[1\5: This dual efficacy of the ~chtho/nioi~ is explained naturally enough by their nature as underground spirits. There is no reason for supposing that their influence on the fertility of the fields was a later addition (as Preller does, _Dem. u. Perseph._ 188 ff., followed by many). Still less have we any grounds for regarding the protection of souls and the care for the fertility of crops as a sort of allegorizing parallel (soul = grain of seed) as has been usual since the time of K. O. Müller.] [2\5: ~Zeu\s katachtho/nios~, ~I~ 457. ~theou= chthoni/ou . . . iphthi/mou Aï/deô~, Hes. _Th._ 767 f. Evidently there is no distinction here between ~katachtho/nios~ and ~chtho/nios~, as Preller, _Dem. u. Pers._ 187, wishes to make out.] [3\5: Hes. _Op._ 465, ~eu/chesthai de\ Dii\ chthoni/ô| Dêmê/teri/ th' hagnê=| ktl.~ It is impossible even by far-fetched methods of interpretation (such as Lehrs makes use of, _Popul. Aufs._^2 298 f.) to make this ~Zeu\s chtho/nios~ into anything else than a Zeus of the underworld. The god of the lower world, totally distinct from the Olympian Zeus (~Zeu\s _a/llos_~, Aesch., _Supp._ 231), is here a dispenser of blessings to the farmer. In the sacrificial regulation from Mykonos (_SIG._ 615) it is prescribed to offer: ~hupe\r karpô=n (kampô=n~ on the stone) ~Dii\ Chtho/ni/ô| Gê=| Chthoni/ê| DERTA me/lana etê/sia? xe/nô| ou the/mis~ (where ~derta\~ = _hostias pelle spoliatas_, see Prott, _Leg. Sacr._ i, p. 17; though the addition of the colour of the no longer visible skin seems remarkable)--~hupe\r karpô=n~ here belongs to ~Dii/~, etc., as the division-mark on the stone before ~hupe\r~ shows: see _BCH._ 1888, p. 460 f. Evidence of this sort makes it clear how unjustifiable it would be to rule out all fructifying influence from the "idea of the chthonic" and to regard the chthonic deities as simply the power of death and destruction in the world of nature and men, as is done by H. D. Müller (who is met by serious difficulty in this passage from the _Op._: _Mythol. d. griech. St._ ii, 40). It is, indeed, scarcely necessary to seek for an abstractly formulated "idea of the chthonic"; but if this fructifying and life-giving force does belong to the nature of the ~chtho/nioi~ as such, what becomes of H. D. Müller's ingeniously thought-out and violently defended view according to which the chthonic only constitutes one side of the nature of certain deities who have in addition a different, Olympian, side in which they are positively creative and beneficent?] [4\5: ~Zeu\s chtho/nios~ at Corinth, Paus. 2, 2, 8; at Olympia, 5, 14, 8.]