12 Rafael Karsten. [N:o 1 



aiong with it. Hence it was believed to be a specially lucky 

 thing and to conter all sorts of distinction upon its owner ^). 

 For a similar reason the Cherronesians worshipped the large 

 meteor which according to several classical writers^) fell down 

 from the heaven in the Aigos river at the end of the Pe- 

 loponnesian war. The stränge incident itself, the remark- 

 able appearance of the object and the defeat which the Athe- 

 nians suffered at that time and at the same place all com- 

 bined to give it the reputation of being supernatural. An other 

 interesting example in Greece proper of the way in which 

 primitive gods are created is told us by Plutarch. The Aenians, 

 a Hellenic tribe in south Thessalia, worshipped as a god the 

 lucky stone with which their chief Phemios had killed the 

 Inachiau king Hyperochos, acquiring thus the possession of his 

 land 3). In other cases for instance certain precious stones seem 

 to have been regarded as divine on account of their marvellous 

 lustre. Thus the crystal and the chysolite seem to have been 

 held sacred, and the brilliant rays they emit were compared 

 with those of the sun which seemed te have infused into them 

 something of its divine spirit *). 



Of greater importance still were, of course, the spiritual 

 beings inhabiting peculiarly shaped rocks, mountains and 

 caves, of which some instances may be given. Even so late 

 as the second centure B. C. a hage rock near Antioch, the top 

 of which was formed like a human head, was regarded as the 

 abode of a deity and the cause of a pestilence that raged in 

 the town^). Among similar places in classical G-reece the double- 

 crested vaulted Corycian rock on Mount Parnassos was the 

 best known. Owing to ist stränge shape and mysterious sur- 

 rounding it had probably since earliest times been regarded as 

 a daifxovdiv åva(^TQO(pal^), a haunt or dwelling-place of super- 

 natural beings. It sacredness was greatly enhanced by the 



1) Paus. IX, 40, 11—12. 



■') Plut. Lysander, c. 12. Strabo, VII, 56; 331. Plin. Hist. nat. II, 59. 



^) Plut. Quest. Graec. c. 13. 



*) Orph. LitUca, 288, 296. 



ä) Malalas, Chronogr. VIII, 262. 



^) Aesch, Eumen. 22: aé^co de vv/jKfag. tvQa It'co(n;x(s' ^tTfja xolXi] 



(fiÅoQvtg, öaL^uvcov åva<JT(jo(pai. 



