Note 121 — Chapter XII · THE LAY AUTHORS

In the Prologue Thanatos at once describes his claims and his office. He has to receive the departed and cut off the lock of hair from the forehead (75 f. probably as a sign that the dead enter into the possession of the underworld deities: in Verg., A. iv, 698 f. Proserpina in the same way dedicates the dead to Orcus). He then leads them to Hades, 871. He comes in person to the grave and enjoys the offerings laid there, 844 ff., 851 f. (like the dead man himself on other occasions, see above, chap. v, n. 108). Properly speaking he is only the servant of Hades; but just as the word ᾅδης was already common as = θάνατος, so Thanatos himself is also actually called Ἅιδης (268, see above, n. 4); only as identical with Hades can he be called ἄναξ νεκρῶν, 843; cf. δαιμόνων κοίρανος, 1140.—In the underworld are Charon ὁ ψυχοπομπός, 361, 254 ff., 458 f., and Kerberos, 360. Hades and Hermes χθόνιος receive the dead. εἰ δέ τι κἀκεῖ πλέον ἔστ’ ἀγαθοῖς Alkestis will have the seat of honour next to Persephone: 744 ff. By the living who survive she is regarded on account of her incomparable virtue as μάκαιρα δαίμων and her grave is not the abode of a dead woman but a place of worship, 995–1005. Such facile elevation to the rank of “Heroine” was supposed to be characteristic of Thessaly and Eurip. may in this also have intended to give his poem a touch of Thessalian local colour. (δαίμων as an intermediate stage between θεοί and ἄνθρωποι; so frequently in Eur., e.g. Tro. 55–6; Med. 1391; is this the meaning of the μέσον in Hel. 1137?)—Thoroughly in keeping with popular belief is χαῖρε κἀν Ἅιδου δόμοις εὖ σοι γένοιτο, 626 f. (such a χαῖρε is the last word with which ὡς νομίζεται one addresses the dead ἐξιοῦσαν ὑστάτην ὅδον, 609 f.). Similar also (but really implying the conception of the dead as resting in the grave and not in Hades) is: κοῦφά σοι χθὼν ἐπάνωθε πέσοι, 463.