The explanation of the strange word ἀποδιοπομπεῖν, to which Eustathius at the close of his remarks piously reverts, is still accredited by modern lexicons. ἀποδιοπομπεῖσθαι—the middle form is the most usual—means, we are told, ‘to avert threatened evils by offerings to Zeus[48].’ Are scholars really prepared to believe that ἀποδιοπομπεῖσθαι means, to put it shortly, ‘to Zeus things away’? The lexicons after this desperate etymology proceed ‘hence, to conjure away, to reject with abhorrence,’ and finally, under a heading apart, ‘ἀποδιοπομπεῖσθαι οἶκον to purify a house.’ Surely from beginning to end the meaning inherent in the word is simply ‘to rid of pollution’; ἀποδιοπομπεῖσθαι is substantially the same as ἀποπέμπειν, to send away, to get rid of, but—and this is the important part—the element διο emphasizes the means and method of the ‘sending.’ The quantity of the ι in ἀποδιοπομπεῖσθαι we have no means of knowing, the ι in Diasia the feast of Zeus Meilichios is long, the ι in the δῖον κώδιον used in his service is long, the δῖον κώδιον is used in ritual concerned with διοπομπούμενα, its purpose is ἀποδιοπομπεῖσθαι. Is it too bold to see in the mysterious διο the same root as has been seen in Diasia and to understand ἀποδιοπομπεῖσθαι as ‘to effect riddance by magical imprecation or deprecation’? The word _dirus_ is charged with magic, and this lives on in the Greek word δῖος which is more magical than divine. It has that doubleness, for cursing and for blessing, that haunts all inchoate religious terms. The fleece is not divine in our sense, not definitely either for blessing or for cursing; it is taboo, it is ‘medicine,’ it is magical. As magical medicine it had power to purify, i.e. in the ancient sense, not to cleanse physically or purge morally, but to rid of evil influences, of ghostly infection. Magical fleeces were of use in ceremonies apparently the most diverse, but at the bottom of each usage lies the same thought, that the skin of the victim has magical efficacy as medicine against impurities. Dicaearchus[49] tells us that at the rising of the dog-star, when the heat was greatest, young men in the flower of their age and of the noblest families went to a cave called the sanctuary of Zeus Aktaios, and also (very significantly it would seem) called the Cheironion; they were girded about with fresh fleeces of triple wool. Dicaearchus says that this was because it was so cold on the mountain; but if so, why must the fleeces be fresh? Zeus Aktaios, it is abundantly clear, has taken over the cave of the old Centaur Cheiron; the magic fleeces, newly slain because all ‘medicine’ must be fresh, belong to his order as they belonged to the order of Meilichios.