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Keres and Lemures
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 August 2011
Extract
It is well-nigh an article of faith, repeated from one manual to another, that at the end of the third day of the Anthesteria at Athens, the Chytroi, the Athenians used to say θύραζε κῆρες, οὐκέτ᾽ ᾿Ανθεστήρια and that this meant “go away, ghosts, the Anthesteria are over.” It is the more interesting because, if κῆρες means “ghosts” here, it is the only passage in all literature where it does so; and also because this is far from being the only account of the saying, be it an old liturgical formula or not, that has come down to us. In what seems the better tradition of Zenobios the paroemiographer we have Kᾶρες, which probably goes back to Didymos and through him to some older author still, it may be Demon, i.e., to early Hellenistic times. It is accompanied by a silly, pseudohistorical explanation, clearly coined to suit the occasion, that in old days a part of Attica was held by Karians, who were allowed to come into Athens for the festival and then told to go away when it was over. A later MS. tradition, still in Zenobios, says that “some” said κῆρες, but offers no explanation. Photios in his lexicon and Suidas copying him quote the saying in both forms, but this time with a different explanation of Kᾶρες it means “Karian slaves” and bids them go about their work (presumably in the fields) now that the festival, in which they were allowed to share, is at an end.
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References
1 References (the passage in Zenobios is iv, 33) in R. Ganszyniec in Eranos, xlv, 102 sqq.; see the whole article, of which this is partly a criticism.
2 So Nilsson in Eranos, xv, 185: “schon die Alten müssen das Sprichwort in doppelter Fassung gekannt und gebraucht haben.”
3 This at all events seems to be implied in his Neue Wege durch die griechische Sprache und Dichtung (Berlin and Leipzig 1926), 335. He had predecessors, see Ganszyniec, op. cit. 106, note 2.
4 Eur., Cyclops 654, then in several authors of the fifth and fourth centuries, see LSJ under Kάρ.
5 “Karian” means “mercenary, auxiliary,” Archilochos, fgt. 40 Diehl.
6 Suidas, s.u. κάππα
7 Aesch., Aga. 1035–6.
8 Op. cit., 106 note 1.
9 The handiest collection of literary and other materials for the Anthesteria is in Deubner, L., Attische Feste (Berlin, 1932), 93 sqqGoogle Scholar.
10 See Eur., I.T. 947 sqq.; Ar., Ach. 1002 sqq., 1085 sqq., with the scholiast on the former passage; Plut., Moral. 643a; Athenaios 437c, d, quoting Phanodemos.
11 Photios S.uu. μιαρὰ ὴμέρα, ῥάμνος
12 GB3 ix, 153.
13 Deubner, op. cit. 112.
14 Schol. Rav. on Ar., Ach. 1076, citing Theopompos and Didymos. The scholion is confused and absurdly says that the offering was made on the Choes and that this and the Chytroi were celebrated the same day, but the gist of the information from the two older authors may be accepted. Theopompos says nothing about Dionysos, but mentions only Hermes Chthonios; Didymos very likely added the former on his own responsibility. For evidence that χύτρος is a ritual word, see Deubner, loc. cit., note 11.
15 Op. cit. 112.
16 Ψ 71 sqq.; later examples, Greek and Latin, are too numerous to mention.
17 Aesch., Cho. 483–85.
18 Frag. 664 Nauck (ed. 2), from Athenaios 427e, who gives the context.
19 Pliny, N.H. XXVIII, 27. The chief discussions, with parallels from various countries, are in Samter, Familienfeste der Griechen u. Römer, especially 110; X. Wolters, F. M. G., Notes on Antique Folklore (Amsterdam 1935), 96Google Scholar sqq. That both go on to make the stock blunder of confusing these invisible snappers up of unconsidered trifles with the highly respectable Lares is a matter which need not be discussed here; see my article in Univ. of Calif. Pubs. in Class. Phil., xii (1941), 89 sqq.
20 See especially Ovid, Fast. V 419 sqq., with Frazer's notes, to which add the references in the last note.
21 Pausanias i, 18, 7.
22 M 326. The most convenient collection of references is that given by L. Malten in RE, Supp. IV, cols. 883–900, on which I draw largely, without accepting all his conclusions.
23 Malten, 890.
24 Plat., Legg. 937d 6–8, but note his language: τοῖς πλείστοις αὐτῶν (the good things of life) οἷον κῆρες έπιπεϕύκασιν, αἳ καταμιαίνουσίν τε καὶ καταρρυπαίνουσιν αὐτά. Similarly “Linos” ap. Stob., Flor. V, 22 (iii p. 29 Hense), recommends a purification for getting rid of keres which prey on a man's morals, not his life.
25 Soph., Phil. 42.
26 Theophr., de caus. plant. V, 10, 4. Pliny, N.H. XVII, 216 sqq., uses morbi and similar words to represent the κῆρας of his Greek authority; in the Orphic Lithica the stone called lychnis (ruby?) is invited to ward off “hail and (other) keres which walk the countryside” from the operator's land.
27 Mimnermos, fgt. 2, 6 Diehl.
28 Kηριτρεϕίων ἀνθρώπων, W.D. 418, where the sense is probably that man is born to (fall ill or meet with accidents and so) die.
29 Pindar, fgt. 277 Schroeder, 289 Bowra.
30 [Hdt.], Vit. Hom. 14, p. 201 Allen.
31 Theognis, 837 sq.
32 Malten op. cit., 892 sqq.
33 E. Rohde, Psyche I (4th. and subsequent eds.), 239: “‘Hinaus, ihr Keren, die Anthesterien sind zu Ende,’ rief man den Seelchen zu, wobei man bemerkenswerther Weise ihnen den uralten Namen gab, dessen ersten Sinn schon Homer vergessen hat, nicht aber attische Volkssprache.”
34 E. B. Tylor's Primitive Culture came out first in 1872, the first part of Psyche for the first time in 1890.
35 Geschichte d. griechischen Religion (1941), I, 209, cited by Ganszyniec, op. cit. 102, note 1.
36 Aesch., Pers. 703, cf. 696.
37 Babrius, 63. But even in late times, no such idea was universally held, see for instance Philostratos' Heroicus, in which the august ghosts are friendly, even chatty, when respectfully approached by quite humble persons still in the flesh.
38 Examples in Frazer, The Fear of the Dead, II, 72, 93, 109 and elsewhere.
39 See, e.g., Frazer, op. cit. III, 260 sqq.
40 This is the worse part of the sin of Kreon in Soph., Antigone, to judge by the emphasis Teiresias lays on it, Ant. 998 sqq. The disturbances which may be caused in the lower world by the unauthorized entrance of the living Antigone there are, naturally, not the primary concern of a diviner whose art is concerned with the world of living men.
41 Herodotos V, 92η 2–3.
42 Lucian, Philopseudes 54–55.
43 Ovid, Fast. II, 549–50.
44 See, e.g., Frazer, op. cit. II, 112; cf. the passage of Ovid cited in the last note.
45 The variant ἔνι for ἔτι since it makes no sense at all, must be a scribal error and nothing else.
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