292 Herodotus, viii. 41; Plutarch, _Themistocles_, 10; Aristophanes, _Lysistra_, 758 _sq._, with the Scholium; Philostratus, _Imag._ ii. 17. 6. See further my note on Pausanias, i, 18, 2 (vol. ii. pp. 168 _sqq._). 293 Sophocles, _Electra_, 893 _sqq._; Euripides, _Orestes_, 112 _sqq._ _ 294 Mittheilungen des Deutsch. Archäo log. Institutes in Athen_, iv. (1879) pl. viii. Compare _ib._ pp. 135 _sq._, 162 _sq._ 295 Above, pp. 84 _sq._ 296 E. de Pruyssenaere, _l.c._ (above, p. 83, note 1). 297 See C. O. Müller, _Denkmäler der alten Kunst_2 (Göttingen, 1854), pl. lxi. with the corresponding text in vol. i. (where the eccentric system of paging adopted renders references to it practically useless). In these groups the female figure is commonly, and perhaps correctly, interpreted as the Goddess of Health (Hygieia). It is to be remembered that Hygieia was deemed a daughter of the serpent-god Aesculapius (Pausanias i. 23. 4), and was constantly associated with him in ritual and art. See, for example, Pausanias, i. 40. 6, ii. 4. 5, ii. 11. 6, ii. 23. 4, ii. 27. 6, iii. 22. 13, v. 20. 3, v. 26. 2, vii. 23. 7, viii. 28. 1, viii. 31. 1, viii. 32. 4, viii. 47. 1. The snake-entwined goddess whose image was found in a prehistoric shrine at Gournia in Crete may have been a predecessor of the serpent-feeding Hygieia. See R. M. Burrows, _The Discoveries in Crete_ (London, 1907), pp. 137 _sq._ The snakes, which were the regular symbol of the Furies, may have been originally nothing but the emblems or rather embodiments of the dead; and the Furies themselves may, like Aesculapius, have been developed out of the reptiles, sloughing off their serpent skins through the anthropomorphic tendency of Greek thought. M67 The serpents fed at the Thesmophoria may have been deemed incarnations of the dead. Reluctance to disturb the Earth Goddess or the spirits of the earth by the operations of digging and ploughing. Hence agricultural operations are sometimes forbidden. 298 Scholia on Lucian, _Dial. Meretr._ ii. (_Scholia in Lucianum_, ed. H. Rabe, Leipsic, 1906, pp. 275 _sq._). As to the Thesmophoria, see my article, “Thesmophoria,” _Encyclopaedia Britannica_,9 xxiii. 295 _sqq._; _Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, ii. 17 _sqq._ 299 A. S. Gatschet, _The Klamath Indians of South-Western Oregon_ (Washington, 1890), p. xcii. 300 Washington Matthews, “Myths of Gestation and Parturition,” _American Anthropologist_, New Series, iv. (New York, 1902) p. 738. _ 301 Central Provinces, Ethnographic Survey_, iii. _Draft Articles on Forest Tribes_ (Allahabad, 1907), p. 23. 302 J. J. M. de Groot, _The Religious System of China_, v. (Leyden, 1907) pp. 536 _sq._ 303 W. Crooke, _Natives of Northern India_ (London, 1907), p. 232.