Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

192 The Dithyramb, Spring-Festival, etc. [ch.
When the Delians, fearing the Persian onset, fled to Tenos,
Datis, the Persian general, would not so much as anchor off the
holy island, but sent a herald to bid the Delians return and fear
nothing, for ' in the island where were born the two gods no harm
should be done 1 .' The Persians saw in Artemis and Apollo, though
the Greeks had in part forgotten it, the ancient divinities they
themselves worshipped, the Moon and the Sun 2 .
That the moon was worshipped in Crete in her triple phases
is at least probable. Minos, Apollodorus 3 tells us, sacrificed in
Paros to the Charites, and the Charites are in function indis-
tinguishable from the Horae. Like the Horae they are at first
Fig. 47.
two, then three 4 . In Athens two Charites were worshipped
under the names Auxo (Increaser) and Hegemone (Leader), and
these were invoked, Pausanias says, together with the Horae of
Athens, Thallo (Sprouting) and Karpo (Fruit), and the Dew-
Goddess, Pandrosos. Among many primitive peoples the waxing
and waning of the moon is supposed to bring increase and decrease
to all living things. Only the lawless onion sprouts in the wane
and withers in the waxing of the moon 5 .
1 Herod, vi. 97. 2 Herod, i. 131. 3 3. 15. 7.
4 For the whole question of the double and triple Charites at Athens and elsewhere,
and for their connection with the Horae, see my Myth, and Jlon. of Ancient
Athens, 1890, p. 382, and my Prolegomena, p. 286, The Maiden Trinities. I did not
then see that the triple form had any relation to the Moon.
5 Aulus Gellius, xx. 8. See Frazer, Adonis Attis Osiris-, 1907, p. 362.