Note 148 — Chapter V · THE CULT OF SOULS

In Homeric times the injured dead becomes a θεῶν μήνιμα to the evil-doer (X 358, λ 73). Later times believed that the soul of the dead man himself angrily pursued the murderer with its terrors till it drove him beyond its own boundaries: ὁ θανατωθεὶς θυμοῦται τῷ δράσαντι κτλ., Pl., Lg. 865 DE, appealing to παλαιόν τινα τῶν ἀρχαίων μύθων λεγόμενον; cf. X., Cyr. 8, 7, 18: A., Cho. 39 ff., 323 ff. If the next-of-kin whose duty it is to avenge the death of his relative shirks the duty incumbent on him the anger of the dead man is turned upon the latter: Pl., Leg. 9, 866 B—τοῦ παθόντος προστρεπομένου τὴν πάθην. The indignant soul becomes προστρόπαιος. προστρόπαιος probably applies only in a derivative sense to a δαίμων who takes the part of the dead man (esp. Ζεὺς προστρόπαιος); it is strictly speaking an epithet of the soul itself in its longing for vengeance. Thus in Antiphon Tetral. 1, γ 10, ἡμῖν μὲν προστρόπαιος ὁ ἀποθανὼν οὐκ ἔσται. 3, δ 10, ὁ ἀποκτείνας (or rather ὁ τεθνηκὼς) τοῖς αἰτίοις προστρόπαιος ἔσται. So, too, A., Cho. 287, ἐκ προστροπαίων ἐν γένει πεπτωκότων. EM. 42, 7, Ἠριγόνην, ἀναρτήσασαν ἑαυτήν, προστρόπαιον τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις γενέσθαι. We can, however, see particularly well from this case how easily the change came about from a soul in a special condition to a similar daimonic being which takes the place of the soul of the dead. The same Antiphon speaks also of οἱ τῶν ἀποθανόντων προστρόπαιοι, ὁ προστρόπαιος τοῦ ἀποθανόντος as something distinct from the dead man himself: Tetr. 3, α 4; 3, β 8; cf. ὁ Μυρτίλου προστρόπαιος, Paus. 2, 18, 2, etc.; cf. Zacher, Dissert. phil. Halens., iii, p. 228. The injured dead himself becomes ἀραῖος, Soph., Tr. 1201 ff. (cf. fr. 367; E., IT. 778; Med. 608); later his place is taken by δαίμονες ἀραῖοι. What terrible evils the unavenged soul can bring upon the person who is called upon to take vengeance are painted for us by Aesch. in Cho. 278 ff. (or else as some think an ancient interpolator of A.). Sickness and trouble might be sent over several generations by such παλαιὰ μηνίματα of the dead: Pl., Phdr. 244 D (see Lobeck’s account, Agl. 636 f.). True to ancient beliefs an Orphic hymn prays to the Titanes μῆνιν χαλεπὴν ἀποπέμπειν, εἴ τις ἀπὸ χθονίων προγόνων οἴκοισι πελάσθη, H. 37, 7 f.; cf. 39, 9–10.