XLIXJ Studies in primitive Greek religion. 11 



{nÉTQag) ^) and in the town of Gyntbium likewise an un- 

 wrotight stone was worshipped under the name of Zeus Cap- 

 potas (Reliever), because — as the legend told — Orestes had 

 been relieved of his madness by sitting on it 2). At Pharai 

 thirty square stones were revered by the people who gave to 

 each the name of a god •^), At Hyettos there was a temple 

 of Hercules who was supposed to be able to cure sick persons ; 

 but he was represented „not by an artificial image but in the 

 ancient fashion by an unwrought stone" *). 



Pausanias, in telling about these and similar sacred stones 

 does not state anything that would suggest to us the special 

 reason for their being originally looked upon as divine. They, 

 however, no doubt, indicate traces of a primitive animism or 

 fetishism and may have been regarded as supernatural agents 

 either because of something remarkable in their shape or 

 colour or because of some remarkable incidents with which they 

 had been connected. Since, however, in the course of time 

 this true origin of their sacredness had fallen into oblivion, 

 legends of one kind or another had been formulated to 

 explain it. There are some other instances of a primitive 

 fetish-worship in Q-reek religion in which the principles just 

 mentioned clearly appear. Thus the iron sceptre which, ac- 

 cording to Pausanias, the Chaeroneans honoured most among 

 their gods, seems to have been originally regarded as divine 

 simply because the Phocians when they found it found gold 



>) Paus. IX, 38, 1. 



*; Ibid. III, 22, 1. — Of an other sacred stone at Troezen it was told 

 that on it nine men of T. had purified Orestes after the murder of his mo- 

 thgr. (Paus. II, 31, 4.) 



') Paus. VII, 22, 4. 



*) Paus. IX, 24, 3. Cf. VII, 22, 2. — A divine spirit or „psyche" 

 resided also in the baetyl-stones (Baidvloi) formed by the heavenly god, the 

 origin of which is somewhat obscure but which may possibly have been rae- 

 teorites or supposed thunder-bolts fallen form the clouds (Tylor, Primitive 

 Culture, II, p. 196). Perhaps the whole cult of this stone, lihe the word ^al- 

 TvXos itself, is of Simitic origin (See de Visser, Die nicht menschengestnltigen 

 Gfitter der Griechen, pp. 80—84. Gr uppe Griechische MytJiologie und Religions 

 geschichte). Euseb. Prnep. Ev. I, 10, p. 37 d : ... é7cev6i]a€ 9eös Ovgavös 

 ^aixvXia ki&ovs éixipvxovs iii]xavi]aäfi£vos. Cf. Etymol. Magn. s. v. Bai- 

 xvXos. 



