XLIX] Studies in primitive Greek religion. 37 



of the vine. When the squall was upon them two men took a white 

 cock, tore it in two and ran round the vines in opposite direotions, 

 each of them carrying one half of the cock. When they came 

 back to the place they started from they buried the cock 

 there ^). This device for counteracting Lips was, howe- 

 ver, rather a purificaton^ ceremony than a sacrifice proper. 

 Pausanias^ adds that he had also seen the people keeping off 

 hail b}' sacrifices aud incantations. — At Coronea the same 

 writer found on altar to the winds ^), and, similarly, at Mega- 

 lopolis he came upon a precinct sacred to the North "Wind, 

 where the inhabitants of the town used to offer sacrifices every 

 year, hououring the North Wind „as much as any god, be- 

 cause he saved them from Agis and the Lacedaemonians" 3). 



In face of such fact we find nothing surprising in the 

 statement of Clement of Alexandria according to which the 

 heathen Greeks believed that „p]agues and hail-storms and 

 tempests and the like are want to take place not only in 

 consequencee of material disturbance, but also through the 

 anger of demons and bad ängels" who have to bo averted by 

 incantations and sacrifices *). 



The most famous example of the worship of wind-gods 

 among the*Greeks is perhaps that mentioned by Herodotus and 

 some other writers relating to the Athenians during the Per- 

 sian war. When Xerxes was marching against Greece they 

 inquired of the Delphian oracle and received the answer that 

 they ought to pray and sacrifice to the winds as they would 

 be great allies of Greece. The Athenians did so, with the 

 efifect that a violent storm arose which cast away no less than 

 four hundred of the Persian vessels ^j. From this time forward 

 an official and regular cult of the winds seems to have been 

 established in Greece. The Athenians, when they returned from 

 the battle, founded a sanctuary of the North Wind beside the 



1) Paus. U, 34, 3 



*) Ibid. IX, 34, 3, 



ä) Ibid. VIII, 36, 6. 



*) Clem. Alex. Ström. VI, '3. 



») Herod. VII, 178. Clem. Alex. loc. cit. 



