Miss Harrison seeks to explain the difficulty which is presented by this unique passage concerning the Homeric cult of the dead by maintaining that it is a fusion of _Chthonian and Olympian ritual_.[62] On the assumption which underlies the reasoning in ‘Themis,’ namely, that the Homeric poems assumed their final form and their characteristic theological setting in the time of Pisistratus,[63] it is surprising that we have not more frequent instances of such a fusion in the Homeric poems! Those poems contain many references to Chthonian deities, _e.g._ to the Erinnyes, to Ge, and to Hades. But in the _Nekuia_ there is question not of gods but of ghosts—ghosts, too, conceived in a predominantly Achaean way, as living together in a western spirit-land. Other Chthonian rites are frequently mentioned in Homer, but not the placation of ghosts. Thus, in the _Iliad_[64] Agamemnon swears a solemn oath in a manner which is essentially Chthonian. With sword in hand and a boar prepared for sacrifice, he prays (or curses) thus: ‘Be Zeus before all witness ... and Earth and Sun and the Erinnyes who under Earth take vengeance upon men who forswear themselves, that I ... and if aught that I swear be false, may the gods give me all sorrows manifold....’ ‘He spake and cut the boar’s throat with the pitiless knife: and the body Talthybius whirled and threw into the great wash of the hoary sea.’[65] The reason for the action of Talthybius in this passage is that, in Chthonian ritual the animal which was slain to symbolise the hypothetical destruction of the swearer if certain promises were not carried out, could not be eaten and hence was thrown into the sea.