Note 119 — Chapter V · THE CULT OF SOULS

That the ἥρωες δυσόργητοι καὶ χαλεποὶ τοῖς ἐμπελάζουσι γίγνονται (Sch. Ar., Av. 1490) applies equally to the “Heroes” properly so called—see above, chap. iv, § 11, the legends of the Hero Anagyros, the Hero of Temesa, etc.—and to those who gradually came to be called “Heroes” in later times by an extension of the term, viz. the souls of the dead in general—χαλεποὺς καὶ πλήκτας τοὺς ἥρωας νομίζουσι, καὶ μᾶλλον νύκτωρ ἢ μεθ’ ἡμέραν: Chamaileon ap. Ath. 461 C (and hence the precautions taken against nocturnal apparitions: Ath. 149 C). Cf. Zenob. v, 60. Hesych. Phot. s. κρείττονες.—That the ἥρωες do, and are responsible for, evil only and never good (Sch. Ar., Av. 1490; Babr. 63) is a late belief; it does not apply either to Heroes or ordinary dead in the conceptions of earlier ages. Originally the “gods”, just as much as Heroes and the dead, shared in the violent and malignant nature of the unseen. This was later confined more and more to the lower classes of the κρείττονες and came to be attached to them so exclusively that it could in the end be regarded as a sufficient ground of distinction between them and the gods (as it certainly had not been to start with) that malice is excluded from the nature of the gods and benevolence on the contrary from that of Heroes and the dead.