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Orcomenos' ghost

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

The persecution that Lykas inflicted to Temesa was justified by the fact that, as there he had been stoned, he had decided that all this town’s inhabitants had to pay the consequences. More difficult is to understand why the Orcomeno’s ghost was so implacable against this city and why, throwing a big rock against different parts of its area and provoking everywhere considerable damages, he was persecuting the poor inhabitants. Orcomeno’s citizens didn’t know what they had to do to save themselves. Sacrifices, prayers and all the normal measures that were usually employed in this kind of occurrences had revealed to be useless. In the end, as it was predictable, they determined to send a delegation to the oracle of Delphi: The Pytia, when she was asked, replied that, if they wanted to stop the ghost’s persecutions, they had to find Atteon’s bones and, once that they had found them, they had to give them an honorable burial. Then, once that this had been done, they had to make a figure in the phantom’s shape and fix him with iron fetters to the famous rock he used to throw around. The citizens of Orcomeno executed the orders that, through the Pytia, Apollon had sent them, and the persecution ceased. Pausania who was an untiring traveller and that in his times had passed through Orcomeno, assured to have seen the bronze figure still solidly anchored to the rock, and related that each year the inhabitants of the area commemorated Atteon with solemn funereal honors,

BIBLIOGRAPHY
C.WESSELY 21 (Leipzig 1921)) ne parla in “Die Heroen und Selen” nel periodo dal III al V sec. d.C.
PAUSANIA (Descriptionis Greciae, 1. 6; Boeotica, 38. 5 . Pausania, viaggiatore instancabile che ai suoi tempi era passato per Orcomeno, assicurava di aver visto l'immagine di bronzo solidamente ancorata alla rupe