Chthonic functions.

Certain of the deities of the Underworld had benign functions. They dispensed the hidden wealth of Mother Earth, advised mankind by prophecy and dreams, and aided in misfortune and suffering. For Homer and Hesiod, Demeter was a goddess of blessings, not of terror. She was the beloved divinity of fertility, of vegetation, of the happy revival of nature in springtime. Later, the Mysteries of Eleusis promised her initiates greater contentment in the present life and a happier lot than that of others after death. Her power was, however, feared. The Black Demeter of pre-Homeric times, the gruesome, threatening figure of the horse-headed goddess with snake locks in the dark cave at Phigaleia, was not forgotten (Pausanias, VIII, xlii, 4). Dionysos was the god of industry, of vine culture, and of wine, and his cult fostered gaiety and wild revelry, but he also offered worshippers the hope of a future life. Asklepios and other heroes administered by healing to sufferers. There was, therefore, much that was conducive to cheerfulness and to be thankful for in the chthonian cults, and their deities were honored, and their favorable aspects were dwelt upon in the hope of propitiating them and minimizing their disposition to work evil. They were never addressed directly and were seldom referred to by their own dread names. Hesiod speaks of Hades as Zeus of the Earth, implying beneficence. Hades was also called Plouton, 'the Rich One'; and Persephone ("the maiden whom none may name") was termed Kore, 'the Maiden.' The altar to the chthonioi at Myonia in Lokris was dedicated to 'the Gracious Gods' (Pausanias, X, xxxviii, 8). Most of the chthonioi were nameless, and many were described by adjectives, as 'Kindly Goddess,' 'Revered One,' or 'Easy-to-be-entreated.' The same idea was carried out in

art. Farnell remarks12 that the Greeks would not brook the full revelation of the dark features of the chthonioi, and that ideal Greek art expressed in palpable forms of benign beauty the half palpable personages of the lower world, banished the uncouth and the terrible in religious imagination, and helped to purge and tranquilize the Greek mind by investing chthonic powers with benevolence and grace. On coins Persephone is represented as a beautiful, hopeful maiden, and the horse-headed Demeter is transformed into graceful human form with no intimation of the original except the horse's hoof as a pendant to her necklace.18

The daimons.

According to Greek belief, the shades of the departed descended into the earth, to the prison house of Hades. The spirits of those "who died before their time" and of the uncremated dead, however, remained outside the portals and had power to return to the upper world and disturb the living. The ghost of Patroklos appeared to Achilles in a dream and begged that his funeral rites be performed that it might pass the gates of Hades (Il., xxiii, 70). The shades of the dead became earth-spirits, daimons, heroes, and possibly wandering ghosts.1 'Daimons' (or demons) was a term of early Greece for the invisible spirits of supernatural power, a primitive conception of broad meaning that did not carry with it any moral taint. Hesiod (Op. et Dies, 122, 159, 172, 251) regarded daimons as ranking between gods and men, of a higher grade of dignity, but otherwise indistinguishable from heroes, who were a god-like race of men of the Golden Age, watchers, set apart from mortals. The

14 A. C. Pearson, "Demons and Spirits (Greek)," ERE iv, 590-594.

Greeks held them to be kindly, guardian spirits, standing by to initiate men in the mysteries of life and to guide them after death (Plato, Phædo, 130). Plato said they were interpreters and messengers between gods and men, and other philosophers looked upon them as having powers for both good and evil. Aristophanes says (Equites, 85) that the Athenians made libations of wine to the 'good daimon,' or Genius, after dinner. In Boiotia they sacrificed to the 'good daimon' when testing new must. Daimons sent dreams, which were signs of disease and of good health. The ritual prescription marks an early antipathy between the hero and the Olympian, but this was compromised by an appearance of decent friendliness.15 In the classical age it was believed that the good ascended, that the shades of the dead might become heroes, that heroes became daimons and demigods, and that a few rose to the rank of gods with a defined personality.

The worship of heroes.

From the earliest times the Greeks had paid respect to ancestors of both family and tribe. They were regarded by the writers of Attika as the 'good daimons' of the household, and were sometimes represented by a serpent.1 Libations were made to ancestors at family meals, and such honors led to a close family tie or clanfeeling. The memory of men who had distinguished themselves was reverenced by their family, their tribe, city, or state. Through the mists of early Greek tradition certain personalities stand forth as humanitarians and as having had unusual gifts of wisdom and foresight, favorites and 'sons of the gods.' These were the heroes who had been inspired with the arts of civilization for the benefit of mankind, and, possessing the mantic gift, 15 Harrison, op. cit., p. 338.

16 Farnell, Cults, iii, 10.

were renowned as seers and prophets. Their mantic gifts were supposed to be hereditary and to pass to their descendants, who frequently retained the name of their ancestor as the collective by which the gifted family or race was known. Such benefactors of the people were glorified after death and honored with cultic worship, and a few were deified. They were generally worshipped as heroes, and their graves were the centers of their cults. If they gained fame and importance, shrines were built and they were accorded public honors, and possibly festivals. Such hero cults were pre-Homeric and appear to have been a survival of a primitive custom prior to the growth of the cults of the greater gods. They became prominent in post-Homeric days and were well established throughout Greece about the seventh century B.C. As chthonian earth-spirits the heroes acquired their attributes and emblems, the oracle and the serpent. The snake as an emblem, common to all chthonic characters, represented the incarnate form of the hero or god in which he was frequently worshipped, and it was thus used in statues, bas-reliefs, and other works of art. Vergil (Eneid, v, 84) recognized this relation when he told of the enormous serpent which appeared to Aineias as he performed the sacred rites at the tomb of his father on the anniversary of his death. Heroes were helpers in time of need and were protectors in battle; while, as the gods had favored them with skill beyond mortal man, many were healers of the sick. They avenged a slight, it was considered dangerous to meet them in the darkness or speak of them in other than pleasing terms. Hesychios (s.v. kreittonas) explains that heroes "seem to be a bad sort of persons; it is on this account that those who pass hero-shrines keep silence lest heroes should do them some harm. ''17

17 Harrison, op. cit., p. 339.

Ceremonials.

18

The Greek modes of worship and the sacred formulas used at the temples and festivals were, as a rule, decorous, wholesome, and refined. Licentious emblems and rites are rarely mentioned and were practically confined to the vegetation cults. The elements of the ritual appear to have differed materially with the various worships and with time and place. They have, however, been grouped as honorific, to honor the gods as benefactors of the individual, the city, and state; as apotropaic, to acknowledge their services as averters of evil, misfortune, sickness, and death; as hilastic, to atone for offenses and to propitiate; and, as cathartic, to cast forth contamination and to purify. The gods were given the adjectival titles lysioi, apotropaioi, alexikakoi, and aleximoroi, as averters of and deliverers from evil and death; and these epithets were placed above the doors of dwellings for their magic influence. The honorific and apotropaic ceremonies consisted of pæans or hymns of praise, prayers, libations, and thanksgivings, with ritual sacrifice of animals and offerings of first-fruits, cereals, honey, wine, incense, et cetera. The hilastic ceremonies were similar, except that they partook of an expiatory character to appease the anger of the gods and, by placating them, to obtain a riddance of all evil spirits and their works, misfortune, sickness, or threatened death. Perfect hecatombs were offered Apollo to appease his wrath and rid the Greek camp of the scourge (Il., i, 315). Odysseus was instructed to sacrifice black animals within a trench in which honey, wine, and water had been poured, and thus entreat the "illustrious nations of the dead" (Odys., x, 520). Fire was used to dissipate evil spirits. Whatever the practice of human sacrifice in the dark and savage

18 A. W. Mair, “Worship (Greek)," in ERE xii, 782-788.