Even in the petty details of the life of individuals the Heroes played their part, helping or hindering, as once in mythical times the gods had done. Everyone will be reminded of well-known legends of the gods, and will at the same time be able to measure the difference between the sublime and the merely idyllic, in reading Herodotos’ naive and circumstantial tale of how Helen once appeared in person to a nurse at Therapne. The nurse was praying at Helen’s grave for her ill-favoured foster-child, when the Heroine appeared to her and with a touch of her hand made the child the most beautiful maiden in Sparta.133 So, too, we read how the Hero Astrabakos, in the likeness of Ariston, king of Sparta, visited in secret the king’s wife and made her the mother of Demaratos.134 The heroön of this Astrabakos was situated by the door of Ariston’s house,135 and it was a frequent custom thus to place a Hero’s shrine before the house-door where he might give a special protection to his neighbour.136
In all the circumstances of human life, in happiness or in need, for individuals or the city, the Heroes are thus very near to men. It is now often said of the Hero worshipped by a city (just as it was said of the city’s gods) that he rules it, is its possessor, or is lord over it;137 he is its true guardian and protector. It may, indeed, have been the case in many cities, as it was said to be in some, that the belief in the city-Hero was more deeply held there than the belief in the gods worshipped by all Greece in common.138 The relation of man to the Heroes is closer than it is to the majestic gods above: 138 the faith in Heroes gave a different and a more familiar bond of union between men and the spirit-world above them. The worship of Heroes began as an ancestor-cult and an ancestor-cult it remained in essence, but it had now been widened to a cult of certain greater human souls who had raised themselves above their fellows by peculiar powers exercised in many, and by no means predominantly moral, directions. Many of them were of later ages or even of the quite recent past, and in this lies the peculiar importance of their cult. They show that the company of the spirits is not fixed and made up; individual mortals are still continually being raised to that higher circle after the completion of their earthly life. Death does not end all conscious existence nor does the gloom of Hades swallow up all life.
But for that reason the cult of Heroes cannot be the origin of the belief in an immortality belonging to all human souls by their very nature. Nor can this ever have been its effect. In the beginning, among the hosts that streamed down to Hades, the special individuals who had another fate were a small class apart and favoured above all others—and so it still remained. Though the numbers of the heroic figures might be increased enormously, yet every individual case of the transition of a human soul into the ranks of the Heroes was a fresh and special miracle. Such exceptional cases, however frequently repeated, could never produce a general rule applying without distinction to all men alike.
The belief in Heroes in its gradual evolution and extension unquestionably led far away from the course taken by the Homeric belief in the things after death. In fact, it pointed in the opposite direction. But with the belief in Heroes men had not yet arrived at the belief in an immortality proper to the human soul by virtue of its own nature, nor yet (which would be something different again) was a general cult of souls thereby founded. In order that such beliefs might arise after, but not out of, the cult of Heroes, and maintain themselves side by side with an undiminished cult of Heroes, a movement was first necessary that had its origin in different sources.
1 Porph., Abst. 4, 22, p. 268, 23 Nauck.
2 It is not quite clear whether it is legitimate to see in what Paus. 2, 2, 2, says about the graves of Neleus and Sisyphos a first trace of the worship of Hero-relics, as Lobeck does, Agla. 284. The oracle verse from Oinom. ap. Eus., PE. 5, 28, p. 223 B, in which Lykourgos is warned to honour Μενέλαν τε καὶ ἄλλους ἀθανάτους ἥρωας, οἳ ἐν Λακεδαίμονι δίῃ—is certainly quite late, later than the ἥκεις ὦ Λυκόοργε that was known already to Herod.; earlier however than the second century, cf. Isyllos (GDI. 3342), l. 26. Oinomaos got it, like all the oracles that he used in making his Γοήτων φώρα from a collection of oracular sayings, certainly not from (or even indirectly from) Ephoros as has been groundlessly maintained.—Unquestionably the cult of Helen and Menelaos at Therapne was ancient: see Ross, Arch. Aufs. ii, 341 ff. Connexion with the legitimate pre-Dorian monarchy was eagerly sought for in Sparta; thus the bones of Orestes and Tisamenos were brought to Sparta and both honoured there as Heroes. The cult of Menelaos in Therapne has nothing whatever to do with his translation to Elysion (Od. δ).
3 One Daites ἥρωα τιμώμενον παρὰ τοῖς Τρωσίν is mentioned by Mimn. fr. 18. Still earlier Alc. seems to refer to the cult of Achilles as a Hero, fr. 48 b: Ἀχίλλευ, ὃ γᾶς Σκυδίκας μέδεις (see Wassner, de her. cult., p. 33).
4 θεοὶ ὅσοι γῆν τὴν Πλαταιΐδα ἔχετε καὶ ἥρωες, ξυνίστορές ἐστε, Thuc. ii, 74, 2; μάρτυρας θεοὺς καὶ ἥρωας ἐγχωρίους ποιήσομαι, Th. iv, 87, 2; cf. Th. v, 30, 2–5.
5 Hdt. viii, 109: τάδε γὰρ οὐκ ἡμεῖς κατεργασάμεθα ἀλλὰ θεοί τε καὶ ἥρωες.
6 Hdt. vii, 43.
7 In the first edition of this book I could not refer to the copiously documented article by Deneken on “Heros” in Roscher’s Myth. Lex. Even now I must be content to refer the reader generally to the rich collections of material there supplied. The view taken of the nature and origin of the Hero is, however, one which I can only reject. According to that account (which in this follows the current view) the belief in Heroes arose from a weakened belief in gods, and the race of Heroes was composed of formerly divine figures who had come to be regarded in the course of time with diminished awe. But the cult of Heroes was by no means an attenuated worship of the gods: on the contrary it was fundamentally contrasted in its essence to the cult of the gods above: ἐναγίζειν can never have been derived from θύειν in however attenuated a form. Equally little can the Heroes of cult have been ever (much less frequently) derived from gods directly. The “Heroes” (as objects of a cult) are invariably elevated souls of men, not reduced divinities. This rule holds good even though a considerable number of once divine figures after they had been deprived of their godhead and made into great men, were when they died exalted, as outstanding human beings, to the rank of Hero. In this respect they did not differ from the innumerable cases before and beside them of simple mortals who had never been gods. Only when and because they had become men and been mortal could such 140 ex-divine personages become Heroes: no one stepped straight from godhood to Herohood. The Hero is regularly a promoted human spirit and nothing else.—I intend here and generally in this book to avoid further polemic against the currently accepted view of the origin of the Hero out of degraded godhead and to content myself instead with the statement of my own positive attitude in these matters.
8 θεῶν ἄλλοις ἄλλαι τιμαὶ πρόσκεινται καὶ ἥρωσιν ἄλλαι, καὶ αὗται ἀποκεκριμέναι τοῦ θειοῦ, Arr., Anab. iv, 11, 3.
9 Sacrifice to Heroes ἐν δυθμαῖσιν αὐγᾶν and throughout the night, Pi., I. iv, 65 ff. ὑπὸ κνέφας, Ap. Rh. i, 587 (= περὶ ἡλίου δυσμάς, Schol.). τῷ μὲν (Ἀλεξάνορι) ὡς ἥρωϊ μετὰ ἥλιον δύνατα ἐναγίζουσιν Εὐαμερίωνι δὲ ὡς θεῷ θύουσιν, Paus. 2, 11, 7. νύκτωρ κατὰ ἔτος ἐναγίζουσιν, (the Pheneatai) to Myrtilos, Paus. 8, 14, 11. By night Solon sacrificed to the Salaminian Heroes, Plu., Sol. 9.—After noon, ἀπὸ μέσου ἡμέρας, must sacrifice be made to the Heroes, D.L. viii, 33; τοῖς κατοιχομένοις ἀπὸ μεσημβρίας, EM. 468, 34 (cf. Procl. in Hes. Op. 763, Eust., Θ 65, p. 698, 36). The Heroes also are among the κατοιχόμενοι: τοῖς ἥρωσιν ὡς κατοιχομένοις ἔντομα ἔθυον, ἀποβλέποντες κάτω ἐς γῆν, Schol. A.D., Α 459.—In later times sacrifice seems to have been made to the ordinary dead even in broad daylight (see Stengel, Chthon. u. Todtencult, 422 f.), but to “Heroes”, as once to the dead (Ψ 218 ff.), always towards evening or at night.
11 Cf. Stengel, Jb. f. Phil., 1886, pp. 322, 329.
12 Schol. A.D., Α 459. Schol., Ap. Rh. i, 587. ἐντέμνειν, see Stengel, Zt. f. Gymn., 1880, p. 743 ff.
13 αἱμακουρία, Pi., O. i, 90. Plu., Aristid. 21. The word is supposed to be Boeotian acc. to Schol. Pi., O. i, 146 (hence Greg. Cor., p. 215, Schaefer).
14 Rightly (as against Welcker) Wassner, de h. cult., p. 6, maintains that the ἐναγίσματα for Heroes were ὁλοκαυτώματα.
15 ἐναγίζειν to heroes, θύειν to gods. Pausanias in particular is careful in his use of the words, but even he, and Herodotos, too, occasionally says θύειν where ἐναγίζειν would have been correct (e.g. Hdt. vii, 117, τῷ Ἀρταχαίῃ θύουσι Ἀκάνθιοι ὡς ἤρωι). Others frequently say θύειν instead of ἐναγίζειν, which as the more special idea could easily be included in θύειν the more generic word for making sacrifice.
16 Cf. Deneken, de theoxeniis (Berl. 1881), cap. 1; Wassner, de h. cult., p. 12. The expressions used by primitive peoples allow us to see the ideas that lie at the bottom of this mode of offering; cf. Réville, les rel. des peuples non-civ. i, 73. The ritual may be regarded as specially primitive and even earlier than the practice of burnt offering (cf. Oldenberg, Rel. d. Veda, 344 f.).
17 See above, Ch. I, p. 14 ff.—ἐπὶ Ἀζᾶνι τῷ Ἀρκάδος τελευτήσαντι ἆθλα ἐτέθη πρῶτον· εἰ μὲν καὶ ἄλλα οὐκ οἶδα, ἱπποδρομίας δὲ ἐτέθη, Paus. 8, 4, 5.
18 The same is implied by the observation of Aristarchos that Homer knows no ἱερὸς καὶ στεφανίτης ἀγών, see Rh. Mus. 36, 544 f. (as to the observation there put forward that Homer in fact did not know the word στέφανος or its use, cf. further Schol. Pi., Nem. intr., pp. 7, 8 ff., Abel; see also Merkel, Ap. Rh. proleg., p. cxxvi: ἐϋστέφανος derived from στεφάνη not from στέφανος: Schol. Φ 511).
19 Many such Agones for Heroes are mentioned, esp. by Pindar.
20 e.g. on the command of the oracle an ἀγὼν γυμνικὸς καὶ ἱππικός was founded in honour of the fallen Phocaeans in Agylla, Hdt. i, 167. 141 Agon for Miltiades, Hdt. vi, 38; for Brasidas, Thuc. v, 11; for Leonidas in Sparta, Paus. 3, 14, 1.
21 At the Iolaia in Thebes μυρσίνης στεφάνοις στεφανοῦνται οἱ νικῶντες· μυρσίνῃ δὲ στεφανοῦνται διὰ τὸ εἶναι τῶν νεκρῶν στέφος, Sch. Pi., I. iii, 117. (The myrtle τοῖς χθονίοις ἀφιέρωτο, Apollod. ap. Sch. Ar., Ran. 330; as adorning graves, Eur., El. 324, 511.)
22 General statement: ἐτελοῦντο οἱ παλαιοὶ πάντες ἀγῶνες ἐπὶ τισι τετελευτηκόσι, Sch. Pi., I, p. 349 Ab. (τὰς ἐπιτυμβίους ταυτασὶ πανηγύρεις, Clem. Alex. calls the four great games, Protr. ii, p. 29 P.). The Nemean as an ἀγὼν ἐπιτάφιος for Archemoros, Sch. Pi., N., pp. 7, 8 Ab.; later offered to Zeus first by Herakles, ib., p. 11, 8 ff.; 12, 14–13, 4 (cf. Welcker, Ep. Cycl. ii, 350 ff.). Victor’s crown, since the Persian wars, of parsley ἐπὶ τιμῇ τῶν κατοιχομένων, ib., p. 10 (parsley on graves: Schneidewin on Dgn. viii, 57; see below. σελίνου στέφανος πένθιμος . . . Δοῦρις ἐν τῷ περὶ ἀγώνων, Phot. 506, 5). Black dress of the judges, ib., p. 11, 8 ff. Schol. Arg., N. iv, v.—Isthmian games as ἐπιτάφιος ἀγών for Melikertes and then for Sinis or Skiron, Plu., Thes. 25. Sch. Pi., I., pp. 350–2 Ab. Crown made of parsley or pine, both signs of mourning, Paus. 8, 48, 2 (and elsewhere see Meineke, An. Alex., 80 ff.). The Pythian games are said to be an ἀγὼν ἐπιτάφιος for Python; the Olympian for Oinomaos or Pelops (Phlegon, FHG. iii, 603; cf. P. Knapp, Corresp. Würt. Gelehr. 1881, p. 9 ff.). These notices cannot all be learned invention. It is a fact, for instance, that the funeral games of Tlepolemos in Rhodes, known to Pindar, O. vii, 77 ff., were later transferred to Helios (cf. Sch. Pi., O. vii, 36, 146–7, and Böckh on v, 77).
23 “Half-gods,” ἡμίθεοι. The name does not, as is sometimes declared, imply that the Heroes were spirits who thus constituted a class of intermediate beings between gods and men. The Heroes were not called ἡμίθεοι; the name was really applied to the kings and champions of the legendary age, more especially those who fought at Troy or Thebes (Hes., Op., 160; Hom. M 23; h. Hom., 31, 19; 32, 19. Callin., fr. i, 19, and often later). It applies to them, however, as living men not as glorified spirits (thus Pla., Ap. 41 A; cf. D.H. 7, 32, 13, ἡμιθέων γενομένων [on earth] αἱ ψυχαί).—The ἡμίθεοι are a species of men not of spirits or daimones; they are those οἳ πρότερόν ποτ’ ἐπέλοντο, θεῶν δ’ ἐξ ἀνάκτων ἐγένονθ’ υἷες ἡμίθεοι (Simon., fr. 36; cf. Pla., Crat. 398 D), the sons of gods and mortal women and then their companions as well (a potiori so named). Even the idea that the great men of the past, thus called ἡμίθεοι, were naturally made “Heroes” after their death as a consequence of their half-divine nature which might give them special privileges even then—this idea has no very ancient authority. Cicero, ND. iii, 45, seems to be the first to suggest such a view. That the Greeks of the best period ever regarded semi-divine origin as a qualification for becoming a Hero is refuted by the simple fact that for the great majority of the “Heroes” descent from a god was not claimed. Of course, poetry was always ready to give a Hero a divine father in order to enhance his value, cf. Paus. 6, 11, 2; but this was never a condition of being made a Hero (rather of being raised from Hero to god).
24 μάκαρ μὲν ἀνδρῶν μέτα, ἥρως δ’ ἔπειτα λαοσεβής, Pi., P. v, 94 f.
25 τίνα θεόν, τίν’ ἥρωα, τίνα δ’ ἄνδρα; Pi., O. ii init. οὔτε θεοὺς οὔτε ἥρωας οὔτε ἀνθρώπους αἰσχυνθεῖσα, Antiph. i, 27. With “daimones” added: Gods, daimones, heroes, men: Pl., Rp. 392 A; 427 B; Lg. iv, 717 AB. In later times the distinction between θεοί, δαίμονες, ἥρωες, corresponded to a real and popular opinion, see e.g. GDI. 142 1582 (Dodona), cf. also 1566, 1585 b.—There can be no question of identifying Heroes with the daimones (as Nägelsb., N. Th. 104, does). When philosophers call the dead “daimones” that is from quite a different point of view. It is a speculative idea peculiar to Plutarch himself that, in view of the transition from men to Heroes and from these to daimones, the Heroes themselves might be regarded as a sort of lower daimon (DO. 10, 415 A; Rom. 28). A Schol. on Eur., Hec. 165, quite justifiably makes a parallel between gods and daimones on the one hand and Heroes and men on the other: the gods are ὑψηλότερόν τι τάγμα τῶν δαιμόνων and this is the relation of οἱ ἥρωες πρὸς τοὺς λοιποὺς ἀνθρώπους, ὑψηλότεροί τινες δοκοῦντες καὶ ὑπερέχοντες.
26 Aristarchos’ remark that in Homer not only kings but πάντες κοινῶς are designated as ἥρωες, was directed against the mistaken limitation of the word by Ister; see Lehrs, Aristarch.3, p. 101. Before Aristarch., however, the mistaken idea that οἱ ἡγεμόνες τῶν ἀρχαίων μόνοι ἦσαν ἥρωες, οἱ δὲ λαοὶ ἄνθρωποι seems to have been general: it is expressed in the [Arist.] Probl. 19, 48, p. 922b, 18; Rhianos, too, held it, see Schol. Τ 41 (Mayhoff, de Rhiani stud. Hom., p. 46).—It is incorrect to say that in the supposed “later” parts of the Odyssey ἥρως is no longer used of all free men, but only of the aristocracy (Fanta, Staat in Il. u. Od., 17 f.). In δ 268, θ 242, ξ 97, the word is used as an honourable title of free men of superior rank, but there is no suggestion of a restriction of the word to such use. In addition to which, the word ἥρως unmistakably appears in its wider sense also in other parts of the poem equally and rightly supposed to be late (α 272, θ 483, ω 68, etc.).
27 So for example esp. when Pausanias speaks of the καλούμενοι ἥρωες, 5, 6, 2; 6, 5, 1; 7, 17, 1; 8, 12, 2; 10, 10, 1, etc.
28 ἀνδρῶν ἡρώων θεῖον γένος, Hes., Op. 159.
29 Of the “Heroes” of his fourth race the great majority fell according to Hesiod in the war of Troy or Thebes and died without any “illumination”; the few, on the other hand, who are translated to the Islands of the Blest are illuminated indeed, but have never died. To regard them as the prototypes and forerunners of the Heroes worshipped in later times (as many do) is inadmissible.
30 Grave in the market: Battos in Kyrene, Pi., P. v, 87 ff., and frequently. Hero-graves in the Prytaneion at Megara, Paus. 1, 43, 2–3. Adrastos was buried in the market at Sikyon. Kleisthenes, to play a trick on him, brought from Thebes (the corpse of) Melanippos, who, when alive, had been his greatest enemy, and placed him ἐν τῷ πρυτανείῳ καί μιν ἵδρυσε ἐνθαῦτα ἐν τῷ ἰσχυροτάτῳ, Hdt. v, 67. Themistokles had a μνημεῖον in the market at Magnesia on the Maiander. Th. 1, 138, 5; i.e. a ἡρῷον (see Wachsmuth, Rh. Mus. lii, 140).
31 τύμβον ἀμφίπολον ἔχων πολυξενωτάτῳ παρὰ βώμῳ, Pi., O. i, 93; i.e. the great ash-altar of Zeus. The excavations have confirmed Pindar’s description (cf. Paus. 5, 13, 1–2).
32 Grave built in the gateway: ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ πυλῇ at Elis Aitolos the son of Oxylos was buried, Paus. 5, 4, 4; cf. Lobeck, Agl. 281 f. Grave at the boundary of the country: Koroibos, the first Olympic victor, was buried Ἠλείας ἐπὶ τῷ πέρατι as the insc. stated: Paus. 8, 26, 4. Grave of Koroibos, son of Mygdon, ἐν ὅροις Φρυγῶν Στεκτορηνῶν, Paus. 10, 27, 1.
33 The idea of the grave as the dwelling-place of the Hero is shown in a very strange fashion by the story that the Phliasians before the feast of Demeter καλοῦσιν ἐπὶ τὰς σπονδάς the hero Aras and his sons, looking while so doing towards the graves of these Heroes: Paus. 2, 12, 5. 143
34 This hero (Xanthippos or Phokos) ἔχει ἐπὶ ἡμέρᾳ τε πάσῃ τιμάς, καὶ ἄγοντες ἱερεῖα οἱ Φωκεῖς τὸ μὲν αἷμα δι’ ὀπῆς ἐγχέουσιν ἐς τὸν τάφον κτλ. Paus. 10, 4, 10. Similarly at the grave of Hyakinthos at Amyklai, Paus. 3, 19, 3. The meaning of such an offering is the same in Greece as in similar cases among any “savage” tribe. In Tylor, ii, 28, we read: “In the Congo district the custom has been described of making a channel into the tomb to the head or mouth of the corpse, to send down month by month the offerings of food and drink.”
35 Most of the examples are mentioned by Lobeck, Agl. 281 [u], but he omits the most remarkable case, fully reported by Hdt. i, 67–8, of the transference of the bones of Orestes from Tegea to Sparta (cf. Paus. 3, 3, 6; 11, 10; 8, 54, 4. The reason is obvious, cf. Müller, Dorians, i, 72). Besides this note: the removal of the bones of Hektor from Ilion to Thebes, Paus. 9, 18, 5, Sch. and Tz., Lyc. 1194, 1204; of Arkas from Mainalos to Mantinea, Paus. 8, 9, 3; cf. 8, 36, 8; of Hesiod from Naupaktos to Orchomenos, Paus. 9, 38, 3; of Hippodameia from Midea in Argolis to Olympia, Paus. 6, 20, 7; of Tisamenos from Helike to Sparta, Paus. 7, 1, 8; of Aristomenes from Rhodes to Messene, Paus. 4, 32, 3. Strange story of the shoulder bone of Pelops, Paus. 5, 13, 4–6. In all these cases the removal followed upon a command of the oracle, cf. also Paus. 9, 30, 9–11. Practical stimulus may have been given occasionally by the discovery of abnormally large bones in dug-up graves; we often hear of such discoveries, cf. W. Schmid, Atticismus, iv, 572 f., and it was always believed that such gigantic bones were remains of one of τῶν καλουμένων ἡρώων, Paus. 6, 5, 1 (cf. also 1, 35, 5 ff.; 3, 22, 9). It would be the business of the oracle to determine the name of the Hero concerned and see that the remains were reverently preserved. (One example may be given, though from a later period. In the dried-up bed of the Orontes a clay coffin 11 yards long was found and a corpse within it. The oracle of the Clarian Apollo on being applied to for enlightenment as to its origin answered Ὀρόντην εἶναι, γένους δὲ αὐτὸν εἶναι τοῦ Ἰνδῶν, Paus. 8, 29, 4; Philostr., H. 669 p. 138, 6–19 K.
36 Plu., Cim. 8; Thes. 36; Paus. 3, 3, 7.—In the year 437–6 we hear of the removal by Hagnon and his Athenians, at the command of the oracle, of the bones of Rhesos from Troy to Amphipolis: Polyaen. vi, 53. The neighbourhood of the mouth of the Strymon on the western slopes of Mt. Pangaios was the original home of Rhesos: he was already known to the Doloneia as the son of Eïoneus; to later writers as the son of Strymon and (like Orpheus) a Muse—which is the same thing (see Conon, 4). On M. Pangaios he still lived as an oracular deity: this must have been the popular belief of the district which the author of the Rhesus explains after Greek fashion (ll. 955–66). He is a tribal god of the Edonians, of the same pattern as Zalmoxis of the Getai, and Sabos or Sabazios of other Thracian tribes. In the mind of the Greeks he had become since the poem of the Doloneia entirely detached from the site of his worship and was a mere mortal champion with whom fancy might do what it chose (cf. Parth. 36). The restoration of his bones to the neighbourhood of the lower Strymon (μνημεῖον τοῦ Ῥήσου in Amphipolis: Marsyas ὁ νεώτερος in Sch., Rhes. 346), and the heroic cult which was undoubtedly paid to him in connexion therewith, may have been a kind of official recognition by the Greeks of the worship of Rhesos discovered in that neighbourhood by the Athenian colonists. I see no reason for doubting the historical fact of the occurrence, though some of the details of Polyaenus’ account have a fabulous colouring. It is true Cicero says of Rhesos, nusquam 144 colitur (ND. iii, 45), and so it may have been in C.’s time: for the earlier period the close of the tragedy clearly suggests the cult of R. as a divinity, while the story of Polyaen. implies his Hero-cult.
37 Sometimes only single parts of the body, e.g. the shoulder-blade of Pelops at Olympia (Paus. 5, 13).—In Argos on the road to the Akropolis their heads were buried in the μνῆμα τῶν Αἰγύπτου παίδων, while the rest of their bodies were in Lerne, Paus. 2, 24, 2.
38 See Lob., Agl. 281. This only can be the meaning of Soph., OC. 1522 f. (Nauck otherwise).—A strange case is that of Hippolytos in Troizen: ἀποθανεῖν αὐτὸν οὐκ ἐθέλουσιν (οἱ Τροιζήνιοι) συρέντα ὑπὸ τῶν ἵππων οὐδὲ τὸν τάφον ἀποφαίνουσιν εἰδότες· τὸν δὲ ἐν οὐρανῷ καλούμενον ἡνίοχον τοῦτον εἶναι νομίζουσιν ἐκεῖνον (ἐκεῖνοι?) Ἱππόλυτον, τιμὴν παρὰ θεῶν ταύτην ἔχοντα Paus. 2, 32, 1. Here it seems as if the grave were not shown because Hipp. was not regarded as having died and therefore would not have a grave; he is said to have been translated and set among the stars. But there was a grave and the translation story must therefore only be an afterthought. (The death of Hipp. is spoken of clearly enough by the poets: but what happened to him after Asklepios had restored him to life again? The Italian Virbius legend seems to have been little known in Greece. Paus. 2, 27, 4, knows it from Aricia.)—Very occasionally the possession of the relics of the Hero was secured by burning the bones and scattering the ashes in the market place of the city. Thus Phalanthos in Tarentum, Justin. 3, 4, 13 ff.; Solon in Salamis, D.L. i, 62; Plu., Sol. 32. As a rule the scattering of ashes is intended to serve a different purpose, cf. Plu., Lycurg. 31 fin.; Nic. Dam., Paradox. 16, p. 170 West.
39 A few examples: κενὸν σῆμα of Teiresias in Thebes, Paus. 9, 18, 4; of Achilles at Elis, Paus. 6, 23, 3; of the Argives who fought in the war against Troy, at Argos, Paus. 2, 20, 6; of Iolaos at Thebes, Paus. 9, 23, 1; Sch. Pi., N. iv, 32 (in the tomb of Amphitryon? Pi., P. ix, 81); of Odysseus at Sparta, Plut., Q. Gr., 48, 302 C; of Kalchas in Apulia, Lyc. 1047 f.
40 Perhaps by ἀνάκλησις of the ψυχή? see above, Ch. I, n. 86 (at the foundation of Messene ἐπεκαλοῦντο ἐν κοινῷ καὶ ἥρωάς σφισιν ἐπανήκειν συνοίκους, Paus. 4, 27, 6).
41 καὶ τεθνεὼς καὶ τάριχος ἐὼν δύναμιν πρὸς θεῶν ἔχει τὸν ἀδικέοντα τίνεσθαι, Hdt. ix, 120.
42 No detailed proof of this statement is needed. We will only remark that the attempt to conceal the grave is often met with among so-called “savage” tribes and has the same purpose as in the Greek Hero-cult: cf. on this subject Herbert Spencer, Princ. of Sociol. i, p. 176.
43 See Helbig, D. hom. Epos aus Denkm.1, p. 41.
45 Β 603 οἳ δ’ ἔχον Ἀρκαδίην ὑπὸ Κυλλήνης ὄρος αἰπύ, Αἰπύτιον παρὰ τύμβον.—Cf. Paus. 8, 16, 2–3.—In the Troad the frequently mentioned Ἴλου σῆμα, the σῆμα πολυσκάρθμοιο Μυρίνης which “men” call Βατίεια, were similar monuments.
46 The ceremonial announcement of death, the καταμιαίνεσθαι of the proper persons (as usual the next of kin to the dead); the assembling of Spartiates Perioikoi and Helots (cf. Tyrt. fr. 7) with their women to the number of several thousands, the extravagant expression of grief and praise of the dead, the period of mourning (no business in the market for ten days, etc.)—all this is described by Hdt. vi, 58. He compares this grandiose funeral with the pomp customary at the burial of an Asiatic (Persian) monarch.—The Lycurgan νόμοι by these funeral rites οὐχ ὡς ἀνθρώπους ἀλλ’ ὡς ἥρωας τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίων 145 βασιλεῖς προτετιμήκασιν, Xen., Rep. Lac. xv, 9. King Agis I ἔτυχε σεμνοτέρας ἢ κατ’ ἄνθρωπον ταφῆς, Xen., HG. 3, 3, 1.—A peculiar circumstance at the burial of a Spartan king is mentioned by Apollod., fr. 36.—The burial places of the royal Houses of the Agiadai and the Eurypontidai (apart even in their death), Paus. 3, 12, 8; 14, 2 (cf. Bursian, Geog. ii, 126).—Embalming of the body of a king who dies abroad, Xen., HG. 5, 3, 19: D.S. 15, 93, 6; Nep., Ages. 8; Plu., Ages. 40.—Besides this the participation in primitive times of the whole people in the funeral of the Herakleid kings in Corinth may probably be deduced from the story told of the compulsory attendance of the Megarian subjects of Corinth at the funeral at Corinth of a king of the Bakchiad family: Sch. Pi., N. vii, 155 (cf. AB. 281, 27 ff.; Zenob. v, 8; Dgn. vi, 34). In Crete τῶν βασιλέων κηδευομένων προηγεῖτο πυρριχίζων ὁ στρατός (as at the funeral of Patroklos, Ψ 131 ff.), Arist. ap. Schol. V., Ψ 130.