JUVENTUS MUNDI. JUVENTUS MUNDI THE GODS AND MEN OF THE HEROIC AGE BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE MACMILLAN AND CO, T869 [All rights reserved) U6 OXFORD: By T. Combe, M.A., E. B. Gardner, E. P. Hall, and H. Latham, M.A. PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. PREFACE. In this work, which is mainly the produce of the two Recesses of 1867 and 1868, I have endeavoured to embody the greater part of the results at which I arrived in the ' Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age,' 1858. Those results however are considerably modified in the Ethnological, and in the Mythological, por- tions of the inquiry. The chief source of modi- fication in the former has been that a further prosecution of the subject with respect to the Phoenicians has brought out much more clearly and fully what I had only ventured to suspect or hint at, and gives them, if I am right, a highly influential function in forming the Greek nation. A fuller view of this element in its composition naturally acts in an important manner upon any estimate of Pelasgians and Hellenes respectively. VI PREFACE. This Phoenician influence reaches far into the sphere of the mythology ; and tends, as I think, greatly to clear the views we may reasonably take of that curious and interesting subject. • I have also greatly profited by the laborious and original treatise of Dr. Hahn, on Albanian Archaeology and Antiquities, as well as manners ; which, although published at Jena in 1854, was scarcely, if at all, known in this country in 1858. But, further, I have endeavoured to avoid a certain crudity of expression in some sections of the ' Olympos/ which led to misconceptions of my meaning with respect to the action of tradition (especially of sacred or Hebrew tra- dition) and invention respectively, in the genesis of the Greek mythological system. In dealing with the Third portion of the ' Studies,' called Aoidos, I have contracted a great deal, but added and altered little. The immediate purpose of the former work was to draw out of the text of Homer, by a minute investigation of particulars, the results that it appeared to me to justify. Many of them were more or less new, and the process of in- quiry was therefore exhibited in great, perhaps in excessive or wearisome, detail. I have now felt warranted to give a larger space to deduc- P R E F A C E. vii tion, and a smaller one to minute particulars of inquiry, in a work which aims at offering some practical assistance to Homeric study in our Schools and Universities, and even at convey- ing a partial knowledge of this subject to per- sons who are not habitual students. Of what appeared directly useful for this end, I have consciously omitted nothing. I am anxious, then, to commend to inquirers, and to readers generally, conclusions from the Homeric Poems, which appear to me to be of great interest, with reference to the general history of human culture, and, in connection therewith, of the Providential government of the world. But I am much more anxious to encourage and facilitate the access of educated persons to the actual contents of the text. The amount and variety of these contents have not even yet been fully appreciated. The delight received from the Poems has possibly had some influence in disposing the generality of readers to rest satisfied with their enjoyment. The doubts cast upon their origin must have assisted in producing and fostering a vague in- stinctive indisposition to laborious examination. The very splendour of the poetry dazzles the eye as with whole sheets of light, and may often b2 Vlll P R E F A C E, seem almost to give to analysis the character of vulgarity or impertinence. My main object, then, in this, and in the former work, has been to encourage, or, if I may so say, to provoke, the close textual study of the Poet, as the condition of real progress in what is called the Homeric question, and as a substitute for that loose and second-hand method, not yet wholly out of vogue in this country, which seeks for information about Homer anywhere rather than in Homer him- self. In further prosecution of this purpose, I have begun, and carried forward at such intervals as I could make my own, another task. With patient toil, which applied to most authors would have been drudgery, I have tried to draw out, and to arrange in the most accessible form, resembling that of a Dictionary, what may be termed the body, or earthy and tangible part, of the contents of Homer. To a dis- section of such a kind, the ethereal spirit cannot be submitted. This analysis will be separately published, so soon as other calls upon my time may permit. It must not be supposed that so homely a production aspires to exhibit Homer as a poet. Yet it exhibits PREFACE. IX him as a chronicler and as an observer ; it helps to give an idea of his power by showing some part at least of the copious materials with which he executed his great synthesis, the first, and also the best, composition of an Age, the most perfect ' form and body of a time,' that ever has been achieved by the hand of man. Like Colonel Mure, I am convinced that the one thing wanted in order to a full solution of what is called the Homeric question is know- ledge of the text. In an aggregate of 27,000 lines, as full of infinitely varied matter (to use a familiar phrase) as an egg is full of meat, this is not so commonplace an accomplishment as might at first sight be supposed. I have striven to attain it ; yet, as I know, with very partial success. And I do not hesitate to say, with the productions of some recent writers and critics on the Poet in my mind, that the reading public ought to be very wary in accept- ing unverified statements of what is or is not in Homer. I eschew the invidious task of illustrating this proposition from the pages of others : possibly it might receive some illus- tration from my own. I have felt great embarrassment, in common I suppose with many more, in consequence of X PREFACE, the unsettled and transitionary state of our rules and practice with respect to Greek names, and to the Latin forms of them. Upon the whole, not without misgiving, but not without consideration, I have acted upon the belief that we cannot permanently fall back into the system which we were content until half a century ago to follow, and which Mr. Mitford and Mr. Grote assailed in com- mon ; that we cannot well stand where we are ; and that we should, if possible, in this as in all matters, try to make preparation for the future, and make approaches at least to- wards a durable system. First, then, I follow many high authorities in adopting generally the names of the Greek deities and mythological personages, instead of the Latin ones. Secondly, with respect to names which have in no way become familiar to our ears or been domesticated in the English tongue, instead of the Latin forms and terminations, I adopt commonly the Greek ; and say Iasos, Acrisios, Eurumachos, instead of Iasus, Acrisius, Eury- machus : as also Achaioi, Hippemolgoi, Loto- phagoi, Phaiakes, instead of Achaians, Hippe- molgi, Lotophagi, Phaeacians. PREFACE, Xl But I have usually followed the old custom in cases where Greek words have been, so to speak, translated, so that the English ear has become thoroughly accustomed to the render- ing, whether it be effected by the Latin form, as Cyprus for Kv7rpos, or by an English one, as Rhodes for Rhodos. Yet a case like the first of these exhibits the practical mischief of a somewhat degenerate system ; for the name Kupros would, more readily than Cyprus, have suggested the fact, that copper owes its name to that island, which first afforded to Europe and the Mediterranean a plentiful supply of so primitive and important a metal. In this matter of names I am less consistent than Mr. Grote ; and less bold, for I have not the same title to expect obedience. I can only say that my practice is accommo- dated, as far as I am able, to a state of transi- tion, and that I have no doubt it is open to criticism in detail, even from those who may accept the general rule. Lastly, I have in many cases written a Greek word in Roman type. I know not whether it will or will not, at some time, be found practicable to serve the purposes of all languages by one and the same character. But the general knowledge Xll PREFACE. of the relationship of tongues, and of particular languages, is increasing; and it may be both of interest and of use to the English reader, though unacquainted with Greek, to know the form and body of the words discussed in the text, when this advantage can be given without seriously distorting the words themselves. Hawarden, North Wales, October, 1868. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Introduction. PAGE Popular appreciation of the Homeric works ... i Viewed too much through later traditions ... i The Author unknown as a Person 2 Date at which he lived 3 Place of his birth and residence 6 The poetry of Homer historic 7 Theurgy of the Poems self-consistent .... 9 Important internal evidence as to the historic character of the Poems 10 Uncertainty respecting them 11 The ' Hymns ' 12 Arguments of those who support a dual authorship dis- cussed 13 Iliad and Odyssey compared 17 Text of the Poems discussed 18-26 Comparative antiquity of Homer and Hesiod . . . 26 Evidence of Homer in relation to his age . . . 27 Discrepancy between Homeric and Post-Homeric tra- dition 28 Conclusion concerning the Text of the Poet . . . 3° CHAPTER II. The Three Great Appellatives. The f Greeks ' of the Troica were Achaians „ . . 3 2 Pre-Hellehic races — Pelasgoi 3 2 CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Introduction. PAGE Popular appreciation of the Homeric works ... i Viewed too much through later traditions ... i The Author unknown as a Person 2 Date at which he lived 3 Place of his birth and residence 6 The poetry of Homer historic 7 Theurgy of the Poems self-consistent .... 9 Important internal evidence as to the historic character of the Poems 10 Uncertainty respecting them 11 The ' Hymns ' . . . 12 Arguments of those who support a dual authorship dis- cussed 13 Iliad and Odyssey compared 17 Text of the Poems discussed 18-26 Comparative antiquity of Homer and Hesiod . . . 26 Evidence of Homer in relation to his age . . . 27 Discrepancy between Homeric and Post-Homeric tra- dition 28 Conclusion concerning the Text of the Poet . . . 30 CHAPTER II. The Three Great Appellatives. The f Greeks ' of the Troica were Achaians . . . 32 Pre-Hellenic races— Pelasgoi . . . . . . 3 2 XIV CONTENTS. Designations of the Greeks of the Iliad .... Instances of chronological succession of Homeric names ' Argeioi ' used as a national designation and in a local sense The Danaoi Derivation of Homeric national or tribal names Homer's unwilling testimony to the foreign origin of Greek Houses Genealogy of the race of Danaos Post-Homeric tradition with regard to Danaos Conclusions as to the Danaoi .... Argeioi . Local use of the word Poetic and archaic uses of it . Application of the territorial name Argos Common term in three distinct territorial names Four uses of in Homer Derivation of Homeric names of countries and places Uses of the word ' argos ' The derivative Argeioi This name belongs properly to the commonality The third Appellative : Achaioi Epithets applied to the name Achaioi Force of the word ' dios ' Instances of the use of the appellative Achaioi . The Myrmidons Epithet ' Panachaioi ' Conclusion respecting the use of the Three Appellatives 33 34 35 36 37 38 40 40 42 42 43 44 45 50 51 52 53 55 59 59 61 62 63 65 69 70 CHAPTER III. The Pelasgoi. Classification of the Homeric testimony concerning the Pelasgoi 72 Wide extension of the Pelasgoi 72 ' Pelasgic Zeus ' 73 Thessaly a Pelasgic country 73 CONTENTS. XV Thracians 74 Kaukones 75 Epithets given to the Pelasgians 75 The Larisse of Homer 77 Other heads of Homeric evidence concerning the Pelasgoi 77 Connection between Arcadians and Pelasgoi . . . 78 The Ionians 80 Local, not personal, relation between Athene and Athens 82 Erectheus probably a Pelasgian 83 Evidence as to the Pelasgian character of Attica in early- times (Ionians) 84 Pelasgian element in Thessaly 86 'IasonArgos' 87 Marks of a Pelasgian character in the population of Crete 89 The Five Races domesticated in Greece . . . . 89 Eteocretes and Kudones 89 The Leleges 90 Pelasgian occupation of Epiros 91 Etymology of the Pelasgian name 92 Difference of race and rank among the Greek population 94 The Pelasgian element in the Greek language . . . 95 Lists of words (supposed to be of Pelasgian origin) com- mon to the Greek and Latin languages ... 96 I. Objects of Inanimate Nature .... 96 II. Trees, Plants . ... . . . 96 ill. Animated Nature 97 iv. Objects connected with Food . . . . 97 v. Related to Out-door Labour . . . . 97 vi. Navigation 97 vii. Dwellings 98 viii. Clothing . . . . . . . . 98 ix. The Human Body 98 x. The Family . . . ... . 98 xi. Society 9 8 xii. General Ideas gg xiii. Adjectives of Common Use .... 99 Scant stock of words relating to religion .... 100 Words relating (1) to war, (2) to navigation, (3) to metals 100 XVI CONTENTS. Distinction with regard to names of persons, &c. . . 102 Extra-Homeric evidence of the wide extension of the Pelasgoi 106 CHAPTER IV. Hellas. The word ' Hellas ' and its derivatives . . . .109 Phthie ; the phrase ' Pelasgic Argos ' . . . .111 The designation ' Panhellenes ' 113 Kephallenes 114 Helloi or Selloi: the Aspirate and Sigma interchangeable 115 Route of the Hellic tribes into Greece . . . .117 CHAPTER V. The Phoenicians and the Egyptians. Minos 118 His Phoenician character 119 Phoenician tongue probably spoken in Crete . . . 120 Daidalos — Kadmos 122 Important works of art obtained from the Phoenicians . 123 Dependence of the Greeks on the Phoenicians (ship Argo) 124 The Egyptian Thebes 125 Conclusion respecting the significance of the word ' Phoe- nicia' in Homer 129 Art of writing introduced by Phoenicians . . . .130 Art of building with hewn stone probably introduced by them 131 The people of Scherie (Corfu), of Phoenician stock . . 132 Their games 132 Fine Art, in Homer, proceeded from a Phoenician source 133 Respective contributions of Pelasgians and Hellenes to the aggregate Greek nation 134 Possible personal medium between Greece and Phoenicia . 134 Were the Aiolids Phoenician ? 135 Achaian invasion of Egypt 144 CONTENTS. Xvii CHAPTER VI. On the Title 'Anax Andron.' Substantial distinction between titles and epithets descrip- tive of station or office 149 Title ' Anax Andron,' to whom applied . . . .151 I. Agamemnon 153 His extraction: passage concerning the Sceptre 154 Simultaneous rise of the Achaian race and of the House of Pelops ...... 156 Tantalos 156 Niobe; Pelops 157 Achaians a Thessalian race . . . . 159 Title (' Anax Andr5n ') anterior to the constitu- tion of Achaian society 160 II. Anchises, and in. .Eneas . . . . t6o Position of the Helloi and Dardanians severally . 161 Why the title is applied to Anchises and iEneas, but not given to Priam or any of his family . 161 Absence of Anchises from the Trojan Council ; his sovereignty 162 JEneas : jealousy between him and the house of Priam 163 Pointed use of the phrase 'Anax Andron' . . 164 iv. Augeias . . . . . . . .165 Ruled over Elis 165 His extraction and descent 166 Ephure, a town of Elis 166 v. Euphetes . . . . . . . . 167 King of Ephure : distinction between the towns so named 168 vi. Eumelos ........ 169 Rules at Pherai ; an Aiolid . . . . .169 Summing up of the Homeric evidence concerning the phrase ' Anax Andron ' . . . .170 XV111 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. Homer the maker, not of poems alone, but of a language, a nation, and a religion Contrast between Homer and the Hesiodic Theogony Variegated aspect of Hellenic religion ; reasons for this Instances Modes of reconciliation or adjustment Debasement of the Olympian system Its specific principle humanitarian .... It wanted the supports of a hierarchy and of sacred books Actual operation of the Hellenic Theo-mythology . The later religion in relation to philosophers and legis lators Plato's reproaches against Homer's treatment of the god: unfounded ; cases in point Materials supplied as the base of Homeric religion . The five great deities Homer's mode of dealing with the elder gods . Vestiges in the Olympian system of Elemental Worship Nature-gods generally treated as subterranean . River-worship local Olympian system appropriates the materials of the older elemental one Homeric mythology ought to be severed from the schemes of (i) N ature- worship ; (2) Roman mythology ; (3) scheme of classical Greece Homeric polity framed on the human model . Instances of Functions of the deities Classification of the Olympian personages in Homer . Limitations and liabilities of the subordinate gods Correspondence between certain features of the Olympian system and the Hebraic traditions .... The Messiah Theories as to the origin of heathen religions . 174 175 176 177 178 180 181 181 182 185 186 187 187 188 190 191 192 193 193 194 195 198 199 200 203 204 CONTENTS. XIX Other Homeric correspondences with Hebrew tradition . 207 The highest conception of deity does not exclude the element of fraud , 208 Grand distinction between the Homeric and the later systems 211 Homer's wide notion of the gods as governing all mankind 212 Collective action of the Olympian deities . . . .213 No instance of a married deity, save Zeus . . . 213 Element of deontology ; will and ought . „ . .215 Classification of the Di majores . . , . . .216 CHAPTER VIII. THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS Section 1. Zeus Five different capacities ascribed to Zeus 1. The Pelasgian Zeus 2. The Divine Zeus . His universal supremacy . His limitations and liabilities . 3. 4. The Olympian Zeus, and the Lord of the Air Omnipotence not conceived of by Homer Headship of Zeus ; the arbiter among the god His sole and supreme responsibility . Aristocratic character of the Olympian polity 5. Zeus the type of anthropomorphism Individual character of Zeus of a low order Not, however, devoid of affections . The masterpiece of Homeric mythology with regard to the humanising element Section 11. Here . Of all deities the most national Special characteristics of; she Odyssey Called 'Argeian Here' Her rank in Olympos . Interpretation of the myth of the deposition of Kronos 219 220 221 223 224 225 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 234 234 234 235 236 237 238 XX CONTENTS. The function of Here as regulator of birth . . 239 Vestige of the prerogative of Here as a Nature-Power 241 Section 111. Poseidon 241 His position and rank 242 Not an elemental deity ; Nereus the true sea-god . 243 Special functions of Poseidon 245 Legends relating to him ; their character . . .246 His province in the Outer- World . . . .246 His supremacy in the Odyssey working, rather than abstract 248 Prevalence of Poseidonian worship among the Phoe- nicians 249 The Trident; relation to some tradition of a Trinity 250 Cyclops, children of Poseidon 250 The Phoenician origin of Poseidon supplies a key to his position and attributes 251 Section iv. Aidoneus 252 Probably a Nature-Power of an older Theogony . 253 His character and functions 253 The ' Zeus of the Underworld ' , . . . 254 Section v. Leto 257 Epithets given to her 257 Her circumscribed action 257 High ascriptions of her dignity 258 Etymology of the name 259 Probable record of the Hebrew tradition respecting the Mother of the Deliverer . . . .260 Section vi. Demeter 261 Homeric evidence respecting her . . . .261 Her share in the old tradition of Nature-worship . 263 Section vn. Dione 264 A wife of Zeus ; mentioned in one passage only . . 264 Testimony of Hesiod 264 A Nature-Power 265 Section vin. Athene and Apollo . 266 Their position in Olympos a hopeless solecism, if viewed apart from Hebrew traditions . . . 267 CONTENTS. XXI Relation of rank between Here and Athene , . 268 Dignity of Apollo 269 Correspondence of Homer with the Messianic tradition of the Logos and the Son of the Woman . . 270 Superior sanctitas of Athene and Apollo . . .270 They are the two great Agents 271 Uniform identity of will between Zeus and Apollo . 273 Apollo the defender of heaven and deliverer of the immortals 274 Functions of these two deities encroach upon the pro- vinces of other divinities 275 Jointly invoked 276 No local limit to their worship 276 They are independent of limitations of place . . 278 Omnipresent; prayer addressed to them from all places 279 Exempt from physical infirmity or need in general Attributes of bulk ; locomotion Apollo and Athene administer powers otherwise re ferred to Zeus ...... Both exercise vast power over external nature . Both possess lofty moral excellence and purity . Distinctive functions of Apollo, severing him from Athene The ministry of death Hellenic preservation of the element of Hebrew tradition Section ix. Hephaistos One of the seven astral deities of the East Dual course of tradition relating to Hephaistos . The Charites Matchless deity of Hephaistos .... The architect of the palaces of the gods . Section x. Ares * In point of strength divine, in point of mind and heart simply animal ' Represents the idea of raw courage . Instances of his action c 279 280 281 282 284 285 285 288 289 289 290 29/2 292 293 294 294 295 296 XXI 1 CONTENTS. Section xi. Hermes His part in the Iliad secondary . Instances of his agency .... Idea of concealment inheres in his character His probable connection with the Phoenicians An agent rather than a mere messenger His name Argeiphontes Section xn. Artemis . In the main a reflection of Apollo Relation of, to the Moon-goddess Shares with Apollo the ministry of Her agency ubiquitous in character Confers beauty (of figure) . Epithet ayvrj and its significancy death Section xm. Persephone Epithets applied to her t Represents a mixture of traditions . Co-ruler with A'idoneus Etymology of the name The Persian race Pelasgic and of Eastern in the Homeric Section xiv. Aphrodite Her position and several functions mythology .... Local indications of her worship Etymology of the name Section xv. Dionusos Obscurity of traditions concerning him No clearly divine act assigned to him Recital concerning Lucourgos .... Probable sign of his worship in the Odyssey Worship of Dionusos recent ; and opposed on intro duction He is placed within the Phoenician circle . To be regarded probably as a deified mortal CONTENTS. XX111 Section xvi. Helios, or the Sun His personality .... His appearance in (a) the Iliad, (b) the Odyssey Theft of the Oxen of the Sun . This legend of Phoenician origin The Sun an Eastern deity Incorporation of the traditions of Apollo of the Sun .... Section xvn. Hebe Character of her offices Expresses the idea of youth Section xvm. Themis . A member of the Olympian court Signification of the name . Section xix. Paieon His function as healer Relation between Paieon and Apollo The paian or hymn to Apollo Section xx. Iris .... Instances of her office as Messenger The name of the rainbow; and tradition Her agency to Peleus double relation of Thetis Section xxi. Thetis Her origin elemental Her vast influence Her prayer to Zeus . Etymology of the name Character of her marriage Pelasgian worship of Zeus Instances of her agency The reconciler between the conflicting creeds . Her influence with the gods grounded on obligation Principal particulars respecting her . Epithets applied to her .... Later traditions appear but arbitrary comment c 2 with those the Hebrew 321 321 321 322 322 323 324 325 325 326 327 327 327 328 328 329 33o 33o 33o 33i 332 334 334 334 335 335 336 337 338 338 339 340 34i 342 XXIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. Further Sketch and Moral Aspects of the Olympian System. I. Various Orders of Preternatural Beings . 344 1. The Nature-Powers 344 2. The Minor Nature-Powers . . . * .345 3 . Mythological Personages of the Outer or Phoenician Sphere 346 4. The Rebellious Powers 347 5. Ministers of Doom 347 6. Poetical Impersonations 348 II. The Erinues 348 The three chief recognised descriptions of preter- natural force 348 Action of the Erinues 350 Their functions 351 Etymology of the name 354 III. Ate the Temptress 354 Her place in Homer 354 Character of her temptations 355 IV. Fate or Doom 356 Distinction between the words conveying the idea — Ker, Moira, Aisa, &c. 356 V. Animal Worship 359 Sanctity attaching to the Oxen of the Sun . . 359 Other traces of animal worship . . . .360 Animal Sacrifice 361 VI. On the Modes of Approximation between the Divine and the Human Nature . 361 Elements of the system of deification of mortals discernible in Homer 362 Divine filiation 365 1 Zeus-born ' princes 368 Explanation of this title 369 Four channels of approach between the human and divine natures 370 CONTENTS. XXV VII. The Homeric View of the Future State . Three-fold division of the Future World . VIII. The Olympian System in its Results . History of the human race before Christ is the history of a preparation for His Advent .... Character and vitality of the Olympian system . A precursor of Christianity 37i 372 374 374 375 377 CHAPTER X. Ethics of the Heroic Age. Section 1. General outline of the moral character of the Homeric Greeks Heracles Moral force of Religion .... Voice of Conscience .... Homicide The weak point of tenderness for fraud Idea of sin implied in Homer The Homeric view of patience . Virtue of justice Virtue of self-restraint . The model spirit of moderation, the to ueaov Implacability regarded as unequivocally vicious Extremest forms of depravity unknown Domestic relations ...... The Poet's admiration for Beauty The delicacy of Homer .... Sketch of Greek life in the heroic age Section 11. Position held by women No trace of polygamy Concubinage Relations of youth and maiden Picture of Greek marriage Employments of women 37» 380 381 383 384 38s 387 389 390 39i 393 393 395 396 398 400 402 405 406 407 408 410 411 XXVI CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. Polity of the Heroic Age. Similitude between Homeric and British ideas Reverence for kings No * balance of forces' The kings Personal attributes of the king .... His fourfold character Agamemnon a 'King of kings' .... Transactions of the Army decided in the Assemblies Ranks traceable in the army .... Composition of the Council .... Importance of Power of Speech Majority and minority ..... The Tis, or Public Opinion .... Chief component parts of Greek society . Representation of the state of society in Ithaca Absence of written 'law' — The Oath The Xeinos or Xenos . . . . . Sources for supplying slaves .... The medium of exchange .... Leading political ideas of the Poems Bonds cementing Greek society 4i3 414 4i5 416 418 424 427 428 429 430 43i 434 436 438 440 442 443 444 446 447 448 CHAPTER XII. Resemblances and Differences between the Greeks and the Trojans. Double ethnical relation 451 Religion 452 Prevalence of Nature-worship in Troy . . . .453 Sacerdotal institutions and ritual forms . . . • 455 Superior morality of the Greeks 458 Trojan tendency to sensual excess 460 Polygamy of Priam 460 Relation of Priam to subordinate countries . . .463 Trojan Assembly 464 CONTENTS. XXV11 CHAPTER XIII. Geography of Homer. Section i. The Catalogue Genealogies of the Greek Catalogue . The Greek territory divided into three circles and a fourth irregular figure Greek and Trojan Catalogues . Section n. The Plain of Troy Leading topical points Discussion of Homer's description Section in. The Outer Geography Data for an Homeric map of the Outer Geography Indications of Homer's belief in a great sea occupy ing the heart of the European continent Stages of the Voyages of Odysseus 466 467 467 468 470 470^ 472 474 477 479 4H CHAPTER XIV. Plots, Characters, and Similes. Section 1. The Plot of the Poems; especially of the Iliad 490 Section n. Some Characters of the Poems. 1. Achilles 495 2. Odysseus 497 3. Agamemnon 501 4. Diomed and Ajax 503, 5. Helen 504 6. Hector 508 7. Paris 510 Section ill. The Similes of the Poems . . . 512 XXV111 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. Miscellaneous. Section I. The Idea of Beauty in Homer Personal Beauty, and Beauty of Landscape Section II. The Idea of Art in Homer Works of Art Material of Art Homer's delineation of Art Egyptian and Assyrian schools of Art Section in. Physics of Homer Section iv. Metals in Homer Section v. Measure of Value Section vi. Use of Number in Homer . Section vn. The Sense of Colour in Homer 516 518 520 52a 521 523 524 525 528 533 535 539 CHAPTER I. Introduction. If, as the general opinion holds, the Iliad and the Odyssey are the works of an individual poet (whom we term Homer), they are probably, as a con- nected whole, the oldest in the world ; though a few of the Books of Scripture, and, in the opinion of some, a portion of the Vedas, may perhaps lay claim to a higher antiquity. They unquestionably contain a mass of information respecting man in a primitive or very early stage of society, which has not even yet been thoroughly digested, and such as is nowhere else to be found. They have also, through the inter- vention of the Greek and then of the Roman civilisa- tion, for both of which they form the original literary base, entered far more largely than any other book, except the Holy Scriptures, into the formation of modern thought and life. A main reason, which has prevented mankind from profiting to the full by these invaluable works, appears to have been this ; that, except for the purposes of purely poetical appreciation, they have been viewed B 1 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. far too much through the medium of later traditions, of the productions of the classic ages of Greece and Rome, and especially of the great epic of Virgil ; and the multiform features of the picture which he draws have thus been confounded with the representations of much later, and in many respects very different ages. While the works of Homer have exercised an in- fluence which has been greater than those of any other poet, and which is rising apparently at the present time, nothing is known of his person. His blindness, but only in mature and late life, is allow- ably conjectured from the fact that he has drawn a careful and sympathising picture of the blind minstrel Demodocos in Scherie 1 (now Corfu), and has made him more conspicuous than any other Bard mentioned in the Poems. Absorbed in his subject, the Poet never refers to himself: in half-a-dozen passages the personal pronoun is used — c Tell me, O Muses 2 , 5 and the like ; but it is a mere grammatical form, never specially pointed to his own individuality. Of his character we can only judge as far as different passages of the Poems may enable us to trace his personal sympathies in their tone and colour. The conjecture as to his blindness is indeed in accordance with a passage which Thucydides 3 quotes as his from the Hymn to Apollo, and which mentions it: but the weight of this evidence depends much more on the beauty and pathos of the verses, than on the fact that the great historian treats it as by Homer; since he does not speak in the character of a witness, and the reference 1 Od. viii. 64. 2 Od. i. 1. ' 3 iii. 104. I.'J INTRODUCTION. to Chios as the place of his residence is a circumstance calculated to excite strong suspicion. With respect to the date at which Homer lived, nothing is known, except it be by recent and as yet scarcely recognised discovery 1 , from sources extrinsic to the Poems. Herodotus places him at four hundred years before himself, in the ninth century before Christ. This would bring him nearly to the epoch of Lycurgus. But the state of society and manners in Greece de- picted by him is far anterior to all that is connected with the name of that legislator; and betokens not only priority, but long priority, to the historic period, which is commonly said to begin with the Olympiad of Corcebus, B.C. 776. The date of 1183 B.C. is fixed by Eratosthenes for the fall of Troy : but it has long been known to be no more than conjectural 2 . In my opinion, that event is quite as likely to have been older, as to have been more recent. But there are in reality no fully acknowledged measures of time applicable to the decision of the question. Homer alone seems to afford us, for his own age, any means of estimating, however rudely, the lapse of years. His only chronology is found in genealogies, given by him in considerable numbers, and in singular cor- respondence with one another. But this knowledge, if authentic, stands as an island separated from us by a sea of unknown breadth. We have as yet no mode of establishing a clear relation of time between it and the historic era. The Poems afford, however, partial means of esti- mating the date of Homer, relatively to the War of Troy. 1 See Chap. V. on Phoenicia and Egypt. 2 Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, i. 123. B 2 4 JUVENTUS MUNDL [CHAP. He virtually states, that he was not an eye-witness of the War 1 . Poseidon 2 prophesies that the grand- children of iEneas shall reign in Troas; and it is fairly argued that the Poet would not have ventured on the prediction, if he had not lived to see its entire or partial accomplishment. A grandson of iEneas may well have reigned in Troas within fifty or even forty years of the fall of the city ; and a son within a much shorter period. Arguments for a greater interval have indeed been founded on the passages, in which the Poet contrasts the might of the Troic heroes with the lower standard of his own time. But a ready answer is surely found in the fact that Nestor, in the First Tliad 3 , draws a somewhat similar contrast between the heroes of his youth, and those of the Greek army before Troy. Figure is, in truth, the main element in all such comparisons. A third argument has been founded on the passage, in which Here observes to Zeus that he is free to destroy the cities she loves the best — Argos, Sparta, and Mycenae 4 . Hence, it is thought, Homer must have lived after the Dorian conquest. But (i) we do not find that any of these cities were destroyed at that epoch; and (2) had Homer lived in an age posterior to that great revo- lution, he must have betrayed his knowledge of it not in one equivocal passage, but in many, and by a mul- titude of signs of later manners. (3) The Dorian con- quest had the immediate effect of reducing Mycense to obscurity, while it left Argos and Sparta at the head of Greece ; and it would be strange indeed that Homer, if he had witnessed it, should join the three in a single 1 II. ii. 486. 2 11. xx. 307. 3 II. i. 260-272. 4 II. iv. 51. I.] INTRODUCTION. category, and take no notice of the distinction. From the manner in which the cities are mentioned, we may indeed rather say, that the passage affords an argu- ment to show that the Poet lived before that epoch, and not after it. (4) It is urged also that Homer mentions riding on horseback, and the trumpet, as in use, but not as in use during the War. But in the Tenth Iliad, Odysseus and Diomed ride the horses of Rhesos ; and the trumpet appears to be mentioned only as used to summon a beleaguered place on the arrival of the enemy 1 . On the other hand, Homer seems again to glance at his own case in the words addressed by Odysseus to Demodocos, respecting his Trojan lay: c You have sung the Achaian woe right well, as if you had yourself been a witness, or else had heard it from one V The idea seems here to be conveyed with distinctness, that either actual experience or, at the least, the evidence of those who had possessed it, was a condition of true excellence in historic song. Again, the elaborate plan by which, in the Twelfth Iliad, Homer accounts for the disappearance of the defensive work of the Greeks, seems to show that the interval since the War must have been short, for if it had been long, natural causes would have done more to account for it. A cardinal argument for placing the date of the Poet near that of his subject is, that he describes manners from first to last with the easy, natural, and intimate knowledge of a contemporary observer. He is in truth in visible identity with the age, the altering but not yet vanished age, of which he sings, while there is a very broad interval of tone and feeling between him and the very nearest of all that follow him. And even 1 II. xviii. 219, 220. 2 Od. viii. 489-491. 6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. the difference to be observed in the shade of style and of manner between the Iliad and the Odyssey, is just such as would be fairly due, in part to the difference of the subjects, and in part to the shock of those altera- tions, which were evidently caused in Greece by the absence of its kings and leaders, during a prolonged period, at the War. I conjecture, without pretending to do more, that Homer may well have been born before, or during, the War; and that he probably was familiar, during the years of his maturity, with those who had fought in it. For treating Homer as an Asiatic Greek, who lived after the migrations eastward, there is really neither reason, nor trustworthy authority. As to the place of Homer's birth and residence, we are yet more in the dark than about his date. The testimony of the Poems is both slight and equi- vocal ; and no other testimony is authentic. In one passage he says the Locrians dwell beyond, or it may mean over against, Eubcea 1 , on the East of Greece; in another, the Echinades and Doulichion 2 are beyond, or over against, Elis, on the West of Greece. The second passage seems to destroy any such inference as Wood, in his ingenious Essay 3 , drew from the first. On the other hand, morning comes to Homer over the sea 4 ; an expression which seems to contemplate a c whereabout 5 on the West of the iEgean. The cha- racter given to Zephuros, the North- West wind, varies according as it is a sea-wind, which it is in the descrip- tion of the Elysian Fields ; or a mountain- wind, when it is described as charged with snow 5 : and no inference 1 II. ii. 535. 2 II. ii. 626. 3 p. 8. (First Ed. in 1775.) 4 II. xxiii. 227. 5 Od. iv. 566-568; xix. 206. .] INTRODUCTION. can be drawn from it to show that Homer lived on any particular coast. Every line of the Poems bears testimony to the fact that Homer was not derivatively, but immediately and intensely, Greek. Contented with accumulated evidence of nationality in the highest sense, we must leave the question of the precise birth- place and dwelling of the Poet in the darkness in which we find it. It cannot be too strongly affirmed, that the song of Homer is historic song. Indeed he has probably told us more about the world and its inhabitants at his own epoch, than any historian that ever lived. But the primary and principal meaning of the asser- tion is, that he is historical as to manners, customs, ideas, and institutions : whereas events and names are the pegs on which they hang. It is with respect, not to the dry bones of fact, but to all that gives them life, beauty, and meaning, that he has supplied us with a more complete picture of the Greek, or, as he would probably say, Achaian, people of his time, than any other author, it might almost be said than any number of authors, have supplied with reference to any other age and people. There are however very strong presumptions that Homer is also historical with respect to his chief events and persons. For, i. It is the chief business of the Poet or Bard, as such, in early times to record facts, while he records them in the forms of beauty supplied by his art. 2. Especially of the Bard who lives near the events of which he professes to sing. 3. It is plain that Homer so viewed the Poet's office, from the nature of the lays which he introduces ; from his representing to us Achilles engaged in singing the 8 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. deeds of heroes 1 • and from his saying that the gods ordained the War of Troy that it might be sung to all posterity 2 j with other like sentiments. 4. The Poems were always viewed as historical by the Greeks. 5. If fictitious in their basis, they would have been far less likely to acquire and maintain such com- manding interest. 6. The structure and tenour of the Poems throughout indicate the highest regard to na- tional tastes and prepossessions : and these tastes were manifestly very strong as to all matters of tradition and hereditary fame. Of this we have an indication which may be taken by way of example, in the question usually put to a stranger, who are his parents ? 7. The number, and the remarkable self-consistency of the Genealogies given in the Poems, appear almost of them- selves to prove an historic design. 8. The Catalogue in the Second Iliad implies a purpose with reference to the nation, much the same as that indicated by the Genealogies with respect to particular persons or famU lies. 9. The Aristeia of the greater chieftains re- spectively, in the intermediate Books of the Iliad, are thought to load the movement of the Poem ; but they receive a natural and simple explanation from the tendency of a Poet at once itinerant and historical to distribute carefully the honours of the War between the different States and Heroes. 10. A considerable number of the minute particulars given, especially in the Iliad, are of a nature to derive their interest wholly from recording matter of fact ; such for instance as the small stature of Tudeus, the mare driven by Menelaos, and many more. 11. Homer often introduces curious legends of genealogy and race, in a manner which is 1 II. ix. 186-189. 2 Od. viii. 579. I.] INTRODUCTION. palpably inopportune for the purposes of poetry, and which is, on the other hand, fully accounted for by the historic aim. These legends are not to be ex- plained by the garrulity of Nestor; for, even if the character of Nestor admitted of a garrulity wholly apart from good sense, still these legends are not con- fined to him. Nor are they shared with him only by Phcenix, who is likewise in years ; they are spoken by iEneas, Glaucos, and others, and this too even on the field of battle : and, by means of them, Homer has sup- plied us with a great mass of curious knowledge, highly interesting to his auditors, and eminently illustrative of the first beginnings of the Greek nation,. as yet in embryo. His intermixture of supernatural agency with human events must be judged on its own grounds ; but cannot by the laws of historical criticism be held of itself to overthrow his general credit. We must not however attempt to define with rigour the limits, within which the Poems are to be considered historical. The free intermixture of the supernatural need not indeed constitute a serious difficulty. For the theurgy of the Poems is, so to speak, self-subsistent. lrj represents in the main a parallel and concurrent action, rather than a mere ornament, or a simple portion of one and the same narration with the War; and it lies upon the human and visible tissue like a continuous pattern of rich embroidery. But several points of the story are presented to us in a dress apparently mythical ; for example, the distribution of the time into three- periods, each of ten years: and many of the names of persons appear to have been invented, especially in cases where they carry an etymological meaning calcu- lated directly to serve the purpose of the Poem. Again, 10 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. if we suppose an historical existence for the persons indi- cated by the names, for example, of Achilles and Helen, it remains open to doubt, how large a proportion of the remarkable and characteristic features, with which they are invested, may be due to the imagination of the Poet. In the case of Achilles, whose qualities everywhere border on the superhuman, this question is especially relevant. Nor is the circumstance to be overlooked, that a goddess is assigned to him as a mother, and is stated to have sat commonly, or oftentimes, as queen in his father's palace \ It must also be fully admitted that, although the Troad may afford some physical indications favourable to the historic character of the Poems, yet the proof of that character chiefly, nay almost wholly, rests upon internal evidence 2 . But internal evidence, when carried to a certain point, is the very best we can desire in a case where we are obliged to travel back into the mist of ages, far beyond the limits of historical record. Of all the features of the Homeric Poems, perhaps the most remarkable are the delineations of personal character which they contain. They are not only in a high degree varied and refined • but they are also marvellously comprehensive and profound. The proof of their extraordinary excellence as works of art is to be found in this, that from Homer's time to our own, with the single exception of the works of Shakespeare, they have never been equalled. Homer is also admirable, when the specialties of his purpose are taken into view, in the arrangement of incidents : in keeping interest ever fresh : in his 1 II. i. 326. 2 Mure, Literature of Greece, vol. i. I .] INTR OD UC TION. I 1 precise and copious observation of nature : in his power of illustration, his use of epithets; in the free- dom, simplicity, and power of his language ; and in a versification perfect in its application to all the diver- sified forms of human action, speech, and feeling. It may probably have been the combined and in- tense effort of the Trojan War by which the Greeks first felt themselves, and first became, a nation. At any rate, from that epoch appears to date their community of interest and life. Homer, then, was hardly less won- derful in the fortune of his opportunity, than in the rarity of his gifts. In speaking of his theme, the two Poems may be taken as virtually one. He supplied to his country thenceforward, and for all periods, the bond of an intellectual communion, and a common treasure of ideas upon all the great subjects in which man is concerned. He was not only the glory and delight, but he was in a great degree the 7706777-7)9, the maker, of his nation. I have spoken of the darkness which, as far as direct testimony is concerned, envelopes the person of the Poet. The same is the case with the Homeric Poems, distinguished from every other work of the first rank in these among other particulars : there is not one, of which so little has been told us by contemporary or early testimony; while there is not one which tells us so much. Of their origin, their date, and their first reception, we know nothing, except so far as we can gather it from themselves. The Cyclic Poems, which aimed at completing the circle of events with which they deal, never attained to an equal or competing fame, and have long ago perished. Periods of dark- ness, the length of which we cannot determine, both 1% JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. precede and follow the two great productions. At the dawn of trustworthy tradition, we find them holding a position of honour and authority among the Greeks, for which, with respect to works professedly secular, his- tory affords no parallel 1 . The Greeks had no sacred books, properly so called : and it is probable that the Poems of Homer filled in some particular respects the place of Sacred Books 2 for that people. By the Poems of Homer, I mean the Iliad and the Odyssey. I can find no adequate reason for assigning to him any other of the larger compositions of the early Greek Bards. Of the other works more or less reputed to be Homeric, not one can now be ascribed to him with confidence, or has been shown ever to have been so ascribed by the general and unhesitating opinion of the Greeks. The Hymns contain very few passages of such mark as even to allow the supposition that they could have proceeded from him. Nor do they carry, so to speak, his physiognomy. No writer of any period has borne stronger and more characteristic notes of style. We have seen that one beautiful passage is quoted from the Hymn to Apollo, by Thucydides. He describes that Hymn as a Hymn of Homer • and doubt- less he represents a tradition of his day. There are also one or two fragmentary verses ascribed to Homer : one passage, in particular, is given by Aristotle 3 , and said to have been taken from a poem termed The Margites. It may be observed that besides their general inferiority, the Hymns in general embody 1 The case which comes nearest to this is perhaps that of the Divina Commedia of Dante. 2 Milman, Life of Horace, p. i ; Grote, Hist, of Greece, vol. i. 3 Eth. Nicom. vi. 7 I.] INTRODUCTION. 1 3 mythological traditions, evidently of a later stamp than those of the two great Epics. The Iliad and Odyssey give a picture of the age to which they refer, alike copious and animated, compre- hensive and minute. The Iliad represents that age in its vigour ; the Odyssey paints it in the beginning of its decline, when Greece had been unsettled and dis- organised by the prolonged absence of its chiefs at Troy. The Iliad gives us what it had been ; the Odyssey indicates what it was about to be. The de- lineations embrace jointly all the materials that human life and society could then in their simplicity supply : when writing was either unknown or unavailable, when civil rights had not begun to take the form of law, and when visible Art, in its higher sense, was an exotic not yet naturalised in Greece. In a manner chiefly incidental, there is supplied to us a mass of informa- tion on history and legend, religion, polity, justice, domestic life and habits, ethnical and social relations, the conditions of warfare, navigation, industry, and of the useful arts, exceeding in amount what has ever at any other period been brought for us into one focus by a single mind ; except possibly by the philosophical works of Aristotle, if we possessed them entire. It has been doubted 1 at various times whether either Poem, and especially whether the Iliad, was the work of a single author; and also whether the two were due to the same hand. The Chorizontes, so called because they separate the authorship of the Iliad from that of the Odyssey, found themselves mainly, 1 See the account of the controversy from its earliest phase among the Alexandrian Critics, in Mure, Hist, of Greek Lit. vol. i, ch. ii. iii. iv. 14 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. {a) On supposed discrepancies in the mythology of the two Poems respectively : (b) On differences of manners and institutions : (c) On differences in the language. Those who destroy the unity of the Poems, and espe- cially of the Iliad, altogether, contend, (a) That the art of writing did not exist at the time of their composition, and that poems of such length could not have been orally transmitted. This was the famous argument of Wolf. {b) That there are such discrepancies, anomalies, and defects of plan, in the Iliad, as to preclude the belief that it could be the work of a single mind. With respect to the argument of Wolf, it is now commonly admitted that no such art of writing existed, as could be available for the transmission of the Poems : but his second proposition, that they could not be transmitted orally, is also very commonly denied. Quintilian says, c Invenio apud Platonem obstare memorise usum literarum V Even in the period when the exercise of the memory had become subject to this disadvantage, Niceratos, according to Xeno- phon 2 , stated that he knew the Iliad and Odyssey by heart: and Athenseus 3 states, that Cassander, king of Macedon, could do nearly as much; he could repeat the chief part of the Poems. Even now, it would not be difficult to select youths, of strong memory, aided by poetic feeling, who, if they made it a profession, would be able to acquire by heart the whole of them : which however need not have been done by all those who recited them under a system apparently organised with a view to recitation in parts. 1 xi. 2. 2 Sympos. iii. 5. 3 xiv. p. 620. I.] INTRODUCTION. 1$ As respects the other heads of argument against the unity of the Poems generally, it may be sufficient for the present to reply as follows : — (a) The plot of the Iliad (as will be shown) is ad- mirably constructed for its purpose. (b) Its internal discrepancies are both very few, and very insignificant. (c) Some of the cases of alleged discrepancy are only such when the canons of modern prose are applied pre- cipitately as the criteria of the oldest poetry. As regards the arguments of the Chorizontes or separators of the authorship of the two Epics, let it be observed : — (a) If the mythology of the Odyssey, in that region to which the voyage of Odysseus belongs, shall be shown to be Phoenician 1 , the whole argument from discrepancy in that mythology will thereupon disappear. (b) The differences in manners or institutions are not greater than may be explained by the action of a revolutionary crisis, like the crisis caused by the prolonged absence in Troas; and are really such as may be taken rather for an evidence of unity in authorship than the reverse. (c) Some differences of language between the two Poems is required by the different character of the subjects: and the actual differences seem not to be thought by scholars in general to betoken their be- longing to different ages. (d) A careful comparison of style between the Odyssey and the Iliad, and of a number of particulars of turn and manner, will be found to supply a con- 1 See infra, Chap. V. on the Phoenicians; and Chap. VII. on Mythology, sect. Poseidon. 1 6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. siderable amount of very specific evidence for the unity of authorship. No such resemblances could be shown to the works of any other author, or to the Pseudo- Homeric compositions. (e) Those characters of the Iliad, which are also found in the Odyssey, reappear in the later Poem with a perfect preservation of identity, confirmed, not impaired, by the altered shading which belongs to their altered positions. (/) The testimony of the Odyssey to facts, es- pecially those connected with the War, is in no case discordant with that of the Iliad. For if the manhood of Neoptolemos 1 creates a certain amount of difficulty, we should bear in mind that the adjustment of time with reference to the Poem, appears to be one of the points in which Homer has allowed himself a certain licence, with a view probably to poetical effect. (g) But the overwhelming proof of the unity of authorship, both for each Poem, and as between the two, is really supplied by the innumerable par- ticulars of manners, institutions, and ideas, which pervade both the Iliad and the Odyssey with a mar- vellous consistency ; and by the incommunicable stamp of an extraordinary genius which they carry throughout. If discrepancies exist, the difficulty they present is not only small, but infinitesimal, compared with the difficulty of that hypothesis which assumes that Greece produced in early times a multitude of Homers, and all of them with the very same stamp of mind. Whether in short we consider these works as poetry or as record, the marks of their unity are 1 Od. xi. 506. I.] INTRODUCTION. 1 7 | innumerable and ineffaceable. A part of their force is sensible to the ordinary reader; but it will be felt constantly and immensely to increase in proportion as the reader becomes the student, by virtue of a patient, constant, and thorough examination of the text. Of the two Poems, it seems to me that, while both are wonderful, the Iliad is without doubt the greater. The plot of the Iliad, we shall find, is a marvellous combination of poetical skill with national spirit and practical prudence. The plot of the Odyssey, at first sight more organised and symmetrical, is in the first place of far easier construction, and in the second, is wound up in a manner which is feeble if not slovenly. The suspicions of the genuineness of the Twenty-fourth Book appear to me on the whole to be tolerably met by a general conformity of turn and handling, though with diminished force; and by many minute particulars of correspondence which, here as elsewhere, the text supplies. But they have perhaps been reasonably suggested by a percep- tible inferiority of workmanship in this and, with some exceptions, in several Books preceding it. The vigour of the Iliad, on the other hand, continues quite unabated to the end. Again, in the Odyssey there is not a mere decline of vigour : the plan of the ending may be called degenerate and incomplete. The ends of some of the threads are dropped. If ever a peace was patched it is that which is announced in the closing passage. The intervention of Mentor, even though his exterior conceals a deity, is not what the dignity of the Sovereign or the grandeur of Odysseus would require. And the unexplained as well as unfulfilled prophecy 1 of 1 Od. xi. 127; xxiii. 275. C l8 yWENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. the war, suggests that Homer had poetical intentions to which it was not permitted him to give effect. Generally speaking, the Odyssey displays the same powers as the Iliad, but in less energetic manifestation. A faculty of debate, never surpassed if ever equalled in human history, is found in both ; but though the flight of Odysseus in the Seventh Odyssey is, like that of the contention in the First Iliad, a lofty one, it cannot be compared with the wonderful speech of Achilles in the tent-scene of the Ninth. Again ; no man but Homer could have reproduced in the Odyssey to the life the characters of the Iliad, or could have added the specific shading of their altered circumstances. But though Homer in each is stronger than any other of the Ancients, yet Homer of the Iliad is Homer at the height and maximum of his power in this transcendent quality ; while in the Odyssey the great luminary seems to have just begun his descending course. Next comes the question how far we may reckon on having substantially the same text as that of our author ; not as to any minor detail, nor even so as to exclude occasional interpolations, but as to the style, diction, and language generally. Mr. Paley 1 says (not that the Greek of the Iliad is greatly different from that of the Odyssey, but) that we find in the Poems two distinct and separate phases of the Greek tongue: first, the language of the earliest Trojan Epics, and secondly, the ordinary Ionic of the time of Herodotus, with a mixture of Attic idioms. The question is one evidently requiring minute ex- amination j but it is beyond my competency to decide. I would observe, however, 1 .Athenaum, Aug. 10, 1867. I.] INTRODUCTION. 1 9 (a) That in an author who composed at a period of crisis, when all the elements of the Hellenic nation, that was to be, were settling down, we should look for, or at least should not be startled by, some mixture of older and younger forms. (b) That considerable changes of the minor order might be made in the text of the Poems without seriously affecting the substance, if there was a great and constant anxiety to abide by the true sense of Homer. (c) That if we find the internal evidence as to manners, institutions, and facts, singularly self-con- sistent, this goes far to show that alterations of the text have been generally confined within merely verbal and narrow limits. (d) The antiquity of the present text is not over- thrown by the fact that the later poets in many instances have followed other forms of legend in regard to the Troica: for they would necessarily consult the state of popular feeling from time to time; and tradition, which, as to religion, altered so greatly after the time of Homer, would, as to facts and persons, it is evident, vary materially according to the sym- pathies of blood and otherwise at different periods of Greek history. The displacement of the Achaians, and the rise of the Dorians and Ionians, must have occasioned great changes in this respect. It is also surprising, if such difference in the language really exists as is alleged by Mr. Paley, that it was not perceived by the Greeks of the classic period, who must surely be allowed to have known their own tongue. There are passages of ancient writers, which tend to the disintegration of Homer. But they are late, c 2 20 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. and of small authority. Josephus 1 says it was reported, or thought, that from want of the aid afforded by the art of writing there were many discrepancies in the Poems. This was merely a current opinion, not of himself but of others, on the state of the text; an opinion which we can for ourselves see to have been erroneous. The Scholiast on Pindar 2 reports, and only reports, that Kunaithos and his school had made large interpolations. The Latin authors, such as Cicero or Paterculus, must be considered as giving their opinions, which cannot from the circumstances be of great critical weight, rather than as witnesses in the case. The external evidence to a contrary effect, though fragmentary, is more considerable, and for the most part of much earlier date. Heraclides Ponticus 3 , a pupil of Plato, declares that Lycurgus obtained the Ho- meric Poems from the descendants of Kreophulos, and was the first to bring them into Peloponnesos. iElian 4 makes the slight but material addition, that he brought this poetry in a mass (aOpoav). Plato states in the Re- public 5 that Kreophulos was a companion of Homer; Strabo 6 , that he was a Samian ; Diogenes Laertius 7 , that Hermodamas, the master of Pythagoras, was his descendant. Plutarch 8 states that some portions of Homer were known in Greece before Lycurgus brought the whole from Crete. Herodotus 9 states that Cleisthenes, the tyrant of Sicyon, when he had been at war with Argos, put 1 Contr. Ap. ii. 2. 2 Nem. ii. 1. 3 Fragm. nep\ 7ro\iTeia>v. * Var. Hist. xiii. 14. 5 Rep. x. p. 600 B. 6 xiv. p. 946. 7 viii. 2. 8 Lye. p. 41. 9 v. 67. I.] INTRODUCTION. 21 a stop to the competitions of the rhapsodists in Sicyon, because the Homeric songs turned chiefly upon the Argeians and Argos (otl 'ApyetoL re /cat v Apyos ra 7io\\a irdvra vyt,viaTai). Also, that he sought to banish from Sicyon the memory of Adrestos, as being an Argive hero. Now the Iliad describes Greece not seldom under the title of Argos, and the Greeks frequently as Argeians ; and it represents Adrestos as the first king of Sicyon, while at the same time it represents him as the father-in-law, or grandfather- in-law, of Diomed the Argive chieftain. From this passage it appears — (a) That there were at Sicyon, six centuries before Christ, State - recitations of the Homeric Poems, attended with prizes. (b) That they are not named as peculiar to Sicyon, but rather as a customary institution, set aside in that place at a certain epoch on special grounds. (c) That the recitations depended chiefly on the Homeric Poems; for they ceased when these were prohibited. Dieuchidas of Megara, an author placed by Heyne after the time of Alexander the Great, is quoted by Diogenes 1 as stating that Solon provided by law for the recitation of the Homeric poems e£ {nTofioXrjs, one reciter taking up another ; and therefore that Solon did more than Peisistratos to throw light upon the Poet. And Lycurgus the orator, who was contemporary with Demosthenes 2 , tells the Athenian people that their forefathers thought of him so highly as to provide by law for the recitation of his songs, and his alone, quinquennially at the Panathenaica ; and such, he adds, 1 Diog. Laert. i. 57. 2 In Leocritum, 104-8. 2Z JUVENTU3 MUNDI. [CHA?. was then the valour of their ancestors, that the Spartans took Tyrtaeus 1 from among them to be their general. Hence it appears that — (a) According to Lycurgus, Homer was recited at Athens in the time of Tyrtaeus, nearly seven cen- turies before Christ. (b) Just when Athens begins to rise, Solon appoints by public law competitive recitations of Homer, to be taken in turn by the reciters. (c) And of Homer alone. (d) It appears negatively that probably there were recitations at Athens before Solon, but without regular turns. (e) If public authority thus established the recita- tion of the Poems, we may rest assured that care was taken, as far as possible, to preserve their text from corruption. (f) The vanity or carelessness of a particular rhapso- dist would tend to corrupt them ; but the matches were free and competitive, and each reciter would be watched and checked by the vigilant j ?alousy of his rivals. This element of competition would in all likelihood have a highly conservative effect, before the art of writing had come into use. And it is plain, from 11. ii. 594-600, that the practice prevailed from before the time of Homer himself; as he tells us that Thamuris had challenged the Muses to compete with him, and was punished accordingly for his audacity. Hesiod wit- nesses to the matches, and says that in Aulis he himself won a tripod 2 . Thucydides also finds proof of them in the Hymn to Apollo 3 . 1 Smith's Diet., art. Tyrtaeus. 2 Opp. 654-657. 3 Hymn Apoll. 146-150, 166-173. 1.] INTRODUCTION. \ 1$ (g) In a word, while there were at work what may be called centrifugal forces, tending to impair and vitiate the text of the Poems, there were also centripetal forces tending to restore it ; in the rivalry of States as well as of Bards, in the intense love of the song of Homer felt by every Greek, and in the great value set by the whole people upon it as a record. When we come down to the historic period, we find in it full evidence of the standing anxiety both of States and persons to preserve the text of Homer. It appears probable that a common text was more or less recognised, while many even of the Greek Colonies had their public or State Recensions. Individuals of eminence, or of literary taste, had their editions also. The Venetian Scholiast constantly refers to these two descriptions of copies, and while the references prove that there were in this, as in every ancient document, many variations of text, they also show that such variations were confined within narrow limits, and did not affect the body of the work. The State editions were called at 7roA.trtKat, at e*c t&v Tiokeaiv,. at airb iro\€(av: those prepared for individuals at /car avhpa : and a third class, got up apparently for public sale, and of very variable quality, were at koivoi, at brjfAOTiKca, at brjfxaheLS. Among the public or State Recensions, we hear of those of Argos, Crete, Sinope, Marseilles, Chios, Cyprus ; of the Aiolis or Aiolike, a name which may perhaps indicate the recognised text of what is called Homer's iEolian Greek; the Recension of the IVJou- seion, or depository near the School at Alexandria; and the Kuklike, which is supposed to mean an edition wherein Homer appeared with other poems of the Cycle. 24 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. It seems very probable, that the work of Peisistratos was in substance a critical recension of the text effected by a comparison of different versions, and a complete publication by authority of the several portions of the Poems in the order in which we now have them ; in fact that it was an early and notable example of the reactive tendency to preserve the text by recurrence to a standard, and to check its variations, which I have mentioned as the natural counterpoise to disintegrating agencies. We have no clear account of the proceedings of Peisistratos ; but we know that when, at a later period, the Alexandrian School of Zenodotos, Aristophanes, and Aristarchos brought the best critical power of the time to bear upon the Poems, they found com- paratively little to question. Nor have the suspicions they entertained of particular passages since received anything approaching to an unanimous approval. As to more general reconstructions, it is allowed that the Odyssey does not admit of them; and such as have been proposed with regard to the Iliad have manifestly failed to obtain any sensible, much more any permanent, amount of assent. But the strongest argument for the soundness of the text, as well as that for the unity of the Poems, hangs upon internal evidence. I do not hesitate to say that no work known to me presents, in any degree equal or approaching to these Poems, the proof, in kind among the strongest of all, which arises out of natural unstudied self-consistency in detail. The particulars in which the text confirms at one point what it conveys at another may be counted by many thousands: those where it appears to be inconsistent I.] INTRODUCTION. 2$ are but a few units to be reckoned by the primitive process of Proteus upon the fingers. Errors undoubtedly there must be. Still, if they were very serious, it is impossible but that a far greater number of them must have been tracked out, and their detection established to the general satisfaction of cultivated men. On one portion only of the Forty-eight Books, namely the close of the Odyssey, has there been thrown what may be termed grave or recognised doubt; and even here doubt is all that can be reasonably sustained. Indeed over and above correspondence of tangible particulars there is what I must call an unity of at- mosphere in the Poems, such as I believe has never been achieved by forgery or imitation. In this chapter I have not relied upon the tradition according to which Lycurgus, the great Spartan law- giver, brought the Poems into use in Lacedsemon, because it is one belonging to the Roman rather than the Greek period. On the other hand I cannot attach great weight to the statement in the Hippar- chos 1 , which assigns to that Sovereign the original introduction of the Poems into Attica. It appears simply incredible that the Poems should have been unknown in Attica, when we learn from Herodotus that they had long before been recited in Sicyon. On the whole, then, we are not in every case dog- matically to assert that each line of the Poems as they stand is the work of Homer ; but while fairly weighing the evidence in the comparatively few cases where doubt sustained by argument has been raised, we may, as a general rule, proceed to handle the text with a reasonable confidence, that the ground is firm under 1 Sect. iv. 26 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. our feet* a confidence, which experience in the work will, I think, be found progressively to confirm. Thus far we have seen reason to suppose that the Iliad and the Odyssey are the work of a Poet who lived at a date that we are unable to define otherwise than by its nearness to the Trojan War; an event which, if we attempt to measure its distance from the historic era by manners and institutions, we must hold to be of a high antiquity. At times it has been questioned, whether Homer or Hesiod was the older poet. We know of Hesiod that while the reputed authors of the Cyclic Poems belong to the historic era \ he is pre-historic ; and we must seek, therefore, in his works, as in those of Homer, for the means of estimating his probable c whereabout ' in the deep mist of ages. He gives us no sign that the. instrument of writing had become available at his epoch for the preservation of poetry ; and if his com- positions, as being much shorter, taxed the memory more lightly, on the other hand we have no reason to believe that they were watched with the same jealous care to preserve, or to recover, the genuine text. But if the episode of the Five Ages be genuine, they are decisive of the question. For the composer of it had been witness to an iron age; and iron, as compared with copper, had in his time come to be the inferior, that is to say the cheaper, metal. The use of it therefore must have grown common ; as, from remains still extant, it had evidently come to be common in Assyria at a period supposed to be about the eighth century before Christ. Homer lived at a period, as defined by economic laws, much earlier ; at 1 Mure, Lit. of Greece 3 ii. 282. I.] INTRODUCTION. 2J a time when the use of iron was but just commencing, when the commodity was rare, and when its value was very great. This argument appears to me so conclusive as to the comparative dates, that I forbear to dwell on other particulars, or upon the considerable difference in the manners of the Hesiodic, as compared with the Homeric, Poems. We have also seen that in the state of primitive society it was essential to the business of the Epic Bard to commemorate, in poetic forms, actual events ; and that the works of Homer prove how he kept this property of his art constantly in mind. Viewing then his position in human history and his profession, we find that he is an original and a solitary, as he is also a most copious, witness to the condition of mankind, and especially of the Greeks, at a period to which we have no other direct literary access. Traditions there are in abundance, reported by Apol- lodorus in mass, or scattered here and there through the works of earlier writers; and these traditions may, in any given case, contain matter relating to the age of Homer, or to what preceded him, and may even in some cases be true, or nearer the truth than his. But they carry as a general rule no attestation ; and their con- fused and promiscuous nature marks them as a miscel- lany gradually accumulated in many ages and from many lands. I submit then that we ought to make the evidence of Homer in relation to his age and to what had gone before, a separate study, and to assign to it a primary authority. The testimony of later writers should be handled in subordination to it, and in general even tried by it as by a touchstone, on all the subjects which it embraces. It will be seen, as we proceed 28 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. to deal with the contents of the Poems, that this is a proposition fruitful of important results as regards the religion, the polity, and the manners of early Greece. In asking for the testimony of Homer a primary authority, I refer only to those cases where it stands in competition with other, and in truth inferior, literary evidence. The evidence of fact, whether in geography and topography, in language, or in archae- ology, stands upon its own ground, and Homer, like every other author, must yield, if a conflict arise, to its more cogent authority. I will give a single example of the discrepancy between the Homeric, and the later, representations of the early Greek ethnology. According to a tradition founded in part upon Apollodoros \ in part upon a fragment ascribed by Tzetzes to Hesiod 2 , Deucalion was the son of Prometheus, and a certain Hellen was the son of Deucalion. Hellen had three sons, Aiolos, Doros, and Xouthos ; and Xouthos again had two sons, Ion and Achaios. It is impossible not to be struck with the convenient adaptation, speaking generally, of this tradition to the reputed descent and succession of the various Greek races, so as to give to each its share of fame and its order of seniority. All Greeks were Hellenes, so Hellen is made the father of them all. The oldest among these names in the Greek tradition is Aiolos ; so an Aiolos is made the eldest son of Hellen. The great dominant race of the first historic ages of Greece was the Dorian; accordingly, Doros is the second son of Hellen. The Ionians, represented by Attica, came later to their repute and power ; so they, and the Achaians 1 Lib. vil. 2. 3. 2 Fragm. xxviii. ap. Tzetz. ad Lye. 284. I.] INTRODUCTION. 29 to whom they gave a refuge after the Dorian conquest, appear as the children of the third and youngest son. This tradition may be properly viewed as a pretty piece of joinery. But Mure * has with justice observed that the name Hellen bears witness against itself, being ap- parently derived from the territorial name Hellas, and that in its turn from the Helloi. When we bring this tradition, thus discredited by internal evidence, to the bar of Homer, we find him in discord with it on every point. Of Hellen as a person he knows nothing : the name would to all appearance have meant in his ear most properly an inhabitant of Southern Thessaly. Aiolos, if named by him at all, is named as a foreigner- while only particular families, not a tribe descended from him, are indicated as having borne or bearing rule in parts of Greece. Doros is wholly unknown to him; and the Dorians are a portion, apparently an obscure portion at the time, of the inhabitants of Crete. Of Xouthos we have no trace whatever , in fact this whole family is, as such, utterly non-existent. There is no Ion ; and the Iaones who appear as settled in the Attica of Homer, are without any tribal eponymist. Again, there is no trace of an Achaios ; but the name Achaioi is the dominant name of the period, and the crown of its celebrity. Such, exhibited by an example, is the contrariety between Homeric and post-Homeric tradition. We shall see in due time what materials the text of Homer can contribute towards the construction of the eth- nology of Greece in the heroic age. In the following pages I endeavour to give to the testimony of Homer what I have described as its due 1 Lit. of Greece, vol. i. p. 39 n. 30 JUVENTUS MUNDI. place. They are based upon a wide collection of particulars from the text. And, as far as possible, I have supplied the reader with means of judging where it is Homer that speaks, and where it is an illustrative tradition, or an indication drawn from some other than a literary source ; as also of distinguishing in all cases between evidence, and the inference or conjecture which I may have presumed to found upon it. Upon the whole, I trust enough has been said to show that in the text of the Poet we may find solid materials to work upon for the handling of the Homeric question. With this encouragement, let us commence our inquiries. CHAPTER II. The Three Great Appellatives. The name of Greeks, as the modern equivalent of the several appellatives by which Homer describes the army engaged in the siege of Troy, is too firmly established to be changed. But it is not a correct name. The Greek equivalent of the word is TpaiKoL The name Tpaia 1 is found in the Iliad, but it is only a local name of a settlement of Boiotoi or Boeotians. The name applied to themselves by the Greek people throughout the historic times, as at the present day, was not Graikoi, but Hellenes. And even this name, as Thucydides 2 observes, had not come into vogue in the time of Homer. It was indeed, as we shall find, creeping, so to speak, into use : but the standing ap- pellations of the army in the Iliad are these three, Danaoi, Argeioi, and Achaioi ; and it is sufficiently plain that the most proper national name for the Greeks of the period was that of \\ya io h Achaians. We call them Greeks conventionally: but with no more accuracy than we should render the Galli of 1 II. ii. 498.. 2 i. 3. 32 JUVENTUS MUNBI. [CHAP. Caesar by the word c French/ We should bear in mind, then, that in strictness the Greeks of the Troica were Achaians. We find in Homer traces, as of a religion, so of a race, or group of races, who inhabited the Greek peninsula before the Achaians, or any other tribe of the blood afterwards classed as Hellenic. These in- habitants passed in different places under a variety of designations ; of which the most comprehensive and wide-spread 1 appears to have been Pelasgoi. They seem to have formed the base of the Greek army, and of the people subject to the sway of Achaian and other great families. There is no trace in the poems of their having used a language different from that of their superiors in station, although the tradition of a difference in blood subsisted down to the historic time, and although the Pelasgian language, where the people using it had not been blended with the Hellenes, had then come to be accounted as a distinct, if not a foreign, tongue. The relation between this older race and the Hel- lenic tribes leads to the conclusion that both were alike derived from the Aryan stem. And there is no reason to believe that there were any earlier occupants of the Greek, or of the Italian Peninsula 2 , than the group of tribes that was called Pelasgian. Neither of these countries presents us with remains belonging to what is called the stone period of the human race, when im- plements and utensils were made of that material, and the use of metals was unknown. The first emigrants from the East may probably have worked their way by 1 Thirlwall, Hist, of Greece, vol. i. chap. ii. 2 Mommsen, Hist, of Rome, chap. i. II. j THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 33 land to and along the comparatively level and easy countries of Central Europe, and seem not to have penetrated through the masses of mountain, which inclose on their northern sides both Greece and Italy. The boast of autochthonism, or birth from the soil, so rife in the historic ages of Greece, was therefore not irrational, if we consider it to betoken only the claim to first occupancy. And it seems to have been prin- cipally in vogue among the people of Attica and Arcadia, the former of which had long been impressed with a markedly Pelasgian character, while the latter retained that character even through the historic period. The particulars which have been embraced in this slight survey are partly suggested by, and are in all cases accordant with, the Homeric testimony. The Greeks of the Iliad are ordinarily called by Homer 1. Danaoi. 2. Argeioi. 3. Achaioi. They are also called 1. Panhellenes, II. ii. 530. 2. Panachaioi, II. ii. 404; vii. 73, 159, 327; ix. 301 ; x. 1 ; xix. 193 • xxiii. 236. Od. i. 239; xiv.369; xxiv.32. With respect to the three first, which may be called the Great Appellatives of Homer, it is manifest that the Poet frequently uses them as interchangeable and synonymous. Yet, upon examination, important dis- tinctions will be found to exist between them. The various legends interspersed through the Poems, carry back the Homeric tradition to a period several generations earlier than the War of Troy : which War 34 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. together with the attendant group of circumstances, I shall commonly call trie Troica. But we shall find that Homer does not also carry backwards the use of these appellatives indifferently through the pre-Troic period : and thus we shall obtain pretty clear evidence of a chronological succession among them. This rule applies likewise to other Homeric names. For example; when reference is made, in the narra- tive of the Iliad, to the soldiers belonging to the country afterwards called Bceotia, he describes them as Boiotoi. But where Agamemnon and Athene intro- duce the legend 1 of Tudeus, which touches the people of the same district at a prior epoch, they are called not Boiotoi but Kadmeioi and Kadmeiones. More- over, in this same legend appear the people of Argos, and the people of Mycense. They are both called Achaioi, a name never given to the Kadmeioi. In the legend of the birth of Eurustheus 2 , the scene is laid in "Apyos y kyaiiK6v. This name we shall find still attached perhaps to the Peloponnesos, and cer- tainly to the Eastern Peloponnesos, in the time of Homer. Its inhabitants, who are described as we have seen, in the time of Tudeus, that is to say one generation before the War, as Achaioi, are called, in the time of Eurustheus, and therefore before the period of the Pelopids, not Achaioi but Argeioi 3 . It seems impossible to treat these very marked usages as acci- dental. About the same period Proitos, whom the post- Homeric tradition represents as a brother of Euru- stheus, expelled Bellerophon from Ephure 4 . The text, 1 II. iv. 385, 391 ; v. 800-7. 2 II. xix. 95 seqq. 3 II. xix. 122, 124. 4 II. vi. 158. II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. ^ true to itself, describes the people over whom Proitos ruled, not as Danaoi or Achaioi, but as Argeioi. In the same manner the Poet here describes as Ephure what in the Catalogue he calls Corinth 1 . Homer then appears to point to Argeioi as the more ancient, and Achaioi as the more recent, name. But, moreover, he uses the two designations with marked respect to place as well as time. In the Eleventh Iliad 2 , Nestor details to Patroclos the legend of the war between the Pulians, and the Epeians who inhabited Elis. He calls the Pulians dis tinctively Achaians, where he is speaking of them as the conquering party. He seems to withhold that name from the conquered : and he gives it to the Pulians at a period which must have been within the life and reign of Eurustheus, that is to say, the period when the name of Argeians was attached to those who inhabited the ruling quarter of Greece, or the Eastern Peloponnesos. But the word Argeioi, used freely by Homer as a national designation, has also a marked local sense in the poems. It is a standing epithet, in the singular, of Helen, and this too in the mouth of Greeks, and of deities, whose use of it gives it a force quite different from that which it might have had among the Trojans. The purely national name would in such a case have been void of distinctive meaning ; but now we natu- rally interpret the epithet as referring to the part of Greece with which Helen was especially connected. According to the post-Homeric tradition, confirmed by the Iliad, which makes Lacedsemon the country of Castor and Poludeukes 3 , Tundareos, her father, was 1 II. ii. 570. 2 II. xi. 670-761. 3 II. iii. 244. D % $6 JU VENT US MUNDI. CHAP. king of Sparta. Till the Pelopid House acquired it, and thus the Achaian sway began, this would be an Argeian kingdom ; and thus Helen, though the wife of Menelaos, represents by her descent an Argeian title to it, so that the epithet thus acquires a full significance. Thus far I have cited some examples to illustrate the practice of Homer. Let us now consider the leading particulars connected with the use of the three Great Appellatives. The name Danaoi is used in the Iliad 147 times: in the Odyssey thirteen. Once it is combined with Argeioi, in Od. viii.578, and appears to serve as an epi- thet. It is never used in the feminine. It is never used in the singular- and never locally. It seems never to signify the people inhabiting the Greek pen- insula and islands, nor their ancestors in prior his- tory : but invariably and only the Greeks of the army. It has therefore all the appearance of being an heroic and poetical rather than an historical appellation, and thus it is well adapted to describe men engaged in a military expedition surrounded with the most romantic associations. Accordingly, the epithets applied to Aavaot are ex- clusively of a military character. They are 1. ?/pcoe?, II. ii. no, 256; xv. 733 (heroes). 2. 6€pdirovT€s"Apr]os, II. vii. 382 ; xix. 78 (comrades of Ares). 3. 0tA.o7:roAe/xot, II. xx. 351 (war-loving). 4. alxixr)Tai, II. xii.419 (spearmen). 5. aairio-Tai, II. xiii. 680 (shielded, heavy-armed). 6. icpfiifioi., II. xi. 290 (stalwart). 7. rax^wAot, II. viii. 161 (of swift steeds). II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 37 It being then plain that Danaoi was not the proper contemporary name of the Greeks, it is also plain that it could not have been applied to the Greeks as an army before Troy, unless it had had some root lying deep in the history or legends of Greece. National or tribal names in Homer usually come 1. From an eponymist or founder of a state, directly as Dardanoi or Troes, or Kadmeioi ; or indirectly, when they proceed from the name of a country, which name has been acquired from an eponymist. Such is Ithakesioi from Ithake, Ithake itself being derived from Ithakos, who is mentioned in Od. xvii. 207. 2. In like manner a name may come mediately from a race instead of an individual. Thus it seems that Hellas is derived from Helloi, and is in its turn the source of the great national name Hell en. 3. From the physical character of the country inha- bited, asThrekes (Thracians), from 0pj}£, describing a rough highland country 1 : or Aigialeis, from Alyiakos^ the district of coast to the south of the Gulf of Corinth. 4. In the single case of the Athenians, we find the name of a population derived from that of a deity. Besides the Homeric names which can be traced to one or other of these sources, there are names of which the connection with any of them is not established, or even where it is improbable. The text of Homer affords very slender aid for tracing the name Danaoi up to its source. But we must combine the fact of its application, limited as it is, to the nation, with the negative evidence afforded by this fact, that Homer nowhere uses the name as a domestic 1 Cf. Od. ix. 27. 38 JUVENTUS MUNDI. CHAP. name, either for his own, or for the immediately pre- ceding generations. This seems to throw back the origin of the name to a period comparatively re- mote. And when we reach such a period, we find at least a clue. In II. xiv. 319 we hear of the amour of Zeus with a beautiful Danae, of the royal house of Acrisios, from which union sprang Perseus and his line. The presumption then arises, that this Danae, being the daughter and mother of princes, was of the lineage of a Danaos, that this Danaos was himself a real or reputed prince of celebrity, and that he gave his name to the people with whom, and among whom, he effected a settlement in Greece. This may be the proper place to observe that, on the subject of the foreign origin of Greek races or houses, Homer is what is termed an unwilling witness. In- tensely national in feeling, he represents the first form of that peculiar sentiment which, in the historic period, divided mankind into Greeks and Barbarians ; much as the Hebrew race, upon grounds of a more definite character, made their division of the world into Jew and Gentile. There can be little doubt that Homer could, if he would, have told us much respecting immi- grations and settlements in Greece, which now remains the subject of comparatively dark conjecture. But it may be broadly laid down that he systematically eschews tracing either a family or a tribe to an origin abroad. It seems to be his intention that we should assume all Greek families and races, and further all Greek man- ners and institutions, to have sprung out of the soil. The sources of silver and copper and some other com- modities, and moreover of works of art, he is willing, or II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 39 even careful, to point out. But not so as to man and his highest operations. Though he tells us sometimes of foreign persons and events, he never, I think, con- sciously supplies, but seems habitually to keep back, the link between them and his own beloved Greek nation. All this seems to be conformable to the course of natural feeling. Arrivals from abroad, in the earliest periods of the life of a nation, usually indicate either the conquest, or at least the superiority, in one form or another, of foreigners over natives, of what is strange to the soil over what is associated with it. In this there is some violation of that feeling of simple rever- ence for the past, which is so conspicuous among the Greeks of Homer, and which is jarred by the memory of all disturbances of its even tenour. It can hardly be that, in any country, such narratives should be popular at or near the time of the events. Even the process by which Hellenes mastered Pelasgians, or by which Pelo- pids put themselves in the place of Perseids, is nowhere disclosed to us by Homer : whose purpose it was to unite more closely the elements of the nation, and not to record that they had once been separate. When Homer tells us of descendants of a Tantalos, or an Aiolos, and of a people called Kadmeiones, but gives us no clue to the extraction, or to the habitation, of any of these personages themselves, we may conclude, without much risk of error, that none of them were native Greeks, and that their names mark the point of transition from a foreign to a Greek domicile for their respective families. He never even names the connec- tion of Kadmeiones with Kadmos, or of Pelopidai with Pelops : both these great personages are only named by him incidentally, in remote portions of the Poems ; and 40 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. as to Aiolos, the ancestor of the Aiolids, it has not yet been generally recognized that the Poet names him at all. Without, then, calling in the aid of extraneous tra- ditions, it appears highly probable that the Danaoi bore the same relation to a Danaos, as the Kadmeioi ob- viously bear to a real or imaginary Kadmos. It is also probable, that Danae stands in the genera- tion next to Danaos. For Danae herself stands, as we shall see, in the sixth generation before the Troica; and the knowledge and traditions of Homer nowhere go back beyond the seventh generation. But as Danae is the daughter of Acrisios, not of Danaos, it is probable that Acrisios was a younger brother of Danaos ; and that the genealogy stands as follows : I. Danaos = Acrisios. 2. Danae. 3. Perseus. 4. Sthenelos. 5. Eurustheus. Contemporary with Heracles and Pelops. 6. Atreus = Thuestes. 7. Agamemnon = Aigisthos. It will here be perceived that the text of Homer is altogether at variance with those later legends, which throw back the first Greek dynasties into a very remote comparative antiquity. There is, I apprehend, an in- trinsic improbability in such legends as affect to trace prolonged lines of sovereigns through ages of darkness and barbarism, not possessed of the ordinary means of record • but there is also this strong presumption in favour of the Homeric text, that his genealogies, ga- thered indiscriminately as they are from different parts of the Poems, are in singular, if not absolutely un- varying, accordance with each other. According to the post-Homeric tradition, Danaos ■II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 41 was an Egyptian, and was brother of Aiguptos. He migrated into Greece, and became king of Argos. Proitos was his great-grandson; and as, according to the legend of the Sixth Iliad 1 , Proitos stands at two or two and a-half generations before the war, there is here an apparent agreement with Homer; but as Acrisios also is made the brother of Proitos, a much greater antiquity is in effect claimed for the immigration of Danaos. So far, however, as respects his personality, the seat of his kingdom, and his being of foreign origin, the later tradition sustains the presumptions arising from the text of Homer. The early disappearance of the name from the roll of tradition would be easily accounted for by that change of the dynasty in the male line which takes place at the time of Danae. From what country Danaos came, we shall hereafter have occasion to consider. For the present we may take him to have been one of the personages who arrived in Greece as a stranger, and who there founded such a dynasty, among the primitive or Pelasgian population, as became naturalised. This foundation seems to have taken place at the very commencement of what we may call the traditionary, as opposed to the merely my- thical, period, about two hundred years before the Trojan War. Even this is considerably older than the date of any family which we can connect with the Achaian name, or with the Hellenic stock. It seems, however, quite possible that Perseus and his race may on the father's side have descended from an Hellenic ancestry, and that the fable of Zeus and Danae may be no more 1 II. vi. 158. 42 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. than a veil employed to cover the transition, and to dignify the origin of the incoming family. Hesiod 1 terms Perseus both Danai'des, and son of Danae, and states that Danaos relieved Argos from drought. iEschylus in the Supplices 2 represents the whole Greek Peninsula as having been originally sub- ject to one and the same sway under Pelasgos. Euri- pides 3 says that Danaos changed the name of the Peloponnesians from Pelasgiotai to Danaoi. These re- ports are in no way at variance with the Homeric text. Upon the whole, then, the probable conclusions are : i. That the Danaan name was dynastic. 2. That the dynasty was pre-Hellenic. 3. That it stands next in chronological succession to the Pelasgic time • and 4. That it makes its appearance at about two cen- turies, more or less, before the War of Troy. We have next to deal with the name Argeioi. And first as to the facts connected with its use in the Poems. It is found 177 times in the Iliad, and seventeen times in the Odyssey. I speak of the plural form. The singular is also used eleven times in the Iliad, and seventeen times in the Odyssey. Of the seventeen passages in the Odyssey, not one refers to the Greeks as a nation, or as contemporary with the action of the Poem. In two of them, Od. iii. 309 and xv. 240, the word signifies the inhabitants of Argolis or the North-Eastern Peloponnesos. In the other fifteen, it is always applied to the Greek army before Troy. 1 Fragm. 58, and Scut. Here. 216, 229. 2 v. 262. 3 Ar. Fr. ii. 7. II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 43 In the Iliad, we have certain cases of the local use. Proitos 1 , who was nearly contemporary with Euru- stheus, ruled over Argeians. From the text it would seem as if he were a neighbour to Sisuphos, of Ephure or Corinth : and if so, his subjects may have been Ar- gives of Argolis, taken largely; of the Eastern, or Eastern and Northern, Peloponnesos. Such is evidently the meaning of Argeioi in the legend of the birth of Eu- rustheus 2 . On the other hand, the name of Proitos was attached to one of the Gates of Thebes. It was plainly therefore a Phoenician name. It is far from clear that he reigned in Thebes ; but, if he did so, then the name Argeioi is applicable to the inhabitants of Boeotia. This slender probability is the only presump- tion afforded us of the use of the name Argeioi be- yond the limits of the Perseid or Pelopid dominions in Peloponnesos, except as a designation for the army before Troy. Again, in the chariot race of the Twenty- third Iliad, Diomed is described as iEtolian by birth, but as ruling among Argeioi 3 . These, it seems plain, must be the Argives of Argos, who formed his contingent. Still, upon this local name there had supervened, since the accession of the Pe- lopid dynasty, as we shall find from the legend of Tudeus, the paramount and wider name of Achaioi 4 . The name of Argeioi, then, appears to stand par- tially in the same category with Danaoi, as a name rather poetic and archaic, than actually current ; and as one of which the common application to the Greeks in general, at any period, is uncertain ; but which had, several generations before, been the proper designation 1 II. vi. 159. 2 II. xix. 122. 3 II. xxiii. 470. * II. iv. 384 ; v. 803. 44 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. at least of the inhabitants of the ruling portion of the peninsula. This name is, on the other hand, so far unlike the Danaan name, that we find it in the singular number and the feminine gender. But it is only thus applied to two persons ; Helen, and the goddess Here. It is plain, as we have seen, that, for the former, it means not Greek Helen, but Argive Helen. It is but twice given to Here : both times where she is acting with Athene in the fifth Iliad 1 ; in the first passage Zeus cites them as helpers of Menelaos, in the second, as having restrained and bafHed Ares on the field. The meaning of Argeie, when applied to a goddess, accord- ing to analogy, must be, c worshipped in Argos, 5 as Aphrodite is called Kuthereia, and Apollo Smintheus. The local worship of Here continued, as is well known, to characterize Argos throughout the historic period. It was to this local point in particular that her tenacious attachment was constantly directed. It survived dy- nastic changes ; watched over Eurustheus ; reappeared in hatred of Heracles; and protected Agamemnon. Three cities, we know, she loved beyond all others 2 : My cense, Argos, and Sparta; and her attachment to the Greeks in the War possibly may have its root in this more special and local affection ; or may, on the other hand, be due to the representative character of that district as the political centre of the whole of Greece. If in one point of view, as has been suggested, the use of the Argeian name by Homer was poetic and archaic, on the other hand, we may compare this employment of the designation of the ruling part to signify the whole with the cases of more extended empires. All the races, 1 II. v. 8, 908. 2 II. iv. 51. II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 45 that served under Xerxes and Darius in their expedi- tions against Greece, were regarded as Persians. The Roman name was applicable to the people of Cam- pania or Calabria, as forming parts of the Roman do- minion ; while in any domestic or Italian matter their local name would naturally revive. So it may be that while all the Greeks of Homer are Argeians on the field of Troas, a portion of them may also be Argeians in the local sense afterwards given to Argives ; with regard, like Kadmeians, iEtolians, Arcadians, or Lo- crians, to their own local habitation. We have thus traced back this, the second of the Great Appellatives for the Greek army, to a more ancient and also more limited use for the inhabitants of the ruling part of Greece ; but we have still to ask, how came it originally to be so applied in either way, and what is the root and meaning of the name ? Plainly its root is that of the word Argos ; and plainly also, as we shall find, the application of the territorial name Argos is wider than that of its derivative. There are several forms of geographical expression under which Homer appears to signify the entire terri- tory inhabited by Greek races, or subject to Greek sway. {a) The only word which manifestly, without addition of any kind, suffices with the Poet for this purpose is Achaiis. It is used either substantively, or adjectively with yarn or aia, in eight passages. It will suffice to quote one in which Nestor describes the gathering of the army, a process that manifestly included the whole dominion : \abv dyelpovres Kar 'A^aii'Sa irovkvfioTeipav 1 . 1 II. xi. 770. 'Collecting an army through fertile Achaiis.' Cf. II. i. 254; vii. 124. 46 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. In a line twice used, indeed, it is combined with Argos : "Apyos is ImrofioTOv Kai 'A^atiSa KaWiyvvaaca 1 . But there is no reason why in this line the word should not follow what we have seen to be the ruling sense, Argos meaning the more famous part, and Achaiis meaning the whole, (b) A second and compound form of expression, evidently conveying, as a compound, the same sense, is found in the combination of Argos with Hellas : avbpbs, rov ickeos ei/pv mff 'EXXaSa /cat pecrov "Apyos 2 . The meaning of the line plainly is, a reputation reaching over all Greece. It is not conceivable that Penelope, who uses the phrase more than once, could mean to assign to her husband's fame a limit narrower than the Greek nationality. But we shall find that the name Hellas evidently has a special affinity with the north of Greece. Presumably, then, this line may mean, ' Through Northern and through Southern Greece.' (c) But we find also a third form of expression, in which the word Argos, with the affix nav^ appears to cover the whole, at least, of continental Greece, and thus to be equivalent, or nearly so, to Achaiis, and also to Hellas combined with Argos : 7roX\f]aiv vrjaoiat Kai "Apye'i navri dvdaaeiv 3 . For this line, joining Argos with the islands, describes the range of the whole empire, or (to use a modern phrase) suzerainty, of Agamemnon. 1 ' Horse-feeding Argos and Achaiis with beautiful women.' 2 Od. i. 344- 'Whose fame extends through Hellas and mid- Argos.' 3 II. ii. 108. ' To rule over many islands and all Argos.' II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 47 (d) Next it appears that we have the word Argos, with particular ethnical or tribal affixes, used distributively for each of the chief parts of Greece. In the Catalogue, after Homer has enumerated all the contingents drawn from the Islands, as well as from Southern and Middle Greece, he opens a new division with the line : T$vv av tovs ocraoi to He'Xao'yiKov "Apyos evaiov 1 . And he then proceeds to reckon nine contingents^, all of which were drawn from Greece north of Mount Othrus, or, in other words, from Thessaly. It appears, then, that by Pelasgic Argos Homer meant Thessaly. (e) Next we have an Achaiic Argos mentioned in five passages. In the first 2 (of which the words are repeated in the second), Agamemnon is speaking of the return to Greece. While the phrase therefore might carry the sense of that country at large, it may also very properly mean the seat of the Pelopid power, or the Eastern Peloponnesos. In the third, Here goes to Achaiic Argos 3 to hasten the birth of Eurustheus. The meaning appears to be that she went to the kingdom of Sthenelos his father, which again will mean the Eastern Peloponnesos. In the fourth, Telemachos asks where was Menelaos whilst Aigisthos was engaged in the work of treachery and murder. c Was he away from Achaiic Argos, and tra- velling abroad 4 ?' Here, while Sparta only might (as far 1 II. ii. 68 1. 'But now (recount) those, as many as inhabited Pelasgian Argos.' 2 II. ix. 141, 283. 3 II. xix. 115. * Od. iii. 249. 48 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. as the meaning goes) be signified, the sense of c Eastern Peloponnesos," or the c Pelopid dominion, 5 is perfectly suitable, and appears to be the true sense of the phrase. (f) Further we find an Iason Argos. Eurumachos, the suitor, pays a compliment to the beauty of Penelope by saying, c You would have more suitors than you now have, 5 i. e. than these islands yield you : el navres ere 'Lboiev av "\acrov "A.pyo$ 'A^atoi \ He evidently goes beyond the dominions of Odysseus. But then he probably speaks only of the territory lying nearest to them, and in habitual intercourse with them. Now this was Western Peloponnesos : as we know from the limited range of Greek navigation ; from the direct testimony of the Poems, which tell us of the journey of Odysseus to Ephure 2 , and of the debt which Odysseus went to Messene 3 to recover; and (not to mention other circumstances) from the apprehension of the Suitors that Telemachos would at once repair to Elis, or to Pulos 4 , for aid. In the same manner the re- lations of Crete were with Eastern Peloponnesos ; and therefore Helen at Troy easily recognizes Idomeneus, because, as she says, she has often seen him in Sparta 5 . So far, then, lasian Argos would seem to consist of Western Peloponnesos, including therein the dominions of Elis, Pulos, and perhaps parts at least of Messene. We have other means of connecting the name of Iasos with Western Peloponnesos. For Amphion, the king of the Minueian Orchomenos, was the son of Iasos. He was also the father of Chloris, whom 1 ' If all the Achaians of lasian Argos could see you.' 2 Od. i. 260. 3 Od. xxi. 15. i Od. xxiv. 431. 5 II. iii. 232. II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 49 Neleus married, and who became queen of Pulos. Now there was a river Minuei'os 1 between Pi^os and Elis; and not only is there an Orchomenos included in the places which supplied the Arcadian contingent 2 , but also Agamemnon asks of Odysseus, in Hades, whether his son Orestes is at Orchomenos, or at Pulos, or at Sparta 3 ; as if it were some considerable seat of power where a prince might find refuge. Thus Amphion, the son of Iasos, is placed in close connection both with Bceotia and with Western Peloponnesos. Further, Homer acquaints us that he and his brother Z ethos first founded and fortified Thebes ; for, says the Poet, not even they could hold it unfortified 4 . As his daughter married Neleus, this fortification must have been effected from four to five generations before the Troica. But he founded no dynasty in Thebes. On the contrary, we find from Homer that (Edipus ruled there, apparently in succession to his father, two genera- tions before the War 5 . And, according to tradition, he was the descendant of Kadmos, who had colonised Thebes from Phoenicia. It seems very possible that Amphion, like so many others 6 , was expelled from the fat soil of Bceotia ; that he passed into Western Pelo- ponnesos; and that he carried thither both the names of Orchemenos and Minuei'os, which we find undeniably existing in that region, and the name Iasos, which thus receives a probable and natural application. Iasian Argos then is the Western Peloponnesos. And thus moreover we find Argos, with adjuncts, running over the three most famous portions of Greece. It is the common term in three distinct territorial 1 11. xi. 722. 2 11. ii. 605. 3 Od. xi. 459. 4 Od. xi. 264. 5 Od. xi. 273-276. E 6 Thuc. i. 2. 50 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. names, as if it meant c a settlement/ and as if they respectively signified i. Thessaly, the settlement named from thePelasgoi. 2. Eastern Peloponnesos, the settlement named from the Achaioi. 3, Western Peloponnesos, the settlement named from Iasos. (g) Further, it is incontestable that Argos sometimes means the city known in history by that name, or rather that city with its immediately contiguous territory: for example, in the Catalogue 1 , where it is mentioned with Tiruns and other places, as making up the contin- gent of Diomed ; and where it is named with Mycenae and Sparta as being together the favourite cities of Here (iroA^es), The word polis does not indeed in- variably include a district ; for in certain cases we find it used for the town, in opposition to agros, the country 2 . But this seems to be the only case where the word is applied to Argos, We have a similar use, when, as Telemachos is quitting Sparta, he is joined by Theoclumenos, c a fugitive from Argos 3 .' On the other hand, the signification, though still local, must be enlarged where Agamemnon says that Briseis shall pass her life at his palace c in Argos 4 ,' since the city of Argos was under the sway of Diomed, and the residence of Agamemnon was at Mycense. The same will hold good of the passage in which Ephure, afterwards Corinth, is described as situate in a nook of horse-feeding Argos, /^x^ "Apyeos Ittito^otolo 5 . The epithet c horse-feeding' has the effect of showing that the country designated is a plain country. Thus 1 II. ii. 559. 2 II. xxiii. 832, 835 ; Od. xvii. 182. 3 Od. xv. 223. 4 II. i. 30. 5 II. vi. 152. II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 5 1 the island of Ithaca is described as a goat-feeding 1 spot, and more beautiful than a horse-feeding district. Of course the phrase is to be understood by comparison. {h) Lastly, there are one or two passages in which the name Argos may be held to stand alone for Greece at large : as when Nestor declares it shameful for the army to return to Argos ("ApyodSe Uvai 2 ) before the mind of Zeus is known. And Poludamas, speaking of the pos- sible destruction of the Greek army in Troas, thus de- scribes that contingency : . vcovvpvovs dnoXeadai an "Apyeos ivda.8 'A^atovs 3 . Paris, too, says he brought home property from Argos. This may mean from Sparta as part of the Pelopid dominion ; or it may mean from Greece at large. But perhaps we cannot be sure that in these passages Argos stands for more than a description of the whole by its capital part. Argos, then, with Homer has these four uses : 1. It may be held to mean, alone or with 7raj>, Greece at large ; but, if so, it is rarely thus used. 2. It may mean the Pelopid dominions, or, taken roughly, the Eastern Peloponnesos. 3. It may mean the city of Argos, with the imme- diately surrounding district attached to it. In this sense it accepts the epithet Tiokvhtyiov : and the epithets ItnrofioTov, TtoKvnvpov, and ovOap apovp-qs, appear to apply to it both in this and in the last-named sense. 4. When joined with distinctive epithets of an historical, not a physical, character, it seems to be ap- plicable to most portions of Greek territory, as if a 1 Od. iv. 606. 2 II, ii. 348. II. xii. 70. ' That the Achaians perish inglorious away from Argos.' E % 52 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. radical signification, such as settlement, or colony in the original sense of the word, still adhered to it. When we proceed to examine the etymology of the word, we find that, as it is but once combined with polis, so the epithets attaching to it (as above), all of them indicate a tract of country ; like 'land' among the Scotch, as in the expression c landward parishes/ And again, on comparing it with agros, the proper term for describing a rural tract, this latter appears to be the very same word with the middle consonants transposed. So far, then, the meaning may be that of a tract of land suited for, or brought under, cultivation. The Homeric names of countries and places, as far as we can trace them, appear to be derived — i. From an individual founder : as Ithake from Itha- kos, Dardanie from Dardanos 1 . 2. From a race in occupation or in ascendancy : as Achai'is from Achaoi, Crete or Cretai, from Cretes 2 . 3. From a race in occupation, which race has itself derived its name from features or circumstances of the country: as Threke from Threkes, Thracians; the race in turn taking a name related to the rough character of a highland country, and probably proceeding from the same root with Tpijxvs. So again, Aigialeia from the Aigialeis, these being named from Aigialos, the strip of coast afterwards called Achaia. 4. From these local features or physical incidents directly, like Aigialos: or like Euboie, which ap- parently signifies the adaptation of that fertile island to tillage ; an adaptation which afterwards made it the granary of Athens. 1 Od. xvii. 207 ; II. xx. 236. 2 Od. xiv. 199. II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 53 It is plain, negatively, that the word Argos has no connection with any o£ the three first-named sources. The suggestion already made would attach it to the fourth. It would then apply to Argos of the Eastern Peloponnesos, as the Argos /car' efox^. The word argos is used adjectively by Homer for dogs, II. i. 50 ; for oxen, II. xxiii. 30 ; and for a goose, Od. xv. 161. And we have these compounds into which it enters : 1. dpyrjs (Kepavvos*). 5. dpyivoeis (Ka/zeipo?). 2. dpyncepavvos. 6. dpyiodopres (uts). 3. apyearrjs (Notoj). 7. dpyinodes (kvws). 4. dpyevvai dies, oOovai. 8. Tlobdpyrjs, a horse of Achilles. The sense of whiteness or brightness may apply to every one of these uses, both primitive and derivative : but whiteness or brightness could only be applicable to such districts of country as might be chalky or sandy • and this sense therefore will in no way assist us towards an explanation of the territorial name Argos with its very wide application. If Argos have a connection with epyor, then it at once admits the sense of an extent of land tilled or suitable for tillage, a sense nearly akin, though not similar in etymology, to that of the word c lowlands/ For ergon in Homer, while it is applicable to indus- trial operations generally, is primarily and specially applied to agriculture 1 . We can, then, conceive how, out of many districts, all fitly described as lowlands, in one, from being merely a description, it would become a proper name ; and how, at the next stage in the process, it would 1 Od. vi. 259. 54 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [ CHAP. give a designation to its inhabitants. In accordance with this supposition, we have more than one Argos in Homer : and in the historic period we have Argos of Orestis in Macedonia, Argos of Amphilochia in Western Greece, and Argos near Larissa in Thessaly. But only one Argos is inhabited by Argeioi. Just as there are Highlands of Saxony no less than of Scotland, but only the Scotch mountaineers acquired the name of Highlanders, as a standing and ordinary name. In referring Argos to a common root and significance with Zpyov, we are not bound to hold that it attains its initial vowel by junction with the particle a in its in- tensive, or in any other, sense. For we have the word ergoci, and also its derivatives, in this form, handed down from very ancient Greek. Among the four tribes of Attica, which subsisted until the time of Cleisthenes, one was that of the husbandmen, called Argades. And in the Elian Inscription, supposed to date about the fortieth Olympiad, or more than six hundred years be- fore Christ, we have the word ergon, in the form argon with the digamma,, as follows — aire fenos aire fapyov 1 . Another probable example of the exchange of these vowels is in aroo, to plough, compared with era, the earth. In the Latin tongue we find both forms preserved, in aro, to plough, and sero, to sow, re- spectively. We need not here inquire what is the common root of epyov and of Argos. But, if labour be the idea con- veyed, this may perhaps suggest a meaning for the 1 Museum Criticum, i. 536; and Marsh, Horae Pelasgicae, p. 70. II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. $$ Homeric adjective argos and for all its compounds. The groundwork of that meaning may be conveyed by the word c strenuous.' Sometimes this takes the form of keenness, and then follows the idea of swiftness : some- times it takes the form of a persevering patience, and then slowness is not less appropriately suggested. The labour of a dog is swift, that of an ox is patient: hence we have laborious oxen, moving slow ; laborious dogs, moving fast. The sense of whiteness legitimately attaches to the effect of rapid motion on the eye. This explanation will perhaps be found to suit all the diversified phrases which have been cited above. And (reverting to the fountain-head), we perceive that the notion of strenuous labour will adapt itself to other uses of Argos. We may consider the name of the ship Argo as meaning possibly c swift, 5 but preferably c stout,' able to do battle with the waves, as we now say a good or a gallant ship. Again, this sense suits, far more fully than the mere idea of speed, the noble dog Argos of the Odyssey ; for whom mere whiteness would be a vapid description. Once more, we have in the 'ApyzMpovTTis of Homer a glimpse of the tradition of Argos the spy, to whom we naturally ascribe a strenuous vigilance. The epithet dpyaAeo9, c hard or difficult to cope with,' follows in the train : while the later word apyovvresK ' idle,' takes up the idea of slowness at the point where it passes into inertness. When we turn from Argos to its derivative Argeioi, we find subsidiary evidence to the effect that the word properly meant a husbandman, a rustic. In Suidas 2 we have the proverb 'Apyeiovs opas, c You see Argeioi,' with the explanation TTapoLfxia em ru>v arev&s koI kcltcl- 1 Soph. Fr. 288. 2 Suid. in voce. 56 JUVENTUS MUNDI. CHAP. nXrjKTLK&s optoVTCDi; 1 . Now we know nothing of the Argives as inhabitants of Argolis, which would lead to the belief that they stared hard, or conveyed alarm by their looks. But if the word Argeioi meant husbandmen, then, as the population, instead of living dispersedly in ham'ets (kco^SoV) gathered into towns, the rural part of the community would gradually become also the ruder part, and from this point the transition is easy to the sense of a wild and savage aspect. The Latin word agrestis stands to age r as Argeios, according to the foregoing argument, stands to Argos. The agrestis, or countryman, was opposed to the ur- banus, or townsman. The latter, with its Greek cor- relative dcr-eio?, came by degrees to mean a person of polished manners ; but agrestis, following the move- ment I have supposed in the case of Argeios, came to mean coarse, wild, barbarous. Thus Ovid says of the River Acheloos, when mutilated by the loss of his horn in the combat with Heracles, ' Vultus Achelous agrestes Et lacerum cornu mediis caput abdidit undisV And Cicero, after describing the battles of the Spartan youth, carried on with nails and teeth as well as fists and feet, asks, c Quae barbaries Indica vastior atque agrestior 3 ?' Again, Suidas gives us the expression 'Apyeiot 4 , which he says is used for sheer villains, because the Argeioi are held up in plays as noted thieves ; for which he refers to a lost play of Aristophanes. According to the 1 'A proverb concerning people who stare hard and whose looks cause alarm.' 2 Ov. Met. ix. 96. 3 Gic. Tusc. Disp. v. 27. 4 In voc. 'Apyeioi (frapes. II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. $] view I have given, the word may well mean robbers, since theft in the early stages of society always fre- quents solitary places. Again, iEschines 1 charges Demosthenes with gross offences, which had brought upon him disparaging nicknames. One of these was Argas; which Suidas and Hesychius explain as the name of a snake, signify- ing sharp and crafty. But yEschines says he was called Argas, each of his guardians having suits against him to recover money. So that the meaning would be c crafty in getting hold of the money of others/ homo trlum liter 'arum , a sharper. Once more. Hesychius on the name Argeioi says, Ik tcov El\(ar(av ol ttl(tt€v6u.zvoi ovtgjs eAeyozro, rj Xainrpoty c those Helots distinguished fo; fidelity are so called.' Why was it that select and confidential Helots thus received the name of Argeioi ? That name may have retained its local force, as applicable to the whole Pelopid dominion, long after Homer : and it may also, apart from its use as a proper name, have borne the meaning of a free or ordinary agricultural settler. The Helot was a serf by the fortune of war • but he was a serf whose forefathers had, according to this view, been Argeioi. If then a Helot made himself conspicuous, and acquired the con- fidence of his lord by fidelity and smartness, it would seem a very natural reward to efface from him the brand of his captivity, and give him the old name of the free countryman of that part of Greece. In this case Argeios might mean a libertus, without a defined formula of emancipation. It is worth remark that the cognate word agrios appears to have gone through the same process as 1 De Falsa Legat. p. 41, 1. 14. 58 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. agrestis and Argeios. For there was an iEtolian prince Agrios 1 , a grand-uncle of Diomed, two genera- tions before the War of Troy. In the contemporary language of the Poet, Agrios had come to mean savage and cruel, and is so applied to Poluphemos 2 . The in- termediate meaning probably was that of a dweller in a wild and unsettled place. The word is never used to describe the passion, or the cruelty, of Achilles. It should also be noted that Argeioi, where applied to the Greeks at large, never means the chiefs, but always the mass; whereas the v/ord Achaios has, as we shall see, in many places a decided leaning towards the aristocracy. Epithets are scarcely ever given by Homer to the Argeian name. Only in four passages do they appear. In II. iv. 242 they are lofxapoi and iKeyx^Sy ' dishonoured :' in II. xiv. 479 toVcopot 3 , and aireiAaooz; cucoprjToi. These are in each case, not descrip- tive epithets attaching to or indicating general character, but reproaches growing out of the occasion. In II. xxi. 429 they are dwprfKToi, clad in breastplates, which, from the context, seems to do no more than state a fact : the phrase is equivalent to c the Greeks in arms. 5 In II. xix. 269, the Argeioi are called <£iAo7iro'- Ae/xot, lovers of battle; and this appears to be the sole passage in which an epithet of description, pro- perly so called, is attached to the word. But the Danaan name, though more rarely used, has epithets in twenty-two passages; and the Achaian name in 1 II. xiv. 117. 2 Od. ix. 215, 494. 3 I render to/zcopoi, not archers, a sense neither suited to the passage nor to the general armament of the Greeks, who were not as a rule archers ; but braggarts, loud talkers, in close har- mony with the sister-phrase dneiXdvv di<6pr]Toi = insatiate of boasts. II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 59 nearly 130. This circumstance tends to show, that the Argeian name properly belongs to the commonalty or masses, rather than to the chiefs. We have assumed above, in accordance with the general Greek tradition, that the Pelasgoi were the first agricultural settlers of the peninsula ; but that their name, and any other cognate names, were sup- pressed or thrown into the shade by the dynastic name, which a Danaos probably gave to his people. That name, again, naturally disappearing with the acces- sion of another line to his throne and dominions, the name Argeioi, taken either from the occupation of the people (like Argades), or from the settlement they had made, would take its place with great propriety, in lieu of reverting to the Pelasgic name, which would silently pass out of use, as that of a race conquered and therefore comparatively depressed. The third and most weighty of the Great Appella- tives is Achaioi. The evidence of the Poems will I think suffice to show — 1. That this is the most familiar designation of the Greeks of Homer. 2. That the manner of its use indicates, among the Greeks of Homer, the political predominance of an Achaian race over other races ranged by its side in the War, and composing along with it the nation which owned Agamemnon for its head. 3. That, besides its national use, the name of the Achaioi has a local use in many parts of Greece. 4. That the manner of this local use points out with sufficient clearness, that the rise of the Achaian name was contemporary with that of the family of Pelops. 60 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. The first proposition may be at once settled by the rude, but not inconclusive, test of numbers. While the Danaan name is used about 160 times, of which thirteen are in the Odyssey- and the Argeian 205 times, of which twenty-eight are in the Odyssey; the Achaian name is used about 597 times in the Iliad, and 117 in the Odyssey, making 714 in all. This frequency of use in the two poems of itself goes far to determine that the Achaian designation was the most modern of the three. It is also worth observing, that in the opening of the Iliad the word Achaioi is used five times, before Danaoi or Argeioi are introduced at all. We have seen that the Danaan name is never used in the singular; and that the Argeian name is so used only in its local sense. But the Achaian name, and that only, is used in the singular to designate an individual as belonging to the nation; with the reserve, however, of a separate shade of meaning, sometimes 1 tending to attach it to a class. So the Poet uses Aapbavos avrip 2 for a Trojan or a Dardanian. Again, Homer has worked this name into the female forms Achaiides, Achaiiades, Achaiai, to signify the women of Greece ; but has made no such use of the Danaan or Argeian 3 names. Also the phrase vUs 'Axai&v, sons of the Achaians, has no correlation with the Danaan or Argeian names, and further helps to show the predominant familiarity of this designation. What the patronymic was to the individual, this form of speech was to the nation — an appeal to a standard of honour, an incentive under the form of an embellishment. 1 II. iii. 167, 226. 2 II. ii. 701. 3 Supra, pp. 36, 44. II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 6 1 Epithets are given to the name Achaioi in 130 places, besides eight or ten more in which they are used either for the women, or for the word in its territorial sense. And the familiar use of the word Achaiis for the country is a proof of the prevalence, ascendancy, and familiarity of the name, which was thus applied on its own merits, so to speak, and not, like Argos, because it was the proper designation of the most eminent part of the country. When we look to the character of these epithets, we find them such as point to the Achaians in the character of a dominant race or aristocracy. In one or two cases we have epithets of reproach, such as were addressed to the army at critical mo- ments: avakKibzs, II. XV. 326; aTretA^rrypes', II. vii. 96, and in the same passage 'Axadbes. In a few others we have them as simple descriptions of circumstances of the moment 1 . But the pointed epithets, descriptive of character, are as follows : — i. 8tof, worthy or noble: II. v. 451 ; Od. iii. 161, et alibi. 2. eAuw77€?, from the rapid motion of the eye giving brightness : II. iii. 389, et alibi. 3. evKvriiJuhes, stoutly-greaved : II. iii. 304; Od. iii. 149, and in thirty-two other places. 4. rjpats, heroes : II. xii. 1 65, et alibi. 5. Kapr]KO[jL6ctiVT€Sy with flowing or abundant hair : II. ii. 11 - y Od. i. 90, and in twenty-seven other places. 6. fityaOvfjioi, high-spirited: II. i. 123, 135; Od.xxiv.57. 7. fxivea 7n>eiWre?, ardent: II. iii. 8. 8. ya\KOKvr)ixiheS) with greaves of x^kos or copper: II. vii. 41. 1 II. xii. 29 ; xiii. 15 ; xv. 44. 62 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 9. yja\KoyiT] $ They have no recognised place among the Greeks, and yet Thamuris,, evidently a Greek, is described as Thracian 1 . And the word Threx seems to mean Highlander, in opposition to Pelasgos as Lowlander. Probably Thracians existed diffusively, like Pelasgians, among the Greeks ; but were absorbed in designations more prominent and splendid. We have yet a third example. The Kaukones appear in the Tenth Iliad as part of the Trojan force 2 . They are nowhere found in the Greek host, or in the Greek Catalogue. But in the Odyssey, where there was no reason for keeping the name in the background, as the same national distinctions did not require to be kept in view, Homer mentions the Kaukones appa- rently as a people dwelling on the west side of Greece, for the Pseudo-Mentor 3 is going among them from Ithaca to claim payment of a debt. They were probably, then, near neighbours. He distinguishes them as high- spirited, fxeydOviJLOL : which reminds us of the reverence he has shown for the ancient possessors of the country by calling the Pelasgians dioi. Again, Homer, in the three passages where he names Pelasgians, names them each time with a laudatory epithet ; a circumstance deserving some notice, when we observe to how small a proportion of his national or tribal names epithets are attached. Once he calls them iyx^^poiS addicted to the spear. He elsewhere uses this epithet but thrice ; once for the Arcadians 5 , whom, in the only other place where they are named, he describes as skilled in fight ; once for two royal warriors individually 6 ; 1 II. ii. 594-600. 2 II. x. 429; xx. 329. 3 Od. iii. 366. * II. vii. 134. 5 II. ii. 611. 6 II. ii. 692. 7 6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. and once for the Myrmidons 1 . This epithet then is of high rank as describing valour. On the other two occasions he calls the Pelasgians dioi 2 . This epithet implies, sometimes perhaps a nar- row, but always a special and peculiar excellence. And it is one which Homer allows to no race except only the Pelasgians and Achaians 3 . There is no difficulty in explaining the latter use of it. The former is also appropriate, if we suppose the Pelasgoi to be the ancient and primary base of the Greek nation. The leaders of the Pelasgoi before Troy are themselves the sons of Pelasgos, who was the son of Teutamos. Only then in five places altogether does Homer give us traces of this name or its derivatives. But this affords no presumption adverse to the hypothesis that the Pelasgians were the base of the Greek nation ; because it is his uniform practice to throw into the background whatever tends to connect the Hellenic race with foreign origin or blood; and the currency of the Pelasgian name beyond the limits of Greece, and among its foes, evidently had this tendency in a marked degree. The Larisse 4 mentioned in the Trojan Catalogue appears once more 5 ; and on both occasions it has an epithet denoting fertility. The tendency of this epithet is to show that the Pelasgoi were an agri- cultural and settled people. Of this we shall find other signs. When we come to the historic age, we find many 1 Od. iii. i38. 2 II. x. 429; Od. xix. 177. 3 II. v. 451, et alibi. i II. ii. 841. 5 II. xvii. 301. III.] THE PELASGOI. 77 Larisses 1 ; and the mere name is commonly believed to indicate a seat of the Pelasgians. Bat in Homer we have only one Larisse. A possible explanation is, that Larisse was properly the name of a fort or place of refuge, somewhat like the bell-towers of Ireland and other countries, to which the people of the district be- took themselves for refuge on an emergency, from their dwellings in the surrounding country. Around these forts, as happened in our own country about the feudal castles, towns would gather by a gradual process. And so the application of the word Larisse to the town conjointly with the district 2 , of which we seem to have this single example in Homer, might by degrees become common. That which was an Argos, or settle- ment for tillage, in the original or Pelasgian stage, might, after wars had taught the necessity of defence, become in some cases a Larisse; while in others the old name might continue : or the one name might be applied to the part for habitation, the other to the part for defence. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the citadel of the historic Argos, which stood upon an eminence, was called Larisse 3 . Such are the direct notices of the Pelasgoi in Homer. They are scanty in amount. But there are three other heads of Homeric evidence relating to them. i. The signs of alliance between the Pelasgoi and the inhabitants of particular parts of the country : 2. The signs of a difference of race, pervading the 1 Cramer's Greece, vol. iii. p. 244. 2 Gomp. evpvxopos Qrjfir), and the passage Od. xi. 260-265. 3 Strabo viii. 6, p. 370. 78 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. population, and more or less running parallel with differences of rank: 3. The signs of an occupation of the country prior to that by the Hellenic tribes : Independently of another head of inquiry, to be dealt with at a later stage, namely the relation of the Trojan to the Greek race: And, again, independently of evidence supplied by the later tradition. • i. The Arcades 1 of Homer show signs of connection with the Pelasgoi. In the Catalogue the Arcades are described as ayx^o.- XV Ta h or heavy-armed 2 ; and we are also told that they had no care for maritime pursuits. In both respects, their relation to the people of Troas is remarkable. Homer nowhere else uses the epithet except for the Dardanians, whose position in Troas resembled that of the Arcadians in Peloponnesos. And the Trojans were so destitute of vessels, that the shipwright who built for Paris is mentioned as on that account a notable character 3 . Nor do we hear of a Trojan ship in any case but his. Heavy-armed troops are furnished by a settled peasantry, light-armed by a population of less settled habits. The absence of maritime pursuits tends to imply a pacific character, in an age when enterprise by sea was so intimately connected with kidnapping and rapine. Arcadia was not a poor country. In historic times it was, next to Laconia, 1 Niebuhr, Hist, of Rome, vol. i. p. 29, sets down as Pelasgian the Arcadians, the Argives, probably all the original inhabitants of Peloponnesos, the Ionians, and the people of Attica and Thessaly. 2 II. ii. 604, 614. 3 II. v. 54-64. III.] THE PELASGOI. 79 the most populous province of Peloponnesos 1 . In the Troica it supplied sixty ships with large crews 2 . All this is accordant with Pelasgian associations. Again, the Arcadians were commanded by Agapenor 3 the son of Ankaios. But Ankaios was of iEtolia. Ships supplied by Agamemnon 4 , and a chief not indi- genous, tend to mark the Arcadians as politically sub- ordinate, therefore as Pelasgian. At the funeral games of Amarunkeus there were present Epeians, Pulians, and iEtolians 5 ; that is to say, all the neighbouring tribes except the Arcadians. Now the Homeric indications respecting the origin of games, in a marked manner tend to connect them, as we shall find, with sources other than Pelasgic 6 . In the Seventh Iliad, Nestor relates that in his youth the Pulians and Arcadians fought, near the river Iar- danos. The former seem to have been victorious; which accords with the military inferiority of Pelasgoi to an Hellenic force. Clearly, when Nestor killed their king Ereuthalion 7 , it was by the aid of Pallas ; and Pallas, we shall find, is always a Hellenising deity against Pelasgians. The Pulians, as we have seen, are Achaian in a special degree. In marked accordance with this indirect testimony, the later tradition places Lucaon son of Pelasgos in Arcadia ; represents the people as autochthonous ; and makes the district compete with Argolis for having given them their first seat in Peloponnesos. We have here, too, some aid from philology. The 1 Xen. Hell. vii. 1.23. Cramer, iii. 299. 2 II. ii. 610. 3 II. ii. 609; xxiii. 630-635. * II. ii. 612. 5 II. xxiii. 630-635. 6 See infra, Gh. V. 7 II. vii. 154. 80 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. Arcadians called themselves UpoaiX-qvoiy which is com- monly rendered c anterior to the moon.' Now it is difficult to see why the moon, which continually waxes, wanes, and disappears, should be selected as the type of stability and longevity among natural objects, But if we refer the origin of the word to irpb and 2eAAot or SeAArjues, then it becomes the appropriate form in which the Arcadian, or Pelasgian, people assert their priority in the Peloponnesos to the Hellic or Sellic races. Until very late in the historic period, the Arcadians remained an undistinguished people. But they were the Swiss of Greece ; and they supplied a hardy soldiery to any state in want of mercenary assistance, without reference to attachments of race as between Dorian and Ionian. With the Lacedaemonians they invaded Attica : with the Thebans they invaded Lacedaemon 2 : in the great siege of Syracuse, one contingent fought by the side of the invaders, the other along with the be- sieged 2 . 2. The Ionians (Iaones) are but once mentioned in Homer. They are one of five divisions appointed, in the Thirteenth Iliad 3 , to meet the attack of Hector, when that attack is destined to prevail. The others are the Locrians, Phthians, Epeians, and Boiotians. The same spirit of nationality, which prevents Homer from allowing any eminent Greek chieftain to be slain or wounded in fair conflict with the Trojans, appar- ently leads him in this place to select, (perhaps with the exception of the Epeians 4 ,) some of the less distin- 1 Xen. Hell. vii. i. 23. 2 Thuc. vii. 57. 3 v. 635. * They have laudatory epithets in II. xi. 732 and xiii. 636. They were, however, worsted by the men of Pulos. III.] THE PELASGOI. 8 1 guished portions of the army to resist the Trojans, on an occasion when the resistance is to be ineffectual. The Myrmidons are of necessity absent : but he might have placed in the post of danger those troops whom he pointedly commends, the troops of Agamemnon, or the Abantes 1 . Our finding the Ionians among un- distinguished contingents tends to fix upon them a like character. Further, they are called eAKex^ooz/es 2 , men with long flowing tunics. As Homer has nowhere else used the epithet, he gives us no direct aid in illustrating it. But it clearly has more or less of disparaging effect, since such an habiliment is ill-suited for military pur- poses. And it is in direct contrast with the epithet aiiLTpoxiTO)V€s of the valiant Lukioi or Lycians, whose short and spare tunic required no cincture to con- fine it. These Ionians were, as it would seem, the ruling class of the Athenians, the 'Aflr/ixuW TrpoAeXey/xeW 3 ; or, it may be, their picked men. The praise awarded to Menestheus in the Catalogue, even if the passage be genuine, is only that of being good, to use a modern phrase, at putting his men into line 4 . The Athenian soldiers, indeed, are declared in II. iv. 328 to be valiant, juriorwpes clvttjs j but the character of the commander is less than negative. Though of kingly parentage, he nowhere appears among the governing spirits of the army, nor is he called one of the kings, although his father Peteos had enjoyed the title 5 ; and on the only occasion when we find him amid the clash of arms, namely, when the brave Lycians are threatening the 1 II. ii. 577, 542. 2 II. xiii. 685. 3 II. xiii. 689. * II. ii. 554. ; * II. iv. 33.8. G 82 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. part of the rampart committed to his charge, he shud- ders, and looks about him for aid 1 . The inferiority extends to the other Athenian chiefs, Pheidas, Stichios, Bias, and Iasos 2 ; of whom all are undistinguished, and two, Stichios and Iasos, are c food for powder, 5 slain by Hector and ./Eneas respectively. Here then there seems to have been bravery without qualities for com- mand ; and all this tends to exhibit the Athenians as in a marked degree Pelasgian at this epoch, stout but passive, without any of the ardour or the kikvs 3 of the Hellenic character. Something will hereafter be added to this evidence from an examination of the etymology of names in Homer. The close relation between Athene and Athens, however, is a sign that seems to tell in the opposite direction. But upon examining into it, we perceive that it is a local and not a personal relation. Ever active in the protection or guidance of Achilles, Agamemnon, Diomed, Odysseus, Athene says and does nothing what- ever in the War for any Athenian. Yet Athens has the epithet c sacred 4 / the unfailing mark in Homer of special relation to some deity ; and, as far as Athene has any favourite place of earthly residence or resort, it appears to be Athens, to which, seemingly as matter of course, she repairs from Scherie 5 , in the Odyssey. There is something remarkable, and not easy to explain, in this combination of strong local connection with a total absence of personal care and patronage. It is to be borne in mind that Athene appears to 1 II. xii. 331. 2 II. xiii. 691 ; xviii. 329, 332. 3 Od. xi. 392. * Od. xi. 332. 5 Od. vii. 30. Ill ,] THE PELASGOI. 8$ have been a deity of universal worship 1 . She was regularly adored by the Trojans 2 , whom she laboured to ruin. On both the occasions when Athens is placed in direct connection with the goddess, the name of Erech- theus is introduced: in the Catalogue he is stated to have been nursed by Athene, and he was the child of Aroura 3 . She (probably Athene) set him in Athens, in her (or his) rich or well-endowed temple (e<3 h-l TtLOVl VT}(2>). It is impossible wholly to shake off the apprehension of forgery in dealing with this passage, which falls short in the grammatical clearness usually so notable in Homer. On the other hand, the objections which have been taken to it seem insufficient to condemn it ; to condemn at any rate the part of it I have cited, which remarkably corresponds with Od. v. 81 : there she enters the well-built house (ttvklvov bonov) of Erechtheus. Erechtheus appears in the Catalogue to be described as an autochthon ; and therefore probably as Pelasgian. The wealthy temple may perhaps mean a temple with a rejueuo? or glebe for a priest, which we shall find to be a sign, not of Hellenic, but of Pelasgian nation- ality. On the whole, we cannot ignore the existence of Pelasgian signs, while we cannot find in the text of Homer any full explanation of the fact that Athene is the eponymist of Athens. The type of Athene, however, is far too high to allow us to view her as a deity merely national. She is not circumscribed by any limits either of blood or place. This does not exclude specialties of attachment ; but 1 Infra, Ch. VIU. 2 II. vi. 300. 3 II. ii. 547~549. G % 84 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. her special attachment to the Greeks is one apparently having reference to great qualities of mind and cha- racter. The Pelasgianism of the Trojans does not, before the great quarrel, cut them off from her. She singularly loved Phereclos, who built the ships of Paris 1 ; and she aided the Trojans in erecting the rampart which sheltered Heracles from the pursuing monster 2 . There is, however, very powerful evidence outside the text of Homer to show the strongly Pelasgian character of Attica in early times. Her subsequent greatness was evidently connected with a remarkable mixture of blood, arising from her having been, during long periods, a place of refuge for fugitives, and for the worsted party expelled from other portions of Greece. Thucydides 3 states that, from early times, Attica was inhabited by one and the same race, because the poverty of the soil offered no temptations to an invader. Hence it is, without doubt, that we find the Athenians of history ever claiming the character of autochthons. But this is in effect to call them Pelasgians. Herodotus 4 declares the Athenians to have been Ionian, and the lonians to be Pelasgian. Having been Pelasgians, he says, the Attican people became Hellenic, apparently by the reception of immigrants, and by a gradual amalgamation. Evidently, according to this historian, the change did not take place by an arrival of lonians, for he declares that which Homer only suggests, that the lonians were Pelasgian. Some conflict, however, there was, apparently, be- 1 II, v. 59. 2 II. xx. 146. 3 i. 2. i i. 56. III.] THE PELASGOI. 85 tween the urban and the rural population. The Pe- lasgians complained, said Hecatseus 1 , that the Athenians drove them from the soil, which they had improved in such a degree as to excite envy. The Athenians alleged that their children, when they went forth to draw water, were insulted by the Pelasgians. The Dorian Tau, Herodotus 2 adds, was the Ionian Sigma. Thucydides 3 says the Athenians were the first among the Greeks to lay aside the custom of bearing arms, and to cultivate ease and luxury. We may naturally connect this fact with the undisturbed condition and pacific habits of the people : and perhaps it is partially indicated by the word eAK€X""coz;e?, c tunic-trailers/ already cited. The Hesiodic tradition of Hellen and his sons does not mention Ion. It is remarkable that Euripides does not represent Ion as Hellenic, but as the adopted son of Xouthos, the real son of Creusa, an Erechtheid ; in entire conformity with what, as I conceive, the text of Homer suggests. Peisistratos and his family claimed a Neleid, that is, a non-Pelasgian descent ; recognising as it were the difference of the ruling blood. According to Herodotus 4 , there remained in the Athens of history a portion of the wall called Pelasgic ; and the primitive Athenians were called Pelasgoi Cra* naoi, and were reputed to be autochthonous. Eleusis, in Attica, was the chief seat of the worship of Demeter — a deity, as we shall find, of eminently Pelasgian character and associations. Strabo declares that ancient Attica was las, with an 1 As quoted in Herod, vi. 137, 138. 2 i. 139. 3 i. 6. * i. 56 ; iii. 44 ; v. 64. 86 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. Ionian people, who supplied Asia Minor with the colo- nists of the Ionian migration 1 . The careful researches of Dr. Halm in Albania have accumulated much evidence of the Pelasgian character of the population. It includes remarkable coincidences with the institutions of Attica : for example, the four- fold division of the tribes 2 . To us the origin of the Ionian name remains in great obscurity. It is probably related to the Pelasgian stock. It certainly appears not to be Hellenic. 3. In the Thessaly of the Greek Catalogue, not only does the paucity of tribal names leave us to suppose that the population of the districts generally had not yet distinctly emerged from what may be called Pelas- gianism, and not only is this supposition confirmed by the name of Pelasgic Argos, but there are other con- firmatory signs. One of them is the worship of the River Spercheios 3 ; which, though offered by Achilles for a special purpose, was also practised by Peleus, and is probably due to a strong local tradition of a Pelasgian character. His Te/xei'oy, or glebe, also connects him with the Pelas- gians 4 . Another sign is the re/jievos or sacred glebe of De- meter at Purasos 5 . Possibly the name may be related to 7rt;po9, wheat. Apart from this, the associations of Demeter in Homer are never Hellenic 6 . The appear- ance of a TCfievos in this case is also a Pelasgian sign. 1 Bk. viii. p. 333- , 2 Hahn, ' Albanesische Studien,' Abschn. ii. pp. 43-46, and note 19, p. 130. 3 II. xxiii. 144. * See infra, Ch. VII. ; also p. 106. 5 II. ii. 696. 6 See infra, Ch. VIII. III.] THE PELASGOI. 8j The historical growth of the Graian 1 (Greek) name out of the Greek settlements in Italy connects it with communities highly Pelasgian. In Homer we find that name only in Boiotia, a land of rich cultivation, like the Italian colonies. But Aristotle 2 places the Graicoi in the ancient Hellas, a portion of Thessaly, about Dodona and the Acheloos, which, he says, was inhabited by them and by the Selloi. Thus the Graian name serves further to associate Thessaly with the Pelasgoi. 4. The name Iasos has an early and important place in the Homeric tradition. (a) The phrase c Iason Argos,' which means Western Peloponnesos 3 , appears to indicate a dynasty, or. domi- nion, of an Iasos in that country. (b) Demeter (in Crete, according to Hesiod) gives way to her passion for Iasion 4 , a son or descendant of Iasos, in a tilled field. (c) Demetor Iasides, a son, or rather a descendant, of Iasos, is represented by the pseud- Odysseus as reigning in Cyprus 5 at the period of his return to Ithaca, and as being in xenial relations with Egypt, the people of which, he says, made a present of him to Demetor. This clearly shows that there had been an Iasid domi- nion in Cyprus. id) Amphion and Zethos,who first founded and walled in the city of Thebes, were Iasids 6 : Amphion at one time (-H-ore) reigned in Minyan Orchomenos. (e) Iasos 7 , son of Sphelos and grandson of Boukolos, 1 The name Graicos, according to K.O.Miiller, came back into use with the Alexandrian poets, through the old common tongue of Macedonia. M tiller's Orchomenos, p. 119. 2 Meteorol. i. 14. 3 See above, Ch. II. p. 48. * Od. v. 125. 5 Od. xvii. 442. 6 Qdi xi. 262, 283. 7 II. xv. 337- JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. was one of the Athenian commanders, and fell by the hand of iEneas; this too without any commemora- tion : from both which circumstances we perceive that he was in no great esteem, and was most probably not of Hellenic, but. of Pelasgian blood. The attachment of Demeter to Crete was plainly connected with the Pelasgian period. The secondary place given to Iasos in the war, and the etymology of the names of his ancestry, seem to establish his Pe- lasgian extraction. If Amphion and Zethos were, as it appears probable, displaced from Bceotia by Kadmos and the Phoenicians, they were probably of a Pelasgian family: and indeed it would be very difficult to give evidence of any Hellenic race or family at their epoch, which is between four and five generations before the Troica. Lastly, Cyprus, distant as it was from Greece, was evidently in some position of qualified subordination to its ruling house , because, when the expedition to Troy was meditated, Kinures 1 , its ruler, sent a beautiful gift to Agamemnon, probably more as an apology for non-appearance, than as a disinterested token of good-will. All the several indications then converge upon this point, that the name of Iasos appears to bear no Hel- lenic character. It has certain points of contact at least with some of the races that dwelt in Egypt ; and likewise with Phoenicia through the city of Thebes, and through the indubitable presence of a Phoenician influence in Cyprus. Anterior to, and apparently reach- ing beyond the Hellenic name, its most marked asso- ciations appear to be Pelasgian. II. xi. 19-23. III.] THE PELASGOI. 89 5. There are abundant marks of a Pelasgian character in the population of Crete. We know that the ruling family in Crete was Phoe- nician; but the wealth of the hundred-citied island 1 was just what might be expected to arise from the early combination of Phoenician enterprise with Pelasgian industry. There were many races in Crete, and there was a mixture of tongue 2 . This appears to indicate the pre- sence of the Phoenician element in considerable force with its Semitic form of speech, as we have no reason to suppose, among the races actually named, any radical difference of language. In this passage the speaker is addressing Penelope, and it is in accordance with the uniform usage of the Poems, that he should mention only races which had been domesticated in Greece. Those races are, 1. Achaioi, 2. Eteocretes, 3. Ku- dones, 4. Dorieis, 5. Pelasgoi. Of these, the first and fourth may at once be classed as Hellenic. With respect to the Eteocretes, we may most naturally sup- pose them to have been part of the Pelasgian family, whose date of arrival was more remote, in relation to whom all the other races had thus been strangers, and to whom therefore is given a name that is the equi- valent of autochthons. The Kudones appear to be of similar origin. They lived on a Cretan river Iarda- nos 3 . This was the name of the river in Peloponnesos, on the banks of which the Pulians fought the Arca- dians. The battle 4 , as being one between Achaians and Pelasgians, was probably on Arcadian ground ; and 1 II. ii. 649. In Od. xix. 174, ninety. 2 Od. xix. 175. 3 Od. iii. 292. * II. vii. 134 ; xi. 735, 752 (?). 90 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. the name of rapid Keladon, given to the stream, also shows that it was on the high land. This Pelasgian population, with its less warlike, pos- sibly also less energetic, habits, appears to have sunk at a later period into servitude. According to Ephorus, as quoted by Athenseus 1 , there were in Crete festivals of the slave population, during which freemen were not permitted to come within the town walls, while the slaves were supreme, and were competent to flog the free. These festivals were held in Kudonia, the city of the Kudones. Fifthly, the name of Pelasgoi speaks for itself. 6. The Leleges have a place on the Trojan side, ap- parently more important than that of the Kaukones. They appear, with the Kaukones and Pelasgoi 2 , as part of the force which was encamped upon the plain during the period when the Greeks were shut up within their entrenchment. Priam had for one of his wives Laothee, daughter of their king Altes 3 . He calls them lovers of battle. iEneas says 4 that Pallas c incited Achilles to make havock of Trojans and Leleges/ Homer can hardly mean, under the name of Leleges, to speak of the whole body of allies, which included both Pelasgians and his favourite Lycians. The name may be one covering some of the allied contingents; or it may signify the fourth and fifth divisions of the Trojan army, which appear in the Catalogue 5 without any national or tribal designation, immediately before the Pelasgoi and the rest of the allies. We have abundant instances in Homer of double names attaching to the same population. The people 1 vi. p. 263. 2 II. x. 429. 3 II. xxi. 25. 4 II. xx. 96. 5 II. ii. 828, 839. III.] THE PELASGOI. 9 1 of Elis are Eleioi and Epeioi. The Dolopians are included under the Phthians; perhaps under Achaians and Hellenes 1 . Five races in particular are named as inhabiting Crete ; but all, possibly with others, are included in the Cretes 2 of the Second Iliad. The Ionian name, with that of the Kaukones, and of Le- leges, not to speak of the Temnikes, Aones, Huantes, Telebooi, of whom we do not hear in Homer, are most probably subdivisions of the great Pelasgian category. On the whole, it seems safest to adopt the conclusion of Bishop Thirlwall, that in all likelihood c the name Pelasgians was a general one, like that of Saxons, Franks, or Alemanni ; but that each of the Pelas- gian tribes had also one peculiar to itself 3 .' The evi- dence directly deducible from Homer tends to this conclusion ; and it is powerfully sustained, as we shall see, by more copious indirect testimony. The work of Dr. Hahn affords ample evidence of their occupation of Epiros, which was also recognised by the tradition of the ancients 4 . The belief that the Pelasgoi were the original inha- bitants of Greece, appears to be held undoubtingly by the modern Greeks, if we may trust the recent work of Petrides 5 upon the ancient history of his country. We are in no way obliged to suppose that tribes of so wide a diffusion came into Greece by a single route. The prevailing opinion 6 of the ancient writers was that their first seat was in the Peloponnesos. 1 II. ii. 683 ; ix. 484 ; xvi. 186. 2 Od. xix. 175 ; II. ii. 645. 3 History of Greece, vol. i. ch. ii. 4 Strabo, bk. v. p. 221. Leake's Travels in Northern Greece, vol. iv. p. 174. 5 Chap. i. pp. 2, 3 (Corfu, 1830). 6 Cramer's Greece, i. 17. 92 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. Homer gives abundant signs of them in Thessaly, but also in Crete and in Cyprus. It seems probable that they may have arrived both by the landward route of the Thracian coast, and by the stepping-stones, so to speak, which the southern islands afforded them. If there has been presented reasonable ground for the conclusion that the Pelasgians formed the base of the Greek nation, it is interesting to observe, by the light of history, how the most durable vitality of a people resides in the mass, while the energies of mere class, or of any branch socially separate from the trunk, are liable to exhaustion if they are not refreshed by popular contact ; as water taken from the sea grows foul, while the sea itself is ever fresh. The astute Aiolid, the high-souled and fiery Achaian, the Dorian with his iron will and unconquerable tenacity — each for a time enjoys ascendancy and disappears ; and the districts which suc- cessively attain to military pre-eminence in the later historic ages, are Boeotia, Macedonia, Arcadia, Epiros, none of which had been the early depositories of power- ful Hellenic influences. Lastly, Achaia emerged into a late celebrity. It is probable that we ought to consider this name, not so much in connection with the old and famous Achaian race, as with the party worsted in the great Dorian conquest : and if this be so, we shall be safe in concluding that, in all likelihood, the province had retained throughout a dominant Pelasgian character. The etymology of the Pelasgian name has been long and variously discussed without any conclusive issue. Some draw it from Peleg of the tenth chapter of Ge- nesis, a name said to mean c partition,' that is, of the earth: this opinion is questioned by Marsh 1 , and re- 1 Horae Pelasg. c. i. sub fin. Ill ] . THE PELASGOI. 93 jected by Clinton 1 . Again, it has been derived from pelargoi, the Greek name for storks. This, according to some, because the Pelasgians were wanderers, and the stork is migratory. But the periodical movement of the stork seems to have no great correspondence with an irregularly roving habit in a people. Aristo- phanes 2 appears undoubtedly to make the name of storks a vehicle for a jest on the Pelasgian origin of the Athenians. Another plea seems to me more plau- sible. The stork is a social bird : in the East it settles on the roofs of houses ; it freely follows the ploughman along his furrow; and its habits thus, in both points, supply links of association with the first appearance of a people of husbandmen. The stork was one of the sacred birds of the Egyptians. Some have derived the name from pelagos, a word used in Greek for the sea. And this, either because the Pelasgians came by sea, or because they came from beyond sea. It seems doubtful, however, whether c sea' was the proper or only the second meaning of pelagos* We have the phrases, a\os ev ireKay eaat (Homer), ttou- tlov Ttihayos (Pindar), hk?) dpoaos . i'ap . . . iviavTOS, tjvls epa . ecrnepos fj\l09 KoTkoV . \aas XcLKKOS "I Xeuo-crco Xvktj in XvKa, cdfias I aer aether salum antrum astrum aura dies ros ver annus terra vesper sol ' coelum lapis lacus lux mensis vecpos nebula (vig) vtfpos . . . nix vv£ nox TrevKfj pix iroXos polus ttovtos pontus piyos frigus aeXrjvr) luna crKoVeAo? .... SCOpulus cnreos, anrjXacov . . spelunca vdcop sudor c , r fluvius L pluvms v\rj sylva (pvKos fucus (pvXXov . ' . . . folium Xapai humus X^Lpaiv hyems cop?) hora podop II. TREES, PLANTS, viola (prjyos . rosa fagus III.] THE PELASGOI. 97 III. OF ANIMATED NATURE. aXayrrr}^ .... vulpes dfivos agnus fiovs bos eyxekvs .... anguilla 6r]p fera i7T7ro9 equus IxOvs piscis mnpos aper Kpios aries KVCOV, KVVOS . . cams \ea>v . leo \l/KOS . . . lupus ois .... . OV1S ovBap . . uber 7T(o\oS . . pullus ravpos . . . . . taurus & . sus a>KV7TTepos . . accipit IV. OBJECTS CONNECTED WITH FOOD. apneXos .... pampinus yaXa, yakaKros "| , , ' , Y . lac, lactis yAayos ... J Sals dapes iXaia olea eXaiov oleum KaXapos .... calamus kolvt} coena Kpeas caro pe\i prjhov . oivos (tItos (TVKOV . rpvyq . d-Tpvyeros d>6v . mel malum vinum cibus ficus fruges triticum ovum RELATED TO OUTDOOR LABOUR. aypos . aporpov apovpa . ager aratrum arvum {evyos \ £vyov f Kfjiros, crrjuos opxpros jugum sepes hortus VI. NAVIGATION. ayKvpa . iperpov KvfiepvrjTTjs ancora Xiprjv limen remus vavs navis gubernator novs pes H 9 8 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [chap. VII. DWELLINGS. aWakrj favilla Bvpai fores avXrj aula kXtjis clavis dofios domus Xe^os lectus edos sedes oIkos vicus OaXapos .... thalamus VIII. CLOTHING. £(t6t}s vestis x^ aLVa lsena IX. THE HUMAN BODY. yovv beUvvpi cXkos evTepov rjirap "} neap KecpaXr] Kopr) xa| . Xa7TTG) genu digitus ulcus venter jecur cor caput coma calx labrum p.rjp6s femur p.ve\6s medulla odovs dens 6(tt€ov os (ossis) 7raXdfiTj .... palma -rreta (comp.) 1 )■ . pes, pedis 7TOVS ... J wXevrj ulna a>pos armus &y\r . . ... . os (oris) X. THE FAMILY. yevos . . gens, genus . . gustus doais . . . dos doopov . . . donum e'ido) . video Oeos . . . . deus 0Lyyaua> . . tango dvpOS . . fumus IS ... . . vis Kviaarj . nidor ArjTco J . . letum fievos . . . mens ixopos . . . . mors fxopcpt . . . . forma V€V(0 . . numen POOS . nosco 68pr) . odor obvvq . . odium ovopa . . nomen pcoprj . . . . Roma, robur VTTVOS . . somnus (pans, cparov . . fatum cpvp-q . . . . fama e&o 5 rex to p{(a) y in virtue probably of the sacrificial office of a primitive king: and we may add, as correlatives, Aot/3?j to libo, and apaonaij aprjTrjp to ara, or are, orator. But this is little: and there is a great lack of correspondence in the principal words, such as, on the Greek side, tepdy, aytos, Ova), ficupLos, vrjos, ayaXpLa, ripievos, ev^opLciL, and on the other, sacer, sanctus, pius, templum, preces, vates, macto, mola. In one case, or in both, there must have been a great displacement of the Pelasgic vocabulary. And as the Roman religion was far more Pelasgian than the Greek, it is probable that this dis- placement, if it occurred in one only of the two penin- sulas, occurred in Greece. 2. The words relating to war are almost without ex- ception irreducible to agreement. r CUSpis kXhtlcii . castra al X M . . • .< mucro Kvrjpls . . . . ocrea L acies Kokeos . . vagina "ApTjS . . . . Mars kvkXos . rota appa, dicppos . J currus " I rheda Kvuerj . . galea r pugna * 1 proelium j scutum I clypeus paxq, vo-pivr) acnris, ]6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. whole, which we know as the Hellenic religion. In this process of construction, the actual belief, tradi- tions, and tendencies of the people could not but be the chief determining force. But the potent mind and imagination of the Poet, in all likelihood, exercised an influence in modifying the stages and fixing the consummation of the process, which, if secondary and subsidiary only with reference to the powers before mentioned, may still be justly supposed to have been far greater than any ever wielded by any other Greek, whether legislator, poet, or philosopher. There is nothing contrary to reason in the suppo- sition that the condition of religion in Greece, at the epoch of Homer's existence, may have offered remark- able opportunities for the formative influence even of an individual mind. In a nation of one blood, which claims to be au- tochthonous or indigenous, because, since first the mi- gration of the primitive tribe was arrested, it has never changed its seat, we may look for a religion based upon the predominance of some single idea, and invested with great uniformity of colour. But where, as in Greece, the nation itself is com- pounded out of a variety of factors, the religion will naturally assume a variegated aspect. Each race or family of immigrants arrives cum Pe- natibus et magnis Du i brings with it its own con- ceptions and names of deity. These they set down for themselves upon ground already occupied by the religion of the former inhabitants, and by their tra- ditional conceptions. These conceptions will be in many cases representatives of the same original ideas ; and though diversely modified, after the separation of VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 77 the races, according to the genius and associations of each branch, they will often claim the same attributes, and the respective worships will tend to compete and even clash together. Of this clashing we find the mark in Homer, when two deities have the same function. Thus Athene is even more supreme over war than Ares. A Paieon has to do with healing as well as Apollo. Poseidon is god of the sea • but beneath him, yet in independence of him, is Nereus, inhabiting the depths ; and the sea is affected by the agency of Zeus, or Here, or Athene ] , or Apollo, with respect to breeze, and storm, and ship- wreck, as well as by his own agency. The same kind of competition is represented in Homer by the deposition, and relegation to a distance, of the older gods of the Nature-system, and by the legends of the youth, or infancy, of Hephaistos and Dionusos. Also this conflict of religions, growing out of the relations and conflicts of races, is powerfully exhibited in Homer by the division of Olympos into two factions during the Trojan War, and by the bold and effective, if to us incongruous, conception of the Theomachy, or Battle of the gods. In the later tradition, this clashing comes to be represented by the legends of contests between two deities for a given territory. Poseidon contends with Helios (the Sun) for Corinth; and with Athene for Athens. A variety of other cases may be cited. Had the Poet worked up his mythological scheme out of Greek materials alone, we may be sure that the relations of subordination among the gods would have 1 Od. v. io8, 109. N 178 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. been at least as well defined, as those subsisting among the leaders of the army, or perhaps even the members of a well-ordered family. Whereas now we find first that Okeanos, as the head of an older though superseded dynasty, stands aloof, and is exempt from attendance at the Olympian court 1 ; and that the position of Zeus among its members reminds us of the position of the kings of France before Louis XI among their great feudatories. Poseidon, even singly, is not without pre- tensions to an equality of force : Athene, without pro- ceeding to physical resistance, does not hesitate to oppose in debate, as well as in veiled action, the councils of her father : and a combination of these two with Here had once proved too much for his solitary strength. When the various worships thus met in competition on the same soil, the result could not but be, either that the objects of them were amalgamated ; or that some of them were expelled ; or that by division of functions, that is a compromise, their differences were adjusted. Of amalgamation we observe an example in the first deity of the Homeric poems. The Zeus of Dodona, and of the Pelasgians, becomes also the Zeus of the Hellic tribes. Of permanent expulsion we have examples in the Okeanos, and also in the Kronos, of Homer, with their followings respectively. Of the resistance to a new worship, and of its tem- porary exile, we have an instance in the driving of Dionusos into the sea by Lukourgos. But the great principle of the Homeric mythology 1 II. xx. 7. VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 79 is, adjustment by distribution of offices. And the an- thropomorphic idea greatly favoured the application of this principle ; since it gave to the Poet all the varied functions and orders of humane society, both domestic and political, as a framework after which to arrange his Olympian personages. And thus it is that Homer, from living in the midst of an intermixture and fusion of bloods continually proceeding in Greece, acquired a vast command of materials, and by his skilful use of them exercised an immense influence in the construction of the Greek religion. It became with him, what it probably had never been before, and what it was not in the works of any later writer, a most gorgeous and imposing, and even in a certain sense a highly self-consistent, whole : contain- ing in itself, without doubt, many weak and many tarnished elements, but yet serving in an important degree the purpose of a religion to control the passions and acts of men. The Olympian system of Homer is eminently what Horace describes as ' Speciosa locis, morataque rccte Fabula.' It is wrought out with pains and care, full of character and individuality, marvellous alike in the grandeur and the weaknesses of its personages — a work, in the very highest sense that is applicable to any human pro- duction, of true and vast creative power. Even without the attestation of Plato, we might have been able to judge that it was in all likelihood a main instrument in establishing the dominant features of the Hellenic religion, such as we know them from N % l8o JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. the historic ages. Partly it reduced to unity the com- peting elements of the true Hellenic tradition, of the old Pelasgian Nature-worship, and of the Phoenician, Syrian, and Egyptian mythologies : partly it cast them into the shade of local, as opposed to national, devotion. In the poems of Hesiod, it appears to us as the latest form of Greek religion ; but, more artfully compacted than the rest, it acquired and retained a real supremacy among them, although the diversity of aspect never was effaced. Yet its character continually altered; and altered for the worse. It has features which are sublime, and features which are debased. But the sublime features of the Olympian characters became, with the lapse of generations, less and less observable. The debased ones grew more and more prominent. And the profoundly interesting specialties of the several deities, indi- cating their respective origins, at length became ap- parently imperceptible even to the Greeks themselves. No one can closely and carefully examine the system of Homer without a deep interest : no one can find much ground for such an interest in the theological part of the religion of the historic period. Only its ethical ideas, and the highly poetic ideas connected with destiny, retain any attractive power; and from the mythology these ideas are, in the later stages of the Olympian system, almost wholly dissociated. The wonder indeed is, not that the Olympian religion should have failed to resist the corrosion of change, but that it should have been able in any manner to retain its identity. Devoid as it was of all authority, and even of the allegation of authority, for its origin, and not only unsustained, but belied. VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. l8l by the witness of surrounding nations, it probably had little else of unity than such as it derived from the great Bard of the nation, and from its imaginative splendour; while it had none of the guarantees, real even if partial, which are afforded either by Books known and recognised as sacred, or by a compact and permanent hierarchy, dating, or professing to date, from the beginning of the system. If the Homeric poems stood in the place of the former, yet- we can perceive for them no avenue to the mind and heart of man, except that of the poet, and the delight he gives ; rj Kai Oecnriv dotfibv 6 kcv repirriviv deldcov 1 . And as respects the latter, neither was the priest, as such, a significant personage in Greece at any period, nor had the priest of any one place or deity, so far as we know, any organic connection with the priest of any other ; so that if there were priests, yet there was not a priesthood. Its strength lay, then, in its beauty ; a beauty which, surviving the death of the subject in which it resided, had power to ravish the mind of Goethe, one among the greatest of modern poets ; and probably we could not name in all human experience a more signal instance of the vast power of the imagi- nation, than is to be found in the long life, and the extended influences, of the Greek religion. It found a way to the mind of man through his sympathies and propensities. Homer reflected upon his Olympos the ideas, passions and appetites known to us all, with such a force, that they became with him the paramount power in the construction of the Greek religion. This humanitarian element gradually 1 Od. xvii. 385. 1 82 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. subdued to itself all that it found in Greece of tra- ditions already recognised, whether primitive or modern, whether Hellenic, Pelasgian, or foreign. The govern- ing idea of the character of deity in Homer is a nature essentially human, with the addition of unmeasured power. It is at once obvious, then, that the elements of a profound corruption abound in his Olympian Court, although they affect very variously the personages who fill it. And the principle upon which it is con- structed makes but too copious a provision for further deterioration. Such accordingly was the actual working of that Hellenic Theo-mythology, of which we must regard Homer as the great founder. With the progress of time it became more and more debased, and the dis- tinctions originally perceptible among its elements being worn away, it likewise fell into such a state of complexity as approached to chaos. But, while the popular creed thus degenerated, the intelligence and the speculative mind of the Greeks became more and more estranged from it. With the lapse of time we must learn to regard it, not as in Homer, under a single aspect, but under three : as a religion of philosophers, a religion of legislators, and a religion of the people. By the philosophers, the ab- stract idea of deity was greatly purified and reformed ; but the sense of personality connected with it became feebler and more remote. In Aristotle, the most pro- found and powerful mind of Greece in the classical ages, as well as perhaps among the purest which the country produced, it is reduced, as a practical principle, to zero. Still, the lofty sentiments, thus elaborated in the abstract, again acquired much of the warmth of VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 83 life in the writings of some at least of the dramatic poets ; and may thus have exercised influence in a wider sphere than that supplied to the few by the thoughtful studies of the Schools. Meantime the mythology, with its constant develop- ment and deterioration, continued to be accepted by the people ; while with a view, as must be supposed, to public order, all its institutions had the steady coun- tenance of the ruling authorities. It may then be believed that there resided among men, six, eight, or ten centuries after Homer, a much purer intellectual conception of deity than can be collected from his poems • while, as a first necessity of wealth and civilisation, a defined but narrow morality of property, so to call it, arose ; both in a form more determinate than any known to the Poet, and also sus- tained by the machinery of law and public policy. But, notwithstanding all this, a great real declension in other, and perhaps yet graver, respects had taken place. For the mass of the population, the abuses and corruptions of the older creed c did not pass, but grew.' Not perhaps against society, which had learned to take care of itself, but against the unseen Ruler of the world, and against the sanctity of human nature, sins and loathsome abominations had come in, and were flourishing in a rank and foul luxuriance, which seem to have been unknown to the Greece of Homer. For the religion of his day had not ceased to be a power. Variously and imperfectly, but truly, men were com- manded and restrained by it. It presented a system of rewards and punishments, intelligible to its votaries, and operative, as it appears, to no small extent upon human conduct. And whatever may have been, as it is 184 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. represented, the personal practice of the Homeric deities, their system of government was addressed in the main to good ends. It exhibited, generally speak- ing, though in an imperfect, yet in a real manner, superior power, armed and active on behalf of truth, justice, and humanity. This could not but be an engine of great good. That it was so, we may learn from a tone of general character, which certainly did not afterwards improve, and from the absence of the horrors already named, which afterwards abounded even in the more refined regions and in the educated classes of society. It may seem strange that the two processes of a speculative ascent and a practical decline, a mental discipline of the few and a general dissoluteness of life, should be simultaneous. But so it was, even to the day of the last dying throes of paganism. Never was the heathen creed, on its intellectual side, in a condition so sublimated, as when it perished under the blows of the Christian apologists and the influence of the Church. But also, never had its practical power, as a religious system elevating or constraining action, fallen so low, as in the days when its votaries were habitually content to deify even monsters in human shape, if they wore the imperial purple. To say, then, simplicher, either that the Greek re- ligion as it grew old improved, or that it degenerated, would be to use equivocal and misleading language. By its side, and never in any degree taking its place in the minds of the many, there grew up a speculation, which was hardly a belief, but which put aside a mass of fables, and in many points approximated to the truth, concerning the nature of God. But as a living VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 85 creed it worsened; and as an instrument for the government of conduct, it more and more lost its power. The reproaches of Plato against Homer, for the un- worthy treatment of the gods, can have little influence on our minds in the light of such knowledge as we now possess. It would appear, from the Cratylus for ex- ample, that Plato had little knowledge of the origin of the Hellenic mythology ; and the personages, who filled the chief places in it, had in his day assumed a same- ness of colour and position, which they had not in the time of Homer. In order to comprehend the method of the Poet, we must bear in mind (1) that many deities, afterwards completely naturalised, were in his day only making the first steps of their way into Greece ; (2) that deity is with him a most elastic idea, susceptible of in- finite diversities, in point both of virtue and of power ; (3) that he has a vivid conception of intercommunion between the two natures, divine and human, which was probably lost in the time of Plato. If Ares and Aphrodite are exhibited by Homer in lights which are even ridiculous, we have to observe that nothing can be more profound, more entire, than the reverence of his mortals for Apollo and Athene, nay often for Poseidon and Here. This difference is not casual ; it is in the whole manner of treatment : and what we seem to learn from it is, that, among the Hel- lenes of his time, Ares and Aphrodite had as yet no regular recognition, no established worship. There is not a single indication of either in the Poems j though it appears from them that these deities were worshipped in Thrace and in Cyprus respectively. Apart from this, Homer's system of thought included 1 86 JUVENTUS MUNLI. [CHAP. a number of beings, whom he calls divine, but in whom the divine attributes are minimised. The Gigantes, who rushed to their own ruin- the Kuklopes, who ex- hibit a perfectly brutalised humanity ; the Phaiakes, who in all manly qualities are represented as much below the Greek level; all these were kinsfolk of the gods. A slight circumstance shows us how, in Homer, the divine idea could be reduced to the smallest dimensions of power. When the comrades of Odysseus ate the oxen of the Sun, Lampetie, his daughter by Neaira, ex- pressly called a goddess 1 , carried the news of the deed to her father. Obviously, then, she had not herself sufficient power to prevent or punish this offence, committed by a mere handful of exhausted mariners. Neither could the Sun, who is called all -beholding, see the act from his pathway in the heavens, without her intervention as a messenger. The principal materials of religion which Homer found ready to his hand were, so far as appears, sup- plied by i. The Pelasgian or other archaic races, which had had possession of the Peninsula prior to the Hel- lenes. 2. The Hellic families and tribes. 3. The Phoenician immigration. 4. An Egyptian and oriental influence which we trace {a) in obscure traditions, and (b) in the actual remains of a worship clearly proceeding from this origin, which endured down to the time of Pausanias. This was probably brought to Greece through the Phoe- nician vehicle. 1 Od. xii. 131-133. VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 87 The Zeus of Homer is equally Pelasgian and Hel- lenic. The Apollo, the Athene, and the Here appear to belong especially to Hellenic traditions. But the two first carry marks, which can hardly be mistaken, of an affinity, probably dating from a very early period, to the Hebrew traditions, recorded in the sacred Scriptures. The Poseidon of Homer is manifestly Phoenician. This deity waives as it were his supremacy on coming into Greece, in deference to the paramount force of the religion of the major number, and to the ruling in- fluences. Yet the character and worship of Poseidon may occasionally in Greece, as well as elsewhere, have been preserved under the name of Zeus. These five are the five great deities of the Poems. But it may be convenient to consider first the mode which Homer has devised for dealing with the elder gods. It is in a far-distant perspective that he places the Elemental or Nature powers ; which are thus removed from inconvenient contact with the actual governors of the world, and yet are subjected to no indignity. At the head of these is Okeanos; whom Homer regards as the source (not the father, that title being reserved for Zeus) of all the gods. He is not invested with anthropomorphic attributes, a circumstance which indicates the distinctness of the race which had wor- shipped him. But Homer, paying a marked respect to his dignity, does not summon him to the great Olym- pian Assembly of the Twentieth Book 1 , where, if he had appeared, he must have been second to Zeus. It is 1 II. xx. 7. 1 88 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. possible even that the relations of this deity to man- kind were. pre-Pelasgic ; as Zeus appears to have been in the Pelasgian system, and Okeanos could hardly have been there except as its head. In no case is the Homeric treatment more artful, than in that of the sea- or water-god Nereus. He is completely invested with the anthropomorphic cha- racter- for he is blessed with an abundant progeny of daughters. But his place was wanted for Poseidon: he is therefore confined to the sea-deep; and he is in no manner or degree an object of worship in the Poems. While the Olympian system generally is to be re- garded as alien to elemental worship, and as founded on a different basis, it is important to trace never- theless such vestiges of the elder religion as are to be found among the Greeks of Homer. i. In the Pact of the Third Iliad, the original terms were 1 that the Greeks should offer a lamb to Zeus; the Trojans two, the one black, the other white, to Gaia and Helios, the Earth and the Sun. This appears to draw the line pretty clearly between some leading ideas of the worship of the two countries ; which nevertheless had, as is plain, many points of contact. When we come to the actual Invocation, Agamem- non officiates on behalf of both parties 2 . Accordingly he first invokes Zeus (but as ruling from Ida); then the all-seeing, all-hearing Helios ; and then he inserts, before Gaia, the Rivers ; and he adds the deities (with- out naming them) who dwell beneath, and who punish perjurers in the Future State, or Underworld. 1 II. iii. 103. 2 II. iii. 276-280. VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 89 2. In the Nineteenth Iliad we have an oath and Invocation purely Greek 1 ; and on comparing it with the former we find a. That Zeus is invoked without any mention of Ida. b. The Earth is next named. c. The Sun is invoked without any special words of personification. d. The Erinues, strictly ethical personages, are named as the deities below, unnamed in the previous Invo- cation. e. The Rivers do not appear. 3. We also have, in the Ninth Iliad, another impre- catory Invocation; that of Althaia, mother of Mele- agros. She addresses herself to (a) the Earth, (b) A'ido- neus, and (c) Persephone : and her prayer is heard, and evidently granted as well as heard, by the air-stalking Erinus. The offence here was not perjury, but the slaying of her brother by her son. We thus perceive, from the first Invocation, either that the Earth and Sun stood to the Trojans as Zeus did to the Greeks, or that, when all were to be ad- dressed, the Earth and Sun fell to the Trojans from some greater affinity to their creed. But when we come to an Invocation affecting the Greeks alone, in the Nineteenth Book, the Sun is less prominently named, and the purely ethical element is introduced in the Erinues, avengers of perjury in the nether world. In the mixed Invocation the Erinues are not named, but are evidently the personages glanced at as avengers beneath the earth and after death. 1 II. xix. 258-260. I90 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. We also find it clearly established by these passages, that the Nature-gods in general were treated by Homer as subterranean : though this did not absolutely and invariably exclude them from the Olympian family. And the office generally assigned to them is not a share in the ordinary government of the world, but is the infliction of punishment, both for perjury and also for other offences, in a future itate. Hence it is that Achilles, a lock of whose hair had been promised by his father Peleus to be dedicated to the River Spercheios on his return home, deposits such a lock, at the time when he knows he shall not return home at all, in the hands of the dead Patroclos; that his spirit may carry it to the River-god, in the Under- world 1 . Here we have the clearest evidence that the Underworld, into which Patroclos was about to find entrance, was the ordinary residence of the River- gods. Nor is this the only case of River-worship in the Poems. The Pulians in the Epeian even sacrificed a bull to Alpheios 2 , when they reached his banks; and Odysseus likewise invokes the unnamed River of Scherie, at whose mouth he touches the shore 3 . These two, it will be observed, were plainly acts of worship with reference to some immediate result, and implied the exercise by the Rivers respectively of some present prerogatives. On the other hand we may notice their strictly local character, as well as that of the act done by Achilles. To the great Olympian Assembly of the Twentieth Book, which is to prepare the way for a decisive issue 1 II. xxiii. 144-151. 2 II. xi. 728. 3 Od. v. 445. VII .] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 191 to the war, Themis summons the Rivers (except old Okeanos) and the Nymphs who frequent or inhabit the groves and fountains. These latter, both here and elsewhere, are evidently conceived under the condi- tions of the human form. A like process had been begun with the Rivers ; because Poseidon 1 accom- plishes his purpose with Turo in the form of the River Enipeus. Others, too, of the Rivers have human sons. Nay, they even sate on the burnished chairs of the Olympian Hall 2 . Nor let it be thought strange, that while the worship (except for imprecation) of the greater deities of the old Pelasgian system had been superseded, that of smaller ones had thus survived. For the Dii majores of that system, by reason of their very greatness, had no one exclusive residence. But the River-worship was strictly local; and it is the nature of this local worship, in whatever age, and in connection with whatever creed, to take a deep hold, and live a tena- cious life. Of this there can be no stronger proof than the great number of temples recorded in Pausanias as having been erected in honour of deities, whose existence is hardly traceable in the public and national religion of historic Greece. Just so it was that the heathen system, when it was slowly and reluctantly yielding its ground to Christianity, lingered long in the villages and remoter districts, and thus gave us, as if by caprice, the singular name of Paganism for the religion, which had blazed with such extraordinary splendour in the Forum of Rome, and on the Acropolis of Athens. 1 Od. xi. 241. 2 II. xx. 11. I92 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. There is another form of relation between the older and the younger scheme. "While the anthropomorphic spirit of the Olympian religion repels the counter- system of elemental worship, it nevertheless appro- priates its materials, and even exhibits occasionally traces of its form. Thus, while the air- or sky-god becomes Zeus, the rainbow becomes Iris : and, as the rainbow in nature belongs strictly and exclusively to the sky-region, so Iris remains in the closest adhe- rence to Zeus. She is his messenger, not the mes- senger of the gods in general ; and even when he sits on Ida, she is in attendance on him, and available for a mission 1 . And as we may suppose that Ida was the habitual resort of Zeus when the armies were on the field, we can thus understand, not only why it is Iris who informs the Trojans about the Greek array 2 , but how she is at hand to prompt Helen's going to the Wall 3 , and to take Aphrodite out of the turmoil, and drive her, in the chariot of Ares, to Olympos 4 . In like manner, Here appears to be constructed out of the old traditions which treated the Earth as a divine power : Demeter from a like source : and He- phaistos from an elemental god of fire. If the local cultus thus survived in fact long after the central system had been eclipsed and superseded by one founded on ideas of greater vigour and eleva- tion, then Homer, who of course had to exercise his plastic powers as a poet upon traditions which he found ready to hand, could not wholly extinguish the representation of these minor nature-powers in his Olympian system. And the ultimate form of recon- 1 II. viii. 399. 2 II. ii. 786. 3 II. iii. 121. 4 II, v. 353-369. VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 93 ciliation for the two systems was not in the ejection of the minor powers, but in the establishment of their assumption of human form, and with it the presidency- over the object in which they at first inhered, as the condition of enlistment, so to speak, in the popular religion. Such was the basis of compromise, so to call it, which secured to Rivers, Fountains, Hills, and Woods, in each case their proper place in the Olympian system. To obtain a right view of its nature, the Homeric mythology must be carefully severed, not only from the bygone schemes of Nature-worship, but likewise from (i) the Roman mythology, and (2) the mythology of classical Greece ; from this classical system even as we have it in the poets, and much more as we draw it from the later writers. We then find that the Homeric formation consists of a Polity, framed on the human model, with a king, an aristocracy, and even a people or multitude; and that its seat is on Olympos. The king is Zeus. The aristocracy consists of a number not precisely defined. Somewhere about eight or ten deities take actual part in the debates of Olympos. The ordinary meetings are strictly analagous to those of the fiovXri or council of the Greek army. But, like that council, the Olym- pian court has its silent members: and as Hephaistos prepared for it twenty chairs 1 or thrones, we must suppose this to have been the approximate number of those who were entitled to attend. This is the body, of which the feastings are so gorgeously described - y and in it are, probably, included all the deities, who had obtained more than a narrowly local recognition in the Greece of Homer. 1 II. xviii. 373. o 194 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. But sometimes the gods meet in (ayopj]) their As- sembly 1 . Homer appears to use this phrase on occa- sions when a great resolution is about to be taken. The Assembly of the Fourth Book defeats the Pact of the Third, and brings the Greeks into the field against the Trojans during the isolation of Achilles. That of the Eighth is designed to insure the absence of their potent patrons from the field of battle. Greatest of all, the Assembly of the Twentieth Book is brought together by a wider summons, including Nymphs and Rivers. This Assembly removes the embargo, and by permitting the battle of the gods, forecasts the corresponding vic- tory of the stronger party upon earth. In the members of the Olympian Court itself we dis- cern every kind of heterogeneity. There seems to be scarcely a single definite feature that they possess in common : only we may assert that every one of them has a preternatural superiority to man in some one or more particulars, while a few approximate to divine perfections. They seem, indeed, in no case to be liable to total and final extinction 2 . Yet Ares, having fled from Diomed, declares, not only that he might have remained sense- less under the blows of the warrior, but might have suffered (brjpbv) indefinitely long, left among the slain. And the gods may be deposed from Olympos, as Zeus says he would have deposed Ares, if born from any other divine sire than himself. In the Fifteenth Iliad, Poseidon appears to be threat- ened with Tartaros, as the consequence of the for- midable conflict between Zeus and himself, which had seemed so imminent. The gods beneath, says Zeus, 1 II. iv. i ; viii. 2 ; xx. 4. 2 II. v. 901. VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 95 who form the Court of Kronos, would have become right well acquainted with the battle. As those gods are wholly cut off from Olympian action, this could only have been, as it seems, if Zeus had placed Posei- don where he had already placed Kronos 1 . Even Here and Athene may suffer wounds, from which ten whole years will not suffice for their recovery 2 . And if they had persisted in the second descent, then, smitten by the thunderbolt, they would not have been again ad- mitted to Olympos 3 . The same notion of right which binds men together, prevails among the gods, but may be set at nought by them 4 . The happiness of Olympian Immoitals is liable to be impaired and disturbed by quarrels on account of their partialities to men this way or that, as the hap- piness of men would be disturbed 5 . The community of gods is no less emphatically humanised, than are the individuals. The relations of its members to one another are, however, but partially defined, and are subject to contingency. Hardly any two deities are of the same dignity ; and even when they discharge the same function, they do it under different conditions. Thus Athene and Ares are the deities of war 6 . Ares fights with his own hand against a mortal : his opponent Athene does not deign to enter into conflict herself ; she incites 7 the mind, drives 8 the chariot, but only against a god, and impels or diverts the weapon 9 . While however Athene thus behaves in relation to Ares, we have no similar example in the action of the 1 II. xv. 221-228. 2 II. viii. 404. 3 II. viii. 455. 4 II. v. 761. 5 II. i. 573-576 ; v. 383, 384, and 873, 874. 6 II. v. 430. 7 Il.v. 200. 8 Il.v.8 4 o. 9 II. v. 290,856. O % 195 - JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. Poems, of matters carried to extremity in the upper rank of the Olympian Court. On the contrary, the highest deities of Homer are bound together by a law of mutual respect, even when they take opposite sides of a question or a quarrel, and they show the utmost anxiety to avoid carrying their differences to issue. After all, is it not a folly, they commonly say, to diminish our own happi- ness on account of beings so inferior to ourselves ? See the language of Zeus to Athene, II. viii. 39 ; Of Zeus about Poseidon, II. xv. 226-228; Of Apollo to Poseidon, II. xxi. 462-467 ; Of Here about Zeus, II. viii. 427-431 j Of Athene about Poseidon, Od. xiii. 341-343 ; And, although Hermes is a god of lower stamp, of Hermes to Leto, II. xxi. 498. Again, with a great delicacy, Homer never allows any of the higher deities to be named to mortals as being in conflict one with another. Thus when Diomed ascribes to Apollo the escape of Hector, and makes an appeal for himself to divine aid 1 , he does not, as on other occasions (e. g. II. x. 284), name Athene as his protectress, but says, ' If perchance I too may have a god for my ally.' So Poseidon, in the form of Calchas, urging on the two Aiantes, and referring to Hector as claiming to be the son of Zeus, and as perhaps having his aid 2 , sug- gests that c some one of the gods' might help one of them to make an effectual resistance. In reply, the Oilean Ajax observes that the pretended Calchas is some one of the gods of Olympos 3 . Thus no deity is placed by name in opposition to Zeus. 1 II. xi. 362-366. 2 II. xiii. 54-58. 3 II. xiii. 68. VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 97 And thus it is contrived, that Poseidon shall retire from the field (II. xv. 218) before Apollo arrives there to renovate Hector (239). In the Seventeenth Book, when Athene 1 appears, that she may give effect to the altered policy of Zeus, Apollo does not absolutely retire, but the agency of the two is so directed as to avoid collision. For when Athene has incited Menelaos, and Apollo then kindles Hector, the two warriors do not meet in fight. Once more, when Achilles (II. xx. 450) recognises the fact that Apollo has carried off Hector, he expresses a hope that rh Ot&v may aid him too. In a word, the greater gods of Homer never are brought into conflict, nor do they exhibit their differences within the human sphere. In Book xx, Here consults Poseidon and Athene (v. 115) as to the mode of counteracting the agency of Apollo, who is accompanying iEneas against Achilles. c Let us,' she says, c force him back : and then some one of us can go to attend Achilles' (119- 121). Poseidon, in his reply, is unwilling to bring gods into conflict, c unless Ares or Apollo should begin, or should hinder Achilles' (132-143) in his work of havoc. And when, finally, Zeus exhibits the golden scales in the air, that which holds the fate of Hector sinks to Hades, and thereupon Apollo quits him. It is then only that Athene, who was at hand and ready (see v. 187), joins and accompanies Achilles 2 . But this mutual respect is only one among many notes of difference, which separate the orders of deity in the Olympian Court. 1 II. xvii. 544* 2 II. xxii, 208-214. I98 - JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. The Olympian personages of Homer may be divided into several classes, in several respects. Firstly. We may consider them as background and foreground personages. The background personages are little heard of, and scarcely affect the machinery of government for the Homeric world. Such are De- meter, Themis, Leto, Dione, Hebe; such are the Muses, and the Charites or Graces; independently of the Nature-powers, who are summoned to Olympos on great and special occasions, but who take no active part in superintending human affairs at large. Secondly. The foreground personages may be divided into those of higher and of lower power. Of higher power we have only Zeus, Here, Poseidon, Athene, and Apollo. Thirdly. The Olympian deities may again be divided into two classes, of the higher and the lower 7700s, or moral tone, respectively. The three first divinities are of the lower, and the two last of the higher, in regard to all those matters which pertain to the morality and to the infirmity, or aKpavia, of man. Zeus, in his Olympian personality, stands with the class to which Here and Poseidon belong; while, as the traditional representative of providence and the Theistic idea, he ranks more justly with Athene and Apollo. Of the class lower both in power, and in moral tone, we have Hephaistos, Ares, Hermes, Aphrodite. All, except the highest gods, in Homer may be said generally to be subject to the following limitations and liabilities : — 1. They do not know what events take place among men, except by the common senses of sound or sight, VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 99 and when favourably placed; for example, when near at hand, or when sound is loud. 2. They do not know what is in the mind, and must ask to be informed. 3. They shriek or cry aloud from emotion. 4. When they move, it is (a) by gradual progression ; {b) with means of conveyance. 5. They are liable to be hurt and wounded. 6. Human warriors can contend against them. 7. Their worship is peculiar to some races or places. 8. They are even liable to disparagement in com- munications held by the higher gods with men. 9. They have little or no command over outward nature and the elements. 10. They do not habitually repair to Olympos 1 . 11. Their partialities and propensities are without system, policy, or governing mind. 12. They neither have divine foreknowledge, nor, in many cases, have they prudence or forethought equal to the human. 13. They are not able immediately to influence the human mind. The only deities who may be called absolutely free from all these limitations are Zeus, Athene, and Apollo. Even Here is subject to some of them : Poseidon to more. Not even those deities, who are omnipresent upon earth, and take cognisance of all human affairs, are precisely informed as to what takes place in the super- nal region; for when Here sent Iris to Achilles, in 1 Where, however, Hephaistos lived (II. xviii. 143-147); but perhaps for special reasons. 200 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. the Eighteenth Iliad 1 , to urge him to appear before the contending armies, it was done without the knowledge either of Zeus or of any other deity. Certain special features, as we have seen, and shall further see, are traceable, most of all in the Athene and Apollo of the Homeric Poems, but also in Zeus, and (more forcibly) in Leto and in Iris, as well as in one or two other Olympian personages : and these fea- tures, in the case of the two first-named deities parti- cularly, impart to the pictures of them an extraordinary elevation and force, such as to distinguish them broadly from the delineations of other gods, in whom these par- ticular features are wanting. The features themselves are in the most marked correspondence with the Hebraic • traditions, as conveyed in the books of Holy Scripture,, and also as handed down in the auxiliary sacred learning of the Jews. But while it seems impossible to deny the correspondence without doing violence to facts, on the other hand we are not able to point out historically the channel of communication through which these tradi- tions were conveyed into Greece, and became operative in the formation of the Olympian scheme. At first sight we should be tempted to suppose that the Phoenician navigators offered the natural and pro- bable explanation of any such phenomena. Because, on the one hand, we know, from the historic books of Scripture, that the Phoenicians were at an early date in habits of intercourse with the Jews; while, on the other hand, they not only were in like habits with the Achaian Greeks of Homer, but also, as far as we can discern, no other nation had a sensible amount of 1 w. 183-186. VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 201 intercourse with Greece, or if there were such, it passed under the Phoenician name. And again, there is one of the legends of Homer with reference to which the presumption arises with a peculiar force. Apart from any disposition to premature deduction or imaginative interpretation, it seems obvious to ob- serve upon the striking similarity between the legend of Bellerophon, solicited by the wife of Proitos, and that of Joseph, by the wife of Potiphar. And the great abundance of tales forming the outer circle of the Odyssey, which (it is hardly too much to say) can only have had a Phoenician origin, and which touch almost every point of the compass except that to the eastward of Phoenicia itself, suggests the likeli- hood that this enterprising people would not be destitute of reports from that quarter also. The name of Proitos 1 , appearing on one of the seven gates of Thebes, which mark its Phoenician re-founda- tion, supplies a positive link between the legend of Bellerophon and the source to which I am ascribing it. A second such link is supplied by the written charac- ters, in which Proitos communicated with the King of Lycia respecting Bellerophon. The art of writing, ac- cording to the later tradition, was brought by Phoeni- cians into Greece ; and the name of Proitos distinctly connects the text of Homer with that belief. Our finding the family of Bellerophon in close re- lations with Proitos tends, of itself, to induce a belief in their ethnical connection. This presumption comes into clearer light when we observe that Bellerophon was an Aiolid. 1 Paus. p. 727. 202 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. It must also be admitted that, in supposing any other channels than the Phoenician for the conveyance of these traditions, we should force them up -to a very early point of time, namely, that of the separation of the Semitic, and the Japhetic or Aryan, branches of the human family. It is however admitted that the Olympian scheme has for its distinctive character, or differentia^ the in- tense action of the anthropomorphic principle ; which pervades and moulds the whole, repelling, and as it were repudiating, on the one hand all abstract speculations about the Deity, on the other the worship of Nature- Powers and of the animal creation. It is also clear, that some of the Hebraic traditions were eminently calculated to develop the anthropomorphic principle. The promise or expectation of a Redeemer, or Deli- verer, of man, who should be at once human and divine, laid a basis for the entire system, by annexing the glory of divine attributes to the corporeal form of man. And the seed thus supplied was vivified, so to speak, by the familiar belief in the intercourse of God with the patriarchs, which so readily adapts itself to, if indeed it does not require, the use of a form approach- ing at least to the human type. Every race had its own religious traditions. Each modified, or kept, or lost them, in obedience to its ruling tendencies. It does not seem strange that the tribe or tribes, whatever they were, which brought into Greek life and religion what proved to be their central principle, should have clung with a great tenacity to, and preserved far more faithfully than other races of a less fine composition, those traditions which were so well adapted to the effective development of their peculiar genius. VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 203 Among the Hebrews, besides what has been en- shrined in the Sacred Scriptures, there was a stream of tradition 1 otherwise delivered and relating to the Messiah, which, though it nowhere impugns or even varies, yet vividly illustrates the written record. I subjoin some particulars. 1 . The Messiah was to be divine. 2. He was conceived of as c the Glory of God ' in the feminine gender. 3. The relation of His two natures was set forth in the figure of mother and daughter. 4. He was to be the Logos, the Word or Wisdom of God. 5. He was the Lord of Hosts — an idea which would naturally take form in some martial development. 6. He was especially The Light. 7. He was to be the Mediator, through whom the counsels of God take effect upon man. 8. He was to perform miracles. 9. He was to conquer the Evil One, and to libe- rate the dead from the grave and from the power of hell. 10. And, generally,, the divine qualities were all to be reflected in the Messiah (conceived as masculine) or Shechinah (as feminine) 2 . We may probably regard the use of the feminine gender in these traditions as having been either (r) the most convenient mode of impersonating an abstract idea of the Wisdom of God, or (2) as suggested by 1 Studies, vol. ii. pp. 48-51. 2 lb. vol. ii. pp. 51-53. Taken principally from Schottgen's Horae Hebraicae, 204 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. the arrangements of the Egyptian, or other Eastern religions. This is not the place to discuss at large the origin of the numerous religions which have existed outside the pale of the Divine revelation. It was a favourite opinion with the Christian apologists, Eusebius and others, that the pagan deities represented deified men \ Others consider them to signify the powers of external nature personified. For others they are, in many cases, impersonations of human passions and propensities, reflected back from the mind of man. A fourth mode of interpretation would treat them as copies, distorted and depraved, of a primitive system of religion given by God to man. The Apostle St, Paul speaks of them as devils 2 ; by which he may perhaps intend to convey that, under the names and in connection with the worship of those deities, the worst influences of the Evil One were at work. This would rather be a subjective than an objective description; and would rather convey an account of the practical working of a corrupted religion, than an explanation of its origin or its early course. As between the other four, it seems probable that they all, in various degrees and manners, entered into the composition of the later paganism, and also of the Homeric or Olympian system. That system, however, was profoundly adverse to mere Nature- worship ; while the care of departments or provinces of external nature were assigned to its leading personages. Such worship of natural objects or elemental powers, as prevailed in connection with it, was in general local or secondary. And the deifi- 1 See the Propaideia or Praeparatio Evangelica of Eusebius, passim. 2 i Cor. x. 20. VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 205 cation of heroes in the age of Homer was rare and merely titular. We do not find that any cult or system of devotion was attached to it. The preternatural machinery of the Homeric Poems, besides its other qualities, is singularly complex and comprehensive. Its complexity is doubtless due to the fact, that Homer had to represent and to harmonise the several varieties of religion, which had found its way into the country in company with immigrating races, families, or persons. Its comprehensiveness is owing to that anthropomorphic principle on which it is framed, and which borrowed from earth, and carried up to Olympos, the state, the family, and the individual, as they exist among men. The bold invention by which the gods take sides in the War of Troy, and decide the controversy by main force in heaven, before it can finally be brought to issue on the plain between the Achaian and Trojan armies, is not a flight of the imagination only. The partisanship of the respective deities, this way and that, is evidently dictated by sympathies of race. Neither the blood, nor yet the religion, of the two countries were wholly separate ; but differences of leaning and of colour between them may readily be discerned upon a close examination. And again, the mode in which general rules are occasionally varied in the Poems, irresistibly suggests that there is a reason both for the rule and for the exceptions ; as, for example, in the care of Poseidon for ^neas the Trojan, and in his persecution of Odysseus the Greek. We may also discern the marks of subdivided attachments. The care of Athene is exercised chiefly on behalf first of Odysseus, next to him of Achilles, 206 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. and next to him of Diomed. The care of Here is for the Pelopid family, and apparently for the Greeks as the people whom they lead. Irrespectively, then, of the manifold interest attaching to the Homeric mythology, both as a religion and as poetry, it is in truth a main key to the ethnography of the Poems, and even might on this account be taken as a point of departure in an investigation, which it influences from first to last. The personages of the Homeric Theotechny, under which name I include the whole of the supernatural beings, of whatever rank, introduced into the Poems, are so diversified in character, intellect, and power, that while they cannot be described under any one common form, it is difficult to divide them into classes with anything like precision. Into the following cate- gories, however, we may distribute them with a tolerable approach to accuracy. i. The Olympian deities; recognised and actual governors, but with immensely different titles and prerogatives, either of the inner and Greek world, or of the outer world known more faintly and indirectly to the Greeks. 2. The greater Nature-Powers, with Okeanos at their head, who had apparently been supreme in the prior or Pelasgian Theogony. 3. The lesser Nature-Powers, who continued to hold their ground, at least in local influence. 4. Minor deities of foreign tradition, neither na- turalised nor acknowledged in Greece, as not being of sufficient significance to claim admission to Olympos. 5. Rebellious powers. 6. Ministers of Doom and Justice, real or reputed ; VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 2C>7 less than divinities in rank, but more closely associated with the moral order. 7. Impersonated ideas connected with the objects of human desire and aversion, hope and fear. 8. Translated, or deified, heroes. 9. Races intermediate between gods and men. Again. Many elements of the Hebrew traditions re- corded in the Holy Scriptures, or otherwise preserved among the Jews down to later times, appear in the Olympian Court of Homer. But they are not found in all the personages that compose the assemblage ; nor even in all those deities whom, from various kinds of evidence in the Poems, we perceive to have been fully recognised as objects of the national worship. Further, in the characters where the features corresponding with Hebrew traditions mainly appear, there is a peculiar elevation of tone, and a remarkable degree of reverence is maintained towards them, so as to separate them, not indeed by an uniform, but commonly by a per- ceptible and even a broad line, from the remainder of the gods. Besides the idea of a Deity which in some sense is three in one, the traditions traceable in Homer, which appear to be drawn from the same source as those of Holy Scripture, are chiefly these : — (1) A Deliverer, conceived under the double form, first of the c seed of the woman' — a being at once Divine and human, secondly of the Logos, the Word or Wisdom of God. (2) Next, the woman whose seed this Redeemer was to be. (3) Next, the rainbow con- sidered as a means, or a sign, of communication between God and man. And finally the tradition of an Evil Being, together with his ministers, working 208 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. under the double form described by Moloch in his speech, of c open war/ and of c wiles ;' as a rebel, and as a tempter. This last tradition is indeed shivered into fragments, such as the giants precipitated into Tartaros, and as Ate roaming on the earth; with perhaps a portion of the idea lodged in Kronos, whose common and only description in Homer is c Kronos of the crooked thought ' (ayfcvAofxrJr^?). The other four traditions appear to be represented in the persons of Apollo, Athene, Leto, and Iris. Of course it by no means follows that they have no other origin than in these traditions, or that, as they stand in Homer, they represent such traditions and nothing else. Iris, for example, must evidently be considered as an im- personation of a Nature-Power. What seems to me undeniable is that, in the Poems of Homer, the tra- ditions I have named are at the least copiously and richly embroidered upon the tissue, supplied by other accounts of the mythological persons I have named; and that they give to those persons a distinctiveness of character and form, which upon a close and detailed view of the Olympian system, as it is unfolded in the Poems of Homer, cannot well be mistaken by a pains- taking and unprejudiced observer. If, in the progress of time, and with the mutations which that system gradually underwent, the marks of correspondence with the Hebrew records became more faint, the fact even raises some presumption that, were we enabled to go yet further back, we should obtain yet fuller and clearer evidence of their identity of origin in certain respects. Even the highest conception of deity in Homer does not exclude the element of fraud. I will give an VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 200, example. There can be no question that the prize of the loftiest, most free, and most constant and unvary- ing intelligence in the whole catalogue of Olympian deities must be given to Athene- who, alone among them, is never ignorant of what it concerns her to know, never exposed to disrespect, never outwitted by an opponent, never disappointed of an end. But, in the great crisis of Hector and Achilles, when the in- trinsic superiority of the Greek hero makes him inde- pendent of any even more honourable aid, she descends to the mean and shameful artifice of assuming the form of his brother Deiphobos, whom he especially loved and trusted, to induce him to turn and meet his adversary 1 . This arrangement is the more remarkable, because it is somewhat difficult to discern the motive for such an intervention, or to see why Achilles could not, with his extraordinary swiftness of foot, have overtaken Hector apart from any assistance whatever. Perhaps it was an artifice of the Poet to uplift the character of Hector, of course in order to glorify yet further the Greek hero, who was to overcome him. Those pure and lofty traditions, then, which we are justly wont to refer to a primitive revelation as their fountain-head, had already begun to be impaired. And it is only what we ought to expect, if we find that with the lapse of time they suffered further deterioration, and if the persons representing them gradually sunk nearer and nearer to the level of those other Olympian deities who had already in the time of Homer lost, or who perhaps never had possessed, any notes of the sub- lime conceptions which the Holy Scriptures, and in some degree the auxiliary traditions of the Hebrews, have 1 II. xxii. 214-247. P 210 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [ CHAP. handed down to us in the greatest purity, and which the peculiar genius that became dominant in the Greek religion had, for a time at least, been able to preserve, if not from all injurious contact, yet from anything like absolute immersion in the mire. The Athene and Apollo of the Olympian system may be compared with the Child in the noble Ode of Wordsworth; about whom, in his infancy, Heaven is lying, who as boy and youth Yet by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; but who in process of time parts from it altogether : At length the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day 1 . It is no part of the object of this work to institute a detailed comparison between the earliest and the later stages of the morality and religion of the heathen world; but I shall now state summarily the results which such a comparison would, I think, reasonably suggest, so far as religion is concerned. Religion and race have ever run much together. We find in Homer the clear tokens of a composite people, and of a composite belief. With the lapse of time the edges and angles of ethnical differences are worn down. The nation and the creed settle down upon an acknow- ledged platform ; and the distinctive features, though they do not wholly vanish, take a form which it is dif- ficult to trace back to their first origin. All formations, especially if complex, must be examined in their be- ginnings. The religion of classical and historic Greece is already an old religion. The Poems of Homer enable 1 Wordsworth's Ode on the Recollections of Childhood. VII ,] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 211 us to investigate its first inception. We can trace the very finger of the artist on the clay he moulded for his countrymen's behoof. But as the nation was compacted and consolidated, the component parts of the religion also settled down, and their specific differences, like colours running, lost all definite outline. This loss of distinctive notes in the Greek mythology was a deteriorating and not an improving process. The gods of later times were not relieved from the stains which attach to them in Homer. Some legends, which with him appear in a beautiful and noble shape, became utterly abominable and base. While the level of the higher characters of his Theogony was reduced till it nearly reached that of the lower, the level of the lower was in no way raised. In the processes of change, nothing was given, all was taken away. But the grand distinction between the Homeric and the later systems was this : that the earlier scheme was a real, though it was a corrupt, religion. It acted upon life. It menaced the excesses of power. It prescribed the duties of reverence to age and authority, of hospi- tality to the stranger, and of mercy to the poor. It had one and the same standing with reference to all classes. It did not assign to deity that most ungodlike quality, respect of persons. But in after times, apart from its deeper moral stains, it became wholly severed from the cultured mind; and subsisted mainly as the jest of philosophers and men of the world, the tool of priests and rulers, the bugbear of the vulgar. Again, it may be noticed that the religion of Homer, subject to varying closeness of relation between dif- ferent places and particular deities, is, though not an uniform, yet an universal religion. p % 212 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. The Poet evidently supposed that in some manner the Olympian gods governed not the Greeks only, but all mankind. This perhaps is the reason why he has admitted into the Olympian family personages like Ares, Aphrodite, and the Sun, whom we cannot affirm to have been worshipped at the time in Greece; the evidence being, indeed, adverse to any such supposition. This element of truth in his conceptions of Deity is clearly exhibited by the banquets provided for his gods among the Aithiopes; by the scene of the Iliad, in which Zeus turns his eyes over the country of the Hip- pemolgoi and the Abioi 1 ; and especially by this, that, in the wide range of the Voyage of Odysseus, though he comes within the special jurisdiction first of Posei- don, and next of Helios, still there is always a power of supreme control lodged in the Olympian Assembly ; a power, by means of which his release from the island of Calypso is finally obtained. It seems as if his primitive spirit had been unable to embrace the conception, which in later times came into vogue, of different and unconnected deities ruling different portions of mankind ; and as if both his own and the prevailing religious sense required that, although the name and worship of many among them had origi- nally come from, or even still belonged to, a foreign shore, yet they should, as far as their importance re- quired him to take notice of them, be bound together into a supreme and organised unity. But, notwithstand- ing, within the bosom of this unity the character and associations of his own race, which, without doubt, he placed at the head of all mankind, were to be predomi- 1 II. xiii. 3-6. VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 2IJ nant. In this combination of ideas we find the basis, and the warrant, of his Olympian system. The collective action of the Olympian deities in the government of men is less infirm, more venerable, more divine, than their individual action. When they move together, the mere idiosyncracies, in which they abound, appear to be in a great degree lost and absorbed. The co-operation of the three great Hellenising deities in the War against Troy is, indeed, the efficient cause of the divine decision in favour of the Greeks. And this again is mythically referred to a vindictive senti- ment on the part of each of the men ; yet the decision is a righteous decision. And, speaking generally, while the individual members of the Olympian Court are swayed by hate, lust, and greed, they have not any objects which they can pursue in common for the grati- fication of these appetites or passions; and thus is neutralised the personal bias which so frequently draws them off the line of moral obligation, and more free scope is given, in all their common action, to the exercise of the true governing office. It is somewhat singular that we have not, in the true Olympian religion, any clear instance of a married deity, except Zeus. Hephaistos is married to Aphro- dite only in the Phoenician, or rather perhaps Syrian, mythology of the Eighth Odyssey. In the Iliad he is but wooing Charis 1 . That Amphi trite is the wife of Poseidon is a purely gratuitous assumption, and is in every way improbable, since Amphitrite has no clear or definite impersonation. Helios and Perse had children; but they are wholly within the Eastern mythology. The names of Aides and Persephone are commonly 1 II. xviii. 382. 2T4 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. combined in such a way as would be consistent with, and as may even suggest, their being married. But this would scarcely harmonise with his general arrangements, if Demeter was the mother of Persephone, and if A'idoneus 1 was an earthy Zeus. And Homer has carefully avoided using any words which would directly place them in this relation. Okeanos and Tethus, Kronos and Rhea, lie outside the Olympian scheme. If this observation be correct, the fact is probably to be accounted for in this way : Homer had no idea of a normal marriage without issue. Where there were none, it was a heaven-sent calamity. He could not, then, have divinities distributed in barren pairs. But to have provided them with families would have placed him in difficulties, such as may sometimes be felt by royalty on earth, with respect to the means of providing for a numerous offspring. It would have been difficult to weave them into the stock of traditions which sup- plied his raw material. Moreover, as between brothers and sisters, the Greek horror of incest perhaps would ill have allowed the general use of the idea of a matri- monial connection; though Here was the sister as well as the wife of Zeus, and though this double relation was not at all foreign to such Eastern traditions 2 as he had received through the Phoenicians. Thus he was shut up on all sides to arranging his Olympos, as to its younger generation, in the form of the single though manifold family of Zeus. Again. Within the theological system of Homer, and as a kind of kernel to it, there lies a system which may be called one of deontology, or that which ought to be, and to be done. c Will' is the supreme element 1 See infra, A'idoneus. 2 Od. x. 5-9. VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 21$ in the mythological action- or, at the least, it is in practice co-ordinate with c ought,' and it seems to be in conduct the livelier principle of the two. But the idea conveyed in ( ought' has a separate sphere, and ministers of its own, to which even Olympian personages pay regard. Its laws are expressed some- times in terms relating to destiny: most purely of all in 6ms and in vi^eo-is', which may truly be said to reflect the moral sense of the gods, and which are never used by Homer to express a mere mental emo- tion of mankind. They may convey more or less the sense of an emotion, but it is an emotion always springing from and regulated by a regard to the essen- tial laws of right, to the themistesof heaven. A third form, in which the dictates of the moral law are ex- pressed and enforced, is in the action of its mute but ever active ministers, the Erinues. These topics will be opened in their due order. I pass to another head. Homer informs us in the Eighteenth Iliad that Hephaistos was found by Thetis busy in finishing a set of twenty seats 1 , for the members of the Olym- pian Court to use in their assemblies. I have observed that, with some allowance for the vagueness common with the Poet in the use of figures, we may take this incident as indicating pretty closely what he meant to be understood as the number of the Di majores, or personages qualified to attend at the Council (boule) of the gods. As to nearly the whole of them, there is no difficulty in drawing out the roll : — 1 II. xviii. 372-377. 21 6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. I. The children of Kronos :- i. Zeus 2. Poseidon 3. Aidoneus 4. Here II. The secondary wives of Zeus 1. Leto -) 2. Demeter > . . * 3. Dione J III. The children of Zeus :— 1. Athene 2. Apollo 3. Hephaistos 4. Hermes 5. Artemis 6. Ares 7. Persephone 8. Aphrodite IV. Personages not classified, but performing Olympian offices : — 1. Themis, the Summon er 2. Iris, the Envoy 3. Hebe, the Cupbearer } 18 VII .] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 21 7 Besides these eighteen we have i. Helios, the Sun, taking part in Olympian pro- ceedings 1 . 2. Paieon, who appears to be ordinarily present there as Healer 2 . Both these personages came to be absorbed in Apollo : but in Homer they are distinct from him : and, so far as the poet may have had a distinct intention as to number, these two have perhaps the best claim to the Nineteenth and Twentieth places. 3. Another claim, making the Twenty-first, is that of Dionusos ; whose position, however, in Homer is faintly marked and somewhat equivocal 3 . On the whole we ought perhaps to reject two other names. 1. Eris, or Enuo, the sister and the paramour of Ares 4 . She grows up, and this as it seems habitually, from small to huge dimensions. She remains to wit- ness the battle of the Eleventh Iliad, while the other deities withdraw to their Olympian palaces respect- ively 5 . She is sent down to the camp at the beginning of the same Book, and shouts from the ship of Odys- seus. She is named, too, together with Pallas 6 , in contrast with the effeminate Aphrodite. Yet, on the whole, she is probably no more than a vivid poetical impersonation. In conformity with this supposition, while Ares carries a spear as he leads the Trojans to the fight, she conducts, instead, another form yet more shadowy than her own, that of Kudoimos, or Tumult. 2. Histie, who is Vesta, and one of the Di ma j ores, 1 Od. viii. 270, 302, and xii. 374-376. 2 II. v. 401, 899. 3 Infra, ch. viii. sect. Dionusos. 4 II. iv. 441. 5 II. xi. 3, 4j 73. 6 II. v. 333, 592. 2l8 juventus mundi. in the Roman mythology, and who is also fully per- sonified in the post-Homeric poetry of the Greeks, can scarcely be considered as a person in the view of Homer. There are indeed invocations to her name 1 , which signifies c the hearth/ in the Odyssey; but in three cases out of the five it is combined with that of the table for guests. 1 Od. xiv. 159; xvii. 160; xix. 304; xx. 230. CHAPTER VIII. The Divinities of Olympos. Section I. Zeus. Zeus presents to us a character more heterogeneous and less^consistent than that of any other Homeric deity. He claims a strength superior to the united strength of all the gods 1 ; yet he admits that he would have some difficulty 2 in putting down Poseidon singlehanded ; and he was actually delivered by a giant 3 from fetters into which he had been, or was about to be, thrown by a combination of that god with Athene and Here. In many points he inherits the traditions, and is formed upon the conception, of the One and Supreme God. Yet he was one of three brothers, who had parents preceding them : the three were born to equal honour 4 : lot alone decided their several domains. Seniority gives Zeus the first place : yet the filial tie had not prevented him from imprisoning his own father in perpetuity. He is alike the depository of high moral ideas, and of intense, as well as of debased, human 1 II. iv. 17-27. 2 II. xv. 228. 3 II. i. 399-406. 4 II. xv. 209. 220 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. attributes. He bears many different characters; and no one of them is altogether consistent with the rest. There are five different capacities in which, in order to embrace the entire picture drawn by the Poet, he must be regarded. Four of them are Olympian: one appertains to an earlier theogonic scheme. i. Zeus is the meeting-point of the Pelasgic with the Olympian or Hellenic system of religion. 2. He is the depository of the principal remnants of monotheistic and providential ideas. 3. He is the sovereign lord of meteorological phe- nomena. 4. He is the head of the Olympian Court. 5. He is the most marked receptacle of all such earthly, sensual, and appetitive elements as, at the time of Homer, anthropophuism had obtruded into the sphere of deity. On the epithets and verbal ascriptions of Zeus, we may observe, 1. That they much exceed in number and variety those of any other deity. 2. That with few and special exceptions they are applied to him exclusively. 3. That they divide themselves into classes accord- ing as they belong to him, a. In respect of national or special worship, as Dodonaios, Idaios, Pelasgicos, Olumpios. b. In respect of his chief place in the Hellenic theo- gony, as air-god : such as aaT^poir^Trj^ re^eA^yeperr]?, K€\aiV€(j)r}S, Tepirucepavvos, epiy5oi/7roj, evpvoTrrjS. c. In respect of his character as the Providence and Governor of mankind, and the defender of social and VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 221 moral laws : such as de&v v-naros kcli apiaros, irar-qp av- bpS>v re de&v T€, ju^TieV^y, £eivios, i/cenjcrtos : highest and best of gods, father of gods and men, the Zeus of counsel, the Zeus of the guest, the Zeus of the sup- pliant. Let us now proceed to this fivefold observation of the Homeric Zeus. i. The Pelasgian Zeus. At times, the Zeus of Homer appears to border upon the mere Nature-Power : as in the epithet Aimer/)?, c falling from Zeus/ applied to rivers : in "Evfaos, meaning c at noontide,' and recalling the c sub dio, sub Jove/ of the Latins. Also the expressions, Atbs 6'nPpos, avyah, vifyabts, oapai, the rain, rays, snow-flakes, hours or seasons of Zeus, may all be compared with analo- gous expressions applied to Demeter and to Hephaistos. We may consider all these as being, in their various shades, relics of the Pelasgian worship of Nature- Powers. We may in fact either consider the Pelasgian Zeus, and the Zeus of the anthropomorphic system, as one or as two. It is probable that two separate clusters of tradition may have belonged to the same name, and that in time they coalesced together, in obedience to the law of public feeling, combined with their respec- tive internal aptitudes. And this condition may have been the solution no less of a great ethnical than a great mythological question. According to the legend of Thetis, in the First Iliad, there was a time when Here, Poseidon, and Athene combined to put. him in bonds. He was saved from this peril by Thetis, who fetched Briareus, or 222 JUVENTUS MUNDL [CHAP. Aigaion of the Hundred Hands, to his aid. This giant was stronger than his father Poseidon, and on his arrival the plan was abandoned. Of the three deities named, Here and Athene are eminently Hellenic, and Poseidon appears to be Phoenician. The meaning of the legend therefore probably is, that the supremacy of the old, and perhaps purely elemental, Zeus of the Pelasgians was endangered by the arrival of the Phoe- nician and Hellenic immigrants with their respective religious associations : but that an accommodation was afterwards effected, and a Zeus acknowledged, who sufficiently took into himself the Pelasgian element. The Zeus of Homer is the Pelasgic Zeus, and the Zeus of Dodona; and he is also worshipped by the Helloi 1 . These Helloi appear to represent the Hellenic race in its pre-Hellenic form; and the Pelasgian name, with that of Dodona, places the throne of Zeus within the shadows of the pre-Hellenic period. It is true that, in the Theogony of Homer, this deity has ancestors and antecessors : and he alone, of the family of gods proper to the Pelasgians, is carried over at once into the Hel- lenic and Olympian system. This may have been both because, as the god of air and light, he answered best among them to that more abstracted and less mate- rialised conception of Deity which the Hellenic mind required ; and because there clustered around him whatever traditions of a supreme and single Being the world of human thought had either fashioned or re- tained. In any case it is plain that the Poet, having got rid of all claims of priority by relegating the Nature-Powers to the Underworld, or to the sea-floor, or to the extremities of the earth, is thus enabled to 1 II. xvi. 233-235. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 12$ leave his Zeus firmly grounded in authority as the senior god of the Olympian system. And this claim of seniority is the true basis of his supremacy. To this it is, and by no means to mere excess of force, that Poseidon defers in the Fifteenth Iliad, as to a claim profoundly rooted in that moral order, which even gods acknowledge and respect. It is at the stage where the Past, having been before only cloud and mist, becomes for Homer that shaped tradition which occupied, relatively to his time, the place of History, that Zeus offers to the mind of the Greek hearer the earliest definite point upon which understanding and memory can fix, so that he can be chosen as, for practical purposes, the origin to which all things are to be traced up and referred. It seems likely that this priority of Zeus may lie at the root of his preference for Troy : a state and people in which we discern the predominance of a mere Pelas- gian character, and where the royal family mounts to a greater antiquity than that of any properly Hellenic or Achaian race. 2. The Divine Zeus. To Zeus as Providence belong both a number of separate ascriptions, and a general position, which underlies the whole action of the Iliad. The grandeur of his figure and attributes transcends every other com- position. He is identified, in perhaps an hundred places of the Poems, with the word theos, in its more abstracted signification as Providence, or the moral governor of the world. He is the rafxC^ tto/W'/xoio, the arbiter of war: and he exhibits in the sky, on great 324 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. occasions, the scales in which are weighed contending fates. He is the source of governing authority, and he shows his displeasure when it is abused 1 . He is the distributor in general of good and evil among mortals j for it is on his floor that the two caskets 2 stand, from which are dispensed the mixed and the unmixed lots of men. He has the care of the guest, the suppliant, and the poor ; and thus his name becomes the guarantee for three relations, which were and are fundamental to the condition of mankind, considered with reference to social existence. Indeed in this character he is him- self a source of Destiny, as we find from the remark- able phrase Aios ato-a, the fate of, or proceeding from, Zeus. Zeus approximates to, and perhaps possesses, an ubi- quitous or universal supremacy. Hellic and Pelasgian, Idaian and Olympian, he leads the band of the Immor- tals to feast during an eleven days' absence on the sa- crifices offered by the Aithiopes or Ethiopians, who occupied the whole southern line of the world of Homer 3 : and he likewise, in an interval of his cares respecting Troy, casts his eyes in the far north not only over Thracians and Mycians, but over Hippe- molgoi and Abioi 4 . His name is likewise acknow- ledged in the border land of Scherie, and in the outer sphere where Poseidon rules : for, say the brother Cy- clops to the brutal Poluphemos, c Disease comes from the mighty Zeus, and cannot be escaped : pray how- ever to thy father the lord Poseidon 5 / From this passage we perceive that Zeus was not for Homer a mere name for Poseidon in his own kingdom, as 1 II. xvi. 387. 2 II. xxiv. 527. 3 Od. i. 23. 4 II. xiii. 1-6. 5 Od. ix. 411. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 22$ Aidoneus is called ' the Zeus beneath 1 . 5 The meaning more nearly approaches to a recognition of the Provi- dential character of Zeus, as contradistinguished from his Olympian capacity. In this larger conception his individual existence at times appears almost wholly to merge. Zeus, however, although no positive limits are affixed to his capacities of perception and knowledge, does not as a matter of course perceive all that is going on among mortals. By an expedient of some naivete, he turns his eyes away from Troy towards Thrace and the righteous nations of the North, when Poseidon is about to come into the field. This god, assuming a disguise, remains there long without being observed, although the sleep of Zeus has not yet come 2 . And again, to save the body of Patroclos, Here sends Iris on a mission to Achilles, which is concealed from Zeus as well as from the other gods 3 (Kpvfiba Atbs ak\o)v re 6eG>v). After the Theomachy also, he inquires of Artemis who it was that had maltreated her. Yet he had seen, and had exulted in seeing, the gods as they engaged in conflict 4 . Besides these physical limitations, Zeus is subject to deceit. He is entrapped by Here through the medium of his passion 5 , and is lulled into a sleep, in order that during his inaction his decree may be disobeyed. In like manner 6 that goddess had completely outwitted him at the time of the birth of Heracles, by obtaining a promise on behalf of a descendant of his who was to 1 II. ix. 457. 2 II. xiii. 1-16, 352-356. 3 II. xviii. 165-169. 4 II. xxi. 389, 509. 5 II. xiv. 352. 6 II. xix. 97 seqq. Q 226 J U VENT US MUNDI. CHAP. be born on that day, and by then accelerating the birth of Eurustheus in Argos, and stopping that of Heracles in Thebes. On certain occasions, we find Zeus acting as supreme and single-handed, neither against nor with the Olym- pian assembly. The grandest of these is at the close of the Odyssey 1 . Athene, stimulated by her sympa- thising keenness, appears to have winked at the na- tural, but vengeful, disposition of Odysseus towards his ungrateful and rebellious subjects. Zeus, who had pre- viously counselled moderation, launches his thunder- bolt ; and it falls at the foot of Athene, who thereupon gives the required caution to the exasperated sovereign. Peace immediately follows 2 . He has also this marked and paramount distinction, that he never descends to earth to execute his own pur- poses, but in general sends other deities as his organs, to give effect to his will, or else operates himself from afar, by signs, or by positive exertions of the power which he possesses as god of air. Zeus, however, is not absolutely omnipresent ; for his journey, and his consequent absence from Olympos, are described 3 . But, unlike the case of Poseidon, we have no detail, no succession in his movement. Again, unlike Poseidon, he hears prayer irrespective of the particular place or point from which it is offered. 1 Od. xxiv. 481, 525-541, 546. 2 Od. xxiv. 546. 3 II. i. 420-425. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. %1 h ] 3, 4. The Olympian Zeus, and the Lord of Air. The chief agency of Zeus in the Poems is as head of the Olympian family and Court. In this character he is the governor of the air and all its phenomena j the eldest of the trine brotherhood, and the owner of the Aigis, which is the symbol of sovereign power, like the crown, or sword of state, in an European kingdom. To him the gods rise up at their meetings. Though he swears, as other deities do, in confirmation of his word, we have no details as to the form : but we know that the highest mode of con- veying his will and word is by the nod peculiar to himself 1 . Besides those offices in relation to the air, which are more capable of an elemental interpretation, he com- mands the clouds, the tempests, the winds, the thunder and lightning, the years ; he impels the falling star, or launches the thunderbolt 2 . All signs in air belong to him, as does especially the rainbow, which he planted in the clouds 3 . Iris, accordingly, is his personal mes- senger in the Olympian Court. And when any of the attributes belonging to the region of air are employed by other deities, it is in virtue of a special relation to him. These partners of his power appear to be, exclu- sively of the rest, Here as his wife • with Athene and Apollo, in virtue of moral and traditional relations with the Supreme Deity, belonging to them respectively. The arrangement of the trine brotherhood seems to 1 II. i. 524-530. Compare Hebrews vi. 13. 2 Od, xii. 415-417 ; xxiv. 559. 3 II. xi. 27. Q2 328 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. bear peculiar marks of a traditional origin. For, be- sides the division of power between three, the mode is remarkable. The Greek ideas and practice were founded, more or less, on primogeniture. Yet it is by- lot that Zeus receives the air, Poseidon the sea, Ai'do- neus the Underworld. This method of division is evidently meant to save the principle of equality, which the Poet thus curiously interweaves with the superiority of Zeus. For, as the head of the Olympian Court, it is clear that Zeus is stronger than any single god. It is in doubt whether he is, as he boasts, stronger than the whole. We see that at a former period three were able to coerce him. Perhaps we are to understand this legend as referring to a period of crisis : the conditions of human life may enter into the problem, and his sovereignty may be meant to be understood as one which when once vindicated, became resistless, and was thoroughly consolidated by time. His superiority, how- ever, must in the last resort, like that of other gover- nors, be maintained by main force 1 , when persuasion or verbal command has failed. Nor could it be exer- cised over the great Poseidon without a struggle 2 . Here and Athene, however, single or combined, he threatens freely- and the first of these he had once punished with severity 3 . Of omnipotence, properly so called, Homer does not seem to have embraced the idea. To this height, indeed, even the philosophy of the ancients never ascended. But none of the epithets of Zeus go so far as to express it, even in forms which might be supposed figurative. 1 II. xv. 164-167. 2 II. xv. 228. 3 II. xv. 18. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. ZIQ) The headship of Zeus, however, is established not only in superior force but, as has been shown, by special marks of respect, and by symbols of sovereignty : it may be added, by the general deference of the gods. Other tokens are observable. There is no patronymic among the gods, except that of Zeus himself. And further, in the Olympian system proper, there is no god born of any divine sire other than Zeus ; nor any god born of a goddess, except he be the father; nor any god born of a human mother. Again, he is undisguisedly the arbiter among the gods. Here appeals to him on the conduct of Ares, and he permits his Queen to let loose Athene on the Trojans 1 . Ares, when wounded, carries his complaint to Zeus 2 ; and Artemis also sits on his knee and makes known to him her woes 3 . This office, as a kind of judgeship in appeal, is a great stay to the power of Zeus. This headship of Zeus in the Olympian polity is not merely ornamental ; it entails the weight of govern- ment. The careful reader of the Iliad will be struck by the resemblance between his position among the gods, and that of Agamemnon in the circle of his chieftains. As heralds upon earth are his messengers, so it is at his command that a messenger goes to sum- mon the Olympian assemblies : he commonly 4 , though not universally 5 , introduces the subject of discussion, and, so to speak, manages the debate. He also feels the burden of government over man, when the divine Assemblies are not in session. After the gorgeous scene of the banquet in the First Iliad, the other gods 1 II. v. 765. 2 II. v. 782. 3 II. xxi. 705. * II. iv. 7 ; viii. 41 ; Od. i. 32. 5 II. xx. 13. 230 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. slept, but Zeus slept not- he had in his hands the charge of the Executive, and he summoned Dream to do his bidding 1 . The idea, to which we give the name of respon- sibility, is represented in Zeus, and in him only. Other gods appear in the movement of the Iliad with an intermittent agency. But it is Zeus who is charged with the general conduct of affairs, with seeing that the government of the world is carried on. There is no better example of this, than in the Olympian As- sembly at the opening of the Odyssey. Odysseus is at the time detained by Calypso in the Island of Ogugie. The care of Athene does not reach to him, because he is in the Outer world, under the government, appa- rently, of Poseidon, his great enemy., Meanwhile, his substance is wasted, and his wife tormented, by the dissolute Suitors. All this exhibits a sad rent in the established terrestrial order." Consequently the gods in general are affected with compassion 2 . But it is the business of Zeus to introduce the subject to them, for their opinion and decree. At the same time we must observe the skill with which he manages the Assembly. He avoids placing himself in conflict with Poseidon by any hasty assump- tion of the initiative • and only gives his sanction to the plan of the Return, when Athene has complained of the detention, and thrown the responsibility of this evil upon Zeus 3 . We may observe a like refinement in the Assembly of the Fourth Iliad. The real object of Zeus in that Assembly is to draw the Greeks into the field, which can only be done by bringing about a breach of the Pact of the Third Book. And this 1 II. ii. 1-7. 2 Od. i. 28. 3 Od. i. 62, 76. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 2^1 must be done by the Trojans, since the Achaians were keepers of their oaths. But his mode of action is to propose that the accommodation just effected shall be made permanent, and that Troy shall continue to sub- sist. For he knows very well, that this will put the Hellenising deities upon proposing a scheme for the renewal of the war, and thus that they will save him from giving offence to those of the Trojan party. It is not only in the individual characters and the family order, but also in the general form of the polity of Oiympos, that we may trace the anthropomorphic spirit of the Homeric religion. That polity is more aristocratic than monarchical. It does not exclude the idea of coercion, even as applied to Zeus himself ; for he was put in chains by the united action of Here, Athene, and Poseidon 1 . Upon the whole, notwith- standing the mutterings of Poseidon in the Fifteenth Iliad, the superiority of Zeus to any single deity is sufficiently established. But although he boasts, that he is able to overcome in mere force the whole Assembly 2 , it is incontestable that the will which ultimately pre- vails is that of the body, and not of the individual who is its head. His effort 3 to obtain a more favourable solution entirely fails. Homer indeed has balanced the question with his usual adroitness ; for, as far as the comparatively narrow plot of the Iliad is concerned, Zeus effects his purpose of glorifying Achilles, by the temporary success of the Trojans whom he loved. But it is the Battle of the gods, and the decisive supe- riority of the Hellenising deities, which foreshadows, and makes way for, the victory of Achilles over Hector. And, as regards the general issue of the War, it is 1 II. i. 399-401. 2 II. viii. 18-27. 3 II. iv. 14-19. Zyi JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. evident that the preference of Zeus lies with the Tro- jans and not with the Greeks. It is then the prevailing sense of the Olympian Court, already represented to us in the Theomachy under the form of physical force, which determines the doom of Troy, and determines it in conformity with justice, but clearly against the bias, if not the outspoken will, of Zeus. 5. Zeus the type of anthropomorphism. The framework of the Olympian system is in itself the most imposing form of development ever given to the principle of anthropomorphism ; that principle which, to define it briefly, casts the divine life into human forms. This is effected by Homer with reference to all the main relations of life; the State, the family, and the individual. The State is represented by the Olympian polity as a whole. The relations of the deities among themselves are all thrown into the form of the family. Perhaps it was the sheer necessity of the case, perhaps the fact that the stream of tradition came from the East, which carried with it the con- sequence that, while the Greek family was thoroughly normal, the family of the Greek gods was based upon polygamy 1 , and upon polygamy attended with what would among men be deemed a licence yet more re- laxed. In truth, it is the domestic organization of Troy, rather than of Greece, which supplies the earthly original from which the family in Olympos is a copy ; although this is a feature accidental in reference to the main design. 1 II. xxi. 499. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 233 For, in Olympos, we have Zeus with Here as his principal wife ; with Leto, Dione, and perhaps De- meter, as the secondary or subordinate wives. In the rear of these, came all the persons who were the sub- jects of his adulterous intrigues on earth. Here alone is the Queen, who by reflection attracts, and who exercises, though with a contracted power, the air- governing prerogatives of her husband. The other goddesses I have named are personages, differing in dignity, but agreeing in this, that they are mute and blind in reference to the governing office. While the Olympian Court, and Zeus as its head, present to our view the weight of political care, and are commonly seen working for good the individual character of Zeus is of a far lower order than his public capacity would lead us to expect. Into this there enters almost as much of Falstaff, as of Lear into the character of Priam. The basis of it is radically Epi- curean. A profound attachment to ease and self-en- joyment is its first governing principle. Except for his pleasures, and indeed with a view to indulging in them, he never disturbs the established order ; and he resents in a high degree the fiery restlessness, as well as the jealousy 1 , of Here. The sacrificing man is the pious man : but the love of Zeus for such men appears to be closely associated with the animal enjoyment of the libation and the reek 2 . To avoid trouble, he acquiesces in the death of Sarpedon, whom he singularly loves : he dreads to give offence to the goddess of Night 3 ; and he hesitates to grant the request of Thetis, notwithstand- ing the debt of gratitude he owes her. And generally 1 II. i. 562. 2 II. iv. 48, 49 ; xxiv. 69, 70. 3 II. xiv. 261. 234 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. he hates those gods who trouble him, and in proportion as they trouble him ; especially his son Ares 1 . He is not, indeed, devoid of affections ; for he is moved by pity, now for Agamemnon or a Greek chief- tain, now for Priam 2 ; and he is wrung with genuine grief, as a father, for Sarpedon, over whom he even weeps tears of blood 3 . But he delights to sit on Garga- ros, and there to behold the bloody spectacle of the war ; he keenly longs to see the ships on fire ; he anticipates a lively pleasure from witnessing the very gods in conflict with one another 4 . Not only does he rejoice in the feast, but he glows with sexual passion, and he is sub- ject to the power of Sleep, although that deity can only subdue him by working hard, and moreover somewhat at his peril, so that Here is obliged to bribe him with a high reward, promised under the sanction of an oath 5 . In a word, Zeus is the masterpiece of the Homeric mythology, if we consider it with reference to that humanising or anthropomorphic element, which gave to the religion of Greece its specific national character. Section II. Here. The Here of Homer is a deity of all others the most exclusively and intensely national. Being such, she is modelled strictly according to that anthropomorphic instinct which governed throughout the formation of the Olympian system. She is proud, passionate, sensual, jealous, vindictive ; but all these in 1 II. v. 890. 2 II. xxiv. 174. 3 II. xvi. 459. 4 II. viii. 47-52 ; xv. 600 ; xx. 23. 5 II. xiv. 233, 236, 252, 268, 359. VIII ] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. 2$$ strict subordination to the great end, which she pursues with unremitting perseverance, the glorification of the Greeks. She has no personal or moral preferences, like the regard of Athene for Odysseus, founded upon qua- lities of character. Zeus is obliged to conceal from her the concession which he has made to Thetis on behalf of her son, the greatest of Greek warriors, but to the detriment of the host at large 1 . She loves Achilles and Agamemnon with an equal love 2 ; that is, she loves them, not personally, but for their cause. Here is a deity much superior to Poseidon, as ex- hibiting higher intelligence, with more capacity of far- reaching design, and of the adaptation of means to an end; matters these, in which we have no manifesta- tion of Poseidon's faculties, except in his purely ob- stinate persecution of Odysseus, for having used with energy the resources of self-defence against a monster 3 . Still there is a total absence of moral elements from the character as it is presented to us. Angered at the lameness of her child Hephaistos, she desires to conceal his birth 4 . Zeus charges her with being ready to eat Priam and his children raw 5 . She borrows the kestos of Aphrodite, and entices Zeus in a scene where sensuality is freely used, though as the instrument of a deeply laid and artful scheme 6 . The motive assigned for her hostility to Troy, is the insult she had suffered by the adverse judgment of Paris ~. In the Odyssey, she may be said for practical purposes entirely to disappear. She is mentioned but seven times in the whole poem : thrice, quite incidentally, in 1 II. i. 545-550. 2 II. i. 196. 3 Od. i. 20. 4 II. xviii. 495. 5 II. iv. 34-36. 6 II. xiv. 190. 7 II. xxiv. 27. 2$6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. a formula where Zeus is called the loud-thundering husband of Here, and is himself the true subject of the passage • once as the mother of Hebe • and thrice in legend or narrative extraneous to the subject of the poem. Nor is this unnatural. For, in the domestic part of it, there is no question of the Greek nationality : while amidst the Phoenician and Eastern associations of the Outer Geography, a conception so strictly Hel- lenic could have no part to play. Though the power of Here is immense, yet she is not surrounded with that reverence which the Poet always maintains towards Athene and Apollo. She is not exempted from the touch of defeat and dishonour. She was subjected to ignominious punishment by Zeus, who suspended her with her hands in chains, and with anvils hanging from her feet 1 . And, in the course of her long feud with Heracles, that hero wounded her with a three-pronged arrow in the right- breast, and caused her to suffer intolerable pain 2 . She alone among the deities is called Argeian Here, as Helen is called Argeian Helen. In both instances, the epithet appears to be founded on the special relation between the person to whom it is applied, and the head-quarter of Greek power, especially as that power was associated with the Argeian name, and therefore probably with the period of the Perseids. This connection subsisted in Argolis throughout the historic period. In the Iliad, Here is said to regard the Greeks as her children 3 . She collected the arma- ment against Troy 4 . She carried Agamemnon safely 1 II. xv. 18-21. 2 II. v. 392. 3 II. xviii. 358. * II. iv. 24-29. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. <2tf back to Greece 1 . She conducted Jason and the Argo through the terrible rocks 2 , the Planctai, afterwards Sumplegades. She hates Heracles, apparently because he is in antagonism to the Perseid dynasty 3 . It can hardly be from conjugal jealousy, since Jupiter recounts his conquests in addressing her on mount Ida. In a word, the vigour and activity of her partisanship are such, as to make the more dignified conduct of Athene seem almost tame by comparison. Her rank in Olympos is among the highest: she must be supposed to sit by Zeus on one side, as we are told Athene did on the other 4 . The gods rise from their seats to her as well as to Zeus, when she comes among them 5 . At times, she acts imme- diately on the thoughts of man ; as when she prompts Achilles to call the Assembly of the First Book, in order to stay the plague 6 ; or impels Agamemnon to stay the victorious course of Hector 7 . At other times, Athene is content to be her agent; as when, in the debate with Agamemnon, she stays the wrath of Achilles 8 . But by way of counterpoise, when the two goddesses are about to descend together from heaven, it is Here who harnesses the chariot, and plays in it the inferior part of driver, while Athene bears the Aigis 9 . The promise of her aid against Poseidon greatly relieves the mind of Zeus 10 . She assumes, like the other higher deities, the human form 11 ; and exhibits an extraordinary power 1 Od. iv. 513. 2 Od. xii. 72. 3 II. xix. 130-133. 4 II. xxiv. 100. 5 II. xv. 85. 6 II. i. 55. 7 II. viii. 218. 8 II. i. 194-196: cf.ii. 156; v. 711; viii. 331. 9 II. v. 745-748. 10 II. xv. 49-52. u II. v. 784-792. S38 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. over nature, as if entitled, in virtue of her wifehood, to exercise in a manner the attributes of Zeus. Iris is her messenger as well as his 1 . Not only does she order the Winds 2 , but she sends the sun 3 , in spite of his reluctance, to his setting. When, indignant at the boast of Hector, she rocks upon her throne 4 , Olympos shakes beneath her, as it did under the nod of Zeus. She endows the horses of Achilles with a voice 5 . And, conjointly with Athene, she thunders in honour of the crowning of Agamemnon 6 . We learn from a speech of Phoenix, that, together with Athene, she can confer valour. The daughters of Pandareus she endows both with beauty and with sense, while Athene and Aphrodite provide them with indus- trial skill and bodily food respectively, and Artemis bestows upon them stature 7 . Here takes part, with Athene and Poseidon, in the great rebellion against Zeus, which all but effected his deposition. She had also been personally favoured with a special protection, at the time when Zeus himself deposed his father Kronos, and thrust him into the Underworld. Of these two myths, the latter seems to suggest its own interpretation. Its scene is fixed in the midst of the great Theogonic crisis, at the point of the transition from the Pelasgian to the Hellenic or Olym- pian system. That was a moment of danger to her ; but we read of no such danger to Poseidon. From this we may naturally infer that Poseidon had no concern 1 II. xviii. 168. 2 This seems the natural construction of Od. iv. 513, and xii. 69-72. 3 II. xviii. 239. 4 II. viii. 193. 5 II. xix. 407. 6 U. xi. 45. 7 Od. xx. 68-72. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. epr} } the iioXvfyopfios, the 0epeo-/3io?. Accord- ingly, Here becomes, or remains rather than becomes, the great mother. She is the wife of Zeus, father of gods and men, and she holds among his wives and concubines the queenly prerogative, like Hecuba in Troy; the mother in heaven of some of his children, as Hebe, Ares, and Hephaistos; and, with the Eili- thuai for her ministers, the goddess of all motherhood on earth 2 . 1 Od. xix. 188. 2 II. xix. 119. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. 241 This last, indeed, is her only specialty. Those other and high prerogatives, which invest her with command over Nature, and with the power of direct action on the mind, probably accrue to her as the consort of Zeus, and are therefore not her original gifts, but the reflection of his glory. We have, perhaps, in the Theomachy, at least one vestige of the prerogative of Here as a Nature-Power. It is she who excites Hephaistos against the river Xanthos 1 ; and again, the River, parched by fire, makes his appeal to her to relieve him from suffering, with an engagement which he takes to aid Troy no more, not even in its last necessity. Here accedes to his prayer, and checks the action of Hephaistos, who thereupon desists 2 . It seems as if the ground for choosing Here to interpose on this occasion lay in the relation between rivers and the Earth along which they trace their course. This is the only act of a definite nature, with a sensible result performed by Here within the limits of Troas, a fact which is again in accordance with the construction I have given it, and the apparent bias of the Troic religion towards Nature-worship." Section III. Poseidon. The most striking feature of the Homeric Poseidon, or rather Poseidaon, is vast force combined with a total absence of the higher elements of deity, whether intel- lectual or moral. A persistent vindictiveness, indeed, we trace as the groundwork of his entire action in 1 II. xxi. 328-330. 2 lb. 367-381. 242 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. both the Poems : he hates the Trojans, for the offence of Laomedon; he hates Odysseus, because, in the strictest self-defence, he had blinded Poluphemos. By no worthy word or act is he marked in any part either of Iliad or Odyssey, unless it be by some natural affection for his descendants, whether they be the youthful warriors of the house of Actor 1 , or the savage, cruel, atheistic Cyclop. One of the three sons of Kronos and Rhea, he comes next to Zeus in order of birth 2 . He claims an equality 3 of rank ; and avers, that the distribution of sovereignties among the three brothers was made only by lot. More than indirectly, he asserts equality, as well as independence. When admonished by Iris that he is junior to Zeus, he acknowledges that there is force in the plea, and he withdraws from the plain of battle as he had been bid - y but he reserves a right of resentment, in case Zeus shall not fulfil the decree against Troy. Zeus on his part is delighted at the news; and observes, that it would have cost much labour to coerce him 4 . Again, it is plain that, in the conspiracies against Zeus, he was the acting partner. For it is the superiority of his son to him, that frustrates the design of the whole party 5 ; and when Here attempts to revive the scheme, he pleads in reply, not their collective inferiority, but his own singly 6 , as if he thought that it was, in point of mere force, well-nigh all they would have to rely on. Apollo is restrained, in the Theomachy, by a senti- ment of respect, from coming to blows with Poseidon, 1 II. xi. 749-751. 2 II. iv. 174-217. 3 lb. 186-209. 4 II. iv. 220-235. 5 II. i. 404. 6 II. viii. 211. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 243 as his paternal uncle *. And a sentiment precisely similar prevents Athene in the Odyssey from comfort- ing Odysseus by her visible presence, even at her own sanctuary in Scherie 2 . Though god of the sea, he is not, so to speak, the Sea-god, or the Water-god. He has in him nothing of an elemental deity. He is not placed in as near a relation to water as Zeus is to air, by the epithet AuTreTrjs, and the phrase A109 6)x/3po? 3 . These very phrases show us that he was not, in Homer's view, the god of moisture, or even of water, generally. The attempts to derive his name from a common root with 7700-19, c drink,' or 7rora/xo9, c a river,' would therefore be insufficient or inappropriate, even if they were not, as they are, some- what equivocal. It is remarkable that, while Poseidon supplied a sea-deluge as his contribution towards effacing the Greek trench, it was Apollo who turned upon it the mouths of all the rivers that descend from Ida 4 ; which, when Poseidon had accomplished his labour, he in turn sent back again to their proper channels. Nereus, the true Sea-god of Homer, gave to the element of water that name of nero, in the popular speech of the Greeks, which it still retains 5 . He ever dwells in the depths of the sea, as if he belonged to them, and as if they supplied his atmosphere. But Poseidon has a palace there near Aigai, where his chariot was kept, where the Poet seems to imply that he resided 6 . Yet not exclusively; for he appears at 1 II. xxi. 468. 2 Od. vi. 329; xiii. 341. 3 Aii7r€Tr]s = fallen from Zeus. Aios opftpos = Zeus-rain. * II. xii. 13-35. 5 Gomp. the adj. neros, wet, in the late Greek of Phrynichus the grammarian, a.d. 180. 6 II. xiii. 15 ; xv. 219. R % 244 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. the Olympian Court, on the plain of Troy, on the hill-tops of Samothrace \ or on the Solyman 2 moun- tains ; and he singly visits the Ethiopians, to partake of the sacrifices they offered him 3 . This reference to his being worshipped in a distant quarter is the second sign we have seen of his foreign origin ; the first was the want of definiteness in his position of inferiority relatively to Zeus, as though he had been, elsewhere, without a superior. So again there appears to be in the Outer or Phoe- nician system an elemental sea-god, Phorcus, who is called ruler of the sea, and after whom a harbour in Ithaca is named 4 . Prayer appears only to be addressed to him, within the Greek world, in the neighbourhood of the sea, as by the Envoys in the Ninth Iliad ; and by his own de- scendants, as Nestor in the Third Odyssey, who like- wise worships by the shore 5 . He can assume the form of any man ; can blunt the point of a spear ; can carry off his friends, or envelope his opponents in vapour 6 . He can inspire vigour into heroes; not immediately, however, but by a stroke of his staff 7 . Direct action on the mind appears to be beyond his range. The storms of the Poems, in the Greek or inner world, are not raised by Poseidon. Probably he had not the power to raise a storm, though he can break, as the sea does, fragments from the rocks of the coast 8 . Storms seem to have been regarded as belonging to the province of 1 II. xiii. ii. 2 Od. v. 283. 3 Od. i. 22, 25. 4 Od. i. 72 ; xiii. 91 ; II. ix. 183. 5 Od. iii. 5. Cf. II. xi. 728. 6 II. xiii. 43, 215 ; xiv. 135 ; xiii. 562 ; xi. 752 ; xx. 321-329. 7 II. xiii. 59. 8 Od. iv. 506. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. Z\$ the air-god. They are imputed to him in a passage of the Twenty-fourth Odyssey 1 ; but it would not be alto- gether safe, perhaps, to rely on that Book, in a case where it seems to vary from the usual order of the Poems. If, however, Poseidon was less than the absolute lord of water, he was also more. i. His possession of the Trident (triaina) could hardly be due to a purely maritime sovereignty. •*. 2. His relation to the horse, which is very per- ceptible, though not of primary rank, in Homer 2 , and which became almost paramount in the later age, cannot be adequately explained by any comparison between that animal and the ship, or the wave. 3. Poseidon is the building-god. 4. Poseidon stands in close relation to the giants and other rebellious personages, who troubled both gods and men. The existence of these associations for Poseidon, inasmuch as they cannot be explained by virtue of his place in the Olympian system, again urges us to look for the signs of his origin abroad. The key to the inquiry is to be found in the Outer world of the Odys- sey. For 1. It is plain that the materials of the narrative, so far as the scene of the poem is laid in that Outer world, must have been derived by the Poet from the Phoeni- cians, who alone frequented the waters beyond the iEgean and the Greek coasts. 2. In the western portion of the Outer sphere, Zeus practically disappears from the governing office, and Poseidon becomes the supreme ruler. We have seen that the subordination of Poseidon to 1 Od. xxiv. no. 2 II. xxiii. 277, 306, 534. 246 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. Zeus rested on juniority. If Zeus were the chief god of the Pelasgian worship, and Poseidon came in with the Phoenicians, this poetical arrangement is suitably explained; and it exhibits a skilful adaptation to the conditions under which the Olympian system was con- structed. His rebellion against Zeus, in concert with Here and Athene, appears to show that, as new immi- grants arrived in Greece, bearing with them their own religion, the older system was for a time brought into question and endangered as a whole. The delivery of Zeus from this rebellion will be considered in connec- tion with the goddess Thetis 1 . The Greek legends relating to Poseidon are just such as we might expect with reference to the god of a nau- tical people, touching at many points about the coast of Greece. He contends with Helios for Corinth, with Athene for Troizen and Athens, with Here for Aigolis, with Zeus for iEgina, with Dionusos for Naxos. Even in the Greece of Homer we find spots specially conse- crated to him in Bceotia, in Eubcea, and in Aigialos. Let us now turn to the Voyage of Odysseus in the Outer world; which begins with the Lotos-eaters, and ends with the Phaiakes of Corfu. Mure 2 suggests that their name is a parody of the name Phoinikes : Homer paints them as a wealthy, unwarlike people, singularly expert in navigation. This apparent incongruity falls in with the case of Corfu, if it was then inhabited, as it has been in later times, by a stationary, gentle, indolent peasantry, and at the same time held by a dominant settlement or colony of foreigners, ruling it through maritime power. Mure cites Phai'k as a 1 Infra, sect. xxi. 2 Lit. Hist, of Greece, vol. i. p. 510. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. 247 Semitic word for c magnificent/ and Seller, as meaning * an emporium.' In this Phoenician or Outer world, Athene, who had constantly tended Odysseus while in Troas, and who resumes the regular charge of him in Ithaca, systemati- cally abstains from helping him ; and wholly disappears until Poseidon has, in the Fifth Odyssey, voluntarily receded from the scene 1 . She declares that respect to her uncle was the motive for her own disappearance 2 , The presumption then is that this Outer world was a sphere in some way so specially his own, that Athene, whose power and prerogatives in Homer are so ex- tremely lofty, was unwilling to offer him any opposi- tion there. Accordingly, we have direct evidence that, in relation to the Outer world, Poseidon exercised prerogatives which seem not to have belonged to him within the Greek sphere. He raised the storm which wrecked the raft of Odysseus ; gathering the clouds, which was the special function of Zeus, and causing the winds to blow 3 . Moreover, in the lay of Ares and Aphrodite, it is evi- dently Poseidon who presides in the Assembly of the gods, and who consequently negotiates with Hephais- tos for the relief of Ares from the net of steel. And just as, at the beginning of the Second Iliad, the other gods were sleeping, but Zeus 4 (who was responsible) slept not, so here, while the other deities were laugh- ing, Poseidon did not laugh 5 ; as we may suppose, for the same reason. And while, on ordinary occasions, we are always told that the gods assembled in the 1 Od. v. 380. 2 Od. xiii. 341. 3 Od. v. 291. 4 II. ii. 1. 5 Od. viii. 344. 248 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. XaXKoftarh 5 . In like manner they act upon the mind of man by infusing fear, courage, counsel, as the case may be. These operations are never assigned to any deity except those of the first order in Olympos. But when Poseidon breathes valour into the two Ajaxes, he does it by striking them; just as when he has to convert the ship of the Phaiakes into a rock, he drives it downward with a blow of his hand 2 . On the other hand, Apollo infuses courage into Hector and Glaucos, and heals also the wounds of the latter chieftain 3 , without any outward act. Most of the corporal changes effected by Athene in the Odyssey are similarly brought about. Only in the case where she effects a total transformation of Odysseus, she touches him with her wand 4 . This exception, as a rule, from the use of instruments in giving effect to their will, is a sign of a high con- ception, on the part of the Poet, with respect to their divine power. In the Kestos of Aphrodite, in the wand of Hermes, an intrinsic virtue resides, apart from the will of those personages respectively. These are not mere symbols : they are causative seats of power. That Apollo and Athene do not use any such vehicle, is a sign of force, essential, independent, and su- preme, over matter. 1 II. xii. 24. 2 II. xiii. 58. Od. xiii. 164. 3 II. xvi. 528. * Odi xiii. 429; xvi. 172, 455. 384 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. Yet once more, as to the common features of these extraordinary personages. Their moral standard is conspicuously raised above that of the Olympian family in general. Athene has the purity of Artemis, whom in all other points she eclipses. This prerogative is expressly acknowledged in the ancient Hymn to Aphrodite 1 . No such statement can be made of any other among the active goddesses : not of Here, Thetis, or Demeter ; much less of Aphrodite herself. So we have in the Poems sons of Zeus, of Poseidon, of Ares, of Hermes ; all of them the fruit of their intrigues with women ; but no son of Apollo. Hephaistos, indeed, is exempt from the charge, probably on account of his personal deformity. Down to the time of iEschylus 2 , Apollo retained the epithet of c the pure.' Later still, it had been lost 3 ; and the legend of Marpessa, which by no means requires such a construction in Homer, had been read in the light of the later tradition, and had descended to the common level. His share in the scene described by the Lay of Demodocos may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that the subject belonged to a foreign theology, though it may have been one which was already beginning to act upon Greece. I do not however attach to the term c purity, 3 in an inquiry of this nature, its full Christian sense ; in which it appears as one portion of the panoply of a complete and almost seraphic virtue, and is elevated as well as sustained by the spirit of the marvellous religion to which it belongs. The moral characters of Apollo and Athene are lofty, if measured by the Olympian standard, although they will not bear the tests which 1 yv. 8, 16. 2 Suppl. 222. 3 S. Clem. Alex. p. 20, B. VIH.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 285 the Christian system would apply. Apollo descends from his height, in the scene where he strikes Patroclos from behind, and knocks his armour off, so as to bring the Greek hero into that unequal position in which even the keen national feeling of the Poet would allow him to be conquered by a Trojan. And Pallas under- takes a mean office when she incites Pandaros to a breach of the Pact. Counsel, with her, certainly de- generates at times into craft and fraud 1 . But these drawbacks are in both cases exceptional. Speaking generally, the two are beautiful and majestic delinea- tions ; and Athene in particular has many of the characteristics of the Eternal Wisdom, which came forth from the bosom of God. The distinctive functions of Apollo, which sever him from Athene, are many. The highest are these four : that he is familiarly employed by Zeus, with whom he has a perfect conformity of will, as his agent in the government of human affairs ; that he is the champion of Zeus and of heaven against the rebellious powers; that he is the minister of death; and, finally, that to him alone there seems to be committed an absolute knowledge of the future, and the administration of that prophetic gift which Calchas, though acting in and for the Greek army, held from him 2 . Athene, on the other hand, is occasionally the agent of Zeus, with whose will, however, she is less uniformly associated 3 . Apollo has also, besides the gifts of the bow, of healing, and of song, a special association with the light. The ministry of death, exercised by Apollo for men as by Artemis for women, is most of all remarkable 1 II. iv. 86-92. Od. xiii. 299. 2 II. i. 72. 3 II. iv. 70. Od. xxiv. 539-545. ^86 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. on account of its twofold aspect. It is sometimes penal, as with Ariadne 1 ; or even a terrible vengeance, as with the children of Niobe 2 . It is sometimes a tranquil and painless deliverance from the burden of the flesh, as in the island of Surie 3 . Another peculiarity of this prerogative is, that it refers to death produced without second causes. All other deaths whatever in the Poems, natural or violent, appear to be referred to second causes. There is a mythological impersonation of Death (Thanatos) provided by the Poet, to which to refer them. The death brought about by Apollo and Artemis is an exceptional death, in the point of being directly due to their supreme will and special ministry. And this is at least a wonderful phenomenon in the Olympian system, especially when we consider how gloomy and repulsive, in the view of Homer and his age, was the extinction of our mortal life, and the prospect of the region that lay beyond it. Here is, as matter of fact, a tradition of a Power that was to take away the sting from Death, preserved for the time, but for the time only, among a people who surrounded death in general with associations of a wholly different character. Even if it stood alone, we should be driven surely to treat it as derived, through whatever channel, from some ancient and signal promise of a Deliverer for the human race. It does not however stand alone, but forms part of a multitude of varied testimonies, all converging upon the same point. Athene, besides her great special prerogatives of War, Policy, and Industrial Art, is invested generally with yet greater power than Apollo, and rises to a still higher grade of moral majesty. She seems also, by 1 Od. xi. 324. 2 II. xxiv. 606; cf. vi, 205. 3 Od. xv. 407. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 2,8j virtue of a latent partnership in the divine supremacy, to partake of or represent something analogous to several of his peculiar gifts. She enters into his know- ledge of the future ; for in the Ithacan cave she foretells to Odysseus all that he has yet to suffer 1 . And if he is the champion of the gods in Olympus (an office which she shared with him in the later tradition), she, as I have above observed, possesses a jurisdiction in the Underworld 2 , which appears to cross and over-ride that of its appointed rulers. Though she cannot avert death from a mortal, she can afterwards extricate him from its grasp 3 . The limits of this work forbid me to pursue the my- thological history of Athene and Apollo through the later literature of the Greeks and Romans. They continue, it may be said generally, to hold positions of great splendour, but the distinctive character of their features as a whole is gradually enfeebled and effaced. Even the hasty reader of Homer cannot fail to be struck with it ; but it is only by a minute and careful observation of particulars that the whole case can be brought out. It then becomes fully manifest that, by not one, but a crowd of attributes and incidents, they are severed from the general body of the Olympian deities of Homer, and closely associated together, though very far from being even substantially identified, far less confused. These attributes are partly intellec- tual, partly moral. The general result is to render their position grossly anomalous and wholly inexplicable, if the explanation of it is only to be sought in the laws of the Olympian system, or in such traditions as the 1 Od. xiii. 306. 2 II. viii. 362-369. Od. iv. 790-793. 3 Od. iv. 752, 753. a88 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. older nature-worship, or the Egyptian, or Syrian, or Phoenician mythologies could supply. But when we turn to the Hebrew annals, we find there a group of traditions, belonging to what may be termed the Messianic order, which appear to supply us with a key to the double enigma. The general cha- racteristics of the Messianic anticipations are in marked conformity with the common prerogatives of Pallas and Apollo. And the distinctions of the two deities fall in, not less clearly, with the twofold form in which those anticipations are presented to us • the one, which pointed to a conception more abstract, and less capable of being confounded with mere humanity ; the other, to a form strictly personal, and intimately associated with our nature. In these resemblances, there appears to be found a very strong presumption, that the Hellenic portion of the Aryan family had for a time preserved to itself, in broad outline, no small share of those treasures, of which the Semitic family of Abraham were to be the appointed guardians, on behalf of all mankind, until the fulness of time should come. It is obvious that such traditions, when cut off from their fountain-head, supplied a material basis for that anthropomorphic character which distinguished the Greek religion from first to last, and associated it so closely with the whole detail of life. For, according to their tenor, the conception and representation of deity in human form were no idle fancy, but were the great design of the Almighty God for the recovery of an erring, suffering, and distracted race. On the importance of these propositions I need not dwell. The more they are important, the more it is to VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 289 be desired that they should be strictly noted. The intention of these pages is both to invite, and some- what to assist, all such as shall be disposed to undertake the pains of such an investigation. Section IX. Hephaistos. Hephaistos bears in Homer the double stamp of a Nature-Power, representing the element of fire, and of an anthropomorphic deity, who is the god of Art, at a period when the only fine art known was in works of metal produced by the aid of fire. As Homer gives us faint traces of the elemental god of air in endios, and as his Nereus is still represented in the nero of modern Greek for c water,' so he actually employs the name Hephaistos in one passage undeni- ably for fire 1 , if he does not also mean the flame of fire in other passages where he mentions c the flame of Hephaistos.' This deity is worshipped in Troas, where he has a wealthy priest 2 . Hahn finds in the fouki-a of the Albanian tongue, signifying force, the root of the word Vulcanus 3 ; and quotes Varro, c ab ignis vi et violentia Vulcanus est dictus.' Schmidt connects the name with fulgere and fulmen 4 . Hephaistos is not one of the seven astral deities of the East, who stood in relation to seven metals. It is doubtless in a double or plural tradition that we are to seek the explanation of our finding Hephai- stos, on the one hand, bearing the marks of antiquity which belong to a Nature-Power, and, on the other 1 II. ii. 426. 2 II. v. 9. 3 Alban. Studien, p. 252. 4 Beckmann, Inventions, Art. Metals. U 29O JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. hand, made known to us as an infant, the offspring of Zeus and Here, whose mother sought to hide him, that is to put him out of the way, on account of his lame- ness : a sure sign that, in the view of Homer, he was, so far as regards his higher character of Art-master, a deity of more recent introduction. This part of the tradi- tions can relate to no mere fire-god. He is saved by Thetis, the grand mediatress of the Theogonies, and Eurunome, the daughter of Okeanos ; and hid by them in a submarine cavern, where, with the tidal flood of ocean ever gurgling in his ears, he spends his time for nine years in working clasps, and necklaces, and other trinkets. Such an assemblage of images is highly Phoe- nician, that is to say Eastern, in its colour. The combination in this place of Thetis, a sea-god- dess, and the ocean-deity, is remarkable ; and stands, I think, alone in Homer. I understand it to betoken the dual course of tradition relating to Hephaistos. The Okeanos of Homer is the sire of gods, or their source ?. This may indeed relate to the Nature-Powers, rather than to the Olympian gods, from whom Okeanos stands somewhat widely apart. If so, Eurunome has her share in the transaction as a representative of the older dynasty of gods, and Thetis as a personage who has the entree to the newer circle. But it seems more probable that as Okeanos, the father of Perse, and father-in-law of Helios, has strong Eastern associa- tions, Eurunome represents the newer and higher character of Hephaistos imported from the East, and that Thetis, according to her own stock, befriends him as a Nature-Power. Both the water of Ocean, and the connection of fire 1 II. xiv. 201. VIII .], THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 29 1 with fine art in metals, probably attach Hephaistos to the channels of Phoenician, in its widest sense of Eastern, tradition : while he may have represented the simple element of fire in the Peiasgian systems of religion. The latter relation accounts for his being wor- shipped in Troas, even while he is one of the deities who, following his chief bent, takes decidedly, though not passionately, the Greek part in the quarrel. And, accordingly, it is under the rude conception of mere fire that he is matched, in the Theomachy, with the river Xanthos, whom he exhausts by drying up the stream, and thus sorely afflicts, until Here intercedes. Through all his other marked operations in the Poems, Hephaistos, instead of resolving himself into the element, remains entirely anthropomorphic, although he is so far from satisfying the Greek ideal of a god in respect of form. He is such in the Olympian banquet at the close of the first Book, at the smithy or forge in his own palace, and again in the lay of Demodocos. Married to Aphrodite in the Odyssey, he appears in the Iliad as the husband of Charis 1 . Now Aphrodite is a real member of the mythological system, whereas Charis is loosely and faintly delineated, and seems almost to hover between an idea and a person. Some have treated these two representations as discrepant, and have used them in support of the theory, which separates the authorship of the two Poems. Others (myself included) may have suggested modes of recon- ciliation between them, which are insufficient 2 . Having now arrived, I think, at adequate proof of the Eastern or Phoenician character of the mythology, as well as 1 Od. viii. 269 ; II. xviii. 382. 2 Studies, vol. ii. p. 257. U 7, 292 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. the scenery, of the whole sphere of the Voyages, I find in this fact the simplest explanation of a difference, which, instead of any longer impeaching, rather tends to sustain the unity of authorship. Hephaistos and Aphrodite, as husband and wife, owe that relation prob- ably to a Syrian or Syro-Phcenician source. Hephaistos and Charis, in the sense of the Hellenic mythology, together represent, with a perfect propriety, the strength and the grace, the beauty or charm, which require to be combined in works of Art. Nagelsbach, accordingly, treats this marriage as allegorical 1 . The Poems, however, establish a relation, be it alle- gorical or not, between the Charites and Aphrodite ; for the Charites receive her on her return from the scene of the Net to Cyprus, where they bathe, anoint, and vest her. One junior of their band, promised by Here as a wife to Hupnos, or the god of sleep, in Lem- nos, is named Pasithee. Two handmaids of Nausicaa in Scherie draw their beauty from the Charites. There is therefore some evidence to give them a personality beyond that which the single mind of the Poet can confer. Their relation to Eastern personages suggests that they may have had a place in Eastern tradition ; while it seems that they acquired with time a recog- nised character and worship in Greece 2 . Professor Max Miiller derives their name, as well as that of the Harits or horses of the Sun, from the Sanscrit root ghar, to glitter, to render brilliant by oil 3 . The deity of Hephaistos is matchless within the sphere of his own art. It is in concert with Athene, that 1 Horn. Theol. p. 114. 2 Welcker, vol. i. p. 696. Dr. Schmidt in Smith's Diet, sub ] Section XVIII. Themis. Slightly as her outline is drawn, we cannot refuse to reckon Themis among the ordinary members of the Olympian Court, for the simple reason that we find her actually installed there. When, in the absence of Zeus, Here enters the company of the Immortals, and they rise in honour of her 1 , it is from Themis, who came first to meet her, that she accepts the cup of greeting. This is evidently because she had been pre- siding : for Here, who is troubled at the view, invites her to continue to preside 2 . Again, in the Twentieth Iliad, all the deities, in- cluding the minor Nature-Powers (whom Homer prob- ably recognises as divine because they continued to hold their ground in local worship), are invited to the Great Assembly which is to decide finally the fate of Troy: and it is Themis who summons them 3 . In the Second Odyssey, Telemachos describes himself as making his prayer to Zeus, and to Themis, who collects and dissolves public assemblies generally. Nevertheless, I apprehend we are not to look for her origin in any foreign traditions, but simply to re- gard her as a creation of the Hellenic mind 4 , and probably of the mind of our Poet himself. Like Hebe she represents, in the main, the deification of an im- personated idea 5 . In reference to terrestrial affairs, the name Themis signifies civil right, and is the basis on which are 1 II. xv. 85. 2 II. xv. 95. 3 II. XX. 4. * Od. ii. 68, 69. 5 Welcker, Gr. Gotterlehre, i. 700. 328 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. founded the relations of the whole political and social order. If Olympos was to be fashioned into a quasi- commonwealth, such a personage could hardly be dis- pensed with in its formation, among a race with whom the political spirit was so strong as among the Greeks of the heroic age. Even Hestie, who represents the principle of the family order, in the same way as Themis represents the groundwork of the State, though she is not imper- sonated by Homer, yet is at the least on her way to impersonation, and attains fully to it after his time. She was less necessary to the theogonic scheme of the Poet j for, though the family is involved in the Olympian arrangements, it does not embrace the whole of them, whereas Olympos gives the complete picture of a Court and a Polity. Harm 1 derives the name of Themis from defx, c l speak,' and observes that the statue of this deity was placed over against the bema of the orators in Athens. Section XIX. Paieon. In the Fifth Iliad, Dione recites that when Aides, wounded by Heracles, repaired to Olympos, Paieon (or Paian) applied anodyne drugs to his shoulder, and healed him 2 . It is evident that the presence of this deity there, as the healer, was regarded by the Poet as habitual^ for when Ares has been wounded by Diomed, and appears in the palace of Zeus, his father, after rebuking him, commands Paieon 3 to heal him, which accordingly is done forthwith, as by one at hand. 1 Alban. Studien, p. 253. 2 II. v. 395-402. 3 II. v. 399. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 329 In the Fourth Odyssey, Helen, after using the drug, which produces the effect of opium, and may indeed be opium, states that she obtained it from the Egyptian Poludamna, wife of Thon x ; and adds that every Egyptian is eminently a physician, since they are of the race of Paieon. Apollo is a healer as well as Paieon : but while Paieon heals by instrumental causes after the manner of a man, Apollo heals Glaucos immediately, as by a divine action 2 . The Phaiakes are called angchitheor, near to divine, because the royal house of Alkinoos is descended from Poseidon. Something like this may be meant with respect to the Egyptians and Paieon: or just possibly they may be called children of Paieon for no other reason than their medical skill, without actually imply- ing that the traditions relating to the person of Paieon were Egyptian. But the word Paieon, which is the name of this deity, is also twice used in the Iliad for a hymn : first for the hymn of purgation, addressed to Apollo, after the offence of the First Book has been expiated ; secondly for the hymn of triumph sung by the Greek soldiers over the lifeless body of Hector 3 . A singular relation is thus established between Paieon and Apollo, somewhat like that between the Sun and the same deity ; as though Homer had not been willing to treat as amalgamated, or even had actually severed into two personages traditions which had already, and elsewhere, been combined; for the reason that parts of them did not seem to be of sufficient elevation to 1 Od. iv. 227 seqq. 2 See supra, sect. viii. 3 II. i. 473 ; xxii. 381, 330 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. suit the rest, and to be proper for the equipment of so gorgeous a figure as his Apollo. The name paian became subsequently the estab- lished name of those Hymns to Apollo, which were sung in connection with victory and deliverance, espe- cially, as it seems, upon a completed act of puri- fication 1 . Welcker observes that, even down to a late epoch, the separate personality of Paieon had not altogether been submerged, as Cicero mentions a statue to him 2 . It is however possible that he may be, like Hebe, a purely ideal personage, not rooted in former or in foreign tradition, and representing in a physical way the office of healing in Olympos itself, as Hebe repre- sents the faculty of youth among the divine race. Section XX. Iris. Iris, constantly introduced in the Iliad as the ordi- nary messenger between Olympos and mankind, and likewise among the gods themselves, is nowhere men- tioned in the Odyssey. Yet the name of Iros is given to Arnaios the vagrant, because it naturally fell to him to circulate messages and news; and it is evidently derived from, or from the same source with, the name of this deity 3 . Her office in the Iliad is not exclusive. Themis is the pursuivant who summons the gods to the great assembly 4 ; and Hermes is the envoy or agent who, in 1 Muller's Dorians, vol. i. pp. 319, 320. (Transl.) 2 Welcker, Gr. Gotteslehre, vol. i. p. 695. 3 Od. xviii. 7. 4 II. xx. 4. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. 33 1 consequence of the general resolution of the gods re- specting the body of Hector, is employed to conduct Priam to and from the presence of Achilles 1 . In the Odyssey, Zeus does not act in his individual capacity, but only as head of the Olympian Court ; and Iris is his personal messenger rather than the agent or envoy of the Olympian Court. There is therefore no obvious place for her in a poem where the conduct of affairs rests, in the Greek sphere, with Athene, and beyond that sphere either with Poseidon, or with the collective body of the gods. The name of Iris is also the Greek name for the rainbow; and the correspondence is very remarkable between her office of messenger from heaven to man, and the traditional function of the rainbow as a sign that the great covenants of Nature remain undisturbed 2 . As it is only by the tradition recorded in Scripture that the rainbow has this meaning, and not by any obvious natural significance, it appears hard to explain how Homer came to combine the two ideas, except by sup- posing that his race drew the association from the same early source from which Moses and the earlier de- scendants of Abraham obtained it. It is true that -Homer nowhere recognises the relation of the Messenger-Goddess to the rainbow. He does not, even on any high occasion, assign to her an epithet of colour. But this is precisely of a piece with his manner of separating the deities of his anthropomor- phic system from the mere Nature-Powers of other theogonies : his Zeus from the Air, his Apollo from the Sun, his Artemis from the Moon. Iris as the Rainbow would have been wholly out of place in Olympos. 1 II. xxiv. 333 seqq. 2 Genesis ix. 12-15. $$1 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. This separation from the older deities he has marked, in the case of Iris, after a most curious fashion. In the Twenty-third Iliad 1 , she carries to the palace of Ze- phuros the prayer of Achilles for a Wind to consume the pyre of Patroclos. She finds the Winds at table, and they eagerly solicit her to sit and feast with them. She answers that she has not time : if she tarries, she will lose her share of a banquet which the Ethiopians are just about to provide in their country for the Immor- tals. This want of time is evidently an excuse devised by good manners : in truth, the higher deity of the Olym- pian order will not stoop to keep company with the mere agents of Nature. And this, although Homer has given them animation, for Boreas is the Sire of the Trojan mares 2 . His impersonation, then, was not a human one, like that of the Olympian system. In the case just mentioned, the prayer of Achilles is addressed to the Winds. But apparently the Poet does not allow them the faculty of hearing when they are invoked ; for it is Iris who, spontaneously it appears, charges herself with the supplication, and in the cha- racter of metanggelos, inter-messenger, carries it to them. In one 3 other case, when she appears to Helen, and exhorts her to repair to the Wall of Troy, no one is named as sending her ; but as she has here the title of messenger expressly attached to her name, it is prob- able that we are to understand she is despatched by Zeus. When, however, Aphrodite is wounded by Diomed, in the Fifth Iliad, Iris comes to her assistance 4 , and 1 198-212. 2 II. xx. 223. 3 II. iii. 121. 4 353, 365. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. $<$<$ here, without doubt because her action is spontaneous, she is not called messenger. She drives the chariot of Ares, which carries the wounded goddess to Olympos. Though Iris hears prayer, she does not appear to be an object of worship, and her spontaneous action is confined to the business of the gods. It serves perhaps additionally to mark her Hellenic character that, when she appears to Achilles, she is without disguise, and is addressed by him in her proper character 1 ; but when she addresses 2 Priam it is with the voice of Polites, and she comes 3 before Helen in the character of her sister-in-law Laodike. When she carries the order of Zeus to Priam, in the Twenty-fourth Book, she an- nounces herself as the messenger of Zeus, but there is no proof or even sign of his being acquainted with her personally 4 . Her mission to Achilles is remarkable, because she is sent by Here. In this instance alone, she obeys the order of a deity other than Zeus 5 . It is one of the instances in which Here exhibits a command over aerial phenomena, apparently in virtue of her wifehood ; and it bears an independent witness to the connection between Iris and the rainbow. In every other case (I think) Iris is sent personally by Zeus, from the message for Priam in the Second Book of the Iliad, to those for Thetis 6 and Priam in the Twenty-fourth. By much the most important errand with which she is intrusted is the mission to Poseidon in the Fifteenth Iliad, where she carries the order for his withdrawal from the field of battle. Supporting it with skill and 1 II. xviii. 182. 2 II. ii. 791. 3 II. iii. 121. 4 11. xxiv. 173. • 5 II. xviii. 268. 6 II. xxiv. 77. 334 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. persuasiveness, she by these means induces him to obey ] . Section XXI. Thetis. Thetis is not to be regarded as properly an Olym- pian deity in the restricted sense of the phrase ; yet by reason of her great influence in the Iliad, she is entitled to a marked position of her own. The origin of Thetis in Homer is elemental only, and her attributes as a goddess are feeble. She does not act upon the course of Nature ; she does not in- fluence the mind : her powers of knowledge and vision are limited ■ she deplores her own lot among the Im- mortals j she is subject to weeping; she was married to Peleus much against her will. In no single instance throughout the Iliad does she exercise any divine power : nor is there in the Poem the faintest sign of worship as paid to her in any place. But while her power, strictly so called, is thus bounded, her influence and consequence are immense. She is the pet deity of the Poet ; or rather the engine he has chosen to carry through his theurgic process. It is her request to Hephaistos, that in a moment sets him to work upon the arms for Achilles; and when, in answer to the summons of Zeus, she repairs to Olympos, she is received with an extraordinary respect. But the chief act performed by her is the exercise of influence over Zeus in the First Book, where she overcomes his undis- guised reluctance to act, growing out of his fears of a conjugal quarrel j and obtains his assent to her petition or demand, that the Trojans may prevail in the war, 1 II. xv. T57-219. 1 VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 33$ until the Greeks shall have made full reparation to her son Achilles 1 . This is termed Zgaio-ios aprj 2 ; a prayer lying outside the provisions of destiny and the moral order, or one which caused them to vary from their course. The meaning of the phrase is not hard to discover. The cause of the Trojans in the war was radically unjust. The moral law required their discomfiture. In this channel ran the main stream of justice and of Provi- dence. The request of Thetis was not in itself unjust, for her son, who had so powerfully fought for the just cause, had been deeply wronged by Agamemnon, the head of the Greeks. But it tended to delay the con- summation of a greater justice in a world-wide quarrel j and for a time it set aside the moral purpose of divine government. Interposing a secondary obstacle, it de- flected the current from its course; and an immense influence . must be supposed to have been possessed by Thetis, who, and who alone, by her personal interven- tion, produced this extraordinary effect. While she is thus a deity of far greater importance than her rank in the preternatural order would lead us to suppose j there is no personage, either sublunary or celestial, that appears to bear more or deeper marks of the moulding hand of the Poet. Some find in her only a transposition of the primitive but obsolete deity Tethus, the wife of old Okeanos. Her name Thetis also appears to be found in the deti of the Albanian tongue, meaning the sea 3 . On the other hand, as one of some thirty or forty daughters of Nereus, himself an elemental god, though practically superseded by Posei- 1 II. i. 505-510. 2 II. xv. 598. 3 Hahn, Alban. Studien. p. 252. 2$6 JUVENTUS MUNDL [CHAP. don, there is really no regular place for her in Olympos. She has all the appearance of a character shaped and turned to account for the purposes of the Poem : while, at the same time, there are functions ascribed to her which seem to imply a higher parentage than that assigned to her, and to support the hypothesis which makes her a reflection, as it were, of an older deity. For though, of the regular Olympian divinities, Aphro- dite is among the lowest, she is expressly declared to be of a higher order than Thetis 1 . In her marriage to Peleus, there is nothing that re- sembles the clandestine or lawless and transitory con- nections with mortals, that are ascribed to Demeter, to Aphrodite, and to the Nymphs. It is the result of solemn divine Counsel 2 , and it is celebrated by the whole Olympian Court. She had habitually sat 3 as Queen in the palace of Phthie, and in the discharge of her motherly cares she had supplied Achilles with a chest of garments for the war 4 . Though at first sight the birth of Achilles may seem to be the counterpart of that of ^Eneas, they are really opposed in every feature : the one is lawful, solemn, permanent wedlock, the other occasional and secret lust. Thetis herself, indeed, appears to have been reluctant at the time to marry Peleus j and she rendered obedience only to an order of the gods in general. The purpose of the Poet in giving this high and un- exampled sanction to the union, is not difficult to trace. For her agency is the hinge on which turns, in the first place, the reconciliation of the old and the new The- ogonies; in the second, of the Pelasgic and the Hel- 1 II. xx. 106. 2 II. xviii. 85; xxiv. 59. 3 II. i. 396 ;• xvi. 574. 4 II. xvi. 221-224. 1 VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 337 lenic nationalities ; in the third, of the rival purposes of the gods (so far as the general scheme of Homer admitted them) with regard to Troy. I think we may find, that the marriage of Peleus to Thetis signifies and records the union, both on earth and in Olympos, of the Pelasgian and Hellenic systems. The worship of Zeus, as we know, was Pelasgian, and therefore pre-Hellenic. The revolt of the three great deities of the new scheme, Here, Athene, and Poseidon, against him, seems to signify the tendency of the new worship, with its anthropomorphic or human- ising forces, to effect the overthrow of the former creed, cherished by the older but less intelligent and less powerful population. And the pure Nature-Powers indeed disappear ; but Zeus, whose relation with Nature is in its most refined region, that of air, and who repre- sents, too, the central principle of Theism, survives the change. The agency employed for his relief is that of the hundred-handed giant, called Briareus by the gods, that is, in relation to the old religion, but Aigaion by men, that is, under the new 1 . It seems to be in virtue of his being a giant that he is the son of Poseidon ; but his having a place both in the old and the new Theogo- nies evidently fits him to be the reconciler, and his being under the influence of Thetis, which is shown by his obeying her call, harmonises with her double relation. That relation is again indicated by her good offices to the child Hephaistos, whose adoption into the Hellenic Theogony, notwithstanding his Pelasgian asso- ciations and his leaning to an elemental character, she seems to have procured 2 . 1 II. i. 403. 2 II. xviii. 394-407. See sect. ix. Hephaistos. Z 338 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. And in yet a third instance do we find her discharg- ing a like office. Such were the troubles excited by the introduction of the worship of Dionusos, that it seems to have been all but cast out of the country ; but, as we have already seen, she gave him a refuge, which he appears to have requited with the gift of a golden (or gilded) amphora, the work of Hephaistos \ For this office of reconciler between the creeds and ideas of the two nationalities, she has been carefully prepared by the fancy and skill of the Poet. Inde- pendently of the apparent association with Tethus, she is rooted in the Pelasgian system by her owning Nereus for a father. An ample counterpoise, however, has been provided, and in part by a most curious contriv- ance. She is the mother of Achilles, who is himself the highest specimen of the pure Hellenic type, and whose Phthian country is, in a pre-eminent sense, already the land of Hellenes and Achaians. Something, however, is added, that the transition may not be too abrupt, and that an Hellenic colour may be made to attach even to the extraction of the great hero. In the Eighteenth Iliad 2 , when his mother issues from the depths, she is followed by a long train of sisters ; and the names of no less than thirty-three of them are given in a string. No catalogue of names approaching to this length is to be found anywhere in Homer. The nearest to it is in the Eighth Odyssey, where he de- scribes his Phaiakes repairing to their Games 3 . Here he gives in rapid succession the proper names of sixteen youths of Scherie. On examination, we find that every one of them has relation to ships and navigation. It is 1 II. vi. 136. Od. xxiv. 73. 2 II. xviii. 39-49. 3 Od. viii. 111-116. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 339 therefore evident that the long list has a meaning. He desires to illustrate the especial, if not exclusive, devo- tion of the people to nautical pursuits. Now, on ex- amining in a similar manner the catalogue of Nereids, we find that their names, instead of being, as is often the case with his Immortals, of an etymology that cannot be ascertained, are in nearly every instance pure Hellenic appellations, and that they even include the name Doris 1 . It is extremely difficult to suppose that Homer should have deviated so widely from his usual practice as to these lists, without a reason. And the reason seems to be obvious ; namely, his desire to give a sort of Hellenic character to the family of Ne- reus, (whose name he never introduces except once in the patronymic,) as the maternal ancestry of Achilles. From the obligations thus conferred, Thetis is in a condition to use urgency, though not authority, with Zeus ; and honour is done to her son at the expense of the Greek army, notwithstanding the murmurs and devices of the Hellenising deities. In like manner, she has no difficulty in obtaining from Hephaistos, on a similar ground, the gift of the Arms. In each case it is not a mere act of grace and favour, but the requital of a benefit received. In the case of Zeus, it is the more noteworthy, because the prayer of Thetis is declared to be in the nature of a deviation from the appointed course of destiny 2 , which had long ago fixed the down- fall of Troy 3 . And again he signifies his attachment to her, when, though most of the gods recommended that the body of Hector should be removed by stealth, he arranges that she shall have an opportunity of giving 1 II. xviii. 45. 2 II. xv. 598. 3 II. ii. 305-330. Z 2 340 JUVENTUS mundi. [chap. glory anew to her son, by advising him to accept the ransom 1 which is to be offered by Priam. The other principal particulars given us respecting Thetis are as follows. During the action of the Poem she habitually resides with c the old man her father/ in the depths. We may suppose that this was because she was now released from any direct maternal duties in the house of Peleus. Here was her nurse ; and was the special designer of the marriage 2 . Here again we observe the meeting of Hellenic and Pelasgic elements. The undisguised re- luctance of the bride 3 may have been due to her pre- vision of the time when Peleus her husband would be overtaken by old age; but I rather think it may have been inserted by Homer in order to separate the case of Thetis broadly from those of Demeter and Aphrodite. She has an union of strong human affections with the fainter attributes of deity. Besides what we have already seen, she hears from beneath the prayer of Achilles, but then he offers it from the shore, and looking seawards 4 . She also hears his wail over Pa- troclos ; but it was an awfully loud one J. She herself joined in the audible lament 6 . She was aware of his appointed destiny 7 , but was under the necessity of applying to him to know the cause of his grief. So at least she asserts, though her own son seems to contradict her 8 . She suggests to him to seek comfort in sensual indulgence 9 . In his sorrow, however, she 1 11. xxiv. 107-111. 2 11. xxiv. 60. 3 11. xviii. 434. 4 11. i- 348-351. 5 11. xviii. 35. 6 11. xviii. 37, 71, et alibi. 7 11. i. 416-418 ; xviii. 95. 8 11. : 9 11. xxiv. 130. i. 363, 365; xviii. 63. VIII. J THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 341 watches over him night and day, besides inspiring him with courage for the field 1 . And when summoned, to Olympos in the matter of Hector's ransom, she appears there in deep mourning 2 . Upon entering the divine Assembly, she is received with the utmost deference, Athene yielding her place by Zeus, which Thetis takes 3 . This may be a pro- ceeding of delicate courtesy, having reference either to her sorrowing state, or more probably to the honourable customs of hospitality. On repairing to Hephaistos to obtain the Arms, she dispatches her sisters to inform old Nereus of what had happened 4 . When the gift is ready, she herself, de- scending like a falcon from Olympos, carries the Arms to the tent of Achilles 5 . The point of the sea, at which she dwells with her father, is between Samothrace and Imbros 6 . She came once more to the camp on the yet more sorrowful occasion of the death of Achilles 7. She then appointed the great contest between Ajax and Odysseus for the arms of the departed hero 8 . She supplied the famous urn, to receive his ashes ; which was the work of Hephaistos, and the gift of Dionusos. She also sup- plied the prizes for the funeral games 9 , which she ob- tained from the other gods, more richly endowed, as is probable according to the idea of the Poems, than herself. The epithets applied to Thetis are generally con- nected with her marine extraction, and of these Argu- ropeza, the silver-footed, is the most characteristic j or else they relate to her good disposition. 1 II. xxiv. 72 ; xix. 37. 2 II. xxiv. 93. 3 II. xxiv. 100. * II. xviii. 139-147. 5 II. xviii. 616; xix. 2. 6 II. xxiv. 78. 7 Od. xxiv. 47, 55. 8 Od. xi. 556. 9 Od. xxiv. 85. 342 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHi IP; She is plainly not an Olympian deity in the sense of belonging to the ordinary Assembly. Of this her reception as a guest in the Twenty-fourth Book appears to be a positive sign ; and it is in harmony with all that we can see of her origin. Most of the later tradition respecting Thetis appears to be but arbitrary comment and embellishment. The authentic data are few. She had a temple, according to Strabo, between Old and New Pharsalos, in Thessaly ; doubtless owing to traditions of local worship, which had grown out of the distinguished honours assigned to her in the Poems 1 . Pausanias mentions a case in which, during the Messenian wars, a priestess of Thetis, named Geo, was taken and found to have in her pos- session an ancient wooden statue of the deity. This appears to have been the only temple to her which existed south of Thessaly 2 ; but there was a tale of a statue of her, planted by Menelaos over against Cranae 3 , on his return from his wanderings. It is not improbable that, after the Troica, there may have been tendencies to establish this worship, and that they were afterwards effaced from the want of a sufficient basis for such a divinity. Hesiod adds nothing to the Homeric account 4 . I cannot help leaning to the belief that, whether she is or is not a transformation of Tethus, she is, in most of what we hear of her, a creation of Homer for the purposes of his work ; and that, as the Poet of Greece, engaged in building up her nationality and religion, he has employed her as a most effective instrument for signifying that union of ethnical and theogonic elements, 1 Strabo, ix. p. 431. 2 Paus. iii. 14, 4. 3 Paus. xx. 2. 4 Theog. 244, 1006. VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 343 which he in part commemorated, and in part brought about. With reference to the etymology of her name, it is perhaps worthy of remark that the only office of media- tion at all resembling hers is ascribed to Tethus, who, with her husband Okeanos, gives shelter and nurture to Here 1 , at the great crisis when Zeus was thrusting his father Kronos down to the Underworld 2 . 1 II. xiv. 201-204. 2 It would be matter of great interest to know how far, apart from any theory, the names of the Hellenic divinities are really derivable from the Sanscrit : and in the recent work of M. Jacol- liot, La Bible dans I'lnde, a list of many of them is given with Sanscrit roots, in many cases seemingly appropriate. But for one ignorant like myself of that language, this etymology must rest upon authority: and the general propositions of M. Jacol- liot's work are not sufficiently restrained and circumspect at once to inspire confidence in his judgments. CHAPTER IX. Further Sketch and Moral Aspects of the Olympian System. I. Various Orders of Preternatural Beings. I have dwelt largely on the Olympian Deities. The goddess Thetis has received a separate supplemental notice, on account, not of her mythological rank but of her essential share in the machinery, both human and theogonic, of the Iliad. Also it is essential to give some attention to the deities or impersonations con- nected with Duty, Doom, and Justice. With respect to all other preternatural figures appearing in the Poems, it will nearly suffice to present their names according to the classification which has been already stated. i. The Nature-Powers : — Okeanos: the source of deities {Oe&v ylvecris). II. xiv. 201. Tethus: the mother of deities. II. xiv. 201. These two were married, but estranged. II. xiv. 206. It is probable that Homer intends by these expres- sions to represent Okeanos and Tethus as the general parents of the various dynasties of gods ; and it can THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 345 only be from a supreme respect to Okeanos that, when all other Rivers are summoned to the Great Olympian Assembly, he alone is not called \ because he could not appear there in his proper place, as head and Sire of all. Gaia. In the Underworld. The word means Land, rather than Earth. Nereus. In the sea. Never expressly named ; but only called c the aged father of Thetis/ and signified in the patronymic of Nereides. Kronos and Rhea. In Tartaros. Welcker thinks that Kronos (Time) is a mythical reflection from the conception of Zeus, who alone has in Homer the title ofKronides. Rhea he takes, as kindred to Era 2 , to be an Earth-goddess of one of the old associated races of the Greek Peninsula. Rhea is clearly placed in associa- tion with Okeanos and Tethus, by her de- livering over Here to their care. Amphitrite, the moaning sea (dyaoroz/oj), is men- tioned in the Odyssey ; in a very faint personi- fication. In later mythology, she becomes a wife of Poseidon. The passages where she is named, as well as the fact that she is only named in this poem, well admit of our re- ferring her to the circle of Phcenician tra- ditions 3 . 2. The Minor Nature-Powers : — The Rivers : of whom are specially named — Xanthos or Scamandros. II. xx. 74. Asopos. Od. xi. 260. Spercheios. II. xxiii. 144. 1 II. xx. 4. 2 Welcker, i. 143; ii. 216. 3 Od. iii. 91 ; v. 422 ; xii. 60, 97. 346 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. Alpheios. II. xi. 728. Enipeus. Od. xi. 238, Axios. II. xxi. 141, 157. The Nymphs — Daughters of Zeus. II. vi. 420. Od. vi. 105. The Mountain Nymphs. II. vi. 420. The Grove Nymphs. II. xxi. 8. The Fountain Nymphs. II. xiv. 144; xx. 384; xxi. 9. Od. xiii. 356. The Meadow Nymphs. II. xxi. 9. The Nymph Abarbaree. II. vi. 22. Worship of Nymphs. Od. xiv. 435. Their Altar. Od. xvii. 211. The Nymphs mentioned thus far are named as having been summoned to the Great Olympian Assembly. The Nymphs of the Sun, Lampetie and Phaethousa. Od. xii. 132. Their mother is Neaira. Od. xii. 133. The Nereids, sisters of Thetis, dwelling in the sea. II. xviii. 37. The Winds : never admitted to Olympos ; but worshipped; viz. Zephuros. II. xxiii. 195, 200, 208. Boreas. II. xx. 223; xxiii. 195, 208. (Notos and Euros are not mentioned as separate impersonations.) 3. Mythological Personages of the Outer, or Phoeni- cian Sphere. Helios, father of Aietes and Kirke. Od. x. 138. Kirke. Od. x. 136. Calypso, daughter of Atlas. Od. i. 52. IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 347 Ino Leucothee. Od. v. 333. A deified mortal. Proteus. Od. iv. 385. Declared to belong to Egypt. Atlas, the Pillar-bearer, and sea explorer. Od. i. 52. Maias, mother of Hermes. Od. xiv. 435. Thoosa. Od. i. 71. Phorcus. Od. i. 72. c Ruler of the sea: 3 in relations with Poseidon through his daughter Thoosa. Aietes, brother of Kirke. Od. x. 137. Perse, mother of Kirke and Aietes. Od. x. I 39' Aiolos. Od. x. 2. A semi-deified mortal. The Sirens : two in number. Od. xii. 52. 4. The Rebellious Powers are — Kronos (probably). II. xiv. 203. Titans (perhaps). II. xiy. 279. The Giants. Od. vii. 59^ 60. Tituos. Od. xi. 576. Otos and Ephialtes. Od. xi. 305 seqq. But it is not easy to distinguish in all cases between powers rebellious, and powers simply deposed or super- seded. Passages relating to the punishment of rebellious powers, according to the Sacred or Hebrew tradition, are to be found in Job xxvi. 5; Prov. ii. 18, xxi. 16; cf. Gen. vi. 4, 5; in 2 Pet. ii. 4, 5- Wisd. xiv. <5, Ecclus. xvi. 7j Baruch iii. 26, 28. 5. Ministers of Doom. Ate. Erinues. Moira, Moirai, Aisa, Kataclothes. These will be mentioned severally. 348 JUVENTUS MUNDI, [CHAP. 6. Poetical Impersonations. The Muses, daughters of Zeus : their number is only mentioned by Homer in Od. xxiv. 60. The invocation is most commonly in the singular. They are, however, nine in all. The Fates (Keres, Cataclothes). The Prayers (with Ate) . Ossa, Rumour. II. ii. 93; Od. xxiv. 412. Deimos, Terror. II. iv. 440, ii. 37, xv. 119. Probably son of Ares. Phobos, Panic. Ibid. A son of Ares. II. xiii. 299. Kudoimos, Tumult. Attends upon Enno. II. v - 593- Eris, Discord. II. v. 740. See supra. Chap. VIII. Oneiros, Dream. II. ii. 6-54. Hupnos, Sleep. II. xiv. 23 1 . Thanatos, Death. IJ. xiv. 231, xvi. 454, 682. Alke, Might. Jl. v. 740. Ioke, Rout. II v. 740. Arpuiai : the Storm-winds. Od. i. 241 ; re- peated xiv. 37 r, xx. 77- cf. 63. Of these Podarge is named as the mother- who bears to Zephuros the two immortal horses of Achilles, Zanthos and Balios. II. The Erinues. There are three chief descriptions of preternatural force recognised in the Homeric Poems. 1. The will and power of the Olympian deities. 2. The binding efficacy of Destiny. 3. The obligations of the moral order. The first of them may be described, from its mixed IX. J THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 349 character of truth and fable, as the Theomythology of the Poet. The second is his Necessitarianism. The third is his Deontology. But none of these are scientifically set forth or viewed ; and no one of them has an exclusive sway. In the first, a personal will is everywhere apparent ; and though this will is largely used in sustaining moral ideas, yet with them are mixed mere propensities and partialities, and even passions and vices. In the second and third, personality and will are thrown into the background. As his first rests on c shall, 3 so the second is based on the idea we convey by c must ; ' but the third is founded on c ought/ The second, if absolute, is perhaps among the most immoral and degrading of all philosophical systems; but those, who have given it a logical assent, have seldom adopted it as the rule of life ; and in Homer it has only a very limited range. It is rarely held up to us apart from some reference either to the personal will of the gods, or to the moral order ; and it never appears as the single, ultimate, overruling force. The third corresponds with the second in its gene- rally, though not invariably, impersonal character ; and the ideas belonging to the two respectively are some- times mixed in the words juotpa, which leans however to the idea of force, and cuaa and 8atjot&>z>, which con- tains more of the moral element. There is also a relation between the idea of Zeus, and that of Fate, exhibited in the remarkable phrase Alos ataa, the fate of, that is, proceeding from, Zeus. But in the rear of this law of the great Ought, or the moral order of the Universe, there is a personal agency, 350 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. which in Homer is principally charged with enforcing its observance; that namely of the 'Epivves. With the progress of time, and the growth of moral corruption, the function of these venerable ministers of Right comes more and more to be, not enforcing the observ- ance, or repairing the breach, but simply punishing the offender ; and they themselves gradually assume the power of Furies, dressed in every imaginable horror. The later pictures of them are coarse and vulgar, com- pared with the awful yet noble figures of the Erinues of Homer, in whom is really represented, more than in Zeus himself, the idea of an ultimate Divine Judgment, together with compensating and rectifying powers. The action of the Erinues is to a certain extent mixed with that of the subterranean or avenging gods. When the father of Phoenix prays the Erinues to make him childless, the imprecation is fulfilled by c the gods, and (or namely) the nether Zeus and the awful Per- sephone:' and again, when Althaia invokes these two deities for the punishment of Meleagros, it is the Eriniis who from Erebos hears, and accomplishes, the prayer 1 . The Erinues are invoked by Agamemnon to witness to his asseverated oath concerning Briseis, as punishers of the perjured ; together with Zeus, Gaia, and the Sun 2 . The Erinues of Epicaste haunt her son CEdipus 3 . In his father's house, Telemachos ap- prehends that, should he dismiss his mother, her Erinues will come upon him 4 : and Odysseus, when the Suitor Antinoos has hurled the stool at him, invokes upon him c if,' or, c for surely,' c there are such,' the gods and Erinues of the poor 5 . 1 II. ix. 449-457 and 565-603. 2 II. xix. 258-260. 3 Od. ii, 279. 4 Od. ii. 135. 5 Od. xvii. 475, 476. IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 35 1 The functions of the Erinues are not confined to mortals. They affect also the gods. When Ares is laid prostrate in the Theomachy, Athene tells him his fall is due to the Erinues of his mother Here, whose side he had abandoned 1 . And, when Iris finds it dif- ficult to induce Poseidon to obey the behest of Zeus by withdrawing from the field of battle, she reminds him that the Erinues are with the elder 2 . The horse Xanthos receives a voice from Here, to warn Achilles of his fate : when he has done it, the Erinues arrest his speech 3 . When Agamemnon has to confess his clttj or sin in the matter of Briseis, he says, c I however am not to blame, but Zeus, and Fate, and the Erlnus that stalks in cloud V When the daughters of Pandareos have received all manner of gifts by the agency of the gods, and Zeus is being asked to find them husbands, instead of this, the Harpuiai or Hurricanes, who are either storm-blasts or subordinate ministers of vengeance, carry them off, and deliver them to the Erinues to deal with 5 . Thus far, in eleven cases out of the twelve in which Homer introduces these remarkable personages, they evidently appear as the champions and avengers of the moral order, in all forms, and against all persons whatever. They are never subject to the order of any Deity. The gods indeed are subject to control, or even punish- ment, by them. Zeus is never mentioned in this relation : but their office expressly reaches to Poseidon. Their agency is wholly anterior to, and independent 1 II. xxi. 410-414. 2 11. xv. 202. 3 II. xix. 418. * II. xix. 87. 5 Od. xx. 66-78. 35% JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. of, all volition whatever. They represent Law in action. But, besides punishing offenders, they actually stop and repair infractions of the moral or settled constitution of the world, as in the case of the horse Xanthos. They therefore represent not only right as opposed to wrong, but order as opposed to disorder: and, in this respect, they supply a very characteristic product of the symmetrical mind of the Greeks. The Erinues of parents, of elders, of the poor, and the like, are the sanctions of those great relations, in which moral obligation has its roots for the mass of men. In the case of the offence of (Edipus, will was not concerned : yet it is enough for them that law was violated ; and they appear in order to avenge it. In the case of the orphan daughters of Pandareos, it is simply excess which they appear to resent. All personal gifts, even their food, were conveyed to these maidens by the direct agency of deities. This abnormal provision, lying far beyond, was therefore in derogation of, the established laws for the government of the world : it left no space for human volition, effort, or discipline. This is the probable ground for the remarkable inter- vention of the Erinues against the damsels. The twelfth and remaining case represents the close- sticking, or tenacious, Erinus 1 (baairXriTLs) as insinuat- ing an Ate or offence into the mind of Melampous. Neleus had made it a condition of obtaining the hand of his daughter Pero, that the Suitor should bring him certain oxen of Iphiclos. This Melampous undertook to do, on behalf not of himself but of a brother ; though it entailed a year's imprisonment, which as a Seer he must be supposed to have known beforehand. We 1 Compare 'Post equitem sedet atra cura.' Hor. Od. 3. 1, 40. IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 353 have to ask, in what did the offence consist? Was it an imprudence or folly thus to expose himself? or was the theft an offence against the laws of good neighbourhood or guestship ? In either case we do not escape this difficulty, that it was suggested by the Erinus. This is a representation not easily brought into accordance with any of the other Homeric re- ferences to the Erinues: which, though severe beyond the limits of justice, nowhere else appear as the in- stigators of evil. It seems to be peculiarly strange, because of the habitual care of the Erinus to maintain the established order, and not merely to punish the breach of it. It is true that, in the Odyssey, Athene is said to restrain the Suitors from discontinuing their evil deeds. But these are men who had long persisted in a pro- fligate and cruel disregard of all the laws of duty 1 . No such consideration will apply to the case of Melampous. Agamemnon, indeed, blames the Erinus for his own fault: but this is a mere excuse. The whole legend of Melampous is given in a form some- what cramped j and, like other passages in the later books of the Odyssey, suggests that it had not been fully wrought out by the Poet. Possibly, but I cannot say more than possibly, this may account for the mode in which the Erinus is introduced. We may also remark that here only she is called by the name of goddess ; which appears rather inconsistent with her position. Whether we are to regard the Erinus as really capable of being a tempter or not, the conception deviates from the highest form of rectitude by ad- 1 Od. xviii. 151, 346. a a 354 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. ministering punishment, in the case of (Edipus, to an involuntary offence. But here the elements of good greatly preponderate ; and there is something noble as well as awful in these beings, watching with so much care over constituted laws, and maintaining or restoring the equilibrium of the moral world. It is by an im- mense declension that these sublime Erinues become the savage Furies of the Latin Hades 1 . The name of Erinus is traced etymologically by Professor Max Miiller to the Sanscrit Saranyo, a name of the Dawn 2 : which, as importing discovery by means of light, would connect it with the office we have been considering. III. Ate, the Temptress. The Ate of Homer, as a person, represents a Temp- tress, who insinuates into the mind error or crime, begun in folly, and ending in calamity. Among the later Greeks it is Calamity simply, with a shadow of Destiny hanging in the distance. The Homeric Ate means and wishes ill to mortals ; but seems to have no power to hurt them, except it be through channels wholly or partially opened to her by their own erring or bewildered volition. Even Deity is not exempt from her illusions: for, before the birth of Heracles 3 , she it is who leads Zeus to promise what will, through Here's craft, overturn his own most dearly cherished plans. For this excess of daring, Zeus seizes her by the hair, and hurls her from Olympos to Earth 4 , apparently taken to be her native seat. 1 JEn.vi. 555, 571. 2 Lectures on Language, ii. 484, 516, 562. 3 II. xix. 95 seqq. i II. xix. 126-133. IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 355 For she 1 is his eldest daughter; his daughters too are the Litai, or prayers, that lag behind her. She is vigorous and nimble, prowling about for mischief. They are limping and decrepit : they cannot see straight before them 2 . In this allegory, we have man ready and quick to err, slow to repent. We have also a living power of Evil extraneous to him, and ever soliciting him to his own loss and ruin. Here is a picture in substance much resembling the Serpent of the Book of Genesis, the Satan of Scripture, and the punishment he has undergone. The temptations of Ate are to acts, also called atai, variously shaded between folly and sheer crime. The most innocent ate of Homer is perhaps the sleep of Odysseus in Thrinakie, during which his crew consume the oxen of the Sun 3 . He may, indeed, be regarded as in some sort responsible for his comrades: yet he had bound them by oath 4 not to commit the acts. We cannot be surprised if occasionally we find moral government in Homer out of joint, as in the case lately observed, where the Erinus is said to send an Ate 5 . Agamemnon complains that his Ate was sent to him by Zeus, together with Destiny and Erinus 6 ; but this is an exhibition of a weak and self-excusing character, rather than a normal example of the thought current in that age. Besides the Ate of Zeus, of Agamemnon, and of Odysseus, we have in Homer the following chief examples : Of Dolon, II. x. 391. 1 II. xix. 91. 2 II. ix. 499-514. 3 Od. xii. 372. * Od. xii. 303. 5 Od. xv. 234. 6 II. xix. 87. A a 2 $$6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. Of Melampous, Od. xv. 233. These are offences against prudence. Of Paris, II. vi. 356; xxiv. 28. Of Helen, Od. iv. 261 5 xxiii. 223. Of the Manslayer, II. xxiv. 480. Of the drunken Centaur Eurution, Od. xxi. 296-302. These are moral transgressions. The higher form of human wickedness, deliberate and self-conscious, is, as we shall see, not ate but atasthalie. IV. Fate or Doom. The words used in Homer to signify Fate, Doom, and Destiny, are Ker, also in the plural Keres; Kata- clothes ; Moira ; Aisa ; and Moros. Of these, Ker approaches most frequently to a distinct impersonation ; has the faintest trace of any moral element, distinct from the mere machinery of an iron system of decrees ; and is of the darkest colour, as it always implies doom or death, never a fated blessing. Ker again is the destiny of an individual • not of law governing the world. It is, however, on no occasion eluded or contravened. The Kataclothes or Spinners are only mentioned in Od. vii. 197. They are personal : and the epithet c weighty' or c oppressive 5 is attached to them. They partake of the character of the Keres. Neither of these touch the great questions, how far destiny overrules the human will, and how far it is separate from, or even superior to, the divine will. IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM, 357 The word Aisa means the destiny of a particular person 1 : or the moral law for the government of conduct 2 ; or that moral law as proceeding from Zeus or Providence personally, as the Dios aisa 3 , daimonos aisa : or lastly a separate power moving and ruling affairs 4 . In this last and gravest sense, Aisa is not very prominently used. Again, it is but rarely and faintly personified; it contains more of the moral element, more of ought than of must : though, when used to mean Death it is irresistible, because the law of death cannot be directly cancelled. Otherwise, it may be overcome. In II. xvi. 780, the Achaians gain the upperhand against the Trojans, in spite of Aisa. But this particular Aisa was no more than the decree of Zeus, which gave that one day of success to the fortunes of Troy. The dominant idea of Aisa generally is not blind com- mand, but an ordained law of right : a law without doubt very liable to be broken. Moira, like Aisa, means an allotted share: but it is less ethical, more contracted, and more sovereign and resistless. Moira deals with each man: but we scarcely hear of the Moira of a man. It may mean good fortune, and has this sense in opposition to am- morie 5 : it requires a darkening epithet to give it the adverse sense 6 . It is however often used for death. It may be the divine will embodied, as we have the Moira of the god, or the gods 7; but never of any named god, which seems to place it somewhat higher than Aisa. Nothing in Homer is actually done con- 1 II. i. 416. 2 II. iii. 59. 3 II. xvii. 321. * II. xx. 127 ; xvi. 441. 5 Od. xx. 76. 6 II. xii. 116. 7 Od. iii. 269; xxii. 413. 358 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP, trary to Moira: but such things seem to be regarded as not beyond the bounds of possibility \ It is not however incapable of receiving the moral element, To speak generally, morsimos is destined, aisimos is right. But when Antinoos is killed;, he is killed according to Moira 2 , that is rightly: and the term cata moiran connects it with the moral order, in the sense of propriety 3 , In the order of action, then, Moira is above Aisa; in the order of law,, below it. Moros in Homer is never personified. Referred to an individual it seems to mean his death: and etymologically it corresponds with the Latin mors. It is never associated with the deity. But it is like Aisa in receiving the sense of the moral law. And here it corresponds with the Latin mos^ moris. For mortals bring calamity on themselves in defiance of moros, and in similar defiance Aigisthos commits his crimes 4 . This can hardly mean that he was too strong for Destiny ; but he was too strong for Right. In none of these forms does Destiny ever fight with the gods ; or, unless it be in the shape of Death, defy them. The later Greek mind elaborated the idea of a Fate apart from, and higher than, the gods 5 . But, in Homer, not even the human will is controlled in such a manner as to suggest or sustain the Necessitarian theory. Indeed we find the gods helping Destiny against man : as when, in the Second Iliad 8 , the Greeks would, against Moros, have returned to their country after the 1 II. xx. 335. 2 Od. xxii. 54. s II. x. 169, 4 Od. i. 34, 35. 5 iEsch. Ag. 993 ; Herod, i. 91 ; Philem. Fragm. 86, 6 Od. i. 155. IX ] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 359 rush from the Assembly, had not Here urged Athene to stay the torrent of home-sick emotion : and Apollo entered Troy, lest the Greeks should take it, against Moros, on the day of the fall of Hector \ Nor is the Fate of Homer absolutely blind : on the contrary it shows rather a tendency at times to grow into a sort of rival Providence, as in c The Fates have ordained for man a hardy mind 2 .' And when, in order to obtain a comprehensive view of the field of human action, we turn to the general plan of the two Poems, we find that in each case they work, not according to the impulsion of a blind and occult force, but rationally, towards the fulfilment of a divine or Olympian decree, announced at the outset, and steadily pursued to the end 3 . V. Animal Worship. Although Animal worship has played so considerable a part in the religions of the East, the traces of it in Homer are few, and, with one exception, they are also faint. That exception is the extraordinary sanctity attach- ing, in the Twelfth Odyssey, to the Oxen of the Sun, which I have treated as belonging to the Phoenician system, and as foreign to the Olympian religion \ Other traces seem to be rather dubiously discoverable, as follows : 1 II. xxi. 517. 2 II. xxiv. 49. 3 II. i. 5 ; iv. 62-64. Od. i. 76-79. * See supra, Helios, Chap. VIII. * 360 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. (a) The introduction of the immortal horses, Xanthos and Balios ; the gift of speech, conferred for the mo- ment by Here on Xanthos ; and, what is of more weight, the gift of prevision, which enabled him to foretell his master's death. That gift he did not derive from the goddess. But, when he had thus spoken, the Erinus interfered to arrest this violation of the natural order 1 . (b) The assumption by deities of the forms of birds : viz: — By Athene, II. vii. 59; Od. i. 320, iii. 372, xxii. 240. Apollo, II. vii. 59. Hupnos, II. xiv. 290. Ino Leucothee (Phoenician), Od. v. ^^^. (c) The horse in Homer generally has not only a poetical grandeur, but a near relation to deity, which I am unable sufficiently to explain : but which, it seems possible, may be the reflection or analogue of the place assigned to the ox in the East. Several circumstances, and among them the practice of describing a cham- paign country as one suited to feeding the horse 2 , combine to show how completely, for the Greek, this noble creature stood at the head of the animal creation. Some have pointed to qualities belonging to the brute creation as the possible groundwork of the extra- ordinary system of religion, which regarded animals as fit objects of worship: the unity and tranquillity of animal life, which makes it, as it were, a colourless medium for an inward spirit to inhabit : and the 1 II. xix. 404-418. 2 U. ii. 287, and in fourteen other places. IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 36 1 singular instincts by which it appears in a manner to apprehend the future \ For my own part, I am not able, even after reading the argument of the learned and able Mr. Davison 2 , to escape from the belief that the hypothesis of a divine command, given before the races recorded in Scripture were multiplied and dispersed, affords by far the most rational and satisfactory explanation of the wide ex- tension of the practice of animal sacrifice, and of its remarkable uniformity as between races such as the Hebrews and the Hellenes, who had no communication together, and little indeed of anything in common. At the same time, it is an hypothesis only, and has not been demonstrated. But if mankind thus offered certain animals to their gods, under what they esteemed a divine authority, it is not difficult to perceive the chain of association by which those animals might themselves, in process of time, very easily be taken for symbols of the godhead, and might again, from being mere symbols, grow to be esteemed the real shrines of its glory, and thus to attract the worship which is its due. VI. On the Modes of Approximation between the Divine and the Human Nature. The anthropomorphic principle of the Greek religion found for itself, in a spontaneous manner, several dis- tinct forms or channels of development, for the closer association of the races of gods and men. 1 Dollinger, Heid. u. Jud. vi. 130, p. 424. 2 Inquiry into the Origin and Intent of Primitive Sacrifice. London, 1825. 362 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. The deification of heroes and benefactors after death appears before us in Homer as begun, yet, at least in the Olympian mythology, as incomplete. No per- son, avowedly of human origin, has yet been advanced to the rank of deity with the full consequences both of an abode in heaven, and a worship on earth. Yet the consummation of the process is imminent. All the materials are prepared ; and all the steps taken, except the final one which combines them into a con- sistent whole. The elements of what was soon to be a system are found in Homer principally as follows : — 1. The ascription of human forms, manners, affec- tions, passions, and other qualities, to the gods in general, lying at the root of the Homeric mythology as an anthropomorphic system, firmly lays the ground for further assimilation and intercommunion of the two orders of being. 2. Divine beauty, strength, influence, and intellect, are ascribed freely in a long list of epithets and phrases, to the mortals most eminent for these properties : and even the epithet Odos, meaning simply c divine,' is attached, in the two grand cases of the Protagonists Achilles and Odysseus, to the living personages of the Poems, and to a larger number of the most eminent among the dead. This second head of preparation is as it were the counterpart of the first. 3. Birth from a divine progenitor, and even from a divine father, is ascribed to many personages who are active in the Poems, as well as to many who were dead. 4. Passion for beautiful or distinguished men is freely ascribed to goddesses, in a number of instances. IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. $6$ Among these were some, especially Aphrodite and Demeter, who were already in part, and whom at a later date we find fully and unequivocally, adopted into the Hellenic religion. But it is remarkable that such passion is in no case throughout the Poems ascribed to any of those goddesses who were either the most elevated or else the most national : Here, Athene, Leto, Artemis. A higher and purer idea of woman was entertained among the Achaians, and reflected in their religion, than in the elemental or the oriental systems. 5. More closely to the purpose than anything that has yet been stated, are the instances of Ganymede and Cleitos, translated to heaven and the society of the Immortals for their beauty 1 : of Tithonos, taken up to be the husband of Eos or the morning ; possibly of Marpessa, whom Apollo c snatched up ' 2 : and of Ino Leucothee 3 , who locally, that is, in the great sea region, has from being a mortal risen to the honours and character of deity. Aiolos, too, may be considered as nearly approaching to the character of a deified Per- sonage 4 . These, indeed., are all foreign, or extra-Hellenic, traditions. But of Hellenes, we have Castor, and Poludeukes or Pollux, who, even while on alternate days alive though not among men, and still in the lower regions, yet have by gift of Zeus had divine honours allotted to them 5 : and more still, we have Herakles 6 , who, while his Wraith is in the Shades, himself dwells among the gods, and has Hebe, who is apparently a goddess proper, assigned to him for his mate. 1 II. xx. 233. Od. xv. 250. 2 II. ix. 564. 3 Od. v, 333-335^ * Od. x, 1. 5 Od. xi. 298-^304, 6 Od. xi. 601. 364 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 6. We have also the case of Dionusos, whom, as having been born of a woman, we must apparently take to have been at the outset a mortal, but who had, as is pretty clear, in the time of Homer already become an Olympian god. 7. Asclepios underwent a subsequent deification ; but in Homer he is a mortal only, for his sons, Podalirios and Machaon, bear the title of Asclepiad 1 , and no mortal in Homer ever derives a patronymic from a god. 8. To whatever inferences the case of Dionusos may lead, there is no other in which we find a trace or sug- gestion of worship in its proper sense, as paid to any deceased or translated hero. Yet there are two instances of what may be called initial worship, which must not be overlooked. Achilles, besides the fat of oxen and sheep, casts four horses, two dogs, and twelve Trojan youths, upon the funeral pyre of Patroclos 2 . This is, however, I think, to be interpreted purely as a gratification to the departed spirit. In the Eleventh Odyssey we advance a step further, though some may think the Oriental character of the scenery of the Poem in this part ought to be taken into account. Odysseus, by express order from Kirke, besides making a libation, sacrifices a ram and a sheep on the spot, with invoca- tion to the gods, of whom Ai'des and Persephone are named ; and permits the dead successively to drink the blood, that they may tell him what he wants to know 3 . Here we see, dominant and unmixed, that idea of actual enjoyment by the objects of the sacrifice, which in the case of ordinary offerings to the gods is combined with other ideas more proper to the notion of worship. But 1 II. iv. 204. 2 II. xxiii. 171-176. 3 Od. xi. 35, 44-47. IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. $6$ besides this, Odysseus is also enjoined to promise, and he promises accordingly, that, on his return to Ithaca, he will offer (and here the sacrificial words peCeiv and Upevetv are employed) a black sheep to Teiresias, and a cow that has never calved to the dead in general 1 . This vow seems to come within a step, at least, of the full idea of worship. We do not hear of its fulfilment on his return home: but this may be because we are not carried by the Poem to a perfect settlement of the difficulties which he finds awaiting him. Prayers (evxal and XltclI) are here expressly mentioned as used in the propitiation of the dead. But these are the entire mass of dead, not selected spirits of the great or brave. One marked, and yet rather obscure, form of the con- nection between the gods and the human race in Homer is that of divine filiation. It is with much diffidence that I offer any explanation of this subject. A very large number of cases are recorded by the Poet, in which the parentage of a god is expressly assigned to some human house or hero. In some instances it arises by infer- ence ; as when he calls Bellerophou, the son of Sisuphos, descended from the god (deov yovos 2 ), which can only mean, as Sisuphos was descended from Aiolos, that Aiolos was the offspring of a god. So, again, in the Legend of Nestor 3 , we are told that the young heroes of the line of Actor were saved from death by their ancestor Poseidon. The Iliad enables us to trace this line up to Azeus 4 , who must either have been a reputed son of the god, or may more probably have been an Aiolid, and thus descended from him, like the heads of so many 1 Od. xi. 29. 2 II. vi. 19T. 3 II. xi. 751. * II. ii. 513, 621. $66 JUVENTUS MUNDI, [CHAP. other great houses. Amphimachos, another Actorid, is slain in the Thirteenth Iliad: whereupon Poseidon is exceedingly vexed at heart for his vlvvbs or de- scendant 1 . To examine more thoroughly into this matter, let us take first for consideration the case of the great Ancient Houses, represented by their chiefs in and before the Trojan war. We find expressly assigned to Zeus the stocks of 1. Perseus, 4. Heracles, 2. Minos, 5. Minos, 3. Aiacos, 6. Dardanos. And to Poseidon those of 1. xActor (probably through Aiolos), 2. Pelias, 3. Neleus, 4. Bellerophon, through Aiolos, 5. Cretheus, (and Eumelos,) through Aiolos. Again it appears, upon examination, that Homer very commonly characterises by the epithet ajAviAuv persons of recognised divine descent. This epithet he gives to members of the families of 1. The Pelopids, 2. Odysseus, 3. Telamon. 4. Portheus (ancestor of Meleager and of Tudeus), 5. Salmoneus and Augeias (through Aiolos,) with a very few others of less distinction. But the question arises, why is Homer so reserved, in many of these cases, with respect to the immediate connection between the first ancestor and the divine stock ? The case, where we should have expected it to 1 II. xiii. 206. IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 367 be most clearly declared, is that of the great sovereign house of Agamemnon. But not a word is said by him expressly on the subject of the birth of the Pelopids; and the sceptre comes first into the hands of Pelops \ whereas tradition names Tantalos as' the first ancestor, and this Homer in no way contradicts. In the case of Dardanos, on the contrary, which is the counterpart to that of the Pelopids, the line is traced straight up to Zeus 2 . The natural explanation seems to be that, here as in so many other cases, Homer's functions as Chronicler were circumscribed by his feelings of nationality ; and that he acted on his usual rule of never knowingly re- ferring, or providing means to refer, anything Hellenic to a source admittedly foreign. Therefore, where the oldest recognised ancestor is an undoubted Greek, as in the case of Aiacos or Heracles, he gives the divine parentage; but where the line ran up to some one, who had not been completely or adequately Hellenised, there no distinct declaration is given, and we are left to form a judgment for ourselves, from slighter indica- tions, or from the fact that there is a general repre- sentation of the Kings and Chiefs of the heroic age as heaven-descended. In the case of Dardanos, there could be no corresponding motive for reticence. It will be observed, that all the very ancient houses in Homer, say those of from four to seven generations back, as well as the most distinguished modern ones, like those of Aiacos and Heracles, are referred either to Zeus, the supreme god of the Pelasgians and Hel- lenes; or to Poseidon, who appears to have been the supreme god according to the conception of the Phce- 1 II. ii. 104. 2 II. xx. 215. 368 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. nician immigrants. So far, then, as these cases are concerned, it seems needless to travel far in search of an explanatory hypothesis. In fact, if there was a tradi- tion, such as we find from the Scriptures to have pre- vailed among the Hebrews, and by which man in his first inception was viewed as standing in the relation of sonship to the Almighty, it is in accordance with all likelihood that, in process of time, this illustrious extraction should come in popular estimation to be confined to chiefs or ruling men. This explanation is however principally available for the class of Kings and Princes, who are called Zeus- born and Zeus-nurtured • and for those individual cases, which are of the greatest antiquity, and where no name of a mother is preserved. When we find a maternal name, a new element of difficulty is intro- duced. This difficulty may be deemed secondary in cases like those of Minos and Perseus ; because there the mother may be nothing more than an indication, supplied by tradition, of the national extraction of the son. The mother of Minos is simply c the daughter of an illustrious Phoenician,' and Danae has her counter- part in a local Phoenician name. But what are we to say of Alcmene, the mother of Heracles 1 ? of Lao- damia, the mother of Sarpedon 2 ? of Astuoche, the mother of Ascalaphos and Ialmenos 3 ? of Polumele 4 , the mother of Eudoros? perhaps also, of Turo, the mother of Pelias and Neleus 5 ? All these are women, having a place and an individuality as well defined as any other pre-Homeric women of the Poems. 1 II. xix. 98. 2 II. vi. 198. 3 II. ii. 513. 4 II. xvi. 180. 5 Od. xi. 235, 254. V IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 369 The explanation commonly given of these cases has been that they were cases of mere bastardy, covered with the illustrious names of deity. May it not how- ever be said that, if this be true, then nowhere did those connected with the birth of illegitimate children take so amazingly high a flight as among the Greeks • since, not content with equality, they gave them a higher title, by extraction, than the lawful offspring of the family themselves enjoyed ? Of bastardy, as com- monly understood, we have plenty of examples in the Homeric poems. Sometimes, as in the case of Eudoros, a person born out of wedlock was reared upon the same footing as a legitimate child. But when this is done, it is always mentioned as a thing worthy of note, evi- dently because more or less exceptional. I cannot help thinking that these singular cases of persons who had a known mother, and who supplied the want of a known father by claiming the parentage of a god, were not cases of common bastardy, but that they are rather to be explained by reference to the an- cient customs of what may be called marriage by violent abduction, or violation without dishonour, practised in ancient times by the men of one tribe upon the daugh- ters of another 1 . Of the traces of this custom, ancient history is full ; and even modern manners, in certain cases, aye at our very doors, visibly retain them. It seems to me that where, in the incidents of a tribal raid, some noble maid or even some matron of high birth fell a victim to the lust of an invader, it was agreeable to likelihood, as well as to social justice, that a clear line should be drawn between such cases and cases of dishonour willingly or corruptly incurred ; and 1 See Maclellan on Primitive Marriage, Edinb. 1865. Bb 370 juventus mundi. [chap, that either the involuntary mother at the time of the birth, or her offspring as he grew up, and went among his fellows without having like them a father to point to and to lean on, might exceptionally, and under favouring circumstances, have contrived to imitate for themselves the old tradition of the descent of kings from gods. The choice of the deity might in such cases be influenced by the particular worship in vogue among the aggressive tribe. The correlative cases, of legendary births due to the passion of goddesses for men, may perhaps admit of a similar explanation. The probable difference in the facts being, that these would be instances where the mother disappeared, and the child remained in the pos- session of the father. This remark may possibly apply to iEneas, son of Aphrodite ; to Aisepos and Pedasos, sons of the Naiad Nymph Abarbaree ; to Satnios, the son of another Naiad ; and to Iphition, the son of a third \ The birth of Achilles from Thetis will not fall into either of these categories* since it is represented as having taken place in regular wedlock. My conjecture respecting this birth is, that it may possibly be a pure invention, due to Homer himself, though perhaps sug- gested by the legends current in his day, respecting the attachments contracted by goddesses to mortal men. Such a fiction would be comparatively easy in the case of one who, like Peleus, was a reputed immigrant into the country which he ruled. I sum up then by observing that we find, over and above the use of language properly figurative, four main channels of approach for the human nature to the divine, 1 II. ii. 821 ; vi. 21 ; xiv. 444 ; xx. 384. IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 37 1 1. Translation. 2. Mixed Composition. 3. Affiliation. 4. Deification. And affiliation again, if I am right, appears in at least four shapes, (a) The ascription of a Divine birth or nurture to Kings and Princes as a class. (b) The ascription of a particular god as ancestor to a sovereign house. This god is always either Zeus or Poseidon. (c) More recent births from a divine father. (d) Births of men from a goddess ; few, and all recent. VII. The Homeric View of the Future State. The picture of the future state of man in Homer is emi- nently truthful as a representation of a creed which had probably fallen into dilapidation, and of the feelings which clustered about it j and it is perhaps unrivalled in the perfectly natural, but penetrating force, with which it conveys the effect of dreariness and gloom. It does not appear to be in all respects coherent and symmetrical ; and, while nothing betokens that this defect is owing to the diversity of the sources from which the traditions are drawn, it is such as might be due to the waste wrought by time and change on a belief which had at an earlier date been self-consistent. The future life, however, is in Homer used with solemnity and force as a sanction of the moral laws, especially in so far as the crime of perjury is concerned 1 . 1 II. iii. 297 ; xix. 259. B b 2 372 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. The Erinues dwell in the Underworld, and punish per- jurors. As the Erinues are invoked with reference to other offences 1 , we may therefore presume them also to have been punishable in the Underworld. The world to come is exhibited to us by Homer in three divisions. First, there is the Elysian plain, apparently under the government of Rhadamanthus, to which Menelaos will be conducted, or rather perhaps translated, in order to die there ; not for his virtues, however, but because he is the husband of Helen, and so the son-in-law of Zeus. The main characteristic of this abode seems to be easy and abundant subsistence with an atmosphere free from the violence of winter, and from rain and snow. Okeanos freshens it with Zephyrs ; it is therefore appa- rently on the western border of the world 2 . Mr. Max Miiller conjectures that Elysium (ijXvdov) may be a name simply expressing the future 3 . The whole conception, however, may be deemed more or less ambiguous, inas- much as the Elysian state is antecedent to death. 2. Next comes the Underworld proper, the general receptacle of human spirits. It nowhere receives a territorial name in Homer, but is called the abode of Ai'des, or of Ai'des and Persephone. Its character is chill, drear, and dark ; the very gods abhor it 4 . Better to serve for hire even a needy master, says the Shade of Achilles, than to be lord over all the Dead 5 . It reaches, however, under the crust of the earth ; for, in the Theo- machy, A'idoneus dreads lest the earthquake of Poseidon should lay open his domain to gods and men 6 . 1 See Erinues, sect. iii. supra. 2 Od. iv. 561-569. 3 Lectures on Language, ii. 562, n. 4 II. xx. 65. 5 Od. xi. 489. 6 II. xx. 1. Comp. Od. xi. 302. IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 373 Minos administers justice among the dead, as a king would on earth. But they are in general under no penal infliction. Three cases only are mentioned as cases of suffering : those of Tituos, Tantalos, and Sisuphos 1 . The offence is only named in the case of Tituos ; it was violence offered to the goddess Leto. Heracles suffers a strange discerption of individuality- for his eidolon or Shade moves and speaks here, while c he himself is at the banquets of the immortals 2 .' Again, Castor and Pollux are here, and are alive on alternate days, while they enjoy on earth the honours of deities 3 . Here, then, somewhat conflicting conditions appear to be combined. Within the dreary region seems to be a palace, which is in a more special sense the residence of its rulers 4 . The access to the Underworld is in the far East, by the Ocean River, at a full day's sail from the Euxine, in the country of the cloud-wrapt Kimmerioi 5 . From this point the way lies, for an indefinite distance, up the Stream ; to a point where the beach is narrow, and where Persephone is worshipped in her groves of poplar and of willow 6 . 3. There is also the region of Tartaros, as far below that of Aides, as Ai'des is below the earth. Here dwell Iapetos and Kronos, far from the solar ray 7 . Kronos has a band of gods around him, who have in another place the epithet of sub-Tartarean; and the name of Titans 8 . It does not appear whether these are at all identified with the deposed dynasty of the 1 Od. xi. 576, 582, 593. 2 Od. xi. 601-627. 3 Od. xi. 300-304. 4 Od. xi. 627, 635, 5 Od. xi. 9-14. See Chap. XIII. sect. 3. 6 Od. x. 506-512. 7 II. viii. 16, 479. 8 II. xiv. 274, 279, 374 yu vent us munbi. [chap. Nature Powers, whose dwelling is in the Underworld 1 ° y and with whom the human Dead had communication, for Achilles charges the Shade of Patroclos with a com- mission to the River Spercheios 2 . The line, therefore, between the realm of Aides and the dark Tartaros is obscurely drawn ; but in general we may say that, while the former was for men, the latter was for deposed or condemned Immortals. We hear of the offences of Eurumedon and the Giants with their ruler 3 ; and, though their place is not named, we may presume them, as well as Otos and Ephialtes, to be in Tartaros, in addition to the deities already named 4 . Hither it is that Zeus threatens to hurl down refractory divinities of the Olympian Court 5 . This threefold division of the unseen world is in some kind of correspondence with the Christian, and with what may have been the patriarchal, tradition ; as is the retributive character of the future state, however imperfectly developed, and the continuance there of the habits and propensities acquired on earth. VIII. The Olympian System in its Results. The history of the race of Adam before the Advent is the history of a long and varied but incessant pre- paration for the Advent. It is commonly perceived that Greece contributed a language and an intellectual discipline, Rome a political organisation, to the appa- ratus which was put in readiness to assist the propaga- 1 II. iii. 278. 2 II. xxiii. 144-153. s Od. vii. 60. * Od. xi. 318. II. v. 385, 407, 5 II. v. 897, 898 j viii. 10; xvii, 401-406. IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 3J5 tion of the Gospel ; and that each of these, in its kind, was the most perfect that the world had produced. I have endeavoured elsewhere to show with some fulness what was the place of Greece in the Providential order of the world 1 ; and likewise what was the relation of Homer to the Greeks, and to their part of the Divine plan, as compared with the relation of the Sacred Scrip- tures to the chosen people of God 2 . I cannot now enter on that field at large • yet neither can I part without a word from the subject of the Olympian religion. In the works of Homer, this design is projected with such extraordinary grandeur, that the representation of it, altogether apart from the general merits of the Poems, deserves to be considered as one of the topmost achievements of the human mind. Yet its character, as it was first and best set forth in its entirety from the brain of the finisher and the maker, is not more wonderful than its subsequent influence and duration in actual life. For, during twelve or fourteen hundred years, it was the religion of the most thoughtful, the most fruitful, the most energetic portions of the human family. It yielded to Christianity alone ; and to the Church it yielded with reluctance, summoning up strength in its extreme old age, and only giving way after an intellectual as well as a civil battle, obstinately fought, and lasting for generations. For the greater part of a century after, the fall of Constantinople, in the chief centres of a Christian civilisation in many respects degenerated, and an ecclesiastical power too little faithful to its trust, Greek letters and Greek thought once again asserted their strength over the 1 Address to the University of Edinburgh, 1865. 2 Studies on Homer, vol. ii. Olympos, sect. x. 376 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. most cultivated minds of Italy, in a manner which testi- fied to the force, and to the magic charm, with which they were imperishably endowed. Even within what may be called our own time, the Olympian religion has exercised a fascination altogether extraordinary over the mind of Goethe, who must be regarded as standing in the very first rank of the great minds of the latest centuries. The Olympian religion, however, owes perhaps as large a share of its triumphs to its depraved accommoda- tions, as to its excellences. Yet an instrument so durable, potent, and elastic, must certainly have had a purpose to serve. Let us consider for a moment what it may have been. We have seen how closely, and in how many ways, it bound humanity and deity together. As regarded matter of duty and virtue, not to speak of that highest form of virtue which is called holiness, this union was effected mainly by lowering the divine element. But as regarded all other functions of our nature, outside the domain of the life to god-ward, all those functions which are summed up in what Saint Paul calls the flesh and the mind, the psychic and the bodily life, the tendency of the system was to exalt the human element, by proposing a model of beauty, strength, and wisdom, in all their combinations, so elevated, that the effort to attain them required a continual upward strain. It made divinity attainable; and thus it effect- ually directed the thought and aim of man 1 Along the line of limitless desires.' Such a scheme of religion, though failing grossly in the government of the passions, and in upholding the V IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 377 standard of moral duties, tended powerfully to produce a lofty self-respect, and a large, free, and varied con- ception of humanity. It incorporated itself in schemes of notable discipline for mind and body, indeed of a lifelong education ; and these habits of mind and action had their marked results (to omit many other great- nesses) in a philosophy, literature, and art, which remain to this day unrivalled or unsurpassed. The sacred fire, indeed, that was to touch the mind and heart of man from above, was in preparation else- where. Within the shelter of the hills that stand about Jerusalem, the great Archetype of the spiritual excel- lence and purification of man was to be produced and matured. But a body, as it were, was to be made ready for this angelic soul. And as when some splendid edi- fice is to be reared, its diversified materials are brought from this quarter and from that, according as nature and man favour their production, so did the wisdom of God, with slow but ever sure device, cause to ripen amidst the several races best adapted for the work, the several component parts of the noble fabric of a Chris- tian manhood and a Christian civilisation. c The kings of Tharsis and of the isles shall give presents: the kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts V Every worker was, with or without his knowledge and his will, to contribute to the work. And among them an appro- priate part was thus assigned both to the Greek people, and to what I have termed the Olympian religion. 1 Ps. Ixxii. io. CHAPTER X. Ethics of the Heroic Age. Section I. In general outline, we may thus sum up the moral character of the Homeric Greeks, favourably regarded. A high-spirited, energetic, adventurous, and daring people, they show themselves prone to acts of hasty violence j and their splendid courage occasionally even degenerates, under the influence of strong passion, into ferocity, while their acuteness and sagacity sometimes, though more rarely, take a decided tinge of cunning. Yet they are neither selfish, cruel, nor implacable. At the same time, self-command is scarcely less con- spicuous among them than strong, and deep, and quick emotion. They are, in the main, a people of warm affections and high honour, commonly tender, never morbid : they respect the weak and the helpless ; they hold authority in reverence. Domestic purity, too, is cherished and esteemed among them more than else- where; and they have not yet fallen into the lower depths of sensual excess. ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 379 The Greek thanks the gods in his prosperity; witness the case of Laertes. It is perhaps less remark- able that in his adversity he appeals to them for aid. If, again, he is discontented, he complains of them"; for he harbours no concealed dissatisfaction. Ready enough to take from those who have, he is at least as ready to give to those who need. He represents to the life the sentiment which another great master of manners has given to his Duke of Argyle, in the c Heart of Mid Lothian' : c It is our Highland privi- lege to take from all what we want, and to give to all what they want 1 . 5 Distinctions of class are recog- nised, but they are mild and genial; there is no arrogance on the one side, nor any servility on the other. Reverence is paid to those in authority; and yet the Greek thinks in the spirit, and moves in the sphere, of habitual freedom. Over and above his warmth and tenacity in domestic affections, he prizes highly those other special relations between man and man, which mitigate and restrain the law of force in societies as yet imperfectly organized. He thoroughly admires the intelligence displayed in stratagem, whether among the resources of self-defence, or by way of jest upon a friend, or for the hurt or ruin of an enemy ; but life in disguise he cannot away with, and holds it a prime article in his creed that the tongue should habitually represent the man 2 . From these facts, if taken alone, we might be tempted to suppose, that the Greeks of the Homeric age were an inhuman and savage race, who did not appreciate the value of human life. But this is not so. They are not a cruel people. There is no wanton infliction of pain 1 Scott's Novels and Tales, 8vo. ed., x. 238. 3 II. ix.312. 380 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. throughout the whole operations of the Iliad ; no delight in the sufferings of others, no aggravation of them through vindictive passion. The only needless wounds given, are wounds inflicted on the dead body of Hector 1 . It seems to be not a disregard of human life, but an excess of regard for courage, which led them to under- value the miseries incident to violence. The character of Heracles, or Hercules, is one of which we hear much more evil than good in the Poems, if indeed we hear any good at all. The climax of his misdeeds is in the case of Iphitos, the possessor of certain fine mares. Heracles became his guest, slew him, and carried off the animals 2 . Yet, he is nowhere held up to reprobation. Indeed he seems to be a sharer of the banquets of the gods, and has Hebe for his wife ; his Shade, or Eidolon, however, dwelling in the Underworld 3 . If this passage be genuine, we can only suppose his crimes to be re- deemed, in the public judgmeut, by his courage, toge- ther with his divine extraction. And the passage is supported by the application to him of the epithet th eios, which is given in the Poems only to the two Protagonists, Achilles and Odysseus, among the living, and to the most distinguished among the dead. Cer- tainly, the indignation of the Greeks is against Paris the effeminate coward, much more than Paris the ravisher. The shame of the abduction lay in the fact that he was the guest of Menelaos 4 . And the guilt of Aigisthos finds its climax in this, that he slew Agamem- non by stealth, at a banquet, like a stalled ox 5 . Piracy, 1 II. xxii. 371. 2 Od. xxi. 24-30. 3 Od. xi. 601-604. 4 II. iii. 351-354. 5 Od. i. 35-37 5 iv. 524-535; xi. 409-420. X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 38 1 again, was regarded, at the very least, with a moral indifference 1 , which continued down to the time of Thucydides in many parts of Greece 2 . Even Odysseus, the model-prince, when he has destroyed the Suitors, and is considering how he can repair his wasted sub- stance, calculates upon effecting it in part by occasional free-booting 3 . To the principle, then, he freely gives his sanction ; although he probably attacked the Kicones as allies of Troy 4 ; and he disapproved, as it appears, of the raid upon the Egyptians, which in one of his fables he imputes to his ship's company 5 . This act is denomi- nated an outrage 6 ; and some disapproval of pirates is implied in another passage 7 . But it is faint. Piracy was a practice connected on one side with trade, and on the other with fighting; and it seems to have been acquitted of guilt for the reason that the gains of the pirate's life were the fruit of bravery combined with skill, and were not unequally balanced by its dangers. And piracy seems to have been practised only upon foreigners; of course such foreigners only as did not come within the range of any bond of guestship. Religion, however, had a considerable moral force. The connection in the age of Homer between duty on the one side, and religious belief and reverence on the other, is well seen (a) Negatively, by the faithlessness and ferocity of the Cyclops towards men, while he avows his contempt for Zeus and the gods 8 . (b) By the fact that the persons addicted to sacrifice and religious observances are with Homer the upright 1 Od. iii. 72. 2 Thuc. i. 5. 3 Od. xxiii. 357. 4 Od. ix. 40. 5 Od. xiv. 259 seqq. 6 Od. xiv. 262. 7 Od. xxiv. in. 8 Od. ix. 273-280, 356, 368-270. 383 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. and good men : such as Hector in the Iliad, and Eumaios in the Odyssey 1 . (c) As our word c righteous/ founded on right, and embracing morality, extends also to piety, so in Homer the corresponding word d i c a i o s clearly embraces duty towards the gods 2 . The Abioi 3 , an uncivilised nation, are with him c the most righteous of men.' (d) Conversely, the character of the theoudes, or god-revering man, is identified with that of the stranger-loving, and opposed to that of the insolent, the savage, and the unrighteous 4 . (e) The wicked man cannot by sacrifices secure the fruits of his crime. Aigisthos offers them in abun- dance: but the gods destroy him by the hand of Orestes 5 . (f) Though the outward act of sacrifice did not of necessity imply a corresponding frame of mind, yet it was of religious tendency. The ordinary offering, at the common meal, of a portion to the deity as the giver, may be compared with the c grace ' among Christians. In solemn celebrations, and sometimes indeed at the private meal 6 , prayer and thanksgiving were commonly combined with the rite. (g) The gods, as we have already seen, were thought, in a real though incomplete measure, to be rewarders of the good, and punishers of the bad. (h) There was a strong general belief in the efficacy of prayer, testified by its practice. We must not deny the reality of moral distinctions 1 II. xxiv. 68. Od. xiv. 420. 2 Od. iii. 132-136. 3 II. xiii. 6. 4 Od. vi. 120. 6 Od. iii. 272-275; i. 35-43. 6 Od. xiv. 423. X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 383 in Homer upon any such ground as that he sometimes describes greatness and strength by names rather de- noting virtue, and mentions, for example, the services c which the inferior render to the good 1 .' The language even of our own day has not yet escaped from this very improper confusion. We still speak of the c better classes/ and of c good society.' By him, as by us, the error is escaped in other cases : for he calls the Suitor- Princes c very inferior men 2 .' And the word a g a t h o s, or good, has unquestionably in some passages a solely moral meaning 3 : while it is never applied to any bad man or action, however energetic or successful. There was a voice of conscience, and a sentiment ranging between reverence and fear, within the breast. Sometimes this ascended to a point far higher than the mere avoidance of crime. After his conquest of the Hupoplakian Thebes, Achilles would not despoil the body of the slain king Eetion, and burned it with the precious armour on. He was restrained, not by general opinion, but by the inward sentiment called sebas 4 . To strip the corpse would have been the usual course. Telemachos endeavours, of course in vain, to arouse in the minds of the Suitors anemesis 5 of self-judgment, or sense of the moral law. To this nemesis (often inacccurately rendered as revenge) Menelaos appeals, when exciting the Greeks to defend the body of Patroclos 6 from insult. But the whole matter is best learned from an address of Telemachos to the Suitors, where he says (a) c rouse within you of yourselves a nemesis (or moral sense); and (b) an albus (a sense of honour, or regard to opinion of your fellow- 1 Od. xv. 323. 2 Od. xxi. 325. 3 II. vi. 162; ix. 341. 4 II. vi. 417. 5 Od. ii. 138. 6 II. xvii. 254. 384 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. citizens); and (c) fear the wrath of the gods 1 .' These three principles were the three great pillars of morality. The motive of albas may be stirred by the brjfxov (pans, or public sentiment, which we find to have been an engine of great power with Phcenix 2 , and even with Penelope and Nausicaa. This aidos is a sentiment which has ultimate reference to the standard of opinion; but it does not require that opinion to be in present and immediate action. It is self-judgment, according to the standard supplied by the ideas of others; as nemesis is self-judgment by the inward law. This albas ranges through a great variety of sub-meanings — defer- ence, tenderness, scrupulosity, compassion, self-respect, piety, bashfulness, honour, and every form of shame, excepting false shame. Hesiod says in his iron, or post-Homeric age, that albas, along with vixens, had vanished from the earth. With respect to blood-shedding, the morality of the Greeks of Homer was extremely loose. To have killed a man was considered a misfortune, or at most an error in point of prudence 3 . It was punished by a fine payable to relatives, which it was usual to accept in full satisfac- tion. But fugitives from their vengeance were every- where received without displeasure or surprise. Priam, appearing unexpectedly before Achilles, is compared to a man who, having had the misfortune to slay somebody, appears on a sudden in a strange place 4 . The cases of such homicides are numerous in the Poems. It may be enough to observe that Patroclos, whose character is one of great gentleness, committed 1 Od. ii. 64-67. 2 II. ix. 460. 3 II. ix. 632. 4 II. xxiv. 480- X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 385 one in his youth without premeditation \ and was therefore given over by his father Menoitios into the honourable charge of Peleus: that Ajax had received Lycophron after homicide, and c honoured him as if a beloved parent 2 : 3 and that Telemachos receives Theoclumenos, and gives him the place of honour, when he had simply announced himself as a fugitive from the vengeance of the powerful kindred of a man whom he had killed 3 , without stating anything about the cause. It is difficult however to trace in Homer the existence of an universal law of relative duty, between man and man as such. The chief restraints upon misdeeds were to be found in laws, understood but not written, and which were binding as between certain men, not be- tween all men. These were 1. Members of a family. 2. Members of a State or nation. 3. Persons bound by the law of guestship. 4. Suppliants and those whom they addressed. The weakest point of the Homeric system of ethics is its tenderness (to say the least) for fraud under cer- tain conditions. This has ever been indeed a difficult chapter in the science of Ethics: it is probably one, in which the human faculties will ever, or very long, remain unequal to the task of drawing at once clearly and firmly, in abstract statement, the lines of discrimi- nation between right and wrong. In Homer, how- ever, we seem to find the balance not doubtfully deter- mined, but manifestly inclining the wrong way. Into the mouth of Achilles, indeed, he has put the most 1 II. xxiii. 86. 2 II. xv. 429-440. 3 Od. xv. 260 seqq. c c 386 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP, powerful denunciation of falsehood ever uttered by man 1 . Pope's rendering is not quite unworthy — 'Who dares think one thing, and another tell, My heart detests him as the gates of hell.' This, however, we may consider as in great part belong- ing to the single character of Achilles. It is a principle worked out in his entire conduct, without a single flaw. His soul and actions are sky-clear. Among the Homeric deities, there is nothing that approaches him in this re- spect. Indeed it is especially in the region of the Immor- tals that we find the plague-spot planted. In Athene, by far the loftiest of his Olympian conceptions, we find a distinct condescension not simply to stratagem, but to fraud : and she, with Odysseus, finds a satisfaction, when they respectively allow to one another the praise of excelling all others within this department, she among the gods, he among mortal men 2 . At this we may not be greatly surprised; for force and energy already outweigh the moral element in the whole conception of the supernatural : and the character of Odysseus, with its many and great virtues, has a bias in this direction. But we may be much more surprised to find what we may fairly call a glorification of cunning, if not of fraud, exhibited in the character of that Greek chieftain, who, next to Achilles, may be thought most to approximate to the ideal of Homeric chivalry. Diomed meets the noble Glaucos on the field : they explain, and recognise as subsisting between them, the laws of hereditary guestship. The Greek then proposes the exchange of arms, which Glaucos 1 II. ix. 312 (Pope, v. 412). 2 Od. xiii. 294 seqq. X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 387 accepts: and Diomed obtains the value of a hundred oxen in return for the value of nine. We may however observe, that Achilles, in whom comes out the bright blaze of perfect openness and truth, is not only the Coryphaeus of the Greek band of heroes, but he is above all things the type of Hellenism ; the model of that character, which Homer considered to belong to his race. And, as far as we can perceive, though there is a delight in the use of deceit as stratagem for a particular end, the general course of thought is unreserved and open : the Poems show us nothing like life in a mask. The idea of sin, considered as an offence against the divine order, has by no means been effaced from the circle of moral ideas in Homer. It seems to be strongly implied in the word araa-Odkir], which is applied to deep, deliberate wickedness ; to sinning against light; to doing what, but for a guilty ignorance, we must know to be wrong. For, when it is intended to let in any allowance for mere weakness, or for solici- tation from without, or for a simply foolish blindness, then the word art] is used. And I doubt whether, in any one instance throughout the Poems, these two designations are ever applied to one and the same mis- conduct. It is certainly contrary to the general, and almost universal, rule. The atasthalie is something done with clear sight and knowledge, with the full and conscious action of the will : it is something re- garded as wholly without excuse, as tending to an entire moral deadness, and as entailing final punishment alike without warning and without mercy. Nothing can ac- count for the introduction into a moral code of a form of offence conceived with such intensity, and ranked c c 2 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. so high, except the belief that the man committing it had deliberately set aside that inward witness to truth and righteousness which is supplied by the law of our nature, and in the repudiation of which the universal and consentient voice of mankind has always placed the most awful responsibility, the extremest degree of guilt, that the human being can incur. The wicked man, thus hardened in his deliberate wickedness (aravOaXirj), is then driven on by the deity, that is, as we should say, by a divine order and dis- pensation, in his mad career. Of this penal mechanism Athene is, in the Odyssey, the instrument. When the stool has been hurled at Odysseus disguised in his own house, and the insolence of the Suitors has reached its height, Telemachos tells them ' ye are mad with excess of food and wine : some deity now drives you 1 .' Before this we are told c Athene would not let the haughty Suitors stop in their biting insolence 2 / And when Amphinomos has received the friendly but very solemn warning of Odysseus 3 , he is shaken inwardly, and a presentiment of calamity presses on him. Here the Poet goes beyond that c hardening of Pharaoh's heart,' with which a comparison is naturally suggested, and indicates that, even while he was suffering this pain, which may almost be construed into a state of indecision, Athene held him entangled inwardly in the meshes of his guilt, that he might be conquered by Telemachos 4 . The subsequent attempt of Amphinomos to restrain outrageous excess appears to show, that he was still at this time halting between two opinions. The sentiment of the Poet, usually so just, appears here 1 Od. xviii. 406. 2 Od. xviii. 346. 3 Od. xviii. 125-150. * Od. xviii. 155. X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 389 even to tremble on the verge of a dark fatalism. But this belongs to ulterior and later processes of thought. What we have here to notice is, how very deeply the idea of moral guilt was engraven in the mind of the Poet, and therefore probably of his age. The peculiar word atasthalie is chiefly used by Homer to describe the prolonged and hardened wicked- ness of the Suitors. The weakest case of its applica- tion is to the obstinate folly of Hector in refusing the counsel of Poludamas, and thus ruining the Trojan cause 1 : but here it is applied by the hero himself, not by any one else to him. The view of patience in the Ethics of Homer is a very noble one. It is with him a prime virtue. In- deed, the characteristic merit of one of the Protagonists, Odysseus, is to be patient {-noXvrXas^ as his distinguishing intellectual endowment is to be tioXv^tis ; resourceful, elastic, versatile. This patience of the Homeric hero is as far as possible from being a mere acquiescence in fatality, or a cowardly retirement from the battle of life in order to put the soul to sleep. It is full of reason and feeling; it involves and largely partakes of self- restraint ; it might almost be defined as moral courage. It is an active, not a passive function of the mind. Its action, indeed, is generally confined to the inward sphere. Yet it is not always so confined 2 . And it is always on the verge of, and ever capable of being de- veloped into, the most heroic energy. The sense of justice is also very strong in the Poems. Agamemnon indeed is unjust, as well as rapacious; but, notwithstanding his sense of responsibility, and his fraternal affection, Agamemnon is not a character 1 II. xxii. 104. 2 II. xxiv. 505. 39° JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. towards whom Homer intends to attract our sympathies. The Greek chieftains seem never among themselves to deviate from fairness, except in the case of the chariot- race. It is singular that three thousand years ago, as now, horse-racing should have been found to offer the subtlest temptations to the inward integrity of man. The winning positions of Diomed 1 and Eumelos in the race are reversed by a divine intervention, which throws Eumelos into the very last place. And it seems to be from a sense of substantial justice that Achilles proposes to commit what would have been a technical breach of it by giving him the second honour. But Antilochos, who has gained the third place against Menelaos by a sheer trick, remonstrates ; and Achilles, with his supreme courtesy, introduces for Eumelos an additional prize to avoid even the semblance of wrong. Then comes the turn of Menelaos, who vehemently protests against the proceeding of Antilochos. The young warrior, who had been greatly excited against Eumelos, at once acknowledges the justice of the complaint, and offers to give Menelaos not only the prize in question, but any- thing else that he possesses, rather than offend him. Upon this Menelaos, not to be outdone in the contest of high manners, and without doubt recollecting that all his competitors are suffering in the war on his behalf, at once surrenders the second prize and takes the third. Thus, notwithstanding the device effected in the race itself, a strong sense of right predominates in the whole scene of the distribution, and governs the final adjustment. The high estimate of the virtue of justice, thus ob- servable, perhaps connects itself with that strong po- litical genius which had already found development 1 II. xxiii. 373-402. X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 39 1 among the Greeks, inasmuch as justice is to political society as its vital spark. But again, justice is moral symmetry- and in it the exact spirit of the Greek would, on this ground, find at least a strong speculative satisfaction, which would help to determine the habits of the mind and life. The idea of self-restraint, which seems to admit only of a limited application to the order of deities, is ex- ceeding strong in the Homeric man, where he at all approaches excellence. Hence we find, in various forms, excess among the Immortals, such as would not have been tolerated in the Achaian circle. The howling of Ares 1 in pain when wounded, his loss of all power of reflection on learning the death of his son 2 , and the licence which prevailed among the gods, with only few exceptions, in matters relating to sexual passion, are striking examples. But the same observation may be made in lesser matters. Inextinguishable laughter is excited in the Olympian Court, when the gods see Hephaistos limp about to minister the wine. But the Achaians never laugh with violence. If there could be a case warranting it at all, it Would be one like that of Oilean Ajax, when he slipped and fell amidst the ordure 3 . Even here, however, self-control is not lost. They only smiled, or laughed mildly or gently (fjftv yi- \a of moderation in quantity, was bodily as well as mental. Homer sings the praises of wine ; but he reprehends even that mild form of excess which does no more than promote garrulity 1 . When the Greeks are about to suffer calamity in the Return, he lets them go in a state of drunkenness to their As- sembly 2 . Elpenor dies by an accidental fall from drunkenness, and his character is accordingly described in terms of disparagement 3 . A legend is introduced to show the mischief of this vice, which even the Suitor Antinoos condemns 4 . No character esteemed by the Poet ever acts in any matter under the influence of liquor. It was for him the dew, not the deluge, of the soul j and it was nothing more. The gods indeed sit by the bowl the livelong day 5 ; but for men it is not seemly to tarry for hours at the sacred (that is regular and public) feast. And this, not only in cases like that of wine, Where the truth is obvious, and the excess repulsive ; but in instances where it would less be expected. c Do not go to bed too soon : excess of sleep is itself avirj, a trouble V c Do not admire/ says Odysseus, c or wonder at your father to excess 7 / C I disapprove,' says Menelaos 8 , c of excess, either in attach- ments or in aversions: better to have all things in 1 Od. xiv. 463-466. 2 Od. iii. 139. 3 Od. x. 552-560; xi. 61. 4 Od. xxi. 293-304. 5 II. ix. 69. 6 Od. xv. 394. 7 Od. xvi. 202, 203. 8 Od. xv. 70. X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 395 moderation.' The exact word is cuo-ijua, according to ato-a, which may be said to signify the moral element of measure, order, just proportion, in fate. This general disinclination to excess is happily ex- emplified in relation to excess of wickedness. The extremest forms of human depravity are un- known to the practice of the Greeks in the Homeric age. We find among them no infanticide ; no canni- balism j no practice, or mention, of unnatural lusts : incest is profoundly abhorred, and even its uninten- tioned commission in the case of Oidipous and Epicaste was visited with the heaviest calamities. The old age of parents is treated with respect and affection. Slavery itself is mild- and predial slavery apparently rare. There is no polygamy; no domestic concubinage; no torture. There are no human sacrifices ; and even down to the time of Euripides the tradition subsisted that they were not a Greek but a foreign usage 1 . The legend of the seizure of Ganymedes, which was after- wards deeply tainted with shame, is in Homer perfectly beautiful and pure. Adultery is detested. The life- long bond of man and wife does not wholly yield even to violence : absence the most prolonged does not shake it off: and there is no escape from it by the at best poor and doubtful invention of divorce. There is undoubtedly something savage in the wrath of Odysseus against the Suitors, as there is in the wrath of Achilles against Agamemnon and the Greeks. Neither of these two are represented to us as faultless personages. But when they err, it is in measure and degree ; in the exaggeration of what, as to its essence, virtue justifies, and even requires. But an exceeding 1 Eurip. Iphig. in Aul. Wos iirj Trarpiov. 396 juventus mundi. CHAP. nobleness marks the rebuke of Odysseus to the Nurse Eurucleia, when she is about to shout in exultation over the fallen Suitors. c It is wrong/ he says \ c to exult over the slain, who have been overthrown by divine providence, and by their own perverse deeds/ So again, while Hecuba wishes she could find it in her heart to eat Achilles, Achilles 2 utters a similar wish with regard to Hector. But the wish is that he could prevail upon himself to perform the act ; which accordingly he cannot do. From these passages, as well as from the case of the Cyclops, we may learn that cannibalism was within the knowledge, though not the experience, of the nation ; that it might even come before them as an image in the hideous dreams of passion at seasons of extreme excitement, but never could enter the circle of their actual life. Indeed, the manifestations of mere personal revenge in the Poems are almost wholly among the divinities, not the mortals. The vengeance of Achilles has refer- ence not to an arbitrary or imaginary code, but to a gross breach by Agamemnon of the laws of honour and justice. The vengeance of Odysseus vindicates not merely the duty of political obedience, but the violated order of society, against depraved and lawless men. The point, however, in which the ethical tone of the heroic age stands highest of all is, perhaps, the strength of the domestic affections. They are prevalent in Olympos ; and they constitute an amiable feature in the portraiture even of deities who have nothing else to recommend them. Not only does Poseidon care for the brutal Poluphemos^ and Zeus for the noble and gallant Sarpedon, but Ares for As- 1 Od. xxii. 412. 2 II. xxii. 346. X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 397 calaphos, and Aphrodite for JEnea.s. In the Trojan royal family, there is little of the higher morality ; but parental affection is vehement in the characters, some- what relaxed as they are in fibre, both of Priam and of Hecuba. Odysseus chooses for the title, by which he would be known, that of the Father of Telemachos K The single portraiture of Penelope, ever yearning through twenty years for her absent husband, and then praying to be removed from life, that she may never gladden the spirit of a meaner man, could not have been designed or drawn, except in a country where the standard, in this great branch of morality, was a high one. This is the palmary and all-sufficient instance. Others might be mentioned to follow, though none can equal it. Perhaps even beyond other cases of domestic relation, the natural sentiment, as between parents and children, was profoundly ingrained in the morality of the heroic age. The feeling of Achilles for Peleus, of Odysseus for his father Laertes and his mother Anticleia, exhibits an affection alike deep and tender. Those who die young, like Simoeisios 2 by the hand of Ajax, die before they have had time to repay to their parents their threptra, the pains and care of rearing them. Phoenix, in the height of wrath with his father, and in a country where homicide was thought a calamity far more than a crime, is restrained from offering him any violence, lest he should be branded, among the Achaians, with the stamp of parricide 3 . All this was reciprocated on the side of parents : even in Troy, as we may judge from the conduct and words of Hector 4 , of Andromache 5 , 1 II. ii. 260. 2 II. iv. 473-479. 3 II. ix. 459-461. 4 II. vi. 476. 5 II. xxii. 483-507. 398 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. of Priam 1 . While the father of Odysseus pined on earth for his return, his mother died of a broken heart for his absence 2 . And the Shade of Achilles in the Underworld only craves to know whether Peleus is still held in honour ; and a momentary streak of light and joy gilds his dreary and gloomy existence, when he learns that his son Neoptolemos has proved himself worthy of his Sire, and has attained to fame in war. The very selfish nature of Agamemnon does not prevent his feeling a watchful anxiety for his brother Menelaos 3 . Where human interests spread and ramify by this tenacity of domestic affections, there the generations of men are firmly knit together ; concern for the future becomes a spring of noble action- affection for the past engenders an emulation of its greatness- and as it is in history that these sentiments find their means of subsistence, the primitive poet of such a country scarcely can but be an historian. We do> not find, indeed, that relationships are traced in Homer by name beyond the degree of first cousins 4 . But that the tie of blood was much more widely re- cognised, we may judge from the passage in the Second Iliad, which shows that the divisions of the army were subdivided into tribes (cj)v\a) and clans (0p?Jrpat) 5 . Guestship likewise descended through generations : Diomed and Glaucos exchange arms, and agree to avoid one another in fight, because their grandfathers had been xenoi 6 . The intensity of the Poet's admiration for beautiful form is exhibited alike with reference to men, women, 1 II. xxii. 424. 2 Od. xi. 196, 202. 3 II. x. 234-240. 4 II. xv. 419-422, 525, 554. 5 II. ii. 362. 6 II. vi. 216, 226-231. X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 399 and animals. Achilles, his greatest warrior, is also his most beautiful man : Ajax, the second soldier, has also the second place in beauty according to Odysseus K Nireus, his rival for that place, is commemorated for his beauty, though in other respects he is declared to have been an insignificant personage 2 . Odysseus, elderly, if not old, is carried into rapture by the beauty of Nausicaa 3 . Not Helen alone, but his principal women in general, short of positive old age (for Penelope is included), are beautiful. He felt intensely, as appears from many passages, the beauty of the horse. But this admiring sentiment towards all beauty of form appears to have been an entirely pure one. His only licentious episode, that of the Net of Hephaistos, he draws from an Eastern mythology. He recounts it as sung before men only, not women; and not in Greece, but in Scherie, to an audience of Phoenician extraction and associations. It is in Troy that the gloating eyes of the old men follow Helen as she walks 4 . The only Greeks, to whom the like is imputed, are the dissolute and hateful Suitors of the Odyssey. The proceedings of Here in the Fourteenth Iliad are strictly subordinated to policy. They are scarcely decent; and a single sentiment of Thetis may be criticised 5 . But the ob- servations I would offer are, first that all the question- able incidents or sentiments are in the sphere of the mythology, which in several important respects tended to corrupt, and not to elevate, mankind. Secondly, how trifling an item do they contribute to the great Ency- clopaedia of human life, which is presented to us in the Poems. Thirdly, even among the great writers of the 1 Od. xi. 550. 2 II. ii. 676-680. 3 Od. vi. 151- 169. * II. iii. 156-158. 5 II. xxiv. 130. 400 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. Christian ages, how few will abide the application of a rigid test in this respect so well as Homer. And lastly, let us observe the thorough rectitude of purpose which governs the Poems : where Artemis, the severely pure, is commonly represented as an object of venera- tion, but Aphrodite is as commonly represented in such a manner as to attract aversion or contempt : and when, among human characters, no licentious act is ever so exhibited, as to confuse or pervert the sense of right and wrong. The Poet's treatment of Paris on earth, whom he has made his only contemptible prince or warrior, is in strict keeping with his treat- ment of Aphrodite among Immortals. With regard to anything which is unbecoming in the human person, the delicacy of Homer is uniform and perhaps unrivalled. In the case of women, there is not a single allusion to it. In the case of men, the only allusions we find are grave, and admirably handled. When Odysseus threatens to strip Thersites, it is only to make him an object of general and unmitigated disgust 1 . When Priam foretells the mangling of his own naked corpse by animals 2 , the insult to natural decency thus anticipated serves only to express the in- tense agony of his mind. The scene in which Odysseus emerges from the sea on the coast of Scherie, is perhaps among the most careful, and yet the most simple and unaffected, exhibitions of true modesty in all literature. And the mode, in which all this is presented to us, suggests that it forms a true picture of the general manners of the nation at the time, That this delicacy long subsisted in Greece, we learn from Thucydides 3 . The morality of the Homeric period is that of the 1 II. ii. 262. 2 II. xxii. 74-76. 3 i. 6. X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 40 1 childhood of a race : the morality of the classic times belongs to its manhood. On the side of the latter, it may be urged that two causes in particular tend to raise its level. With regular forms of political and civil organization, there grows up in written law a public testimonial on behalf, in the main, of truth, honesty, and justice. For, while private conduct re- presents the human mind under the bias of every temptation, the law, as a general rule, speaks that which our perceptions would affirm were there no such bias. But further, with law and order comes the clearer idea and fuller enjoyment of the fruits of labour ; and for the sake of security each man adopts, and in general acts upon, a recognition of the rights of property. These are powerful agencies for good in a great department of morals. Besides these, with a more imposing beauty, but probably with less of practical efficacy, the speculative intellect of man goes to work, and establishes abstract theories of virtue, vice, and their consequences, which by their comprehensiveness and method put out of countenance the indeterminate ethics of remote antiquity. All this is to be laid in one scale. But the other would, I think, preponderate, if it were only from the single consideration, that the creed of the Homeric age brought both the sense and the dread of the divine justice to bear in restraint of vice and passion. And upon the whole, after the survey which has been taken, it would in my opinion be somewhat rash to assert, that either the duties of men to the deity, or the larger claims of man upon man, were better understood in the age of Pericles or Alexander, of Sylla or Augustus, than in the age of Homer. Dd 403 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. Perhaps the following sketch of Greek life in the heroic age may not be far wide of the truth. The youth of high birth, not then so widely as now separated from the low, is educated under tutors in reverence for his parents, and in desire to emulate their fame ; he shares in manly and in graceful sports ; acquires the use of arms ; hardens himself in the pursuit, then of all others the most indispensable, the hunting down of wild beasts 3 gains the knowledge of medicine, probably also of the lyre. Sometimes, with many-sided intelligence, he even sets himself to learn how to build his own house or ship, or how to drive the plough firm and straight down the furrow, as well as to reap the standing corn \ And, when scarcely a man, he bears arms for his country or his tribe, takes part in its government, learns by direct instruction, and by practice, how to rule mankind through the use of reasoning and persuasive power in political assemblies, attends and assists in sacrifices to the gods. For, all this time, he has been in kindly and free relations, not only with his parents, his family, his equals of his own age, but with the attendants, although they are but serfs, who have known him from infancy on his father's domain. He is indeed mistaught with reference to the use of the strong hand. Human life is cheap , so cheap that even a mild and gentle youth may be betrayed, upon a casual quarrel over some childish game with his friend, into taking it away. And even so throughout his life, should some occasion come that stirs up his passions from their depths, a wild beast, as it were, awakes within him, and he loses his humanity for the time, 1 Od. xviii. 366-375. X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 403 until reason has re-established her control. Short, however, of such a desperate crisis, though he could not for the world rob his friend or his neighbour, yet he might be not unwilling to triumph over him to his cost, for the sake of some exercise of signal ingenuity ; while, from a hostile tribe or a foreign shore, or from the individual who has become his enemy, he will acquire by main force what he can, nor will he scruple to inflict on him by stratagem even deadly injury 1 . He must, however, give liberally to those who are in need ; to the wayfarer, to the poor, to the suppliant who begs from him shelter and protection. On the other hand, should his own goods be wasted, the liberal and open-handed contributions of his neighbours will not be wanting to replace them. His early youth is not solicited into vice by finding sensual excess in vogue, or the opportunities of it glaring in his eye, and sounding in his ear. Gluttony is hardly known; drunkenness is marked only by its degrading character, and by the evil consequences that flow so straight from it ; and it is abhorred. But he loves the genial use of meals, and rejoices in the hour when the guests, gathered in his father's hall, enjoy a liberal hospitality, and the wine mantles in the cup 2 . For then they listen to the strains of the minstrel, who celebrates before them the newest and the dearest of the heroic tales that stir their blood, and rouse their manly resolution to be worthy, in their turn, of their country and their country's heroes. He joins the dance in the festivals of religion ; the maiden's hand upon his wrist, and the gilded knife gleaming from his belt, as they course from 1 Od. xiii. 252-270. 2 Od. viii. 5-11; xiv< 193-198. D d 2 404 JUVENTUS MUNDT. [CHAP. point to point, or wheel in round on round 1 . That maiden, some Nausicaa, or some Hermione of a neighbouring district, in due time he weds, amidst the rejoicings of their families, and brings her home to cherish her, c from the flower to the ripeness of the grape/ with respect, fidelity, and love. Whether as a governor or as governed, politics bring him, in ordinary circumstances, no great share of trouble. Government is a machine, of which the wheels move easily enough ; for they are well oiled by simplicity of usages, ideas, and desires; by unity of interest ; by respect for authority, and for those in whose hands it is reposed; by love of the common country, the common altar, the common Festivals and Games, to which already there is large resort. In peace he settles the disputes of his people, in war he lends them the precious example of heroic daring. He con- sults them, and advises with them, on all grave affairs ; and his wakeful care for their interests is rewarded by the ample domains which are set apart for the prince by the people 2 . Finally, he closes his eyes, delivering over the sceptre to his son, and leaving much peace and happiness around him 3 . Such was, probably, the state of society amidst the concluding phase of which Homer's youth, at least, was passed. But a dark and deep social revolution seems to have followed the Trojan war ; we have its workings already become visible in the Odyssey. Scarcely could even Odysseus cope with it, contracted though it was for him within the narrow bounds of Ithaca. On the main- land, the bands of the elder society are soon wholly 1 II. xviii. 594-602. 2 II. ix. 581 ; xii. 313. 3 Od. xxiii. 281-284. X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE, 405 broken. The Pelopid, Neleid, (Enid houses, are a wreck: disorganization invites the entry of new forces to control it ; the Dorian lances bristle on the iEtolian beach, and the primitive Greece, the patriarchal Greece, the Greece of Homer, is no more. Section II. We must not dismiss the subject of Ethics or morals without considering what is both a criterion and an essential part of it, namely, the position held by Woman in the heroic age 1 . Within the pale of that civilisation, which has grown up under the combined influence of the Christian religion as paramount, and what may be called the Teutonic manners as secondary, we find the idea of Woman and her social position raised to a point higher than in the Poems of Homer. But it would be hard to discover any period of history, or country of the world, not being Christian, in which women stood so high as with the Greeks of the heroic age. I will here very briefly illustrate this proposition under several heads; and first, that of marriage with its accessories. The essence of Homeric marriage seems to have lain in cohabitation, together with a solemn public acknowledgment of the relation of the parties as man and wife, and with an attendant ceremonial such as is represented on the Shield of Achilles. This might 1 For a fuller exposition, see Studies on Homer, Olympos, Sect. 9. See also Mr. Buckle's Lecture on Woman, in Frazer's Magazine. 406 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP, apparently be preceded by cohabitation with the intention of marriage. Hence Briseis is called by Achilles his wife 1 ; yet in the very same speech he speaks of himself as open to marriage with another woman; and Briseis, in her lament over Patroclos, says 2 ? c Thou wouldst not let me weep, but saidst thou wouldst make me the wife of Achilles, and take me by ship to Phthie, and feast (i. e. celebrate) my marriage among the Myrmidons. 5 So that the full accomplishment of the union was apparently to follow the expected return; and she was in the meantime a wife-designate. It is in the interest of the woman that the law of marriage should be strict, and that marriage should be single. Among the Homeric Greeks we have not the slightest trace of polygamy ; or of a woman taken from her husband, and made the wife of another man during his lifetime. The Suitors always urge Penelope to re-marry, on the ground that Odysseus must be dead, and that there is no hope of his return. A shorter period of absence, than that assigned to him, is recognised by the law of England as making re-marriage legal. A presumption of death brought near to certainty must, under the conditions of human affairs, be taken to suffice; for, says Butler, with a sweep of compre- hensive wisdom, c Probability is the very guide of life 3 / But in the case of Agamemnon, there was no pre- sumption of death ; and, accordingly, the act of Aigisthos, is described by Zeus as a double outrage, made up of two crimes; the last part of it being 1 II. ix. 340 seqq. 2 II. xix. 295 seqq. I omit the word Kovpidirjv, which would require a discussion. 3 Introduction to the Analogy. X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 407 the murder, but the first the simple fact of the marriage 1 . Even the violent bodily abstraction of the wife, as in the case of Helen, does no more than destroy the marriage for the time. When she is recovered, she resumes her domestic place. There is no such thing as a formal and final dissolution of a marriage, except by death. In the narrative, and by the Trojans, as well as by herself, Helen is called the wife of Paris; yet we never find this acknowledgment in the mouth of a Greek. Nay, Hector even calls Helen the wife of Menelaos 2 : but this may mean the past wife. Mene- laos never treats what, had occurred as setting him free from his obligations to Helen. And the long resistance of Penelope, presented to us in the Odyssey as a central object of our interest and admiration, could not have been chosen for this purpose by the poet, unless it had been in conformity with the actual Greek idea of a genuine and lofty virtue. Concubinage is practised by some few, and as far as we are informed only by few, of the Greek chieftains before Troy: yet this also is single. Of actual domestic concubinage we have no example. But Agamemnon threatens to take Briseis home with him 3 . This, how- ever, is done under angry excitement. In the Assembly, he thinks it necessary to give the reason of a proceeding, which he apparently perceived would require a justi- fication; and it is, that he prefers her in all respects to Clutaimnestra. But we have no trace, in the Return, of any chiefs carrying a concubine home with him. The wife of Amuntor adopted an extreme measure to prevent her husband from falling into a 1 Od. i. 36. 3 n>iiii 53> 3 Ilit 29j II3< 408 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. lawless connection 1 ; and Laertes, from an appre- hension of conjugal trouble, respected the maidenhood of his young bondwoman 2 . These instances, if they show that the man was not exempt from passion, bear very emphatic testimony to the position of the wife. The relations of youth and maiden generally are indicated with extreme beauty and tenderness in the Iliad 3 ; and those of the unmarried woman to a suitor, or probable spouse, are so pourtrayed, in the case of the incomparable Nausicaa, as to show a delicacy and freedom that no period of history or state of manners can surpass 4 . On her return home, Alkinoos, far from reproving her, thinks she should have shown more forwardness to entertain the shipwrecked stranger. We often hear of a parent, who gives or promises a daughter in marriage: but like expressions 5 are applied to sons. The very fact that the profligate and violent Suitors always confine themselves to a moral pressure, and profess to submit to the choice of Penelope, is of itself a probable witness to the recognised free-agency of the woman of the period. In that early state of society we hear of no such personage as an elderly bachelor or spinster. Nor, within due limits of age, could there, I presume, be a prolonged widowhood. The apparent connection of Helen with Deiphobos 6 , after the death of Paris, should probably be read in the light of Trojan usage. But whenever Penelope, or others in her name, contemplate the death of Odysseus,, and her consequent release, that 1 II. ix. 51. 2 Od. i. 433. 3 II. xviii. 567, 593; xxii. 127, 128. 4 Od. vi. 275-288. 5 II. ix. 394. Od. iv. 10. 6 Od. iv. 276. X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 409 change is always treated as the immediate preface to another crisis, in the choice of a second husband. Marriage, in Homer, is the very pivot of life. War is the deadly enemy of woman. On the capture of a city, her lot is exile, and the conqueror's bed. The familiarity of this idea renders it remarkable that we should not hear much more than we do hear of con- cubinage among the Greeks of Homer. Of professional prostitution, we have no trace at all. As the restraints imposed upon marriage are in general among the proofs of its high estimation, I proceed to observe that the Greeks regarded incest with horror, even when, as in the instance of Oidipous and Epicaste, it was involuntary. Passing on from extreme cases, we may observe, that the connection of Phoenix with a woman at once presented an insur- mountable bar to the unlawful passion of his father for the same person. It appears however probable, though not certain, that Diomed was married to his mother's sister 1 . In Scherie, the king Alkinoos had his niece for his wife 2 : but this is in the Phoenician circle. In Troy, Iphidamas marries the sister of his mother 3 . It is observed that, in the classical period, the law of incest in Greece, instead of being tightened, was re- laxed 4 . The older sentiment about it is the more remarkable, because of the extreme looseness of the code applied to supernatural beings 5 . A series of words for the different relationships by affinity, includes the word einater for the husband's brother's wife, to which we have no correlative in 1 II. iv. 121. 2 Od. vii. 65, 66. 3 II. xi. 220-226. * Friedreich's Realien, iii. 2. 5 II. iv. 441 ; xvi. 432. Od. x. 2. I 4IO JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. English j and the terms, in which these relationships are spoken of, testify to the definiteness and solidity of the marriage bond. We have a single case of a woman who attempts the breach of her own marriage-vow. It is Anteia, the wife of Proitos ; but the family was Phoenician. Thus, then, we have in the Poems a picture of Greek marriage as to its unity, freedom, perpetuity ; as to the restraints upon it, and as to the manner in which breaches of it, and substitutes for it, were regarded. This picture, so striking in itself, becomes yet more so by comparison with Eastern manners, even as they were exhibited in the Hebrew race. It is also in glaring and painful contrast with the lowered estimate of woman among the Greeks of the classical period, and with their loathsome immorality. More important, however, than any particulars is the general tone of the intercourse between husband and wife. It is thoroughly natural : full of warmth, dignity, reciprocal deference, and substantial, if not conventional, delicacy. The fulness of moral and in- telligent being is alike complete, and alike acknow- ledged, on the one side and on the other. Nor is this description confined to the scenes properly Hellenic. It embraces the conversation of Hector with Andro- mache, and is nowhere more applicable than to the whole character and demeanour of Nausicaa — delinea- tions probably due rather to the Hellenic experience of the Poet, than to any minute observation either of Phoenician or of Trojan manners. Of rude manners to a woman there is not a real instance in the Poems. And to this circumstance we may add its true cor- relative, that the women of Homer are truly and pro- X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 41 1 foundly feminine. As to the intensity of conjugal love, it has never passed the climax which it reaches in Odysseus and Penelope. Presents were usually brought by the bridegroom ; dowries sometimes given with the bride. With a wife returning in widowhood to the parental home, the dowry returned also ] . On the other hand it would appear, from the Lay of the Net, that a fine was imposed upon the detected adulterer 2 , as well as on the manslayer. In some instances, personal and mental gifts serve in lieu of possessions, as recommendations in suing for a wife. Lastly, with respect to the employments of women. It appears to be at least open to question whether they were not capable of political sovereignty 3 . The suggestion of the text seems to be that Chloris was queen in Pulos when Neleus married her ; and the mention of Hupsipule with Jason is best accounted for by supposing, conformably to tradition, that she reigned in Lemnos 4 . On the departure of Agamemnon Clutaimnestra was left in charge, with the Bard as an adviser 5 ; and in Ithaca Penelope had a similar regency, apparently with the aid of Mentor 6 . Priesthood appears not to have existed among the Hellenes of the Homeric age ; but in Troas, where we find it, a woman was priestess of Athene. This was Theano, the wife of Antenor ; and she is said to have been appointed to her office by the Trojans. The seizure of Marpessa, or Alcuone, by Apollo, may have had reference to some religious ministry at Delphi. 1 Od. ii. 132. 2 Od. viii. 329. 3 II. vii. 468, 469. Od. xl 281-285. * II. vii. 469. 5 Od. iii. 263 268. 6 Od. ii. 225-227; xix. 317 ; xx. 129-133. II. vi. 297-300. 412 JUVENTUS MUNDI. The domestic employments of women are pretty clearly indicated in the descriptions of the Palaces of Kirke and of Odysseus. The outdoor offices were performed in Ithaca by men, who likewise prepared the firewood, killed, cut up, and carved the animals, and carried to the farm the manure that accumulated about the house. The Suitors also had male personal at- tendants. The women performed the indoor operations generally, including the fetching of water and the grinding of flour. Another employment discharged by women has given rise to misunderstanding; namely, their waiting on men for purposes connected with the bath. Damsels of the highest rank performed this duty for strangers. But the delicacy of the early Greeks, with regard to any undue exposure of the person *, was extreme ; and, though they may have differed from our merely con- ventional usages, it cannot be imagined that they departed from propriety in a point where a people far less scrupulous would have respected it. The error has lain principally in failure to observe that in the words used for washing, bathing, and anointing, the actual operation is described by the middle voice 2 , and the words louo, chrio, nipt 6, in the active, in general j signify supplying another person with the means of performing these offices for himself 3 . The same rule I believe to hold good with respect to the word which describes dressing after the bath (ball 6). 1 II. ii. 260-264. 2 So Wakefield. See II. x. 572-577 ; Od. vi. 96, 219, 220, et alibi. 3 Od. vi. 210, 218, 222 ; vii. 296. Even Od. x. 361 need not be an exception. CHAPTER XI. Polity of the Heroic Age, The Poems of Homer are the seed-plot of what is best and soundest in the Greek politics of the historic period. Nor are we, the moderns, and, as I think, the British in particular, without a special relation to the subject. In part we owe to these ancient societies a debt. In part we may trace with reasonable pleasure an original similitude between the Homeric picture and the best ideas of our European and our British ancestry. What are those ideas ? Among the soundest of them we reckon the power of opinion and persuasion as opposed to force ; the sense of responsibility in governing men ; the hatred, not only of tyranny, but of all unlimited power ; the love and the habit of public in preference to secret action ; the reconciliation and harmony between the spirit of freedom on the one hand, the spirit of order and reverence on the other ; and a practical belief in right as relative, and in duty as reciprocal. Out of these elements, whether in an- cient or in modern times, great governments have been made. The Homeric Poems exhibit them all, if not in methodical development, yet in vigorous life. 4I4 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. Even war required a basis of right, perhaps rudely defined j and retribution a corpus delicti. Hence the readiness with which the offer of Paris 1 to decide the war by single combat is accepted ; and hence it may be that when Agamemnon anticipates the death of Menelaos from his wound, he judges also that, on that event, the army will return home. Personal reverence for sovereigns is undoubtedly a powerful principle in the "governments of the heroic age. There is for them a kind of divinity that doth c hedge a king. 5 Odysseus, wishing to arrest the sudden impulse of the army to return, furnishes himself with the famed Sceptre of Agamemnon, as a token of his title to be heard. This principle, which has survived almost every modification of political forms, could not but be lively at a period when probably no great num- ber of generations had passed since the exchange of nomad for settled life. For society, in the nomad stage, has something of the organization of the army ; and it is still either in view or in actual experience of the time when the family, forming itself around its head, had not yet grown into the tribe ; much less the tribe into the people. But, while this reverence existed under all social forms, the characteristic difference of the Homeric states is to be found in the qualifications by which on every side it was hindered from passing into excess. The monarch was controlled by the princes or chiefs assembled in the council (fiovXrj) ; an institution which the Odyssey mentions in Scherie, and the Iliad (in- formally) in Troy - y so that we must presume it to have been in the view of the Greeks not a merely local 1 II. iii. 96-112. XI .] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 415 institution, but a prime element of human society. The mass, however, of the free citizens were also called together in the Agore, or Assembly, to consider any matter of cardinal importance ; and appeal was made to their reason in speeches which, for aptitude and force, to this day extort the admiration, and perhaps defy the rivalry, of the moderns. It is upon a just balance of forces that good govern- ment now mainly depends. In the Homeric age, there were no detailed or even defined provisions to secure this balance. Even the name of law (nomos) is unknown, though the name of public right (them is) is familiar and revered. Into the Greek Constitutions, described by Aristotle, a multitude of expedients for that purpose had been introduced by human ingenuity. Yet those constitutions were subject to frequent and most violent changes, usually attended by the absolute ejectment of the defeated party from house and field. And even when not under disturbance they commonly exhibited a strong bias towards excess in one quarter or another. To the Troic period, too, revolutions were not un- known. But the idea of government, which then pre- vailed, was perhaps both more strongly fortified by religious reverence, and likewise better founded in reciprocal duty, than that of later times. The separa- tion and conflict of interests between the different parts of the community had not become a familiar idea ; particular classes did not plot against the whole ; we hear little of the tyranny of kings, or the insubordi- nation of subjects. A worse era was about to follow. As in the case of the Crusades, so during the War of Troy, the absence of the rulers prepared the way for social convulsion. And Hesiod, living at a time later 4r6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. CHAP. probably by some generations, looks back from his iron age with an admiring envy on the heroic period. c The early monarchies/ says Thucydides, c enjoyed specified 1 prerogatives/ and Aristotle assures us that they were monarchies 2 upon terms, and depended on a voluntary allegiance. The threefold function of the King among the Hellenes was (a) chiefly perhaps, though not exclusively, to administer justice 3 between man and man ; (b) to command the army, and (c) to conduct the rites of religion. Sometimes the sovereignty was local, or subaltern • sometimes, as perhaps in the case of Minos 4 and of Priam, and even of Peleus, but clearly and broadly in that of Agamemnon 5 , it was a suzerainty over other Kings and princes, as well as a direct do- minion over territory specially appropriated, and perhaps also over an unclaimed residue of minor settlements and communities. Besides the towns, which supplied Agamemnon with his division of the army, he claimed to dispose of the sovereignty of other towns, which lay in the south-west of the Peloponnesos 6 . The Homeric Kings, however, constitute in the Iliad a class by themselves. The greater part of the chiefs do not bear the title of Basil eus, but had probably that of anax, prince, or lord. Some of these were like Phoinix under Peleus ; but most of them in no other subordination than to Agamemnon. The only duty to the suzerain of which we hear is that of military service. His superior rank 7 is acknowledged; so that both he, and apparently Menelaos, on account of his 1 i. 13. 2 Arist. Pol. iii. 14, i5,ver. 10. 3 II. ii. 204-206. 4 Thucydides, i. 4, says that Minos appointed his sons to be local or deputed Governors. II. ix. 483; xxiii. 25-90. 6 II. ix. 149-153. 7 II. i. 186. XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE, 41J relationship, are termed ' more kingly v than the other Kings. These gradations in the order may perhaps be compared to those of a modern Peerage or Noblesse. The King, as such, stands in a special relation to deity. The epithet theios, divine, is only applied to such among the living as have this relation. The King is also Diotrephes, or reared by Zeus, and Diogenes, or born of Zeus ; and these titles are given rarely below the kingly order even to a prince or ruler, if of inferior degree or eminence. It is expressly declared that Kings derive the right to rule 2 from Zeus, from whom descended, by successive deliveries, the sceptre of Agamemnon. In the Greek army the Kings alone seem to constitute the council of the Generalissimo. Scarcely on any occasion does a ruler of the second order appear there. The Kings are called Basilees, or Gerontes (elders), or perhaps Koiranoi; but the leaders at large are Archoi, or Hegemones, or (apLVTrjes) the aristocracy. In the Catalogue, the command of some of the di- visions is held as it were in commission ; or, in other words, rests with two or more persons jointly and severally, on a footing of parity between themselves. But wherever there is a King, he either appears alone, in his capacity of General, as Agamemnon, Menelaos, Odysseus, Nestor, Achilles, the greater and the lesser Ajax ; or with other leaders who are distinctly under him, as Diomed 3 and Idomeneus 4 . These nine persons 1 II. ix. 160; x. 239. 2 II. ii. 101, 205. 3 II. ii. 563-566. ' 4 The Catalogue, Ii. ii. 645-652, might leave doubtful the po- sition of Meriones ; but it is fixed by the terms 6epaira>v and o7raa)t>, applied to him in II. x. 58, xxiii. 113, et alibi j which, though perhaps more than Squire, means less than Colleague. E e 41 8 JUVENTUS MtJNDI. [CHAP. are the only undeniable Kings of the Iliad, as may ap- pear from comparing together II. ii. 404-409, II. xix. 309-311, and from the transactions of II. x. 34-197. Particular phrases or passages might raise the question whether four others, Meges, Eurupulos, Patroclos, and Phioinix, were not viewed by Homer as being also Kings. Probably his idea of the class was not so definite as ours; but on the whole the line, which excludes these and all the other chiefs from the kingly rank, is drawn with considerable clearness. The King, as viewed in the Iliad, must be a person combining three conditions: first, he is subordinate to none but Agamemnon ; secondly, he has in all cases marked personal vigour and prowess ; thirdly, if his dominions are small, he must either be of surpassing strength of body at least, like the Telamonian Ajax, or of vast powers of mind as well as limb, like Odysseus. Among the bodily qualities of the Kings, one is personal beauty. This attaches peculiarly to the Trojan royal family, and it is recorded even of the aged Priam in his grief 1 . At the head of all stands Achilles. Odysseus has this endowment, though in a less marked degree. Ajax, in the Odyssey, appears to compete with Nireus, in the Iliad, for the second place. It is never predicated individually, 1 think, of any single man below the princely station, although when the crew of Odysseus were re-transformed, at Aiaie, into human shape, they are collectively said to have been by far larger and more beautiful than before 2 . Personal vigour is also a condition, not only of as- suming, but almost of continuing in, the exercise of 1 II. xxiv. 631. 2 Od. x. 396. XT.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 419 sovereignty 1 . Laertes quitted his throne at a time anterior to the departure of Odysseus for the war, long before the period of decrepitude 2 , and probably when his activity had but begun to diminish. Achilles, in the Shades 3 , inquires whether Peleus still occupies the throne, or has retired from it on account of his years. Nestor, indeed, yet occupies the royal seat ; but" perhaps it is on account of his notable talents, combined with the greenness of his old age. The word aizeos, which signifies a man in his full strength, when joined with Diotrephes, or royal, is applied to princes as a class, and thus testifies to the custom I have described 4 . Telemachos was the proper heir to his father's throne 5 ; but he was only coming to, though close upon, full age, and he had not yet assumed its privileges at the point where the action of the Poem begins. Over and above the work of battle, the Prince is peerless in the Games. Of the eight contests of the Twenty-third Iliad, seven are conducted entirely by the Kings and chiefs. The exception is the boxing-match. And Epeios, the winner in this match, himself declares 6 that he does not possess the gifts necessary for dis- tinction in battle ; an indication by the way, among many, of the immense value set by Homer upon skill as compared with mere strength 7 . The prizes, too, which are given in the boxing-match appear, when compared with the other rewards, to show the reputed inferiority of this accomplishment. So likewise with the gifts of music and song. Usually, of course, we look for them to the Bards. 1 Grote, Hist. Greece, vol. ii. p. 87. 2 Od. xi. 174, 184. 3 Od. xi. 495. * II. ii. 660. Comp. II. xvi. 716. 5 Od. i. 386. 6 II. xxiii. 670. 7 Comp. II. xxiii. 315-318. e e 2, 420 / JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. Upon the Shield, in the procession of youths and maidens who bear the grapes from the vineyard, a boy attends them to play and sing, probably because it did not comport with the dignity of the Bard to exercise his art while in bodily motion ; for presently we come to another scene, where he plays, without moving, to the dancers *. There are but two certain indications of (so to speak) amateur song and playing. The lyre which Achilles used was among the spoils of the city of Eetion, and may possibly have belonged to that King himself 2 . On this lyre Achilles himself played during his retirement. And our other musician is Paris 3 . But the kingly character in Homer is also all-com- prehensive; and it sometimes embraces even the manual employments of honourable industry. Odysseus, in the Island of Calypso 4 , is a wood-cutter and ship-builder: Odysseus on his throne was the carpenter and artisan of his own bed 5 , so elaborately wrought: Odysseus, in disguise, challenges Eurumachos the Suitor to try which of them would soonest mow a meadow 6 , and which drive the straightest furrow down a four-acre field. Such were the corporal accomplishments of the Homeric King. He was also, in the exercise of higher faculties, judge, General, and Priest. In addition to all these, and as binding them all together, he was em- phatically a gentleman. In Agamemnon, indeed, there is a half-sordid vein, which mars the higher type; though he corresponds in general to the eulogy of Helen 7 , as a good King and a valiant soldier. Nestor, Diomed, Menelaos, are markedly gentlemen in their 1 II. xviii. 569, 604. 2 II. ix. 186-188. 3 II. iii. 54. 4 Od. v. 243, 261. 5 Od. xxiii. 195-201. 6 Od. xviii. 366-375. 7 II. iii. 179. XI ,] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. ^%\ demeanour. The character of Odysseus, caricatured and debased by the later tradition, abounds in Homer with similar notes. Quick in the sense of undeserved reproof from his chief, he appeals only to the con- futation which his conduct in the field will supply 1 . When grossly insulted by Eurualos, his stern and masterful rebuke is so justly measured as to excite the sympathy of strangers 2 . But the best exhibition of the profound refinement inhering in the character of Odysseus is, perhaps, afforded by the scene in which he first appears before Nausicaa 3 , after his escape from the devouring waters. It is, however, in Achilles that courtesy reaches to its acme. In the First Iliad, he hails with a genial kindness the heralds who came on the odious errand of enforcing the removal of Briseis, and he at once re- assures them by acquitting them of blame 4 , though as we know 'The messenger of evil tidings Hath but a losing office.' In the Ninth Book, while still in the Wrath, we find him bidding the envoys of Agamemnon a hearty wel- come. In both cases he anticipates the new comers, with a speech, of which the promptitude is itself a delicate stroke of the best manners. The most refined, however, of his attentions is perhaps that shown to Agamemnon, after the reconciliation, on the occasion of the Games. It was difficult to exclude the chief King from the sport of Kings ; inadmissible to let him be worsted ; impossible either to make him conquer those who were his superiors in strength, or to place 1 II. iv. 349-355. 2 Od. viii. 165, 396. 3 Od. vi. 115 seqq. 4 II. i. 334. 422 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. him in competition with secondary persons. Achilles avoids all thefe difficulties by proposing a ninth, or supernumerary match, with the sling ; and then at once presenting the prize to Agamemnon with the observa- tion that, as his excellence is known to be paramount, there need be no actual trial 1 . Yet these great chiefs, so strong in every form of power, bravery, and skill, can upon occasion weep like a woman or a child. A list of the passages, in which the tears of heroes flow, would probably by its length cause astonishment even to those who are aware that a sus- ceptible temperament prompted them, and that a false shame did not forbid them, thus to give vent to their emotions 2 . Every one of them, unless it be the aged Nes- tor, would be included : we should find there even Aga- memnon, whom we may probably consider as the prince least richly furnished in this department of our nature. Thus far we have spoken mainly of the persons. The office, which these persons bore, was hereditary, in the line of the eldest son. Yet though the practice prevailed, the definition was, in this and in other cases, not so sharp as ours. Menelaos, the brother of Aga- memnon, partakes in a certain limited degree of his dignity : is specially solicited, with him, by the priest Chruses 3 ; receives, jointly with him, the presents offered by Euneos 4 for leave to trade with the army ; and is held more royal than the other chieftains 5 . Probably when Thuestes succeeded Atreus, it was on account of the childhood of Agamemnon, which pre- vented his fulfilling the conditions of strength and vigour necessary for holding the monarchy. ■•* II. xxiii. 884-897. 2 Comp. Juv. Sat. xv. 131-133. 3 II. i. 16. * II. vii. 470. 5 II. x. 32 and 239. XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 423 The case of Telemachos supplies us with an express declaration of the title of the son to succeed his father 1 . But Antinoos the Suitor, at a time when Odysseus was supposed to be dead, states his hope that Zeus will never make the youth king of Ithaca. The answer is far from claiming that unconditional right to the throne of the islands, which it asserts to the estates of Odysseus 2 ; and leaves room for the supposition, that the succession was liable to be more or less affected by personal qualifications, and by the assent or dissent of the nobles, or even of the community. Even at this time, however, Telemachos assumed in the Assembly the seat of his father. Telemachos, indeed, is an only son. But, in the case of the Pelopids, Agamemnon appears to succeed to the paternal throne, and Menelaos to govern Sparta in right of his wife. Of the two brothers, Protesilaos and Podarkes, in the Catalogue, the former, who is the elder, commands the force from Phulake and its sister towns 3 . He was, however, we are expressly told, braver, as well as older. The position of Antilochos in the Iliad as the eldest son of Nestor, and of Thrasu- medes, after his death, in the Odyssey, appear to be sufficiently marked 4 . In four cases of the Catalogue, pairs of brothers are named as in command, without any distinction formally drawn between them. The Olympian arrangements bear, perhaps, the most emphatic testimony to the higher dignity and authority of the elder brother. For it is only in that capacity, that the superiority of Zeus is confessed by his juniors-. 1 Od. i. 387. 2 Od. i. 396. 3 II, ii, 695-708. * Od. iii. 402, 439-446. 5 II, xv, 204-207. Od. xiii. 141. 424 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. They are not, however, excluded from inheritance ; and the respective provinces are taken by lot. On the whole, we seem to have the custom or law of primogeniture sufficiently, but not over-sharply, defined. The Homeric King, decked out with attributes almost ideal, appears before us, so far as Greece is concerned, in not a threefold only, but a fourfold, character- besides being Priest, Judge, and General, he is also, as King, a great Proprietor. Priesthood is a function touching the daily course of life. Besides the solemn and public sacrifices, the meat of each meal is an offering; the word c to sacrifice/ hiereuein is used as meaning c to kill;' the animal ready to be killed is hiereion, a sacrifice. Yet there appears to be no professional priest among the Hellenes. We hear of many priests in the Poems : but of none of them can we positively assert that they were Greek. The priest is referred to, together with the prophet and dream-teller, in the first Assembly of the Iliad : but the Greeks are there 1 in a land of priests ; and as Achilles plainly points to the prophet Calchas, who immediately afterwards rises to speak, so it is probable that he may point to the priest Chruses, who had already visited the camp. Among the chief professions of a Greek com- munity, enumerated in the Odyssey 2 , the priest does not appear. Though priests are wanting, prophets are not ; and in this important passage, the class of prophets is the first named. One passage only speaks of priests within the local limits of Greece 3 : it refers to a gene- ration before the War ; and it is quite possible that, both then and subsequently, there may have been priests in Greece of Pelasgian institution. Wherever there was a 1 II. i. 62. 2 Od. xvii. 385. 3 II. ix. 575. XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 425 t erne n os, or glebe, probably there was a priest to live upon the proceeds. But the only sacred glebes of which we hear in Greece are (I think) the glebes of Spercheios and of Demeter 1 , both of them old Pelasgian deities. In conformity with this view, we find that among the Hellenes, in the public and solemn sacrifices, the priestly office is performed by the King. Moreover, the assistants are termed neoi 2 , young men. This supports a conjecture suggested to me by the resem- blance of the words, that hieros and geron have been originally identical in root. In Greece down to the present day the monk is called calo-gero (the French caloyer). It was to the Father, as such, that in the origin of society the offices both of King and Priest generally accrued. To the Father, in the time of Homer, the ordinary consecration or offering of the meal appertains, as he presides at the domestic board. The office of the Judge seems to be, more than any other, proper to the King. It probably constituted his only official employment which was at once permanent (that of war being occasional), and of a nature 3 to weigh upon the mind. But it should be understood as including all deliberative work. On the Shield 4 , the trial of a cause is conducted by the Elders ; perhaps in the character of delegates. Causes must have been conducted by natural equity, or by what in Ireland was called Brehon, that is judge-made, law. Probably custom had already established some rules with respect 1 II. xxiii. 148 ; ii. 696. 2 II. i. 463. Od. iii. 460. 3 II. i. 237; ii. 204; ix. 98; xvi. 386. * II. xviii. 506. 426 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. to fines for homicide and adultery, if not for other offences. The duty of the King as General is best exhibited by the whole plan of the Iliad. Here the King, if in full vigour, assumes the captain's office as a matter of course, and quits his house and throne to discharge it. Peleus 1 , the father of Achilles, remains at home, because he is disabled by old age. Nestor, retaining more of his bodily vigour, goes to war, but acts in the camp chiefly as a counsellor, and at no time actually handles arms. Never has the idea of regal duty and responsibility, both in general and with respect to war in particular, been more nobly set forth than in the speech of Sarpe- don to Glaucos 2 , in the Twelfth Iliad ; before the high- souled speaker proceeded to execute what was, on the Trojan side, by far the greatest exploit of the War. Lastly. In consideration of the duties and burdens of his office, the King was a great Proprietor. A domain 3 (temenos) was set apart for him out of the common stock of territory (from temnein, to cut, to carve out). The class had apparently two other sources of revenue. They received presents from merchants, for leave to trade; of which we find an example also in the Book of Genesis 4 . The practice of offering such gifts is probably to be regarded as the germ of Customs-duties, or taxes on the import and export of goods. The other was from fees on the administration of justice 5 . Of these, we have the 1 II. xxiv. 487. Od. xi. 497. 2 II. xii. 310-328. 3 II. xii. 313 ; vi. 194 ; ix. 574 ; xx. 184. Od. vi. 293 ; xi. 184; xvii. 299. 4 xliii. 11. II. vii. 467-475. Od.vii. 8-11. 6 II. ix. 155. XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 42? earliest rudiment represented on the Shield; where lay two talents of gold, to be awarded to the judge whose sentence in the cause should be most approved 1 . In time of war, too, Agamemnon was charged with appropriating a very large share of the prizes to himself 2 . But the King was expected to be liberal in his official entertainments, so to call them, to his chiefs and nobles, over and above the general duty of hospi- tality 3 . This, probably, was the excuse of the Suitors for devouring the substance of Odysseus. It appears, at any rate, that friends of the royal house frequented the table at the palace, as well as its enemies, though perhaps not so constantly 4 . The King might also obtain private property. Laertes lived, in his old age, on an estate thus ac- quired 5 . And, in the First Odyssey, we find a dis- tinction between the house of Odysseus with the lands about it, to which Telemachos was to succeed as of right, and the kingly dignity with whatever might attach to it 6 . Such was the position of the King. Agamemnon, however, was a King of Kings : more or less resembling what we now call a Suzerain, or the highest feudal supe- rior of the middle age. Thucydides is of opinion that the fear of him 7 had more to do than good will, or than the oath of Tundareus, in the formation of the confederacy which undertook the war of Troy. National sentiment, and the hope of booty, might also contribute powerfully to this extraordinary effort. We have, however, no 1 II. xviii. 508. 2 II. ix. 333. 3 II. ix. 70. Od. vii. 49, 108. * Od. xvii. 68. 5 Od. xxiv. 206. 6 Od. i. 397, 402. .7 i. 9. 428 • JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. means of tracing in the Poems any interference of the Suzerain, beyond his own proper dominions, in the ordinary government of the country ; or any duty owed to him, except in war. The general reverence for rank and station, the safe- guard of publicity, and the influence of persuasion, are the usual and sufficient instruments for governing the army, even as they governed the civil societies, of Greece. The few words quoted by Aristotle 1 from some text of the Iliad which was current in his day and place, signifying that Agamemnon had a right of life and death, cannot reasonably, without a context, be made to convey a theory of military discipline out of harmony with the tone and analogies of the poem, and belonging to the definite ideas of the present rather than to the free life of the older time. Moreover, as these words (nap yap e/uot Oavaros) afterwards disappeared from the text of the Poem, the most natural inference seems to be that they were not finally approved as genuine. It is in the Assemblies, that the great transactions of the army are decided. There, arises the quarrel with Achilles; there, the tumultuary impulse homewards; there, that impulse having been checked, it is deli- berately resolved to see what can be done by the strong hand against Troy. There it is settled to ask a truce for burials, and to erect the rampart. There the second proposition of Agamemnon to return to Greece is made, and is summarily overruled 2 . There the Council is appointed to sit, which despatches the abortive mission to Achilles. There Agamemnon con- fesses and laments his fault, and the reconciliation with the great chief is sealed. There, finally, arises the 1 Aristot. Pol. iii. 14. 15. 2 H» ix - 26-28, 50. XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 4^9 dissension of the two sons of Atreus, after the fall of Troy 1 . : The ranks traceable in the army are : i. The Kings: Basileis or Koiranoi. 2. The Leaders under the rank of King. 3. The officers of minor command. Both these last come under the name of hege- mones. The ships had each her kubernetes or pilot, who probably commanded as well as steered : and there were a number of tamiai, or stewards, whom we may regard as the commissariat of that day 2 . The privates of the army are called by the names of 1 a o s, the people ; demos, the community ; and pie thus, the multitude. But no notice is taken, throughout the Poem, of the exploits of any soldi e below the rank of a high officer. Still, all attend the Assemblies. On the whole, the Greek host is not so much an army, as a community in arms. On the nature of the arms employed by the bulk of the force, it is not easy to pronounce with con- fidence. There were heavy-armed, who fought with spear, sword, axe, and stone; javelin-men, who used a lighter dart; archers; and hippeis, those who fought from the chariot. Though the art of riding, in our sense of it, was known, it was not used in battle. One passage appears to speak of the Trojans as at- tacking with javelins and arrows, and of the Greeks as resisting with the weapons proper to the heavy- armed 3 ; another distinctly describes the first in the same manner 4 : and on the whole I judge that the Greek soldiery, with its solid march, were combatants, 1 Od. iii. 139. 2 II. xix. 42-45. * II. xv. 707-712. * Od. xviii. 264. 43° JUVENTUS MUNDI. [chap. in the main, using weapons of weight; the Trojans somewhat less so. Only the Trojans distinguish them- selves as archers, in the persons of Pandaros and Paris : but there were bowmen in the Greek army also \ Two modes of fighting were in use : the open battle of main force, without strategy or tactics, and liable to panic. The other was the lochos, or ambuscade. As a severer trial of nerve and moral fortitude, this latter was held in higher estimation, and was reserved to the chiefs 2 . We must not say that Achilles would have been inferior to any man in any act of martial skill or daring : but in the Poems, as they stand, Odysseus has been chosen as the prince of ambush 3 . The Council was composed of chief persons, who bore the name of gerontes 4 , or elders: a name which was probably in its origin personal, and had by degrees become, like that of Senator in later times, official. In the Council of the Army, Nestor is old, Idomeneus near upon old age: Odysseus might be called elderly, though still in the perfection of strength 5 . In the Second Book, the Boule or Council is sum- moned by Agamemnon, to prepare for the Assembly 6 . The same persons meet before the solemn sacrifice 7, without being called a Council. They meet again, as a Council, by appointment of the Assembly, in the Ninth Book 8 ; and send the Envoys to supplicate Achilles. In the Seventh Book, this body plans the truce and the rampart 9 . It is spoken of as an institution 1 II. ii. 720; iii. 79. 2 II. xviii. 509; xiii. 20, 276-286; i. 226. 3 Od. iv. 277-288. 4 II. ii. 52. 6 II. ii. 52. 7 II. ii. 404-408. 9 II. vii. 344, 382. 5 II. xxiii. 79] 8 II. ix. 10, 8c XI ,] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 43 1 evidently familiar 1 . The disorganised society of Ithaca does not afford scope for a regular Council ; but a place is set apart for the elders in the Agore '-', and Odysseus in his youth had been sent on a mission by Laertes and his Council 3 . In Scherie, Nausicaa meets her father 4 on his way to the Boule. The members of the Army- council contend freely in argument with Agamemnon ; and Nestor takes the lead in that body, and observes to Agamemnon that it is his duty to listen as well as to speak, and to adopt the plans of others when they are good 5 . This institution was one utterly at variance with anything like absolutism in the command. In the Homeric ideas upon Polity, perhaps the most remarkable of all is the distinction accorded to the power of speech. The voice and the sword are the twin powers, by which the Greek world is governed • and there is no precedency of rank between them. The power of public speech is essentially a power over large numbers ; and, wherever it prevails, it is the surest test of the presence of the spirit and practice of freedom. The world has repeatedly seen absolutism deck itself with the titles and mere forms of liberty, or seek shelter under its naked abstractions ; but from the use of free speech as the instrument of governing the people, it has always shrunk with an instinctive horror. The epithets and incidental passages with which Homer honours it, show much of his mind 6 . But the most emphatic testimony to its importance, and to the state of things which it betokens, is the free, signal, and varied excellence of the Homeric Speeches. 1 Od. iii. 127. 2 Od. ii. 14. 3 Od. xxi. 51. * Od. vi. 53-55'. 5 II. ix. 100-102. 6 II. i. 490; ix. 438-443. Od.xi. 510-516; ii. 150; viii. 170-173. 432 JUVENTUS MUNDI, [CHAP. In the case of speakers, Homer is less chary of description than his wont : and he has exhibited to us in action too a great variety of manners. There is Thersites, glib, vain, and saucy K There is Telemachos, full of the gracious diffidence of youth, but commended by Nestor for a power and a tact of expression beyond his years 2 . Menelaos harangues with a laconic ease 3 . We have the Trojan elders, whose volubility, and their shrill thread of voice, Homer compares to the chirp of grasshoppers 4 . Nestor's tones of happy and benevolent egotism flow sweeter than a stream of honey 5 . Phoinix would, in unskilful hands, have been a pale reflex of Nestor's garrulity without his sagacity; but his speaking is redeemed by his profound and absorbing- affection for Achilles, which gives him as it were a different centre of gravity. Far above all these soars Odysseus, who when he first rises, with all his energies concentrated within him, seems to give no promise of display ; but when his deep voice issues from his chest, and his words drive like the flakes of winter snow, then, says the Poet, for mortal to compete with him is hopeless 6 . But yet there is another speaker who, when he rises to his noblest, seems as though he were scarcely mortal. Homer leaves the eloquence of Achilles to stand self- described. That chief modestly pronounces himself to be below Odysseus in the use of oratory. It seems to me that his speeches may challenge comparison with all that we find in Homer; and with all that the ebb and flow of three thousand years have added to our records of true human eloquence. Even here, Homer's resources 1 II. ii. 212. 2 Od. iii. 23, 124. 3 II. iii. 213. 4 II. iii. 150. 5 II. i. 243. 6 II. iii. 216-223. XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 433 are not exhausted. The decision of Diomed, the irre- solution of Agamemnon, the bluntness of Ajax, are all admirably marked in the series of speeches allotted to each respectively. Scarcely anywhere is mediocrity to be found ; and perhaps the greatest example on record of a perfectly simple nobleness is to be found in the speech of Sarpedon to Glaucos on the duties of Kings 1 . With respect to the power of speech, and the capacity of being moved by it, the performances of the Poet are truly the best picture of the age itself. Unlike great poems, great speeches cannot be made, except in an age and place where they are understood and felt. The work of the orator is cast in the mould offered him by the mind of his hearers. He cannot follow nor frame ideals at his own will; his choice is to be what his time will have him, what it requires in order to be moved by him, or not to be at all. If the power of oratory proper is remarkable in Homer, so likewise, and perhaps yet more, is the faculty of what in England is called c debate/ In Homer's discussions, every speech after the first is commonly a reply. It belongs not only to the sub- ject, but to the speech that went before; it exhibits, given the question and the aims of the speaker, the exact degree of ascent and descent, of expansion or contraction, which the circumstances of the case, in the state up to which they were brought by the preced- ing address, may require. The debate in the Assembly of the First Book, and that in the Encampment of Achilles 2 , are, as oratorical structures, complete and consummate. A people cannot act in its corporate capacity without 1 II. xii. 310-328. 2 II. ix. 225-655. Ff 434 JUVENTUS MUND1. [CHAP. intermission ; and the King is the standing representa- tive of the community. But though he be the pivot of its functional and administrative activity, the Agore, or Assembly, is the centre of its life and vital motion. The greatest ultimate power possessed by the King is that of exercising an influence upon his subjects, there gathered into one focus, through the combined medium of their reverence for his person, and of his powers of persuasion. There is no decision by numbers; the doctrine of majorities is an invention, an expedient, of a more advanced social development. In Olympos, a minority of influential gods carry the day against the majority, and against their head, in the great matter of the Trojan war. The interference of Thersites in the Debate of the Second Iliad, and his attempt to bring the As- sembly back to the impulse of returning home, were followed by sharp corporal chastisement, and by the menace of the last degree of personal disgrace. But the very attempt to interfere by suggesting such auda- cious proposals, and these from a person so contempt- ible, may perhaps be taken as an indication that freedom of debate generally prevailed. In one of the scenes represented on the Shield of Achilles, new evidence is afforded us, that the people took a real part in the conduct of affairs. An Assembly is sitting. A criminal suit is in progress. The parties plead on either side, and challenge a decision ; and the people, taking part some one way and some the other, encourage them by cheering. The heralds keep order, and stay the interruptions when the time arrives for the judges to speak \ This applause of itself asserts 1 II. xviii. 502. Cf. ii. 211. XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 435 the recognised interest and participation of the people ; for it contributes both to the decision, and to the spirit and efficacy of the means of persuasion, by which that decision is to be influenced. Not only so ; but it seems to have been by popular vote that the two talents were to be awarded, which lay on the floor, and were to be given to the Elder who might pronounce the soundest judgment 1 . Finally, in the Assembly of the Seventh Iliad, Idaios arrives from Troy with an offer to restore the stolen property, but not Helen herself. Diomed repudiates it, and his opinion is echoed back in the cheers of the army. Agamemnon then addresses him- self to the herald, c Idaios, you hear the sense of the Achaians, how they answer you; and I think with them.' Thus the acclamation was also the vote 2 . That which we do not find in Homer is, the submis- sion of the minority to the majority in any public or deliberative meeting. This without doubt is an expe- dient of much later date. But where difference of opinion prevails, the Assembly breaks into opposing factions. So it was in the drunken Assembly mentioned in the Odyssey 3 ; and the minority which then set sail was afterwards again divided 4 . In like manner, of the Ithacan Assembly in the Twenty-fourth Odyssey, the majority determined on neutrality, but the minority took arms. And, throughout the Voyages, we see how freely the crews of Odysseus both spoke and acted, when they thought fit, in opposition to his views. These illustrations might be yet further extended. The truth is, that everywhere among the Greeks of 1 II. xviii. 508. 2 II. vii. 381. 3 Od. iii. 139. 4 Od. iii. 162. F f % 436 - JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. Homer we find the signs of an intense corporate or public life, subsisting, and working side by side, with that of the individual. Of this corporate life, the Agore is the proper organ. If a man is to be described as great, he is always great, in debate and on the field : if as insignificant, then he is of no account either in battle or in council. The two grand forms of common and public action are taken for the tests of the indi- vidual man. When Homer wishes to describe the Kuklopes as living in a state of barbarism, he says, not that they have no kings, or no towns, or no army, but that they have no Assemblies, and no administration of justice h The source of life lay in the community, and the com- munity met in the Agore. So deeply imbedded is this sentiment in the mind of the Poet, that it seems as if he could not conceive an assemblage of persons having any kind of common function, without their having, so to speak, a common soul too in respect of it. Of this common soul, the organ, in Homer, is the Tis or c Somebody:' by no means one of the least remarkable, though he has been perhaps the least regarded, among the personages of the Poems. The Tis of Homer seems to be what in England we now call Public Opinion : the immediate impression created in the general mind by public affairs, or by the conduct of the chiefs. We constantly come upon oc- casions, when the Poet has to tell us what was the prevailing sentiment of the Greek army. He might have done this didactically, or by way of narrative. He has adopted a method more poetical and less ob- 1 Od. ix. 112. XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 437 trusive. He proceeds dramatically, through the medium of a person and of a formula, c Hereupon, thus spoke somebody :' a>Se be Tis e'i7re(rKev. This would be sufficiently noteworthy if we found it only among the Greeks in war, and again in peace: for, when Odysseus causes music and dancing in his palace, with a view to producing an impression on the people of the town of Ithaca, it is Tis who tells what it was 1 . But it is not only in a normal state of things among his own people, that Tis is found. When Greeks and Trojans meet for the pur- pose of the Pact, there is a Tis for the Trojans also 2 . The Suitors, again, are a body of dissolute and selfish youths, and are competitors with each other for a prize which but one among them can enjoy. Yet in some sense they are bound together by a common interest of iniquity; and, although we are introduced to many of them individually by their speeches, yet they too have a Tis 3 who expresses their general sentiment on occurrences as they pass. Too broad to be confined to Greece, this conception is not even restricted to mankind : and Tis appears in Olympos, expressing the common or average sentiment of the assembled gods 4 . This remarkable and characteristic creation remains, 1 believe, the exclusive property of Homer. But per- haps we may discern in the Homeric T i s the primary ancestor of the famous Greek Chorus. Like Tis, the Greek Chorus is severed from all mere individuality, and expresses the generalised sentiment of the body or 1 Od. xxiii. 148-152. 2 II. iii. 319. 3 Od. ii. 334. * Od. viii. 328. 438 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. people to which it belongs, in the highest and best sense which their prevailing standard will allow. Except in the mouth of the scoundrel Thersites, nothing like political discontent appears in any part of the Poems of Homer. The popular sentiment adverse to Odysseus on his return to Ithaca is probably a per- sonal resentment, not only for the death of the Suitors, but for all the crews of his good ships lost in the War and on the Voyage. There is no invidious distinction between class and class, nor any of the social feuds which might be its result. No recognised portion of the community is imagined to require repression or restraint from the government. The King, or Chief, is uplifted to set a high example, to lead the common counsels to common ends, to conduct the public and common intercourse with heaven, to decide the strifes of private persons, which might bring danger to the common weal, and to defend the borders of the com- mon territory from invasion. For the chief component parts of Greek society, we have first the King and his family. Round him are his Kerukes, Serjeants or heralds, his only executive government : his Bard, ever giving delight, and re- ceiving respect : his Seniors, who assist in council, and in judgment: his Nobles, the only wealthy of the period. From them the Prince or King seems to be in general pretty broadly distinguished; for the rule is that the legitimate son, the heir-apparent, contracts marriage beyond his own borders. But Megapenthes, the. serf- born son of Menelaos, marries in Sparta itself 1 . Under the name of demioergoi 2 , which includes both the professional men and the skilled labourers of 1 Od. iv. 5, io, 797 ; xi. 87 ; et alibi. 2 Od. xvii. 383. XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 439 the community, Homer includes the prophet, the physi- cian or wound-healer, the carpenter or wright, and the Bard 1 . The fact that the worker in metals is not included, tends to show, in accordance with all the other evidence of the Homeric text, that this kind of labour had not attained to any great degree of develop- ment in Greece. That the pursuits of manual labour were not below the notice even of princes, we find from the case not only of Odysseus, but of Paris 2 , who joined in the building of his own palace ; and of Lucaon, who was cutting young wood for his chariot, when, for the first time, he fell into the hands of Achilles 3 . Bards, heralds, and seers, are all persons of general influence and importance 4 . We hear of merchants only within the Phoenician circle : as Mentes of the Taphians, and again from the mouth of Eurualos in Scherie 5 . We have also in Scherie aisumnetai, or masters of the ceremonies, who make the arrangements needful for the dance 6 . There are inferior professions of partially skilled hand-labourers ; among whom it is interesting to notice the drain-digger; the fisherman, named only in Ithaca 7 ; the charioteer, and the woodman, for both of whom, says the Poet, as well as for the pilot, skill avails far more than force 8 . But the persons named in connection with special employments are rather classes, distinguished from the general body of the community, than the parts which make up the aggregate. They seem all to be picked 1 In another place he adds the herald, Od. xix. 135. 2 II. vi, 314. 3 II. xxi. 35. 4 Od. iii. 267 ; xvii. 263 ; xxiv. 439. 5 Od. i. 183 ; viii. 161. 6 Od. viii. 258. 7 Od. xxiv. 418. 8 II. xxiii. 315-318. 440 JUVENTUS MUNDL [CHAP. men. Considering on the one hand the position of the masses in the Assemblies, and the appeals there made to them, on the other, the absence, in both the Poems, of anything like an extended personal following attached to the kings or chiefs, I come slowly to the conclusion, as most agreeable to the evidence, which is far from demonstrative, that the bulk of the community were probably small or peasant proprietors, tilling their own lands. The mode of their equipment as heavy, not light, armed soldiers, tends to sustain this conclusion. Even the sons of the slave Dolios appear to put on the ordinary armour \ We have then probably before us, in the composition of early Greek society, that mixture and gradation of fortunes, which so much contribute to the unity and strength of a community : the eminent men leading because they were the best, and the mass content to follow them for the same good reason. The representation of the state of society* and of opinion in Ithaca, contained in the Odyssey is ex- tremely curious. The term Bao-iAeus, so carefully limited in the Iliad, is here extended to the chief nobles • as it is in Scherie to the twelve principal persons who were counsellors of Alkinoos: and, along with it the epithet Aiorpe honour could redound to them from overcoming him. One of these dangers he has avoided by the flaws in the character of Hector ; * the other by his virtues and his merits. It is not easy to see by what other means he could effectually have attained the ends of his art. And he has further con- trived, that the virtues of Hector shall be mainly of a stamp, in which the Achaian chieftains shall not be tempted to compete with him; the affectionate sorrow of his anticipations of the future, the stern rebuke of an unworthy brother, the dignified endurance of mis- fortune, and that form of resigned heroism, which can only be exhibited in the extremity of disaster. 7. Paris. The character of Paris is as worthy, as any other in the Poems, of the powerful hand and just judgment of Homer. It is neither on the one hand too slightly, nor on the other too elaborately, drawn ; the touches are just such and so many, as his pontic purpose seemed on the one hand to demand, and on the other to admit. Paris is not indeed the gentleman, but he is the fine gentleman, and the pattern voluptuary, of the heroic ages ; and all his successors in these capacities may well be v/ished joy of their illustrious prototype. The redeeming, or at least relieving, point in his character, is one which XIV.] PLOTS, CHARACTERS, AND SIMILES. $Xl would condemn any personage of higher intellectual or moral pretensions; it is a total want of earnestness, the unbroken sway of levity and of indifference to all serious and manly considerations. He completely fulfils the idea of the poco-curante, except as to the display of his personal beauty, the enjoyment of luxury, and the resort to sensuality as the best refuge from pain and care. He is not a monster, for he is neither savage nor revengeful ; but still further is he from being one of Homer's heroes, for he has neither honour, courage, eloquence, thought, nor prudence. That he bears the reproaches of Hector without irritation, is due to that same moral apathy, and that narrowness of intelligence, which makes him insensible to those he receives from Helen. No man can seriously resent what he does not really feel. He is wholly destitute even of the delicacy and refinement, which soften many of the features of vice; and the sensuality he shows in the Third Book 1 partakes largely of that brutal character which marks the lusts of Jupiter. No wise, no generous word ever passes from his lips. On one subject only he is deter- mined enough; it is, that he will not give up the woman whom he well knows to be without attachment to him 2 , and whom he keeps not as the object of his affections, but merely as the instrument of his plea- sures. One solicitude only he cherishes : it is to de- corate his person, to exhibit his beauty, to brighten with care the arms that he would fain parade, but has not the courage to employ against the warriors of Greece. Paris, though effeminate and apathetic, is not gentle, either to his wife or his enemies; and, when he has 1 II. iii. 437-448. 2 II. iii. 428. 512 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. wounded Diomed, he wishes the shot had been a fatal one. The reply of Diomed .cuts deeper than any arrow when he addresses him as ' Bowman ! ribald ! well-frizzled girl-hunter I 1 ' Again, the Poet tells us, as if by accident, that when, after the battle with Menelaos, he could not be found, it was not because the Trojans were unwilling to give him up, for they hated him with the hatred which men feel to dark Death 2 . And again we learn, how he uses bribery to keep his ground in the Assembly- how he refuses to recognise even his own military inferiority, but lamely accounts for the success of Menelaos by' saying that all men have their turn 3 ; and how he causes shame to his own countrymen, and exultation to the Greeks, when they contrast the pretensions of his splendid appearance with his miserable perform- ances in the field 4 . The immediate transition, in the Third Book, from the field of battle, where he was disgraced, to the bed of luxury, is admirably suited to impress upon the mind, by the strong contrast, the real character of Paris. Nor let it be thought, that Homer has gratuit- ously forced upon us the scene between him and his reluctant partner. It was just that he should mark as a bad man him who had sinned grossly, selfishly, and fatally, alike against Greece and his own family and country. This impression would not have been con- sistent and thorough in all its parts, if we had been even allowed to suppose that, as a refined, affectionate, and tender companion, he made such amends to Helen, 1 II. xi. 385. 2 II. iii. 454. 3 II. vi. 339. 4 II. iii. 43, 51. XIV.] PLOTS, CHARACTERS, AND SIMILES. 5T3 as the case permitted, for the wrong done her in his hot and heady youth. Such a supposition might excusably have been entertained, and it would have been sup- ported by the very feebleness of the character of Paris, and by his part in the war, had Homer been silent upon the subject. He, therefore, though with cautious hand, lifts the veil so far as to show us that, in our variously compounded nature, animal desire can use up and absorb the strength which ought to nerve our higher faculties, and that, as none are more cruel than the timid, so none are more coarse than the effeminate. Section III. The Similes of the Poems. The detailed similes of the Iliad are about 194 in number; besides near sixty comparisons without any detail or varied ornament. They are very unequally distributed. The First Book has none ; the Sixth only one. In both these the action is of highly sustained and varied interest. On the other hand, the Books occupied exclusively, with battle are largely embellished with them. The Fif- teenth has sixteen similes, the Sixteenth has eighteen, and the Seventeenth has nineteen. In the Second there are thirteen, all of them intended to set off the gatherings and array of the Army. In the Odyssey, the greater or detailed similes be- come very much fewer. They are only forty-one j and this not only before the arrival in Ithaca, where the action is highly varied, and the movement quick; but also in the latter half of the Poem, after the arrival of l1 514 ' JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. Odysseus in Ithaca, when it is more relaxed : since the lower tone of the diction and of the subject does not call for, or perhaps even admit, this kind of gorgeous ornament; perhaps also, according to a very natural and reasonable supposition, because these books were composed in the declining years of Homer, as they certainly indicate, with some noble and brilliant ex- ceptions, a lower standard of power. The character, too, of the greater similes in the Odyssey entirely changes. The lion appears but four times 1 , the vulture once 2 , war never, storm never. In- dustry, domestic life, the phenomena of outward nature when she is tranquil, now supply the materials to the hand of the Poet The similes of the Odyssey, then, have the same harmonious relation to the Poem they embellish, as we find in the Iliad. And we should bear in mind, that in nothing has Homer more emphatically established a type of his own, than in the matter of similes. This being so, a treatment so remarkable and characteristic, found in each of the two Poems, furnishes of itself one among the very large number of particulars, which go to make up an inductive argument for the unity of their authorship. The similes of Homer may in one sense be con- sidered as a miniature of the Poems themselves. Ac- companying the movement of the action, they sweep the entire round of human life. There is in them the same elasticity and variety, as in the thought and the style : these they follow over hill and dale, as the faith- ful dog follows the step of his master. Their tone 1 Od. iv. 335, 791; vi. 130; xxii. 402. 2 Od. xxii. 303. XIV.] PLOTS, CHARACTERS, AND SIMILES. 515 changes in precise proportion to that of the subject, and of the effect that the Poet seeks to produce. The similes afford, as I conceive, one among the incidental proofs that, if Homer was indeed blind, he was blind not from his birth, but from subsequent failure of the organ, or calamity. The experience of hunting in the woods and among the mountains, for example, is detailed with a vivid exactness which im- plies a knowledge founded on experience, just as expe- rience in this case seems probably to imply vigorous limbs, hardy habits, and the perfection of the organs of sense. L 1 2 CHAPTER XV. Miscellaneous. Section I. The Idea of Beauty in Homer. The conception of beauty in the Poems of Homer is alike intense and chaste. He never associates Beauty with evil in such a manner, as to attract our sympa- thies towards a bad or contemptible person. This is markedly shown by his treatment of Aphrodite, of Nireus, and of Paris, on whose personal beauty he never dwells as he does on that of Nausicaa 1 or of Euphorbos 2 . Only on the one occasion when he has shown some sense of shame and duty, and is going forth full-armed to battle, is this prince allowed to appear for a moment otherwise than despicable 3 . It is not by a didactic morality, but by a genuine impulse and habit of nature, that Homer thus joins and severs, as far as in him lies, what ought to be joined and severed re- spectively. The legend of Ganymede 4 , which was afterwards perverted to the purposes of depravity, is 1 Od. vi. 149-169. 2 II. xvii. 50-60. 3 II. vi. 332-505, * II. xx. 233-235. MISCELLANEOUS. 517 in Homer perfectly pure, and indeed seems to recall, though it is in a lower form, the tradition of Enoch, who c was not, for God took himV We may, however, mark the downward course of these traditions, following the lapse of time. Two generations after Ganymede, Tithonos, of the same family, is appropriated by the goddess Eos as a hus- band 2 . One generation more gives us the lawless love of Aphrodite and Anchises 3 ; and the same goddess, in the next generation, promises to Paris a beautiful wife, whom he was to obtain by treachery and violence as well as adultery. Priam seems wholly without rule on this subject; he charges the fall of Helen 4 on the gods, and, even when reviling Paris inclusively with his sur- viving sons, makes no reference to his peculiar crimes It would appear that in ascribing so much beauty to the royal family of Troy, Homer may have been follow- ing tradition. When treating of the Greeks, he appears to award it in pretty close proportion to general excel- lence. Achilles, the greatest hero of the Greeks, is the most beautiful 6 ; and Thersites, their basest wretch, is loaded with ugliness and deformity 7 . Odysseus, the counterpart without being the rival, of Achilles, has undoubted beauty of a different kind, although with- out lofty stature 8 ; and Ajax, the second of the army in strength, is in the Odyssey called second in beauty also 9 . We may trace the value set by Homer on personal 1 Gen. v. 24. 2 II. xi. i. Od. v. i. 3 II. ii. 821. * II. iii. 164. 5 II. xxiv. 260. 6 II. ii. 674; xxiv. 629. Od. xi. 470. 7 II. ii. 216-219. 8 II. iii. 169. 9 Od. xi. 470. 51 8 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. beauty not only in the loving spirit of passages such as those that relate to Euphorbos and Nausicaa, and in his assignment of the gift to his two protagonists, but also in some notes appertaining to the two nations respectively. No Trojan is allowed the glory of that auburn hair which is ascribed to Achilles 1 , in one place to Odysseus 2 , and habitually to Menelaos. Nor are they ever adorned collectively with epithets of personal attractiveness such as those given to the Greeks of the flashing eye (eAucoTrej) 3 , of the flowing hair (KaprjKO- juoWres) 4 , and of the admirable beauty (et8os- ayrjToC) 5 . And while, in the case of Nireus, Homer has carefully discriminated between mind and body, he has so marked his perfection of form that no reader of the Iliad, however careless, can fail to be impressed by the record. Manifestly, too, he delivers his own sentiments from the mouth of Odysseus at the Court of Alkinoos, where he speaks of beauty, the power of thought, and the power of speech, as the three great gifts of the gods to the individual man 6 . Stature, as well as form, entered very much into the conception of beauty among the ancients ; and this for women as well as men. Yet he was sensible, at least with respect to women, that tallness might pass into excess. Accordingly, among the Laistrugones, when two comrades of Odysseus meet the queen, c they found her big as a mountain's top, and loathed her".' Homer had a profound perception of the beauty of animals, at least in the case of the horse, as to colour, form, and especially movement. We trace in him a 1 II. i. 197. 2 Od. xiii. 397. 3 II. i. 389, et alibi. * II. ii. 11, et passim. 5 II. v. 787 ; viii. 228. G Od. viii. 167-177. 7 Od. x. 112. XV.] MIS CELL A NEOUS. 5 1 9 commencement of the pedigrees of this animal 1 . It is with an intense sympathy that the Poet describes the lordly creature and his motions, which he has idealised up to the highest point by the tears of horses, their speech, and their scouring the expanse of sea and the tips of standing corn 2 . The whole series of passages relating to the horse in the Iliad is noble and emphatic throughout ; and in no parts of the Poems can we more distinctly trace, by the slower or quicker movement of his verse, his adaptation of sound to sense. Space does not permit me here to exhibit in detail the proofs of Homer's admiration for the beauty of the horse 3 . The appreciation of landscape was a faculty less highly developed in Homer; yet it surely existed. The mountainous country of Lacedaemon, which he calls hollow, he also calls lovely 4 ; the epithet employed (erateinos) being the same which he uses to describe Hermione, the daughter of Helen, a person endowed with the beauty of golden Aphrodite 5 . Corfu, to which he applies the same descriptive word 6 , is in our day of the highest fame for the beauty of its scenery. Again, Telemachos apprises Menelaos that Ithaca is a goat- feeding island, without meadows, and more eperatos than a horse-feeding country 7 . The epithet is equivalent to the one last before mentioned ; and as the meaning is that a hill-country is more beautiful to the eye than champaign, we seem here to have a distinct appreciation of the beauty of scenery. The famous simile of the watch-fires and the sky by night appears to 1 II. v. 265-273 ; xx. 221. 2 II. xx. 225. 3 See Studies on Homer, iii. 410-416. 4 II. ii. 581 ; iii. 239. Od. iv. 1. 5 Od. iv. 13. 6 Od. vii. 79. 7 Od. iv, 606. 520 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. carry something of a like interpretation 1 . And as re- gards the more limited combinations of what may be termed home-views, we have at the least two great instances in the Odyssey: one of them the garden of Alkinoos 2 ; the other the grotto of Calypso, of which he closes his description by saying that c even an Im- mortal, on beholding it, would be seized with wonder and delight 3 / At the same time, I do not doubt that life, and not repose, is the grand and vital element of beauty in the conceptions of Homer, whether they are applied to nature, or to the animated world. Section II. The Idea of Art in Homer. The Homeric Poems give us a view substantially clear of the state of art in the time of the Poet. They also contain conceptions of the principle of art, so vivid as perhaps never to have been surpassed. And, unless I am mistaken, they indicate to us the source from which the specific excellence of Greek Art, in its highest form, proceeded. By the term Art, I understand the production of beauty in material forms palpable to the eye ; whether associated with industrial purposes or not. First, then, there are many works of art mentioned in Homer : but, in the whole of them, it is associated with some purpose of utility. The greatest of them all is the Shield of Achilles. Next to which, perhaps, 1 II. viii. 557. 2 Od. vii. 112-132. 3 Od. v. 63-75. XV.] MISCELLANEOUS. 521 comes the armour of Agamemnon 1 ; various bowls, mentioned in different places 2 ; the baldric of Heracles 3 ; and the golden clasp of the mantle of Odysseus 4 . In all of them, living form is represented. There are other objects of a less defined class, but belonging rather to mere decoration. Such are the necklace of gold and amber, carried by the Phoinikes to Surie 5 ; the couch or chair of Penelope, with a stool to match 6 ; and the burnished sheets of copper in the palaces of Alkinoos and Menelaos?. There are also works of simple mechanical skill, such as the airy net of metal worked by Hephaistos 8 . We find in the Poems no production of what is termed pure art : everything, to which art is applied, has an object beyond itself: utility aspires to be decked with beauty ; and beauty is never dissociated from utility. Next, as to the material of art. We have in Homer no sign of the use of any material, except metal, for the production of beautiful forms; and, specifically, the metals of gold, silver, tin, and copper. It seems probable that there were, at least in Troy, statues of the gods. But probably also these were rude images of wood, such as Pausanias describes under the name of xoana, in which Homer would find nothing answering to his conception of beauty. As to the range of art in point of subjects, we must consider it, in all likelihood, as almost entirely confined to the exhibition of form, and of form too, in the solid. Of painting proper, and therefore of colours as connected 1 II. xi. 15-46. 2 II. xxiii. 740-750. Od. iv. 613-619, 3 Od. xi. 609-614. 4 Od. xiii. 226-231. 5 Od. xv. 459* 6 Od. xix. 55-58. 7 Od. iv. 72 ; vii. 86. 8 Od. viii. 277, 522 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. with painting, we have no sign ; though we have one case of the use of a single colour, in the staining of ivory 1 . But the use of the sheets of copper, already mentioned, is a step in that direction; and the inter- mixture of varieties of metal, especially on the Shield of Achilles, and in the armour of Agamemnon, show what was perhaps the fullest resort to the principle of colour that the limited command of material permitted. As to the seat of art, we cannot affirm that it had as yet for any purpose been practically established in Greece. No single operation is recorded in the Poems which gives an indication of high metallic skill as having been attained anywhere in that country. By far the most considerable is the bedstead of Odysseus, which is adorned with gold, silver, and copper: but then Odysseus is a master in every art, almost a magician : and we are not told that even his art included the representation of living form 2 . The colouring process, to which reference has been made, is supposed to be carried on, not by a Greek, but by a Meonian or a Carian woman. And in most of the cases where a true work of art is mentioned, it is referred directly to Sidon or the Phoenician ; in one or two instances to Thrace, on the shore of which the Phoe- nicians seem to have had settlements. In other cases it is referred, like the Shield, to Hephaistos, a god of Phoenician associations. In the case of the bowl, pre- sented by the king of the Sidonians to Menelaos 3 , we are told expressly that it was the work of Hephais- tos. The gold-beater and the xakKtvs, or smith, are known to Homer; but only, as far as appears, for the simplest operations; the former simply attaches a 1 II. iv. 141. 2 Od. xxiii. 195-201. 3 Od. iv. 615-619. XV.] MISCELLANEOUS. 523 plate or band of gold to the horns of the sacrificial ox, and it appears from the passage that he did not ply a separate trade, but was merely the copper-smith en- gaged in beating gold 1 , inasmuch as he is called chalkeus, as well as chrusochoos. All that related to the execution of works of art, so far as we can judge from the Poems, the Achaian Greeks had yet to learn. But as in other points, so in this, the Poet opened the way for his countrymen, and taught them how they should walk along it in the after-time. As his per- ception of beauty in living form was most keen, so his idea of art in forms inanimate, copied from nature, was alike powerful and simple : it was that which brought them up to life. In the nature of things, we perhaps may say, it cannot be carried farther. The chairs of Hephaistos moved spontaneously 2 . The porter-dogs of Alkinoos, wrought in gold and silver 3 , were of an immortal youth. The metallic handmaids of the god himself were endowed with thought as well as motion 4 . In the ploughing scene upon the Shield, as the furrow is turned, the earth darkens, though it is of gold 5 . And in the battle compartment, the sculp- tured warriors fight, and the dead are dragged off the field, with actual movement as in a scene of war 6 . Such is the bold delineation by which the oldest poet of Art has given the challenge to his successors, and bids them excel him if they can. But all these representations, however raised into sub- limity by genius, must have had a basis in fact ; and it seems difficult to resist the conclusion that Homer, 1 Od. iii. 432-438. 2 II. xviii. 375. 3 Od. vii. 91. * II. xviii. 417. 5 II. xviii. 549. 6 II. xviii. 533-540. 524 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. and the Greeks of his time, must have seen, though they had not yet learned to make, art-works of a high order, imported, without doubt, in general from Phoe- nicia, and produced either there or further eastwards. The Sidonian works themselves, if executed, as Homer commonly represents, in gold and silver, were doomed without doubt to perish, so soon as the time should arrive when men might come to prize the workmanship less, than the application of the mere material to other uses. But if we may judge from the testimony of such remains as are now accessible, there were two great schools, with which Phoenician artists must have been in relation, alike from their political and their geographical connections: the Egyptian and the Assyrian. It is not, I suppose, too much to say, that we perceive, in a portion at least of the actual remains of these schools, the attainment of high excellence in intention and design, with no incon- siderable progress in execution. They seem, however, to me to represent different principles : the Assyrian appears to embody the principle of life and motion; the Egyptian, the principle of repose. If this be true, there can be little doubt, I presume, that the ideas of Homer had their base and fountain-head much more in the former than in the latter. But in any case, it would really seem probable, from the vivid and stirring descriptions of Homer, that these Phoenician importations supplied patterns, and suggested ideas, which might well, in process of time, become the nucleus of the first great efforts of Greek art. When that nucleus was once supplied, and when the new life began to grow, then the Olympian system of religion provided it, through the union of the divine XV.] MISCELLANEOUS. $2$ nature to the human form, with that lofty aim, which braced it to a perpetual effort upwards, and so con- veyed to it the pledge and the talisman of all tran- scendent excellence. Every idea, appertaining to deity, was held capable of representation in matter; but it could only be matter moulded according to the shape of man. Thus Greek art was a perpetual untiring pursuit of the highest standard of the ideal, while it seems to have had for its starting-point foreign models which, though not similarly inspired, were of such high merit as to suggest to Homer that imitation might run no unsuccessful race with nature. This happy union of the most fundamental conditions of design and exe- cution was seconded by the lights of a fine climate, by the possession of the purest marbles, and by the corporal perfection of a race abounding in the noblest models. We cannot wonder that, with these advan- tages, Greece, within her limits of knowledge and experience, should have held down to our own day the throne of Art. Section III. Physics of Homer. Homer's ideas of physics were extremely simple, as well as apparently few. He perceived that rivers were fed by rain and snow; and therefore he calls them Au7rere'ej, Zeus-fallen, which we should probably under- stand to mean c coming from the realm of Zeus. 5 Fire is the single element which he seems in any direct mode to identify with an Olympian Deity, and this only in one undoubted instance, where he calls it Hephaistos. He considered the human body to be 526 yUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. composed of the elements which make up earth and water, for he treats it as resolvable by Death into these substances 1 . It is not easy to arrive at a positive conclusion about his conception of the figure of the Earth, beyond the fact that he considered it to be oblong, which may be probably shown from a comparison of many passages in the Poems. The land, as known to his experience, was limited. A circle, of from 350 to 400 miles in diameter, would have comprised more than all the places, that were within the limits of ordinary Greek knowledge and experience. All his ideas of vastness were connected with the sea. From his placing the River Ocean at all points of the com- pass, and his making it flow round the Earth, together with the general disposition of objects on the Shield of Achilles, he may be imagined to have conceived of our planet as a flat surface. On the other hand, he seems to connect the extreme East with the farthest West, Sunset with Sunrise, as if he thought it were a surface wrapped (so to speak) round a cylinder. For, placing in the far east the Island of Thrinakie and the Oxen of the Sun, he makes that deity declare that with these animals he amused himself not only when he rose, but when he returned from heaven to earth; that is to say, at the time of his setting. To this idea there is a partial approximation in the formation of a shield, such as it appears either uniformly or commonly to have been in the time of Homer, namely an oval, or oblong. The Homeric shield is called a^ijSpoTT} as covering the human figure. But it is also called zvkvkXos. Does this refer to a rounding at the top and bottom ? or does it more probably mean that an horizontal sec- 1 II. vii. 99. XV.] MISCELLA NEOUS. $2 J tion of the shield represented a segment of a well- drawn circle ? If the latter be the meaning, the two epithets are placed in thorough harmony. For, the more the shield is rounded horizontally, the more does it shelter the warrior who uses it. And this form might agree with the passage in Od. xii. 380 *, where the c return 5 of the Sun may mean his passing from the point at which men lose him in the West, to his bed or place of rising (clvtoXol) in the East 2 . The amusing threat of the Sun, that he will go down to Hades and shine there, is not so strange or far- fetched, relatively to Homeric ideas, as might at first sight appear. For, while he set and rose in the, itepi- KaXXrjs XifJivr) 3 , the exceeding beautiful expanse of Okeanos, as he had to make his way from the Okeanos of the West to the Okeanos of the East, he might easily be thought, in doing this, to pass through, or near, that underground region, in which dwelt the Gods- Avengers, and which was the realm of Aides and Persephone. Aides, says Poseidon, obtained by lot the ^o$os ^epo'ets 4 . Now zophos in Homer is used to signify the West: and yet Odysseus enters the realm of Ai'doneus in the East, near the Sunrise. With all that dark subterra- nean space between, the Olympian Immortals had no concern : for them, as for us, the light of the Sun both came and went ; ' He rose on gods and men, over the teeming earth 5 .' The change threatened to be made 1 We might be tempted to treat as Phoenician this piece of cosmology. But we should then perhaps be pushing to an extreme the doctrine of a Phoenician origin for the Theotechny of the middle Odyssey, which would hardly reach so far into details. 2 Od. xiii. 4. 3 Od. iii. 1. * II. xv. 191. 5 Od. iii. x. 528 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP, I may have been only this, that the Sun, instead of pass- ing through or round the dwelling of Aides, would remain there. Zeus therefore takes his menace as perfectly serious, and replies in effect, ' Do as hereto- fore, and all shall be right V Section IV. Metals in Homer. i Archaeological inquiry is now teaching us to inves- tigate and to mark off the periods of human progress, among other methods, by the materials employed from age to age for making utensils and implements. And the Poems of Homer have this among their many peculiarities j they exhibit to us, with as much clear- ness perhaps as any archaeological investigation, one of the metallic ages. It is moreover the first and oldest of the metallic ages, the age of copper, which precedes the general knowledge of the art of fusing metals • which (as far as general rules can be laid down) im- mediately follows the age of stone, and which in its turn is probably often followed by the age of bronze, when the combination of copper with tin has come within the resources of human art. The grand metallic operation of the Poems is that of Hephaistos in the production of the Shield. The metals used 2 were gold, silver, tin, and chalcos, which has been by mere licence of translators interpreted as brass, for there was no brass till long ages after Homer had rolled away : which has been more plausibly taken to mean bronze : but which, after a good deal of inquiry, I am satisfied can only mean copper, either 1 Od. xii. 384-3! II. xviii. 474. XV.] MISCELLANEOUS. 529 universally and absolutely, or as a general rule, with very insignificant exceptions. The discussion would be too long for this place. But the passage immediately before us of itself affords almost sufficient instruction. In the formation of the Shield, there is no mixture or fusion of metals. The same, and all the same, which are put into the roaring fire, reappear, each by its original name, in various portions of the Shield. There is indeed one passage, where a trench is represented, and this is called kuanee, a word meaning either made of kuanos, or like kuanos in colour. There are two reasons for giving the latter signification to the word. One, that it commonly bears that sense in Homer; the other, that though kuanos may have been a mixed metal, yet there is no sign of founding or casting in this great masterpiece of Hephaistos. He could only mix by melting; and had he melted metals, we must have heard of moulds to receive them. Instead of this, the only instruments which he makes ready for the work 1 are 1. The anvil. 2. The hammer in his (right) hand. 3. The pincers in his left. It is plain, then, that he was supposed not to melt, but only to soften the metals by heating, and then to beat them into the forms he wished to produce. Had Homer been conversant with the fusing or casting of metals, this is the very place where we must have become aware of it; especially as his works of skilled art are all of Phoenician origin or kin, and his Hephaistos is a god of Phoenician associations. 1 II. xviii. 476, 477. m m $3° JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. If chalcos be not copper, then copper is never mentioned in Homer. But, in an early stage of society, copper was commonly by far the cheapest and most accessible of metals ; and it is quite impossible to sup- pose, that we never once hear of copper from an author, who incessantly makes mention (so it is argued) of another metal, whereof it is by far the largest com- ponent part. One of Homer's epithets for chalcos is eruthros, red; and this it is impossible under any conditions to apply to bronze. There is abundant evidence of a correspondence between the seven metals of Homer, and the seven metals of the ancient planetary worship of the East : but one of these is copper, and from it Cyprus was named ; and Homer introduces Mentes sailing to a port of Cyprus (Temese) for chalcos 1 . We find chalcos in Homer a very cheap and common metal ; tin a very scarce and rare metal, only used in very small quantities, and even approaching in some degree to the character of what we now term a precious metal. It is very improbable that the defensive armour, and all the meaner utensils, in Homer could have contained an eighth part, or thereabouts, of tin. So Hesiod, in his age of chalcos, represents not only the arms and implements, but the dwellings as made of that material 2 . This could not have been bronze. And I have high metallurgical authority for stating, that the sheathing of chalcos on walls as already men- tioned must, for mechanical reasons, have been some material other than bronze. It is said that chalcos cannot be hardened so as to 1 Od. i. 184. 2 Opp. 143-155. XV.] MISCELLANEOUS. 53 1 make a cutting tool; whereas this material is named in Homer as used for peeling bark, and cutting twigs and young branches, as well as for making weapons of war 1 . We have, however, in at least one place its imperfection by reason of softness noticed 2 . But, as portions of tin are found in some copper ores, may it not be that there were also small portions of it in virgin copper used for these purposes ? I find, moreover, that ancient nails have been discovered, containing 97I- per cwt. of copper, and only