XLIX] Studies in primitive Greek religion. 101 



State religion that Plato sets up we can understaud wli}^ the 

 principal place is assigned by him to the Olympian deities. That 

 the „chtonic" and the Olympian ritual were of different na- 

 ture is indicated also by Plato who warns people not to con- 

 fuse the rites of infernal deities with those of the heavenly 

 deities '). From passages in Plutarch we gather moreover that 

 there were different priests for gods and for demons 2)and that 

 it was customary to sacrifice to the gods proper at new mooii 

 and to the demons on the foUowing day ^). 



Modern classical students have begun to pay ever more 

 attention to the lower strata in Greek religion, especially to 

 the cult of demons and all sorts of underworld deities *), a de- 

 partement strangely neglected by eariier writers. But the 

 above statements of a ruder and darker aspect in the religion 

 of the Hellenes probably have reference not only to the sec- 

 ret rites performed to the real „hypochtonic" beings, but also 

 to the more simple and still more primitive direct worship of 

 those deified objects and forces of nature, with which the 

 Hellenes were mostly confronted in their daily life, a worship 

 that we have fouud largely lingering on as a survival through- 

 out classical Greece. — As pointed out before. the aversion 

 of evils is always a more vital thiug for uncivilised man than 

 the galning of positive favours. That in relation to the propi- 

 tiatory worship of earth- and underworld deities the official 

 Olympian cult played a subordinate part among the main bulk 

 of Greek population is probable for the låter ages of Anti- 

 quity — that this was so in primitive times there can be no doubt. 



') Plato, Legg. VIII, 828 



2) Plut. QuesL Graec. c. 6. 



^) Plut. Quest. Bom. c. 25. 



■») Of special interest in this respect is the book of Miss Harrison, fre- 

 quently referred to above, a considerable part of v^-hich is devoted to Greek 

 denionology, the worship of ghosts, sprites, bogeys and other mysterious super- 

 natural powers. The real nature-worship seems, however, have been almost 

 ignored by Miss Harrison. 



