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Perhaps there is a confusion between the famous Orestes and an Arcadian hero Oresthes (cf. ix. 11. 2 n. Ὀρέσθειον). Pausanias (viii. 5. 3) makes the former migrate from Mycenae to Tegea, but this is probably a late invention. The discovery of supposed relics is no doubt a fact; we may compare the legend as to Alexander's body (Ael. V. H. xii. 64), and the removal of the bones of Theseus to Athens (circ. 470 B.C.; Plut. Cim. 8). The present translation is the consecration of the Lacedaemonian hegemony in Peloponnese, as the later one is that of Athenian hegemony in the Aegean. For the work of Delphi in unifying local cults cf. Paus. viii. 9. 2 (the translation of the bones of Arcas from Maenalus). Two ideas underlie the Lacedaemonian policy: (1) They were consciously aiming at identification with Achaean traditions (cf. v. 72. 3, vii. 159). (2) The local hero's remains were the talisman that secured the land's security (cf. Soph. O. C. 1522 for their concealment, and Tylor, P. C.4 ii. 150). The discovery of gigantic fossil bones (Frazer, P. ii. 483) probably is the origin of this and similar stories; the almost mediaeval character of the tradition (cf. the translation of St. Mark's relics to Venice in the ninth century) reminds us how far removed from their predecessors and from the mass of their countrymen were the rationalist Athenians of the fifth century and later.
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