Of two other elements in the Thesmophoria we have brief notice from the lexicographers. Hesychius[326] says of the word δίωγμα (pursuit), ‘a sacrifice at Athens, performed in secret by the women at the Thesmophoria. The same was later called ἀποδίωγμα.’ From Suidas[327] we learn that it was also called Χαλκιδικὸν δίωγμα, the ‘Chalcidian pursuit,’ and Suidas of course gives a historical explanation. Only one thing is clear, that the ceremony must have belonged to the general class of ‘pursuit’ rituals which have already been discussed in relation to the Thargelia. The remaining ceremony is known to us only from Hesychius[328]. He says, ‘ζημία (penalty), a sacrifice offered on account of the things done at the Thesmophoria.’ Of the Thesmophoria as celebrated at Eretria we are told two characteristic particulars. Plutarch, in his _Greek Questions_[329], asks, ‘Why in the Thesmophoria do the Eretrian women cook their meat not by fire but by the sun, and why do they not invoke Kalligeneia?’ The solutions suggested by Plutarch for these difficulties are not happy. The use of the sun in place of fire is probably a primitive trait; in Greece to-day it is not difficult to cook a piece of meat to a palatable point on a stone by the rays of the burning midday sun, and in early days the practice was probably common enough; it might easily be retained in an archaic ritual. Kalligeneia also presents no serious difficulty, the word means ‘fair-born’ or ‘fair-birth.’ It may be conjectured that the reference was at first to the good crop produced by the rotten pigs’ flesh. With the growth of anthropomorphism the ‘good crop’ would take shape as Kore the ‘fair-born,’ daughter of earth. Of such developments more will be said when we discuss (p. 276) the general question of ‘the making of a goddess.’ A conservative people such as the Eretrians seem to have been would be slow to adopt any such anthropomorphic development. Another particular as regards the Thesmophoria generally is preserved for us by Aelian in his _History of Animals_[330]; speaking of the plant _Agnos_ (the _Agnus castus_), he says, ‘In the Thesmophoria the Attic women used to strew it on their couches and it (the _Agnos_) is accounted hostile to reptiles.’ He goes on to say that the plant was primarily used to keep off snakes, to the attacks of which the women in their temporary booths would be specially exposed. Then as it was an actual preventive of one evil it became a magical purity charm. Hence its name. The pollution of death, like marriage, was sufficient to exclude the women of the house from keeping the Thesmophoria. Athenaeus[331] tells us that Democritus of Abdera, wearied of his extreme old age, was minded to put an end to himself by refusing all food; but the women of his house implored him to live on till the Thesmophoria was over in order that they might be able to keep the festival; so he obligingly kept himself alive on a pot of honey.