigone gained in his hands a new lustre from the pathos of their setting, they themselves were not new nor the invention of Sophocles’ genius, but an old heritage of the Greek race. Maybe it was that same thought which gave birth to the strange and but partially known legend of the death of Hymenaeus himself in the first moment of his wedded delight1384; maybe it was in the same spirit that Prometheus foretold how Zeus himself should make such a marriage as should cast him down from his throne of tyranny and he be no more seen, in fulfilment of the curse uttered by Cronos when he was cast down into the unseen world1385.

But, it may be said, the forebodings of Prometheus are generally taken to refer to a future marriage with Thetis, not with death; and Pindar’s reference to Hymenaeus is vague and fragmentary; and the lines of Sophocles’ Antigone have plenty of human pathos, without reading into them any religious doctrine; let your contention at least have the support of sober prose which shows its meaning on the surface. So be it. Artemidorus in his hand-book to the interpretation of dreams claims as a recognised religious principle the correlation of marriage and death. To dream of the one is commonly a prognostication of the other. But let us hear his own words. “If an unmarried man dream of death, it foretells his marriage; for both alike, marriage and death, have universally been held by mankind to be ‘fulfilments’ (τέλη); and they are constantly indicated by one another; for the which reason also if sick men dream of marriage, it is a foreboding of death1386.” And again: ‘if a sick person dream of sexual intercourse with a god or goddess..., it is a sign of death; for it is then, when the soul is near leaving the body which it inhabits, that it foresees union and intercourse with the gods1387.’ And yet once more: ‘since indeed marriage is akin to death and is indicated by dreaming of death, I thought it well to touch upon it here. If a sick man dreams of marrying a maiden, it is a sign of his death; for all the accompaniments of marriage are exactly the same as those of death1388.’ The gist of these passages is unmistakeable; in clear and straightforward terms is enunciated the principle that death and marriage are so intimately associated that to dream of the one may portend the happening of the other. Here is the doctrine which we sought to elicit from the poetry of Sophocles and from the dirges of modern peasants, stated in plain prosaic language. Death is akin to marriage, and, as death approaches, men’s souls foresee a wedded union with gods.

But Artemidorus does not merely vouch for the existence of this mystic doctrine; he suggests also, to those who will weigh his words, that the doctrine was generally recognised and widely-spread: ‘for all the accompaniments of marriage,’ he says, ‘are exactly the same as those of death.’ What were these accompaniments? Seemingly Artemidorus had in mind certain customs which he had enumerated a little earlier, namely ‘an escort of friends, both men and women, and garlands and scents and unguents and an inventory of goods1389’ (i.e. either the marriage settlement or the last will and testament). It is then owing to this similarity between marriage-customs and funeral-customs that ‘if a sick man dreams of marrying a maiden, it is a sign of death.’ But previously we heard that if a sick person dreamt of commerce with a god or goddess, it was a sign of death, because, as death approached, the soul foresaw union and intercourse with the gods. How far do these statements agree? In both cases the interpretation of the dream is the same—to dream of marriage forebodes death—while the reasons for that interpretation are differently given according as the partner in the dreamt-of union is divine or human. But, though differently given, these reasons are not mutually inconsistent. In the one case the reason assigned is an idea—the idea that by death men were admitted to wedded union with their gods. In the other case the reason assigned is a custom—the custom of giving to the dead rites similar to the marriage-rites. In effect then the two reasons assigned are one and the same in spirit; for the ‘custom’ is merely the practical expression of the ‘idea’; it was because men believed that the dead attained to a wedded union with their gods, that they made the funeral-rites resemble the rites of marriage. And clearly this custom of assimilating the accompaniments of death to those of marriage could never have been general, as Artemidorus suggests, unless the belief, on which that custom was founded, had also been generally received and widely spread.

It will be worth while then to institute an enquiry into the customs generally observed both in ancient and modern times at weddings and at funerals. Our comparison of ancient literature with modern folk-songs, illumined by the statements of Artemidorus, has established the fact that death and marriage were very intimately associated in thought by some of the ancient writers as they are by many of the modern peasants. Custom will be found to tell the same tale, and will prove how generally accepted was this idea. For in point after point which Artemidorus does not mention in his brief enumeration—and without reckoning, as he does, such purely business matters as the inventory of goods—we shall find that the ceremonies incidental to a funeral have now, and had in old time, a curiously close resemblance to the ceremonies incidental to marriage; and, so finding, we may be confident that they were informed by a general and wide-spread belief that to die was but to marry into Hades’ house. Let us review them briefly and in order1390.

The first ceremony in both functions alike was, and is, a solemn ablution. Before a Greek wedding both bride and bridegroom have always been required to bathe themselves, usually in water specially fetched from some holy spring. At Athens in old time, according to Thucydides, the spring frequented for this purpose was Callirrhoë1391; and similarly the Thebans had resort to the Ismenus1392, the maidens of the Troad to the Scamander1393, and the inhabitants of other districts to some spring or river of local repute1394. And at the present day in Athens it is still from Callirrhoë (when there is any water there) that the poorer classes fill the bridal bath; while many a village has its own sacred well or fountain (ἅγι̯ασμα) to which recourse is regularly had for this same purpose. And this wedding-ablution, common, as it would thus appear, to the Greeks of all ages, has its counterpart in the funeral-ablution, a ceremony likewise observed in all ages. Thus Sophocles makes Antigone speak of having washed with her own hands the dead bodies of father, mother, and brother1395; and Lucian in a mocking tone refers to the same practice as general in his day1396. At the present day the same rite is practically universal in Greece. In some places, and most notably in Crete, special magnificence is given to the ceremony by the use of warm wine instead of water; in others, as Macedonia1397, the custom has dwindled away, and all that remains of it is a perfunctory moistening of the dead man’s face with a piece of cotton-wool soaked in wine. But in general the old custom remains unchanged. Thus we see that from ancient times down to the present day a ceremony of ablution has held a place in the preliminaries alike of a marriage and of a funeral.

Again in this matter of washing there is one detail of special interest. The water for the bridal bath was in old times fetched by a boy or girl1398 closely related to the bride or the bridegroom, and the λουτροφόρος, as the bearer was called, is still an important figure in the wedding ceremonial of the present day. Nowadays, so far as I know, the bearer is always a boy, and further it is essential that both his parents be still living. The λουτροφόρος therefore has always been closely associated with the marriage-rite. But in antiquity the same water-bearer appears in another connexion. ‘It was customary,’ we hear, ‘to fetch water (λουτροφορεῖν) also for those who died unmarried, and that the figure of a water-bearer (λουτροφόρον) should be set up over their tomb. The figure was that of a boy with a pitcher1399.’ Here we have a clear case of the importation of a ceremony closely connected with marriage into the funeral-rites of the unmarried. How are we to explain this custom? On what religious conception was it based? Clearly, it seems,—in view of that constant association of death and marriage which we have observed in ancient literature and modern folk-song—no other interpretation can well be maintained than that, for those who died unwed, death itself was the first and only marriage which they experienced, and that to such, ere they were laid in Hades’ nuptial-chamber, there ought to be given those same rites which were held to be a fitting preparation for entrance into the estate of wedlock in this world1400.

The ceremonial ablutions being concluded, there came next the rites of anointing and arraying whether for marriage or for burial. As regards the cosmetics, we might feel well assured, even without the direct testimony of Aristophanes1401, that they were freely used in ancient weddings; and I myself have experienced a sense of suffocation from the same cause at weddings in modern Greece. Similarly at ancient funerals the original purpose of the lecythi was without doubt to contain the choice perfumes for the anointing of the dead1402; and the custom of anointing is still well known. Then again in the matter of dress, the colour usually considered correct1403 both for marriage and for burial was white, and, even if this cannot be said to have been universally the case, at any rate there was, and there still continues to be, no less pomp and ornament in the dress of the dead body1404 than in the array of bride and bridegroom.

In this connexion too we may notice the use of the actual bridal-dress in the funerals of betrothed girls and of young wives. That this practice was known in antiquity is proved by a passage of Chariton1405, in which the heroine of his story, Callirrhoë, whose first adventure, soon after her wedding, consists in being carried out to burial while unconscious but not dead, is described as ‘dressed in bridal array’; and exactly the same custom may be witnessed in Greece to-day1406. In fact not only may the person of the dead be seen dressed as for a wedding, but in the folk-songs we hear of the tomb itself being adorned like the home to which the bride should have been led.

‘Came her lover to her bedside, stooped him down, and met her kiss;
Low and faint to his ear only, whispered she, her message this:
“When I pass away, my lover, deck thou out my tomb for me,
As thou would’st have decked the home where wedded I should dwell with thee1407.”’

Yet another point of coincidence between the ceremonial of marriage and of funeral is the wearing of a crown. In ancient times ‘chaplets,’ says Becker1408, ‘were certainly worn both by bride and bridegroom,’ and in modern usage they are as essential to the marriage ceremony as the wedding-rings. At a certain point in the service, it is the duty of the best man, assisted by the chief bridesmaid, to keep exchanging the rings from the hands of the bride and bridegroom, and in like manner to exchange the crowns which they wear from the head of one to the head of the other; and as the rings are always worn afterwards, so the two crowns are carefully preserved and hung up together in the new home. Equally well-established is the use of garlands in ancient funerals1409, and, if not quite universal at the present day1410, they are at any rate commonly employed in the funerals of women and children. In Macedonia it is actually the bridal crown which is worn for burial by anyone who was betrothed or newly married1411.

Worthy of notice too is the not uncommon spectacle of an apple, quince1412, or pomegranate laid among the flowers with which the bier is adorned; for all these three fruits have their special significance in relation to marriage. The classical custom of throwing an apple into a girl’s lap as a sign of love is a method of wooing still known to the rustic swain. It is not indeed regarded as a highly respectable method, but perhaps neither in old times was it so; for then, as now, the more well-conducted youths seem to have had their wooing, if such it may be called, carried on through the agency of an elderly lady (in ancient Greek προμνήστρια, in modern προξενήτρια) whose negotiations were chiefly addressed to the parents on either side, and whose conversation smacked more of dowry than of love. The quince and the pomegranate however are employed without any offence to propriety. The former is in some districts the food of which the newly-married pair are required to partake together at their first entry into their new home; and it is hoped that the sweetness of the fruit will so temper their lips that nothing but sweet words will ever be addressed by the one to the other. To the open-minded observer it might appear that acidity rather than sweetness was the chief characteristic of the quince, and that, if the qualities of the fruit are found to affect the tones of those who eat it, they would be better advised, as is the custom in some villages, to substitute for the quince a well-sugared cake or a dish of honey. But the pomegranate is far more commonly used than the quince, and in a variety of ways. Sometimes the bride and bridegroom eat together of it; elsewhere the bridegroom proffers it to the bride as his first gift on her entrance to their home, and she alone eats of it; or again she may be required to hurl it down and scatter its seeds over the floor. The second of these methods of using the pomegranate at marriage is, it will be remembered, of venerable antiquity; it was a seed of this fruit which Hades gave to Persephone to eat, that when she visited again the upper world she might not remain there all her days with reverend, dark-robed Demeter, but return to her home in the nether world1413; and similarly at the Argive Heraeum, the bride of Zeus was represented by Polyclitus holding in one of her hands the fruit of the pomegranate, concerning which, says Pausanias, there is a mystic story not to be divulged1414. Here again then is found the same close association of death and marriage. The three fruits, apple, quince, and pomegranate, each of which possesses a special use and purport in the preliminaries or the actual ceremony of marriage, are also the fruits most commonly laid upon the bier, in token, as it must appear, that death is but a marriage into the unseen world. In the light of such customs we can read with fuller understanding that simple and yet mystic dirge, ‘The Wedding in Hades’:

‘My mother maketh glad to-day, she maketh my son’s wedding,
She goeth for water to the springs, for snow unto the mountains,
To fruit-wives in their garden-plots for apples and for quinces...1415.’

Thus in point after point the rites of marriage and the rites of death among Greeks both past and present have been found to coincide; and the number of these points of coincidence is too large to admit of their being referred to accident; design is evident. We are bound to suppose either that marriage-ceremonies were deliberately transferred to the funeral-rite, or that funeral-ceremonies were deliberately transferred to the marriage-rite. Which supposition shall we prefer? There can be no real question. It is impossible to conceive of a people so cynical or so distempered as to darken the wedding-day with grim reminders of death. But to transfer some of the usages of marriage to the funeral-scene was to infuse one ray of hope where all else was sorrow and darkness, to teach that, though the dead and the mourners might grieve for their parting, yet by that parting from the old home the dead was to enter upon a new life, a life of wedded happiness, in the unseen world. For indeed if there were no such intention as this, what was the meaning of the λουτροφόρος set up over the grave of the unmarried, what the purpose of adorning the dead with wedding-garment and wedding-crown? These two acts at least are no accidents; they reveal a studied purpose of assimilating the usages of death to the usages of marriage; and if that purpose underlay two of the customs enumerated, there is good warrant for the belief that in all the coincidences between marriage-rites and funeral-rites the same thought was operating—that very thought which has been found to be the common property of the Greek race, from one of the masters of ancient tragedy down to the humblest peasant of our day. Custom past and present, ancient literature, modern folk-song, all agree in their presentment of death as a marriage into the house of Hades.

On this popular and withal recondite conception of death were founded, I believe, the highest religious aspirations of the ancient Greeks. Such as had served their gods piously and purely in this life might hope to win a closer union, as of wedlock, with those gods in the life hereafter. To them there could be neither blasphemy nor presumption in their hope; for to pious believers the fabled experience of their own ancestors in this life was a warrant for aspiring themselves to the same bliss at least hereafter; what had been, might be again. Nay, more; not only was the belief that the highest bliss of the hereafter consisted in the marriage of men with their gods free from all reproach of impiety, but it was the logical development of two religious sentiments which we have already reviewed—the desire for close communion between gods and men, and the belief that men after death and dissolution would still enjoy, like their gods, corporeal existence. A previous chapter has been devoted to a detailed examination of the means whereby men in their daily life sought to maintain communication with the powers above them—oracles from which all might enquire and win inspired response; interpretation of the flight and cries of birds that were the messengers of heaven; reading of the signs written by the finger of some god on the flesh of the victim presented to him; divination from sight and sound and dream; sacrifice whereby some message of prayer might be sent with speed and safety to the god who had power to fulfil it. And in general it will, I think, be admitted that the main tendency of Greek religious thought was to draw gods and men nearer together, alike by an anthropomorphic conception of the gods and by an apotheosis of human beauty; that it was to subserve this end that Art became the handmaid of Religion, and strove to express the divine in terms of the human, to discover in man the potentialities of godhead. All religious hope and ambition and effort turned upon communion with the gods. How then in the next world should hope be fulfilled, ambition satisfied, effort rewarded? What should be the glorious consummation? Marriage was the closest communion between mortals in this world; marriage, so sang the poets, bound gods together in closest communion. Men’s aspirations for communion with their gods could find no final satisfaction save in marriage. To the few, we may suppose—men of refined and reflective mind, capable of imagining spiritual joys—this marriage of men and gods was but a mystic, figurative expression for the union of man’s soul with the soul of God, a thought as chastened and innocent of all sensuous connotation as the thought of many a woman who in a later era, withdrawn from the world, has comforted her loneliness with the hope of being the bride of Christ. But the many, I suspect, flinched not before a bold and literal interpretation of the thought, and, believing that, when death and physical dissolution were past, body as well as soul survived in another world, dared dream that having passed the gates of mortality into the demesne of the immortals they should be wedded, body and soul, in true wedlock with those deities who by veiled communion with them in this world had prepared them for sight and touch and full fruition hereafter.

But, it will be asked, where in all Greek literature can we find a statement, where even a hint, of this strange doctrine? Nowhere a statement; often a hint; for these were things not to be divulged to the profane. To those alone who were initiated into the Mysteries was the doctrine revealed, and even to them, it may be, in parables only whose inner meaning each must probe for himself.

There have of course been those who have made light of the mysteries of the old Greek religion, and have seen in them nothing but the impositions of a close hierarchy playing upon the ignorance and credulity and fear of the common-folk. But when we consider the veneration in which the more famous mysteries were held for many centuries, when we remember that Eleusis was respected and left inviolate not only by the Lacedaemonians and other Greek peoples when they invaded Attic territory, but even by the Persians who had dared to devastate the Acropolis, and in later times by the yet ruder Celts, then it is easier to believe that we are dealing with a great religious institution based upon solid principles and vital doctrines which deserved a wide-spread and long-continued reverence from mankind, than that it was all the elaborate and empty hoax of a crafty priesthood.

Nor again does the view which makes Demeter simply a corn-goddess and the Eleusinian mysteries a portentous harvest-thanksgiving—and that apparently somewhat premature—require any long or serious consideration. Corn indeed was one of the blessings given by Demeter to this upper world of living men; perhaps in the very earliest ages of her worship this was the sum total of the boons which men sought of her; doubtless even in her fully-developed mysteries a part of men’s thanks were still for the garnered harvest of the last year and for the promise which the green fields gave of her bounty once more to be renewed; for even in the nineteenth century of the Christian era her statue amid the ruins of Eleusis was still associated by the peasants with agriculture, and the removal of it, they apprehended, would cause a failure of the crops1416. But in old time this was not all. To speak of Demeter as a mere personification of cereals is to advocate a partial truth little better than the cynical falsehood which makes her only the stalking-horse of designing priests. For what said men of light and learning among the ancients1417, men who knew the whole truth and the whole Spirit of her worship? ‘Thrice happy they of men that have looked upon these rites ere they go to Hades’ house; for they alone there have true life, the rest have nought there but ill1418.’ So Sophocles, in language clearly recalling that of the so-called Homeric hymn1419 to Demeter; and in harmony with him Pindar: ‘Happy he that hath seen those rites ere he go beneath the earth; he knoweth life’s consummation, he knoweth its god-given source1420.’ And surely such consummation of life should be in that paradise, where ‘mid meadows red with roses lieth the space before the city’s gates, all hazy with frankincense and laden with golden fruits,’ where ‘the glorious sun sheds his light while night is here1421’; for to this belief even Aristophanes subscribes, neither daring nor wishing to make mock of the blessed ones who in the other world have part in the god-beloved festival, and wend their way with song and dance through the holy circle of the goddess, a lawn bright with flowers, meadows where roses richly blossom—on whom alone in their night-long worship the sun yet shines and a gracious light, for that they have learnt the mysteries and dealt righteously with all men1422.

Here then are the three great masters of lyric poetry, of tragedy, and of comedy in substantial agreement; and the hopes which they hold out are not the mere exuberance of poetic fancy, for sober prose affirms the same beliefs. What says Isocrates? ‘Demeter... being graciously minded towards our forefathers because of their services to her, services of which none but the initiated may hear, gave us the greatest of all gifts, first, those fruits of the earth which saved us from living the life of beasts, and secondly, that rite which makes happier the hopes of those that participate therein concerning both the end of life and their whole existence; and our city proved herself not only god-beloved but also loving toward mankind, in that, having become mistress of such blessings, she grudged them not to the rest of the world, but gave to all men a share in that she had received1423.’ Of this passage Lobeck1424 was disposed to make light, and that for the reason that Isocrates in another passage1425, with less orthodoxy perhaps and more charity, in speaking of the pious and upright in general, employs part of the same phrase which in the passage before us he applies to the initiated only. All good men, he says, have happier hopes ‘concerning their whole existence’; virtue, that is, may expect a reward, vice a punishment, either here or hereafter. Are these fair grounds on which to condemn his reference to the mysteries as a meaningless common-place? If any comment is to be made upon this repetition of a well-known phrase, would it not be fairer to note that in reference to the mysteries he speaks of men’s happier hopes not only generally—‘concerning their whole existence’ (περὶ τοῦ σύμπαντος αἰῶνος) but also specifically—‘concerning the end of life’ (περὶ τῆς τοῦ βίου τελευτῆς), and thus echoes the words of Pindar above quoted, ‘he knoweth the consummation of life’ (οἶδεν μὲν βιότου τελευτάν)? Nor is there any dearth of other authorities to prove that it was after death that the hopes of the initiated should ‘be emptied in delight.’ Let us hear Aristides. ‘Nay, but the benefit of the (Eleusinian) festival is not merely the cheerfulness of the moment and the freedom and respite from all previous troubles, but also the possession of happier hopes concerning the end, hopes that our life hereafter will be the better, and that we shall not lie in darkness and in filth—the fate that is believed to await the uninitiated1426.’ Such seem to have been the general terms in which the benefits of the mysteries might be recommended to the profane. The same ideas, almost the same phrases, occur again and again. Witness the well-known story of Diogenes the Cynic, who, when urged by a young man to get himself initiated, answered, ‘It is strange, my young friend, if you fancy that by virtue of this rite the publicans will share with the gods the good things of Hades’ house, while Agesilaus and Epaminondas lie in filth1427.’ Or again let us read the advice of Crinagoras to his friend: ‘Set thy foot on Cecropian soil, that thou may’st behold those nights of Demeter’s great mysteries, which shall free thee from care among the living, and, when thou goest where most are gone, shall make thy heart lighter1428.’ And with equal seriousness Cicero, who in his ideal state would forbid all nocturnal rites as tending towards excesses, would except the Eleusinian mysteries, not only because of their humanising and cheering influence upon men’s life in this world but also because they furnish better hopes in death1429.

Such are the most important passages bearing upon the religious as opposed to the temporal and agricultural aspects of Demeter’s worship, such the general terms in which the blessings flowing therefrom were overtly described by men who knew the details of the covert doctrine. The information contained in them amounts to this: the initiated received in the mysteries a hope, a pledge, perhaps a foretaste, of the future bliss reserved for them only; the profane should lie in filth and outer darkness; the blessed should dwell in pleasant meadows, and the sun should shine bright upon them; they should be god-beloved, and should share with the gods the good things of the next world.

Now obviously these vague and general promises are conceived in the tone and the spirit of that popular religion which had sprung from the very heart of the Hellenic folk. The pleasant meadows where the initiated should dwell are none other than that place which appears once as the asphodel mead, anon as the islands of the blessed or as part of the under-world, and is now named Paradise. The light which illumines even the night-time of the blessed is the necessary contrast to the murky gloom of a nether abode, conceived almost in the spirit of Homer, where the profane must lie as in a slough. And finally the close communion of the blessed with gods who love them is the consummation of those hopes which the whole Hellenic people entertained, and of those efforts which the whole Hellenic people put forth, to attain to close intercourse in this life with the gods whom they worshipped. Clearly then the general promises, whose inner mysteries were revealed only to the initiated, were based upon the old ideals, the innate beliefs, the traditional hopes, in a word, the natural and spontaneous religion of the Hellenic race.

And, as at Eleusis, so probably in other mysteries. In a famous passage Theo Smyrnaeus1430 compares the successive steps to be taken in the study of philosophy with the several stages of initiation in mysteries, and Lobeck1431 in his examination of the passage has shown that the reference is not to the mysteries of Eleusis, or at any rate not to them only. It is probable enough that Theo was speaking of mysteries in general, both public and private, in most of which there were, doubtless, several grades of initiation, and he may even have selected the details of his illustration (for it is an analogy only, not an argument, in which he is engaged) from different rites. Yet for his fifth and final stage of initiation, beyond even ‘open vision’ (ἐποπτεία) and ‘exposition’ (δᾳδουχία or ἰεροφαντία), he names that bliss which is the outcome of the earlier stages, the bliss of being god-beloved and sharing the life of gods (ἡ κατὰ τὸ θεοφιλὲς καὶ θεοῖς συνδιαιτὸν εὐδαιμονία).

The recurrence of the word θεοφιλής in the above passages, whether in reference to the Eleusinian or to other mysteries, cannot but excite attention; and we shall not I think go far astray if we take the last phrase of Theo Smyrnaeus, ‘the bliss of being god-beloved and sharing the life of gods,’ as an epitome of the somewhat vague and general promises held out to the profane as an inducement to initiation. This was the fulfilment of those ‘happier hopes’—to use another recurrent phrase—of which the initiated might only speak in guarded fashion. The exact interpretation of this phrase, as we shall have reason to believe when we consider the separate rites in detail, was the great mystic secret. But of that more anon; for the present let us suppose that the general assurances openly given concerning both the Eleusinian and other mysteries are fairly summed up in the promise ‘of being god-beloved and of sharing the life of gods.’ Such a promise appealed to those innate hopes of the whole Greek race which manifested themselves in their constant striving after close intercourse and communion with their gods; in other words, the happier hopes concerning the hereafter, which the mysteries sought to appropriate and to reserve to the initiated alone, had for their basis the natural religion of the Hellenic folk.

To admit this is necessarily to admit the validity of Lobeck’s refutation of those critics who have sought to father on the mysteries, usually on those of Eleusis, doctrines and ideas foreign to, or even incompatible with, popular Greek religion—pantheism, the emanation of the human soul from the soul of God, the transmigration of souls, the Platonic theory of ideas, the unity of God omnipotent and omniscient1432, and such-like religious products of different ages and different climes. For if we were to accept the view that the teaching of the mysteries was a thing apart from the ordinary trend and tenor of the popular religion, then we should be compelled to regard those general promises of future bliss (which were in truth, as we have just seen, based upon popular religion) as a fraudulent bait designed to entice men away from their old beliefs and to ensnare them in dogma and priestcraft; and if any would impute fraud, there awaits them the task of convicting Pindar, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Isocrates, and others who wrote of that which they knew, of conspiracy to deceive.

But while the promises held forth by the Eleusinian and other mysteries, and therefore also the doctrines which elucidated those vague promises, were a product of the popular religion, those doctrines themselves were not a matter of popular knowledge. The very fact of initiation, the death-penalty inflicted upon the profane who by any means penetrated to the scene of the mysteries, the wild indignation excited in Athens by a charge of mocking the mystic rites, the scrupulous privacy observed in investigating that charge before a court composed of the initiated only—all these are proofs that Eleusis was the school of secret beliefs and hopes held in deep veneration by those to whom the knowledge of them was vouchsafed. Secret doctrines existed; that which had sprung from the beliefs of the many had become the property of the few. How can this be explained?

The explanation is not difficult. The worship of Demeter and possibly many other rites which were afterwards called ‘mysteries’ were the most holy part of the religion of the Pelasgians; and when the Achaeans, a people of strange tongue and strange religion, came among them, the Pelasgians would not admit them to a knowledge of their rites but thenceforth performed those rites in secrecy. This is proved by two facts. First, the rites which at Eleusis, in Samothrace, and among the Cicones in Thrace, the country of Orpheus, were imparted as mysteries to the initiated only, were in Crete open to all and there was no obligation to secrecy concerning them1433. Secondly, at Eleusis at any rate the purity required of candidates for initiation was not only physical and spiritual, as secured by ablution and abstinence, but also linguistic; it was necessary καθαρεύειν τῇ φωνῇ1434, to speak the Greek language purely. These two facts taken together solve the difficulty. Before the coming of the Achaeans the whole Pelasgian population whether of the Greek mainland or of such an island as Crete celebrated the rites of Demeter openly. In Crete, where no Achaeans penetrated, the old custom naturally continued unchanged. On the mainland the influx of a people of strange tongue and strange religion necessitated secrecy in the native rites, lest the presence of men who knew not Demeter should profane her worship; the right of entry therefore at her festivals was decided by the simplest test of Achaean or Pelasgian nationality, the test of speech; and in later times, when the Achaeans had acquired the Pelasgian speech1435, the customs thus established were not abolished; the rites of Demeter remained ‘mysteries’ to be conducted in secret, and the Shibboleth was still exacted.

Since then we may not seek in the teachings of the mysteries anything alien from the spirit of the popular religion, the scope of our enquiry is more limited and its course more clear. The secret to be discovered is something which had been evolved from the popular religion, some intensification and higher development of those hopes and beliefs, yearnings and strivings, which have continuously marked the religious life of the Greek folk. Now the mass of the Greek people have always hoped and believed, as their care for the dead has constantly shown, that beyond death and dissolution lay a life in which body and soul should be re-united and restored to their old activity; the mysteries might well confirm the initiated in that expectation and picture to them the happy habitations where they should dwell. Again the mass of the Greek people have always yearned and striven by manifold means in this life for close communion with their gods; the mysteries might well be a sacrament which afforded to the initiated both a means and a pledge of enjoying in the next world, to which body as well as soul should pass, the closest of all communion with their gods, the union of wedlock.

Let it then be supposed that the two main ideas of the mysteries, whether expounded in speech or represented in ritual, were these—bodily survival after death, and marriage of men with gods; what would have been the natural attitude of Christians towards these doctrines? For it is in the light of the charges brought by early Christian writers against the mysteries that such a supposition must first be examined. The doctrine of the immortality of the body as well as of the soul was evidently little exposed to Christian attacks; and it may have been because the Christian doctrine of the resurrection had much in common with the old Greek doctrine, that St Paul found among his audience on the Areopagus some who did not mock, but said ‘We will hear thee again of this matter.’ But with the further doctrine of marriage between men and gods Christianity could have no sympathy, but would inevitably regard it as offensive both in theology and in morality, as implying the existence of a plurality of gods, and as savouring of that sensuality, which above all other sin the apostle to the Gentiles set himself to combat.

And it is in fact upon these two points that the mass of the accusations brought by early Christian writers against Greek paganism hinge and hang. These were the points at which Greek religion seemed to its assailants most readily vulnerable, and against which they sought to use as weapons the very language of paganism itself. Just as Clement of Alexandria1436 seeks to prove out of the mouth of Homer, who speaks of the gods in general as δαίμονες1437, that the Greek gods are confessedly mere demons (for the word δαίμων had seemingly deteriorated in meaning), that is to say, abominable and unclean spirits, enemies of the one true God, so too the words ἄρρητος and ἀπόρρητος, used by the pagans of their ‘unspeakable’ mysteries, were misinterpreted by the Christians with one consent and became a handle for convicting the old religion of ‘unnameable’ impurities.

With the question of polytheism however we are not further concerned; whether the Hellenic gods were true gods, as their worshippers held, or devils, as Clement thought, or non-existent, as many will think to-day, matters not; all that we need to know in this respect is known, namely, that the mysteries, like the popular religion, acknowledged a plurality of gods; for in the Eleusinian drama alone several gods played a part. It is rather the frequent and violent charges of impurity which call for investigation.

A few examples will suffice for the present. A comprehensive denunciation is that of Eusebius, who charges the pagans with celebrating, ‘in chant and hymn and story and in the unnameable rites of the mysteries, adulteries and yet baser lusts, and incestuous unions of mother with son, brother with sister1438.’ And again he says, ‘In every city rites and mysteries of gods are taught, in harmony with the mythical stories of old time, so that even now in these rites, as well as in hymns and odes to the gods, men can hear of marriages of the gods, and of their procreation of children, and of dirges for death, and of drunken excesses, and of wanderings, and of passionate love or anger1439.’ Equally outspoken is Clement of Alexandria in his ‘Exhortation to the heathen.’ Some specific statements in that work concerning the mysteries of several gods, though they support the general charges of impurity, may be postponed for later examination. It will be enough here to adduce the phrases in which, after denouncing those who, whether in the mysteries of the temples or the paintings with which their own houses were adorned, loved to look upon the lusts of gods (he risks even the word πασχητιασμοί), and ‘regarded incontinence as piety,’ Clement reaches the climax of his invective:—‘Such are your models of voluptuousness, such your creeds of lust, such the doctrines of gods who commit fornication with you; for, as the Athenian orator says, what a man wishes, that he also believes1440.’ This brutal directness of Clement is however hardly more effective than the elegant innuendo of Synesius in dealing with the same subject. Commenting on the secrecy of the nocturnal rites, he describes them as celebrated at ‘times and places competent to conceal ἀρρητουργίαν ἔνθεον1441’—a phrase which I despair of rendering, for the ‘unspeakable acts’ to which ‘divine frenzy’ led, are those which are either too holy or too infamous to be named.

These few typical passages amply demonstrate that alike by insinuation and by open accusation the Christian writers conspired to brand the mysteries with the infamy of deeds unnameable. What is the explanation of this organised campaign of calumny?

Some have supposed that the Christian writers in general confused the public and the private mysteries, and that, aware of the license which characterized the latter, they included all in one condemnation. But this explanation appears at any rate inadequate. We have seen how Cicero distinguished sharply between the Eleusinian mysteries, in which he had participated and for which he felt reverence, and other nocturnal rites which gave shelter to all manner of excess. It is difficult therefore to suppose that in later times the Christian writers should all have fallen unwittingly into the error of confusing all mysteries together; and no less difficult to imagine that, if they recognised how far removed were the most respected of the public mysteries from the baser private orgies, they should have deliberately exposed themselves to the charge of ignorance of the subject concerning which they presumed to preach. Clement of Alexandria was too shrewd a disputant so to stultify himself.

Nor again is it a sufficient explanation to say that the strain and excitement of such mysteries as those of Eleusis were responsible for a certain amount of subsequent indiscretion. Let it be granted that many of those who had witnessed the solemn rites were guilty afterwards of drunkenness and licentiousness1442; yet these would be no grounds for convicting the mysteries themselves of impurity; to so perverted a charge the heathen might well have answered that rioting and drunkenness had not been unknown at the Christians’ most solemn service; and indeed the same argument could up to this day be used against the Greek celebration of Easter. No; the charges of impurity were brought against the mysteries themselves, not against the incidental misdoings of some who had witnessed them. It must have been either the doctrines taught or the dramatic representations by means of which they were taught that furnished the Christian writers with a handle for accusation.

Now if, as I have supposed, the doctrine of the marriage of men with their gods was the cardinal doctrine of the mysteries (for the other doctrine of bodily survival is merely preliminary and subordinate to this), and if some dramatic representation was given as a means of instilling into men’s minds the hope of attaining to that summit of bliss, it is not difficult to see what an opening the mysteries gave to their opponents for the charges which were actually brought. The ultimate bliss promised to the initiated was in general terms said to consist in ‘being god-beloved and dwelling with the gods,’ and this phrase, we are supposing, signified to the initiated themselves an assurance that their gods would admit them even to wedlock with them in the future life. It required then no great ingenuity in the way of misrepresentation for Clement, if he had but an inkling of the secret doctrine, to denounce the heathen and their beliefs in that opprobrious phrase, ‘Such are the doctrines of gods that commit fornication with you.’ This champion of Christianity knew no chivalry, gave no quarter, disdained no weapon, held no method of attack too base or insidious, if only he could wound and crush his heathen foes. It was his part to pervert, to degrade, to blaspheme their whole religion; and that which they held most sacred was marked out for his most virulent scorn. Naturally to those who drew near with pure and reverent minds the mysteries wore a very different aspect. That which Clement misnamed lust, they felt to be love; where he saw only degradation, they recognised a wonderful condescension of their gods. For in the words of that religion which Clement preached ‘to the pure all things are pure’; and it was purification which the initiated sought by abstinence and ablution during the first part of the Eleusinian festival before they were admitted to their holy of holies.

Indeed if we would understand at all the spirit in which the ancient Greeks approached the celebration of the mysteries, we should do well to turn our attention for a little to the modern Greek celebration of Holy Week and Easter; for this is, so to speak, the Christian counterpart of the old mysteries, and seems to owe much to them. It so happens that Easter falls in the same period of the year as did the great Eleusinian festival—the period when the re-awakening of the earth from its winter sleep suggests to man his own re-awakening from the sleep of death; and it is probable that the Church turned this coincidence in time to good account by making her own festival a substitute for the festival of Demeter or other kindred rites, and even by modelling her own services after the pagan pattern; for it would seem that the Church, when once her early struggles had secured her a firm position, exchanged hostility for conciliation, and sought to absorb rather than to oust paganism. Her complaisance is clearly seen in the ceremonies of Good Friday and Easter; for, with all her severe repression of the use of idols (whose place however is well supplied by the pictures which are called icons), she has permitted the use of a sculptured figure at this one festival, and even down to this day Christ is represented in some localities1443 in effigy; and it can hardly be doubted that the purpose of this concession was to make the Christian festival as dramatic and attractive as the pagan mysteries celebrated at the same season. Again the absorption of pagan ideas is well illustrated by the belief still prevalent among the peasants that the Easter festival, like the cult of Demeter, has an important bearing upon the growth of the crops. A story in point was told to me by one who had travelled in Greece1444. Happening to be in some village of Eubœa during Holy Week, he had been struck by the emotion which the Good Friday services evoked; and observing on the next day the same general air of gloom and despondency, he questioned an old woman about it; whereupon she replied, ‘Of course I am anxious; for if Christ does not rise to-morrow, we shall have no corn this year.’

In other details too there is a close correspondence between the pagan and the Christian festivals. As a period of abstinence was required of the mystae, so during Lent and still more strictly during Holy Week the Greek peasants keep a fast which certainly predisposes them to hysterical emotion during the services; and en revanche, just as the initiated are said to have indulged themselves too freely when the mysteries were over, so the modern peasants, when the announcement of the Resurrection has been made, disperse in haste to feast upon their Easter lamb, and while it is still a-cooking experience the inevitable effects of plentiful wine on an empty stomach. Again, just as the rites of Eleusis were nocturnal, so the chief services of Holy Week are those of the Friday night and the Saturday night; and it may be that the torch-light processions which close the services on those two nights are related to the δᾳδουχία of Eleusis. But these are minor details; it is in the actual services of Good Friday and Easter that the most striking resemblance to the Eleusinian mysteries is found, and the spirit in which the worshippers approach may still be the same now as then. Let me briefly describe the festival as I saw it in the island of Santorini, or, to give it the old name which has revived in modern times, Thera.

The Lenten fast was drawing to a close when I arrived. For the first week it is strictly observed, meat, fish, eggs, milk, cheese, and even olive-oil being prohibited, so that the ordinary diet is reduced to bread and water, to which is sometimes added a nauseous soup made from dried cuttle-fish or octopus; for these along with shellfish are not reckoned to be animal food, as being bloodless. During the next four weeks some relaxation is allowed; but no one with any pretensions to piety would even then partake of fish, meat, or eggs; the last-mentioned are stored up until Easter and then, being dyed red, are either eaten or—more wisely—offered to visitors. Then comes ‘the Great Week’ (ἡ μεγάλη ἑβδομάδα), and with it the same strict regulations come into force as during the first week of Lent. It was not hard to perceive that for most of the villagers the fast had been a real and painful abstinence. Work had almost ceased; for there was little energy left. Leisure was not enjoyed; for there was little spirit even for chatting. Everywhere white, sharp-featured faces told of real hunger; and the silence was most often broken by an outburst of irritability. In a few days time I could understand it; for I too perforce fasted; and I must own that a daily diet of dry bread for déjeuner and of dry bread and octopus soup for dinner soon changed my outlook upon life. Little wonder then if these folk after six weeks of such treatment were nervous and excitable.

Such was the condition of body and mind in which they attended the long service of Good Friday night. Service I have said, but drama were a more fitting word, a funeral-drama. At the top of the nave, just below the chancel-step, stood a bier and upon it lay the figure of the Christ, all too death-like in the dim light. The congregation gaze upon him, reverently hushed, while the priests’ voices rise in prayer and chant as it were in lamentation for the dead God lying there in state. Hour after hour passes. The women have kissed the dead form, and are gone. The moment has come for carrying the Christ out to burial. The procession moves forward—in front, the priests with candles and torches and, guarded by them, the open bier borne shoulder-high—behind, a reverent, bare-headed crowd. The night is dark and gusty. It rains, and the rugged, tortuous alleys of the town are slippery. It is late, but none are sleeping. Unheeding of wind and rain, the women kneel at open door or window, praying, swinging censers, sprinkling perfume on the passing bier. Slowly, haltingly, led by the dirge of priests, now in darkness, now lighted by the torches’ flare and intermittent beams from cottage doorways, groping at corners, stumbling in ill-paved by-ways, the mourners follow their God to his grave. The circuit of the town is done. All have taken their last look upon the dead. The sepulchre is reached—a vault beneath the church from which the funeral started. The priests alone enter with the bier. There is a pause. The crowd waits. The silence is deep as the darkness, only broken here and there by a deep-drawn sigh. Is it the last depth of anguish, or is it well-nigh relief that the long strain is over? The priests return. In silence the crowd have waited, in silence they disperse. It is finished.

But there is a sequel on the morrow. Soon after dark on Easter-eve the same weary yet excited faces may be seen gathered in the church. But there is a change too; there is a feeling abroad of anxiety, of expectancy. Hours must yet pass ere midnight, and not till then is there hope of the announcement, ‘Christ is risen!’ The suspense seems long. To-night there is restlessness rather than silence. Some go to and fro between the church and their homes; others join discordantly in the chants and misplace the responses; anything to cheat the long hours of waiting. Midnight draws near; from hand to hand are passed the tapers and candles which shall light the joyful procession, if only the longed-for announcement be made. What is happening there now behind those curtains which veil the chancel from the expectant throng? Midnight strikes. The curtains are drawn back. Yes, there is the bier, borne but yesternight to the grave. It is empty. That is only the shroud upon it. The words of the priest ring out true, ‘Christ is risen!’ And there behind the chancel, see, a second veil is drawn back. There in the sanctuary, on the altar-steps, bright with a blaze of light stands erect the figure of the Christ who, so short and yet so long a while ago, was borne lifeless to the tomb. A miracle, a miracle! Quickly from the priest’s lighted candle the flame is passed. In a moment the dim building is illumined by a lighted taper in every hand. A procession forms, a joyful procession now. Everywhere are light and glad voices and the embraces of friends, crying aloud the news ‘Christ is risen’ and answering ‘He is risen indeed.’ In every home the lamb is prepared with haste, the wine flows freely; in the streets is the flash of torches, the din of fire-arms, and all the exuberance of simple joy. The fast is over; the dead has been restored to life before men’s eyes; well may they rejoice even to ecstasy. For have they not felt the ecstasy of sorrow? This was no tableau on which they looked, no drama in which they played a part. It was all true, all real. The figure on the bier was indeed the dead Christ; the figure on the altar-steps was indeed the risen Christ. In these simple folk religion has transcended reason; they have reached the heights of spiritual exaltation; they have seen and felt as minds more calm and rational can never see nor feel.

And the ancient Greeks, had not they too the gift of ecstasy, the faculty to soar above facts on the wings of imagination? When the drama of Demeter and Kore was played before the eyes of the initiated at Eleusis, were not they too uplifted in mind until amid the magic of night they were no longer spectators of a drama but themselves had a share in Demeter’s sorrow and wandering and joy? For the pagan story is not unlike the Christian story in its power to move both tears and gladness. As now men mourn beside the bier of Christ, so in old time may men have shared Demeter’s mourning for her child who though divine had suffered the lot of men and passed away to the House of Hades. As now men rejoice when they behold the risen Christ, so in old time may men have shared Demeter’s joy when her child returned from beneath the earth, proving that there is life beyond the grave. But the old story taught more than this. Not only did Kore live in the lower world, but her passing thither was not death but wedding. Therefore just as now the resurrection of Christ, who though divine is the representative of mankind, is held to be an earnest of man’s resurrection, so the wedded life of Kore in the nether world may have been to the initiated an assurance of the same bliss to be vouchsafed to them hereafter.

What was there then in this drama of Demeter and Kore at which the Christian writers could take offence or cavil? We do not of course know in what detail the story was represented; but the pivot on which the whole plot turned was necessarily the rape of Kore. Now it appears that in the play the part of Aïdoneus was taken by an hierophant and the part of Kore by a priestess; and it was the alleged indecency resulting therefrom which the fathers of the Church most severely censured. Asterius, after defending the Christians from the charge of worshipping saints as if they had been not human but divine, seeks to turn the tables on his pagan opponents by accusing them of deifying Demeter and Kore, whom he evidently regards as having once been human figures in mythology. Then he continues, ‘Is not Eleusis the scene of the descent into darkness, and of the solemn acts of intercourse between the hierophant and the priestess, alone together? Are not the torches extinguished, and does not the large, the numberless assembly of common people believe that their salvation lies in that which is being done by the two in the darkness1445?’ Again it was objected against the Valentinians by Tertullian that they copied ‘the whoredoms of Eleusis1446,’ and from another authority we learn that part of the ceremonies of these heretics consisted in ‘preparing a nuptial chamber’ and celebrating ‘a spiritual marriage1447.’ These two statements, read in conjunction, form a strong corroboration of the information given by Asterius; and we are bound to conclude that the scene of the rape of Kore was represented at Eleusis by the descent of the priest and priestess who played the chief parts into a dark nuptial chamber.

Now it is easy enough to suppose, as Sainte-Croix suggests1448, that public morals were safeguarded by assigning the chief rôles in the drama to persons of advanced age, or, as one ancient author states1449, by temporarily and partially paralysing the hierophant with a small dose of hemlock. Whether each of the initiated was at any time conducted through the same ritual is uncertain. In the formulary of the Eleusinian rites, as recorded by Clement of Alexandria—‘I fasted; I drank the sacred potion (κυκεῶνα); I took out of the chest; having wrought (ἐργασάμενος) I put back into the basket and from the basket into the chest1450’—the expression ‘having wrought’ has been taken to be an euphemism denoting the same mystic union as between hierophant and priestess1451. If this view is correct, it would imply no doubt that full initiation required the candidate to go through the whole ritual in person; in this case it must be presumed that some precaution such as the dose of hemlock was taken in the interests of morality.

But the mere fact that a scene of rape should form any part of a religious rite, was to the Christians a stumbling-block. This was their insurmountable objection to the mysteries, and they were only too prone to exaggerate a ceremony, which with reverent and delicate treatment need have been in no way morally deleterious, into a sensual and noxious orgy. The story, how Demeter’s beautiful and innocent daughter was suddenly carried off from the meadow where she was gathering flowers into the depths of the dark under-world, spoke to them only of the violence and lust of her ravisher Aïdoneus. But the legend might bear another complexion. Kore, as representative of mankind or at least of the initiated among mankind, suffers what seems the most cruel lot, a sudden departure from this life in the midst of youth and beauty and spring-time; and Demeter searches for her awhile in vain, and mourns for her as men mourn their dead. Yet afterward it is found that there is no cruelty in Kore’s lot, for she is the honoured bride of the king of that world to which she was borne away; and Demeter is comforted, for her child is not dead nor lost to her, but is allowed to return in living form to visit her. What then must have been the ‘happier hopes’ held out to those who had looked on the great drama of Eleusis? What was meant by that prospect of being ‘god-beloved and sharing the life of gods’? How came it that the assembly of the initiated believed their salvation to lie in the union of Hades and Persephone, represented in the persons of hierophant and priestess, in the subterranean nuptial-chamber? What was the bearing of the legend dramatically enacted upon these hopes and prospects and beliefs? Surely it taught that not only was there physical life beyond death, but a life of wedded happiness with the gods.

And the same doctrine seems to be the motif of many other popular legends and of mysteries founded thereon; its settings and its harmonies may be different, but the essential melody is the same. At Eleusis Demeter’s daughter was the representative of mankind, for she went down to the house of Hades as is the lot of men. But Crete had another legend wherein Demeter was the representative deity with whom mankind might hope for union. Was it not told how Iasion even in this life found such favour in the goddess’ eyes that she was ‘wed with him in sweet love mid the fresh-turned furrows of the fat land of Crete1452’? And happiness such as was granted to him here was laid up for all the initiated hereafter; else would there be no meaning in those lines, ‘Blessed, methinks, is the lot of him that sleeps, and tosses not, nor turns, even Endymion; and, dearest maiden, blessed I call Iasion, whom such things befell, as ye that be profane shall never come to know1453.’ Surely that which is withheld from the profane is by implication reserved to the sanctified, and to them it is promised that they shall know by their own experience hereafter the bliss which Iasion even here obtained. It was, I think, in this spirit and this belief that the Athenians in old time called their dead Δημητρεῖοι ‘Demeter’s folk1454’; for the popular belief in the condescension of the Mistress, great and reverend goddess though she was, was so firmly rooted, it would seem, that even to this day the folk-stories, as we have seen, still tell how the ‘Mistress of the earth and of the sea,’ she whom men still call Despoina and reverence for her love of righteousness and for her stern punishment of iniquity, has yet admitted brave heroes to her embrace in the mountain-cavern where, as of old in Arcady, she still dwells1455.

Nor did the cults of Demeter and Kore monopolise these hopes and beliefs. In the religious drama of Aphrodite and Adonis, in the Sabazian mysteries, in the holiest rites of Dionysus, in the wild worship of Cybele, the same thought seems ever to recur. It matters little whether these gods and their rites were foreign or Hellenic in origin. If they were not native, at least they were soon naturalised, and that for the simple reason that they satisfied the religious cravings of the Greek race. The essential spirit of their worship, whatever the accidents of form and expression, was the spirit of the old Pelasgian worship of Demeter; and therefore, though Dionysus may have been an immigrant from northern barbarous peoples, the Greeks did not hesitate to give him room and honour beside Demeter in the very sanctuary of Eleusis. Similar, we may well believe, was the lot of other foreign gods and rites. Whencesoever derived, they owed their reception in Greece to the fact that their character appealed to certain native religious instincts of the Greek folk. Once transplanted to Hellenic soil, they were soon completely Hellenized; those elements which were foreign or distasteful to Greek religion were quickly eradicated or of themselves faded into oblivion, while all that accorded with the Hellenic spirit throve into fuller perfection; for the character of a deity and of a cult depends ultimately upon the character of the worshippers.

It is fair therefore to treat of Aphrodite as of a genuinely Greek deity; for, though she may have entered Greece from Eastern lands, doubtless long before the Homeric age her worship no less than her personality was permeated with the spirit of genuinely Greek religion. Too well known to need re-telling here is the story of how—to use the words of Theocritus once more—‘the beautiful Cytherea was brought by Adonis, as he pastured his flock upon the mountain-side, so far beyond the verge of frenzy, that not even in his death doth she put him from her bosom1456.’ Such was the plot of one of the most famous religious dramas of old time. And what was its moral for those who had ears to hear? Surely that the beloved of the gods may hope for wedlock with them in death.

It was certainly in this sense that Clement of Alexandria understood certain other mysteries of Aphrodite, though, needless to say, he puts upon them the most obscene construction. After relating in terms unnecessarily disgusting the legend of how by the very act of Uranus’ self-mutilation the sea became pregnant and gave birth from among its foam to the goddess Aphrodite, he states that ‘in the rites which celebrate this voluptuousness of the sea, as a token of the goddess’ birth there are handed to those that are being initiated into the lore of adultery (τοῖς μυουμένοις τὴν τέχνην τὴν μοιχικήν) a lump of salt and a phallus; and they for their part present her with a coin, as if they were her lovers and she their mistress (ὡς ἑταίρας ἐρασταί)1457.’ Thus Clement; but those who are willing to see in the mysteries of the Greek religion something more than organised sensuality will do well to reflect whether that which Clement calls ‘being initiated into the lore of adultery’ was not really an initiation into those hopes of marriage with the gods of which we have already found evidence in the popular religion, and whether the goddess’ symbolic acceptance of her worshippers as lovers does not fit in exactly with that bold conception of man’s future bliss. The symbolism indeed, if Clement’s statement is accurate, was crude and even repellent, but its significance is clear; and those who approached these mysteries of Aphrodite in reverent mood need not have been repelled by that which modern taste would account indecent in the ritual. Greek feeling never erred on the side of prudery; men were familiar with the Hermae erected in the streets and with the symbolism of the phallus in religious ceremonies, and tolerated the publication of literature—be it the comedy of Aristophanes or Clement’s own exhortation to the heathen—which neither as a source of amusement nor of instruction would be tolerated now.

The particular mysteries to which Clement alludes in this passage seem to have been concerned with the story of Aphrodite’s birth, and though it is difficult to conjecture how that story can have been made to illustrate and to inculcate the doctrine of the marriage of men and gods, the information given by Clement with respect to the ritual makes it clear that such was their object. But in that other rite of the same goddess, that namely which celebrated the story of Adonis, the whole motif of the drama was the continuance of Aphrodite’s love for him after his death, a love so strong that it prevailed upon the gods of the lower world to let him return for half of every year to the upper world and the arms of his mistress. Here, though expressed in different imagery, is the same doctrine as that which underlay the drama of Eleusis. Here again is an illustration, or rather, for those who were capable of religious ecstasy, a proof, of the doctrine that the dead yet lived, and in that life were both in body and in soul one with their gods. For ‘thrice-beloved Adonis who even in Acheron is beloved1458’ was the type and forerunner of all those who had part in his mysteries.

In another version this legend of Adonis is brought into even closer relation with the Eleusinian mysteries by the introduction of Persephone1459. To her is assigned the part of a rival to Aphrodite, and being equally enamoured of the beautiful Adonis she is glad of his death whereby he is torn from the arms of Aphrodite in the upper world, and enters the chamber of the nether world where her love in turn may have its will; but in the end Aphrodite descends to the house of Hades, and a compact is arranged between the two goddesses by which each in turn may possess Adonis for half the year. This version of the story is cruder, but its teaching is obviously the same—Adonis, the favourite of heaven in this life, and the precursor of all who by initiation in the mysteries win heaven’s favour, survives in the lower world with both body and soul unimpaired by death, and is admitted to wedlock with the great goddess of the dead.

The same doctrine again seems to have been the basis of certain mystic rites associated with Dionysus. From the speech against Neaera attributed to Demosthenes we learn that at Athens there was annually celebrated a marriage between the wife of the chief magistrate (ἄρχων βασιλεύς) and Dionysus. The solemnity was reckoned among things ‘unspeakable’; foreigners were not permitted to see or to hear anything of it; and even Athenian citizens, it seems, might not enter the innermost sanctuary in which the union of Dionysus with the ‘queen’ (βασίλιννα) was celebrated1460. There were however present and assisting in some way fourteen priestesses (γεραραί), dedicated to the service of the god and bound by special vows of chastity. These priestesses, we are told, corresponded in number to the altars of Dionysus1461, and they were appointed by the archon whose wife was wed with Dionysus1462. There our actual knowledge of the facts ends; but there is material enough on which to base a rational surmise. The correspondence between the number of priestesses bound by vows of purity and the number of the altars suggests that in this custom is to be sought a relic of human sacrifice. The selection of the priestesses by the magistrate who held the title of ‘king’ suggests that in bygone times it had been the duty of the king, as being also chief priest, to select fourteen virgins who should be sacrificed on Dionysus’ altars and thereby sent to him as wives. Subsequently maybe, as humanity gradually mitigated the wilder rites of religion, the number of victims was reduced to one; and later still the human sacrifice was altogether abolished, and, instead of sending to Dionysus his wife by the road of death, the still pious but now more humane worshippers of the god contented themselves with a symbolic marriage between him and the wife of their chief magistrate.

The conception of human sacrifice as a means of sending a messenger from this world to some power above, which receives clear expression in that modern story from Santorini which I have narrated in an earlier chapter[1463], was, I have there argued, known also to the ancient Greeks; and the same means of communication may equally well have been employed for the despatch of a human wife to some god. Plutarch appears to have been actually familiar with this idea. In a passage in which he is attempting to vindicate the purity and goodness of the gods and, it must be added withal, their aloofness from human affairs, he claims that all the religious rites and means of communion are concerned, not with the great gods (θεοί), but with lesser deities (δαίμονες) who are of varying character, some good, others evil, and that the rites also vary accordingly. “As regards the mysteries,” he says, “wherein are given the greatest manifestations or representations (ἐμφάσεις καὶ διαφάσεις) of the truth concerning ‘daemons,’ let my lips be reverently sealed, as Herodotus has it”; but the wilder orgies of religion, he argues, are to be set down as a means of appeasing evil ‘daemons’ and of averting their wrath; the human sacrifices of old time, for example, were not demanded nor accepted by gods, but were performed to satisfy either the vindictive anger of cruel and tormenting ‘daemons,’ or in some cases “the wild and despotic passions (ἔρωτας) of ‘daemons’ who could not and would not have carnal intercourse with carnal beings. Just as Heracles besieged Oechalia to win a girl, so these strong and violent ‘daemons,’ demanding a human soul that is shut up within a body, and being unable to have bodily intercourse therewith, bring pestilences and famines upon cities and stir up wars and tumults, until they get and enjoy the object of their love.” And reversely, he continues, some ‘daemons’ have punished with death men who have forced their love upon them; and he refers to the story of a man who violated a nymph and was found afterwards with his head severed from his body1464. The whole passage betrays clearly enough what was the popular belief which Plutarch here set himself so to explain as to safeguard the goodness of the gods; but perhaps the end of it is the most significant of all. Plutarch forgets that a nymph, if she is a ‘daemon,’ is by his own hypothesis incapable of bodily intercourse; in this case then his attempted explanation is not even logically sound, and his conception of a purely spiritual ‘daemon’ is a failure; but at the same time, save for this invention, he is following the popular belief of both ancient and modern Greece that carnal intercourse between man and nymph is possible but is fraught with grave peril to the man1465. It is impossible then to doubt that in the earlier part of the passage he was explaining away a popular belief by means of the same hypothesis. He himself would hold that spiritual ‘daemons’ demanded human sacrifice because they lusted after a soul or spirit confined out of their reach in a body until death severed it therefrom; but the popular belief, which he is at pains to emend, was that corporeal gods demanded human sacrifice because they lusted after the person who, by death, would be sent, body and soul, to be wed with them.

There is good reason then to suppose that in old time death may have been even inflicted as the means of effecting wedlock between men and gods; and that the mystic rite of union between Dionysus and the wife of the Athenian magistrate was based on the same fundamental idea as the mysteries of Demeter and Persephone or of Aphrodite. Though in this instance, when once human sacrifice had been given up, all suggestion of death was, so far as we know, removed from the solemnity, yet the repetition year by year of a ceremony of marriage between the god and a mortal woman representing his worshippers might still keep bright in their minds those ‘happier hopes’ of the like bliss laid up for themselves hereafter.

This particular rite escaped the notice, or at any rate the malice, of Clement; but Dionysus does not for all that go unscathed. Clement fastens upon a legend concerning him, which, however widely ancient Greek feeling in the matter of sex differed from modern, cannot but have seemed to some of the ancients1466 themselves to be a reproach and stain upon the honour of their god. The story of Dionysus and Prosymnus, as told by Clement1467, must be taken as read. But those who will investigate it for themselves will see that the same idea of death being followed by close intercourse with the gods is present there also. That this was the inner meaning of the peculiarly offensive story is shown by a curious comment of Heraclitus upon it, which Clement quotes—ωὐτὸς δε Ἀίδης καὶ Διόνυσος1468, ‘Hades and Dionysus are one’; whence it follows that union with Dionysus is a synonym for that ‘marriage with Hades’ which elsewhere, in both ancient and modern times, is a common presentment of death.

Again in the Sabazian mysteries, which some connect with Dionysus and others with Zeus, the little that is known of the ritual favours the view that here also the motif was the marriage of the deity with his worshippers. According to Clement1469, the subject-matter of these mysteries was a story that Zeus, having become by Demeter the father of Persephone, seduced in turn his own daughter, having as a means to that end transformed himself into a snake. That story, it may safely be said, is presented by Clement in its worst light; but the statement, that in the ritual the deity was represented by a snake, obtains some corroboration from Theophrastus, who says of the superstitious man, that if he see a red snake in his house he will invoke Sabazius1470. Now the token of these mysteries for those who were being initiated in them was, according to Clement1471 again, ‘the god pressed to the bosom’ (ὁ διὰ κόλπου θεός); which phrase he explains by saying that the god was represented as a snake, which was passed under the clothing and drawn over the bosom of the initiated ‘as a proof of the incontinence of Zeus.’ Clearly then the act of initiation was the symbolic wedding of the worshipper with the deity worshipped; and it is probable that the union which was symbolized in this life was expected to be realised in the next.

Finally in the orgiastic worship of Cybele the same religious doctrine is revealed. Here to Attis seems to be assigned the same part as to Adonis in the mysteries of Aphrodite. He is the beloved of the goddess; he is lost and mourned for as dead; he is restored again from the grave to the goddess who loved him. And in all this he appears to be the representative of all Cybele’s worshippers; for the ritual of initiation into her rites, if once again we may avail ourselves of Clement’s statements, is strongly imbued with the idea of marriage between the goddess and her worshipper. The several acts or stages of initiation are summarised in four phrases: ‘I ate out of the drum; I drank out of the cymbal; I carried the sacred vessel; I entered privily the bed-chamber—ἐκ τυμπάνου ἔφαγον· ἐκ κυμβάλου ἔπιον· ἐκερνοφόρησα· ὑπὸ τὸν παστὸν ὑπέδυν1472. In the passage from which these phrases are culled there appears to be a certain confusion between the rites of Cybele and those of Demeter; but the fact that Clement shortly afterwards gives another formulary of Demeter’s ritual is sufficient proof that he meant this present formulary, as indeed the mention of kettle-drum and cymbal1473 suggests, to apply to the mysteries of Cybele1474. It appears then that the final act or stage of initiation consisted in the secret admission of the worshipper to the bed-chamber of the goddess. Such ritual can have borne only one interpretation. It clearly constituted a promise of wedded union between the initiated and their deity. Viewed in this light even the emasculation of the priests of Cybele may more readily be understood; it may have been the consecration of their virility to the service of the goddess, a final and convincing pledge of celibacy in this life, in return for which they aspired to be blest by wedlock with their goddess hereafter.

The mention of the goddess’ bed-chamber in the above passage is of considerable interest. The παστός (or παστάς) in relation to a temple meant the same thing as it often meant in relation to an ordinary house, an inner room or recess screened off, and in particular a bridal chamber. Such provision for the physical comfort of the deity was probably not rare. Pausanias tells us that on the right of the vestibule in the Argive Heraeum there was a couch (κλίνη) for Hera1475, and he seems to speak of it as if it were a common enough piece of temple furniture. So too at Phlya in Attica, where were held the very ancient mystic rites ‘of her who is called the Great,’ there was a bridal chamber (παστάς), where, it has rightly been argued, there ‘must have been enacted a mimetic marriage1476.’ Again Clement of Alexandria speaks of a παστός of Athena in the Parthenon, and makes it quite clear by the story which he relates that he understood the word in the sense of bed-chamber. The story is also for other reasons worth recalling, because it shows how the religious conception of marriage between men and gods was readily extended to the worship of other deities than those whose mysteries we have sought to unravel, and at the same time furnishes the only case known to me in which that mystic belief was prostituted to the base uses of flattery. The occasion was the reception accorded by the Athenians to Demetrius Poliorcetes. Not content with hailing him as a god in name, they went so far in their mean-spirited subjection as to set up a temple, at the place where he dismounted from his horse on entering their city, to Demetrius the Descender (Καταιβάτης)1477, while on every side altars were erected to him. But their grossest piece of flattery was a master-piece of grotesque impiety, and met with a fitting reward. A marriage was arranged between him (the most notorious profligate of his age) and Athena. ‘He however,’ we are told, ‘disdained the goddess, being unable to embrace the statue, but took with him to the Acropolis the courtesan Lamia, and polluted the bed-chamber of Athena, exhibiting to the old virgin the postures of the young courtesan1478.’ Even that contemptuous response to the Athenians’ flattery did not abash them, but, finding that he did not favour their acknowledged deity, they determined to deify his acknowledged favourite, and erected a temple to Lamia Aphrodite1479.

But such travesties of holy things were rare; and this one notorious case excited the contempt alike of the man1480 to whom the flattery was paid and of all posterity—a contempt which teaches, hardly less clearly than the indignation excited a century earlier by the supposed profanation of the mysteries, in what reverence and high esteem the idea of marriage between men and gods was generally held.

Even Lucian, in whom reverence was a less pronounced characteristic than humour, condemns seriously enough a parody of the mysteries of Eleusis which occurred in his own day; and his account of it at the same time shows once more that the marriage of men and gods was the very essence of the mysteries. The impostor Alexander, he says, instituted rites with carrying of torches (δᾳδουχία) and exposition of the sacred ceremonies (ἱεροφαντία) lasting for three days. “On the first there was a proclamation, as at Athens, as follows: ‘If any atheist, Christian, or Epicurean hath come to spy upon the holy rites, let him begone, and let the faithful be initiated with heaven’s blessing.’ Then first of all there was an expulsion of intruders. Alexander himself led the way, crying ‘Out with Christians,’ and the whole multitude shouted in answer ‘Out with Epicureans.’ Then was enacted the story of Leto in child-bed and the birth of Apollo, and his marriage with Coronis and the birth of Asclepius; and on the second day the manifestation of Glycon and the god’s birth1481. And on the third day was the wedding of Podalirius and Alexander’s mother; this was called the Torch-day, for torches were burnt. And finally there was the love of Selene and Alexander, and the birth of his daughter now married to Rutilianus1482. Our Endymion-Alexander was now torch-bearer and exponent of the rites. And he lay as it were sleeping in the view of all, and there came down to him from the roof—as it were Selene from heaven—a certain Rutilia, a very beautiful woman, the wife of one of Caesar’s household-officers, who was really in love with Alexander and was loved by him, and she kissed the rascal’s eyes and embraced him in the view of all, and, if there had not been so many torches, worse would perhaps have followed (τάχα ἄν τι καὶ τῶν ὑπὸ κόλπου ἐπράττετο)1483.”

The inferences which may be drawn from this narrative are, first, that the mysteries in general, while reproducing in some dramatic form the whole story of the deities concerned, culminated in the representation of a mystic marriage between men and gods; (the birth of a child was also represented or announced in this parody, as we know that it was at Eleusis1484, but it had, I am inclined to think, no mystic significance otherwise than as proof of the consummation of that marriage;) and, secondly, that the wild charges of indecency brought by early Christian writers against the mysteries are baseless; for Lucian condemns a much lesser license in this parody than that which they attributed to the genuine rites.

Thus our examination of the mysteries, so far as they are known to us, tends to prove that the doctrines revealed in them to the initiated were simply a development of certain vaguer popular ideas which have been prevalent among the Greek folk from the classical age down to our own day. The people entertained hopes that this physical life would continue in a similar form after death; the mysteries gave definite assurance of that immortality by exhibiting to the initiated Persephone or Adonis or Attis restored from the lower world in bodily form; and though that exhibition was in fact merely a dramatic representation, yet to the eyes of religious ecstasy it seemed just as much a living reality as does the risen Christ in the modern celebration of Easter. The people again were wont to think and to speak of death as a marriage into the lower world; the mysteries showed to the initiated certain representatives of mankind who by death, or even in life, had been admitted to the felicity of wedlock with deities, and thereby confirmed the faithful in their happier hopes of being in like manner themselves god-beloved and of sharing the life of gods.

Since then there is good reason to believe that this was in effect the secret teaching of the mysteries, it would naturally be expected that human marriage should have been reckoned as it were a foretaste of that union with the divine which was promised hereafter, and also that death should have been counted the hour of its approaching fulfilment; in other words, if my view of the mysteries is correct, it would almost inevitably follow that the mysteries should have been brought into close association both with weddings and with funerals. This expectation is confirmed by the facts.

An ordinary wedding was treated as something akin to initiation into the mysteries. An inscription of Cos1485, relating to the appointment of priestesses of Demeter, mentions among other duties certain services on the occasion of weddings; and the brides, who are the recipients of these services, are divided into two classes, αἱ τελεύμεναι and αἱ ἐπινυμφευόμεναι, the maidens who, are being ‘initiated,’ and the widows who are being married again; a woman’s first marriage in fact is called by a religious document her initiation, and Demeter’s priestesses are charged therewith. Nor was this usage or idea confined to Cos; Plutarch speaks of services rendered by the priestess of Demeter in the solemnisation of matrimony as part of an ‘ancestral rite1486’; while the term τέλος was commonly used both of the mystic rites and of marriage, and τέλειοι might denote the newly-wed1487.

The same thought seems also to have inspired another custom associated with marriage. The newly-wed, we hear, sometimes attended a representation of the marriage of Zeus and Hera1488, an ἱερὸς γάμος which formed the subject of mystic drama or legend all over Greece1489. The widely extended cults of Hera under the titles of Maiden (παρθένος or παῖς) and of Bride (τελεία or νυμφευομένη) appear to have been closely interwoven; indeed for a full appreciation of the Greek conception of the goddess they must be treated as complementary. They are well interpreted by Farnell. Rejecting the theory of physical symbolism, he suggests ‘a more human explanation. Hera was essentially the goddess of women, and the life of women was reflected in her; their maidenhood and marriage were solemnised by the cults of Hera Παρθένος and Hera Τελεία or Νυμφευομένη, and the very rare worship of Hera Χήρα might allude to the not infrequent custom of divorce and separation1490.’ With, Hera the Widow we are not here concerned, but only with the higher conceptions of Zeus and Hera as expressed in the representation of the ‘sacred marriage’; the bride and bridegroom who looked upon that saw in it, we may be sure, not a symbolical representation of the seasons and the productive powers of the earth, but rather the divine prototype of human marriage. It reminded them that deities, like mortals, were married and given in marriage, and it imparted to their wedding a sacramental character, making it at once a foretaste and a gage of that close communion with the gods which, when death the dividing line between mortals and immortals should once be passed, awaited the blessed among mankind.

Other small points too suggest the same trend of thought. The preliminaries of a wedding often comprised a sacrifice to Zeus Teleios and Hera Teleia1491, and were called προτέλεια being the ‘preliminaries of initiation’ into that mystery, of which the sacred marriage, enacted before the now wedded pair, was the full revelation1492. Again these preliminaries always included the solemn ablution1493 of which I have spoken above, and in this resembled the preparations for admittance to the mysteries. Moreover an instance is recorded in which this ablution was itself invested with the significance of a wedding between the human and the divine. The maidens of the Troad before marriage were wont to unrobe and bathe themselves in the Scamander; and the prayer which they made to the river-god, whose bed they entered, was, ‘Receive thou, Scamander, my virginity1494.’ Finally the first night on which the wedded pair came together was known as the ‘mystic night’ (νὺξ μυστική)1495, a term not a little suggestive of the great night of Demeter’s mysteries when to the eyes of the initiated was displayed the secret proof and promise of wedlock between men and gods hereafter. In short the ceremonies of a wedding by one means or another proclaimed it to be a form of initiation, and the estate of marriage was to the Greeks, as our prayer-book calls it, ‘an excellent mystery.’

Hence naturally followed the belief that the unmarried and the uninitiated shared the same fate in the future life. One conception of the punishment of the uninitiated was, according to Plato1496, that they should carry water in a sieve to a broken jar; and this, as is well known, was also the lot of the Danaids in the nether world. Commenting on these facts Dr Frazer says, ‘It is possible that the original reason why the Danaids were believed to be condemned to this punishment in hell was not so much that they murdered, as that they did not marry, the sons of Aegyptus. According to one tradition indeed they afterwards married other husbands (Paus. III. 12. 2); but according to another legend they were murdered by Lynceus, apparently before marriage (Schol. on Euripides, Hecuba, 886). They may therefore have been chosen as types of unmarried women, and their punishment need not have been peculiar to them but may have been the one supposed to await all unmarried persons in the nether world1497.’ A passage of Lucian, which appears to have been overlooked in this connexion1498, converts the view of the Danaids which Dr Frazer considers possible into a practical certainty. The passage in point forms the conclusion of that dialogue in which Poseidon with the aid of Triton plots and carries out the rape of Amymone, the Danaid. She has just been seized and is protesting against her abduction and threatening to call her father, when Triton intervenes: ‘Keep quiet, Amymone,’ he says, ‘it is Poseidon.’ And the girl rejoins, ‘Oh, Poseidon you call him, do you?’ and then turning to her ravisher, ‘What do you mean, sirrah, by handling me so roughly, and dragging me down into the sea? I shall go under and be drowned, miserable girl.’ And Poseidon answers, ‘Do not be frightened, you shall come to no harm; no, I will strike the rock here, near where the waves break, with my trident, and will let a spring burst up which shall bear your name, and you yourself shall be blessed and, unlike your sisters, shall not carry water when you are dead (καὶ σὺ εὐδαίμων ἔσῃ καὶ μόνη τῶν ἀδελφῶν οὐχ ὑδροφορήσεις ἀποθανοῦσα)1499.’ The whole point of Poseidon’s answer clearly depends upon the existence of a well-known belief that the Danaids were punished hereafter for remaining unmarried and that the punishment took the form of vainly fetching water for that bridal bath which was a necessary preliminary to a wedding; Amymone shall have a very thorough bridal bath, and the spring that bears her name shall be a monument of it, while she herself shall be ‘blessed’ by wedlock with Poseidon; thus shall she escape the fate of the unmarried. Clearly then there was no distinction between the uninitiated and the unmarried; both alike were doomed vainly to fetch water for those ablutions which preceded initiation into the mysteries or into matrimony; and once again the conception of marriage as a mystic and sacramental rite akin to the rites of Eleusis is clearly revealed.

It may further be noted here that this idea of the punishment of the unmarried completely explains the custom, on which I have already touched, of erecting a water-pitcher (λουτροφόρος) over the grave of unmarried persons. This intimated, according to Eustathius1500, that the person there buried had never taken the bath which both bride and bridegroom were wont to take before marriage. But this must not be taken to mean that the water-pitcher was erected as a symbol of the punishment which the dead person was supposed to be undergoing; this was not an idea which his relatives and friends, even if they had held it, would have wished to blazon abroad. One might as soon expect to find depicted on a modern tombstone the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched. No; the water-pitcher was not a symbol, it was an instrument; for my part I have little faith in the existence of any symbols in popular religion which are not in origin at least instruments; and the purpose to which this instrument was put was to supply the dead person with that wedding-bath which he had not taken in life, and without which he would vainly strive in the under-world to prepare himself for divine wedlock. The water-pitcher was not commemorative, but preventive, of future punishment. Its erection was not a warning to the living, but a service to the dead.

Thus then the evidence for the intimate association of the mysteries, or of the main idea which runs through them, with human weddings is complete and, I hope, convincing; and the custom of the water-pitcher, which concludes it, fitly introduces at the same time the evidence for the association of the same idea with funerals. This is equally plentiful. The vague conception of death as a wedding, which as I have shown was elaborated in the mysteries, has of course already been exemplified in all those passages of ancient literature and modern folk-songs which I have adduced, and I have found in it also the motive for the assimilation of funeral-customs to the customs of marriage. But the evidence that the actual doctrines of the mysteries, in which more definite expression was given to that vague idea, were closely associated with death and funeral-custom is to be found rather in epitaphs and sepulchral monuments.

The tone of the epitaphs may be sufficiently illustrated by a single couplet:

Οὐκ ἐπιδὼν νύμφεια λέχη κατέβην τὸν ἄφυκτον
  Γόργιππος ξανθῆς Φερσεφόνης θάλαμον1501.

‘I, Gorgippus, lived not to look upon a bridal bed ere I went down to the chamber of bright-haired Persephone which none may escape.’ There is naturally here a note of lament, as befits any epitaph, and more especially that of one who dies young and unmarried; but none the less there is an anticipation—justified, we may think, if we will, by some ceremony of bridal ablution performed for the dead man by his friends—that his death is a wedding with the goddess of the under-world; and indeed the phrase Φερσεφόνης θάλαμος, ‘the bridal chamber of Persephone,’ recurs with some frequency in this class of epitaphs1502.

Considered collectively, such epitaphs would suggest a distinctly offensive conception of Persephone; but in each taken separately, as it was composed, it will be allowed, I think, that if there is supreme audacity, there is equal sublimity. It is just these qualities which give pungency to a blasphemous parody of such epitaphs, in which the wit of Ausonius exposes the worst possible aspect of a religious conception which to the pure-minded was wholly pure. My apology for quoting lines which I will not translate must be the fact that a caricature is often no less instructive than a true portrait. The mock epitaph concludes as follows:

Sed neque functorum socius miscebere vulgo
  Nec metues Stygios flebilis umbra lacus:
Verum aut Persephonae Cinyreius ibis Adonis,
  Aut Jovis Elysii tu catamitus eris1503.

Ausonius in jest bears an unpleasant resemblance to Clement in earnest; both perverted to their uttermost a doctrine which commanded nothing but reverence from faithful participants in the mysteries.

Akin to these epitaphs are certain tablets which recently have been fully discussed by Miss Jane Harrison1504, and have been shown to be of Orphic origin. They were buried with the dead, and for this reason were more outspoken in their references to the mystic doctrines than was permissible in epitaphs exposed to the vulgar gaze. The most complete of these tablets is one which was found near Sybaris, and, with the exception of the last sentence of all, the inscription is in hexameter verse. Miss Harrison, to whose work I am wholly indebted for this valuable evidence, translates as follows1505:

‘Out of the pure I come, Pure Queen of Them Below,
Eukles and Eubouleus and the other Gods immortal.
For I also avow me that I am of your blessed race,
But Fate laid me low and the other Gods immortal
          ... starflung thunderbolt.
I have flown out of the sorrowful weary Wheel.
I have passed with eager feet to the Circle desired.
I have sunk beneath the bosom of Despoina, Queen of the Underworld.
I have passed with eager feet from the Circle desired.
Happy and Blessed One, thou shalt be God instead of mortal.
        A kid I have fallen into milk.’

The gist of the document which the dead man takes with him is then briefly this. He claims to have been pure originally and of the same race as his gods; but as a man he was mortal and exposed to death, and in this respect differed from his gods. He states however that he has performed certain ritual acts which entitle him to be re-admitted to the pure fellowship of the gods now that death is passed. And the answer comes, ‘Thou shalt be God instead of mortal.’

Now here I wish to consider one only of these ritual acts—that one of which the meaning is clearest—Δεσποίνας δ’ ὑπὸ κόλπον ἔδυν χθονίας βασιλείας, which means, if I may give my own rendering, ‘I was admitted to the embrace of Despoina, Queen of the under-world.’ The phrase is one which repeats the idea which we have already seen expressed in the formulary of Cybele’s rites, ὑπὸ τὸν παστὸν ὑπέδυν1506, ‘I was privily admitted to the bridal chamber,’ and in the token of the Sabazian mysteries, ὁ διὰ κόλπου θεός1507, ‘the god pressed to the bosom’; and Lucian’s final phrase in his account of Alexander’s mock-mysteries shows a kindred phrase, τὰ ὑπὸ κόλπου1508, as an euphemism of the same kind1509. The Orphic therefore no less than others based his claim to future happiness on the fact that he had performed a ritual act, of the nature of a sacrament, which constituted a pledge that the wedlock between him and his goddess foreshadowed here should be consummated hereafter.

Even more abundant evidence is furnished by sepulchral monuments; and in support of my views I cannot do better than quote two high authorities who coincide in their verdict upon the meaning of the scenes represented. In reference to those scenes ‘in which death is conceived in the guise of a marriage’ Furtwängler writes: ‘The monuments belonging to this class are extraordinarily numerous, and exhibit very different methods of treating the idea which they carry out. A relief upon a sarcophagus from the Villa Borghese shows the God of the dead in the act of carrying down the fair Kore to be his bride in the lower world. Above the steeds of his chariot, which are already disappearing into the depths of the earth, flies Eros as guide. The bride however appears to be going only under compulsion and after some struggle; the look of the bridegroom expresses sternness rather than gentleness; and the mother who sits with face averted seems to exclude all thoughts of the daughter’s return. Only in the torches which the guide carries in his hand, in the snakes which are looking upward, and in the observant attitude of Hecate, can a suggestion of the return be found.

‘On another sarcophagus—from Nazzara—which represents the same marriage-journey, Eros is not merely the guide of the steeds, but aids the bridegroom in carrying off Kore, so that in this case the struggle with death takes purely the form of a struggle with love. At the same time the mother is driving along with her chariot, thereby signifying the renewal of life, which is yet more clearly betokened in the ploughman and the sower at her side.

‘In a yet gentler spirit we see the same journey conceived in a vase-painting from lower Italy. Here there is a look of gentleness on Hades’ face; the bride accompanies him gladly, and even takes an affectionate farewell of her mother, who appears to acquiesce in her departure. In this case too Eros is flying above the horses, and is turned towards the lovers, while in front of him there flies a dove, the bird sacred to the goddess of love. Hecate with torches guides the steeds; near at hand waits Hermes to escort the procession; and above the whole scene the stars are shining, as if to indicate the new life in the region of death.

‘In another form, exalted to a yet higher holiness, the same marriage is repeated in the sphere of Dionysus-worship. Thus on a cameo in the Vatican, Dionysus is represented driving with his bride, Ariadne, in a brightly-decked triumphal car. Holy rapture is manifested on the features of both, and on top of the chariot stands a Cupid directing it. Dionysus is arrayed in the doe-skin, and holds in his left hand a thyrsus, in his right a goblet; Ariadne is carrying ears of corn and poppy-heads, and has her hair wreathed with vine-leaves. The car is drawn by Centaurs of both sexes, with torches, drinking-horns, and musical instruments. The idea which underlies this scene is the reproduction of Life out of Death; Hades has issued forth again for a new marriage-bond with Kore in the realm of light, appearing now rejuvenated in the form of Dionysus, just as his bride assumes the form of Ariadne, and because the power of death is broken behind him, his car likewise becomes a triumphal car.

‘Just as the marriage of Zeus in the realm of light became a type for men in this life, so the marriage of Hades, or of Dionysus representing him, developed into a similar prototype for the dead. Since that which is true of Death bears directly upon the actual dead, it was quite natural that gradually the process of death came to be considered in general as a wedding with the deities of death. With this conception too harmonize those wedding-scenes which are so common and conspicuous on funeral monuments, as well as the often-recurring scenes from the joyous cycle of Dionysus-myths1510.’

Two brief comments may be made upon this passage. First, Furtwängler clearly recognises in Dionysus a mere substitute for Hades, and thus confirms my interpretation of the strange legend concerning Dionysus and Prosymnus1511. We noticed that the somewhat obscure observation of Heraclitus (as quoted by Clement) upon that story contained the words ‘Dionysus and Hades are one and the same’; and we now see that in art too the same identification was made, and that the marriage of a mortal with Dionysus was used to typify the future marriage of the dead with their gods. The reason for this identification seems simply to be that the cults in which the two gods figured, although differing in outward form, were felt to express one and the same idea—namely the conception of death as a form of marriage; and the tendency to identify in such cases was carried so far that the god Dionysus was even, we are told, identified with the mortal Adonis1512, presumably because the worship of each, as I have shown above, turned upon this one cardinal doctrine.

Secondly, Furtwängler points out that the marriage of Zeus and Hera represented for living men the same doctrine as the marriage of Hades and Persephone (or of Dionysus and Ariadne) represented for the dead. The truth of this is well illustrated by the close resemblance between Aristophanes’ picture of Hera’s wedding and those funeral monuments and vases which Furtwängler describes; for there too ‘golden-winged Eros held firm the reins, and drave the wedding-car of Zeus and blessed Hera1513.’ In other words, this Olympian marriage was only one among several mystic marriages which all conveyed, though in diverse form, the same lesson, that marriage was the perfection of divine life no less than of human life, and therefore that hereafter when men, or at any rate the blessed and initiated among men, should come to dwell with their gods, no bond of communion between gods and men could be perfect short of the marriage-bond.

It was natural enough that the drama of Hera’s wedding with Zeus should most often have been chosen to be played at an ordinary wedding, because it would not obtrude thoughts of death upon a joyous event with such insistence as most of the other religious legends which reposed upon the same fundamental doctrine; but sometimes, we know, it was the priestesses of Demeter who officiated at wedding-ceremonies, and in those cases it cannot be doubted that it was Persephone and not Hera who was the divine prototype of the bride, and the thought that her wedding was a wedding with the god of death could not have been excluded. At funerals, on the other hand, the story of Zeus and Hera which was preferred at weddings owing to its less obvious allusion to death, would for that same reason have found less favour than those other marriage-legends in which the identity of death with marriage was more clearly enunciated; and of these, owing to the exceptional reverence in which the Eleusinian mysteries were held, the story of Persephone seems to have been among the most frequent. Yet in the picture drawn by Aristophanes at which we have just glanced, for one subtle touch which suggests the connexion of Hera’s wedding with human weddings, there is another subtle touch which suggests its relation with human death. The first is an epithet applied to Eros who drove the wedding-car—the epithet ἀμφιθαλής, used of one who has both parents living1514. The allusion to human weddings is clear. It was no doubt imperative in old time, as it still is, in Greece, that anyone who attended upon a bride or bridegroom, as for instance the bearer of water for the bridal bath, should have both parents living; and the use of the same term in reference to Eros, the attendant upon Zeus and Hera, marks the intimate connexion between the divine marriage and the marriage of living men and women. But another epithet in the passage conveys no less clear an allusion to the marriage of those, whom men call dead, with their deities. Hera is named εὐδαίμων, a word which, meaning ‘favoured by God,’ may seem strangely applied to one who herself was divine1515. But it was selected by Aristophanes for a good reason; by the word εὐδαιμονία was commonly denoted that future bliss which the initiated believed to consist in wedlock with their deities. Like θεοφιλής, ‘god-beloved,’ the term εὐδαίμων, ‘blessed,’ was, so to speak, a catch-word of the mysteries1516; and the application of it to Hera in Aristophanes’ ode brings the legend of Hera’s marriage into rank with those other wedding-stories whose actual plot hinged upon the identity of death and marriage. Thus though one legend might be more appropriate in its externals to one occasion, and another legend to another occasion, the ultimate and fundamental idea of them all was single and the same.

This view is boldly championed by the second authority whom I proposed to quote upon the subject of mystic marriage-scenes depicted on funeral-monuments. ‘The idea,’ says Lenormant, ‘of mystic union in death is frequently indicated in the scenes represented upon sarcophagi and painted vases. But for the most part the idea is expressed there only in an allusive manner, which depends upon the identification which this marriage-scene established between the dead person and the deity, by means of such subjects as the carrying off of Cephalus by Aurora, or Orithyia by Boreas, or the love-story of Aphrodite and Adonis1517.’ ‘Thus,’ he explains, ‘a girl carried off (by death) from her parents was simply a bride betrothed to the infernal god, and was identified with Demeter’s maiden daughter, the victim of the passion and violence of Hades; a young man cut off by an early fate figured as the beautiful Adonis, snatched away by Persephone from the love of Aphrodite, and brought, in spite of himself, to the bed of the queen of the lower world1518.’ The identification which Lenormant sees in these several instances is an identification, I suppose, not of personalities but of destinies. The popular religion of ancient Greece shows little trace of any pantheistic view which would have contemplated the absorption of the personality of the dead man or woman into that of any god or goddess. Indeed the very number of the personally distinct deities with whom, on such an hypothesis, the dead would have been identified, as well as that continuance of sexual difference in the future life which is postulated by the very doctrine before us, precludes all thought of personal identification. Rather it is the future destiny of the dead person which was identified with the destiny of the deity or hero whose marriage was represented on sarcophagus or cippus or commemorative vase1519. The lot of Kore or Ariadne or Orithyia prefigured the lot of mortal women hereafter; the fortunes of Adonis or Cephalus typified those of mortal men; and all the marriage-scenes alike, whatever the differences of presentation, revealed the hope and the promise of wedlock hereafter between mankind and their deities.

But Lenormant mentions one vase-painting1520 in which this fundamental doctrine is taught not by parables of mythology, but more overtly and directly. The scene depicted is the marriage of a youth, whose name, Polyetes, is in pathetic contrast with his short span of years spent upon earth, with a goddess Eudaemonia (or ‘Bliss’) in the lower world. In this deity Lenormant sees ‘the infernal goddess under an euphemistic name.’ Nor could any more significant name have been used. It has already been pointed out that εὐδαιμονία was a term much favoured by the initiated in the mysteries, and was openly used by them to denote that future bliss which secretly was understood to consist in divine wedlock. Hence the scene upon this vase would at once suggest to those who were familiar with the doctrines of the mysteries, that the youth, being presumably of the number of the initiated, had found in death the realisation of his happy hopes and had entered into blissful union with the goddess of the lower world.

---

To sum up briefly: we have seen alike in the literature of ancient Greece and in the folk-songs of modern Greece that death has commonly been conceived by the Hellenic race in the guise of a wedding; a review of marriage-customs and funeral-customs both ancient and modern has re-affirmed the constant association of death and marriage, and has shown how deep-rooted in the minds of the common people that idea must have been which produced a deliberate assimilation of funeral-rites to the ceremonies of marriage. Next we investigated the connexion of the mysteries with the popular religion, and saw reason to hold that, far from being subversive of it or alien to it, they inculcated doctrines which were wholly evolved from vaguer popular ideas always current in Greece. Finally we traced in many of those legends, on which the dramatic representations of the mysteries are known to have been based, a common motif, the idea that death is the entrance for men into a blissful estate of wedded union with their deities. And this religious ideal not only satisfies the condition of agreement with, and evolution from, those popular views in which death figured somewhat vaguely as a form of wedding, but also proves to be the natural and necessary outcome of two religious sentiments with which earlier chapters have dealt; first, the ardent desire for close communion with the gods, and secondly, the belief that men’s bodies as well as their souls survived death and dissolution; for if the body by means of its disintegration rejoined the soul in the nether world, and the human entity was then complete, enjoying the same substantial existence, the same physical no less than mental powers, which it had enjoyed in the upper world, and which the immortal gods enjoyed uninterrupted by death, then, since the same rite of marriage was the consummation both of divine life and of human life, men’s yearning for close communion with their gods required for its ideal and perfect satisfaction the full union of wedlock; and the sacrament which assured men of this consummation was the highest development of the whole Greek religion, the mysteries.

Such a sacrament and such aspirations might well have offended even those Christians of early days, if such there were, who were willing to deal sympathetically with paganism; that those who were its declared enemies, and were ready to use against it the weapons of perversion and vituperation, found in this conception a vulnerable point, is readily understood. It is true indeed that in the very idea which they most vilified there was a certain curious analogy between the new religion and the old. Just as paganism allowed to each man or woman individually the hope of becoming the bridegroom or the bride of one of their many deities, so Christianity represented the Church, the whole body of the faithful collectively, as the bride of its sole deity. But the analogy is superficial only. The bond of feeling which united the Church with God was very differently conceived from that which drew together the pagans and their deities. The chastened ‘charity’ (ἀγάπη) of the Christians had little in common with the passionate love (ἔρως) with which the Greeks of old time had dared look upon their gods. Theirs was the Love that ‘held firm the reins and drave the wedding-car of Zeus and blessed Hera1521’; the Love that hovered above the steeds of Hades and changed for Persephone the road of death into a road to bliss; the Love whom ‘no immortal may escape nor any of mankind whose life passeth it as a day, but whoso hath him is as one mad1522’; and the only true consummation of such love was wedlock.

This conception necessarily implied the equality of men with their gods in the future life; and that future equality was sometimes represented as no more than a return to that which was in the beginning. ‘One is the race of men with the race of gods; for one is the mother that gave to both our breath; yet are they sundered by powers wholly diverse, in that mankind is as naught, but heaven is builded of brass that abideth ever unshaken1523.’ So sang Pindar of the past and of the present; but the Orphic tablet which has been already quoted carries on the thought into the future:

‘Out of the pure I come, Pure Queen of Them Below,
Eukles and Eubouleus and the other Gods immortal.
For I also avow me that I am of your blessed race,
But Fate laid me low....’

So far with Pindar. But the dead man’s claims do not end there: ‘I was admitted to the embrace of Despoina, Queen of the Underworld’; already had he received a foretaste of that divine wedlock which implied equality with the gods; and so there comes the answer, ‘Happy and Blessed One, thou shalt be God instead of mortal.’

This idea commended itself even to thinkers who did not believe in bodily survival after death. Plato, in the Phaedo, where above all things is taught the perishable nature of the body and the immortality of the soul alone, yet avails himself of the belief that the pure among mankind shall attain even to godhead hereafter. To him the pure are not the initiated indeed, but the earnest strivers after wisdom. In his theory of retributive metempsychosis he surmises that those who have followed the lusts of the flesh shall hereafter enter the ranks of asses and other lustful beasts; that those who have wrought violence shall enter the ranks of wolves and hawks and kites; that those who have practised what is popularly accounted virtue, but without true understanding, shall enter the ranks of harmless and social creatures, bees, wasps, and ants, or even the ranks of men once more. ‘But into the ranks of gods none may enter without having followed after wisdom and so departing hence wholly pure—none save the lover of knowledge1524.’ What precise meaning Plato attached to his phrase ‘to enter the ranks’ (εἰς γένος ἐνδύεσθαι or ἀφικνεῖσθαι), to which he adheres throughout the passage, is a question which agitated the Neoplatonists1525 somewhat needlessly. The phrase is intended either literally throughout or allegorically throughout. If it be allegorical, the meaning must be that all human souls shall enter again into human bodies, but that they shall start this new phase of existence with the qualities of lust, violence, respectability, or real virtue and purity, acquired in the previous life—merely resembling, as nearly as men may, asses, wolves, bees, or gods. Now as regards the first three classes, this allegorical interpretation, if a little forced, is feasible enough; but what of the fourth class? Shall the soul which has attained purity, the very negation of fleshliness in Plato’s view, suffer re-incarnation and struggle once more against the flesh? Surely the allegorical explanation is at once condemned. The phrase was intended literally1526. Plato signified the re-incarnation of the lustful, the violent, and the merely respectable, in the forms of animals of like character, and he signified—I must not say the re-incarnation, for Plato’s gods were spiritual and not carnal—but the regeneration of the pure in the form of gods. And in the same spirit Plutarch too contemplated the possibility of some men’s souls becoming first heroes, and from heroes rising to the rank of ‘daemons,’ and from ‘daemons’ coming to share, albeit but rarely, in real godhead1527.

Thus even the highest aspirations of the most spiritually-minded of pagan thinkers owed much to the purely popular religion. The Orphic tablet links up the popular conception of death as a wedding with the Platonic conception of the deification of the soul. ‘I was admitted to the embrace of Despoina, Queen of the underworld’: ‘Happy and Blessed One, thou shalt be God instead of mortal.’

But if Plato, even in his conception of a purely spiritual life hereafter, owed something to the popular religion, he drew upon it far more freely in his conception of Love. In the Symposium one speech after another culminates in the assertion of that belief which found its highest expression in the mysteries. ‘So then I say,’ says Phaedrus, ‘that Love is the most venerable of the gods, the most worthy of honour, the most powerful to grant virtue and blessedness unto mankind both in life and after death1528.’ And in the same tone too Eryximachus: ‘He it is that wields the mightiest power and is the source for us of all blessedness and of our power to have loving fellowship both with one another and with the gods that are stronger than we1529.’ And finally Aristophanes: It is Love, ‘who in this present life gives us most joys by drawing like unto like, and for our hereafter displays hopes most high, if we for our part display piety towards the gods, that he will restore us to our erstwhile nature and will heal us and will make us happy and blessed1530.’

This is not Platonic philosophy but popular religion. Phrase after phrase reveals the origin of this conception of Love. The hopes most high were the hopes held forth by the mysteries; the blessedness and the loving fellowship with gods were the fulfilment of those hopes. In such language did men ever hint at the joys to which their mystic sacraments gave access. And Plato here ventures yet further. The author of those high hopes, the founder of that blessedness, he proclaims, is none other than Love—Love that appealed not to the soul only of the initiated, but to the whole man, both soul and body—Love that meant not only the yearning after wisdom and holiness and spiritual equality with the gods, but that same passion which drew together man and woman, god and goddess—the passion of mankind for their deities, fed in this life by manifold means of communion and even by sacramental union, satisfied hereafter in the full fruition of wedded bliss.

Footnotes

1 VIII. 38. 7.

2 Oneirocr. II. 34 and 37.

3 i.e. (ὀμ)μάτι(ον), diminutive of ὄμμα.

4 Also locally βιστυρι̯ά, a word whose origin I cannot trace.

5 Ἰ. Σ. Ἀρχελάου, ἡ Σινασός, p. 90.

6 Theocr. Id. VI. 39.

7 Sonnini de Magnoncourt, Voyage en Grèce et en Turquie, vol. II. p. 99.

8 Κωνστ. Κανελλάκης, Χιακὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, p. 360, cf. Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστορία τῶν Ἀθηναίων, vol. III. p. 146.

9 In Athens, among other places, cf. Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστορία τῶν Ἀθηναίων, vol. III. p. 69.

10 Verg. Ecl. III. 103.

11 In Sinasos the rule is strict in regard to both, cf. Ἰ. Σ. Ἀρχελάου, ἡ Σινασός, pp. 83, 93.

12 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθηναίων, vol. III. p. 146.

13 Ibid. p. 64.

14 Cf. Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθηναίων, vol. III. p. 41.

15 The Church of the Annunciation, for example, in Tenos, possesses an ἅγι̯ασμα as well as its miraculous icon. This spring was in high repute before the icon was discovered, cf. Μαυρομαρᾶ, Ἱστ. τῆς Τήνου, p. 102 (a translation of Salonis, Voyage à Tine (Paris 1809)). The icon was discovered only just before the Greek War of Independence.

16 Καμπούρογλου, Μνημεῖα τῆς Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθηναίων, vol. III. p. 5.

17 The banishment of suffering etc. to the mountains is an idea to be met with in ancient Greek literature, cf. Orphic Hymn, no. 19, ἀλλὰ, μάκαρ, θυμὸν βαρὺν ἔμβαλε κύμασι πόντου ἠδ’ ὀρέων κορυφῇσι.

18 Cf. Ἰ. Σ. Ἀρχελάου, ἡ Σινασός, p. 87.

19 Ibid. p. 88.

20 Theocr. Id. II. 28.

21 Ibid. 53.

22 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθ. vol. III. p. 21.

23 This is probably the modern form of ἐμπόδευμα, ‘entanglement.’ The change of initial ε to α is not rare in dialect, cf. ἄρμος for ἔρμος (= ἔρημος) ‘miserable’; and υ, with sound of English v, is regularly lost before μ.

24 See below, pp. 60 ff.

25 Voyage en Grèce et en Turquie, II. 140.

26 Below, pp. 61 ff.

27 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Αθηναίων, vol. III. p. 60.

28 Plato, Charm. § 8 (p. 155).

29 The name is probably derived from the ancient βράγχος, with metathesis of the nasal sound. If βράγχος means congestion of the throat, the modern formation in -ᾶς would mean ‘one who causes congestion,’—apparently of other parts besides the throat. The by-forms Βαραχνᾶς and Βαρυχνᾶς seem to have been influenced by a desire to connect the name with βαρύς, ‘heavy.’ Under the ancient name of this demon, ‘Ephialtes,’ Suidas gives also a popular name of his day, Βαβουτσικάριος, a word borrowed from late Latin and apparently connected with babulus (baburrus, baburcus, babuztus) ‘foolish,’ ‘mad.’ Babutsicarius should then be the sender of foolish or mad dreams. Suidas however may be in error; see below p. 217.

30 I learnt the details of this cure in Aetolia; a different version of it is recorded from Cimolos by Theodore Bent, The Cyclades, pp. 51 ff.

31 Abbott, Macedonian Folklore, p. 363.

32 Λαμπρίδης, Ζαγοριακά, pp. 172 ff.

33 Passow (Popularia Carmina, Index, s.v. περπερία) speaks of a girl only. He was perhaps influenced by the feminine form of the word.

34 Many versions of the song have been collected, but with little variation in substance. Passow gives three versions, Pop. Carm. nos. 311–313.

35 Λαμπρίδης, Ζαγοριακá, pp. 172 ff.

36 πορεία belongs to the dialect of the Tsakonians as spoken at Leonidi, but is otherwise obsolete.

37 For authorities etc. see Finlay, Hist. of Greece, vol. IV. pp. 11 ff. (cap. 1, § 3).

38 De Themat. II. 25. Finlay, op. cit. IV. 17.

39 Arist. Frogs, 114.

40 Hom. Od. XIV. 29–31.

41 Ib. 21.

42 I am indebted to Mr L. Whibley for pointing out to me two records of this fact by English travellers of last century, W. Mure (Journal of a Tour in Greece, 1842, vol. I. p. 99), and W. G. Clark (Peloponnesus, 1858, p. 237).

43 Perhaps this is the ἀεικέλιον πάθος (Od. 14. 32) which Odysseus would have endured for some time but for the intervention of Eumaeus. Otherwise the line must have been inserted by someone who did not appreciate the guile of Odysseus.

44 ll. 35–6.

45 l. 38.

46 ll. 45–7.

47 ll. 72–7.

48 l. 78.

49 ll. 79–80.

50 In some islands the old word φόρμιγγα also is still used.

51 C.I.G. vol. I. p. 790 (No. 1625, l. 47) τὰς δὲ πατρίους πομπὰς μεγάλας καὶ τὴν τῶν συρτῶν ὄρχησιν θεοσεβῶς ἐπετέλεσεν (from Carditsa, anc. Acraephia, in Boeotia).

52 For examples see Passow, Popul. Carm. nos. 305–309.

53 Athen. VIII. 360 C.

54 Cf. Hom. Od. 4. 782.

55 ἐδῶ ἀφίνω τὰ ἁμαρτήματά μου καὶ τοὺς ψύλλους μου, Δ. Μ. Μαυρομαρᾶς, Ἱστορία τῆς Τήνου, p. 87 (transl. of Dr M. Salonis, Voyage à Tine (Paris, 1809)).

56 Rohde, Psyche, vol. II. pp. 9 ff.

57 οἱ βακχευόμενοι καὶ κορυβαντιῶντες ἐνθουσιάζουσι μέχρις ἄν τὸ ποθούμενον ἴδωσιν, Philo, de vita contempl. 2. p. 473 M., cited by Rohde l.c.

58 Artemidorus, Oneirocr. III. 61.

59 Soph. Fr. 753.

60 Diog. Laert. Vita Diog. 6. 39.

61 apud Diog. Laert. X. 123.

62 1 Cor. XI. 21.

63 Apolog. cap. 5.

64 Lampridius (Hist. Aug.) Alex. cap. 29 f.

65 Ibid.

66 de Haeres. cap. 8. For the references I am indebted to Pouqueville, Voyage de la Grèce, vol. VI. p. 136.

67 Clem. Alex. Protrept. cap. iv. § 55 (p. 17 Sylb.).

68 I have given the story in the form in which I heard it told by a peasant on board a boat in the Euripus. He was a native, I think, of Euboea, and being uneducated probably knew the story by oral tradition. A slightly longer form has, however, been published by Hahn (Griech. Märchen, vol. II. no. 76) and by Πολίτης (Μελέτη ἐπὶ τοῦ βίου τῶν νεωτέρων Ἑλλήνων, p. 43).

69 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθ. III. p. 164.

70 Bent, The Cyclades, p. 457.

71 See below, pp. 169 f.

72 I am unable to determine whether this saint is the prophet Elijah of the Old Testament, or a Christian hermit of the fourth century. The Greeks themselves differ in their accounts.

73 Maury, in Revue Archéologique, I. p. 502.

74 According to Pouqueville (Voyage de la Grèce, II. p. 170) the rosalia was formerly celebrated both at Parga in Epirus and Palermo in Sicily. The festival at Athens falls on Easter Tuesday, and a large number of peasants come in from the country to attend it.

75 Clem. Alex. Protrept. § 30.

76 See J. M. Neale, History of the Holy Eastern Church, p. 1042.

77 See below, pp. 66 ff.

78 Καμπόυρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθ. III. p. 160.

79 The Cyclades, p. 319.

80 B. Schmidt, Das Volksleben der Neugriechen, p. 28.

81 Travels in Crete, vol. I. p. 250.

82 Schmidt (Volksleben der Neugr. p. 31) records also the phrase κατουράει ὁ θεός, parallel with Strepsiades’ joke (Ar. Nub. 373) πρότερον τὸν Δί’ ἀληθῶς ᾤμην διὰ κοσκίνου οὐρεῖν.

83 The word is extremely rare, but ῥεμμόνι, I was told, is a coarse kind of sieve. The expression is from Boeotia.

84 From Arachova on Parnassus, Schmidt, Das Volksleben der Neugr. p. 33.

85 From Cyprus.

86 From Zacynthos, Schmidt, op. cit. p. 32.

87 From the island of Syme, near Rhodes.

88 There is a good discussion of them by Πολίτης in Παρνασσός for 1880, pp. 585–608, 665–678, 762–773, from which some of my examples are taken. I have noted the provenance of the rarer expressions.

89 Passow, Pop. Carm., Distich. Amat. 242, quoted by Schmidt (op. cit. p. 30), who notes the Homeric parallel.

90 Pyth. IV. 181 (322), Βασιλεὺς ἀνέμων.

91 See e.g. Passow, Pop. Carm. nos. 426–432, and below, pp. 101-104.

92 Ἰ. Σ. Ἀρχελάου, ἡ Σινασός, p. 159.

93 Märchen, etc., no. 19.

94 pp. 91 ff.

95 The Cyclades, p. 373.

96 There is some likelihood that the title καπνικαρέα is a mere corruption of an older title which had a quite different meaning; but I am concerned only with the existing title as popularly interpreted.

97 Ross, Reisen auf den Griech. Inseln, IV. p. 74.

98 Bent, Cyclades, p. 46.

99 So also in Paros, Bent, Cyclades, p. 373.

100 Athenaeus, II. 39 C.

101 Bent, Cyclades, p. 72.

102 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθ. III. p. 153.

103 Ἀντ. Βάλληνδας, Κυθνιακά, p. 131.

104 Γρηγ. Παπαδοπετράκης, Ἱστορια τῶν Σφακιῶν, p. 69.

105 Cf. a couplet quoted by Pashley, Travels in Crete, p. 253.

Τάζω σου, Παναγία μου, μίαν ἀσημένεαν ζώστρα,
νὰ μὰς συσμίξῃς καὶ τζὴ δυό ς’ ἕνα κρεββατοστρώσι.

106 e.g. Bent, The Cyclades, p. 249.

107 Pindar, Nem. VI. 1

ἓν ἀνδρῶν, ἓν θεῶν γένος· ἐκ μιᾶς δὲ πνέομεν
ματρὸς ἀμφότεροι· διείργει δὲ πᾶσα κεκριμένα
δύναμις κ.τ.λ.

The opening phrase is often, even usually, translated ‘one is the race of men, another the race of gods.’ Whether ἓν... ἓν was ever used in Greek for ἄλλο... ἄλλο, I doubt; but even if it be possible, the emphasis ἓν... ἓν... ὲκ μιᾶς must to my mind be an emphasis upon unity, and the first mention of divergence comes equally strongly in διείργει δὲ....

108 Stobaeus, Sentent. p. 279, Πρῶτος Θαλῆς διαιρεῖ... εἰς θεὸν, εἰς δαίμονας, εἰς ἥρωας.

109 For dialectic variations of the form, see Schmidt, Das Volksleben der Neugr. p. 91.

110 I. Cor. v. 12, I. Tim. iii. 7, and elsewhere.

111 Basil III. 944 A (Migne, Patrol. Graec. vol. XXIX.).

112 Pouqueville, Voyage de la Grèce, I. p. 319, writes ‘Pagania.’

113 In Andros the word is used (in the singular παγανό) to denote an unbaptised child. Cf. Ἀντ. Μηλιαράκης, Ὑπομνήματα περιγραφικὰ τῶν Κυκλάδων νησῶν,—Ἄνδρος, Κέως, p. 45.

114 op. cit. p. 92, referring to Du Cange, τζίνα = fraus, p. 1571.

115 Δελτίον τῆς Ἱστ. καὶ Ἐθν. Ἑταιρίας, II. p. 122.

116 Schmidt, op. cit. p. 97.

117 Relation de ce qui s’est passé de plus remarquable à Sant-Erini, isle de l’Archipel, depuis l’etablissement des Pères de la Compagnie de Jesus en icelle (Paris, 1657), p. 192 ff.

118 See below, pp. 255 ff.

119 See below, pp. 284-7.

120 Cf. Hesych. σμερδαλέος, σμερδνός = φοβερός, καταπληκτικός, πολεμικός; and σμέρδος = λῆμα, ῥώμη, δύναμις, ὅρμημα.

121 Bybilakis, Neugriechisches Leben, p. 16, and in the periodical Φιλίστωρ, IV. p. 517.

122 op. cit. p. 92.

123 Steph. Thesaur. s.v.

124 Ἐφημ. τῶν Φιλομαθῶν, anno 1861, p. 1851, quoted by Schmidt, loc. cit.

125 Schmidt, op. cit. p. 92.

126 Ibid.

127 Zenob. Cent. III. 3. Cf. Hesych. and Suidas, s.v. Γελλώ.

128 Cf. Leo Allatius, de quor. Graec. opin. cap. III. ad fin., quoting Mich. Psellus, πᾶσαν τὴν ἐν τοῖς βρέφεσιν ἀπορροφᾶν ὥσπερ ὑγρότητα.

129 Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, Bk II. cap. 9, p. 90.

130 Ibid. p. 91.

131 Schmidt, Das Volksleben der Neugr. p. 33.

132 Schmidt, Märchen, etc. p. 131.

133 Soutzos, Hist. de la Révolution Grecque, p. 158. Cf. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, p. 27.

134 Schmidt, Märchen, etc. no. XI.

135 Schmidt, Das Volksleben der Neugriechen, p. 135.

136 Πανδώρα (periodical) XVI. p. 538, ἅγιε Νικόλα ναύτη.

137 B. Schmidt, Märchen, etc. no. XX.

138 Plutarch, de defect. orac. 17.

139 Idyll. I. 15.

140 Ps. 91. 6.

141 De quorumdam Graecorum opinationibus, cap. VIII.

142 Du Cange, Lex. med. et infim. Latin, s.v.

143 Clarke, Catalogue of Sculptures in Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

144 The population of Eleusis, as of many villages in Attica, is mainly Albanian; but they have inherited many of the old Greek superstitions and customs.

145 Lenormant, Monographie de la voie sacrée éleusinienne, p. 399 ff.

146 “The diminutive in Albanian of Nicolas is Kolio: in the choice of this name is there not a reminiscence of that of Celeus?”—so Lenormant in a note. The suggestion does not appear to me very probable.

147 Opposite Eleusis in Salamis.

148 Euseb. Chron. p. 27. Plut. Vita Thes. XXXI. ad fin.

149 Paus. VIII. 15.

150 Conon, Narrat. 15.

151 Tour through Greece, II. p. 440.

152 Travels in the Morea, III. p. 148.

153 Paus. VIII. 42. 1–4, and 25. 5.

154 Schol. in Ar. Ran. 441. Aelian, Hist. Anim. X. 16.

155 Frazer, Golden Bough, II. 44 ff. (2nd edit.).

156 Herod. II. 171.

157 Aelian, l.c.

158 Herod. II. 47. Plut. Isis et Osiris, 8 (Moral. 354). Aelian, l.c.

159 Märchen etc. Song no. 56.

160 Above, p. 53.

161 Schmidt, Märchen etc. no. VII.

162 Paus. VIII. 42. 1 ff.

163 Paus. VIII. 42. 2.

164 Schuchhardt, Schliemann’s Excavations (tr. Sellers), p. 296.

165 Ibid.

166 Paus. II. 22. 1.

167 op. cit. p. 147.

168 op. cit. p. 302.

169 Schuchhardt, op. cit. p. 151, and Leaf’s introduction, p. XXVII. Cf. Frazer in Journal of Philology, XIV. 145 ff.

170 Schuchhardt, op. cit. p. 151.

171 op. cit. p. 303.

172 Frazer in Journal of Philology, XIV. pp. 145 ff.

173 Paus. I. 18. 3.

174 Id. IX. 36.

175 Iliad IX. 404–5.

176 Griech. und Albanesische Märchen, nos. 63 and 97.

177 ‘die Schöne der Erde’ in von Hahn’s translation. Unfortunately the original does not appear in Pio’s Νεοελληνικὰ παραμύθια, for which the MSS. of von Hahn provided the material.

178 Cf. Plut. Vita Thes. 31, ad fin.

179 For references see Schmidt, Das Volksleben der Neugr. p. 222.

180 Passow, Popul. Carm. Graeciae recentioris. Carm. no. 408.

181 Χασιώτης, Συλλογὴ τῶν κατὰ τὴν Ἤπειρον δημοτικῶν ἀσμάτων, p. 169.

182 Passow, op. cit. no. 423.

183 Πολίτης, Μελέτη ἐπὶ τοῦ βίου τῶν νεωτέρων Ἑλλήνων, p. 290.

184 Bernhard Schmidt, Märchen etc. p. 81.

185 Kindly communicated to me by Mr G. F. Abbott, author of Macedonian Folklore.

186 B. Schmidt, Märchen etc. Song no. 39.

187 Cf. Passow, no. 428.

188 Ibid. no. 430.

189 Above, p. 53.

190 e.g. Passow, no. 427.

191 Cf. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, p. 230.

192 This expression which I have heard several times is not noticed by Schmidt or Polites. They give, however, ἀγγελοκρούεται, ‘he is being stricken by an angel,’ and other phrases meaning to see, to fear, to be carried away by, an angel, all in the same sense. See Schmidt, op. cit. 181, and Πολίτης, Μελέτη, κ.τ.λ. 308.

193 κουμπάρος. The word expresses the relationship in which a godfather stands to the parents of his godson.

194 This story, as I have told it, is not a literal translation, for I could not take down the original. But notes which I set down after hearing it enable me to reproduce it in a form which certainly contains the whole substance and many actual phrases of the version which I heard.

195 Probably meaning the brigand’s ‘comrades.’ The term ξεφτέρι, ‘hawk,’ is commonly so applied.

196 Πολίτης, op. cit. p. 246 (from Λελέκης, Δημοτ. ἀνθολ. p. 57).

197 e.g. Passow, Popul. Carm. nos. 426–429.

198 Σακελλάριος, Κυπριακά, vol. III. p. 48. Cf. Πολίτης, op. cit. p. 239.

199 The word for ‘black’ includes the sense of ‘grim,’ ‘gloomy,’ ‘sorrowful.’ Tears are commonly described as ‘black,’ μαῦρα δάκρυα.

200 Passow, op. cit. distich no. 1155.

201 Cf. Passow, no. 408.

202 Cf. Passow, nos. 414, 415, 417.

203 Passow, no. 424.

204 Aesch. Eum. 237.

205 Fauriel, Chants populaires de la Grèce Moderne, Discours préliminaire, p. 85.

206 Schmidt, Märchen etc. Song no. 38.

207 Ibid. no. 37.

208 Schmidt, Märchen etc. Song no. 7.

209 Das Volksleben, p. 237.

210 Märchen etc. Song no. 10.

211 Πολίτης, Μελέτη κ.τ.λ. p. 272.

212 Passow, no. 371.

213 Ἰατρίδης, Συλλογὴ δημοτ. ἀσμάτων, p. 17. Cf. Schmidt, op. cit. p. 236.

214 So in some districts of Macedonia up to the present day; Abbott, Macedonian Folklore, p. 193.

215 Πρωτόδικος, περὶ τῆς παρ’ ἡμῖν ταφῆς, p. 14. The form περατίκιον which the writer gives can hardly be popular. It might be, as Schmidt points out, περατίκιν in the local dialect. I have given the form which the word would assume in most districts.

216 Σκορδέλης in the periodical Πανδώρα, XI. p. 449. Cf. Schmidt, op. cit. p. 238.

217 περὶ πένθους, § 10.

218 For this term see above, p. 68, and below, p. 283.

219 Below, p. 285.

220 See above, p. 13.

221 Passow, no. 432.

222 This is shown later to be the first form of the superstition. See below, pp. 433-4.

223 Newton, Travels and Discoveries in the Levant, I. p. 289 (cited by Schmidt, das Volksleben, p. 239).

224 The use of the coin, quite apart from any such variation of the custom, was forbidden by several councils of the Church between the 4th and 7th centuries, cf. Πολίτης, Μελέτη etc. p. 269.

225 Cf. Ricaud, Annales des conciles généraux et particuliers (1773), vol. I. p. 654 (from Πολίτης, Μελέτη, p. 269).

226 According to Bent (Cyclades, p. 363) the object used thus in Naxos is a wax cross with the initial letters Ι. Χ. Ν. engraved upon it, and it still bears the old name ναῦλον, ‘fare.’

227 Κωνστ. Κανελλάκης, Χιακὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, pp. 335 and 339.

228 Newton, Travels and Discoveries in the Levant, I. p. 212. The exact details of the custom in each place are given below, p. 406.

229 See below, pp. 433-4.

230 In Rhodes, according to Newton, l.c., the Christian symbol Ι. Χ. Ν. Κ. is combined with that to which I now come, the ‘pentacle.’

231 Cf. Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, I. 573, where it is said that in Myconos the symbol is sometimes carved on house doors to keep vrykolakes (on which see below, cap. IV.) from troubling the inmates at night.

232 Cf. Lucian, ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἐν τῇ προσαγορεύσει πταίσματος, 5.

233 apud Pausan. x. 28. 1.

234 e.g. Eur. Alc. 252, 361, Heracl. 432, Arist. Ran. 184 ff., Lysistr. 606, Plut. 278.

235 Suidas s.v.

236 Pollux, 8, 102.

237 Pollux, 4, 132.

238 Strabo, 579.

239 Ibid. 636

240 Ibid. 649.

241 Plut. Anton. 16.

242 Χάρων θάνατος, s.v.

243 Eur. Alc. 48, 49.

244 Ibid. 74–6.

245 Ibid. 1141–2.

246 Ibid. 50.

247 Codex Vaticanus, no. 909. Cf. Schmidt, das Volksleben, p. 223, whence the majority of these references are borrowed.

248 VII. 603 and 671; XI. 133. Cf. Schmidt, l.c.

249 s.v.

250 Gerhard, die Gottheiten der Etrusker, p. 56; Müller, die Etrusker, II. 102.

251 Ambrosch, de Charonte Etrusco, pp. 2, 3.

252 Ibid. p. 8.

253 Ibid. pp. 4–7; and Maury in Revue Archéologique, I. 665, and IV. 791.

254 Annuaire de l’Association pour l’encouragement des études grecques en France, no. VIII. (1874), p. 392 ff.

255 Both fortifications and well are actual features of Acro-Corinth up to the present day.

256 Pausan. I. 37, ad fin.; Perrot, l.c. Cf. Frazer, Pausanias, II. 497.

257 Märchen etc. Introduction, p. 35.

258 Cf. Bursian, Geographie von Griechenland, II. p. 17.

259 Vréto, Mélange Néo-hellenique.

260 Schmidt, Märchen etc. nos. 16–18.

261 Ibid. p. 113 (note 2).

262 See below, p. 165.

263 Orph. Hymns, 57 (58), 2.

264 Orph. Hymns, 55, 8. μήτερ ἐρώτων. For representations in ancient art of many ἔρωτες, cf. Philostr. Eikones, p. 383 (770).

265 See above, p. 57.

266 Tzetzes, Schol. on Lycophron, 406.

267 Pausan. I. 19. 2. Cf. C. I. G. no. 1444, and Orph. Hymn, 55 (54), 4.

268 Apparently the old subterranean passage by which competitors entered the stadium.

269 Mentioned by Pouqueville, Voyage en Grèce, V. p. 67, and confirmed by many other writers.

270 Pausan. X. 38. 6.

271 Pouqueville, op. cit. IV. p. 46.

272 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστορία τῶν Ἀθηναίων, I. p. 222, III. p. 156. Πολίτης, Μελέτη κ.τ.λ. p. 227.

273 Dodwell, Tour through Greece, I. 397.

274 Πολίτης, l.c.

275 l.c.

276 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθην. I. p. 222.

277 Cf. ἦτον γραφτό μου, ‘It was my written lot,’ i.e. destiny, and other similar phrases cited by Schmidt, das Volksleben, p. 212, and Πολίτης, Μελέτη, pp. 218, 219.

278 Choeph. 464–5, which the Scholiast annotates thus, πέπηγε μὲν καὶ ὥρισται ὑπὸ Μοιρῶν τὸ τὴν Κλυταιμνήστραν ἀνδροκτονήσασαν ἀναιρεθῆναι κ.τ.λ.

279 I regret to say that I cannot trace the source of this story. I incline to think that I took it from some publication, but it is possible that it was narrated to me personally.

280 Except in Zacynthos, according to Schmidt (Volksleben, p. 211), where they number twelve.

281 Schmidt, Volksleben, p. 220.

282 Chants populaires de la Grèce moderne, Discours préliminaire, p. 83.

283 According to Bent (Cyclades, pp. 292 and 437), the name Erinyes is still applied by the people of Andros and of Kythnos to the evil spirits who cause consumption.

284 So Pouqueville, Voyage de la Grèce, VI. p. 160.

285 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθην., III. pp. 67, 68.

286 Cf. Πολίτης, Μελέτη κ.τ.λ. p. 218.

287 The visit of the Fate on the day of birth instead of the third day after is unusual.

288 From Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθην. I. pp. 310, 311.

289 Schmidt, das Volksleben, p. 212.

290 Cf. μόρσιμος of the ‘destined’ bridegroom, in Hom. Od. XVI. 392.

291 Cf. Miss Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, pp. 286 ff.

292 Passow, no. 385.

293 Heuzey, Le mont Olympe, p. 139. I have introduced a few alterations of spelling, mostly suggested by Schmidt, das Volksleben, p. 229 (note), e.g. τοὐρανοῦ for τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, in order to restore the rather rough metre.

294 Πολίτης (Μελέτη κ.τ.λ. p. 228, note 1) gives the following references: Wordsworth, Athens and Attica, p. 228; Ἐφημ. Φιλομαθῶν, 1868, p. 1479; Passow, Popul. Carm. p. 431, besides those to which I have referred in other notes.

295 Persae, 659.

296 VII. 218.

297 Πιττάκης, who recorded this version in Ἐφημ. Ἀρχαιολογική, no. 30 (1852), p. 653, spelt the word erroneously κόροιβο; the sound of οι and υ being identical in modern Greek, I have substituted the latter.

298 Theog. 217 and 904.

299 Theog. 217.

300 Prom. Vinct. 516 ff.

301 Leo Allatius (de quorumdam Graec. opinationibus, cap. xx.) quotes from Mich. Psellus (11th century) the ancient form Νηρηΐδες as then in use. He himself (ibid. cap. xix.) employs the form Ναραγίδες which was probably the dialectic form of his native Chios. Bern. Schmidt (Das Volksleben der Neugriechen, pp. 98–9) has brought together a large number of variants now in use, in which the accent fluctuates between the α and the ι, the first vowel is indifferently α, ε or η, the two consecutive vowels αϊ are sometimes contracted to ᾳ, sometimes more distinctly separated by the faintly pronounced letter γ, and lastly an euphonetic α is occasionally prefixed to the word. Hence forms as widely distinct as ἀνερᾷδες and ναραγίδες often occur. Du Cange, it may be added, gives the form Ναγαρίδες (with interchange of the ρ and the inserted γ); but since his information is seemingly drawn entirely from Leo Allatius, there is reason to regard it as merely his own error in transcribing Ναραγίδες.

302 An attempt has been made by one authority on the folk-lore of Athens (Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστορία τῶν Ἀθηναίων, I. pp. 218 and 222), to distinguish καλοκυρᾶδες from νεράϊδες. He maintains that in Athens the latter were never regarded as maleficent beings, and must therefore be distinguished from the dread καλοκυρᾶδες, whom he seeks to identify, on no better ground than the euphemistic name, with the Eumenides. A folk-story, however, which he himself records (ibid. p. 319), how a καλοκυρά was married to a prince, whose eyes she had blinded to all other women, and how after living with him for a while she disappeared finally in a whirlwind, reveals in her all the usual traits of a Nereid, and thus defeats the writer’s previous contention. But apart from this a little enquiry on the subject outside the limits of Athens would have set at rest his doubts as to the identity of the two. It is quite possible that formerly in Athens, as now elsewhere, it was usual to employ the euphemism καλοκυρᾶδες in referring to the Nereids in their more mischievous moods; only in that way can I explain his idea that the Nereids were never maleficent.

303 Cf. Passow, Distich 692; Pashley, Travels in Crete, vol. II. p. 233; Πανδώρα, XIV. p. 566; Bern. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, p. 104.

304 Cf. Bern. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, p. 105.

305 The latter is quoted by Bern. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, p. 106, from the dialect of Arachova near Delphi.

306 Cf. Bern. Schmidt, l. c.; Bybilakis, Neugriechisches Leben, p. 13.

307 Pind. Nem. V. 36.

308 Hom. Od. 13. 102 ff.

309 Cf. e.g. Passow, Popularia Carmina, Distichs 552–3.

310 Hahn, Griech. Märchen, vol. I. no. 15. ‘Ihre ganze Kraft steckt aber in den Kleidern, und wenn man ihnen die wegnimmt, so sind sie machtlos.’

311 To form a chain of dancers the leader, who occupies the extreme right, is linked to the second in the row by a kerchief, while the rest merely join hands. More freedom of motion is thus allowed to the chief performer.

312 Cf. also Hahn, Griech. Märchen, vol. II. no. 77. Ἀντ. Βάλληνδας, Κυθνιακά, p. 123.

313 The crowing of the third cock is more usually the signal for the departure of Nereids and their kind. It is commonly held that the white cock crows first, the red second, and the black third. The last is a sure saviour from the assaults of all manner of demons.

314 Similar transformations occur in a Cretan story, the forms assumed being those of dog, snake, camel, and fire. Χουρμούζης, Κρητικά, p. 69.

315 Cf. Apollodorus, III. 13. 5.

316 Bern. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, p. 104, quoting Ritschl, Ino Leucothea, Pl. I., II. (1 and 2), III.; and referring to a sarcophagus in the Corsini Gallery at Rome, figured in Monum. Ined. vol. VI. Pl. XXVI.

317 Hom. Od. 5. 346 sqq. and 459 sqq.

318 Ἀντ. Βάλληνδας, Κυθνιακά, p. 123.

319 The women of Scopelos on certain festal occasions wear a dress which may well be the same as the classical ὀρθοστάδιον, a loose pleated robe falling from the shoulders and widening as it falls, so that their figures resemble a fluted column too broad at the base and too tapering at the top.

320 Hahn, Griechische Märchen, vol. II. no. 83. Χουρμούζης, Κρητικά, p. 69.

321 Cf. a folk-song quoted by Ross, Reisen auf Inseln, III. p. 180,
Σὲ μονοδένδριν μὴ ἀναιβῇς, ’στοὺς κάμπους μὴ καταίβῃς,
καὶ ’στὸν ἀπάνω ποταμὸν μὴ παίζῃς τὸ περνιαῦλι,
κῂ ἐρθοῦν καὶ μονομαζευθοῦν τοῦ ποταμοῦ ’νερᾷδες,
‘Go not up to the solitary tree, go not down to the lowlands, beside the torrent above play not thy pipes, lest the Nereids of the stream come and swarm thick about thee.’

322 Lexicon, s.v. ῥάμνος, ἐν ταῖς γενέσεσι τῶν παιδίων χρίουσι (πίττῃ) τὰς οἰκίας εἰς ἀπέλασιν τῶν δαιμόνων.

323 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστορία τῶν Ἀθηναίων, III. p. 32.

324 Cf. Welcker, Kleine Schriften, 3. 197–9; Rohde, Psyche, I. p. 360, note 1.

325 Cf. Hom. Od. XI. 48 ff. and Eustathius, ad loc.

326 Ζ. Δ. Γαβαλᾶς, Ἡ νῆσος Φολέγανδρος, p. 29.

327 Reisen auf Inseln, etc. III. pp. 181–2.

328 C.I.G., no. 6201 (from Bern. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, etc. p. 122 note). Τοῖς πάρος οὖν μύθοις πιστεύσατε· παῖδα γὰρ ἐσθλὴν | ἥρπασαν ὡς τερπνὴν Ναΐδες, οὐ Θάνατος.

329 Ἐμ. Μανωλακάκης, Καρπαθιακά, p. 129. There are also compounds ἐξωπαρμένος and ἀλλοπαρμένος with the same meaning.

330 Plato, Phaedr. XV. (238 D).

331 Ibid. 229 A, B; 230 B; 242 A; 279 B.

332 Cf. Leo Allatius, De quor. Graec. opin. cap. xx. ‘potissimum si fluentis aquarum solum irrigetur.’

333 To this belief I attribute the origin of the phrase ὥρα τὸν ηὗρε, ‘an (evil) hour overtook him’ (Leo Allatius, op. cit. xix.), employed euphemistically in reference to ‘seizure’ by the Nereids, and of the kindred imprecation, κακὴ ὥρα νά σ’ εὕρῃ, ‘may an evil hour overtake you’ (Bern. Schmidt, op. cit. p. 97), which gains in force and elegance by its reversal of an ordinary phrase of leave-taking, ὥρα καλή.

334 See above, p. 79.

335 Leo Allatius, op. cit. xix.

336 From Epirus, Bern. Schmidt, op. cit. p. 120. See above, p. 142, note 2.

337 Cf. Bern. Schmidt, op. cit. p. 120.

338 I. p. 473 (Migne, Patrolog. Graeco-Lat. vol. XCIV. p. 1604).

339 See above, p. 13.

340 Cf. Hahn, Griech. Märchen, Vol. II. no. 80.

341 The Cyclades, p. 457.

342 Κωνστ. Κανελλάκης, Χιακὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, p. 369.

343 ἡ Λάμια τοῦ πελάγου. Cf. the periodical Παρνασσός IV. p. 773, and Wachsmuth, Das alte Griechenland im Neuen, p. 30. See also below, pp. 171 ff.

344 Histoire de la Révolution grecque, p. 228 note.

345 Hor. Carm. III. 28. 10.

346 Ἰ. Σαραντίδου Ἀρχελάου, Ἡ Σινασός, p. 90.

347 Εὐαγγελία Κ. Καπετανάκης, Λακωνικὰ Περίεργα, pp. 43 sqq.

348 Cf. Παρνασσός, IV. p. 669 (1880).

349 So according to Theodore Bent (Cyclades, p. 496) but perhaps inaccurately.

350 So Bern. Schmidt, op. cit. p. 101, following Βάλληνδας in Ἐφημερὶς τῶν Φιλομαθῶν, 1861, p. 1826; and Bent, loc. cit.

351 In this view Prof. Πολίτης of Athens University, whom I consulted, concurs with me.

352 Cf. Παρνασσός, IV. p. 669, Πολίτης, Μελέτη κ.τ.λ. p. 97.

353 Cf. Bern. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, etc. p. 101.

354 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθηναίων, I. p. 223.

355 Travels in Crete, II. pp. 232–4.

356 I cannot vouch for the accuracy of my translation of this word, which I have never seen or heard elsewhere.

357 Cf. Leo Allatius, op. cit. cap. xix.

358 Cf. Ἰον. Ἀνθολογία, III. p. 509. Hahn, Griech. Märchen, vol. II. no. 81.

359 C.I.G. no. 997 (from Bern. Schmidt, op. cit. p. 122 note).

360 Παρνασσός, IV. p. 765. The origin of the second part of the compound is unknown.

361 Ἀρχαιολογικὴ Ἐφημερίς, 1852, p. 647.

362 Cf. Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστορία τῶν Ἀθηναίων, III. p. 156.

363 Theotokis, Détails sur Corfou, p. 123.

364 Theocr. Id. v. 53–4 and 58–9.

365 Kindly communicated to me by Mr Abbott, author of Macedonian Folklore.

366 Hom. Od. XIII. 105–6.

367 See Miss Harrison, Prolegomena to the study of Greek Religion, p. 423.

368 Οἰκονόμος, Περὶ προφορᾶς, p. 768.

369 Ἀντ. Βάλληνδας, Κυθνιακά, p. 131 and Σκαρλάτος, Λεξικὸν τῆς καθ’ ἡμᾶς Ἑλληνικῆς γλῶσσης, s.v. δρίμαις.

370 Σκορδίλης, in Πάνδωρα, XI. p. 472; cf. Bern. Schmidt, op. cit. p. 130.

371 Cited by Bern. Schmidt, ibid. from Βρετός, Ἐθν. Ἡμερολ. 1863, p. 55. This reference I have been unable to verify.

372 In Macedonia.

373 Κωνστ. Κανελλάκης, Χιακὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, p. 359.

374 Wachsmuth in Rhein. Mus. 1872.

375 Orph. Hymns, 36 (35), 12.

376 Alexis, Fragm. Fab. Incert. 69.

377 Verg. Georg. IV. 336.

378 Tzetzes, Lycophron, 536.

379 ibid. 522.

380 Ἰ. Σ. Ἀρχέλαος, Ἡ Σινασός, p. 85.

381 Ἐμ. Μανωλακάκης, Καρπαθιακά, p. 189. In Carpathos however the three middle and three last days of August are added.

382 Ἀντ. Βάλληνδας, Κυθνιακά, p. 131.

383 Σακελλάριος, Κυπριακά, vol. I. p. 710.

384 Theodore Bent (Cyclades, p. 174) says that the word δρύμαις is used in Sikinos to mean actually the sores on limbs, and in other islands the holes in linen caused by washing during Aug. 1–6. But as he appears to have been unaware that δρύμαις usually means the days themselves, I question the accuracy of his statement.

385 Σακελλάριος, Κυπριακά, I. p. 710, who derives the word from κακὸς and Α(ὔγ)ουστος.

386 Anthol. Palat. VI. 189.

387 Verg. Georg. IV. 383.

388 Σκορδίλης, in Πανδώρα, XI. p. 472.

389 I give both these words as I received them, but cannot account for the abnormal accents. Ἄλουστος and either Ἀλουστιναίς or Ἀλούστιναις would be usual. As regards the whole form Ἀλούστος, it cannot I think be a dialectic change of Αὔγουστος, but is probably a pun upon it with reference to the custom of not washing during the first days of the month.

390 Σκαρλάτος, Λεξικόν, s.v. δρίμαις.

391 Modern πρινάρι, ancient πρῖνος.

392 Hesiod, Fragm. apud Plutarch. De Orac. Defect. p. 415.

393 Cf. also Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod. II. 479, where Mnesimachus is quoted for the same opinion.

394 O. T. 1099.

395 Nat. Hist. IX. cap. 5.

396 Lycophron, 480.

397 Hom. Hymns, III. 256 sqq.

398 ἑστᾶσ’ ἠλίβατοι· τεμένη δέ ἑ κικλήσκουσιν
ἀθάνατων· τὰς δ’ οὔτι βροτοὶ κείρουσι σιδήρῳ.

These two lines (267–8) have fallen under suspicion because, it is urged, the word ἀθανάτων is in direct contradiction of what has been said as to the intermediate position of nymphs between mortals and immortals. This criticism is due to careless reading. The lines do not mean that each tree is called the τέμενος of an immortal nymph, but that a number of trees, each inhabited by a nymph, often form together the τέμενος of an immortal god. A sanctuary of Artemis, for example, might well be surrounded by trees which each harboured one of her attendant nymphs.

399 Hahn, Griech. Märchen, II. no. 84. Cf. also no. 58.

400 Χουρμούζης, Κρητικά, pp. 69, 70.

401 This belief however is not universal in Greece; in some few districts a Nereid now, like a wolf in ancient times, is safer seen first than seeing first.

402 Apoll. Rhod. Argon. II. 477 sqq.

403 i.e. past participle passive of ξεραίνω (anc. ξηραίνω).

404 Hom. Od. XIII. 103–4.

405 De quorumdam Graec. opinat. cap. xix.

406 Id. XIII. 39 sqq.

407 So I translate χελιδόνιον on the authority of a muleteer whom I hired at Olympia; the modern form is χελιδόνι. It may be added that in Greece the cuckoo-flower is often of a dark enough shade to justify the epithet κυάνεον.

408 Artem. Oneirocr. II. 27.

409 Cf. Bern. Schmidt, op. cit. p. 102. Χουρμούζης, Κρητικά, p. 69. Δελτίον τῆς Ἱιστορ. καὶ Ἐθνολ. Ἑταιρίας τῆς Ἑλλάδος, II. p. 122.

410 Inscription on rock at entrance now barely legible. Cf. Paus. X. 32. 5, Strabo IX. 3, Aesch. Eum. 22.

411 Cf. Ulrichs, Reisen und Forschungen in Griechenland, I. p. 119, Bern. Schmidt, op. cit. p. 103.

412 Heuzey, Le mont Olympe et l’Acarnanie, pp. 204–5.

413 Hom. Od. VI. 105.

414 Bern. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, p. 107. The title ἡ μεγάλη κυρά must not be confused with the title ἡ κυρὰ τοῦ κόσμου (see above p. 89), which belongs to Demeter.

415 Ibid.

416 Cf. Paus. VIII. 35. 8, whence it appears probable that the nymph Καλλιστώ was once identical with Artemis; see Preller, Griech. Mythol. p. 304.

417 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθην. I. p. 227.

418 Apoll. Rhod. III. 877. Callim. Hymn to Artemis, 15.

419 From Onorio Belli, Descrizione dell’ isola di Candia, in Museum of Classical Antiqu., vol. II. p. 271. Cf. B. Schmidt, op. cit. p. 108. Spratt, Trav. in Crete, I. p. 146.

420 Du Cange, Gloss. med. et infim. Latin. s.v. Diana.

421 Above, p. 119.

422 Orph. Hymn 36 (35) ad fin.

423 De quor. Graec. opinat. cap. xx.

424 For these two names see above, p. 21.

425 For the Callicantzari see below, p. 190.

426 For Burcolakes or Vrykolakes see below, cap. IV.

427 pulcras dominas, a translation of the Nereids’ title καλὰς ἀρχόντισσας, ibid. cap. XIX.

428 The title-page of this exceedingly rare work runs as follows:—
La description et histoire de l’isle de Scios ou Chios
par
Jerosme Justinian
Gentil’homme ordinaire de la chambre du Roy Tres-Chrestien, fils de Seigneur Vincent Justinian, l’un des Seigneurs de la dite Isle, Chevalier de l’ordre de sa Majesté, Conseiller en son Conseil d’Estat et Privé, et Ambassadeur extraordinaire du Roy, auprez de Sultan Selin, Grand Seigneur de Constantinople.
M.D.VI.
In the copy formerly belonging to the historian Finlay and now in the possession of the British School of Archaeology at Athens is found a note by Finlay as follows:—‘Joh. Wilh. Zinkeisen in Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches in Europa (Gotha, 1854), vol. ii. p. 90, note 2, mentions a second printed copy as existing in the Mazarine Library at Paris, and a manuscript copy in possession of Justiniani family at Genoa. The date according to Zinkeisen should be not MDVI but MDCVI.’ There is no designation of the press or place from which the volume issued.

429 op. cit. bk vi. p. 59.

430 See above, p. 140.

431 Das Volksleben der Neugriechen, pp. 107 and 123.

432 Compare Märchen, etc. Song 56 and Stories 7, 19, with Das Volksleben, p. 123.

433 Bern. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, p. 129.

434 See above, p. 121.

435 Also in one word καλλικυρᾶδες or καλοκυρᾶδες.

436 Cf. Πολίτης, Μελέτη κ.τ.λ. p. 227; Pouqueville, Voyage en Grèce, VI. p. 160; and above, p. 125.

437 Reisen auf dem griech. Inseln, III. pp. 45 and 182.

438 In Ἐφημ. Ἀρχαιολογική, 1852, p. 648.

439 Passow, Pop. Carm. Graec. Recent. no. 524.

440 Bern. Schmidt, op. cit. p. 130.

441 Curt. Wachsmuth, Das alte Griechenland im Neuen, p. 31. Cf. also Παρνασσός, IV. p. 773 (1880).

442 Cf. Theodore Bent, The Cyclades, p. 144, who mentions also the custom of shooting at the waterspout as a precaution.

443 Curt. Wachsmuth, op. cit. p. 30.

444 Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod. IV. 828, cited by Wachsmuth, loc. cit.

445 For passages from authors of the 11th century and onwards see Leo Allatius, De quor. Graec. opin. cap. iii., and Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, II. 1012.

446 Aristophanes, Frogs, 293.

447 Bern. Schmidt, op. cit. p. 133.

448 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθην. I. p. 224.

449 Vespae, 1177, and Pax, 758.

450 e.g. Hahn, Griech. Märchen, no. 4.

451 Πολίτης, Μελέτη κ.τ.λ. p. 193.

452 Hahn, Griech. Märchen, no. 4. Cf. Πολίτης, l.c.

453 Πολίτης, l.c.

454 e.g. Hahn, Griech. Märchen, nos. 4 and 32.

455 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθην. III. p. 156.

456 Ἐφημ. Ἀρχαιολογική, 1852, p. 653, and Δελτίον τὴς Ἱστορ. καὶ Ἐθνολ. Ἑταιρ. II. p. 135.

457 A few instances are collected by Bern. Schmidt, op. cit. p. 141.

458 See Preller, Griech. Myth. p. 618.

459 Τὰ ἐς τὸν Τυανέα Ἀπολλώνιον, IV. 25 (p. 76).

460 Metamorph. I. cap. 11–19.

461 Lucian, Philopseudes, § 2. Strabo, I. p. 19. Schol. ad Arist. Vesp. 1177.

462 See above, pp. 147-8.

463 The Cyclades, p. 496.

464 γιαλός = ancient αἰγιαλός, ‘the shore.’

465 The differences in sound between γι and γ before ε, and between λ and λλ, are negligible. In many words and dialects there are none.

466 De quor. Graec. opinat. cap. iii.-viii.

467 Zenob. Cent. III. 3. Suidas s.v. Γελλοῦς παιδοφιλωτέρα (a proverb). Hesych. s.v. Γελλώ.

468 The date is approximate only; for the authorship of the work in question is, I understand, disputed.

469 This is merely a Latinised plural form; the Greek plural regularly ends in -δες.

470 This word is recorded as still in use by Wachsmuth, Das alte Griechenland im Neuen, p. 78.

471 op. cit. cap. viii.

472 Cf. above, p. 174, where however the accent is given as belonging to the first syllable. The actual spelling in Allatius is Μωρρᾷ. The word in form Μορῆ also occurs in conjunction with the mention of Striges and Geloudes in a MS. of νομοκανόνες obtained by Dr W. H. D. Rouse. See Folklore, vol. X. no. 2, p. 151.

473 Probably from Low Latin ‘burdo’ = milvus, a kite.

474 Compounded from Low Latin ‘bardala’ = alauda, a lark. A form ἀναβαρδοῦ occurs in a similar list of names cited by Dr Rouse from a MS. on magic. See Folklore, l.c. p. 162. The names said to have been extorted by the Archangel Michael begin there with στρίγλα, γιλοῦ, and belong clearly to a similar female demon.

475 The spelling in the text of Allatius before me is ψυχρανωσπάστρια.

476 Theo. Bent, The Cyclades, p. 496.

477 Pliny, Nat. Hist. XI. 39.

478 Hyginus, Fabul. 28, emend. Barth.

479 Fasti, VI. 131 ff.

480 The same apparently as the στρίγλος of Hesychius. The Greek peasants are very vague about the names of any birds other than those which they eat.

481 I. p. 473 (περὶ Στρυγγῶν), Migne, Patrol. Graeco-Lat. vol. XCIV., p. 1604.

482 The word is εἰσοικίζει which suggests rather the ‘possession’ of children by Striges as by devils. This however could hardly represent fairly the popular belief.

483 Quoted by Leo Allatius, op. cit. cap. iii.

484 So also in Albania, Hahn, Alb. Studien, I. 163.

485 From Πολίτης, Μελέτη κ.τ.λ. pp. 179–181.

486 Αδαμάντιος Ἰ. Ἀδαμαντίου, Τηνιακά, pp. 293 sqq.

487 Du Cange, Gloss. med. et infim. Latin. s.vv. ‘Diana’ and ‘Striga.’

488 Ibid.

489 A witch of Santorini told me that she had a narrow escape from being burnt for a much less heinous crime, failure to get rain. See above, p. 49.

490 Πολίτης in Παρνασσός, II. p. 261 (1878).

491 Πολίτης, ibid. p. 260.

492 Πολίτης, ibid. pp. 266–8.

493 Σκαρλάτος, Λεξικόν, s.v. (Πολίτης, l.c.).

494 Ἐφημ. τῶν Φιλομαθῶν, 1860, p. 1272 (Πολίτης, l.c.).

495 Νεοελληνικὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, II. p. 191 (Πολίτης, l.c.).

496 Ἀδαμάντιος Ν. Ἀδαμαντίου, Τηνιακά, pp. 293 ff. Cf. above, p. 183. The forms used are ἡ γοργόνα, τὸ γοργόνι, and γοργονικὸ παιδί.

497 Ἐφημ. τῶν Φιλομαθῶν, 1871, p. 1843 (Πολίτης l.c.).

498 Published by E. Legrand in Collection de monuments de la langue néo-hellénique, no. 16, from two MSS. nos. 929 and 930 in Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale).

499 See above, p. 173.

500 Passow, Carm. Popul. no. 337.

501 The date assigned is, I believe, not certain, but is not of great importance.

502 De monstris et beluis, edited by Berger de Xivrey in Traditions Tératologiques, p. 25. Πολίτης, l.c.

503 Theog. 270–288.

504 Cf. Pind. Ol. XIII. 90.

505 Kuhn in Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung, vol. I. pp. 460–1, connects γοργώ with γάργαρα and Sanskr. garya, garyana, in sense of ‘the noise of the waves.’ Cf. Maury, Hist. des relig. de la Grèce antique, I. p. 303.

506 No. 1002, found at Athens; date 600 B.C. or earlier.

507 No. 534, from Corinth; date about 550 B.C.

508 Πολίτης, l.c. p. 269.

509 Hom. Od. XII. 73 ff.

510 Aen. IV. 327.

511 Παραδόσεις, part ii. of the series Μελέται περὶ τοῦ βίου καὶ τῆς γλώσσης τοῦ Ἑλληνικοῦ λαοῦ.

512 Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, II. p. 1293.

513 Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, II. 1295.

514 De quor. Graec. opinat. cap. ix.

515 Πολίτης, Παραδ. II. 1245.

516 Ibid. II. 1245. It might equally well however, as Polites suggests, mean ‘deceivers,’ from the active πλανάω, ‘to lead astray.’

517 So explained by Πολίτης, op. cit. 1247.

518 Ibid. II. 1245.

519 Πολίτης, Παραδ. I. p. 370 (from Syra).

520 Ibid. II. 1293 (from Myconos).

521 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθην. I. p. 230.

522 Πολίτης, Παραδ. II. p. 1291. In the Museum they are numbered 10333–4.

523 Κανελλάκης, Χιακὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, p. 367.

524 Πολίτης, Παραδ. II. p. 1323.

525 Schmidt, Das Volksleben, p. 148, and Πολίτης, Παραδ. I. p. 333.

526 Leo Allatius (De quor. Graec. opinat. cap. ix.) makes the period a week only, ending on New Year’s Day.

527 For dialectic varieties of this name from Macedonia, the Peloponnese, Crete, and some of the Cyclades, see Πολίτης, Παραδ., II. 1256.

528 ὁ μεγάλος or ὁ πρῶτος καλλικάντζαρος. Also, according to Πολίτης, Παραδ. I. p. 369, ὁ ἀρχικαλλικάντζαρος. In Constantinople (acc. to Πολίτης, Παραδ. I. 343) he has a proper name Μαντρακοῦκος, which however I cannot interpret satisfactorily.

529 ὁ κουτσοδαίμονας, or simply ὁ κουτσὸς, ὁ χωλός. Cf. B. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, pp. 152–4.

530 The sequence of these cocks varies locally; their order is sometimes black, white, red.

531 Lucian, Philops. cap. 14.

532 So Leo Allatius, De quor. Graec. opin. cap. ix.

533 Several other versions in the same vein are recorded, cf. B. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, p. 151, Πολίτης, Παραδ. I. pp. 337–41 and II. p. 1305.

534 Πολίτης, Παραδ. I. p. 372.

535 For this version see Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθην. I. p. 229.

536 See above, p. 149.

537 Πολίτης, Παραδ. I. p. 338 (from Samos).

538 Mod. Gk χαμολι̯ό, Anc. χαμαιλέων.

539 Ἐφημ. τῶν Φιλομαθῶν, 1862, p. 1909.

540 Πολίτης, Παραδ. i. 347.

541 Ibid. i. 356.

542 Ibid. i. 338.

543 Ibid. i. 342.

544 ψίχα, ψίχα λουκάνικο, κομμάτι ξεροτήγανο, νὰ φᾶν οἱ Καλλικάντζαροι, νὰ φύγουνε ’στὸν τόπο τους. For other versions see B. Schmidt, Das Volksl. p. 150, and Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, i. 342.

545 Cf. Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθην. iii. 154.

546 Cf. Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, i. p. 357.

547 Ibid. ii. p. 1308.

548 Abbott, Maced. Folklore, p. 74.

549 Voyage de la Grèce, vi. p. 157.

550 Δελτίον τῆς Ἱστορ. καὶ Ἐθνολ. Ἑταιρ. τῆς Ἑλλάδος, ii. pp. 137–141.

551 Ἰ. Μιχαήλ, Μακεδονικά, p. 39. Πολίτης, Παραδ. ii. 1251 note 2.

552 loc. cit.

553 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθην. iii. pp. 66 and 156.

554 Παραδόσεις, i. p. 334.

555 The word means literally men whose attendant genii (στοιχει̯ά, on which see the next section) are ‘light’ (ἀλαφρός) instead of being solid and steady. The temperament of such persons is ill-balanced in ordinary affairs, but peculiarly sensitive to supernatural influences; it often involves the gift of second sight and other similar faculties.

556 Supernatural donkeys with the same habits are known also in Crete under the name of ἀνασκελᾶδες (prob. formed from ἀνάσκελα, ‘on one’s back,’ the position in which the rider soon finds himself).

557 Πολίτης, Παραδ. i. p. 342, from Γ. Λουκᾶς, Φιλολ. ἐπισκ. p. 12.

558 Πολίτης, Παραδ. i. 338.

559 Luke iii. 22.

560 Cf. above, p. 67.

561 De quorundam Graec. opinat. cap. x.

562 Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, ii. p. 1286.

563 Ἐμαν. Μανωλακάκης, Καρπαθιακά, p. 130.

564 Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις i. p. 344.

565 The word ζωτικά which is sometimes heard in the Cyclades is, I suspect, merely a corrupt form of ξωτικά (on which see above, p. 67); some writers however have derived it from the root of ζάω. But at any rate in usage it denotes the same class of beings as the commoner form ξωτικά.

566 op. cit. cap. x. Actually the earliest reference to the Callicantzari which I have found occurs in La description et histoire de l’isle de Scios ou Chios by Jerosme Justinian, p. 61, where he says, Ils tiennent... qu’il y a de certains esprits qui courent par les grands chemins, et sont nommez Calican, Saros. But inasmuch as he does not record even the name correctly, his statement that these beings are esprits can have little weight as against that of Leo Allatius.

567 Das Volksleben, p. 143.

568 Παραδόσεις, I. pp. 331–81, and II. pp. 1242–4.

569 Πολίτης, Παραδ. II. 1257.

570 The Cyclades, pp. 360 and 388. Bent does not seem to have known the ordinary form καλλικάντζαροι.

571 Abbott, Maced. Folklore, p. 73.

572 Λαμπρίδης, Ζαγοριακά, p. 209.

573 In this, the ordinary, sense the word appears twice in Passow’s Popularia Carm. nos. 142 and 200. See also his index, s.v. καλιουντσήδαις. The Turks themselves borrowed the word qālioum (our ‘galleon’) from the Franks.

574 Πολίτης, Παραδ. II. pp. 1242 and 1244.

575 Das Volksleben, p. 144.

576 Schmidt, it should be said, was dubious about the existence of this form.

577 In Bianchi, Dict. Turc-fr. II. p. 469, it is translated ‘loup-garou,’ Schmidt, l.c.

578 Schmidt, l.c. note 2, ‘esclave de la plus mauvaise espèce.’

579 The previous relations between the Giustiniani, who controlled the Genoese chartered company in Chios, and the Ottoman Empire seem to have been purely commercial.

580 Quoted by Leo Allat. de quor. Graec. opinat. cap. ix. and published in full by Σάθας.

581 If this was the origin of Suidas’ information, as seems almost certain in view of its inaccuracy, his date cannot be earlier than that of Psellus (flor. circa 1050).

582 d’Arnis, Lexicon Med. et Infim. Latin., explains babuztus (with other forms babulus, baburrus, and baburcus) by the words stultus, insanus.

583 J. B. Navon, Rouz Namé, in the periodical Fundgruben Orients, Vienna, 1814, vol. IV. p. 146, quoted by Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, II. p. 1249, note 1.

584 Ἄτακτα, IV. p. 211.

585 In the periodical Πανδώρα, 1866, XVI. p. 453.

586 Μελέτη, p. 73, note 6.

587 Παραδόσεις, II. pp. 1252–3.

588 The word καλίκι or καλίγι is a diminutive form from the Latin caliga. Besides its original meaning ‘shoe,’ it has acquired now the sense of ‘hoof.’ The transition was clearly through the sense of ‘horse-shoe,’ as witness the verb καλιγόνω, ‘I shoe a horse.’

589 This word has to be written with β to give the v-sound of υ following ε. The ε drops, and the υ cannot then be used alone, for except after α and ε it is sounded as a vowel.

590 Polites backs up this meaning by deriving baboutzicarios (on which see above, p. 217) from παποῦτσι (Arabic bābouch) ‘a shoe,’ but reluctantly refuses to accept the identification of καλιοντζῆς (above, p. 215) with γαλόντζης, a maker of γαλόντσας or ‘wooden shoes.’ Παραδ. II. 1253.

591 Their Greek character is strongly emphasized by Balsamon, pp. 230–1. (Vol. 137 of Migne, Patrol. Gr.-Lat.)

592 loc. cit.

593 Photius, Biblioth. 254, pp. 468–9, ed. Bekker, μυσαρὰς καὶ μιαιφόνους τελετάς.

594 Ibid. δαιμονιώδης καὶ βδελυκτὴ ἑορτή.

595 Ibid. ὡς ἐνθέσμοις ἔργοις τοῖς ἀθεμίτοις καλλωπιζόμενοι.

596 Usener, Acta S. Timothei, p. 11 (Bonn).

597 Migne, Patrol. Gr.-Lat. Vol. 40, p. 220.

598 Edited by Cumont.

599 Balsamon, loc. cit.

600 Παραδόσεις, II. pp. 1273–4. To this work I am indebted for most of my instances of these celebrations during the ‘Twelve Days.’

601 Annual of the British School at Athens, VI. p. 125.

602 Abbott, Macedonian Folklore, p. 31.

603 R. M. Dawkins, in Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 26, Part II. (1906), p. 193.

604 Dawkins, op. cit. p. 201, referring to a pamphlet, περὶ τῶν ἀναστεναρίων καὶ ἄλλων τινῶν παραδόξων ἐθίμων καὶ προλήψεων, ὑπὸ Ἀ. Χουρμουρζιάδου, Constantinople, 1873, p. 22.

605 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθ. III. p. 162.

606 loc. cit.

607 The word is certainly in my experience rare, and is not given in Skarlatos’ Lexicon. But it occurs e.g. in a popular tradition from Thessaly concerning the Callicantzari, in Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, I. p. 356.

608 Λεξικὸν τῆς καθ’ ἡμᾶς Ἑλληνικῆς διαλέκτου, s.v. κατσιασμένος.

609 Plutarch, de εἰ apud Delphos, 9 (p. 389).

610 Balsamon, p. 231 (Migne, Patrol. Gr.-Lat. Vol. 137).

611 Ulpian, ad Dem. p. 294. Cf. also Balsamon, loc. cit.

612 Müller and Donaldson, History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, I. p. 382.

613 Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, s.v. Dionysia.

614 See above, p. 151.

615 I write d in the place of the Greek τ, which when following ν always has the sound of English d.

616 It is probably formed from τέντα, ‘a tent,’ which clearly comes from the Latin. Some however derive directly from the anc. Gk τιταίνω. The question of origin however does not affect my illustration of the later change of τ into τσ.

617 Heard in Sciathos and kindly communicated to me by Mr A. J. B. Wace.

618 Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxv. 6; Dioscor. v. 45; Sophocles Byzant. Lexicon, s.v. ἀρκεύθινος οἶνος.

619 Marcellus Empir., cap. 20 (p. 139).

620 Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 380.

621 Lucian, Zeuxis, cap. 6.

622 Nonnus, Dionys. 13. 44 καὶ λασίων Σατύρων, Κενταυρίδος αἶμα γενέθλης. This reference I owe to Miss Harrison, l. c.

623 Iliad, II. 743.

624 Lucian, Zeuxis, cap. 5.

625 Isaiah xxxiv. 14.

626 I cannot of course absolutely affirm that the word is extinct in every dialect even now; but the only suggestion of its use which I can find is in a story of Hahn’s collection (Alban. und Griech. Märch. II. 189), where the German translation has the strange word ‘Wolfsmann.’

627 Pyth. III. 1–4.

628 Ibid. IV. 115.

629 Ibid. IV. 119.

630 Ibid. III. 45.

631 Pyth. II. 29.

632 Pyth. II. 42–48.

633 Hesiod, Shield of Heracl. 178–188.

634 Hom. Il. I. 262–8.

635 Hom. Il. II. 743.

636 Il. XI. 832.

637 Ibid.

638 Il. IV. 219.

639 Hom. Od. XXI. 303.

640 Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 382.

641 Early Age of Greece, I. pp. 173 ff.

642 Pyth. IV. 80.

643 Pyth. III. 45.

644 Early Age of Greece, I. pp. 175–6.

645 Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece, I. p. 178.

646 De bello Gothico, IV. 20 (Niebuhr, 1833, p. 565).

647 Early Age of Greece, I. pp. 177–8.

648 Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 382.

649 Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece, I. p. 174. The vase in question is figured by Colvin in Journ. of Hellenic Studies, Vol. I. p. 131, Pl. 2, and by Miss Harrison, Prolegomena etc. p. 384.

650 Pind. Pyth. III. 45 ff. (transl. Myers).

651 Pind. Pyth. IX. 31 ff.

652 Primitive Culture, Vol. I. p. 308. For a mass of instances, see pp. 308–315.

653 Op. cit. I. p. 312.

654 Verg. Ecl. VIII. 95.

655 Hesiod, Shield of Heracles, 178 ff. Cf. also the names Ἄγριος and Ἔλατος (suggesting ἐλάτη, the fir-tree from which their weapons were made) in Apollodor. II. 5. 4. The name Ἄσβολος in Hesiod, meaning ‘soot,’ I cannot interpret; for it is hard to suppose that the ancient Centaurs, like the Callicantzari, came down the chimney. But the word is possibly corrupt; for Ovid (Met. XII. 307) refers to an augur Astylus among the Centaurs.

656 Cf. Miss J. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, pp. 383–4.

657 Paus. VIII. 42. 1–4. Cf. VIII. 25. 5.

658 Apollodorus, II. 5. 4.

659 Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, I. p. 339.

660 Stories of their coming to cook frogs etc. at the hearths of men occur, but only confirm the general belief that they have no fires of their own at which to cook, and are in general afraid of fire.

661 Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, II. pp. 1297 and 1337.

662 The shift of accent is due to the synizesis of the syllables -ει-α, pronounced now as -yá.

663 Du Cange, s.v. στοιχεῖον.

664 Coloss. ii. 3 and 20; Galat. iv. 3 and 9.

665 Galat. iv. 9.

666 Passow, Popul. Carm. no. 524. According to Σκαρλάτος (Λεξικόν, s.v.) στοιχειόν is sometimes a term of abuse; on that statement I base my interpretation of the folk-song.

667 Du Cange, s.v.

668 Du Cange, s.v.

669 Georg. Cedrenus (circ. 1050) Historiarum Compendium, p. 197 (edit. Paris).

670 Cedrenus, ibid.

671 στοιχεῖον pro eo quod τέλεσμα (whence by Arabic corruption our ‘talisman’) vocant Graeci, usurpant alii. Du Cange, ibid.

672 Codinus (15th century), de Originibus Constantinop. p. 30 (edit. Paris) § 63.

673 Codinus, ibid. p. 20. § 39.

674 De quor. Graec. opinat. cap. XXI.

675 The active of the verb also survives in a special sense, for which see below, p. 267. The modern form is στοιχειόνω: cf. δηλόνω for δηλόω, etc.

676 See above, p. 69.

677 Verg. Aen. V. 84 ff.

678 Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, 272. Cf. above, p. 156.

679 De quor. Graec. opinat. cap. XXI.

680 B. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, p. 185.

681 i.e. οἰκοκύριος, with initial ν attached (first in the accusative) from the article (τὸν) preceding. This is the ordinary word for ‘the master of a house.’

682 i.e. δαίμων τοῦ τόπου. The word is used in Cythnos and Cyprus. Cf. Βάλληνδας, Κυθνιακά, p. 124. Σακελλάριος, Κυπριακά, III. p. 286.

683 For detailed stories in point, see Leo Allatius, l. c., B. Schmidt, op. cit. pp. 186, 187.

684 Char. 16.

685 Suidas, s.vv. οἰωνιστική and Ξενοκράτης.

686 s.v. ὄφιν οἰκουρόν.

687 VIII. 41.

688 Cf. Passow, Popul. Carm., Index, s.v. στοιχεῖον.

689 Πολίτης, Μελέτη, p. 134.

690 Πολίτης, l. c.

691 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθην. III. p. 155.

692 Καμπούρογλου, op. cit. I. 226.

693 e.g. Passow, Popul. Carm. nos. 511, 512.

694 Ἀντωνιάδης, Κρητηΐς, p. 247 (from Πολίτης, op. cit. p. 141).

695 Πολίτης, ibid.

696 Ἰατρίδης, Συλλογὴ δημοτ. ἀσμάτων, pp. 28–30 (Πολίτης, ibid.).

697 W. H. D. Rouse in Folklore, June, 1899 (Vol. x. no. 2), pp. 182 ff.

698 Passow, no. 511, and Ζαμπέλιος, Ἄσματα δημοτικὰ τῆς Ἑλλάδος, p. 757.

699 So Bern. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, p. 196. Ἰατρίδης, Συλλογὴ δημοτ. ἀσμάτων, p. 93, mentions also a dog.

700 So also in Zacynthos and Cephalonia. Bern. Schmidt, op. cit. p. 196.

701 e.g. in Cimolus, Bent, The Cyclades, p. 45.

702 Cf. Ricaut, Hist. de l’église grecque, pp. 369–70.

703 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθην. III. p. 148.

704 The Cyclades, p. 132.

705 Πολίτης, Μελέτη, p. 138.

706 Ricaut, Hist. de l’église grecque, p. 367 (from Πολίτης, ibid.).

707 Ἰατρίδης, Συλλογὴ δημοτ. ἀσμάτων, p. 28.

708 Das Volksleben, p. 196, note 2.

709 Since this was written, a new work of Prof. Polites (Μελέται περὶ τοῦ βίου καὶ τῆς γλώσσης τοῦ Ἑλληνικοῦ λαοῦ, Παραδόσεις) has come into my hands, and I find that he has modified his views. Cf. below, pp. 272-3, where I insert a suggestion made by Polites, op. cit. II. p. 1089.

710 Suidas, Λεξικόν, s.v. Μάμας. The statement is corroborated by Codinus, περὶ θεαμάτων, p. 30, who adds to the human victims ‘multitudes of sheep and oxen and fowls.’ From Πολίτης, Μελέτη, p. 141, note 1.

711 Hom. Il. VII. 442 ff.

712 Hom. Il. XII. 3–33.

713 See below, p. 273.

714 Agam. 214.

715 Agam. 1418.

716 IV. 9. 1–5.

717 VI. 20. 2–5.

718 Porphyrius, De abstinentia, II. 56. Plutarch, Themistocles, 13.

719 This view of the story I take from Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, II. p. 1089.

720 V. 4. 4.

721 Pausanias’ Description of Greece, III. p. 468.

722 Pausanias, I. 26. 1.

723 Schol. ad Aristoph. Nubes, 508.

724 Miss Jane Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 327 ff.

725 See Roscher, Lexicon d. Mythol. I. 2468 ff.

726 Lucian, Alexander vel Pseudomantis, cap. XIV.

727 See Miss Jane Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, pp. 17–20, where the two reliefs in question are reproduced.

728 For ballads dealing with this theme, see Πολίτης, Μελέτη, p. 133, and Ᾱραβάντινος, Συλλογὴ δημωδῶν ἀσμάτων τῆς Ἠπείρου, no. 451.

729 Bern. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, p. 197.

730 Ibid. p. 198.

731 He used a neuter form, τὰ ἀράπια, which I have not found elsewhere.

732 A similar method of laying vrykólakes is reported from Samos by Πολίτης (Παραδόσεις, I. 580). In this case a wizard ‘took three calves born at one birth and drove them three times round the churchyard, saying some magic words.’

733 ὁ βῳδοκέφαλας. The story as I give it is not a verbatim report of what I heard; as usual, I had to rely on my memory at the time and make notes afterwards.

734 This is the form which I heard used constantly in the island instead of the more common ποτάμι (τὸ).

735 This however must have been prior to the middle of the 17th century; for a history of the island published in 1657 says, ‘cette Isle... n’est arrousée d’aucun ruisseau ou fontaine.’ Père François Richard, Relation de ce qui s’est passé à Santorini, p. 35.

736 Soph. Trach. 10 ff.

737 Formed from the ancient δράκων as Χάρος and Χάροντας from Χάρων. Cf. above, p. 98. There is a feminine δρακόντισσα or δράκισσα.

738 Cf. Philostr. Vit. Apollon. III. 8. Aelian, de natur. anim. XVI. 39. Bern. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, p. 191.

739 Only one variety of dragon, the χαμοδράκι or ‘ground-dragon,’ is often harmless. It is of pastoral tastes and consorts with the ewes and she-goats, and is more noted among the shepherds for its lasciviousness than for any other quality.

740 Artem. Oneirocr. II. 13 (p. 101). Cf. Festus, 67, 13.

741 Lucian, Philopseudes, cap. XXXII. Zenobius, Cent. II. 1. The same punishment is in one story inflicted by a Callicantzaros on a midwife who had deceived him into believing that his newborn child was male. After sending her away with a sackful of gold, he discovered her deceit, and on her arrival at home the gold had turned to ashes. See above, p. 199.

742 Ἀδαμάντιος Ἰ. Ἀδαμαντίου, Τηνιακά (published first in Δελτίον τῆς Ἱστορ. καὶ Ἐθνολ. Ἑταιρίας τῆς Ἑλλάδος, Vol. V. pp. 277 sqq.).

743 For the first half of this story, see above, p. 183.

744 ἀθάνατο νερό, op. cit. pp. 299 and 315.

745 e.g. ἀθάνατα μῆλα, ‘immortal apples,’ op. cit. pp. 311 and 316. ἀθάνατο καρποῦζι, ‘immortal water-melon,’ pp. 297 and 315. ἀθάνατο γαροῦφαλο, ‘immortal gilly-flower,’ p. 317. The translation of this last is correctly that which I have given, but the peasants all over Greece will call almost any bright and scented flower by this same name.

746 See above, p. 137.

747 Cf. above, pp. 143–4.

748 Glossar. med. et infim. Graecitatis (p. 1541), s.v. τελώνιον.

749 Ibid., Damasc. Hierodiac. Serm. 3.

750 Ibid., Maximus Cythaer. Episc.

751 Ibid., Georg. Hamartolus.

752 τελώνας καὶ διαλόγους (for which I read δικολόγους with Bern. Schmidt, das Volksleben, p. 172).

753 Ibid., Euchologium.

754 Luke xii. 20.

755 Du Cange, ibid. τελωνάρχαι, λογοθέται, πρακτοψηφισταί, etc.

756 See above, p. 110.

757 Κωνστ. Κανελλάκης, Χιακὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, pp. 362–3.

758 Ἰ. Σ. Ἀρχέλαος, ἡ Σινασός, p. 81.

759 See above, p. 109.

760 Testimony to the same belief is cited by Du Cange (s.v. τελώνιον) from an anonymous astronomical work.

761 For references see Preller, Griech. Mythol. II. 105–6.

762 Villoison, Annales des voyages, II. p. 180, cited by B. Schmidt, das Volksleben, p. 174, note 4.

763 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθην. III. p. 166.

764 Voyage de la Grèce, VI. p. 154.

765 Das Volksleben, p. 173.

766 Griech. Märch. Vol. II. no. 64.

767 Cf. Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθηναίων, III. p. 77.

768 Cf. above, p. 53.

769 For this term see above, p. 204.

770 B. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, p. 180.

771 Ibid. note 6.

772 Op. cit. p. 181.

773 Op. cit. p. 181.

774 Op. cit. p. 182.

775 I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this translation. The word might possibly mean ‘he has had his shadow trampled on,’ and has been hurt indirectly through an injury inflicted upon his shadow-genius.

776 Hom. Il. XXIII. 79.

777 Il. XVIII. 535–8.

778 Plato, Phaedo, p. 107 D.

779 Rep. p. 617 D, E. Cf. 620 D, E.

780 Meineke, Fragm. Com. Graec. IV. p. 238.

781 Theocr. IV. 40.

782 I do not of course wish to imply that in the every-day usage of these words the thought of a guardian-genius was present to men’s minds; but the first formation of them can only have sprung from this belief.

783 Aen. VI. 743.

784 Plato, Theag. 128 D.

785 Ibid. E.

786 Both Plato (Apol. 40 A) and Xenophon (Mem. I. 1. 2–4), compare Socrates’ converse with his genius with μαντική or ‘inspiration.’

787 Hesiod, Works and Days, 185, with reading οὐδὲ θεῶν ὄπα εἰδότες.

788 Βάκχος and Βάκχη, cf. Eur. H. F. 1119.

789 De divinatione, I. 3.

790 op. cit. I. 18.

791 Prom. Vinct. 485–99.

792 Suid. Lex. s.v. οἰωνιστική.

793 Cic. de Divin. I. 4.

794 Ibid. I. 6 and 18.

795 Above, p. 281.

796 Cf. Lucian, Philopseudes, 19 and 20.

797 See above p. 60.

798 Nov. 26.

799 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστορία τῶν Ἀθηναίων, III. p. 19.

800 Cf. Cic. de Divinat. I. 18.

801 The shift of accent is curious. It may be some result of dialect, but is not explained.

802 e.g. Hom. Od. XVIII. 116.

803 At midsummer. The name of the custom ὁ κλήδονας is sometimes given as a title to the saint himself; and from his willingness to enlighten enquirers concerning their future lot he is also named sometimes ὁ Φανιστής (the enlightener) and ὁ Ῥιζικάς (from ῥίζικο, ‘lot’ or ‘destiny’), Ἰ. Σ. Ἀρχέλαος, ἡ Σινασός, p. 86.

804 Sonnini de Magnoncourt, Voyage en Grèce et en Turquie, II. pp. 126–7.

805 In the Iliad it is not found. Cf. Bouché Leclercq, Hist. de la Divination, I. p. 156.

806 Hom. Od. XVII. 114 ff. Cf. also Od. XX. 98 ff.

807 For examples see Herod. V. 72, VIII. 114, IX. 64, 91; Xenoph. Anab. I. 8. 16. Cf. Bouché Leclercq, op. cit. I. p. 157. The word φήμη is in some of these passages used in the sense of κληδών.

808 Paus. VII. 22. 2, 3.

809 Le Bas et Waddington, Voyage Archéologique, V. 1724^a.

810 Paus. IX. 11. 7. Cf. Bouché Leclercq, Hist. de la Divin. I. p. 159 and II. p. 400.

811 Paus. ibid.

812 The proper precaution is prescribed in the couplet, ’στὸ δρόμο σὰν ἰδῆς παπᾶ, | κράτησ’ τ’ ἀρχίδι̯α σου καλά. Si per viam sacerdoti occurres, testiculos tuos teneto.

813 γαϊδοῦρι με συμπάθειο, ‘a donkey, with your leave.’ So also often in mentioning the number ‘three,’ and sometimes with ‘five.’

814 Aristoph. Aves, 720.

815 Eccles. 792.

816 Theophr. Char. 16. 1.

817 Ibid.

818 op. cit. 16. 3.

819 Cf. Suidas, s.v. οἰωνιστική.

820 Bouché Leclercq, op. cit. I. p. 129.

821 Assuming derivation from οἶος, as υἱωνός from υἱός, κοινωνός from κοινός.

822 Plutarch, de solertia animalium, cap. 20 (p. 975).

823 Bouché Leclercq, Hist. de la Divin. I. p. 133–4.

824 e.g. Hom. Il. XXIV. 310.

825 Hom. Il. VIII. 247.

826 Etymol. Magn. p. 619, s.v. οἰωνοπόλος.

827 Apoll. Rhod. III. 930.

828 Ovid, Metam. II. 548 sqq.

829 Hom. Od. XV. 526.

830 Hom. Il. X. 274.

831 Plutarch, Pyth. Orac. cap. 22.

832 Paroemiogr. Graec. I. pp. 228, 231, 352.

833 περὶ ὠμοπλατοσκοπίας καὶ οἰωνοσκοπίας.

834 Suid., Lexicon, s.v. οἰωνιστική.

835 op. cit. § 2.

836 Cf. Bouché Leclercq, op. cit. I. p. 140, note 2.

837 Hesiod, Works and Days, 745.

838 The identification of the birds named by even the more intelligent peasants is necessarily uncertain. The name κουκουβάγια is seemingly onomatopoeic, suggesting the hooting of the owl, but is generally reserved to the brown owl.

839 op. cit. § 2.

840 In the dialects of Scyros and other Aegean islands, κ before the sounds of ε and ι is regularly softened to τσ. The ρ has, as often, suffered metathesis.

841 Hom. Od. XV. 524 ff.

842 Derivation from χαρά, instead of Χάρος, and πουλί is possible, but less likely. It would then be an euphemistic name, ‘bird of joy.’ An owl named στριγλοποῦλι (on which see above, p. 180) appears to be a semi-mythical bird chiefly found in Hades; it is possibly identical with ‘Charon’s bird.’

843 Cf. Ἐμαν. Μανωλακάκης, Καρπαθιακά, p. 126.

844 Il. VII. 184.

845 Od. XVII. 365.

846 Il. I. 597.

847 Βικέντιος Κορνάρος, Ἐρωτόκριτος, p. 320.

848 Aristot. Hist. An. IX. 1.

849 Cf. Aesch. Sept. 24, Soph. Antig. 999 sqq.

850 Origen, contra Cels. IV. 88.

851 Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 46.

852 e.g. Passow, Popul. Carm. nos. 122, 123, 213, 232, 234, 235, 251 et passim.

853 A. Luber in a monograph Die Vögel in den historischen Liedern der Neugriechen, pp. 6 ff., notes the impossibility of determining in many cases whether a real bird or a scout is meant.

854 Passow, Popul. Carm. no. 415, vv. 5–7. Cf. 413, 414.

855 Ibid. no. 410.

856 ξεφτέρι (probably a diminutive from ὀξύπτερος), a ‘falcon,’ is a favourite name for the warrior, just as the humbler πουλί, ‘bird,’ is used for ‘scout.’

857 With reference to Ibrahim’s Egyptian troops.

858 Passow, Popul. Carm. no. 256.

859 Cic. de Divin. I. 52, II. 12, 15, 16, 17. Cf. Bouché Leclercq, Hist. de la Divin. I. p. 167.

860 Plato, Tim. 71 c.

861 Philostr. Vit. Apollon. VIII. 7. 49–52. Cf. Bouché Leclercq, op. cit. I. p. 168.

862 For authorities on this point see Bouché Leclercq, op. cit. I. p. 170.

863 Cf. ibid. p. 169.

864 K. O. Müller (die Etrusker, II. p. 187) places the introduction of the custom in the sixth century B.C.

865 Bybilakis, Neugriechisches Leben, p. 49 (1840).

866 Περὶ ὠμοπλατοσκοπίας καὶ οἰωνοσκοπίας, § 1.

867 Λαμπρίδης, Ζαγοριακά, p. 210. No details are given.

868 Λαμπρίδης, Ζαγοριακά, p. 176.

869 The writer does not actually mention the two things in connexion. He belongs to that class of modern Greek writers who exhibit their own intellectual emancipation by deploring or deriding popular superstitions, and wastes so much energy therein that he fails to note such points of interest. But, since it is not probable that the peasants of Epirus eat meat more often than other Greek peasants, the connexion of the sacrifice and the divination may, I think, be assumed.

870 Certain details of the art as practised in Macedonia are given by Abbott, Macedonian Folklore, p. 96. But, as they may in part be due to Albanian influence there, I have not made use of them.

871 Περὶ ὠμοπλατοσκοπίας κ.τ.λ. l. c.

872 Reading ἄλλα γὰρ for ἀλλὰ γὰρ of Codex Vindobonensis, as published in Philologus, 1853, p. 166.

873 The word is ῥάχις. This in relation to the body generally means the ‘spine,’ but can be used of any ridge (as of a hill), and so here, I suppose, of the ridge of bone along the shoulder-blade.

874 So I understand the somewhat obscure sentence, εἰ μὲν γὰρ μεταξὺ τοῦ ὠμοπλάτου δύο ὑμένες ἐξ ἀμφοτέρων μερῶν τῆς ῥάχεως κ.τ.λ., conjecturing οἱ before μεταξὺ, where Codex Vindob. has corruptly εἰ.

875 Prom. Vinct. 493.

876 Pausan. VI. 2. 5.

877 Tatian, adv. Graecos, I. Cf. Bouché Leclercq, Hist. de la Divin. I. p. 170.

878 In Zagorion in Epirus, the ram is sacrificed on the entrance of the bride to her new home (cf. the sacrifice of a cock mentioned below). Λαμπρίδης, Ζαγοριακά, p. 183.

879 Curtius Wachsmuth, Das alte Griechenland im Neuen, p. 86.

880 In Macedonia the weasel is said on the contrary to be a good omen. Abbott, Macedonian Folklore, p. 108.

881 Λαμπρίδης, Ζαγοριακά, p. 203.

882 Theophr. Char. 16.

883 Theocr. Id. II. 35.

884 So too in antiquity apparently according to Propertius IV. (V.) 3. 60; Ovid (Heroid. XIX. 151) on the contrary reckons it a good omen.

885 Theocr. Id. III. 37 ἄλλεται ὀφθαλμός μευ ὁ δεξιός· ἆρά γ’ ἰδησῶ | αὐτάν; the order of the words, it will be seen, justifies the emphasis which I have given to δεξιός and to αὐτάν.

886 Dialog. Meretric. 9. 2.

887 The significance of right and left in this case is reversed in Macedonia (cf. Abbott, Macedonian Folklore, p. 112). But in all these instances I am only giving what I have found to be the commonest form of the superstition in Greece as a whole.

888 Abbott, Macedonian Folklore, p. 111.

889 The word ψοφῶ is properly used only of the dying of animals.

890 ἐπέπταρε πᾶσιν ἔπεσσιν.

891 Hom. Od. XVII. 539 ff. Cf. Xenoph. Anab. III. 2. 9 and Catull. XLV. 9 and 18.

892 See above, p. 304.

893 Καμπούρογλου, Ἱστ. τῶν Ἀθηναίων, III. p. 22.

894 e.g. at the oracle of Hermes Agoraeus at Pherae the enquirer performed the whole ceremony required and obtained his response without the intervention of any priest or seer. Cf. above, p. 305.

895 See above, p. 121.

896 See above, p. 55.

897 Cf. an article by Ἀντ. Μηλιαράκης, τὸ ἐν Ἀμοργῷ Μαντεῖον τοῦ Ἁγίου Γεωργίου τοῦ Βαλσαμίτου, in Περιοδικὸν τῆς Ἑστίας, no. 411, 13th Nov. 1883.

898 Le Père Robert (Sauger), Histoire nouvelle des anciens ducs et autres souverains de l’Archipel (Paris, 1699) pp. 196–198. Cf. Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, I. pp. 281 ff.; Sonnini de Magnoncourt, Voyage en Grèce et en Turquie, vol. I. p. 290.

899 Bouché Leclercq, Hist. de la Divin. I. p. 187.

900 Pausan. III. 23. 8.

901 De sacrificiis, p. 12.

902 Ibid. cap. 2.

903 Plato, Sympos. p. 188.

904 Hom. Il. IX. 497 ff.

905 See above, pp. 322-3 and 326.

906 See above, p. 265.

907 See above, pp. 58-9.

908 Ancient offerings of this type, as found at Epidaurus, should not I think be grouped all together as thank-offerings; many of them belonged probably to the propitiatory class.

909 See above, p. 121.

910 See above, p. 145.

911 See above, p. 201.

912 Formerly (and again latterly) called Thera.

913 Le père Richard, Relation de ce qui s’est passé à Sant-Erini, p. 23.

914 Called by him ὄρος τοῦ ἁγίου Στεφάνου; but the fact that there is only this one mountain in the island and that it still has a chapel of St Stephen on it places the identification beyond all doubt.

915 This phrase as noted down by me from memory along with the rest of the story immediately after my interview is, I believe, verbally exact. The old man’s words were ἐσκεφτήκαμε λοιπὸν κι’ ἀποφασίσαμε νὰ στείλουμε ἄνθρωπο ’στὸν Ἅγι’ Νικόλα, γιὰ νά τον παρακαλέσῃ νὰ ἐπιτυχαίνουνε τὰ καράβι̯α μας στὸν πόλεμο.

916 See above, p. 55.

917 The term ὁ θεός could not have been intended to apply to St Nicolas; although the saints are practically treated as gods, they are not so spoken of. See above, pp. 42 ff.

918 Plutarch, Pelop. 21 (p. 229).

919 Porph. de Abstin. 27 and 54.

920 Tzetz. Hist. XXIII. 726 ff.

921 Cf. Πολίτης, Μελέτη, II. p. 341.

922 Ραζέλης, Μυρολόγια, p. 16. Πολίτης, Μελέτη, II. 343.

923 Popul. Carm. no. 373.

924 Ραζέλης, Μυρολόγια, p. 36. Cf. Πολίτης, Μελέτη, II. p. 342. The line runs μαντατοφόρος φρόνιμος ’ποῦ πάει ’στὸν κάτω κόσμο.

925 Eur. Hec. 422–3.

926 Verg. Aen. II. 547 sqq.

927 Diodor. Sic. V. 28.

928 e.g. Fauriel, Chants de la Grèce Moderne, Discours Prélimin. p. 39. Rennell Rodd, Customs and Lore of Mod. Greece, p. 129.

929 Dora d’Istria, Les Femmes en Orient, Bk. III. Letter 2.

930 Plutarch, Vita Solon. 20.

931 Hom. Il. XXIV. 719–775.

932 Plato, Leg. VII. p. 801.

933 An edict of the year 1662 preserved in the record-office (ἀρχαιοφυλακεῖον) of Zante was shown and interpreted to me by Mons. Λεωνίδας Χ. Ζώης, whose courtesy I wish here to acknowledge. The record-office contains much valuable material for the study of the period of Venetian supremacy in the Heptanesos.

934 Soph. Antig. 29; Eur. Hec. 30; cf. also Soph. Antig. 203–4 τάφῳ μήτε κτερίζειν, μήτε κωκῦσαί τινα, and Philoct. 360.

935 Hom. Il. XIX. 301–2.

936 Κωνστ. Κανελλάκης, Χιακὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, pp. 335–6.

937 See below, pp. 555 ff.

938 Herodot. IV. 94.

939 For the evidence see Miss Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, pp. 96 ff.

940 Cf. Paus. VIII. 38. 7 and Porphyr. de abstinentia, II. 27.

941 Paus. VIII. 2. 6 and VIII. 38. 7 and Frazer’s note ad loc.

942 Paus. VIII. 38. 7.

943 Tylor, Primitive Culture, I. p. 458.

944 Tylor, Primitive Culture, I. p. 462.

945 See above, p. 264.

946 Paus. VIII. 38. 7.

947 Schol. ad Ar. Eq. 1136 in explanation of the word δημόσιοι.

948 Tzetzes, Hist. XXIII. 726 ff. quoting Hipponax’ authority on most points.

949 Miss Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, pp. 95 f.

950 op. cit. p. 108.

951 Serv. ad Verg. Aen. III. 75 as translated by Miss Harrison, op. cit. p. 108.

952 op. cit. p. 100.

953 Luc. Nek. 7.

954 Eur. Phoen. 944.

955 op. cit. p. 100.

956 op. cit. p. 108.

957 Lysias, c. Andoc. 108. 4 as translated by Miss Harrison, op. cit. p. 97

958 Ran. 734, Equ. 1405 and fragm. 532 (from Miss Harrison, op. cit. p. 97).

959 Heard by me from a fisherman of Myconos.

960 Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, I. pp. 573 and 593.

961 The list of dialectic forms compiled by Bern. Schmidt (das Volksleben der Neugriechen, p. 158) comprises, besides that which I have adopted as in my experience the most general, the following: βουρκόλακας, βρουκόλακας, βουρκούλακας, βουλκόλακας, βουθρόλακας, βουρδόλακας, βορβόλακας. To these may be added βαρβάλακας from Syme (Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, I. 601), βουρδούλακας, from Cythnos (Βάλληνδας, Κυθνιακά, p. 125), and an occasional diminutive form such as βρυκολάκι. The κ is often doubled in spelling.

962 A plural in -οι, -ους, with accent either paroxytone or proparoxytone, also occurs.

963 De quorumdam Graecorum opinationibus, cap. 12 sqq.

964 ὁποῦ τὸν ἐγνώριζε προτίτερα, leg. ἐγνώριζαν.

965 For these memorial services (μνημόσυνα) and the appropriate funeral-meats (κόλλυβα) see below, pp. 534 ff.

966 The reference given by Allatius is to Turco-Grecia, Bk 8, but I cannot find the passage.

967 With this description compare a phrase used in a recent Athenian account of a vrykolakas, σὰν τουλοῦμι, ‘like a (distended) wine-skin,’ Πολίτης, Παραδ. I. 575.

968 See p. 339.

969 Relation de ce qui s’est passé de plus remarquable a Sant-Erini Isle de l’Archipel, depuis l’établissement des Peres de la compagnie de Jesus en icelle (Paris, MDCLVII.), cap. XV. pp. 208–226.

970 In many places at the present day it is believed that vrykolakes (and sometimes other supernatural beings) cannot cross salt water. Hence to bury (not burn) the corpse in an island is often held sufficient.

971 Some modern authorities state that Turks are believed to be more subject to become vrykolakes than Christians. Schmidt (Das Volksleben, p. 162) appears to me to overstate this point of view, which I should judge to be rarer and more local than its contrary. Even where found, it is unimportant, being a mere invention of priestcraft for purposes of intimidation. See below, pp. 400 and 409.

972 Evidently a local form of τουμπί (= τύμπανον, cf. Du Cange, Med. et infim. Graec., s.v. τυμπανίτης), with metathesis of the nasal. Cf. the word τυμπανιαῖος above.

973 To this phrase I return later.

974 leg. ἄσπρος.

975 Histoire nouvelle des anciens ducs et autres souverains de l’Archipel, pp. 255–6 (Paris, 1699).

976 Voyage du Levant, I. pp. 158 ff. (Lyon, 1717). Cf. also Salonis, Voyage à Tine (Paris, 1809), translated by Δ. Μ. Μαυρομαρᾶς, as Ἱστορία τῆς Τήνου, pp. 105 ff.

977 Paul Lucas, Voyage du Levant (la Haye, 1705), vol. II. pp. 209–210.

978 Cf. Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, I. p. 164 (Lyon, 1717).

979 Ἀντών. Βάλληνδας, Κυθνιακά, p. 125.

980 Γρηγ. Παπαδοπετράκης, Ἱστορία τῶν Σφακίων, pp. 72–3.

981 The writer points out in a note the correspondence of the number of priests who assemble for τὸ εὐχέλαιον, the anointing of the sick with oil.

982 The Cretan word used throughout this passage is καταχαν-ᾶς (plur. -ᾶδες), on which see below, p. 382.

983 διπλοσαραντίσῃ. I have given what I take to be the meaning of a popular word otherwise unknown to me.

984 Ᾱντ. Μηλιαράκης, Ὑπομνήματα περιγραφικὰ τῶν Κυκλάδων νήσων.—Ἄνδρος, Κέως, p. 56.

985 Good examples may be found in Bern. Schmidt, Märchen, etc., no. 7, and Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, I. 590 sqq.

986 The Cyclades, p. 299.

987 Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, I. p. 577.

988 Ibid., p. 578.

989 In Scyros and in Cythnos, as I have noted above, this means of riddance has given place to milder remedies. But in the former I heard of fairly recent cases of vampirism, and in the latter, according to Βάλληνδας (Κυθνιακά, p. 125), the names of several persons (including one woman) who became vrykolakes are still remembered.

990 Communicated to me by word of mouth in Maina.

991 ἑορτοπιάσματα (see above, p. 208), who are commonly regarded as subject to lycanthropy in life and continue the same predatory habits as vampires after death.

992 Bern. Schmidt, Das Volksleben, p. 162 (from Aráchova).

993 This belief belongs chiefly, in my experience, to the Cyclades.

994 Curt. Wachsmuth, Das alte Griechenland im Neuen, p. 117 (from Elis).

995 Ibid. p. 114 (from Elis). Bern. Schmidt, op. cit. p. 162 (Parnassus district). Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, I. 578 (Calávryta).

996 Das Volksleben der Neugriechen, p. 170.

997 This derivation is reviewed and rejected by Bern. Schmidt, Das Volksleben etc., p. 158.

998 Cf. Miklosich, Etym. Wörterbuch d. Slav. Spr., p. 380, s.v. *velkŭ, Old Slav., vlъkъ, wolf....
Old Slav., vlЪkodlakЪ; Slovenian, volkodlak, vukodlak, vulkodlak; Bulg., vrЪkolak; Kr., vukodlak; Serb., vukodlak; Cz., vlkodlak; Pol., wilkodłak; Little Russian, vołkołak; White Russian, vołkołak; Russian, volkulakЪ; Roum. ve̥lkolak, ve̥rkolak; Alb., vurvolak; cf. Lith., vilkakis.
‘Der vlЪkodlak ist der Werwolf der Deutschen, woraus m. Lat. guerulfus, mannwolf, der in Wolfgestalt gespenstisch umgehende Mann.’ The second half of the compound is less certainly identified with dlaka, Old Slav., New Slav., Serb., = ‘hair’ (of cow or horse).
I am indebted for this note to the kindness of Mr E. H. Minns, of Pembroke College, Cambridge. It will be found to corroborate the view pronounced by B. Schmidt, Das Volksleben der Neugriechen, p. 159.

999 Bern. Schmidt, Das Volksleben der Neugriechen, p. 160 (with note 1).

1000 Ralston, Songs of the Russian people, p. 409.

1001 Whether this word is originally Slavonic appears to be uncertain, but it is at any rate found in all Slavonic languages and is proved by the forms which it has assumed to have been in use there for fully a thousand years. This note also I owe to my friend, Mr Minns.

1002 Abbott, Macedonian Folklore, p. 217.

1003 Das Volksleben d. Neugr. p. 159.

1004 Ibid. note 2.

1005 Mannhardt’s Zeitschrift f. d. Mythol. und Sittenk. IV. 195.

1006 Les Slaves de Turquie, I. p. 69 (Paris, 1844).

1007 Cf. above, p. 183.

1008 Cf. pp. 183 and 208.

1009 In Chios at the present day the word vrykolakas is in general usage, except that in the village of Pyrgi, owing to a confusion of vrykolakes and callicantzari, a local name of the latter is applied also to the former. Cf. Κανελλάκης, Χιακὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, p. 367, and see above p. 193.

1010 Ἀντ. Βάλληνδας, Κυθνιακά, p. 125. The two words are given in the neuter plural τυμπανιαῖα and ἄλυτα, as equivalents of the word vrykolakas which, in the form βουρδούλακκας, is also employed.

1011 The periodical Πανδώρα, vol. 12, no. 278, p. 335 and vol. 13, no. 308, p. 505, cited by Schmidt, op. cit. p. 160.

1012 Schmidt, op. cit. p. 160, referring to Φιλίστωρ (periodical), III. p. 539; Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, I. p. 574.

1013 Πολίτης, ibid.

1014 Cf. above, p. 277.

1015 Βάλληνδας in Ἐφημερὶς τῶν Φιλομαθῶν, 1861, p. 1828. Schmidt interprets the word as ‘der Aufhockende,’ one who sits upon and crushes his victims, a habit sometimes ascribed to vrykolakes, but more often to callicantzari. My own interpretation has the support of many popular stories, in which, when the exhumation of a vrykolakas takes place, he is found sitting up in his tomb. See e.g. Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, I. p. 590.

1016 Cf. Χουρμούζης, Κρητικά, p. 27 (Athens, 1842); Γρηγ. Παπαδοπετράκης, Ἱστορία τῶν Σφακίων, pp. 72–3.

1017 Op. cit. p. 160.

1018 Ἄτακτα, II. p. 114.

1019 Os hians, dentes candidi, cf. above, p. 367.

1020 The word is mentioned by Newton, Travels and Discoveries in the Levant, I. p. 212. I have been unable to obtain any more recent information.

1021 Τὸ Θανατικὸν τῆς Ῥόδου (The Black Death of Rhodes), ll. 267 and 579, published in Wagner’s Medieval Greek Texts, I. p. 179 (from Schmidt, op. cit. p. 160, note 4).

1022 I have shown above (pp. 239 ff.) that in certain districts the word λυκάνθρωπος was superseded by a new Greek compound λυκοκάντζαρος; but this new term was probably always confined, as it now is, to the vocabulary of a few districts only, while the Slavonic word vrykolakas enjoyed a wider vogue.

1023 See above, p. 378.

1024 I quote my authority only for choice specimens which I have not myself heard. Variations may be found in almost any work bearing on popular speech or belief.

1025 Δελτίον τῆς Ἱστορ. καὶ Ἐθνολ. Ἑταιρίας, II. 123 (from Crete).

1026 Ibid.

1027 Ἰ. Σ. Ἀρχέλαος, Ἡ Σινασός, p. 199 (from Sinasos in Asia Minor).

1028 Christophorus Angelus, De statu hodiernorum Graecorum, cap. 25.

1029 Cf. above, p. 370.

1030 In the details of my account of this custom I follow Βάλληνδας, Κυθνιακά, pp. 113–114. But it prevails also in substantially the same form in many places besides Cythnos.

1031 I have been at some pains to make wide enquiries on this point, but have found no example.

1032 The version which I translate is No. 517 in Passow’s Popularia Carmina Graec. recent.

1033 Prof. Πολίτης has collected seventeen in a monograph entitled Τὸ δημοτικὸν ἅσμα περὶ τοῦ νεκροῦ ἀδελφοῦ (originally published in the Δελτίον τῆς Ἱστορ. καὶ Ἐθνολ. Ἑταιρίας).

1034 Πολίτης, op. cit. p. 43 (Version No. 4, ll. 18, 19).

1035 The periodical Πανδώρα, 1862, vol. 13, p. 367 (Πολίτης, op. cit. p. 66, no. 17, ll. 19, 20).

1036 Ἰ. Σ. Ἀρχέλαος, Ἡ Σινασός, p. 164 (from Sinasos in Asia Minor).

1037 I make this statement with as full confidence as can be felt in any such negation, after perusing nearly a score of versions.

1038 See above, p. 368.

1039 Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, I. p. 589.

1040 Ibid. p. 591.

1041 Goar, Eucholog. p. 685.

1042 Cf. Leo Allatius, De quor. Graecorum opinat. XIII. Balsamon, I. 569 (Migne). Epist. S. Niconis, quoted by Balsamon, II. p. 1096 (ed. Paris, 1620). Christophorus Angelus, cap. 25.

1043 S. Matthew xviii. 18.

1044 The power of excommunicating belonged to priests as well as to bishops, but they might not exercise it without their bishop’s sanction. Cf. Balsamon, I. 27 and 569 (Migne).

1045 Quoted by Leo Allatius, De quor. Graec. opinat. XIII. and XIV.

1046 The reversal of the decree of excommunication by the same person who had pronounced it was always preferred, largely as a precaution against an excommunicated person obtaining absolution too easily. Cf. Balsamon, I. 64–5 and 437 (Migne).

1047 op. cit. cap. XV. Cf. also Christophorus Angelus, Ἐγχειρίδιον περὶ τῆς καταστάσεως τῶν σήμερον εὑρισκομένων Ἑλλήνων (Cambridge, 1619), cap. 25, where is told the story of a bishop who was excommunicated by a council of his peers, and whose body remained ‘bound, like iron, for a hundred years,’ when a second council of bishops at the same place pronounced absolution and immediately the body ‘turned to dust.’

1048 According to Georgius Fehlavius, p. 539 (§ 422) of his edition of Christophorus Angelus, De statu hodiernorum Graecorum (Lipsiae, 1676), Emanuel Malaxus was the writer of a work entitled Historia Patriarcharum Constantinopolitanorum, which I have not been able to discover. It was apparently used by Crusius for his Turco-Grecia; for the story here told is narrated by him in two versions (I. 56 and II. 32, pp. 27 and 133 ed. Basle) and he alludes also (p. 151) to a story concerning Arsenios, Bishop of Monemvasia, which likewise according to Fehlavius (l.c.) was narrated by Malaxus.

1049 See below, p. 409.

1050 Christophorus Angelus (op. cit. cap. 25) vouches for the early use of this word by one Cassianus, whom he describes as Ἕλλην παλαιὸς ἱστορικός. I cannot identify this author.

1051 Du Cange, Med. et infim. Graec., s.v. τυμπανίτης.

1052 Christophorus Angelus, l.c.

1053 Matthew xviii. 18.

1054 John xx. 23.

1055 See above, p. 365.

1056 The word μνημόσυνα, which I have rendered with verbal correctness ‘memorial services,’ really implies more, and corresponds to a mass for the repose of the dead.

1057 Anastasius Sinaita, in Migne’s Patrologia Gr.-Lat., vol. 89, 279–280.

1058 i.e. the πνευματικοί, as they were called, the more discreet and ‘spiritual’ priests who alone were authorised by their bishops to discharge this function. Cf. Christophorus Angelus, op. cit. cap. 22.

1059 Κωνστ. Κανελλάκης, Χιακὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, pp. 335 and 339.

1060 On this symbol see above, pp. 112 f.

1061 Newton, Travels and Discoveries in the Levant, I. p. 212 (1865). (Cf. B. Schmidt, das Volksleben, p. 164.)

1062 Cf. Christophorus Angelus, op. cit. cap. 25 (init.).

1063 I. Cor. v. 5 and I. Tim. i. 20.

1064 Theodoretus, on I. Cor. v. 5 (Migne, Patrologia Gr.-Lat., vol. 82, 261).

1065 Aesch. Choeph., 432–3.

1066 Paus. IX. 32. 6.

1067 Philopseudes, cap. 29.

1068 See above, p. 208.

1069 Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, I. p. 576.

1070 Ralston, Songs of the Russian people, p. 412.

1071 Mirabilia, cap. I.

1072 By ‘seer’ I render μάντις, a man directly inspired; by ‘diviner’ οἰωνοσκόπος, one who is skilled in the science of interpreting signs and omens.

1073 Relation de ce qui s’est passé de plus remarquable a Sant-Erini etc., p. 213. He calls Philinnion a Thessalian girl, and makes Machates come from Macedonia. But his reference to the story contains a patent inaccuracy (for he speaks of the girl being buried a second time, whereas she was burnt), and in all probability he was quoting from memory, not from a more complete text than that now preserved.

1074 See Pashley, Travels in Crete, II. p. 221; Carnarvon, Reminiscences of Athens and the Morea, p. 162; Schmidt, das Volksleben, p. 165; Πολίτης, Παραδόσεις, I. pp. 589, 591 and 593; Βάλληνδας, Κυθνιακά, p. 125.

1075 Alardus Gazaeus, Commentary on Ioh. Cassianus, Collatio, VIII. 21 (Migne, Patrologia, Ser. I. vol. 49).

1076 On ‘striges’ see above, pp. 179 ff.

1077 On this word see above, p. 288.

1078 Das Volksleben der Neugriechen, p. 170, with note 1.

1079 Philopseudes, cap. 26.

1080 Ar. Eccles., 1072–3.

1081 See above, pp. 387-91.

1082 Eur. Or., 1086.

1083 Eur. Hipp., 1038.

1084 Soph. O. C., 1383 ff.

1085 Soph. O. C., 1405.

1086 261–297.

1087 Aesch. Choeph., 287–8.

1088 Κατὰ Ἀριστογείτονος, I. p. 788. συμπεπτωκότος is a necessary correction of the ἐμπεπτωκότος of the MSS.

1089 Cf. l. 366 μιαίνεται.

1090 Aesch. Suppl., 407 ff.

1091 Aesch. Eum., 173 ff. reading ἄλλον μιάστορ’ ἐξ ἐμοῦ.

1092 See above, p. 398.

1093 Works and Days, 325 ff.

1094 See above, p. 397.

1095 See above, p. 370.

1096 Hom. Il. XXIII. 69 ff.

1097 Hom. Od. XI. 51 ff.

1098 Eur. Hec. 1–58.

1099 Aesch. Eum. 94 ff. It must be observed, however, that Clytemnestra’s restlessness is represented as being due to her being a murderess quite as much as to her having been violently slain. There was a double cause. See below, p. 474.

1100 cap. 29.

1101 Other references are given by Schmidt, das Volksleben, p. 169, among them Servius on Virg. Aen., IV. 386 and Heliod. Aethiop., II. 5.

1102 Certain hints however are to be found, on which see below, pp. 438-9.

1103 Aesch. Choeph. 480 ff.

1104 See below, pp. 438-9.

1105 p. 81 C, D.

1106 Iliad XXIII. 65 ff.

1107 Eurip. Hecuba 1 ff.

1108 τοῦ ὁρατοῦ as opposed to τοῦ ἀειδοῦς τε καὶ Ἅιδου.

1109 See above, pp. 110 ff.

1110 See above, p. 340.

1111 Soph. El. 453–4.

1112 Aesch. Choeph. 480–1.

1113 Aesch. Ag. 455.

1114 Eur. Or. 491–541.

1115 Ibid. 580 ff.

1116 Aesch. Choeph. 924–5. Cf. also 293.

1117 Soph. El. 445.

1118 Aesch. Choeph. 439 ff.

1119 Antiphon, pp. 119, 125, and 126.

1120 Cf. below, p. 459.

1121 Plato, Leges, 865 D, παλαιόν τινα τῶν ἀρχαίων μύθων.

1122 The word δειμαίνει, which in this passage seems clearly transitive, is perhaps a verbal reminiscence of the old language in which Plato had heard the tradition.

1123 Plato, Leges, 865 D ff.

1124 Cf. Demosth., in Aristocr., pp. 634 and 643.

1125 The word technically used of this withdrawal without formal sentence of banishment was ἀπενιαυτεῖν, or simply ἐξιέναι (cf. ὑπεξελθεῖν τῷ παθόντι in the above passage of Plato), or, as again in the same passage, ἀποξενοῦσθαι; whereas legal banishment was denoted by φεύγειν.

1126 Plato, Leges, 872 D ff.

1127 In early Greek, as witness the first line of the Iliad, the use of μῆνις, was less restricted than in later times; but the word, μήνιμα even in Homer occurs only, I think, in the phrase μήνιμα θεῶν. See below, p. 449.

1128 Plato, Phaedrus, § 49, p. 244 D.

1129 Cf. especially Eur. Or. 281–2, as pointed out by Bekker in his note on Plato, Phaedrus, l.c.

1130 Aesch. Choeph. 293.

1131 Plato, Leges, 869 A (Bekker’s text); cf. also 869 E.

1132 See Aesch. Eum. 101 and 317 ff.; cf. Eur. Or. 583.

1133 Ibid. 94–139.

1134 Ibid. 417.

1135 Xenoph. Cyrop. VIII. 7, 18.

1136 Hom. Il. XXII. 358.

1137 Hom. Od. XI. 73.

1138 Pind. Pyth. IV. 280 ff.

1139 Cf. Plato, Leges, IX. passim, and especially p. 871.

1140 Cf. Aesch. Eum. 285 and 448 ff.

1141 Plato, Leges, 868 A and 871 A.

1142 Cf. Aesch. Eum. 445.

1143 Plato, Leges, 871 B.

1144 Ibid. 865 C.

1145 Cf. Plato, Leges, p. 854 A, δυσίατα καὶ ἀνίατα.

1146 Cf. Plato, Leges, 866–874, passim.

1147 Aesch. Eum. 74 ff.

1148 Aesch. Choeph. 280–1.

1149 Aesch. Choeph. 288–9.

1150 Cf. especially Aesch. Choeph. 400 ff.

1151 Aesch. Eum. 336, θανὼν δ’ οὐκ ἄγαν ἐλεύθερος.

1152 Aesch. Eum. 137–9.

1153 Ibid. 264–7.

1154 Ibid. 328 ff., and again 343 ff.

1155 This rendering of the word αὐονά has been challenged, but has the support of the Scholiast who explains it by the words ὁ ξηραίνων τοὺς βροτούς, (the hymn) which dries and withers men.

1156 The tense of ταριχευθέντα in the phrase from which I started (Choeph. 296) is hereby explained.

1157 Plato, Phaedrus, 244 E, πρός τε τὸν παρόντα καὶ τὸν ἔπειτα χρόνον.

1158 Plato’s list is ‘father, mother, brother, sister, or child,’ Leges, IX. 873 A.

1159 Plato, Leges, IX. 873 B.

1160 Cf. especially Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, I. p. 163, who was an eye-witness of such an occurrence in Myconos.

1161 Cf. Aesch. Eumen. 780 ff., and (for the withdrawal of the curse) 938 ff.

1162 Eur. Phoen. 1592 ff. The word here translated ‘avengers’ is ἀλάστορες, which is fully discussed below, pp. 465 ff.

1163 Aesch. Suppl. 262 ff., reading in 266 μηνιτὴ δάκη, the emendation of Porson.

1164 l.c. 265–6, μιάσμασιν... μηνιτή... ἀνῆκε.

1165 Aesch. Eum. 52.

1166 Aesch. Eum. 53, 137–9.

1167 Ibid. 254.

1168 Ibid. 75, 111, 131, 246–7.

1169 passim.

1170 183–4, 264.

1171 Ibid. 780 ff., 938 ff.

1172 Ibid. 644.

1173 Ibid. 70, 73, 644.

1174 Eur. Med. 1370.

1175 Aesch. Eum. 177.

1176 Soph. El. 603.

1177 Aesch. Eum. 349, reading μαυροῦμεν νέον αἷμα.

1178 Aesch. Eum. 236.

1179 L. and S. s.v.

1180 Cf. Aesch. Choeph. 1026 ff., and Eumen. passim.

1181 Cf. Preller, Griech. Mythol., I. p. 145 (edit. 4, Carl Robert).

1182 Clem. Alex. Protrept. II. § 26.

1183 Aesch. Pers. 353.

1184 This fact is recognised by Geddes in his edition of the Phaedo, in the course of his note (p. 280 ff.) on the difficulty concerning the words ἢ λόγου θείου τινὸς in cap. 33 (p. 85 D). He does not however infer that the words really contrasted are ἀλάστωρ and δαίμων, but claims for the particle ἢ an epexegetic sense (‘or, in other words,’) besides its usual disjunctive sense (‘or else’). I am far from being satisfied that the epexegetic use of ἢ existed at all in Classical Greek, which idiomatically employed καὶ in that way. At any rate its existence is not proved by the other passages which Geddes cites—Aesch. Pers. 430 and Soph. Phil. 934—where the ἢ perhaps equals vel rather than aut, but has none of the epexegetic sense of sive.

1185 Eur. Med. 1059 ff.

1186 Eur. Med. 1333 ff.

1187 Eur. H. F. 1229 ff.

1188 Cf. Paley, in his note to elucidate this dialogue. It should be added however that in a second note on the same page, dealing with this line only, he apparently contradicts his previous explanation.

1189 Eur. H. F. 1218 ff.

1190 Cf. 1324.

1191 See Eustath. on Il. IV. 295.

1192 Gk Etymol. 547.

1193 Vergleichende Grammatik, II. § 122.

1194 The nearest parallel could only be the dubious form ἀδώτης in Hesiod, W. and D., 353. But that form, if correct, is probably best treated as adjective (giftless) not as substantive (non-giver).

1195 I am indebted to Mr P. Giles, of Emmanuel College, for pointing out to me that the analogy with μιάστωρ is mentioned in the last edition of Meyer’s Griechische Philologie.

1196 Hom. Il. IV. 295, Ἀμφὶ μέγαν Πελάγοντα, Ἀλάστορά τε, Χρόμιόν τε. The hiatus in the third foot has been made the basis of a suggestion, to which Mr P. Giles has kindly called my attention, that ἀλάστωρ should begin with a digamma. There is however no need for the supposition, since hiatus after the trochaic caesura is not infrequent (e.g. Il. I. 569) and some license is generally allowed in any case in the metrical treatment of proper names; moreover, in Il. VIII. 333, we have a line δῖος Ἀλάστωρ which makes against the original existence of a digamma in the word.

1197 Aesch. Eum. 103.

1198 Aesch. Eum. 114.

1199 Aesch. Eum. 98.

1200 This is distinctly stated in the passage, though of course her own violent death might equally well have been given as a cause of ‘wandering.’

1201 Eur. Tro. 1023.

1202 Cf. Plutarch, de defect. orac., cap. 15 (p. 418).

1203 Aesch. Eum. 236, cf. above, p. 466.

1204 Soph. Ajax, 373.

1205 Demosth. de Falsa Legat., p. 438, 28.

1206 Demosth. de Corona, § 296, p. 324.

1207 Soph. Trach. 1092.

1208 e.g. Eur. Iph. in Aul. 878; Phoen. 1550; El. 979; Or. 1668.

1209 Choeph. 928.

1210 Electra, 677.

1211 Eur. Or. 1584.

1212 Eur. Andr. 614.

1213 Aeschines, De falsa legatione, § 168 (p. 49). Cf. § 162 (p. 48).

1214 Aeschylus, Agam. 1587.

1215 Plato, Leges, IX. p. 866 B, cf. above, p. 445.

1216 So far as I can discover, it is a solitary example of the use in Classical Greek; but I very strongly suspect that in Antiphon, p. 127 (init.), προστρέψομαι should be read instead of προστρίψομαι. A man accused of murder is saying, ἀδίκως μὲν γὰρ ἀπολυθεὶς, διὰ τὸ μὴ ὀρθῶς διδαχθῆναι ὑμᾶς ἀποφυγὼν, τοῦ μὴ διδάξαντος καὶ οὐχ ὑμέτερον τὸν προστρόπαιον τοῦ ἀποθανόντος καταστήσω· μὴ ὀρθῶς δὲ καταληφθεὶς ὑφ’ ὑμῶν, ὑμῖν καὶ οὐ τούτῳ τὸ μήνιμα τῶν ἀλιτηρίων προστρίψομαι. The sense is, ‘If I were really guilty of this murder and yet owing to the feeble case presented by the prosecutor I were acquitted by you, my escape would bring the Avenger of the dead man upon the prosecutor and not on you; whereas, if you condemn me wrongly when I am innocent, it will be on you and not on him that I, after death, shall turn the wrath of the Avengers.’ Clearly προστρέψομαι is required to answer προστρόπαιον, and it could have no more natural object than τὸ μήνιμα, the special word denoting the wrath which follows on bloodguilt.

1217 Photius, s.v. παλαμναῖος.

1218 I venture upon this emphatic negation, not so much because I have found no such usage in my reading of Greek literature, as because the line of the Eumenides in which Orestes calls himself ἀλάστορα, οὐ προστρόπαιον, would be hopelessly ambiguous if such an usage had been possible.

1219 Antiphon, 119. 6.

1220 Aesch. Choeph. 287.

1221 Antiphon, 125. 32 and 126. 39.

1222 Pausan. II. 18. 2.

1223 Hesychius, s.v. προστρόπαιος.

1224 Aesch. Agam. 1587; see above, p. 480.

1225 Cf. Aesch. Eum. 283 and 450.

1226 Bern. Schmidt, Lieder, Märchen, Sagen etc., Folk-song no. 33.

1227 Cf. above, p. 389.

1228 See above, p. 307, note 1, and p. 313.

1229 The feasts at earlier dates, as on the third and ninth days, will be shown later to be popular in origin. See below, pp. 530 ff.

1230 Ἰ. Σ. Ἀρχέλαος, ἡ Σινασός, p. 82.

1231 Op. cit. p. 81. The form here is σαρανταρίκια.

1232 Δελτίον τῆς ἱστορ. καὶ ἐθνολ. ἑταιρ. τῆς Ἑλλάδος, III. p. 337. The form is σαραντάρια.

1233 See above, p. 373.

1234 Soph. Antig. 256. Cf. Jebb’s note ad loc., from which I take the further references.

1235 Aelian, Var. Hist. v. 14.

1236 Aelian, Hist. Anim. v. 49.

1237 Cf. Fauriel, Chants de la Grèce Moderne, Discours Préliminaire, p. 40; Μιχαὴλ Σ. Γρηγορόπουλος, ἡ νῆσος Σύμη, p. 46.

1238 Early Age of Greece, Vol. I. cap. 7.

1239 Bury, History of Greece, p. 41.

1240 Rohde, Psyche, cap. I.

1241 Hom. Il. VI. 417 ff., XXIII. 252 ff., XXIV. 791 ff.; Od. XI. 72 ff. and XII. 11 ff.

1242 Psyche I. pp. 31–32.

1243 Cf. Lucian, De Luctu 14, ἐσθῆτα καὶ τὸν ἄλλον κόσμον συγκατέφλεξεν ἣ συγκατώρυξεν.

1244 Described in Ἐφημερὶς Ἀρχαιολ. 1889, pp. 171 ff.

1245 Described in Athen. Mittheilungen, 1893, pp. 73–191.

1246 The perusal of Philios’ narrative leaves the impression that several cases of cremation were discovered. Yet in his concluding summary he says: “Burial, not burning, of the dead was in those times the more prevalent custom, since in one case and one only can we admit that the corpse was not buried but burnt.” I note that Brückner and Pernice (op. cit. p. 149) in referring to Philios’ results tacitly soften his rigid ‘one and one only’ into the more supple ‘one or two.’ For justification of this see Philios, op. cit. pp. 178, 179, 180, 185.

1247 Hirschfeld, in Annali, 1872, pp. 135, 167, cited by Brückner and Pernice op. cit. p. 148. Κουμανούδης, in Πρακτικὰ, 1873–4, p. 17.

1248 Op. cit. pp. 91 ff.

1249 Op. cit. p. 178.

1250 Brückner and Pernice take this view of the fact, though the words which they use are coloured by their acceptance of Rohde’s theory of propitiatory offerings to the dead. ‘Vor der Beerdigung, so scheint es nach den Funden des Herrn Philios, sind an der Grabstätte des öfteren Brandopfer dargebracht worden.’ Op. cit. p. 151.

1251 See op. cit. pp. 78–9.

1252 See above, p. 347.

1253 Il. XXIV. 719 ff.

1254 Cf. Athen. Mittheil. 1893, p. 103.

1255 Plutarch, Solon 20.

1256 Lysias, Or. XII. 18, 19.

1257 Lucian, de Luctu, 12 and 13.

1258 Hom. 32 in Mat. p. 306.

1259 Preserved among the archives of Zante, which the kindness of Mr Leonidas Zoës enabled me to inspect.

1260 Psyche, I. pp. 209 and 360. From this source I draw several of the following references.

1261 Tsountas in Ἐφημερὶς Ἀρχαιολ. 1888, p. 136.

1262 Plut. Lycurg. 27.

1263 Iambl. Vit. Pythag. 154.

1264 Pliny, N. H. XXXV. 160.

1265 Dem. Orat. 43 § 71.

1266 Antig. 1201. Prof. Jebb in his note on this passage expresses the opinion that the θάλλοι νεοσπάδες were not fuel: in view of the Attic law above cited I am inclined to dissent. He also takes κλήματα in Ar. Eccles. 1031 to mean ‘olive twigs’ and not, as more usual, ‘vine-shoots.’ I pass by the passage as doubtful evidence.

1267 Ross, Arch. Aufs. I. 31.

1268 Artemid. Oneirocr. IV. 57.

1269 Herod. V. 8.

1270 Lucian, de Luctu, 21.

1271 Antiquities of the Christian Church, Bk XXIII. cap. 2, whence I take the following references.

1272 Minucius, p. 32.

1273 Acta Tharaci ap. Baron. an. 299, n. XXI., Ammian. Marcell. lib. XXII. p. 241, Euseb. lib. VIII. cap. 6.

1274 Tertull. De Anima, cap. 51.

1275 Tertull. de Resur. cap. 1.

1276 Cod. Th. lib. IX. tit. 17 de Sepulcris violatis, leg. 6.

1277 Saturnal. lib. VII. cap. 7.

1278 See Finlay, History of Greece, vol. V. pp. 274–6.

1279 Passow, Popularia Carm. Graeciae recentioris, nos. 222–224. I translate here no. 222.

1280 So I interpret, but without certainty, the words καὶ τὸ βεζύρη κάψαν, literally ‘and they burnt the Vizir.’

1281 The Liápides were an Albanian tribe employed by the Turks.

1282 No. 223.

1283 Actual data on this point are difficult to obtain; but archaeologists whom I consulted in Greece were all agreed, that lamps are more frequent in graves of late date, most frequent in the Greco-Roman period.

1284 Hieron. Vita Pauli 4, cap. 66.

1285 Chrysostom, Hom. 32 in Mat. p. 306.

1286 Cited by Durant, de Ritibus, lib. I. cap. XXIII. n. 14 (p. 235). I have been unable to discover the original passage. Cf. Bingham, op. cit. XXIII. 3.

1287 See Bingham, Antiquities of the Christian Church, Bk XXIII. cap. 3 ad fin.

1288 Κωνστ. Ν. Κανελλάκης, Χιακὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, p. 341.

1289 These lines, or others in the same tenor, are well known among the professional μυρολογίστριαις (women hired to mourn at funerals). The version which I here follow is given by Passow, Popul. Carm. no. 377 A.

Κι’ ὄντες νά με περάσουνε ψάλλοντες οἱ παπᾶδες,
Ἔβγα κρυφὰ ’π’ τὴ μάνα σου κι’ ἄναψε τρεῖς λαμπάδες·
Κι’ ὄντες νά μου τὰ σβέσουνε παπᾶδες τὰ κηριά μου,
Τότες τρανταφυλλένια μου βγαίνεις ἀπ’ τὴν καρδιά μου.

1290 Theocritus XXI. 36 f.; Athenaeus 700 D; Pausan. I. 26. 7.

1291 Frazer, in Journ. of Philol. XIV. 145 ff.

1292 Plato, Phaedo 115 C ff.

1293 Hom. Il. XXIII. 65 ff.

1294 Hom. Il. XXIII. 72.

1295 Cf. the constant contrast of αὐτὸς and ψυχή, as in Iliad I. 3–4, and twice in the passage before us, Il. XXIII. 65 f. and 106 f.

1296 Hom. Od. XI. 489 ff.

1297 Hom. Il. XVI. 857.

1298 The few inconsistencies in the Odyssey, such as the physical punishment of Tityos, Tantalos, and Sisyphos (Od. XI. 576 ff.), or again the mention of the ‘asphodel mead’ (Od. XI. 539, XXIV. 13), are unimportant. They are, I think, adventitious Pelasgian elements in the Homeric scheme of the future life, and it may be noted that the Iliad is singularly free from them, while in Odyssey, Bk XI., where they chiefly occur, they are obviously incongruous with the general conception of the lower world.

1299 See above, p. 99.

1300 Pindar, Fr. 129 (95).

1301 See above, p. 345.

1302 Πολίτης, Μελέτη, p. 407 ff.

1303 Ἐκθ. ὀρθοδοξ. πίστεως 11 (25); Migne, Patrolog. (ser. Graec.) Vol. XCIV. p. 916.

1304 Plutarch, de occult. viv. cap. 7, cited by Bergk in Lyrici Graeci, ad loc.

1305 Pind. Ol. II. 134.

1306 Pind. Ol. I. 1.

1307 νὰ δροσίσουν τὴ λαύρα τοῦ πεθαμένου.

1308 Cf. Theodore Bent, The Cyclades, p. 220.

1309 This is of course only one out of several passages in which Pindar speaks of the future life, and he does not adhere to any one doctrine; elsewhere, as in Ol. II., his views are coloured largely by Pythagorean or Orphic eschatology, although there is a close resemblance between the isles of the blest there described (126–135) and the abode depicted in this fragment.

1310 Hom. Il. IX. 632 ff.

1311 Herod. II. 51.

1312 Herod. II. 171.

1313 Aristoph. Frogs, 884.

1314 Op. cit. 1032 ff.

1315 A conspicuous example is Delphi, where the Achaean god Apollo had usurped the place of some oracular deity of the Pelasgians, cf. Plutarch, de defect. orac. cap. 15 p. 418. See Miss Harrison, Proleg. to the Study of Greek Religion, pp. 113 f.

1316 Il. XXIII. 104.

1317 Il. XXIII. 101.

1318 Plato, Phaedo, cap. 29 (p. 80 D).

1319 Cf. Κωνστ. Ν. Κανελλάκης, Χιακὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, p. 341.

1320 Rohde (Psyche I. cap. 1) contends that the discovery of an altar, of the type used in the worship of Chthonian deities, superimposed upon one Mycenaean grave, proves both that offerings to the dead were continued after the interment and also that the offerings were of a propitiatory character. On this slight foundation he rears the edifice of his theory that a vigorous soul-cult flourished in Mycenaean and earlier ages. Accordingly he views all gifts to the dead, including those made at the time of the funeral, as offerings intended to propitiate departed souls, although he is forced to admit that from the Homeric age onwards there is no evidence that fear of the dead was a feature of Greek religion; the offerings made, on his view, to the soul of Patroclus were merely, he holds, a ‘survival,’ a custom no longer possessed of any meaning. The accident of an altar belonging to some Chthonian deity having been found above the grave of some man seems to me insufficient basis for any theory.

1321 The blood which in the Odyssey is used to attract the souls of the dead and is given to Teiresias to drink forms, I imagine, part of a magic rite, which has no connexion with the present point.

1322 I omit the twelve Trojan prisoners; the slaughter of these is clearly stated to have been an act of revenge. See Il. XXIII. 22 f.

1323 Il. XXIII. 50.

1324 Φίλιος, in Ἐφημερὶς Ἀρχαιολ. 1889, p. 183. Possibly also at Athens, cf. Brückner and Pernice, in Athen. Mittheil. 1893, pp. 89–90.

1325 I am not overlooking the fact that ἐναγίσματα were also made to Chthonian deities (cf. Pausan. VIII. 34. 3), but there was a distinction in character even between these ἐναγίσματα and those made to the dead. Wine, for example, was excluded from the former and included in the latter. Possibly in origin ἐναγίζειν was the Pelasgian rite, θύειν the Achaean.

1326 Lysist. 611.

1327 Menecl. 46 and Ciron 55 (p. 73. 26).

1328 Ctesiphon, 226 (p. 86. 5).

1329 Pollux VIII. 146; Harpocrat. s.v. τριακάς.

1330 Herod. IV. 26.

1331 Artem. Oneirocr. IV. 83.

1332 loc. cit.

1333 Bingham, Antiq. of Christian Church, Bk 23, cap. 3.

1334 See Chrysostom, Homily 47 in 1 Cor., p. 565.

1335 Anastasius, Quaestio XXII., in Migne, Patrolog. Graeco-Lat. Vol. LXXXIX. 288.

1336 Known also as τὸ ζεστόν (‘the warming’) according to Bybilakis, Neugriech. Leben, p. 67.

1337 According to Bybilakis, loc. cit., in the dead man’s house. This, naturally, would be the usual case.

1338 p. 321. 25.

1339 Hence it is probable that the ancient περίδειπνον also was conducted on the principle of the ἔρανος.

1340 Hom. Il. XXIII. 170. Cf. also the use of μελίκρατον, Hom. Od. XI. 27, and Eur. Or. 115. Cf. also Aesch. Pers. 614.

1341 Ar. Lys. 599 ff.

1342 In some villages of Chios, the diminutive ψυχοπῆττι or a word ψύτση is used (Κωνστ. Κανελλάκης, Χιακὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, p. 337). The commoner form ψυχόπηττα is that of Crete (cf. Bybilakis, op. cit. p. 69), Kasos, and other Asiatic islands (Πρωτόδικος, περὶ τῆς παρ’ ἡμῖν ταφῆς, p. 17) etc.

1343 See above, pp. 486-7.

1344 Called respectively τρίμερα, ἐννι̯άμερα, and σαράντα.

1345 Sonnini de Magnoncourt, Voyage en Grèce et en Turquie, Vol. II. p. 153.

1346 Eur. Or. 109.

1347 Cf. Suidas s.v. κόλυβα, σῖτος ἑψητός. The spelling with λλ is preferable.

1348 The classical meaning of κόλλυβα was ‘small coins.’ The scholiast on Aristoph. Plut. 768 mentions κόλλυβα among the καταχύσματα thrown over a new slave on his introduction to the household. These consisted mainly of sweetmeats, etc. (cf. op. cit. 798) whence apparently Hesychius (s.v. κόλλυβα) explains that word by τρωγάλια. More probably small coins were thrown along with various sweetmeats; for the kindred custom of throwing καταχύσματα over a bride on her entry into her new home has continued down to the present day, and these certainly now comprise small change as well as sticky edibles.

1349 Gregorovius, Wanderings in Corsica, etc. (tr. Muir), II. p. 46.

1350 Πρωτόδικος, περὶ τῆς παρ’ ἡμῖν ταφῆς, p. 17. Ἰ. Σ. Ἀρχέλαος, ἡ Σινασός, p. 92.

1351 Cf. Bybilakis, Neugriechisches Leben, p. 67.

1352 Plutarch, Vita Solon. cap. 21.

1353 Thucyd. III. 58. 4.

1354 See above, p. 345.

1355 This occurred in old time in the case of heroes, whose offerings are called ἐναγίσματα and χοαί, like those of other dead men; but since the state and not the individual provided for them, the gifts were made not for a time only, but regularly year after year.

1356 See above, pp. 487 f.

1357 As opposed, in correct speech, to νεκροταφεῖον, the place of preliminary interment. But the two terms are often confused.

1358 Il. XI. 241.

1359 Hes. W. and D. 116.

1360 e.g. Hom. Il. XVI. 454 and 672; XIV. 231.

1361 Hes. Theog. 212, 756.

1362 See Preller, Griech. Myth. I. 690 ff.

1363 Paus. V. 18. 1. Cf. III. 18. 1.

1364 Passow, Popul. Carm. CCCXCVI.

1365 Hom. Od. XXIV. 1.

1366 Virg. Aen. IV. 242 ff.

1367 See above, pp. 96 ff. and pp. 134 ff.

1368 Paus. VIII. 2. 5.

1369 Paus. ibid. § 4.

1370 Passow, Pop. Carm. no. 364.

1371 Passow, Pop. Carm. no. 374.

1372 The word χαρὰ, (‘joy’), as I have pointed out elsewhere, is indeed often used technically of marriage.

1373 Passow, Pop. Carm. no. 38 (ll. 13–18) and also nos. 65, 152, 180.

1374 See above, pp. 255 ff.

1375 Abbott, Macedon. Folklore, p. 255.

1376 Passow, Pop. Carm. no. 370. The phrase κάνει χαρὰ, which I have inadequately rendered as ‘maketh glad,’ is technically used of marriage. See above, p. 127.

1377 For authorities see Lobeck, Aglaoph. I. pp. 76 ff.

1378 Soph. Antig. 574–5. I do not know how much stress may be laid on the repetition of the pronoun ὅδε in these two lines (viz. στερήσεις τῆσδε and τούσδε τοὺς γάμους); but the lines follow closely on that in which Creon bids Ismene speak no more of Antigone as ἥδε, and an ironical stress might well be laid by Creon on the word τούσδε as he uses it, which would suggest to his audience its antithesis τοὺς ἐκεὶ γάμους.

1379 Soph. Antig. 804–5.

1380 ibid. 810–16.

1381 ibid. 891–2.

1382 ibid. 1203–7.

1383 ibid. 1240–1.

1384 Pindar, Fragm. 139 (Bergk).

1385 Aesch. Prom. 940 ff.

1386 Oneirocr. II. 49. The word τέλη denotes here not merely a ‘rite,’ but a ‘consummation’ by which a man becomes τέλειος. See below, p. 591.

1387 ibid. I. 80. To translate the passage more fully is not convenient; I append the original: θεῷ δὲ ἢ θεᾷ μιγῆναι ἢ ὑπὸ θεοῦ περανθῆναι νοσοῦντι μὲν θάνατον σημαίνει· τότε γὰρ ἡ ψυχὴ τὰς τῶν θεῶν συνόδους τε καὶ μίξεις μαντεύεται, ὅταν ἐγγὺς ᾖ τοῦ καταλιπεῖν τὸ σῶμα ᾧ ἐνοικεῖ.

1388 ibid. II. 65.

1389 Oneirocr. II. 49.

1390 The majority of the references to ancient usage given below are borrowed from Becker’s Charicles.

1391 Thuc. II. 15.

1392 Eur. Phoen. 347.

1393 Aeschines, Epist. X. p. 680.

1394 Cf. Pollux, III. 43.

1395 Soph. Antig. 901.

1396 De Luctu, 11.

1397 Abbott, Macedonian Folklore, p. 193.

1398 For a discussion of this point see Becker, Charicles pp. 483–4.

1399 Harpocrat. s.v. λουτροφόρος. ἔθος δὲ ἦν καὶ τοῖς ἀγάμοις ἀποθανοῦσι λουτροφορεῖν, καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ μνῆμα ἐφίστασθαι. τοῦτο δὲ ἦν παῖς ὑδρίαν ἔχων. The same words are repeated by Photius and Suidas. With ἐφίστασθαι it appears necessary to supply λουτροφόρον. Cf. Pollux VIII. 66 τῶν δ’ ἀγάμων λουτροφόρος τῷ μνήματι ἐφίστατο, κόρη ἀγγεῖον ἔχουσα ὑδροφόρον.... For other references see Becker, Charicles p. 484. This information, as regards the emblem used, is held to be incorrect. The λουτροφόρος was not a boy bearing a pitcher, but the pitcher itself. See Frazer, Pausanias, vol. v. p. 388.

1400 For this view see Frazer, Pausanias, vol. v. p. 389. ‘It may be suggested that originally the custom of placing a water-pitcher on the grave of unmarried persons... may have been meant to help them to obtain in another world the happiness they had missed in this. In fact it may have been part of a ceremony designed to provide the dead maiden or bachelor with a spouse in the spirit land. Such ceremonies have been observed in various parts of the world by peoples, who, like the Greeks, esteemed it a great misfortune to die unmarried.’

1401 Plut. 529.

1402 Cf. Lucian, de Luctu 11.

1403 For a discussion of the point in relation to funerals see Becker, Charicles pp. 385 f. and in relation to marriage pp. 486 f.

1404 Lucian, de Luctu 11.

1405 I. 6.

1406 Cf. Passow, Popul. Carm. Graec. Recent. no. 415, and Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, I. p. 153, who describes a dead woman, whose funeral he witnessed, as ‘parée à la Gréque de ses habits de nôces.’

1407 Passow, Popul. Carm. 378.

1408 Charicles p. 487.

1409 Lucian, de Luctu 11. Aristoph. Lysist. 602 etc.

1410 The influence of the Church was against the use of garlands in early times and perhaps suppressed it in some districts. Cf. Minucius, p. 109 ‘Nec mortuos coronamus. Ergo vos (the heathen) in hoc magis miror, quemadmodum tribuatis exanimi aut [non] sentienti facem aut non sentienti coronam: cum et beatus non egeat, et miser non gaudeat floribus.’ The first non is clearly to be deleted.

1411 Cf. Abbott, Macedonian Folklore, p. 193.

1412 Cf. ibid. p. 197.

1413 Hom. Hymn. in Demet. 372 ff. Hence the pomegranate was treated as ‘an accursed thing’ in the worship of Demeter at Lycosura, Paus. VIII. 37. 7.

1414 Paus. II. 17. 4.

1415 See above, p. 548.

1416 See above, p. 80.

1417 The following references are in the main taken from Lobeck, Aglaophamus.

1418 Soph. Fragm. 719 (Dind.).

1419 Hom. Hymn. ad Cer. 480 ff.

1420 Pind. Fragm. 137 (Bergk).

1421 Id. Fragm. 129. See above, p. 518.

1422 Aristoph. Ranae 440–459.

1423 Isocr. Paneg. p. 46.

1424 Aglaoph. I. p. 70.

1425 περὶ εἰρήνης, p. 166.

1426 Aristid. Eleusin. 259 (454).

1427 Julian. Or. VII. 238. The same story in similar words recurs in Diog. Laert. VI. 39 and Plut. de Aud. Poet. II. p. 21 F.

1428 Crinagoras, Ep. XXX.

1429 Cic. de Leg. II. § 36.

1430 Mathem. I. p. 18, ed. Buller.

1431 Aglaoph. I. pp. 39 f.

1432 See Lobeck, Aglaoph. I. pp. 6 ff.

1433 Diodorus, v. 77. Cf. Miss Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 567.

1434 For references on this point, see Lobeck, Aglaophamus, I. 14 ff.

1435 For the evidence that the Achaeans adopted the language of the Pelasgians, and not vice versâ, see Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece, vol. I. p. 631 ff.

1436 Protrept. § 55.

1437 Hom. Il. I. 221 f.

1438 Euseb. Demonstr. Evang. V. 1, 268 E.

1439 Praep. Evang. XV. 1, 788 C.

1440 Προτρεπτ. § 61.

1441 Synes. de Prov. II. 124 B.

1442 Cf. Artemid. Oneirocr. Bk III. cap. 61.

1443 In Thera, as I myself witnessed, and until recently at Delphi. Greeks with whom I have spoken of this custom have often seen or heard of it somewhere.

1444 I regret that my notes contain no mention of my informant’s name. I must apologise to him for the omission.

1445 Asterius, Encom. in SS. Martyr. in Migne, Patrolog. Graeco-Lat. vol. XL. p. 324.

1446 Adv. Valentin. cap. I.

1447 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. IV. 11. Cf. Sainte-Croix, Recherches sur les Mystères, 2nd ed., I. p. 366.

1448 loc. cit.

1449 [Origen] Philosophumena, p. 115 (ed. Miller), p. 170 (ed. Cruice). Cf. Miss J. Harrison, Proleg. to Study of Gk Relig. p. 549.

1450 Clem. Alex. Protrept. II. 18.

1451 Dieterich, Eine Mithras-Liturgie, p. 125, cited by Miss J. Harrison, Proleg. to Study of Gk Relig. p. 155, note 3.

1452 Hesiod, Theog. 970 f. Cf. Hom. Od. V. 125.

1453 Theocr. Id. III. 49 ff. (A. Lang’s translation).

1454 Plutarch, de fac. in orb. lun. 28, cited by Miss Harrison, Proleg. to Study of Gk Relig. p. 267.

1455 See above, pp. 91 f. and 96 ff.

1456 Theocr. Id. III. 46 ff.

1457 Protrept. § 14.

1458 Theocr. Id. XV. 86.

1459 Orph. Hymn. LVI.; Bion, Id. I. 5. 54; Lucian, Dial. deor. XI. 1; Macrob. Saturn. I. 21; Procop. in Esai. XVIII. p. 258. Cf. Lenormant, Monogr. de la voie sacrée éleusin., where many other references are given.

1460 Dem. Κατὰ Νεαίρας, pp. 1369–1371 et passim. Cf. Arist. Ἀθην. Πολ. 3.

1461 Etymol. Mag. 227. 36.

1462 Hesych. s.v. γεραραί.

1463 See above, pp. 339 ff.

1464 Plutarch, de defectu orac. cap. 14 (p. 417).

1465 See above, p. 139.

1466 Not so, however, to Artemidorus. Cf. Oneirocr. I. 80.

1467 Protrept. § 34.

1468 l. c.

1469 Protrept. § 16.

1470 Theophr. Char. 28 (ed. Jebb).

1471 l. c.

1472 Clem. Alex. Protrept. II. 15.

1473 The cymbal certainly belonged to Demeter also (see Miss Harrison, op. cit. p. 562) but not, I think, the kettle-drum.

1474 Psellus (Quaenam sunt Graecorum opiniones de daemonibus, 3, ed. Migne) refers the formulary to the rites of Demeter and Kore. But I cannot agree with Miss J. Harrison (Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 569) as to the importance of Psellus’ testimony in any respect. He appears to me to give no more than a résumé of information derived from Clement’s Protreptica, misunderstood and even more confused.

1475 Paus. II. 17. 3.

1476 Miss J. Harrison, op. cit. p. 536, commenting on Philosophumena, ed. Cruice, v. 3.

1477 A title under which both Zeus and Hermes were known; see Aristoph. Pax, 42, and Schol. ibid. 649.

1478 Clem. Alex. Protrept. § 54.

1479 Athen. VI. p. 253 A. Shortly afterwards he quotes a song (253 D) in which it is the name of Demeter which is coupled with that of Demetrius.

1480 Athen. VI. 253 A, and 261 B.

1481 Glycon was Alexander’s new god, a re-incarnation of Asclepius, born in the form of a snake out of an egg discovered by Alexander.

1482 A superstitious old Roman entrapped by Alexander.

1483 Lucian, Alexander seu Pseudomantis, cap. 38–39 (II. 244 ff.).

1484 See Miss J. Harrison, op. cit. pp. 549 ff.

1485 Paton, Inscr. of Cos, 386, cited by Rouse, Greek Votive Offerings, p. 246.

1486 Plutarch, Conjug. Praec. ad init.

1487 Schol. ad Soph. Antig. 1241.

1488 Photius, Lex. Rhet. Vol. II. p. 670 (ed. Porson), cited by Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, I. p. 245.

1489 For the chief references, see Farnell, loc. cit.

1490 Farnell, op. cit. p. 191.

1491 Diod. Sic. V. 73; Pollux III. 38. Cf. Farnell, op. cit. p. 246.

1492 Pollux, l. c. ταύτῃ (τῇ Ἤρᾳ) τοῖς προτελείοις προὐτέλουν τὰς κόρας.

1493 Cf. Plutarch, Amator. Narrat. 1, where the girls of Haliartus are said to have bathed themselves in the spring Cissoessa immediately before making the sacrifices just mentioned, and evidently as part of the same ritual.

1494 [Aeschines] Epist. 10, p. 680.

1495 Chariton IV. 4.

1496 Gorgias, p. 493 B.

1497 Frazer, ad Pausan. X. 31. 9 (vol. v. p. 389).

1498 I cannot pretend to have gone into the whole literature of the subject, but I find no reference to this passage either in Dr Frazer’s Pausanias, l. c., or in Miss Harrison’s Proleg. to Study of Gk Relig. pp. 614 ff., where the same topic is fully discussed.

1499 Lucian, Dial. Marin. 6. 3.

1500 Eustath. ad Hom. Il. XXIII. 141.

1501 Anthol. Pal. VII. 507.

1502 For other examples see Lenormant, Monographie de la voie sacrée éleusinienne, pp. 50 f., where also the above example is quoted.

1503 Auson. Epitaph. no. 33.

1504 Prolegomena to Study of Gk Religion, pp. 573 ff.

1505 op. cit. p. 586; Kaibel, C.I.G.I.S., 641.

1506 See above, p. 586.

1507 See above, p. 586.

1508 See above, p. 589.

1509 I am forced by these considerations to dissent from Miss Harrison’s view as expressed op. cit. p. 594, ‘Here the symbolism seems to be of birth rather than of marriage,’ and again ‘this rite of birth or adoption...’: and indeed this view seems hardly to tally with that which she suggests later (p. 600), “Burial itself may well have been to them (the Pythagoreans) as to Antigone a mystic marriage: ‘I have sunk beneath the bosom of Despoina, Queen of the Underworld.’”

1510 Furtwängler, Die Idee des Todes, p. 293.

1511 See above, p. 585.

1512 Plutarch, Sympos. IV. 5. 3.

1513 Aristoph. Aves, 1737.

1514 Cf. Schol. ad Aristoph. l. c.

1515 This, I am aware, is not an unique case. Plato applies the same epithet to the gods as a whole, but above all to Eros, clearly, I think, with something of the same significance. See Plato, Sympos. § 21, p. 195 A.

1516 Cf. Theo Smyrnaeus, Math. I. 18; Aristid. Eleusin. p. 415; Plato, Phaedrus, p. 48.

1517 Lenormant, Monographie de la voie sacrée éleusinienne, p. 54.

1518 l. c.

1519 For a long list of such monuments dealing with the story of Persephone, see Clarac, Musée de Sculpt. anc. at mod.—‘Bas-reliefs Grecs et Romains,’ pp. 209–10.

1520 Monographie de la voie sacrée éleusinienne, p. 56.

1521 Aristoph. Aves, 1737.

1522 Soph. Antig. 787 ff.

1523 Pind. Nem. VI. init.

1524 Plato, Phaedo, cap. 32, p. 82 B, C.

1525 See Geddes’ notes ad loc.

1526 For other evidence confirming this view, see Geddes’ notes ad loc.

1527 Plutarch, de defect. orac. cap. 10, p. 415.

1528 Plato, Symp. § 7, p. 180.

1529 ibid. § 15, p. 188.

1530 ibid. § 19, p. 193.