Chapter IX: Dionysiac Religion in Greece (4)

[116\9: ~hou= (Epimeni/dou) lo/gos hôs exi/oi hê psuchê\ ho/poson ê/thele chro/non kai\ pa/lin eisê/|ei en tô=| sô/mati~, Suid. ~Epimen.~ This is possibly the meaning of ~prospoiêthê=nai (le/getai) polla/kis anabebiôke/nai~, D.L. i, 114. Epimenides like others ~meta\ tha/naton en toi=s zô=si geno/menos~, Procl. _in _Rp.__ ii, 113, 24 Kr. The story of his prolonged sleep in the cave is an example of a widespread fairy-tale motif; see _Rh. Mus._ 33, 209, n. 2; 35, 160. In the case of Epimenides it has been exaggerated beyond all bounds and attached to him as a sort of popular mode of expressing his long ~eksta/seis~. This cave-sleep is interpreted as a state of _ekstasis_ by Max. Tyr. 16, 1: ~en tou= Dio\s tou= Diktai/ou~ (see above, chap. iii, n. 23) ~tô=| a/ntrô| kei/menos hu/pnô| bathei= e/tê suchna/~ (cf. the ~psuchê/~ of Hermot. which ~apo\ tou= sô/matos plazome/nê apodêmei= epi\ polla\ e/tê~, Apollon., _Mir._ 3) ~o/nar e/phê entuchei=n auto\s theoi=s ktl.~ Thus his ~o/neiros~ became ~dida/skalos~ to him, Max. Tyr. 38, 3; cf. Sch. Luc., _Tim._ 6, 110 Rb.]

[117\9: ~sopho\s peri\ ta\ thei=a (deino\s ta\ thei=a~, Max. Tyr. 38, 3) ~tê\n _enthousiastikê\n_ sophi/an~, Plu., _Sol._ 12. Epimen. is put among the ~e/ntheoi ma/nteis~, Bakis and the Sibyl, by Cic., _Div._ 1, 34.--Prolonged solitude is a preparation for the business of the ecstatic seer (cf. Plu.'s story of a sort of counterpart to Epimenides, _Def. Or._ 21, p. 421 B). There {332} is still another fragment remaining from the story of Epim. on this head in the account given by Theopompos (though he makes too rationalistic a use of it): Epim. did not sleep all that time ~alla\ chro/non tina\ _ekpatê=sai_, ascholou/menon peri\ rhizotomi/an~ (which he needed as an ~iatro/mantis~); D.L. i, 112. We cannot help being reminded of the way in which the Angekok of Greenland, after prolonged and profound solitude, severe fasting and concentration of thought, makes himself into a magician (Cranz, _Hist. of Greenland_, p. 194). In the same way the North American Indian stays for weeks in a solitary wood and consciously prepares himself for his visions. At last the real world falls away from him, the imagined world of his visions becomes the real one and seems almost palpable; till finally in complete ecstasy he rushes out of his hiding place. Nor would it be hard to find analogies in the religion of civilized peoples.]

[118\9: Epim. is credited with prophecies of coming events: Pl., _Lg._ 642 D; D.L. i, 114, and also Cic., _Div._ i, 34. On the other hand, Arist., _Rh._ 3, 17, 10, has ~peri\ tô=n esome/nôn ouk emanteu/eto, alla\ peri\ tô=n gegono/tôn me\n adê/lôn de/~ which at least means discovering the grounds of an event--grounds known only to the god and the seer; e.g. the interpretation of a pestilence as the vengeance of the daimones for an ancient crime, etc. If only rational explanation were meant there would be no need for a ~ma/ntis~.]

[119\9: Delos: Plu., _Sept. Sap._ 14, p. 158 A. (There is no need to suppose that there has been any confusion between this ~me/gas katharmo/s~ by Epimenides and any other purification of Delos that happens to be better known to us--the Pisistratean or that of the year 426.) Epimenides ~po/leis eka/thêren a/llas te kai\ tê\n Athênai/ôn~, Paus. 1, 14, 4.]

[120\9: The purification of Athens from the Kylonian ~a/gos~ by Epimenides is now further confirmed by the Aristotelian ~Ath. pol.~ 1 fin. This admittedly is not a very strong guarantee of its historical truth; but no strong guarantee is required to dispose of the doubts recently raised as to the historical truth of the story that Athens was purified by Epimenides, and even of Epimenides' very existence. There is no reason at all for such a doubt. The fact that the historical figure of Epimenides has been almost entirely obscured behind the veil of fable and romance gives us of course no right to doubt his existence (or what would be the fate of Pythagoras, Pherekydes of Syros, and of many others?); and further, because some parts of the story of Epim. and his life are fabulous, to doubt the truth of his entirely non-fabulous purification of the Athenians from murder is a monstrous inversion of true historical method.--No exact dating for the purification of Athens is to be derived from the Aristotelian account of the event, as the English ed. (Kenyon) of the ~Ath. pol.~ rightly observes. It certainly does not follow (as e.g. Bauer takes for granted in his _Forsch. zu Arist._ ~Ath. pol.~ 41) that the purification took place _before_ the archonship of Drakon (Ol. 39). Furthermore, it is probable that in Plu., _Sol._ 12, everything that comes before ~tou\s ho/rous~ (p. 165, 19, Sint. ed. min.) is taken from Aristotle (though perhaps not directly). In this case Aristotle, too, would be shown to have attributed to Solon the first suggestion that led to the condemnation of the ~enagei=s~. In Plu., however, Solon is still far from having thoughts of his ~nomothesi/a~, he is still only ~ê/dê do/xan e/chôn~ c. 12 (not till c. 14 does his archonship begin). Solon's archonship is put by ~Ath. pol.~ in the year 591/0 (c. 14, 1, where we should be careful to avoid arbitrary alteration of the figures); Suid. ~So/lôn~, Eus., _Chron._ also date it in Ol. 47, and the same period is implied by Plu., _Sol._ 14, p. 168, 12. (~Ath. Pol.~ {333} 13, 2, also brings the first archonship of Damasias to 582/1 = Ol. 49, 3: a date to which all other reliable tradition also points). The condemnation of the ~enagei=s~ and the purification of Athens by Epimenides thus took place some considerable time before 591. It is possible that Suid. gives the right date. s.v. ~Epimeni/dês; eka/thêre ta\s Athê/nas tou= Kulônei/ou a/gous kata\ tê\n [=]m[=]d Olumpia/da~ (604/1)--that in the Kirrhaian war there was an ~Alkmai/ôn~ general of the Athenians offers no objection: Plu., _Sol._ 11. Suidas' statement has not (as I once thought myself, with Bernhardy) been taken from D.L., nor is it to be corrected acc. to his text. D.L. i, 100, only brings forward the connexion between the purification and the ~Kulô/neion a/gos~ as the opinion of "some" (which in spite of the vagueness of expression must mean Neanthes ap. Ath. 602 C), while the real reason is said to be a ~loimo/s~, and the purification (as in Eus. _Chr._) is placed in Ol. 46; i.e. probably 46, 3, the traditional date of Solon's legislation.--Plato, _Lg._ 642 DE, does not conflict with the story of the expiation of the ~Kul. a/gos~ by Epimenides: his story that Epimen. was present in Athens in the year 500 and retarded the threatened Persian invasion for ten years is not intended to contest the truth of the tradition of the much earlier purification of Athens by Epimen. ("retarded": so Clem. Al., _Str._ vi, 13, p. 755 P., understood Plato and prob. rightly; we often hear in legendary stories of the gods or their prophets retarding coming events which have been determined by fate; cf. Pl., _Smp._ 201 D; Hdt. i, 91; Ath. 602 B; Eus., _PE._ 5, 35, p. 233 BC; Vg., _A._ vii, 313 ff.; viii, 398 f.; and what Serv. ad loc. reports from the _libri Acheruntici_). How the same man could be living both at the end of the seventh and of the sixth centuries would have troubled Plato not at all--tradition attributed a miraculously long life to Ep. At any rate, it is quite impossible to base the chronology of Ep.'s life on the story in Plato. (It may have been suggested by a forged oracle made ex eventu after 490 and fathered on Epim., as Schultess suggests, _De Epim. Crete_, p. 47, 1877.)]

[121\9: Details of the expiation ceremonies: D.L. i, 111-12; Neanthes ap. Ath. 602 C. It is not the human sacrifice but the sentimental interpretation of Neanth. that Polemon (Ath. 602 F.) declares to be fictitious. They are invariably sacrifices to the ~chtho/nia~ that Epim. institutes. Thus (as Abaris founded a temple at Sparta for ~Ko/rê sô/teira~) he founded at Athens, evidently as the concluding part of the purification, ~ta\ hiera\ tô=n semnô=n theô=n~, i.e. of the Erinyes: D.L. i, 112.]

[122\9: Such a connexion must at least be intended when Aristeas is brought to Metapontum and Phormion to Kroton, both important centres of the Pythagorean society. Aristeas, too, as well as Abaris, Epimenides, etc., is one of the favourite figures of the Pythagoreans: see Iamb., _VP._ 138.]

[123\9: It would certainly be necessary to deny to Epimenides the "Theogony" that the whole of antiquity read and quoted under the name of Epimenides without once expressing a doubt, if the figments of that Theogony really contained borrowings from the teaching of Anaximenes or, even worse, from the rhapsodical Theogony of Orpheus, as Kern, _de Orphei Ep. Pher. Theog._ 66 ff. maintains. But in the first place a few vague resemblances are not enough to show any connexion between Epimenides and those others. In the second, supposing the connexion proved, Epimenides need not necessarily have been the borrower. In any case, such alleged borrowings do not oblige us to advance the period when Ep. lived from the end of {334} the seventh to the end of the sixth century. If they really exist then we should rather have to conclude that the Theogony is itself a forgery of a much later date.]

[124\9: The possibility of theoretical activity in the case of these men is often implied in the statements of later writers; e.g. when the name is given to Epimenides (D.S. 5, 80, 4) or Abaris (Apollon., _Mir._ 4); or when Aristeas is called an ~anê\r philo/sophos~ (Max. Tyr. 38, 3, p. 222 R.).]

[125\9: Arist., _Meta._ 1, 3, p. 948_b_, 19 f.]

[126\9: See Append. viii.]

[127\9: See above, chap. i, n. 41. Archiloch. _fr._ 12: ~kei/nou kephalê\n kai\ chari/enta me/lê Hê/phaistos _katharoi=sin_ en hei/masin ampheponê/thê~. E., _Or._ 40 f.: the slain Klytaimnestra ~puri\ _kathê/gnistai_ de/mas~ and Sch. ~pa/nta ga\r kathairei= to\ pu=r, kai\ hagna\ dokei= ei=nai ta\ kaio/mena, ta\ de\ a/tapha memiasme/na~. E., _Sup._ 1211: ~. . . hi/n' autô=n~ (those who are being buried) ~sô/math' hêgni/sthê puri/~; cf. ~ha/gnison pursô=| me/lathron~, _IT._ 1216. On a grave inscr. from Attica (_Epigr. Gr._ 104): ~entha/de Dia/logos katharô=| puri\ gui=a kathê/ras . . . ô/|chet' es atha/natous~--evidently modelled on ancient ideas; cf. also ib. 109, 5 (_CIA._ iii, 1325). Those, too, who are struck by lightning (see Appendix i) are purified from all earthly taint by the holiest sort of ~pu=r katha/rsion~ (E., _IA._ 1112; ~katharsi/ô| phlogi/~, E., _Hel._ 869) and go straight ~pro\s athana/tous~. Iamb., _Myst._ v, 12, also explains how fire ~ta\ prosago/mena kathai/rei kai\ apolu/ei tô=n en tê=| hu/lê| desmô=n, aphomoioi= toi=s theoi=s~, etc.]

[128\9: Cf. also Pl., _Lg._ 677 DE; Plu., _Fac. Orb. Lun._ 25, p. 940 C.]

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