in connection with the ceremonies of fertilizing the earth. We have touched slightly already upon the sacrifice in the earth crevice among the Watschandies. The flood of death has passed characteristically into the crevice of the earth; that is, back into the mother again; because from the mother the universal great death has come in the first place. The flood is simply the counterpart of the vivifying and all-producing water: [Greek: Ôkeanou~, o(/s per ge/nesis pa/ntessi te/tyktai].[1] One sacrifices the honey cake to the mother, so that she may spare one from death. Thus every year in Rome a gold sacrifice was thrown into the lacus Curtius, into the former fissure in the earth, which could only be closed through the sacrificial death of Curtius. He was the typical hero, who has journeyed into the underworld, in order to conquer the danger threatening the Roman state from the opening of the abyss. (Kaineus, Amphiaraos.) In the Amphiaraion of Oropos those healed through the temple incubation threw their gifts of gold into the sacred well, of which Pausanias says:
"If any one is healed of a sickness through a saying of the
oracle, then it is customary to throw a silver or gold coin into the
well; because here Amphiaraos has ascended as a god."
It is probable that this oropic well is also the place of
his "Katabasis" (descent into the lower world). There
were many entrances into Hades in antiquity. Thus near
Eleusis there was an abyss, through which Aidoneus
passed up and down, when he kidnapped Cora. (Dragon
- ↑ Ocean, who arose to be the producer of all.
