Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/134

 'Charon ever insatiable, why hast thou snatched away Attalus needlessly in his youth? Was he not thine, an he had died old?'

Clearly, it would seem, Euripides knew a popular conception of Charon other than that which literary and artistic tradition had crystallised as the orthodox presentation, but rather than break through the conventions by bringing Charon on the stage otherwise than as ferryman, he had recourse to a purely artificial personification of death.

But the conception of Charon as lord of death can be traced yet further back than the time of Euripides. Hesychius states that the title [Greek: Akmonidês] was shared by two gods, Charon and Uranus. Charon therefore, as son of Acmon and brother of Uranus, is earlier by two long generations of gods than Zeus himself, and belongs to the old Pelasgian order of deities. Was Charon then the god of death among the old Pelasgian population of Greece, before ever the name of Hades or Pluto had been invented or imported? Yes, if the corroboration from another Pelasgian source, the Etruscans, is to count for anything. On an Etruscan monument figures the god of death with the inscription 'Charun' ; and the same person is frequently depicted on urns, sarcophagi, and vases. Usually the door of the nether world is to be seen behind him; either he is issuing forth to seek his prey, or he is about to enter there with a victim who stands close beside him, his hand clasped in that of wife or friend to whom he bids farewell. In appearance he is most often an old bearded man (though a more youthful type is also known) bearing an axe or mallet, and more rarely a sword as well, wherewith he pursues men and slays them. In effect the Etruscan Charun closely corresponds with the modern Greek Charos in functions as well as in name. The coincidence allows of one explanation only. The Greeks of the present day must have inherited their idea of Charos from ancestors who were closely connected with the Etruscans and to whom Charon was the god of death who came to seize men's souls and carry them off to his realm in the nether world. These ancestors can only have been the original Pelasgian population of Greece. In classical times the