Note 171 — Chapter II · THE ANTHESTERIA. The Ritual of Ghosts and Sprites.

The question of σφάγια has been very fully discussed by Dr Paul Stengel in four papers as follows: ‘Σφάγια,’ Hermes XXI. p. 307, 1886; ‘Miscellen,’ XXV. p. 321; ‘Prophezeiung aus der Σφάγια,’ XXXI. p. 479 and XXXIV. p. 642. To this must be added papers by the same author on ἐντέμνειν ἔντομα in the Zeitschrift für Gymnasial-Wesen 1880, p. 743, and in the Jahrbuch für Philologie 1882, p. 322, and 1883, p. 375, and on the winds, Hermes 1900, p. 626. I owe much in the matter of references to Dr Stengel’s full collection of sources, but his conclusions as stated in ‘Die Sakralaltertümer’ (Iwan Müller’s Handbuch der kl. Altertumswissenschaft, Band V. Abt. 3) seem to me to be vitiated by the assumption that ceremonies of purification are late and foreign importations.