Chapter II. The Anthesteria

'Bring out a ewe, boys, bring a black-fleeced ewe, Here's a typhoon that's just about to burst.' Winds were underworld gods, but when propitious they had a strong and natural tendency to become Ouranian, and the white sacrifices with intent to compel their beneficence would help this out. They are an exact parallel to the black and white Eumenides already noted. Virgil 3 says: 'To Storm a black sheep, white to the favouring West.' p. 68 Equally instructive is the account given by Pausanias 1 of the ceremonies performed at Titane to soothe the winds, though with his customary vagueness Pausanias describes them by the word θύειν when they are really ἐναγισμοί. They are performed on one night in each year, and Pausanias adds, the priest also 'does secret ceremonies into four pits,' soothing the fury of the winds, and he chants over them, as they say, Medea's charms. Each of the four winds dwelt, it is clear, as a chthonic power, in a pit; his sacrifice was after the fashion of heroes and ghosts. It is possible, indeed probable, that the pits were in connection with the tomb of some hero or heroine. The sacrifice of Iphigeneia was παυσάνεμος 2, with power to stay the winds; that of Polyxena at the tomb of Achilles bad the like virtue. Be that as it may, it will be seen when we come to demonology that the winds were regarded as ghosts, as breaths: as such their cult was necessarily chthonic.

Another of their functions σφάγια share with the ordinary animal-sacrifices, the ἱερεῖα. Like the ἱερεῖα they could be used for purposes of divination. Used as they were for purification in any great emergency, mere economy may have suggested that they should be further utilized for oracular purposes. The greater solemnity of σφάγια would lend to the omens taken from them a specially portentous virtue 3. It is amusing to find that even Porphyry 4, averse though he is to human sacrifice, still seems to feel a dim possibility that for mantic purposes human entrails may have special virtue. 'But it will be urged,' he says, as though stating a possible and reasonable argument, 'that the future may be more clearly' divined from the vitals of a man.' Precise authors who know about ritual always distinguish between the omens taken from ordinary animal sacrifice and those from σφάγια. Thus Xenophon 5 in the Anabasis says, The sacrifices (ἱερεῖα) are propitious to us, the omens favourable, the σφάγια most propitious.' The practice of using σφάγια for omens p. 69 before a battle would seem to have been uniform. When women, says Eteocles 1, are wailing and making a commotion, it is the part of men 'To slay the victims, take therefrom the omens Before the gods, at the onset of the foe.' It is probably to this oracular function of σφάγια that we owe the very frequent use of the middle σφαγιάζεσθαι, as in the parallel case of θύειν, the sacrifice by fire. For θύειν, and θύεσθαι the distinction is familiar, and expressly stated by Ammonius 2: 'of those who simply sacrifice (active) the victims the word θύουσι is used, of those who take omens from the entrails θύονται.' The active is of the nature of thanksgiving, the middle partakes of prayer and impulsion. In the case of σφάγια the active is very rarely in use, and naturally, for the sacrifice of σφάγια has in it no element of thanksgiving 3.

The ritual then of σφάγια and of ἐναγισμοί, of slaughter and of purification, is based on the fear of ghosts, of ghosts and their action on living men, whether as evil winds, or for dread portents, or for vengeance on the broken oath, or, first and foremost, for the guilt of shed blood. Its essence is of ἀποτροπή, aversion. Nowhere perhaps is this instinct of aversion so clearly seen, seen in a form where the instinct has not yet chilled and crystallized into definite ritual, as in the account of the murder of Absyrtos by Jason and Medea as given by Apollonius Rhodius 4. The murder was by a treacherous ambuscade set for Absyrtos at the threshold p. 70 of the temple of Artemis; Jason smites him like a bull for sacrifice, while Medea stands by. 'So by that portal old kneeling he fell, And while the last of life yet sobbed and passed, Craving, clasped both hands to the wound, to hold The dark blood back. But the blood reached, and sprang, And, where the veilèd woman shuddered from him, Lay red on the white robe and the white veil. Then swift a sidelong eye, a pitiless eye, The Erinys all subduing, that knoweth Sin, Awoke, and saw what manner of deed was there. And Aeson's son smote from that sacrifice Red ravine, and three times ravined with his mouth Amid the blood, and three times from him spewed That horror of sin; as men that slay by guile Use, to make still the raging of the dead.'

Use, to make still the raging of the dead.' Apollonius tries to make a ritual of the awful instinct of physical fear. The body is mangled that the angry ghost may be maimed, the blood actually licked up that the murderer may spit it forth and rid himself of the fell pollution. Only then can the corpse be safely buried 1. But it is too late, for Absyrtos has put the blood upon Medea. Clytaemnestra, when she murdered Agamemnon, followed the same horrid practice of 'aversion.' Sophocles 2 makes Electra say: 'She lopped his limbs as though he were a foe And for libations wiped upon his head The blood stains.' By the time of Apollonius the Erinys is no longer the actual ghost but a separate spirit of vengeance, and even the primitive ritual of aversion is explained as a sort of tendance; the lopped limbs are ἐξάργματα, first beginnings, a sort of hideous sacrifice to the murdered man rather than mainly the means of maiming p. 71 him 1. But the scholiast 2 on the Electra clearly explains the gist of the ceremonial. He says these things were done 'as taking away the force of the dead so that later they may suffer nothing fearful from them.' It may perhaps be felt that such instances are purely mythological, and that fear of the ghost had wholly waned in historical times. The horrid practice of mutilation no doubt fell into abeyance, but the fear of the ghost and the sense that purification from guilt could only be obtained by direct appeal to the ghost itself lived on.

It may perhaps be felt that such instances are purely mythological, and that fear of the ghost had wholly waned in historical times. The horrid practice of mutilation no doubt fell into abeyance, but the fear of the ghost and the sense that purification from guilt could only be obtained by direct appeal to the ghost itself lived on. The case of Pausanias gives curious evidence as to the procedure of an educated murderer of the fifth century B.C. Pausanias 3 the traveller tells how his namesake sought protection from the Goddess of the Brazen House, but failed because he was defiled by blood. This pollution he tried by every possible means to expiate: he had recourse to purifications of all kinds, he made supplication to Zeus Phyxios, a being obviously akin to Meilichios--and he resorted to the Psychagogi, the Ghost-Compellers of Phigalia. They seem to have failed, for Plutarch 4 tells us he sent to Italy for experts, and they, after they had done sacrifice, wrenched the ghost out of the sanctuary. The historical case of Pausanias is exactly parallel to that of the mythological Orestes. Man expects that the dead man will behave as he would behave were he yet living--pursue him for vengeance; the ghost is an actual, almost physical reality. It needed a Euripides to see that this ghost was a purely subjective horror, a disordered conscience. He makes Menelaos ask the mad Orestes 5:

The historical case of Pausanias is exactly parallel to that of the mythological Orestes. Man expects that the dead man will behave as he would behave were he yet living--pursue him for vengeance; the ghost is an actual, almost physical reality. It needed a Euripides to see that this ghost was a purely subjective horror, a disordered conscience. He makes Menelaos ask the mad Orestes 5: 'What dost thou suffer? What disease undoes thee?' and Orestes makes answer: 'Conscience, for I am conscious of fell deeds.' p. 72 Anthropomorphism is usually regarded as a humane trait in Greek religion; it is noted as a thing distinguishing their cultus from the animal worship of less civilized nations. But anthropomorphism, as is clearly seen in ghost-worship, looks both ways. To be human is not necessarily to be humane. Man is cruel and implacable, and he makes the ghost after his own image. Man is also foolish and easily tricked, so he plays tricks upon the vengeful ghost, cheating him of his real meed of the murderer's or kinsman's blood. Hence the surrogate victims, hence the frequent substitution stories. Another element enters in. The gods, and specially the ghost-gods, are conservative; man gets in advance of the gods he has made, and is ashamed of the rites he once performed with complete confidence in their rightness. Then he tries by a cheat to reconcile his new view and his old custom. Religion, which once inspired the best in him, lags behind, expressing the worst.

Suidas 1 tells a story which curiously expresses this state of transition, this cheating of the god to save the conscience of the worshipper. The Greeks had a proverb, Ἔμβαρός εἰμι, 'I am Embaros,' which they used, according to Suidas, of a 'sharp man with his wits about him,' and, according to one of the collectors of proverbs, of those who 'gave a false impression, i.e. were out of their minds.' The origin of the proverb was as follows: There was a sanctuary of Artemis at Munychia. A bear came into it and was killed by the Athenians. A famine followed, and the god gave an oracle that the famine should cease if some one would sacrifice his daughter to the goddess. Embaros was the only man who promised to do it, on condition that he and his family should have the priesthood for life. He disguised his daughter and hid her in the sanctuary, and 'dressed a goat in a garment and sacrificed it as his daughter.' The story is manifestly aetiological, based on a ritual with a hereditary priesthood, and the sacrifice of a surrogate goat dressed as a woman. It is probable, though not certain, that behind the figure of the Olympian Artemis, of the goddess who was kindly to lions' cubs and suckling whelps,' there lay the cult of some vindictive ghost or heroine who cried for human blood. In moments of great peril p. 73 this belief in the vindictiveness of ghosts, a belief kept in check by reason in the day-time, might surge up in a man's mind and haunt his dreams by night. Plutarch 1 tells an instructive story about a dream that came to Pelopidas before the battle of Leuctra. Near the field of battle was a field where were the tombs of the daughters of Scedasos, a local hero. The maidens, who were obviously local nymphs, were called from the place Leuctrides. The night before the battle, as Pelopidas was sleeping in his tent, he had a vision which 'caused him no small disturbance.' He thought he saw the maidens crying at their tombs and cursing the Spartans, and he saw Scedasos their father bidding him sacrifice to his daughters a maiden with auburn hair if he wished to overcome his enemies on the morrow. Being a humane as well as a pious man, the order seemed to him a strange and lawless one. but none the less he told the soothsayers and the generals about it. Some of them thought that it ought not to be neglected, and brought forward as precedents the ancient instances of Menoiceus, son of Creon, and Macaria, daughter of Herakles, and, in more recent times, the case of Pherecydes the philosopher, who was put to death by the Spartans and whose skin was preserved (no doubt as 'medicine') by their kings in accordance with an oracle; also the case of Leonidas, who sacrificed himself for Greece; and, lastly, the human victims sacrificed to Dionysos Omestes before the battle of Salamis, all which cases had the sanction of success. Moreover, they pointed out, Agesilaus, when he was about to set sail from Aulis itself, had the same vision as Agamemnon, and disregarding it through misplaced tenderness, came to grief in consequence. The more advanced section of the army used the argument of the fatherhood of God and the superior nature of the supreme deities; such sacrifices were only fit for Typhons and Giants and inferior and impotent demons. Pelopidas, while they were discussing the question in the abstract, only got more and more uncomfortable, when on a sudden a she-colt got loose from the herd and ran through the camp; the laymen present only admired her shining red coat, her proud paces and shrill neighing, but Theocritus the soothsayer saw the thing in his heart, and cried aloud to Pelopidas, 'Happy man, here is the sacred victim, wait for no

p. 74 other maiden, use the one the god has given thee.' And they took the colt and led her to the tombs of the maidens, and prayed and wreathed her head and cut her throat and rejoiced and published the vision of Pelopidas and the sacrifice to the army. Whether Plutarch's story is matter of fact or not is of little moment; it was felt to be probable, or else it would never have been narrated. I have purposely dwelt on the dark side of ἐναγισμοί, of the service of the placation of ghosts, because in the vengeance of the ghost exacted for bloodshed lies the kernel of the doctrine of purification. But since man's whole activity is not bounded by revenge, ghosts have other and simpler needs than that of vengeance. The service of the underworld is not all aversion, there is also some element of tendance. In the vase-painting in fig. 9, a design from a rather late Click to enlarge FIG. 9. red-figured krater in the Bibliothèque Nationale 1 in Paris, we have a representation of a familiar scene, the raising of the ghost of p. 75 [paragraph continues] Teiresias by Odysseus, as described in the Nekuia. Vase-paintings of this date tend to be rather illustrations than independent conceptions, but they sometimes serve the purpose of vivid presentation. Odysseus 1 has dug the trench, he has poured the drink-offering of mead and sweet wine and water, and sprinkled the white meal, and he has slain the sheep; the head and feet of one of them, seemingly a black ram, are visible above the trench. He has sat him down sword in hand to keep off the throng of lesser ghosts, and he and his comrades wait the up-rising of Teiresias. Out of the very trench is seen emerging the bald ghost-like head of the seer. This is a clear case, not of deprecation but of invocation. Teiresias by the strength of the black blood returns to life. There is a clear reminiscence of the ghost-raising 2 that went on at many a hero's tomb, for, as will later be seen in the discussion of hero-worship, every hero was apt to be credited with mantic powers. The victims slain are in a sense, as Homer calls them, ἱερήια; they are sacrificed and eaten, but eaten by a ghost. As such they have been accompanied by offerings that could only be intended for drink-offerings, not the ἀπόνιμμα, the offscourings, but libations of mead and wine and pure water. Here again the ghost is made in the image of man: the Homeric hero drinks wine in his life and demands it after his death. The service of the dead is here very near akin to that of the Olympians; it is no grim atonement, but at worst a bloody banquet, at best a human feast, too human, too universal to need detailed elucidation. It is a ritual founded on a belief deep-rooted and long-lived; with the Greeks it was alive in Lucian's 3 days. Charon asks Hermes why men dig a trench, and burn expensive feasts, and pour wine and honey into a trench. Hermes answers that he cannot think what good it can do to those in Hades, but 'anyhow people believe that the dead are summoned up from below to the feast, and that they flutter round the smoke and fat and drink the honey draught from the trench.' Here the ghosts invade the late and popular burnt sacrifice of the Olympians, but the principle is the same.

p. 76 The Anthesteria was a festival of ghosts, overlaid by a festival of Dionysos 1, and so far the riddance of ghosts by means of placation has been shown to be an important element in ancient sacrifice and in the ancient notion of purification. But placation of ghosts does not exhaust the content even of ancient sacrifice: another element will appear in the festival of early summer that has next to be considered, the Thargelia. 32:1 The sources for the Anthesteria are collected and discussed in the Lexicons of Pauly-Wissowa and of Daremberg and Saglio and more completely in Dr Martin Nilsson's Studia de Dionysus Atticis (Lundae, 1900), which has been of great service to me. 32:2 Harpocrat. s.v. 33:1 Plut. Q. Symp. III. 7. 1. 33:2 The gist of such offerings will be considered under the Thargelia. 33:3 Plut. Q. Symp. VIII. 3. 33:4 Op. 368. 33:5 Discussed in relation to Dionysos, see infra, Chapter VIII. 33:6 See p. 76. 33:7 Ar. Ran. 212, trans. Mr Gilbert Murray. 34:1 Aristoph. Ach. 1076, schol. ad loc. 34:2 Thucyd. II. 15. 34:3 Harpocrat. s.v. Χόες. 35:1 Suidas s.v. θύραζε· ... Photius s.v. substantially identical. To the information here given Zenobius (Cent. Paroimiogr.) adds: .... It is fortunate that Suidas records his second conjecture, as his first is rendered plausible by the fact that we know the household servants were admitted to the Pithoigia. Probably in classical days κῆρες had already become an old fashioned word for souls and the formulary may have been easily misunderstood. Mommsen in his second edition (Feste der Stadt Athen, p. 386) argues that the form κῆρες is impossible because 'Gespenstern zeigt man nicht die Thür wie einem Bettler,' a difficulty that will scarcely be felt by any one acquainted with primitive customs.

35:2 Ovid, Fasti v. 443. 36:1 Primitive Culture II. p. 40. 36:2 Religion des Vedas, p. 553. 36:3 Schol. ad Ar. Ran. 218: ... whichever be followed, the mandate of not tasting is clear. 37:1 Schol. ad Ar. Ach. .... 37:2 Feste der Stadt Athen, p. 385. 37:3 P. iv. 35. 9 .... 37:4 Herod. VIII. 176. 37:5 Theoph. Hist. Plant. IV. ll. 8 .... 37:6 Hesych. s.v. οἰ χύτρινοι. 38:1 Plato, Rep. 614 C. 38:2 P. IX. 8. 38:3 On. X. 99. 38:4 Hesych. s.v. . 38:5 v. 96. 38:6 Schol. ad Ar. Vesp. 289. 39:1 Suidas s.v. .... 39:2 Photius s.v. .... 39:3 Diosc. De mat. med. I. 119 .... For this reference I am indebted to the kindness of Dr Frazer, who also notes that in Ovid spina alba, white thorn, is p. 40 placed in a window to keep off tristes noxas and striges (Ovid, Fasti VI. 129-163), and compares the English notion that hawthorn keeps off witches (see Golden Bough, second edit. vol. I. p. 124, note 3). Miss M. C. Harrison tells me that to this day rue (ruta) is eaten on Ascension Day at Pratola Peligna and other places in the Abruzzi, "that the witches may not come to torment our children" (noi mangiamo la ruta affinche le streghe non vengano a tormentare le creature nostre); see A. De Nino, Usi Abruzzesi I. p. 168. 40:1 Phot. s.v. .... 40:2 Schol. ad Ar. Ach. 961 .... 41:1 Athen. VII. 2, p. 276. 41:2 Athen. x. 49, p. 437 and Suidas s.v. Χόες. 41:3 Eur. Iph. in T. 953 seq. 42:1 For the topographical question see my Primitive Athens, p. 83.

42:1 For the topographical question see my Primitive Athens, p. 83. 42:2 Athen. XI. 93, p. 496. 42:3 Eustath. ad Il. XXIV. 526, p. 1363. 26 οὐχ ἑορτάσιμος...ἀλλ᾽ ἐς τὸ πᾶν ἁποφράς. 43:1 First published by Dr Paul Schadow, Eine Attische Grablehythos, Inaugural-Dissertation (Jena, 1897), reproduced and discussed by the present writer J.H.S. XX. p. 101. 43:2 Ar. Eq. 792. Mr R. A. Neil ad loc. points out that πίθος answers to fidelia in etymology, to dolium in meaning. 43:3 Dr Sam. Wide, 'Aphidna in Nord-Attica,' A. Mitt. 1896, p. 398. 44:1 Od. x. 236. 45:1 Od. xxiv. 1-9. 45:2 Pind. Ol. IX. 33. ... ἀκινήταν is usually rendered 'unraised' as though the sceptre were lifted in token of kingly power. I translate by 'wave' because I believe the action denoted is the waving or moving of a wand, not the raising of a sceptre. The verb κινέω is, I believe, characteristic of this wand-waving. κινέω is used in Homer (loc. cit.) τῇ δ᾽ ἄγε κινήσας. By Pindar's time the wand and the sceptre were fused, but he is haunted by the old connotation of magic. 45:3 For text, see p. 24, note 2. 46:1 Space forbids the discussion of the whole evolution of the kerykeion. It contains elements drawn from both sceptre and rhabdos. The rhabdos is sometimes, forked like a divining rod: the forks were entwined in various shapes. Round the rhabdos a snake, symbol of the underworld, was sometimes curled as the snake is curled round the staff of Aesculapius. Ultimately the twisted ends of the rhabdos were crystallized into curled decorative snakes. In like fashion the frayed fringe of the leather aegis of Athene is misunderstood and rendered as snakes. By the time of Eustathius, kerykeion and rhabdos are not clearly differentiated.

46:2 J.H.S. XX. p. 101. 46:3 Plut. Vit. Cam. XX. 46:4 Ling. Lat. 5 § 157. 47:1 Pauli excerpta ex Lib. Pomp. Fest. s.v. doliola. 47:2 Iliad xxiv. 527. .... 47:3 Fest. 154. 47:4 Macr. Sat. I. 16. 18. 47:5 Harpocrat. s.v. .... 47:6 Etym. Mag. s.v. Ανθεστήρια. 48:1 J.H.S. xx. 115. 48:2 Od. x. 526. 48:3 My view of the primitive significance of the root θεσ, which is perhaps primarily rather to conjure than to pray, will appear more clearly when we come to the discussion of the Thesmophoria. 49:1 Dr Wuensch in his instructive pamphlet Ein Frühlingsfest auf Malta (Leipzig, 1902) discusses a spring festival of the flowering of beans which he believes to be analogous to the Anthesteria, but the rites practised are wholly different. Dr Hiller von Gaertringen (Festschrift für O. Benndorf) calls attention to the title Anthister which occurs in an inscription found on Thera, but the inscription is of the second century B.C., the festival of the 'Anthesteria' was celebrated on Thera, as indeed wherever there was a primitive population, and Anthister must have borrowed rather than lent his name. 49:2 Archbishop Eustathius may have had a dim consciousness of the separable ἀνα when he says .... 49:3 Schol. ad Luc. Tim. 43 .... 50:1 Plut. Q. R. XXXIV. .... 50:2 Plut. Q. R. XXV. .... 50:3 Athen. III. 53 p.98 .... 51:1 Ovid, Fasti II. 19. 51:2 The ceremonies of the Lupercalia have been fully discussed by Warde-Fowler, The Roman Festivals, p. 310, and very fully by Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen, p. 72.

51:2 The ceremonies of the Lupercalia have been fully discussed by Warde-Fowler, The Roman Festivals, p. 310, and very fully by Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen, p. 72. 52:1 Julius Caesar, Act I. Sc. 2, v. 6. 52:2 Herond. Mim. III. 3. 53:1 Serv. ad Verg. Aen. VIII. 343 nam pellem ipsam capri veteres februum vocabant. Varro (Ling. Lat. VI. 13) says that februum was Sabine for purgameatem. 54:1 Athen. VIII. 11 p. 334 F. 54:2 3rd cent. B.C. 55:1 That the religion of Dionysos came to Greece at a comparatively late date will be shown in Chapter VIII. 56:1 Od. XXIV. 215 ... 56:2 Porph. de Abst. II. passim. 56:3 Eust. ad Il. I. 449 § 132 .... 57:1 Prof. Ridgeway (Early Age of Greece, vol. I. p. 524) has shown (to me conclusively) that these Homeric Achaeans were of Celtic origin and brought with them from central Europe the flesh-roasting and flesh-eating habits of their northern ancestors. 57:2 Athen. I. 46 p. 25. 57:3 P. u. 10. 1 .... That the distinction between θύεινand ἐναγίζειν is no late invention of Pausanias is shown by the fact that Herodotos (II. 43) uses the same words and draws the same distinction though with less explicit detail. Speaking of Herakles as god and hero, he says: .... 58:1 P. VIII. 34. 3 .... 59:1 Eust. ad Il. XXIII. 429, 1357. 59 .... 59:2 I do not deny that the word can be translated if we are content to vary our rendering in each various case. In the passages already discussed 'devote' is perhaps a fair equivalent, because the contrast emphasized is with a sacrifice shared. Sometimes the word may be rendered simply 'sacrifice to the dead', sometimes 'purificatory sacrifice', sometimes 'expiatory sacrifice'. No one word covers the whole field. It is this lost union of many diverse elements that has to be recovered and is nameless.

59:3 Athen. IX. 78 p. 409 E ff. .... 61:1 Hesych. λουτρόν· τὸ ῥύπαρον ὕδωρ ἤγουν ἀπόνιμμα. 61:2 Bull. de Corr. Hell. xxiv. p. 258. 61:3 Published by Mr H. B. Walters, J.H.S. XVIII. 1898, p. 281, pl. XV. The class of vases known sometimes as 'Tyrrhenian,' sometimes as Corintho-Attic, all belong to the same period, about the middle of the sixth century B.C., and are apparently from the same workshop. 61:4 Eur. Hec. 535. 62:1 Omphalos and tomb are in intent the same, see J.H.S. XIX. p. 225. 62:2 The genesis of the Erinys is discussed later, in Chapter V. 62:3 Aesch. Eum. 253. 62:4 Aesch. Eum. 264. 63:1 Schol. ad Eur. Phoen. 284 .... 63:2 Porph. de antr. nymph. 3.... The megara will be discussed later (). 63:3 Aesch. Eum. 106. 63:4 Eustath. ad Il. I. 459 § 134. 63:5 Eustath. § 1057, 37. 64:1 Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod. I. 587 ... 64:2 Eur. El. 514. 65:1 Eur. Ion 277 .... 65:2 Eur. Her. τύμβῳ σφάγιον. 65:3 Athen. XIV. 22, p. 626 .... 65:4 Eur. Supp. 1296 .... 66:1 P. III. 20. 9. 66:2 P. IV. 15. 8. 66:3 P. v. 24. 10 .... Strictly speaking Pausanias ought to have written ἐπὶ σφαγίῳ, but his meaning is sufficiently clear. τόμια are actually σφάγια, not ἱερεῖα. Eustathius, in discussing the sacrifice of Odysseus to the ghosts in the Nekuia, makes the following statement: .... Pausanias in the passage cited above (III. 20. 9) uses θύειν where σφαγιάζεσθαι would be more correct. He makes a sort of climax of confusion when, in describing the ritual of the hero Amphiaraos, he says (t. 34. 5): ἐστὶ καθάρσιον τῷ θεῳ θύειν, when he should have said τῷ ηρωι σφαγιάζεσθαι.

66:4 Il. XIX. 265. 67:1 P. II. 34. 3. 67:2 Ar. Ran. 847. 67:3 Virg. Aen. iii. 120. 68:1 P. II. 12. 1. 68:2 Aesch. Agam. 214. 68:3 The full and somewhat revolting details as to how omens were taken from σφάγια do not concern us here; they are given in full by the scholiast on Eur. Phoenissae 1255; see P. Stengel, Hermes, 1899, xxxiv. p. 642. 68:4 Porph. de Abst. II. 51. 68:5 Xen. Anab. VI. 5. 21. 69:1 Aesch. Sept. 230 .... 69:2 Ammon. p. 72 Valck. .... 69:3 The question of σφάγια has been very fully discussed by Dr Paul Stengel in four papers as follows: 'Σφάγια,' Hermes, 1886, xxi. p. 307; 'Miscellen,' xxv. p. 321; Prophezeiung aus der Σφάγια,' xxxi. p. 479 and xxxiv. p. 642. To this must be added papers by the same author on ἐντέμνειν ἔντομα in the Zeitschrift für Gymnasial-Wesen, 1880, p. 743, and in the Jahrbuch für Philologie, 1882, p. 322, and 1883, p. 375, and on the winds, Hermes, 1900, p. 626. I owe much in the matter of references to Dr Stengel's full collection of sources, but his conclusions as stated in 'Die Sakralaltertümer' (Iwan Müller's Handbuch der kl. Altertumswissenschaft, Band v. Abt. 3) seem to me to be vitiated by the assumption that ceremonies of purification are late and foreign importations. 69:4 Apoll. Rhod. iv. 470, trans. by Mr Gilbert Murray. 70:1 Since the above was written my attention has been called to Dr J. G. Frazer's paper 'On certain Burial Customs as illustrations of the primitive theory of the soul' (Journal of Anthropological Institute, vol. xv. 1885-6). After a detailed examination of the burial rites and customs of the Greeks and many other peoples Dr Frazer reaches the following memorable and to me most welcome conclusion: 'In general I think we may lay down the rule that wherever we find so-called purification by fire or water from pollution contracted by contact with the dead we may assume with much probability that the original intention was to place a physical barrier of fire or water between the living and the dead, and that the conceptions of pollution and purification are merely the fictions of a later age invented to explain the purpose of a ceremony of which the original intention was forgotten.'

70:2 Soph. El. 445. 71:1 The details described by Suidas s.v. ἐμασχαλίσθη have a somewhat apocryphal air and are probably due to etymology. 71:2 Schol. ad Soph. El. 445. 71:3 P. III. 17. 7. 71:4 Plut. de ser. num. vind. XVIII. .... 71:5 Eur. Or. 395 ... 72:1 Suidas s.v. Ἔμβαρός εἰμι, Paroimiograph. I. 402, App. Cent. and Eustath. ad Il. II. 732 § 331. 73:1 Plut. Vit. Pelop. xxi. 74:1 Cat. 422. 75:1 Od. XI. 23 ff. 75:2 For the ceremonials of ghost-raising, see Dr W. G. Headlam, Classical Review, 1902, p. 52. 75:3 Luc. Char. 22. 76:1 According to Prof. Ridgeway's recent theory (J.H.S. xx. 115) the drama of Dionysos took its rise from mimetic dances at the tombs of local heroes and save for the one element of the Satyric play was not Dionysiac. The festival of the Anthesteria with its Pot-Contests would therefore present an easy occasion of fusion; see my Primitive Athens, p. 99. Independently of Prof. Ridgeway, Dr M. Nilsson suggests the same origin for tragedy; see his paper on 'Totenklage und Tragödie' (from Comment. philologae in hon. Joh. Paulson Göteborg, 1905) resumed in the Archiv f. Religionswissenschaft, 1906, p. 286. For my own view see my Epilegomena, pp. 22-26.