46 Rafael Karsten. [N:o 1 



in un seen nature spririts with which man may put himself inta 

 communication almost everywhere. If in Greek literature 

 Z eus is generally invoked as the "god of boundaries', Zevg 

 8q lOQ, this is a låter superposition in conformity with the 

 f act, that in course of time the Olympian deities in many cases 

 overlaid the cult af the lower nature spirits. — To call forth 

 by solemn invocations the daemons which were supposed to 

 dwell on the eath, in the sea and everywhere, especially on 

 occasions when curses were pronounced seems, for the rest, 

 to have been a common practice among the ancient Greeks^). 

 In fact, the animistic view of the primitive Greeks was 

 not applied only to the most striking objects of nature. 

 Almost every place was permanently or incidentally looked 

 upon as inhabited by a more or less powerful supernatural 

 being. All those lower deities of Greek mythology, those innu- 

 merable nymphs, dryads, fauns, satyrs who were supposed to 

 dwell in wells and streams, in grassy meads and caves, who 

 lived an roamed in groves and forests and were attached 

 to individual trees, are expressions of this universal animistic 

 view which difFers in nothing from that we meet with among 

 other primitive peoples. With the main bulk of the Greek 

 population it probably held its place not only up to classical 

 times but long after. Nothing shows this better thau the 



elalv ovx 'Ayogd, åXXä ^cotiög rov dibs öqIov,". . . cos ys. tö ésilyQamia tö é^i 

 tov (icouov Tov Jiös rov ugiov öi]XoT: 



„TÖvÖE xa&LÖQvaavTO &£cp steQLXaXkéa ^coiiuv, 



Aevxijs xat IlTEXeov [xéaaov oqov i^éjXEVon, 



EPvaéTai x^QV^ cfi]ixi]'LOv. uii[ioQti]S öh 



avtog äva^ iiaxdQmv eotl fiéaog I{QOvid}]g". 

 ^) See Wuensch, Defix. tnb. ^^^.,praef. p. XX et passim. Cf. especially 

 the following inscription found on a lead tablet, containing a prayer to all 

 ghosts and daemons to hamper, paralyse, and take away the S-vfiög from some 

 adversary (Wuensch, op. cit. praef. p. XVIII, sqq. Harrison, Prolegomena'^ 

 Appendix, p. 672) : 



AaLiiovEg ol ■nära yTjV xal öainoveg oinvEg tffre, 



XoirivEg EV&dÖE ^eio&e xal oinvEg Evd-a xa^fjad-s 

 &v^dv oLJiö XQaöii]g noXvxjjdéa aiQÖa&E ka^övrEg, etc. 

 Above all, of course, the hypochtonic daemons were appealed to on such 

 occasions. 



