* The Pontic oath by Men Pharnakes (Strabo, p. 557) is later (cf. p. 128) ; but see Roscher, Selene, p. 122.
t On the shrine see § V (3); on the sacred cave, § IV (2).
t See Perrot, Histowre del?Art dans lAntiquité, iv. pp. 642,
647; Chantre, Voyage en Cappadoce, gives the latest account. § Hellenized as Zeus Labraundos,
RELIGION OF GREECE
the Kouretes in Carian mythology was Labrandos.*
ut, even more unmistakably than the sword, the axXe€ Was a symbol of a Divine power felt as lying behind it and expressing itself through it, and not 48 & power or a terror in itself. The god carrying the battle-axe on his shoulder ig one of the most familiar and widely diffused symbols in east Lydian and west Phrygian coinage. +
We notice that the worship of the axe belongs to the Carians, a people who beyond doubt were an lmmigrant race; and we shall see among them Some examples of divergence from the Anatolian type of religion (see § VI (2)). The worship of the axe must be regarded as also a divergence from that type; and, in accordance with the principle stated at the beginning of the article, this diver- gence is to be attributed to the character of the Carian race. In the same way the worship of the sword, though traceable in the religion of the central plateau in the earliest period known to us, is probably a development out of the original Anatolian type due to pressure from the east and north-east. ‘The east Anatolian type of cultus is of a much more bellicose type than the central Anatolian (see § IX (2)), and the reason indubit- ably lies in the rough and warlike character of the tribes on that side, such as the Kardouchoi, modern Kurds, ete.
(4) Wooden posts.—A rude wooden post was Sometimes worshipped in a way similar to the wore common sacred stone. The Divinity at Samos was originally symbolized by a wooden plank; and in the more anthropomorphic develop- ment, when the Divinity had come to be thought of as the goddess Hera, this plank was called the earliest statue of her. Many other similar stumps of wood experienced the same development in an- thropomorphic thought.
In origin some, and probably most, of those sacred stumps or planks were holy trees, decayed and dead ;+ and they strictly fall under §II. But in other cases the original was a wooden pillar or column, the support of a chamber or house, and falls under the class described above, § I (1); this was clearly the case with the Dionysos Kadmos at Thebes, described by Pausanias, ix. 12. 4 (which de Visser, p. 88, has aptly illustrated from Diod. Sic. I. xxiii. 4).
II. SACRED TREES.—The worship of sacred trees is one of the most widely spread religious phe- homena in the early Greek world. The ancient Homeric hymn to the Aphrodite of the Troad (264-272) mentions that the life of the mountain nymphs, who shall nurse the goddess’s son, is associated with the life of the sacred trees, which man may not cut down; and that, when a tree withers and dies, the nymph dies with it. The oaks of Dodona were Divine, and the sound of the motion of their branches was the voice of the god declaring his will and revealing the future to men. The bay tree of Apollo, the olive of Athena, and many others, had doubtless the same origin. In later time the popular legend often attached itself to such trees, that they had been planted by some hero or Divine figure (so with two oaks at Heraclea in Pontus), or in some other fashion they were in- volved in his life-history (a frequent form being that the god or hero or heroine had been sus. pended from the tree).§
The worship of the tree was conducted on pre-
* The Carian local names Laryma and Léryma (both bishop- rics)may be connected (through an intermediate form Lavryma); also Lobrine, a title of Cybele at Cyzicus. :
t See list in Head’s Catalogue of Coins Br. Mus. : Lydia, p. Be este oleg in great number are alluded to by Maximus Tyrius, Vili. 1 (de Visser, p. 88).
§ The oaks at Heraclea, Plin. HN, xvi. 89. On the whole subject Boetticher, Baumkultus, is fundamental; but Mann- hardt and many other writers must be consulted.
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cisely the same plan as that of the image in later times. It was clothed, crowned, adorned SEDTOs cessions were made to it, sacrifices were burnt to it, and meat-ofterings laid before it. People prayed to it and kissed it (Ov. Met. vii. 631). It was impious to go beneath it without the proper rites (Ov. Fast. iv. 749). It was wrong to pass it without some token of respect (Apul. Flor. 1), The fall of a holy tree was a very bad omen ; and in Rome on such an occasion an exauguratio was performed, as there had originally been an in- auguratio (Plin. HN xv. 20).
Dedication of the hair has always been the greatest sign of devotion to any deity ; boys dedi- cated their hair on entering manhood, brides before matriage, married women at the birth of a child ; and in Delos it was customary for boys and bridal couples to dedicate their hair under the olive tree that grew on the grave of Hyperoche and Laodice.