Thomas Keightley

1838

The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy (2e éd.)

2019

http://obvil.sorbonne-universite.fr/corpus/mythographie/keightley_mythology-of-ancient-greece-and-italy-ed-02_1838.

Sorbonne Université, LABEX OBVIL, 2019, license cc.

Thomas Keightley, The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy. By Thomas Keightley, author of “The History of Greece”, “The History of Rome”, etc., Second edition, considerably enlarged and improved [1831], London, Witthaker and Co., 1838, in-8, XVI-564 p. PDF : Internet Archive.

Ont participé à cette édition électronique : Infoscribe (saisie XML-TEI) et Anne-Laure Huet (transformation XML-TEI).

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PREFACE.

This new edition of the Mythology of Greece and Italy is properly speaking a new work. Few pages or even paragraphs remain unaltered, and nearly two-thirds of it are new matter, or have been rewritten. The causes of this change (of which I think an explanation is due) are as follows. The work was originally intended to be a mere school-book, and it was commenced on that plan ; circumstances caused it to be continued on another, and to be completed on a third ; hence the inequality in it which every one must have observed. Further, it was written at such hours as I could withdraw from other literary avocations, and with but a moderate apparatus of books ; hence the errors in facts, as I did not always recollect to verify what I had written from perhaps a bad edition of a classic author. Finally, I was only a learner when I aspired to become a teacher ; and though I had attained to correct principles, I had not acquired the habit of applying them with readiness and accuracy.

Considering these real defects, and that the work was by an author who was little known, and on a subject against which there was rather a prejudice, and that it appeared during the very height of the Reform fever, when few could think of the calm pursuit of literature, it may be said to have had more success than could have been reasonably anticipated. The praises which it has received from Mr. Thirlwall and other competent judges have naturally given me much gratification ; for as they must have been well aware of its defects, it is plain that they thought them to be more than compensated by its merits.

Of the present Edition I think I may venture to speak with [p. iv]more confidence. It is the result of my reading for the last six years, during which I have gone through the whole of the Greek and Latin classics with a view to it ; and I can assert with truth that there are very few of the references in the following pages which I have not made myself directly from the originals. It will also be found to contain the results of the inquiries of those eminent scholars whose works are so frequently referred to, my obligations to whom I at all times most cheerfully acknowledge. Should it chance to come under the eye of any of them, and should he happen to find his ideas anywhere adopted without a reference to his work, I trust he will have the candour to impute the omission to inadvertence rather than to design.

The soldier in Cervantes’ comic romance sings,

To the wars my necessities take me away,

But if I had money at home I would stay ;

so I may say of myself, it was necessity, not any idle visions of fame that led me to make literature my profession ; for had I been free to choose, I had certainly trodden the fallentis semita vitœ. Engaged however in the literary career, my first thought was how I might at the same time promote my own interest, and render some service, however trifling, to my country, that it might be said of me, Haud inutiliter vixit. It appeared to me that histories of a better kind than the compilations of Goldsmith were wanting in our schools, and I felt that I could supply the deficiency. The event has more than justified my anticipation ; and the adoption of my books at Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester, and most of the other great public schools, besides a number of private ones, immediately on their appearance, proved, I may say, their merit ; for to nothing else can it be justly ascribed. I have thus the satisfaction of thinking that I shall be instrumental in impressing correct ideas in history and politics on the minds of those who will be future legislators, or occupy other important stations in society.

The present work is of a different character ; its object is to keep up and extend the taste for classic literature, which [p. v]in my opinion tends so strongly to refine, and at the same time to invigorate the intellect, but which I sometimes fear is rather on the wane in this country. Its size and necessary price (the present containing more by a fifth than the former edition) are perhaps insuperable impediments to its general adoption in schools ; but I should hope that it will continue to be used in the Universities, and that in schools the reading of it will be recommended to, though not enjoined on, the higher classes. I think I may speak with some confidence of the correctness of the narratives : it must be of advantage to know the opinions of the leading scholars of the continent ; and as to my own, as I advance them without dogmatism, I can see them rejected without displeasure. I confess I wish to entice as many as possible into the pleasing regions of mythology, for I know from experience how delightful it is to escape at times from the dull realities of the actual world, and lose one's self in the enchanted mazes of primeval fiction.

In selecting Mythology I took possession of a field which lay totally unoccupied. This can hardly be said of any other part of classic literature, but many may be better cultivated than they have been hitherto. Thus the private life of the ancient Greeks and Romans may be more fully elucidated. That of the latter people I intend to make the subject of a future work ; the former has for many years engaged the attention of my friend Mr. St. John, whose enthusiasm for Greece far exceeds mine ; and his work, when it appears, will, I am confident, be found to contain a vast store of curious knowledge, and will prove a valuable aid to the classic student.

The reader will observe that I employ the Greek terminations us and on in mythic names instead of the Latin us and um. There is no good reason for this last usage, and I think Greek names should be so written as that they might be at once transferred to the original Greek characters. For this purpose the long e and o should be marked as they are in the Index, and if we were to use k instead of c before e and i, writing for instance Kimôn and Kephalos instead of Cimon and Cephalus, it would be all the better.

[p. vi]

The subjects of the plates are all genuine antiques, chiefly taken from the Galérie Mythologique. The errata, which I have carefully marked, are I think very few considering the bulk and nature of the work. In this praise however I claim no share ; it all belongs to the printers, to whom also belongs the praise or blame of the peculiarities in orthography or grammar.

The following digression will I hope be excused. It is on a subject — that of literary property — in which, from the nature of my works, I feel myself interested. As our silence is made an argument against us, it becomes every author to take an opportunity of expressing his sentiments on it. The following are mine.

No fallacy can be greater than that of supposing that the public have any rights in this matter unless it be the right of the stronger, according to

the simple plan,

That they should take who have the power,

And they should keep who can.

A literary work, whether the creation of genius, like Waverley, or the product of toil and patient industry, like the present, is I conceive property in the fullest sense of the word, as much so as lands or houses. To these last the public have a right, but it is only on giving the full value of them, and on the principle that private feelings and interests are not to stand in the way of the public good. But this principle does not apply in any way to literature. What, we may ask, is to be derived from Waverley and such books ? Simply amusement ; and it surely seems very absurd to say that the public has a right to be amused, to which right those of individuals must give way. It is very much as if the public were to insist on admission to theatres and exhibitions on its own terms, the principle of the O. P. riots of our younger days. No man, be it observed, will be the worse statesman, lawyer, or physician for not having read Waverley, so that the plea of public utility cannot be urged. Even in books of instruction I deny any right in the public. Supposing (a most improbable event) [p. vii]that the study of mythology should ever become general, the public would have no right to my book except on my own terms. The legitimate course, if these were exorbitant, would be to get some one to write a cheaper and better work on the subject, and thus punish cupidity while respecting the rights of property.

I am far however from expecting that full justice will be done us by the legislature. We are a small and a disunited party. It cannot be said of us

Hic multum in Fabia valet, ille Velina ;

Cui libet is fasces dabit eripietque curule

Importunus ebur.

Our enemies are numerous ; the booksellers have caused printers, book-binders, etc. to petition against us ; the newspaper press is, with a few honourable exceptions, arrayed against us ; the political œconomists, who will sacrifice anything, how sacred soever, on the altar of their idol, misnamed Utility, are opposed to us ; and the diffusion of knowledge, the march of intellect, the public good, and similar specious phrases, enable legislators to perpetrate injustice under the show of patriotism and public spirit.

I do not think that the great publishing houses can be properly classed among our opponents. They have no objection to the extension of the period of copyright provided the author be empowered to transfer all his rights to them, and that any extension of the term of those copyrights which they have purchased should go to them also, and not to the author. Theirs indeed is but too often the lion’s share, as I know by my own experience. For the Outlines of History in Lardner's Cyclopædia I received only 130l., and if I am not greatly misinformed, that sum bears little proportion to what the proprietors have already made by it, and the copyright has yet twenty years to run. I applied in vain for some small share in the gain ; it was contrary I was told to the rules of trade. Nay, when they wanted me to write another work, likely to be as popular, they said they could not afford to give more than 150l. ! I mention these facts not out of ill-will to the [p. viii]proprietors, some of whom are the publishers of most of my other works, but simply to let the world see how inadequate is the remuneration sometimes received by the authors of even the most successful works.

I would say then, as the publishers say they would not give more for a long than for a short term of copyright, let the public be the gainer ; and if an author has parted, or will part, with his copyright, let it become common property at the end of his life, or of the twenty-eight years. Otherwise the great publishers will be almost the only gainers by a change in the law ; for most authors will transfer to them all their rights if they have the power to do it.

For my own part, I view the question with tolerable indifference, as even under the present law I know how to extend my copyright. My books, thank Heaven and the liberality of the gentlemen at whose office they are printed, are my own. When the booksellers had refused the present work, they enabled me to give it to the world, and thus lay the foundation of a moderate independence ; and in that our first transaction originated a friendship which nothing I am confident will dissolve but that event which terminates all human relations. Another friend, Mr. Brooke, was equally liberal with respect to the plates ; and should mythology ever become popular by means of this work, they surely are entitled to share in the praise.

T. K.

London, Oct. 7th, 1838.

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ADDITIONS.

The following remarks and suggestions have occurred to me, in the course of study, since the publication of the present Edition of this work : I have printed them separately, with the intention of inserting them in the remaining copies.

T. K.

Binfield, Berks, Nov. 12th, 1843.

Page 136. — Neither of the derivations given of the name Artemis appears to be satisfactory. The following may seem perhaps to come nearer to the truth. Artemis is quasi Althemis or Aldemis or Ardemis, from ἄλθω῎ ΑΛ∆Ω (ἀλδαίνω), to nourish or cause to grow, or ἄρδω, to water and thence to nourish. This perfectly unforced etymology accurately accords with the moon, whose influence on vegetation and growth in general the ancients held to be so very considerable (see p. 194, note b), and which they regarded as the mother of dews (p. 61). Another name of the goddess may have been ἡ ἀλθέоυσυ, ἀλδέоυσα or ἀρδέоυσα, and θ and ϕ being commutable (as θὴρ, ϕὴρ), the name may have become ἀλϕείоνσα, etc., to which Αλϕειὸѕ (ἀλθειὸѕ the nourisher) would correspond as a masculine power, and therefore an appropriate name for a river. Altheusa it is plain might easily become Arethusa. Possibly too Εἰλείθνια (p. 194), which has the form of a perf. part., may have come from ἠλθηνîα, or some word of similar form and signification.

Page 284. — The names of the water-deities seem to be all expressive of the qualities and powers of the sea. Nereus is the Flower (from νάω) ; Tritôn the Wearer-away (from τρύω, tero) ; Amphitrite is nearly the same ; Proteus is quasi Ploteus (from πλώω), the sailor or swimmer ; Glaucos plainly denotes the colour of the sea ; Palæmôn was probably in its origin Halæmôn, and the change was made after the institution of the Isthmian games.

Page 339. — The notion of regarding the sun and the earth under a conjugal relation, by which we have explained the mythe of Niobe, [p. x*]was, we find, a favourite one with our elder poets. See Phin. Fletcher, Purple Island, c. ix. st. 1 ; Idem, Pisc. Eclogues, v. 2 ; G. Fletcher, Christ’s Victory, i. 37 ; Cowley, The Gazers ; Idem, Parting, last stanza. The original seems to have been Sidney's Arcadia, which commences thus : — «It was in the time that the earth begins to put on her new appareil against the approach of her lover, and that the sunne runing a most even course becomes an indifferent arbiter between the night and the day.» Perhaps the idea was suggested to Sidney by Psalm xix. 5. Tasso in his Rime Amorose (canz. viii. 25), has

«Rose dico e viole,

A cui madre è la Terra e padre il Sole ;»

and in his note on it he says, «È detto ad imitazione del Pontano.» In a work named ‘Tales of an Indian Camp,’ which seems to be not a work of mere fiction, the chief Tecumseh says (vol. iii. 234), «The Sun is my father and the Earth is my mother, and I repose on her bosom.» It would therefore seem that the view of nature on which we have explained the mythes of Attis and Cybele, and of Amphiôn and Niobe, is one pretty generally diffused.

Page 359. — Though we could not perhaps satisfactorily prove it, we have a strong notion that Geryoneus (from γηρύω) is only another form of Hades. They both, we may observe, had herds of oxen, and the two-headed dog of the former answers to the three-headed dog of the latter. Admetos, apparently another form of Hades (p. 122), was also famous for his herds. We find the herds of Hades (p. 360) pasturing under the care of Menœtius, near those of Geryoneus in the isle of Erithyia, and (p. 363) we meet them in the under-world under the care of the same herdsman. This looks very like two different forms of the same legend ; the hero in the one seeking the abode of Hades in the west, in the other in the under-world. The name Geryoneus might correspond in signification with κλυτὸѕ and κλύμενοѕ, epithets of Hades.

Page 394. — Butes (Βούτηѕ, i. e. βότηѕ, from BOΩ βόσκω, to feed) is the Herdsman, and is the same as Hermes. The name of his wife, we may observe (see p. 381), is Chthonia. He was probably to the Athenians what Hermes was to the Arcadians, and the two deities were united in the usual manner.

Page 511. — The following inscriptions to the Junones of women may be seen in the Capitoline and Vatican collections : — 

«Junoni Juliæ Aufidenæ Capitolinæ sacrum d.m.»

«Phœbadi et Junoni heius.»

«Junoni Dorcadis Juliæ Augustæ L. vernæ caprensis ornatricis Lycastus conlibertus rogator conjugi carissimæ sibi.»

[p. xi*]«Junoni Juniæ C. Silani F. Torquatæ sacerdoti Vestali annis lxiiii. cœlesti patronæ Actius L.»

The practice of swearing by the Juno is alluded to by Javenal ; when, lashing the unnatural effeminacy of some of the Roman nobles, he says (ii. 98), «Et per Junonem domini jurante ministro.»

The name Juno is contracted from Jovino, as prudens is from pro videns.

Page 517. — It appears to us to be quite erroneous to suppose that the Ceres, Liber and Libera of the Romans were the Demeter, Dionysos and Kora of the Greeks, by whom Dionysos does not seem to have been united with the two goddesses, as Liber was at Rome. We would propose the following hypothesis on the subject.

The temple usually called that of Ceres at Rome was in reality one of the three conjoined deities (Liv. iii. 55. Dionys. vi. 17. 44. Tac. Ann. ii. 49). It stood at the foot of the Aventine and belonged to the plebeians, to whom it seems to have been what the Capitoline temple was to the patricians. In this latter was worshiped a Triad, — Minerva, Jovis, Jovino (Juno), i. e. Wisdom, and the God and Goddess κατ՚ἐξοχὴν ; in the latter there was also adored a Triad, — Ceres, Liber, Libera. May we not then suppose, that as the priestly nobles, the patricians, adored a triad of celestial or mental deities, so the agricultural plebeians worshiped a triad of deities presiding over the fruits and products of the earth ? From the employment of the plural (ναών, ναοὺѕ) by Dionysius we may further infer that the temple at the Aventine contained three cellœ like that on the Capitoline.

Page 522. — The critics seem to be unanimous in regarding the Pater Matutinus of Horace (Serm. ii. 6, 20) as Janus ; for which they are certainly not to be blamed, the poet himself having set them the example. To us however this appears to be an error, though as we see a very ancient one. The Latin language abounds above all others in adjectival terminations (see Hist. of Rome, p. 4), many of which are perfectly equivalent. Such were those in us and inus. Libertus and Libertinus were, there is no doubt, originally the same. Valerius was Corvus or Corvinus ; Postumius was Albus or Albinus ; the cognomina Luscinus, Græcinus, Calvinus, Longinus, Lævinus, etc., were probably equivalent to Luscus, Græcus, Calvus, etc. In the latter centuries of the republic the preference seems to have been given to the termination in inus, and hence we meet with Censorinus and Marcellinus. If these observations be correct, Matutinus is the same as Matutus, and is not Janus, i. e. the Sun, but a male deity answering to Matuta, the goddess of the dawn.

[p. x]

Contents.

CHAP. X. — CHAP. XI. — CHAP. XII.Sister-goddesses. — CHAP. XIII. — CHAP. XIV.dionysos, 205. — Part II. — THE HEROES. — MYTHOLOGY OF ITALY. — DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES. — References.

CHAP. X.

Pallas-Athene and Hermes.

Pallas-Athene, 153. Hermes, 159.

CHAP. XI.

Demeter and Persephone, 170.

CHAP. XII.

Sister-goddesses.

Muses, 185. Seasons or Hours, 190. Graces, 192. Eileithyiæ, 193. Fates, 194. Keres, 195. Furies, 196.

CHAP. XIII.

Themis, Iris, etc.

Themis, 198. Iris, 198. Pæeôn, 200. Sleep and Death, 200. Momos, 201. Nemesis, 202. Fortune, 202. Personifications, 203.

CHAP. XIV.

dionysos, 205.

CHAP. XV. — CHAP. XVI. — CHAP. XVII. — CHAP. XVIII. — CHAP. XIX.

CHAP. XV.

foreign deities.

Cybele, 223. Cotys and Bendis, 225. Artemis of Ephesus, 226. Isis, 226.

CHAP. XVI.

rural deities.

Pan, 229. Satyrs, 233. Silenos, 234. Priapos, 235. Nymphs, 237.

CHAP. XVII.

water deities.

Oceanides, 244. Nereus, 244. Nereïdes, 245. Phorcys, 245. Tritôn, 245. Proteus, 246. Glaucos, 248. Leucothea and Palæmôn, 249. River-gods, 250.

CHAP. XVIII.

deities of the isles and coast of ocean.

Hesperides, 251. Grææ, 252. Gorgons, 252. Harpies, 254. Winds, 255.

CHAP. XIX.

inhabitants of the isles and coasts of the west-sea.

Lotus-eaters, 259. Cyclopes, 259. Giants, 262. Æolos, 263. Læstrygonians, 264. Circe, 266. Sirens, 269. Scylla and Charybdis, 271. Phaëthusa and Lampetia, 273. Calypso, 274. Phæacians, 275. Ortygia and Syria, 278.

[p. xi]

Part II. — THE HEROES.

CHAP. I.

Introduction.

Origin and First State of Man, 281. Ages of the World, 282. Iapetos, Atlas, Menœtios, Prometheus and Epimetheus, 286. Pandora, 292. Deucaliôn and Pyrrha, 297. Early Inhabitants of Greece, 300.

CHAP. II.

mythes of thessaly.

Admetos and Alcestis, 306. Iasôn and Medeia, 307. Peleus and Achilleus, 312. Ixiôn, 314. Centaurs and Lapiths, 316. Ceÿx and Halcyone, 319.

CHAP. III.

mythes of ætolia.

Œneus, 320. Meleagros, 321.

CHAP. IV.

mythes of bœotia.

Cadmos, 325. Semele, 329. Autonoe, Aristæos, and Actæôn, 329. Ino and Athamas, 332. Agaue and Pentheus, 335. Zethos and Amphiôn, 335. Laïos, 340. Œdipûs and Iocasta, 341. Teiresias, 343. Minyans and Phlegyans, 345. Trophonios and Agamedes, 347. Otos and Ephialtes, 349. Heracles, 350.

CHAP. V.

mythes of attica.

Cecrops, 375. Cranaos, 378. Erichthonios, 378. Pandiôn, 379. Procne, Philomela, and Tereus, 379. Erechtheus, 381. Procris and Cephalos, 381. Oreithyia, 383. Creüsa, Zuthos and Iôn, 384. Pandiôn II., 385. Nisos and Scylla, 385. Ægeus, 385. Theseus, 387. Dædalos and Icaros, 398.

CHAP. VI.

mythes of corinth.

Sisyphos, 399. Bellerophontes, 401.

CHAP. VII.

mythes of argolis.

Inachos and Phoroneus, 405. Argos, 406. Io, 406. Danaos and Ægyptos, 409. Prœtos and the Prœtides, 412. Acrisios, Danae, and Perseus, 414. Amphitryôn and Alcmena, 420. Asclepios, 422.

CHAP. VIII.

mythes of arcadia.

Lycaôn, 424. Callisto and Arcas, 425. Atalanta, 427.

CHAP. IX.

mythes of laconia.

Tyndareos and Leda, 429. Helena, 429. Polydeukes and Castôr, 430.

[p. xii]

CHAP. X.

mythes of elis.

Salmoneus, 434. Tyro, 434. Neleus and Periclymenos, 435. Melampûs and Bias, 436. Iamos, 438. Endymiôn, 439. Cteatos and Eurytos, 441. Tantalos, 442. Pelops, 443. Atreus and Thyestes, 447.

CHAP. XI.

mythes of achaia.

Melanippos and Comætho, 451. Coresos and Callirrhoe, 452. Selemnos and Argyra, 453.

CHAP. XII.

mythes of the isles.

Europa, 454. Minôs, Rhadamanthys, and Sarpedôn, 455. Ariadne and Phædra, 457. Glaucos, 458. Æacos and Telamôn, 460. Oriôn, 461. Pleiades and Hyades, 464.

CHAP. XIII.

mythic wars and expeditions.

The Argonautic Expedition, 468. The Theban Wars, 477. The Trojan War, 483. The Returns, 491.

MYTHOLOGY OF ITALY.

CHAP. I. — CHAP. II. — CHAP. III.

CHAP. I.

introduction.

Early State of Italy and Rome, 501. The Etruscan Religion, 503. The Latin Religion, 505. The Sabellian Religion, 506.

CHAP. II.

the select gods.

Jovis, Juppiter, Jupiter, 509. Juno, 511. Minerva, 512. Vesta, 513. Ceres, 514. Venus, 515. Liber, 517. Neptunus, 518. Mercurius, 518. Vulcanus or Mulciber, 518. Apollo, 519. Mamers, Mavors, Mars, 519. Diana, 520. Janus, 521. Saturnus, 523. Ops, Tellus, 524. Genius, 525. Orcus, Ditis or Dis, 527. Sol and Luna, 527.

CHAP. III.

the remaining italian deities.

Quirinus, 528. Bellona, 528. Libitina, 528. Consus, 529. Laverna, Sancus, 530. Summanus, Vejovis, Soranus, 530. Camenæ, Egeria, Carmenta, 532. Matuta, Aurora, 533. Fortuna, 533. Bonus Eventus, 533. Vertumnus, 534. Anna Perenna, 534. Terminus, 535. Silvanus, 536. Faunus, Lupercus, Inuus, 537. Picus, 538. Pales, 538. Pomona, 539. Flora, 539. Feronia, 540. Falacer, Furina, 540. Vacuna, Marica, 541. Portunus or Portumnus, 542. Salacia and Venilia, 542. Juturna, 542. Penates, 543. Lars, 543.

Appendix, 547.

Index, 557.

[n.p.]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES.

Plate I.

1. Zeus conquering the Giants. Cameo, engraved by Atheniôn. G. M. 33. Bracci, Intagliator, i. 30. — 2. Dodonean Zeus. Gold Medal of Alexander I. king of Epirus. G. M. 35. Seguin, Select. Num. 68. — 3. The Olympian Zeus. G. M. 34. Mus. Florent. I. lxvi. 1. — 4. Zeus Ægiochos ; the œgis on’his shoulder, and crowned with oak. Cameo in the Bibliothèque Impériale. G. M. 36. — 5. Jupiter Capitolinus holding a sceptre and a patera, a crown lying in his lap. G. M. 44. Passeri, Lucern. i. 28.

Plate II.

1. Helios, as it would seem (Millin says Saturnus), in a four-horse chariot. L. Saturn. (L. Saturninus) is the name of the monetary triumvir. Coin of the Sentian family. G. M. 4. — 2. Kronos with the harpe in his hand. G. M. 1. Winkelman, Pierres Gravées de Stosch, p. 24. No. 5. — 3. Hestia (Vesta). Round Altar in the Mus. Capitol. and Bas-relief in the Villa Albani. G. M. 31. — 4. Eôs in a chariot, preceded by Eosphoros. Painting on a Vase. G. M. 93.

Plate III.

1. Hera of Samos, her head veiled and bearing the modius, between two peacocks. Coin of the Samians. G. M. 49. Decamps, Select. Num. 83. — 2. The triple Hecate ; one with the crescent on her head, and holding two torches ; the second wearing a Phrygian cap, and holding a knife and a serpent ; the third crowned with laurel, and holding cords and keys. G. M. 123. Lachausse, Mus. Rom. ii. 22. — 3. Poseidôn holding a dolphin and a trident. Sculpture on the foot of a Candelabrum. G. M. 297. Mus. Pio Clementino, iv. 32. — 4. Ares. Round Altar. G. M. 28. (See Plate ii. 3.) — 5. Hermes, accompanied by Spring, demanding Persephone from Hades. Bas-relief in the Palace Rospigliosi. G. M. 341. Hirt. Bilderb. ix. 6.

Plate IV.

1. Artemis. Statue. G. M. 115. — 2. Apollo Nomios. Statue in the Villa Ludovisi. G. M. 67. Hirt. Bilderb. iv. 6. — 3. Apollo Pythios. G. M. 53. Mus. Pio Clem. i. 14. — 4. Apollo Citharœdos. G. M. Statue. 61. Mus. Pio Clem. i. 16.

[n.p.]

Plate V.

1. Aphrodite at the bath ; beside her, the Alabastrites or perfume-vessel : she holds a cloth in her hand. Coin of the Cnidians of the time of Caracalla, taken from the Aphrodite of Praxiteles. G. M. 179. Lachau, Sur les Attributs de Vénus, p. 71. — 2. Psyche in terror of Venus. Statue in the Villa Pinciana. G. M. 196. — 3. Erôs. Intaglio. G. M. 191. Millin, Monum. Antiq. ined. ii. 1. — 4. Ares and Aphrodite. Groupe. G. M. 169. Mus. Cap. iii. 20. — 5. Adonis dying in the Arms of Aphrodite. Ancient Painting copied by Mengs. G. M. 170.

Plate VI.

1. Demeter and Triptolemos in a chariot drawn by dragons ; he has in his chlamys the seed which he is to scatter abroad ; the goddess holds the roll of the laws of agriculture. Cameo. G. M. 220. Acad. de Belles Lettres, i. 276. — 2. Athena Polias feeding the serpent which reared Erichthonios. On a Candelabrum. G. M. 134. Mus. Pio Clem. iv. 6. — 3. Hermes. Intaglio by Dioscorrhides. G. M. 206. Bracci, Memor. ii. 65. — 4. Peace-bringing Athena extinguishing the torch of war. G. M. 137. Paciaudi, Mon. Petopon, i. 35. — 5. Demeter Thesmophoros showing Dionysos the roll with the rites of the mysteries ; a priestess at the window. G. M. 276. Tïschbein, Vases Grecs, iv. 36¹.

Plate VII.

Persephone and Spring come to Zeus : Hermes explains to him why the goddess is to spend but a part of the year in the upper-world. Below, Triptolemos is in the winged chariot, holding a sceptre and ears of corn : Demeter is handing him some more : a person, supposed to be Hecate, is behind the goddess, and another is feeding the serpents. Painting on a Vase belonging to Prince Stanislaus Poniatowski. G. M. 219.

Plate VIII.

1. Birth of Dionysos : Earth rising, confides the babe to two nymphs of Nysa. Bas-relief in the Villa Albani, Musée des Antiques, iii. 34. — 2. Dionysos, Ariadne, and Heracles on a couch beneath a vine. Dionysos in the centre, holding a drinking-horn (ῤυτὸν) in one hand, a cup in the other : Ariadne with a thyrse in one hand, a cantharus in the other ; a Genius hovers over her ; a female stands behind [p. xv]her. Heracles has his lion-skin and club ; a female with a thyrse stands beside him. Painting on a Vase. G. M. 246. — 3. Dionysos and Demeter in a chariot drawn by Centaurs and Centauresses : he holds a dioton and a thyrse ; she, poppies : the Centaurs carry rhyta and thyrses : one Centauress plays on the double flute, the other on the tambourin. Cameo, G. M. 275. Buonarroti, Med. Ant. 427.

Plate IX.

1. Cybele. Medal of Hadrian. G. M. 9. — 2. Cybele and Attis. Medallion of Faustina. G. M. 13. — 3. Artemis of Ephesus. Statue. G. M. 108. Mus. Pio Clem. i. 32. — 4. Artemis of Ephesus and Serapis in a galley. Medallion of Gordian. G. M. 111. — 5. Artemis of Ephesus in her temple. Coin of the Ephesians. G. M. 109. — 6. Isis suckling Horus. Sculpture at Philæ. Descrip. de l’Egypte Antiq. i. pl. 22.

Plate X.

1. Iasôn putting on his sandal. Statue, G. M. 416. Mus. Pio Clem. iii. 48. — 2. Antiope and her children. Bas-relief in the Villa Borghesi, G. M. 94. Musée des Antiques, ii. — 3. The labours of Heracles : Omphale and the hero in the centre. Bas-relief belonging to Cardinal Borgia. G. M. 453.

Plate XI.

1. Perseus and Andromeda. Bas-relief. G. M. 388. Mus. Cap. iv. 52. — 2. Ganymedes. G. M. 534. Mus. Pio Clem. ii. 35. — 3. Bellerophontes slaying the Chimæra : Iobates and Athena viewing the combat. G. M. 343. Tischbein, i. 1. — 4. Battle of the Amazons. Sarcophagus, Musée des Antiques, ii. 95.

Plate XII.

1. Juno Matrona. Statue. — 2. Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. Gem. — 3. Mars Gradivus. Gem. — 4. Janus. Medal of Antoninus Pius. — 5. Lares. Sepulchral Lamp. — 6. Vertumnus. Gem. — 7. Jupiter Pluvius. Medal. — 8. Silvanus. Sepulchral Lamp. — 9. Flora. Statue. — 10. Faunus. Statue. — 11. Pomona. Gem. All from Spence's Polymetis.

[p. xvi]

References.

EDITIONS REFERRED TO. — ABBREVIATED REFERENCES. — ERRATA.

EDITIONS REFERRED TO.

The references to Pindar and the dramatists are to the following editions : —

Heyne's Pindar, Schütz's Æschylus, Brunck's Sophocles, the Glasgow edition of Euripides, in nine volumes, 8vo, and Bekker's Aristophanes.

ABBREVIATED REFERENCES.

Völcker, Myth. der Jap. ; V. Mythologie des Japetischen Geschlechts. — Völcker, Hom. Geog. ; V. Homerische Geographie. — Völcker, Myth. Geog. ; V. Mythische Geographie.

Müller, Proleg. ; M. Prolegomena zu einer wissenschaftliche Mythologie. — Müller, Min. Pol. ; M. Minerva Polias.

Welcker, Tril. ; W. Die Æschylische Trilogie. — Welcker, Nach. zur Tril. ; W. Nachtrag zu der Schrift über die Æschylische Trilogie. — Welcker, Kret. Kol. ; W. Ueber eine Kretische Kolonie in Theben.

Voss, Myth. Br. ; V. Mythologische Briefe.

Buttmann, Mythol. ; B. Mythologos.

Böttiger, Kunst-Myth. ; B. Ideen zur Kunst-Mythologie.

Schwenk ; S. Etymologisch-mythologische Andeutungen.

ERRATA.

Page 28, line 2, for Agios read Agias.

36, — 20, for bark read back.

42, — 26, transpose former and latter.

188, noteª, for xxi. read x. xi.

197, notef, for 67 read 49.

263, line 19, for Echidna read Hydra.

290, notec, for See read Sch.

338, notee, for a read a.

{p. 1}

THE MYTHOLOGY OF GREECE.

Part I. — THE GODS.

Chapter I.

Introduction.

Of Mythology in general. — Origin of Mythology. — Theories of the Origin of Mythology. — Rules for the Interpretation of Mythes.

Of Mythology in general.

Mythology is the science which treats of the mythes², or various popular traditions and legendary tales, current among a people and objects of general belief.

These mythes are usually the fabulous adventures of the imaginary beings whom the people worship ; the exploits of the ancient heroes of the nation ; the traditions of its early migrations, wars, and revolutions ; the marvellous tales of distant lands brought home by mariners and travellers ; and the moral or physical allegories of its sages and instructors.

The legends which compose a nation’s mythology may be divided into two classes. The first will contain the true or fabulous Events which are believed to have occurred either among the people itself, as its own adventures, and those of {p. 2}its princes and heroes, and which may therefore be called domestic ; or those of ancient or distant nations, handed down by tradition or brought home by voyagers, and these we may entitle foreign. The second class will consist of Doctrines or articles of popular belief, and will comprise the earliest attempts of man to account for the various phænomena of the heavens and the earth, and the changes which appear to have taken place among them. These last are however, in the popular mode of viewing them, as much events as the former, as they were propounded by their inventors in the historic or narrative form.

The wonderful is usually a component part of mythology. The deities of popular belief are very frequent actors in its legends, which differ from ordinary tales and fables in this circumstance, and in that of their having been at one time matters of actual belief.

Mythology may therefore be regarded as the depository of the early religion of the people. It also stands at the head of their history, for the early history of every people, with whom it is of domestic origin, is mythic, its first personages and actions are chiefly imaginary³. It is only gradually that the mist clears away, and real men and deeds similar to those of later times begin to appear ; and the mythic period is frequently of long duration, the stream of history having to run a considerable way, before it can completely work off the marvellous and the incredible.

Origin of Mythology.

It is an interesting but by no means an easy task to trace out and explain the various causes and occasions that have given origin to the different legends which form the mythology of a people, such as the Greeks for example, with whom it is rich and complicated. We regard the following as the most probable mode of accounting for their existence.

Polytheism, or the belief in a number of beings of a nature superior to man, and who can be of benefit or injury to him, seems congenial to the human mind. It is always the {p. 3}religion of unenlightened tribes, and even in lettered and polished nations it still retains its hold upon the minds of the weak and the ignorant⁴. An appearance so general can only be the result of some law of the mind ; and those who have directed their attention to the language and ideas of man, in different stages of culture, will probably concede that there is a law which impels the human mind to ascribe the attribute of intelligence to the efficient cause of natural phænomena, particularly those which are of rare occurrence. The less the mind is expanded by culture, the more powerful is the operation of this law ; and while the philosopher ascribes all effects to one great intelligent cause, and usually views not so much Him as the secondary unintelligent causes which He employs, — the simpler children of nature, who cannot rise to so just and elevated a conception, see multitude where he contemplates unity, and numerous intelligent causes actively engaged in producing the effects which he refers to one single mind. Either then the true idea of One God has been resolved by the vulgar into that of a plurality ; or the numerous deities of the people have been by the philosopher reduced to one, possessed of the combined powers of all ; or, which is more probable, rather we may say is the truth, both hypotheses are true : man commencing with the knowledge of one God, gradually became a polytheist ; and philosophy, slowly retracing the steps of error, returned to the truth which had been lost.

It is utterly impossible to fix historically the date of the rise of polytheism among any people. Supposing, for the sake of hypothesis, a race to have been from some unassignable cause in a state of total or partial ignorance of the Deity, their belief in many gods may have thus commenced. They saw around them various changes brought about by human agency, and hence they knew the power of intelligence to produce effects. When they beheld other and greater effects, independent of and beyond human power, they felt themselves, from the principle we have already stated, invincibly impelled to ascribe their production to some unseen being, similar but superior to man. Thus when the thunder rolled {p. 4}and the lightning flamed along the sky, the terrified mortal regarded them as sent forth by a god who ruled the heavens ; when the sea rose in mountains and lashed the shore or tossed the bark, the commotion was referred to a god of the sea ; the regular courses, the rising and the setting of the sun and moon, appeared to him plainly to indicate the presiding care of peculiar deities ; the rivers which flowed continuously, which swelled and sank, must be under the control of intelligences ; and trees at regular seasons put forth and shed their foliage beneath the care of unseen deities⁵. In this manner all the parts of external nature would have become animated ; and the thoughts of courage, wisdom, and love, which involuntarily rise in the soul of man, and the ready eloquence which at times flows from his lips, being referable to no known cause, would be attributed to the unseen working of superior beings⁶.

Man is incapable of conceiving pure spirit, and he knows no form so perfect or so beautiful as his own, and none so well adapted to be the vehicle of mind⁷. He naturally, therefore, fell into the habit of assigning a human form to his gods ; but a human form divested of weakness and imperfection, and raised to his highest ideal of beauty, strength and power, yet still varying according to the character and occupation of the deity on whom it was bestowed. Thus the Grecian votary viewed manly strength and vigour as the leading attributes of the god who presided over war and inspired daring thoughts ; while in the god of archery and music beauty and strength appeared united, and dignity and majesty of mien and countenance distinguished the father of gods and men and ruler of heaven.

These deities, so like to man in form, were held to exceed him far in power and knowledge, but to be, like him, under the influence of passion and appetite. They had their favourites and enemies among mankind, were gratified by prayers and offerings, and severely punished slight, neglect or insult. They dwelt in celestial houses, but similar in form {p. 5}to those of man ; and, like man, they stood in daily need of food and repose. Chariots drawn by horses or other animals of celestial breed conveyed them over earth, sea, and air ; their clothing and arms were usually of the form of those of mortals, but of superior workmanship and materials⁸. The gods were not, strictly speaking, eternal : they were born, according to most systems of mythology ; and some, at least, assigned a period to their duration.

In the eyes of their worshipers these gods had each his distinct personal existence and sphere of action. The Greek, for example, fully believed that Helios, the Hindoo that Surya, guided the course of the sun each day. When, therefore, we shall in future speak of gods of the sea, the sun, the moon, we would not be understood to mean personifications of these objects. In truth, a personification of the sea or sun is not a very intelligible expression. We mean by these gods, deities presiding over and directing them, but totally distinct from them ; regents of them, in the sense in which the archangel Uriel is by Milton called the regent of the sun. Personification properly accords only with qualities and attributes ; and we shall in our progress meet with a class of deities, such as Mischief, Strife, Prayers, which are strictly speaking such.

When a people had thus formed for themselves a System of gods so like to man, and yet ruling over the world, it was natural that a body of mythes, or legends of their adventures, and of their dealings with mankind, should gradually arise ; and as they passed from hand to hand, receive various embellishments and additions, till what was at first but a mere dry assertion or conjecture became a marvellous or an agreeable tale. It is the opinion of one of the ablest mythologists of the present day, that there is a certain stage in the culture of a people in which the mythic is the natural mode of representation, to which men are led by a kind of necessity, and in which they act almost unconsciously. He gives as an instance the pestilence in the commencement of the Ilias. Allowing, he says, the carrying away captive of the daughter of Chryses and the {p. 6}pestilence itself to be actual and real facts, all those who heard of them, and who had at the same time a firm belief in the avenging power of Apollo, whose priest Chryses was, would pronounce, with as full conviction as if it had been something which they had seen and experienced themselves, that it was the god who had sent the pestilence on the prayer of his priest⁹. How far this theory is well founded, and whether it will apply with equal force to other mythologies as to that of Greece, is a question which we will not now discuss.

The sources, or the occasions of the production, of mythes may, we think, be arranged under the following heads, which fall into two classes, namely, of things and of names.

1. The sages of remote antiquity appear to have had a peculiar fondness for enveloping moral and physical truths in the garb of symbol, mythe, and allegory ; and the legends which they thus devised form no inconsiderable portion of the various bodies of mythology.

2. As a second source may perhaps be added the pride of family and the flattery of poets, which would seek to cast lustre on the origin of some noble house by placing a deity at the head of its pedigree, or to veil the transgression of one of its daughters by feigning that a god had penetrated the recesses of her chamber, or met her in the wood or at the fountain. Legends of this kind are to be placed among the latest. Indeed we very much doubt if this be a real original source of mythes¹⁰, and we place it here only because it has been generally so regarded.

3. A great number of legends in all countries are indebted for their origin to the extreme desire which men have to assign a cause for the various phænomena of the natural world. The Scandinavian mythology is full of instances, and the subsequent pages will present them in abundance. We cannot however refrain from giving in this place the following instance, as it combines the ancient and modern legendary explanations of the same natural appearance.

It is well known that most of the rivers of the Peloponnese have their sources in lakes situated in the high valley-plains {p. 7}of Arcadia, which are so completely shut in by mountains that the streams leave them by subterranean passages, called by the ancient Arcadians Zerethra (ζέρεθρα, i. e. βέθρα), and by the moderns Katavóthra. The plain of the district of Pheneos had two of these passages piercing the surrounding mountains, one of which gives origin to the river Ladôn. On the rocky faces of two of the hills, which advance into the plain, at a height of about fifty feet, runs a line, below which the colour of the rocks is lighter than it is above. The natural, though probably incorrect inference is, that the waters stood one time at that height. The ancient Arcadians said that Apollo, incensed at Hercules’ having carried off the tripod from Delphi and brought it to Pheneos, inundated the valley, and that Hercules formed the chasms by which the waters ran off¹¹. Others said that Hades carried off the daughter of Demeter through one of these chasms under Mount Cyllene¹². The moderns account for the origin of the chasm by the following legend. Two devils once possessed the lake : they dwelt on opposite sides of it, and were continually quarrelling ; a furious contest at length took place between them on the top of Mount Sactá, whose base was washed by the lake. The devil who lived on the west side adopted the ingenious expedient of pelting his adversary with balls of ox-fat, which sticking to his body and there taking fire, annoyed him beyond measure. To free himself from this inconvenience, the worsted fiend plunged into the lake and dashed through the side of the mountain Sactá, thus forming the passage through which the waters flowed off and left the plain dry¹³.

To this head may be referred the practice of the Greeks to assign the origin of animals and plants to transformations effected by the power of the gods, a practice of which we shall have to record numerous instances¹⁴. Even in the Mohammedan East examples of this procedure (which was probably learned from the Greeks) are to be found ; the origin of the {p. 8}rose is ascribed to the Prophet¹⁵, and the tulip is said to have sprung from the blood of the unhappy painter Ferhad, the lover of the fair Shîrîn¹⁶. Many changes in the natural world have also been effected by the Saints, according to the popular creed in most parts of Europe.

4. The desire to account for the phænomena of the moral world has also led to the invention of legends. Thus the laws of Mena explain the difference of castes in India, by saying that the Bramins, that is the priests, were produced from the mouth of Bramah ; the warriors from his arms ; the traders from his thighs ; the Parias, or lowest class, from his feet. The poor Laplanders account for the difference between themselves and their more fortunate southern neighbours by the following legend. The Swede and the Laplander, they say, were brothers in the beginning, but when there came on a storm the former was terrified, and sought shelter under a board, which God caused to become a house, but the latter remained without ; whence ever since the Swede dwells in a house, while the Laplander lives in the open air¹⁷.

5. Many legends have arisen from the necessity of giving some account of the invention of arts and implements, and of assigning a cause for traditionary ceremonies and observances, the memory of whose true origin had been lost. The festival of the Hyacinthia at Sparta, for example, originally it would seem celebrated in honour of Demeter¹⁸, was probably indebted for its name to the flower Hyacinthos ; and the legend of the boy beloved by Apollo was a later fiction. The Fasti of Ovid will present instances of the application of this principle, and in the following pages we shall have occasion to notice it.

The second class of legends will come under the three following heads.

6. The epithets of gods, when their true origin was unknown or had been lost, were usually explained by some legend. Of this practice also we shall meet with instances as we proceed ; for the present we will content ourselves with a single example.

{p. 9}

In the island of Samos stood a temple dedicated to the Gaping Dionysos, of whose origin the following legend was related. A Samian named Elpis, having made a voyage to Africa, saw as he was one day on the seashore a huge lion approaching him with his mouth wide open. In his terror he uttered a prayer to Dionysos and fled to a tree, up which he climbed. The lion came and laid himself at the foot of the tree with his mouth still open, as if he required compassion, and Elpis saw that a bone was stuck fast in his teeth which prevented him from eating ; he took pity on him, and came down and relieved him. As long as the ship stayed on the coast the grateful lion brought each day a portion of the produce of his hunting, and Elpis on his return to Samos built a temple to the Gaping Dionysos¹⁹.

7. Casual resemblance of sound in words, and foreign, obsolete or ambiguous terms, were another abundant source of legends. In Greek λáaς is a stone, and λαòς a people ; hence the legend of Deucaliôn and Pyrrha restoring the human race by flinging stones behind them²⁰. There was a place at Rome called Argiletum : this word, which evidently signifies a place abounding in potter's earth (argilla)²¹, may be divided into two words (Argi letum), signifying death of Argus ; and hence arose a legend noticed by Virgil²². A part of the province of Seistân in Persia is named Neem-rôz, i. e. half-day ; and the popular tradition is, that it was once covered by a lake, which was drained by the Jinns (i. e. Genii) in half a day²³. But, as the writer from whom we have taken this legend justly observes, Neem-rôz is also mid-day ; a term which, in several languages, denotes the south ; and Neem-rôz lies due south of Balkh, the first seat of Persian dominion. To return home, there is a point of land between Hastings and Pevensey, on the coast of Sussex, called Bulverhithe ; that is, plainly, Bulver-landing-place, such being the meaning of the old word hithe. But as this term has gone out of use, the {p. 10}honest fishermen there will gravely tell you, that when William the Conqueror, after landing in Pevensey-bay, was advancing to Hastings, on coming to this place he took a bull’s hide and cut it into thongs, which he tied together, resolving to halt and give battle at the spot where the line he made of them should terminate. These instances may suffice to show the generality of this principle.

8. Finally, metaphorical language understood literally may have given occasion to many legends. Thus cause and effect, and other relations, are in various languages, particularly the Oriental, expressed by terms of kindred. The Hebrews termed sparks, sons of the burning coal ; one who is to die, a son of death. The Arabs call a traveller, a son of the way ; a warrior, a son of battle ; springs, daughters of the earth ; mist, daughter of the sea ; tears, daughters of the eye ; and dreams, daughters of night : an ass is with them the father of hanging ears²⁴. A similar mode of expression prevailed among the Greeks. Pindar²⁵ calls the showers of rain children of the cloud. Æschylus terms smoke the brother of fire²⁶, and dust the brother of mud²⁷ ; and Hipponax²⁸ said that the fig-tree was the sister of the vine. A person born on the bank of a lake or river may have been called its son²⁹ ; one coming by sea have been styled a son of the sea ; and when the metaphor came to be understood literally, persons thus spoken of may have been looked upon as children of the riveror sea-god, and legends have been devised accordingly³⁰. A branch or shoot of Ares (ὄζος Ἄρηος) is the Homeric appellation of a warrior, and in Latin a lucky fellow was styled a son of Fortune.³¹.Our English king Richard I. was called Lion-heart (Cœur de Lion), on account of his valour and intrepidity ; and this title gave occasion to a legend, alluded to by {p. 11}Shakspeare³², of his combat with a lion, and pulling out his heart. The rich melodious language of poets and orators has been often compared by the Greeks and others to the delicious food of the bees ; hence it was fabled that bees settled on the infant lips of Pindar and Plato, of Lucan and St. Ambrose.

Theories of the Origin of Mythology.

The theory already given appears to us to be the one which most simply and satisfactorily explains the origin of by far the greater portion of the legends of mythology : but, both in ancient and modern times, theories of a different kind have been advanced, and supported with much ingenuity and learning. The ancient systems we shall notice when treating of the progress of Grecian mythology ; in this place we will enumerate those which have been most prevalent in modern times. These may, we think, be divided into three classes : the Historic, the Philosophic, and the Theological.

1. The Historic : according to which all the mythic persons were once real human beings, and the legends are merely the actions of these persons poetically embellished. The chief maintainers of this hypothesis are Bochart³³ and Bryant³⁴, who see in the Grecian mythes the true history of the personages of Sacred Scripture ; Rudbeck³⁵, who regards them as being drawn from the history of the North of Europe ; the Abbé Banier³⁶, who maintains that Grecian mythology is Egyptian and Grecian history in a poetic dress. Banier's countrymen, Larcher, Clavier, Raoul-Rochette, and others have of late years supported this theory, and it has been maintained by Böttiger³⁷ in Germany.

II. The Philosophic : which supposes mythology to be merely the poetical envelope of some branch of human science. The illustrious Bacon³⁸ exercised his ingenuity in deriving ethical and political doctrines from some of the Hellenic mythes. Their concealed wisdom is Ethics according to {p. 12}Natalis Comes³⁹; Chemistry according to Tollius⁴⁰. Finally, Dupuis⁴¹ and some other ingenious writers, chiefly French, look to Astronomy for the solution of the enigmatic legends of antiquity.

III. The Theological : which assigns mythologya higher rank ; regarding it as the theology of polytheistic religions, and seeking to reduce it to harmony with the original monotheism of mankind. Vossius endeavours to show that the fables of heathenism were only a distortion of the revelations made to man by the true God ; and, at the present day, Görres, Creuzer and others⁴², assigning a common source to the systems of India, Egypt, Greece, and other countries, and regarding the East as the original birthplace of mythology, employ themselves in tracing the imagined channels of communication ; and as they esteem every legend, ceremony, usage, vessel, and implement to have been symbolical, they seek to discover what truth, moral, religious, or philosophical lies hid beneath its cover. These men are justly denominated Mystics⁴³. Their whole science is founded on accidental resemblances of names and practices, their ideas are conveyed in a highly coloured figurative style, and a certain vague magnificence appears to envelope their conceptions, — all calculated to impose on the ignorant and the unwary⁴⁴. It is against this system that we are most anxious to warn and guard our readers. In our eyes it is disgusting from its indelicacy as well as its absurdity ; it approaches the confines of impiety, and at times seems even to pass them. The study and adoption of it can hardly fail to injure the intellectual powers, and to produce an indifference toward true religion. {p. 13}In fact, if the theory of these men be true, the necessity for Christianity becomes a question⁴⁵.

Of these three classes the last alone is peculiar to modern times : the two former theories were, as we shall presently see, familiar to the ancients. We must also observe, that all are true to a certain extent. Some mythes are historical, some physical, some moral, some theological ; but no single one of these theories will suffice to account for the whole body of the mythology of any people. Some of them, too, apply more to one system than another : the Scandinavian mythology, for example, is of a more physical character than the Grecian : the Indian is more metaphysical than either the Grecian or the Scandinavian.

The mythologies which offer the widest fields for inquiry are those of ancient Greece, of India, and of Scandinavia. To these may be added that of ancient Egypt. Italy has left no mythology, properly speaking, though for the sake of uniformity we so denominate the account of its deities and religion given in the present work. The Persian cycle, which is preserved in the Shâh-nâmeh of Ferdoust, is purely heroic ; and the Celtic tribes of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands had also a small heroic cycle, of which Cuchullin, Fingal, Gaul, Oscar, and other personages whose names are familiar to the readers of the pseudo-Ossian are the heroes⁴⁶.

It is chiefly to the explanation of the rich and elegant mythology of Greece that modern inquirers hâve applied themselves ; and by the labours of Voss⁴⁷, Buttmann, Müller, Völcker, Welcker and other writers, whose names will appear in the following pages, it has in our opinion been reduced {p. 14}to its true principles, and brought within the sphere of useful and necessary knowledge. The scholars of the North, especially the learned Finn Magnusen, have exerted themselves, and not without success, in developing the true nature and character of the venerable mythology of their forefathers, especially on the physical theory. For the mythology of India philosophy has as yet done but little ; it has been the sport of the wildest mysticism, and has led to the degradation of those of other countries. The Asiatic Researches, and the works of Polier, Ward and some others, with the various translations that have been made from the Sanscrit, present a large mass of materials to the inquirer. Jablonski and Zoega have laboured diligently in the field of Egyptian mythology.

Rules for the Interpretation of Mythes.

The following rules should be attended to in mythological inquiries.

1. To consider the mythology of each people separately and independently, and not to suppose any connexion between it and any other till both have been examined minutely and carefully, and so many points of resemblance have presented themselves as to leave no doubt of the original identity of the systems⁴⁸. It is to the neglect of this rule that we owe so much of the absurdity to be found in the works of many mythologists, and nothing has tended more to the bringing of the science of mythology into neglect and contempt. The ancient Greeks were led from ignorance to give credit to the cunning priesthood of Egypt, and to believe that they had received their religion from that country ; and it is but too well known how, in our own days, Sir William Jones and his followers have been deceived by their own imaginations, and the impostures of artful pundits, in their efforts to connect the religions of Greece and India.

2. In like manner the mythes themselves should be considered separately, and detached from the system in which they are placed ; for the single mythes existed long before the {p. 15}system, and were the product of other minds than those which afterwards set them in connexion, not unfrequently without fully understanding them⁴⁹.

3. We should pay particular attention to the genealogies which we meet with in mythology, as they frequently form the key to the meaning of a mythe, or even of a whole cycle⁵⁰. Great caution however should be used in the application of this rule, or it may lead us into error and absurdity if carried beyond its legitimate bounds.

4. The same or even greater caution is required in the application of etymology to this subject⁵¹. If applied judiciously it will at times give most valuable results ; if under no guidance but that of caprice and fancy, it will become the parent of all sorts of monsters and lusus naturæ.

5. Finally, though we should never pronounce a mythe which we have not examined to be devoid of signification, we should not too confidently assert that every mythe must have an important meaning, for certainly some have been but the creation of capricious fancy⁵². On these occasions it would be well to bear in mind the following words of Johnson : «The original of ancient customs,» says he, «is commonly unknown, for the practice often continues after the cause has ceased ; and concerning superstitious ceremonies, it is vain to conjecture, for what reason did not dictate reason cannot ex-plain⁵³ » We use the words bear in mind, for if adopted as a principle it will only serve to damp ardour and check inquiry. The rule should be, — this mythe most probably has a meaning, but it is possible it may not have one.

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ChapterII.

GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY.

Its Origin. — Historic View of Grecian Mythology . — Literature of the Grecian Mythology.

Its Origin.

The remote antiquities of Greece are involved in such total obscurity, that nothing certain can be adduced respecting the origin of the people or their mythology. Reasoning from analogy and existing monuments, some men of learning venture to maintain, that the first inhabitants of that country were under the direction of a sacerdotal caste, resembling those of India and Egypt ; but that various circumstances concurred to prevent their attaining to the same power as in those countries. In the Homeric poems, however, by far the earliest portion of Grecian literature, we find no traces of sacerdotal dominion ; and in the subsequent part of our work we shall bring forward some objections against this hypothesis⁵⁴.

It is certainly not improbable that these ancient priests, if such there were, may have had their religion arranged systematically, and have represented the various appearances and revolutions of nature under the guise of the loves, the wars, and other actions of these deities, to whom they ascribed a human form and human passions. But the Grecian mythology, as we find it in the works of the ancients, offers no appearance of a regular concerted system. It is rather a loose collection of various images and fables, many of which are significant of the same objects.

The ancient inhabitants of Greece were divided into a great variety of little communities, dwelling separately, parted in general by mountains and other natural barriers. As they were naturally endowed with a lively imagination, there gradually grew up in each of these little states a body of tales and legends. These tales of gods and heroes were {p. 17}communicated by wandering minstrels and travellers from one part of the country to another. Phœnician mariners probably introduced stories of the wonders of the East and of the West, which in those remote ages they alone visited ; and these stories, it is likely, were detailed with the usual allowance of travellers’ licence. Poets, a race indigenous in the favoured clime of Hellas, caught up the tales, and narrated them with all the embellishments a lively fancy could bestow ; and thus at a period long anterior to that at which her history commences, Greece actually abounded in a rich and luxuriant system of legendary lore. This is proved by the poems of Homer and Hesiod, which, exclusive of the ancient legends they contain, make frequent allusion to others ; some of which are related by subsequent writers, and many are altogether fallen into oblivion.

These poems also bear evident testimony to the long preceding existence of a race of poets, — a fact indeed sufficiently evinced by the high degree of perfection in the poetic art which they themselves exhibit. Modern mythologists have therefore been naturally led to the supposition of there having been in ancient Greece aœdic schools, in which the verses of preceding bards were taught, and the art of making similar verses was acquired⁵⁵. One of the ablest of our late inquirers⁵⁶ is of opinion that the original seat of these schools was Pieria, at the northern foot of Mount Olympos. He has been led to this supposition by Heyne's remark, that Homer always calls the Muses Olympian, which remark he extends by observing that the Homeric gods are the Olympian, and no others. In this however we can only see that, as we shall presently show, Olympos was in the time of Homer held to be the seat of the gods. It does not appear to us that any one spot can be regarded as the birth-place of the Grecian religion and mythology ; they were, like the language and manners of the people, a portion of their being ; and the {p. 18}knowledge of the origin of the one is as far beyond our attainment as that of the other.

The Greeks, like most of the ancient nations, were little inclined to regard as mere capricious fiction any of the legends of the different portions of their own race or those of foreign countries. Whatever tales they learned, they interwove into their own system ; taking care, however, to avoid contradiction as far as was possible. When, therefore, they found any foreign deities possessing the same attributes as some of their own, they at once inferred them to be the same under different names ; but where the legends would not accord, the deities themselves were regarded as being different, even when they were in reality perhaps the same.

«This,» says Buttmann⁵⁷, «was the case when they found traditions of other kings of the gods whom they could not reconcile with their own Zeus, and of queens who could not be brought to agree with their Hera. But a new difficulty here presented itself ; for they could not assume several kings and queens reigning at one time. The ancients appear to me to have gotten over this difficulty by saying, that those gods had indeed reigned, but that they had been overcome by their Zeus ; and that the goddesses had indeed cohabited with Zeus, but they had not been his lawful wives. And this, if I mistake not, is the true origin of the tale of the Titans being driven out of heaven, and of the concubines of Zeus, who were reckoned among the Titanesses, the daughters of Heaven, and among the daughters of the Titans, such as Metis, Themis, Leto, Demeter, Dione, who were all, according to different legends, spouses of Zeus.»

With these views of this most ingenious writer we agree, as far as relates to the consorts of the Olympian king, each of whom we look upon as having been his sole and lawful wife in the creed of some one or other of the tribes of Greece. Of the Titans we shall presently have occasion to speak somewhat differently.

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Historic View of Grecian Mythology ⁵⁸.

The poets having taken possession of the popular legends, adorned, amplified, added to them, and sought to reduce the whole to a somewhat harmonious system⁵⁹. They however either studiously abstained from departing from the popular faith, or were themselves too much affected by all that environed them to dream of anything which might shock the opinions of their auditors. Accordingly we may be certain that the mythes contained in Homer and Hesiod accord with the current creed of their day, and are a faithful picture of the mode of thinking prevalent in those distant ages.

As knowledge of the earth, of nature, her laws and powers, advanced, the false views of them contained in the venerable mythes of antiquity became apparent. The educated sometimes sought to reconcile tradition and truth ; but the vulgar still held fast to the legends hallowed by antiquity and sanctioned by governments⁶⁰. A prudent silence therefore became the safest course for those who exceeded their contemporaries in knowledge.

The philosophers of Greece early arrived at the knowledge of one only God, the original cause and support of all. Anaxagoras is said to have been the first who openly taught this truth ; and he was in consequence charged with atheism, and narrowly escaped the punishment of death. Philosophers took warning, and truth was no longer brought into public view. But such is the nature and connection of things, so profuse the resemblances which the world presents to view, such is the analogy which runs between the operations of mind and those of matter, that several of the mythes afforded the philosophers an opportunity of holding them forth as the husks in which important moral or physical truths were enveloped ; in which in reality many such truths had been studiously enveloped by ancient priests and sages⁶¹.

After an intercourse had been opened with Asia and Egypt, {p. 20}mysteries came greatly into vogue in Greece. In these it is thought⁶², but perhaps not with sufficient evidence, the priests who directed them used, for the credit of the popular religion whose reputation they were solicitous to maintain, to endeavour to show its accordance with the truths established by the philosophers, by representing them as being involved in the ancient mythes, which they modified by the aid of fiction and forgery so as to suit their purposes.

About this time, also, the system of theocrasy (θεοκραία), or mixing up, as we may call it, of the gods together, began to be employed⁶³. It was thus that the wine-god Dionysos was made one with the sun-god Helios, and this last again, as some think, with the archer-god Phœbos Apollo. As we proceed we shall have frequent occasion to notice this principle.

While in the schools of the philosophers, and the temples devoted to the mysteries, the ancient legends were acquiring a new and recondite sense, another class of men, the artists, had laid hold of them. The gods of their forefathers were now presented under a new guise to the Greeks, who, as they gazed on the picture or the statue, saw the metaphors of the poets turned to sense, and wings, for example, adorning those deities and mythic personages to whom the poet had in figurative style applied the expression winged to denote extraordinary swiftness⁶⁴.

The poets soon began to regard the ancient legends as mere materials.The belief in their truth having in a great measure vanished, the poets, especially the later dramatists, thought themselves at liberty to treat them in whatever manner they deemed best calculated to produce the meditated effect on the feelings of their audience⁶⁵. They added, abstracted, united, separated, at their pleasure ; ideas imported from Egypt were {p. 21}mixed up with the old tales of gods and heroes ; and the fable to be represented on the stage often varied so much from that handed down by tradition, that, as is more especially the case with Euripides, the poet appears at times to have found it necessary to inform his audience in a long prologue of what they were about to witness.

Such was the state of the ancient mythology of Greece in her days of greatest intellectual culture. Few of the mythes remained unaltered. Priests, philosophers, and poets combined to vary, change, and modify them. The imagination of these various classes produced new mythes, and the local tales of foreign lands were incorporated into the Grecian mythic cycle.

When the Ptolemies, those munificent patrons of learning, had assembled around them at Alexandria the scholars and the men of genius of Greece, the science of antiquity was, by the aid of the extensive royal library, assiduously cultivated ; and the ancient mythology soon became a favourite subject of learned investigation. Some worked up the mythes into poems ; others arranged them in prose narratives ; several occupied themselves in the explication of them.

At this time what is named Pragmatism, or the effort to reduce the mythes to history, began greatly to prevail⁶⁶. It is probable that this took its rise from the Egyptian priests, who, as we may see in Herodotus, represented their gods as having dwelt and reigned on earth⁶⁷. Hecatæus of Miletus, one of the earliest Grecian historians, would seem to have laboured to give a rational form to the old legends⁶⁸; and we may observe in the explanation given by Herodotus, after the Egyptian priests, of the legend of the soothsaying pigeon of Dodona, and in other places of that historian, a similar desire⁶⁹. This mode of rationalising was carried to a much greater extent by Ephorus : but the work which may be regarded as having contributed by far the most to give it vogue, {p. 22}was the Sacred History (Ἱϵρὴ Ἀναγραфή) of Euhemerus, which was so celebrated in antiquity that we shall here stop to give a brief account of it⁷⁰.

Euhemerus said, in this work, that having had occasion to make a voyage in the Eastern ocean, after several days’ sail he came to three islands, one of which was named Panchaia. The inhabitants of this happy isle were distinguished for their piety, and the isle itself for its fertility and beauty, in the description of which the writer exerted all the powers of his imagination. At a distance of several miles from the chief town, he says, lay a sacred grove, composed of trees of every kind, tall cypresses, laurels, myrtles, palms, and every species of fruit-tree, amidst which ran rivulets of the purest water. A spring within the sacred district poured forth water in such abundance as to form a navigable river, named the Water of the Sun⁷¹, which meandered along, fructifying the whole region, and shaded over by luxuriant groves, in which during the days of summer dwelt numbers of men, while birds of the richest plumage and most melodious throats built their nests in the branches, and delighted the hearer with their song. Verdant meads, adorned with various flowers, climbing vines, and trees hanging with delicious fruits, everywhere met the view in this paradise. The inhabitants of the island were divided into priests, warriors, and cultivators. All things were in common except the house and garden of each. The duty of the priests was to sing the praises of the gods, and to act as judges and magistrates : a double share of everything fell to them. The task of the military class was to defend the island against the incursions of pirates, to which it was exposed. The garments of all were of the finest and whitest wool, and they wore rich ornaments of gold. The priests were distinguished by their raiment of pure white linen, and their bonnets of gold tissue.

{p. 23}

The priests derived their lineage from Crete, whence they had been brought by Zeus after he had succeeded his predecessors Uranos and Kronos in the empire of the world. In the midst of the grove already described, and at a distance of sixty stadia from the chief town, stood an ancient and magnificent temple sacred to Triphylian Zeus, erected by the god himself while he was yet among men ; and on a golden pillar in the temple the deeds of Uranos, Zeus, Artemis, and Apollo had been inscribed by Hermes in Panchæic letters, which the voyager says were the same with the sacred characters of the Egyptian priests. Zeus had, according to this monument, been the most potent of monarchs : the chief seat of his dominion had been Crete, where he died and was buried, after having made five progresses through the world, all whose kings feared and obeyed him.

The object of Euhemerus in inventing this Utopia, which by the way many navigators sought after but no one ever found, was evidently to give a blow to the popular religion, and even to make it ridiculous ; for though he seems to have treated some of the higher gods, as Zeus for example, with a degree of respect, he was less particular with the inferior ones and with the heroes. Thus of Aphrodite he says, that she was the first who reduced gallantry to an art, and made a trade of it, that she might not appear more wanton than other women⁷². Cadmos was cook to a king of Sidôn, and he ran away with Harmonia, a female flute-player⁷³

The work of Euhemerus was vehemently attacked by all who retained a veneration for the old religion, and the writer himself was stigmatised as an atheist⁷⁴ : but it exerted a great influence over the subsequent historians, as we may perceive in the case of Diodorus of Sicily. It was translated into Latin by Ennius, of whose work some fragments remain⁷⁵; and the Æneïs of Virgil alone will suffice to show the degree in which it affected the old Italian mythology⁷⁶. Finally, the Fathers {p. 24}of the Church employed it to advantage in their conflicts withe the supporters of the ancient religion.

While Euhemerus thus fixed on an imaginary island in the Eastern ocean as the original abode of the deities adored in Greece, others, among whom Dionysius of Samos or Mytilene was the most celebrated, chose the Western coast of Africa for the same purpose⁷⁷. For this they seemed to have Homeric authority ; as the poet calls Oceanos, whose abode was placed in the West, the origin of the gods⁷⁸. According to these writers the coast of Ocean on this side, fertile as Panchaia itself, was inhabited by a people named Atlanteians, distinguished for their piety and their hospitality to strangers. The first king who ruled over them was named Uranos. He collected the people, who had previously dwelt dispersedly, into towns, and taught them agriculture, and thus reformed their manners. He gradually reduced under his sway the greater part of the world. By study of the heavens, and thus learning to foretell the celestial phænomena, he obtained the reputation of being of a nature superior to man ; and when he died, his people gave him divine honours and named the heavens after him.

By several wives Uranos was the father of forty-five children, eighteen of whom, the offspring of Titaia or Earth, were named Titans. The most distinguished of their daughters were Basileia and Rhea, also named Pandora. The former, who was the eldest, aided her mother to rear her brothers and sisters, whence she was called the Great Mother. She succeeded her father in his dominion ; and after some time she married Hyperiôn, one of her brothers, to whom she bore two children, endowed with marvellous sense and beauty, named Helios and Selena. But the other Titans now grew jealous, and they murdered Hyperiôn, and flung Helios into the river Eridanos, where he was drowned. At the tidings Selena, who loved her brother beyond measure, cast herself from the roof of the palace and perished. Basileia lost her senses through grief, and went roaming in madness through the country with dishevelled locks, beating drums and {p. 25}cymbals. She disappeared at length in a storm of rain, thunder, and lightning. The people raised altars to her as a goddess, and they named the sun and moon after her hapless children.

The Titans then divided the realm of their father among themselves. The coast of Ocean fell to Atlas, who named the people and the highest mountain of the country after himself. Like his father he was addicted to astronomy ; he first taught the doctrine of the sphere, whence he was said to support the heavens. Kronos, the most impious and ambitious of the Titans, ruled over Libya, Sicily, and Italy. He espoused his sister Rhea, who bore a son named Zeus, in all things the opposite of his grim sire ; whence the people, delighted with his virtues, named him Father, and finally placed him on the throne. Kronos, aided by the other Titans, sought to recover his dominion ; but the new monarch defeated him, and then ruled, the lord of the whole world and the benefactor of mankind. After his death he was deified by his grateful subjects.

We will not pursue any further these dreams of the mythographer, for the tasteless system never seems to have gained general credit. We therefore proceed to relate the further course of the Grecian mythology.

As we have already observed, the allegorical system of interpretation prevailed at the same time with the historical. This mode of exposition was introduced by the sophists ; Socrates and Plato occasionally employed it ironically ; but its greatest cultivators were the philosophers of the Stoic sect. It was chiefly physical and ethical truths that they deduced from the ancient mythes, and they generally regarded the gods in the light of personifications of the powers of nature.

When the Romans became acquainted with Grecian literature, they identified the gods of Greece with such of their own deities as had a resemblance to them. Thus Hermes became Mercurius, Aphrodite Venus, and the mythes of the former were by the poets, and perhaps in the popular creed, applied to the latter. As in Greece, some believed, some disbelieved in the popular deities, and the former sought the solution of the mythes in the schools of philosophy or the temples of the mysteries. The valuable work of Cicero ‘On {p. 26}the Nature of the Gods’ shows in an agreeable manner the ideas entertained on this subject by the most accomplished Romans of his time.

After the conflict had commenced between Heathenism and Christianity, the allegorising principle was applied to the former with still greater assiduity than heretofore. The New Platonists endeavoured by its aid, in union with Oriental mysticism, to show, that the ancient religion contained all that was required to satisfy the utmost needs of the human soul. The Fathers of the Church laid hold on the weapons thus presented to them, to defend the new and attack the old religion. By the aid of the principles of Euhemerus they robbed the gods of Greece of their divinity ; by that of the allegorising principle of the Stoics they extracted truth from the legends of Greek theology, and discovered mystery in the simplest narratives and precepts of the Hebrew Scriptures. Unfortunately in this process many of the mythes and practices of Heathenism became incorporated with the pure religion of the Gospel, and Christianity also had soon a mythology of its own to display. On the final overthrow of Heathenism its mythology slept along with its history and literature the sleep of the dark ages ; but at the revival of learning it was eagerly laid hold on by poets and artists⁷⁹, and it attracted the attention of antiquarians and philosophers. The various theories by which it was sought to reduce it to system, which we have already enumerated, were then revived or devised ; and mythology forms at present an important branch of learning and philosophy.

Of late years the mythology of Greece has in the hands of men of genius and learning, especially in Germany, resumed the simple and elegant attire which it wore in the days of Homer and Hesiod, and in which the following pages will attempt to present it to the reader.

Literature of the Grecian Mythology.

A brief view of the literature of the Grecian mythology, or of the works whence our knowledge of it has been derived, {p. 27}seems a necessary supplement to the preceding sketch of its history.

The Ilias and the Odyssey, as the two great heroic poems which are regarded as the works of Homer are named, are (with the exception of some parts of the Hebrew Scriptures) the earliest literary compositions now extant. Their origin is enveloped in the deepest obscurity, and the questions whether they are the production of one or of many minds, whether they were originally written, or were orally transmitted for centuries, have for some years engaged the pens of critics. It seems to be now generally agreed that the two poems are the productions of different minds, and that in both there are interpolations, some of which are of no small magnitude, but that notwithstanding they may be regarded as faithful pictures of the manners and opinions of the Achæans or Greeks of the early ages⁸⁰. Beside the Ilias and the Odyssey, the ancients possessed some other narrative poems, which were ascribed, but falsely, to the same author. All these poems, however, have long since perished.

The age of Hesiod is equally uncertain with that of Homer. Three only of the poems ascribed to him have come down to us, viz. the didactic poem named Works and Days, the Theogony, and the Shield of Hercules. Hesiod was also said to be the author of a poem in four books named the Catalogues, or Eoiæ⁸¹, which related the histories of the heroines or distinguished women of the mythic ages ; but of this also only a few fragments have been preserved. The same is the case with the poems named the Melampodia and Ægimios, likewise ascribed to this ancient bard.

Homer and Hesiod were succeeded by a crowd of poets, who sang all the events of the mythic ages. The chief of {p. 28}these were Stasinos of Cyprus, Arctinos of Miletus, Lesches of Lesbos, Cynæthos of Chios, Eumelos of Corinth, Agios of Trœzen, and Eugammôn of Cyrene. Their poems were the Cypria, the Æthiopis, the Little Ilias, the Iliupersis or Taking of Ilion, the Nostoi or Returns of the Chiefs, the Telegonia, or Death of Odysseus, etc. There were also Heracleiæ, or poems on the subject of Hercules, by Peisander, Panyasis, and other poets, a Theseïs on the adventures of Theseus, poems on the wars of Thebes⁸², a Titanomachia, an Amazonia, a Danaïs, a Phoronis, etc.

In the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, the critic Zenodotus of Ephesus united several of these poems with the Ilias and Odyssey into one whole, commencing with the marriage of Heaven and Earth, and ending with the death of Odysseus. This was named the Epic Cycle, and it continued to be read during some centuries of the Christian æra⁸³. Of this, however, the Homeric portion alone has come down to us : for our knowledge of the events contained in the remainder of the Cycle we are indebted to the works of the later poets Quintus Smyrnæus, Coluthus, and Tryphiodorus, and the various scholiasts or commentators and compilers.

The lyric succeeded the epic poets. Mythic legends were necessarily their principal materials, as their verses were mostly dedicated to the worship of the gods, or the praise of victors in the public games, or were sung at banquets or in funeral processions. These too have disappeared, excepting a portion of those of Pindar. It is much to be lamented, in a mythologic view, that so little remains of Stesichorus of Himera.

The tragedians followed : they took their subjects from the epic poems, and their remaining works preserve much mythic lore.

After the epic poetry had ceased, and writing, by means of the Egyptian papyrus, was become more common in Greece, {p. 29}a set of writers arose who related in succinct prose narratives, arranged in historic order, the various mythic legends which formed the Epic Cycle, the Eoiæ, and other poems of the same nature. The principal of these writers were Pherecydes, Acusilaüs, and Hellanicus ; of their works also only fragments remain.

The historians, Herodotus, Thucydides, and their followers, occasionally took notice of the mythic legends. Ephorus and Theopompus were those who devoted most attention to them, as their fragments still remaining show.

The sophists and philosophers employed the mythic form as the vehicle of their peculiar systems and ideas. Such was Prodicus’ beautiful fiction of the Choice of Hercules, and Protagoras’ story of Prometheus and his brother⁸⁴.

We are now arrived at the Alexandrian period. In this the mythes were treated in two different ways. Lycophrôn, Euphoriôn, Apollonius, Callimachus, and the remainder of the Pleias, as they were named, formed poems from them ; while Apollodorus, following Pherecydes, and adding the fictions of the tragedians, framed a continuous narrative, of which an epitome alone has come down to us ; and Crates, Aristarchus, and the other editors of the ancient poets gave the legends a place in their commentaries.

The Latin poets of the Augustan age drew largely on the Alexandrian writers, after whom chiefly they related in their verses the mythic tales of Greece, in general pure and unaltered, as appears from the Metamorphoses of Ovid, of whose legends the Greek originals can,with few exceptions, be pointed out⁸⁵. It was also in this period that Hyginus wrote the mythological work which we now possess.

The summaries of Parthenius, Antoninus Liberalis and others contain numerous mythic legends, as also do the Scholia, or notes on the classic writers of Greece, especially those on Homer, Pindar, Apollonius, and Theocritus ; those of Tzetzes on Hesiod and Lycophrôn, and the tedious commentary of Eustathius on Homer. The notes of Servius on Virgil are also very valuable in this respect, as likewise is the {p. 30}Violet-bed⁸⁶ of the empress Eudocia. It would be tedious to particularise all the other sources of information, for in fact there is hardly a classic writer in either language who does not relate or refer to some of the mythic legends of Greece ; even the Fathers of the Church contribute to augment our knowledge of the mythic tales of the religion against which their literary artillery was directed.

There is one author of a peculiar character, and whose work is of the most interesting nature, we mean Pausanias, who travelled in Greece in the second century of the Christian æra, and gathered on the spot the legends of the temples and the traditions of the people. He has thus preserved a number of mythic narratives unnoticed by preceding writers, which had probably been transmitted from father to son from the most remote times.

If to the sources already enumerated we add the long poem of Nonnus on the adventures of Dionysos, we shall have given the principal authorities for the contents of the following pages. We have been thus succinct on the present occasion, as it is our intention to give a view of the literature of each of the mythic cycles in its proper place⁸⁷.

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Chapter III.

MYTHIC VIEWS OF THE WORLD AND ITS ORIGIN.

Mythic Cosmology. — Cosmogony and Theogony.

Mythic Cosmology.

For the due understanding of the mythology of a people, a knowledge of their cosmology, or views of the world, its nature, extent, and divisions, is absolutely requisite. Without it we shall be for ever falling into error ; and by applying to the productions of the remote and infantile periods of society the just conceptions of the present day in geography and astronomy, give to them a degree of folly and inconsistency with which they cannot justly be charged⁸⁸.

The earliest view of Grecian cosmology that we possess, is that contained in the poems of Homer. Next in antiquity is that of the poems of Hesiod, who flourished somewhat later, for he displays a much more extended knowledge of the earth than Homer appears to have possessed.

As navigation and the intercourse with foreign countries increased, just ideas respecting the more distant regions became more common among the Greeks, and districts were continually reclaimed from fable, and brought into the circuit of truth and knowledge. Not to speak of the philosophers and historians, we may discern in the poets of each succeeding age the progressively extending knowledge of the real character of distant lands. Yet still we must not always expect to find in poets all the knowledge of the age they live in ; they love to imitate their predecessors, they often are unacquainted with the advance of knowledge, they write for the people, who still retain old prejudices. It is thus that in the poets of the Augustan age we shall find the Homeric ideas of the universe, just as in some modern poets we may meet the Ptolemaïc astronomy and judicial astrology, after both had been exploded.

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The Greeks of the days of which Homer sings, or rather of the poet’s own time, though well acquainted with navigation, do not appear to have been in the habit of making distant voyages. The Cretans and the Taphians (a people who inhabited some small islands in the Ionian sea) perhaps form an exception. We read in the Odyssey of their piracies committed on Egypt and Sidôn⁸⁹, and of their bartering voyages to Temesa⁹⁰, (perhaps the place of that name in Italy,) where they exchanged iron for copper. But the great authorities of the Greeks respecting foreign lands were probably the Phœnicians, who in the most distant ages visited Africa, Spain, and possibly the shores of the Atlantic ; and it is likely that, after the fashion of travellers and sailors, mingling truth and fiction, they narrated the most surprising tales of the marvels of the remote regions to which they had penetrated.

According to the ideas of the Homeric and Hesiodic ages, it would seem that the World was a hollow globe, divided into two equal portions by the flat disk of the Earth⁹¹. The external shell of this globe is called by the poets brazen⁹² and iron,⁹³, probably only to express its solidity. The superior hemisphere was named Heaven, the inferior one Tartaros. The length of the diameter of the hollow sphere is given thus by Hesiod⁹⁴. It would take, he says, nine days for an anvil to fall from Heaven to Earth ; and an equal space of time would be occupied by its fall from Earth to the bottom of Tartaros. The luminaries which gave light to gods and men shed their radiance through all the interior of the upper hemisphere ; while that of the inferior one was filled with eternal gloom and darkness, and its still air unmoved by any wind.

The Earth occupied the centre of the World in the form of of a round flat disk, or rather cylinder, around which the river Ocean flowed. Hellas was probably regarded as the centre of the Earth, but the poets are silent on this point. They are equally so as to the exact central point, but {p. 33}probably viewed as such Olympos, the abode of the gods. In after times Delphi became the navel of the earth⁹⁵. The Sea divided the terrestrial disk into two portions, which we may suppose were regarded as equal. These divisions do not seem to have had any peculiar names in the time of Homer. The northern one was afterwards named Europe⁹⁶; the southern, at first called Asia alone⁹⁷, was in process of time divided into Asia and Libya⁹⁸. The former comprised all the country between the Phasis and the Nile, the latter all between this river and the western ocean⁹⁹.

In the Sea the Greeks appear to have known to the west of their own country southern Italy and Sicily, though their ideas respecting them were probably vague and uncertain ; and the imagination of the poets, or the tales of voyagers, had placed in the more remote parts of it several islands, such as Ogygia the isle of Calypso, Ææa that of Circe, Æolia that of Æolos, Scheria the abode of the Phæacians, — islands in all probability as ideal and as fabulous as the isles of Panchaia, Lilliput, or Brobdingnag, though both ancients and moderns have endeavoured to assign their exact positions. Along its southern coast lay, it would appear, the countries of the Lotus-eaters, the Cyclopes, the Giants, and the Læstrigonians. These isles and coasts of the western part of the Sea were {p. 34}the scenes of most of the wonders of early Grecian fable. There, and on the isles of the Ocean, the passage to which was supposed to be close to the island of Circe, dwelt the Sirens, the Hesperides, the Grææ, the Gorgons, and the other beings of fable.

The only inhabitants of the northern portion of the earth mentioned by Homer are the Hellenes and some of the tribes of Thrace. But Hesiod¹⁰⁰ sang of a happy race, named the Hyperboreans, dwelling in everlasting bliss and spring beyond the lofty mountains, whose caverns were supposed to send forth the piercing blasts of the north wind¹⁰¹, which chilled the people of Hellas. According to Pindar¹⁰² the country of the Hyperboreans, from which the river Ister flowed, was inaccessible either by sea or land. Apollo was their tutelar deity, to whom they offered asses in sacrifice, while choirs of maidens danced to the sound of lyres and pipes, and the worshipers feasted having their heads wreathed with garlands of the god’s favourite plant, the bay. They lived exempt from disease or old age, from toils and warfare, and, conscious of no evil thoughts or acts, they had not to fear the awful goddess Nemesis¹⁰³.

On the south coast of the Sea, eastwards of the fabulous tribes above enumerated, lay Libya and Egypt. The Sidonians, and a people named the Erembians¹⁰⁴, are also mentioned by Homer, and the Greeks appear to have been well acquainted with the people of the west coast of Lesser Asia. They do not seem to have navigated the Euxine at this time, though they were doubtless not ignorant of it, as Homer names some of the peoples on its southern coast. They must of course have regarded it as a portion of the Sea. We have no means of ascertaining whether they supposed it to communicate with the Ocean, like the western part of the Sea. Of Colchis and Caucasus they seem to have had no knowledge {p. 35}whatever in these early ages. They were equally ignorant of the interior of Asia.

On the eastern side of the earth, close to the stream of Ocean, dwelt a people happy and virtuous as the Hyperboreans. They were named the Æthiopians¹⁰⁵ : the gods favoured them so highly that they were wont to leave at times their Olympian abodes and go to share their sacrifices and banquets¹⁰⁶. A passage of the Odyssey¹⁰⁷ divides the Æthiopians into two tribes, the one on the eastern, the other on the western margin of the earth¹⁰⁸. In later ages, when knowledge of the earth had increased, the Æthiopians or sun-burnt men were placed in the south ; but this is contrary to the views of Homer, who¹⁰⁹ assigns the southern portion of the terrestrial disk to a nation of dwarfs named, from their diminutive stature¹¹⁰, Pygmies, to whose country the cranes used to migrate every winter, and their appearance was the signal of bloody warfare to the puny inhabitants, who had to take up arms to defend their corn-fields against the rapacious strangers.

On the western margin of the earth, by the stream of Ocean, lay a happy place named the Elysian Plain, whither the mortal relatives of the king of the gods were transported without tasting of death, to enjoy an immortality of bliss. Thus Proteus says to Menelaos¹¹¹,

But thee the ever-living gods will send

Unto the Elysian Plain, and distant bounds

Of earth, where dwelleth fair-haired Rhadamanthys :

There life is easiest unto men ; no snow,

Or wintry storm, or rain, at any time

Is there ; but Ocean evermore sends up

Shrill-blowing western breezes to refresh

The habitants ; because thou hast espoused

Helena, and art son-in-law of Zeus.

{p. 36}In the time of Hesiod¹¹² the Elysian Plain was become the Isles of the Blest. Pindar¹¹³ appears to reduce the number of these happy isles to one.

We thus see that the Greeks of the early ages knew little of any real people except those to the east and south of their own country, or near the coast of the Mediterranean. Their imagination meantime peopled the western portion of this seawith giants, monsters, and enchantresses ; while theyplaced around the edge of the disk of the earth, which they probably regarded as of no great width, nations enjoying the peculiar favour of the gods, and blessed with happiness and longevity, — a notion which continued to prevail even in the historic times¹¹⁴.

We have already observed that the Ocean of Homer and Hesiod was a river or stream. It is always so called by these poets¹¹⁵, and they describe the sun and the other heavenly bodies as rising out of and sinking into its placid current¹¹⁶. Its course was from south to north up the western side of the earth. It flowed calmly and equably, unvexed by tempests and unnavigated by man. It was termed bark-flowing, deepflowing, soft-flowing, from its nature¹¹⁷. Its waters were sweet, and it was the parent of all fountains and rivers on the earth. As it was a stream, it must have been conceived to have a further bank to confine its course, but the poet of the Odyssey {p. 37}alone notices the transoceanic land, and that only in the western part. He describes it as a region unvisited by the sun, and therefore shrouded in perpetual darkness, the abode of a people whom he names Kimmerians. He also places there Erebos, the realm of Aïdes and Persephoneia, the final dwelling of all the race of men, a place which the poet of the Ilias describes as lying within the bosom of the earth¹¹⁸.

As Homer¹¹⁹ represents the heaven as resting on pillars kept by Atlas, and which were on the earth, and Hesiod¹²⁰ describes the extremities of heaven, earth, sea (πόυτος), and Tartaros as meeting, it would seem to follow that the Ocean lay outside of the hollow sphere of the world, and encompassed the middle of it like a rim. The armillary sphere would thus give us an idea of the Homeric world.

The portion of the hollow sphere above the earth contained Olympos, the abode of the gods ; but there is great difficulty in ascertaining its exact nature and situation. As it is always represented as a mountain, it must have rested on the earth, and yet one passage of the Ilias¹²¹ would seem plainly to speak of it as distinct from the earth ; and the language of the Odyssey respecting it is still more dubious.

Were we to follow analogy, and argue from the cosmology of other races of men, we would say that the upper surface of the superior hemisphere was the abode of the Grecian gods. The Hebrews seem, for example, to have regarded the concave heaven as being solid (hence Moses says, that Jehovah would make their heaven brass and their earth iron)¹²², and its upper surface as the abode of Jehovah and his holy angels, the place where he had formed his magazines of hail, rain, snow, and frost¹²³. According to the notions of the ancient Scandinavians the heaven was solid, and its upper surface, which they named Asgardr (God-abode), was the dwelling of their gods, and the {p. 38}place to which the souls of the virtuous and the valiant dead ascended along the celestial bridge Bifröst, i. e. the Rainbow. The ideas of the ancient Italians and other nations seem to have been similar. Hence we might be led to infer that Olympos, the abode of the Grecian gods, was synonymous with Heaven, and that the Thessalian mountain, and those others which bore the same name, were called after the original heavenly hill¹²⁴. A careful survey, however, of those passages in Homer and Hesiod in which Olympos occurs, will lead us to believe that the Achæans held the Thessalian Olympos, the highest mountain with which they were acquainted, to be the abode of their gods¹²⁵.

The entrance to the city of the gods on Olympos was closed by a gate of clouds kept by the goddesses named the Seasons ; but the cloudy valves rolled open spontaneously to permit the greater gods to pass to and fro on their visits to the earth.¹²⁶

It is an utterly unfounded supposition of the learned Voss¹²⁷, that there were doors at the eastern and western extremities of the heaven, through which the sun-god and other deities ascended from and went down into the stream of Ocean. The celestial luminaries seem rather, according to Homer and Hesiod, to have careered through void air, ‘bringing light to men and gods.’ When in after times the solid heaven was {p. 39}established as the abode of the gods, the necessity for these doors was perhaps felt ; and they were accordingly invented by those who were resolved to leave nothing unexplained.

The stars appear to have been regarded as moving under the solid heaven, for they rose out of and sank into the Ocean stream. The only ones mentioned by name by Homer and Hesiod are the constellations Oriôn, the Bear, the Pleiads, and the Hyads, the single stars Boötes or Arcturus, and Sirius, and the planet Venus, which they seem to have viewed as two distinct stars, in its characters of Morning-star (Eosphoros) and Evening-star (Hesperos.) There is no reason to suppose the Greeks to have had any knowledge of the signs of the Zodiac until after their intercourse with Asia and Egypt had commenced.

Tartaros was, as we have already remarked, unvisited by the light of day. It was regarded as the prison of the gods, and not as the place of torment for wicked men, being to the gods what Erebos was to men, — the abode of those who were driven from the supernal world¹²⁸. The Titans when conquered were shut up in it, and in the Ilias¹²⁹ Zeus menaces the gods with banishment to its murky regions.

Such were the opinions respecting the world and its parts held by the Greeks of the heroic times, and even some ages later. With the advance of knowledge, however, their ideas altered, and they began to conceive more justly on these subjects. The voyages of the Samians and the Phocæans to the West, and the establishment of the Milesian colonies on the shores of the Euxine, and the intercourse thus opened with the interior of Asia, led to the supposition that the earth was oval rather than round, its greater diameter running east and west¹³⁰. In like manner in the time of Pindar¹³¹ and Æschylus¹³² the Ocean had increased to the dimensions of a sea, and Herodotus¹³³ derides those who still regarded it as a river. Finally, the change of religious ideas gradually affected Erebos, the abode of the dead. Elysion was moved down to it as the {p. 40}place of reward for the good, and Tartaros was raised up to it to form the prison in which the wicked suffered the punishment due to their crimes¹³⁴.

It may not be uninteresting ere we quit the subject of the cosmology of the ancient Greeks, to compare with it that invented by our own great poet in his Paradise Lost, more especially as it is a subject which does not seem to have attracted much of the attention of his commentators.

According to Milton the universe previous to the fall of the angels consisted of only two parts, the Heaven of Heavens, or Empyreal Heaven, and Chaos. The former was the abode of God himself and his angels ; it was of immense magnitude, being

…………………………extended wide

In circuit undetermined, square or round,

With opal towers and battlements adorned

Of living saphir.

It stretched into plains and rose into hills, was watered by lucid streams, produced plants and flowers, and contained minerals in its bowels like earth ; like which also it had the vicissitudes of night and day¹³⁵. Chaos was

………………………………… a dark

Illimitable ocean, without bound,

Without dimension, where length, breadth and height,

And time and place are lost.

It contained the ‘embryon atoms’ which the Almighty employed in his creations, being

The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave.

{p. 41}

When the rebel angels were cast out of Heaven they fell for the space of nine days ‘through the frighted deep.’ At length Hell, which had meantime been created,

Yawning received them whole and on them closed.

The bottom of this place of torment was of both liquid and solid fire ; it was over-canopied by a ‘fiery concave,’ and its only entrance was closed with lofty portals.

And thrice threefold the gates : three folds were brass,

Three iron, three of adamantine rock

Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire

Yet unconsumed.

These gates were kept by Sin and Death.

After the expulsion of the rebel angels the Son of God,

…………on the wings of Cherubim

Uplifted in paternal glory, rode

Far into Chaos and the world unborn ;

and placing his golden compasses set off the space for the world he was about to create. It formed a hollow globe, and hung from Heaven by a golden chain,

…………in bigness as a star

Of smallest magnitude close by the moon¹³⁶.

The globous earth ‘self-balanced on her centre hung’ in the midst of the round world ; and the sun, the moon, and the other heavenly bodies were set in the firmament to illuminate the earth. The firmament itself was not solid ; it was an

…………expanse of liquid, pure,

Transparent, elemental air.

Creation being thus completed, the Universe consisted of Heaven, Hell, Chaos, and the World with its contents.

It is thus that the most imaginative of modern poets, as we may perhaps venture to style him, created a universe for the scene of the poem, whose object (the noblest that can be conceived) was to

………assert eternal Providence,

And justify the ways of God to men.

Its agreement in some parts with the cosmology of Homer {p. 42}and Hesiod is worthy of attention, as it is probable that in Milton’s days the latter was not generally understood.

Cosmogony and Theogony.

The origin of the world and the origin of the gods, i. e. cosmogony and theogony, are in the Grecian system, as in those of some other nations, closely united. The sages of antiquity seem to have had a strong persuasion that, to bring creation and similar acts down to the comprehension of tribes led by the senses, it was necessary to represent natural agents as living and active persons ; or they felt a pleasure in exciting admiration, by the narration of the strange and wonderful adventures of beings older and more powerful than mankind¹³⁷.

The lively and creative genius of the Greeks seems particularly to have delighted in this species of fiction. They loved to represent the origin, the union, and the changes of the various parts of nature, under the guise of matrimony and birth (their more cheerful system, unlike those of Asia and Scandinavia, excluding the idea of the death of a god) ; causes with them becoming parents, effects children, the production of an effect being the birth of a divine child.

Every cosmogonic system commences with a Chaos, or state of darkness and confusion. The chief difference among these systems lies in the circumstance that some viewed the earth, others the water, as the immediate origin of organised bodies. In Grecian cosmogony Homer would appear to have followed the former, for he terms Oceanos the origin of all¹³⁸; the latter is the theory adopted in the Theogony of Hesiod. Thales and the Ionian school of philosophy followed the Homeric cosmogony. In the Timæus of Plato it is said that the offspring of Heaven and Earth were Oceanos and Tethys, and that from these sprang Kronos, Rhea, and the other deities. This is apparently, however, an attempt at bringing Homer and Hesiod into harmony.

The venerable Theogony of Hesiod is evidently the parent of all the succeeding ones, and it is itself but the echo of those of bards of far higher antiquity than the Ascræan to whom it {p. 43}is ascribed, and who often was ignorant of the meaning of what he delivered. We will here relate the portion of it which extends from Chaos to the establishment of the empire of Zeus and origin of the gods worshiped in Greece.

Chaos¹³⁹ (Void Space) was first ; then came into being ‘broad-breasted’ Earth, the gloomy Tartaros, and Love. Chaos produced Erebos and Night, and this last bore to Erebos Day and Æther.

Earth now produced Uranos (Heaven), of equal extent with herself, to envelope her, and the Mountains and Pontos (Sea). She then bore to Uranos a mighty progeny : the Titans ; six males, Oceanos, Coios, Crios, Hyperiôn, Iapetos, and the youngest of them Kronos ; and six females, Theia, Rheia (or Rhea), Themis, Mnemosyne, Phœbe, and Tethys. She also bore the three Cyclopes, Brontes, Steropes, and Arges¹⁴⁰ , and the three Hundred-handed (έκαтόγχϵιρς), Cottos, Briareôs, and Gyes. These children were hated by their father, who, as soon as they were born, thrust them out of sight into a cavern of Earth¹⁴¹ , who, grieved at his unnatural conduct, produced the ‘substance of hoary steel,’ and forming from it a sickle, roused her children, the Titans, to rebellion against him : but fear seized on them all except Kronos, who lying in wait with the sickle with which his mother had armed him, mutilated his unsuspecting sire. The drops which fell on the earth from the wound gave birth to the Erinnyes, the Giants, and the Melian nymphs : from what fell into the sea sprang Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty.

Earth bore to her other son Pontos the ‘truth-speaking’ Nereus,Thaumas (Wonder), Phorcys, and ‘fair-cheeked’ Keto. {p. 44}Nereus had by Doris, a daughter of the Titan Oceanos, the fifty Nereïdes or sea-nymphs. Thaumas was by Electra (Brightness), another daughter of Oceanos, father of the swift Iris (Rainbow), and of the ‘well-haired’ Harpies. Keto bore to her brother Phorcys the Grææ, the Gorgons, the Echidna, and the serpent that guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides.

Earth finally bore by Tartaros her last offspring, the hundred-headed Typhoeus, the father of storms and whirlwinds.

The progeny of the Titans was numerous. Oceanos had by his sister Tethys all the rivers that flow on the earth, and the Ocean-nymphs, three thousand in number. Theia bore to Hyperiôn, Helios (Sun), Selena (Moon), and Eôs (Dawn) ; and Phœbe to Coios, Asteria (Starry) and Leto. Crios had by Eurybia (Wide-strength), the daughter of Pontos¹⁴², Astræos (Starry), Pallas, and Perses. To Astræos Eôs bore the winds Zephyros, Boreas, and Notos, and Eosphoros (Dawn-bearer), or Morning-star, and the stars of heaven. Styx, a daughter of Oceanos, was by Pallas the mother of Envy and Victory, Strength and Force ; and Asteria, the daughter of Coios, bore to Perses Hecate.

The fifth Titan, Iapetos, was by Clymene, a daughter of Oceanos, the father of four sons, Atlas, Menœtios, Prometheus and Epimetheus.

Rhea was united to Kronos, and their offspring were Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Aïdes, Poseidôn, and Zeus. Kronos, having learned from his parents, Heaven and Earth, that he was fated to be deprived by one of his sons of the kingdom which he had taken from his father, devoured his children as fast as they were born. Rhea, when about to be delivered of Zeus, besought her parents to teach her how she might save him. Instructed by Earth, she concealed him in a cavern of Crete, and gave a stone in his stead to Kronos. This stone he afterwards threw up¹⁴³, and with it the children whom he had {p. 45}devoured. When Zeus was grown up, he and the other children of Kronos made war on their father and the Titans. The scene of the conflict was Thessaly ; the former fought from Olympos, the latter from Othrys. During ten entire years the contest was undecided ; at length by the counsel of Earth the Kronids released the Hundred-handed, and called them to their aid. The war was then resumed with renewed vigour, and the Titans were finally vanquished and imprisoned in Tartaros under the guard of the Hundred-handed. The Kronids then, by the advice of Earth, gave the supreme power to Zeus, who in return distributed honours and dominion among the associates of his victory.

In this theogony order and philosophical consequence are plainly discernible. We find it faithfully adhering to the cosmological ideas above developed¹⁴⁴. Void Space must naturally have been first : Earth, which was to occupy the centre of the World ; Tartaros, the lowest and deepest gloom ; and Love, the generating principle of life and motion, follow in their due order. As in all cosmogonies darkness precedes light, so Erebos and Night, the one the darkness beneath, the other that above the earth, succeed, and from them spring Day the lower, and Æther the higher light above the earth. Without the intervention of Love, Earth now produces the Heaven, which arches over her ; the Mountains, which rise on her surface and support the heaven ; and the barren salt Sea. United then by Love with Uranos, she gives birth to the Titans, the origins of gods and men, of the celestial luminaries, and the fructifying streams.

The making thunder, lightning, and other celestial phænomena to be children of Heaven and Earth might seem to imply a deeper knowledge of physics than can be justly assigned to these early ages. The cause, however, was a simple one. Uranos being masculine could not produce of himself, and Earth was the only female being that could be united with {p. 46}him. The Cyclopes, that is the Whirlers,¹⁴⁵, whose individual names signify Thunder, Lightning, and Brightness, or Swiftness, represent one kind of celestial phænomena, and the Hundred-handed must therefore be the personifications of another, but what kind is more difficult to ascertain. It is, however, probable that they refer to winter, as the Cyclopes seem more especially related to summer, and that they are the hail, rain and snow of that season : Kottos, that is Smiter, being the hail ; Gyes, the Furrower, the rain ; and Briareôs, the Presser, the snow, which lies deep and heavy on the ground¹⁴⁶; and they were naturally named Hundred-handed, from their acting so extensively at the same moment of time¹⁴⁷.

Of the Titans we shall presently treat at length, and the progeny of Earth and Pontos shall be noticed in another place¹⁴⁸. There remain therefore only to be considered the beings which sprang from the blood of the mutilated Uranos. These are the Erinnyes, the Giants, and the Melian nymphs. Productiveness is the consequence of that act, for which analogy would incline us to look ; and when we divest our mind of the idea of the Giants given by Homer, and which became the prevalent one, we may without difficulty find that they simply signify Producers¹⁴⁹. By the Melian nymphs may perhaps be signified the producers of fruits or cattle¹⁵⁰. The {p. 47}Erinnyes offer most difficulty ; they may be, as some think, telluric powers¹⁵¹, and have undergone a change of character like the Giants, Hermes, and other similar beings ; or their late character — that of punishers of the violators of the order of nature — may have been their original one, and their origin have been ascribed to the first violation of filial duty.

We now proceed to the important mythe of the Titans, and as the view of it given by Völcker seems to us to be more correct than any preceding one, we will lay it before our readers¹⁵².

The six sons and six daughters of Heaven and Earth above enumerated alone are Titans, and the most probable derivation of the name is that which makes it equivalent to Earth-born¹⁵³. The germs of all beings afterwards to be formed lie in them, but they are inclosed within the earth, and cannot act till Uranos is deprived of his procreative power, and Aphrodite is produced. Then the Titans Oceanos and Tethys give origin to the rivers and streams of the earth ; from Coios, Crios, Hyperiôn, Theia, and Phœbe spring the sun, moon, and other luminaries and light-beings ; and the material world being thus completed, Kronos and Rhea give birth to the gods, and Iapetos becomes the father of men¹⁵⁴. Their task being thus completed, and the earth replenished with its fitting inhabitants, the Titans are dismissed, to remain inactive in Tartaros.

The Titan-war therefore could have formed no part of the original mythe. It had its origin in the figurative terms bind and loose, used to signify the checking and permitting of the {p. 48}productive powers of the Titans. Homer knows nothing of this war ; he merely says that Zeus placed Kronos beneath ‘the earth and barren sea¹⁵⁵,’ and in him the opposition between the Olympian gods and the Titans is merely a local one ; the one being the dwellers of the brilliant Olympos, the other the inmates of the gloomy Tartaros¹⁵⁶. Hesiod, who evidently misunderstood the sense of the mythe, first gave it the form of a war, and narrated its details in the most splendid poetry ; but the contradictions and variations in his narrative give convincing proof of its being alien from the ancient cosmogonic mythe. In the hands of the logographers and poets, such as Æschylus, the cosmogony becomes the history of a series of dynasties, and, contrary to Hesiod, the children of all the Titans, except Kronos and Rhea, are counted among the Titans, and set in hostility with the Kronids. Thus Pherecydes¹⁵⁷ commences with saying that Uranos reigned first, and had by Earth the Cyclopes and the Hundred-handed. He casts all these into Tartaros, and then the Titans are born ; who all, except Oceanos¹⁵⁸, at the instigation of their mother, fall on their sire, whom Kronos mutilates. They liberate their imprisoned brethren ; but Kronos, to whom the kingdom is given, binds them again in Tartaros. Then follows the account of the birth of the Kronids, who by freeing the Cyclopes and their brethren win the victory, and the three brothers divide the dominions of their father among them by lot¹⁵⁹.

The Titan-war, as this critic thinks, had its origin and example in those of Typhôn, the Aloeids, and the Giants against the gods. The circumstance of Zeus being termed King (though for another reason), the change of the three celestial sovereigns, and the mutilation of Uranos, aided in making the mythe take this form. The question how Zeus came to the throne was naturally answered by the tale of a revolution and hostility between the two classes of gods. Imitation is also everywhere to be traced. Zeus is made to mutilate Kronos {p. 49}as Kronos did Uranos¹⁶⁰. The latter hides his children under the earth, the former swallows his. Kronos is the youngest child, so is Zeus ; the Titans divide the dominion of the world, so do the Kronids. As Kronos devours his children for fear of their dethroning him, so something similar is recorded of Zeus¹⁶¹. Earth always gives the counsel¹⁶²; and in the Ilias an attempt of the Olympians to bind Zeus is mentioned, in which Briareôs again comes to his aid¹⁶³.

There would also appear to have been some other ancient system of the celestial dynasties, which assigned the place of Uranos and Gæa to Ophiôn and Eurynome. As this last is said to be an Oceanis, and the former name is manifestly derived from the symbol for the earth¹⁶⁴, it would seem to have been one of the systems in which earth and water were regarded as the origin of all beings. It reverses however the usual order, the earth being generally looked on as the female principle. We find no traces of it anterior to the Alexandrian period, when it is noticed by Lycophrôn¹⁶⁵ and Apollonius¹⁶⁶. At a much later age it is alluded to by Nonnus¹⁶⁷. Milton, who, like the Alexandrians, loved to bring forward recondite mythes and traditions, nearly translates the Rhodian poet in the following lines :

And fabled how the serpent whom they called

Ophiôn with Eurynome (the wide-

Encroaching Eve perhaps) had first the rule

Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driven

And Ops, ere yet Dictæan Jove was born. — Par. Lost, x. 580.

{p. 50}

Chapter IV.

THE TITANS AND THEIR OFFSPRING : — NIGHT, OCEANOS, AND TETHYS, HYPERION AND THEIA, HELIOS, SELENE, EOS, COIOS AND PHŒBE, CRIOS, HECATE, KRONOS AND RHEA.

Νύξ. Nox. Night. — Ὠκϵανὸς καὶ Тηθύς. Oceanus et Tethys. — ϓπϵρίων καὶ Θϵίη. Hyperion et Thia. — Ἠέλιος, Ἣλιος. Sol. Sun. — Σϵλήνη. Luna. Moon. — Ήώς. Aurora. Dawn. — Ϗοȋος καὶ Фοίβη . Cœus et Phœbe. — κρKpȋος. Crius. — Έκάτη. Hecate. — Kρόνος καὶ Ῥєίη ἢ Ῥέα. Saturnus et Ops.

We are now to consider the Titans and their offspring in particular, omitting Iapetos, whom we shall set in his proper place at the head of mankind. Though Night, ‘eldest of things,’ does not belong to the Titans, we will commence with an account of her.

Νύξ. Nox. Night.

In the Theogony Night is the daughter of Chaos, and sister of Erebos, to whom she bore Day and Æther¹⁶⁸. She is then said to have produced without a sire Fate (Мόρος) and Kêr, Death, Sleep and Dreams, Momos (Mockery), Woe, the Hesperides, Nemesis, Deceit, Love (Φιλότης), Old-age, and Strife¹⁶⁹.

It is not difficult to discern the reasons for giving this progeny to Night. It is a principle of all cosmogony that darkness preceded light, which sprang from it ; a truth here expressed by making Night the parent of Day and Æther. Night is also naturally regarded as the parent of Death, Sleep, Dreams, and their kindred ideas. Philotes, or the union of love, is also for a similar reason the child of Night¹⁷⁰. Deceit, Age, Strife, and Woe are figuratively her offspring ; the Hesperides are so because their abode was near hers in the West. Nemesis is probably a daughter of Night to indicate the secret concealed path which the divine justice often treads to inflict the punishment due to vice. The reason is not so apparent why Night should be the parent of Mockery.

Hesiod places the abode of Night in the West, behind where Atlas supports the heavens¹⁷¹. Night and Day, he says, are there by turns ; when one goes in the other goes out. Day {p. 51}bears light to mortals ; Night, ‘wrapt in a sable cloud, carries Sleep in her arms.’ It is not quite clear whether the poet places the dwelling of Night on this side of or beyond Ocean¹⁷².

In Homer Sleep says to Hera that, when once at her desire he had cast Zeus into a slumber, the god on waking sought him, and would have flung him from the sky down into the sea, but that he took refuge with Night, ‘the subduer of gods and men,’ whom Zeus revering remitted his anger¹⁷³. The poet gives here no intimation of any kindred between Night and Sleep. The dwelling of both would seem to be on Olympos.

Alcman¹⁷⁴ and Sophocles¹⁷⁵ speak of the abode or springs of Night in the North, whilst Apollonius¹⁷⁶ appears to place them within the earth.

It was, as we shall see, the custom of the poets (or perhaps such had been previously the popular creed) to bestow chariots and horses on those deities who had a long course to perform. We do not however find a vehicle assigned to Night by Homer or Hesiod ; but succeeding poets furnished her with one. Æschylus¹⁷⁷ speaks of her ‘dark chariot’ ; Euripides¹⁷⁸ describes her as driving through Olympos, — the sky according to the views of his time ; Theocritus¹⁷⁹ calls the stars ‘the attendants on the car of quiet Night’ ; Apollonius¹⁸⁰ represents Night as yoking her horses at sunset ; and Statius¹⁸¹ makes Sleep her charioteer.

As the name of this deity is common to most of the languages which are akin to the Greek¹⁸², its derivation is not perhaps to be found in any of them.

Ὠκϵανὸς καὶ Тηθύς. Oceanus et Tethys.

Oceanos, the first-born of the Titans, espoused his sister Tethys. Their offspring were the rivers of the earth, and three thousand daughters, named Oceanides, or Ocean-nymphs¹⁸³. {p. 52}This is all the account of Oceanos given in the Theogony. Homer speaks of him and Tethys as the origin of the gods¹⁸⁴. When Zeus, he says, placed his sire in Tartaros, Rhea committed her daughter Hera to the charge of Oceanos and Tethys, by whom she was carefully nurtured¹⁸⁵.

The abode of Oceanos was in the West¹⁸⁶. He dwelt, according to Æschylus, in a grotto-palace ; beneath his stream, as it would appear¹⁸⁷. In the ‘Prometheus Bound’ of this poet Oceanos comes borne through the air on a griffon, to console and advise the lofty-minded sufferer ; and from the account he gives of his journey it is manifest he came from the West. When Hercules was crossing his stream in the cup of the sungod to fetch the oxen of Geryôn, Oceanos rose, and by agitating his waters tried to terrify him, but on the hero's bending his bow at him he retired¹⁸⁸. In the Ilias¹⁸⁹ Oceanos is said to dread the thunder of Zeus. As in similar cases, it is not always easy to distinguish the god from the stream over which he rules.

The name Oceanos is apparently connected with a family of words signifying water¹⁹⁰; that of Tethys is probably the Rearer, the Nurse, or Grandmother¹⁹¹; some understand by it Mother Earth¹⁹².

ϓπϵρίων καὶ Θϵίη. Hyperion et Thia.

Hyperiôn and Theia are in the Theogony¹⁹³ the parents of the Sun, Moon, and Dawn. In Homer Hyperiôn is equivalent to Helios¹⁹⁴. Pindar extols Theia as the bestower of wealth on mortals¹⁹⁵.

{p. 53}

The interpretation given by the ancients of Hyperiôn as Overgoer, seems liable to little objection¹⁹⁶. Some interpret Theia Swift¹⁹⁷; Müller renders it Bright¹⁹⁸.

Ἠέλιος, Ἣλιος. Sol. Sun.

Helios was the son of Hyperiôn by Theia, or according to a Homeridian hymn by Euryphaëssa (Wide-shining). His office was to give light to men and gods during the day.

In the Odyssey, when Helios ends his diurnal career, he is said to go under the earth¹⁹⁹ : it is not easy to determine whether the poet meant that he then passed through Tartaros back to the East during the night. At all events neither Homer nor Hesiod evinces any knowledge of the beautiful fiction of the solar cup or basin. The origin of this seems to lie in the simple fact that men, seeing the sun rise in the east and set in the west each day, were naturally led to inquire how his return to the east was effected. If then, as there is reason to suppose, it was the popular belief that a lofty mountainous ring ran round the edge of the earth, it was easy for the poets to feign that on reaching the western stream of Ocean Helios himself, his chariot and his horses, were received into a magic cup or boat made by Hephæstos, which, aided by the current, conveyed him during the night round the northern part of the earth, where his light was only enjoyed by the happy Hyperboreans, the lofty Rhipæans concealing it from the rest of mankind²⁰⁰.

The cup (λέβης or δέπας) of the Sun-god appeared first, we {p. 54}are told, in the Titanomachia of Arctinos or Eumelos²⁰¹. Peisander, in his Heracleia, represented Oceanos giving the hero the Sun-god’s cup to pass over to Erytheia ; and Stesichorus said in his Geryoneïs,

Helios Hyperionides

Into the golden cup went down ;

That, having through the Ocean passed,

He to the depths of sacred gloomy Night might come,

Unto his mother and his wedded wife,

And his dear children ; but the grove with laurel shaded

The son of Zeus went into²⁰².

Mimnermus had the following lines in his poem named Nanno.

Helios is doomed to labour every day ;

And rest there never is for him

Or for his horses, when rose-fingered Eôs

Leaves Ocean and to heaven ascends.

For through the waves his loved bed beareth him,

Hollow and formed of precious gold

By Hephæstos’ hand, and winged ; the water's top

Along, it bears the sleeping god,

From the Hesperides’ to the Æthiops’ land,

Where stand his horses and swift car

Until the air-born Eôs goeth forth :

Then Helios mounts another car.

In these lines of Mimnermus the god, as described above, is carried round the earth during the night ; and in the following passage of the same poet his palace is evidently situated in the East.

Æetes’ city, where swift Helios’ beams

Within his golden chamber lie,

By Ocean’s marge, whither bold Iasôn went²⁰³.

It is also in the East that ‘the stables’ of Helios are placed by Euripides in his Phaëthôn²⁰⁴; while in another passage²⁰⁵ he speaks of the ‘dark stable’ of the Sun-god, doubtless meaning the West. In Stesichorus, as we may observe, the abode of Helios would seem to be in the realm of Night, beyond Ocean. {p. 55}Alexander the Ætolian²⁰⁶, when speaking of the plant by means of which Glaucos became a sea-god, says that it grew for Helios in the Isles of the Blest, and that he gave his horses their evening meal (δόρπον) of it to recruit their vigour. Ovid also, the faithful follower of the Greeks, places the pastures of the solar steeds in the West, where they have ambrosia for grass²⁰⁷; and Statius²⁰⁸, in a beautiful passage, describes the Sun as loosing his steeds on the margin of the western sea, where the Nereïdes and Seasons take off their harness. In Nonnus²⁰⁹, when the god arrives in the West, Phosphoros unyokes the sweating steeds, washes them in the waves of ocean, and then leads them to their stall ; and when they are rested the god drives them round the Ocean to the East. In two other passages of his wild poem²¹⁰ Nonnus places the abode of the Sun in the East. It is remarkable that neither he nor the Latin poets ever allude to the cup. The park and gardens of Helios are thus richly described by Claudian²¹¹ :

Thus having said, his gardens all bedewed

With yellow fires he (Sol) enters, and his vale,

Which a strong-flaming stream surrounding pours

Abundant beams upon the watered grass,

On which the Sun’s steeds pasture. There he binds

With fragrant wreaths his locks, and the bright manes

And yellow reins of his wing-footed steeds.

He does not, however, tell the site of this brilliant spot ; but as the Sun sets out from it on his diurnal course, when his steeds’ manes have been adorned by Lucifer and Aurora, we may presume that it was in the East. It is also in the East that Ovid places the splendid palace of the Sun, where the lucid god sat enthroned, surrounded by the Days, Months, Years, Seasons, Ages, and Hours²¹².

From a consideration of all these passages it may seem to follow, that the ideas of the poets on this subject were very vague and fleeting. Perhaps the prevalent opinion was that the Sun rested himself and his weary steeds in the West, and then returned to the East. We are to recollect that the cup was winged, that is endowed with magic velocity.

{p. 56}

Neither Homer nor Hesiod speaks of the chariot of the Sun ; but as the former poet names the horses of Eôs, he must naturally have supposed Helios to have driven similar steeds along the sky. In the Hymns²¹³ Helios appears in a chariot ; Pindar²¹⁴ calls him ‘the ruler of fire-breathing steeds’. It is probable that, like the other Homeric gods, Helios had originally only two horses ; but Euripides and the succeeding poets²¹⁵ give him four, which, according to the Latin poets, are of a dazzling white colour²¹⁶. Their names are Eôs or Eoös (Eastern,) Æthôn or Æthiops (Burning), Bronte (Thunder), Astrape or Sterope (Lightning)²¹⁷.

On the island of Thrinakia, says Homer²¹⁸, fed the flocks and herds of Helios, under the charge of his daughters, the nymphs Phaëthusa and Lampetia (Shining and Gleaming). These were seven herds of oxen, and as many flocks of sheep, fifty in each flock and herd : they neither bred nor died. At Tænaron also this god had a flock of ‘long-wooled’ sheep²¹⁹. He had also herds of oxen at Gortyna in Crete²²⁰, and sacred sheep at Apollonia in Epeiros²²¹.

The Sun was not singular in this circumstance of possessing sacred cattle, but they were dedicated to him more frequently than to other deities for obvious reasons, such as his being, as it were, the celestial shepherd or overseer of the stars, and the god who gave increase to the earth²²².

By Perseïs or Perse (Brightness ?), a daughter of Oceanos, Helios was father of Æetes, and his sister Circe the great enchantress²²³, and of Pasiphae, who espoused Minôs the son of Zeus²²⁴. The nymphs just mentioned, who kept his cattle, were his children by Neæra (Newness ?)²²⁵. Augeas, king of Elis, so rich in flocks and herds, was said to be the offspring of the {p. 57}Sun-god by Iphiboe²²⁶. By the nymph Rhodos, the daughter of Aphrodite, Helios had the seven Heliades, who were the first inhabitants of the isle of Rhodes²²⁷. The Graces are also said to have been daughters of Helios by Ægle (Splendour)²²⁸.

The Ocean-nymph Clymene (Bright ?) bore to Helios a son named Phaëthôn (Gleaming). The claims of this youth to a celestial origin being disputed by Epaphos the son of Zeus, he journeyed to the palace of his sire, from whom he extracted an unwary oath that he would grant him whatever he asked. The ambitious youth instantly demanded permission to guide the solar chariot for one day, to prove himself there by the undoubted progeny of the Sun-god. Helios, aware of the consequences, remonstrated, but to no purpose. The youth persisted, and the god, bound by his oath, reluctantly committed the reins to his hands, warning him of the dangers of the road, and instructing him how to avoid them. Phaëthôn grasps the reins, the flame-breathing steeds spring forward, but soon aware that they are not directed by the well-known hand, they run out of the course ; the world is set on fire, and a total conflagration would have ensued, had not Zeus, at the prayer of Earth, launched his thunder, and hurled the terrified driver from his seat. He fell into the river Eridanos. His sisters, the Heliades, as they lamented his fate were turned into poplar trees²²⁹ on its banks, and their tears, which still continued to flow, became amber as they dropped into the stream. Cycnos, the friend of the ill-fated Phaëthôn, also abandoned himself to mourning, and at length was changed into a swan (κύκνος)²³⁰.

The age of this story is uncertain²³¹, but it has all the {p. 58}appearance of being a physical mythe devised to account for the origin of the electron or amber²³², which seems to have been brought from the Baltic to Greece in the very earliest times. In the opinion of Welcker²³³ it is only the Greek version of a German legend on that subject ; for the tradition of the people of the country was said to be²³⁴, that the amber was produced from the tears of the Sun-god, that is Phœbos Apollo according to the Greeks, who added that he shed these tears when he came to the land of the Hyperboreans, an exile from heaven on account of the fate of his son Asclepios. But as this did not accord with the Hellenic conception of either Helios or Apollo, the Heliades were devised to remove the incongruity. The foundation of the fable lay in the circumstance of amber being regarded as a species of resin which drops from the trees that yield it. The tale of Cycnos is only one of the numerous legends devised by the Greeks to account for the origin of remarkable animals. The Eridanos is said to have been a mere poetic name, there being no stream actually so called ; though it was afterwards given by the poets to the Rhine, the Rhodanus or Rhone, and the Padus or Po, on the banks of which last stream the fable of Phaëthôn was localised.

According to another legend Clytia, a daughter of Oceanos, was beloved by the Sun-god ; but he transferred his affections to Leucothea, daughter of Orchamos (Ruler), king of the eastern regions. The god visited her during the night, in the form of her mother. The virgin was obliged to comply with his wishes, and Clytia filled with jealous rage discovered the secret to Orchamos, who buried his hapless daughter alive. The god, unable to save her, turned her into the frankincense plant, and the neglected Clytia pining away became a sunflower²³⁵.

Here also we have one of the legendary origins of natural productions. The date of the tale is unknown, but it is probably not very ancient ; it is only to be found at present in {p. 59}the Latin poet Ovid²³⁶; but beyond question he took it from a Greek original.

Helios, as the god whose eye surveyed all things²³⁷, was invoked as a witness to solemn oaths²³⁸. As he was not one of the Olympian gods he was not honoured with temples in Greece, but he had altars at Corinth, Argos, and some other places. The chief seat of his worship was the isle of Rhodes, where stood the celebrated Colossus, or statue of brass seventy cubits high, in his honour²³⁹. The legend said²⁴⁰ that, when Zeus and the other Immortals were dividing the earth among them by lot, the Sun happening to be absent got no share. On his reminding Zeus of this, the god was about to make a new allotment, but Helios would not suffer him, saying that he had seen a fertile land lying beneath the ‘hoary sea’, with which he would be content. The gods then swore that it should be the undisturbed possession of the Sun-god, and the isle of Rhodes emerged from the deep.

Helios is represented by artists driving his four-horse chariot, his head surrounded with rays, a whip in his hand, and preceded by Eosphoros. Sometimes he is standing with a flambeau in his hand, and two of his horses near him.

This god was styled²⁴¹, 1. Mortal-delighting ; 2. Mortal-illuminating ; 3. Unwearied ; etc.

The name Helios (Ἣλιος) is perhaps derived from ἕλα,ἕλη, brightness. It seems, however, akin to the names of the Sun in the languages which are of the same family with the Greek²⁴².

{p. 60}

Σϵλήνη. Luna. Moon.

Selene, the sister of Helios, drove her chariot through the sky while he was reposing after the toils of the day. There is, however, no allusion in Homer or Hesiod to the chariot of Selene. One of the Hymns²⁴³ describes her as bathing in Ocean, putting on gleaming raiment, and ascending a chariot drawn by glittering steeds. Theocritus²⁴⁴ also gives Selene horses ; but we do not meet any other mention of her chariot and horses in the Greek poets. In Ovid²⁴⁵ her steeds are snow-white. Statius²⁴⁶ places her in a car drawn by two horses. Pausanias²⁴⁷ says that one of the figures on the base of the throne of Zeus at Olympia was Selene driving a single horse, as it appeared to him ; but others said it was a mule, and they had a silly legend respecting it. The Latin Festus²⁴⁸ is the only writer who speaks of the car of the Moon being drawn by mules²⁴⁹.

The later poets make steers or heifers the draught-cattle of Selene²⁵⁰. This notion had its very natural origin in the contemplation of the horned moon²⁵¹.

In the general and natural mode of representation Selene {p. 61}is the sister of Helios, but another view of the subject made her his daughter, he being the source of her light²⁵²; while a third view made her the mother by him of the four Seasons²⁵³. In one of the Homeridian Hymns²⁵⁴ Selene is called the daughter of Pallas, son of Megamedes.

It was said that Selene was enamoured of Endymiôn, on whom Zeus had bestowed the boon of perpetual youth, but united with perpetual sleep ; and that she used to descend to him every night on the summit of Mount Latmos, the place of his repose²⁵⁵. The god Pan was also said to have gained her love under the form of a snow-white ram²⁵⁶. She bore to Zeus a daughter named Pandia²⁵⁷; and Ersa (Dew) was also the offspring of the king of heaven and the goddess of the moon²⁵⁸.

This last is a pleasing fiction of the lyric poet Alcman. The moon was naturally, though incorrectly, regarded as the cause of dew²⁵⁹ and nothing therefore was more obvious than to say that the dew was the progeny of the moon and sky personified after the usual manner of the Greeks.

{p. 62}

In the Homeridian Hymn to Selene she is styled²⁶⁰ : 1. White-armed ; 2. Well-tressed, — two of the usual epithets of the goddesses.

Empedocles²⁶¹ and Euripides²⁶² give the Moon an epithet (γλαυκῶπις) usually appropriated to Pallas Athene, and of which we shall treat in its due place.

The name Selene (Σϵλήνη) is plainly derived from σέλας, brightness, and is one of the large family of words of which ἕλα or ἕλη (Helle, Germ.) may be regarded as the root.

Ήώς. Aurora. Dawn.

The third of the children of Hyperiôn and Theia was Eôs, or the Dawn. Like Selene she was named by later poets²⁶³ from Pallas, and their reason for so doing is not easy to be discerned. Æschylus would seem to term her the child of Night²⁶⁴, — a very obvious and natural genealogy.

In Homer and Hesiod Eôs is simply the goddess of the dawn, but in the works of succeeding poets she is identified with Hemera, or the Day²⁶⁵.

Homer, who is silent respecting the chariots of Helios and Selene, names the steeds which drew that of Eôs. He calls them Lampos (Shining) and Phaëthôn (Gleaming)²⁶⁶. Æschylus²⁶⁷ {p. 63}and Theocritus²⁶⁸ name the goddess ‘white-horsed’, and Euripides²⁶⁹ describes the ‘white-winged’ Hemera carrying off Tithonos in her golden four-horsed chariot. In another passage of this poet²⁷⁰ we meet the ‘one-horsed’ Eôs, whether riding or driving is not said. Lycophrôn²⁷¹ gives her the winged horse Pegasos for her steed, and the scholiasts inform us that, when this horse had thrown Bellerophôn down to earth, Eôs asked and obtained him from Zeus²⁷².

Eôs was, by Astræos, the mother of the winds Boreas, Zephyros and Notos, and of the stars of heaven²⁷³.

The lovely goddess of the dawn was more than once smitten with the love of mortal man. She carried off Oriôn, and kept him in the isle of Ortygia, till he was slain there by the darts of Artemis²⁷⁴. Cleitos (Bright ?), the son of Mantios, was for his exceeding beauty snatched away by her, ‘that he might be among the gods²⁷⁵.’ She also carried off Cephalos, and had by him a son named Phaëthôn²⁷⁶. But her strongest affection was for Tithonos, son of Laomedôn, king of Troy. When she had carried him off, she besought Zeus to bestow on him immortality. The sovereign of Olympos assented, and Tithonos became exempt from death ; but the love-sick goddess, having forgotten to have youth joined in the gift, began with time to discern old-age creeping over the visage and limbs of her beautiful lover. When she saw his hairs blanching, she abstained from his bed, but still kept him and treated him with due attention in her palace on the eastern margin of the Oceanstream, ‘giving him ambrosial food and fair garments’. But when he was no longer able to move his limbs, she deemed it the wisest course to shut him up in his chamber, whence his feeble voice was incessantly heard²⁷⁷. Later poets say that out of compassion she turned him into a tree-hopper (τϵττιξ, cicada)²⁷⁸. In Homer the goddess is less fastidious, and she is {p. 64}escribed as rising from the bed of the ‘illustrious Tithonos, to bear light to mortals and immortals²⁷⁹.’ Memnôn and Æmathiôn were the children whom Eôs bore to Tithonos²⁸⁰.

In the works of the artists Eôs drives a four-horsed car. Night, the moon, and the stars retire before her. Sometimes she is winged, at other times not.

Eôs was styled by the poets²⁸¹, 1. Rose-fingered ; 2. Rose-armed ; 3. Yellow-robed ; 4. Gold-seated ; 5. Well-seated ; 6. Well-tressed ; 7. Snow-footed ; 8. Fair-lighting ; 9. Mortal-illuming ; 10. Much-seeing ; 11. Air-born²⁸², etc.

The most probable derivation of the name Eôs (Ήὼς, Dor.Ἀὼς) seems to be that from ἂω, to blow, regarding it as the cool morning air, whose gentle breathing precedes the rising of the sun²⁸³.

Ϗοȋος καὶ Фοίβη . Cœus et Phœbe.

The offspring of this pair of Titans were ‘sable-vested’ Leto (Darkness ?), and ‘well-named’ Asteria (Starry)²⁸⁴, which last espoused Perses, the son of Crios. Leto was destined to be the mother of Apollo and Artemis under the new order of things, which succeeded the time of the Titans.

The name Phœbe plainly signifies Lucid²⁸⁵, and a very obvious etymon will give a similar signification for that of Coios²⁸⁶.

[n.p.]

{p. 65}

κρKpȋος. Crius.

This Titan is in the Theogony²⁸⁷ said to be the sire of Astræos, Pallas and Perses, by Eurybia (Wide-force), probably the daughter of Pontos and Earth²⁸⁸. Astræos, as we have just seen, was by Eôs the father of the Winds. Pallas had by Styx the Ocean-nymph, Envy and Victory, Strength and Force ; and Perses married Asteria the daughter of Coios and Phœbe, by whom he had Hecate.

There is some difficulty about these personages, who are hardly ever mentioned by the poets. The origin of the name Krios is not apparent²⁸⁹. Pallas (Shaker ?) would seem from the names of his offspring to be of a moral, not of a physical nature, unlike the progeny of the three preceding Titans. With Astræos (Starry) and Perses (Bright ?), and their children, the difficulty is much less, for they are all physical beings.

We cannot avoid here intimating our suspicion that the two moral beings Themis and Mnemosyne²⁹⁰ were not originally among the Titans. According to all analogy the sage or poet who devised the mythe of the six male and six female Titans must have intended to employ them in pairs in the task of production ; and yet we find Crios united with a daughter of Pontos and Earth, one of a class of beings quite alien from the Titans, and Iapetos with an Ocean-nymph ; while Themis and Mnemosyne are reserved to be the parents of moral beings by Zeus in the new order of things. This is surely not the order one might have anticipated. It is now, however, hardly possible to rectify the error, if it should be such.

Έκάτη. Hecate.

In the Theogony²⁹¹ this goddess is the daughter of Perses and Asteria. Bacchylides made her a daughter of Night, and Musæus gave her Zeus for a sire in place of Perses²⁹², while {p. 66}others said that she was the offspring of the Olympian king by Pheræa, the daughter of Æolos²⁹³, or by Demeter²⁹⁴. According to Pherecydes her sire was Aristæos²⁹⁵.

It is said in the Theogony²⁹⁶ that Hecate was highly honoured by Zeus, who allowed her to exercise extensive power over land and sea, and to share in all the honours enjoyed by the children of Heaven and Earth. She rewards sacrifice and prayer to her with prosperity. She presides over the deliberations of the popular assembly, over war, and the administration of justice. She gives success in wrestling and horseracing. The fisherman prays to her and Poseidôn ; the herdsman, to her and Hermes, — for she can increase and diminish at her will. Though an only child (in contrast to Apollo and Artemis, who have similar power) she is honoured with all power among the immortals, and is by the appointment of Zeus the rearer of children, whom she has brought to see the light of day.

This passage is, however, plainly an interpolation in the Theogony, with which it is not in harmony. It has all the appearance of being an Orphic composition, and is perhaps the work of the notorious forger Onomacritus²⁹⁷.

The name Hecate is the feminine of Hecatos, one of the epithets of Apollo²⁹⁸, and is itself an epithet of his sister Artemis²⁹⁹. It was a common practice with the Greeks (of which we shall find many instances as we proceed) to form from the epithets of a deity other similar deities, or even hostile and rival beings, sometimes nymphs, or other companions of the original deity. In this manner, supposing Artemis to have been an original moon-goddess, her epithet of Far-shooter (ἑκάτη) may have separated from her, and have become another moon-goddess, for such is the real character of Hecate ; or Hecate may have been the primitive name of the moon-goddess of one of the tribes of Greece.

The system of Theocrasy which we have already mentioned {p. 67}frequently confounded deities who were originally distinct, but it sometimes only re-united those which were really the same, but which had been separated in the progress of time. In Hecate we seem to have instances of both processes ; she was identified with Selene, Artemis, and Eileithyia, all probably moon-goddesses, and with Persephone, of whom the original conception was totally different.

In consequence of this confusion Hecate became the patroness of magic and mistress of the under-world³⁰⁰. She was invoked as the triple goddess³⁰¹, and believed to wander by night along the earth, seen only by the dogs, whose baying announced her approach. She was regarded as beneficent, and the averter of evil³⁰². Her statues, which were dog-headed³⁰³, were set up at Athens and elsewhere in the market-places and at cross-roads ; and at the time of new moon the wealthy persons used to send suppers to be placed before her, which the poor would then come and eat, saying Hecate had eaten them³⁰⁴. The reason of this offering is said to have been that she might prevent the souls of the dead from appearing³⁰⁵.

A name of this goddess was Brimo³⁰⁶. This seems to have been chiefly employed to denote her terrific appearance, especially when she came summoned by magic arts. Apollonius³⁰⁷ describes her as having her head surrounded by serpents twining through branches of oak, while torches flamed in her hands, and the infernal dogs howled around her. Lucian’s ‘liar of the first magnitude,’ Eucrates³⁰⁸, gives a most terrific description of her appearance. In this character she was also sometimes called Empusa³⁰⁹. These were evidently all comparatively late ideas and fictions.

{p. 68}

Kρόνος καὶ Ῥєίη ἢ Ῥέα. Saturnus et Ops.

We are now arrived at the immediate origin of the Olympians, the gods worshiped throughout all Greece.

The mutilation of Uranos by his youngest son Kronos, and the overthrow of the latter by Zeus and his other children, the Kronids, have been already narrated. According to the Theogony³¹⁰ all the Titans (Oceanos, it would appear, excepted) were on this occasion shut up in Tartaros. Homer only names Kronos and Iapetos³¹¹, but he evidently included the others in his view of the subject³¹². At a later period it was said that Zeus had released the Titans³¹³. Hesiod in his didactic poem³¹⁴ says that Kronos ruled over the Isles of the Blest at the end of the earth by the ‘deep-eddying’ ocean ; and Pindar³¹⁵ gives a luxuriant description of this blissful abode, where the departed heroes of Greece dwelt beneath the mild rule of Kronos and his assessor Rhadamanthys. In the ‘Prometheus Loosed’ of Æschylus³¹⁶ the chorus consisted of the twelve Titans, and they came as it would appear from the eastern part of the Ocean-stream.

It was fabled at a late period that Kronos lay asleep, guarded by Briareôs, in a desert island near Britannia in the Western Ocean³¹⁷.

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The golden age, so celebrated by poets, is said to have been in the reign of Kronos, when, according to Hesiod³¹⁸,

Men lived like gods, with minds devoid of care,

Away from toils and misery : then was not

Timid old-age, but aye in feet and hands

Equally strong the banquet they enjoyed,

From every ill remote. They died as if

O'ercome with sleep, and all good things were theirs.

The bounteous earth did of herself bring forth

Fruit much and plenteous, and in quietness

Their works midst numerous blessings they pursued.

According to a fragment of the poetic philosopher Empedocles, Kronos married the ‘blooming’ Euonyme, who bore to him ‘beautiful-haired golden’ Aphrodite, the ‘deathless’ Fates, and the ‘variety-bestowing’ Erinnyes³¹⁹.

The only adventure recorded of this god is his amour with the Ocean-nymph Philyra : dreading the jealousy of his wife Rhea, he changed her into a mare, and himself into a horse. The produce of their love was the Centaur Cheirôn, half-man half-horse. Virgil³²⁰, in describing a horse of perfect strength and beauty, says,

Such, at the coming of his wife, the swift

Saturnus’ self upon his equine crest

Poured out a mane, and lofty Pelion filled

With his shrill neighings as away he fled.

This legend, it is said, first appeared in the poem of the Gigantomachia³²¹. It is also noticed by Pindar³²². Probably the praise of Cheirôn by Homer³²³ for his love of justice, led to the making him the offspring of the god who ruled over the golden race of men ; and if, as it would appear, he taught his heroic pupils music as well as other accomplishments, a more suitable {p. 70}mother could not be assigned him than the nymph Lyreloving³²⁴.

It is highly probable that the whole history of this god was originally merely a philosophical mythe. Kronos evidently signifies time³²⁵ : he is the son of Heaven, by the motion of whose luminaries time is measured ; he is married to Rhea (ῥέα, flowingly), and time flows ; he devours his own children, and time destroys what it has brought into existence.

Perhaps, as has been ingeniously conjectured³²⁶, Zeus, the god of the heaven, was poetically named Kroniôn, that is the Son of Time, and this led to the giving a separate and distinct existence to this deity.

Kronos was in after times confounded with the grim deity Moloch, to whom the Tyrians and Carthaginians offered their children in sacrifice. The slight analogy of this practice with the legend of Kronos devouring his children, may have sufficed for the Greeks to infer an identity of their ancient deity with the object of Phœnician worship. It was not improbably the circumstance of both gods being armed with a sickle, which led to the inference of Kronos being the same with the Saturnus of the Latins³²⁷. The fabled flight of this last from Olympos to Hesperia, and his there establishing the golden age, may have been indebted for its origin to the legend of the reign of Kronos over the Islands of the Blest in the western stream of Ocean.

There were no temples of Kronos in Greece³²⁸; but the Athenians had a festival in his honour named the Kronia, which was celebrated on the twelfth day of the month Hecatombæôn, i. e. in the end of July³²⁹, and which, as described to us, strongly resembles the Italian Saturnalia³³⁰.

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The only epithet given to Kronos by the elder poets is Crooked-counselled³³¹. This probably refers to his art in mutilating his sire.

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Chapter V.

THE HOMERIC GODS IN GENERAL.

Familiarity is productive of indifference, and the greatest charms of nature and art lose most of their attractions in the eyes of those who are long and intimately acquainted with them. This is particularly the case with the beautiful mythology of Greece : we are in general familiar with its legends from an early age, but we view them detached and unconnected, ignorant of their place and importance in the system (though a loose one) to which they belong ; they therefore rarely produce their full effect on our minds. But did the Grecian mythology not enter into our literature, and were we to remain unacquainted with it till we should open the volumes of Homer, what a new world would burst on our sight, — how splendid would Olympos and its dwellers then arise to view ! To present the gods in their Olympian abode, and exhibit a sketch of their life and occupations, are the objects of the present chapter.

As has been already stated, the Greeks of the early ages regarded the lofty Thessalian mountain named Olympos as the dwelling of their gods. In the Odyssey, where the deities are of a character far more dignified and elevated than in the Ilias, the place of their abode shares in their exaltation ; and it may almost be doubted if the poet who drew the following picture of Olympos could have conceived it to be no more than the summit of a terrestrial mountain.

Olympos, where they say the ever firm

Seat of the gods is, by the winds unshaken,

Nor ever wet with rain, nor ever showered

With snow, but cloudless æther o'er it spreads,

And glittering light encircles it around,

On which the happy gods aye dwell in bliss³³².

We have observed above, that man loves to bestow his own {p. 73}form upon his gods, as being the noblest that he can conceive. Those of Homer are therefore all of the human form, but of far larger dimensions than men³³³; great size being an object of admiration both in men and women in those early and martial ages. Thus when the goddess Athena³³⁴ ascends as. driver the chariot of Diomedes,

Loud groan’d the beechen axle with the weight,

For a great god and valiant chief it bore.

When in the battle of the gods³³⁵ Ares is struck to the earth by Athena, he is described as covering seven plethra of ground, and the helmet of the goddess herself would, we are told³³⁶, cover the footmen of a hundred towns. The voices of Poseidôn and Ares are as loud as the shout of nine or ten thousand men³³⁷.

The gods can however increase or diminish their size, assume the form of particular men³³⁸, or of any animals³³⁹ and make themselves visible and invisible at their pleasure³⁴⁰. Their bodies are also of a finer nature than those of men. It is not blood, but a blood-like fluid named ichôr, which flows in their veins³⁴¹. They are susceptible of injury by mortal weapons : the arrows of Hercules violate the divine bodies of Hera and Hades³⁴²; Diomedes wounds both Aphrodite and Ares³⁴³. They require nourishment as men do ; their food is called Ambrosia, their drink Nectar³⁴⁴. Their mode of life exactly resembles that of the princes and nobles of the heroic ages. In the palace of Zeus on Olympos they feast at the approach of evening, and converse of the affairs of heaven and earth ; the nectar is handed round by Hebe (Youth), Apollo delights them with the tones of his lyre, and the Muses in responsive strains {p. 74}pour forth their melodious voices in song. When the sun descends, each god retires to repose in his own dwelling³⁴⁵. They frequently partake of the hospitality of men³⁴⁶, travel with them³⁴⁷, and share in their wars and battles³⁴⁸.

With the form, the Homeric gods also partake of the passions of men. They are capricious, jealous, revengeful, will support their favourites through right and wrong, and are implacable toward their enemies, or even those who have slighted them³⁴⁹. Their power was held to extend very far ; men regarded them as the authors of both good and evil ; all human ability and success was ascribed to them. They were believed to have power over the thoughts of men, and could imperceptibly suggest such as they pleased³⁵⁰. They required of men to honour them with prayer, and the sacrifice of oxen, sheep, goats, lambs and kids, and oblations of wine and corn, and fragrant herbs³⁵¹. When offended, they usually remitted their wrath if thus appeased³⁵².

The Homeric gods have all different ranks and offices ; Olympos being in fact regulated on the model of a Grecian city of the heroic ages. Zeus was king of the region of the air and clouds, which had fallen to him by lot on the dethronement of his father Kronos ; the sea was the realm of his brother Poseidôn ; the under-world fell to Aïdes, in the division of their conquests ; Earth and Olympos were common property³⁵³. Zeus however, as eldest brother³⁵⁴, exercised a supremacy, and his power was the greatest. The other inhabitants of Olympos were Hera the sister and spouse of Zeus, Apollo the god of music and archery, his sister Artemis the goddess of the chace, and their mother Leto, Aphrodite goddess of love, and her mother Dione, Ares god of war, Pallas Athene goddess of prudence and skill, Themis goddess of justice, Hermeias god of gain, Hebe the attendant of the Olympian king and queen, and Iris their messenger, Hephæstos the celestial artist and Pæeôn the physician, and the Muses, the {p. 75}Graces, and the Seasons. Poseidôn was frequently there ; but Demeter the goddess of agriculture, and Dionysos the god of wine, do not appear among the residents of Olympos. The Nymphs and the River-gods occasionally visited or were summoned to it³⁵⁵. Eôs, Helios, and Selene rose every day out of the Ocean-stream, and drove in their chariots through the air, shedding their cheering beams abroad.

Of the residents of Olympos, its king and his son Hephæstos³⁵⁶ alone knew the pleasures or the pains of the wedded state. Ares and Hermeias intrigued occasionally with mortal women, but the character of Phœbos Apollo was of unstained purity³⁵⁷. Of the goddesses, Aphrodite alone could be charged with breach of chastity³⁵⁸; Artemis, Pallas Athene, Hebe, and Iris were all spotless virgins.

All the dwellings of the gods upon Olympos were of brass (χάλκος), the metal which was in the greatest abundance in Greece. Hephæstos was architect and smith ; he formed all the arms, household furniture, chariots, and other articles in use among the Celestials ; but their dress, especially that of the goddesses, appears to have been the workmanship of Athena or the Graces³⁵⁹. The gold which proceeded from the workshop of Hephæstos was filled with automatic power ; his statues were endowed with intelligence³⁶⁰ ; his tripods could move of themselves ; he made the golden shoes, or rather soles (πέιλα)³⁶¹ with which the gods trod the air and the waters, or strode from mountain to mountain upon the earth, which trembled beneath their weight³⁶², with the speed of winds or even of thought³⁶³. The chariots of the gods and their {p. 76}appurtenances were formed of various metals. That of Hera, for example, is thus described³⁶⁴ :

Then Hebe quickly to the chariot put

The round wheels, eight-spoked, brazen, on the strong

Axle of iron. Gold their fellies were,

And undecaying, but thereon of brass

The tires³⁶⁵ well fitting, wondrous to behold.

Of silver was the rounded nave of each ;

The seat was hung by gold and silver cords,

And two curved sides encompass’d it about.

The pole was silver, and upon its end

She tied the beauteous golden yoke, and bound

On it the golden traces fair : the steeds

Swift-footed then beneath the yoke were led

By Hera, eager for the war and strife.

These chariots were drawn by horses of celestial breed³⁶⁶, which could whirl them to and fro between heaven and earth through the yielding air, or skim with them along the surface of the sea without wetting the axle. They were only used on occasions of taking a long journey, as when Hera³⁶⁷ professes that she is going to the end of the earth to make up the quarrel between Oceanos and Tethys ; or on occasions in which the gods wish to appear with state and magnificence³⁶⁸. On ordinary occasions the gods moved by the aid of their golden shoes : when at home in their houses, they, like the men of those ages, went barefoot.

The Titans, as we have seen, were twelve in number, six of {p. 77}each sex. In like manner we find twelve Olympians, similarly divided. The gods were Zeus, Poseidôn, Hephæstos, Hermes, Apollo, Ares ; the goddesses were Hera, Demeter, Hestia, Athena, Aphrodite, and Artemis³⁶⁹. This arrangement could hardly have been known to Homer, who never mentions Hestia, and but incidentally Demeter. The earliest writer by whom we find the twelve gods noticed is Hellanicus, who says³⁷⁰ that Deucaliôn built altars to them after the flood. It was perhaps the number of the months of the year that caused twelve to be fixed on as that of the Titans and the Olympians³⁷¹ ; or it may have been because twelve was the political number of the Ionian race, for it seems probable that it was only among them, particularly at Athens³⁷², that altars were erected to these twelve gods. At Olympia there were six altars to six pairs of deities, but they were not exactly the same with those above enumerated³⁷³. In later times it became a common practise to raise altars to the twelve gods³⁷⁴.

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Chapter VI.

THE KRONIDS : — ZEUS, POSEIDÔN, HADES, HESTIA.

Ζєύς. Jovis, Jupiter. — Ποσειδάων, Ποσειδῶν. Neptunus. — Ἀΐς, Ἀΐδης, Ἀϊδωνεὑς, Ἅιδης‚ Πλοὐτων. Orcus, Dis. — Ἱστία, Ἑστία. Vesta.

The Kronids, or children of Kronos and Rhea, were Zeus, Poseidôn, Hades, Hestia, Hera, and Demeter. The four first we shall place here : the two last, as wives of Zeus, will find their more appropriate situation along with their children.

Ζєύς. Jovis, Jupiter.

Zeus is in the Ilias the eldest son of Kronos and Rhea. He and his brothers, Poseidôn and Hades, divided the world by lot among them, and the portion which fell to him was the ‘extensive heaven in air and clouds³⁷⁵.’ All the aerial phænomena, such as thunder and lightning, wind, clouds, snow, and rainbows, are therefore ascribed to him³⁷⁶; and he sends them either as signs³⁷⁷ and warnings, or to punish the transgressions of man, especially the perversions of law and justice, of which he is the fountain³⁷⁸. Zeus is called the ‘father of men and gods’³⁷⁹ ; his power over both is represented as supreme³⁸⁰, and his will is fate. Earthly monarchs obtain their authority from him³⁸¹; they are but his vicegerents, and are distinguished by epithets derived from his name³⁸². In his palace on Olympos Zeus lives after the fashion of a Grecian prince in the midst of his family ; altercations and quarrels occur between him and his queen, Hera³⁸³; and, though in general kind and affectionate to his children, he occasionally menaces or treats them with rigour³⁸⁴.

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In the Odyssey the character of this god is, agreeably to the more moral tone of that poem, of a higher and more dignified order. No indecent altercations occur ; both gods and men submit to his power without a murmur, yet he is anxious to show the equity of his decrees and to ‘justify his ways³⁸⁵.’

The Theogony, as we have seen, represents Zeus as the lastborn child of Kronos and Rhea, and according to it the supreme power was freely conferred on him by his brothers, and he thus became the acknowledged head of the Olympian gods, the objects of Grecian worship.

Though Homer names the parents of nearly all the gods who appear in his poems, and it follows thence that they must have been born in some definite places, he never indicates any spot of earth as the natal place of any of his gods³⁸⁶. A very ancient tradition, however, (for it occurs in Hesiod) made the isle of Crete the scene of the birth of the monarch of Olympos. According to this tradition Rhea, when about to be delivered of Zeus, retired to a cavern near Lyctos or Cnossos in Crete. She there brought forth her babe, whom the Melian nymphs received in their arms ; Adrasteia rocked him in a golden cradle, he was fed with honey and the milk of the goat Amaltheia, while the Curetes³⁸⁷ danced about him clashing their arms to prevent his cries from reaching the ears of Kronos³⁸⁸. According to another account the infant deity was fed on ambrosia brought by pigeons from the streams of Ocean, and on nectar which an eagle drew each day with his beak from a rock³⁸⁹. This legend was gradually {p. 80}pragmatised ; Zeus became a mortal king of Crete, and not merely the cave in which he was reared, but the tomb which contained his remains, was shown by the ‘lying Cretans³⁹⁰

The Arcadians, on the other hand, asserted that Zeus first saw the light among their mountains. Rhea, they said, came to Mount Parrhasion, amidst whose thickets she brought forth her divine son. She sought for water to wash the new-born babe, but in vain, for Arcadia was then a land unwatered by streams ; the Ladôn, the Alpheios, and their kindred floods had not yet appeared. “Dear Earth ! do thou too bring forth,” said the goddess, and smiting the mountain with her staff she caused to gush from it a copious flow of water, which she named the Neda, from one of the nymphs who assisted at her labour, and who then conveyed the babe to Cnossos in Crete³⁹¹. The more general tradition, however, was that the nymph Neda and her sisters, Theisoa and Hagno, reared the infant deity in a cavern of Mount Lycæon, where there was a place named Cretes, as other spots in Arcadia were designated by names belonging to places in Crete³⁹².

All, therefore, that we can collect with safety from these accounts is that the worship of the Dictæan Zeus in Crete, and of the Lycæan Zeus in Arcadia, was of the most remote antiquity, and that thence, when the Euhemeristic principle began to creep in among the Greeks, each people supposed the deity to have been born among themselves. The Cretan legend must however be regarded as the more ancient, for the Arcadians evidently attempted to transfer the names of places in it to their own country, a practise of which as we proceed we shall meet with other instances.

In the Theogony the celestial progeny of Zeus are enumerated in the following order³⁹³.

Zeus first espoused Metis (Prudence), who exceeded gods and men in knowledge. But Heaven and Earth having told him that her first child, a maid, would equal himself in strength and counsel, and her second, a son, would be king of gods and men, he cajoled her when she was pregnant, and swallowed her ; and after a time the goddess Pallas Athene sprang {p. 81}from his head. He then married Themis, who bore him the Seasons and Fates. The Oceanis Eurynome next produced him the Graces ; Demeter was then by him the mother of Persephone, Mnemosyne of the Muses, and Leto of Apollo and Artemis. His last spouse was Hera, who bore him Hebe, Ares, and Eileithyia.

According to Homer³⁹⁴ Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus by Dione. The Theogony further says that Maia, the daughter of Atlas, bore him Hermes³⁹⁵ A later fable said that Asteria, the sister of Leto, flying the love of Zeus, flung herself from heaven down to the sea and became the isle afterwards named Delos³⁹⁶.

Mortal women also bore a numerous progeny to this amorous monarch of the gods, and every species of transmutation and disguise was employed by him to accomplish his object. He assumed the form of her husband Amphitryôn to deceive the modesty of Alcmena, who became the mother of Heracles. Leda was beguiled by him in the shape of a beautiful white swan. Under the form of a shower of gold he penetrated the brazen prison in which Danae was inclosed, and became the father of Perseus. Antiope, the mother of Amphiôn and Zethos, was forced by him in the guise of a satyr. To seduce the Arcadian nymph Callisto he presumed to take the form of Artemis, the goddess of chastity. A bull was the form in which he carried off Europa, the sister of Cadmos ; and a flame of fire or the plumage of an eagle disguised the god from Ægina, the mother of Æacos. By Semele he was the father of Dionysos, who became a god. By Io he had a son named Epaphos. Many other heroes could also boast of being the sons of Zeus by different mothers. Of all these mortal loves {p. 82}we shall give a detailed account when we come to speak of the heroes who sprang from them.

The love of Zeus (and in this there lies a moral) was not always a source of happiness to those whom he honoured with it. Io, for example, underwent a dreadful persecution from Hera, as also did Leto. Semele perished in the flames which invested the lord of the thunder and lightning. Danae and her babe were abandoned to the waves of the sea.

We shall presently show that the name Zeus signifies God. When, therefore, we recollect how usual it was in the oriental and early Greek style to represent magnitude or excellence by associating it with the name of the deity³⁹⁷, it will not surprise us to meet so many Zeus-sprung heroes in the mythology of Greece³⁹⁸. A mere epithet was probably the germ of the mythe ; Zeus was then placed at the head of a genealogy ; and last came the poets, who detailed the amorous history.

It seems to have been an ancient opinion that the gods used to assume the human form and go among mankind to mark their conduct³⁹⁹. To this notion — which carries our minds back to those happy ages commemorated in the Book of Genesis, ‘when angels dwelt and God himself with man’ — we are indebted for some interesting legends told by poets, of Zeus taking the human form, and coming down to view more closely the conduct of mankind over whom he ruled. Such was his visit to Lycaôn king of Arcadia, whom he punished for his impiety ; and that on occasion of which the piety of Hyrieus was rewarded by the birth of Oriôn. The most pleasing tale is that of Philemôn and Baucis, narrated by Ovid in his most agreeable manner, to the following effect⁴⁰⁰.

Zeus and Hermes came one time in the form of men to a town in Phrygia. It was evening ; they sought for hospitality, but every door was closed against them. At length they approached a humble cottage where dwelt an aged man, named Philemôn, with Baucis his wife, of equal years : by them the wayfarers were gladly received. The poet pleases his imagination amidst the luxury of Rome in describing the furniture of their simple abode, and the homely fare, though their best, which they set before their celestial guests, whose quality was at length revealed by the miracle of the wine-bowl being spontaneously replenished as fast as it was drained. They told their hosts that it was their intention to destroy the godless town, and desired them to leave their house and ascend the adjacent hill. The aged pair obeyed : ere they reached the summit they turned round to look, and beheld a lake where the town had stood. Their own house remained, and, as they gazed and deplored the fate of their neighbours it became a temple. On being desired by Zeus to express their wishes, they prayed that they might be appointed to officiate in that temple, and that they might be united in death as in life. Their prayer was granted, and as they were one day standing before the temple, they were suddenly changed into an oak and a lime-tree⁴⁰¹.

It was the habit of the Greeks to appropriate particular plants and animals to the service of their deities. There was generally some reason for this, founded on physical or moral grounds, or on both. Nothing could be more natural than to assign the oak⁴⁰², the monarch of trees, to the celestial king, whose ancient oracle moreover was in the oak-woods of Dodona⁴⁰³. In like manner the eagle was evidently the bird best suited to his service⁴⁰⁴.

The celebrated Ægis⁴⁰⁵, the shield which sent forth thunder, {p. 84}lightning, and darkness, and struck terror into mortal hearts, was formed for Zeus by Hephæstos⁴⁰⁶. In Homer we see it sometimes borne by Apollo⁴⁰⁷ and by Athena⁴⁰⁸.

The most famous temple of this god was at Olympia in Elis, where every fourth year the Olympian games were celebrated in his honour : he had also a splendid fane in the isle of Ægina. But, though there were few deities less honoured with temples and statues, all the inhabitants of Hellas conspired in the duty of doing homage to the sovereign of the gods. His great oracle was at Dodona, where, even in the Pelasgian period, his priests, the Selli, announced his will and futurity⁴⁰⁹.

Zeus was represented by the artists as the model of dignity and majesty of mien ; his countenance grave but mild. He is seated on a throne, and grasping his sceptre and the thunder. The eagle is standing beside the throne.

The epithets of this god in Homer are⁴¹⁰, 1. Ægis-holding ; 2. Cloud-collecting ; 3. Black-clouding ; 4. Thunder-loving ; 5. High-seated ; 6. Lightening ; 7. Counselling ; 8. Wide-seeing or Wide-thundering ; and others of similar signification.

The epithets of Zeus derived from his offices, such as Xenios, as protector of strangers, Horkios, the guardian of oaths, were numerous. He was also named like the other gods from the places where he was worshiped, ex. gr. Clarios, Cithæronios. Toward the end of the month Anthesteriôn (beginning of March), a festival named the Diasia was held at Athens, in which offerings were made to Zeus, the Mild or Appeased, (μειλίχιος)⁴¹¹, answering to the sin-offerings of the Mosaic law. At Argos there was an ancient wooden statue (ξόανον) of Zeus, which had a third eye in its forehead. The tradition was that it had been the domestic image of Priamos, and had been brought from Troy by Sthenelos. The three eyes are rightly explained by Pausanias as indicative of the dominion {p. 85}of Zeus (the God) over heaven, earth, (land and water,) and the under-world⁴¹².

A very simple process will lead us to the true signification of the name of this deity. Its Æolic form is Δεὑς, which is almost the same as the deus of the Latin, the affinity of which language to the Æolic Greek is well known⁴¹³. Zeus (Ζεùς) therefore is God, the same as θεòς, deus, and akin to the Persian Deev or Dew, and the Sanscrit Deva and Deveta⁴¹⁴. The oblique cases of Zeus come from Δὶς and Ζὴν, or Zàv, the former of which is manifestly equivalent to Ζεὑς, and the latter is probably a contraction of the participle ζάων, living.

Ποσειδάων, Ποσειδῶν. Neptunus.

This son of Kronos and Rhea became the ruler of the sea. His queen was Amphitrite, one of the daughters of Nereus and Doris⁴¹⁵. Their children were Tritôn⁴¹⁶ and Rhode, or Rhodos, which last became the bride of Helios⁴¹⁷. A late legend said that Amphitrite fled the love of the god, but that he came riding on a dolphin, and thus won her affection ; and for his service he placed the dolphin among the stars⁴¹⁸.

Poseidôn, like his brother Zeus, had a numerous progeny both by goddesses and mortals. The fleet steed Areiôn was the offspring of the sea-god and Demeter, both having assumed the equine form⁴¹⁹. According to one account the nymph Rhodos was his daughter by Aphrodite⁴²⁰.

Tyro, the daughter of Salmoneus, and wife of Cretheus, loved the river Enipeus, and frequented his stream ; Poseidôn, under the form of the river-god, ‘mingled in love’ with her, and she became the mother of Pelias and Neleus⁴²¹. Iphimedeia bore him Otos and Ephialtes, those gigantic babes, who {p. 86}in their ninth year attempted to scale heaven⁴²². As a ram, he was by Theophane, daughter of Bisaltos, the sire of the goldfleeced ram which carried Phryxos to Colchis⁴²³. The seanymph Thoösa bore him the huge Cyclops Polyphemos⁴²⁴. The invulnerable Cycnos, who was slain by Achilles, was also the offspring of this deity⁴²⁵: so also were Theseus, Eumolpos, and other heroes.

Poseidôn was worshiped in Arcadia under the title of Hippios⁴²⁶. One legend of that country made him the sire of the steed Areiôn⁴²⁷; and another said that when Rhea brought him forth, she pretended to Kronos that she had been delivered of a foal, which she gave him to devour⁴²⁸. The origin of the horse was also ascribed to this god. According to a Thessalian legend, he smote a rock in that country with his trident, and forth sprang the first horse, which was named Scyphios⁴²⁹. The vain people of Attica affected to believe that it was on their soil that the sea-god first presented the horse to mankind⁴³⁰. The winged steed Pegasos is also the offspring of Poseidôn⁴³¹. In the Ilias, when Zeus returns from Ida to Olympos, it is Poseidôn that unyokes his horses⁴³²; the same god is said to have given the Harpy-born steeds of Achilles to Peleus⁴³³ ; he is joined with Zeus as the teacher of the art of driving the chariot⁴³⁴; and when Menelaos charges Antilochos with foul play in the chariot-race, he requires him to clear himself by an oath to Poseidôn⁴³⁵.

All this indicates a close connexion between the sea-god and the horse. The usual solution given is, that as, according to Herodotus, the worship of Poseidôn came from Libya to Greece, and (the Libyans being an agricultural, not a {p. 87}seafaring people) the agents must have been the Phœnicians, who also, we are assured, brought the first horses into Greece (as the Spaniards did into America, and as much to the astonishment of the rude natives), the knowledge of the horse and of Poseidôn thus came together, and they were therefore associated in the popular mind⁴³⁶.

This, we may observe, is all merely gratuitous hypothesis. The absurd passion of Herodotus for deducing the religion of Greece from abroad is so notorious, that few, we should suppose, would lay any stress on his testimony in these matters. Had a god of the sea been worshiped in Egypt, beyond question the historian would have derived Poseidôn from that country. Again, what can be more absurd than to suppose that Greece, a portion of the continent of Europe, to the north of which dwelt the Thracians and Scythians, renowned in all ages for their horses⁴³⁷, should have first received these animals from the coast of Africa ? We may therefore, we think, safely dismiss this hypothesis, and look for an explanation of the phænomenon elsewhere.

The horse is the principal means of transport by land, as the ship is by sea ; the one name might therefore be metaphorically employed for the other. Thus in Homer⁴³⁸ Penelope says,

Why, herald, is my son gone ? for no need

Had he to mount the swift-coursed ships, which are

For men the horses of the sea, and pass

O'er the great deep ;

in Plautus⁴³⁹ one of the characters says, “That is to say, you have been carried on a wooden horse along the azure roads ;” and the Arabs call their camel the ship of the desert. This seems to offer a natural solution of the difficulty, the sea-god being regarded as the author of ships, the horses of the sea, and thence by an easy transition of the real animals⁴⁴⁰. But still when we reflect how widely spread was the habit of regarding the horse as in some mysterious manner connected {p. 88}with the water⁴⁴¹, we may hesitate to give our full assent to this theory.

It is rather curious to observe the manner in which Poseidôn and Pallas Athene are associated. They were worshiped together, — he as Hippios, she as Hippia, — at Colonos near Athens⁴⁴² ; we find them united in the legend of Bellerophontes⁴⁴³ ; they contended for the possession of Attica⁴⁴⁴ and Trœzên⁴⁴⁵ ; in the former case the sea-god was forced to yield, in the latter Zeus decided that they should hold the dominion in common. In like manner Poseidôn is said to have contended with Hera for Argos⁴⁴⁶, and with Helios for Corinth⁴⁴⁷; with Zeus for Ægina⁴⁴⁸, and with Dionysos for Naxos⁴⁴⁹; and to have exchanged Delos and Delphi with Apollo for Calauria and Tænaron⁴⁵⁰. Mythes of this kind merely indicate a change or a combination of the worship of the deities who are the subjects of them, in the places where the scenes of the supposed contests are laid⁴⁵¹.

Beside his residence on Olympos, Poseidôn had a splendid palace beneath the sea at Ægæ⁴⁵². Homer gives a noble description of his passage from it on his way to Troy, his chariot-wheels but touching the watery plain, and the monsters of the deep gamboling around their king. His most celebrated temples were at the Corinthian isthmus, Onchestos⁴⁵³, Helice⁴⁵⁴, Trœzên, and the promontories of Sunion, Tænaron, Geræstos, and other headlands⁴⁵⁵.

Poseidôn is represented, like Zeus, of a serene and majestic aspect ; his form is strong and muscular. He usually bears in his hand the trident, the three-pronged symbol of his power : the dolphin and other marine objects accompany his images.

{p. 89}

The poetic epithets of Poseidôn are⁴⁵⁶, 1. Earth-keeping ; 2. Earth-shaking ; 3. Dark-haired ; 4. Wide-ruling ; 5. Loud-sounding ; etc.

In Poseidôn we may discern the original god of water in general, of springs and rivers as well as of the sea. The legends respecting him (his amour with Demeter, the earth, for instance,) are on this supposition easy of explanation. The simple Doric form of his name, Ποτίδας, shows its true origin to be from the root ΠΟΩ, and that it is of the same family with πότος, πόντος, ποταμòς, all relating to water and fluidity⁴⁵⁷.

Ἀΐς, Ἀΐδης, Ἀϊδωνεὑς, Ἅιδης‚ Πλοὐτων. Orcus, Dis.

Hades, the brother of Zeus and Poseidôn, was lord of the subterrane region, the abode of the dead. He is described as being inexorable and deaf to supplication, — for from his realms there is no return, — and an object of aversion and hatred both to gods and men⁴⁵⁸. All the latter were sure to be sooner or later collected into his kingdom. His name appears to denote invisibility⁴⁵⁹, significatory of the nature of the realm over which he ruled. At a later period he received the appellation of Plutôn⁴⁶⁰, as mines within the earth are the producers of the precious metals. This notion, Voss⁴⁶¹ thinks, began to prevail when the Greeks first visited Spain, the country most abundant in gold.

The adventures of this god were few, for the gloomy nature of himself and his realm did not offer much field for such legends of the gods as Grecian fancy delighted in ; yet he too had his love-adventures. The tale of his carrying off Persephone (which we shall relate at length in the sequel) is one {p. 90}of the most celebrated in antiquity. He loved, we are told⁴⁶², and carried off to Erebos the Oceanis Leuce ; and when she died, he caused a tree, named from her, λεύκη, white poplar,) to spring up in the Elysian Fields. Another of his loves was the nymph Mentha, whom Persephone out of jealousy turned into the plant which bears her name⁴⁶³.

Hades, Homer tells us⁴⁶⁴, was once wounded in the shoulder by the arrows of Heracles ; but from the ambiguity of the phrase used by the poet (έν πύλῳ) it is difficult to determine the scene of the conflict. Some say it was at the gate of the nether world, when the hero was sent to drag the dog of Hades to the realms of day⁴⁶⁵ ; others that it was in Pylos, where the god was aiding his worshipers against the son of Zeus⁴⁶⁶.

The region over which Hades presides is represented in the Ilias and in the Theogony⁴⁶⁷ as being within the earth : in the Odyssey⁴⁶⁸ it is placed in the dark region beyond the stream of Ocean. Its name is Erebos⁴⁶⁹ ; the poets everywhere describe it as dreary, dark, and cheerless. The dead, without distinction of good or evil, age or rank, wander about there, conversing of their former state on earth : they are unhappy, and they feel their wretched state acutely. Achilles, the son of a goddess, declares to Odysseus that he would rather be a day-labourer to the poorest cultivator on earth than a king in those regions. They have no strength or power of mind {p. 91}or body⁴⁷⁰. Some few, enemies of the gods, such as Sisyphos, Tityos, Tantalos, are punished for their crimes, but not apart from the rest of the dead⁴⁷¹. Nothing can be more gloomy and comfortless than the whole aspect of the realm of Hades as pictured in the Odyssey. It is in fact surprising, that men who had such a dreary prospect before them should not have been more attached to life, and more averse from war and everything that might abridge its period, than the ancient Greeks were⁴⁷².

In process of time, when communication with Egypt and Asia had enlarged the sphere of the ideas of the Greeks, the nether-world underwent a total change. It was now divided into two separate regions : Tartaros, which in the time of Homer and Hesiod was thought to lie far beneath it, and to be the prison of the Titans, became one of these regions, and the place of punishment for wicked men ; and Elysion, which lay on the shore of the stream of Ocean, the retreat of the children and relatives of the king of the gods, was moved down thither to form the place of reward for good men. A stream encompassed the domains of Hades⁴⁷³, over which the dead, on paying their passage-money (ναῦλον), were ferried by Charôn⁴⁷⁴ ; the three-headed dog Cerberos guarded the entrance⁴⁷⁵; and the three judges, Minôs, Æacos, and Rhadamanthys, allotted his place of bliss or of pain to each of the {p. 92}dead who was brought before their tribunal⁴⁷⁶. The river of Oblivion (ὁ τῆς λήθης ποταμὸς)⁴⁷⁷ was added to those of Homer's trans-Oceanic region⁴⁷⁸, of whose waters the dead were led to drink previous to their returning to animate other bodies on earth⁴⁷⁹. In the sixth book of Virgil’s Æneïs will be found the richest and fullest description of the new-modified under-world, and for those who love to trace the progress and change of ideas, it will not be an uninteresting employment to compare it with that in the eleventh book of Homer's Odyssey. The poet Claudian⁴⁸⁰ too has, with his usual elegance, drawn a luxuriant description of the blissful scenes which the under-world would present, to console and reconcile its future mistress.

In reading the ‘portentous lies’ (as they have well been termed⁴⁸¹ ) of the Egyptian priests on this subject, one is at a loss which most to admire at, their audacity, or the credulity of the Greeks. For the former asserted, and the latter believed, that Orpheus and Homer had both learned wisdom on the banks of the Nile ; and that the Erebos of Greece, and all its parts, personages and usages, were but transcripts of the mode of burial in Egypt. Here the corpse was, on payment of an obelos, conveyed by a ferryman (named Charôn in the language of Egypt) over the Acherusian lake, after it had received its sentence from the judges appointed for that purpose. Oceanos was but the Egyptian name of the Nile ; the Gates of the Sun were merely those of Heliopolis ; and Hermes, the conductor of souls⁴⁸², was familiar to the {p. 93}Egyptians ; and thus they appropriated all the mythic ideas of Greece. It may give some idea of their hardihood, to observe that they affirmed, on the authority of their sacred books and temple-archives, that Orpheus, Musæos, Melampûs and Dædalos — not one of whom probably ever existed — had all visited Egypt⁴⁸³. But enough of such mendacity : we should not have noticed it, were it not that the fashion of tracing the religion and institutions of Greece to Egypt is not yet extinct.

Before we quit Aïdoneus and his realms, we must call attention to the circumstance of mankind agreeing to place the abode of departed souls either beneath the earth, or in the remote regions of the West. The former notion, it is probable, owes its origin to the simple circumstance of the mortal remains of man being deposited by most nations in the bosom of the earth ; and the habits of thinking and speaking which thence arose, led to the notion of the soul also being placed in a region within the earth. The calmness and stillness of evening succeeding the toils of the day, the majesty of the sun sinking as it were to rest amid the glories of the western sky, exert a powerful influence over the human mind, and lead us almost insensibly to picture the West as a region of bliss and tranquillity. The idea of its being the abode of the departed good, where in calm islands they dwelt ‘from every ill remote,’ was therefore an obvious one⁴⁸⁴. Finally, the analogy of the conclusion of the day and the setting of the sun with the close of life, may have led the Greeks⁴⁸⁵, or it may be the Phœnicians, to place the dwelling of the dead in general in the dark land on the western shore of Ocean.

Hades, we are told by Homer, possessed a helmet which rendered its wearer invisible : it was forged for him by Hephæstos, the later writers say, in the time of the war against the Titans. Pallas Athene, when aiding Diomedes, wore it {p. 94}to conceal her from Ares⁴⁸⁶. When Perseus went on his expedition against the Gorgons, the helm of invisibility covered his brows⁴⁸⁷. This helmet of Hades will find its parallel in tales both of the East and the West, now consigned to the nursery.

By artists, the god of the nether-world was represented similar to his brothers, but he was distinguished from them by his gloomy and rigid mien. He usually bears a two-pronged fork in his hand.

The poets called Hades⁴⁸⁸, 1. Subterranean Zeus⁴⁸⁹ ; 2. People-collecting ; 3. Much-receiving ; 4. Gate-keeping ; 5. Laughter-less ; 6. Horse-renowned ; 7. Untamed, or invincible ; 8. Strong ; 9. Hateful ; 10. Cold ; etc.

At Hermione in Argolis Hades was worshiped under the name of Illustrious (κλύμενος)⁴⁹⁰, and Persephone under that of Subterrane (χθονία). The former would seem to have been placatory, like Eumenides that of the Erinnyes.

The epithet People-collecting, or driving, seems to refer to an office of Hades, which was afterwards transferred to Hermes. In the original conception of the god of the under-world, he was probably supposed to be himself the agent in removing from the realms of day those who were to be his subjects. Pindar speaks of the staff of Hades, with which he drives down (κατάγει) the dead along the hollow way to Erebos⁴⁹¹. It is also not unworthy of notice, that Macrobius⁴⁹², when speaking of Euripides’ drama of Alcestis, calls Death (Θάνατος), who comes to fetch away the heroine, Orcus, the Latin {p. 95}name of Pluto. In this drama we meet the first mention of a very remarkable notion of the Greeks. The dead seem to have been regarded in the light of victims offered to Hades⁴⁹³ ; and as it was the custom in commencing a sacrifice to pluck some hairs from the forehead of the victim and burn them on the altar, so Death is here represented as coming to cut off a lock of the hair of Alcestis⁴⁹⁴. Of this rite, however, no other mention is, we believe, to be found in Grecian literature. If we may trust to the Latin poets⁴⁹⁵, the duty of performing it belonged to Persephone, a view which seems to contradict all analogy.

Ἱστία, Ἑστία. Vesta.

An idea of the sanctity of the domestic hearth (ἑστία), the point of assembly of the family, and the symbol of the social union, gave the Greeks occasion to fancy it to be under the guardianship of a peculiar deity, whom they named from it, Hestia. This goddess does not appear in the poem of Homer, though he had abundant opportunities of noticing her. By Hesiod⁴⁹⁶ she is said to have been the daughter of Kronos and Rhea.

The hymn to Aphrodite relates that Hestia, Artemis, and Athena were the only goddesses who escaped the power of the queen of love. When wooed by Poseidôn and Apollo, Hestia, placing her hand on the head of Zeus, vowed perpetual virginity. Zeus, in place of marriage, gave her to sit in the middle of the house ‘receiving fat,’ and to be honoured in all the temples of the gods.

In the Prytaneion of every Grecian city stood the hearth, on which the sacred fire flamed, and where the offerings were made to Hestia⁴⁹⁷. In that of Athens there was a statue of the goddess⁴⁹⁸.

{p. 96}

Chapter VII.

HERA : — ARES, HEPHÆSTOS, HEBE.

Ἥρη, Ἥρα. Juno. — Ἄρης. Mars. — Ἥϕαιστος Vulcanus. — Ἤβη. Juventas. Youth.

Ἥρη, Ἥρα. Juno.

In Homer this goddess is one of the children of Kronos and Rhea, and wife and sister to Zeus⁴⁹⁹. When the latter placed his sire in Tartaros, Rhea committed Hera to the care of Oceanos and Tethys, by whom she was carefully nurtured in their grotto-palace⁵⁰⁰. She and Zeus had however previously ‘mingled in love’ unknown to their parents⁵⁰¹. Hesiod, who gives her the same parents, says that she was the last spouse of Zeus⁵⁰². According to the Argive legend, Zeus, who had long secretly loved his sister, watched one day when she was out walking alone near Mount Thronax, and raising a great storm of wind and rain fled shivering and trembling, under the form of a cuckoo, to seek shelter on the knees of the unsuspecting maiden. She covered the poor bird, as she thought him, with her mantle, and Zeus then resuming his proper form accomplished his wishes. But when she had implored him in the name of her mother to spare her, he gave her a solemn promise to make her his wife⁵⁰³, — a promise which he faithfully performed. Henceforth the hill Thronax was named Coccygion (Cuckoo-hill)⁵⁰⁴.

In the Ilias (for she does not appear in the Odyssey) Hera, as the queen of Zeus, shares in his honours. The god is represented as a little in awe of her tongue, yet daunting her by his menaces. On one occasion he reminds her how once, when she had raised a storm, which drove his son Heracles out of his course at sea, he tied her hands together and suspended her with anvils at her feet between heaven and earth⁵⁰⁵ ; and when her son Hephæstos would aid her, he flung him down from Olympos⁵⁰⁶. In this poem the goddess appears dwelling in {p. 97}peace and harmony with Leto, Dione, Themis and their children : later poets speak much of the persecution which Leto underwent from the enmity of Hera, who also, as shall hereafter be related, made Io, Semele, Alcmena and other women, pay dear for their intrigues with the Olympian king.

[n.p.]

[n.p.]

The children of Zeus and Hera were Ares, Hebe, the Eileithyiæ, to which some added the Graces⁵⁰⁷. Hephæstos was the progeny of Hera without a sire ; she was also said to have given origin to the monster Typhaôn⁵⁰⁸.

In the mythic cycles of Dionysos and Heracles Hera acts a prominent part as the persecutor of the heroes of them, who were the offspring of Zeus by mortal mothers. In like manner, as the goddess of Argos, she is active in the cause of the Achæans in the war of ‘Troy divine’. In the Argonautic cycle she was the protecting deity of the adventurous Iasôn. There is, in fact, none of the Olympian deities more decidedly Grecian in feeling and character than this goddess.

The chief seats of the worship of Hera were Argos, Samos, and Platæa. She was also honoured at Sparta, Corinth, Corcyra, and other places. The victims offered to her were kine, ewe-lambs and sows. The willow, the pomegranate, the dittany, the lily, were her sacred plants. Among birds, the cuckoo, and afterwards the gaudy stately peacock, were appropriated to the Olympian queen.

According to the legend the goddess herself formed this last bird from the many-eyed Argos, whom she had set as keeper over the transformed Io. Moschus⁵⁰⁹ (in whom we first meet this legend), when describing the basket which Europa had in her hand when, as she was gathering flowers, she was carried off by Zeus, says,

Around beneath the curved basket’s rim

Was Hermes form’d, and near to him lay stretch’d

Argos, with ever-sleepless eyes supplied ;

Out of whose purple blood was rising up

A bird, whose wings with many coulours glow’d :

Spreading his tail, like a swift-sailing ship,

The golden basket’s edge he cover’d o’er.

{p. 98}

Ovid⁵¹⁰ says that Hera planted the eyes of Argos in the tail of her favourite bird ; and Nonnus⁵¹¹ asserts that Argos himself was turned into this bird.

The peacock (ταὼς), we must observe, was unknown in the days of Homer, when, as we have already shown, the gods had not as yet any favourite animals. It is an Indian bird, and was according to Theophrastus introduced into Greece from the East⁵¹². Peafowl were first brought to Samos, where they were kept at the temple of Hera ; and gradually the legend was spread that Samos was their native place, and that they were the favourite birds of its goddess. The comic poet Antiphanes, a contemporary of Socrates, says⁵¹³,

’Tis said the phœnixes are all born in

The City of the Sun ; at Athens, owls ;

Excellent pigeons Cyprus hath ; and Hera

Of Samos owns, they say, the golden breed

Of birds, the fair-form’d much-admired peafowl.

Whole flocks of them were fed in the sacred grove of the goddess. They were gradually but slowly spread through Greece. The later poets yoked them to the chariot of Hera : thus⁵¹⁴,

The sea-gods granted : in her easy car,

By painted peafowl drawn, Saturnia moves

Through the clear air.

Few passages in the Ilias are more celebrated than the following picture of the love-union of Zeus and Hera on the summit of Ida⁵¹⁵ :

He said ; and in his arms Kroniôn seized

His spouse. Beneath them bounteous earth sent up

Fresh-growing grass : there dewy lotus rose,

Crocus and hyacinth, both thick and soft,

Which raised them from the ground. On this they lay,

And o’cr them spread a golden cloud and fair,

And glittering drops of dew fell all around.

This is, we think justly, regarded as a sportive adaptation by the epic poet of an ancient physical mythe of the union of Zeus and Hera (heaven and earth, as we shall presently show) {p. 99}in spring-time producing vegetation. It is in effect the Sacred Marriage (ἱϵρὸς γάμος) of these deities, which, as we will now proceed to explain, was represented in those places where Hera was principally worshiped.

We have above related the Argive legend in which the cuckoo, the herald of the spring, appears as the agent in the loves of the two deities. There was a fount at Nauplia near Argos named Canachos, by bathing in which Hera, the legend said, renewed each year her virginity⁵¹⁶. In the temple of this goddess near Mycenæ (in which stood her statue, the far-famed labour of Polycleitos) was shown her bed⁵¹⁷ ; a stream called Asteriôn ran by the temple, and on its banks grew the plant of the same name, which was used for weaving the (bridal ?) coronals of the goddess⁵¹⁸. The garland of Hera was termed πυλϵὼν by the Spartans, and was formed of the plant named Kyperos, and of the Helichrysos, which is of the same genus with the Asteriôn⁵¹⁹. At Argos there was a temple of Hera, Antheia (Flowery)⁵²⁰. In all these usages and circumstances the idea of the marriage of Hera, and its being the cause of the spring of plants, may, we think, be discerned.

The tradition of Stymphalos in Arcadia was⁵²¹, that Hera had been brought up there by Temenos, who raised three temples to her, under the names of Virgin, Married (τϵλϵία), and Widow ; the first while she was a maid, the second when she married Zeus, the third when she separated from him. The real cause of these names will however appear from a comparison of this legend with the one just given, and with those which are to follow.

At Samos the temple of Hera stood on the banks of the Imbrasos, and within its precincts was shown a willow (λύγος), beneath whose shade, according to the temple-legend, the goddess was born⁵²². Another name of the Imbrasos was said to be Parthenios⁵²³. Every year an ancient wooden image (βρέτας) of Hera disappeared from the temple ; it was then diligently sought for, and was always found on the sea-shore {p. 100}bound to a willow, whose longest branches were drawn down so as to envelope it. The priestess then loosed it ; it was washed ; a kind of cakes were set before it, and it was brought back to the temple⁵²⁴. In this ceremony also may be discerned a reference to the marriage of Hera. The disappearance of the image looks like the carrying away of the betrothed maiden ; the willow bed, for such it apparently is, refers perhaps to the chastity of the goddess, the willow being regarded as a great promoter of this virtue⁵²⁵; she is bound to it probably to prevent her flight from Zeus. The cakes may have had some analogy with the confarreatio of the Romans⁵²⁶, or our own usage of bride-cakes. In the temple there was a statue of the goddess in the bridal-dress⁵²⁷, and a new bridal-robe was woven for it every year⁵²⁸.

Like most of the usages and ceremonies of Greece, this Samian custom was pragmatised⁵²⁹. The temple, it was said, had been built by the Lelegians and the Nymphs ; Admeta, daughter of Eurystheus, fled thither from Argos ; the goddess appeared in a vision to her, and she became priestess of the temple. Some Tyrrhenian pirates, at the instigation of the Argives, stole the image, in order to draw down the vengeance of the people on Admeta. But lo ! their ship became motionless when the sacred image was brought on board. Interror the pirates carried it back to the shore, and made an offering of cakes to appease it. They then departed, and next day the rude ignorant people of the isle, in their search after it, finding it on the sea-shore, thought it had run away of itself, and bound it to a willow to prevent its doing so again. Admeta then loosed it and restored it to its place in the temple, and hence it was said arose the annual ceremony.

In the name Admeta, it will be observed, we have here again a reference to the chastity of the goddess. The making her an Argive, and daughter of Eurystheus, appears also to intimate that the worship of Hera came to Samos from Argos, and that it belonged to the ante-Dorian period.

{p. 101}

In Bœotia the popular mythe had taken a somewhat different view of the character of Hera, and she appears as the jealous wife, such as she is represented in the Ilias.

Hera, the legend said, offended for some cause or another with Zeus, renounced his bed and society. The god in perplexity sought advice from the autochthon Alalcomenos, and by his counsel gave out that he was going to marry another ; and cutting down a handsome tree, they shaped it into the form of a woman, naming it Dædala, and arrayed it in the bridal habit. The bridal hymn was sung, the nymphs of the Tritôn furnished the bath, Bœotia gave pipes and dances, and the pretended bride was placed on a car drawn by kine. When this reached the ears of Hera she could not contain herself, but coming down in a rage from Cithærôn, followed by the women of Platæa, she rushed to the car, seized the supposed bride, and tore off her dress. Then discovering the cheat, she became reconciled to her lord, and with joy and laughter took herself the place of the bride, and committed the image to the flames⁵³⁰.

This legend was invented to explain the origin of a national festival of Bœotia named the Dædala. Of this there were two kinds, the Small, celebrated every seven, the Great, every sixty years. According to Pausanias, there was a wood near Alalcomenæ where grew the finest oaks in Bœotia, to which the Platæans repaired, and setting some dressed meat before it, and watching the ravens, marked which of them took the meat, and on what tree he sat. They then cut down that tree, and made an image from it. It is probable that the other cities of Bœotia did the same ; and this was called the Little Dædala. When the time of the Great Dædala came, there were fourteen images ready (one for each of the cities of Bœotia), with which they repaired to the banks of the Asopos. Each image was placed on a car, and a bridemaid (νυμϕϵύτρια) set beside it. The procession then moved on, each car taking its place by lot, and ascended to the summit of Cithærôn, where an altar of wood stood ready prepared ; a bull was there sacrificed to Zeus, and a cow to Hera ; wine and perfumes, and other victims, were cast on the altar, {p. 102}as also were the images, and the whole was set on fire, and a flame thus raised which was visible to a great distance⁵³¹.

From the very confused account of this festival which has been transmitted to us, it is a matter of much difficulty to ascertain its real character. It seems most probable, however, that it was designed to form an astronomical cycle, and to serve as a calendar of time, and also to operate as a bond of union among the Bœotian states. For our present purpose it is sufficient to remark the union expressed in it of Zeus and Hera, and the sacrifice of the bull and cow to these deities.

There was another legend of Zeus and Hera, of which Cithærôn was also the scene. The maiden Hera, it said, was reared in Eubœa ; but Zeus stole her away, and Cithærôn gave him a shady cavern to conceal her in. When her nurse Macris came in quest of her charge and wanted to search the cavern, Cithærôn would not permit her, saying that Zeus was abiding there with Leto. The nurse then went away, and Hera in consequence of this associated Leto with herself in her temple and altar under the title Of-the-Recess(Μυχία)⁵³².

Here again we meet the Sacred Marriage performed in secret, as at Argos. In Eubœa Hera was called Virgin (Πάρθϵνος)⁵³³ ; and a place there sacred to her was named Parthenion. Macris (which we find personified in the legend) was a name of that island.

The marriage of Zeus and Hera was viewed as the pattern of those of mankind, and the goddess was held to preside over the nuptial league. Hence she was named the Yoker (Ζυγία), the Consecrator (Τϵλϵία), the Marriage-goddess (Гαμήλιος).

As we have already hinted, we are inclined to assent to the opinion of those who view in Zeus the heaven, and in Hera the earth, and regard this holy marriage so continually renewed, and of which the memory was kept up in so many places, as that of heaven and earth in the spring of each returning year, when the showers descend, and foliage, herbage, and flowers cover the face of nature⁵³⁴. As the earth {p. 103}exhibits no symptoms of becoming effete, but brings forth her progeny with undiminished vigour in each succeeding year, the early sages of Greece devised the mythe of the perpetually renewed virginity of the goddess. The physical union of earth and heaven is, we think, plainly discernible in the beautiful passage of Homer above noticed. It is given without any disguise by Euripides⁵³⁵, in whose time the deities of the popular creed were generally regarded as personifications of physical objects and powers ; and he has been imitated by the Latin Epicurean poets Lucretius⁵³⁶ and Virgile⁵³⁷.

The consecration of the cow to Hera is also to be considered as a proof of her being regarded as the earth ; for in the religion of the ancient Germans (which was akin to that of the Greeks) the cow was assigned to the service of the goddess Hertha, or Earth. At Argos the chariot in which the priestess of Hera rode was drawn by oxen⁵³⁸, so too were the cars in the procession of the Dædala, where a cow also was the victim. It has likewise been supposed, not without reason, that the ancient epithet of the goddess, Ox-eyed or Cow-eyed (βοῶπις), refers to this connection between her and that animal⁵³⁹.

Hera was represented by Polycleitos seated on a throne, holding in one hand a pomegranate, the emblem of fecundity ; in the other a sceptre, with a cuckoo on its summit⁵⁴⁰. Her air is dignified and matronly, her forehead broad, her eyes large, and her arms finely formed ; she is dressed in a tunic and mantle.

{p. 104}

By Homer and Hesiod Hera is styled⁵⁴¹, 1. Ox-eyed ;2. White-armed ; 3. Gold-seated ; 4. Gold-shod

The origin of the name Hera is somewhat difficult to determine. We may venture to reject the derivations from ἀὴρ, air, and from ἐράω, to love⁵⁴², of which the former refers to a physical theory, according to which Hera was the air and Zeus the æther ; and the latter to that part of her character by which she was the goddess presiding over the nuptial union. As the goddess of the earth in the religion of Argos, her name would seem to come very simply from ἔρα, earth ; yet there is great plausibility in the theory of Ἥρα being the feminine of Ἥρως, anciently Ἥρος⁵⁴³, and that they answered to each other as the Latin herus, hera, and the German Herr, Herrin, and therefore signified Master and Mistress⁵⁴⁴. It is possible, however, that the two derivations may in a certain sense be correct. The goddess may have been originally merely Earth, and then, as she separated from the object over which she presided and became the Olympian queen, she may have been regarded as the great Mistress⁵⁴⁵.

Ἄρης. Mars.

Ares, the god of war, was the son of Zeus and Hera⁵⁴⁶. His delight was in tumult and strife ; yet his wild fury was always forced to yield to the skill and prudence of Pallas-Athene, guided by whom Diomedes wounds and drives him from the battle⁵⁴⁷ ; and in the conflict of the gods⁵⁴⁸, this goddess herself strikes him to the earth with a stone. To give an idea of his huge size and strength, the poet says in the former case that he roared as loud as nine or ten thousand men ; and in the latter, that he covered seven plethra of ground.

{p. 105}

Terror and Fear (Δϵιμὸς and Φόβος), the sons of Ares, and Strife (Ἔρις) his sister, accompany him to the field when he seeks the battle⁵⁴⁹. Another of his companions is Enyo⁵⁵⁰ (Ἐνυὼ), the daughter of Phorcys and Keto⁵⁵¹ according to Hesiod, a war-goddess answering to the Bellona of the Romans. The name Enyalios, which is frequently given to him in the Ilias⁵⁵², corresponds with hers.

The figurative language, which expresses origin and resemblance by terms of paternity, gave a mortal progeny to Ares. As a person who came by sea was figuratively called a son of Poseidôn, so a valiant warrior was termed a son, or, as it is sometimes expressed by Homer, a branch or shoot of Ares (ὄζος Ἄρηος). But the only tale of his amours related at any length by the poets is that of his intrigue with Aphrodite.

Ares — so sang Demodocos to the Phæacians⁵⁵³ — loved Aphrodite, and often visited her in the absence of her unsightly husband. These visits were not unobserved by Helios (for what can escape the piercing eye of the Sun-god ?), and he gave information to the injured artist. Hephæstos dissembled his rage, and going to his workshop forged a net so subtile as to be invisible, so strong as to be infrangible by even the god of war. He disposed it in such a manner as to catch the lovers : then feigning a journey, set out as it were for Lemnos. Ares, who was on the watch, flew to his expecting mistress : the heedless lovers were caught in the net : the Sun-god gave notice ; the husband returned, and standing at his door called all the gods to come and behold the captives. The dwellers of Olympos laughed heartily, and some jokes were passed on the occasion. Poseidôn however took no part in the mirth, but drawing Hephæstos aside pressed him to accommodate the affair. The artist, doubtful of the honour of the soldier, was loath to assent, till Poseidôn pledged himself to see him paid. He then yielded, and released his prisoners. Ares hastened away to his favourite region of Thrace : Aphrodite fled to hide her shame in her beloved isle of Cyprus.

This tale is an evident interpolation in the part of the {p. 106}Odyssey where it occurs. Its date is uncertain ; but the language, the ideas, and the state of society which it supposes, might almost lead us to assign its origin to a comparatively late period. It may be, as is generally supposed, an ancient physical mythe, or rather a combination of two such mythes ; for beauty might naturally have been made the spouse of the god from whose workshop proceeded so many elegant productions of art, and, as we are about to show, another physical view led to the union of Ares and Aphrodite. Still we cannot avoid regarding the present tale rather as a sportive effusion of Grecian wit and satire. In Greece, as everywhere else, wealth and beauty were occasionally united in wedlock ; and there too, as elsewhere, martial renown and showy exterior were passports to the hearts of the fair. If the tale was framed on the coast of Asia, we know that warfare was frequent enough among the Grecian cities there to allow of reputation being gained by deeds of valour⁵⁵⁴.

To the above tale has also been appended by later writers a legendary origin of the cock (ἀλϵκτρυών). It is said that Alectryôn was a youth whom Ares placed to watch while he was with Aphrodite ; and, for neglect of his task, he was changed by the angry god into the bird of his name⁵⁵⁵.

Hesiod says⁵⁵⁶ that Harmonia (Order) was the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite. This has evidently all the appearance of a physical mythe, for from Love and Strife (i. e. attraction and repulsion) it is clear, arises the order or harmony of the universe⁵⁵⁷. Terror and Fear are also said by Hesiod⁵⁵⁸ to have been the offspring of Ares and Aphrodite, of whose union with Hephæstos (to whom he gives a different spouse) he seems to have known nothing. In the Ilias we may observe that Ares and Aphrodite are spoken of as brother and sister, much in the same manner as Apollo and Artemis⁵⁵⁹.

The best known of the children of this god by mortal women are Ascalaphos and Ialmenos⁵⁶⁰, Œnomaos king of Pisa, Diomedes of Thrace, Cycnos, Phlegyas, Dryas, Parthenopæos, {p. 107}and Tereus. He was also said to be the sire of Meleagros and other hero-princes of Ætolia⁵⁶¹.

The Hill of Ares (Ἄρϵιος πάγος), at Athens, is said to have derived its appellation from the following circumstance. Halirrhothios, a son of Poseidôn, had offered violence to Alcippe, the daughter of Ares. Her father killed the offender, and he was summoned by Poseidôn before a court of justice for the murder. The trial was held on this hill, the twelve gods sat as judges, and Ares was acquitted⁵⁶². Another tradition derived the name of the hill from the Amazons having there offered sacrifices to Ares, their sire⁵⁶³. It is quite manifest therefore that the real origin of the name was unknown.

The temples and images of Ares were not numerous. He is represented as a warrior, of a severe menacing air, dressed in the heroic style, with a cuirass on, and a round Argive shield on his arm. His arms are sometimes borne by his attendants.

The epithets of Ares were all significative of war. He was styled by Homer and Hesiod⁵⁶⁴, 1. Blood-stained ; 2. Shield-borer ; 3. Man-slaying ; 4. Town-destroyer ;5. Gold-helmed ; 6. Brazen ; 7. People-rouser ; 8. Impetuous, etc.

The name Ares (Ἄρης) would seem to be connected with ἀνὴρ, ἄῤῥην and ἀρϵτὴ (valour), and therefore to be significant of the character of the god. But some late critics seem rather to look to ἔρα, earth, for its origin, and to regard him as having been one of the telluric powers in the Pelasgian creed, and to think that, like those of Hermes and Pallas-Athene, his character changed with the change of manners in Greece⁵⁶⁵.

Ἥϕαιστος Vulcanus.

Hephæstos, the Olympian artist, is in Homer the son of Zeus and Hera⁵⁶⁶. According to Hesiod⁵⁶⁷ he was the son of {p. 108}Hera alone, who was unwilling to be outdone by Zeus when he had given birth to Pallas-Athene. He was born lame, and his mother was so displeased at the sight of him that she flung him from Olympos. The Ocean-nymph Eurynome and the Nereïs Thetis saved and concealed him in a cavern beneath the Ocean, where during nine years he employed himself in manufacturing for them various ornaments and trinkets⁵⁶⁸. We are not informed how his return to Olympos was effected, but we find him in the Ilias firmly fixed there ; and all the houses, furniture, ornaments, and arms of the Olympians were the work of his hands.

It would be an almost endless task to enumerate all the articles formed by Hephæstos ; we shall however notice some of the chief of them. One thing is remarkable concerning them, that they were all made of the various metals ; no wood, or stone, or any other substance, entering into their composition : they were moreover frequently endowed with automatism.

All the habitations of the gods on Olympos were made by Hephæstos, and were all composed of metal ; as also were their chariots and arms. He made armour for Achilleus and other mortal heroes⁵⁶⁹. The fatal collar of Harmonia was the work of his hands⁵⁷⁰. The brass-footed, brass-throated, fire-breathing bulls of Æetes king of Colchis were the gift of Hephæstos to Æetes’ father Helios⁵⁷¹ ; and he made for Alcinoös, king of the Phæacians, the gold and silver dogs which guarded his house⁵⁷². For himself he formed the golden maidens, who waited on him, and whom he endowed with reason and speech⁵⁷³. He gave to Minôs, king of Crete, the brazen man Talôs, who each day compassed his island three times, to guard it from the invasion of strangers⁵⁷⁴. The brazen cup in which the Sun-god and his horses and chariot are carried round the earth every night was also the work of this god⁵⁷⁵.

The only instances we meet of Hephæstos’ working in any {p. 109}other substance than metal are in Hesiod, where at the command of Zeus he forms Pandora of earth and water⁵⁷⁶, and where he uses gypsum and ivory in the formation of the shield which he makes for Heracles⁵⁷⁷. That framed by him for Achilleus in the Ilias is all of metal.

In the Ilias⁵⁷⁸ the wife of Hephæstos is named Charis ; in Hesiod⁵⁷⁹, Aglaia, the youngest of the Charites ; in the interpolated tale in the Odyssey, Aphrodite the goddess of beauty⁵⁸⁰. He is said to have asked Pallas-Athene in marriage of Zeus, who gave him permission to win her if he could. Hephæstos was a rough wooer, and attempted to offer violence to the goddess. An Athenian legend refers the birth of Erichthonios, one of the mythic kings of Attica, to this circumstance⁵⁸¹.

The favourite haunt of Hephæstos on earth was the isle of Lemnos. It was here he fell when flung from heaven by Zeus for attempting to aid his mother Hera, whom Zeus had suspended in the air with anvils fastened to her feet. As knowledge of the earth advanced, Ætna⁵⁸², Hiera (one of the Liparæan isles)⁵⁸³, and all other places where there was subterranean fire, were regarded as the forges of Hephæstos ; and the Cyclopes were associated with him as his assistants. In Homer, when Thetis wants Hephæstian armour for her son, she seeks Olympos, and the armour is fashioned by the artist-god with his own hand. In the Augustan age, Venus prevails on her husband, the master-smith, to furnish her son Æneas with arms ; and he goes down from Heaven to Hiera, and directs his men the Cyclopes to execute the order⁵⁸⁴. It is thus that mythology changes with modes of life.

Hephæstos and Pallas-Athene are frequently joined together as the communicators to men of the arts which embellish life and promote civilization⁵⁸⁵. The philosophy of this view of the two deities is correct and elegant.

{p. 110}

The artist-god is usually represented as of ripe age, with a serious countenance and muscular form : his hair hangs in curls on his shoulders. He generally appears with hammer and tongs at his anvil, in a short tunic, and his right arm bare, sometimes with a pointed cap on his head. The Cyclopes are occasionally placed with him.

The poetic epithets of Hephæstos were derived either from his lameness or from his skill. He was called⁵⁸⁶, 1. Both-feet-lame ;2. Lame-foot, or Bow-legged ; 3. Feeble ; 4. Renowned Artist ; 5. Very-renowned ;6. Wise, etc.

Hephæstos must have been regarded originally as simply the fire-god, a view of his character which we find even in the Ilias⁵⁸⁷. Fire being the great agent in reducing and working the metals, the fire-god naturally became an artist. The former was probably Hephæstos’ Pelasgian, the latter his Achæan character. The simplest derivation of his name therefore seems to be that which, regarding the first letter as euphonie, and Hephæstos as Phæstos (Φαȋτος), deduces it from ϕάω, to give light.⁵⁸⁸.

Ἤβη. Juventas. Youth.

Hebe was one of the children of Zeus and Hera⁵⁸⁹. In Olympos she appears as a kind of maid-servant ; she hands round the nectar at the meals of the gods⁵⁹⁰ ; she makes ready the chariot of Hera⁵⁹¹, and she bathes and dresses Ares when his wound has been cured⁵⁹². When Heracles was assumed to the abode of the gods, Youth was given to him in marriage⁵⁹³.

{p. 111}

It was apparently to bring the life of the gods more into harmony with that of men, that the office of cup-bearer was afterwards transferred to Ganymedes⁵⁹⁴. Alcæus and Sappho give it to Hermes, the celestial herald⁵⁹⁵, it being the office of the heralds in Homer. A poet named Capito bestowed it (we know not for what reason) on Harmonia⁵⁹⁶.

At Phliûs in the Peloponnese a goddess was worshiped, whom the ancient Phliasians, Pausanias says⁵⁹⁷, called Ganymede, but in his time she was named Hebe. Strabo says⁵⁹⁸ that Hebe was worshiped at Phliûs and Sicyôn under the name of Dia. It is not improbable that from the name of Ganymedes (Joy-promoter), so well suited to a cup-bearer, a feminine title had been formed for Hebe.

Hebe was called by the poets⁵⁹⁹, 1. Fair-ankled ; 2. Gold-wreathed ; 3. Bright-limbed.

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Chapter VIII.

LETO : — PHŒBOS-APOLLO, ARTEMIS.

Λητώ Latona. — Φοȋβος Ἀπόλλων. Apollo. — Ἄρτϵμις. Diana.

Λητώ Latona.

Leto was daughter of the Titans Coios and Phœbe⁶⁰⁰. In Homer⁶⁰¹ she appears as one of the wives of Zeus, and there occur no traces of enmity between her and Hera. Posterior poets, however, fable much of the persecution she underwent from that goddess⁶⁰². Her children by Zeus were Phœbos-Apollo, and Artemis.

While wandering from place to place with her children, Leto, says a legend most prettily told by Ovid⁶⁰³, arrived in Lycia. The sun was shining fiercely, and the goddess was parched with thirst. She saw a pool, and knelt down at it to drink. Some clowns, who were there cutting sedge and rushes, refused to allow her to slake her thirst. In vain the goddess entreated, representing that water was common to all, and appealing to their compassion for her babes. The brutes were insensible : they not only mocked at her distress, but jumped into and muddied the water. The goddess, though the most gentle of her race, was roused to indignation : she raised her hand to heaven and cried, “May you live for ever in that pool !” Her wish was instantly accomplished, and the churls were turned into frogs.

Niobe, the daughter of Tantalos and wife of Amphiôn, proud of her numerous offspring, ventured to set herself before Leto : the offended goddess called upon her children Apollo and Artemis, and soon Niobe was by the arrows of {p. 113}these deities made a childless mother, and stiffened into stone with grief⁶⁰⁴.

Tityos, the son of Earth or of Zeus and Elara, happened to see Leto one time as she was going to Pytho. Inflamed with love he attempted to offer her violence : the goddess called to her children for aid, and he soon lay slain by their arrows. His punishment did not cease with life : vultures preyed on his liver in Erebos⁶⁰⁵.

Leto was called⁶⁰⁶, 1. Fair-ankled ;2. Sable-vested ;3. Gold-tressed ;4. Much-honoured.

With respect to the origin of this goddess and her name, the most simple hypothesis, in our opinion, is that which regards herself as Night, and esteems her name to be of the same family of words with λήθω, λήθη, and with the Latin lateo and Laverna, and, therefore, to signify concealment or darkness. The parents assigned to her correspond with this hypothesis ; for light, which is made to spring from darkness, may, in a reversed order, be regarded as its origin. The epithet ‘sable-vested⁶⁰⁷‘ and the mildness of character usually ascribed to this goddess⁶⁰⁸, also accord with Night ; and if it should appear that the children of Leto were Sun and Moon, there can hardly remain a doubt of this being her true nature.

Φοȋβος Ἀπόλλων. Apollo.

Phœbos-Apollo was the son of Zeus and Leto. In Homer he is the god of archery, music, and prophecy⁶⁰⁹. His arrows were not merely directed against the enemies of the gods, such as Otos and Ephialtes⁶¹⁰: all sudden deaths of men were {p. 114}ascribed to his darts ; sometimes as a reward, at other times as a punishment. He was also by his shafts the sender of pestilence, and he removed it when duly propitiated. At the banquets of the gods on Olympos, Apollo played on his phorminx or lyre, while the Muses sang⁶¹¹.

Thus they the whole day long till set of sun

Feasted ; nor wanted any one his part

Of the equal feast, or of the phorminx fair

Which Phœbos held, or of the Muses’ lay,

Who sang responding with melodious voice.

Eminent bards, such as Demodocos⁶¹², were held to have derived their skill from the teaching of Apollo or of the Muses. Prophets in like manner were taught by him ; at Pytho he himself revealed the future⁶¹³.

As in Homer and Hesiod no birth-place of any of the gods is noticed, we must regard the tale of the birth of Phœbos-Apollo in the isle of Delos as being posterior to the time of these poets. According to the Homeridian hymn in his honour, it took place in the following manner. Leto, persecuted by Hera, besought all the islands of the Ægæan to afford her a place of rest ; but all feared too much the potent queen of heaven to assist her rival. Delos alone consented to become the birth-place of the future god, provided Leto would pledge herself that he would not contemn her humble isle, and would erect there the temple vowed by his mother. Leto assented with an oath, and the friendly isle received her. For nine days and nights the pains of labour continued. All the goddesses, save Hera and Eileithyia, (whom the art of Hera kept in ignorance of this great event,) were assembled in the isle. Moved with compassion for the sufferings of Leto, they dispatched Iris to Olympos, who brought Eileithyia secretly to Delos. Leto then grasped a palm-tree in the soft mead, on the banks of the Inopos, Earth smiled around, Apollo sprang to light, and the goddesses shouted aloud to celebrate his birth. They washed and swathed the infant deity, and Themis gave him nectar and ambrosia. As soon as he had tasted the divine food, his bands and swaddling-clothes no longer retained him : he sprang up, and called to the goddesses to give him a {p. 115}lyre and a bow, adding that he would thenceforth declare to men the will of Zeus. He then, to the amazement of the assembled goddesses, walked firmly on the ground ; and Delos, exulting with joy, became covered with golden flowers⁶¹⁴.

Callimachus⁶¹⁵ relates the birth of Apollo somewhat differently. According to him, Hera, knowing that the son of Leto would be dearer to Zeus than her own son Ares, was resolved if possible to prevent his birth. Determined therefore that no place should receive the travailing goddess, she took her own station in the sky : she placed her son Ares upon the Thracian mountain Hæmos, and her messenger Iris on Mount Mimas, to watch the islands. All the lands, hills, and rivers of Hellas refused to hearken to the prayers of the goddess. Moved with wrath, the unborn Apollo menaced Thebes for her discourteous refusal, and foretold the future fate of the children of Niobe. The river-god Peneios alone valued justice and humanity more than the wrath of Hera : he checked his stream to give a shelter to the goddess ; but instantly Ares arose, clashed his arms, that the mountains and all Thessaly trembled at the sound, and was about to fling the peaks of Pangæos on the generous stream, who undauntedly awaited the issue ; when Leto passed further on, entreating him not to expose himself to danger on her account. She now turned to the islands, but none would receive her ; and the god called out to her that a floating island was to be his birth-place. At length she met Delos, then called Asteria, which floated among the Cyclades⁶¹⁶. Delos generously invited the wearied goddess to enter her, expressing her willingness to encounter the anger of Hera. This last goddess, when informed by her messenger, remits her anger ; Apollo is born ; a choir of swans comes from the Mæonian Pactolos, and flies seven times round the isle to celebrate his birth ; the Delian nymphs receive and sing the sacred verses of Eileithyia ; the sky gives back the joyful cry ; and Delos, as before, becomes invested in gold.

{p. 116}

In the Homeridian hymn to the Pythian Apollo, the manner of his first getting possession of Pytho is thus related. When Apollo resolved to choose the site of his first temple, he came down from Olympos into Pieria : he sought throughout all Thessaly ; thence went to Eubœa, Attica, and Bœotia, but could find no place to his mind. The situation of Tilphussa, near Lake Copaïs, in Bœotia, pleased him ; and he was about to lay the foundations of his temple there, when the nymph of the place, afraid of having her own fame eclipsed by the vicinity of the oracle of Apollo, dissuaded him, by representing how much his oracle would be disturbed by the noise of the horses and mules coming to water at her stream. She recommends to him Crissa beneath Mount Parnassos as a quiet sequestered spot, where no unseemly sounds would disturb the holy silence demanded by an oracle. Arrived at Crissa, the god is charmed by the solitude and sublimity of the scene. He forthwith sets about erecting a temple, which the hands of numerous workmen speedily raise, under the direction of the brothers Trophonios and Agamedes. Meanwhile Apollo slays with his arrows the monstrous serpent which abode there and destroyed the people and cattle of the vicinity. As she lay expiring, the exulting victor cried, “Now rot (πύθευ) there on the man-feeding earth ;” and hence the place and oracle received the appellation of Pytho. The fane was now erected, but priests were wanting. The god, as he stood on the lofty area of the temple, cast his eyes over the sea, and beheld far south of the Peloponnese a Cretan ship sailing for Pylos. He plunged into the sea, and in the form of a porpoise sprang on board the ship. The crew sat in terror and amazement : a south-wind carried the vessel rapidly along : in vain they sought to land at Tænaron ; she would not obey the helm. When they came to the bay of Crissa a west-wind sprang up, and speedily brought the ship into port ; and the god in the form of a blazing star left the vessel, and descended into his temple. Then quick as thought he came as a handsome youth with long locks waving on his shoulders, and accosted the strangers, inquiring who they were and whence they came. To their question in return, of what that place was to which they were come, he replies by informing them {p. 117}who he is, and what his purpose was in bringing them thither. He invites them to land, and says, that as he had met them in the form of a porpoise (δελὶν) they should worship him as Apollo Delphinios, whence the place should also derive its name⁶¹⁷. They now disembark : the god playing on his lyre precedes them, and leads them to his temple, where they become his priests and ministers⁶¹⁸.

As might be expected, the legends of so celebrated an event as the establishment of the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, the sacred counsellor of all Greece, are various. The names Pytho and Delphi alone sufficed to give a foundation for some of them. The former, which evidently signifies the Place of Enquiry, a title well suited to an oracle, gave occasion to the legend above related, and also to one of a huge serpent named Pythôn, which, it is said, came out of his den and attacked Leto when she was going by with her children in her arms ; she stood then on a rock, holding the infant Artemis, and urged on her son by calling to him, ἵε, παî, and he dispatched the monster with his arrows⁶¹⁹. This serpent, another version of the legend says, was named Delphine⁶²⁰, for the formation of which name, as we may perceive, Delphi probably gave its aid, as it did also for that of the change of the god into the porpoise, and for his title Delphinios.

The Homeric Apollo is a being of remarkable purity, and the poet seems to have had a strong feeling of the dignity of his character, for he never ventures to use the same familiarity with him as with the other gods, Zeus himself not excepted. Apollo is the friend of man, he protects his worshipers, and he punishes the unjust and impious. At all periods of the {p. 118}Grecian literature we find the character of the ‘pure (ἁγνὸς) god,’ as he was emphatically called, still the same. There is a serene cheerfulness always ascribed to him, he is averse from gloom and the promoter of joy and innocent pleasure⁶²¹; but at the same time dignified in his sentiments and actions. The purity of his character appears also in this, that no amours with either goddesses or mortals are ascribed to him in the Homeric poems⁶²². When however, in subsequent times, heroes and heroic families were made to derive their lineage from the residents of Olympos, Phœbos-Apollo was also provided with his love-adventures by the poets ; yet it is observable that he was not remarkably happy in his love, either meeting with a repulse, or having his amour attended with a fatal termination, and that none of these heroic families could claim him as the head of their genealogy.

«The first love of Phœbos,» says Ovid, «was Daphne, the daughter of Peneios.» Apollo, proud of his victory over the Pythôn, beholding Erôs bending his bow, mocked at the efforts of the puny archer. Erôs incensed flew, and taking his stand on Parnassos shot his golden arrow of love into the heart of the son of Leto, and discharged his leaden one of aversion into the bosom of the nymph of Peneios. Daphne loved the chase, and it alone, indifferent to all other love. Phœbos beheld her, and burned with passion. She flies, he pursues ; in vain he exhausts his eloquence, magnifying his rank, his power, his possessions ; the nymph but urges her speed the more. Fear gave wings to the nymph, love to the god. Exhausted and nearly overtaken, Daphne on the banks of her father’s stream stretched forth her hands, calling on Pencios for protection and change of form. The river-god heard ; bark and leaves covered his daughter, and Daphne became a bay-tree (δάϕνη, laurus). The god embraced its trunk, and declared that it should be ever afterwards his favourite tree⁶²³.

{p. 119}

Of this legend we need only observe, that it is one of the many tales devised to give marvel to the origin of natural productions, and that its object is to account for the bay-tree being sacred to Apollo.

Apollo, it is also said by the same poet, thought himself happy in the love and fidelity of Coronis, a maiden of Larissa. His ignorance was his bliss, for the nymph was faithless. The raven, the favourite bird of the god, and then white as his swans, saw the maiden in the arms of a Hæmonian youth, and bore the tidings to his master, who immediately discharged one of his inevitable arrows into the bosom of the frail fair one. Dying she deplores the fate, not of herself, but of her unborn babe. The god repents when too late ; he tries in vain his healing art, and, dropping celestial tears, places her on the funereal pyre : extracting the babe, he gave him to be reared by Cheirôn, the centaur. To punish the raven, he changed his hue from white to black⁶²⁴.

This is probably a legend of some antiquity, for in a fragment of one of the poems ascribed to Hesiod⁶²⁵, it is said that the raven brought tidings to Phœbos of the marriage of Ischys, the son of Eilatos, with Coronis, the daughter of Phlegyas. The tale is also told by Pindar⁶²⁶, but he says nothing of the raven, making the god himself, though at Pytho, discover what was done through his divine power. At his desire Artemis shot the fair offender with her arrows.

Marpessa, the daughter of Evenos, was beloved by Apollo, whose suit was favoured by her father. Idas, another lover, having obtained a winged chariot from Poseidôn, carried off the apparently not reluctant maid. Her father pursued the fugitives, but coming to the river Lycormas, and finding his progress stopped by it, he slew his horses and cast himself into the stream, which from him derived its name Evenos. Meantime Apollo met and took the fair prize from Idas. The matter being referred to Zeus, he allowed the maiden to choose {p. 120}for herself ; and fearing that when she grew old Apollo would desert her, she wisely chose to match with her equal, and gave her hand to her mortal lover⁶²⁷.

Cassandra, daughter of Priamos king of Troy, also attracted the love of this god : the price she set on her favours was the gift of prophecy. The gift was freely given, but the royal maid refused the promised return ; and the indignant deity, unable to recall what he had bestowed, made it useless by depriving her predictions of credit⁶²⁸.

Cyrene, a daughter of the river Peneios, was another of the loves of Phœbos ; he carried her in his golden chariot over the sea to Libya, where she bore him a son named Aristæos⁶²⁹.

The only celestial amour recorded of Apollo is that with the muse Calliope, of which the fruit was Orpheus⁶³⁰. No parents more suitable could be assigned to the poet, whose strains could move the woods and rocks, than the god of poetry and the muse Fair-voice.

Cyparissos and Hyacinthos were two beautiful youths, favourites of Apollo ; but that favour availed not to avert misfortune. The former, having by accident killed a favourite stag, pined away with grief, and was changed into the tree which bears his name⁶³¹. The latter, a youth of Amyclæ, was playing one day at discus-throwing with the god. Apollo made a great cast, and Hyacinthos running too eagerly to take up the discus, it rebounded and struck him in the face. The god, unable to save his life, changed him into the flower which was named from him, and on whose petals Grecian fancy saw traced aἲ, aἲ, the notes of grief⁶³². Other versions of the legend say that Zephyros (West-wind), enraged at Hyacinthos’ having preferred Apollo to himself, blew the discus, {p. 121}when flung by Apollo, against the head of the youth, and so killed him⁶³³. A festival called the Hyacinthia was celebrated for three days in the summer of each year at Amyclæ, in honour of the god and his unhappy favourite⁶³⁴.

The babe saved from the pyre of Coronis was Asclepios, who became so famous for his healing powers. Extending them so far as to restore the dead to life, he drew on himself the enmity of Hades, on whose complaint Zeus with his thunder deprived him of life. Apollo incensed slew the Cyclopes who had forged the thunderbolts, for which bold deed Zeus was about to hurl him down to Tartaros, but, on the entreaty of Leto, he was so far mollified as to be content with the offender’s becoming a servant to a mortal man for the space of a year. Admetos, king of Pheræ, in Thessaly, was the person selected to be honoured by the service of the god, who, according to the more dignified and probable view of the mythe, pastured this prince’s flocks and herds on the verdant banks of the river Amphrysos, making the kine under his charge all bear twins⁶³⁵ ; while according to another he discharged for him even the most servile offices⁶³⁶. When the term of his servitude was expired he was permitted to return to Olympos⁶³⁷.

In this mythic tale of Apollo serving Admetos, Müller sees matter of deeper import than might at first sight be supposed. According to the Delphian tradition, it was for slaying the Pythôn that the god was condemned to servitude. Every {p. 122}eighth year the combat with the Pythôn was the subject of mimic representation at Delphi. A boy who personated Apollo, having in mimic show slain the Pythôn, fled and took his way along the Sacred Road to the vale of Tempe in the north of Thessaly, to be purified as it were from the guilt of the bloodshed ; and having there plucked a branch of bay, in imitation of the act of the god, he returned to Delphi at the head of a theoria⁶³⁸. This mimic flight also represented the servitude of the god, which the legend placed at Pheræ in Thessaly⁶³⁹. Müller therefore, who views in the whole transaction a deep moral sense, and a design to impress upon the minds of men a vivid idea of the guilt of bloodshed, by representing even the pure god Apollo as being punished for slaying the Pythôn, a being of demon-origin, deems the original legend to have been a still bolder stretch of fancy, and that it was to the god of the under-world, to Hades himself, that Apollo was obliged to become a servant⁶⁴⁰. This hypothesis he thinks is confirmed by the names which occur in the legend : for Admetos, he says, must have been an epithet of Hades ; Clymene, the name of Admetos’ mother, is one of Persephone ; and Pheræ was a town sacred to the goddess Hecate, who was connected with the lower-world⁶⁴¹.

It cannot be said positively whether this mythe (which is apparently a temple-legend of Delphi,) was known to Homer. In the Catalogue⁶⁴² the mares of Eumelos Pheretiades are highly praised for their beauty and swiftness, and it is added that Apollo had reared them in Pieria⁶⁴³. At the funeral-games, toward the close of the poem⁶⁴⁴, Eumelos, named Pheretiades and son of Admetos, is one of the competitors in the chariotrace. These notices however, we may observe, occur in the {p. 123}parts of the Hias of which the antiquity is most dubious. It may also be doubted if the temple-legend of Delphi could be as old as the age to which Homer is usually referred. In another of the latter books of the Ilias it is said that Poseidôn and Apollo, by the command of Zeus (we know not why given), served Laomedôn, king of Troy, for a year ; at the end of which time he refused to pay them their wages, and threatened to cut off the cars of both, and even to sell the latter for a slave. The task of Apollo had been to tend the herds of the Trojan king in the valleys of Ida⁶⁴⁵.

Apollo, it is said⁶⁴⁶, was taught divination by Pan, the son of Zeus and the nymph Thymbris. For his musical instrument he was indebted to the invention of his half-brother Hermes. Pan, the god of shepherds, venturing to set his reed-music in opposition to the lyre of Apollo, was pronounced overcome by Mount Tmolos, who had been chosen judge ; and all present approved the decision except king Midas, whose ears were, for their obtuseness, lengthened by the victor to those of an ass⁶⁴⁷. The Silen⁶⁴⁸ Marsyas, having found the pipe which Athena for fear of injuring her beauty had flung away, contended with Apollo before the Muses, and was by him flayed for his temerity when vanquished ; and the tears of the nymphs and rural gods for the fate of their companion gave origin to the stream which bore his name⁶⁴⁹.

This last legend admits of a very simple explanation. Marsyas was a river-god of Phrygia, the country in which the music of wind-instruments was employed in the service of the gods ; the lyre was used by the Greeks in that of Apollo⁶⁵⁰. {p. 124}Hence, to express the superiority of the latter, a contest was feigned between Apollo and Marsyas. At the cavern in the town of Celænæ in Phrygia, whence the stream Marsyas issues, was hung, for some reason which is not very clear, a leathern bag⁶⁵¹, and hence it was fabled that Apollo flayed his vanquished rival⁶⁵².

The Homeric Apollo is a personage totally distinct from Helios, though probably, as will shortly appear, originally the same. When mysteries and secret doctrines were introduced into Greece, these deities were united, or perhaps we might say re-united. Apollo at the same period also took the place of Pæeôn, and became the god of the healing art⁶⁵³.

This god was a favourite object of Grecian worship, and his temples were numerous. Of these the most celebrated were that of Delphi in Phocis, — his acquisition of which we have above related, and where, as the mythe of Pythôn would seem to intimate, a conflict took place between the religion of Apollo, proceeding southwards from Pieria, or westwards from Delos, and the ancient religion of the place, the worship of Gæa or Themis⁶⁵⁴, — and those of Delos, of Patara in Lycia, Claros in Ionia, Grynion in Æolis, Didyma at Miletus ; in all of which his oracles revealed the future.

A very able mythologist of the present day⁶⁵⁵ maintains that the worship of Apollo was originally peculiar to the Dorian race, who were at all times his most zealous votaries. As the Homeric poems prove the worship of this deity to have been common to the Achæan race, and well known on the coasts of Asia long before the Dorian migration, the critic is forced to have recourse to the not very probable supposition of a Dorian colony having left the mountains of Thessaly many years before the Trojan war, and carried the Apollo-religion to Crete, whence it was spread to the coast of Asia, and also conveyed to Delos and Delphi. We cannot assent to this theory. Apollo seems to have been one of the original gods {p. 125}of the Grecian race ; and he was worshiped by one people more than another, on the same principle as in India Vishnoo is in some places more worshiped than Seeva ; Thor was most honoured by the ancient Norwegians, and Odin by the Swedes ; St. Jago is more frequently invoked in Spain, and St. Anthony in Italy, — without the existence and the rights of the others being denied⁶⁵⁶.

Apollo was supposed to visit his various favourite abodes at different seasons of the year :

Such as, when wintry Lycia and the streams

Of Xanthos fair Apollo leaves, and comes

To his maternal Delos, and renews

The dances ; while around his altars shout

Cretans, Dryopians, and the painted race

Of Agathyrsians ; he, along the tops

Of Cynthos walking, with soft foliage binds

His flowing hair, and fastens it in gold ;

His arrows on his shoulders sound⁶⁵⁷.

One of the most beautiful descriptions of these progresses of Apollo was that given by the lyric poet Alcæus. The poem has unfortunately perished, but we find the following analysis of it in the works of the sophist Himerius⁶⁵⁸.

«When Apollo was born, Zeus adorned him with a golden headband and lyre, and gave him moreover a team to drive (the team were swans)⁶⁵⁹. He then sent him to Delphi and the streams of Castalia, thence to declare prophetically right and justice to the Hellenes. He ascended the car, and desired the swans to fly also to the Hyperboreans⁶⁶⁰. The Delphians, when they perceived this, arranged a Pæan and song, and setting choirs of youths around the tripod, called on the god to come from the Hyperboreans. Having given laws for a whole year among those men, when the time was come which he had appointed for the Delphic tripods also to resound, he directed his swans to fly back from the Hyperboreans. It was then summer, and the very middle of it, when Alcæus leads Apollo back from the Hyperboreans ; for when summer {p. 126}shines and Apollo journeys, the lyre itself whispers in a summer-tone of the god. The nightingales sing to him, as the birds should sing in Aleæus ; the swallows and cicadas also sing, not narrating their own fate when among men, but tuning all their melodies to the god. Castalia too flows with poetic silver streams, and Cephissos swells high and bright with his waves, emulating the Enipeus of Homer. For, like Homer. Alcæus ventures to make the very water capable of perceiving the access of the god.»

It was probably on account of their pure white hue that the swans were assigned to the pure god Phœbos-Apollo ; and this connection with the god of music gave origin to the fable, as it is esteemed, of the melody of these birds⁶⁶¹. The wolf was also assigned to this god, on account of his bright colour, as some think, but it is far more likely that it was the similitude of his name to an epithet of the god which gave occasion to it. The noisy chirping tettix (cicada), or tree-hopper, was naturally associated with the god of music ; and as the god of augury Apollo was the patron of the hawk and raven. The bay-tree was the plant dedicated to this deity.

Apollo was represented by the artists in the perfection of united manly strength and beauty. His long curling hair hangs loose, or bound with the strophium behind ; his brows are wreathed with bay ; in his hands he bears his bow or lyre. The wonderful Apollo Belvidere shows at the same time the conception which the ancients had of this benign deity, and the high degree of perfection to which they had attained in sculpture.

Few deities had more appellations than the son of Leto. He was called Delian, Delphian, Pataræan, Clarian, etc. from the places of his worship ; and Smynthian from a Phrygian word signifying mouse, of which animal a legend said he had {p. 127}been the destroyer in Troas. He was also styled⁶⁶², 1. Crooked, probably from the position of the archer when shooting⁶⁶³ ; 2. Herding, as keeping the flocks and herds of the gods, or those of Admetos ; and by the poets, 3. Silver-bowed ; 4. Far-shooter ; 5. Gold-sworded ; 6. Well-haired, and Gold-haired ; 7. Unshorn-locked ; 8. People-rouser, etc.

This god had several epithets apparently connected with the Greek name of the wolf (λύκος) ; but as there was an ancient Greek word signifying light (Λϒ ΚH)⁶⁶⁴, of a similar form, the great probability, in the eyes of all who regard Apollo as the sun-god, or as a moral being of great purity, will be that this last is the real root of these names, and that, as we said above, it was merely similarity of sound that caused the wolf, or the country Lycia, to be regarded as their origin. Thus the god is called by Homer λυκγϵυὴς, which may be rendered with the utmost propriety Light-born,⁶⁶⁵ whereas the usual interpretation, Lycia-born, contradicts the fact of the Homeric gods not having birth-places on earth. Two other epithets of Apollo, λύκιος and λύκϵιος, which are usually rendered Lycian, or Wolf-destroying, or rather Wolfish, may signify Lighted, or Lighting. There are two others (λυκοκτόνος and λυκοϵργὴς) which evidently signify Wolf-killing, but they are of late origin, and formed after the derivation from λύκιος, wolf, had become the prevalent one.

Apollo was also named Agyieus (Ἀγυιϵὺς), as the guardian of the streets and roads (ἀγυιαί). Stone-pillars with pointed heads, placed before the doors of the houses, were the images of the god under this name. This practice was peculiar to the Dorians⁶⁶⁶. Apollo was called Pæan, either from his healing power (from παύω or ΠΑΩ), in which case he would {p. 128}be identical with Pæeôn ; or from his protecting and avenging character (from παίω) The hymn sung to him on the cessation of a plague, or after a victory, was thus named.

The name Phœbos-Apollo is generally regarded as of Grecian origin. The former part critics are unanimous in deriving from ϕάω, to shine ; of which the advocates for the original identity of this deity with Helios see at once the appropriateness : the maintainers of the contrary system interpret Phœbos pure, unstained, making it equivalent to the ἁγνὸς θϵὸς, as he is sometimes called⁶⁶⁷. Apollo is by some derived from ὄλω, to destroy ; by others from an old verb ἀπέλλω, akin to the Latin pello, to drive away ; by others again from ἀέλιος, the sun, with the digamma F between the two first vowels. The strangest etymon of all is that of Buttmann, who, taking the Cretan form ᾽Αβέλιος to be the original one, deduces it, according to his system of tracing the Greek religion from the East, from Jabal and Jubal, the first musician and herdsman according to Scripture⁶⁶⁸.

Ἄρτϵμις. Diana.

Artemis was daughter of Zeus and Leto, and sister to Apollo. She was the goddess of the chase⁶⁶⁹ ; she also presided over health. The sudden deaths of women were ascribed to her darts⁶⁷⁰, as those of men were to the arrows of her brother, of whom she forms the exact counterpart. Artemis was a spotless virgin ; her chief joy was to speed like a Dorian maid over the hills, followed by a train of nymphs in pursuit of the flying game⁶⁷¹ :

As arrow-joying Artemis along

A mountain moves, either Taÿgetos high,

Or Erymanthos, in the chase rejoiced

Of boars and nimble deer ; and with her sport

The country-haunting nymphs, the daughters fair

Of Ægis-holding Zeus, while Leto joys ;

O’er all she high her head and forehead holds,

Easy to know, though beautiful are all.

[n.p.]

[n.p.]

The Homerids have also sung the huntress-goddess : one of them in his hymn to her thus describes her occupations⁶⁷² :

Along the shady hills and breezy peaks,

Rejoicing in the chase, her golden bow

She bends, her deadly arrows sending forth.

Then tremble of the lofty hills the tops ;

The shady wood rebelloweth aloud

Unto the bowstring’s twang ; the earth itself

And fishy sea then shudder : but she still

A brave heart bearing goeth all around,

Slaughtering the race of salvage beasts. But when

Beast-marking, arrow-loving Artemis

Would cheer her soul, relaxing her curved bow

She to her brother Phœbos -Apollo’s house

Ample repaireth, to the fertile land

Of Delphi, there to arrange the lovely dance

Of Muses and of Graces ; then hangs up

Her springy bow and arrows, and begins

To lead the dance ; her body all arrayed

In raiment fair. They, pouring forth their voice

Divine, sing Leto lovely-ankled, how

She brought forth children, ‘mid the Deathless far

The best in counsel and in numerous deeds.

Callimachus thus relates the early history of the goddess⁶⁷³.

Artemis while yet a child, as she sat on her father’s knee, besought him to grant her permission to lead a life of perpetual virginity, to get a bow and arrows formed by the Cyclopes, and to devote herself to the chase. She further asked for sixty Ocean-nymphs as her companions, and twenty nymphs from Amnisos in Crete as her attendants. Of towns and cities she required not more than one, satisfied with the mountains, which she never would leave but to aid women in the pains of child-birth. Her indulgent sire assented with a smile, and gave her not one but thirty towns. She speeds to Crete, and thence to Ocean, and selects all her nymphs. On her return she calls at Lipara on Hephæstos and the Cyclopes, who immediately lay aside all their work to execute her orders. She now proceeds to Arcadia, where Pan, the chief god of that country, supplies her with dogs of an excellent breed. Mount Parrhasios then witnessed the first exploit of {p. 130}the huntress-goddess. Five deer larger than bulls, with horns of gold, fed on the banks of the ‘dark-pebbled’ Anauros at the foot of that hill : of these the goddess unaided by her dogs caught four, which she reserved to draw her chariot : the fifth, destined by Hera for the last labour of Heracles, bounded across the Keladôn and escaped.

According to the same poet, the chariot of Artemis and the harness of her deer are all of gold. When she drives to the house of Zeus, the gods come forth to meet her. Hermes takes her bow and arrows, and Apollo used to carry in her game, till Heracles was received into Olympos, when for his strength that office devolved on him. He carries in the bull, or boar, or whatever else she may have brought, exhorting the goddess to let the hares and small game alone, and attach herself to the boars and oxen ; for Heracles, the poet observes, though deified, still retains his appetite. The Amnisiades then unyoke her stags, and bring to them from Hera’s mead some of the trefoil on which the horses of Zeus feed, and fill their golden troughs with water. The goddess herself meantime enters the house of her father, and sits beside her brother Apollo.

The adventures of Artemis were not numerous. She turned, as we shall relate below, Actæôn into a stag, for having unconsciously beheld her when bathing⁶⁷⁴. Callisto was changed by her into a bear, for breach of chastity⁶⁷⁵. Oriôn perished by her arrows⁶⁷⁶. With her brother she destroyed the children of Niobe, who had presumed to prefer herself to Leto⁶⁷⁷ ; and in a fable later than Homer she is said to have detained the Grecian fleet at Aulis, in consequence of Agamemnôn’s having killed a hind which was sacred to her, and to have required the sacrifice of his daughter Iphigeneia. The Aloeids, Otos and Ephialtes, it was said, sought in marriage Hera and Artemis : the latter goddess, changing her form into that of a hind, sprang out between the two brothers, who aiming their darts at the supposed beast, by her art pierced each other and died⁶⁷⁸.

{p. 131}

We have already noticed the practice of the Greeks to unite similar deities, or to make one of them principal, and the others companions or attendants ; and also to form nymphs and other subordinate beings attached to the service of the gods out of their epithets. Of these practices Artemis furnishes more examples perhaps than any other deity.

The Cretans worshiped a goddess the same as or very similar to Artemis, whom they named Britomartis, which in their dialect signified Sweet Maid. She was also called Dictynna, a goddess of that name, and of a similar nature, having been perhaps united with her. There was a similar deity named Aphæa worshiped at Ægina, and they were all joined in a legend in the following manner.

The Cretan nymph Britomartis, the daughter of Zeus and Charme, was a favourite companion of Artemis. Minôs falling in love with her, pursued her for the space of nine months, the nymph at times concealing herself from him amidst the trees, at times among the reeds and sedge of the marshes. At length, being nearly overtaken by him, she sprang from a cliff into the sea, where she was saved in the nets (δίκτυα) of some fishermen. The Cretans afterwards worshiped her as a goddess under the name of Dictynna from the above circumstance, which also was assigned as the reason of the cliff from which she threw herself being called Dictæon. At the rites sacred to her, wreaths of pine or lentisk were used instead of myrtle, as a branch of the latter had caught her garments and impeded her flight. Leaving Crete, Britomartis then sailed for Ægina in a boat : the boatman attempted to offer her violence, but she got to shore and took refuge in a grove on that island, where she became invisible (ἀϕανὴς) : hence she was worshiped in Ægina under the name of Aphæa⁶⁷⁹.

The well-known legend of Alpheios and Arethusa offers another remarkable instance of this procedure.

Arethusa, it is said, was an Arcadian nymph, and a companion of the huntress-goddess. As she was one day returning from the chase she came to the clear stream of the Alpheios, and enticed by its beauty stripped herself and entered it, {p. 132}to drive away the heat and the fatigue. She heard a murmur in the stream, and terrified sprang to land. The river-god rose : she fled away naked as she was ; Alpheios pursued her. She sped all through Arcadia, till with the approach of evening she felt her strength to fail, and saw that her pursuer was close upon her. She then prayed to Artemis for relief, and was immediately dissolved into a fountain. Alpheios resumed his aqueous form, and sought to mingle his waters with hers. She fled on under the earth and through the sea, till she rose in the isle of Ortygia at Syracuse, still followed by the amorous stream⁶⁸⁰.

The explanation of this mythe is as follows⁶⁸¹. Artemis was worshiped in Elis under the titles of Alpheiæa, Alpheioa, Alpheionia, and Alpheiusa⁶⁸² ; and there was a common altar to her and Alpheios within the precincts of the Altis at Olympia⁶⁸³. When in the fifth Olympiad Archias the Corinthian founded the colony of Syracuse in Sicily, there were among the colonists some members of the sacerdotal family of the Iamids of Olympia⁶⁸⁴. These naturally exercised much influence in the religious affairs of the colony, whose first seat was the islet of Ortygia. A temple was built there to Artemis Of-the-Stream (Ποταμία), to which perhaps the proximate inducement was the presence of the fount Arethusa, which contained large fishes, and sent forth a copious stream of water into the sea⁶⁸⁵. From the original connexion between Alpheios and Artemis, the notion gradually arose, or it was given out, that the fount contained water of the Alpheios, and thence came the legend of his course under the sea⁶⁸⁶. Eventually, when the poetic notion of Artemis as a love-shunning maiden became the prevalent one⁶⁸⁷, the goddess was made to fly the pursuit of Alpheios⁶⁸⁸. The legend at Letrini was⁶⁸⁹ that he fell in love with {p. 133}her, but seeing no chance of success in a lawful way he resolved to force her. For this purpose he came to Letrini, where she and her nymphs were celebrating a pannychis or wake, and mingled with them. But the goddess, suspecting his design, had daubed her own face and those of her nymphs with mud, so that he was unable to distinguish her, and thus was foiled. Finally she was converted into the coy nymph Arethusa⁶⁹⁰. A late pragmatising form of the pleasing mythe was, that Alpheios was a hunter who was in love with the huntress Arethusa. To escape from his importunities she passed over to Ortygia, where she was changed into a fountain, and Alpheios became a river⁶⁹¹.

In proof of the truth of this fable, it was asserted that a cup (ϕιάλη) which fell into the Alpheios rose in Arethusa, whose pellucid waters also became turbid with the blood of the victims slain at the Olympic games⁶⁹².

We may here observe, that in the Peloponnese the relation between Artemis and the water was very intimate. She was worshiped in several places as Limnatis and Heleia, and there were frequently fountains in her temples. She was therefore probably regarded as a goddess of nature, that gave vigour and growth to plants and animals by the means of water⁶⁹³.

Among the various titles of Artemis were Loxo, Hecaerge, Arge, and Opis, or Upis. She bore the two first as the sister of Apollo Loxias and Hecaergos. She was styled Arge as the swift or the bright goddess, and Upis or Opis as her whose eye was over all. In the isle of Delos however were shown the tombs of Opis and Arge behind the temple of Artemis, and the tradition of the place was, that they, who were two Hyperborean maidens, had been the companions of Apollo and Artemis when they first came to Delos⁶⁹⁴. According to another account, these Hyperborean maidens were three in {p. 134}number, and named Upis, Loxo, and Hecaerge⁶⁹⁵, while a third named only Opis and Hecaerge⁶⁹⁶. There was also a legend of a nymph Arge, who when pursuing a buck cried out to him, «Though you should follow the course of the Sun I will overtake you,» at which the Sun being offended, turned her into a doe⁶⁹⁷. Another legend said that Zeus carried away the nymph Arge from Lyctos in Crete to a hill named Argillos on the banks of the Nile, where she became the mother of Dionysos⁶⁹⁸.

If Artemis was merely one of the names under which the moon was worshiped, it need not surprise us to find her identified with Selene, with Hecate, and even with Persephone, the goddess of the under-world, and to be thence called the three-formed goddess⁶⁹⁹ ruling as Selene in the sky, as Artemis on earth, as Persephone in Erebos. This will also give a very simple reason for her being like Eileithyia, the aider of women in labour. If Artemis was not originally a moon-goddess, these identifications become somewhat difficult of solution⁷⁰⁰.

Artemis was also confounded with the goddess worshiped on the Tauric Chersonese, whose altars were stained with the blood of such unhappy strangers as were cast on that inhospitable shore⁷⁰¹. She was identified too with the goddess of nature adored at Ephesus, whose symbolical figure, by its multitude of breasts and heads of animals hung round it, denoted the fecundity of nature. In Magnesia on the Mæander there was a most stately temple of Artemis-Leucophryne (White-browed)⁷⁰², in which was shown the tomb of a maiden named Leucophryne⁷⁰³, who was probably regarded as bearing a relation to the goddess similar to that borne by Upis and Arge at Delos. Leucophryne was therefore no more than an epithet of Artemis, who had also a temple at Leucophrys on {p. 135}the coast⁷⁰⁴ ; and it becomes a question whether (like Artemis of Ephesus, with whom she must have been identical) she derived her appellation from that town, whose name probably corresponded with its situation on a chalk cliff ; or whether it was expressive of her beauty. As however beauty was not an attribute of the Asiatic goddess, the former is more likely to be the true supposition⁷⁰⁵.

No spot on earth is assigned as the birth-place of Artemis by Homer, in whose time, as we have more than once observed, that practice had not yet commenced ; but as he mentions the island Ortygia as that in which she shot Oriôn⁷⁰⁶, succeeding poets fabled that she was born there⁷⁰⁷. This island was described by Homer as lying in the western sea, the scene of all wonders, and was probably as imaginary as Ogygia, that of Calypso ; but when at a later period the Greeks grew more familiar with those distant regions, zeal for the honour of the poet who had sung so well the wanderings of Odysseus, and the love of definiteness, led them to affix the names which he employs to various places really to be found, and the islet at the mouth of the port of Syracuse was determined to be the Ortygia of the Odyssey⁷⁰⁸.

Artemis is generally represented as a healthy, strong, active maiden, — handsome, but with no gentleness of expression. She wears the Cretan hunting-shoes (ἐνδρομίδϵς), and has her garment tucked up for speed. On her back she bears a quiver, and in her hand a bow or a hunting-spear. She is usually attended by a dog.

At Trœzên there was a temple of Artemis-Lycæa, the erection of which was ascribed to Hippolytos, but the guides could give Pausanias no account of the unusual title Lycæa⁷⁰⁹. Another ambiguous name of this goddess was that of Tauropolos⁷¹⁰.

{p. 136}

The chief titles given to Artemis by the poets were⁷¹¹, 1. Arrow-joying ; 2. Gold-bridled ; 3. Gold-shafted ; 4. Deer-slayer ; 5. Beast-marking ; 6. Rushing ; 7. Holy ; 8. Horse-urger, etc.

The name Artemis seems identical with ἀρτεμὴς, integer, whole, uninjured, and therefore sound and pure, probably with reference to the virginity of the goddess. Welcker regards it as an epithet of the same nature with Opis and Nemesis, and says that it is ἄρι-Θέμις⁷¹².

Mythologists are divided into two parties respecting the original nature of Leto and her children, the one regarding them as physical, the other as moral beings. Both however are agreed that the latter is their character in the Homeric and Hesiodic poetry, where, as we have seen, Apollo appears only as the god of prophecy, music and archery, and Artemis as his counterpart in this last office. Voss⁷¹³ therefore (with whom agree Wolf⁷¹⁴, Lobeck⁷¹⁵, Hermann⁷¹⁶, Völcker⁷¹⁷, Nitzsch⁷¹⁸ and Müller⁷¹⁹,) maintains such to have been the original conception of these deities, while Heyne⁷²⁰, Buttmann⁷²¹ and Welcker⁷²², together with Creuzer and the whole body of the mystics, think that in the theocrasy of the ancients, by which Apollo and Artemis were identified with Helios and Selene, they were only restored to their original nature and character. We have more than once hinted our inclination to regard this last as the more correct hypothesis. We will now briefly state the principal arguments on both sides.

In favour of the theory of Apollo and Artemis being sun {p. 137}and moon, it is alleged that they were early so considered. Thus we find the Persian general of Darius sparing the isle of Delos on their account, and making offerings to them evidently as gods of the two great luminaries (Mithras and Mitra in the Persian system)⁷²³. We also meet this view in Plato⁷²⁴ and Euripides⁷²⁵ ; and in the Alexandrine period it was so prevalent, that Callimachus⁷²⁶ blames those who separate these deities from the sun and moon. This however might have been nothing more than the arbitrary procedure of priests and philosophers, and more sure grounds must be sought in the attributes and epithets of these deities anterior to the time of theocrasy.

Apollo and Artemis then are brother and sister, the children of Zeus (that is the deity) and Leto, whose name, by a perfectly unstrained etymology, may be rendered Night ; and the origin of the sun and moon, and their affinity, could not be more appropriately described. Apollo is represented as full of manly vigour, with long unshorn locks, armed with a golden sword and a bow and quiver, from which he sends forth deadly arrows. These waving locks are a simple representation of the beams of the sun, who in the Psalms is described as ‘a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoicing to run his race ;’ a golden sword is the weapon of Freyr, the sun-god of Scandinavian mythology ; and the arrows may well express the penetrating beams of the sun, or the coups de soleil and diseases caused by his action. For a similar reason arrows were given to the goddess of the moon⁷²⁷. The names Phœbos and Artemis, as above explained, agree perfectly with the sun and moon. Apollo being conceived armed with bow and arrows, was naturally held to be the god of archery ; and the sun, whose eye surveys everything, might {p. 138}be looked on as the most suitable revealer of the will of Zeus to men, and thence Apollo be the god of prophecy. The cheerfulness which the appearance of the sun induces over all nature, vivified and refreshed by the repose of the night, and the songs of birds which precede or accompany his rising⁷²⁸, might easily cause the sun-god to be regarded as the god of music, though it is more likely that Apollo owes this character to the employment of the lyre in his worship. Artemis may in like manner have been regarded as the goddess of the chase from her being armed with arrows, or as the beasts of venery feed by night and sleep by day⁷²⁹, or as the moon-goddess was held to preside over the birth and growth of animated beings. Finally, the offering of ripe ears of corn, the ‘golden summer’, to Apollo, and his being prayed to as the averter of mildew and the destroyer of mice and grasshoppers, are reasons for viewing him as a god of nature⁷³⁰.

Against all this it is alleged that these identifications were merely the work of the philosophers of the Ionic school, who sought to assimilate all the deities of the popular creed with material powers or the attributes of the universal intellect ; that the epithets and attributes of Apollo all answer to a moral being of great purity, while the bow and arrows are a natural symbol of the god who sends death from afar ; that nothing can be concluded from his being a patron and protector of agriculture, as he is such as the averter of misfortune in general ; that in his religious character he is no god of nature, not being a deity of generation and production, but represented as ever youthful and unmarried, the tales of his amours being all of a late age, and having no connexion with his worship. Finally, great stress is laid on the fact of Apollo and Artemis being so totally distinct from the sun and moon in all the elder poetry⁷³¹.

{p. 139}

Chapter IX.

DIONE : — APHRODITE, EROS.

Διώνη. Dione. — Ἀϕροδίτη. Venus. — Ἕρος, Ἕρως. Cupido, Amor. Love.

Διώνη. Dione.

In the Ilias⁷³² Dione is a wife of Zeus, and mother of Aphrodite. The name Dione also occurs among the Ocean-nymphs⁷³³, the Nereïdes⁷³⁴ and the Hyades⁷³⁵. At Dodona Dione shared in the honours and the worship of Zeus, being regarded as his queen⁷³⁶. Her name is apparently the feminine of his, and probably signified simply goddess⁷³⁷.

Ἀϕροδίτη. Venus.

The Aphrodite of the Ilias⁷³⁸ is the daughter of Zeus and Dione, and by the Alexandrian and the Latin poets⁷³⁹ she is sometimes called by the same name as her mother. Hesiod⁷⁴⁰ says she sprang from the foam (ἀϕρὸς) of the sea, into which the mutilated part of Uranos had been thrown by his son Kronos. She first, he adds, approached the land at the island of Cythera, and thence proceeded to Cyprus, where grass grew beneath her feet, and Love and Desire attended her.

One of the Homerids⁷⁴¹ sings, that the moist-blowing west-wind wafted her in soft foam along the waves of the sea, and that the gold-filleted Seasons received her on the shore of Cyprus, clothed her in immortal garments, placed a golden wreath on her head, rings of orichalcum and gold in her pierced ears, and golden chains about her neck, and then led her to the {p. 140}assembly of the Immortals, every one of whom admired, saluted, and loved her, and each god desired her for his wife.

Empedocles said that Aphrodite was the daughter of Kronos⁷⁴².

The husband assigned to this charming goddess is usually the lame artist Hephæstos. Her amour with Ares we have already narrated ; and Hermes, Dionysos, and Poseidôn, it is said, could also boast of her favours. Among mortals, Anchises and Adonis are those whose amours with her are the most famous. The tale of her love-adventure with the former is noticed by Homer⁷⁴³, and it is most pleasingly told by a Homerid ; the following is an analysis of his hymn.

Aphrodite had long exercised uncontrolled dominion over the dwellers of Olympos, uniting in cruel sport both males and females with mortals. But Zeus resolved that she should no longer be exempt from the common lot. Accordingly he infused into her mind the desire of a union of love with mortal man. The object selected was Anchises, a beautiful youth of the royal house of Troy, who was at that time with the herdsmen feeding oxen among the hills and valleys of Ida.

The moment Aphrodite beheld him she was seized with love. She immediately hastened to her temple in Cyprus, where the Graces dressed and adorned her, and then in the full consciousness of beauty she proceeded through the air. When she came to Ida, she advanced toward the stalls, and was accompanied on her way by all the wild beasts of the mountains, whose breasts the exulting goddess filled with love and desire.

Anchises happened to be alone in the cotes at this time, and was amusing his leisure by playing on the lyre. When he beheld the goddess, who had divested herself of the usual marks of divinity, he was amazed at her beauty and the splendour of her attire. He could not avoid regarding her as something more than human ; he accosts her as one of the Immortals, vows an altar to her, and beseeches her to grant him a long and a happy life. But Aphrodite denies her {p. 141}heavenly origin, and feigns that she is a mortal maid and daughter to Otreus king of Phrygia, adding, that while she was dancing, in honour of Artemis, with the nymphs and other maidens, and a great crowd was standing around, Hermes had snatched her away, and carried her through the air over hills and dales and plains, till he had brought her to Ida, where he informed her that she was to be the wife of Anchises ; and then, having instructed her in what she was to do, had departed, leaving her alone in the mountains. She earnestly entreats the Trojan youth to conduct her unsullied to his family, and to dispatch a messenger to her father to treat of the marriage and the dower.

But while thus speaking, the artful goddess filled the heart of the youth with love. Believing her now to be mortal, all his veneration vanishes, and he declares that not even Apollo should prevent his taking advantage of the favourable moment. He seized the hand of the goddess, and ‘led her blushing like the morn’ into the rustic shed.

When evening approached, and the arrival of the herdsmen with the sheep and oxen was at hand, the goddess poured a profound sleep over Anchises. She arose from the skinstrewn couch, and prepared to depart. Resuming the marks of divinity, the brilliant eyes and rosy neck, she stood at the door and called to her slumbering lover to awake and observe the change. Filled with awe, he conceals his face in the clothes and sues for mercy ; but the goddess reassures him, and informs him that she will bear a son, whom she will commit to the mountain-nymphs to rear, and will bring to him when in his fifth year. He is then to feign that the child is the offspring of one of the nymphs ; but the secret of the goddess is to remain inviolate, under pain of his being struck with lightning by Zeus.

So saying, unto breezy Heaven she sped.

Hail, goddess, who o’er well-dwelt Cyprus rulest !

But I will pass from thee to another hymn, —

concludes the poet, according to the regular practice of his brethren.

Myrrha, the daughter of Cinyras, having offended {p. 142}Aphrodite⁷⁴⁴, was by her inspired with a passion for her own father. After a long struggle against it, she gratified it by the aid of her nurse, unknown to its object⁷⁴⁵. When Cinyras found what he had unwittingly done, he pursued his daughter with his drawn sword, to efface her crime in her blood. He had nearly overtaken her, when she prayed to the gods to make her invisible, and they in pity changed her into a myrrh-tree. In ten months afterwards the tree opened, and the young Adonis came to light. Aphrodite, delighted with his beauty, put him into a coffer, unknown to all the gods, and gave him to Persephone to keep. But as soon as she beheld him, the goddess of the under-world refused to part with him ; and the matter being referred to Zeus, he decreed that Adonis should have one third of the year to himself, be another third with Aphrodite, and the remaining third with Persephone. Adonis gave his own portion to Aphrodite, and lived happily with her ; till having offended Artemis, he was torn by a wild boar⁷⁴⁶ and died⁷⁴⁷. The ground where his blood fell was sprinkled with nectar by the mourning goddess, and the flower called the anemone or wind-flower sprang up from it, which by its caducity expresses the brief period of the life of the beautiful son of Myrrha⁷⁴⁸. The rose also derived its present hue from this fatal event ; for as the distracted goddess ran barefoot through the woods and lawns to the aid of her lover, the thorns of the rose-briars tore her delicate skin, and their flowers were thenceforth tinged with red⁷⁴⁹. Other accounts, however, say {p. 143}that the goddess changed Adonis himself into this fragrant flower⁷⁵⁰.

The tale of Adonis is evidently an Eastern mythe. His own name and those of his parents refer to that part of the world⁷⁵¹. He appears to be the same with the Thammuz mentioned by the prophet Ezekiel,

Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured

The Syrian damsels to lament his fate,

While smooth Adonis from his native rock

Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood

Of Thammuz yearly wounded ;

and to be a Phœnician personification of the sun, who during a part of the year is absent, or as the legend expresses it, with the goddess of the under-world ; during the remainder with Astarte, the regent of heaven. A festival in honour of Adonis was annually celebrated at Byblos by the Phœnician women during two days ; the first of which was spent in grief and lamentation, the second in joy and triumph. In Greece, whither these rites were transplanted, the festival was prolonged to eight days. It is uncertain when the Adoneia were first celebrated in that country ; but we find Plato⁷⁵² alluding to the Gardens of Adonis, as pots and boxes of flowers used in them were called, and the ill fortune of the Athenian expedition to Sicily was in part ascribed to the circumstance of the fleet having sailed during that festival⁷⁵³. The Idyll of Theocritus called the Adoniazusæ describes in admirable dramatic style the magnificence with which the feast of Adonis was celebrated in the Græco-Ægyptic city of Alexandria.

This notion of the mourning for Adonis being a testimony {p. 144}of grief for the absence of the sun during the winter, is not, however, to be too readily acquiesced in. Lobeck⁷⁵⁴ for example asks, with some appearance of reason, why those nations whose heaven was mildest, and their winter shortest, should so bitterly bewail the regular changes of the seasons, as to feign that the gods themselves were carried off or slain ; and he shrewdly observes, that in that case the mournful and the joyful parts of the festival should have been held at different times of the year, and not joined together as they were. He further inquires, whether the ancient nations, who esteemed their gods to be so little superior to men, may not have believed them to have been really and not metaphorically put to death. And in truth it is not easy to give a satisfactory answer to these questions.

According to Homer, Aphrodite had an embroidered girdle (κεστὸς ἱμὰς), which had the gift of inspiring love and desire for the person who wore it. Hera, when about to lull Zeus to sleep by filling him with these affections, borrowed the magic girdle from Aphrodite⁷⁵⁵.

The animals sacred to Aphrodite were swans, doves, and sparrows. Horace⁷⁵⁶ places her in a chariot drawn by swans, and Sappho⁷⁵⁷ in one whose team were sparrows. In one of the odes ascribed to Anacreon a dove announces herself as a present from the goddess to the bard. The bird called Iynx or Fritillus, of which so much use was made in amatory magic, was also sacred to this goddess⁷⁵⁸ ; as was likewise the swallow, the herald of spring, the season of love. Her favourite plants were the rose and the myrtle. She was chiefly worshiped at Cythera and Cyprus⁷⁵⁹ ; in which latter isle her favourite places were Paphôs, Golgoi, Idalion, and Amathûs ; and also at Cnidos, Miletos, Côs, Corinth, Athens, Sparta, etc.

In the more ancient temples of this goddess in Cyprus she was represented under the form of a rude conical stone. But the Grecian sculptors and painters, particularly Praxiteles and [n.p.]Apelles, vied with each other in forming her image the ideal of female beauty and attraction. She appears sometimes rising out of the sea and wringing her locks ; sometimes drawn in a conch by Tritons, or riding on some marine animal. She is usually naked, or but slightly clad. The Venus de’ Medici remains to us a noble specimen of ancient art and perception of the beautiful.

[n.p.]

The most usual epithets of Aphrodite were⁷⁶⁰, 1. Smile-loving ; 2. Well-garlanded ; 3. Golden ; 4. Quick-winking ; 5. Well-tressed ; 6. Care-dissolving ; 7. Artful ; 8. Gold-bridled ; etc.

There is none of the Olympians of whom the foreign origin is so probable as this goddess. She is generally regarded as being the same with the Astarte of the Phœnicians. There can, we think, be little doubt of the identification of this last with the Grecian Aphrodite, for the tale of Adonis sufficiently proves it ; and that this took place at a very early period, the name Cypris given to Aphrodite so frequently by Homer evinces. Still we look on Aphrodite to be (as her name seems to denote⁷⁶¹) an originally Grecian deity ; at first, probably, merely cosmogonic, but gradually adopted into the system of the Olympians, and endowed with some of the attributes of Hera, (who was also identified with Astarte), and thus becoming the patroness of marriage⁷⁶². It was probably on account of her being esteemed the same with Astarte, the moon-goddess and queen of heaven, that Aphrodite was so frequently styled the Heavenly (Urania). It is very important to observe that she was so named at her temple in Cythera, which was regarded as the holiest and most ancient of her fanes in Greece. Her antique wooden statue (ξόανον) in this temple was armed, as it also was at Sparta and Corinth⁷⁶³. In this last city she was also styled Urania⁷⁶⁴, and her worship there was eminently Asiatic in character.

{p. 146}

Ἕρος, Ἕρως. Cupido, Amor. Love.

This deity is unnoticed by Homer ; in the Theogony⁷⁶⁵ he is one of the first of beings, and produced without parents. In the Orphic poems he was the son of Kronos⁷⁶⁶. Sappho⁷⁶⁷ made him the offspring of Heaven and Earth, while Simonides assigned him Aphrodite and Ares for parents⁷⁶⁸. In Olên’s hymn to Eileithyia⁷⁶⁹ that goddess was termed the mother of Love, and Alcæus said that ‘well-sandaled Iris bore Love to gold-locked Zephyros⁷⁷⁰.’

The cosmogonic Erôs of Hesiod is apparently a personification of the principle of attraction, on which the coherence of the material world depends. Nothing was more natural than to term Aphrodite the mother of Love, but the reason for so calling Eileithyia, the president of child-birth, is not equally apparent. It may be perhaps that in the hymn ascribed to Olên this goddess was identified with Aphrodite Archaia, to whom Theseus was said to have dedicated an altar at Delos⁷⁷¹ : possibly it was meant to express the increase of conjugal affection produced by the birth of children. The making Love the offspring of the West-wind and the Rainbow would seem to be only a poetic mode of expressing the wellknown fact, that the spring, the season in which they most prevail, is also that of love⁷⁷². In the bucolic and some of the Latin poets the Loves are spoken of in the plural number, but no distinct offices are assigned them⁷⁷³.

Thespiæ in Bœotia was the place in which Erôs was most worshiped. The Thespians used to celebrate games in his honour on Mount Helicôn. The oldest image of the god in their city was of plain stone, but Praxiteles afterwards made {p. 147}for them one of Pcntelican marble of rare beauty⁷⁷⁴. Erôs also had altars at Athens and elsewhere.

The poetic epithets of this deity were⁷⁷⁵, 1. Gold-haired ; 2. Gold-winged ; 3. Sweet-minded.

The god of love was usually represented as a plump-cheeked boy, rosy and naked, with light hair floating on his shoulders. He is always winged, and armed with a bow and arrows⁷⁷⁶.

There was a being named Anterôs (ἀντὶ ἔρως), who was in some cases viewed as the avenger of slighted love⁷⁷⁷ ; in others as the symbol of reciprocal affection⁷⁷⁸. The Platonic philosopher Porphyrius tells the following pretty legend.

Aphrodite, complaining to Themis that her son Erôs continued always a child, was told by her that the cause was his being solitary, and that if he had a brother he would grow apace. Anterôs was soon afterwards born, and Erôs immediately found his wings enlarge, and his person and strength greatly increase. But this was only when Anterôs was near ; for if he was at a distance, Erôs found himself shrink to his original dimensions. The meaning of this fable is so apparent that it needs not explication.

At the time when it was become the mode to exalt the characters of philosophers by ascribing to them all kinds of wonderful works, the sophist Eunapius told the following curious legend in his life of Jamblichus, the author of as marvellous a life of Pythagoras. Jamblichus and his companions having gone to the warm baths of Gadara in Lycia, and bathed in them, a conversation arose among them on the nature of the baths. The philosopher smiled and said, “Though it is not strictly right in me to do so, yet I will show you something new.” He then desired them to inquire of the inhabitants, what were the traditional names of two of the smaller but handsomer of the warm springs. They replied that one of them was called Erôs and the other Anterôs, but that they knew not the cause of their being so styled. Jamblichus, {p. 148}who was just then standing at the brink of the fount of Erôs, touched the water, and murmured a few words over it. Immediately there rose from the bottom a little boy of a fair complexion and moderate size : his hair, of a rich golden hue, hung down his back, which was bright and clean as that of a person who had just bathed. All present were in amazement : the philosopher then leading them to the other spring did as he had done before ; and instantly another Love, similar to the first, except that his hair was of a bright dark hue, rose to light. The two embraced, and clung round the philosopher as if he had been their father ; and after caressing them for some time, he restored them to their native element. His companions, who had been previously disposed to regard him as an impostor, convinced by this wonder, henceforth received his words as those of a divinity.

The adventures of Erôs are not numerous. Some pretty little trifles respecting him will be found in the bucolic poets, and his adventure with Apollo has been already noticed. The most celebrated is that contained in the agreeable tale of his love for Psyche (ψυχὴ, the soul), preserved by Apuleius in his Metamorphoses, and which we will here give in an abridged form.

There were one time a king and a queen who had three daughters, of whom the youngest named Psyche was one of the loveliest creatures earth ever beheld. People crowded from all parts to gaze upon her charms, altars were erected to her, and she was worshiped as a second Venus. The queen of beauty was irritated on seeing her own altars neglected, and her adorers diminishing. She summoned her son ; and conducting him to the city where Psyche dwelt, showed him the lovely maid, and ordered him to inspire her with a passion for some vile and abject wretch. The goddess departed, leaving her son to execute her mandate. Meantime Psyche, though adored by all, was sought as a wife by none. Her sisters, who were far inferior to her in charms, were married, and she remained single, hating that beauty which all admired.

Her father consulted the oracle of Apollo, and was ordered {p. 149}to expose her on a rock, whence she would be carried away by a monster, the terror of heaven, earth, and hell. The oracle was obeyed, and Psyche amidst the tears of the people placed on a lofty rock. Here, while she sat weeping, a zephyr sent for the purpose gently raised and carried her to a charming valley. Overcome by grief she falls asleep, and on awaking beholds a grove with a fountain in the midst of it, and near it a stately palace of most splendid structure. She ventures to enter this palace, goes over it lost in admiration at its magnificence ; when suddenly she hears a voice, telling her that all there is hers, and all her commands will be obeyed. She bathes, sits down to a rich repast, and is regaled with music by invisible performers. At night she retires to bed ; an unseen youth addresses her in the softest accents, and she becomes his wife.

Her sisters had meanwhile come to console their parents for the loss of Psyche, whose invisible spouse informs her of this event, and warns her of the danger likely to arise from it. Moved by the tears of his bride, he however consents that her sisters should come to the palace. The obedient zephyr conveys them thither. They grow envious of Psyche’s happiness, and try to persuade her that her invisible lord is a serpent, who will finally devour her. By their advice she provides herself with a lamp and a razor to destroy the monster. When her husband was asleep she arose, took her lamp from its place of concealment, and approached the couch ; but there she beheld, instead of a dragon, Love himself. Filled with amazement at his beauty, she leaned in rapture over his charms : a drop of oil fell from the lamp on the shoulder of the god : he awoke, and flew away. Psyche caught his leg as he rose, and was raised into the air, but fell ; and as she lay, the god reproached her from a cypress for her breach of faith.

The abandoned Psyche attempted to drown herself in the neighbouring stream ; but, fearing Love, it cast her upon a bank of flowers, where she was found and consoled by the god Pan. She now goes through the world in search of Cupid : she arrives at the kingdom of her sisters ; and, by a false tale of Cupid’s love for them, causes them to cast themselves from {p. 150}the rock on which she had been exposed, and through their credulity they perish. She still roams on, persecuted and subjected to numerous trials by Venus. Pitied but unaided by the higher goddesses Ceres and Juno, the plants and the animals, the reed, the owl, and the eagle give her their advice and assistance. Venus, bent on her destruction, dispatches her to Proserpina with a box to request some of her beauty. Psyche, dismayed at the peril of the journey to the lower regions, ascends a tower, determined to cast herself from it and end her woes ; but the tower pities her, and instructs her how to proceed. She accomplishes her mission in safety. As she is returning, she thinks she may venture to open the box and take a portion for herself, that she may be the more pleasing to her husband. She opens the box, when instead of beauty there issues from it a dense black exhalation, and the imprudent Psyche falls to the ground in a deep slumber from its effects. In this state she is found by Cupid, who had escaped by the window of the chamber where he had been confined by his mother : he awakens her with the point of one of his arrows, reproaches her with her curiosity, and then proceeds to the palace of Jupiter to interest him in her favour. Jupiter takes pity on her, and endows her with immortality : Venus is reconciled, and her marriage with Cupid takes place. The Hours shed roses through the sky, the Graces sprinkle the halls of Heaven with fragrant odours, Apollo plays on his lyre, the Arcadian god on his reeds, the Muses sing in chorus, while Venus dances with grace and elegance to celebrate the nuptials of her son. Thus Cupid was at length reunited to his long-lost Psyche, and their loves were speedily crowned by the birth of a child, whom his parents named Pleasure⁷⁷⁹.

This beautiful fiction is perhaps a philosophic allegory, intended by its inventor for a representation of the mystic union between the divine love and the human soul, and of the trials and purifications which the latter must undergo, in order to be perfectly fitted for an enduring union with the {p. 151}divinity. It is thus explained by the Christian mythologist Fulgentius⁷⁸⁰. “The city in which Psyche dwells is the world ; the king and queen are God and matter ; Psyche is the soul ; her sisters are the flesh and the free-will : she is the youngest, because the body is before the mind ; and she is the fairest, because the soul is higher than free-will, more noble than the body. Venus, i. e. lust, envies her, and sends Cupido, i. e. desire, to destroy her ; but as there is desire of good as well as of evil, Cupid falls in love with her : he persuades her not to see his face, that is, not to learn the joys of desire ; just as Adam, though he could see, did not see that he was naked until he had eaten of the tree of desire. At the impulsion of her sisters she put the lamp from under the bushel, that is, revealed the flame of desire which was hidden in her bosom, and loved it when she saw how delightful it was ; and she is said to have burned it by the dripping of the lamp, because all desire burns in proportion as it is loved, and fixes its sinful mark on the flesh. She is therefore deprived of desire and her splendid fortune, is exposed to perils, and driven out of the palace.”

This fanciful exposition will probably not prove satisfactory to many readers. The following one of a modern writer⁷⁸¹ may seem to come nearer the truth. “This fable, it is said, is a representation of the destiny of the human soul. The soul, which is of divine origin, is here below subjected to error in its prison the body. Hence trials and purifications are set before it, that it may become capable of a higher view of things, and of true desire. Two loves meet it, — the earthly, a deceiver who draws it down to earthly things ; the heavenly, who directs its view to the original, fair and divine, and who gaining the victory over his rival, leads off the soul as his bride.”

According to a third expositor⁷⁸² the mythe is a moral one. It is intended to represent the dangers to which nuptial fidelity was exposed in such a country as degenerate Greece, and at the same time to present an image of a fidelity subjected to numerous temptations and victorious over them all.

{p. 152}

The interpretation of an allegory is always hazardous : for fancy presided over its birth, and fancy must always have a large share in the attempts made to develope its secret and real nature. All, therefore, we should ever hope to arrive at is a view of the general sense and meaning. In truth many a tale seems to be allegorical which was never meant to be so by its author, and many a tale is allegorical in which the vulgar discern nothing but amusing narrative. The story of Cupid and Psyche may after all have been, as some think, nothing more than a Milesian tale like that of the Matron of Ephesus⁷⁸³. We, however, rather incline to the opinion of its having been originally a philosophic allegory.

Ere we quit this subject we must observe, that a Greek name for the moth was Psyche (ψυχὴ). The fondness of this insect for approaching at night the flame of the lamp or candle, in which it so frequently finds its death, reminds a mystic philosopher of the fate of the soul destroyed by the desire of knowledge, or absorbed and losing its separate existence in the deity, who dwells in light according to the philosophy of the East. But further, the world presents no illustration so striking or so beautiful of the immortality of the soul, as that of the moth or butterfly bursting on brilliant wings from the dull groveling caterpillar-state in which it had previously existed, fluttering in the blaze of day, and feeding on the most fragrant and sweetest productions of the spring. Hence it was, in all probability, that the Greeks named the butterfly the soul.

The fable of Love and Psyche has been the original of many a pleasing fairy-tale. It has been told in French prose by the naïf and charming La Fontaine. The united powers of Corneille, Moliere, and Quinault produced a tragédie-ballet named Psyche, for the amusement of the court of Louis XIV. In English, the amiable and accomplished Mrs. H. Tighe has narrated the tale of Psyche and her celestial lover in elegant and harmonious Spenserian verse.

{p. 153}

Chapter X.

PALLAS-ATHENE, AND HERMES.

Παλλὰς Ἀθηναίη, καὶ Ἀθήνη, Ἀθηνâ. Minerva. — Ἐρμϵίας, Ἐρμῆς , Ἐρμάων. Mercurius.

We place these deities together, dissimilar as they may appear in office and character, as they form two remarkable instances of gods altering their characters and attributes with a change of manners or institutions in the people.

Παλλὰς Ἀθηναίη, καὶ Ἀθήνη, Ἀθηνâ. Minerva.

The Pallas-Athene of both the Homeric poems is the daughter of Zeus ; in one place⁷⁸⁴ it seems to be intimated that she had no other parent. In the Theogony Zeus swallows Metis, and the ‘blue-eyed Tritogeneia’ is born from his head⁷⁸⁵, which Pindar⁷⁸⁶ says Hephæstos opened with a brazen axe ; Athena then sprang forth with a shout which terrified Heaven and Mother Earth, while the king of the gods poured a shower of gold on Rhodes, the sacred isle of the Sun-god. Stesichorus⁷⁸⁷ had already sung how the goddess issued from the head of her sire in perfect panoply, — a circumstance however evidently to be understood in the narrative of Pindar. According to the Homerid⁷⁸⁸ Olympos shook at the divine birth, the earth resounded, the sea was moved, and Helios checked his steeds in their career till the new-born goddess took off her radiant armour. Later authorities assign the task of opening the head of Zeus to Prometheus⁷⁸⁹, or Hermes⁷⁹⁰ .

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Pallas-Athene is in Homer, and in the general popular system, the goddess of wisdom and skill. She is in war opposed to Ares, the wild war-god, as the patroness and teacher of just and scientific warfare. She is therefore on the side of the Greeks, and he on that of the Trojans. But on the shield of Achilleus, where the people of the besieged town are represented as going forth to lie in ambush, they are led by Ares and Athena together⁷⁹¹, possibly to denote the union of skill and courage required for that service⁷⁹². Every prudent chief was esteemed to be under the patronage of Athena, and Odysseus was therefore her especial favourite, whom she relieved from all his perils, and whose son Telemachos she also took under her protection, assuming a human form to be his guide and director. In like manner Cadmos, Heracles, Perseus, and other heroes were, as we shall see, favoured and aided by this goddess.

As the patroness of arts and industry in general, Pallas-Athene was regarded as the inspirer and teacher of able artists. Thus she taught Epeios to frame the wooden horse, by means of which Troy was taken⁷⁹³ ; and she also superintended the building of the ship Argo⁷⁹⁴. Athena was likewise expert in female accomplishments ; she wove her own robe and that of Hera, which last she is said to have embroidered very richly⁷⁹⁵. When the hero Iasôn was setting forth in quest of the Golden Fleece, Athena gave him a cloak wrought by herself⁷⁹⁶. She taught this art to mortal females, who had won her affection⁷⁹⁷. When Pandora was formed by Hephæstos for the ruin of man, she was attired by Pallas-Athene⁷⁹⁸.

By the Homerid⁷⁹⁹ Athena and Hephæstos are united as the benefactors and civilisers of mankind by means of the arts which they taught them, and we shall find them in intimate union in the mythic system of Attica.

Homer⁸⁰⁰ thus describes Pallas-Athene arraying herself in the arms of Zeus, when preparing to accompany Hera to the plain where the Greeks and Trojans were engaged in conflict.

{p. 155}But Athenæe, child of Zeus supreme,

The ægis-holder, on her father’s floor

Let fall her peplus various, which she

Herself had wrought, and laboured with her hands.

The tunic then of cloud-collecting Zeus

She on her put, and clad herself in arms

For tearful war ; and round her shoulders cast

The fringed ægis dire, which all about

Was compassed with fear. In it was Strife,

In it was Strength, and in it chill Pursuit ;

In it the Gorgon-head, the portent dire, —

Dire and terrific, the great prodigy

Of ægis-holding Zeus. Upon her head

She placed the four-coned helmet formed of gold,

Fitting the foot-men of a hundred towns.

The flaming car she mounted, seized the spear,

Great, heavy, solid, wherewith the strong-sired

Maiden the ranks of heroes vanquisheth,

With whom she is wroth.

A Mæonian maid named Arachne, proud of her skill in weaving and embroidery, in which arts the goddess had instructed her, ventured to deny her obligation, and challenged her patroness to a trial of skill. Athena, assuming the form of an old woman, warned her to desist from her boasting ; and when she found her admonitions were vain, she resumed her proper form and accepted the challenge. The skill of Arachne was such, and the subject she chose (the love-transformations of the gods) so offensive to Athena, that she struck her several times in the forehead with the shuttle. The high-spirited maid unable to endure this affront hung herself, and the goddess relenting changed her into a spider (ἀράχνη)⁸⁰¹.

The invention of the flute or pipe (αὐλὸς) is also ascribed to this goddess. When Perseus ; says Pindar⁸⁰², had slain Medusa, her two remaining sisters bitterly lamented her death. The snakes which formed their ringlets mourned in concert {p. 156}with them, and Athena hearing the sound was pleased with it, and resolved to imitate it : she in consequence invented the pipe, whose music was named many-headed (πολυκέϕαλος), on account of the number of the serpents whose lugubrious hissing had given origin to it. Others⁸⁰³ say the goddess formed the pipe from the bone of a stag, and bringing it with her to the banquet of the gods began to play on it. Being laughed at by Hera and Aphrodite, on account of her green eyes and her swollen cheeks, she went to a fountain on Mount Ida, and played before the liquid mirror. Satisfied that the goddesses had had reason for their mirth, she threw her pipe away : Marsyas unfortunately found it, and learning to play on it, ventured to become the rival of Apollo. His fate has been already related.

The favourite plant of Athena was the olive, to which she had given origin. Among animals the owl and the serpent were sacred to her. Athena was most honoured in Athens, the city to which she gave name, where the splendid festivals of the Panathenæa were celebrated in her honour. She had also temples at Thebes, Argos, Sparta, and elsewhere. At Tegea she was worshiped under the title of Alea. She contended, as we have seen, with Poseidôn for Athens and Trœzên, and, according to one account, for Argos.

This goddess is represented with a serious thoughtful countenance, her eyes are large and steady, her hair hangs in ringlets on her shoulders, a helmet covers her head ; she wears a long tunic and mantle, she bears the ægis on her breast or on her arm, and the head of the Gorgon is on its centre. She often has bracelets and ear-rings, but her general air is that of a young man in female attire.

Pallas-Athene was called by the poets⁸⁰⁴, 1. Blue- or rather Green-eyed ; 2. Town-destroying ; 3. Town-protecting ; 4. Plun-dering ; 5. Unwearied or Invincible ; 6. People-rouser, &c.

We are now to inquire into the signification of the name of this goddess and her original nature.

{p. 157}

The simplest and most natural interpretation of Pallas Athenæe appears to be ‘Athenian Maid,’ and she thus forms a parallel to the ‘Eleusinian Maid’ (Κόρα), Persephone⁸⁰⁵. As this is her constant title in Homer, it is manifest that she had long been regarded as the tutelar deity of Athens. We may therefore safely reject the legends of her being the same with the Neïth of Saïs in Egypt, or a war-goddess imported from the banks of the lake Tritonis in Libya, and view in her one of the deities worshiped by the agricultural Pelasgians, and therefore probably one of the powers engaged in causing the productiveness of the earth. Her being represented in the poetic creed as the goddess of arts and war alone, need not cause us any hesitation, as that transition from physical to moral agents, of which we shall presently give an explanation, was by no means uncommon.

The most probable theory, in our opinion, is that which views in Pallas-Athene the temperate celestial heat and its principal agent on vegetation, the moon⁸⁰⁶. This idea was not unknown to the ancients ; Athena is by Aristotle expressly called the moon⁸⁰⁷ ; on the coins of Attica, anterior to the time of Pericles, there was a moon along with the owl and olivebranch⁸⁰⁸ ; there was a torch-race (λαμπαδοϕορία) at the Panathenæa, a contest with which none but light-bearing deities were honoured⁸⁰⁹ ; at the festival of the Skirophoria the priest of the Sun and the priestess of Athena went together in procession⁸¹⁰ ; a title of Athena was All-dew(Pandrosos)⁸¹¹ ; in the ancient legend of Athens there was a Sacred Marriage between Athena and Hephæstos⁸¹², in whose temple stood a statue of the goddess⁸¹³ ; she was also said to have given fire to the Athenians⁸¹⁴ ; perpetual flame was maintained in her temples at Athens and Alalcomenæ⁸¹⁵. It could hardly have been from {p. 158}any other cause than that of her being regarded as the moon, that the nocturnal owl, whose broad full eyes shine so brightly in the dark, was consecrated to her ; the shield or corselet with the Gorgon’s head on it seems to represent the full-orbed moon ; and finally the epithet Glaucopis, which is as it were appropriated to Athena, is also given to Selene⁸¹⁶.

To these proofs respecting the Athenian goddess we may add that at Tegea Athena was called Alea, that is probably Warmer.⁸¹⁷. At Sparta she was named Ophthalmitis or Eyed, and at Argos Sharp-sighted.⁸¹⁸.

If this theory be correct, the best explanation of the perplexing epithet Tritogeneia would seem to be that which derives it from the three phases of the moon. There are two other interpretations of this name which have had more general currency. The one supposes it to signify Head-sprung, as the word τριτὼ is said to have signified Head in some of the obscurer dialects of Greece⁸¹⁹. But accounts like this are very suspicious, and the later Greeks would have made little scruple about coining a term if they wanted it to suit any purpose. The other interpretation, which makes the banks of the river or lake Tritôn the birth-place of Athena, has found a greater number of supporters ; but as so many countries sought to appropriate the Tritôn to themselves⁸²⁰, the choice among them might seem difficult. The contest, however, has lain between the river or lake Tritôn in Libya and a small stream of the same name in Bœotia. The ancients in general were in favour of the former ; but as there is no reason to suppose that the Greeks knew anything of the Libyan Tritôn in the days of Homer, or probably till after the colony had been settled at Cyrene, this theory seems to have little in its favour. Müller⁸²¹ therefore at once rejects it, and fixes on the banks of the Bœotian brook as the natal spot of the {p. 159}godless. Here, however, again Homer presents a difficulty, for, as we have already observed, the practice of assigning birthplaces on earth to the gods does not seem to have prevailed in his age. Indeed we strongly suspect that the streamlet that flowed by Alalcomenæ got its name in the same manner as the hill Delos at Tegyra, and the grove Ortygia at Ephesus⁸²².

The moon-goddess of the Athenians probably came by her moral and political character in the following manner. It was the practice of the different classes and orders in a state to appropriate the general tutelar deity to themselves by some suitable appellation. The Attic peasantry, therefore, named Athena the Ox-yoker (Βουδϵία), the citizens called her Worker (Ἐργάνη), while the military class styled her Front-fighter (Пρόμαχος). As these last were the ruling order, their view of the character of the goddess became the prevalent one⁸²³ ; yet even in the epic poetry we find the idea of the goddess presiding over the arts still retained.

Some of the ancients regarded Athena as the air⁸²⁴, others as the earth⁸²⁵. There are some mythes which can be explained with so much more ease on this last hypothesis, that we think it not improbable that the Pelasgian goddess of Argos and other places, who had been identified with the Athenian Maid, may have originally been the same with Hera and Demeter⁸²⁶.

Ἐρμϵίας, Ἐρμῆς , Ἐρμάων. Mercurius.

Hermeias (as Homer and Hesiod always name this god⁸²⁷,) is in one place of the Ilias called the son of Zeus⁸²⁸, but his mother is unnoticed. When, in the same poem, Dione is consoling her wounded daughter⁸²⁹, she reminds her how others of the Celestials had suffered similar calamities inflicted by {p. 160}mortals. Thus Ares, she says, was once shut up in a brazen prison by Otos and Ephialtes, where he languished till Hermeias, being informed of his state, contrived to steal him out of his dungeon. Elsewhere the poet tells us that of all the Trojans Hermeias most loved Phorbas (Feeder), rich in sheep, and bestowed on him wealth (κτῆσιν)⁸³⁰ ; and that Eudoros (Wealthy or Munificent) was the son of Hermeias by Polymela (Sheep-full), the daughter of Phylas (Keeper⁸³¹ ).

Hermeias is opposed in the battle of the gods to Leto, but declines the combat on the plea of the impolicy of making an enemy of one of the consorts of Zeus ; at the same time courtier-like telling her that, if she pleases, she may boast of having vanquished him by main strength⁸³². When the corse of Hectôr was exposed by Achilleus, the gods, pitying the fate of the hero, urged Hermeias to steal it away. On king Priamos’ setting forth to ransom the body of his son, Zeus desires Hermeias to accompany him, reminding him of his fondness for associating with mankind⁸³³. The god obeys his sire, puts on his ‘immortal golden sandals, which bear him over the water and the extensive earth like the blasts of the wind,’ and takes ‘his rod, with which he lays asleep the eyes of what men he will, and wakes again the sleepers.’ He accompanies the aged monarch in the form of a Grecian youth, telling him that he is the son of a wealthy man named Polyctôr (Much-possessing).

In the Odyssey Hermeias takes the place of Iris, who does not appear at all in this poem, and becomes the messenger of Zeus. He still retains his character of a friend to man, and comes unsent to point out to Odysseus the herb Moly, which will enable him to escape the enchantments of Circe⁸³⁴. Eumæos the swine-herd makes an offering to Hermes and the nymphs⁸³⁵. At the commencement of the spurious twenty-fourth book, Hermeias appears in his character of conveyer of souls to the realms of Hades.

[n.p.]

[n.p.]

Hesiod says⁸³⁶, that the Atlantis Maia bore to Zeus the ‘illustrious Hermes, the herald of the Immortals.’ In another place⁸³⁷ he speaks of him very explicitly as the deity presiding over flocks and herds, saying that the herdsmen prayed to him and Hecate. This poet also ascribes to him the only act injurious to man with which he is charged, namely, a share in the formation of the fatal Pandora, to whom he gave her ‘currish mind and artful disposition⁸³⁸.’

One of the last of the Homerids thus sang the story of the birth and first exploits of this sly deity.

Hermes was born of the mountain-nymph Maia, in a cavern of Mount Cyllene in Arcadia. He had scarcely been laid in his cradle, when he got up and set off for Pieria to steal cows from Apollo. As he was going out he met a tortoise, which he caught up and carried back into the cave ; where quick as thought he killed the animal, took out the flesh, adapted reeds and strings to the shell, and formed from it the phorminx or lyre, on which he immediately played with perfect skill. He then laid it up in his cradle, and resumed his journey.

He arrived by sunset in Pieria, where the oxen of the gods fed under the care of Apollo. He forthwith separated fifty cows from the herd and drove them away, contriving to make them go backwards ; and throwing away his sandals, bound branches of myrtle and tamarisk under his feet, that the herdsman-god might have no clue by which to trace his cattle. As he passed by Onchestos in Bœotia, he saw an old man engaged in planting his vineyard, whom he straitly charged not to tell what he had seen. He then pursued his way by ‘shady hills, resounding vales, and flowery plains,’ and as the moon was rising arrived with his booty on the banks of the Alpheios in the Peloponnese. He there fed and stalled the kine, made a fire, killed, cut up, and dressed two of them, and even made black-puddings of their blood, and then thriftily spread their skins to dry on a rock. He burned the heads and feet, and put out the fire, effacing all signs of it, and flung his twig-sandals into the river. With day-break {p. 162}he slunk home and stole into his cradle, not unobserved by his mother, who reproached him with his deeds ; but he replied, that he was resolved by his actions to procure admission for her and himself to the assembly of the gods.

In the morning Apollo missed his kine : he set out in search of them, met the old man, who informed him of his having seen a child driving cows along. He comes to Pylos, where he sees the traces of his cattle, but is amazed at the strange footprints of their driver. He proceeds to the fragrant cave of the nymph, and Hermes on seeing him gathers himself up under the clothes, afraid of the god. Apollo takes the key, opens and searches the three closets where the nymph kept her clothes, ornaments, and food, but to no purpose. He then threatens the child that he will fling him into Tartaros unless he tells him where the cows are : but Hermes stoutly denies all knowledge of them, and even very innocently asks what cows are. Apollo pulls him out of his cradle, and they agree to go and argue the matter before Zeus. Arrived in Olympos, Apollo relates the theft, and tells what reasons he had for suspecting the baby of being the thief. All this is, to the great amusement of the Celestials, manfully denied and its absurdity shown by the little fellow, who still has his cradle-clothes about him. Zeus however gives it against him, and the two brothers are sent in quest of the missing kine. They come to Pylos, and Hermes drives the cattle out of the cave : Apollo misses two of them ; to his amazement he sees their skins upon the rock, and is still more surprised, when, on going to drive the others on, he finds that the art of Hermes had rooted their feet to the ground. Hermes then begins to play on his lyre, the tones of which so ravish Apollo that he offers him the cows for it. The young god gives him the lyre, and receives the cattle. The divine herdsman also bestows on him his whip, and instructs him in the management of the herds.

They now proceed together to Olympos, where Apollo still suspicious exacts an oath from Hermes that he will never steal his lyre or bow ; and this being complied with, he presents him with ‘a golden, three-leafed, innocuous rod’ the giver of wealth and riches.

{p. 163}

The stealing of the cattle of Apollo is somewhat differently related by other writers. According to them⁸³⁹, Apollo, delighted with the society of Hymenæos son of Magnês, a Thessalian youth, neglected the care of his oxen, which pastured along with those of Admetos. Hermes, who in this version of the legend is not a babe, thought the opportunity favourable for stealing a few of the heedless herdsman’s cattle. He first cast the dogs into a deep slumber, and then drove off twelve heifers, a hundred unyoked cows, and a bull. He took the precaution of tying a bundle of twigs to the tail of each to efface their footprints, and brought his prize safely on to the place called the Look-out of Battos, in the Peloponnese. Hearing the lowing of the kine, Battos ran out to look, and immediately knew them to be stolen, but agreed for a certain reward not to give information to any one respecting them. Hermes having arranged this matter drove on, and concealed his stolen kine in a cavern. He then resolved to make trial of the fidelity of Battos, and, changing his form, came and inquired if he had seen any one driving stolen cattle by, offering a cloak as a reward for intelligence. The covetous Battos took the cloak, and turned informer : the god, incensed at his duplicity, struck him with his rod and changed him into a rock, ‘which the cold or the heat never leaves.’

The following prank is also laid to the charge of this sly deity. Watching one day his mother and her sisters when they went to bathe, he stole their clothes, and did not return them till he had amused himself well with laughing at their perplexity⁸⁴⁰.

A god with so many agreeable qualities as Hermes was not very likely to fail of success with the fair sex, both among gods and mankind. Homer, as we have observed above, says that Eudoros, one of Achilleus’ captains, was the son of Hermes by Polymela the daughter of Phylas. The god having seen {p. 164}her, singing in the choir of Artemis, had fallen in love with her. She bore him privately a son, who was reared by her father, herself having married Echecles. By Chione the daughter of Dædaliôn⁸⁴¹, or as others said by Stilbe or Telauge the daughter of Eosphoros⁸⁴², Hermes was the father of Autolycos the noted cattle-stealer. The Thessalian maiden Antianeira bore him two sons, ‘rich in corn-fields,’ Echiôn and Eurytos⁸⁴³. Myrtilos, the charioteer of Œnomaos, was the son of Hermes by one of the daughters of Danaos⁸⁴⁴. The celebrated Sicilian shepherd Daphnis was the offspring of this god and one of the nymphs⁸⁴⁵.

One day Hermes beheld Herse, the daughter of Cecrops, among the maidens who were carrying the sacred baskets to the temple of Pallas-Athene. Smitten with her charms, he entered the royal abode, where the three sisters, Aglauros, Pandrosos and Herse, occupied three separate chambers. That of Herse was in the middle, that of Aglauros on the left. The latter first saw the god, and inquired of him who he was and why he came. Hermes immediately informed her of his rank, and his love for her sister, entreating her good offices in his suit. These she promised on the condition of receiving a large quantity of gold, and drove him out of the house till he should have given it. Pallas-Athene incensed at her unhallowed cupidity, and provoked with her also for other causes, sent Envy to fill her bosom with that baleful passion. Unable then to endure the idea of the felicity of her sister, she sat down at the door, determined not to permit the god to enter. Hermes exerted his eloquence and his blandishments on her in vain ; at length, provoked by her obstinacy, he turned her into a black stone. Herse became the mother of Cephalos⁸⁴⁶.

The only amour of Hermes with any of the dwellers of Olympos was that with Aphrodite, of which the offspring was a son named Hermaphroditos, from the names of his parents, {p. 165}and whose adventure with the Naïs Salmacis is narrated by Ovid in his Metamorphoses⁸⁴⁷. Hermes is in some legends said to be the father of the Arcadian god Pan⁸⁴⁸, and he is even charged with being the sire of the unseemly god of Lampsacus⁸⁴⁹. Both were rural deities.

At Tanagra in Bœotia Hermes was worshiped under the names of Ram-bearer (Κριοϕόρος) and Defender (Пρόμαχος) : the former was given him for having delivered the citizens from a pestilence, by carrying a ram round the walls ; and on the festival of Hermes, the most beautiful of the Tanagrian youths bore a lamb on his shoulders round the walls in honour of the god. The latter title was conferred on him because, when the Eretrians attacked the Tanagrians, Hermes as a young man, and armed with a currycomb, led the latter to victory⁸⁵⁰.

Hermes was regarded as the god of commerce, of wrestling and all the exercises of the palæstra, of eloquence, even of thieving ; in short, of everything relating to gain or requiring art and ingenuity. A certain good-humoured roguery was at all times a trait in his character. In the pleasing tale of Ares and Aphrodite already noticed, the gallant reply of Hermes to the question of Phœbos-Apollo called forth the laughter of the Olympians.

This god is usually represented with a chlamys or cloak neatly arranged on his person, with his petasus or winged hat, and the talaria or wings at his heels. In his hand he bears his caduceus⁸⁵¹ or staff, with two serpents twined about it, and which sometimes has wings at its extremity. The ancient statues of Hermes were nothing more than wooden posts with a rude head and a pointed beard carved on them. They were what is termed ithyphallic, and were set up on the roads and {p. 166}footpaths, and in the fields and gardens. The Hermæ were also pillars of stone, and the head of some other deity at times took the place of that of Hermes ; such were the Hermeracles, Hermathenæ and others. One of these compounds may have given origin to the tale of Hermaphroditos.

By Homer and Hesiod Hermes is called⁸⁵², 1. Argos-slayer ; 2. Beneficent⁸⁵³ ; 3. Kind ; 4. Strong or Powerful⁸⁵⁴ ; 5. Performer or Messenger⁸⁵⁵ ; 6. Well-spying ; 7. Gold-rodded ; 8. Glorious.

Mythologists are pretty generally agreed in recognizing in the Hermes of the original Pelasgian system a telluric power. The simplest derivation of his name is from ἔρα, the earth ; and he is, we may observe, the son of Zeus and Maia, probably Mother Earth⁸⁵⁶. He seems to have been the deity of productiveness in general, but he came gradually to be regarded as presiding more particularly over flocks and herds⁸⁵⁷. From this last view some of his Hellenic attributes may be simply deduced. Thus the god of shepherds was naturally regarded as the inventor of music ; the lyre is ascribed to Hermes as the pipes are to his son Pan, music having been always a recreation of the shepherds in the warm regions of the south. In like manner as the shepherd-lads amuse themselves with wrestling and other feats of strength and activity, their tutelar god easily became the president of the palæstra. {p. 167}So also, trade having of old consisted chiefly in the exchange of cattle, Hermes, the herdsman’s god, was held to be the god of commerce⁸⁵⁸ ; and the skill and eloquence employed in commercial dealings made him to be the god of eloquence, artifice, and ingenuity, and even of cheating⁸⁵⁹. As herdsmen are the best guides in the country, it may be thence that Hermes was thought to protect wayfarers⁸⁶⁰, and thence to be a protector in general⁸⁶¹. For this cause, among others, it may have been that godsends or treasure-trove were ascribed to him⁸⁶².

The rural deity, when thus become active, sly, and eloquent, was well adapted for the office which was assigned him of agent and messenger of the king of the gods, to whom we also find him officiating as cup-bearer⁸⁶³. As a being whose operations extended into the interior of the earth, Hermes would seem to have been in some points of view identified with Hades. In Pindar⁸⁶⁴ this latter deity himself performs the office generally assigned to Hermes, that of conducting the departed to Erebos. Possibly it may have been on this account that Solôn directed the Athenians to swear by Zeus, Poseidôn, and Hermes.

On looking over the adventures of Hermes above related, it will appear that most of them refer to his character as a rural deity⁸⁶⁵. Such are his patronage of Phorbas, and his being the sire of Eudoros in Homer ; the hymn in his honour, which plainly represents him as a rural deity⁸⁶⁶ ; his being the sire of {p. 168}the cattle-stealer Autolycos (Very-wolf) by Chione (Snow) ; of the two heroes ‘rich in corn-fields’ ; and of the shepherd Daphnis, and the gods Pan and Priapos. The rural character of Herse and Aglauros will be shown in the sequel. We shall also find that it was Hermes who gave to Nephele the gold-fleeced ram to save her children from their malignant step-mother⁸⁶⁷. In the poems of the Greek Anthology Hermes is usually represented as a rural deity. In one place⁸⁶⁸ the offering to him is milk and honey ; in other parts of it⁸⁶⁹ fishermen when grown old dedicate their implements to Hermes, either as the god of arts and trade, or as the deity presiding over increase in general.

We will now consider the well-known epithet Argeiphontes, or Argos-slayer, given to this god. The general opinion derives it from the legend of Io, but it has been doubted if that adventure was known to Homer, who calls the deity by this name in passages the genuineness of which cannot well be disputed⁸⁷⁰. The sense of that legend shall be discussed in its proper place ; here we will only observe, that if it should appear to be as old as the age of Homer, there can be no further dispute about the origin of the epithet, though its meaning will still remain a subject of inquiry. Supposing however such not to be the case, it may be asked how the rural deity, the field-god, came by the appellation Argeiphontes ? The word Argos bears in Greek the following senses : 1. White or Shining ; 2. Swift(in speaking of dogs, and thence the name of a dog) ; 3. Idle ; to which we may venture to add, 4. Land, as identical with ἄγρος. The latter half of the compound was generally derived from ϕένω, to kill or destroy ; by some however from ϕαίνω, to show or shine. Hence some interpreted Argeiphontes Free-from-bloodshed, others White- or clear-showing⁸⁷¹ ; and a modern mythologist⁸⁷² renders it White-shining, equivalent to White (λευκὸς), a name by which Hermes was worshiped in Bœotia⁸⁷³. We must confess that we are not {p. 169}satisfied with any of these explanations ; and should the derivation from the story of Io not be approved of, none appears more probable than the one we ourselves formerly suggested, that the term may signify Field-slayer⁸⁷⁴, and be applied to Hermes as the god of husbandry, under whose auspices the land was ploughed up, and the grass or corn cut down. The eyes of Argos might then have originally signified the flowers with which the meads are bespread⁸⁷⁵. It is to be observed that, in the version of the story of Io followed by Ovid⁸⁷⁶, Hermes appears as a goatherd, and kills Argos with the harpe, a rural implement.

We offer this hypothetis, however, only as a conjecture, perhaps we should say as a mere sport of imagination ; for we are inclined to regard the mythe of Io as one of the most remote antiquity.

{p. 170}

Chapter XI.

DEMETER, — PERSEPHONE.

Δημήτηρ, Δηώ. Ceres. — Пερσεφόνεια, Περσϕόνη. Proserpina, Libera.

Δημήτηρ, Δηώ. Ceres.

Пερσεφόνεια, Περσϕόνη. Proserpina, Libera.

Demeter and her daughter Persephone are so closely connected, that it would be extremely difficult, or rather impossible, to treat of the one without the other : we therefore combine the two deities.

Demeter, a daughter of Kronos and Rhea, and by Zeus mother of Persephone⁸⁷⁷, was evidently the goddess of the earth, Mother-Earth (γῆ μήτηρ), whom some ancient system married to Zeus, the god of the heavens⁸⁷⁸. In Homer she is but slightly mentioned⁸⁷⁹, and she does not appear among the gods on Olympos. She seems to have been early distinguished from the goddess called Earth⁸⁸⁰, and to have been regarded as the protectress of the growing corn and of agriculture in general.

The most celebrated event in the history of Demeter is the carrying off of her daughter Persephone by Hades, and the search of the goddess after her through the world. It is noticed by Hesiod⁸⁸¹ ; but the Homeridian hymn in her honour contains perhaps the earliest narrative of this event, which, though apparently unknown to Homer, became a favourite theme with succeeding poets, after whom Ovid has related it⁸⁸², and Claudian has sung it in a peculiar poem, of which unfortunately a part is lost.

Persephone, sang the Homerid, was in the Nysian plain {p. 171}with the Ocean-nymphs⁸⁸³ gathering flowers. She plucked the rose, the violet, the crocus, the hyacinth, when she beheld a narcissus of surprising size and beauty, an object of amazement to ‘all immortal gods and mortal men,’ for one hundred flowers grew from one root⁸⁸⁴ ;

And with its fragrant smell wide heaven above

And all earth laughed, and the sea’s briny flood.

Unconscious of danger the maiden stretched forth her hand to seize the wondrous flower, when suddenly the wide earth gaped, Aïdoneus in his golden chariot rose, and catching the terrified goddess carried her off in it shrieking to her father for aid, unheard and unseen by gods or mortals, save only by Hecate the daughter of Persæos, who heard her as she sat in her cave, and by king Helios, whose eye nothing on earth escapes.

So long as the goddess beheld the earth and starry heaven, the fishy sea and beams of the sun, so long she hoped to see her mother and the tribes of the gods ; and the tops of the mountains and the depths of the sea resounded with her divine voice. At length her mother heard ; she tore her head-attire with grief, cast a dark robe around her, and like a bird hurried ‘over moist and dry.’ Of all she inquired tidings of her lost daughter, but neither gods nor men nor birds could give her intelligence. Nine days she wandered over the earth, with flaming torches in her hands, she tasted not of nectar or ambrosia, and never once entered the bath. On the tenth morning Hecate met her, but she could not tell her who it was had carried away Persephone. Together they proceed to Helios ; they stand at the head of his horses, and Demeter entreats that he will say who the ravisher is. The god of the sun gives the required information, telling her that it was Aïdoneus, who by the permission of her sire had carried her {p. 172}away to be his queen ; and he exhorts the goddess to patience, by dwelling on the rank and dignity of the ravisher.

Helios urged on his steeds ; the goddess, incensed at the conduct of Zeus, abandoned the society of the gods, and came down among men. But she now was heedless of her person, and no one recognised her. Under the guise of an old woman, — ‘such,’ says the poet, ‘as are the nurses of law-dispensing kings’ children, and housekeepers in resounding houses,’ — she came to Eleusis, and sat down by a well, beneath the shade of an olive⁸⁸⁵. The three beautiful daughters of Keleos, a prince of that place, coming to the well to draw water, and seeing the goddess, inquired who she was and why she did not go into the town. Demeter told them her name was Dôs, and that she had been carried off by pirates from Crete, but that when they got on shore at Thoricos, she had contrived to make her escape, and had wandered thither. She entreats them to tell her where she is ; and wishing them young husbands and as many children as they may desire, begs that they will endeavour to procure her a service in a respectable family.

The princess Callidice tells the goddess the names of the five princes, who with her father governed Eleusis, each of whose wives would, she was sure, be most happy to receive into her family a person who looked so god-like : but she prays her not to be precipitate, but to wait till she had consulted her mother Metaneira, who had a young son in the cradle, of whom if the stranger could obtain the nursing her fortune would be made.

The goddess bowed her thanks, and the princesses took up their pitchers and went home. As soon as they had related their adventure to their mother, she agreed to hire the nurse at large wages :

And they, as fawns or heifers in spring-time

Bound on the mead when satiate with food ;

So they, the folds fast-holding of their robes

Lovely, along the hollow cart-way ran ;

Their locks upon their shoulders flying wide,

Like unto yellow flowers.

{p. 173}The goddess rose and accompanied them home. As she entered the house a divine splendour shone all around ; Metaneira filled with awe offered the goddess her own seat, which however she declined. Iambe the serving-maid then prepared one for her, where she sat in silence, thinking of her ‘deep-bosomed’ daughter, till Iambe by her tricks contrived to make her smile, and even laugh. But she declined the cup of wine which Metaneira offered her, and would only drink the kykeôn, or mixture of flour and water. She undertook the rearing of the babe, who was named Demophoôn, and beneath her care ‘he throve like a god.’ He ate no food, but Demeter breathed on him as he lay in her bosom, and anointed him with ambrosia, and every night she hid him ‘like a torch within the strength of fire,’ unknown to his parents, who marvelled at his growth⁸⁸⁶.

It was the design of Demeter to make him immortal, but the curiosity and folly of Metaneira deprived him of the intended gift. She watched one night, and, seeing what the nurse was about, shrieked with affright and horror. The goddess threw the infant on the ground, declaring what he had lost by the inconsiderateness of his mother, but announcing that he would be great and honoured, since he had ‘sat in her lap and slept in her arms.’ She tells who she is, and directs that the people of Eleusis should raise an altar and temple to her without the town on the hill Callichoros.

Thus having said, the goddess changed her size

And form, old-age off-flinging, and around

Beauty respired ; from her fragrant robes

A lovely scent was scattered, and afar

Shone light emitted from her skin divine :

And yellow locks upon her shoulders waved ;

While, as from lightning, all the house was filled

With splendour.

She left the house, and the maidens awakening at the noise found their infant-brother lying on the ground. They took him up, and kindling a fire prepared to wash him ; but he cried bitterly, finding himself in the hands of such unskilful nurses.

{p. 174}

In the morning the wonders of the night were narrated to Keleos, who laid the matter before the people, and the temple was speedily raised. The mourning goddess took up her abode in it, but a dismal year came upon mankind ; the earth yielded no produce, in vain the oxen drew the curved ploughs in the fields, in vain was the seed of barley cast into the ground ; ‘well-garlanded Demeter’ would suffer no increase. The whole race of man ran risk of perishing, the dwellers of Olympos of losing gifts and sacrifices, had not Zeus discerned the danger and thought on a remedy.

He dispatches ‘gold-winged Iris’ to Eleusis to invite Demeter back to Olympos, but the disconsolate goddess will not comply with the call. All the other gods are sent on the same errand, and to as little purpose. Gifts and honours are proffered in vain ; she will not ascend to Olympos, or suffer the earth to bring forth, till she shall have seen her daughter.

Finding that there was no other remedy, Zeus sends ‘goldrodded Argos-slayer’ to Erebos, to endeavour to prevail on Hades to suffer Persephone to return to the light. Hermes did not disobey : he quickly reached the ‘secret places of earth,’ and found the king at home seated on a couch with his wife, who was mourning for her mother. On making known to Aïdoneus the wish of Zeus, ‘the king of the Subterraneans smiled with his brows’ and yielded compliance. He kindly addressed Persephone, granting her permission to return to her mother. The goddess instantly sprang up with joy, and heedlessly swallowed a grain of pomegranate which he presented to her.

Then many-ruling Aïdoneus yoked

His steeds immortal to the golden car :

She mounts the chariot, and beside her mounts

Strong Argos-slayer, holding in his hands

The reins and whip : forth from the house he rushed,

And not unwillingly the coursers flew.

Quickly the long road they have gone ; not sea

Nor streams of water, nor the grassy dales,

Nor hills retard the immortal coursers’ speed,

But o’er them going they cut the air profound.

Hermes conducted his fair charge safe to Eleusis : Demeter on seeing her ‘rushed to her like a Mænas on the wood-shaded {p. 175}hill,’ and Persephone sprang from the car ‘like a bird,’ and kissed her mother’s hands and head.

When their joy had a little subsided, Demeter anxiously inquired if her daughter had tasted anything while below ; for if she had not, she would be free to spend her whole time with her father and mother ; whereas if but one morsel had passed her lips, nothing could save her from spending onethird of the year with her husband ; she should however pass the other two with her and the gods :

And when in spring-time, with sweet-smelling flowers

Of various kinds the earth doth bloom, thou ‘It come

From gloomy darkness back, — a mighty joy

To gods and mortal men.

Persephone ingenuously confesses the swallowing of the grain of pomegranate, and then relates to her mother the whole story of her abduction. They pass the day in delightful converse :

And joy they mutually received and gave.

‘Bright-veiled Hecate’ arrives to congratulate Persephone, and henceforward becomes her attendant. Zeus sends Rhea to invite them back to heaven. Demeter now complies,

And instant from the deep-soiled cornfields fruit

Sent up : with leaves and flowers the whole wide earth

Was laden :

and she taught ‘Triptolemos, horse-lashing Diocles, the strength of Eumolpos, and Keleos the leader of the people,’ the mode of performing her sacred rites. The goddesses then returned to Olympos. “But come,” cries the Homerid,

But come, thou goddess who dost keep the land

Of odorous Eleusis, and round-flowed

Paros, and rocky Anthrôn, Deo queen,

Mistress, bright-giver, season-bringer, come :

Thyself and child, Persephoneia fair,

Grant freely, for my song, the means of life.

But I will think of thee and other songs.

Such is in all probability the oldest account of this celebrated event. In progress of time it underwent various alterations ; the scene was as usual changed, and circumstances {p. 176}were added or modified. In the beautiful versions of it given by the above-mentioned Latin poets, the scene is transferred to the grove and lake in the neighbourhood of Henna in Sicily, the nymph Arethusa gives intelligence of the ravisher, and Ascalaphos (who for his mischief-making is turned into an owl)⁸⁸⁷ tells of Persephone having plucked a pomegranate in the garden of Hades and put seven of the seeds into her mouth. In this, as in other legends, the fancy of poets and vanity of the inhabitants of different places have taken abundance of liberties with the ancient tale.

There are, as we have already observed, no traces of this legend in Homer. Demeter is only incidentally mentioned by him ; and he does not intimate any connexion between her and Persephone, who appears merely as the daughter of Zeus⁸⁸⁸ and queen of Hades. There can be little doubt we think of its being an allegory. Persephone signifies the seed-corn, which when cast into the ground lies there concealed, — that is, she is carried off by the god of the under-world : it reappears, — that is, Persephone is restored to her mother, and she abides with her two-thirds of the year. As however the seed-corn is not a third part of the year in the ground, it is probable that by the space of time which Persephone was to spend with the god in the invisible state, was intended to be expressed the period between the sowing of the seed and the appearance of the ear, during which the corn is away ; and which space of time in some species of grain, barley for instance, is about four months.

The vanity of the people of the hungry soil of Attica made them pretend that corn was first known and agriculture first practised in their country. They fabled that the goddess gave to Triptolemos (Thrice-plough), who occupies the place of Demophoôn in the foregoing legend, her chariot drawn by dragons, in which he flew through the air, distributing corn to the different regions of the earth⁸⁸⁹. This last circumstance {p. 177}betrays the late age of the fiction ; for, as we have already observed, in the time of Homer celestial horses were the only draught-cattle of the gods.

Demeter, though of a gentle character in general, partook of the usual revengeful disposition of the gods. The origin of the Stellio, or spotted lizard, is referred to her having thrown in the face of a boy, who mocked at her as she was drinking some gruel, what was remaining of it in the vessel⁸⁹⁰. She more justly punished with ever-craving hunger Erysichthôn, who impiously cut down her sacred grove. This infliction gave occasion for the exercise of the filial piety and power of selftransformation of the daughter of Erysichthôn, who by her assuming various forms enabled her father to sell her over and over again, and thus obtain the means of living after all his property was gone⁸⁹¹.

This last legend, we may observe, admits of a very simple explication. Erysichthôn is a name akin to ἐρυίβη, mildew ; and Hellanicus⁸⁹² said that he was also called Æthôn (Αἴθων, burning), from his insatiate hunger. The destructive mildew is therefore the enemy of Demeter, to whom, under the title of Erysibia, the Rhodians prayed to avert it⁸⁹³.

Homer says⁸⁹⁴ that Demeter lay with Iasiôn in a ‘thriceploughed’ field, and that Zeus, offended at the deed, struck the mortal lover with his thunder. Hesiod⁸⁹⁵ makes Crete the scene of this event, and adds that Plutos (Wealth) was their offspring. Authorities differ as to the parentage of Iasiôn ; some make him a son of Zeus and Electra, and brother of Dardanos⁸⁹⁶ ; others a son of Minôs or Krates, and the nymph Phronia⁸⁹⁷. The meaning of the mythe is apparent.

At Onceion near Thelpusa, on the banks of the Ladôn in Arcadia, stood a temple of Demeter-Erinnys. The legend connected with it was as follows⁸⁹⁸. When the goddess was in search of her lost daughter, Poseidôn, filled with desire, {p. 178}continually followed her. To elude him she changed herself into a mare, and mingled with the mares of Oncos ; but the seagod assumed the form of a horse, and thus accomplished his wishes. The produce of their union was the celebrated steed Areiôn ; and from the anger of the goddess at being thus abused she was named Erinnys⁸⁹⁹. It was also a part of the tradition that beside Areiôn she bore a daughter to the god, who, the Phigalians said, was the Despœna (Persephone). They also showed a cavern on Mount Elæon, to which Demeter retired when her daughter had been carried off, clothing herself in deep black. The absence of the goddess, said the tradition, caused a general failure of the crops, and mankind were in danger of famine ; but no one knew the place of her retreat till Pan in his huntings chanced to see her. He gave information to Zeus, who sent the Fates to her, at whose persuasion she remitted her anger, and ceased from mourning. She was worshiped at this cave under the name of Black (Mé-λαινα), and her statue in it was clad in black, with the head and mane of a horse⁹⁰⁰.

This last legend has nothing perhaps very peculiar in it ; the former is regarded as one of the many forms in which the physical fact of earth and water being the causes of growth and increase in the natural world have been enveloped⁹⁰¹. Perhaps the Demeter-Erinnys was viewed as the ‘grim’ earth⁹⁰² of winter when torrents spring forth from its womb. These might very aptly be represented by the steed Flowing (ῥείων or ῥέων)⁹⁰³ ; and this view of nature was peculiarly appropriate in Arcadia.

The chief seats of the worship of these deities were Attica ; Arcadia, where they were called the Great Goddesses⁹⁰⁴ , and {p. 179}Persephone in particular Mistress (Δέσποινα)⁹⁰⁵ ; and the fertile isle of Sicily, which was given by Zeus to his daughter on her day of unveiling (ἀνακαλυπρια), that is, at her marriage⁹⁰⁶ ; as also was Thebes according to the poet Euphoriôn⁹⁰⁷.

The form of Demeter is copied from that of Hera. She has the same majestic stature and matronly air, but of a milder character. Her usual symbol are poppies, which sometimes compose a garland for her head, sometimes are held in her hand. She is frequently represented with a torch in her hand, — significant of her search after Persephone. At times she appears in her chariot drawn by dragons.

Persephone is represented seated on a throne with Hades.

The only epithets given to Demeter by Homer are⁹⁰⁸, 1. Blond or Yellow-haired ; and 2. Fair-tressed, the appropriateness of which to the goddess of the corn is apparent. Beside these epithets Hesiod gives her two others ; 3. Well-garlanded ; and 4. Food-full. She was termed by other poets, 5. Youth-rearing ; 6. Bright-fruited ; 7. Bright-gifted ; 8. Season-bringer ; 9. Gold-sickled ; 10. Green ; all epithets well suited to the goddess of agriculture. Demeter was also named, 11. Law-giver, as agriculture was regarded as the source of civil regulations. Under this title she was honoured in a festival named Thes-mophoria at Athens and Ephesus. She had a temple at Megara under the title of, 12. Sheep-bringere⁹⁰⁹. In Bœotia she was worshiped as Demeter-Achaia⁹¹⁰.

The Homeric epithets of Persephone are⁹¹¹, 1. Illustrious ; {p. 180}2. Terrible ; and 3. Holy. Hesiod gives her one of the usual epithets of beauty, 4. White-armed. She was also named, 5. Sable-vested ; 6. White-horsed, etc.

The name of Demeter offers, as we have seen, no difficulty whatever ; but that of her daughter is by no means so easy of explanation ; and here, as in similar cases, the question is, what was the original conception of this goddess ? Was she simply regarded as the queen of the monarch of Erebos, or as the daughter of Mother Earth, and a personification of the corn ? In the latter case critics consider her name to signify Food-shower⁹¹² ; in the former it might mean Light-destroyer, a name corresponding well with Aïdes and Erebos⁹¹³.

We have ventured to offer this conjecture concerning the origin of the name Persephone, because we think critics have gone into an extreme respecting the religious opinions of the ancient Pelasgians. For as there appears reason to suppose their religion to have been of a very rural character, the view generally taken is that they were, like our modern political œconomists, a race who thought only of production and consumption, and regarded no deities but such as were promoters of increase. We however deem that, like every other people, the Pelasgians believed in a future state, and worshiped a deity presiding over that unseen world. It may be doubted whether they gave him a consort (for in the Italian system such was not the case), but the probability is that the Achæans derived that principle of their religion from their Pelasgian forefathers. In such case the spouse of the invisible god might very naturally be termed the Light-destroyer. The epithets of Persephone certainly accord far better with an original queen of Erebos than with the gentle innocent daughter of Demeter.

{p. 181}

We cannot take our leave of Demeter and the Kora⁹¹⁴, without saying a few words on the subject of the so celebrated mysteries of Eleusis, in which they were the great objects of adoration. But instead of going into all the mysticism which has been written respecting them, both in ancient and modern times, we will content ourselves with giving some of the results of the inquiries of the learned and judicious Lobeck, referring those anxious for fuller information to his valuable work entitled Aglaophamus.

In the very early ages of Greece and Italy, and probably of most countries, the inhabitants of the various independent districts into which they were divided had very little communication with each other, and a stranger was regarded as little better than an enemy. Each state had its own favourite deities, under whose especial protection it was held to be, and these deities were propitiated by sacrifices and ceremonies, which were different in different places. It is further to be recollected, that the Greeks believed their gods to be very little superior in moral qualities to themselves, and they feared that if promises of more splendid and abundant sacrifices and offerings were made to them, their virtue might not be adequate to resisting the temptation. As the best mode of escaping the calamity of being deserted by their patrons, they adopted the expedient of concealing their names, and of excluding strangers from their worship. Private families in like manner excluded their fellow-citizens from their family-sacrifices ; and in those states where ancient statues, aërolites, and such like were preserved as national palladia, the sight of them was restricted to the magistrates and principal persons in the state⁹¹⁵.

We are to recollect that Eleusis and Athens were long independent of each other⁹¹⁶. The worship of Demeter and the Kora was the national and secret religion of the Eleusinians, from which the Athenians were of course excluded as well as all other Greeks. But when Eleusis was conquered, and the two states coalesced, the Athenians became participators in {p. 182}the worship of these deities ; which however remained so long confined to them as to have given origin to a proverb (Ἀττικοὶ τὰ Ἐλευίνια) applied to those who met together in secret for the performance of any matter⁹¹⁷. Gradually, with the advance of knowledge and the decline of superstition and national illiberality, admission to witness the solemn rites celebrated each year at Eleusis was extended to all Greeks of either sex and of every rank, provided they came at the proper time, had committed no inexpiable offence, had performed the requisite previous ceremonies, and were introduced by an Athenian citizen⁹¹⁸.

These mysteries, as they were termed, were performed with a considerable degree of splendour, at the charge of the state and under the superintendence of the magistrates ; whence it follows as a necessary consequence, that the rites could have contained nothing that was grossly immoral or indecent⁹¹⁹. There does not appear to be any valid reason for supposing, as many do, that a public discourse on the origin of things and that of the gods, and other high and important matters, was delivered by the Hierophant, or person who bore the highest office in the mysteries ; whose name would rather seem to be derived from his exhibiting the sacred things, — ancient statues, probably of the goddesses, — which were kept carefully covered up, and only shown on these solemn occasions. The delivering of a public discourse would in fact have been quite repugnant to the usages of the Greeks in their worship of the gods, and the evidence offered in support of this supposition is extremely feeble. But the singing of sacred hymns in honour of the goddess always formed a part of the service⁹²⁰.

The ancient writers are full of the praises of the Eleusinian mysteries, of the advantage of being initiated, i. e. admitted to participate in them, and of the favour of the gods in life, and the cheerful hopes in death, which were the consequence of it. Hence occasion has been taken to assert, that a system of religion little inferior to pure Christianity was taught in them. But these hopes, and this tranquillity of mind and {p. 183}favour of Heaven, are easy to be accounted for without having recourse to so absurd a supposition. Every act performed in obedience to the will of Heaven is believed to draw down its favour on the performer. The Mussulman makes his pilgrimage to the Kaaba at Mecca, the Catholic to Loretto, Compostella, or elsewhere ; and each is persuaded that by having done so he has secured the divine favour⁹²¹. So the Greek who was initiated at Eleusis, — whose mysteries, owing to the fame in which Athens stood, the able writers who so loudly extolled her and everything belonging to her, the splendour and magnificence with which they were performed, eclipsed all others, — retained ever after a lively sense of the happiness which he had enjoyed when admitted to view the interior of the illuminated temple, and the sacred things which it contained, when to his excited imagination the very gods themselves had seemed visibly to descend from their Olympian abodes, amidst the solemn hymns of the officiating priests⁹²². Hence there naturally arose a persuasion, that the benign regards of the gods were bent upon him through after-life ; and, as man can never divest himself of the belief of his continued existence after death, a vivid hope of enjoying bliss in the next life.

It was evidently the principle already stated, of seeking to discover the causes of remarkable appearances, which gave origin to most of the ideas respecting the recondite sense of the actions and ceremonies which took place in the Eleusinian mysteries. The stranger, dazzled and awed by his own conception of the sacredness and importance of all that he beheld, conceived that nothing there could be without some mysterious meaning. What this might be, he inquired of the officiating ministers, who, as various passages in Herodotus and Pausanias show, were seldom without a legend or Sacred Account (ἱεργος λόγος), as it was called, to explain the dress or ceremony, which owed perhaps its true origin to the caprice or sportive humour of a ruder period. Or if the initiated {p. 184}person was himself endowed with inventive power, he explained the appearances according in general to the system of philosophy which he had embraced⁹²³. It was thus that Porphyrius conceived the Hierophant to represent the Platonic Demiurgos or creator of the world ; the Torch-bearer (Daduchos), the sun ; the Altar-man (Epibomios), the moon ; the Herald (Hierokeryx), Hermes ; and the other ministers, the lesser stars. These fancies of priests and philosophers have been by modern writers formed into a complete system, and Ste Croix in particular describes the Eleusinian mysteries with as much minuteness as if he had been actually himself initiated⁹²⁴.

It is to be observed, in conclusion, with respect to the charges of impiety and immorality brought against the Eleusinian mysteries by some Fathers of the Church, that this arose entirely from their confounding them with the Bacchic, Isiac, Mithraic, and other private mysteries, mostly imported from Asia, which were undoubtedly liable to that imputation. It must always be remembered, that those of Eleusis were public, and celebrated by the state⁹²⁵.

{p. 185}

Chapter XII.

SISTER-GODDESSES, — MUSES, SEASONS, GRACES, EILEITHYIÆ, FATES, KERES, FURIES.

Mούσαι. Camenæ. Muses. — Ὥραι. Horœ. Seasons or Hours. — .Χάριτϵς Gratiœ. Graces. — Εἰλείθυιαι. Ilithyiæ. — Μοιραι. Parcæ, Fata. Fates. — Κῆρες. Mortes. — Ἐριννύες. Furiæ. Diræ. Furies.

Mούσαι⁹²⁶. Camenæ. Muses.

In the early ages of the world, when the principle of assigning a celestial cause to every extraordinary effect was in full operation, the powers of song and memory were supposed to be excited by certain goddesses who were denominated Muses. In Homer they are called the daughters of Zeus⁹²⁷, and described as exhilarating the banquets of the gods by their lovely voices, attuned to the lyre of Apollo⁹²⁸. When about to give the catalogue of the ships of the Achæans, the poet invokes the Muses, the daughters of Zeus, to prompt his memory⁹²⁹.

No definite number of the Muses is given by Homer, for we cannot regard as his the verse⁹³⁰ in which they are said to be nine. Perhaps originally, as in the case of the Erinnyes and so many other deities, there was no precise number. Pausanias⁹³¹ gives an old tradition, according to which they were three, — Melete (Practice), Mneme (Memory), and Aœde (Song). Aratus said they were four, the daughters of Zeus and the nymph Plusia (Wealthy), and that their names were, Thelxinoe (Mind-soother), Aœde, Melete, and Arche (Beginning)⁹³². Alcman and some other poets made the Muses the daughters of Heaven and Earth⁹³³. The more received opinion makes them, as in the proœmium to the Theogony⁹³⁴, nine, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory).

The names of the Muses were⁹³⁵, Calliope, Cleio, Melpomene, Euterpe, Erato, Terpsichore, Urania, Thaleia, and Polymnia.

{p. 186}

Later ages assigned a particular department to each of the Muses, and represented them in various postures and with various attributes⁹³⁶.

Calliope presided over Epic Poetry ; she was represented holding a close-rolled parchment, and sometimes a trumpet.

Cleio presided over History ; and appeared holding a halfopened roll. The invention of the lute or guitar (κιθάρα) was ascribed to her.

Melpomene, over Tragedy ; she was veiled, and was leaning on a club, and holding a tragic mask in her left hand. Her instrument was the lyre named Barbiton.

Euterpe, over Music ; she held two flutes, and the invention of the tragic chorus was ascribed to her.

Erato, the muse of Marriage-feasts and pantomimic dancing (ὄρχησις), played on the stringed instrument named phorminx. She is said to have invented hymns to the gods.

Terpsichore, the muse of the choric Dance (χορεία), appeared in a dancing posture. She was said to have invented the pipe (αὔλος).

Urania, the muse of Astronomy, held in one hand a globe, in the other a rod with which she was employed in tracing out some figure.

Thaleia, the patroness of Comedy, held a comic mask in one hand, and in the other a crooked staff. She was also regarded as the patroness of husbandry and planting.

Polymnia, the muse of Eloquence and the Mimic art, had the fore-finger of her right hand on her mouth, or carried a roll.

Pieria in Macedonia is said by Hesiod⁹³⁷ to have been the birth-place of the Muses ; and everything relating to them proves the antiquity of the tradition of the knowledge and worship of these goddesses having come from the North into Hellas⁹³⁸. Almost all the mountains, grots, and springs from which they have derived their appellations, or which were sacred to them, are, we may observe, in Macedonia, Thessaly, or Bœotia (Aonia). Such are the mountains Pimpla, Pindos, {p. 187}Parnassos, Helicôn, the founts Hippocrene, Aganippe, Leibethron, Castalia, and the Corycian cave.

The Muses, says Homer⁹³⁹, met the Thracian Thamyras in Dorion (in the Peloponnese), as he was returning from Œchalia. He had boasted that he could excel them in singing ; and enraged at his presumption they struck him blind, and deprived him of his knowledge of music.

Shortly after the birth of the Muses, the nine daughters, it is said, of Pierios king of Æmathia challenged them to a contest of singing. The place of trial was Mount Helicôn. At the song of the latter the sky became dark and all nature was put out of harmony, but at that of the Muses the heaven itself, the stars, the sea, and rivers stood motionless, and Helicôn swelled up with delight, so that his summit would have reached the sky had not Poseidôn directed Pegasos to strike it with his hoof. The Muses then turned the presumptuous maids into nine different kinds of birds⁹⁴⁰.

The Muses did not escape the darts of Love. Calliope bore to Œagros a son named Linos⁹⁴¹, who was killed by his pupil Heracles. She also had by the same sire Orpheus, whose skill on the lyre was such as to move the very trees and rocks, and the beasts of the forest assembled round him as he struck its chords. He was married to Eurydice⁹⁴², whom he tenderly loved ; but a snake having bitten her as she ran through the grass, she died. Her disconsolate husband determined to descend to the under-world, to endeavour to mollify its rulers, and obtain permission for her to return to the realms of light. Hades and Persephone listened to his prayer ; she was allowed to return, on condition of his not looking on her till they were arrived in the upper-world. Fearing that she might not be following him, the anxious husband looked {p. 188}back, and thereby lost her. He now avoided human society ; and despising the rites of Dionysos, was torn to pieces by the Mænades. The Muses collected the fragments of his body, and buried them, and at their prayer Zeus placed his lyre in the skies⁹⁴³.

Cleio, having drawn on herself the anger of Aphrodite by taunting her with her passion for Adonis, was inspired by her with love for Pieros the son of Magnes. She bore him a son named Hyacinthos⁹⁴⁴. Euterpe, or according to some Calliope, or Terpsichore, bore Rhesos to the god of the river Strymôn⁹⁴⁵ ; Melpomene was by Acheloös the mother of the Sirens. Hymenæos, the god of marriage, was said to be the offspring of the divine Urania, but the name of his sire is unknown⁹⁴⁶. Those who took a less sublime view of the sanctity of marriage gave him Dionysos and Aphrodite for parents⁹⁴⁷. He was invoked at marriage festivals⁹⁴⁸. By the Latin poets he is presented to us arrayed in a yellow robe, his temples wreathed with the fragrant plant amaracus, his locks dropping odour, and the nuptial torch in his hand⁹⁴⁹.

Beside the usual epithets common to all goddesses, and derived from beauty and dress, the Muses were styled⁹⁵⁰, 1. Sweet-speaking ; 2. Perfect-speaking ; 3. Loud-voiced ; 4. Honey-breathing.

{p. 189}

The most probable derivation of the name Muse (Mοȗσα), seems to be that which deduces it from the obsolete verb MAΩ to inquire or invent. The Lydians, who spoke a language akin to the Greek, called, we are told, the Muses Nymphs, or the Nymphs Muses, apparently using the terms as synonymous⁹⁵¹. We everywhere find the Muses connected with founts ; Eumelos of Corinth said they were three in number, the daughters of Apollo, and he called them Cephiso, Apollonis, and Borysthenis⁹⁵², two of which names are evidently derived from those of rivers ; and the comic poet Epicharmus in his drama named ‘Hebe's Wedding,’ where the gods appeared as thorough bon-vivans, made the seven Muses the daughters of Pieros and Pimpleia (Fattener and Filler), and named them after seven rivers⁹⁵³. They probably figured in this comedy as the presidents of the fish-market. If, however, the Muses were not generally regarded as connected in some way with the water the poet would hardly have thus represented them, as the humour would not have been fully appreciated by the audience. We may further observe that the musical Sirens were placed by the poets at the edge of the water, possibly from a feeling of a connexion between that element and music.

The Latins, it would also appear, connected their Camenæ with the fountains ; for Egeria was one of them, and her fount long continued to be an object of veneration. The Gotho-German race (whose language and religion bear so great an affinity to those of Greece) seem also to have connected music with the water in their ancient religious system ; and this notion still remains part of the popular creed in northern Europe, as is proved by the many legends of the songs of Mermaids, Nixes, Necks, and similar beings of the waters current among the people in Germany and Scandinavia⁹⁵⁴. In fact, this, like {p. 190}almost every other article of popular belief, has its origin in nature. There is music in the sound of water as it purls or murmurs along in the rivulet, (the very terms prattling, babbling, tinkling, and such like, applied to brooks by our poets prove it,) and even the waterfall, especially when heard in the distance, makes melody to the attentive ear. The rivulet is also the favourite haunt of the poet ; its quiet murmur induces calmness over the spirit, and puts the mind into a frame for the reception of poetic images⁹⁵⁵. Hence it has been said, by him who like the early bards of Greece was one of Nature’s own poets, that

The Muse nae poet ever fand her

Till by himsel he learned to wander

Adoun some trotting burn’s meander

And think na lang.

We are therefore inclined to regard as correct the theory which sees in the Muses original nymphs of the springs, to whom the poets ascribed their inspiration⁹⁵⁶.

Ὥραι. Horœ. Seasons or Hours.

When in the Ilias⁹⁵⁷ Hera and Athena drive out of Olympos in the chariot of the former goddess, to share in the conflict of the Achæans and the Trojans, the gates of heaven, which the Seasons keep, whose charge is to open and close the dense cloud, creak spontaneously to let them pass. On the return of these goddesses, at the mandate of Zeus, the Seasons unyoke their steeds, fasten them in their stalls, and lay up the chariot. They are also mentioned by Poseidôn⁹⁵⁸ as bringing round the period at which he and Apollo were to be paid their wages by Laomedôn.

Hesiod says⁹⁵⁹ that the Seasons were the daughters of Zeus and Themis, and he names them Eunomia (Order), Dike (Justice), and Eirene (Peace), who, he adds, watch over (ὠρεύουσι) {p. 191}the works of mortal men. In another place⁹⁶⁰ he says, that Dike is a virgin revered by the gods of Olympos ; and that when any one acts unjustly, she sits by her father Zeus, and complains of the iniquity of man’s mind, ‘that the people may suffer for the transgressions of their kings.’

By an unknown poet⁹⁶¹ the Horæ are called the daughters of Kronos (Time ?), and by late poets they were named the children of the year, and their number was increased to twelve⁹⁶². Some made them seven or ten in number⁹⁶³.

The Horæ seem to have been originally regarded as the presidents of the three seasons into which the ancient Greeks divided the year⁹⁶⁴. As the day was similarly divided⁹⁶⁵, they came to be regarded as presiding over its parts also ; and when it was further subdivided into hours, these minor parts were placed under their charge and named from them⁹⁶⁶.

Order and regularity being their prevailing attributes, the transition was easy from the natural to the moral world ; and the guardian goddesses of the seasons were regarded as presiding over law, justice, and peace, the great producers of order and harmony among men.

It is possible however, but not agreeable to analogy, that the reverse was the case, and that the transition was from moral to physical ideas.

By Pindar⁹⁶⁷ the Horæ are named, in their moral capacity, the bestowers of wealth, a poetic clothing of the homely maxim ‘honesty is the best policy.’ The Athenians worshiped two Horæ, named Thallo Bloom-giver, and Carpo (Fructifier), viewing them as physical beings⁹⁶⁸. By the poets they were frequently confounded with the Graces, and regarded as the bestowers of beauty⁹⁶⁹.

Homer calls the Horæ⁹⁷⁰, 1. Gold-filleted. The epithets in the Orphic hymns are chiefly derived from the flowers which they produce ; such as, 2. Flower-full ; 3. Odour-full⁹⁷¹ ; etc.

{p. 192}

.Χάριτϵς Gratiœ. Graces.

The Graces, like the Muses and other sister-goddesses, are spoken of by Homer in the plural, and their number is indefinite. They are graceful and beautiful themselves, and the bestowers of all grace and beauty both on persons and things. They wove the robe of Aphrodite⁹⁷² ; the beauty of the two attendants of Nausicaa⁹⁷³ was given them by the Charites ; and the ringlets of the beautiful Euphorbos are compared⁹⁷⁴ to those of these lovely goddesses. Aphrodite⁹⁷⁵ joins in their dance ; and in the song of Demodocos, they wash and anoint her, when filled with shame she flies to Paphôs⁹⁷⁶. Yet though they seem to have been particularly attached to the goddess of love, the queen of heaven had authority over them⁹⁷⁷ ; and she promises Pasithea, one of the youngest of the Graces, for a wife to Sleep, in return for his aid in deceiving Zeus. By later writers she is even said to be their mother⁹⁷⁸.

The Homeridian hymn to Artemis describes that goddess as going to the ‘great house’ of her brother at Delphi, and regulating the dance of the Muses and the Graces.

Zeus, says Hesiod⁹⁷⁹, was by Eurynome, the daughter of Ocean, the father of the ‘three fair-cheeked Graces’ Aglaïa (Splendour), Euphrosyne (Joy), and lovely Thalia (Pleasure). ‘From their eyes,’ continues the poet, ‘as they gazed, distilled care-dispelling love ; and they looked lovely from beneath their brows.’ According to Antimachus⁹⁸⁰, the Graces were the daughters of Helios and Ægle (Splendour) ; and Hermesianax⁹⁸¹ made Peitho (Persuasion) one of their number. In Nonnus their names are Pasithea, Peitho and Aglaïa⁹⁸².

Orchomenos in Bœotia was the chief seat of the worship of these goddesses. Its introduction was ascribed to {p. 193}Eteocles, the son of the river Cephissos. They were three in number, but it was not known what names he had given them⁹⁸³. The Lacedæmonians worshiped but two, whom they named Cleta (Renowned) and Phaënna (Bright)⁹⁸⁴. The Athenians originally adored the same number, under the names of Hegemone (Leader) and Auxo (Increaser)⁹⁸⁵.

The Graces were at all times in the creed of Greece the goddesses presiding over social enjoyments, the banquet, the dance, and all that tended to inspire gaiety and cheerfulness⁹⁸⁶ They are represented as three beautiful sisters, dancing together : sometimes they are naked, sometimes clad.

The Charites had the epithets common to goddesses.

Εἰλείθυιαι. Ilithyiæ.

The Eileithyiæ, whose office it was to preside over the births of mankind, are in the Ilias⁹⁸⁷ called the daughters of Hera. In the Odyssey⁹⁸⁸ and in Hesiod⁹⁸⁹ their number is reduced to one. We also meet with but one Eileithyia in Pindar⁹⁹⁰, and the subsequent poets in general.

There was a cave at the river Amnisos, near Gortyna in Crete, sacred to Eileithyia, who according to the tradition of the country was born there⁹⁹¹. Eileithyia was worshiped at Delos, where a hymn was sung in her honour ascribed to the ancient Lycian poet Olên. In this she was said to be the mother of Love⁹⁹².

Eileithyia was called⁹⁹³, 1. Labour-aiding ; 2. Gentle-minded⁹⁹⁴, etc.

It is not by any means an improbable supposition, that {p. 194}Eileithyia was originally a moon-goddess, and that the name signifies Light-wanderer⁹⁹⁵. Hence, if Artemis was originally a moon-goddess, the identification of them was easy. The moon was believed by the ancients to have great influence over growth in general⁹⁹⁶ ; and as moreover a woman’s time was reckoned by moons, it was natural to conceive that the moon-goddess presided over the birth of children.

Μοιραι. Parcæ, Fata. Fates.

In the Ilias, with the exception of one passage⁹⁹⁷, the Moira is spoken of in the singular number and as a person, almost exactly as we use the word Fate. But in the Odyssey this word is used as a common substantive, followed by a genitive of the person, and signifying Decree.

The Theogony of Hesiod limits the Fates, like so many other goddesses, to three, and gives them Zeus and Themis for their parents⁹⁹⁸. In an interpolated passage of the Theogony⁹⁹⁹ they are classed among the children of Night¹⁰⁰⁰, and Plato makes them the daughters of Necessity¹⁰⁰¹. Their names in Hesiod are Clotho (Spinster), Lachesis (Allotter), and Atropos (Unchangeable) ; but he does not speak of their spinning the destinies of men. This office of theirs is however noticed both in the Ilias and the Odyssey. In the former it is said¹⁰⁰² by Hera of Achilleus, that the gods will protect him that day, but that hereafter he will suffer ‘what Aisa [a name synonymous with Moira] span with her thread for him when his mother brought him forth ; ’ and in the latter¹⁰⁰³, Alcinoös says of Odysseus, that he will hereafter suffer ‘what Aisa and the heavy Cataclothes span with the thread for him when his mother brought him forth.’

{p. 195}

It is probable that Homer, in accordance with the sublime fiction in the Theogony, regarded the Fates as the offspring of Zeus and Order, for in him they are but the ministers of Zeus, in whose hands are the issues of all things¹⁰⁰⁴. Æschylus¹⁰⁰⁵ makes even Zeus himself subject to the Fates, whose decrees none could escape.

The poets styled the Fates¹⁰⁰⁶, 1. Unerring ; 2. Severe-minded, etc.

Moira probably comes from μϵίρω, and Aisa from δαίω, both signifying to divide. It is a very extraordinary coincidence, that the Noms, the Destinies of Scandinavian theology, should also be spinsters, and three in number¹⁰⁰⁷.

Κῆρες. Mortes.

The Keres are personifications of violent deaths¹⁰⁰⁸. The word Ker is used by Homer in the singular and in the plural number, and both as a proper and as a common noun, but much more frequently as the former. When a common noun, it seems to be equivalent to fate. Achilleus says, that his mother gave him the choice of two keres ; — one, to die early at Troy ; the other, to die after a long life at home¹⁰⁰⁹.

On the shield of Achilleus¹⁰¹⁰ Ker appears in a blood-stained robe, with Strife and Tumult, engaged in the field of battle ; and on that of Heracles¹⁰¹¹ the Keres are described as raging in the fight, and glutting themselves with the blood of the wounded. By Apollonius¹⁰¹² they are named ‘the swift dogs of Hades,’ a character under which they are also represented by Sophocles¹⁰¹³.

In the Theogony these goddesses are the daughters of {p. 196}Night and sisters of the Moiræ¹⁰¹⁴, who also appear on the shield of Heracles, and with whom they are sometimes confounded¹⁰¹⁵, as they also are with the Erinnyes¹⁰¹⁶. They bear a strong resemblance to the Valkyries (Choosers of the Slain) of Northern mythology.

The Keres were styled¹⁰¹⁷, 1. Implacable ; 2. Stern-looking, etc.

Ἐριννύες. Furiæ. Diræ. Furies.

These goddesses are frequently named by Homer, but he says nothing of their origin. In the Theogony they spring from the blood of Uranos when mutilated by his son Kronos, whose own children they are according to Empedocles¹⁰¹⁸, while Æschylus and Sophocles call them the children of Night¹⁰¹⁹, and the Orphie Hymns assign them the rulers of Erebos for parents¹⁰²⁰. In the time of the Alexandrians, the Erinnyes, like the Fates and others, were three in number, named Alecto (Unceasing), Megæra (Envier or Denier), and Tisiphone (Blood-avenger).

The Erinnyes were worshiped at Athens as the Venerable (σεμναὶ) Goddesses, and at Sicyôn as the Gracious (Εὐμενίδες)¹⁰²¹, both of which were apparently placatory appellations. They had a temple in Achaia, which if any one polluted with crime dared to enter he lost his reason¹⁰²².

In the poets we find the Erinnyes styled¹⁰²³, 1. Hateful ; 2. Gloom-roaming ; 3. Dark-skinned ; 4. Swift-footed.

The Greek term ἐρινὺς has, we think, been justly defined¹⁰²⁴ as a “feeling of deep offence, of bitter displeasure, at the impious violation of our sacred rights by those most bound to {p. 197}respect them.” This perfectly accords with the origin of the Erinnyes in the Theogony, and with those passages of the Homeric poems in which they are mentioned ; for they are there invoked to avenge the breach of filial duty¹⁰²⁵, and are named as the punishers of perjury¹⁰²⁶ : even beggars have their Erinnyes, that they may not be insulted with impunity¹⁰²⁷ ; and when a horse has spoken in violation of the order of nature, the Erinnyes deprive him of the power of repeating the act¹⁰²⁸. The Erinnyes, these personified feelings, may therefore be regarded as the maintainers of order both in the moral and the natural world. There is however another view taken of these goddesses, in which they are only a form of Demeter and Kora, the great goddesses of the earth. For everything in nature having injurious as well as beneficial effects, the bounteous earth itself becomes at times grim, as it were, and displeased with mankind, and this is Demeter-Erinnys. In the Arcadian legends of this goddess, and in the concluding choruses of the Eumenides of Æschylus, may be discerned ideas of this nature¹⁰²⁹. The epithet given to them by Empedocles would seem to confirm a view of them already noticed¹⁰³⁰.

{p. 198}

Chapter XIII.

THEMIS, IRIS, PÆEON, SLEEP, DEATH, MOMOS, NEMESIS, FORTUNE, PERSONIFICATIONS.

Θέμις. Themis. Law. — Ἴρις. Iris. — Παιήων, Παιὼν, Παιάν. Pœeon, Pœon. — ϒπνος. καὶ Θάνατος Somnus et Mors. Sleep and Death. — Μωμος. Momus. — Νέμεσις. Nemesis. — Τύχη. Fortuna. Fortune. — Personifications.

Θέμις. Themis. Law.

This goddess appears in the Ilias¹⁰³¹ among the inhabitants of Olympos, and in the Odyssey¹⁰³² she is named as presiding over the assemblies of men, but nothing is said respecting her rank or her origin. By Hesiod¹⁰³³ she is said to be a Titaness, one of the daughters of Heaven and Earth, and to have borne to Zeus, the Fates, and the Seasons, Peace, Order, Justice, — the natural progeny of Law (Θέμις), and all deities beneficial to mankind. In Pindar and the Homeridian Hymns Themis sits by Zeus on his throne to give him counsel¹⁰³⁴.

Themis is said¹⁰³⁵ to have succeeded her mother Earth in the possession of the Pythian oracle¹⁰³⁶, and to have voluntarily resigned it to her sister Phœbe, who gave it as a christeninggift¹⁰³⁷ to Phœbos-Apollo.

Ἴρις. Iris.

The office of Iris, in the Ilias, is to act as the messenger of the king and queen of Olympos, a duty which is performed by Hermes in the Odyssey, in which poem there is not any mention made of Iris. Homer gives not the slightest hint of who her parents were ; but analogy might lead to the {p. 199}supposition of Zeus being her sire, by some mother who is unknown. Hesiod¹⁰³⁸ says that swift Iris and the Harpies, who fly ‘like the blasts of the winds or the birds,’ were the children of Thaumas (Wonder) by Electra (Brightness) the daughter of Oceanos. It is evidently the Rainbow (ἴρις) that is meant, which is thus personified in the usual theogonic manner. There is little mention of Iris in the subsequent Greek poets ; but, whenever she is spoken of, she appears quite distinct from the celestial phænomenon of the same name. In Callimachus¹⁰³⁹ and the Latin poets¹⁰⁴⁰ Iris is appropriated to the service of Hera ; and by these last she is invariably, and even we may say clumsily, confounded with the rainbow. According to the lyric poet Alcæus, who is followed by Nonnus, Iris was by Zephyros the mother of Love¹⁰⁴¹.

Homer styles Iris Gold-winged¹⁰⁴², and, according to Aristophanes, he likens her to a trembling dove. In the Birds¹⁰⁴³ of that poet Epops says

But how shall men esteem us gods, and not

Jackdaws, since we have wings and fly about ?

To which Peisthetæros replies,

Nonsense ! Egad, Hermes, who is a god,

Wears wings and flies, and many other gods

Do just the same. Thus Victory, mark ye, flies

With golden wings ; and so, egad, does Love :

And like a trembling dove, old Homer saith,

Was Iris.

Iris is called¹⁰⁴⁴, 1. Storm-footed ; 2. Wind-footed ; 3. Swift-footed ; 4. Swift ; 5. Gold-winged, etc.

The name Iris is usually derived from ἐρῶ, ἐἴρω, to say, {p. 200}which suits the office of the goddess, and will accord with the rainbow in a view of it similar to that given in the Book of Genesis. Hermann renders Iris Sertia, from εἴρω to knit or unite, as the rainbow seems to unite heaven and earth.

Παιήων, Παιὼν, Παιάν. Pœeon, Pœon.

Pæeon is in Homer the family surgeon of Olympos. Nothing is said about his origin. All we are told is, that he cured Ares when wounded by Diomedes¹⁰⁴⁵, and Hades of the wound in his shoulder given him by Heracles¹⁰⁴⁶, and that the Egyptian physicians were of his race¹⁰⁴⁷. His attributes were afterwards transferred to Apollo, with whom he was perhaps originally identical¹⁰⁴⁸.

ϒπνος. καὶ Θάνατος Somnus et Mors. Sleep and Death.

These two deities are called by Hesiod¹⁰⁴⁹ the children of Night. By Homer they are, for a very natural and obvious reason, said to be twins. When, in the Ilias¹⁰⁵⁰, Sarpedôn the heroic and noble-minded son of Zeus falls by the hands of Patroclos, Apollo at the command of his father washes his body in the waters of the stream, anoints it with ambrosia, and, clothing it in ambrosial garments, commits it to the twin brothers Sleep and Death to convey to Lycia, there to be interred by his relatives and friends.

In the same poem, when Hera¹⁰⁵¹ resolves by her arts and beauty to melt the soul of Zeus in love, and lay him asleep on Mount Gargaros, that Poseidôn may meanwhile give victory to the Achæans, she takes her way thither from Olympos over Lemnos, where she meets Sleep. She accosts him as the king of all gods and men, and prays him to aid in her project, promising as his reward a seat and footstool, the workmanship {p. 201}of Hephæstos. Sleep reminds the goddess of the imminent danger which he formerly ran, for having at her desire sealed the eyes of Zeus in slumber when Heracles was on his return from Troy, during which she raised a storm that drove the hero to Côs ; and Zeus, awaking in a rage, knocked the gods about the house, searching for Sleep, who only escaped by seeking the protection of Night, whom Zeus revered too much to offend. Hera, by urging that the affection of Zeus for the Trojans could not be supposed equal to that for his own son, and finally by offering and swearing to give him one of the younger Graces for his spouse, overcomes the fears of Sleep, who accompanies her to Ida, where taking the shape of a bird he sits in a tree till she has beguiled her lord. Sleep, having accomplished his task, speeds to the battle-field to inform Poseidôn of what he has done.

The Latin poet Ovid¹⁰⁵², probably after some Grecian predecessor, as was usually the case, gives a beautiful description of the cave of Sleep near the land of the Kimmerians, and of the cortége which there attended on him, as Morpheus, Icelos or Phobetêr, and Phantasos ; the first of whom takes the form of man to appear in dreams, the second of animals, the third of inanimate objects.

Death was brought on the stage by Euripides in his beautiful drama of Alcestis. He is deaf to the entreaties of Apollo to spare the Thessalian queen, but, vanquished by Heracles, is forced to resign his victim.

Μωμος. Momus.

This god of raillery and ridicule does not appear to have been known to Homer. By Hesiod¹⁰⁵³ he is classed among the children of Night. He is alluded to by Plato and Aristotle ; and Lucian¹⁰⁵⁴, as might be expected, makes some use of him.

{p. 202}

Νέμεσις. Nemesis.

This goddess is in the Theogony a daughter of Night¹⁰⁵⁵. The tradition at Rhamnûs in Attica, where she had a temple (whence she was named Rhamnusia), was that Oceanos was her father¹⁰⁵⁶. Helena, the cause of the war of Troy, was figuratively styled the offspring of Zeus and Nemesis¹⁰⁵⁷.

The name of this goddess comes most simply from νέμω, to distribute ; and she was originally regarded as a personification of the power which regulates and orders the natural and the moral worlds. As the castigation of infractions of order was a part of her office, she was chiefly viewed as the punisher of pride, insolence, and arrogance. This is her usual character in the dramatists.

At Smyrna two Nemeses were worshiped¹⁰⁵⁸. The goddess adored at Cyzicos under the name of Adresteia, said by the poet of the Phoronis to be the same with Cybele¹⁰⁵⁹, is named Nemesis by Antimachus¹⁰⁶⁰. This Asiatic Nemesis is probably the goddess of nature¹⁰⁶¹.

Τύχη. Fortuna. Fortune.

Fortune, that unseen power which exercises such arbitrary dominion over human affairs, was also deified, and had her temples and altars in Greece. By Hesiod and by one of the Homerids¹⁰⁶² she is classed among the Ocean-nymphs. Pindar in one place¹⁰⁶³ calls her ‘the child of Zeus Eleutherios ;’ elsewhere¹⁰⁶⁴ he says that she is one of the Destinies. Alcman called her the sister of Law and Persuasion, and daughter of Forethought (Προμηθία)¹⁰⁶⁵. In her temple at Thebes¹⁰⁶⁶ {p. 203}Fortune held Wealth (Πλοȗτος) in her arms, whether as mother or nurse was uncertain. The image of this goddess made by Bupalos for the Smyrnæans had a hemisphere (πόλος) on its head, and a horn of Amaltheia in its hand¹⁰⁶⁷.

Personifications.

The practice of personifying natural and moral qualities (of which the preceding articles are instances), seems to have been coeval with Grecian poetry and religion. It was not however by any means peculiar to Greece ; it will probably be found wherever poetry exists¹⁰⁶⁸. But it was only in ancient Greece and Italy that these personifications were objects of worship, and seemed to be regarded as having a real personal existence.

In Homer, to whom as the original fountain we continually revert, we meet a number of these moral qualities appearing as persons. Terror and Fear, the children of Ares and Strife his sister, rouse with him the Trojans to battle¹⁰⁶⁹. Strife is said to be small at first, but at last to raise her head to the heaven. She is sent forth¹⁰⁷⁰ amidst the Achæans by Zeus, bearing the signal of war ; and, standing on the ship of Odysseus in the centre of the fleet, shouts so as to be heard at either extremity. When Ares¹⁰⁷¹ hears of the death of his son Ascalaphos, Terror and Fear are commanded to yoke the steeds to his car for the war.

Prayers (Λιταὶ), says the poet¹⁰⁷², are the daughters of great Zeus, lame and wrinkled, with squinting eyes. They follow Mischief (Ἂτη), and tend those whom she has injured : but Ate is strong and firm-footed, and gets far before them, afflicting men whom they afterwards heal. Elsewhere¹⁰⁷³ he relates that Ate is the daughter of Zeus, who injures (ἀâται) all ; that her feet are tender, and that she therefore does not walk on the ground, but on the heads of men. Having conspired with Hera to deceive her father, he took her by the hair {p. 204}and flung her to earth, with an oath that she should never return to Olympos.

The Theogony of Hesiod contains a number of these personified qualities ; they also occur in the subsequent poets. Thus Æschylus introduced on the stage Strength (Κράτος) and Force (Βία)¹⁰⁷⁴. Sophocles, by a very beautiful and correct figure, terms Fame ‘the child of golden Hope’¹⁰⁷⁵ ; and the Athenians erected an altar to this personification¹⁰⁷⁶, as they also did to Shame and Impetuosity, and above all to Mercy¹⁰⁷⁷ ; for with all their faults, and though from the defects of their political constitution they were occasionally stimulated to deeds of cruelty by their unprincipled demagogues, the Athenians were by nature one of the most humane people in Greece.

The more stern Spartans, we may observe, erected temples to Fear, to Death, and to Laughter¹⁰⁷⁸.

Wealth (Πλοȗτος) was also deified. The Theogony makes him very appropriately the offspring of Demeter by Iasios¹⁰⁷⁹. He appears as an actor in the comedy of Aristophanes named from him, and in the Timôn of Lucian.

{p. 205}

Chapter XIV.

DIONYSOS.

Διώνυσος, Διόνυσος, Βάκχος. Liber.

No deity of Grecian mythology has given occasion to greater mysticism than Dionysos, the god of wine. Creuzer¹⁰⁸⁰, for example, the prince of mystics, deduces his worship from India, and makes him identical with the Seeva of that country. According to him, the Vishnoo-religion had, at a period far beyond that of history, spread itself over the West, and in Greece was known as that of Apollo, the god of the sun and light. The wild religion of Seeva, which had overcome the milder one of Vishnoo on their natal soil, followed it in its progress to the West, proceeded as the religion of Dionysos through Egypt and anterior Asia, mingling itself with the systems of these countries, and entered Greece, where, after a long struggle with the Apollo-system, the two religions finally coalesced, the Dionysiac casting away some of its wildest and most extravagant practices.

This hypothesis rests on no stable evidence ; and it has been, as appears to us, fully refuted and exposed by the sober and sagacious Voss¹⁰⁸¹, who, rejecting all air-built theory, bases his system on fact and testimony alone. We shall here attempt, chiefly under his guidance, to illustrate the changes which it is probable the mythology of this god gradually underwent after the time of Homer.

It has been very justly observed by Lobeck¹⁰⁸², that almost all the passages in Homer in which there is any mention of or allusion to this god have been suspected by the ancient critics, either on account of some circumstances in themselves, or because they occur in places justly liable to suspicion. The first of these passages is that in the sixth book of the Ilias¹⁰⁸³, {p. 206}where Diomedes and Glaucos encounter in the field of battle. Here the former hero, who had just wounded no less than two deities, asks the latter if he is a god, adding, “ I would not fight with the celestial gods ; for the stout Lycurgos, son of Dryas, who contended with the celestial gods, was pot longlived, who once chased the nurses of raging Dionysos through the holy Nyseïon, but they all flung their sacred utensils (θύσλα) to the ground, when beaten by the ox-goad of the man-slaying Lycurgos ; and Dionysos in affright plunged into the waves of the sea, and Thetis received him in her bosom terrified, — for great fear possessed him from the shouting of the man. The gods, who live at ease, then hated him, and the son of Kronos made him blind ; nor was he long-lived, since he was odious to all the immortal gods.” Language more unsuitable surely could not be put into the mouth of Diomedes ; and we may observe that there is a kind of instinct of propriety, as we may term it, which always guides those poets who sing from inspiration and not from art, leading them to ascribe to the personages whom they introduce no ideas and no language but what accurately correspond to their situation and character. This consideration alone, when well weighed, may suffice to render the above passage extremely suspicious.

The passage in the fourteenth book¹⁰⁸⁴, in which Zeus so indecorously recounts his various amours to Hera, is liable to the same objection, and was rejected by Aristarchus and several of the best critics of antiquity. In this the god says that ‘Semele bore him Dionysos, a joy to mortals.’ The place in which Andromache is compared to a Mænas¹⁰⁸⁵, besides that it occurs in one of the latter books, is regarded as an interpolation.

These are the only passages in the Ilias in which there is any allusion to Dionysos. In the Odyssey¹⁰⁸⁶ it is said that Artemis slew Ariadne in the isle of Dia, ‘on the testimony (μαρτuρίῃσιν) of Dionysos’ ; but the circumstance of the o in the second syllable of his name being short in this place satisfied the grammarian Herodian, and ought to satisfy any {p. 207}one, that the line in question is spurious. In the last book of this poem¹⁰⁸⁷ Thetis is said to have brought an urn (ἀμϕιϕορῆα), the gift of Dionysos, to receive the ashes of Achilleus ; but the spuriousness of that part of the poem is well known. It was further observed by the ancient critics, that Marôn, who gave the wine to Odysseus, was the priest of Apollo, not of Dionysos.

Hesiod¹⁰⁸⁸ says, that Cadmeian Semele bore to Zeus ‘the joyfull Dionysos, a mortal an immortal, but now they both are gods.’ Again¹⁰⁸⁹, ‘gold-tressed Dionysos made blond Ariadne the daughter of Minôs his blooming spouse, and Kroniôn made her ageless and immortal.’

Far perhaps inferior in point of antiquity to Hesiod is the Homeridian hymn to Dionysos, which contains the following adventure of the god, — a tale which Ovid¹⁰⁹⁰ has narrated somewhat differently.

Dionysos once let himself be seen as a handsome youth on the shore of a desert island. Some Tyrsenian pirates were sailing by, who when they espied him jumped on shore and made him captive, thinking him to be of royal birth. They bound him with cords ; but these instantly fell off him, and the god sat smiling in silence. The pilot perceiving these apparent signs of divinity, called to the crew that he was a god, and exhorted them to set him on shore, lest he should cause a tempest to come on. But the captain rebuked him sharply, desired him to mind his own business, and declared that they would take their captive to Egypt or elsewhere and sell him for a slave. They then set sail, the wind blew fresh, and they were proceeding merrily along ; when, behold ! streams of fragrant wine began to flow along the ship ; vines with clustering grapes spread over the sail ; and ivy, laden with berries, ran up the mast and sides of the vessel. His shipmates in affright now called aloud to the pilot to make for the land ; but the god assuming the form of a grim lion seized the captain, and the terrified crew to escape him leaped into the sea and became dolphins. The pilot alone remained {p. 208}on board ; the god then declared to him who he was, and took him under his protection.

Another of these hymns relates, that the Nymphs received Dionysos from his father, and reared him in a fragrant cavern of the valleys of Nysa. He was counted among the Immortals ; and when he grew up, he went through the woody vales crowned with bay and ivy : the Nymphs followed him, and the wood was filled with their joyous clamour.

In these poems the mention of the ivy, and the epithet noisy (ἐρίβρομς), testify, as we shall see, their late age. Pindar also calls Dionysos Ivy-bearing (κισσοϕόρος) and noisy (βρόμιος). Herodotus and the tragedians describe what we consider to be the mixed religion of Dionysos.

The idea of mere mortals, or the offspring of gods and mortals, being raised to divine rank and power, does not occur in the Ilias. Ganymedes and Tithonos, who were mortal by both father and mother, were carried off, the former by the gods to be the cup-bearer of Zeus¹⁰⁹¹, the latter by Eôs ; and it is to be presumed, though Homer does not expressly say so, that they were endowed with immortality. But all the halfcaste, as we may call them, Heracles, Achilleus, Sarpedôn, Æneias, have no advantage over their fellow-mortals, except greater strength and more frequent aid from the gods.

But in the Odyssey we find the system of deification commenced. The sea-goddess Ino-Leucothea, who gives Odysseus her veil to save him from being drowned, was, we are told, a daughter of Cadmos (a name which does not occur in the Ilias), ‘who had before been a speaking mortal, but was now allotted the honour of the gods in the depths of the sea.’ And again ; Odysseus beholds in the realms of Hades the image (εἴδωλογ) of Heracles, pursuing his usual occupations when on earth ; but himself we are told ‘enjoys banquets among the immortal gods, and possesses fair-ankled Hebe.’ It is not however said that he had obtained the power of a god¹⁰⁹².

[n.p.]

[n.p.]

Supposing therefore Dionysos to have been, as his name might appear to indicate, one of the original Grecian deities, (and it is difficult to think that the vine and its produce, with which the ‘sons of the Achæans’ were so familiar, could have been without a presiding god,) he may have been regarded as a son of Zeus by a goddess named Semele, who in after-times, in pursuance of a practice hereafter to be explained, may have been degraded to the rank of a heroine, and Dionysos have consequently become the son of Zeus by a mortal mother. The vintage is in wine-countries at the present day, like haymaking and harvest-home in England, a time of merry-making and festivity ; and the festival of the deity presiding over it may have been a very joyous one, and celebrated with abundance of noise and mirth. Such, we say, may have been (for we venture not to assert it) the original Dionysiac religion of Greece ; and when we recollect the very incidental manner in which Demeter, undoubtedly one of the most ancient deities, is noticed in the Ilias, it should not excite any great surprise to find the poet totally omitting all mention of the wine-god¹⁰⁹³.

To pass from conjecture to certainty, it appears quite clear that the part of Thrace lying along the northern coast of the Ægæan was in the earliest times a chief seat of the Dionysiac religion, where the worship of the god of wine was celebrated with great noise and tumult by the people of that country ; and, supposing the passage in the sixth book of the Ilias to be genuine, some account of it had possibly reached the ears of Homer. The Thracian worship of Dionysos, it is not improbable, was not introduced into Greece till after the time when the Æolians colonised the coast of Asia about the Hellespont¹⁰⁹⁴. Here they became acquainted with the enthusiastic orgies of the Great Mother, and of the god Sabazios ; who, as it would appear, was similar to Dionysos¹⁰⁹⁵, and an object of veneration both to Phrygians and Thracians, and who was worshiped under the form of an ox, as being the patron of agriculture. As polytheism is not jealous, and readily permits {p. 210}the introduction of new deities into the system, particularly if their attributes or festivals have a resemblance to any of the old ones¹⁰⁹⁶, the worship of this new god was adopted by the Grecian colonists, and diffused over the isles and continent of Greece : not, however, without considerable opposition from the sober common-sense of several individuals of eminence, as appears by the mythic tales of Labdacos, Pentheus and Perseus, which are apparently real occurrences thrown back into the mythic age¹⁰⁹⁷. The original Grecian festivals, though of a joyous cheerful character, were so widely different from the raving orgies and wild licentiousness of this Dionysiac religion, that it is quite evident the latter could not have been known in Greece during the Achæan period¹⁰⁹⁸.

There can be no doubt of the Dionysiac religion, with its nocturnal orgies and indecent extravagance, having been very prevalent among the Greeks at the time when the Ionians were permitted to settle in Egypt. It is in no small degree surprising with what facility the Grecian and Egyptian systems coalesced, with what open-mouthed credulity the Grecian settlers and travellers swallowed all the fictions of the cunning priesthood of that country, and with what barefaced assurance the latter palmed on their unsuspecting auditors the most incredible lies. In reading the Euterpe of Herodotus, one might fancy one’s self beholding Captain Wilford listening with devout belief to his artful Pundit¹⁰⁹⁹ ; so little suspicion does the Father of History betray of his having been played upon by the grave linen-clad personages who did him the honour to initiate him in their mysteries.

The theory boldly advanced by the Egyptian priesthood was, that all the religion of Greece had been imported into {p. 211}that country by colonies of Egyptians — a people, by the way, without ships, or materials for building them, who had no ports, and who held the sea in abhorrence¹¹⁰⁰ — who civilised the mast-eating savages that roamed its uncultivated wilds, and instructed them in the nature and worship of the gods. The deities of Greece were therefore to find their prototypes in Egypt ; and Dionysos was honoured by being identified with Osiris, the great god of the land of Nile¹¹⁰¹. Herodotus informs us how Melampûs, who introduced his worship into Greece, had learned it from Cadmos the Phœnician, who had derived his knowledge of course from Egypt¹¹⁰². As the realm of Osiris did not abound in vines¹¹⁰³, the ivy with its clustering berries which grew there was appropriated to the god¹¹⁰⁴ ; and it now became one of the favourite plants of Dionysos, as appears by the Homeridian hymn above-cited.

The Egyptians had fabled that their god Osiris had made a progress through the world, to instruct mankind in agriculture and planting¹¹⁰⁵. The Greeks caught up the idea, and represented the son of Semele — for the popular faith did not give up the old legend of his Theban birth — as roaming through the greater part of the earth. In the Bacchæ of Euripides the god describes himself as having gone through Lydia, Phrygia, Persia, Bactria, Media, Arabia, and the coast of Asia, inhabited by mingled Greeks and barbarians, throughout all which he had established his dances and his religious rites.

When Alexander and his army had penetrated to the modern Caubul, they found ivy and wild vines on the sides of Mount Meros and on the banks of the Hydaspes ; they also met processions, accompanied by the sound of drums and party-coloured dresses, like those worn in the Bacchic orgies of Greece and Lesser Asia. The flatterers of the conqueror {p. 212}thence took occasion to fable that Dionysos had, like Heracles and their own great king, marched as a conqueror throughout the East ; had planted there the ivy and the vine ; had built the city Nysa ; and named the mountain Meros, from the circumstance of his birth from the thigh (μηρòς) of Zeus¹¹⁰⁶. At length, during the time of the Græco-Bactric kingdom, some Greek writers, on whom it is not impossible the Bramins imposed, as they have since done on the English, gave out that Dionysos was a native Indian, who, having taught the art of wine-making in that country, made a conquering expedition through the world, to instruct mankind in the culture of the vine and other useful arts. And thus the knowledge of the vine came to Greece, from a land which does not produce that plant¹¹⁰⁷.

This last is the absurd hypothesis which we have seen renewed in our own days, and supported by all the efforts of ingenious etymology.

The story of the Grecian Dionysos is as follows¹¹⁰⁸. Zeus, enamoured of the beauty of Semele the daughter of Cadmos, visited her in secret. Hera’s jealousy took alarm, and under the form of an old woman she came to Semele, and, by exciting doubts of the real character of her lover, induced her when next he came to exact a promise that he would visit her as he was wont to visit Hera. An unwary promise was thus drawn from the god before he knew what he was required to perform ; and he therefore entered the bower of Semele in his chariot, the lightning and thunder flaming, flashing and roaring around him. Overcome with terror, Semele, who was now six months gone with child, expired in the flames, and Zeus took the babe, which was prematurely expelled from her womb, and sewed it up in his thigh. In due time it came to the birth, and Zeus then naming it Dionysos gave it to {p. 213}Hermes to convey to Ino, the sister of Semele, with directions to rear it as a girl.

Hera, whose revenge was not yet satiated, caused Athamas, the husband of Ino, to go mad ; and Zeus, to save Dionysos from the machinations of Hera, changed him into a kid, under which form Hermes conveyed him to the nymphs of Nysa, who were afterwards made the Hyades, and by whom he was reared. When he grew up he discovered the culture of the vine, and the mode of extracting its precious liquor ; but Hera struck him with madness, and he roamed through great part of Asia. In Phrygia Rhea cured him, and taught him her religious rites, which he now resolved to introduce into Hellas. When passing through Thrace he was so furiously assailed by Lycurgos, a prince of the country, that he was obliged to take refuge with Thetis in the sea ; but he avenged himself by driving Lycurgos mad, who killed his own son Dryas with a blow of an axe, taking him for a vine-branch ; and his subjects afterwards bound him and left him on Mount Pangæon, where he was destroyed by wild horses, for such was the will of Dionysos.

When Dionysos reached his native city, the women readily received the new rites, and ran wildly through the woods of Cithærôn. Pentheus, the ruler of Thebes, however, set himself against them ; but Dionysos caused him to be torn to pieces by his mother and his aunts. The daughters of Minyas, Leucippe, Aristippe and Alcathoe, also despised his rites, and continued plying their looms, while the other women ran through the mountains. He came as a maiden, and remonstrated, but in vain ; he then assumed the form of various wild beasts ; serpents filled their baskets ; vines and ivy twined round their looms, while wine and milk distilled from the roof ; but their obstinacy was unsubdued. He finally drove them mad ; they tore to pieces the son of Leucippe, and then went roaming through the mountains, till Hermes touched them with his wand, and turned them into a bat, an owl, and a crow¹¹⁰⁹.

{p. 214}

Dionysos next proceeded to Attica, where he taught a man named Icarios the culture of the vine. Icarios having made wine, gave of it to some shepherds, who thinking themselves poisoned killed him. When they came to their senses they buried him ; and his daughter Erigone, being shown the spot by his faithful dog Mæra, hung herself through grief¹¹¹⁰. At Argos the rites of Dionysos were received, as at Thebes, by the women, and opposed by Perseus, the son of Zeus and Danae ; Zeus however reduced his two sons to amity¹¹¹¹, and Dionysos thence passed over to Naxos, where he met Ariadne. It was on his way thither that his adventure with the Tyrrhenians occurred. Dionysos afterwards descended to Erebos, whence he fetched his mother, whom he now named Thyone, and ascended with her to the abode of the gods¹¹¹².

Like every other portion of the Grecian mythology, the history of the vine-god was pragmatised when infidelity became prevalent. That most tasteless of historians Diodorus gives us, probably from the cyclograph Dionysius, the following narrative¹¹¹³.

Ammôn, a monarch of Libya, was married to Rhea, a daughter of Uranos ; but meeting near the Ceraunian mountains a beautiful maiden named Amaltheia, he became enamoured of her. He made her mistress of the adjacent fruitful country, which from its resembling a bull’s horn in form was named the Western Horn, and then Amaltheia’s Horn, which last name was afterwards given to places similar to it in fertility. Amaltheia here bore him a son, whom, fearing the jealousy of Rhea, he conveyed to a town named Nysa, situated not far from the Horn, in an island formed by the river Tritôn. He committed the care of him to Nysa, one of the daughters of Aristæos ; while Athena, who had lately sprung from the earth on the banks of the Tritôn, was appointed to keep guard against the assaults of Rhea. This delicious isle, which was precipitous on all sides, with a single entrance through a narrow glen thickly shaded by trees, is described in a similar manner with Panchaia, and other happy retreats of the same {p. 215}nature. It therefore had verdant meads, abundant springs, trees of every kind, flowers of all hues, and evermore resounded with the melody of birds¹¹¹⁴. After he grew up, Dionysos became a mighty conqueror and a benefactor of mankind, by whom he was finally deified.

Though the adventures of Dionysos were occasionally the theme of poets, especially of the dramatists, they do not appear to have been narrated in continuity, like those of Heracles, until long after the decline of Grecian poetry. It was in the fifth century of the Christian æra, that Nonnus, a native of Panopolis in Egypt, made the history of Dionysos the subject of a poem, containing forty-eight books, the wildest and strangest that can well be conceived, more resembling the Ramayuna of India than anything to be found in ancient or modern occidental literature. Its chief subject is the war of Dionysos against Deriades king of the Indians, the details of which are probably the inventions of the poet¹¹¹⁵ ; in other parts he seems to have adhered with tolerable fidelity to his authorities, and the ‘Dionysiacs’ may be regarded as a vast repertory of Bacchic fable, perhaps deserving of more attention than has hitherto been bestowed on it¹¹¹⁶.

The worship of this god prevailed in almost all parts of Greece. Men and women joined in his festivals, dressed in Asiatic robes and bonnets ; their heads wreathed with vine-and ivy-leaves, with fawn-skins (νεβρίδες) flung over their shoulders, and thyrses or blunt spears twined with vine-leaves in their hands, they ran bellowing through the country Io {p. 216}Bacche ! Euoi ! Iacche ! etc., swinging their thyrses, beating on drums, and sounding various instruments. Indecent emblems were carried in processions, at which modest virgins assisted ; and altogether few ceremonies more immoral or indecent are celebrated in India at the present day, than polished Athens performed in the Phrygio-Grecian Dionysia¹¹¹⁷, though ancient and modern mystics endeavour to extract profound and solemn mysteries from them.

The women, who bore a chief part in these frantic revels, were called Mænades, Bacchæ, Thyiades, Euades, names of which the origin is apparent.

Dionysos was represented in a variety of modes and characters by the ancient artists. The Theban Dionysos appears with the delicate lineaments of a maiden, rather than those of a young man ; his whole air and gait are effeminate ; his long flowing hair is, like that of Apollo¹¹¹⁸, collected behind his head, wreathed with ivy or a fillet ; he is either naked, or wrapped in a large cloak, and the nebris is sometimes flung over his shoulders ; he carries a crook or a thyrse, and a panther generally lies at his feet. In some monuments Dionysos appears bearded, in others horned (the Bacchos-Sabazios), whence in the mysteries he was identified with Osiris, and regarded as the Sun. He is sometimes alone, at other times in company with Ariadne or the youth Ampelos.

His triumph over the Indians is represented in great pomp. The captives are chained and placed on wagons or elephants, and among them is carried a large cratêr full of wine ; Dionysos is in a chariot drawn by elephants or panthers, leaning on Ampelos, preceded by Pan, and followed by Silenos, the Satyrs, and the Mænades, on foot or on horseback, who make the air resound with their cries and the clash of their instruments. The Indian Bacchos is always bearded.

It is with reason that Sophocles¹¹¹⁹ styles Dionysos manynamed (πολυνυμος), for in the Orphic hymns alone we meet {p. 217}upwards of forty of his appellations. Some of the principal of them are, Bacchos¹¹²⁰ and Bromios, from the noise with which his festivals were celebrated ; Bassareus, from the fox-skin dresses named bassaræ worn by the Thracians ; Dithyrambos, from the odes of that name, or from his double birth (δὶς ϴύρɑ) ; Eleleus and Euios, from the shouting ; Lyæos, as loosing from care ; Lenœos, from the wine-press.

[n.p.]

[n.p.]Dionysos was also called¹¹²¹, 1. Muse-leader ; 2. Bull-headed ; 3. Fire-born ; 4. Dance-rouser ; 5. Mountain-rover ; 6. Sleep-giver, etc.

It seems probable that in the original conception of Dionysos he was not merely the wine-god, for such restricted notions are contrary to the genius of the ancient Grecian religion, in which each people assigned its peculiar deities a very extensive sphere of action, as gods of the sun, the moon, the heaven, the earth, and other parts of nature. Dionysos was therefore, it is likely, regarded as a deity presiding over growth and increase in general ; and as Hermes, who seems to have been originally of coextensive power with him, was gradually restricted and made a god of cattle alone, so Dionysos may have been limited to the care of plants, particularly the vine¹¹²².

Water and heat being the great causes of growth, we find this deity closely connected with both these elements. Thus the infant Dionysos is committed to the water-goddess Ino, and to the Hyades and to Silenos. His temples at Athens¹¹²³ and Sparta¹¹²⁴ were in places named marshes (ἐν λίμνɑις), and he was styled Of-the-Marsh (Λιμνɑȋος), and Marsh-sprung (Λιμνηγενὴς). In some places he was called the Rainer (Ὕης)¹¹²⁵ ; {p. 218}his festival, the Anthesteria, was celebrated in the spring, the season of showers, and it was so named from the flowers and blossoms, of which he was the author ; whence he was named the Flowery ¹¹²⁶.

The relation of Dionysos to the celestial heat is expressed in the story of his birth, and also in the dog Mæra (Μɑȋρɑ), another name for Sirius the dog-star¹¹²⁷ ; the name of his companion Marôn¹¹²⁸ also seems to refer to heat ; and perhaps the true origin of the god’s own epithet, Μηρογϵνὴς, usually rendered Thigh-born, lies in this word. It is not impossible that the real root of his mother’s name may be ϭέλɑς. ¹¹²⁹.

In favour of this god’s presiding over cattle is alleged the well-known circumstance of the goat being the victim offered to him ; his being in his infancy conveyed to Nysa in the form of a kid, and his being worshiped under that name. He also wore the goatskin dress of the goatherds ; and in Attica and Hermione he was named Μϵλάνɑιγις, a name which in the former place was connected with the fabulous origin of the festival of the Apaturia. Welcker is of opinion that Dionysos was originally the object of worship to the lower classes, the goatherds, and such like (in Attica the tribe of the Ægicoreis) ; and that as they gradually rose in consideration, their god was associated with those of the nobles ; and that thence he always appeared of an inferior rank to those with whom he was joined. This critic accounts on the same principle for the very slight mention of Dionysos in the Homeric poems, namely, that he was of too low a rank to be an actor of importance in those aristocratie verses, which only told of kings and nobles, and the gods whom they adored¹¹³⁰.

The name Dionysos is one of the most difficult to explain {p. 219}in Grecian mythology. After Voss’s able exposure we may venture to reject the notion of its being the same with Devanishi, a title of the Hindoo god Seeva, and view in Dionysos a Grecian god with a Grecian name. The most probable (though by no means quite satisfactory) interpretation of it is God-of-Nysa, which last place occurs frequently in his legend. Like Tritôn, however, it has been multiplied, for we find a Nysa on Helicôn in Bœotia¹¹³¹, in Thrace, in Naxos, at the foot of Mount Tmolos in Lydia, in Arabia, in India, in Africa, and elsewhere¹¹³² ; besides that indefinite one whence Persephone was carried away by Hades. It therefore is a matter of uncertainty which was the original Nysa.

{p. 220}

Chapter XV.

FOREIGN DEITIES : — CYBELE, COTYTTO AND BENDIS, ARTEMIS OF EPHESUS, ISIS.

Κυβέλη. Κυβήβη. Rhea. Ops. — Κότυς ἢ Κοτυττὼ Κɑὶ Βϵνδȋς. Cotytto et Bendis. — Αρτϵμις ἐν Εϕέσῳ. Diana Ephesia. — Ισις. Isis.

Our object in introducing the present chapter is to give a slight view of the manner in which the intercourse with Asia and Egypt, which had such an injurious effect on the religion of Greece, commenced. We know not how we can better open the subject, than by quoting the following just and philosophical observations of a writer¹¹³³ for whom we entertain the highest respect and esteem.

“After that most happy age whose image we behold expressed in the poems of Homer had passed away, a great change took place in civil affairs, but a still greater in religions, in pursuits, and inclinations ; and the whole of Greece was so much altered, that if any one passes from the perusal of Homer to that of those writers who lived in the time of the Persian war, he will feel as if removed to another region, and seem hardly to recognise those old Achæans, who, happy with the present, careless of the future, prompt to act, mindless of what they had done, were aloof from all the causes of anxiety and superstition. But when, as reason gradually ripened, the Greeks began to examine the involved conceptions of the mind, and to know themselves, there succeeded that more mature and solicitous age, at which when men arrive they feel more strongly and acutely the incentives of pleasure and of virtue, fluctuating alternately, with great commotion of mind, and often with extreme ennui, between what they condemn and what they desire. Hence that anxiety about hidden matters, and those presages of the future, and the various superstitions which consciousness of guilt and despair of salvation are wont to produce. The entrance and traces of this new age of Greece we are prevented from clearly discerning by the obscurity of those times, which, being illumined by hardly {p. 221}any literary monuments, may be said to resemble a region covered with dark clouds, through which the tops of the towers and castles elevate themselves, while the ground and foundation lie concealed. But that there was a great agitation of the human mind, and some new efforts, is proved by the perfection of lyric poetry, which commenced a little after the time of Hesiod, and by the origin of philosophy and the advance of the elegant arts. We presently see magnificent temples raised to the gods and heroes, solemn games instituted throughout the towns, the number and the insignia of the priests, especially when the regal power had been abolished, increased. But that at the same time the mystic ceremonies, whose first traces appear in the Hesiodic and Cyclic poems, were diffused far and wide, and occupied the whole of life with new superstitions, is manifest from the number of jugglers who then roved through Greece, expiating by certain secret rites not only blood and man-slaughter, but also prodigies, sacrileges, and whatever piacular offences either individuals or states had committed.”

Having enumerated the principal of these men, such as Abaris, Aristeas, Onomacritus of Locris, and Epimenides, our author thus proceeds :

“Meantime Egypt, the parent of superstition and sacerdotal falsehood, was laid open ; and who that reflects on the long and frequent intercourse of the two nations, and the vaniloquence of the one and the credulity of the other¹¹³⁴, will hesitate to concede that the contagion had secretly insinuated itself into Greece before the time of Pythagoras ? But it is not without reason believed, that during the same period the mystic poems of Musæos, Eumolpos, Orpheus, and that which was called the Minyas, were made public ; in all of which were scattered new fables about the lower-world, and hopes of a more happy life and Elysian abodes promised to those who received the sacred decrees of the gods, and equal punishments threatened to the despisers of them. What ! is not the religion of the subterrane deities sanctioned by those Athenian laws, which direct that those who have committed manslaughter should be brought before the King of the Sacred {p. 222}Affairs, and being absolved by the judgement should be solemnly purified, — of which laws Dracôn is said to have been the author ? This religion was also confirmed by Solôn ; who, in cases of manslaughter, directed to swear by three deities, Ikesios, Catharsios, and Exakesterios. Nor were the psychomanty and evocations of the dead, which we read of in the stories of Archilochus, Periander, and Pausanias, built on any other foundation : and these were posterior to Homer ; for if his contemporaries had known anything of that art, he needed not to have sent Odysseus to the nether-world. After a little interval succeeded Pythagoras, the author of a portentous wisdom, and that twilight-season in which poets began to philosophise and philosophers to poetise.

“In these four centuries, therefore, which elapsed between Homer and the Persian wars, the greatest change was made in all matters pertaining to the worship of the gods. They contain the origin and growth of solemn lustrations, mysteries, hieratic medicine, and fanatic poetry : in these too the most ancient poems of Bacis, Pamphôs, Olên, and the Sibyls, appear to have been patched up, and all the avenues of pious frauds thrown open. Whence the conclusion is easy, that the web of the Orphic fable, which is all composed of the same kind of threads with those, was not woven by Proselenian philosophers, but was commenced perhaps a century or two after Homer, and completed a little before the time of Onomacritus¹¹³⁵.”

It is needless to remind our readers, that we have no account on which we can place reliance of any intercourse between the Greeks and foreign nations previous to the Trojan war, save the commercial one with the Phœnician merchants who visited their harbours. The revolution named the Return of the Heracleids, which is said to have occurred somewhat less than a century after that event, caused portions of the Achæan race to abandon their country and seek new settlements. They seem to have turned their eyes to the former realms of the Trojan monarchs, whose power had been broken ; and the first colonies were planted by the Æolians along the coast, from the island of Cyzicos in the Propontis to the mouth {p. 223}of the Hermos. The Ionians and the Dorians afterwards came and settled to the south of that river ; and thus the coast of Asia was occupied to a considerable extent by the Grecian colonies.

We cannot trace in Homer any difference between the religion of the Achæans and that of the Asiatics. In the case of the Trojans, who are regarded (and we think justly) as a portion of the Pelasgic race, this need not surprise us ; but the poet is equally silent with respect to anything of thé kind between them and the Phrygians, whose religion we know to have been different¹¹³⁶. It does not however seem to have been the practice of the Aœdi to attend to distinctions of this kind ; for Odysseus, we may observe, in all his wanderings never found any want of an interpreter, as good Greek was spoken wherever he came, and he everywhere met with Grecian manners and customs. The silence therefore of the poet throws no impediment in the way of our assuming that, when the Grecian colonies settled on the Hellespont, they found there a religion very different from their own ; the one being calm and cheerful, the other wild and orgiastic. This religion was that of

Κυβέλη. Κυβήβη. Rhea. Ops.

Cybele, called also the Great Mother, was regarded by the Phrygians and Lydians¹¹³⁷ as the goddess of nature or of the earth. Her temples stood on the summits of hills ; such as that of Dindymos in the isle of Cyzicos, of Berecynthos, Sipylos, Cybelos ; from which last she is said to have derived her name, though the reverse is more likely to be the truth. At Pessinos was preserved the aërolite¹¹³⁸ which was held to be her heaven-sent image.

The following pragmatised account of Cybele is given by Diodorus.

Cybele was daughter to king Mæôn and his queen Dindyme. She was exposed by her father on Mount Cybelos, where she was suckled by panthers and lionesses, and was afterwards reared by shepherdesses, who named her Cybele. {p. 224}When she grew up she displayed great skill in the healing art, and cured all the diseases of the children and cattle. They thence called her the Mountain-Mother. While dwelling in the woods she formed a strict friendship with Marsyas, and had a love-affair with a youth named Attis. She was afterwards acknowledged by her parents ; but her father, on discovering her intimacy with Attis, seized that unhappy youth and put him to death. Grief deprived Cybele of her reason : with dishevelled locks she roamed, to the sound of the drums and pipes which she had invented, over various regions of the earth, even as far as the country of the Hyperboreans, teaching mankind agriculture : her companion was still the faithful Marsyas. Meantime a dreadful famine ravaged Phrygia : the oracle, on being consulted, directed that the body of Attis should be buried, and divine honours be paid to Cybele. A stately temple was accordingly erected to her at Pessinos by king Midas¹¹³⁹.

It is apparent from this account that Cybele, Marsyas, and Attis were all ancient Phrygian deities. Marsyas, as we have seen, was a river-god ; and Attis, whose name occurs frequently in the dynasties of the Lydian kings, (who according to the usual practice were named after their god,) was probably, like Adonis, a personification of the Sun, of whose union with Earth we have apparently another instance in Amphiôn and Niobe. The Lydian legend of the birth of Attis is curious and significant¹¹⁴⁰.

Like Asiatic worship in general, that of Cybele was enthusiastic. Her priests, named Galli and Corybantes, ran about with dreadful cries and howlings, beating on timbrels, clashing cymbals, sounding pipes, and cutting their flesh with knives. The box-tree and the cypress were considered sacred to her ; as from the former she made the pipes, and Attis was said to have been changed into the latter.

We find from Pindar and the dramatists¹¹⁴¹ that the worship {p. 225}and the mysteries of the Great Mother were common in Greece, particularly at Athens, in their time.

The worship of Cybele was introduced into Rome a. u. C. 547, when a solemn embassy was sent to Attalus king of Pergamus, to request the image at Pessinos which had fallen from heaven. The monarch readily yielded compliance, and the goddess was conveyed to Rome ; where a stately temple was built to receive her, and a solemn festival named the Megalesia was celebrated every year in her honour¹¹⁴². As the Greeks had confounded her with Rhea, so the Latins made her one with their Ops, the goddess of the earth¹¹⁴³.

In works of art Cybele exhibits the matronly air and composed dignity which distinguish Hera and Demeter. Sometimes she is veiled, and seated on a throne with lions at her side ; at other times riding in a chariot drawn by lions. Her head is always crowned with towers. She frequently beats on a drum, and bears a sceptre in her hand.

The name Cybele is probably derived from the cymbals (Κύμβος, Κύμβɑλɑ) used in her worship.

Κότυς ἢ Κοτυττὼ Κɑὶ Βϵνδȋς. Cotytto et Bendis.

Cotys or Cotytto was a goddess worshiped by the Thracians, whose kings were frequently named from her. She was apparently identical with the Phrygian Cybele¹¹⁴⁴. Her worship was introduced at Athens and at Corinth, where it was celebrated in private with great indecency and licentiousness¹¹⁴⁵.

Bendis, another Thracian goddess, had some analogy with Artemis and Hecate¹¹⁴⁶, and she was probably the same with Cybele. Her worship also was adopted at Athens ; her temple named the Bendideion was in the Peiræeus¹¹⁴⁷, and a festival named the Bendideia was celebrated in her honour¹¹⁴⁸.

{p. 226}

Αρτϵμις ἐν Εϕέσῳ. Diana Ephesia.

The Ephesian Artemis was another Asiatic goddess whose worship was adopted by the Greeks. From their confounding her with their own Artemis, it would seem that they regarded her as the Moon-goddess ; though her attributes might lead to an identification of her with Cybele¹¹⁴⁹.

The most ancient statue of the Artemis of Ephesus was a black stone which had fallen from heaven, — an aërolite of course. Her subsequent ones were a sort of Pantheôn, a compound of various attributes. She is covered with breasts and with the heads of animals, and stands an image either of the natural fecundity of the earth, or of that supposed to be induced by the influence of the moon.

Nothing can be clearer than that this goddess was originally distinct from the Artemis of the Greeks. Yet in after times we find them so completely identified, that the Ephesians in the reign of Tiberius maintained¹¹⁵⁰ , “that Apollo and Diana were not born in Delos, as was commonly supposed ; but that the river Cenchrius and the grove Ortygia, where the travailing Latona, resting against an olive-tree which still existed, brought forth these deities, were with them.” In like manner the people of Tegyra in Bœotia appropriated to themselves the birth of Apollo, calling a hill near his temple Delos, and two springs Palm and Olive ; they also took to themselves the Delphian legends of Tityos and Pythôn¹¹⁵¹. We even find the whole mythic cycle of Leto, Apollo, and Artemis, transferred to Egypt, — Leto becoming Buto, Apollo Oros, and Artemis Bubastes, and an island in the Nile, said (for Herodotus could not perceive it to move) to be a floating one, Delos¹¹⁵².

Ισις. Isis.

Isis was one of the chief deities of Egypt and spouse of Osiris. Her worship was introduced during the Alexandrian period into Greece, and afterwards into Rome. The Isiac {p. 227}mysteries were among the secret ones, and abounded in gross superstition, vile juggling, and scandalous indecency. As the goddess herself is by Herodotus¹¹⁵³ identified with the Grecian Demeter, we are to suppose that she was one of those personifications of nature, or of the productive power of the earth, which we find among most ancient nations.

Egypt is once mentioned in the Ilias¹¹⁵⁴. In the Odyssey¹¹⁵⁵ Egypt, the Egyptians, and the river Ægyptos are spoken of ; and from these passages we may perhaps collect, that the Greeks, particularly the Cretans, used in those times to make piratical incursions on Egypt. Hesiod¹¹⁵⁶ names the Nile.

“Homer’s Egypt,” says Zoega¹¹⁵⁷, “seems to me altogether fabulous ; it presents nothing local, nothing characteristic. His Egyptians are Greeks, the presents which they give to Menelaos are such as a Greek would have given. Egyptian antiquity knows nothing of tripods. The poet had merely picked up some obscure reports of a rich city, Thebes, an island, Pharos, and that the Egyptians were good physicians, and used a kind of opium. The historic circumstances of the voyage of Menelaos, his adventures there, etc. are fictions. From this point of view many difficulties are removed, and many fine systems fall to pieces. The land of Egypt no longer increases in extent a whole day’s journey toward the north, Memphis is no longer founded after the destruction of Troy. The more ancient Greeks named the Delta Egypt, the rest Thebes, for which reason Memphis might very well be the Thebes of Homer. This poet had no knowledge of the true site of Thebes.”

From Herodotus¹¹⁵⁸ we learn, that when (Ol. 27.) the Egyptian prince Psammitichos was driven by his competitors for the throne to seek shelter in the marshes of the Delta, he was told by the oracle of Buto that brazen men from the sea would {p. 228}be his avengers. Shortly afterwards some Carians and Ionians, who were out a-pirating, were driven by stress of weather to Egypt, where they landed and began to plunder the country. As, after the Grecian fashion, they wore brass armour (a sight unusual to the Egyptians¹¹⁵⁹ ), word was brought to Psammitichos that brazen men had landed and were plundering. Calling to mind the oracle, he sent to invite them to enter his service : they consented, and with their aid he made himself master of Egypt. He assigned them a settlement near the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile, whence their descendants were about eighty years afterwards removed to Memphis by Amasis to serve as his guards¹¹⁶⁰. This monarch appointed the town named Naucratis, which he allowed the Greeks to build on the Canobic arm of the Nile, to be the emporium of the trade of Greece and Egypt, just as Canton is that of the trade between China and Europe. Vessels were allowed to enter that port alone ; and if driven into any other by stress of weather, they were obliged to sail for it, or their cargoes, if the wind was still rough, were conveyed thither in barges round the Delta. Amasis, who was a great favourer of the Greeks, permitted them to erect altars and consecrate pieces of land (τϵμένα) to their national deities. These religious colonies extended far up the country, and we even find the Samians in one of the Oases¹¹⁶¹.

When the Ionians and Carians settled in Egypt, Psammitichos put some Egyptian children under their care, to be instructed in the Greek language ; and, as everything in that country was regulated on the principle of castes, these and their descendants formed the caste of Interpreters, whom Herodotus found there two centuries afterwards¹¹⁶². We may thus see at once how in a space of two hundred years, by means of these interpreters, and of the introduction of the worship of the Grecian deities, the artful priesthood of Egypt may have contrived to frame the system above noticed, of the derivation of the religion and civilization of Greece from the land of Nile.

From this digression we return to the gods of Greece.

{p. 229}

Chapter XVI.

RURAL DEITIES : — PAN, SATYRS, SILENOS, PRIAPOS, NYMPHS.

Πάν. Pan. — Σάτυροι. Satyri. Satyrs. — Σϵιληνὸς, Σιληνός. Silenus. — Πρίαπος. Priapus. — Νύμϕαι. Nymphæ. Nymphs.

Πάν. Pan.

This god is unnoticed by Homer and Hesiod, but according to one of the Homerids he was the son of Hermes by an Arcadian nymph¹¹⁶³. Hermes, he says, smitten with love for the daughter of Dryops (Woody), abandoned Olympos and took service as a shepherd in Arcadia. He succeeded in gaining the heart of the ‘well-tressed nymph,’ and a child was the result of their secret interviews. But so monstrous was his appearance, that the nurse on beholding him fled away in affright. Hermes immediately caught him up, wrapped him carefully in a hare-skin, and carried him away to Olympos : then taking his seat with Zeus and the other gods, he produced his babe. All the gods, especially Dionysos, were delighted with the little stranger ; and they named him Pan (i. e. All), because he had charmed them all.

Others fabled that Pan was the son of Hermes by Penelope, whose love he gained under the form of a goat, as she was tending in her youth the flocks of her father on Mount Taÿgeton¹¹⁶⁴. Some even went so far as to say that he was the offspring of the amours of Penelope with all her suitors¹¹⁶⁵. According to Epimenides¹¹⁶⁶, Pan and Arcas were the children of Zeus and Callisto. Aristippus made Pan the offspring of Zeus and the nymph Œneïs¹¹⁶⁷, others again said he was a child of Heaven and Earth¹¹⁶⁸. There was also a Pan said to be the son of Zeus and the nymph Thymbris or Hybris, the instructor of Apollo in divination¹¹⁶⁹.

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The worship of Pan seems to have been confined to Arcadia till the time of the battle of Marathôn, when Pheidippides, the courier who was sent from Athens to Sparta to call on the Spartans for aid against the Persians, declared that, as he was passing by Mount Parthenion near Tegea in Arcadia, he heard the voice of Pan calling to him, and desiring him to ask the Athenians why they paid no regard to him, who was always, and still would be, friendly and assisting to them. After the battle the Athenians consecrated a cave to Pan under the Acropolis, and offered him annual sacrifices¹¹⁷⁰.

Long before this time the Grecian and Egyptian systems of religion had begun to mingle and combine. The goatformed Mendes of Egypt was now regarded as identical with the horned and goat-footed god of the Arcadian herdsmen¹¹⁷¹ ; and Pan was elevated to great dignity by priests and philosophers, becoming a symbol of the universe, for his name signified all. Further, as he dwelt in the woods, he was called Lord of the Hyle (ό τῆς ὓλης κύρις)¹¹⁷² ; and as the word hyle (ὓλη) by a lucky ambiguity signified either wood or primitive matter, this was another ground for exalting him. It is amusing to read how all the attributes of the Arcadian god were made to accord with this notion. “Pan,” says Servius¹¹⁷³, “is a rustic god, formed in similitude of nature ; whence he is called Pan, i. e. All : for he has horns in similitude of the rays of the sun and the horns of the moon : his face is ruddy, in imitation of the æther : he has a spotted fawn-skin on his breast, in likeness of the stars : his lower parts are shaggy, on account of the trees, shrubs, and wild-beasts : he has goat’s feet, to denote the stability of the earth : he has a pipe of seven reeds, on account of the harmony of the heaven, in which there are seven sounds : he has a crook, that is a curved staff, on account of the year, which runs back on itself, because he is the god of all nature. It is feigned by the poets, that he struggled with Love and was conquered by him, because, as we read, Love conquers all, omnia vincit amor.”

In Arcadia, his native country, Pan appears never to have

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attained to such distinction. So late as the days of the Ptolemies, Theocritus¹¹⁷⁴ could thus allude to the treatment which he sometimes there experienced from his worshipers :

And if thou do so, Pan beloved, may ne’er

The Arcadian boys thy shoulders and thy sides

Pelt with their squills when little meat is had ;

But if thou otherwise incline, may pain

Seize thee when all thy skin is torn with nails,

And in hot nettles may thou lie to rest :

which the scholiast tells us was the Arcadians’ mode of treating the god when they were unsuccessful in hunting¹¹⁷⁵.

The Homerid already quoted, who is older than Pindar¹¹⁷⁶, describes in a very pleasing manner the occupations of Pan. He is lord of all the hills and dales : sometimes he ranges along the tops of the mountains, sometimes pursues the game in the valleys, roams through the woods, floats along the streams, or drives his sheep into a cave, and there plays on his reeds music not to be excelled by that of the bird “who among the leaves of flower-full spring laments, pouring forth her moan, a sweet-sounding lay.”

And with him the clear-singing mountain-nymphs

Move quick their feet, by the dark-watered spring

In the soft mead, where crocus, hyacinths,

Fragrant and blooming, mingle with the grass

Confused, and sing, while echo peals around

The mountain’s top.

The god meanwhile moves his feet rapidly as he joins in the dance, with the skin of a lynx on his back, and delighted with the sweet song.

In after times the care of Pan was held to extend beyond the herds. We find him regarded as the guardian of the bees¹¹⁷⁷, and as the giver of success in fishing and fowling¹¹⁷⁸.

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The god of herdsmen was not without his amours ; he is said to have captivated the goddess of the night, Selene, under the form of a white ram¹¹⁷⁹. He was fortunate in an amour with the nymph Echo, by whom he had a daughter named Iambe¹¹⁸⁰ ; but he could not gain the love of Syrinx, another of the nymphs. Syrinx was a Naïs of Nonacris in Arcadia, and devoted to the service of Artemis : as she was returning one day from the chase, and passed by Mount Lycæon, Pan beheld her and loved ; but when he would address her, she fled. The god pursued : she reached the river Ladôn, and unable to cross it implored the aid of her sister-nymphs ; and when Pan thought to grasp the object of his pursuit, he found his arms filled with reeds. While he stood sighing at his disappointment, the wind began to agitate the reeds, and produced a low musical sound. The god took the hint, cut seven of the reeds, and formed from them his syrinx (σύριγξ) or pastoral pipe¹¹⁸¹. Another of his loves was the nymph Pitys, who was also loved by Boreas. The nymph favoured more the god of Arcadia, and the wind-god in a fit of jealousy blew her down from the summit of a lofty rock. A tree of her own name (πίτυς, pine) sprang up where she died, and it became the favourite plant of Pan¹¹⁸².

What are called Panic terrors were ascribed to Pan ; for loud noises, whose cause could not easily be traced, were not unfrequently heard in mountainous regions ; and the gloom and loneliness of forests and mountains fill the mind with a secret horror, and dispose it to superstitious apprehensions : hence perhaps it is, that madness was believed to be the consequence of encountering the rural deities.

The ancients had two modes of representing Pan. The first, according to the description already given, as horned and goat-footed, with a wrinkled face and a flat nose¹¹⁸³. But the artists sought to soften the idea of the god of shepherds, {p. 233}and they portrayed him as a young man hardened by the toils of a country life. Short horns sprout on his forehead, to characterize him ; he bears his crook and his syrinx ; and he is either naked, or clad in the light cloak called chlamys¹¹⁸⁴.

[n.p.]

[n.p.]

Like many other gods who were originally single, Pan was multiplied in course of time, and we meet Pans in the plural¹¹⁸⁵.

Pan was called¹¹⁸⁶, 1. Goat-footed ; 2. Noise-loving ; 3. Dance-loving ; 4. Bright-locked ; 5. Cave-dwelling ; 6. Sea-roaming.

The name Pan (Πὰν) is probably nothing more than the contraction of πάων, feeder or owner¹¹⁸⁷, and was probably in its origin an epithet of Hermes. Buttmann connects Pan with Apollo Nomios, regarding his name as the contraction of Pæan¹¹⁸⁸. Welcker says it was the Arcadian form of Φάων, Φὰν, apparently regarding him as the sun¹¹⁸⁹.

Σάτυροι. Satyri. Satyrs.

Hesiod¹¹⁹⁰ is the first who mentions the Satyrs ; he says that they, the Curetes and the mountain-nymphs, were the offspring of the five daughters of Hecatæos by the daughter of Phoroneus.

The Laconian term for a Satyr was Tityros¹¹⁹¹, which also signified the buck-goat or the ram¹¹⁹² that led the flock. Æschylus calls a Satyr Buck-goat (τράγος)¹¹⁹³. In all views of the Satyrs they appear to be a rough, shaggy kind of beings.

The Satyrs were associated with Dionysos, and they formed the chorus of the species of drama named from them. It is not unlikely that they are indebted for their deification to {p. 234}the festivals of that god, and that they were originally merely the rustics who formed the chorus, and danced at them in their goat-skin dresses¹¹⁹⁴. Their name may be merely the reduplication of ϴήρ¹¹⁹⁵.

Σϵιληνὸς, Σιληνός. Silenus.

Hermes and the Silens ‘mingle in love’ with the nymphs in pleasing caverns, according to a Homerid¹¹⁹⁶, and Pindar¹¹⁹⁷ calls Silenos the Naïs’ husband. Socrates used to compare himself, on account of his wisdom, his baldness, and his flat nose, to the Silens born of the divine Naïdes¹¹⁹⁸. Others said that Silenos was a son of Earth, and sprung from the blood-drops of Uranos¹¹⁹⁹. Marsyas is called a Silen¹²⁰⁰. Like the seagods, Silenos was noted for wisdom.

It would therefore appear that a Silen was simply a rivergod¹²⁰¹ ; and the name probably comes from ἴλλω, ϵἰλέω, to roll, expressive of the motion of the streams¹²⁰². The connexion between Silenos and Dionysos and the Naïdes thus becomes easy of explanation, all being deities relating to moisture.

Midas, king of the Brygians in Macedonia, had at the foot of Mount Bermion a garden, in which grew spontaneously roses with sixty petals, and of extraordinary fragrance¹²⁰³. To this garden Silenos was in the habit of repairing ; and Midas¹²⁰⁴, or his people, by pouring wine into the fount from which he was wont to drink, intoxicated him, and he was thus captured¹²⁰⁵. Midas put various questions to him respecting the {p. 235}origin of things, and the events of past times¹²⁰⁶. One was, What is best for men ? Silenos was long silent ; at length, when he was constrained to answer, he said, “Ephemeral seed of a toilsome fate and hard fortune, why do ye oblige me to tell what it were better for you not to know ? Life is most free from pain when one is ignorant of future evils. It is best of all for man not to be born…… the second is, for those who are born to die as soon as possible¹²⁰⁷.” He also, it is said¹²⁰⁸, gave the king a long account of an immense country which lay without the Ocean-stream, the people of which once invaded the land of the Hyperboreans.

According to another version of this legend¹²⁰⁹, as Dionysos was in Lydia on his return from the conquest of the East, some of the country people met Silenos staggering about, and binding him with his own garlands, led him to their king. Midas entertained him for ten days, and then conducted him to his foster-son, who, in his gratitude, desired the king to ask what gift he would. Midas craved that all he touched might turn to gold. His wish was granted ; but when he found his very food converted to precious metal, and himself on the point of starving in the midst of wealth, he prayed the god to resume his fatal gift. Dionysos directed him to bathe in the Pactolos, and hence that river became auriferous¹²¹⁰.

Silenos was represented as old, bald, and flat-nosed, riding on a broad-backed ass, usually intoxicated, and carrying his can (cantharus), or tottering along supported by his staff of fennel (ferula)¹²¹¹.

Πρίαπος. Priapus.

Priapos was introduced late into Grecian mythology¹²¹². He was a rural deity, worshiped by the people of Lampsacus, a city on the Hellespont famous for its vineyards. Priapos was {p. 236}not — as is supposed, from the employment usually assigned him by the Romans after they had adopted his worship – merely the god of gardens, but of fruitfulness in general. “This god,” says Pausanias¹²¹³, “is honoured elsewhere by those who keep sheep and goats, or stocks of bees ; but the Lampsacenes regard him more than any of the gods, calling him the son of Dionysos and Aphrodite.” In Theocritus¹²¹⁴, the shepherds set his statue with those of the Nymphs at a shady fountain, and a shepherd prays to him, promising sacrifices if he will free him from love ; and by Virgil¹²¹⁵ bees are placed under his care. Fishermen also made offerings to him as the deity presiding over the fisheries¹²¹⁶ ; and in the Anthology¹²¹⁷ Priapos Of-the-Haven (Λιμϵνίτας) is introduced, giving a pleasing description of the spring, and inviting the mariners to put to sea. The Priaps are enumerated by Moschus¹²¹⁸ among the rural gods :

And Satyrs wailed and sable-cloaked Priaps ;

And Pans sighed after thy sweet melody.

It was fabled¹²¹⁹ that Priapos was the son of Aphrodite by Dionysos¹²²⁰, whom she met on his return from his Indian expedition at the Lampsacene town Aparnis. Owing to the malignity of Hera, he was born so deformed that his mother was horrified and renounced (ἀπαρνϵῖτο) him, whence the place derived its name. Others said¹²²¹ that he was the son of Dionysos by Chione, or a Naïs ; others¹²²², that he had a long-eared father, — Pan or a Satyr perhaps, or it may be his own sacred beast the ass¹²²³ ; others gave him Hermes¹²²⁴ or Adonis¹²²⁵, or even Zeus himself for a sire¹²²⁶.

Priapos, like the other rural gods, is of a ruddy complexion. His cloak is filled with all kinds of fruits : he has a sithe in his hand, and usually a horn of plenty. He is rarely without his indecent symbol of productiveness.

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Νύμϕαι. Nymphæ. Nymphs.

The imagination of the Greeks peopled all the regions of earth and water with beautiful female forms called Nymphs, divided into various orders, according to the place of their abode. Thus¹²²⁷ 1. the Mountain-nymphs (Oreiades) haunted the mountains ; 2. the Dale-nymphs (Napœœ), the valleys ; 3. the Mead-nymphs (Leimoniades), the meadows ; 4. the Water-nymphs (Naïdes, Naïades), the rivers, brooks, and springs ; 5. the Lake-nymphs (Limniades), the lakes and pools. There were also, 6. the Tree-nymphs (Hamadryades), who were born and died with the trees ; 7. the Wood-nymphs in general (Dryades)¹²²⁸ ; and 8. the Fruit-tree-nymphs or Flocknymphs (Meliades)¹²²⁹, who watched over gardens or flocks of sheep.

The Nymphs occur in various relations to gods and men. Their amours, of which we have seen some instances, were numerous. The charge of rearing various gods and heroes was committed to them : they were, for instance, the nurses of Dionysos, Pan, and even Zeus himself ; and they also brought up Aristæos and Æneias. They were moreover the attendants of the goddesses ; they waited on Hera and Aphrodite, and in huntress-attire pursued the deer over the mountains in the company of Artemis.

In the Fairy Mythology¹²³⁰, a work, for which, as our first effort in this department of literature, and which recalls the memory of many agreeable hours, we certainly feel a partiality, we thus expressed ourselves on the subject of the Nymphs.

“In the Homeric poems, the most ancient portion of Grecian literature, we meet the various classes of Nymphs. In the Odyssey, they are the attendants of Calypso, herself a goddess and a nymph. Of the female attendants of Circe,

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the potent daughter of Helios, also designated as a goddess and a nymph, it is said,

They spring from fountains and from sacred groves,

And holy streams that flow into the sea¹²³¹.

Yet these Nymphs are of divine nature ; and when Zeus, the father of the gods, calls together his council,

None of the streams, save Ocean, stayed away,

Nor of the Nymphs, who dwell in beauteous groves,

And springs of streams, and verdant grassy slades¹²³².

The good Eumæos prays to the Nymphs to speed the return of his master, reminding them of the numerous sacrifices which Odysseus had offered to them. In another part of the poem¹²³³ their sacred cave is thus described :

But at the harbour’s head a long-leafed olive

Grows, and near to it lies a lovely cave,

Dusky and sacred to the Nymphs, whom men

Call Naiades. In it large craters lie,

And two-eared pitchers, all of stone ; and there

Bees build their combs. In it, too, are long looms

Of stone, and there the Nymphs do weave their robes,

Sea-purple, wondrous to behold. Aye-flowing

Waters are there. Two entrances it hath ;

That to the north is pervious unto men ;

That to the south more sacred is, and there

Men enter not, but ‘tis the Immortals’ path.

Yet though thus exalted in rank, the Homeric Nymphs frequently ‘blessed the bed’ of heroes ; and many a warrior who fought before Troy could boast descent from a Nais or a Nereïs.

“One of the most interesting species of Nymphs are the Hamadryades, those personifications of the vegetable life of {p. 239}plants¹²³⁴. In the Homeridian hymn to Aphrodite, we find the following full and accurate description of them. Aphrodite, when she informs Anchises that she is pregnant, and of her shame to have it known among the gods, says of the child¹²³⁵, —

But him, when first he sees the sun’s clear light,

The Nymphs shall rear, the mountain-haunting Nymphs,

Deep-bosomed, who on this mountain great

And holy dwell, who neither goddesses

Nor women are¹²³⁶. Their life is long ; they eat

Ambrosial food, and with the Deathless frame

The beauteous dance. With them, in the recess

Of lovely caves, well-spying Argos-slayer

And the Sileni mix in love. Straight pines

Or oaks high-headed spring with them upon

The earth man-feeding, soon as they are born ;

Trees fair and flourishing ; on the high hills

Lofty they stand ; the Deathless’ sacred grove

Men call them, and with iron never cut.

But when the Fate of death is drawing near,

First wither on the earth the beauteous trees,

The bark around them wastes, the branches fall,

And the Nymph’s soul at the same moment leaves

The sun’s fair light.

“They possessed power to reward and punish those who prolonged or abridged the existence of their associate-tree. In the Argonautics of Apollonius Rhodius, Phineus thus explains to the heroes the cause of the poverty of Peræbios¹²³⁷ :

But he was paying the penalty laid on

His father’s crime ; for one time, cutting trees

Alone among the hills, he spurned the prayer

Of the Hamadryas Nymph, who, weeping sore,

With earnest words besought him not to cut

The trunk of an oak tree, which, with herself

Coeval, had endured for many a year.

But, in the pride of youth, he foolishly

Cut it ; and to him and his race the Nymph

Gave ever after a lot profitless.

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“The scholiast gives on this passage the following tale from Charôn of Lampsacus :

A man, named Rhœcos, happening to see an oak just ready to fall to the ground, ordered his slaves to prop it up. The Nymph, who had been on the point of perishing with the tree, came to him and expressed her gratitude to him for having saved her life, and at the same time desired him to ask what reward he would. Rhœcos then requested her to permit him to be her lover, and the Nymph acceded to his desire. She at the same time charged him strictly to avoid the society of every other woman, and told him that a bee should be her messenger. One time the bee happened to come to Rhœcos as he was playing at draughts, and he made a rough reply. This so incensed the Nymph that she deprived him of sight.

Similar was the fate of the Sicilian Daphnis. A Naïs loved him, and forbade him to hold intercourse with any other woman under pain of loss of sight. Long he abstained, though tempted by the fairest maids of Sicily. At length a princess contrived to intoxicate him : he broke his vow, and the threatened penalty was inflicted¹²³⁸.”

The nymph Echo had been, as we have seen, beloved by the god Pan. She was also, we are assured, of a most accommodating disposition to Zeus ; and while he was engaged in his pranks with the other nymphs, Echo, being of a very loquacious character, used to keep Hera in chat till the nymphs had time to make their escape. When Hera discovered the artifice, she declared by way of punishment, that in future she should have but little use of her tongue ; and immediately she lost all power of doing any more than repeat the sounds which she heard. Echo happening to see the beautiful youth Narcissos, the son of the river-god Cephissos by the nymph Leiriope (Lily-voice), as he was hunting, became deeply enamoured of him. She followed his steps everywhere, but was long unable to accost him. At length

It happed the youth was from his faithful band

Of comrades parted, and he called aloud,

{p. 241}Is any here ? and Echo answered, Here.

Amazed, on every side he turns his view,

And in loud tones cries, Come ; and Echo calls

The caller. Back he looks, and, no one yet

Approaching, cries, Why fliest thou ? and receives

As many words in answer. By the sound

Of the alternate voice deceived, he still

Persists, and says, Let us meet here ; and, ne’er

To sound more grateful answering, Echo cried,

Let us meet here, and issued from the wood.

But at the sight of her the youth fled. Vexed at the ill success of her advances, and ashamed to appear, she henceforth lurked in solitary caverns, and her love wore her away till nothing remained but her voice and bones. The former still remains, and may be heard among the hills ; the latter were turned to stone. Narcissos, however, suffered the penalty of his hard-heartedness to her and other nymphs and maidens ; for seeing his own figure in a clear spring, he became enamoured of it, and pined away till he was converted into the flower which bears his name¹²³⁹.

These are fables invented, in the usual manner, to account for the origin of the echo and the narcissus. The Scandinavians say that the echo is the voice of the Trolls ; the original natives of the West Indies regarded the echoes as the voices of the departed, who still dwelt in the woods and mountains¹²⁴⁰. The narcissus grows abundantly about Mount Helicôn, the scene of Narcissos’ transformation. Its name in Persian is Nirgis, which proves the derivation from ναρкέω to be wrong. It was sacred to Demeter and the Kora¹²⁴¹.

It was fabled, that in the early ages of Southern Italy, when the people there were in the pastoral state, the Epimelian- or Flock-nymphs were once seen dancing at a place called the Sacred Rocks in Messapia. The young shepherds quitted their flocks to gaze on them ; and, ignorant of their quality, declared that they could dance better themselves. The nymphs were offended, and after a long dispute the shepherds began to contend with them. The motions of the rustics were of {p. 242}course awkward and ungraceful, those of the nymphs light and elegant, as became goddesses. The former were vanquished ; and the nymphs cried out to them, “O youths, you have been contending with the Epimelian nymphs ! you shall therefore be punished.” The shepherds instantly became trees where they stood, at the temple of the nymphs ; and to this day, says Nicander, a voice as of lamentation is heard at night to issue from the grove. The place is called that of the Nymphs and the Youths¹²⁴².

Dryops, the son of the river Spercheios, who dwelt at Mount Œta, had a daughter named Dryope. She fed the flocks of her father, and the Hamadryades conceived a strong affection for her. They made her their playfellow, and taught her to dance and sing hymns to the gods. Apollo beheld her dancing with them, and fell in love with her. He changed himself into a tortoise, with which they began to play and amuse themselves. Dryope placing it in her bosom, the god changed himself into a serpent : the nymphs fled in affright, and he gained his object. Dryope returned home, and shortly afterwards married Andræmôn the son of Mylos. Her son by Apollo was named Amphissos, who founded at the foot of Œta a town of the same name, and ruled over the whole of that part of the country. He built a temple to Apollo ; at which when Dryope appeared one day, the Hamadryades carried her away and concealed her in the wood. In her stead they caused a poplar to grow up, and a spring of water to gush out beside it. The nymphs communicated their own nature to Dryope ; and her son Amphissos out of gratitude raised them a temple, and instituted games, at which no woman was permitted to be present ; because when Dryope was taken away, two maidens who were present informed the people of it, and the nymphs incensed turned them both into fir-trees¹²⁴³.

Terambos, who dwelt at the foot of Mount Othrys, abounded in flocks, which he himself fed on the mountains. The nymphs assisted him, for they were charmed with his singing and his music, in which he excelled all the men of his time, {p. 243}being the inventor of the lyre and the shepherd’s pipe, and they often danced to his melody. Pan also loved him, and one time warned him to drive his flocks down into the plain, as a most terrific winter was coming on : but Terambos, elate with youth and confidence, despised the admonition of the friendly deity, and even mocked at and ridiculed the gentle amiable nymphs, saying that they were not the children of Zeus at all, but of Deino daughter of the Spercheios, and that Poseidôn had once when in love with one of them turned the rest into poplars, and kept them in that form as long as he thought proper. Soon however the presage of Pan proved true : the winter came on ; all the streams and torrents were frozen, the snow fell in great quantities, and the flocks of Terambos vanished along with the paths and the trees. The nymphs then changed Terambos himself into the animal called by the Thessalians kerambyx (кϵράμβυξ), or cockchafer, ‘of which the boys make a plaything, and cutting off the head carry it about ; and the head with the horns is like the lyre made from the tortoise¹²⁴⁴ ’

The word Nymph (νύμϕη) seems to have originally signified bride, and was probably derived from a verb ΝϒΒΩ, to cover or veil¹²⁴⁵. It was gradually applied to married¹²⁴⁶ or marriageable young women, for the idea of youth was always included. It is in this last sense that the goddesses of whom we treat were called Nymphs.

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Chapter XVII.

WATER-DEITIES : — OCEANIDES, NEREUS, NEREÏDES, PHORCYS, TRITON, PROTEUS, GLAUCOS, LEUCOTHEA AND PALÆMON, RIVER-GODS.

̕Ωкϵανίδϵς, ̕Ωкϵαȋναι. Ocean-nymphs. — Νηρϵύς. Nereus. — Νηρηΐδϵς. Nereïdes. — Φόρкυς, Φόρкος. Phorcus. — Τρίτων. Triton. — Πρωτεύς. Proteus. — Γλαῦκος. Glaucus. — Λυκοθέα και Παλαίμων. Matuta et Portunus. — Πόταμι. Fluvii. River-gods.

̕Ωкϵανίδϵς, ̕Ωкϵαȋναι. Ocean-nymphs.

The Ocean-nymphs, three thousand in number, were daughters of Oceanos and Tethys, and sisters of the rivers. Their office was to rear the children of men. From their names they appear to be personifications of the various qualities and appearances of water¹²⁴⁷.

Νηρϵύς. Nereus.

Nereus, though not mentioned by name in Homer, is frequently alluded to under the title of the Sea-elder (ἅλιος γέρων), and his daughters are called Nereïdes. According to Hesiod¹²⁴⁸ he was the son of Pontos and Earth, and was distinguished for his knowledge and his love of truth and justice, whence he was termed an elder : the gift of prophecy was also assigned him. When Heracles was in quest of the apples of the Hesperides, he was directed by the nymphs to Nereus : he found the god asleep, and seized him. Nereus on awaking changed himself into a variety of forms, but in vain : he was obliged to instruct him how to proceed before the hero would release him¹²⁴⁹. He also foretold to Paris, when he was carrying away Helena, the evils he would bring on his country and family¹²⁵⁰.

Nereus was married to Doris, one of the Ocean-nymphs, and by her he had the nymphs named Nereïdes¹²⁵¹.

{p. 245}

Νηρηΐδϵς. Nereïdes.

The Nereïdes, or nymphs of the sea, were fifty in number ; but the mythologists do not agree exactly in the names which they put into the catalogue. The best known of them are, Amphitrite the wife of Poseidôn, Thetis the mother of Achilleus, and Galateia, who was loved by the Cyclôps Polyphemos.

The Nereïdes, like all the other female deities, were originally conceived to be of a beautiful form, with skin of a delicate whiteness and long flowing hair. A constant epithet of Thetis is silver-footed (ἀργυροπέξα) ; and it was for venturing to compare herself in beauty with the Nereïdes, that Cassiope brought such misfortune on her daughter Andromeda. But the painters and sculptors, who contributed so much to degrade the other gods, robbed the sea-nymphs also of their charms, by bestowing on them green hair, and turning their lower parts into those of a fish ; thus giving them a form exactly corresponding with the modern idea of a mermaid.

The individual names of the Nereïdes are significatory of the qualities and phænomena of the sea.

Φόρкυς, Φόρкος. Phorcus.

Phorcys is called by Homer a Ruler (μέδων) of the Sea and a Sea-elder. A harbour in Ithaca¹²⁵² is said to belong to him.

Hesiod¹²⁵³ makes him a son of Pontos and Earth, and father by Keto of the Grææ, the Gorgons, the Echidna, and the serpent which watched the golden apples¹²⁵⁴.

Τρίτων. Triton.

According to Hesiod¹²⁵⁵, Tritôn was a son of Poseidôn and Amphitrite, who, ‘keeping to the bottom of the sea, dwelt with his mother and royal father in a golden house.’ Later {p. 246}poets made him his father’s trumpeter. He was also multiplied, and we read of Tritons in the plural number.

Like the Nereïdes, the Tritons were degraded to the fishform. Pausanias¹²⁵⁶ tells us that the women of Tanagra in Bœotia, going into the sea to purify themselves for the orgies of Bacchos, were, while there, assailed by Tritôn ; but on praying to their god, he vanquished their persecutor. Others, he adds, said that Tritôn used to carry off the cattle which were driven down to the sea, and to seize all small vessels ; till the Tanagrians placing bowls of wine on the shore, he drank of them, and becoming intoxicated threw himself down on the shore to sleep ; where as he lay, a Tanagrian cut off his head with an axe. He relates these legends to account for the statue of Tritôn at Tanagra being headless. He then subjoins, — 

“I have seen another Tritôn among the curiosities of the Romans, but it is not so large as this of the Tanagrians. The form of the Tritons is this : — the hair of their head resembles the parsley that grows in marshes, both in colour and in the perfect likeness of one hair to another, so that no difference can be perceived among them : the rest of their body is rough with small scales, and is of about the same hardness as the skin of a fish : they have fish-gills under their ears : their nostrils are those of a man, but their teeth are broader, and like those of a wild beast : their eyes seem to me azure ; and their hands, fingers and nails are of the form of the shells of shell-fish : they have, instead of feet, fins under their breast and belly, like those of the porpoise.”

Πρωτεύς. Proteus.

In the fourth book of the Odyssey Homer introduces this sea-god. He styles him, like Nereus and Phorcys, a Seaelder¹²⁵⁷, and gives him the power of foretelling the future¹²⁵⁸. He calls him Egyptian, and the servant of Poseidôn¹²⁵⁹, and says that his task was keeping the seals or sea-calves¹²⁶⁰. When Menelaos was wind-bound at the island of Pharos, opposite {p. 247}Egypt, and he and his crew were suffering from want of food, Eidothea the daughter of Proteus accosted him, and bringing seal-skins directed him to disguise himself and three of his companions in them ; and when Proteus at noon should come up out of the sea and go to sleep amidst his herds, to seize and hold him till he disclosed some means of relief from his present distress.

Menelaos obeys the nymph ; and Proteus drives up and counts his herds, and then lies down to rest. The hero immediately seizes him, and the god turns himself into a lion, a serpent, a pard, a boar, water, and a tree. At length, finding he cannot escape, he resumes his own form, and reveals to Menelaos the remedy for his distress. He at the same time informs him of the situation of his friends, and particularly notices his having seen Odysseus in the island of Calypso, — a clear proof that his own abode was not confined to the coast of Egypt.

This part of the Odyssey has been beautifully imitated by Virgil in the fourth book of his Georgics, where Aristæos on the loss of his bees seeks in a similar way a remedy from Proteus. The scene is here transferred to the peninsula of Pallene, and the god is described as of a blue colour, the hue which painters had been pleased to bestow on the marine deities : he has also a chariot drawn by the biped sea-horses.

Homer does not name the parents of this marine deity, and there is no mention of him in the Theogony. Apollodorus makes him a son of Poseidôn¹²⁶¹, and Euripides would seem to make Nereus his sire¹²⁶².

Those who embraced the theory of representing the gods as having been originally mere men, said that Proteus was a king of Egypt ; and the Egyptian priests told how he detained Helena when Paris was driven to Egypt, and gave him an image or phantom in her stead, and then restored her to Menelaos¹²⁶³.

The name of this deity, signifying First (πρὸ, πρῶτος), was too inviting to escape the mystics. They regarded him as a {p. 248}symbol of the original matter which developed itself into the four elements whose form he took : the lion was æther, the serpent earth, the tree air, and the water itself¹²⁶⁴.

Γλαῦκος. Glaucus.

Glaucos, as is evident from his name, was an original god of the sea, probably only another form of Poseidôn, whose son he is in some accounts¹²⁶⁵. Like the marine gods in general, he had the gift of prophecy ; we find him appearing to the Argonauts¹²⁶⁶ and to Menelaos¹²⁶⁷, and telling them what had happened, or what was to happen. In later times sailors were continually making reports of his soothsaying¹²⁶⁸. Some said he dwelt with the Nereïdes at Delos, where he gave responses to all who sought them¹²⁶⁹ ; according to others, he visited each year all the isles and coasts with a train of monsters of the deep (κήτεα), and unseen foretold in the Æolic dialect all kinds of evil. The fishermen watched for his approach, and endeavoured by fastings, prayer and fumigations to avert the ruin with which his prophecy menaced the fruits and cattle. At times he was seen among the waves, and his body appeared covered with muscles, sea weed and stones. He was heard evermore to lament his fate in not being able to die¹²⁷⁰.

This last circumstance refers to the common pragmatic history of Glaucos. He was a fisherman, it was said¹²⁷¹, of Anthedôn in Bœotia, and observing one day the fish which he had caught and thrown on the grass to bite it, and then to jump into the sea, his curiosity excited him to taste it also ; immediately on his doing so he followed their example, and thus became a sea-god. It was also said¹²⁷² that he obtained his immortality by tasting the grass which had revived a hare he had run down in Ætolia ; also¹²⁷³ that he built and steered {p. 249}the Argo, and that during the voyage Zeus made him a god of the sea.

Glaucos, we are told¹²⁷⁴, seeing Ariadne in Naxos, where she had been abandoned by Theseus, became enamoured of her ; but Dionysos seized him, bound him with a vine-band, and drove him from the island. His love for Scylla we shall presently relate.

Λυκοθέα και Παλαίμων. Matuta et Portunus.

Ino, the daughter of Cadmos and wife of Athamas, flying from her husband, with her little son Melicertes in her arms, sprang from a cliff into the sea. The gods out of compassion made her a goddess of the sea under the name of Leucothea, and him a god under that of Palæmôn. Both were held powerful to save from shipwreck, and were invoked by sailors. The fable appears to be ancient ; as Leucothea, who gives her veil to Odysseus when tossed in a storm, is called ‘fair-ankled Ino, daughter of Cadmos,’ and her transformation is mentioned¹²⁷⁵.

Palæmôn was usually represented riding on a dolphin. The Isthmian games were celebrated in his honour¹²⁷⁶.

We should suppose it hardly necessary to remind the reader, that, according to all analogy of Grecian mythology, Palæmôn and Ino-Leucothea (a form like Phœbos-Apollo, Pallas-Athene) were original water-deities. Leucothea is supposed to be derived from the white waves, and Ino may be merely Ilo, and be connected with ἕλος, ἰλύς¹²⁷⁷. Palæmôn (Champion) seems to refer to the Isthmian games¹²⁷⁸. Melicertes is said to be a name of Poseidôn ; it may however be the Phœnician Melcart, introduced into the Cadmeian cycle when Cadmos became a Sidonian.

{p. 250}

Πόταμι. Fluvii. River-gods.

Each river was held to have its presiding deity, who deity in it and directed its waters. These gods had their houses and children ; and the love-adventures of some of them, such as Alpheios and Acheloös, are recorded by the poets. The rivers were all the sons of Oceanos and Tethys¹²⁷⁹.

The River-gods were represented of a handsome human form, crowned with reeds, and wearing dark-blue mantles of fine texture. They were often given the head or horns of a bull, indicative of their roaring or winding, of their strength or of their influence on agriculture¹²⁸⁰. A bull was the sacrifice to them, as to Poseidôn¹²⁸¹.

{p. 251}

Chapter XVIII.

DEITIES OF THE ISLES AND COAST OF OCEAN : — HESPERIDES, GRÆÆ, GORGONS, HARPIES, WINDS.

Ἑσπρίδες. Hesperides. Western-Maids. — Гραίαι. Grææ. Grey-Maids. — Гοργόνες.Gorgones. Gorgons. — Ἅρπυιαι. Harpyiœ. Harpies. — Ἄνεμοι. Venti. Winds.

Ἑσπρίδες. Hesperides. Western-Maids.

According to Hesiod the ‘clear-voiced’ Hesperides dwelt¹²⁸² ‘beyond (πέρην) the bright Ocean’ opposite where Atlas stood supporting the heaven, and they had charge of the trees that bore the golden fruit. In this task they were aided by a serpent named Ladôn¹²⁸³. These apples were said to have been the gift of Earth to Hera on her weddingday¹²⁸⁴. One of the tasks imposed on Heracles was that of procuring some of them for Eurystheus.

Hesiod says that the Hesperides were the daughters of Night without a father. Others, however, to assimilate them to their neighbours, the Grææ and Gorgons, gave them Phor-cys and Keto for parents¹²⁸⁵. Their names are said to have been Ægle, Erytheia, Hestia, and Arethusa¹²⁸⁶, or rather Ægle, Hespere, and Erytheïs¹²⁸⁷.

The abode of these Western-Maids was evidently an island in the Ocean, and not the gloomy land beyond it ¹²⁸⁸ ; for the {p. 252}poets, led by the analogy of the lovely appearance of the western sky at sunset, viewed the West as a region of brightness and glory. Hence they placed in it the Isles of the Blest, the ruddy isle Erytheia, on which the bright oxen of Hades and Geryoneus pastured, the isle of the Hesperides, in which grew the golden fruit, and other places of light and bliss.

When Atlas had been fixed as a mountain in the extremity of Libya, the dwelling of the Hesperides was usually placed in his vicinity ; others set it in the country of the Hyperboreans¹²⁸⁹. Their apples are supposed, and not entirely without reason, to have been a fiction, indebted for its origin to the accounts of the oranges of Africa and Spain.

Гραίαι. Grææ. Grey-Maids.

The ‘fair-cheeked’ Grææ were daughters of Phorcys and Keto ; they were hoary-haired from their birth, whence their name. They were two in number, ‘well-robed’ Pephredo (Horrifier), and ‘yellow-robed’ Enyo (Shaker) ¹²⁹⁰. We find them always united with the Gorgons, whose guards they were according to Æschylus¹²⁹¹. This poet¹²⁹² describes them as ‘three long-lived maids, swan-formed, having one eye and one tooth in common, on whom neither the sun with his beams nor the nightly moon ever looks’¹²⁹³. Perseus, he says, intercepted the eye as they were handing it from the one to the other, and having thus blinded the guards was enabled to come on the Gorgons unperceived. The name of the third sister given by the later writers is Deino (Terrifier)¹²⁹⁴.

Гοργόνες.Gorgones. Gorgons.

Homer speaks of an object of terror which he calls Gorgo, and the Gorgeian Head. He places the former on the shield {p. 253}of Agamemnôn¹²⁹⁵ ; and when describing Hectôr eager for slaughter, he says that he had ‘the eyes of Gorgo and of man-destroying Ares’¹²⁹⁶. The Gorgeian Head was on the ægis of Zeus¹²⁹⁷, and the hero of the Odyssey fears to remain in Erebos lest ‘Persephoneia should send out the Gorgeian head of the dire monster’¹²⁹⁸ against him¹²⁹⁹. Along with the Grææ, according to the Theogony¹³⁰⁰, Keto bore to Phorcys the Gorgons, ‘who dwelt beyond the bright Ocean in the extremity toward night, where the clear-voiced Hesperides abide.’ It names them Stheino, Euryale and Medusa, which last alone was mortal. Poseidôn, it is added, lay with her in a ‘soft mead amid the spring-flowers,’ and when her head was cut off by Perseus, the ‘great’ Chrysaôr (Gold-sword) and the steed Pegasos (Fount-horse) sprang forth. Æschylus calls the Gor-gons the ‘three sisters of the Grææ, winged, serpent-fleeced, hateful to man, whom no one can look on and retain his breath¹³⁰¹.’ They were also represented as winged on the ancient coffer of Kypselos at Olympia¹³⁰². On the shield of Heracles the Gorgons are girt with serpents¹³⁰³. Others describe them as having their heads environed with scaly snakes, and with huge teeth like those of swine, brazen hands and golden wings. Their looks, it is added, turned all who beheld them to stone¹³⁰⁴.

The Gorgons and the Grææ are always mentioned together, and they seem to have been appropriated to the mythe of Perseus. We might therefore suppose them to have been a pure poetic fiction, were it not that, as we shall show, the Gorgon in that mythe, Medusa, is merely another form of Pallas-Athene. It is therefore not improbable that the theory of some mythologists of the present day may be the true one ; namely, that the two Gorgons and two Grææ are {p. 254}only personifications of the terrors of the sea, the former denoting the large strong billows of the wide open main, the latter the white-crested waves that dash against the rocks of the coast¹³⁰⁵. They must have originally belonged to the Sea (Pontos), whose grandchildren they are, and not to the calm soft-flowing Ocean, whither they were transported when they had ceased to be regarded as personifications, and had been introduced into the mythe of Perseus. As in this mythe Medusa (Mistress) — whose name is of a nature totally different from theirs — was added to the Gorgons, the principle of uniformity probably led to a similar increase of the Grææ.

All these beings are, we think, placed by the Theogony in Oceanic isles ; they may however have dwelt on the opposite coast, though we believe few who are well versed in the cosmology of those times will assign them that gloomy region ; most certainly they are not on this side of Ocean. Hither, however, they were all removed in the course of time, and even to the Syrtes and Cyrene¹³⁰⁶. In short, with the exception of Hesiod, every writer of antiquity places them somewhere in Libya. This however is not to be wondered at, for it is only a part of the system of localisation, which assigned a definite abode in well-known countries to all the beings of fable, which brought for example the transoceanic Kimme-rians over to the fertile plains of Campania in Italy¹³⁰⁷.

Ἅρπυιαι. Harpyiœ. Harpies.

The Harpies or Snatchers¹³⁰⁸ of Homer¹³⁰⁹ and Hesiod are personifications of storm-winds (θύελλαι). The former says nothing of their form or parentage ; the latter terms them well-haired, (a usual mark of beauty,) and says that they were sisters of Iris, daughters of Thaumas and Electra, swift {p. 255}as birds or as the blasts of wind¹³¹⁰. Their names, he says, are Aello (Storm) and Ocypete (Swift-flyer). Homer says that Xanthos and Balios, the steeds of Achilleus, were the offspring of Zephyros by the Harpy Podarge (Swift-foot), whom he met grazing in a mead by the stream of Ocean¹³¹¹. Virgil names one of the Harpies Celæno¹³¹².

In the Argonautic cycle the Harpies appear as the tormentors of Phineus. They are there represented as odious offensive monsters with female faces, and the bodies, wings, and claws, of birds¹³¹³.

Ἄνεμοι. Venti. Winds.

The winds are represented in the Ilias as gods¹³¹⁴ : Iris goes to them as they are feasting in the dwelling of Zephyros, to inform them of the prayer of Achilleus that they would inflame the pyre of Patroclos. In the Odyssey¹³¹⁵, the winds are not directed by separate deities, but are all under the charge of Æolos. We may, as a matter of course, observe that the Wind-gods of Homer are not winged.

The Winds were divided into wholesome and noxious. The former, which were Boreas (North), Zephyros (West), and Notos (South), were according to Hesiod¹³¹⁶ the children of Astræos (Starry) and Eôs (Dawn). The other winds, he says¹³¹⁷, (probably meaning only those which blow from the East,) are the race of Typhoeus, whom he describes as the last and most terrible child of Earth. In Greece, as over the rest of Europe, we may observe the east-wind is pernicious.

Boreas (Βορέας) was called Clear weather- or Frost-producer (αἰθρηγενής) ¹³¹⁸. He loved Oreithyia, the daughter of Erechtheus king of Athens, and carried her off¹³¹⁹. The Athenians ascribed {p. 256}the destruction of the fleet of Xerxes by a storm to the partiality of Boreas for the country of Oreithyia, and built a temple to him after that event¹³²⁰. Boreas is also said by Homer¹³²¹ to have turned himself into a horse out of love to the mares of Erichthonios, and to have begotten on them twelve foals.

Zephyros (Ζέϕυρς) is described by Homer as a strong-blowing wind, but he was afterwards regarded as gentle and soft-breathing. Love was the offspring of Zephyros and Iris¹³²², and one of the Seasons bore to this wind-god a son named Carpos (Fruit) ¹³²³.

The South- (Νότος) and East-wind (Εὔρος) have been left without adventures. The Winds have all wings or horses and chariots in the works of the later poets and the artists.

The names Euros and Zephyros probably come from ἠὼς and ζόϕος, which denoted the East and West¹³²⁴. Boreas is thought to be Oreas (from ὄρος), as rushing from the mountains. Notos perhaps signified wet, and is akin to the German nass.

{p. 257}

Chapter XIX.

INHABITANTS OF THE ISLES AND COASTS OF THE WESTSEA. — LOTUS-EATERS, CYCLOPES, GIANTS, ÆOLOS, LÆSTRYGONIANS, CIRCE, SIRENS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS, PHAETHUSA AND LAMPETIA, CALYPSO, PHÆACIANS, SYRIA AND ORTYGIA.

The romantic geography of the most romantic poem of Greece, the Homeric Odyssey, is now to occupy our attention. Its poet is in our eyes a Grecian Ariosto, and we should as soon hope to discover the true position of the isle of Alcina as of those of Circe and Calypso. The moment he conducts his hero away from Greece, he engages him in magic regions amidst ogres, fairies, and monsters of various kinds, as numerous as ever were encountered by the knights of Gothic romance. To form these he took possession of the cosmogonie Cyclopes and Giants and transformed them ; he adopted the tales of Phœnician mariners, and he transferred the wonders of other mythic cycles to the West-sea, which he made the scene of his hero's adventures.

It is a question among critics whether the Odyssey is or is not the work of one mind, whether the domestic scenes in Ithaca, and the wondrous adventures related to Alcinoös, are parts of one continuous preconceived narrative. Into this interesting subject we are not required at present to enter, for the geography of these parts is distinct, the one lying in the domains of romance, the other confining itself to the sober realms of the actual earth. We shall first direct our attention to the latter¹³²⁵.

In the Ilias the only places noticed out of Greece to the {p. 258}west are the isles over which Odysseus ruled. The Odyssey would seem to intimate a knowledge of Italy and Sicily ; for a place named Temesa, whither the Taphians used to sail to barter iron for copper, is mentioned¹³²⁶ ; and in Italy, in ancient times a most cypriferous region, there was a place named Temesa, or rather Tempsa¹³²⁷. The people of this place are said to speak a language different from Greek¹³²⁸, and this circumstance also would accord well with Italy. But on the other hand the Greeks, when they began to plant colonies in Italy and Sicily, got the habit of localising all the names of peoples and places in the romantic fictions of their aœdi ; and further, Tempsa lies on the west side of Italy, and there was also a place named Taminos in the isle, which bestowed its appellation on the metal it yielded — Cyprus¹³²⁹, and the Taphians, we are told, used to sail even as far as Sidôn¹³³⁰. Nothing therefore can be collected with certainty from Temesa. But it may be said that the Sikelans, who dwelt in Italy and Sicily, are spoken of in the Odyssey¹³³¹ ; this people however are also said to have inhabited Epeiros¹³³², in which case nothing definite results from the mention of them. Sicania is also spoken of¹³³³, but it is in the part of the poem which ancient critics pronounced to be spurious. We think ourselves therefore justified in supposing that the Singer of the Odyssey may have chosen to regard all westwards of Greece as one wide sea, in which he was at liberty to place what isles he pleased, and people them as his fancy prompted. On this principle we now will trace the wanderings of Odysseus, the Sindbad of Greece¹³³⁴.

{p. 259}

Λωτοϕύγοι Lotophagi. Lotus-eaters.

Odysseus, when doubling the Cape of Malea in Laconia on his return from Troy¹³³⁵, encountered a violent north-east wind (βορέης), which drove him for nine days along the sea, till he reached the country of the Lotus-eaters. Here, after watering, he sent three of his men to discover who the inhabitants were. These men on coming among the Lotus-eaters were kindly entertained by them, and given some of their own food, the Lotus-plant, to eat. The effect of this plant was such, that those who tasted of it lost all thoughts of home, and wished to remain in that country. It was by main force that Odysseus dragged these men away, and he was even obliged to tie them under the benches of his ship.

As the coast of Cyrene lies opposite the Peloponnese, and is much nearer to it than Egypt is to Crete, we must suppose the country of the Lotus-eaters to have been far more to the west. They seem in the poet’s view to have been the last tribe of ordinary men in that direction, and to have dwelt on the verge of the land of fable. The Lotus, under the name of Jujuba, is, we may observe, a part of the food of the people of the north coast of Africa at the present day.

Κύκλωπϵς. Cyclopes.

When Odysseus left the country of the Lotus-eaters, he sailed on further, i. e. westwards¹³³⁶, and came to that of the Cyclopes, which could not have been very far distant, or the poet would in that case, as he always does, have specified the number of days occupied in the voyage. The Cyclopes are described as a rude lawless race, who neither planted nor sowed, but whose land was so fertile as spontaneously to produce them wheat, barley, and vines. They had no social {p. 260}institutions, neither assemblies nor laws, but dwelt separately, each in his cave, on the tops of lofty mountains, and each without regard to others governed his own wife and children.

In front of a harbour of their land lay a well-wooded fertile isle, abundantly stocked with goats. But the Cyclopes, having no ships, could not derive any advantage from it. Odysseus, leaving the rest of his fleet at the island, went with one ship to the country of the Cyclopes. Here he entered the cave of the Cyclôps Polyphemos, who was a son of Poseidôn by the nymph Thoösa, the daughter of Phorcys. The Cyclôps on his return in the evening with his flocks, finding strangers there, inquired who they were ; and on Odysseus saying that they had been shipwrecked, and appealing to his mercy and reverence for the gods, he declared that the Cyclopes regarded not the gods, for they were much more powerful than they : he then seized two of the Greeks, and dashing them to the ground like young whelps killed and devoured them. When he fell asleep Odysseus was going to kill him, till recollecting the huge rock, — one which the teams of two-and-twenty fourwheeled waggons could not move, — with which he had closed the door, he refrained. Against the next evening Odysseus had prepared a piece of the Cyclôps’ own olive-staff, which was as large as the mast of a merchant-vessel ; and when the monster had devoured two more of his victims gave him wine to drink, and then while he was sleeping profoundly, heated the stick in the fire, and aided by four of his companions bored out his eye with it. Polyphemos roaring out with pain, the other Cyclopes came to inquire what had befallen him ; but on his informing them that Nobody (Οὔτις) — the name which Odysseus had given himself — was killing him, thinking it was some disease they left him, recommending him to pray to his father. Next morning, when Polyphemos turned out his sheep and goats, his prisoners fastened themselves under their bellies, and so escaped. Odysseus, when a little way out at sea called out his real name, and the Cyclôps hurled immense rocks at him, which were near sinking his ship.

Nothing is said by the poet respecting the size of the {p. 261}Cyclopes in general, but every effort is made to give an exaggerated idea of that of Polyphemos. When Odysseus first sees him, he compares him to ‘a woody peak of lofty mountains, when it appears separate from others.’ The crash of the bundle of wood which he brings home in the evening, when it is cast on the ground, terrifies the Greeks who were hiding in his cave : the teams of twenty-two waggons could not move the rock with which he closed his door : his staff was in length and thickness equal to the mast of a large ship : the first rock which he flings at the ship of Odysseus was ‘the top of a great hill,’ and falling before the vessel it drove her back to the shore ; the second was still larger.

Yet, possibly, we are not to infer that the Cyclopes were in general of such huge dimensions or cannibal habits. Polyphemos was not of the ordinary Cyclôps-race, being the son of Poseidôn and a sea-nymph : he is also said¹³³⁷ to have been the strongest of the Cyclopes. It is not a little remarkable, that neither in the description of the Cyclopes in general, nor of Polyphemos in particular, is there any notice taken of their being one-eyed ; yet in the account of the blinding of the latter, it seems to be assumed as a thing well known. We may hence perhaps infer that Homer followed the usual derivation of the name¹³³⁸.

Both ancients and moderns agree in regarding Sicily as the country of the Cyclopes¹³³⁹ : we however cannot help thinking that it was on the coast of Libya. It lay at no great distance from that of the Lotus-eaters, which was evidently on that coast. The poet merely says, ‘We then sail on further, and come to the land of the Cyclopes ;’ and if it had been an island, he would, as usual, have noticed the circumstance : he would also have told us with what wind they sailed to it, if it had been at anything like the distance which Sicily is from Libya : and further, though the fertility of Sicily may accord with that of the Cyclopes’ land, yet it does not offer the caverns on mountain-tops in which they abode, nor can any island answering to that of the Odyssey, stretching before a harbour, {p. 262}be shown in it. If the little islet of Ortygia in front of Syracuse should be thought of, we reply, that it in no point accords with the description in the poem.

It is thus that the Thunder, Lightning, and Flame of the Theogony became one-eyed giants in the hands of our poet. When they had been localised in the neighbourhood of volcanoes it was a simple process to convert them into smiths, the assistants of Hephæstos¹³⁴⁰. As they were now artists in one line, it gave no surprise to find them engaged in a task adapted to their huge strength, namely that of rearing the massive walls of Tiryns, thence named Cyclopian, for which purpose they were brought by Prœtos from Lycia¹³⁴¹.

Polyphemos’ love for the Nereïs Galateia is well known from the bucolic poets¹³⁴². The river Acis in Sicily was originally a shepherd, whom in his jealous rage the monster crushed beneath a rock for being more acceptable to the nymph of the waters than himself¹³⁴³.

Γίγαντϵς. Gigantes. Giants.

The Giants would seem to have dwelt westwards of the Cyclopes, the original country of the Phæacians lying between their respective territories¹³⁴⁴. They are called wild tribes (ἄγρια ϕῦλα), but akin to the gods¹³⁴⁵, by whom it would appear they were destroyed for their impiety¹³⁴⁶. They were apparently of huge stature¹³⁴⁷ ; yet the daughter of Eurymedôn, their last king, was by Poseidôn mother of the king of the Phæacians, a people of the ordinary size¹³⁴⁸.

It was probably the poet’s saying that they were destroyed by the gods (though the reverse may be the truth) that gave occasion to the fiction of a Giant-war. The peninsula of Pallene is said to have been the place of conflict, and with the aid of the hero Heracles the gods subdued their formidable foes. The principal champions on the side of the Giants were Porphyriôn, Alcyoneus and Encelados, on the last of whom {p. 263}Athena flung the isle of Sicily, where his motions cause the eruptions of Ætna¹³⁴⁹.

It is said¹³⁵⁰ that Earth, enraged at the destruction of the Giants, brought forth the huge Typhôn to contend with the gods. The stature of this monster reached the sky, fire flashed from his eyes ; he hurled glowing rocks with loud cries and hissing against heaven, and flame and storm rushed from his mouth. The gods in dismay fled to Egypt, and concealed themselves under the forms of various animals. Zeus however, after a severe conflict, overcame him, and placed him beneath Ætna¹³⁵¹, or, as others said¹³⁵²,

………………….. that Serbonian bog,

Betwixt Damieta and Mount Casius old,

Where armies whole have sunk.

Typhon, or Typhaôn, is apparently the same with Typhoeus, though Hesiod makes a difference between them. Their names come from τύϕω, to smoke, and they are evident personifications of storms and of volcanic eruptions. Typhôn is made the sire of the Chimæra, Echidna, and other monsters. The Greeks gave his name to the Egyptian dæmon Baby, the opponent of Osiris.

The flight of the gods into Egypt is a bungling attempt at connecting the Greek mythology with the animal worship of that country¹³⁵³.

Αἴολος ἐν Αἰολίῃ. Æolus in Æolia.

After their escape from the Cyclôps, Odysseus and his companions sailed further on, and came to the floating-isle (πλώτη νῆσος) of Æolos Hippotades ¹³⁵⁴, ‘dear to the immortal gods.’ This island was entirely surrounded by a wall of brass and by smooth precipitous rocks : and here Æolos dwelt in continual {p. 264}joy and festivity, with his wife and his six sons and as many daughters, whom, after the fashion set by Zeus, he had married to each other. The isle had no other tenants. The office of directing and ruling the winds had been conferred on Æolos by Zeus ; and when he was dismissing Odysseus, after having hospitably entertained him for an entire month, he gave him all the winds but Zephyros tied up in a bag of ox-hide. For nine days and nights the ships ran merrily before the wind : on the tenth they were within sight of Ithaca ; when Odysseus, who had hitherto held the helm himself, fell asleep : his comrades, who fancied that Æolos had given him treasure in the bag, opened it : the winds rushed out, and hurried them back to Æolia. Judging from what had befallen them that they were hated by the gods, the director of the winds drove them with reproaches from his isle.

As Æolia was a floating isle, it is evidently as needless to look for its exact position as for that of Laputa¹³⁵⁵. At the time when Odysseus came to it, it must have been lying near the country of the Cyclopes ; but we are not told whether it remained immovable during the month that he spent in it, or the time that elapsed between his departure and return. The Latin poets, following the later Greeks, have placed Æolos in the Liparæan islands¹³⁵⁶.

Λαιστρυγόνϵς. Læstrygonians.

The country of the Læstrygonians lay very far to the west. Odysseus, when driven from his isleby Æolos, sailed on further for six days and nights, at the end of which time he reached the land of the Læstrygonians ; and the distance thence to the isle of Ææa, which we shall show to be near the extremity of the Sea, could not have been considerable, as the length of time consumed in the passage thither is not specified.

The Læstrygonians are another of those huge androphagous races, whom the invention of the poet has placed on the coast of Libya. Unlike the Cyclopes, they lived in the social state ; {p. 265}their king was named Antiphates, their town Læstrygonia or Telepylos (it is uncertain which), and the fountain near it Artakia. There was a port at a little distance from the city, which all the ships of Odysseus, but the one he was himself on board of, entered. A herald with two others were then sent to the city : they met the daughter of Antiphates at the fount Artakia, and were by her directed to her father’s house. On entering it they were terrified at the sight of his wife, who was ‘as large as the top of a mountain.’ She instantly called her husband from the market-place, who seized one of them and killed and dressed him for dinner. The other two made their escape, pursued by the Læstrygonians, who with huge rocks destroyed all the ships and their crews which were within the harbour, — that of Odysseus, which had not entered, alone escaping.

When describing the country of the Læstrygonians, the poet says¹³⁵⁷,

Lamos’ high town,

Far-gated Læstrygonia, where aloud

The herdsman as he drives in calls, and he

Who drives out hears him. There a sleepless man

Might double wages earn ; as neatherd one,

And one as keeper of the snowy sheep ;

For near the paths are of the day and night.

The ancients explained this by the custom of pasturing the oxen at night, on account of the gad-fly (οἶστρος), whose persecution was thereby avoided : but, as Völcker justly observes, there was nothing so remarkable in this practice as to induce the poet to place it among the wonders of the West. It is much more probable that the solution of the difficulty will be found in the notion, presently to be noticed, of the abode of the Sun and Dawn being in the West, which may have engendered a belief that at the western extremity of the earth the night was of extremely short continuance¹³⁵⁸.

Notwithstanding the great distance which lay between the country of the Cyclopes and that of the Læstrygonians, most of the localisers of the Homeric fables place both of them in {p. 266}Sicily¹³⁵⁹. Others regarded Formiæ on the west coast of Italy¹³⁶⁰ as the abode of the Læstrygonians ; acting in this consistently : for when the floating island of Æolos was determined to be one of the Liparæan isles, and the cape of Circæum to be that of Circe, it followed of course that the land of the Læstrygonians which lay somewhere between them must be on the coast of Italy.

Κίρκη ἐν Αἰαίῃ. Circe in Ææa.

When Odysseus and his surviving companions had escaped from the Læstrygonians, they sailed on, that is still westwards, till they came to the isle of Ææa¹³⁶¹, the abode of Circe. This isle may be regarded as the most westerly of those scattered by the poet over the Mediterranean, for it appears to have lain on the very edge of the Ocean-stream ; and all the other isles and coasts mentioned in the poem, except Ogygia the isle of Calypso, lie manifestly between it and Greece.

Circe is one of those deities whom Homer calls human-speaking (αὐδήϵσσαι), and who do not seem to have possessed the power of moving through the air or along the water, but dwelt continually in one place. She is said by him¹³⁶² to be the daughter of Helios by the Oceanis Persa, and own sister of the wise (ὀλοόϕρων)¹³⁶³ Æætes.

The island of Circe was small ; her abode was in the centre of it, deeply embosomed in wood. She dwelt alone, attended by four nymphs ; and all persons who approached her dwelling were turned by her magic art into swine. When the comrades of Odysseus, whom he sent to explore her residence, had tasted of the drugged draught which she set before them, {p. 267}she struck them with her wand, and immediately they underwent the usual change. But when Odysseus himself, hearing of their misfortune, set out to release them or share their fate, he was met by Hermes, who gave him a plant named Moly, potent against her magic, and directed him how to act. Accordingly when she reached him the medicated bowl he drank of it freely, and Circe thinking it had produced its usual effect, striking him with her wand bade him go join his comrades in their sty. But Odysseus drawing his sword threatened to slay her ; and the terrified goddess bound herself by a solemn oath to do him no injury. She afterwards at his desire restored his companions to their pristine form, and they all abode in her dwelling for an entire year.

At the end of that period they were anxious to depart, but the goddess told the hero that he must previously cross the Ocean, and enter the abode of Aïdes, to consult the blind prophet Teiresias. Accordingly they left Ææa rather late in the day, as it would appear, and impelled by a favouring north wind their ship reached by sunset the opposite coast of Ocean, the land of perpetual gloom. Odysseus obeyed the directions of the goddess in digging a small pit, into which he poured mulse, wine, water, flour, and the blood of the victims. The dead came trooping out of the house of Aïdes, and Odysseus there saw the heroines of former days, and conversed with the shades of Agamemnôn and Achilleus. Terror at length came over him ; he hastened back to his ship ; the stream carried it along, and they reached Ææa while it was yet night.

We have here a proof that the course of the Ocean was northwards ; the north-wind (βορέας) is required to carry them over (the House of Aïdes lying probably south-west of Ææa), and the current and the breeze of its surface bring them back. It would also appear that, as soon as the ship left the Ocean and entered the Sea, it was at Ææa.

Circe is said to have had by Odysseus a son named Telegonos (Far-born), who, as we shall see, unwittingly slew his own father. The Theogony¹³⁶⁴ gives them for offspring Agrios and Latinos, ‘who afar in the recess of the holy isles ruled {p. 268}over all the renowned Tyrsenians.’ Hesiod said elsewhere¹³⁶⁵ that Helios had brought Circe in his chariot to her isle off the coast of Tyrrhenia.

It is curious to observe the liberties which the later writers allowed themselves to take with the narratives of Homer and Hesiod. These poets expressly say that Æætes and Circe were brother and sister, and children of the Sun, yet Dionysius the cyclographer makes Circe the daughter of Æætes by Hecate, the daughter of his brother Perses. This pragmatiser goes on to say that she was married to the king of the Sarmatians, whom she poisoned, and seized his kingdom ; but governing tyrannically she was expelled, and then fled to a desert isle of the Ocean, or as some said to the headland named from her in Italy¹³⁶⁶ ; for in the localisation of the imaginary isles and regions visited by Odysseus, the promontory of Circæum on the coast of Latium was fixed on for the abode of Circe. The fact of its not being an island offered no difficulty, as it was asserted that it once had been surrounded with water to a great extent¹³⁶⁷.

The Latin poets thence took occasion to connect Circe with their own scanty mythology. It was fabled, for example, that she had been married to king Picus, whom by her magic art she changed into a bird¹³⁶⁸. Another legend made her the mother of Faunus by the god of the sea¹³⁶⁹.

The Moly (μῶλν), is said by these late writers to have sprung from the blood of a giant slain by Helios, in aid of his daughter in her island. Its name, we are told, comes from the fight (μῶλος) ; its flower is white, as the warrior was the Sun¹³⁷⁰.

In Ææa, the poet says¹³⁷¹, are ‘the house and dance-place of Eôs, and the rising of the Sun.’ By this he is usually understood to mean that Ææa, in opposition to the country beyond the Ocean, from which his hero had just returned, lay within the realms of day¹³⁷². This may very possibly be the truth ; {p. 269}but we cannot help fancying that our poet, in the plenitude of his authority, had seized on the Argonautic cycle, and transferred Æætes and Ææa to the West, from their proper place in the East¹³⁷³ ; and he may have retained the description of Ææa, which accords perfectly with its eastern position¹³⁷⁴, but which requires a sleight of ingenuity, like that just noticed, to make it suit the West.

On surveying the ‘beautiful wonders’ of the Odyssey, it is impossible not to be struck with the resemblance which many of them bear to those of the Thousand and One Nights. Odysseus and Circe remind us at once of king Beder and queen Labe ; and the Cyclopes and the Læstrygonians will find their parallel in the adventures of Sindbad. Are these, it may be asked, mere coincidences, or did the tales of the West find their way to the East ? On this question we have offered some remarks elsewhere, to which we must refer the curious¹³⁷⁵.

Σϵιρῆνϵς. Sirenes. Sirens.

Leaving Ææa on their homeward voyage, Odysseus and his companions came first to the island of the Sirens. These were two maidens¹³⁷⁶ who sat in a mead close to the sea, and with their melodious voices so charmed those who were sailing by, that they forgot home and everything relating to it, and abode there till their bones lay whitening on the strand. By the directions of Circe, Odysseus stopped the ears of his companions with wax, and had himself tied to the mast, and thus was the only person who heard the song of the Sirens and escaped.

Hesiod¹³⁷⁷ described the mead of the Sirens as blooming with flowers (ἀνθϵμόϵσσα), and their voice he said¹³⁷⁸ stilled the winds. Their names were said to be Aglaiopheme (Clear-voice) and Thelxiepeia (Magic-speech) ; and it was feigned that they threw themselves into the sea with vexation at the escape of Odysseus¹³⁷⁹. But the author of the Orphic Argonautics places them {p. 270}on a rock near the shore of Ætna, and makes the song of Orpheus end their enchantment, and cause them to fling themselves into the sea, where they were changed into rocks¹³⁸⁰.

It was afterwards fabled that they were the daughters of the river-god Acheloös by the Muse Terpsichore or Calliope, or by Sterope, daughter of Porthaôn¹³⁸¹. Some said that they sprang from the blood which ran from him when his horn was torn off by Heracles¹³⁸². Sophocles calls them the daughters of Phorcys¹³⁸³ ; and Euripides terms them the children of Earth¹³⁸⁴. Their number was also increased to three, and their names are given with much variety. According to some they were called Leucosia, Ligeia and Parthenope¹³⁸⁵, while others named them Thelxiope or Thelxinoe, Molpe, Aglaophonos¹³⁸⁶ ; and others, again, Peisinoe, Aglaope, Thelxiepeia¹³⁸⁷. One was said to play on the lyre, another on the pipes, and the third to sing¹³⁸⁸.

Contrary to the usual process, the mischievous part of the character of the Sirens was in process of time left out, and they were regarded as purely musical beings with entrancing voices. Hence Plato in his Republic¹³⁸⁹ places one of them on each of the eight celestial spheres, where their voices form what is called the music of the spheres ; and when (Ol. 94, l.) the Lacedæmonians had laid siege to Athens, Dionysos, it is said, appeared in a dream to their general, Lysander, ordering him to allow the funeral rites of the new Siren to be {p. 271}celebrated, which was at once understood to be Sophocles, then just dead¹³⁹⁰.

Eventually, however, the artists laid hold on the Sirens, and furnished them with the feathers, feet, wings, and tails of birds.

The ordinary derivation of the word Siren is from σϵίρα, a chain, to signify their attractive power. To us the Semitic Shîr (שּﬧ), song, seems more likely to be the true root, and we regard them as one of the wonders told of by the Phœnician mariners¹³⁹¹.

Σκύλλη καὶ Χάρυβδις. Scylla and Charybdis.

Having escaped the Sirens, and shunned the Wandering Rocks, which Circe had told him lay beyond the mead of these songsters, Odysseus came to the terrific Scylla and Charybdis, between which the goddess had informed him his course lay. She said¹³⁹² he would come to two lofty cliffs opposite each other, between which he must pass. One of these cliffs towers to such a height that its summit is for ever enveloped in clouds, and no man even if he had twenty hands and as many feet could ascend it. In the middle of this cliff, she says, is a cave facing the west, but so high that a man in a ship passing under it could not shoot up to it with a bow. In this den dwells Scylla (Bitch), whose voice sounds like that of a young whelp : she has twelve feet, and six long necks, with a terrific head and three rows of close-set teeth on each. Evermore she stretches out these necks and catches the porpoises, sea-dogs, and other large animals of the sea which swim by, and out of every ship that passes each mouth takes a man.

The opposite rock, the goddess informs him, is much lower, for a man could shoot over it. A wild fig-tree grows on it, stretching its branches down to the water : but beneath, {p. 272}‘divine Charybdis’ three times each day absorbs and regorges the dark water. It is much more dangerous, she adds, to pass Charybdis than Scylla.

As Odysseus sailed by, Scylla took six of his crew ; and when, after he had lost his ship and companions, he was carried by wind and wave, as he floated on a part of the wreck, between the monsters, the mast by which he supported himself was sucked in by Charybdis. He held by the fig-tree till it was thrown out again, and resumed his voyage.

Such is the earliest account we have of these monsters, in which indeed it may be doubted if Charybdis is to be regarded as an animate being. The whole fable is evidently founded on the wonderful tales of sailors respecting the distant regions of the Mediterranean. The ancients, who were so anxious to localise all the wonders of Homer, made the straits of Messina the abode of Scylla and Charybdis ; but as there is no whirlpool there at all resembling Charybdis, the most that can be said is, that that strait may have given occasion to the fable. Homer, however, would seem to place the cliffs of Scylla and Charybdis somewhere between the Wandering Rocks and Thrinakia (if this last be Sicily) ; for it is after passing those rocks that Odysseus comes to the latter island, on which the oxen of the Sun grazed.

In Homer the mother of Scylla is named Cratæis¹³⁹³ ; but her sire is not spoken of. Stesichorus called her mother Lamia¹³⁹⁴ ; Hesiod said she was the daughter of Phorbas and Hecate¹³⁹⁵ ; Arcesilaos said, of Phorcys and Hecate¹³⁹⁶ ; others asserted that Tritôn was her sire¹³⁹⁷.

Later poets feigned that Scylla was once a beautiful maiden, who was fond of associating with the Nereïdes. The sea-god Glaucos beheld and fell in love with her¹³⁹⁸ ; and being rejected, applied to Circe to exercise her magic arts in his favour. Circe {p. 273}wished him to transfer his affections to herself ; and filled with rage at his refusal, she infected with noxious juices the water in which Scylla was wont to bathe, and thus transformed her into a monster¹³⁹⁹. According to another account the change in Scylla’s form was effected by Amphitrite, in consequence of her intimacy with Poseidôn¹⁴⁰⁰. Charybdis was said to have been a woman who stole the oxen of Heracles, and was in consequence struck with thunder by Zeus, and turned into a whirlpool¹⁴⁰¹.

Φαέθοσα καὶ Λαμττϵτίη ἐν Θρινακίη. Phaëthusa and Lampetia in Thrinakia.

Both Teiresias and Circe¹⁴⁰² had straitly charged Odysseus to shun the isle of Thrinakia, on which the flocks and herds of the Sun-god fed, under the care of his daughters Phaëthusa and Lampetia, and to which he would come immediately after escaping Scylla and Charybdis. Odysseus was desirous of obeying the injunctions which he had received ; but as it was evening when he came to the island, his companions forced him to consent to their landing and passing the night there. They promised to depart in the morning, and took an oath to abstain from the cattle of the Sun. During the night a violent storm came on ; and for an entire month afterwards a strong south-east wind (Euros and Notos) blew, which confined them to the island. When their provisions were exhausted, they lived on such birds and fish as they could catch. At length, while Odysseus was sleeping, Eurylochos prevailed on them to slaughter some of the sacred oxen in sacrifice to the gods, and to vow by way of amends a temple to Helios¹⁴⁰³. Odysseus on awaking was filled with horror and despair at what they had done ; and the displeasure of the gods was manifested by {p. 274}prodigies ; for the hides crept along the ground, and the flesh lowed on the spits. They fed for six days on the sacred cattle ; on the seventh the storm fell, and they left the island ; but as soon as they had lost sight of land, a terrible west-wind, accompanied by thunder, lightning, and pitch darkness, came on. Zeus struck the ship with a thunderbolt : it went to pieces, and all the sacrilegious crew were drowned.

The resemblance between Thrinakia and Trinacria¹⁴⁰⁴, a name of Sicily, has induced both ancients and moderns to acquiesce in the opinion of the two islands being identical. Against this opinion we will observe, that Thrinakia was a desert isle (νῆσος ἐρήμηη)¹⁴⁰⁵, that is, an uninhabited isle ; and that during the whole month that Odysseus and his men were in it they did not meet with any one, and could procure no food but birds and fish ; that it is called the excellent isle of the god¹⁴⁰⁶, whose peculiar property it therefore must have been ; that according to the analogy of the Odyssey it must have been a small island, for such were Ææa, Ogygia, and all that we meet ; — not one of which circumstances agrees with Sicily. It seems therefore the more probable supposition, that the poet regarded Thrinakia as an islet of about the same size as those of Circe and Calypso, belonging to the Sun-god, and tenanted only by his flocks and herds, and his two daughters their keepers. He must also have conceived it to lie much more to the west than Sicily, for it could not have been more than the third day after leaving Ææa that Odysseus arrived at it.

Καλυψ ἐν Ὠγυγίῃ. Calypso in Ogygia.

Odysseus, when his ship had gone to pieces, fastened the mast and keel together, and placed himself on them. The wind changing to the south-east (νότος) carried him back to Scylla and Charybdis. As he came by the latter, she absorbed the mast and keel, but the hero caught hold of the fig-tree, and held by it till they were thrown out again. He then floated along for nine days ; and on the tenth reached Ogygia¹⁴⁰⁷, the {p. 275}isle of Calypso, by whom he was most kindly received and entertained. She detained him there for eight years, designing to make him immortal, and to keep him with her for ever : but Hermes arriving with a command from Zeus, she was obliged to consent to his departure. She gave the hero tools to build a raft or light vessel, supplied him with provisions, and reluctantly took a final leave of him.

Calypso, that is The Concealer (the poet after his usual manner giving her a significant name), is called by Homer¹⁴⁰⁸ the daughter of Atlas : Hesiod¹⁴⁰⁹ makes her an Oceanis, and Apollodorus¹⁴¹⁰ a Nereïs. Like Circe she was a human-speaking goddess, and dwelt in solitary state with her attendant nymphs ; but her abode was a cavern, while the daughter of Helios possessed a mansion of cut stone. Her isle presented such a scene of silvan beauty as charmed even Hermes, one of the dwellers of Olympos¹⁴¹¹.

The poet seems to have conceived Ogygia to lie in the northwestern part of the West-sea, far remote from all the other isles and coasts ; and he thus brought his hero into all parts of that sea, and informed his auditors of all its wonders. A south-east wind carried Odysseus thither on his mast in nine days and nights from Charybdis. When he left Ogygia, sailing on his raft, as directed by Calypso, with the constellation of the Bear on his left, that is in an easterly or southeasterly direction, he came on the eighteenth day within sight of Scheria, the country of the Phæacians.

Οἱ Φαίηκς ἐν Σχϵρίῃ. The Phæacians in Scheria.

The Phæacians dwelt originally, we are told, in Hypereia, near the Cyclopes¹⁴¹² ; but being oppressed by that savage race, they migrated to the isle of Scheria. They were led thither by their king Nausithoös, the son of Poseidôn by Peribœa the youngest daughter of Eurymedôn king of the Giants¹⁴¹³. They were, like the Cyclopes and Giants, a people akin to the gods¹⁴¹⁴, {p. 276}who appeared manifestly, and feasted among them when they offered sacrifices¹⁴¹⁵, and did not conceal themselves from solitary wayfarers when they met them¹⁴¹⁶. They had abundance of wealth, and lived in the enjoyment of it undisturbed by the alarms of war ; for as they ‘dwelt remote from gain-seeking man’¹⁴¹⁷, no enemy ever approached their shores ; and they did not even require to make use of bows and quivers¹⁴¹⁸. Their chief employment was navigation : their ships, which went with the velocity of the wing of birds or of thought¹⁴¹⁹, were, like the Argo, endued with intelligence : they knew every port, and needed no pilot when impelled by the rowers¹⁴²⁰.

As Odysseus sailed on his raft from Ogygia, the isle of Scheria appeared to him on the eighteenth day ‘like a shield in the dark sea’¹⁴²¹ ; and when the storm by which Poseidôn destroyed his raft had subsided, he was carried along, as he swam, by a strong northerly wind for two days and nights, and on the third day he got on shore in that island¹⁴²². The princess Nausicaa, when reproving the false alarm of her maids at the sight of him, says¹⁴²³, “Do you think he is an enemy ? There is not a living mortal, nor will there be, who will come bearing war to the land of the Phæacians ; for they are very dear to the Immortals. We dwell apart in the wavefull sea, the last ; nor does any other mortal mingle with us : but this is some unfortunate wanderer who has come hither.” In another place, when noticing the occasion for scandal which her appearance in company with Odysseus might give, she supposes some one to say¹⁴²⁴, “Is it some stranger who has strayed from his ship that she has taken under her care, since there are no people near us ?” All this would seem to indicate some very remote position ; and a passage in which Alcinoös says, that the Phæacians had conveyed Rhadamanthys to Eubœa¹⁴²⁵ and returned on the same day, might lead to the supposition of Scheria being to the west of Ithaca ; for the {p. 277}abode of Rhadamanthys was the Elysian Plain on the shore of Ocean¹⁴²⁶. It was on the west side of Ithaca, we may observe, that the Phæacians landed Odysseus ; and if we are right in placing the Cyclopes on the coast of Libya, Scheria most probably lay in the sea somewhere to the north of it. The truth is, the Phæacians and their island are altogether as imaginary as any of the isles and tribes which we have already noticed, — all as ideal as those visited by Sindbad or Gulliver, — a circumstance which in reality gives additional charms to this most delightful poem¹⁴²⁷.

The place determined by both ancients and moderns to be Scheria is the island of Corcyra¹⁴²⁸, the modern Corfu, which lies at a very short distance from the coast of Epeiros. It would not perhaps be allowable to urge, that the circumstances of the preceding paragraph do not by any means apply to Corcyra, for we know not what the Ionian Singer’s idea of it may have been. All we will say is, that his language respecting it accords much better with some imaginary western isle than with Corcyra ; and that if the Cyclopes were on the coast of Libya, Corcyra could not have been Scheria. The firm persuasion of the identity of these two islands seems to have been produced by two passages of the poem, the one in which Eurymedusa, the attendant of Nausicaa, is said to have been brought from Apeiros, which is taken to be Epeiros¹⁴²⁹ ; the other the fictitious narrative of Odysseus to Penelope¹⁴³⁰, in which, speaking in an assumed character, he says that Odysseus, when shipwrecked after leaving Thrinakia, had reached Scheria, and had gone thence to Thesprotia, which was consequently supposed to be near it ; and as Corcyra was the principal island in that direction, it was at once inferred to be that of the Phæacians. Völcker lays great stress on the circumstance of Penelope seeing nothing incongruous in the narrative ; but it surely does not follow that she knew {p. 278}anything of either Thrinakia or Scheria, and Odysseus may have taken the liberty of assigning a false position to this last place. We finally think, that if Thesprotia and its oracle at Dodona were so well known to the poet as they seem to have been, he never could have described the Phæacians, supposing Corcyra to be their island, as dwelling so remote.

Two islands remain to be considered, in order to finish our view of the isles and coasts of the Homeric West-sea. These are

Ὀρτγία καὶ Συρία. Ortygia and Syria.

Calypso says¹⁴³¹ to Hermes, that ‘rose-fingered’ Eôs took Oriôn, and that ‘gold-seated’ Artemis slew him with her gentle darts in Ortygia. Eumæos¹⁴³², describing his native isle Syria, says that it lies beyond (καθύπϵρθϵν) Ortygia, where are the turnings (τρπαὶ) of the sun. Syria, he proceeds, is not large, but it is fruitful, abounding in sheep, in pasturage, in vines, and in corn : it is never visited by famine or by any disease ; but when the people grow old, ‘silver-bowed Apollo comes with Artemis and kills them with his gentle darts.’ It contained two towns ; between the inhabitants of which, who were governed by one king, all things in it were divided. The Phœnicians and Taphians visited it for the sake of trade.

It is almost impossible, we should think, not to recognise in Ortygia and Syria two happy isles of the West-sea, apparently sacred to Apollo and Artemis ; and we must marvel at those ancients and moderns who place them in the Ægæan, making the one the same as Delos¹⁴³³, and the other identical with Syros, one of the Cyclades¹⁴³⁴. The Phœnicians, be it observed, who stole away Eumæos, sailed with a favourable wind {p. 279}homewards during six days : on the seventh Eumæos’ nurse died, and wind and water carried them on to Ithaca, where they sold him to Laërtes. Their course was therefore evidently from the west or north-west toward Sidôn, as Ithaca lay in their way. When however the Greeks settled in Sicily, they named the islet before the port of Syracuse Ortygia ; and the tongue of land opposite to it was probably pronounced to be Syria.

The ‘turnings of the sun’ seems merely to denote a westerly position, and to be an expression of the same nature with that of the ‘risings of the sun’ being in Ææa. Müller¹⁴³⁵ sees in it a reference to the sun-dial of Pherecydes of Syros, and regards the verse which mentions it as the interpolation of a rhapsodist.

The narrative of Eumæos may serve to throw some light on the trade of the Phœnicians in those early ages. Supposing Syria to have lain to the west of Greece, it follows that this people were known to make commercial voyages in that direction ; and we may also collect from it that it was chiefly ornamental articles (ἀθύρματα) which they offered for sale. The ship whose crew carried off Eumæos continued an entire year at Syria, to dispose of her cargo and lay in one in return, — a circumstance which may tend to illustrate the three years’ voyages of the fleets of king Solomon¹⁴³⁶. It also appears that the Greeks made voyages to both the East and the West ; for the nurse of Eumæos was daughter of Arybas a wealthy Sidonian, who had been carried away from her native country by Taphian pirates, and sold to the father of Eumæos.

We have now completed our survey of the magic isles and coasts, the mild and savage tribes, the gentle or pernicious goddesses, with which poetic imagination, working probably on the ‘shipman’s tale’ of marvellous adventure and frequent peril, had filled the little-explored waters of the Mediterranean. While presenting our own hypothesis respecting them, {p. 280}we wish not to conceal those of others, or dogmatically demand assent to what we advance. Our object has been to endeavour by these elucidations to enhance the delight which every person of taste must feel when perusing one of the most charming monuments of human genius, — the Odyssey of Homer.

Farewell ye continents, and of the deep

Ye isles, and Ocean’s waters, and the Sea’s

Great streams, ye springs and rivers, and ye hills

Wood-hung ; for I have now gone o’er the whole

Flood of the sea, and all the winding track

Of continents. But may the blissful gods

Themselves the meed due to my song bestow¹⁴³⁷

{p. 281}

MYTHOLOGY OF GREECE.

Part II. — THE HEROES.

Chapter I.

INTRODUCTION.

Origin and First State of Man. — Ages of the World. — Πavδώpa. Pandora. — Δευκαλίων καὶ Πύῤῥα. Deucalion et Pyrrha. — Early Inhabitants of Greece.

Origin and First State of Man.

The origin of mankind, like that of the earth their abode, is a subject which will be found to have engaged the thoughts of almost every race that occupies its surface. The mind feels itself invincibly impelled to this reflection, from observing the changes and revolutions which continually take place around it. Each revolving year brings to the vegetable world the seasons of decay and of reviviscence ; mankind are born, flourish, and die ; a new generation is ever filling up the vacancies caused by death ; races migrate ; where population once flourished, there is desolation ; where once the wilderness spread, is heard the busy hum of men, and commerce and agriculture display their stores. Has it always been so ? is the question man naturally asks himself. Has the world ever gone on thus decaying and renewing ? — and he carries back his thoughts through ages and generations, till for very weariness he is obliged to stop somewhere and suppose a beginning.

A remnant of original tradition, or the natural operation of the mind itself, has led almost all races to conceive the original state of man to have been one of peace and happiness. At all periods of his life man looks back to the gay and careless days of childhood with pleasure and regret. Then, while his faculties were new and unworn, each part of nature was a source of bliss ; then suns shone more brightly, plants diffused more {p. 282}fragrance, the melody of groves was poured forth more rapturously, the day closed in joy, the morning awoke to renewed delight. It was easy and it was natural to transfer these ideas to the race of man ; to suppose them also to have commenced in blissful infancy, amid the abundant wealth and careless ease of nature, and to have progressively passed through different stages, deteriorating in each successive stage as unhappily the greater part of mankind do, and from the innocence of childhood, advancing to the selfishness and hardened vice of mature and declining age. Most mythic systems therefore have their golden age¹⁴³⁸.

Ages of the World.

Homer nowhere speaks of cosmogony or of the ages of the world. Hesiod, who is the first that treats of them, gives in his didactic poem the following venerable mythe¹⁴³⁹.

The gods first made the golden race of men, who were in the time when Kronos ruled in heaven. They lived like gods, free from toils and care, and death was to them a sinking into gentle slumber ; and when earth had covered this race, they became good terrestrial dæmons, the guardians of mortal men, to mark their just and unjust deeds. They move along the earth shrouded in darkness, and are the bestowers of wealth. Such is their regal honour¹⁴⁴⁰.

The gods made a second far inferior race, called the silver race, resembling the golden neither in appearance nor in disposition. A hundred years each child spent in ignorant simplicity with its mother, and when they attained to youth they lived but a short time, for they would not abstain from mutual injury, nor pay the service due to the gods. Zeus in indignation put a period to the race.

Zeus now made a third, the brazen race of men, unlike the silver race. These were formed from ash-trees : their delight was in war and deeds of violence. They ate not corn, but they had souls of steel, and prodigious strength. Their arms were brass, their houses brass, with brass they wrought, ‘for {p. 283}black iron was not yet.’ At length, slain by each other's hands, they went down to the ‘mouldy house of cold Aïdes,’ and left no fame behind them.

A fourth and better race was next placed on the earth by Zeus, namely the divine race of heroes, in former times called Semigods. These also were carried off by war and combat. They fought at Thebes, on account of the sheep of Œdipûs, and sailed to Troy for ‘well-haired Helena.’ When they died, Zeus removed them to the ends of the earth, where they dwell, away from man, in the Islands of the Blest, and live in bliss, earth producing for them ‘honey-sweet fruit’ thrice in each revolving year.

The poet draws a dismal picture of the fifth or iron race of men ; a picture often since his time redrawn by moralists and poets in every region of the earth, for this is the race who still possess it. This race, says Hesiod, will never cease day or night from toil and misery ; the gods will give them grievous cares, yet good will still be mixed with the evil. Zeus will destroy this race also, when they become ‘hoary-templed.’ Fathers will not be at unity with their children, nor brethren with each other ; friends and guests will be discordant, children will not honour their aged parents. Club-law will prevail, faith and justice will be in no repute, the evil-doer and the violent will be most esteemed, ‘evil-loving Envy’ will accompany wretched man. Shame and Aversion (Nemesis) will wrap themselves in their ‘white mantles’ and depart to the gods, leaving misery to man ; and there will be no defence against evil.

Aratus¹⁴⁴¹ is the next in order of time who mentions the ages of the world. He speaks of but three races of men, — the golden, the silver, and the brazen. Justice (Δίκη), he says, dwelt familiarly among the first, teaching them what was right and good. When the silver race succeeded she retired to the mountains, whence she occasionally came down in the evening-time, and approaching their abodes upbraided them with their evil doings. Unable to endure the third race, who first forged arms and fed on the flesh of the labouring ox, she flew {p. 284}up to heaven and became the constellation of Astræa or the Virgin.

Ovid¹⁴⁴² makes the races of men four in number, — golden, silver, brazen, and iron. The first enjoyed a perpetual spring, the earth producing everything spontaneously for them : in the time of the second the division of the seasons took place : the third were martial, but not yet utterly wicked : the fourth gave way to every species of vice and crime, Astræa left the earth, and Zeus destroyed them by a deluge of water.

In all these accounts it is to be observed that it is races of men, not ages of the world, which are spoken of¹⁴⁴³. Hesiod makes these races separate creations : the two first, he says, were made by the gods, the three last by Zeus, who attained the supremacy of heaven in the time of the second or silver race. Earth covers each race before its successor is made. Aratus expressly says that the golden were the parents of the silver, and these of the brazen race of men. Ovid would appear to view the subject in the same light.

To dispel the gloomy prospect presented by the delineation of the vices and miseries of man in the last stage of the progression, it was asserted, that as the four seasons, commencing with a bright golden spring and ending with a gloomy iron winter, form the solar year, which is continually renewed ; so the four ages of the world compose a mundane year which will also be renewed, and the iron race be succeeded by a new one of gold, when Kronos will once more assume the government, and the former innocent and happy state return¹⁴⁴⁴.

A mythologist, of whom even when we dissent from his opinions we must always admire the sound learning, ingenious reasoning, and high moral feeling¹⁴⁴⁵, gives the following view of the mythe of the races of man.

This mythe is an oriental one, derived from the same source with the narrative in the first chapters of Genesis, and introduced into Grecian literature by Hesiod, who may {p. 285}be regarded as the Plato of his age. It contained originally, as it is given by Aratus, but the three first ages. Its object was not to give a view of the gradual deterioration of mankind, but to exhibit the relation of the deity to the wickedness of the human race, and particularly to impress the belief that when evil has attained its maximum the gods will destroy mankind. To this intent it was necessary to commence with a state of innocence ; and the original framer of the mythe probably made the silver and brazen races, instead of successively following that of gold, exist simultaneously after it, — effeminacy and violence, the two vices into which virtue is most apt to degenerate, being their respective characters, — and feigned that the former was gradually extirpated by the latter, which was then destroyed by the gods ; but this was misunderstood by Hesiod. The account of the fourth and fifth races was an application of the ancient mythe to the actual world, and from a moral it became a continuation of the narrative. As the working of iron was regarded as a later invention than that of brass or copper, and as it is a harder metal, it was naturally selected to express the last and worst race of men ; but as tradition spake distinctly of the Heroic race who fought at Thebes and Troy, it was necessary to distinguish it from the iron one : hence the cycle is, as it were, repeated ; but the latter one, being founded on reality, consists of only two parts. The heroes who correspond to the golden race are like them rewarded after death, but in an inferior degree : the iron are menaced with utter destruction like the brazen.

This critic is further of opinion that in the original narrative the three races were represented as becoming after death three different classes of spirits, the golden celestial, the silver terrestrial, and the brazen infernal ; answering to the good and evil angels of the religions of the East ; but that, as the Grecian religion acknowledged no evil spirits, the poet found it necessary to cut away this last part of the original mythe.

Völcker¹⁴⁴⁶ on the other hand considers the Heroic race to have been an essential part of the original mythe, which he regards chiefly on that account as being a post-Homeric {p. 286}position, framed with a regard to the Homeric and other contemporary poems. He also thinks that the lines in which Hesiod describes the deification of the golden race are an interpolation, inserted at the time when the intercourse prevailed with Egypt, and Grecian philosophers visited that country. As we do not esteem the notion of a community of mythology between Greece and Asia and Egypt in the ante-Homeric times to rest on any solid foundation, though we freely acknowledge the sublimity of that theory, we feel disposed to acquiesce to a certain extent in this last opinion, and to reject the ingenious theory stated above.

Ἰαπϵτòς, Ἄτλας, Μϵνoίτιoς, Πρoμηθϵὺς καὶ Ἐπιμηθϵύς ¹⁴⁴⁷ . Iapetus, Atlas, Menœtios, Prometheus et Epimetheu s.

According to the Theogony the Titan Iapetos espoused Clymene¹⁴⁴⁸, a daughter of Oceanos, by whom he was the father of four sons, Atlas, Menœtios, Prometheus and Epimetheus. We find Iapetos frequently joined with Kronos, apart as it were from the other Titans ; and it is worthy of notice, that in the Theogony (where there is more of order and method than is usually supposed) the account of Iapetos and his progeny immediately succeeds that of Kronos and the gods sprung from him. These circumstances, combined with the plain meaning of the names of his children, lead to the conclusion of Iapetos being intended to represent the origin of the human race.

The gods are the offspring of Time, and man, say the sacred Scriptures, is ‘born unto misery’. It is not unreasonable therefore to find in the name of their progenitor a reference to this condition, and to render Iapetos the Afflicted or the Oppressed.¹⁴⁴⁹. The name of his wife may refer to that faded splendour which still adheres to man, and those of his sons express the qualities of the human mind ; Atlas being the {p. 287}patient and persevering, Menœtios the hot and impetuous, Prometheus the prudent, and Epimetheus the imprudent¹⁴⁵⁰. These we shall now proceed to illustrate.

Menœtios is called by Hesiod¹⁴⁵¹ the insolent and the haughty ; and Zeus, it is added, struck him with his thunder and precipitated him into Erebos on account of his ‘insolence and excessive manhood ;’ perhaps intimating that pride and haughtiness and extreme reliance on his powers hurry man to death. It is said by later writers that for his share in the Titan-war Menœtios was hurled into Tartaros, but this arose from the misunderstanding of that mythe¹⁴⁵².

Atlas (The Endurer) occupies a much larger space in mythology than Menœtios. Homer¹⁴⁵³ calls him the wise or deepthinking (ὀλoόϕρων), ‘who knows all the depths of the sea, and keeps the long pillars which hold heaven and earth asunder.’ In the Theogony¹⁴⁵⁴ he is said to support the heaven on his head and hands in the extreme West, a task assigned him by Zeus, in punishment, the later writers say, for his share in the Titan-war¹⁴⁵⁵.

Atlas was the father of the fair nymph Calypso, who so long detained Odysseus in her umbrageous isle in the distant West¹⁴⁵⁶. Pleione, an Ocean-nymph, bore him seven daughters, named Pleiades after their mother¹⁴⁵⁷. He was also said to be the father of the nymphs named Hyades¹⁴⁵⁸. When, therefore, we consider the signification of his name in connexion with the position assigned him by Homer and Hesiod, and the species of knowledge ascribed to him, and his being the father of two of the celestial constellations, it will be perhaps {p. 288}difficult to avoid assenting to the opinion of one of our ablest mythologists, that in Atlas we may view a personification of “navigation, the conquest of the sea by human skill, trade, and mercantile profit¹⁴⁵⁹.”

It is perhaps hardly necessary now to remind the reader that the Atlas of Homer and Hesiod is not the personification of a mountain. In the days however when the true sense of the venerable mythes of the old time was lost, Atlas, the keeper of the pillars that support the heaven, or the dæmon who discharged that office himself, became a mountain of Libya. It is however remarkable that in all the legends of this kind it is the god or man Atlas who is turned into or gives name to the mountain. Thus according to one¹⁴⁶⁰ Atlas was a king of the remote West, rich in flocks and herds, and master of the trees which bore the golden apples. An ancient prophecy delivered by Themis had announced to him that his precious trees would be plundered by a son of Zeus. When therefore Perseus, on his return from slaying the Gorgon, arrived in the realms of Atlas, and seeking hospitality announced himself to be a son of the king of the gods, the western monarch, calling to mind the prophecy, attempted to repel him from his doors. Perseus, inferior in strength, displayed the head of Medusa, and the inhospitable prince was turned into the mountain which still bears his name.

Another said that he was a man of Libya devoted to astronomy, and that having ascended a lofty mountain to make his observations he fell from it into the sea, and both sea and mountain were named from him¹⁴⁶¹. His supporting the heaven was usually explained by making him an astronomer and the inventor of the sphere¹⁴⁶².

In Prometheus and Epimetheus are personified the intellectual vigour and weakness of man. In this mythe however there is great confusion, for its original sense seems to have been lost very early, and Prometheus to have been viewed as a Titan and the creator or instructor of man.

{p. 289}

In Homer there is no allusion whatever to Prometheus. Hesiod says¹⁴⁶³, that when the gods and men had a controversy at Mecone, Prometheus took an ox, and dividing it put the flesh and entrails in the hide, and wrapping the bones up in the inside fat, desired Zeus to take which he would. The god, though aware of the deceit, selected the bones and fat, and in revenge he withheld fire from man ; but Prometheus again deceived him, and stealing the fire in a hollow staff¹⁴⁶⁴, brought it and gave it to man. Zeus then sent Pandora on earth to deceive man to his ruin, and he bound Prometheus with chains to a pillar, and sent an eagle to prey without ceasing on his liver, which grew every night as much as it had lost in the day. After a long interval of time, however, he consented to Heracles’ slaying the eagle and freeing the sufferer.

In this narrative there is a combination of a local mythe of Sicyôn (anciently called Mecone), with a doctrine of a much higher nature. The former legend was manifestly devised to account for the custom at Sicyôn, as at Sparta, of offering to the gods in sacrifice the bones of the victim wrapt in the caul, instead of some of the choicest parts of the flesh as elsewhere¹⁴⁶⁵ ; the latter mythe may be perhaps thus explained.

The first men lived in a state of bliss on the abundant productions of the earth. The spring was perpetual¹⁴⁶⁶ and cold was unfelt, and they therefore needed not fire, which Zeus in kindness withheld from them. But the inquisitive, inventive genius of man (i. e. Prometheus) introduced fire, and the arts which result from it, and man henceforth became a prey to care and anxiety, the love of gain, and other evil passions which torment him¹⁴⁶⁷, and which are personified in the eagle {p. 290}that fed on the inconsumable liver of Prometheus¹⁴⁶⁸. In a word we have here a Grecian mythe of the Fall of man, which we shall presently find carried out in that of Pandora¹⁴⁶⁹.

The simple narrative of Hesiod was as usual expanded by later writers, and Mount Caucasus was fixed on as the place of Prometheus’ punishment. The pragmatisers also explained the mythe after their own fashion. Prometheus was, they say, a king of the Scythians, and his country was wasted by a river named Eagle (Aϵτòς), whose inundations when he was unable to prevent, his subjects laid him in chains. But Heracles coming thither opened a passage for the Eagle into the sea, and thus freed the captive monarch¹⁴⁷⁰.

The name of Prometheus led to his being viewed as the bestower of all knowledge on mankind¹⁴⁷¹. A philosophical mythe in Plato¹⁴⁷² says that the gods formed man and the other animals of clay and fire within the earth, and then committed to Prometheus and his brother the task of distributing powers and qualities to them. Epimetheus prayed to be allowed to make the distribution. Prometheus assented ; but when he came to survey the work, he found that the silly Epimetheus had abundantly furnished the inferior animals, while man was left naked and helpless. As the day for their emerging from the earth was at hand, Prometheus was at a loss what to do ; at length as the only remedy he stole fire, and with it the artist-skill of Athena and Hephæstos, and gave it to man. He was also regarded as the creator of the human race. Another {p. 291}legend said that all mankind having perished in Deucaliôn’s flood, Zeus directed Prometheus and Athena to make images of clay, on which he caused the winds to blow, and thus gave them life¹⁴⁷³. A third said that Prometheus had formed a man of clay, and Athena beholding it offered him her aid in procuring anything in heaven that might contribute to its perfection. Prometheus said that he could not tell what there might be in heaven to his purpose, unless he could go thither and judge for himself. The goddess then bore him to heaven in her sevenfold shield, and there seeing everything animated by the celestial heat, he secretly applied his ferula to the wheel of the Sun’s chariot and thus stole some of the fire, which he then applied to the breast of his man and thus animated him. Zeus, to punish Prometheus, bound him and appointed a vulture to prey on his liver, and the incensed gods sent fevers and other diseases among men¹⁴⁷⁴.

As Care, says the fable, was crossing a river she observed the marly clay, and began to make a man out of it. Jupiter happening to come by, she asked him to animate it ; he did so, but when Care went to give it her own name, he insisted on its being named from himself. While they were disputing, Earth arose and asserted her right to it, as she had furnished the body. They took Saturn for arbitrator, and he decided that, as Jupiter had given it life, he should have the body, but that as Care had formed it she should possess it while it lived, and that it should be called Man (Homo), because it was made of earth (humus)¹⁴⁷⁵.

On the story of Prometheus has been founded the following very pretty fable, which adds another instance to the many legends we have already given, invented to account for properties and relations of animals.

{p. 292}

When Prometheus had stolen fire from heaven for the good of mankind, they were so ungrateful as to betray him to Zeus. For their treachery they got in reward a remedy against the evils of old-age ; but not duly considering the value of the gift, instead of carrying it themselves, they put it on the back of an ass, and let him trot on before them. It was summer time, and the ass quite overcome by thirst went up to a fountain to drink ; but a snake forbade all approach. The ass, ready to faint, most earnestly implored relief : the cunning snake, who knew the value of the burden which the ass bore, demanded it as the price of access to the fount. The ass was forced to comply, and the snake obtained possession of the gift of Zeus, but with it as a punishment for his art he got the thirst of the ass. Hence it is that the snake by casting his skin annually renews his youth, while man is borne down by the weight of the evils of old-age. The malignant snakes moreover, when they have an opportunity, communicate their thirst to mankind by biting them¹⁴⁷⁶.

The wife of Prometheus was Pandora¹⁴⁷⁷, or Clymene¹⁴⁷⁸, or Hesione¹⁴⁷⁹, or Asia¹⁴⁸⁰. His only child was Deucaliôn.

Πavδώpa. Pandora.

The celebrated mythe of the introduction of evil into the world by means of a woman is related at large by Hesiod in his didactic poem, and is touched on in the Theogony¹⁴⁸¹. The following is the ingenious, and in general correct, view of it given by an able mythologist¹⁴⁸².

According to some very ancient mythe the first of mankind were two brothers, Prometheus and Epimetheus, that is, Forethought and After-thought. These first men lived in intimate relation with the gods, who, as we may have already seen, were by no means beings of pure benevolence ; on the contrary, they and mankind were to one another somewhat like patrons and {p. 293}clients, lords and vassals. The latter recognised the power of the former, who on their part could not well dispense with the gifts and respect of men ; and men, like the tenants of griping landlords, were obliged to be very circumspect, that is, to use a good deal of forethought in their actions, to get every advantage they could in their dealings with the gods. This is intimated in the transaction respecting the fire of which Zeus is said to have deprived men, and which Prometheus stole and brought back to earth.

Zeus then, the mythe goes on to relate, was incensed at this daring deed, and resolved to punish the men for it. He therefore directed Hephæstos to knead earth and water, to give it human voice and strength, and to make the fair form of a virgin like the immortal goddesses : he desired Athena to endow her with artist-knowledge, Aphrodite to give her beauty and desire, and Hermes to inspire her with an impudent and artful disposition. When formed she was attired by the Seasons and Graces ; each of the deities gave the commanded gifts, and she was named Pandora (All-gifted). Thus furnished she was brought by Hermes to the dwelling of Epime-theus ; who, though his brother had warned him to be upon his guard and to receive no gifts from Zeus, dazzled with her charms took her to his house and made her his wife. The evil effects of this imprudent act were speedily felt. In the house of these first men stood a closed jar, which they had been forbidden to open. Forethought, as may be supposed, had rigidly obeyed this direction, and had hitherto kept his brother also from transgressing it. But the case was now altered : a woman, whose chief attribute is curiosity, was come into the house : dying to know what the jar contained she raised the lid, and all the evils hitherto unknown to man poured out and spread over the earth. In terror at the sight of these monsters, she clapped down the lid just in time to prevent the escape of Hope, who thus remained with man, his chief support and comfort.

This fable of Pandora is certainly not capable of being reconciled with other Hellenic mythes of the origin of mankind, such as the one which we have given above ; but incongruities little discomposed those ancient bards, and if a mythe contained a moral that pleased them, they were indifferent {p. 294}about its harmonising with others. Contradictions however becoming apparent, Prometheus and his brother ceased to be looked on as the first men, but Pandora still kept her place as the first woman. Prometheus and Epimetheus were soon regarded as the symbols of Prudence and Folly, and were held to be gods. From the remote period in which the legends placed them they could only be regarded as Titans, and accordingly by Hesiod and Æschylus they are placed among that ante-Kronid race. Prometheus was also speedily raised to the rank of creator of mankind, to whom he gave the fire which he had stolen from heaven. Yet even so late as the times of Augustus some vestige of the old sense of the mythe seems to have remained ; for Horace classes Prometheus with Dædalos and Heracles, and speaks of him as a man¹⁴⁸³. It is remarkable however that Æschylus represents him only as the benefactor and instructor of mankind.

The next step in the corruption of the mythe, says the critic, was to change the jar (πίθoς)¹⁴⁸⁴ in which the evils were inclosed, and which lay in the house of the men, into a box brought with her from heaven by Pandora. It is rather strange how this notion could have prevailed, when the species of vessel was so expressly stated by Hesiod, who also mentions its great lid (μέγa πῶμa), a phrase that does not at all accord with such a box as Pandora could have carried with her. Further it is said that ‘Hope alone remained in the infrangible house within the jar¹⁴⁸⁵ ;’ where, though interpreters in general {p. 295}have understood the word house to signify the jar, an unprejudiced reader will rather conceive the passage to denote that a house was the scene of the event, and that Hope alone stayed in the dwelling of man.

When higher notions of the Deity prevailed, this mythe underwent a further change, and it was fabled that Zeus had inclosed all blessings in a jar, which he set in the abode of man. But, tormented with curiosity, man raised the lid, and all the blessings flew away to heaven, where they abide shunning the earth. Hope alone remained, as he let down the lid before she had escaped¹⁴⁸⁶.

Such is what may be regarded as the best explanation that has been given of this ancient mythe. We will now make a few observations on the subject.

In the first place, as Buttmann and many others have observed, the resemblance between this mythe and the Scripture narrative of Eve and the forbidden fruit is so very striking, that one might be induced to regard it as a rivulet derived from the original fount of tradition. It is however more probably an ebullition of that spleen against the female sex occasionally exhibited by the old Grecian bards, and of which Simonides has left a notable instance¹⁴⁸⁷. The points of resemblance between the Grecian mythe and the Hebrew narrative are these¹⁴⁸⁸. Pandora and Eve ; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the jar of evils ; and the introduction of evil into the world by the first woman. But Eve was tempted, Pandora was not ; the former was actuated by a noble instinct, {p. 296}the love of knowledge ; the latter merely by vulgar female curiosity.

It seems very strange that the ancients should have taken so little notice of this mythe. There is no allusion to it in Pindar or the tragedians, excepting Sophocles, one of whose lost satyric dramas was named Pandora or the Hammerers. It was equally neglected by the Alexandrians ; Apollodorus merely calls Pandora the first woman. In fact, with the exception of a dubious passage in Theognis¹⁴⁸⁹, where Hope is said to be the only good deity that remained among men, — Temperance, Faith, and the others having left the earth and gone to Olympos, — which may be founded on this mythe, we find no allusion to it in Grecian literature, except in the fable of Babrius, who is said to have been anterior to Phædrus, in Nonnus¹⁴⁹⁰, who left nothing untouched, and in the epigrammatist Macedonius¹⁴⁹¹. It seems to have had as little charms for the Latin poets ; even Ovid (strange as it may appear) passing it over in perfect silence. Hyginus¹⁴⁹² merely says that, when Prometheus formed men of clay, Zeus directed Hephæstos to make a woman of clay also, whom Athena animated and the other gods adorned with gifts ; and that she was given in marriage to Epimetheus, and became the mother of Pyrrha, the first mortal woman.

It is also deserving of notice, that Hesiod and all the others agree in naming the vessel which Pandora opened a jar (πίθος), and never hint at her having brought it with her to the house of Epimetheus. Yet the idea has been universal among the moderns that she brought all the evils with her from heaven shut up in a box (πυξίς). We can only account for this by supposing that at the restoration of learning the narrative in Hesiod was misunderstood ; and of this we have a convincing proof in Natalis Comes, one of the earliest of the modern mythologists. He says that Zeus sent Pandora to Prometheus with all the evils inclosed in a vessel (vasculo), and that when Prometheus refused to receive her she went to Epimetheus, who took the lid off the vessel and let out all the evils, but {p. 297}that he shut up Hope, and kept the vessel with her in it¹⁴⁹³. This then became the current idea, and we see how even so eminent a scholar as Buttmann was deceived by it, and led to suppose such to have been the prevalent opinion among the ancients.

Δευκαλίων καὶ Πύῤῥα. Deucalion et Pyrrha.

We have seen that the ancient mythology of Greece contained accounts of the two great events of the Creation and Fall of man. In like manner the important event of the Deluge has a place among the ancient Hellenic mythes ; but unfortunately it has come down to us only in a late form, and apparently mixed up with circumstances borrowed from the narrative in the Mosaic history. It is to the following effect.

Deucaliôn, the son of Prometheus, was married to Pyrrha the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora, and he reigned over the country about Phthia. When Zeus designed to destroy the brazen race of men, Deucaliôn by the advice of his father made himself an ark (λὰρνακα), and putting provisions into it entered it with his wife Pyrrha. Zeus then poured rain from heaven and inundated the greater part of Greece, so that all the people, except a few who escaped to the neighbouring lofty mountains, perished in the waves. At that time the mountains of Thessaly were burst, and all Greece without the Isthmus and the Peloponnese was overflowed. Deucaliôn was carried along this sea in his ark for nine days and nights until he reached Mount Parnassos. By this time the rain had ceased, and he got out and sacrificed to Zeus Flight-giving (Φύξιoς), who sent Hermes desiring him to ask what he would. His request was to have the earth replenished with men. By the direction of Zeus he and his wife flung stones behind them ; and those which Deucaliôn cast became men, those thrown by Pyrrha women ; and from this circumstance came the Greek name for people¹⁴⁹⁴.

This narrative, it may easily be seen, is of a very narrow {p. 298}and even unpoetic character ; it restricts the general deluge to Greece Proper, indeed perhaps originally to Thessaly¹⁴⁹⁵ ; and it most incongruously represents others having escaped as well as Deucaliôn, yet at the same time intimates that he and his wife alone had been preserved in the catastrophe. What is said of the Brazen Age is quite at variance with the narrative in Hesiod, and is a very clumsy attempt at connecting two perfectly independent and irreconcilable mythes. The circumstance of the ark would seem to have been learned at Alexandria¹⁴⁹⁶, for we elsewhere find the dove noticed. “The mythologists,” says Plutarch¹⁴⁹⁷, “say that a pigeon let fly out of the ark was to Deucaliôn a sign of bad weather if it came in again, of good weather if it flew away.” The sacrifice and the appearance of Hermes also strongly remind us of Noah.

The Latin writers¹⁴⁹⁸ take a much nobler view of the Deluge. According to them, it overspread the whole earth, and all animal life perished except Deucaliôn and Pyrrha, whom Ovid, who gives a very poetical account of this great catastrophe, conveys in a small boat to the summit of Parnassos ; while others make Ætna¹⁴⁹⁹ or Athôs¹⁵⁰⁰ the mountain which yielded them a refuge. According to this poet, they consulted the ancient oracle of Themis respecting the restoration of mankind, and received the following response :

From the fane depart,

And veil your heads and loose your girded clothes,

And cast behind you your great parent’s bones.

They were at first horror-struck at such an act of impiety being enjoined them, but at length Deucaliôn penetrated the sense of the oracle¹⁵⁰¹.

{p. 299}

Deucaliôn and Pyrrha are evidently pure beings of fiction, personifications of water and fire¹⁵⁰², meant, as some think¹⁵⁰³, to indicate, that when the passage through which the Peneios carries off the waters that run into the vale of Thessaly, which is on all sides shut in by lofty mountains, had been closed by some accident, they overflowed the whole of its surface, till the action of subterranean fire opened a way for them. We are not by any means to assert that this inundation was a real event, of which the memory had been retained by tradition from times long anterior to Homer and Hesiod, who make no mention of it ; neither should we perhaps be too forward to maintain that a tradition of the great deluge was preserved by the early inhabitants of Greece. Where there are not letters to fix it, tradition is, as abundant instances prove, remarkably fleeting and unstable ; and we should perhaps come nearest to the truth if we were to say, that those tribes who appear to have retained a recollection of that great event, have inferred it from the evident tokens of inundation which are to be seen on various parts of the earth's surface ; a circumstance which, so far from invalidating, tends rather to confirm the truth of the Mosaic account of the Deluge.

Another Grecian tradition¹⁵⁰⁴ made Ogyges (also a personification of water¹⁵⁰⁵ ) to be the person who was saved at the time of the deluge which overflowed Greece, but the accounts remaining of him are very scanty. The historians made him a king of Attica or Bœotia.

Deucaliôn was regarded as the great patriarch of Greece, or the progenitor of those races which derived their origin from Thessaly, and were believed to have advanced southwards, conquering and displacing the tribes which previously occupied the more southern parts. This flood, we may observe, did not extend to the Peloponnese, and the traditions {p. 300}of that country spoke of different progenitors of the human race¹⁵⁰⁶.

Early Inhabitants of Greece.

The Homeric poems exhibit to us the people of Greece at the time of the Trojan war as a race very far removed from the savage state, as being well acquainted with agriculture, commerce and navigation, though probably ignorant of money and letters, and exhibiting in all their institutions a considerable degree of civilisation. They had not yet any common name, and seem to have had but little previous intercourse with foreign nations. Nothing can be collected from these poems respecting the origin of the people.

As some nations of Asia were under the system of castes and the direction of the sacerdotal caste, and as some of the early tribes of Europe seem to have been similarly situated, some modern writers assume such to have been the early state of Greece, and even fancy that they discern in certain places of the Ilias (such for example as the quarrel between Agamemnôn and Calchas,) traces of the conflict between the temporal and the sacerdotal power¹⁵⁰⁷. The gigantic buildings which still exist in the Peloponnese and elsewhere, and which are alluded to in the Homeric poems, also seem to them to indicate a state of society resembling that of Egypt or India, where huge pyramids and temples were raised by serfs, beneath the direction of a caste of priests, whom they were bound to obey. But unfortunately for this hypothesis, the various huge monuments of this kind which Egypt, India, and ‘the Celtic’ present, are works of show rather than of real utility, being almost all altars, temples, tombs, or obelisks ; while those of Greece are massive walls and strong treasuries, manifestly designed to preserve the wealth of an industrious and civilised people from the rapacity of invaders by sea or by land. The {p. 301}evidence in effect of sacerdotal dominion having ever prevailed in Greece is so slight that it hardly needs an examination¹⁵⁰⁸.

Language, manners, religion, and monuments indicate that Greece and Italy, and a part of Lesser Asia were at an early period the abode of one race of men, who were devoted to the arts of peace and eminently skilled in agriculture. This people are generally called the Pelasgians or Pelargians, a name which was probably given to a portion of them by more warlike tribes, from their favourite occupation of cultivating the land, but which we have no reason to suppose was ever common to the whole race¹⁵⁰⁹ : they are mentioned by Homer¹⁵¹⁰. Cauconians¹⁵¹¹, Lelegians¹⁵¹², and other tribes are spoken of as dwelling in Greece in the ante-Hellenic period.

Whether the Achæans¹⁵¹³, the race whose exploits the Homeric poems record, were this Pelasgian race¹⁵¹⁴, or one which had conquered them, is what we have no means of determining. The poems give not a hint on the subject, and conjecture will yield but little that is satisfactory. No traces occur in them of previous invasions and conquests, and it is not at all improbable that the martial character of the race who fought at Thebes and Troy may have been developed by peculiar circumstances from the peaceful one which is usually supposed to have distinguished the Pelasgians¹⁵¹⁵.

Previous to the Dorian migration, which is an undoubted historic event, there is supposed to have been some commotion in Thessaly, produced probably by the irruption of a {p. 302}Thesprotian tribe into that country¹⁵¹⁶, which caused a portion of the former inhabitants to emigrate into Bœotia and expel some of those whom they found there¹⁵¹⁷. But it was the Dorian migration which produced the greatest changes in Greece, and sent so many colonies to the East and the West. It was probably at this time that the word Hellenes came into use ; for the Greeks, finding themselves to differ in language and manners from the tribes with which they now came in contact, adopted a common name by which to distinguish themselves¹⁵¹⁸.

It would therefore seem to be the most probable hypothesis on this subject, to suppose the Greeks to have been always one people, under different denominations, with that diversity of character and manners among the various portions of them which will be produced by local situation and other accidental circumstances¹⁵¹⁹, and which should cause no greater surprise than the diversity of dialects of the one language which prevailed in ancient Greece as in modern Italy.

Religion will always vary with modes of life, and there is therefore no improbability in the supposition of that of the Pelasgians, that is of the people of Greece before the Achæan period, having been chiefly of a rural character¹⁵²⁰, such as it continued to be in Arcadia to a late period ; and that, as we have seen in the case of Hermes, when the Achæan and Hellenic characters prevailed, the deities like the people put off the rustic character, their attributes changed, and offices dissimilar to their original ones were assigned them. The original meaning also of many mythes may have gone out of use ; what had been symbolical and allegorical may have been understood literally and regarded as a real event ; purely imaginary beings have been esteemed actual personages, and the {p. 303}legends relating to them have been treated as genuine history ; and hence have arisen many of the mythic persons, whose names indicate them to have been personifications of natural objects, or epithets of the divinity in whose mythology they became actors. There is, further, much probability in the hypothesis that what afterwards became mysteries were ancient Pelasgian forms of worship, preserved in particular places, and jealously confined to a particular people, but which were gradually communicated to others¹⁵²¹. In short, it would appear, that the religion, manners, genius, and national character of the Greeks of the historie times had their roots in those of the ante-historic and even ante-mythic inhabitants of the country, whom we denominate Pelasgians. We have already pointed out the incredibility of the hypothesis of the coming of foreign colonists to Greece. The various supposed instances will be examined as they occur.

In Grecian history we are to distinguish three periods, the Pelasgian, the Achæan, and the Hellenic. The first is ante-historic and even ante-mythic, and its existence is only to be inferred from a few feeble traces : the second is the mythic, which is rich in events, though the far greater part, if not the entire, are but the creations of fancy : the third, commencing with the Dorian migration, and being for some space of time mytho-historic or history mingled with fable¹⁵²², assumes toward the time of Solôn the lineaments of truth, and becomes real history. It is this last period alone which presents materials for the historian.

The mythic history of Greece, to which the present portion of our work is devoted, will present numerous instances of the practice of embodying tribes, institutions, religious ceremonies, etc. in the person of some fabled individual, — the personification of their name ; a practice by no means confined to Grecian mythology, as it will be found to pervade that of almost every other people. The names of rivers, mountains, and other natural objects, made persons, also largely contribute to swell the amount of our mythic array ; {p. 304}to these when we add those noticed in a preceding paragraph, but few will remain to which we can venture to assign an actual and real existence¹⁵²³.

These mythic personages are usually denominated Heroes (ἥρωϵς), — a word in Homer only indicative of civil rank and preeminence¹⁵²⁴. It afterwards became significative of beings of a class superior to common men¹⁵²⁵ ; and many of those to whom Homer and Hesiod apply the term hero, in its primary sense, were in after-times honoured as deities, with temples, sacrifices, and prayers, — becoming in fact the Saints of heathen Greece¹⁵²⁶. In general, however, they only resumed their pristine rank ; for the hero of one period was not unfrequently the god of a preceding one, and he thus became a god once more in the eyes of posterity.

The whole mythic history of Greece is genealogical ; all the personifications which we have just noticed are woven through one another in a most marvellous manner, and the gods also bear a conspicuous part in the history as progenitors of various Heroic families. Any attempt therefore at introducing the accuracy of chronology into such a chaos is absurd in the extreme¹⁵²⁷ ; and it is only with the glimmer of the dawn of real Grecian history, — of which the first or mytho-historic portion commences with the Dorian migration, — that the regular succession of events can be traced with any appearance of probability. The mythic portion of a nation’s annals must be always regarded as a world in itself¹⁵²⁸, the creation of fancy, where the real assumes the garb of the imaginary, and becomes indistinguishable from it ; where no event can be pronounced absolutely true ; where fancy and ingenuity are ever at liberty to sport and lead the inquirer an eager and a {p. 305}delightful chase after the forms which float before him in the distance, but fade into mist when he attempts to grasp them. It is a region of sunshine and fragrance, in which the song of the bard evermore resounds, pleasant to view and curious to explore ; where the search after truth is rewarded by insight into the powers and operations of the human mind, and the fancy is continually nourished and inspired by gay and magnificent imagery.

Though chronology, properly so called, cannot be introduced into mythic history, it has however a chronology of its own, and may be divided into distinct periods. In the mythic history of Greece, for instance, we find an indefinite period, in which are to be placed Cadmos, Cecrops, Perseus, and other heroes ; then follow the times of Heracles and Theseus and the Argonautic Expedition ; this period is succeeded by that of the Theban Wars, after which come the War of Troy and the Returns of the Heroes, with which the mythic portion of Grecian history terminates.

Two courses present themselves to the narrator of this mythic history. He may either take the genealogical one, and relate the history of each mythic family consecutively ; or he may pursue the subject geographically, and distribute the mythes according to the regions which are assigned as the scenes of them. Without venturing to assert that it is the best, we have given the preference to the latter mode, and shall commence at Thessaly, the most northerly portion of Greece.

It must be previously stated, that the genealogists make Deucaliôn the father of Hellên, who was the father of Doros, Æolos, and Xuthos, which last had two sons, Achæos and Iôn. Of these personified races Æolos alone occupies any space in mythology. His sons were Cretheus, Athamas, Sisyphos, Salmoneus and Perieres¹⁵²⁹ ; some of whom belong to the mythology of Thessaly, others to that of the Peloponnese, and thus seem to indicate a close connexion in the mythic period between these extremes of Hellas.

{p. 306}

Chapter II.

MYTHES OF THESSALY.

Ἂδμητος καὶ Ἂλκηστις. Admetus et Alcestis. — Ἰάσων καὶ Μὴδϵια. Iason et Medea. — Πηλϵὺς καὶ Ἀχιλλϵύς . Peleus et Achilles. — Ἰξίων. Ixion. — Κένταυροι καὶ Ααπίθαι. Centauri et Lapithæ. — Κήϋξ καὶ.Ἀλκυόνη Ceÿx et Halcyone.

The legends of which Thessaly is the scene are few in number, and are nearly all confined to the district about Pelion and the bay of Pagasæ ; their subjects are chiefly the Æolids, or heroes of the race of Æolos, and the ancient Minyans.

Ἂδμητος καὶ Ἂλκηστις. Admetus et Alcestis.

Cretheus the son of Æolos married Tyro the daughter of his brother Salmoneus. By her he had three sons, namely Æsôn, Amythaôn and Pheres¹⁵³⁰. This last built the city of Pheræ, which was named from him : his son Admetos married Alcestis the daughter of Pelias, a son of Tyro by Poseidôn¹⁵³¹.

When Apollo was banished from Olympos, the legend says he became the servant of Admetos¹⁵³², and it was during the period of his service that Admetos souo his chariot, and this Admetos effected by the aid of his divine herdsman. Apollo also obtained from the Fates that, when the day appointed for the life of Admetos to terminate should come, he might defer it if any one would die in his place. When the fatal day arrived Admetos implored his aged father and mother to lay down their small remnant of life for his sake, but they were deaf to his prayers. With a generous self-devotion Alcestis then proffered herself as the substitute. She therefore died, and was laid in the tomb ; but Heracles happening to come just at this time to the house of Admetos, and hearing what had occurred, went and sat at the tomb, and when Death (or according to others Hades himself) came, he seized him, and forced him to resign his victim, whom he then restored to her {p. 307}husband. It was also said that Heracles fetched Alcestis back out of Erebos¹⁵³³.

If, as has been hinted above, Admetos was Hades, Alcestis the Strong-one (ἀλκὴ) was Persephone. Her name would then answer to Strong (ἴφθιμος), one of his epithets, and to Awful (ἐπαινὴ), one of those of his queen.

Ἰάσων καὶ Μὴδϵια. Iason et Medea.

Cretheus was succeeded in the dominion over Iolcos, which he had founded, by his son Æsôn. This prince married Alcimede daughter of Phylacos, or, as others said, Polymede daughter of Autolycos, by whom he had a son named Iasôn¹⁵³⁴. By force or fraud he was deprived of his kingdom by his half-brother Pelias¹⁵³⁵, who sought the life of the infant Iasôn ; and to save him his parents gave out that he was dead, and meantime conveyed him by night to the cave of the Centaur Cheirôn, to whose care they committed him¹⁵³⁶.

An oracle had told Pelias to beware of the ‘one-sandaled man,’ but during many years none such appeared to disturb his repose. At length, when Iasôn had attained the age of twenty, he proceeded unknown to Cheirôn to Iolcos, to claim the rights of his family. He bore, says the Theban poet, two spears ; he wore the close-fitting Magnesian dress, and a pard-skin to throw off the rain, and his long unshorn locks waved on his back. He entered the market-place, and the people, who knew him not, marvelled if he were Apollo or the ‘brazen-carred spouse of Aphrodite’ (Ares). Just then Pelias came by in his mule-car ; and the moment he looked on him, and perceived that he had but one sandal, he shuddered. He asked him who he was, and Iasôn mildly answered his question, telling him that he was come to demand the kingdom of his fathers which Zeus had given to Æolos. He then went into the house of his father, by whom he was joyfully {p. 308}recognised. On the intelligence of the arrival of Iasôn, his uncles Pheres and Amythaôn, with their sons Admetos and Melampûs, hastened to Iolcos. Five days they feasted and enjoyed themselves : on the sixth Iasôn disclosed to them his wishes, and went accompanied by them to the dwelling of Pelias, who at once proposed to resign the kingdom, retaining the herds and pastures, at the same time stimulating Iasôn to the expedition of the Golden Fleece¹⁵³⁷.

Another account is that Pelias, being about to offer a sacrifice on the shore of the sea to his sire Poseidôn, invited all his subjects. Iasôn, who was ploughing on the other side of the Anauros, crossed that stream to come to it, and in so doing lost one of his sandals. It is said that Hera, out of enmity to Pelias, who had neglected to sacrifice to her, took the form of an old woman, and asked Iasôn to carry her over, which caused him to leave one of his sandals in the mud ; her object was to give occasion for Medeia's coming to Iolcos and destroying Pelias¹⁵³⁸. When Pelias perceived Iasôn with but one sandal, he saw the accomplishment of the oracle, and sending for him next day, asked him what he would do, if he had the power, had it been predicted to him that he should be slain by one of his citizens. Iasôn replied, that he would order him to go and fetch the Golden Fleece. Pelias took him at his word, and imposed this task on himself¹⁵³⁹.

Iasôn proclaimed his enterprise throughout Greece, and the bravest heroes hastened to share in the glory. The fleece was gained by the aid of Medeia the daughter of the king of Colchis, and the Argo, as the vessel in which they sailed was named, returned to Iolcos in safety¹⁵⁴⁰. But during the absence of Iasôn, Pelias had driven his father and mother to self-destruction, and put to death their remaining child. Desirous of revenge, Iasôn, after he had delivered the fleece to Pelias, entreated Medeia to exercise her art in his behalf. He sailed with his companions to the Isthmos, and there {p. 309}dedicated the Argo to Poseidôn ; and Medeia shortly afterwards ingratiated herself with the daughters of Pelias, and by vaunting her art of restoring youth, and proving it by cutting up an old ram, and putting him into a pot whence issued a bleating lamb, she persuaded them to treat their father in the same manner¹⁵⁴¹.

Pelias was buried with great splendour by his son Acastos, and the most renowned heroes of the time in Greece contended at the games celebrated on the occasion. Acastos drove Iasôn and Medeia from Iolcos, and they retired to Corinth, where they lived happily for ten years ; till Iasôn, wishing to marry Glauce or Creusa, the daughter of Creôn king of that place, put away Medeia. The Colchian princess, enraged at the ingratitude of her husband, called on the gods for vengeance, sent a poisoned robe as a gift to the bride, and then killing her own children mounted a chariot drawn by winged serpents, and fled to Athens, where she married king Ægeus, by whom she had a son named Medos ; but being detected in an attempt to destroy Theseus, she fled with her son. Medos conquered several barbarous tribes, and the country which he named after himself, and finally fell in battle against the Indians. Medeia returning unknown to Colchis, found that her father Æetes had been robbed of his throne by his brother Perses : she restored him, and deprived the usurper of life¹⁵⁴².

In narrating the adventures of Iasôn and Medeia we have followed Apollodorus, who seems to have adhered closely to the versions of the legend given by the Attic tragedians, in whose hands the hero and heroine have undergone the same fate with those of other places whose people were politically opposed to the sovereign democracy of Athens. We will now give the more trustworthy accounts of others.

In the Theogony Medeia is classed with the goddesses¹⁵⁴³ who honoured mortal men with their love. Iasôn brought her from the realm of her father Æetes, where he had achieved the many grievous tasks which the haughty insolent king {p. 310}Pelias had imposed on him. He made her his spouse, and she bore to the ‘shepherd of the people’ a son named Medeios, whom Cheirôn reared in the mountains, and ‘the will of great Zeus was accomplished¹⁵⁴⁴.’ It is evident therefore that this poet supposed Iasôn to have reigned at Iolcos after his return from his great adventure.

According to the poem of the Nostoi, Medeia restored Æsôn to youth¹⁵⁴⁵, while Simonides and Pherecydes say that she effected this change in Iasôn himself¹⁵⁴⁶, and Æschylus that she thus renewed the Hyades, the nurses of Dionysos, and their husbands¹⁵⁴⁷. There is also a difference in the accounts of the manner in which she contrived to destroy Pelias ; for it is said that before the Argo came to Iolcos Medeia landed secretly on the coast, and assuming the form of an ancient priestess of Artemis, went to the house of Pelias, and deceived his daughters as above related¹⁵⁴⁸. She then made the appointed signal to Iasôn, who landed and took possession of the kingdom, which however he shortly after gave up to Acastos the son of Pelias, who had accompanied him on his voyage, and retired with Medeia to Corinth¹⁵⁴⁹.

Iasôn is said to have put an end to his life after the tragic fate of his children ; or, as another account has it, when the Argo was falling to pieces with time Medeia persuaded him to sleep under the prow, and it fell on him and killed him¹⁵⁵⁰. Medeia herself, we are told, became the bride of Achilleus on the Elysian Plain¹⁵⁵¹.

Neither Iasôn nor Medeia can well be regarded as a real historical personage. Whether the former, whose name is nearly identical with Iasiôn, Iasios, Iasos, is merely a personification of the Ionian race (Ἰάονϵς), or, in reference to a mythe to be noticed in the sequel, signifies the healing, atoning god or hero, may be doubted. Medeia seems plainly to {p. 311}be only another form of Hera, and to have been separated from her in the manner of which we have already given instances. She is the counselling (μῆδος) goddess ; and in the history of Iasôn we find Hera always acting in this capacity toward him who, as Homer says¹⁵⁵², was very dear to her, — an obscure hint perhaps of the love of Iasôn and Medeia. Medeia also always acts a friendly part ; and it seems highly probable that the atrocities related in the close of her history are pure fictions of the Attic dramatists¹⁵⁵³. The bringing of Iasôn and Medeia to Corinth seems also to indicate a connexion between the latter and Hera, who was worshiped there under the title of Acræa, and the graves of the children of Medeia were in the temple of this goddess. It was an annual custom at Corinth that seven youths, and as many maidens, children of the most distinguished citizens, clad in black, with their hair shorn, should go to this temple, and singing mournful hymns offer sacrifices to appease the deity. The cause assigned for this rite was as follows. Medeia reigned at Corinth, but the people, disdaining to be governed by an enchantress, conspired against her and resolved to put her children (seven of each sex) to death. The children fled to the temple of Hera, but they were pursued and slain at the altar. The anger of heaven was manifested by a plague, and by the advice of the oracle the expiatory rite above mentioned was instituted¹⁵⁵⁴. There was also a tradition that Medeia resided at Corinth, and that she caused a famine to cease by sacrificing to Demeter and the Lemnian nymphs ; and that Zeus made love to her, but she would not hearken to his suit, fearing the anger of Hera, who therefore rewarded her by making her children immortal¹⁵⁵⁵, — a thing she had vainly attempted to do herself by hiding them in the temple of the goddess¹⁵⁵⁶, whose priestess, like Io, she probably was in this mythe.

It is also remarkable that the only place, besides Corinth, {p. 312}in which there were legends of Medeia, was Corcyra, an island which had been colonised by the Corinthians.

Æetes himself was, according to Eumelos¹⁵⁵⁷, the son of Helios and Antiope, and born at Ephyra or Corinth, which his sire gave to him ; but he committed the charge of it to Bunos, and went to Colchis. It would thus appear that the whole mythe of Æetes and Medeia is derived from the worship of the Sun and Hera at Corinth.

Πηλϵὺς καὶ Ἀχιλλϵύς . Peleus et Achilles.

By Ægina the daughter of the river-god Asopos Zeus was the father of Æacos, who dwelt in the island named from his mother. The children of Æacos were, Peleus, Telamôn, and Phocos. The last having been slain by his brothers out of jealousy, Æacos banished them from the island. Peleus fled to Phthia, and was there purified of the murder by Eurytiôn the son of Actôr, whose daughter Polymela he married. Being so unfortunate as to kill his father-in-law by accident at the Calydonian hunt, he fled to Iolcos, where he was purified by Acastos the son of Pelias¹⁵⁵⁸. At the funeral games of Pelias he contended with the fair maid Atalanta ; and Hippolyta or Astydameia the wife of Acastos beholding fell in love with him, and solicited him by letters, but in vain, to gratify her passion. Out of revenge, she then sent to inform his wife that he was going to marry Sterope the daughter of Acastos ; and without inquiring into the truth of the tale, the credulous Polymela strangled herself. Hippolyta, with the usual artifice of a disappointed woman, next accused Peleus to her husband of an attempt on her honour¹⁵⁵⁹. Acastos believed the charge, but not thinking that he could lawfully put to death one whom he had purified, invited him to join in a hunt on Mount Pelion. A dispute arising there among the hunters about their respective success, Peleus cut out the tongues of all the beasts which he killed and put them into his pouch. The companions of Acastos getting all these beasts, derided {p. 313}Peleus for having killed no game ; but pulling out the tongues, he declared that he had killed just so many. He fell asleep on Mount Pelion, and Acastos taking his famous sword, which had been made by Hephæstos, and hiding it under the cowdung, went away, leaving him there, in hopes that the Centaurs would find him and kill him¹⁵⁶⁰. When Peleus awoke he sought for his sword, but in vain ; and the Centaurs coming on him would have put him to death, but for Cheirôn, who saved him, and then looked for and returned him his sword¹⁵⁶¹.

Shortly after Peleus attacked and took Iolcos single-handed according to Pindar¹⁵⁶² ; but aided by Iasôn and the Dioscuri, according to others, who add that he put Hippolyta to death and marched his troops into the town between her severed members¹⁵⁶³.

To reward the virtue of Peleus the king of the gods resolved to give him a goddess in marriage. The spouse selected for him was the sea-nymph Thetis, who had been wooed by Zeus himself and his brother Poseidôn, but Themis having declared that her child would be greater than his sire, the gods withdrew¹⁵⁶⁴. Others say that she was courted by Zeus alone, till he was informed by Prometheus that her son would dethrone him¹⁵⁶⁵. Others again maintain that Thetis, who was reared by Hera, would not assent to the wishes of Zeus, and that the god in his anger condemned her to espouse a mortal¹⁵⁶⁶, or that Hera herself selected Peleus for her spouse¹⁵⁶⁷.

Cheirôn, being made aware of the will of the gods, advised Peleus to aspire to the bed of the nymph of the sea, and instructed him how to win her. He therefore lay in wait, and seized and held her fast, though she changed herself into every variety of form, becoming fire, water, a serpent, and a lion¹⁵⁶⁸. The wedding was solemnized on Pelion : the gods all honoured it with their presence¹⁵⁶⁹, and bestowed armour on the {p. 314}bridegroom¹⁵⁷⁰ ; Cheirôn gave him an ashen spear¹⁵⁷¹, and Poseidôn the immortal Harpy-born steeds Balios and Xanthos¹⁵⁷². The Muses sang, the Nereïdes danced, to celebrate the wedding, and Ganymedes poured forth nectar for the guests¹⁵⁷³.

When the celebrated son of Peleus and Thetis was born, his mother wished to make him immortal. She therefore placed him unknown to Peleus each night in the fire, to purge away what he had inherited of mortal from his father ; and by day she anointed him with ambrosia. But Peleus watched, and seeing the child panting in the fire cried out. Thetis thus frustrated in her design left her babe, and returned to her sister-Nereïdes. Peleus then conveyed the infant to Cheirôn, who reared him on the entrails of lions and on the marrow of bears and wild boars, and named him Achilleus, because he never applied his lips (χϵίλη) to a breast¹⁵⁷⁴.

According to the Ægimios (a poem ascribed to Hesiod), Thetis cast her children as they were born into a caldron of boiling water, to try if they were mortal. Several had perished, unable to stand the test, when Peleus lost patience and refused to let the experiment be tried on Achilleus. His goddess-wife then deserted him¹⁵⁷⁵. These fictions are evidently posterior to Homer, who represents Peleus and Thetis as dwelling together all the lifetime of their son¹⁵⁷⁶.

Of Peleus it is further related, that he survived his son and even grandson¹⁵⁷⁷, and died in misery in the isle of Côs¹⁵⁷⁸. This history of Achilleus forms an important portion of the events of the Trojan War.

Ἰξίων. Ixion.

Ixiôn was the son of Antiôn or Peisiôn ; others gave him Phlegyas or the god Ares for a sire. He obtained the hand of Dia the daughter of Deïoneus, having, according to the {p. 315}usage of the heroic ages, promised his father-in-law large nuptial gifts (ἒδνα) ; but he did not keep his engagement, and Deïoneus seized his horses and detained them as a pledge. Ixiôn then sent to say that the gifts were ready if he would come to fetch them. Deïoneus accordingly came, but his treacherous son-in-law had prepared in his house a pit filled with fire, and covered over with bits of wood and dust, into which the unsuspecting prince fell and perished. After this deed Ixiôn’s mind became deranged, and its atrocity being such, neither gods nor men would absolve him, till at length Zeus himself took pity on him and purified him, and admitted him to his house and table on Olympos. But incapable of good, Ixiôn cast an eye of desire on the wife of his benefactor and dared to make love to her. Hera in concert with her lord formed a cloud in the likeness of herself, which Ixiôn embraced. He boasted of his fortune, and Zeus precipitated him to Erebos, where Hermes fixed him with brazen bands to an ever-revolving fiery wheel¹⁵⁷⁹.

This mythe is probably of great antiquity, as the customs on which it is founded only prevailed in the heroic age. Its chief object seems to have been to inspire horror for the violation of the duties of hospitality on the part of those who, having committed homicide, were admitted to the house and table of the prince, who consented to perform the rites by which the guilt of the offender was supposed to be removed. The most extreme case is given by making Ixiôn, that is the Suppliant¹⁵⁸⁰, and the first shedder of kindred blood as he is expressly called¹⁵⁸¹ (the Cain of Greece), act with such base ingratitude toward the king of the gods himself, who, according to the simple earnestness of early mythology, is represented like an earthly prince receiving his suppliant to his house and board. The punishment inflicted was suitable to the offence, and calculated to strike with awe the minds of the hearers, {p. 316}for we should always remember that these ancient mythes were articles of real and serious belief¹⁵⁸².

Κένταυροι καὶ Ααπίθαι. Centauri et Lapithæ.

The Centaurs and Lapiths are two mythic tribes which are always mentioned together. The former are spoken of twice in the Ilias under the name of Wild-men (Φῆρϵς), and once under their proper name¹⁵⁸³. We also find the name Centaurs in the Odyssey¹⁵⁸⁴. They seem to have been a rude mountaintribe, dwelling on and about Mount Pelion. There is no ground for supposing that Homer and Hesiod conceived them to be of a mingled form, as they were subsequently represented. In the fight of the Centaurs and Lapiths on the shield of Heracles, the latter appear in panoply fighting with spears, while the former wield pine-clubs¹⁵⁸⁵. Pindar is the earliest poet extant who describes them as semi-ferine. According to him¹⁵⁸⁶ the offspring of Ixiôn and the cloud was a son named Centauros, who when grown up wandered about the foot of Pelion, where he copulated with the Magnesian mares, who brought forth the Centaurs, a race partaking of the form of both parents, their lower parts resembling their dams, the upper their sire.

By his wife Dia, Ixiôn had a son named Peirithoös, who married Hippodameia daughter of Adrastos king of Argos. The chiefs of his own tribe, the Lapiths, were all invited to the wedding, as were also the Centaurs, who dwelt in the neighbourhood of Pelion ; Theseus, Nestôr, and other strangers, were likewise present. At the feast, Eurytiôn, one of the Centaurs, becoming intoxicated with the wine, attempted to offer violence to the bride ; the other Centaurs followed his example, and a dreadful conflict arose, in which several of them were slain. The Centaurs were finally driven from Pelion, and obliged to retire to other regions¹⁵⁸⁷.

According to the earliest version of this legend, Eurytiôn {p. 317}the Centaur, being invited to the house of Peirithoös, got drunk and behaved so ill, that the heroes rose and dragging him to the door cut off his ears and nose, which was the occasion of ‘strife between the Centaurs and men’¹⁵⁸⁸. In the Catalogue it is said that Hippodameia bore Polypœtes to Peirithoös, the son of Zeus, on the day that he drove the ‘shaggy Wild-men’ from Pelion to the land of the Æthicans¹⁵⁸⁹ ; and Nestôr says¹⁵⁹⁰ that he came from Pylos at the invitation of the Lapith chiefs to aid them against the Wild-men, whom they routed with great slaughter. From all this we may collect the tradition of a protracted conflict between the rude Centaurs and the more civilised Lapiths, which ended in the expulsion of the former. When Heracles was on his way to hunt the Erymanthian boar, he was entertained by the Centaur Pholos ; and this gave rise to a conflict between him and the other Centaurs, which terminated in the total discomfiture of the latter¹⁵⁹¹.

One of the most celebrated of the Lapiths was Cæneus, who was said to have been originally a maiden named Cænis. Poseidôn having violated her, she prayed him as a compensation to turn her into a man, and grant that she should be invulnerable¹⁵⁹². The god assented, and in the fight between the Centaurs and Lapiths, the former finding it impossible to wound Cæneus kept striking him with ‘green pines,’ and the earth finally opened and swallowed him¹⁵⁹³. It is also said that Cæneus, filled with confidence in his strength and invulnerability, set up his spear in the market and ordered the people to worship it as a god ; for which act of impiety Zeus punished him by the hands of the Centaurs¹⁵⁹⁴.

The most celebrated of the Centaurs was Cheirôn, the son {p. 318}of Kronos by the nymph Philyra¹⁵⁹⁵. He is called by Homer¹⁵⁹⁶ ‘the most upright of the Centaurs.’ He reared Iasôn and his son Medeios, Heracles, Asclepios, and Achilleus, and was famous for his skill in surgery¹⁵⁹⁷, which he taught the two last heroes. But having been accidentally wounded by one of Heracles’ poisoned arrows, he suffered extreme pain, till, on his prayer to Zeus for relief, he was raised to the sky and made the constellation of the Bowman¹⁵⁹⁸.

It is the opinion of Buttmann¹⁵⁹⁹ that the Centaurs and the Lapiths are two purely poetic names, used to designate two opposite races of men ; — the former, the rude horse-riding tribes which tradition records to have been spread over the north of Greece ; the latter, the more civilised race, which founded towns, and gradually drove their wild neighbours back into the mountains. He therefore thinks the exposition of Centaurs as Air-piercers (from κντϵῐν τὴν αὔραν) not an improbable one, for that very idea is suggested by the figure of a Cossack leaning forward with his protruded lance as he gallops along. But he regards the idea of κένταυρος having been in its origin simply κέντωρ¹⁶⁰⁰ as much more probable. Lapiths may, he thinks, have signified Stone-persuaders¹⁶⁰¹ (from λᾰας πϵίθϵιν), a poetic appellation for the builders of towns. He supposes Hippodameia, as her name seems to intimate, to have been a Centauress, married to the prince of the Lapiths¹⁶⁰², and thus accounts for the Centaurs having been at the wedding.

Müller¹⁶⁰³ regards the Lapiths as being the same people with the Phlegyans, shortly to be described.

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Κήϋξ καὶ.Ἀλκυόνη Ceÿx et Halcyone.

Ceÿx was the son of Morning-star (Ἐωσϕόρος), and king of Trachis. He married Halcyone a daughter of Æolos the son of Deucaliôn. Pride, it is said, caused the ruin of both. He called his wife Hera, and was by her styled Zeus in return. Zeus indignant at their impiety turned them both into birds, making him a sea-gull (κήϋξ), and her a king-fisher (ἁλκυών)¹⁶⁰⁴.

Another version of this legend¹⁶⁰⁵ says, that Ceÿx going to Claros to consult the oracle of Apollo perished by shipwreck, and that his wife on finding his lifeless body on the strand cast herself into the sea. The gods out of compassion changed them both into the birds called Halcyôns. During seven days of winter the Halcyôn sits on her eggs, and during seven more she feeds her young on the surface of the sea, which then is calm and free from storm, and these are called the Halcyôn-days¹⁶⁰⁶.

In this last legend and in all (except the preceding one) relating to him, Ceÿx bears a gentle and amiable character.

Ceÿx is introduced into the mythe of Heracles, whose friend he is said to have been. The Marriage of Ceÿx (Τάμος Κήϋκος) was a celebrated event in that hero's history, and the subject of a poem ascribed to Hesiod¹⁶⁰⁷. The splendid robe also, which when poisoned by Deïaneira caused the death of the hero, was the gift of Ceÿx.

The fable of Ceÿx and Halcyone is apparently one of those legends, of which we have seen so many examples, devised to account for the names, habits, and properties of animals. Yet as Ceÿx seems to belong to a very ancient mythic cycle, it is not unlikely that it was the resemblance of his name to that of the bird that caused his wife to be called Halcyone, and the legend above to be invented.

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Chapter III.

MYTHES OF ÆTOLIA.

Οἰνϵύς. Œneus. — Μϵλέαγρος. Meleager.

The hero-princes of Calydôn in Ætolia derived their origin from Zeus by Protogeneia the daughter of Deucaliôn. Her son, who was named Aëthlios¹⁶⁰⁸, came at the head of a colony of the Æolids to Elis : he was the father of Endymiôn, who enjoyed the love of the goddess Selene. Ætolos, one of the sons of Endymiôn by a Naïs, having accidentally killed Apis the son of Phoroneus or Iasôn, fled to Curetis, which he named after himself Ætolia. His sons were Pleurôn and Calydôn, who built towns of their own name. Agenôr the son of Pleurôn had by Epicaste (the daughter of Calydôn) Porthaôn and Demonica ; and Porthaôn was by Euryta (grand-daughter of the river-god Acheloös) the father of Agrios, Melas, and Œneus¹⁶⁰⁹. From this genealogy may be collected the tradition of Elis having in ancient times received a colony from Thessaly, and also of Eleians, or Epeians as they were named, having migrated to Ætolia. This last however may be only a late fiction, to give a colour of right to the Ætolian conquest of Elis at the time of the Dorian Migration. We may observe that the genuine mythic legends of Calydôn have been connected with the ethnographic genealogy.

Οἰνϵύς. Œneus.

Œneus the son of Porthaôn married Althæa daughter of Thestios, a son of Demonica by the god Ares. By her he had four sons, Toxeus, Thureus, Clymenos, and Meleagros, and two daughters, Gorgo and Deïaneira.

Œneus was devoted to agriculture, and it was said that the god Dionysos gave him a vine-plant and taught him the mode of its culture¹⁶¹⁰ ; in reward it was added for his allowing the {p. 321}god’s familiarity with Althæa, by which he became the father of Deïaneira¹⁶¹¹. Œneus, it is also said, killed with his own hand his son Toxeus for leaping over the fence of his vineyard¹⁶¹².

When Œneus offered sacrifices at the conclusion of his harvest to the gods, he omitted to notice Artemis. The offended goddess immediately sent a wild boar of huge size and strength to ravage the lands of Calydôn, and destroy the cattle and people. A general hunt was proclaimed, and the boar was slain ; but the death of Meleagros the brave son of Œneus was the consequence. Althæa did not long survive her son, whose death she had caused. After her death Œneus married Peribœa the daughter of Hipponoös, by whom he had a son named Tydeus¹⁶¹³ ; who, having slain either his uncle, his cousins, or his brother (for writers differ), fled to Adrastos at Argos. When Œneus was grown old and helpless, and his son Tydeus was dead, the sons of his brother Agrios dispossessed him of his kingdom, and kept him in prison¹⁶¹⁴. But Diomedes the son of Tydeus coming secretly to Calydôn slew all the sons of Agrios but two, who escaped to the Peloponnese ; and as his grandfather was now too old to reign, he gave the kingdom to Andræmôn, who had married Gorgo the daughter of Œneus¹⁶¹⁵. He took the old man with him to the Peloponnese ; but the two surviving sons of Agrios, watching their opportunity, killed the aged prince at the house of Telephos in Arcadia. Diomedes brought his body to Argos, and buried it where the town called from him Œnoe was afterwards built¹⁶¹⁶.

Μϵλέαγρος. Meleager.

The tale of the Calydonian Hunt is probably a legend of great antiquity. In the Ilias¹⁶¹⁷, when Phœnix joins his {p. 322}entreaties to those of Odysseus to prevail on Achilleus to lay aside his wrath and aid the Achæans, he quotes the case of Meleagros as an instance of the impolicy of not yielding readily and in time : “I remember this event,” says he, “long ago, not lately, how it was ; and I will tell it to you all, my friends.”

He relates the circumstance of the neglect of Artemis by Œneus at his harvest-home feast (θαλύσια), and her vengeance. Hunters and dogs were collected from all sides, and the boar was, with the loss of several lives, at length destroyed. A quarrel arose between the Curetes and the Ætolians about the head and hide, and a war was the consequence. As long as Meleagros fought, the Curetes had the worst of it, and could not keep the field ; but when, enraged at his mother Althæa, he remained with his wife the fair Cleopatra and abstained from the war, noise and clamour rose about the gates, and the towers of Calydôn were shaken by the victorious Curetes : for Althæa, grieved at the fate of her brother, who had fallen in the fight, had with tears invoked Aides and Persephoneia to send death to her son.

The elders of the Ætolians supplicated Meleagros : they sent the priests of the gods to entreat him to come forth and defend them : they offered him a piece of land (τέμϵνος), at his own selection, of fifty gyas¹⁶¹⁸, half arable, half vine-land. His aged father Œneus ascended his chamber and implored him, his sisters and his mother supplicated him, but in vain. He remained inexorable, till his very chamber was shaken, when the Curetes had mounted the towers and set fire to the town. Then his wife besought him with tears, — picturing to him the evils of a captured town, the slaughter of the men, the burning of the town, the dragging away into captivity of the women and children. Moved by these circumstances, he clad himself in arms, went forth, and repelled the enemy ; but not having done it out of regard to them, the Ætolians did not give him the proffered recompense.

Such is the more ancient form of the legend, in which it would appear that the Ætolians of Calydôn and the Curetes of Pleurôn alone took part in the hunt. In aftertimes, when the vanity of the different states of Greece made them send {p. 323}their national heroes to every war and expedition of the mythic ages, it underwent various modifications.

Meleagros, it is said¹⁶¹⁹, invited all the heroes of Greece to the hunt, proposing the hide of the boar as the prize of whoever should slay him.

Of the Ætolians there were Meleagros and Dryas son of Ares ; of the Curetes the sons of Thestios ; Idas and Lynceus sons of Aphareus came from Messene ; Castôr and Polydeukes, sons of Zeus and Leda, from Laconia ; Atalanta daughter of Iasos, and Ancæos and Cepheus sons of Lycurgos from Arcadia ; Amphiaraos son of Oïcles from Argos ; Telamôn son of Æacos from Salamis ; Theseus son of Ægeus from Athens ; Iphicles son of Amphitryôn from Thebes ; Peleus son of Æacos, and Eurytiôn son of Actôr, from Phthia ; Iasôn son of Æsôn from Iolcos ; Admetos son of Pheres from Pheræ ; and Peirithoös son of Ixiôn from Larissa¹⁶²⁰.

These chiefs were entertained during nine days in the house of Œneus. On the tenth, Cepheus and Ancæos and some others refused to hunt in company with a maiden ; but Meleagros, who was in love with Atalanta, obliged them to give over their opposition. The hunt began : Ancæos and Cepheus speedily met their fate from the tusks of the boar : Peleus accidentally killed Eurytiôn : Atalanta with an arrow gave the monster his first wound : Amphiaraos shot him in the eye ; and Meleagros ran him through the flanks and killed him. He presented the skin and head to Atalanta ; but the sons of Thestios, offended at this preference of a woman, took the skin from her, saying that it fell to them of right, on account of their family, if Meleagros resigned his claim to it. Meleagros in a rage killed them, and restored the skin to Atalanta.

When Meleagros was seven days old, the Moiræ, it was said, came, and declared that when the billet which was burning on the hearth should be consumed the babe would die. Althæa on hearing this snatched the billet, and laid it up carefully in a chest. But now her love for her son giving way {p. 324}to resentment for the death of her brothers, she took the billet from its place of concealment, and cast it once more into the flames. As it consumed, the vigour of Meleagros wasted away ; and when it was reduced to ashes, his life terminated. Repenting when too late of what she had done, Althæa put an end to her life by a cord or a sword. Cleopatra died of grief ; and his sisters, who would not be comforted in their affliction, were by the compassion of the gods, all but Gorgo and Deïaneira, changed into the birds called Meleagrides¹⁶²¹.

There was another tradition, according to which Meleagros was slain by Apollo the protecting deity of the Curetes¹⁶²².

Two distinct classes of names may be recognised in these Ætolian legends, the one relating to agriculture, the other to war. The former are Œneus (Viny), Melas (Black-soil), Agrios (Wild or Rustic), Althæa (Grower), Meleagros (Land-loving) ; the latter Portheus or Porthaôn (Destroyer), Demonica (People-subduer), Toxeus (Archer), Thureus (Impetuous), Clymenos (Renowned), Deïaneira (Man’s-foe), and several others. The former would seem to belong to the peaceful rural Pelasgian times, the latter to owe their origin to the character of the Ætolians of a later period.

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Chapter IV.

MYTHES OF BŒOTIA.

The mythology of Bœotia consists of two cycles, answering to the natural division of the country. The former belongs to the southern part, and chiefly relates to Thebes and the Cadmeians ; the latter to the northern part, and Orchomenos and the Minyans. This last cycle is closely connected with that of the Argonautics. We shall commence with the cycle of Thebes.

Κάδμος. Cadmus.

Poseidôn, says the legend, was by Libya the father of two sons, Belos and Agenôr ; the former of whom reigned in Egypt. The latter having gone to Europe married Telephassa, by whom he had three sons, Cadmos, Phœnix, and Cilix, and one daughter, Europa. Zeus becoming enamoured of Europa carried her away to Crete ; and Agenôr, grieving for the loss of his only daughter, ordered his sons to go in quest of her, and not to return till they had found her. They were accompanied by their mother and by Thasos a son of Poseidôn. Their long search was to no purpose : they could get no intelligence of their sister ; and fearing the indignation of their father, they resolved to settle in various countries. Phœnix therefore established himself in Phœnicia, Cilix in Cilicia ; Cadmos and his mother went to Thrace, where Thasos founded a town also named from himself¹⁶²³.

After the death of his mother Cadmos went to Delphi, to inquire of the oracle respecting Europa. The god desired him to cease from troubling himself about her, but to follow a cow as his guide, and to build a city where she should lie down. On leaving the temple he went through Phocis, and meeting a cow belonging to the herds of Pelagôn he followed her.

{p. 326}

She went through Bœotia till she came to where Thebes now stands, and there lay down. Wishing to sacrifice her to Athena¹⁶²⁴, Cadmos sent his companions to fetch water from the fount of Ares ; but the fount was guarded by a serpent, who killed the greater part of them. Cadmos then engaged with and destroyed the serpent : by the direction of Athena he sowed its teeth, and immediately a crop of armed men sprang up, who slew each other, either quarrelling or through ignorance : for it is said that when Cadmos saw them rising he flung stones at them ; and thinking it was done by some of themselves, they fell upon and slew each other. Five only survived ; Echiôn (Viper), Udæos (Groundly), Chthonios (Earthly), Hyperenôr (Mighty), and Pelôr (Huge). These were called the Sown (σπάρτοι) ; and they joined with Cadmos to build the city¹⁶²⁵.

For killing the sacred serpent Cadmos was obliged to spend a year¹⁶²⁶ in servitude to Ares. At the expiration of that period Athena herself prepared for him a palace, and Zeus gave him Harmonia the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite in marriage. All the gods, quitting Olympos, celebrated the marriage in the Cadmeia, the palace of Cadmos. The bridegroom presented his bride with a magnificent robe, and with a collar, the work of Hephæstos, given to him, it is said, by the divine artist himself. Harmonia became the mother of four daughters, Semele, Autonoe, Ino, and Agaue ; and of one son, Polydoros.

After the various misfortunes which befel their children, Cadmos and his wife quitted Thebes, now grown odious to them, and migrated to the country of the Enchelians ; who, being harassed by the incursions of the Illyrians, were told by the oracle that if they made Cadmos and Harmonia their leaders they should be successful. They obeyed the god, and his prediction was verified. Cadmos became king of the {p. 327}Illyrians, and had a son named Illyrios. Shortly afterwards he and Harmonia were changed into serpents, and sent by Zeus to the Elysian Plain, or, as others said, were conveyed thither in a chariot drawn by serpents¹⁶²⁷.

The mythe of Cadmos is, by its relation to history, one of considerable importance. It is usually regarded as offering a convincing proof of the fact of colonies from the East having come to Greece and introduced civilisation and the arts. We will therefore here briefly examine it.

In the Ilias, though the Cadmeians are spoken of more than once¹⁶²⁸, the slightest allusion is not made to Cadmos ; in the Odyssey¹⁶²⁹ the sea-goddess Ino-Leucothea is said to have been a mortal, and daughter to Cadmos. Hesiod¹⁶³⁰ says that the goddess Harmonia was married to Cadmos in Thebes. Pindar frequently speaks of Cadmos ; he places him with the Grecian heroes Peleus and Achilleus in the Island of the Blest¹⁶³¹ ; but it is very remarkable that this Theban poet never even hints at his Phœnician origin. It was however an article of general belief in Pindar's time¹⁶³².

There is a curious coincidence between the name Cadmos and the Semitic term for the East, Kedem,¹⁶³³, and this may in reality be the sole foundation for the notion of a Phœnician colony at Thebes ; for none of the usual evidences of colonisation are to be found. We do not, for example, meet with the slightest trace of Phœnician influence in the language, manners, or institutions of Bœotia. It is further a thing most incredible, that a seafaring commercial people like the Phœnicians should have selected as the site of their very earliest foreign settlement a place situated in a rich fertile valley away from the sea, and only adapted for agriculture, without mines, or any of those objects of trade which might tempt a people {p. 328}of that character. It is also strange that the descendents of these colonists should have so entirely put off the Phœnician character as to become noted in after-ages for their dislike of trade of every kind. We may therefore, we think, now venture to dismiss this theory and seek a Grecian origin for Cadmos¹⁶³⁴.

Homer and Hesiod call the people of Thebes Cadmeians or Cadmeionians, and the country the Cadmeian land¹⁶³⁵ ; the citadel was at all times named the Cadmeia. Cadmos is therefore apparently (like Pelasgos, Doros, Iôn, Thessalos, and so many others,) merely a personification of the name of the people. Here then we might stop, and leave the Cadmeians to rank with the Ionians, Thessalians and others, of whose name it is difficult to assign a probable origin. It is however said that Cadmos signifies Prince or General, that Cadmeia is therefore Palace, and that the people thence derived their name¹⁶³⁶, — a case we believe contrary to all analogy. Again, we are reminded that Cadmilos or Cadmos was a name of Hermes in the mysteries of Samothrace, which were instituted by the Tyrrhenian Pelasgians, who, at the time of the Dorian migration being driven from Bœotia, settled on the islands in the north of the Ægæan. We are further reminded that the name Cadmos occurs only at Thebes and Samothrace ; that Harmonia was an object of worship in this last place, and that the Cabeiræan deities were also worshiped at Thebes. Hence it is inferred that Cadmos-Hermes, i. e. Hermes Regulator or Disposer, a cosmogonie power, gave name to a portion of the Pelasgian race, and that in the usual manner the god was made a mortal king¹⁶³⁷.

We must confess that this ingenious theory fails to convince us, and we are inclined to think that it was the circumstance of Cadmos (the personified Cadmeians) happening also to signify the Regulator, that gave rise to all this mystery {p. 329}in which he is enveloped. It was certainly his name that led to the idea of giving him Harmonia for his bride. The influence of names is also we think perceptible in the oracle given to the Enchelians, namely to take Cadmos and Harmonia for their leaders, that is, to adopt regular discipline, and they would be victorious in war. The name of this people (Ἐγχέλεις, eels) may have had its effect on the legend of the change of Cadmos and Harmonia into serpents.

By the Spartans (Sown) in this legend are probably meant the Eupatrids, or ancient nobility of Thebes, of which there may have been only five Houses (γένεα). As such were fond of representing themselves as Autochthons, and the serpent was the symbol of constant residence¹⁶³⁸, and the teeth might represent military prowess, the legend of the serpent slain by Cadmos may be interpreted in a political sense, of the conquest of the country and the origin of the Theban patricians¹⁶³⁹.

It is rather remarkable that the names of the children of Cadmos seem all to refer to the element of water. Ino is a goddess of the sea, Agaue and Autonoe occur in the list of the Nereïdes, and Polydora is the name of an Ocean-nymph¹⁶⁴⁰. Semele herself may refer to the brightness (σέλας) of water, and her name be like Electra, Galateia, Galene, Glauce, Ianthe, and other names of water-nymphs.

Σεμέλη. Semele.

Semele, the daughter of Cadmos, enjoyed the fatal honour of the love of Zeus. The jealousy of Hera suggested to the unfortunate fair-one the imprudent request which cost her her life. Her offspring was Dionysos, who became the god presiding over the vintage¹⁶⁴¹.

Αὐτονόη, Ἀρισταȋος, καὶ Ἀκταίων. Autonoe, Aristæus, et Actœon.

Autonoe was married to Aristæos, the son of Apollo by the nymph Cyrene, the daughter of Hypseus son of the river-god {p. 330}Peneios, and king of the Lapiths of Thessaly. Cyrene was averse from all feminine occupations, and passed her days in hunting the wild beasts, and thus protecting the cattle of her father. One day as she was engaged in combat with a lion, Apollo beheld her, and filled with admiration of her beauty and her courage, he called out to Cheirôn to quit his cave and come to look at her. To the questions of the god respecting her the Centaur replied, by informing him that he was to be her spouse, and to carry her in his golden car over the sea to the rich garden of Zeus, where Libya would joyfully receive her in a golden abode ; that there she would bear a son, whom Hermes would take to the ‘well-seated Seasons and Earth,’ who would feed him with nectar and ambrosia, and render him immortal ; and that he should be called Zeus, and holy Apollo, Agreus (Hunter), and Nomios (Herdsman), and Aristæos. The god forthwith seized the nymph and in his car drawn by swans¹⁶⁴² conveyed her to the part of Libya afterwards named from her, and ‘silver-footed Aphrodite’ received them on their arrival, and spread the bridal couch¹⁶⁴³.

The invention of the culture of the olive and of the art of managing bees was ascribed to Aristæos¹⁶⁴⁴. Tradition also said that one time when the isle of Ceos was afflicted by a drought, caused by the excessive heat of the dog-days, the inhabitants invited Aristæos thither ; and on his erecting an altar to Zeus Icmæos (Moistener), the Etesian breezes breathed over the isle, and the evil departed. After his death he was deified by the people of Ceos¹⁶⁴⁵. Virgil¹⁶⁴⁶ has elegantly related the story of the love of Aristæos for Eurydice the wife of Orpheus ; his pursuit of her, and her unfortunate death ; on which the Napæan nymphs, her companions, destroyed all his bees ; and the mode adopted by him on the advice of his mother to stock once more his hives.

Actæôn was the offspring of the marriage of Aristæos with Autonoe. He was reared by Cheirôn, and becoming {p. 331}passionately devoted to the chase, passed his days chiefly in pursuit of the wild beasts that haunted Mount Cithærôn. One sultry day, as he rambled alone, he chanced to surprise Artemis and her nymphs as they were bathing. The goddess, incensed at his intrusion, flung some water upon him and turned him into a stag. She also inspired with madness the fifty dogs that were with him, and they ran down and devoured their unhappy master. They then went about whining in quest of him, till they came at last to the cave of Cheirôn, who appeased their grief by making an image of Actæôn¹⁶⁴⁷. Another cause assigned for the anger of the goddess was Actæôn’s boasting that he was superior to her at the chase¹⁶⁴⁸ ; while others ascribed his transformation and death to the jealousy of Zeus, who feared he would marry Semele¹⁶⁴⁹.

Aristæos, it is quite evident from the names given him by Pindar, was an original deity, Zeus-Aristæos, or Aristos, or Apollo-Agreus, or Nomios. He was a rural god, presiding over cattle and game, the culture of the vine and olive, and especially the management of bees. The chief seats of his worship were Arcadia¹⁶⁵⁰ (whence it was carried over to Ceos), Thessaly¹⁶⁵¹, and as this was inhabited by the Minyans, some of whom were among the colonists to Cyrene, it was taken thither ; and finally Bœotia, whence we find him united to one of the daughters of Cadmos¹⁶⁵². Apollo was also an object of especial veneration to the settlers at Cyrene ; and in the oldest part of the city there was a fount named Cyre, sacred to him, whence perhaps came the name of the town itself¹⁶⁵³. It was moreover a habit of the early Greek colonies to fancy or feign that in the mythic ages their patron-gods or heroes had already taken possession of the place in which they were now settled under their auspices and protection¹⁶⁵⁴. In no place were there more of these traditions than in {p. 332}Cyrene, and hence arose the mythe of Apollo's carrying the nymph Cyrene from the foot of Pelion, and having by her a son named Aristæos.

The mythe of Actæôn may be thus explained. On the summit of Pelion stood a temple of Zeus-Actæos¹⁶⁵⁵, to which, when the dog-days began, a party of noble youths selected by the priest ascended clad in fresh-stript sheep-skins to protect them from the cold, and there sacrificed to the god to avert the evil influence of the dog-star¹⁶⁵⁶. Now Actæôn’s father Aristæos had done just the same at Ceos, and this shows a connexion between their mythes, that in fact they were two epithets of the same god. The fifty hounds of Actæôn answer to the fifty dog-days. One account¹⁶⁵⁷ said that Artemis threw a stag's-hide over him, and thus caused the error of his dogs, and this might refer to the sheep-skins ; the cave of Cheirôn was on Mount Pelion. The tale of the image may perhaps be connected with the following legend. There was an image in a rock that caused injury to the land of Orchomenos ; the oracle of Delphi, on being consulted, directed that whatever was remaining of Actæôn should be hidden in the earth, and a brazen figure of that image be made, and bound with iron to the rock, and that then the evil would cease¹⁶⁵⁸.

Ἰνὼ καὶ Ἀθάμας . Ino et Athamas.

Ino was married to Athamas, son of Æolos, and king of Orchomenos.

Athamas, it is said, had been already married to Nephele (Cloud), by whom he had two children, Phrixos and Helle. He then espoused Ino the daughter of Cadmos, who bore him two sons, Learchos and Melicertes. Ino feeling the usual jealousy of a step-mother, resolved to destroy the children of Nephele. For this purpose she persuaded the women to parch the seed-corn unknown to their husbands. They did as she desired, and the lands consequently yielded no crop. Athamas sent to Delphi to consult the oracle how the threatening {p. 333}famine might be averted. Ino persuaded the messengers to say that Apollo directed Phrixos to be sacrificed to Zeus. Compelled by his people Athamas reluctantly placed his son before the altar ; but Nephele snatched away both her son and her daughter, and gave them a gold-fleeced ram she had obtained from Hermes, which carried them through the air over sea and land. They proceeded safely till they came to the sea between Sigeion and the Chersonese, into which Helle fell, and it was named from her Hellespontos (Helle's Sea). Phrixos went on to Colchis, to Æetes the son of Helios, who received him kindly, and gave him in marriage Chalciope his daughter. He there sacrificed his ram to Zeus Phyxios, and gave the golden fleece to Æetes, who nailed it to an oak in the grove of Ares.

Athamas, through the enmity of Hera to Ino, who had suckled the infant Dionysos, was afterwards seized with madness. In his phrensy he shot his son Learchos with an arrow, or, as others say, dashed him to pieces against a rock. Ino fled with her other son ; and being closely pursued by her furious husband, sprang with her child from the cliff of Moluris near Corinth into the sea. The gods took pity on her and made her a sea-goddess under the name of Leucothea, and Melicertes a sea-god under that of Palæmôn¹⁶⁵⁹.

Athamas, being obliged to leave Bœotia, inquired of the god where he should settle. He was told to establish himself in the place where he should be entertained by the wild beasts. Having wandered over many lands, he came one day to where some wolves were devouring the thighs of sheep. At the sight of him they fled, abandoning their prey. Judging this to be the fulfilment of the oracle, he settled in this place, built a town which he named from himself Athamantia ; and marrying Themisto the daughter of Hypseus, had by her four children, Leucôn, Erythroe, Schœneus, and Ptoös¹⁶⁶⁰.

It is thus that we find this important mythe related by Apollodorus. There are however many variations in the tale. Thus it is said that Ino was Athamas’ first wife, and that he put her away by the direction of Hera and married Nephele, who left him after she had borne two children, on finding that he still {p. 334}kept up an intercourse with Ino. When the response of the oracle came to Athamas he sent for Phrixos out of the country, desiring him to come and to bring the finest sheep in the flock for a sacrifice. The ram then spoke with a human voice to Phrixos warning him of his danger, and offering to carry him and his sister to a place of safety. The ram, it was added, died at Colchis¹⁶⁶¹. It was also said that the flight of Phrixos was caused by his rejection of the amorous advances of his step-mother or his aunt¹⁶⁶², and again that in the time of dearth he offered himself as a voluntary victim.

It has been already observed that the tragic poets allowed themselves great liberties in their treatment of the ancient mythes. There is none which has suffered more at their hands than the present one, for it was a favourite subject with them. Thus Euripides in his Ino said that Athamas thinking that Ino had perished in the woods married Themisto ; but Ino, who was alive, came and lived as a maid-servant unknown in the house of Athamas. Here Themisto made her the confidant of her design to destroy Ino's children, and directed her for that purpose to dress them in black and her own in white, that she might be able to distinguish them. Ino however reversed the orders, and Themisto unwittingly killed her own children, and then seeing what she had done slew herself¹⁶⁶³.

We will now endeavour to point out the meaning of this very obscure legend. Athamas it is plain belonged to the Minyans, who dwelt in Bœotia and about the bay of Pagasæ in Thessaly. At Alos in this last region stood a temple of Laphystian¹⁶⁶⁴ Zeus, about which there was the following tradition¹⁶⁶⁵. To punish the crime of Athamas the oracle directed that the eldest person of his posterity should abstain from entering the Prytaneion or senate-house, or if found there should be offered as a sacrifice. Many of those in this situation fled the country, and such as returned and were caught {p. 335}in the Prytaneion were led forth to sacrifice bound with woollen fillets. These persons were said to be the descendents of Kytissoros the son of Phrixos, who had come from Colchis and saved his grandfather Athamas, when the people were about to sacrifice him as a sin-offering by command of the oracle. By this act Kytissoros had drawn the anger of the gods on his posterity.

It is not unlikely then that this mythe of Athamas took its rise from the sin-offering (κάθαρμα), a real or symbolic human sacrifice which prevailed in various parts of Greece ; and of which this was the most sublime form, as it represented not criminals, as elsewhere, but the noblest members of society, the descendents of Zeus himself, expiating by their lives for the sin not of themselves but of the people¹⁶⁶⁶. We shall find this mythe connected with the Argonautic Expedition.

Ἀγαυῆ καὶ Πενθεύς. Agave et Pentheus.

Agaue, the remaining daughter of Cadmos, was married to Echiôn, one of the Spartans. Her son Pentheus succeeded his grandfather in the government over Thebes. During his reign, Dionysos came from the East and sought to introduce his orgies into his native city. The women all gave enthusiastically into the new religion, and Mount Cithærôn rang to the frantic yells of the Bacchantes. Pentheus sought to check the phrensy ; but, deceived by the god, he went secretly and ascended a tree on Cithærôn to be an ocular witness of the revels. While there he was descried by his mother and aunts, to whom Dionysos made him appear to be a wild beast, and he was torn to pieces by them¹⁶⁶⁷.

The name of Pentheus, it is plain, is derived from the grief (πένθος) occasioned by his fate. Agaue (Illustrious) is an epithet of Persephone, who may have been made a heroine, as Thebes was a principal seat of the worship of Demeter and Kora.

Ζῆθος καὶ Ἀμϕίων. Zethus et Amphion.

After the death of Pentheus Thebes was governed by {p. 336}Polydoros the son of Cadmos, who married Nycteïs the daughter of Nycteus. Their son was Labdacos, who on succeeding his father opposed himself like Pentheus to the religion of Dionysos, and underwent a similar fate. As his son Laïos was but a year old, the throne was occupied by Lycos the brother of Nycteus.

Both Lycos and his brother, it is said, had fled from Eubœa for killing Phlegyas the son of Ares ; and as they were related to Pentheus, he enrolled them among the citizens of Thebes. Lycos on the death of Labdacos was chosen polemarch by the Thebans ; and he seized the regal power, which he occupied for twenty years, till he was killed by Zethos and Amphiôn.

These were the sons of Zeus by Antiope the daughter of Nycteus. Terrified at the threats of her father when the consequences of her frailty became apparent, Antiope fled to Sicyôn, where she married Epopeus. Nycteus out of grief put an end to himself, having previously charged his brother Lycos to punish Epopeus and Antiope. Lycos accordingly marched an army against Sicyôn, took it, slew Epopeus, and led Antiope away captive. On the way to Thebes she brought forth twins at Eleutheræ. The unhappy babes were exposed on the mountain ; but a neatherd having found them, reared them, calling the one Zethos, the other Amphiôn. The former devoted himself to the care of cattle ; the latter passed his time in the practice of music, having been presented with a lyre and taught to play on it by Hermes.

Meantime Lycos had put Antiope in bonds, and she was treated with the utmost cruelty by him and his wife Dirce. But her chains loosed of themselves, and she fled to the dwelling of her sons in search of shelter and protection. Having recognised her, they resolved to avenge her wrongs : they attacked and slew Lycos, and tying Dirce by the hair to a bull let him drag her till she was dead : they then cast her body into the fount which was named from her. They expelled Laïos, seized on the government, and walled-in the town ; for which purpose the stones are said to have moved in obedience to the lyre of Amphiôn.

Zethos married Thebe, from whom he named the town. Amphiôn espoused Niobe the daughter of Tantalos, who bore {p. 337}him an equal number of sons and daughters. Elated with her numerous progeny she set herself above Leto, who was the mother of but two children ; the latter complained to Apollo and Artemis, and the sons of Niobe soon fell by the arrows of the former, while her daughters perished by those of his sister.

[n.p.]

[n.p.]

Nine days they lay in blood, and there was none

To bury them, for Kronides had made

The people stones ; but on the tenth the gods

Celestial buried them : she then of food

Thought, being tired out with shedding tears.

Now mid the rocks among the lonely hills

In Sipylos, where are they say the beds

Of the goddess-nymphs who by the Acheloös dance,

Although a stone, she yet broods o'er the woes

Sent by the gods¹⁶⁶⁸.

It was said that one son and a daughter named Chloris escaped, and that Amphiôn in attempting, out of vengeance, to destroy the temple of Apollo, perished by the shafts of that deity¹⁶⁶⁹.

According to another tradition¹⁶⁷⁰ Zethos was married to Aëdôn the daughter of Pandareos, by whom he had only a son named Itylos, and a daughter Neïs. Aëdôn, jealous of the superior fecundity of her sister-in-law Niobe, resolved to kill her eldest son Amaleus in the night. As the two cousins slept together, she directed her own son Itylos to lie inside ; but he mistook or neglected her directions, and in the dark she killed him instead of Amaleus¹⁶⁷¹. When she discovered what she had done she prayed to the gods to take her out of the world, and she was changed into a nightingale (ύηδών). Zethos is also said to have fallen by the arrows of Apollo.

This legend is thus noticed in the Odyssey¹⁶⁷² :

As when Pandareos’ daughter, green Aëdôn,

Sings lovely in the opening of the spring,

Seated amidst the dense leaves of the trees,

She, frequent changing, poureth forth her voice

{p. 338}Tone-full, lamenting her son ltylos,

King Zethos’ child, whom erst with ruthless brass

She in her folly slew.

We shall find another form of it among the mythes of Attica.

In this history also there are great variations, caused chiefly, it is probable, by the tragedians. By Homer¹⁶⁷³ Antiope is called the daughter of Asopos, and Asios made her the wife of Epopeus at the time of her conception¹⁶⁷⁴. It is indeed not improbable that this poet represented these twins, like those of Leda, as being the one immortal the other mortal, corresponding to the nature of their sires. The mythe in every view of it has, we think, a physical aspect. Lycos and Nycteus are plainly Light and Night. Antiope the daughter of the latter is the Beholder (ἀντὶ ὄψ), and may remind us of the moon, which at the full sits so calmly looking down on the earth ; her husband’s name Epopeus is of similar import ; her mother is Polyxo (Polylyxo), Light-full. Amphiôn is the Circler (hence he walls-in Thebes), and Zethos is perhaps the Searcher. The Twins, the offspring of the Deity and the Moon, may then be the Sun who goes each day his round, and whose eye searches out all things¹⁶⁷⁵.

The mythe of Niobe also is capable of a physical sense. This goddess¹⁶⁷⁶, whose name denotes Youth or Newness¹⁶⁷⁷, is the daughter of the Flourishing-one (Tantalos), and the mother of the Green-one (Chloris). In her then we may view the young, {p. 339}verdant, fruitful earth, ‘the bride of the sun¹⁶⁷⁸’ (Amphiôn), beneath the influence of whose fecundating beams she pours forth vegetation with lavish profusion. The revolution of the year, denoted by Apollo and Artemis (other forms of the sun and moon), withers up and destroys her progeny ; she weeps and stiffens to stone (the torrents and frost of winter) ; Chloris the Green-one remains, and spring clothes the earth anew with verdure¹⁶⁷⁹.

Some however think that in this story of the Antiopids glimpses are given of the ancient political state of Thebes. It is observed that there is no connexion between them and the Cadmic line ; that given above being plainly the work of late times to account for their appearance at Thebes. Müller¹⁶⁸⁰ views in the former a race of priest-kings devoted to the service of Demeter and Hermes-Cadmos, while the two ‘white-horsed gods’¹⁶⁸¹ were gallant warriors who walled and fortified the city for the defence, it is said¹⁶⁸², of Cadmos the priest-king, against the warlike Phlegyans. In fine this writer would seem to view in ancient Thebes a political state of things somewhat similar to that in France under the last Merovingians, or still more resembling that of Japan at the present day. Welcker's¹⁶⁸³ views are not very dissimilar. He sees in the story of the Twins a Diarchy, as at Sparta and at Rome in its origin, and he conceives it to have been established by one of the ancient houses, as Nycteus is called the son of Chthonios. He also discovers that the Antiopids favoured the religion of Dionysos, to which the Cadmeians were so hostile ; in Amphiôn’s love of music and union with Niobe he finds evidence of the early introduction of the Lydian melody into Thebes.

{p. 340}

Λάϊος. Laïus.

Laïos, when driven from Thebes by the Antiopids, retired to the Peloponnese, where he was entertained by Pelops, whose son Chrysippos he instructed in the art of driving a chariot. On the death of Amphiôn he succeeded to the throne of Thebes ; and he married the daughter of Menœceus, called by Homer Epicasta, by others Iocasta. The oracle however warned him against having children, declaring that he would meet his death by means of his offspring. He long abstained from his wife : at length, having one time drunk too much wine on a solemn occasion, his love overcame his prudence, and Iocasta gave birth to a son, whom his father delivered to his herdsman to expose on Mount Cithærôn. The herdsman, moved to compassion, according to one account¹⁶⁸⁴, gave the babe to a neatherd belonging to Polybos king of Corinth ; or, as others say, the neatherds of Polybos found the infant after it had been exposed, and brought it to Peribœa the wife of Polybos, who being childless reared it as her own, and named it Œdipûs on account of its swollen feet¹⁶⁸⁵ ; for Laïos, previous to its exposure, had pierced its heels. Many years afterwards Laïos, being on his way to Delphi accompanied only by his herald Polyphontes, met in a narrow road in Phocis a young man also driving in a chariot. On his refusal to leave the way at their command, the herald killed one of his horses ; and the stranger, filled with rage, slew both Laïos and his herald, and then pursued his journey. The body of Laïos was found and honourably buried by Damasistratos king of Platæa ; and Creôn the son of Menœceus occupied the throne of Thebes¹⁶⁸⁶.

Οἰδιπόδης ἢ Οἰδίπους καὶ Ἰοκάστη. Œdipus et Iocasta.

The foundling Œdipûs was brought up by Polybos as his heir. Happening to be reproached by some one at a banquet with being a supposititious child, he besought Peribœa to inform him of the truth ; but unable to get any satisfaction from her, he went to Delphi and consulted the oracle. The {p. 341}god directed him to shun his native country, or he should be the slayer of his father and the sharer of his mother's bed. He therefore resolved never to return to Corinth, where so much crime as he thought awaited him, and he took his road through Phocis. He it was who encountered Laïos, and unwittingly accomplished the former part of the oracle.

Immediately after the death of Laïos, Hera, always hostile to the city of Dionysos, sent to afflict Thebes a monster named the Sphinx¹⁶⁸⁷, sprung from Typhôn and Echidna. She had the face of a woman ; the breast, feet, and tail of a lion ; and the wings of a bird. She had been taught riddles by the Muses, and she sat on the Phicean Hill and propounded one to the Thebans. It was this : “What is that which has one voice, is four-footed, two-footed, and at last three-footed ?” The oracle told the Thebans that they would not be delivered from her until they had solved her riddle. They often met to try their skill ; and when they failed, the Sphinx carried off and devoured one of their number. At length his son Hæmôn having become her victim, Creôn offered by public proclamation the throne and the hand of his sister Iocasta to whoever should solve the riddle of the Sphinx. Œdipûs, who was then at Thebes, hearing this, came forward and answered the Sphinx, that it was a Man ; who when an infant creeps on all fours, when a man goes on two feet, and when old uses a staff, a third foot. The Sphinx flung herself down to the earth and perished ; and Œdipûs now unknowingly accomplished the remainder of the oracle. He had by his mother two sons, Eteocles and Polyneices, and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene.

After some years Thebes was afflicted with famine and pestilence ; and the oracle being consulted, desired the land to be purified of the blood which defiled it. Inquiry was set on {p. 342}foot after the murderer of Laïos, and a variety of concurring circumstances brought the guilt home to Œdipûs. Iocasta, on the discovery being made, ended her days by a cord, and her unhappy son and husband in his grief and despair put out his eyes. He was banished from Thebes ; and accompanied by his daughters, who faithfully adhered to him, after a tedious period of miserable wandering he arrived at the grove of the Erinnyes, at Colonos, a village not far from Athens, and there found the termination of his wretched life¹⁶⁸⁸.

Such is the form in which the story of Œdipûs has been transmitted to us by the Attic dramatists. We will now consider its more ancient forms.

The hero of the Odyssey says, “I saw (in Erebos) the mother of Œdipodes, the fair Epicaste, who in her ignorance did an awful deed, marrying her own son ; and he married having slain his own father, and immediately the gods made this known to men. But he ruled over the Cadmeians in desirable Thebes, suffering woes through the pernicious counsels of the gods ; but she oppressed with grief went to the abode of Aïdes, the strong gate-keeper, having fastened a long halter to the lofty roof, and left to him many woes, such as the Erinnyes of a mother produce.” In the Ilias¹⁶⁸⁹ the funeral games are mentioned which were celebrated at Thebes in honour of the ‘fallen Œdipodes’. Hesiod¹⁶⁹⁰ speaks of the heroes who fell fighting at the seven-gated Thebes on account of the sheep of Œdipodes. It would also seem that, according to the above passage of the Odyssey, and to the epic poem the Œdipodeia¹⁶⁹¹, Epicasta had not any children by her son, Eurygeneia the daughter of Hyperphas being the mother of his wellknown children. According to the cyclic Thebaïs¹⁶⁹², the fatal {p. 343}curse of Œdipûs on his sons had the following origin. Polyneices placed before his father a silver table which had belonged to Cadmos, and filled a golden cup with wine for him ; but when he perceived the heir-looms of his family thus set before him, he raised his hands and prayed that his sons might never divide their inheritance peaceably, but ever be at strife. Elsewhere the Thebaïs¹⁶⁹³ said that his sons having sent him the loin instead of the shoulder of the victim, he flung it to the ground, and prayed that they might fall by each other's hands. The motives assigned by the tragedians are certainly of a more dignified nature than these, which seem trifling and insignificant. This story affords convincing proof of the great liberties which the Attic tragedians allowed themselves to take with the ancient mythes. It was purely to gratify Athenian vanity that Sophocles, contrary to the current tradition, made Œdipûs die at Colonos ; his blindness seems also a tragic fiction. Euripides makes Iocasta survive her sons, and terminate her life by the sword¹⁶⁹⁴.

Τϵιρϵσίας. Tiresias.

In all the unhappy history of the Labdacids at Thebes this celebrated soothsayer occupies a distinguished place ; and his fame was apparently widely extended in the most remote times. Circe tells the hero of the Odyssey, when anxious to return to Ithaca, that he must previously ‘seek the dwelling of Aides and awful Persephoneia, to consult the soul of the Theban Teiresias, the blind prophet, whose mental powers are perfect ; to whom, though dead, Persephoneia has granted reason, that he alone should have sense while others flit about mere shades¹⁶⁹⁵.’ When Odysseus afterwards goes to the abode of Aides, Teiresias approaches him bearing his golden staff ; and he alone of the dead recognises the mortal hero before he has tasted the blood ; of which, however, he drinks previous to revealing to him the future¹⁶⁹⁶.

Teiresias is said to have been the son of Eueres and the {p. 344}nymph Chariclo, of the race of Udæos, one of the Spartans (Sown). Various accounts are given as to the cause of his blindness : one ascribes it to his having seen Athena bathing¹⁶⁹⁷ ; another, to his having divulged to mankind the secrets of the gods¹⁶⁹⁸. The Melampodia related¹⁶⁹⁹, that Teiresias, happening to see two serpents copulating on Mount Cithærôn, killed the female, and was suddenly changed into a woman. In this state he continued seven years ; at the end of which period, observing two serpents similarly engaged, he killed the male, and thus returned to his pristine state. On some occasion Zeus and Hera fell into a dispute, whether the greater portion of the pleasures of love fall to man or woman. Unable to settle it to their satisfaction, they agreed to refer the matter to Teiresias, who had known either state. His answer was that of ten parts but one falls to man¹⁷⁰⁰. Hera incensed deprived the guiltless arbitrator of the power of vision. Zeus, as one god cannot undo the acts of another, gave him in compensation an extent of life for seven generations, and the power of foreseeing coming events.

Teiresias lived at Thebes, where he was contemporary with all the events of the times of Laïos and Œdipûs, and the two Theban wars. At the conclusion of the last he recommended the Thebans to abandon their city, and he was the companion of their flight. It was still night when they arrived at the fountain of Tilphussa. Teiresias, whose period of life was fated to be coextensive with that of the city of the Cadmeians, drank of its waters, and immediately died. The victorious Argives sent his daughter Manto along with a portion of the spoil to Delphi, according to the vow which they had made. In obedience to the command of the oracle, Manto afterwards went thence, and marrying Rhakios of Mycenæ or Crete, founded the town and oracle of Claros. She bore to Rhakios, {p. 345}(or, as others said, to Apollo) a son named Mopsos, a celebrated prophet¹⁷⁰¹.

The name Teiresias¹⁷⁰² is apparently derived from τέρας, prodigy, and that of his daughter from μάντις.

Ϻινύαι кαὶ Φλεγύαι. Minyæ et Phlegyæ.

No names are more completely buried in the depths of mythology than those of the Minyans and Phlegyans. Even to Homer but a slight breath of their fame seems to have come¹⁷⁰³.

Pausanias¹⁷⁰⁴ relates, that the country about Orchomenos in Bœotia was first possessed by Andreus, the son of the river Peneios, who named it from himself Andreïs. He was succeeded by his son Eteocles, who is said to have been the first who sacrificed to the Graces. Eteocles gave a portion of his territory to Halmos the son of Sisyphos of Corinth, to whose posterity, on Eteocles’ dying childless, the kingdom came : for Halmos had two daughters, Chrysogeneia and Chryse ; the former of whom was by Ares mother of Phlegyas ; the latter bore to Poseidôn a son named Minyas¹⁷⁰⁵. Phlegyas {p. 346}obtained the dominion after Eteocles, and named the country Phlegyantis. He also built a city called Phlegya, into which he collected the bravest warriors of Greece. These separated themselves from the other people of the country, and took to robbing and plundering. They even ventured to assail and burn the temple of Delphi ; and Zeus, on account of their impiety, finally destroyed them with lightning and pestilence. A few only escaped to Phocis.

Minyas reigned next, and was wealthier than any of his predecessors. He built the first treasury, similar to that of Atreus at Mycenæ. Pausanias saw the ruins of it, and describes it as being of great size and strength. The son of Minyas was Orchomenos, who gave name to the town ; and with him the race of Halmos ended, and the territory fell to the descendents of Athamas and Phrixos. Clymenos, one of these, having been slain in a quarrel with the Thebans at the feast of Poseidôn at Onchestos, his son Erginos made war on them, and reduced them to an annual tribute, which they paid till relieved from it by Heracles. Erginos was father of the celebrated architects Agamedes and Trophonios. Two of this family, Ascalaphos and Ialmenos, were at the siege of Troy, and with them ends the mythic history of Orchomenos.

The Argonauts were called Minyans, according to the mythologists, because the greater part of them were descended from Minyas on the female side¹⁷⁰⁶ ; and the daughters of Minyas are celebrated in the mythe of Dionysos, on account of their contempt for his rites, and their consequent punishment¹⁷⁰⁷.

The subject of the Minyans has been treated at great length by Müller¹⁷⁰⁸ and Buttmann¹⁷⁰⁹. The result of their inquiries is as follows.

The Minyans was the mythic name of one of the early races of Greece, probably a portion of the Æolian. They inhabited the northern part of Bœotia and the southern of Thessaly, and practised and acquired considerable wealth by commerce and navigation ; this is denoted by the names derived from gold {p. 347}which occur in their genealogy, by Poseidôn’s forming a part of it, and by the tradition of the great wealth of Orchomenos. Their port was Iolcos, and their dock-yard Pagasæ. The Argonautic expedition was one undertaken by them ; and the assemblage of the heroes from all parts of Greece was the addition of later times, which also assigned the wrong origin of the name Minyans given to the heroes, which we have just mentioned. It is a remarkable fact, that Orchomenos was one of the seven cities which had a share in the Amphictyonic assembly on the Argolic island Calauria. The remaining six were states in the neighbourhood ; and nothing but superior wealth and naval power could have induced them to admit the distant Orchomenos into their association. Everything conspires, they think, to prove, that the whole of the Ægæan coast of Greece, especially that possessed by the Minyans, carried on an active commerce by sea at a period long anterior to history.

The Phlegyans, whose name corresponds with their fate, are by Buttmann regarded as belonging to the universal tradition of an impious people being destroyed by fire from heaven, — the well-known history of the origin of the Dead Sea, which, as the legend of Baucis and Philemôn might seem to show, early made its way into Greece. Müller regards the Phlegyans as being the same with the Lapiths and the military class of the Minyans. It was probably their name which gave occasion to the legend of their destruction¹⁷¹⁰.

Τροϕώνιος кαὶ ̓ Αγαμήδης. Trophonius et Agamedes.

When Erginos, king of Orchomenos, had been overcome by Heracles, his affairs fell into such a reduced state, that in order to retrieve them he abstained from matrimony. As he grew rich and old, he wished to have children ; and going to Delphi, he consulted the god, who gave him in oracular phrase the prudent advice to marry a young wife¹⁷¹¹.

Erginos accordingly following the counsel of the Pythia, {p. 348}married, and had two sons, Trophonios and Agamedes ; though some said Apollo was the father of the former. They became distinguished architects, and built the temple of Apollo at Delphi¹⁷¹², and a treasury for king Hyrieus. In the wall of this last they placed a stone in such a manner that it could be taken out, and by this means from time to time purloined the treasure. This amazed Hyrieus ; for his locks and seals were untouched, and yet his wealth continually diminished. At length he set a trap for the thief, and Agamedes was caught. Trophonios, unable to extricate him, and fearing that when found he would be compelled by torture to discover his accomplice, cut off his head¹⁷¹³. Trophonios himself is said to have been shortly afterwards swallowed up by the earth¹⁷¹⁴.

According to Pindar¹⁷¹⁵, when they had finished the temple of Delphi they asked a reward of the god. He promised to give it on the seventh day, desiring them meanwhile to live cheerful and happy. On the seventh night they died in their sleep.

There was a celebrated oracle of Trophonios at Lebadeia in Bœotia. During a great drought the Bœotians were, it was said, directed by the god at Delphi to seek aid of Trophonios in Lebadeia. They came thither, but could find no oracle : one of them however happening to see a swarm of bees, they followed them to a chasm in the earth, which proved to be the place sought¹⁷¹⁶.

{p. 349}

Trophonios was named¹⁷¹⁷ Zeus-Trophonios, that is, the Nourishing or Sustaining Zeus (from τρέϕω). He is probably a deity from the Pelasgian times, a giver of food from the bosom of the earth, and hence worshiped in a cavern. Agamedes (the Thoughtful or Provident) is perhaps only another title of the same being ; and as corn was preserved in underground treasuries or granaries, the brothers may in one sense have been the builders, in another the plunderers of these receptacles¹⁷¹⁸.

Ὢτος καὶ Ἐϕιάλτης. Otus et Ephialtes.

Otos and Ephialtes the sons of Alœus, says the Ilias¹⁷¹⁹, kept Ares confined for thirteen months in a brazen prison (κεράμῳ), and he had perished there if their stepmother Eribœa had not informed Hermes, who stole him out of it. Odysseus sees in Erebos Iphimedeia the wife of Alœus, who said she had ‘mingled’ with Poseidôn, and she bore two sons Otos and Ephialtes, the tallest whom earth reared, and the handsomest next to Oriôn. At nine years of age they were nine ells in height and nine cubits in breadth. They menaced the Immortals, and prepared to pile Ossa on Olympos and Pelion on Ossa, in order to scale heaven, but Apollo killed them before the down had grown on their cheeks¹⁷²⁰.

Thus far Homer. Pindar¹⁷²¹ says that they died in Naxos ; by their own hands, according to a later tradition¹⁷²². It was also a tradition that they dwelt at Ascra (of which they were the founders) at the foot of Helicôn, which mountain they consecrated to the Muses¹⁷²³. Their tombs were shown at Anthedôn¹⁷²⁴.

We know no mythe more difficult than this of the Aloeids. The names of their father and stepmother¹⁷²⁵ relate to {p. 350}agriculture, and the confining of the war-god and the worship of the Muses would seem to give them a rural character ; while their descent from Poseidôn and Iphimedeia, and the attempt to scale heaven, indicate turbulence and impiety. We are disposed however to regard the former as the more ancient form of the mythe, and the original conception of them may have been similar to that of the Molionids. It was possibly their names that led to the fiction of their piling mountains¹⁷²⁶, and Poseidôn was the appropriate sire of youths of a fierce and turbulent character.

Ἡραкλης. Hercules ¹⁷²⁷ .

Electryôn, the son of Perseus king of Mycenæ, had given his daughter Alcmena in marriage to his nephew Amphitryôn. Having had the misfortune to kill his father-in-law, Amphitryôn was forced to fly from Mycenæ. Alcmena and her brother Licymnios accompanied his flight, and he was kindly received at Thebes by Creôn, who purified him from the guilt of bloodshed.

While Amphitryôn was absent on an expedition against the Teleboans, Zeus, who had become enamoured of Alcmena, assumed the form of her husband, and was admitted by her without suspicion to all his privileges. He related to her all the events of the war, and by his power extended the night to three times its usual duration. Amphitryôn on his return was surprised at the indifference with which he was received by his wife ; but on coming to an explanation with her, and consulting Teiresias, he learned that it was no less a personage than Zeus himself who had assumed his form¹⁷²⁸.

Alcmena brought forth twins, Heracles the son of Zeus, the elder by one night, and Iphicles, the progeny of her mortal lord. The children were but eight months old, when Hera sent two huge serpents into the chamber to destroy them. Alcmena in terror called to her husband to save them, but {p. 351}Heracles raised himself up on his feet, caught the two mon- sters by the throat and strangled them¹⁷²⁹.

When come to a proper age Heracles was instructed in the management of a chariot by Amphitryôn himself ; he was taught wrestling by Autolycos, archery by Eurytos, the use of arms by Castôr, to play on the lyre by Linos the brother of Orpheus, whose services were however but ill rewarded by the young hero, as he killed him with a blow of the lyre for having struck him. He was called to account for this deed, and justified himself by citing a law of Rhadamanthys, which said that “whœver defends himself against any one who makes an unjust assault on him is guiltless,” and he was acquitted¹⁷³⁰.

Amphitryôn however, to prevent the recurrence of such an event, sent him away to where his herds were feeding, and there he grew up to great strength and size. His look was terrible, for he was the son of Zeus ; his stature was four cubits ; fire flashed from his eyes : his arrow and his dart never missed. In his eighteenth year, while he was still with his father's herds, he slew a huge lion which lay in Mount Cithærôn, whence he used to attack the herds of Amphitryôn and of Thestios king of the Thespians. Heracles when going to engage the lion was hospitably entertained by Thestios for fifty days. Each night one of the fifty daughters of his host ascended the couch of the hero, for Thestios was desirous to propagate the race of the son of Zeus. But Heracles, unaware of this design, fancied that but one of the maidens had enjoyed his embraces¹⁷³¹. Revolving time, however, beheld fifty of his progeny. He slew the lion, whose hide he ever after wore on his shoulders, and made the skin of his head serve him as a helmet¹⁷³².

As he was returning from this hunt, he met the heralds sent by Erginos to receive tribute from the Thebans. The {p. 352}cause of the payment of this tribute was as follows : the charioteer of Menœcios had wounded Clymenos, king of the Minyans, with a stone in Onchestos the sacred field of Poseidôn. Clymenos, being brought in a dying state to Orchomenos, charged his son Erginos to avenge his death. Erginos in consequence led an army against the Thebans, and having slain a number of them concluded peace on condition of their paying him for twenty years an annual tribute of a hundred oxen. It was for this tribute that the heralds were going to Thebes when they were met by Heracles, who cutting off their ears and noses, and tying their hands to their necks with cords, bade them take that tribute to Erginos and the Minyans. Incensed at this insult offered to his heralds, Erginos made war anew on Thebes ; but Heracles, having been furnished with arms by Athena, and being appointed by the Thebans their general, slew Erginos and routed the Minyans, on whom he imposed a tribute the double of what the Thebans used to pay. In this battle Amphitryôn fell valiantly fighting. Creôn gave his daughter Megara in marriage to Heracles, and her younger sister to Iphicles¹⁷³³. Alcmena the mother of the hero also married Rhadamanthys the son of Zeus, who was then living in Ocaleia of Bœotia¹⁷³⁴. Heracles was presented with a sword by Hermes, a bow by Apollo, a golden breastplate by Hephæstos, horses by Poseidôn, a robe by Athena. He himself cut his club in the Nemean wood¹⁷³⁵.

Some time after his war with the Minyans he fell into madness, owing to the envy of Hera, and flung his own three children by Megara, and the two of his brother Iphicles, into the fire. As a punishment for this deed he went into voluntary exile, and was purified by Thestios. He then went to Delphi, and inquired of the god where he should settle. The {p. 353}Pythia then first named him Heracles¹⁷³⁶, for hitherto he had been called Alceides from his grandfather, and she desired him to settle at Tiryns, and serve Eurystheus twelve years, and perform twelve tasks to be imposed by him. She added that when these tasks were all accomplished, he would be made immortal. The hero obeyed, went to Tiryns, and there served Eurystheus.

The cause of Eurystheus’ obtaining this power was as follows : The day on which Alcmena was to be delivered in Thebes, Zeus, in exultation, announced to the gods that a man of his race was that day to see the light, who would rule over all his neighbours. Hera, pretending incredulity, exacted from him an oath that what he had said should be accomplished. Zeus, unsuspicious of guile, swore, and Hera hastened down to Argos, where the wife of Sthenelos the son of Perseus was seven months gone of a son. The goddess brought on a premature labour, and Eurystheus came to light that day, while she checked the parturition of Alcmena, and kept back the Eileithyiæ. The oath of Zeus was not to be recalled, and his son was fated to serve Eurystheus¹⁷³⁷.

The first task imposed by Eurystheus was to bring him the skin of the Nemean lion. This animal was the progeny of Typhôn¹⁷³⁸ and Echidna, and invulnerable. On his way to engage him Heracles arrived at Cleonæ, where he was hospitably entertained by a labouring man named Molorchos. His host being desirous to offer a sacrifice, Heracles begged of him to reserve it till the thirtieth day, saying that if he should then return victorious he might offer it to Zeus the Saviour ; but if he fell in the conflict, to make it a funeral offering to himself as a hero. When he came to the Nemean wood and had discovered the lion, he began to ply him with his arrows, but finding soon that he was invulnerable, he grasped his club and pursued him to his den, which was pervious. He then built up one of the entrances, and going in at the other, and grasping the lion’s throat in his hands, held him till he {p. 354}was suffocated¹⁷³⁹. Then taking him on his shoulders, he proceeded toward Mycenæ, and coming on the last day of the appointed period to Molorchos’ abode, he found him just on the point of offering the victim for him as being dead. Having offered the sacrifice to Zeus the Saviour, he brought the lion to Mycenæ. But when Eurystheus saw this proof of the wonderful strength of Heracles, he prohibited his entrance in future into the city, and ordered him to announce the performance of his tasks before the gates. Some even say that the terror of Eurystheus was so great, that he had a brazen jar made, in which he used to hide himself underground, and employ the herald Copreus, the son of Pelops, to set him his tasks¹⁷⁴⁰. This Copreus, having slain Iphitos, had fled to Mycenæ, and abode there with Eurystheus who had purified him.

The second task was to destroy the Lernæan hydra or water-snake, another progeny of Typhôn and Echidna¹⁷⁴¹, which abode in the marsh of Lerna, whence she used to come out on the land, and kill the cattle and ravage the country. This hydra had a huge body with nine heads, eight of them mortal, and one in the middle immortal. Heracles mounted his chariot, which was driven by Iolaos, the son of Iphicles ; and on coming to Lerna, he stopped the horses and went in quest of the hydra, which he found on a rising ground near the springs of Amymone, where her hole was. He shot at her with fiery darts till he made her come out ; and he then grasped and held her, while she twined herself about his legs. The hero crushed her heads with his club, but to no purpose, for when one was crushed two sprang up in its stead. A huge crab also aided the hydra, and bit the feet of Heracles. He killed the crab, and then he called upon Iolaos to come to his assistance. Iolaos immediately set fire to the neighbouring wood, and with the flaming brands searing the necks of the hydra as the heads were cut off, effectually checked their growth¹⁷⁴². Having thus got rid of the mortal heads, Heracles cut off the {p. 355}immortal one and buried it ; setting a heavy stone on the top of it, in the road leading from Lerna to Eleos. He cut the body of the hydra up into pieces, and dipped his arrows in her gall. Eurystheus however denied that this was to be reckoned among the twelve tasks, since he had not destroyed the hydra alone, but with the assistance of Iolaos.

The third task was to fetch the horned hind alive to Mycenæ. This hind haunted Œnœ, had golden horns, and was sacred to Artemis. Heracles, not wishing to kill or wound her, pursued her for an entire year¹⁷⁴³. When the animal was tired with the chase, she took refuge in Mount Artemision, then fled to the river Ladôn, and, as she was about to cross that stream, Heracles struck her with an arrow, caught her, put her on his shoulder, and was going with his burden through Arcadia, when he met Artemis and her brother Apollo. The goddess took the hind from him, and reproached him for violating her sacred animal. But the hero excusing himself on the plea of necessity, and laying the blame on Eurystheus, Artemis was mollified, and allowed him to take the hind alive to Mycenæ.

The fourth task imposed by Eurystheus was to bring him the Erymanthian boar also alive. This animal frequented Mount Erymanthos, and thence laid waste the region of Psophis. Heracles took his road through Pholoe, where he was hospitably entertained by Pholos the Centaur, the son of Silenos and the nymph Melia. The Centaur set before his guest roast meat, though he himself fared on it raw. Heracles asking for wine, his host said he feared to open the jar, which was the common property of the Centaurs ; but when pressed by the hero he consented to unclose it for him. The fragrance of the wine spread over the mountain¹⁷⁴⁴, and soon brought all the Centaurs armed with stones and pine-sticks to the cave of Pholos. The first who ventured to enter were driven back by Heracles with burning brands : he hunted the remainder with his arrows to Malea. They fled there to Cheirôn, who having been expelled from Pelion by the Lapiths was {p. 356}dwelling at that place. As Heracles was here shooting at the Centaurs, one of his arrows went through the arm of Elatos and stuck in the knee of Cheirôn. Grieved at this unhappy event, Heracles ran up, drew out the arrow, and applied to the wound a remedy given by Cheirôn himself ; but in vain, the venom of the hydra was not to be overcome. Cheirôn retired into his cave, longing to die, but unable on account of his immortality, till, on his expressing his willingness to die for Prometheus, he was released by death from his misery. The other Centaurs fled to different places ; some remained at Malea ; Eurytiôn went to Pholoe, Nessos to the river Euenos ; Poseidôn took the rest and sheltered them in Mount Eleusis. When Heracles returned to Pholœ, he found Pholos lying dead along with several others ; for, having drawn the arrow out of the body of one of them, while he was wondering how so small a thing could destroy such large beings, it dropped out of his hand and stuck in his foot, and he died immediately¹⁷⁴⁵. Heracles buried him, and then set out to hunt the boar, and driving him from his lair with loud cries, chased him into a snow-drift, where he caught and bound him, and then took him to Mycenæ.

To clear out in one day all the dung in the stables of Augeas king of Elis, the son of Poseidôn (or according to others of the Sun), was the fifth task imposed by the relentless Eurystheus¹⁷⁴⁶. When Heracles came to Augeas, he said nothing to him of the commands of Eurystheus, but offered for a tenth of his herds to clean out his stables in one day. Augeas agreed, not thinking the thing possible ; and Heracles took Phyleus, the son of Augeas, to witness the agreement. He then broke down a part of the wall of the court, and turning in the rivers Peneios and Alpheios by a canal, let them run out at the other side. Augeas, on learning that this was one of the tasks imposed by Eurystheus, not only refused to stand to his agreement, but denied that he had promised anything, and offered to lay the matter before judges. When the cause was tried, Phyleus honestly gave testimony against his father ; {p. 357}and Augeas in a rage, even before the votes had been given, ordered both his son and Heracles to depart out of Elis. The former retired to Dulichion : the latter went to Dexamenos at Olenos, whom he found on the point of being compelled to give his daughter in marriage to the Centaur Eurytiôn. Dexamenos imploring his aid, he killed the Centaur as he was coming for his bride. Eurystheus however refused to count this also among the twelve tasks, saying that he had done it for hire.

The sixth task was to drive away the Stymphalid birds. These were water-fowl, which, afraid of the wolves, fled to lake Stymphalis, which lay embosomed in wood near the Arcadian town Stymphalos. While Heracles was deliberating how he should scare them, Athena brought him from Hephæstos brazen clappers. He stood under a neighbouring hill, and rattled them : the birds terrified rose in the air, and he then shot them with his arrows¹⁷⁴⁷.

His seventh task was to fetch the Cretan bull. This animal had been sent up by Poseidôn when Minôs had vowed to sacrifice whatever should appear from the sea. Struck with the beauty and size of the animal, Minôs substituted another, and put him among his herds. Poseidôn in anger made the bull run wild and furious. When Heracles arrived, Minôs gave him permission to take him if he could. The hero succeeded, and brought and showed him to Eurystheus. He then let him go : and the bull roved over Sparta and Arcadia, and crossing the Isthmus came to Marathôn in Attica, where he did great mischief to the inhabitants.

For his eighth task he was enjoined to bring to Mycenæ the mares of Diomedes of Thrace. This was a son of Ares and Cyrene, and king of the Bistonians. His mares were androphagous. Heracles sailed thither with some volunteers, and having overcome the grooms, led the mares to the sea. The Bistonians pursued with arms. Heracles, leaving the mares in charge of Abderos, his favourite, the son of Hermes, a Locrian of Opûs, went to engage them. Meantime the mares tore their keeper to pieces ; and the hero, having defeated the Bistonians and slain Diomedes, built a city by the {p. 358}tomb of Abderos, and named it after him. He brought the mares to Eurystheus, who turned them loose ; and they strayed on to Mount Olympos, where they were destroyed by the wild beasts.

The ninth task was to bring to his master the girdle of Hippolyta queen of the Amazons¹⁷⁴⁸, who dwelt about the river Thermodôn. This nation was composed of women, who were renowned for their valour. When they bore children, they reared the females alone. They cut off their right breasts, that they might not impede them in drawing the bow. Hippolyta was mistress of the belt of Ares, as a token of her exceeding all the Amazons in valour. This girdle Eurystheus coveted for his daughter Admeta, and he ordered Heracles to bring it to him.

Having drawn together some volunteers, among whom were Theseus and Castôr and Polydeukes, he sailed to the isle of Paros, where four sons of Minôs dwelt. Two of the ship's company happening to be slain by them, Heracles killed several of the Parians, and besieged the rest, till they offered to give him any two he wished in the place of the companions he had lost. He chose Alcæos and Sthenelos, the sons of Androgeos, and then sailed on to Mysia, where he was hospitably entertained by Lycos, king of the Mariandynians, whom he aided against the Bebrycians, and slew their king Mygdôn, the brother of Amycos. He took a large portion of their territory and gave it to Lycos, who named it Heracleia. The hero reached at length the haven of Themiscyra, where Hippolyta came to inquire the cause of his arrival, and on hearing it she promised to give him her girdle. But Hera, taking the form of an Amazon, went and persuaded the rest that the strangers were carrying off their queen. They instantly armed, mounted their horses, and came down to the ship. Heracles, thinking that Hippolyta had acted treacherously, slew her, and taking her girdle made sail homewards.

He stopped at Troy, then in great distress from the wrath of Poseidôn and Apollo. These gods had contracted with Laomedôn, king of Troy, to build a wall round the town ; but when the wall was completed, Laomedôn refused to pay {p. 359}the wages agreed on, and dismissed them, threatening to cut off their ears. He even menaced to tie Apollo hand and foot and transport him to the distant islands¹⁷⁴⁹. To punish him Apollo sent a pestilence, and Poseidôn a flood bearing a huge sea-monster, who carried off all the people to be found in the plain. The oracle being consulted declared that there would be no end of the evil till Laomedôn had given his daughter Hesione¹⁷⁵⁰ for food to the monster. He therefore exposed her, fastened to a rock which overhung the sea. Heracles, having seen the maiden, offered to deliver her if Laomedôn would give him the mares which Zeus had presented to Trôs, in exchange for his son Ganymedes. Laomedôn assented, and Heracles slew the monster and delivered Hesione : but the faithless Trojan refused to keep his word, and the hero sailed away, threatening to return and make war on Troy.

His tenth task was to bring the oxen of Geryoneus from the island of Erytheia (Ruddy-isle), which lay near the Ocean¹⁷⁵¹, and was inhabited by Geryoneus the son of Chrysaôr¹⁷⁵² (Gold-sword), and Callirrhoe (Fair-flowing), an Oceanis. He had the bodies of three men united : they cohered above, but below the loins they were divided into three. His oxen were of a purple hue, and were guarded by his herdsman, named Eurytiôn, and the two-headed dog Orthos, the progeny of Echidna and Typhôn.

Heracles took his road through Libya, and when he came to the verge of Europe and Libya he erected two pillars, one on each side of the strait, as monuments of his journey¹⁷⁵³. {p. 360}Being scorched with the burning rays of the sun, he had the hardihood to bend his bow against the Sun-god ; who, admiring his courage, gave him his golden cup to pass over to Erytheia. As he was crossing, Oceanos appeared to him, and by agitating his waters, and tossing the cup in which he was sailing, endeavoured to frighten him ; but on the hero's bending his bow at him he ceased, and called to him to hold his hand¹⁷⁵⁴. Having reached the island he passed the night on Mount Abas. The dog Orthos discovering him flew at him, but Heracles struck him with his club, and killed Eurytiôn who came up to his aid. Menœtios, who kept in the same place the oxen of Hades, having informed Geryoneus of what had befallen, he pursued and overtook Heracles, as he was driving the cattle along the river Anthemos. He there attacked him, but was slain by his arrows ; and Heracles, placing the oxen in the cup, brought them over to the continent, where he returned his vessel to the Sun-god. He drove his cattle through Iberia, and came to Lygia, where Alebiôn and Dercinos, the sons of Poseidôn, attempted to carry them off¹⁷⁵⁵. These he slew, and then went on through Tyrrhenia. At Rhegion one of his bulls broke away¹⁷⁵⁶, ran through the country, swam over to Sicily, and came to the lands of Eryx the son of Poseidôn, who ruled over the Elymians. Eryx put the bull among his herds ; and Heracles, committing the care of his other cattle to Hephæstos, went in quest of the stray one. When he found him, he required Eryx to give him up ; but he refused, unless he would wrestle with him. Heracles accepted the challenge, and flinging him three times to the ground killed him. He then drove his cattle along the Ionian Sea. At the ‘recess of the sea’ (i. e. the head of the gulf) Hera set the oxen mad, and they ran raging through {p. 361}the hills of Thrace. Heracles pursued them ; and having overtaken a part of them at the Hellespont, he drove them toward the Peloponnese, leaving the others to run wild. When he came to the Strymôn, he in anger with that river filled its bed with stones, so that it became no longer navigable¹⁷⁵⁷. He finally brought the oxen to Eurystheus, who sacrificed them to Hera.

The preceding tasks had been performed in the space of eight years and a month ; but Eurystheus refused to allow for those of killing the hydra and cleansing the stables of Augeas. He now imposed the eleventh task, — that of bringing him the apples of the Hesperides¹⁷⁵⁸.

On his way in quest of the apples Heracles came to the river Echedoros, where he was challenged to a single combat by Cycnos the son of Ares and Pyrene. Ares defended his son ; and Zeus ended the conflict by casting a thunderbolt between the combatants. Heracles passed on through Illyria, thence to the Eridanos, and came to the nymphs, the daughters of Zeus and Themis. These directed him to Nereus, whom he found asleep ; and, in spite of his numerous changes of form, bound and held him fast, and never let him go till he had told him where the golden apples were. Having gotten this information, he went on to Tartessos, and crossing over to Libya went on till he came to Irassa by lake Tritonis¹⁷⁵⁹, where Antæos the son of Poseidôn reigned, who was wont to kill all strangers by forcing them to wrestle with him, and to hang their skulls on the temple of his sire. Heracles engaged him ; and, finding that every time he threw him to the ground he rose with renewed strength, he held him in his arms till he died. Antæos, on account of this property, was said to be the son of Earth¹⁷⁶⁰.

From Libya he went to Egypt, where Busiris, another son of Poseidôn, reigned. This king, in consequence of an oracle, offered up strangers on the altar of Zeus : for Egypt having {p. 362}been afflicted with a dearth for nine years, a Cyprian named Phrasios, a great soothsayer, came thither, and said that it would cease if they sacrificed a stranger every year to Zeus. Busiris sacrificed the prophet himself first, and then continued the practice. Heracles on his arrival was seized and dragged to the altar ; but he burst his bonds, and slew Busiris, his son Amphidamas, and his herald Chalbes¹⁷⁶¹.

He then roamed through Arabia, where he killed Æmathiôn the son of Eôs and Tithonos ; and then through the mountains of Libya, which he cleared of the wild beasts with his arrows ; and having come to the eastern course of Ocean, he was once more accommodated with the Sun-god’s radiant cup, in which he crossed to the opposite side¹⁷⁶². He came to where Prometheus lay chained, and, moved by his entreaties, shot the eagle that preyed on his liver. Prometheus out of gratitude warned him not to go himself to take the golden apples, but to send Atlas for them, and in the mean time to support the heaven in his stead. The hero did as desired, and Atlas at his request went and obtained three apples from the Hesperides ; but he said he would take them himself to Eurystheus, and that Heracles might continue to support the heavens. At the suggestion of Prometheus the hero feigned consent, but begged him to hold the heaven till he had made a pad to put on his head. Atlas threw down the apples, and resumed his burden ; and Heracles then picked them up, and went away¹⁷⁶³. He brought the apples to Eurystheus, who returned them to him ; and he then gave them to Athena. The goddess carried them back to the garden of the Hesperides whence they had been taken¹⁷⁶⁴.

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The twelfth and last task imposed by Eurystheus was to bring Cerberos from the under-world. When preparing for this expedition, Heracles went to Eumolpos at Eleusis, desirous to be initiated ; but he could not be admitted, as he had not been purified of the blood of the Centaurs. Eumolpos however purified him, and he then saw the mysteries, after which he proceeded to Tænaron in Laconia, where the entrance to the under-world was, and went down it, accompanied by Hermes and Athena¹⁷⁶⁵.

The moment the shades saw him they fled away in terror, — all but Meleagros and Medusa the Gorgôn¹⁷⁶⁶. He was drawing his sword on the latter, when Hermes reminded him that she was a mere phantom. Near the gates of the palace of Hades he found Theseus and Peirithoös, who had attempted to carry off Persephone, and had in consequence been fixed on an enchanted rock by the offended monarch of Erebos. When they saw Heracles they stretched forth their hands, hoping to be relieved by his might. He took Theseus by the hand, and raised him up¹⁷⁶⁷ ; but when he would do the same for Peirithoös, the earth quaked, and he left him. He then rolled off Ascalaphos, the son of Acherôn and Gorgyra, the rock which Demeter had cast on his body. Wishing to give the shades blood to drink, he took one of the oxen of Hades, and killed it. Menœtios, the son of Keuthonymos the herdsman, immediately challenged him to wrestle. Heracles laid hold on him, broke his ribs, and but for the prayers of Persephone would have killed him on the spot. He then asked Pluto to give him Cerberos ; and the god consented, provided he could take him without using his weapons. He found him at the gate of Acherôn ; and, protected only by his corslet and lion’s skin, he flung his arms about his head, and grasping him by the neck made him submit, though the dragon in his tail bit him severely. He brought him through Trœzên to Eurystheus ; and when he had shown him, took him back to the under-world.

{p. 364}

The hero having now performed all his tasks, returned to Thebes, where he gave Megara in marriage to Iolaos. Wishing himself to marry again, and hearing that Eurytos, king of Œchalia¹⁷⁶⁸, had declared that he would give his daughter Iola to him who should overcome himself and his sons in shooting with the bow, he went thither, and won the victory, but did not obtain the promised prize. Iphitos, the eldest son, was for giving his sister to Heracles ; but Eurytos and his other sons refused, lest he should destroy her children, if she had any, as he had done those of Megara. Shortly afterwards the oxen of Eurytos being stolen by Autolycos, his suspicions fell upon Heracles. Iphitos, who gave no credit to this charge, betook himself to that hero, and besought him to join in search of the lost oxen. Heracles promised to do so, and entertained him ; but falling again into madness, he precipitated Iphitos from the walls of Tiryns. In order to be purified of this murder he went to Neleus, who being a friend of Eurytos refused to comply with his desire. Heracles then went to Amyclæ, where he was purified by Deïphobos the son of Hippolytos. But he fell notwithstanding into a severe malady on account of the murder of Iphitos ; and going to Delphi to seek relief, he was refused a response by the Pythia. In his rage at her denial he went to plunder the temple, and taking the tripod was about establishing an oracle for himself. Apollo came to oppose him ; but Zeus hurled a thunderbolt between the combatants, and put an end to their contest. Heracles now received a response, that his malady would be removed if he let himself be sold for three years as a slave, and gave the purchase-money to Eurytos as a compensation for the loss of his son¹⁷⁶⁹.

{p. 365}

Accordingly, in obedience to the oracle, he was conducted by Hermes to Lydia, and there sold to Omphale the queen of the country¹⁷⁷⁰. The purchase-money (three talents, it is said,) was offered to Eurytos, but he refused to accept it.

When the term of his servitude was expired, he prepared, being now relieved of his disease, to take his long-threatened vengeance on Laomedôn. He accordingly collected a fleet of eighteen¹⁷⁷¹ fifty-oared vessels, manned by a valiant band of volunteer warriors, and sailed for Ilion. Leaving the fleet under the charge of Oïcles, he led his men against the town ; but while he was advancing toward it, Laomedôn fell on the ships, and Oïcles was slain in the attack ; Laomedôn was however driven back and besieged in the town. Telamôn succeeded in making a breach in the walls, and entered. Heracles followed with his drawn sword, for he would have no one thought his superior. When Telamôn saw this he began to collect the stones which were lying near him ; and on Heracles asking him what he was doing, said that he was raising an altar to Heracles Callinicos (Victor). Heracles slew with his arrows Laomedôn and all his sons but Podarkes. He gave Hesione to Telamôn as a reward of his valour, and allowed her to choose one among the captives to be set at liberty. When she had fixed on her brother Podarkes, Heracles replied that he must first be made a slave, and then she might give something for him and redeem him. She took her golden veil off her head, and with it bought him ; and hence he was afterwards named Priamos (Purchased) instead of Podarkes (Swift-foot).

As Heracles was sailing homewards from Troy, he was assailed by a furious storm, sent by Hera¹⁷⁷², which drove him to the isle of Côs. The inhabitants taking the strangers for pirates assailed them with stones, and endeavoured to prevent their landing ; but they were defeated, and their king Eurypylos, the son of Poseidôn and Astypalæa, was slain. Heracles was himself wounded in the fight by Chalcodôn. Having {p. 366}ravaged Côs, he went at the call of Athena to Phlegra, where he fought with the Gods against the Giants.

Not long afterwards he collected an army of Arcadians and volunteers from most of the towns of Greece, and marched against Augeas ; who put his Eleians under the command of his nephews Eurytos and Cteatos, the sons of Molione and Actôr, who excelled all men of that time in strength¹⁷⁷³. Heracles happening to fall sick, made a truce with the Molionids ; but when they heard of his illness, they attacked his army, and killed several of his men. He retired at that time ; but in the third Isthmiad afterwards, when the Eleians sent the Molionids to Cleonæ to offer sacrifice, he waylaid and killed them. He then led an army into Elis, took the city, slew Augeas and his sons, and set Phyleus on the throne. He also established the Olympic games, raised an altar to Pelops, and built altars to the twelve gods in order.

After the capture of Elis he marched against Pylos, took the city, and killed Neleus and all his sons, except Nestôr, who was living with the Gereneans¹⁷⁷⁴. He is also said to have wounded. Hades and Hera as they were aiding the Pylians¹⁷⁷⁵. He then marched to Lacedæmôn, to punish the sons of Hippocoön for having slain Œonos the son of Licymnios. For as this youth was gazing on the palace of Hippocoön, the house-dog flew at him : he flung a stone at the dog ; which so enraged the sons of Hippocoön, that they rushed out with sticks and beat him to death¹⁷⁷⁶. Heracles therefore, to avenge his death, collected an army. At Tegea in Arcadia he asked Cepheus, who had twenty sons, to join in the expedition : but Cepheus, afraid lest during his absence the Argives might make an attempt on Tegea, declined the proposal. Heracles, who had in a water-urn a brazen ringlet of the Gorgôn, which Athena had given him, presented it to Aërope the daughter of Cepheus, and told her, that if when a hostile army should {p. 367}approach she would show it three times from the walls without looking at it herself, they would take to flight. Cepheus and his sons now joined Heracles ; but they all fell in battle, and with them Iphicles the brother of the hero. Hippocoön himself was slain in the engagement, his sons were taken prisoners, and his kingdom was given to Tyndareos.

Returning through Tegea, Heracles violated, without knowing her, Auge the daughter of Aleos. She secretly brought forth a son, whom she laid in the sacred inclosure (τέμϵνος) of Athena. A famine coming on the land, Aleos went into the temenos of the goddess ; and searching about, found his daughter's infant, which he exposed on Mount Parthenion. But the babe was protected by the care of the gods ; for a hind, which had just calved, came and suckled him ; and the shepherds finding him named him Telephos from that circumstance¹⁷⁷⁷. Aleos gave his daughter Auge to Nauplios the son of Poseidôn, to sell her out of the country ; and he disposed of her to Teuthras king of Teuthrania on the Caÿster in Mysia, who made her his wife. Telephos having, when grown up, consulted the oracle respecting his parents, came to Mysia, where he was kindly received by Teuthras, whom he succeeded in his kingdom.

Heracles went afterwards to Calydôn, where he sought the hand of Deïaneira the daughter of Œneus¹⁷⁷⁸. He had to contend for her with the river-god Acheloös, who turned himself into a bull ; in which form one of his horns was broken off by the victorious hero. The vanquished river-god gave him in exchange for it the horn of Amaltheia¹⁷⁷⁹. Heracles afterwards assisted the Calydonians against the Thesprotians, and took {p. 368}the city of Ephyra, over which Phylas reigned, by whose daughter Astyoche he became the father of Tlepolemos.

One day at the table of Œneus, as Eunomos the son of Architeles was, according to custom, pouring water on the hands of the guests, Heracles happening unawares to swing his hand suddenly struck the boy and killed him¹⁷⁸⁰. As it was evidently an accident, the father forgave the death of his son ; but Heracles resolved to banish himself, agreeably to the law in such cases, and he set out with his wife for Trachis, the realm of his friend Ceÿx. On their way they came to the river Euenos, where Nessos the Centaur had taken his abode, and carried over travellers, saying he had received this office from the gods as a reward for his uprightness. Heracles went across through the water himself, having agreed on the price for the conveyance of Deïaneira. Nessos attempted to offer violence to his fair freight. She resisted, and cried out loudly ; and Heracles, hearing her screams, shot Nessos through the heart as he came on shore. The dying Centaur thought on revenge : he called Deïaneira to him, and told her if she would possess a philtre, or means of securing the love of Heracles, to keep carefully the blood which flowed from his wound, — an advice with which she incautiously complied.

As they were going through the country of the Dryopians Heracles became extremely hungry, and meeting a man named Theiodamas driving a wain with two oxen, he unyoked one of them, and killed, dressed, and ate it. He took with him Hylas the son of Theiodamas, who became his especial favourite. While residing with Ceÿx he aided Ægimios, king of the Dorians, against whom the Lapiths under the command of Coronos had made war, on account of a dispute respecting their boundaries, and had besieged him in his town. Heracles slew Coronos, and put Ægimios in possession of the whole country that had been in dispute. He afterwards killed Laogoras king of the Dryopians and his children, as he was feasting in the sacred ground of Apollo, on account of his violence and his aiding the Lapiths.

{p. 369}

As he was passing by the temple of Apollo at Pagasæ he was opposed by Cycnos the son of Ares, who was in the habit of plundering those who brought the sacrifices to Pytho. Cycnos fell in the combat ; and when Ares, who had witnessed the fate of his son, would avenge him, he received a wound in the thigh from the spear of the hero¹⁷⁸¹.

Returning to Trachis, Heracles collected an army, and made war on Eurytos king of Œchalia (in Eubœa), whom he killed, together with his sons ; and having buried those of his own men who had fallen, among whom were Hippasos the son of Ceÿx, and Argeios and Melas the sons of Licymnios, he plundered the town and led Iola away captive. At the Eubœan promontory Cenæos he raised an altar to Zeus ; and wishing to offer a sacrifice, sent to Ceÿx for a splendid robe to wear. Deïaneira hearing about Iola from the messenger, and fearing the effect of her charms on the heart of her husband, resolved to try the efficacy of the philtre of Nessos, and tinged with it the tunic which was sent. Heracles, suspecting nothing, put on the fatal garment and prepared to offer sacrifice. At first he felt no effect from it, but when it warmed the venom of the hydra began to consume his flesh. In his fury he caught Lichas, the ill-fated bearer of the poisoned tunic, by the foot, and hurled him into the sea¹⁷⁸². He attempted to tear off the tunic, but it adhered closely to his skin, and the flesh came away with it. In this wretched state he got on shipboard and returned to Trachis ; where Deïaneira, on learning the consequence of what she had done, hanged herself ; and Heracles, charging Hyllos his eldest son by her to marry Iola when he was of sufficient age, had himself carried to the summit of Mount Œta, and there causing a pyre to be constructed, ascended it, and directed his followers to set it on fire¹⁷⁸³. But no one would venture to obey ; till Pœas, happening to arrive there in search of his stray cattle, complied with the desire of the hero, and received his bow and arrows as his reward. While the pyre was flaming, a thunder-cloud conveyed the sufferer to heaven, where he was endowed with immortality ; {p. 370}and being reconciled to Hera he espoused her daughter Hebe, by whom he had two children named Alexiares (Aider-in-war) and Anicetos (Unsubdued).

Before we enter on the consideration of the mythology of Heracles, we will give the beautiful and ingenious, but, as appears to us, fanciful view of it taken by a modern critic¹⁷⁸⁴.

This mythe is, according to him, one of extreme antiquity and great beauty, setting forth the ideal of human perfection, consecrated to the weal of mankind, or rather in its original form to that of the hero's own nation. This perfection, according to the ideas of the heroic age, consists in the greatest bodily strength united with the advantages of mind and soul recognised by that age. Such a hero is, therefore, a man : but these noble qualities in him are of divine origin ; and he is made to be the son of the king of the gods, by a mortal mother. To render his perfection the more manifest, the poet gives him a twin-brother, the child of a mortal sire. As virtue is not to be learned, Heracles exhibits his strength and courage in infancy ; he strangles the snakes, which fill his brother with terror. The character of the hero throughout life, as that of the avenger of injustice and punisher of evil, must exhibit itself in the boy as the wild instinct of nature ; and the mythe makes him kill his tutor Linos with a blow of the lyre. When sent away by Amphitryôn, he prepares himself, in the stillness and solitude of the shepherd’s life, by feats of strength and courage, for his future task of purifying the earth of violence.

The beautiful tale of Prodicus, on the choice of Heracles between virtue and effeminacy, is a component part of the original mythe, to which it suits so accurately. For if the virtue of Heracles was to be of any value, it must be the result of choice, and he must be tempted and resist the temptation. It was also necessary for the perfection of virtue that it should encounter continued opposition ; and Grecian mythology, which contained no being of pure and unmixed evil, but gods of mingled character like men, furnished in the jealous Hera a deity to oppose and afflict the son of Zeus. But if {p. 371}the object of the persecution of one power, he must be — in conformity to all analogy — under the protection of another ; and Pallas-Athene, the goddess of wisdom and mental energy, appears throughout the ancient form of the mythe as the constant guardian of the hero.

The number of tasks may not have been originally twelve, though most accounts agree in that number ; but they were all of a nature agreeable to the ideas of an heroic age, — the destruction of monsters, and bringing home to his own country the valuable productions of other regions¹⁷⁸⁵. These labours are chiefly allegorical. The Hydra, for instance, was meant to represent the evils of democratic anarchy, with its numerous heads, against which though one may not be able to effect anything, yet the union of even two may suffice to overcome it.

The toils of the hero conclude with the greatest and most rare of all in the heroic age, — the conquest over death. This is represented by his descent into the under-world, and dragging Cerberos to light, as a proof of his victory. In the old mythe he was made to engage with and wound Aïdes ; and the Alcestis of Euripides exhibits him in conflict with Death.

But virtue, to be a useful example, must occasionally succumb to human weakness and the power of the evil principle. Hence Heracles falls into fits of madness, sent on him by Hera ; and hence, like the Rinaldo and Ruggiero of romance, he becomes the willing slave of Omphale, the fair queen of Lydia, and changes his club and lion’s skin for the distaff and the female robe. The mythe at length concludes most nobly with the assumption of the hero into Olympos. His protecting deity abandons him to the power of his persevering enemy¹⁷⁸⁶ ; his mortal part is consumed by fire, the purest of elements ; his shade or image (ϵἵδωλον)¹⁷⁸⁷, like those of other {p. 372}men, descends to the realms of Hades, while the divine portion, himself (αὐτὸς), ascends from the pyre in a thunder-cloud, and the object of Hera's persecution being now effected, espouses Youth the daughter of his reconciled foe.

Our chief objection to this beautiful theory is its making the mythe of Heracles, from the very commencement, one entire and consistent fiction, framed with a moral view. This we regard as contrary to the mythic analogy, which, though it might devise single mythes, like that of Ixiôn, in order to illustrate some ethic principle, never conducted the heroes through a long series of adventures like those of Heracles.

The mythology of this hero is of a very mixed character in the form in which it has come down to us. There is in it the identification of one or more Grecian heroes with Melcart, a god of the Phœnicians, and perhaps with one of the deities of Egypt. Hence we find Heracles so frequently represented as the sun-god, and his twelve labours regarded as the passage of the sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac.

The Grecian adventures of Heracles are placed in Thessaly (chiefly about Mount Œta), Ætolia and the Peloponnese ; and as the Dorians, whose princes were supposed to be descended from Heracles, had relations with all these countries, Müller¹⁷⁸⁸ views in him the national hero of the Dorian race. He regards as the original exploits of the Dorian Heracles the conquest of Œchalia, the marriage with Deïaneira (that is, the league between the Dorians and Ætolians for the invasion of the Peloponnese), the taking of Ephyra, with which he connects the wounding of Hades, and the whole of the Heraclean Necyia, and even the carrying away of the cattle of Geryoneus, whom with Hecatæus he places in Epeiros, and finally the death on the summit of Œta. He thinks that the Peloponnesian adventures were mostly invented after the time of the Dorian invasion, which they were intended to justify ; there may, he allows, have been an Argive hero of perhaps the same name, who was the destroyer of the Nemean lion ; but the enmity of Hera, the delay at his birth, the servitude to Eurystheus, etc., are Dorian legends, and {p. 373}meant to represent the political and religious contests between the ancient inhabitants and the invaders. The mythology of Heracles at Thebes was, he thinks, introduced from Delphi, or by the Doric Heracleids. That he did not belong to the Cadmeian mythology, is proved by the legend of the coming of Alcmena to Thebes, and by the fact of his temples there being without the walls, — a fact which is quite conclusive, as the ancient deities of a city always had their temples on or near the citadel. Returning to the Peloponnese ; the adventures there, he says, may be divided into two classes, the combats with men and those with beasts. Of the former are the conquest of Pylos, Laconia and Elis, and the establishment of the Olympic games, in all of which there is a historic reference. The latter are perhaps of a symbolical nature. Many of the adventures out of Greece are to be referred to the Greek colonists of the places which are made the scene of them.

We have thus given a sketch of the theory of this most able mythologist, and there is much in it to which it is difficult to refuse assent. But we think that, like his theory of Apollo, it is too much affected by what appear to us his exaggerated idea of the influence of Doric ideas and institutions in Greece. There are, in fact, parts of the Heraclean mythology to our apprehension almost inexplicable on this hypothesis : his name too, Hera-renowned, seems quite unsuitable to a hero of the Dorians anterior to the Migration. This however may be obviated by supposing the name of the Dorian hero to have been different, and that of the Argive to have been adopted in its stead. But again, it does not seem likely that an Argive hero should be the object of persecution to the Argive goddess ; on the contrary, all analogy would lead us to suppose him, from his name, to have been her favourite¹⁷⁸⁹. We would therefore hint as a possibility, that the original Heracles was the conception of a Peloponnesian hero¹⁷⁹⁰, who, in obedience to the great goddess of the country (the goddess of the {p. 374}earth), cleared it of the noxious animals that infested it, and, it may be, went on toilsome journeys to distant regions to bring home cattle and plants to adorn and improve it ; but that when he was identified with the Doric hero a new series of adventures was devised for him, and he was made the object of the persecution instead of the favour of the Argive goddess. We do not think that the identification with Melcart had much influence beyond that of localising some of the legends, such as that of Geryoneus.

In the Homeric poems there is, as we have seen, frequent mention of Heracles ; and in the Theogony his birth at Thebes, his combats with the Nemean lion, the hydra and Geryoneus, his release of Prometheus and marriage with Hebe, are noticed. In the Eoiæ the conquest of Pylos and other events were recorded ; the Shield relates the combat with Cycnos ; and the Ægimios and Wedding of Ceÿx, ascribed to Hesiod, contained adventures of this hero. Of the age of these poems however we can only make a conjecture ; for it is well known that some of the Hesiodic poems, as they are called, come down even below the thirtieth Olympiad. Cinæthos of Lacedæmôn, who flourished about the fifth Olympiad, composed a Heracleia, and Peisander of Cameiros (about Ol. 33.) another very celebrated one ; Stesichorus of Himera (Ol. 48.) also composed a lyric poem named the Geryoneïs, on the expedition to Erytheia ; Panyasis of Samos (Ol. 72.) wrote a Heracleia in fourteen books, containing nearly as many verses as the Odyssey.

Pherecydes, Hellanicus and Hecatæus all gave the adventures of Heracles a place in their works ; and Herodorus of Heracleia on the Pontus, a contemporary of Socrates, composed a long Heracleia in prose. The Attic tragedians also introduced Heracles into their dramas ; and as they viewed him as a Bœotian, his character was treated with but little ceremony on some occasions. Apollodorus and Diodorus relate the adventures of this hero ; they were also the subjects of the verses of the Alexandrian and the Latin poets.

{p. 375}

Chapter V.

MYTHES OF ATTICA.

Κέκροψ. Cecrops.

Ogyges, in whose time the Bœotic flood is placed, is said by some to have been the first who reigned over Attica and Bœotia : his son Eleusinos was the founder of Eleusis.

But in general Cecrops is held to have been the first who ruled over the country called Cecropia from him, and Attica from its peninsular form. He is said by mythologists to have been an autochthôn, i. e. one who came from no foreign country, but was born in, and as it were from, the land ; and, like autochthones in general, to have had a body composed of those of a man and a snake. In his time the gods began to choose cities for themselves ; and Poseidôn and Athena both fixed on Athens. The former came and struck the middle of the future Acropolis with his trident, and formed the well of salt water in the Erichtheion ; Athena then came, and making Cecrops witness of her taking possession, planted the olive which stood in the Pandrosion. Twelve gods sat to decide the cause ; and on the testimony of Cecrops, they adjudged the place to Athena. She named the city from herself, and Poseidôn testified his anger by laying the Thriasian plain under water¹⁷⁹¹.

Cecrops married Agraulos the daughter of Actæos, who bore him a son Erysichthôn, and three daughters, Agraulos, Herse, and Pandrosos. Erysichthôn died without children ; Agraulos had by Ares a daughter named Alcippe¹⁷⁹², and Herse by Hermes a son named Cephalos¹⁷⁹³.

One of the earliest events recorded in modern histories of Greece is the coming of Cecrops, at the head of a colony, from {p. 376}Saïs in Lower Egypt to Attica, where he civilised the rude aborigines, gave them religion, marriage, and other social institutions, and taught them to cultivate corn for their subsistence. This remarkable event is placed, on the authority of the Parian Chronicle, b. C. 1582.

It may therefore seem strange that Cecrops should apparently have been utterly unknown to Homer and Hesiod ; that the cyclic and the lyric poets do not speak of him ; that the logographers, and their follower Apollodorus, seem ignorant of his Egyptian birth ; that the same should be the case with the dramatists ; and that Herodotus should speak of the Athena of Saïs and of the Attic Cecrops without giving the slightest hint of any connexion between them. Plato is, in fact, the first who intimates it ; the priests of Saïs, he says, informed Solôn out of their temple-archives that the goddess Neïth or Athena was the founder of both their cities, but that Athens was the elder by one thousand years. When in those remote ages the people of the isle Atlantis invaded the countries within the Pillars of Heracles, the Athenians bravely repelled them ; and in the war Cecrops, Erechtheus, Erichthonios and Erysichthôn distinguished themselves¹⁷⁹⁴.

We should think it hardly necessary to inform the reader that the whole story of the Atlantis, and everything relating to it, is as pure a fiction as the Utopia or any other political romance, and that Plato makes in it the same use of Solôn that he does of Socrates on other occasions. At all events he gives not the slightest hint of Cecrops being an Egyptian, but rather the very reverse. Elsewhere he states the genuine Athenian creed of his day. “Neither a Pelops nor a Danaos, nor a Cadmos, nor an Ægyptos, nor any other, who, being originally a Barbarian, has been naturalised among the Hellenes, has settled among us. We are of pure Hellenic blood, no mixed people, and thence the hatred of foreign manners and customs is especially implanted in our city¹⁷⁹⁵.”

The first notice of the Egyptian origin of the Athenians {p. 377}appeared in a work which went under the name of Theopompus, but which was a forgery intended to injure him. It was named Τρικάρανος, and it attacked the traditions and history of Athens, Sparta, and Thebes. On the other hand Callistratus and Phanodemus maintained that Saïs was colonised from Athens. In the time of the Ptolemies it became the fashion to regard the Egyptians as the colonisers of half the world. Still it is only in an imperfect fragment of Diodorus and in Scholia that the Egyptian Cecrops occurs. Few then, we think, will now dissent from the following judgement : “The derivation of Cecrops from Saïs is a historic sophism and no mythe¹⁷⁹⁶.”

Cecrops then is purely an ideal being, and the names of his family all relate to agriculture and to the worship of the tutelar deity of Athens. Thus he is married to Field-dwelling (Agraulos), the daughter of the land (Actæos). He has one son, Mildew (Erysichthon), who dies childless and before himself ; and three daughters, Field-dwelling (Agraulos), All-dew (Pandrosos) and Dew (Herse). The first bears a daughter, Strongmare (Alcippe), to the god of war ; the third a son, Shady (Cephalos), to the rural deity Hermes. There were temples of both Agraulos and Pandrosos at Athens ; and, as Athena herself was called by these names¹⁷⁹⁷, they were probably only personifications of her epithets. As Herse and Pandrosos are the same in signification, it is probable that, like the Athenian Graces and Seasons, the Cecropides were only two originally¹⁷⁹⁸.

There only remains to be explained the name Cecrops or Cercops ; and when we recollect that the ancient Athenians wore golden tettiges or tree-hoppers in their hair to signify their autochthony, as it was said, and that a species of this insect was named κϵρκώπη, we have perhaps the simple origin of Cecrops¹⁷⁹⁹.

{p. 378}

Κραναός. Cranaüs.

Cecrops was succeeded by Cranaos, another autochthon, in whose time the flood of Deucaliôn is said to have happened. He married Pedias the daughter of Menytes ; and from his daughter Atthis, who died a maid, he named the country Atthis. Cranaos was expelled by Amphictyôn, also an autochthon, or as others said the son of Deucaliôn, who after a reign of twelve years was in his turn expelled by

Ἐριχθόνιος. Erichthonius.

Erichthonios was by some said to be the son of Hephæstos by Atthis the daughter of Cranaos. Others relate, that Athena coming one day to the workshop of Hephæstos to get some arms, the artist was filled by Aphrodite with desire, and attempted to offer violence to the maiden-goddess. She fled ; he pursued, and though lame overtook her, but was unable to overcome her resistance. The legend proceeds to relate the birth of Erichthonios after a manner which gives no very high idea of Athenian delicacy¹⁸⁰⁰. The goddess resolved to bestow immortality on the babe. She laid him therefore in a coffer, which she gave in charge to Pandrosos the daughter of Cecrops, with an injunction not to open it. Pandrosos was obedient ; but the curiosity of her sisters made them unclose the coffer, in which they beheld the babe, who terminated in a snake. As a punishment Athena struck them with madness, and they precipitated themselves from the Acropolis. Erichthonios was reared by Athena in her temenos ; and when he was grown up he expelled Amphictyôn, and reigned over Athens. He set up the statue of Athena on the Acropolis, and instituted the festival of the Panathenæa. He is said to have been the first who used the four-horsed chariot. He had by the Naïs Pasithea a son named Pandiôn, who succeeded him. Erichthonios when he died was buried in the temenos of Athena by his son ; or, according to others, by the goddess herself, whose favourite he had been, and whom in life she had often visited¹⁸⁰¹.

Another account of the birth of Erichthonios says, that {p. 379}Hephæstos having made golden seats for Zeus and the other gods, Hera when she sat in hers was unable to rise. Hephæstos was called to set his mother free ; but he, who had done it through malice for her having flung him out of heaven, replied that he had no mother. Dionysos contrived to make him drunk, and while in that state he released the goddess. Zeus then desired him to demand a reward ; and Poseidôn, who bore a grudge to Athena, persuaded him to ask her in marriage. Zeus granted his desire, but recommended his daughter to stand on her defence¹⁸⁰². — The remainder of the legend is nearly the same as the former one.

Πανδίων. Pandion.

Pandiôn succeeded his father in the kingdom. In his reign Demeter and Dionysos came to Attica. The former was entertained by Keleos, the latter by Icarios. Pandiôn married Zeuxippe, the sister of his mother, by whom he had two sons, Erechtheus and Butes, and two daughters, Procne and Philomela¹⁸⁰³.

Πρόκνη , фιλοήλα , Τηρϵύϛ . Procne, Philomela, et Tereus.

Pandiôn, being at war about boundaries with Labdacos king of Thebes, called to his aid Tereus the son of Ares out of Thrace¹⁸⁰⁴. Having with his assistance come off victorious in the contest, he gave him his daughter Procne in marriage, by whom Tereus had a son named Itys. After some time Procne became desirous of seeing her sister, and at her request Tereus went to Athens and prevailed on Pandiôn to let Philomela accompany him back to Thrace. On the way he violated her ; and fearing that the truth might be discovered, he cut out her tongue and confined her : she contrived however to communicate her story to her sister by means of characters woven into a peplos. Procne then sought out and released her sister ; and killing her own son Itys, served his flesh up to his father. The two sisters fled away ; and Tereus, {p. 380}discovering the truth, pursued them with an axe. Finding themselves nearly overtaken by him, they prayed to the gods to change them into birds ; Procne immediately became a Nightingale (ἀηδὼν), and Philomela a Swallow (χϵλιδὼν) ; Tereus was also changed, and became a Hoopoo (ἔποψ)¹⁸⁰⁵.

Like so many others, this story is told with considerable variations. According to some, Tereus had early conceived a passion for Philomela, and he obtained her in marriage by pretending that Procne was dead¹⁸⁰⁶. Again there is great discrepancy respecting the transformations, some saying that Procne, others that Philomela was the nightingale¹⁸⁰⁷. This last, which has the signification of the name in its favour¹⁸⁰⁸, was not however the prevalent opinion. It was also said that Tereus was changed into a hawk¹⁸⁰⁹, and that Itys became a wood-pigeon¹⁸¹⁰.

This fable seems to be one of considerable antiquity. We have already seen it under another form in the Odyssey¹⁸¹¹. Hesiod in one place¹⁸¹² calls the swallow Pandionis, evidently alluding to it ; and elsewhere he is said¹⁸¹³ to have related that the nightingale had been deprived of all her sleep, the swallow of one half of hers, in consequence of that unhallowed meal in Thrace. The legend is one of those invented to account mythically for the habits and properties of animals. The twitter of the swallow sounds like Itys, Itys ; the note of the nightingale was strangely regarded as lugubrious¹⁸¹⁴ ; and the hoopoo chases these birds. Tereus (θηρϵὺς) the Hunter, or the Fierce, was selected as the name of the husband, and its resemblance to Teres, a name of the kings of Thrace, may have {p. 381}caused him to be regarded as a Thracian. If it be true that the swallows did not build in Daulis¹⁸¹⁵, the reason is plain why that country was made the scene of the legend.

Ἐρϵχθϵύς. Erechtheus.

On the death of Pandiôn his sons Erechtheus and Butes divided his offices between them, the former taking the kingdom, the latter the priesthood of Athena and Poseidôn-Erichthonios. Butes married Chthonia the daughter of his brother, and the sacerdotal family of the Butads deduced their lineage from him.

Erechtheus married Praxithea, a grand-daughter of the Cephissos, and had by her five sons, Cecrops, Pandoros, Metiôn, Orneus, and Thespios ; and four daughters, Procris, Creüsa, Chthonia, and Oreithyia. Being engaged in a war with the Eleusinians, he consulted the god about the event ; and received for answer, that victory would fall to him who should sacrifice one of his daughters. Erechtheus offered up his youngest daughter Chthonia ; and her sisters, as they had entered into a resolution that when one lost her life the others would end theirs, all voluntarily put an end to themselves. Erechtheus was victorious, and slew Eumolpos the son of Poseidôn, an ally of the Eleusinians, but was himself destroyed afterwards by that god¹⁸¹⁶.

Πρόκρις καὶ Κέфαλος . Procris et Cephalus.

Procris, the eldest daughter of Erechtheus, was married to Cephalos the son of Deïôn the son of Æolos. They dwelt at Thoricos in Attica, and were happy, till curiosity to try the fidelity of his wife entered the mind of Cephalos. Feigning a journey of eight years he disguised himself, and came to Procris with a splendid jewel, which he offered to her as the price of her favours. After much hesitation her virtue yielded ; her husband then discovered himself and reproached her. She fled from him in shame, but soon after they were reconciled. Cephalos went constantly to the chase ; and Procris, suspicious, as she had failed herself, fancied that he was {p. 382}attracted by the charms of some other fair-one. She questioned the slave who used to accompany him ; and he told her that his master frequently ascended the summit of a hill, and cried “Come, Nephela, come !” Procris went to the designated hill, and concealed herself in a thicket ; and on Cephalos’ crying “Come, Nephela, come !” she rushed forwards to her husband, who in his astonishment and confusion threw his dart and killed her¹⁸¹⁷.

This legend also is told with great variations. It was said that Cephalos refused to comply with the wishes of Eôs, pleading his fidelity to his wife, and that the goddess changed his form to put the faith of Procris to the test. Procris on finding how she had been deceived fled to Crete, where Minôs gave her an inevitable dart, and a dog named Lælaps (Whirlwind), which no beast could escape. She then cut her hair short, and attiring herself as a man came to Thoricos and challenged Cephalos to a match at hunting. He was easily overcome, and seeing the wonderful virtues of the dog and dart he sought to obtain them. The terms were those he had himself proposed to Procris. He yielded ; Procris then discovered herself and reproached him, but they were soon reconciled and she gave him the dog and dart. The story then concludes as above related¹⁸¹⁸.

According to another account the virtue of Procris had not been proof against the offer of a golden coronet from Pteliôn. Her infidelity being discovered by her husband, she fled to Minôs king of Crete, whom she enabled to have children, and received the dog and dart in return¹⁸¹⁹.

Cephalos for his involuntary crime was sentenced by the Areiopagos to perpetual banishment. He went to Thebes, which was at that time ravaged by a fox which nothing could overtake, and joined Amphitryôn in the chase of it : his dog Lælaps ran it down ; but just as he was catching it, Zeus turned them both to stone¹⁸²⁰. Cephalos then aided {p. 383}Amphitryôn against the Teleboans, and on their conquest he settled in the island named from him Cephalonia¹⁸²¹.

Procris is noticed in the Odyssey¹⁸²², and the story is probably one of some antiquity. Though, as we have seen, an attempt was made to convert Cephalos into a historic personage, he is probably the son of Hermes and Herse, and his name appears to signify the twilight (diluculum), which is taken away by the Dawn¹⁸²³. The name of Procris seems also to refer to the early day (πρωΐ).

Ὠρϵιθυῐα. Oreithyia.

As Oreithyia, the daughter of Erechtheus, was playing or gathering flowers on the banks of the Ilyssos, she was beheld by the wind-god Boreas. Enamoured of her beauty, he seized and carried her away to Thrace, where she bore him the winged youths Zetes and Calaïs ; and two daughters, Chione and Cleopatra¹⁸²⁴.

Chione was loved by Poseidôn, to whom she bore a son named Eumolpos ; to conceal her weakness she threw the babe into the sea to the protection of his father. Poseidôn took him to Æthiopia, and gave him to his daughter Benthesicyme to rear. When Eumolpos was grown up, the husband of Benthesicyme gave him one of his two daughters in marriage ; but Eumolpos, attempting to offer violence to the sister of his wife, was forced to fly. He came with his son Ismaros to Tegyrios, a king of Thrace, who gave his daughter in marriage to Ismaros. But Eumolpos, being detected plotting againt Tegyrios, was once more forced to fly, and he came to Eleusis. Ismaros dying, Tegyrios became reconciled to Eumolpos, who returned to Thrace, and succeeded him in his kingdom. War breaking out between the Athenians and the Eleusinians, the latter invoked the aid of their former guest, and Eumolpos fell in battle against Erechtheus¹⁸²⁵.

{p. 384}

Here we find a physical mythe in union with a historical legend. It was a tradition in Attica that the sacred family of the Eumolpids belonged to the mythic Thracians, whom we find sometimes on Helicôn, sometimes in Thrace. The present legend, by making Eumolpos a son of the sea-god and grandson of the north wind, and giving him a son named Ismaros, plainly intended to deduce the Eumolpids from Thrace, while the name Tegyrios would seem to point to Bœotia, where there was a town named Tegyra.

The spouse of the north-wind was very appropriately named Mountain-rusher (ὂρος θύω), their children are Blower (Ζήτης), Inflamer (Κάλαϊς)¹⁸²⁶, and Snow (Χιόνη), to whom for the sake of uniformity another daughter was added, whose name shows that she could not have belonged to the original mythe. It is, we should think, quite evident that Oreithyia was not the daughter of a king of Attica ; yet the real Erechtheus may have been her mythic sire.

Κρέουσα, Ξοȗθος καὶ ῎Ιων. Creusa, Xuthus et Ion.

Creüsa, the third daughter of Erechtheus, married Zuthos the son of Hellên, to whom his father had assigned the Peloponnese. Her sons by him were Iôn and Achæos.

According to Euripides, in the drama named from him, Iôn was the fruit of the secret love of Creüsa with Apollo. When she had given birth to him she laid him in the cave where she had met the god ; and Hermes, at Apollo's desire, conveyed him to Delphi. He was there reared and dedicated to the service of the temple ; and when some years after Zuthos and Creüsa come to consult the oracle on the subject of progeny, Iôn was recognised by his mother, and as the true representative of the Erechtheids he occupied the throne, and from his four sons Teleôn, Hoples, Ergades and Ægicoreus the four tribes of Attica were named.

{p. 385}

Πανδίων. Pandion II.

On the death of Erechtheus the sceptre passed to his son Cecrops II. The successor of Cecrops was his son Pandiôn II., who was expelled by the Metionids. He retired to Megara, where he married Pylia the daughter of king Pylos ; who, being obliged to fly for the murder of his brother Bias, resigned Megara to his son-in-law, and retiring to the Peloponnese built Pylos. Pandiôn had four sons, Ægeus, Pallas, Nisos, and Lycos, who conquered and divided among them the Attic territory, Ægeus, as the eldest, having the supremacy¹⁸²⁷.

Νîσος καὶ Σκύλλα. Nisus et Scylla.

In the war waged by Minôs king of Crete against the Athenians, on account of the death of his son Androgeôs, Megara was besieged, and it was taken by the treachery of Scylla the daughter of Nisos. This prince had a golden or purple lock of hair growing on his head ; and as long as it remained uncut, so long was his life to last. Scylla, having seen Minôs, fell in love with him, and resolved to give him the victory. She cut off her father's precious lock as he slept, and he immediately died : the town was then taken by the Cretans. But Minôs, instead of rewarding the maiden, disgusted with her unnatural treachery, tied her by the feet to the stern of his vessel, and thus dragged her along till she was drowned¹⁸²⁸. Another legend¹⁸²⁹ adds, that Nisos was changed into the bird called the Seaeagle (ἁλιάετος), and Scylla into that named Ciris (κεȋρις¹⁸³⁰ ) ; and that the father continually pursues the daughter to punish her for her crime. According to Æschylus¹⁸³¹ Minôs bribed Scylla with a golden collar.

Αἰγεύς. Ægeus.

Ægeus the son of Pandiôn being childless went to Delphi to consult the oracle. The meaning of the response which {p. 386}he received being dubious¹⁸³², he took his way homewards through Trœzên, in order to consult Pittheus the wise son of Pelops. Pittheus, divining the sense of the oracle, made his guest drunk, and put him to sleep with his own daughter Æthra ; and Poseidôn, it was also said, took advantage of the same night. Ægeus when departing charged Æthra if she bore a son to rear him, and to tell no one whose he was. He moreover placed his sword and shoes under a large stone, and directed her to send his son to him when he was able to roll away the stone and take them from under it.

Ægeus returned to Athens ; and when Medeia came thither from Corinth, he married her. He also celebrated Panathenæan games ; in which Androgeôs the son of Minos overcame all his opponents. Ægeus, envious of his worth, engaged him to go and fight with the Marathonian bull, and the valiant youth fell in the attempt. According to other accounts, Ægeus laid an ambush for him as he was going to Thebes, where games were to be celebrated by Laïos.

Minôs made war on Athens to avenge the death of his son. Megara fell as above related. Athens held out ; but being closely pressed with hunger, the Athenians, according to an ancient oracle, sacrificed on the grave of the Cyclôps Geræstos the four daughters of Hyacinthos, who had settled there. This bloody deed was of no avail ; and the oracle declared, that the naming of the satisfaction he required must be left to Minôs himself. He demanded seven youths and seven maids to be sent every ninth year to be devoured by the Minotaur. This hard condition was for some time complied with. At length Theseus, the son of the king, voluntarily proposed to attempt their deliverance. He went, and succeeded ; but he forgot to change his black sails to white, as agreed on in case of success ; and Ægeus, thinking that his son was lost, cast himself from the Acropolis and perished¹⁸³³.

{p. 387}

Θησεύς. Theseus.

The son of Ægeus by Æthra was named Theseus. When grown to the proper age, his mother led him to the stone under which his father had deposited his sword and shoes, and he removed it with ease and took them out. He was now to proceed to Athens and present himself to his father. As the roads were infested by robbers, his grandfather Pittheus pressed him earnestly to take the shorter and safer way over the Saronic gulf ; but the youth, feeling in himself the spirit and the soul of a hero, resolved to signalise himself like Heracles, with whose fame all Greece now rang, by destroying the evil-doers and the monsters that oppressed the country ; and he determined on the more perilous and adventurous journey by land.

His first day's journey brought him to Epidauros, where dwelt a man named Periphates, a son of Hephæstos. This ferocious savage always went armed with an iron club, whence he was called Club-bearer (Κορυνήτης) ; and all travellers stood in terror of his cruelty. When he saw Theseus approach, he immediately assailed him ; but he speedily fell beneath the blows of the young hero, who took possession of his club, and bore it ever afterwards as a memorial of his first victory¹⁸³⁴.

Theseus now pursued his journey, and met with no interruption till he came to the Isthmus of Corinth. Here he found another ‘faitour,’ who, from the great mischief which he did to all the surrounding country, was called by no other name than that of Sinis¹⁸³⁵, i. e. Evil-doer. His strength was so great, that he was able to take by their tops the pine-trees with which the Isthmus was at that time overgrown, and bend them to the ground ; and hence he was called Pine-bender (Πιτυοκάμπτης). He posted himself on the road, and obliged all passengers to take hold of a pine with him and bend it, and when it was bent he would let it go, and the tree flying up the unhappy stranger was dashed to the ground and killed. Theseus, on being challenged, though he had never before attempted such a feat, held down the tree with ease ; and then, {p. 388}to punish Sinis for his previous cruelty, killed him, and hung him out of one of the pines¹⁸³⁶.

Before he left the neighbourhood of the Isthmus, Theseus delivered the people of Cromyon, a village near Corinth, from a huge sow which ravaged their lands. He hunted and killed this monster¹⁸³⁷.

As he approached the borders of Megara, he came to the narrow path overhanging the sea, where the robber Scirôn — from whom the pass derived its name — had fixed his abode. The practice of Scirôn was, when any stranger came to him, to invert the duties of hospitality ; and instead of giving water to wash the feet of his guest, to insist on the guest’s washing the feet of the host. This ceremony was performed on the pass ; and while the guest was engaged in the operation, Scirôn would give him a kick, which tumbled him down into the sea, where a huge tortoise always lay ready to devour the bodies of those who were thrown down. Theseus killed Scirôn himself, and flung his body down to the tortoise¹⁸³⁸.

Theseus came now to Eleusis, where Cercyôn, said to be a son of Hephæstos, reigned. Like many of those whom Heracles encountered, Cercyôn forced all comers to wrestle with him, and killed the vanquished. Theseus accepting his challenge overcame him, and paid him in his own coin¹⁸³⁹.

Not far from thence, on the banks of the Cephissos, Theseus met with Damastes, named the Beater-out or Stretcher (Προκρούστης), and the Hurtful (Πολυπήμων). This Damastes had two iron bedsteads, one long, the other short. When a stranger came, he took him, if short of stature, to the long bedstead, and stretched and pulled him, as he said, to make him fit it, till the life left him. But if the stranger should be tall, he assigned him the short bedstead, and then cut as much off him as made him of the same length as his bed. But Theseus meted to him with his own measure¹⁸⁴⁰.

Having overcome all the perils of the road, Theseus at length reached Athens, where new danger awaited him. He {p. 389}found his father's court all in confusion. The Pallantids, or sons and grandsons of Pallas the brother of Ægeus, had long seen with jealousy the sceptre in the hands of an old man, and meditated wresting it from his feeble grasp. Thinking however that his death could not be very remote, they resolved to wait for that event, but they made no secret of their intentions. The arrival of Theseus threatened to disconcert their plan. They feared that if this young stranger should be received as a son by the old king, he might find in him a protector and avenger ; and they resolved to poison his mind against him. Their plot so far succeeded, that Ægeus was on the point of sacrificing his son, when he recognised him, and then acknowledged him in the presence of all the people. The Pallantids had recourse to arms, but Theseus defeated and slew them¹⁸⁴¹.

Medeia, it is also said, who was married to Ægeus, fearing the loss of her influence when Theseus should have been acknowledged by his father, resolved to anticipate that event ; and moved by her calumnies, Ægeus was presenting a cup of poison to his son, when the sight of the sword left with Æthra discovered to him who he was¹⁸⁴².

The bull which Heracles had brought from Crete was now at Marathôn, and the country was in terror of his ravages. Theseus, probably deeming this a good opportunity of recommending himself to the people over whom he was likely to reign, resolved to deliver them from the ferocious animal. He went in quest of him, overcame and exhibited him in chains to the astonished eyes of the Athenians, who did not know which was the greater, their admiration of the victory or their terror of the combat. Theseus then sacrificed the bull to Apollo Delphinios¹⁸⁴³.

The Athenians were at this period in deep affliction, on account of the tribute which they were forced to pay to Minôs king of Crete. Theseus resolved to deliver them from this calamity, or to die in the attempt. Accordingly when the third time of sending off the tribute came, and the youths and maidens were according to custom drawn by lot to be sent, in spite of the entreaties of his father to the contrary, he {p. 390}voluntarily offered himself as one of the victims. The ship departed as usual under black sails, which Theseus promised his father to change for white in case of his returning victorious. When they arrived in Crete, the youths and maidens were exhibited before Minôs ; and Ariadne the daughter of the king, who was present, became deeply enamoured of Theseus, by whom her love was speedily returned. She furnished him with a clue of thread, which enabled him to penetrate in safety the windings of the labyrinth, till he came to where the Minotaur lay, whom he caught by the hair and slew. He then got on board with his companions, and sailed for Athens. Ariadne accompanied his flight, but was abandoned by him on the isle of Dia or Naxos¹⁸⁴⁴.

Before he returned to Athens, Theseus sailed to Delos to pay his vow : for ere setting out on his perilous expedition, he had made a vow to send annually, if successful, to the temple of the god, a ship with gifts and sacrifices¹⁸⁴⁵. He also consecrated in that island to Aphrodite a statue made by Dædalos, on account of the aid she had given him. He moreover, to commemorate his victory, established there a dance, the evolutions of which imitated the windings of the labyrinth¹⁸⁴⁶.

On approaching the coast of Attica Theseus forgot the signal appointed by his father, and returned under the same sails with which he had departed ; and the old king, thinking he was bereaved of his newly-found son, ended his life. Theseus, with the general approbation, mounted the vacant throne.

The hero now turned his thoughts to legislation. The Attic territory had been divided by Cecrops into twelve Demes or villages, each of which had its own government and chief magistrate, and was almost wholly independent. The {p. 391}consequence was, frequent and sanguinary wars among them. Nothing but pressing external danger forced them to union, which was again dissolved as soon as the storm was over.

Theseus therefore invited not merely the people of Attica, but even strangers and foreigners, to settle at Athens, then nothing but a castle on a rock. By his prudence and his authority he induced the heads of the villages to resign their independent sovereignty, and entrust the administration of justice to a court, which should sit constantly at Athens, and exercise jurisdiction over all the inhabitants of Attica. He abolished the former division of the people of Attica into four tribes, and substituted that of a distribution into three classes, of the Nobles, the Agriculturists, and the Manufacturers. The nobles were put in possession of all offices and dignities ; but the choice of the persons from the body of the nobles to fill them was left to the people.

The result of these judicious regulations was the increase of the town of Athens, and of the population in general ; the establishment of just liberty, and at the same time the augmentation of the royal power, and the reduction of that of the nobles, heretofore the source of such continual broils and dissensions. As a further means of uniting the people, Theseus established numerous festivals, particularly the Panathenæa, solemnized with great splendour every fifth year, in commemoration of this union of the inhabitants of Attica.

Theseus firmly established the boundaries of the Attic territory, in which he included Megaris, and set up a pillar on the Isthmus of Corinth to mark the limits of Attica and the Peloponnese. Near this pillar he renewed the Isthmian games, in imitation of the Olympic lately established by Heracles.

These civic cares did not prevent Theseus from taking part in military enterprises : he accompanied Heracles in his expedition against the Amazons, who dwelt on the banks of the Thermodôn ; and distinguished himself so much in the conflict, that Heracles after the victory bestowed on him, as the reward of his valour, the hand of the vanquished queen Antiope. When the Amazons afterwards in revenge invaded the Attic territory, they met with a signal defeat from the Athenian prince.

{p. 392}

Theseus was also a sharer in the dangers of the Calydonian hunt ; he was one of the adventurous band who sailed in the Argo to Colchis ; and he aided his friend Peirithoös and the Lapiths in their conflict with the Centaurs. The friendship between him and Peirithoös was of a most intimate nature ; yet it had originated in the midst of arms. Peirithoös had one time made an irruption into the plain of Marathon, and carried off the herds of the king of Athens. Theseus, on receiving information, went to repel the plunderers. The moment Peirithoös beheld him, he was seized with secret admiration ; he stretched out his hand as a token of peace, and cried, “Be judge thyself ! What satisfaction dost thou require ?” — “Thy friendship,” replied the Athenian ; and they swore inviolable fidelity.

Like faithful comrades, they aided each other in every project. Each was ambitious in love, and would possess a daughter of the king of the gods. Theseus fixed his thoughts on Helena the daughter of Leda, then a child of but nine years. The friends planned the carrying her off, and they succeeded. Placing her under the care of his mother Æthra at Aphidnæ, Theseus prepared to assist his friend in a bolder and more perilous attempt : for Peirithoös, after the death of Hippodameia, resolved to venture on the daring deed of carrying away from the palace of the monarch of the underworld his queen Persephone. Theseus, though aware of the risk, would not abandon his friend. They descended together to the region of shadows ; but Aïdes, knowing their design, seized them, and placed them on an enchanted rock at the gate of his realms ; where they sat unable to move, till Heracles passing by in his descent for Cerberos free'd Theseus, but was by a divine intimation prevented from aiding his friend, who remained there everlastingly in punishment of his audacious attempt¹⁸⁴⁷.

After the death of Antiope, who had borne him a son named Hippolytos, Theseus married Phædra the daughter of Minôs and sister of Ariadne. This princess was seized with a {p. 393}violent affection for the son of the Amazôn, — an affection produced by the wrath of Aphrodite against Hippolytos for neglecting her deity, and devoting himself solely to the service of Artemis, or against Phædra as the daughter of Pasiphae. During the absence of Theseus the queen made advances of love to her step-son, which were indignantly repelled by the virtuous youth. Filled with fear and hate, on the return of her husband she accused to him his innocent son of an attempt on her honour. Without giving the youth an opportunity of clearing himself, the blinded prince, calling to mind that Poseidôn had promised him the accomplishment of whatever wish he should first form, cursed and implored destruction on his son from the god. As Hippolytos, leaving Trœzên, was driving his chariot along the sea-shore, a monster sent by Poseidôn from the deep terrified his horses ; they burst away in fury, heedless of their driver, dashed the chariot to pieces, and dragged along Hippolytos entangled in the reins, till life abandoned him. Phædra ended her days by her own hand ; and Theseus, when too late, learned the innocence of his son¹⁸⁴⁸.

The invasion of Attica by Castôr and Polydeukes, to avenge the carrying off of their sister, and an insurrection of the Pallantids, brought on Theseus the usual fate of all great Athenians, — exile. He voluntarily retired to Lycomedes, king of the island of Scyros, and there he met with his death, either by accident or by the treachery of his host : for ascending with Lycomedes a lofty rock, to take a view of the island, he fell or was pushed off by his companion, and lost his life by {p. 394}the fall. The Athenians honoured his memory by feasts and temples, placed him among the gods, and called their city the town of Theseus.

We will now pursue the explanation of the legendary history of Attica from the time of Cecrops.

It is not necessary for us, we presume, to set about proving that king Rocky or Hilly (Cranaos), his wife Plain (Pedias) and his daughter Attica (Atthis) are not historical personages. It is equally needless to show that Amphictyôn, or rather Amphictiôn, — the personification of the people who dwelt about (ἀμϕικτίονες) Thermopylæ, and were united for a common political and religious object, — could not have been a real person, much less a king of Attica. We will therefore commence with Erichthonios or Erechtheus, whom the more ancient tradition viewed as the first Attic king.

We have seen how entirely Cecrops and his family belong to the worship of Pallas-Athene. Beside this goddess, the symbol of the mild celestial heat, the ancient people of Attica adored Hephæstos, the terrestrial fire or heat which was the origin of metallurgy ; Hermes the deity who wrought within the earth, giving increase to fruits and cattle ; and Poseidôn, the great nourishing principle of water. These are the only deities whom we find noticed in the early Attic mythes.

Erechtheus and Erichthonios are the same person, and are nothing more than the name by which Poseidôn was worshiped on the Acropolis. It is well known that none but the ancient deities of the nation ever had temples or altars on the citadel ; but we find a part of the temple of Athena-Polias named the Erechtheion, and sacred to Erechtheus, and in it there were altars of Hephæstos, Butes and Poseidôn, on which last sacrifices were made to Erechtheus¹⁸⁴⁹. In this temple also was the well of salt water which Poseidôn was said to have produced with his trident ; it was called the ‘Erechthean Sea¹⁸⁵⁰.’ That Erichthonios and Erechtheus were the same, {p. 395}appears from this, that Homer and Hesiod tell of the latter what others relate of the former. In fact Erechtheus is only the abbreviated form of the name which signifies Earth-shaker¹⁸⁵¹. It need not surprise us to find this deity, when made a hero, assigned the origins above related. It is probable that in the more ancient legend there was a Holy Marriage (ἱερὸς γάμος) of Hephæstos and Athena, the celestial and terrestrial heat, of which the offspring was a serpent-formed son, that is, the tender twining plant which proceeds from the seed, and of which the care was committed to the sisters Dew and Field-dwelling. The other circumstances of the legend may be referred to the imagination of those who took on them to embellish and extend it, and to the freaks of etymology in which the ancients found such pleasure in indulging. The ascribing to Erichthonios the invention of the four-horse chariot, is a confirmation of his identity with Poseidôn ; and it may be observed, that his Trojan namesake was renowned for his stud¹⁸⁵².

It may be that Pandiôn is indebted for his Attic royalty to his part in the mythe of the nightingale and swallow, which was perhaps only appropriated by the Athenians, like that of Oreithyia, and possibly that of Cephalos and Procris, though this last seems to be a genuine Attic mythe. As for Cecrops II. and Pandiôn II., they are manifestly employed merely to establish a connexion between the Erechtheids and Theseus ; and Pylos would probably never have been king of Megara, if the Neleids of Pylos had not come to Attica at the time of the Dorian Migration.

We are now to consider Iôn, the personification of the Ionians. The mythe above noticed was evidently devised to account for the abode of the Ionians in Attica, where their settlement was probably effected by conquest. Whence they came is uncertain ; but the name of the Ionian sea would seem to place their original abode on the north coast of the {p. 396}Peloponnese¹⁸⁵³. As Iôn is the son of Apollo (for Xuthos is apparently nothing more than an epithet of that god¹⁸⁵⁴), they are to be regarded as the introducers of the worship of Apollo into Attica, where it seems to have been originally confined to the military class. The name Creüsa (Princess) in this legend, (like that of it and Creôn (Prince) in so many others,) shows that it was a mere fiction, and did not speak of real persons.

Lycos, Pallas and Nisos, the sons of Pandiôn, have as little claim to reality as any of the others. As the Lyceion at Athens was said to have been named from Lycos, and there was on it a temple of Apollo Lycios¹⁸⁵⁵, it is not unlikely that the god and the prince were the same person. Pallas may in like manner have been connected with the patron-goddess of the city¹⁸⁵⁶. The port of Megara (or perhaps the peninsula which formed it) was named Nisæa¹⁸⁵⁷, and thence probably was derived the name of the king Nisos. The story of him and his daughter Scylla is one of the many tales of maidens betraying their parents and country for love or lucre. We shall find it repeated in Pterilaos and Comætho, and every one has heard of the Roman Tarpeia¹⁸⁵⁸.

Ægeus is plainly only another name for Poseidôn, who was also named Ægæos¹⁸⁵⁹ and Ægæôn¹⁸⁶⁰. In fact it was also said that Poseidôn was the father of Theseus, who comes from Trœzên (where Poseidôn was the guardian-god — πολιοȗχος), and clears the Isthmus (which was sacred to that god) of {p. 397}monsters and evil-doers. We also find that Theseus was worshiped on the eighth day of the month, which was the sacred day of Poseidôn¹⁸⁶¹. There seems to have been a distinction between the ancient Poseidôn-Erechtheus of the agricultural Pelasgic people of Attica and the Poseidôn-Ægeus of the Ionians, to whom Theseus evidently belongs, the latter being regarded more as the god of the sea and of navigation, corresponding with the more active military character of the Ionian race. In proof of Theseus being of this race, we may observe that he seems to be rather in opposition with the ancient deities of the place. Some of the evil-doers whom he slays are sons of Hephæstos ; and though the veneration of the Athenians for their guardian-goddess, and that analogy which did not admit of enmity between the ruling deity and the hero of the place, prevented Athena's being viewed as hostile to him, we may perceive that he is almost the only hero whom she does not assist. In the mythology of Theseus we only meet the Ionian deities Poseidôn and Apollo.

Theseus, whose name signifies the Orderer or Regulator, can only be regarded as an imaginary person. Being the patron-hero of the people among whom literature flourished most, he is presented to us under a more historic aspect than the other heroes. Though his adventures are manifestly formed on those of Heracles, whom he is said to have emulated, we are struck by the absence of the marvellous in them. If we except the descent to Erebos, they are hardly more wonderful than those of Aristomenes. The poem which recorded them was apparently of no great merit, and the history of Theseus yielded few subjects to the Attic dramatists. When they brought him on the stage it was hardly ever as the principal character of the piece. He always however appears as the model of a just and moderate ruler, the example of a strict obedience to the dictates of law and equity, the protector of the suppliant, the scourge of the evil-doer, and the author of wise and good regulations. In the spirit of casting splendour on actual political relations by throwing them back to the mythic ages, the dramatists and orators of Athens did not hesitate to make Theseus the founder of the democracy !

{p. 398}

Δαίδαλος καὶ ῎Ικαρος. Dædalus et Icarus.

Dædalos was the son of Eupalamos, son of Metiôn, son of Erechtheus : he was celebrated for his skill in architecture and statuary, of which latter art he was regarded as the inventor. His nephew, named Talôs or Perdix, showed a great genius for mechanics ; having, from the contemplation of a serpent’s teeth, invented a saw, and applied it to the cutting up of timber. Dædalos, jealous of the skill, and apprehensive of the rivalry of the young man, cast him down from the Acropolis and killed him. For this murder he was banished by the court of Areiopagos, and he betook himself to Minôs king of Crete, for whom he built the Labyrinth. He also devised an ingenious species of dance for Ariadne the daughter of that monarch¹⁸⁶² ; but having formed the wooden cow for Pasiphae, he incurred the displeasure of the king and was thrown into prison. Having by means of Pasiphae escaped from confinement, he determined to fly from Crete ; but being unable to get away by sea, he resolved to attempt flight through the air. He made wings of feathers united by wax for himself and his son Icaros. They mounted into the air ; but Icaros ascending too high and approaching too near the sun, its heat melted the wax, and the youth fell into the sea and was drowned. Dædalos arrived in safety in Sicily, where he was kindly received by Cocalos king of that island, who took up arms in his defence against Minôs when he pursued him thither¹⁸⁶³.

Dædalos, as his own name (which perhaps was merely an epithet of Hephæstos) and those of his progenitors show, was a personification of manual art. He was the Eponymos of the class of Dædalids or statuaries at Athens, and there were various wooden statues preserved till late times, and said to be the work of his hands. Icaros (from εἴκω, like εἰκὼν, ἴκελος) was a suitable name for his son, and the resemblance between it and the name of the Icarian sea probably gave occasion to the legend of the flight through the air.

{p. 399}

Chapter VI.

MYTHES OF CORINTH.

Σίσυϕος. Sisyphus. — Βελλεροϕόντης. Bellerophon.

The ancient name of Corinth was said to have been Ephyra, so called from one of the Ocean-nymphs¹⁸⁶⁴. Its situation rendered it in the earliest times a place of great commerce, for it was the thoroughfare between Hellas and the Peloponnese ; and as it had a port on each sea, the wares of the East and the West usually passed through it, the voyage round cape Malea being considered so very dangerous. As might be expected, the principal object of worship at Corinth was the god of the sea. Poseidôn and Helios, said the legend, once contended for the possession of the land ; Briareôs was chosen arbitrator, and he assigned the Isthmus to the former, the Acrocorinth or citadel to the latter¹⁸⁶⁵. We shall therefore find the Corinthian legends relating chiefly to trade and navigation.

Σίσυϕος. Sisyphus.

Sisyphos, the son of Æolos, was said to be the founder of Ephyra. He married Merope the daughter of Atlas, by whom he had four sons, Glaucos, Ornytiôn, Thersandros and Halmos¹⁸⁶⁶.

When Zeus carried off Ægina the daughter of Asopos, the river-god in his search after her came to Corinth. Sisyphos, on his giving him a spring for the Acrocorinth, informed him who the ravisher was. The king of the gods sent Death to punish the informer ; but Sisyphos contrived to outwit Death, and even to put fetters on him ; and there was great joy among mortals, for no one died. Hades however set Death at liberty, and Sisyphos was given up to him. When dying he {p. 400}charged his wife to leave his body unburied ; and then complaining to Hades of her unkindness, he obtained permission to return to the light to upbraid her with her conduct. But when he found himself again in his own house, he refused to leave it. Hermes however reduced him to obedience ; and when he came down, Hades set him to roll a huge stone up a hill, a never ending still beginning toil, for as soon as it reached the summit it rolled back again down to the plain¹⁸⁶⁷.

The craft of Sisyphos, of which the following is an instance, was proverbial. Autolycos the son of Hermes, the celebrated cattle-stealer, who dwelt on Parnassos, used to deface the marks of the cattle, which he carried off in such a manner as to render it nearly impossible to identify them. Among others he drove off those of Sisyphos, and he defaced the marks as usual ; but when Sisyphos came in quest of them, he, to the great surprise of the thief, selected his own beasts out of the herd ; for he had marked the initial of his name under their hoofs¹⁸⁶⁸. Autolycos forthwith cultivated the acquaintance of one who had thus proved himself too able for him ; and Sisyphos, it is said, seduced or violated his daughter Anticleia (who afterwards married Laertes), and thus was the real father of Odysseus¹⁸⁶⁹.

Homer calls Sisyphos ‘the most crafty of men¹⁸⁷⁰ ;’ Hesiod speaks of him in a similar manner¹⁸⁷¹ ; Odysseus sees him rolling his stone in Erebos¹⁸⁷². Of the antiquity of his legend there can therefore be little doubt.

Sisyphos, that is the Very-wise, or perhaps the Over-wise¹⁸⁷³, seems to have originally belonged to that exalted class of mythes in which we find the Iapetids, Ixiôn, Tantalos and others, where, under the character of persons with significant names, lessons of wisdom, morality and religion were sensibly {p. 401}impressed on the minds of men. Sisyphos is then the representative of the restless desire of knowledge, which aspires to attain a height it is denied to man to reach, and exhausted in the effort falls suddenly back into the depths of earthly weakness. This is expressed in the fine picture of the Odyssey, where every word is significant, and where we may observe Sisyphos is spoken of in indefinite terms, and not assigned any earthly locality or parentage¹⁸⁷⁴.

In the legendary history however we find him placed at Corinth, and apparently the representative of the trading spirit of that city. He is a son of Æolos, probably on account of his name¹⁸⁷⁵ (in conformity with a very usual practice in antiquity) ; or it may be that the crafty trader is the son of the Windman¹⁸⁷⁶, as the wind enables him to import and export his merchandise. He is married to a daughter of the symbol of navigation, Atlas, and her name would seem to indicate that he is engaged with men in the active business of life¹⁸⁷⁷. His children are Glaucos, a name of the sea-god, Ornytiôn (Quick-mover), Thersandros (Warm-man) and Halmos (Seaman), who apparently denote the fervour and bustle of commerce¹⁸⁷⁸.

The legends above narrated probably have their sole origin in the name of Sisyphos.

Βελλεροϕόντης. Bellerophon.

The adventures of this hero, the son of Glaucos the son of Sisyphos, form a pleasing episode of the Ilias¹⁸⁷⁹, where they are related to Diomedes by Glaucos the grandson of Bellerophontes.

The gods had endowed Bellerophontes with manly vigour and beauty. Anteia, the wife of Prœtos king of Argos, fixed her love upon him, and sought a corresponding return. But {p. 402}the virtuous youth rejecting all her amorous advances, hate occupied the place of love in the bosom of the disappointed queen. She accused him to Prœtos of an attempt on her honour. The credulous king gave ear to her falsehood, but would not incur the reproach of putting him to death, as she desired. He therefore sent Bellerophontes to Lycia, to his father-in-law the king of that country, giving him ‘deadly characters’ written in a sealed tablet¹⁸⁸⁰, which he was to present to the king of Lycia, and which were to cause his death.

Beneath the potent guidance of the gods Bellerophontes came to Lycia and the flowing Xanthos. Nine days the king entertained him, and slew nine oxen ; ‘but when the tenth rose-fingered Dawn appeared,’ he asked to see the token (σῆμα) which he had brought from his son-in-law. When he had received it, he resolved to comply with the desire of Prœtos ; and he first sent his guest to slay the Chimæra, a monster with the upper part a lion, the lower a serpent, the middle a goat (χίμαιρα), and which breathed forth flaming fire. Depending on the signs of the gods, Bellerophontes slew this monster, and then was ordered to go and fight the Solymians ; and this he said was the severest combat he ever fought. He lastly slew the ‘man-like Amazons ;’ and as he was returning the king laid an ambush for him, composed of the bravest men of Lycia ; of whom not one returned home, for Bellerophontes slew them all. The king now perceiving him to be of the race of the gods, kept him in Lycia, giving him his daughter and half the royal dignity, and the people bestowed on him an ample temenos of arable and plantation land. By this princess Bellerophontes had three children, Isandros, Hippolochos, and Laodameia ; which last was by Zeus the mother of Sarpedôn. Falling at length under the displeasure of all the gods, ‘he wandered alone in the ‘Plain of Wandering’ (πεδίον ἀλήϊον), consuming his soul, shunning the path of men.’

Later authorities tell us¹⁸⁸¹ that Bellerophontes was at first named Hipponoös : but having accidentally killed one of his {p. 403}relatives named Belleros, he thence derived his second name. He was purified of the bloodshed by Prœtos, whose wife is also called Sthenobœa, and the king of Lycia is named Iobates. By the aid of the winged steed Pegasos Bellerophontes gained the victory over all whom Iobates sent him to encounter. Sthenobœa, hearing of his success, hung herself. Bellerophontes at last attempted by means of Pegasos to ascend to heaven : Zeus, incensed at his boldness, sent an insect to sting the steed ; and he flung his rider to the earth, where he wandered in solitude and melancholy till his death.

Though Homer makes no mention of Pegasos, this steed forms an essential part of the mythe of Bellerophontes. In the Theogony it is said of the Chimæra that she was killed by Pegasos and the ‘good (ἐσθλòς) Bellerophontes’¹⁸⁸². But though all seem agreed in giving the winged steed to the hero, none tell us how he obtained him. Here however Pindar comes to our aid with a very remarkable legend, which connects Bellerophontes with Corinth (and it is the only account that really does so), and furnishes us with a key to his mythe.

According to this poet¹⁸⁸³, Bellerophontes, who reigned at Corinth, being about to undertake the three adventures above mentioned, wished to possess the winged steed Pegasos, who used to come to drink at the fount of Peirene on the Acrocorinth. After many fruitless efforts to catch him he applied for advice to the soothsayer Polyeidos, and was directed by him to go and sleep at the altar of Athena. He obeyed the prophet, and in the dead of the night the goddess and raised an altar to herself as Hippeia ([I]Of-the-Horse[/I]). Pegasos at once yielded his mouth to the magic bit, and the hero mounting him achieved his adventures.

We do not well see how this narrative can be made to {p. 404}accord with the Homeric tale, which was however known to Pindar ; for there is not the slightest allusion in it to Prœtos and Anteia, or to Lycia, and the hero apparently sets out on his adventures from Corinth. It would not surprise us if the ancient form of the legend was that a prince of Corinth had, by the aid of a winged horse, ridden through the air, and achieved adventures in various parts of the world.

But in reality the foundation of this mythe lies still deeper. In Bellerophontes we have only one of the forms of Poseidôn, namely as Hippios. This god is his father¹⁸⁸⁴ ; and he is also the sire of Pegasos¹⁸⁸⁵ ; and in the two combined we have a Poseidôn-Hippios, the rider of the waves, — a symbol of the navigation of the ancient Ephyra. The adventures of the hero may have signified the real or imaginary perils to be encountered in voyages to distant countries ; and when the original sense of the mythe was lost, the King (Prœtos, πρῶτος), and his wife Foe (Anteia, from ἄντα)¹⁸⁸⁶, and the common lovetale were introduced to assign a cause for the adventures.

In this mythe too we find that mysterious connexion between Poseidôn and Pallas-Athene and the horse more fully revealed than elsewhere. They are the parents of Pegasos (for Athena and Medusa are the same), that is, probably of the ship¹⁸⁸⁷ ; and he is worshiped as the Breaker (Δαμαȋος), she as the Bridler (Χαλινȋτις)¹⁸⁸⁸. Whether the legend viewed the goddess in her physical or in her moral character, it is difficult to determine.

Bellerophontes is a name, if possible, more enigmatic than Argeiphontes and Persephone. It is probably derived from some word of which no traces are now to be found¹⁸⁸⁹.

{p. 405}

Chapter VII.

MYTHES OF ARGOLIS.

Ἴναχος кαὶ Φορωνϵύς. Inachus et Phoroneus. — Ἄργος. Argus. — Ἰώ. Io. — Δάναος кαὶ Αἴγυπτος. Danaüs et Ægyptus. — Пροȋτος кαὶ αί Пριτίδϵς. Prœtus et Prœtides. — Ἀкρίσιος, Δαναὴ, кαὶ Πϵρσϵύς. Acrisius, Danae, et Perseus. — Ἀμϕιτρύων кαὶ Ἀλкμήνη. Amphitryon et Alcumena. — Ὰσκληπιός. Æsculapius.

The chief seat of the legendary lore of the Peloponnese was the Argolic peninsula ; and here we meet a mythic cycle totally distinct from those of Hellas Proper. The great patriarch of the latter was Deucaliôn, whose posterity were brought into connexion with the Cadmeians of Thebes and the Erechtheids of Attica, and to whom the principal legends of the north and west of the Peloponnese also refer. The Argive mythic history commences with the river Inachos and his son Phoroneus. It is, moreover, in this cycle alone that we find an attempt at connecting Greece and Egypt in the mythic period ; for, as we have shown above, the Egyptian origin of the Attic Cecrops is a historic sophism, and not a mythic tradition.

Ἴναχος кαὶ Φορωνϵύς. Inachus et Phoroneus.

Inachos, a son of Oceanos and Tethys, married his sister the Oceanis Melia, by whom he had a son named Phoroneus¹⁸⁹⁰, the first man according to one tradition, while another makes him collect the rude inhabitants into society and give them fire and social institutions¹⁸⁹¹. He also decided a dispute for the land between Hera and Poseidôn in favour of the former, who thence became the tutelar deity of Argos¹⁸⁹². By the nymph Laodice Phoroneus had a son named Apis, from whom the peninsula was named Apia ; and a daughter Niobe, the first mortal woman who enjoyed the love of Zeus. Her offspring by the god were Argos and Pelasgos, and the country was named from the former, the people from the latter.

Nothing can be more simple than this genealogy. The {p. 406}principal river of the place is the parent or origin of the first man Phoroneus, that is, the Rearer or Feeder¹⁸⁹³, the introducer of the worship of the productive earth [Hera], and of agriculture and social institutions. One of his children is an ancient or poetic name of the peninsula ; the other is the young land blooming with verdure¹⁸⁹⁴, to whom the people and country or town are given for offspring. We conceive it hardly possible for any one versed in mythology to see real persons here.

Ἄργος. Argus.

Among the descendents of Phoroneus we meet another Argos, named All-seeing (πανόπτης), as having eyes all over his body. His strength was prodigious : and Arcadia being at that time infested by a wild bull, he attacked and slew him, and afterwards wore his hide. He moreover killed a satyr, who carried off the cattle of the Arcadians ; and watching an opportunity, when he found the Echidna (the daughter of Tartaros and Earth, who seized all passers-by,) asleep, he deprived her of life : he also took vengeance on the murderers for the death of Apis. When Io had been changed into a cow, Hera gave the charge of watching her to Argos¹⁸⁹⁵.

Ἰώ. Io.

Io, the daughter of Iasos¹⁸⁹⁶, was priestess of Hera¹⁸⁹⁷, and unhappily for her she was loved by Zeus. When he found his amour suspected by Hera, he changed Io into a white cow, and swore to his spouse that he had been guilty of no infidelity. The goddess, affecting to believe him, asked the cow of him as a present ; and on obtaining her, set ‘all-seeing Argos¹⁸⁹⁸’ to watch her. He bound her to an olive-tree in the grove of Mycenæ¹⁸⁹⁹, and there kept guard over her. Zeus, pitying her, directed Hermes to steal her away. The god of ingenious devices made the attempt ; but as a vulture always gave {p. 407}Argos warning of his projects, he found it impossible to succeed. Nothing then remaining but open force, he killed Argos with a stone, and hence obtained the name of Argos-slayer (Ἀργιϕόντης). The vengeance of Hera was however not yet satiated ; and she sent a gad-fly to torment Io, who fled over the whole world from its pursuits. She swam through the Ionian Sea, which derived its name from her ; then roamed over the plains of Illyria, ascended Mount Hæmus, and crossed the Thracian strait, thence named the Bosporos, rambled on through Scythia and the country of the Kimmerians ; and, after wandering over various regions of Europe and Asia, arrived at last on the banks of the Nile, where, touched by Zeus, she assumed her original form and bore a son named Epaphos¹⁹⁰⁰.

The legend of Io would not appear to have attracted so much of the attention of the elder poets as might have been expected. Homer never alludes to it, unless his employment of the term Argeiphontes is to be regarded as intimating a knowledge of Io. It is also doubtful if she was one of the heroines of the Eoiæ. Her story however was noticed in the Ægimios, where it was said that her father's name was Peirên, that her keeper Argos had four eyes, and that the isle of Eubœa derived its name from her¹⁹⁰¹. Pherecydes¹⁹⁰². said that Hera placed an eye in the back of Argos’ neck and deprived him of sleep, and then set him as a guard over Io. Æschylus introduces Io in his ‘Prometheus Bound,’ and he also relates her story in his ‘Suppliants.’

The general opinion respecting Io seems to be that she is the moon, and Argos the starry heaven, which, as it were, keeps ceaseless watch over her ; her wanderings are thought to denote the continual revolutions of this planet¹⁹⁰³.In {p. 408}confirmation of this theory, we are assured that in the dialect of Argos lo signified moon¹⁹⁰⁴ ; and in proof of the Egyptian theory, presently to be noticed, it is added, that Io has the same signification in Coptic¹⁹⁰⁵.

This hypothesis appears to us to be more ingenious than true. Analogy would lead us to view in Io a form of the Argive goddess Hera, with whom she is so closely connected ; and as Hera is the earth, Io cannot well be the moon¹⁹⁰⁶. Io and Hera in this legend seem to stand in the same relation as Callisto and Artemis in one hereafter to be related : in both the nymph is an epithet of the goddess¹⁹⁰⁷, in both the love of Zeus is the cause of offence, in both the nymph is changed by the goddess into her sacred animal¹⁹⁰⁸. Argos is probably merely the dog¹⁹⁰⁹ set to watch the cow ; and Hermes the rural god kills him, as dogs are driven off or killed by the country-people. A gad-fly then persecutes the cow, and she runs wild all through the country. Such was perhaps the original simple legend, and it may have had its source in the notions of the loves, the marriages, the jealousies related of Hera.

The wanderings of Io were gradually extended. The name of the Ionian sea caused her to be made to ramble along its shore ; when Byzantion was founded, there were Argives among the colonists, who carried with them their domestic legends, and in honour of Io they named the adjacent strait Bosporos (Cow-ford), feigning that she had swum across it¹⁹¹⁰. A similar strait into the Mæotis received the same name, and Io of course had wandered thither. Finally, when the Greeks first settled in Egypt and saw the statues of Isis with cow's horns, they in their usual manner inferred that she was their own Io, with whose name hers had a slight similarity. At Memphis {p. 409}they afterwards beheld the worship of the holy calf Apis, and naturally supposing the calf-god to be the son of the cowgoddess, they formed from him a son for their Io, whose name was the occasion of a new legend of the mode of her being restored to her pristine form¹⁹¹¹. And now the wanderings of Io were extended to Egypt as their ultimate limit.

[n.p.]

[n.p.]

Δάναος кαὶ Αἴγυπτος. Danaüs et Ægyptus.

Epaphos, the son of Io, is the instrument by which Grecian vanity derived the rulers of more ancient countries from its own gods and princes. He married, we are told, Memphis the daughter of the Nile, by whom he had a daughter named Libya, who bore to Poseidon Agenor the father of Cadmos and Europa, and Belos, who had by another daughter of the Nile named Anchinoe two sons, Danaos and Ægyptos¹⁹¹².

Belos assigned the country of Libya to his son Danaos ; to Ægyptos he gave Arabia. The latter conquered the country of the Melampodes, and named it from himself. By many wives he was the father of fifty sons.

Danaos had by several wives an equal number of daughters. Dissension arising between him and the sons of Ægyptos, they aimed at depriving him of his dominions ; and fearing their violence, he built with the aid of Athena a fifty-oared vessel, — the first that was ever made, — in which he embarked with his daughters and fled over the sea. He first landed on the isle of Rhodes, where he set up a statue of the Lindian Athena ; but not willing to abide in that island, he proceeded to Argos, where Gelanôr, who at that time ruled over the country, cheerfully resigned the government to the stranger who brought thither civilization and the arts. The people took the name of their new monarch, and were called Danaans¹⁹¹³.

{p. 410}

The country of Argos being at this time extremely deficient in pure and wholesome water (Poseidôn having dried up the springs)¹⁹¹⁴, Danaos sent forth his daughters in quest of some. As Amymone, one of them, was engaged in the search, she saw a deer, at which she flung her dart ; but, missing the game, the dart wounded a satyr who was sleeping in the neighbouring thicket¹⁹¹⁵. Starting from his sleep, he beheld the beauty of the maid, and rushed toward her filled with desire. She prayed to Poseidôn for aid ; the god appeared, and flung his trident at the satyr, who fled ; Amymone submitted to the embraces of the god, and he revealed to her the springs of Lerna¹⁹¹⁶.

The sons of Ægyptos came now to Argos, and entreated their uncle to agree to bury in oblivion all enmity, and to give them their cousins in marriage. Danaos, retaining a perfect recollection of their injuries to him, and distrustful of their promises, consented to bestow his daughters on them, whom he divided among them by lot. But on the wedding-day he armed the hands of the brides with daggers, and enjoined them to slay in the night their unsuspecting bridegrooms. All but Hypermnestra obeyed the cruel orders of their father ; and cutting off the heads of their husbands, they flung them into Lerna, and buried their bodies with all due rites outside of the town. At the command of Zeus, Hermes and Athena purified them from the guilt of their deed.

But Hypermnestra had spared Lynceus, for the delicate regard which he had shown to her modesty. Her father, at first, in his anger at her disobedience, put her into close confinement. Relenting however after some time, he gave his consent to her union with Lynceus, and proclaimed gymnic games, in which the victors were to receive his other daughters as the prizes. It was said, however, that the crime of the Danaïdes did not pass without due punishment in the {p. 411}underworld, where they were condemned to draw everlastingly water in perforated vessels¹⁹¹⁷.

The son of Amymone by Poseidôn was called Nauplios. He attained a great age, and passed his time on the sea lamenting the fate of those who were lost in it. At length he himself met the fate which he deplored in others¹⁹¹⁸. He had three sons, Palamedes, Oïax, and Nausimedôn.

In this celebrated legend we have a very heterogeneous mixture of peoples and countries. The city Memphis is very naturally called the daughter of the Nile, on whose banks it stood ; but Libya is preposterously made the daughter and Egypt the grandson of that city, and the Phœnician god Belos or Baal the father of Danaos and Ægyptos, i. e. the Argives and the Egyptians. The whole only serves to show the careless manner in which these national genealogies were fabricated.

From what has been said above respecting Cadmos, the reader, we should hope, will be prepared to regard the tale of an Egyptian colony at Argos as somewhat suspicious. In fact there was no part of Greece more thoroughly Hellenic, none which had less similarity in religion or institutions with Egypt. Moreover the origin of Danaos and his family may be easily traced to the physical character of the land.

In Homer and Hesiod Danaans is a common name of the Greeks, who are also called Argeians and Achæans. The names of nations have never, except among nomadic tribes, been derived from persons ; they always come from the character of the people or that of the soil¹⁹¹⁹. Now Argos was greatly deficient in water (whence Homer calls it thirsty, πολυδίψιον), and the word δανὸς signifies dry. We have here then a simple derivation for the name Danaans, namely the people of the thirsty land of Argos ; and in the usual manner {p. 412}the personification of their name is a hero, Danaos¹⁹²⁰. Again, springs are daughters of the earth, as they are called by the Arabs ; the nymphs of the springs are therefore daughters of Danaos, that is of the thirsty land¹⁹²¹. Further, a head (кρήνη) is a usual name for a spring in many languages, and a legendary mode of accounting for the origin of founts is to ascribe them to the welling forth of the blood of some person who was slain on the spot where the spring emitted its waters¹⁹²². The number fifty is probably an arbitrary one, for we cannot discern in it a relation to the weeks of the year¹⁹²³. It is to be observed that the founts of the Inachos were in Mount Lyrceion or Lynceion¹⁹²⁴, and here perhaps lies the origin of Lynceus, who in one form of the legend fights with and vanquishes Danaos¹⁹²⁵ ; that is, the stream from Mount Lynceion overcomes the dry nature of the soil. We see therefore that the physical legend may have existed long before there was any intercourse with the great land of mystery, and like that of Io have been subsequently modified so as to suit the new theory of an Egyptian colony at Argos¹⁹²⁶.

Пροȋτος кαὶ αί Пριτίδϵς. Prœtus et Prœtides.

Lynceus succeeded his father-in-law on the throne. He had by Hypermnestra a son named Abas, to whom he left his kingdom. Abas had twin children, Prœtos and Acrisios, who struggled — ominous of their future discord — in their mother's womb. When they grew to be youths, they contended for the kingdom ; and on this occasion are said to have been the inventors of shields. Prœtos was worsted, and driven {p. 413}out of Argos. He fled to Lycia, where the king Iobates gave him his daughter Anteia or Sthenobœa in marriage, and, bringing him back with an army of Lycians to the Peloponnese, made him master of Tiryns, which the Cyclopes walled for him. Acrisios was now obliged to divide their paternal territory with Prœtos : he reigned himself at Argos, and his brother dwelt in Tiryns. Prœtos had three daughters, Lysippe, Iphinoe, and Iphianassa¹⁹²⁷.

When these maidens grew up they were seized with insanity, and roamed in madness over the plains, the woods, the wastes of Argos and Arcadia, — fancying themselves changed into cows¹⁹²⁸. Prœtos was greatly afflicted at the condition of his daughters. Melampûs, the son of Amythaôn a soothsayer, and the first who exercised the art of medicine, promised to restore them to their senses, if Prœtos would agree to give him a third of his kingdom. The demanded fee appeared out of all reason, and the father declined accepting the recovery of his daughters on such high terms. But speedily the madness of the maidens increased, and even extended to the other women, who killed their children, abandoned their houses, and fled to the wilds. The reluctance of Prœtos was now overcome : he offered to comply with the terms of Melampûs ; but the Mantis would not employ his art without another third of the realm being given to his brother Bias. Prœtos now, fearing that delay would only make him advance further in his demands, consented ; and the prophet set about the cure. He took a number of the ablest young men of the place, and made them with shouts and a certain inspired kind of dance chase the maidens from the mountains to Sicyôn. In the chase Iphinoe, the eldest of the Prœtides, died ; but the others were restored to sanity ; and Prœtos gave them in marriage to Melampûs and his brother Bias. He had afterwards a son named Megapenthes¹⁹²⁹.

The madness of the Prœtides was sung in the Eoiæ, where it was ascribed to the vengeance of Dionysos for their contempt of his rites, and he would appear to have struck them {p. 414}with leprosy and with inordinate lust¹⁹³⁰. Pherecydes¹⁹³¹ and Acusilaos¹⁹³² however ascribe their madness to the anger of Hera ; the latter says that they made light of the statue of the goddess, — the former, that they ridiculed her temple, saying that their father's house was much finer. It was also said that they were the priestesses of the goddess and were punished by her for taking the gold off her robe and converting it to their own use¹⁹³³.

It is remarkable that the characteristic trait of their fancying themselves changed into cows is only to be found in the Latin poet Virgil. Nothing can be more certain than that he did not invent it, and it has every appearance of being a part of the original mythe. In such case the legend of the Prœtides would have some analogy with that of Io.

Ἀкρίσιος, Δαναὴ, кαὶ Πϵρσϵύς. Acrisius, Danae, et Perseus.

Acrisios married Eurydice the daughter of Lacedæmôn, by whom he had a daughter, whom he called Danae. He inquired of the oracle about a son ; and the god replied, that he would himself have no male issue, but that his daughter would bear a son whose hand would deprive him of life. Fearing the accomplishment of this prediction, he framed a brazen subterranean chamber¹⁹³⁴, in which he shut up his daughter and her nurse, in order that she might never become a mother. But Zeus had seen and loved the maiden ; and under the form of a golden shower he poured through the roof down into her bosom. Danae became the mother of a son, whom she and her nurse reared in secrecy until he had attained his fourth year. Acrisios then chanced to hear the voice of the child at his play. He brought forth his daughter and her nurse ; and putting the latter instantly to death, drew Danae in private with her son to the altar of Herceian Zeus, where he made her answer on oath whose was her son. She replied that he was the offspring of Zeus. Her father gave no credit to her protestations. Inclosing her and her child in a coffer, he {p. 415}cast them into the sea to the mercy of the winds and waves¹⁹³⁵. The coffer floated to the little isle of Seriphos, where a man named Dictys drew it out in his nets (δίкτυα) ; and delivering Danae and Perseus, treated them with the kindest attention¹⁹³⁶.

Polydectes the brother of Dictys, who reigned over Seriphos, fell in love with Danae ; but her son Perseus, who was now grown up, was an invincible obstacle to the accomplishment of his wishes. He had therefore recourse to artifice to deliver himself of his presence ; and feigning that he was about to become a suitor to Hippodameia, the daughter of Œnomaos, he called together his vassals, and among them Perseus, to a banquet, and requested of them to contribute toward his bride-gift. Perseus inquiring what was the object of the banquet, Polydectes replied horses, and Perseus made answer that he would bring him even the head of the Gorgon. The king said nothing at the time ; but next day, when the rest brought each his horse, he desired Perseus to keep his word and fetch him the Gorgon’s head.

Perseus full of grief retired to the extremity of the isle, where Hermes came to him, promising that he and Athena would be his guides. Hermes brought him first to the faircheeked Grææ, whose eye and tooth he stole, and would not restore until they had furnished him with directions to the abode of the Nymphs who were possessed of the winged shoes, the magic wallet, and the helmet of Hades which made the wearer invisible. The Grææ complied with his desire, and he came unto the Nymphs, who gave him their precious possessions : he then flung the wallet over his shoulder, placed the helmet on his head, and fitted the shoes to his feet. Thus equipped, and grasping the adamantine scimitar (harpe) which Hermes gave him, he mounted into the air, accompanied by the gods, and flew to the Ocean, where he found the three Gorgons fast asleep¹⁹³⁷. Fearing to gaze on their faces, which changed the beholder to stone, he looked on the head of {p. 416}Medusa as it was reflected on his shield, and Athena guiding his hand he severed it from her body. The blood gushed forth, and with it the winged steed Pegasos and Chrysaôr the father of Geryoneus, for Medusa was at the time pregnant by Poseidôn. Perseus took up the head, put it into his wallet, and set out on his return. The two sisters awoke, and pursued the fugitive ; but protected by the helmet of Hades he eluded their vision, and they were obliged to give over the bootless chase¹⁹³⁸.

Perseus pursued his aërial journey till he came to the country of the Æthiopians¹⁹³⁹. Here he beheld Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus king of the country, fastened to a rock, a prey for a huge sea-monster¹⁹⁴⁰. Cassiopeia, the wife of Cepheus, having offended the Nereïdes by her presumption in setting herself before them in point of beauty, Poseidôn sympathized with the anger of the sea-maidens, and laid waste the realms of Cepheus by an inundation and a sea-monster. The oracle of Ammôn, on being consulted by Cepheus, declared that only by the exposure of Andromeda, the daughter of Cassiopeia, to the monster, could the evil be averted. The reluctance of Cepheus was forced to give way to the determination of his subjects, and the unhappy princess was bound to a rock. Perseus beholding her there, was seized with love, and he forthwith promised Cepheus to deliver his daughter from the monster if he would give her to him in marriage when saved. Cepheus joyfully consented, and each party swore to the agreement. Perseus then attacked and killed the monster, and delivered Andromeda ; but Phineus the brother of Cepheus, to whom the princess had been betrothed, plotted to destroy the hero ; who, coming to the knowledge of his designs, displayed the Gorgon’s head, and turned him and his partisans to stone.

Perseus now proceeded to Seriphos, where he found that {p. 417}his mother and Dictys had been obliged to fly to the protection of the altar from the violence of Polydectes. He immediately went to the royal residence ; and when at his desire Polydectes had summoned thither all the people to see the formidable head of the Gorgon, it was displayed, and each became a stone of the form and position which he exhibited at the moment of the transformation. Having established Dictys as king over Seriphos, Perseus returned the shoes, the wallet, and the helmet to Hermes, by whom they were brought back to the Nymphs. He gave the Gorgon’s head to Athena, who set it in the middle of her shield.

Accompanied by his mother and his wife Andromeda, Perseus now set out for Argos ; but Acrisios, fearing the fulfilment of the oracle, left his kingdom, and retired to Larissa in Thessaly. Perseus went thither to persuade him to return to Argos. Acrisios consented ; but Teutamias, the king of Larissa, happening at that time to celebrate funeral games in honour of his father lately dead, Perseus engaged in them. As he was throwing the discus it fell on the foot of Acrisios, who died of the wound. After this unlooked-for fulfilment of the oracle, Perseus buried his grandfather before the city, and returned to the Peloponnese. But feeling ashamed to take the inheritance of one who had died by his means, he proposed an exchange of dominions with Megapenthes the son of Prœtos, and thenceforward reigned at Tiryns. He afterwards built and fortified Mycenæ and Mideia¹⁹⁴¹.

According to Pindar, Athena conducted Perseus, when on his way to the Gorgons, to the country of the Hyperboreans, where he was hospitably entertained by that happy people¹⁹⁴². He is also said to have turned Atlas into a mountain on his return¹⁹⁴³, and the drops of the Gorgon’s blood which fell on the sand-wastes of Libya, as he flew over them, gave origin to the numerous broods of serpents by which they have ever been infested¹⁹⁴⁴. The origin of the coral is also deduced from {p. 418}the sea-weed which Perseus placed under the Gorgon’s head¹⁹⁴⁵. When Dionysos came to introduce his orgies into Argos he was vigorously opposed by Perseus ; but by the intervention of Hermes amity was effected between the two sons of Zeus¹⁹⁴⁶. Others say that it was Acrisios who opposed the introduction of the Bacchic orgies into his dominions¹⁹⁴⁷.

Andromeda bore to Perseus six sons and one daughter. The sons were Perses (who was born in Æthiopia, and being left with his grandfather became the ancestor of the kings of Persia¹⁹⁴⁸, Alcæos, Mestôr, Electryôn, Sthenelos and Eleios. The daughter was named Gorgophone ; she married Perieres the Laconian. From Perseus the royal line at Argos were named the Perseids.

The mythe of Perseus is probably one of great antiquity. It is alluded to in the Ilias¹⁹⁴⁹, and in the Theogony¹⁹⁵⁰ the cutting off of Medusa's head is spoken of as a well-known event. There does not however appear to have ever been a poem solely dedicated to the adventures of Perseus, but it is likely they were related at length in the Eoiæ.

A mythe so very ancient as this appears to be was probably a physical one in its origin, and this supposition is confirmed by many circumstances in the beautiful fairy tale under whose form it has been transmitted to us. But still it is extremely obscure, and we can only arrive at glimpses of the signification. The following conjectures may perhaps approach to probability.

The cutting off the Gorgon’s head is the main action of the mythe, and Pallas-Athene aids the hero and enables him to achieve the adventure. This goddess was one of the most ancient deities of Argos, for she had a temple on the Larissa or citadel¹⁹⁵¹, whence she was named, like Hera, Of-the-Height (Ἀкρία or Aкρίς)¹⁹⁵². Hence it is probable that, as at Athens, she was regarded as a physical power. Further, we invariably find the Gorgon (not the Gorgons) connected with this {p. 419}goddess, and moreover Gorgo is one of her own appellations¹⁹⁵³. The Grecian deities, as the authors of evil as well as good, were usually viewed under two different aspects, and hence Gorgo was probably the injurious, inimical Pallas. With respect to the other names in the mythe, Acrisios is apparently connected with the Larissa, the height (ἄкρον) where tradition said he lay buried¹⁹⁵⁴ ; Danae seems to refer to the dry land, and Perseus to belong with Persephone and others to a family of words denoting light or feeding¹⁹⁵⁵. Further, Polydectes is an epithet of Hades¹⁹⁵⁶, of which Dictys (Netter) may be a kindred term. At Athens there was an altar of Dictys and Clymene at the temenos of Perseus, as being his deliverers¹⁹⁵⁷ ; which seems to identify Dictys with Hades, and that apparently under a beneficent point of view.

Müller therefore thus explains the mythe¹⁹⁵⁸. The parched land of Argos (Δανάη Ἀкρισιώνη), over which Pallas presides, longs for rain¹⁹⁵⁹ ; Zeus descends in a golden fructifying shower, and Perseus is born. But the god of the under-world will take Danae, that is cover the land with gloom. This is prevented by Perseus’ freeing the goddess from her opposite the Gorgo, which makes the moonbeams poisonous and petrifies the land. The efficacy of her look is then directed against the under-world itself, and restrains its power in the depths of the earth. The beneficent deity, the rearer of trees and corn, recovers her full influence, and the clear fructifying springs represented by Pegasos gush forth.

This explanation is ingenious but deficient in simplicity. There seems to us to be an error in supposing Athena to be always the ‘Athenian Maid’, and therefore the moon. The mythe of Danae and Perseus being manifestly one of great antiquity and peculiar to Argos, we should feel rather disposed to see the Argive goddess in the Athena who appears in it. As this goddess was the earth, the mythe in this view {p. 420}forms a parallel to that of Demeter-Erinnys¹⁹⁶⁰, and Pegasos corresponds with Areiôn. The opposite characters of the soil of Argos and Arcadia will account for the different forms of the mythic narratives.

We have already hinted that mythes were generally very simple in their origin, and gained, like streams, in their progress. It is probable that this of Perseus at first consisted of no more than the account of his birth and the killing of the Gorgon Medusa¹⁹⁶¹, and that the exposure in the sea, the two immortal Gorgons, Andromeda, and so forth, were posterior additions. Pallas-Athene having become the guide of heroes at the time when the mythe was extended, she may have been substituted for the original goddess¹⁹⁶². We cannot believe that Hades ever belonged to the mythe ; the names Dictys and Polydectes are sufficiently explained by the story.

Ἀμϕιτρύων кαὶ Ἀλкμήνη. Amphitryon et Alcumena.

Perseus was succeeded by his son Alcæos, who had a son named Amphitryôn. Alcæos left the throne to his brother Electryôn, who had married his daughter Anaxo, by whom he had several children.

Mestôr, the third son of Perseus, married Lysidice the daughter of Pelops, by whom he had a daughter named Hippothoe, whom Poseidôn carried off to the Echinadian isles. She there bore him a son named Taphios, who settled at Taphos, and called his people Teleboans, because he had gone far from his native land¹⁹⁶³. He had a son named Pterolaos, whom Poseidôn made immortal by setting a golden lock of hair on his head. Pterolaos had several sons, and one daughter who was named Comætho (Hair-burner).

When Electryôn succeeded to the throne of Mycenæ, the sons of Pterolaos came with an army of Taphians, and claimed it in right of their great-grandfather Mestôr, who was elder brother to Electryôn ; and on his refusal to comply with their demands, they drove off his cows. The sons of Electryôn {p. 421}came to the rescue of their cattle. A fight ensued, in which all the sons of Electryôn met their death except Licymnios, who was still a child, and all the sons of Pterolaos fell but Eueres, who was in charge of their ships. The Taphians fled in their vessels, leaving the cattle, which they had driven away, in the charge of Polyxenes king of the Eleians. Amphitryôn pursued them to Elis, and redeemed them ; for Electryôn, desirous to avenge the death of his sons, had given to Amphitryôn the kingdom and his daughter Alcmena, binding him by oath not to claim a husband’s rights until he had returned from his expedition against the Teleboans. But as Amphitryôn was driving home the cattle which he had recovered, one of the cows chancing to run aside, he flung the stick he had in his hand after her, which happening to strike Electryôn on the head killed him. Sthenelos, the fifth son of Perseus, taking advantage of this unlucky deed, drove Amphitryôn from Mycenæ and Tiryns ; and sending for his nephews Atreus and Thyestes, the sons of Pelops, settled them at Mideia.

Amphitryôn, accompanied by his wife Alcmena and her half-brother Licymnios, retired to Thebes, where he was purified by Creôn, who gave his daughter Perimede in marriage to Licymnios. Alcmena still refusing to admit the embraces of Amphitryôn till he had avenged her brothers, he applied to Creôn to assist him in the war. To this Creôn assented, on condition of his guest’s first freeing Cadmeia from the fox which ravaged it, and which was fated never to be caught. To this animal the Thebans were obliged to give a child every month, to save the rest. Amphitryôn undertook the task, and with the aid of Cephalos and his dog succeeded¹⁹⁶⁴.

Strengthened by a number of auxiliaries, Amphytriôn now went against the Teleboans. He landed, and ravaged their islands ; but so long as Pterolaos lived, he could accomplish nothing. At length Comætho, the daughter of that prince, falling in love with Amphitryôn, pulled out the fatal golden lock, and he died, and the islands were conquered¹⁹⁶⁵. {p. 422}Amphitryôn, putting to death Comætho, sailed with his booty to Thebes, giving the islands to his ally Cephalos and his uncle Eleios. The remainder of the history of Amphitryôn has been already related¹⁹⁶⁶.

Ὰσκληπιός. Æsculapius.

Asclepios is called by Homer an excellent physician (Tάνταλος), who had been instructed by Cheirôn. His sons Podaleirios and Machaôn, who were also renowned for their skill in treating wounds, led to Troy the men of Tricca, Ithome and Œchalia in northern Thessaly¹⁹⁶⁷.

As has been already related¹⁹⁶⁸, Asclepios was the son of Apollo by Coronis the daughter of Phlegyas. The care of his education was committed to Cheirôn, who taught him the healing art¹⁹⁶⁹, in which he arrived at such perfection as to be able to restore life to the dead. He is said to have thus recalled from the nether-world Capaneus and Lycurgos¹⁹⁷⁰, Tyndareos¹⁹⁷¹, Glaucos the son of Minôs, and Hippolytos¹⁹⁷². Zeus on the complaint of Hades struck him with thunder, and Apollo in revenge killed the Cyclopes, for which deed he was banished from Olympos.

The tradition at Epidaurus (the great seat of the worship of Asclepios) was that Phlegyas, having come to explore the strength of the Peloponnese, was accompanied by his daughter, who was at the time pregnant by Apollo, but unknown to her father. Her labour came on in the country of Epidaurus, and she exposed the babe on Mount Myrtion, afterwards named Titthion (τίτθη a nurse). Here one of the goats that fed on the mountain gave it suck, and the goatherd’s dog kept guard over it. The herdsman, missing his dog and goat, went in search of them. He thus discovered the babe, and on approaching to take it up he perceived that its body emitted a {p. 423}brilliant light, at which proof of divinity he drew back. The fame of the healing powers of the wonderful child was quickly spread over sea and land¹⁹⁷³.

The Messenians asserted that Asclepios first saw the light in their country. His mother was Arsinoe the daughter of Leucippos, and the places from which his sons led the troops to Troy were in Messene, and not in Thessaly. They showed at Gerenia the tomb of Machaôn, and at Pharæ the temple of his children¹⁹⁷⁴.

Asclepios was one of those who sailed in the Argo. He had by Lampetia the daughter of the Sun two sons, Machaôn and Podaleirios, and three daughters, Panakeia (All-heal), Iaso (Health), and Ægle (Brightness)¹⁹⁷⁵.

At Epidaurus Asclepios was represented under the form of an old man with a venerable beard, wrapt in a mantle and leaning on a staff round which a serpent was twined. It was said that when he was about to raise Glaucos a serpent came and crept to his staff ; he struck and killed it. Soon after another serpent came, bearing a herb in its mouth, which it laid on the head of the dead one, who instantly recovered. Asclepios took the herb and by means of it restored Glaucos¹⁹⁷⁶. Others said that Athena had given him the blood of the Gorgon, and with what flowed from the veins of the left side he injured men, while with that of the right side he cured them¹⁹⁷⁷.

From all that is related of Asclepios it is plain that he was an original deity, probably of the Phlegyans or Lapiths. There is much resemblance between him and Trophonios. His union with Apollo is merely mythologie, as they were never worshiped together. It is probably founded on the epithet Paan of this god¹⁹⁷⁸.

{p. 424}

ChapterVIII.

MYTHES OF ARCADIA.

Λυκάων. Lycaon. — Καλλιστὼ καὶ Ἄρκας . Callisto et Arcas. — Ἀταλάντη. Atalanta.

Arcadia, fenced in by its mountains, never suffered from the revolutionary movements of the rest of the peninsula. Its population may therefore be regarded as unmixed Pelasgian ; and its principal deities are those which seem to have been worshiped by that people, namely Zeus, Hermes, Demeter, Artemis and Poseidôn. The Arcadian legends, which are very scanty and of a peculiar character, all refer to the worship of these deities.

Λυκάων. Lycaon.

Pelasgos¹⁹⁷⁹ was by the Oceanis Melibœa or the nymph Cyllene the father of Lycaôn king of Arcadia.

Lycaôn had many wives, by whom he became the father of fifty sons, who were like himself impious and cruel. Zeus, to satisfy himself of the truth of the reports that reached him, disguised himself as a poor man and sought their hospitality. To entertain the stranger they slaughtered a boy, and mingling his flesh with that of the victims, set it before their guest. The god, in indignation and horror at the barbarous act, overturned the table (whence the place derived its future name of Trapezôs), and struck with lightning the godless father and sons, with the exception of Nyctimos, whom Earth, raising her hands and grasping the right-hand of Zeus, saved from the wrath of the avenging deity. According to another account, Zeus destroyed the dwelling of Lycaôn with lightning, and turned its master into a wolf. The deluge of Deucaliôn which shortly afterwards occurred is ascribed to the impiety of the sons of Lycaôn¹⁹⁸⁰.

{p. 425}

In Arcadia Zeus was worshiped under the title of Lycæos on the summit of Mount Lycæon, at the foot of which stood the town of Lycosura, said to have been built by Lycaôn, who established there games called Lycæa¹⁹⁸¹. At Mount Lycæon there was a sacred inclosure or temenos of Zeus, within which neither man nor beast cast a shadow, and any one who entered it designedly was put to death¹⁹⁸². These names and circumstances might lead to the supposition that Zeus Lycæos was in Arcadia what Apollo Lycios was elsewhere ; and that the true root in this case also was ATKH, lux, light ; and similarity of sound gave occasion to the legends of wolves, of which there were many in Arcadia. In this case Lycaôn would be only another name for Zeus, to whom he raised an altar, and he could not therefore have been described as impious in the primitive legend. The opposition between his name and that of Nyctimos strongly confirms this hypothesis. It may indeed be said that Zeus derived his appellation from the mountain ; but against this is to be observed, that there was an eminence in the territory of Cyrene or Barce in Libya dedicated to Zeus Lycæos¹⁹⁸³.

Καλλιστὼ καὶ Ἄρκας . Callisto et Arcas.

Beside his other sons, and Nyctimos who reigned over Arcadia at the time of Deucaliôn’s flood, Lycaôn had a daughter named Callisto¹⁹⁸⁴, who dedicated herself to the service of Artemis, and vowed to the goddess the maintenance of perpetual virginity. But Zeus saw and loved Callisto ; and changing himself into the form of the huntress-goddess, accompanied the maiden to the chase, and surprised her virtue. She long concealed her shame ; but at length, as she was one day bathing with her divine mistress, the alteration in her person was observed ; and Artemis, in her anger, turned her into a bear. While in this form she brought forth her son Arcas, who lived with her in the woods, till the herdsmen caught both her and him, and brought them to Lycaôn. Some time {p. 426}afterwards she went into the temenos of Zeus Lycæos, which it was unlawful to enter. A number of Arcadians, among whom was her own son, followed to kill her ; but Zeus, in memory of his love, snatched her out of their hands, and placed her as a constellation in the sky¹⁹⁸⁵.

This fable is narrated with great difference in the circumstances. Some say it was the form of Apollo that Zeus took. In some versions it is Zeus who turns Callisto into a bear to conceal her from Hera ; and this goddess persuades Artemis to kill her with her arrows as a noxious beast ; Zeus then, it is said, took the unborn infant and gave it to Maia to rear. It is also said that Areas, having been separated from his mother and reared among men, meeting her one day in the woods, was on the point of slaying her, when Zeus transferred the mother and son to the skies. Finally it was, according to others, Hera herself who transformed Callisto¹⁹⁸⁶.

Arcas succeeded Nyctimos in the government. He was the friend of Triptolemos, who taught him agriculture, which he introduced into his country, now called from himself Arcadia, and instructed its inhabitants in the mode of making bread. He also showed them how to manufacture wool, — an art which he learned from Aristæos¹⁹⁸⁷.

In Callisto we have another instance of the practice of converting an epithet into an attendant. On the way from the town to the Academy at Athens there was an inclosure sacred to Artemis, in which were wooden statues of Ariste and Calliste. These Pausanias (who says he is borne out by some verses of Sappho) regarded merely as epithets of the goddess¹⁹⁸⁸. He further tells us¹⁹⁸⁹ that in Arcadia, on a large mound planted with various kinds of trees, and named the Tomb of Callisto, stood a temple of Artemis-Calliste ; and he adds that it was the ancient poet Pamphôs who first gave Artemis this epithet in his verses, having learned it from the Arcadians. {p. 427}When we add that the Fair-one (ἁ κλὰ) is a frequent epithet of Artemis in the Attic drama, little doubt, we should think, will remain of the identity of Artemis and Callisto¹⁹⁹⁰.

From the analogy between Io and Callisto, it seems to follow that the bear was sacred to Artemis. This is strongly confirmed by the fact that at Braurôn in Attica young girls between the age of five and ten years, and called Bears (ἄρκτοι), used to perform the sacred rites of this goddess, on which occasion they went round the temple clad in yellow, imitating bears. One of the reasons assigned for the origin of this custom was, that Braurôn, not Aulis, was the scene of the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, and that it was a bear, not a hind, that had been substituted¹⁹⁹¹.

The resemblance between Arcas and ἄρκτος may also have had some effect on the formation of this legend¹⁹⁹².

Ἀταλάντη. Atalanta.

Iasos or Iasiôn, a descendant of Arcas, was married to Clymene the daughter of Minyas. He was anxious for male offspring ; and on his wife's bringing forth a female, he exposed the babe in the mountains, where she was suckled by a bear, and at last found by some hunters, who named her Atalanta and reared her. She followed the chase, and was alike distinguished for beauty and courage. The Centaurs Rhœcos and Hylæos attempting her honour perished by her arrows. She took a part in the Argonautic expedition, was at the Calydo-nian hunt ; and at the funeral games of Pelias she won the prize in wrestling from Peleus¹⁹⁹³.

Atalanta was afterwards recognised by her parents. Her father wishing her to marry, she consented, but only on condition that her suitors should run a race with her in the following manner. She was to be armed, and the suitor to have the odds ; if she overtook him she was to kill him, if not he was to win her hand. Many had thus run and perished, and {p. 428}their heads were fixed round the place of contest, when her cousin Meilaniôn offered himself to contend. He had three golden apples, which Aphrodite had given him ; these he threw as he ran ; Atalanta went out of the course to pick them up, and Meilaniôn won the race. Atalanta became his wife, and they had a son named Parthenopæos. It is added that they afterwards profaned the temenos of Zeus with their love, for which offence they were turned into lions¹⁹⁹⁴. Other authorities make the name of the victor Hippomenes, and say that on his neglecting to give thanks to Aphrodite for her aid, she inspired him with a sudden passion, which led to the profanation of the temple of Zeus and the transformation of himself and his bride¹⁹⁹⁵.

According to other accounts¹⁹⁹⁶ Atalanta was the daughter of of Schœneus the son of Athamas, and therefore a Bœotian. There is no necessity for supposing two of the same name, as has usually been done. They are both, as we see, connected with the Minyans, and are only examples of different appropriations of the same legend.

Atalanta is apparently Artemis again as a nymph. She is reared by a bear, she is devoted to a single life and the chase, and she kills the two Centaurs as Artemis did Otos and Ephialtes. Her name was probably an epithet of the goddess signifying the Joyful¹⁹⁹⁷.

{p. 429}

Chapter IX.

MYTHES OF LACONIA.

Τυνδάρϵος καὶ Λήδα. Tyndareus et Leda. — Ἑλένα. Helena. — Πολδϵύκης καὶ Κάστωρ. Pollux et Castor.

Τυνδάρϵος καὶ Λήδα. Tyndareus et Leda.

Lacedæmôn, the son of Zeus and Taÿgete the daughter of Atlas, married Sparta the daughter of Eurotas, the grandson of the autochthon Lelex, by whom he had Amyclas and Eurydice, which last was married to Acrisios king of Argos. Amyclas had, by Diomede the daughter of Lapithas, Cynortes and Hyacinthos. Cynortes left a son named Perieres, who was, by Gorgophone the daughter of Perseus, father of Tyndareos, Icarios, Aphareus, and Leucippos. According to others, the two last and Œbalos were the sons of Perieres, and Œbalos was the father of Tyndareos, Icarios, and Hippocoôn¹⁹⁹⁸.

Hippocoôn had twelve sons, who drove their uncles Icarios and Tyndareos out of Laconia. They sought refuge with Thestios king of Ætolia, whose daughter Leda Tyndareos married. Heracles afterwards vanquished the sons of Hippocoön, and restored Tyndareos to his country ; whither he led with him his Ætolian spouse, who bore him Timandra, who was married to Echemos, Clytæmnestra the wife of Agamemnôn, and Philonoe whom Artemis made immortal. Zeus, taking the form of a swan, sought the embraces of Leda ; and in the same night her husband Tyndareos caressed her. By the deity she conceived Polydeukes and Helena ; by the mortal, Castôr¹⁹⁹⁹.

Ἑλένα. Helena.

There are different accounts of the birth and parentage of the celebrated Helena. The common and probably the most ancient one is that given above, that she was the daughter of Leda by Zeus, who took the form of a white swan. According to the Cypria she was the offspring of Zeus and Nemesis, {p. 430}who had long fled the pursuit of the god, and to elude him had taken the form of all kinds of animals²⁰⁰⁰. At length, while she was under that of a goose, the god became a swan, and she laid an egg, which was found by a shepherd in the woods. He brought it to Leda, who laid it up in a coffer, and in due time Helena was produced from it²⁰⁰¹. Hesiod, on the other hand, called Helena the daughter of Oceanos and Tethys²⁰⁰².

In the Ilias Helena is termed ‘begotten of Zeus²⁰⁰³,’ and she calls Castôr and Polydeukes her ‘own-brothers whom one mother bore with her²⁰⁰⁴.’ In the Odyssey²⁰⁰⁵ these are expressly called the sons of Tyndareos. This however does not prove that Helena was held to be his daughter ; and we shall see reason for supposing that she was always viewed as the child of Zeus.

The beauty of Helena is proverbial. Theseus carried her off while yet a child, and, as we shall see, her frailty caused the war of Troy. It was fabled that after death Helena was united in marriage with Achilleus in the White Island (Λϵυκὴ) in the Euxine, where she bore him a son named Euphoriôn²⁰⁰⁶.

Πολδϵύκης καὶ Κάστωρ. Pollux et Castor.

The earliest exploit of these twin heroes, who were born at Amyclæ, was the recovery of their sister Helena from the power of Theseus, whose mother Æthra they dragged in return into captivity. They took part in all the great undertakings of their time, were at the Calydonian hunt, accompanied Heracles against the Amazons, sailed in the Argo, and aided Peleus to storm Iolcos. Polydeukes was the most distinguished pugilist, Castôr the most expert charioteer, of his day. Hermes bestowed on them the fleet steeds Phlogios and {p. 431}Harpagos, the children of the Harpy Podarge : Hera gave, them the swift Xanthos and Cyllaros.

The brothers themselves fell into the very same offence which they had punished in Theseus. Being invited to the wedding-feast by their cousins Idas and Lynceus the sons of Aphareus, who had married their cousins Phœbe and Hilaeira the daughters of Leucippos, they became enamoured of the brides, and carried them off. Idas and his brother pursued the ravishers. In the conflict Castôr fell by the spear of Idas ; and Polydeukes, aided by the thunder of Zeus, slew the two sons of Aphareus²⁰⁰⁷.

Another account says that the four heroes joined to drive off the herds of the Arcadians. Idas was appointed to divide the booty. He killed an ox ; and dividing it into four parts, said that one half of the prey should fall to him who had first eaten his share, and the remainder to him who next finished. He then quickly devoured his own and his brother's part, and drove the whole herd to Messene. The Dioscuri (Zeus-sons), as Castôr and his brother were called, made war on Messene. Driving off all the cattle which they met, they laid themselves in ambush in a hollow tree ; but Lynceus, whose vision could penetrate the trees and the rocks, ascended the top of Taÿgeton, and looking over all the Peloponnese saw them there ; and he and his brother hastened to attack them. Castôr fell by the spear of Idas ; Polydeukes pursued the slayers, and coming up with them at the tomb of their father Aphareus, was struck by them in the breast with the pillar belonging to it. Unretarded by the blow, he rushed on, and killed Lynceus with his spear ; and Zeus, at the same moment, struck Idas with a thunderbolt²⁰⁰⁸. Polydeukes was inconsolable for the loss of his brother ; and Zeus, on his prayer, gave him his choice of being taken up himself to Olympos, and sharing the {p. 432}honours of Ares and Athena, or of dividing them with his brother, and for them to live day and day about in heaven and under the earth. Polydeukes chose the latter, and divided his immortality with Castôr²⁰⁰⁹.

The remarkable circumstance of the two brothers living and dying alternately leads at once to a suspicion of their being personifications of natural powers and objects. This is confirmed by the names in the mythe, all of which seem to refer to light, or its opposite. Thus Leda differs little from Leto, and may therefore be regarded as darkness ; she is married to Tyndareos, a name which seems to be of a family of words relating to light, flame or heat²⁰¹⁰ ; her children by him or Zeus, that is by Zeus-Tyndareos, the bright god, are Helena, Brightness (ἓλα, light), Castôr, Adorner (κάζω), and Polydeukes, Dewful (δϵύω, δϵκής). In Helena therefore we have only another form of Selene ; the Adorner is a very appropriate term for the day, whose light adorns all nature ; and nothing can be more apparent than the suitableness of Dewful to the night. It is rather curious that in the legend Helena is connected by birth with Polydeukes rather than with Castôr. The brothers may also be regarded as sun and moon, to which their names and the form of the mythe are equally well adapted²⁰¹¹.

To proceed to the other names of the legend, Idas and Lynceus, that is Sight and Light, are the children of Aphareus or Phareus, that is Shiner (ϕάω) ; and the two daughters of Leucippos, or White-horsed (an epithet of the Dioscuri²⁰¹²), are Phœbe, Brightness, and Hilaeira, Joyful (ἱλαρὸς), which last is an epithet given to the moon by Empedocles²⁰¹³. In the Cypria they were called the daughters of Apollo²⁰¹⁴.

{p. 433}

That these were original divinities is demonstrated by their being objects of worship. The Tyndarids, Dioscuri or Kings (Ἂνακϵς), as they were named, had their temples and statues²⁰¹⁵ ; as also had the Leucippides²⁰¹⁶, who, in perhaps the more correct form of the legend, are their wives²⁰¹⁷. Helena, in like manner, had her temples²⁰¹⁸ ; and there is some reason to suppose that she was identified with Eileithyia²⁰¹⁹. The Apharids were not objects of worship ; perhaps because they had merely been devised as opponents to the Tyndarids, to give a mythic ground for the alternate life and death of these last, or possibly because in the legend they are Messenians.

The Dioscuri were afterwards confounded with the Cabeirean deities, and were regarded as the protectors of ships in tempests²⁰²⁰ ; and the St. Elmo's fire was ascribed to them. They were also said to be the constellation of the Twins.

{p. 434}

Chapter X.

MYTHES OF ELIS.

Σαλμωννϵϵύϛ. Salmoneus. — Τυρώ. Tyro. — Νηλεὺς καὶ Περικλὺμενος. Neleus et Periclymenus. — Μϵλάμπους καὶ Βίς. Melampus et Bias. — ῎Ιαμοѕ. Iamus. — Ἐνδυμίων. Endymion. — Κτέατος καὶ Εὕρυτος. Cteatus et Eurytus. — Tάνταλος. Tantalus. — Πέλοψ. Pelops. — Ἀτρεὺς καὶ Θυέστης. Atreus et Thyestes.

The mythic tales of which Elis is the scene are confined to the district between the Alpheios and the Neda, formerly called Pylos, where the Neleids reigned ; and to Pisatis, the ancient realm of the Pelopids. Between the former and the part of Thessaly about the Pagasaïc bay there appears to have been a very early connexion, as its mythic heroes are all Æolids. It was probably colonised by the Minyans.

Σαλμωννϵϵύϛ. Salmoneus.

Salmoneus, one of the sons of Æolos, settled in Elis, where he built a city. He was a bold impious man, who asserted himself to be Zeus, and claimed all the honours due to that god. He fastened dried hides and brazen kettles to his chariot, and their clatter, he said, was thunder ; and flinging lighted torches against the sky, he called them his lightnings. Zeus, incensed at his impiety, struck him with thunder, and consumed his city and all its inhabitants²⁰²¹.

Τυρώ. Tyro.

Tyro the daughter of Salmoneus was, after the death of her father, brought up in Thessaly by his brother Deïôn. She was in love with the river Enipeus, to whose waves she often made her moan. Poseidôn saw and loved her ; and assuming the form of the river-god, embraced her at the mouth of the stream, whose bright waves arched over them, concealing the god and the mortal maid. The god declared then who he was, and enjoining secrecy dived into the sea. Tyro conceived from the divine embrace two sons, whom when born {p. 435}she exposed. A troop of mares, followed by the herdsmen, passing by where they lay, one of the mares touched the face of one of the infants with her hoof, and made it livid (πέλιον). The herdsmen took and reared the babes, naming the one with the mark Pelias, the other Neleus. When they grew up they discovered their mother, and resolved to kill her stepmother Sidero, by whom she was cruelly treated. They pursued her to the altar of Hera ; and Pelias, who never showed any regard for that goddess, slew her before it. The brothers afterwards fell into discord, and Pelias abode at Iolcos, but Neleus settled in Elis, where he built a town named Pylos. Tyro afterwards married her uncle Cretheus, to whom she bore three sons, Æsôn, Pheres, and Amythaôn²⁰²².

Νηλεὺς καὶ Περικλὺμενος. Neleus et Periclymenus.

Neleus married Chloris the daughter of Amphiôn, the son of Iasos of the Minyan Orchomenos²⁰²³. By her he had several sons, of whom the principal were Periclymenos and Nestôr, and one daughter named Pero. When Heracles attacked Pylos²⁰²⁴, he killed Neleus and all his sons but Nestôr, who was a child, and reared among the Gerenians. Periclymenos had been endowed by Poseidôn with the power of changing himself into various forms ; and he took successively those of an eagle, a lion, a serpent, an ant, and other animals. He was detected by Athena as he was sitting in the form of a bee or a fly on the pole of Heracles’ chariot, and he was killed by the hero²⁰²⁵.

The mythic family of the Neleids seem all to relate to the sea and water. At the head of the genealogy is Æolos (Windman), whose son is Salmoneus, i. e. Halmoneus (Sea-man), by whose daughter Poseidôn is the father of Neleus, i. e. Nereus, whose sons are Nestôr (Flower)²⁰²⁶ and Periclymenos, a name {p. 436}answering to an epithet of Poseidôn, κλυτός. The wisdom of Nestôr, and his brother's power of changing his form, remind us also of the sea-deities. Pero may be connected with the fount Peirene²⁰²⁷ ; Tyro may be Tryo (Penetrator), like Tritôn and Amphitrite²⁰²⁸.

Μϵλάμπους καὶ Βίς. Melampus et Bias.

Amythaôn the son of Cretheus and Tyro settled at Pylos. He married Eidomene the daughter of his brother Pheres, by whom he had two sons, Bias and Melampûs. This last lived in the country. Before his house stood an oak-tree, in a hole of which abode some serpents. His servants finding these animals, killed the old ones, whose bodies Melampûs burned ; but he saved and reared the young ones. As he was sleeping one day, these serpents, which were now grown to full size, came, and getting each on one of his shoulders, licked his ears with their tongues. He awoke in some terror ; and to his astonishment, found that he understood the voices of the birds which were flying around ; and learning from their tongues the future, he was able to declare it to mankind. Meeting Apollo on the banks of the Alpheios, he was taught by him the art of reading futurity in the entrails of victims, and he thus became an excellent soothsayer²⁰²⁹.

Meanwhile his brother Bias fell in love with Pero the daughter of Neleus. As the hand of this beautiful maiden was sought by most of the neighbouring princes, her father declared that he would give her only to him who should bring him from Thessaly the cows of his mother Tyro, which Iphiclos of Phylace detained, and had them guarded by a dog whom neither man nor beast could venture to approach. Bias, relying on the aid of his brother, undertook the adventure. Melampûs, previously declaring that he knew he should be caught and confined for a year but then get the cattle, set out for Phylace. Everything fell out as he had said. The herdsmen of Iphiclos took him, and he was thrown into prison, where he was attended by a man and a woman. The man served {p. 437}him well, the woman badly. Toward the end of the year he heard the worms in the timber conversing with each other. One asked how much of the beam was now gnawed through ; the others replied that there was little remaining. Melampûs immediately desired to be removed to some other place ; the man took up the bad at the head, the woman at the foot, Melampûs himself at the middle. They had not gotten quite out of the house, when the roof fell in and killed the woman. This coming to the ears of Iphiclos, he inquired, and learned that Melampûs was a Mantis. He therefore, as he was childless, consulted him about having offspring. Melampûs agreed to tell him, on condition of his giving him the cows. The seer then sacrificing an ox to Zeus, divided it, and called all the birds to the feast. All came but the vulture ; but none was able to tell how Iphiclos might have children. They therefore brought the vulture, who said that Phylacos the father of Iphiclos had pursued him with a knife when he was a child, for having done something unseemly ; but not being able to catch him, had stuck the knife in a wild pear-tree, where the bark grew over it. The terror, he said, had deprived Iphiclos of his generative power ; but if this knife was gotten, and Iphiclos, scraping off the rust, drank it for ten mornings, he would have a child. All was done as the prophet desired, and Iphiclos had a son named Podarkes. Melampûs drove the kine to Pylos, and Pero was given to his brother²⁰³⁰.

The cure of the Prœtides by Melampûs has been already related²⁰³¹.

The Melampods, of whose Eponymus the history is here related, were a soothsaying family of the mythic ages belonging to the Peloponnese. Amythaôn or Mythaôn (Speaker, μῦθοѕ) and Eidomene (Seer), are appropriate names for the parents of a soothsayer. Melampûs is (like Œdipûs) an ambiguous name ; and Black-foot is as dubious an interpretation as Swollen-foot.

{p. 438}

῎Ιαμοѕ. Iamus.

The nymph Pitane, the daughter of the river-god Eurotas’ conceived by Poseidôn the ‘violet-tressed’ Euadne. She concealed her state ; and when the babe was born sent it to Æpytos, the son of Elatos the son of Areas, who dwelt at Phæsane on the banks of the Alpheios in Arcadia. When Euadne grew up, her charms attracted the love of Apollo. The consequence of her intercourse with the god did not escape the observation of Æpytos ; who, filled with anger and concern, journeyed to Pytho, to consult the oracle about this unhappy affair. While he was absent, Euadne, who had gone to the fount, felt her pains come on. She laid down her silver pitcher and loosed her ‘purple-yellow’ girdle, and beneath the dark foliage brought forth her ‘divine-minded’ son. The ‘gold-haired’ god had sent the mild Eleutho and the Moiræ to ease her labour, and bring his offspring to the light. The mourning mother left her new-born babe on the ground, and two ‘green-eyed’ serpents came by the direction of the gods, and fed him on ‘the innocuous venom (ἰὸν) of bees.’

When Æpytos returned from ‘rocky’ Pytho, he inquired after the child which Euadne had borne ; for Phœbos, he said, had told him that he would be a renowned prophet, and that his race would never fail. All declared that they had seen or heard nothing of the babe, who was now five days old, but lay concealed in the rushes and extensive thicket, ‘his tender body bedewed with the yellow and purple rays’ i. e. of the violets (ἴων) which surrounded him ; and hence his mother called him Iamos — Violety.

On attaining ‘the fruit of pleasing gold-crowned youth,’ Iamos went into the stream of the Alpheios ; and by night in the open air called on Poseidôn his ‘wide-powerful’ ancestor, and on ‘the bow-bearing guardian of god-built Delos,’ to grant him public honour. The voice of his father replied, directing him to follow ; and unseen, he brought him to the hill of Kronos at Olympia, where he gave him the double treasure of prophecy by augury and by entrail-inspection. When Heracles came to Olympia, and established the festival {p. 439}of Zeus, Iamos by his direction founded a temple, at which he and his posterity the Iamids continued to officiate²⁰³².

The Theban bard here sings the mythic origin which had been assigned to the soothsaying Iamids of Olympia. The tradition appears to have been that they came from Arcadia. Poseidôn, we may observe, is placed at the head of the genealogies of both them and the Melampids ; and we are to recollect the soothsaying properties of the water-deities, and the inspiring influence of streams and founts²⁰³³. Pindar here plays very agreeably on the relation of the name Iamos to the violet.

Ἐνδυμίων. Endymion.

In the legendary annals of Elis, Endymiôn was the son of Aëthlios, the son of Zeus by Protogeneia (First-born), the daughter of Deucaliôn ; and he was the father of Pæôn, Epeios and Ætolos. He proposed the succession to the kingdom as the prize of a race to his sons ; Epeios won, and the people were named from him ; Pæôn retired in resentment to the banks of the Axios, far away in the north, and the country there derived from him its name, Pæonia²⁰³⁴.

Endymiôn, it is also said, gained the love of the goddess Selene, and she bore him fifty daughters²⁰³⁵. Zeus as a favour allowed him to live as long as he pleased²⁰³⁶, or as others said, granted him the boon of perpetual sleep. The place of his repose was a cavern of Mount Latmos in Caria, and thither Selene used to repair to visit him. Some said he was made immortal for his righteousness ; others that, like Ixiôn, when raised to heaven he made love to Hera, was deceived by a cloud, and was hurled to Erebos²⁰³⁷.

There can be very little doubt that this mysterious being {p. 440}was originally an object of worship, and that he was converted into a hero in the usual manner. As the ancient Epeians are said to have been Lelegians, and this people also dwelt in the neighbourhood of Latmos, it has been thought²⁰³⁸, with much probability, that Endymiôn was a deity whom they worshiped. The sire assigned him is nothing more than a personification of the Olympic games (ἄϵθλα) ; his sons express the kindred between the Epeians and Ætolians. His union with the moon, and their fifty daughters, will perhaps furnish a key to his true nature. In these daughters Boeckh²⁰³⁹ sees the fifty lunar months which formed the Olympic cycle of four years. In such case Endymiôn would probably be the sun, who with the moon is the author of the months ; or supposing this to have been a Lelegian mythe, and therefore long anterior to the institution of the Olympic games, the daughters may have been the weeks of the year (the round number being employed as usual), of which the sun and moon are the parents. The conjunction of these bodies at the time of new-moon is a matter of common observation. Milton uses a very remarkable expression when he speaks of the moon as being at this time ‘hid in her vacant interlunar cave.’ Endymiôn is perhaps the setting sun who goes into (ἐνδύϵι) the sea, or possibly in the Lelegian mythe the cavern where he meets the moon.

The rationalisers said that Endymiôn was a hunter who used to go to the chase at night when the beasts came out to feed, and to sleep in a cavern during the day ; and hence he was supposed to be always asleep²⁰⁴⁰.

{p. 441}

Κτέατος καὶ Εὕρυτος. Cteatus et Eurytus.

In the Ilias²⁰⁴¹ Nestôr mentions two Epeian youths, the sons of Poseidôn, whom he calls the Actorions (᾿Ακτορίωνϵ) and Molions (Μολίονϵ). The poet elsewhere²⁰⁴² names them Cteatos and Eurytos. Hesiod²⁰⁴³ said that their bodies grew together, and Ibycus²⁰⁴⁴ that they sprang from a silver egg. They married Theronice and Therophone the daughters of Dexamenos²⁰⁴⁵ : they fell, as we have seen, by the arm of Heracles : their sons Amphimachos and Thalpios led the Epeians to Ilion²⁰⁴⁶.

That this mythe is not without a meaning is a point of which few will doubt ; but it is one not very easy to discover. A modem mythologist²⁰⁴⁷ regards these twins as the symbols of foreign trade, they being the children of the sea, or of Bringer (῎Ακτωρ from ἄγω) and Comer, (Ϻολιόνη from μολέω) and named Acquirer (Κτέατοѕ) and Wealthy, or one to whom wealth flows (ϵὖ ῥυτός). Another critic²⁰⁴⁸ takes a widely different view of the mythe, seeing in it only an Eleian popular fable of the two millstones. Hence, he says, they are joined in the body ; their mother's name is Mill (μύλη mola), their father is the Breaker (ἄγω, ἄγνυμι), the son of Feeder (Phorbas)²⁰⁴⁹, their own names are Possessor and Hold-fast,²⁰⁵⁰, and they are married to Corn-subduer and Corn-maker (Θηρονίκη and Θηροϕόνη)²⁰⁵¹, the daughters of Trough (Δϵξάμϵνος). Perhaps this last theory, though carried somewhat too far, may be the truth.

{p. 442}

Tάνταλος. Tantalus.

Odysseus, when relating to the Phæacians what he had beheld in Erebos, says²⁰⁵²,

And Tantalos I saw great woe enduring,

Placed in a lake that reached up to his chin.

Like one athirst he seemed, but could not drink ;

For when the old man stooped to drink intent

The water shrank absorbed, and round his feet

The sable earth appeared ; God dried it up.

Above his head tall leafy trees displayed

Their fruit, pomegranates, pears and apples bright,

And luscious figs and olives green and ripe ;

But when the old man would grasp them in his hands,

The winds straight tossed them to the shady clouds.

Pindar says that if ever mortal man was honoured by the dwellers of Olympos it was Tantalos ; but that he could not digest his happiness. They admitted him, he adds, to feast at their table on nectar and ambrosia, which made him immortal ; but he stole some of the divine food and gave it to his friends on earth. For this Zeus hung a stone over his head, which always menacing to descend and crush him deprives him of all joy²⁰⁵³. This poet does not mention the place of his punishment, but Euripides says that it was the air between heaven and earth, and that the rock was suspended over him by golden chains²⁰⁵⁴. The offence of Tantalos, according to him, was his not restraining his tongue, that is, probably his divulging the secrets of the gods.

Tantalos was said to be the son of Zeus by the nymph Pluto (Wealth), and he was the father of Pelops and of Niobe the wife of Amphiôn. His residence was placed at the foot of Mount Sipylos in Lydia. Zeus, said another legend, cast this mountain atop of him ; for Pandareos having stolen the golden dog which had guarded the goat that reared the god, gave it to Tantalos to keep. Hermes being sent to reclaim the dog, Tantalos denied all knowledge of it, and for his falsehood the mountain was thrown on him²⁰⁵⁵.

This last trifling legend is, as we may easily see, one of the {p. 443}many attempts at localising the ancient mythes, for Sipylos it is plain was designed to take the place of the mythic rock.

The name Tantalos is, like Sisyphos, a reduplication²⁰⁵⁶, and his mythe is evidently one of those handed down from the ancient serious Pelasgic times. The root of Tantalos is probably θάλλω, and he represents the man who is flourishing and abounding in wealth, but whose desires are insatiable. The Homeric picture livelily exhibits the misery of such a state, and this is probably the more ancient form of the legend. The other form²⁰⁵⁷ perhaps represents the cares and fears attendant on riches ; or it may be, as has been ingeniously conjectured, an image of the evils of ambition and the inordinate pursuit of honours ; for when Tantalos, it was said, had attained his ultimate desire, and was admitted to the table of the gods, his joy was converted into terror by his fancying a rock suspended over his head and ready to crush him, and he sought permission to resign his place at the celestial table²⁰⁵⁸.

It was probably the idea of the great wealth of Lydia that caused the mythe of Tantalos to be localised at Sipylos.

Πέλοψ. Pelops.

At an entertainment given to the gods by Tantalos, he is said to have killed and dressed his son Pelops, and to have set him for food before them. Demeter had eaten one of the shoulders before the gods were aware of the horrid banquet of which they were about to partake. At the desire of Zeus, Hermes put all the parts back into the pot, and drew forth from it the boy perfect in all but the shoulder, which was replaced by an ivory one²⁰⁵⁹. Poseidôn, smitten with the beauty of Pelops, carried him off in his golden car to Olympos. But when his father had drawn on himself the indignation of the {p. 444}gods, they set Pelops once more among the ‘swift-fated race of men²⁰⁶⁰.’

When Pelops had attained to manhood he resolved to seek in marriage Hippodameia, the daughter of Œnomaos, son of Ares, king of Pisa. An oracle having told this prince that he would lose his life through his son-in-law, or, as others say, being unwilling on account of her surpassing beauty to part with her, he proclaimed that he would give his daughter only to him who should conquer him in the chariot-race. The race was from the banks of the Cladios in Elis to the altar of Poseidôn at the Isthmus, and it was run in this manner : Œnomaos placing his daughter in the chariot with the suitor, gave him the start ; he followed himself with a spear in his hand, and if he overtook the unhappy lover ran him through. Thirteen had already lost their lives when Pelops came²⁰⁶¹.

In the dead of the night, says Pindar, Pelops went down to the margin of the sea, and invoked the god who rules it. Suddenly Poseidôn stood at his feet, and he conjured him by the memory of his affection to grant him the means of obtaining the lovely daughter of Œnomaos, declaring that even should he fail in the attempt, he regarded fame beyond inglorious old-age. Poseidôn assented to his prayer, and bestowed on him a golden chariot, and horses of winged speed²⁰⁶².

Pelops then went to Pisa to contend for the fair prize. He bribed Myrtilos, the son of Hermes, the charioteer of Œnomaos, to leave out the linch-pins of the wheels of his chariot, or as others said to put in waxen ones instead of iron. In the race therefore, the chariot of Œnomaos broke down, and falling out he was killed²⁰⁶³, and Hippodameia became the bride of Pelops. To celebrate the wedding Poseidôn assembled the Nereïdes, and raised on the strand of the sea a bridal-chamber of the waves, which arched in bright curves over the marriagebed²⁰⁶⁴.

Pelops is said²⁰⁶⁵ to have promised Myrtilos for his aid one {p. 445}half of the kingdom, or as other accounts have it, to give him a share in the favours of Hippodameia. Unwilling, however, to keep his promise, he took an opportunity as they were driving along a cliff to throw Myrtilos into the sea, where he was drowned. Others say, that Hippodameia being thirsty, Pelops went in search of water for her ; during his absence Myrtilos attempted to offer her violence²⁰⁶⁶, and Pelops on her complaint flung him into the sea²⁰⁶⁷. To the vengeance of Hermes for the death of his son were ascribed all the future woes of the line of Pelops²⁰⁶⁸.

Hippodameia bore to Pelops five sons, Atreus, Thyestes, Copreus, Alcathoös and Pittheus, and two daughters, Nicippe and Lysidice, who married Sthenelos and Mestôr the sons of Perseus.

In this mythe also there is much obscurity. We will commence our examination of it by inquiring into the Lydian origin of Pelops, a thing taken for granted by all historians from Herodotus and Thucydides²⁰⁶⁹ down to our own days.

Homer, when giving an account of Agamemnôn’s sceptre, says²⁰⁷⁰ that Zeus gave it to Hermes, by whom it was given to ‘horse-lashing’ Pelops, which signifies that Pelops was a prince rich in flocks and herds who ruled by a legitimate title. This certainly does not contradict the notion of his being a foreigner, but it does not confirm it ; and it seems very strange that Homer should never have alluded to the Asiatic origin of the Atreids if it was a matter of belief in his days. Hesiod²⁰⁷¹ probably related the winning of Hippodameia. In the Cypria it was said, that from the summit of Taÿgetos Lynceus looked over the ‘whole isle of Pelops Tantalides’²⁰⁷² ; which passage is the earliest intimation that we have of any connexion between Pelops and Tantalos, as it is the first mention of the Peloponnese. Pindar²⁰⁷³ calls Pelops a Lydian.

The name Pelops’-isle or Peloponnese is, we think, decisive {p. 446}of the whole question. There was no such practice known in remote antiquity as that of calling a country or even a town after a person ; Pelops must be therefore either the personification of a people the Pelopians, or of some natural quality or property of the land. Some therefore derive Pelops from ἕλα, splendour, and render it the Illustrious, an honorific appellation of prince or people²⁰⁷⁴. Others connect it with πηλὸς, ἕλα, and the family of words relating to water and the land by marshes and streams²⁰⁷⁵. This last theory is supported by the horsemanship of Pelops and the connexion between him and Poseidôn ; and possibly Pelops may be only another name of the water-god whom we find with so many names at the Isthmus. The origin of the name Peloponnese, which is certainly post-Homeric, still however is enveloped in obscurity ; for in those times lands were not called after gods any more than after men.

Pelops, the water-land, is made the son of Tantalos the flourishing, and the brother of Niobe, the young green earth. The legend of his being cut up and eaten raw by Demeter²⁰⁷⁶ may denote the breaking up of the ground in order to renew it. Hermes the rural god restores Pelops to life, and the same Hermes, under the name of Myrtilos, that is Myrtos, or the protector of the myrtles that love the sea-shore, enables him to win the prize. The connexion between this god and Pelops is also intimated in the tradition that the first temple of Hermes in the Peloponnese was built by Pelops.

If the principle which we have advanced in the case of Pegasos, of different kinds of mythes arising from different derivations of the name being related of the same object, Pelops, i. e. the Pelopians²⁰⁷⁷, may also have been regarded as a physical {p. 447}being, and the mythes above related may owe their origin to this view of his character.

Ἀτρεὺς καὶ Θυέστης. Atreus et Thyestes.

Atreus and Thyestes, the sons of Pelops and Hippodameia, having out of jealousy killed their half-brother Chrysippos, were banished by their father, and at the same time, it is added, he pronounced a curse on them that they and their posterity should perish by means of one another. They retired to Mideia, whence on the death of Pelops Atreus came with an army to Elis and took possession of the throne²⁰⁷⁸.

Thyestes, it is said, afterwards seduced Aërope the wife of Atreus, who for this offence drove him from his kingdom ; and Thyestes, out of revenge, sent Atreus’ son Pleisthenes, whom he had brought up as his own, to murder his father. Atreus taking the youth to be the son of Thyestes put him to death, and the curse of Pelops thus began to be accomplished²⁰⁷⁹.

Another legend thus accounts for the enmity between the brothers. Hermes, in order to avenge his son Myrtilos whom Pelops had murdered, put a gold-fleeced lamb into the flocks of Atreus, between whom and Thyestes, according to this legend, the kingdom was disputed. Atreus, in order to prove that the kingdom by right was his, said he would produce a goldfleeced lamb : Thyestes, however, having corrupted Atreus’ wife Aërope, had gotten the lamb ; and when Atreus could not exhibit it as he promised, the people thinking he had deceived them deprived him of the kingdom. Sometime after however Atreus returned and said that to prove his right he would let them see the Sun and the Pleiades moving from west to east. This miracle Zeus performed in his favour, and he thus obtained the kingdom and drove Thyestes into exile²⁰⁸⁰.

Another legend continues the tale in a more tragic and horrible form. Atreus, it is said, invited his brother to return, promising to bury all enmity in oblivion. Thyestes accepted the proffered reconciliation ; a feast was made to celebrate it ; {p. 448}but the revengeful Atreus killed the two sons of Thyestes and served their flesh up to their father ; and while Thyestes was eating he caused the heads and hands of his children to be brought in and shown to him. The Sun, it is said, at the sight of this horrible deed checked his chariot in the midst of his course²⁰⁸¹.

Thyestes fled to Thesprotia, whence he went to Sicyôn, where his daughter Pelopia dwelt. He arrived on the very night in which she was to offer a sacrifice to Athena, and not wishing to disturb the ceremony, he hid himself in the grove. As Pelopia was joining in the sacred dance, she slipped in the blood of the victims and defiled her clothes. Quitting the dance, she went down to the river to wash the dirt from her garment. When she had taken it off, Thyestes, covering his head that he might not be known, sprang from his lurkingplace, and forcibly embraced her. In the struggle she drew his sword from the sheath, and taking it back with her, concealed it in the temple of Athena.

The next day Thyestes presented himself to the king of Sicyôn, and besought him to restore him to his native country. Meantime famine and plague had come to punish the crime of Atreus ; and the oracle had responded, that to remove it Atreus should bring back his brother. He went to Thesprotia in search of him, where he beheld Pelopia the daughter of Thyestes ; and supposing her to be the daughter of the king, demanded her in marriage. Thesprotos gave her to him. She was already pregnant by her father, and shortly after her marriage brought forth a son, whom Atreus caused to be exposed ; but the herdsman, taking pity on him, reared him on the dugs of a she-goat (αἰγὸς) — whence he derived his name, Ægisthos. Atreus, hearing he was alive, had him sought for, and brought him up as his own son.

Atreus afterwards sent his sons Agamemnôn and Menelaos in search of Thyestes. They went to Delphi, where they met him, who was also come to consult the god on the nature of the vengeance which he should seek to take on his brother. They seized and brought him to Atreus, who cast him into prison. Atreus then called Ægisthos, and directed him to {p. 449}put the captive to death. Ægisthos went to the prison, bearing the sword which his mother had given him ; and the moment Thyestes beheld it, he knew it to be that which he had lost, and asked the youth how he had come by it. He replied that it was the gift of his mother. At the desire of Thyestes, Pelopia came, and the whole deed of darkness was brought to light. The unfortunate daughter of Thyestes, under pretence of examining the sword, plunged it into her bosom. Ægisthos drew it forth reeking with blood, and brought it to Atreus as a proof of having obeyed his commands. Rejoiced at the death, as he thought, of his brother, Atreus offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving on the shore of the sea ; but while he was engaged in it, he was fallen on and slain by Thyestes and Ægisthos²⁰⁸².

This is the most horrible legend in the Grecian mythology. It is evidently post-Homeric, for exclusive of the fact that such atrocities are quite repugnant to the spirit of the heroic ages as portrayed in the Homeric poems, it is utterly irreconcilable with the account of the Pelopids given in them. Of Agamemnôn’s sceptre it is said that Hephæstos made it and gave it to Zeus, who gave it to Hermes, by whom it was presented to ‘horse-lashing’ Pelops, who gave it to Atreus the shepherd of the people, who when dying left it to ‘lambabounding’ Thyestes, who left it to Agamemnôn²⁰⁸³. Here we have a family of princes rich in cattle legitimately transmitting the sceptre from one to the other, a state of things totally at variance with the atrocities above related. It was probably at the time when the Greeks had become familiar with Asia and the barbarous regions round the Euxine that the nameless deeds of ‘Pelops’ line' were invented. The author of the Alcmæonis, whoever he was, is said to have related the story of the gold-fleeced lamb²⁰⁸⁴. We know not who first told of the horrid banquet, but we find it frequently alluded to by Æschylus²⁰⁸⁵, though he does not appear to have made the deeds of Atreus and Thyestes the subject of a drama. Sophocles wrote two Thyestes, and Euripides one ; and we have {p. 450}probably their contents in the legends transmitted to us by Hyginus.

There is a difficulty in the Homeric account of Agamemnôn’s being the successor of Thyestes, for he calls him more than once the son of Atreus²⁰⁸⁶, and in the Odyssey he is murdered by Ægisthos the son of Thyestes²⁰⁸⁷. The common solution of Atreus having left his kingdom to his brother in charge for his son, who was not of age, is not, we believe, agreeable to the Homeric usage.

{p. 451}

Chapter XI.

MYTHES OF ACHAIA.

Μϵλάνιππος καὶ Κομαιθώ. Melanippus et Comætho. — Κόρϵσος και Καλλιῤῥόη. Coresus et Callirrhoe. — Σέλεμνος και Ἀργυρâ. Selemnus and Argyra.

Μϵλάνιππος καὶ Κομαιθώ. Melanippus et Comætho.

Artemis was worshiped at Patræ under the name of Triclaria. Her priestess was always a virgin, who held her office till she married. This priesthood was once filled by a beautiful virgin named Comætho. A youth named Melanippos, also distinguished for his beauty, conceived a violent passion for the fair priestess, which was participated in by its object, but the parents of both the lovers refused their consent to the union. Thus thwarted in their lawful wishes, the youth and maiden lost sight of prudence, and they polluted the sanctity of the temple by the unhallowed gratification of their passion. The goddess was offended ; disease and pestilence testified to the people her displeasure.

Envoys were sent to consult the Pythian oracle, and the voice of the god fixed the guilt on Comætho and Melanippos, whom he ordered to be sacrificed to Artemis, and a youth and maiden of superior beauty to be offered annually as victims to the goddess. For many years this cruel rite remained in use, and the stream which flowed by the temple derived from it the name of Implacable (ἀμείλιχος). An oracle, however, held out hopes of its ceasing, when a stranger should arrive in the country bearing with him an unknown deity.

On the division of the spoils at Troy, Eurypylos the son of Euæmôn had gotten a coffer containing a statue of Dionysos, the work of Hephæstos, as was said, and given to Dardanos by Zeus. Cassandra, it was also said, had thrown this coffer in the way of the Greeks, knowing that it would prove injurious to whoever should find it. Eurypylos opening it saw the statue, and immediately lost his senses : his reason however did not entirely depart, and he had lucid intervals. In consequence of this calamity, instead of going home to Thessaly, he sailed to Cirrha, and consulted the oracle at Delphi {p. 452}for relief of his disorder. He was directed to take up his abode, and dedicate the coffer, where he should find people sacrificing after a strange fashion. He re-embarked, and the wind carried him to Aroe on the coast of Achaia, where he saw a procession moving along the shore, leading a youth and maiden to be sacrificed on the altar of the Triclarian Artemis. He at once perceived the accomplishment of the oracle given to him ; the Achæans saw that theirs also was fulfilled, the human sacrifices ceased, the stranger was restored to his reason, the coffer of Dionysos was dedicated, and the river changed its appellation to that of Mild (είλιχος)²⁰⁸⁸

Κόρϵσος και Καλλιῤῥόη. Coresus et Callirrhoe.

In Patræ stood a temple of the Calydonian Dionysos, whose statue had been brought thither from Calydôn. The following legend was related respecting it. While Calydôn flourished, a man named Coresos was priest of Dionysos in that country. A maiden named Callirrhoe became the object of his love, but unhappily the fervour of his attachment only augmented the hatred and aversion of the maiden to her lover. When neither gifts nor entreaties could avail to win her love, the priest in despair turned him to his god, and besought him to avenge his sufferings. The god heard the prayer of the suppliant, and an insanity similar to intoxication fell on the Calydonians, of which many of them perished.

In their distress, they had recourse to the oracle of Dodona, and they learned that their calamity was the infliction of Dionysos, and would not cease till Coresos had sacrificed Callirrhoe, or some one who was willing to die in her stead. It was resolved to obey the oracle. Callirrhoe could find no one possessed of sufficient affection for her to pay so high a penalty ; friends, kindred, parents, all shrunk back, and the unhappy maiden was forced to submit to her cruel fate. As a victim, she was crowned and led to the altar, where Coresos stood to perform the appointed sacrifice ; but at the sight of her, love overcame every other sentiment in the bosom of the priest, and he slew himself instead of the beautiful victim. This last {p. 453}and decisive proof of true affection quite vanquished the hitherto relentless maiden ; her violent hate was converted into ardent love ; and filled with pity for her lover, and shame at her own ungrateful insensibility, she retired to a fountain near the port of Calydôn, and there cut her own throat and died. The spring derived from her its name, — Callirrhoe, i. e. Fairflowing²⁰⁸⁹.

Σέλεμνος και Ἀργυρâ. Selemnus and Argyra.

Selemnos was a beautiful youth, who pastured his flocks near the shore of the sea. Argyra, one of the sean-ymphs, beheld and loved him, and frequently emerging from the waters, came to enjoy his society on the banks of a river. But the beauty of the youth departing, the fickle sea-maiden ceased to regard him, and no longer sought his company. Grief at her loss killed the deserted shepherd, and Aphrodite in compassion changed him into a river of his own name. But his love still continuing, Aphrodite again moved with pity exerted her divine power, and caused him to forget Argyra. The waters of the Selemnos became in consequence a remedy for love, inducing oblivion on those who bathed in them²⁰⁹⁰.

{p. 454}

Chapter XII.

MYTHES OF THE ISLES.

Εὐρώπη. Europa. — Μινὼς, Ῥαδάμαυς, και Σαρπδών. Minos, Rhadamanthus, et Sarpendo. — Ἀριάδνη και Фαίδρα. Ariadne et Phædra. — Γλαῦκος. Glaucus. — Αἰακὸς καὶ Тελαμών. Æacus et Telamon. — Ὠρίων. Orion. — Пλϵιάδϵς καὶ ϓάδϵς . Pleiades et Hyades.

The principal mythic cycle which the isles present is that of Crete, an island remarkable for its estrangement from the rest of Greece during the historic period ; for though Cretan archers served all parties as mercenaries, the people of Crete took no share in the Persian, Peloponnesian, or other wars. The political insignificance of Crete in this period might lead one to doubt of the power and dominion of the Cretan monarch Minôs in the mythic period ; and perhaps the truth of that dominion was too readily adopted from the Athenian legends by Thucydides, the introduction to whose admirable work has had too much influence on the minds of some modern inquirers, who seem to forget that he had only the same sources of information respecting the mythic ages as we ourselves possess, and that the art of historic criticism was unknown in his time. The Cretan cycle is confined to the Minoïc family, at the head of which are placed Zeus and Europa.

Εὐρώπη. Europa.

Zeus, says the legend, becoming enamoured of the beauty of Europa the daughter of Phœnix or of Agenôr, changed himself into a beautiful white bull, and approached her ‘breathing saffron from his mouth’ as she was gathering flowers with her companions in a mead near the sea-shore. Europa, delighted with the tameness and beauty of the animal, caressed him, crowned him with flowers, and at length ventured to mount on his back. The disguised god immediately made off with his lovely burden, ran along the waves of the sea, and stopped not till he arrived at Crete, not far from Gortyna. Here he resumed his own form, and beneath a plane-tree embraced the trembling maid²⁰⁹¹ . The fruits of his caresses were three {p. 455}sons, Minôs, Rhadamanthys, and Sarpedôn. Asteriôn king of Crete espoused Europa, and reared her sons²⁰⁹² . He was succeeded in his kingdom by Minôs.

In the Ilias²⁰⁹³ Zeus says that the daughter of ‘far-famed’ Phœnix bore to him Minôs and ‘godlike’ Rhadamanthys. Hesiod probably related the story at length ; but he does not appear to have made Europa a Sidonian, as was afterwards the practice. We know not when this commenced²⁰⁹⁴ or how she became the sister of Cadmos. It probably originated in the name of her father ; and as the legend very appropriately made Agenôr the sire of Cadmos, Europa was also said to be his daughter, while her mother Telephassa became the inappropriate mother of Cadmos. We shall presently see the real nature of Europa.

Μινὼς, Ῥαδάμαυς, και Σαρπδών. Minos, Rhadamanthus, et Sarpendo.

These three brothers fell into discord for the sake of a beautiful youth named Miletos, the son of Apollo, or of Zeus. The youth testifying most esteem for Sarpedôn, Minôs chased them out of Crete. Miletos going to Caria, built a town there, which he named from himself. Sarpedôn went to Lycia, where he aided Cilix against the people of that country, and obtained the sovereignty of a part of it. Zeus is said to have bestowed on him a life of treble duration²⁰⁹⁵ .

Rhadamanthys ruled with justice and equity over the islands. Having committed an accidental homicide, he retired to Bœotia, where he married Alcmena, the mother of Heracles. {p. 456}According to Homer²⁰⁹⁶ , Rhadamanthys was placed on the Elysian Plain among the heroes to whom Zeus allotted that blissful abode. Pindar²⁰⁹⁷ seems to make him a sovereign or judge in the Island of the Blest. Later poets place him with Minôs and Æacos in the under-world, where their office is to judge the dead.

Minôs married Pasiphae, the daughter of the Sun and Perseis, by whom he had several children, the most celebrated of whom were Androgeos, Glaucos, Deucaliôn, Ariadne, and Phædra. The Cretans hesitating to give him the royal dignity after the death of Asteriôn, to prove his claim to it he asserted that he could obtain whatever he prayed for. Then sacrificing to Poseidôn, he besought him to send him a bull from the bottom of the sea, promising to sacrifice whatever should appear. Poseidôn sent the bull, and Minôs received the kingdom. He ruled, according to Homer²⁰⁹⁸ , for nine years at Cnossos, and was the intimate friend (ὀαριστὴς) of Zeus, who gave him wise laws and regulations for his people. Minôs was victorious in war, and extended his dominion over the isles of the Ægæan.

Minôs had a brazen man named Talôs given to him by Hephæstos, or to Europa by Zeus, who compassed the isle thrice in each day to prevent the landing of enemies. His mode of destroying them was to make himself red-hot in the fire and then embrace them. When the Argo approached Crete, Medeia persuaded Talôs that she could make him immortal : he suffered her to pull out the pin in his heel, and let the ichôr run out from his only vein, and he thus died²⁰⁹⁹.

The bull which Poseidôn had sent out of the sea being of large size and of a brilliant white hue, appeared to Minôs too beautiful an animal to be slain, and he put him in his herd, and substituted an ordinary bull. Poseidôn offended at this act made the bull run wild, and inspired Pasiphae with a strange passion for him, but which she had no means of gratifying. Dædalos, the celebrated Athenian artist, being at that time in Crete, having fled from home for homicide, {p. 457}undertook to accomplish the wishes of the queen. He accordingly formed a hollow cow of wood, covered with the hide of a real cow, in which he inclosed Pasiphae, and placed it in the mead where the bull used to feed. All succeeded as was desired, and Pasiphae became the mother of Asterios, called the Minotaur, from his having the head of a bull joined to the body of a man. Minôs, in compliance with an oracle, made Dædalos build for him the Labyrinth, an edifice with numberless winding passages and turnings, from which egress was almost impossible for those who entered it. In this he placed the Minotaur, where he preyed on the victims given to him²¹⁰⁰ . The principal actions of Minôs have been already related²¹⁰¹ . He is said to have fallen in a war against Cocalos king of Sicily, who protected Dædalos. He was succeeded in his kingdom by his son Deucaliôn, whose son Idomeneus led the troops of Crete to the war of Troy²¹⁰².

Ἀριάδνη και Фαίδρα. Ariadne et Phædra.

Ariadne the daughter of Minôs, as has been related above, fell in love with Theseus when he came to Crete, and furnished him with the clew which enabled him to thread the mazes of the Labyrinth. She fled with him from her father ; but Theseus, says Homer, did not reap the fruits of her love ; for when they arrived at the isle of Dia or Naxos, Artemis slew her on the testimony of Dionysos²¹⁰³. Another legend says that she was deserted by Theseus, to whom Athena appeared as he slept, and desired him to leave her and make sail for Athens ; and that as Ariadne was weeping, Aphrodite came and consoled her by an assurance that she should be the bride of Dionysos. The god appeared, enjoyed her love, and gave her a golden crown, which was afterwards placed among the stars²¹⁰⁴ ; she bore him a son named Œnopiôn.

Phædra was married to Theseus. The tale of her love for her step-son Hippolytos has been already related.

{p. 458}

In the Theogony²¹⁰⁵ it is said that

The gold-haired Dionysos made the blond

Ariadne Minôs’ maid his blooming spouse,

And Kronos’ son gave her immortal life.

Ariadne (Much-pleasing) evidently belongs to the mythology of Dionysos, with whom she was associated in the Naxian worship. The Athenians, always anxious to enlarge their own narrow cycle at the expense of others, seem to have joined her with their Theseus, and it was thus perhaps that she became the daughter of Minôs. The passage in the Odyssey would be decisive on this point, were it not that the Athenians were such tamperers with the works of the old poets that one cannot help being suspicious of all passages relating to them. The passage of the Ilias in which Ariadne is mentioned is, we think, justly regarded as a late addition²¹⁰⁶.

Γλαῦκος. Glaucus.

Glaucos the son of Minôs pursuing, when a child, a mouse, fell into a jar of honey, and was smothered. When he could not be found, his father sent to inquire of the oracle about him. The answer he got was, that there was a three-coloured cow in his herd, and that he who could best tell what she was like could restore his son to life. The soothsayers were all assembled ; and Polyeidos the son of Coiranos said, her colour was that of the berry of the briar, — green, red, and lastly black. Minôs desired him to find his son ; and Polyeidos, by his skill in divination, discovered where he was. Minôs then ordered him to restore him to life ; and on his declaring his incapacity so to do, shut him up in a chamber with the body of the child. While here, the soothsayer saw a serpent approach the body, and he struck and killed it. Another immediately appeared with a plant in its mouth, and laid it on the dead one, who instantly came to life. Polyeidos, by employing the same herb, recovered the child²¹⁰⁷.

Minôs, before he let him depart, insisted on his {p. 459}communicating his art to Glaucos. He did so ; but as he was taking leave, he desired his pupil to spit into his mouth. Glaucos obeyed, and lost the memory of all he had learned²¹⁰⁸.

On taking a survey of the circumstances of these Cretan legends, and the names of the persons who occur in them, it is difficult to avoid recognising a worship of the celestial bodies, more particularly of the Moon, of which last the names of the Minoïc family would appear to have been appellations. Thus Europa (Broad-face) is the daughter of Phœnix (Red) and Telephassa (Far-shining), and mother of Minôs, a name not unlike Men²¹⁰⁹ (Μὴν, Moon) ; and she marries Asteriôn (Starry). The wife of Minôs is Pasiphae (All-bright), the daughter of the Sun and Perseïs ; and their daughter is Phædra (Bright). Though we do not believe that the mystic mode of viewing the sun as a bull and the moon as a cow prevailed in early Greece, the horns of the latter gave occasion to the idea of her riding or driving steers ; and perhaps the legend of Europa passing over the sea on a bull is an ancient expression of this idea. The same may have been the origin of the tale of Pasiphae's love for the bull, and of her offspring by him, the Moon-bull, as Minotaur may best perhaps be rendered. The circumstances of the legends are mostly the inventions of the Athenians, at the hands of whose dramatists the characters of the Minoïc family suffered severely.

Though we thus see in the Cretan cycle only personifications of the moon, Minôs and his family may have been real persons named after their favourite deity. We regard this hypothesis however as being by no means probable. The connexion of Minôs with Poseidôn, the naval power ascribed to him, and the names Glaucos and Deucaliôn among his {p. 460}children, might seem to indicate a Cretan worship of the god of the sea.

Αἰακὸς καὶ Тελαμών. Æacus et Telamon.

The river-god Asopos married Metope the daughter of the river-god Ladôn, and had by her several children. His daughter Ægina attracting the love of Zeus, the amorous monarch of the gods carried her off, and struck with a thunderbolt Asopos when he pursued them, and forced him to go home again ; and hence it was said, that the waters of the Asopos carried coals along them²¹¹⁰.

Zeus carried his fair prize into the desert isle of Œnone, afterwards named from her Ægina, where she brought forth a son named Æacos, who being weary of solitude, when he grew up, his father to relieve him turned all the ants in the island into men and women²¹¹¹. Æacos married Endeïs the daughter of Cheirôn, who bore him two sons, Telamôn and Peleus. By the Nereïs Psamathe, who changed herself into a fount to escape his embraces, he had another son named Phocos²¹¹², whom his brothers, envying his superior skill in the gymnic exercises, killed with a blow of a discus, and concealed his body in a wood : but the murder coming to light, Æacos drove them both from the island²¹¹³.

Æacos was distinguished for his piety and his favour with the gods. When Poseidôn and Apollo were set to build the walls of Troy, they made him the associate of their toil²¹¹⁴. It is said, that Greece being afflicted with sterility and dearth, on account of the crime of Pelops, who had cut into pieces Stymphalos king of Arcadia, and scattered the pieces about²¹¹⁵ ; and application having been made to the oracle, the response given was, that it would only be removed on the prayer of {p. 461}Æacos. The righteous son of Zeus preferred his petition, copious rains descended, and the land once more flourished. When Æacos died, the keys of the nether-world were by Pluto committed to his custody²¹¹⁶.

Telamôn, when banished by his father, fled to the neighbouring isle of Salamis, where Kychres the son of Poseidôn by Salamis the daughter of Asopos then reigned, having slain a serpent which ravaged the island. He gave his daughter in marriage to Telamôn, and left him the kingdom. Telamôn accompanied Heracles to Troy ; and the hero gave him Hesione the daughter of Laomedôn, by whom he had a son named Teucros. By Peridæa the grand-daughter of Pelops he had already a son called Aias ; for Heracles having prayed for male issue for his friend, an eagle (ἀετὸς) appeared in answer to his prayer, and the child was named from it²¹¹⁷.

As in the cycle of the Tyndarids there appeared to be a reference to light and fire, so perhaps in that of the Æacids there is one to water. Thus we have in it Asopos, Ægina, Psamathe, Phocos, Thetis, Peleus (πηλὸς, ἕλος), Achilleus (aqua), Teucros (δευκρὸς ?), Telamôn (ἕλος ?), Hesione, Aias (the name of a river²¹¹⁸), and Æacos, which is perhaps of the same origin²¹¹⁹.

The following are astronomic mythes, which we place here for the sake of convenience.

Ὠρίων. Orion.

The hero Oriôn is not mentioned in the Ilias ; but in the Odyssey²¹²⁰ we are told by Calypso, that ‘rose-fingered’ Eôs took him, and that ‘holy, gold-seated’ Artemis slew him with her ‘gentle darts’ in Ortygia. In another place his size and {p. 462}beauty are praised²¹²¹. Odysseus²¹²², when relating what he saw in Erebos, says,

Then next the huge Oriôn I beheld,

Chasing the beasts o'er the asphodelian mead,

Which in the lonely mountains he had slain,

Bearing his brazen aye-enduring club.

Oriôn was said to be the son of Poseidôn by Euryale the daughter of Minyas ; and his father gave him the power of wading through the depths of the sea, or, as others say, of walking on its surface²¹²³. He married Side, whom Hera cast into Erebos for contending with her in beauty²¹²⁴. It is also said that Oriôn was earth-born²¹²⁵.

Hyria, a town of the Tanagraïc or Theban territory in Bœotia, is said to have been the birth-place of Oriôn. As Zeus, Poseidôn, and Hermes were one time, says the legend, taking a ramble on earth, they came late in the evening to the house of a small farmer²¹²⁶ named Hyrieus. Seeing the wayfarers, Hyrieus, who was standing at his door, invited them to enter and pass the night in his humble abode. The gods accepted the kind invitation, and were hospitably entertained. Pleased with their host, they inquired if he had any wish which he desired to have gratified. Hyrieus replied, that he once had a wife whom he tenderly loved, and that he had sworn never to marry another. She was dead : he was childless : his vow was binding : and yet he was desirous of being a father. The gods took the hide of his only ox, which he had sacrificed in their honour ; they buried it in the earth ; and ten months afterwards a boy came to light, whom Hyrieus named Uriôn or Oriôn²¹²⁷.

When Oriôn grew up he went to the isle of Chios, where he became enamoured of Merope the daughter of Œnopiôn {p. 463}the son of Dionysos and Ariadne. He sought her in marriage ; but while wooing, seized a favourable opportunity, and offered her violence. Her father, incensed at this conduct, having made Oriôn drunk, blinded him when asleep, and cast him on the sea-shore. The blinded hero contrived to reach Lemnos, and came to the forge of Hephæstos, who taking pity on him, gave him Kedaliôn (Guardian), one of his men, to be his guide to the abode of the Sun. Placing Kedaliôn on his shoulder, Oriôn proceeded to the East ; and there meeting the Sun-god, was restored to vision by his beam. Anxious for vengeance on Œnopiôn, he returned to Chios ; but the Chians, aware of his intention, concealed the object of his search under the ground, and Oriôn unable to find him retired to Crete²¹²⁸.

The death of Oriôn is differently related. As all the legends respecting him are evidently later than the time of Homer, none ventures to assign any other cause to it than the goddess Artemis, whose wrath (though Homer rather says the contrary) he drew on himself. Some said that he attempted to offer violence to the goddess herself ; others, to Opis, one of her Hyperborean maidens, and that Artemis slew him with her arrows ; others again, that it was for presuming to challenge the goddess at the discus. It was also said, that when he came to Crete, he boasted to Leto and Artemis that he was able to kill anything that would come from the earth. Indignant at his boast they sent a huge scorpion, which stung him, and he died. It was said, finally, that Artemis loved Oriôn, and was even about to marry him. Her brother was highly displeased, and often chid her, but to no purpose. At length, observing one day Oriôn wading through the sea with his head just above the waters, he pointed it out to his sister, and maintained that she could not hit that black thing on the sea. The archer-goddess discharged a shaft : the waves rolled the dead body of Oriôn to the land ; and bewailing her fatal error with many tears, Artemis placed him among the stars²¹²⁹.

{p. 464}

Пλϵιάδϵς καὶ ϓάδϵς . Pleiades et Hyades.

The Pleiades were said to be seven in number, the daughters of Atlas and the Oceanis Pleione. Their names were Maia, Electra, Taÿgete (the mothers by Zeus of Hermes, Dardanos and Lacedæmôn), Halcyone and Celæno (who bore to Poseidôn Hyrieus the father of Oriôn and Lycos), Sterope (the mother of Œnomaos by Ares), and Merope, who married Sisyphos²¹³⁰.

These nymphs led a single life, and hunted with Artemis. Oriôn happening to see them became enamoured, and pursued them ; in their distress they prayed to the gods to change their form, and Zeus in pity turned them to pigeons, and then made them a constellation in the sky²¹³¹. Though their number was seven, only six stars are visible, for Electra, it is said, left her place that she might not behold the ruin of Troy ; or Merope concealed her face out of shame for having alone espoused a mortal²¹³². According to Pindar, the Pleiades were passing through Bœotia with their mother when they were met by Oriôn, and his chase of them lasted for five years²¹³³.

The Hyades are by some also called daughters of Atlas, but according to the best accounts they were nymphs of Dodona, to whom Zeus committed the nurture of Dionysos. Their names, Pherecydes says²¹³⁴, were Ambrosia, Coronis, Eudora, Dione, Æsula, and Polyxo ; by Hesiod²¹³⁵ they are named Phæsula, Coronis, Cleeia, Phæo and Eudora. They went about with their divine charge communicating his discovery to mankind, till being chased with him into the sea by Lycurgos, Zeus in compassion raised them to the skies²¹³⁶.

The Hyades are in the head, the Pleiades in the hinder part of the sign of the Bull.

{p. 465}

The well-known line of Homer and Hesiod,

The Pleiads, Hyads and Oriôn’s strength,

exhibits these constellations as they appear in the sky, and beyond all doubt they were thus named long before they were converted into a hunter and nymphs on the earth. It has been clearly shown that it was the union of astronomy with mythology in the Alexandrian period that gave occasion to the catasterism of so many heroes and heroines²¹³⁷ ; but with Oriôn and these nymphs the case seems to have been reversed, the constellations having been brought down from the sky, and not the mortals raised to it.

Man loves to trace in natural objects resemblances to other objects with which he is familiar. Hence many legends of rocks, mountains, and such like. The sky too offers its similitudes ; there is, for example, the Crown, with its legend of Ariadne ; there is the ‘Man in the Moon,’ which some said was Cain, others the man who was stoned for gathering sticks on the Sabbath. The resemblance of the ‘Wain’ (ἃμαξα) to a rude carriage is obvious enough, and the similitude seems to have struck both Greeks and Scandinavians²¹³⁸. It still more resembles a Plough, its name in some countries. Its likeness to an animal is not so obvious, yet the Greeks and the North American Indians agree in naming it the ‘Bear,’ and the Foollahs of Africa call it the ‘Elephant²¹³⁹’, while the husbandmen in ancient Italy named it the ‘Seven Oxen’ (Triones²¹⁴⁰. The Spaniards call the Pleiades the ‘Seven She-goats’²¹⁴¹ ; our own popular name for them is the ‘Hen and Chickens’ ; and the Germans term them the ‘Clucking Hen’ (Gluckhenne).

These last similitudes lead us to think that the original conception of the Pleiades was the ‘Pigeons’ (πϵλϵιάδϵς)²¹⁴², as they {p. 466}are sometimes named, and with which supposition the legends told of them will accord. Their clustering together (whence they were also named the ‘Bunch’²¹⁴³) might easily have suggested the idea. In like manner we think it probable that the true signification of the Hyades lies in their Latin name Suculæ, or ‘Little Pigs,’ given them for a similar reason²¹⁴⁴. The Latin name of the Pleiades was Vergiliæ, or rather perhaps Virgiliæ, i. e. the ‘Bunch-stars,’ like the Greek name²¹⁴⁵. Oriôn was named by the Latins Jugula²¹⁴⁶, or the ‘Warrior,’ and his Greek name probably signifies the Rouser or Exciter (ΟΡΩ, ὀρίνω), in allusion to his hunting, or to the storms which he raised²¹⁴⁷.

To the Grecian herdsman or hunter therefore at particular seasons of the year the nocturnal sky would have presented the following appearance. The broad brilliant constellation Oriôn with Sirius behind him would be a hunter and his dog, before whom the Pigeons were flying, while the Bear, the object of his pursuit, kept watching him. Thus there would be a chase in the sky similar to those on earth, and legends would naturally arise which would be localised and expanded in the usual manner.

For as the stars rise out of the sea, as it were, nothing was more obvious than to make Oriôn the son of Poseidôn and Euryale (Wide-sea) ; then again, as the dawn, as it were, takes away the stars, Oriôn is carried off by Eôs ; and as the mild effulgence of the moon dims and effaces the light of the stars, so Oriôn is slain by the gentle darts of ‘holy’ Artemis. The beauty and size of the constellation caused the hero to be represented as the largest and handsomest of mortals. Their relative positions in the sky gave occasion to the mythe of his love and pursuit of the Pleiades ; and the proximity between the signs Oriôn and the Scorpion led to the Alexandrian fiction of the mode of the hero' s death.

The story of Oriôn and Œnopiôn is perhaps explicable on {p. 467}the same principle. The constellation which rises in July loves with an ardent passion the daughter of the vine. When the grapes are gathered and pressed, they are, as it were, taken out of his sight, or he is made drunk with new wine and blinded. His journey to the East denotes the heliacal rising of the star ; and when he comes back the vine is hidden from his power within the ground²¹⁴⁸.

It is probable that many of the individual names of the Pleiades and Hyades are those of nymphs who were previously placed in other relations. Thus Maia is in the Hymn to Hermes merely an Arcadian nymph. Taÿgete refers to Mount Taÿgeton, and Merope (Mortal) is simply the nymph united to the mortal. Electra and Sterope refer to brightness ; and Haleyone and Celæno, whom the legend unites to Poseidôn, are plainly related to the sea. Among the Hyades we find Dione, the ancient goddess of Dodona ; Ambrosia, Coronis, Eudora are names evidently given from their nourishing nature as nymphs²¹⁴⁹, while Phæo, Phæsula, Cleeia and Polyxo, denote the bright stars²¹⁵⁰.

The poet of the Odyssey, when describing the Wandering Rocks, says²¹⁵¹,

There pass no birds along that way, not even

The fluttering pigeons which the ambrosia bear

To father Zeus, but always the smooth rock

Takes one away, then to keep up the number

The Father adds another.

Many of the ancients²¹⁵² supposed that the Pleiades were here meant ; and when we consider the sportive tone of the poet, this idea will not appear entirely devoid of eredibility.

{p. 468}

Chapter XIII.

MYTHIC WARS AND EXPEDITIONS.

Τὰ Αργοναυτικά. The Argonautic Expedition. — Τὰ Θηβάϊκα. — The Theban Wars. — Tà Tρώϊκα. The Trojan War. — Οἱ Νόστoι. The Returns.

Τὰ Αργοναυτικά. The Argonautic Expedition.

Iasôn having undertaken to sail to Colchis for the Golden Fleece, applied to Argos the son of Phrixos ; who, with the aid of Athena, built for him a fifty-oared galley, called from himself the Argo. In her keel Athena set a piece of timber, cut from the speaking-oak of Dodona. When the ship was completed Iasôn consulted the oracle, and was directed to invite the greatest heroes of the day to share in the dangers and glories of the voyage.

The call was readily responded to, and numerous sons of gods hastened to embark in the Argo. From the Peloponnese came Heracles, Castôr and Polydeukes, sons of Zeus. Peleus and Telamôn, grandsons of that god, also came with Theseus, Erginos and Ancæos, sons of Poseidôn, Augeias son of Helios, Zetes and Calaïs sons of Boreas. There were likewise the Apharids, Lynceus and Idas, and Meleagros, Laertes, Periclymenos, Nauplios, Iphiclos, Iphitos, Admetos, Acastos, Butes, Polyphemos, Atalanta, and many others. Idmôn the seer, the son of Apollo, came from Argos ; Mopsos, also a prophet, from Thessaly, and Orpheus, the son of the Muse Calliope. The steersman was Tiphys son of Agnios, from Siphæ in Bœotia. The entire number was fifty²¹⁵³.

When the heroes were all assembled, Mopsos took auguries, and the signs being favourable, they got on board ; Iasôn standing at the poop poured a libation from a golden cup, and called on Zeus, the Winds, the Sea, the Days, the Nights, and the Fate presiding over their return. Thunder then rolled in the clouds, propitious lightnings flashed through the sky ; the joyful heroes grasped each his oar at the word of the {p. 469}soothsayer ; and while Orpheus struck his lyre in concert with his voice, their oars kept time to the harmony. The gods looked down from the sky, the nymphs of Pelion gazed in wonder at this first of ships, and Cheirôn leaving his mountain-cave cheered them, and prayed for their happy return²¹⁵⁴.

At the close of day they had reached the mouth of the bay of Pagasæ. Here they remained for two days, and then rowed along the coast of Magnesia, and, passing the peninsula of Pallene, at length reached the isle of Lemnos, in which there were at that time no men, and Hypsipyle the daughter of Thoas governed it as queen. For the Lemnian women having, it was said, offended Aphrodite, she caused them to have an ill smell ; so that their husbands, unable to endure them, took to their beds the captives whom they had brought from Thrace. The Lemnian wives, incensed at this neglect, murdered their husbands. Hypsipyle alone saved her father, whom she kept concealed. This event had occurred about a twelvemonth before. The women seeing the Argonauts took them for their enemies the Thracians, and came down in arms to oppose their landing ; but on ascertaining who they were they retired and held a council, in which, on the advice of Hypsipyle's nurse, it was decided that they should invite them to land, and take this occasion of having children. The Argonauts readily accepted the invitation, Heracles alone refusing to quit the vessel. They gave themselves up to joy and festivity, till on the remonstrances of that hero they tore themselves from the Lemnian fair ones, and once more handled their oars.

They then came to Samothrace, and thence pursued their voyage through the Hellespont into the Propontis, where they came to an island with a lofty hill in it named the Bears’ Hill, inhabited by giants with six arms. The adjacent country was possessed by the Dolionians, whose king was named Cyzicos. Having been hospitably entertained by this prince, and having slain the giants who opposed their departure, they set sail, but were driven back by adverse winds. It was in the night that they returned, and the Dolionians taking them to be their enemies, the Pelasgians, attacked them ; and several of the {p. 470}Dolionians, and among them Cyzicos, lost their lives. With day-light discerning the error, the Argonauts shore their hair, and shedding many tears buried Cyzicos with solemn magnificence.

They then sailed to Mysia, where they left behind them Heracles and Polyphemos ; for Hylas, a youth beloved by the former, having gone for water, was laid hold on and kept by the nymphs of the spring into which he dipped his urn. Polyphemos, hearing him call, went with his drawn sword to aid him, supposing him to have fallen into the hands of robbers. Meeting Heracles, he told him what had happened ; and both proceeded in quest of the youth. Meantime the Argo put to sea, and left them behind. Polyphemos settled in Mysia, and built the town of Kios : Heracles returned to Argos²¹⁵⁵.

The Argo next touched at Bebrycia, where Amycos the son of Poseidôn and Bithynis reigned. Every stranger who arrived in this country was forced by Amycos to engage him at the cestus. He therefore challenged the Argonauts ; and Polydeukes engaged and killed him. The Bebrycians, seeing the fate of their prince, fell on the victor ; but his companions coming to his aid, they were repelled with great loss²¹⁵⁶.

Leaving Bebrycia, they sailed to Salmydessos on the Thracian coast, where Phineus, the prophet-prince, dwelt in blindness and misery. He was the son of Agenôr (or of Poseidôn), and was married to Cleopatra the daughter of Boreas and Oreithyia. She died, leaving him two sons ; and he then married Idæa the daughter of Dardanos. Jealous of her stepchildren, Idæa maligned them to their father, who, believing the slander, deprived them of sight. The gods, to punish {p. 471}him, struck him blind, and sent the Harpies to torment him : these fell monsters came flying the instant food was set before him, carried off the greater portion of it, and so defiled what they left that no mortal could endure to eat it²¹⁵⁷. The Argonauts coming to consult Phineus about their future course, he promised to direct them on condition of their delivering him from the Harpies. This they undertook to do. The table was spread : the Harpies instantly descended screaming, and seized the victuals. Zetes and Calaïs the winged sons of Boreas then drew their swords and pursued them through the air²¹⁵⁸. The Harpies flew along the Propontis, over the Ægæan and Greece to some islets beyond the Peloponnese, where their pursuers came up with them, and were about to slay them, when Iris appearing forbade the deed, and the Harpies were dismissed on their oath never more to molest Phineus. The isles were thenceforth named the Strophodes, because the Boreiads there turned back²¹⁵⁹.

Freed from his tormentors, Phineus now instructs his deliverers in the nature of their future voyage. The Symplegades were the first danger which they had to encounter. These were huge floating rocks, which were at times driven together by the winds, and crushed whatever came between them. Mist enveloped them, and loud was the crash when they met. Even to the birds the passage was then impossible. Phineus directed the heroes to let fly a pigeon, saying if she came safely through, the Argo might venture to follow her. They obeyed the directions of the prophet ; the pigeon passed through safely with the loss of her tail ; watching then the recession of the rocks, and aided by Hera and Athena, they rowed the Argo vigorously on, and escaped so narrowly, that the rocks as they rushed together carried off some of her stern-works. The Symplegades now became fixed ; for so it {p. 472}was in the fates, since a ship had passed through them uninjured.

Having escaped the Symplegades, they came to the country of the Mariandynians, whose king Lycos received them kindly. Here died Idmôn the seer, wounded by the tusks of a wild boar. Tiphys also dying here, Ancæos undertook the steerage of the vessel.

They now kept along the southern coast of the Pontos till they came to the isle of Aretias, which was haunted by birds that shot feathers sharp as arrows from their wings. These they drove off by clattering on their shields ; and while they remained in the isle, the sons of Phrixos, who were on their way to Greece, were cast on it by a storm, and they became their guides to Colchis, where they shortly after entered the Phasis. Iasôn lost no time in informing king Æetes of the cause of his coming, and in requesting him to give him the Golden Fleece. The king assented, provided he could yoke the brassfooted bulls. These were the gifts of Hephæstos to Æetes, in number two, and breathing flame from their throats. When he had yoked these, he was to plough with them a piece of land, and sow the serpent’s teeth which Æetes possessed, for Athena had given him one half of those which Cadmos sowed at Thebes.

Iasôn was in perplexity about the accomplishment of these hard tasks, when Medeia, the daughter of the king, who had conceived a sudden affection for him, proffered her aid, if he would swear to marry her, and take her with him to Greece. Such aid was not to be rejected : the hero swore : Medeia, who was an enchantress, gave him a salve to rub his body, shield, and spear. The virtue of this salve would last an entire day, and protect alike against fire and steel. She further told him, that when he had sown the teeth, a crop of armed men would spring up and prepare to attack him. Among these she desired him to fling stones, and while they were fighting with one another about them, to fall on and slay them. The hero followed the advice of the princess : he entered the sacred grove of Ares, yoked the bulls, ploughed the land, and slaughtered the armed crop which it produced.

{p. 473}

But Æetes refused to give the Fleece, and meditated to burn the Argo and slay her crew. Medeia, anticipating him, led Iason by night to the Golden Fleece : with her drugs she cast to sleep the serpent which guarded it ; and then taking her little brother Apsyrtos out of his bed she embarked with him in the Argo, and the vessel set sail while it was yet night²¹⁶⁰.

Æetes, on discovering the treachery and flight of his daughter, got on shipboard and pursued the fugitives. Medeia seeing him gaining on them cut her brother to pieces, and scattered his limbs on the stream²¹⁶¹ : while Æetes was engaged in collecting them the Argo escaped²¹⁶². He then dispatched a number of his subjects in pursuit of the Argo, threatening if they did not bring back his daughter to inflict on them the punishment designed for her.

At length, by a route which we shall presently trace, the Argo entered the West Sea and came to Ææa, the isle of Circe. The goddess performed the usual rites of purification to remove the blood-guilt of the death of Apsyrtos. The heroes then departed. Ere long they came to the isle of the Sirens, charmed by whose entrancing strains they were about to land on that fatal shore, when Orpheus struck his lyre, and with its tones overpowered their voices. Wind and wave urged on the Argo, and all escaped but Butes, who flung himself into the sea to swim to the Flowery Isle. Aphrodite to save him took him and set him to dwell at Lilybæon. The Argonauts now passed Scylla and Charybdis, and also the Wandering Rocks ; over these they beheld flame and smoke ascending, but Thetis and her sister Nereïdes guided them through by the command of Hera. Passing Thrinakia, the isle of the Sun, they came to the island of the Phæacians. Some of the Colchians who were in pursuit of the Argonauts arriving there, seized on the Argo, and requested Alcinoös to give Medeia up to them. He assented, provided she was yet a maid. His wife Arete hearing this, lost no time in joining the lovers in wedlock ; and the Colchians then fearing to return, settled in {p. 474}the island. Sailing thence, the Argo was assailed by a tremendous storm which drove it to the Syrtes on the coast of Libya. After being detained there for some time they proceeded on their homeward voyage and came to Crete, where the brazen man, Talôs, prohibited their landing ; but Medeia by her art deprived him of life. On leaving Crete the night came on so black and dark that they knew not where they were ; but Apollo, taking his stand on the rocks called the Melantian Neeks, shot an arrow into the sea : the arrow flashed a vivid light, and they beheld an island, on which they landed. As this isle had appeared (ἀνϵϕῄνατο) so unexpectedly, they named it Anaphe²¹⁶³. Here they erected an altar to Apollo Ægletes (Lightner), and offered sacrifices ; they thence proceded to Ægina, where they watered ; and they finally arrived at Iolcos after an absence of four months.

When Pelias in Pindar²¹⁶⁴ is urging Iasôn to this celebrated adventure, he says that a dream and the response of the Delphic oracle had directed him to go to Ææa and fetch back the soul of Phrixos and the ‘thick-wooled’ skin of the ram which had saved him. From various circumstances it seems clear that the Argonautics were mysteriously connected with the worship of the Laphystian Zeus²¹⁶⁵; that they belonged to the Minyans and to them alone ; that Heracles, Theseus, and the other heroes who did not belong to this people were added to the cycle in the progress of time by the poets and by the vanity of those whose patron-heroes they were. It may also have been that the commercial voyages of the Minyans were united with the mythic expedition. If the gold-mines of Thasos or Pangæos were wrought so early, their produce may have given its golden hue to the fleece. This however is no essential part of the mythe, as it is also said to be white or purple²¹⁶⁶.

There can be little doubt that the direction of this mythic voyage was north-east, for Lemnos and Samothrace occur in {p. 475}all accounts of it. Where it originally terminated cannot be said with certainty ; for its limit advanced with the progress of nautical enterprise and colonisation. At Lampsacos, Cyzicos, Kios, Byzantion, and other places along the Hellespont, Propontis and Bosporos, we meet with Argonautic traditions. When it entered the Pontos the mythe took two different directions, just as the colonies themselves did, the one northwards to the Tauric Chersonese or Scythia, and this was probably the earlier one, as this was the first direction of the Grecian colonies ; the other along the southern coast, and finally reaching the Phasis and Colchis, which last place is first named by the Corinthian poet Eumelos, who did not flourish till after Ol. 20. This became the prevalent opinion, and the establishment of Heracleia and other Grecian colonies on this coast enlarged the cycle with traditions of the country, or with fictions of the inhabitants of the colonies²¹⁶⁷.

In the ancient ante-Homeric Argonautics it is probable that the adventurers returned by the road they went ; but the poet of the Odyssey (if our hypothesis respecting him be correct), in order to augment the marvels of the sea, which he made the scene of his hero's wanderings, transferred thither the abode of Æetes and the Wandering Rocks through which he makes the Argo pass on her return with the same danger as she encounters in the Argonautics on her outward voyage. The fame of the Odyssey soon made it an established article of belief that the Argonauts returned home through the Mediterranean, and, as we have seen, they were made to pursue the same route in it with Odysseus. The only question was how to bring them thither from Colchis.

The first course was that taken by Hesiod, who was followed by Pindar, Hecatæus and Antimachus²¹⁶⁸. This was to make them go up the Phasis, which in accordance with the early geographical ideas was held to flow out of the Ocean, which they then entered and proceeded along it southwards. Hecatæus made them then sail down the Nile and so home, but according to the others they landed on the south coast of {p. 476}Libya, and carrying the Argo on their shoulders across it, (for twelve days, says Pindar) launched it on lake Tritonis and thus entered the Mediterranean. It being afterwards proved by Artemidorus and Eratosthenes that the Phasis had its source in the mountains, this course had to be given up ; a geographer named Timagetas then fixed on the Ister, for he supposed this river to flow out of a great lake in the Celtic mountains, from the opposite end of which another stream flowed into the Tyrrhenian sea ; he was followed by Apollonius and by another poet named Peisander²¹⁶⁹. The geographer Scymnus however showed that this could not be, as the Ister flowed directly from the Alps, and he maintained that they must have gone up the Tanaïs ; in this however he had been preceded by the historian Timæus²¹⁷⁰. According to their view, the Argonauts went up the Tanaïs to its head, they then carried their vessel overland to the northern ocean, where they launched it, and so sailed down the west side of Europe to the Mediterranean ; the only poet who adopted this view is the pseudo-Orpheus, who assigns them the following course.

They sailed up the Phasis to the point where it divided, and then went down the other branch named the Saranges into the Mæotis, whence another stream ran northwards with great velocity. They entered this and were whirled along for nine days, on the tenth they were carried through the gorges of the Rhipæan mountains, and the Argo rushed through the narrow stream and came into the Ocean, called in that part by the Hyperboreans ‘the Cronian Main and Dead Sea.’ Having rowed for some time through its sluggish waters, they disembarked, and dragging their vessel along came on the sixth day to the country of the Long-lived (Macrobii), to whom the poet gives all the qualities and all the felicity of Hesiod’s Golden Men. They then reached the land of the Kimmerians, which lay on the same coast ; and having passed by the isle Iernis (Ireland ?), on the twelfth morn the sharp-sighted Lynceus descried on the verge of Ocean ‘the piny isle, in which is the extensive abode of queen Demeter,’ as it lay enveloped in mist. Orpheus having warned him of the danger of approaching it, Ancæos steered for the isle of Circe, which {p. 477}they reached on the third day. Leaving it, they entered the strait of Tartessus, and passing the Pillars of Heracles arrived in the Mediterranean.

The literature of this cycle is as follows. Iasôn and the Argo are noticed by Homer²¹⁷¹ ; Hesiod briefly narrates the principal events²¹⁷² ; it is the subject of one of Pindar's finest odes²¹⁷³, and of the epic of Apollonius named from it ; it is narrated in detail by Apollodorus and by Diodorus. Ovid also relates a a good part of it, and there is an unfinished poem on it by the Latin poet Valerius Flaccus, which displays genius and originality. There is also the Argonautics of the pseudo-Orpheus, a poem to which the ablest critics on different grounds assign a date long posterior to the commencement of the Christian æra. To these are to be added the detached notices in other writers and in the various Scholia. Of the dramas on this subject not a single one has been preserved²¹⁷⁴.

Τὰ Θηβάϊκα. — The Theban Wars.

When Œdipûs, on the discovery of his involuntary crime, had either died or abandoned his throne, his sons Eteocles and Polyneices agreed to reign on alternate years. According to some, Polyneices governed for the first year, and then resigned his throne to his brother ; others say that Eteocles was the first occupant of the royal seat : all are agreed that when his year was expired he refused to make way for his brother. Polyneices taking with him the collar and robe of Harmonia fled to Argos, where Adrastos the son of Talaos son of Bias then reigned. It was night when the Theban exile arrived at the house of the king : before the door he met another stranger, Tydeus the son of Œneus, also a fugitive : a quarrel arose between them : at the clamour Adrastos came forth and put an end to the conflict. An oracle had told this prince that he should marry his two daughters to a lion and a bear, and he now saw its accomplishment, for such were the ornaments on the shields of the strangers. He gave Deïpyla to {p. 478}Tydeus, and Argeia to the Theban prince, engaging to restore each to his country. The expedition against Thebes was the first resolved on, and each valiant warrior was invited to share in it.

Amphiaraos the son of Oïcles was a soothsayer, and he knew by his art that it was fated that Adrastos alone should survive the war : he therefore declined taking part in the expedition, and warned the others against it. Polyneices was advised to endeavour to gain Eriphyle, the sister of Adrastos and wife of Amphiaraos, to his interest ; for on his marriage Amphiaraos had agreed, that whenever he and Adrastos should differ in opinion, the decision should be left to Eriphyle. Polyneices therefore gave her the collar of Harmonia, and the prophet was reluctantly forced to share in the war. He departed with evil forebodings, charging his sons to avenge his fate on their mother²¹⁷⁵.

The leaders were seven : Adrastos, Amphiaraos, Capaneus, Hippomedôn, — Argives ; Parthenopæos, an Arcadian ; Polyneices, a Theban ; Tydeus, an Ætolian²¹⁷⁶.

The host marched to Nemea, where Lycurgos then reigned. Being in want of water, Hypsipyle, the Lemnian princess, whom her country-women had sold when they found that she had saved her father, and who was now nurse to the infant child of Lycurgos, undertook to guide them to a spring. She left the child Opheltes lying on the grass, where a serpent found and killed him. The leaders slew the serpent, and buried the child. Amphiaraos augured ill-luck from this event, and called the child Archemoros²¹⁷⁷. They then celebrated funeral games in his honour. Adrastos gained the prize in the horse-race, Eteocles in the foot-race, Tydeus in the cestus, Amphiaraos in jumping and throwing the discus, Laodocos in casting the javelin, Polyneices in wrestling, Parthenopæos in archery.

When they came to the banks of the Asopos near Cithærôn, they despatched Tydeus to Thebes, to claim a restitution of {p. 479}the rights of Polyneices. He arrived as the Cadmeians were feasting in the halls of Eteocles ; and, after delivering his embassy, challenged them to a trial of skill and strength, and easily vanquished every one who contended with him. They laid an ambush of fifty men for him on his return, all of whom except Mæôn, one of their leaders, he slew²¹⁷⁸.

The Argive host appeared before the walls of Thebes. Each chief chose one of its seven gates to attack ; Adrastos, the Homoloïan ; Capaneus, the Ogygian ; Amphiaraos, the Prœtian ; Hippomedôn, the Oncaïan ; Polyneices, the Hypsistian ; Parthenopæos, the Electrian ; Tydeus, the Crenian. Eteocles set chiefs equal in number over the Thebans, and prepared vigorously for defence. He consulted Teiresias, who declared that victory would fall to Thebes, if Menœceus the son of Creôn gave himself a voluntary victim ; and that heroic youth learning the response, slew himself at the gates of the city.

The fight began : the Cadmeians were driven into the city : Capaneus set a ladder against the wall, and was ascending, when Zeus offended at his impious language struck him with a thunderbolt²¹⁷⁹. The Argives fell back, and many were slain. Both hosts now resolved that the brothers should decide their quarrel in single combat. They fought, and fell by each other's hands. The battle was then rekindled with fury, and the four sons of Astacos greatly distinguished themselves, Ismaros killing Hippomedôn, Leades Eteocles, Amphidicos Parthenopæos, and Melanippos wounding Tydeus mortally. As he lay expiring, Athena hastened to him with a medicine which she had obtained from Zeus, and which would make him immortal²¹⁸⁰ ; but Amphiaraos, who hated him as a chief cause of the war, perceiving what the goddess was about, cut off the head of Melanippos, whom Tydeus though wounded had slain, and brought it to him. The savage warrior opened it, and devoured the brain, and Athena in disgust withheld her aid²¹⁸¹. Amphiaraos himself fled from the spear of Periclymenos, along the Ismenos. A thunderbolt launched by Zeus opened the ground, and he, his chariot, and his charioteer {p. 480}Bato, were swallowed up²¹⁸². Adrastos alone, owing to the fleetness of his steed Areiôn, escaped²¹⁸³.

Creôn, now king of Thebes, forbade the bodies of the Argives to be buried. Regardless of the menaced penalties, Antigone gave sepulture to the body of her brother Polyneices, and was by Creôn remorselessly entombed alive. Adrastos flying to Athens took refuge at the altar of Mercy ; and Theseus leading an Athenian army against the Thebans, forced them to give the dead bodies to their friends. As Capaneus lay on his burning pyre, his wife Euadne flung herself amidst the flames, and expired.

Ten years afterwards the children (Ἐπίγονοι, descendents) of the chiefs who had fallen resolved to avenge the fate of their sires²¹⁸⁴. The god when consulted promised them victory if led by Alcmæôn the son of Amphiaraos. Alemæôn would however first punish his mother ; but Eryphile, who had received the robe of Harmonia from Thersandros the son of Polyneices, persuaded both him and his brother Amphilochos to join in the expedition. Ægialeus son of Adrastos, Diomedes of Tydeus, Promachos of Parthenopæos, Sthenelos of Capaneus, Eurypylos of Mecisteus, were the other leaders. Alcmæôn had the chief command²¹⁸⁵.

They ravaged the villages about Thebes. A battle ensued, in which Laodamas the son of Eteocles slew Ægialeus, and fell himself by the spear of Alcmæôn. The Thebans then fled ; and by the advice of Teiresias, they secretly left their city, which was entered and plundered by the Argives, and Thersandros placed on the throne.

Alcmæôn on learning that his mother had taken a bribe against himself, as well as his father, consulted Apollo, and by his advice put her to death. He was immediately assailed by her Erinnys. In phrenzy he roamed through Arcadia, came first to his grandfather Oïcles, and from him went to Phegeus at Psophis, who purified him, and gave him his {p. 481}daughter Arsinoe in marriage. He presented his bride with the fatal collar and robe ; his disorder however still continued, and the Pythia said that the Erinnys would never quit him except in a place which the sea had disclosed posterior to his parricide²¹⁸⁶. He went to Calydôn, thence to Thesprotia, whence he was expelled, and coming to the springs of Acheloös was purified by the river-god himself, who gave him to wife his daughter Callirrhoe. On the soil just deposited by the stream at its mouth he fixed his dwelling²¹⁸⁷.

Callirrhoe now longed for the collar and robe of Harmonia, and refused to admit the embraces of her husband until she had obtained them. Alcmæôn returned to Psophis, and telling Phegeus that his madness would never end till he had deposited the collar and robe at Delphi²¹⁸⁸, got them from him ; but his servant betraying his secret, the sons of Phegeus by order of their father lay in wait for and slew him. Arsinoe on upbraiding them with the murder was put by them into a chest and brought to Agapenôr the son of Ancæos, at Tegea, and accused of the crime which they had committed.

When Callirrhoe heard of the fate of her husband, she prayed to Zeus, who had loved her, that her sons by Alcmæôn might at once attain to manly age, to avenge their father. Her prayer was granted, and they hastened to vengeance. The sons of Phegeus on their way to Delphi to consecrate the collar and robe, stopped at the house of Agapenôr : here they met the sons of Alcmæôn, who slew them, and then went to Psophis and killed Phegeus and his wife. The Psophites pursued them to Tegea ; the Tegeans and some Argives aided them, and the Psophites were forced to retire. The youths returned to their mother with the collar and robe, which by the direction of Acheloös they consecrated at Delphi, and then went to Epeiros, and founded Acarnania.

In the preceding narrative we have probably the contents {p. 482}of three of the poems of the Epic Cycle, namely the Thebaïs, the Epigoni and the Alcmæonis, but intermixed as usual with the arbitrary fictions of the tragedians. The wars of Thebes shared in antiquity the popular interest with that of Troy ; and their claims to credibility as historic facts are perhaps equally well founded. For our own part, as we doubt of the proper historic character of every part of the mythic story of Hellas, we feel disposed to view in the destiny of the Labdacids a fine fiction, or series of fictions, constructed on perhaps a slight foundation of reality, with a moral or religious object ; to show how in the order of nature punishment is provided for the most secret and even unconscious violation of its laws, and how the sins of the parents are visited on the children, which we must recognise to be a law of nature. As usual, the names of the chief persons are significant ; Laïos is the Unlucky, Œdipodes the Swollen or Inflated, Eteocles Trueglorious, Polyneices Strife-full, Antigone Contrary-birth²¹⁸⁹, and so forth. There is also a moral intended to be conveyed in the failure of the first expedition, led by arrogant boastful chiefs, who despised the signs sent by the gods, and the success of that conducted by their more pious sons, who acted in obedience to the will of heaven. The story of Alcmæôn is a parallel to that of Orestes, perhaps framed in imitation of it ; and, as we may see, it is connected with the topography of western Greece.

The cyclic poems have perished, as also has the Thebaïs of Antimachus ; but the Thebaïs of the Latin poet Statius remains, and the prose narratives of Apollodorus, Diodorus and Hyginus, beside the scattered notices in the Scholiasts, Pausanias and other authors. Of the dramas on this subject there have come down to us the noble ‘Seven against Thebes’ of Æschylus, the ‘Œdipûs King,’ ‘Œdipûs at Colonos,’ and ‘Antigone’ of Sophocles ; and the ‘Phœnissæ’ and ‘Suppliants’ of Euripides.

{p. 483}

Tà Tρώϊκα. The Trojan War.

Zeus was, by Electra the daughter of Atlas, the father of two sons, Iasiôn and Dardanos. The former was loved by Demeter ; but Zeus on coming to the knowledge of this attachment struck him with lightning²¹⁹⁰. Dardanos afflicted at the death of his brother left Samothrace, where they had dwelt, and passed over to the main-land, where Teucros the son of the river Scamandros and the nymph Idæa then reigned, from whom the people were called Teucrians²¹⁹¹. He was well received by this prince, who gave him his daughter Bateia²¹⁹² in marriage, and a part of his territory, on which he built a town called Dardanos. On the death of Teucros, he named the whole country Dardania. He had two sons, Ilos and Erichthonios, the former of whom died childless ; the latter, who succeeded to the kingdom, was the most wealthy of men. His three thousand mares and their foals fed in the marsh ; and Boreas falling in love with them, changed himself into a horse, and by them had twelve foals, which like the celestial steeds could run on the ears of corn or the waves of the sea²¹⁹³. By Astyoche, daughter of the Simoïs, Erichthonios had a son named Trôs, who succeeded him on the throne.

Trôs married Callirrhoe daughter of the Scamandros, who bore him a daughter Cleopatra, and three sons Ilos, Assaracos, and Ganymedes. This last was for his beauty carried off to Olympos by the gods, to be the cup-bearer of Zeus, who gave Trôs in compensation some horses of the Olympian breed²¹⁹⁴.

Assaracos married a daughter of the river Simoïs, by whom he had a son named Capys, who was by Themis the daughter of his brother Ilos father of Anchises, to whom Aphrodite bore a son, Æneias. By secretly giving mortal mares to the {p. 484}celestial steeds of Trôs, Anchises obtained six foals of surpassing fleetness, four of which he kept, and two he gave to draw the war-car of his son²¹⁹⁵.

Ilos went to Phrygia, and won at wrestling, in games given by the king, fifty youths and as many maids. The king also in obedience to an oracle, gave him a spotted cow, and told him to build a city where she should lie down. Ilos followed the cow till she came to the hill of Ate (Mischief), where he built the town of Ilion, named from himself. He prayed to Zeus to give him a sign, and the following day he found the Zeus-fallen Palladion lying before his tent²¹⁹⁶. This image of Pallas-Athene, we are told, was three ells long, with its legs joined, holding in one hand an elevated spear, in the other a distaff and spindle.

Laomedôn the son of Ilos married Strymo the daughter of the Scamandros, by whom he had Tithonos (who was carried off by Eôs), Lampôs, Clytios, Hiketaôn, Priamos²¹⁹⁷ and Hesione, and two other daughters ; by the nymph Calybe he had a son named Bucoliôn²¹⁹⁸.

Priamos reigned over Ilion after his father. He married Hecabe (Hecuba), the daughter of Dymas the Phrygian²¹⁹⁹, who bore him nineteen²²⁰⁰ children, of whom the chief were Hectôr, Paris or Alexandros, Deïphobos, Helenos, Troïlos, Polites, Polydoros, Cassandra²²⁰¹, Creüsa and Polyxene.

When Hecabe was about to lie-in of Paris, she dreamed that she brought forth a burning torch, which set all Ilion in flames. On her telling this dream to Priamos, he sent for his son Æsacos, by a former wife Arisbe the daughter of Merops, who had been reared and taught to interpret dreams by his grandfather. Æsacos declared that the child would be the destruction of his country, and recommended to expose it. As soon as born, the babe was given to a servant to be left {p. 485}on Ida to perish. The servant obeyed, but on returning at the end of five days, he found that a bear had been nursing the infant. Struck with this strange event, he took home the babe, reared him as his own son, and named him Paris. When Paris grew up he distinguished himself by his strength and courage in repelling robbers from the flocks, and the shepherds named him Alexandros²²⁰². He was recognised by his parents in the course of time, and he verified his mother's dream²²⁰³.

Beside his children by Hecabe Priamos had several by other women. The whole number of his offspring was fifty²²⁰⁴.

The preceding Trojan history has been formed, as we may see, by Apollodorus and others from various hints in the Ilias, especially the narrative of Æneias in the twentieth book. We will now proceed to relate the war of Troy, following the Epic Cycle, of which the first portion was the Cypria of Stasinos.

Zeus seeing the earth overstocked with people, consulted with Themis how to remedy the evil. The best course seeming to be a war between Hellas and Troy, Discord, by his direction, came to the banquet of the gods at the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis, and flung down a golden apple, inscribed “The apple for the Fair” (Τῇ καλῇ τὸ μῆλoν)²²⁰⁵. Hera, Athena and Aphrodite claiming it, Zeus directed Hermes to conduct them to Mount Ida to be judged by Alexandros the son of Priamos. The prize was awarded to Aphrodite, who had promised the judge the beautiful Helena in marriage²²⁰⁶. Aphrodite then directs him to build a ship, and she desires her son Æneias to be the companion of his adventure. The soothsaying Helenos and Cassandra announce in vain the woes that are to follow ; the vessel puts to sea, and Alexandros arrives at Lacedæmôn, where he is entertained by the Tyndarids. At Sparta he shares the hospitality of Menelaos, the husband of Helena. The Trojan at the banquet bestows gifts on his fair hostess, and shortly after Menelaos sails to Crete, directing his wife to entertain the guests while they stayed. But {p. 486}Aphrodite joins Helena and Alexandros in love, and filling the ship with the property of Menelaos they embark and depart. A tempest sent by Hera drives them to Sidôn, which city Alexandros takes and plunders, and sailing thence to Ilion he there celebrates his marriage with Helena²²⁰⁷.

Menelaos being informed by Iris of what had occurred, returns home and consults with his brother Agamemnôn about an expedition against Ilion ; he then repairs to Nestôr at Pylos, and going through Hellas they assemble chiefs for the war. Odysseus, loath to leave home, feigned madness, but Palamedes²²⁰⁸ discovered his artifice by placing his young son Telemachos before his plough. The chiefs at length²²⁰⁹ all assembled at Aulis in Bœotia ; and as they were sacrificing to the gods at a fount beneath a plane-tree, a serpent came out of the altar, and ascending the tree, where was a sparrow's nest with eight young ones, devoured them all, and then the mother herself ; after which Zeus turned him into stone, whence Calchos the soothsayer announced that they would war against Troy for nine years, and take it on the tenth²²¹⁰. They then set sail²²¹¹, and reached Teuthrania in Mysia on the coast of Asia, and taking it for Troy they landed and ravaged it. Telephos²²¹² the king of the country came to oppose them ; he killed Thersandros the son of Polyneices, but was himself wounded by Achilleus. As they were sailing thence their fleet was dispersed by a storm, and Achilleus being driven to the isle of Scyros, espoused Deïdameia the daughter of {p. 487}Lycomedes²²¹³. Telephos having by direction of an oracle come to Argos in search of a cure for his wound, he is healed by Achilleus, and undertakes to conduct the Greeks to Troy.

The fleet again assembled at Aulis, but Agamemnôn having killed a deer at the chase, boasted that he was superior in skill to Artemis, and the offended goddess sent adverse winds to detain the fleet. Calchos having announced that her wrath could only be appeased by the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, the daughter of the offender, that maiden was brought to the camp under the pretence of being married to Achilleus. As they were in the act of sacrificing her, the goddess moved with pity snatched her away, leaving a hind in her place, and carried her to Tauria, where she made her immortal²²¹⁴.

The wind now proving fair the fleet made sail, and reached the isle of Tenedos ; and here Philoctetes being bitten by a water-snake, the smell from his wound proved so offensive, that they carried him to the isle of Lemnos and left him there²²¹⁵. Achilleus having joined them at Tenedos, a quarrel took place between him and Agamemnôn ; but it was made up, and the Achæan host passed over to the coast of Troy. The Trojans came to oppose their landing, and Protesilaos fell by the hand of Hectôr ; but Achilleus having slain Cycnos the son of Poseidôn, put the enemy to flight. An embassy was then sent, requiring the Trojans to give back Helena and the property taken with her, but a refusal was returned. An assault on the town having failed, the Achæans turned to ravaging the {p. 488}surrounding country, and took several towns. Soon after Achilleus being desirous of seeing Helena, he had an interview with her by means of Thetis and Aphrodite ; and when the Achæans had thoughts of giving over the enterprise he prevented their departure. He then took some other towns, killed Troïlos, and captured and sold for a slave Lycaôn, another of the sons of Priamos. In the division of the spoil a maiden named Briseïs fell to the share of Achilleus, and Chryseïs the daughter of Chryses, the priest of Apollo, to Agamemnôn. Odysseus, who had long meditated vengeance on Palamedes, now carried it into effect ; a forged letter, as from king Priamos, was placed in his bed, and he was stoned by the troops as a traitor²²¹⁶.

Chryses came to the camp to ransom his daughter, but he was driven away with insult by Agamemnôn. At his prayer Apollo sent a pestilence among the Achæans. Achilleus having called an assembly to inquire into the cause of it, Calchos declared the truth, adding that it would not cease till the maiden was restored to her father. Agamemnôn expressed his willingness to give her up, but said that some maiden must be given to him in her place. A violent dispute between him and Achilleus arises ; the assembly breaks up ; Chryseïs is sent back to her father, and the heralds of the king take Briseïs away from Achilleus. The injured prince complains to his mother, at whose entreaty Zeus promises to punish the Achæans, by giving victory to the Trojans. Accordingly Achilleus abstains from war ; and though the Achæans build a wall to defend their tents and ships, they are unable to resist Hectôr and the Trojans favoured by Zeus. The ships are on the point of being burnt, when Achilleus allows his friend Patroclos to lead forth his troops. The Trojans are driven back to their town, but Patroclos at last falls by the hand of Hectôr. Rage and grief at the death of his friend overcome the wrath of Achilleus. He is reconciled to Agamemnôn ; his mother brings him armour made by Hephæstos ; he goes forth to battle, routs the Trojans, and slays Hectôr, whose corpse he binds to his chariot, and drags round the {p. 489}walls of Troy. He then gives a magnificent funeral to Patroclos, and on the supplication of the aged Priamos, who comes to his tent by night with a ransom, he restores the body of Hector, which the Trojans burn with due solemnity²²¹⁷.

Penthesileia, daughter of Ares, queen of the Amazons, now leads her female warriors to the aid of Troy. But in the first engagement she falls by the hand of Achilleus, who struck with her beauty gives her body back to the Trojans that they may perform her obsequies. Thersites railing at the hero, as if he had been in love with the slain, is killed by him ; this causes a dissension, and Achilleus sails to Lesbos, where having sacrificed to Leto, Apollo and Artemis, he is purified of the bloodshed by Odysseus.

Memnôn the Æthiopian, the son of Eôs, now comes to the aid of the Trojans²²¹⁸. He was arrayed in Hephæstean armour, and Antilochos the son of Nestôr falls by his hand ; he is himself slain by Achilleus, but his mother obtains immortality for him from Zeus. Achilleus chases the Trojans to the city, and as he is forcing his way in he is slain by Paris and Apollo. A furious fight arises over his body, which Aias at length takes up and carries to the ships, while Odysseus keeps off the Trojans. Thetis comes with her sisters and the Muses and mourns her son ; she snatches him from the pyre and conveys him to the White Isle. The Achæans heap up his mound, games are celebrated, and Thetis proposing his armour as the prize of him who had done most to save his corse, Aias and Odysseus contend for it²²¹⁹.

The judges, who were Trojan captives, having awarded the arms to Odysseus, Aias loses his senses and falls on and slaughters the cattle in the camp, and then slays himself. Odysseus soon after takes Helenos by stratagem, and having learned from him how Troy might be captured, Diomedes is sent to Lemnos to fetch Philoctetes, who being cured by Machaôn kills Alexandros. Menelaos mutilates the corse, which the Trojans then receive and give to the pyre²²²⁰. Deïphobos {p. 490}marries Helena, and Odysseus fetches from Scyros Neoptolemos, the son of Achilleus, and gives him his father's armour. The shade of Achilleus appears to the young warrior, who slays Eurypylos the son of Telephos, an ally of the Trojans, whose town is now closely beleaguered. By the directions of Athena Epeios constructs a huge horse of wood. Odysseus meantime disfiguring himself enters Troy as a spy ; he is recognised by Helena, and concerts with her the mode of taking the city. He kills some of the Trojans and escapes to the ships. Diomedes then steals the Palladion out of Ilion, and the horse being completed the bravest warriors conceal themselves in it, and the rest set fire to their tents and sail away to Tenedos. The Trojans, thinking their toils and dangers all over, break down a part of their walls, and drawing the horse into the city indulge in festivity²²²¹.

There was a debate what to do with the horse ; some were for throwing it from the rock, others for burning it, others for consecrating it to Pallas-Athene²²²². This last opinion prevailed, and the banquets were spread. Two huge serpents now appeared and destroyed Laocoôn and one of his sons, dismayed by which prodigy Æneias forthwith retired to Mount Ida. Sinôn then, who had gotten into the town by means of a forged tale, raised torches as a signal to those at Tenedos. They return, the warriors descend from the horse, and the town is taken. Neoptolemos slays Priamos at the altar of the Herceian Zeus. Menelaos kills Deïphobos and leads Helena to the ships. Aias Oïleus seizing Cassandra, she grasped the statue of Athena, which he dragged with her ; the Achæans were about to stone him, but he fled to the altar of the goddess. Odysseus killed Astyanax the young son of Hectôr, whose widow Andromache became the prize of Neoptolemos. Polyxene was sacrificed on the tomb of Achilleus.

{p. 491}

Such is the narrative of the Trojan war as it appeared in the Epic Cycle. It was a subject above all others however subject to variation and addition, and were we to give all these details we should extend our narrative to a disproportionate length. We shall therefore only enumerate the names of the principal heroes mentioned by Homer. These were Agamemnôn and Menelaos sons of Atreus (the former of whom had the chief command), Nestôr the son of Neleus, and his sons Antilochos and Thrasymedes, Odysseus son of Laertes, Diomedes and Sthenelos sons of Tydeus and Capaneus, Aias (Ajax) and Teucros sons of Telamôn, Aias son of Oïleus, the Cretan princes Idomeneus and Mériones, Thoas the Ætolian, and Tlepolemos son of Heracles. The warriors from the different parts of Thessaly were led by Achilleus son of Peleus and Thetis and his friend Patroclos, Eumelos son of Admetos, Philoctetes son of Pœas, Podaleirios and Machaôn sons of Asclepios, Protesilaos and other chiefs. The number of ships was one thousand one hundred and eighty-six, and they carried upwards of one hundred thousand men²²²³. The Trojans were led by Hectôr son of Priamos and his brothers, by Æneias son of Anchises, and by the sons of Antenôr, and they were aided by the warriors of all the adjoining countries, led by Sarpedôn the son of Zeus, by Glaucos, Pandaros, Asios, and other princes.

Οἱ Νόστoι. The Returns.

After the destruction of Troy, the Achæan chiefs held a council to deliberate on their return home. Agamemnôn advised to stay some days, and offer sacrifices to conciliate the gods : Menelaos urged an immediate departure : the chiefs and the people were divided. Next morning Menelaos, Nestôr, Diomedes, Odysseus, and one half of the army passed over to the isle of Tenedos. Odysseus however quitted them, and returned to Agamemnôn ; and the others, with the exception of Menelaos, sailed away and reached their homes in safety²²²⁴.

{p. 492}

Cassandra the daughter of Priamos had fallen to the share of the king of Mycenæ in the division of the spoil, and she was the companion of his return. A storm arising, he was driven to that part of the coast where Ægisthos the son of Thyestes resided. During his absence Ægisthos had carried on an adulterous intercourse with Clytæmnestra, the queen of Agamemnôn, and he had set a watchman, with a promise of a large reward, to give him tidings of the return of the king. As soon as he learned that he was on the coast, he went out to welcome him, and invited him to his house. At the banquet in the evening, he, with the participation of Clytæmnestra, placed twenty men in concealment, who fell on and slaughtered him, Cassandra, and all his companions ; who, however, died not unrevenged, for Ægisthos alone was left alive²²²⁵.

Ægisthos now occupied the throne ; but Orestes the son of Agamemnôn was still alive. He had been saved by one of his sisters, and sent to Phocis to Strophios, with whose son Pylades he formed a strict friendship. When he grew up he and Pylades secretly returned to Mycenæ²²²⁶, where he killed his mother and Ægisthos. The Erinnyes of his mother persecuting him, he fled to Delphi, whose god had urged him to commit the deed, and thence went to Athens, where he was acquitted by the court of Areiopagos. He took possession of the throne of his father, and married Hermione the daughter of Menelaos, by whom he had two sons, Tisamenos and Penthilos, who were driven from their country by the Heracleids. Some say that Orestes killed at Delphi Neoptolemos the son of Achilleus, to whom Menelaos had given Hermione in marriage²²²⁷.

The daughters of Agamemnôn were Laodice or Electra, Chrysothemis, and Iphianassa or Iphigeneia²²²⁸. The tale of the sacrifice of this last at Aulis to obtain a favourable wind has been already related²²²⁹.

Menelaos stayed at Tenedos after his companions, whom he {p. 493}overtook at Lesbos. He and Nestôr kept company until they reached Cape Sunion in Attica. Apollo here slew with his ‘gentle darts’ Phrontis, the pilot of Menelaos’ ship, who was obliged to stay to bury him. Having performed the due rites, he again put to sea ; but as he approached Cape Maleia, Zeus sent forth a storm which drove some of his vessels to Crete, where they went to pieces against the rocks. Five, on board of one of which was Menelaos himself, were carried by the wind and waves to Egypt²²³⁰.

During the eight years of his absence Menelaos visited all the adjacent coasts, Cyprus, Phœnicia and Egypt, the Æthiopians, Sidonians and Erembians, and Libya²²³¹, where the lambs are born horned, and the sheep yean three times a year, and milk, cheese, and flesh are in the utmost abundance, for king and shepherd alike. In these various countries he collected much wealth ; but leaving Egypt on his voyage homewards, he neglected offering sacrifices to the gods, and was in consequence detained by want of wind at the isle of Pharos, which was distant from Egypt a day's sail of a ship with a favouring breeze. They were here twenty days : their stock of provisions was nearly run out, and they were obliged to pass the day in endeavouring to catch fish to support them ; when the sea-nymph Eidothea the daughter of Proteus met Menelaos wandering alone, and informed him how to catch her father, and learn from him what he was to do. Menelaos followed her directions ; and by the advice of the old sea-god²²³² he returned to the river Ægyptos, and there offered due sacrifices to the immortal gods. A favourable wind was then sent by them, which speedily carried him homewards ; and he arrived in his native country on the very day that Orestes was giving the funeral feast for his mother and Ægisthos, whom he had slain²²³³.

Helena was, according to Homer, the companion of all the wanderings of Menelaos ; but the Egyptian priests pretended {p. 494}that Paris was driven by adverse winds to Egypt, where Proteus, who was then king, learning the truth, kept Helena and dismissed Paris ; that the Greeks would not believe the Trojans, that she was not in their c ity, till they had taken it ; and that then Menelaos sailed to Egypt, where his wife was restored to him²²³⁴.

Odysseus sailed with the part of the army which left Agamemnôn as far as Tenedos ; but he there quitted them and returned to the king²²³⁵. On again setting out homewards²²³⁶ he landed in the country of the Ciconians in Thrace, where his men took and burned the town of Ismaros ; but delaying on the coast and feasting, they were attacked by the Ciconians and driven to their ships, with the loss of six men out of each. Sailing thence they were assailed by a storm, from which they were obliged to seek refuge on shore. On the third day, the weather clearing, they put again to sea, and had a prosperous voyage till they were doubling Cape Maleia, when a violent north-east wind arose, and carried them to the country of the Lotus-eaters.

The wanderings of Odysseus until his arrival in the island of the Phæacians have been already related²²³⁷. He was most hospitably received by Alcinoös the king of that people, and one of their magic vessels conveyed him and the gifts which they had given him to his native isle ; the sailors departed, leaving him, who was asleep, with his wealth on the shore. On awaking he was informed by Athena where he was ; and going to the house of his swineherd Eumæos, there met and revealed himself to his son Telemachos. After a variety of adventures, he succeeded in killing the princes who wooed his chaste spouse Penelope and wasted his substance²²³⁸.

After the death of the suitors Odysseus having offered a {p. 495}sacrifice to the Nymphs sailed over to Elis to look after his cattle, and on his return he went as directed by Teiresias to Thesprotia, where he married the queen Callidice. Heading her subjects in a war against the Brygians, he was opposed by Ares and aided by Athena, and Apollo interfered to terminate the contest. After the death of Callidice Odysseus gave the kingdom to his son by her, named Polypœtes, and returned to Ithaca. Soon after, Telegonos, his son by Circe, coming in quest of him, landed and began to plunder the isle, and Odysseus going to oppose him fell by his hand²²³⁹. Telegonos, on learning whom he had unwittingly slain, took Penelope and Telemachos and the body of his father with him to his mother's isle. Circe there made them immortal, and she herself married Telemachos, and Penelope became the bride of Telegonos.

The literature of the Trojan war was very copious. Of the original poems the Ilias and Odyssey alone have come down to us ; fragments only exist of the remaining parts of the Cycle ; to judge by those of the Cypria it must have been a very beautiful poem ; those of the others are too scanty to enable us to form an opinion of their merit. The brief abstract of their contents given above is derived from two fragments of the Chrestomathy of Proclus, of which the one, containing the epitome of the Cypria, was discovered by Tychsen in a manuscript of the Ilias in the library of the Escurial, the other, containing the remainder, by Siebenkees in a manuscript Homer at Venice. It is by these fragments that critics have been able to ascertain what the Epic Cycle really was.

The Cycle, as we have observed, existed long after the commencement of the Christian æra, and various poems appear to have been made from it. That of Quintus Smyrnæus in fourteen books, contains the narrative from the end of the Ilias {p. 496}to the taking of Troy, which last event is the subject of the poem of Tryphiodorus, while Coluthus sang the abduction of Helena, and Tzetzes in three books put into verse the events before, in, and after the Ilias. To these later times also belong the tasteless pragmatised narratives in prose ascribed to Dictys of Crete, and Dares the Phrygian, two notorious forgeries. Much matter relating to the war of Troy will be found in Eudocia and the scholiasts, and in the Latin Hyginus.

Æschylus’ magnificent trilogy, the Oresteia, consisting of the Agamemnôn, the Choëphoræ, and the Eumenides, is the only portion of his works on this subject which has reached us ; of Sophocles we have the Philoctetes, Ajax and Electra, and of Euripides the Hecuba, Troades, Andromache, Helena, Electra and Orestes ; we have also the Rhesus of another poet. The Cassandra of Lycophrôn with the notes of the Tzetzes contains much Troïc matter. Ovid gives the war a place in his Metamorphoses, and Statius has left an imperfect poem on the subject of Achilleus.

Having arrived at the closing event of the Grecian mythology, we will now briefly consider the question of its reality. Of the number of ships and warriors before Troy we shall say nothing, it being the palpable exaggeration of national and local vanity. Who could believe, for example, that Athens, in a quarrel not her own, sent to the coast of Asia, there to remain for ten years, a force the one half of that which she opposed to the Barbarians when fighting for her existence²²⁴⁰ at Marathôn ? The question is, did a confederated Hellenic army actually invade and conquer a powerful realm on the coast of Asia ?

To this we are inclined to answer in the negative. We have seen the personages and events of Grecian mythology gradually dissolve into air as we approached them, at times however showing a slight substratum of reality which gave them support. Such was the voyage of the Argonauts ; such too {p. 497}we think was the war of ‘Troy divine.’ As the former rested on the voyages of the Minyans, so the latter had its origin in the early settlements of the Greeks on the coast of Asia and the contests they had to sustain with the original owners of the soil. These settlements were probably long before the time of the Dorian Migration ; for we must not give implicit credit to what is called the early Grecian history, which is nothing but a scientific product from epic poems and local traditions²²⁴¹. We have before noticed the Grecian habit of supposing that their gods or heroes had already visited or conquered the country which they themselves had acquired, and supposing therefore Achæans from the Peloponnese to have conquered a tract about the Hellespont, they may easily have conceived that the great hero of Argos, Heracles, had done the same, or that a monarch of Argos had led a host thither and taken and plundered a large city. This may have been at first a simple tradition ; it may have been then expanded in ballads ; the number of warriors have been increased as colonists from other parts of Hellas came to partake in them ; the artificial mounds which lie scattered over the plain, the tombs probably of princes and warriors of an extinct race, have been regarded as those of Trojan and Achæan chiefs²²⁴² ; and thus the war may have finally acquired the magnitude and importance which it displays in the Ilias.

A cause for this war was to be assigned, and the manners of the age may have suggested that of the abduction of a Grecian princess²²⁴³. But we have shown that the person selected is a purely imaginary being, a mere personification of the moon. Other names indicate ideal personages also : those of Agamemnôn and Menelaos appear to denote the long stay of the army before Troy ; Odysseus is apparently the Wanderer ; while Achilleus, Nestôr, and others are merely the heroes of different parts of Hellas introduced into the cycle of the Trojan {p. 498}war. Again, when we find the Greeks at war with any real people, we may observe that the names of the adverse leaders have no similarity to Grecian ones ; but all those of the Trojans and their allies are if possible more Greek than those of some of the Achæan chiefs. Such are Deïphobos, Antenôr, Alexandros, Andromache ; Hectôr plainly signifies the defender (ἔχω), equivalent to that of his son Astyanax²²⁴⁴ ; the leaders of the people of the far-off Alybe are named Odios and Epistrophos. It is thus that significant names are given to the Centaurs, the Amazons, and above all to that beautiful poetic creation, the Phæacians.

The union for a common object ascribed to the Greeks in this mythe is totally repugnant to their natural character ; even the invasion of Xerxes failed to unite them. The length of the war too is incredible ; no volunteer army would ever have remained so long absent from their homes and families. We very much doubt if the war-car ever was used in Greece, as no vestige of such a custom was to be found in the historic times. It is not unlikely that this Asiatic usage was transferred by the poets to the mythic ages of Hellas. We could make many more objections than these, but we will abstain, as it is probable that our scepticism may only serve to alienate some of our readers. Our conviction however is, that the siege of Troy is little more real than that of Albracca, of which ‘romances tell²²⁴⁵.’

The War of Troy and the Returns terminate the mythic history of Greece. The Dorian Migration, or Return of the Heracleids, though greatly mingled with fable, is a real event. For some centuries the history of Greece is semi-mythic ; such is the form of even the Persian war. After that it is related by contemporary writers, and becomes as true as that of any other people.

We have thus seen that the heroes, like the gods, of Greece were the pure creations of imagination. At the waving of the {p. 499}mythologie wand they have all melted into air, and Grecian history appears to us emerging from a kind of fairy-land. This is in our eyes a beautiful prospect. No one can believe the mythes in their present form ; and nothing can be more dry and insipid than the manner in which the pragmatisers seek to convert them into real history. Yet in the carlier and better days of Greece they were undoubted articles of actual belief ; and Hesiod probably gave no more than the popular creed when he said of the heroes,

And now with minds free from all care they dwell

In the Islands of the Blest, by Ocean’s deep-

Eddying stream, the heroes fortunate,

For whom the bounteous earth thrice every year

Yieldeth fair blooming fruit as honey sweet²²⁴⁶.

[n.p.]

MYTHOLOGY OF ITALY.

Chapter I. — Chapter II.

Chapter I.

INTRODUCTION.

Early State of Italy and Rome. — The Etruscan Religion. — The Latin Religion. — The Sabellian Religion.

Early State of Italy and Rome.

No fact of the times anterior to history seems to be more satisfactorily ascertained, than that of Italy having been long before the foundation of Rome a highly populous and industriously cultivated region. But all records of those times, if such did ever exist, are lost never to be recovered ; and it is only from the remains of their operations on the solid surface of the earth — their gigantic buildings, lakes, and canals — that we are left to conjecture the state of the ancient inhabitants of Italy²²⁴⁷.

In the times of the early history of Rome, three principal nations possessed the central part of the Peninsula. These were the Etruscans, the Latins, and the Sabellians. The city of Rome, whose origin is involved in such obscurity, rose on the confines of these three nations : her population was formed out of them : she derived from them all her institutions ; and among others her religious doctrines and rites, which she moulded and mingled in such a manner as to make it now nearly impossible to assign with certainty to each its part in the combined whole which Roman story displays.

Popular poetry is, as the example of ancient Greece shows, the great preserver of the popular religion in a society where it is of a complex and varied nature. That of Greece teemed with legends of the adventures of its gods ; each of which became the theme of popular verse, passed from mouth to mouth, was sung at the festivals of the deity whose acts it recorded, {p. 502}was varied, changed, and modified by the narrators ; and when at length, by opening an intercourse with Egypt, Greece obtained, in the papyrus, the means of preserving her literature, numbers of these legends were secured from the weakness and defects of the memory. Thousands of others still floated about, and were gradually sunk in the stream of oblivion.

But in Italy the case was different : the people of this country seem not to have possessed the lively fancy and ready invention of the natives of Hellas. Their religion was, as far as we can discern, of a more serious character ; no wars or crimes polluted the beings whom they adored ; and the virtue of the Italian maids and matrons was safe from the lust of the gods who ruled over mankind²²⁴⁸. Hence the most fruitful source of Grecian legend was wanting in Italy ; and the poet, when he would raise a hymn to accompany the sacrifice to a god, could only, like a Christian bard, extol his goodness and implore his favour. When, therefore, the papyrus made its way to Italy, though it might have found numerous ballads in praise of illustrious men, and hymns in honour of the gods to record, it met no love-adventures of the latter to impress on its pages. The cause of this character of the Italian religion it is scarcely possible to assign ; even at the present day Italy yields to Spain in the number, variety and poetic character of the legends of the lives and miracles of the Saints, as she did to Hellas in the mythes of gods and heroes²²⁴⁹.

Beside the religious systems and deities of the three nations above enumerated which Rome adopted, she early, — even in the regal period, — began, with that facility which always distinguished her, to appropriate the gods of Greece. Her knowledge of them was, it is probable, chiefly derived from the Grecian colonies in Italy ; from whom she also obtained those oracles called the Sibylline Books, which are known to have {p. 503}been Greek, and which always enjoined the adoption of Grecian rites and Grecian deities.

When her arms had penetrated to the south of the Peninsula, and the cities of Magna Græcia acknowledged her dominion, poets of this country sought the favour of the Mistress of Italy, by celebrating her origin and her deeds in her own language. Nævius the Campanian sang, in Saturnian verse, (the ancient measure of Italian poetry,) the chief events from the voyage of Æneas to the end of the first Punic war. The Calabrian Ennius boldly and contemptuously sought to banish the rude free form of measure in which the Romans at their banquets sang the deeds of their fathers, and digested in Grecian hexameters the events which it recorded into his Annals. Grecian forms now supplanted all the old Italian ones : Grecian mythology, with all its legends, was rapidly poured in upon Rome. Each succeeding age saw the Græco-mania increase : the people of education looked with contempt on the rude lays of their forefathers and their simpler religion ; the homely old ballads of the Cossi and Cethegi fell into oblivion ; the entire literature of Rome became Grecian ; and the extant Roman poetry is little more than a transcript of that of Greece.

Italian mythes, as has been observed, do not exist. In Virgil and Ovid we meet a few adventures of the old Italian deities framed in imitation of those of Greece, but totally repugnant to the religious ideas of Italy. For our knowledge of the objects of Italian worship we are chiefly indebted to these poets, and to Varro, Gellius, Macrobius, and the Latin Fathers of the Church. In all of them we discern the influence of the principles of Euhemerus introduced into Rome by Ennius.

The Etruscan Religion.

The disposition of the Etruscans was melancholy and serious ; their form of government a rigid aristocracy, administered by an hereditary race or caste of priestly nobility. Their religion was founded on peculiar views of the world and its periods, and the art of learning the will of the supernal powers by the thunder, the lightning, and other aërial {p. 504}phænomena. The rules and principles of this science were contained in books ascribed to a subterranean dæmon named Tages, who, the Tuscan legend said, had risen up, a babe in form, an aged man in wisdom, from under the soil before the plough of a peasant of Tarquinii as he was at his work, and who instructed the people in divination²²⁵⁰.

According to the doctrine of the Etruscans there were two orders of gods, the one superior, veiled and nameless, with whom the supreme god took counsel when about to announce by lightning any change in the present order of things²²⁵¹. The other consisted of twelve gods, six male and as many female, his ordinary council. These were called by the common name of Consentes or Complices (the Latin of the Etruscan word), according to Varro²²⁵² because they are born and die together. The general Etruscan term for a god was Æsar²²⁵³.

The supreme god of the Tuscans, answering to the Zeus of the Greeks, the Jupiter of the Romans, was named Tina²²⁵⁴. A goddess named Kupra was called by the Romans Juno ; and another, named Menerfa or Menrfa, was the original of the Minerva of Rome. These three deities had always contiguous temples on the citadel of every Etruscan city²²⁵⁵. Hence the united temples of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, which crowned the Capitol at Rome.

A goddess named Nortia, answering to the Roman Fortuna, was worshiped at the Tuscan cities of Sutri and Vulsinii²²⁵⁶. Vertumnus also was one of the principal deities of Etruria²²⁵⁷. The Tuscan god of the under-world was named Mantus²²⁵⁸, and there was a goddess of it called Mania. The Lars, which form so conspicuous a portion of the Roman religion, it is probable belonged originally to the Etruscan system.

The Etruscans had also deities answering to the Neptunus, Mars, Saturnus, Janus, Vulcanus, Summanus, Vejovis and others of the Romans. Nine were held to have the power of {p. 505}casting the lightning, namely, Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Vejovis, Summanus, Vulcanus, Saturnus, Mars. It is uncertain who was the ninth.

As soon as an intercourse was opened between Etruria and Greece or her colonies, the Grecian mythology made most rapid progress in that country ; and the deities and legends of Greece became so closely interwoven in the system of Etruria, that it is with difficulty any vestiges of the original domestic system can be traced²²⁵⁹.

The Romans, previous to their acquaintance with Greece, always looked up to Etruria as their instructress. The patrician children were sent thither for education ; all the royal and consular ornaments were borrowed from that country ; and the science and the religious ceremonies of Rome were almost entirely derived from Etruria.

The Latin Religion.

Late writers have made it extremely probable that the Latins were a mixed people, formed out of the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, and the Pelasgians, that extensive race which originally possessed Greece and a portion of Lesser Asia. This is perhaps the best principle on which the great similarity of the Latin and Greek languages can be accounted for ; and it will also in a great measure, taken however in combination with the general one, explain the agreement of their religious systems, and the facility with which the religion and mythology of Greece were adopted at Rome.

It cannot be determined which of the Roman gods are to be regarded as those of their Latin forefathers ; but it is probable that Saturnus, Ops, Janus, Jana, Pales, Pomona, and those deities relating to agriculture (to which the Latins were greatly devoted), were derived by the Romans from their Latin forefathers. We shall perhaps not err if we regard as Latin all those deities whose Sabine or Etruscan origin does not appear.

{p. 506}

The Sabellian Religion.

Under the name of Sabellians may be comprised all the tribes of the Apennines east of Latium. It is therefore inclusive of the Sabines, Samnites, Marsians, and their kindred clans ; and it is by no means improbable, that the Umbrians to the north and the Oscans to the south of them were of the same race with the Sabellians.

The rigid virtues of a portion of the Sabellian race, particularly the Sabines, were always the theme of praise at Rome. Grazing and agriculture were the chief employments of these hardy tribes, and their religion was intimately connected with these arts ; and consequently, we may suppose, bore much resemblance to that of the Latins. It has always been asserted that a great portion of the Roman religion was of Sabine origin.

The Sabines adored Sancus and Sabus, or Sabinus, as the origins of their nation²²⁶⁰. Mamers or Mars was also one of their deities ; an erect lance was the symbol before which he was worshiped. According to the ancient Annals of Rome²²⁶¹ Tatius the Sabine king raised altars to Ops and Flora, Diovis and Saturnus, Sol and Luna, Vulcanus and Summanus, and to Larunda, Terminus, Quirinus, Vortumnus, the Lars, Diana and Cloacina.

The Marsian portion of this race were as remarkable for their skill in detecting the will of the gods in the flight and voice of the birds, as the Etruscans for discerning it in the electric phænomena of the sky.

It is a very remarkable feature in the ancient religion of Italy, that though it admitted not of the births, marriages and generations of its deities, like that of Greece, it usually represented them in pairs, each consisting of a male and a female divinity²²⁶². Thus we meet with Saturnus and Ops, {p. 507}Saturnus and Lua, Mars and Neriene, Quirinus and Hora. In some cases the name of the goddess is only the feminine form of that of the god, as Janus Jana, Tellumo Tellus, Lupercus Luperca, Volumnus Volumna, Vitellius Vitellia. This principle probably ran through the whole of the ancient language, for we find animus and anima used of the vital powers, and Rome and other Italian towns politically divided into a Populus and a Plebes²²⁶³.

Another peculiar feature of the old Italian religion, and which testifies for its purity, warmth and simplicity, is that of calling the gods Fathers (Patres), and the goddesses Mothers (Matres), — titles of veneration or affection given by the Greeks to none but Zeus and Demeter or Earth. As this is a circumstance that seems to have almost totally escaped the notice of modern inquirers, we will here give some proofs of such being the usage among the Romans.

Cicero, when laying down laws for his ideal republic, says²²⁶⁴, “Patrum delubra esse in urbibus censeo ;” and that by patres he means the gods, is evident from what follows ; for he proceeds, “I do not follow the Persian Magi, at whose impulsion Xerxes is said to have burnt the temples in Greece, because they shut up within walls the gods, to whom all should be free and open, and whose house and temple this whole world should be.” In the ‘Council of the Gods’ of the old satirist Lucilius were the following lines²²⁶⁵ :

Ut nemo sit nostrum quin pater optimus Divum,

Ut Neptunus pater, Liber, Saturnus pater, Mars,

Janus, Quirinus pater nomen dicatur ad unum ;

on which Lactantius observes, that “every god who is worshiped by man must in solemn rites and prayers be called Father, not only for the sake of honour but from reason, both because he was before man, and because like a father he gives life, health and food.” To this we may add the testimony of Servius, who says²²⁶⁶ that “the ancients called all the gods fathers.” We have not the same direct evidence of the goddesses being called mothers²²⁶⁷, but we will show by induction {p. 508}that such was the case. As Lactantius observes, it was chiefly in prayer that the terms Father and Mother were used ; but they adhered to some of the gods, such as Jupiter. Liber does not often occur without a pater ; neither does Dis ; and we usually meet Mater Matuta.

The Romans were fond of using their political vocabulary, even when speaking of their gods. Thus we read of gods of the Greater Houses²²⁶⁸, the Ramnes and Titienses, as it were, of heaven ; and of the Select Gods²²⁶⁹, like the Select Judges ; and we also meet with a Plebs among the divinities²²⁷⁰. It cannot perhaps be asserted that these divisions were made seriously, or were used by the hierarchy ; but Varro²²⁷¹ gives the names of twenty Select Gods ; and there stood in the Forum twelve gilded statues of Consentian deities²²⁷², which were probably those enumerated in the following lines of Ennius, and which, by the way, are exactly the same with the twelve gods of the Greeks,

Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars,

Mercurius, Jovis, Neptunus, Vulcanus, Apollo.

{p. 509}

Chapter II.

the select gods.

Jovis, Juppiter, Jupiter. — Juno. — Minerva. — Vesta. — Ceres. — Venus.

Varro²²⁷³ enumerates twenty deities, whom he terms Select, namely, Janus, Jovis, Saturnus, Genius, Mercurius, Apollo, Mars, Vulcanus, Neptunus, Sol, Orcus, Liber Pater, Tellus, Ceres, Juno, Luna, Diana, Minerva, Venus and Vesta. We shall here treat of them, but in a different order.

Jovis, Juppiter, Jupiter.

Like the Greek Zeus, the Latin Jovis, which is evidently a kindred term²²⁷⁴, signified originally God. Hence we find it used in the plural, Joves. Divus, Dius, or Deus Jovis, was contracted to Dijovis and Diovis²²⁷⁵, and Jovis Pater became Jupiter, answering to the Ζϵὺς πατὴρ of the Greeks. In the more ancient monuments of the Roman religion Jovis or Jupiter does not occur unaccompanied by an epithet.

The principal Jupiter was the Capitoline, or the Jupiter Optimus Maximus, whose temple combined with those of Juno and Minerva adorned the Capitol in Rome, and who was regarded as the great guardian of the fortune of the city.

Jupiter Elicius was so named, as we are told, from the following circumstance²²⁷⁶. In the time of Numa there occurred great thunder-storms and rain. The people and their king were terrified, and the latter had recourse to the counsel of the nymph Egeria. She informed him that Faunus and Picus could instruct him in the mode of appeasing Jupiter, but that he must employ both art and violence to extract the knowledge from them. Accordingly by her advice he placed bowls of wine at a fountain on Mount Aventine, whither they were wont to come to drink, and concealed himself in a neighbouring cavern. The {p. 510}rural gods came to the fount, and finding the wine drank copiously of it : they immediately afterwards fell asleep, and Numa quitting his retreat came and bound them. On awaking, they struggled, but in vain, to get free ; and the pious prince, apologising for what necessity had obliged him to do, entreated that they would inform him how Jupiter was to be appeased. They yielded to his prayer, and on his loosing them drew down (“eliciunt”) Jupiter by their charms. He descended on the Aventine hill, which trembled beneath the weight of the deity. Numa was terrified, but recovering he implored the god to give a remedy against the lightning. The ruler of the thunder assented, and in ambiguous terms conveyed the relief : “Cut a head” — “of an onion from my garden” subjoined the king, — “of a man” — “the topmost hairs” quickly replied Numa ; — “I demand a life” — “of a fish.” The deity smiled, and said that his weapons might thus be averted, and promised a sign at sun-rise the following morning.

At dawn the people assembled before the doors of the king : Numa came forth, and seated on his maple throne looked for the rising of the sun. The orb of day was just wholly emerged above the horizon, when a loud crash was heard in the sky : thrice the god thundered, without a cloud ; thrice he sent forth his lightnings. The heavens opened, and a light buckler came gently wafted on the air and fell to the ground. Numa having first slain a heifer, took it up and named it Ancile. He regarded it as the pledge of empire ; and having had eleven others made exactly like it by the artist Mamurius, to deceive those who might attempt to steal it, committed them to the care of the priests named Salians.

As Latiaris or Of-the-Latins, Jupiter was annually worshiped by the Latins on the Alban Mount. The festival was named the Latin Holidays (Feriæ) ; its institution was ascribed to Tarquinius Superbus. Jupiter Anxur was the chief deity of Anxur or Tarracina. Jupiter Indiges was worshiped on the banks of the Numicius, and was said to be the deified Æneas.

Jupiter was named Feretrius or Bearer, as the spoils of the enemy's general if slain by a Roman commander were borne to him. He was also called Victor and Stator, as the giver of victory and stayer of flight. We also meet with Jupiter {p. 511}Pistor, whose altar was on the Capitol²²⁷⁷. In the usual Roman manner a historical origin was given to all these names.

Jupiter was called Lucetius²²⁷⁸ as the author of light (lucis), for a similar reason he was named Diespiter, i. e. Dies Pater or Father Day²²⁷⁹. When the Greek philosophy was introduced into Rome Jupiter was regarded as the material heaven, as in the well-known line of the Thyestes of Ennius,

Aspice hoc sublime candens quem vocant omnes Jovem.

Juno.

The feminine to Jovis was Jovino, which was contracted by use to Juno. This name therefore must have originally signified simply goddess, and we find it used in the plural — Junones²²⁸⁰ ; female slaves for example swearing by the Junones of their mistresses, that is their protecting deities²²⁸¹.

Juno Romana or Capitolina, as one of the great tutelar deities of Rome, had her share in the stately temple on the Capitol. On the adjacent Arx, on the site of the house of the unfortunate M. Manlius, stood the temple of Juno Moneta²²⁸². As this temple was made the mint, the word money oddly enough comes from her name, of which the origin is quite uncertain²²⁸³.

Juno Regina, the Kupra of Etruria, had a temple on the Aventine. During the siege of Veii she had been evoked in the usual manner and promised a stately temple at Rome ; and after the capture of that city, says the legend, when the Roman youths appointed for the purpose approached the statue, it gave an audible reply to their demand if it was willing to be removed to Rome²²⁸⁴.

{p. 512}

As the patroness of married women Juno was named Matrona. She was called Jugalis as presiding over marriage²²⁸⁵, Cinxia from the loosing of the bride's girdle²²⁸⁶, and Fluonia as restraining the menstrual discharges during conception²²⁸⁷. Juno Lucina, identified by the Greeks with their Eileithyia²²⁸⁸, was probably so named as bringing children to the light. She was invoked by women in labour²²⁸⁹, and into the treasury of her temple, which stood on the Esquiline, a piece of money was paid for the registry of every birth²²⁹⁰.

Juno Caprotina was honoured by an annual sacrifice on the nones of July. At this sacrifice, which was offered under a wild fig tree (caprificus), of which tree the milk or juice and twigs were used on the occasion, both free women and slaves assisted. On this occasion they wore the toga prætexta. Of this festival, which was common to all Latium, and which probably had a rural origin, the Roman annals told a legend connected with the political history of the state²²⁹¹.

Juno Sospita, or Sispita, that is the Protectress, was worshiped from the earliest times at Lanuvium. She was represented with a goatskin about her, a spear in her hand, a small shield on her arm, and with shoes turned up at the points²²⁹². Another, probably Sabine, title of this goddess was Curis or Curitis²²⁹³. Juno was generally represented armed, and it was the custom of the Romans to divide the hair of a virgin-bride with the point of a small spear²²⁹⁴.

Minerva.

Minerva, or Menerva, corresponded in some measure with the Pallas-Athene of the Greeks. She was the patroness of arts and industry, and all the mental powers were under her {p. 513}care²²⁹⁵. She was the deity of schools : her statue was always placed in them, and school-boys got as holydays the five days of her festival called the Quinquatrus, celebrated in the month of March : at the expiration of them they presented their master with a gift called Minerval²²⁹⁶. According to Varro²²⁹⁷, Minerva was the protecting goddess of olive-grounds ; but it may be doubted whether this was not a transference to her of one of the attributes of the Grecian goddess Pallas-Athene.

[n.p.]

[n.p.]

The temple or chapel of Minerva on the Capitol was under the same roof with those of Jupiter and Juno, to the right of that of the former deity, for in the Roman religion she seems to have ranked before Juno. On the side of the Cælian hill stood a temple of Minerva Capta, the origin of which name is uncertain²²⁹⁸.

The festivals of Minerva were named Minervalia or Quinquatrus. They were two in number. The former, called the Greater, was celebrated in March, the time when, according to the Tuscan discipline, Minerva cast her lightnings²²⁹⁹. It was named Quinquatrus as being on the fifth day after the Ides²³⁰⁰ : the ignorance of the Romans made them extend the festival to five days ; it was followed by the Tubilustrum²³⁰¹. The Lesser was in the Ides of June, and the flute-players celebrated it²³⁰². As both the trumpet and flute came to the Romans from Etruria, this proves Minerva to have been introduced from that country. No derivation of her name can therefore be given, for it does not seem to be a translation.

Vesta.

The same obscurity involves this goddess as the corresponding Hestia of the Greeks, with whom she is identical in name and office. There is every reason to believe her worship to {p. 514}have been unborrowed by the Romans, and a part of the religion of the ancient Pelasgic population of Latium²³⁰³, as it is by all testimony carried back to the earliest days of the state, and its introduction ascribed to Numa²³⁰⁴. Like Hestia she was a deity presiding over the public and private hearth : a sacred fire, tended by six virgin-priestesses called Vestals, flamed in her temple at Rome. As the safety of the city was held to be connected with its conservation, the neglect of the virgins, if they let it go out, was severely punished, and the fire was rekindled from the rays of the sun.

The temple of Vesta was round : it contained no statue of the goddess²³⁰⁵. Her festival celebrated in June was called Vestalia : plates of meat were sent to the Vestals to be offered up ; the millstones were wreathed with garlands of flowers, and the mill-asses also crowned with violets went about with cakes strung round their necks²³⁰⁶.

In the Forum at Rome there was a statue of the Stata Mater, placed there that she might protect the pavement from the effect of the fires which used to be made on it in the night time. The people followed the example, and set up similar statues in several of the streets²³⁰⁷. Stata Mater is generally supposed to have been Vesta. We find this last also called Mater.²³⁰⁸

Ceres.

Ceres was the goddess who presided over corn and tillage, thus corresponding with the Grecian Demeter. Her temple at Rome was under the care of the ædiles, as she was the goddess of the agricultural plebeians²³⁰⁹. Festivals called Cerealia were celebrated in her honour at Rome, in the month of April, with a pomp, and horse-races²³¹⁰. The country-people previous to beginning the harvest kept the Ambarvalia to Ceres, in which they offered her honey-combs covered with wine and milk, and a victim which they led three times round the {p. 515}cornfield ; the swains all followed, crowned with oak, and dancing and singing²³¹¹. A similar festival named the Paganalia was celebrated when the sowing of the seed was over²³¹².

The name Ceres may come from creo. Servius²³¹³ says that in the Sabine language Ceres signified bread ; but it may have done so only figuratively.

Venus.

Venus is a deity about whom it is difficult to learn anything satisfactory. She has been so thoroughly confounded with the Grecian Aphrodite, that almost everything peculiar to her has disappeared. She cannot however have been one of the original deities of Rome, as her name did not occur in the Salian hymns, and we are assured that she was unknown in the time of the kings²³¹⁴. She seems to have been a deity presiding over birth and growth in general, for as Venus Hortensis she was the goddess of gardens²³¹⁵. She was held to be the same as Libitina the goddess of funerals, because, says Plutarch²³¹⁶, the one and the same goddess superintends birth and death. A temple of Venus at Rome was built with the fines imposed on matrons convicted of adultery²³¹⁷ ; but as this was long after the introduction of the Grecian deities, nothing can be collected from it respecting the original office and character of the goddess.

Venus Cloacina or Cluacina, was so called, says Pliny²³¹⁸, from cluere, to purify ; because when the Sabines and Romans of Tatius and Romulus were reconciled, they purified themselves on the spot with myrtle-vervain, and a statue to Venus Cluacina was afterwards erected there. Another account²³¹⁹ says, that a statue of an unknown deity being found in the Cloaca, it was consecrated to Venus, under the name of Cloacina.

{p. 516}

There was at Rome a temple of Venus Fruti²³²⁰, which last seems to be merely a corruption of Aphrodite. It may however be connected with fructus, and refer to her rural character. In the Circus stood a chapel of Venus Murtia, so named it is said from the myrtles which had grown there²³²¹.

At Lavinium there was a temple of Venus common to the Latin nation, and there was another similar temple at Ardea²³²².

There were two festivals at Rome named Vinalia, in each of which there appears to have been a reference to this goddess. The first was on the 23rd of April, the second day from the Palilia. The offering was made to Jupiter, but the day was also sacred to Venus²³²³. Ovid directs the meretrices to go and worship on this day at the temple of Venus Erycina near the Colline gate, whence we may collect that such was their practice ; and we have here a proof of the identification of the Roman deity with those of other religions, for that Venus was the Phœnician Astarte. The second Vinalia, called the Rustica, was on the 21st of August ; and here we find Jupiter and Venus again united, for on this day the Flamen Dialis, having first sacrificed a ewe-lamb, himself commenced gathering the grapes ; and the gardeners kept it as a holiday, for we are told that “a temple was dedicated to Venus on this day, and gardens are placed under her protection²³²⁴.”

Perhaps it may form a presumption in favour of the original rural character of Venus, that, like Pales, her name is of both genders. Thus we meet with Deus and Dea Venus, and with Venus almus, and Venus alma.²³²⁵. The name Venus, or rather Veneris, may, as was supposed, come from venio, but its origin is very doubtful.

Notes

n.p.

1. This explanation of Millin’s cannot be correct. Welcker (Nach. zur Tril. 299.) says that the figure at the window is Althæa the wife of Œneus (see p. 320.), and the sitting figure a servant.

p. 1

2. Μûθοι. The word μûθοѕ is in Homer equivalent to λόγοѕ. In the time of Pindar it had acquired the signification in which it is here employed.

p. 2

3. See the author’s History of Greece, p. 9.

p. 3

4. The belief in fairies and similar beings, for example, among the common people in various countries. See the ‘Fairy Mythology,’ passim.

p. 4

5. See Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 253, 254.

6. Hom. II. i. 55. with Wolf's note. Od. v. 427. See also II. ix. 459.

7. Aristotle, Pol. i. 3.

p. 5

8. See the minute description of Hera dressing herself in Homer, II. xiv. 170 seq.

p. 6

9. Müller, Proleg. 78. 111, 112, and elsewhere.

10. The earliest allusion to this practice we have met with is in Eurip. Bac. 26.

p. 7

11. Paus. viii. 14. 2. Plut. de Sera Numinis Vindicta, 12. Catull. lxviii. 109.

12. Conon. Narrat. 15. It is not quite certain, however, that it is of these chasms he speaks.

13. Leake's Travels in the Morea, iii. 148.

14. We meet an instance even in Homer, Od. xix. 518.

p. 8

15. Ouseley, Persian Miscellanies, p. 145. Fairy Mythology, i. 3.

16. Malcolm, Sketches of Persia, ii. 98.

17. Geijer, Svea Rikes Häfdar, i. 417.

18. Müller, Dor. i. 373.

p. 9

19. Plin. H. N. viii. 16. 56.

20. Pind. Ol. ix. 68 seq. cum Schol. Apollod. i. 7. 2.

21. Varro L. L. p. 44. (Bip.)

22. Æn. viii. 345. Servius in loc.

23. Malcolm’s History of Persia, i. 41. 8vo edit.

p. 10

24. This phraseology is still employed in the south of Europe. Sancho Panza is in Don Quixote called the father of proverbs (padre de los refranes).

25. Ol. xi. 3.

26. Seven against Thebes, 496.

27. Agam. 505.

28. Athen. iii. 78.

29. II. ii. 865. (Heyne in loc.) See also II. xvi. 174.

30. «Hic Messapus per mare ad Italiam venit ; unde Neptuni dictus est filius.»Serv. on Æn. vii. 691. See Paus. iv. 2, 2.

31. Hor. Serm. ii. 6. 49. It is in a somewhat different sense that the Œdipus of Sophocles (Œd. Tyr. 1080.) calls himself a son of Fortune.

p. 11

32. King John, Act ii. scene i.

33. Canaan and Phaleg.

34. Analysis of Heathen Mythology.

35. Atlantica.

36. Mythologie et Fables expliquées par l’Histoire.

37. See Amalthea, i. 12. Ideen zur Kunst-Mythologie, ii. 7.

38. De Sapientia Veterum.

p. 12

39. Mythologiæ, sive Explications Fabularum, Libri X.

40. Fortuita Critica.

41. Origine de tous les Cultes.

42. Lobeck terms these writers synchytic mythologists, «who think that the religions of all nations, old and new, ere the same from the beginning, and deduce the most recent fables from the springs of the primogenial doctrine.» — Aglaoph. p. 1268.

43. «Mystieism is an irregular mixing and confounding of feelings and ideas,» says Hermann, Ueber das Wesen, &c. p. 26.

44. It is remarkable enough that the German mystic mythologists have either embraced Popery or shown a strong tendency toward it.

p. 13

45. We would advise those who have studied the writings of Creuzer, Görres, Schelling, Sickler, and other writers of this school, to read as a sure antidote the Antisymbolik of Voss, and the Aglaophamus of Lobeck.

46. In the author's ‘Tales and Popular Fictions,’ chap. iv., will be found some account of the Shâh-nâmeh, and one of its most interesting narratives. The reader will also meet in the same place with some remarks on Ossian.

47. We shall frequently find ourselves under the necessity of differing in opinion with this estimable critic, but we most heartily concur in the following just panegyric on him : «Dum hæc studia vigebunt, dum patrius sermo coletur, dum recto veroque suum constabit pretium

Semper honos nomenque viri laudesque manebunt.»

(Lobeck, Aglaoph. 1295.)

p. 14

48. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. pp. vi. vii.

p. 15

49. Buttmann, Mytholog. i. 155.157. Müller, Proleg. 218, 219. Orchomenos, 142. Hermann, Ueber das Wesen, &c. 71. 125. 132.

50. Völcker, Myth. der. Jap.passim. Müller, Proleg. 274, seq.

51. Müller, Proleg. 232.

52. Völcker, however, asserts positively that there is no mythe without a meaning. Myth. der Jap. 50. This may be true, but the meaning is often a very trifling one.

53. Rasselas, chap. 48. See Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, i. 480. Lobeck, Aglaoph. 672 seq. Buttmann, Mytholog. ii. 294, 295. Welcker, Tril. 249.

p. 16

54. See Müller, Proleg. 249-253. Min. Pol. 9.

p. 17

55. Wolf, it is well known, held this opinion. The Schools of the Prophets among the Hebrews were evidently of the same nature.

56. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. p. 5. seq. Böttiger, Ideen zur Kunst-Myth. ii. 50. See also Müller, Proleg. 219.

p. 18

57. Mythologus, i. 24. Welcker, Tril. 95.

p. 19

58. Heyne ad Apollod. p. 911. seq.

59. Müller, Proleg. 212.

60. Buttmann, Mythol. i. 45. Müller, Proleg. 171. In Lucian (De Luctu, 2.) may be seen a convincing proof of how firmly the vulgar, even in his time, clung to the old notions.

61. Müller, Proleg. 66, 99. Welcker, Tril. 89.

p. 20

62. This is the theory of Voss. We share the doubts of Lobeck (Aglaoph. 1295.) respecting its soundness. The Exegetes, or guides, were more probably the persons who gave explanations of this kind to strangers.

63. Lobeck, Aglaoph. 78, 79, 614, 615. Müller, Proleg. 91.

64. Voss, Myth. Br. passim.

65. Müller, Proleg. 89-91, 209. Orchomenos, 269. Dorians, i. 59. Welcker, Tril. 462, 469. «Quam fecunda tragicorum ingenia in fabulis variandis, per tot exempla edocti, fuisse putabimus !» — Heyne ad Apollodor. p. 859. Id. ib. 920.

p. 21

66. Müller, Proleg. 97-99. Lobeck, Aglaoph. 987. seq. Buttmann, i. 197.

67. Herodotus, ii. 144.

68. Hecatæus began his work in these words : «I write as it appears to me to be true ; for the narratives of the Hellenes are very various and ridiculous, as it seems to me.»He said that Cerberos was a serpent that lay at Tænaron.

69. Herod. ii. 54-57.

p. 22

70. The chief remains of this work are to be found in the fifth book of Diodorus (12. seq.), and in the fragment of the sixth book preserved by Eusebius in his Evangelic Preparation. There arc fragments remaining of the Latin translation of Ennius ; and the work is frequently referred to by Sextus Empiricus and the Fathers of the Church.

71. This name is borrowed from the Fount of the Sun (κρήνη Ἡλίον) at the temple of Ammon. Herod. iv. 181.

p. 23

72. Ennius ap. Lactant., Div. Inst. i. 17.

73. Athenæus, xiv. 658.

74. See Callimachus, Fr. (Bentl.) 86. Plut. de Is. et Os. 23. Lobeck, 138.

75. «Infidelity was introduced by the Calabrian Greek Ennius, and became naturalised as morals declined.» — Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, i. 137.

76. See Æn. vii. 47-49, 177-182 ; viii. 355-359.

p. 24

77. Diodorus, iii. 56. seq.

78. Ὠκϵανόν тϵ‚ θϵϖν γένϵσιν καὶ μηέρα Τηθύν. — II. xiv. 201.

p. 26

79. The earliest modern work on this subject is Boccaccio's Genealogia Deorum, written in the fourteenth century.

p. 27

80. In the former edition of this work we entered at some length into this subject. We are now aware that it is impossible to say anything satisfactory on it in so limited a compass, and therefore reserve our materials for the composition of a volume on some future occasion. We will here only observe, that besides our general agreement with the critics who regard the poems as interpolated, we hold with Wolf the last six books of the Ilias to be the work of a different poet from the author of the Ilias in general.

81. Ἠοίαι, from the words ἢ οἵη, or such as, with which each narrative began. See the commencement of the Shield.

p. 28

82. The Thebaïs was ascribed to Homer. In the opinion of Pausanias (ix. 9. 3.) it was next in merit to the Ilias and Odyssey. There was another Thebaïs by Antimachus, but written at a much later period.

83. By far the best account of the Epic Cycle, its authors and contents, will be found in Welcker's excellent work ‘Der epische Cyclus.’ (Bonn, 1835.)

p. 29

84. Plato, Protagoras, p. 320.

85. As we proceed we shall be careful to do so whenever they can be discovered.

p. 30

86. Ἰωνία, or Violarium. It forms the first volume of Villoison’s Anecdota Græca.

87. On the subject of this section see Müller, Proleg. 81. seq.

p. 31

88. We recommend the excellent works of Völcker on the Homeric and Mythic Geographies ; and also that of Ukert on the Geography of the Greeks and Romans.

p. 32

89. Od. xiv. 248-264, 452 ; xv. 426, 451.

90. Od. i. 184.

91. Il. viii. 16. Hes. Th. 720.

92. Il. v. 504 ; xvii. 425. Od. iii. 2. Pind. Pyth. x. 42. Nem. vi. 6.

93. Od. xv. 328 ; xvii. 565.

94. Th. 722.

p. 33

95. Ὄμϕαλοѕ τῆѕ γῆѕ, Pind. Pyth. iv. 131. ; vi. 3. Paus. x. 16. 3. There may be some connexion between Delphi and δϵλϕύѕ, womb, which gave occasion to the notion. Welcker (Kret. Kol. 45.) makes Δέλϕύѕ equivalent to Ͳήλϵϕοѕ. The habit of regarding their own country as the centre of the earth prevails at the present day among the Chinese and the Hindoos ; it was also a principle in the cosmogony of the ancient Persians and Scandinavians.

96. The term Europe first occurs in the Homeridian hymn to the Delian Apollo (v. 251), where it is opposed to the Peloponnese and the islands, and apparently denotes continental Greece. It would seem therefore to come from ϵὐρύѕ, and to signify mainland. (See Völck. Hom. Geog. 103.) Bochart, Buttmann (Mythol. ii. 176.) and others derive it from the Hebrew Ereb (ערנ) evening, as signifying the West. See Welcker, Kret. Kol. 55.

97. Pherecydes (Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 1396.) first mentions this division into Europe and Asia. We find it even in Isocrates (Panegyr. 48.) and in Varro (De L. L. iv. p. 13. Bip.).

98. Herod. iv. 37-41.

99. Asia seems to have been at first nothing more than the rich land on the banks of the Caÿster. (Il. ii. 461. Heyne in loco.) Libya is in Homer merely a district west of Egypt.

p. 34

100. Herod. iv. 32.

101. Ῥίπαι, blasts, whence these mountains were named Rhipæans.

102. Pind. Ol. iii. 24 seq. ; viii. 63. Pyth. x. 50 seq. Isth. vi. 33.

103. See Appendix (A).

104. Perhaps the Syrians (Aram) or the Arabs (Strabo, i. 2.), the μ being inserted before β, as was done so frequently ; ex. gr. ϋμβροτοѕ.

p. 35

105. That is, black or sun-burnt men, from αἴθω, to burn.

106. II. i. 423 ; xxiii. 205. Od. i. 22 ; v. 282.

107. Od. i. 23, 24.

108. See Appendix (B).

109. Il. iii. 3-7. Heyne doubts of the genuineness of this passage. Payne Knight would be content with rejecting vv. 6 and 7. It is to be observed that it is not Homer's custom to use two particles of comparison (ὥѕ and ἠΰτϵ) together, and that the Pygmies seem to contradict the analogy which places races superior to ordinary men on the shores of Ocean.

110. That is, men only as tall as the fist, from πυγμή, fist, like our Tom Thumb.

111. Od. iv. 563.

p. 36

112. Works and Days, 169.

113. 01. ii. 129.

114. Herod. iii. 106.

115. Ποταμὸѕ, ῥόοѕ ῥοαὶ, Il. iii. 5 ; xiv. 245 ; xvi. 151 ; xviii. 240. 402. 607 ; xix. 1 ; xx. 7. Od. xi. 21. 156. 638 ; xiii. 1 ; xxii. 197 ; xxiv. 11. Hesiod, W. and D. 566. Th. 242. 841.

116. Il. vii. 422 ; viii. 485 ; xviii. 239. Od. iii. 1 ; xix. 433 ; xxiii. 242. 347. Hes. W. and D. 566. Thus Milton also, P. L. v. 139.

……………………the sun, who scarce uprisen,

With wheels yet hovering o'er the ocean-brim,

Shot parallel to the earth his dewy ray ;

and Tasso, Ger. Lib. i. 15.

Sorgeva il novo sol dai lidi Eoi,

Parte già fuor, ma 'l più ne l’onde chiuso.

117. Ἀψόῤῥοοѕ, Il. xviii. 399. Od. xx. 65. (ἄψ ἀυασϵιράζουτοѕ ἑὸυ ῥόου ϵἰѕ ἑὸυ ϋδωρ, Nonnus, xxxviii. 317.) Hes. Th. 776. βαθύῤῥοοѕ, II. vii. 422 ; xiv. 311. Od. xi. 13 ; xix. 434. βαθυῤῥϵίτηѕ, II. xxi. 195. Hes. Th. 265. ἀκαλαῤῥϵίτηѕ, Il. vii. 422. Od. xix. 403. An epithet of Oceanos in Hesiod (Th. 274. 288. 294.) is κλυτὸѕ, illustrious, or perhaps bright. See Appendix (C).

p. 37

118. Il. iii. 278 ; ix. 568 ; xix. 259 ; xx. 61 ; xxii. 482 ; xxiii. 100.

119. Od. i. 54.

120. Theog. 736.

121. Il. viii. 18-26. Zenodotus however rejected vv. 25, 26, in which all the difficulty lies. See Schol. in loco.

122. Deut. xxviii. 23.

123. The very rational supposition of some learned and pious divines, that it did not suit the scheme of Providence to give the Israelites more correct ideas on natural subjects than other nations, relieves Scripture from many difficulties.

p. 38

124. The Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius (i. 598.) enumerates six, namely, in Macedonia, Thessaly, Mysia, Cilicia, Elis, Arcadia ; to which are to be added those of Cyprus, Lesbos, Acarnania and Laconia. (Polyb. ii. 65 ; v. 24.)

125. Yet how could the poet, who (Od. xi. 312-15.) describes the Aloeids as piling Ossa and Pelion on Olympos, regard this last as the abode of the gods ?

126. Il. v. 749 ; viii. 393. Thus Milton :

Heaven open’d wide

Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound

On golden hinges moving, to let forth

The King of glory. — P. L. vii. 205.

And again, v. 374 :

He through heaven,

That open’d wide her blazing portals, led

To God’s eternal house direct the way.

127. Mythol. Briefe, i. 190. Note on Virg. Geor. iii. 261. The passages there quoted (Pind. Fr. incert. 100. Apoll. Rh. iii. 159. and Q. Smyrnæus, xiv. 223.), as is too often the case with him, by no means bear him out in his theory. Statius is the earliest poet who speaks of these gates. (See Thebaïs, i. 158 ; vii. 35 ; x. 1.) Nonnus (xxvii. 2.) describes Eôs as opening the gates of the east.

p. 39

128. II. viii. 478-481. Hes. Th. 717-721.

129. II. viii. 13.

130. Strabo (iii. 5.) makes the earth the shape of a chlamys.

131. Pyth. iv. 447.

132. Prom. 431.

133. Herod. ii. 23 ; iv. 8. 36. 45.

p. 40

134. In Hesiod’s Shield of Hercules, vv. 254. 255., Tartaros is placed in the realm of Aides, — a proof among many that critics are right in assigning a later age to that part of the poem.

135. In reading the Paradise Lost one is apt to be struck with the definite material nature of heaven and its inhabitants, so different from the Paradise of Dante. This last, however, cannot be fairly placed in comparison with it, being, as Rossetti has shown, only a figurative representation of things on earth, while Milton gave utterance to his genuine conception of what heaven might really be. The fact is, that our great poet was, as any one who reads with attention the speech of the angel (Book vii. 469-505.) will see, a materialist, and in him certainly materialism has proved compatible with piety and purity of heart.

p. 41

136. What an idea is given of the immense extent of Heaven by making the World appear in comparison with it but as one of the smallest stars to the moon !

p. 42

137. Müller, Proleg. 270.

138. Il. xiv. 201.

p. 43

139. From χάω, to gape. Ginnunga Gap (Swallowing Throat) is the Chaos of Scandinavian mythology.

140. Göttling (on v. 501.) asserts that the Cyclopes were the progeny of Earth alone. He says this is proved by a comparison of v. 139.

Γϵίνατο δ̓ αὖ Κύκλωπας, κ.τ λ.

with v. 147.

Ἄλλοι δ̓ αὖ Γαιής τϵ καὶ Οὐρνοΰ ἐξϵγένοντο.

We do not see the force of this argument.

141. Apollodorus says that it was the Cyclopes and Hundred-handed alone whom Uranos treated thus. Völcker (Myth. der Jap. 283.) says the Titans were also shut up.

p. 44

142. See v. 239.

143. It was shown in after times in the neighbourhood of Delphi (Hes. Th. 498. Pausanias, x. 24. 6.), the legend having been transplanted thither from Crete, its original soil. The whole fable seems to have been unknown to Homer, who always speaks of Zeus as the eldest son of Kronos.

p. 45

144. For the explanation of the Theogony see Hermann, De Antiq. Græcor. Mythologia (Opusc. vol. ii. 167. seq.), Briefen an Creuzer, and Ueber das Wesen und die Behandlung der Mythologie. See also Müller, Proleg. pp. 371-379.

p. 46

145. Κύκλωψ, rendered by Hermann Volvulus, from κύκλος, is a simple, not a compound substantive, of the same class with μώλωψ, with Κέρκωψ, Κέκροψ, Πέλοψ, &c. Like Argiletum (above, p. 9.), its form admitting of decomposition gave origin to the one-eyed giants of the Odyssey, who were also known to the author of the Theogony : see v. 143. The three lines following are an interpolation.

146. Κόττος, from κόπτω, to smite ; Γύηѕ (Γύγηѕ is wrong, see Göttling in loc.) is the part of the plough to which the share is fixed ; Βριάρϵωѕ is akin to βριάω βριαρὸѕ, βρίθω, βριθὺѕ, all denoting weight and strength.

147. The above explanation is that given by Hermann (Ueber das Wesen, &c. p. 84.). He had given a different one previously (De Myth. Ant. Opusc. ii. 176.), which he rejected for the present more probable one. Welcker (Tril. 147.) understands by the Hundred-handed the water.

148. See below, chap. xvii. and xviii.

149. Γίγαυτϵѕ, Genitales, from γέυω, γίγυω, γιγυάω. Hermann, ut sup. Opusc. ii. 177. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 272. note.

150. Μϵλίαι, from μῆλου, sheep, or apple, pomum (Völcker, ut sup.). Others understand by them Ash-nymphs, from μϵλία. In this last case they might denote the production of timber-trees. Hermann renders μϵλίαι Cicurinæ, deriving it from the same root with μϵιλίσσϵιυ.

p. 47

151. Völcker, ut sup., from ἐυ ἔρᾳ υαίϵιυ (Tzetz, Lyc. 152.), referring to Demeter Erinnys. According to Hermann ἐριυυύϵѕ is quasi ἐλιυυύϵѕ, Maturinæ, from ἐλιυυϵύω.

152. Myth. der Jap. 280. seq.

153. Namely, that given by Diodorus (iii. 57.) from τιταία, same as γῆ : and supposing the root to be αΐα, ταȋα (by reduplication τιταία) would come as easily from it as γαῖα and δαῖα. Völcker (285. note) gives a long list of cognate terms.

154. Kronos and Iapetos are joined together by Homer (Il. viii. 479.). In the hymn to Apollo, vv. 336, 337. we read

Τιτῆυέѕ τϵ θϵοὶ, τοὶ ὑπὸ χθονὶ ναιϵτάοντϵѕ

Τάρταρον ἀμϕὶ μέγαν, τῶν ἔξ ἄνδ ρϵѕ τϵ θϵοὶ τϵ.

A similar view is given in the 37th Orphic hymn.

p. 48

155. Il. xiv. 202-204.

156. Il. xv. 224 et seq.

157. That is, supposing (as there is every reason to do) that Apollodorus followed him in his theogony.

158. The Titanesses are evidently also to be excepted.

159. See Il. xv. 187. seq.

p. 49

160. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 983. Tzetz. Lyc. 761. 869. This however seems to be a very late fiction.

161. Theog. 886. seq.

162. Ib. 159. 475. 626. 891.

163. Il. i. 396. seq. Hermann (Ueber das Wesen, &c. 85.) gives the following, more ingenious perhaps than solid, explanation of this celebrated mythe. Hera, Poseidôn, and Athena set about binding Zeus ; that is, mankind would wish to keep summer always for their agriculture (Hera, the earth), their navigation, and their civil institutions and occupations, and have no winter. But Thetis, the Soother (θέω), who reduces all strife to peace and order, calls Briareôs up to heaven, and men must now give over their thoughts of getting the fine weather into their power.

164.  »Οϕιѕ, a serpent.

165. Cassandra, 1192. with the note of Tzetzes.

166. Argonaut, i. 503. It is remarkable that there is no scholion on the place.

167. Dionys. ii. 573 ; viii. 161 ; xii. 44 ; xli. 352.

p. 50

168. Theog. 123.

169. Ib. 211. seq.

170. Ἐν ϕιλότητι μιγϵȋσα and ἐν ϕιλότητι καὶ ϵὔνῃ are constant phrases in Homer and Hesiod.

171. Theog. 746. seq.

p. 51

172. See Völcker, Hom. Geog. p. 39.

173. Il. xiv. 249. seq.

174. Fr. 123. Welcker.

175. Fr. Incert. 93.

176. Argonaut. iv. 630.

177. Coëph. 656.

178. Fr. Androm. 28.

179. Idyll. ii. 166.

180. Argonaut. iii. 1193.

181. Theb. ii. 59.

182. Nox Lat., Night Eng., Nacht Germ., Nótt, Nat, Scandinav.

183. Theog. 337. seq.

p. 52

184. Il. xiv. 201. 302. In v. 246. he is called the origin of all (πάντϵσσι) — whether gods or things is uncertain.

185. Il. 202. 303.

186. Il. 200. 301.

187. Prom. 300.

188. Pherecydes ap. Athen. xi. 470.

189. Il. xxi. 195.

190. See Appendix (D).

191. Akin to τήθη or τίτθη, nurse or grandmother, τίτθη, nipple, τιθήνη, nurse, &c. Hermann renders it Alumnia.

192. Schwenk, 102.

193. Theog. 371. seq.

194. Il. xix. 398. (compare, however, vi. 513.) Od. i. 24. ϓπϵρίων ἠέλιοѕ occurs in Il. viii. 480. Od. i. 8 ; xii. 133. 263. 346. 374. It is very probable that ϓπϵρίων is the contraction of ϓπϵριονίων. See Passow s. v. Völcker, Hom. Geog. 26.

195. Isth. v. 1.

p. 53

196. This is adopted by Völcker, ut sup., and Müller, Proleg. 375. Hermann renders it Tollo (subst.).

197. From θέω. Völcker, ut supra. Hermann makes it Ambulona.

198. Proleg. ut supra.

199. Od. x. 191. Compare Apoll. Rh. iii. 1191.

200. The most learned of poets is the only one that has alluded to this fiction in modern times. He evidently had it in view in the following lines :

……… The gilded car of day

His glowing axle doth allay

In the steep Atlantic stream ;

And the slope sun his upward beam

Shoots against the dusky pole,

Pacing toward the other goal

Of his chamber in the cast. — Comus, 95-101.

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201. Athen. xi. 470.

b Id. l. c.

202. Id. l. c. This grove Müller (Dorians, i. 536.) thinks was in the country of the Hyperboreans.

d Id. l. c.

203. Strabo, i. 2.

204. Fr. Phaëthôn.

205. Alcest. 608.

p. 55

206. Athen. l. c.

207. Met. iv. 214.

208. Theb. iii 407.

209. Dionys. xii. l. seq.

210. Ib. xxxii. 51 ; xxxviii. 297.

211. In Prim. Cons. Stil. ii. 467.

212. Met. ii. l. seq.

p. 56

213. Hymn to Demeter, 88. 89.

214. Ol. vii. 130.

215. Eur. Ion. 82. Electr. 871. Fr. Archelaos, ii. Fr. Phaëthôn, i.

216. Accius, Fr. in Porson’s note on Eur. Phœn. 1. Ovid, Amor. ii. l. 24. Compare Propert. ii. 15. 32.

217. Hygin. 183. Sch. Eur. Phœn. 1. For Bronte and Sterope, Ovid (Met. ii. 153.) gives Pyroeis (Fiery), and Phlegôn (Burning).

218. Od. xii. 127. seq.

219. Hom. Hymn to Apoll. Pyth. 233.

220. Servius, Virg. Buc. vi. 60.

221. Herod. ix. 93.

222. Πλὴν τοῡ τρέϕοντοѕἩλίον χθονὸѕ ϕύσιν. — Æsch. Agam. 644.

223. Od. x. 137.

224. Apollod. i. 9. 1.

225. Od. xii. 133.

p. 57

226. Apoll. Rh. i. 172. Apollod. ii. 5. 5. Tzetz. Lyc. 41.

227. Pind. Ol. vii. 25. seq.

228. Antimachus ap. Paus. ix. 35. 38.

229. Virgil in one place (Æn. x. 190.) says poplars, in agreement with the current of authorities ; in another (Buc. vi. 62.) he calls them alders.

230. Ovid, Met. i. 750. seq. ; ii. 1. seq. Hygin. 152. 154. Nonn. xxxviii. 105. 439. Apoll. Rh. iv. 597. seq. Virg. Buc. vi. 62. (Servius and Voss, in loc.) Æn. x. 189. Serv. in loc. Lucret. v. 397. seq. Lucian, D. D. 25. De Electro.

231. There are still some fragments remaining of the Heliades of Æschylus and the Phaëthôn of Euripides. Ovid appears to have followed closely the former drama. Hyginus and the Scholiast on Homer (Od. xi. 325.) give Hesiod as their authority, but it was probably the Astronomy ascribed to that poet, a late production, to which they referred.

p. 58

232. Ἥλϵκτρον, as Welcker observes, resembles ἠλέκτωρ, an epithet of the Sun. Buttmann (Ueber das Elektron Mytholog. ii. 337. seq.) derives ἔλϵκτρον from ἔλκω, to draw.

233. Tril. 566. seq.

234. Apoll. Rh. ut supra.

235. Ovid, Met. iv. 190. seq.

p. 59

236. Lactantius Placidus, in his Arguments of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, quotes Hesiod for this story.

237. Hymn to Demeter, 62.

238. Il. iii. 277 ; xix. 259. Compare Virg. Æn. xii. 176.

239. Pliny, H. N. xxxiv. 7.

240. Pind. Ol. vii. 100. seq.

241. 1. τϵρψίμβροτοѕ : 2. ϕαϵσίμβροτοѕ : 3. ἀκάμѕ.

242. When we recollect that s and h are commutable (ἑπτα, septem, ὑλη, silva), as also the semivowels l, n, r (Panormus, Palermo, etc.), we may perhaps say that Helios, Sol (Latin and Scandinav.), Sonne, Sun (Germ. and Eng.), Surya (Sanscrit), are akin.

p. 60

243. Hom. Hymn xxxii. 7.

244. Idyll. ii. 163.

245. Rem. Amor. 258. Fasti, iv. 374.

246. Theb. i. 336. See also viii. 271.

247. Paus. v. 11. 8.

248. «Mulus vehiculo Lunæ adhibetur quod tam sterilis ea sit quam mulus, vel quod ut mulus non suo genere sed equi creetur, sic ea solis non suo, fulgore luceat.»

249. See Voss, Mythol. Briefe, ii. 7. 8. This able critic makes two most extraordinary mistakes on this subject. He says that Euripides gives Selene a chariot (Phœn. 178. seq.), whereas the poet in that place is evidently speaking of the chariot of Amphiaraos. Again, he says, «In Nonnus (vii. 244.) she drives in a silver car with unbridled mules.» It is the chariot of Semele, not of Selene, that is described by that poet.

250. Nonnus, i. 331. 455 ; ii. 405 ; vii. 247 ; xi. 187 ; xii. 5 ; xlviii. 320. (βοῶν ἐλάτϵιρα Σϵλήνη is his usual expression). Claudian, R. P. iii. 403. Eidyl, i. 60. Anthol. Lat. i. 1. 56. See also the epigram in the fragments of Ovid.

251. Moschus (Idyll. ii. 87.), when describing the bull into which Zeus changed himself in order to carry off Europa, says,

Ἲσά τ ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλοσι κέρα ἀνέτϵλλϵ καρήνον

Ἄντνγοѕ ἡμιτόμον κϵραῆѕ űτϵ κύκλα σϵλήνηѕ.

It may be that a similar view was also the origin of the epithet τανροπόλοѕ given to Artemis at Athens (Eur. Iph. in Taur. 1469. Aristoph. Lys. 447.), and to Athena (another moon-goddess) according to Xenomedes (Sch. Lys. l. c.).

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252. Eur. Phœn. 178. 179. Nonnus, xliv. 191. The scholiast on Euripides (l. c.) says that «Æschylus and the ϕνσικώτϵροι say she is his daughter, because she partakes of the solar light, and changes her form according to the solar positions,» or «because she thence, as from a fount, draws light.» This, by the way, strongly resembles Milton’s

Hither as to their fountain other stars

Repairing in their golden urns draw light.» — P. L. vii. 364.

253. Quintus Smyrnæus, x. 334. seq.

254. Hymn iii. 100.

255. See below, Part II. chap. X. Endymiôn.

256. Virg. Geor. iii. 391. Philargyrius (in loc.) says that the fable was related by Nicander.

257. Hom. Hymn xxxii. 15. Πανδῖα, all-divine or all-bright, is plainly the Moon.

258. Διὸѕ θύγατϵρ ἔρσα τρέϕϵι καἱ Σϵλάνѕ δίαѕ

are the words of Alcman, as quoted by Plutarch. Quæst. Nat. 24. De Fac. in Orb. Lunæ, 25. Sympos. iii. 10, 3.

259. «Roscida Luna.» Virg. Geor. iii. 335. In the Icaromenippus (13.) of the witty Lucian Empedocles lives in the moon, where he feeds on dew ; and in the same writer's True History (i. 20.) the Selenites agree to pay the Heliotes an annual tribute of 10,000 urns of dew. The same notion will be found in modern poets. Thus Tasso, —

E già spargea rai luminosi e gelo

Di vive perle la sorgente Luna. — Ger. Lib. vi. 103.

Shakspeare (Midsum. Night’s Dream) speaks of ‘Cupid’s fiery dart’

Quenched in the chaste beams of the wat’ry moon ;

and Fletcher says,

…………………………letting fall apace

From those two little heavens upon the ground

Showers of more price, more orient and more round

Than those that hang upon the moon’s pale brow.

Faithful Shepherdess, Act iv.

p. 62

260. 1.λϵυκώλϵνος ; 2. ϵὐπλόκαμος.

261. Plut. De Fac. in Orb. Lunæ, 16. 21.

262. Fr. Incert. 209.

263. Ovid, Met. ix. 420 ; xv. 191. 700. Fasti, iv. 373. The title Pallantias given here to Aurora is, we believe, only to be found in this poet, but we may be certain that he had Greek authority for it. In another place (Fasti, iv. 943.) he calls her Titania, unless the reading Tithonia is to be preferred.

264. Agam. 275.

265. Æschylus, Pers. 384. Eur. Troad. 844. Bion, Idyll. vi. 18. Quint. Smyrn. i. 119. 823 ; v. 62 ; viii. 2. Nonnus, vii. 286. 294 ; XXV. 567. Musæus, 110. Tryphiodor. 204. Virg. Æn. vi. 535. Val. Flac. Arg. i. 283.

266. Od. xxiii. 245.

267. Ut supra.

p. 63

268. Idyl. xiii. 11. See also Quint. Smyrn. i. 49.

269. Troad. 843. For χρύσϵος Barnes reads κρόκϵος, which reading is followed by Voss, M. B. ii. 79.

270. Orest. 1001.

271. Cass. 16. 17.

272. Sch. II. vi. 155. Sch. Eur. Orest. ut supra. Tzetz. Lyc. ut supra. Eudocia, 89.

273. Hes. Th. 378.

274. Od. v. 121.

275. Od. xv. 250.

276. Hes. Th. 986. Eur. Hyp. 456. See Part II. ch. v. Ceph. and Proc.

277. Hom. Hymn to Aphrodite, 218. seq.

278. Sch. II. xi. 1. Tzetz. Lyc. 18.

p. 64

279. Il. xi. 1. Od. v. 1. Nonnus, xxvii. 3. Propert. ii. 18. 7.

280. Hes. Th. 984. The taking away by the Dawn of Oriôn (the constellation), of Cephalos (κνέραλοϛ, darkness), are easy of explication. That of Cleitos may signify the union of the dawn with light. The tale of Tithonos has the air of a mere poetic fiction.

281. 1.ῥοδοδάκτυλοϛ : 2.ῥοδόπηχυϛ : 3.κροκόπєπλοϛ : 4.χρυσόθρουοϛ : 5.ἐῦθρουοϛ: 6.ἐϋπλόκαμοϛ : 7.χιονοπἐζα : 8.καλλιϕєγγήϛ : 9.ϕαєσίμβροτοϛ : 10.πολυδєρκήϛ : 11.ἠριγέυια.

282. See Appendix (E).

283. Hermann, Ueber das Wesen, &c., 98. The Latin Aurora is similarly related to aura.

284. IIes. Th. 404.

285. From ϕἀω, to shine. Phœbe, according to Hermann, is Februa, Purger, and Coios, Turbulus.

286. From καίω, to burn.

p. 65

287. Theog. 375.

288. Ib. 239.

289. Hermann renders it Sejugus, from κρίνω, to separate.

290. Hermann however makes them both natural beings, rendering Themis Statina, and Mnemosyne Moneta, or Mover.

291. Theog. 409.

292. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iii. 467.

p. 66

293. Tzetz. Lyc. 1180. Hecate was worshiped at Pheræ in Thessaly, hence this genealogy.

294. Sch. Theocr. ii. 12.

295. Sch. Apoll. Rh. l. c.

296. Theog. 412. seq.

297. See Göttling in loc. Thiersch, Ueber Hesiodos, p. 24.

298. Ἓκατοϛ, Far-shooter (from έκάϛ). Il. vii. 83 ; xx. 295.

299. Ἄρτєμιν δ҆ έκάταν, Æschyl. Sup. 690.

p. 67

300. Apoll. Rh. iii. 862. Ovid, Met. VII. 194. seq.

301. Virg. Æn. iv. 512. Servius, in loc. The fish called τρίγλη (Mullet) was offered to her, διὰ τὴν τῆϛ ὀνομασίας κοινότητα ; she was τριοδîτης and τρίγληνος; and her suppers were on the thirtieth of the month (ταȋς τριάκασι). Athen. vii. 325.

302. Sch. Aristoph. Wasps, 804.

303. Aristoph. ap. Eustath. p. 1467. l. 35. (Fr. Incert. 133.) Euripides ap. Plut. de Is. et Os. 71.

304. Sch. Aristoph. Plut. 594. Eudocia, 144.

305. See Voss, M. B. iii. 190. seq.

306. From βρέμω, to roar.

307. Argonaut. iii. 1214-1217.

308. Philopseud. 22-24.

309. Eudocia, 147.

p. 68

310. Theog. 716. seq.

311. Il. viii. 479.

312. Il. xiv. 274 ; xv. 225.

313. Pind. Pyth. iv. 518.

314. Works and Days, 167. seq.

315. Ol. ii. 123. seq.

316. Æschyl. Fr. 178. Welcker, Tril. 35. seq.

317. Plut. de Defect. Orac. 18. De Fac. in Orb. Lunæ, 26. Procopius Bell. Goth. iv. 20. «On the coast of the ocean opposite Britannia,» says Tzetzes (Lyc. 1204.), «dwell fishermen who are subjects of the Franks, but they pay them no tribute, on account, as they say, of their ferrying over the souls of the departed. They go to sleep in their houses in the evening, but after a little time they hear a knocking at the doors, and a voice calling them to their work. They get up and go to the shore, not knowing what the need is ; they see boats there, but not their own, with no one in them ; they get in, row away, and perceive that they are heavy as if laden with passengers, but they see no one. In one pull (ῥοπῇ) they reach the isle of Britannia, which with their own boats they can hardly reach in a day and a night. They still see no one, but they hear the voices of those that receive their passengers, and name their fathers and mothers, and themselves, and their ranks and occupations. They then return with their boats much lighter, and in one pull they reach their homes.» There is a curious legend somewhat similar to this in the Fairy Mythology (i. 202.), the scene of which is in nearly the same spot.

p. 69

318. Works and Days, 112. seq. Göttling rejects v. 111,

Οἱ μὲν ἐπὶ Κρόνου ἧσαν ὁτ᾿ οὐρανῷ ἐμβασίλϵυϵν,

as not Hesiodic. It is certainly utterly at variance with the Theogony and with Homer.

319.

гήματο δ᾿Εὐονὐμην θαλρὸν Κρόνος ἀγκυλοήτης,

Έκ τοû καλλίκομος γένϵτο χρυσῆ Άϕροδίτη,

Μοûραί τ᾿ ἀθάνατοι καὶ Ἐριννύϵς αἰολόδωροι. — Tzetz. Lyc. 406.

There does not appear the slightest allusion to this strange genealogy anywhere else. We should perhaps read Eurynome for Euonyme, and then Kronos might take the place of Ophiôn.

320. Geor. iii. 193.

321. Sch. Ap. Rh. iii. 554.

322. Pyth. iii. 1-9.

323. Il. xi. 832.

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324. ϕιλύρα, quasi ϕιλίλυρα. Welcker, Nachtrag zur Tril. 53. note.

325. There is scarcely any difference between κρόνος and χρόνος. «Χρόνος ό πάντων πατήρ.» Pind. Ol. ii. 32. Hermann renders Kronos Perficus, from κραίνω.

326. Welcker, Tril. 96. We cannot, however, agree with this critic that Rhea is equivalent to Gæa, Earth.

327. See below, Mythology of Italy, Saturnus ; and Buttmann, Ueber den Kronos oder Saturnus, Mytholog. ii. 28. seq.

328. There was a chapel of Kronos and Rhea at Athens (Paus. i. 18, 7.), and sacrifices were made to him on the Kronian hill at Olympia. (Id. vi. 20, l.)

329. Demosth. Timocr. 708.

330. Philochorus ap. Macrob. i. 10. «Ut patres familiarum et frugibus et fructibus jam coactis passim cum servis vescerentur… delectari enim deum honore servorum contemplatu laboris.» Macrobius also gives the following lines from the Annals of the old poet Accius.

Maxima pars Graium Saturno et maxime Athenæ

Conficiunt sacra quæ Cronia esse iterantur ab illis :

Cumque diem celebrant, per agros urbesque per omnes

Exercent epulas læti, famulosque procurant

Quisque suos. Nostrisque itidem est mos traditus illinc

Iste, ut cum dominis famuli epulentur ibidem.

It seems hardly credible that so remarkable a festival should be unnoticed by all the extant Greek writers ; and we cannot help thinking that the Greeks of the later times attempted to pass off their Kronia as the origin of the Saturnalia. Surely the vintage was not over in July. See Böttiger, Kunst-Myth. i. 222.

p. 71

331. Άγκλομήτηϛ. Nonnus (xxv. 234.) calls him Broad-bearded (ϵὐρυγένϵιοϛ).

p. 72

332. Od. vi. 42-46. Sec Lucret. iii. 18-22.

p. 73

333. Even in the historic days the gods were in the popular idea of larger size than men. See Herod. i. 60.

334. Il. v. 837. See Hom. Hymn iv. 173.

335. Il. xxi. 407.

336. Il. v. 744. Heyne,in loc.

337. Il. v. 860 ; xiv. 148.

338. Il. iv. 86 ; xiii. 45. 216. Od. i. 105 ; ii. 268.

339. Il. vii. 58 ; xiv. 290. Od. iii. 371. Heyne however (on Il. vii. 58.) denies these changes.

340. Il. i. 198.

341. Il. v. 340. 416.

342. Il. v. 392. 395.

343. Il. v. 335. 855.

344. A passage in the Odyssey (xii. 63.) would seem to say that the ambrosia was brought each day by pigeons to Olympos from the shores of Ocean in the blissful West. See Appendix (F.).

p. 74

345. Il. i. 601. seq.

346. Il. i. 423. Od. i. 26. 125. seq. ; vii. 201. seq. (Nitzsch in loc.)

347. Od. ii. 399. seq.

348. Il. v. 592.seq. ; xiii. 43. seq.

349. Il. ix. 538.

350. Il. i. 53 ; viii. 218 ; xvii. 468.

351. Il. iv. 49 ; xxiv. 70.

352. Il. ix. 497.

353. Il. xv. 193.

354. Il. xiii. 355 ; xv. 164.

p. 75

355. Il. xx. 7.

356. Il. xviii. 382. Od. viii. 266. seq.

357. We shall give in the sequel some reasons for regarding Il. ix. 559-64. as an interpolation.

358. Od. viii. ut supra. Il. v. 247. 248.

359. Il. v. 735 ; xiv. 178.

360. Il. xviii. 417.

361. We much doubt if the favourite theory of Voss (of which the idea appears to have been given by Eustathius) of these soles having a magic power, and that the gods were transported by them, be correct (See Heyne on Il. v. 768.) ; another notion of his, that the horses of the gods were shod by Hephæstos, is certainly erroneous, for the Greeks did not shoe their horses.

362. Il. xiii. 18.

363. Il. xv. 80.

p. 76

364. Il. v. 722. seq.

365. The old, now provincial, term streaks(German Strichen), signifying the separate pieces of iron which were nailed round the whcels of vehicles, seems exactly to correspond to the Greek ἐπίσσωτρα. We can hardly suppose the smiths of Homer's days to have understood the mode of shoeing in a hoop.

366. The carliest instances to be found of any other species of animal drawing the chariots of the gods are in Sappho's Hymn to Aphrodite, where she describes the chariot of that goddess as drawn by sparrows ; and that of Alcæus to Apollo (below, ch. viii.), where the god has a team of swans.

367. Il. xiv. 300.

368. Il. viii. 41. seq. ; xiii. 23. seq. It is worthy of notice that while the chariots of men had sometimes three horses (Il. viii. 80-87 ; xvi. 148-154.), or perhaps even four (viii. 185.), those of the gods had never more than two. Il. v. 768 ; viii. 41-45 ; xiii. 23. Od. xxiii. 245.

p. 77

369. Sch. Apoll. Rh. ii. 532.

370. Id. iii. 1085. Eudocia, 108.

371. Welcker, Tril. 180. Böttiger, Kunst-Myth. ii. 52.

372. Herod. ii. 7 ; vi. 108. Thuc. vi. 54. Plato, Laws. v. 745.

373. They were Zeus and Poseidôn, Hera and Athena, Hermes and Apollo, the Graces and Dionysos, Artemis and Alpheios, Kronos and Rhea. Herodorus, ap. Sch. Pind. Ol. v. 10.

374. Strabo, xiii. 1. 3. Polyb. iv. 39. Diodor. xvi. 92 ; xvii. 95.

p. 78

375. Il. xiii. 355.

376. Il. vii. 479 ; xiii. 242, 794 ; xii. 252 ; xiii. 795. seq. ; v. 552 ; xii. 278. seq. ; xix. 359 ; xvii. 547 ; x. 5. seq.

377. Il. iv. 75 ; xi. 53 ; xiii. 244 ; xvii. 548.

378. Il. i. 238, 239.

379. ΙΙατὴρ άνδρῶν τϵ θϵῶν τϵ.

380. Il. ii. 116 ; iv. 55 ; v. 877 ; viii. 5-27, 210 ; ix. 25 ; xii. 242 ; xiii. 355.

381. Il. ii. 197, 205.

382. Zeus-sprung (Διογϵνὴς), Zeus-reared (Διοτρϵϕὴς), Zeus-loved (Διόϕιλος).

383. Il. i. 540. seq.

384. Il. v. 888. seq.

p. 79

385. Od. i. 32. seq.

386. The notion of Voss, that the gods were all born in the Island of the Blest at the Fount of Ocean, appears to us to be quite unsupported by evidence. He founds it on Il. xiv. 201.

387. These beings, which have been confounded with the Corybantes and others, and made the subjects of much mystery, seem to be nothing but the Cretan young men (κοûροι), who used to dance the Pyrrhiche, or war-dance, thrown back to the mythic times, and associated with the deity in whose honour they performed their dance. See Lobeck, 1111. seq.

388. Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus.

389.

Τὸν μὲν ἂρα τρήρωνϵς ὑπὸ ζαθέѱ τρἀϕον ἂντρῳ,

Άμβροσίην ϕϵρέουσαι ἀπ᾿ Ὠκεανοȋο ῥοάων·

Νέκταρ δ̓ ἐκ πέτρης μέγας αἰετὸς ἀἰὲν ἀϕύσσων

ΓῆAαμϕηλς ϕορέεσκε ποτὸν Διȋ μητιόν.

Mœro of Byzantion (Athen. xi. 490.)

p. 80

390. Κρῆτες άεὶ ψεῦσται. Callim. ut supra, ver. 8.

391. Callim. ut supra.

392. Paus. viii. 31. 4 ; 38. 3 ; 47. 3.

393. Theog. 886. seq.

p. 81

394. Il. v. 370, 371.

395. Theog. 938

396. It is curious to mark the apparent progress of this tale. In the text we have followed Callimachus (Hymn iv. 37. seq.), who says, alluding to her name, that she came down ‘like a star.’ This was probably the more ancient version, but it was also said that she took the form of a quail, ὄρτυξ, (see Apollod. i. 4. l. Hygin. 53. Serv. on Æn. III. 73.), whence the isle was named Ortygia. This identification of Delos and Ortygia was, however, certainly later than the time of Pindar, who (Nem. i. 4.) calls them sisters. (See below, chap. viii.) The whole legend seems to owe its origin to the affinity of sense between the words Asteria and Delos.

p. 82

397. In Hebrew Cedars of God are lofty cedars. Commentators in general regard the Sons of God in Gen. vi. 2. as being, to use the words of Milton,

……that sober race of men, whose lives

Religious titled them the Sons of God.

See Heyne on Apollod. i. 7. 5.

398. In the Ilias, when Hector is routing the Greeks, Poseidôn says of him (xiii. 54.) ὂς Διòς εὔχετ έρισθευαι πάϊς εἶνι.

399. Od. xvii. 484. seq. Ilesiod, Works, 217. seq.

400. Met. VIII. 620. seq. We have been unable to discover his Greek original.

401. The reader will doubtless have observed the resemblance between this legend and the account of Lot and the angels in the book of Genesis, which last may have been carried to Greece, or have been learned by the Greeks at Alexandria. See Leclerc’s ‘Dissertatio de Sodoma, &c.’ in his ‘Mosis Prophetæ V Libri, &c.’ In the Fairy Mythology (ii. 97.) will be found a Swiss version of this legend.

402. Φηγòς, quercus esculus. See II. vii. 60.

403. Il. xvi. 233. Od. xiv. 327 ; xix. 296. Hes. Fr. 54.

404. Il. viii. 247 ; xii. 200. seq. Od. ii. 146.

405. This word is derived from ἀΐσσω to excite ; but as it greatly resembles the Greek word for goat (αἲξ, αἰγὸς), the legend of its being covered with the skin of the goat which nursed the god was devised at a subsequent period. See Heyne on Il. ii. 148. 448. Welcker, Tril. 153. Böttiger, Kunst-Myth. ii. 88.

p. 84

406. Il. xv. 510.

407. Il. xv. 508.

408. Il. v. 738. Od. xxii. 297.

409. Il. xvi. 233.

410. 1. αἰγίοχος : 2. νεφεληγερέτης : 3. κελαινεϕὴς : 4. τερπικέραυνς : 5. ὑψίζυγος : 6. ἀστεροπητὴς : 7. μητιέτης : 8. εὐρύοπα.

411. Thus. i. 126.

p. 85

412. Paus. ii. 24. 3. 4.

413. The Greek ζ is frequently d in the corresponding Latin term ; thus ῥίζα, radix, ὄζω, odor. See Müller, Proleg. 289.

414. See Fairy Mythology, i. 35.

415. Hes. Th. 243. 936. See also Od. v. 422 ; xii. 60. 97. Apollodorus (i. 4. 4.) says she was an Oceanis.

416. Theog. 931.

417. See above, p. 57.

418. Eratosth. Catast. 31. Hygin. P. A. i. 17.

419. See below, chap. xi.

420. Herophilos apud Sch. Pind. Ol. vii. 24.

421. Od. xi. 235.

p. 86

422. Od. xi. 305.

423. Hygin. 188. Ovid, Met. vi. 117.

424. Od. i. 71.

425. Ovid, Met. xii. 72. Sch. Theocr. xvi. 49.

426. Ἵππιος, from ἳππος, a horse. Paus. viii. 10. 2 ; 14. 5 ; 25. 7 ; 36. 2 ; 37. 10.

427. See below, chap. ix.

428. Paus. viii. 8. 2. The legend added that Rhea put her new-born babe among the lambs (ἄρνες) that pastured thereabouts, whence au adjacent spring was named Arne.

429. Sch. Pind. Pyth. iv. 246. Probus on Geor. i. 13. Lucan, Phars. vi. 396. Scyphios is evidently related to σκάϕος, a skiff or boat.

430. Soph. Œd. Col. 714. Servius, Geor. i. 13.

431. Hes. Th. 278. seq.

432. Il. viii. 440.

433. Il. xxiii. 277.

434. Il. xxiii. 307.

435. Il. xxiii. 584.

p. 87

436. See Böttiger, Kunst-Myth. ii. 325. seq.

437. See Il. xiii. 4. seq.

438. Od. iv. 707-709.

439. Rudens, i. 5. 10.

440. See in Völcker (Myth. der Jap. 133. seq.) an excellent discussion of this subject.

p. 88

441. In the ‘Tales and Popular Fictions’, 79. seq. will be found some instances. See also Fairy Mythology, passim.

442. Paus. i. 30. 4.

443. See Part II. chap. vi. Bellerophontes.

444. See Part II. ch. v. Cecrops

445. Paus. ii. 30, 5.

446. Id. ii. 15, 5.

447. Id. ii. 1, 6.

448. Plut. Symp. ix. 6.

449. Plut. l. c.

450. Paus. ii. 33, 2. Strabo, viii. 6. It was Helios, not Apollo, that was the possessor of Tænaron. Hom. Hymn ii. 233. seq.

451. See Müller, Æginetica 26. seq.

452. Il. xiii. 21. Od. v. 381.

453. Hom. Hymn ii. 52.

454. Il. viii. 203 ; xx. 404.

455. Apoll. Rh. iii. 1240. seq

p. 89

456. 1. γαιήοχος : 2. ἐννοσίχθων, ἐννοσίγαιος : 3. κυανοχαίτης : 4. εὐρυμέδων, εὐρυκρείων, εὐρυσθενής : 5. βαρυσμάραγος, βαρύδουπος, βαρύκτυπος, ἑρίκτυπς.

457. Müller, Proleg. 289.

458. Il. ix. 158. 159.

459. From α and εἴδω, to see.

460. Πλοῦτος, wealth.

461. Myth. Briefe, ii. 175. Heyne (on Apollod. p. 780.) is of opinion that it was first given in the Mysteries. It is employed occasionally by the Attic dramatists (Soph. Antig. 1200. Eur. Alc. 370. Aristoph. Plut. 727.), and became the prevalent one in later times, when Hades came to signify a place rather than a person. It was very rarely used by the Latin writers.

p. 90

462. Servius on Virg. Buc. vii. 61.

463. Strabo, viii. 344. Sch. Nicand. Alex. 374. Oppian. Hal. iii. 486. Ovid, Met. x. 730.

464. Il. v. 395. seq.

465. Sch. Il. v. 395. 397. Sch. Od. xi. 605. Eudocia, 207. The other authorities arc collected by Heyne in his note on Il. v. 397. Voss translates in this sense.

466. Apollod. ii. 7, 3. Paus. vi. 25, 2. Seneca, Herc. Furens, 560-5. See Pind. Ol. ix. 50. with the Scholia. Heyne, Müller, and Buttmann are in favour of this sense of the phrase.

467. Il. iii. 278 ; ix. 568. seq. ; xx. 61. seq. ; xxiii. 100. Theog. 455. 767.

468. Od. x. 508. seq. ; xi. l. seq., 635. seq. ; xii. 81.

469. It is well known that Hades became afterwards synonymous with Erebos (see Appendix G.). Heyne (on Il. viii. 368.) makes a strange mistake in saying that Erebos lay between the Earth and Hades, beneath which was Tartaros. Passow (υ. ἔρεβος) adopts this notion, and adds that Erebos was but a passage to Ilades, from which it is expressly distinguished in Il. viii. 368. (as person and place certainly). It is plain that neither of these writers had correct ideas on this subject.

p. 91

470. Od. xi. 488.

471. The genuineness of the passage (Od. xi. 568-630.) in which these personages are mentioned was doubted by Aristarchus. Notwithstanding the arguments of Payne Knight (Proleg. § xix.) in defence of it, we incline to the opinion of the Alexandrian critic.

472. See Plato, Rep. iii. 336. b. Voss, Anti-Symb. i. 203, 204. The ancient Hebrews seem also to have had gloomy ideas of Sheôl, their under-world ; the Celtic and Germanic tribes the contrary.

473. The river which was to be passed is mentioned in the Ilias (xxiii. 73.), but that may have been the ocean-stream.

474. The earliest mention of Charôn in Grecian poetry seems to be in the ancient poem of the Minyas, quoted by Pausanias, x. 28. See Pind. Fr. Incert. 30. Æschyl. Seven ag. Thebes, 856-62. Agam. 1568. Eur. Alc. 371. 451. Aristoph. Lys. 606. Plut. 278. Frogs, 183.

475. Apollod. ii. 5, 12. Homer (Il. viii. 368.) mentions the dog of Hades. Hesiod (Th. 311.) names him Cerberos, and gives him fifty heads. See also Th. 769-773. Others gave him one hundred heads. Horace, Carm. ii. 13, 34.

p. 92

476. This is probably founded on the passage in the Odyssey (xi. 568.) where the hero says he saw Minôs judging in Erebos, but he only judged there as Oriôn hunted, i. e. pursued his occupation as when on earth. According to the fine mythe in Plato (Gorgias, 523.), Æacos and Rhadamanthys sit at the point in the mead (τριόδῳ) where the path branches off to the Isles of the Blest and to Tartaros (see Virg. Æn. vi. 540.) ; the former judges the dead from Europe, the latter those from Asia. If any case proves too difficult for them, it is reserved for the decision of Minôs.

477. Fluvius, amnis, flumen Lethæus-um, Virg. Æn. vi. 705, 714, 749.

478. These were Acherôn, Pyriphlegethôn, and Cocytos. Od. x. 513, 514.

479. Virg. Æn. ut supra. It is not known how or when the doctrine of the Metempsychosis came into Greece. We first meet it in Pindar, Ol. ii. 123. Fr. Thren. 4.

480. De R. P. ii. 282. seq. See also Sil. Ital. xiii. 524. seq. and Tibul. i. 3. 59. seq.

481. Lobcck, Aglaoph. 811.

482. See Od. xxiv. 1-14.

p. 93

483. Diodor. i. 92, 96.

484. The North American Indians place the happy hunting-grounds of the departed far away beyond a stream in the West. The ideas of the Greenlanders, and of some of the tribes of South America, are similar. See Völcker, H. G. 142.

485. This notion scems almost peculiar to the Odyssey ; the only allusion to it that we have met with elsewhere is in Sophocles (Œd. Tyr. 176.), where Hades is called ‘the western god’ (ἀκτὰν πρὸς ἑσπέρου θεοῦ).

p. 94

486. II. v. 845.

487. Apollod. i. 6, 2.

488. l. Ζεὺς καταχθόνιος : 2. ἀγεσίλαος : 3. πολυδέγμων, πολυδέκτης : 4. πυλαρτὴς : 5. ἀγέλαστος : 6. κλυτόπωλος : 7. ἀδάμαστος : 8. ἴϕθιμος : 9. στυγερὸς : 10. κρυερός.

489. We agree with Heyne and Payne Knight in regarding the line of the Ilias (ix. 457.) where this epithet occurs as spurious. It is contrary to the analogy of the whole poem. We however doubt of the genuineness of much of this ninth book.

490. Paus. ii. 35. Ovid, Fast. vi. 757.

Δάματρα μέλπω κόραν τε Κλυμένοιο ἄλοχον Μελίβοιαν.

Lasos of Hermione, Hymn to Demeter (Athen. x. 455 ; xiv. 624.).

Ͳῇ χθονίῃ μυστικὰ Δήμητρί τε καί Περσεϕόνῃ καὶ Κλυμένῳ τὰ δῶρα.

Philicos of Corcyra (Hephæstion, ch. ix.).

491. Ol. ix. 50. seq. Compare Simonides Fr. iv. 14.

492. Sat. v. 19.

p. 95

493. “Victima nil miserantis Orci.” — Hor. Carm. ii. 3, 24.

494. v. 74. seq.

495. Virg. Æn. iv. 698. seq. Hor. Carm. i. 28. 19, 20. Stat. Silv. ii. l. 147.

496. Theog. 454.

497. Pind. Nem. xi. l. seq.

498. Paus. i. 18, 3.

p. 96

499. Il. iv. 59.

500. Il. xiv. 202. seq.

501. Il. xiv. 295.

502. Theog. 921.

503. Sch. Theocr. xv. 64. from Aristotle. Paus. ii. 17. 4.

504. Sch. Theocr. xv. 64. from Aristotle. Paus. ii. 17. 4.

505. Il. xv. 18. seq.

506. Il. i. 590. seq. compared with xv. 22.

n.p.

507. Coluth. Rapt. Hel. 88. 173.

508. Hom. Hymn II. 127. seq.

509. Idyll. II. 55. seq.

p. 98

510. Met. i. 722.

511. Dionys. xii. 72.

512. Its Persian name at the present day is Taous.

513. Athen. xiv. 655.

514. Ovid, Met. ii. 531.

515. II. xiv. 364.

p. 99

516. Paus. ii. 38. 2.

517. Id. ii. 17. 3.

518. Id. ii. 17. 2.

519. Alcman Fr. 29.

520. Paus. ii. 22. 1.

521. Id. viii. 22. 2.

522. Id. vii. 4. 4.

523. Sch. Apoll. Rb. i. 187. Διù τὸ ἐκϵȋ παρθένον οὒσαν τϵτράϕθαι τὴν Ἤραν.

p. 100

524. Menodotos ap. Athen. xv. p. 672.

525. Plin. H. N. xxiv. 9.

526. “Novæque nuptæ farreum præferebant.” — Plin. H. N. xviii. 3.

527. “Nubentis habitu.” — Varro.

528. In Elis it was woven every fifth year. Paus. v. 16. 2.

529. Athen. ut sup.

p. 101

530. Plut. Fr. ix. 6. Paus. ix. 3. 41.

p. 102

531. Paus. ut supra.

532. Plut. Fr. ix. 3.

533. Eustath. II. ii. p. 286.

534. See Welcker in Schwenk. 267. seq.

p. 103

535.

Γαȋα μϵγίστη καὶ Διὸѕ αἰθήρ

Ὁ μὲν ἀνθρώπων καὶ θϵῶν γϵνέτωρ‚

Ἡ δ᾽ ὑγροβόλουѕ σταγόναѕ νοτίουѕ

Παραδϵξαμένη τίκτϵι θνατοὺѕ

Τίκτϵι δὲ βορὰν ϕɗῡλά τϵ θηρῶν᾽

Ὅθϵν οὐκ ἀδίκωѕ

Μήτηρ πάντων νϵνόμισται. — Frag. of Chrysippos.

536. De Rer. Nat. i. 251. seq. ; ii. 991. seq. This poet nearly translates the preceding lines of Euripides.

537. See the beautiful passage, Geor. ii. 325. seq.

538. Herod. i. 31. Cows were also sacred to the Egyptian Isis (Id. ii. 41.), whom he identifies with Demeter (ii. 156.).

539. Müller, Proleg. 262. He renders it cow-formed with reference to Io.

540. Paus. ii. 17. 4.

p. 104

541. 1. βοῶπιѕ : 2. λϵυκώλϵνοѕ : 3. χρυσόθρονοѕ : 4. χρυσοπέῦιλοѕ.

542. Plato, Cratyl. 404.

543. The Epos of Hesiod is ″Ερωѕ in the subsequent writers.

544. Müller, Proleg. 244. Böttiger, Kunst-Myth. ii. 222, 223. Δέσποινα and ἄνασσα were titles frequently given to the goddesses ; the former iu particular belonged to Demeter and her daughter.

545. For further information on the subject of Hera the reader is referred to Welcker, ut supra, and to Böttiger’s Kunst-Myth. ii. 213. seq.

546. II. v. 892. 896. Theog. 922.

547. II. v. 855.

548. II. xxi. 391.

p. 105

549. II. iv. 440.

550. II. v. 333.

551. Theog. 273.

552. II. vii. 166 ; viii. 264 ; xiii. 519 ; xvii. 259 ; xviii. 339 ; xx. 69 ; xxii. 132.

553. Od. viii. 266. seq. Ovid, A. A. ii. 561.

p. 106

554. See Herod. vi. 42.

555. Lucian, Alectr. Eudocia, 34.

556. Theog. 937.

557. Plut. de Is. et Os. 48. Arist. Pol. ii. 6. Macrob. Sat. i. 19. Welcker, Kret. Kol. 40.

558. Theog. 934.

559. II. v. 359. seq. ; xxi. 416. seq.

560. II. ii. 512.

p. 107

561. For all these sons of Ares see Apollodorus, passim.

562. Apollod. iii. 14. Sch. Eur. Orest. 1665.

563. Æschyl. Sup. 683-8.

564. 1. μιαίϕονοѕ : 2. ῥινοτόροѕ : 3. ἀνδρϵιϕόντηѕ, βροτολοιγόѕ : 4. πτολιπόρθοѕ : 5. χρυσϵοπήληξ : 6. χάλκϵοѕ : 7. λαοσσόοѕ : 8. θοῠροѕ.

565. Welcker in Schwenk. 292. seq. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 79.

566. II. i. 572, 578.

567. Théog. 927.

p. 108

568. II. xviii. 394. seq.

569. II. viii. 195.

570. Apollod. iii. 4, 3.

571. Apoll. Rh. iii. 230.

572. Od. vii. 91. Nitzsch in loc.

573. II. xviii. 419.

574. Apollod. i. 9, 26. See Part II. chap. xii. Minôs.

575. See above, p. 54.

p. 109

576. Works and Days, 60.

577. Shield of Hercules, 141. Thiersch and Göttling, we think, justly regard vv. 141-317 as the interpolation of a poet of a much later age.

578. II. xviii. 382.

579. Theog. 945.

580. See above, p. 105.

581. See below, Part II. chap. vi.

582. Æsch. Prom. 366.

583. Strabo, vi. 2. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iii. 42.

584. Æneis, viii. 407. seq.

585. Od. vi. 233 ; xxiii. 160. Hom. Hymn xx. Plato, Politic. p. 177. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 21. seq.

p. 110

586. 1. ἀμϕιγυήεις : 2. кυλλοποδίων : 3. ἠπεδανός : 4. Кλυτοτέχνης, кλυτοεργός : 5. ἀγαкλυτὸς, περιкλυτός. 6. πολύμητις, πολύϕρων.

587. II. xx. 73 ; xxi. 330. seq. His name is also synonymous with fire, ix. 468 ; xvii. 88 ; xxiii. 33.

588. Plato, Cratyl. 407.

589. Od. xi. 604. Hes. Th. 922. Her parentage is not mentioned in the Ilias. Ovid, we know not on what authority, calls her (Met. ix. 415.) the step-daughter of Zeus.

590. II. iv. 2. (Heyne in loc.)

591. II. v. 722.

592. II. v. 905. This, however, was not a servile office ; the daughter of Nestôr renders it to Telemachos, Od. iii. 464.

593. Od. xi. 604.

p. 111

594. II. xx. 234 ; in direct opposition with iv. 2.

595. Athen. x. 425.

596. Id. ib.

597. Paus. ii. 13, 3.

598. Strabo, viii. 6.

599. 1. кαλλίσϕυρος : 2. χρυσοστέϕανος : 3. ἀγλαόγυιος.

p. 112

600. See above, p. 64.

601. II. xxi. 499.

602. Hesiod also could have known nothing of this enmity, as (Th. 918.) he makes her marriage with Zeus precede that of Hera.

603. Met. vi. 313. seq. from Nicander ; see Anton. Lib. 35. Virgil also seems to allude to it, Geor. i. 378. This is surely one of those legends which are mere sports of fancy.

p. 113

604. See below, Part II. ch. iv. Zethos and Amphiôn.

605. Od. xi. 576. seq. Apollod. i. 4. 1. Virg. Æn. vi. 595. Sch. Apoll. Rh. i. 761.

606. 1. кαλλίσϕυρος : 2. кυανόπλος : 3. χρυσοπλόкαμος : 4. ἐριкυδής.

607.

“Sable-vested Night, eldest of things.”

Milton, P. L. ii. 962.

608. In Plato (Cratyl. 406.) her name is deduced ἀπὸ τῆς πραότητος τῆς θεοῦ, apparently from λῶ.

609. Thus in the Hymn presently to be quoted, the new-born deity says, ver. 131. —

Εἲη μοι кιθαρις τε ϕίλη καὶ κάμπυλα τόξα,

Χρήσω δ̓ ἀνθρώποισ Διὸς νημερτέα ßουλα.

610. Od. xi. 318.

p. 114

611. II. i. 601.

612. Od. viii. 488.

613. Id. 79.

p. 115

614. Hymn to the Delian Apollo. See Theognis, 5-10. Eur. Hec. 457. seq. We may observe that the tale of Delos having been an invisible or floating island, does not appear to have been devised when this hymn was composed. We meet the latter notion first in Pindar (Fr. Prosod. 2.).

615. Hymn to Delos.

616. Compare Virg. Æn. iii. 75.

p. 117

617. “There are a kind of phonetic symbols of towns and districts, according to which an animal or plant, whose name sounds like theirs, becomes as it were their arms. In the department of figures this has been long since recognised from the medals, but it also frequently appears in the mythic form, and in this it in some cases loses itself in the most remote antiquity.” — Welcker, Kret. Kol. 72.

618. See Müller, Proleg. 209. seq. He thinks that this hymn was composed before the destruction of Cirrha (01. 47.). He also thinks (Dor. i. 241.) that the worship of Apollo at Delphi was established by Dorians from Parnassus and Cretans from the island, about 200 years before the Dorian Migration.

619. Eur. Iph. Taur. 1246. seq. Clearchus of Soli ap. Athen. xv. 701. Hygin. 140. Ovid, Met. i. 439.

620. Apoll. Rh. ii. 706.

p. 118

621. Æschyl. Agam. 1083. Callim. Hymn to Apollo, 20. seq. Plut. De Ei. 20.

622. Il. ix. 557, may seem to form an exception, but see the Appendix.

623. Ovid, Met. i. 452. seq. Hygin. 203. The great majority of the authorities place the legend in Arcadia, making Daphne the daughter of the Ladôn by Earth (the natural parent of a plant), and add that it was her mother that changed her on her prayer. Paus. vlii. 20. 4. Nonnus, xlii. 387. Eudocia, 106. 273. Sch. Il. i. 14. Statius, Th. iv. 289. Serv. Buc. iii. 63. Lucian De Salt. 48. Apollo was, however, much more closely connected with the Peneios and Tempe than with the Ladôn and Arcadia.

p. 119

624. Ovid, Met. ii. 542. seq.

625. Ap. Sch. Pind. Pyth. iii. 14. 48.

626. Pyth. iii. 14. seq.

p. 120

627. Apollod. i. l. 7. Sch. Il. ix. 557. This is alluded to, we may perceive, in the Ilias, and it is the only love-tale of Apollo in Homer. In the Hindoo poem of Nalas, the heroine Damayanti acts in the same manner as Marpessa, and on the same principle.

628. Apollod. iii. 12.

629. Pindar, Pyth. ix. See below, Part II. chap. iv. Autonoe, etc.

630. See below, ch. xii. Muses.

631. Ovid, Met. x. 106. seq. Serv. Æn. iii. 64. We have not met any Greek authority for this legend, and the same story is told of the Italian god Silvanus. Serv. Geor. i. 20.

632. Ovid, Met. x. 162. seq. Apollod. i. 3. 3. iii. 10. 3. Eur. Hel. 1189. seq.

p. 121

633. Eudocia, 408. Nonnus, x. 253. seq. ; xxix. 95. seq. Lucian, D. D. 14. De Salt. 45.

634. See Müller, Dorians, i. 373. This critic gives strong reasons for supposing the Hyacinthia to have been originally a feast of Demeter. The legend in the text was merely invented to give a mythic account of its origin.

635. Apollod. i. 9. 15 ; iii. 10. 4. Eur. Alc. Prol. cum schol., in which Hesiod and Pherecydes are quoted as authorities. Hygin. 49. 50. Diodor. iv. 71. Virg. G. iii. 2. Voss. in loc. The Alexandrians, namely Rhianus (ap. Sch. Eur. Alc. 1.) and Callimachus (Hymn to Apollo, 49.), say that it was out of love he served Admetos.

636. That is if critics be right in referring the following line of Sophocles (ap. Plut. de Def. Orac. 14.) to this subject,

Οὑµὸs δ᾽ ἀλέκτωρ (husband) αὐτὸν ἦγε πρὸς µύλην.

These Müller (Dor. i. 339.) says, are the words of Alcestis in a drama named, it would seem, Admetos.

637. See Part II. chap. ii. Admetos.

p. 122

638. Pindar and Callimachus ap. Tertul. De Cor. Mil. 7.

639. Plut. De Def. Orac. 15. 21. Q. G. 12. Ælian. V. H. iii. l.

640. The same notion is expressed in Plutarch (De Def. Or. 21.) if the reading given by Wyttembach from Eusebius be the true one, as it most probably is.

641. Proleg. 300. seq. Dorians, i. 338. Eumenides, 152. 159.

642. Il. ii. 763.

643. The Venetian MS. (which is followed by Wolf) reads Πηϵρίע for Πιϵρίע. See Heyne in loco. According to the hymn to Hermes (v. 22. 70. seq.) the herds of the gods fed in Pieria under the care of Apollo.

644. Il. xxiii. 287.

p. 123

645. Il. xxi. 442. seq. Any one who reflects on the exalted characters of these two gods in the undoubtedly genuine parts of the poem, must have some suspicion of this legend. The building of the wall is spoken of elsewhere (vii. 452.), and it is said to have been the work of both the gods.

646. Apollod. i. 4. l. Some MSS. for ϴύµβρϵως read ῞ϒβρϵως ; others for Πανὸς read πατρὸς. See Heyne in loc. This critic seems justly disposed to read µαθὼνπαρὰ τοῦ πατρòς, in favour of which is all mythic analogy. According to Nicander (Athen. vii. 296.), the sea-god Glaucos was the instructor of Apollo.

647. This legend is only to be found in Ovid (Met. xi. 153. seq.).

648. Herodotus thus justly names him. See below, chap. xvi. Silenos.

649. Herod. vii. 26. Apollod. i. 4. 2. Paus. ii. 7, 9. Plut. de Fluv. 10. Diodor. iii. 59. Hygin. 165. Ovid, Met. vi. 382. seq. Fasti, vi. 703. seq.

650.

Sonante mixtum tibiis carmen lyra,

Hac Dorium, illis Barbarum. — Hor. Epod. ix. 5.

p. 124

651. Herod. ut supra. Xen. Anab. i. 2, 8. Ælian, V. II. xiii. 20.

652. See Müller, Proleg. 113.

653. Eur. Alc. 990. Plato, Critias. Hermann, Ueber das Wesen, etc., 108. See below, chap. xiii. Pæôn.

654. See Æsch. Eumen. 1. seq. Sch. in loc.

655. Müller, Dorians, vol. i. book ii.

p. 125

656. See Höck, Kreta, vol. ii.

657. Virg. Æneis, iv. 143.

658. Or. xiv. 10. Voss, M. B. ii. 109.

659. Claudian (De VI. Con. Honor. 30.) makes his team on this occasion griffons.

660. See above, p. 34.

p. 126

661. There seems however to be some foundation for it. A naturalist of the present day says, «This species of swan deserves the title Musicus ; for when in small troops they fly aloft in the air their melodious melancholy voices sound like trumpets heard in the distance.» — Faber, Geschichte der Vögel Islands, 1822, quoted by Finn Magnusen (Edda Sæmundar, iii. 530), whose own words are, «Cygnorum cantus dulcissimus in Islandia, Scotia, et pluribus regionibus sæpissime auditur, quod etiam nosmet, propria experientia edocti, attestari possumus.» We have ourselves heard the trumpet-tones of a swan. See Voss. Myth. Br. ii. 132.

p. 127

662. 1. λοξίαϛ: 2. νόμιος : 3. ἀργυρότοξος : 4. ἕκατος, ἑκατηβϵλέτης, ἑκαέργος, ἢἴος : 5. χρυσάορος, χρυσάωρ : 6. ϵὺχαίτης, χρυσοχαίτης : 7. ἀκϵρσϵκόμης : 8. λαοσσόος.

663. Müller, Dor. i. 328. It is usually derived from the crooked ambiguous nature of oracular responses ; but Artemis, who never gave oracles, was named Loxo.

664. This word is connected with λϵυκςὸ, white, and with the Latin lux, luceo, and the Teutonic Licht and Light. The terms ἀμϕίλυκη and λυκάβας prove, we think, the former existence of ΛϒΚΗ. See Müller, ut sup. 325.seq.

665. Some would derive it from λύγη, darkness.

666. Sch. Aristoph. Wasps, 875. Sch. Eurip. Phœn. 640.

p. 128

667. Müller, Dorians, i. 324.

668. Mytholog. i. 167. seq.

669. Il. v. 51 ; xxi. 485. Od. vi. 102. seq.

670. Il. vi. 428 ; xix. 59. Od. xi. 171 ; xv. 476.

671. Od. vi. 102. Comp. Hymn to Aphrodite, 16-20. and Apoll. Rh. iii. 876. seq.

n.p.

672. Hymn xxvii.

673. Hymn to Artemis.

p. 130

674. See Part II. chap. iv. Autonoe.

675. Part II. chap. viii. Callisto.

676. Od. v. 121.

677. Il. xxiv. 602.

678. Apollod. i. 7. Callim. Hymn iii. 264. Below, Part II. chap. iv.

p. 131

679. Callim. Hymn iii. 189. Diodor. v. 76. Anton. Lib. 40. Strabo, x. 4. Paus. ii. 30, 3. Müller, Æginet. 164. seq.

p. 132

680. Ovid, Met. v. 572. seq. Moschus, Idyl. vii.

681. See Müller, Proleg. 135. Dorians, i. 393.

682. Paus. vi. 22, 8-10. Strab. viii. 3. Athen. viii. 346.

683. Above, p. 77.

684. Pind. Ol. vi. 8.

685. Ibycus ap. Sch. Pind. Nem. i. 1. Diodor. v. 3. Strabo, vi. 2. Cicero, Verr. iv. 53.

686. Ibycus ap. Sch. Theocr. i. 117. Pind. Nem. i. 1.

687. Thus the Eleians changed the name of the Alpheiæa of the Letrinæns to Elaphiæa (from ἔλαϕος, Paus. ut sup.).

688. Telesilla ap. Ursinus. Pind. ut sup.

689. Paus. ut sup.

p. 133

690. It is uncertain when this change took place ; it is the goddess who is pursued in Telesilla, ut sup. (O1. 64.). The oracle given to Archias (Paus. v. 7, 3.) is probably a late fiction ; it speaks of the fount of Arethusa. Welcker (Schwenk. 263.) regards this name as being ἂρι-θοῶσα. It may be only a corruption of Alpheiusa.

691. Paus. v. 7, 2.

692. Ibycus ut sup. Strabo ut sup. Mela, ii. 7. Plin. Hist. Nat. ii. 103.

693. Müller, Dorians, i. 392.

694. Herod. iv. 35.

p. 134

695. Callim. Hymn to Delos, 392.

696. Melanopos of Cyme ap. Paus. v. 7, 8.

697. Hygin. 205.

698. Plut. de Fluv. xvi. 3.

699. See below, chap. xii. Eileithyiæ.

700. Of Artemis-Callisto and Art.-Iphigencia, or Orthia, we shall treat in the Second Part.

701. Herod. iv. 103. Eurip. Iph. in Taur.

702. Tacitus, Ann. iii. 62.

703. Clem. Alex. Protrept. p. 20. Arnob. adv. Centes, 6.

p. 135

704. Xen. Hell. iii. 2. 19 ; iv. 8. 17.

705. Buttmann, Mytholog. ii. 133-135.

706. Od. v. 121.

707. Hymn to Delian Apollo, 16. Pind. Nem. i. 1-4. Orph. Hymn xxxv. 5.

708. See below, chap. xix. Ortygia.

709. Paus. ii. 31, 4.

710. Soph. Ajax, 172. Eur. Iph. Taur. 1469. Aristoph. Lys. 447. the scholiast on which says, that according to Xenomedes it was sometimes given to Athena. Steer-driver seems to us the most probable signification (see above, p. 60.). By some (among whom Euripides may perhaps be classed) it is held to relate to the worship of the goddess by the Taurians.

p. 136

711. 1. ἰοχέαιρα : 2. χρυσήνιος : 3.χρυσηλάκατος : 4. έλαϕηβόλος : 5. θηροσκόπος : 6. κελαδεινὴ : 7. άγνὴ : 8.ἱπποσόα. A number of others will be found in Aristophanes.

712. In Schwenk, 263.

713. Myth. Br. ii. 385 ; iii. 53. seq.

714. On Il. i. 43, 50.

715. Aglaoph. 79.

716. Ueber das Wesen, etc. 106. seq.

717. Myth. der Jap. 306.

718. On Od. iii. 279.

719. Dorians, i. 309. seq.

720. On 11. i. 50 ; and iv. 101.

721. Mytholog. i. 1. “Apollon und Artemis.”

722. Tril. 41. 65. 222.

p. 137

723. Herod. vi. 97.

724. Laws, xii. 3.

725. Fr. Phaëthon. 10.

726. Fr. 48.

727. “A man subject to the rays of the moon and the night-damp air, after the burning heat of the day, was almost sure of a fever. The moon, both here (coast of Africa) and in the West Indies, is more powerful than the sun ; meat hung in the rays of the former becomes tainted sooner than if exposed to the latter.” Chamier, Life of a Sailor, i. 270. See Plut. Sympos. iii. 10.

The Spanish women (we have read) will expose themselves without fear to the rays of the sun, but they cover themselves up against those of the moon.

p. 138

728.

‘Ώς ἡμὶν ἤδε λαμπρὸν ἡλίου ϭέλας

Ἐῷα κινεî ϕθέγματ̓ ὀρνίθων ϭαϕῆ. — Soph. Elect. 17.

729. “Nemoribus quoque adesse dicitur (Diana) quod omnis venatio nocte pascatur dicque dormiat.” Fulgent. ii. 19. Eudocia, 148.

730. Muller, Dorians, i. 309.

731. Müller, Dorians, ut supra. Proleg. 262. See also Hermann ut sup. 110. seq.

p. 139

732. Il. v. 370.

733. Hes. Th. 853.

734. Apollod. i. 2. 6.

735. Pherecydes ap. Sch. Il. xviii. 486.

736. Demosth. False Emb. 427 ; Meidias 531 ; Epist. 10.

737. From Δὶς, Δὶος, as from the Doric Ζὰν, Ζὰνὼ, from Jovis, Jovino, Juno.

738. Il. v. 370.

739. Theocr. vii. 116. Bion. i. 93. Ovid, A. A. iii. 3. 769. Fasti, ii. 461. Stat. Silv. ii. 7. 2. Pervig. Veneris passim. Servius (on Æn. iii. 466.) even calls Dionc Venus.

740. Theog. 188. seq.

741. Hymn vi.

p. 140

742. See above, p. 69.

743. Il. v. 247. 313.

p. 142

744. By asserting that her hair was more beautiful than that of the goddess. Sch. Theocr. i. 109.

745. Hesiod (ap. Apollod. iii. 14.) said that Adonis was the son of Phœnix and Alphesibœa. It is uncertain whether he made the latter daughter of the former or not. Panyasis (Id. ib.) made him the offspring of Theias, king of Assyria, by his own daughter Smyrna.

746. Ares, out of jealousy, took it is said the form of a boar for the purpose of killing him. Sch. Theocr. iii. 47. Eudocia, 24. Tzetz. Lyc. 831. Nonnus, xxix. 135 ; xli. 210.

747. Apollod. ut supra. Ovid, Met. x. 298. et seq. Eudocia and Tzetzes, ut supra. Anton. Liberal. 34. Bion. i.

748. Nicander ap. Sch. Theocr. v. 92. Ovid. Ib.731. Others said that the anemone, which was white before, was turned red by the blood of Adonis. Eudocia and Tzetzes, ut supra.

749. Eudocia and Tzetzes, ut supra.

p. 143

750. Serv. Buc. x. 18. Bion (i. 65.) ascribes the origin of the rose to the blood, that of the anemone to the tears of the goddess :

Αἷμα ῥόδον τίκτει, τὰ δέ δάκρυα τὺν ἀνεμώναν.

For a less elegant Mohammedan legend of the origin of the rose, see above, p. 8.

751. Adonis is the Semitic ןױא (Adôn) Lord. Cinyras comes from ננרנ (Kinnôr), the Greek κινύρα, whence κινυρίζω, to lament, as in the Irish keening. Myrrha is רױנ (Môr) Myrrh.

752. Phædrus. Spenser, who treats the Grecian mythology in the most arbitrary manner, gives, in the Faerie Quene, a peculiar view of the gardens of Adonis. See also Milton, Comus, 992. seq. The Italian poct Marini has made Adonis the hero of a long poem.

753. Plut. Nicias, 13.

p. 144

754. Aglaophamus, p. 691. Sec Plut. de Is. et Os. 70.

755. Il. xiv. 214.

756. Carm. iii. 28. 15. iv. 1. 10.

757. In the ode preserved by Dion. Hal. De compos. verborum.

758. See Pind. Pyth. iv. 380. and the scholion.

759. The goddess of Cyprus was plainly the Phœnician Astarte.

n.p.

760. 1. ϕιλομμειδὴς : 2. εὐστέϕανος : 3. χρυσέη : 4. έλιοβλέϕαρος, έλικῶπις : 5. εὐπλόκαμος : 6. λυσιμελὴς : 7. δολόμητις : 8. χρυσήνιος.

761. Ἀϕροδίτη, quasi Ἀϕροδύτη, Foam-sprung.

762. Il. v. 429.

763. Paus. iii. 23. 1 ; and ii. 5. 1 ; iii. 15. 10.

764. Pind. Fr. Schol. 1. Boeckh and Dissen. in loc. Compare Jacobs Anthol. vii. p. 377.

p. 146

765. Theog. 120.

766. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iii. 26.

767. Id. ib. id.

768. Id. ib. id.

769. Paus. ix. 27. 2.

770. Ap. Plut. Amator. 20. Nonnus, xxxi. 110. 111. This strange poet had a little before (xxix. 334.) called Hephæstos the sire of Love.

771. Müller, Dor. i. 333.

772.

Ὡραîος καὶ Ἒρως ἐπιτέλλεται, ἡνίκα περ ϒῆ

Ἄνθεσιν εἰαρινοîς θάλλει ἀεξομένη. — Theognis, 1275.

See Plut. ut supra, for another explication of this fiction.

773. Theocr. vii. 96. Bion. i. passim. Hor. Carm. i. 19. 1.

p. 147

774. Paus. ix. 27.1 ; 31. 3.

775. 1. χρυσοκόμης ; 2. χρυσόπτερος ; 3.ϒλυκύθυμος.

776. Nonnus (vii. 194.) seems to represent his arrows as tipt with flowers. The arrows of Cama, the Hindoo Eros, are thus pointed.

777. Paus. i. 30. 1. Plut. Amat. 20.

778. Plato, Phædr. 255. Paus. vi. 23. 4.

p. 150

779.

And from her fair unspotted side

Two blissful twins are to be born,

Youth and Joy ; so Jove hath sworn. — Comus, 1009.

p. 151

780. Mythologicon, iii. 6.

781. Hirt. ap. Creuzer, Symbolik, iii. 573.

782. Thorlacius, ap. cundem, ib.

p. 152

783. See Paldamus, Römische Erotik, p. 92. seq.

p. 153

784. Il. v. 875-80.

785. Th. 886. seq.924. The scholion on v. 890, is as follows :Λέϒεται ὄτι ἡ Μῆτις τοιαύτην εἶχε δύναμιν ὤστε μεταβάλλειν εἰς ὁποîαν ἄν ἐβούλετο. Πλανήσας οὖν αὐν. For πικρὰν, which gives little or no sense, Lobeck (Aglaoph. p. 613.) would read μυîαν ; we however prefer μικρἁν, which Göttling proposes. This critic points out the similarity between this fiction and that of Puss in Boots and the Ogre. See above, p. 80.

786. Ol. vii. 63. seq. cum Schol.

787. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 1310.

788. Hom. Hymn xxviii.

789. Eur. Iôn 462. Apollod. i. 3.

790. Sch. Pind. Ol. vii. 66.

p. 154

791. Il. xviii. 516.

792. Il. xiii. 277. Od. xiv. 217.

793. Od. viii. 493.

794. See also Il. v. 61 ; xv. 412.

795. Il. v. 735 ; xiv. 178.

796. Apoll. Rh. i. 721.

797. Od. xx. 72.

798. Iles. Th. 573.

799. Hom. Hymn, xx.

800. Il. v. 733.

p. 155

801. Ovid, Met. vi. 1. seq., — the name as usual giving origin to the fable. We know not what Greek authority Ovid followed in this legend, probably Nicander. Virgil alludes to it,

aut invisa Minervæ

Laxos in foribus suspendit aranea casses. — Geor. iv. 246.

See Servius and Probus in loc.

802. Pyth. xii. 15. seq. cum Schol. Nonnus, xxiv. 37 ; xl. 227. seq.

p. 156

803. Hyginus, Fab. 165.

804. 1. Γλαυκῶπις : 2. πολιπόρθος : 3. πολιοῡχος, ἐρυσίπτολις : 4. ἀγελεία : 5. ἀτρτώυη : 6. λαοσσόος.

p. 157

805. Müller, Proleg. 244. See also Eudocia, 4. Schwenk, 230. Welcker, Tril. 282. Пαλλὰς is the same as πάλλαξ, originally maid. There was a temple of Athena Koria near Cleitôr in Arcadia. Paus. viii. 21. 4.

806. Müller, Minerva Polias, 5. Proleg. 213. Welcker, Tril. 277. seq.

807. Arnob. iii. 31.

808. Eckhel, D. N. ii. p. 163. 209.

809. As Hephæstos, Prometheus, etc. See Müller, Min. Pol. ut supra.

810. Sch. Aristoph. Eccles. 18.

811. Id. Lys. 439.

812. See below, Part II. c. v. Erichthonios.

813. Paus. i. 14. 5.

814. Plut. Cim. 10.

815. Paus. i. 26. 7 ; ix. 34. 1.

p. 158

816. See above, p. 62. and Appendix, C.

817. Paus. viii. 4. 3 ; 9. 3.

818. Id. i. 26. 7 ; ix. 34. 1.

819. That of the Athamanes, according to Nicander of Colophôn, Hesych. s. v. Etym. Mag. and Photius, s. v. ; that of the Cretans, Eustath. on Il. iv. p. 524. viii. p. 696. Od. iii. p. 1473 ; that of the Bœotians, Tzetz. Lyc. 519.

820. There were Tritons in Bœotia, Thessaly (Sch. Apoll. Rh. i. 109.), Arcadia (Paus. viii. 26. 6.), Crete (Diodor. v. 72.), Thrace (Interp. to Vib. Sequester, p. 285.).

821. Orchom. 355.

p. 159

822. See below, chap. xv., Artemis of Ephesus.

823. See Müller, Min. Pol. p. 1.

824. Diodor. i. 12. Tzetz. Lyc. 519.

825. Heraclid. Alleg. Hom. p. 444. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 191.

826. For Athena Hippia and Gorgo, see below, Part II. Bellerophontes and Perseus.

827. Wherever the form Ἐρμῆς occurs, the passage may be regarded as an interpolation.

828. Il. xxiv. 333.

829. Il. v. 390.

p. 160

830. Il. xiv. 490.

831. Il. xiv. 180. Perhaps Phylas, like, ϕυλλὰς, ϕύλλον comes from ϕύω.

832. Il. xx. 35 ; xxi. 498.

833. Il. xxiv. 333.

834. Od. x. 277. et seq.

835. Od. xiv. 435. This verse however is manifestly spurious.

n.p.

836. Theog. 938.

837. Theog. 444. See above, p. 66.

838. Works and Days, 67.

p. 163

839. Ant. Lib. 23. He quotes as his authorities Hesiod in the Eoiæ, Nicander, Didymarchus and Antigonus in their respective Metamorphoses, and Apollonius Rhodius in his Epigrams. It is uncertain which of these authorities Ovid followed (Met. ii. 676. seq.) ; his narrative differs in some points from that in the text ; in particular, he makes Elis and Messene the scene of Apollo’s pastoral life, v. 679.

840. Sch. Il. xxiv. 24.

p. 164

841. Pherecyd. ap. Sch. Od. xix. 432. Hygin. 200. Ovid, Met. ix. 312.

842. Sch. Il. x. 267.

843. Pind. Pyth. iv. 318. Apoll. Rh. i. 51. seq.

844. Sch. Eur. Orest. 995.

845. Diodor. iv. 84. Parthenius, Erot. 24, — both from Timæus.

846. Ovid, Met. ii. 708. seq. Apollod. iii. 14. Hyginus (160.) says that Cephalos was the son of Hermes by Creusa, the daughter of Ercehtheus.

p. 165

847. Met. iv. 285.

848. See below, chap. xvi.

849. Hygin. 160.

850. Pausan. ix. 22. These are both silly expositions ; the first is confuted by the fact that in the Carnasian grove in Messene there was a statue of Hermes carrying a ram (Paus. iv. 33, 4.), and a similar statue at Olympia (Id. v. 27,8.). At Corinth there was a ram beside his statue, ὅτι μάλιστα δοκϵῑ θϵῶν ἐϕορᾱν και αὔξϵιν ποίμναϛ(Id. ii. 3, 4.)

851. Caduceus-um is a Latin corruption of κηρύκϵιον, the herald’s staff. This was an olive-staff twined with fillets (στέμματα), which were gradually converted to wings and serpents.

p. 166

852. 1. άργϵιϕόντηϛ : 2. ἐριούνιοϛ : 3. ἀκακήτα : 4. σῶκοϛ : 5. διάκτοροϛ : 6. ἐΰσποϛ : 7. χρσόῤῥπιϛ : 8. κύδιμοϛ.

853.

Ἐρμϵίαν δὲ πατὴρ Ἐριούνιον ὠνόμασ αὐτόν

ІІάνταϛ γὰρ μάκαράϛ τϵ θϵοὺϛ θϵοητοϛ τ҆ ἀνθρώπους

Κέρδεσι κλπτοσύναις τ᾽ἐξαίνυτο τοχυηέσσαις.

The Phoronis in Etym. Mag. v. έριούνιος.

854. «As guardian of the herds, as the Dioscuri, Ʃωκοί, guardians of shipmen.» Welcker, Tril. 217.

855. Buttmann (Lexil. s. v.) makes διάκτορος to be from the same root with διάκονος, and identical in signification, i. e. messenger. Müller (Proleg. 355.) considers it too dubious a term to admit of any positive conclusion being drawn from it.

856. Ͳιρ Μαίας ἀγροτῆρι κούριρ — Eurip. Elec. 466.

857. Hence he was called νόμιος (Aristoph. Thes. 977. ἔϕορος γὰρ τῶν θρεμμάτων ὸ θεὸς says the Scholiast) ; and he was worshiped at Coroneia under the title of ἐπιμήλιο (Paus. ix. 31, 3.).

p. 167

858. This is the only point of similarity between the Grecian Hermes and the Italian Mercurius.

859. Hence probably his epithet δόλιος. Aristoph. Plut. 1158. Thes. 1202. Paus. vii. 27, 1. As the giver of gain he was called κερδῶος. Luc. Tim. 41. Eudocia, p. 256.

860. Ἐρμῆς πομπαȋος.

ІІομπαȋος ἴσθε τόνδε ποιμαίνων ἐμὸν

Іκέτην. — Æsch. Eum. 91.

where we may observe the allusion to the rural character of the god.

861. He is said to have been called στρϕαȋος (Et. Mag. s. v.), from the turning (στροϕὴ) of the door on its hinges, as his statue was placed at the door.

862. What was thus found was called ἕρμαιον. When Lucian’s Timôn comes on the treasure he cries out Ἐρμῆ κερδῶε.

863. See above, p. 111.

864. Ol. ix. 50. seq. Sec above, p. 94.

865. Müller, Proleg. 355.

866. See vv. 491, 567.

p. 168

867. By his touch, it was said, he turned the fleece to gold. Sch. Apoll. Rh. ii. 1144.

868. Anthol. ix. 72.

869. Id. vi. 5, 23, 28, 29.

870. Il. ii. 103. Od. i. 38.

871. Sch. Il. ii. 103. «The poet,» he says, «knows nothing of the love of lo, and all about Argos was feigned by the later writers.» Id. xxiv. 24. Sch. Od. i. 38.

872. Schwenk, 125.

873. Tzetz. Lyc. 680.

p. 169

874. Nonnus (xxxvi. 421.) calls Dionysos θαλασσοϕόνος. Græfe however queries if it should not be θαλασσονόμος. Could that strange poet have alluded to the practice of mixing sea-water with wine ?

875.

Ye vallies low, where the mild whispers use

Of shades and wanton winds and gushing brooks,

On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks,

Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes,

That on the green turf suck the honied showers,

And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.

Milton, Lycidas 136. seq.

876. Met. i. 717.

p. 170

877. Hes. Th. 454. 912.

878. The Scythians said Earth was the wife of their Zeus. Herod. iv. 59.

879. II. v. 500. ‘blond Demeter’ is represented as presiding over the winnowing of corn. In Od. v. 125. her amour with Iasiôn is related.

880. Gæa is joined with Zeus and Helios as a person. Il. iii. 104. 278.

Officium commune Ceres et Terra tuentur ;

Hæc præbet causam frugibus, illa locum. — Ovid, Fasti i. 673.

881. Theog. 914.

882. Met. v. 311. seq. Fasti iv. 117. seq.

p. 171

883. According to some accounts Aphrodite, Athena, and Artemis were the companions of their sister Persephone on this occasion (Hygin. 146. Claud. R. P. ii. 11-35. Stat. Achil. ii. 150.). Others gave her the Sirens as attendants (Apoll. Rh. iv. 896.).

884. Her plucking the narcissus was noticed in an ancient hymn ascribed to Pamphôs. Paus. ix. 31, 9.

p. 172

885. The tradition was that she sat on the stone thence named Laughterless (ἀγέλαστος). Sch. Aristoph. Knights, 782.

p. 173

886. The Egyptians had a similar story of their Isis, borrowed no doubt, like so many others, from the Greeks. See Plut.

p. 176

887. Another legend says that Demeter placed a stone atop of him in Erebos, which Heracles rolled away. Apollod. i. 5, 3 ; ii. 5, 12.

888. Od. xi. 217.

889. Callim. Hymn vi. 22. Paus. i. 14, 2. Ovid, Met. v. 645. Hygin. 147. P. A. ii. 14. Serv. ou Geor. i. 19.

p. 177

890. Nicander ap. Anton. Lib. 24. Ovid, Met. v. 451.

891. Nicander ap. Anton. Lib. 17. Ovid, Met. viii. 738. seq. Tzetz. Lyc. 1393. It is related somewhat differently by Callimachus, Hymn vi.

892. Athen. x. 416.

893. Müller, Proleg. 162.

894. Od. v. 125.

895. Theog. 969.

896. Helianicus ap. Sch. Od. v. 125.

897. Sch. Od. ut sup. Sch. Theocr. iii. 50.

898. Paus. viii. 25, 4.

p. 178

899. Ὃτι τὸ θυμῲ χρῆσθαι καλоῦσιν ἐρινύιν оἱ Ἀρκάδες. Paus. ut supra.

900. Paus. viii. 42, l.

901. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 165. seq.

902. Grim Nature’s visage hoar. — Burns’ Vision.

903. Like κρείων, κρέων, the a is merely euphonic. The cyclic Thebaïs named Areiôn κυανоχоιτὴς, and Antimachus said of him,

904. Paus. viii. 31, 1 ; iv. 26, 8. Soph. Œd. Col. 682.

p. 179

905. Paus. viii. 10, 10 ; 27, 6 ; 35, 2 ; 36, 9 ; 37, 1-10 ; 42, 1.

906. Plut. Timol. 8.

907. Sch. Eur. Phœn. 693. See Müller, Orchom. 217. Dor. i. 415.

908. 1. ξανθή : 2. καλλιπλόμος : 3. εὐστέϕανος : 4. πουϕόρβη : 5. κουροτρόϕος : 6. ἀγλαθόκαρπος : 7. ἀγλαόδωρος : 8. ὡρηϕόρος : 9. χρυσάορος : 10. χλόη : 11. θεσμοϕορος : 12. μαλοϕόρος.

909. Paus. i. 44, 3.

910. Plut. De Is. et Os. 69. Hesych. and Et. Mag. s. v. said to be derived from the grief (ἄχος) of the goddess. Welcker (Schwenk, p. 293.) says it is the same as γαία ; and Müller (Proleg. 291.) renders it good, from the Laconic χάος, χαίος, ἀχαȋος, which have that signification in Aristoph. Lys. 91. 1157. and Hesychius v. ἀχαία.

911. 1. ἀγαυή : 2. ἐπαινή : 3. ἁγνή : 4. λευκώλενος ; 5. μελάμπεπος : 6. λεύκιππος. By the Latin poets Proserpina was termed pulcra, furva, severa, and Juno inferna.

p. 180

912. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. p. 201, 202. Welcker in Schwenk, 299. These critics derive the name from ϕέρβω, ϕέρω, to feed, and ϕάω, ϕαίνω, to show. Schwenk (247.) renders it Lighting, regarding, as we think justly, the first part of the name as akin to πȗρ, and to the Pers in Perse, Perseus. See below, Perseus.

913. It is commonly rendered Death-bearer, from ϕέρω ϕόνον. The Persephatta of the dramatists seems to be only a corruption of Persephone.

p. 181

914. Κόρη, the maiden, an Attic name for Persephone.

915. Aglaoph. 65. 273, 274.

916. Id. 214. 1351. Muller, Dor. i. 201.

p. 182

917. Aglaoph. 271.

918. Id. 14. 28. 31.

919. Id. 116.

920. Id. 63. 193. Müller, Proleg. 250. 251.

p. 183

921. Aglaoph. 70. 71.

922. Id. 44. seq. 63. See Mortimer’s description of the effect of the solemn service in St. Peter’s at Rome on his mind, in Schiller’s Marie Stuart, act i. sc. 6. Sec also Shakspcare's Winter's Tale, act iii. sc. 1.

p. 184

923. Aglaoph. 180. 181.

924. See Warburton, Divine Legation. Ste Croix, Recherches sur les Mystères, &c. Creuzer, Symbolik.

925. Aglaoph. 116. 197. 202. 1263. Müller, Proleg. 248. seq.

p. 185

926. Dor. Mώσαι, Æol. Mοίσαι.

927. II. ii. 490. Od. i. 10.

928. II. i. 604.

929. II. ii. 484.

930. Od. xxiv. 60.

931. Paus. ix. 29. 1.

932. Cic. De N. D. iii. 21. Eudocia 294.

933. Diod. iv. 7. Paus. ut sup. 4.

934. Theog. 53. seq. 76.

935. Κλλιόπη (Fair-Voice), Kλειὼ (Proclaimer), Μελπομοένη (Songstress), Εὐτέρπη (Delighter), Ἐρατὼ (Amiable), Τερψιχόρη (Dance-lover), Οὐρανία (Celestial), ϴάλεια (Blooming), Πολυμνία (Hymnful).

p. 186

936. Diodor. iv. 7. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iii. 1. Eudocia, 293. Anthologia, ix. 504, 505.

937. Theog. 53.

938. Buttmann, Mytholog. i. 293. Voss. Myth. Br. iv. 3. Müller, Orchom. 381. Proleg. 219. above, p. 17.

p. 187

939. Il. ii. 594.

940. Nicander ap. Anton. Lib. 9. where the names of the birds are given ; these of course were the names of the nine maids in Nicander. Ovid, who also relates the legend (Met. v. 300. seq.), says they were turned into magpies, and he is followed by Statius (Silv. ii. 4. 19.). The tale seems indebted for its origin to the Muses’ name, Pierides, from Pieria.

941. Apollod. i. 3. 2. Others made Apollo the sire of Linos and Orpheus. Hesiod (Fr. 97.) said that Urania was the mother of Linos. See Conon 19.

942. Argiope according to Hermesianax.

p. 188

943. Apollod. ut sup. Apoll. Rh. i. 23. Hermesianax ap. Athen. xiii. 597. Ovid, Met. xxi. Virg. Georg. iv. 454. seq. Conon, 45. Eudocia, 318. Diod. iv. 25. No mention of Orpheus occurs in Homer or Hesiod. Pindar (Pyth. iv. 313. seq.) reckons him among the Argonauts. It were idle to notice the fancies of Creuzer and others respecting the mysteries introduced by him into Greece long before the time of Homer. According to these mystics (Symb. iii. 148. seq.) he was a priest of the Light-religion, — that of Apollo or Vishnoo, — and vainly resisted the raving orgies of the Dionysos- or Seeva-worship when it reached Greece. See Lobeck’s Aglaophamus for all that the most extensive learning, joined with sense and sane philosophy, has been able to do toward elucidating the real nature and character of the poems and institutions ascribed to Orpheus. See also Müller, Proleg. 379. seq. The name Orpheus is perhaps connected with ὄρϕνος, ὄρϕανος, ἔρεβος, orbus, furvus.

944. Apollod. ut sup.

945. Id. ib. Eur. Rhes. passim. Sch. II. x. 435.

946. Catullus, lxi. 2. Nonnus, xxxiii. 67.

947. Servius, Æn. iv. 127.

948. Ὤ Ὑυὴν, Ὑμέναἰ ἂναξ. Eur. Troad. 310. Hymen o Hymenœe. Catull. ut sup.

949. Catull. ut sup. Ovid. Her. xx. 157. seq. Met. x. 1. seq.

950. 1. ὴδυεπείς : 2. ἀρτιέπειαι : 3. λιγύϕθογγοι : 4. μελίπνοοι.

p. 189

951. Steph. Byz. υ. τύῤῥβος. Sch. Theocr. vii. 92. Suidas, Photius, Hesych. υ. νύμϕη. Serv. Buc. vii. 21.

952. Eudocia, 294. Tzetz. Hesiod, Works, init.

953. Eudocia and Tzetzes, ut sup. The names as amended by Hermann are Neilo, Tritone, Asopo, Acheloïs, Heptapora, and Rhodia, (the two last from rivers named by Homer, II. xii. 20. and Hesiod, Th. 341.) the seventh, Tiriplo, is evidently corrupt ; Hermann proposes Pactolo.

954. The reader will find several of these legends in the Fairy Mythology. See for example, vol. i. 234-244.

p. 190

955. Such sights as youthful poets dream

On summer-eves by haunted stream. — Milton.

956. See Hermann ‘De Musis fluvialibus Epicharmi et Eumeli’ (Opusc. ii. 288.) and Buttman, Mytholog. i. 273-294. Creuzer first advanced this theory.

957. Il. v. 749 ; viii. 393.

958. Il. xxi. 450.

959. Theog. 903.

p. 191

960. Works, 254.

961. Apud Stobæum. See the lines in Lobeek, p. 600.

962. Nonnus, xi. 486 ; xii. 17.

963. Hygin. 183.

964. Welcker, Tril. 500. note.

965. Il. xxi. 111.

966. Quint. Smyr. ii. 595. Nonnus, ut sup.

967. Ol. xiii. 9.

968. Paus. ix. 35. 2.

969. Theocr. i. 150. Mosch. ii. 160. Apoll. Rh. ap. Athen. vii. 283.

970. 1. χρυσἀμπυκες : 2. πολυάνθεμο : 3. πολύδμοι.

971. The Greck πολὺς and the Germanie voll, full, are plainly the same word, and used alike in composition. The former is placed at the beginning, the latter at the end of the compound.

p. 192

972. Il. v. 338. and that of Dionysos, Apoll. Rh. iv. 425.

973. Od. vi. 18.

974. Il. xvii. 51.

975. Od. xviii. 194.

976. Od. viii. 364. See also the beautiful fragment of the Cypria. Athen. xv. 682.

977. Il. xiv. 267.

978. Nonnus, xxxi. 184. Eudocia, 430.

979. Theog. 907.

980. Paus. ix. 35. 5.

981. Id. ut sup.

982. Dionys. xxiv. 263.

p. 193

983. Paus. ut sup. Hesiod, ap. Sch. Pind. 01. xiv. 1. Pind. Ol. xiv. 1. seq. Theocr. xvi. 104.

984. Paus. ut sup. and iii. 18, 6.

985. Paus. ut sup.

986. Pind. Ol. xiv. 7-18.

987. Il. xi. 270. Paus. i. 44, 3. In Il. xvi. 187, and xix. 103. Eileithyia occurs in the singular.

988. Od. xix. 188.

989. Theog. 922.

990. Ol. vi. 72. Nem. vii. 1.

991. Od. ut supra.

992. Paus. i. 18, 5 ; viii. 21, 3 ; ix. 27, 2.

993. 1. μογοστόκος : 2. πραΰμητις.

994. Mild as any maid

Full of sweet hope her [Lucina’s] brow seemed, and her eyes

Darting fresh comfort like the morning skies. — Drayton, Mooncalf.

p. 194

995. From ἕλη light, and θύω to move rapidly. See Welcker, Kret. Kol. pp. 11. 19.

996. “Crescente luna frumenta grandescunt.” Plin. H. N. xviii. 30. See also ii. 99, x. 54, and elsewhere. Plut. de Is. et Os. 41. Q. R. 77. Eudocia, 11. Lucil. ap. Gell. xx. 8. Hor. Serm. ii. 4, 30. Fulgent. ii. 19. “The moon is believed by the Hindoo naturalists to have a powerful effect on vegetation, especially on certain plants.” Wilford in Asiat. Res. iii. 385. 4to edit.

997. Il. xx. 49.

998. Theog. 904.

999. Theog. 217.

1000. Theog. 217.

1001. Rep. x. 617.

1002. Il. xx. 127.

1003. Od. vii. 197. Buttmann, following the Scholia, Eustath and Hesychius, would read κατὰ κλῶθϵς, instead of κατακλῶθϵς. Nitzsch defends the common reading.

p. 195

1004. See Nitzsch on Od. iii. 236.

1005. Prom. 515. See also Herod. i. 91.

1006. I. ἀπλανέες : 2. βαρύϕρονες.

1007. The Norns are named Urdur, Verdandi, and Skuld (Past, Present, Future). Plato (l. c.) introduces the Moiræ singing τγεγενότα, τὰ ὄντα, τὰ μέλλοντα “quo nullus mihi succurrit auctor,” says Lobeck, 970.

1008. Il. xi. 332 ; xii. 326. See Wolf on Il. i. 97 ; ii. 302. Nitzsch on Od. iii. 236. Paus. v. 19, 6.

1009. Il. ix. 410.

1010. Il. xviii. 535. Compare Hes. Shield, 156

1011. Hes. Shield, 249. (See above, p. 40.) Paus. ut sup. Welcker, Nach. zur Tril. 346.

1012. Argon. iv. 1666.

1013. Elec. 1387.

p. 196

1014. Theog. 217.

1015. Quint. Sm. ii. 510 ; x. 286 ; xiii. 235.

1016. Æschyl. Seven ag. Thebes, 1058. Eum. 959. Soph. Œd. Tyr. 472. Eur. Her. Fur. 866. Elec. 1250. Virg. Æn. viii. 701.

1017. 1. ἀμείλιχοι : 2. δεινωποί.

1018. See above, p. 69.

1019. Æsch. Eumen. 317, 413. Soph. Œd. Col. 40, 106. Compare Virg. Æn. vi. 250 ; vii. 320 ; xii. 845. Ovid, Met. iv. 451.

1020. Hymn lxx.

1021. Paus. ii. 11, 4.

1022. Id. vii. 25, 7.

1023. 1. στυγεραί : 2. ἠεροϕοίτιες : 3. κυανόχρωτοι : 4. τανύποδες.

1024. Müller, Eumen. 186.

p. 197

1025. Il. ix. 454, 568 ; compare Il. xxi. 412. Od. ii. 135.

1026. Il. xix. 258 ; compare Il. iii. 278.

1027. Od. xvii. 475.

1028. Il. xix. 418.

1029. See above, p. 178. See Müller, Eumen. 191. seq.

1030. See above, p. 69.

p. 198

1031. Il. xv. 87 ; xx. 4.

1032. Od. ii. 68.

1033. Theog. 135. 901. seq. Pind. Ol. xiii. 6. Fr. Incert. 100.

1034. Pind. Ol. viii. 28. Hom. Hymn xxiii.

1035. Æsch. Eum. 1. seq. Eur. Iph. Taur. 1260. Ovid, Met. i. 321.

1036. Welcker (Tril. 39.) says that Themis is merely an epithet of Earth. Hermann also makes Themis a physical being, rendering her name Statina ; while Böttiger (Kunst-Myth. ii. 110.) more justly, we apprehend, says, “she is the oldest purely allegorical personification of a virtue.”

1037. γενέθλιον.δόσιν We know not how else to express it. It was the gift bestowed on the child the day it was named, which was usually the eighth day after the birth. See Terence, Phormio, i. 1, 12.

p. 199

1038. Theog. 265.

1039. Hymn to Delos, 216. seq.

1040. Virg. Æn. iv. 694. seq. ; v. 606. seq. ; ix. 2. Ovid, Met. i. 270 ; xi. 585. seq. Stat. Th. x. 81, 118. Val. Flac. vii. 186.

1041. See above, p. 146.

1042. Il. viii. 398 ; xi. 185. This is the only line in Homer which makes against Voss’’ theory, of none of Homer’s gods being winged. It is remarkable that P. Knight, who seems to have known nothing of that theory, rejects the episodes viii. 350-484 ; xi. 179-217.

1043. Ver. 574. He probably had in view Hom. Hymn i. 114.

1044. 1. ἀελλόπος : 2. ποδήνεμος : 3. Πόδας ὠκέα : 4. ταχεîα : 5. χρυσόπτερος.

p. 200

1045. Il. v. 899.

1046. Il. v. 401.

1047. Od. iv. 232. “Merum scholion,” — P. Knight.

1048. See above, p. 124. Müller, Dor. i. 319-21. See Nitzsch on Od. iv. 232. Hesiod (Sch. Od. iv. 231.) as well as Homer made Pæôn distinct from Apollo. Solôn would appear to have done the same, ver. 57. compared with ver. 53.

1049. Theog. 212. 758.

1050. Il. xvi. 676. seq.

1051. Il. xiv. 230. seq. imitated by Nonnus, xxxi. 103. seq.

p. 201

1052. Met. xi. 592. seq. Compare Stat. Th. x. 84. seq. ; and Ariosto, Orl. Fur. c. xiv. st. 92.

1053. Theog. 214.

1054. Hermot. 20. True Hist. ii. 3. Nigr. 32.

p. 202

1055. Theog. 223.

1056. Paus. i. 33, 4.

1057. See below, Part II. chap. ix.

1058. Paus. vii. 5, 3.

1059. Apud Sch. Apoll. Rh. i. 1129.

1060. Εστι δέ τις Νέμεσις μεγάλη θεὸς, ἢ τάδε πάντα

1061. See Welcker in Schwenk, 261. 304.

1062. Theog. 260. Hom. Hymn to Dem. 420.

1063. Ol. xiii. 1. seq.

1064. Fr. Incert. 75. Paus. vii. 26, 8.

1065. Apud Plut. de Fort. Rom. 4.

1066. Paus. ix. 16, 2.

p. 203

1067. Paus. iv. 30, 6.

1068. See the fine personification of Wisdom in the Proverbs of Solomon, ch. viii.

1069. Il. iv. 440.

1070. Il. xi. 3.

1071. Il. xv. 120.

1072. Il. ix. 502.

1073. Il. xix. 91. seq.

p. 204

1074. Prom. init.

1075. Œd. Tyr. 157.

1076. Paus. i. 17, 1. See Hesiod, Works, 760-4. Æschines ag. Timarch. 18. False Embassy, 47. Virg. Æn. iv. 173. seq. Stat. Th. iii. 426. Val. Flac. ii. 116. seq. For the House of Fame see Ovid, Met. xii. 39. seq. and Chaucer and Pope.

1077. Paus. ut sup.

1078. Plut. Cleom. 9.

1079. Theog. 969 ; see above, p. 177.

p. 205

1080. Symbolik.

1081. Anti-Symbolik.

1082. Aglaophamus, p. 283.

1083. Il. vi. 130.

p. 206

1084. Il. xiv. 325.

1085. Il. xxii. 460.

1086. Od. xi. 325.

p. 207

1087. Od. xxiv. 74.

1088. Theog. 940.

1089. Theog. 947.

1090. Met. iii. 532. seq. Hygin. 134.

p. 208

1091. Il. xx. 234.

1092. Od. v. 333 ; xi. 601. The last of these passages is undoubtedly spurious, and the first is perhaps not altogether free from suspicion.

n.p.

1093. See end of this chapter.

1094. Not till a century or two after the time of Homer, in the opinion of Lobeck (Aglaophamus, p. 672.).

1095. Sch. Aristoph. Birds, 873. Lys. 388. Wasps, 9.

p. 210

1096. It was thus that there was a great resemblance observed between the Dionysia of Athens and the Saturnalia of Rome.

1097. Had the consul Postumius (Livy, XXXIX. 8.) lived before history was written at Rome, and had the Bacchic orgies obtained a footing in that city, he would probably have figured as a Pentheus in the mythic annals of Rome. “Mythology,” says Müller (Dor. i. 293.), “often first clothes the events of history in a fabulous garb, and then refers them to an early and unknown time.”

1098. Müller, Dor. i. 10. “Ægyptia numina gaudent plangoribus, Græca choreis, Barbara strepitu cymbalistarum et tympanistarum et ceraularum.” — Apul. de Gent. p. 49.

1099. See the Asiatic Researches.

p. 211

1100. Ukert, I. i. 41. Heeren, Ideen II. ii. 225. 288. 377.

1101. Herod. ii. 144.

1102. Id. ii. 49.

1103. Herodotus (ii. 77.) says positively that there were no vines in Egypt. Egyptian vines are mentioned in Genesis, xl. 9. Num. xx. 5 ; and the vintage is the subject of one of the ancient Egyptian paintings now in the British Museum.

1104. Plutarch (De Is. et Os. 37.) says that the Egyptians called it Chenosiris, i. e. Plant of Osiris.

1105. Diodor. i. 17. Plut, de Is. et Os. 13. Eudocia, 110. Compare Tibull. i. 7. 29. seq.

p. 212

1106. Diodor. ii. 38. Arrian, Hist. Indic. sub init.

1107. Plut. Aq. et Ig. Comp. 7. Diodor. iii. 63. A. W. Schlegel, though in general inclined to what we call the mystic theory, expressly denies in his Indian Library that the Greeks had, previous to the conquests of Alexander, any idea of an expedition of Bacchos to or from India. We ask the advocates of the Indian origin of the Bacchic religion for their proofs, and get nothing in reply but confident assertion or slight resemblances of names and ceremonies.

1108. Apollod. iii. 4-5. Ovid, Met. iii. 253. seq. Hygin. 167. 179. Eudoc. 118. 373.

p. 213

1109. Apollod. iii. 4-5. Ovid, Met. iii. 253. seq. Hygin. 167. 179. Eudoc. 118. 373.

p. 214

1110. Apollod. iii. 14. 7. Hygin. 130.

1111. See Part II. ch. vii. Perseus.

1112. Apollod. iii. 5. 3. Paus. ii. 31, 2 ; 37, 5. Diodor. iii. 62 ; iv. 25. Hor. Cann. ii. 19. 29. seq.

1113. Diodor. iii. 68. seq.

p. 215

1114.

…………… that Nyseian isle

Girt with the river Triton, where old Cham,

Whom Gentiles Ammon call and Libyan Jove,

Hid Amalthea and her florid son,

Young Bacchus, from his step-dame Rhea’s eye.

Milton, P. L. iv. 275.

The Poet makes here one of his usual slips of memory (Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 22.), for Amalthea was not hid in the isle.

1115. Stephanus Byzantinus (v. гάζɑ) quotes the ‘Bassarics’, a poem by one Dionysius, which treated of this war.

1116. Nonnus appears to have been well versed in the various poems ascribed to Orpheus, in which Dionysos was the subject of strange mystery. As our object is alone the genuine mythology of Hellas, we do not enter on those matters. Sec Lobeck’s Aglaophamus.

p. 216

1117. See Demosth. Neæra, 1371. Aristoph. Peace.

1118.

Solis æterna est Phœbo Bacchoque juventas ;

Nam decet intonsus crinis utrumque deum. — Tibull. i. 4. 37.

1119. Antigone, 1115.

p. 217

1120. The maintainers of the Indian hypothesis observe that Bagis is one of the names of Seeva. According to Müller (Orchom. p. 384.), Bacchos (the same perhaps with Iacchos) was the πάρϵδρος of Demeter of Thebes, and was totally distinct from the Thracian Dionysos.

n.p.

1121. 1. μουϭɑγέτης : 2. τɑυροκέϕɑλος : 3. πυριγϵνής : 4. ἐγερϭχορος : 5. ỏρϵιμɑνής : 6. ὐπνοδότης.

1122. Among the epithets of Dionysos we meet Συκίτης (from ϭûκος, fig, Athen. iii. 78.) and Δϵνδρίτης (Creuz. Sym. ii. 360.).

1123. Sch. Aristoph. Frogs, 216.

1124. Strabo, viii. 5.

1125. See Passow, s. v.

p. 218

1126. Ανθιος (Paus. i. 31, 4.) : Ἀνθϵὺς (Id. vii. 21, 6.) : Εὐɑνθὴς (Athen. viii. 563.) : Φιλɑνθὴς (Eurip. Fr. Incert. 169.). A name of Dionysos was Εἰρɑϕιώτης, which Schwenk (p. 150.) very ingeniously supposes to be equivalent to ϵἰɑροϕυώυτης, Spring-born. Compare Welcker, Nach. zur Tril. 187, 188.

1127. See above, p. 214. Icarios would seem to be connected with ἰκμὰς, ἰχὼρ, and therefore to denote moisture. His daughter is Erigone (Spring-born).

1128. Μάρων Εὺάνθϵος υἰός. Od. ix. 196.

1129. Schwenk, 147.

1130. Welcker, Ueber das Satyrspiel (Nach. zur Tril. 186-211.), where much valuable matter on the subject of Dionysos will be found.

p. 219

1131. Strabo, ix. 1. See Müller, Orchom. 89. 383 : he decides in favour of this Nysa.

1132. Sch. II. vi. 123. Voss, Myth. Br. iv. 100. seq.

p. 220

1133. Lobeck, Aglaophamus, 312. seq.

p. 221

1134. Compare Paus. ix. 36, 5. Ukert, I. i. 51. note.

p. 222

1135. Compare Müller, Proleg. 387.

p. 223

1136. Müller, Dor. i. 10.

1137. Herod. v. 102.

1138. See our note on Ovid’s Fasti, iv. 276.

p. 224

1139. Diodor. iii. 58, 59. He probably took his account of Cybele from Dionysius of Samos, not from Xanthos the Lydian, as Creuzer (Symb. ii. 46.) supposes. See Lobeck, 640. note.

1140. Paus. vii. 17, 10.

1141. Pind. Pyth. iii. 137. cum Schol. Eur. Hyp. 143. Bac. 78. Hel. 1321. Fr. Cretens.

p. 225

1142. Liv. xxix. 14. Ovid, Fasti, iv. 179. seq.

1143. Lucret. ii. 598. seq. Virg. Æn. iii. 104 ; vi. 785 ; x. 252. Ovid, ut supra. Id. Trist. ii. 24. Tibull. i. 4, 68.

1144. Strabo, x. 3.

1145. See Buttmann, Mytholog. ii. 159. seq. Lobeck, 1007. seq. These writers have collected all the passages in the ancients relating to this subject.

1146. Palæphat. 32. Eudocia, 418. Hesych. v. δίλογος.

1147. Xen. Hell. ii. 4.

1148. Plato, Rep. i. 354.

p. 226

1149. See Müller, Dor. i. 403.

1150. Tacitus, Ann. iii. 61. See also Strabo, xiv. 1.

1151. Plut. Pelop. 16.

1152. Herod. ii. 155. 156.

p. 227

1153. Herod. ii. 156. Diodor. i. 13. 14. Elsewhere he says (i. 11.) that Osiris and Isis were Sun and Moon. Isis was also as the goddess of Saïs identified with Athena. Plut. de Is. et Os. 9.

1154. Il. ix. 381.

1155. Od. iii. 351. 355. 477. 483 ; xiv. 246. 257. seq. ; xvii. 426. seq.

1156. Theog. 338.

1157. Völck. Hom. Geog. 129.

1158. Herod. ii. 152. 153. The historian asserts positively, that previous to this time the Greeks knew nothing certain about Egypt.

p. 228

1159. Yet in the Odyssey (xiv. 268 ; xvii. 437.) the Egyptians are armed in brass.

1160. Herod. ii. 154.

1161. Id. iii. 26.

1162. Id. ii. 154.

p. 229

1163. Hom. Hymn xix.

1164. Herod. ii. 145. Sch. Theocr. vii. 109. Eudocia, 323. Tzetz. Lyc. 772.

1165. Sch. Theocr. i. 3. Eudocia, l. c. Serv. Æn. ii. 44.

1166. Sch. Theocr. i. 3. Eudocia, l. c.

1167. Id. ib.

1168. Sch. Theocr. vii. 123.

1169. Above, p. 123.

p. 230

1170. Herod. vi. 105. Plut. Arist. 11.

1171. Herod. ii. 46.

1172. Macrob. Sat. i. 22.

1173. On Virg. Buc. ii. 31. Sec also Sch. Theocr. i. 3. Eudocia, 323.

p. 231

1174. Idyll. vii. 106.

1175. The Samoyedes, when successful in hunting, smear their gods with fat ; if unsuccessful, they beat them and throw them in the dung. Voss. Myth. Br. i. 84. Compare Suetonius, Calig. 5. and Blunt’s Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs in Italy and Sicily, pp. 125. 126.

1176. Voss. ut sup.

1177. Μϵλισσσσόος, Anthol. ix. 226.

1178. Id. vii. 11-14. 179-187.

p. 232

1179. See above, p. 61. There was a cave in Arcadia sacred to the Moon and Pan Lycæos. Porphyr. de Antr. Nymph.

1180. Luc. D. D. 22. Et. Mag. v. Ἰάμβη.

1181. Ovid, Met. i. 690. seq. This legend does not occur elsewhere.

1182. Nonnus, xlii. 259. seq. Luc. ut sup. Geopon. xi. 4. Sec Brouk. on Propert. i. 18. 20.

1183. Sce Luc. Bacchus, 2.

p. 233

1184. See Sil. Ital. xiii. 326. seq.

n.p.

1185. Plato, Laws, vii. 815. Aristoph. Eccles. 1089. Moschus, iii. 22. Anthol. vi. 108.

1186. 1. αἰγιπόδης : 2. ϕιλόκροτος : 3. ϕιλόχορος : 4. ἀγλαέϴϵιρος : 5. ἀντροδίαιτος : 6. ἁλίπλαγκτος.

1187. Ͳᾱν for τάων, from τάω, whence imper. τῆ : so Πὰν, Παιὰν, Ἑρμὰν, νϵὰν, ξυνὰν, μϵγιστάν.” Schneider on Soph. Œd. Tyr. p. 138.

1188. Mythol. i. 169. He refers to Alcmaôn, Alcman ; Amythaôn, Amythan.

1189. Kret. Kol. 45. note. See also Schwenk. 213.

1190. Ap. Strabo. x. 3.

1191. Sch. Theocr. vii. 72. Eustath. Il. xviii. p. 1214. Ælian, V. H. iii. 40. Ͳίτυρος is merely the Doric form of Σάτυρος.

1192. Sch. Theocr. iii. 2. Serv. Buc. i. 1.

1193. Fr. ap. Plut. De Cap. etc. 2.

p. 234

1194. Welcker, Nach. zur Tril. 211. seq. See above, p. 79. notec.

1195. Euripides (Cyc. 620.) calls them ϴῆρϵς; the Ionians named them ϕῆρϵς. See Voss, Myth. Br. ii. 291.

1196. Hymn iv. 262.

1197. Fr. Incert. 73.

1198. Xen. Symp. v. 7. See also Ælian, V. H. iii. 18.

1199. Serv. Buc. vi. 13. Nonnus, xiv. 97 ; xxix. 262.

1200. Above, p. 123.

1201. See Nonnus, xix. 285. seq. 343 ; xxiii. 160. seq. Diodor. iii. 72. The blood-drops of Uranos would then be the rains.

1202. In Latin silanus is a tube or pipe for conveying water. Festus v. Tullii. Thus “Corpora silanos ad aquarum strata jacebant.” Lucret. vi. 1263. “Cum eduxisset fuscinam, tres silani sunt secuti.” Hygin. 169. “Confert aliquid ad somnum silanus juxta cadens.” Celsus, ii. 19.

1203. Herod. viii. 138.

1204. Paus. i. 4, 5.

1205. Herod. ut supra. Xen. Anab. i. 2. Conon. 1.

p. 235

1206. Serv. Buc. vi. 13.

1207. Aristot. De Anima. Plut. Consol. ad Apoll. Op. vii. p. 352. edit. Hutten.

1208. Theopomp. ap. Ælian, V. H. iii. 18.

1209. Ovid, Met. xi. 85. seq. Hygin. 191. Serv. Æn. x. 142. Max. Tyr. 30.

1210. Compare the story of Pythes and his wife in Plutarch. (De Mul. Virt. ad fin.)

1211. On the subject of Silenos see Welcker, Nach. zur Tril. 214-219.

1212. Strabo, xiii. 1.

p. 236

1213. Pausan. ix. 31.

1214. Theocr. Idyll. i. 21. Epigr. iv.

1215. Geor. iv. 110.

1216. Anthol. vi. 33. 190. 192.

1217. Id. x. 1-9.

1218. Idyll. iii. 27.

1219. Sch. Apoll. Rh. i. 932.

1220. Priapos was an epithet of this god. Athen. i. p. 30.

1221. Sch. Theocr. i. 21.

1222. Afranius ap. Macrob. Sat. vi. 5.

1223. Ovid, Fast. i. 391 ; vi. 345.

1224. Hygin. 160.

1225. Eudocia, 24. Sch. Apoll. Rh. ut sup. Tzetz. Lyc. 831.

1226. Eudocia, 345.

p. 237

1227. 1. ὀρϵιάδϵς : 2. ναπαῖαι : 3. λϵιμωνιάδϵς : 4. ναἶδϵς : 5. λιμνιάδϵς : 6. ἁμαδρυάδϵς : 7. δρυάδϵς : 8. μηλιάδϵς.

1228. It is plain that δρῠς and the Germanic tree are the same word. Δρῠς has apparently this signification II. xxii. 126. Od. xix. 163. Herod. vii. 218. Soph. Trach. 768. In Nonnus δρῠς is constantly tree, and δρυόϵις wooden. See ‘Tales and Popular Fictions.’

1229. Μ[ATTcaractre]λον is an apple or a sheep.

1230. ii. 224. seq.

p. 238

1231. Od. x. 350.

1232. Il. xx. 7. We believe there is no word in the English language which so nearly expresses the Greek πίσϵα as this old, now provincial, term. The Anglo-Saxon ץӀæδ is certainly a valley ; all the spots denominated slades that we have seen were rich, grassy, irriguous, but somewhat depressed lands. Mr. Todd says that Lye gives in his Anglo-Saxon Dictionary the Icelandic Slaed. Certainly not in the copy which we consulted. Slett, by the way, is the Icelandic word, and it signifies a plain. Slade is frequently employed in the Poly-Olbion of Drayton thus :

Through the slades where beauteous Severn plays.

1233. Od. xiii. 102.

p. 239

1234. See Callim. Hymn iv. 83. seq.

1235. v. 256. seq.

1236. αἳ ῥ’ οὔτϵ ϴνητ[ATTcararactere]ς οὔτ’ ᾀϴανάτοιοιν ἓπονται. This passage is very obscure, but we think the above is the sense of it. Hermann, we observe, has rendered it in the same manner. Ilgen regards the whole as an interpolation, taken perhaps from some theogony.

1237. Argonautica, ii. 475. seq.

p. 240

1238. Sch. Theocr. i. 66 ; viii. 93. Serv. Buc. v. 20. Parthen. Erot. 29. Ælian, V. H. x. 18. Diodor. iv. 87. Ovid (Met. iv. 276-8.) says she turned him into a rock.

p. 241

1239. Ovid, Met. iii. 341. seq. Paus. ix. 31, 7, 8. Conon. 24. Eudocia, 301. Hygin. 271.

1240. Peter Martyr in Irvine's Life of Columbus.

1241. Soph. Œd. Col. 682.

p. 242

1242. Nicander, ap. Ant. Lib. 31. Ovid, Met. xiv. 514.

1243. Nicander, ap. Ant. Lib. 32. Ovid, Met. viii. 330.

p. 243

1244. Nicander, ap. Ant. Lib. 22. Ovid, Met. vii. 354. We need hardly observe that the legend was invented to account for the origin of the cockchafer.

1245. Akin to the Latin nubo and nubes.

1246. Il. iii. 130. Od. iv. 743. In this last place it is used of Penelope, who was not very young ; but it is the old nurse who speaks.

p. 244

1247. See Hes. Th. 346. seq. Göttling in loc.

1248. Theog. 233.

1249. Apollod. ii. 5.

1250. Hor. Carm. i. 15. from Alcæus.

1251. Hermann (Opusc. ii. 178.) renders Nereus Nefluus (νη ρϵȋν), and understands by it the bottom of the sea. Others derive it from νάω, to flow. The Nereïdes, Hermann says, arc the waves.

p. 245

1252. Od. xiii. 96.

1253. Theog. 270.

1254. Hermann (ut sup. 179.) renders Phorcys Fureus, and makes him to signify the rocks and cliffs. Keto (кϵȋμαι), he says, is the sunken rocks. It rather seems akin to к[ATTcaractere °τος.

1255. Theog. 930.

p. 246

1256. Paus. ix. 20. 21.

1257. Od. iv. 384.

1258. Id. v. 561. seq.

1259. Id. v. 385.

1260. Id. v. 411.

p. 247

1261. Apollod. ii. 5. 9.

1262. Helena, 15.

1263. Below, Part II. chap. the last. The Returns.

p. 248

1264. See Orphic. Hymn XXV.

1265. Euanthes ap. Athen. vii. 296.

1266. Apoll. Rh. i. 1310. seq.

1267. Eur. Orest. 356. seq.

1268. Paus. ix. 22, 7.

1269. Aristot. ap. Athen. ut supra.

1270. Plat. Rep. x. 611. cum Schol.

1271. Paus. ut supra. Ovid, Met. xiii. 904. seq.

1272. Nicander ap. Athen. ut supra.

1273. Possis ap. eund.

p. 249

1274. Euanthes ap. eund. Several other opinions about Glaucos will be found in this place of Athenæus.

1275. Od. v. 333. Nitzsch in loc.

1276. Paus. i. 44, 88.

1277. Völck. Myth. der Jap. 125.

1278. Welcker, Nach. zur Tril. 134. Others make it quasi άλαίμων, from ἅλς, Volck. ut sup. and Schwenk, 184.

p. 250

1279. Hes. Th. 237.

1280. Sch. Eur. Orest. 1573. Ælian, V. H. ii. 33.

1281. II. xi. 728.

p. 251

1282. Theog. 315. 518.

1283. Hesiod (Th. 333.) enumerates among the progeny of Phoreys and Keto the ‘dread serpent which in a cavern of dark earth at its great extremity watches the golden apples,’ but he does not intimate any connexion between him and the Hesperides. Peisander it would seem (Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 1396.) first named him Ladôn, and called him the offspring of Earth.

1284. Pherecydes ap. Sch. Apoll. ut sup.

1285. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 1399.

1286. Apollod. ii. 5. 11.

1287. Apoll. Rh. iv. 1427. seq. Milton has (Comus, 981.)

Hesperus and his daughters three

That sing about the golden tree,

and he places their gardens ‘up in the broad fields of the sky.’

1288. Πέρην merely signifies out in, as

p. 252

1289. Apollod. ut sup.

1290. Hesiod, Th. 270. seq. In Ovid also (Met. iv. 773.) their number is only two.

1291. Eratosth. Cat. 22. Hygin. P. A. ii. 12. See Völcker, Myth. Geog. 41.

1292. Prom. 800. seq.

1293. Eratosth. Hygin. Völcker, ut sup. Æschylus, as it would appear, said that he flung the eye into Lake Tritonis.

1294. Apollod. ii. 4. 2.

p. 253

1295. Il. xi. 36.

1296. Il. viii. 348.

1297. Il. v. 741.

1298. Od. xi. 633.

1299. It may be doubted if Homer was acquainted with the story of Perseus : the passage in which he is mentioned (Il. xiv. 519.) is, we think, justly regarded as an interpolation. Völcker (Myth. Geog. 15.) refers to II. xix. 116. 125 ; but that passage, besides its being in one of the later books, is liable to objection. See Heyne and Payne Knight in loc.

1300. Theog. 274. seq.

1301. Prom. 804. seq.

1302. Paus. v. 18, 5.

1303. Hesiod, Shield, 233.

1304. Apollod. ii. 4. 2. Tzetz. Lyc. 838. Sch. Æsch. Prom. ut sup.

p. 254

1305. Hermann. De Mythol. etc. (Opusc. ii. 180.) Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 212. Myth. Geog. 17. Hermann renders Pephredo and Enyo, Auferona and Inundona.

1306. There seems to us to be much probability in Völcker's (Myth. Geog. 227. seq.) reading of Κυρήνης for Κιοθήνης in Æschylus’ Prometheus, 799 ; for this poet, as we have just seen, places the Gorgons near lake Tritonis.

1307. Serv. Æn. vi. 106. Strabo, v. 4.

1308. From ἁρπάζω. There was a species of hawk named ἅρπη (Il. xix. 359.). Leclerc derived Harpy from the Semitic Arba (אךבה) locust.

1309. Il. xvi. 149. Od. i. 241 ; xiv. 371 ; xx. 61. seq.

p. 255

1310. Theog. 267. seq.

1311. Il. xvi. 149. From this and from Od. xx. 65. 77. it may be perhaps inferred that the shore of Ocean was the abode of the Harpies.

1312. Æn. iii. 211. Tzetz. Lyc. 166.

1313. Below, Part II. chap. the last. Argonautics. See also Æschyl. Eum. 50. Virgil, ut supra, 216.

1314. Il. xxiii. 192.

1315. Od. x. 1. Apoll. Rh. iv. 765. Virg. Æn. i. 52.

1316. Theog. 378.

1317. Id. 869.

1318. Il. xv. 171 ; xix. 358 ; also αἰθρηγενέτης, Od. v. 296. See Appendix (E.).

1319. See below, Part II. chap. v.

p. 256

1320. Herod. vii. 189.

1321. Il. xx. 223.

1322. See above, p. 146.

1323. Serv. Buc. v. 48.

1324. Buttmann, Lexil. υ. ἀήρ.

p. 257

1325. On the Homeric geography the best work by far is that of Völcker, so frequently alluded to in these pages. The ‘Ælteste Weltkunde’ of Voss has two great defects ; he will localise every place and people, and he is resolute in maintaining the two poems to be the produce of one mind, and denies all interpolation.

p. 258

1326. Od. i. 183.

1327. Strabo. vi. 1. Mela. ii. 4. Ovid, Met. xv. 52. 707.

1328. Ἀλλοθρόους άνθρώπους. Od. ut supra. This may only denote a different pronunciation. See Nitzsch in loc.

1329. The majority of the critics (Nitzsch, ut supra) are of opinion that this is the place meant.

1330. Od. xv. 425. seq.

1331. Od. xx. 383.

1332. See Sch. Od. xviii. 85., and Niebuhr's Essay in the Cambridge Philolog. Museum, i. 174. seq.

1333. Od. xxiv. 307.

1334. “People,” said Eratosthenes, “will discover whither Odysseus wandered when they find the artist who stitched the leathern bag that held the winds.” Strabo, i. 2. Compare Völcker, Myth. Geog. 11. 12.

p. 259

1335. Od. ix. 80.

1336. Ἔνθϵν δὲ προτέρω πλέομϵν. The wind had been north-east, and it is not said that it had changed. We apprehend that by προτέρω the poet always means further on in the same direction. See Thiersch, Urgestalt der Odyssee, pp. 110, 111. Völcker, Hom. Geog. 111.

p. 261

1337. Od. i. 70.

1338. See above, p. 46.

1339. Strabo, i. 2. Völcker, H. G. 110. seq. This critic places the Cyclopes and the other fabulous tribes which we shall meet with on the west coast of Sicily.

p. 262

1340. Callim. iii. 46. Virg. Geor. iv. 173. Æn. viii. 416. seq.

1341. Sch. Eur. Orest. 955. Strabo, viii. 6.

1342. Theocr. xi.

1343. Ovid, Met. xiii. 750. seq.

1344. Od. vi. 4. seq.

1345. Od. vii. 205. 206.

1346. Od. vii. 60.

1347. Od. x. 120.

1348. Od. vii. 56. seq.

p. 263

1349. Pind. Pyth. viii. 15. Nem. i. 100 ; iv. 40. Eur. Iôn. 204. seq. Apollod. i. 6. Claudian, Gigantomachia.

1350. Apollod. ut supra.

1351. Pind. Pyth. i. 29. seq. Fr. Epinic. 5. Æsch. Prom. 351-372.

1352. Apoll. Rh. ii. 1215.

1353. This change of form was related by Pindar. See Porph. de Abst. iii. p. 251.

1354. i. e. Il’indman, son of Horseman.

p. 264

1355. It seems strange that Völcker should have left this circumstance so entirely out of view, and have determined Æolia to be one of the Ægatian islands. Hom. Geog. 114.

1356. Strabo, i. 2 ; vi. 2. Virg. Æn. i. 52 ; viii. 417.

p. 265

1357. Od. x. 81.

1358. See Circe and Ortygia in this chapter : also Völcker, Hom. Geog. p. 116.

p. 266

1359. Thuc. vi. 2. Strabo, i. 2. Tzetz. Lyc. 956. Sil. Ital. xiv. 125. Plin. H. N. iii. 8. They fixed on the country about Leontini. Völcker prefers the north-west point of the island.

1360. Hor. Carm. iii. 16, 34 ; 17, 1. In this last we cannot help regarding with Buttmann vv. 2-5. as an interpolation.

1361. Though we say Ææa, Æolia, Thrinakia, and Ogygia, they are all adjectives, as ν[ATTcaratere]σος is always joined with them.

1362. Od. x. 135.

1363. Od. i. 52. This term is applied in the Ilias to the serpent, the boar, and the lion, and signifies grim. In the Odyssey it is an epithet of Atlas, Minôs and Æætes, and its most appropriate sense is wise. Passow, s. v. Nitzsch.

p. 267

1364. Theog. 1011.

p. 268

1365. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iii. 311.

1366. Diodor. iv. 45. Eudocia, 261. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iii. 200.

1367. Plin. Hist. Nat. iii. 5. Serv. Æn. iii. 386. Comp. Apoll. Rh. iv. 659. seq.

1368. See below, Mythology of Italy.

1369. Nonnus, xiii. 328.

1370. Ptol. Hephæst. iv.

1371. Od. xii. 3.

1372. Sch. in loc. Völcker, Hom. Geog. 131.

p. 269

1373. See below, Argonautics.

1374. See above, p. 54.

1375. Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 125.

1376. Od. xii. 52. 167.

1377. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 892.

1378. Sch. Od. xii. 169.

1379. Sch. Od. xii. 39.

p. 270

1380. Orph. Argon. 1284. seq. Comp. Nonnus, xiii. 312.

1381. Apoll. Rh. iv. 895. Apollod. i. 3. 4. Tzetz. Lyc. 712. Eudocia, 373.

1382. Theon Sophista.

1383. Ap. Plut. Sympos. ix. 14.

1384. Hel. 168.

1385. Eudocia, 373. Tzetz. Lyc. 712. The tomb of Parthenope gave name to the city afterwards called Neapolis (Naples). Milton thus alludes to these names of the Sirens :

By Thetis’ tinsel-slippered feet,

And the songs of Sirens sweet,

By dead Parthenope's dear tomb,

And fair Ligea's golden comb,

Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks,

Sleeking her soft alluring locks. — Comus, 877.

We may observe how he confounds them with the Teutonic mermaids.

1386. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 892. Eudocia, 373.

1387. Tzetz. ut sup.

1388. Tzetz. ut sup. Serv. Æn. v. 864.

1389. Lib. x. p. 617. Comp. Milton, Arcades, 62. seq.

p. 271

1390. Paus. i. 21, 1. Plut. Numa, 4. Σοϕοκλέους. Plin. Hist. Nat. vii. 29.

1391. Many of the names placed in the West by the poet of the Odyssey appear to be of Phœnician origin. Thus, besides the one in the text, the Elysian Plain may be fairly derived from alatz (צלע) to rejoice ; Erebos from ereb (עבד) evening : Kimmerians from kamar (ככד) darkness.

1392. Od. xii. 73.

p. 272

1393. Od. xii. 124.

1394. Eudocia, 377.

1395. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 828.

1396. Id. ib. Sch. Od. xii. 85.

1397. Eudocia, 377.

1398. The poetess Hedyla said (Athen. vii. 297.) that he used to come to Scylla's cave.

Ἤκόγγου δώρωμα ϕέροντ՛ ՛Ερυθραίας ἀπὸ ὸέτρης,

Ἤτοὺς ἀλκυόνων παȋδας ἐτ ἀπτϵρύγους,

Τῆ νύμϕη δυσπϵίστιρ ἀθύρματα. Δάκρυ δ΄ έκϵίνον

Καὶ Σϵιρὴν γϵίτων παρθένον ῲκτίσατο.

p. 273

1399. Ovid, Met. xiv. 1. seq. Hygin. 199.

1400. Tzetz. Lyc. 650.

1401. Serv. Æn. iii. 420.

1402. Od. xi. 106 ; xii. 127. See above, p. 56.

1403. The episode (xii. 374-390.) of the complaint of Helios to Zeus was rejected by the ancient grammarians. We may observe that the cosmology in it is at variance with that of the Odyssey, for Helios menaces a descent to Erebos :

Δύσμαι ϵἰς ̓Αῒδαο, καὶ ἐν νϵκύϵσσι ϕαϵίνω.

p. 274

1404. Thucydides (vii. 1.) is we believe the first writer who uses the name Trinacria

1405. Od. xii. 351.

1406. Od. xii. 261.

1407. Properly the ‘Ogygian Isle.’ See Appendix (D).

p. 275

1408. Od. i. 52 ; vii. 245.

1409. Theog. 359. Hom. Hymn v. 422.

1410. Apollod. i. 2.

1411. Od. v. 72. seq.

1412. Od. vi. 4.

1413. Od. vi. 7 ; vii. 56.

1414. Od. v. 35. Nitzsch in loc. vii. 205.

p. 276

1415. Od. vii. 201. Nitzsch in loc.

1416. Od. vii. 204.

1417. Od. vi. 8.

1418. Od. vi. 270.

1419. Od. vii. 36.

1420. Od. viii. 556. seq.

1421. Od. v. 279. seq.

1422. Od. v. 385. seq.

1423. Od. vi. 200.

1424. Od. vi. 278.

1425. Od. vii. 321. seq. Payne Knight pronounces the whole passage 311-333 to be spurious, and we think his reasons satisfactory. Aristarchus suspected the first six lines.

p. 277

1426. Od. iv. 564.

1427. This is also the opinion of Nitzsch. Erklär. Anmerk. zur Odyssee, ii. 72-78.

1428. Thuc. i. 25 ; iii. 70. Apoll. Rh. iv. 982. seq. cum Schol. Tzetz. Lyc. 818.

1429. The first syllable of ἄπϵιρος is short, that of ἤπϵιρος is long. On this however we should lay no stress.

1430. Od. xix. 271. seq.

p. 278

1431. Od. v. 121.

1432. Od. xv. 403. seq.

1433. Apoll. Rh. i. 419. Virg. Æn. iii. 124. 143. 154. Servius on ver. 73. Müller (Die Dorier. i. 377.) maintains that the Ortygia of this place in the Odyssey is Delos. As this passage does not appear in the English translation of bis work, we may perhaps infer that his opinion is changed.

1434. Strabe, x. 5. Müller asserts positively in the Orchomenos (p. 126.) that this is the island meant in the Odyssey. Perhaps (see preceding note) he now thinks differently.

p. 279

1435. Orchom. 326.

1436. Compare Pliny, xii. 19.

p. 280

1437. Dionysius, Periegesis, 1181. seq.

p. 282

1438. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 256.

1439. Works, 108. See above, p. 69.

1440. See Plato, Laws, iv. p. 713.

p. 283

1441. Phænomena, 100. seq.

p. 284

1442. Met. i. 89. seq.

1443. So also Virgil (Buc. iv. 9. Geor. ii. 537.) and Claudian (Rapt. Pros. ii. 286.).

1444. Virg. Buc. iv. 6. Voss. in loco. Seneca, Octavia, ii. 1. 16. seq. On the other hand see Lobeck, Aglaoph. 791. seq.

1445. Buttmann, Mytholog. ii. 1. seq.

p. 285

1446. Myth. der Jap. 250. seq.

p. 286

1447. On the subject of Iapetos and his children, see the excellent work of Völcker so frequently quoted in the preceding pages.

1448. Theog. 507. seq. Some said Æthra (Timæus ap. Sch. Il. xviii. 486.), others Asia, others Libya ; these two last refer to the abodes of Prometheus and Atlas.

1449. From ἴπτoμαι (ἴπτω) to oppress, or ἰάπτω to strike. Its connexion with the Japhet of Scripture we can neither affirm nor deny.

p. 287

1450. Atlas, with a euphonic, from τλάω to endure ; Menœtios, from μένos, strength, passion, rage. (See Welcker, Tril. 68. note.) Some derive it from μένϵιν τὸν oἶτoν, as significatory of man’s mortality. The derivations of Prometheus and Epimetheus are obvious.

1451. Theog. 510. 514.

1452. Apollod. i. 2. 3. The accuracy of the Theogony is deserving of notice ; as Menœtios belonged to the human race, Erebos and not Tartaros was his proper prison.

1453. Od. i. 52.

1454. Theog. 517. seq.

1455. Hygin. 150.

1456. Od. i. 51.

1457. Hesiod, Works, 383. Sch. II. xviii. 486. from the Cyclie poets.

1458. Timæus, ap. Sch. Il. ut sup.

p. 288

1459. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 51., with whose views Müller agrees.

1460. Ovid, Met. iv. 631. seq. Serv. Æn. iv. 246. Tzetz. Lyc. 879.

1461. Tzetz. Lyc. 879.

1462. Diodor. iii. 60 ; iv. 27. Virg. Æn. i. 741. Serv. in loc.

p. 289

1463. Theog. 521. seq. Works, 47. seq.

1464. Νάρθηξ, ferula.

1465. Welcker, Tril. 78. Voss, Myth. Br. ii. 353. seq.

1466. “Ver erat æternum,” Ovid ; “Ver magnus agebat Orbis,” Virg. speaking of the beginning of the world ; and Milton says,

Universal Pan,

Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,

Led on the eternal spring.

1467. he human imagination feels in fact compelled, as it were, to conceive an endless spring as a condition of a place of bliss.

See Müller, Proleg. 122.

p. 290

1468.

Qui vultur jecur intimum pererrat,

Et pectus trahit intimasque fibras,

Non est quem tepidi vocant poetæ,

Sed cordis mala, livor atque luxus.

Petronius, ap. Fulgent. ii. 9.

Compare Lucret. iii. 992. seq.

1469. We are fully aware of the difficulty presented by the Hesiodic narrative of the stealing of the fire, and that it would seem from it that Zeus had deprived mankind of it in consequence of the trick played him by Prometheus. Still we think with Völcker that the sense of the original mythe is the one given above.

1470. See Apoll. Rh. ii. 1248.

1471. Æsch. Prom. 442. seq.

Bραχϵῖ δὲ μύθῳ πάντα συλλήβδην μάθϵ,

Πᾶσαι τέχναι βρoτoῖσιν ἐκ Πρoμηθέωs. — vv. 505, 506.

1472. Polit. p. 274. Protag. p. 320. Phileb. p. 16.

p. 291

1473. Etym. Mag. and Steph. Byz. v. Ἰκόνιoν.

1474. Apollod. i. 7. 1. Ovid, Met. i. 82. Hor. Carm. i. 3. 29. seq. Fulgent. Myth. i. 9. Serv. Buc. vi. 42. As Servius quotes Sappho as an authority, Welcker (Tril. 71. note) seems to have reason for thinking that this legend should be assigned to that poetess. It is remarkable that there is no mention of Pandora in it. See in Horace (Carm. i. 16. 13.) and Claudian (De IV Cons. Honor. 228. seq., and In Eutrop. ii. 490. seq). other accounts of this creation of man.

1475. Hygin. 220. The etymology at the end proves this to be a Latin fiction. Parnell’s beautiful imitation of it is well known.

p. 292

1476. Ælian, de Nat. An. vi. 51. and Nicand. Ther. 340. seq. with the Scholia. Nicander terms it an ὠγύγιos μῦθos. They derived it from the Κωϕoὶ, a satyric drama of Sophocles now lost.

1477. Hesiod, ap. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iii. 1086.

1478. Sch. Od. x. 2.

1479. Æsch. Prom. 560.

1480. Herod. iv. 45.

1481. Works, 47. seq. Theog. 570. seq.

1482. Buttmann, Mythol. i. “Pandora.”

p. 294

1483.

Audax omnia perpeti

Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas.

Audax Iapeti genus

Ignem fraude mala gentibus intulit :

* * * * * *

Nil mortalibus arduum est.

Carm. i. 3, 25.

The Epicurean poet was however disposed to regard all the popular gods as having been originally mere men.

1484. Πίθos, akin to the Latin vas, the German fass, and our words butt and pot, was a kind of large pitcher or jar with a wide mouth and a close-fitting lid. It was usually earthen, and was mostly employed for holding wine.

1485.

Μόυνη δ’ αὐτόθι Ἐλπὶs ἐν ἀῤῥήκτoισι δόμοισι

Ἔνδoν ἔμιμνε πίθoυ ὑπὸ χείλεσιν, oὐδὲ θὐραζε

Ἐξέπτη πρόσθεν γὰρ ἐπέμβολε πῶμα πίθοιο.

Works and Days, ver. 96.

p. 295

1486. Babrius. See Tyrwhitt, Diss. de Babrio, and the Museum Criticum.

1487. Frag. 2. Gaisford, Poetæ Minores, i. 410. Phocyllides, Fr. 2.

1488. Milton runs the parallel pretty closely :

What day the genial angel to our sire

Brought her in naked beauty more adorned,

More lovely than Pandora, whom the gods

Endowed with all their gifts, and Oh, too like

In sad event, when to the unwiser son

Of Japhet brought by Hermes, she ensnared

Mankind with her fair looks, to be avenged

On him who had stole Jove's authentic fire.

Par. Lost, iv. 712. seq.

p. 296

1489. Parænesis, 1135. seq. Compare Ovid, Ex Pont. i. 6. 29.

1490. Dionys. vii. 56. seq.

1491. Anthologia (Palat.), x. 71.

1492. Fab. 142.

p. 297

1493. Mythol. lib. iv. chap. vi. Lylius Giraldus, who tells the story in the same way, puts the evils in pyxide.

1494. Apollod. i. 7, 2. The escape to Parnassos, and the origin of men from stones, are noticed by Pindar, Ol. ix. 64. seq.

p. 298

1495. See Aristot. Meteor. i. 14.

1496. It may however have owed its origin to the resemblance between λάρναξ and Παρνασσὸs, which we are told was originally called Aαρνασσὸs from it. Sch. Apoll. Rh. ii. 705.

1497. De Sol. Animal. 13.

1498. Ovid, Met. i. 253. seq. Hygin. 153. Serv. Buc. vi. 41. Nonnus (vi. 206. seq.) gives, as usual, a most extravagant account of this deluge, which he represents as universal.

1499. Hygin. ut sup.

1500. Servius, ut sup.

1501. The Greek poets called the stones by a very natural figure γῆs ὄστεα. We know not what Greek authority Ovid followed in this narrative.

p. 299

1502. Pyrrha is evidently derived πῦρ from. Deucaliôn probably comes from δϵύω (whence δ) to wet. Welcker, Tril. 549. note. Völcker ut sup.

1503. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 342.

1504. Paus. ix. 5, 1. Tzetz. Lyc. 1206. Eudocia, 438. Euseb. Præp. Ev. x. 10. Syncellus, p. 63. Nonnus, iii. 204.

1505. See Appendix (D.).

p. 300

1506. Pelasgos in Arcadia (Asios ap. Paus. viii. 1, 4.), Inachos or Phoroneus in Argos (Acusilaüs and Plato : see Sturz. Pherecyd. 233.), Oros in Trœzên (Paus. ii. 30, 6.).

1507. See Schlegel’s well-known review of Niebuhr's History of Rome.

p. 301

1508. See Nitzsch on Od. iii. 439.

1509. The Pelasgians were fond of cultivating the rich soil on the banks of streams. Strabo, xiii. 3. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 364. Müller, Min. Pol. 3. Orchom. 125.

1510. Il. ii. 840 ; x. 429 ; xvii. 248. They are among the allies of the Trojans : Od. xix. 177.

1511. Od. iii. 366. Compare Il. x. 429.

1512. Hes. Fr. 25. Compare Il. x. 429 ; xxi. 86.

1513. Also called Danaans and Argeians. Ἀχαιὸs, according to Völcker (ut sup. 365.), is of the same family with aqua, and relates to agriculture also. Müller (Proleg. 291.) says it signifies good, and is equivalent to ἀριστϵύs.

1514. Herod. vii. 94. 95. Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, i. 29.

1515. See Wachsmuth, Hellenische Alterthumskunde, i. 44. Thus the people of Scandinavia, who afterwards became so terrible to more southern countries, are described by Tacitus (Germ. c. 44.) as being of rather a mild and peaceful character.

p. 302

1516. Herod. vii. 176. Müller, Orchom. 377.

1517. These are said to have been the Bœotians, who conquered and expelled the Cadmeians from Thebes. This event is a mere conjecture, and it would rather seem to have been the Epigoni who destroyed the Cadmeian power. The word Bœotian occurs in Homer in the Catalogue, and in Il. v. 710 ; xiii. 687 ; which last however is considered spurious. See also Il. xiv. 476 ; xvii. 597.

1518. Hesiod (Works, 528. 653.) first employed the term Hellenes to designate the whole people. See Müller, Æginet. 19. 155. seq. Welcker, Kret. Kol. 49. Niebuhr, ut sup.

1519. Müller, Proleg. 336.

1520. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 369. seq.

p. 303

1521. See above, p. 181. Also Müller, Orchom. 453. Æginet. 172. Proleg. 250.

1522. Buttmann, Mythol. ii. 210. 217. 226. Müller, Proleg. 165.

p. 304

1523. Müller, ut sup. 179. 285. seq. Hermann, Ueber das Wesen, etc. 104. Welcker, Tril. 356. 387.

1524. The Greek ἥρωs is plainly the Latin herus, German herr, i. e. master : — ἡρωΐνα, and the German herrinn, mistress, are nearly the saine.

1525. Pind. Ol. ii. 2, 3. Herodotus (iii. 122.) thus distinguishes between Minôs and Polycrates.

1526. Lobeck, 1233.

1527. Buttmann, Mythol. ii. 226. Müller, Orchom. 136. Compare Proleg. 330.

1528. Müller, Proleg. 103.

p. 305

1529. Iles. Fr. 23. Eurip. Fr. Æolos, 23. Apollod. i. 7, 3. This last writer names several other children of Æolos.

p. 306

1530. Od. xi. 257.

1531. Ib. 253.

1532. Above, p. 121.

p. 307

1533. Eur. Alcestis. Apollod. i. 9. 15. Hygin. 50. 51. Fulgent. i. 27.

1534. Apollod. i. 9. 16. Sch. Apoll. Rh. i. 46. Tzetz. Lyc. 175.

1535. Pind. Pyth. iv. 193. seq. Others said that on the death of Æsôn Pelias reigned as guardian to the infant Iasôn. Sch. Od. xii. 69.

1536. Apollod. i. 9. 16. Apoll. Rh. i. 10. Hygin. 12. 13.

p. 308

1537. Pind. ut sup.

1538. Apollonius (iii. 67. seq.) says that Hera did this to make trial of the humanity of men.

1539. Pherecydes ap. Sch. Pind. Pyth. iv. 133.

1540. The particulars of this voyage will be related below.

p. 309

1541. Apollod. i. 9.

1542. Ibid.

1543. Medeia is said to be immortal by Pindar (Pyth. iv. 18.) and Musæus (ap. Sch. Eurip. Med. 9.).

p. 310

1544. Theog. 992. seq. Pelias is here to Iasôn what Eurystheus is to Heracles.

1545. Argum. Eurip. Medeia. Ovid, Met. vii. 159. seq.

1546. Arg. Eur. Med.

1547. Arg. Eur. Med. Ovid, ut sup. ver. 294.

1548. Hygin. 24. Diodor. iv. 51. 52. Paus. viii. 11, 2. Ovid, ut sup. Müller (Orchom. 268.) thinks this was a mere fiction of the tragedians.

1549. Hygin. ut sup. Diodor. ut sup.

1550. Arg. Eurip. Medeia.

1551. Ibycus and Simonides, ap. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 815.

p. 311

1552. Od. xii. 72.

1553. Müller, Orchom. ut supra.

1554. Parmeniscus ap. Sch. Eurip. Medeia, 9. 275. Paus. ii. 3, 7. It was said that the Corinthians by a bribe of five talents gained Euripides to lay the guilt of the murder of her children on Medeia herself. (Schol. ut sup.)

1555. Sch. Pind. Ol. xiii. 74.

1556. Paus. ii. 3, 11.

p. 312

1557. Ap. Sch. Pind. Ol. xiii. 74.

1558. This Welcker (Tril. 546.) thinks is merely a genealogical fiction.

1559. Pind. Nem. v. 48. seq.

p. 313

1560. Hesiod, Fr. 85. Pind. Nem. iv. 95. seq.

1561. Apollod. iii. 13. 1. Sch. Apoll. Rh. i. 224. Eudocia, 338.

1562. Nem. iii. 58 ; iv. 88.

1563. Pherecydes ap. Sch. Pind. Nem. iii. 55. Apollod. ut sup.

1564. Pind. Isth. viii. 58. seq.

1565. Apollod. ut sup. Sch. Il. i. 519.

1566. Apollod. ut sup.

1567. Il. xxiv. 59. Apoll. Rh. iv. 793. seq.

1568. Pind. Nem. iv. 101. Soph. Fr. ap. Sch. Nem. iii. 60.

1569. Il. xxiv. 62.

p. 314

1570. Il. xvii. 195 ; xviii. 84.

1571. Il. xvi. 143.

1572. Il. xvi. 867 ; xvii. 443 ; xxiii. 277.

1573. Eurip. Iph. in Aul. 1036. seq. Catullus, Nuptiæ Pel. et Thet.

1574. Apollod. ut sup.

1575. Ap. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 846.

1576. Il. i. 396 ; xvi. 574 ; xviii. 89. 332. 440 ; xix. 422.

1577. Od. xi. 493. Eurip. Andromache.

1578. Callimachus, ap. Sch. Pind. Pyth. iii. 167. On the subject of Peleus and Thetis see below, chap. xii. Æacos.

p. 315

1579. Pind. Pyth. ii. 39. seq. Schol. on ver. 39. Hygin. 62. Sch. Il. i. 268.

1580. From ἳκιο to supplicate. See Welcker, Tril. 549. note. Müller, Eumen. 144 ; the father given him by Æschylus, Antiôn (ἀντιάω to entreat), and by Pherecydes, Peisiôn (πϵίθω to persuade), fully answers to this character.

1581. Pind. Pyth. ii. 57. Æschyl. Eumen. 714.

p. 316

1582. Welcker, Tril. 547. seq. Müller, Eumen. 144. seq.

1583. Il. i. 268 ; ii. 742 ; xi. 832.

1584. Od. xxi. 303.

1585. Hes. Shield, 178. seq. Sec above, p. 109. note (b)

1586. Pyth. ii. 78. seq.

1587. Ovid, Met. xii. 210. seq. He seems to have followed the drama of Æschylus named the ‘Perrhæbian Women.’ Diodor. iv. 70.

p. 317

1588. Od. xxi. 295. seq.

1589. Il. ii. 742. seq.

1590. Il. i. 269. seq.

1591. See below, chap. iv. Heracles.

1592. Ovid. Met. xii. 189. seq. Virg. Æn. vi. 448. (Serv. in loc.) Eudocia, 249.

1593.

f Ὁ δὲ χλωρῆϛ ἐλάτῃσι τυπϵὶϛ

Ὢ ‚χϵτο Καινϵὶϛ, σχίσαϛ ὀρθῷ ποδὶ γᾰν.

Pind. Fr. Incert. 148.

Apoll. Rh. i. 59. seq. Orph. Argonaut. 168. seq. It was probably from this circumstance that the father of Cæneus is named Elatos ; his own name (from καινὸϛ new) refers to his metamorphose.

1594. Sch. Il. i. 264. Eudocia, 249.

p. 318

1595. Above, p. 69.

1596. Il. xi. 832.

1597. Χϵίρουργία : the name χϵίρων plainly comes from χϵίρ.

1598. Ovid, Fasti. v. 379. seq. Hygin. P. A. ii. 38.

1599. Mythologus, ii. 22.

1600. Like διάκτοροϛ, ἀλάστοροϛ. He holds the word λάσταυροϛ, which he regards as a corruption of λάστωρ (from λᾰν to desire), to be perfectly parallel to κένταυροϛ. Welcker (Kret. Kol. 34. note) approves of this etymon.

1601. The Dioscuri were for an opposite reason called Ααπέρσα (Frag. Soph. apud Stob.).

1602. See Sch. Od. xxi. 303.

1603. Orchom. 195.

p. 319

1604. Apollod. i. 7. 4. Sch. Aristoph. Birds, 250.

1605. Ovid, Met. xi. 410. seq. Hygin. 65.

1606. Sch. Aristoph. ut sup. Sch. Theocr. vii. 57. Eudocia and Suidas, υ. ἁλκυών. Plut. de Sol. Anim. 35. Plin. H. N. ii. 47.

1607. See Müller, Dor. i. 542.

p. 320

1608. Aëthlios is the personification of the Olympic games.

1609. Il. xiv. 115. seq. ; for the above genealogy see Apollod. i. 7. 5. seq. Paus. v. 1.

1610. Apollod. ut sup. Hygin. 129. Compare Athen. ii. 35, and Servius and Probus on Geor. i. 9.

p. 321

1611. Hygin. ut sup.

1612. Apollod. ut sup.

1613. Tydeus is called an Ætolian by Homer, — Il. iv. 399.

1614. Sch. Aristoph. Achar. 393.

1615. See Il. xiii. 216. seq.

1616. Apollod. ut sup. Paus. ii. 25, 2.

1617. Il. ix. 527. We know not what may be the feeling of others, but for our part we remember when this tale of old Phœnix and Nestor's narrative (Il. xi. 670.) of the war of the Pylians and Epeians used to give us a peculiar degree of pleasure. They carried us back from the remote age of the war of Troy into a period removed still further in gray antiquity. The pleasure is, to our apprehension, something akin to that inspired by the contemplation of very ancient ruins. See, however, Appendix (H).

p. 322

1618. πϵντ ηκοντόγυον. The size of the γύα is not known.

p. 323

1619. Nicander, ap. Anton. Lib. 2. Apollod. i. 8. 2. Ovid, Met. viii. 270. seq. Sch. Aristoph. Frogs, 1236. Diod. iv. 34. Hygin. 181-5.

1620. In the ‘Meleagros’ of Euripides there was a long description given of the arms and appearance of each of the chiefs. See Fr. Meleag. 6.

p. 324

1621. Apollod. ut sup. Nicander, ut sup. Ovid, ut sup. 446. seq. Hygin. 174. Tzetz. Lyc. 492.

1622. Paus. x. 31, 3. from the Eoiæ and Minyas. He says that the earliest author extant who mentioned Meleagros’ death by the billet, was the tragedian Phrynichus in his play of the ‘Pleuronian Women,’ from which he quotes the following lines :

κρυϵρὸν γὰρ οὐκ

Ἤλυξϵν μόρον, ὠκϵῐα δὲ νιν ϕλὸξ κατϵδαίσϵτο.

Δαλοῠ πϵρθομένου ματρὸς ὑπ’ αἰνăς κακομηχάνου.

He justly adds that it was probably no original fiction of the poet, but a current story. Æschylus also alludes to it, Choëph. 600. seq.

p. 325

1623. Apollod. iii. 1, 1. This genealogy is given somewhat differently by Pherecydes (Sch. Apoll. Rh. iii. 1179.). Sec also Sch. Eurip. Phœn. 5.

p. 326

1624. The oracle said to Earth. See above, p. 159.

1625. Apollod. iii. 4. Pherecydes ut sup. This writer says that Ares gave the teeth to Cadmos, and desired him to sow them. Hellanicus (ap. Sch. eund.) says that only the five Spartans were produced from the teeth.

1626. Αȋδιον ἐνιαυτόν. “The year then was eight years,” Apollod. Sec above, p. 122.

p. 327

1627. Apollod. ut sup. Apoll. Rh. iv. 517. Ovid, Met. iv. 563. seq. Nonnus, xliv. 115. Ptol. Heph. 1.

1628. Il. iv. 390 ; v. 805.

1629. Od. v. 333.

1630. Theog. 937. 975.

1631. Ol. ii. 142.

1632. It is mentioned, as we have seen, by Pherecydes and Hellanicus.

1633. According to this theory Cadmeians would signify Eastmen or Ostmen, the name the Scandinavians gave themselves in Ireland. But these left traces at least of their language.

p. 328

1634. See Müller, Orchom. 113. seq.

1635. Καδμηḯδι γαίῃ. Hes. W. and D. 162.

1636. Welcker, Kret. Kol. 22. seq. Κάδμοѕ, from кάζω, to adorn or order. He as usual gives a profusion of cognate terms. The word Κάδμοѕ he regards as exaetly answering to кόσμοѕ, the name of the chief magistrate in Crete.

1637. Müller, Orchom. 461. seq. Proleg. 146. seq. See on the other side Welcker ut sup. 31. seq. Lobeck, 1253. seq.

p. 329

1638. Herod. i. 78.

1639. See Welcker ut sup. 78. seq.

1640. Hes. Th. 246. 258. 354.

1641. See above, p. 212.

p. 330

1642. Pherecydes ap. Sch. Apoll. Rh. ii. 498.

1643. Pindar, Pyth. ix.

1644. Aristotle (ap. Sch. Theocr. v. 53.) said he was taught them by the nymphs who had reared him.

1645. Apoll. Rh. ii. 506. seq. Sch. on ver. 498. Servius and Probus on Geor. i. 14.

1646. Geor. iv. 282. seq. Ovid, Fasti, i. 363. seq.

p. 331

1647. Callim. v. 107. seq. Apollod. iii. 4, 4. Ovid, Met. iii. 139. seq. Hygin. 180. 181. Nonnus, v. 287. seq.

1648. Eurip. Bac. 333. seq.

1649. Stesichorus ap. Paus. ix. 2, 3.

1650. Virg. Geor. iv. 283. Nonnus, xiii. 275. seq.

1651. Apoll. Rh. iii. 514.

1652. Müller, Orchom. 348.

1653. Herod. iv. 158.

1654. Müller, Proleg. 143.

p. 332

1655. So named probably from the Δημήτϵροѕ άкτή. See Welcker in Schwenk. 305.

1656. Dicæarchus in the Geograph. Minor. ii. 29.

1657. Stesichorus ut sup.

1658. Paus. ix. 38, 5.

p. 333

1659. See above, p. 249.

1660. Apollod. i. 9.

p. 334

1661. Philostephanos, ap. Schol. II. vii. 86.

1662. Hygin. P. A. ii. 20.

1663. Hygin. 4. Nonnus, ix. 247. seq. The last trait reminds one of Petit Poucet and the Ogre.

1664. Flight-giving ; λαϕύσσω is the same as σπϵύδω, ϕϵύγω.

1665. Herod. vii. 127.

p. 335

1666. See Müller, Orchom. 161. seq.

1667. Eur. Bacchæ. Apollod. iii. 5. 2. Ovid, Met. iii. 511. seq.

n.p.

1668. Il. xxiv. 602-17. It is here said that Niobe had six sons and six daughters. Hesiod (Sch. Eur. Phœn. 161.) said ten of each sex ; the tragedians (Id. ib.) said seven, but this was probably on account of the chorus.

1669. Apollod. iii. 5. 6. Ovid, Met. vi. 146. seq. Hygin. 9.

1670. Sch. Od. xix. 518.

1671. See above, p. 334.

1672. Od. xix. 518.

p. 338

1673. Od. xi. 259.

1674.

Ἀντιόπη δ᾽ ἔτϵкϵ Ζῆθον κ᾽ Ἀμϕίονα δῖον,

Ἀσωποῦ кούρη ποταμοῦ βαθυδινήϵντοѕ,

Ζηνί τϵ кούαμένη καὶ Ἐπωπέϊ ποιμένι λαῶν.

Apud Paus. ii. 6, 4.

1675. The name of Æetes’ mother was Antiope (above, p. 312.). The root of Zethos may be ζάω or ζέω. We have elsewhere (above, p. 61.) the Sun the father of the Moon, and on the hypothesis of night preceding day, the Moon might be the mother of the Sun. Zeus-Epopeus is like Zeus-Tyndareos.

1676. Soph. Antig. 834. Elec. 150. Dione, one of the Hyades, is her mother (Ovid, Met. vi. 174. Hygin. 9.). Sappho (Athen. xiii. 571.) says

Λατὼ καὶ Νιόβη μάλα μὲν θίλαι ἦσαν ἑταῖραι.

1677. “Νιόβη, i. e. Νϵόβη (νίοψ, νέοѕ, like θιὸѕ, σιὸѕ for θϵόѕ) a Νέαιρα or Καινώ.” Welcker, Kret. Kol. 7. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 356. See above, p. 56.

p. 339

1678. We adopt this expression from that very beautiful poem ‘The Bride of Siena,’ the fair author of which, led solely by her poetic feeling, has taken the very view of nature which we ascribe to a Pelasgian sage. Milton in his youth had a similar idea. In his Hymn on the Nativity he calls the sun Nature's ‘lusty paramour,’ and in one of his Latin Elegies (v. 55 — 94.) he describes this ‘bride of the sun’ and her dower at full length :

Exuit invisam Tellus rediviva senectam,

Et cupit amplexus, Phœbe, subire tuos, etc.

1679. See Völcker, ut sup., Cambridge Phil. Mus. ii. 354., and above, pp. 56. and 224.

1680. Orchom. 227. seq.

1681. Eur. Phœn. 615.

1682. Pherecydes, ap. Sch. Apoll. Rh. i. 755.

1683. Kret. Kol. 82. seq.

p. 340

1684. Soph. Œd. Tyr. 1038.

1685. From οἰδέω to swell, and ποῦѕ a foot.

1686. Apollod. iii. 5. 7. Diodor. iv. 64. Eudocia, 312.

p. 341

1687. The Sphinx is not mentioned by Homer ; but the legend is noticed in the Theogony (v. 326.), where she is called Фῖξ. Though this legend is probably older than the time of the first intercourse with Egypt, the Theban monster bears a great resemblance to the symbolical statues placed before the temples of that land of mystery.

In the pragmatising days it was said (Paus. Ix. 26.) that the Sphinx was a female pirate, who used to land at Anthedôn and advance to the Phicean Hill, whence she spread her ravages over the country. Œdipûs came from Corinth with a numerous army, and defcated and slew her.

p. 342

1688. Apollod. iii. 5. 8, 9. Diodor. ut sup. Soph. Œd. Col.

1689. Il. xxiii. 679. The word δϵδουπότοѕ is rather ambiguous, but it is probably merely dead. See Il. i. 191.

1690. Works, 162.

1691. Paus. ix. 5, 11. Pherecydes (Sch. Phœn. 52.) said that the sons of Iocasta were Phrastôr and Laonytos, who fell in battle against the Minyans. When the year (of mourning for Iocasta ?) was ended, he adds, Œdipûs married Eurygeneia, and on her death Astymedusa the daughter of Sthenelos.

1692. Athen. xi. 465.

p. 343

1693. Ap. Sch. Soph. Œd. Col. 1440.

1694. See below, Theban Wars.

1695. Od. x. 490.

1696. Od. xi. 90.

p. 344

1697. Pherecyd. ap. Apollod. iii. 6, 7. Callim. Εουτ. Πα. 75. seq.

1698. Apollod. ut sup.

1699. Id. ut sup. Sch. Od. xii. 494. Tzetz. Lyc. 682. 683. Ovid, Met. iii. 328. seq. Hygin. 75. Apollodorus and Hyginus make Cyllene the scene of Teiresias’ adventure. There are other differences also in the narrative.

1700.

Οἲην μὲν μοίραν δéкα μοιρῶν τέρπεται άνὴρ,

Τὰς δέкα δ̓ ἐμπίπλησι γυνὴ τέρπουσα νόημα.

p. 345

1701. The Thebaïs ap. Sch. Apoll. Rh. i. 308. Pausanias, vii. 3. Tzetz. Lyc. 980. The legend (Virg. Æn. x. 199.) which makes Manto the founder of Mantua in Italy evidently owes its origin to similarity of name.

1702. Milton (P. L. iii. 36.) enumerates Teiresias among those “equall’d with him in fate,” whom he would fain be “equall’d with in renown.”

And Tiresias and Phineus prophets old.

Does not this line afford a presumption that Milton, like Ben Jonson, read Greek by accent ? Nothing can be more inharmonious than it is if Teiresias be pronounced in the Latin manner, with the accent on the antepenultimate : few lines are more harmonious, if, as in the Greek, it be laid on the penultimate. If he did not read by accent, the line would probably have been, as Pearce proposed to read,

And Phineus and Tiresias prophets old.

Another instance is (i. 720.),

Belus or Serapis their gods.

1703. Homer never mentions the Minyans ; but he uses the adjective Minyan as an appellative of the wealthy city Orchomenos in Bœotia to distinguish it from that in Arcadia, and he also (Il. xi. 722.) applies it to a stream in the Peloponnese. He speaks (Il. xiii. 302.) of the Phlegyans.

1704. Paus. ix. 34. seq.

1705. According to Pausanias, the son of Chryse was Chryses the father of Minyas ; but the authors followed by the scholiast on Apollonius (iii. 1094.) give the more probable genealogy of the text.

p. 346

1706. Apoll. Rh. i. 229.

1707. See above, p. 213.

1708. Orchom. 133. seq.

1709. Mytholog. ii. 194. seq.

p. 347

1710. The Phlegyans were probably the Illustrious, from ϕλέγω, to make renowned. Pind. Pyth. v. 60. Nem. x. 4. Isth. vii. 33.

1711. Paus. ix. 37, 3.

p. 348

1712. Hom. Hymn to Pyth. Apoll. 118.

1713. The same trick is also said to have been played on Augeas, king of Elis, by Trophonios the step-son of Agamedes the Arcadian architect (Charax ap. Sch. Aristoph. Clouds, 509.). It also formed an episode of the Telegonia. The reader will observe the similarity between this legend and that related by Herodotus (ii. 121.) of the Egyptian king Rhampsinitus. Buttmann and Müller think the supposition of the story being taken from Herodotus, and told of persons and places in Greece, too absurd to deserve refutation. But these ingenious writers should have known that no practice is more common, and that abundant instances of it are to be found in all times and countries. (See ‘Tales and Popular Fictions,’ passim.) We are, however, disposed to regard this as one of the tales which the Egyptians (who, by the way, seem never to have been an inventive people,) borrowed from the Greeks.

1714. Paus. ut supra.

1715. Apud Plut. De Cons. ad Apoll. Op. vii. p. 335. ed. Hutten. Plutarch at the same time tells the similar story of Cleobis and Bitôn from Herod. i. 31.

1716. Paus. ix. 40. He also relates (ib. 39.) the mode of consulting the oracle.

p. 349

1717. Strabo, ix. 2. Liv. xlv. 27.

1718. See Müller, Orchom. 198. 150. seq. 242.

1719. Il. v. 385. seq.

1720. Od. xi. 304. seq.

1721. Pyth. iv. 156. seq.

1722. Above, p. 130.

1723. Paus. ix. 29, 1.

1724. Id. ib. 22, 5.

1725. Αλωεὺς, from άλωὰ, threshing-floor. Ἐρίβοια, from ἔρι and BOΩ, βόσкω, to feed.

p. 350

1726. Ὢτος from ΩθΩ, ὠθέω, to push ; Ἐϕιάλτης from ἐπὶ and ὶάλλ to put.

1727. In compliance with established usage we place this hero here, though there is little reason for regarding him as an original Theban hero. See Appendix (I).

1728. Pherecyd. ap. Sch. Od. xi. 266. Apollod. ii. 4. Diodor. iv. 9.

p. 351

1729. Pind. Nem. i. 49. seq. Theocr. Idyl. xxiv.

1730. The law according to Aristotle (Eth. v. 8.) was Εἲ к’ ἔρξε δίкη к’ ίθεȋa γένοιτο.

1731. Apollod. Some said seven, others one night. See Heyne in loc.

1732. Homer arms Heracles with a bow and arrows (Il. v. 393. Od. viii. 224 ; xi. 600.) : Hesiod describes him with shield and spear. Peisander and Stesichorus were the first who gave him the club and lion-skin. Athen. xii. 513.

p. 352

1733. Od. xi. 269.

1734. According to Pherecydes (ap. Ant. Lib. 33.), when Alcmena, who long survived her son, died, and the Heracleids were about to bury her at Thebes, Zeus directed Hermes to steal her away and convey her to the Isles of the Blest, where she should espouse Rhadamanthys. Hermes obeyed, and placed a stone instead of her in the coffin. When the Heracleids went to carry her forth to be buried, they were surprised at the weight, and opening the coffin found the stone, which they took out, and set it up in the grove where her Heroön stood at Thebes.

1735. Apollod. ut sup. Diodor. iv. 14.

p. 353

1736.

Ἡραкλέην δὲ ϭε Фοȋβος ἐπώνυμον ἐξονομάξει,

Ἤρα γὰρ άνθρώποι ϕέρων кλέος ἂϕθιτον ἔξεις.

Et. Mag. v. Ἡραкλῆς.

1737. Hom. II. xix. 198.

1738. Hesiod (Th. 327.) says of Orthos.

p. 354

1739. See the description of the combat in Theocr. Idyll. xxv.

1740. II. xv. 639.

1741. Hes. Th. 313.

1742. The hydra was a sophist, says Socrates, with his usual irony (Plat. Euthyd. 297.).

p. 355

1743. Pindar (Ol. iii. 55.) makes the hind lead the hero a chase to the country of the Hyperboreans.

1744. Theocr. vii. 149.

p. 356

1745. The proper scene of the adventure with the Centaurs must have been Thessaly, as in Euripides, Her. Fur. 365. seq.

1746. Theocr. Idyll. xxv.

p. 357

1747. Pherecydes, ap. Sch. Apoll. Rh. ii. 1054.

p. 358

1748. See Appendix (K.).

p. 359

1749. II. xxi. 441 ; see above, p. 123. The poet (Il. xx. 145.) mentions the combat of Heracles with the sea-monster. He also tells (v. 640.) of the taking of Troy by Heracles, on account of the horses, relating to which Laomedôn had broken his word.

1750. Hesione is the same as Eïone (name of a Nereïs, Hes. Th. 255.) and comes from ἠїὼν strand.

1751. Apollodorus, following Pherecydes, says “which is now called Gadeira,” but that island has surely no river or mountain in it. Hesiod (Th. 290, seq.) clearly places Erytheia beyond the Ocean, that is toward its further coast. It was probably the temple of the Phœnician Melcart (who was identified with Heracles) at Gades which gave occasion to this localization of Erytheia, and also to the legend of the pillars.

1752. See above, p. 253.

1753. Pind. Nem. iii. 35. seq. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 61.

p. 360

1754. Pherecydes ap. Athen. xi. 470. Pcisander said it was Occanos, Panyasis said Nereus, that gave him the cup (Athen. ut sup.). Sec above, p. 54.

1755. According to Æschylus (Prom. Loosed, Fr. 128.), Heracles being hard pressed by the Lygians in the combat, and having spent his arrows, Zeus aided him with a shower of stones, with which he pelted and overcame his enemies. This was when he was on his way to the Hesperides (Strab. iv. 1.). Hyginus (P. A. ii. 6.), also quoting Æschylus, says it was on his return from Erytheia.

1756. Аποῤῥήγνυσι. The country, said Hellanicus (Dion. Hal. i. 35.), was henceforth named Italia, Italos (Vitulus) being an ox in the language of the country.

p. 361

1757. This is a mythic origin of the shallows in the Strymôn.

1758. See above, p. 251.

1759. Sch. Pind. Pyth. ix. 183. See Milton, P. R. iv. 564.

1760. Аνταȋος (Opponent, from ἀντὶ). This legend was perhaps invented after the Greeks had settled in Libya, and was designed to express the incessant opposition which they experienced from the original inhabitants. Müller, Dor. i. 458.

p. 362

1761. The conjecture of Müller (ut sup.), that Busiris is Osiris with the Egyptian article pe prefixed, is highly probable. The legend was framed, he thinks, when the Greeks first began to have intercourse with Egypt, and expresses their idea of the former inhospitable character of the people of that country.

1762. Pherecydes ap. Sch. Ap. Rh. iv. 1396. Heyne and Müller, for Πέργη read περαία. It would almost seem as if the rock of Prometheus was on the opposite coast of Ocean. It is however more consistent with analogy to conceive it on the eastern extremity of the earth.

1763. Pherecydes ut sup. Others said Heracles killed the guardian-dragon and took the apples himself. Eurip. Her. Fur. 394. seq. Apollod. ut sup.

1764. Apollod. ut sup.

p. 363

1765. Il. viii. 867. Perseus was similarly aided by these deities.

1766. This is founded on Od. xi. 633.

1767. For an effect of this on the bodily conformation of the Athenians, see Sch. Aristoph. Knights, 1365.

p. 364

1768. There were three places named Œchalia in Greece ; on the banks of the Pencios in Thessaly, in Eubœa, in Messene. Each of these claimed Eurytos. Homer (Od. viii. 226 ; xxi. 22. seq.) is in favour of the last : he says that Eurytos having challenged Apollo at archery was killed by the god ; and his son Iphitos, coming to Heracles in quest of his mares and foals, was slain by him in violation of the rights of hospitality. In the Catalogue (II. ii. 730.) the Thessalian Œchalia is the city of Eurytos ; while the ‘Taking of Œchalia’ and the Ægimios, as it would seem, are in favour of that in Eubœa. They are followed by Sophocles, Apollodorus, and the current of writers.

1769. Pherecydes ap. Sch. Od. xxi. 23. Æsch. Agam. 1048. Soph. Trach. 252. seq.

p. 365

1770. The Lydians had a hero named Sandôn similar to Heracles (Lyd. de Magist. iii. 64.). Omphale, we are told, clad him in a robe dyed with sandyx. See Müller, Proleg. 188.

1771. Homer (II. v. 641.) says six ships.

1772. Il. xv. 18.

p. 366

1773. See below, chap. x. Eurytos and Cteatos.

1774. Il. xi. 689. See below, chap. x. Neleus.

1775. The line, Il. v. 397.

Ἐν Πύλῳ ἐν νϵκύϵσσι βαλὼν ὀδύνῃσιν ἔδωκϵ, alludes perhaps to this event.

1776. Paus. iii. 15, 4.

p. 367

1777. Τήλϵϕοѕ, from ἔλαϕοs a hind. Its true signification is Far-shining (τηλέϕαοs) ; Auge (Αὐγὴ) is Bright. The legend is connected with the worship of Athena Alea (above, p. 158.). See Paus. viii. 47. Welcker, Kret. Kol. 12.

1778. When he met Meleagros in Erebos the latter besought him to marry his sister. (Sch. Il. xxi. 194.)

1779. Amaltheia (above, p. 79.) was the goat that suckled the infant Zeus ; the name is probably derived from ἀμαλὸς, tender, or from ἀμέλγω, to milk. It was a pleasing fiction to make her horn pour forth ambrosia and nectar. According to later writers Amaltheia was a nymph, the possessor of the horn, the daughter of Oceanos (Sch. Il. xxi. 194.), or Hæmonios (Pher. ap. Apollod. ii. 7.5.), or Olenos (Theon. ad Arat. 64.).

p. 368

1780. See Fairy Mythology, vol. i. p. 206. note, for a somewhat similar proof of the strength of Holger Dansk.

p. 369

1781. Hesiod, Shield of Heracles.

1782. From Œta say Ovid (Met. ix. 165. 217.) and Milton (P. L. ii. 545.).

1783. See Sophocles’ Trachiniæ.

p. 370

1784. Buttmann, Mytholog. i. 246. seq.

p. 371

1785. As Homer does not seem to have known anything of the Hyperboreans, the task of going for the apples of the Hesperides is probably a fiction as late as the time of Hesiod, or even later.

1786. ᾽Аλλά ἐ Μοῑῤ ἐδἀμασσϵ καὶ ἀργαλέος χόλος Ἣρης. — Il. xviii. 119.

1787. Od. xi. 602. It is not unworthy of notice, that in the Ilias (i. 3.) it is said that the souls (ψυχὰѕ) of the heroes were sent to Aïs, themselves (αὐτοὺѕ) were made a prey for dogs and birds ; while, in this place of the Odyssey, the image (ϵἲδωλον) of Heracles was in the house of Aïs, himself (αὐτὸѕ) was on Olympos. Two diametrically opposed species of psychology !

p. 372

1788. Dorians, book ii. chap. 11. 12.

p. 373

1789. All the compounds of this form seem to be in a good sense. Such are Sophocles, Agathocles, Callicles, Hierocles, Themistocles, Eucles. Diocles, Hermocles, Theocles, seem to intimate the divine favour.

1790. Heracles, son of the Strong-one (Alcmena) by Zeus-Amphitryôn (Wearer-out or Vanquisher).

p. 375

1791. Apollod. iii. 14. For other marks of the vengeance of this god, see Sch. Aristoph. Eccles. 473. Varro, Fr. p. 360. (Bip.)

1792. Above, p. 107.

1793. Above, p. 164.

p. 376

1794. Timæus, 21. seq. Critias, 108. seq.

1795. Menexenus, 245. Isocrates (Enc. Hel. 20. Panath. 19.) omits Cecrops in his list of Athenian kings ; and he speaks (Panath. 258.) of the Athenian autochthony in the same manner as Plato. See also Euripides Fr. Erechtheus, i. 7. seq.

p. 377

1796. See Müller, Orchom. 106. seq. Proleg. 175. Voss. Myth. Br. iii. 180. seq.

1797. Sch. Aristoph. Lys. 439. Harpocrat. v. Ἅγραυλοѕ.

1798. The Erechtheides Protogeneia and Pandora formed another pair.

1799. Mr. Kenrick, in his ingenious Essay on the Mythic Kings of Attica, in the Philological Museum (ii. 357.), thinks that the original form was Κρέκοψ from κρέω.

p. 378

1800. Apollod. iii. 14, 5. 6.

1801. Id. ut sup.

p. 379

1802. Hygin. 166.

1803. Apollod. ut sup.

1804. He was said to be the prince of the Thracians, who were supposed to have dwelt in the old times in Daulis. Thuc. ii. 29. Apollod. iii. 14. 8. Conon, 31. Paus. i. 41, 8 ; x. 4, 8. Daulias was an epithet of the nightingale.

p. 380

1805. Apollod. iii. 13. Ovid, Met. vi. 424. seq. Hygn. 45. Conon, 31. Sch. Aristoph. Birds, 212. Eudocia, 327. Serv. Buc. vi. 79.

1806. Apollod. ut sup. Hygin. ut sup.

1807. Procne is the nightingale in Æsch. Sup. 51. seq. Apollod. ut sup. Sch. Aristoph. ut sup. Conon ut sup. Paus. x. 4, 9. Varro, L. L. iv. Plut. Symp. viii. 7. 2. Nonnus, ii. 131 ; xii. 75. — Philomela, in Ovid, ut sup. A. A. ii. 383. Hygin. ut sup. Eudocia, ut sup. Hor. Carm. iv. 12. 5. Virgil, Geor. iv. 14. 513. Statius, Silv. v. 3. 84.

1808. Philomela is Song-loving. See Welcker, Der Ep. Cyc. 274, note.

1809. Hygin. ut sup.

1810. Serv. Buc. vi. 79.

1811. See above, p. 337.

1812. Works, 568.

1813. Ælian, V. H. xii. 20.

1814. On this subject see 'Tales and Popular Fictions,' p. 17.

p. 381

1815. Paus. x. 4, 9.

1816. Apollod. ut sup.

p. 382

1817. Pherecydes, ap. Sch. Od. xi. 321.

1818. Hygin. 189. Ovid, Met. vii. 661. seq. Paus. ix. 19, 1.

1819. Apollod. iii. 15. 1. Anton. Lib. 41.

1820. Apollod. ii. 4. 7. From Photius (Lex. p. 428.) it would appear that this event was celebrated in the Thebaïs of the Epic Cycle.

p. 383

1821. This is a mere coincidence of name.

1822. Od. xi. 321.

1823. Κέфαλοѕ quasi κνέфαλοѕ, from κνέфαѕ. See Buttmann, Lexil. v. κϵλαινόѕ.

1824. Plato, Phædr. 229. Apollod. iii. 15. 2. Apoll. Rh. i. 211. seq. cum Sch. Hellanicus (ap. Sch. Od. xiv. 533.) said that Oreithyia was on the Acropolis as a basket-bearer (κανηфόροѕ) in the worship of Athena-Polias when she was carried off.

1825. Apollod. ut supra.

p. 384

1826. Zetes is easily deduced from ζάω, to blow. Calaïs is probably derived from καіω to burn, like κᾱλον firewood, κήλεοs burning, κηλὰs windy, as κηλὰs cloud-portending wind, κηλὰs ἡμέρα a windy day. See Welcker, Tril. 565, note.

p. 385

1827. Apollod. ut sup. Soph. Fr. Ægeus. Sch. Aristoph. Wasps, 1223.

1828. Apollod. ut sup. Sch. Eurip. Hyp. 1195.

1829. Ovid, Met. viii. 145. Virg. Ciris, and Geor. i. 403.

1830. From κείρω, to cut or devour, — from her cutting off her father's lock, says the legend, — from the rapacity of the bird more probably.

1831. Choëph. 609. seq.

p. 386

1832. The god said,

̕ Ασκοȗ τòν προὔχοντα ποδάονα, ϕέρτατε λσκον,

Μὴ λύσηs, πρìν ἐs ἄκρον ̓ Αθηναίων ἀϕίκηαι.

1833. Plut. Thes. 22. Diodor. iv. 61. Paus. i. 22, 4. Catull. lxiv. 242. Others said he flung himself from a rock into the sea, which was named from him. Nicocrates (ap. Sch. Apoll. Rh. i. 831.), Hygin. 43. Serv. Æn. iii. 74. Statius (Theb. xii. 625.) says from Sunion.

p. 387

1834. Apollod. iii. 16. 1. Plut. Thes. 8. Diodor. iv. 59.

1835. From σίνω, to injure.

p. 388

1836. Plut. and Diodor. ut sup. Hygin. 38.

1837. Plut. Thes. 9. Strabo, viii. 6. Pans. ii. 1, 3. Diodor. ut sup.

1838. Plut. Diodor. and Hygin. ut sup. Sch. Eurip. Hyp. 983.

1839. Id. ib.

1840. Id. ib.

p. 389

1841. Plut. 13.

1842. Id. 12.

1843. Id. 14. Diodor. ut sup. Hygin. ut sup.

p. 390

1844. Plut. 15 — 19. See below, chap. xii. Ariadne.

1845. Plut. 21. The practice of sending a ship annually to Delos — whatever may have given occasion to it — long continued. While it was absent no sentence of death could be executed in Athens ; because, as it was said, it commemorated the deliverance of the youths and maidens. The ship sent, called the Paralian Galley, was maintained to be the very same one in which Theseus had sailed ; though it had been so often repaired, as to give occasion to a celebrated question among the sophists respecting its identity. Plut. Thes. 23.

1846. This is evidently founded on the lines of Homer, Il. xviii. 590. seq.

p. 392

1847. Those who would assign a historical foundation to the wild and fanciful fictions of ancient poets, tell us that Persephone was wife to Aïdoneus king of the Molossians ; that his dog was called Cerberos, who tore Peirithoös to pieces, etc. We have already expressed our dissent from this tasteless mode of procedure.

p. 393

1848. The circumstance of women accusing those who have refused their favours is common to the history and the fable of most countries. The earliest instance on record is that of Joseph and Potiphar's wife ; and, under the names of Yoosuf and Zooleikha, their adventure is the theme of romance over the Mohammedan East. The stories of Peleus, Bellerophontes, Hippolytos and Muenos (Plut. de Fluv. 8.), occur as we may perceive in Grecian mythology, and those of Sir Lanval (Fairy Mythology, i. p. 54.) and of Tristan and Belinda (Tristan de Leonnois) are to be found in the romance of the middle ages. The case most similar to the present occurs in the Persian Shâh-Nâmeh, where Siyawush the son of Ky Kaoos, king of Persia, is, on rejecting the amorous advances of his step-mother Soodâbeh, accused by her to his father ; but the gallant youth clears himself by going through the ordeal of fire, riding in golden helm and snowy raiment between the flaming piles, kindled by two hundred men. Another case is that of the sons of Camarez-Zemân, in the Thousand and One Nights.

p. 394

1849. Paus. i. 26, 5.

1850. θάλασσu ̓ ΕρεχΟηΐς. Apollod. iii. 14. 1. Compare Herod. viii. 55. Paus. ut sup.

p. 395

1851. Ερεχθοχθόνιοs, from ὲρέχθω to shake, and χθὼν earth, softened on account of the aspirates to ̛ Εριχθόνιοs, and then reduced to ̛ Eρεχθεύς. Tzetzes (Lyc. 156. 158.) calls Poseidôn Erechtheus, παρὰ τὸ ἐρέχθω τὸ κινῶ. — Athenagoras says (Leg. 1.), ̔Ο δὲ ̛ Αθηναȋ Ποσειδῶνι : and Phavorinus, ̓ Ερεχθεὺs, Ποσειδῶν ἐν ̓ Αθήναις.

1852. Il. xx. 221.

p. 396

1853. Mr. Kenrick's derivation of this name is very plausible ; — ̓Ηιονἰα, ̓Ιηονία, ̓Ιαονία, the sea-coast.

1854. Ξοȗθοѕ, yellow-haired, is the same as ξανθὀѕ

1855. Paus. i. 19, 3.

1856. We are also told of a giant Pallas, from whom the goddess derived her name ; and in the Ægeus of Sophocles,

……………τῆѕ δὲ γῆs τò πρòs νὀτον

̔Ο σκληρòѕ οὖτοѕ καὶ γἰγανταѕ ἐκτρέϕων

Εἴληχε Πάλλαs,

is said of this son of Pandiôn.

1857. Νισαία is plainly the same as νησαία.

1858. The daughter of the governor of the castle of Abydos thus betrayed it to the Turks. In the Shâh-Nâmeh, Meliketh (Princess), daughter of an Arab chief, delivers him and his castle up to Shâh-pûr, with whom she had fallen in love.

1859. Pherecydes, ap. Sch. Apoll. Rh. i. 831.

1860. Callim. Fr. (Bentl.) 103. Lyc. 135. Hesychius and Phavorinus s. v. See Appendix (D.).

p. 397

1861. Plut. Thes. 36. See Müller, Proleg. 271. 272.

p. 398

1862. Il. xviii. 590.

1863. Apollod. iii. 15, 9. Ovid, Met. viii. 103. seq. Diodor. iv. 76. 77. Hygin. 39.40.

p. 399

1864. Eumelos ap. Paus. ii. 1, 1.

1865. Paus. ii. 1, 6. As Briareôs was also called Ægæôn (Il. i. 403.), he is here probably Poseidôn himself.

1866. Paus. ii. 4, 3.

p. 400

1867. Pherecydes (ap. Sch. Il. vi. 153. Sch. Soph. Aj. 625.). Sch. Pind. Ol. i. 97. Theognis, 702. seq.

1868. The ancient form of the Σ was C, which is of the shape of a horse's hoof.

1869. Pherecydes ap. Sch. Od. xix. 432. Sch. Il. x. 267. Tzetz. Lyc. 344. Eudocia, 375. Æsch. Fr. 162. Soph. Ajax, 190. Sch. in loc. Philoct. 625.

1870. Il. vi. 153.

1871. Ap. Sch. Pind. Pyth. iv. 252.

1872. Od. xi. 593.

1873. Σίσυϕος quasi Σι-σοϕοs, by a common reduplication.

p. 401

1874. See Welcker, Tril. 550.

1875. Αἰόλος, cunning. Hesiod calls Sisyphos αἰολόμητιs.

1876. See Od. x. 1. seq. The primary meaning of αἰολόμητιs is swift.

1877. Μέροπεs, mortals, from μόροs death ; οψ is a mere adjectival ending.

1878. For all the subjects here touched on see Welcker in Schwenk, 320. seq. Tril. 550. seq. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 118. seq.

1879. Il. vi. 144. seq. The genuineness of this episode is doubted of by Böttiger. See Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 118. note.

p. 402

1880. It is a disputed point whether these characters were letters, or of the same kind with the Mexican picture-writing. See Wolf's Prolegomena to Homer.

1881. Apollod. ii. 3. Pind. Isth. vii. 63. seq. Hygin. 57. Id. P. A. ii. 18. Sch. Il. vi. 155. Tzetz. Lyc. 17.

p. 403

1882. Theog. 325. ̛ Εσθλὸs and ἀγαθὸs in the old Greek poets answer exactly to the good of the romances of chivalry, where the good knight is the brave knight.

1883. Ol. xiii. 85. seq.

p. 404

1884. Pind. ut sup. ver. 99. Sch. II. vi. 155. Glaucos is, like Ægeus, an epithet of the sea-god.

1885. See above, p. 253.

1886. Or Entreater, from ἀντιάω.

1887. In the Theogony, ver. 282, it is said,

Τῳ μὲν ἐπώνυμον ἦν ὅτ᾿ ἄῤ Ὠкϵανοȗ πϵρὶ πηγὰς

Γϵνθ᾿.

It may also be derived from ΠΗΓΩ, πηγνȗμι, to construct or build. There are other instances of legends founded on different derivations of the same name.

1888. There was a temple of Athena under this name at Corinth, Paus. ii. 4, 1, 5 ; and Poseidôn was there named Damæos. Sch. Pind. 01. xiii. 98.

1889. According to Eustathius and others τὰ ἔλλϵρα are τὰ кαкά.

p. 405

1890. Apollod. ii. 1.

1891. Paus. ii. 15, 5.

1892. Id. ib. The river-gods Inachos, Cephisos, and Asteriôn were his assessors ; and Poseidôn in revenge caused them all to fail in dry weather.

p. 406

1893. From ϕέρω, ϕέρβω, to feed. Welcker in Schwenk, 299.

1894. See above, p. 338.

1895. Apollod. ut sup.

1896. Or, as the dramatists said, of Inachos

1897. Æsch. Sup. 306.

1898. Acusilaüs and Æschylus (Sup. 318.) call him Earth-born.

1899. The name resembling μυкάω, to low Another legend derived it from the bellowing of the Gorgons when in pursuit of Perseus.

p. 407

1900. Apollod. ut sup. Ovid, Met. i. 583. seq. Val. Flac. iv. 351. seq.

1901. See Apollod. ii. 1. 3. Sch. Eurip. Phœn. 1132. Steph. Byz. v. ̕ Αβαντίς.

1902. Ap. Sch. Eurip. ut sup.

1903. See Welcker, Tril. 127. seq.

p. 408

1904.

o behold the wandering moon

Riding near her highest noon,

Like one that had been led astray

Through the heaven’s wide pathless way. — Milton

Hesych. and Suidas, v. Ἰώ.

1905. Jablonski, Panth. Ægypt. ii. 4. seq.

1906. Neither is Isis the moon. See above, p. 227.

1907. Io is perhaps derived from ΙΕΩ, ἵημι, to send, an epithet of Hera the earthgoddess, as the sender-up of vegetation. Those who make Io the moon deduce it from ἴω, ϵἶμι, to go. Buttmann (Mythol. ii. 178. seq.) makes it the feminine of Iôn, and the personification of the Ionian race.

1908. Io was transformed by Hera. Æsch. Sup. 312.

1909. Argos is the name of Odysseus’ dog (Od. xvii. 292.), and of one of Actæôn’s hounds (Apollod. iii. 4, 4. Hygin. 181.).

1910. Müller, Proleg. 133.

p. 409

1911. Müller, Proleg. 183. 184. Apis, he observes, with the Coptic article Pe prefixed (that is, Pe-Apis), was easily changed into Epaphos, which signified the Touched. It is well known how fond people are of turning foreign words into such as have a signification in their own language, ex. gr. Beefeater and Sparrowgrass. The Italians named sir John Hawkwood the condottiere Aguto, and the Frank king Pharamond (Wahrmund) Fieramonte.

n.p.

1912. The legend of Danaos and his family will be found in Apollod. ii. 1, 4. Hygin, 168-170. Sch. Il. i. 42 ; iv. 171. Sch. Eurip. Hec. 872.

1913. The Scholiast on Euripides says nothing of the flight of Danaos, he seems to make Argos the original abode of the brothers.

p. 410

1914. See above, p. 405 notec.

1915. Æschylus wrote a satyric drama named Amymone, henee probably the satyr in the legend. Welcker, Nach. zur Tril. 309.

1916. Apollod. ut sup. Hygin. 169. This last writer also says that Amymone fell asleep, and while she was in that state the satyr attempted to violate her. He adds, that when Poseidôn flung his trident at the satyr it stuck in a rock, and on the maiden’s drawing it forth at the command of the god three streams of water followed it.

p. 411

1917. Sch. Eurip. ut sup. Hygin. 168. Serv. Æn. x. 497.

1918. Apollod. ut sup. This is a very obscure legend.

1919. In Plato's Laws (iv. 704.) it is said, respecting the name of the city to be founded, τοȗτο μὲν τάχ͐ ἄν ἴσως кαὶ ὁ кατοιкιο μὸς αὐτῆς, ἤ τις τόπος, ἤ ποταμοȗ τινὸς ἤ кρήνης ἤ θϵῶν ἐπωνυμία τῶν ἐν τῷ τόπῳ, προσθϵίη τὴν αὐτῶν ϕήμην кαινῆ γϵνομένῃ τῆ πόλϵι. It is, we may see, not supposed that it would be named from the кατοιкιστὴς or founder.

p. 412

1920. Hesiod named Danaos. He says (ap. Eustath. on Il. iv. 171,).

Ἄργος ἄνυδρον ἐὸν Δαναὸς ποίηησϵν ἔνυδρον.

1921. Four of the daughters of Danaos, namely Amymone, Peirene, Physadeia and Asteria were names of springs.

1922. The blood of Pentheus and Actæôn gave origin to springs on Cithærôn (Philostr. Im. i. 14.). See also Paus. ix. 33, 4, and the legend of St. Winifred’s well in Drayton’s Polyolbion, Song x. “A fountain is said to have broke out in the place where St. Osithe was beheaded, which is seen to this day near the town of Chich.” Britannia Sacra, p. 154. See Welcker, Tril. 400.

1923. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 192. seq.

1924. Sch. Apoll. Rh. i. 125.

1925. Sch. Eurip. ut sup.

1926. Herod. ii. 91. 171. 182. See Müller, Orchom. 109. seq. Proleg. 184. seq.

p. 413

1927. Apollod. ut sup. Sch. Eurip. Orest. 955.

1928. Virg. Buc. vi. 48. Serv. in loco.

1929. Apollod. ut sup.

p. 414

1930. Apollod. ut sup. Eustath. on Od. xv. p. 1746. Suidas, v. μαχλοσύνη.

1931. Ap. Sch. Od. xv. 225.

1932. Apollod. ut sup.

1933. Serv. ut sup.

1934. The Latin poets call it a brazen tower (turris aënea). See Hor. Carm. iii. 16, 1. Ovid, Amor. ii. 19. 27. De A. A. iii. 416. Claudian, In Eutrop. i. 82.

p. 415

1935. See the beautiful fragment of Simonides on the subject of Danae.

1936. There was a legend in Italy that Ardea, the capital of the Rutulians, had been founded by Danae. (Virg. Æn. vii. 372. 410. Serv. in locis.) It was probably caused by the resemblance between Danae and Daunia. Daunus is the father of Turnus.

1937. See p. 253.

p. 416

1938. Hesiod, Shield, 230. seq.

1939. This is probably the Æthiopia mentioned by Menelaos (Od. iv. 84.) in the Mediterranean, to which sea the Nereïdes were confined.

1940. The scene was localised at Joppa, where the marks of the chains were to be seen on a rock, as also the bones of the monster which M. Scaurus brought to Rome and exhibited in his ædileship. See Plin. H. N. ix. 5. Strabo, i. 2. Mela, i. 11. Josephus, Bell. Jud. iii. 9, 3.

p. 417

1941. The whole preceding narrative, excepting the deliverance of Andromeda, is contained in the Fragments of Pherecydes (Ap. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 1091. 1515.).

1942. Pyth. x. 49. seq. 70. seq.

1943. See above, p. 288.

1944. Apoll. Rh. iv. 1513. Ovid, Met. iv. 617.

p. 418

1945. Orph. Λιθιкὰ, 552. seq. Ovid, Met. iv. 740. seq.

1946. Paus. ii. 20, 4. Nonnus, xlvii. 475. seq.

1947. Ovid, Met. iii. 559 ; iv. 606.

1948. Herod. vii. 61. 150.

1949. Il. xiv. 319.

1950. Theog. 280.

1951. Paus. ii. 24, 3.

1952. Hesychius. s. v.

p. 419

1953. See the proofs, Appendix (L).

1954. Clem. Alex. Protrep. p. 29.

1955. See above, p. 180.

1956. Hom. Hymn to Demeter, 9.

1957. Paus. ii. 18, 1.

1958. Proleg. 307. seq. See also Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 200. seq.

1959. The chamber of Danae may have been called brazen to denote the hardness of the ground (see above, p. 32.), but the ancient Cyclopian treasuries appear to have been lined with brass. See Leake, Travels in the Morea.

p. 420

1960. See above, p. 178.

1961. Medusa, i. e. Mistress, answers to the Arcadian Despœna. See above, p. 179.

1962. See above, p. 326. noteª.

1963. ὅτι τηλοȗ ἔβη.

p. 421

1964. See above, p. 382.

1965. See above, p. 385. We may here observe that the Grecian mythes frequently borrowed from each other. Compare those of Cadmos and Iasôn, of Andromeda and Hesione, of Tereus and Thyestes, of Cadmos and Ilos, of Peleus, Heracles and Menelaos with the sea-deities, ete. The same appearance is presented in the chivalric romanees of the middle ages.

p. 422

1966. See above, p. 350.

1967. Il. ii. 731 ; iv. 194. 219 ; xi. 518.

1968. See above, p. 119.

1969. Pind. Pyth. iii. 75. seq.

1970. Stesichorus, ap. Apollod. iii. 10, 3.

1971. Panyasis, ap. eund.

1972. The Naupacties, ap. eund.

p. 423

1973. Paus. ii. 26, 3-5.

1974. Id. iv. 3, 2. Asclepiades, ap. Sch. Pind. Pyth. iii. 14.

1975. Hermippus, ap. Sch. Aristoph. Plut. 701.

1976. Hygin. P. A. ii. 14.

1977. Apollod. iii. 10, 3.

1978. See Müller, Orchom. 199. seq. Dor. i. 307.

p. 424

1979. Hesiod (ap. Apollod. iii. 8, 1.) calls him an autochthon, and Asius said (Paus. viii. 1, 4.),

Ἀντίθϵον δέ Πέλσγον ἐν ὑψικόμιν ὔρϵσσι

Γαȋα μέλααιν̓, ἵνα θνηῶν γένος ϵἲη.

1980. Apollod. iii. 8. Ovid, Met. i. 216. seq. Hygin. 176. P. A. ii. 4. Tzetz. Lyc. 481.

p. 425

1981. Paus. viii. 2, 1.

1982. Id. ib.38, 6. Plut. Q. G. 39.

1983. Herod. iv. 205.

1984. Eumelos ap. Apollod. iii. 8. 2. Asios said that Nycteus, i. e. Nyctimos, was her father ; Pherecydes said Keteus. Apollod. ut sup. Sch. Eurip. Orest. 1662.

p. 426

1985. Apollod. iii. 8. Ovid, Met. ii. 401. seq. Fasti, ii. 155. seq. Hyginus, 177. P. A. i. It was also fabled that, at the request of Hera, Tethys forbade the constellation of the Bear to descend into her waves.

1986. Apollod. ut sup. Hygin. ut sup.

1987. Paus. viii. I, I.

1988. Id. i. 29, 2.

1989. Id. viii. 35, 8.

p. 427

1990. Sce Müller, Proleg. 73. seq.

1991. Sch. Aristoph. Lys. 645. Suidas, v. ᾄρκτος. Harpocr. v.άρκτϵύω. Müller, ut sup.

1992. Welcker, Kret. Kol. 75.

1993. Apollod. iii. 9, 2. Callim. iii. 215. seq. Ælian, V. II. xiii. I.

p. 428

1994. Theognis, 1279. seq. Apollod. ut sup. Hygin. 185. Ovid, Met. x. 560. seq. Sch. Theocr. iii. 40. Musæus, 153.

1995. Ovid, ut sup. Sch. Theocr. ut sup.

1996. Hesiod ap. Apollod. ut sup. Ovid, ut sup. Hygin. ut sup.

1997. From a and τάλας, ταλάντϵρος

p. 429

1998. Apollod. iii. 10, 4. Paus. iii. 1. Sch. Eurip. Orest. 619.

1999. Apollod. ut sup.

p. 430

2000. Ap. Athen. viii. 334.

2001. Apollod. ut sup. These circumstances are not in the fragment of the Cypria, but they were probably contained in the poem. Sappho said (ap. Athen. ii. 57.),

ϕασὶ δέ ποτϵ Λήδαν

Ὤἴον ϵὑρȋν.

2002. t was probably the war of Troy that made Nemesis the mother of Helena.

Sch. Pind. Nem. x. 150.

2003. Il. iii. 418.

2004. Il. iii. 238.

2005. Od. xi. 298.

2006. Paus. iii. 19, 13. Conon. 18. Ptol. Heph. iv. See above, p. 310.

p. 431

2007. Sch. Il. iii. 243. Sch. Pind. Nem. x. 112. Hygin. 80.

2008.

Αἶψα δἐ Αυγκϵὺς

Τηΰγϵτν προέβαινϵ πασὶν ταχέϵσσι πϵποιθώς

Ἀκρότατου δ̓ ἀναβὰς διϵδέρκϵτο νῆσον ἄπασαν

Tανταλον Πέλοοπος, τάχα δ̓ ϵἴσιδϵ κκύδιμος ἥρως

Δϵιοîς ὀϕθαλμοîîσιν ἔσσω κοίλης δρυὸς ᾄμϕω,

Κάστορά θ̓ ἱππόδααμον κααὶ ἀϵθολορον Πολυδϵύκϵα.

The Cypria ap. Sch. Pind. Nem. x. 114. and Tzetz. Lyc. 511.

p. 432

2009. Pind. Nem. x. 103. seq. cum Sch. Theocr. xxii. 137. seq. Apollod. iii. 11, 2. Tzetz. Lyc. 511. Ovid, Fasti, v. 699. seq.

2010. Tyndareos may be merely a reduplication of Dareos (from δααίω), v being inserted, as was often done. See Schwenk, 193. Possibly there may have been a Pelasgian word akin to the German zünden and A.-Sax. τеոδan, whence tinder.

2011. Welcker (Tril. 130. 226.) makes Castôr the same as Astôr (Starry), and Polydeukes the same as Polyleukes (Lightful), and views them as sun and moon. Ib. 271.

2012. Eurip. Hel. 639.

2013.

Ἤλιος ὀξυβϵλὴς, ᾑ δ̓ αὖ ἱλάϵιρρα σϵλήνη.

Ap. Plut. de Fac. in Orb. Lunæ, 2.

2014. Paus. iii. 16, 1. The moon was the daughter of the sun : see above, p. 61.

p. 433

2015. Paus. i. 18, 1 ; ii. 22, 5 ; iii. 14, 6. 20, 2.

2016. Id. iii. 16, 1. Leda's egg hung in their temple.

2017. Apollod. iii. 11, 2. Paus. ii. 22, 5. Apollodorus unites Hilaeira with Castôr, but Propertius (i. 2. 15.) says,

Non sic Leucippis succendit Castora Phœbe,

Pollucem cultu non Hilaïra soror.

2018. Eur. Hel. 1666. Paus. iii. 15, 3.

2019. See Welcker, Tril. 227.

2020. Eur. Orest. 1653. Hel. 1663.

p. 434

2021. Apollod. i. 9. 7. Eudocia, 372. Diodor. iv. 68. Virg. Æn. vi. 585. Hesiod (ap. Sch. Pind. Pyth. iv. 252.) calls him ἄδικοs, while Homer (Od. xi. 235.) styles him ἀμύμων

p. 435

2022. Od. xi. 235. seq. Apollod. ut supra.

2023. Od. xi. 281. seq.

2024. See above, p. 366.

2025. Il. xi. 690. Hesiod ap. Sch. Apoll. Rh. i. 156. Apollod. i. 9. 8. Ovid, Met. xii. 556. seq.

2026. As μήστωρ comes from MAΩ, so Νήστωρ, Νέστωρ, may come from νάω, to flow.

p. 436

2027. From πϵράω, πϵίρω, to penetrate.

2028. From τρύω, (Passow, s. v.), τιτράω, Latin tero, to penetrate or wear away.

2029. Apollod. i. 9. 11. Sch. Apoll. Rh. i. 118.

p. 437

2030. Od. xi. 287. Sch. in loc. xv. 225. Apollod. ut supra. Sch. Theocr. iii. 43. There was a poem named Melampodia ascribed to Hesiod. Heyne thinks it was only a part of the Eoiæ.

2031. See above, p. 413.

p. 439

2032. Pind. 01. vi.

2033. See above, p. 189.

2034. Paus. v. 1.

2035. Paus. ut supra.

2036. Ταμίαν ϵἶναι θανάτου, ὅτϵ θέλοι ὀλέσθαι. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 57. from Hesiod.

2037. Sch. Apoll. Rh. ut sup. from Hesiod, Peisander, Acusilaüs, Pherecydes, Epimenides, Nicander and others.

p. 440

2038. Müller, Proleg. 223.

2039. On Pind. O1. iii. 18.

2040. Sch. Apoll. Rh. ut sup. Our own Fletcher (Faithful Shepherdess, Act i.) tells

How the pale Phœbe, hunting in a grove,

First saw the boy Endymiôn, from whose eyes

She took eternal fire that never dies ;

How she conveyed him softly in a sleep,

His temples bound with poppy, to the steep

Head of old Latmus, where she stoops each night,

Gilding the mountain with her brother's light,

To kiss her sweetest.

p. 441

2041. Il. ix. 709. 750 ; xxiii. 638.

2042. Il. ii. 621.

2043. Apud Sch. Il. xxiii. 638.

2044.

Τούѕ τϵ λϵυκίπ πουѕ κούρουѕ

Τέκνα Μολιόναѕ κτάνον

῞Αλικαs, ἰσοκϵϕάλουѕ, ἑνιγίουѕ,

՚Αμϕοτέρουѕ γϵγαῶταѕ ἐν ὠέῳ ἀργυρέῳ.

Ap. Athen. ii. 58.

2045. Paus. v. 3, 3.

2046. Il. ii. 621.

2047. Hermann, Ueber das Wesen, &c. 55.

2048. Welcker in Schwenk. 306. seq

2049. Paus. v. 1, 11.

2050. See Buttmann, Lexil. v. ἐρύϵσθαι.

2051. Welcker regards the θηρ in these names as ἀθήρ ; and as ἀθήρα is furmety according to Hesychius, he thinks that it signified corn in general, from θέρω, ϕέρω. See above, p. 132, noteh.

p. 442

2052. Od. xi. 581. seq.

2053. Pind. Ol. i. 85. seq.

2054. Orest. 6. 7. 972. seq.

2055. Sch. Pind. Ol. i. 97. Anton. Lib. 36.

p. 443

2056. ϴάλθαλς, for euphony made Ͳάνταλος : θ and τ, λ and ν are frequently commuted. See Welcker in Schwenk. 265, and Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 355.

2057. Archilochus was the earliest writer who to Pausanias’ knowledge (x. 31, 12.) had mentioned the stone.

2058. Alcman ap. Sch. Pind. ut sup. Nicolaüs Damasc. Περὶ Παρασίτων ap. Stob. xiv. 7. Welcker, Das Epische Cyclus, 280. seq.

2059. Sch. Pind. Ol. i. 38.

p. 444

2060. Pind. Ol. i. 60. seq.

2061. Sch. Pind. Ol. i. 114. Hygin. 84. Diodor. iv. 73.

2062. Pind. Ol. i. 114. seq.

2063. Apoll. Rh. i. 752. seq. cum Sch. where Phereeydes is quoted. Tzetz. Lye. 156. Hygin. 84.

2064. Himerius, Or. i. 6.

2065. Hygin. ut supra.

p. 445

2066. Tzetz. ut supra.

2067. The Myrtoan sea was said to derive its name from him. Euripides (Orest. 984. seq.) makes the deed to take place at Cape Geræstos in Eubœa.

2068. Soph. Elec. 504. seq. Eurip. ut sup. and 1563. seq.

2069. Herod. vii. 8. 11. Thue. i. 9.

2070. Il. ii. 103. 104.

2071. Sch. Pind. Ol. i. 127.

2072. See above, p. 431. note.

2073. Ol. i. 37.

p. 446

2074. Welcker in Schwenk. 336.

2075. Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 351. seq.

2076. As ὠμὸς raw, and ᾦμος shoulder, only differ in accent, ὠμοϕαγια raw-eating, easily became shoulder-eating when the original sense of the mythe was lost. The ivory shoulder was a poetic adjunct.

2077. The Pelopians, i. e. Illustrious, would be then like the Phlegyans (see p. 347.), the Achæans (p. 301. note f), to which perhaps we may add the Cadmeians (p. 328.), and even the Hellenes (from ἕλη) ; just as the Goths were the Good, i. e. Brave, the Franks the Free, &c. It must not be concealed that there is no traditiov whatever of a people named Pelopians.

p. 447

2078. Hellanicus ap. Sch. Il. ii. 105.

2079. Hygin. 86.

2080. Sch. Eurip. Orest. 802. 995. Eudocia (77.) relates the story of the lamb somewhat differently.

p. 448

2081. Sch. Eurip. Orest. 802. Hygin. 88. 258. Seneca, Thyestes.

p. 449

2082. Hyginus, ut sup.

2083. Il. ii. 101. seq

2084. Sch. Eurip. Orest. 995.

2085. Agam. 1104, 1228. seq. ; 1594. seq. Choëph. 1065.

p. 450

2086. Il. ii. 23 ; xi. 131.

2087. Od. iv. 517. seq. ; xi. 408. seq. If Nitzsch's suspicion of iv. 514-520 being an interpolation be correct, Homer may not have made Ægisthos the son of Thyestes.

p. 452

2088. Paus. vii. 19.

p. 453

2089. Paus. vii. 21. The legend was evidently invented to account for the name of the spring. As the reader may perceive, it is the foundation of Guarini's pastoral drama, Il Pastor Fido.

2090. Paus. vii. 23. Near the river Selemnos was the fount Argyra ; lience the origin of the legend.

p. 454

2091. Theophrast. H. Pl. i. 13. Pliny, H. N. i. 1. It was asserted that this tree never shed its leaves. See Pashley, Travels in Crete, i. 95.

p. 455

2092. Hesiod and Bacchylides ap. Sch. Il. xii. 292. See also Apollod. iii. 1. Moschus, Idyll. ii. Ovid, Met. ii. 833. seq. Fasti, v. 605. seq. Nonnus, i. 45. seq.

2093. Il. xiv. 321.

2094. Herodotus (i. 2.) is the earliest extant author who calls Europa a Sidonian.

2095. Apollod. ut sup. Sarpedôn, i. e. Harpedôn, is evidently derived from the carrying-off (ἀρπάγη) of Europa. See Welcker, Kret. Kol. 9. for examples of this process. Homer does not name him among the children of Europa. It is not unlikely that it was the resemblance of sound in Lycia and Lyctos that gave occasion to the legend in the text. Another account said that Lycia was named from Lycos the brother of Ægeus king of Attica. Herod. i. 173.

p. 456

2096. Od. iv. 564.

2097. Ol. ii. 137.

2098. Od. xix. 178.

2099. Apollod. i. 9. 26. Apoll. Rh. iv. 1638. seq. Sch. Od. xx. 302. Plat. Min. 320.

p. 457

2100. The Labyrinth is a pure poetic fiction ; no such edifice ever did exist in Crete. The real Labyrinth of Egypt gave occasion to it. See Hoeck's Kreta, i. p. 56. seq.

2101. See above, p. 385. seq.

2102. Il. xiii. 451. seq.

2103. Od. xi. 325.

2104. Pherecydes, ap. Sch. Od. xi. 321. Ovid, A. A. i. 527. seq. Catull. lxiv. 76. seq.

p. 458

2105. Theog. 947.

2106. Il. xviii. 591. Payne Knight in loco. It perplexed the ancient critics. See the Seholia.

2107. See above, p. 423.

p. 459

2108. Apollod. iii. 3.1.2. Hygin. 136. Tzetz. Lyc. 811. It is evidently a late fiction.

2109. Menoo is the name of the Hindoo legislator : Menes was the first mortal king of Egypt : Manes was the first king of Lydia : Minyas one of the earliest kings of Greece : Minos the first king and lawgiver of Crete. To these Buttmann (Mythol. ii. 232. seq.) joins the German Mannus, Man ; and supposing this last to be the true meaning of all these names, infers, in his usual manner, the original unity of all these peoples and their traditions.

p. 460

2110. Apollod. iii. 12, 6.

2111. Hesiod ap. Sch. Pind. Nem. iii. 21. This legend is very pleasingly told by Ovid (Met. vii. 517. seq.), who says that the isle was thus replenished after a pestilence. It is indebted for its origin to the resemblance in sound between μύρμηξ, an ant, and Myrmidous, the tribe who are said to have dwelt in Ægina.

2112. Theog. 1004.

2113. Apollod. ut sup.

2114. Pind. Ol. viii. 41. seq.

2115. Others ascribed it to the prayers of Minôs to Zeus to avenge his son Androgeos. Diodor. iv. 61.

p. 461

2116. Apollod. ut sup.

2117. Pind. Isth. vi. 60. seq. Apollod. iii. 12. For everything relating to Ægina, see Müller's Æginetica.

2118. Hecatæus thus named the Aoös in Illyria. Strabo, vii. 5.

2119. See Appendix (G).

2120. Od. v. 121.

p. 462

2121. Od. xi. 309.

2122. Od. xi. 572.

2123. Hesiod. ap. Sch. Nicandr. Ther. 15.

2124. Apollod. i. 4. 3.

2125. Id. ib. Nonnus, xlviii. 400. 419.

2126. So Ovid calls him ; he is usually styled a prince.

2127. ᾽Απὸ τοῦ οὐρϵῖν. Euphoriôn ap. Sch. II. xviii. 1, 86. Ovid, Fasti, v. 495. seq. Hygin. 195. P. A. ii. 34. Eudocia, 441. Pindar also would seem to have related it (Strab. ix. 1.). The unseemly legend owes its origin to the name Oriôn, and was the invention of the Athenians (Müller, Orchom. 99.). In Hyginus Hyrieus is Byrseus (from the hide, βύρσα).

p. 463

2128. Hesiod ut sup. Apollod. ut sup. Hygin. ut sup.

2129. Hesiod, Euphoriôn and others, ut supra.

p. 464

2130. Sch. II. xviii. 486. Apollod. iii. 1. Hygin. P. A. ii. 21.

2131. Sch. II. ut sup. from the Cyclic poets.

2132. Sch. II. ut sup. Hygin. ut sup.

2133. Et. Mag. v. ΙΙλϵιάѕ. Hyginus (ut supra) says seven years.

2134. Ap. Sch. Il. ut sup.

2135. Ap. Sch. Arat. 172.

2136. Pherecydes ut supra.

p. 465

2137. Müller, Proleg. 191. seq., where the subject of astronomical mythes is treated with this writer's usual ability.

2138. Its ancient name in the North is Karlsvagn, the ‘Carle' s or Oldman’s Wain.’ The Carle, Magnusen says, is Odin or Thor. Hence our ‘Charles’ Wain.’ The Icelanders call the Bears ‘Stori (great) Vagn,’ and ‘Lith Vagn.’ Edda Sæmundar, iii. 304.

2139. Mollien, Travels in Africa, p. 297.

2140. Varro, L. L. vi. p. 94. (Bip.)

2141. See Don Quixote, Book iii. chap. 9.

2142. The prevalent derivation of their name from πλέω to sail, though apparently so obvious, does not seem to have occurred to the ancients.

p. 466

2143. Βότρυѕ, Sch. Il. ut supra.

2144. See Appendix (M.), and Nitzsch on Od. v. 269-275.

2145. Nitzsch ut supra.

2146. Varro, L. L. vi. p. 91.

2147. The Latins termed Oriôn nimbosus, procellosus, aquosus, turbidus, niger, vehemens.

p. 467

2148. See Völcker, Myth. der Jap. 112. seq.

2149. Coronis, from KOPEΩ, κορέννυμι, to satiate.

2150. Phæo and Phæsula, from фúω ; for Cleeia see Appendix (G.), for Polyxo, above, p. 338.

2151. Od. xii. 62. seq.

2152. Athen. xi. 490. Eustath. and Sch. on Od. xi. 62.

p. 468

2153. Burmann, in his edition of Valerius Flaccus, gives the different lists of the Argonauts.

p. 469

2154. Pind. Pyth. iv.

p. 470

2155. According to Theocritus (Idyll. xiii.), the hero proceeded on foot to Colchis. In the poem named ‘The Wedding of Ceÿx,’ Heracles is said to have been left behind at Aphetæ, where he went for water (Sch. Apoll. Rh. i. 1290.). It was an ancient custom of the Bithynians, we may observe, to lament in the burning days of midsummer, and call out of the well, into which they fabled he had fallen, a god named Hylas. The Maryandinians lamented and sought Bormos, the Phrygians Lityorses, with dirges, in a similar manner. This usage of the Bithynians was adopted into their mythology by the Greek inhabitants of Kios, and connected in the manner above narrated with the Argonautic Expedition and the history of Heracles. See Müller, Orchom. 293. Dor. i. 367. 457. Proleg. 108.

2156. The combat is described at length by Theocritus, Idyll. xxii.

p. 471

2157. Others said he was thus punished for having revealed the will of Zeus to men (Apoll. Rh. ii. 180.), or for having shown Phrixos the way to Scythia (Hesiod ap. Sch. on ver. 181.).

2158. It is plain that the Harpies in this legend, as in the Theogony, are but two in number. Virgil seems to make a flock of them.

2159. Apoll. Rh. ii. 281. seq. Apollodorus relates the conclusion of the chase somewhat differently.

p. 473

2160. Pherecydes ap. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 223.

2161. Id. ib.

2162. This event was afterwards transferred to the north side of the Euxine, where the town of Tomi (τόμοι cuttings) was said to have derived its name from it. Apollod. i. 9, 24. Ovid, Trist. iii. 9.

p. 474

2163. Anaphe was one of the Sporades. It and the Melantian Necks were near Thera.

2164. Pyth. iv. 283. seq.

2165. Above, p. 334.

2166. Simonides and Acusilaüs ap. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 177. 1147. Sch. Eur. Med. 5. Purple (πορϕύριοѕ) is simply bright (from πῦρ).

p. 475

2167. There is nowhere so much information on the Argonautics to be found as in Müller's Orchomenos, to which we refer our readers.

2168. Sch. Apoll. Rh. iv. 259. 284. Pind. Pyth. iv. 44. seq.

p. 476

2169. Sch. Apoll. Rh. ut sup.

2170. Id. ib

p. 477

2171. Il. vii. 469 ; xxi. 41. Od. xii. 69.

2172. Theog. 992. seq.

2173. The fourth Pythian.

2174. Unless we except the Medeia of Euripides.

p. 478

2175. See Od. xi. 326 ; xv. 244. seq.

2176. For the two last some gave Mecisteus and Eteocles son of Iphis.

2177. Opheltes (from ὄϕιѕ) as he died by the bite of the serpent. Archemoros (Fate-beginner) as indicative of the evils which were to befall the chiefs.

p. 479

2178. Il. iv. 283 ; v. 802. seq. ; x. 285. seq.

2179. Capaneus, from καπνὸѕ, smoke.

2180. Bacchylides ap. Sch. Aristoph. Birds, 1536.

2181. Eur. Fr. Meleag. 18.

p. 480

2182. Pind. Nem. ix. 57. seq.

2183. We have already (above, p. 178. note.) given what is perhaps the original signification of the name Adrastos ; but it may also be rendered Do-nought (a and δράω) adapted to this mythe.

2184. Il. iv. 405.

2185. Pindar (Pyth. viii. 68. seq.) makes Adrastos command in this war also.

p. 481

2186. Paus. viii. 24, 8.

2187. The Echinades. See Thuc. ii. 102.

2188. Ephorus (Athen. vi. 232.) says that when Alcmæôn consulted the god about the removal of his insanity, he got the following reply :

Τιμῆϵν μ՚αἰτϵῖѕ δῶρον μανίαν άποπαῦσαι·

Καὶ σὺ ϕέρϵιν τιμῆϵν ἐμοὶ γέραѕ ᾧ ποτϵ μήτηρ

Ἀμϕιάραον ἔκρυψ՚ ὑπὸ γῆν αὐτοῖσι σὺν ὅπλοιѕ

p. 482

2189. Ismene, the other sister, was probably invented for the sake of uniformity.

p. 483

2190. See above, p. 177.

2191. This name does not occur in Homer.

2192. See II. ii. 813.

2193. Il. xx. 220.

2194. Compare Il. v. 265. 266. with xx. 234. 235. and these last with iv. 2. 3. See Hom. Hymn iv. 202. seq. One of the Cyclic poets (ap. Sch. Eur. Orest. 1370.) said that Zeus gave Laomedôn a golden vine for Ganymedes.

Ἄμπϵλον ἥν Κρονίδηs ἔπορϵν οὗ παιδὸs ἄποινα

Χρυσϵίην ἀγανοῖσιν ϕύλλοισιν κομόωσαν

Βότρυσι, τoὺs Ἥϕαιστos ἐπασκήσαs πατρι δῶκϵν,

Aὐτὰρ ὁ Λαoμέδoντι πόρϵν Γανυμήδιos ἄντι.

p. 484

2195. Il. v. 268.

2196. Apollod. Paus. i. 28, 9. Arctinos (ap. Dion. Hal. A. R. i. 69.) said it was given to Dardanos.

2197. Il. xx. 237 ; the genealogy from Dardanos to this point is given Il. xx. 215-239.

2198. Il. vi. 23.

2199. Il. xvi. 718. Others said of Cisseus. See Eurip. Hec. 3.

2200. Il. xxiv. 496.

2201. See above, p. 120. The story of Cassandra is unnoticed by Homer.

p. 485

2202. Ἀπὸ τoῦ ἀλέξϵιν τoῦs ἄνδραs.

2203. Apollod. iii. 12. 5. This history of Paris is unknown to Homer. It is the le gend of Œdipûs, of Telephos, of Cyrus, of Romulus and Remus, etc.

2204. See Il. xxiv. 495.

2205. See Tzetz. Lyc. 93.

2206. See Il. xxiv. 28.

p. 486

2207. According to Herodotus (ii. 117.) the Cypria made Alexandros reach Troy on the third day.

…………………………………………………………. ϵὐαέϊ τϵ

Πνϵύματι χρησάμϵνos λϵίη τϵ θαλάσσῃ.

See Müller de Cyclo, p. 87.

2208. This name does not occur in Homer.

2209. In the Ilias (xxiv. 765.) Helena says that she had been twenty years at Troy. According to Tzetzes (Antehom. 168.) the Greeks were ten years preparing for the war.

2210. See Il. ii. 305. seq.

2211. According to Tzetzes (Lyc. 570.) the poet of the Cypria made the Greeks stop at Delos, where Anios the son of Apollo urged them to remain for the nine years, assuring them that his three daughters would support them. These maidens were named Œno (Wine-giver), Spermo (Seed-giver), and Elaïs (Oil-giver).

2212. See above, p. 367.

p. 487

2213. The common account is that Thetis had concealed him as a maiden among the daughters of Lycomedes, and that Odysseus discovered him by going as a pedlar with some arms among his women’s wares, which at once attracted the attention of Achilleus. This narrative, which is directly contrary to that of the Ilias and the Cypria, occurred in the Epic Cycle according to the scholiast on Il. xix. 332.

2214. The name and story of Iphigeneia (Strong-born) are unnoticed by Homer. Iphigeneia is probably an epithet of Artemis. She is the same with the Artemis- Orthia of Sparta, at whose altar the boys were scourged. It was probably this rite that caused Iphigeneia to be identified with the ‘Virgin,’ to whom human victims were offered by the Taurians (Herod. iv. 103.). The story of Iphigeneia was then invented to account for the similarity. There may however have been an ancient Grecian legend of Iphigeneia. See Müller, Dor. i. 397. seq. This writer thinks that Lemnos was the original mythic Tauria, whence the name was transferred to the Euxine.

2215. See Il. ii. 721.

p. 488

2216. Thus far the narrative of the Cypria ; that of the Ilias succceds.

p. 489

2217. The Æthiopis of Arctinos follows.

2218. See Od. iv. 188.

2219. The Æthiopis ends here, and the Little Ilias of Lesches commences.

2220. Paris when a shepherd had married the nymph Œnone, who warned him against the consequences of his voyage to Greecc. She at the same time told him to come to her if ever he was wounded, as she alone could cure him. He did so now, but offended at his desertion of her, she refused her aid, and he died on his return to Ilion. Repenting of her cruelty Œnone hastened to his relief, but coming too late she threw herself on his pyre and died. Apollod. iii. 12. 6. Quint. Smyr. x. 259. seq. Conôn, 22. Parthen. 4. It must have been in the Epic Cycle.

p. 490

2221. Here ends the Little Ilias ; the remaining narrative is from the Destruction of Ilion of Arctinos.

2222. See Od. viii. 505. seq.

p. 491

2223. See the Catalogue. The Bœotian vessels carried one hundred and twenty men (II. ii. 510), the Thessalian only fifty (Il. ii. 719 ; xvi. 170.). A mean gives the above result.

2224. Od. iii. 137. seq.

p. 492

2225. Od. iv. 512. seq. xi. 405. seq.

2226. Homer (Od. iii. 307.) says he came in the eighth year from Athens.

2227. See the tragedians and Apollodorus.

2228. II. ix. 145.

2229. See above, p. 487.

p. 493

2230. Od. iii. 276. seq.

2231. Od. iv. 81. seq. We thus see that Menelaos visited all the eastern as Odysseus did all the western part of the Mediterrauean. Libya must have bordered on the Lotus-eaters.

2232. See above, p. 247.

2233. Od. iv. 351. seq.

p. 494

2234. Herod. ii. 113 — 121. The fiction was as old as the time of Stesichorus, who said that Proteus gave Paris a phantom (ϵἴδωλoν) of Helena, which he took to Troy. See Plato, Rep. ix. 586. Phædr. 243. Eudoeia, 35. 329. Euripides in his ‘Helena’ follows this account.

2235. Od. iii. 162.

2236. Od. ix. 39. seq.

2237. See above, Part I. c. xix.

2238. The Odyssey ends here ; in the Cycle the narrative was continued by the Telegonia of Eugammôn.

p. 495

2239. In our remarks on the story of Soohrâb in the ‘Tales and Popular Fictions’ (p. 164.) we should have said, “The circumstance of a son thus slain by his father, etc.” for the subject of the Euryalos of Sophocles was the death of a son of Odysseus, whose birth was somewhat like that of Soohrâb, and who was sent in quest of him by his mother, and through the artifice of Penelope falls by his hands. Parthen. Erot. 3.

p. 496

2240. The Catalogue gives the Athenians fifty ships. But what is this to the ninety of Pylos ?

p. 497

2241. See Buttmann, Mytholog. ii. 184. 210.

2242. See Ritter, Vorhalle, &c. p. 248. seq. There are six of them marked on Gell’s map of the Troas.

2243. Payne Knight (Proleg. § 54.) finds the cause in the great magnitudes of the empires of Agamemnôn and Priamos, and thence their mutual jealousy. He also supposes the Pelopids to have meditated the recovery of the dominion of which the Dardanids had deprived Tantalos.

p. 498

2244. “Οἷos γàρ ἐρύϵτo Ἴλιoν Ἕκτωρ.” . Il. vi. 403. See Plato Cratyl. 394. Welcker, Tril. 288.

2245. Most of the objections here urged will be found in Bryant’s ‘Dissertation on the War of Troy,’ an essay which we had not read when the above was written.

p. 499

2246. Works, 170. seq. The inventors of the mythic legends however could hardly have believed them to be true. Anaxagoras and other early philosophers regarded even the Ilias as an ethic allegory ; but this was a mistaken view. Single mythes, such as those of Ixiôn and Tantalos, certainly were such. It is possible that the Isles of the Blest, exclusively reserved for the Heroes, were a fiction similar to the Isle of Venus of Camôes (one of the most beautiful creations of modern genius), which he assures us was an allegory. The original lines are so fine, that we cannot refrain from quoting some of them.

Que as nymphas do Oceano tâo formosas,

Tethys, e a ilha angelica pintada,

Outra cousa nâo he que as deleitosas

Honras que a vida fazem sublimada :

Aquellas preeminencias gloriosas,

Os triumphos, a fronte coroada

De palma e louro, a gloria e maravilha,

Estes sâo os deleites desta ilha. — Os Lusiadas, C. ix. st. 89.

n.p.

2247. Niebuhr's Hist. of Rome, i. 170. seq.

p. 502

2248. See the praises which Dionysius (Antiq. Rom. i. 18, 19.) bestows on this account on the religion of the Romans, which we may observe had no deity answering to the Erôs of the Grecks. In our observations above we include all the religions of Italy ; and we allude to the Hellenic, not the Pelasgian form, of the Grecian mythes. In their original and true sense they were, as we have seen, perfectly pure and moral.

2249. In like manner Spain is much richer in romances of chivalry.

p. 504

2250. Cic. De Div. ii. 23. Ovid ; Met. xv. 558. Joh. Lydus, De Ostentis, iii.

2251. Seneca, Qu. Nat. ii. 41. Festus v. Manubiæ.

2252. Ap. Arnob. iii. 123.

2253. Suetonius, Octav. 97. Dion. Cass. lvi. 29.

2254. Said to be a corruption of Ζῆνα

2255. Serv. Æn. i. 422.

2256. Livy, vii. 3. Juvenal, x. 74. Tertul. Apol. 24.

2257. Varro, L. L. iv. p. 14. (Bip.)

2258. Serv. Æn. x. 199.

p. 505

2259. On the Tuscan religion and deities see Müller's Etrusker, Buch iii.

p. 506

2260. Sil. Ital. viii. 422. seq. Virg. Æn. vii. 178.

2261. Varro, L. L. p. 22. (Bip.)

2262. “Duplicis sexus numina esse dicuntur, ut cum in actu sunt mares sint, feminæ cum patiendi habent naturam.” — Serv. Æn. iv. 638.

p. 507

2263. See Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, i. 417.

2264. Laws, ii. 10.

2265. Ap. Lactant. Div. Inst. iv. 3.

2266. Æn. i. 155.

2267. Varro however says (Fr. p. 222. Bip.), “Diis quibusdam patribus et deabus matribus, sicut hominibus, ignobilitatem accidisse.”

p. 508

2268. Cicero, Tusc. i. 13.

2269. Varro, Fr. p. 223. (Bip.)

2270. Ovid, Met. i. 173. Ibis 81.

2271. Ut supra.

2272. Id. R. R. i. 1. He in this place names the following twelve, which he calls Consentian gods of the country : Jovis and Tellus, Sol and Luna, Ceres and Libera, Robigus and Flora, Minerva and Venus, Bonus Eventus and Lympha.

p. 509

2273. Fr. p. 223.

2274. Like ζνγὸν and jugum, ζηλοτνπία, jealousy.

2275. Varro, L. L. iv. p. 20. Gellius, v. 12.

2276. Ovid, Fasti, iii. 285. seq. Plut. Numa, 15.

p. 511

2277. Ovid, Fast. vi. 349. seq.

2278. Nævius ap. Gell. v. 12. Festus, s. v. Servius (Æn. ix. 570.) says this was his name in Oscan. It had gone so completely out of use that Virgil (ut supra) makes it the name of an Italian warrior.

2279. Plaut. Capt. iv. 4.1. Pœnul. iv. 2. 48. Hor. Carm. i. 34. 5. ; iii. 2. 29. Diespiter is not Pater diei, for that is contrary to analogy. See Varro, L. L. iv. p. 20.

2280. See Marini Atti de' Fratelli Arvali, 368. 414.

2281. See below, Genius.

2282. Liv. vii. 28. Ovid, Fasti, vi. 183. seq.

2283. Cie. Div. i. 45 ; ii. 32. Suidas, s. v. Moneta was the ancient Latin translation of Mnemosyne “Nam diva Monetas filia docuit.” Livius, Odyssea.

2284. Liv. v. 21. 22. Plut. Camill. 6.

p. 512

2285. Serv. Æn. iv. 16. It does not appear that Pronuba was a title of Juno.

2286. Festus, s. v.

2287. Id. s. v. Arnob. iii. 30. August. de Civ. vii. 2. 3.

2288. Dion. Hal. iv. 15. In Italy, during the middle ages (and perhaps it is so at the present day) the place of Juno Lucina was occupied by the Virgin. See Dante, Purg. xx. st. 7 ; Par. xv. st. 45.

2289. Terence, passim.

2290. Dion. Hal. ut sup.

2291. Varro, L. L. v. p. 56. Macrob. Sat. i. 11. For the legend see our History of Rome, 121.

2292. Cicero, N. D. i. 29. Liv. viii. 14 ; xxix. 14.

2293. Plut. Romul. 29. Festus, v. Curitim.

2294. Ovid, Fasti, ii. 559.

p. 513

2295. Hence various expressions, such as crassa Minerva, invita Minerva, mea Minerva, used when speaking of the mind.

2296. Varro, De R. R. iii. 2.

2297. Id. ib. i. 1.

n.p.

2298. Ovid (Fasti, iii. 835. seq.) offers several derivations. Muller (Etrusk. ii. 49.) seems to prefer the one from the taking of Falerii.

2299. Serv. Æn. xi. 259.

2300. Varro, L. L. v. p. 55.

2301. Ovid, Fasti, iii. 849. Varro, ut sup. Laur. Lyd. de Mens. p. 85.

2302. Ovid, Fasti, vi. 651. seq. Varro, ut sup. Festus, v. Minusc. Quinquat.

p. 514

2303. Dion. Hal. ii. 66.

2304. Id. ib. Liv. i. 20. Plut. Num. 9-11. Camill. 20.

2305. Ovid, Fasti, vi. 295. seq.

2306. Id. ib. 311. 347. Propert. iv. 1, 23.

2307. Festus, s. v.

2308. Cicero, pro Fonteio, 17. Virg. Geor. i. 498.

2309. Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, i. 610.

2310. Ovid, Fasti, iv. 389. seq.

p. 515

2311. Virg. Geor. i. 345. seq.

2312. Ovid, Fasti, i. 661. seq.

2313. Geor. i. 7.

2314. Cineius and Varro ap. Macrob. Sat. i. 12.

2315. Coquus edit Neptunum, Venerem, Cererem : i. e. fish, vegetables, bread. — Nævius ap. Festum s. v. Coquus. Adveneror Minervam et Venerem, quarum unius procuratio oliveti, alterius hortorum. — Varro, R. R. i. In Plautus (Rud. ii. 1. 16.) the fishermen pray to Venus to give them success.

2316. Quæst. Rom. 23. Dion. Hal. iv. 15.

2317. Liv. x. 31.

2318. H. N. xv. 29.

2319. Lactant. i. 20.

p. 516

2320. Festus v. Frutinal.

2321. Varro, L. L. iv. p. 43. It was afterwards corrupted to Murcia (Plin. ut supra) and derived from murcidum, “quia facit hominem murcidum, id est nimis desidiosum.”Aug. Civ. Dei, iv. 16.

2322. Strabo, v. 3.

2323. Plin. H. N. xviii. 29. Ovid, Fast. iv. 863. with our notes.

2324. Varro, L. L. v. pp. 56. 57. Festus v. Rustica Vinalia.

2325. Macrobius (Sat. iii. 8.) gives the following passages, “Pollentemque deum Venerem.” — Calvus. “Venerem igitur almum adorans, sive femina sive mas est.” — Lævinus. He also quotes “Descendo ac ducente deo,” Virg. Æn. ii. 632. on which see Servius.

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