72 Rafael Karsten. [X:o 1 



they had a temple of Death, of Langhter, and of many other 

 afFections '). Before the battle at Arbela Alexander is reported 

 to have performed, with his soothsayer, some secret ceremonies 

 outside his tent and to have offered sacrifices to Fear 2). Pkitarch 

 expresses the opinion that Fear was worshipped by the Lacedae- 

 monians not only as a noxious and destroying demon, but 

 also because they cousidered that order and harmony in society 

 is to a great extent based upon this emotion. Hence also, he 

 adds, the temple of Fear was placed near the hall where the 

 ephors used to eat^). 



The primitive view which ascribes every abnormal condi- 

 tion of body or mind to supernatural iniiuence is also apparent 

 in the ideas of the Greeks relating to divination and prophesy. 

 In works on Greek religion the mantic and oracular system 

 has often been dealt with, but the fundamental ideas under- 

 lying it have not always been clearly brought out. Thus when, 

 for instance, Professor Stengel in his Kultusalterthiimer says 

 that mantic art depended upon divine grace and revelation, 

 and that the oracles were „signs" sent by gods who in their 

 loving care for mortals vvanted to warn and advise them '^), 

 he affords a good example of that tendency of idealising pri- 

 mitive religions ideas which was especially characteristic of ear- 

 lier classical writers ^). Origmally the Greek oracles had nothing 

 to do with Zeus, ApoUo, and other personal deities with whom 

 they were connected in historic time; this is a låter „super- 

 position" of Olympian ideas behind which we have to look 

 for ruder notions. The Greek theory of divination and pro- 

 phesy in fact forms a special branch of the general doctrine 

 of inspiration or possession. It is, no doubt, an erroneous 

 assertion Professor Rohde makes when he declars that among 

 the Greeks ecstatic divination had its true origin in the Thra- 



1) Plut. Cleom. c, 9. 



-) Plut. Alex. c. 31: avrög nQÖ tTjs (txi]vris pLExa rov [låvTscog ' Jql- 

 rfTård()ui' öiézQL^tv lEQOvQylag rivåg ånoQQijTOvg UQOvQyovpitvog xat rm ^6^(p 

 (7(fayLa<^uuevog. Cf. Usener, Götternanien. p. 367. 



•') Plut. Cleom. cc. 8, 9. 



*) Stengel, Die griechischen Kidtiisalterfhiimer, p. 61. 



^) C'f., for instance, Schoemann-Lipsius, Griechische Alferthiimer, II, 

 p. 284 etc. 



