[240] κοινὸν here = κοινωνόν, cp. Soph. Aj. 267 “ἦ κοινὸς ἐν κοινοῖσι λυπεῖσθαι ξυνών.” Plat. Laws 868e (the slayer) ξυνέστιος αὐτοῖς μηδέποτε γιγνέσθω μηδὲ κοινωνὸς ἱερῶν. χέρνιβος (partitive gen.) is more suitable than χέρνιβας to the idea of exclusion from all fellowship in ordinary worship: χέρνιβας νέμειν would rather suggest a special κάθαρσις of the homicide. When sacrifice was offered by the members of a household(κοινωνὸν εἷναι χερνίβων ... κτησίου βωμοῦ πέλας Aesch. Ag. 1037) or of a clan(“χέρνιψ φρατέρων” Aesch. Eum. 656), a brand taken from the altar was dipped in water, and with the water thus consecrated(χέρνιψ) the company and the altar were sprinkled: then holy silence was enjoined(εὐφημία ἔστω): and the rite began by the strewing of barley meal(οὐλοχύται) on altar and victim. (Athen. 409: Eur. Her. 922 ff.) Acc. to Dem. 20.158 a law of Draco prescribed χέρνιβος [so the best MSS.: v. l. χερνίβων] εἴργεσθαι τὸν ἀνδροφόνον, σπονδῶν, κρατήρων, ἱερῶν, ἀγορᾶς. This was a sentence of excommunication (1) from the life of the family and the clan, (2) from the worship common to all Hellenes, who, as opposed to βάρβαροι, are (Aristoph. Lys. 1129) οἳ μιᾶς ἐκ χέρνιβος ι βωμοὺς περιρραίνοντες, ὥσπερ ξυγγενεῖς, ι Ὀλυμπίασιν, ἐν Πύλαις, Πυθοῖ. The mere presence of the guilty could render sacrifice inauspicious: Antiph. 5.82 “ἱεροῖς παραστάντες πολλοὶ δὴ καταφανεῖς ἐγένοντο οὐχ ὅσιοι ὄντες καὶ διακωλύοντες τὰ ἱερὰ μὴ γίγνεσθαι” (bene succedere) τὰ νομιζόμενα.
This text is part of:
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.