Note {223} — FETICHISM AND THE INFINITE.

A third reference to Pausanias I have been unable to verify. There are several references to Greek fetich-stones in Theophrastus’s account of the Superstitious Man. A number of Greek sacred stones named by Pausanias may be worth noticing. In Bœotia (ix. 16), the people believed that Alcmene, mother of Heracles, was changed into a stone. The Thespians worshipped, under the name of Eros, an unwrought stone, αyαλμα παλαιοτατον, ‘their most ancient sacred object’ (ix. 27). The people of Orchomenos ‘paid extreme regard to certain stones,’ said to have fallen from heaven, ‘or to certain figures made of stone that descended from the sky’ (ix. 38). Near Chæronea, Rhea was said to have deceived Cronus, by offering him, in place of Zeus, a stone wrapped in swaddling bands. This stone, which Cronus vomited forth after having swallowed it, was seen by Pausanias at Delphi (ix. 41). By the roadside, near the city of the Panopeans, lay the stones out of which Prometheus made men (x. 4). The stone swallowed in place of Zeus by his father lay at the exit from the Delphian temple, and was anointed (compare the action of Jacob, Gen. xxviii. 18) with oil every day. The Phocians worshipped thirty squared stones, each named after a god (vii. xxii.). ‘Among all the Greeks rude stones were worshipped before the images of the gods.’ Among the Trœzenians a sacred stone lay in front of the temple, whereon the Trœzenian elders sat, and purified Orestes from the murder of his mother. In Attica there was a conical stone worshipped as Apollo (i. xliv.). Near Argos was a stone called Zeus Cappotas, on which Orestes was said to have sat down, and so recovered peace of mind. Such are examples of the sacred stones, the oldest worshipful objects, of Greece.