Note 174 — Chapter II · THE REGALIA, OR RIGHTS OF ROYALTY.

It has already been noticed as remarkable that Pontifex, the bridge-builder, should be the name for the priestly class. There are many superstitions connected with bridges, and the spirit of the bridge even to this day, in Germany, demands his victims as inexorably as the spirit of the river. Deut. Mythol. p. 563. The passage in Schol. Ælii Aristid. which speaks, according to a modern emendation, of Palladia in connection with bridges, is hopelessly corrupt. But Servius, Æneid, ii. 661, says the Athenian Pallas was called γεφυρῖτις (not γεφυρίστης as the copies have), and this is confirmed by the Interp. Virgil, published by Mai, where from her position on a bridge the goddess is called γεφυρῖτις Ἀθηνᾶ. Pherecydes (No. 101) and Phylarchus (No. 79) both appear to refer to this, if indeed the proposed readings can be admitted. See Fragm. Hist. Græc. pp. 95, 356. There was in very early times a gens of γεφυραῖοι at Athens, but I do not know if they had any priestly functions. They had the worship of Δημήτηρ Ἄχαια, and were Cadmæans who had immigrated into Attica; from among them sprung Harmodius and Aristogeiton.