RELIGION IN GREECE: PRE-HISTORIC, HOMERIC, AND HISTORICAL
In religion, as in all things, the Homeric world at certain points
stands apart from the worlds that preceded and followed it. The Aegeans
probably did not give _divine_ honours to the dead. Over Royal tombs
in the acropolis of Mycenae was "a small round altar with a well-like
opening in the middle, which had doubtless been used for sacrificing
to the dead."[1] This is ghost-feeding, not ghost-divinising. We have
also a Cretan picture of a ghost standing outside his tomb, while an
ox is sacrificed to him, the blood falling into the vessel. But such
traces of hero-worship are rare in Aegean art, and Cretan _art_ shows
no representations of sacrifice of animals to gods. There was, indeed,
an ancient tradition that Minos abolished blood-sacrifices.[2] Certain
sites, however, show bones of animals sacrificed in Minoan times.
On the other hand, worship of high gods is frequently represented on
Aegean engraved rings and in pictures. While there is no representation
of blood-sacrifice to gods, fruit of a sacred tree is often plucked, by
attendants, for goddesses, standing or seated.[3]
In the acropolis of Mycenae (in 1886) was found an apparent
representation of a god, on a table of lime-stone. "In the centre
stands, on a blue ground, a man or an idol, covered with a large shield
in the shape of two circles joined together." This is the usual Aegean
figure-of-eight shield, which is found by itself in little objects of
glass and other materials, called "palladia." "On either side of the
idol stands a woman, apparently in an attitude of prayer. Between the
idol and the woman on the right is an altar-like object, resembling the
bases under the feet of the lions at the Lions' gate."[4]
On a scene of cult, on a large gold ring found at Mycenae, is, in
mid-air "a small apparently descending image of a god," armed and
shielded.[5] He also appears on a ring of Cnossos, and is, in Mr.
Evans's opinion, a sky- or sun-god. If so, the Greeks would identify
him with their own Zeus, a sky-god in his earliest aspect as indicated
by his name (also a god of _everything_, in cult).
This male deity is much less prominent in Mycenaean art than a great
goddess. In the Mycenaean ring already cited she sits under a tree,
probably sacred: a little female figure in a flounce skirt gathers
fruit. The goddess, like Demeter in Theocritus (Idyll vii.), holds
poppy heads in her hand; women bring her flowers. Above her is a
ceremonial double axe, symbol of power, and overhead are sun and
crescent moon.
Mr. Evans thinks that the ceremonial double axe, or rather pair of
double axes, "may be an image of the conjunction of the divine pair, a
solar and lunar deity."[6] The art indicates tree- and pillar-worship
as prevalent, whether the deities were supposed to embody themselves
in trees and pillars or not. A slab of offering, inscribed in Aegean
characters, with three small basins for libations, was found in the
Dictaean cave, and was appropriate to the offerings of honey, wine,
and water to the infant Zeus of the Cretan birth-myth of Zeus, or to
the Homeric three libations to the dead in Hades. There was also a
sacrificial stratum, with bones of oxen, deer, and goats. It must be
borne in mind that though the myth of the birth of Zeus in the Cretan
cave is most famous, Pausanias says that it was hard to count the Greek
cities which claimed to be the places of his nativity.[7] He gives four
or five instances in Messenia and Arcadia.
A goddess between two lions,[8] or on a mountain top guarded by lions,
an armed god standing by (in a gold ring), reminds us of Cybele, or of
Rhea, mother of the Gods of Homer. A goddess holding in each hand a
water fowl or other animal is common in Aegean art; and a god in the
same attitude, is a gold figure of the Aegina treasure (_circ_. 850
B.C.), in the British Museum. In the contemporary and later finds in
the temple of Artemis Orthia, at Sparta, such female figures are very
common, and in the earliest Ionian temple at Ephesus. They persist into
the sixth century B.C., and are representations of Artemis as a goddess
of the wild things, Homer's Artemis Agrotera.[9]
Thus, undeniably, archaic and heroic Greece carried on Aegean
representations of deities; even the Cretan goddess holding serpents
has, in Greek art, an Artemis with snakes to represent her. But, so
much earlier and nearer to Aegean times, in Homer, the goddess, as
Artemis, shows her later and more truly Hellenic aspects, and is the
chaste sister of Apollo. Indeed, the Homeric Olympians are already
the beautiful beings which the best art of the Hellenic prime, in the
fifth century, delighted to represent; while in art much earlier than
Pheidias, but much later than Homer, the gods still appear in their
old Aegean forms. This is the paradox of Homer. The poet lived while
the Hellenes were but a small nation, occupying a narrow region in
Thessaly; but his poems forestall the beauty which blossomed again,
when art and religion were truly Hellenic. And in Homer the beauty
bears none of the barbaric strains that deface the rites of Athens in
her glory. "Homer's portrait of Artemis," says Mr. Farnell, "gives us
not the first but the last point in the development of her character,
and the conception of her in later Greek literature is not more
advanced or more spiritual than his." But "Arcadian and Athenian rites
and legends" (we may compare Boeotian and Spartan art of 800-700 B.C.)
"provide us with testimony much earlier than Homer's."[10]
How are we to explain the facts? Homer is the poet of Achaeans,
regarded as a stronger but less civilised race, invaders of a more
civilised people. Yet this Achaean people, or their poet, is already
on the highest Hellenic level in his conception of the Olympians,
while the practical ritual and legends of Athens in her glorious prime
retain many traces of barbarous and even savage conceptions at which
Homer seldom glances, though even in his mythology there are hints of a
truly barbarous cosmogony, the revolution by which Zeus overthrew more
ancient divinities. Homer knew Hesiod's myth of Cronos,[11] which is
precisely that of the Maoris. How then did his taste, and that of his
audience, arrive at his beautiful portraits of the Olympians?
This is the great problem. The gods of Aegean art are strange if
impressive beings, mixed up with tree- and pillar-worship. Their
altars, in art, are not adapted for sacrifices for animals, but
libations, fruits, and flowers are offered. The gods and goddesses of
archaic Greek art are barbaric and unimpressive, and trees and stones,
as sacred, endured through all Greek history. The Olympians of Homer
are, on the other hand, the Olympians of Pheidias.
Turning from Aegean religion before Homer, which shows infinitely
more of the worship of high gods than of ghosts, we find, in early
historic Greece, that the great Olympians are highly honoured, but that
ghost-worship, ignored by Homer, is prevalent. From the seventh century
onwards the possession of tombs of heroes, and of miracle-working
relics of heroes, their bones, is essential to the well-being of
cities. Finally, living men are freely divinised. Thus chthonic as
distinct from Olympian worship, while it is ignored by Homer (whose
theory of the state of the dead renders it impossible) gets practically
the upper hand in historic Greece, though in the Aegean religion it is
inconspicuous, and in Homer it is absent.
Thus Homer stands apart in religion from the world that preceded and
the world that followed him.
The solitary passage in which the _Iliad_ recognises sacrifice to a
dead man, a hero, is in the description of the case of Erechtheus _in
Athens_. In the temple of Athene "the Athenians worship him with bulls
and rams as the years return in their courses."[12]
Owing, perhaps, to Homer's consistent avoidance of everything Ionian,
he never speaks of the Mysteries of Eleusis, in Attica, celebrated
in the Ionian Hymn to Demeter, or of the Attic Thesmophoria or the
Brauronia, or, indeed, of any mysteries. These are now understood to
have begun in savage and barbarous magical rites for the benefit of the
objects of the food supply; or in initiatory ceremonies: both practices
are still common among all the lower races; and agricultural magic
still survives in European folklore, and we have the initiations of
Freemasonry.
The rites of Eleusis, Athens, and of Artemis Orthia among the Dorians
of Sparta are of immense antiquity in their origins. The magic may
have been practised in Attica, in Homer's time, and, as folklore, may
have existed in the rural classes among the Achaean states. If so,
Homer has no interest in the matter, none in initiations. But both
magic and initiations were sanctioned by the State in Attica and Dorian
Sparta, in historic Hellas.
The two deities who chiefly presided over mysteries were Demeter and
Dionysus. Demeter "has no real personality in Homer," says Mr. Leaf,
"except in _Odyssey,_ v. 125," where we merely hear that she lay with
Iasion in a thrice ploughed fallow field, and that Zeus slew Iasion
with a thunderbolt. Dionysus, again, to quote Mr. Leaf, is only
mentioned in _Iliad_, xiv. 325, in the "Leporello Catalogue" of the
amours of Zeus, and in doubtful passages of the _Odyssey_ (xi. 325).
He is the son of Semele, and a golden cup is a gift of his. Finally,
and most to the purpose, in _Iliad_, vi. 130-140, Diomede tells the
story of Lycurgus, a Thracian king, who beat the nymphs, the nurses of
Dionysus, with an ox-goad, and frightened Dionysus into the deeps of
the sea. Zeus blinded Lycurgus, and he did not last long. This tale is
regarded as a late and pious interpolation, because the whole scene is
looked on as in crying contradiction with the events of _Iliad_, Book
v. For proof that there is no inconsistency at all, see "The Great
Discrepancies."
We must be very anxious to find "late" things in Homer, if we say that
the passage about Dionysus in _Iliad_, vi., "dates from the very last
part of the Epic period," namely, perhaps, from the seventh century
B.C. It may be true that "the great religious movement" connected with
Dionysus "spread over Greece apparently in the seventh century."[13]
But it is more probable that the "movement" was especially taken up
by literature, Orphic poetry, at that period, for I am unaware that
we have any historical evidence, as in Herodotus, for the religious
furies and homicidal ferocities of the women in the seventh century.
These, all the stories of the sanguinary frenzy of the sex, their
endeavours to "interview" kings, and tear them to tatters, are thrown
back into legendary times. Nobody can tell how ancient the legends are,
but it seems to be generally admitted that Dionysus and his rites are
of "Indo-European" but not of Greek origin. His mother was Semele, and
Kretschmer would connect Semele "with a Phrygian root, _zemel_," which
occurs on Phrygian tombstones in curses directed against any one who
should violate the tombs. The word Kretschmer interprets as meaning
"earth." So Semele would be the earth goddess.[14]
Be it so, Phrygian _Zemel_, the earth, is Greek Semele, the
earth-mother of the son of the sky, Zeus. But "Dionysus in Greek
mythology is closely connected with Thrace," and Lycurgus, the enemy
of Dionysus in _Iliad_, vi., is a Thracian king. Now "the result of
recent philological inquiries is to show a close connection between the
Thracian and Phrygian tongues, which are found to be both Aryan."[15]
Again, Attica, if ever her legends deviate into truth, was closely
connected with Thrace; and Homer himself treats the Thracian Chersonese
as an ally of Troy,[16] and Rhesus brings in his levies.[17]
There is no reason in the world why so great a sennachie as Homer, who
knew as many tales from all quarters as Widsith in the Anglo-Saxon
poem, should not know a Thracian tale about Lycurgus and Dionysus and
his mother, Earth.[18] Nothing prevented Homer from knowing a myth of
a people whom he knew--the Thracians--very long before the seventh
century.
Homer has not a good word for the cowardly Dionysus. Still, Zeus
patronises him; he is a god, though he never appears among Homer's
Olympians. To his mysteries, as to those of Eleusis (is it not
in Attica?) Homer does not allude. He mentions no mysteries, no
initiations, no hocus-pocus; these things were for Attica, and for
historic Greece.
The ethical _religion_ of Homer apart from his mythology is excellent,
a good faith to live and die in. His gods, when religiously regarded,
sanction all that is best in Achaean morals, and disapprove of all that
is evil in human conduct, as a general rule. But Homeric _mythology_
is manifestly another thing: in the stories told of the gods, they
practise most of the sins which they punish in mankind. Mythology would
cease to be _mythology_ if it became consistent, but religion can never
fail to be consistent while it expresses the highest and purest ethical
ideas associated with a sense of their approval by a being or beings
more than mortal. This note is again and again struck by Homer; and it
can never fail to awaken a responsive thrill in all who feel, or have
ever felt, the ethico-religious emotion.
Let me here give but one example. It is impossible for men to
understand the mystery of an omnipotent and loving Being in a world of
pain and ruin. Homer is as conscious of the insoluble problem as we
are--and Zeus is conscious of it. In the great assembly of all gods,
from Apollo and Athene to the nymphs of rivers, well-heads, and grassy
water-meadows, at the moment when the final strife is set between
Hector and Achilles, Zeus says, "Even in their perishing have I regard
unto them."[19] The Father pities but he cannot save--there is some
insuperable obstacle between his omnipotence and the end which he
desires.
Such is the _religious_ thought of Homer, while in his _mythical_
thought Zeus is a humorous hot-tempered father of a family, who
delights to tease, and finds as much diversion as Mr. Bennett did in
the absurdities of his wife and children.
The Achaean mind, like the mind of any savage who recognises an All
Father, has brooded over the sacred beings of religion in every mood,
the most serious and the most frivolous; every conceivable reflection
of every age, early or later, has entered into a conglomerate of
yearning desire for the gods, of fear of the gods' wrath, of absurd
legends concerning the gods, of broadly humorous glances at them as
members of a great whimsical family; and there are guesses at the
enjoyments of divine people, so powerful, so irresponsible, and so far
from spiritual; for the gods are not spirits, but beings compact of a
subtler matter than our perishable flesh and blood and bone.
Thus the gods, in moments of human seriousness, are the guardians of
Homer's highest ethical ideals; while for purposes of romance and
diverting narrative they are examples of all the vices which he most
detests and despises, and of a score of human foibles which he never
illustrates in the persons of his heroic men and women. His mortal
ladies never cuff and scold, like the village women whom he once
glances at, shrieking forth their quarrel in the centre of the village
street. But it is in public that Hera and Athene scold or cuff. The
nearest approach to this treatment of sacred beings may perhaps be
found in the broad waggeries of our late English mystery plays, like
those of Cain and of the Shepherds of Bethlehem. An even better example
is the ancient carol, _The Bitter Withy_, with the cruel cunning
and crime attributed to Jesus Christ, and the story of His whipping
by "Mary mild." Achaean humour is never so free as in its treatment
of things which are also handled, in another mood, with the highest
religious regard. Nobody, perhaps, has seriously credited Homer with
"a purpose," the purpose of enforcing the serious things of ethics
touched with religion, and, at the same time, of laughing popular
mythology away. The notion seems far too modern and too subtle; yet if
Homer had entertained that inconceivable purpose, he could hardly have
written otherwise than he did write,--to the extreme perplexity of
Greek and later "educationists."[20]
It is not necessary to discuss the chronique scandaleuse of Olympus;
the stories of the amours of Zeus, the intrigues of Aphrodite, the
jealousy of Hera, the domestic misfortunes of Hephaestus. Nor is this
the place to show how this mythological element inevitably crystalised
round a great figure like that of Zeus the father of men. But it seems
well to point out that while, in playful moods, the Achaean genius wove
a cycle of gross fabliaux around the Olympians, in serious moments
men regarded them not sceptically but with perfect seriousness and
devoutness. Though men or women conscious of a fault will say that
Atê infatuated them, or that Aphrodite thrust them into temptation,
nevertheless the gods work for righteousness. Men in the Epics have
the strongest sense of dependence on them. They are the givers of good
and evil. "Though thou be very strong, yet that, I ween, is a gift to
thee of God," says Agamemnon to Achilles. The oath of truce, in Iliad,
iii., which, when broken, seals the fate of Troy, is sanctioned by
Zeus, the Sun, Rivers, Earth, and they that "in the underworld punish
men dead, whosoever sweareth falsely."[21] In a later oath[22] "they"
are the Erinnyes, who also punish sins within the family. We hear of
no such posthumous punishments in Hades, when Odysseus goes thither
in _Odyssey_, Book xi. The men whom he sees being punished, Tityus,
Tantalus, and Sisyphus, have all offended the gods _in person_;[23]
and manifestly to call gods as witnesses to an oath, and then to be
forsworn, is to insult the gods, whether this be the explanation of the
threatened posthumous punishment or not.[24] The promise of Zeus is an
example to men, it can never be broken (_Iliad_, i. 526-527). "Father
Zeus will be no helper of liars," and Achilles "hates a lie like the
gates of Hades."
Penitence for wrongs done is recognised, "prayers of penitence are
daughters of great Zeus, halting and wrinkled and of eyes askance, that
have their task to go in the steps of Sin" (Atê). When the injured man
will not listen to the penitence of him who did the wrong, the prayers
of the penitent return to Zeus, and beseech him that the hard man "may
fall, and pay the price."[25] It was because Achilles refused to accept
the penitence of Agamemnon that _he_ "paid the price," the death of
Patroclus.
In the _Odyssey_ the ethical aspect of the gods is perhaps more
conspicuous, because their passions are no longer stirred by the great
war. In the opening lines they discountenance adultery (Aegisthus
and Clytaemnestra). They are equally offended by the use of poisoned
arrow-heads.[26] "All men yearn after the gods.". It is they who give
happiness in married life.[27] It is Zeus who protects suppliants.[28]
The just man is god-fearing.[29] The gods love righteousness and
compassion.[30] Throughout the whole poem, notably in the case of the
pious Eumaeus, a deep sense of dependence on the gods, and resignation
to their will, is depicted. Yet Zeus permits Poseidon to wreak his
grudge on Odysseus, and even on the Phaeacians who brought him home;
while in the song of Demodocus, a divine adultery is matter of mirth to
all Olympus.
Thus the religion of Homer is, ethically, a very good religion. Homeric
religion is already national, that is, all Achaeans believe in the same
Olympian consistory, with Zeus as the Over Lord. None the less many of
the cities have each their favourite divine being, a special patron,
just as cities had in the Middle Ages. All believed in the Deity, but
Orleans had a special patron in St. Aignan; and "the guarded mount" in
St. Michael. Athene was no less the patroness of Troy than of Athens.
The Gods are all national, though they have their preferences. We may
go further and say that, to Homer's mind, the Gods are universal.
To Homer, Zeus is anything but a "tribal" god: he is not even merely
a national god; all peoples known to Homer acknowledge his supremacy.
This was the tolerant view of historic Hellas: all nations had the
same gods named by different names in different languages. There were
not many Zeuses, but one Zeus, though various local names were given
to the god, Dodonaean Zeus, Idaean Zeus, Pelasgian Zeus, or, again,
Delian Apollo, Pythian Apollo, Smirithian Apollo, and so forth. The
god is in no way restricted to a given place, Dodona, Ida, Delos,
Delphi; these titles are his because he possesses a temple or Oracle
in each district. Men may call to the gods or to a god wherever they
find themselves, abroad or at home, on the sea or "in fairy lands
forlorn," and everywhere they may sacrifice. To the devout mind,
despite the local associations of the gods in mythology, the divine is
omnipresent; can hear and help everywhere.[31] As for the local titles
of gods, we know the same mediaeval usage in respect to the Saints. The
Scot who, when at home, had a devotion to St. Catherine of Bothwell,
in France sought the aid of St. Catherine of Fierbois.[32] The gods,
or at least Zeus and Apollo, are omniscient, yet they need, in myth,
to be told about events remote or future, or need to make special
observations from selected places, such as the crest of Ida. These are
the inevitable and universal contradictions which beset all early and
much late theological speculation.
When Ionia became speculative as to all things physical or divine,
the mythological aspects of the gods in Homer were, what to the
philosophers they remained, a stumbling-block. But philosophy could not
cure Greece, or do away with her heritage of barbarism and savagery.
Yet, in some incomprehensible way, the Achaeans, as represented by
Homer, had an infinitely cleaner religion and ritual than the mother
cities of the philosophers.
In the religion of historic Greece, from the Ionian age to the
establishment of Christianity, the most active, and, so to say,
practical element is, we repeat, that of hero-worship, worship of dead
men. The great temples of the gods of Greece in general, especially
of the oracular Apollo, and of Athene in Athens, Artemis in Ephesus,
Artemis Orthia at Sparta, and so on, were maintained in splendour and
enriched with treasures of gold-work, silver, and bronze. The god or
goddess and the shrines were centres of pilgrimages, and pilgrimages
were good for trade. By them were the cities nourished, as the maker of
silver shrines at Ephesus declared. Miracles were wrought, the blind
saw, the lame walked. The local deity was of as great economic service
to a city of Greece as the bones of the Apostle were to St. Andrews,
and the relics of St. Thomas to Canterbury.
But for practical purposes of securing supernormal aid in war or
famine, the dead heroes were to each town or village what St. Aignan
was to Orleans, a very present help in trouble. For near a thousand
years St. Aignan routed the foes of the good city, and his image
was adored and carried in processions in 1429. Thus "to Lycurgus,
after he was dead, the Spartans erected a temple, and paid him great
worship."[33] "So that, as might be supposed ... they straightway
shot up and became prosperous." The Spartans, therefore, determined
to annex Arcadia, but were defeated by the forces of Tegea. Later,
in the sixth century, during the time of Croesus, the Spartans asked
the Delphic Oracle to direct their choice of a patron god. They were
bidden to bring home the bones of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, which were
in hostile Tegea. In Tegea, Lichas found the coffin which contained
the bones, seven cubits long (half a cubit longer than Goliath), of
Orestes, and carried them to Sparta. Thenceforth the Spartans were
victorious. The bones were not in a cairn, for a blacksmith of Tegea
first found the coffin when he was digging a well.[34] He would not dig
for water in a tumulus or cairn.
We need not multiply examples of hero-worship and relic-snatching, and
of such tricks of ghost-scaring as Cleisthenes played when, unable
to cast the hero Adrastus bodily out of Sicyon, he drove him away by
introducing the worship of the deadly foe of Adrastus, Melanippus.[35]
Colonists carried the worship of Achilles into the coasts and isles
of the Euxine, and even to Tarentum; while, according to Clemens
Alexandrinus, the Spartans worshipped Zeus Agamemnon.[36] All this
saint-worship and care for relics is, of course, absolutely un-Homeric.
The _Odyssey_[37] gives the perhaps Phoenician case of Ino, daughter
of Cadmus, once a mortal, now a sea-goddess. But to Homer a dead man,
be he Achilles or Aias, is merely a dead man. The cairn covers his
bones; he has no chapel, no sacrifice; no men covet the possession of
his relics; he can neither help nor harm; his spirit is in Hades, with
the powerless peoples of the Dead. Trojans would leap and boast on the
cairn of Menelaus if he fell at Troy _(Iliad_, iv. 174-182). Historic
Greeks would have made offerings at the tomb. No such rites were in the
belief of the society for which Homer sang. Had they been worshippers
of the dead, the epic poet could not play the heresiarch, and tell
them that their faith and hope were void and vain. No poet, no set of
poets, who lived by pleasing could afford to horrify their hearers by
such impiety. No poets could ignore the existence of normal rites that
were familiar in practice to all. The most advanced modern novelist
cannot ignore the Christian rites of marriage and burial, however much
he may despise and detest them. It is, then, an historical fact that
the society for which Homer sang did not adore and do sacrifice to dead
men, did not make gods of them and do them sacrifice, did not scramble
for their relics, as was the practice of proto-historic and historic
Greece down to the time of Pausanias at least.
[1] Frazer, _Pausanias_, vol. iii. p. 105.
[2] Helbig in Roscher, _s.v_. Minos, ii. 2. 3000. On this matter there
is much controversy.
[3] See several examples in Evans, "Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Worship."
_J. H. S_., vol. xxi.
[4] _Ibid._ p. 108.
[5] Frazer, _Pausanias_, vol. iii. p. 121.
[6] Evans, _ut sup_. p. 108.
[7] _Pausanias_, iv. 33.
[8] Evans, p. 164, fig. 44.
[9] See "The Asiatic or Winged Artemis." by M. S. Thompson. _J. H. S._,
vol. xxix. pt. ii. pp. 286-308.
[10] Cults of the Greek States, vol. ii. p. 427.
[11] Iliad, xiv. p. 203.
[12] _Iliad_, ii. 550, 551.
[13] Leaf, _Iliad_, vi. 130.
[14] Frazer, Pausanias, vol. iii.
[15] _Ibid. ut supra_.
[16] Catalogue, Book ii. 844-850.
[17] _Iliad_, x. 434-441.
[18] Strabo, x. 3. 470; fragment 25. Miss Harrison, _Prolegomena_, p.
375.
[19] _Iliad_, xx. 21.
[20] The distinction here made between "religion" and "mythology" is
made merely for the sake of convenience. We may readily be told that
the belief in a good God is as mythical as the tales about bad gods.
But the belief in a just, wise, and loving heavenly Father, the source
and sanction of ethics, represents one mood, and leads to one set of
results in conduct; while the belief in wicked and buffooning gods
represents another aspect of human thought, and leads to very different
results, mainly to the bewilderment of late historic Greek thinkers.
[21] _Iliad_, iii. 279, 280.
[22] xix. 259, 260.
[23] _Iliad_, ix. 502-512.
[24] For a variety of theories, see Leaf, Notes to _Iliad_, iii. 278,
xix. 262. Quite possibly the formula of the oath is a survival from a
stage of belief more archaic than the ordinary Homeric conception of
Hades.
[25] _Odyssey_, i. 263.
[26] iii. 48.
[27] vi. 180-185.
[28] vii. 165.
[29] xiii. 202.
[30] _Odyssey_, xiv. 82-84.
[31] _Iliad_, xvi. 516. Prayer of Glaucus to Apollo.
[32] Cf. _Miracles de Madame de Sainte Catherine de Fierbois_, a chapel
register of miracles in the Hundred Years' War.
[33] Hdt. i. 66.
[34] i. 67.
[35] v. 67.
[36] See _R. G. E_. p. 128, note 3; and, for other instances, pp.
180-190.
[37] v. 333-335.