the meaning of 'Avenger,' which it undoubtedly possessed? This can be only a matter of opinion. But since it appears to me unscholarly and illogical to suppose that a word, which on the grounds of formation must have first meant 'one who causes pollution,' could have come to mean 'one who punishes pollution,' I may at least offer an alternative suggestion. The murdered man, I admit, can hardly be said to have 'caused' the pollution of his murderer, or at any rate he could only have caused it involuntarily. But he might well be regarded as active in debarring the murderer from the means of purification and in keeping the pollution, as it were, fresh and virulent, with intent to isolate his enemy and to ban him from the abodes of his fellow-men. And some indication of such an activity is afforded by the Erinyes—acting, as always, on Clytemnestra's behalf; they refuse to acknowledge the purification granted by Apollo to Orestes, and they say moreover that their task is to 'keep dark and fresh the stain of blood[1].' The murdered man may therefore have been believed, if not actually to cause and to create, yet at least to promote and to re-create, the pollution of his foe, and, by keeping the stains of blood as it were from fading or being cleansed away, to wreak some part of his vengeance. In this way the transition from the sense of 'polluter' to that of 'avenger' is at least, I submit, intelligible. This however is only a side-issue. The important point is that the word Miastor, however it may have come to mean 'Avenger,' was primarily applied to the revenant himself, and only secondarily to any god.
The next name to be considered, [Greek: alastôr], is commonly accounted a synonym of [Greek: miastôr], denoting in actual usage a 'god of vengeance,' and meaning literally 'one who does not forget' blood-guiltiness. I too hold it to be a synonym of Miastor, but to denote therefore primarily not a god but a human revenant seeking vengeance, and only afterwards, by a transference of usage, a god or living man acting in the name of the dead; while, as for the supposed derivation, I count it absolutely untenable.
And first as regards the application of the word; after what has been, I hope, a fairly exhaustive study of the passages of classical literature in which it occurs, I am bound to confess that,.]
- ↑ Aesch. Eum. 349, reading [Greek: mauroumen neon haima
