22 Rafael Karsten. [N:o 1 



to expel the people from the country. To kill a stork was 

 strictly forbidden and considered equal to homicide ^). Among 

 birds of prey, of course, the eagle was the most important, 

 beiug by the Greeks called a „divine bird" because of its 

 high flight and its keen sight 2). The owl, if not worshipped 

 as an actual deity, at any råte played a certain part in the 

 religion of the people. Owing so its habit of living in solitary 

 deserts and its awful nightly shrieks it was considered as a bird 

 of ill omen, not only for individuals but for whole states ^). 



Serpents hold a prominent place in the mythology and 

 religion of most uncivilised peoples and the Hellenes in this re- 

 spect formed no exception. The peculiar outward appearance 

 of this reptile, it mysterious movements, its uncanny eyes and 

 poisonous stings are, indeed, most likely to strike the ima- 

 gination of uncultured mau and to awake in him ideas of 

 something supernatural being connected with it ^). The Greeks 

 believed that serpents were gifted with a mysterious know- 

 ledge of the plants which could revive the dead ^). They also 

 fancied that the departed often assuraed the shape of this 

 reptile and thus appeared to the living ^). This idea, no doubt, 

 had its origin in the observation that the serpent is a „chtonic" 

 animal xat' é^oxrjv, its habit being to lurk in caverns and 

 underground places '). Hence it became a symbol of all things 

 subterrauean and especially of the grave. The belief that 

 the snakes were developed from the spinal marrow of the 

 dead ^) may have arisan låter. Serpent-worship among the 

 Greeks was thus to a certain extent a form of the worship of 



*) Arist. loc. cit. Cf. Plut. De Iside et Osir. c. 74; p, 380. 



^) Arist. Hist. anim. IX, 22, 3: &(.lov ol åv^gmjioi (paai dvai (låvov 

 Ttöv ÖQvécov. Cf. Plin. Hist. nat. X, 3, 4. 



3) Plin. Hist. nat. X, 12, 16. 



♦) Cf . Maehly. Die Schlange im Mythus tmd Cultus der classischen Völker. 



") ApoUod. III, 3, 1. — Hence they were also connected with the cult 

 of Asdepius. See infra. 



«) Plut. Cleom. c. 39. Schol. Aristoph. Plut. 733. Cf. Harrison, Prolego- 

 mena, pp. 326 — 332. 



') The serpent is by Herodotus called Tf^g nåls (Herod. I, 78. Cf. Serv. 

 ad Verg. Aen. V, 85: Nulliis locus sine genio est qui per anguem plerumque 

 ostenditur. Cf. also Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie und Beligionsgeschichte, 

 p. 409. Harrison. Delphica, in Jonm. Hell. Stud. vol. 19, 1899, p. 213 sqq. 



«) Plut. Cleom. c. 39. Aelian. De nat. anim. I, 51. Plin. Hist. nat. X, 56, 86. 



