73 φροντίσαι δὲ τοὺς ὀργεῶνας (the members of a collegium of Dionysiasts) ὅπως ἀφηρωισθεῖ Διονύσιος καὶ ἀνατεθεῖ ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ παρὰ τὸν θεόν, ὅπου καὶ ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ, ἵνα ὑπάρχει κάλλιστον ὑπόμνημα αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸν ἅπαντα χρόνον, inscr. of Peiraeus, second century B.C.; CIA. iv, 2, n. 623e, 45 ff. In Argos a guild, apparently of tanners, puts up an inscr. τῷ δεῖνι, κτίστᾳ ἥρωι, CIG. 1134.
74 Like that Naulochos whom Philios of Salamis saw three times in a dream appearing in company with Demeter and Kore. The city of Priene thereupon ordered that he should be worshipped (ἥρωα σέβειν, Epigr. Gr. 774).
75 Κάρπος τὰν ἰδίαν γυναῖκα ἀφηρώϊξε (Thera) CIG. 2471. From the same place come many more exx. of ἀφηρωίζειν by members of a family: 2472b–d, 2473; cf. Ἀνδροσθένην Φίλωνος νέον ἥρωα . . . ἡ μήτηρ (Macedonia) Arch. miss. scient. iii, 1876, 295, n. 130.—This is probably how we should understand the matter when in sepulchral epigrams one member of the family addresses or refers to another as ἥρως: Epigr. Gr. 483, 510, 552, 674.—But ἥρως συγγενείας, CIA. iii, 1460, must have a fuller sense than the otherwise usual ἥρως. It distinguishes a true ἀρχηγέτης. Prob. this is also the meaning of Χαρμύλου ἥρωος τῶν Χαρμυλείων, GDI. 3701 (Kos). Something more than simple ἥρως is also probably intended by the language of the Pergamene inscr. (specially distorted to suit the ἰσοψηφία) Inscr. Perg. ii, 587, Ἰ. Νικόδημος, ὁ καὶ Νίκων (ᾳφιγ) ἀγαθὸς εἶεν ἂν ἥρως (ᾳφιγ).
76 It is true that it is difficult to find certain exx. of the identification of a dead man with an already existing and honoured heros of another name. Of the various examples generally quoted for this perhaps the only relevant is the Spartan inscr. Ἀριστοκλῆς ὁ καὶ Ζῆθος, Ath. Mitt. iv, tab. 8, 2. Identification with a god is of frequent occurrence: cf. imagines defuncti, quas ad habitum dei Liberi formaverat (uxor), divinis percolens honoribus: Apul., M. viii, 7. (Cf. Lob., Agl. 1002, who also thinks of the example given in the Πρωτεσίλαος of Eur.; but the resemblance is only a distant one.) The dead man as Βάκχος, Epigr. Gr. 821; Διονύσου ἄγαλμα, ib. 705; cf. the dead man of CIG. 6731, ἄγαλμα εἰμι Ἡλίου. Many similar exx. of the representation of the dead in accordance with the types of Dionysos, Asklepios, Hermes are given by Ross, Archäol. Aufs. i, 51; Deneken in Roscher, Lex. i, 2588.
78 See Keil, Syll. Inscr. Boeot., p. 153.
79 In Thespiai the inss. do not show the addition of ἥρως to the name of the dead until Imperial times: see Dittenberger on IG. Sept. i, 2110, p. 367.
80 Many exx. of ἥρως, ἥρως χρηστὲ χαῖρε, etc., are collected and arranged by Deneken in Roscher’s Lex. s. Heros, i, 2549 ff. See also Loch, Gr. Grabschr., p. 282 ff.
81 As Keil has already observed, loc. cit. [n. 78].—At any rate ἡρωίνη still preserves its full sense when the council and people of Athens, in the first century A.D., so describe a woman of position after her death, CIA. iii, 889. Or again, when the Athenian as well as the 562 Spartan decree calls P. Statilius Lamprias expressly ἥρως (see above, n. 6)—Fouilles d’Epid. i, n. 205–9.
82 It is curious how, much later, in Christian times, ὁ ἥρως is applied to one who has recently died (exactly synonymous with ὁ μακαρίτης): cf. ὁ ἥρως Εὐδόξιος, ὁ ἥρως Πατρίκιος, Ἰάμβλιχος in Schol. Basilic.
83 ὕπνος ἔχει σε μάκαρ . . . , καὶ ζῇς ὡς ἥρως καὶ νέκυς οὐκ ἐγένου, Epigr. Gr. 433; where it is evident that the ἥρως is something more living than the mere νέκυς. ἀσπάζεσθ’ ἥρωα, τὸν οὐκ ἐδαμάσσατο λύπη (i.e. who has not been made nothing by death), ib., 296. The husband τιμαῖς ἰσόμοιρον ἔθηκε τὰν ὁμόλεκτρον ἥρωσιν, 189, 3. The title ἥρως still has a stronger and deeper sense in inss. such as CIG. 1627 (referring to a descendent of Plutarch’s) and 4058 (. . . ἄνδρα φιλόλογον καὶ πάσῃ ἀρετῇ κεκοσμημένον εὐδαίμονα ἥρωα). Cf. Orig., Cels. 3, 80, p. 359 Lom.: οἱ βιοῦντες ὧσθ’ ἥρωες γενέσθαι καὶ μετὰ θεῶν ἕξειν τὰς διατριβάς. In 3, 22, p. 276, he distinguishes between θεοί, ἥρωες, ἁπαξαπλῶς ψυχαί (the soul can divina fieri et a legibus mortalitatis educi, Arnob. ii, 62; cf. Corn. Labeo ap. Serv., Aen. iii, 168).
84 ἄωροι, βιοθάνατοι, ἄταφοι see Append. vii.—θάπτειν καὶ ὁσιοῦν τῇ Γῇ, significantly, Philostr., Her. 714, p. 182, 9 f. K.
85 Plu., Dio, 2: some say that only children and women and foolish men see ghosts, δαίμονα πονηρὸν ἐν αὐτοῖς δεισιδαιμονίαν ἔχοντες. Plu. on the other hand thinks that he can confound the unbelieving by pointing to the fact that even Dio and Brutus had seen φάσματα shortly before their death.
86 Cf. the story of Philinnion and Machates in Amphipolis: Phleg., Mirab. 1. Procl. in Rp., p. 64 Sch. [ii, p. 116 Kr.; see Rohde in Rh. Mus. 32, 329 ff.]. The Erinyes in Aesch. are conceived as vampire-like: Eum. 264 f.: see above, chap. v, n. 161.—Souls of the dead as nightmare, ἐφιάλτης, incubo oppressing a man’s enemy: Soran. ap. Tert., An. 44; Cael. Aurel., Morb. Chron. 1, 3, 55 (Rh. Mus. 37, 467, 1).
87 The Φιλοψευδής is a genuine treasure-house of typical narratives of apparitions and sorceries of every kind. δαίμονας ἀνάγειν καὶ νεκροὺς ἑώλους ἀνακαλεῖν is a mere bagatelle, according to these sage doctors, to the magician: c. 13. An example is given of this conjuration of the dead (the seven-months dead father of Glaukias): 14. Appearance of the dead wife of Eukrates whose golden sandals they had forgotten to burn with her: 27 (see above, chap. i, n. 51). As a rule the only haunting ghosts are αἱ τῶν βιαίως ἀποθανόντων ψυχαί not those of the κατὰ μοῖραν ἀποθανόντων as the learned Pythagorean instructs us, c. 29. Then follows the story of the ghost of Corinth (30–1), which must be taken from a widely known ghost-story, as it agrees completely in its circumstances with the story told with such simple candour by Pliny (Ep. vii, 27). δαίμονάς τινας εἶναι καὶ φάσματα καὶ νεκρῶν ψυχὰς περιπολεῖν ὑπὲρ γῆς καὶ φαίνεσθαι οἷς ἂν ἐθέλωσιν (29) is the fixed conviction of these philosophers. The living too can sometimes catch a glimpse of the underworld: 22–4. A man’s soul can be detached from his body and go down to Hades, and afterwards, again reunited to his body, relate its adventures. Thus the soul of Kleodemos, while his body lay in fever, is taken down to the lower world by a messenger but then sent back again since he had been taken by mistake for his neighbour, the smith Demylos: 25. This edifying narrative is certainly intended as a parody of the similar story told in good faith by Plu. de An. fr. 1, preserved 563 ap. Eus., PE. 11, 36, p. 563. It is certain that Plu. did not simply invent such a story; he may perhaps have found it in some older collection of miraculous ἀναβιώσεις such as, for example, Chrysippos did not disdain to make. The probability that Plu. got this story of mistaken identity from a collection of folk-tales is made all the likelier since the same story occurs again in a popular guise. Of a similar character is what Augustine has to say on the authority of Corn. Labeo: Civ. Dei 22, 28 (p. 622, 1–5 Domb.). Augustine himself, Cur. pro Mort. 15, tells a story exactly like that of Plu. (about Curma the curialis and Curma the faber ferrarius), which, of course, is supposed to happen a little before his time in Africa; and once more at the end of the sixth century Gregory the Great introduces a vision of Hell by the same formula: Dial. 4, 36, p. 384 AB Migne. The inventive powers of ghoststory-tellers is very limited: they keep on repeating the same few old and tried motifs.
88 Plu., Dio, 2, 55: Cimon, 1; Brut. 36 f., 48.
90 ψυχὰς ἡρώων ἀνακαλεῖν among the regular arts of the magician, Cels. ap. Orig., Cels. 1, 68, p. 127 Lomm.
91 See Append. xii.
92 And in consequence we sometimes have the most surprising confusion of the two states of being. Lucian, e.g. (in D. Mort. frequently, cf. 18, 1, 20, 2, and Necyom. 15, 17; Char. 24) speaks of the dead in Hades as skeletons lying one upon another, Aiakos allowing them each one foot of earth, etc. (The Romans have the same confusion of ideas: nemo tam puer est, says Sen., Ep. 24, 18, ut Cerberum timeat et tenebras et larvalem habitum nudis ossibus cohaerentium. Cf. Prop. iv, 5, 3, Cerberus . . . ieiuno terreat ossa sono, etc.) There is also a confusion between the grave and Hades in such expressions as μετ’ εὐσεβέεσσι κεῖσθαι: Epigr. Gr. 259, 1; σκῆνος νῦν κεῖμαι Πλουτέος ἐμμελάθροις, 226, 4; cf. above, chap. xii, n. 95. Such a mixture of ideas was all the more natural seeing that Ἅιδης also occurs as a metaphor for τύμβος (see below, n. 135).
93 ὁ πολὺς ὅμιλος οὗς ἰδιώτας οἱ σοφοὶ καλοῦσιν, Ὁμήρῳ καὶ Ἡσιόδῳ καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις μυθοποιοῖς περὶ τούτων πειθόμενοι, τόπον τινὰ ὑπὸ τὴν γῆν βαθὺν Ἅιδην ὑπειλήφασι κτλ., Luc., Luct. 2 (continued to c. 9). Plu., Suav. Viv. 27, 1105 AB, thinks that οὐ πάνυ πολλοί are afraid of Kerberos, having to fill broken pitchers and the other terrors of Hades, as being μητέρων καὶ τιτθῶν δόγματα καὶ λόγους μυθώδεις. And yet as protection against these things people are always seeking τελετὰς καὶ καθαρμούς.
94 See Griech. Roman, 261, Ettig Acheruntica (Leipz. Stud. 13, 251 ff.).
95 Man hopes that after death he will see τοὺς νῦν ὑβρίζοντας ὑπὸ πλούτου καὶ δυνάμεως κτλ. ἀξίαν δίκην τίνοντας, Plu., Suav. V. 28, 2, 1105 C. Reversal of earthly situation in Hades: τὰ πράγματα ἐς τοὔμπαλιν ἀνεστραμμένα· ἡμεῖς μὲν γὰρ οἱ πένητες γελῶμεν, ἀνιῶνται δὲ καὶ οἰμώζουσιν οἱ πλούσιοι, Luc., Catapl. 15; cf. DM. 15, 2; 25, 2: ἰσοτιμία, ἰσηγορία in Hades and ὅμοιοι πάντες. aequat omnes cinis; impares nascimur, pares morimur, Sen., Ep. 91, 16—a favourite commonplace: see Gataker on M. Ant. vi, 24, p. 235 f.
96 How far indeed this really happened is of course not to be answered decisively. The Celsus against whom Origen wrote his polemical treatise looks at the matter from the popular point of view on the whole. (He is no Epicurean as Orig. supposes; but neither in fact is he a professional philosopher of any kind, but rather 564 an ἰδιώτης with inclinations to philosophy of all sorts and esp. to the semi-Platonism current at the time.) He distinctly says μήτε τούτοις (the Christians) εἴη μήτ’ ἐμοὶ μήτ’ ἄλλῳ τινὶ ἀνθρώπων ἀποθέσθαι τὸ περὶ τοῦ κολασθήσεσθαι τοὺς ἀδίκους καὶ γερῶν ἀξιωθήσεσθαι τοὺς δικαίους δόγμα (ap. Orig., Cels. 3, 16, p. 270 Lomm.).—On the other hand, it is significant of the temper of the very “secular” Graeco-Roman society which was at the head of affairs at the end of the last century B.C., that Cicero at the end of his work, de Nat. Deor. (iii, 81 ff.), in discussing the various means of obtaining a balance between desert and punishment, virtue and reward, in the circumstances of human life, never even mentions the belief in a final balance and recompense after death. (He only mentions among other things the visiting of the sins of the father upon his descendants on earth—90 ff.—that old Greek belief [see above, chap. xii, n. 65] which really excludes the idea of an after life.) Between the days of Cic. and those of Celsus ideas had changed. We know this from innumerable indications; even the next world was looked at in quite a different light in the second century A.D. from what it had been two centuries earlier.
97 τιμωρίαι αἰωνιοι ὑπὸ γῆν καὶ κολασμοὶ φρικώδεις are expected after death by many (while others regard death as merely an ἀγαθῶν στέρησις): Plu., Virt. Moral. 10, 450 A. Horrible tortures in the κολαστήριον in Hades, fire, scourging, etc.: Luc., Necyom. 14 (carried still further in Plu.’s pictures of Hades, Gen. Soc. and Ser. NV.). Fire, pitch, and sulphur belong to the regular apparatus of this place of torment; already in Axioch. 372 A, sinners are scorched by burning torches ἀϊδίοις τιμωρίαις (cf. Lehrs, Popl. Aufs. 308 ff.). How far such horrors really represented popular belief it is difficult to say for certain (they became quite familiar to Christian writers on Hell from classical tradition: cf. Maury, Magie et l’astrol. dans l’antiq. 166 ff.). But Celsus, for example, though he himself believes in the punishments of Hell (Orig., Cels. 8, 49, p. 180) only appeals in confirmation of his belief to the teaching of ἐξηγηταὶ τελεσταί τε καὶ μυσταγωγοί of certain (not precisely defined) ἱερά: 8, 48, p. 178; cf. above, chap. vii, § 2; chap. x, n. 62.
99 Peleus, Kadmos, Achilles in the Islands of the Blest: Pi., O. ii, 86 ff. (Peleus and Kadmos the supreme examples of εὐδαιμονία: P. iii, 86 ff.). In Eur., Andr. 1254 ff. Thetis promises to Peleus immortal life Νηρέως ἐν δόμοις. An ancient poem must have spoken to this effect of Kadmos (and of Harmonia his wife); both are transported μακάρων ἐς αἶαν Eur., Ba. 1338 f.; ποιηταί and μυθογράφοι ap. Sch. Pi., P. iii, 153 (this would be after their “death” in Illyria where their graves were shown, and the snakes of stone into which they had been changed: see Müller on Scylax, 24, p. 31). Achilles and Diomedes are νήσοις ἐν μακάρων acc. to the skolion on Harmodios: Carm. pop. fr. 10 Bgk. (Thus we often hear that Achilles is in the Is. of the Blest or in the Ἠλύσιον πεδίον which was regularly identified with them—cf. Ἠλύσιος λειμών in the μακάρων νῆσος: Luc., Jup. Conf. 17; VH. ii, 14—e.g. Pla. Smp. 199 E; A.R. iv, 811; [Apollod.] Epit. v, 5. His special place of abode on the island of Leuke is also a μακάρων νῆσος and an older invention than the common Is. of the Blest of which we first hear in Hes., Op. 159 ff. Diomedes in the same way after his ἀφανισμός enjoyed immortal life in the island named after him in the Adriatic: Ibyc. ap. Sch. Pi., N. x, 12; Str. 283–4, etc.; but the skolion transferred him to the common dwelling-place of the blessed Heroes.) Achilles, sometimes in Leuke, sometimes on the Is. 565 of the Blest, is accompanied by his wife Medea (in Elys.: Ibyc. Simon. Sch. A.R. iv, 814; A.R. iv, 811 ff.) or Iphigeneia who had once been betrothed to him (in Leuke: Ant. Lib. 27 after Nikand.; different version by Lycophr. 183 ff.) or Helen (Paus. 3, 19, 11–13; Conon, 18; Sch. Pl., Phdr. 243 A; Philostr., Her. 211 ff. Kays.).—Alkmene after her body had vanished from the sight of those who were bearing the coffin (cf. Plu., Rom. 28) was translated to the μακάρων νῆσοι: Ant. Lib 33 after Pherecyd.—Neoptolemos is transported ἐς ἠλύσιον πεδίον μακάρων ἐπὶ γαῖαν, Q.S. iii, 761 ff.—Among the other Heroes there Agamemnon is also implied: Artemid. v, 16.—In all these fabulous accounts the Is. of the Blest (Elysion) remain invariably the abode of special and chosen Heroes (Harmodios’ translation there in the skolion is no exception; nor is Lucian’s jesting reference, VH. ii, 17). It was only later imagination that, under the influence of theology, made this kingdom of bliss the common dwelling-place of almost all the εὐσεβεῖς.
100 Fortunatorum memorant insulas quo cuncti qui aetatem egerint caste suam conveniant, Plaut., Trin. 549 f. Menand. Rh., Encom. 414, 16 ff. Sp., recommends the use in a παραμυθητικὸς λόγος of the words: πείθομαι τὸν μεταστάντα τὸ ἠλύσιον πεδίον οἰκεῖν (—and even καὶ τάχα που μᾶλλον μετὰ τῶν θεῶν διαιτᾶται νῦν); cf. p. 421, 16–17 Sp. And much later, χάριν ἀμείψασθαι αὐτὸν εὔχομαι τοὺς θεούς, ἐν μακάρων νησοις ἤδη συζῆν ἠξιώμενον, Suid. Ἀντώνιος Ἀλεξανδρεύς (410 B Gaisf.) from Damascius.
101 Sertorius: Plu., Sert. 8–9; Sall., H. 1, fr. 61, 62; Flor. 2, 10 (Hor., Epod. 16, 39 ff.). Some even thought that they had found (cf. Phoen. legends: Gr. Roman 215) the μακ. νῆς. off the west coast of Africa: Str. i, p. 3; iii, 150; Mela, iii, 10; Plin., NH. vi, 202 ff.; Marcellus, Αἰθιοπ. ap. Procl., in Tim., p. 54 F, 55 A, 56 B, etc. Islands inhabited by spirits in the north: Plu., Def. Or. 18, p. 419 F; fr. vol. v, 764 ff. Wytt. Procop., Goth. iv, 20 (the μακάρων νῆσοι are in the middle of the African continent acc. to Hdt. iii, 26; in Boeot. Thebes, Lyc. 1204 with Sch.). Ps. Callisth. makes Alex. the Great reach the land of the Blest, ii, 39 ff. There may have been many such fables which have been parodied by Lucian in VH. ii, 6 ff., where he and his company ἔτι ζῶντες ἱεροῦ χωρίου ἐπιβαίνουσιν (ii, 10). It was always natural to hope that at the Antipodes (cf. Serv., A. vi, 532) such a land of the Souls and the Blest might some day be discovered—as indeed many have thought they had discovered it in the progressive geographical discovery of the Middle Ages and modern times.
102 Leuke, to which already in the Aithiopis Achilles had been translated, was originally a purely mythical place (see above, p. 65), the island of the pallid shades (like the Λευκὰς πέτρη of Od. ω 11, at the entrance of Hades; cf. κ 515. It is the same rock of Hades from which unhappy lovers cast themselves down to death, ἀρθεὶς δηὖτ’ ἀπὸ Λευκάδος πέτρης κτλ. Anacr. 17, etc. [cf. Dieterich, Nek. 27 f.]. λεύκη, the white poplar, as the tree of Hades, was used to make the garlands of the Mystai at Eleusis; cf. λευκὴ κυπάρισσος at the entrance of Hades, Epigr. Gr. 1037, 2).—It was probably Milesian sailors who localized this island of Achilles in the Black Sea (there was a cult of Ach. in Olbia and in Miletos itself). Alc. already knows of the champion as ruling over the country of the Scythians: fr. 48b, ἐν Εὐξείνῳ πελάγει φαεννὰν Ἀχιλεὺς νᾶσον (ἔχει), Pi. N. iv, 49. Then Eur., Andr. 1259 ff.; IT. 436 ff.; finally Q.S. iii, 770 ff. Leuke was particularly identified with an uninhabited islet rising with its white limestone cliffs out of the sea at the mouth of the Danube: 566 Κέλτου πρὸς ἐκβολαῖσι, Lyc. 189 (probably the Istros is meant but the latest editor simply substitutes Ἴστρου πρὸς ἐκ.—a far too facile conjecture).—It stood, more exactly, before the ψιλὸν στόμα, i.e. the most northerly mouth of the river (the Kilia mouth): Arrian, Peripl. 20, 3 H.: [Scylax] Peripl. 68 prob. means the same island; cf. Leuke, εὐθὺ Ἴστρου, Max. Tyr. 15, 7. It has been proposed to identify it with the “snake island” which lies more or less in the same neighbourhood: see H. Koehler, Mém. sur les îles et la course cons. à Achille, etc., Mém. acad. S. Petersb. 1826, iv, p. 599 ff. It was only by a confusion that the long sandy beach at the mouth of the Borysthenes, called Ἀχιλλέως δρόμος, was identified with Leuke (e.g. by Mela, ii, 98; Plin., NH. iv, 93; D.P. 541 ff.); legends of Achilles’ epiphanies may have been current there too (as in other islands of the same name: Dionys. of Olbia ap. Sch. A.R. ii, 658); the Olbiopolitai offer a cult to Ἀχιλλεὺς Ποντάρχης there: CIG. 2076–7, 2080, 2096b–f (IPE. i, 77–83). But as a settled abode of Achilles only Leuke was generally recognized (there was a δρόμος Ἀχιλλέως there as well: Eur., IT. 437; Hesych. Ἀχιλλ. πλάκα; Arr. 21—hence the confusion mentioned above). Strabo’s remarks on the subject are peculiar (vii, 306 f.). He distinguishes the Ἀχ. δρόμος (which had already been mentioned by Hdt. iv, 55) from Leuke altogether; and he places that island not at the mouth of the Istros but 500 stades away at the mouth of the Tyras (Dniester). But the place where sacrifice and worship was made to Achilles, as the abode of his spirit, was definitely fixed; and this was, in fact, the island at the mouth of the Danube (κατὰ τοῦ Ἴστρου τὰς ἐκβολάς, Paus. 3, 19, 11), of which Arr. 23, 3, gives an account based partially on the evidence of eye-witnesses (p. 399, 12 Müll.). It was an uninhabited, thickly wooded island only occupied by numerous birds; there was a temple and a statue of Ach. on it, and also an oracle (Arr. 22, 3), which must have been an oracle taken by casting or drawing lots (for there were no human intermediaries) which those who landed on the island could make use of for themselves. The birds—which were perhaps regarded as incarnations of the Heroes, or as handmaidens of the “divinity of light” which Achilles was, acc. to R. Holland, Heroenvögel in d. gr. Myth. 7 ff., 1896—the birds purify the temple every morning with their wings, which they have dipped in the water: Arr., p. 398, 18 ff. Philostr., Her. 746, p. 212, 24 Kays. (Cf. the comrades of Diomedes changed into birds on his magic island: Iuba ap. Plin., NH. x, 127—another bird miracle: ib., x, 78). No human beings dared to live on the island, though sailors often landed there; they had to leave before nightfall (when spirits are abroad): Amm. Marc. 22, 8, 35; Philostr., Her. 747, p. 212, 30–213, 6. The temple possessed many votive offerings and Greek and Latin inss. (IPE. i, 171–2). Those who landed there sacrificed the goats which had been placed on the island and ran wild. Sometimes Ach. appeared to visitors; at other times they heard him singing the Paian. In dreams too he sometimes appeared (i.e. if a person happened to sleep—there was no Dream-oracle there). To sailors he gave directions and sometimes appeared like the Dioskouroi (as a flame?) on the top of the ship’s mast (see Arr., Peripl. 21–3; Scymn. 790–6; from both these is derived Anon., P. Pont. Eux. 64–6; Max. Tyr. 15, 7, p. 281 f. R.; Paus. 3, 19, 11; Amm. Marc. 22, 8, 35). (The account in Philostr., Her. 745, p. 211, 17–219, 6 Kays., is fantastic but uses good material and is throughout quite in keeping with the true legendary spirit—esp. in the story also of the girl torn to pieces by ghosts: 215, 6–30. Nor is it likely that 567 Phil. himself invented the marvellous tale laid precisely in the year 163–4 B.C.). Achilles is not regarded as living quite alone here: Patroklos is with him (Arr. 32, 34; Max. Tyr. 15, 7), and Helen or Iphigeneia is given him as his wife (see above, n. 99). Leonymos of Kroton, sixth century B.C., meets the two Aiantes and Antilochos there: Paus. 3, 19, 13; Conon 18; D.P. (time of Hadrian) says (545): κεῖθι δ’ Ἀχιλλῆος καὶ ἡρώων φάτις ἄλλων ψυχὰς εἱλίσσεσθαι ἐρημαίας ἀνὰ βήσσας (which Avien., Des. Orb., misunderstands and improves on: 722 ff.). Thus the island, though in a limited sense, became a true μακάρων νῆσος—insula Achillea eadem Leuce et Macaron appelata, Plin., NH. iv, 93.
103 Cic., speaking of the “translations” of Herakles and Romulus, says non corpora in caelum elata, non enim natura pateretur . . . (ap. Aug., CD. 22, 4); only their animi remanserunt et aeternitate fruuntur, ND. ii, 62; cf. iii, 12. Plu., Rom. 28, speaks in the same way of the old translation stories (those of Aristeas, Kleomedes, Alkmene, and finally Romulus)—it was not their bodies which had disappeared together with their souls, for it would be παρὰ τὸ εἰκός, ἐνθειάζειν τὸ θνητὸν τῆς φύσεως ἁμὰ τοῖς θείοις (cf. Pelop. 16 fin.); cf. also the Hymn (represented as ancient) of Philostr. dealing with the translated Achilles: Her. 741, p. 208, 24 ff. K.
104 Celsus and Plutarch both know and describe the ancient cult and oracular power of Amphiaraos (only at Oropos now) as still in existence; the same applies to that of Trophonios (like that of Amphilochos also in Cilicia). An inscr. from Lebadeia (first half third century A.D.) mentions a priestess τῆς Ὁμονοίας τῶν Ἑλλήνων παρὰ τῷ Τροφωνίῳ, IG. Sept. i, 3426.
105 Ἀστακίδην τὸν Κρῆτα, τὸν αἰπόλον, ἥρπασε νύμφη ἐξ ὀρέων καὶ νῦν ἱερὸς Ἀστακίδης (he has become divine, i.e. immortal): Call., Ep. 24. Of a similar character is the legend of Hylas: ἀφανὴς ἐγένετο, Ant. Lib. 26; and of Bormos among the Maryandynoi (νυμφόληπτος Hesych. Βῶρμον, ἀφανισθῆναι Nymphis, fr. 9). The Daphnis legend is another example, and even the story of Odysseus and Kalypso, who detains him in her cave and would like to make him immortal and ageless for ever, is in reality based on such legends of the Nymphs. (Even the name of the Nymph in this case indicates her power: to καλύπτειν her mortal lover, i.e. ἀφανῆ ποιεῖν.) Only in this case the spell is broken and the ἀπαθανάτισις of the translated lover is never carried out. For other exx. of legends of the love of Nymphs for a youth see Griech. Roman, 109, 1; a Homeric ex. in Ζ 21 of the νηὶς Ἀβαρβαρέη and Boukolion the son of Laomedon. The idea that a person translated by the nymphs did not die but lived on for ever, remained current: cf. inscr. from Rome, Epigr. Gr. 570, 9–10: τοῖς πάρος οὖν μύθοις πιστεύσατε· παῖδα γὰρ ἐσθλὴν ἥρπασεν ὡς τερπνὴν Ναΐδες, οὐ θάνατος. And again, n. 571: Νύμφαι κρηναῖαί με συνήρπασαν ἐκ βιότοιο, καὶ τάχα που τιμῆς εἵνεκα τοῦτ’ ἔπαθον.
106 In the extravagant and fanatical worship of Dionysos that was transplanted from Greece to Italy and Rome in the year 186 B.C. the miracle of translation was carried out in a very practical fashion (belief in its possibility was evidently firmly established). Machines were prepared upon which those whose disappearance was to be effected were bound; they were then transferred by the machine in abditos specus; whereupon the miracle was announced: raptos a dis homines istos: Liv. 39, 13. This only becomes intelligible in the light of such legends of the translation of mortals, body and soul, to immortality, of which we have been speaking. 568
107 Plainly so in the case of Berenike the consort of Ptolemy Soter: Theoc. 17, 46. Theocritus addresses Aphrodite: σέθεν δ’ ἕνεκεν Βερενίκα εὐειδὴς Ἀχέροντα πολύστονον οὐκ ἐπέρασεν, ἀλλά μιν ἁρπάξασα πάροιθ’ ἐπὶ νῆα κατελθεῖν κυανέαν καὶ στυγνὸν ἀεὶ πορθμῆα καμόντων, ἐς ναὸν κατέθηκας, ἑᾶς δ’ ἀπεδάσσαο τιμᾶς (as θεὰ πάρεδορος or σύνναος: cf. Inscr. Perg. i, 246, 8). Cf. also Theoc. 15, 106 ff. As a rule, however, this idea is not so definitely expressed (though it is plainly implied that translation is the normal way in which deified princes depart this life, in the story indignantly rejected by Arrian, Anab. 7, 27, 3, that Alexander the Great wanted to throw himself into the Euphrates ὡς ἀφανὴς ἐξ ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος πιστοτέραν τὴν δόξαν παρὰ τοῖς ἔπειτα ἐγκαταλείποι ὅτι ἐκ θεοῦ τε αὐτῷ ἡ γένεσις συνέβη καὶ παρὰ θεοὺς ἡ ἀποχώρησις—which is the regular and ancient idea of translation, exhibited e.g. in the story of Empedokles’ end; see above, chap. xi, n. 61: and Christian pamphleteers transferred the fable to Julian and his end). The Roman Emperors also allowed such conventional miracles to be told of themselves, in which at least they were imitating the practice of the Hellenistic monarchs and the “consecration” fables usual at their death (they do not die but μεθίστανται ἐξ ἀνθρώπων, μεθ. εἰς θεούς, SIG1. 246, 16; Inscr. Perg. i, 249, 4; inscr. from Hierapolis given by Fränkel, ib. i, p. 39a). That the god is translated, his whole personality in caelum redit, is implied as occurring at the death of an Emperor on the coins of consecration, in which the translated is represented as being carried up to heaven by a Genius or a bird (e.g. the eagle which was set free at the rogus of the emperor: D.C. 56, 42, 3; 74, 5, 5; Hdn. 4, 2 fin.): see Marquardt, Röm. Staatsverw. 3, 447, 3. Nor were there lacking people who maintained on oath that they had actually witnessed the translation of the emperor body and soul to heaven, as had once happened to Julius Proculus and Romulus. Thus at the end of Augustus’ life: D.C. 56, 46, 2. and that of Drusilla: 59, 11, 4. Sen., Apocol. 1. It was the official and only recognised manner in which a god can leave this life.