40 Rafael Karsten. [N:o 1 



With regard to the winds we have still to note thatjust 

 as among savage peoples there are priests and sorcerers who 

 pretend to have a special influence över winds in causing them 

 to blow or to be still, so there seems to have been such men 

 among the Greeks. Clement of Alexandria speakes about cer- 

 tain magicians at Cleone who watched the phenomena of the 

 sky and when the clouds were about to discharge hail averted 

 the threatening wrath of the deity by incantations and sacri- 

 fices ^). But such weather-doctors certainly existed at earlier 

 times as well. We have a historical example in Empedocles, 

 the philosopher, who owing to his great learning was looked 

 upon as a sorcerer by his contemporaries and especially cre- 

 dited with the power of conjuring winds which got him the 

 name 'Checker of winds'^). When a strong wind, supposed to 

 bring pestilence and barrenness to women, blew from the 

 mountains at Agrigentum, he was supposed to have lulled it ^). 



It is, moreover, a matter of course, that not only winds 

 but all similar phenomena, tempests, rains, hail-storms, and so 

 forth, were regarded as immediate manifestations of supernatural 

 beings. The above statement of Clement of Alexandria*) is 

 significant on this point and gives expression to a very an- 

 cient Greek idea. In låter times such phenomena were ascribed 

 particularly to those intermediate powers, the demons, who 

 were supposed to reside between the highest ether and the 

 earth ^). The notion of immutable laws dominating all depart- 

 ments of nature, was in fact, not fully grasped even by the 

 civilised Greek mind. 



The different cults which have been examined in the previous 

 pages show hon deeply rooted in the Hellenic consciousness 

 was the tendency to vivify and deify striking phenomena of 

 nature. Indeed, the generalisation may be justified that just 



1) Clem. Alex. Ström. VI, 3. 



*) Hesych. s. v. EcoXvaavéfiag. 6 ^Efi^neöoxXfjg ovtco xaXtlrai, åS vttl- 

 axvovfievos écpé^etv tovs åvéy.ovs. — Diog. Laert. VIII, 2, 60. 



') Plut. De curiosit. c. 1. Clem. Alex. Ström. VI, 3. Eurip. Phoen. 120. 



*) Supra, p. 37. 



*) Plato, Symp. p. 202 etc. Plut. De def. orac. c. 10, p. 415. Apul. 

 De deo Socr. c. 6. Thales ap. Arist. De anima, I. 5. 17. 



