CHAPTER I

GREEK RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS

Footnote 5:

It is nowhere directly stated that the power of a god did not extend beyond a definite locality. But the numerous local epithets applied to the various gods indicate it. We need mention only such typical references to the θεοὶ ἐγχώριοι as Aesch. Septem. 14, Soph. Trach. 183, and Thuc. ii. 74.

Footnote 6:

Cf. Dionysus in the “Frogs” of Aristophanes, Heracles and Poseidon in the “Birds.” The other comic poets, even Epicharmus, the oldest, dealt with even greater freedom with the gods. Even the scanty fragments of Cratinus and Amphis indicate that fact. In Sicily, an entire dramatic genre, that of the Φλύακες, contained practically nothing but situations in which the divine personages of the myths were the subjects of the coarsest fun.

Footnote 7:

Such heroic friendships as that of Achilles and Patroclus were perverted early in the imagination of Greeks. Cf. Aeschylus, in Athen. xiii. 601 A, and Aeschines, i. 142. So also the story of Apollo and Admetus became a love story for Alexandria; Callimachus H. ii. 49.

Footnote 8:

The subject has been discussed in full by de Visser, _De Graecorum deis non referentibus speciem humanam_ (Leyden, 1900;) 2d ed. in German, 1903. So at Phigaleia, in Arcadia, Demeter had the form of a horse; the Brauronian Artemis was a bear; Apollo Lykeios was sometimes adored in the form of a wolf.

Footnote 9:

Aegean and Mycenean are both used to designate the civilization that preceded that of historical Greece. Aegean, however, has, to a large extent, superseded the older term. For the specifically Cretan form of it, Minoan is generally employed.

Footnote 10:

In spite of the apparently well-defined personalities of the Homeric gods and a poetic tradition of many centuries, the sculptors of later times found it necessary to indicate the subject of their labors, either by some well-known attribute, such as the caduceus, or a sacred animal, or a symplegma representing a scene of a known legend. Without these accessories, archeologists often find themselves at a loss when they are required to name the god intended. Cf. Koepp, Archäologie ii. 88 seq.

Footnote 11:

It is not suggested that prayer could not exist without sacrifice. But where sacrifice did take place, the act of worship did not lie in the sacrifice alone, or in the propitiatory allocution that accompanied it, but in the two together.

Footnote 12:

Cf. Apollo Soter, Soph. O. T. 149, Dionysus Soter, Lycophr. 206, Zeus Soter, Aristoph. Plut. 1186, etc.

Footnote 13:

Max Müller, Lectures on the Science of Language, _passim_. The term is rarely used by recent investigators.

Footnote 14:

For the sacrificial act when addressed to gods, the word was θύειν; addressed to heroes, ἐναγίζειν. Herod, ii. 44. The color of the sacrificial animal for heroes was usually black, and no part of the flesh was eaten. Cf. Sch. Hom. Il. i. 459.

Footnote 15:

For heroes whose position in the state was as high as that of gods, we have only to refer to the eponyms of the Cleisthenic tribes at Athens, Theseus, Cecrops, Erechtheus, etc.

Footnote 16:

Local deities, such as Pelops at Olympia (Sch. Pind. Ol. i. 149), Archemorus at Nemea (Arg. Pind. Nem. i), Tlepolemus at Rhodes (Sch. Pind. Ol. vii. 146).

Footnote 17:

Cf. Suidas. s. v. Ἀναγυράσιος, Alciphro, iii. 58.

Footnote 18:

The doctrine of Socrates cited by Xenophon, Memor. iv. 7, represents popular Greek feeling on the subject of theological speculation.

Footnote 19:

Xenophanes of Colophon (sixth cent. B.C.E.) cited in Sex. Emp. adv. Math. ix. 193. The lines are frequently quoted, and are to be found in any history of philosophy.

Footnote 20:

A monotheistic or pantheistic tendency showed itself in the attempt on the part of poets like Aeschylus and Pindar to absorb the divine world into the personality of Zeno. Cf. Aesch. Heliades, 71:

Ζεύς ἐστιν αὶθήρ, Ζεὺς δὲ γῆ Ζεὺς δ’ οὐρανός, Ζεύς τοι τὰ πάντα χ ὥτι τῶνδ’ ὑπέρτερον.

Footnote 21:

The solar myth theory was especially advocated by Max Müller in his various books and articles. Most of the older writers on mythology, _e.g._ in the earlier articles of Roscher’s Lexikon, accept it as an established dogma. There can be no reasonable doubt that the celestial phenomena of sun, moon, and stars exercised a powerful influence on popular imagination.

Footnote 22:

Dionysus came into Greece probably from Thrace and Macedon about the tenth century B.C.E. By the sixth century there was no Greek city in which he was not worshiped. As far as any center of his worship existed, it may be placed in Boeotia. Cf. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, chs. iv. and v.

Footnote 23:

We find Aphrodite firmly established among Greek gods from the earliest times. It may be that the Semitic or Oriental connections which have been found for her (cf. Roscher, s. v. Aphrodite, Roscher’s Lex. i. 390-406) are due to the readiness with which she was associated with Oriental female deities. That fact, however, is itself significant.

Footnote 24:

The merchants of Citium formally introduced into Athens the worship of their local Aphrodite; Dittenberger, Syll. no. 551. Sarapis, Isis, and Sabazios also early found their way into Athens.

Footnote 25:

The statement that ἀσέβεια was a negative offense, that its gravamen consisted not in introducing new divinities, but in neglecting the established ones, is made by Wilamowitz (Antigonus von Karyst, p. 277). It is, however, only qualifiedly true. The Greeks found purely negative conceptions difficult. Impiety, or ἀσέβεια, was not the mere neglect, but such a concrete act as would tend to cause the neglect of the established gods. The indictment against Socrates charged the introduction of καινὰ δαιμόνια, but only because that introduction threatened the established form. The merchants of Citium (cf. previous note) might introduce their foreign deity with safety. No such danger was deemed to lie.

Footnote 26:

The stories of Lycurgus (Il. vi. 130) and of Pentheus (Euripides, Bacchae) are a constant reminder of the difficulties encountered by Dionysus in his march through Greece. Then, as has always been the case in religious opposition, the opponents of the new forms advanced social reasons for their hostility (Eurip. Bacchae, 220-225).

Footnote 27:

The Egyptian origin of the Eleusinian mysteries is maintained especially by Foucart, Les grands mystères d’Eleusis.

Footnote 28:

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter dates from the close of the seventh century B.C.E., perhaps earlier. In it we find the Eleusinian mysteries fully developed, and their appeal is Panhellenic.

Footnote 29:

Homer certainly knows of no general worship of the dead. But the accessibility of the dead by means of certain rites is attested not only by the Νέκυια (Od. x. 517-520), but by the slaughter of the Trojan captives at the funeral of Patroclus (Il. xxiii. 174). The poet’s own attitude to the latter is not so important as his evidence of the custom’s existence.

Footnote 30:

In later times any dead man was ἥρος, and his tomb a ἡρῷον; C. I. G. 1723, 1781-1783.

Footnote 31:

The kinship of gods and men was an Orphic dogma, quickly and widely accepted. Pindar formulated it in the words ἕν ἀνδρῶν, ἕν θεῶν γένος; Nem. vi. i. Cf. Plato, Timaeus, 41 C.

Footnote 32:

Od. iv. 561.

Footnote 33:

Hesychius, s. v. Ἁρμοδίου μέλος.