XLIX] Studies in primitive Greek religion. 53 



the Typhon, wliose origin was derived from the interiör of the 

 same. Moreover, there seemed to be many Communications 

 between this visible world and the world below. Gloomy 

 caves, dark abysses and chasms in the earth, like the xdafxa 

 at Delphi, rivers flowing partly underground like the Arcadian 

 Styx, lakes which because of their stränge surroundings seemed 

 to be pointed out by nature as centres or navels, like the 

 Argolian Lerna ^), springs which really disappeared under- 

 ground, like the famous Cassotis, — these and similar places 

 were probably not only in historia times but also earlier looked 

 upon as eutrances to the 'Unseen World'. Nor could mephi- 

 tic gasses which exhaled from marshy grounds and certain 

 caves, or warm damps which rose from certain lakes and 

 springs, be regarded except as expressions of the activity of 

 such underground powers ^). 



Moreover, these powers sometimes intimated their ex- 

 istence in a very effective way. Natural phenomena such as 

 earthquakes seem to have been rather common in some parts 

 of Greece during Autiquity, as also in our own days, and the 

 Grreeks with all lower races asciibed them to supernatural 

 influence. What is, indeed, more natural to an uncivilised mind 

 t han the idea that these violent and destructive shocks are 

 directly caused by the movements of some huge monsters or 

 other powerful beings who are concealed in the bowels of 

 the earth? Among the Greeks earthquakes seem sometimes to 

 have been ascribed to the movements of the dead under the 

 ground; at least Aelianus reports this to have been taught by 

 the Pythagoreans ^). The earthquake-deity xaT^é'^oxi]V, however, 

 was in historic times Poseidon, who was not merely the god 

 of the sea and of watery elements in general *) as he is most 

 known in Greek literature. Several attributes which character- 

 ise him as an „earth-holder" and „earth-shaker" (éroaix^oo^', 



*) Paus. II, 36, 6, — 37, 6. Cf. (Truppe, Griechische Mythologie und 

 Beligio?isgeschichte, p. 179. 



2) Strabo, pp. 579, 629. ApoU. Ehod. II, 736. Plin Hist. nat. II, 208. 

 Cf. Gruppe, op. cit. p. 809 sqq. 



^) Aelian. Var. hist. IV, 17. 



*) Cormit. Theol. Graec. comp. c. i. 



