[148] Cicero (Legg. ii, 11) states that Epimenidês directed a temple to be erected at Athens to Ὕβρις and Ἀναίδεια (Violence and Impudence): Clemens said that he had erected _altars_ to the same two goddesses (Protrepticon, p. 22): Theophrastus said that there were _altars_ at Athens (without mentioning Epimenidês) to these same (ap. Zenobium, Proverb. Cent. iv, 36). Ister spoke of a ἱερὸν Ἀναιδείας at Athens (Istri Fragm. ed. Siebelis, p. 62). I question whether this story has any other foundation than the fact stated by Pausanias, that the stones which were placed before the tribunal of areopagus, for the accuser and the accused to stand upon, were called by these names,—Ὕβρεως, that of the accused; Ἀναιδείας, that of the accuser (i, 28, 5). The confusion between stones and altars is not difficult to be understood. The other story, told by Neanthês of Kyzikus, respecting Epimenidês, that he had offered two young men as human sacrifices, was distinctly pronounced to be untrue by Polemo: and it reads completely like a romance (Athenæus, xiii, p. 602). [149] Plutarch. Præcept. Reipubl. Gerend. c. 27, p. 820. [150] Diogen. Laërt. _l. c._ [151] Plato, Legg. i, p. 642; Cicero, De Divinat. i, 18; Aristot. Rhet. iii, 17. Plato places Epimenidês ten years before the Persian invasion of Greece, whereas his real date is near upon 600 B. C.; a remarkable example of carelessness as to chronology. The religious mission of Epimenidês to Athens, and its efficacious as well as healing influence on the public mind, deserve notice as characteristics of the age in which they occurred.[152] If we transport ourselves two centuries forward, to the Peloponnesian war, when rational influences and positive habits of thought had acquired a durable hold upon the superior minds, and when practical discussions on political and judicial matters were familiar to every Athenian citizen, no such uncontrollable religious misery could well have subdued the entire public; and if it had, no living man could have drawn to himself such universal veneration as to be capable of effecting a cure. Plato,[153] admitting the real healing influence of rites and ceremonies, fully believed in Epimenidês as an inspired prophet during the past; but towards those who preferred claims to supernatural power in his own day, he was not so easy of faith. He, as well as Euripides and Theophrastus, treated with indifference, and even with contempt, the orpheotelestæ of the later times, who advertised themselves as possessing the same patent knowledge of ceremonial rites, and the same means of guiding the will of the gods, as Epimenidês had wielded before them. These orpheotelestæ unquestionably numbered a considerable tribe of believers, and speculated with great effect, as well as with profit to themselves, upon the timorous consciences of rich men:[154] but they enjoyed no respect with the general public, or with those to whose authority