Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/96

 80 HISTORY OF GREECE. into something more than a mere suffering man, it places him in express fellowship with the master of the house, under the tutelary sanctions of Zeus Hiketesios. There is great difference between one form of supplication and another; the suppliant, however, in any form, becomes more or less the object of a par- ticular sympathy. The sense of obligation towards the gods manifests itself separately in habitual acts of worship, sacrifice, and libations, or (Thuc. i. 136). So Telephus, in the lost drama of JEschylus called Mvaol, takes up the child Orestes. See Bothe's Fragm. 44 ; Schol. Aristoph. Ach. 305 In the Odyssey, both Nausikaa and the goddess Athene instruct Odysseus in the proper form of supplicating Alkinous : he first throws himself down at the feet of queen Arete, embracing her knees and addressing to her his prayer, and then, without waiting for a reply, sits down among the ashes on the hearth, w? eirruv, KUT' up' er' iir' ia^upy Iv Kovlyai, Alkinous is dining with a large company: for some time both he and the guests aro silent: at length the ancient Echeneus remonstrates with him on his tardi- ness in raising the stranger up from the ashes. At his exhortation, the Phte- akian king takes Odysseus by the hand, and, raising him up, places him on n chair beside him : he then directs the heralds to mix a bowl of wine, and to serve it to every one round, in order that all may make libations to Zeus Hiketesios. This ceremony clothes the stranger with the full rights and character of a suppliant (Odyss. vi. 310; vii. 75, 141, 166J: Kara v6[toi<i ufyiKTopuv, JEschyl. Supplic. 242. That the form counted for a great deal, we see evidently marked : but of course supplication is often addressed, and successfully addressed, in circum- stances where this form cannot be gone through. It is difficult to accept the doctrine of Eustathius, (ad Odyss. xvi. 424,) that iKKTTjf is a vox media (like !;elvoe), applied as well to the iKt-Tudo^of as to the ker7?c, properly so called : but the word u^faoiaiv, in the passage just cited, does seem to justifying observation: yet there is no direct au- thority for such use of the word in Homer. The address of Theoclymenos, on first preferring his supplication to Tel- emachus, is characteristic of the practice (Odyss. xv. 260); compare also Iliad, xvi. 574, and Hesiod. Scut. Hercul. 12-85. The idea of the favof and the IKETTIG run very much together. I can hardly persuade myself that the reading iKerevae (Odyss. xi. 520J is truly Homeric : implying as it does the idea of a pitiable sufferer, it is altogether out of place when predicated of the proud and impetuous Neoptolemus : we should rather have expected eic&evae. (See Odyss. x. 15.) The constraining efficacy of special formalities of supplication, among the Scythians, is powerfully set forth in the Toxaris of Lucian : the suppliant rita upon an ox-hide, with his hands confined behind him (Lucian, Toxnria c. 48, vol. iii. p. 69, Tauchn.) the pey'iarr] (Kerrip'.a among tlu.t people