Chapter 13
Title: “Better off dead”
The key word for this time is telos. This word signals ‘initiation’ (into the mysteries). In the Glossary,
telos is defined as ‘coming full circle, rounding out, fulfillment, completion, ending, end; successfully
passing through an ordeal; ritual, rite’. The name Tellos in the micro-narrative we have just read is
derived from the word telos. Note that the hero is defined in terms of krinein ‘judge, distinguish’,
which as we have seen in the Odyssey is the power of discerning the true from the untrue.
To sum up:
telos
1. ‘goal, fulfillment, completion, end [of life].’
OR
2. ‘successful passing through an ordeal; initiation.’
olbios: ambiguity between insider’s and outsider’s definition
The name of Tellos is an ainos.
Notes on timē:
1. ‘honor, social recognition’ (for the things that a hero does)
2. ‘cult honors, ritual performance’ (for the initiated, and in ritual contexts)
A) Herodotus 1.30.2-5: “Athenian xenos, we have heard much about your wisdom [sophia] and your
wanderings, that you have gone all over the world philosophizing, so now I desire to ask you who is the
most olbios man you have seen.” Croesus asked this question expecting the answer to be himself, but
Solon, instead of flattering him, told it as it was and said, “O King, it is Tellos the Athenian.” Croesus
marveled at what he had said and replied sharply, “In what way do you judge [krinein] Tellos to be the
most olbios?” Solon said, “Tellos was from a prosperous polis and his children were good and noble
[agathoi]. He saw them all have children of their own, and all of these survived. His life was well off by
our standards, and his death was most distinguished: when the Athenians were fighting their neighbors
in Eleusis, he came to help, routed the enemy, and died most beautifully. The Athenians buried him at
public expense on the spot where he fell and gave him much timē.”
For the uninitiated, the word timē means simply ‘honor’; for the initiated, it means ‘honor given to a
cult hero’.
The place-name Eleusis signals the ritual process of being initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. More
on these Mysteries later on.
Things to look for in Passage B:
The story of Kleobis and Biton is a perfect “parable” (ainos) explaining the relevance of the meaning of
hōra and Hēra to the meaning of hērōs.
B) Herodotus 1.31.1-5: When Solon had provoked him by saying that the affairs of Tellos were so olbios,
Croesus asked who he thought was next, fully expecting to win second prize. Solon answered, “Kleobis
and Biton.” They were Argive in genos, they had enough to live on, and on top of this they had great
bodily strength. Both were prize-winning athletes [athlophoroi], and this story is told about them:
There was a festival of Hēra in Argos, and their mother absolutely had to be conveyed to the sacred
precinct by a team of oxen. But their oxen had not come back from the fields in time [hōra], so the
youths took the yoke upon their own shoulders under constraint of time [hōra]. They drew the wagon,
with their mother riding atop it, traveling 45 stadia until they arrived at the sacred precinct. When they
had done this and had been seen by the entire gathering, their lives came to the best fulfillment
[ariston telos], and in their case the god made clear that for human beings it is better to be dead than
to live. The Argive men stood around the youths and congratulated them on their strength; the Argive
women congratulated their mother for having such children. She was overjoyed at the feat and at the
praise, so she stood before the image and prayed that the goddess might grant the best thing for
humanity to her children Kleobis and Biton, who had given great timē to the goddess. After this prayer
they sacrificed and feasted. The youths then lay down in the sacred precinct and went to sleep, and they
never got up again; they remained in the pose that they had assumed in reaching their telos. The
Argives made and dedicated at Delphi statues of them, since they were aristoi.”
[[On the Multimedia page, we post some picture of these statues, which have been found by
archaeologists. The statues are now housed in the Museum at Delphi.]]
This passage of Herodotus is a perfect “parable” (ainos) explaining the relevance of the meaning of
hōra and Hēra to the meaning of hērōs.
Relevant is the key word for Dialogue 11: olbios ‘blessed’ (for the initiated) and ‘prosperous, happy’ (for
the uninitiated). The cult hero is olbios ‘blessed’ after he or she dies. The worshipper of a cult hero
becomes olbios ‘blessed’ by making contact with the hero.
For an introduction to the concept of the cult hero, see again Introduction 3, “The Epic Hero,” §§80-104.
There the direct evidence for the practice of hero cults is reviewed. There is also indirect evidence in the
Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, which frequently make references to the practice of hero cult. But the
Homeric references are made on the basis of an understanding that everyone knows about the practice
anyway.
Let us return to the narrative about Kleobis and Biton in Passage B. The stylized death of these two young
men is a dramatization of the perfect heroic moment. Significantly, these young men are sons of the
priestess of Hēra herself, who is the goddess of that perfect moment.
Note this wording in Passage B: “and in their case the god made clear that for human beings it is better to
be dead than to live.” For the uninitiated, this wording means that you are better off dead - that you
might as well choose to be put out of your misery instead going on with life. For the initiated, this same
wording means that a life after death will be better for you than the life you are living now.
Just as Tellos is a cult hero, so also are Kleobis and Biton.
Notice that cult heroes, before they became cult heroes, did not necessarily give timē to the gods.
Consider the Silver Generation in the context of the overall myth of the Five Generations of Humankind
at verses 106-201 of the Hesiodic Works and Days. After the death of heroes, however, humans will give
timē to to them as cult heroes.
When a hero dies, the cult of his body compensates for that death. A case in point is the passage we are
about to see, where a baby named Demophon dies and becomes a cult hero, thanks to the power of his
“baby-sitter,” the Earth Mother Demeter.
So here are some things to look for:
- timē of baby-hero Demophon
- The ‘mystery’ of the cult is the hero’s resurrection.
- hōra: perfect seasonality of nature as the perfect moment of initiation.
- The land becomes sacred through contact with hero.
C) Homeric Hymn to Demeter 265-268:
260
... immortal and ageless for all days
would I have made your philos little boy, and I would have given him an honor [timē] that is
imperishable [a-phthi-tos].
But now there is no way for him to avoid death and doom.
Still, he will have an honor [timē] that is imperishable [a-phthi-tos], for all time, because he
had once sat
265
on my knees and slept in my arms.
At the right timely season [hōra], every year,
the sons of the Eleusinians will have a war, a terrible battle
among each other. They will do so for all days to come.
I am Demeter, the holder of honors [timai]. I am the greatest
boon and joy for immortals and mortals alike.
Note that Demophon, as a cult hero, will get the timē of cult (line 261).
In this case, the hero cult involves a seasonally-recurring athletic festival. The actual athletic event is a
stylized ‘battle’ that is staged every year at Eleusis, which became the central place of initiation for
citizens of the Athenian city-state. This athletic event was known as the Ballētus, which was officially
held on a seasonally-recurring basis to compensate for the death of the baby cult hero Demophon. This
mock-battle seems to have been the ritual kernel of a whole complex of events known as the Eleusinian
Games. Parallel institutions are the Nemean and the Isthmian Games, pan-Hellenic athletic events, which
were held on a seasonally-recurring basis to compensate for the deaths of the baby cult heroes
Arkhemoros and Melikertes respectively.
Just as the cult hero Demophon gets timē ‘honor’ that is aphthitos ‘imperishable, unwilting’ in
compensation for death (261), so also the epic hero Achilles gets kleos ‘glory’ that is aphthiton
‘imperishable, unwilting’ (Iliad IX 413) in compensation for death.
In the Homeric tradition, references to hero cults tend to be implicit, not explicit. That is because the
religious practice of hero-cult is fundamentally a local phenomenon while the Homeric tradition is nonlocal or “pan-Hellenic” (that is, common to a majority of Greek speaking locales). Homeric references to
olbioi - that is, to those whose local earth is in contact with the dead hero - imply hero-cult without
really revealing the mysteries of the hero cult.
A case in point is the passage in the Odyssey that we considered earlier, where the psukhē of Teiresias,
during its moments of consciousness made possible by the drinking of the sacrificial sheep’s blood that is
poured for Teiresias by Odysseus, foretells the story of Odysseus beyond the Odyssey as we know it. In this
meta-story, we see that Odysseus dies at precisely the moment when he reaches the point of a
coincidence of opposites. At that point, he will die, and there will be a hero cult connected with his body
at the place of his death. Those who come into contact with the body in that place by making contact
with the earth that covers him there will be olbioi - if they are righteous (see the end of the passage
below):
Relevant is a passage we have already read:
Odyssey xi 119-137: When you get home you will take your revenge on these suitors; and after you have
killed them by force [biē] or fraud in your own house, you must take a well-made oar and carry it on and
on, till you come to a country where the people have never heard of the sea and do not even mix salt
with their food, nor do they know anything about ships, and oars that are as the wings of a ship. I will
give you this certain token [sēma] which cannot escape your notice. A wayfarer will meet you and will
say it must be a winnowing shovel that you have got upon your shoulder; on this you must fix the oar in
the ground and sacrifice a ram, a bull, and a boar to Poseidon. Then go home and offer hecatombs to the
gods in heaven one after the other. As for yourself, death shall come to you from the sea, and your life
shall ebb away very gently when you are full of years and peace of mind, and your people shall be
prosperous [olbioi]. All that I have said will come true.’
As we review this passage, we need to keep in mind that all cult heroes are local and localized.
Also to consider…
- Cult worship reinforces seasonality of nature.
- End of journey [telos] is also initiation [telos].
In this passage from the Odyssey, we see the mystical word olbios, which means ‘prosperous’ on the
surface but also ‘blessed’ underneath the surface. The deeper meaning has to do with the hero’s
achieving an afterlife, rendering him ‘blessed’, while his corpse renders the local population
‘prosperous’. There is a built-in metonymy in the reciprocal relationship linking the ‘blessed’ heroes and
the ‘prosperous’ population that worships them.
I talked a minute ago about the moment when Odysseus dies, which happens when he reaches the point
of a coincidence of opposites. What is that point? The place of the death of Odysseus will be as far away
from the sea as possible. It will be where the oar that he carries on his shoulder is mistaken for a
winnowing shovel. And yet, Odysseus will share the sacred space of his hero-cult with Poseidon, god of
the sea, even though this space is as far away from the sea as possible. In the historical period, as we
know from the testimony of Pausanias (2nd century CE), Odysseus was actually worshipped as a cult hero
in Arcadia, which is as far away from the sea as you can be in the Peloponnesus. Pausanias says that
Odysseus shares his sacred space with Poseidon as god of the sea, and with Athena as goddess of seapilots. In the Homeric Odyssey, these two divinities are the primary and the secondary divine antagonists
respectively of Odysseus.
For more on god-hero antagonism in myth and god-hero symbiosis in ritual, see Nagy, Best of the
Achaeans, ch. 7.
In the Odyssey here, the detail about sacrificing to Poseidon at the point of a coincidence of opposites,
where the oar of Odysseus is mistaken for a winnowing shovel, refers indirectly to the death of Odysseus
at that point and to the symbiosis of Odysseus as cult hero with Poseidon as his ritual antagonist. The
ostentatious usage of sēma in this context signals both the ‘sign’ that tells about the hero’s death and,
more literally, the ‘tomb’ of the hero at the place of his death. In terms of this interpretation of the
prophecy of Teiresias, death came to Odysseus ‘far from the sea’ - not ‘out of the sea’. In the original
Greek, the wording of the prophet is ambiguous: it could have either of the two meanings.
The idea of a hero cult, where the body of the hero hidden in the local earth becomes a talisman of
fertility and prosperity to those who come into contact with that earth, can be seen positively as a
realization of dikē in the long-term sense of ‘justice’.
This word dikē means ‘justice’ (long-term) and ‘judgment’ (short-term). The sign of dikē is a thriving or
blooming field / garden / orchard / grove / vineyard / etc. The cult hero is an exponent of dikē. The
presence of his or her body in the local earth can be viewed as the cause of vegetal thriving or blooming.
This word dikē, with its two primary metaphors of (1) the straight line and (2) the thriving cultivation, is
basic to the concept of the cult hero. For a brief historical sketch of hero cults, see again Introduction no.
3.
The opposite of dikē is hubris ‘outrage’. The three categories of hubris: (1) human, e.g. Antinoos, (2)
animal, (3) plant (undergrowth or overgrowth, such as excessive wood / leaf production). Metaphors of
dikē: (1) straight line and (2) thriving cultivation = cultivated field / garden / orchard / grove / vineyard
/ etc.; hubris is the opposite, that is, (1) crooked line and (2) failing cultivation = desert or overgrowth.
In the world of the “present,” from the standpoint of Greeks in the historical period who worship the
heroes who supposedly lived in the world of the heroic past, these heroes can be imagined as kings and
queens from the past. For example, one of the cult words used for worshipping a male cult hero is ‘king’
(anax).
In the world of the heroic past, from the standpoint of Greeks in the historical period, the idea of a just
king, a king who is an exponent of dikē, is seen in terms of a thriving or blooming field / garden /
orchard / grove / vineyard / etc.
There is a reference to this world in the words of the disguised Odysseus, addressed to his wife Penelope.
This passage contains a perfect example of dikē as a sign of the cult hero.
Here we review another passage from the Odyssey:
Odyssey xix 107-114: “My lady,” answered Odysseus, “who on the face of the whole earth can dare to
chide with you? Your fame [kleos] reaches the firmament of heaven itself; you are like some blameless
king, who upholds righteousness [= good dikē], as the monarch over a great and valiant nation: the earth
yields its wheat and barley, the trees are loaded with fruit, the ewes bring forth lambs, and the sea
abounds with fish by reason of his virtues, and his people do good deeds under him.
This epic image of the just king as an exponent of dikē, standing in his blooming garden, corresponds to
the religious image of the hero in hero cult, “planted” in the local “mother earth” as a talisman of
fertility and prosperity for the community that worships him or her.
There is a further reference to this idea of a heroic king, in the climactic meeting between father
(“ancestor”) and son (“descendant”) in the Garden of Laertes:
Odyssey xxiv: As he went down into the great orchard, ... he found his father alone, hoeing a vine. ... He
went up to his father, who was bending down and digging about a plant. [244] “I see, sir,” said Odysseus,
“that you are an excellent gardener - what pains you take with it, to be sure. There is not a single plant,
not a fig tree, vine, olive, pear, nor flower bed, but bears the trace of your attention.”
Odysseus’ father is the most difficult character for the hero to “read” or “recognize” - even more difficult
than Penelope. In terms of the sequence of narration, the placing of Laertes’ recognition after that of
Penelope suggests that the patēr ‘father’ (the plural pateres means ‘ancestors’) is even higher in
Odysseus’ ascending scale of affections than the wife. Compare the distinction of Kleopatra as a character
and Kleopatra as a name. In Meleager’s ascending scale of affections, the wife Kleopatra is highest. But
the meaning of her name is even higher for Achilles’s ascending scale of affections.
Again, we see Homeric poetry referring here indirectly to the practice of hero cult.
Odysseus’ father is the most difficult character for the hero to “read” or “recognize” - even more difficult
than Penelope. In terms of the sequence of narration, the placing of Laertes’ recognition after that of
Penelope suggests that the patēr ‘father’ (the plural pateres means ‘ancestors’) is even higher in
Odysseus’ ascending scale of affections than the wife. Compare the distinction of Kleopatra as a character
and Kleopatra as a name. In Meleager’s ascending scale of affections, the wife Kleopatra is highest. But
the meaning of her name is even higher for Achilles’s ascending scale of affections.
Again, we see Homeric poetry referring here indirectly to the practice of hero cult.
[[What follows is a discussion that is meant to supplement the dialogue that has taken place.]]
The heroes of hero cult are not only immortalized in paradise-like settings; they can also "come back"
into the everyday world on special occasions, called "epiphanies." Sometimes the epiphany is
metonymic, that is, that a sign of the hero appears instead of the hero himself (or herself). The word
sēma in the sense of 'tomb' indicates the hero as connected simultaneously to (1) a local resting place
for his or her body in the local "mother earth" and (2) a paradise-like setting beyond everyday time and
place. The same word sēma in the sense of 'sign' indicates an epiphany of the hero or of something
connected to the hero. The meaning of the hero is indicated by the word sēmainein, which means
literally 'mean' or 'mean in a special way.
We start with a “miracle” connected with the cult hero Protesilaos.
Here are some things to look for:
- The hero communicates a message about justice (dikē) through a sēma ‘sign.’
- The sēma hinges on the word tarikhos, which has a double meaning : both ‘preserved food’ (secular)
and ‘preserved body’ (sacred).
- In Egyptian religion (as expressed by the Greek language), the prototypical tarikhos is Osiris.
In traditions connected with the hero Orpheus, the soul is imprisoned in the sēma of the sōma (body).
D) Herodotus 9.120. The people of the Chersonesus say that a portent happened to one of the guards
while he was roasting salted fish [tarikhoi]: the salted fish on the fire began to jump and writhe just like
newly-caught fish. A crowd gathered in amazement, but when Artayktes saw the portent he called to the
man roasting the salted fish and said, “Athenian xenos, have no fear of this portent; it has not been sent
to you. Instead Protesilaos of Elaious indicates [sēmainein] to me that even when dead and dried
[tarikhos] he holds power from the gods to punish one who treats him without dikē.
Here the dead Protesilaos sends a meaning (sēmainein). The question is, for whom is the meaning
intended? The Persian "villain," Artayktes, says that the meaning is intended only for him. But the real
question is, does Herodotus intend the meaning for Greeks as well?
The "meaning" of the hero here is a combination of the "miracle" of the resurrection of the dead fish and
the riddling use of the word tarikhos (derived probably from Hittite or Luvian), which can refer both to
preserved fish and to preserved human bodies. "Preserved" in the everyday sense would refer to the
salting or drying of fish in order to keep them from putrefaction. Similarly, it can refer to the
mummifying of the corpse, again in order to keep it from putrefaction. In the sacred sense of the
Egyptian mysteries of Osiris, however, "preservation" refers to resurrection after death, and the key to
the mystery of resurrection is the ritual of mummification. For Herodotus, this sacred sense of tarikhos
was comparable to the mysteries of resurrection in hero cult.
For such deeper meaning, the Greek conceptualization is that of a "higher" meaning. The word
sēmainein is conventionally used to designate communication by someone whose perspective is from a
higher vantage point than everyone else.
The one with the highest vantage point of them all is Apollo, god of intelligence; as a sun-god, he has an
intellect that towers over the whole universe. That is why Heraclitus can say of him:
E) Heraclitus 22 B 93 DK:
The Lord [= Apollo] whose oracle is in Delphi neither says nor conceals: he indicates [sēmainein].
- Apollo communicates [sēmainein] from the vantage point of the sun: he is all-seeing.
- sēmainein means ‘say’ in the language of scouts who are ‘sent up hill’ on missions of reconnaissance.
When Herodotus first "quotes" the oracle of Apollo, the god says:
F) Herodotus 1.47:
I know [oida] the number of the sands and the measure of the sea. I understand the mute and I hear the
one who does not speak. The smell has come to my senses of a hard-shelled tortoise, boiling with meat of
lamb, where bronze is spread below, bronze set above.
[[Note by GN: Boiled lamb is a typical offering to cult heroes; boiled tortoise is meant to be a strange
additional ingredient.]]
Here we see that the surface narrative of Herodotus is concerned with human events; underneath the
surface, however, it is concerned with the workings of the natural and cosmic order. The history is
conveyed by the main framing narrative. The workings of the natural and cosmic order are conveyed by
the framed narrative of Apollo's utterances and heroes' meanings. The agents of this order are cult
heroes, who in death are completely in synchronization with nature and the cosmos. That is why
Protesilaos in death can be an agent of the natural and cosmic order, which comes from the gods. He
rewards the just and punishes the unjust. He is thus the agent of dikē.
To sum up:
Herodotus quotes Apollo and thereby emulates the god’s solar vantage point. Also, he emulates the
ground-level vantage point of the hero who travels ‘the pathways of words.’
oida: “I have seen, therefore I know”; related to historia ‘history, inquiry’ activated through vision.
Herodotus himself uses the same language to describe the way he too communicates:
G) Herodotus 1.5: Concerning these things, I am not going to say that they were so or otherwise, but I will
indicate [sēmainein] the one who I myself know [oida] first began unjust deeds against the Hellenes. I
will go on further in my account, treating equally of great and small cities of humankind, for many of
those that were great in the past have become small, and those that were great in my day were formerly
small. Knowing that human good fortune [eudaimonia] never remains in the same state, I will mention
both equally.
To sum up:
The historian as one who has seen and, therefore, knows (oida) can indicate (sēmainein) what is
morally true by way of his moral authority as a historian.
Unlike the singer who says what he hears (kleos) from the Muse, the historian says (sēmainein) what
he sees (historia) from his own experience and ultimately from the vision of Apollo.
Even the "historical" framing narratives of Herodotus are full of "lofty" speech suggestive of hero cult. A
case in point is his use of the word oikos, which in everyday speech means 'house' but in the language of
hero cults means 'abode' of a cult hero. One the surface, the Persian "villain" appropriated the "house" of
a Greek man. Underneath the surface, he violated the sacred abode of a cult hero:
H) Herodotus 9.116:
Xerxes’ governor Artayktes, a Persian and a clever and impious man, was turannos of this province. He
had deceived the king in his march on Athens by robbing from Elaious the property of Protesilaos son of
Iphiklos. The grave of Protesilaos is at Elaious in the Chersonese, with a sacred precinct around it. There
were many goods there: gold and silver bowls, bronze, apparel, and other dedicated offerings, all of
which Artayktes carried off by the king’s gift. He deceived Xerxes by saying, “Master, there is here the
house [oikos] of a Hellene who waged war against your land, but he met with dikē and was killed. Give
me his oikos so that all may know not to wage war against your land.” He thought he would easily
persuade Xerxes to give him a man’s oikos by saying this, since Xerxes had no suspicion of what he
really thought. When he said that Protesilaos waged war against the king’s land, he had in mind that the
Persians consider all Asia to belong to them and to their successive kings. So the king made him the gift,
and he carried the goods from Elaious to Sestos, planting and farming the sacred precinct. Whenever he
came to Elaious, he would even have sex with women in the sanctuary.
To sum up:
The historian is an indicator of what is justice (dikē).
The narrative hinges on double meanings in the case of oikos and the words for “planting and farming.”
Only the initiated can understand double meanings as conveyed by the medium of ainos.
Further review:
Notes on Mozart’s Magic Flute:
International anthem of initiation into the mysteries of Freemasonry
Its ‘charter myth’ is the MYSTERIUM of resurrection after the ordeal of death.
Modeled on the resurrection of the Egyptian god Osiris.
Greek musterion is saying ‘and non-saying’ in sacred contexts.
I) Pausanias (2nd century CE) describes an initiation into the mysteries of a hero cult (9.39.5ff):
When a man has made up his mind to descend to the oracle of Trophonios, he first lodges in a certain
building [oikēma] for an appointed number of days, this being sacred to the Good Daimōn and to Good
Fortune. While he lodges there, among other regulations for purity he abstains from hot baths, bathing
only in the river Hercyna. Meat he has in plenty from the sacrifices, for he who descends sacrifices to
Trophonios himself and to the children of Trophonios, to Apollo also and to Kronos, to Zeus with the
epithet King [Basileus], to Hera Charioteer [Hēniokhos], and to Demeter whom they name with the
epithet Europa and say was the wetnurse of Trophonios. [9.35.6] At each sacrifice a diviner [mantis] is
present, who looks into the entrails of the sacrificial victim, and after an inspection prophesies to the
person descending whether Trophonios will give him a kind [eumenēs] and gracious reception. The
entrails of the other victims do not declare the mind of Trophonios so much as a ram, which each
inquirer sacrifices over a pit [bothros] on the night he descends, calling upon Agamedes.1 Even though
the previous sacrifices have appeared propitious, no account is taken of them unless the entrails of this
ram indicate the same; but if they agree, then the inquirer descends in good hope. The procedure of the
descent is this. [9.39.7] First, during the night he is taken to the river Hercyna by two boys of the citizens
about thirteen years old, named Hermae,2 who after taking him there anoint him with oil and wash him.
It is these who wash the descender, and do all the other necessary services as his attendant boys. After
this he is taken by the priests, not at once to the oracle, but to fountains of water very near to each other.
[9.39.8] Here he must drink water called the water of Forgetfulness [Lēthē], that he may forget all that
he has been thinking of hitherto, and afterwards he drinks of another water, the water of Memory
[Mnēmosunē], which causes him to remember what he sees after his descent. After looking at the
image [agalma] which they say was made by Daedalus (it is not shown by the priests save to such as are
going to visit Trophonios), having seen it, worshipped it and prayed, he proceeds to the oracle, dressed in
a linen tunic, with ribbons girding it, and wearing the boots of the native locale.3 [9.39.9] The oracle is on
the mountain, beyond the grove. Round it is a circular basement of white marble, the circumference of
which is about that of the smallest threshing floor, while its height is just short of two cubits. On the
basement stand spikes, which, like the cross-bars holding them together, are of bronze, while through
them has been made a double door. Within the enclosure is a chasm [khasma] in the earth, not natural,
but artificially constructed after the most accurate masonry. [9.39.10] The shape of this structure is like
that of a bread-oven. Its breadth across the middle one might conjecture to be about four cubits, and its
depth also could not be estimated to extend to more than eight cubits. They have made no way of
descent to the bottom, but when a man comes to Trophonios, they bring him a narrow, light ladder. After
going down he finds a hole between the floor and the structure. Its breadth appeared to be two spans,
and its height one span. [9.39.11] The descender lies with his back on the ground, holding barley-cakes
[mazai] kneaded with honey, thrusts his feet into the hole and himself follows, trying hard to get his
knees into the hole. After his knees the rest of his body is at once swiftly drawn in, just as the largest and
most rapid river will catch a man in its eddy and carry him under. After this those who have entered the
shrine learn the future, not in one and the same way in all cases, but by sight sometimes and at other
times by hearing. The return upwards is by the same mouth, the feet darting out first. [9.39.12] They say
that no one who has made the descent has been killed, save only one of the bodyguards of Demetrius. But
they declare that he performed none of the usual rites in the sanctuary, and that he descended, not to
consult the god4 but in the hope of stealing gold and silver from the shrine. It is said that the body of this
man appeared in a different place, and was not cast out at the sacred mouth. Other tales are told about
the man, but I have given the one most worthy of consideration. [9.39.13] After his ascent from
Trophonios the inquirer is again taken in hand by the priests, who set him upon a chair called the
Throne of Memory [Mnēmosunē], which stands not far from the shrine, and they ask of him, when
seated there, all he has seen or learned. After gaining this information they then entrust him to his
relatives. These lift him, paralyzed with terror and unconscious both of himself and of his surroundings,
and carry him to the building [oikēma] where he lodged before with Good Fortune and the Good
Daimōn. Afterwards, however, he will recover all his faculties, and the power to laugh will return to him.
[9.39.14] What I write is not hearsay; I have myself inquired of Trophonios and seen other inquirers.
J1. In making mental contact with a cult hero, the worshipper expects to get in touch with a mind that
knows everything.
J2. We will see that heroes are “psychic” about the heroic past: in other words, when worshippers in the
present make contact with the consciousness of the heroes of the past, those heroes will know
Pausanias' earlier description of the myth of Trophonios (9.37.5ff): "The earth opened up and swallowed
Trophonios at the point in the grove at Lebadeia where is what is called the pit [bothros] of Agamedes, and
next to it is a stele." Agamedes was the brother of Trophonios. In the corresponding myth, Agamedes died
when the two brothers were buried alive, while Trophonios escaped; later, he experiences the mystical
process of "engulfment."
2
"Hermae" is the plural of "Hermes."
3
Note that the groundedness of the local hero cult is reinforced by the idea of local footwear.
4
Note that Pausanias considers the hero in the afterlife to be a theos 'god'.
1
everything about the world of heroes, not only about their own world in the past. They thus surpass the
power of poets in knowing about the world of heroes:
J) Philostratus On Heroes 7.4-6 At any rate, among those who critically examine Homer’s poems, who will
you say reads [anagignōskein] and has insight [di-horân] into them as Protesilaos does? Indeed, my
guest, before Priam and Troy there was no epic recitation [rhapsōidia], nor had anyone sung of events
that had not yet taken place. There was poetry about prophetic matters and about Herakles, son of
Alkmēnē, recently arranged but not yet developed fully, but Homer had not yet sung. Some say that it
was when Troy was captured, others say it was a few or even eight generations later that he applied
himself to poetic composition. Nevertheless, Protesilaos knows everything of Homer and sings of many
Trojan events that took place after his own lifetime, and also of many Hellenic and Median events.