‘^bSA^rrltu'r SSi waVS.hd™r ~ .a b.to« .h. Latest Date stamped below. .. • hnoks are reasons Theft, mulllefion, end “"j*' s„|, i„ dismissal from for dissipllnory ostlon and may the University. bU)6 2 2 HPSi 2 S T-vC's wivv MAr'2 111992 JAN 0 4 mar it 1993 OCT 15 1! JUl 2 0 \ m L 161 —O- 1096 APOLLO MANUAL i OF MYTHOLOGY GREEK AND ROMAN NORSE AND OLD GERMAN, HINDOO AND EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY BY ALEXANDER S. MURRAY DEPARTMENT OF GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITIES, BRITISH MUSEUM mTH NOTES, REVISIONS AND ADDITIONS BY WILLIAM H. KLAPP HEADMASTER OF THE EPISCOPAL ACADEMY, PHILADELPHIA, MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN PHILOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, UNIVERSITY ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, ETC., ETC. WITH TIVO HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS, AND A COMPLETE INDEX. PHILADELPHIA henry ALTEMUS CO, rn PEEFAOE. » ' The rapid sale of the first edition of The Manual of Mythology was so signal an assurance of public favor, that in preparing the second edition, which is now called for, every effort has been made to render it efficient as a stand¬ ard text-book. The descriptions of the Greek deities have been largely re-written, and at the end of each has been added, in smaller type, an account of the most memorable works of art in which each deity is or was represented. Among the legends of the Greek heroes, those of the labors of Hercules have been re-written and greatly enlarged. The chapters on the Eastern and Northern Mythology are en¬ tirely new, and have been further made more readily com¬ prehensible by the addition of new illustrations. With these alterations, it is hoped that the Manual will now justify its claims to be a trustworthy and complete class- book for Mythology. This much it may also claim : to be no longer described as founded on the works of Petiscus, Preller, and Welcker. Not that in its new form it owes less to the splendid researches of Preller and Welcker. On the contrary, it owes more than ever to them, but this time as masters whose works have rather been an assistance which it is a pride to acknowledge, than models to copy with exactness. /... x b/3784 AMERICAN EDITOR’S PREFACE. It seems hardly necessary to offer an apology in present¬ ing a new edition of Murray’s Manual of Mythology to the public. The work itself is an invaluable one to whoever would understand the religions of antiquity, and of equal importance to the student of our own literature, and, indeed, to any one who expects thoroughly to enjoy the accepted English classics. Though widely known through¬ out Great Britain, it has had but a limited circulation in America, and this sphere it is now designed to enlarge by presenting a revised and handsomely illustrated text. Naturally the religions of Greece and Rome play a more prominent part than the Asiatic, Egyptian, or Norse, and consequently more space is devoted to them. Additions have been made when necessary, but nothing has been omitted ; the whole text has been thoroughly revised. Here arose a question as to the spelling of the Greek proper names—whether, following the movement initiated by Grote and amplified by Gladstone and the purists, the proper names should be transliterated, or whether the old spelling derived through the Latin should be adopted? Personally, transliteration is preferred, but the difficulty of reproducing certain sounds and the unfamiliarity of the general reading public with the Greek forms were powerful (v) VI AMERICAN EDITOR’S PREFACE, factors against it. It was finally determined to adopt the Latin spelling throughout the book. Almost all the Greek names can be found in some Latin author, and consistency at least is thereby obtained. The book is not intended for profound scholars, who are as familiar with the Greek as with the Latin forms, but for the younger students and for those who wish to familiarize themselves with the grand and interesting myths of antiquity, which have had unbounded influence on the literature of Greece and Rome, and in no less degree upon our own. The editor desires to express his obligations for many valuable suggestions to Professors John William White, of Harvard University ; Bernadotte Perrin, of Yale Univer¬ sity; B. L. Gildersleeve, of Johns Hopkins University; and W. A. Lamberton, of the University of Pennsylvania. The engravings have been prepared with great care, and, it is believed, will prove a valuable and artistic aid to the proper understanding and enjoyment of the text. A full and careful index has been prepared, without which a book like this is practically useless, and especial attention has been paid to the orthography. W. H. K. OeroBER, 1897 , PUBLISHERS’ NOTE. Murray’s Manual of Mythology has been known to the American public thus far only through the English edition. As originally published, the work was deficient in its ac¬ count of the Eastern and Northern Mythology ; but with these i m perfections it secured a sale in this country which proved that it more nearly supplied the want which had long been felt of a compact hand-book in this study than did any other similar work. The preface to the second English edition indicates the important additions to, and changes which have been made in, the original work. Chapters upon the Northern and Eastern Mythology have been supplied, the descriptions of many of the Greek deities have been re¬ written, accounts of the most memorable works of art in which each deity is or was represented have been added, and a number of new dlustrations have been inserted. This American edition has been reprinted from the perfected work. Every illustration given in the original has been carefully reproduced ; and the new chapters upon Eastern and Northern Mythology were thoroughly revised by Prof. W. D. Whitney, of Yale College, who corrected some minor inaccuracies which had escaped observation in the (vii) PUBLISHERS' NOTE. • • • Vlll English edition. The volume in its revised form is with¬ out a rival among manuals upon this interesting subject. For the purpose of a text-book in high schools and colleges, and a guide to the art student or general reader, it will be found invaluable. The Acropolis of Athens, CONTE^^TS. Introduction . , . c . . Greek and Roman Mythology— The Creation of the World Deities of the Highest Order , Inferior Deities , = o * Demigods or Heroes .... Norse and Old German Mythology Mythology and Religion of the Hindoos— The Vedic Gods ..... The Brahmanic Gods .... Mythology’^ and Religion of Egypt . Index PAGE 1 . 20 . 25 . 142 . 228 . 356 . 379 . 388 . 394 . 409 (ix) LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS. FULL PAGE PLATES. Aphrodite, or Venus Facing page 192 Apollo . Frontisp ieee. Apollo Belvedere . Facing page 304 Ares, or Mars . 11 1 Ares, or Mars . 208 Artemis, or Diana . it 320 Dionysus, or Bacchus « 128 Hera, or Juno . 11 32 Hermes, or Mercury u 272 Laocoon u 256 Niobe .... u 112 Pallas Athene, or Minerva « 80 Phoebus Apollo li 160 Poseidon, or Neptune u 144 Satyr,A . u 64 Zeus, or Jupiter tt 48 ALPHABETICAL LIST OF TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS. Achilles and Chiron, 333 Acropolis at Athens, viii Aesculapius, 205 Agni, 385 Ajax Bearing the Body of Patroclus, 337 Amazons, 341, 343 Amphion and Zethus, 259 AmphiU-ito, 57 Amun, 397 Andromeda, 245 Aphrodite, or Venus, 93 Apis, 403 Apollo and Hyacinthus, 107 Apollo, Pan, and Midas, 115 Archemorus, Death of, 321 Ares, or Mars, 82 Argo, Building the, 309 (xi) ALPHABETICAL LIST OF TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS. • • XU Argus, 137 Ariadne Abandoned, 245 Artemis, or Diana, 119 Asiatic Artemis, 120 Astraea, 46 Atlas, 174 Aurora, 1 Bacchus, 129 Bellerophon, 251 Bellerophon, Pegassus, and the Chi- maera, 253 Boreas Carrying off Orithyia, 184 Brahma and Saraswati, 389 Buddha, 393 Cadmus Slays the Dragon, 256 Calliope, 177 Capitol and Temple of Jupiter, in Borne, X Centaur, 263 Chiron, 265 Circe, 353 Clio, 176 Council of the Gods, 25 Cronus and Bhea, 28 Cupid and Psyche, 189 Curetes Guarding Zeus, 29 Daedalus and Icarus, 275, 277 Danaides, 63 Demeter, or Ceres, 71, 75 Deucalion and Pyrrha, 233 Diana and Endymion, 123 Diana’s Temple at Ephesus, 124 Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux i, 329 Echo and Narcissus, 172 Eiren, 211 Eos, or Aurora, 185 Eos and Cephalus, 186 Erato, 180 Erinys, One of the, 217 Eros, of Praxiteles, 22 Euterpe, 178 Faunus, or Fatuus, 152 Fenris, The Wolf, 369 Fortuna, 208 Freija, 359 Freyr, 367 Frigg, 362 01 Ganymedes, 200, 202 Girdle of Hippolyte, 291 Graces, The, 197 Hades Throned, 59 Harpies, 218 Hebe, 200, 201 Hecate, 76 Hector and Andromache, 339 Helios, or Sol, 104, 117 Hephaestus, or Vulcan, 87 Hera, or Juno, 48 Hercules, 281 Hercules and Cerberus, 297 Hercules and Hebe, Marriage of, 301 Hercules and the Lernean Hydra, 287 Hercules and the Nemean Lion, 285 Hercules and Omphale, 299 Hermes, or Mercury, 133, 139 Heroes of the Trojan War, 324 Hestia, or Vesta, 78 Hora, or Flora, 144 Horae, One of the, 142 Horae, or Hours, 143 Hygea, Aesculapius, and Teles- phorus, 207 Hymen, or Hymenaeus, 196 In the Brave Days of Old, 355 Indr a, 381 lo and Zeus, 138 Iphigenia, 335 Iphigenia, Sacrifice of, 334 Iris, 182 Isis, 406 Ixion, 62 ' Janus, 147 Jupiter, 37 Kamadeva, 392 Leto, or Latona, 112 Mars and Venus, 83 Marsyas, 113 Medea, 315 Medea, Jason, and the Golden Fleece, 313 Medusa, The Dying, 220 Meleager, 307 Melpomene, 176 Mercury Before Pluto and Proser¬ pina, 135 ALPHABETICAL LIST OF TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS. XI11 Moerae, The, 212 Mother of the Muses, 175 ^^ereid. A, 162 Nike, or Victoria, 209 Nile God, The, 167 Odin, 361 Oedipus and Antigone, 319 Olympus, 20 Orestes Slaying Aegisthus, 319 Orpheus and Eurydice, 267 Orpheus, Eurydice, and Hermes, 269 Osiris, 401, 402 Palladium, The, 102 Pallas Athene, by Phidias, 99 Pan and Apollo, 151 Pandora, 235 Pandora and Her Box, 237 Paris and Helena, 327 Pegasus and the Nymphs, 169 Persephone, Abduction of, 68 Persephone, or Proserpina, 66 Perseus, 247 Phaethon, 126 Phrixus and Helle, 311 Pluto and Persephone, 67 Polyhymnia, 179 Polyphemus Hurling the Bock, 351 Poseidon, or Neptune, 53 Procris, Death of, 187 Psyche at the Couch of Cupid, 191 Psyche in the Lower World, 193 Pthah, 396 E-hea, 34, 35 Bomulus and Bemus, 354 Saturnus, 32 Satyr, 155 Serapis, 404 Serapis Throned, 405 Silenus, 159 Silvanus, 157 Siren, 165 Sisyphus, 62 Siva, 391 Tantalus, 62 Terpsichore, 181 Thalia, 177 Themis, 141 Theseus, 303 Theseus and the Minotaurus, 273 Thor, 363, 364 Tiber, The Father of the, 167 Trimurti, the Hindoo Trinity, 388 Triptolemus, 73 Tritons, 164 Ulysses and Telemachus, 330 Ulysses Discovers Achilles, 331 Urania, 178 Valkyrior, 371 Venus, “The Most Beautiful,’’ 325 Vestal, A, 79 Vishnu, 390 Vishnu, The Incarnation of, 377 Zeus, or Jupiter, 36 Zeus and Hera, Marriage of, 41 Zeus Carrying off Europa, 255 Zeus’ Temple in Olympia, 45 Kjr L Kjr iixr-i \.j(\jij o3 U ( XV _ Jili(frci )—2 INTRODUCTION. There is a charm in the name of ancient Greece; there is glory in every page of her history; there is a fascination in the remains of her literature, and a sense of unapproachable beauty in her works of art; there is a spell in her climate still, and a strange attraction in her ruins. We are familiar with the praises of her beautiful islands; our poets sing of her lovely genial sky. There is not in all the land a moun¬ tain, plain, or river, nor a fountain, grove, or wood, that is not hallowed by some legend or poetic tale. The names of her artists, Phidias, Praxiteles, Apelles, and Zeuxis; of her poets, Homer, Pindar, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides; of her philosophers, Socrates, Plato, Epicurus; the names of her statesmen and orators, Pericles and Demosthenes; of her historians, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon; of her mathematicians, Archimedes and Euclid, are familiar to us as household words. We look back over a period of more than two thousand years with feelings of wonder at her achievements on the battle-field and in the arts of peace. We emulate her in many ways, but always confess to fail¬ ure ; and when we have no desire of emulation, we are still ready in most cases to admire, I ‘5 ( 1 ) 2 INTRODUCTION. How far we may find just cause for admiration or the con- f trary with regard to her religion remains to be seen. But 5 whichever way it be, we shall at any rate find abundant | evidence of the intense hold it had upon the great mass of ; the people, and of the important influence it was calculated to exercise on their civilization. For it was in the firm belief of his interests being the special care of a deity that the hus- ■ band man sowed his seed, and watched the vicissitudes of its i growth; that the sailor and trader entrusted life and prop¬ erty to the capricious sea. The mechanic traced the skill ' and handicraft which grew unconsciously upon him by prac- ? tice to the direct influence of a god. Artists ascribed the mysterious evolution of their ideas, and poets the inspiration of their song, to the same superior cause. Daily bread and daily life, the joy and gladness that circulated at festal gath¬ erings, were duly acknowledged as coming from the same ' high source. Everywhere in nature was felt the presence of august invisible beings : in the sky, with its luminaries and clouds; on the sea, with its fickle, changeful movements; on the earth, with its lofty peaks, its plains, and rivers. It seemed that man himself, and everything around him, was ] upheld by Divine power; that his career was marked out for ’ him by a rigid fate which even the gods could not alter, ^ should they wish it on occasion. He was indeed free to act, : but the consequences of all his actions were settled before- ! hand. These deities to whom the affairs of the world were en¬ trusted were, it was believed, immortal, though not eternal ' in their existence, as we shall see when we come to read the i legends concerning their birth. In Crete there was even a ^ story of the death of Zeus, his tomb being pointed out; and, further, the fact that the gods were believed to sustain their “ existence by means of nectar and ambrosia, is sufficient proof of their being usually deemed subject to the infirmities of ' age. Being immortal, they were next, as a consequence, | supposed to be omnipotent and omniscient. Their physical J INTRODUCTION, 3 s strength was extraordinary, the earth shaking sometimes ! under their tread. Whatever they did was done speedily. They moved through space almost without the loss of a I moment of time. They knew all things, saw and heard all t things with rare exceptions. They were wise, and commu- ; nicated their wisdom to men. They had a most strict sense I of justice, punished crime rigorously, and rewarded noble i actions, though it is true that they were less conspicuous for I the latter. Their punishments came quickly, as a rule; but ! even if late, even if not till the second generation, still they I came without fail. The sinner who escaped retribution in ' this life was sure to obtain it in the lower world; while the j good who died unrewarded enjoyed the fruit of their good ; actions in the next life. To many this did not appear a : satisfactory way of managing human affairs, and hence there frequently arose doubts as to the absolute justice of the gods and even the sanctity of their lives. These doubts were reflected in stories, which, to the indignation of men like the poet Pindar, represented this or that one of the gods as guilty of some offence or other, such as they were believed to punish. Philosophers endeavored to explain these stories, some as mere fictions of the brain, others as allegories under which lay a profound meaning. But the mass of the people accepted them as they came, and nevertheless believed in the perfect sanctity of the gods, being satisfied that human wick¬ edness was detested and punished by them. Whether the gods were supposed to love the whole of mankind, or only such as led good lives, is not certain. It would seem, however, from the universal practice of offering sacrifice and expiation on the occasion of any wrong, that they were believed to be endowed with some deep feeling of general love, which even sinners could touch by means of atonement. At all events they were merciful. They hated excessive prosperity among individual men, and would on such occasions exercise a Satanic power of leading them into sin. They implanted unwritten laws of right and wrong in 4 IN TROD UCTION. the human breast. Social duties and engagements were under their special care, as were also the legislative measures of states. There were tales of personal visits and adventures of the gods among men, taking part in battles, and appearing in dreams. They werp conceived to possess the form of human beings, and to be, like men, subject to love and pain, but always characterized by the highest qualities and grandest form that could be imagined. To produce statues of them that would equal this high ideal was the chief ambition of artists; and in presence of statues in which success had been attained, the popular mind felt an awe as if in some way the ' deity were near. But while this was the case with regard to the renowned examples of art, such as the statue of Zeus at Olympia, by Phidias, it was equally true with regard to those very ancient rude figures of deities which were believed to have fallen from heaven, and were on that account most carefully preserved in temples, the removal or loss of such a figure being considered an equivalent to the loss of the favor of the deity whose image it was. This was idolatry. At the same time, owing to the vast number of beautiful and grand statues of gods, there gradually arose a feeling of the deifi¬ cation of man and a struggle to become more and more like these beings of nobler human form and divine presence. For it is one of the advantages of having gods possessed of human form that mankind can look up to them with the feel¬ ing of having something in common, and the assurance of pity and favor. This was a powerful element in the Greek religion, and led more than any other to the extraordinary piety of the Greek race, in spite of all the awkward stories which we are accustomed to ridicule. It would seem that the gods were not looked on, at any rate popularly, as having created the world. Perhaps the mass of the people cared nothing for speculation as to the origin of what actually existed, their chief thoughts being concentrated in the changes that took place in what existed INTRODUCTION. 5 and directly affected their interests. In this spirit they looked on the gods as only maintaining and preserving exist¬ ing order and system of things according to their divine wis¬ dom. Hence it was that the Greeks never arrived at the idea of one absolute eternal God, though they very nearly approached that idea in the case of Zeus, who occasionally exercised control or sovereignty over the other gods who pre¬ sided in particular departments in the management of the world. Their natural tendency to polytheism may have been further aggravated by the peculiar circumstances of their early history as a race. It has been suggested with much plausibility that a number of their deities, as Dione, Hera, Gaea, and Demeter, resemble each other so much as to war¬ rant the reasonableness of the conclusion that their separate existence in the mythology was due to a coalescence at some remote early time of distinct tribes of the Greek race, each possessing beforehand a god or gods of their own, with sepa¬ rate names and slightly different attributes, though in the main capable of identification and a common worship. It is probable that, in consequence of such amalgamation, some of the earliest gods have disappeared altogether; while others, who in after times, as in the case of Dione, held subordinate positions, may have originally been deities of the first order. At the time with which we are here concerned, the Greek nation inhabited the country still known by the name of Greece, though its present population has small claim to be descendants of the ancient race. It was spread also in col¬ onies over the islands of the Archipelago and Mediterranean, along the coasts of Asia Minor and the Black Sea, in the Crimea, on the north coast of Africa, and on the south coast of France. In many of its features the mainland of Greece may be compared with England, both having the same com¬ paratively vast extent of sea coast, very few parts of the country being out of sight of the sea. Both are well^ sup¬ plied with mountains that invigorate the climate and stir the spirit of adventure. In both cases it may be that this prox- 6 INTRODUCTION. imity of the greater part of the population to the sea, with its horizon tempting young minds to penetrate beyond its ever-receding line, was the main cause of the general desire of commerce and distant colonization. At any rate, the nat¬ ural features of Greece, her beautiful bays, the vivid lines of her mountain peaks, her delightful groves and valleys, made a deep impression on the people; and colonists, wherever they spread, retained the warmest recollection of them; of snow- clad Olympus, where the gods lived; of the lovely vale of Tempe; of the smiling banks of the Peneus; of the sacred grove at Delphi; of peaceful Arcadia, with its pastoral life; of the broad plain of Olympia, with its innumerable temples, statues, and treasure-houses of costly presents to the gods; of Corinth, with its flag that ruled the sea; of Athens; of Thebes, with its ancient citadel founded by Cadmus; of Eleusis, and many other places. We propose now to examine more particularly the religious belief of the Greeks and Romans, with the view of prepar¬ ing the way for the descriptions that follow of the gods indi¬ vidually. But first of all let us explain the meaning of the word mythology.’^ According to its derivation from the Greek mythos, a tale, and logos, an account, it would mean an account of tales,the tales in this case being confined to the origin, character, and functions of the ancient gods, to the origin of mankind, and the primitive condition of the visible world. To understand these stories we must try to understand the circumstances under which they were in¬ vented, and must endeavor to comprehend the condition and circumstances of a nation in the early stage of its existence. For this purpose we can compare the early tales relating to the gods of other nations, of the Indian on the one hand, and the German on the other; or we may also compare the condition of races at present in an uncivilized state. From these sources it would seem that the youth of a nation, like that of an individual, is the period at which the activity of imagination and fancy is greatest in proportion as knowledge INTRODUCTION. 7 Js least. The mystery of surrounding nature strikes forcibly on the mind, its phenomena on the senses. There is a feel¬ ing of alarm when thunder crashes on the ear, of gladness in the warm light of day, of terror in the darkness of night, and of a strange dread at the darkness of death. The acci¬ dents of daily life bind men together, and repel the rest of the animal creation, over which the human superiority soon becomes known. Men learn to know each other when as yet they know nothing else. They know their own passions and instincts. They measure everything by themselves, by feet, paces, palms, and ells; and when they seek to fathom or measure the cause of the phenomena of nature they have no standard to employ at hand, except themselves. They might, it is true, imagine the cause of the thunder under the form of a great invisible lion; but in that case they could not commune with and implore the thunderer for pity, as they are moved to do. He must, therefore, be conceived as fashioned like a man, endowed with the highest imaginable qualities of a man. As knowledge and civilization advance, those qualities become higher and higher. It seems probable that the first phenomena that appealed to the mind were those of the change of weather, of seasons, the revolving day and the revolving year. At any rate, the earliest deities, as well as we can trace them, appear to be those who presided over the movements of the celestial sphere. We seem to recognize the influence of such phenomena in the chief characteristics of mankind in a primitive stage of existence—the sense of order and regularity, the feeling of fatality, the conviction that whatever temporary disturbances might arise, the course of human life obeyed some fixed law, coming with bright light, and departing in darkness, but only to commence another day of happy life elsewhere. We know that the name of the highest god of the ancients signi¬ fied the light of the world,^’ in a literal sense. In time, as the perceptive faculties expanded and the wants of men mul¬ tiplied, the other phenomena of the world became the subject of 8 INTRODUCTION. inquiry, and were, as usual, ascribed to the direct influence of deities. The singular part, however, of this process of in¬ venting deities is, that having, at the commencement, obtained one great powerful god, they did not simply extend his func¬ tions to all the departments of nature, instead of finding a new god to preside over each. It may be that the apparent conflict frequently observed between the elements of nature was hostile to such an idea, while on the contrary nothing was more readily imaginable than a quarrel among different gods as the cause of such phenomena. By a similar process the combination of different elements, as, for example, warmth and moisture, was appropriately described from the human point of view as a prolific union or marriage of two deities. The sun and moon were called brother and sister. Another opinion, somewhat at variance with this, is, that the primitive stage of all religions is a universal belief in one great god—such a belief, it is said, being as natural to man as the use of his arms and legs. But this earliest and pure form of belief became, they say, in course of time debased into a belief in the existence of many gods, originating in such a method of explaining the phenomena of nature as we have described. On the other hand, the oldest religious records we know of—the V^edas—speak of hosts of divine beings: while in the primitive religion of the American Indians the Great Spirit is surrounded by a crowd of lesser spirits, who repre¬ sent the various phenomena of nature. It would seem that when the notion of one god did arise, it was of the one true God as opposed to the other and false gods, and this did not take place till a high stage of civilization was reached. In the best times of Greece, no doubt, thinking men acknowl¬ edged but one supreme being, and looked on the crowd of other gods as merely his servants, and in no sense really different from our idea of angels. O In due time the religion of the ancients became a polythe¬ ism on a very extensive scale; every phase of nature, sky, INTRODUCTION, 9 sea, and earth, every phase of human life, its habits, accidents, tand impulses, being provided with a special guardian and ; controlling deity. In all the varying circumstances of life I men turned to one or other of these divine persons in grati¬ tude or for help. Temples, sanctuaries, altars, were erected [to them everywhere, one being worshipped with special favor here, and another there; one with special favor at one season of the year, another at another season. Many of them were only known and worshipped in particular localities; as, for instance, marine deities among people connected with the sea. Others belonged to particular periods of the national his¬ tory. This limitation, however, with regard to local differ¬ ences, applies only to the vast number of minor deities whose names and attributes have come down to our times; for a belief in the superior order of gods was the common property of the whole nation, whether learned or unlearned, and of whatever occupation. The mysteries of Eleusis united the people in honor of Demeter; the national festivals united them in honor of other gods, as of Zeus at Olympia. Every one believed in the oracular power of Apollo, in the might of Poseidon, in the grim character of Hades, that Hera was the wife of Zeus, that Athene was his daughter, that Aphrodite was the goddess of love, Artemis of the moon, and Ares the god of war. It was believed that these higher deities inhabited Olym- J pus, living together in a social state which was but a magni¬ fied reflection of the social system on earth. Quarrels, love passages, mutual assistance, and such incidents as characterize | human life, were ascribed to them. It must, however, be j borne in mind that these human attributes, and the stories i connected with them, whether they represent admirable qual- j ities or the reverse, were not in the first instance ascribed to the gods out of a desire to make their resemblance to man more complete, but were the natural result of identifying the • gods with the elements of nature over which they were sup- j posed to preside, of conceiving and representing the combi- ! I \ I 10 INTRODUCTION. nation or conflict of elements visible in nature as the result of the combination of invisible beings of human form. In later times of higher civilization and greater refinement, when the origin of the gods as personifications of natural phenom¬ ena was lost sight of, many of these stories came to be viewed as disgraceful, and by being made the subject of public ridi¬ cule in plays tended largely to uproot the general faith in the gods. Philosophers attempted to explain them as allegories. Others, who did not themselves see their way to believing them, yet advised that the popular faith in them should not be disturbed. But we who live in other times, having no need of a religion that has long since passed away, and desir¬ ing only to trace its origin and the source of its long and deep influence on a great nation, may look at them in a calmer mood. It is our part to admire as far as possible, and not to condemn without first taking into account every extenuating circumstance. Turning now to the rites and ceremonies by which the Greeks and Romans expressed their belief in and entire de¬ pendence on the gods, we would call attention first to the offering of sacrifices. These were of two kinds, one consist¬ ing of fruits, cakes, and wine; the other of animals, which were led to the altar decked with garlands and ribbons, after various ceremonies slain, and part of the flesh consumed upon the altar fire, the smell of it being supposed to rise agreeably to the gods. It was necessary that the animals selected for this purpose should be spotless and healthy, that the persons participating in the ceremony should be cleanly in person and in mind; for no costliness could make the offering of a sinner acceptable to the gods. The color, age, and sex of the animal were determined by the feeling of appropriateness to the deity for whom it was slain. The time chosen for the cere¬ mony was the morning in the case of the gods of heaven, the evening in the case of the gods of the lower world. To these latter deities the victim was always offered entire, as it was not deemed possible that they could share in a feast in com- INTRODUCTION. 11 pany with men. The fire on the altar was considered holy, and special care was taken that it should be fed with wood that gave a pure flame. In early times it would seem that even human beings were offered as sacrifices to certain gods, the victims in such cases being occasionally, to judge from the instance of Iphigenia, closely connected by ties of blood and affection with the person required to make the sacrifice. But these were, perhaps, mostly cases in which the will of the gods was specially communicated through a seer or prophet; whereas sacrifice generally was a spontaneous gift to the gods, either for the purpose of expressing gratitude for the bless¬ ings bestowed by them, or of atoning for some sin of which the person sacrificing was conscious. Sacrifices were not pre¬ sented intermittently and at mere pleasure, but regularly when occasion offered, as at harvest time, when the fruits of the fields and garden were gathered in. The herdsman sac¬ rificed the firstlings of his flock, the merchant gave part of his gain, and the soldier a share of his booty in war. The gods to whom all prosperity and worldly blessings were due expected such offerings, it was thought, and punished every instance of neglect. There was, however, another class of sacrifices, springing from a different motive, and with a different object in view; for example, to obtain by means of an examination of the entrails of an animal an augury as to the issue of some enter¬ prise—a form of sacrifice which was held of great importance at the commencement of a battle; or to sanctify the ratifica¬ tion of a treaty, or some important bargain between man and man; or to obtain purification for some crime. In this last case it was supposed that the victim took the sin upon its own head, and that both perished together. Hence no part of such victims was eaten. How the gods were supposed to partake of the share of sacrifices allotted to them is not always clear, though in the case of burnt offerings they may be imagined to have been satisfied with the smell that rose in the air, and in the case 12 INTRODUCTION. of libations with the aroma of the wine. With regard to the sacrifices in honor of the deities of the lower world, it seems to have been the belief that the blood of the victim, if poured into a hole in the ground, would sink down to them, and be acceptably received. In the same hole, or near by, were buried the ashes that remained on the altar on which the victim was consumed. The portions assigned to marine or river deities were sunk in deep water. It was the duty of the priests to perform the ceremony of offering up the sacrifices brought to the gods in whose service they were. The first part of the ceremony was to take a basket containing the sacrificial knife, some corn, and perhaps also flowers, and to pass it, along with a vessel containing water, round the altar from left to right. The water was next purified by dipping a brand from the altar in it. There¬ upon the people who had brought the sacrifice sprinkled them¬ selves and the altar, and taking a handful of corn from the basket, scattered it on the head of the victim as it approached. The priest then, after shearing a lock of hair from the head of the animal, and distributing it among the bystanders to be thrown on the altar fire, commanded silence, prayed that the offering might be acceptable to the god, and slew the victim. The blood, except in the case of the deities of the lower world, as has been observed, and the entrails, were mixed with wheat, wine, and incense, and placed upon the fire. The strong feelings of piety, gratitude, dependence, or con¬ sciousness of guilt, which gave rise to such offerings, gave rise also to a universal habit of prayer, and a desire to fre¬ quent on all possible occasions the temples and altars of the gods. Morning and evening, at the beginning of meals, at the opening of business in the courts of justice and public assemblies, a prayer was offered up, now to one god, now to another, or, if no particular deity appeared to be an appro¬ priate guardian for the time and occasion, to the gods gener¬ ally. There was this peculiarity in the Greek prayers, which we must not omit to mention, that after calling on a deity by IN TROD UCTION. 13 his usual name a clause was added to save the suppliant from ; any possible displeasure of the deity at the name employed; ' for how could man know the true name of a god? We have an example of such a prayer in Aeschylus : Zeus, whoever ‘ thou art, and by whatever name it please thee to be named, ! I call on thee and pray.’’ In praying to the gods above it 1 was the custom of the Greeks to lift the hands and turn the i face toward the east; of the Romans, to turn toward the north. A suppliant of the sea gods stretched out his hands ; toward the sea, and a suppliant of the gods of the lower world beat the earth with his hands. When a prayer was offered up in a temple the rule was to turn toward the sacred ; image. In cases of great distress the suppliant would carry an olive branch, or a rod with wool twined round it, throw himself on the ground before the sacred image, and embrace its feet. Pythagoras, the philosopher, taught his follow¬ ers to pray with a loud voice; but loud prayers do not appear to have been customary. On the contrary, it hap¬ pened not unfrequently that the prayers were written on tablets, sealed, and deposited beside the image of the god, that no human being might be aware of the request contained in them. Here is a specimen of what seems to have been the usual form : Zeus, our lord, give unto us whatever is good, whether we ask it of thee or not; whatever is evil keep far from us, even if we ask it of thee.” Besides sacrifice and prayer there is still another class of ceremonies, in which we recognize the deep piety of the Greeks : first, the custom of consulting oracles, especially that of Apollo at Delphi, in times of great perplexity; and secondly, the universal practice, in cases of less or more sud¬ den emergency, of trying to interpret the will of the gods by means of augury or divination in a vast variety of ways. Sometimes the augury was taken from the direction in which birds were observed to fly overhead. If to the right of the augur, who stood with his face to the north, good luck would attend the enterprise in question; if to the left, the reverse. 14 INTRODUCTION. At other times an animal was slain, and its entrails carefully T examined, the propitiousness of the gods being supposed to I depend on the healthy and normal condition of these parts, j But the gods were also believed to communicate their will to ’ men in dreams, by sending thunder and lightning, comets, meteors, eclipses, earthquakes, prodigies in nature, and the thousand unexpected incidents that occur to men. As few j' persons were able to interpret the bearing of these signs and | wonders, there was employment for a large class of people f who made this their particular business. ^ Finally, we must not forget to mention as a proof of the , wide-spread religious feelings of the Greeks the national fes¬ tivals, or games, as they are called, established and main- J tained in honor of certain gods. While these festivals were being celebrated it was necessary to suspend whatever war might be going on between separate states, and to permit - visitors to pass unmolested even through hostile territory. ' These festivals were four in number: the OlympiaUj Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian. j! The first mentioned was held in honor of Zeus, on the plain of Olympia, in Elis. It occurred every fifth year, and t|j the usual method of reckoning time was according to its re- occurrence, by Olympiads, as we say. The games with which ? it was celebrated consisted of running, wrestling, boxing, a J combination of the two latter, horse-racing,either with chariots I or only with riders. The prize of victory was simply a ■ wreath of olive, and yet athletes trained themselves labori- I ously and travelled great distances to compete for it. Kings sent their horses to run in the races, and counted a vie- |i tory among the highest honors of their lives. The fellow- 2 townsmen of a victorious athlete would raise a statue in his honor. Occasionally writers, as we are told of Herodotus, I took this occasion of a vast assemblage of their countrymen f to read to them part of their writings. The Pythian games I were held in honor of Apollo, in the neighborhood of Delphi, 1 and occurred every fifth year, there being competition in ■ INTRODVGTION. 15 music as well as in athletics. The prize was a wreath of ) laurel. At the Nemean games^ which were held in honor of Zeus, the prize was a wreath of ivy. / The Isthmian games were held in honor of Poseidon, on the Isthmus of Corinth, and occurred every third year; the prize was a wreath of pine. It is remarkable and surprising, that with all the piety and religious ceremonies of the ancients, there existed among them no established means of instruction for the mass of the peo¬ ple, as to the character and functions of the gods whom they worshipped. There was, indeed, a regular priesthood, whose ! duty it was to conduct the public ceremonies, to offer up sacrifices, and to perform other offices peculiar to the god in whose service they were. But there their duties ceased. These ceremonies had been handed down from time imme¬ morial, and that was perhaps sufficient guarantee of their importance to make the ordinary Greek assiduous in his observance of them. At any rate, this assiduity is not trace¬ able to a clear and explicit knowledge of the character of the gods derived from public instruction. In regard to that, whatever unanimity existed was unquestionably due in the first instance to the influence of poets like Homer and Hesiod, and in the second, to the exertion of the persons connected with the oracle at Delphi. The effect of this state of things was a great amount of confusion in the popular mind, and not only in the popular mind but also in the minds of men like Socrates, who confessed that he did not know whether there was one Aphrodite or two, and wondered why Zeus, who was believed to be one god, had so many names. / The preceding remarks, it should be here observed, ap^y for the most part only to the mythology of the Greeks, and do not extend to that of the Romans, except so far as they refer to the most primitive class of myths, such as those concern¬ ing the origin of the world. For the practice of identifying the mythologies of those two nations has no foundation in fact. Both races, it is true, belonged to one and the same great branch of the human family, and from that source Murray —3 16 INTRODUCTION. derived a common kernel of religious belief. But before this kernel had developed far the two nations parted, and formed for themselves distinct and isolated settlements in Europe. In the long period of isolation that followed, the common seed of religious belief with which both started grew up, was propagated under quite different circumstances and assumed a very different aspect. The Romans—in the early periods of their history a pastoral, agricultural, simple, and more or less united people—had no need of a various multitude of deities, such as the Greeks found necessary, scattered and separated as they were into a variety of tribes with a variety of occupations. From this, among other casues, it happens that many, even of the very early Greek myths, were quite foreign to the Romans. To this class belong, for instance, the myths that describe the conflict between Uranus and his sons: Cronus devouring his children to escape, as he thought, being de¬ throned by them, and Zeus placing his father, Cronus, in durance in Tartarus. No less strictly peculiar to the Greeks were those accounts of quarrels among the gods, wounds, and occasionally the banishment of certain gods to a period of service on earth. To these we may add the carrying off of Persephone by Pluto, and several other stories. With regard to the ceremonies which accompanied the worship of certain gods, we observe the same great difference between the two nations, and would cite as an example the wild unrestrained conduct of those who took part in the festivals of Dionysus, remarking that when in later times of luxury a festival of this kind was introduced into Italy in honor of Bacchus, the Roman equivalent for the Greek Dionysus or Bacchus, the new festival was forbidden, and those who took part in it were viewed as persons of unbridled desires. Nor did Mer¬ cury ever obtain the widespread worship and honor paid to Hermes in Greece; and even Saturnus, in spite of the Roman poets, was a very different god from the Greek Cronus. At the time when the Roman poets began to write, ^^Greece INTRODUCTION. 17 captured was leading her captor captive/^ Greek literature was the usual means of education; Greek philosophy, Greek art—everything pertaining to the Greeks—constituted the principal pursuit of educated men. Many would rather employ the Greek than their own language in writing. Poets, constructing their poems often in close imitation of Greek models, replaced the names of gods that occurred in the Greek originals by names of native deities possessing some similarity of character, and told a Greek story of a native Italian god; or, failing such, employed the Greek name in a Latin form. At the same time no real adaptation or coales¬ cence of the two religious systems ever took place. The Roman ceremonies and forms of worship remained for the most part distinct from the Greek, and peculiar to the race. In modern times, however, the literature (especially the poetry) of the ancient Romans was more familarly known than the facts relating to their ceremonies and forms of wor¬ ship. It was more early and familiarly known than the literature of Greece, and instead of upon the latter, the mod- et’n notions of Greek mythology were founded on the state¬ ments of the Roman poets. Hence arose a confusion which our own poets, especially those of the last century, only made worse confounded. To meet this confusion we shall give the accredited Roman equivalent by the side of the Greek gods, throughout our descriptions, and point out as far as possible the differences between them. Thus far our observations have been confined to the my¬ thology and religious ceremonies of the Greeks and Romans, especially of the former. We have had very little to say of the Romans, because, though equal perhaps to the Greeks in their piety and trust in the gods, they appear to have been very deficient in that quality of imagination which could readily invent some divine personification for every phenome¬ non of nature that struck the mind. As, however, it is our intention to include a description, even if very brief, of the mythology of the Indian and Teutonic or Germanic races, it fii) I 18 INTRODUCTION, may be well to call attention here to the fact, now clearly ascertained, that these races are sprung from the same com¬ mon family or human stock to which the Greeks and Eomans belonged, and that at least certain ideas concerning the origin and primitive condition of the world are common to the mythologies of them all. From this it is reasonable to con¬ clude that these ideas were arrived at previous to the separa¬ tion of this great Indo-Germanic family, as it is called, and its development into distinct and isolated nations, as we find it at the dawn of historical times. From the Ganges to Iceland we meet with traces of a common early belief that the wild features of the earth had been produced by some long past convulsive conflict of Titanic beings, whom, though invisible, the stormy elements of nature still obeyed. We find that everywhere, within these limits of space and time, there existed among men the same sensitiveness to the phe¬ nomena of nature—to light and darkness, to heat and cold, to rain and drought, to storms and peacefulness—and the same readiness and power of imagining invisible beings of human form, but loftier attributes, as the cause of these phe¬ nomena. To these beings actions and habits of life were ascribed, such as were suggested by the phenomena which they were supposed to control; and in no case, it should be borne in mind, was any feeling of morality or immorality intended to be conveyed. For instance, when we find the natural process by which the clouds pour out their rain upon the earth, and are again filled from the sea, described as Hermes (the god of raix) stealing the cattle (clouds) of Apollo, we cannot attach to the story the idea of criminality which it at first suggests. Similar interpretations we must be prepared to see throughout the mythologies of the Indo-Germanic races. It may now be asked, from what source is this knowledge derived of the mythology of the ancients? To this we the works of ancient writers, poets, historians, philosophers, and others, to whom the religious belief of their countrymen was a subject of great importance, and whose INTRODUCTION. 19 writings have survived to our times; in the second place, from the representations of gods and mythological scenes on the immense number of ancient works of art that still exist, whether in the form of statues in marble and bronze, painted vases, engraved gems, or coins. These are the sources of our knowledge, and without becoming more or less familiar with them it is perhaps impossible to understand fully the spirit of these ancient myths; and contrariwise, to be able to appreciate at its real worth the beauty of ancient works, whether in literature or in art, it is necessary to become acquainted with the mythology and the religious spirit which guided their authors; and if that be not sufficient temptation to follow our descriptions of the various deities and heroes of ancient times, we can still appeal to this—that a great part of our grandest modern poetry and works of art can only be intelligible to those who know the ancient mythology. Drawing near, as we are now, to the details of our sub¬ ject, we become anxious to guard against all feelings of im¬ propriety in what we may have occasionally to relate. We would, therefore, remind the reader of the principles of inter¬ pretation which we have endeavored to explain in the pre¬ ceding pages. We would also repeat that we have here to do with a system of religious belief which, whatever its apparent or real shortcomings may have been, exercised enor¬ mous influence on the education of at least two of the most civilized nations of the earth. Olympus. THE CREATION OF THE WORLD. In thinking of the origin of the world in which they lived, the Greeks for the most part, it would appear, were satisfied with the explanation given by the poet Hesiod—that in the beginning the world was a great shapeless mass or chaos, out of which was fashioned first the vspirit of love, Eros (Cupid), and the broad-chested earth, Gaea; then Erebus, darkness, and Nox, night. From a union of the two latter sprang Aether, the clear sky, and Hemera, day. The earth, by virtue of the power by which it was fashioned, produced in turn, Uranus, the firmament which covered her with its vault of brass, as the poets called it, to describe its appear¬ ance of eternal duration, the mountains, and Pontus, the unfruitful sea. Thereupon Eros, the oldest and at the same time the youngest of the gods, began to agitate the earth and all things on it, bringing them together, and making pairs of them. First in importance of these pairs were Uranus and Gaea, heaven and earth, who peopled the earth with a host of beings, Titans, Giants, and Cyclopes, of far greater physical frame and energy than the races who succeeded them, ( 20 ) THE CREATION OF THE WORLD. 21 It is a beautiful idea, that of love making order out of chaos, bringing opposite elements together, and preparing a world to receive mankind. Another apparently older, and certainly obscure notion, is that expressed by Homer, which ascribes the origin of the world to Oceanus, the ocean. How the earth and heavens sprang from him, or whether they were conceived as co¬ existing with him from the beginning, we are not told. The numerous ancient stories, however, concerning floods, after Gaea. which new generations of men sprang up, and the fact that the innumerable fertilizing rivers and streams of the earth were believed to come from the ocean, as they were seen to return to it, and that all the river gods were accounted the offspring of Oceanus, suggest the prevalence of such a form of belief with regard to the origin of the world in times pre¬ vious to Hesiod. We are told that the ocean encircled the earth with a great stream, and was a region of wonders of all kinds; that Oceanus lived there, with his wife Tethys; 22 THE CREATION OF THE WORLD. that there were the islands of the blest, the gardens of the gods, the sources of the nectar and ambrosia on which the gods lived. Within this circle of water the earth lay spread out like a disk with mountains rising from it, and the vault of heaven appearing to rest on its outer edge all around. This outer edge was supposed to be slightly raised, so that the water might not rush in and overflow the land. The space Eros of Praxiteles. between the surface of the earth and the heavens was seen to be occupied by air and clouds, and above the clouds was sup¬ posed to be pure ether, in which the sun, moon, and stars moved. The sun rising in the eastern sky in the morning, traversing the celestial arch during the day, and sinking at evening in the west, was thought to be under the guidance of a^ god in a chariot drawn by four splendid horses. After sinking into Oceanus, it was supposed that he took ship and THE CREATION OF THE WORLD. 23 sailed during the night round to the east, so as to be ready to begin a new day. In the region of air above the clouds moved the higher order of gods; and when, for the sake of council or inter¬ course they met together, the meeting place was the summit of one of those lofty mountains whose heads were hid in the ^ clouds, but chief of all, the inaccessible Olympus in Thessaly. [ Kound the highest point of it was the palace of Zeus, with the throne on which he sat in majesty to receive such visits as ^ those of Thetis (Iliad i. 498) when she came to plead for her son. On plateaus or in ravines lower down were the man¬ sions of the other gods, provided, as was thought, with the convenience of store-rooms, stabling, and all that was usual in the houses of princes on earth. The deities who thus inhabited Olympus, and for that reason were styled the Olympian deities, were twelve in number. We do not, it is true, always find this number composed of the same gods, but the following may be taken as having been the most usual: Zeus (Jupiter), Hera (Juno), Poseidon (Neptune), Demeter (Ceres), Apollo, Artemis (Diana), Hephaestus (Vulcan), Pallas, Athene (Minerva), Ares (Mars), Aphro¬ dite (Venus), Hermes (Mercury), and Hestia (Vesta). Though allied to each other by various degrees of relation¬ ship, and worshipped in many places at altars dedicated to them as a united body, they did not always act together in harmony, a most memorable instance of their discord being that (Iliad viii. 13—27) in which Zeus threatened to hurl the others into Tartarus, and challenged them to move him from Olympus by letting themselves down with a golden chain and pulling with all their might. Should they try it, he | said, he could easily draw them up with earth and sea to the ; bargain, fasten the chain to the top of Olympus, and let the whole hang in mid air. Tire name of Olympus was not confined to the Thessalian mountain, though it may have had ; the earliest, as in after times it had the principal, claim to the title, but was applied to no less than fourteen mountains M 24 the creation OF THE WORLD. ill various parts of the Greek world, each of which appears to have been regarded as an occasional meeting place, if not a permanent seat of the gods. Finally, the word was used to designate a region above the visible sky, from which, to i express its height, it was said that once a brazen anvil fell nine days and nine nights before it reached the earth. At i an equal distance beneath the surface of the earth was Tar- I tarns, a vast gloomy space walled in with brass, where the i Titans lived in banishment. The lower order of deities, having naturally no place in j Olympus, were restricted to the localities on earth where they 11 exercised their powers—as, for instance, the Naiades, or Nymphs of fountains, to the neighborhood of fountains and springs; the Oreades, or mountain Nymphs, to the moun- i tains and hills; and the Dryades, or Nymphs of trees, to trees. With regard to the place of residence of the heroes or semi-divine beings after their translation from earth, there ■ existed considerable variety of opinion, of which we shall afterward have occasion to speak. Ttepresentations of the deities assembled in Olympus for a partic¬ ular occasion as at the birth of Athene from the head of her father Zeus—occur not unfrequently on the Greek painted vases. This was the subject chosen by Phidias for the sculptures in one of the pedi¬ ments of the Parthenon now in the British Museum. The loss, how¬ ever, of many of the figures renders it impossible to say now who were the deities he selected, or whether he even adhered to the usual number of twelve. At one end of the pediment the sun rises in his chariot from the sea, at the other the moon rides away. The event must, therefore, have taken place at the break of day. The same fact is to be observed in the scene at the birth of Aphrodite, in presence of the assembled deities, with which Phidias adorned the base of his statue of Zeus at Olympia, and of which we have still the description in Pausanias (v. 403). At one end was the Sun stepping into his chariot, next to him Zeus and Hera, then Hephaestus (?) and Charis, then Hermes and Hestia. In the centre was Eros receiving Aphro¬ dite as she rises from the sea, and Peitho crowning Aphrodite; then Apollo and Artemis, next Athene and Hercules, then Poseidon and Amphitrite, and lastly the Moon (Selene) riding away. The deities are thus grouped in pairs of male and female, those of greater impor- ^ tance being toward either end of the composition. Council of the Gods, DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST OEDER. URANUS Is a personification of the sky as the ancients saw and under¬ stood its phenomena, and with him, according to the version of mythology usually accepted by the Greeks, commences the race of gods. Next succeeded Cronus, and lastly, Zeus (Jupiter). With regard to this triple succession of supreme rulers of the world, we should notice the different and pro¬ gressive signification of their three names, Uranus signifying the heavens viewed as husband of the earth, and by his warmth and moisture producing life and vegetation every¬ where on it; Cronus, his successor, being the god of harvest, who also ripened and matured every form of life; while in the person of Zeus (Jupiter), god of the light of heaven, as his name implies, culminated the organization and perfectly wise and just dispensation of the affairs of the universe. Uranus, as we have already observed, was a son of G-aea (the earth), whom he afterward married, the fruit of that (25) U-'irJl c:3 I 9^ 26 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. union being the Titans, the Hecatoncheires, and the Cyclopes. The Hecatoncheires, or Centimani, beings each with a hun¬ dred hands, were three in number : Cottus, Gyg-es or Gyes, and Briareus, and represented the frightful crashing of waves and its resemblance to the convulsion of earthquakes. The Cyclopes also were three in number : Brontes with his thun¬ der, Steropes with his lightning, and Arges with his stream of light. They were represented as having only one eye, which was placed at the juncture between nose and brow. It was, however, a large flashing eye, as became beings who were personfications of the storm-cloud, with its flashes of destructive lightning and peals of thunder. From a similar¬ ity observed between the phenomena of storms and those of volcanic eruptions, it was usually supposed that the Cyclopes lived in the heart of burning mountains, above all, in Mount Aetna, in Sicily, where they acted as apprentices of He¬ phaestus (V ulcan), assisting him to make thunderbolts for Zeus, and in other works. Uranus, it was said, alarmed at their promise of fierceness and strength, had cast the Heca¬ toncheires and Cyclopes at their birth back into the womb of the earth from which they had sprung. The Titans were, like the Olympian deities, twelve in num¬ ber, and grouped for the most part in pairs : Oceanus and Tethys, Hyperion and Thia, Crius and Eurybia, Coeus and Phoebe, Cronus and Rhea, Japetus and Themis. Instead of Eurybia we find frequently Mnemosyne. Their names, though not in every case quite intelligible, show that they were personifications of those primary elements and forces of nature to the operations of which, in the first ages, the present configuration of the earth was supposed to be due. While Themis, Mnemosyne, and Japetus may be singled out as personifications of a civilizing force in the nature of things, and as conspicuous for having offspring endowed with the same character, the other Titans appear to represent wild, powerful, and obstructive forces. In keeping with this CRONUS. 27 character we fiud them rising in rebellion first against their father and afterward against Zeus. In the former experiment the result was that Uranus, as we learn from the poetic account of the myth, threw them into Tartarus, where he kept them bound. But Gaea, his wife, grieving at the hard fate of her offspring, provided the youngest son, Cronus, with a sickle or curved knife, which she had made of stubborn adamant, and told him how and when to wound his father with it irremediably. The enter¬ prise succeeded, the Titans were set free, married their sisters, and begat a numerous family of divine beings, while others of the same class sprang from the blood of the wound of Uranus as it fell to the ground. Of these were the Giants, monsters with legs formed of serpents; the Melian nymphs, or nymphs of the oaks, from which the shafts used in war were fashioned; and the Brinys, or Puriae, as the Homans called them— Tisiphone, Megaera, and Alecto— creatures whose function it was originally to avenge the shed¬ ding of a parents blood. Their form was that of women, with hair of snakes and girdles of vipers. They were a terror to criminals, whom they pursued with unrelenting fury. The whole of these divine beings, however, with the excep¬ tion of the Erinys, who were worshipped at Athens under the name of the ^Wenerable deities,’^ were excluded from the religion of the Greeks, and had a place only in the my¬ thology, while among the Homans they were unknown till later times, and even then were only introduced as poetic fictions, with no hold upon the religious belief of the people. CHONUS, ^^The dpener, the harvest god,^’ was, as we have already remariced, a son of Uranus. That he continued for a long time to be identified with the Homan deity, Saturnus, is a mistake which recent research has set right, and accordingly 28 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. we shall devote a separate chapter to each. Uranus, deposed from the throne of the gods, was succeeded by Cronus, who married his own sister Rhea, a daughter of Gaea, who bore him Pluto, Poseidon (Neptune), and Zeus (Jupiter), Hestia (Vesta), Demeter (Ceres), and Hera (Juno). To prevent the fulfilment of a prophecy which had been communicated to him by his parents, that, like his father, he too would be dethroned by his youngest son, Cronus swallowed his first five children apparently as each came into the world. But when the sixth child appeared, Rhea, his wife, determined to save it, and succeeded in duping her husband by giving him a stone (perhaps rudely hewn into the figure of an infant) wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he swallowed, believing he had got rid of another danger. CRONUS. 29 While the husband was being deceived in this fashion, Zeus, the newly born child, was conveyed to the island of Crete, and there concealed in a cave on Mount Ida. The nymphs Adrastea and Ida tended and nursed him, the goat Amalthea supplied him with milk, bees gathered honey for him, and in the mean time, lest his infantile cries should reach the ears of Cronus, Rhea’s servants, the Curetes, were ap¬ pointed to keep up a continual noise and din in the neighbor¬ hood by dancing and clashing their swords and shields. When Zeus had grown to manhood he succeeded by the aid of Gaea, or perhaps of Metis, in persuading Cronus to yield back into the light the sons whom he had swallowed and the stone which had been given him in deceit. The stone was placed at Delphi as a memorial for all time. The liberated gods joined their brethren in a league to drive their father from the throne and set Zeus in his place. This was done; but the change of government, though acquiesced in 30 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. by the principal deities, was not to be brooked by the Titans, who with the exception of Oceanus proceeded to war. The seat of war was Thessaly, with its wild natural features sug¬ gestive of a conflict in which huge rocks had been torn from mountain sides and shattered by the violence with which they had been thrown in combat. The party of Zeus had its posi¬ tion on Mount Olympus, the Titans on Mount Othrys. The struggle lasted many years, all the might which the Olym¬ pians could bring to bear being useless until, on the advice of Gaea, Zeus set free the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires, of whom the former fashioned thunderbolts for him, while the latter advanced on his side with force equal to the shock of an earthquake. The earth trembled down to the lowest Tartarus as Zeus now appeared with his terrible weapon and new allies. Old Chaos thought his hour had come, as from a continuous blaze of thunderbolts the earth took fire and the waters seethed in the sea. The rebels were partly slain or consumed, and partly hurled into deep chasms, with rocks and hills reeling after them, and consigning them to a life beneath the surface of the earth. The cause of Cronus was thus lost forever, and the right of Zeus to rule established for all time. The island of Crete, where civilization appears to have dawned earlier than elsewhere in Greece, and where the story of the secret up-bringing of Zeus was made the most of, was the principal centre of the worship of Cronus. Here, how¬ ever, and in Attica, as well as in several other districts of Greece, it was less as the grim god who had devoured his children that he was worshipped than as the maturer and ripener, the god of the harvest, who sends riches and bless¬ ings, prosperity and gladness. So it happened that his festivals in Greece, the Cronia, and the corresponding Sat¬ urnalia in Italy, were of that class which imposed no re¬ straint on the mirth and pleasure of those present, and seemed like a reminiscence of an age when under the rule of Cronus there had been a perpetual harvest time on earth. SATUBNUS. 31 As the devourer of his children Cronus bears some resem- I blance to the Phoenician Moloch, and it is highly probable I that this phase of his character originated in Crete, where ‘ the influence of Phoenician settlers had been felt from very remote times. It is also to be noted that his wife Phea enjoyed a very early and widespread worship in Asia Minor. The scene where Rhea presents the stone carefully wrapped up to her husband as he sits on his throne, was the subject of a sculpture executed for Plataea by Praxiteles (Pausanias ix. 2, 7), from which it is possible that the relief may have been made which is represented in our illustration, and is now in the Capitoline Museum, Rome. The thoughtful attitude of Cronus, and especially the veiled head, seem to indicate a plotting mind, while the sickle in his left hand is em¬ blematical of his function as god of the harvest, and at the same time a memorial of the deed he wrought upon his father Uranus. The war with the Titans (Titanomachia) was superseded in popular esti¬ mation as early as the time of Euripides by the Gigantomachia, or war of Giants, which will be described in connection with Zeus. Artists following the popular taste neglected the former altogether as a source of subjects. SATURNUS According to the popular belief of the Romans, made his first appearance in Italy at a time when Janus was reigning king of the fertile region that stretches along the banks of the Tiber on either side. Presenting himself to Jaims, and being kindly received, he proceeded to instruct the subjects of the latter in agriculture, gardening, and many other arts then quite unknown to them : as, for example, how to train and nurse the vine, and how to tend and cultivate fruit-trees. By such means he at length raised the people from a rude and comparatively barbarous condition to one of order and peaceful occupations, in consequence of which he was every¬ where held in high esteem, and in course of time was selected by Janus to share with him the government of the kingdom, which thereupon assumed the name of Saturnia, a land of seed and fruit.^^ The period of Saturn^ s government Murray —4 32 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. was in later times sung of by poets as a happy time when sorrows and cares of life were unknown, when innocence, freedom, and gladness reigned throughout the land, in such a degree as to deserve the title of the golden age. Greek mythology also has its Saturnus. golden age, said to have occurred during the reign of Cronus, and this, perhaps, more than any other circumstance, led to the identification of Saturnus and Cronus, in spite of the real dif¬ ference between the two deities. The name of Saturn’s wife was Ops. Once a year, in the month of December, the Romans held a festival called Saturnalia in his honor. It lasted from five to seven days, and was accompanied by amusements of all kinds. During thosedays the or¬ dinary distinctions were done away with between master and servant or slave. No assemblies were held to discuss pub¬ lic affairs, and no pun¬ ishments for crime were inflicted. Servants or slaves went about dressed like their masters, and received from them costly presents. Children received from their parents or relatives presents of pictures, probably of a gaudy type, purchased in the street where the c yi :m ii'iTlS M® c;^ ,#r."-fc 'Cira M» vf* Ufi f'-’i Im HERA, OR JUNO. RHEA. 33 picture dealers lived. Mommsen has shown that even during the Empire the Saturnalia proper was a single day, Decem¬ ber 19th. It was the great holiday of the Roman year, not unlike our Christmas, and people greeted each other with the words bona Saturnalia.^’ Lucian tells us that the receiver of a book at that time was in honor bound to read it, no matter how long or uninteresting it might be. There was a temple of Saturn in Rome, at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, containing a figure of him with his feet wrapped round with pieces of woollen cloth, which could only be removed during the festival of the Saturnalia. In one hand he held a curved garden-knife, as a sign of his having been the first to teach the people how to trim the vine and olive. In this temple were preserved the state chest and the standards of the army. RHEA. As Uranus, the representative of the fertilizing force in nature, was superseded by Cronus, the representative of a ripening force, so Gaea, the primitive goddess of the earth with its productive plains, gave way to Rhea, a goddess of the earth with its mountains and forests. Gaea had been the mother of the powerful Titans. Rhea was the mother of gods less given to feats of strength, but more highly gifted: Pluto, Poseidon (Neptune), and Zeus (Jupiter), Hera (Juno), Demeter (Ceres), and Hestia (Vesta). Her titles—as, for example, Dindymene and Berecynthia— were derived for the most part from the names of mountains in Asia Minor, particularly those of Phrygia and Lydia, her worship having been intimately associated with the early civilization of these countries. There her name was Cybele or Cybebe, which also, from its being employed to designate her sanctuaries (Cybela)in caves or mountain sides, points to her character a& a mountain goddess. The lofty hills of Asia Minor, while sheltering on their I 34 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. | cavernous sides wild animals, such as the panther and lion, ' which it was ber delight to tame, also looked down on many ^ flourishing cities which it was her duty to protect. In this latter capacity she wore a mural crown, and was styled Mater tur- rita. But though herself identified with peaceful civilization, her wor¬ ship was always distinguished by wild and fantastic excitement, her priests and devotees rushing through the woods at night with torches burning, maiming and wounding each other, and producing all the din that was possible from the clashing of cymbals, the shrill notes of pipes, and the frantic voice of song. To account for this peculiarity of her worship, which must have been intended to commemorate some great sorrow, the story was told of how she had loved the young Phrygian shepherd, Attis, whose extraordinary beauty had also won the heart of the king’s daughter of Pessinus; how he was destined to marry the princess, and how the goddess, suddenly appearing, spread terror and consternation among the marriage guests. Attis escaped to the mountains, maimed himself, and died beside a pine tree, into which his soul transmigrated, while from his blood sprang violets like a wreath round the tree. The goddess implored Zeus to restore her lover. This could not be. But so much was granted that his body,should never decay, that his hair should always grow, and that his little finger should always move. The pine was a symbol of winter and sadness, the violet of spring and its hopeful beauty. The first priests of Bhea-Cybele v^’ere the Curetes and Corybantes, for whom it was also claimed that they had been RHEA. 35 the first beings of mere human form and capacity that had appeared on the earth, having sprung from the mountain side like trees. The great centre of her worship was always at Pessinus in Phrygia, under the shadow of Mount Dindymon, on which was a cave containing what was believed to be the oldest of her sanctuaries. Within this sanctuary was the tomb of Attis, and an ancient image of the goddess in the shape of a stone, which was said to have fallen from heaven. The first temple at Pessinus had been erected, it was said, by King Midas. Successive rulers of Phrygia maintained and endowed it so liberally that it continued to be a place of importance long after Phrygian civilization had sunk. Spreading from this centre, the worship of Cybele took hold first in the neighboring towns of Sardis, Magnesia, Smyrna, Ephesus, Lampsacus, and Cyzicus; thence to Athens, and in later times to the moun¬ tainous district of Arca¬ dia, where it was locally believed that Zeus had been born and that the creation of mankind had taken place. The worship of Cybele was introduced into Rome during the second Punic war, because the Sibylline fates had an¬ nounced that if her image was brought to Rome a foe would be expelled; this was done in the shape of the small black stone, mentioned above, which was placed in the Temple of Victory. The Megalesia began on April 4th and lasted six days. In art Rhea appears as the goddess of mountain tops, riding on a lion, and holding a sceptre in one hand and a cymbal in the other; beside her the moon and a star. At other times she is seated on a throne with a lion in her lap, or with a lion at each side, or in a chariot drawn by lions or panthers. 36 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. ZEUS, OR JUPITER. Third and last on the throne of the highest god sat Zeus. The fertile imagination of early times had, as we have seen, placed his abode on Mount Olympus in Thessaly. But a later and more practical age usually conceived him as inhab¬ iting a region above the sky, where the source of all light was supposed to be. He was god of the broad light of day, as Zeus, or Jupiter, his name implies, had control of all the phenomena of the heavens, and accordingly sudden changes of weather, the gathering of clouds, and, more than all, the burst of a thun¬ der-storm made his presence felt as a supernatural being interested in the affairs of mankind. Hence such titles as ^^cloud-gatherer,’’ god of the murky cloud,” thun- derer,” and ‘^mighty thunderer,” were those by which he was most frequently invoked. On the other hand, the seren¬ ity and boundless extent of the sky, over which he ruled, ZEUS, OR JUPITER. 37 combined with the never-failing recurrence of day, led him to be regarded as an everlasting god : ''Zeus who was and is and shall be/^ To indicate this feature of his character he was styled Cronides or Cronion, a title which, though appar¬ ently derived from his father Cronus, must have assumed even at a very early time a special significance; otherwise we should expect to find it ap¬ plied also to his two brothers, Posei¬ don (Neptune) and Hades (Pluto). The eagle soaring beyond vision seemed to benefit by its ap¬ proach to Zeus, and came to be looked on as sacred to him. Similarly high moun¬ tain peaks derived a sanctity from their nearness to the region of light, and were everywhere in Greece associated with his worship, many of them furnishing titles by which he was locally known — as, for in¬ stance, Aetnaeus, a title derived from Mount Aetna in Sicily, or Atabyrius, from a mountain in Ehodes. Altars to him and even temples were erected on hill tops, to reach which by long toiling, and then to see the earth spread out 38 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. small beneath, was perhaps the best preparation for ap¬ proaching him in a proper spirit. In contrast with this, and as testimony to the saying of Hesiod that Zeus Cronides lived not only in the pure air but also at the roots of the earth and in men, we find the low ground of Dodona in Epirus viewed with peculiar solemnity as a spot where direct communion was to be enjoyed with him. A wind was heard to rustle in the branches of a sacred oak when the god had any communication to make, the task of in¬ terpreting it devolving on a priesthood called Selli. A spring rose at the foot of the oak, and sacred pigeons rested among its leaves, the story being that they had first drawn attention to the oracular powers of the tree. It should here be noted that the real importance of this worship of Zeus at Dodona belonged to exceedingly early times, and that in the primitive religion of the Italian, German, and Celtic nations the oak was regarded with similar reverence. As the highest god, and throughout Greece worshipped as such, he was styled the father of gods and men, the ruler and preserver of the world. He was believed to be possessed of every form of power, endued with wisdom, and in his domin¬ ion over the human race partial to justice, and with no limit to his goodness and love. Zeus orders the alternation of day and night, the seasons succeed at his command, the winds obey him ; now he gathers, now scatters the clouds, and bids the gentle rain fall to fertilize the fields and meadows. He watches over the administration of law and justice in the state, lends majesty to kings, and protects them in the exer¬ cise of their sovereignty. He observes attentively the gene¬ ral intercourse and dealings of men—everywhere demand¬ ing and rewarding uprightness, truth, faithfulness, and kindness; everywhere punishing wrong, falseness, faithless¬ ness, and cruelty. As the eternal father of men, he was believed to be kindly at the call of the poorest and most forsaken. The homeless beggar looked to him as a merciful guardian who punished the heartless, and delighted to reward ZEUS, OR JUPITER. 39 pity and sympathy. To illustrate his rule on earth we would here give a familiar story: Philemon and Baucis, an aged couple of the poorer class, were living peacefully and full of piety toward the gods in their cottage in Phrygia, when Zeus, who often visited the earth, disguised, to inquire into the behavior of men, paid a visit, in passing through Phrygia on such a journey, to these poor old people, and was received by them very kindly as a weary traveller, which he pretended to be. Bidding him welcome to the house, they set about preparing for their guest, who was accompanied by Hermes (Mercury), as excel¬ lent a meal as they could afford, and for this purpose were about to kill the only goose they had left, when Zeus inter¬ fered^ for he was touched by their kindliness and genuine piety, and that all the more because he had observed among the other inhabitants of the district nothing but cruelty of disposition and a habit of reproaching and despising the gods. To punish this conduct he determined to visit the country with a destroying flood, but to save Philemon and Baucis, the good aged couple, and to reward them in a striking man¬ ner. To this end he revealed himself to them before opening the gates of the great flood, transformed their poor cottage on the hill into a splendid temple, installed the aged pair as his priest and priestess, and granted their prayer that they might both die together. When after many years death overtook them they were changed into two trees, that grew side by side in the neighborhood—an oak and a linden. While in adventures of this kind the highest god of the Greeks appears on the whole in a character worthy of admi¬ ration, it will be seen that many other narratives represent him as laboring under human weaknesses and error. The first wife of Zeus was Metis (Cleverness), a daughter of the friendly Titan Oceanus. But as Pate, a dark and omnis¬ cient being, had predicted that Metis would bear Zeus a son who should surpass his father in power, Zeus followed in a manner the example of his father Cronus, by swallowing m Ml ’ 40 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. Metis before she was delivered of her child, and then from his own head gave birth to the goddess of wisdom, Pallas Athene (Minerva). Next he married, it is said, but only for a time, Themis (Justice), and became the father of Astraea and the Horae. His chief love was, however, always for Hera (Juno), with her many charms, who, after withstanding his entreaties for a time, at length gave way, and the divine marriage took place amid great rejoicing, not on the part of the gods of heaven alone, for those other dei¬ ties also, to whom the management of the world had been in various departments delegated, had been invited, and went gladly to the splendid ceremony. Hera became the mother of Hebe, Ares (Mars), and Heph¬ aestus (Vulcan). Zeus did not, however, remain constant and true to the marriage with his sister, but secretly indulged a passion for other goddesses, and often, under the disguise of various forms and shapes, approached even the daughters of men. Hera gave way to indignation when she found out such doings. From secret intercourse of this kind Demeter (Ceres) bore him Persephone (Proserpina); Leto (Latona) be¬ came the mother of Apollo and Artemis (Diana); Dione, the mother of Aphrodite (Venus); Mnemosyne, of the Muses; Eurynome, of the Charites (Graces); Semele, of Dionysus (Bacchus); Maia, of Hermes (Mercury); Alcmene, of Her¬ cules ; several of the demigods, of whom we shall afterward speak, being sons of Zeus by other and different mothers. These numerous love passages of Zeus (and other gods as well), related by ancient poets, appear to us, as it is known they appeared to the right-thinking men amongst the ancients themselves, unbecoming of the great ruler of the universe. The wonder is how such stories came into existence; unless, indeed, this be accepted as a satisfactory explanation of their origin—that they are simply the different versions of one great myth of the marriage of Zens, peculiar in early times to the different districts of Greece, each version representing him as having but one wife, and being constant to her. Her ZEUS, OR JUPITER. 41 name and the stories connected with their married life would be more or less different in each case. In after-time, when the various tribes of the Greeks became united into one peo¬ ple, and the various myths that had sprung up independently concerning Zeus came, through the influence of poets and by other means, to be known to the whole nation, We may imag¬ ine that the only way that presented itself of uniting them all into one consistent narrative was by degrading all the wives, except Hera, to the position of temporary acquaint- 42 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. ances. It is, however, unfortunate that we cannot now trace > every one of his acquaintances of this sort back to a primi¬ tive position of sufficiently great local importance. At the same time, enough is known to justify this principle of inter¬ pretation, not only with regard to the apparent improprieties in the conduct of Zeus, but also of the other deities wherever they occur. Properly Zeus could have but one wife, such being the limit of marriage among the Greeks. Of the several localities in Greece where the worship of Zeus was conducted with unusual ceremony and devotion, the two most deserving of attention are Athens and Olympia. In Athens the change of season acting on the temperament of the people seemed to produce a change in their feelings® toward the god. For from early spring and throughout theffl summer they called him the friendly god (Zeus Meilichius), Jj offered public sacrifices at his altars, and on three occasions held high festival in his honor. But as the approach of winter made itself felt, thoughts of his anger returned, he was called the cruel god (Zeus Maemactes), and an endeavor was made to propitiate him by a festival called Maemacteria. At Olympia, in Elis, a festival, which from an early period had assumed national importance, was held in his honor in the month of J uly (Hecatombaeon) every fifth year—that is, after the lapse of four clear years. It lasted at least five and perhaps seven days, commencing with sacrifice at the great altar of Zeus, in which the deputies from the various states, with their splendid retinues, took part. This cere¬ mony over, a series of competitions took place in foot-racing, lii leaping from a raised platform with weights (Jialteres) in the liands to give impetus, throwing the disk (a circular plate of metal or stone weighing about eight pounds), boxing with leather thongs twisted around the arm and sometimes with g metal rings in the hands, horse-racing, chariot-racing with two or four horses, and lastly, a competition of musicians and poets. The lists were open to all free-born Greeks, except such as had been convicted of crime, or such as had entailed ZEUS, OR JUPITER. 43 iu former contests the penalty of a fine and had refused to pay it. Intending competitors were required to give sureties that they had gone through a proper course of training, and that they would abide by the decision of the judges. Slaves and foreigners might look on, but the presence of married women was forbidden. The entire management of the fes¬ tival was in the hands of a board elected from their own number by the people of Elis. The plain of Olympia, where this national meeting in honor of Zeus was held, is now a waste; but some idea may still be gathered from the descrip¬ tion of Pausanias of its magnificent temple and vast number ' of statues that studded the sacred grove. Within the temple was a statue of the god, in gold and ivory, the work of Phi- ^ dias, the most renowned of ancient sculptors. It was forty feet in height, and for its beauty and grandeur was reckoned ' one of the Seven Wonders* of the ancient world. As some would have it, these games had been established I by Zeus himself to commemorate his victory over the Titans i and even the gods in early times are said to have taken part t in the contests. The people of Elis maintained that the fes- i tival had been founded by Pelops, while others ascribed that : honor to Hercules. The usual method of reckoning time I was by the interval between these festivals, one Olympiad being equal to four years. The first festival from which the reckoning started, as ours does from the birth of Christ, occurred in the year 776 B. C. ^ The birth and early life of Zeus, up to the period, when, ! after a long and fierce war around Olympus, he defeated the i Titans and established his right to reign in the place of his * The seven wonders of the ancient world were (1) The Pyramids of Egypt • (2) The \Uns of Babylon; (3) The Hanging Gardens of Babylon ; (4) The Temple of Diana at m ^ Olympia; (6) The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus- (7) The Colossus at Rhodes ; all monuments of art of extraordinary beauty or stupen¬ dous dimensions. In statues of gold and ivory, such as that of Zeus at Olympia and many others, the face and nude parts of the body were made of ivory, while the’hair and drapery were reproduced in gold, richly worked in parts with enamel We ob- tein an idea of the expense of such splendid statues, from the statement that a single lock of the hair of Zeus at Olympia cost about $1250. W ,!»*• •'lit :a3 •ttiii or* IN « n«r 44 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. father Cronus, has already been related. That his two broth¬ ers, to whose assistance he had been greatly indebted during the war, might have a share in the management of the world, lots were cast; and to Poseidon (Neptune) fell the control of the seas and rivers, while Hades (Pluto) obtained the govern¬ ment of the world under the earth. Opposition, however, on the part of the kindred of Cronus had not yet ceased, and the new dynasty of gods had to encounter a fresh outbreak of war even more terrible thau had been that of the Titans, the enemy being in this case the Giants, a race of beings sprung from the blood of Uranus. The Giants took up their position on the peninsula of Pallene, which is separated from Mount Olympus by a bay. Their king and leader was Por- phyrion, their most powerful combatant Alcyoneus, against whom Zeus and Athene took up arms in vain. Their mother Earth had made the Giants proof against all the weapons of the gods—not, however, against the weapons of mortals; and knowing this Athene brought Hercules on the scene. Sun and moon ceased to shine at the command of Zeus, and the herb was cut down which had furnished the Giants with a charm against wounds. The huge Alcyoneus, who had hurled great rocks at the Olympians, fell by the arrows of Hercules; and Porphyrion, while in the act of seizing Hera, was over¬ powered. Of the others, Pallas and Enceladus were slain by Athene, the boisterous Polybotes fled, but on reaching the island of Cos was overtaken by a rock hurled at him by Poseidon (Neptune) and buried under it, while Ephialtes had to yield to Apollo, Rhoetus to Dionysus, and Clytius to Hecate or Hephaestus (Vulcan). To the popular mind this war with the Giants had a greater interest than the Titano- machia. Ultimately the two were confounded with each other. These wars over, there succeeded a period which was called the Silver Age on earth. Men were rich then, as in the Golden Age under the rule of Cronus, and lived in plenty; but still they wanted the innocence and contentment which ZEUS, OR JUPITER. 45 were the true sources of human happiness in the former age; and, accordingly, while living in luxury and delicacy, they became overbearing in their manners to the highest degree, were never satisfied, and forgot the gods, to whom, in their confidence of prosperity and comfort, they denied the rev¬ erence they owed. To punish them, and as a warning against such habits, Zeus swept them away and concealed them under Interior of the Temple of Zeus in Olympia. tfie earth, where they continued to live as demons or spirits, not so powerful as the spirits of the men of the Golden Age, but yet respected by those who came after them. Then followed the Bronze Ag*e, a period of constant quar¬ relling and deeds of violence. Instead of cultivated lands and a life of peaceful occupations and orderly habits, there came a day when everywhere might was right; and men, big and powerful as they were, became physically worn out, and Murray —5 46 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. sank into the lower world without leaving a trace of their having existed, and without a claim to a future spiritual life. Finally came the Iron Age, in which enfeebled mankind had to toil for bread with their hands, and, bent on gain, Astraea. did their best to overreach each other. Dike or Astrae the goddess of justice and good faith, modesty, and truth, turned her back on such scenes, and retired to Olympus, while Zeus determined to destroy the human race by a great ZEUS, OR JUPITER. 47 flood. The whole of Greece lay under water, and none but Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha were saved. Leaving the summit of Parnassus, where they had escaped the flood, they were commanded by the gods to become the founders of a new race of men —that is, the present race. To this end, it is said, they cast around them, as they advanced, stones, which presently assumed the forms of men, who, when the flood had quite disappeared, commenced to cultivate the land again, and spread themselves in all directions; but being little better than the race that had been destroyed, they, too, often drew down the displeasure of Zeus and suffered at his hands. Among the Pomans Jupiter held a place of honor corre¬ sponding in some degree to that held by Zeus among the Greeks. His favorite title was Optimus Maximus. His name being of the same derivation as that of Zeus, indicates his function as god of the broad light of day and armed with the weapon of lightning. Temples and altars were erected for the purpose of his worship, statues were raised, and public festivals held in his honor. As to sacrifice, both he and Zeus delighted most in bulls. To both the eagle, the oak, and the olive were sacred. The growth of religious feeling precedes the development of artistic faculty in man, and accordingly we find that in the earliest ages the presence of a god was symbolized only by some natural object. In the case of Zeus this was an oak-tree, while in the case of Rhea-Cybele it was, as we have seen, a stone which was believed to have fallen from heaven. The first artistic efforts to reproduce the image of a god were called xoana, and consisted of a pillar rudely shaped like a human figure seen at a distance, the artist’s attention being mostly directed to the head. Of this kind was the figure of Zeus Labran- deus as represented on the coins of Caria, the figure of Zeus with three eyes at Argos, and the figure of him without ears at Crete. Piety caused those rude and strange images to be retained till long after the art of sculpture had become equal to the production of im¬ posing figures. The gold and ivory statue of Zeus at Olympia, of which mention has already been made, represented him seated on his throne, and some small idea may still be gained of it from what is no doubt a copy of it on the coins of Elis. The bust known as the Zeus of Otricoli is perhaps the best existing example of the face of 48 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. Zeus as conceived by the Greek sculptors. The attributes of Zeus are the eagle, a sceptre, a thunderbolt, and, in the case of an ancient image in Caria, an axe. He is represented sometimes with Hera by his side, sometimes with Athene, or with both, or with Athene and Hercules. When he leaves his throne it is generally to rise in might against an enemy such as the Giants, and in these cases he is always armed with the thunderbolt, and either stands in the act of hurling it, or drives in a chariot attended by other gods, as he is frequently to be seen on the ancient painted vases. Another favorite subject on these vases is the birth of Athene from the head of Zeus. In works of art no distinction is made between Zeus and Jupiter, for this reason, that Rome had no distinctive sculpture of its own. HERA, OR JUNO, Was a divine personification of what may be called the female power of the heavens—that is, the atmosphere, with its fickle and yet fertilizing properties; while Zeus represented those properties of the heavens that appeared to be of a male order. To their marriage were traced all the blessings of nature, and when they met, as on Mount Ida, in a golden cloud, sweet fra¬ grant flowers sprangup around them. A tree with golden apples grew up at their marriage feast, and streams of ambrosia flowed past their couch in the happy island of the west. That marriage ceremony took place, it was believed, in spring, and to keep up a recollection of it, an an¬ nual festival was held at that season in her honor. Like the sudden and violent storms, however, which in certain seasons break the peaceful¬ ness of the sky of Greece, the meetings of this divine pair often resulted in temporary quarrels and wrangling, the m Ml ‘ '‘W c m c;..d «rr:% llt^k ,fK'i a'i •«•* r CM? 49 -~i ZEUS, OR JUPITER LIBRARY OF —, *■ ♦ Kvr J 4 ii HERA, OB JUNO. 49 blame of which was usually traced to Hera; poets, and most of all Homer, in the Iliad, describing her as frequently jeal¬ ous, angry, and quarrelsome, her character as lofty and proud, cold, and not free from bitterness. Of these scenes of discord we have several instances, as when (Iliad i. 586) Zeus actu¬ ally beat her, and threw her son Hephaestus (Vulcan) out of Olympus; or (Iliad xv. 18) when, vexed at her plotting against Hercules, he hung her out of Olympus with two great weights (earth and sea) attached to her feet, and her arms bound by golden fetters—an illustration of how all the phenomen:^, of the visible sky were thought to hang dependent on the highest god of heaven; or again (Iliad i. 396) when Hera, with Poseidon (Neptune) and Athene, attempted to chain down Zeus, and would have succeeded had not Thetis brought to his aid the sea giant Aegaeon. As goddess of storms, Hera was consistently described as the mother of Ares (Mars), herself taking part in war occasionally, as against the Trojans, and enjoying the honor of festivals, accompanied by warlike contests, as at Argos, where the prize was a sacred shield. Her favorite companions, in periods of peace, were the Charites (Graces) and the Horae (Seasons), of which the latter are also found in company of her husband. Her con¬ stant attendant was Iris, goddess of the rainbow. The pea¬ cock, in its pride and gorgeous array, and the cuckoo as herald of the spring, were sacred to her. In the spring-time occurred her principal festival, at which the ceremony consisted of an imitation of a wedding, a figure of the goddess being decked out in bridal attire, and placed on a couch of willow branches, while wreaths and garlands of flowers were scattered about, because she loved them. Another singular festival was held in her honor every fifth year at Olympia in Elis, the cere¬ mony consisting in the presentation of a splendidly embroid¬ ered mantle {^jpeplus) to the goddess, and races in which only girls and unmarried women took part, running with their 50 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. hair streaming down, and wearing short dresses—the judges on the occasion being sixteen married women. The character, however, in which Hera was most generally viewed was that of queen of heaven, and as the faithful wife of Zeus claiming the highest conceivable respect and honor. Herself the ideal of womanly virtues, she made it a principal duty to protect them among mortals, punishing with severity all trespassers against her moral law—but, naturally, none so much as those who had been objects of her husband^s affections—as, for instance, Semele, the mother of Dionysus, or Alcmene, the mother of Hercules. Her worship was restricted for the most part to women, who, according to the various stages of womanhood, regarded her in a different light: some as a bride, styling her Parthenia ; others as a wife, with the title of Gamelia, Zygia, or Teleia ; and others again in the character of Ilithyia, as helpful at childbirth. Of these phases of her life that of bride was obviously asso- ciable with the phenomena of the heavens in spring-time, when the return of dazzling light and warmth spread every¬ where affeetionate gaiety and the blooming of new life. As queen of heaven and wife of Zeus she will be found, in con¬ nection with the legends of Argos and its neighborhood, pos¬ sessed, from motives of jealousy, of a hatred toward the nocturnal phenomena of the sky, and especially the moon, as personified by the wandering lo, whom- she placed under the surveillance of Argus, a being with innumerable eyes, and apparently a personification of the starry system. The town of Argos, with its ancient legends, which clearly betray some powerful sensitiveness to the phenomena of light, was the oldest and always the chief centre of this worship of Hera. There was her principal temple, and within it a statue of the goddess by Polyclitus, which almost rivalled in gran¬ deur and beauty the Zeus at Olympia, by Phidias. Next came Samos, with its splendid temple erected for her by Polycrates. In Corinth also, in Euboea, Boeotia, Crete, and even in Lacinium, in Italy, she had temples and devotees. POSEIDON, OR NEPTUNE. 61 -i- * Juno, the Roman equivalent of Hera, was mostly regarded from the maternal point of view, and in accordance with that frequently styled Lucina, the helper at childbirth. Temples were erected and festivals held in her honor—of the festivals that called Matronalia being the chief. It was held on March 1 of each year, and could only be participated in by women, who went with girdles loose, and on the occasion received presents from husbands, lovers, or friends, making presents in turn to their servants. The spirits that guarded over women were called in early times Junones. The image of Hera is said to have consisted at first of a long pillar, as in Argos, and in Samos of a plank, and to have assumed a human form only in comparatively late times. The statue of her by Poly¬ clitus, mentioned above, was of gold and ivory and of colossal size. It represented her seated on a throne, holding in one hand a pome¬ granate, the symbol of marriage, and in the other a sceptre on which sat a cuckoo. On her head was a crown ornamented with figures of the Charites (Graces) and Horae. We can still in some measure recall the appearance of the statue from the marble head known as the Juno Ludovisi, from the coins of Argos, and from several ancient heads in marble of great beauty. Praxiteles made a colossal statue of her in the character of the protectress of marriage rites, and also a group of her seated, with Athene and Hebe standing beside her. On the painted vases the scene in which she most frequently occurs is that where she appears before Paris to be judged of her beauty. POSEIDON, OR NEPTUNE. It has already been told how, when all resources had failed which the Titans could bring to bear for tlie restoration of Cronus to the throne, the government of the world was divided by lot among his three sons, Zeus, Poseidon, Hades. To Zeus fell, besides a general supremacy, the control of the heavens; and we have seen how he and his consort Hera, representing the phenomena of that region, were conceived as divine persons possessed of a character and performing actions such as were suggested by those phenomena. To Poseidon (Neptune) fell the control of the element of water, HI (; tsi m ii'vTC all P:fi Hi c:s 52 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. and he in like manner was conceived as a god, in whose character and actions were reflected the phenomena of that element, whether as the broad navigable sea, or as the cloud which gives fertility to the earth, growth to the grain and vine, or as the fountain which refreshes man, cattle, and horses. A suitable symbol of his power, therefore, was the horse, ad¬ mirably adapted as it is both for labor and battle, whilst its swift springing movement compares finely with the advance of a foaming wave of the sea. He yokes to the chariot,” sings Homer in the Iliad, his swift steeds, with feet of brass and manes of gold, and himself clad in gold, drives over the waves. The beasts of the sea sport around him, leaving their lurking places, for they know him to be their lord. The sea rejoices and makes way for him. His horses speed lightly, and never a drop touches the brazen axle.” It may have been to illustrate a tendency of the sea to encroach in many places on the coast, as well as to show the importance attached to a good supply of water, that the myth originated which tells us of the dispute between Poseidon and Athene for the sovereignty of the soil of Attica. To settle the dispute, it was agreed by the gods that whichever of the two should perform the greatest wonder, and at the same time confer the most useful gift on the land, should be entitled to rule over it. With a stroke of his trident Posei¬ don caused a brackish spring to well up on the Acropolis of Athens, a rock 400 feet high, and previously altogether with¬ out water. But Athene in her turn caused the first olive tree to grow from the same bare rock, and since that was deemed the greatest benefit that could be bestowed, obtained for all time sovereignty of the land, which Poseidon thereupon spitefully inundated. A similar dispute, and ending also unfavorably for him, was that which he had with Hera concerning the district of Argos. But in this case his indignation took the opposite course of causing a perpetual drought. Other incidents of the same nature were his disputes with Helios for the pos- POSEIDON, OR NEPTUNE. 53 session of Corinth, with Zeus for Aegina, with Dionysus for Naxos, and with Apollo for Delphi. The most obvious illustrations, however, of the encroaching tendency of the sea are the monsters which Poseidon sent to lay waste coast lands, such as those which Hesione and Andromeda were offered to appease. In the Iliad Poseidon appears only in his capacity of ruler of the sea, inhabiting a brilliant palace in its depths, travers¬ ing its surface in a chariot, or stirring the powerful billows till the earth shakes as they crash upon the shore. This limitation of his functions, though possibly to be accounted for by the nature of the poem, is remarkable for this reason, that among the earliest myths associated with his worship are those in which he is represented in connection with well- watered plains and valleys. In the neighborhood of Lerna, in the parched district of Argos, he had struck the earth with his trident, and caused three springs to well up for love* of Amymone, whom he found in distress, because she could not obtain the water which her father Danaus had sent her to fetcho In Thessaly a stroke of his trident had broken 54 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. through the high mountains, which formerly shut in the whole country and caused it to be frequently flooded with water. By that stroke he formed the pleasant vale of Tempe, through which the water collecting from the hills might flow away. A district well supplied with water was favorable to pasture and the rearing of horses, and in this way the horse came to be doubly his symbol, as god of the water of the sea and on the land. In Arcadia, with its mountainous land and fine streams and valleys, he was worshipped side by side with De¬ meter, with whom, it was believed, he begat that winged and wonderfully fleet horse Arion. In Boeotia, where he was also worshipped, the mother of Arion was said to have been Erinys, to whoni he had appeared in the form of a horse. With Medusa he became the father of the winged horse Pegasus, which was watered at springs by Nymphs, and appeared to poets as the symbol of poetic inspiration. And again, as an instance of his double capacity as god of the sea and pasture streams, the ram, with the golden fleece for which the Argonauts sailed, was said to have been his offspring by Theophane, who had been changed into a lamb. Chief among his other offspring were, on the one hand, the giant Antaeus, who derived from his mother Earth a strength which made him invincible, till Hercules lifting him in the air overpowered him, and the Cyclops, Polyphemus ; on the other hand, Pelias, who sent out the Argonauts, and Neleus, the father of Nestor. To return to the instances of rebellious conduct on the part of Poseidon, it appears that after the conclusion of the war with the Giants a disagreement arose between him and Zeus, the result of which was that Poseidon was suspended for the period of a year from the control of the sea, and was further obliged during the time to serve, along with Apollo, Laome- don the King of Troy, and to help to build the walls of that city. Some say that the building of the walls was voluntary on the part of both gods, and was done to test the character of Laomedon, who afterward refused to give Poseidon the POSEIDON, OR NEPTUNE. 55 reward agreed upon. Angry at this, the god devastated the land by a flood, and sent a sea monster, to appease which Laomedon was driven to offer his daughter Hesione as a sacrifice. Hercules, however, set the maiden free and slew the monster. Thus defeated, Poseidon relented none of his indignation toward the Trojans, and would have done them much injury in after times, when they were at war with the Greeks, but for the interference of Zeus. Though worshipped generally throughout Greece, it was in the seaport towns that the most remarkable zeal was displayed to obtain his favor. Temples in his honor, sanctuaries, and public rejoicings were to be met with in Thessaly, Boeotia, Arcadia, at Aegae, and Helice, on the coast of Achaea, at Pylos in Messenia, at Elis, in the island of Samos, at Cor¬ inth, Nauplia, Troezen, in the islands of Calauria, Euboea, Scyros, and Tenos, at Mycale, Taenarum, Athens, and on the Isthmus that belt of laud which connects Peloponnesus with the rest of Greece. In the island of Tenos an annual festival was held in his honor, at which he was worshipped in the character of a physician. People crowded to the festival from neighboring islands, and spent the time in banquets, sacrifice, and common counsel. But chief of all the gather¬ ings in his honor was that held on the Isthmus of Corinth in the autumn, twice in each Olympiad—a festival which had been established by Theseus, and in reputation stood next to the Olympian games, like them also serving the pur¬ pose of maintaining among the Greeks of distant regions the consciousness of their common origin. The Corinthians had the right of arranging and managing them, the Athenians having also certain privileges. It was in his double capacity of ruler of the sea and as the first to train and employ horses that the honors of this festival were paid to him. His tem¬ ple, with the other sanctuaries, stood in a pine grove, a wreath from which was the prize awarded to the victors. The prize had originally been a wreath of parsley. In this sacred pine grove was to be seen the Argo, the ship of the • fV 56 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. A-rg-onauts, dedicated to Poseidon as a memorial of the earliest enterprise at sea; and there also stood the colossal bronze statue of the god, which the Greeks raised to com¬ memorate the splendid naval victory gained over the Per¬ sians at Salamis. Horses and bulls were sacrificed to him, the method of performing the sacrifice being to throw them into the sea. It was the practice of fortunate survivors of shipwreck to hang up some memento of their safety in one of his temples. The Temples of Isis in particular, whom they worship in Greece as Pelagia, were thus adorned in Rome, even in Republican times. Horace, Vergil, and other poets make frequent mention of hanging their wet garments, in which they had been saved when shipwrecked, as a votive offering, usually accompanied by a tablet with perhaps name and date. The Romans, living mostly as herdsmen and farmers in early times, had little occasion to propitiate the god of the sea, and it was probably, therefore, rather as the father of streams that they erected a temple to Neptunus in the Cam¬ pus Martins, and held a festival in his honor attended with games, feasting, and enjoyment like that of a fair. Between Zeus and Poseidon there is, in works of art, such likeness as would be expected between two brothers. But Poseidon is by far the more powerful of the two physically—his build, like that of Hercules, expressing the greatest conceivable strength. But unlike Hercules, his attitudes and especially his head, are those of a god, not of an athlete. His features, one by one, resemble those of Zeus, but his hair, instead of springing from his brow, falls in thick masses over his temples, and is matted from the water. His attributes are a trident and dolphin. Possibly the sacred figures of him in his tem¬ ples represented him seated on a throne, and clad in the Ionian chiton. But in the colossal statues of him erected on promontories and in harbors, to secure his favor, he was always standing wearing only a slight scarf, which concealed none of his powerful form, holding out a dolphin in his left, and the trident in his right hand, often with one foot raised on the prow of a vessel. In works of art not connected directly with his worship he was figured traversing the sea in a car drawn by Hippocampi, or other fabulous creatures of the sea. In one HADES, OR PLUTO. 67 of the pediments of the Parthenon the dispute between him and Athene was represented. AMPHITRITE, The rightful wife of Poseidon (Neptune), was the goddess of the sea, had the care of its creatures, could stir the great waves, and hurl them, against rocks and cliffs. She was the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, or, according to another report, of Nereus and Doris. Usually she was represented with flowing hair and the toes of a crab protruding from her Amphitrite. temples; sometimes seated on the back of a triton or other creature of the deep, alone among sea-animals and seaweed, or accompanying Poseidon. She may be compared with the sea-goddess of the Romans, Salacia, Neverita, and Venilia. HADES, OR PLUTO. We have seen how Zeus, Hera, and Poseidon came to be conceived as the three great deities who between them con¬ trolled the elements of heaven, sky, and sea, and how a char¬ acter came to be ascribed to each of them such as was most naturally suggested by the phenomena of the provinces of «rl Kl V HIV ({"i-a m •tf’iC 'C:r» I if 01 fl if 1 I t 58 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. the world in which they respectively ruled. But there still remained a region which could not escape the observation of people like the Greeks, gifted with so keen a sense of the various operations of nature. That region was, however, itself invisible, being under the surface of the earth. The growth of vegetation was seen to be steadily upward, as if impelled by some divine force below. The metals which experience showed to be most precious to mankind could onlj be obtained by digging into that dark region under the earth. Thither returned, after its day on earth was spent, everj form of life. In conceiving a god who should be supreme in the management of this region, it was necessary to attrib¬ ute a double character to him : first, as the source of all the treasures and wealth of the earth, as expressed in his name Pluton (Pluto); and secondly, as monarch of the dark realm inhabited by the invisible shades of the dead, as expressed in his name of Aides (Hades). While by virtue of his power of giving fertility to vegeta¬ tion, of swelling the seed cast into the furrows of the earth, and of yielding treasures of precious metal, he was justly viewed as a benevolent deity and a true friend of man, there was another and very grim side to his character, in which he appears as the implacable, relentless god, whom no cost of sacrifice could persuade to permit any one who had once passed his gates ever to return. For this reason, to die, to go to Hades’s house, to pass out of sight, to be lost in the dark¬ ness of the lower world, was looked forward to as the dismal inevitable fate awaiting all men. Yet there must have been some consolation in the belief that the life thus claimed by him had been originally his gift, as were the means of com¬ fort and pleasure in life thus cut off. In later times, when the benevolent side of his character came more into view, assuring hopes arose concerning a future happy life that robbed death of its terrors. To impart such hopes was the purpose of the Eleusinian Mysteries. It seems to have been to make this union of two such hades, on PLUTO, 59 opposite powers in the person of one god more explicit that the myth concerning his marriage with Persephone orig¬ inated, she being, as we shall afterward see, a personification of young blooming life. The grim god of the dead carries off by force a young goddess full of life But no new life is* sues from the mar¬ riage. Yet she loved him, it would seem; for when her mother. Demeter (Ceres), implored her to come back to earth, her answer was that she had accepted from her husband the half of a pomegranate, or apple of love as it was called, and had eaten it. It is ap¬ parently in reference to this that both Hades and Perseph¬ one are represented in works of art hold¬ ing each a fruit. Hades, being a son of Rhea and Cronus, was enti¬ tled, after the dethronement of the latter, to a share along with his two brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, in the management of the world. They cast lots, and to Hades fell the dominion over the lower world. The importance assigned to his domin¬ ion may be judged from the fact of itg monarch being a Murray —6 Hades Throned. m c iiiS 'Cirs Ifjt 11 I ifpt '9^ 60 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. brother of Zeus, and styled, too, sometimes, Zeus of the lower world/^ With regard to the region where the realm of Hades was to be looked for we find the ancient authorities at variance, some representing it as in the under-world proper—that is, under the crust of the earth, others in the remote west, in Oceanus, where were the gloomy groves of Persephone. It was entered from the upper world by any spot of sufficiently sombre or wild natural aspect, particularly chasms with dark waters such as inspire terror. The most celebrated place of this kind was Lake Avernus, at Cumae in Italy, of which it was said, as of the dead sea, that no bird tried to fly across it but fell lifeless in its waters. Beyond these entrances was an open gate through which all comers had to pass, and having passed could not, as a ride, retrace a step. Excep¬ tions to the rule were made in favor of heroes such as Her¬ cules and Orpheus, who were permitted to visit the home of the dead, and return alive. The entrance was guarded by the dog of Hades, the dreaded Cerberus, a monster witli three heads and a serpent’s tail, fawning on those who entered, but showing his horrible teeth to those who tried to pass out. But besides by this gateway, the lower was sepa¬ rated from the upper world by rivers with impetuous tor¬ rents, of which the most famous was the Styx, a stream of such terrible aspect that even the highest gods invoked it as witness of the truth of their oaths. Across this river the departed were conveyed by an aged ferryman appointed by the gods, and called Charon, but not until their bodies had been buried in the earth above with all due ceremony of sac¬ rifice and marks of affection. Till this was done the souls of the departed had to wander listlessly about the farther bank of the Styx, a })rospect which was greatly dreaded by the ancients. For the ferry Charon exacted a toll (naulon), to pay which a piece of money (danake) was placed in the mouth of the dead at burial. The other rivers of the under-world were named Acheron HADES, OB PLUTO. 61 —that is, the river of eternal woe;^^ Pyriphlegethon, the stream of fire; and Cocytus, the river of weeping and wailing.'^ To these is added by a later myth, Lethe, the river of ^^forgetfulness—so called because its waters were believed to possess the property of causing the departed who drank of them to forget altogether their former circumstances in the upper world. The purport of this myth was to explain and establish the idea that the dead could not take with them into the realm of everlasting peace the consciousness of the pains and sorrows of their lot on earth. In the waters of Lethe they drank a happy oblivion of all past suffering, wants, and troubles an idea of the means of forgetting sorrow which later poets have made frequent use of. In the last book of the Odyssey the souls of the slain suitors, conceived as small winged beings, are described as being conducted to the realm of Hades by Hermes (Mer¬ cury) in his capacity of Psychopompos. The way is dark and gloomy. They pass the streams of Oceanus, the white rock, the gates of Helios, the people of dreams, and at last reach the Asphodel meadow, where the spirits of the dead inhabit subterraneous caves. With regard to the condition of the dead under the domin¬ ion of Hades, the belief was that they led a shadowy sort of apparent life, in which, as mere reflections of their former selves, they continued as in a dream, at any rate without dis¬ tinct consciousness, to perform the labors and carry on the occupations to which they had been accustomed on earth. It was only to favored individuals like the Theban seer, Tiresias, of whom we have more to say afterward, that the privilege of complete consciousness was granted. Such was the sad condition of the dead; and how they bore it may be guessed from the complaint of Achilles to Odysseus, in the Odyssey: I would rather toil as a day-laborer on the earth than reign here a prince of dead multitudes.'' Occasionally the shades of the dead were permitted to appear to their friends on earth. It was also possible to summon them by 62 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. a sacrifice, the blood of which, when they had drunk of it, restored eonscioiisness and speech, so as to enable them to communicate with the living. AVe must, however, clearly distinguish between this under¬ world as the abiding place of the great mass of the dead, and two other regions where spirits of the departed were to be found—the one Elysium (the Elysian Fields), with the islands of the blest, and the other Tartarus. The former region was most commonly placed in the remotest West, and the latter as far below the earth as the heavens are above it. In early times it appears to have been believed that Elysium and the happy islands were reserved less for the virtuous and good than for certain favorites of the gods. There, under the sovereignty of Cronus, they lived again a kind of second golden age of perpetual duration. But in later times there spread more and more the belief in a happy immor¬ tality reserved for all the good, and particularly for those who had been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries. Tar¬ tarus, on the other hand, was the region where those were condemned to punishment who had committed any crime against the gods while on earth. What was the misery of their condition we shall be able to judge from the following HADES, OR PLUTO. 63 account of a few of the best known of those condemned to such punishment, as Tantalus, Ixion, Sisyphus, Tityus, and the Danaides. Tantalus, once a king of Phrygia, had given offence to the gods by his overbearing and treachery, as well as by the t cruelty which he had practised on his own son. For this he was doomed to Tartarus, and there to suffer from an unceasing dread of being crushed by a great rock that hung above his head, he the while standing up to the throat in water, yet possessed of a terrible thirst which he could never quench, and a gnawing hunger which he tried in vain to allay with the tempting fruits that hung over his head but withdrew at every approach he made. Ixion, once a sovereign of Thessaly, had, like Tantalus, outraged the gods, and was, in consequence, sentenced to Tar¬ tarus, there to be lashed with serpents to a wheel which a strong wind drove continually round and round. Sisyphus, once king of Corinth, had by treachery and hostility incurred the anger of the gods in a high degree, and was punished in Tartarus by having to roll a huge stone up a height, which he had no sooner done, by means of his utmost exertion, than it rolled down again. Tityus, a giant who once lived in Euboea, had mis¬ used his strength to outrage Leto (the mother of Apollo and Artemis), and was con¬ demned by Zeus to Tartarus, =^^1 where two enormous vul- ./'i tures gnawed continually liis liver, which always grew Danaides. again. The Danaides, daughters of Danaus, king of Argos, were sentenced to Tartarus for the murder of their husbands. The m ill*" HI * 64 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. punishment prescribed for them was to carry water, and con¬ tinue to pour it into a broken cistern or vase, the labor being all in vain, and going on forever. Hades (Pluto) and Persephone (Proserpina), however, were not only rulers over the souls of the departed, but were also believed to exercise the function of judges of mankind after death. In this task they were assisted by three heroes who while on earth had been conspicuous for wisdom and justice—Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus, the last being also, apart from this, the gate-keeper of the lower region, according to a later opinion. Both among the Greeks and Romans the worship of Plu- ton-Hades was wide-spread, and the honors paid him great. In Greece, his principal temples were at Pylos, Athens, and Olympia in Elis. The cypress, narcissus, and boxwood were sacred to him. In Rome a great festival was held in his honor in the month of February, at which sacrifices [febru- ationes) of black bulls and goats were offered, and the offici¬ ating priests wore wreaths of cypress, the whole ceremony extending over twelve nights. The Saecular Games, which were held once in a century, were in his honor, and as a tribute to the dead. Their origin was lost in antiquity even in the time of Augustus. It is said, however, that the first celebration took place in the consulship of Valerius Publi- cola, to avert a plague; the last was celebrated in the reign of Philippus, A. D. 248. In works of art Hades is represented as having inherited the same type of face as his brothers Zeus and Poseidon, differing only in a certain grimness of expression. His hair shades his brow in heavy masses. In attitude he is either seated on a throne with Persephone by his side, or standing in a chariot and carrying her off. His attri¬ butes are a sceptre like that of Zeus, and a helmet, which, like the cloud cap of Siegfried in German mythology, made its wearer invis¬ ible. His attendant is the three-headed dog Cerberus. On the painted vases scenes of torment in Tartarus are not unfrequent—such, for example, as the Danaides pouring water into the broken vase, or Ixion bound to the wheel, or Sisyphus pushing up the stone: Hercules car- PERSEPHONE, OR PROSERPINA. 65 rying off Cerberus, and Orpheus on his memorable visit to bring back Eurydice, are also represented on the vases. PERSEPHONE, OR PROSERPINA, Or Persephoneia, also called Cora by the Greeks, and by the Romans Libera, was a daughter of Zeus and Demeter, and the wife of Aides (Hades), the marriage being childless. Struck with the charms of her virgin beauty. Hades had obtained the sanction of his brother Zeus to carry her off by force; and for this purpose, as the myth relates, he suddenly rose up from a dark hole in the earth near to where she was wandering in a flowery meadow not far from Aetna in Sicily, plucking and gathering the narcissus, seized the lovely flower-gatherer, and made off with her to the under-world in a chariot drawn by four swift horses, Hermes (Mercury) lead¬ ing the way. Persephone resisted, begged, and implored gods and men to help her; but Zeus approving the transac¬ tion let it pass. In vain Demeter (Ceres) searched for her daughter, traversing every land, or, as other myths say, pur¬ suing the escaped Hades with her yoke of winged serpents, till she learned what had taken place from the all-seeing and all-hearing god of the sun. Then she entreated with tears the gods to give her daughter back, and this they promised to do provided she had not as yet tasted of anything in the under-world. But by the time that Hermes, who had been sent by Zeus to ascertain this, reached the under-world, she had eaten the half of a pomegranate which Hades had given her as an expression of love. For this reason the return of Persephone to the upper-world for good became impossible. She must remain the wife of Hades. An arrangement was, however, come to, by which she was to be allowed to stay with her mother half the year on earth and among the gods of Olympus, while the other half of the year was to be spent with her husband below. In this myth of Persephone-Cora, daughter of Zeus, the god of the heavens, which by their warmth and rain pro- (t > kW •Lie 1 • * 66 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. duce fertility, and of Demeter (Ceres), the maternal goddess of the fertile earth, we see that she was conceived as a divine personification of the process of vegetation — in summer [ appearing beside her mother in the light of the upper world, but in the autumn disappearing, and in winter passing her time, like the seed, under the earth with the god of the lower world. The decav observed throughout Nature in autumn, PERSEPHONE, OR PROSERPINA. 67 the suspension of vegetation in winter, impressed the ancients., as it impresses us and strikes modern poets, as a moral of Pluto and Persephone. the transitoriness of all earthly life; and hence the carvyi^ig off of Persephone appeared to be simply a symbol of death. 68 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. But the myth at the same time suggests hope, and proclaims the belief that out of death springs a new life, but apparently The Abduction of Persephone, not a productive life, and that men carried off by the god of tlie under-world will not forever remain in the unsubstantial DEMETER, OR CERES. 69 region of the shades. Tins at least appears to have been the sense in which the mytli of Persephone and her mother was presented to those initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, which, as we have remarked before, held out assuring hopes of the imperishableness of human existence, and of an eternal real life to follow after death. As queen of the shades Persephone had control over the various dreaded beings whose occuaption, like that of the i Sirens, was to beguile men to their death, or like that of the Erinys, to avenge murder and all base crimes. She shared the honors paid to her husband in Greece, lower Italy, and especially in the island of Sicily. Temples of great beauty were erected for her in the Greek Locri, and at Cyzicus on the Propontis. The principal festivals held in her honor in ' Greece occurred in the autumn or in spring, the visitors at the former appearing dressed in mourning to commemorate her being carried off by Pluto, while at the spring festival I all wore holiday garments to commemorate her return. There remains, however, the important phase of her char- ; acter in which she returns to the upper-world and is asso- < ciated with her mother Pemeter. But this it will be more I convenient to consider in the next chapter. The attributes I of Persephone were ears of corn and poppies. Her attribute i as the wife of Hades was a pomegranate; her sacrifice con- ^ sisted of cows and pigs. In works of art she has a more ' youthful appearance, but otherwise closely resembles her I mother Demeter. The Roman Proserpina, though the name i is clearly the same as Persephone, appears to have had no I hold on the religious belief of the Roman nation, their god¬ dess of the shades being Libitina. DEMETER, OR CERES, A daughter of Cronus and Rhea, was the goddess of the earth in its capacity of bringing forth countless fruits, the all-nourisliing mother, and above all the divine being who $ 9 w»» 'tii '3 70 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. watched over the growth of grains and the various products of vegetation most important to man. The first and grand thought in her worship was the mysterious evolution of life out of the seed which is cast into the ground and suffered to rot—a process of nature which both St. Paul (1 Corinthians XV. 35) and St. John (xii. 24) compare with the attainment of a new life through Christ. The seed left to rot in the ground was in the keeping of her daughter Persephone, the goddess of the lower world, the new life which sprang from it was the gift of Demeter herself; and from this point of view the two goddesses, mother and daughter, were insep¬ arable. They were regarded as two in one,’^ and styled the great deities.^^ From being conceived as the cause of growth in the grain Demeter next came to be looked on as having first introduced the art of agriculture, and as being the source of the wealth and blessings which attended the diligent practice of that art. When Hades carried off her young loved daughter. Dem¬ eter, with a rnother’s sorrow, lit her torch, and mounting her car drawn by winged snakes, drove through all lands search¬ ing for her, leaving, wherever she rested and was hospitably received, traces of her blessing in the form of instruction in the art of agriculture. But nowhere in Greece did her bless¬ ing descend so richly as in the district of Attica; for there Celeus, of Eleusis, a spot not far from Athens, had received her with most cordial hospitality. In return for this she taught him the use of the plough, and before departing pre¬ sented to his son, Triptolemus, whom she had nursed, the seed of the barley along with her snake-drawn car, in order that he might traverse all lands, teaching by the way man¬ kind how to sow and to utilize the grain, a task which Trip¬ tolemus performed faithfully, and so extended the art of agriculture to most distant lands. In Arcadia, Crete, and Samothrace we find her associated with a mythical hero called Jasion, reputed to have been the first sower of grain, to whom she bore a child, whose name M ,1 ft- M »<• C 19 : 5 (( ' •" M (»U i'Ut« »*K|jS :iiK i *' r :"'5 'C;r5l »% MP* if #1 « c:3 I ijj a legend of her hostility to a hero sometimes called Erysich- thon ^'the earth upturner/^ or ^^the ploughman/^ and some¬ times Aethon, a personification of famine. Again we find a DEMETER, OR CERES. 7X of Plutus shows him to be a personification of the wealth 'Icrived from the cultivation of grain. In Thessaly there was Demeter, or Ceres. 72 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. reference to her function as goddess of agriculture in the story that once, when Poseidon threatened with his superior strength to mishandle her, Demeter took the form of a horse and fled from him; but the god, taking the same shape, pur¬ sued and overtook her, the result being that she afterward bore him Arion, a wonderful black horse of incredible speed, and gifted with intelligence and speech like a man. Pain and shame at the birth of such a creature drove her to hide for a long time in a cave, till at last she was purified by a bath in the river Ladon, and again appeared among the other deities. From the necessities of agriculture originated the custom of living in settled communities. It was Demeter who first inspired mankind with an interest in property and the ownership of land, who created the feeling of patriotism and the maintenance of law and order. The next phase of her character was*that which came into prominence at harvest time, when the bare stubble-fields reminded her worshippers of the loss of her daughter Per¬ sephone. At that time two kinds of festivals were held in her honor, the one kind called Haloa or Thalysia, being apparently mere harvest festivals, the other called Thesmo- phoria, which was significant of the introduction of civiliza¬ tion, of which Demeter always stood as an exponent. As conducted in the village of Halimus in Attica, we know that it was held from the 9th to the 13th of October of each year, that it could only be participated in by married women, that at one stage of the proceedings Demeter was hailed as the mother of the beautiful child, and that this joy afterward gave way to expressions of the deepest grief at her loss of her daughter. At night orgies were held at which mysteri¬ ous ceremonies were mixed with boisterous amusements of all sorts. The Thesmoi or institutions’’ from which she derived the title of Thesmophoros appear to have referred to married life. We have no means of knowing to what extent the ancient Greeks based their belief in a happy existence hereafter on DEMETER, OR CERES. 73 tho mystGnous evolution of life from the seed rotting^ in the ground, which the early Christians adopted as an illustration of the grand change to which they looked forward. But that the myth of the carrying off of Persephone, her gloomy existence under the ground, and her cheerful return, orig¬ inated in the contemplation of this natural process, is clear from the fact that at Eleusis Eemeter and Persephone always retained the character of seed goddesses, side by side with their more conspicuous character as deities in whose story were reflected the various scenes through which those mortals would have to pass who were initiated into the Mysteries of Eleusis. These mysteries had been instituted by Demeter Murray —7 74 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. herself, and whatever rites they may have consisted in, we know from the testimony of men like Pindar and Aeschylus, who had been initiated, that they were well calculated to awaken most profound feelings of piety and a cheerful hope of better life in future. It is believed that the ceremony of initiation consisted, not in instruction as to what to believe or how to act to be worthy of her favor, but in elaborate and prolonged representations of the various scenes and acts on earth and under it connected with the myth of the carrying off of Persephone. The ceremony took place at night, and it is probable that advantage was taken of the darkness to make the scenes in the lower world more hideous and impres¬ sive. Probably these representations were reserved for the Epoptae or persons in the final stage of initiation. Those in the earlier stages were called Mystae. Associated with Demeter and Persephone in the worship at Eleusis was Dio¬ nysus in his youthful character and under the name of Jac- chus. But at what time this first took place, whether it was due to some affinity in the orgiastic nature of his worship, or rather to his local connection with Attica as god of the vine, is not known. Two festivals of this kind, Eleusinia, were held annually —the lesser in spring, when the earliest flowers appeared, and the greater in the month of September. The latter occupied nine days, commencing on the night of the 20th with a torch¬ light procession. Though similar festivals existed in various parts of Greece and even of Italy, those of Eleusis in Attica continued to retain something like national importance, and from the immense coneourse of people who came to take part in them, were among the principal attractions of Athens. The duties of high priest were vested in the family of Eumol- pidae, whose ancestor Eumolpus, according to one account, had been installed in the office by Demeter herself. The festival was brought to a close by games, among which was that of bull-baiting. In Italy a festival founded on the Eleusinian Mysteries and DEMETER, OR CERES. 75 conducted in the Greek manner was held in honor of Bacchus and Ceres, or Liber and Libera as they were called. It appears, however, to have never com¬ manded the same respect as the origi¬ nal. For we find Romans who had visited Greece, and like Cicero been in¬ itiated at Eleusis, returning with a strong desire to see the Eleusinian cere¬ monies transplanted to Rome. Alto¬ gether it is proba¬ ble that the Roman Ceres was but a weak counterpart of the Greek Demeter. The attributes of Demeter, like those of Persephone, were ears of corn and poppies; on her head she wore a modius or Demeter, or Ceres. corn measure as a symbol of the fertility of the earth. Her ^sacrifice consisted of cows and pigs. Statues that can positively be assigned to Demeter are very rare, dhe best by far being that found at Cnidus and now in the British Museum, which represents her seated, draped, and with a veil falling from the back of her head. On her head is neither the modius nor dhe crown which she also wears sometimes. On the painted vases, however, figures of her are less rare. On a vase in the British Museum she appears beside Triptolemus, who is seated in the winged car which she gave him. On another vase, also in the national col- 76 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. lection, we find the scene at the institution of the Eleusinian Mys- j teries. In the centre is Triptolemus seated in the car; before him i Persephone (here called Pherephatta, a more ancient form of her i name), and a rigure called Eleusis ; behind him Demeter and Eumol- I pus; on the other side of the vase are Zeus, Dionysus, Poseidon, and Amphitrite. A marble relief, found at Eleusis, represents, it is be¬ lieved, Demeter, Persephone, and the youthful Jacchus. ' HECATE, ' Though, properly speaking, not one of the supreme order of deities, is entitled to be placed here on account of a resem- | blance to Persephone in her mysterious fuctions both in the upper and lower world. She is a goddess of Titanic ori¬ gin, daughter of Tar¬ tarus and Night, or of ; Perses and Asteria > (Starry-Night), the sis¬ ter of Leto, according to other accounts. The stories current among ; the ancients concerning her vary greatly, and often confuse her with other deities, especially those of the night, such as Selene or Luna, the goddess of the moon, while standing to Per¬ sephone in the relation of servant or companion. She belongs to the class of torchbearing deities, like Artemis, and was conceived as carrying a burning torch, to suit the belief that she was the I BESTIA, on VESTA, 77 r nocturnal goddess of the moon, and a huntress who knew I her way also in the realm of spirits. All the secret powers ii of nature were at her command, it was thought. She had It a control over birth, life, and death, and enjoyed great honor among the gods of Olympus as well as in the under-world. 1 To express her power in the three regions of nature, heaven, . earth, and the under-world, she was represented as of triple f form, and named Triformis. Dogs were sacred to her. Her character being originally that of a mysterious deity, it hap- pened that more prominence was always given in the con- : ception of her to her gloomy and appalling features, her chief 1 function being held to be that of goddess of the nether i world, of night and darkness, mistress of all the witchcraft I and black arts which were believed in as much in antiquity ; as in the middle ages. Accordingly her festivals were held i at night, worship was paid her by torchlight, and sacrifices ’ of black lambs presented with many strange ceremonies, r Her presence was mostly felt at lonely cross-roads, whence 1 she derived the name of Trivia. Here her statue was placed » so that she could look down all three roads at once, and here she was especially worshipped. A mysterious festival was held in her honor every year on ; the island of Aegina, in the Saronic Gulf. Beside tiie lake I of Avernus, in lower Italy, was a dark grove sacred to her. HESTIA, OB VESTA, ^ Sister of Demeter, and daughter of Cronus and Rhea, was I worshipped both by Greeks and Romans as the goddess of I the home-fire, or hearth, the name of which was identical I with her own. She was properly, therefore, the guardian of 1 family life; her altars were everywhere, the hearth of every house being her sanctuary, and when the family gathered I round it daily it was with feelings of regard for that goddess. ' Every meal prepared on the fire at home revived a grateful ! sense of the common enjoyments of family life. In every m |i f*' HI \ !*«» 78 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDEB. building of public resort she had a sanctuary in the shape of a fire; and when in Greece a body of colonists were about to emigrate to new and distant homes, one of their chief considerations was to take with them some portion of fire sacred to Hestia, in order to carry with them the favor of the goddess ; for the Greeks looked upon the state as a great family, with an altar of Hestia as its central point; and thus, by taking with them to their new homes a portion of the fire from that altar, or state hearth, the colony retained its interest and participation in the public affairs of their parent state. No enterprise was com¬ menced without sacrifice and prayer at her altar; and when the fire of one of those holy places chanced to be extinguished, it could only be rekindled by a light from some other sanctuary, not by ordinary and impure fire. As the goddess of a pure element, Hestia despised love, and, though pressed to consent both by Poseidon and Apollo, obtained from Zeus the privilege she prayed for, of remain¬ ing in a single state. Her spotless purity fitted her pecu¬ liarly to be the guardian of virgin modesty. Though zealously worshipped throughout Greece, there was no temple especially devoted to her. Her proper sanctuary was, as we have said, by the fire of every house where people gathered together. She had a share in all the sacrifices offered HESTIA, OB VESTA, 79 at the temple of other gods, and at every burnt-offering her presence was recognized as goddess of the sacred hearth and altar flame, as it was also in the libations of water, wine, oil, and in the prayers addressed to her. At the same time she had her own peculiar sac- riflces, consisting of young shoots of grain, the first fruits of the harvest, and young cows. Her priest¬ esses had to remain vir¬ gins. In Rome, however,there was a temple to Vesta that had been built by Numa Pompilius. It was of a round shape, and con¬ tained in its centre her symbol of an altar, with a fire that was never allowed to go out. This temple, which stood open by day but was closed by night, contained, besides other very old figures of deities, the Palladium, a small wooden image of Minerva (Pallas Athene), which, according to the myth, originally fell from heaven upon the citadel of Troy, and was carried thence to Greece, and afterward to Rome. U])on the pres¬ ervation of this figure depended, the people believed, the safety and existence of the Roman empire. Her priest¬ esses, six in number, were called vestal virgins, their duty being to feed the sacred flame of her temple, and to pre¬ sent sacrifices and prayers for the welfare of the state. To this office they were chosen by the high priest, who was styled Pontifex maximus. They wore robes of white, with • I!) 80 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. I If 1 a, fillet round the liair^ and a veil_, additional ornaments ( being permitted in later times. It was necessary that the | girls selected for tliis service should be between six and ' ten years of age, and that they should take a vow of chas¬ tity, and serve in the temple for thirty years. After that period they were permitted to leave it, and even to marry, though neither proceeding was viewed with pleasure by the public, who feared the goddess to whom they had been devoted might take offence in either case. While engaged in the services of the temple the vestal virgins enjoyed great esteem and important privileges. Their person was invio¬ lable, they were free from paternal control, and had the right of disposing of their own property. In their festal proces¬ sions through the streets of Rome they were preceded by lictors (or officers of justice), who carried with them the fasces —that is, a number of twigs tied together into a bundle, out of which an axe projected as a symbol of sovereign power— an honor which, besides them, only the consuls or highest magistrates of Rome were entitled to. And in the course of - the procession, should they meet a criminal on his way to expiate his crime by death, they had the prerogative of order¬ ing him to be set free. With all this respect and esteem, they were very severely dealt with when guilty of neglect of duty, such as permitting the sacred flame of the altar of Vesta to die out, which could only be rekindled by means of a burning-glass held up to the rays of the sun. A priestess guilty of this was condemned by the high priest of the goddess to a dark cham¬ ber, and there flogged. For the crime of forfeiting her chas¬ tity she was conveyed to a place called the Campus Scelera- tus, or “ criminals’ field,” and there placed in a subterranean chamber provided with a bed, a lighted lamp, and some bread and water. The chamber was then closed upon her, the earth thrown over it and made smooth, and the unfortunate priestess left to die a most agonizing death. Her seducer was publicly scourged to death. The whole city was sor- tu:» •tfiti in?C v:>ti MW ••f>4 In 81 A PALLAS ATHENE, OR MINERVA. library ARES, OR Mars. 81 rowfal, and sacrifice and long and earnest prayers were offered up to appease the injured goddess. The procession, in which the condemned priestess was carried to her crypt, tied down on a litter, and so closely covered up that even her screams could not be heard, was a spectacle that raised a shudder, and caused that day to be remembered as one of the greatest pain and grief throughout the city. At first there were only two vestal virgins, this number being afterward increased to four, and again by King Servius to six. They were chosen always from the noblest families of Rome. If the legend concerning the foundation of the city of Rome be true, even Romulus and Remus, the founders of that city, were sons of a vestal priestess named Rhea Silvia and Mars. The sacred fire on the hearth of the goddess, and the laurel that shaded it, were renewed on March 1 of each year; on June 15 her temple was cleaned and repaired. But pre¬ vious to this, on June 9, a festival was held in her honor, called the Vestalia, only women being admitted to the tem¬ ple, and these barefooted, and in the character of pilgrims. ARES, OR MARS, A son of Zeus (Jupiter) and Hera (Juno), according to the belief of the Greeks, was originally god of the storm anJ tempest, and more particularly of the hurricane; but this his natural meaning was lost sight of at an earlier period, and more completely than in the case of most of the other gods, the character in which he appears to us being exclusively that of ‘^god of the turmoil and storms in human affairs,^^ in other words, god of dreadful war,’’ or more correctly, of the wild confusion and strife of battle.” Of all the upper gods he was the most fierce and terrible, taking pleasure in slaughter and massacre. In this respect he forms a striking contrast to Pallas Athene, the goddess of well-matched chivalrous fights, whom 82 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. we often find opposed to him in mythical narratives. When fighting she was invulnerable, and always on the side of the victor; while Ares (Mars) being not only god of battle but also a personification of war, with its double issue of victory and de- feat, was sometimes wounded, and even taken prisoner. When assist¬ ing the Trojans in their war with the Greeks, in the course of which he took under his special protection their leader. Hector, he was wound¬ ed by the Greek hero Diomedes, aided by the goddess Athene. He fell—so Homer describes the event in the Iliad (v. 853)—with a thundering crash to the ground, like the noise of ten thousand warriors engaged in battle. Again (Iliad xxi. 400) he was wounded by Athene and fell, his armor clanking, and his body covering w’ith his fall seven acres of ground —an obvious reference to the roar and destruction attending a great storm. He was once captured by Otus and Ephialtes, the giant sons of Aloeus the planter, and kept imprisoned in a great bronze vase (Iliad v. 385) for thirteen months—a space of time which, when we remember that the names of the two heroes are derived from husbandry, seems to indicate a full year of peaceful agriculture. Like himself, his offspring were distinguished for their prowess or delight in strife; as, for example, Meleager, the prince of Calydon, who speared the Calydonian boar; Cycnus, whom Hercules slew, and for this would have been avenged by Ares had not Zeus stopped the conflict of his two powerful sons by a flash of lightning; then Parthenopaeus, one of the seven leaders Ares, or Mars. , ABES, OB MABS. 83 in the assault on the town of Thebes; Oenomaeus, and others. The expression, ^ ^ a son or offshoot of Ares (Mars)/^ frequently applied to other heroes, must not be understood literally, but merely as indicating physical strength and valor equal to that of his actual descend¬ ants. Eris, the personification of fatal strife, was usually by his side. Dread and Alarm (Deimos and Phobos) attended on his steps. On the other hand, we find him, even in the Iliad (v. 355 and xxi. 416), where his general character is that of a huge fierce combatant, as¬ sociated with Aphrodite, the goddess of love. In the Odyssey (viii. 266) the story is told of his secret visit to her, when he was detected by Helios (the Sun), who informed Hephaestus (Vul¬ can) of the fact, whereupon the latter devised a cunning net, and catching the two together under it exhibited them to the gods of Olympus, and called upon Zeus to bring them to trial. This relation of Ares (Mars) to Aphrodite (Venus), who was even wor¬ shipped as his proper wife in Thebes, indicates very probably the peace and rest that follow the turmoil of war. It is true that Ares was worshipped in Greece, but not as a great protecting deity, such as he was deemed by the Romans. In Athens the Areopagus, or Mars’ Hill,” on which was held a court of justice for the decision of cases Mars and Venus. 84 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. involving life and death, derived its name from him, the story being that he had once appeared before it in a canse against Poseidon. The warlike people of Tegea, the Spar¬ tans, who had a very ancient temple in his honor, the Athe¬ nians, for whom Alcamenes the sculptor, a contemporary and rival of Phidias, made a statue of him, and the Eleans, all worshipped him with more or less zeal. But the real home and centre of his worship was Thrace, with its wild warlike population and its stormy tempestuous sky. It was in Kome, however, with its conquests and pride of military power, that he enjoyed under the name of Mars the highest honor, rank¬ ing next to Jupiter as guardian of the state. The Romans considered themselves to be actual descendants of Mars, on the ground of his having been, as was believed, the father of Romulus and Remns, styling him Marspiter —that is. Mars Pater, their father Mars. At Reate, in Italy, he had even an oracle. In Rome there was a field consecrated to him, and named the Field of Mars,’’ where military exercises and manoeuvres took place, athletic competitions, called ^^mar¬ tial games,” were held, and public assemblies were summoned to consider important questions of the state. The race-course and the temples of the god were there; and there every five years, called a lustrum, were held the census and muster of citizens liable to be called into the field in the event of war. On this occasion a sacrifice was presented to him, called the Suovetanrilia,” consisting of a pig, a sheep, and an ox, which were led three times around the assembled multitude, while during the ceremony a prayer was offered up that the immortal gods might still enlarge and ennoble the Roman empire more and more, or, as it was expressed in later times, that they might give stability and endurance to the Roman state. Chariot races were held there twice a vear, at the beginning of March and in October; the ceremony of sacri¬ ficing to Mars the off-horse of the biga that won the race— the October horse as it was called—being performed at the latter. In the Field of Mars” was dedicated the booty HEPHAESTUS, OR VULCAN. 85 : brought back from campaigns, and no Roman general went I to war without first proceeding to the temple of Mars, to swing the sacred shield and spear, adding the words, Watch over me, O Mars This shield (ancile) was believed to have I fallen from heaven at the time when Numa Pompilius was i king of Rome, and, like the Palladium in the temple of Vesta, was looked on with veneration. The haruspices of Numa^s time having declared that the Roman state would last as long as this shield remained in Rome, eleven other shields exactly like it were made, in order that the sacred I one might have small chance of being stolen. These and a ; sacred spear were preserved in the temple of Mars, under the custody of priests, who were called Salii, and whose duty it was every year to celebrate a festival of thanksgiving for i this important present from the gods. In the earliest times I the sacrifices offered to Mars consisted of human beings, par- 1 ticularly those who had been taken prisoners in battle; but i in later times this custom was abandoned, and horses, rams, i dogs, and a portion of the booty captured from enemies, t offered instead. Besides these animals, the wolf, cock, and woodpecker were sacred to him. The attributes of Ares were a spear and a burning torch, ; such as, according to ancient custom, his priests carried when \ they advanced to give the sign of battle to opposing armies. The animals chosen as his symbols were the dog and the ’ vulture, the constant visitants of battle-fields. In works of art Ares is represented generally as of a youthful but ’ very powerful build, armed with helmet, shield, and spear. At other I times he is bearded and heavily armed. A favorite subject was his 1 meeting with Venus. HEPHAESTUS, OR VULCAN, Was the divine personification of the fire that burns within the earth and bursts forth in volcanic eruptions—fire which 86 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. has no connection with the snn or the lightning of heaven; and such being his character, we can readily understand the mutual dislike which existed between him and the god of the light of heaven. He was indeed the son of Zeus and Hera, the supreme deities of heaven; but he was born to be a cause of quarrel between them, and alternately at enmity with both. Once, when he took his mother’s part, Zeus seized him by the heels and tossed him out of Olympus (Iliad i. 560). Through the air he fell for one whole day; at evening, as the sun went down, reaching the island of Lemnos, where he was found by some Sintian people, and taken under friendly care. The place where he was found, and where in after times was the principal centre of his worship, was the neighborhood of the burning mountain Mosychlus. Another version of the myth has it that Hera, ashamed of the decrepit form which he presented at his birth, threw him with her own hands from Olympus. Falling into the sea, he was picked up by Thetis and Burynome, was cared for by them, remained for nine years in the abode of the sea-gods, none but they knowing his whereabouts, and exe¬ cuted there many wonderfully clever examples of handi¬ work. It may be that this belief originated in observing the nearness of volcanic mountains to the seashore, and the fact of whole islands, like the modern Santorin, being sud¬ denly thrown up from the sea by volcanic force. Among the works which he fashioned in the palace of the sea-gods was a cunningly devised throne, which he presented to Hera, ^as a punishment for casting him out of heaven, knowing that when she sat down on it she would be locked within its secret chains so firmly that no power but his could free her. This happened, and Ares went to bring him by force to her assist¬ ance, but was compelled to retreat in fear of the firebrand with which Hephaestus assailed him. At last Dionysus (Bacchus), the god of wine, succeeded by his soft conciliatory speech in restoring friendship between mother and son, and I HEPHAESTUS, OR VULCAN. g7 liber bonds were forthwith undone. Perhaps it is from [this intimacy with Dionysus that he is said to have once i| appeared as cup-bearer in Olympus, on which occasion i the assembled deities ; could not contain them- ^ selves with laughter at : the droll figure limping ifrom couch to couch. It seems to be the un- ‘ steady flicker of flame ithat is represented in ubeen the genial influ- lence of the heartli which i was the source of the I quaint stories about ; him. From being originally I the god of fire, Hephae- istus naturally devel¬ oped into god of those I arts and industries de- spendent on fire, especially the arts of pottery and working in metal. He was the artist god who worked in a smoky ismithy down in the heart of the burning mountains, and pro¬ duced clever works of dazzling beauty, which he gave freely away to gods and to favorite heroes. For Zeus he made the dreaded aegis and a sceptre; for Achilles and Mernnon their armor; for himself two wonderful handmaidens of gold, who, like living beings, would move about and assist him as he walked; and when Homer has to describe any bronze work of great beauty, his highest praise is always that it was the work of Hephaestus. The throne which he made for Hera, and the net in which he caught Aphrodite and Ares, have already been mentioned. Murray —8 I the lameness of thefire- [igod, and it may have Ml :: It' I'M* ifiTlCj itif f'SyjS mliif 1 ^ f> 88 'deiti:eis of the highest order. From being god of the warmth within the earth—of vol¬ canic fire—Hephaestus came also, when the fertility of a volcanic soil became known by experience, to be looked on as one who aided the spread of vegetation, this function of his being recognized most in the spread of the vine, which thrives and bears its best fruit on volcanic soil. It was from knowledge of this fact, no doubt, that the idea arose of the close friendship between him and the wine-god Dionysus, which we find exemplified partly in the joint worship of these two deities, and partly in the story already told, of how Dionysus led Hephaestus back to Olympus, and smoothed his differences with the other gods. His worship was traceable back to the earliest times, Lem¬ nos being always the place most sacred to him. There, at the foot of the burning mountain Mosychlus, which is now extinct, stood a very ancient temple of the god—on the very spot* it was said, where Prometheus stole the heavenly fire, and for the theft was taken away among the Caucasus moun¬ tains, there nailed alive to a rock by Hephaestus, and com-j pelled to suffer every day an eagle sent by Zeus to gnaw his liver, which daily grew afresh. A somewhat gloomy cere¬ mony of expiating this theft of fire took place annually in the island, all fires being put out, and forbidden to be relit until the return of the ship that had been despatched to the sacred island of Delos to fetch new fire. Then, after being nine days extinguished, all the fires in dwelling-houses and in workshops were rekindled by the new flame. Next to Lemnos, perhaps the most important seat of his worship was Athens, where the unusually large number of persons employed in the potteries and in metal-working recognized him as their patron god, and associating him with Athene, held annually in October a festival called Chalkeia, in honor of both. In the same month occurred the festival Apaturia, at which, by the side of Zeus and Athene a prom¬ inent place was assigned to Hephaestus in his capacity of god of the hearth, and protector of the domestic life which HAPHAESTUS, OR VULCAN. 39 ^ gathered around it. On this occasion sacrifices were offered i at the hearth, and a public procession took place of men clad ■ in festival garments, carrying lighted torches and singing N songs in his praise. Again, the torch race, which formed [ part of the Panathenaic games, was intended to commemo- r rate the theft of fire by Prometheus. In connection with t this community of worship existing between Athene and Hephaestus at Athens, it was said that he once endeavored : to obtain the love of the goddess, and that even though this . failed she had devoted special care to Erichthonius, the ] offspring of his intercourse with Gaea, the goddess of the ! earth. In Sicily Hephaestus had a temple on Mount Aetna, which ? was watched by dogs possessed of the faculty of distinguish¬ ing the pious from the impious and profane, whose approach ; they fiercely resisted. His worship had also spread to lower Italy and the Campania. In Rome it was said that Vulcan had a temple as early as J the time of Romulus, who, in fact, caused it to be erected, and instituted the festival called Vulcanalia, which was 'wont to be held on August 23, the ceremony consisting of a i sacrifice for the purpose of averting all the mishaps that arise ;from the use of fire and lights; for the days were then begin- : ning to be noticeably shorter, and the necessity of light to work by in the evenings to be felt. The wife of Hephaestus, according to the Iliad, was :Charis, but the popular belief of later times assigned that place to Aphrodite. By neither had he any children. In works of art Hephaestus is represented as an aged bearded man, with serious furrowed face, wearing a short chiton, and a pointed cap or pilos, the mark of workmen or fishermen (which Odysseus also wears), hammering at an anvil, his attitude showing the lameness of which the myth speaks. On the early coins of Lemnos he appears without a beard. One of the favorite subjects both of the poets and artists was the story of his catching Hera in the throne which he gave her, the ludierousness of it making it an attractive subject for the I •> ii»** M i«* 90 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. ancient comedy. On a painted vase in the British Museum is a scene from a comedy in which Hera appears seated on the throne, while Ares and Hephaestus are engaged in combat before her. Another scene which frequently occurs on the painted vases is that in which Hephaestus appears on his way back to Olympus in a state of intox¬ ication, riding on a mule, or walking, and accompanied by Dionysus, Sileni, and nymphs. At the birth of Athene it was he who split open the head of Zeus to let the goddess come forth, and in the fre¬ quent representations of this scene on the vases he appears hammer in hand. At other times we find him fashioning the armor of Achilles, or fastening Prometheus to the rock. APHRODITE, OR VENUS, Was the goddess of love in that wide sense of the word which in early times embraced also the love of animals, and the love which was thought to be the cause of productiveness through¬ out nature. Accordingly we find in her character, side by side with what is beautiful and noble, much that is coarse and unworthy. In the best times of Greece the refined and beautiful features of her worship were kept in prominence, both in poetry and art; but these, when times of luxury suc¬ ceeded, had to give way to impurities of many kinds. The feelings awakened by observing the productive power of nature had, it would seem, given rise to a divine personi¬ fication of love in very remote early times among the nations of the East. The Phoenicians called this personification Astarte, and carried her worship with them wherever they established factories or markets in Greece, in the islands of the Mediterranean, and on to Italy. The early Greeks com¬ ing in contact with these traders, and obtaining from them a knowledge of coinage, weights, measures, and other neces¬ saries of commerce and trade—including, it is said, a system of writing—appear to have transferred some of the functions of the oriental goddess to their own Aphrodite, as, for instance, the function of protecting commerce. The earliest known Greek coins—those of Aegina—the weights of which corre- aphrodit:b:, or venus. 91 ^ spond accurately with the oriental standard, have the figure of a tortoise, the well-known symbol of Aphrodite. How much else of the character of their goddess the Greeks may have derived from the Phoenicians it would be impossi- i bie to say. But the extraordinary zeal with which she con¬ tinued to be worshipped in Cyprus, Cythera, Corinth, Car- ithage, Sicily, and wherever in early times the Phoenicians 1 had made settlements, may signify that others of her functions besides that of protecting commerce had been borrowed from the oriental goddess. The older Aphrodite worshipped in Greece previous to the introduction of Phoenician elements ;in her character is described as a daughter of Zeus (Iliad v. 312) and Dione, and through her mother was associated with ithe ancient worship at Dodona, The younger goddess, on the other hand, is described (He- ■siod, Theogony, 188-206) as the offspring of Uranus, born among the foam of the sea, first stepping on land in Cyprus, and styled Anadyomene, or '' she who came out of the sea. Under the title of Urania she was regarded as a per¬ sonification of that power of love which was thought to unite heaven, earth, and sea into one harmonious system, and as such was distinguished from Aphrodite Pandemos, the per¬ sonification of love among men. As the goddess born of the foam of the sea, she naturally came to be held in veneration by the fishermen and sailors on the coast as the goddess of the smiling sea, and the cause of prosperous voyages. Hence it was the custom in the island of Aegina to follow up the sacrifice and banquet in honor of Poseidon with a festival of ^reat rejoicing and excitement in honor of Aphrodite. In Cnidus she was styled and worshipped as goddess of the peaceful sea; a character which is symbolized by the dolphin frequently given her as an attribute. The island of Cythera (Cerigo) derived its name from one of her titles, Cytherea, the belief being that she had ai3peared there before landing- 3n Cyprus. The earlier and pure Greek phase of her character, in m* ii f** M C 92 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. which she is called a daughter of Zeus and Dione, was that of a goddess who presides over human love; she is described as accompanied by her son Eros (Amor, or Cupid), the Char- ites (Graces), the Horae, Himeros (God of the desire of love), Pothos (God of the anxieties of love), and Pitho (Suadela, or the soft speech of love). But her special favorite was the young rosy shepherd Adonis; her grief at his death, which was caused by a wild boar, being so great that she would not allow the lifeless body to be taken from her arms until the gods consoled her by decreeing that her lover might continue to live half the year, during the spring and sum¬ mer, on the earth, while she might spend the other half with him in the lower world, beside Persephone (Proserpina); a reference to the change of seasons, which finds its explana¬ tion in the fact of Aphrodite being also goddess of gardens and flowers. Her presence in nature was felt in spring, her absence in winter. This change of the seasons was further observed and celebrated by a festival in honor of Adonis, in the course of which a figure of him was produced, and the ceremony of burial, with weeping and songs of wailing, gone through; after which a joyful shout was raised, Adonis lives, and is risen again V She was called Adonai and Adonias, with reference to this love passage. Next to him her chief favorite was Anchises, to whom she bore Aeneas, who through his son Ascanius, or Julius, became, as the story goes, the founder of the great Julian family in Rome. With regard to the story of Pygmalion, the Adonis of Cyprus, into whose statue of her she breathed life on the occasion of one of her festivals, perhaps the same meaning is intended to be conveyed as in the alternate life and death of Adonis—that is, the alternate fervor and coldness of love, or the alternate bloom and frost of nature. The husband of Aphrodite was Hephaestus (Vulcan), whose manner of punishing her when he found her in com¬ pany of Ares has already been related. Among her children. APHRODITE, OR VENUS. 93 C »> •« M 'JQ it’Aim ;:ii! •aC •••KluV cL.:9 I, «rr,!yS irrr'C fr^rJ »«•« «|| we* |F tn-'jjJ t:^!9 .«r Aphrodite, or Venus 94 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. but not by Hephaestus, were Eros (Amor), and Anteros, Hymen, and Hermaphroditus. But if she had favors for some she had strong antipathies for others, and proved this spirit on Hippolytus, whom she slew; on Polyphonte, whom she changed into an owl; on Arsinoe, whom she turned to stone; and Myrrha, whom she transformed into a myrtle tree. Of her strife and competi¬ tion with Hera and Athene for the prize of beauty, which . the Trojan prince, Paris, awarded to her, we shall give an account later on in connection with the narrative of the Trojan war. As a result of her power to unite by means of love all beings, whether in heaven, or earth, or in blackest Tartarus, she came to be viewed as a goddess presiding over married life and marriage ceremonies. She had a number of temples on the island of Cyprus, but none of them so splendidly decorated as that in the town of Paphus, whither thousands of visitors streamed to take part in the annual festival and rejoicings in her honor. There also she had an oracle, and, as Urania, was worshipped jointly with Ares (Mars); the latter fact showing that her connection with this god was founded in the religious belief of the people. At times, and particularly in her very ancient sanctuary in the island of Cythera, as also in Sparta, Argos, and on the Acropolis of Corinth, she was represented armed. The worship of Venus did not become general in Pome till later times. A festival, called Veneralia, was held in her honor every year, a great part of the ceremony consisting of nocturnal dances and passionate enjoyment in gardens among blooming arbors. She had a temple on the Capitol, and one of the Colline gates was consecrated to her. The month of April was held sacred to her, for then the flowers bud and plants shoot; or, as the Greek myth expresses it, Adonis comes back from the under-world. The symbols of Aphrodite were the dove, ram, hare, dol¬ phin, swan, and tortoise, with the rose as a flower, the myrtle I f \ PALLAS ATHENE, OE 3IINEAVA. 95 tree, and other beautiful plants, the apple, and fruits of vari¬ ous kinds. In Paphus the earliest form or image under which she was wor¬ shipped was that of a ball or a pyramid, surrounded with burning torches or candelabra, as is to be seen on the coins of Cyprus; but gradually, as art advanced, she took a finer form, fresh charms being continually added, till all the resources of expressing imperious, overpowering beauty were exhausted. In the best days of art she was always represented draped, in later times nude, and in various attitudes. The scene of her birth from the sea was represented by Phidias, on the base of the statue of Zeus at Olympia, as taking place in presence of the gods of Olympus, she being received first by Eros, who elsewhere is called her son. One of the most famous pic¬ tures of Apelles represented her as rising out of the sea. To indicate her connection with Ares she was represented as Venus Victrix, standing with one foot on a helmet and with both arms raising a shield. Of this type are the Venus of Capua and the Venus of Milo.- In a temple erected to her as Euploia or goddess of prosperous voy¬ ages, in Cnidus, was a statue of her by Praxiteles, which was cele¬ brated above all her other statues in ancient times; and of which the so-called Medicean Venus is believed to be a free copy. PALLAS ATHENE, OR MINERYA, Called also Tritogeneia or Tritonia and Athenaea, is usually described, in the myths concerning her birth, as having sprung * into life, fully armed, from the head of Zeus, with its thick black locks, all heaven and earth shaking meanwhile, the sea tossing in great billows, and the light of day being extin¬ guished. Zeus, it was said, had previously swallowed his wife Metis (Intelligence), to prevent her giving birth to a son. The operation of laying his head open, that Pallas might come forth, was performed by Hephaestus ( Y ulcan), or, according to other versions of the story, Prometheus. There is, how¬ ever, another myth, which ascribes her origin to a connection of Poseidon (Neptune) with the nymph Tritonis, adding that Zeus merely adopted her as his daughter. But this seems to have had no foundation in the general belief of the people, and to have been only an invention of later times, 96 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. when her name, Tritogeneia or Tritonia, had become unin¬ telligible. No being connected with the earth, whether deity or mor¬ tal, had part in her birth. She was altogether the issue only of her father, the god of heaven, who, as the myth very plainly characterizes it, brought her into being out of the black tempest-cloud, and amidst the roar and crash of a storm. Her character must, therefore, be regarded as form¬ ing in some way a complement to his. The purpose for which she was brought into existence must have been that J she might do what he would plan, but as the supreme and impartial god, could not carry out. She is at once fearful and powerful as a storm, and in turn, gentle and pure as the warmth of the sky when a storm has sunk to rest and an air of new life moves over the freshened fields. To express both these sides of her character—terrible and mighty as compared with open, gentle, and pure—she had the double name of Pallas Athene: the former was applied to her function of goddess of storms—she who carried the aegis or storm-shield of her father. And further, as Pallas, she became the goddess of battle—valiant, conquering, frighten¬ ing with the sight of her aegis whole crowds of heroes when they vexed her, and even driving Ares before her with her lightning-spear. At the same time the soft, gentle, and heavenly side of her character took from her functions, as goddess of battle, that desire of confused slaughter and mas¬ sacre which distinguished Ares, and formed the contrast we have already mentioned between the two deities of war. Pallas presides over battles, but only to lead on to victory, and through victory, to peace and prosperity. When the war has been fought out, and that peace estab¬ lished which—whether it be amid the political life of nations here on earth, or whether it be amid the passions of individ¬ ual men—is always the result of conflict and war, then it is that the goddess Athene reigns in all gentleness and purity, teaching mankind to enjoy peace, and instructing them in all PALLAS ATHENE, OR MINERVA. 97 A that gives beauty to human life, in wisdom and art. If we observe and keep clearly before our minds these two sides of her character, the inseparable union of both, and their action and reaction upon each other, we shall see that this goddess, Pallas Athene, is one of the most profound conceptions of a deep religious feeling—a being into whose hands the pious Greek could, with due reverence, commit his keeping. The mutual relation of these two sides of her character is sufficiently obvious in the various myths relating to the god¬ dess. The principal of these we shall proceed to narrate. But, first, we must call attention to this point, that Athene is represented in the myths as forever remaining a virgin, scorning the affections which are said to have been frequently offered to her. Instead of suggesting her liability, in the smallest degree, to earthly passions and foibles, the myth shows admirably that she was a divine personification of mind, always unfettered in its movements; a personification, at the same time, of the origin of mind from the brain of the supreme Divine Being : a proof that mind is neither of a male nor of a female order, but a single and independent power at work throughout the whole of nature. In the course of the war with the Giants Pallas rendered most valuable assistance to Zeus, both by advice and deed; being, in fact, the cause of his calling in the aid of Hercules, and thus completing successfully the subjugation of the rebels. Single-handed she overpowered the terrible giant Bnceladus ; but when Zeus’ rule was at last firmly established, she took up the task of assisting and protecting those heroes on earth whom she found engaged in destroying the grim creatures and monsters upon it. In this capacity she was the constant friend of Hercules in all his hardships and adventures, and of Perseus, whom she helped to slay the Gorgon Medusa, whose head she afterward wore upon her aegis, and for this reason obtained the name of Gorg*ophone, or Gorgon slayer. Along with Hera she protected the Argonauts, while to her assistance was due the success with which Theseus overcame m j\ ft* Ml ' « 'C (C ' • 1.11 v,.:» mitS, oY* Mi II •tHU- n 98 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. / and slew monsters of all kinds. She stood by the Greeks in their war against Troy, which we shall describe afterward, and devised the scheme by which, after ten years’ duration, it was brought to a close. But, in times of peace, her power as goddess in all kinds of skill and handicraft, of clearness like that of the sky, and of mental activity, was uniformly exercised, as has been said, for the general good and prosperity. The arts of spinning and weaving were described as of her invention. She taught how to tend and nurse newly-born infants; and even the healing art was traced back to her among other gods. The flute, too, was her invention. As became the goddess of war, it was her duty to instruct men in the art of taming horses, of bridling and yoking them to the war-chariot—a task which we find her performing in the story of Bellerophon, for whom she bridled the winged horse Pegasus; and in the story of Brichthonius, at Athens, the first mortal who learned from her how to harness horses to chariots. In a word, she was the protectress of all persons employed in art and industry, of those whose business it was on earth to instruct and edu¬ cate mankind, and, therefore, to help forward the general happiness. The principal scene of her influence and actions was 4ttica, that district of Greece which, according to the myth related above, she obtained as her special and peculiar province, after a contest for it with Poseidon, the god of the sea! There her worship and honor surpassed that of all other deities, and from her was named the chief town of the land. The visible proof and testimony of her guardianship of Attica was the olive on the Acropolis of Athens, which she created in the contest with Poseidon, and from which the Athenians believed all the olive trees of Attica to have spread. In the produce of the olives consisted the chief wealth of the land. Ancient writers relate a touching story concerning this olive tree on the Acropolis, which reveals how firmly the belief of their goddess was rooted in the minds of her people. When 100 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. the Persians advanced with their overwhelming forces against Greece, it is said that Athene presented herself at the throne of her father, and begged for the preservation of her city. But fate had otherwise decreed : Athens must perish, in order that a better and nobler city might rise from its ruins, and accordingly Zeus was obliged to refuse the prayer of his beloved daughter. The Athenians took to their fleet, aban¬ doning altogether the city, which the Persians then entered, and destroyed utterly with fire and sword, not even sparing the sacred olive of the goddess. But, lo ! as a sign that she had not forsaken her city even in ruins, there sprang sud¬ denly from the root which remained a new shoot, which, with wonderful quickness, grew to a length of three yards, and was looked on as an emblem of the regeneration of the city. With the aid of their goddess the Athenians fought foremost of all the Greeks in the famous sea-fight that ensued at Sala- mis, in which the Persian fleet, though vastly superior in numbers, was wholly destroyed, while the troops on the mainland were compelled to escape with shame and immense losses from Greece. Among the great variety of her titles, some derived from her functions as a goddess, and others from the localities where her worship had a special hold on the people, we find Athene at Elis styled mother,^’ in consequence of her care over the nursing children; in Athens and several other places, Polias, the protectress of cities Soteira, the saviour/^ Glaucopis, blue-eyed goddess;’^ Parthenos, the virgin;’’ Hippia, tamer of horses;” Brgane, mistress of indus¬ try ;” Nike, the ^Victorious; ” and Mechanitis, ingenious.” Every year a festival lasting several days, and called Panath- enaea, was held in her honor at Athens, to commemorate the part she had taken in the war against the Giants : every fourth year—that is, every third year of the current Olym¬ piad—it was celebrated with redoubled splendor. This fes¬ tival is said to have been instituted by Theseus, or at least to have first derived its importance from him; in any case it 101 PALLAS ATHENE, OR MINERVA. was a festival of very great antiquity. Festal processions were formed, athletic games were held, while sacrifices and banquets took place on a large scale—all the Athenians, whether at home or abroad in colonies, having the privilege of taking part. The prizes in the games consisted of large painted earthenware vases filled with pure olive oil, the pro¬ duct of the tree sacred to Athene. Of these vases a small number have been preserved down to our times. On one side is painted a figure of the goddess striding forward in the attitude of hurling her spear, with a column on each side of her, to indicate the race-course. On the reverse side is a view of the contest in which a particular vase was won. But perhaps the chief attraction of the festival was the procession in which a new robe or peplos, woven and embroidered for the goddess by a select number of women and girls in Athens, was carried through the town spread like a sail on a mast, placed on a wagon in the form of a ship. In this procession it appears as if the whole population of Attica took part, the youth of the nobility on horseback or in chariots, the soldiery in arms, and the burgesses with their wives and daughters in holiday attire. The new robe was destined for the very ancient statue of Athene which was preserved in the Erech- theum. This custom of placing actual drapery on statues appears to have been handed down from remote times, when the art of sculpture was unequal to the task of imitating the Imman figure, and it is not improbable that the statue of Athene, of which we are speaking, dated from that early time. The magistrates of Athens offered sacrifices to her at the commencement of spring. The services of her sanctuary were conducted by two virgins elected for the period of one year. In Rome the worship of Minerva was conducted with as much zeal as that of Athene at Athens, her character as 'goddess of wisdom and serious thought being admirably cal¬ culated to attract a people like the Romans. She was the protectress of their arts and industries, of the domestic oper- ►> Xj! « '(g •rwyg .•rrC ■cini Ml ■••■4 fr $ 102 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. • ‘'.■•'•isl:*,I j, i:'i-I ' ;i• i'i • i'; i ;'•' • ■■''■• '‘t 4i '■ i ■ '■ '■ '■'■ ’ii ations of spinning and weaving and embroidering, just as she was among the Greeks. In Rome she had several tem¬ ples, one of the oldest of them being that on the Capitol. A festival, which lasted from March 19th to 23d, was annually held in her honor. But the object connected with her, which the Romans venerated above all things else, was the Palladium, or an¬ cient figure of the god¬ dess, the story of which was that it had originally fallen from heaven, and had thereupon become the property of the royal family of Troy, the pos¬ session of it being from that time always con¬ sidered an assurance of the safety of that city. But in the course of the war between the Greeks and Trojans it was se¬ cretly carried off by Dio- medes and Odysseus, upon which followed the capture of the town by means of the wooden horse. Another version of the story has it that Aeneas took it with him when he fled from the city; and in consequence of this inconsistency in the story it happened in later times that more than one city claimed the possession of the real Palladium—as, for example, Argos, Athens, and Rome. Wherever it was believed to be, there the firm conviction The Palladium. PALLAS ATHENE, OR MINERVA. 103 ' existed that the endurance of the city depended on the pos- n session of the image, and so it happened afterward that the ^ expression Palladium was employed in a wider sense to ob- i jects thought to be of similar importance; and wheu, for 11 instance, we hear of the ''Palladium of Freedom being ^ carried off,’^ we understand that the principal provision and I security of freedom has been lost. The symbols of Athene i' were the owl, the cock, the snake, and the olive tree. In works of art Athene generally appears as a virgin of serious a aspect, armed with helmet, shield, and spear, wearing long, full drap- s ery, and on her breast the aegis, with a border of snakes, and the face of Medusa in the centre. She is often accompanied by an owl. Of j' the many statues of her, the two most famous in antiquity as works ii of art were those by the sculptor Phidias: the one of gold and ivory ; stood in her great temple at Athens, the Parthenon. The other was of bronze, colossal in size, and stood on the Acrop- i: olis, towering above the temple just named, the crest of her helmet j and point of her spear being visible from the sea as far away as Cape I: Sunium, the most southern point of Attica. Her attitude was that i of preparing to hurl the spear, and the title she bore, that of Proma- Ichos, or ‘‘Van of Battle.” A representation of the statue is to be seen on the coins of Athens on which a view of the Acropolis is given. The last record we have of the statue of gold and ivory is in the 'year 375 A. D., how and when it perished remaining still a mystery. The attitude of the bronze statue exists, it is believed, in several I; small statuettes, of which there is one in the British Museum, which ' was found in Athens. On the painted vases we find many represen- itations of her birth, of her contest with the Giants, of her assisting 'heroes, such as Perseus and Hercules, in their exploits. The subjects i of the sculptures, now in the British Museum, which decorated the ' pediments of the Parthenon, were, in the front, her birth, and at the :: back, her contest with Poseidon. In the Erechtheum at Athens was 1 an ancient figure of the goddess, believed to have fallen from heaven ; ! while another ancient figure of her, the Palladium properly so-called, was preserved in the city under the care of a priestly family named Byzigi. It also was believed to have fallen from heaven. In it« i presence was held a court for the trial of cases of bloodshed. Murray —9 M ' K«» c: ^39 «'5 :riis Lf 'ClHJ 104 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. PHOEBUS APOLLO, HELIOS, OB SOL. From the sun comes our physical light, but that light k at the same time an emblem of all mental illumination, of knowledge, truth, and right, of all moral purity; and in this respect a distinction was made between it as a mental and a physical pheno¬ menon—a dis¬ tinction which placed Phoe¬ bus Apollo on one side and Helios on the other. Accord¬ ingly Phoebus Apollo is the oracular god who throws light on the dark ways of the future, who slays the Py¬ thon, that mon¬ ster of darkness which made the oracle at Delphi inaccessible. He is the god of music and song, which are only heard where light and security reign and the possession of herds is free from danger. Helios, on the other hand, is the physical phenomenon of light, the orb of the sun, which, summer and winter, rises and sets in the sky. His power of bringing secrets to light has been already seen in the story of Vulcan and Venus, Helios, or Sol. PHOEBUS APOLLO, HELIOS, OR SOL. 105 The myth of Apollo is, like that of Aphrodite, one of J the oldest in the Greek system, but, unlike the latter, which IS at least partly traceable to oriental influence, is a pure ; growth of the Greek mind. !N^o doubt certain oriental i uatious had deities of the sun and of light similar in some : points to Apollo, but this only proves the simple fact that i they viewed the movements of the sun and the operations of ; light in a general way similarly to the Greeks. We have < seen in the preceding chapters how the sky, earth, sea, and (lower world were personified by divine beings of a high I order, while in the same way other forces and powers in 1 nature were imagined as beings. In the myth of Apollo i we shall find represented the various operations of the eternal i light of the sun. It is the sun’s rays, or the arrows of Apollo, that every- s where, as the fields and gardens teach us, quicken life, and ( foster it toward ripeness; through them a new life springs all ,1 around, and in the warmth of their soft, kindly light the : jubilant voice of nature is heard and awakens an echo in the : human soul. At the same time these arrows destroy the life of I plants and animals; even man falls under them in southern ; climates, such as Greece. Their light penetrates to dark (Corners, and is capable of reaching to inmost recesses. All I these ideas are represented in the myth of Apollo, who is [therefore conceived in various ways corresponding to the igenial radiance of the sun, with all 'its friendly influences : i(l) as the personification of youth and beauty; (2) as god of 1 earthly blessings; (3) as god of the herds that graze on the (fields which are warmed by him—a character in which he {appeared herding the cattle of Laomedon, which multiplied* I largely under his care, and when alone piping on his flute, till the wild beasts were attracted from their dens; (4) as god iof medicine, wlio provided for the growth of healing plants; (5) as god of music, for everywhere were heard happy, joyful sounds, when his kindly beams spread light and warmth over : nature; (6) as god of oracles which reveal the secrets of the 106 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. future, as the light of heaven dispels all darkness, and detests nocturnal gloom. The sun appears ever young and powerful in the heavens, and so also must eternal youth, strength, and endurance be ascribed to Apollo. For this reason he came to be a pro¬ tector of youth when engaged in athletic contests, as well as in war. But summer heat produces plagues, and so it was necessary to view Apollo as the cause of the same, as the god of death, whose unerring arrows carry destruction with them. In this latter phase of his character we find him styled Carneius, and worshipped with particular zeal in Sparta, a festival being held annually in his honor in the month of August, the entire population withdrawing from the town and for several days encamping in tents in the neighborhood, like a besieging army—the object being, by living in tents, to avoid the injurious effects of the intense heat of the dog-days. The name of this festival was Car- neia. As a religious ceremony, the intention of it was to appease the dreaded god, and accordingly it was attended with great reverence in Sparta, and from thence transplanted to Gyrene, a Greek colony on the north coast of Africa, to the islands of Rhodes and Sicily, and to the Greek cities in lower Italy—such as Tarentum and Sybaris. The finest of the temples in honor of this Apollo was at Amyclae. Another phase of his character, in which his destroying power is combined with his function as god of youth and blooming vegetation, is represented in the myth from which he derived the title of Hyacinthus, and enjoyed a form of worship which was for the most part peculiar to the Pelo¬ ponnesus, the modern IVIorea, extending over the whole of the south coast of it, to Sicyon, Messenia, Amyclae, and Sparta. It was accompanied by laments sung from place to place, and by poetic competitions, the idea to be conveyed in the whole ceremony being the transitoriness of nature and the return of life again in course of time. In this spirit the festival of the Hyacinthia was celebrated annually at PHOEBUS APOLLO, HELIOS, OP SOL. 107 ^ Sparta in July, and lasted nine days, commencing with sad- 1 ness and expressions of grief, and concluding with joyous ‘ excitement. The myth to which this festival related tells how Apollo I accidentally killed, in throwing his disc, the beautiful Hya- : cinthus, whom he dearly loved, j the youngest son of Amyclas; or, i in another version, how Zephy- ’ rus, the wind-god, who also loved , the boy, hurled back the disc at ;i the head of Hyacinthus, out of {jealousy toward Apollo. The sor¬ row at the beginning of the festival : of the Hyacinthia was to com- 1 memorate his death, while the ) belief that he had been trans- ' formed into the flower which sprang up where his blood fell, 1 and bears his name, gave occasion afterward to happy feelings of 1 confidence in his return. Clearly I the object of the myth, like that (of Persephone, was to point to i the alternating decay and return ‘ of life in nature, which in this I instance is conceived under the form of a youth, the disc of ^Apollo being equally clearly a symbol of the sun, which < scorches up vegetation. A similar idea seems to run through the story which relates I how Apollo and Artemis, taking offence at Niobe because, kwith a mother’s pride, she had boasted herself higher than , Leto as the mother of beautiful children, shot down her 1 children — Apollo the sons, and Artemis the daughters. ' When one after another had fallen before the angry deities, I all but the youngest daughter, Niobe, with the child clinging 1 to her, implored them in anguish to spare the last of her m% III V K :3i l(' 'CirJI «l| $ 108 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. many children, but could not avert the fatal shaft. When it struck, her mother’s heart became like a stone, and she refused to murmur or complain. She was transformed, it was said, into a rugged rock, down which tears trickled silently. While sometimes bringing a pleasant death with his arrows, Apollo at other times, as during the Trojan war, when he took part against the Greeks, appears to exercise his destroying power with irresistible fury. Whole ranks of fighting men fall dead when he shakes his aegis, and the walls raised by the Greeks tumble like structures of sand made by children at play. As god of the sun in its friendly influence upon the face of nature, we find Apollo styled Tharg-elius, and a festival, called Tharg-elia, being held in his honor at Athens in the month of May, to celebrate the ripening of the fruits of the field under the warmth of the sun, and at the same time to serve as a festival of expiation in memory of the human sacrifices of ancient days. In August occurred another fes¬ tival at Athens, called Metag-eitnia, at which Apollo, as god of harvest and plenty, was thought of as entertaining the other gods and encouraging neighborly feelings among his worshippers. In October the first-fruits of the field were presented to him as a sacrifice, and in September was held a festival at which he was invoked as a helper in battle. Under the title of Nomius he was regarded by herdsmen as their patron god. But the genial influence of the- sun is felt on the sea as well as on land, and for this reason he was styled Delphinius, and in this capacity worshipped, among other places, at Athens, where his temple, called the Delphi- nian, was in early times a place of refuge and a court for the trial of capital crimes. An annual festival was held in May, called Delphinia, to commemorate the tribute of seven boys and seven girls, whom Athens had been compelled in remote times to send every year to Crete to be offered as sacrifices to the Minotaur. IJM., PHOEBUS APOLLO, HELIOS, OR SOL. 109 As a god of the sun in its annual course, Apollo was ! thought to spend the winter away in a northern region among \ a mythical people called Hyperboreans, to whom it was i always light. As the winter approached poets sang farewell K to him. At his birth Zeus had given him a mitra (or cap), I a lyre, and a car drawn by swans, in which he was to pro- K ceed to Delphi, but the swans carried him off to the bright I land of the Hyperboreans. When the summer came the ii priests of Delphi hailed his return in festal songs. The voice of the nightingale welcomed him back. A peculiar !i festival, the Daphnephoria, was held at Thebes every eighth j year in honor of Apollo Ismenius, the ceremony consisting » of a piocession in which was carried a branch of olive hung ^ with wreaths and representations of the sun, moon, stars, and 5 planets, and called the Copo. From the statement that the i number of wreaths was 365, to indicate the days of the year, ’ it may be gathered that the festival as we know it was not yof very high antiquity, symbols so obvious as this being i usually of late origin. On the other hand, it may be sup- ) posed, from the character of Apollo as sun-god, that the » ceremony had existed in a simpler form in early times. The i number seven was sacred to him. Sacred swans made a circle I seven times round the island of Delos at his birth, which w occurred on the seventh day of the month. From this he £ took the title of Hebdomeius. One of the oldest forms of his worship appears to have )> been that in which he was regarded simply as god of light, II and styled Lycius, the original centre of this worship being - Lycia in the southwest of Asia Minor. Turning now to that phase of his character in which he t represents the light of the sun as the symbol of an all-seeing land all-knowing power, we find Apollo regarded as the great ligod of oracles, with Delphi as the principal centre of his ^ activity. His oracles were there communicated through a II priestess, with the title of Pythia, who sat aloft on a sacred r tripod of gold which stood above the opening of a chasm in 5 tr; « 'K >*'i. •tcdti \ no DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. the rock. Out of this chasm rose a continuous stream of cold vapor, which drove the priestess into a state of frenzy when she sat above it. Her method of prophesying was by uttering in her frenzy single words or sounds, which persons educated for the purpose caught up and put into verse, gen¬ erally in such a cunning way as to have, instead of a clear incontrovertible meaning, a double and easily mistaken im¬ port. To give one example : the oracle, when consulted by the Athenians for advice as to how to meet best the approach of the Persian force, returned as its answer, Trust to your citadel of wood.^’ This the Athenian sages misunderstood, and proceeded to have the Acropolis protected with wooden bulwarks, which naturally could not for a moment resist the enemy. Themistocles, however, and the younger men of the day, declared that the words referred to the fleet, and suc¬ ceeded in persuading the people to take to the ships, the result of which Avas the glorious victory of Salamis. Had the interpretation of the sages been accepted generally, the oracle would have had the answer ready, that it meant the fleet. It was only by such tricks that the oracle of Delphi, clever and far-seeing as the priests were, could have main¬ tained its reputation for unerringness and its vast influence. Of the same nature, but apparently older, were the oracles of Apollo in Asia Minor; as, for instance, those of Colophon and Didymi near Miletus, the latter of which was in the hands of the priestly family of Branchidae. Sometimes the god exercised the power of communicating the prophetic gift to mortals, as he did to Cassandra, and to Deiphobe, a daughter of Glaucus. The latter lived in a grotto beside the town of Cumae, in the Campania of Italy, and was known by the name of the Cumaean Sibyl. It was from her that Tarquin the Proud, the last king of Pome, acquired the three Sibylline books which contained important prophecies concerning the fate of Rome, and were held in great rever¬ ence by the Romans. They were preserved carefully in the m PHOEBUS APOLLO, HELIOS, OB SOL. Capitol down to the time of Sulla, wlien they perished in a fire. In Grreece also was a famous seer or prophet, and favorite of Apollo Epimenides, of whom the myth reports that when a herdsman he fell asleep in a grotto, slept for fifty-six years, and on awakening found himself endowed with the prophetic gift in a high degree. Connected with his gift of prophecy was his power of music. For not only were the oracles expressed in verse, but the strains of music, when spontaneous, were thought to originate in an inspired foresight into the future. As god of music he was leader of the Muses, Musagetes; and him¬ self played on a wonderful lyre which Hermes had made for him. At Delphi he was styled Apollo Pythius, and enjoyed several annual festivals, such as the Theophania, to cele¬ brate his return from the Hyperboreans, and the Theoxenia, at which, it being harvest time, he was supposed to receive the other gods at his hospitable table. The principal festival, however, was that at which the Pythian dames were held. The games had been instituted to commemorate the victory of Apollo over the dragon Python, which resisted his entrance upon his duties as oracular god at Delphi. They were held at first every seventh, afterward every ninth, and latterly every fifth year. As being himself possessed of eternal youth, and of the finest conceivable athletic form, Apollo came to be regarded as a patron of the athletic contests of youth, and in this capacity ranked with Hercules and Hermes (Mercury). He was the god also to whom persons polluted either with disease or crime turned for purification, and on this account his high power was brought home frequently and seriously to a great part of the people. He was, therefore, properly viewed as the father of Aesculapius, the god of medicine. The story of the birth of Apollo is that he, with his twin sister Artemis, was a son of Zeus and Leto (or Latona); that Leto, after wandering long hither and thither pursued 112 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. by the jealous Hera, at last found shelter in the island of Delos, in the Aegean Sea, and there was delivered. It was said that hitherto that island had been only a waste rock driven about in the sea, but that it became fixed in its present position on the oc¬ casion of the birth of Apollo and Arte¬ mis, an event which was celebrated by a blaze of golden light shed over the isl¬ and, while sacred swans flew around encircling it seven times. This was in May, and for that reason his festival at Delos, the Delia, was held in that month. But Leto was compelled, through the pursuit of Hera, to abandon her children. They were entrusted to Themis, a name which signifies justice,’’ and indicates here the indisputable sense of right present with Apollo from his birth. By her he was fed on ambrosia and nectar, upon which he grew so strong, and that, too, so quickly, that within only a few hours after his birth he was a youth of dazzling appearance, and escaped his divine nurse, proclaiming that his destiny was to be a bowman, a player on the lyre, and to give truthful oracles to mankind. To accomplish the end of his ambition he set out at once on a pilgrimage to search for a suitable place for an oracle, neither too public nor too retired. After searching through many districts of Greece he arrived at the quiet rocky valley of Delphi, or Pytho, which he recognized as the desired spot, on account of its peaceful position in the heart of Greece. Leto, or Latona. llr ' r.;® •tv Ktuyi WfK f.'p'a f:yii •fi IU>|>4 C'l 9 NIOBE. PHOEBUS APOLLO, HELIOS, OP SOL. Ikf Moreover, there had been an oracle of Themis there from a remote early time, and she was willing to hand over her duties to the young god. A terrible dragon, how¬ ever, called Python, stood in the way, re¬ fused entrance, and tried to repel him; but in vain, for the young god, confident in the unerring aim of his arrows, attacked the monster, and slew it after a short combat. In this way he ac¬ quired his world- famed oracle, and from his victory over the dragon obtained the title of Pythius. From that time for¬ ward, with one ex¬ ception, Apollo re¬ mained in undisputed possession of the sacred tripod and oracle at Delphi, and that was when he had to take up their defence against Hercules, who, be¬ cause the acting priest¬ ess did not prophesy as he wished, offered; JUv?* Marsyas II II •'UC UK Mil Hi® •HX'ltUII 'C;ra IM.l'il gw 114 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. violence and carried off the tripod. Apollo hastened to the aid of his priestess, and Zeus had to settle the quarrel be¬ tween his two sons, who thereafter lived in the closest friendship. Amongst the other incidents of his life, it is related that Apollo once incurred the severe displeasure of Zeus, and was driven for a time out of Olympus, through having shot at some of the Cyclopes in revenge for Zeus having struck Aesculapius, a son of Apollo, with a thunderbolt. During his exile on earth, he acted as a herdsman to his friend Admetus, the king of Pherae, in Thessaly, and again in the same capacity to Laomedon, prince of Troy. In vexation at his banishment he joined with Poseidon in an attempt to dethrone Zeus. But the scheme failed, and both deities were in consequence sentenced to assist in building the walls of Troy. Laomedon refused to give them the payment agreed on for the service, and Apollo revenged himself by sending a I dreadful pestilence which depopulated the town and neigh- * borhood of Troy. During the time of his servitude he had also a quarrel with Pan, who insisted that the flute was a better instrument than the lyre. The decision, which was left to Midas, a king of Lydia, \vas given in favor of Pan, for which Apollo punished Midas by causing his ears to grow long like those of an ass. Marsyas, too, had boasted that he could surpass Apollo in the art of playing on the flute, and for this had to sufter the cruel punishment of being flayed alive. In Pome the worship of Apollo was not established till 320 B. C., a temple being raised to him in that year in con¬ sequence of a pestilence that had visited the city. After¬ ward a second temple to him was erected on the Palatine hill. The Apollinarian G-ames were instituted during the second Punic war. No distinction was made by the Greek poets of later times between Apollo and the sun-god, Helios. As little did the Romans distinguish between Apollo and Sol. In both cases PHOEBUS APOLLO, HELTOS, OP SOL, 115 the confusion arose from the fact that the fundamental idea of both deities was that of sun-gods. The title of Phoebus plainly designated Apollo as god of pure streaming light, particularly of the light of heaven, and this phase of his character was made more conspicuous by the fact of his Apollo, Pan, and Midas. ^ f) mothers name being Leto, darkness,’’ strictly ''goddess ZC of the dark night. But this, his original signification, , came in time to be lost sight of in the variety of other func- ^ tions which he assumed. Helios, or Hyperion, on the con- ftjS trary, remained, properly speaking, only the orb of the sun which is visible in the heavens by day, and disappears by night in a regular course. That was the only signification he had. The number seven was sacred to him, as it was to Apollo, and in the island of Trinacia, supposed to be Sicily, it was said, he had seven herds of cows and seven herds of lambs, fifty in each herd, which never increased or dimin- DEITIES OE THE HIGHEST ORDER. 116 ished in numbers. It was one of his pleasures to see them grazing when he rose in the morning and when he descended in the evening. Of the sons of Helios the most famous is Phaethon, of whom it is said that he once had a dispute about his origin with Epaphus, a son of Zeus and lo, and in consequence begged Helios, if he really was his father, to prove himself such by granting one request; upon which Helios called the river Styx to witness that he would not refuse to grant it. Tlie request was, that he, Phaethon, should be permitted for one day to drive the chariot of the sun. Helios, astonished at the boldness of the request, and alarmed at the danger that threatened his son in such an undertaking, endeavored to move him from his determination. But Phaethon only clung to the bargain all the more firmly, and Helios, finding himself bound by his oath, instructed his son how to drive and manage the horses, and handed over to him the task for one day. The youth, however, through being unused to the PHOEBUS APOLLO, HELIOS, OR SOL. 117 work^ and unac(^LiaintGd with the right way^ soon became confused, and lost his strength and his senses. The spirited horses, named Pyroses, Eons, Aethon, and Phlegon, wheeled out of the right course, and brought the chariot of the sun so near to the earth that in some places the latter took fire, fountains were dried up, rivers began to boil, and part of the human race became black in color. Zeus, alarmed at the unexpected danger in which both heaven and earth were thus placed, slew Phaethon with a stroke of lightning, and cast him from the chariot of the sun down into the river Eridanus. The three sisters of Phaethon, Heliades, as they were called—that is, daughters of Helios, Phaethusa, Aeg'le, and Lampetia, wept for him for a long time, and finally became transformed into larch trees, that overhang the river^s bank, the tears that continually flowed from them being changed by the sun into amber (eleJctron). Phae¬ thon's friend Cycnus mourned his loss deeply, and was transformed into a swan, while Helios was so grieved at his son s death that only the entreaties of the gods could prevail on him to resume the reins of the chariot of the sun. The symbols of Helios were horses' heads, a crown of seven rays, a cornucopia, and a ripened fruit. The symbols of Apollo were the wolf, swan, raven, stag, dolphin, laurel, and lyre. In works of art Apollo is usually represented as having the figure of a youthful athlete—perhaps the finest existing statue of him being the Apollo Belvedere of the Vatican. His hair is long, and usually tied, like that of his sister Artemis, in a large knot above the fore¬ head. In the character of Musagetes he wears long ample drapery girt at the waist, a diadem round his head, and long tresses falling Murray —lo % 118 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. oil ii.s sLioalders. Though the general representation of him is that in which he is engaged in playing on the lyre, or resting from doing so, we find him also with bow and arrows, as Sauroctonos, killing a lizard, holding forth his aegis to destroy his enemies, and present at the flaying of Marsyas. ARTEMIS, OR DIANA; AND SELENE, OR LUNA. Originally Artemis was the divine personification of the moon, just as her brother Apollo was originally god of the sun. But by degrees, as the moon came to be viewed like the sun, on the one hand as a mere illuminating orb, and on the other as possessing a real or apparent and generally be¬ lieved influence upon vegetation, and on human as well as animal life, there grew up a distinction between moon- goddesses of two kinds, corresponding to the sun gods of two kinds. The one was Selene, or Luna, whose significa¬ tion was merely that of goddess of the orb of night, as Helios, the sun, was of the orb of day. The other was Artemis, or Diana, who embraced in her character all the other functions exercised by the moon on earthly life; and accordingly, like Apollo, became the subject of a largely developed religious belief; while the myth of Selene, on the contrary, like that of Helios, was but little and sparingly improved upon. Great as was the variety of the real and fancied influences of the moon upon natural life, proportionately great was the variety in the myth of Artemis—a locality of worship some¬ times, at other times a particular point of view of her char¬ acter determining the phase of it. And further, it should be observed that many peculiar features in the myths of Arte¬ mis are traceable to the fact of her being twin-sister of Apollo, whose inner and spiritual qualities she was believed to share. It was observed that the vegetation of warm southern lands spread and flourished most under the quickening influ¬ ence of the coolness of night and the fall of dew, which ARTEMIS, OR DIANA; AND SELENE, OR LUNA. I 19 often for whole months was a substitute for the missing rains. It was known by experience that tfie fall of dew is most copious when the sky is clear and the moon sheds her pure light and hence to Artemis was ascribed the cause of fer Artemis, or Diana. tility in this direction. Hence she was believed to roam by night through woods and groves, over hills and valleys, accompanied by the nymphs of the fountains; beside rivers, fountains, and marshes her presence was felt. But the pres- 120 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. ence of the moon in the heavens gave security to travellers and to herds^ especially from the attacks of wild animals, whose enemy Artemis was, therefore, thought to be. Under the title of Agrotera she was the patron goddess of hunts¬ men, her favorite hunting-ground being Arcadia, with its many heights and glens well-wooded and well-watered. Here she was worshipped under the form of a bear, and called Calliste, the Arcadians, or bear-people, boasting their descent from her. On the other hand, the regularly recur¬ ring absence of the moon from the heavens, which could only have been regarded as due to a voluntary act on the part of the goddess, showed that though opposed to wild animals, she could also employ them for the purpose of pun¬ ishing men, and to illustrate this, the story was told of her having sent among the Aetolians the so-called Calydonian boar, which laid waste their fields, till after a great hunt it was slain by Meleager and Atalanta. As a huntress her favorite animal was the stag, because its swiftness gave the best opportunity for her method of capture, which was by bow and speed of foot. As an instance of how severely she would punish the wanton slaying of the stag, there is a story of how for such a crime on the part of Agamemnon she detained the Greek fleet, on its way to Troy, in the harbor of Aulis, and exacted from him the sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia. Actaeon, the huntsman, had seen the goddess bathing, and for this offence to her modesty was transformed into a stag, and devoured by his own hounds—a story which appears to illustrate the destructive influence of the dog-star, Sirius. Another hunter whom she slew with her sweet arrows was Orion, a personification of the bright constella¬ tion, which at the beginning of summer is seen in early morning in the east, where it remains until extinguished by the morning light. To express this in the form of a myth, Orion was said to have been too pressing in his advances toward Eos, the morning, and for this the goddess of the moon slew him. ARTEMIS, OR DIANA; AND SELENE, OR LUNA. 121 From the coincidence observed between the courses of the moon and the ebb and flow of tides, Artemis came to be viewed as a goddess who protected the occupation of the fishermen, not only on the shore and on arms of the sea, but also on lakes and rivers. In this character she bore the name of Dictynna, or Britomartis, and was worshipped with zeal among other places in the island of Crete, where, to account for the former of her two names, the story was told of her having, to escape the pursuit of Minos, thrown herself from a rock into the sea, upon which she was caught in a fisherman’s net. From the joyous feelings awakened by calm moonlight, and perhaps partly from her relationship to Apollo, she was described as fond of music and the dance—a view of her character which appears to have presented itself in strong light to the people of Arcadia. By whatever process the belief was arrived at, whether from some comparison which suggested itself between the life of man and the waxing and waning of the moon, or whether because mankind at birth seemed to come out of night into the light of day, we find Artemis represented as the guardian and helper of childbirth, with the title of Bilithyia, Ilithyia,* or Eleutho. She was throughout looked upon as a goddess of the female productive power in nature, and accordingly the care and nursing of children through their illness were placed under her supervision. A festival, accompanied by the dancing of young girls, was held in her honor as the goddess of youth, in Messenia, Laconia, Elis, and elsewhere in Greece. Similarly from the notion that mankind after death seems to sink into night again, she came to be viewed as goddess of death, particu¬ larly of that manner of death which could not be assigned to a known cause—it being said of those who were stricken suddenly, without an ostensible cause, such as an injury or * Both names are also assigned to Hera, while Ilithyia herself is described as a daughter of Zeus and Hera. 3 ■>2 t l»i f I >• ;':is Ml# 'tin v;n 11 % 0 ) « •urn. 122 DETTIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. wound, that Apollo or Artemis had laid them low with a kindly arrow ; and in these cases the death of men was ascribed to Apollo, and of women to Artemis, as a rule. From the fact that the moon, with its pure serene light, naturally suggested, as it does to us also, the idea of a modest pure virgin, Artemis, as her name implies, the modest, spotless goddess,^ ^ came to be looked on as a virgin, and as having under her special care all shy and modest youths, whether boys or girls, from whom she received presents of wreaths of flowers in the springtime. When girls had reached an age at which her care was no longer necessary, it was customary for them to dedicate their girdles to the god¬ dess. Young girls were sometimes called bears/’ in allu¬ sion to their patron goddess, and her symbol of a bear. She was worshipped in Athens, Corinth, and Thebes as goddess of strict upbringing, of good fame, of upright mind, and of sensibility in the affairs of ordinary life. She chased and fired her arrows at all wild and unchecked creatures and actions. When only a maiden of tender age she resolved, and obtained Zeus’ consent, to remain always in a single state, and, like Athene, continued constant and true to her resolve, punishing with great severity every offence against this prin¬ ciple on the part of the nymphs who accompanied her, as we see in the examples of Daphne, whom she transformed into a laurel tree, and Callisto into a bear. It may have been from the same motive which assigned the bear as a symbol, that in early times her worship was attended with human sacrifice. Of this kind was the wor¬ ship of the Tauric Artemis, at first peculiar to the countries on the shores of the Black Sea, the Crimea being the prin¬ cipal centre of it. From the Crimea, it is said, Orestes brought an image of the goddess, and transplanted her wor¬ ship to Greece, where it took root, among other places, at Sparta. There she was styled Orthia or Orthosia. The sacrifices of human beings were, however, in later times. ARTEMIS, OR DIANA; AND SELENE, OR LUNA. 123 commuted for the well-knowu ceremony of flogging- youths at her altar, said to have been introduced by the Spartan legislator Lycurgus. ^ As goddess of marshes she was styled Limnaea, and as a river goddess Potamia. In this latter capacity she took under her protection the nymphs of fountains, as, for exam¬ ple, Arethusa, whose beauty had attracted the river-god Alpheus, and made her the object of his constant pursuit, fo elude him, caused the water of the spring which she represented to flow under ground. As Munychia, or moon-goddess, she was worshipped at the harbor of Ath¬ ens, and enjoyed an annual festival, at wliich cakes of the shape of a full moon, with lights stuck in them, were pre¬ sented to her. As Brauronia, with the symbol of a bear, she had a sanctuary on the Acropolis of Athens. In Euboea she was styled Ama- rynthia, and was wor¬ shipped with great ceremony. Selene, or Luna, it has already been said, stood as goddess of the moon, in the same re¬ lation to Artemis as did Helios to Phoebus Apollo, inasmuch as she merely represented the orb of the moon, while Artemis repre¬ sented the influence exercised on nature by night, the symbol of which was the moon, as the sun was symbol of day. Ac¬ cordingly, as compared with Helios, the rising star of day, Selene represents evening and night, carrying a torch, and clad in long, heavy robes, with a veil covering the back of Diana and Endymion. 124 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. her head. Oq her brow she wears a half-moon (less fre¬ quently horns), and leans forward, as if moving with speed, in a chariot drawn by two horses; or she rides on a mule. The story of her love for the beautiful young Endymion, whom she found asleep on a hillside, and, enamoured of his loveliness, descended to him, is the best known of the myths concerning her, and may be taken as a symbolical representation of the gentle influence of the goddess of night, who watches the slumbers of unconscious creatures. Among the Romans Luna had a handsome temple, founded by King Servius Tullius, on the Aventine hill, another on the Capitol, and a third on the Palatine. Temple of Diana at Ephesus. Compared with the Artemis whom we have up to now been describing, the so-called Ephesian Artemis, or Diana of Ephesus, presents so very different and strange an aspect, that at first sight we are completely at a loss to understand how by any possibility the term of a virgin could be applied to her. Her appearance altogether wants the simplicity, humanity, aud truth to nature which characterized the Greek deities, and, what is more, bears the most obvious signs of maternity. It would seem that the Greeks, who settled as colonists in very early times on the coast of Asia Minor, ARTEMIS, OR DIANA; AND SELENE, OR LUNA, 125 found this goddess being worshipped by the native popula¬ tion of that land^ and adopted her in the place of Artemis, If wax 126 BETTIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. Cl II 1 III fl I f I H i i\ who, leaving out the fact of her being a virgin, was prob¬ ably identical with the Asiatic goddess in respect to her divine power over fertility, childbirth, the moon, and hunting. The worship of Diana of Ephesus extended through¬ out the part of Asia Minor colonized by Greeks, and thence spread to other places—never, however, ob¬ taining a firm footing in Greece proper. At Ephesus she had a temple, which, for the grandeur of its archi¬ tecture, its size, splendor, and wealth, was reckoned one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. On the night on which Alex¬ ander tlie Great was born it was set fire to and almost completely destroyed by a man named Herostratus, whose object, being simply to hand down his name in history, was gained. After¬ ward, when Alexander had acquired renown by his extraordinary conquests in Asia, this coincidence was remarked, and accepted as having been an omen of his future fame. Whether he himself believed so or not, he gladly assisted in the rebuilding of the temple, so that when finished it was more magnificent than before. Diana was still being worshipped zealously when the Apostle Paul went to Ephesus to preach Christianity, and accordingly he was The Asiatic Artemis. ARTEMIS, OR DIANA; AND SELENE, OR LUNA. ] 27 received with hostility, especially by the silversmiths and goldsmiths, whose trade consisted largely in the production of small shrines or representations of the front of the temple of Diana, to be sold among her worshippers and devotees. Feeling that the success of PauFs preaching would ruin their trade, they raised so great an opposition to him and his fol¬ lowers that they were obliged to leave the town. Neverthe¬ less the new religion found converts, who from that time forward formed a Christian community there. This Artemis was also worshipped under the title of Leucophryna in Asia Minor, and as such had a splendid temple at Mag¬ nesia on the Maeander. Among the Romans the worship of Diana appears to have been of native growth, and not, as was the case with that of many of the other deities, imported from Greece. A temple had been erected to her in Rome on the Aventine hill as early as the time of King Servius Tullius. Her sacrifices con¬ sisted of oxen and deer; and these, as well as the fruit pre¬ sented to her, had to be perfectly clean and faultless, as became offerings to a virgin goddess. Stags, dogs, and the first-fruits of the fields were sacred to her. ^ In works of art Artemis was usually represented as a huntress, either in the act of running with speed in pursuit of her game, or resting, and presenting the picture of a young virgin, fleet of foot, her dress girt high, and unencumbered except by bow and arrows. In type of face she resembles her brother Apollo so closely that, from the face alone, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish them. Her hair, like his, is gathered into a large knot above the forehead. The most celebrated of the statues of her that have come down to us is the so-called Diana of Versailles. In early works of art, and in some of the later—as, for example, a marble statue in the British Museum —her drapery reaches to her feet, but in these cases also she is repre¬ sented as in active movement, like the moon hastening through the clouds. Of the incidents in which she figured we find that of Actaeon being transformed into a stag and devoured by his hounds, in a sculp¬ tured group, on a painted vase, and on the fragment of a cameo in the British Museum. The hunt of the Calydonian boar occurs on painted vases. The Ephesian Artemis was represented with a mural crown on her 128 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. head. Behind the crown is a disc, as symbol of the full moon; on her breast, like a necklace, a garland of flowers, as a sign of her influ¬ ence in springtime, while above it are figures of maidens, to indi¬ cate her patronage of young girls ; lions cling to her arms ; as mother of wild beasts, she has many breasts; her legs are closely bandaged and ornamented with figures of bulls, stags, lions, and gryphons; at the sides are flowers and bees. How far this figure may have resem¬ bled the original image of the goddess which had fallen from heaven, it is impossible to say. Selene or Luna is represented as riding on a mule or a horse; on the pediment of the Parthenon it is a horse. On a painted vase in the British Museum there occurs a representation of sunrise; Helios is seen rising in his chariot, the stars, in the form of youths, dive headlong into the sea, and the moon (Selene) rides away over the hilltops on a horse, and as she departs is bayed at by a dog. DIONYSUS, OE BACCHUS, Having more titles than any of the other deities, was styled, to increase their number, God of the many names,of these the most familiar being Bromius, Lyaeus, Dithy- rambus, and Bacchus. The belief in the existence and powers of this god appears to have been borrowed by the Greeks in its primitive form from oriental mythology, to have been developed by them, and in later times communicated to the Romans. His original signification was that of a divine being whose power might be noticed operating in the sap of vegetation; and, accordingly, spring was a season of gladness and joy for him, and winter a season of sorrow. From this sprung his double character of god of the vintage and its gay accompaniments, and god of the ecstatic and mystic ceremonies in which his sufferings during winter were deplored. As time went on he came to be viewed chiefly as the source of the happiness and mirth which arise from the enjoyment of the noble fruit of the vine; while afterward, from the fact that his festivals in spring and summer, with their gaiety and mirth, gave occasion to the first attempts at dramatic performances, he added the function of god of the theatre to that of god of the vine. DIONYSUS, OR BACCHUS. Fo was born, it was commonly believed, at Thebes, and was a son of Zeus and Semele, a daughter of Cadmus, tin: Bacchus. founder of that town, a son of Ag-enor, and grandson of Poseidon. Of his birth poets relate how Hera, indignant .1 f*’ .A jLte •rr.EjS |(r !#• fl CM? iP 3 itws * 130 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. at this rival in her husband’s affections, determined to get rid of her; and to this end, assuming a disguise, went to Thebes, and presented herself to Semele; how she succeeded in winning her confidence, and thereupon took occasion to propose that she should ask Zeus to visit her for once in all the plenitude of his majesty as a god of thunder, how Zeus, who, without waiting to listen, had hastily sworn, by the black waters of the Styx,’ ’ to grant whatever she should ask, was vexed when he heard the foolish request, from granting which no power could absolve him; how one day he appeared before the luckless Semele with a display of thunder and lightning which caused her death. So far the desire of ven¬ geance on the part of Hera was satisfied. But Semele, at the moment of her death, gave birth to a male child, whose life Zeus fortunately restored. That was the child Bacchus. To prevent its suffering at the hands of Hera, Hermes, the messenger of the gods, was secretly dispatched with the infant to a place called I^ysa, where were certain nymphs, to whom, along with Silenus, the charge of bringing up the child was entrusted. His title of Dithyrambus, it is said, means twice born,” and refers to the incident of his life being restored by Zeus. In after times it was applied to a species of song in honor of the god of wine, of which Arion of Methymna was the reputed originator. The childhood of Dionysus was spent in innocence and happiness among the nymphs, satyrs, sileni, herdsmen, and vine-tenders of Nysa. But when he arrived at manhood he set out on a journey through all known countries, even into the remotest parts of India, instructing the people, as he proceeded, how to tend the vine, and how to practise many other arts of peace, besides teaching them the value of just and honorable dealings. He was praised everywhere as the greatest benefactor of mankind. At the same time, it is said, apparently with reference to the fierce and stubborn mood which in some cases follows copious indulgence in wine, that he met occasionally with great resistance on his DIONYSUS, OB BACCHUS. 131 journey, but always overcame it and punished those who opposed him most severely. As an instance of this, we will take Lycurg-us, the king of Thrace, whom, for his resistance, Dionysus drove mad, and caused to fell his son, mistaking him for a vine-plant, and afterward to kill himself in despair. Or, again, Pentheus, a king of Thebes, whom he caused to be Torn to pieces by his own mother and her following of women, because he had dared to look on at their orgiastic rites. Nowhere was the knowledge of how to utilize the vine appreciated more than in Attica, where the god had commu¬ nicated it to Icarus, whose first attempt to extend the benefit of it to others brought about his own death, an event which was deeply grievmd for afterward. In December a festival, with all manner of rustic enjoyments, was held in honor of Dionysus in the country round Athens. In January a fes¬ tival called Lenaea was held in his honor in the town, at Avhich one of the principal features was a nocturnal and orgiastic procession of women. Then followed in February the Anthesteria, the first day of which was called cask¬ opening day,^^ and the second pouring day.^^ Lastly came the great festival of the year, the Great Dionysia, which was held in the town of Athens, and lasted from the ninth to the fifteenth of March, the religious part of the ceremony consisting of a procession in which an ancient wooden image of the god was carried through the streets from one sanctuary to^ another, accompanied by excited songs. The tlieatre of Dionysus was daily the scene of splendid dramatic perform¬ ances, and the whole town was astir and gay. His worship extended to Lemnos, Thasos, and Naxos, where the story was told of his turning the Tyrrhenian pirates into dolphins, and where he found the beautiful Ari¬ adne, when she had been abandoned by Theseus. It spread to Crete, the home of Ariadne, and into Asia Minor. In Phrygia he was worshipped witli wild ceremonies, called Sabazia, and in Thrace and Macedonia, called Cotyttia. As the god who had advanced through Asia Minor and on to Murray —ii 132 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. ludia^ accompanied by his wild and clamorous following, he was styled the Indian Dionysus, and in this character was represented as advanced in years. The sufferings which the god was supposed to endure in winter led him to be associated with Denieter in the mys¬ teries of Eleusis, the purpose of which was, as has been said, to celebrate the grief of the goddess in winter, and her pros¬ pects of joy in the coming spring. The vine, ivy, and pomegranate were sacred to this god; his sacrifices consisted of goats and pigs. In works of art Dionysus was represented under a variety of forms; of these, however, two are to be specially noticed. The one called the ‘‘ Indian Bakchos,” represents him as a man of years, with worthy aspect, a long beard, a diadem on his brow, and long drapery sweep¬ ing to his feet. In another figure he is represented as a beautiful youth with an almost feminine appearance, beardless, his hair falling in long tresses, and adorned with a wreath of ivy or vine tendrils, sometimes wearing the skin of a stag over his shoulders, or with small horns on his brow, and often in a car drawn by panthers or lions, or riding on one of these beasts. At other times he appears as a child, and that sometimes when he is being handed over by Hermes to the care of Silenus and tin" nymphs of Nysa. The youthful Dionysus is frequently represented in the company of Ariadne, while the elder Dionysus is usually accompanied by Sileni and Satyrs, as when he visited Icarus and taught him the use of the vine, a scene which occurs on several ancient reliefs, of which two are in the British Museum. On his journey to India he rides on a camel, and on other occasions he is attended by panthers. His staff is a thyrsus —a rod with a pine cone at the top. In his hand is often a drinking-cup. The movement and excitement of the persons who were associated with Dionysus was a great attraction to Praxiteles and the sculptors of his time, and it is probable that the many sculptures of Dionysiac subjects which we now possess come from that school either as originals or direct imitations. HERMES, OR MERCURY, A son of Zeus and Maia, a daughter of Atlas, was regarded In the first instance as the special deity to whom was due the prolificness and welfare of the animal kingdom. In conse- HERMES, OR MERCURY. 133 ! queuce, however, of the fact that in early times the chief I source of wealth consisted in herds of cattle, the prolificness of which was traced to him, it came to pass in time that he ' was considered generally to be the first cause of all wealth, ( come whence it might. But ! as civilization advanced^ and i it became known by experi- i ence that there was no I means of acquiring wealth so i rapidly as by trade, his prov- i ince was extended to trade 1 and the protection of traders. , Again, since the main condi- i tion of prosperity in trade i Avas peace and undisturbed commerce by land and sea, ; he came to be viewed as 1 guardian of commerce. And, ' further, assuming that all I who took part in trade were I qualified to look after their own interests, shrewd and I prudent, the function of protecting prudence, shrewdness, , and even cunning, was assigned to him. In certain aspects I of trade, if not in the best, it was reckoned a great point to I talk over and cajole purchasers, and from his protection of I this method of doing business, Hermes came to be god of persuasive speechor oratory. Finally, it being only a I short step from this to cunning and roguery, we must not be surprised to find him described as protector of thieves and rascals, though no doubt this task was assigned him more in joke than in earnest. His office of messenger and herald of the gods, in partic¬ ular of Zeus, appears to have originated partly in the duty assigned to him of protecting commerce, the success of Avhich 'depends largely on the messengers and envoys employed in I )>*•* 'Ifg 11 » fliiMJI* i¥ iiM .Ml* « -K .I** 134 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. it, and partly in other functions of his which would lead us too far to explain. As messenger and envoy of Zeus, 1 Hermes conducts the intercourse between heaven and earth, ^ announcing the will of the gods to men, and from this office was further derived his character of a god of oracles. In ^ the capacity of messenger or herald he had access even to the J under-world, whither, under the title of Psychopompos, he guided the souls of the departed, crossing in Charon’s « bark, and placing them before the throne of the deities || below. From the shadowy world of spirits to that of sleep J and dreams is a short step for the imagination, and accord- ■j ingly we find Hermes described as Oneiropompos, guide of ^ dreams. As the swift messenger of the gods he readily came ^ to be looked on as a model for the youth practising in the palaestra, in which capacity he had the title of Enagonios, In proportion to the variety of tasks which he had to per- S form was the variety of mythical stories about his actions m and life, some of them taking us back to the very day of » his birth. For it was not an uncommon practice in the early myth-making age to ascribe to the infancy of a god some - J instance of the peculiar qualities by which he was afterward ■ distinguished. So it happened with Hermes. K His birth having taken place on the fourth of the month, ij that day became sacred to him. Born, as it was believed,'® during the darkness of night, in an unfrequented, lonesome B cave on Mount Cyllene, in Arcadia, and on this account jt styled Cyllenius, he was only a day old when a remarkable* example of his cunning and knavery occurred. Slipping out*' of the couch in the cave where he was left asleep as was sup- })osed, the night being dark and cloudy, he found a herd of *1 cattle belonging to his brother Apollo (as sun-god), and stole m a number of them. When the morning came Apollo searched in vain for the missing cattle; for the infant god had cleverly ' succeeded in obliterating all traces of them by fastening bunches of broom to their hoofs, and in this condition driv- ‘ ing them backward into a cave at Pylos, so as to produce the '.i; f HERMES, OR MERCURY. 135 impression that they had left instead of entered the eave. After this adventure he slunk back to his couch, and feigned to be asleep. He had, however, been observed by a rustic named Battus, who informed against him, whereupon Apollo, angry at such a daring piece of robbery, dragged him out of his couch, and took him off to the throne of Zeus to be punished and made an example of. But Hermes was irre¬ pressible, took up a lyre which he had made the day before out of the shell of a tortoise, and proceeded to play on it, to Mercury Before Pluto and Proserpina. the amusement and delight of both Zeus and Apollo, and further ingratiated himself with his brother by giving him the lyre, inventing for his own use a shepherd^ s pipe. The cattle of the sun-god were the clouds, and Hermes was a god who presided over the fertility of nature. The signifi¬ cation of the story of his stealing some of these cattle on a dark night would, therefore, seem to be simply that of clouds discharging fertilizing showers by night. The two brothers, having thus made their peace, continued from that time forward on the best of terms, Apollo attesting his good disposition toward Hermes by giving him in return af Ail 136 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER, for the lyre a present of a golden divining-rod, and also the power of prophecy. This condition, however, was attached to the gift, that he was not to communicate his revelations of the future by words as did Apollo, but by signs and occur¬ rences. That is to say, that persons revolving some under¬ taking in their mind were to be guided by certain unexpected sights, accidents, or incidents, and were to recognize in them the favor or displeasure of the gods, with reference to the enterprise in question—a method of proceeding common enough in modern superstition. These signs and incidents were believed to be sent by Hermes, whose counsel in other cases of dbubt, as to whether to do or not do a thing, was sought for by recourse to dice, the belief being that a high throw signified his approval, and a low throw the reverse. The cunning and adroitness, the same good humor and ready answer which he gave proof of in the first days of his infancy, were often afterward and with like success displayed by him—as, for example, when he stole the sceptre of Zeus, Aphrodite’s girdle, Poseidon’s trident, the sword of Ares, the tongs of Hephaestus, or Apollo’s bow and arrows, in each case managing to make up matters, and smooth away the indignation of his victims. But the most celebrated instance in which his brilliant talents were fully displayed, was the affair of Argus with the hundred eyes, whom Hera had appointed to watch over lo, one of the favorites of Zeus, whom the latter, that she might escape the vengeance of the jealous Hera, had transformed into a cow, a trick which the goddess had perceived. Well, Hermes being commanded by Zeus to release lo from the surveillance of Argus, and in doing so to use no force, found the task no easy matter, seeing that the watch¬ man had a hundred eyes, of which, when in his deepest sleep, only fifty were closed. Hermes succeeded, however, and in this fashion. Presenting himself to Argus, he commenced to amuse him by telling all kinds of tales, and having by these means fairly gained the watchman’s confidence, he next HERMES, OR MERCURY, 137 Argus. produced a shepherd’s pipe, and played on it various tunes of such sweetness that they gradually lulled Argus into so deep a sleep that one by one all his hundred eyes closed. The moment the last eyelid drooped Hermes slew him, and at once released lo, and led her away. For this service he rose high in the estimation of Zeus, and from that time the name of ^^Argus- slayer,” Arg'iphontes, was the proudest title which he bore. Asa memorial of Argus, Hera, it was said, set his eyes in the tail of her favorite bird, the peacock. But these and such-like instances of his knavery and cunning do not by any means express the whole character of Hermes ; for his skill was also directed frequently to pur¬ poses of useful invention. It was he, for example, who in¬ vented Apollo’s lyre, as well as that one by which the Theban musician, Amphion, did such wonders; and it was he who taught Palamedes to express words in writing. And, besides, wherever danger that required skill and dex¬ terity as much as courage presented itself, he was always present to assist. He acted as a guide to heroes in their dangerous enterprises, and in that capacity frequently, as in the case of Hercules, was associated with Athene. To travellers who had lost their way he was a ready guide, and to exiles a constant and willing helper in strange lands and among ill-disposed people. In the primitive form of his worship Hermes was, as has been said, the god who gives prolificness to flocks and herds. In this character we find him in what appears to have been the oldest centre of his worship in Greece—that is, in Samo- thrace and the neighboring islands of Imbros and Lemnos, where he bore the title of Cadmilus or Casmilus. His trc t, * tf-tf I , hi: i0f «>■<(« Ik M II '^4. 3 SIfttI 138 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. usual title among herdsmen was either Nomius or Bpi- melius. A messenger himself, it became his office to aid human messengers and travellers, and to this end it was he who inspired the idea of erecting sign-posts at cross-roads with directions as to whither each road led. These sign-posts took the form of statues, if they may be so called, consisting of a pillar running narrower toward the foot, and surmounted by a head of Hermes, and called Hermae. It was the duty of travellers on passing one of them to place a stone beside it, a custom which not only largely helped toward clearing the fields of stones, but also led to improvement in the roads themselves, and hence to increased facilities for commerce. If more than two roads crossed, a corresponding number of heads were placed on the pillar, one facing each way. Sim¬ ilar figures were also found outside houses in Athens for the purpose of cheering parting travellers. lo and Zeus. HERMES, OB MERCURY. 139 Hermes, or Mercury. The attributes of Hermes were the cadueeus or keryceum — that is, a short staff with a pair of wings and a knotted snake attached to it, and the petasus or winged cap. Beside him sometimes is a cock or a goat. For sacrifice he delighted in the tongues of animals, a suitable sacrifice to the god of oratory. The Roman Mercurius appears to have possessed in com¬ mon with Hermes only the character of god of trade and oratory. Roman traders held a festival to him on May 25. 140 DEITIES OF THE HIGHEST ORDER, In the earlier works of art Hermes appears bearded and about middle age, frequently carrying a sheep or a kid over bis shoulders. His form is athletic. In more recent works we find him of a youth¬ ful figure, such as became his office as messenger of the gods. He wears \hQ petasus, and sometimes wings at his heels, carries the cadu- ceus, and sometimes, as a god of trade, a purse. Among the incidents of his life, one which occurs frequently on the painted vases is that in which he appears presenting the three goddesses to Paris, who had to decide their claims as to which of them was the most beautiful. Sometimes he is represented in sculptures as a mere boy. Many of the Hermae described above have come down to our times. THEMIS, A daughter* of Uranus and Gaea, was the personification of that divine law of right which ought to control all human affairs, of that highest and noblest sense of right which is subject to no human influences. In this capacity she came to be viewed also as goddess of the rites of hospitality. She was a personification of divine will as it bore upon the affairs of the world, and accordingly the Delphic oracle had been under her control before it was yielded to Apollo, to whom, as her successor, she communicated the prophetic art. A long time passed before Zeus could persuade her to become his wife—his first wife, as some myths have it; his second, according to others, which say that Metis was his first. To him she bore the Horae, Moerae or Parcae, and Astraea, the goddess of justice, of whom we have already told how she forsook the earth during the Bronze Age. The proper home of Themis was Olympus, and hence she was styled Urania. But during the war with the Titans she descended to earth, and there, throughout the Golden Age, taught man¬ kind the exercises of right and moderation. When, after¬ ward, the human race sank into degradation, she returned again to Olympus. In consequence of the profound wisdom and open truth¬ fulness which formed the essential features of the character THEMIS. 141 of Themis, even the supreme gods consulted and acted on her advice; as, for example, did Zeus, when he declined to marry Thetis, because of the prediction of Themis, that a son would be the issue of the marriage, who would excel even his father in might. We shall afterward have to relate how Thetis was given in marriage to Peleus, a mortal, in order that her son might not be a source of danger to the gods. The worship of Themis extended to many districts of Greece, where temples, altars, and statues were raised in her honor. The prin¬ cipal centres of it, however, were Athens, Troezen, the island of Aegina, Thebes, and Olympia. Ancient artists represented her as a \v^oman of mature age, with large open eyes; while modern artists— and they alone, it must be observed—figure her as in the illustration. She is further represented holding a sword and chain in one hand and a balance in the other, to indicate the severity and the accuracy with which justice is to be meted out and administered. t. Wa# I rw » •'H tnSjJ C-l9 .Ik pjl (tit Cfftll INFERIOE DEITIES. Hitherto our descriptions have been confined to those deities of the Greeks and Romans who, because their func¬ tions were subordinate to no god but Zeus, were styled of the superior order, or Olympian deities. Hades and Perse¬ phone being included, though their realm was the under¬ world, not Olympus. We proceed now to the inferior order, such as occupied subordinate positions i n the system of gods, but were nevertheless worshipped independently, if not so universally as the others. f We begin with the HORAE, . \ «i The goddesses of the seasons,’^ daughters of Zeus and lei Themis. Their number was variously estimated according •t to the variety of the divisions of year into periods—winter, however, not being reckoned as one, because it was the season of sleep and death in nature. Thus we find the worship of only two goddesses of seasons in Athens, the one called Thallo, or goddess of blossoming,’’ and the other Carpo, or goddess of harvest and fruit.” But elsewhere in Greece the usual number was three, and as such they were repre¬ sented in works of art with the attri¬ butes of the seasons : Spring with its flowers, Summer with its grain, and Autumn with its grapes and fruit. «i t'l One of the Horae, HOBAE. 143 Occasionally we find a fourth season, that of Winter, rep¬ resented in the act of returning with booty from the chase: but, unlike her sisters, she is nameless. As deities of the kindly seasons which bring about the budding and growth of nature, they were directly under the control of the superior deities, especially of Zeus and Hera, At times they are to be seen along with the Charites (Grraces) in the company of Horae, or Hours. !#» ft Aphrodite, and sometimes along with the Muses in the com¬ pany of Apollo; for it is in the happy seasons of the year that the joyous voice of nature is heard. In the capacity of goddesses who watched over the bless¬ ings of the fields, it became their duty, further, to regulate changes of the weather, now opening and now shutting the gates of heaven, alternately sending rain and sunshine as suited best the increase of vegetation. Tender and glad¬ some, moving in mazy dances, with crowns of gold and of flowers, they were always good and faithful to mankind, and, though sometimes seeming to be impatient to come late, 144 INFERIOR DEITIES. always bringing with them something sweet and beautiful, never proving untrue or deceitful. Our first illustration represents a Hora dancing, with a wreath of palm-leaves on her head. The dish of fruit in her left hand probably in¬ dicates that she is the Hora of Autumn. Such were their func¬ tions in nature. In consequence, hov^ever, of the great and plen¬ teous blessings that were observed to flow from the unchangeable and orderly succession of the seasons, the Horae were also supposed to watch over good order '^and propriety in human life and morality—a task which seems to have given rise to the belief that they were daugh¬ ters of Themis. Their names, in the cases where the three appear together, have been ad¬ mirably chosen to suit this metaphorical notion of their character : as, Eunomia (wise legis¬ lation), Dike (justice), and Eirene (peace). Eunomia’s services were mostly directed to political life, the results being warmly praised by poets, and her worship never neglected by the State. Dike’s sphere of operations was Hora, or Flora. • Ollli s m Of ||V'*'| n < «5 *■ i f .9-^ u.i< sisters, was said to have been the mother of Plutus—that is, : of riches, the gay companion of Dionysus, and guardian j goddess of songs and festivities. The goddess of spring was also especially worshipped as a . Hora under the title of Chloris, which corresponds to the ; Roman Flora. She was the goddess of buds and flowers, 0 of whom Boreas, the north winter wind, and Zephyrus, the V west spring wind, were rival lovers. She chose the latter, 5 and became his faithful wife. POMONA • Was goddess of garden fruits, and was represented wearing i a wreath composed of such, or holding in her hand a horn of ] plenty full of them, with a dog by her side. Her appear- ^ I ance was that of a virgin in rustic garments. It was said ig i that she had been orginally a Hamadryad, but had yielded S i her affections to Vertumnus. Her worship was confined to ; the Romans. She had a priest, styled flamen pomonalis, ij specially devoted to her service. .ii». VERTUMNUS, 1 The husband of Pomona, was worshipped by the Romans ias a deity of the second order, who watched over the seasons ^as well as the garden fruits, and was represented with attri- ' butes similar to those of Pomona. In October an annual i festival, resembling a harvest thanksgiving, was held in his 'honor, the offerings brought him on that occasion consisting *of first-fruits from the garden, and wreaths of flowers of all kinds. Like Pomona, he, too, had a priest of his own. At times he was represented, like Saturn, with a pruning-knife in his hand, and a wreath composed of ears of corn on his Mu 7 -ray —12 146 INFERIOR DEITIES. head. Originally he was worshipped under the form of a rough wooden post, but had afterward a beautiful bronze statue made by a Roman artist. JANUS Was a deity unknown to the Greeks, but from the earliest times held in high estimation by the Romans, who placed him on almost an equal footing with Jupiter, even giving: his name precedence in their prayers, and invoking the aid of both deities previous to every undertaking. To him they ascribed the origin of all things, the introduction of the system of years, the change of season, the ups and downs of fortune, and the civilization of the human race by means of agricul¬ ture, industry, arts, and religion. According to the popular belief, Janus was an ancient king who had come in remote early times from Greece to Latium, there instituted the wor¬ ship of the gods and the erection of temples, and himself deserved high honors like a god, for this reason, that he had conferred the greatest good upon mankind by his instructions in many important ways. In some of the stories he is con-i founded with Saturn. In others it is said that Saturn, driven out of Greece, took refuge with Janus in Latium, and shared the government wdth him. It is easy to explain the great honor paid to Janus by a people like the Romans, who, as a rule, had this peculiarity of pondering well the prospects of an undertaking before entering upon it. The beginning of everything was a matter of great importance to them, and Janus was the god of a good beginning.’’ It is in this spirit that the Roman poet, Ovid, makes Janus say, ‘‘ Everything depends on the begin¬ ning.” Even when Jupiter had consented to an enterprise, prosperity in carrying it out was believed to be under the control of Janus, and, accordingly, great stress was laid on the circumstances attending the commencement of any pro¬ ject. Janus opened and closed all things. He sat, not only JANUS. 147 ((>n the confines of the earth, but also at the gates of heaven. .Air, sea, and land were in the hollow of his hands. The world moved on its hinges at his command. In accordance with this belief, he was represented seated, with two heads, one being that of a youth, to indicate be- 1 ginning,’^ the other that of an old man, to indicate tthe end,^^ whence he was styled Bifrons (two- headed). In his left hand is a key, to show that he opens at the beginning, and shuts at the end; the sceptre in his right is a sign that he controls the progress of every under¬ taking. The first day of Jan¬ uary, a month named after him, being the first day of a new year, was the occa¬ sion of a celebration in his honor. At the beginning of every month the priests offered sacrifice to him at twelve altars. He was invoked overy morning as the beginner of a new day. Even at the sacrifices to other gods he was remembered, and received offerings of wine and cakes, incense, and other things. The ousbandman prayed to him at the beginning of seed-time. When war was declared he was invoked. The public worship of Janus as a god was introduced into Rome as early as the time of Numa Pompilius, a foundation or its establishment having been previously laid during the ’eign of Romulus. The story runs, that, the Sabines having nice made an assault on the newly built town of Rome, a 5pring of boiling water suddenly appeared, and was the means )f destroying these enemies. On this spot a temple was Janus. 148 INFERIOR DEITIES. erected in honor of Janus, the gates of which stood open so long as Rome was at war, and were closed with great cere¬ mony and rejoicing only in times of general peace. Rome was, however, so continually engaged in war that, in the course of the first seven hundred years after the foundation of the city, the gates of the temple were closed only three times—in the reign of !Numa Pompilius, after the first Punic war, and during the reign of Augustus. Hence the temple of Janus with its gates shut came to be a very emphatic , symbol of peace. TERMINUS Was the god of boundaries, and had, when represented in art, the figure of a boundary stone or pillar surmounted by a head, as in the case of the figures of Hermes by the way- side in Greece. Such figures of Terminus were occasionally surmounted by the head or bust of another god, as, for ex¬ ample, of Apollo or Athene, and in such cases were styled Hermapollo, Hermathene. Pan and Priapus, both rural deities, were also frequently represented in such form. Numa Pompilius is said to have erected the first altar to this boundary god. Terminus, and to have instituted his wor¬ ship among the Romans. To accustom his subjects to respect the boundaries of their neighbors, he ordered them to be marked off wdth figures of the god, and a festival to be held in his honor annually in February. It was called the Term- inalia. Boundary stones were adorned with flowers on the occasion, and a general sacrifice offered, accompanied by lively songs. PRIAPUS, Called also Lutinus by the Romans, was a son of Dionysus and Aphrodite. He was a god of the fertility of nature, and, in this capacity, also guardian of vineyards, gardens, PAN. 149 1 and cultivated fields. The idea of representing the produc- I tive power of nature under the form of a god is traceable j back to a very great antiquity, but in later and depraved times it came to be misused for the purpose of giving expres- ' sion to coarse sensuality and lust. This accounts for the I diversity of his representations, of which, however, that is 1 the most correct in which he appears as a man of years hold- [ ing a pruning-knife in his hand and fruit in his lap. The i principal centre of his worship was Lampsacus, a town in ' Asia Minor, on the Hellespont, whence it spread over Greece. His symbols were, like those of Dionysus, a drinking-cup, a ' thyrsuSy or a spear. At the festivals in his honor the sacri- 1 fices consisted of milk, honey, and asses. PAN ' Was looked upon by the pastoral inhabitants of Greece, par- ‘ticularly in Arcadia, as the god who watched over the i pasture-fields, herdsmen, and herds. Woods and plains, hunting and fishing, were under his immediate care and i patronage, and on this account he was differently described as a son now of Zeus, now of Hermes, his mother being in • each case a nymph. As god of green fields he was associated with the worship of Dionysus (Bacchus), and as mountain 'god with that of Cybele. He was fond of sportive dances land playing on the shepherd’s pipe, which afterward took its [name of Pan’s pipe from him, the story being that he was the inventor of it. It seems that a coy nymph named Syrinx, whom he loved and followed, was transformed into a reed, that Pan cut it and fashioned it into a pipe (syrinx) with such sweet notes, when skilfully played, that he once ventured to challenge Apollo to a competition. The judge selected was Midas, who awarded the prize to Pail, and was, in consequence, punished by Apollo, who made ihis ears grow like those of an ass. :3i ■-e ‘1 Itl*' •VI 150 iNFEBtOB DEITIES. As a god of herdsmen and country people, he journeyed j through woods and across plains, changing from place to i place like the nomadic or pastoral people of early times, with no fixed dwelling, resting in shady grottoes, by cool streams, r and playing on his pipe. Hills, caves, oaks, and tortoises were sacred to him. The feeling of solitude and lonesomeness which weighs upon travellers in wild mountain scenes, when the weather j is stormy, and no sound of human voice is to be heard, was ascribed to the presence of Pan, as a spirit of the moun¬ tains, a sort of Number Nip. And thus anxiety or alarm, arising from no visible or intelligible cause, came to be called Panic fear,’^ that is, such fear as is produced by the agi¬ tating presence of Pan. His common companions were Nymphs and Oreades, who danced to the strains of his pipe, and were not unfrequently pursued by him with violence. It is said that he rendered important service to the gods during the war with the Titans, by the invention of a kind of trumpet made from a sea-shell, with which he raised such a din that the Titans took fright, and retreated in the belief that some great monster was approaching against them. Another story is, that Dionysus, being once seriously attacked by a hostile and very numerous body of men on his way to India, was freed from them by a sudden terrible shout raised by Pan, which instantly caused them to retreat in great alarm. Both stories appear to have been invented to give a foundation for the expression of Panic fear,^^ which has been explained above. Pan, also called Hylaeus or forest god, was usually repre¬ sented as a bearded man with a large hooked nose, with the ears and horns and legs of a goat, his body covered with hair, with a shepherd^s pipe (syrinx) of seven reeds, or a shepherd’s crook in his hand. From Greece his worship was transplanted among the Romans, by whom he was styled Inuus, because he taught them to breed cattle, and Lupercus, because he taught them PAN. 151 to employ dogs for the purpose of protecting the herds against wolves. The other forest deities, who were represented like Pan and Apollo. Pan with goaPs legs, were called Aegipanes, and sometimes Panisci. (f*. Kt«> 'fi m tC ':r:i *tt« • .■fc’ pjjl tf"*' Sffiil 152 INFERIOR DEITIES. IftNM Mil m ,i/K. FAUNUS, OR FATUUS, Was a purely Roman deity, originally resembling the Greek Pan, as is implied in the name, which is only another form of the same word. In process of time, however, his character passed through many ciianges, and became different in many re¬ spects from that of the Greek god. It was not till late times, when the religion and myths of the Greeks emigrated into Italy, that the comparison of him with the Arca¬ dian Pan was revived and the identity of both asserted. The Roman poets fre¬ quently call the Greek Pan by the Roman name of Faun us. But the latter had certain myths peculiar to him¬ self, and is represented by them as a son of Picus, and a grandson of Saturnus, or, ac¬ cording to another ver¬ sion, a son of Mars, and originally an an¬ cient king of Latinm, who, for the good he did his people, by introducing agri¬ culture and civilization, came to be worshipped after his 1.^. iiBf «■ ■■lalM.fr. .*•■ 1:: .. «. Faunus, or Fatuus. death as a prophetic deity of forest and field, under the name of Fatuus. His oracles were delivered in groves, and com¬ municated by means of dreams, which those desiring them obtained by sleeping in sacred places on the hides of animals that had been offered as sacrifices. Fauna also delivered oracles, but only to women. As god of the husbandman and patron of agriculture and cattle-rearing, an annual festival, the Lupercalia, or Paun- alia, was celebrated in his honor by the Romans on Decem¬ ber 5. It was accompanied by sacrifices of goats, offerings of milk and wine, banquets, and dancing in the open air in meadows and at cross-roads. In the middle of February also sacrifice was presented to him. He had two temples in Rome. Artistic representations of him are rare, and not easily distinguished from those of Pan. The plural form of the word, Fauni, is merely a Roman expression for what the Greeks called Panisci or Panes. PICUS, PICUMNUS, AND PILUMNUS. Pious was also a pure Roman deity, a son and a successor of Saturnus, father of Faunus, and husband of Canens. He was an ancient prophet and forest god. Another story has it that he loved and married Pomona. Circe, the witch, was attracted by his beauty, and finding her affection not returned, revenged herself by changing him into a woodpecker—a bird which was held to be a sacred symbol of prophecy by the Augurs or Roman priests, whose office was to foretell coming events by observing the flight of birds and by various other phenomena. In early times his figure consisted of a wooden pillar with a woodpecker on it, which was afterward ex¬ changed for a figure of a youth with a woodpecker on his head, the Romans generally considering the appearance of that bird to be a sign of some special intention of the gods. Pious, beside being worshipped as a prophet and a god, was also .'.ill ■>2 ■f'.fe r. n# *!(* II .»tk 154 INFERIOR DEITIES. looked upon as one of the first kings of Italy, and must not be confounded with Picumnus, who, with his brother Pilumnus, formed a pair of Roman deities whose office was to watch over married life. It was the custom to spread a couch for them at the birth of a child. Pilumnus, it was said, would drive away all illness from the childhood of the newly born infant with the club (pilum) with which he used to pound the grain; while Picumnus, who had introduced the manuring of land, would give the child growth. Stories were told of the two brothers, of famous deeds in war and peace, such as were ascribed to the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux). FAUNA, OR FATUA, The wife or, according to other myths, the daughter of Paunus, was a Roman goddess, whose origin and significa' tion have been rendered very obscure by the variety of stories about her. She was identified with the goddess Ops, with Cybele, with Semele, the mother of Dionysus (Bacchus), with Maia, the mother of Hermes, with Gaea, Hecate, and other goddesses. In the earliest times she was called simply c kind goddess,^’ her proper name as well as her origin E being given out as a mystery. Her festival took place on the first night of May, and was celebrated with wine, music, Z games, and mysterious ceremonies, at which only ® women and girls were permitted to be present. Fauna . obtained the name of the kind goddess^’ because, as some thought, her benevolence extended over the whole creation, in which case it was not strange that she should be identified with other deities. As Fatua she was represented with the appearance sometimes of Juno, sometimes of Cybele, but commonly as an aged woman, with pointed ears, holding a serpent in her hand. The offspring of Fatua and Fatuus were the Fatui, who were considered to be prophetic deities of the fields, and THE SATYRS. 155 sometimes evil genii, who were the cause of nightmares and such like. The name and obscure significations of this god¬ dess seem to have given rise to the fantastic creations of modern times, which recall Fays—that is, beings with the power of witchcraft and prophecy, and possessed now with good, now with bad qualities—now useful and helping to men, now mischievous. THE SATYRS, Like the Roman Silvanus, belong to the order of forest deities, and are often confounded with the Panes and Fauni, though quite distinct from them. They represented the genial luxuriant life in Nature, which, under the protection and with the aid of Dionysus (Bacchus), spreads over fields, woods, and meadows, and were, without doubt, the finest figures in all his company. As such at least they appear in the art of the best times, being never figured, like the Panes or Panisci, as half man, half animal, but at most exhibit only such signs of an animal form as small goat’s horns, and a small goat’s tail, to show that their nature was only a little inferior in nobility to that within the divine or pure human form. The Satyrs constitute a large family, and may be distinguished into several classes, the highest of which were those who nearly resembled their god (Dionysus) in appearance, and whose occupation was either to play on the flute for his amusement, or to pour out his wine. To another class belonged those older figures, dis¬ tinguished by the name of Sileni; and to a third, the very Satyr. ii! .1 ^ f'M liWii 156 INFERIOR DEITIES. t U' ■iih •»k. IK::. I*M llilln' ■Ilf *■11 •■If tHii It: c:: HlN' I. c juvenile so-called Satyrisci. The figure given in the illus¬ tration is that of a satyr of the highest order. He is repre¬ sented as a slender youth leaning carelessly on the trunk of a tree, resting from playing on a flute. His hair is shaggy; on his brow are very small goaTs horns. His countenance has a touch of animal expression in it. He wears nothing but a panther’s skin thrown over his shoulder. The life of the Satyrs was spent in woods and on hills, in a constant round of amusements of all kinds: hunting, dancing, music, drinking, gathering and pressing the grapes, or in the company of the god, whirling in wild dances with the Maenades. Their musical instruments were the syrinx, flute, and cymbals. We may remark in passing, that the term satire,” com¬ monly applied to poems of abuse, has nothing whatever to do with the Satyrs, and for this reason should not be written satyre, ’ though derived from satura. The latter is an old Latin word, which signified originally a poetic dialogue or gossip, which from its nature was admirably adapted for conveying criticism and indirect abuse, or satire in our sense of the word. COMUS Was ^jmrshipped as guardian of festal banquets, of mirthful enjoyments, of lively humor, fun, and social pleasure, with attributes expressing joy in many ways. On the other hand, he was represented frequently as an illustration of the conse¬ quences of nightly orgies, with torch reversed, in drunken sleep, or leaning against something. SILYANUS, Like Paunus, was purely a Roman god, whose function also was to watch over the interests of herdsmen, living in woods and fields, and taking care to preserve boundary lines and SILVAN US. 157 banks of rivers. It was said that he erected the first boun¬ dary stones to mark off the fields of different possessors from each other, and thus be¬ came the founder of a regular system of land¬ owning. He was dis¬ tinguished according to tne three departments of his activity, house, field, and wood. In works of art Silvanus appears altogether as a purely human figure—a cheer¬ ful aged man holding a shepherd’s pipe (for he, like the other deities of wood and field, was given to music), and carrying a branch of a tree to mark him spe¬ cially as god of the forest. This branch, which sometimes is that of a cypress, is explained as referring to his love for the beautiful Cypa- rissus, whom he is said to have changed 'into a cypress. There was a figure of Silvanus in Home beside^ the temple of Saturn, and two sanctuaries dedicated to him. Women were excluded from his worship. The myths are not clear about his origin. Some of them describe him as a son of Saturn, Silvanus. Sfftll 158 INFERIOR DEITIES. INIM; liaNii’ PALES Was worshipped originally in Sicily, and afterward by the Romans, as a deity of cattle-rearing, being, according to some, male, according to others, female. A merry festival, called Palilia, was held in honor of this deity everj year on April 21, the day on which the foundation of the city of Rome was said to have been laid. Offerings of milk and must were presented to her, while pipes were played and cymbals beat round a blazing tire of hay and straw. An ox was driven through this blazing fire, the herdsmen rushing after it, a ceremony intended for a symbol of expiation. This festival, because of its falling on the anniv^ersary of the foundation of the city, served also to commemorate that event. This ancient deity was represented as an aged woman lean- ing on a leafless branch of a tree, or holding a shepherd^ s crook in her hand, and was frequently identified with Fauna, sometimes with Cybele, and even with Vesta. •’■Ill’ SILENUS, AND THE SILENI. In some of the myths Silenus is represented as a son of Hermes (Mercury), in others of Pan and a nymph, the latter statement accounting for his being figured with the tail and ears of a goat, while the rest of his form was purely human. He was usually described as the oldest of the Satyrs of whom, indeed, all those well advanced in years were styled Sileni. Owing to his age, he came to be looked upon as a sort of paternal guardian of the light-headed troops of Satyrs,^ though with regard to mythological signification he was quite different from them. One myth traces his origin, along with the worship of Dionysus (Bacchus), to Asia Minor, and particularly to the districts of Lydia and Phry¬ gia, the original centre of the worship of Cybele (Rhea). In SILENUS, AND THE SILENT. 159 that quarter he was looked on as a sprite or demon of fer¬ tilizing fountains, streams, marshy land, and luxuriant gar- li>f« s )