Note 59 — Chapter I · LEGENDS RESPECTING THE GODS.

Plato, Republ. ii. p. 364; Demosthen. de Coronâ, c. 79, p. 313. The δεισιδαίμων of Theophrastus cannot be comfortable without receiving the Orphic communion monthly from the Orpheotelestæ (Theophr. Char. xvi.). Compare Plutarch, Περὶ τοῦ μὴ χρᾶν ἔμμετρα, etc., c. 25, p. 400. The comic writer Phrynichus indicates the existence of these rites of religious excitement, at Athens, during the Peloponnesian war. See the short fragment of his Κρόνος, ap. Schol. Aristoph. Aves, 989—

Diopeithês was a χρησμόλογος, or collector and deliverer of prophecies, which he sung (or rather, perhaps, recited) with solemnity and emphasis, in public. ὥστε ποιοῦντες χρησμοὺς αὐτοὶ Διδόασ᾽ ᾄδειν Διοπείθει τῷ παραμαινομένῷ. (Ameipsias ap. Schol. Aristophan. ut sup., which illustrates Thucyd. ii. 21).