XLIX] Studies in primitive Greek religion. 77 



passed över into the other more advanced idea of mad- 

 ness being sent or indirectly caused by some revengeful 

 divine power. The god, although not iinmediately acting in 

 the body, perverts the mind of a man whom he wants 

 to harm '). In many cases, of course, these two notions 

 were not clearly distinguished from each other. The 

 låter notion, however, is evident for instance in cases 

 where Zens himself causes the madness of a mortal in 

 consequence of some offense committed against him or 

 some violation of his laws ^). Herodotus gives an illustra- 

 ting instance of the same tendency to ascribe a sudden 

 stroke of madness to sapernatural causes in reference to 

 the Spartan king Cleomenes, who at the end of his life 

 became insane. „The Greeks", Herodotus says, „generally 

 think that his fäte came upon him because he induced the 

 Pythoness to pronounce against Damarathus. The Athenians 

 differ from all others in saying that it was because he had 

 cut down the sacred grove of the goddesses (Ceres and 

 Proserpine) when he made his invasion at Eleusis ; while the 

 Argives ascribe it to his having taken from their refuge and 

 cut to pieces certain Argives who had fled from battle into a 

 precinct sacred to Argus, where Cleomenes slew them buruing 

 likewise at the same time, through irreverence, the grove 

 itself" 3). AU these explanations are alike in that each of 

 them accounted for madness by the indirect mj-sterious action 

 of some deity whose anger had been provoked. 



Just as the primitive Greeks accounted for abnormal condi- 

 tions of mind by temporary possession or inspiration so they 

 ascribed various bodily sufferings to supernatural causes. Be- 

 ing unable to find out the real causes of diseases they had 

 recourse to that explanation which most easily occurs to a 

 primitive mind: in disease man is attacked by a mysterious 

 supernatural being who has entered the body of the patient 

 and causes his sufferings. Certain diseases were especially 



') Cf. Eurip. Io)u 520: Ev q^nuvsii iiiv, ij a" tm]ye &£ov tl;, co ^éve, 



2) Horn. Od. IX. 411: vovnvi Jtws luyåXov. Od. V, 394. 

 ä) Herod. VI, 75. 



