Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study...

Moreover once in Euripides, for all his strict adherence to the conventional literary characterisation of Charon, a glimpse of popular thought is reflected in the person of Death (Θάνατος) and the part which he plays in the Alcestis. First, in the altercation between Apollo and Death over the fate of Alcestis, there occur the words, ‘Take her and go thy way; for I know not whether I should persuade thee’; to which Death answers, ‘Persuade me to slay those whom I must? nay, ’tis with this that I am charged’ (τοῦτο γὰρ τετάγμεθα[243]). Can it be a mere coincidence that, in modern folk-song, when some doomed man seeks to persuade Charos to grant a respite, he answers, ‘Nay, brave sir, I cannot; for I am straitly charged’? The very word ‘charged,’ προσταμμένος, the modern form of προστεταγμένος, repeats the word placed by Euripides in the mouth of Death. Secondly, Death appears in warrior-guise, just as does Charos most commonly in modern folk-songs; he is girt with a sword[244], and it is by wrestling[245] that Heracles vanquishes him and makes him yield up his prey. Is this again a mere coincidence? Or was Euripides, in his personification of Death, utilising the character popularly assigned to Charon? It looks indeed in one line as if the poet had almost forgotten that he was not using the popular name also; otherwise there is no excuse for the inelegance of making Death inflict death[246].

In the Anthology again Charon appears several times[248] acting in a more extended capacity than that of ferryman; as in modern folk-songs, he actually seizes men and carries them off to the nether world. One epigram is particularly noticeable as seeming to have been suggested by a passage of the Alcestis. ‘Is there then any way whereby Alcestis might come unto old age?’ asks Apollo; and Death answers, ‘There is none; I too must have the pleasure of my dues.’ ‘Yet,’ says Apollo, ‘thou wilt not get more than the one soul,’—be it now or later. And similarly the epigram from the Anthology, save that Death is frankly named Charon. ‘Charon ever insatiable, why hast thou snatched away Attalus needlessly in his youth? Was he not thine, an he had died old?’

Clearly, it would seem, Euripides knew a popular conception of Charon other than that which literary and artistic tradition had crystallised as the orthodox presentation, but rather than break through the conventions by bringing Charon on the stage otherwise than as ferryman, he had recourse to a purely artificial personification of death.

But the conception of Charon as lord of death can be traced yet further back than the time of Euripides. Hesychius states that the title Ἀκμονίδης[249] was shared by two gods, Charon and Uranus. Charon therefore, as son of Acmon and brother of Uranus, is earlier by two long generations of gods than Zeus himself, and belongs to the old Pelasgian order of deities. Was Charon then the god of death among the old Pelasgian population of Greece, before ever the name of Hades or Pluto had been invented or imported? Yes, if the corroboration from another Pelasgian source, the Etruscans, is to count for anything. On an Etruscan monument figures the god of death with the inscription ‘Charun’[250]; and the same person is frequently depicted on urns, sarcophagi, and vases[251]. Usually the door of the nether world is to be seen behind him; either he is issuing forth to seek his prey, or he is about to enter there with a victim who stands close beside him, his hand clasped in that of wife or friend to whom he bids farewell[252]. In appearance he is most often an old bearded man (though a more youthful type is also known) bearing an axe or mallet, and more rarely a sword as well, wherewith he pursues men and slays them[253]. In effect the Etruscan Charun closely corresponds with the modern Greek Charos in functions as well as in name. The coincidence allows of one explanation only.

The Greeks of the present day must have inherited their idea of Charos from ancestors who were closely connected with the Etruscans and to whom Charon was the god of death who came to seize men’s souls and carry them off to his realm in the nether world. These ancestors can only have been the original Pelasgian population of Greece. In classical times the primitive conception of Charon was in abeyance. Hades had assumed the reins of government in the nether world; and a literary legend, which confined Charon to the work of ferryman, had gained vogue and supplanted or rather temporarily suppressed the older conception. But this version, it appears, never gained complete mastery of the popular imagination, and to the common-folk of Greece from the Pelasgian era down to this day Charon has ever been more warrior than ferryman, and his equipment an axe or sword or bow rather than a pair of sculls. More is to be learnt of the real Charon of antiquity from modern folk-lore than from all the allusions of classical literature.