Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/293

 Greek Votive Offerings. 267

objects dedicated because their work was over, e.g. the staves piled by Xenophon's host at the place where they had first sighted the sea (Xen. anab. 4. 7. 26), or the bandage of Pandarus hung up in the precinct of the god who had healed his sores {Epidaurian Cures 3339, 53). Different again are dedications of the clothes, etc., that have been worn at a critical time, e.g.^ the breast-band offered by a girl to Aphrodite (Theocr. 27. 54), or that have been used at some religious rite, e.g.^ the robes of the mystics at Eleusis (Eudoc. 656).

Dr. Rouse concludes his classification with two miscel- laneous points, (i) TJie offering of hair. His view is that it "originally (to judge from analogy) implied that the worshipper placed himself in the power of the god ; but " that" in the classical age it was traditional and its meaning had been long forgotten." It was the firstfruit of the wor- shipper, and as such offered to a river, or, at a later date, to the great divinities (p. 241), especially to Hera and Zeus (p. 370). Perhaps the most interesting example of it is the series of inscriptions found by the French excavators at Panamara ( = Stratonicea) in Caria {Bull, de corr. hell. xi. 390, xii. 82, 249, 479, xiv. 369 ff.). Dr. Rouse describes it as follows — " The devotees enclose their hair in a small stone coffer, made in form of a stele, which is set up in the precinct. A slab covers the hole, and an inscription is placed upon it. The poorer sort are content to make a hole in the wall, or even hang up their hair w'ith the name only attacht. Even slaves are among the dedicators. It is peculiar that no v>'omen's names are found at all, though the inscriptions number more than a hundred ; and that the deity honoured is Zeus, never Hera" (p. 243). Elsewhere the usual model is found : a votive relief from Thessaly shows two long plaits of hair dedicated by Philombrotos to Poseidon (Dar.-Sagl. s.v. " donarium " p. 376, fig. 2543). (2) Allegorical offerings. This heading comprises not only statues of personified powers such as Victory, Good Luck,