Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/498

 thing towards or against someone; the middle meaning, turning oneself towards someone.

The active usage is best illustrated by a passage of Aeschines, in which he accuses Demosthenes of wilful perjury in calumniating him, and then appeals to the jury in these words—[Greek: easete oun ton toiouton hautou prostropaion (mê gar dê tês poleôs) en hymin anastrephesthai] ; 'Will you then allow this perjurer, who has turned upon his own head (for I pray that it be not on the city) the anger of the gods in whose name he swore, to continue in your midst?' Here the very brevity of the Greek, which I am compelled to expand in translation, proves that Aeschines' audience were perfectly familiar with an active meaning of [Greek: prostropaios] with an evil connotation, 'turning some misfortune or punishment or vengeance upon someone.'

The middle sense of [Greek: prostropaios] is equally clearly exhibited by Aeschylus, who in telling the story of Thyestes says that after his banishment by his brother Atreus he came again [Greek: prostropaios hestias], 'turning himself (as a suppliant) towards the hearth' of his father's home, so that his own life at least was spared out of respect for the place.

Thus the two meanings of the word are established, and it remains only to show how they were specially used in connexion with blood-guilt.

In the active sense [Greek: prostropaios] was primarily applied, I hold, like Miastor and Alastor, to the murdered man himself, who 'turned' his wrath 'against' the murderer, or, if it so happened, against the next of kin who had failed in his duty of bringing the murderer to justice. It is precisely thus that Plato uses the verb [Greek: prostrepesthai] in recording the old tradition in which he apparently reposed so much faith as to base his own laws upon it. 'If the nearest of kin,' so runs the passage, 'do not seek vengeance for the deed, it is held that the pollution devolves upon him, and that the sufferer (i.e. the dead man) turns upon him the suffering (i.e. that which the homicide himself should have incurred), and anyone who will may bring a suit against him, etc. ' The words which I have italicised are in the