In conclusion, it may be well to call attention to certain phases of Greek religion, preserving apparently primitive elements which were forced into the background by the more highly developed cults. Prominent among these are the traces of fetishism in the numerous cases of sacred stones, which are sometimes called images of definite gods, as the pyramidal Zeus at Filth's, or the rough stones called Charites at the Boeotian Orchomenus, but are'sometimes unnamed, like the Omphalos at Delphi. The worship of trees has in most cases been transformed into the con secration of the tree to some god, as the olive to Athena, and the laurel to Apollo. (Compare Bot ticher, Baumkultus der HeHellen, 1856; Frazer, The Golden. Bough, 2d ed., London, 1900.) The numerous cases of animals sacred to a god seem also to contain reminiscences of an animal worship, of which there are, perhaps, in dications in the Mycenaean Age, but the proofs of primitive totemism in Greece are as yet very scanty. The worship of the souls of the dead, or, at any rate, their propitiation by offerings, was a large part of Greek religion, though it was less prominent than the more public rites. Greek ideas about the soul and the other world were indefinite, but it was certainly the popular belief that the soul survived the body, and either hovered about the tomb or departed to a shadowy region, where it led a melancholy existence in need of the offerings brought by surviving rela tives. It was evidently believed to have power to inflict injury, and it is also certain that proper funeral rites for the body were needed to insure its peace. In some cases the State paid divine honors to a departed soul, usually as a `Heros' (npws), as the Athenians honored Sophocles. This worship is, of course, important from the point of view of the animistic theories. It is fully discussed by E. Rohde, in Psyche (2d ed., Freiburg, 1898).
BrnucntAcuY. The number of works is enor mous, but most of those published before 1850 are antiquated, and many later works can be safely neglected. The following works treat the general subject with detail: Preller, Griechischc My. Ihologie (Leipzig, 1854; 4th ed., vol. i. by Robert, Berlin, 1887.94). The second volume, containing the Heroes, is still unpublished. This is probably
the best single work. Gerhard, Griechische My thologie (Berlin, 1854-55), still useful for the material therein collected; Weleker, Griechische Gotterlehre (Bonn, 1857-63), a work which was the culmination of a life of study covering the whole poetry and art of the Greeks, as the source for a correct understanding of their religious beliefs; Decharme, Mythologic de la Grecc an tique (2d ed., Paris, 1886), of value from its references to the treatment of mythology in art. There is no thoroughly good work in English. The lectures of Max and the works of Andrew Lang discuss some phases of Greek re ligion. The former is the coryphatis of the 'coin parative mythologists,' While the latter writes from the anthropological point of view. Gruppe, in Gricchische finite end "then, vol. i. (1887), and in his "Griechische Mythologie," in Milner, Handbuch der klassischen Alterthomsteissenschaf t (Munich, 1897, 1902), has revived the promi nence of foreign influence, and collected much in formation on the religions of the neighboring peoples. The material is collected most com pletely in Timelier, Lexikon der grierhischen end romischen 3f ythologie (Leipzig, 1884 et seq.), and the mythological articles in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyklopiidie der klassischen Alterthumswis senschaf t (Stuttgart, 1894 et seq.), are also of high merit. A narrower field is covered by such works as Niigelsbach, Homerische Theologie (2d ed., Nuremberg, 1861), and Nachhomerische Theologie (Nuremberg, 1857) ; Wide, Lakonische Kulte (Leipzig, 1893) ; and Farnell, Cults of the Greek States (London, 1896). The questions of primitive religious rites are treated by Mann hardt, Wald- and Feld-Kulte (Berlin, 1875-77), and Frazer, The Golden Bough (New York, 1890), mentioned above. Of great importance, as treat ing the subject from a new standpoint, is Usener, Gotternamen (Bonn, 1896), which is reviewed by Gildersleeve, in Amer. Jour. of Philology, xxvii. (Baltimore, 1896). The representations of the gods in art are collected in the unfinished work of Overbeck, Griechische Kunstmythologie (Leip zig, 1873-89), with a large folio atlas of plates. See GREEK FESTIVALS; MYSTERIES; and, for the treatment of a special phase of Greek religious life, ORACLES.