Note 62 — Chapter IV · HEROES

In Phaleron there was an altar, καλεῖται δὲ “ἥρωος”—the learned declared it to be an altar of Androgeos the son of Minos: Paus. 1, 1, 4.—Cf. 10, 36, 6: Χαραδραίοις (at Charadra in Phocis) Ἡρώων καλουμένων (i.e. they were called “the Heroes”) εἰσὶν ἐν τῇ ἀγορᾷ βωμοί, καὶ αὐτοὺς οἱ μὲν Διοσκούρων, οἱ δὲ ἐπιχωρίων φασὶν εἶναι ἡρώων.—ἡρωι, ἡρωΐνῃ a sacrifice is offered at Marathon: sacrificial Calendar of the Attic Tetrapolis (fourth century B.C.) in Leg. Sacr. i, p. 48. ἡρωι, ἡρωΐνῃ, ib., p. 2; CIA. i, 4: fifth century.—Decree ordering a record to be set up in the Peiraeus παρὰ τὸν ἥρω, SIG. 834, 26; CIA. ii, 1546–7: ἥρῳ ἀνέθηκεν ὁ δεῖνα. Roehl, IG. Ant. 29: (Mykenai) τοῦ ἥρωός ἠμι, cf. Furtwängler, Ath. Mitth. 1896, p. 9; ib. 323; ἀνέθηκαν τῷ ἡρωι (Locris).—On the different superimposed layers of stucco on the so-called Heroön west of the Altis at Olympia were the ins. Ἥρωος, Ἥρωορ, and once also Ἡρώων. There seems to me to be no reason to suppose that this nameless Hero was Iamos in particular, the ancestor of the Iamidai (as Curtius does, Die Altäre v. Olymp., p. 25, Abh. Berl. Ak. 1881). For what reason should the name of this highly honoured oracular Hero—which had by no means been forgotten—be suppressed? The name of the Hero was not given for the simple reason that it was unknown. Nameless ἥρωες ἐπιχώριοι, who according to some had set up the great sacrificial altar of Zeus in Olympia, are mentioned by Paus. 5, 13, 8. In some cases the namelessness of a Hero is explained by the fear of uttering awful names, which esp. in the case of the spirits of the lower world are very frequently suppressed or referred to by a circumlocution (cf. Erinyes and spirits of the dead, Rh. Mus. 50, 20, 3): cf. Ant. Lib. 13, p. 214, 19 W. This was perhaps why Narkissos was called ἥρως σιγηλός, Str. 404. On the other hand, it was a special form of respect, at the sacrifice to a Hero, to call out his name: τῷ Ἀρταχαίῃ θύουσι Ἀκάνθιοι ἐκ θεοπροπίου ὡς ἥρωϊ ἐπουνομάζοντες τὸ οὔνομα, Hdt. vii, 117. Ὕλᾳ θύουσιν καὶ αὐτὸν ἐξ ὀνόματος εἰς τρὶς ὁ ἱερεὺς φωνεῖ κτλ. Anton. Lib. 26 fin. Cf. Paus. 8, 26, 7; ἐπικαλούμενοι τὸν Μυίαγρον.—No one will miss the obvious analogy with the worship of the gods. In many places in Greece nameless (or merely “adjectival”) gods were worshipped, ἄγνωστοι θεοί, as at Olympia, Paus. 5, 14, 8, and elsewhere. At Phaleron βωμοὶ θεῶν τε ὀνομαζομένων ἀγνώστων καὶ ἡρώων (sc., ἀγνώστων?) Paus. 1, 1, 4. (ἀγνῶτες θεοὶ Poll. viii, 119. Hesych. s.v.: βωμοὶ ἀνώνυμοι in Attica D.L. i, 110.)