Those joining in the procession wore garlands of hyacinth, which seems to attribute a chthonian character to the ceremony, although it may also have been connected with agriculture (see S.
He is a god of storms; a god of light or a solar god; a chthonian god, one of the deities of the subterranean world, who could bring prosperity as well as ruin upon men, although in time his destructive qualities obscured the others.
Some regard the legend as a chthonian myth, Aea (Colchis) being the under-world in the Aeolic religious system from which Jason liberates himself and his betrothed; others, in view of certain resemblances between the story of Jason and that of Cadmus (the ploughing of the field, the sowing of the dragon's teeth, the fight with the Sparti, who are finally set fighting with one another by a stone hurled into their midst), associate both with Demeter the corn-goddess, and refer certain episodes to practices in use at country festivals, e.g.
Fougeres, Mantinee et l'Arcadie orientate (1898), according to whom Odysseus is an Arcadian chthonian divinity and Penelope a goddess of flocks and herds, akin to the Arcadian Artemis; S.
The conductor of souls was naturally a chthonian god; at Athens there was a festival.
According to Maass, he was a chthonian deity, the counterpart of Dionysus, with whom he is closely connected; J.
His chief attribute as a chthonian god was a snake, the symbol of the yearly renovation of the life of nature.
As a chthonian divinity she is accompanied by a snake; the myrtle, asphodel and narcissus (which Persephone was gathering when carried off by Hades) also are sacred to her.
The chthonian aspect of the hero is further shown by his attribute the snake, and in many cases he appears under that form himself.
Black puppies and she-lambs (black victims being offered to chthonian deities) were also sacrificed (Schol.