GREECE. statue. The presence or removal of the statue was conceived ae identical with that of the being represented, and while the statue was solemnly washed, dressed, and tended with all the re- spectful solicitude which would have been bestowed upon a real person, 1 miraculous tales were often rife respecting the manifesta- tion of real internal feeling in the wood and the marble. At perilous or critical moments, the statue was affirmed to have sweated, to have wept, to have closed its eyes, or brandished the spear in its hands, in token of sympathy or indignation. 2 Such legends, springing up usually in times of suffering and danger, and finding few men bold enough openly to contradict them, ran in complete harmony with the general mythical faith, and tended 1 See the case of the JEginetans lending the ./Eakids for a time to tho Thebans ("Ilerodot. v. 80), who soon, however, returned them : likewise send- ing the ^Eakids to the battle of Salamis (viii. 64-80). The Spartans, when they decreed that only one of their two kings should be out on military service, decreed at the same time that only one of the Tyndarids should go out with them (v. 75) : they once lent the Tyndarids as aids to the envoys of Epizephyrian Locri, who prepared for them a couch on board their ship (Diodor. Excerpt, xvi. p. 15, Dindorf_). The Thebans grant their hero Melanippus to Kleisthenes of Sikyon (V. 68). What was sent, must proba- bly have been a consecrated copy of the genuine statue. Respecting the solemnities practised towards the statues, see Plutarch, Alkibiad. 34 ; Kallimach. Hymn, ad Lavacr. Palladis, init. with the note of Spanheim ; K. 0. Mailer, Archaeologie der Kunst, 69 ; compare Plutarch, Question. Romaic. 61. p. 279; and Tacit. Mor. Germ. c. 40; Diodor. xvii. 49. The manner in which the real presence of a hero was identified with hia statue (rbv Siicaiov del &ebv O'IKOL fteveiv au^ovra rot)f idpv/j.vov. Mcnan- der, Fragm. 'Hvioxof, p. 71, Meineke), consecrated ground, and oracle, is nowhere more powerfully attested than in the Herofca of Philostratus (capp. 2-20. pp. 674-692; also De Vit Apollon. Tyan. iv. 11), respecting Protesi- laus at ElaMis, Ajax at the Aianteium, and Hector at Ilium : Protesilaus appeared exactly in the equipment of his statue, xXajtfda iv^irrat, n>e, rbv QeTToXiKov rpoTrov, uairep Kal rb uyafywz TOVTO (p. 674). The presence and sympathy of the hero Lykus is essential to the satisfaction of the Athe- nian dikasts (Aristophan. Vesp. 389-820) : the fragment of Lucilius, quoted by Lactantius, De Falsa Religione (i. 22), is curious. Toif fjpuai role /card TJ)V TTofav Kal TTJV cjpai> 16 pvfievoif (Lycurgus cont. Leocrat. c. 1 ).
- Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 12; Strabo, vi. p. 264. Theophrastus treats tha
perspiration as a natural phenomenon in the statues made of cedar-wood (Histor. Plant, v. 10). Plutarch discusses the credibility of this sort of miracles in his Life of Coriolanus, c. 37-38.
