hat fell at Marathon.[697]

+374+. The cults just mentioned dealt with the departed as friendly
souls, the protectors of the family, the clan, or the state. The state
cult of the dead was elaborate and solemn. The Greek citizen was
surrounded by a host of the eminent dead who kept him in touch with the
past and offered him ideals of life.[698] Another attitude toward the
dead is indicated by the great apotropaic spring festival, the
Anthesteria of Athens, the object of which was to rid the city of the
ghosts that then wandered about.[699] This double attitude is precisely
that of the savage tribes referred to above. The same difference of
feeling appears in the Roman cults: the _manes_ are the friendly or
doubtful souls of dead ancestors; the Parentalia is a festival in honor
of the dead kin; in the Lemuria, on the other hand, the father of the
family performs a ceremony at midnight intended to rid the house of
ghosts.[700]

+375+. Among modern peoples it is the Chinese that have organized the
worship of the dead in the completest way; it is for them the most
important part of the popular religion.[701] Similar veneration of
ancestors exists in Japan.[702]

+376+. The venerated dead stood apart, as a rule, from the
nature-spirits and the gods, but these different classes sometimes
coalesced, as has been remarked above, in popular usage. The powers and
functions of the dead were not essentially different from those of the
divinities proper, particularly in the simpler stages of society. They
were able to bestow all the blessings and to inflict all the misfortunes
of life. In process of time the advance of knowledge relegated them to a
subordinate place, but they long retained a considerable importance as
friends of families and states, as disseminators of disease, and as
predictors of human fortunes.

+377+. In the exercise of these functions they were often not to be
distinguished from the higher and lower deities. King Saul, on the eve
of a great battle, having failed to get an answer from the national
deity by the ordinary legitimate methods, had recourse to necromancy and
obtained from the ghost of Samuel the information that Yahweh had
refused to give.[703] The Greek _k[=e]res_ and the wandering ghosts of
West Africa do exactly what is ascribed to the malefic spirits of
Babylonia.[704] Examples of such identity of function between the
various superhuman Powers are found all over the world.

+378+. This fact do