Chapter II: The Survival of Pagan Deities (9)

Does it seem hardly credible that popular tradition should still faithfully record a superstition which dates from before Homer and yet is practically ignored by Greek literature? Still if the fidelity of the common-folk’s memory is guaranteed in many details by its agreement with that which literature does record, it would be folly to disregard it where literature is silent or prefers another of the still prevalent traditions. Let us take only Apollodorus’ account[658] of the fight of Heracles with the Centaurs and mark the several points in which it confirms the present beliefs about the Callicantzari. The old home, he says, of the Centaurs before they came to Malea was Pelion; Pelion is now the place where above all others stories of the Callicantzari are rife; and in the neighbouring island of Sciathos it is believed[659] that they come at Christmas not from the lower world, but from the mainland, the old country of the Magnetes; even local associations then seem to have survived, just as in the modern stories about Demeter from Eleusis and from Phigaleia. Heracles was entertained in the cave of the Centaur Pholos; the Callicantzari likewise live in caves during their sojourn on earth, and their hospitality, though never sought, has been endured. The Centaur Pholos ate raw meat, though he provided his guest with cooked meat; the Callicantzari also regale themselves on uncooked food[660], toads and snakes for the most part, but in one Messenian story also raw dogs’-flesh[661]. Heracles broached a cask of wine, and Pholos’ brother Centaurs smelt it and swarmed to the cave on mischief bent; the Callicantzari have the same love of wine and the same malevolence. The first of the Centaurs to enter the cave were put to flight by Heracles with fire-brands, and his ordinary weapon, the bow, was not used by him save to complete the rout; fire-brands are the right weapons with which to scare away the Callicantzari. Surely, when such correspondences as these attest the integrity of popular tradition for some two thousand years, there is nothing incredible in the supposition that there had been equal integrity in popular (as opposed to artistic and literary) traditions for another thousand years or more before that.

Thus then it appears that in some districts of modern Greece, in which there prevail the beliefs that the Callicantzari are, in their normal form, human and that they are capable of transforming themselves into beasts, popular tradition dates from the age in which the Achaean invaders credited the Pelasgian tribe of Centauri with magical powers and in token of one special manifestation thereof surnamed them Pheres.

In other districts, where the Callicantzari are represented as demoniacal and not human and as monsters of mixed rather than of variable shape, the popular memory goes back to a period somewhat less remote, that period in which a new conception, encouraged perhaps unwittingly by archaic art, became predominant in classical art and literature, with the further result, we must suppose, that in the minds of some of the common-folk too monsters of composite shape took the place of the old human wonder-working Centaurs.

And yet again in other districts, where the Christmas mummers in the guise of Callicantzari are the modern representatives of those worshippers of Dionysus who dressed themselves in the guise of Satyrs or Sileni, the traditions which survive are mainly those of a post-classical age in which the half-human half-animal comrades of Dionysus lost their distinctive names and were enrolled in the Centaurs’ ranks.

Finally in the few districts where language at least testifies that werewolves have also been numbered among the Callicantzari, popular belief, though preserving much that is ancient, may have been modified by a superstition, or rather by an actual form of insanity, which was particularly prevalent in the Middle Ages.

Such have been in different districts and periods the various developments of a superstition which originated in the reputation for sorcery enjoyed by a Pelasgian tribe inhabiting Mount Pelion in a prehistoric age; and the complexity of modern traditions concerning the Callicantzari is due to the fact that they do not all date from one epoch but comprise the whole history of the Centaurs.

§ 14. GENII.

The tale of deities is now almost told. There remain only a few miscellaneous beings, identical or, at the least, comparable with the creations of ancient superstition, who may be classed together under the name of στοιχει̯ά[662] (anciently στοιχεῖα) or, to adopt the exact Latin equivalent, _genii_.

The Greek word, which in classical times served as a fair equivalent for any sense of our word ‘elements,’ became from Plato’s time onward a technical term in physics for those first beginnings of the material world which Empedocles had previously called ῥιζώματα and other philosophers ἀρχαί. The physical elements however were commonly supposed to be haunted each by its own peculiar spirit, and hence among the later Platonists the term στοιχεῖα became a technicality of demonology rather than of natural science[663]. Every component part of the visible universe was credited with an invisible _genius_, a spirit whose being was in some way bound up with the existence of its abode; and the term στοιχεῖον was transferred from the material to the spiritual.

But though the Platonists invented and introduced this new sense of the word, its widespread acceptance was probably not their work, but a curious accident resulting from misinterpretation of early Christian writings. In St Paul’s Epistles[664] there occurs several times a phrase, τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου, ‘worldly principles,’ which was apparently a little too cultured for many of those who heard or read it. It conveyed to their minds probably no more than ‘being enslaved to weak and beggarly elements[665]’ conveys to the British peasant of to-day. What more natural then than that the commentator should accept the word in the sense given to it by the Platonists, and that the common-folk who heard his exposition should readily identify the στοιχεῖα whom they were bidden no longer to serve with the lesser deities and local _genii_ to whose service they had long been bound--to whose service moreover in spite of the supposed injunction they have always continued faithful? The Church, they would have felt, acknowledged the existence of these beings; ecclesiastical authority endorsed ancestral tradition; and since such beings existed, it were folly to ignore them; nay, since the Church declared that they were powers of evil, it was but prudent to propitiate them, to appease their malevolence. Thus στοιχεῖα came to be reckoned by every right-minded peasant among his regular demoniacal _entourage_. And so they remain--some of them hostile to man, some benevolent, but all alike wild, uncontrollable spirits--so that St Paul’s phrase στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου even appears in one folk-song metaphorically as a description of wild and wilful young men[666].

Thus the very origin of the term rendered it comprehensive in meaning. Even the greater deities of ancient Greece were, in a sense, local--the occupants of prescribed domains; Poseidon might logically be called the _genius_ of the sea, Demeter of the corn-land; while lesser deities were always associated with particular spots and often unknown elsewhere. But mediaeval usage of the word στοιχεῖον and of its derivatives tended to widen the meaning of the word yet more. A verb στοιχειοῦν[667] was formed which properly meant to settle a _genius_ in a particular place--either a beneficent _genius_ to act as tutelary deity, or an evil _genius_ whose range of activity would thus be circumscribed within known and narrower limits; but it was used also in a larger sense to denote the exercise of any magical powers. A corresponding adjective στοιχειωματικός[668] was applied to anyone who had dealings with genii or familiar spirits, and more vaguely to wizards in general. Thus the famous magician Apollonius of Tyana is described as a ‘Pythagorean philosopher with power over _genii_’ (φιλόσοφος Πυθαγόρειος στοιχειωματικός)[669]; and two out of his many miracles may be taken as typical of his exercise of the power. Once, it is recorded, he was summoned to Byzantium by the inhabitants and there ‘he charmed (ἐστοιχείωσεν) snakes and scorpions not to strike, mosquitoes totally to disappear, horses to be quiet and not to be vicious either towards each other or towards man; the river Lycus also he charmed (ἐστοιχείωσεν) not to flood and do damage to Byzantium[670].’ In the first part of this passage the verb is undoubtedly used in a very lax sense, for snakes, scorpions, mosquitoes, and horses can hardly have been conceived to have their own several _genii_ or guardian-spirits upon whom magic could be exercised; but the charming of the river Lycus certainly suggests the restraining of the στοιχεῖον or _genius_ of the river within settled bounds. This stricter sense of the word however comes out more clearly in relation to good _genii_ who were settled by magical charms in any given object or place. Hence even the word στοιχεῖον reverted to a material sense, and was sometimes employed to mean a ‘talisman[671]’--an object, that is, in which resided a _genius_ capable of averting wars, pestilences, and suchlike. _Genii_ of this kind, we are told, were settled by the same Apollonius in the statues throughout Constantinople[672], where the belief in their efficacy seems to have been generally accepted; for there was to be seen there a cross in the middle of which was ‘the fortune of the city, namely a small chain having its ends locked together and possessed of power to keep the city abounding in all manner of goods and to give her victory ever over the nations (or heathen), that they should have strength no more to approach and draw nigh thereto, but should hold further aloof from her and retreat as though they had been vanquished. And the key of the chain was buried in the foundations of the pillars[673]’ on which the cross rested. The locked chain was probably the magical means by which the tutelary _genius_ of the city was kept at his post.

But these wide and vague usages of the word and its derivatives have now for the most part disappeared. Leo Allatius[674] still used στοιχειωματικός in the sense of ‘magician,’ but I have not found it in modern Greek. A remnant of the verb στοιχειοῦν[675] is seen in the past participle στοιχειωμένος, which at the present day is applied in its true sense to objects ‘haunted by _genii_.’ And the word στοιχειά, though locally extended in scope so as to become in effect synonymous with δαιμόνια or ἐξωτικά[676], comprising all non-Christian deities irrespectively of their close connexion with particular natural phenomena, still maintains in its more strict, and I think more frequent, usage the meaning of _genii_.

The term thus provided by the Platonists and popularised accidentally by the Church is a convenience in the classification of demons; for the ancient Greeks had no popular word which was exactly equivalent; they had to choose between the vague term δαιμόνιον which implied nothing of attachment to any place or object, and the special designation of the particular kind of _genius_. The Latin tongue was in this respect better supplied. It must not however be inferred that the introduction of the useful term στοιχεῖα into the demonological nomenclature of Greece marked any innovation in popular superstition. The Greeks no less than the Romans had from time immemorial believed in _genii_. That scene of the _Aeneid_[677], in which, while Aeneas is holding a memorial feast in honour of his father, a snake appears and tastes of the offerings and itself in turn is honoured with fresh sacrifice as being either the genius of the place or an attendant of the hero Anchises, is throughout Greek in tone; and the comment of Servius thereupon, ‘There is no place without a _genius_, which usually manifests itself in the form of a snake,’ revives a hundred memories of sacred snakes tended in the temples or depicted on the tombs of ancient Greece. Moreover several of the supernatural beings whom I have already described, and whose identity with the creatures of ancient superstition is established, are essentially _genii_. The Lamia is the _genius_ of the darksome cave where she makes her lair; the Gorgon, of the straits where she waylays her prey; and, most clearly of all, the Dryads are the _genii_ of the trees which they inhabit. For the life of each one of them is bound up with the life of the tree in which she dwells; and still as in old time, so surely as the tree decays away with age, her life too is done and ‘her soul leaves therewith the light of the sun[678].’ The woodman of to-day therefore speaks with the utmost fidelity to ancient tradition when he calls the trees where his Nereids dwell στοιχειωμένα δέντρα, ‘trees haunted by _genii_’; such innovation as there has been is in terminology only.

One word of caution only is required before we proceed to the consideration of various species of _genii_ not yet described. It must not be assumed that all _genii_, on the analogy of the tree-nymphs, die along with the dissolution of their dwelling-places; the existence of the _genius_ and that of the haunted object are indeed always closely and intimately united, but not necessarily in such a manner as to preclude the migration of the _genius_ on the dissolution of its first abode into a second. The converse proposition however, that any object could enjoy prolonged existence after the departure from it of the indwelling power, may be considered improbable.

The _genii_ with whom I now propose to deal fall into five main divisions according to their habitations. These are first buildings, secondly water, thirdly mountains, caves, and desert places, fourthly the air, fifthly human beings.

* * * * *

The _genii_ of buildings are universally acknowledged in Greece. The forms in which they appear are various; this may partly be explained by the belief that they possess the power of assuming different shapes at will; but it is certain also that their normal shape is in some measure determined by the nature of the building--house, church, or bridge--of which each is the guardian.

The _genius_ of a house appears almost always in the guise of a snake, or, according to Leo Allatius[679], of a lizard or other reptile. It is believed to have its permanent dwelling in the foundations, and not infrequently some hole or crevice in a rough cottage-floor is regarded as the entrance to its home. About such holes peasants have been known to sprinkle bread-crumbs[680]; and I have been informed, though I cannot vouch as an eye-witness for the statement, that on the festival of that saint whose name the master of a house bears, he will sometimes combine services to both his Christian and his pagan tutelary deities, substituting wine for the water on which the oil of the sacred lamp before the saint’s icon usually floats, and pouring a libation of milk--for the older deities disapprove of intoxicants--about the aperture which leads down to the subterranean home of the _genius_. If it so happen that there is a snake in the hole and the milky deluge compels it speedily to issue from its hiding-place, its appearance in the house is greeted with a silent delight or with a few words of welcome quietly spoken. For on no account must the ‘guardian of the house,’ νοικοκύρης[681] or τόπακας[682], as it is sometimes called, be frightened by any sound or sudden movement. Much less of course must any physical hurt or violence be done to it; the consequences of such action, even though it be due merely to inadvertence, are swift and terrible; the house itself falls, or the member of the family who was guilty of the outrage dies in the self-same way in which he slew the snake[683].

These beliefs and customs are probably all of ancient date. Theophrastus[684] notes how the superstitious man, if he sees a snake in the house, sets up a shrine for it on the spot. The observation also of such snakes was a recognised department of ‘domestic divination’ (οἰκοσκοπική) on which one Xenocrates--not the disciple of Plato--wrote a treatise[685]. They were probably known as οἰκουροί, ‘guardians of the house’ (a name which is identical in meaning with the modern νοικοκύρης), for it is thus at any rate that Hesychius[686] designates the great snake which Herodotus[687] tells us was ‘guardian (φύλακα) of the acropolis’ at Athens, and which, by leaving untouched the honey-cake with which it was fed every month, proved to the Athenians, when the second Persian invasion was threatening them, that their tutelary deity had departed from the acropolis, and decided them likewise to evacuate the city. Thus the few facts that are recorded about this belief in antiquity accord so exactly with modern observations, that from the minuter detail of the latter the outlines of the former may safely be filled in.

The _genii_ of churches most commonly are seen or heard in the form of oxen--bulls for the most part[688], but also steers and heifers[689]. They appear, like all _genii_, most frequently at night, and, according to one authority, ‘are adorned with various precious stones which diffuse a brightness such as to light the whole church.’ ‘They are seldom harmful,’ continues the same writer[690]; ‘the few that are so--called simply κακά--do not dare to make their abode within the churches, but have their lairs close to them in order to do hurt to church-goers.... Near Calamáta, on a mountain-side, there is a chapel of ease dedicated to St George. The peasants narrate that at each annual festival held there on April 23rd a _genius_ used to issue forth from a hole close by and to devour one of the festal gathering. After some years the good people, seeing that there was no remedy for this annual catastrophe, decided to give up the festival. But a week before the feast St George appeared to them all simultaneously in a dream, and assured them that they should suffer no hurt at the festival, because he had sealed up the monster. And in fact they went there and found the hole closed by a massive stone, on which was imprinted the mark of a horse’s hoof; for St George, willing that the hole should remain always closed, had made his horse strike the stone with his hoof. Thenceforth the saint has borne the surname Πεταλώτης (from πέταλον the ‘shoe’ or ‘hoof’ of a horse) and up to this day is shewn the hoof-mark upon a stone.’

Harmless _genii_ however are more frequently assigned to churches, exercising a kind of wardenship over them and taking an interest in the parishioners. At Marousi, a village near Athens, there is a church which is still believed to have a _genius_, in the form of a bull, lurking in its foundations; and when any parishioner is about to die, the bull is heard to bellow three times at midnight. A church in Athens used to claim the same distinction, and the bellowing of the bull there is said to have been heard within living memory at the death of an old man named Lioules[691]. Other churches also in Athens, not to be outdone, pretended to the possession of _genii_ in the shapes of a snake, a black cock, and a woman, who all followed the bull’s example and emitted their appropriate cries thrice at midnight as a presage of similar events[692].

Why the _genii_ of churches in particular appear mostly as bulls, I cannot determine. When the _genius_ of a river manifests itself in that form, the connexion with antiquity is obvious; for river-gods, who _ex vi termini_ are the _genii_ of the rivers whose name they share, were constantly pourtrayed of old in the form of bulls. All that can be said is that the type of _genius_ is old, though its localisation is new and difficult to explain.

The _genii_ of bridges cannot properly, I suppose, be distinguished from the _genii_ of those rivers or ravines which the bridges span. They are usually depicted as dragons or other formidable monsters, and they are best known for the cruel toll which they exact when the bridge is a-building. The original conception is doubtless that of the river-god demanding a sacrifice, even of human life, in compensation for men’s encroachment upon his domain. The most famous of the folk-songs which celebrate such a theme is associated with ‘the Bridge of Arta,’ but many versions[693] of it have been published from different districts, and in some the names of other bridges are substituted; in Crete the story is attached to the ‘shaking bridge’ over a mountain torrent near Canea[694]; in the Peloponnese to ‘the Lady’s bridge’ over the river Ladon[695]; in the neighbourhood of Thermopylae to a bridge over the river Helláda[696]; in the island of Cos to the old bridge of Antimachia[697]. The song, in the version[698] which I select, runs thus:

‘Apprentices three-score there were, and craftsmen five and forty,
For three long years they laboured sore to build the bridge of Arta;
All the day long they builded it, each night it fell in ruin.
The craftsmen fall to loud lament, th’ apprentices to weeping:
“Alas, alas for all our toil, alack for all our labour,
That all day long we’re building it, at night it falls in ruin.”
Then from the rightmost arch thereof the demon gave them answer:
“An ye devote not human life, no wall hath sure foundation;
And now devote not orphan-child, nor wayfarer, nor stranger,
But give your master-craftsman’s wife, his wife so fair and gracious,
That cometh late toward eventide, that cometh late toward supper.”
The master-craftsman heard it well, and fell as one death-stricken;
A word anon he writes and bids the nightingale to carry:
“Tarry to don thy best array, tarry to come to supper,
Tarry to go upon thy way across the bridge of Arta.”
The nightingale heard not aright, and carried other message:
“Hurry to don thy best array, hurry to come to supper,
Hurry to go upon thy way across the bridge of Arta.”
Lo, there she came, now full in view, along the dust-white roadway;
The master-craftsman her espied, and all his heart was breaking;
E’en from afar she bids them hail, e’en from afar she greets them:
“Gladness and health, my masters all, apprentices and craftsmen!
What ails the master-craftsman then that he is so distressèd?”
“Nought ails save only that his ring by the first arch is fallen;
Who shall go in and out again his ring thence to recover?”
“Master, be not so bitter-grieved, I will go fetch it for thee;
Let me go in and out again thy ring thence to recover.”
Not yet had she made full descent, not halfway had descended;
“Draw up the rope, prithee goodman, draw up the cable quickly,
For all the world is upside down, and nought have I recovered.”
One plies the spade to cover her, another shovels mortar,
The master-craftsman lifts a stone, and hurls it down upon her.
“Alas, alas for this our doom, alack for our sad fortune!
Three sisters we, and for all three a cruel fate was written.
One went to building Doúnavi, the next to build Avlóna,
And I, the last of all the three, must build the bridge of Arta.
Even as trembles my poor heart, so may the bridge-way tremble,
Even as my fair tresses fall, so fall all they that cross it!”
“Nay, change, girl, prithee change thy speech, and utter other presage;
Thou hast one brother dear to thee, and haply he may pass it.”
Then changèd she her speech withal, and uttered other presage:
“As iron now is my poor heart, as iron stand the bridge-way,
As iron are my tresses fair, iron be they that cross it!
For I’ve a brother far away, and haply he may pass it.”’

But while the most famous examples of sacrifice to _genii_ are connected with bridges, the custom in a less criminal form than that which the folk-songs celebrate is common throughout Greece to-day. In building a house or any other edifice, the question of propitiating the _genius_ already in possession of the site and of inducing it to become the guardian of the building is duly considered. Sacrifice is done. The peace-offering, according to the importance of the building and the means of the future owner, may consist of an ox, a ram, a he-goat, or a cock (or, less commonly, of a hen with her brood[699]), preferably of black colour, as were in old time victims designed for gods beneath the earth. The selected animal is in Acarnania and Aetolia[700] taken to the site, and there its throat is cut so that the blood may fall on the foundation-stone, beneath which the body is then interred. In some other places[701] it suffices to mark a cross upon the stone with the victim’s blood. In the same district the practice of taking auspices from the victim--from the shoulder-blade in the case of a ram and from the breast-bone in the case of a cock--is occasionally combined with the sacrifice, but is not essential to the ceremony.

But animals, though they are the only victims actually slaughtered upon the spot, are not the only form of peace-offering. Even at the present day when, added to the power of the law, a sense of humanity, or a fear of being pronounced ‘uncivilised,’ tends to deter the peasantry even of the most outlying districts from actually satisfying the more savage instincts of hereditary superstition, there still exists a strong feeling that a human victim is preferable to an animal for ensuring the stability of a building. Fortunately therefore for the builder’s peace of mind, the principles of sympathetic magic offer a compromise between actual murder and total disregard of the traditional rite. It suffices to obtain from a man or woman--an enemy for choice but, failing that, ‘out of philanthropy’ as a Greek authority puts it, any aged person whose term of life is well-nigh done--some such object as a hair or the paring of a nail, or again a shred of his clothing or a cast-off shoe, or it may be a thread or stick[702] marked with the measure either of the footprint or of the full stature of the person, and to bury it beneath the foundation-stone of the new edifice. By this proceeding a human victim is devoted to the _genius_ of the site, and will die within the year as surely as if an image of him were moulded in wax and a needle run through its heart. Another variation of the same rite consists in enticing some passer-by to the spot and laying the foundation-stone upon his shadow. In Santorini I myself was once saved from such a fate by the rough benevolence of a stranger who dragged me back from the place where I was standing and adjured me to watch the proceedings from the other side of the trench where my shadow could not fall across the foundations. Nor are the invited guests immune; unenviable therefore is the position of those persons who are officially required to assist at the laying of the foundation-stones of churches and other public buildings. The demarch (or mayor) of Agrinion informed me that, according to the belief of the common-folk in the neighbourhood, his four immediate predecessors in office had all fallen victims to this their public duty; and he described to me the concern and consternation of his own women-folk when he himself had recently braved the ordeal. He honestly allowed too that he had kept his shadow clear of the dangerous spot.

So much importance is attached to these foundation-ceremonies that the Church has provided a special office to be read alike for cathedral or for cottage; and the priest who attends for this purpose is sometimes induced to pronounce a blessing on the animal that is to be sacrificed. This however is the more expensive rite; the victim has to be bought, and the priest expects a fee for blessing it; whereas the immolation of a shadow-victim costs nothing, is more efficacious as being equivalent to a human sacrifice, and provides an excellent means for removing an enemy with impunity.

The sacrificial ceremony is also sometimes performed on other occasions than those of the laying of foundation-stones. In Athens a precept of popular wisdom enjoins the slaughtering of a black cock when a new quarry is opened[703]; and an interesting account is given by Bent[704] of a similar scene at the launching of a ship in Santorini. ‘When they have built a new vessel, they have a grand ceremony at the launching, or benediction, as they call it here, at which the priest officiates; and the crowd eagerly watch, as she glides into the water, the position she takes, for an omen is attached to this. It is customary to slaughter an ox, a lamb or a dove on these occasions, according to the wealth of the proprietor and the size of the ship, and with the blood to make a cross on the deck. After this the captain jumps off the bows into the sea with all his clothes on, and the ceremony is followed by a banquet and much rejoicing.’ Here it is reasonable to suppose that the captain by jumping into the sea goes through the form of offering himself as a sacrifice to the _genius_ of the sea, and that the animal actually slaughtered is a surrogate victim in his stead.

The strength of these superstitions to-day, as gauged by the shifts and compromises to which the peasants resort in order to satisfy their scruples, goes far to guarantee the historical accuracy of such ballads as ‘the Bridge of Arta.’ Not of course that each of the numerous versions with all its local colouring is to be taken as evidence of human sacrifice in each place named; exactitude of detail cannot be claimed for them. But as a faithful picture of the beliefs and customs prevalent not more perhaps than two or three centuries ago they deserve full credence. Both the wide dispersion of the several versions, and also the skill with which in each of them the action of the master-builder evokes feelings not of aversion but rather of pity for a man of whom religious duty demanded the sacrifice of his own wife, furnish plain proof of the domination which the superstition in its most gruesome form once exercised; and the intentions of the modern peasants, if not their acts, testify to the same overwhelming dread of _genii_.

That the ceremonies which I have described are in general of the nature of sacrifices to _genii_ is beyond question. In the version of ‘the Bridge of Arta’ which I have translated, both the _genius_ and the victim whom he demands appear as _dramatis personae_. Again, in some districts the word ‘sacrifice’ (θυσιό[705] or θυσία[706]) is actually still applied to the rite. Finally, though the victims are of various kinds and the forms in which a genius may appear equally various, the distinction between the two is as a rule kept clear; cases of a single species of animal serving for both _genius_ and victim--of the _genius_ for example appearing as a cock or of the chosen victim being a snake--are extremely rare.

Confusion of the two nevertheless does occur; the original _genius_ of the site is sometimes forgotten, and the victim is conceived to be slain and buried in order that from the under-world it may exercise a guardianship over the building which is its tomb. Thus in one version of ‘the Bridge of Arta,’ inferior in many respects to that which I have translated, the complaint of the master-craftsman’s wife contains the line

τρεῖς ἀδερφούλαις εἴμασταν, ταὶς τρεῖς στοιχειὰ μᾶς βάλαν[707],
‘Three sisters we, and all the three they took for guardian-demons.’

Probably the same confusion of thought was responsible for the representation of the _genius_ of a church in Athens in the shape of a cock, which is the commonest kind of victim; and possibly too the bulls which are so frequently the guardians of churches were originally the victims considered most suitable for the foundation of such important edifices. This error of belief has undoubtedly been facilitated by the use of a word which in its mediaeval meanings has already been discussed--the verb στοιχειόνω. This, as I have pointed out, meant strictly ‘to provide (a place or object) with a _genius_.’ But in modern usage it can take an accusative of the victim devoted to a _genius_ no less than of the place provided with a _genius_. In Zacynthos and Cephalonia, says Bernhard Schmidt[708], the phrase στοιχειόνω ἀρνί, for example, meaning ‘I devote a lamb’ to the _genius_, is in regular use; and so too in the above rendering of ‘the Bridge of Arta,’ the phrase which I have translated ‘an ye devote not human life’ is in the Greek ἂν δὲ στοιχειώσετ’ ἄνθρωπο. Now verbs of this form are in both ancient and modern Greek usually causative. The ancient δηλόω and modern δηλόνω mean ‘I make (an object) clear’ (δῆλος): the ancient χρυσόω and modern χρυσόνω mean ‘I make (an object) gold’ (χρυσός). Similarly στοιχειόνω is readily taken to mean ‘I make (an animal or person) the _genius_’ (στοιχεῖον) of a place. If therefore this word continued to be applied to the rite of slaughtering an animal at foundation-ceremonies in any place where the true purport of the custom, as often happens, had been forgotten, language itself would at once suggest that erroneous interpretation of the custom of which we have seen examples; the victim would be raised to the rank of _genius_.

This development of modern superstition supplies a clue for tracing the evolution of ancient Greek religion, which has hitherto been missed by those who have dealt with the subject[709]. They have generally compared with the modern Greek superstition similar beliefs and customs prevalent throughout the Balkans and even beyond them, and have thence inferred that the practice of sacrificing to the _genii_ of sites selected for building was of Slavonic importation. The wide distribution of the superstition in the Balkans, especially among the Slavonic peoples, is a fact; but the inference goes too far. To Slavonic influence I impute the recrudescence of the superstition in its most barbarous form, involving human sacrifice, during the Middle Ages. Ancient history, even ancient mythology, contains no story so suggestive of barbarity as one brief statement made by Suidas: ‘At St Mamas there was a large bridge consisting of twelve arches (for there was much water coming down), and there a brazen dragon was set up, because it was thought that a dragon inhabited the place; and there many maidens were sacrificed[710].’ The date of the events to which the passage refers cannot be ascertained; but I certainly suspect it to be subsequent to the Slavonic invasion of Greece. Yet even so the Slavs did not initiate a new custom but merely stimulated the native belief that _genii_ required sacrifice in compensation for the building of any edifice on their domains. This belief dated from the Homeric age--nay, was already old when the Achaeans built their great wall with lofty towers, a bulwark for them and their ships against the men of Ilium.

‘Thus,’ we read, ‘did they labour, even the long-haired Achaeans; but the gods sitting beside Zeus that wieldeth the lightning gazed in wonder on the mighty work of the bronze-clad Achaeans. And to them did Poseidon the earth-shaker open speech: “Father Zeus, is there now one mortal on the boundless earth, that will henceforth declare unto immortals his mind and purpose? Seest thou not that contrariwise the long-haired Achaeans have built a wall to guard their ships and driven a trench about it, and have not offered unto the gods fair sacrifice? Verily their wall shall be famed far as Dawn spreads her light; and that which I with Phoebus Apollo toiled to build for the hero Laomedon will men forget.” And unto him spake Zeus that gathereth the clouds, sore-vexed: “Fie on thee, thou earth-shaker whose sway is wide, for this thy word. Well might this device of men dismay some other god lesser than thou by far in work and will; but thou verily shalt be famed far as Dawn spreads her light. Go to; when the long-haired Achaeans be gone again with their ships unto their own native land, break thou down their wall and cast it all into the sea and cover again the vast shore with sand, that so the Achaeans’ great wall may be wiped out from thy sight[711].”’ And later in the _Iliad_ we read of the fulfilment; how that the rivers of the Trojan land were marshalled and led by Poseidon, his trident in his hands, to the assault of the wall that ‘had been fashioned without the will of the gods and could no long time endure[712].’

The whole passage finds its best commentary in modern superstition. Poseidon, though a great god, is the local _genius_; to him belongs the shore where the Greek ships are assembled, to him too the land where he had built the town of Ilium; to him therefore were due sacrifices for the building of the wall. But the god whose fame is known far as Dawn spreads her light deserves the rebuke administered by Zeus for his pettiness of spirit. An ordinary local _genius_, ‘some god far lesser than he in work and will,’ might justly wax wrathful at the neglect of his more limited prerogatives. Yet even so the wall was doomed to endure no long time. Then as now the divine law ran, ‘An ye devote not hecatombs, no wall hath sure foundation.’

In this passage there is of course no suggestion of a local _genius_ in animal shape; the anthropomorphic tendency of Homeric religion was too strong to admit of that. But since we know from Theophrastus’ sketch of the superstitious man and from other sources that in the classical age _genii_ of houses and temples were believed to appear in the form of snakes, we may without hesitation assign the same belief to earlier ages. Such a superstition could not in the nature of things have sprung up after an anthropomorphic conception of the gods dominated all religion, but must necessarily have been a survival from pre-classical and pre-Homeric folklore.

But, though Homer speaks of the _genius_ only as a ‘lesser god’ without further description, he implies clearly that the present custom of doing sacrifice to such a being for the foundation of any building was then in existence. Did the sacrifice ever involve human victims? A positive and certain answer cannot, I suppose, be made; but bearing in mind the many ancient traditions of human sacrifice in Greece and even the occasional continuance of the practice in the most civilised and enlightened age[713] I cannot doubt it. I suspect that, if we could obtain an earlier version of the story of Iphigenia than has come down to us, we should find that the wrath of Artemis had no part in it, but that human sacrifice was offered to the Winds or other _genii_ of the air--that the ‘maiden’s blood’ was, in the words of Aeschylus, ‘a sacrifice to stay the winds[714],’ ‘a charm to lull the Thracian blasts[715],’ that and nothing more. But a story still more strongly evidential of the custom is told by Pausanias[716]. In the war between Messenia and Sparta, when the Messenians had been reduced to extremities, ‘they decided to evacuate all their many towns in the open country and to establish themselves on Mount Ithome. Now there was there a town of no great size, which Homer, they say, includes in the Catalogue--“Ithome steep as a ladder.” In this town they established themselves, extending its ancient circuit so as to provide a stronghold large enough for all. And apart even from the fortifications the place was strong; for Ithome is as high as any mountain in the Peloponnese and, where the town lay, was particularly inaccessible. They determined also to send an envoy to Delphi,’ who brought them back the following oracle:

A maiden pure unto the nether powers,
Chosen by lot, of lineage Aepytid,
Ye shall devote in sacrifice by night.
But if ye fail thereof, take ye a maid
E’en from a man of other race as victim,
An he shall give her willingly to slay.

And the story goes on to tell how in the end Aristodemus devoted his own daughter, and she became the accepted victim.

Here Pausanias, it will be noticed, does not give any reason for the sacrifice being required. But three points in his narrative are highly suggestive. The story of the sacrifice follows immediately upon the mention of the building of new fortifications--and the foundation of what was to be practically a new city was eminently a question on which to consult the Delphic oracle; the powers to whom sacrifice is ordered are designated merely as νέρτεροι δαίμονες, the nearest equivalent in ancient Greek to _genii_; and the time of the sacrifice is to be night, when, according to modern belief, _genii_ are most active. If then modern superstition can ever teach us anything about ancient religion, it supplies the clue here. The maiden was to be sacrificed to the _genii_ of Mount Ithome to ensure the stability of the new fortifications.

Now if my interpretation of this story is right and the practice of human sacrifice to _genii_ was known in ancient Greece, the transition from the worship of _genii_ in the form of snakes or dragons to the worship of tutelary heroes or gods in human likeness is readily explained on the analogy of a similar transition in modern belief. What was originally the victim was mistaken for the genius. The same confusion of thought, by which, in one version of ‘the Bridge of Arta,’ the _genius_ in person demands a human victim and yet afterwards the victim speaks of herself as becoming the _genius_ of the bridge, can be detected even in the oracle given to the Messenians. ‘If ye fail to find a maid of the blood of the Aepytidae,’ it said, ‘ye may take the daughter of a man of other lineage, provided that he give her willingly for sacrifice.’ Why the condition? Why ‘willingly’ only? Because, I think, even the Delphic oracle halted between two opinions--between the conception of the maiden as a victim to appease angry _genii_ and the belief that the dead girl herself would become the guardian-_daemon_ of the stronghold.

Let us read another story from Pausanias[717]: ‘At the base of Mount Cronius, on the north side (of the Altis at Olympia), between the treasuries and the mountain, there is a sanctuary of Ilithyia, and in it Sosipolis, a native _daemon_ of Elis, is worshipped. To Ilithyia they give the surname “Olympian,” and elect a priestess to minister to her year by year. The old woman too who waits upon Sosipolis is bound by Elean custom to chastity in her own person, and brings water for the bathing of the god and serves him with barley-cakes kneaded with honey. In the front part of the temple, which is of double construction, is an altar of Ilithyia, and entrance thereto is public; but in the inner part Sosipolis is worshipped, and only the woman who serves the god may enter, and she only with her head and face covered by a white veil. And while she does so, maidens and married women wait in the temple of Ilithyia and sing a hymn; incense of all sorts is also offered to him, but no libations of wine. An oath also at the sanctuary of Sosipolis is taken on very great occasions.

‘It is said that when the Arcadians had once invaded Elis, and the Eleans lay encamped opposite to them, a woman came to the generals of the Eleans, with a child at her breast, and said that, though she was the mother of the child, she offered it, bidden thereto by dreams, to fight on the side of the Eleans. And those in command, trusting the woman’s tale, put the child in the forefront of the army naked. Then the Arcadians came to the attack, and lo! straightway the child was changed into a serpent. And the Arcadians, dismayed at the sight, turned to flight, and were pressed by the Eleans, who won a signal victory and gave to the god the name of Sosipolis (“saviour of the state”). And at the place where the serpent disappeared in the ground after the battle they set up the sanctuary; and along with him they took to worshipping Ilithyia, because she was the goddess who had brought the boy into the world.’

Is this story complete, or did Pausanias’ informants suppress one material point out of shame? How came a mortal infant to assume the form of a serpent which is proper only to apparitions from the lower world? The missing episode is, I believe, the sacrifice of the child, which having been offered willingly became after death a _daemon_ friendly to the Eleans and fought, in the form of a serpent, on their side. Human sacrifice before a battle was not unknown in ancient Greece[718], but by Pausanias’ time the inhabitants of Elis might well have hesitated to impute to their forefathers so barbarous a custom, and have modified the story by omitting even that incident which alone could make it harmonise with ancient religious ideas[719].

A similar view has been taken of another story of Pausanias[720], also from Elis. ‘Oxylus (the king of Elis), they say, had two sons Aetolus and Laias. Aetolus died before his parents and was buried by them in a tomb which they caused to be made exactly in the gate of the road to Olympia and the sanctuary of Zeus. The cause of their burying him thus was an oracle which forbade the corpse to be either within or without the city. And up to my time the governor of the gymnasium still makes annual offerings to Aetolus as a hero.’ Commenting on this passage Dr Frazer[721] says, ‘The spirit of the dead man was probably expected to guard the gate against foes.... It is possible that in this story of the burial of Aetolus in the gate we have a faded tradition of an actual human sacrifice offered when the gate was built.’ Certainly the facts that Aetolus was young and that he was not head of the royal house make his elevation to the rank of tutelary hero after death difficult to understand on any other hypothesis; and it should be noted too that the oracle, in obedience to which his tomb was made in the gateway, probably came, as the preceding context suggests, from Delphi, that same shrine which was responsible for the sacrifice of Aristodemus’ daughter in the Messenian war.

Thus there is some probability that in ancient, as in modern, Greece the _genius_ was sometimes superseded by the victim offered to him, but bequeathed to his successor something of his own character. The victim, now become a hero, manifested himself in the old-established guise of a serpent, and, if we may judge from the case of Sosipolis at Olympia, continued to be fed with honey-cakes, the same food which had been considered the appropriate diet for the original snake-_genii_ such as those dwelling in the Erechtheum. But, when once the transition of worship was well advanced, the power to assume serpent-form was naturally extended to all tutelary heroes and even to gods; to have been sacrificed was no longer the sole qualifying condition. The hero Cychreus went to the help of the Athenians at Salamis in the form of a serpent[722]. Two serpents were the incarnations of the heroes Trophonius and Agamedes at the oracle of Lebadea[723]. Amphiaraus was represented by a snake on the coins of Oropus. An archaic relief of the sixth century B.C. in the Museum of Sparta, to which Miss Harrison has recently called attention, represents ‘a male and a female figure seated side by side on a great throne-like chain.... Worshippers of diminutive size approach with offerings--a cock and some object that may be a cake, an egg, or a fruit.... It is clear that we have ... representations of the dead, but the dead conceived of as half-divine, as heroized--hence their large size as compared with that of their worshipping descendants. They are κρείττονες, “Better and Stronger Ones.” The artist of the relief is determined to make his meaning clear. Behind the chair, equal in height to the seated figures, is a great curled snake, but a snake strangely fashioned. From the edge of his lower lip hangs down a long beard, a decoration denied by nature. The intention is clear; he is a _human_ snake, the vehicle, the incarnation of the dead man’s ghost[724].’

In this relief the offerings depicted also are, I think, no less instructive than the bearded snake. If we may suppose that the somewhat indeterminate object, cake, egg, or fruit, was intended for a honey-cake, the offerings combine that which was the accustomed food of snake-_genii_ in ancient times with a cock, the victim most frequently sacrificed to the same _genii_ at the present day.

Of gods, Asclepius, perhaps because he began life as a hero, was most frequently represented in serpent-form. It was in this guise that he came to Sicyon, Epidaurus Limera, and Rome[725]; and in later times Lucian tells a humorous tale of how an impostor effected by trickery a supposed re-incarnation of Asclepius in snake-form before the very eyes of the people out of whose superstitions he made a living and indeed a fortune[726]. Here again, if we may argue from modern custom, the serpent-form carried with it the traditional offering of a ‘cock to Asclepius.’ But other gods too had sometimes their attendant snakes, as had Asclepius at Epidaurus; and in every case it is likely that the particular god had originally dispossessed a primitive snake-_genius_, but inherited from him and retained for a time in local cults the form of a snake; until, as the conception of the gods became more and more anthropomorphic, the snake ceased to be a manifestation of the god himself and became merely his minister or his symbol. Even Zeus himself, under the title of Meilichios, is proved by two reliefs found at the Piraeus to have been figured for a time by his worshippers as a snake[727].

In many such cases doubtless the substitution of the cult of a new and named god for that of a primitive and nameless _genius_ explains adequately the incomer’s inheritance and temporary retention of the snake-form; but in the case of tutelary heroes, above all, the analogy of modern folk-lore, in which the human victim is sometimes erroneously elevated to the rank of guardian-_genius_, supplies, I think, the right clue to the process by which in ancient times the snake came to be the recognised incarnation of the spirits of dead men and heroes.

* * * * *

The _genii_ of water, to whom we now turn, are sometimes imagined in the form of dragons or of bulls, but more often by far in human or quasi-human shape. An exception to the general rule must of course be made in the case of the _genii_ of bridges, if, as I suppose, they were originally identical with the _genii_ of those rivers which the bridges span; for these, as I have said, are usually dragons. But if in this case there is a difference in outward appearance, there is a general agreement at any rate in characteristics; for the _genii_ of water are no less hostile to man than those who demand human sacrifice as the price of their permission to build a bridge.

At Kephalóvryso in Aetolia the _genii_ of a river were described to me as red, grinning devils who might often be seen sitting in the bed of the stream beneath the water. They were believed to mate with _Lamiae_ who infested several caves on the bank of the river; and together these two kinds of monster would feed on the bodies of men whom they had dragged into the river and drowned.

But far more frequently the _genii_ of water, and especially of wells, appear in the form of Arabs (Ἀράπηδες), and may be seen sometimes smoking long pipes in the depths. They have the power of transforming themselves into any shape. At one time they assume dragon-form and terrorise a whole country side; at another they adopt the guise of a lovely maiden weeping beside a well, and, on pretence of having dropped into it a ring, induce gallant and unwary men to descend to their death[728]; for when once the Arab has entrapped them in his well he feeds upon them or smokes them in lieu of tobacco in his pipe.