It is evident that when we hear of sweeping out sanctuaries and washing an image we have come to a religious stage in which there is a definite god worshipped, and that god is conceived of as anthropomorphic. There may have been rites of the Thargelia, including the Pharmakos, i.e. the ceremony of the expulsion of evil, before there were any Kallynteria or Plynteria. Be this as it may, the Kallynteria and Plynteria throw light on the purport of the pharmakos, and emphasize the fact that all the cleansing, whether of image, sanctuary or people, was but a preliminary to the bringing in of the first-fruits. This connection between first-fruits and purification explains a feature in the Plynteria that would otherwise remain obscure. In the procession that took place at the Plynteria, probably, though not quite certainly, the procession in which the image was taken down to the sea, Hesychius[295] tells us they carried a cake or mass of dried figs, which went by the name of _Hegeteria_. Hesychius is at no loss to account for the strange name. Figs were the first cultivated fruit of which man partook; the cake of figs is called Hegeteria because it ‘Led the Way’ in the matter of diet! We may perhaps be allowed to suggest a possible alternative. May not the fig-cake be connected with the root of ἅγος rather than with ἄγω? Figs were used in purification. Is not the Hegeteria the fig-cake of purification? A necklace of figs was hung about the neck of the pharmakos, and the statues of the gods had sometimes a like adornment. Primitive man is apt to get a little confused as to cause and effect. He performs a rite of purification to protect his first-fruits; he comes to think the offering of those first-fruits is in itself a rite of purification.