90 Rafael Karsten. [N:o 1 



exactly the same principles as tbe savage who still makes a 

 ,,fetisli" or superuatural object of a tliing with wliich some 

 remarkable incident is connected. 



As a matter of fact, according to Greek belief there were 

 certain times at which the countless supernatural beings who 

 peopled the whole uuiverse were supposed to rise up from 

 their latent dwelling-places and to swarm över the whole earth, 

 causing people all kinds of ills and calamities in the same 

 fashion as the evil spirits who formerly rose up from the fatal 

 jar of the maid Pandora. On such a day no work was to 

 be done, no court or assembly to be held, it was a „day of 

 pollution", a day „not even to be mentioned" ^). From a 

 fragment of Lysias' speech against Cinesias we gather that 

 it was one of the strictest laws in ancient Athens that such a 

 day should be kept holy. To do any work on it was to 

 provoke the evil daemons who ruled över it and to bring ma- 

 nifold curses upou the town; hence also such a person vi^as 

 called a xaxodaif^iovCaTrig, ,,one who invokes an evil demon" ^). 

 Since physioal uncleanness was often supposed to be brought 

 on by certain supernatural beings, the days of purification 

 came especially to be looked upon as dies nefasti. The evil 

 spirits delight in impurities; to clean these away was, therefore, 

 to distur b and provoke them. But to break such tabooed days 

 was at the same time to offend the gods themselves whose 

 images and sanctuaries weVe poUuted by dirt-bringing Keres ^). 



Plutarch tells us that it was on such an ominous day that 

 Alcibiades returned to Athens, his arrival happening to coin- 

 cide with the festival Plynteria of the goddess Minerva, and 

 that from this reason it was expected that he would not meet 

 with success *). Elsewhere Plutarch mentions some instances 

 to the effect that days were by the Greeks considered to be 

 lucky or unlucky in their nature according to the fortunate 



\) Plato distinguishes between clean and unclean davs: önoaai i({iéQaL 

 111) xad-agai tlves åXXä åatocpgåöss cöot {Legg. 800 D.) 



*) Lysias contra Cines. Fragm. 31. 



^) At „unlucky" festivals the sanctuaries were roped round and the 

 images of the gods covered up, evidently in order to avert evil influences 

 from these sacred things. (Pollux, Onomast. VIII, 141. Plnt. Alcib. c. 34.) 



*) Plut. Alcib. c. 34. 



