birthday of Eumenes was regularly kept, and every month sacrifice was offered to him and games held in his honour. In addition to persons of high rank, poets, legendary and others (Linus, Orpheus, Homer, Aeschylus and Sophocles), legislators and physicians (Lycurgus, Hippocrates), the patrons of various trades or handicrafts (artists, cooks, bakers, potters), the heads of philosophical schools (Plato, Democritus, Epicurus) received the honours of a cult. At Teos incense was offered before the statue of a flute-player during his lifetime. In some countries the honour became so general that every man after death was described as a hero in his epitaph--in Thessaly even slaves. The cult of the heroes exhibits points of resemblance with that of the chthonian divinities and of the dead, but differs from that of the ordinary gods, a further indication that they were not "depotentiated" gods. Thus, sacrifice was offered to them at night or in the evening; not on a high, but on a low altar ([Greek: eschara]), surrounded by a trench to receive the blood of the victim, which was supposed to make its way through the ground to the occupant of the grave; the victims were black male animals, whose heads were turned downwards, not upwards; their blood was allowed to trickle on the ground to appease the departed ([Greek: haimakouria]); the body was entirely consumed by fire and no mortal was allowed to eat of it; the technical expression for the sacrifice was not [Greek: thuein] but [Greek: enagizein] (less commonly [Greek: entemnein]). The chthonian aspect of the hero is further shown by his attribute the snake, and in many cases he appears under that form himself. On special occasions a sacrificial meal of cooked food was set out for the heroes, of which they were solemnly invited to partake. The fullest description of such a festival is the account given by Plutarch (_Aristides_, 21) of the festival celebrated by the Plataeans in honour of their countrymen who had fallen at the battle of Plataea. On the 16th of the month Maimacterion, a long procession, headed by a trumpeter playing a warlike air, set out for the graves; wagons decked with myrtle and garlands of flowers followed, young men (who must be of free birth) carried jars of wine, milk, oil and perfumes; next came the black bull destined for the sacrifice, the rear being brought up by the archon, who wore the purple robe of the general, a naked sword in one hand, in the other an urn. When he came near the tombs, he drew some water with which he washed the gravestones, afterwards anointing them with perfume; he then sacrificed the bull on the altar calling upon Zeus Chthonios and Hermes Psychopompos, and inviting them in company with the heroes to the festival of blood. Finally, he poured a libation of wine with the words: "I drink to those who died for the freedom of the Hellenes."