Note 71 — Chapter IV · HEROES

In the case of Sophokles the “heroizing” had a special superstitious reason. He had once received Asklepios as a guest into his house (and established a worship of A.) and was therefore regarded as especially favoured by heaven and after his death worshipped as Hero Δεξίων: EM. 256, 7–13. (In the temple of Amynos, an Asklepiad daimon, on the west of the Akropolis an honorific decree dating from the end of the fourth century B.C. has been discovered, referring to the ὀργεῶνες τοῦ Δεξίωνος together with those of Amynos and Asklepios: Ath. Mitt. 1896, p. 299.) In this way many mortals who had entertained the gods as guests were themselves made Heroes, cf. Deneken, de Theoxen. c, ii.