60 Eafael Karsten. [N:o 1 



Stånd why the moon-deity, whether itself or, on the principles 

 of sympathetic magic, its image on the road >) became a control- 

 ler and watcher ot the ghosts of the dead who haunted such 

 places ^.) 



Not all of the offerings which vvere iaid down on the 

 crossroads were, therefore, offerings to Hecate. In many cases 

 they may have been intended for the spirits of the dead; in 

 others again they may have been no sacrifices at all but simply 

 dangerous substances which the primitive Greek tried to get 

 rid of at such places. Such substances were the o^vS^vfxia ör 

 xadåQf-iara already dealt with. Similarly also the axvXaxi(fjn6g^ 

 a ceremony whereby all persons who had to be purified were 

 touched with a black dog which afterwords was sacrificed on 

 the crossroad ^), was nothing but an ordinary purificatory cere- 

 mony *). The dog was offered to Hecate merely in the sense 

 that the deity had to bring it down to the underworld ^). 



Now let US turn our attention to a class of hypochtonic 

 deities which we have already touched upon in passing and 

 which in the nether world came to hold the most important 

 place — the deified spirits of the dead. To deal here exhaustively 

 with this side of Greek religion, which seems to have at- 

 tracted the greatest interest on the part of classical students *), 

 is not our aim. A few considerations, howerer, as to the 

 origin of this class of supernatural beings may be offered. 



') Hesych. s. v. ' ETtdzaia. 



2) CIG 3857 k (Kaibel, Ejyigr. Gr. 376 d). Wuensch, Defi.r. Tah. Att. 

 praef. VI. Cf. Preller-Robert, GriechiscJie Mythologie I, 325. 



') Paus. III, 14, 9. Plut. q^^est. Rom. c. 68. 



*) In this respect also, I believe, Dr. Steudling has misunderstood the 

 cult of Hecate when he explains that „I)er Hund ist soinit, vielleicht als 

 älteste Haustier, Vertreter der Hausgenossen". (Iloscher's Lexikon, p. 1889). 



^) Compare here the purificatory ceremony, recorded in Paus. II, 3-4, 3, 

 and referred to above, whereby the evil influences of the winds were caught 

 in the pieces of a slaughtered cock and afterwards buried away with it. 



") The first work to be mentioned here is, of course, Rohde's celebrated 

 Psyche, SeelencuUus und Vnfiterhlichkeitsglaube der GriecJien. As to other 

 contributions to this phase of Greek religion I only refer to the inter- 

 esting chapter Dr. Rouse has devoted to the worship of the dead in his 

 Greek Votive Offerings. 



