Note 10 — Chapter III · CAVE DEITIES: SUBTERRANEAN TRANSLATION

Those who wished to inquire of his oracle offered by night to Trophonios, before going down into the cave, a ram, sacrificing it in a pit (βόθρος): Paus. 9, 39, 6; to Amphiaraos, after a considerable fast (Philos., VA., 2, 37, pp. 79, 19 ff. K.) and the provision of a καθάρσιον, the inquirer offered a ram upon the fleece of which he lay down to sleep (Paus. 1, 34, 5).—Cleanthem cum pede terram percussisset versum ex Epigonis (prob. of Soph.) ferunt dixisse: audisne haec, Amphiaraë, sub terram abdite? Cic., TD. ii, 60. The gesture also must have been borrowed from the same scene in the Ἐπίγονοι. It was thus customary to knock on the ground in calling upon A., as in the case of other καταχθόνιοι (Ἀμφιάραε χθόνιε occurs as late as P. Mag. Par. 1446 f. W .): I 568; cf. Paus. 8, 15, 3. Cf. also Nägelsb., Nachh. Theol., 102, 214. Skedasos in Sparta γῆν τύπτων ἀνεκαλεῖτο τὰς Ἐρινύας, Plu., AN. 3, p. 774 B. In his grief for the loss of his daughter Herodes Atticus threw himself on the ground τὴν γῆν παίων καὶ βοῶν· τί σοι, θύγατερ, καθαγίσω; τί σοι ξυνθάψω; Philostr., VS. 2, 1, 10. Pythagoras ὅταν βροντήσῃ τῆς γῆς ἅψασθαι παρήγγειλεν, Iamb., VP. 156.