z7. Star. Theb. 8.765-66: "mystica lampas et insons / Elisos."
z8. The main text is Plu. Demetr. z6.i, which locates it in Anthesterion; discussion of the date at Mikalson, i zo, who suggests we can place it no more precisely than sometime between the zoth and 26th.
z9. See discussion in chapter z above.
30. For the date, schol. Ar. Nu. 408, confirmed by the sacrificial calendar from Erchia; cf. Mikalson, 117, and Jameson, 159-60.
31. For the nature of the festival, Nilsson 1967, 41 z-13, Jameson, I59-7z; Deubner, 155-57; Harrison 19zz, 11-z7. For Zeus Meilichios, see Jameson, Jordan, and Kotansky, 81-103; Nilsson 1967, 411-14; Jameson, 159-65. The connnection of Zeus Meilichios with blood-guilt is particularly illustrated by the myth of Theseus's purification by Zeus Meilichios at his shrine on the Cephissus after the death of Sinus (Paus. 1.37.4; cf. Plu. Thes. iz) and the Spartans' dedication of a statue to the god after being purified of extensive blood-guilt in 418 B.C.E. (Paus. z.zo.z).
3 z. Discussions of the fleeces and interpretation at Jameson, Jordan, and Kotansky, 83, 95; Parker 1983, 373; Nilsson 1967, 110-13; Harrison 19zz, z3-z8. The main text is from Suda, s.v. Dios koidion (quoted by Deubner 49 n. 4).
33. Jameson, 159-6z; cf. Graf 1974
36. I am not convinced, with Tsantsanoglou, that this term indicates that the cult described in the papyrus is genuinely Persian. By the fourth century (to which the papyrus is dated), magos had broader applications in the Greek language and could be used as a term for a wide variety of religious specialists. The cult concerned may have presented itself as having foreign origins, as many mystery cults did, but I see nothing in the rites themselves that cannot be elucidated through comparison to other Greek rites. As I shall show in a later chapter, there is no reason to assume that the Erinyes here are "translations" of some Persian divinities more appropriate to the context (Tsantanoglou, I 13).
34. Origen Cels. 4.io. The words used are deimata and phantasmata.
35 • Johnston 1997b, esp. 194-95.
37. Poine: for example, Pi. fr. 133, the newest gold tablet (Chrysostomou 372), tablets Az-4 and A3.4 (see Graf 1993) and the first line of the Gurob Papyrus (as in R. A. Pack, The Greek and Latin Literary Texts from Greco-Roman Egypt [Ann Arbor,' 19651 no. 2464; quoted and translated in West 1983, 171).
38. f borrow the phrase einai empodon from Paus. 9.11.3 where it is used of supernatural entities whom Hera sends to obstruct-einai empodon-the birth of Heracles.
40. Some strands of Orphism, as well as the purifications associated with Empedocles and perhaps Pythagoras, were built on a belief in metempsychosis and therefore preached that those who had consumed animals were guilty of murder and cannibalism. From this blood-guilt each individual had to be "purified" before he could hope for a better deal in the afterlife. In addition, Orphic poetry, particularly that associated with Bacchic mysteries as exemplified in the gold tablets, for instance, claimed that all humans were tainted by the Titans' murder of Zagreus/Dionysus, from which they had to be purified before they presented themselves to Persephone after death; "I come pure from the pure" is the triumphant declaration that the initiate makes to the queen of the Underworld on some gold tablets. Salvation in these cults, then, required forms of "purification" that included atonement for murder, ritualized cleansing from the crime of murder, and in some cases "abstention" from further murder through abstention from meat; all of these purifications are, essentially, purifications from blood-guilt (Parker 1983, z81-3o7, and Kingsley, passim; on the gold tablets and related materials, see, most recently Johnston and McNiven, with earlier bibliography). We have no explicit evidence that these cults preached a fear of the biaiothanatoi for those who remained unpurified from this blood-guilt and uninitiated, but it is suggestive that, as I have noted (pp. 137 and n. 34), in the Bacchic mysteries deimata and phantasmata were supposed to threaten initiates.
39. Priest of Dionysus, line z97; pronouncement, line 30z, cf. Firm. De err. prof. rel. zz.r; triple oath, lines 304-7. My comments here are based on those of Borthwick, zoi-z, who gives further details and examples.
41. Parker 1983, 130-43, who cites the earlier discussions.
4z. On the development of the myth and conjectures concerning earlier versions, see Gantz, 3z8-35, whose analysis is slightly different from mine but in essential agreement. Also Hainsworth, 130-3z.
43. Hector and Elpenor: Il. zz.358; Od. 11.73. Hades and Persephone: Ii. 9.454-57, 568-7z. Erinys as a thea: Od. 15.234•
44. Il. 15.zo4 (no specification); R. 19.159 (no specification); Od. 1.130-36 (they bring evils, kaka), Od. 11.179-80 (they bring many pains, algea polla).
7. The case of Ares at Il. 21.400-414 is similar to death, however. Ares, being a god, cannot die, but when Athena knocks him to the ground by hitting him with a rock, she laughs and says he has fallen because his mother Hera, in her anger, has invoked the Erinyes against him. The next instance in which the Erinyes bring death per se that I know of is Pi. O. 1.41-42: "sharp-eyed Erinys saw and slew [Oedipus's] warlike children at each other's hands."
48. Cf. Hainsworth ad Il. 9.571. It should be noted that in manuscripts b and T there is an alternative reading for this adjective in one passage where it occurs: eiarop(5tis, "blooddrinking" (71. 19.87); certainly, this variation aligns with later descriptions of the Erinyes.
45. Il. 9.454; cf. 493-94•
46. II. 19.87; Od. 15.z34.
49. Achilles and Patroclus: Il. 23.65-107; Theoclymenus: Od. 110.351-57; Greeks and Achilles: Proclus's summary of the Nostoi, lines 15-17.
50. Th. 176-87.
51. The classical discussion of these terms is Hatch, now quite old but still very useful. Also cf. Parker 1983, io8-9, and Vernant 1980, 134-35•
5 z. Lardinois.
53. A. Eu. z45; cf. E. Or. 255-56.
54. A. Eu. 395; cf. 417-
55• A. Th. 699-700; cf. 977, 988, and A. 46z.
56 . A. Eu. 416, 1034•
57. See discussion and sources on this point in chapter 7.
58. Erinys as a goddess, Od. 15.234. The theory that Erinyes were the dead was first articulated by Rohde 1925, 178-80; see also Lloyd-Jones 1990, zo6; Nilsson 1967, 100 and n. 8; Harrison 1922, 213-zz; 1899, zo5; Roscher 1896, 39-42. Note also that in the scenes of the Underworld shown on Apulian funerary vases of the fourth century and later, the Erinyes' iconography is very different from that of the dead whom they sometimes punish, confirming that they are viewed as separate categories of creatures. Examples in Sarien 1986 and Aellen.
59• A. Ch. 400-4o4; cf. Th. 570-75.
6o. A. Pr. 56r-689; A. Ch. 269-305; E. El. 68o; E. HF 965-67.
61. Comedies: in addition to Menander's Phasma, we have fragments of a Phasma by Theognetus (PCG VII 697) and a Phasma by Philemon (PCG VII z72-73). It was Philemon's that served as the model for the Mostellaria; see Philemon test. zo and Festus P. 158.33 Linds.
6z. Trag. Adesp. 375; Hp. Morb. sacr. 4.30-33; cf. E. Hipp. 142.
63. D. Chrys. Or. 4.90. Other important texts for Hecate's mysteries are Paus. z.3o.z; Lucian Nav. 15; Lib. Aristoph. 4z6b; cf. At. V. izz; discussion at Nilsson 19o6, 398-400. There were also mysteries of Hecate on Samothrace, about which we know very little, but Arist. Mir. 173 suggests that they, too, dealt with madness, for it mentions that according to Eudoxus, anyone finding a certain type of stone called "The Sword" on Mount Bere- cynthius while the mysteries of Hecate were being celebrated would go mad. See also schol. At. Pax 276 and discussion at Nilsson, loc. cit.; cf. Borgeaud 1996, 113 and n. zo, for a similar phenomenon involving the sacred stones of Cybele, which drove worshippers mad enough to castrate themselves.
64. Blood-sucking: A. Eu. z64-68. Erinyes as maddening: most famously, A. Eu. 307-88 (the "binding song") and in all treatments of the Orestes myth thereafter, e.g., E. IT z81-3o8 and 981-82.; Or. Z53-79; At. Plu. 4z3-24, plus the examples from Homer mentioned earlier. Cf. also the expectation that madness is sent by alastores at S. Tr. 12.35.
65. Pl. Lg. 865d6-e6, quoted on p. z8 ab
ove. The verb that I have translated there as "disturb"- tarasso- literally means "to stir up" but is frequently used in classical sources to describe mental disturbances, particularly those caused by fright. Indeed, it is the verb used at A. Ch. z89 to describe what Agamemnon's ghost will do to Orestes if he fails to avenge Agamemnon's death, and at A. A. 1z16 of Cassandra's mind overcome by visions of the dead children of Thyestes. Cf. also Phdr. z44d5 -7, where mania is said to be caused by "ancient wraths" (and see p. 55 above). Similarly, Xenophon's Cyrus emphasizes the terrors (phoboi) that the souls of the violently dead can strike into the hearts of those who murdered them (Cyr. 8.7.18-i9, quoted on p. z8 above). This association between madness and the dead can be understood as part of a broader connection in Greek thought between madness, which lurks in the inner darkness of the corrupted mind, and the dark recesses of the Underworld. This thesis has been developed by Padel 199z, passim, but esp. 79-80, for example.
68. A. Pr. 877-86.
69. Orestes, too, wanders in madness far from his home when pursued by the Erinyes, for example, and, as we shall see in chapter 6, wandering is a defining characteristic of young girls who are troubled by the restless dead at the time of their transition from virgin to wife and mother (and as a matter of fact, it is her transition from girlhood to motherhood, as signaled by the birth of her child, Epaphus, that finally brings Io's maddened wandering to a close; she has successfully made her transition through the liminal phase that defines the girls discussed in chapter 6). Notably, "wandering" is often also a description applied to the restless or demonic dead themselves. Mormones are described as planetes daimones, for instance (Hsch., s.v. mormonas) and the unburied dead wander as well (E. Tr. 1084-5).
70. For an overview of the myth and its sources (which include the Hesiodic Catalogue), see Gantz 198-z04. The traditional version is used by Aeschylus in the Suppliants 306-9.
66. A. Pr. 561-686. lo identifies the eidolon Argou and oistros at 566-67.
67. Padel i99z, IZO-Z5.
71. Another indication of this is the frequent use of the word skia, "shadow," or oneir, "dream," to refer to ghosts, both of which reflect their insubstantial quality, e.g., Od. 10.495; cf. 11.207 and Il. 23.100 (jute kapnos); A. Th. 976; Eu. 1116 and 3o2; S. Ph. 946; E. HF 494 and 517; cf. Alc. 354• Cf. also Winkler, 159-65, on the iconography of ghosts in antiquity.
72. Cf. Bremmer 1983, esp. 8z-89. Vernant 1991, Z7-49-
73. See the first fifty lines or so of the play, esp. 1, 3, z8, 31, 47, 54• Cf. also the variety of ways in which the corpse and soul of Achilles are referred to in this play: the ghost is Achilles at 36, z61, and z68, a phantasma at 390, and a nekros at 393, for example.
74. Later sources confirm that fright and madness were the chosen modi operandi of the biaiothanatoi in some famous cases of what might be called the "heroic" dead: the ghost of the charioteer Myrtilus was said to frighten horses as they rounded the post of the racecourse at Olympia: Paus. 6.20.15 -19 (who also offers several other explanations for the taraxippus at Olympia, most of which involve dead charioteers in some way; he mentions taraxippi at other famous racetracks as well). In the later, more explicit descriptions that we find in elaborate tablets or recipes within the magical papyri, the dead are specifically asked to inflict insomnia, frantic sexual desire, and other forms of mental distress. In one case, ghosts are asked, like Myrtilus, to frighten the driver of a chariot as soon as he leaves the starting gate: a third-century c.E. tablet from North Africa, DT #271 = Gager #36 (with full bibliography there), SEG 34.1437 = Gager #6 (Syria, early sixth century c.E.) . On fright and ghosts, see also Winkler, 159-65.
75. E. Hipp. 316-18.
76. A. Pr. 570.
77. See Bremmer 1983, 100-104, who gives references to the belief in other cultures, too.
78. This is the implication of the Homeric phrases aisimon emar and morsimon mar as used at Il. 8.7z, 15.613, and zi.roo; Od. 10.175, for example.
79. Pace the statements made by Achilles' own ghost at Od. 1'.487-91, a poem that challenges the norm we encounter in the Iliad not only by Achilles' statements but by the figure of Odysseus himself, who will die old and far from the battlefield and yet retain kleos.
8o. The warriors "still in bloody armor" who linger at the entrance to Hades with the aoroi at Od. 11.40-41 are probably to be understood as still unburied; no good Greek would allow the body of a friend to go to its grave unwashed and improperly dressed.
8r. A. Ch. 345-6z. Cf. P1. R. 468e4-469b3 and Cr. 398a8-c4, which suggests that those who die honorably in battle may even qualify for Hesiod's Golden Race.
8z. A. Pers. 691-9z; S. El. 83z-36. Of course, although the death of Amphiaraus was orchestrated by the treachery of his wife, Eriphyle, it did occur in the context of battle according to one tradition (Od. 15•z43-55) and thus, perhaps, was not understood as dishonorable in the same way as Agamemnon's was.
83. A. Eu. 94-99.
84. Nilsson 1967, 99, offers a different explanation for why the murder victim counts as a biaiothanatos, whereas the dead warrior does not. In the latter case, he notes, one typically is killed by someone to whom one has no links of friendship, family, or hospitality; in the former case, one typically is killed by someone with whom one does have these links. This analysis is essentially correct but overlooks the emphasis on honor or dishonor that I have shown to be present in many of the passages dealing with such deaths.
85. There is also some idea that those who have committed crimes will be shunned by the other dead: Pl. Phd. ro8b3-c3.
86. E.g., E. Andr. 51o-iz.; Tro. 458-61.
87. Patroclus: IL z3.68-74. Cf. Vernant 1991, 50-74; Bremmer 1983, 89-108.
88. Achilles: E. Hec. 1o7-15; Odysseus: ibid. Sri-r2, 317-2o. It is revealing that Odysseus also reminds the Greeks that if they refuse, not only will Achilles lack honor in the Underworld, but they, too, will have reason to feel ashamed in front of Persephonerefusing honor to the dead reflects badly on the living as well (lines 130-40).
89.-Hdt. 5.9ztI, quoted on p. vii above.
go. Vernant r99r, 63-70.
91. Il. 19.29-39, 24.18-21. Cf. Faraone 1992, 82-84.
9z. E. Hel. ro5o-68, 12-39-78. The earliest instances of this are Od. 1.z9o-92, where Athena tells Telemachus to erect a cenotaph for Odysseus if he turns out to be dead, and 4.583-4, where Menelaus is said to have erected a cenotaph for Agamemnon. Cf. also p. 155•
93. Plu. QR 4 (z64f-z65b). Hesychius says that such people were also called deuteropotmoi (s.v.). E. Alc. 1144-46.
94. E. Alc. 163-69.
95 E. Alc. 742-46. Elsewhere (995-1005) the Chorus tells Admetus that Alcestis's tomb will be given honors like those due to a god and that, in return for having died for her husband, she will be counted as a "blessed spirit" (makaira daimon) able to help the living. In other words, Alcestis will receive hero cult.
96. It is interesting that Admetus considers the dead Alcestis's continuing honor in the Underworld to depend as well upon his keeping his promise to remain celibate (E. Alc. 1057-60); thus again we see that the position of the dead among his or her peers depends in part upon how they are treated by the living.
98. Theseus: Plu. Thes. 35; Paus. 1.17.6; Apollod. Epit. 1.24; D.S. 4.62.4 The questions of who killed Medea's children and why are complex; see Johnston 1997a.
97. I shall be very brief here, because the topics of heroes and hero worship have received much attention in recent years. For more detailed discussions of the nature of heroes, and discussions of the origin of their cult, see Seaford 1994, passim; Boedeker; Henrichs 1991, 192-93, Antonaccio; de Polignac; Kearns; I. Morris 1988; Snodgrass 1988; Whitley; Fontenrose 1968. Rohde 1gz5, ch. 4 and Farnell 1921 are still very good collections of information from the ancient sources; cf. also Nock, 574-6oz.
99. Fr. 3zz; cf. Henrichs 1991, 191-93, and Gelzer.
too. The following are just a few of many possible examples; further in Rohde 19z5, ch. 4. Plague: Plu. Cim. 19; battles: Hdt. 6.117.3; impregnation: Hdt. 6.69.1; stones: Paus.
9.38.5. Cf. also the "hero of Temesa" as described at Paus. 6.6.7-11 and the story that the Marathonian dead relived their final battle every night at Paus. 1.32.4-5. Of course, these latter ghosts cannot strictly be considered biaiothanatoi, however, as they died honorably in battle. The implication is that their ability to return to the upper world is a boon, a reward for their exceptional bravery while alive.
101. Theagenes: Paus. 6.11.4-9; D. Chr. Or. 31.95; excavations have turned up inscriptions concerning Theagenes' cult. BCH 64-65 (1940-41): 163ff. Mitys: Arist. Poet. 9, 145za, and cf. Mir. 156 (where the name is given as "Bitys"). Commentary on both at Nilsson 1967, 83, and on Mitys/Bitys at Rohde 1915, 154 n. 118.
ioz. Hp. Morb. sacr. 4.30-33. Pausanias: see discussion on pp. 108-9 above; Myrtilus: Paus. 6.zo.15-19. Cf. Henrichs 1991, 192-93•
103. On Eurystheus, see E. Heracl. 1oz6-44. The most famous cases are those of Orestes and Theseus; recent treatments are Boedeker and Kearns 117-23, 168-69. Cf. also Visser.
104. Mnemata kena: for example, Paus. 4.3z.31, 6.13.3.6, 9.18.4.1. Further examples and discussion in Rohde Igz5, Izz and n. 39.
105. Eust. ad Od. 9.65-66; L 'also Paus. 4.z7.6. The passage from Pythian 4 is 159-64.
106. Tetr. 1 a (I 15) 3, Y (119) io-ii; Tetr. 3 a (1z5) 3-4, P (1z6-z7) 8, Y (1z8) 7, 8 (129) 10.
107. A. Ch. 439-43; S. El. 444-46.
io8. Modern discussions at Parker 1984, 138; Vermeule, z36; Nilsson 1967, 92, 98- 1oo; Rohde 19z5, 58z-86; Kittredge. Rohde and Kittredge cite, quote, and discuss all of the late antique sources; Kittredge also offers resumes of previous scholars' works on the topic.
tog. Cathartic or apotropaic: A.R. 4.477-8o and schol.; EM and Suda, s.v. maschalismos. Jason's licking up of the blood of Apsyrtus is at A.R. 4.477 ff.; cf. A. fr. 3 54, and the remarks of Rohde 19z5, 586, and Nilsson 1967, 9z, 99. Hampering ghost: Aristoph. Byz. p. zzi, schol. ad S. El. 445• Rohde seems to espouse the first idea in part, although he supports the idea of maschalismos hampering the ghost as well.
110. See Faraone 1991b, zoo-zo5, for a survey of such statuettes with dates and earlier bibliographies.
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