Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/41

 PREPARATIONS AND MARCH OF XERXES. 17 appear sufficient, if we transport ourselves back to the time and to the party concerned. To transfer to inanimate objects the sensitive as well as the willing and designing attributes of human beings, is among the early and wide-spread instincts of mankind, and one of the primitive forms of religion : and although the enlargement of reason and experience gradually displaces this elementary Fetichisra, and banishes it from the regions of reality into those of conventional fictions, yet the force of momentary passion will often suffice to supersede the acquired habit, and even an intelligent man' may be impelled in a moment of agoniz- ing pain to kick or beat the lifeless object from which he has suf- fered. By the old procedure, never formally abolished, though gradually disused, at Athens, — an inanimate object which had caused the death of a man was solemnly tried and cast out of the border : and the Arcadian youths, when they returned hungry from an unsuccessful day's hunting,^ scourged and pricked the ' See Auguste Comte, Ti'aite de Philosophie Positive, vol. v, le9on 52, pp. 40, 46. "Wachsmuth, Hellenisch. Alterthiimer, 2, i, p. 320, and K. F. Herrmann, Griech. Staatsalterthumer, sect. 104. For the manner in which Cyms dealt with the river Gyndes, see Herodot i, 202. The Persian satrap Phamuches was thrown from his horse at Sardis, and received an injuiy of which he afterwards died : he directed his attendants to lead the horse to the place where the accident had happened, to cut off all his legs, and leave him to perish there (Herodot. vii, 88). The kings of Macedonia offered sacrifice even during the time of Herod* otus, to the river which had been the means of presei^ving the life of their ancestor Perdikkas ; after he had crossed it, the stream swelled and arrested his pursuers (Herodot. viii, 138) : see an analogous story about the inhab- itants of ApoUonia and the river Aous, Valerius Maxim, i, 5, 2. After the death of the great boxer, wrestler, etc., Theagenes of Thasus, a statue was erected to his honor. A personal enemy, perhaps one of the fourteen hundred defeated competitors, came eveiy night to gratify his wrath and revenge by flogging the statue. One night the statue fell down upon this scourger and killed him ; upon which his relatives indicted the Btatue for murder : it was found guilty by the Thasians, and thrown into the sea. The gods, however, were much displeased with the proceeding, and visited the Thasians vnih continued famine, until at length a fisher- man by accident fished up the statue, and it was restored to its place (Pausan. vi, 11. 2). Compare the story of the statue of Hennes in Ba- brius, Fabul. 119, edition of Mr. Lewis. VOL. V. 2oc
 * See vol', ii, part 2, c. i, p. 297 of the present work ; and compare