_Phoenician_ Goddess _Astarte_, and the
_Corybantes_ danced in armour at her sacrifices in a furious manner, like
the _Idaei Dactyli_; and _Lucian_ [186] tells us that she was the _Cretan
Rhea_, that is, _Europa_ the mother of _Minos_: and thus the _Phoenicians_
introduced the practice of Deifying dead men and women among the _Greeks_
and _Phrygians_; for I meet with no instance of Deifying dead men and women
in _Greece_, before the coming of _Cadmus_ and _Europa_ from _Zidon_.
From these originals it came into fashion among the _Greeks_, [Greek:
kterizein], _parentare_, to celebrate the funerals of dead parents with
festivals and invocations and sacrifices offered to their ghosts, and to
erect magnificent sepulchres in the form of temples, with altars and
statues, to persons of renown; and there to honour them publickly with
sacrifices and invocations: every man might do it to his ancestors; and the
cities of _Greece_ did it to all the eminent _Greeks_: as to _Europa_ the
sister, to _Alymnus_ the brother, and to _Minos_ and _Rhadamanthus_ the
nephews of _Cadmus_; to his daughter _Ino_, and her son _Melicertus_; to
_Bacchus_ the son of his daughter _Semele_, _Aristarchus_ the husband of
his daughter _Autonoe_, and _Jasius_ the brother of his wife _Harmonia_; to
_Hercules_ a _Theban_, and his mother _Alcmena_; to _Danae_ the daughter of
_Acrisius_; to _AEsculapius_ and _Polemocrates_ the son of _Machaon_, to
_Pandion_ and _Theseus_ Kings of _Athens_, _Hippolytus_ the son of
_Theseus_, _Pan_ the son of _Penelope_, _Proserpina_, _Triptolemus_,
_Celeus_, _Trophonius_, _Castor_, _Pollux_, _Helena_, _Menelaus_,
_Agamemnon_, _Amphiaraus_ and his son _Amphilochus_, _Hector_ and
_Alexandra_ the son and daughter of _Priam_, _Phoroneus_, _Orpheus_,
_Protesilaus_, _Achilles_ and his mother _Thetis_, _Ajax_, _Arcas_,
_Idomeneus_, _Meriones_, _AEacus_, _Melampus_, _Britomartis_, _Adrastus_,
_Iolaus_, and divers others. They Deified their dead in divers manners,
according to their abilities and circumstances, and the merits of the
person; some only in private families, as houshold Gods or _Dii Paenates_;
others by erecting gravestones to them in publick, to be used as altars for
annual sacrifices; others, by building also to them sepulchres in the form
of houses or temples; and some by appointing mysteries, and ceremonies, and
set sacrifices, and festivals, and initiations, and a succession of priests
for performing those institutions
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