Note 91 — Chapter V · THE CULT OF SOULS

The Νεμέσεια is mentioned by Dem. 41, 11. The context suggests a rite performed by a daughter in honour of her dead father. It is a quite certainly correct conjecture (μήποτε—) of the Lexicog. that the Nemeseia may be a festival of the dead (see Harp. s.v. AB. 282, 32: both glosses combined in Phot. Suid. νεμέσια). It is clear, however, that they knew nothing further about it. Mommsen declares (Heort. 209) the Nemeseia to have been “without doubt” identical with the Γενέσια. I see no reason at all for supposing so.—The name νεμέσεια characterizes it as a festival dedicated to the “wrath” of the dead, to the νέμεσις τῶν θανόντων, Soph., El. 792; φθιμένων ὠκυτάτη νέμεσις, Epigr. Gr. 119; cf. 195—this easily becomes a personified Νέμεσις: ἔστι γὰρ ἐν φθιμένοις Νέμεσις μέγα, Epigr. Gr. 367, 9. The cult of the dead, like the cult of the underworld in general, is always apotropaic in character (placantur sacrificiis ne noceant, Serv., A. iii, 63): the Nemeseia must then have been apotropaic in intention too.