DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4377#0400
728 APPENDIX NO. III.
person as a slave to the Infernal Deities was
typified;g and such an interpretation Avould give
peculiar significance to the expression sAsu9=pa in
the deprecatory formula which concludes several
of the Dirce.
Such a transaction as I am supposing presents
at first sight a striking analogy with that curious
form of manumission by which a slave Avas trans-
ferred from a human master to the service of a
god by a regular deed of sale, which was registered
in the temple in which the slave became hierodule.
(See the inscriptions relating to this subject in
Curtius, Anecdota Delphica, Berolini, 1813.)
There is, however, this essential difference be-
tween these dedicatory manumissions and a trans-
action such as Ave suppose to be implied in the
AVOl'ds ~a.pa. Aa.[xarpa TrzTrorj{j.zvog.
The deeds of sale recorded in inscriptions at
Delphi and elsewhere, Averc instruments by which
slaves Avcre emancipated as a reAvard for long
and faithful services; nor is there in the wording
of these documents any suggestion that this reAvard
required any supernatural agency to bring it about,
or that its benefits extended beyond the appointed
term of human existence.
But the rites by which offenders were consigned
to the Infernal Deities Avere probably intended to
affect their condition not in this life only, but
after death; and the punishments invoked could
s It is possible that the words uttered by Teucer, Sophocl.
Ajax, 978, Dindorf, may refer to some such rite, if we adopt here
Hermann's reading, up i)fnr6\riKa a, Cor, &c. The use of kfiirokaia
hero has never been satisfactorily explained. See Lobeck ad loc,
and Ellendt, Lexicon Sophoclcum, s. v.
person as a slave to the Infernal Deities was
typified;g and such an interpretation Avould give
peculiar significance to the expression sAsu9=pa in
the deprecatory formula which concludes several
of the Dirce.
Such a transaction as I am supposing presents
at first sight a striking analogy with that curious
form of manumission by which a slave Avas trans-
ferred from a human master to the service of a
god by a regular deed of sale, which was registered
in the temple in which the slave became hierodule.
(See the inscriptions relating to this subject in
Curtius, Anecdota Delphica, Berolini, 1813.)
There is, however, this essential difference be-
tween these dedicatory manumissions and a trans-
action such as Ave suppose to be implied in the
AVOl'ds ~a.pa. Aa.[xarpa TrzTrorj{j.zvog.
The deeds of sale recorded in inscriptions at
Delphi and elsewhere, Averc instruments by which
slaves Avcre emancipated as a reAvard for long
and faithful services; nor is there in the wording
of these documents any suggestion that this reAvard
required any supernatural agency to bring it about,
or that its benefits extended beyond the appointed
term of human existence.
But the rites by which offenders were consigned
to the Infernal Deities Avere probably intended to
affect their condition not in this life only, but
after death; and the punishments invoked could
s It is possible that the words uttered by Teucer, Sophocl.
Ajax, 978, Dindorf, may refer to some such rite, if we adopt here
Hermann's reading, up i)fnr6\riKa a, Cor, &c. The use of kfiirokaia
hero has never been satisfactorily explained. See Lobeck ad loc,
and Ellendt, Lexicon Sophoclcum, s. v.