Psyche, by Erwin Rohde—A Project Gutenberg eBook

139 Inquiry, at sacrifices to the dead, of an ἐξηγητής: Is. 8, 39; of the ἐξηγηταί (who give detailed instructions and advice): [D.] 47, 68 ff. Harp. ἐξηγητής· ἔστι δὲ καὶ ἃ (perh. ὅτε τὰ) πρὸς τοὺς κατοιχομένους νομιζόμενα ἐξηγοῦντο τοῖς δεομένοις. Tim. Lex. ἐξηγηταί· τρεῖς γίνονται πυθόχρηστοι (there is no need to understand this other than literally, i.e. that the college of the πυθόχρ. ἐξηγ. consisted of three members: Schöll, Hermes, 22, 564), οἷς μέλει καθαίρειν τοὺς ἄγει τινὶ ἐνισχηθέντας. The purification of the ἐναγεῖς is closely connected with the cult of the souls. It is true that prescriptions for such purification were to be found also ἐν τοῖς τῶν Εὐπατριδῶν (so Müller, Aesch. Eum. 163 A. 20 [152 n. E.T.]) πατρίοις: Ath. 9, 410 A, and it may be that the college of the ἐξ Εὐπατριδῶν ἐξηγηταί may have also given decisions in such cases. Still, that does not prevent the statement of Timaeus in regard to the ἐξηγ. πυθόχρ. from being true. (Expiations belong principally if not exclusively to the Apolline cult.)

140 Plu., Ser. Num. 17, p. 650 C.D. expressly appeals for confirmation of the belief in a continued existence of the soul after the death of the body to utterances of the Delphic god: ἄχρι τοῦ πολλὰ τοιαῦτα προθεσπίζεσθαι, οὐχ ὅσιόν ἐστι τῆς ψυχῆς καταγνῶναι θάνατον.

141 That already in Homer the circle of the ἀγχιστεῖς (in the Athenian legal sense) was called upon to prosecute the blood-feud is certainly probable in itself; it cannot, however, be proved from examples occurring in Homer. Leist’s statements in Graecoital. Rechtsges., p. 42, are not quite exact. The facts are: a father is called upon to avenge his son, and a son his father, and a brother to avenge his brother (γ 307; I 632 f.; ω 434); once the avengers are the κασίγνητοί τε ἔται τε of the murdered man, ο 273. ἔται has a very wide sense and is not even confined to kinship; at any rate it is not simply “cousins” (ἔται καὶ ἀνεψιοί side by side. I 464).—In Attic law, too, in certain cases the duty of prosecuting the murderer extended beyond the limits of the ἀνεψιαδοῖ to more distant relatives and even to the φράτορες of the murdered man (Law ap. D. 43, 57).

142 Flight, indeed ἀειφυγία, on account of φόνος ἀκούσιος: Ψ 85 ff. (The fugitive becomes the θεράπων of the person who receives him into his house in the foreign land: l. 90; cf. Ο 431 f.; this must have been the rule.)—Flight on account of φόνος ἑκούσιους (λοχησάμενος 268) ν 259 ff. And so frequently.

143 I 632 ff. καὶ μέν τίς τε κασιγνήτοιο φονῆος ποινὴν ἢ οὗ παιδὸς ἑδέξατο τεθνηῶτος· καί ῥ’ ὁ μὲν ἐν δήμῳ μένει αὐτοῦ πόλλ’ ἀποτίσας τοῦ δέ τ’ ἐρητύεται κραδίη καὶ θυμὸς ἀγήνωρ ποινὴν δεξαμένου. Here it is very plainly represented that all that is required is to appease “the heart and spirit” of the receiver of the ποινή: the murdered man is not considered.

144 It is very natural to suppose that the ποινή (as K. O. Müller suggests in Aesch. Eum. 145 [122 E T.]) may have arisen out of the substitution of a vicarious sacrifice instead of that of the murderer himself, who should strictly have been offered to the dead man. In this way primitive human sacrifice has in many cases been replaced by sacrifice of animals. In that case the ποινή too must have originally been offered to the murdered man: in Homeric times 210 only the satisfaction of the living avenger was thought of.—In any case it is a mistake to look upon the permission to buy off the blood-feud as a mitigation of primitive severity in the taking of vengeance due to the intervention of the State. The State in this case mitigated nothing since it took no interest at all (in Homer) in the treatment of murder cases. Of course, legal proceedings can be taken to decide whether a stipulated ποινή has been paid or not (Σ 497 ff.), as in the case of any other συμβόλαιον. But the prosecution of the murderer in all its departments is left entirely in the hands of the family of the murdered man.

145 We have very few details on this point. In Sparta οἱ γέροντες (δικάζουσι) τὰς φονικὰς (δίκας), Arist., Pol. 3, 1, p. 1275b 10 (and in Corinth, too, D.S. 16, 65, 6 ff.). Involuntary homicide is punished by exile and (in this being more severe than at Athens) perpetual exile as it appears. The Spartiate Drakontios serving in the army of the Ten Thousand ἔφυγε παῖς ὢν οἴκοθεν παῖδα ἄκων κατακανὼν (like Patroklos in fact, Ψ 87), ξυήλῃ πατάξας, Xen., An. 4, 8, 25. If his banishment had been only temporary the period must have expired long before.—In Kyme there are vestiges of legal prosecution of murder (with witnesses): Arist., Pol. 1269a, 1 ff.—In Chalkis ἐπὶ Θράκῃ the laws of Androdamas of Rhegion were in force περί τε τὰ φονικὰ καὶ τὰς ἐπικλήρους, Arist., Pol. 2, 8, p. 1274b 23 ff.—In Lokri were used the laws of Zaleukos in combination with Cretan, Spartan and Areopagite institutions; these last undoubtedly dealing with homicide, which must therefore have been regulated constitutionally. (Str. vi, 260, following Eph.)

146 The limits of those qualified to inherit extends in Athenian law μέχρι ἀνεψιαδῶν παίδων (Law ap. D. 43, 51; cf. § 27) as did the duty of avenging murder μεχρὶ ἀνεψιαδῶν: D. 47, 72 (ἐντὸς ἀνεψιότητος, which must mean the same thing, Law ap. D. 43, 57). The circle of persons thus united in the right of inheritance and the duty of taking vengeance for murder constituted the ἀγχιστεία, the body of kinsfolk tracing their descent (in the male line only) from the same man, the father, grandfather, or great-grandfather of them all. This is the limit to which the γονεῖς are traced: Is. 8, 32; cf. above, note 123. Many nations of the earth are familiar with a similar limitation of the narrower body of kinsfolk composing a “house”: as to the underlying reasons for the practice many conjectures are made by H. E. Seebohm, On the Structure of Greek Tribal Society (1895).

147 As to the restless wandering of the βιαιοθάνατοι more details will be given below [Append. vii]. In the meantime it will be enough to refer to A., Eum. 98, where the still unavenged soul of the murdered Klytaimnestra complains αἰσχρῶς ἀλῶμαι. A later authority uses words that correspond well with ancient belief: Porph., Abst. ii, 47, τῶν ἀνθρώπων αἱ τῶν βίᾳ ἀποθανόντων (ψυχαὶ) κατέχονται πρὸς τῷ σώματι, like the souls of the ἄταφοι.

148 In Homeric times the injured dead becomes a θεῶν μήνιμα to the evil-doer (X 358, λ 73). Later times believed that the soul of the dead man himself angrily pursued the murderer with its terrors till it drove him beyond its own boundaries: ὁ θανατωθεὶς θυμοῦται τῷ δράσαντι κτλ., Pl., Lg. 865 DE, appealing to παλαιόν τινα τῶν ἀρχαίων μύθων λεγόμενον; cf. X., Cyr. 8, 7, 18: A., Cho. 39 ff., 323 ff. If the next-of-kin whose duty it is to avenge the death of his relative shirks the duty incumbent on him the anger of the dead man is turned upon the latter: Pl., Leg. 9, 866 B—τοῦ παθόντος προστρεπομένου τὴν πάθην. The indignant soul becomes προστρόπαιος. προστρόπαιος probably 211 applies only in a derivative sense to a δαίμων who takes the part of the dead man (esp. Ζεὺς προστρόπαιος); it is strictly speaking an epithet of the soul itself in its longing for vengeance. Thus in Antiphon Tetral. 1, γ 10, ἡμῖν μὲν προστρόπαιος ὁ ἀποθανὼν οὐκ ἔσται. 3, δ 10, ὁ ἀποκτείνας (or rather ὁ τεθνηκὼς) τοῖς αἰτίοις προστρόπαιος ἔσται. So, too, A., Cho. 287, ἐκ προστροπαίων ἐν γένει πεπτωκότων. EM. 42, 7, Ἠριγόνην, ἀναρτήσασαν ἑαυτήν, προστρόπαιον τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις γενέσθαι. We can, however, see particularly well from this case how easily the change came about from a soul in a special condition to a similar daimonic being which takes the place of the soul of the dead. The same Antiphon speaks also of οἱ τῶν ἀποθανόντων προστρόπαιοι, ὁ προστρόπαιος τοῦ ἀποθανόντος as something distinct from the dead man himself: Tetr. 3, α 4; 3, β 8; cf. ὁ Μυρτίλου προστρόπαιος, Paus. 2, 18, 2, etc.; cf. Zacher, Dissert. phil. Halens., iii, p. 228. The injured dead himself becomes ἀραῖος, Soph., Tr. 1201 ff. (cf. fr. 367; E., IT. 778; Med. 608); later his place is taken by δαίμονες ἀραῖοι. What terrible evils the unavenged soul can bring upon the person who is called upon to take vengeance are painted for us by Aesch. in Cho. 278 ff. (or else as some think an ancient interpolator of A.). Sickness and trouble might be sent over several generations by such παλαιὰ μηνίματα of the dead: Pl., Phdr. 244 D (see Lobeck’s account, Agl. 636 f.). True to ancient beliefs an Orphic hymn prays to the Titanes μῆνιν χαλεπὴν ἀποπέμπειν, εἴ τις ἀπὸ χθονίων προγόνων οἴκοισι πελάσθη, H. 37, 7 f.; cf. 39, 9–10.

149 χρεών ἐστιν ὑπεξελθεῖν τῷ παθόντι τὸν δράσαντα τὰς ὥρας πάσας τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ, καὶ ἐρημῶσαι πάντας τοὺς οἰκείους τόπους ξυμπάσης τῆς πατρίδος, Pl., Lg. ix, 865 E. The law says in the case of the criminal convicted of murder εἴργειν μὲν τῆς τοῦ παθόντος πατρίδος, κτείνειν δὲ οὐχ ὅσιον ἁπανταχοῦ, D. 23, 38.

150 When the victim was a citizen, and also in wilful murder of a non-citizen. See Mei. and Sch., Att. Proc.², p. 379, n. 520.—When the citizenship of a city rested upon conquest the lives of the subjects belonging to the older subject population were of less account. In Tralles (Karia) the murder of one of the Leleges by an (Argive) full citizen might be bought off by payment of a bushel of peas (a purely symbolical ποινή) to the relations of the victim: Plu., Q.Gr. 46, p. 302 B.

151 On the expiry of the legally appointed period of banishment the relations of the dead man do not seem to have been allowed to refuse αἴδεσις. See Philippi, Areop. u. Epheten, 115 f.

152 Law ap. D. 43, 57.

153 D. 37, 59. See Philippi, op. cit., p. 144 ff. Cf. E., Hipp. 1435 f., 1442 f., 1448 f.

154 Such prohibition against taking a ποινή for murder is made by the Law ap. D. 23, 28: τοὺς δ’ ἀνδροφόνους ἐξεῖναι ἀποκτείνειν . . . λυμαίνεσθαι δὲ μή, μηδὲ ἀποινᾶν (cf. § 33 τὸ δὲ μηδ’ ἀποινᾶν· μὴ χρήματα πράττειν, τὰ γὰρ χρήματα ἄποινα ὠνόμαζον οἱ παλαιοί). In spite of this Meier and others unjustifiably conclude that murder could be indemnified by payment of money, from the illegal practice mentioned in [D.] 58, 29: this speaks rather for the contrary. They have more appearance of justification when they appeal to Harp. (Phot. Suid., E.M. 784, 26; AB. 313, 5 ff.), s.v. ὑποφόνια· τὰ ἐπὶ φόνῳ διδόμενα χρήματα τοῖς οἰκείοις τοῦ φονευθέντος, ἵνα μὴ ἐπεξίωσιν. On the strength of this Hermann, Gr. Staatsalt.⁵ 104, 6, says, “even intentional murder could be absolutely indemnified.” Nothing is actually said of φόνος ἑκούσιος here nor do we anywhere learn that the payment of ὑποφόνια 212 on the occasion of a murder was ever a formally legalized proceeding. It remains possible, and even in the circumstances more probable, that Dinarch. and Thphr. in the passages on ὑποφόνια quoted by Harp. referred to the practice as one forbidden by law, though it might be, on occasion, an actual fact. If we had only the gloss of Suidas—ἄποινα· λύτρα, ἃ δίδωσί τις ὑπὲρ φόνου ἢ σώματος. οὕτως Σόλων ἐν νόμοις—we might have concluded that payment of such blood-money was allowed in Athens and mentioned in Solon’s laws as allowable. This would be quite as justifiable as to argue as above from Harp. s. ὑποφόνια. We know, in fact, that the law referred to the ἄποινα and ἀποινᾶν as forbidden things, from the passages already quoted from Dem. (23, 28–33). From these the gloss was itself probably derived.

155 We cannot, however, believe on the poor authority of Sch. Dem. p. 607, 16 ff., that the ἱεροποιοὶ ταῖς Σεμναῖς θεαῖς were selected out of the whole Athenian citizen body by the Areiopagos. (“Three” were chosen out of all the Athenians: D. 21, 115; at other times “ten”: Dinarch. ap. EM. 469, 12 ff.; an indefinite number: Phot. ἱεροποιοί.) According to all analogies we should rather expect this selection to have been made by the popular Assembly.

156 αἱ διωμοσίαι καὶ τὰ τόμια, Antiphon, Herod. 88. In more detail D. 23, 67–8. Those who had to take an oath swore by the Σεμναὶ θεαί and other gods: Dinarch., adv. Demosth. 47. Both sides had to swear to the justice of their case in respect of the material facts in dispute (Philippi, Areop., pp. 87–95). Such a compulsory oath taken by both parties could not of course in any circumstances serve as proof: one side at least must be perjured. Nor can the Athenians themselves have failed to see this. It is surely doing them an injustice not to see the simple explanation of this strange sort of preliminary oath-taking and to dismiss the matter with a reference to the Athenians as “not a legally-minded people” (as Philippi does, p. 88). It is much more natural to suppose that this double oath, taken under circumstances of peculiar solemnity, was not regarded as a juridical matter at all, but had a purely religious sense (as it had in the quite similar cases mentioned by Meiners, Allg. Gesch. d. Relig. ii, 296 f.). The oath-taker invokes a dreadful curse upon himself if he breaks his oath and devotes αὑτὸν καὶ γένος καὶ οἰκίαν τὴν αὑτοῦ (Antiphon, Herod. 11) to the Curse-Goddesses, the Ἀραί or the Ἐρινύες αἵ θ’ ὑπὸ γαῖαν ἀνθρώπους τίνυνται, ὅτις κ’ ἐπίορκον ὀμόσσῃ (Τ 259 f.)—and to the Gods who are to punish his children and his whole kith and kin on earth (Lycurg., Leocr. 79). If the court discovers the perjured party the punishment due to his action overtakes him (or if he is the plaintiff, he fails in his purpose) and at the same time the justice of heaven punishes him for his broken oath (cf. D. 23, 68). But the court may make a mistake and not find out the perjurer; in which case the perjurer is still punished for he becomes a victim of the gods to whom he has devoted himself—who do not err. Thus the double oath is an addition to the judicial inquiry, and heavenly punishment stands side by side with that of men. The two may coincide, but this need not be so, and in this way the guilty is punished whatever happens. (How familiar such ideas were in antiquity we see from expressions used by orators: Isoc. 18, 3; D. 19, 239–40; Lycurg., Leocr. 79.) The oath, being an appeal to a higher court, supplemented human justice, or rather the legal processes of men supplemented the oath-taking, for in this partnership the appeal to an oath must have been the older member. 213

157 Poll. 8, 117, καθ’ ἕκαστον δὲ μῆνα τριῶν ἡμερῶν ἐδίκαζον (the judges on the Areiopagos) ἐφεξῆς, τετάρτῃ φθίνοντος, τρίτῃ, δευτέρᾳ.

158 οἱ Ἀρεοπαγῖται τρεῖς που τοῦ μῆνος ἡμέρας τὰς φονικὰς δίκας ἐδίκαζον, ἑκάστῃ τῶν θεῶν μίαν ἡμέραν ἀπονέμοντες, Sch. Aeschin. 1, 188, p. 282 Sch. This certainly implies that the limitation of the number of the Erinyes to three (and not two for example)—which first appears in Eurip., but was certainly not his own invention—was officially current in the worship of the city.—Since these three days were sacred to the Erinyes, as goddesses of Hades, they counted as ἀποφράδες ἡμέραι: EM. 131, 16 f.; Et. Gud. 70, 5 (the thirtieth day of the month is for that reason φαύλη πᾶσιν ἔργοις acc. to “Orpheus” fr. 28 Ab.).

160 The Erinyes are the accusers of Orestes not only in Aeschylus (and thence in Eurip. too, IT. 940 ff.), but also in the varying accounts derived from different sources, in which the twelve gods served as judges ap. D. 23, 66 (cf. 74, and Dinarch., adv. Dem. 87).

161 The Erinyes are said ἀπὸ ζῶντος ῥοφεῖν ἐρυθρὸν ἐκ μελέων πέλανον, A., Eum. 264 f.; cf. 183 f.; 302; 305. In this they closely resemble the “vampires” which we hear of especially in Slav popular mythology, and the Tii of the Polynesians, etc. These, however, are the souls of the dead returned from the grave and sucking men’s blood.

162 The Erinyes say to Orestes: ἐμοὶ τραφείς τε καὶ καθιερωμένος καὶ ζῶν με δαίσεις οὐδὲ πρὸς βωμῷ σφαγείς, A., Eum. 304 f. The matricide is divis parentum (i.e. their Manes) sacer, their sacrificial victim (θῦμα καταχθονίου Διός D.H. 2, 10, 3), in the older belief of Greece, too.

163 See Rh. Mus. 50, 6 ff.

164 The fact that after receiving the αἴδεσις of the dead man’s relatives the agent of a φόνος ἀκούσιος was still required to offer the expiatory sacrifice as well as undergo purification (ἱλασμός and καθαρμός) is alluded to by Dem. 23, 72–3, in the double expression θῦσαι καὶ καθαρθῆναι, ὁσιοῦν καὶ καθαίρεσθαι (cf. Müller, Aesch. Eum., p. 144 [122, n. 2, E.T.]).

165 See Philippi, Areop. u. Eph. 62.

166 In the Iliad and the Odyssey there is a total absence not only of all reference to purification from blood-guiltiness but of the necessary conditions for it. The murderer goes freely among men without there being any fear of others suffering from a μίασμα attaching to him. Cf. the case especially of Theoklymenos, ο 271–8. Lobeck rightly emphasizes this, Agl. 301. K. O. Müller’s attempts to prove in spite of everything that purifications from the stain of murder were a Homeric custom, are failures. See Nägelsbach, Hom. Theol.², p. 293.—The oldest examples of purifications from murder in the literature are (Lobeck 309): purification of Achilles from the blood of Thersites in the Αἰθιοπίς, p. 33 Kink.; refusal of Neleus to purify Herakles from the murder of Iphitos: Hesiod ἐν καταλόγοις, Sch., Il. Β 336.—Mythical exx. of such purifications in later accounts: Lob., Agl. 968–9.

167 E g. offering of cakes, sacrifice of drink-offerings without wine, burning of the materials of sacrifice; cf. the description of ἱλασμός (in this place clearly distinguished from καθαρμός) in A.R. iv, 712 ff. Similar account (offerings without wine, etc.) of the ἱλασμός (which is, however, improperly called καθαρμός, l. 466) of the Eumenides at Kolonos which the chorus recommends to Oedipus, S., O.C. 469 ff. No one might eat of the expiatory sacrifice: Porph., Abst. 2, 44. It is burnt completely: Stengel, Jahrb. f. Phil. 1883, p. 369 ff.—The 214 clash of bronze was used πρὸς πᾶσαν ἀφοσίωσιν καὶ ἀποκάθαρσιν: Apollod. fr. 36 (and in offerings to Hekate, Theoc. ii, 36; as protection against ghosts, Luc., Philops. 15; Sch. Theoc. ii, 36; Tz., Lyc. 77. Clash of bronze in this apotropaic sense occurs, too, in the dance of the Kouretes, etc.; see below). The ritual of expiation was affected in many ways by admixture of foreign superstitions from Phrygia and Lydia. Its chief source is to be found in the Cretan worship of the (chthonic) Zeus. Thence it seems to have spread all over Greece assisted by the Apolline oracle of Delphi. This is why the ram, the peculiar victim of Ζεὺς χθόνιος, is the principal victim in expiatory sacrifices, its fleece, the Διὸς κώδιον, receiving the various materials of expiation, etc.

168 On the chthonic character of the deities of expiation see in gen. K. O. Müller, Aesch. Eum., p. 139 ff. (112 ff.). Chief among them is Ζεὺς μειλίχιος (a euphemistic title; cf. above, n. 5), who is unmistakably a χθόνιος. Hence, like all χθόνιοι he is represented as a snake on the votive tablet to Ζ. μειλ. discovered in the Peiraeus (certainly the Athenian god and not a foreign deity identified with this god whom all Athenians knew well from the feast of the Diasia): BCH. 7, 507 ff.; CIA. ii, 1578 ff. On a votive insc. from Lykia we have, side by side with the chthonic Hekate, Διὶ Μειλιχίῳ καὶ Ἐνοδίᾳ, BCH. 13, 392. Other θεοὶ μειλίχιοι in Lokris were worshipped with nocturnal sacrifice (as regularly in the case of underworld deities): Paus. 10, 38, 8. The δαίμονες μειλίχιοι as χθόνιοι are contrasted with the μακάρεσσιν οὐρανίοις in the oracle verses ap. Phlegon, Macr. iv, p. 93, 5 Kel.: deis milicheis Acta Lud. Saecul. Tab. A l. 11 [= CIL. vi, 32, 323; see Mommsen, Ges. Schr. viii, 570].—Then come the ἀποτρόπαιοι: their nature can be guessed from the fact that they were worshipped together with the dead and Hekate on the thirtieth day of the month (see above, n. 88). After a bad dream offerings were made to the ἀποτρόπαιοι, to Ge and the Heroes: Hp., Diaet. 4, 8, vi, p. 652 L. Ζεὺς ἀποτρόπαιος must have been a χθόνιος, but we have side by side with him an Ἀθηνᾶ ἀποτροπαία (and an Apollo ἀποτρ. too): ins. from Erythrai, SIG. 600, 69; 115: the provinces of Ὀλύμπιοι and χθόνιοι were not always kept absolutely distinct.—An ancient and hereditary service of the propitiation deities belonged to the Attic family of the Phytalids who had once purified and offered expiatory sacrifice for Theseus after the murder of Skiron and others (ἁγνίσαντες καὶ μειλίχια θύσαντες): Plu., Thes. 12. The gods to whom this family offered sacrifice were Demeter and Zeus Meilichios: Paus. 1, 37, 2–4.—Isoc. 5, 117, makes a clear distinction between the θεοὶ Ὀλύμπιοι and the gods to whom only an apotropaic cult, ἀποπομπάς, was offered; these being the gods of expiation (cf. ἀποδιοπομπεῖσθαι in propitiatory sacrifices; ἀποπομπαῖοι θεοί: Apollod. ap. Harp. ἀποπομπάς. Cf. also ἀποπομπή of evil daimones in contrast to the ἐπιπομπή of the same: Anon. Vir. Herb. xxii, 165. See Hemsterhuys, Lucian ii, p. 255 Bip.; Lob., Agl. 984, ii).

169 e.g. in the description of the ἱλασμός of Medea by Kirke in A.R. iv, 712 ff.

170 K. O. Müller, Dorians, i, 328, 336; cf. the same ancient custom of flight for nine years and penance for the slaying of a man in the legend and cult of Zeus Lykaios; cf. H. D. Müller, Myth. d. gr. St. ii, 105. See below.

171 Cho. 1055–60. Eum. 237 ff., 281 ff., 445 ff., 470.

172 The Delphinion, the court for trying φόνος δίκαιος, and the ancient dwelling of Aegeus (Plu., Thes. 12), was at the same time 215 (and perhaps originally) an expiation site. Expiatory sacrifice was there made for Theseus after his fights with the Pallantidai and the highway robbers (ἀφοσιούμενος τὸ ἄγος, Poll. viii, 119).

173 Plu., Ser. Num. 17, p. 560 EF. Note the expressions: ἱλάσασθαι τὴν τοῦ Ἀρχιλόχου ψυχήν, ἱλασασθαι τὴν Παυσανίου ψυχήν. Suid. Ἀρχίλοχος, from Aelian: μειλίξασθαι τὴν τοῦ Τελεσικλείου παιδὸς ψυχήν, καὶ πραῧναι χοαῖς.

174 The three ἐξηγηταὶ πυθόχρηστοι, οἷς μέλει καθαῖρειν τοὺς ἄγει τινὶ ἐνισχηθέντας, Tim. Lex. p. 109 R.

175 Pl., Lg. 865 B: the agent in a φόνος ἀκούσιος (of a special kind) καθαρθεὶς κατὰ τὸν ἐκ Δελφῶν κομισθέντα περὶ τούτων νόμον ἔστω καθαρός.

176 I set down here the expressions occurring in the speeches and the (at any rate contemporary [see Appendix iv]) Tetralogies of Antiphon, which throw light on the religious ideas lying behind the procedure in trials for murder. In the prosecution of the murderer the following are concerned: ὁ τεθνεώς, οἱ νόμοι, and θεοὶ οἱ κάτω, Or. 1, 31. The vigorous prosecution of the case on the part of the relations of the dead is βοηθεῖν τῷ τεθνεῶτι: 1, 31. Tetr. 1 β, 13. The condemnation of the murderer is τιμωρία τῷ ἀδικηθέντι, his personal revenge: 5, 88 = 6, 6. The accusing relatives come before the court as representatives of the dead man, ἀντὶ τοῦ παθόντος ἐπισκήπτομεν ὑμῖν, as they say to the judges, Tetr. 3 γ, 7. The duty of accusing as well as the ἀσέβημα of the deed of bloodshed rests upon them until satisfaction is made for it: Tetr. 1 α, 3. But the μίασμα of the deed attaches to the whole city in which the murderer lives. All who sit at table with him, or live under the same roof, even the temples he walks in, are polluted by his mere presence: hence come ἀφορίαι and δυστυχεῖς πράξεις on the city. It is to the greatest interest of the judges to avert this pollution by giving a propitiatory judgment: Tetr. 1 α, 10; Or. 5, 11, 82; Tetr. 1 α, 3; 1 γ, 9, 11; 3 γ, 6, 7. Above all it is necessary to find the real criminal and to punish him. If the relatives of the dead prosecute some one other than the real doer of the deed, it is they, and not the judges (on account of their wrong decision), who will have to bear the wrath of the dead man and of the avenging spirits: Tetr. 1 α, 3; 3 α, 4; 3 δ, 10; for in this case the murdered man is deprived of his τιμωρία: 3 α, 4. But perjured witnesses and unjust judges are liable to a μίασμα, too, which they then introduce into their own houses: Tetr. 3 α, 3; or at least, if they give a false condemnation (but not a false acquittal) of the accused, they incur the μήνιμα τῶν ἀλιτηρίων acc. to Tetr. 3 β, 8—i.e. that of the falsely condemned person (whereas the murdered man still continues angry with his own relatives). If they knowingly acquit the murderer contrary to justice, the murdered man becomes ἐνθύμιος to the judges and no longer to his relatives: Tetr. 1 γ, 10.—The source of the resentment is said to be the dead man himself: προστρόπαιος ὁ ἀποθανών, Tetr. 1 γ, 10; cf. 3 δ, 10; where he is parallel with τὸ μήνιμα τῶν ἀλιτηρίων. The murdered man leaves behind him τὴν τῶν ἀλιτηρίων δυσμένειαν (and this is what the μίασμα really is—not as some modern writers have imagined, any sort of “moral” pollution—as is clearly stated in this passage: τὴν τῶν ἀλιτ. δυσμένειαν, ἢν . . . μίασμα . . . εἰσάγονται): Tetr. 3 α, 3; cf. Again 3 β, 8; 3 γ, 7. In this case the avenging spirits substitute themselves for the soul of the dead man (just as in the case where a προστρόπαιος τοῦ ἀποθανόντος is spoken of: cf. above, n. 148). The προστρόπαιοι τῶν ἀποθανάντων become themselves δεινοὶ ἀλιτήριοι of the dilatory relatives: 216 Tetr. 3 α, 4. There is no essential distinction between the two (cf. Poll. 5, 131). Elsewhere we hear of τὸ προστρόπαιον as the special attribute or feeling of the murdered man himself: Tetr. 2 δ, 9. Thus also we have the alternatives ἐνθύμιος ὁ ἀποθανών (1 γ, 10) and τὸ ἐνθύμιον (2 α, 2; 2 δ, 9). In this connexion it is clear that ἐνθύμιον (as the fixed and conventional expression for these superstitions) means the indignant memory, the longing for revenge of the murdered man (—ἐνθύμιον ἔστω Δάματρος καὶ Κούρας, GDI. 3541, 8). The proper understanding of this word will help us to see what is meant by the expression ὀξυθύμια used of the meal offered to the dead and Hekate, and the almost identical purificatory offerings, that after the religious cleansing of a house were thrown out at the cross-roads (Harp. s.v. Phot. s.v. Art. 1, 2, 3; AB. 287, 24, 288, 7; EM. 626, 44 ff.). They are intended to appease the easily awakened anger of the souls (and of their patroness Hekate), their ὀξύθυμον, a stronger version of ἐνθύμιον, by apotropaic sacrifice.