Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/458

 426 HISTORY OF GREECE. It had been the mistake (according to these philosophers) of the old mythes to ascribe to the gods proceedings really belonging to the daemons, who were always the immediate communicants with mortal nature, inspiring prophetic power to the priestesses of thft oracles, sending dreams and omens, and perpetually interfering either for good or for evil. The wicked and violent daemons, having committed many enormities, had thus sometimes incurred punishment from the gods : besides which, their bad dispositions had imposed upon men the necessity of appeasing them by reli- gious ceremonies of a kind acceptable to such beings : hence, the human sacrifices, the violent, cruel, and obscene exhibitions, the wailings and fastings, the tearing and eating of raw flesh, which it had become customary to practise on various consecrated occa- sions, and especially in the Dionysiac solemnities. Moreover, the discreditable actions imputed to the gods, the terrific combats, the Typhonic and Titanic convulsions, the rapes, abductions, flight, servitude, and concealment, all these were really the doings and sufferings of bad daemons, placed far below the sovereign agency equable, undisturbed, and unpolluted of the immortal gods. The action of such daemons upon mankind was fitful and inter- mittent : they sometimes perished or changed their local abode, so that oracles which had once been inspired became after a time forsaken and disfranchized. 1 This distinction between gods and daemons appeared to save in a great degree both the triuh of the old legends and the dig- dpadac, KOI TL>V iopruv oaai TrA^yaf rivaf Jj /COTTETOISC, f/ rtjarelag, fj f/ aloxpoTioyiav e%ovaiv, OVTS #ewi> rcualf ovre iatpavov OIETO.I XprjffTuv, aMC slvat (j>vasi$ ev rai irepisxovTi /neyu^ac IJ.EV nal iff%*vpuf, tivarpo- irovf 6e nal aKvdpuiru<;, ai xaipovai roif TOIOVTOIS, nal TV/XU v ova a i ?rpdf ovdev a/lAo ^e?pov rp ETTO v rat (Plutarch, DC Isid. ut Osir. c. 26. p. 361 ; Qusestion. Rom. p. 283) : compare Stobseus, Eclog. Phys. i. p. 62. 1 Plutarch, De Defect. Orac. c. 15. p. 418. Chrysippns admitted, among the various conceivable causes to account for the existence of evil, the suppo ition of some negligent and reckless daemons, daipovia (j>av%a iv ole T$ ovrt ytvovrai xal ky unreal ap&eiat (Plutarch, De Stoicor. Repugnant, p. 1051). A distinction, which I do not fully understand, between tftot and <Ja/zovef, was also adopted among the Locrians at Opus : fia.Lfj.uv with them seems to have been equivalent to rjpuf (Plutarch, Qusestioa. Grrec. c. 6. p. 292) : seo the note above, pp. 350-351.