Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/292

 in the old-established guise of a serpent, and, if we may judge from the case of Sosipolis at Olympia, continued to be fed with honey-cakes, the same food which had been considered the appropriate diet for the original snake-genii such as those dwelling in the Erechtheum. But, when once the transition of worship was well advanced, the power to assume serpent-form was naturally extended to all tutelary heroes and even to gods; to have been sacrificed was no longer the sole qualifying condition. The hero Cychreus went to the help of the Athenians at Salamis in the form of a serpent. Two serpents were the incarnations of the heroes Trophonius and Agamedes at the oracle of Lebadea. Amphiaraus was represented by a snake on the coins of Oropus. An archaic relief of the sixth century B. C. in the Museum of Sparta, to which Miss Harrison has recently called attention, represents 'a male and a female figure seated side by side on a great throne-like chain Worshippers of diminutive size approach with offerings—a cock and some object that may be a cake, an egg, or a fruit It is clear that we have representations of the dead, but the dead conceived of as half-divine, as heroized—hence their large size as compared with that of their worshipping descendants. They are [Greek: kreittones], "Better and Stronger Ones." The artist of the relief is determined to make his meaning clear. Behind the chair, equal in height to the seated figures, is a great curled snake, but a snake strangely fashioned. From the edge of his lower lip hangs down a long beard, a decoration denied by nature. The intention is clear; he is a human snake, the vehicle, the incarnation of the dead man's ghost .'

In this relief the offerings depicted also are, I think, no less instructive than the bearded snake. If we may suppose that the somewhat indeterminate object, cake, egg, or fruit, was intended for a honey-cake, the offerings combine that which was the accustomed food of snake-genii in ancient times with a cock, the victim most frequently sacrificed to the same genii at the present day.

Of gods, Asclepius, perhaps because he began life as a hero, was most frequently represented in serpent-form. It was in this