CHTHONIAN CATTLE by H. J. ROSE the Accident of a Sister University

CHTHONIAN CATTLE

BY

H. J. ROSE

The accident of a sister University needing an_external examiner brought me into contact, not long ago, with a learned Netherlander, Dr. J. H. Croon, who has made himself an authority on hot springs in the ancient Greek world and on the reactions of the Greeks to these interesting phenomena especially in early days, before they came to appreciate them as spas. Briefly, his conclusions are that they were thought of as hellmouths, and they were associated with several deities, Herakles notably, Artemis quite often, Hephaistos now and then. Asklepios of course belongs to a later period, when the springs were not so much feared as valued. As might be expected, legends connected with these springs and often historically traceable to the very spots where they exist are pretty common, and in a printed thesis, for which Amsterdam gave the author his second doctorate, he discusses a pic- turesque figure characteristic of some at least of these tales. He calls him the Herdsman of the Dead, and the most famous name in this connexion is Geryon, who of course brings us into contact with Hera- kles once more. That the hero went to seek Geryon's cattle and brought them back after various subsidiary adventures is well known. That Geryon is a figure of the underworld, in some respects parallel at least to Hades himself, is also no news to anyone who has read the ancient authors with any care, to say nothing of the many moderns who have written on the subject. For his somewhat less familiar con- nexion with hot springs I cannot do better than to quote Dr. Croon's own words, which I do with a certain envy, for I heartily wish I could express myself as well in Dutch, or in any Continental idiom, as he does in English. Now the saga of Geryoneus, as well as the various stories of Heracles' adventures on his way back with the cattle, show a remarkable tendency to be localized near hot springs. This has been observed by Gruppe.... The places mentioned by him are: Temenothyrae in Lydia, Segesta and Himera in Sicily, Patavium in N. Italy, Chaonia, and, of course, Baiae itself. We shall have 214 occasion to add Hypata in the Spercheius-valley, and perhaps Gades, the traditional dwelling-place of Geryon. So far, then, a strange and monstrous figure, herdsman of extra- ordinary cattle, who has a good deal to do with hot springs. So far also Dr. Croon is simply dealing with facts; that the legend was told in this way and the places he names were associated with it is fully proved, and the existence of the springs is a matter of geological ob- servation. It is when he starts to interpret the tale, i.e., to get back to the root idea which underlies it and gave rise to it, that I am inclined to disagree with him. He calls Geryon, Alkyoneus and a few other characters of mythology "herdsmen of the dead", and it is the quali- fying clause which is theory and therefore disputable. I quote him again 2 ) . The most obvious inference would be that the Herdsman represents the (or at least a) god of the Underworld, and the cattle the souls of the Dead. This is no new idea. Weicker refers to this theory and gives some hints, without, however, examining it more closely. But there is mpre... I have pointed to the fact that in Apollodorus' story of Heracles' descent, the cattle of Hades occur again: Heracles slaughters one of them and wrestles with Menoites. In a passage from Pindar's Olympian Odes Hades is said to drive the dead down into a hollow road (like cattle!). And on the other hand there is Hermes who is called powv. It will be clear from these examples that the god of the Underworld, when he figures as a herdsman with cattle, is not thought of as an overlord of the dead, as a possessor, but as the master of the recently deceased, who are driven from the upper into the nether world. The reference to Pindar is of course given in his notes, which J have omitted in quoting. It is O. ix, 33-5, part of that highly inter- esting passage in which Pindar's religious scruples move him to leave half-told the stories he knows of "strife and battle between the Death- less", and it runs:

It would be well if we knew a little more about Hades' The word means something less massive than a club, but of varying thickness from a pretty substantial stick to a conjuror's wand, such

1) Joh. H. CROON,The Herdsman of the Dead (diss., Utrecht, de Vroede, 1952), p. 30. 2) Ibid., p. 67 foll.