Note 111 — Chapter IX · DIONYSIAC RELIGION IN GREECE ITS AMALGAMATION WITH APOLLINE RELIGION. ECSTATIC PROPHECY. RITUAL PURIFICATION AND EXORCISM. ASCETICISM

Dexikreon in Samos, Plu., Q. Gr. 54.—Polyaratos of Thasos, Phormion of Sparta: Cl. Al., Str. i, 21, p. 399 P. Phormion is better known because of his marvellous experiences: Paus. 3, 16, 2–3; Thpomp. ap. Suid. Φορ.: see Meineke, Com.2, p. 1227 ff.—At the end of the above-mentioned enumeration of μάντεις ap. Clem. Al., a certain Ἐμπεδότιμος ὁ Συρακόσιος is given. Varro ap. Serv. on G. i, 34, tells of the ecstatic vision of this Empedotimos: after being a quadam potestate divina mortalis aspectus detersus he saw in the sky inter cetera three gates and three ways (to the gods and the kingdom of the dead). Varro is evidently quoting the account of some ancient authority not a work of Empedot. himself; but in any case this vision is the source of what Empedotimos had to say about the dwelling-place of the souls in the Milky Way: Suid. Ἐμπεδ., Ἰουλιανός: Rh. Mus. 32, 331, n. 1; cf. Damasc. ap. Philop. in Arist. Meteor., p. 117, 10 Hayd. Suid. Ἐμπεδ. calls (probably a guess) the work in which Empedot. gave an account of his visions περὶ φυσικῆς ἀκροάσεως. (Because E. also brought back with him information about the future life, the usual stories about the subterranean chamber, etc., are transferred to him by Sch. ad Greg. Nz., C. vii, 286 = Eudocia, p. 682, 15.) Apart from this no one gives us any information about the personality of Emped. except Jul., Ep. 295 B., p. 379, 13 ff. H., who tells us how he was murdered but the gods avenged him upon his murderers. This, however, rests upon a confusion (either Julian’s or his copyist’s) with Ἑρμότιμος whose murderers were punished in the next world acc. to Plu., Gen. Socr. 22, p. 592 C. The above-mentioned story of the souls and the Milky Way was also known to Julian (see Suid. Ἰουλ.): his source being Herakleides Pont. (who also probably supplied it to others, e.g. Noumenios ap. Procl. in Rp. ii, p. 129 Kroll, Porph., Iamb. ap. Stob., Ecl. i, p. 378, 12 W., and even earlier, Cicero, Somn. 15–16). No older source of this fancy is known: “Pythagoras” mentioned as its authority by Julian, etc., only takes us back again to Herakleides. All that we know up to the present about it suggests the suspicion that the very existence and history of this remarkably little-known “great Empedotimos” may have been a simple invention of Herakleides’, who may have made use of him in one of his dialogues to add interest and importance to some of his own fancies. But now we come upon something more detailed about the story told by Herakleides of the vision in which Emped. (μετὰ τοῦ σώματος, p. 122, 2) beheld πᾶσαν τὴν περὶ τῶν ψυχῶν ἀληθείαν: Procl. in Rp. ii, 119, 21 Kroll. From this passage it is quite clear that Empedotimos is simply a figure in a dialogue by Herakleides, and no more existed in reality than Er the son of Armenios or Thespesios of Soli, or than their prototype Kleonymos of Athens ap. Klearchos of Soli (Rh. Mus. 32, 335).