By Plutarch’s[222] time the sprinkling of grain was regarded as something of an archaeological curiosity. He asks in his _Greek Questions_ ‘Who is he who is called among the Opuntians _krithologos_,’ i.e. the ‘barley collector’? The answer is ‘Most of the Greeks make use of barley for their very ancient sacrifices when the citizens offer first-fruits. And the man who regulates these sacrifices and gets in these first-fruits is called _krithologos_.’ He adds a curious detail illustrative of the two strata of worship, ‘and they had two priests, one to supervise divine things, one for those of things demonic.’ In like archaic fashion, when Pisthetairos[223] would inaugurate the blessed simplicity of bird-rule, he revives the ancient ritual of the sprinkling of barley-corns: ‘O better than worship of Zeus Most High Is the service of Birds that sing and fly. They ask for no carven temple’s state, They clamour not for a golden gate. The shrine they ask of a mortal’s vow Is leave to perch on an olive bough. In the little thickets of ash and oak They dwell anigh us. We humble folk Never need fare to the far-off lands Of Ammon or Delphi, but lift our hands Under our vine and our fig-tree’s shade. For a slender grace let our prayer be said, As we cast up our barley in little showers And a little grace from the Birds is ours.’ The barley grain sprinkled is part of the ritual of the Olympians, but in the case of the two survivals to be next considered, the _pelanos_ and the _nephalia_, their use was almost wholly confined to, and characteristic of, the lower stratum of worship, that of ghosts and sprites and underworld divinities. After the sacrifice of the natural fruits of the earth, the παγκαρπία, comes the most primitive form of artificial food, i.e. the _pelanos_, a sort of porridge. We speak of Bread and Wine as sacramental _elements_, but both are far removed from being elemental. Leavened bread, the Greek ἄρτος, is a product of advanced civilization, and with a true conservative ritual instinct the Roman Church prescribes to this day the use of the unleavened wafer. Athenaeus[224], citing the author of a play called the _Beggars_, tells us that when the Athenians set a meal in the Prytaneum for the Dioscuri they serve upon the tables cheese and barley-porridge (φυστήν) and chopped olives and leeks, making remembrance of their ancient mode of life. And Solon bids them supply to those who had free meals in the Prytaneum barley cake (μᾶζαν), but at feasts to place in addition loaves of bread (ἄρτον), and this in imitation of Homer. For Homer, when he brought the chiefs together to Agamemnon, says ‘they stirred up meal.’ The words ‘they stirred up meal,’ φύρετο δ’ ἄλφιτα, do not occur in our text, but the author of the _Beggars_ clearly refers to the ordinary Homeric meal, and takes us straight back to the real primitive meaning of _pelanos_. On the shield of Achilles[225] we have the picture of a harvest feast: