DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.13851#0626
598
OF THE MISCELLANY CUSTOMS OF GREECE.
Here, so long custom had ordain'd, are led
The nymphs when ripen'd for the marriage-bed,
And for the frailty of the sex atone
With maiden ringlets on the altars thrown. lewis.
But these names (yapwjXi'ct and xa^swrij) were at Athens peculiar to'one
day of the solemnity called apaluria, wherein fathers had their children
entered into the public, register, at which time they offered sacrifices for
their prosperity, with a particular re?pect to their marriages, and com-
monly shaved off some of their hair to be dedicated to some of the dei-
ties, especially her to whose honour that festival was celebrated. But
though the time of presenting their hair might not be constantly the same,
yet the custom itself seems to have been universally observed, not only
by women but men, who rarely failed of performing this ceremony up-
on their arrival to years of maturity. Some of their locks were careful-
ly preserved for this use ; and therefore, when Fentheus in Euripides
threatens Bacchus to shave his hair, the young god tells him it would be
an impious action, because he designed it for an offering to some dei-
ty (4):
lege? o 7rMx.fl/u.oc, ra> ttvrov Tpiqce.
This lock is sacred, this do 1 preserve
As some choice votive off'ring for the god.
The hair was called vXoxapos S^stfrajpios, because presented to a god as an
acknowledgment of his care in their education. The deity thus honour-
ed was commonly Apollo, as Plutarch reports, when he tells us, that The-
seus, according to the custom of the Grecian youth, took a journey to
Delphi to offer the first fruits of his hair to the god of that place (1).
But this could not concern the poorer sort, to whom such journies would
have been too expensive : nor were those of better quality under any
strict obligation to pay this honour to Apollo, it being not unusual to do
it to other gods, such especially as were thought to have protected their
infancy from danger, and preserved them to manhood. Instances are
needless in a thing so well known ; only it may be necessary to observe,
that the deities of rivers were commonly thought to have a title to this
respect: which conceit seems to have proceeded from the opinion of some
philosophers, who thought all things were first produced out of water,
and still nourished and rendered fruitful by it: whence the poets took
occasion to give the epithet xs^or^o'qjog to watery deities, as well as Apol-
lo, those being no less instrumental in the growth and increase of living
creatures, than the sun, whose influences without moisture Can contribute
nothing to the production or preservation of life ; hence both were look-
ed on as deserving their returns of gratitude for the first gift, as well as
continuance of life (3). I shall only trouble you with the following ex-
ample of hair presented to rivers, whereby what 1 have said concerning
the reason of this custom will be confirmed ; for Achilles's preserving
his hair as a present to Sperchius, on condition he should return home in
safety, and afterwards shaving it, when he found the fates had decreed
that he should be slain before Troy, plainly shews that they used to pre-
serve their hair to the gods as a grateful acknowledgment of their care in
preserving them. Homer's words run thus, when he speaks of Patro-
clus's funeral (1) :
(1) Bach. p. 594. (2) Theseo. (4) Iliad. v. 140,
(3) Eustathius, Iliad. \J/. ubi hanc rem fusius enarrat.
OF THE MISCELLANY CUSTOMS OF GREECE.
Here, so long custom had ordain'd, are led
The nymphs when ripen'd for the marriage-bed,
And for the frailty of the sex atone
With maiden ringlets on the altars thrown. lewis.
But these names (yapwjXi'ct and xa^swrij) were at Athens peculiar to'one
day of the solemnity called apaluria, wherein fathers had their children
entered into the public, register, at which time they offered sacrifices for
their prosperity, with a particular re?pect to their marriages, and com-
monly shaved off some of their hair to be dedicated to some of the dei-
ties, especially her to whose honour that festival was celebrated. But
though the time of presenting their hair might not be constantly the same,
yet the custom itself seems to have been universally observed, not only
by women but men, who rarely failed of performing this ceremony up-
on their arrival to years of maturity. Some of their locks were careful-
ly preserved for this use ; and therefore, when Fentheus in Euripides
threatens Bacchus to shave his hair, the young god tells him it would be
an impious action, because he designed it for an offering to some dei-
ty (4):
lege? o 7rMx.fl/u.oc, ra> ttvrov Tpiqce.
This lock is sacred, this do 1 preserve
As some choice votive off'ring for the god.
The hair was called vXoxapos S^stfrajpios, because presented to a god as an
acknowledgment of his care in their education. The deity thus honour-
ed was commonly Apollo, as Plutarch reports, when he tells us, that The-
seus, according to the custom of the Grecian youth, took a journey to
Delphi to offer the first fruits of his hair to the god of that place (1).
But this could not concern the poorer sort, to whom such journies would
have been too expensive : nor were those of better quality under any
strict obligation to pay this honour to Apollo, it being not unusual to do
it to other gods, such especially as were thought to have protected their
infancy from danger, and preserved them to manhood. Instances are
needless in a thing so well known ; only it may be necessary to observe,
that the deities of rivers were commonly thought to have a title to this
respect: which conceit seems to have proceeded from the opinion of some
philosophers, who thought all things were first produced out of water,
and still nourished and rendered fruitful by it: whence the poets took
occasion to give the epithet xs^or^o'qjog to watery deities, as well as Apol-
lo, those being no less instrumental in the growth and increase of living
creatures, than the sun, whose influences without moisture Can contribute
nothing to the production or preservation of life ; hence both were look-
ed on as deserving their returns of gratitude for the first gift, as well as
continuance of life (3). I shall only trouble you with the following ex-
ample of hair presented to rivers, whereby what 1 have said concerning
the reason of this custom will be confirmed ; for Achilles's preserving
his hair as a present to Sperchius, on condition he should return home in
safety, and afterwards shaving it, when he found the fates had decreed
that he should be slain before Troy, plainly shews that they used to pre-
serve their hair to the gods as a grateful acknowledgment of their care in
preserving them. Homer's words run thus, when he speaks of Patro-
clus's funeral (1) :
(1) Bach. p. 594. (2) Theseo. (4) Iliad. v. 140,
(3) Eustathius, Iliad. \J/. ubi hanc rem fusius enarrat.