fluence over healing and as suggesting the silence and secrecy which must be observed in respect to medical practice, whence he was called Sigalos ('Silent'), and physicians swore by him to hold inviolate the secrets of their profession.255 He was worshipped at Pergamon and elsewhere along the coast of Asia Minor,256 and was identified with Euamerion of Titane and Akesis of Epidauros (Pausanias, II, xi, 7); while at the latter site an inscription has been found in honor of "Asklepios [and] Hygieia Telesphoroi. 257 In a poem in his honor258 he is called "bringer of life" (zoophoros); but later his name sank to mean 'ventriloquist' (e.g. Etymol. mag., s.v.). Telesphoros is seldom referred to in literature, and the most of the information concerning him comes from monuments and coins, which indicate that his worship was prevalent throughout Asia Minor, spreading from Pergamon, where he was especially revered, and extending to Athens and Epidauros. His function is not clearly understood, but from the accepted meaning of his name, 'Accomplisher,' it has been assumed that he was the god of convalescence;250 and possibly an incubation spirit;200 and it is known that patients at the sanctuaries sacrificed to him during their recovery. At Pergamon he gave Aristeides a healing balsam which was applied in the bath 255 Sprengel, op. cit., i, 136. 256 Gruppe, op. cit., p. 1455; Usener, op. cit., pp. 170-171. 257 Baunack, in SGAS, 1886, i, 99 (cf. other inscriptions, merely mentioning the name of Telesphoros, ib., pp. 91, 93, 98). 258 Kaibel, ed. Epigrammata Græca ex lapidis conlecta, no. 1027, line 43. 259 Prof. L. H. Gray suggests the meaning of the name as "he who brings the perfect end," and that he was an old 'departmental god' who put the finishing touches to a healing already practically complete. 260 W. Wroth, "Telesphoros," in JHS, 1882, iii, 283 ff.; also J. Ziehen, "Studien zu den Asklepiosreliefs," in MAIA, 1892, xvii, 241. 261 and while passing from the hot to the cold water;2 Marinos (Vita Prokli, 7) relates that the boy, fair to see, appeared to the philosopher Proklos in a vision, while he was dangerously ill, and touched his forehead, whereupon he was straightway made whole. Telesphoros, in a later period, is represented on monuments and coins as a child wearing a hood and a long cloak which covers his whole figure except the face; and he appears either alone, with Asklepios, with Hygieia, or with both.22 His worship was recognized in Athens by a religious society named, in his honor, the Ephebes of Telesphoros (CIA III, i, 1159). Ianiscos, a hypothetical son of Asklepios (Scholion on Aristophanes, Plut., 701) 208 was another child-divinity associated with the cult, one of whom little is known and whose functional relation is obscure. On coins and in marble he is represented as a small boy, nude or lightly clad, standing by the side of the god, or alone, holding some animal, most frequently a goose, 264 sometimes used as a symbol of healing power. 263 THEMIS THEMIS was the mother of the Horai and the Moirai (Hesiod, Theog., 901-906) and a birth-goddess,25 receiving the epithet Themis Eileithyia (Nonnos, Dionysiaca, xli, 162). At Troizen she was worshipped in the plural as the Themides and the countless nymphs, the Themistiades (Pausanias, II, xxxi, 5); and she received the oracle at Delphoi from her mother, Earth, but was dismissed by Apollo, or she passed it to Phoibe, who pre261 Bouché-Leclercq, op. cit., iii, 302. 262 Holländer, op. cit., pp. 126 ff. 263 Dindorf, op. cit., iv, 228-230. 264 Holländer, op. cit., pp. 150 ff. 265 A. Scheiffle, in Pauly-Wissowa, vi, 1788, ed. 1852. sented it to Apollo as a birthday gift (Aischylos, Eumen., 2-4; Strabo, IX, iii, 11 = p. 422 C). TROPHONIOS TROPHONIOS, a chthonic deity who presided over a celebrated oracle at Lebadeia in Boiotia, was, according to Pausanias (IX, xxxvii, 4-5) and Strabo (IX, iii, 9 = = p. 421 C), like his brother Agamedes, a builder who erected a temple of Apollo at Delphoi and a treasury for Hyrieus. He was reputed to have been a divinity of the Phlegyans, and Cicero (op. cit., iii, 22) gives him the same general ancestry as Asklepios. Late authors have questioned the propriety of considering him a god, but Celsus classed him with other chthonic healing deities, such as Amphiaraos and Mopsos (Origenes, contra Celsum, vii, 35) while Lucian (Dialogi Mortuorum, iii) spoke of him as compounded of man and god. Farnell calls him a 'faded deity, 266 Trophonios had the same attributes as Asklepios, and the ceremonies of his cult are said to have been a fair picture of the early ritual of Asklepios, who had a shrine at Orchomenos in the same neighborhood; but his healing functions appear never to have been developed beyond the primitive stage and to have receded as those of Asklepios grew in importance. His oracle was near Lebadeia in a grotto on the side of a hill above the Herkyna river, where were images of the god and his daughter Herkyna with serpents coiled around their scepters so that they may have been taken for Asklepios and Hygieia. In the grove was a temple with a statue of Trophonios by Praxiteles that resembled Asklepios; and there were also other shrines; one to Demeter Europa, and one to Apollo, as well as images of Kronos, Hera, and Zeus (Pausanias, IX, xxxix, 4-5). 266 Farnell, in ERE vi, 405. Those intending to consult the oracle, whether for healing or other reasons (ib., IV, xxxii, 5), lodged for several days in a building sacred to the Good Daimon and Good Fortune, and observed rules of purity, avoiding hot baths, bathing in the Herkyna river, and sacrificing to the several gods, to Zeus Basileus, Hera the charioteer, and others.27 A soothsayer inspected the entrails of a victim to learn if the suppliant would be graciously received by the deity, and on the evening before going to the cave Agamedes was honored by the sacrifice of a ram, whose entrails must tell the same tale to give the suppliant hope. Those who consulted the oracle paid a silver coin into the treasury and offered ten cakes (CIGGS, 3055). Anointed by boys, he was then led by priests to two springs where he drank first of the waters of Forgetfulness and next of the waters of Memory (Frazer, op. cit., v, 198-204;268 Pliny, op. cit., xxxi, 5). Dressed in white, bound with fillets, and wearing native boots, the suppliant now approached the oracle, and, holding in his hands barley cakes kneaded with honey as a sacrifice to the serpents (Aristophanes, Nubes, 508), he descended feet first into the cave. To some it was given to see, and to others to hear, the oracle which was delivered by serpents.209 After staying in the cave a varying length of time, sometimes more than a day, the suppliant returned as he entered, feet first, and was received by the priests, who seated him in the chair of Memory, questioning him as to all he had seen and heard. Later, still overpowered by fear and quite unconscious, he was given into the hands of his friends and returned to the House of the 267 Farnell, Cults, i, 194. 268 Frazer gives additional details and references. 269 For the incubation of the Trophonios cult, see Hamilton, op. cit., pp. 88-93. Good Daimon and Good Fortune, where he recovered his wits and finally his power of laughter. ZEUS ZEUS, the sovereign of the Greek pantheon and the chief of the Olympian circle of deities, was the god of the heavens, the potential ruler of the universe, the father of gods and men, and the undisputed master of lightning and thunder, who in his wrath used the thunderbolt as a weapon of punishment. He was the bringer of both good and evil, and could assume the functions of all other divinities, since his will was supreme. The most ancient shrine of Zeus, and the most venerable oracle in Greece, was at Dodona in Epeiros (Herodotos, ii, 52 ff.), where there was a celebrated oak, sacred to him, which Sophokles called the "many-tongued oak" (Trach., 1148) and which was commonly termed the whispering or talking oak, since the rustling of its leaves and the murmuring of the waters beneath it were believed to be the voice of the god. His priests, "the selloi of unwashen feet," interpreted these sounds as prophecies and instructions, and inscribed many of the divine decrees on tablets of lead. Recent excavations have unearthed a large number of these plates, inscribed with questions and prayers to Zeus Naïos and Dione and some replicas of these oracles, from a site supposed to be that of the old sanctuary. 270 These practices (Il., xvi, 235) are assumed to be evidences of incubation in the primitive cult, and the inscriptions indicate that the oracle was consulted by persons from far and near both for personal and for state affairs, as when Odysseus inquired of it to learn 271 270 Carapanos, Dodone et ses ruines, i, 68-83; Plates 34-39. 271 Gruppe, op. cit., p. 355. |