64 Rafael Karsten. [N:o 1 



aud champion thy dear children. Come with all the dead to 

 aid, with all who helped thee break the Phrygian's power and 

 all who hate ungodly crime. Dost hear me, father, victim of 

 my mother's råge"?') Elsewhere Euripides says of Alceste thab 

 she will be honoured like a god, and that the passer-by will 

 stop at her tomb and say: „this is now a blessed divinity" ^). 



Plato, whilst prescribing how religions worship should 

 be regulated in a state, warns people not to neglect the cult 

 of heroes and the private cult of their ancestral gods, evi- 

 dently being led thereto by considerations as to the harm 

 that these divine beings may inflict or the benehts which they 

 may bestow ^). It is necessary to retain their favour because 

 they posses powers which enable them to interfere in human 

 affairs *). He warns those especially who are tutors of orphan 

 children to fear not only the Olympian gods but also the 

 deceased ancestors of their pupils who are by a natural af- 

 fection induced to take care of their descendents and are fa- 

 vourably disposed towards those who do them good, inimical 

 to those who treat them badly ^). 



A special class of the deified dead were the heroes, whose 

 cult seems to have especially fiourished in the låter times of 

 Antiquity, although the ideas which gave rise to it were pro- 

 bably more or less familiar to earlier ages also. It is obvious 

 tliat there was no fundamental difierence between the heroes 

 and other dead who were objects of worship. If in the lower 

 stages of culture any deceased man is liable to turn into a 

 supernatural being this must Jiappen more especially in the 

 case of persons who in their life had been distinguished in 

 any way, as mighty kings and chiefs, successful warriors, or 

 powerful sorcerers. So also among the ancient Greeks. The 

 difference between heros and ancestral gods was that whereas 

 the worship of the former was in its nature private and based 

 upon the family, that of the låter was public, being common 

 to a whole community or state. At certain times these deities 



1) Eurip. El. 677 sqq. 



^) Eurip. Ak. 1003 sqq. 



») Plato, Legg. IV, 717-8. 



*) Plato, Legg. XI, 927. i?ep. IV, 427. 



') Plato, Legg. XI, 927. 



