Note 168 — Chapter V · THE CULT OF SOULS

On the chthonic character of the deities of expiation see in gen. K. O. Müller, Aesch. Eum., p. 139 ff. (112 ff.). Chief among them is Ζεὺς μειλίχιος (a euphemistic title; cf. above, n. 5), who is unmistakably a χθόνιος. Hence, like all χθόνιοι he is represented as a snake on the votive tablet to Ζ. μειλ. discovered in the Peiraeus (certainly the Athenian god and not a foreign deity identified with this god whom all Athenians knew well from the feast of the Diasia): BCH. 7, 507 ff.; CIA. ii, 1578 ff. On a votive insc. from Lykia we have, side by side with the chthonic Hekate, Διὶ Μειλιχίῳ καὶ Ἐνοδίᾳ, BCH. 13, 392. Other θεοὶ μειλίχιοι in Lokris were worshipped with nocturnal sacrifice (as regularly in the case of underworld deities): Paus. 10, 38, 8. The δαίμονες μειλίχιοι as χθόνιοι are contrasted with the μακάρεσσιν οὐρανίοις in the oracle verses ap. Phlegon, Macr. iv, p. 93, 5 Kel.: deis milicheis Acta Lud. Saecul. Tab. A l. 11 [= CIL. vi, 32, 323; see Mommsen, Ges. Schr. viii, 570].—Then come the ἀποτρόπαιοι: their nature can be guessed from the fact that they were worshipped together with the dead and Hekate on the thirtieth day of the month (see above, n. 88). After a bad dream offerings were made to the ἀποτρόπαιοι, to Ge and the Heroes: Hp., Diaet. 4, 8, vi, p. 652 L. Ζεὺς ἀποτρόπαιος must have been a χθόνιος, but we have side by side with him an Ἀθηνᾶ ἀποτροπαία (and an Apollo ἀποτρ. too): ins. from Erythrai, SIG. 600, 69; 115: the provinces of Ὀλύμπιοι and χθόνιοι were not always kept absolutely distinct.—An ancient and hereditary service of the propitiation deities belonged to the Attic family of the Phytalids who had once purified and offered expiatory sacrifice for Theseus after the murder of Skiron and others (ἁγνίσαντες καὶ μειλίχια θύσαντες): Plu., Thes. 12. The gods to whom this family offered sacrifice were Demeter and Zeus Meilichios: Paus. 1, 37, 2–4.—Isoc. 5, 117, makes a clear distinction between the θεοὶ Ὀλύμπιοι and the gods to whom only an apotropaic cult, ἀποπομπάς, was offered; these being the gods of expiation (cf. ἀποδιοπομπεῖσθαι in propitiatory sacrifices; ἀποπομπαῖοι θεοί: Apollod. ap. Harp. ἀποπομπάς. Cf. also ἀποπομπή of evil daimones in contrast to the ἐπιπομπή of the same: Anon. Vir. Herb. xxii, 165. See Hemsterhuys, Lucian ii, p. 255 Bip.; Lob., Agl. 984, ii).