Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/101

 S OF KIIK.K. g the worship of the Kretan Zeus, in whose favor he stood so h.gh as to receive the denomination of the new Kurete' the Kuretea having been the primitive ministers and organizers of that wor- ship. He was said to be the son of the nymph Balte ; to be supplied by the nymphs with constant food, since he was never seen to eat ; to have fallen asleep in his youth in a cave, and to have continued in this state without interruption for fifty-seven years ; though some asserted that he remained all this time a wanderer in the mountains, collecting and studying medicinal botany in the vocation of an latromantis, or leech and prophet combined. Such narratives mark the idea entertained by an- tiquity of Epimenides, the Purifier, 2 who was now called in to heal both the epidemic and the mental affliction prevalent among the Athenian people, in the same manner as his countryman and contemporary Thaletas had been, a few years before, invited to Sparta to appease a pestilence by the effect of his music and religious hymns. 3 The favor of Epimenides with the gods, his knowledge of propitiatory ceremonies, and his power of working upon the religious feeling, was completely successful in restoring both health and mental tranquillity at Athens. He is said to have turned out some black and white sheep on the areopagus, directing attendants to follow and watch them, and to erect new altars to the appropriate local deities on the spots where the animals lay down. 4 He founded new chapels and established 1 Diogcn. Laiirt. i, 11-1, 115. 2 Plutarch, Solon, c. 12 ; Uiogen. Lacrt. i, 109-115 ; Pliny, H. N. vii, 52. deodihrjs K.a.1 (jopdf TTfp/ ru. dela rr/v IvdovaiaaTiKJjv Kal TeXeariKjjv aoi- av, etc. Maxim. Tyrius, xx. viii, 3, 6eivbf ru deia, ov /na-&uv uTiTC VTTVOV avrti diriyelro [laKpbv Kal oveipov 6itiuaK.at.ov. 'laTpo/tavTif, jEschyl. Supplic. 277 ; Kai9apr?)f, lamblichus, Yit. Pythagor. c. 23. Plutarch (Sept. Sapient. Conviv. p. 157) treats Epimenitles simply as having lived up to the precepts of the Orphic life, or vegetable diet : to this circumstance, I presume, Plato (Legg. iii, p. 677) must be understood to refer, though it is not very clear. See the Fragment of the lost Krttes of Euripides, p. 98, ed. Dindorf. Karmanor of Tarrha in Krete had purified Apollo himself for the slaughter of Pytho (Pausan. ii, 30, 3). 4 Cicero (Legg. ii, 11) states that Epimenides directed a temple *o b
 * Plutarch, De Musica, pp. 1134-1146 ; Pausanias, i, 14, 3.