What half occurs to Eustathius and would strike any intelligent modern observer acquainted with ancient ritual is that the purification of the house of Odysseus is as it were scientific; there is none of the apparatus of magical ‘riddance.’ Dimly and darkly he puts a hesitating finger on the cardinal difference between the religion of Homer and that of later (and earlier) Greece, that Homer is innocent, save for an occasional labelled magician, of magic. The Archbishop seems to feel this as something of a defect, a shortcoming. He goes on: ‘It must be understood that purifications were effected not only as has just been described, by means of sulphur, but there are also certain plants that were useful for this purpose; at least according to Pausanias there is verbena, a plant in use for purification, and the pig was sometimes employed for such purposes, as appears in the _Iliad_.’ This mention of means of purification in general brings irresistibly to the mind of Eustathius a salient instance, the very fleece we are discussing. He continues: ‘Those who interpret the word διοπομπεῖν say that they applied the term δῖον to the fleece of the animal that had been sacrificed to Zeus Meilichios in purifications at the end of the month of Maimakterion[47] when they performed the Sendings and when the castings out of pollutions at the triple ways took place: and they held in their hands a sender which was they say the kerukeion, the attribute of Hermes, and from a sender of this sort, _pompos_, and from the δῖον, the fleece called “Dian,” they get the word διοπομπεῖν, divine sending.’ From this crude and tentative etymological guessing two important points emerge. Eustathius does not speak of the ‘fleece of Zeus,’ but of the _Dian_ or perhaps we may translate _divine_ fleece. δῖος is with him an adjective to be declined, not the genitive of Ζεύς. This loosens somewhat the connection of the fleece with Zeus, as the adjective δῖος could be used of anything divine or even magical in its wonder and perfection. Further, and this is of supreme importance, he connects the Dian fleece with the difficult word διοπομπεῖν, and in this lies the clue to its real interpretation. ‘That this,’ he goes on—meaning his derivation of διοπομπεῖν from πομπός the kerukeion of Hermes and δῖον the divine fleece—‘is so we find from special investigation, but in more general parlance by διοπομπεῖν and ἀποδιοπομπεῖν is meant the sending away of unclean things in the name of Zeus Averter of Evil.’ Eustathius evidently gets nervous; his ‘special investigation’ is leading him uncomfortably near the real truth, uncomfortably far from the orthodox Zeus, so he pulls himself up instinctively.