Note 325 — CONCLUSION.
Reading edition
The cult of Herakles in Diomeia contains other elements obviously Semitic, the discussion of which would lead us far. The details are given in my Myth. and Mon. Ancient Athens, p. 216, but the Semitic character of the ‘white dog’ legend I did not then realize. Prof. Robertson Smith long ago (Religion of the Semites, p. 274, note 2), pointed out that the supposed ‘white dog’ is really the ‘dogs’ enclosure’ and that the sacred dogs are a class of Semitic temple-ministrants (see Deut. xxiii. 18, and C.I.S. No. 86). To the whole question of the Semitic elements in the worship of Herakles I hope to return on another occasion.