32 Rafael Karsten. [N:o 1 



quite right in stating that the custom of shearing the hair in 

 honour ofrivers was a very ancient one among all the Greeks ^). 



In Attica there were certain streams called Rhiti {^PeiroC) 

 which resembled rivers only in so far as they were flowing, 

 their water on the other hand being salt. They were said to 

 be sacred to the Maid and Demeter, and the priests alone 

 were allowed to catch the fish in them ^j. The sacredness 

 of the river Anigros in Arcadia seems to have been due to 

 its dreadfiiUy stinking water, in which no fish could live, as 

 to its other peculiarities. Pausanias, when he visited this 

 river, tried to find ont the natural cause of its odd smell ; but 

 the populär imagination, of course, created all sorts of legends 

 to account for the stränge character of the river. Near it 

 was the cavern of the Anigran nymphs ^). Well-known in 

 Oreek mythology as a supernatural stream is also the Area- 

 dian Styx. Rising amid scenery barren and drear and flowing 

 for most of its course through deep gulleys and crevasses, it 

 was early spöken of as the chief river of the underworld *). 

 The ancients give an extraordinary account of the virus of 

 its water which would shatter a vessel of clay or stone, nay, 

 even of gold and silver and could only be retained in a bowl 

 made of horse-shoe ^). 



The worship of wells was, of course, essentially due to 

 ideas similar to those which underlay the worship of other 

 water-deities. As with lakes and rivers, unicivilised man sees 

 life, and will, and divine power in wells, which through their 

 sweet, crystall-clear water, constantly springing forth from the 

 bowels of the earth as if thrown up by an unseen hand, are, 

 indeed, extremely likely to attract his attention and awake 

 his wonder ^). But to the Greek mind there was a special my- 



1) Paus. I, 37, 3. 



2) Ibid. I. 38, 1 



•') Ibid. V, 5, 7, 8. Strabo, VIII, 3, 19; p 346. Cf. Hesycli. s.v.åvtyQÖv. 



*) Paus. VIII, 17, 6. Strabo, VIII, 8, 4; p. 389. 



^) Paus. VIII, 18, 7. — On Greek river-worship, and especially on its 

 representation in art, see Gardner, Greek river-worship, in Träns. Boy.Soc.of 

 Litt. of Unit. Kingd., vol. II, 1878, p. 175 sqq. 



^) Cf. Weinbold, Die Verehrung der Quellen in Deutschlaud, in Ahh. 

 der Königl Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin, I, 1898, p. 17 sqq. 



