Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/184

166 [G6 HISTORY OF GREECE. and Meton the astionomer, as forming exceptions to this uni vcTsal tone of sanguine anticipation : the familiar genius which constantly waited upon the philosopher is supposed to have fore- warned him of the result. Nor is it impossihle that he may have been averse to the expedition, though the fact is less fully certified than we could wish. Amidst a general predominance of the various favorable religious signs and prophecies, there were also some unfavorable. Usually, on all public matters of risk or gravity, there were prophets who gave assurances in opposite ways : those which turned out right were treasured up : the rest were at once forgotten, or never long remembered. 1 After between two and three months of active preparations, the expedition was almost ready to start, when an event happened which fatally poisoned the prevalent cheerfulness of the city. This was the mutilation of the Henna?, one of the most extraor- dinary events in all Grecian history. These Ilermje, or half-statues of the god Hermes, were blocks of marble about the height of the human figure. The upper part was cut into a head, face, neck, and bust ; the lower part was left as a quadrangular pillar, broad at the base, without arms, body, or legs, but with the significant mark of the male sex in front. They were distributed in great numbers throughout Athens, and always in the most conspicuous situations ; standing beside the outer doors of private houses as well as of temples, near the most frequented porticos, at the intersection of cross ways, in the public agora. They were thus present to the eye of every Athenian in all his acts of intercommunion, either for business or pleasure, with his fellow-citizens. The religious feelings of the Greeks considered the god to be planted or dom- 'ciliated where his statue stood, 2 so that the companionship, 'Plutarch (Nikias, c. 12, 13; Alkibiad. c. 17). Immediately after the catastrophe at Syracuse, the Athenians were very angry with those prophets who had promised them success (Thucyd. viii, 1). z Cicero, Legg. ii. 11. "Melins Graeci atqne nostri ; qui, ut augcrent pie tatem in Deos, easdem illos urbes, quas nos, incolere voluerant." How much the Grecian mind was penetrated with the idea of the god as r.n actual inhabitant of the town, may be seen illustrated in the Oration of Lysias, cont. Andokid. sects. 15-4G: compare Herodotu?, v, 67 ; a striking