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The Cult of Heroes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2011

Arthur Darby Nock
Arthur Darby Nock
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Harvard University
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Extract

The text discussed p. 73 ff. is a measure to ensure equitable and uncontentious distribution of the flesh of the two ‘fullgrown victims,’ and presumably of the young pig also. There is no mention of the burning of portions in honor of the heroines or of the hero, and outside Greece we know of sacrifices in which the worshippers took all. Such detail would be irrelevant to the purpose of our inscription, which is not a lex sacra; and the use of θύειν and the presence of an altar (for the restoration in line 6 is almost certain) strongly suggest that conventional symbolic offerings were made by fire.

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Research Article
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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , April 1944 , pp. 141 - 174
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1944

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References

1 For the problem of division cf. Plut. Prov. Alex. (ed. Crusius, Progr. Tüb. 1887), p. 11 f.

2 Herodotus I 132 asserts this of Persian sacrifices (but cf. J. Rom. Stud. XXX, 1940, 194, n. 18). The Salaminioi inscription (n. 18) does not mention the giving of portions to the supernatural beings worshipped, but the purpose of that text also is to keep peace between the men concerned. In general, I suspect that in Greek practice the beings worshipped almost always received something, however little; yet cf. the texts mentioned in nn. 27 and 28 and the ‘cup of Hygieia,’ n. 60.

3 E. Rohde, Psyche, I 148 ff.: Ph. E. Legrand in Daremberg-Saglio IV 970 ff.; Foucart, P., Le culte des héros (Mém. Acad. inscr. XLII, 1918) 96Google Scholar; Ch. Picard, , Bull. Corr. Hell. XLVII (1923), 255Google Scholar etc. Exceptions have often been noted, e.g. by Deneken in Roscher's Lex. I 2505 f.; Gow, A. S. F., J. Hell. Stud. XXXII (1912), 217Google Scholar, 238 n. 142. — The term ‘chthonic’ should be used with caution after the criticisms of Fairbanks, A., Am. J. Phil. XXI, 1900, 241 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thomsen, A., Arch. Rel. XII (1909), 481 ff.Google Scholar; M. P. Nilsson in Gercke-Norden, Einleitung, II iv (ed. 4), 65; cf. p. 160, later. Not all that is laid in the ground is buried; vegetation comes from the ground and even from the dead (Gjerstad, E., Arch. Rel. XXVI, 1928, 183 ff.Google Scholar). As Nilsson observed, Arch. Rel. XXXII, 1935, 113, ‘Der Pithos war zugleich Grab und Kornspeicher.’ [On chthonioi, cf. also Wilamowitz, Glaube, I 210 f.] The opposite category of Olympioi is perhaps somewhat clearer (cf. H. Herter, Pauly-Wissowa, XVIII 21), and the classification as such must have influenced the views taken of deities; yet after all Hecate was identified with Artemis.

4 Cf. Pind Nem. 3. 22 ἤρως θεός (hero who is a god, like ἀνθρωποδαἱμων); Seyrig, H., Bull. Corr. Hell. LI (1927) 185 ff.Google Scholar, 197, on the cult at Thasos, with inferences strikingly confirmed by a subsequent ipscriptional find (M. Launey, ibid. LXI, 1937, 380 ff., R. Flacelière — J. Robert — L. Robert, Rev. ét. gr. LII, 1939, 491 f. Launey suggests, p. 400, that what looks like a bothros may belong to the heroic cult. This is possible but not necessary; cf. M. P. Nilsson in Studier tillägnade O. Rydbeck, 44 n. 1): S. Eitrem, Symb. Oslo. VIII (1929), 36.

5 Cf. J. Ziehen, Leges Graecorum Sacrae, 104 ff. no. 35 (IG II2 1195) for sacrifice by the members of a deme καὶ τοῖς ἤρωσιν[καὶ ταῖς ἡρωίναις?]; Aristoph. Av. 881 (to which Professor Bonner calls attention; it comes in a very comprehensive list); Plut. Q. R. 25 p. 270 A for the second of the month as sacred to heroes and daimones (with H. J. Rose's note p. 179; we do not know where the custom was observed: cf. p. 164 beljow for an artificial principle of this kind); Supp. epigr. gr. IX 334, 336 ff. (Cyrene) for ἡρώων, apparently as underworld powers. The heroes naturally form a category in Philostr. Her. e.g. pr. 2.

6 As Wilamowitz said in Neue Jahrb. XXIX (1912) 472, ‘der Heros ist in jedem einzelnen Falle eine bestimmte Person.’

7 Nilsson, , Neue Jahrb. XXVII (1911), 631 ff.Google Scholar: cf. Eugen Reiner, Die rituelle Totenklage der Griechen (Tüb. Beitr. Altertumswissenschaft, XXX, 1938), with Heller's, J. L. review, Class Weekly XXXIII (1940), 260 fCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Die Religion d. Griechen u. Römer (Burs. Jahresb. 229, 1930), 155.

9 R. Herzog, Arch. Rel. X (1907), 400ff., and Heïlige Gesetze (Abh. Berlin, 1928, vi), 20ff.

10 Supp. epigr. gr. IX 72, l. 21 ff.

11 The ‘woodman’ perhaps incurred no taboo; cf. V 15. 10 for his part in the monthly sacrifices.

12 H. Seyrig, cited n. 4; cf. l. 26 of the Cyrene text and the Pythagorean ordinance quoted p. 163 below, as further evidence that the public at large was not always meticulous.

13 IG VII 219, where θ[εοῦ] seems certain; if the art type of a child suckled by a goat refers to him (cf. Pley, Pauly-Wissowa XV 393), he may be a faded preGreek deity. Asclepius, in spite of the legend, is treated as fully divine: cf. the Pergamene ordinance just noted.

14 Note Pausan. IX 39.5 (those waiting for revelations fed lavishly on the victims offered to Trophonius, his children, and certain deities).

15 In spite of the story of his ascent as a god (Pausan. I 34. 4).

16 After all, many heroes had a place in the precinct of the deity. Again, as early as the time of Philochorus, an object in the inmost part of the Delphic sanctuary and next to the golden image of Apollo was regarded as the tomb of Dionysus and the tale was not thought incongruous (the supposed inscription as cited in Malalas II 52 p. 45, cannot be ascribed to Philochorus and hardly, I think, even to Kephalion; cf. Fr. Jacoby, Frag. gr. Hist. II C, p. 298. It is a copy of the familiar ‘epitaph of Zeus’).

17 Cf. L. Deubner, Attische Feste, 224 f.; Herter, H., Rh. Mus. LXXXVIII (1939), 292 ffGoogle Scholar. For the Athenians, Theseus was a human hero, even if he was perhaps originally more than man; cf. L. Radermacher, Mythos u. Sage bei d. Griechen, 262 ff.

18 Ferguson, W. S., Hesperia, VII (1938), 1ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 J. v. Prott, Fasti sacri, 48 f. (= IG II2 1358. The distribution of portions is not mentioned but ἱερώσυνα are: and where priests receive their perquisites, even though as here in the form of a commutation in cash, it is to be presumed that the offering was not burnt whole: contrast οὐδὲ γέρα τέμνεται at Thasos; Ch. Picard, Bull. Corr. Hell. XLVII, 1923, 241 ff. and n. 4 above. The woodman at Olympia received a portion but the mantis did not).

20 J. Ziehen, Leges 78ff. no. 24 (= IG II2 1356; ἱερε]ώσυνα and skins mentioned).

21 Ch. Michel, Rec. inscr. gr. suppl. 1517. We should perhaps add the Eleusinian heroes listed in the portion of the restored Solonian code published by J. H. Oliver, Hesperia IV (1935), 21, ll. 65 ff. There is not here as with other cults in the list a mention of ἱερεώσυνα, but these heroes are coupled with deities as receiving sacrifice from the Eumolpidai: [θύοσιν] may be regarded as certain; and, though we should not press the word, it is applied to both categories without distinction.

Triptolemus, though in popular legend an heroic figure, had a share in divine cultus. I am inclined to regard him as from the beginning a subordinate deity humanized by mythology; cf. Strabo X p. 468 for the notion of πρόπολοι, supernatural and human. Such figures are commonly plural, Silenoi, Satyroi, Okeanides, and occasionally Panes, and their individual naming would in general be secondary. Are the figures named in Oliver's text and Hom. H. Dem. 153 ff. just such a group ? (Cf. P. Mazon, Mél. Bidez, 607 f. on Ploutoi; the Incubo of Petron. 38. 8 should perhaps be compared.) Minoan-Mycenaean art objects represent various daemonic cult attendants (e.g. Nilsson, Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, 327, etc.). These are often shown as part-animal; but such could be humanized (cf. also δαιμόνων ἁγώμενος in the ‘hymn of the Curetes’; Diehl, Anthologia lyrica, II 279 ff.).

Subordination is sometimes the result of the superimposition of one cult on another (e.g. of that of Apollo on that of Hyakinthos), but need not always be; cf. n. 73 below. (It must of course be remembered that, as Wilamowitz and Nilsson have taught us, the word daimon is extremely rare in cult. It is a word of reflection and analysis.)

22 Harmodius of Lepreon ap. Athenae. IV p. 149 C. The heroes in question have been thought to be the soldiers from Oresthasion, buried in the marketplace (so Ernst Meyer in Pauly-Wissowa XIX 2084); we may follow Nilsson, Griech. Feste, 455 n. 2 in leaving the question open. May the festival have been one for all the heroes of the city? Certainly there is no mention of a grave or bothros. (The fact that the sons sat to eat does not indicate anything funerary: children usually sat at meals, while their elders reclined; cf. Th. Klauser, Die Cathedra im Totenkult, 5 n. 16; 21.)

23 [Arist.] mir. ausc. 106, p. 840a. Cf. G. Giannelli, Culti e miti della Magna Grecia, 42 f.

24 Dittenberger, ed. 3, 1024, 39 ff. We should probably add J. von Prott, Fasti sacri 36 no. 15. 11 (= Collitz-Bechtel, Sammlung 4650, IG V i 1447), if Κλαικοφόρωι is there as at Epidaurus the name of a hero; but Meister (cf. M. N. Tod, J. Hell. St. XXXII, 1912, 103) regards the word as the title of a religious functionary. Another possible instance is afforded by Dieuchidas ap. Athenae. VI p. 263 A. Phorbas ordered his friends to have free men perform his enagismoi ‘and the custom continues in the sacrifice (θυσίᾳ) of Phorbas. The attendants are free men and a slave may not come near.’ θυσίᾳ is not to be pressed, but οἱ διακονοῦντες, ‘the attendants,’ above all in the context in Athenaeus, strongly suggests a cult-meal (cf. Plut. Q. G. 44 p. 301 E). Whatever Phorbas was in origin (cf. n. 73) he was deemed to have been a man; cf. Diod. Sic. V 58, where we read ἔσχε τιμὰς ἡρωϊκας.

25 We might be tempted to include Philopoemen: cf. Dittenberger, ed. 3, 624 (the restoration in line 37 τὰ δὲ κρέα τ[ὰ] βρώσ[ιμα] κ[ατακαἰειν] can hardly be right, since the skins were not burnt, as in holocaust; perhaps κ[ατακόπτειν) and Foucart 142 ff. His bones were brought back with due solemnity. Yet his honors are described as equal to divine, τιμαῖς ἰσοθέοις, noteworthy as an official use of the phrase, and the foundation was made at a time when the cultus of rulers as gods was familiar.

26 IG XII iii 330 (= B. Laum, Stiftungen, II 49 no. 43), esp. ll. 178ff.; F. J. Dölger, ΙΧΘΥΣ, II 377 ff. — E. Dyggve-Fr. Poulsen — K. Rhomaios, Das Heroon v. Kalydon (Mém. Acad. Copenhagen, VII sér. 4, iv, 1934) publish the remains of the structure of what might have been a comparable foundation not later than about 100 B.C. The finds give no detail as to the cult, but the excavators identify as ‘Speisesaal, für Mahlzeiten und Symposia kultischer Art bestimmt’ (107 [395]) a room next to the larger one with an apse in which was found a ‘cult-table.’ The interment was under the apse and inaccessible (100 [388]; cf. Fr. Matz, Die Antike, IV, 1928, 270, 276).

27 IG XII vii 515 (Laum II 57 ff. no. 50), ll. 74 ff. Nothing is said as to the disposal of the goat sacrificed according to ll. 103 ff.

28 Dittenberger, ed. 3, 1044 (Laum II 111 f., no. 117). Cf. Laum II 38, no. 31, making provision for sacrifice at the tomb and a public banquet of a commemorative kind, but not calling the dead man a hero (the text is incomplete).

29 Le culte des héros, 106.

30 Arch. XII 481 ff. Julian Ep. 89 p. 142. 14 ff. Bidez-Cumont (= p. 170. 3 ff. Bidez), 98 p. 158. 11 ff. Bidez-Cumont (= p. 182. 13 ff. Bidez) does not appear to find any essential difference between sacrifice by day and sacrifice by night.

31 Nor were they free of it; cf. Nilsson, Greek Popular Religion, 102 ff. for a corrective against any ascription to them of a thoroughgoing rationalism.

32 L. R. Farnell, Greek Hero Cults, 354: in fairness I should quote the words which immediately precede ‘whether through fear of the wrath of the ghost or through.’ E. Rohde remarks, Psyche I 242 n., on the abstention of initiates at Eleusis from certain foods, ‘Wer von der Speise der Unterirdischen geniesst, ist ihnen verfallen’: but, after all, the initiates were deliberately brought into a specific relation to Demeter and were given reason to fear the underworld less, not more. Persephone and the pomegranate seeds (Hom. H. Dem. 373) are not relevant. Cf. Iambl. V. Pyth. 109 on the avoidance of what belongs to chthonic deities; but the same tradition forbade participation in what belongs to the gods; cf. p. 164 later.

33 Cf. Hauck in G. Kittel, Theol. Wörterb. N. T., III 800. One incidental comment may be noted: Menander ap. Porph. Abst. II 17 speaks of incense and cakes as pious, εὐσεβής, since the god takes all of them.

34 De mysteriis V 5 ff., p. 205 ff. Parthey: Concerning the gods and the universe, 16. Cf. Appendix 1.

35 ποία δὲ θυσία κεχαρισμένη θεοῖς ἄνευ τῶν συνευωχουμένων I doubt whether J. v. Arnim, Leben u. Werke d. Dio v. Prusa, 428 f. and Wilamowitz (Hermes LXIII, 1928, 381) are right in bracketing θεοῖς. Certainly the latter goes too far in finding the utterance blasphemous; it is of a piece with many Greek utterances (cf. Nock, Proc. Am. Philos. Soc. LXXXV, 1942, 477 f. etc.), and in the same section of Dio we have (107) δ καὶ τοῖς θεοῖς χαλεπόν. — συνευωχοῦ αὐτῷ ἐπᾁδων αὐτῷ, addressed to a man who is to make a magical figure (K. Preisendanz, Pap. gr. mag. IV 3150 f. vol. i, p. 174) is naturally quite different; it is a proceeding to secure magical power; for the intimacy desired, cf. ibid. I 37 ff. p. 4.

36 Spec. leg. I 131, 196, 242 give different rationalizations.

37 To Höfler's references add P. Roussel, Bull. Corr. Hell. LI (1927) 133; Seyrig, ibid. 222; Roussel, Cultes égyptiens à Delos, 98, 140, 285; P. Perdrizet, Terres cuites … Fouquet, I, 119ff., 123; S. Eitrem, P. Oslo., III p. 246 f.; also the Syrian parallels discussed by H. Seyrig, Syria, XIV (1933) 260 ff. and XVIII (1937) 372 ff. (l. 10 εἰς κρεανομίαν πάντων τῶν ἑστιωμένων τῆ αὐτῆ ἡμέρα ἔμπροσθεν Μαννου θεοῦ. — For the god as presiding at a human meal after sacrifice cf. Athenae. X p. 420 E-F.

38 Der Sarapishymnus des Ailios Aristeides, 94. Cf. Diodorus of Sinope ap. Athenae. VI p. 239 B on Zeus Philios as taking his share at any well ordered meal.

39 On parasitoi cf. Athenae. VI p. 234 Cff., 239 D; Ferguson, Hellenistic Athens, 98 n. 1; S. Eitrem, Symb. Oslo. X (1932), 38; Schlaifer, R., Harv. Stud. Class. Phil. LIV (1943)Google Scholar. —The Spartan Tainariastai (Ziehen in Pauly-Wissowa, III A, 1504 f.) were probably somewhat similar.

40 F. Poland in Pauly-Wissowa IV A 1366. Heracles liked company (Eurip. Alc. 795).

41 K. Rhomaios, Arch. Delt. IV (1918), 117; Supp. ep. gr. I 213: cf. Latte in Pauly-Wissowa XIV 395. 28 ff., and J. de Keitz, De Aetolorum et Acarnanum sacris (Diss. Halle 1911), 88 ff.

42 E. Kalinka, Ant. Denkm. in Bulgarien, 157 no. 176; E. Norden, Alt-Germanien, 298, n. 3. A Thracian at Philippi bequeathed money for observances in his memory συνποσίῳ Θεοῦ Σουρεγέθου (Lemerle, P., Bull. Corr. Hell. LX, 1936, 336ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Σ. is a form of the rider-god; cf. my remarks Am. J. Arch. 1943, p. 494).

43 Hatzfeld, J., Bull. Corr. Hell. LI (1927), 73Google Scholar (= Suppl. epigr. IV 247), P. Roussel, ibid. 131 ff., A. Laumonier, ibid. LXI (1937), 241; for the ‘joy’ of the participants (Hatzfeld 73; Roussel 134 f.), cf. Deuteronomy 12. 7, 12, 18.

44 Cf. Athenae. IX, p. 363 f.; Fr. Pfister in Pauly-Wissowa, V A 1711, 2256: F. Deneken, De theoxeniis; Nilsson, Gr. Feste, 442 n. 1 (Nymphs).

45 Cf. L. Malten, Röm. Mitt. XXXVIII/IX (1923–24), 301.

46 So Pindar Pae. VI 62, and the Delphic paean (W. Vollgraff, Bull. XLVIII, 1924, 106; XLIX, 1925, 120; cf. LI, 1927, 436 f., for note on θυσία=ἑορτή) cf. pp. 154 f. later.

47 Cf. Liv. V 13. 7 f. on the goodwill attending private celebrations associated with a public lectisternium; Dion. Halic. Ant. Rom. XII 9.

In Liv. II 37. 9 the Volscians when excluded from ludi at Rome complain se ut consceleratos contaminatosque ab ludis, festis diebus, coetu quodam modo hominum deorumque abactos esse. This is a natural rhetorical combination, cf. ius fasque.

48 Yet the Greeks had a high regard for the taking of salt as a bond between man and man: cf. F. J. Dölger, Antike u. Christentum, V (1936), 56 f. The astrologer Maximus (l. 324 f. p. 27 Ludwich) actually speaks of the runaway slave as forgetting the household table.

Cf. again Xen. Anab. III 2. 4, and Euphorion in D. L. Page, Greek Literary Papyri I 496 l. 26 ἤτοι ξείνια δόρπα Διός τ᾽ἀλίτωσι τρἀπεζαν (with K. Latte's comment Philol. XC, 1935, 148, ‘Mahl des Fremden und Tisch des Zeus bedeuten das gleiche, da der ξένος unter der Obhut des Zeus steht’; cf. Amm. Marc. XXX 1. 22. For ‘table of Zeus,’ cf. p. 151, ‘couch of Sarapis,’ ‘meal of the gods,’ etc.).

49 So of the meal to Iuppiter Dapalis, macte hac illace dape pollucenda esto ‥ macte istace dape pollucenda esto, macte uino inferio esto; and in other rites, macte suouetaurilibus inmolandis esto. te hisce suouetaurilibus piaculo, te hoc porco piaculo, tibi hoc boue mare pulchro sacrum fiat, etc.: G. Appel, De Romanorum precationibus (Relg. Vers. Vorarb. VII ii) 28 f., 10; Rose, O. Skutsch-H. J., Cl. Quart. XXXVI (1942) 15 ffGoogle Scholar.

50 Cf. Vollgraff, W., Bull. XLIX (1925), 121Google Scholar n. 2 for the banquet linked to the Delphic Theoxenia (a text of about 350 B.C. or a little later, published by P. Amandry in Bull. LXIII, 1939, ii and known to me through the courtesy of Professor Nilsson, specifies that the men of Skiathos are to receive portions at the Theoxenia): and perhaps Deneken, De theoxeniis, 20 ff. and F. Chapouthier, Les Dioscures au service d'une déesse, 41 ff., 132 ff. — IG XII v 129 is instructive, for it shows that in Paros a public banquet was an addition to the Theoxenia, provided by the liberality of the polemarch as priest of the Dioscuri.

In Julian's Convivium p. 308 D the Caesars have a second symposion, distinct though not out of sight of the gods.

51 Cf. Puttkammer, Fr., Quo modo Graeci victimarum carnes distribuerint (Diss. Königsberg, 1912)Google Scholar, Ep. Ieremiae 27 (28). This priestly participation sometimes had a special sense, e.g. in some Jewish sacrifices (A. Bertholet, J. Bibl. Lit. XLIX, 1930) and in Babylonian cult. Cf. W. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites (ed. 3, revised by S. A. Cook), 223 on permission for the poor to partake in an Arab meal-offering.

52 Plut. Sera num. vind. 13, p. 557 F; Dittenberger (ed. 3) 1106, n. 56.

53 Cf. Herodas IV 94; Dölger, Ant. u. Chr. I (1929), 5ff.; A. B. Keith, Religion and Philosophy of the Veda, 271; Rose, H. J., Harv. Theol. Rev., XXXIV, 1941, 5Google Scholar (on the significance of the ceremonial theft of offerings). Damascius ap. Suid. ss. vv. ἀθύτους, σαρκοφαγία tells of a philosopher who, needing a diet of meat, would not eat any which had not been sacrificed. (R. Asmus, Das Leben des Philosophen Isidoros v. Damaskios aus Damaskos, 80, reconstructs the context.) Semonides 7. 56 ἄθυστα δ᾽ ἱρὰ πολλάκις κατεσθίει describes the conduct of a careless woman (for what may be a Phrygian taboo on meat that has not been offered, cf. R. Pettazoni, La confessione dei peccati, III 135 f.).

Greek evidence for spiritual blessings attaching to the flesh of victims is not as clear as might be wished, but the implications of κοινωνία τῶν ἱερῶν are clear: there was more than food to share. Cf. Plut. Q. Conv. VIII 8. 3 p. 729 C (Pythagorean abstinence from fish explained on the ground of their preference for what had been offered to the gods).

54 Cf. Virgil Ecl. IV 63: Epictet. Ench. 15; and for Pythagoreans in the underworld, Aristophon ap. Diog. Laert. VIII 38. Aen. I 79 describes the privilege of a minor deity allowed to sit with his betters. Cf. also p. 164 later.

55 Cf. l. 43 of oracle in H. Diels, Sibyllinische Blätter, 114 (cf. 65) ἄδαιτον ἔχειν θυσίαν, meaning ‘to be outside the range of the sacrifice,’ although it is directed to Demeter, Persephone, and Hades.

56 Cf. Isaeus VIII 16; Plat. Laws IX p. 868 E; p. 70 above. In Supp. epigr. gr. IV 247 the phrase refers to the religious bond between Panamara and Rhodes; cf. ibid. 250, 255; Dittenberger, ed. 3, 1106 n. 5; E. F. Bruck, Totenteil, 233 n. 1.

57 V, 82, p. 271. 10 Hercher. Cf. E. Pfuhl, Arch. Jahrb. XX (1905), 143 f.; K. Kircher, Die sakrale Bedeutung des Weines (Relg. Vers. Vorarb. IX ii), 60ff.; E. Freistedt, Altchristliche Totengedächtnistage, 98 f.; Quasten, J., Harv. Theol. Rev. XXXIII (1940), 253ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; S. Xanthoudides, Brit. Sch. Ath. XII (1905/06), 22 (food eaten in modern Greece in memory of the dead, after being blessed in the church and at the grave); D. M. Robinson, Olynthus, XI 188; Schoenbeck, H. v., Arch. Rel. XXXIV, 1937, 76Google Scholar ff. For analogies in other cultures, cf. Thomsen, A., Arch. XII (1909) 484ff.Google Scholar; Br. Meissner, Babylonien u. Assyrien, I 428 (note ibid. II 88 that although priests had their share, laymen were here forbidden to eat of things offered to the gods); A. B. Keith, Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads, 270, 272 (some feeling of aversion); J. G. Frazer, Pausanias, V 228, 230; P. Sartori, Die Speisung der Toten.

58 Cf. L. Malten, l.c. 300 ff.

59 Note ἡρῷα δειπνῶν ἐπιγαφίου τινὁς. Incidentally Thasos was careful about ritual: cf. n. 4.

60 Cf. Kircher, op. cit., 17 f. 36 f.; Nilsson, Symbolae O. A. Danielsson, 218ff.; Tarn, W. W., J. Hell. St. XLVIII (1928) 211 fGoogle Scholar. (on the honorific association of kings, etc. with wine. In this context, note Kircher 63 on the ‘cup’ of Hygieia, who apparently received no libation: there is an analogy in the Germanic Minne, cf. Mackensen in Handwört. deutschen Aberglaubens, VI 375 ff. as contrasted with Trankopfer, cf. Eckstein ibid. VIII 1117 ff.). Philostr. Her. II 11 actually says ξυμπίνειν τῷ Παλαμήδῃ, but that is parallel to what he says on the Vinetender's intimacy with Protesilaus; cf. ibid. pr. 2 on the hero as entertainer. The jest ἴν᾽ ὦ σοι ξυμπότης in Aristoph. Ran. 297 needs no explanation.

61 In Theophrastus, the Superstitious Man avoids altogether certain things which the ordinary individual would have faced, and followed with a purification, cf. Eurip. fr. 472.

62 I am in substantial agreement with Ph. E. Legrand (in Daremberg-Saglio, IV 972), save that I reject any supposed scruples against partaking in company with the dead, etc. There is a great range of possible variety; cf. Keith, Religion and Philosophy of the Veda, 69 f. for avoidance of that which is to be treated as specially holy.

63 Cf. 145 above. I assume that Stengel, P., Herm. XXVII (1892) 166Google Scholar rightly interprets ἀναλοῦν in Pausan. X 4. 10 (Ziehen in Pauly-Wissowa, IIIA 1676 has slight reservations). Cf. also S. Eitrem, S. Oslo., VIII (1929), 35 for libations as the chief offerings to heroes, and again Eitrem's earlier remarks, Griech. Reliefs (Christiania Forhandl. 1909 ix), 21. After all, liquids are obviously absorbed into the ground.

64 Cf. Julian's remarks as discussed in Appendix 1 and S. Eitrem, S. Oslo., XVIII (1938), 9ff. There is something of an analogy between the slaying of Polyxena for Achilles and that of Iphigenia for Artemis.

I say ‘the gods invoked in historical times,’ since a number of such ceremonies are predeistic or at least antedate the specific deities ultimately concerned. Cf. Nilsson, M. P., J. Hell. Stud. XLIII, 1923, 144CrossRefGoogle Scholar on fire-festivals as a striking instance of this type of ceremony; A. Bertholet, Sitzungsber. Berlin, 1938, 175 f.; S. Eitrem, S. Oslo. XVIII 16 ff. (this last for the idea that the keres etc. were kept at arm's length). [Demosth.] LIX 73 ἔπραξε, 75 illustrate the idea of specific action (though nb. facio of any sacrifice). For sacrifice-action, cf. Pausan. II 24. 1 (monthly nocturnal sacrifice of a lamb to Apollo at Argos; the prophetess tastes the blood and becomes possessed by the god). Cf. on nocturnal ceremonials Nilsson, M. P., Entstehung … griech. Kalenders (Lunds Universitets Årsskrift, I, xiv, 21, 1918), 17 ffGoogle Scholar.

65 Cf. Fairbanks, Am. J. Phil. XXI, 1900, 258. He infers participation also in the offerings to the Semnai (Eumenides) described by Pausan. I 28. 6, a conclusion to which some support is lent by Schol. in Soph. O. C. 489 (which suggests though it does not prove that the Hesychidai, unlike the Eupatridai, shared in offerings to these goddesses).

Nilsson, Symbolae Danielsson, 224 f. has shown how Zeus Meilichios was transformed and Pausan. X 38. 8 may indicate a phase of transition. If, as has been postulated (n. 19), ἱερώσυνα imply participation, the Marathonian tetrapolis had communion-sacrifice in its cults of the Tritopatreis and Akamantes (J. v. Prott, Fasti sacri, 46 ff. no. 26).

66 Stengel, Opferbräuche, 150. H. Bolkestein, Theophrastos' Charakter der Deisidaimonia, 46 puts the question ‘hat nicht jede apotropäische Gottheit diese-n Doppelcharakter?’ A lyric fragment in Stobaeus I 5.12 p. 76 Wachsmuth addresses Klotho and Lachesis as οὐράνιαι χθόνιαί τε δαίμονες· ὦ πανδεἰμαντοι and entreats them to send Eunomia, Justice and Peace and to cause the city to forget grievous happenings.

67 On guardians of the gate, etc., cf. E. Norden, Aus altrömischen Priesterbüchern, 159 ff. — On epilepsy, etc., cf. Hippocr. Morb. sacr. 4 (ibid. terrors at night are ascribed to Hecate and heroes); F. Cumont, L'Égypte des astrologues, 167 (an inscription from Panamara published by P. Roussel, Bull, Corr. Hell. LV, 1931, 73 line 5, speaks of a state like madness as caused by some kind of Erinyes, but this may be regarded as literary. Cf. again Aristoph. Pax 39 ff.). — For the deities involved in apotropaic ceremonies cf. Jessen in Pauly-Wissowa, II 189 f.; Suppl. epigr. gr. IX 72. 5 f. (Apollo); P. Oxy. 885 43 ff. (Zeus Keraunios, Heracles, Tyche Soteira, after a statue has been struck by lightning).

68 Cf. Dittenberger, ed. 3, 1122; Xen. Hipparch. 7. 4, 8. 7.

69 Cf. H. Wheeler Robinson, J. Theol. Stud. XLIII (1942), 131 on sacrifice in general, with special reference to the Old Testament.

70 For both ceremonies cf. Johanna Schmidt, Freiwilliger Opfertod bei Euripides, 83 f.; for κατάρχεσθαι, cf. Plut. Them. 13 and A. S. Pease on Aen. IV 698.

71 History of Greek Religion, 180 ff. — Cf. the argument of R. J. BonnerG. Smith, The Administration of Justice from Homer to Aristotle, I 53, II 192 ff., that the whole idea of pollution by homicide is secondary and artificially grafted onto court procedure.

72 Cf. Wilamowitz, Glaube, II 11, on the lateness of this, so far as our knowledge goes. For the general dichotomy, cf. Pausan. I 29. 2 θεῶν ἐστιν ἱερὰ καὶ ἡρώων καὶ ἀνδρῶν τάφοι.

73 Artemidor. II 40 p. 146 speaks of heroes and daimones, and IV 78, p. 248 of heroes and heroides, as signifying in dreams the same things as the gods but with a smaller degree of power (II 13, p. 106 heroes, as a category, figure at the end of a list of gods). Artemidorus speaks only of θυσία, never of ἐναγισμός, etc.; so also the quotations in F. Cumont, L'Égypte des astrologues, from astrological texts, which reflect a social level similar to that of Artemidorus. When heroes are set in relation to deities, it is by way of individual or generic subordination, not of the contrast between two opposite worlds; cf. Aristophan. fr. 488 for a comparison between the cult of the gods and of the dead.

For the genesis of the category of heroes, cf. L. Radermacher, Mythos u. Sage bei den Griechen, 274, ‘Man könnte sich denken, dass die Gestalt des Heros ihrer Konzeption nach und von Haus aus Gott und Mensch zugleich ist, ein Mittler zwischen beiden Sphären, in dieser Art Geschöpf gläubiger Phantasie nicht anders als Zeus, und Mischwesen nicht anders als der Kentaur und seinesgleichen. Zum Heros wird dann auch ein Mensch emporgestiegen oder ein Gott hinabgesunken sein,’ a passage to which Professor Bonner drew my attention. Cf. n. 21 above for the view that the subordination of a hero to a god is not always secondary. Against any exaggerated denial of the historicity of heroes, cf. W. R. Halliday, Indo-European Folk-Tales and Greek Legend, 61.

The term ‘patron’ was proposed by B. Schweitzer, Gött., gel. Anz. 1928, 2 for minor supernatural beings such as are here discussed.

74 Cf. Schreiber, Th., Studien über d. Bildniss Alexanders d. Gr. (Abh. sächs. Ges. Wiss. XXI iii, 1903), 243 ffGoogle Scholar. The control of Delphi was present but not ubiquitous: contrast pp. 143, 147 and Arrian Anab. IV 11. 7 (Heracles not given divine honors till the Delphic oracle so ordered: so VII 14. 7, Ammon forbade divine honors for Hephaestion) with Plut. Mul. virt. 18 p. 255 D–E (the citizens gave Lampsake heroic honors first, and later voted to sacrifice to her as a goddess; as always, we must remember Plutarch's devotion to the Delphic oracle; in the light of it, his matter-of-fact tone is all the more important).

75 Ziehen, Leges graecorum sacrae, 109 ff. no. 38a, b. (IG II2 839–840; 221/20 B.C. and end second century B.C.); cf. above, pp. 82, 85. In IG II2 1252 τοὺς θεοὺς naturally covers Amynos, Asclepius, Dexion.

76 Cf. Eitrem, , Symb. Oslo., XIV (1935), 54 ffGoogle Scholar. on the application of the names Nauseiros and Phaiax to independent supernatural beings connected with seamanship, as also on their secondary attachment to Theseus (whereon cf. also Herter, H., Rhein. Mus. LXXXVIII, 1939, 304Google Scholar). So at least the names Ioleos and Eurysaces (p. 145 above) are due to general Hellenic, and not Attic, mythology.

77 Cf. Wilamowitz, Glaube, II 8ff.: Cumont, F., Am. J. Arch. 1933, 237 ff.Google Scholar; also Kern, Rel. d. Gr., I 130 on παῖς ἥρως.

78 It may be noted that the use of the paean was forbidden for the Nymphs on Thasos (Dittenberger, ed. 3, 1033, Seyrig, Bull. Corr. Hell. LI, 1927, 180ff.); but a paean ‘beside the Nymphs’ as also ‘beside Hecate’ was ordered at Miletus (Dittenberger, ed. 3, 57).

79 Anth. Pal. IX 334 τὸν ἐν σμικροῖς ὀλίγον θεόν, of Tychon, with O. Kern, Wien. St. XLV (1926), 116 f.: H. Herter, De dis Atticis Priapi similibus, 31 and De Priapo, 240. For a similar figure cf. Fr. Schwenn, Pauly-Wissowa V A 1710 s.v. Theodaimon.

80 Cf. Nilsson, , Am. J. Phil. LIX (1938), 392Google Scholar. How many of the hundred archegetai of Arist. Ath. Pol. 21. 6 can we name? Note also S. Eitrem, Symb. Osloenses, XVIII (1938), 16 n. 2 on the probable origin of the hero Hesychos: again the presence of ἥρωορ(-ς) eight times, synonymous ἥρω once and ἡρώων once on a single altar at Olympia (Dittenberger-Purgold, Inschr. v. Olympia, 675 ff. no. 662; O. Kern, Rel. d. Gr. I 128; Wilamowitz, Pindaros, 211, ‘der alte Ortsdämon’).

81 ‘demi-déesses,’ as Méautis, G. says: Rev. hist. rel. CXVIII (1938), 95Google Scholar. Apoll. Rhod. IV 1309 speaks of ‘heroines who guard Libya,’ ἡρῷσσαι Λιβύης τιμήοροι: 1322–23 they describe themselves as χθὁνιαι θεαὶ αὐδήεσσαι, ἡρῷσσαι, Λιβὐης τιμήοροι ἠδὲ θυγάτρες; they are clearly identical with II 504 f. χθονἰαις παρακάτθετο νύμφαις, αΐ Λιβύην ἐνέμοντο and with the ἡρωίδες of Callimach. fr. 126, ἡρῷσσαι of Nicaenetus, A. P. VI 225. Cf. the hero Ptoios (P. Perdrizet, Bull. Corr. Hell. XXII, 1898, 244). In Callimach. H. III 184–85, nymphs and heroides are clearly synonymous.

82 Wilamowitz, Glaube, II 16 n. 3 denies this on the ground that a hero does not usually dwell in a private home; but the hero of some little shrine before the gate could be deemed to dwell in the house, as Heracles is said to do in a couplet used to ward off evil

ὁ τοῦ Διὸς παῖς καλλίνικος Ἡρακλῆς

ἐνθάδε κατοικεῖ. μηδὲν εἰσίτω κακόν

(references in O. Weinreich, Arch. XVIII, 1915, 9 ff.). In any event, cf. Babrius 63; also τοῦ κατ΄ οἰκἱαν ἤρωος in Dionys. Hal. Ant. Rom. IV 2. ἤρωος οἰκουροῦ in Plut. Fort. Rom. 10 p. 323 C corresponds to Laris familiaris in Plin. N. H. XXXVI 204, as does ἡρώων to Larum in the Greek version of Res Gestae Diui Augusti, 19. (θεοῖς ἥρωσι is also used as an equivalent of Dis Manibus; Roussel, P., Rev. ét. anc. XIV, 1912, 380Google Scholar — but so are again θεοῖς καταχθονοις, θεοῖς δαἱμοσι, cf. C. B. Welles, Harv. Theol. Rev. XXXIV, 1941, 84. Incidentally, in Apul. de mundo, 35, geniis ministratur corresponds to ἡρώων θεραπεῖαι in [Aristot.] p. 400 b. 22.)

83 On the earlier invocation (389ff.) cf. Kleinknecht, H., Die Gebetsparodie in der Antike (Tüb. Beitr. XXVIII, 1937), 63Google Scholar. For the painting, cf. Aeneas Tacticus 31. 15 πινάκιον ἡρωϊκόν which implies a regular type: also Eustathius in Il. II 529 p. 275.44, on the Locrian way of representing the two heroes called Aias, ἰστέον δὲ ὅτι κατὰ τὴν ἱστορίαν οἱ Ὀπούντιοι Λοκροὶ γραφἀς ἤτοι εἰκόνας γεγραμμἑναζ τῶν δύο Αἰάντων ἔχοντες οὐ κατὰ τὸν ποιητὴν ἔγραψαν (P. von der Mühll, Der grosse Aias, 16 f. drew attention to this text and suggested that the statement comes from Apollodorus. It cannot be a mere figment, and clearly refers to a regular type of painting.)

84 For this principle cf. F. J. Dölger, ΙΧΘϒΣ, II 17 f. etc.

85 ἔν τισι τελεστικαῖς θυσἱαις i.e. in the type described p. 158 above as heilige Handlungen.

86 This epithet, used by Julian also in his Contra Galilaeos, seems to be peculiar to him; cf. Cyril's comment καί, κατά γε τὸ αὐτῷ δοκοῦν, τιμητήρια (Iuliani Contra Christianos, ed. Neumann p. 217. 6). It arises naturally out of the general character of ancient sacrifice; a linguistic influence of the Latin honorarium or of the use of the adjective honorarius to describe voluntary offerings, as distinct from prescribed or piacular offerings, is at best a remote possibility (Julian does speak of the October equus: and he was thinking of Rome, p. 159 C).

The elaborate treatment of sacrifice and honor by Arnobius VII 13 ff. is well discussed by W. Kroll Rh. Mus. LXXII (1917), 89 ff. He points to various contacts with Porphyry, e.g. the principle that men do not sacrifice that of which they do not eat. Further study might be rewarding; certainly there was a large literature on sacrifice, as again on Pythagorean taboos. Julian p. 191C speaks of the swarms of writings on vegetarianism.

87 Hertlein emends to μόνων; as Professor Jaeger remarks, this is hardly necessary; cf. Julian I 36 p. 56. 9 H, p. 63.32 Bidez.

88 Sacrifices of the ‘telestic’ type are performed before the gods, but are not offered to them in the normal way; the victims are destroyed and there are no portions to offer on a sacred table.

89 Did statim ibidem consumito (Cato, R. R. 83) involve a feeling that the action of offering must be visibly completed? Neither at Rome nor in Greece, where the obligation to complete the eating of sacrifice on the spot is somewhat more frequent, is this obligation reinforced by any expressed fear of consequences such as we occasionally find in other cultures (cf. F. B. Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religion, 147).

90 Sanguinem gustare antea frequenter solebant in a new fragment of the Fasti Praenestini, discussed by G. Wissowa, Hermes LVIII (1923), 378, has apparently no special significance; at least no significance is made explicit. Warde Fowler, Religious Experience of the Roman Republic, 33 f. has remarked on the slightness of the importance attached by the Romans to blood. Sacroque cruore in Virg. Aen. V 333 is a mere phrase; the blood had been allowed to flow freely on the racetrack; cf. p. 161 above.