[52] Schol. ad Iliad, xi. 690—οὐ διὰ τὰ καθάρσια Ἰφίτου πορθεῖται ἡ Πύλος, ἐπεί τοι Ὀδυσσεὺς μείζων Νέστορος, καὶ παρ᾽ Ὁμήρῳ οὐκ οἴδαμεν φονέα καθαιρόμενον, ἀλλ᾽ ἀντιτίνοντα ἢ φυγαδευόμενον. The examples are numerous, and are found both in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Iliad, ii. 665 (_Tlêpolemos_); xiii. 697 (_Medôn_); xiii. 574 (_Epeigeus_); xxiii. 89 (_Patroclos_); Odyss. xv. 224 (_Theoclymenos_); xiv. 380 (an _Ætôlian_). Nor does the interesting mythe respecting the functions of Atê and the Litæ harmonize with the subsequent doctrine about the necessity of purification. (Iliad, ix. 498).
[53] Herodot. i. 35—ἔστι δὲ παραπλησίη ἡ κάθαρσις τοῖσι Λυδοῖσι καὶ τοῖσι Ἕλλησι. One remarkable proof, amongst many, of the deep hold which this idea took of the greatest minds in Greece, that serious mischief would fall upon the community if family quarrels or homicide remained without religious expiation, is to be found in the objections which Aristotle urges against the community of women proposed in the Platonic Republic. It could not be known what individuals stood in the relation of father, son or brother: if, therefore, wrong or murder of kindred should take place, the appropriate religious atonements (αἱ νομιζόμεναι λύσεις) could not be applied, and the crime would go unexpiated. (Aristot. Polit. ii. 1, 14. Compare Thucyd. i. 125-128).
[54] See the Fragm. of the Æthiopis of Arktinus, in Düntzer’s Collection, p. 16.
[55] The references for this are collected in Lobeck’s Aglaophamos. Epimetr. ii. ad Orphica, p. 968.
The idea of a special taint of crime, and of the necessity as well as the sufficiency of prescribed religious ceremonies as a means of removing it, appears thus to have got footing in Grecian practice subsequent to the time of Homer. The peculiar rites or orgies, composed or put together by Onomakritus, Methapus,[56] and other men of more than the ordinary piety, were founded upon a similar mode of thinking, and adapted to the same mental exigencies. They were voluntary religious manifestations, superinduced upon the old public sacrifices of the king or chiefs on behalf of the whole society, and of the father on his own family hearth—they marked out the details of divine service proper to appease or gratify the god to whom they were addressed, and to procure for the believers who went through them his blessings and protection here or hereafter—the exact performance of the divine service in all its specialty was held necessary, and thus the priests or Hierophants, who alone were familiar with the ritual, acquired a commanding position.[57] Generally speaking, these peculiar orgies obtained their admission and their influence at periods of distress, disease, public calamity and danger, or religious terror and despondency, which appear to have been but too frequent in their occurrence.