178

the head of orpheus.

[chap.

its most sacred reliques, although the church also con-
tains a shirt, which is said to have been made for Christ
by the Virgin herself.

The alleged removal of the head of Titus, from the
ruins of Gortyna to the chief city of the island, and its
subsequent occasional exhibitions to the gaze of a credu-
lous multitude, as well as the miracles said to be now
performed by the skull of St Seraphim, shrink into
events of relative insignificance, when compared with
some of the absurdities which were believed in by the
ancient heathens.

The well-known and miraculous transfer of the
head of Orpheus15—

Whose goary visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus, to the Lesbian shore—

might have made the propagators of the Christian legend
blush for their own want of proficiency in their craft,
lament the excess of heathen credulity over even that
of their own day, and envy the priests of ancient Greece
those profitable frauds which they were able constantly
to practise. The head of Orpheus did not remain, like
that of the Christian saint, a mere inanimate object of
respect and adoration; but used, from time to time,
like the teraphim of Jewish idolaters16, to utter oracles17;

15 Phanocles, p. 196. ed. Bach.

Tov S' dird fxhv K6(paXr]v ^aXK(i Ta/xou, avTiKa o' aiiTijv

ets aXa 0ptjiiCLiqv plx^rav bpov yeXvi—
Tas o' lepfj Aeafico iroXiri eireKeXcre QdXacrcra.
Lucian, adv. Indoct. 11. Tom. in. p. 109. ed. Hemst. "Ot-6 tov 'Opcpea
&Lecnra<TaVTO al OpaTTcti, (pad, Trjv Ke(paXy^v ai/Tov crvv Trj Xvpa ets tov
"Efipov ip.ireirovcrav ep.(3Xiidr]vai ets tov fxeXava ttovtov, Kai eTTLTrXeiv ye
Tijy Ke(paXrjv Ttj Xvpa—Kai ovtco p.eT wS?js Trpoieveydrivai Trj Aecr/3a). See
also Eustathius, on Dionysius Periegetes, v. 536. In Ovid, Met. xi.
50. foil, the head and lyre perform the same voyage down the Hebrus,
Jamque mare invectae flumen populare relinquunt,
Et Methymnaeae potiuntur litore Lesbi.

16 Zechariah, x. 2. Compare Genesis, xxxi. 19. Bohlen, p. 306.
and Geusius, Victimae Humanae, P. i. p. 323.

17 Philostratus, Heroica, p. 128. Boisson. 'H KecpaXi] ydp fxeTa to
twv yvvaiKthv epyov, es Aea-ftov KaTao-ypvcra, pfjyfia ttjs Aeafiov (o/c?j<re,

Kai