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DIVINITY SCHOOL
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Gift of
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HISTORY OF GREECE:

FROM THE

EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE CLOSE OF THE GENERATION
CONTEMPORARY WITH ALEXANDER THE GREAT.

By GEORGE GROTE, F.R.S.,
D.C.L. OXON. AND LL.D. CAMB.,
VICE-CHANCELLOE OP THE UHTVEBSIT5T OE LONDON.

A FEW EDITION.
IN TWELVE VOLUMES.— VOL. I.
WITH PORTRAIT, MAPS, AND PLANS.

lONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1869.
The right of Translation is reserved.

L322

PART I.— LEGENDARY GREECE.
'AvSpuW rjpcucuv 0£iov -vivos, oi xaXeovrtu
'H|j.i8eoi Ttpo-rlp-fl •yevIt]. — Hesiod.

PART. IL— HISTORICAL GREECE.
,  HoXie<; [xepoitiov av8p(bft<ov. — Homer.

PREFACE.

The first idea of this History was conceived many years
ago, at a time when ancient Hellas was known to the English
public chiefly through the pages of Mitford; and my pur
pose in writing it was to rectify the erroneous statements
as to matter of fact which that history contained, as well
as to present the general phsenomena of the Grecian world
under what I thought a juster and more comprehensive
point of view. My leisure however was not at that time
equal to the execution of any large literary undertaking;
; nor is it until within the last three or four years that I have
^ teen able to devote to the work that continuous and exclu-
-^' sive labour, without which, though much may be done to
C illustrate detached points, no entire or complicated subject
can ever be set forth in a manner worthy to meet the
u public eye.
ir Meanwhile the state of the English literary world, in
i? reference to ancient Hellas, has been materially changed in
, j more ways than one. If my early friend Dr. Thirlwall's
. History of Greece had appeared a few years sooner, I should
<; probably never have conceived the design of the present
" work at all; I should certainly not have been prompted to
_jJ the task by any deficiencies, such as those which I felt and
^L regretted in Mitford. The comparison of the two authors
affords indeed a striking proof of the progress of sound and
enlarged views respecting the ancient world during the
it- present generation. Having studied of course the same
to evidences as Dr. Thirlwall, I am better enabled than others
J3 to bear testimony to the learning, the sagacity, and the
r candour which pervade his excellent work; and it is the
a2

17 PEEFACB.
more incumbent on me to give expression to this sentiment,
since the particular points on which I shall have occasion
to advert to it will unavoidably be points of dissent oftener
than of coincidence.
The liberal spirit of criticism, in which Dr. Thirlwall
stands so much distinguished from Mitford, is his own: there
are other features of superiority which belong to him
conjointly with his age. For during ihe generation since
Mitford's work, philological studies have been prosecuted
in Germany with remarkable success: the stock of facts
and documents, comparatively scanty, handed down from
the ancient world, has been combined, and illustrated in a
thousand different ways: and if our witnesses cannot be
multiplied, we at least have numerous interpreters to catch,
repeat, amplify and explain their broken and half-inaudible
depositions. Some of the best writers in this department —
Boeckh, Niebuhr, 0. Miiller — have been translated into our
language; so that the English public has been enabled to
form some idea of the new lights thrown upon many subjects
of antiquity by the inestimable aid of German erudition.
The poets, historians, orators and philosophers of Greece,
have thus been all rendered both more intelligible and
more instructive than they were to a student in the last
century; and the general picture of the Grecian world may
now be conceived with a degree of fidelity, which, consider
ing our imperfect materials, it is curious to contemplate.
It is that general picture which an historian of Greece
is required first to embody in his own mind,^ and next to
lay out before his readers; — a picture not merely such as
to delight the imagination by brilliancy of colouring and
depth of sentiment, but also suggestive and improving to
the reason. Not omitting the points of resemblance as
well as of contrast with the better-known forms of modern
society, he will especially study to exhibit the spontaneous
movement of Grecian intellect, sometimes aided but never
borrowed from without, and lighting up a small portion of
a world otherwise clouded and stationary. He will develop e

PEEFACE. V
the action of that social system, which, while ensuring to
the mass of freemen a degree of protection elsewhere
unknown, acted as a stimulus to the creative impulses of
genius, and left the superior minds sufficiently unshackled
to soar above religious and political routine, to overshoot
their own age, and to become the teachers of po
sterity. To set forth the history of a people by whom the first
spark was set to the dormant intellectual capacities of our
nature — Hellenic phenomena as illustrative of the Hellenic
mind and character — is the task which I propose to myself
in the present work; not without a painful consciousness
how much the deed falls short of the will, and a yet more
painful conviction, that full success is rendered impossible
by an obstacle which no human ability can now remedy —
the insufficiency of original evidence. For in spite of the
valuable expositions of so many able commentators, our
stock of information respecting the ancient world still
remains lamentably inadequate to the demands of an en
lightened curiosity. We possess only what has drifted
ashore from the wreck of a stranded vessel; and though
this includes some of the most precious articles amongst
its once-abundant cargo, yet if any man will cast his eyes
over the citations in Diogenes Laertius, Athenseus or
Plutarch, or the list of names in Vossius de Historicis
Grsecis, he will see with grief and surprise how much
larger is the proportion which, through the enslavement
of the Greeks themselves, the decline of the Roman Empire,
the change of religion, and the irruption of barbarian con
querors, has been irrecoverably submerged. "We are thus
reduced to judge of the whole Hellenic world, eminently
multiform as it was, from a few compositions; excellent
indeed in themselves, but bearing too exclusively the stamp
of Athens. Of Tbacydides and Aristotle indeed, both as
inquirers into matter of fact and as free from narrow local
feeling, it is impossible to speak too highly; but unfortu
nately that work of the latter which would have given us the

VI PEEEACE.

most copious information regarding Grecian political life-
Ms collection and comparison of 150 distinct town-consti
tutions—has not been preserved; while the brevity of
Thucydides often gives us but a single word where a sen
tence would not have been too much, and sentences which
we should be glad to see expanded into paragraphs.
Such insufficiency of original and trustworthy materials,
as compared with those resources which are thought hardly
sufficient for the historian of any modern kingdom, is neither
to be concealed nor extenuated, however much we may
lament it. I advert to the point here on more grounds
than one. For it not only limits the amount of information
which an historian of Greece can give to his readers —
compelling him to leave much of his picture an absolute
blank, — but it also greatly spoils the execution of the
remainder. The question of credibility is perpetually
obtruding itself, and requiring a decision, which, whether
favourable or unfavourable, always introduces more or less
of controversy; and gives to those outlines, which the
interest of the picture requires to be straight and vigorous,
a faint and faltering character. Expressions of qualified
and hesitating affirmation are repeated until the reader is
sickened; while the writer himself, to whom this restraint
is more painful still, is frequently tempted to break loose
from the unseen spell by which a conscientious criticism
binds him down — to screw up the possible and probable
into certainty, to suppress counterbalancing considerations,
and to substitute a pleasing romance in place of half-known
and perplexing realities. Desiring in the present work to
set forth all which can be ascertained, together with such
conjectures and inferences as can be reasonably deduced
from it, but nothing more — I notice at the outset that
faulty state of the original evidence which renders discus
sions of credibility, and hesitation in the language of the
judge, unavoidable. Such discussions, though the reader
may be assured that they will become less frequent as we
advance into times better known, are tiresome enough even

PBEEACE. Vll
with the comparatively late period which I adopt as the
historical beginning; much more intolerable would they
have proved had I thought it my duty to start from the
primitive terminus of Deukalion or Inachus, or from the
unburied Pelasgi and Leleges, and to subject the heroic
ages to a similar scrutiny. I really know nothing so
disheartening or unrequited as the elaborate balancing of
what is called evidence — the comparison of infinitesimal
probabilities and conjectures all uncertified — in regard to
these shadowy times and persons.
The law respecting sufficiency of evidence ought to be
the same for ancient times as for modern; and the reader
will find in this history an application to the former, of
criteria analogous to those which have been long recognised
in the latter. Approaching, though with a certain measure
of indulgence, to this standard, I begin the real history of
Greece with the first recorded Olympiad, or 776 B.C. To
such as are accustomed to the habits once universal, and
still not uncommon, in investigating the ancient world, I
may appear to be striking off one thousand years from the
scroll of history; but to those whose canon of evidence is
derived from Mr. Hallam, M. Sismondi, or any other eminent
historian of modern events, I am well-assured that I shall
appear lax and credulous rather than exigent or sceptical.
For the truth is, that historical records, properly so called,
do not begin until long after this date ; nor will any man,
who candidly considers the extreme paucity of attested
facts for two centuries after 776 B.C., be astonished to learn
that the state of Greece in 900, 1000, 1100, 1200, 1300,
1400 B.C., &c. — or any earlier century which it may please
chronologists to include in their computed genealogies —
cannot be described to him upon anything hke decent
evidence. I shall hope, when I come to the lives of Sokrates
and Plato, to illustrate one of the most valuable of their
principles — that conscious and confessed ignorance is a
better state of mind, than the fancy, without the reality, of
knowledge. Meanwhile I begin by making that confession,

Vlll PEEEACE.
in reference to the real world of Greece anterior to the
Olympiads; meaning the disclaimer to apply to anything
like a general history, — not to exclude rigorously every
individual event.
The times which I thus set apart from the region of
history are discernible only through a different atmos
phere — that of epic poetry and legend. To confound to
gether these disparate matters is, in my judgement, essentially
unphilosophical. I describe the earlier times by themselves,
as conceived by the faith and feeling of the first Greeks,
and known only through their legends — without presuming
to measure how much or how little of historical matter
these legends may contain. If the reader blame me for
not assisting him to determine this — if he ask me why I
do not undraw the curtain and disclose the picture — I
reply in the words of the painter Zeuxis, when the same
question was addressed to him on exhibiting his master
piece of imitative art — "The curtain is the picture.'' What
we now read as poetry and legend was once accredited
history, and the only genuine history which the first Greeks
could conceive or relish of their past time: the curtain
conceals nothing behind, and cannot by any ingenuity be
withdrawn. I undertake only to show it as it stands — not
to efface, still less to re-paint it.
Three-fourths of the two volumes now presented to
the public are destined to elucidate this age of historical
faith, as distinguished from the later age of historical
reason: to exhibit its basis in the human mind — an omni
present rehgious and personal interpretation of nature; to
illustrate it by comparison with the like mental habit in
early modern Europe; to show its immense abundance and
variety of narrative matter, with little care for consistency
between one story and another: lastly, to set forth the
causes which overgrew and partially supplanted the old
epical sentiment, and introduced, m the room of literal
faith, a variety of compromises and interpretations.

PEEEAOE. ix
The legendary age of the Greeks receives its principal
charm and dignity from the Homeric poems: to these,
therefore, and to the other poems included in the ancient
epic, an entire chapter is devoted, the length of which must
be justified by the names of the Iliad and Odyssey. I have
thought it my duty to take some notice of the Wolfian
controversy as it now stands in Germany, and have even
hazarded some speculations respecting the structure of the
Iliad. Thesociety and manners of the heroic age, considered
as known in a general way from Homer's descriptions and
allusions, are also described and criticised.
I next pass to the historical age, beginning at 776 B.C.;
prefixing some remarks upon the geographical features of
Greece. I try to make out, amidst obscure and scanty
indications, what the state of Greece was at this period;
and I indulge some cautious conjectures, founded upon the
earliest verifiable facts, respecting the steps immediately
antecedent by which that condition was brought about. In
the present volumes I have only been able to include the
history of Sparta and the Peloponnesian Dorians, down to
the age of Peisistratus and Croesus. I had hoped to have
comprised in them the entire history of Greece down to
this last-mentioned period, but I find the space insufficient.
The history of Greece falls most naturally into six
compartments, of which the first may be looked at as a
period of preparation for the five following, which exhaust
the free life of collective Hellas.
I. Period from 776 B.C. to 560 B.C., the accession of
Peisistratus at Athens and of Croesus in Lydia.
LT. From the accession of Peisistratus and Croesus to
the repulse of Xerxes from Greece.
ILL From the repulse of Xerxes to the close of the
Peloponnesian war and overthrow of Athens.
IV. From the close of the Peloponnesian war to the
battle of Leuktra.

X PEEEACE.
V. From the battle of Leuktra to that of Chseroneia.
VI. From the battle of Chseroneia to the end of the
generation of Alexander.
The five periods from Peisistratus down to the death
of Alexander and of his generation, present the acts of an
historical drama capable of being recounted in perspicuous
succession, and connected by a sensible thread of unity.
I shall interweave in their proper places the important but
outlying adventures of the Sicilian and Italian Greeks —
introducing such occasional notices of Grecian political
constitutions, philosophy, poetry, and oratory, as are
requisite to exhibit the many-sided activity of this people
during their short but brillant career.
After the generation of Alexander, the political action
of Greece becomes cramped and degraded — no longer
interesting to the reader, or operative on the destinies of
the future world. We may indeed name one or two inci
dents, especially the revolutions of Agis andKleomenes at
Sparta, which are both instructive and affecting; but as a
whole, the period, between 300 B.C. and the absorption of
Greece by the Romans, is of no interest in itself, and is
only so far of value as it helps us to understand the prece
ding centuries. The dignity and value of the Greeks from
that time forward belong to them only as individual philo
sophers, preceptors, astronomers and mathematicians, lite
rary men and critics, medical practitioners, &c. In all
these respective capacities, especially in the great schools
of philosophical speculation, they still constitute the light
of the Roman world; though as communities, they have
lost their own orbit, and have become satellites of more
powerful neighbours.
I propose to bring down the history of the Grecian
communities to the year 300 B.C., or the close of the gene
ration which takes its name from Alexander the Great
and I hope to accomplish this in eight volumes altogether.
For the next two or three volumes I have already large

PEEFACE. Xi
preparations made, and I shall publish my third (perhaps
my fourth) in the course of the ensuing winter.
There are great disadvantages in the publication of
one portion of a history apart from the remainder; for
neither the earlier nor the later phsenomena can be fully
comprehended without the Hght which each mutually casts
upon the other. But the practice has become habitual,
and is indeed more than justified by the well known
inadmissibility of "long hopes" into the short span of human
life. Yet I cannot but fear that my first two volumes will
suffer in the estimation of many readers by coming out
alone — and that men who value the Greeks for their
philosophy, their politics, and their oratory, may treat the
early legends as not worth attention. And it must be
confessed that the sentimental attributes of the Greek
mind — its rehgious and poetical vein — here appear in
disproportionate relief, as compared with its more vigorous
and masculine capacities — with those powers of acting,
organising, judging, and speculating, which will be revealed
in the forthcoming volumes. I venture however to forewarn
the reader that there will occur numerous circumstances
in the after political hfe of the Greeks which he will not
comprehend unless he be initiated into the course of their
legendary associations. He will not understand the frantic
terror of the Athenian public during the Peloponnesian
war, on the occasion of the mutilation of the statues called
Hermee, unless he enters into the way in which they con
nected their stability and security with the domiciliation
of the gods in the soil; nor will he adequately appreciate
the habit of the Spartan king on military expeditions, —
when he offered his daily public sacrifices on behalf of his
army and his country, — "always to perform this morning
service immediately before sunrise, in order that he might
be beforehand in obtaining the favour of the gods," i if he
3Xenoplion,Bepub. Lacedsemon., %'je<paTos , TcpoXa(i.piveiv pou).6(Aevo?
cap. xiii. 3. ' Ael 8e, otccv 66-qxati, tyjv too 9eou eQvotav.
otp^STCtl [JLSV TO'JTOU TOO EpyoU £Tl

xu PREFACE.
be not familiar with the Homeric conception of Zeus going
to rest at night and awaking to rise at early dawn from the
side of the "white-armed Here." The occasion will indeed
often occur for remarking how these legends illustrate and
vivify the political phenomena of the succeeding times,
and I have only now to urge the necessity of considering
them as the beginning of a series, — not as an entire
work. London, March 5, 1846.

( xiii )

PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION OF VOLUMES I. AND II.

In preparing a Second Edition of the two First Volumes
of my History, I have profited by the remarks and correc
tions of various critics, contained in Reviews both English
and Foreign. I have suppressed, or rectified, some positions
which had been pointed out as erroneous, or as advanced
upon inadequate evidence. I have strengthened my argu
ment in some cases where it appeared to have been
imperfectly understood— adding some new notes, partly for
the purpose of enlarged illustration, partly to defend certain
opinions which had been called in question. The greater
number of these alterations have been made in Chapters
XVI. and XXI. of Part I.— and in Chapter VI. of Part II.
I trust that these three Chapters, more full of specu
lation, and therefore more open to criticism than any of
the others, will thus appear in a more complete and
satisfactory form. But I must at the same time add that
they remain for the most part unchanged in substance, and
that I have seen no sufficient reason to modify my main
conclusions even respecting the structure of the Iliad,
controverted though they have been by some of my most
esteemed critics.
In regard to the character and peculiarity of Grecian
legend, as broadly distinguished throughout these volumes
from Grecian history, I desire to notice two valuable
publications with which I have only become acquainted
since the date of my first edition. One of these is, a short
Essay on Primaeval History, by John Kenrick, M.A. (Lon
don 1 846, pubhshed just at the same time as these volumes),

XIV PEEPACE TO SECOND EDITION OF VOLS. I. AND IX
which iUustrates with much acute reflection the general
features of legend, not only in Greece but throughout the
ancient world — see especially pages 65, 84, 92, et seq. The
other work is, Rambles and Recollections of an Indian
Official, by Colonel Sleeman— first made known to me
through an excellent notice of my History in the Edinburgh
Review for October 1846. The description given by Colonel
Sleeman, of the state of mind now actually prevalent among
the native population of Hindostan, presents a vivid com
parison, helping the modern reader to understand and
appreciate the legendary sera of Greece. I have embodied
in the notes of this Second Edition two or three passages
from Colonel Sleeman's instructive work: but the whole of
it richly deserves perusal.
Having now finished six volumes of this History,
without attaining a lower point than the peace of Nikias
in the tenth year of the Peloponnesian war — I find myself
compelled to retract the expectation held out in the preface
to my First Edition, that the entire work might be com
pleted in eight volumes. Experience proves to me how
impossible it is to measure beforehand the space which
historical subjects will require. All I can now promise is,
that the remainder of the work shall be executed with as
much regard to brevity as is consistent with the paramount
duty of rendering it fit for public acceptance.
G. G.
London, April 3, 1849.

(xv)

NAMES OP GODS, GODDESSES, AND HEROES.

Following the example of Dr. Thirlwall and other excellent
scholars, I call the Greek deities by their real Greek names,
and not by the Latin equivalents used among the Romans.
For the assistance of those readers to whom the Greek
names may be less familiar I here annex a table of the one
and the other.

Greek.

Latin.

Zeus,

Jupiter.

Poseidon,

Neptune.

Ares,

Mars.

Dionysus,

Bacchus.

Herm6s,

Mercury.

Helios,

Sol.

Hephasstus,

Vulkan.

Hades,

Pluto.

Here,

Juno.

AthenS,

Minerva.

Artemis,

Diana.

Aphrodite,

Venus.

Eos,

Aurora.

Hestia,

Vesta.

Leto,

Latona.

Dimeter,

Ceres.

Herakles,

Hercules.

Asklepius,

iEsculapius,

A few words are here necessary respecting the ortho
graphy of Greek names adopted in the above table and
generally throughout this history. I have approximated
as nearly as I dared to the Greek letters in preference to
the Latin; and on this point I venture upon an innovation
which I should have little doubt of vindicating before the
reason of any candid English student. For the ordinary
practice of substituting, in a Greek name, the English C
in place of the Greek K is indeed so obviously incorrect,
that it admits of no rational justification. Our own K
precisely and in every point coincides with the Greek K :

xvi NAMES OE GODS, GODDESSES AND HEROES.
we have thus the means of reproducing the Greek name to
the eye as well as to the ear, yet we gratuitously take the
wrong letter in preference to the right. And the precedent
of the Latins is here against us rather than in our favour,
for their C really coincided in sound with the Greek K,
whereas our C entirely departs from it, and becomes an S,
before e, i, 03, a, and y. Though our C has so far deviated
in sound from the Latin C, yet there is some warrant for
our continuing to use it in writing Latin names — because
we thus reproduce the name to the eye, though not to the
ear. But this it not the case when we employ our C to
designate the Greek K, for we depart here not less from
the visible than from the audible original; while we mar the
unrivalled euphony of the Greek language by that multiplied
sibilation which constitutes the least inviting feature in
our own. Among German philologists the K is now
universally employed in writing Greek names, and I have
adopted it pretty largely in this work, making exceptions
for such names as theEnglish reader has been so accustomed
to hear with the C, that they may be considered as being
almost Anglicised. I have farther marked the long e and
the long o (t\, <") by a circumflex (Here) when they occur
in the last syllable or in the penultimate of a name.

( xvii )

CONTENTS OF VOLUME L

PART I.— LEGENDARY GREECE.

CHAPTER I.
Legends respecting the Gods.

Page.
Opening of the mythical world 1
How the mythes are to be told 2
Allegory rarely admissible . . ib.
Zeus — foremost in Grecian con
ception  3
The gods — how conceived: hu
man type enlarged  ib.
Past history of the gods fitted
on to present conceptions .. 4
Gsea and TJranos  ib.
Uranos disabled  5
Kronos and the Titans .. .. 6
Kronos overreached. Birth and
safety of Zeus and his breth
ren  io.
Other deities  7
Ambitious schemes of Zeus .. 8
Victory of Zeus and his breth
ren over Kronos and the Ti
tans  io.
Typhdeus  9
Dynasty of Zeus  ib.
His offspring  ib.
General distribution of the di
vine race  10
Hesiodictheogony— itsauthority 11
Points of difference between
Homer and Hesiod  12
Homeric Zeus  13
Amplified theogony of Zeus . . ib.
Hesiodic mythes traceable to
KrSte and Delphi  15
Orphic theogony  17
VOL. I.

Page.
Zeus und Phan§s  IS
Zagreus  ib.
Comparison of Hesiod and Or
pheus  20
Influence of foreign religions
upon Greece  22
Especially in regard to the wor
ship of DemetSr andDionysos 23
Purification for homicide un
known to Homer  24
New and peculiar religious rites 25
Circulated by voluntary teachers
and promising special bles
sings  26
Epimenides, Sibylla, Bakis .. 27
Principal mysteries of Greece 28
Ecstatic rites introduced from
Asia 700-500 b. c  ib.
Connected with the worship of
Dionysos  29
Thracian and Egyptianinfiuence
upon Greece  31
Encouragement to mystic le
gends  io.
Melampus the earliest name as
teacher of the Dionysiac rites 32
Orphic sect, a variety of the
Dionysiac mystics  33
Contrast of the mysteries with
the Homeric Hymns . . . . it
Hymn to Dionysos  34
Alteration of the primitive Gre
cian idea of Dionysos .. ,.35
b

CONTENTS OE TOLUME I.

CHAPTER I,
Page
Asiatic frenzy grafted on the
joviality of the Grecian Dio-
nysia  35
Eleusinian mysteries . . . . 37
Homeric Hymn to DSm§ter . . ib.
Temple of Eleusis, built by
order ofD3mSt6rfor her resi
dence  39
Dimeter prescribes the mystic
ritual of Eleusis  40
Homeric Hymn a sacred Eleu
sinian record  41
Explanatory of the details of
divine service  ib.
Importance of the mysteries to
the town of Eleusis . . . . 42
Strong hold of the legend upon
Eleusinian feelings . . . . ib.
Different legends respecting Dg-
niSter elsewhere  43
Expansion of the legends . . ib.
Hellenic importance of D6met3r 44
Legends of Apollo  ib.
Delian Apollo  45
Pythian Apollo  46
Foundation legend of the Del
phian oracle  47
They served the purpose of his
torical explanation  48
Extended worship of Apollo .. 49

— continued. Page
Multifarious local legends re
specting Apollo  50
Festivals and Agones . . ..ib.
State of mind and circumstan
ces out of which Grecian my-
¦ thes arose  51
Discrepancies in the legends
little noticed  52
Aphrodite  53
AthenS  .. ..54
Artemis  55
Poseiddn  ib.
Stories of temporary servitude
imposed on gods  57
H6r3 ,. .. '.  ib.
Hephsstos  ib.
Hestia  58
Hermes  ib.
Hermes inventor of the lyre .. ib.
Bargain between Hermes and
Apollo  59
Expository value of the Hymn 60
Zeus  ib,
Mythes arising out of the reli
gious ceremonies  61
Small part of the animal sacri
ficed  62
PromStheus had outwitted Zeus ib.
Gods, Heroes, and men, appear
together in the mythes.. . . 63

CHAPTER II.

Legends relating to Heroes ahd Meit.

Races of men as they appear in
the Hesiodic "Works and
Days"  64
The Golden  ib.
The Silver  65
The Brazen  ib.
The Heroic  ib.
The Iron  ib.
Different both from the Theo
gony and from Homer .. ..66
Explanation of this difference . . ib.
Ethical vein of sentiment. . . 67

Intersected by the mythical . . 68
The "Works and Days" earliest
didactic poem  69
First introduction of daemons., ib.
Changes in the idea of daemons 70
Employed in attacks on the pa
gan faith  jb.
Functions of the Hesiodic da>
mons  j^
Personal feeling -which per
vades the "Works and Days" 71
Probable age of the poem . . 72

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

CHAPTER III.
Legends op the Iapetids.

Iapetids in Hesiod  73
Prometheus and Epimgtheus .. ib.
Counter - manoeuvring of Pro
metheus and Zeus  75
Pand6ra  75
Panddra in the Theogony .. ib.
General feeling of the poet ., 76

Page
Man wretched, but Zeus not to
blame  76
Mischiefs. arising from women 77
Punishment of Prometheus . . ib.
Locality in which Prometheus
was confined .«  79

CHAPTER IV.
Heroic Legends. — Genealogy op Argos.

Structure and purposes of Gre
cian genealogies 
To connect the Grecian com
munity with their common
god 
Lower members of the genea
logy historical — higher mem
bers non historical 
The non - historical portion
equally believed, and most
valued, by the Greeks ..
Number of such genealogies —
pervading every fraction of
Greeks 
Argeian genealogy — Inachus . .
Phor6neus 
Argos Panoptes 
Id 
Eomance of 16 historicised by
Persians and Phrenicians
Legendary abductions of hero-

80

81

ines adapted to the feelings
prevalent during the Persian
war 
Danaos and the Dana'ides
Akrisios and Prcetos
The Prffitides cured of frenzy
by Melampus 
Akrisios , Danae and Zeus
Perseus and the Gorgons
Foundation of Mykenre — com
mencement of Perseid dynasty
Amphitry6n, Alkmene , Sthene-
los 
Zeus and Alkmene 
Birth of Herakles 
Homeric legend of his birth : its
expository value 
The Herakleids expelled
Their recovery of PeloponnSsus,
and establishment in Argos,
Sparta, and Messenia ..

Hi.

CHAPTER V.

DETfKALION, HELLEN,
Deukalidn , son of Prometheus 95
Phthi&tis : his permanent seat . . 96
General deluge. — Salvation of
DeukaliOn and Pyrrha . . ..it.
Belief in this deluge through
out Greece  97
Hellen and Amphikty6n . . . . 98
Sons of Hellen : D&rus, Xuthus,
JBolus  il-
Amphiktyonic assembly. — Com
mon solemnities and games . . 99

and Sons of Hellen.
Division of Hellas : .alolians,
Ddrians, Ionians  99
Large extent of Doris implied
in this genealogy  101
This form of the legend har
monises with the great estab
lishments of the historical
D&rianB  ; ¦ 102
Achams— purpose which his
name serves in the legend . . IOS
Genealogical diversities.. .. 1°4

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

CHAPTER VI.
The Solids, or Sons and Daughters op .aSoLus,
Page

Legends of Greece, originally
isolated , afterwards thrown
into series  105
^olus  106
His seven sons and five daugh
ters  ib-
First JEolid line— Salmdneus,
Tyro  107
Pelias and NSleus  108
PSrd , Bias , and Melampus . . 109
P.eriklymenos  ib.
Nest&r and his exploits . . . . 110
Neleids down to Kodrus .. Ill-
Second! JEolid line— Kretheus 112
AdmStus and Alkestis . . . . 113
Peleus and the wife of Akastus ib,
Pelias and Jasfin  114
Jas6n and M&dea  ib.
M&dea at Corinth  116
Third MoliA line— Sisyphus . . 118
Corinthian genealogy of Euing-
lus  ~T.
Coalescence of different le
gends about M&dea and Sisy
phus . .
Bellerophdn 
Fourth Molid line— Athamas . .
Phryxus and Helle"  122
Ind and Pala?m6n. — Isthmian
games  ib.
Local root of the legend of
Athamas  123
Traces of ancient human sacri
fices  125
Athamas in the district near
Orchomenos  126
EteoklSs— festival of the Cha-

119

120 ib.
121

Page
ritSsia  126
Foundation and greatness of
Orchomenos  127
Overthrown by HgraklSs and
the Thebans  ib.
Trophdnius and Agam£d§s . . ib.
Askalaphos and Ialmenos . . 128
Discrepancies in the Orchome-
nian genealogy  129
Probable inferences as to the
antehistorical Orchomenos ib.
Its early wealth and industry 131/
Emissaries of the lake Kdpa'is 131
Old Amphiktyony at Kalauria 132
Orchomenos and Thebes .. ib.
Alcyone and K£yx  133
Kanake — the Aldids . . . . 134
Kalykfi— Elis and .Slt&lia—
Eleian genealogy  135
Augeas . ¦  136
The Molionid brothers . . . . 137
iEtolian genealogy  138
GEneus, Meleager, Tydeus . . 139
Legend of Meleager in Homer ib.
How altered by poets after
Homer 
Altheea and the burning brand
Grand Kalydonian boar-hunt—
Atalanta 
Belies of the boar long preser
ved at Tegea
Atalanta vanquished in the race
by stratagem  145
Deianeira  145
Death of HeraklSs  147
Tydeus— Old age of 03neus . . 148
Discrepant genealogies . • . . ib.

141 ib.

142

143

CHAPTER VII.
The Pelopids.

Misfortunes and celebrity of
the Pelopids  150
Pelops — eponym of Peloponne
sus  ib.
Deduction of the sceptre of Pe
lops  151

Kingly attributes of the family 152
Homeric Pelops .. ,. . . ib.
Lydia, Pisa, &c, post-Homeric
additions  133
Tantalus  $j#
NiobS  '" *,' 15i

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

CHAPTER VII.— continued.

Page
Pelops and G3nomaus, king of
Pisa 
Chariot victory of Pelops — his
principality at Pisa
Atreus, Thyestes, Chrysippus
Eamily horrors among the Pe
lopids  157
AgamemnOn and Menelaus . . 158

155

156 ib.

Orestes  159
The goddess Here and MykSnse 161
Legendary importance of My-
kente  ib.
Its decline coincident with the
rise of Argos and Sparta . . 162
Agamemn&n and Orestes trans
ferred to Sparta . . .. ,. 163

CHAPTER VIII.
Laconian and Messenian Genealogies.

Lelex— autochthonous in La-
cOnia  164
Tyndareus and Lgda . . . . ib.
Offspring of Leda — 1. Kast6r,
Timandra 3 KlytsmnSstra.
2. Pollux, Helen  165
Kastor and Pollux  ib.

Legend of the Attic Dekeleia 166
Idas and Lynkeus  ib.
Great functions and power of
the Dioskuri  167
Messenian genealogy .. .. 168
Perieres — Idas and MarpSssa ib.

CHAPTER IX.
Arcadian Genealogy.

Pelasgus  169
Lyka6n and his fifty sons . . ib.
Legend of Lyka6n — ferocity pu
nished by the gods
Deep religious faith of Pausa
nias 
His view of past and present
world 
Kallista and Arkas  171
Azan, Apheidas, Elatus .. 172
Aleus, Aug6, Telephus . . .. ib.
Anka^us — Bchemus  173

ib.

170

ib.

Echemus kills Hyllus — Hera-
kleids repelled from Pelo
ponnSsus 
Kordnis and AsklSpius . .
Extended worship of Askle
pius — numerous legendB
MachaOn and Podaleirius
Numerous AsklSpiads, or des
cendants from Asklepius
Temples of Asklepius— sick
persons healed there . .

173
174

175176

ib.
178

CHAPTER X.
JBAKUS AND HIS DEBCENDANTS.—ffiGINA, SALAMIS AND PHTHIA
jEakus — son of Zeus and iEgina 170

Offspring of .33akus— Peleus,
Telam5n, PhAkus  »&•
Prayers of^akus — procure re
lief for Greece  180
Ph&kus killed by Peleus and
Telam&n  181
Telamdn, banished, goes to Sa
lamis  »'*•
Peleus — goes to Phthia — his

marriage with Thetis .. ..182
Neoptolemus  188
Ajax— his son Philaeus the epo
nymous hero of a deme in
Attica  . . 184
Teukrus banished, settles in
Cyprus  **¦
Diffusion of the .ffiakid genea
logy  185

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

CHAPTER XI.
Attic Legends and Genealogies.

Page
Erechtheus — autochthonous .. 186
Attic legends — originally from
different roots — each d§me
had its own  187
Little noticed by the old epic
poets  188
Kekrops  189
Kranaus — Pandi6n  190
Daughters of Pandidn— Prokng,
Philomela. Legend of Te-
reus  ib.
Daughters of Erechtheus —
Prokris  192
Kreiisa. — Oreithyia, the wife of
Boreas  ib.
Prayers of the Athenians to
Boreas — his gracious help in
their danger  193
Erechtheus and Eumolpus . . 194
Voluntary-self sacrifice of the

Page
three daughters of Erech
theus  196
Kreiisa and Ion  197
Sons of Pandidn — iEgeus , Ac. 198
Theseus  199
His legendary character refined 200
Plutarch — his way of handling
the matter of legend . . . . 201
Legend of the Amazons . . . . 202
Its antiquity and prevalence ib.
Glorious achievements of the
Amazons 
Their ubiquity 
Universally received as a por
tion of the Greek past
Amazons produced as present
by the historians of Alexan
der 
Conflict of faith and reason in
the historical critics .. .. 209

203205

207

ib.

CHAPTER XII.
Keetan Legends.— Minos and his Family.

Minds and Khadamanthus, sons
of Zeus  212
Europe*  . . 213
PasiphaS and the Min&taur . . 214
Scylla and Nisus  ib.
Death of Androgeos, and an
ger of Minds against Athens ib.
Athenian victims for the Mi-
ndtaur  215
Self-devotion of Theseus — he
kills the Min&taur. Ariadne" ib.
Athenian commemorative cere
monies  216

Family of Min6s  217
Minds and Daedalus — flight of
the 'latter to Sicily .. .. 21S
Minds goes to retake him, but
is killed  ib.
Semi-Kr§tan settlements else
where — connected with this
voyage of Minds  219
Sufferings of the KrStans after
wards from the wrath of Mi
nds  ib.
Portrait of Minds — how varied 220
Affinity between Krete and
Asia Minor  223

CHAPTER XIII.
Argonautic Expedition.

Ship Argd in the Odyssey
In Hesiod and Eum&lus
Jasdn and his heroic compa
nions 
Lriiimoa . . . . 

227

Adventures at Kyzikus, iu
Bithynia, &c. Herakles and
Hylas. Phineus  228
Dangers of the Symplegades 229
Arrival at Kolchis  230

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. xxiii
CHAPTER XIII.— continued.
Page Page
Conditions imposed by -336tes phical knowledge increased 238
as the price of the golden Transposition of epical looa-
fleece  231 lities  - . . . 242
Pursuit of JE6t8s — the Argo- How and when the Argonautic
nauts saved by Medea . . ib. voyage became attached to
Return of the Argonauts— cir- Kolchis  243
cuitous and perilous . . . . 232 .2Eet.es and CircS  245
Numerous and wide-spread mo- Eeturn of the Argonauts — dif-
numents referring to the ferent versions  246
voyage  234 Continued faith in the voyage —
Argonautic legend generally 237 basis of truth determined by
Fabulous geography — gradu- Strabo  248
ally modified as real geogra-

CHAPTER XIV.
Legends of Thebes,

Abundant legends of Th&bes 250
Amphidn and Zgthus Homeric
founders of ThSbes. Kadmus
and Bceotus— both distinct
legends  ib.
How ThSbes was founded by
Kadmus . . . .  252
Five primitive families at The
bes called Sparti  253
The four daughters of Kad
mus — 1. Ind  ib.
2. Semele  ib.
3. AutonoS and her son Ak-

tEedn  253
4. AgavS and her son Pentheus 254
He resists the god Dionysus—
his miserable end  255
Labdakus j AntiopS , Amphidn
and ZSthus  256
Laius — (Edipus — Legendary ce
lebrity of CEdipus and his
family  259
The Sphinx  260
EteoklSs and Polynikes . . 261
Old epic poems on the sieges
of Thebes  262

Sieges of Thebes.

Curse pronounced by the de
voted (Edipus upon his sons 263
Novelties introduced by So-
phoklSs  264
Death of GSdipus — quarrel of
EteoklSs and PolynikSs for
the sceptre  ib.
Polynikfes retires to Argos—
aid given to him by Adra-
stus  265
Amphiaraiis and EriphylS . . ib.
Seven chiefs of the army against
Thebes  266
Defeat of the ThSbans in the
field — heroic devotion of Me-
noskeus  ib.

Single combat of Eteokl^s and
PolynikSs, in which both
perish  . ¦ 267
Repulse and destruction of the
Argeian chiefs — all except
Adrastus. Amphiaraiis is
swallowed up in the earth ib.
Kredn, king of ThSbes, forbids
the burial of Polynikes and
the other fallenArgeianchiefs 269
Devotion and death of Anti
gone  i°,
The Athenians interfere to
procure the interment of the
fallen chiefs  270
Second siege of Thebes by

CONTENTS OE VOLUME I.

CHAPTER XIV.— continued.
Page Page
Adrastus with the Epigoni, —how ahrogated by Kleis-
or sons of those slain in the then&s  272
first  271 Alkmse8n— his matricide and
Victory of the Epigoni — cap- punishment  274
ture of Thebes  ib. Fatal necklace of EriphylS . . 275
Worship of Adrastus at Siky&n
CHAPTER XV.
Legend of Trot.
Great extent and variety of The wooden horse , . . . 294
the tale of Troy  277 Destruction of Troy . . . . 296
Dardanus, son of Zeus .. . , ib. Distribution of the captives
Ilus, founder of Ilium . . . . 278 among the victors . . . . 297
Walls of Ilium built by Posei- Helen restored to Menelaus—
ddn  ib. lives in dignity at Sparta —
Capture of Ilium by HSraklgs 279 passes to a happy immorta-
Priam and his offspring . . . . ib. lity  293
Paris— his judgement on the Blindness and cure of the poet
three goddesses  280 Stesichorus— ^Iteration of the
Carries off Helen from Sparta 281 legend about Helen .. .. 300
Expedition of the' Greeks to Egyptian tale about Helen —
recover her  282 tendency to historicise . . ib.
Heroes from all parts of Greece Beturn of the Greeks from Troy 301
combined under Agamemndn ib. Their sufferings — anger of the
Achilles and Odysseus . . . . 283 gods  302
The Grecian host mistakes Teu- Wanderings of the heroes in
thrania for Troy — Telephus 285 all directions  303
Detention of the Greeks at Au- Memorials of them throughout
lis — Agamemndn and Iphige- the Grecian world . . . . 305
neia  286 Odysseus — his final adven-
First success of the Greeks on tures and death . . . . . 306
landing near Troy. Briseis iEneas and his descendants . . 307
awarded to Achilles . . . . ib. Different stories about iEneas
Palam§d&s — his genius and trea- — iEneadae at Sk^psis . . .. 308
cherous death  287 Ubiquity of .ZEneas . . . . 309
Epic chronology — historicised 289 Antendr  310
Period of the Homeric Iliad. Tale of Troy — its magnitude
Hectdr killed by Achilles . . ib. and discrepancies . . . . ib.
New allies of Troy — Penthe- Trojan war — essentially legen-
sileia  290 dary — its importance as an
Memndn— killed by Achilles . . 291 item in Grecian national faith 311
Death of Achilles  ib. Basis of history for it — pos-
Funeral games celebrated in sible, and nothing more .. 312
honour of him — Quarrel about Historicising innovations 
his panoply — Odysseus pre- Dio Chrysostom  ib.
vails and Ajax kills himself 292 Historical Ilium  313
Philoktetes and Neoptolemus 293 Generally received and visited
Capture of the Palladium.— as the town of Priam . . . . 314

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

CHAPTER XV.— continued.
Page
Eespect shown to it by Alexan
der  316
Successors of Alexander —
foundation of Alexandria
Trdas  ib.
The Romans treat Ilium with
marked respect  318
Mythical legitimacy of Ilium —
first called in question by
DSrmHrius of Skepsis and
Hestisea  319
Supposed Old Ilium, or real
Troy, distinguished from New
Ilium ....  ib.
Strabo alone bellieves in Old
Ilium as the real Troy— other
authors continue in the old
faith — the moderns follow

Page
Strabo  320
The mythical faith not shaken
by topographical impossibi
lities  322
Historical Trdas and the Teu-
krians  325
iEolic Greeks in the Trdad —
the whole territory gradually
-Siolised  326
Old date, and long prevalence
of the worship of Apollo
Sminthius  327
Asiatic customs and religion —
blended with Hellenic . . 328
Sibylline prophecies . . . . 329
Settlements fronxMiletus,Mity-
lene, and Athens .. . , ., ib.

CHAPTER XVI.
Grecian mythes, as understood, felt and interpreted by the
Greeks themselves.

The mythes formed the entire
mental stock of the early
Greeks  331
State of mind out of which they
arose  332
Tendency to universal personi
fication  ib.
Absence of positive knowledge
— supplied by personifying
faith  333
Multitude and variety of quasi-
human personages . . . . 334
What we read as poetical fan
cies, were to the Greeks se
rious realities  336
The gods and her o es — their chief
agency cast back into the
past and embodied in the
mythes  338
Marked and manifold types of
the Homeric gods .. .. 339
Stimulus which they afforded
to the mythopceic faculty . . 340
Easy faith in popular and plau
sible stories . . . . . . . . 343
Poets — receive their matter

from the divine inspiration
of the Muse  344
Meaning of the word mythe —
original— altered  345
Matter of actual history — un
interesting to early Greeks 346
Mythical faith and religious
point of view — paramount in
the Homeric age  347
Gradual development of the
scientific point of view— its
opposition to the religious 348
My thopcBic age— anterior to this
dissent  350
Expansive force of Grecian in
tellect  ib.
Transition towards positive and
present fact  351
The poet becomes the organ of
present time instead of past ib.
Iambic, elegiac, and lyric poets 353
Influence of the opening of
Egypt to Grecian commerce,
B. c. 660  354
Progress — historical, geogra
phical, social— from that pe-

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

CHAPTER XVI.— continued.
Page Page
riod to B.C.' 503 ... ... ..354 His views of the mythical
Altered standard of judgement, world .. ..  379
ethical and intellectual . . 355 His deference for Egypt- and
Commencement of physical Egyption statements . . . . ib.
- science — Thal§s , Xenopha- His general faith in the mythi-
nes , Pythagoras  356 cal heroes and eponyms, — yet
Impersonal nature conceived combined with scepticism as
as an object of study . . . , ib. to matters of fact . . . . 380
Opposition between scientific His remarks upon the miracu-
method and the religious feel- lous foundation of the oracl3
ing of the multitude .. .. 358 at Ddddna  382
How« dealt with by different His remarks upon Melampus
philosophers  ib. and his prophetic powers . . 383
SokratSs  ib. His remarks upon the Thessa-
Hippokrates  359 liau legend of Tempg  385
Anaxagoras  360 Upon the legend of Troy . . 386
Contrasted with Grecian reli- Allegorical interpretation of
gious belief  361 the mythes — more and more
Treatment of SokratSs by the esteemed and applied . . . . 405
Athenians  062 Divine legends allegorised. He-
Scission between the superior roic legends historicised . . 407
men and the multitude — im- Limits to. this interpreting pro-
portant in reference to the cess  408
mythes  363 Distinction between gods and
The "mythes accommodated to daemons — altered and widen-
a new tone of feeling and ed by Empedokles .. .. 40.9
judgement  364 Admission of daemons, as par-
The poets and logographers .. ib. tially evil beings— effect of
Pindar  365 such admission  410
Tragic poets  366 Semi-historical, interpretation 412
.ZEsehylus and Sophoklgs . . 367 Some positive certificate indis-
Tendencies of JEschylus in re- pensable as. a .constituent of
gard to the old legends . . 369 historical proof— mere popu-
He maintains undiminished the *ar. faith insufficient . . . . 414
grandeur of the mythical Mistake;of ascribing to an un-
w0lli  371 recording age the historical
Sophokles  ib. sense, of modern times ..416
Euripides— accused of vulgari- Matter of tradition uncertified
sing the *mythical heroes— from the beginning . . ... ib.
and of introducing exaggera- Fictitious matter of tradition
ted pathos, refinement and does not imply fraud or im-
rhetoric  372 posture  .... 417
The logographers— Pherekydes, Plausible fiction often gene-
&c  , . 376 rated and accredited by the
Hekatseus— the mythes rationa- mere force of strong and com-
lized  376 mon s'entiment, even in times
The historians— Herodotus . . 377 of instruction  410
Earnest piety of Herodotus— Allegorical theory, of the' my-
his mystic reserve . . . . 378 thes— traced by some up to

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

CHAPTER XVI.— continued.

Page
an ancient priestly caste . . 419
-Eeal import of the mythes sup
posed to be preserved in the
religious mysteries . . . 420
Supposed ancient meaning is
really a modern interpreta
tion  423
Triple theology of the pagan
world  ib.
Treatment and use of the my
thes according to Plato . . 426
His views as to the necessity
and use of fiction . . . . ib.
He deals with the mythes as ex
pressions of feeling and ima
gination- sustained by reli
gious faith, and not by any
positive basis  427
Grecian antiquity essentially a
religious conception , . . . 429
Application of chronological
calculation divests it of this
character  ib.

Mythical genealogies all of one
class, and all on a level in
respect to evidence .. .. 430
Grecian and Egyptian genea
logies  -431
Value of each purely subjec
tive, in reference to the faith
of the people
Gods and men undistinguish-
able in Grecian antiquity
General recapitulation . .
General public of Greece— fa
miliar with their local my
thes, careless of recent his
tory 
Religious festivals — their com
memorative influence
Variety and universality of my
thical relics  441
The mythes in their bearing on
Grecian art  442
Tendency of works of art to
intensify the mythical faith 413

432

ib.
434

, 439

CHAPTER XVII.
The Grecian Mythical Vein compared with that op modern
Europe.

M09o<; — Sage — anuniversal mani
festation of the human mind 445
Analogy of the Germans and
Celts with the Greeks . . . . 446
Differences between them —
Grecian poetry matchless —
Grecian progress self-opera
ted  ib.
German progress brought about
by violent influences from
without  447
Operation of the Boman civili
zation and of Christianity
upon the primitive German
mythes  448
Alteration in the mythical ge
nealogies — Odin and the
other gods degraded into men 449
Grecian paganism — whatwould
have been the case, if it had

been supplanted by Christian
ity in 500 b.c  451
Saxo Grammaticus and Snorro
Sturleson contrasted with
Pherekyd§s and Hellanikus 452
Mythopceic tendencies in mo
dern Europe still subsisting,
but forced into a new chan
nel. 1. Saintly ideal; 2. Chi
valrous ideal  453
Legends of the Saints . . . . ib.
Their analogy with the Home
ric theology  455
Chivalrous ideal — Romances of
Charlemagne and Arthur . . 458
Accepted as realities of the
foretime  462
Teutonic and Scandinavian
epic — its analogy with the
Grecian  ib.

sxyili

CONTENTS OF VOLUME T.

CHAPTER XVII.— continued.

P age
Heroic character and1, self-ex
panding subject common to
both  464
Points of distinction between
the two — epic of the middle
ages neither stood so com
pletely alone , nor was so
closely interwoven with reli
gion, as the Grecian . . . . 465
History of England— how con
ceived down to the seven
teenth century— began with
Brute the Trojan  466
Earnest and tenacious faith
manifested in the deference
of this early history . . ..it.

Page
Judgment of Milton .. .. 467
Standard of historical evidence
—raised in regard to Eng
land — not raised in regard to
Greece  46S
Milton's way of dealing with
the British fabulous history
objectionable  470>
Two ways open of dealing with
the Grecian mythes: 1. to
omit them ; or 2, to recount
them as mythes. . Reasons
for preferring the latter . . 471
Triple partition of past time
by Varro  47S

HISTORY OF GREECE.

PART I.
LEGENDARY GREECE.

CHAPTER I.
LEGENDS RESPECTING THE GODS.
The mythical world of the Greeks opens with the gods,
anterior as well as superior to man: it gradually descends,
first to heroes, and next to the human race. 0
Along with the gods are found various mon- the mytiiio-
strous natures, ultra-human and extra-human, al world-
who cannot with propriety be called gods, but who partake
with gods and men in the attributes of volition, conscious
agency, and susceptibility of pleasure and pain, — such as the
Harpies, the Gorgons, the Grsese, the Sirens, Scylla and
Charybdis, Echidna, Sphinx, Chimsera, Chrysaor, Pegasus,
the Cyclopes, the Centaurs, &c. The first acts of what
may be termed the great mythical cycle describe the pro
ceedings of these gigantic agents — the crash and collision
of certain terrificandoverboilingforces, which are ultimately
reduced to obedience, or chained up, or extinguished,
under the more orderly government of Zeus, who supplants
his less capable predecessors, and acquires presidence
and supremacy over gods and men — subject however to
certain social restraints from the chief gods and goddesses
around him, as well as to the custom of occasionally convoking
and consulting the divine agora.
VOL. i. u

2 HISTORY OF GBEECE. Pakt I.
I recount these events briefly, but literally, treating
How the tnem simply as mythes springing from the same
mythes are creative imagination, addressing themselves to
to be told. anai0g0US tastes and. feelings, and depending
upon the same authority, as the legends of Thebes and Troy.
It is the inspired voice of the Muse which reveals and
authenticates both, and from which Homer and Hesiod
alike derive their knowledge — the one, of the heroic, the
other, of the divine, foretime. I maintain, moreover, fully,
the character of these great divine agents as Persons, which
is the light in which they presented themselves to the
Homeric or Hesiodic audience. Uranos, Nyx, Hypnos and
Oneiros (Heaven, Night, Sleep and Dream), are Persons,
Allegory jus^ as nmxh as Zeus and Apollo. To resolve them
rarely ad- into mere allegories, is unsafe and unprofitable :
missibie. we fljgjj depart from the point of view of the
original hearers, without acquiring any consistent or philo
sophical point of view of our own.1 Por although some
of the attributes and actions ascribed to these persons are
often explicable by allegory, the whole series and system
of them never are so: the theorist who adopts this course
of explanation finds that, after one or two simple and ob
vious steps, the path is no longer open, and he is forced
to clear a way for himself by gratuitous refinements and
conjectures. The allegorical persons and attributes are
always found mingled with other persons and attributes
not allegorical; but the two classes cannot be severed with
out breaking up the whole march of the mythical events,
nor can any explanation which drives us to such a necessity
be considered as admissible. To suppose indeed that these
legends could be all traced by means of allegory into a
coherent body of physical doctrine, would be inconsistent
with all reasonable presumptions respecting the age or
society in which they arose. Where the allegorical mark
is clearly set upon any particular character, or attribute,
or event, to that extent we may recognise it; but we can
rarely venture to divine further, still less to alter the le
gends themselves on the faith of any such surmises. The
theogony of the Greeks contains some cosmogonic ideas;
but it cannot be considered as a system of cosmogony, or
1 It is sufficient, here, to state be said respecting the allegorizing
this position briefly : more will interpretation in a future chapter.

CnAr. I. LEGENDS RESPECTING THE GODS. 3
translated into a string of elementary, planetary, or physical
changes. In the order of legendary chronology, Zeus comes after
Kronos and Uranos ; but in the order of Grecian
conception, Zeus is the prominent person, and mZlll°ie'
Kronos and Uranos are inferior and introductory Grecian
precursors, set up in order to be overthrown oonoePtlon'
and to serve as mementos of the prowess of their conqueror.
To Homer and Hesiod, as well as to the Greeks universally,
Zeus is the great and predominant god, "the father of gods
and men," whose power none of the other gods can hope
to resist, or even deliberately think of questioning. All
the other gods have their specific potency and peculiar
sphere of action and duty, with which Zeus does not usually
interfere; but it is he who maintains the lineaments of a
providential superintendence, as well over the phsenomena
of Olympus as over those of earth. Zeus and his brothers
Poseidon and Hades have made a division of power: he
has reserved the aether and the atmosphere to himself —
Poseidon has obtained the sea — and Hades the under-world
or infernal regions ; while earth, and the events which pass
upon earth, are common to all of them, together with free
access to Olympus. i
Zeus, then, with his brethren and colleagues, constitute the
present gods, whomHomer andHesiod recognise The gods—
as in full dignity and efficiency. The inmates of h0.w con-
this divine world are conceived upon the model, man type
but not upon the scale, of the human. They are enlarged.
actuated by the full play and variety of those appetites,
sympathies, passions and affections, which divide the soul of
man ; invested with a far larger and indeterminate measure of
power, and an exemption as well from death as (with some
rare exceptions) from suffering and infirmity. The rich and
diverse types thus conceived, full of energetic movement
and contrast, each in his own province, and soaring confess
edly above the limits of experience, were of all themes the
most suitable for adventure and narrative, and operated
1 See Iliad, viii. 405,463; xv. 20, him, suppressed by the unexpected
130,185. Hesiod. Theog. 885. apparition of Briareus as his ally, is
This unquestioned supremacy is among the exceptions. (Iliad, i. 400.)
the general representation of Zeus: Zeus is at one time vanquished
at the same time the conspiracy of by Titan, but rescued by Hermes.
Here, Poseiddn and Athene against (ApollodOr. i. 6, 3.)
B2

4 HISTORY OT GREECE. Vi.T.1 I.
with irresistible force upon the Grecian fancy. All nature
was then conceived as moving and working through a number
of personal agents, amongst whom the gods of Olympus
were the most conspicuous ; the reverential belief in Zeus
and Apollo being only one branch of this omnipresent per
sonifying faith. The attributes of all these agents had a
tendency to expand themselves into illustrative legends —
especially those of the gods, who were constantly invoked
in the public worship. Out of the same mental source
sprangboth the divine and heroic mythes — the former being
often the more extravagant and abnormous in their incidents,
in proportion as the general type of the gods was more
vast and awful than that of the heroes.
As the gods have houses and wives like men, so the
present dynasty of gods must have a past to re-
Past history r J . j ,i° ¦ i • r ¦ ,.
of the gods pose upon; 1 and the curious and imaginative
fitted on to Greek, whenever he does not find a recorded
ceptions.0n" Pas* ready to his hand, is uneasy until he has
created one. Thus the Hesiodic theogony ex
plains, with a certain degree of system and coherence, first
the antecedent circumstances under which Zeus acquired
the divine empire, next the number of his colleagues and
descendants. Pirst in order of time (we are told by Hesiod) came
Chaos; next Gaea, the broad, firm, and flat Earth, with deep
and dark Tartarus at her base. Eros (Love), the subduer
of gods as well as men, came immediately afterwards. 2
Prom Chaos sprung Erebos and Nyx; from these
latter iEther and Hemera. Gaea also gave birth to Uranos,
equal in breadth to herself, in order to serve both as an
overarching vault to her, and as a residence for the im
mortal gods; she further produced the mountains, habi
tations of the divine nymphs, and Pontus, the barren and
billowy sea.
Then Gaea intermarried with Uranos, and from this
Gsea and union came a numerous offspring— twelve Titans
Uranos. ^ and Titanides, three Cyclopes, and three Heka-
toncheires or beings with a hundred hands each. The Titans
were Oceanus,Koeos, Krios, Hyperion, Iapetos, andKronos:
1 Arist. Polit. i. 1. uWsp 84 xal 2 Hesiod, Theog. 116. Apollod6rus
TieiST)eaUToi?d<pou.oiousiv5v0pu>7ioi, begins with Uranos and Ga;a (i. 1) ;
o5tu>« xoX too? (ttooc, i<I>'i 8su>v. he does not recognise Er6s, Nyx,
or Erebos.

CHAr. I. URANOS AND KRONOS. 5
the Titanides, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe,
and Tethys. The Cyclopes were Brontes, Steropes,
and Arges, — formidable persons, equally distinguished for
strength and for manual craft, so that they made the thunder
which afterwards formed the irresistible artillery of Zeus. i
The Hekatoncheires were Kottos, Briareus, and Gyges,
of prodigious bodily force.
Uranos contemplated this powerful brood with fear
and horror; as fast as any of them were born, he concealed
them in cavities of the earth, and would not permit them
to come out. Gaea could find no room for them, and groaned
under the pressure: she produced iron, made a sickle,
and implored her sons to avenge both her and themselves
against the oppressive treatment of their father. But none
of them, except Kronos, had courage to undertake the deed:
he, the youngest and the most daring, was armed with the
sickle and placed in suitable ambush by the contrivance of
Gaea. Presently night arrived, and Uranos descended to
the embraces of Gaea : Kronos then emerged from his conceal
ment, cut off the genitals of his father, and cast the bleed
ing member behind him far away into the sea.2 Much of
the blood was spilt upon the earth, and Gaea in consequence
gave birth to the irresistible Erinnys, the vast and muscular
Gigantes, and the Melian nymphs. Out of the
genitals themselves, as they swam and foamed ^^s dis"
upon the sea, emerged the goddess Aphrodite,
deriving her name from the foam out of which she had
sprung. She first landed at Kythera, and then went to
Cyprus: the island felt her benign influence, and the green
herb started up under her soft and delicate tread. Eros
immediately joined her, and partook with her the function
of suggesting and directing the amorous impulses both of
gods and men.3
Uranos being thus dethroned and disabled, Kronos
and the Titans acquired their liberty and became predom-
iHesio'd. Theog. HO, 156. Apol- Oopomlcc, under which she was so
lod. ut sup. very extensively worshipped, espe-
*Hesiod, Theog. 160, 182. Apollod. cially both in Cyprus and Kythera,
ft j 4# seemingly originated in both is-
3 Hesiod, Theog. 192. This legend lands by the Phoenicians. Herodot.
'respecting the birth of Aphrodite i.105. Compare the instructive sec-
seems to have been derived partly tion in Boeckh's Metrologie, c.
from her name (duppo?, foam), partly iv. § i.
from the surname Urania, 'AippoSlin

6 HISTORY OF GREECE. ?Ar.T I.
inant: the Cyclopes and the Hekatoncheires had been
cast by Uranos into Tartarus, and were still allowed to
remain there.
Each of the Titans had a numerous offspring: Ocea-
Kronos and mis, especially, marrying his sister Tethys, begat
the Titans, three thousand daughters, the Oceanic nymphs,
and as many sons: the rivers and springs passed for his
offspring. Hyperion and his sister Theia had for their
children Helios, Selene, and Eos; Kosos with Phoebe begat
Leto and Asteria: the children of Krios were Astraeos,
Pallas, and Perses, — from Astraeos and E6s sprang the
winds Zephyrus, Boreas, and Notus. Iapetos marrying
the Oceanic nymph Klymene, counted as his progeny the
celebrated Prometheus, Epimetheus, Mencetius, and Atlas.
But the offspring of Kronos were the most powerful and
transcendent of all. He married his sister Rhea, and had
by her three daughters — Hestia, Demeter, and Here — and
three sons, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus, the latter at once
the youngest and the greatest.
But Kronos foreboded to himself destruction from one
of his own children, and accordingly, as soon as any of them
were born, he immediately swallowed them and retained
them in his own belly. In this manner had the five first
been treated, and Rhea was on the point of being
over- delivered of Zeus. Grieved and indignant at the
"ajJea> . loss of her children, she applied for counsel to
safety of her father and mother, Uranos and Gaea, who
WhrenMB aiaed her to conceal the birth of Zeus. They
conveyed her by night to Lyktus in Crete, hid
the new-born child in a woody cavern on Mount Ida, and
gave to Kronos, in place of it, a stone wrapped in swadd
ling clothes, which he greedily swallowed, believing it to
be his child. Thus was the safety of Zeus ensured.1 As
he grew up his vast powers fully developed themselves:
at the suggestion of Gaea, he induced Kronos by stra
tagem to vomit up, first the stone which had been given
to him, — next the five children whom he had previously
devoured. Hestia, Demeter, Here, Poseidon and Hades,
were thus allowed to grow up along with Zeus; and the
stone to which the latter owed his preservation was placed .
near the temple of Delphi, where it ever afterwards stood,
'Hosiod, Theog. 452, 437. Apollod. j. 1, 6.

Chaf. I. THE TITANS. 1
as a conspicuous and venerable memorial to the reli
gious Greek, i
We have not yet exhausted the catalogue of beings
generated during this early period, anterior to other dei-
the birth of Zeus. Nyx, alone and without any tiea-
partner, gave birth to a numerous progeny: Thanatos,
Hypnos and Oneiros; Momus and Oi'zys (Grief); Klotho,
Lachesis, andAtropos, the three Fates; the retributive and
equalizing Nemesis; Apate and Philotes (Deceit and amo
rous Propensity), Geras (Old Age) and Eris (Contention).
From Eris proceeded an abundant offspring, all mischievous
and maleficent: Ponos (Suffering), Lethe, Limos (Famine),
Phonos and Mache (Slaughter and Battle), Dysnomia and
Ate (Lawlessness and reckless Impulse) and Horkos, the
ever-watchful sanctioner of oaths, as well as the inexorable
punisher of voluntary perjury.2
Gaea, too, intermarrying with Pontus, gave birth to
Nereus, the just and righteous old man of the sea; to Thau-
mas, Phorkys and Keto. From Nereus, and Doris daughter
of Oceanus, proceeded the fifty Nereids or Sea-nymphs.
Thaumas also married Elektra daughter of Oceanus, and
had by her Iris and the two Harpies, Aello and Okypete, —
winged and swift as the winds. From Phorkys and Keto
sprung the Dragon of the Hesperides, and the monstrous
Graeae, and Gorgons: the blood of Medusa, one of the Gor
gons, when killed by Perseus, produced Chrysaor and the
horse Pegasus; Chrysaor and Kallirhoe gave birth to Ge-
ryon as well as to Echidna, — a creature half-nymph and
half-serpent, unlike both to gods and to men. Other mon
sters arose from the union of Echidna with Typhaon, —
Orthros, the two-headed dog of Geryon; Cerberus the dog
of Hades, with fifty heads, and the Lernaean Hydra. From
the latter proceeded the Chimaera, the Sphinx of Thebes,
and the Nemean lion. 3
A powerful and important progeny, also, was that of
Styx, daughter of Oceanus, by Pallas; she had Zelos and
Nike (Lnperiousness and Victory), and Kratos and Bia
(Strength and Force). The hearty and early co-operation
• Hesiod, Theog. 498— 2jj|±' I|j.ev iSorclmo, 8ao[ia 6vT)toToi
Tov |iiv Zso? aTryiH xtrti x^ov'1" PpOToToi.
tbvioozWfi ' Hesicd, Theog. 212—232.
IIu9oT sv ifraOerj, r<^ol« &„0 'Hesiod, Theog. 240-320. Apollo-
Ilapv^oio, *6r. i. 2, 6, 7.

8 HISTORY 017 GREECE. Paet I.
of Styx and her four sons with Zeus was one of the main
causes which enabled him to achieve his victory over the
Titans. Zeus had grown up not less distinguished for mental
Ambitious caPacity than for bodily force. He and his bro-
schemes of thers now determined to wrest the power from
Zeus. the hands of Kronos and the Titans, and a long
and desperate struggle commenced, in which all the gods
and all the goddesses took part. Zeus convoked them to
Olympus, and promised to all who would aid him against
Kronos, that their functions and privileges should remain
undisturbed. The first who responded to the call, came
with her four sons, and embraced his cause, was Styx. Zeus
took them all four as his constant attendants, and conferred
upon Styx the majestic distinction of being the Horkos, or
oath-sanctioner of the Gods, — what Horkos was to men,
Styx was to the Gods. 1
Still further to strengthen himself, Zeus released the
victory of °tker Uranids who had been imprisoned in Tar-
Zeus and tarus by their father, — the Cyclopes and the Cen-
over Kronos timanes> — and prevailed upon them to take part
and the with him against the Titans. The former sup-
Titans, plied him with thunder and lightning, and the
latter brought into the fight their boundless muscular
strength. 2 Ten full years did the combat continue ; Zeus
and the Kronids occupying Olympus, and the Titans being
established on the more southerly mountain-chain of Othrys.
All nature was convulsed, and the distant Oceanus, though
he took no part in the struggle, felt the boiling, the noise,
and the shock, not less than Gaea and Pontus. The thunder
of Zeus, combined with the crags and mountains torn up
and hurled by the Centimanes, at length prevailed, and the
Titans were defeated and thrust down into Tartarus. Iap«-
tos, Kronos, and the remaining Titans (Oceanus excepted)
were imprisoned perpetually and irrevocably, in that sub
terranean dungeon, a wall of brass being built around them
by Poseidon, and the three Centimanes being planted as
guards. Of the two sons of lapetos, Menoetius was made to
share this prison, while Atlas was condemned to stand for
•Hesiod, Theog. 385— 403. * Hesiod, Theog. 140, 624, 657.
Apollodor. i. 2, 4.

Chap.I. ZEUS— P.OSEIDON— HADES. g
ever at the extreme west, and to bear upon his shoulders
the solid vault of heaven, i
Thus were the Titans subdued, and the Kronids with
Zeus at their head placed in possession of power.
They were not, however, yet quite secure; for TyPhoeu3-
Gaea, intermarrying with Tartarus, gave birth to a new and
still more formidable monster called Typhoeus, of such
tremendous properties and promise, that, had he been
allowed to grow into full development, nothing could have
prevented him from vanquishing all rivals and becoming
supreme. But Zeus foresaw the danger, smote him at once
with a thunderbolt from Olympus, and burnt him up : he
was cast along with the rest into Tartarus, and no further
enemy remained to question the sovereignty of the Kro
nids.2 With Zeus begins a new dynasty and a different order
of beings. Zeus, Poseidon and Hades agree upon Dynasty of
the distribution before noticed, of functions and Zeus-
localities : Zeus retaining the iEther and the atmosphere,
together with the general presiding function; Poseidon
obtaining the sea, and administering subterranean forces
generally: and Hades ruling the under-world, or region in
which the half-animated shadows of departed men reside.
It has been already stated, that in Zeus, his brothers
and his sisters, and his and their divine progeny, we find
the present Gods; that is, those, for the most part, whom
the Homeric and Hesiodic Greeks recognised and His
worshipped. The wives of Zeus were numerous offspring.
as well as his offspring. First he married Metis, the wisest
and most sagacious of the goddesses ; but Gaea and Uranos
forewarned him that if he permitted himself to have chil
dren by her, they would be stronger than himself and
dethrone him. Accordingly when Metis was on the point
of being delivered of Athene, he swallowed her up, and her
1 The battle with the Titans, which the legendary poets were
Hesiod, Theog. 627 — 735. Hesiod often inclined.
mentions nothing about, the Gigan- 2 Hesiod, Theog. 820 — 869. Apol-
tes and the Gigantoxnachia : Apollo- lod. i. 6,3. He makes TyphCnvery
ddrus, on the other hand, gives this nearly victorious over Zeus. Ty-
latterin some detail, but despatches phdeus, according toHesiod, is father
the Titans in a few words (i. 2, of the irregular, violent , and
4; i. 6, 1). The Gigantes seem to mischievous winds: Notus, Boreas,
be only a second edition of the Argestes and Zephyrus, are of di-
Titans, — a sort of duplication to vine origin (870).

10 HISTORY OIT GREECE. Paet I.
wisdom and sagacity thus became permanently identified
with his own being, i His head was subsequently cut open,
in order to make way for the exit and birth of the goddess
Athene.2 By Themis, Zeus begat the H6rae; byEurynome,
the three Oharites or Graces: by Mnemosyne, the Muses;
by Leto (Latona), Apollo and Artemis; and by Demeter,
Persephone. Last of all he took for his wife Here, who
maintained permanently the dignity of queen of the Gods;
by her he had Hebe, Ares, and Eileithyia. Hermes also
was born to him byMaia, the daughter of Atlas ; Hephaestos
was born to Here, according to some accounts by Zeus;
according to others, by her own unaided generative force. 3
He was born lame, and Here was ashamed of him; she
wished to secrete him away, but he made his escape into the
sea, and found shelter under the maternal care oftheNereids
Thetis and Eurynome.4
Our enumeration of the divine race, under the presi
dency of Zeus, will thus give us,5 —
G neraid- *" ^ke twelve great gods and goddesses
tributionof of Olympus, — Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Ares,
the divine Hephsestos, Hermes, Here, Athene, Artemis,
Aphrodite, Hestia, Demeter.
2. An indefinite number of other deities, not included
among the Olympic, seemingly because the number twelve
was complete without them, but some of them not inferior
in power and dignity to many of the twelve: — Hades,
Helios, Hekate, Dionysos, Leto, Dione, Persephone, Selene,
Themis, Eos, Harmonia, the Charites, the Muses, the
Eileithyiae, the Mcerae, the Oceanids and the Nereids,
Proteus, Eidothea, the Nymphs, Leukothea, Phorkys,
-iEolus, Nemesis, &c.
3. Deities who perform special services to the greater
gods: — Iris, Hgbe, the Horse, &c.
4. Deities whose personality is more faintly and un
steadily conceived :— Ate, the Litse, Eris, Thanatos, Hypnos,
Kratos, Bia, Ossa, &c.° The same name is here employed
sometimes to designate the person, sometimes the attribute
1 Hesiod, Theog. 885—900. Hesiod. Mythologie, sect. 102.
* Apollod. i. 3, 6. (Leipz. 1844.)
• Hesiod, Theog. 900—944. « Aiuo?— Hunger— is a person, in
« Homer, Iliad, xviii. 397. Hesiod, Opp. Di. 299.
1 See Burckhardt, Homer, und

Chap. I. HESIODIC THEOGONY. 11
or event notpersonified, — anunconscious transition of ideas,
which, when consciously performed, is called Allegory.
5. Monsters, offspring of the Gods :— the Harpies, the
Gorgons, the Graeae, Pegasus, Chrysaor, Echidna, Chimsera,
the Dragon of the Hesperides, Cerberus, Orthros, Geryon,
the Lernaean Hydra, the Nemean lion, Scylla and Charyb-
dis, the Centaurs, the Sphinx, Xanthos and Bahos the
immortal horses, &c.
From the gods we slide down insensibly, first to heroes,
and then to men; but before we proceed to this new mix
ture, it is necessary to say a few words on the theogony
generally. I have given it briefly as it stands „ .
in the Hesiodic Theogonia, because that poem theogony—
^—in spite of great incoherence and confusion, *ts author-
arising seemingly from diversity of authorship * y'
as well as diversity of age — presents an ancient and genuine
attempt to cast the divine foretime into a systematic se
quence. Homer and Hesiod were the grand authorities
in the Pagan world respecting theogony. But in the Hiad
and Odyssey nothing is found except passing allusions and
implications ; and even in the Hymns (which were commonly
believed in antiquity to be the productions of the same
author as the Iliad and the Odyssey) there are only isolated,
unconnected narratives. Accordingly men habitually took
their information respecting their theogonic antiquities
from the Hesiodic poem, where it was ready laid out before
them; and the legends consecrated in that work acquired
both an extent of circulation and a firm hold on the na
tional faith, such as independent legends could seldom or
never rival. Moreover the scrupulous and scepticalPagans,
as well as the open assailants of Paganism in later times,
derived their subjects of attack from the same source; so
that it has been absolutely necessary to recount in their
naked simplicity the Hesiodic stories, in order to know
what it was that Plato deprecated and Xenophanes de
nounced. The strange proceedings ascribed to Uranos,
Kronos and Zeus, have been more frequently alluded to
in the way of ridicule or condemnation than any other
portion of the mythical world.
But though the Hesiodic theogony passed as orthodox
among the later Pagans,1 because it stood before them as
"See Gottling, Prsefat. ad Hesiod. p. 23.

12 HISTORY OP GREECE. Paet.I.
the only system anciently set forth and easily accessible,
Points of it was evidently not the only system received
difference at the date of the poem itself. Homer knows
Homer and nothing of Uranos, in the sense of an arch-God
Hesiod. anterior to Kronos. Uranos and Gaea, like Oce
anus, TethysandNyx, are with him great and venerable Gods,
but neither the one nor the other present the character of
predecessors of Kronos and Zeus. 1 The Cyclopes, whom
Hesiod ranks as sons of Uranos and fabricators of thunder,
are in Homer neither one nor the other: they are not no
ticed in the Iliad at all, and in the Odyssey they are gross
gigantic shepherds and cannibals, having nothing in common
with the Hesiodic Cyclopes except the one round central
eye.2 Of the three Centimanes enumerated by Hesiod, Bri-
areus only is mentioned in Homer, and, to all appearance,
not as the son of Uranos, but as the son of Poseid6n; not
as aiding Zeus in his combat against the Titans, but as
rescuing him at a critical moment from a conspiracy formed
against him by Here, Poseidon, and Athene.3 Not only
is the Hesiodic Uranos (with the Uranids) omitted in Ho
mer, but the relations between Zeus and Kronos are also
presented in a very different light. No mention is made
of Kronos swallowing his young children: on the contrary,
Zeus is the eldest of the three brothers, instead of the
youngest, and the children of Kronos live with him and
.Rhea: there the stolen intercourse between Zeus and Here
first takes place without the knowledge of their parents.4
When Zeus puts Kronos down into Tartarus, Rhea con
signs her daughter Here to the care of Oceanus: no notice
do we find of any terrific battle with the Titans as accom
panying that event. Kronos, lapetos, and the remaining
Titans are down in Tartarus, in the lowest depths under
the earth, far removed from the genial rays of Helios; but
they are still powerful and venerable, and Hypnos makes
H§re swear an oath in their name, as the most inviolable
that he can think of.5
J Iliad, xiv. 249 ; xix. 259. Odyss. • Iliad, i. 401.
v. 184. Oceanus and Tethys seem * Iliad, xiv. 203—295; xv. 204.
to be presented in the Iliad as the ' Iliad, vii. 4S2 ; xiv. 274—279. In
primitive Father and Mother of the the Hesiodic Opp. et Di., Kronos is
Gods :— represented as ruling in the Islands
U*s«vov ts 8£<I>v7Ev2<jtv, xa!|iY)Tipa of the Blest in the neighbourhood
T'lGuv. (xiv. 201.) of Oceanus (v. 168).
s Odyss. ix. 87.

CtaAP I. nOMERIC THEOGONY. 13
In Homer, then, we find nothing beyond the simple
fact that Zeus thrust his father Kronos, together
with the remaining Titans, into Tartarus; an Zeus."'0
event to which he affords us a tolerable parallel
in certain occurrences even under the presidency of Zeus
himself. For the other gods make more than one rebel
lious attempt against Zeus, and are only put down, partly
by his unparalleled strength, partly by the presence of his
ally the Centimane Briareus. Kronos, like Laertes or
Peleus, has become old, and has been supplanted by a force
vastly superior to his own. The Homeric epic treats Zeus
as present, and like all the interesting heroic characters,
a father must be assigned to him: that father has once been
the chief of the Titans, but has been superseded and put
down into Tartarus along with the latter, so soon as Zeus
and the superior breed of the Olympic gods acquired their
full development. That antithesis between Zeus and Kronos — between
the Olympic gods and the Titans — which Homer Amplified
has thus briefly brought to view, Hesiod has theogony of
amplified into a theogony, with many things new, Zcus-
and some things contradictory to his predecessor; while
Eumelus or Arktinus in the poem called Titanomachia
(now lost) also adopted it as their special subject, i As
Stasinus, Arktinus, Lesches, and others, enlarged theLegend
of Troy by composing poems relating to a supposed time
anterior to the commencement, or subsequent to the ter
mination of the Iliad, — as other poets recounted adventures
of Odysseus subsequent to his landing in Ithaka,- — so Hesiod
enlarged and systematised, at the same time that he cor
rupted, the skeleton theogony which we find briefly indi
cated in Homer. There is violence and rudeness in the
Homeric gods, but the great genius of Grecian Epic is no
1 See the few fragments of the ^Jgieon was also represented as son
Titanomachia, in Diintzer, Epic, of Pontos and Gaea, and as having
Gra:c. Fragm. p. 2 ; and Heyne, ad fought in the ranks of the Titans :
Apollodor. i. 2. Perhaps there was in the Iliad he (the same who is
more than one poem on the subject, called Briareus) is the fast ally of
though it seems that Athena^us had Zeus.
only read one (viii, p. 277). A Titanographia was ascribed to
In the Titanomachia, the gener- Muszeus (Schol. Apollou. Rhod. iii.
ations anterior to Zeus were still 1178; compare Lact ant. deFals.Rel.
further lengthened by making Ura- i. 21).
nos son of JEther (Fr. 4 Diintzer).

14

HISTORY OE GKEECE.

Fast I.

way accountable for the stories of Uranos and Kronos, —
the standing reproach against Pagan legendary narrative.
How far these stories are the invention of Hesiod
himself is impossible to determine.! They bring us down

k That the Hesiodic Theogony is
referable to an age considerably
later than the Homeric poems,
appears now to be the generally
admitted opinion; and the reasons
for believing so are, in my opinion,
satisfactory. Whether theTheogony
is composed by the same author as
the Works and Days is a disputed
point. The Boeotian literati in the
days of Pausanias decidedly denied
the identity, and ascribed to their
Hesiod only the Works and Days:
Pausanias himself concurs with
them (ix. 31. 4; ix. 35. 1), and
Vblcker (Mythologie des Japetisch.
Geschlechts, p. 14) maintains the
same opinion, as well as GottHng
(Prsef. ad Hesiod. xxi.) : JCO.Miiller
(History of Grecian Literature, ch.
8. § 4) thinks that there is not
sufficient evidence to form a decisive
opinion. Under the name of Hesiod (in that
vague language which is usual in
antiquity respecting authorship,
but whirih modern critics have not
much mended by speaking of the
Hesiodic school, sect, or family)
passed many different poems, be
longing to three classes quite
distinct from each other, but all
disparate from the Homeric epic:—
1. The poems of legend cast into
historical and genealogical series,
such as the Eoiai, the Catalogue
of Women, Ac. 2. The poems of a
didactic or ethical tendency, such
as the Works and Days, the Precepts
of Cheirfin, the Art of Augural
Prophecy, &c. 3. Separate and short
mythical compositions, such as the
Shield of Htirakl&s, the marriage
of Keyx (which, however, was of
disputed authenticity, Athenie. ii.

p. 49), the Epithalamium of Peleus
and Thetis, &c. (See Marktscheffel,
Prsefat. ad Fragment. Hesiod. p. 89.)
The Theogony belongs chiefly to
the first of these classes, hut it has
also a dash of the second in the
legend of PromStheus, &c. ; more
over in the portion which respects
Hekate", it has both a mystic char
acter and a distinct bearing upon
present life and customs, which we
may also trace in the allusions to
Kr§te and Delphi. There seems
reason to place it in the same age
with the Works and Days, perhaps
in the half century preceding 700
B.C., and little, if at all, anterior
to Archilochus. The poem is evi
dently conceived upon one scheme,
yet the parts are so disorderly and
incoherent, that it is difficult to
say how much is interpolation.
Hermann has well dissected the
exordium : see the preface to Gais-
ford's Hesiod (Poetse Minor, p. 63).
K.O.Miiller tells us (ut swp.p. 90):
"The Titans, according to the no
tions of Hesiod, represent a system
of things in which elementary
beings, natural powers, and notions
of order and regularity are united
to form a whole. The Cycl6pes
denote the transient disturbances
of this order of nature by storms,
and the Hekatoncheires, or hun
dred-handed Giants, signify the fear
ful power of the greater revolutions
of nature." The poem affords little
presumption that any such ideas
were present to the mind of its
author, as, I think, will be seen if
we read 140—155, 630—745.
The Titans, the Cycl6pes, and the
Hekatoncheires, can no more be
construed into physical phcenomena

Chap. T. HOMER AND HESIOD. 15
to a cast of fancy more coarse and indelicate than the
Homeric, and more nearly resembling some of the Holy
Chapters (Upol Xopi) of the more recent mysteries, such
(for example) as the tale of Dionysos Zagreus. There
is evidence in the Theogony itself that the author was
acquainted with local legends current both at Krete and at
Delphi; for he mentions both the mountain-cave in Krete
wherein the new-born Zeus was hidden, and the stone near
theDelphian temple — the identical stone whichKronos had
swallowed — "placed by Zeus himself as a sign and wonder
to mortal men." Both these two monuments,
which the poet expressly refers to, and had prob- myth"*10
ably seen, imply a whole train of accessory and traceable to
explanatory local legends — current probably Delphi5™4
among the priests of Krete and Delphi, between
which places, in ancient times, there was an intimate religious
connexion. And we may trace further in the poem — that
which would be the natural feehng of Kretan worshippers
of Zeus — an effort to make out that Zeus was justified in
his aggression on Kronos, by the conduct of Kronos himself
both towards his father and towards his children: the treat
ment of Kronos by Zeus appears inHesiod as the retribution
foretold and threatened by the mutilated Uranos against
the son who had outraged him. In fact, the relations of
Uranos and G-sea are in almost all their particulars a mere
copy and duplication of those between Kronos and Shea,
differing only in the mode whereby the final catastrophe
is brought about. Now castration was a practice tho
roughly abhorrent both to the feelings and to the customs
than Chrysaor, Pegasus, Echidna, creations of adequate sublimity for
the Graese, or the Gorgons. Zeus, such an object, the poet may occa-
like HeraklSs, or Jason, or Perseus, sionally borrow analogies from the
if his adventures are to be described, striking accidents of physical na-
must have enemies, worthy of him- ture, and when such an allusion
self and his vast type, and whom it manifests itself clearly, the critic
is some credit for him to overthrow, does well to point it out. But it
Those who contend with him or seems to me a mistake to treat these
assist him must be conceived on a approximations to physical phseno-
scale fit to be drawn on the same mena as forming the main scheme
imposing canvass : the dwarfish of the poet, — to look for them
proportions of man will not satisfy everywhere, and to presume them
the sentiment of the poet or his where there is little or no indica-
audience respecting the grandeur tion.
and glory of the gods. To obtain

16

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Paet I.

of Greece;1 but it was seen with melancholy frequency in
the domestic life as well as in the religious worship of
Phrygia and other parts of Asia ; and it even became the
special qualification of a priest of the GreatMother Cybele, 2
as well as of the Ephesian Artemis. The employment of
the sickle ascribed to Kronos seems to be the product of
an imagination familiar with the Asiatic worship and legends
which were connected with and partially resembled the
Kretan.3 And this deduction becomes the more probable
when we connect it with the first genesis of iron, which
Hesiod mentions to have been produced for the express
purpose of fabricating the fatal sickle; for metallurgy finds
a place in the early legends both of the Trojan and of the
Kretan Ida, and the three Idsean Dactyls, the legendary
inventors of it, are assigned sometimes to one and sometimes
to the other.4
As Hesiod had extended the Homeric series of gods .
by prefixing the dynasty of Uranos to that of Kronos,
so the Orphic theogony lengthened it still further.5 -First

1 The strongest evidences of this
feeling are exhibited in Herodotus,
iii. 48; viii. 105. See an example
of this mutilation inflicted upon
a youth named Adamas by the
Thracian king Kotys , in Aristot.
Polit. v. 8, 12, and the tale about
the Corinthian Periander, Herod*
iii. 48. •
It is an instance of the habit, so
frequent among theAttic tragedians,
of ascribing Asiatic or Phrygian
manners to the Trojans, when So
phocles , in his lost play Troilus
(ap. Jul. Poll. x. 165), introduced
one of the characters of his drama
as having been castrated by order
of Hecuba, SxaXji^Yapclpysn PaaiXU
£*Tifj.voua e'Aous, — probably the Ilai-
8«yu>Yti; or guardian and companion
of the youthful Troilus. See Wel-
cker, Griechisch. Tragod. vol. i. p
125. 2 Herodot. vii. 105, Euvooyoi. Lu-
cian, De Dea Syria, c. 50. Strabo,
xiv. pp. 640—641.
J Diod6r. v. 64. Strabo, x. p. 469.
Hoeckh, in his learned work KrSta

(vol. i. books 1 and 2), has collected
all the information attainable re
specting the early influences ofPhry-
gii and Asia Minor upon Krete:
nothing seems ascertainable except
the general fact ; all the particular
evidences are lamentably vague.
The worship of the Diktaean Zeus
seems to have originally belonged
to the Eteokretes, who were not
Hellens, and were more akin to
the Asiatic population than to the
Hellenic. Strabo, x. p. 478. Hoeckh,
Kreta, vol. i. p. 139.
1 Hesiod, Theogon. 161—
Ai+a 8i Tcoiijdaija yejvo? -^oXtoo
a8d[(xavTO<;,
Teu?s u-JYa SpiTu-ivov, &a.
See the extract from the old poem
Phoronis ap. Schol. Apoll. Rhod.
1129; and Strabo, x. p. 472.
5 See the scanty fragments of the
Orphic theogony in Hermann's
edition of the Orphica, pp. 44S,
504, which it is difficult to under
stand and piece together, even
with the aid of Lobeck's elaborate
examination (Aglaophamus, p. 470,

Chap. I. ORPHIC THEOGONY. 17
came Chronos, or Time, as a person, after him -33ther
and Chaos, out of whom Chronos produced the
vast mundane egg. Hence emerged in process {hrephic-
of time the first-born god Phanes, or Metis, or
Herikapseos, a person of double sex, who first generated
the Kosmos, or mundane system, and who carried within
him the seed of the gods. He gave birth to Nyx, by whom
he begat Uranos and Gsea; as well as to Helios and Selene. '
Prom Uranos and Gsea sprang the three Mcsrse, or
Pates, the three Centimanes, and the three Cyclopes : these
latter were cast by Uranos into Tartarus, under the fore
boding that they would rob him of his dominion. In revenge
for this maltreatment of her sons, Gsea produced of herself
the fourteen Titans, seven male and seven female: the former
were Kceos, Krios, Phorkys, Kronos, Oceanus, Hyperion,
and lapetos; the latter were Themis, Tethys, Mnemosyne,
Theia, Di6ne, Phoebe, and Rhea.2 They received the
name of Titans because they avenged upon Uranos the
expulsion of their elder brothers. Six of the Titans, headed
by Kronos, the most powerful of them all, conspiring against
Uranos, castrated and dethroned him: Oceanus alone stood
aloof and took nopart in the aggression. Kronos assumed the
government, and fixed his seat on Olympus; while Oceanus
remained apart, master of his own divine stream.3 The
reign of Kronos was a period of tranquillity and happiness,
as well as of extraordinary longevity and vigour.
Kronos and Rhea gave birth to Zeus and his brothers
&c.) The passages are chiefly pre- forth by the Birds, Aristophan.
served by Proclus and the later Av. 695. Nyx gives birth to an
Platonists, who seem to entangle egg, out of which steps the golden
them almost inextricably with their Eros; from Er6s and Chaos spring
own philosophical ideas. the race of birds.
The first few lines of the Orphio * Lobeck, Ag. p. 504. Athenagor.
Argonautica contain a brief sum- xv. p. 64.
mary of the chief points of the 3 Lobeck, Ag. p. 507. Plato, Ti-
Theogony. mseus, p. 41. In the AiovOdou Tpdipoi
1 See Lobeck. Aglaoph. p. 472— of -ffilschylus, the old attendants
476, 490—500, Mtjtiv cTiEpjxa (pipovxa .of the god Dionysos were said to
fJsd>M xXutov 'HpixsTtaTov; again, have been cut up and boiled in a
SijXut- xal Ysv"u>p *p<"£po; 9s°s caldron, and rendered again young,
'Hpixsjiaio;. Compare Lactant. iv. by Medeia. Pherecydes and SunO
S' ; Suidas, v. <I>«v7)«: Athenagoras, nides said that Jas6n himself had
xx. 296; Dioddr. i. 27. been so dealt with. Schol. Aristoph,
This egg figures, as might be Equit, 1321.
expected, in the cosmogony set
VOL. I. °

18 HISTORY OB GREECE. Part I.
and sisters. The concealment and escape of the infant
Zeus, and the swallowing of the stone by Kronos, are given
in the Orphic Theogony substantially in the same manner
z as by Hesiod, only in a style less simple and
Phanes. more mysticised. Zeus is concealed in the cave
of Nyx, the seat of Phanes himself, along with
Eide and Adrasteia, who nurse and preserve him, while the
armed dance and sonorous instruments of the Kuretes
prevent his infant cries from reaching the ears of Kronos.
When grown up, he lays a snare for his father, intoxicates
him with honey, and, having surprised him in the depth of
sleep, enchains and castrates him.1 Thus exalted to the
supreme mastery, he swallowed and absorbed into himself
Metis, or Phanes, with all the pre-existing elements of
things, and then generated all things anew out of his own
being and conformably to his own divine ideas.2 So scanty
are the remains of this system, that we find it difficult to
trace individually the gods and goddesses sprung from Zeus
beyond Apollo, Dionysos, and Persephone — the latter being
confounded with Artemis and Hekate\
But there is one new personage begotten by Zeus, who
stands pre-eminently marked in the Orphic Theogony, and
_ whose adventures constitute one of its peculiar
.igreus. features. Zagreus, "the horned child," is the son
of Zeus by his own daughter Persephone : he is the favourite
of his father, a child of magnificentpromise, and predestined,
if he grow up, to succeed to supreme dominion, as well as
1 Lobeck, p. 514. Porphyry, de From this absorption and subse-
Antro Nympharum, c. 16, <pr)ol yap ,quent reproduction of all things
itap 'Op'pstrjN'jf, tiJiAiiomtiSeusvi) by Zeus, flowed the magnificent
tov 8i& too niXiTos SoXov, string of Orphic predicates about
E6V Sv 8yj p.iv 187)011 &7c6 8puolv him, —
Ur'iwSu.oui _ . Zcii? Apxi), Zz'k uiaaoc, 4i6<; 8'
"Epyoitsiv (ieO'Iovtoi (leXisaauw ipi- ex rcavTa tstuxtgii,
(Mu^cov, an allusion to which is traceable
A&Tixi [uv Sjjaov. even in Plato, de Legg. iv. p. 715.
"0 xal hAciyei 4 Kpivo? xal 8s9el« Plutarch, de Defectu Oracul. T.
Ixte^vsthi, d>« 06pav6?. ix. p. 379, c. 48. Diodftrus (i. II) is
Compare Timasusap.Schol. Apoll. the most ancient writer remaining
Rhod. iv. 983. to us who mentions, the name of
1 The Cataposis of Phanes by Phanes, in a line cited as procee-
Zeus is one of the most memorable ding from Orpheus ; wherein, how-
points of the Orphic Theogony. ever, PhanSs is identified with
Lobeck, p. 519 ; also EYagm. vi Dionysos. Compare Macrobius, Sa-
p, 456 of Hermann's Orphica. turnal. i. 18.

Chap.T.

Z AGUE US.

19

to the handling of the thunderbolt. He is seated, whilst
an infant, on the throne beside Zeus, guarded by Apollo
and the&iretes. Eut the jealous Here intercepts his career,
and incites the Titans against him, who, havingfirstsmeared
their faces with plaster, approach him on the throne, tempt
his childish fancy with playthings, and kill him with a sword
while he is contemplating his face in a mirror. They then
cut up his body and boil it in a caldron, leaving only the
heart, which is picked up by Athene and carried to Zeus,
who in his wrath strikes down the Titans with thunder into
Tartarus; whilst Apollo is directed to collect the remains
of Zagreus and bury them at the foot of Mount Parnassus.
The heart is given to Semele, and Zagreus is born again from
her under the form of Dionysos. 1

1 About the tale of Zagreus, see
Lobeck, p. 552, sq$. Konmis in his
Dionysiaca has given many details
about it : —
Zaypsa ysivauivT] xsposv Ppstpos, &c
(vi. 264)
Clemens Alcxandrin. Admonit. ad
Gent. p. 11, 12, Sylb. The story
was treated both by Kallimaehus
and byEuphoriftn, Etymolog. Magn.
v. Zaypebc, Schol. Lycophr. 20S. In
the old epic poem Alkmsednis or
Epigoni, Zagreus is a surname of
Hades. See Eragm. 4, p. 7, ed.
Diintzer. Respecting the Orphic
Theogony generally ,Brandis(Hand-
buch der Geschichte der Griechisch-
Bomisch. Philosophic, c. srvii.,
xviii.), K. 0. Miiller (Prolegg.
Mythol. pp. 379—396), and Zoega
(Abhandlungen, v. pp. 211 — 263) may
be consulted with much advantage.
Brandis regards this Theogony as
considerably older than the first
Ionic philosophy, which is a higher
antiquity than appears probable:
some of the ideas which it contains,
such, for example, as that of the
Orphic egg, indicate a departure
from the string of purely personal
generations which both Homer
and Hesiod exclusively recount,
and a resort to something like
physical analogies. On the whole,

we cannot reasonably claim for it
more than half a century above
the age of Onomakritus. The
Theogony of Pherekydes of Syroa
seems to have borne some analogy
to the Orphic. See Diogen. Laert.
i. 119, Sturz. Eragm. Pherekyd.
§ 5 — 6, Brandis, Handbuch, ut sup.
c. xxii. PherekydSs partially de
viated from the mythical track or
personal successions set forth by
Hesiod. exet o'C Ye fjt,ep,LYfjt.evoi
aotuJv xal rip ft 7] fjt,u9 t xd> t; ocTcavta
Xeyeiv, olov Oepsx6S^(; xal E-rspol
¦civec, &c, (Aristot. Metaphys. N.
p. 30!, ed. Brandis.) Porphyrius,
de Antro Nymphar. c. 31, xal too
Suplou Ocpex68ou {jluyou? xal p6Gpou<;
xal avtpa xal 96pa<; xal 7t6Xai; Xeyov-
to<;, xal Sia tqutcov alvLTTOuivou -rd$.
xtbv '.puytov ysveaeii; xal aTtoYeveasis,
&c. EudSmus the Peripatetic,
pupil of Aristotle, had drawn up
an account of the Orphic Theogony
as well as of the doctrines of
Pherekyd&s, Akusilaus and others,
which was still in the hands of
the Platonists of the fourth cen
tury, though it is now lost. The
extracts which we find seem all to
countenance the belief that the
Hesiodic Theogony formed the
basis upon which they worked.
See about Akusilaus, Plato, Sym-
02

20 IIISTOBT OP GREECE. Pakt I.
Such is the tissue of violent fancies comprehended under
the title of the Orphic Theogony, and read as such, it
appears, by Plato, Isokrates, and Aristotle. It will be
seen that it is based upon the Hesiodic Theogony, but,
according to the general expansive tendency of Grecian
legend, much new matter is added: Zeus has in Homer one
predecessor, in Hesiod two, and in Orpheus four.
The Hesiodic Theogony, though later in date than the
Iliad and Odyssey, was coeval with the earliest period of
what may be called Grecian history, and certainly of an
age earlier than 7 0 0 B.C. It appears to have been
parison of widely circulated in Greece, and being at once
Hesiod and ancient and short, the general public consulted
ip eus. y. ag ^eir principal source of information re
specting divine antiquity. The Orphic Theogony belongs
to a later date, and contains the Hesiodic ideas and persons,
enlarged and mystically disguised. Its vein of invention
was less popular, adapted more to the contemplation of a
sect specially prepared than to the taste of a casual audience.
Andit appears accordingly to have obtained currency chiefly
among purely speculative men.1 Among the majority of
these latter, however, it acquired greater veneration, and
above all was supposed to be of greater antiquity than the
Hesiodic. The belief in its superior antiquity (disallowed
by Herodotus, and seemingly also by Aristotle2), as well
pos. p. 178; Clem. Alex. Strom, most censurahle of all tlie poets.
P- 629. See Busiris, p. 229 ; ii. p. 300, Bekk.
1 The Orphic Theogony is never The Theogony of Orpheus, as con-
cited in the ample Scholia on ceived hy Apollonius Ehodius
Homer, though Hesiod is often (i. 504) in the third century, B.C.,
alluded to. (See Lobeck, Aglaoph. and by Nigidius in the first een-
p. 540.) Nor can it have been pre- tury B.C. (Servius ad Virgil. Eclog.
sent to the minds of Xenophanes iv. 10), seems to have been on a
and Herakleitus, as representing more contracted scale than that
any widely diffused Grecian belief: which is given in the text. But
the former, who so severely con- neither of them notice the tale of
demned Homer and Hesiod, would Zagreus, which we know to be as
have found Orpheus much more de- old as Onomalcritus.
serving of his censure : and the 2 This opinion of Herodotus is
latter could hardly have omitted implied in the remarkable passage
Orpheus from his memorable de- about Homer and Hesiod, ii. 53,
nunciation: — iloXufjioOiT) voov 06 81- though he never ouce names Or-
Bauxei- 'Hjiooov yap av eBioafE xal pheus — only alluding or.ce to "Or-
ni>9xYopT]v, hu-ck 6s Bsioaxivsi xs phic ceremonies," ii. SI. He speaks
xil ' Exc:tc(Tov. Diog. Laer. ix. 1. more than once of the prophecies
Ieokrate3 treats Orpheus as the of Musaius. Aristotle denied the

Chap. I. HESIOD AND ORPHEUS. . 21
as the respeot for its contents, increased during the Alex
andrine age and through the declining centuries of Paganism,
reaching its maximum among the New-Platonists of the
third and fourth century after Christ. Both the Christian
assailants, as well as the defenders of paganism, treated it
as the most ancient and venerable summary of the Grecian
faith. Orpheus is celebrated by Pindar as the harper and
companion of the Argonautic maritime heroes: Orpheus
and Musseus, as well as Pamphos and Olen, the great sup
posed authors of theogonic, mystical, oracular, and prophetic
verses and hymns, were generally considered by hterary
Greeks as older than either Hesiod or Homer.1 And such
was also the common opinion of modern scholars until a
period comparatively recent. But it has now been shown,
on sufficient ground, that the compositions which passed
under these names emanate for the most part from poets
of the Alexandrine age, and subsequent to the Christian
eera; and that even the earliest among them, which served
as the stock on which the latter additions were engrafted,
belong to a period far more recent than Hesiod: probably
to the century preceding Onomakritus (b. c. 610-510). It
seems, however, certain that both Orpheus and Musseus
were names of established reputation at the time when
Onomakritus flourished; and it is distinctly stated by Pau
sanias that the latter was himself the author of the most
remarkable and characteristic mythe of the Orphic Theo
gony — the discerption of Zagreus by the Titans, and his
resurrection as Dionysos.2
past existence and reality of Or- droti6n seems to have denied that
pheus. See Cicero de Nat. Deor. he was a Thracian, regarding the
jt 3g# Thracians as incurably stupid and
1 Pindar, Pyth. iv. 177. Plato illiterate. AndrotiOn, .Fragm. 36,
seems to consider Orpheus as more ed. Didot. Ephorus treated him
ancient than Homer. Compare as having been a pupil of the
Thesetet. p. 179; Cratylus, p. 402; Idasan Dactyls of Phrygia (see
De Bepubl. ii. p. 364. The order DiodOr. v. 64), and as having learnt
in which Aristophanes (and Hip- from them his tsXst&c and (luax^pict,
pias of Elis, ap. Clem. Alex. Str. which he was the first to introduce
vi. p. 624) mentions them indicates into Greece. The earliest men-
the same view, Ban*, 1030. It is tion which we find of Orpheus, is
unnecessary to cite the later chrono- that of the poet Ibycus (about e.o.
logers, among whom the belief in 530), ovojiaxXoxov ' Offffi. Ibyci
the antiquity of Orpheus was uni- Fragm. 9, p. 341, ed. Schneidewin
versal; he was commonly described » Pausan. viii. 37, 3. Ttxavic 5s
as son of the Muse Calliope. An- Tipurrov ii 7ioi7)jiv i<J7)T«r£v 0|*ipo?.

22

HISTORY OF GREECE.

PA.KT I.

The names of Orpheus and Musaeus (as well as that
influence of of Pythagoras, 4 looking at one side of his charac-
foreign re- ter) represent facts of importance in the history
upon18 of the Grecian mind — the gradual influx of Thra-
Greece. cjari) Phrygian andEgyptianreligious ceremonies
andfeelings,andtheincreasing diffusion of specialmysteries,2
schemes for religious purification, and orgies ( I venture
to anglicise the Greek word, which contams in its original
meaning no implication of the ideas of excess to which it
was afterwards diverted), in honour of some particular god
— distinct both from the public solemnities and from the
gentile solemnities of primitive Greece, — celebrated apart
from the citizens generally, and approachable only through
a certain course of preparation and initiation — sometimes
even forbidden to be talked of in the presence of the un
initiated, under the severest threats of divine judgement.
Occasionally such voluntary combinations assumed the f,orm
of permanent brotherhoods, bound together by periodical
solemnities as well as by vows of an ascetic character. Thus
the Orphic life (as it was called), or regulation of the Or
phic brotherhood, among other injunctions, partly arbitrary

6eoo; Eivai crcpac Olio x<p xaXoUfisvcp
Tapxdpuv xal eaxiv Ev'Hpas opxcp xa
im)- Trapa 6s ' Ou.^pou ' O/ou&xpixos,
xapaXapd>v X(Lv Tixavujv xo ovofxa,
AtovOfftp xe uuvs6r)xs^ opyta, xal elvai
tou« Ttxavac X(j> Aiov6a(p xtbv rca07]-
p.dxa>v etioi7]{T£v auxoupyoui;. Both
the date, the character, and the
function of Onomakritus are dis
tinctly marked by Herodotus, vii. 6.
1 Herodotus believed in the deri
vation both of the Orphic and
Pythagorean regulations from
Egypt — OfjLoXoyEOUai oe xauxa xoTai
'OptpixoToi xaXsouivoiai xai Baxyi-
xolai, ioum 8s Alyonxloiai (ii. 8i).
He knows the names of those
Greeks who have borrowed from
Egypt the doctrine of the metem
psychosis, but he will not mention
them (ii. 123): he can hardly allude
to any one but the Pythagoreans,
many of whom he probably knew
in Italy. See the curious extract
from XenophanSs respecting the

doctrine of Pythagoras, Diogen.
Laert. viii. 37: and the quotation
from the Silli of Timon, IIu8aY6pav
6e Yo^xot; axoxXlvavx' e-1 B6£av, &c.
Compare Porphyr. in Vit. Pyth.c. 41.
1 Aristophan. Ran. 1030. —
'Optpsu? o-sv yap xeXsxcts 8' quiv
xaxEOEiEs, oo-joiv x' ane/saBai-
Mouaalos x , E$axEGSi(; xe vocjcov xal
7p7jauoUf;. ' H3I080S 8e,
T^<; Epyaaiai;, xap-div ujpas, dpoxoa;'
6 8s QsTos "Ofj-^poi;
'Atio xou xl(jir]v xal xXeoc eay.sv,
hXtjv xo58', 8xi ypijis-c' iSlBaaxsv,
Apsxac, xdSsii;, OTrXiasis dvSpdbv, Ac.
The same general contrast is to be
found in Plato, Protagoras, p. 316;
the opinion of Pausanias, ix. 30,
4. The poems of Musseus seem to
have borne considerable analogy
to the Melampodia ascribed to
Hesiod (see Clemen. Alex. Str. vi.
p. 623) ; and healing charms are
ascribed to Orpheus as well as to
Musams. See Eurip. Alcestis, 9S6.

Chap. I. POST-HOMERIC CHANGES IN RELIGION. 23
and partly abstinent, forbade animal food universally, and,
on certain occasions, the use of woollen clothing.1 The
great religious and political fraternity of the Pythagoreans,
which acted so powerfully on the condition of the Italian
cities, was one of the many manifestations of this general
tendency, which stands in striking contrast with the simple,
open-hearted, and demonstrative worship of the Homeric
Greeks. Festivals at seed-time and harvest — at the vintage and
at the opening of the new wine — were doubtless coeval
with the earliest habits of the Greeks ; the latter being a
period of unusual joviality. Yet in the Homeric jjspeciaiiy
poems, Dionysos and Demeter, the patrons of inregardto
the vineyard and the cornfield, are seldom men- 0f6 Demeter
tioned, and decidedly occupy little place in the and
imagination of the poet as compared with the lonyBOS-
other gods: nor are they of any conspicuous importance
even in the Hesiodic Theogony. But during the interval
between Hesiod and Onomakritus, the revolution in the
rehgious mind of Greece was such as to place both these
deities in the front rank. According to the Orphic doctrine,
Zagreus, son of Persephone, is destined to be the successor
of Zeus; and although the violence of the Titans intercepts
this lot, yet even when he rises again from his discerption
under the name of Dionysos, he is the colleague and co
equal of his divine father.
This remarkable change, occurring as it did during
the sixth and a part of the seventh century before the
Christian sera, may be traced to the influence of commu
nication with Egypt (which only became fully open to the
Greeks about b.c. 660), as well as with Thrace, Phrygia,
and Lydia. From hence new religious ideas and feelings
were introduced, which chiefly attached themselves to the
characters of Dionysos and Demeter. The Greeks iden
tified these two deities with the great Egyptian Osiris and
Isis, so that what was borrowed from the Egyptian worship
of the two latter naturally fell to their equivalents in the
Grecian system. 2 Moreover the worship of Dionysos (under
what name cannot be certainly made out) was indigenous
' Herod, ii. SI; Euripid. Hippol. the lost KpfjxE< of Euripides. 'Op-
957, and the curious fragment of cpixol plot, Plato, Legg. vii. 782.
1 Herodot. ii. 42, 59, 144.

24 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
in Thrace,' as that of the Great Mother was in Phrygia,
and in Lydia — together with those violent ecstasies and
manifestations of temporary frenzy, and that clashing of
noisy instruments which we find afterwards characterizing
it in Greece. The great masters of the pipe — as well as
the dithyramb, 2 and indeed the whole musical system ap
propriated to the worship of Dionysos, which contrasted
so pointedly with the quiet solemnity of the Psean address
ed to Apollo — were all originally Phrygian.
From all these various countries, novelties, unknown
to the Homeric men, found their way into the Grecian
worship: and there is one amongst them which deserves
to be specially noticed, because it marks the generation of
the new class of ideas in their theology. Homer mentions
many persons guilty of private or involuntary homicide,
and compelled either to go into exile or to make pecuniary
Purifi- satisfaction; but he never once describes any of
cation for them to have either received or required purifi-
unknown cation for the crime. 3 Now in the times subse-
to Homer, quent to Homer, purification for homicide comes
to be considered as indispensable: the guilty person is re-
' Herodot. v. 7, vii. ill; Euripid. lochor. Fr. 21, ed. Didot, p. 3S9.
Hecub. 1249, and Rhesus, 969, and The complete and intimate manner
theProloguetotheBacchasjStrabo, in which Euripides identifies the
x. p. 470; Schol. ad Aristophan. Bacchic rites of Dionysos with the
Aves , 874 ; Eustath. ad Dionys. Phrygian ceremonies in honour of
Perieg. 1069; Harpokrat. y. 2af)oi; the Great Mother is very remark-
Photius, EiiolSafloT. The"Lydiaca" able. The fine description given
ofTh.Menke(Berlin,lS43)tracesthe by Lucretius (ii. 600—640) of the
early connexion between the reli- Phrygian worship is much enfee-
gion of Dionysos and that of Cy- bled by^his unsatisfactory allego-
bele, c. 6, 7. Hoeckh's Kreta (vol. rizing.
i. p. 128— 134) is instructive respec- " Schol. ad Iliad, xi. 690— oi Slot
ting the Phrygian religion. xi xaSapuia 'Iipixoo jiopSstxai r,
•Aristotle, Polit. viii. 7, 9. Ilaaa ITuXoc, ejeeI xoi 'OSoassis jiEiiUuv
Yap Baxysia xal Ttaoa f] xoiailxr] Neaxopoc, xal rcap' 'Ou.^pw oux oi8«-
xlvi)<ii« [tdXiaxa xcbv opfaviov eoxlv p.sv cpovsa xaflaipdpLENOv , aXX' avxi-
ev xoi? a&Xoif xuw 6' dpu.ovluiv sv xtvovxa 7j <puYa8su6u.Evov. The exam-
ioi( Opu-yiiixl ptiXEui XaupivEi xauxa pies are numerous, and are found
to Tipinov, olov <6 8i8upap.po« BoxeT both in the Iliad and the Odyssey.
0|ioXo7ou|iEju>« etvai 4>pOTlov. Eurip. Iliad, ii. 665 (Tlepolemos) ; xiii.
Eacoh. 53.— _ 697 (Me<Z6n) ; xiii. 574 (Epeigeus) ;
AtpsoBE xantyupi' ev tioXei OpuyuSv xxiii. 99 (Patroklos) ; Odyss. xv.
TVnava, « Peac xs pt7]xpo? iua 8' 224 (TheoMymenos) ; xiv. 3S0 (an
Eiipiiiiaxa, 6c. ^E(oIion). Nor does the interesting
Plutarch, El in Delph. c. 9; Phi- mythe respecting the functions of

Chap. I. POST-HOMERIC CHANGES IN RELIGION. 25
garded as unfit for the society of man or the worship of
the gods until he has received it, and special ceremonies
are prescribed whereby it is to be administered. Herodotus
tells us that the ceremony of purification was the same
among the Lydians and among the Greeks:1 we know that
it formed no part of the early religion of the latter, and we
may perhaps reasonably suspect that they borrowed it from
the former. The oldest instance known to us of expiation
for homicide was contained in the epic poem of the Milesian
Arktinus,2 wherein Achilles is purified by Odysseus for the
murder of Thersites : several others occurred in the later
or Hesiodic epic — Herakles, Peleus, Bellerophon, Alkmaedn,
Amphiktyon, Poemander, Triopas, — from whence they pro
bably passed through the hands of the logographers to
Apollodorus, Diodorus, and others.3 The purification of
the murderer was originally operated, not by the hands of
any priest or specially sanctified man, but by those of a
chief or king, who goes through the appropriate ceremonies
in the manner recounted by Herodotus in his pathetic nar
rative respecting Croesus and Adrastus.
The idea of a special taint of crime, and of the neces
sity as well as the sufficiency of prescribed reli-
gious ceremonies as a means of removing it, ap- peculiar re-
pears thus to have got footing in Grecian prac- ijgious
tice subsequent to the time of Homer. The
peculiar rites or orgies, composed or put together by Ono
makritus, Methapus,* and other men of more than the ordi-
Ate and the Litae harmonise with what individuals stood in the
the subsequent doctrine about the relation of father, son, or brother:
necessity of purification. (Iliad, if, therefore, wrong or murder of
ix. 498.)' kindred should take place, "the
1 Herodot. i. 35 — loxi 8e icapa- appropriate religious atonements
nXT]al7) rj xd9apat<; xoiot AuSolffi xal (ai vofi.tC6w.Evai XuaEis) could not
toiffi "EXXtjoi. One remarkable be applied and the crime would
proof, amongst many, of the deep go unexpiated. (Aristot. Polit. ii.
hold which this idea took of the 1, 14. Compare Thucyd. i. 125—128.)
greatest minds in Greece, that 2 See the Fragm. of the .ffithiopis
serious mischief would fall upon of Arktinus, in Duntzer's Collec-
the community if family quarrels tion, p. 16.
or homicide remained without ' * The references for this are
religious expiation, is to be found collected inLobeck'sAglaophamos.
in the objections which Aristotle Epimetr. ii. ad Orphica, p. 968.
urges against the community of 4 Pausanias (iv. 1, 6) — u.EXEXoa-
women proposed in the Platonic jir]ae ydp xal MsSano? Tljc xsXex7(c:
Eepublic. It could not be known (the Eleusinian Orgies, carried by

20 HISTORY OF GREECE. -Pakt I.
nary piety, were founded upon a similar mode of thinking
and adapted to the same mental exigencies. They were
voluntarily religious manifestations, superinduced upon the
old public sacrifices of the king or chiefs on behalf of the
whole society, and of the father on his own family hearth.
They marked out the details of divine service proper to
appease or gratify the god to whom they were addressed,
and to procure for the believers who went through them
his blessings and protection here or hereafter — the exact
performance of the divine service in all its specialty was
held necessary, and thus the priests or Hierophants, who
alone were familiar with the ritual, acquired a commanding
position.1 Generally speaking, these peculiar orgies ob
tained their admission and their influence at periods of
distress, disease, public calamity and danger, or religious
terror and despondency, which appear to have been but
too frequent in their occurrence.
The minds of men were prone to the belief that what
they were suffering arose from the displeasure of
byr v^iun* some of the gods, and as they found that the or-
tary teach- dinary sacrifices and worship were insufficient
promising for their protection, so they grasped at new sug-
speciai gestions proposed to them with the view of re-
biessmgs. gajnjng fae divine favour.2 Such suggestions
were more usually copied, either in whole or in part, from
the religious rites of some foreign locality, or from some
other portion of the Hellenic world; and in this manner
many new sects or voluntary religious fraternities, promi
sing to relieve the troubled conscience and to reconcile the
sick or suffering with the offended gods, acquired perma-
Saukon from Eleusis into Mes- xd ipd xu>v -^Sovltov 9eu)v (Herodot.
senia), eVxiv a. '0 8= MsSaTioc vii. 153) ; he and his family became
Yevos [jlev ri'i ' A9r]vaios , xeXextjc x s hereditary Hierophants of these
xal 6pYllov icavxolaiv ouv- ceremonies. How Telines acquired
8sxt]c;. Again, viii. 37, 3, Onoma- the Ipd, Herodotxis cannot say —
kritus Aiovuaa) aov e8 7]x e v Bpyia, 30ev 5s aoxd D-afte, t) aoxo<; sxx^aaxo,
&.c. This is another expression xouxo o&x Sy/jo elizai. Probably
designating the same idea as the there was a traditional legend,
Rhesus of Euripides, 944. — not inferior in sanctity to that of
Muox7]plu>7 xs xd)v dTtoppi^xtov Eleusis, tracing them to the gift
tpdvac of Demeter herself.
'£8si£ev ' Optpsos. * See Josephus cont. Api&n. ii.
» Telines, the ancestor of the u. 35 ; Hesych. 6sot £svioi ; Strabo,
Syracusan despot Geld, acquired x. p. 471 ; Plutarch, IIspl AsiaiSat-
great political power as possessing (jlov. c iii. p. 166 ; c. vii. p. 167.

Chap. I. TEACHERS OF RELIGIOUS NOVELTIES. 27
nent establishment as well as considerable influence. They
were generally under the superintendence of hereditary
families of priests, who imparted the rites of confirmation
and purification to communicants generally; no one who
went through the prescribed ceremonies being excluded.
In many cases such ceremonies fell into the hands of jug
glers, who volunteered their services to wealthy men, and
degraded their profession as well by obtrusive venality as
by extravagant promises. * Sometimes the price was low
ered to bring them within reach of the poor and even of
slaves. But the wide diffusion, and the number of volun
tary communicants of these solemnities, proves how much
they fell in with the feehng of the time and how much re
spect they enjoyed — a respect which the more conspicuous
establishments, such as Eleusis and Samothrace, maintained
for several centuries. And the visit of the Kre- Epimeni.
tan Epimenides to Athens — in the time of Solon, des, Sibyi-
at a season of the most serious disquietude and la> Bakis-
dread of having offended the gods — illustrates the tranquil
lizing effect of new orgies 2 and rites of absolution, when
enjoined by a man standing high in the favour of the gods
and reputed to be the son of a nymph. The supposed
Erythraean Sibyl, and the earliest collection of Sibylline
prophecies, 3 afterwards so much multiplied aild interpo-
1 Plato, Republ. ii. p. 364 ; De- perhaps, recited) with solemnity
xnosthen. de Corona, c. 79, p. 313. and emphasis, in public, ware
The SEiai8alu.u)v of Theophrastus tcoiouvxei; yp7]<ru.ous auxol AiSdac1
cannot be comfortable without aSsiv Aiotce19ei xc£> 7tapau.aivo[j:Ev(p.
receiving the Orphic communion (Ameipsias ap. Schol. Aristophan.
monthly from the Orpheotelestse ut sup., which illustrates Thucyd.
(Thophr. Char. xvi.). Compare ii. 21.)
Plutarch, IIspl xoo u-f] /pdv sp-usxpa, 2 Plutarch, Solon, c. 12 ; Diogen.
<£c, c. 25, p. 400. The comic wri- Laert. i. 110.
ter Phrynichus indicates the exist- 3 See Klausen, "iEneas und die
ence of these rites of religious Penaten:" his chapter on the
excitement, at Athens, during the connexion between the Grecian
Peloponnesian war. See the short and Roman Sibylline collections
fragment of his Kpovos, ap. Schol. is among the most ingenious of
Aristoph. Aves, 9b9 — his learned book. Book ii. pp.
'AvTjp yopsusi, xal xd xoo Qeou 210—240: see Steph. Byz. v. FepyK.
xaX&c* To the same age belong the
BouXei Aio-EiOrj pLExaSpapuo xal vprjauol and xa8apy.ol of Abaris and
T&u-TCava; his marvellous journey through
Diopeithes was a yp?jau.6Xoyos, or the air upon an arrow (Herodot.
collector and deliverer of pro- iv. 36).
phecies, which he sung (or rather, Epimenides also composed xaflap-

28 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pabt I.
lated, and referred (according to Grecian custom) to an age
even earlier than Homer, appear to belong to a date not
long posterior to Epimenides. Other oracular verses, such
as those of Bakis, were treasured up in Athens and other
cities : the sixth century before the Christian sera was fertile
in these kinds of religious manifestations.
Amongst the special rites and orgies of the character
Principal Jus* described, those which enjoyed the greatest
mysteries Pan-Hellenic reputation were attached to the
of Greece, j^^jx Zeus in Krete, to Demeter at Eleusis, to
the Kabeiri in Samothrace, and to Dionysos at Delphi and
Thebes. i That they were all to a great degree analogous
is shown by the way in which they unconsciously run to
gether and become confused in the minds of various authors.
The ancient inquirers themselves were unable to distinguish
one from the other, and we must be content to submit to
the like ignorance. But we see enough to satisfy us of
the general fact, that during the century and a half which
elapsed between the opening of Egypt to the Greeks and
the commencement of their struggle with the Persian kings,
the old religion was largely adulterated by importations
from Egypt, Asia Minor, 2 and Thrace. The rites grew to
be more furious and ecstatic, exhibiting the utmost excite-
Ecstatic ment, bodily as well as mental: the legends be-
due3 d'fr™" came at onoe more coarse, more tragical, and less
Asia 700- pathetic. The manifestations of this frenzy were
500 b.o. strongest among the women, whose religious
|ii)l in epic verse; his Koup^xiov from the service of Demeter to
and Kopu(idvxo)v yevsjis, and his that of the Kabeiri, then to that
four thousand verses respecting of Cybele, having the superintend-
Minds and Rhadamanthys, if they ence of many young women. Kalli-
had been preserved, would let us machus, Epigram. 42, p. 30S, ed.
fully into the ideas of a religious ErneBt.
mystic of that age respecting the » Plutarch (Defect. Oracul. u. 10,
antiquities of Greece. (Strabo, x. p. 416) treats these countries as
p.474;Diogen. Laijrt. i. 10.) Among the original seat of the worship
the poems ascribed to Hesiod of Daemons (wholly or partially
were comprised not only the Me- bad, and intermediate between
lampodia, but also Eur] u.avxixd and gods and men), and their religious
eEi]TpiaEi« Eitl xspxatv. Pausan.ix.31,4. ceremonies as of a corresponding
1 Among other illustrations of character : the Greeks were borrow-
this general resemblance, may be ers from them, according to him,
counted an epitaph of Kallimachus both of the doctrine and of the
upon an aged priestess, who passed ceremonies.

Chap. T. INFLUENCE OF EXTBA-HELLENIC BELIGlON.

2!)

susceptibilities were often found extremely unmanageable, t
and who had everywhere congregative occasional ceremo
nies of their own, apart from the men — indeed, in the case
of the colonists, especially of the Asiatic colonists, the wo
men had been originally women of the country, and as such
retained to a great degree their non-Hellenic manners and
feelings.2 The god Dionysos,3 whom the legends described
as clothed in feminine attire, and leading a troop „ . .
„„ . , •¦-ii j r Connected
ot frenzied women, inspired a temporary ecstasy. wnh the
Those who resisted the inspiration, being dis- ^orship of
posed to disobey his will, were punished either by lonyBOS-
particular judgements or by mental terrors; while those who
gave full loose to the feeling, in the appropriate season and
with the received solemnities, satisfied his exigencies, and
believed themselves to have procured immunity from such
disquietudes for the future.4 Crowds of women, clothed

1 Strabo, vii. p. 297." AizavTzs yap tt\$
6si?ioaiu,Gviaq dpy7)Y0'j? qTovtoci t<x$
yuvalxcci;* au-al Si xal toiu avSpac
TipoxaXoOvxai e« toss; erci t:Xeov 0Epa-
itsta? t*i>v Gs<I)v, xal sopxat;, xal
rcoT'jiaap:o6<;. Plato (De Legg. x.
pp. 909, 910) takes great pains to
restrain this tendency on the part
of sick or suffering persons, es
pecially women, to introduce new
sacred rites into his city.
2 Herodot. i. 146. The wives of
the Ionic original settlers at Mi-
letos were Karian women, whose
husbands they slew.
The violences of the Karian wor
ship are attested by what Herodotus
says of the Karian residents in
Egypt, at the festival of Isis at
Busiris. The Egyptians at this
festival manifested their feeling
by beating themselves, the Karians
by cutting their faces with knives
(ii. 61). The KapixT] fiouaa became
proverbial for funeral wailings
(Plato, Legg. vii. p. 800) : the
unmeasured effusions and demon
strations of sorrow for the departed,
sometimes accompanied with cut
ting and mutilation self-inflicted
by the mourner, was a distinguish

ing feature in Asiatics and Egyp
tians as compared with Greeks.
Plutarch, Consolat. ad Apollon. c.
22, p. 123. Mournful feeling was,
in fact, a sort of desecration of
the genuine and primitive Grecian
festival, which was a season of
cheerful harmony and social en
joyment, wherein the god was
believed to sympathise (suupoauvT)).
See XenophanSs ap. Aristot. Rhe
tor, ii. 25 ; Xenophan. Fragm. 1.
ed. Schneidewin; Theognis, 776;
Plutarch, De Superstit. p. 169.
The unfavourable comments of
Dionysius of Halikatnassus, in so
far as they refer to the festivals
of Greece, apply to the foreign
corruptions , not to the native
character, of Grecian worship.
* The Lydian Herakles was
conceived and worshipped as a
man in female attire : this idea
occurs often intheAsiaticreligions.
Mencke, .Lydiaca, c. 8, p. 22. Ai6-
vuijos appTjv xat 07JXo<;. Aristid. Or.
iv. 28; iEschyl. Fragm. Edoni, ap.
Aristopb. Thesmoph. 135. IIoBTiroi;
6 yuvvk; tU 7ttxTpot; -ris 7] czo\rt\
4 Btelampos cures the women
(whom Dionysos has struck mad

30

HISTOKY COT GKEECE.

Paet I.

with fawn-skins and bearing the sanctified thyrsus, flocked
to the solitudes of Parnassus, or Kithseron, or Taygetus,
during the consecrated triennial period, passed the night
there with torches, and abandoned themselves to demon
strations of frantic excitement, with dancing and clamorous
invocation of the god. They were said to tear animals
limb from limb, to devour the raw flesh, and to cut them
selves without feeling the wound, i The men yielded to a
similar impulse by noisy revels in the streets, sounding the
cymbals and tambourine, and carrying the image of the god
in procession.2 It deserves to be remarked that the Athe
nian women never practised these periodical mountain
excursions, so common among the rest of the Greeks: they
had their feminine solemnities of the Thesmophoria,3 mourn
ful in their character and accompanied with fasting, and
their separate congregations at the temples of Aphrodite,
but without any extreme or unseemly demonstrations. The
state festival of the Dionysia, in the city of Athens, was
celebrated with dramatic entertainments, and the once rich
harvest of Athenian tragedy and comedy was thrown up

for their resistance to bis rites),
JuapaXaPcbv xoo? Suvaxcoxaxou? xujv
vsavitov u.ex aXaXayu-ou xal xlvos
evOsou ytjpeWi;. Apollodor. ii. 2, 7.
Compare Eurip. Bacch. 861.
Plato (Legg. vii. p. 790) gives a
similar theory of the healing effect
of the Korybantic ' rites , which
cured vague and inexplicable ter
rors of the mind by means of
dancing and music conjoined with
religious ceremonies — al xa. xtbv
Kopu^avxtov lau-axa xsXouaal (the
practitioners were women), al xtuv
ex9p6vtov BaxyslaJv laasi? — 7] xujv
!£u>9sv xpaxsT xlv7)tric TcpoacpEpou.svr)
X7)v evxos tpo^Epav ouaav xal u.avix7]v
xlvTjaiv — opyoup-Evou? 8= xal aoXou-
uivous u-sxa Oeujv, oi? av xaXXiEp^aay-
xec; Ixaoxoi Quuioiv, xaxEipyaaaxo
dvxl u.avixu>v 7ju.lv Siafieasiov 6^£is
Ifxcppova? EyEtv.
' Described in the Bacch;* of
Euripides (HO, 735, 1135, 4c.).
Ovid, Trist. iv. i. 41. "Utque suum
Bacchis non sentit saucia vulnus,

Cum furit Edonis exulnlata jugis."
In a fragment of the poet Alkman,
a, Lydian by birth, the Bacchanal
nymphs are represented as milking
the lioness, and making cheese of
the milk, during their mountain
excursions and festivals. (Alkman.
-Fragm. 14, Schn. Compare Axistid.
Orat. iv. p. 29.) Clemens Alexand.
Admonit. ad Gent. p. 9, Sylb.;
Lucian, Dionysos, c. 3, T. iii. p.
77, Hemsterh.
2 See the tale of SkylSs in Herod.
iv. 79, and Athenaeus, x. p. 445.
Herodotus mentions that the Scy
thians abhorred the Bacchic cere
monies , accounting the frenzy
which belonged to them to bo
disgraceful and monstrous.
• Plutarch, De Isid. et Osir. o.
69, p. 378; Schol. ad Aristoph.
Thesmoph. There were, however,
Bacchic ceremonies practised to a
certain extent by the Athenian
women. (Aristoph. Lysist. 388.)

Chap. I. SECRET LEGENDS. 31
under its auspices. The ceremonies of the Kuretes in
Krete, originally armed dances in honour of the Idsean
Zeus, seem also to have borrowed from Asia so much of
fury, of self-infliction, and of mysticism, that they became
at last inextricably confounded with the Phrygian Kory-
bantes, oi worshippers of the Great Mother; though it
appears" that Grecian reserve always stopped short of the
irreparable self-mutilation of Atys.
The influence of the Thracian religion upon that of
the Greeks cannot be traced in detail, but the Thracian
ceremonies contained in it were of a violent and and Egyp-
fierce character, like the Phrygian, and acted fluence"
upon Hellas in the same general direction as upon
the latter. . And the like may be said of the Greeoe-
Egyptian religion, which was in this case the more operative,
inasmuch as all the intellectual Greeks were naturally at
tracted to go and visit the wonders on the banks of the
Nile: the powerful effect produced upon them is attested
by many evidences, but especially by the interesting nar
rative of Herodotus. Now the Egyptian ceremonies were
at once more licentious, and more profuse in the outpouring
both of joy and sorrow than the Greek:* but a still greater
difference sprang from the extraordinary power, separate
mode of life, minute observances, and elaborate organisation
of the priesthood. The ceremonies of Egypt were multi
tudinous, but the legends concerning them were framed by
the priest, and, as a general rule, seemingly, known to the
priests alone: at least they were not intended to be publicly
talked of, even by pious men. They were "holy stories",
which it was sacrilege publicly to mention, and which from
this very prohibition only took firmer hold of the minds
of the Greek visitors who heard them. And thus the element
of secrecy and mystic silence — foreign to Homer and only
faintly glanced at in Hesiod — if it was not originally derived
from Egypt, at least received from thence its
greatest stimulus and diffusion. The character ment to
of the legends themselves was naturally affected mystio
by this change from publicity to secrecy: the
secrets when revealed would be such as to justify by their
own tenor the interdict on public divulgation: instead of
1 ".ajgyptiaca numina fere plan- cymbalistarum et tympanistarum
goribus gaudent, Grseca plerumque et choraularum." (Apuleius, De
choreis, barbara autem strepitu GenioSocratis, v. ii. p. 149, Oudend.)

32 niSTOBY OF GREECE. Part I.
being adapted, like the Homeric mythe, to the universal
sympathies and hearty interest of a crowd of hearers, they
would derive their impressiveness from the tragical, mourn
ful, extravagant, or terror-striking character of the incidents. '
Such a tendency, which appears explicable and probable
even on general grounds, was in this particular case rendered
still more certain by the coarse taste of the Egyptian priests.
That any recondite doctrine, religious or philosophical, was
attached to the mysteries or contained in the holy stories,
has never been shown, and is improbable, though the affir
mative has been asserted by learned men.
Herodotus seems to have believed that the worship
Melampus an(l ceremonies of Dionysos generally were de-
the earliest rived by the Greeks from Egypt, brought over by
teaoherSof Kadmus, and taught by him to Melampus. And
the Diony- the latter appears in the Hesiodic Catalogue as
siac rites, j^yj^g cured the daughters of Prcetus of the
mental distemper, with which they had been smitten by
Dionysos for rejecting his ritual. He cured them by intro
ducing the Bacchic dance and fanatical excitement: this
mythical incident is the most ancient mention of the Dio
nysiac solemnities presented in the same character as they
bear in Euripides. It is the general tendency of Herodotus
to apply the theory of derivation from Egypt far too exten
sively to Grecian institutions : the orgies of Dionysos were
not originally borrowed from thence, though they may have
been much modified by connexion with Egypt as well as
with Asia. The remarkable mythe composedbyOnomakritus
respecting the dismemberment of Zagreus was founded upon
an Egyptian tale very similar respecting the body of Osiris,
who was supposed to be identical with Dionysos.2 Nor
1 The legend of Dionysos and Aio xal xi jioax^pia XEVsxai ev
Prosymnos, as it stands in Clemens, aXX.i)Yoplai; it p 6 ? sxitXTjEiv xal
could never have found place in <ppix7)v, a>C7tEp sv oxoxtp xal vuxxl.
an epic poem (Admonit. ad Gent. (De Interpretation^, u.101.)
p. 32 Sylb.). Compare page 11 of * See the curious treatise of
the same work, where, however, Plutarch, De Isid.etOsirid.c. 11— 14,
he so confounds together Phrygian, p. 355, and his elaborate attempt
Bacchic, and Eleusinian mysteries, to allegorise the legend. He seems
that one cannot distinguish them to have conceived that the Thra-
apart. cian Orpheus had first introduced
The author called Demetrius into Greece the mysteries both of
Phalereus says about the legends DemStSr and Dionysos, copying
belonging to these ceremonies— them from those of Isis and Osiris

Chap. I. HOMERIC HYMNS. 33
was it unsuitable to the reckless fury of the Bacchanals
during their state of temporary excitement, which found a
still more awful expression in the mythe of Pentheus, —
torn in pieces by his own mother Agave at the head of her
companions in the ceremony, as anintruder upon the feminine
rites, as well as a scoffer at the God. l A passage in the
Iliad (the authenticity of which has been contested, but
even as an interpolation it must be old) 2 also recounts how
Lykurgus was struck blind by Zeus, for having chased away
with a whip, "the nurses of the mad Dionysos," and for
having frightened the god himself into the sea to take refugd
in the arms of Thetis : while the fact that Dionysos is so
frequently represented in his mythes as encountering op
position and punishing the refractory, seems to indicate
that his worship under its ecstatic form was a late phsenom*
enon and introduced not without difficulty. The mythical
Thracian Orpheus was attached as Eponymos to orphicsect,
a new sect, who seem to have celebrated the a variety of
ceremonies of Dionysos with peculiar care, mi- nysja010"
nuteness, and fervour, besides observing various mystics.
rules in respect to food and clothing. It was the opinion
of Herodotus, that these rules, as well as the Pythagorean,
were borrowed from Egypt. But whether this be the fact
or not, the Orphic brotherhood is itself both an evidence,
and a cause, of the increased importance of the worship
of Dionysos, which indeed is attested by the great dramatic
poets of Athens.
The Homeric Hymns present to us, however, the re
ligious ideas and legends of the Greeks at an ear- Contraat of
lier period, when the enthusiastic and mystic the myB-
tendencies had not yet acquired their full devel- "it^'the
opment. Though not referable to the same age Homeric
or to the same author as either the Iliad or the Hymns-
Odyssey, they do to a certain extent continue the same
stream of feeling, and the same mythical tone and colouring,
as these poems — manifesting but little evidence of Egyp-
in Egypt. See Fragm. 84, from Fragm. 115). A short allusion to
one of his lost works, torn. v. p. the story of Pentheus appears in
891, ed. Wyttenb. Eumenid. 25. Compare Sophokl.
1 iEschylus had dramatised the Antigon. 985, and the Scholia.
story of Pentheus as well as that * Iliad, vi. 130. See the remarks
of Lykurgus: one of his tetralogies of Mr. Payne Knight ad loc.
was the Lykurgeia (Dindorf, .33sch.
VOL. I. D

34 ¦ HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
tian, Asiatic, or Thracian adulterations. The difference
is striking between the god Dionysos as he appears in the
Homeric hymn and in the Bacchse of Euripides. The hym-
nographer describes him as standing on the sea-shore, in
the guise of a beautiful and richly-clothed youth, when
Tyrrhenian pirates suddenly approach : they seize and bind
him and drag him on board their vessel. But the bonds
which they employ burst spontaneously, and leave the god
free. The steersman, perceiving this with affright, points
Hymn to out to his companions that they have unwittingly
Dionysos. iajd hands on a god, — perhaps Zeus himself, or
Apollo, or Poseidon. He conjures them to desist, and to
replace Dionysos respectfully on the shore, lest in his wrath
he should visit the ship with wind and hurricane : but the
crew deride his scruples, and Dionysos is carried prisoner
out to sea with the ship under full sail. Miraculous cir
cumstances soon attest both his presence and his power.
Sweet-scented wine is seen to flow spontaneously about the
ship, the sail and mast appear adorned with vine and ivy-
leaves, and the oar-pegs with garlands. The terrified crew
now too late entreat the helmsman to steer his course for
the shore, and crowd round him for protection on the poop.
But their destruction is at hand: Dionysos assumes the
form of a lion — a bear is seen standing near him — this bear
rushes with a loud roar upon the captain, while the crew
leap overboard in their agony of fright, and are changed
into dolphins. There remains none but the discreet and
pious steersman, to whom Dionysos addresses words of
affectionate encouragement, revealing his name, parentage,
and dignity, i
1 See Homer, Hymn 6, Aidvuao? over Egypt and Syria ; at length
5j Arjaxai. — The satirical drama of he came to Cybela in Phrygia, was
Euripides, the Cyoldps, extends purified (xaOctpOslO by Rhea, and
and alters this old legend. Dio- received from her female attire
nysosis carried away by the Tyrrhe- (Apolloddr. iii. 5, 1, with Heyne's
hian pirates, and Silenus at the note). This seems to have been
head of the Bacchanals goes every- the legend adopted to explain the
where in search of him (Eur. Cyc. old verBe of the Iliad, as well as
112). The pirates are instigated the maddening attributes of the
against him by the hatred of Here, god generally.
which appears frequently as a There was a standing antipathy
cause of mischief to Dionysos between the priestesses and the
(Bacchae, 286). Here in her anger religious establishments of Here
had driven him mad when a child, and Dionysos (Plutarch, II=pl xu>»
and he had wandered in this state 4y IlXaxaiais Aai64Xu>v, c. 2, torn

Chap. I. DIFFERENCES IN THE WORSHIP OF DIONYSOS. 35
This hymn, perhaps produced at the Naxian festival
of Dionysos, and earlier than the time when the Alt t.
dithyrambic chorus became the established mode of the
of singing the praise and glory of that god, is £«"."«»
conceived in a spirit totally different from that idea of
of the Bacchic Teletse, or special rites which the Dionysos.
Bacchse of Euripides so abundantly extol — rites introduced
from Asia by Dionysos himself at the head of a thiasus or
troop of enthusiastic women — inflaming with temporary
frenzy the minds of the women of Thebes — not communi
cable except to those who approach as pious worshippers —
and followed by the most tragical results to all those who
fight against the god. i The Bacchic Teletss, and theBacchic
feminine frenzy, were importations from abroad, as Euripi
des represents them, engrafted upon the joviality of the
primitive Greek Dionysia ; they were borrowed, in all prob
ability, from more than one source, andintroducedthrough
more than one channel, the Orphic life or brotherhood being
one of the varieties. Strabo ascribes to this latter a Thra
cian original, considering Orpheus, Musseus, and Eumolpus
as having been all Thracians.2 It is curious to observe
how, in the Bacchae of Euripides, the two distinct and even
conflicting ideas of Dionysos come alternately forward;
sometimes the old Grecian idea of the jolly and. exhilara
ting god of wine — but more frequently the recent and
important idea of the terrific and irresistible god who
unseats the reason, and whose cestrus can only be appeased
by a willing, though temporary obedience. In ....
the fanatical impulse which inspired the votaries frenzy
of the Asiatic Rhea or Cybele, or of the Thra- grafted on
cian Kotys, there was nothing of spontaneous ity "'of the
joy; it was a sacred madness, during which the Grecian
soul appeared to be surrendered to a stimulus 10nysia-
from without, and accompanied by preternatural strength
and temporary sense of power3 — altogether distinct from
v. p. 755, ed. Wytt.). Plutarch lus, in which seems to have been
ridicules the legendary reason included the tale of Pentheus, the
commonly assigned for this, and goddess A6ffaa was introduced,
provides a symbolical explanation stimulating the Bacchse, and crea-
which he thinks very satisfactory, ting in them spasmodic excitement
1 Eurip. Bacch. 325, 464, &c. from head to foot : ex tcoSu>v 5' avu>
2 Strabo, x. p. 471. Compare 'TrcspYsxai ffTcapaYJJ-os e'<; axpov xapa,
Aristid. Or. iv. p. 28. Ac. (Fragm. 155, Dindorf.) His
3 In the lost Xantrice of JEschy- tragedy called Edoni also gave a
D 2

30

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Paet I«

the unrestrained hilarity of the original Dionysia, as we
see them in the rural demes of Attica, or in the gay city
of Tarentum. There was indeed a side on which the two
bore some analogy, inasmuch as, according to the religious
point of view of the Greeks, even the spontaneous joy of
the vintage-feast was conferred by the favour and enlivened
by the companionship of Dionysos. It was upon this anal
ogy that the framers of the Bacchic orgies proceeded; but
they did not the less disfigure the genuine character of the
old Grecian Dionysia.
Dionysos is in the conception of Pindar the Paredros
or companion in worship of Demeter.1 The worship
and religious estimate of the latter has by that time
undergone as great a change as that of the former, if we
take our comparison with the brief description of Homer

terrific representation of the Bac
chanals and their fury, exaggerated
by the maddening music: IHp-tcV/jcji
fjiiXoc, Mavla<; eTCaytoyov 6u,oxXotv
(Fr. 54).
Such also is the reigning sen
timent throughout the greater part
of the Bacchse of EuripidSs ; it is
brought out still more impressively
in the mournful Atys of Catullus : —
"Deamagna, DeaCybele,Dindymi
Dea, Domina,
Procul a mea tuus sit furor
omnis, hera, domo :
Alios age incitatos: alios age
rabidos I"
We have only to compare this
fearful influence with the descrip
tion of Dikaiopolis and his ex
uberant joviality in the festival of
theruralDionysia(Aristoph.Acharn.1051 seq. ; see also Plato, Legg. i.
p. 637), to see how completely the
foreign innovations recoloured the
old Grecian Dionysos — AnSvuoo?
ttoXuYij&^who appears also in the
scene of Dionysos and Ariadne"
in the Symposion of Xenoph&n,
c. 9. The simplicity of the ancient
Dionysiac processions is dwelt upon
by Plutarch, De Cupidine Diviti-
arum, p. 527 ; and the original

dithyramb addressed by Archi-
lochus to Dionysos is an effusion
of drunken hilarity (Archiloch.
Frag. 69, Schneid.).
1 Pindar, Isthm. vi. 3. ^aXxoxpo-
tou 7udps8pov A7]fJLT]TEpoi;, — the epi
thet marks the approximation of
DemStSt to the Mother of the Gods.
7) xpoTaXtov TUrcd'jujv t' lajrrj, aiw
ts ppofjLos aoXuJv EijaSsv (Homer.
Hymn, xii.) ; — the Mother of the
Gods was worshipped by Pindar
himself along with Pan; she had
in his time her temple and cere
monies at ThSbes (Pyth. iii. 78;
Fragm. Dithyr. 5, and the Scholia
adl.) as well as, probably, at Athens
(Pausan. i. 3, 3).
Dionysos and DemetSr are also
brought together in the chorus of
Sophokles, AntigonS, 1072, (jlsSsi?
5= Tiayxolvoit; 'EXEUffivlcts &f]o\i$ ev
xoXuotc ; and inKallimachus,Hymn.
Cerer. 70. Bacchus or Dionysos are
in the Attic tragedians constantly
confounded with the DgmStrian
Iacchos, originally so different, —
a, personification of the mystic
word shouted by the Eleusinian
communicants. See Strabo, *.. p.

Chap. I. HOMERIC HYMN TO DEMETER. 37
and Hesiod: she has acquired1 much of the awful and soul-
disturbing attributes of the Phrygian Cybele. In Homer,
Demeter is the goddess of the corn-field, who becomes
attached to the mortal man Jasion; an unhappy passion,
since Zeus, jealous of the connexion between goddesses
and men, puts him to death. In the Hesiodic Theogony,
Demeter is the mother of Persephone by Zeus, who permits
Hades to carry off the latter as his wife; moreover Demeter
has, besides, by Jasion, a son called Plutos, born in Krete.
Even from Homer to Hesiod, the legend of Demeter has
been expanded and her dignity exalted; according to the
usual tendency of Greek legend, the expansion goes on
still further. Through Jasion, Demeter becomes connected
with the mysteries of Samothrace ; through Persephone, with
those of Eleusis. The former connexion it is difficult to
follow out in detail, but the latter is explained and traced
to its origin in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.
Though we find different statements respecting the
date as well as the origin of the Eleusinian mys- Eleusinian
teries, yet the popular belief of the Athenians, mysteries.
and the story which found favour at Eleusis, ascribed them
to the presence and dictation of the goddess Demeter her
self; just as the Bacchic rites are, according to the Bacchse
of Euripides, first communicated and enforced on the Greeks
by the personal visit of Dionysos to Thebes, the metropolis
of the Bacchic ceremonies.2 In the Eleusinian legend,
preserved by the author of the Homeric Hymn, Homeric
she comes voluntarily and identifies herself with Hymn to
Eleusis; her past abode in Krete being briefly me er'
indicated. 3 Her visit to Eleusis is connected with the deep
sorrow caused by the loss of her daughter Persephone, who
had been seized by Hades, while gathering flowers in a
meadow along with the Oceanic Nymphs, and carried off
to become his wife in the under-world. In vain did the
reluctant Persephone shriek and invoke the aid of her
father Zeus: he had consented to give her to Hades, and
her cries were heard only by Hekate and Helios. Demeter
was inconsolable at the disappearance of her daughter,
1 Euripides in his Chorus in the 2Sophokl. Antigon. Baxy_avu.r]xpo-
Helena (1320 seq.) assigns to D6- rcoXtv 6^P«v.
meter all the attributes of Khea, 3 Homer, Hymn. Cerer. 123. The
and blends the two completely Hymn to Demeter has been trans-
into one. lated, accompanied with valuable.

38 HISTORY OT GREECE. Tabt I.
but knew not where to look for her: she wandered for nine
days and nights with torches in search of the lost maiden
without success. At length Helios, the "spy of gods and
men," revealed to her, in reply to her urgent prayer, the
rape of Persephone, and the permission given to Hades
by Zeus. Demeter was smitten with anger and despair:
she renounced Zeus and the society of Olympus, abstained
from nectar and ambrosia, and wandered on earth in grief
and fasting until her form could no longer be known. In
this condition she came to Eleusis, then governed by the
prince Keleos. Sitting down by a well at the wayside in
the guise of an old woman, she was found by the daughters
of Keleos, who came thither with their pails of brass for
water. In reply to their questions, she told them that she
had been brought by pirates from Krete to Thorikos, and
had made her escape; she then solicited from them succour
and employment as a servant or as a nurse. The damsels
prevailed upon their mother Metaneira to receive her, and
to entrust her with the nursing of the young Demophoon,
their late-born brother, the only son of Keleos. Demeter
was received into the house of Metaneira, her dignified
form still borne down by grief: she sat long silent, and
could not be induced either to smile or to taste food, until
the maid-servant lambe, by jests and playfulness, succeeded
in amusing and rendering her cheerful. She would not
taste wine, but requested a peculiar mixture of barley-meal
with water and the herb mint, i
The child Demophoon, nursed by Demeter, throve and
grew up like a god, to the delight and astonishment of his
parents: she gave him no food, but anointed him daily
with ambrosia, and plunged him at night in the fire like a
torch, where he remained unburnt. She would have rendered
him immortal had she not been prevented by the indiscreet
curiosity and alarm of Metaneira, who secretly looked in
at night, and shrieked with horror at the sight of her child
in the fire.2 The indignant goddess, setting the infant on
the ground, now revealed her true character to Metaneira :
her wan and aged look disappeared, and she stood confest
in the genuine majesty of her divine shape, diffusing a
illustrative nofes, by J. H. Voss reference to the Egyptian goddess
(Heidelb. 1826). Isis in her wanderings. See Plu-
1 Homer, Hymn. Cerer. 202—210. tarch, De Isid. et Osirid. u. 10,
" This story was also told with p. 357.

Chap. I. DEMETER AT ELEUSIS. 39 '
dazzling brightness which illuminated the whole house.
"Eoolish mother," she said, "thy want of faith has robbed
thy son of immortal life. I am the exalted Demeter, the
charm and comfort both of gods and men: I was preparing
for thy son exemption from death and old age; now it
cannot be but he must taste of both. Yet shall he be ever
honoured, since he has sat upon my knee, and slept in my
arms. Let the people of Eleusis erect for me a temple
and altar on yonder hill above the fountain: I will myself
prescribe to them the orgies which they must religiously
perform in order to propitiate my favour." '
The terrified Metaneira was incapable even of lifting
up her child from the ground: her daughters entered at her
cries, and began to embrace and tend their infant brother,
but he sorrowed and could not be pacified for the loss of his
divine nurse. All night they strove to appease the goddess. 2
Strictly executing the injunctions of Demeter, Keleos
convoked the people of Eleusis, and erected the _ l .
temple on the spot which she had pointed out. Eleusis,
It was speedily completed, and Demeter took up bu:ju bv.
her abode in it, apart from the remaining gods, Demeter for
still pining with grief for the loss of her daughter, ber resi_
and withholding her beneficent aid from mortals.
And thus she remained a whole year — a desperate and
terrible year:3 in vain did the oxen draw the plough, and
in vain was the barley-seed cast into the furrow— Demeter
Buffered it not to emerge from the earth. The human race
would have been starved, and the gods would have been
deprived of their honours and sacrifice, had not Zeus found
means to conciliate her. But this was a hard task; for
Demeter resisted the entreaties of Iris and of all the other
goddesses and gods whom Zeus successively sent to her.
She would be satisfied with nothing less than the recovery
1 Homer, Hymn. Cerer. 274 — immediately left him in great
'Opyia 8' auT7] eyujv br.o^aoiiai, wrath. (Apollon. Rhod. iv. 866.)
d><; 3v s-sixa 2 Homer, Hymn. 290—
EjayEU)^ epSovrsi; suov voov tXda- tou 8 oo n.t:\iaatra 8u|j.oe,
X7]a9s. X^Lpo-rspai yap 5^ u.iv s/ov Tpofoi
The same story is told in regard -/j§= Ti(fl7Jvai.
to the infant Achilles. His mother 3 Homer. H. Cer. 305.
Thetis was taking similar measures AlvoTatov 6' evtatOTOv ercl y_06va
to render him immortal, when his icouXufioTeipav
father Peleus interfered and pre- IiGtTjij' dvOpujnoi?, ios xOvtctov.
veuted the consummation. Thetis

40 HISTORY OS1 GREECE. Pakt I.
of her daughter. At length Zeus sent Hermes to Hades,
to bring Persephone away: Persephone joyfully obeyed,
but Hades prevailed upon her before she departed to swal
low a grain of pomegranate, which rendered it impossible
for her to remain the whole year away from him. i
"With transport did Demeter receive back her lost
daughter, and the faithful Hekate sympathised in the delight
felt by both at the reunion. 2 It was now an easier under
taking to reconcile her with the gods. Her mother Rhea,
sent down expressly by Zeus, descended from Olympus on
the fertile Eharian plain, then smitten with barrenness
like the rest of the earth: she succeeded in appeasing the
indignation of Demeter, who consented again to put forth
her relieving hand. The buried seed came up in abundance,
and the earth was covered with fruit and flowers. She
would have wished to retain Persephone constantly with
her; but this was impossible, and she was obliged to consent
that her daughter should go down for one-third of each
year to the house of Hades, departing from her every spring
at the time when the seed is sown. She then revisited
Olympus, again to dwell with the gods; but before her
departure she communicated to the daughters of Keleos,
and to Keleos himself, together with Triptolemus, Diokles,
and Eumolpus, the divine service and the solemnities which
she required to be observed in her honour.3 And
pre'seribes thus began the venerable mysteries of Eleusis,
the mystic ather special command: thelesser mysteries, cele-
Eieusis* brated in Eebruary,in honour of Persephone' ; the
greater, in August,to the honour of Demeter her
self. Both are jointly patronesses of the holy city and
temple. Such is a brief sketch of the temple legend of Eleusis,
set forth at length in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. It
is interesting not less as a picture of the Mater Dolorosa
(in the mouth of an Athenian, Demeter and Persephone
were always The Mother and Daughter, by excellence),
first an agonised sufferer, and then finally glorified — the
J Hymn, v. 375. E'luoXxou ts pin, KsXeui 8' TjfTjTOpi
» Hymn, v. 443. Xauw,
' Hymn, v. 475— Ap)]auci36v7)v Upu>r xal eitsippaBsn
'H 8e xlouaa 9Eu.iaTOrc6Xol<; Past- opyta 7uaiciv
/Wi« npsiP'jTEpij? KsXeoio, &a.
Asi^sv, TpiittoXefjuji ts, AtoxXe'C ts
7cXT]£iTCTCOJ,

Chap. T. DEMETER AT ELEUSIS. 41
weal and woe of man being dependent upon her kindly
feeling, — than as an illustration of the nature and growth
of Grecian legend generally. Though we now read this
Hymn as pleasing poetry, to the Eleusinians, for whom it
was composed, it was genuine and sacred history.
They believed in the visit of Demeter to Eleusis, Hymn' a°
and in the Mysteries as a revelation from her, sacred
as implicitly as they believed in her existence recfo'raV"'"1
and power as a goddess. The Eleusinian psalm
ist shares this belief in common with his countrymen,
and embodies it in a continuous narrative, in which the
great goddesses of the place, as well as the great heroic
families, figure in inseparable conjunction. Keleos is the
son of the Eponymous hero Eleusis, and his daughters,
with the old epic simplicity, carry their basons to the well
for water. Eumolpus, Triptolemus, Diokles, heroic ances
tors of the privileged families who continued throughout
the historical times of Athens to fulfil their special hereditary
functions, in the Eleusinian solemnities, are among the
immediate recipients of inspiration from the goddess: but
chiefly does she favour Metaneira and her infant son De
mophoon, for the latter of whom her greatest boonis destined,
and intercepted only by the weak faith of the
mother. Moreover every incident in the Hymn tory of*tho
has a local colouring and a special reference, details of
The well overshadowed by an olive-tree near vjce"e ser"
which Demeter had rested, the streamKallichoros
and the temple-hill, were familiar and interesting places
in the eyes of every Eleusinian; the peculiar posset prepared
from barley-meal with mint was always tasted by the Mysts
(or communicants) after a prescribed fast, as an article in
the ceremony, — while it was also the custom, at a particular
spot in the processional march, to permit the free inter
change of personal jokes and taunts upon individuals for
the general amusement. And these two customs are con
nected in the Hymn with theincidents, that Demeter herself
had chosen the posset as the first interruption of her long
and melancholy fast, and that her sorrowful thoughts had
been partially diverted by the coarse playfulness of the
servant-maid lambe. In the enlarged representation af
the Eleusinian ceremonies, which became established after
the incorporation of Eleusis with Athens, the part of lambe
herself was enacted by a woman, or man in woman's attire,

42 HISTORY OE GREECE. I>aet I.
of suitable wit and imagination, who was posted on the
bridge over the Kephissos, and addressed to the passers-by
in the procession, * especially the great men of Athens, saucy
jeers probably not less piercing than those of Aristophanes
on the stage. The torch-bearing Hekate received a portion
of the worship in the nocturnal ceremonies of the Eleusinia:
this too is traced in the Hymn, to her kind and affectionate
sympathy with the great goddesses.
Though all these incidents were sincerely believed by
the Eleusinians as a true history of the past, and as having
been the real initiatory cause of their own solemnities, it
is not the less certain that they are simply mythes or
legends, and not to be treated as history either actual or
exaggerated. They do not take their start from realities
of the past, but from realities of the present, combined
with retrospective feeling and fancy, which fills up the
blank of the aforetime in a manner at once plausible and
impressive. What proportion of fact there may be in the
legend, or whether there be any at all, it is impossible to
ascertain and useless to inquire; for the story did not
acquire belief from its approximation to real fact, but from
its perfect harmony with Eleusinian faith and feeling, and
importance from the absence of any standard of historical
t/rUs'to'the credibinty- Tne little town °f Eleusis derived
town of all its importance from the solemnity of the
Eleusis. Demetria, and the Hymn which we have been
considering (probably at least as old as 600 b.c.) represents
the town as it stood before its absorption into the larger
unity of Athens, which seems to have produced an altera
tion of its legends and an increase of dignity in its great
festival. In the faith of an Eleusinian, the religious as
well as the patriotic antiquities of his native town were
connected with this capital solemnity. The divine legend
of the sufferings of Demeter and her visit to Eleusis was
stronghold to him that which the heroic legend of Adrastus
penti upon and tlle sieSe of Tnel3es was to a Sikyonian, or
Eleusinian that of Erechtheus and Athene to an Athenian —
feelings. grouping together in the same scene and story
' Aristophanes, Vesp. 1363. He- appears in the rites of Demeter in
sych. v. Teyjfi.-. Suidas, v. Teiou- Sicily (Diodor. v. 4; see also
pUuM. Compare about the details Pausan. vii. 27, 4), and in the
of the ceremony, Clemens Alexandr. worship of Damia and Auxesia at
Admon. ad Gent. p. 13. A similar JGgina (Herodot. v. 83).
licence of unrestrained jocularity

Chap. I. CONSECRATION OE ELEUSIS. 43
the goddess and the heroic fathers of the town. If our
information were fuller, we should probably find abundance
of other legends respecting the Demetria: the Gephyraei
of Athens, to whom belonged the celebrated Harmodios
and Aristogeiton, and who possessed special Orgies of
Demeter the Sorrowful, to which no man foreign to their
Gens was ever admitted, l would doubtless have told stories
not only different but contradictory; and even in other
Eleusinian mythes we discover Eumolpus as king Different
of Eleusis, son of Poseidon, and a Thracian, com- legends re-
pletely different from the character which he Demew?
bears in the Hymn, before us.2 Neither discre- elsewhere.
pancies nor want of evidence, in reference to alleged an
tiquities, shocked the faith of a non-historical public. "What
they wanted was a picture of the past, impressive to their
feelings and plausible to their imagination: and it is impor
tant to the reader to remember, while he reads either the
divine legends which we are now illustrating, or the heroic
legends to which we shall soon approach, that he is dealing
with a past which never was present, — a region essentially
mythical, neither approachable by the critic nor measurable
by the chronologer.
The tale respecting the visit of Demeter, which was
told by the ancient Gens, called the Phytalids, 3 in reference
to another temple of Demeter between Athens and Eleusis,
and also by the Megarians in reference to a Demetrion near
their city, acquired under the auspices of Athens jsxpa,nsi0I1
still further extension. The goddess was reported of the le
to have first communicated to Triptolemus at sends.
Eleusis the art of sowing corn, which by his intervention
was disseminated all over the earth. And thus the Athe
nians took credit to themselves for having been the medium
of communication from the gods to man of all the inestim
able blessings of agriculture which they affirmed to have
1 Herodot. v. 61. (Philoch. Eragm. 46, ed. Didot),
2 Pausan. i. 38, 3 ; Apolloddr. iii. and also respecting Keleos (Er.
15, 4. Heyne in his Note admits 28, ibid.).
several persons named Eumolpus. 3 Phytalus, the Eponym or god-
Compare Isokrates, Pauegyr. p. father of this gens , had received
55. Philochorus the Attic antiquary Demeter as a guest in his house,
could not have received the legend when she first presented mankind
of the Eleusinian Hymn, from the with the fruit of the fig-tree. (Pau-
different account which he gave san. i. 37, 2.)
respecting the rape of Persephone

44 HISTORY OF GREECE. Part I.
been first exhibited on the fertile Rharian plain near
Eleusis. Such pretensions are not to be found in the old
Homeric hymn. The festival of the Thesmophoria, cele
brated in honour of Demeter Thesmophoros at Athens,
was altogether different from the Eleusinia, in this material
respect, as well as others, that all males were excluded and
women only were allowed to partake in it: the surname
Thesmophoros gave occasion to new legends in which the
goddess was glorified as the first authoress of laws and
legal sanctions to mankind. ' This festival for women apart
and alone, was also celebrated at Thebes, at Paros, at
Ephesus, and in many other parts of Greece.2
Altogether, Demeter and Dionysos, as the Grecian
counterparts of the Egyptian Isis and Osiris, seem to have
been the great recipients of the new sacred rites borrowed
from Egypt, before the worship of Isis in her own name
was introduced into Greece: their solemnities became more
Hellenic frequently recluse and mysterious than those of
importance the other deities. The importance of Demeter
of Demeter. ^0 ^e collective nationality of Greece may be
gathered from the fact that her temple was erected at
Thermopylae, the spot where the Amphiktyonic assemblies
were held, close to the temple of the Eponymous hero
Amphiktyon himself, and under the surname of the Am
phiktyonic Demeter.3
We now pass to another and not less important celes
tial personage — Apollo.
The legends of Delos and Delphi, embodied in the
Legends of Homeric Hymn to Apollo, indicate, if not a
Apollo. greater dignity, at least a more widely diffused
worship of that god than even of Demeter. The Hymn is,
in point of fact, an aggregate of two separate compositions,
one emanating from an Ionic bard at Delos, the other from
Delphi. The first details the birth, the second the mature
divine efficiency, of Apollo ; but both alike present the un
affected charm as well as the characteristic peculiarities of
Grecian mythical narrative. The hymnographer sings, and
his hearers accept in perfect good faith, a history of the
1 Kallimacb. Hymn. Cerer. 19. Herodot. vi. 16, 134. epxoc. 8EU|ia-
Sophokles, Triptolemos, Eragm. 1. tpopo'j Ar,|j.7jTpo5— tel i« gpaeva Tow*
Cicero Legg. ii. 14, and the note appTjTa Upd.
of Servius ad Virgil. iBn. iv. 68. ' Herodot. vii. 200.
2 Xenophon, Hellen. v. 2, 29.

Chap. I. HOMERIC HYMN TO APOLLO. 45
past; but it is a past, imagined partly as an introductory
explanation to the present, partly as the means of glorifying
the god. The island of Delos was the accredited birthplace
of Apollo, and is also the place in which he chiefly delights,
where the great and brilliant Ionic festival is periodically
convened in his honour. Yet it is a rock narrow, barren
and uninviting: how came so glorious a privilege to be
awarded to it? This the poet takes upon himself to explain.
Leto, pregnant with Apollo and persecuted by Deiian
the jealous Here, could find no spot wherein to AP°n°-
give birth to her offspring. In vain did she address herself
to numerous places in Greece, the Asiatic coast, and the
intermediate islands; all were terrified at the wrath of
Here, and refused to harbour her. As a last resort, she
approached the rejected and repulsive island of Delos, and
promised that if shelter were granted to her in her forlorn
condition, the island should become the chosen resort of
Apollo as well as the site of his temple with its rich ac
companying solemnities.1 Delos joyfully consented, but
not without many apprehensions that the potent Apollo
would despise her unworthiness, and not without exacting
a formal oath from Leto, — who was then admitted to the
desired protection, and duly accomplished her long and
painful labour. Though Dione, Rhea, Themis and Am-
phitrite came to soothe and succour her, yet Here kept
away the goddess presiding over childbirth, Eileithyia, and
thus cruelly prolonged her pangs. At length Eileithyia
came, and Apollo was born. Hardly had Apollo tasted,
from the hands of Themis, the immortal food, nectar and
ambrosia, when he burst at once his infant bands, and
displayed himself in full divine form and strength, claiming
his characteristic attributes of the bow and the harp, and
his privileged function of announcing beforehand to man
kind the designs of Zeus. The promise made by Leto to
Delos was faithfully performed: amidst the numberless
other temples and groves which men provided for him, he
ever preferred that island as his permanent residence, and
1 According to another legend, this legend, it was affirmed that
LSt6 was said to have been con- the she-wolves always brought
veyed from the Hyperboreans to forth their young only during
Delos in twelve days, in the form these twelve days in the year
of a she-wolf, to escape the jealous (Aristot. Hist. Animal, vii. 35).
eye of Here. In connexion with

4G HISTORY OE GREECE. Pakt I.
there the Ionians with their wives and children, and all
their "bravery," congregatedperiodically from their different
cities to glorify him. Dance and song and athletic contests
adorned the solemnity, while the countless ships; wealth,
and grace of the multitudinous Ionians had the air of an
assembly of gods. The Delian maidens, servants of Apollo,
sang hymns to the glory of the god, as well as of Artemis
and Leto, intermingled with adventures of foregone men
and women, to the delight of the listening crowd. The
blind itinerant bard of Chios (composer of the Homeric
hymn, and confounded in antiquity with the author of the
Iliad), having found honour and acceptance at this festival,
commends himself, in a touching farewell strain, to the
remembrance and sympathy of the Delian maidens. 4
But Delos was not an oracular spot: Apollo did not
Pythian manifest himself there as revealer of the futu-
Apoiio. rities of Zeus. A place must be found where
this beneficent function, without which mankind would
perish under the innumerable doubts and perplexities of
life, may be exercised and rendered available. Apollo
himself descends from Olympus to make choice of a suitable
site : the hymnographer knows a thousand other adventures
of the god which he might sing, but he prefers this memor
able incident, the charter and patent of consecration for
the Delphian temple. Many different places did Apollo
inspect: he surveyed the country of the Magnetes and the
Perrhaebians, came to Iolkos, and. passed over from thence
to Euboea and the plain of Lelanton. But even this fertile
spot did not please him: he crossed the Euripus to Boeotia,
passed by Teumessus and Mykalessus, and the then inac
cessible and unoccupied forest on which the city of Thebes
afterwards stood. He next proceeded to Onchestos, but
the grove of Poseidon was already established there; next
across theKephissus to Okalea, Haliartus, and the agreeable
plain and much-frequented fountain of Delphusa, or Til
phusa. Pleased with the place, Apollo prepared to establish
his oracle there, but Tilphusa was proud of the beauty of her
own site, and did not choose thather glory should be eclipsed
by that of the god. 2 She alarmed him with the apprehension
thatthe chariots which contendedinherplain, and the horses
and mules which watered at her fountain, would disturb the
1 Horn. Hymn. Apoll. i. 179. : Horn. Hymn. Apoll. 262.

Chap. I. FIRST COMMENCEMENT OE DELPHIAN ORACLE. 47
solemnity of his oracle ; and she thus induced him to proceed
onward to the southern side of Parnassus, overhanging the
harbour of Krissa. Here he established his oracle, in the
mountainous site not frequented by chariots and horses,
and near to a fountain, which however was guarded by a
vast and terrific serpent, once the nurse of the monster
Typhaon. This serpent Apollo slew with an arrow, and
suffered its body to rot in the sun: hence the name of the
place, Pytho,i and the surname of the Pythian Apollo.
The plan of his temple being marked out, it was built by
Trophonios and Agamedes, aided by a crowd of forward
auxiliaries from the neighbourhood. He now discovered
with indignation, however, that Tilphusa had cheated him,
and went back with swift step to resent it. "Thou shalt
not thus," he said, "succeed in thy fraud and retain thy
beautiful water: the glory of the place shall be mine, and
not thine alone." Thus saying, he tumbled down a crag
upon the fountain, and obstructed her limpid current;
establishing an altar for himself in a grove hard by near
another spring, where men still worship him as Apollo
Tilphusios, because of his severe vengeance upon the once
beautiful Tilphusa.2
Apollo next stood in need of chosen ministers to take
care of his temple and sacrifice, and to pronounce
his responses at Pytho. Descrying a ship, "con- fe°g™aa0f0n
taining many and good men," bound on traffic the
from the Minoian Knossus in Krete, to Pylus ™aU*n
in Peloponnesus, he resolved to make use of
the ship and her crew for his purpose. Assuming the shape
of a vast dolphin, he splashed about and shook the vessel
so as to strike the mariners with terror, while he sent a
strong wind, which impelled her along the coast of Pelopon
nesus into the Corinthian Gulf, and finally to the harbour
of Krissa, where she ran aground. The affrighted crew
did not dare to disembark: but Apollo was seen standing
on the shore in the guise of a vigorous youth, and inquired
who they were and what was their business. The leader
of the Kretans recounted in reply their miraculous and
compulsory voyage, when Apollo revealed himself as the
author and contriver of it, announcing to them the honour
able function and the dignified post to which he destined
1 Horn. Hymn. 363: zoSsaOai, torot. 2 Horn. Hymn. Apoll. 381.

48 HISTORY OE GREECE. Part I.
them. * They followed him by his orders to the rocky Pytho
on Parnassus, singing the solemn Io-Paian such as it is sung
in Krete, while the god himself marched at their head,
with his fine form and lofty step, playing on the harp. He
showed them the temple and site of the oracle, and directed
them to worship him as Apollo Delphinios, because they
had first seen him in the shape of a dolphin. "But how,"
they inquired, "are we to live in a spot where there is nei
ther corn, nor vine, nor pasturage ?"_ "Ye silly mortals,"
answered thegod,"who lookonlyfor toil and privation, know
that an easier lot is yours. Ye shall live by the cattle
which crowds of pious visitors will bring to the temple:
ye shall need only the knife to be constantly ready for
sacrifice.2 Your duty will be to guard my temple, and to
officiate as ministers at my feasts: but if ye be guilty of
wrong or insolence, either by word or deed, ye shall become
the slaves of other men, and shall remain so for ever. Take
heed of the word and the warning."
Such are the legends of Delos and Delphi, according
They served to tne Homeric Hymn to Apollo. The specific
the purpose functions of the god, and the chief localities of
toricai" bis worship, together with the surnames attached
expiana- to them, are thus historically explained, being
tlon' connected with his past acts and adventures.
Though these are to us only interesting poetry, yet to those
who heard them sung they possessed all the requisites of
history, and were fully believed as such ; not because they
were partially founded in reality, but because they ran in
complete harmony with the feelings; and, so long as that
condition was fulfilled, it was not the fashion of the time
to canvass truth or falsehood. The narrative is purely
personal, without any discernible symbolised doctrine or
allegory, to serve as a supposed ulterior purpose: the par
ticular deeds ascribed to Apollo grow out of the general
preconceptions as to his attributes, combined with the
present realities of his worship. It is neither history nor
allegory, but simple mythe or legend.
The worship of Apollo is among the most ancient,
capital, and strongly marked facts of the Grecian world,
1 Horn. Hymn. Apoll. 475, sqq. 2<pat;eiv alst p.fjXa- ta 8' Siifiain
« Homer. Hymn. Apoll. 635— itavxa itapEarai,
AE&neprj iiiX' Exaoxo? Srffoi ev xstpl "Oaaa EiLoiy' dYafuxji iteplxXoTi
liaxaipav tpiX' avtlpdmiov.

Chap. I. WORSHIP OE APOLLO. 49
and widely diffused over every branch of the race. It is
older than the Iliad or Odyssey, in the latter of Extended
which both Pytho and Delos are noted, though worship of
Delosis not named in the former. Buttheancient apo11°-
Apollo is different in more respects than one from the
Apollo of later times. He is in a peculiar manner the god
of the Trojans, unfriendly to the Greeks, and especially to
Achilles; he has, moreover, 'only two primary attributes,
his bow and his prophetic powers, without any distinct
connexion either with the harp, or with medicine, or with
the sun, all which in later times he came to comprehend.
He becomes not only, as Apollo Karneius, the chief god
of the Doric race, but also (under the surname of Patrous)
the great protecting divinity of the gentile tie among the
Ionians:1 he is moreover the guide and stimulus to Grecian
colonization, scarcely any colony being ever sent oat without
encouragement and direction from the oracle at Delphi:
Apollo Archegetes is one of his great surnames.2 His
temple lends sanctity to the meetings of the Amphiktyonic
assembly, and he is always in filial subordination and har
mony with his father Zeus: Delphi and Olympia are never
found in conflict. In the Iliad, the warm and earnest patrons
of the Greeks are Here, Athene, and Poseidon: here too
Zeus and Apollo are seen in harmony, for Zeus is decidedly
well-inclined to the Trojans, and reluctantly sacrifices them
to the importunity of the twogreatgoddesses.3 The worship
of the Sminthian Apollo, in various parts of the Troad and
the neighbouring territory, dates before the earliest periods
of iEolic colonization:4 hence the zealous patronage of Troy
ascribed to him in the Iliad. Altogether, however, the
distribution and partialities of the gods in that poem are
different from what they become in later times, — a differ
ence which our means of information do not enable us
satisfactorily to explain. Besides the Delphian temple,
1 Harpokration, v. 'AnoXXtov fa- ' Iliad, iv. 30—46.
Tpceot; and 'EpxEio« Zeuv Apollo 4 Iliad, i. 38, 451 ; Stephan. Byz.
Delphinios also belongs to the *IXiov, TeveSoj;. See also Klausen,
Ionic Greeks generally. Strabo, JEneas und die Penaten, b i. p. 69.
iv. 179. The worship of ApoHoSminthios
1 Thucydid. vi. 3; Eallimach. aud the festival of the Smintbia
Hymn. Apoll. 56 — at Alexandria Troas lasted down
(Doipoc; yap aEi rcoXUaoi (ptX?]8=i to the time of Menander the rhetor,
KritonEvaii;, aui6« 8s SEpslXia at the close of the third century
Ooipos ufatvct. after Christ.
VOL. I. E

50 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pabt I
Apollo hadnumerous temples throughout Greece, and oracles
at Abae in Phokis, on the Mount Ptoon, and at Tegyra in
Boeotia, where he was said to have been born, * at Branchidae
near Miletus, at Klarus in Asia Minor, and. at Patara in
Lykia. He was not the only oracular god: Zeus at Dodona
and at Olympia gave reponses also: the gods or heroes
Troph6nius, Amphiaraus, Amphilochus, Mopsus, &c, each
athisown sanctuary and in his own prescribed manner,
rendered the same service.
The two legends of Delphi and Delos, above noticed,
Muitifa- form of course a very insignificant fraction of
rious local tne narratives which once existed respecting the
specting16" great and venerated Apollo. They serve only
Apollo. as specimens, and as very early specimens,2 to
illustrate what these divine mythes were, and what was the
turn of Grecian faith and imagination. The constantly
recurring festivals of the gods caused an incessant demand
for new mythes respecting them, or at least for varieties
and reproductions of the old mythes. Even during the
third century of the Christian sera, in the time of the rhe fc6r
Menander, when the old forms of Paganism were waning
and when the stock of mythes in existence was extremely
abundant, we see this demand in great force ; but it was
incomparably more operative in those earlier times when
the creative vein of the Grecian mind yet retained its
pristine and unfaded richness. Each god had many differ
ent surnames, temples, groves, and solemnities; with each
of which was connected more or less of mythical narrative,
originally hatched in the proHfic and spontaneous fancy of
a believing neighbourhood, to be afterwards expanded,
adorned, and diffused by the song of the poet. The earliest
Festivals subject of competition3 at the great Pythian
andAgones. festival was the singing of a hymn in honour of
' Plutarch. Defect. Oracul. c. 5, ed. Didot) ; his narrative went far
p. 412 ; C. 8, p. 414 ; Steph. Byz. v. to poliiicise and rationalise the
Tsyupa. The Temple of the Ptdan story. The progeny of Apollo was
Apollo had acquired celebrity be- very numerous, and of the most
fore the days of the poet Asius. diverse attributes; he was father
Pausan. ix. 23, 8. of the Korybantes (Pherekydes,
* The legend which Kphoms Fragm. 6, ed. Didot) , as well as
followed about the establishment of Asklepios and Aristseus (Schol.
of the Delphian temple was some- Apcllon. Rhod. ii. 600 ; ApollodSr.
thing radically different from the iii. 10, 3).
Homeric Hymn (Ephori Fragm. 70, ' Strabo, ix. p. 421. Menander

Chap. Jt. EARLY GRECIAN RELIGION. 51
Apollo: other agones were subsequently added, but the ode
or hymn constituted the fundamental attribute of the solem
nity: the Pythia at Sikyon and elsewhere were probably
framed on a similar footing. So too at the ancient and
celebrated Charitesia, or festival of the Charites, at Orcho
menos, the rivalry of the poets in their various modes of
composition both began and continued as the predominant
feature:1 and the inestimable treasures yet remaining to us
of Attic tragedy and comedy, are gleanings from the once
numerous dramas exhibited at the solemnity of the Diony
sia. The Ephesians gave considerable rewards for the best
hymns in honour of Artemis, to be sung at her temple.2
And the early lyric poets of Greece, though their works
have not descended to us, devoted their genius largely to
similar productions, as may be seen by the titles and frag
ments yet remaining.
Both the Christian and the Mahomedan religions have
begun during the historical age, have been propagated from '
one common centre, and have been erected upon the ruins
of a different pre-existing faith. With none of these par
ticulars did Grecian Paganism correspond. It state of
took rise in an age of imagination and feeling m.ind and
simply, without the restraints, as well as without stances out
the aid, of writing or records, of history or phi- °f which
losophy. It was, as a general rule, the sponta- mythes
neous product of many separate tribes and loc- "rase.
abties, imitation and propagation operating as subordinate
causes ; it was moreover a primordial faith as far as our
means of information enable us to discover.
These considerations explain to us two facts in the
history of the early pagan mind. First, the divine mythes,
the Rhetor (ap. Walz. Coll. Rhett. from many different places, — ttjv
t. ix. p. 136) gives an elaborate itev fup "ApTep.iv ex uupiuiv itsv
classification of hymns to the gods, SpEtov, jiupiuiv 8s tc6Xeu>v, e-rt 8e
distinguishing them into nine clas- rcoTducov, dvaxaXet, — also Aphro-
ses — xX?]Ttxol, a7uoTcE(j.itTixot, (puaixot, dite and Apollo, Ac. All these
ljloOlxoI, YsveaXoftxol, 7ienXa'au.svOL, songs were full of adventures and
euxtixoL, dneuxTixoi, fuxxol: — the details respecting the gods, — in
second class had reference to the other words, of legendary matter.
temporary absence or departure of * Pindar, Olymp. xiv. ; Boeckh,
a god to some distant place, which Staatshaushaltung der Atheher,
were often admitted in the ancient Appendix, § xx. p. 357.
religion. Sappho and Alkman in '2 Alexander J93tolus, apud Ma-
their kletic hymns invoked the gods crobium, Saturn, v. 22.
e2

52 HISTORY OF GREECE. Part I.
the matter of their religion, constituted also the matter of
their earliest history ; next, these mythes harmonised with
each other only in their general types, but differed incu
rably in respect of particular incidents. The poet who
sang a new adventure of Apollo, the trace of which he
might have heard in some remote locality, would take care
that it should be agreeable to the general conceptions which
his hearers entertained respecting the god. He would not
ascribe the cestus or amorous influences to Athene, nor
armed interference and the aegis to Aphrodite; but, pro
vided he maintained this general keeping, he might indulge
his fancy without restraint in the particular events of the
story.1 The feelings and faith of his hearers went along
with him, and there were no critical scruples to hold them
back: to scrutinize the alleged proceedings of the gods was
repulsive, and to disbelieve them impious. And thus these
divine mythes, though they had their root simply in re
ligious feelings, and though they presented great discrepan
cies of fact, served nevertheless as primitive matter of
history to an early Greek: they were the only narratives,
at once publicly accredited and interesting, which he pos
sessed. To them were aggregated the heroic mythes (to
which we shall proceed presently), — indeed the two are
inseparably olended, gods, heroes, and men almost always
appearing in the same picture, — analogous both in their
structure and their genesis, and differing chiefly in the
circumstance that they sprang from the type of a hero
instead of from that of a god.
We are not to be astonished if we find Aphrodite, in
Discrepan- the Iliad, born from Zeus and Dione, and in the
legend's th<> Theogony of Hesiod, generated from the foam
little no- on the sea after the mutilation of Uranos; nor
ticed. if in the Odyssey she appears as the wife of
'The birthof Apollo and Artemis The number and discrepancies
from Zeus and Leto is among the of the mythes respecting each god
oldest and. most generally ad- are attested by the fruitless at-
mitted facts in the Grecian divine tempts of learned Greeks to escape
legends. Yet .ZEschylus did not the necessity of rejecting any of
scruple to desotibeArtemis publicly them by multiplying homonymous
as daughter of Demeter (Herodot. personages, — three persons named
ii. 156; Pausan. viii.37, 3).' Hero- Zeusj five named Athene j six
dotus thinks that he copied this named Apollo, Ac. (Cicero, de
inuovationfromtheEgyptians, who Natur. Deor. iii. 81; Clemens
affirmed that Apollo and Artemis Alexand. Admon. ad Gent. p. 17.)
were the Bons pf Dionysos and Isis.

Chap. I. . APHRODITE. 53
Hephaestos, while in the Theogony the latter is married
to Aglaia, and Aphrodite is described as mother of three
children by Are's.1 The Homeric hymn to Aphrodite
details the legend of Aphrodite and Anchises, which is
presupposed in the Iliad as the parentage of tineas: but
the author of the hymn, probably sung at one of the festi
vals of Aphrodite in Cyprus, represents the goddess as
ashamed of her passion for a mortal, and as enjoining
Anchises under severe menaces not to reveal who the
mother of -2Cneas was;2 while in the Hiad she
has no scruple in publicly owning him, and he p ro
passes everywhere as her acknowledged son. Aphrodite,
is described in the hymn as herself cold and unimpressible,
but ever active and irresistible in inspiring amorous feelings
to gods, to men, and to animals. Three goddesses are
recorded as memorable exceptions to heruniversalempire, — -
Athene, Artemis, and Hestia or Vesta. Aphrodite was one
of the most important of all the goddesses in the mythical
world: for the number of interesting, pathetic and tragical
adventures deducible.from misplaced or unhappy passion
was of course very great; and in most of these cases the
intervention of Aphrodite was usually prefixed, with soma
legend to explain why she manifested herself. Her range
of action grows wider in the latter epic and lyric and tragic
poets than in Homer.3
1 Hesiod. Theogon. 188, 934, of Dionysos in the BacchsB. The
945; Homer, Iliad, v. 371; Odyss. character of Daphnis the herdsman,
viii. 268. well-known from the first Idyll of
1 Homer, Hymn. Vener. 248, 286 ; Theocritus, and illustrating the
Homer, Iliad, v. 320, 386. destroying force of Aphrodite,
3 A large proportion of the appears to have been first intro-
Hesiodic epic related to the ex- duced into Greek poetry by Stesi-
ploits and adventures of the heroic chorus (see Klausen, JBneas und
women, — the Catalogue of Women die Penaten, vol. i. pp. 526 — 529 :
and the Eoiai embodied a string compare "Welcker, KleineSchriftenr
of such narratives. Hesiod and part i. p. 189). Compare a striking
Stesichorus explained the conduct piece among the Fragmentalncerta
of Helen and Klytsemnestra by the of Sophokles (Fr. 63, Brunck) and
anger of Aphrodite, caused by the Euripid. Troad. 946, 995, 1048.
neglect of their father Tyndareus Even in the Opp. et Di. of Hesiod,
to sacrifice to her (Hesiod, Fragm. Aphrodite is conceived rather as a
59, ed. Diintzer; Stesichor. Fragm. disturbing and injurious influence
9, ed. Schneidewin) : the irresistible (v. 65).
ascendancy of Aphrodite is set Adonis owes his, renown to the
forth in the Hippolytus of Euri- Alexandrine poets and their con-
pides not less forcibly than that temporary sovereigns (see Bion's*

54 HISTORY OF GREECE. Part I.
Athene, the man-goddess, * born from the head of Zeus,
Athena without a mother and without feminine sym
pathies^ the antithesispartly of Aphrodite, partly
of the effeminate or womanised god Dionysos — the latter
is an importation from Asia, but Athene is a Greek concep
tion — the type of composed, majestic and unrelenting force.
It appears however as if this goddess had been conceived
in a different manner in different parts of Greece. Eor we
find ascribed to her in some of the legends, attributes of
industry and home-keeping; she is represented as the com
panion of Hephsestos, patronising handicraft, and expert
at the loom and the spindle: the Athenian potters wor
shipped her along withPrometheus. Such traits of character
do not square with the formidable aegis and the massive
and crushing spear which Homer and most of the mythes
assign to her. There probably were at first at least two
different types of Athene, and their coalescence has partially
obliterated the less marked of the two.2 Athene is the
constant and watchful protectress of Herakles : she is also
locally identified with the soil and people of Athens, even
in the Iliad: Erechtheus, the Athenian, is born of the earth,
but Athene brings him up, nourishes him, and lodges him
in her own temple, where the Athenians annually worship
him with sacrifice and solemnities.3 It wag altogether
impossible to make Erechtheus son of Athene, — the type
of the goddess forbade it; but the Athenian mythe-creators,
though they found this barrier impassable, strove to approach
to it as near as they could, and the description which they
give of the birth of Erichthonios, at once un-Homeric and un
seemly, presents something like the phantom of maternity. 4
Idyll and the Adoniazusae of Theo- (429): see also Phereklos the tex-
critus). The favourites of Aphro- -rtov in the Iliad, v. 61: compare
dite, even as counted up by the viii. 385 ; Odyss. viii. 493 ; and the
diligence of ClemensAlexandrinus, Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, v.
are however very few in number. 12. The learned article of 0.
(Admonitio ad Gent. p. 12, Sylb.) Miiller (in the Encyolopsedia of
1 'AvSpoBsa oujpov . . . 'AQava Erseh and Gruber, since republish-
Simmias Rhodius ; ITeXexus, ap. ed among his Kleine Deutsche
Hephajstion. c. 9. p. 54, Gaisford. Schriften, p. 134 seq.), Pallas
2 Apollod6r. ap. Schol. ad So- Athene, brings together all that
phokl. ffldip. Col. 57 ; Pausan. i. can be known about this goddess.
24, 3; ix. 26,3; Diod6r. v. 73; * Iliad, ii. 646; viii. 362.
Plato, 'Legg. ix. p. 920. In the ' Apollodflr. iii. 4, 6. Compare
Opp. et Di. of Hesiod, the car- the vague language of Plato,
penter is the servant of Athene

Chap. I. ATHENE— ARTEMIS-POSEIDON. 55
The huntress Artemis, inArcadia and in Greece proper,
generally exhibits a well-defined type with which ,
the legends respecting her are tolerably consist
ent. But the Ephesian as well as the Tauric Artemis
partakes more of the Asiatic character, and has borrowed
the attributes of the Lydian Great Mother as well as of an
indigenous Tauric Virgin:1 this Ephesian Artemis passed
to the colonies of Phokaea and Miletus.2 The Homeric
Artemis shares with her brother Apollo in the dexterous
use of the farstriking bow, and sudden death is described
by the poet as inflicted by her gentle arrow. Jealousy of
the gods at the withholding of honours and sacrifices, or
at the presumption of mortals in contending with them, —
a point of character so frequently recurring in the types of
the Grecian gods, — manifests itself in the legends of Arte
mis. The memorable Kalydonian boar is sent by her as a '
visitation upon (Eneus, because he had omitted to sacrifice
to her, while he did honour to other gods.3 The Arcadian
heroine Atalanta is however a reproduction of Artemis,
with little or no difference, and the goddess is sometimes
confounded even with her attendant nymphs.
The mighty Poseidon, the earth-shaker and the ruler
of the sea, is second only to Zeus in power, but
hasno share in those imperial andsuperintending
capacities which the Father of Gods and men exhibits. He
numbers a numerous heroic progeny, usually men of great
corporeal strength, and many of them belonging to the
iEolic race. The great Neleid family of Pylus trace their
origin up to him; and he is also the father of Polyphemus
the Cyclops, whose well-earned suffering he cruelly revenges
Kritias, c. iv., and Ovid , Meta- Timotheus ap.Plutarch. deAudiend.
morph. ii. 757. Poet. p. 22, c. 4, and nspi Aevjio.
1 Herodot. iv. 103; Strabo, xii. c. 10, p. 170, also Aristoph.
p. 534; xiii. p. 650. About the LyBist. 1314. They seem to have
EpheBian Artemis, see Guhl, "been often celebrated in the soli-
Ephesiaca (Berlin, 1843), p. 79, tudes of the mountains, which
sqq. ; Aristoph. Nub. 590; Auto- were the favourite resort of Ar-
krates in Tympanistis apud Lilian, temis (Eallimach. Hymn. Dian.
Hist. Animal, xii. 9; and Spanheim 19), and these opEipdaiai were al-
ad Callimach. Hymn. Dian. 36. The ways causes predisposing to fa-
dances in honour of Artemis some- natical excitement.
times appear to have approached 2 Strabo, iv. p. 179.
to the frenzied style of Bacchanal 3 Iliad, ix. 529,
movement. See the words of

56 HISTORY OF GREECE. Taut L,
upon Odysseus. His Delos is the island of Kalaureia, t
wherein there was held an old local Amphiktyony, for the
purpose of rendering to him joint honour and sacrifice.
The isthmus of Corinth, Helike in Achaia, and Onchestos
in Bceotia, are also residences which he much affects, and
where he is solemnly worshipped. But the abode which
he originally and specially selected for himself was the
Acropolis of Athens, where by a blow of his trident he
produced a well of water in the rock: Athene came after
wards and claimed the spot for herself, planting in token
of possession the olive-tree which stood in the sacred grove
of Pandrosos : and the decision either of the autochthonous
Cecrops, or of Erechtheus, awarded to her the preference,
much to the displeasure of Poseidon. Either on this account,
or on account of the death of his son Eumolpus, slain in
assisting the Eleusinians against Erechtheus, the Attic
mythes ascribed to Poseidon great enmity against the Erech-
theid family, which he is asserted to have ultimately over
thrown: Theseus, whose glorious reign and deeds succeeded
to that family, is said to have been really his son. 2 In several
other places, — in ^Egina, Argos and Naxos, — Poseidon had
disputed the privileges of patron-god with Zeus, Here and
Dionysos: he was worsted in all, but bore his defeat pa
tiently.3 Poseidon endured a long slavery, in common with
Apollo, gods as they were,4 under Laomedon, king of
Troy, at the command and condemnation of Zeus: the two
gods rebuilt the walls of the city, which had been destroyed
by Herakles. When their time was expired, the insolent
Laomedon withheld from them the stipulated reward, and
even accompanied its refusal with appalling threats; and
the subsequent animosity of the god against Troy was
greatly determined by the sentiment of this injustice.5
Such periods of servitude, inflicted upon individual
gods, are among the most remarkable of all the incidents
in the divine legends. AVe find Apollo on another occasion
condemned to serve Admetus, king of Pherae, asapunish-
1 Strabo, viii. p 374. According compensation for the surrender of
to the old poem called Eumolpia, Kalaureia to him. (Pausau. x. 5, 3).
ascribed to Musieus, the oracle of JApollod6r. iii. 14, 1; iii. 15, 3,6.
Delphi originally belonged to s Plutarch, Sympos. viii. 6, p. 741.
Poseidon and Gaa, jointly: from * Iliad, ii. 716, 766; Euripid.
Gsea it passed to Themis, and from Alkestis, 2. See Panyasis, Fragm.
ber to Apollo, to whom Poseiddn 12, p. 24, ed. Diintzer.
also made over his share as a s Iliad, vii. 452; xxi. 459.

Chap. I. HERE— HEPHJESTOS. 57
ment for having killed the Cyclopes, and Herakles also is
sold as a slave to Omphale. Even the fierce
tempora°ry 4^es, overpowered and imprisoned for a long
servitude time by the two Aloids,1 is ultimately liberated
gods.Sed °n onty ^y extraneous aid. Such narratives attest
the discursive range of Grecian fancyin reference
to the gods, as well as the perfect commingling of things and
persons, divine and human, in their conceptions of the past.
The god who serves is for the time degraded: but the
supreme god who commands the servitude is in the like pro
portion exalted, whilst the idea of some sort of order and
government among these superhuman beings was never lost
sight of. Nevertheless the mythes respecting the servitude
of the gods became obnoxious afterwards, along with many
others, to severe criticism on the part of philosophers.
The proud, jealous, and bitter Here, — the goddess of
the once-wealthy Mykenae, the fax et focus of
the Trojan war, and the ever-present protectress
of Jason in the Argonautic expedition,2 — occupies an in
dispensable station in the mythical world. As the daughter
of Kronos and wife of Zeus, she fills a throne from whence
he cannot dislodge her, and which gives her a right per
petually to grumble and to thwart him.3 Her unmeasured
jealousy of the female favourites of Zeus, and her antipathy
against his sons, especially against Herakles, has been the
suggesting cause of innumerable mythes: the general type
of her character stands here clearly marked, as furnishing
both stimulus and guide to the mythopceic fancy. The
"Sacred Wedding," or marriage of Zeus and Here, was
familiar to epithalamic poets long before it became a theme
for the spiritualizing ingenuity of critics.
Hephaestos is the son of Here without a father, and
stands to her in the same relation as Athene to
p Zeus : her pride and want of sympathy are mani
fested by her casting him out at once in consequence of his
deformity.* Jje is the-god of fire — especially of fire in its
practical applications to handicraft — and is indispensable
as the right-hand and instrument of the gods. His skill
and his deformity appear alternately as the source of myth
ical stories: wherever exquisite and effective fabrication
' Iliad, v. 386. * Iliad,i. 544; iv.29— 38; viii. 408.
Iliad, iv. 51 j Odyss. xii. 72, * Iliad, xviii, 306.

58 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pabt I.
is intended to be designated, Hephaestos is announced as
the maker, although in this function the type of his character
is reproduced in Daedalos. In the Attic legends he appears
intimately united both with Prometheus and with Athene,
in conjunction with whom he was worshipped at Kolonus
near Athens. Lemnos was the favourite residence of
Hephaestos; and if we possessed more knowledge of this
island and its town Hephaestias, we should doubtless find
abundant legends detailing his adventures and interventions.
The chaste, still, and home-keeping Hestia, goddess
of the family hearth, is far less fruitful in myth-
1 J ia ical narratives, in spite of her very superior
dignity, than the knavish, smooth-tongued, keen and ac
quisitive Hermes. His function of messenger of the gods
_ , brings him perpetually on the stage, and affords
ample scope for portraying the features of his
character. The Homeric hymn to Hermes describes the
scene and circumstances of his birth, and the almost instan
taneous manifestation, even in infancy, of his peculiar
attributes. It explains the friendly footing on which he
stood with Apollo, — the interchange of gifts and functions
between them, — and lastly, the inviolate security of all the
wealth and offerings in the Delphian temple, exposed as
they were to thieves without any visible protection. Such
was the innate cleverness and talent of Hermgs, that on
the day he was born he invented the lyre, stringing the
seven chords on the shell of a tortoise1 — and also stole the
cattle of Apollo in Pieria, dragging them backwards to his
cave in Arcadia, so that their track could not be detected.
To the remonstrances of his mother Maia, who points out
to him the danger of offending Apollo, Hermes replies, that
he aspires to rival the dignity and functions of Apollo among
the immortals, and that if his father Zeus refuses to grant
them to him, he will employ his powers of thieving in break
ing open the sanctuary at Delphi, and in carrying away
Hermes in- tne 8°^ and the vestments-, the precious tripods
veutor of and vessels.2 Presently Apollo discovers the
the lyre. ]ogg 0f jjjg ca^le, and after some trouble finds
his way to the Kyllenian cavern, where he sees Hermes
asleep in his cradle. The child denies the theft with effron-
1 Homer, Hymn. Mercur. 18 — 'EajtEpio? Poo? xXs'Jisv sxt]P6Xou
"Jiipo<: ysyovuis, uiacp ^jxaTi Efxi9a- 'Ate6XXu)yos, Ac.
^>i£ev, 2 Homer, Hymn. Merc. 177 —

Chap. I. HERMES— HOMERIC HYMN. 59
tery,and even treats the surmise as a ridiculous impossibility:
he persists in such denial even before Zeus, who however
detects him at once, and compels him to reveal the place
where the cattle are concealed. But the lyre was as yet
unknown to Apollo, who has heard nothing except the
voice, of the Muses and the sound of the pipe. So power
fully is he fascinated by hearing the tones of the lyre from
Hermes, and so eager to become possessed of it, that he is
willing at once to pardon the past theft, and even to con
ciliate besides the friendship of Hermes.1 Accordingly
a bargain is struck between the two gods and sanctioned
bv Zeus. Hermes surrenders to Apollo the lvre, „ . .
• J ,. r t_. ,1 ¦ r J- Bargambe-
lnventmg for his own use the syrinx or pansprpe, tween
and receiving from Apollo in exchange the golden HermSsand
rod of wealth, with empire over flocks and herds p0
as well as over horses and oxen and the wild animals of the
woods. He presses to obtain the gift of prophecy, but
Apollo is under a special vow not to impart that privilege
to any god whatever. He instructs Hermes however how
to draw information, to a certain extent, from the Mcerse
or Eates themselves; and assigns to him, over and above,
the function of messenger of the gods to Hades.
Although Apollo has acquired the lyre, the particular
object of his wishes, he is still under apprehension that
Hermes will steal it away from him again, together with
his bow, and he exacts a formal oath by Styx as security.
Hermes promises solemnly that he will steal none of the
acquisitions, nor ever invade the sanctuary of Apollo; while
the latter on his part pledges himself to recognise Hermes
as his chosen friend and companion, amongst all the other
sons of Zeus, human or divine. 2
So came to pass, under the sanction of Zeus, the
marked favour shown by Apollo to Hermes. But Hermes
Elu-l Yap EC IToQcova, u-syav Sop-ov Kal tote Maiaoo? uE6<; U7ioffy6u.Evoc
dvxiTop^oojv, -xaTsveuaE
EvSsv aXi« rplTuoSa? TtspixaXXja?, M>| not' dTioxXe'jiEiv, 2V 'Ex^PoXo?
T,8e XipTjTar EXTEaTlOTOl,
IIop9iiain xai vouaov, Ac. ilrfii iuot' eu.itaX4asiv itoxluqi 86p.ip-
• Homer, Hymn. Merc. 442 — 454. aoiap 'AiroXXuw
! Homer, Hymn. Merc. 504 — 520 — Ar,Tot6ris xatsvEUisv eit' dp9u.q> xal
Xai TO pLEV 'Eppt.% CfllX677]Tl
Ar]Toi87)v e?lX7]« 8iap.7tEpE;, (b? Iti Mij ra« cpiXxspov SXXov ev d9ava-
xal vov, 4c. Tomtv ?asoflav
* * * ¦ * » .» * Mtjte 6e6v, p-i^t' av8pa Ai6? fovoi,Ac.

60 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pabt I.
(concludes the hymnographer, with frankness unusual in
speaking of a god) "does very little good: he avails himself
of the darkness of night to cheat without measure the
tribes of mortal men." 1
Here the general types of Hermes and Apollo, coupled
Expository with tte present fact that no thief ever ap-
vaiueof the proached the rich and seemingly accessible trea-
Hymn. gures 0f Delphi, engender a string of expository
incidents; cast into a quasi-historical form, and detailing
how it happened that Hermes had bound himself by especial
convention to respect the Delphian temple. The types of
Apollo seem to have been different in different times and
parts of Greece: in some places he was worshipped as
Apollo Nomios,2 or the patron of pasture and cattle; and
this attribute, which elsewhere passed over to his son
Aristaeus, is by our hymnographer voluntarily surrendered
to Hermes, combined with the golden rod of fruitfulness.
On the other hand, the lyre did not originally belong to
the Ear-striking King, nor is he at all an inventor : the
hymn explains both its first invention and how it came into
his possession. And the value of the incidents is thus
partly expository, partly illustrative, as expanding in detail
the general preconceived character of the Kyllenian god.
To Zeus more amours are ascribed than to any of the
other gods, — probably because the Grecian kings
and chieftains were especially anxious to trace
their lineage to the highest and most glorious of all, —
each of these amours having its representative progeny on
earth.3 Such subjects were among the most promising
and agreeable for the interest of mythical narrative, and
Zeus as a lover thus became the father of a great many
legends, branching out into innumerable interferences, for
which his sons, all of them distinguished individuals, and
many of them persecuted by Here, furnished the occasion.
But besides this, the commanding functions of the Supreme
God, judicial and administrative, extending both over gods
and men, was a potent stimulus to the mythopoeic activity*
Zeus has to watch over his own dignity, — the first of all
' Homer, Hymn. Merc. 574— 2 Eallimach. Hymn. Apoll. 47,
flaypa itsv o6v ovivrjOi, to 8' axpiTov B Kallimach. Hymn. Jov. 79. 'Ex
y^EpoTCEOst 8s Aios PaaiX'^Ec, Ac.
N'ixxa 6i' 6ptpvai7]v tpuXa Qvtjtuiv
dv9p(bjitov.

Chap. I. ZEUS AlfD HIS ATTRIBUTES. Gl
considerations with a god: moreover as Horkios, Xenios,
Ktesios, Meilichios (a small proportion of his thousand
surnames), he guaranteed oaths and punished perjurers,
he enforced the observance of hospitality, he guarded the
family hoard and the crop realised for the year, and he
granted expiation to the repentant criminal, i All these
different functions created a demand for mythes, as the
means of translating a dim, but serious presentiment into
distinct form, both self-explaining and communicable to
others. In enforcing the sanctity of the oath or of the tie
of hospitality, the most powerful of all arguments would
be a collection of legends respecting the judgements of
Zeus, Horkios or Xenios; the more impressive and terrific
such legends were, the greater would be their interest, and
the less would any one dare to disbelieve them. They
constituted the natural outpourings of a strong and common
sentiment, probably without any deliberate ethical inten
tion: the preconceptions of the divine agency, expanded
into legend, form- a product analogous to the idea of the
divine features and symmetry embodied in the bronze or
the marble statue.
But it was not alone the general type and attributes
of the gods which contributed to put in action the mytho-
pceic propensities. The rites and solemnities forming the
worship, of each god, as well as the details of his Mythes
temple and its locality, were a fertile source of By!J°s out
mythes, respecting his exploits and sufferings, Hgious
which to the people who heard them served the ceremonies.
purpose of past history. The exegetes, or local guide and
interpreter, belonging to each temple, preserved and re
counted to curious strangers these traditional narratives,
which lent a certain dignity even to the minutiae of divine
service. Out of a stock of materials thus ample, the poets
extracted individual collections, such as the "Causes" (Aitiix)
of Kallimachus, now lost, and such as theEasti of Ovid are
for the Roman religious antiquities. 2
1 See Herodot. i. 44. Xenoph. And Lactantius, v. 19, 15. "Ipsos
Anabas. vii. 8, 4. Plutarch, Theseus, ritus ex rebus gestis (deorum) vel
c. 12. ex casibus vei etiam ex mortibus,
2 Ovid, Fasti, iv. 211, about the natos :" to the same purpose
festivals of Apollo : — Augustin. De Civ. D. vii. 18;
"Priscique imitamina facti DiodGr. iii. 56. Plutarch's Quse-
2Era Dese comites raucaque terga stiones Grsecae etRomaicse are full
movent." of similar tales, professing to

62 HISTORY OF GREECE. part T.
It was the practice to offer to the gods in sacrifice
u the bones of the victim only, enclosed in fat: how
ofthe par did this practice arise? The author of the He-
anil^R1 d siodi"3 Theogony has a story which explains it:
sacn ce . ppoj^g^gyg tricked Zeus into an imprudent
choice, at the period when the gods and mortal men first
came to an arrangement about privileges and duties (in
Mekone). Prometheus, the tutelary representative of man,
divided a large steer into two portions : on the one side he
placed the flesh and guts, folded up in the omentum and
covered over with the skin; on the other, he put the bones
enveloped in fat. He then invited Zeus to determine which
of the two portions the gods would prefer to receive from
mankind. Zeus "with both hands" decided for and took
the white fat, but was highly incensed on finding that he
had got nothing at the bottom except the bones. »
had out- Nevertheless the choice of the gods was now
witted irrevocably made : they were not entitled to any
portion of the sacrificed animal beyond the bones
and the white fat; and the standing practice is thus plau
sibly explained.2 I select this as one amongst a thousand
instances to illustrate the genesis of legend out of religious
practices. In the belief of the people, the event narrated
in the legend was the real producing cause of the practice:
but when we come to apply a sound criticism, we are corn-
account for existing customs, many knowing that after all, the mischie-
of them religious and liturgic. vous consequences of the pro-
See Lobeck, Orphica, p. 675. coeding would be visited on man.
1 Hesiod, Theog. 550 — But the last lines, and indeed the
d>7J pa SoXo9povsu)V Zsos 6' a^LTa whole drift of the' legend, imply
p.rjOEa e!8u)s the contrary of this : Zeus was
Tvu) p 008' 7jYvoirjos SoXov xaxd 8' really taken in, and was in con-
SaffETO 9uu.ip sequence very angry. It is curious
8vtjtoi« avOpibxoioi, Ta xal TEXEEa9ai to observe how the religious feel-
epleXXev. ings of the poet drive him to save
Xspoi 8 8Y dp.(poT£pr|aiv dvsiXfiTO in words the prescience of Zeus,
Xeuxov aXeiipap- though in doing so he contradicts
Xibaaro 8e tppsva?, ap.(pt YiXo? Si jiiv and nullifies the whole point of
"xsto 9up.6v, the story.
'Q? lISsv oarsa Xeuxa Poo? 6oXln ehI " Hesiod. Theog. 667 —
"Xvfl- 'Ex too 8' iBavdToisiv sni x^O'l
In the second line of this citation, ipuX' dv9punu>v
the poet tells us that Zeus saw Kaiouu' SaTEa Xeuxa Sutjevtuiv
through the trick, and was imposed £^1 piop.u>v.
upon by his own consent, fore-

Chap. I. LEGENDS RESPECTING THE GODS. G3
pelled to treat the event as existing only in its narrative
legend, and the legend itself as having been in the greater
number of cases, engendered by the practice, — thus re
versing the supposed order of production.
In dealing with Grecian mythes generally, it is con
venient to distribute them into such as belong
to the Gods and such as belong to the Heroes, f°^3s> ^
according as the one or the other are the pro- menjappear
minent personages. The former class manifest, thTmytheT
more palpably than the latter, their real origin
as growing out of the faith and the feelings, without any
necessary basis, either of matter of fact or allegory : more
over, they elucidate more directly the religion of the Greeks,
so important an item in their character as a people. But
in point of fact, most of the mythes present to us Gods,
Heroes and Men, in juxtaposition one with the other. And
the richness of Grecian mythical literature arises from the
infinite diversity of combinations thus opened out; first by
the three class-types, God, Hero, and Man; next by the
strict keeping with which each separate class and character
is handled. We shall now follow downward the stream of
mythical time, which begins with the Gods, to the Heroic
legends, or those which principally concern the Heroes and
Heroines ; for the latter were to the full as important in
legend as the former.

64 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet I.

CHAPTER II.
LEGENDS RELATING TO HEROES AND MEN.
The Hesiodic theogony gives no account of anything like
a creation of man, nor does it seem that such an idea was
much entertained in the legendary vein of Grecian imagi
nation ; which commonly carriedback the present
menas they men by successive generations to some primitive
appear ancestor, himself sprung from the soil, or from
HesMic a neighbouring river, or mountain, or from a
"Works and god, a nymph, &c. But the poet of the Hesiodic
' "Works and Days" has given us a narrative con
ceived iii a very different spirit respecting the origin of
the human race, more in harmony with the sober and melan
choly ethical tone which reigns through that poem.1
First (he tells us) the Olympic gods made the golden
race, — good, perfect, and happy men, who lived from the
spontaneous abundance of the earth, in ease and tranquillity
like the gods themselves: they suffered neither
"' °" '"' disease nor old-age, and their death was like a
gentle sleep. After death they became, by the award of
Zeus, guardian terrestrial daemons, who watch unseen over
the proceedings of mankind — with the regal privilege of
dispensing to them wealth, and taking account of good and
bad deeds.2
1 Hesiod, as cited in the Ety- AoTap ekeiStj touto fhoz xaTd yaTa
mologicon Magnum (probably the xdXu'|s,
Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, as Tov uiv 8avpvovs« e'vai Aib? p.s-(iXou
Marktscheffel considers it, placing 8id PouXds
it Fragrn. 133), gives the parentage 'EaGXol, Em/9iivioi, 96XaxE? Svtjtuw
of a certain Brotos, who must prob- dv6pd>7ta)r
ably be intended as the first of 0° pa ipuXdaaooalv ts 8txa? xal
men: BpoTo?, cue piv E6iip.spo? 6 aYsrXva Ipfa,
Mismgvioj, ar.b BpoTou two? outox- 'Hspa eaadpievoi, icdvTT) ipoiTumE?
9ovos" 6 6e'Haio5o<;, dnoBporou too sie' alav
AWspoc xal ' Hpipas. IIXouToSoTav xal touto YEpa« pl-
* Opp. Di. 120.— otX^iov eavov.

CnAp. II. LEGENDS RELATING TO HEROES AND MEN. G5
Next, the gods made the silver race, — unlike and great
ly inferior, both in mind and body, to the golden.
The men of this raoe were reckless and mischie- The SllTer-
vous towards each other, and disdainful to the immortal
gods, to whom they refused to offer either worship or
sacrifice. Zeus in his wrath buried them in the earth; but
there they still enjoy a secondary honour, as the Blest of
the under-world, i
Thirdly, Zeus made the brazen race, quite different
from the silver. They were made of hard ash- _ „
j . n , .t . .. f. The Brazen.
wood, pugnacious and terrible: they were of
immense strength and adamantine soul, neither raising nor
touching bread. Their arms, their houses, and their im
plements were all of brass : there was then no iron. This
race, eternally fighting, perished by each other's hands,
died out, and descended without name or privilege to Hades.'
Next, Zeus made a fourth race, far juster and better
than the last preceding. These were the Heroes _
or demigods, who fought at the sieges of Troy
and Thebes. But this splendid stock also became extinct:
some perished in war, others were removed by Zeus to a
happier state in the islands of tfee Blest. There they dwell
in peace and comfort, under the government of Kronos,
reaping thrice in the year the spontaneous produce of the
earth. 3
' The fifth race, which succeeds to the Heroes, is of iron:
it is the race to which the poet himself belongs,
and bitterly does he regret it. He finds his con
temporaries mischievous, dishonest, unjust, ungrateful, given
to perjury, careless both of the ties of consanguinity and
of the behests of the gods: Nemesis and ,3Mos (Ethical
Self-reproach) have left earth and gone back to Olympus.
How keenly does he wish that his lot had been cast either
1 Opp. Di. 140. — are born along with the Gigantes
AiiTdp sxeI xal touto yevo? xaTa and the Erinnyes (Theogon. 187),
Taia xdXu']jE, — "gensque virum truncis et duro
Tol uiv 6itoy,9ovioi putxapE? Svtqto'i robore nata" (Virgil, -3!neid, viii.
xaXsovTav " 315),— hearts of oak.
AsuTEpoi, dXX' Spiunc Tip-T) xal toioiv 3 Opp. Di. 157. —
otutiosi. 'AvSptbv 'Hptbcov BeTov yivot;, oi
* The ash was the wood out of xaXeovTav
which spear-handles were made *Hp.i9£ov 7cpoT£pTj Yeveg xaT dn-Eipova
(Iliad, xvi. 124) : the Nopiyat MsXiai raiav.
VOL, I. V

66 HISTORY OF GREECE. pabt I.
earlier or later! ' This iron race is doomed to continual guilt,
care, and suffering, with a small infusion of good; but the
time will come when Zeus will put an end to it. The poet
does not venture to predict what sort of race will succeed.
Such is the series of distinct races of men, which
Hesiod, or the author of the "Works and Days," enumerates
as having existed down to his own time. I give it as it
stands, without placing much confidence in the various
explanations which critics have offered. It stands out in
more than one respect from the general tone and sentiment
of Grecian legend : moreover the sequence of races is neither
natural nor homogeneous, — the heroic race not having any
metallic denomination, and not occupying any legitimate
place in immediate succession to the brazen. Nor is the
conception of the daemons in harmony either with Homer
or with the Hesiodic theogony. In Homer, there ¦
b'thf61** *s SGarcely any distinction between gods and
the Theo- daemons: farther, the gods are stated to go about
gony and an(j yisjt the cities of men in various disguises
Homer. for the purpose of inspecting good and evil pro
ceedings.2 But in the poem now before us, the
distinction between gods and daemons is generic. The latter
are invisible tenants of earth, remnants of the once happy
golden race whom the Olympic gods first made: the rem
nants of the second or silver race are not daemons, nor are
they tenants of earth, but they still enjoy an honourable
posthumous existence as the Blest of the under-world.
Nevertheless the Hesiodic daemons are in no way authors
or abettors of evil; on the contrary, they form the unseen
police of the gods, for the purpose of repressing wicked
behaviour in the world.
We may trace, I think, in this quintuple succession of
Expiana- earthly races, set forth by the author of the
tion of this "Works and Days," the confluence of two veins
1 erence. Qf sentiment, not consistent one with the other,
yet both co-existing in the authoi '•* mind. The driftof his
poem is thoroughly didactic and ethical. Though deeply
penetrated with the injustice and suffering which darken
the face of human life, he nevertheless strives to maintain,
1 Opp. Di. 173. — 'AvSpiutv, 4XX' fl itpdafle Baveiv, ?
Mtixet' Ih-evt' uxpeiXov eytb iuip.it- e'irevTa yevsaQat.
TOtcrt u-ETsivat NOv yap 87) yevoc eotv aiB^pEov. • « •
1 Odyss. xvii. 486.

Chap. IT. RACE OF HEROES. C7
both in himself and in others, a conviction that on the
whole the just and laborious man will come off well, ' and
he enforces in considerable detail the lessons of practical
prudence and virtue. This ethical sentiment, which dictates
his appreciation of the present, also guides his imagination
as to the past. It is pleasing to him to bridge over the
chasm between the gods and degenerate man, by the sup
position of previous races, — the first altogether Bthioal
pure, the second worse than the first, and the vein of
third still worse than the second; and to show sentim8nt-
further how the first race passed by gentle death-sleep into
glorious immortality; how the second race was sufficiently
wicked to drive Zeus to bury them in the under-world, yet
still leaving them a certain measure of honour; while the
third was so desperately violent as to perish by its own
animosities, without either name or honour of any kind.
The conception of the golden race passing after death into
good guardian daemons, which some suppose to have been
derived from a comparison with oriental angels, presents
itself to the poet partly as approximating this race to the
gods, partly as a means of constituting a triple gradation
of post-obituary existence, proportioned to the character
of each race whilst alive. The denominations of gold and
silver, given to the two first races, justify themselves, like
those given by Simonides of Amorgos and by Phokylides
to the different characters of women, derived from the dog,
the bee, the mare, the ass and other animals ; and the epithet
of brazen is specially explained by reference to the material
which the pugnacious third race so plentifully employed
for their arms and other implements.
1 There are some lines, in which On the whole, however , his con-
ho appears to believe that, under viction is to the contrary.
the present wicked and treacherous Plutarch rejects the above four
rulers, it is not the interest of any lines, seemingly on no other
man to be just (Opp. Di. 270) : — ground than because he thought
Nuv 87] eycb u-tjt1 «uto« ev dv9pu>- them immoral and unworthy of
icotfft Bixato? Hesiod (see Proclus ad loc.). But
EVt]v, u.7]t' ep.6<; oio?- etceI xax6v ian they fall in perfectly with the tem-
Sixaiov Per of the poem; and the rule of
'Ep.p.Evai, si pvsltio ys Sixrjv i8ixui- Plutarch is inadmissible, in deter-
Tspos e£ev mining the critical question of
'AXXd t68' ouitui soXita teXeiv Ala what is genuine or spurious.

TspmxEpauvov.

v 2

68 HISTORY OF GREECE. Past I.
So far we trace intelligibly enough the moralising
intersected vein: we find the revolutions of the past so
by the arranged as to serve partly as an ethical lesson,
mythical. . partlyas a suitable preface to the present.! But
fourth in the list comes "the divine race of Heroes;" and
here a new vein of thought is opened by the poet. The
symmetry of his ethical past is broken up, in order to make
way for these cherished beings of the national faith. _ For
though the author of the "Works and Days" was himself
of a didactic cast of thought, like Phokylides, or Solon, or
Theognis, yet he had present to his feelings, in common
with his countrymen, the picture of Grecian foretime, as it
was set forth in the current mythes, and still more in Homer
and those other epical productions which were then the
only existing literature and history. It was impossible
for him to exclude, from his sketch of the past, either the
great persons or the glorious exploits which these poems
ennobled; and even if he himself could have consented to
such an exclusion, the sketch would have become repulsive
to his hearers. But the chiefs who figured before Thebes
and Troy could not be well identified either with the golden,
the silver, or the brazen race: moreover it was essential
that they should be placed in immediate contiguity with
the present race,because their descendants,real or supposed,
were the most prominent and conspicuous of existing men.
Hence the poet is obliged to assign to them the fourth place
in the series, and to interrupt the descending ethical move
ment in order to interpolate them between the brazen and
the iron race, with neither of which theypresent any analogy.
The iron race, to which the poet himself unhappily belongs,
is the legitimate successor, not of the heroic, but of the
brazen. Instead of the fierce and self-annihilating pugnacity
1 Aratus (Phsenomen. 107) gives series of distinct races are inge-
only three successive races, — the nious and may be read with profit.
golden, silver, and brazen: Ovid Both recognise the disparate char-
superadds to these the iron race acter of the fourth link in the
(Metamorph. i. 89 — 144) ; neither of Beries, and each accounts for it in
them notice the heroic race. a different manner. My own view
The observations both of Butt- comes nearer to that of Volcker,
mann (Mythos der altesten Men- with some considerable differences ;
schengeschlechter, t, ii. p. 12 of amongst which one is, that he
the Mythologus) and of Volcker rejects .the verses respecting the
(Mythologie des Japetisohen Ge- dasmons, which seem to me capital
schlechts, § 6, pp. 250 — 279) on this parts of the whole scheme.

Chap. II. HESIODIC POEMS. (3 g
which characterises the latter, the iron race manifests an
aggregate of smaller and meaner vices and mischiefs. It
will not perish by suicidal extinction — but it is growing
worse and worse, and is gradually losing its vigour, so that
Zeus will not vouchsafe to preserve much longer such a
race upon the earth.
I conceive that the series of races imagined by the
poet of the "Works and Days" is the product of two distinct
and incongruous veins of imagination, — the didactic or
ethical blending with the primitive mythical or
epical. His poem is remarkable as the most an| j,^ ?,
ancient didactic production of the Greeks, and earliest
as one of the first symptoms of a new tone of p^m!10
sentiment finding its way into their literature,
never afterwards to become extinct. The tendency of the
"Works and Days" is antiheroic: far from seeking to inspire
admiration for adventurous enterprise, the author inculcates
the strictest justice, the most unremitting labour and frugal
ity, and a sober, not to say anxious, estimate of all the
minute specialties of the future. Prudence and probity
are his means, — practical comfort and happiness his end.
But he deeply feels, and keenly exposes, the manifold
wickedness and shortcomings of his contemporaries, in
reference to this capital standard. He turns with displeasure
from the present men, not because they are too feeble to
hurl either the spear of Achilles or some vast boundary-
stone, but because they are rapacious, knavish, and un
principled. The daemons first introduced into the religious atmos
phere of the Grecian world by the author of the
"Works andDays" — as generically different from f^"1^"*^"
the gods, but essentially good, and forming the dasmons.
intermediate agents and police between gods
and men, — are deserving of attention. They are the seed
of a doctrine which afterwards underwent many changes, and
became of great importance, first as one of the constituent
elements of pagan faith, then as one of the helps to its
subversion. It will be recollected that the buried remnants
of the half-wicked silver race, though they are not recog
nised as daemons, are still considered as having a substantive
existence, a name, and dignity, in the under-world. The
step was easy, to treat them as daemons also, but as 6%emons
of a defective and malignant character : this step was made

70 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
by Empedocles and Xenocrates, and to a certain extent
countenanced by Plato. l - There, came thus to be admitted
Changes in amongthe pagan philosophers daemons both good
the idea of and bad, in every degree: and these daemons
daanons. were f0lm(j available as a means of explaining
many phaenomena for which it was not convenient to admit
the agency of the gods. They served to relieve the gods
from the odium of physical and moral evils, as well as from
the necessity of constantly meddling in small affairs. The
objectionable ceremonies of thepagan religion were defended
upon the ground that in no other way could the exigencies
of such malignant beings be appeased. The daemons were
most frequently noticed as causes of evil, and thus the name
came insensibly to convey with it a bad sense, — the idea
of an evil being as contrasted with the goodness of a god.
So it was found by the Christian writers when they com
menced their controversy with paganism. One branch of
their argument led them to identify the pagan gods with
daemons in the evil sense, and the insensible change in the
, received meaningof the word lentthemaspecious
in attacks assistance. For they could easily show, that not
on the only in Homer, but in the general language of
pag.iD . earjy paganSj an the gods generally were spoken
of as daemons — and therefore, verbally speaking, Clemens
and Tatian seemed to affirm nothing more against Zeus or
Apollo than was involved in the language of Paganism itself.
Yet the audience of Homer or Sophokles would have
strenuously repudiated the proposition, if it had been put
to them in the sense which the word daemon bore in the
age and among the circle of these Christian writers.
In the imagination of the author of the "Works and
M Days," the daemons occupy an important place,
of the and are regarded as being of serious practical
^esi0^Bic efficiency. When he is remonstrating with the
rulers around him upon their gross injustice and
corruption, he reminds them of the vast number of these
immortal servants of Zeus who are perpetually on guard
amidst mankind, and through whom the visitations of the
gods will descend even upon the most potent evil-doers.2
His supposition that the daemons were not gods, but
1 See this subject further men- * Opp. Di. 252. Tplc fop p.upiol
tioned— infra, chap. xvi. eluiv eul yfiovl itooXuPoTslpn, &c.

Chap. IL HESIODIC POEMS. 71
departed men of the golden race, allowed him to multiply
their number indefinitely, without too much cheapening
the divine dignity.
As this poet, enslaved by the current legends, has
introduced the heroic race into a series to which they do
not legitimately belong — so he has under the same influence
inserted in another part of his poem the mythe of Pandora
and Prometheus, i as a means of explaining the primary
diffusion, and actual abundance, of evil among mankind.
Yet this mythe can in no way consist with his quintuple
scale of distinct races, and is in fact a totally distinct theory
to explain the same problem, — the transition of mankind
from a supposed state of antecedent happiness to one of
present toil and suffering. Such an inconsistency is not a
sufficient reason for questioning the genuineness of either
passage ; for the two stories, though one contradicts the
other, both harmonise with that central purpose which
governs the author's mind, — a querulous and personai
didactic appreciation of the present. That such feeling
was his purpose appears not only from the whole p^ades
tenor of his poem, but also from the remarkable the "Works
fact that his own personality, his own adventures and Day3-"
and kindred, and his own sufferings figure in it conspi
cuously. And this introduction of self imparts to it a pecu
liar interest. The father of Hesiod came over from the
_3Colic Kyme, with the view of bettering his condition, and
settled at Askra in Bceotia, at the foot of Mount Helicon.
After his death his two sons divided the family inheritance :
but Hesiod bitterly complains that his brother Perses
cheated and went to law with him, and obtained through
corrupt judges an unjust decision. He farther reproaches
his brother with a preference for the suits and unprofitable
bustle of the agora, at a time when he ought to be labour
ing for his subsistence in the field. Askra indeed was a
miserable place, repulsive both in summer and winter.
Hesiod had never crossed the sea, except once from Aulis
to Eubcea, whither he went to attend the funeral-games of
Amphidamas, the chief of Chalkis : he sung a hymn, and
gained as prize a tripod, which he consecrated to the muses
in Helicon. 2
These particulars, scanty as they are, possess a pecu
liar value, as the earliest authentic memorandum respecting
' Opp. Di. 50—105. * Opp. Di. 630—650, 27—45.

72 HISTORY OF GREECE.' Paut I.
the doing or suffering of any actual Greek person. There
is no external testimony at all worthy of trust respecting
the age of the "Works and Days" : Herodotus treats Hesiod
and Homer as belonging to the same age, four hundred
years before his own time; and there are other statements
Probable besides, some placing Hesiod at an earlier date
age of the than Homer, some at a later. Looking at the
poem. internal evidences, we may observe that the
pervading sentiment, tone, and purpose of the poem is
widely different from that of the Iliad and Odyssey, and
analogous to what we read respecting the compositions of
Archilochus and the Amorgian Simonides. The author of
the "Works and Days" is indeed a preacher and not a
satirist: but with this distinction, we find in him the
same predominance of the present and the positive, the
same disposition to turn the muse into an exponent of
his own personal wrongs, the same employment of _<Esopic
fable by way of illustration, and the same unfavourable
estimate of the female sex,1 all of which may be traced
in the two poets above-mentioned, placing both of them
in contrast with the Homeric epic. Such an internal ana
logy, in the absence of good testimony, is the best guide
which we can follow in determining the date of the "Works
and Days," which we should accordingly place shortly after
the year 700 b.c. The style of the poem might indeed
afford a proof that the ancient and uniform hexameter,
though well-adapted to continuous legendary narrative or
to solemn hymns, was somewhat monotonous when called
upon either to serve a polemical purpose or to impress a
striking moral lesson. When poets, then the only existing
composers, first began to apply their thoughts to the cut
and thrust of actual life, aggressive or didactic, the verse
would be seen to require a new, Hvelier and smarter metre ;
and out of this want grew the elegiac and the iambic verse,
both seemingly contemporaneous, and both intended to
supplant the primitive hexameter for the short effusions
then coming into vogue.
• Compare the fable (aivoO in (Fr. viii. ed. 'Weloker, v. 95—115);
the "Works and Days", v. 200, also Phokylides ap. Stobanim
with those in Archilochus, Fr* Florileg. lxxi.
xxxviii. and xxxix., Gaisford, re- Isokrates assimilates the char-
specting the fox and the ape j and acter of the ""Works and Days"
the legend of PandOra (v. 95 and to that of Theognis and Phokylides
v. 705) with the fragment of Simo. (ad Nicocl. Or. ii. p. 23).
nides of Amorgos respecting women

Chap. III. LEGEND OF THE IAPETIDS. 73

CHAPTER III.
LEGEND OE THE IAPETIDS.
The sons of the Titan god Iapetus, as described in the
Hesiodic theogony, are Atlas, Mencetius, Prometheus, and
Epimetheus. i Of these, Atlas alone is mentioned by Homer
in the Odyssey, and even he not as the son of Iapetus: the
latter himself is named in the Iliad as existing in Tartarus
along with Kronos. The Homeric Atlas "knows the depths
of the whole sea, and keeps by himself those tall pillars
which hold the heaven apart from the earth."2
As the Homeric theogony generally appears much
expanded in Hesiod, so also does the family of iapetids in
Iapetus, with their varied adventures. Atlas Hesiod.
is here described,notas the keeper of the intermediate pil
lars between heaven and earth, but as himself condemned
by Zeus to support the heaven on his head and hands;3
while the fierce Mencetius is pushed down to Erebus as a
punishment for his ungovernable insolence. But theremain-
ing two brothers, Prometheus and Epimetheus, are among
the most interesting creations of Grecian legend, and distin
guished in more than one respect from all the remainder.
First, the main battle between Zeus and the Titan
gods is a contest of force purely and simply — pr0m*theus
mountains are hurled and thunder is launched, and Epi-
and the victory remains to the strongest. But mStheus-
the competition between Zeus and Prometheus is one of
craft and stratagem: the victory does indeed remain to the
former, but the honours of the fight belong to the latter.
1 Hesiod. Theog. 510. ' Hesiod. Theog. 616—
2 Horn. Odyss. i. 120. — "AtXoc 8' oupavov E&puv eyei xpaTep?j<
"ArXavTOs QuyaT^p 6Xo6cppovoc, 8gts utc' a^ayx?]?
0aXdacj7)e. 'Earqtbs, xs<paX^ Te xai dxaptaToiai
ndanc fisvoea olfis, syei Se TExiovas /EpEoai.
auroc Hesiod stretches far beyond the
Maxpac, at laiii te xal oipavov simplicity of the Homeric con-
au.<ptc Ivouaiv. ception.

74 HISTORY OF GREECE. Past L
Secondly, Prometheus and Epimetheus (the fore-thinker
and the after-thinker1) are characters stamped at the same
mint, and by the same effort, the express contrast and anti
thesis of each other. Thirdly, mankind are here expressly
brought forward, not indeed as active partners in the
struggle, but as the grand and capital subjects interested,
— as gainers or sufferers by the result. Prometheus appears
in the exalted character of champion of the human race,
even against the formidable superiority of Zeus.
In the primitive or Hesiodic legend, Prometheus is
not the creator or moulder of man; it is only the later
additions which invest him with this character. 2 The race
are supposed as existing, and Prometheus, a member of the
dispossessed body of Titan gods, comes forward as their
representative and defender. The advantageous bargain
which he made with Zeus on their behalf, in respect to the
partition of the sacrificial animals, has been recounted in a
preceding chapter. Zeus felt that he had been outwitted,
and was exceeding wroth. In his displeasure he
manreuvrinB withheld from mankind the inestimable comfort
of Prome- of fire, so that the race would have perished, had
theus and nQ^ prometheus stolen fire, in defiance of the
Supreme Buler, and brought it to men in the hol
low stem of the plant called giant-fennel.3
Zeus was now doubly indignant, and determined to
play off a still more ruinous stratagem. Hephaestos, by his
direction, moulded the form of a beautiful virgin; Athene
dressed her, Aphrodite and the Charites bestowed upon her
both ornament and fascination, while Hermes infused into
her the mind of a dog, a deceitful spirit, and treacherous
words.4 The messenger of the gods conducted this "fasci
nating mischief" to mankind, at a time when Prometheus
'Pindar extends the family of shown to Pausanias at Panopeus in
Epimetheus and gives him a daugh- Phokis (Paus. x. 4, 3).
ter, ljp«paeji?(Pyth. v. 25), Excuse, The first Epigram of Erinna
the offspring of After-thought. (Anthol. i. p. 68, ed. Brunck) seems
1 Apolloddr. i. 7,1. Nor is he to allude to Prometheus as moulder
such either in JEschylus , or in of man. The expression of Aristo-
the Platonic fable (Protag. c. 30), phanes (Aves, 689)_itXaap.aTa al
though this version became at Xou— does not necessarily refer to
last the most popular. Some har- Prometheus.
dened lumps of clay, remnants of > Hesiod. Theog. 566; Opp. Di.52.
that which had been employed by « Theog. 680; Opp. Di. 50—85.
Prometheus in moulding man, were

Chap. III. LEGEND OF THE IAPETIDS. 75
was not present. Now Epimetheus had received from his
brother peremptory injunctions not to accept from the
hands of Zeus any present whatever; but the
beauty of Pandora (so the newly-formed female Pand6ra-
was called) was not to be resisted. She was received and
admitted among men, and from that moment their comfort
and tranquillity was exchanged for suffering of every kind. l
The evils to which mankind are liable had been before
enclosed in a cask in their own keeping: Pandora in her
malice removed the lid of the cask, and out flew these
thousand evils and calamities, to exercise for ever their
destroying force. Hope alone remained imprisoned, and
therefore without efficacy, as before — the inviolable lid
being replaced before she could escape. Before this inci
dent (says the legend) men had lived without disease or
suffering; but now both earth and sea are full of mischiefs.
Maladies of every description stalk abroad by day as well
as by night,2 without any hope for man of relief to come.
The Theogony gives the legend here recounted, with
some variations — leaving out the part of Epime- pandora in
theus altogether, as well as the cask of evils, the Theo-
Pandora is the ruin of man, simply as the mother sony.
and representative of the female sex. 3 And the variations
1 Opp. Di. 81 — 90. Plutarch assimilates to this the
2 Opp. Di. 93. Panddra does not niSos opened by Panddra, Consolat.
bring with her the cask, as the ad Apollon. c. 7, p. 105. The ex-
common version of this story planation here given of the Hesiodic
¦would have us suppose: the cask passage relating to Hope, is drawn
exists fast closed in the custody from an able article in the Wiener
of Epimetheus, or of man himself, Jahrbucher, vol. 109 (1846), p. 220,
and Panddra commits the fatal by Ritter ; a review ofSchomann's
treachery of removing the lid. .The translation of the Prometheus of
case is analogous to that of the ZEschylus. The diseases and evils
closed bag of unfavourable winds are inoperative so long as they
which iEolus gives into the hands remain shut up in the cask; the
of Odysseus, and which the guilty same mischief-making influence
companions of the latter force which lets them out to their cala-
open, to the entire ruin of his mitous work, takes care that Hope
hopes (Odyss. x. 19 — 50). The idea shall still continue a powerless
of the two casks on the threshold prisoner in the inside.
of Zeus, lying ready for dispen- ' Theog. 590.—
sation — one full of evils, the other 'Ex T7Js -fap Tfsvoc sorl yuvaixtby
of benefits — is Homeric (Iliad, 9i]XuTEpau>v, '
xxiv. 627): — Tijs fao AXundv eflTi YE'V°V x«l
Aolot yap ts itlSoi xaTaxslaTai iv (poXa y"m«ixu>v
Aio; ouSst, &c.

76 HISTORY OF GREECE. Past I.
are thus useful, as they enable us to distinguish the essen
tial from the accessory circumstances of the story.
"Thus (says the poet, at the conclusion of his narrative)
it is not possible to escape from the purposes ofZeus."i
His mythe, connecting the calamitous condition of man
with the malevolence of the supreme god, shows, first, by
what cause such an unfriendly feeling was raised; next, by
what instrumentality its deadly results were brought about.
The human race are not indeed the creation, but the pro
tected flock of Prometheus, one of the elder or dispossessed
Titan gods. When Zeus acquires supremacy, mankind
along with the rest become subject to him, and are to make
the best bargain they can, respecting worship and service
to be yielded. By the stratagem of their advocate Prome
theus, Zeus is cheated into such a partition of the victims
General as *s eminently unprofitable to him; whereby his
feeling of wrath is so provoked, that he tries to subtract
the poet. from man the use of fire. Here however his
scheme is frustrated by the theft of Prometheus : but his
second attempt is more successful, and he in his turn cheats
the unthinking Epimetheus into the acceptance of a present
(in spite of the peremptory interdict of Prometheus) by
which the whole of man's happiness is wrecked. This legend
grows out of two feelings ; partly as to the relations of the
gods with man, partly as to the relation of the female sex
with the male. The present gods are unkind towards man,
but the old gods, with whom man's lot was originally cast,
were much kinder — and the ablest among them stands
forward as the indefatigable protector of the race. Never
theless, the mere excess of his craft proves the ultimate
ruin of the cause which he espouses. He cheats Zeus out
of a fair share of the sacrificial victim, so as both to provoke
and justify a retaliation which he cannot be always at hand
to ward off; the retaliation is, in his absence, consummated
Man by a snare laid for Epimetheus and voluntarily
but'zheuds' accepted- And ^us, though Hesiod ascribes the
not to calamitous condition of man to the malevolence
blame. of Zeus, his piety suggests two exculpatory pleas
for the latter; mankind have been the first to defraud Zeus
of his legitimate share of the sacrifice — and they have
IT7Jp.a p.sya 9vr,ToIm jiet' ivSpaai ' Opp. Di. 105. —
vaiETao'Joi, &e. Outco? outi u^j sjtI Aioc voo»
E^aXsacBai.

Chap. III. ZEUS AND PROMETHEUS. 77
moreover been consenting parties to their own ruin. Such
are the feelings, as to the relation between the gods and "
man, which have been one of the generating elements of
this legend. The other element, a conviction of , ... . „
., °, . ,. - . . , ' . Mischiefs
the vast mischief arising to man from women, arising
whom yet they cannot dispense with, is fre- from
quently and strongly set forth in several of the
Greek poets — by Simonides of Amorgos and Phokylides,
not less than by Euripides.
But the miseries arising from woman, however great
they might be, did not reach Prometheus himself. Por
him, the rash champion who had ventured "to compete in
sagacity" 1 with Zeus, a different punishment was in store.
Bound by heavy chains to a pillar, he remained fast im
prisoned for several generations: every day did an eagle
prey upon his liver, and every night did the liver .
grow afresh for the next day's suffering. At ment of
length Zeus, eager to enhance the glory of his P/omS"
favourite son, Herakles, permitted the latter to
kill the eagle and rescue the captive. 2
Such is the Promethean mythe as it stands in the
Hesiodic poems; its earliest form, as far as we can trace.
Upon it was founded the sublime tragedy of -33schylus,
"The Enchained Prometheus," together with at least one
more tragedy, now lost, by the same author.3 .JSschylus
has made several important alterations; describing the
human race, not as having once enjoyed and subsequently
lost a state of tranquillity and enjoyment, but as originally
feeble and wretched. He suppresses both the first trick
played off by PrometheusuponZeus respectingthe partition
of the victim — and the final formation and sending of Pan
dora — which are the two most marked portions of the
Hesiodic story; while on the other hand he Tne pro-
brings out prominently and enlarges upon the metheus of
theft of fire,* which in Hesiod is but slightly -a""**1™-
1 Theog. 534. Ouvsx' gpLC'to fiou- a satyric drama, IIpopiri9s0c ITup-
).a< UnEppLEVEi Kpovlojvt. xasuc; (Die Griechischen Tragodien,
2 Theog. 521—532. vol. i. p. 30). The story of Prome-
1 Of the tragedy called Ilpop.7)6iu? theus had also been handled by
Auop-Evoc some few fragments yet Sappho in one of her lost songs
remain: ITpop.7)f)£u« Ilup-fopo? was a (Servius ad Virgil. Eclog. vi. 42).
satyric drama, according to Din- 4 Apollod6rus too mentions only
dorf: Welcker recognises a third the theft of fire (i. 7, 1).
tragedy, npou.7]f)Eu« flup'popos, and

78 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pabt L
touched. If he has thus relinquished the antique simplicity
of the story, he has rendered more than ample compensation
by imparting to it a grandeur of ideal, a large reach of thought
combined withappeals to our earnest and admiring sympathy,
and a pregnancy of suggestion in regard to the relations
between the gods and man, which soar far above the Hesiodic
level — and which render his tragedy the most impressive,
though not the most artistically composed, of all Grecian
dramatic productions. Prometheus there appears not only
as the heroic champion and sufferer in the cause and for
the protection of the human race, but also as the gifted
teacher of all the arts, helps, and ornaments of life, amongst
which fire is only one : l all this against the will and in de
fiance of the purpose of Zeus, who, on acquiring his empire,
wished to destroy the human race and to beget some new
breed. 2 Moreover, new relations between Prometheus and
Zeus are superadded by JEschylus. At the commencement
of the strugglebetweenZeus and the Titan gods, Prometheus
had vainly attempted to prevail upon the latter to conduct
it with prudence; but when he found.that they obstinately
declined all wise counsel, and that their ruin was inevitable,
he abandoned their cause and joined Zeus. To him and
to his advice Zeus owed the victory; yet the monstrous
ingratitude and tyranny of the latter is now manifested by
nailing him to a rock, for no other crime than because he
frustrated the purpose of extinguishing the human race,
and furnished to them the means of living with tolerable
comfort.3 The new ruler Zeus, insolent with his victory
over the old gods, tramples down all right, and sets at
naught sympathy and obligation, as well towards gods as
towards man. Yet the prophetic Prometheus, in the midst
of intense suffering, is consoled by the foreknowledge that ¦
the time will come when Zeus must again send for him,
release him, and invoke his aid, as the sole means of averting
from himself dangers otherwise insurmountable. The
security and means of continuance for mankind have now
been placed beyond the reach of Zeus — whom Prometheus
1 .aEsch. Prom. 442—506.— Oux Iiyev ouBsv", AXX' iiaTdxrac
llaaai TEvvai PpoTOiaiv ex ITpo- fitoz
P-ifliux;. To nav, ixpntcv 'SXXo tpiruuai
1 iEsch. Prom. 231. vsov.
Pporibv Se tu>v TaXaiituipiov ' .ffisch. Prom. 198 — 222. 123. 
Xoyov Bia Trjv Xlav <piXdTK)Ta PpoTuiv .

Chap. HI. PEOMETHEUS AND HIS SUFFERINGS. 79
proudly defies, glorying in his generous and successful
championship, * despite the terrible price which he is doomed
to pay for it.
As the ^schylean Prometheus, though retaining the
old lineaments, has acquired a new colouring,
soul and character, so he has also become identi- w^ioh Pro"
fied with a special locality. In Hesiod there is metheus
no indication of the place in which he is imprison- confined.
ed; but Jjlschylus places it in Scythia, 2 and
the general belief of the Greeks supposed it to be on Mount
Caucasus. So long and so firmly did this belief continue,
that the Roman general Pompey, when in command of an
army in Kolchis, made with his companion, the literary
Greek Theophanes, a special march to view the spot in
Caucasus where Prometheus had been transfixed.3
1 JEsch. Prom. 169 — 770. the Prometheus Vinctus seems to
2 Prometh. 2. See also the Frag- imply that Mount Caucasus is a
ments of the Prometheus Solutus, place different from that to which
177-179, edDindorf, where Caucasus the suffering prisoner is chained.
is specially named ; but v. 719 of ' Appian, Bell. Mithridat. c. 103.

80 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.

CHAPTER IV.
HEROIC LEGENDS.— GENEALOGY OP AKGOS.
Having briefly enumerated the gods of Greece, with their
chief attributes as described in legend, we come to those
genealogies which connected them with historical men.
In the retrospective faith of a Greek, the ideas of
structure worship and ancestry coalesced. Every asso-
and pur- ciation of men, large or small, in whom there
Grecian' existed a feeling of present union, traced back
genea- that union to some common initial progenitor;
logies. ^na^ progenitor being either the common god
whom they worshipped, or some semi-divine person closely
allied to him. What the feelings of the community require
is, a continuous pedigree to connect them with this re
spected source of existence, beyond which they do not
think of looking back. A series of names, placed in filiation
or fraternity, together with a certain number of family or
personal adventures ascribed to some of the individuals
among them, constitute the ante-historical past through
which the Greek looks back to his gods. The names of
this genealogy are, to a great degree, gentile or local names
familiar to the people, — rivers, mountains, springs, lakes,
villages, demes, &c, — embodied as persons, and introduced
as acting or suffering. They are moreover called kings or
chiefs, but the existence of a body of subjects surrounding
them is tacitly implied rather than distinctly set forth; for
their own personal exploits or family proceedings constitute
for the most part the whole matter of narrative. And thus
To connect ^ne genealogy was made to satisfy- at once the
the Grecian appetite of the Greeks for romantic adventure,
wmT their an<1 their demand for an unbroken line of filiation
common between themselves and the gods. The epony-
soi- mous personage, from whom the community
derive their name, is sometimes the begotten son of the
local god, sometimes an indigenous man sprung from the
earth, which is indeed itself divinized.

Ciiap.IV. HEROIC LEGENDS.— GENEALOGY OF ARGOS. 81
It will be seen from the mere description of these
genealogies that they included elements human and his
torical, as well as elements divine and extra-historical. And
if we could determine the time at which any genealogy was
first framed, we should be able to assure ourselves that the
men then represented as present, together with their fathers
and grandfathers, were real persons of flesh and ij0wer
blood. But this is a point which can seldom be members
ascertained; moreover, even if it could be ascer- genealogy
tained, we must at once set it aside, if we wish historical—
to look at the genealogy in the point of view of ^JfmyerB
the Greeks. Por to them, not only all the mem- non-
bers were alike real, but the gods and heroes at hlstorloal-
the commencement were in a certain sense the most real;
at least, they were the most esteemed and indis- The non-
pensable of all. The value of the genealogy con- historical
sisted, not in its length, but in its continuity ; not equally be-
(according to the feeling of modern aristocracy) lieved, and
in the power of setting out a prolonged series valued, by
of human fathers and grandfathers, but in the the Greeks.
sense of ancestral union with the primitive god. And the
length of the series is traceable rather to humility, inas
much as the same person who was gratified with the belief
that he was descended from a god in the fifteenth genera
tion, would have accounted it criminal insolence to affirm
that a god was his father or grandfather. In presenting
to the reader those genealogies which constitute the sup
posed primitive history of Hellas, I make no pretence to
distinguish names real and historical from fictitious crea
tions; partly because I have no evidence upon which to
draw the line, and partly because by attempting it I should
altogether depart from the genuine Grecian point of view.
Nor is it possible to do more than exhibit a certain
selection of such as were most current and inter- „ .
esting ; for the total number of them which found such gene-
place in Grecian faith exceeds computation. As bogies—
1 -, ! t L pervading
a general rule, every deme, every gens, every every
aggregate of men accustomed to combined action, gaoMon of
religious or political, had its own. The small
and unimportant demes into which Attica was divided had
each its ancestral god and heroes, just as much as the great
Athens herself. Even among the villages of Phokis, which
Pausanias will hardly permit himself to call towns, deduc-
VOL. I. g

82 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
tions of legendary antiquity were not wanting. And it is
important to bear in mind, when we are reading the legen
dary genealogies of Argos, or Sparta, or Thebes, that these
are merely samples amidst an extensive class, all perfectly
analogous, and all exhibiting the religious and patriotic
retrospect of some fraction of the Hellenic world. They
are no more matter of historical tradition than any of the
thousand other legendary genealogies which men delighted
to recall to memory at the periodical festivals of their gens,
their deme, or their village.
With these few prefatory remarks, I proceed to notice
the most conspicuous of the Grecian heroic pedigrees, and
first, that of Argos.
The earliest name in Argeian antiquity is that of
A ian Inachus, the son of Oceanus and Tethys, who
genealogy , gave his name to the river flowing under the
—inaohus. walls 0f the town. According to the chrono
logical computations of those who regarded the mythical
genealogies as substantive history, and who allotted a given
number of years to each generation, the reign of Inachus
was placed 1986 B.C., or about 1 100 years prior to the com
mencement of the recorded Olympiads. l
The sons of Inachus were Phor6neus and ./JDgialeus;
both of whom however were sometimes represented as
autochthonous or indigenous men, the one in the territory
of Argos, the other in that of Sikyon. JEgialeus gave his
name to the north-western region of the Peloponnesus, on
the southern coast of the Corinthian Gulf.2 The
name of Phor6neus was of great celebrity in the
Argeian mythical genealogies, and furnished both the title
and the subject of the ancient poem called Phoronis, in
which he is styled "the father of mortal men." 3 He is said
to have imparted to mankind, who had before him lived
altogether isolated, the first notion and habits of social
existence, and even the first knowledge of fire : his dominion
extended over the whole Peloponnesus. His tomb at Argos,
1 ApollodOr. ii. 1. Mr. Fynes ,s Pausan. ii. 5, 4.
Clinton does not admit the histori- a See Diintzer, Fragm. Epic.
cal reality of Inachus ; but he Grsec. p. 67. The Argeian author
places Phoroneus seventeen gene- Akusilaus, treated PhorOneus as
rations, or 570 years prior to the the first of men, Fragm. 14. Didot.
Trojan war, 078 years earlier than ap. Clem. Alex. Stromat. i. p. 321.
the first recorded Olympiad. See (bopiovTjsf;, a synonym for Argeians :
Fasti Hellenici, vol. iii. c. i. p. 19. Theocrit. Idyll, xxv. 200.

Cjiaf-. IV. IO.-HERE.— THE HEREON. 83
and seemingly also the place, called the Phoronic city, in
which he formed the first settlement of mankind, were still
shown in the days of Pausanias. * The offspring of Phoro
neus, by the nymph Teledike, were Apis and Nj,obe. Apis,
a harsh ruler, was put to death by Thelxion and Telchin,
having given to Peloponnesus the name of Apia: he was
succeeded by Argos, the son of his sister Niobe by the god
Zeus. Prom this sovereign Peloponnesus was denominated
Argos. By his wife Evadne, daughter of Strymon, 2 he had
four sons, Ekbasus, Peiras, Epidaurus, and Kriasus. Ek-
basus was succeeded by his son Agenor, and he Argos
again by his son Argos Panoptes, — a very power- Panoptes.
ful prince, who is said to have had eyes distributed over all
his body, and to have liberated Peloponnesus from several
monsters and wild animals which infested it:3 Akusilaus
and JEschylus make this Argos an earthborn person, while
Pherekydes reports him as son of Arestor. Iasus was the
son of Argos Panoptes by Ismene, daughter of Asopus.
According to the authors whom Apollodorus and Pausanias
prefer, the celebrated 16 was his daughter: but
the Hesiodic epic (as well as Akusilaus) repre
sented her as daughter of Peiras, while ^Eschylus andKastor
the chronologist affirmed the primitive king Inachus to have
been her father.4 A favourite theme, as well for the ancient
genealogical poets as for the Attic tragedians, were the
adventures of 16 ; of whom, while priestess of Here, at the
ancient and renowned HeraeonbetweenMykense and Tiryns,
Zeus became amorous. When Here discovered the intrigue
and taxed him with it, he denied the charge, and metamor
phosed 16 into a white cow. Here, requiring that the cow
should be surrendered to her, placed her under the keeping
of Argos Panoptes; but this guardian was slain by Hermes,
at the command of Zeus; and Here then drove the cow 16
1 ApollodOr. ii. 1, 1 ; Pausan. ji. into a peacock (Schol. Aristoph.
15, 5; 19, 5; 20, 3. Aves, 102). Macrobius (i. 19) con-
2 Apollod. 1. c. The mention of aiders Argos as an allegorical
Strym6n seems connected with expression of the starry heaven,
jMschylus, Suppl. 255. an idea which Panofka also
' Akusil. Fragm. 17, ed. Didot; upholds in one of the recent Ab-
.ffisch. Prometh. 568; Pherekyd. handlungenof the Berlin Academy,
Fragm. 22, ed. Didot; Hesiod. 1837, p. 121 seq.
JEgimias, Fr. 2, p. 56, ed. Diintzer : * Apollod. ii. 1, 1 ; Pausan. ii.
among the varieties of the story, 16, 1 ; .aSsch. Prom. v. 690—663.
one was that Argos was changed
G2

84 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pabt I.
away from her native land by means of the incessant sting
ing of a gad-fly, which compelled her to wander without
repose or sustenance over an immeasurable extent of foreign
regions. TJie wandering 16 gave her name to the Ionian
Gulf, traversed Epirus and Illyria, passed the chain of
MountHsemus and the lofty summits of Caucasus, and swam
across the Thracian or Cimmerian Bosporus (which also
from her derived its appellation) into Asia. She then went
through Scythia, Cimmeria, and many Asiatic regions, until
she arrived in Egypt, where Zeus at length bestowed upon
her rest, restored her to her original form, and enabled her
to give birth to his black son Epaphos. 1
Such is a general sketch of the adventures which the
ancient poets, epic, lyric, and tragic, and the logographers
after them, connect with the name of the Argeian 16 — one of
the numerous tales which the fancy of the Greeks deduced
from the amorous dispositions of Zeus and the jealousy of
Here. That the scene should be laid in the Argeian ter
ritory appears natural, when we recollect that both Argos
and Mykenae were under the special guardianship of Here,
and that the Herseon near Mykense was one of the oldest
and most celebrated temples in which she was worshipped.
It is useful to compare this amusing fiction with the repre
sentation reported to us by Herodotus, and derived by him
as well from Phoenician as from Persian antiquarians, of
Romance of the circumstances which occasioned the transit
16 hjs*ori" of 16 from Argos to Egypt, — an event recognised
Persian^ by all of them as historical matter of fact. Ac-
and Phomi- cording to the Persians, a Phoenician vessel had
arrived at the port near Argos, freighted with
goods intended for sale to the inhabitants of the country.
1 .aSschyl. Prom. v. 790—850 ; telligible : that in the Prometheus
Apollod. ii. 1. JEschylus in the (though the most noticed of the
Suppliees- gives a different version two) defies all comprehension, even
of the wanderings of 16 from that as a consistent fiction ; nor has
which appears in the Prometheus : the erudition of the commentators
in the former drama he carries her been successful in clearing it up.
through Phrygia, Mysia, Lydia, See Schiitz , Excurs. iv. ad Pro-
Pamphylia andKilikia into Egypt meth. Vinct. pp. 144— 149 ; Welcker,
(Supplic. 544—566) : nothing is iKschylisohe Trilogie, pp. 127— 14(>,
there said about Prometheus, or and especially Volcker, Mythische
Caucasus, or Scythia, &c. Geographic der Griechen und Rci-
The track set forth in the Sup- mer, part i. pp. 3—13.
plices is thus geographically in- The Greek inhabitants at Tarsus

Chap. IV. ABDUCTIONS OF HEROIC WOMEN. 85
After the vessel had remained a few days, and disposed of
most of her cargo, several Argeian women, and among them
16 the king's daughter, coming on board to purchase, were
seized and carried off by the crew, who sold 16 in Egypt, i
The Phoenician antiquarians, however, while they admitted
the circumstance that 16 had left her own country in one of
their vessels, gave a different colour to the whole by
affirming that she emigrated voluntarily, having been en
gaged in an amour with the captain of the vessel, and
fearing that her parents might come to the knowledge of
her pregnancy. Both Persians and Phoenicians described
the abduction of 16 as the first of a series of similar acts
between Greeks and Asiatics, committed each in revenge
for the preceding. Pirst came the rape of Europe from
Phoenicia by Grecian adventurers, — perhaps, as Herodotus
supposed, by Kretans: next, the abduction of Medeia from
Kolchis by Jason, which occasioned the retaliatory act of
Paris, when he stole away Helena from Menelaos. Up to
this point the seizures of women by Greeks from Asiatics,
and by Asiatics from Greeks, had been equivalent both
in 'number and in wrong. But the Greeks now thought
fit to equip a vast conjoint expedition to recover Helen,
in the course of which they took and sacked Troy. The
invasions of Greece by Darius and Xerxes were intended,
according to the Persian antiquarians, as a long-delayed
retribution for the injury inflicted on the Asiatics *by
Agamemnon and his followers. 2
in Kilikia traced their origin to traced higher than Hesiod. Ac-
Argos: their story was, that Tripto- cording to some authors, whom
lemus had been sent forth from Cicero copies, it was on account
that town in quest of the wander- of the murder of Argos that Her-
ing 16 , that he had followed her m§s was obliged to leave Greece
to Tyre , and then renounced the and go into Egypt ; then it was
search in despair. He and his com- that he taught the Egyptians laws
panions then settled partly at Tar- and letters (De Natur. Deor. iji. 22).
sus , partly at Antioeh (Strabo, ' The story in Parthenius (Nar-
xiv. 673 ; xv. 750). This is the story rat. 1) is built upon this version
of Kadmos and Eur6pe inverted, of 16's adventures.
as happens so often with the Gre- 2 Herodot. i. 1—6. Pausanias (ii.
cian mythes. 15, 1) will not undertake to deter-
Homer calls Hermes 'ApYsupov- mine whether the account given
Tr)? ; but this epithet hardly affords by Herodotus , or that of the old
sufficient proof that he was ac- legend, respecting the cause which
quainted with the mythe of 16, as carried 16 from Argos to Egypt,,
Volcker supposes: it cannot be is the true one: Ephorus (ap. Schol*

8G HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet I.
The account thus given of the adventures of 16, when
contrasted with the genuine legend, is interesting, as it .
tends to illustrate the phsenomenon which early Grecian
history is constantly presenting to us, — the way in which
the epical furniture of an unknown past is recast and newly
coloured so as to meet those changes which take place in
Legendary tne retrospective feelings of the present. The
abductions religious and poetical character of the whole
adapTedTo8 legend disappears: nothing remains except the
the feelings names of persons and places, and the voyage from
during the Argos to Egypt: we have in exchange a sober,
Persian quasi-historical narrative, the value of which
war- consists in its bearing on the grand contemporary
conflicts between Persia and Greece, which filled the imagi
nation of Herodotus and his readers.
To proceed with the genealogy of the kings of Argos,
Iasus was succeededbyKrotopus,son of his brother Agenor;
Krotopus by Sthenelas, and he again by Gelanor.1 In
the reign of the latter, Danaos came with his fifty daugh
ters from Egypt to Argos ; and here we find another of
those romantic adventures which so agreeably decorate the
Danaos barrenness of the mythical genealogies. Danaos
and the and./Egyptos were two brothers descending from
Dana-ides. Epapll0S) Bon of jg . iEgyptos had fifty sons, who
were eager to marry the fifty daughters of Danaos, in
Apoll. Rhod. ii. 168) repeats the calls Herodotus cpi Ao[3ctpPapoi" (Plu-
abduction of 16 to Egypt by the tarch, De Malign. Herodoti, c. xi.
Phoenicians , subjoining a strange xii. xiv. pp. 856, 857).
account of the etymology of the 1 It would be an unprofitable
name Bosporus. The remarks of fatigue to enumerate the multi-
Plutarch on the narrative of He- plied and irreconcileable discre-
rodotus are curious : he adduces pancies in regard to every step of
as one proof of the xaxoi]9Eia (bad this old Argeian genealogy. Who-
feeling) of Herodotus , that the ever desires to see them brought
latter inserts bo discreditable a together may consult Schubart,
narrative respecting 16 , daughter Quaastiones in Antiquitatem He-
of Inachus, "whom all Greeks be- roicam, Marburg, 1832, capp. 1
lieve to have been divinized by and 2.
foreigners , to have given names The remarks which Schubart
to seas and straits, and to be the makes (p. 35) upon Petit-Radel's
source of the most illustrious regal Chronological Tables will be as-
families." He also blames Hero- sented to by those who follow the
dotus for rejecting Epaphus , 16, unceasing string of contradictions,
Iasus, and Argos, as highest mem- without any sufficient reason to
bers of the Perseid genealogy. He believe that any one of them is

Chap. IV. DANAOS AND HIS FIFTY DAUGHTERS. 87
spite of the strongest repugnance of the latter. To escape
such a necessity, Danaos placed his fifty daughters on
board of a penteconter (or vessel with fifty oars) and
sought refuge at Argos ; touching in his voyage at the
island of Rhodes, where he erected a statue of Athene at
Lindos, which was long exhibited as a memorial of his
passage. _33gyptos and his sons followed them to Argos
and still pressed their suit, to which Danaos found himself
compelled to assent; but on the wedding night he furnished
each of his daughters with a dagger, and enjoined them to
murder their husbands during the hour of sleep. His
orders were obeyed by all, with the single exception of
Hypermnestra, who preserved her husband Lynkeus, in
curring displeasure and punishment from her father. He
afterwards, however, pardoned her; and when by the volun
tary abdication of Gelanor, he became king of Argos,
Lynkeus was recognised as his son-in-law and ultimately
succeeded him. The remaining daughters, having been
purified by Athene and Hermes, were given in marriage to
the victors in a gymnic contest publicly proclaimed. Prom
Danaos was derived the name of Danai, applied to the
inhabitants of the Argeian territory, 1 and to the Homeric
Greeks generally.
From the legend of the Dana'ides we pass to two barren
names of kings, Lynkeus and his son Abas. The Akrisios
two sons of Abas were Akrisios andPrcetos, who, and pro)tos.
after much dissension, divided between them the Argeian
territory; Akrisios ruling at Argos, and Proatos at Tiryns.
The families of both formed the theme of romantic stories.
To pass over for the present the legend of Bellerophon,
and the unrequited passion which the wife of Proetos con-
more worthy of trust than the re- nologise secundum annos distributee
mainder, which he has cited: — vincula semper recusatura esse."
"Videant alii, quomodo genealo- l Apollod. ii. 1. The Supplices
gias heroicas , et chronologies ra- of ZEschylus is the commencing
tiones, in concordiam redigant. drama of a trilogy on this subject
Ipse abstineo , probe persuasus, of the Dana'ides, — 'IxetlSss, kiyiin-
stemmata vera, historise fide com- tioi, AecvatSst;. Welcker, Griechisch.
probata, in systema chronologize Tragodien, vol. i. p. 48; the two
redigi posse : at ore per sascula latter are lost. The old epic poem
tradita, a poetis reficta, scepe mu- called Danais or Dana'ides, which
tata, prout fabula postulare vide- is mentioned in the Tabula Iliaca
batur, ab historiarum deinde con- as containing 5000 verses , has
ditoribus restituta, scilicet, brevi, perished, and is, unfortunately,
qualia prostant stemmata — chro- very little alluded too: seeDuntzcr,

88 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet I.
ceived for him, we are told that the daughters of Prcetos,
beautiful, and solicited in marriage by suitors from all
Greece, were smitten with leprosy and driven mad, wander
ing in unseemly guise throughout Peloponnesus. The
visitation had overtaken them, according to Hesiod, because
they refused to take part in the Bacchic rites ; according
to Pherekydes and the Argeian Akusilaus, ' because they
had treated scornfully the wooden statue and simple equip
ments of Here: the religious character of the old legend
here displays itself in a remarkable manner. Unable to
cure his daughters, Prcetos invoked the aid of the renowned
Pylian prophet and leech, Melampus son of Amythaon,
who undertook to remove the malady on condition of being
rewarded with the third part of the kingdom. Proetos
Th _ _ indignantly refused these conditions: but the
tides cured state of his daughters becoming aggravated
of frenzy by an(j intolerable, he was compelled again to apply
pus" to Melampus ; who, on the second request, raised
his demands still higher, and required another tbird of
the kingdom for his brother Bias. These terms being
acceded to, he performed his part of the covenant. He
appeased the wrath of Here by prayer and sacrifice; or,
according to another account, he approached the deranged
women at the head of a troop of young men, with shouting
and ecstatic dance, — the ceremonies appropriate to the
Bacchic worship of Dionysos, — and in this manner effected
their cure. Melampus, a name celebrated in many different
Grecian mythes, is the legendary founder and progenitor
of a great and long-continued family of prophets. He 'and
his brother Bias became kings of separate portions of the
Argeian territory: he is recognised as ruler there even in
the Odyssey, and the prophet Theoklymenos, his grand
son, is protected and carried to Ithaka by Telemachus.2
Herodotus also alludes to the cure of the women, and to the
double kingdom of Melampus and Bias in the Argeian land:
recognising Melampus as the first person who introduced
to the knowledge of the Greeks the name and worship of
Epic. Fragm. p. 3; Welcker , Der Hesiodic Catalogue of Women:
Episch. Kyklus, p. 35. Apolloddrus seems to refer to some
1 Apollod. 1. c. : Pherekyd. ap. other of the numerous Hesiodic
Schol. Horn. Odyss. xv. 225; He- poems. Diodftrus (iv. 68) assigns
siod, Fragm. Marktsch. Fr. 36, 37, the anger of Dionysos as the cause.
38. These Fragments belong to the 2 Odyss. xv. 240—260.

Chap. IV. PRQ5TUS.— PERSEUS. 89
Dionysos, with its appropriate sacrifices and phallic pro
cessions. Here again he historicises various features of the
old legend in a manner not unworthy of notice. 4
But Danae, the daughter of Akrisios, with her son
Perseus, acquired still greater celebrity than Akrisios,
her cousins the Proetides. An oracle had ap- Danae and
prised Akrisios that his daughter would give eua'
birth to a son by whose hand he would himself be slain.
To guard against this danger, he imprisoned Danae in a
chamber of brass under ground. But the god Zeus had
become amorous of her, and found means to descend through
the roof in the form of a shower of gold: the consequence
of his visits was the birth of Perseus. When Akrisios dis
covered that his daughter had given existence to a son, he
enclosed both the mother and the child in a coffer, wbich
he cast into the sea.2 The coffer was carried to the isle
of Seriphos, where Diktys, brother of the king Polydektes,
fished it up, and rescued both Danae and Perseus. The
exploits of Perseus, when he grew up, against the three
Phorkydes or daugbters of Phorkys, and the three Gorgons,
are among the most marvellous and imaginative in all
Grecian legend : they bear a stamp almost Oriental. I shall
not here repeat the details of those unparalleled hazards
which the special favour of Athene enabled him to overcome,
and which ended in his bringing back from Libya the terrific
head of the Gorgon Medusa, endued with the perseus
property of turning every one who looked upon and the
it into stone. In his return, he rescued An- orsolls-
dromeda, daughter of Kepheus, who had been exposed to
be devoured by a sea-monster, and brought her back as
his wife. Akrisios trembled to see him after this victorious
expedition, and retired into Thessaly to avoid him; but
Perseus followed him thither, and having succeeded in
calming his apprehensions, became competitor in a gymnic
1 Herod, ix. 34; ii. 49: compare Kallimachus notices the Prcetid
Pausan. ii. 18 , 4. Instead of the virgins as the parties suffering
Prcetides, or daughters of Prcetos, from madness, but he treats Ar-
it is the Argeian women generally temis as the healing influence
whom he represents Melampus as (Hymn, ad Dianam, 235).
having cured , and the Argeians 2 The beautiful fragment of Si-
generally who send to Pylus to monides (Fragm. vii. ed. Gaisford,
invoke his aid: the heroic per- Poet. Min.), describing Danae and
sonality which pervades the pri- the child thus exposed, is familiar
mitive story has disappeared. to every classical reader.

90 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
contest where his grandfather was among the spectators.
By an incautious swing of his quoit,he unintentionallystruck
Akrisios, and caused his death: the predictions of the oracle
were thus at last fulfilled. Stung with remorse at the catas
trophe, and unwilling to return to Argos, which had been
the principality of Akrisios, Perseus made an exchange
with Megapenthes, son of Prcetos king of Tiryns. Mega
penthes became king of Argos, and Perseus of Tiryns:
moreover the latter founded, within ten miles of Argos,
the far-famed city of Mykense. The massive walls of this
city, like those of Tiryns, of which a large portion yet
remains, were built for him by the Lykian Cyclopes.1
We herereachthecommencement of thePerseid dynasty
Foundation °f Mykense. It should be noticed, however, that
of MyMna? there were among the ancient legends contradic-
cement'o"" *orv accounts of the foundation of this city. Both
Perseid the Odyssey and the great Eoiai enumerated,
dynasty. among the heroines, Mykene, the Eponyma of
the city; the former poem classifying her with Tyro and Alk
mene, the latter describing her as the daughter of Inachus
andwifeofArestor. And Akusilaus mentionedanEponymus
Mykeneus, the son of Sparton and grandson of Phoroneus. 2
The prophetic family of Melampus maintained itself in
one of the three parts of the divided Argeian kingdom for
five generations, downto Amphiaraos andhis sonsAllanseon
and Amphilochos. The dynasty of his brother Bias, and
that of Megapenthes, son of Prcetos, continued each for four
generations: a list of barren names fills up the interval.3
The Perseids of Mykense boasted a descent long and glo
rious, heroic as well as historical, continuing down to the
last kings of Sparta.4 The issue of Perseus was numerous:
his son Alkseos was father of Alkmene; 5 a third, Sthenelos,
father of Eurysthenes.
1 Paus. ii. 15, 4 ; ii. 16, 5. Apol- Spartdn, but grandson of Phegeus
iod. ii. 2. Pherekyd. Fragm. 26, the brother of Phor&neus.
Dind. > Pausan. ii. 18, 4.
1 Odyss. ii. 120. Hesiod. Frag- * Herodot. vi. 63.
ment. 154. Marktscheff. — Akusil. s In the Hesiodic Shield of H6-
Fragm. 16. Pausan. ii. 16, 4. He- raklSs, Alkmene is distinctly men-
katasus derived the name of the tionod as daughter of Elektry6n:
town from the u.6x7]- of the sword the genealogical poet, Asios, called
of Perseus (Fragm. 360 , Dind.). her the daughter of Amphiaraos
The Schol. ad Eurip. Orest. 1247, and Eriphyle (Asii Fragm. 4, ed.
mentions Mykeneus as son of Markt. p. 412). The date of Asioa

Chap. IV. PERSEIDS AT MYKENiE.-ZEUS.— ALKMENE. 91
After the death of Perseus, Alkseos and Amphitryon
dwelt at Tiryns. The latter became engaged in
a quarrel with Elektryon respecting cattle, and tryon/iik-
in a fit of passion killed him;1 moreover the mens,
piratical Taphians from the west coast of Akar-
nania invaded the country, and slew the sons of Alektryon,
so that Alkmene alone was left of that family. She was
engaged to wed Amphitryon ; but she bound him by oath
not to consummate the marriage until he had avenged upon
the Telebose the death of her brothers. Amphitryon, com
pelled to flee the country as the murderer of his uncle,
took refuge in Thebes, whither Alkmene accompanied him:
Sthenelos was left in possession of Tiryns. The Kadmeians
of Thebes, together with the Lokrians and Phokians, sup
plied Amphitryon with troops, which he conducted against
the Telebose and the Taphians:2 yet he could not have
subdued them without the aid of Komsetho, daughter of
the Taphian king Pterelaus, who conceived a passion for
him, and cut off from her father's head the golden lock to
which Poseidon had attached the gift of immortality.3
Having conquered and expelled his enemies, Amphitryon
returned to Thebes, impatient to consummate his marriage:
but Zeus on the wedding-night assumed his form zeus and
and visited Alkmene before him: he had deter- Alkmene.
mined to produce from her a son superior to all his prior
offspring, — "a specimen of invincible force both to gods
and men."4 At the proper time Alkmene was delivered
of twin sons: Herakles, the offspring of Zeus, — the inferior
and unhonoured Iphikles, offspring of Amphitryon. »
cannot be precisely fixed ; but he and represents the death of Elek-
may be probably assigned to an try6n as accidentally caused by
epoch between the 30th and 40th Amphitry6n. (Apollod. ii. 4, 6.
Olympiad. Pherekydes, Fragm. 27, Dind.)
Asios must have adopted a to- 2 Hesiod. Scut. Here. 24, Theocrit.
tally different legend respecting Idyll, xxiv. 4. Teleboas, theEpo-
the birth of Herakles and the cir- nymous of these marauding people,
cumstances preceding it, among" was son of Poseid6n (Anaximan-
which the deaths of her father and der, ap. Athen. xi. p. 498).
brothers are highly influential. 3 Apollod. ii. 4, 7. Compare the
Nor could he have accepted the fable of Nisus at Megara, infra,
received chronology of the sieges chap. xii.
of Thebes and Troy. * Hesiod. Scut. Here. 29. Sippa
1 So runs the old legend in the 9soTtjiv ' AvBpaot r aX<p7]aTflaiv apijs
Hesiodic Shield of Herakles (12— dX*Tvjpa cpoTsuarj.
82). Apollod6rus (or Pherekydes, > Hesiod. Sc. H. 60—66.
whom he follows) softens it down,

92 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet I.
When Alkmene was on the point of being delivered at
Birth of Thebes, Zeus publicly boasted among the assem-
Herakies. Died. gods, at the instigation of the mischief-.
making Ate, that there was on that day about to be born
on earth, from his breed, a son who should rule over all his
neighbours. Here treated this as an empty boast, calling
upon him to bind himself by an irremissible oath that the
prediction should be realized. Zeus incautiously pledged
his solemn word; upon which Here darted swiftly down
from Olympus to the Achaic Argos, where the wife of
Sthenelos (son of Perseus, and therefore grandson of Zeus)
was already seven months gone with child. By the aid of
the Eileithyise, the special goddesses of parturition, she
caused Eurystheus, the son of Sthenelos, to be born before
his time on that very day, while she retarded the delivery
of Alkmene. Then returning to Olympus, she announced
the fact to Zeus: "The good man Eurystheus, son of the
Perseid Sthenelos, is this day born of thy loins: the sceptre
of the Argeians worthily belongs to him." Zeus was
thunderstruck at the consummation which he had improvi-
dently bound himself to accomplish. He seized Ate his
evil counsellor by the hair, and hurled her for ever away
from Olympus : but he had no power to avert the ascend
ancy of Eurystheus and the servitude of Herakles. "Many
a pang did he suffer, when he saw his favourite son going
through his degrading toil in the tasks imposed upon him
by Eurystheus." t
The legend, of unquestionable antiquity, here trans-
Homeric cribed from the Iliad, is one of the most pregnant
legend of an(j characteristic in the Grecian rnvthologv.
his birth : T , , . , . , , ... ¦>. ., 6 J
its exposi- It explains, according to the religious ideas la-
tory value, miliar to the old epic poets, both the distinguish
ing attributes and the endless toils and endurances of
Herakles, — the most renowned and most ubiquitous of all
the semi-divine personages worshipped by the Hellenes, —
a being of irresistible force, and especially beloved by Zeus,
yet condemned constantly to labour for others and to obey
the commands of a worthless and cowardly persecutor. His
recompense is reserved to the close of his career, when his
1 Homer, Iliad, xix. 90-133 ; also "Epfov cistxe? ivovTa, Otu' Eupuc8ijoc
viii. 361.— de6).U)v.
Ttjv alsl ffTEvajreojr , 58 eov <pi\oy
wov 6p<pT0

Chap. IV. ZEUS.— ALKMENE.— HERAKLES. 93
afflicting trials are brought to a close: he is then admitted
to the godhead and receives inmarriage Hebe. 1 The twelve
labours, as they are called, too notorious to be here detailed,
form a very small fraction of the exploits of this mighty
being, which filled the Herakleian epics of the ancient
poets. He is found not only in most parts of Hellas, but
throughout all the other regions then known to the Greeks,
from Gades to the river Thermodon in the Euxine and to
Scythia, overcoming all difficulties and vanquishing all
opponents. Distinguished families are everywhere to be
traced who bear his patronymic, and glory in the bebef
that they are his descendants. Among Achseans, Kadmeians,
and Dorians, Herakles is venerated: the latter especially
treat him as their principal hero, — the Patron H6ro-God
of the race: the Herakleids form among all Dorians a
privileged gens, in which at Sparta the special lineage of
the two kings was included.
His character lends itself to mythes countless in number
as well as disparate in their character. The irresistible
force remains constant, but it is sometimes applied with
reckless violence against friends as well as enemies, some
times devoted to the reHef of the oppressed. The comic
writers often brought him out as a coarse and stupid glutton,
while the Keian philosopher Prodikos, without at all dis
torting the type, extracted from it the simple, impressive, and
imperishable apologue still known as the Choice of Hercules.
After the death and apotheosis of Herakles, his son
Hyllos and his other children were expelled and The H&ra-
persecuted by Eurystheus; the fear of whose kieids ex-
vengeance deterred both the Trachinian king pe led-
Keyx and the Thebans from harbouring them. The Athe
nians alone were generous enough to brave the risk of
offering them shelter. Eurystheus invaded Attica, but
perished in the attempt by the hand of Hyllos, or by that
of Iolaos, the old companion and nephew of Herakles.2
The chivalrous courage which the Athenians had on this
occasion displayed on behalf of oppressed innocence,
was a favourite theme for subsequent eulogy by Attic
poets and orators.
1 Hesiod, Theogon. 951, rzlioas Diintzer, p. 36, «ovr)poT«Tov xai
aTovosvTac; asOXoo;;. Horn. Odyss. xi. optoTov.
620; Hesiod. Eoeae, Fragm. 24, 2 Apoll. ii. 8, 1; Hecatae. ^ip.
Lougin. *. 27; Diod6r. iv. 67.

94 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paht I.
' All the sons of Eurystheus lost their lives in the battle
along with him, so that the Perseid family was now re
presented only by the Herakleids, who collected an army
and endeavoured to recover the possessions from which
they had been expelled. The united forces of Ionians,
Achseans, and Arcadians, then inhabiting Peloponnesus,
met the invaders at the isthmus, when Hyllos, the eldest
of the sons of Herakles, proposed that the contest should
be determined by a single combat between himself and any
champion of the opposing army. It was agreed that if
Hyllos were victorious, the Herakleids should be restored
to their possessions — if he were vanquished, that they
should forego all claim for the sjpace of a hundred years,
or fifty years, or three generations, — for in the specification
of the time, accounts differ. Echemos, the hero of Tegea
in Arcadia, accepted the challenge, and Hyllos was slain in
the encounter; in consequence of which the Herakleids
retired, and resided along with the Dorians under the pro
tection of JEgimios, son of Dorus. * As soon as the stipulated
period of truce had expired, they renewed their attempt
upon Peloponnesus conjointly with the Dorians, and with
complete success: the greatDorian establishments of Argos,
Sparta, and Messenia were the result. The details of this
victorious invasion will be hereafter recounted.
Sikyon, Phlios, Epidauros, and Trcezen2 all boasted
of respected eponyms and a genealogy of dignified length,
Their reco- n0* e*empt from the usual discrepancies — but
very of all just as much entitled to a place on the tablet
fusl0lndnS" °f history as the more renowned iEolids or
establish- Herakleids. I omit them here because I wish
Argos'"1 *° bnpress upon the reader's mind the salient
Sparta, and features and character of the legendary world,
Messenia. _not to load j^ memory with a full fot of
legendary names.
1 Herodot. ix. 26; Diod6r. iv. 68. neighbour like Argos tended to
1 Pausan. ii. 6, 5 ; 12, 6 ; 26, 3. alter the genealogies of these
His statements indicate how much inferior towns.
the predominance of a powerful

Chap. V. DETJKALION, HELLEN, AND SONS OF HELLEN. 95

CHAPTEE V.
DEUKALION, HELLEN, AND SONS OP HELLEN.
In the Hesiodic Theogony, as well as in the "Works and
Days," the legend of Prometheus and Epimetheus presents
an import religious, ethical, and social, and in this sense
it is carried forward by ./Eschylus; but to neither of the
characters is any genealogical function assigned. The
Hesiodic Catalogue of Women brought both of them into
the stream of Grecian legendary lineage, representing
Deukalion as the son of Prometheus and Pandora, and
seemingly his wife Pyrrha as daughter of Epimetheus.1
Deukalion is important in Grecian mythical narrative
under two points of view. Pirst, he is the person Deukaii6n
specially saved at the time of the general deluge : son of Pro-
next, he is the father of Hellen, the great eponym m6t eu8'
of the Hellenic race: at least this was the more current
story, though there were other statements which made
Hellen the son of Zeus.
The name of Deukalion is originally connected with
the Lokrian towns of Kynos and Opus, and with the race
of the Leleges, but he appears finally as settled in Thessaly,
and ruling in the portion of that country called Phthiotis.2
According to what seems to have been the old legendary
account, it is the deluge which transferred him from the
1 Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. iii. AexToye; sx Y«i7)s Xdtas icops Aeu-
1085. Other accounts of the ge- xaXtum.
nealogy ofDeukalidn are given in Tho reputed lineage ofDeukaliOn
the Schol. ad Homer. Odyss. x. 2, continued in Phthia down to the
on the authorithy both of Hesiod time of Dikamrchus, if we may
and Akusilaus. judge from the old Phthiot Phere-
4 Hesiodic Catalog. Fragm. xi. ; krates, whom he introduced in one
Gaisf. lxx. Diintzer — of his dialogues as a disputant,
*Htoi yap Aoxpoc AzXifiav 7)"]^- and whom he expressly announced
acc-o \<xujv, as a descendant of Deukalidrt
Toiic pi ttots Kpovi8»]? Zs6? SipOiTa (Cicero, Tuscul. Disp. i. 10).
fi^osa slSuii;,

96

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Part I,

one to the other; but according to another statement,
framed in more historicising times, he conducted a body of
Kuretes andLeleges into Thessaly, and expelled the prior
Pelasgian occupants. 1
The enormous iniquity with which earth was con-
phtM6tis: taminated — as Apollodorus says, by the then
hisperma- existing brazen race, or as others say, by the
nent seat. g£^ monstrous sons of Lyka6n — provoked Zeus
to send a general deluge. 2 An unremitting and terrible rain
laid the whole of Greece under water, except the highest
mountain-tops, whereon a few stragglers found refuge.
Deukalion was saved in a chest or ark, which he had been
forewarned by his father Prometheus to construct. After
floating for nine days on the water, he at length landed on
the summit of Mount Parnassus. Zeus having sent Hermes
to him, promising to grant whatever he asked, he prayed
that men and companions might be sent to him in his soli
tude: accordingly Zeus directed both him and Pyrrha to
cast stones over their heads: those cast by Pyrrha became
women, those by Deukali5n men. And thus the "stony
race of men" (if we may be allowed to translate
an etymology which the Greek language presents
exactly, and which has not been disdained by
Hesiod, by Pindar, by Epicharmus, and by Virgil)
came to tenant the soil of Greece. 3 Deukalion

General
deluge. —
Salvation
of Deuka-
lidn and
Pyrrha.

1 The latter account is given by
Dionys. Halic. i. 17; the former
seems to have been given by
Hellanikus, who affirmed that the
ark after the deluge stopped upon
MontOthrys, and not upon Mount
Parnassus (Schol. Pind. ut sup."),
the former being suitable for a
settlement in Thessaly.
Pyrrha is the eponymous heroine
of Pyrrhaea or Pyrrha, the ancient
name of a portion pf Thessaly
(Rhianus, Fragm. 18, p. 71, ed.
Diintzer). Hellanikus had written a work,
now lost, entitled AeuxaXubveia :
all the fragments of it which are
cited have reference to places in
Thessaly, Lokiis and Phokis. See
Preller, ad Hellanicum, p. 12 (Dorpt.

1840). Probably Hellanikus is tho
main source of the important posi
tion occupied by Deukalion in
Grecian legend. Thrasybulus and
Akestoddrus represented Deukalion
as having founded the oracle of
Dod&na, immediately after the
deluge (Etym. Mag. v. Au)8u>Ma!oO-
ft Apolloddrus connects this de
luge with the wickedness of the
brazen race in Hesiod, according
to the practice general with the
logographers of stringing together
a sequence out of legends totally
unconnected with each other (i.
7, 2).
8 Hesiod, Fragm. 135, ed. Markts.
ap. Strabo. vii. p. 332, where the
word Xaoc?, proposed by Heyne as
the reading of the unintelligible

Chap. V. GENEEAL DELUGE. 97
on landing from the ark sacrificed a grateful offering to
Zeus Phyxios, or the God of escape; he also erected altars
in Thessaly to the twelve great gods of Olympus. '
The reality of this deluge was firmly helieved through
out the historical ages of Greece; the chronologers,
reckoning up by genealogies, assigned the exact date of
it, and placed it at the same time as the conflagration of
the world by the rashness of Phaethon, during the reign of
Krotopas, king of Argos, the seventh from Inachus.2 The
meteorological work of Aristotle admits and reasons upon
this deluge as an unquestionable fact, though he alters the
locality by placing it west of Mount Pindus, near Dodona
and the river Achelous.3 He at the same time treats it
as a physical phenomenon, the result of periodical cycles
in the atmosphere, — thus departing from the religious
character of the old legend, which described it as a judg
ment inflicted by Zeus upon a wicked race. Statements
founded upon this event were in circulation throughout
Greece even to a very late date. The Megarians Bel.rf in
affirmed that Megaros, their hero, son of Zeus this deluge
by a local nymph, had found safety from the g^f out
waters on the lofty summit of their mountain
Geraneia, which had not been completely submerged. And
in the magnificent temple of the Olympian Zeus at Athens,
text, appears to me preferable to 2 Tatian adv. Grsec. c. 60, adopted
any of the other suggestions, both by Clemens and Eusebius.
Pindar, Olymp. ix. 47. *Axep 8' The Parian marble placed this
"E'ivcti; 6pLo5<xu.ov KpTjCTasQav ).19ivoy deluge in the reign of Kranaos at
yovov Aaoi 8' ibv6u.a<i8=v. Virgil, Athens, 752 years before the first
Georgic. i. 63. "Unde homines nati, recorded Olympiad, and 1528 years
durum genus." Epicharmus ap. before the Christian a?ra; Apollo-
Schol. Pindar. Olymp. ix. 56, Hygin. ddrus also places it in the reign
f. 153. Philochorus retained the of Kranaos, and in that of Nyctimus
etymology, thoughhe gave atotally in Arcadia (iii. 8, 2; 14, 5).
different fable, nowise connected The deluge and the ekpyrosis
with Deukali6n, to account for it ; or conflagration are connected to-
a curious proof how pleasing it gether also in Servius ad Virgil.
was to thefancy of the Greeks (see Bucol. vi. 41: he refines both of them
Schol. ad Pind. 1. c. 68). into a "mutationem temporum."
1 Apollod. i. 7, 2. Hellanic. Fr. 3 Aristot. Meteorol. i. 14. Justin
15, Did. Hellanikus affirmed that rationalises the fable by telling us
the ark rested on Mount Othrys, not that Deukalidn was king of Thes-
on Mount Parnassus (Er. 16. Did.) saly, who provided shelter and
Servius (ad Virg. Eclog. vi. 41) pla- protection to the fugitives from
ced it on Mount Athos— Hyginus (f. the deluge (ii. 6, 11).
153) on Mount jEtna.

VOL. I.

H

98 HISTORY OP GREECE. Paet I.
a cavity in the earth was shown, through which it was
affirmed that the waters of the deluge had retired. Even
in the time of Pausanias, the priests poured into this cavity
holy offerings of meal and honey. * In this, as in other
parts of Greece, the idea of the Deukalionian deluge was
blended with the religious impressions of the people, and '
commemorated by their sacred ceremonies.
The offspring of Deukalion and Pyrrha were two sons,
Hellen and Hellen and Amphiktyon, and a daughter, Proto-
Amphik- ¦ geneia, whose son by Zeus was Aethlius: it was
however maintained by many, that Hellen was
the son of Zeus and not of Deukalion. Hellen had by a
nymph three sons, D6rus, Xuthus, and JEolus. He gave
to those who had been before called Greeks, 2 the name of
Hellenes, and partitioned his territory among his three
children. jEolus reigned in Thessaly; Xuthus received
Peloponnesus, and had by Kreiisa as his sons, Achseus and
Ion; while Dorus occupied the country lying opposite to
the Peloponnesus, on the northern side of the Corinthian
Gulf. These three gave to the inhabitants of their
respective countries the names of -33olians, Achseans and
Ionians, and Dorians.3
Such is the genealogy as we find it in Apollod6rus. In
Sons of so far as the names and filiation are concerned,
Dfirus" ' many points in it are given differently, or im-
Xuthu's, plicitly contradicted, by Euripides and other
iEoius. writers. Though as literal and personal history
it deserves no notice, its import is both intelligible and
comprehensive. It expounds and symbolises the first fra
ternal aggregation of Hellenic men, together with their
1 Pausan. i. 18, 7 ; 40, 1. Accord- lodorus (i. 7, 3) ; but I cannot bring
ing to the Parian marble (s. 6), myself to believe that the name
Deukali6n had come to Athens (rpoixol) Greeks is at all old in
after the deluge, and had there the legend, or that the passage of
himself founded the temple of the Hesiod, in which Grsecus and La-
Olympian Zeus. The etymology tinus purport to be mentioned, is
and allegorization of the names genuine.
of Deukalion and Pyrrha, given See Hesiod, Theogon. 1013, and
by Volcker in his ingenious My- Catalog. Fragm. xxix. ed. Gottling,
thologie des Iapetischen Ge- with the note of Gottling; also
schlechts (Giessen, 1824), p. 343, Wachsmuth, Hellen. Alterth. i. 1.
appears to me not at all con- p. 311, and Bernhardy, Gricch.
vinoing. Ldterat. vol. i. p. 167.
J Such is the statement of Apol- ' Apollod. i. 7, 4.

Chap. V. HELLEN AND HIS SONS. 99
territorial distribution and the institutions which they
collectively venerated.
There were two great holding-points in common for
every section of Greeks. One was the Amphik- ^mphikty-
tyonic assembly, which met half-yearly, alter- onic assem-
nately at Delphi and at Thermopylae ; originally ^^!™'.
and chiefly for common religious purposes, but nities and
indirectly and occasionally embracing political sames-
and social objects along with them. The other was, the
public festivals or games, of which the Olympic came first
in importance; next the Pythian, Nemean and Isthmian, —
institutions which combined religious solemnities with
recreative effusion and hearty sympathies, in a manner so
imposing and so unparalleled. Amphiktyon represents the
first of these institutions, and Aethlius the second. As the
Amphiktyonic assembly was always especially connected
with Thermopylae and Thessaly, Amphiktyon is made the
son of the Thessalian Deukalion; but as the Olympic festi
val was nowise locally connected with Deukalion, Aethlius
is represented as having Zeus for his father, and as touching
Deukalion only through the maternal line. It will be seen
presently that the only matter predicated respecting Aeth
lius is, that he settled in the territory of Elis, and begat
Endymion: this brings him into local contact with the
Olympic games, and his function is then ended.
Having thus got Hellas as an aggregate with its main
cementing forces, we march on to its sub-division Division of
into parts, through ^Eolus, Dorus and Xuthus, -S,61.1?3 :
the three sons of Hellen; i a distribution which D6rians,'
is far from being exhaustive: nevertheless, the ionians.
genealogists whom Apollodorus follows recognise no more
than three sons.
The genealogy is essentially post-Homeric; for Homer
knows Hellas and the Hellenes only in connexion with a
portion of Achaia Phthiotis. But as it is recognised in the
1 How literally and implicitly p. 118. Brandis) : —
even the ablest Greeks believed in Thos Xiferai, to p.ev . . . rb 84,
eponymous persons, such as Hellen acp' oti av ujat TcpoiTou xiv^ffavTos sk
and I6n, as the real progenitors to eivai. Ootid yap XsyovTai oi uiv,
of the races called after him, may 'EXX7]vec to "(evoi;, oi 5s, "Icuve?- Tip,
be seen by" this, that Aristotle oi uiv «ic6°EXXr)vo«, oi 84 iito "Iujvos,
gives this common descent as the elvoti 7rpd>TOU Yewnaaixos.
definition of vivos (Metaphysic. iv. H 2

100 HISTORY OE GREECE. PAST I.
Hesiodic Catalogue1 — composed probably within the first
century after the commencement of recorded Olympiads,
or before 676 b.c. — the peculiarities of it, dating from so
early a period, deserve much attention. We may remark,
first, that it seems to exhibit to us D6rus and -33olus as the
only pure and genuine offspring of Hellen. Por then-
brother Xuthus is not enrolled as an eponymus ; he neither
founds nor names any people; it is only his sons Achaeus
and Ion, after his blood has been mingled with that of the
Erechtheid Kreiisa, who become eponyms and founders,
each of his own separate people. Next, as to the territo->
rial distribution, Xuthus receives Peloponnesus from his
father, and unites himself with Attica (which the author
of this genealogy seems to have conceived as originally
unconnected with Hellen) by his marriage with the daugh
ter of the indigenous hero Erechtheus. The issue of this
marriage, Acheeus and Ion, present to us the population of
Peloponnesus and Attica conjointly as related among them
selves by the tie of brotherhood, but as one degree more
distant both from Dorians and JEolians. JEolus reigns
over the regions about Thessaly, and calls the people in
those parts JEolians; while Dorus occupies "the country
over against Peloponnesus on the opposite side of the
Corinthian Gulf," and calls the inhabiants after himself,
Dorians.3 It is at once evident that this designation is in
no way applicable to the confined district between Parnas
sus and (Eta, which alone is known by the name of Doris,
and its inhabitants by that of Dorians, in the historical
1 Hesiod, Eragm. 8. p.. 278, ed. 4p.spi.as ttjv yibpav. Kal Eou8o? p.4v
Marktsch.— Xafiibv tyjv ikXoTuovvqcov, 4x Kps-
EXXrjvos 8 eysvovto 0£u.kit67coXoi ooctyjs T7Js 'EpeyQstos Ayctiov eysvvtjoe
pttmXTJss' xal "Iiuva, d^' wv ' Avaiol xai *Iu>vs«
A<I>po; ts, 3oi)86? ts, xal AioXo? xaXouvrai. Aoipo? 84, ttjv nspav
i7iiiioxapp.7)c. xwpav IIsXoi;ovV7]<rou Xafiujv,
AloXt5ai 8' eysvovTo 8eu.i<jt6itoXoi too; xatolxouc. dcp' sauToo
pK-riX-iJFq Atupieii; ExdXsuEv. AwXo? 54,
Kprflzbi 7)5' 'A8a|i.a5 xal 2itJU!po« fSaaiXstiuiv TlLv-spi SrrTaXiav tojiiov,
^ aloXou.r}T7]« toui; 4voixouvTac AloXeTi; jrpiiffTj-
2aXu.(nv£0« t a5ixo<; xal 07csp6up.os YopsoaE.
nspirjpT)?. ^ Strabo (viii. p. 383) and Con8n
1 Apoll. i. 7, 3. "EXXrjvo? 8s xai (Nar. 27), who evidently copy from
N6p.!pT|?'Oparj'i8os(?), Acbpo;, Hou8o?, the same source, represent D6rus
AtoXos. Autos u.sv ouv a<p' abroo as going to settle in the territory
tooc xaXouu.4^""? rpa'Cxoo; Trpooij- properly known as D6ris.
yopsuffsv "EXXrjvas, tois 64 rcalaiv

Chap. V. DORIANS NORTH OE THE CORINTHIAN GULF. 101
ages. In the view of the author of this genealogy, the
Dorians are the original occupants of the large Large
range of territory north of the Corinthian Gulf, extent of
comprising JEtolia, Phokis, and the territory of piiedinthis •
the Ozolian Lokrians. And this farther harmo- genealogy.
nises with the other legend noticed by Apollodorus, when-
he states that ^Etolus, son of Endymion, having been forced
to expatriate from Peloponnesus, crossed into the Kuretid
territory,1 and was there hospitably received by Dorus,
Laodokus, and Polypcetes, sons of Apollo and Phthia. He
slew his hosts, acquired the territory, and gave to it the
name of -JStolia; his son Pleuron married Xanthippe,
daughter of Dorus ; while his other son, Kalydon, marries,
iEolia, daughter of Amythaon. Here again we have the
name of Dorus, or the Dorians, connected with the tract
subsequently termed JEtolia. That Dorus should in one
place be called the son of Apollo and Phthia, and in another
place the son of Hellen by a nymph, will surprise no one
accustomed to the fluctuating personal nomenclature of
these old legends: moreover the name of Phthia is easy to
reconcile with that of Hellen, as both are identified with
the same portion of Thessaly, even from the days of the
Iliad. This story, that the Dorians were at one time the
occupants, or the chief occupants, of the range of territory
between the river Achelous and the northern shore of the
Corinthian gulf, is at least more suitable to the facts attested
by historical evidence than the legends given in Herodotus,
who represents the Dorians as originally in the Phthiotid;
then as passing under Dorus, the son of Hellen, into the
Histiseotid, under the mountains of Ossa and Olympus;
next, as driven by the Kadmeians into the regions of Pindus ;
from thence passing into the Dryopid territory, on Mount
(Eta ; lastly, from thence into Peloponnesus. 2 The received
story was, that the great Dorian establishments in Pelo
ponnesus were formed by invasion from the north, and that
the invaders crossed the gulf from Naupaktus, — a statement
which, however disputable with respect to Argos, seems
1 Apollod. i. 7, 6. AItcoXo- .... ttjv yibpav AkuiXiav sxdXsas. Again,
tpuyibv sU ttjv KoopYjTioa ytbpav, i. 8, 1. IIXsopujv -(son of -ZEtdlus)
xtsIvhs Toua U7roSe£ap.evous OQias Yrjp-a!; SavSlimcrjv ttjv Adipou , 7iai6«
xal 'AtcoXXiovos oious, Aujpcv xal eyewtjoev 'Ay^vopa.
AaoBoxov xal IloX'jTiotTrjv, dip1 ezutou 2 Herod, i. 56.

102 HISTORY OF GREECE. Past L
highly probable in regard both to Sparta and Messenia.
That the name of Dorians comprehended far more than
the inhabitants of the insignificant tetrapdis of Doris
Proper, must be assumed, if we believe that they conquered
Sparta and Messenia: both the magnitude of the conquest
itself and the passage of a large portion of them from
_, . . Naupaktus, harmonise with the legend as given
This form , . -n i«. • i ¦ i j_i t^» •
of the by Apollodorus, m which the .Dorians are repre-
legend sentedastheprincipalinhabitantsofthenorthern
with the shore of the gulf. The statements which we
great esta- gn(j inHerodotus,respectingthe early migrations
blishments „,, -,-.» . , ' . * D . -, -,•' °
of the oitheDorians,have been consideredas possessmg
historical greater historical value than those of the fabulist
Apollodorus. But both are equally matter of
legend, while the brief indications of the latter seem to be
most in harmony with the facts which we afterwards find
attested by history.
It has already been mentioned that the genealogy which
makes iEolus, Xuthus and Dorus sons of Hellen, is as old
as the Hesiodic Catalogue; probably also that which makes
Hellen son of Deukalion. Aethlius also is an Hesiodic
personage: whether Amphiktyon be so or not, we have no
proof.1 They could not have been introduced into the
legendary genealogy until after the Olympic games and
the Amphiktyonic council had acquired an established and
extensive reverence throughout Greece.
Respecting Dorus the son of Hellen, we find neither
legends nor legendary genealogy; respecting Xuthus, very
little beyond the tale of Kreiisa and Ion, which has its
• Schol. Apollon. Rhod. iv. 67. Pr5togeneia daughter of Deuka-
Tov 84 'Ev8up.t(Ova 'HaloSoi; p.4v lidn; Pindar (Olymp. ix. 64) de-
1 AsQXlou too At'.<; xal KaXiixr]? iral8a signated her .as daughter of Opus.
Xeyst . . . Kal IiEl'pav8po<; 84 Ta One of the stratagems mentioned
aOTd cpflci, xai ' AxouaiXaoi;, xal Oe- by the Scholiast to get rid of this
psxuBrji;, xal NlxavSpoQ 4v 5sUTEpcp genealogical discrepancy was the
AItu)Xix6jv, xal 0s6tiou.tuo(; ev'Etio- supposition that Deukali6n had
TiouaK. two names (5iu>vup.oO j that he was
Respectingthe parentage of Hel- also named Opus. (Schol. Pind.
len, the references to Hesiod are Olymp. ix. 85.)
very confused. Compare Schol. That theDeukalidte or posterity
Homer. Odyss. x. 2, and Schol. of Deukalian reigned in Thessaly,
Apollon. Rhod. iii. 1086. See also was mentioned both by Hesiod
Hellanic. Frag. 10. Didot. and Hekataius, ap. Schol. Apollon.
Apollod6rus aad Pherekydes be- Rhod. iv. 265.
fore him (Fragm. 51. Didot), called

Chap. V. ACHJBTJS AS AN EPONTM. 103
place more naturally among the Attic fables. Achseus
however, who is here represented as the son of Xuthus,
appears in other stories with very different parentage and
accompaniments. According to the statement which we
find in Dionysius of Halikarnassus, .Achseus, Phthius and
Pelasgus are sons of Poseidon and Larissa. They migrate
from Peloponnesus into Thessaly, and distribute the Thes-
salian territory between them, giving their names to its
principal divisions : their descendants in the sixth generation
were driven out of that country by the invasion of Deukalion
at the head of the Kuretes and the Leleges. 1 This was
the story of those who wanted to provide an
eponymus for the Achseans in the southern ™S?0™—
districts of Thessaly: Pausanias accomplishes which his
the same object by different means, representing ^wls in
Achaeus the son of Xuthus as having gone, back the legend .
to Thessaly and occupied the portion of it to
which his father was entitled. " Then, by way of explaining
how it was that there were Achseans at Sparta and at Argos,
he tells us that Archander and Architeles the sons of
Achaeus, came back from Thessaly to Peloponnesus, and
married two daughters of Danaus: they acquired great in
fluence at Argos and Sparta, and gave to the people the
name of Achseans after their father Achseus.2
Euripides also deviates very materially from the
Hesiodic genealogyin respect to the eponymous persons. In
the drama called Ion, he describes Ion as son of Kreiisa
by Apollo, but adopted by Xuthus: according to him, the
real sons of Xuthus and Kreiisa are D6rus and Achaeus,3
— eponyms of the Dorians and Achseans in the interior of
1 Dionys. H. A. R. i. 17. Strabo seems to give a different
a Pausan. vii^l, 1 — 3. i Herodotus story respecting the Achrrans in
also mentions (ii. 97) Archander, Peloponnesus : he says that they
son of Phthius and grandson of were the original population of
Achseus, who married the daughter the peninsula, that they came in
of Danaus. Larcher (Essai sur la from Phthia with Pelops, and in-
Chronologie d'Herodote, ch. x. p. habited I/aconia , which was from
321) tells us that this cannot be them called Argos Achaicum, and
the Danaus who came from Egypt, that on 'the conquest of the D6-
the father of the fifty daughters, rians , they moved into Achaia
who must have lived two centu- properly so called, expelling the
ries earlier, as may be proved Ionians therefrom (Strabo, viii. p.
by chronological arguments- this 365). This narrative is, I presume,
must be another Danaus , accord- borrowed from Ephorus.
ing to him. 3 Eurip. Ion, 1590.

104 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
Peloponnesus. And it is a still more capital point of
Geneaiogi- difference that he omits Hellen altogether —
cai diver- making Xuthus an Achaean by race, the son of
sities. jEolus, who is the son of Zeus. 1 This is the
more remarkable, as in the fragments of two other dramas
of Euripides, theMelanippe and the.33olus, we find Hellen
mentioned both as father of JEolus and son of Zeus. 2 To
the general public even of the most instructed city of
Greece, fluctuations and discrepancies in these mythical
genealogies seem to have been neither surprising nor
offensive. ' Eurip. Ion, 64. from the Fragments of the Latin
2 See the Fragments of these Melanippe of Ennius (see Fragm.
two plays in Matthias's edition; 2, ed. Bothe), Hellen was intro-
compare Welcker, Griechisch. Tra- duced as one of the characters of
god. v. ii. p. 842.' If we may judge the piece.

Chap. VI. JSOLIDS,ORS0NS ANDDAUGHT3RS OF^IOLTJS. 105

CHAPTER VI.
THE SOLIDS, OE SONS AND DAUGHTEES OP ^OLTJS.
If two of the sons of Hellen, Dorus and Xuthus, present to
us families comparatively unnoticed in mythical narrative,
the third son, JEolus, richly makes up for the deficiency.
Prom him we pass to his seven sons and five daughters,
amidst a great abundance of heroic and poetical incident.
In dealing however with these extensive mythical
families, it is necessary to observe, thatthelegen- ._
dary world of Greece, in the manner in which GreeTe,8 °
it is presented to us, appears invested with a originally
degree of symmetry and. coherence which did afterwar'ds
not originally belong to it. Por the old ballads thrown
j,°. r-i. j.ji.j.1 rnto series.
and stories which were sung or recounted at the
multiplied festivals of Greece, each on its own special
theme, have been lost: the religious narratives, which the
Exegetes of every temple had present to his memory, ex
planatory of the peculiar religious ceremonies and local
customs in his own town or Deme, had passed away. All
these primitive elements, originally distinct and uncon
nected, are removed out of our sight, and we possess only
an aggregate result, formed by many confluent streams of
fable, and connected, together by the agency of subsequent
poets and logographers. Even the earliest agents in this
work of connecting and systematising — the Hesiodic poets
— have been hardly at all preserved. Our information
respecting Grecian mythology is derived chiefly from the
prose logographers who followed them, and in whose works,
since a continuous narrative was above all things essential
to them, the fabulous personages are woven into still more
comprehensive pedigrees, and the original isolation of the
legends still better disguised. Hekataeus, Pherekydes,
Hellanikus, and Akusilaus lived at a time when the idea of
Hellas as one great whole, composed of fraternal sections,
was deeply rooted in the mind of every Greek; and when
the hypothesis of a few great families, branching out widely

106 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet I.
from one common stem, was more popular and acceptable
than that of a distinct indigenous origin in each of the
separate districts. These logographers, indeed, have them
selves been lost; but Apollodorus and the various scholiasts,
our great immediate sources of information respecting
Grecian mythology, chiefly borrowed from them: so that the
legendary world of Greece is in fact known to us through
them, combined with the dramatic and Alexandrine poets,
their Latin imitators, and the still later class of scholiasts —
except indeed such occasional glimpses as we obtain from
the Iliad and the Odyssey, and the remaining Hesiodic
fragments which exhibit but too frequently a hopeless
diversity when confronted with the narratives of the logo
graphers. Thpugh JEolus (as has been already stated) is himself
called the son of Hellen along with Dorus and Xuthus, yet
thelegends concerning the JEolids, far from being dependent
upon this genealogy, are not all even coherent with it:
moreover the name of iEolus in the legend is older than
that of Hellen, inasmuch as it occurs both in the Iliad and
M x Odyssey.1 Odysseus sees in the under-world the
beautiful Tyro, daughter of Salmoneus, and wife
of Kretheus, son of JEolus.
-iBolus is represented as having reigned in Thessaly : his
¦n-!. „ „„ seven sons were Kretheus, Sisyphus, Athamas,
xiis seven ~ . A -rv -a -.it a t t* -a a • n
sons and baimoneus, JDeion, Magnes, and Jrerieres : his five
dlughters daughters, Canace, Alcyone, Peisidike, Calyce
and Perimede. The fables of this race seem to
be distinguished by a constant introduction of the god
Poseidon, as well as by an unusual prevalence of haughty
and presumptuous attributes among the iEolid heroes,
leading them to affront the gods by pretences of equality,
and sometimes even by defiance. ' The worship of Poseidon
must probably have been diffused and pre-eminent among
a people with whom those legends originated.
Section I. — Sons of iEoLus.
Salmoneus is not described in the Odyssey as son of
iEolus, but he is so denominated both in. the Hesiodic
' Iliad, vi. 154. 2laut?os AloXl5r)?, Ac. "H <pdro 2aXp.u>vjj<,<: dp.op.0v05 4V/o-
Again, Odyss. xi. 234.— Vo? Eival,
"Ev6' f-M xpunijv Tupch ?8ov <S>q 84 Kpr|9rjo« Yuvrj ip.UEvai Alo-
soitaT EpElBV, ).l5ao.

Chap. VI. SALMONETJS-TYRO. 107
Catalogue, and by the subsequent logographers. His
daughter Tyro became enamoured of the river 1 First
Enipeus, the most beautiful of all streams that -a501"1
traverse the earth; she frequented the banks sTimnneus,
assiduously, and there the god Poseidon found Tyro-
means to indulge his passion for her, assuming the character
of the river-god himself. The fruit of this alliance were the
twin brothers, Pelias and Neleus: Tyro afterwards was
given in marriage to her uncle Kretheus, another son of
.ZEolus, by whom she had _33s6n, Pheres and Amythaon — all
names of celebrity in the heroic legends. J The adventures
of Tyro formed the subject of an affecting drama of So
phokles, now lost. Her father had married a second wife,
named Sidero, whose cruel counsels induced him to punisb
. and torture his daughter on account of her intercourse
with Poseidon. She was shorn of her magnificent .hair,
beaten and ill-used in various ways, and confined in a
loathsome dungeon. Unable to take care of her two
children, she had been compelled to expose them imme
diately on their birth in a little boat on the river Enipeus ;
they were preserved by the kindness of a herdsman, and
when grown up to manhood, rescued their mother, and
revenged her wrongs by putting to death the iron-hearted
Sidero.2 This pathetic tale respecting the long imprison
ment of Tyro is substituted by Sophokles in place of the
Homeric legend, which represented her to have become
the wife of Kretheus and mother of a numerous offspring.3
Her father, the unjust Salmoneus, exhibited in his
conduct the most insolent impiety towards the gods. He
assumed the name and title even of Zeus, and caused to be
offered to himself the sacrifices destined for that god: he
1 Homer, Odyss. xi. 234—257 ; xv. Schol. ad Aristoph. Av. 276. See
226. tne few fragments of the lost
2 Dioddrus, iv. 68. Sophokles, drama in Dindorf's Collection , p.
Fragm. 1. Topu). 2acpd><; 215-/^0) xai 53. The plot was in many respects
aspouaa ToiJvop.cc. The genius of analogous to the Antiope of Euri-
SopboklSs is occasionally seduced pides.
by this play upon the etymology ' A third story, different both
of a name , even in the most im- from Homer and from Sophokles,
pressive Bcenes of his tragedies, respecting Tyr6 , is found in Hy-
See Ajax, 426. Compare Hellanik. ginus (Fab.lx.) : it is of a tragical
Fragm. p. 9, ed. Preller. There cast, and borrowed, like so many
was a first and second edition of other tales in that collection, from
the Tyro  ~qz SsuTspas Tupous. one of the lost Greek dramas.

108 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet I.
also imitated the thunder and lightning, by driving about
with brazen caldrons attached to his chariot and casting
lighted torches towards heaven. Such wickedness finally
drew upon him the wrath of Zeus, who smote him with a
thunderbolt, and effaced from the earth the city which he
had founded, with all its inhabitants, i
Pelias and Neieus, "both stout vassals of the great
Pelias and Zeus," became engaged in dissension respecting
Neieus. the kingdom of Iolkos in Thessaly. Pelias got
possession of it, and dwelt there in plenty and prosperity;
but he had offended the goddess Here by killing Sider8
upon her altar, and the effects of her wrath were mani
fested in his relations with his nephew Jason.2
Neieus quitted Thessaly, went into Peloponnesus, and
there founded the kingdom of Pylos. He purchased, by
immense marriage presents, the privilege of wedding the
beautiful Chloris, daughter of Amphion, king of Orchome
nos, by whom he had twelve sons and but one daughter3
— the fair and captivating Pero, whom suitors from all the
neighbourhood courted in marriage. But Neieus, "the
haughtiest of living men,"* refused to entertain, the pre
tensions of any of them: he would grant his daughter only
to that man who should bring to him the oxen of Iphiklos,
from Phylake in Thessaly. These precious animals were
carefully guarded, as well by herdsmen as by a dog whom
neither man nor animal could approach. Nevertheless,
Bias, the son of Amythaon, nephew of Neieus, being des
perately enamoured of Per6, prevailed upon his brother
'.Apollod. i. 9, 7. 2aXp.(ovEU5 x dorus (Virgil in the JEneid , vi.
a5ixos xal &Tc4p9i>p.oc; IiEpir/prjS. He- 586 , has retouched it) marks its
siod, Fragm. Catal. 8.Marktscheffel. ancient date: the final circum-
Where the city of Salmdneus stance of that tale was , that the
was situated, the ancient investi- city and its inhabitants were an-
gators were not agreed ; whether nihilated.
in the Pisatid, or in Elis,- or in Ephorus makes Salmoneus king
Thessaly (see Strabo, viii. p. 356). of the Epeians and of the Pisatse
Euripides in his iEolus placed him (Fragm. 16, ed. Didot).
on the banks of the Alpheius The lost drama of Sophokles,
(Eurip. Fragm. .ailol. 1). A village called 2aXp.U)vEO<;, was a 8pap.a cta-
and fountain in the Pisatid bore TUpixov. See Dindorf's Fragm. 483.
the name of Salm6ne ; but the 2 Horn. Od. xi. 280. Apollod. i.
mention of the river Enipeus seems 9, 9. xpaTspin (kpajtovTE Aio?, &c.
to mark Thessaly as the original 3 Diod6r. iv. 68.
seat of the legend. But the naivete A NrjXea te p.EYd9up.ov, dfauoTaTOv
of the tale preserved by Apollo- SioSvtcov (Horn. Odyss. xv. 228).

CnAP. VI. NELEUS— MELAMPUS. 109
*
Melampus to undertake for his sake the perilous adven
ture, in spite of the prophetic knowledge of the latter,
which forewarned him that though he would ultimately
succeed, the prize must be purchased by severe captivity
and suffering. Melampus, in attempting to steal the oxen,
was seized and put in prison; from whence nothing but his
prophetic powers rescued him. Being acquainted with the
language of worms, he heard these animals communicating
to each other, in the roof over his head, that the beams
were nearly eaten through and about to fall in. He com
municated this intelligence to his guards, and demanded to
be conveyed to another place of confinement, announcing
that the roof would presently fall in and bury them. The
prediction was fulfilled, and Phylakos, father of Iphiklos,
full of wonder at this specimen of prophetic power, imme
diately caused him to be released. He further pSrai Bias
consulted him respecting the condition of his andMeiam-
son Iphiklos, who was childless; and promised pus-
him the possession of the oxen on condition of his suggest
ing the means whereby offspring might be ensured. A vul
ture having communicated to Melampus the requisite
information, Podarkes, the son of Iphiklos, was born shortly
afterwards. In this manner Melampus obtained possession
of the oxen, and conveyed them to Pylos, ensuring to his
brother Bias the hand of Pero. l How this great legen
dary character, by miraculously healing the deranged
daughters of Prcetos, procured both for himself and for
Bias dominion in Argos, has been recounted in a preceding
chapter. Of the twelve sons of Neieus, one at least, Periklyi
menos, — besides the ever-memorable Nestor, — was distin
guished for his exploits as well as for his mira- Perikiyme-
culous gifts. Poseidon, the divine father of the nos-
race, had bestowed upon him the privilege of changing his
form at pleasure into that of any bird, beast, reptile, or
insect.2 He had occasion for all these resources, and he
1 Horn. Od. xi. 278 , xv. 234. subsequently left out or varied.
Apollod. i. 9, 12. The basis of this Neieus seized the property of Me-
curious romance is in the Odys- lampus during his absence ; the
sey, amplified by subsequent poets, latter, returning with the oxen
There are points, however, in the from Phylake, revenges himself
old Homeric legend, as it is briefly upon Neieus for the injury. Odyss.
sketched in the fifteenth book of the xv. 233.
Odyasey, which seem to have been * Hesiod, Catalog, ap. Schol.

110 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet *•
•
employed them for a time with success in defending his
family against the terrible indignation of Herakles, who,
provoked by the refusal of Neieus to perform for him the
ceremony of purification after his murder of Iphitus, at
tacked the Neleids at Pylos. Periklymenos by his extraor
dinary powers prolonged the resistance, but the hour of
his fate was at length brought upon him by the interven
tion of Athene, who pointed him out to Herakles while he
was perched as a bee upon the hero's chariot. He was
killed, and Herakles became completely victorious, over
powering Poseidon, Here, Ares, and Hades, and even
wounding the three latter, who assisted in the defence.
Eleven of the sons of Neieus perished by his hand, while
Nestor, then a youth, was preserved only by his accidental
absence at Gerena, away from his father's residence.1
The proud house of the Neleids was now reduced to
Nest6r and Nest6r; but Nestor singly sufficed to sustain its
his exploits, eminence. He appears not only as the defender
and avenger of Pylos against the insolence and rapacity of
his Epeian neighbours in Elis, but also as aiding the La-
pithae in their terrible combat against the Centaurs, and
as companion of Theseus, Peirithous, and the other great
legendary heroes who preceded the Trojan war. In ex
treme old age his once marvellous power of handling his
weapons has indeed passed away, but his activity remains
Apoll6n. Rhod. i. 156; Ovid, Me- and rejected the passage in the
tarn. xii. p. 556 ; Eustath. ad Odyss. Iliad as spurious (see Schol. Ven.
xi. p. 284. Poseid&n carefully pro- ad Iliad, xi. 682).
tects Antilochus, son of Nest6r, The refusal of purification by
in the Iliad, xiii. 554—563. Neieus to Herakles is a genuine
1 Hesiod, Catalog, ap. Schol. Ven. legendary cause: the commenta-
ad Iliad, ii. 336 : and Steph. Byz. tors, who were disposed to spread
v. rsp7)vla; Homer, II. v. 392; xi. a coating of history over these
693 ; Apollod6r. ii. 7 , 3 ; Hesiod, transactions , introduced another
Scut. Here. 360; Pindar 01. ix. 32. cause,— Neieus , as king of Pylos,
According to the Homeric legend, had aided the Orchomenians in
Neieus himself was not killed by their war against HeraklSs and
Herakles: subsequent poets or lo- the Thebans (see Schol. Ven. ad
gographers, whom Apollodorus Iliad, xi. 689).
follows, seem to have thought it The neighbourhood of Pylos was
an injustice, that the offence given distinguished for its ancient wor-
by Neieus himself should have ship both of Poseidfin and of Ha-
been avenged upon his sons and das: there were abundant local le-
not upon himself; they therefore gends respecting them (see Strabo,
altered the legend upon this point, xiii. pp. 344, 345).

Chap. VI. NESTOR AND THE NELEIDS. Ill
unimpaired, and his sagacity as well as his influence in
counsel is greater than ever. He not only assembles the
various Grecian chiefs for the armament against Troy,
perambulating the districts of Hellas along with Odysseus,
but takes a vigorous part in the siege itself, and is of pre
eminent service to Agamemnon. And after the conclusion
of the siege, he is one of the few Grecian princes who re
turns to his original dominions. He is found, in a strenuous
and honoured old age, in the midsf of his children and sub
jects, — sitting with the sceptre of authority on the stone
bench before his house at Pylos, — offering sacrifice to
Poseidon, as his father Neieus had done before him, —
and mourning only over the death of his favourite son
Antilochus, who had fallen along with so many brave
companions in arms, in the Trojan war. i
After Nestor the line of the Neleids numbers
undistinguished names, — Borus, Penthilus, and Andropom-
pus, — three successive generations down to Melanthus,
who on the invasion of Peloponnesus by the Herakleids,
quitted Pylos and retired to Athens, where he became
king, in a manner which I shall hereafter recount. His
son Kodrus was the last Athenian king; and N61eids
Neieus, one of the sons of Kodrus, is mentioned downto
as the principal conductor of what is called the Kodrus'
Ionic emigration from Athens to Asia Minor. 2 It is cer
tain that during the historical age, nbt merely the princely
family of the Kodrids in Miletus, Epbesus, and other Ionic
cities, but some of the greatest families even in Athens
itself, traced their heroic lineage through the Neleids up to
Poseidon; and the legends respecting Nestor and Perikly-
menos would find especial favour amidst Greeks with such
feelings and belief. The Kodrids at Ephesus, and probably
some other Ionic towns, long retained the title and honorary
precedence of kings, even after they had lost the substantial
power belonging to the office. They stood in the same
relation, ombodying both religious worship and supposed
ancestry, to the Neleids and Poseidon, as the chiefs of the
' About Nestor. Iliad , i. 260— giving the genealogy from Neieus
275* ii. 370* xi. 670—770; Odyss. to Melanthus, traces it through
Iii. 5 110 409. Periklymenos and not through
2 Hellanik. Fragm. 10, ed. Didot ; Nest6r: the words of Herodotus
Pausan. vii. 2,3; Herodot. v. 65 ; imply that he must have included
Strabo, xiv. p. 633. Hellanikus, in Nestdr.

112 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet I.
iEolic colonies to Agamemnon and Orestes. The Athenian
despot Peisistratus was named after the son of Nestor in
the Odyssey; and we may safely presume that the heroic
worship of the Neleids was as carefully cherished at the
Ionic Miletus as at the Italian Metapontum. 1
Having pursued the line of Salm6neus and Neieus to
Second *ne en<^ °f ^s legendary career, we may now
A®oiid line turn back to that of another son of JEolus,
-Kretheus. Kretheus, — a line hardly less celebrated in
respect of the heroic names which it presents. Alkestis,
the most beautiful of the daughters of Pelias, 2 was promised
by her father in marriage to the man who could bring him
a lion and a boar tamed to the yoke and drawing together.
Admetus, son of Pheres, the eponymus of Pherae in Thes
saly, and thus grandson of Kretheus, was enabled by the
aid of Apollo to fulfil this condition, and to win her;3 for
Apollo happened at that time to be in his service as a slave
(condemned to this penalty by Zeus for having put to
death the Cyclopes), in which capacity he tended the herds
and horses with such success, as to equip Eumelus (the son
of Admetus) to the Trojan war with the finest horses in
the Grecian army. Though menial duties were imposed
upon him, even to the drudgery of grinding in the mill,4
he yet carried away with him a grateful and friendly sen
timent towards his mortal master, whom he interfered to
rescue from the wrath of the goddess Artemis, when she
1 Herodot. v. 67; Strabo, vi. p. TX^ p.sv AT)p.V)TT)p, tXtj 54 xXutoc
264; Mimnermus, Fragm. 9, Schnei- ' Ap.<piYU^Eic;,
dewin. TX73 84 ITocjEi8du)v, tXtj 8' dpyupo-
2 Iliad, ii. 716. to£o? 'AtioXXiov
3 Apollodor. i. 9, 16; Eustath. 'Av8pl Tiapd 8vi)Tup 8i]TEU<rsp.sv el?
ad Iliad, ii. 711. 4viaoT6v
• Euriprd. Alkest. init. "Welcker, TXjj 64 xal 6fipip.68upi.oi: "Aprj? on6
Griechische Tragbd. (p. 344) on the rcaTpos dvaYX7]s.
lost play of Sophokles called Ad- The old legend followed out the
metus or Alkestis ; Horn. Iliad, ii. fundamental idea with remarkable
766; Hygin. Fab. 50— 51 (Sophokles, consistency: Laomed&n , as the
Fr. Inc. 730; Dind. ap. Plutarch, temporary master of Poseid6n and
Defect. Orac. p. 417). This tale of Apollo , threatens to bind them
the temporary servitude of par- hand and foot, to sell them in the
ticular gods, by order of Zeus as distant islands, and to cut off the
a punishment for misbehaviour, ears of both when they come to
recurs not unfrequently among the ask for their stipulated wages
incidents of the mythical world. (Iliad, xxi. 455). It was a new
The poet Panyasis (ap. Clem, turn given to the story by the
Alcxand. Adm. ad Gent. p. 23)— Alexandrine poets, when they

Chap. VI. PELIAS AND JASON. 113
was indignant at the omission of her name in his wedding
sacrifices. Admetus was about to perish by a Admetu
premature death, when Apollo by earnest soli- and
citation to the Pates, obtained for him the pri- AlkSstis- .
vilege that his life should be prolonged, if he could find
any person to die a voluntary death in his place. His
father and his mother both refused to make this sacrifice
for him, but the devoted attachment of his wife Alkestis
disposed her to embrace with cheerfulness the condition
of dying to preserve her husband. She had already perished,
when Herakles, the ancient guest and friend of Admetus,
arrived during the first hour of lamentation ; his strength
and daring enabled him to rescue the deceased Alkestis
even from the grasp of Thanatos (Death), and to restore
her alive to her disconsolate husband, i
The son of Pelias, Akastus, had received and sheltered
Peleus when obliged to fly his country in consequence of
the involuntary murder of Eurytion. Kretheis, Vil .
the wife of Akastus, becoming enamoured of Pe- the wife of
leus, made to him advances which he repudiated. Vastus.
Exasperated at his refusal, and determined to procure his
destruction, she persuaded her husband that Peleus hadat-
temptedher chastity: upon which Akastus conducted Peleus
out upon a hunting excursion among the woody regions of
Mount Pelion, contrived to steal from him the sword fabric
ated and given by Hephaestos, and then left him, alone and
unarmed, to perish by the hands of the Centaurs or by
the wild beasts. By the friendly aid of the Centaur Cheiron,
however, Peleus was preserved, and his sword restored
to him: returning to the city, he avenged himself by put
ting to death both Akastus and his perfidious wife.2
But amongst all the legends with which the name of
Pelias is connected, by far the most memorable is that of
introduced the motive of love, and cine,- and saved the life of Al-
made the servitude voluntary on kestis when she was about to pe-
the part of Apollo (Kallimachus, rish from a desperate malady (Plu-
Hymn. Apoll. 49 ; Tibullus, Eleg. tarch , Amator. 17. vol. iv. p. 53,
ii. 3, 11—30). Wytt.).
1 Eurip. Alkestis , Arg. ; Apol- 2 The legend of Akastus and
lod. i. 9, 15. To bring this beauti- Peleus was given in great detail
ful legend more .into the colour in the Catalogue of Hesiod (Cata-
of history, a new version of it was log. Fragm. 20—21. Marktscheff.) ;
subsequently framed : Herakles Schol. Pindar. Nem. iv. 95 ; Schol.
was eminently skilled in medi- Apoll. Rhod. i. 224; Apollod. iii. 13, 2.
VOL. I. J

114 HISTORY OF GREECE. Past I.
Jason and the Argonautic expedition. Jason was son of
iEson, grandson of Kretheus, and thus great-grandson of
_2Colus. Pelias, having consulted the oracle respecting the
•security of his dominion at Iolkos, had received in answer
a warning to beware of the man who should appear before
him with only one sandal. He was celebrating a festival
in honour of Poseidon, when it so happened that Jason
appeared before him with one of his feet unsandaled: he
had lost one sandal in wading through the swollen current
of the river Anauros. Pelias immediately understood that
this was the enemy against whom the oracle had forewarned
him. As a means of averting the danger, he imposed upon
Pelias and Jason the desperate task of bringing back to
Jas8n. I61kos the Golden Pleece, — the fleece of that
ram which had carried Phryxos from Achaia to Kolchis,
and which Phryxos had dedicated in the latter country as
an offering to the god Ares. The result of this injunction
was the memorable expedition — of the ship Argo and her
crew called the Argonauts, composed of the bravest and
noblest youths of Greece — which cannot be conveniently
included among the legends of the iEolids, and is reserved
for a separate chapter.
The voyage of the Argo was long protracted, and
Jas6n and Pelias, persuaded that neither the ship nor her
Medea. crew woui,j ever return, put to death both the
father and mother of Jason, together with their infant son.
Mson, the father, being permitted to choose the manner
of his own death, drank bull's blood while performing a
sacrifice to the gods. At length, however, Jason did return,
bringing with him not only the golden fleece, but also
Medea, daughter of ^Eetes, king of Kolchis, as his wife, — a
woman distinguished for magical skill and cunning, by
whose assistance alone the Argonauts had succeeded in
their project. Though determined to avenge himself upon
Pelias, Jason knew that he could only succeed by stratagem.
He remained with his companions at a short distance from
Iolkos, while Medea, feigning herself a fugitive from his
ill-usage, entered the town alone, and procured access to
the daughters of Pelias. By exhibitions of her magical
powers she soon obtained unqualified ascendency over their
minds. Por example, she selected from the flocks of Pelias
a ram in the extremity of old age, cut him up and boiled
him in a caldron with herbs, and brought him out in the

Cnxp.VI. MEDEA AND THE DAUGHTERS OE PELIAS.

115

shape of a young and vigorous lamb:1 the daughters of
Pelias were made to believe that their old father could in
like manner be restored to youth. In this persuasion they
cut him up with their own hands and cast his limbs into
the caldron, trusting that Medea would produce upon him
the same magical effect. Medea pretended that an invocation
to the moon was a necessary part of the ceremony: she
went up to the top of the house as if to pronounce it, and
there lighting the fire-signal concerted with the Argonauts,
Jason and his companions burst in and possessed themsel
ves of the town. Satisfied with having thus revenged
himself Jason yielded the principality of Iolkos to Akas
tus, son of Pelias, and retired with Medea to Corinth.
Thus did the goddess Here gratify her ancient wrath
against Pelias: she had constantly watched over Jason,
and had carried the "all-notorious" Argo through its
innumerable perils, in order that Jason might bring home
Medea to accomplish the ruin of his uncle. 2 The misguided

1 This incident was contained
in one of the earliest dramas of
Euripides, the HsXidoE;, now lost.
Moses of Chorene (Pro gymnasia.
ap. Maii ad Euseb. p. 43), who
gives an extract from the argu
ment, says that the poet "extremos
mentiendi fines attingit."
The' Pi£6t:o[jloi of Sophokles seems
also to have turned upon the same
catastrophe (see Fragm. 479, Din-
dorf). - The kindness of Hgre towards
Jasdn seems to be older in the
legend than her displeasure against
Pelias ; at least it is specially
noticed in the Odyssey, as the
great cause of the escape of the
ship Arg6 : ' A.IX "Hpi] TzapixziLtyzv,
ett£l oO.oz Tjev 'I^au>v (xii. 70). In
the Hesiodic Theogony Pelias
stands to Jas6n in the same re
lation as Eurystheus to HgraklSs,
—a severe taskmaster as well as a
wicked and insolent man,— {i(Bpi.-
aTTjc IIsXiYjt; xctt dTctaQaXcK, oppi-
ixospfoc, (Theog. 995). Apolldnius
Bhodius keeps the wrath of Here
against Pelias in the foreground.

i. 14; ii. 1134; iv. 242; see also
Hygin. f. 13.
There is great diversity in the
stories given of the proximate
circumstances connected with the
death of Pelias: Eurip. Med. 491;
Apollod&r. i. 9, 27; DiodOr. iv.
50—52; Ovid, Metam. vii. 162, 203,
297, 347; Pausan. viii. 11,2; Schol.
ad Lycoph. 175.
In the legend of Akastus and
Peleus, as recounted above, Akas
tus was made to perish by the
hand of P&leus. I do not take
upon me to reconcile these con
tradictions. Pausanias mentions that he could
not find in any of the poets, so
far as he had read, the names of
the daughters of Pelias, and that
the painter Mik6n had given to
them names (6v6u,aT<x 8' auT«T<; xoit]-
T7)c fjisv sQsxo O'jSsU, Zaa y* inrsXsSs-
ut.£8a 7)(J-£if;) #c., Pausan. viii. 11. 1).
Yet their names are given in the
authors whom Diod6rus copied ;
and Alk&atis, at any rate, was
most memorable. Mik6n gave the
names As teropeia and Antinoe, alto.
i2

116

HISTORY OF GREECE.

•Part I.

daughters of Pelias departed as voluntary exiles to Arcadia:
Akastus his son celebrated splendid funeral games in
honour of his deceased father. 1
Jason and Medea retired from Iolkos to Corinth,
MSdea at where they resided ten years: their children
Corinth. were — Medeius, whom the Centaur Cheiron
educated in the regions of Mount Pelion,2 — and Mermerus
and Pheres, born at Corinth. After they had resided there
ten years in prosperity, Jason set his affections on Grlauke,
daughter of Kreon 3 king of Corinth; and as her father was
willing to give her to him in marriage, he determined to
repudiate Medea, who received orders forthwith to leave
Corinth. Stung with this insult and bent upon revenge,
Medea prepared a poisoned robe, and sent it as a marriage
present to Glauke: it was unthinkingly accepted and put
on, and the body of the unfortunate bride was burnt up
and consumed. Xre6n, her father, who tried to tear from
her the burning garment, shared her fate and perished.
The exulting Medea escaped by means of a chariot with

gether different from those in
Diod&rus. Both Diod&rus and Hy-
ginus exonerate Alkestis from all
share in the death of her father
(Hygin. f. 24).
The old poem called theNooxoi.
(see Ar gum. ad Eurip. Mgd., and
Schol. Aristophan. Equit. 1321) re
counted, that MSdea had boiled
in a caldron the old .ZEs&n, father
of J"as6n, with herbs and incanta
tions, and that she had brought him
out young and strong. Ovid
copies this (Metam. vii. 162—203).
It is singular that Pherekydes and
Simonides said that she performed
this process upon Jas&n himself
(Schol. Aristoph. I. c). Diogenes
(ap. Stobse. Florileg. t, xxix. 92)
rationalises the story, and con
verts MSdea from an enchantress
into an improving and regenerating
preceptress. The death of iEson,
as described in the text, is given
from Diod6rus and Apolloddrus.
Medea seems to have been wor
shipped as a goddess in other places
besides Corinth (see Athenagor.

Legat. pro Christ. 12 ; Macrobius,
i. 12, p. 247, Gronov.).
1 These funeral games in honour
of Pelias were among the most
renowned of the mythical incidents :
they were celebrated in a special
poem by StSsichorus, and repre
sented on the chest of Kypselus at
Olympia. Kastor, Meleager, Am
phiaraos, Jasdn, PSleus, Mopsos,
Ac, contended in them (Pausan.
v. 17, 4; Stesichori Fragm. 1. p.
54, ed.Klewe; Athen. iv. 172). How
familiar the details of them were
to the mind of a literary Greek is
indirectly attested by Plutarch,
Sympos. v. 2, vol. iii. p. 762, Wytt.
2 Hesiod, Theogon. 998.
8 According to the Schol. ad
Eurip. Mgd. 20, Jason marries the
daughter of Hippot&s the son of
Kre6n, who is the son ofLyksethos.
Lyktethos, after the departure of
Bellerophdn from Corinth, reigned
twenty-seven years; then Kreftn
reigned thirty-five years j then cam©
Hippotgs.

Chap. VI.

MEDEA AT CORINTH.

117

winged serpents furnished toher by her grandfather Helios:
sheplaced herself under the protection of iEgeus at Athens,
by whom she had a son named Medus. She left her young
children in the sacred enclosure of the Akrsean Here,
relying on the protection of the altar to ensure their safety;
but the Corinthians were so exasperated against her for
the murder of Kreon and Glauke, that they dragged the
children away from the altar and put them to death. The
miserable Jas6n perished by a fragment of his own ship
Argo, which fell upon him while he was asleep under it,1

1 Apollod6r. i. 9, 27; Dioddr. iv.
64. The Medea of EuripidSs, which
has fortunately been preserved to
us, is too well known to need ex
press reference. He makes Mgdea
the destroyer of her own children,
and borrows from this circumstance
the most pathetic touches of his
exquisite drama. Parmeniskos ac
cused him of having been bribed
by the Corinthians to give this
turn to the legend ; and we may
regard the accusation as a proof that
the older and more current tale
imputed the murder of the children
to the Corinthians (Schol. Eurip.
Med. 275, where Didymos gives the
story out of the old poem ofKreo-
phylos). See also iElian, V. H. v.
21 ; Pausan. ii. 3, 6.
The most significant fact in re
spect to the fable is, that the
Corinthians celebrated periodically
a propitiatory sacrifice to Hgre
Akriea and to Mermerus and Phergs,
as an atonement for the sin of
having yiolated the sanctuary of
the altar. The legend grew out of
this religious ceremony, and was
so arranged as to explain and ac
count for it (see Eurip. M§d. 1376,
with the Schol. Diod6r. iv. 55).
Mermerus and PhSr£s were the
names given to the children of
Medea and Jas6n in the old Nau-
paktian Verses ; in which, however,
the legend must have been re
counted quite differently, since

they said that Jasfin and MSdea
had gone from I61kos, not to
Corinth, hut to Corcyra; and that
Mermerus had perished in hunting
on the opposite continent of Epirus.
Kinsethdn again, another ancient
genealogical poet, called the chil
dren of MSdea and Jasdn Eri6pis
and Mgdos (Pausan. ii. 3, 7). Dio-
ddrus gives them different names
(iv. 34). Hesiod in the Theogony
speaks only ofMedeius as the son
of Jas&n.
MSdea does not appear either in
the Iliad or Odyssey : in the former
we find AgamSdS, daughter of Au-
geas, "who knows all the poisons
(or medicines) which the earth
nourishes" (Iliad, xi. 740) ; in the
latter we have . CircS, sister of
M&tSa father ofMSdea, and living
in the iEEean island (Odyss. x. 70).
CircS is daughter of the god Helios,
as MSdea is his grand-daughter, —
she is herself a goddess.' She ia
in many points the parallel of
MSdea : she forewarns and pre
serves Odysseus throughout his
dangers, as Mgdea aids JasOn:
according to the Hesiodic story
she has two children by Odysseus,
Agrius and Latinus (Theogon. 1001).
Odysseus goes to EphyrS to Ilos
the son of Mermerus, to procure
poison for his arrows : Eustathius
treats this Mermerus as the son
of MSdea (see Odyss. i. 270, an
Eust.). As EphyrS is the legendary

118 HISTORY OP GREECE. Vi.ni I.
being hauled on shore, according to the habitual practice
of the ancients.
The first establishment at Ephyre, or Corinth, had
Third keen founded by Sisyphus, another of the sons
JBoiid line of -SJolus, brother of Salmoneus and Kretheus. 1
—Sisyphus, rpkg JE0ii<j Sisyphus was distinguished as an
unexampled master of cunning and deceit. He blocked
up the road along the isthmus, and killed the strangers
who came along it by rolling down upon them great stones
from the mountains above. He was more than a match
even for the arch thief Autolykus, the son of Hermes, who
derived from his father the gift of changing the colour and
shape of stolen goods, so that they could no longer be re
cognised: Sisyphus, by marking his sheep under the foot,
detected Autolykus when he stole them, and obliged him
to restore the plunder. His penetration discovered the
amour of Zeus with the nymph iEgina, daughter of the
river-god Asopus. Zeus had carried her off to the island
of (Enone (which subsequently bore the name of iEgina);
upon which Asopus, eager to recover her, inquired of
Sisyphus whither she was gone ; the latter told him what
had happened, on condition that he should provide a spring
of water on the summit of the Acro-Corinthus. Zeus, in
dignant with Sisyphus for this revelation, inflicted upon
him in Hades the punishment of perpetually heaving up a
hill a great and heavy stone, which, so soon as it attained
the summit, rolled back again in spite of all his efforts with
irresistible force into the plain. 2
name of Corinth, we may presume historical age to men of craft and
this to be a thread of the same stratagem, such as Derkyllides
mythical tissue. (Xenoph. Hellenic, iii. 1, 8). He
» See Euripid. Mol.— Fragm. 1, passed for the real father ofOdys-
Dindorf ; Ditearch. Vit. Grac.p. 22. seus, though Heyne (ad Apollodbr.
1 Respecting Sisyphus, see Apol- i. 9, 3) treats this as another Sisy-
lodor. i. 9, 3; iii. 12, ! 6. Pausan. phus, whereby he destroys the
ii. 6, 1. Schol. ad Iliad, i. 180. . suitableness of the predicate as
Another legend about the amour regards Odysseus. The duplication
of Sisyphus with Tyr6, is in Hygin. and triplication of synonymous
fab. 60, and about the manner in personages is an ordinary resource
which he overreached even Hades for the purpose of reducing the
(Pherekydes ap. Schol. Iliad, vi. legends into a seeming chrono-
153). The stone rolled by Sisyphus logical sequence.
in the under-world appears in Even in the days of Eumelus a,
Odyss. xi. 592. The name of Si- religious mystery was observed
¦syphus was given during the respecting the tombs of Sisyphus

Chap. IV. SISYPHUS THE 3J0LID. 119
In the application of the JEolid genealogy to Corinth,
Sisyphus, the son of iEolus, appears as the first name: but
the old Corinthian poet Eumelus either found or framed
an heroic genealogy for his native city independent both
of iEolus and Sisyphus. According to this genealogy,
Ephyre, daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, was the primitive
tenant of the Corinthian territory, Asopus of the Sikyonian:
both were assigned to the god Helios, in adjusting a dispute
between him and Poseidon, by Briareus. Helios divided
the territory between his two sons ^Eetes and Al&eus : to
the former he assigned Corinth, to the latter Sikyon. iEetes,
obeying the admonition of an oracle, emigrated to Kolchis,
leaving his territory under the rule of Bunos, the son of
Hermes, with the stipulation that it should be restored
whenever either he or any of his descendants returned.
After the death of Bunos, both Corinth and Sikyon were
possessed by Epopeus, son of Aloeus, a wicked man. His
son Marathon left him in disgust and retired into Attica,
but returned after his death and succeeded to his territory,
which he in turn divided between his two sons Corinthos
and Sikyon, from whom the names of the two districts were
first derived. Corinthos died without issue, and the Corin
thians then invited Medea from Iolkos as the representative
of iEetes : she with her husband Jason thus obtained the
sovereignty of Corinth, i This legend of Eumelus, Corinthian
one of the earliest of the genealogical poets, so genealogy
different from the story adopted by Neophron of um6 us"
or Euripides, was followed certainly by Simonides, and
seemingly by Theopompus. 2 The incidentsin it areimagined
and arranged with a view to the supremacy of Medea; the
emigration of JEetes and the conditions under which he
transferred his sceptre, being so laid out as to confer upon
Medea an hereditary title to the throne. The Corinthians
paid to Medea and to her children solemn worship, either
and Neieus, — the latter had also 2 Simonid. ap. Schol. ad Eurip.
died at Corinth, — no one could say Med. 10—20 ; Theopompus, Fragm.
where they were buried (Pausan. 340, Didot; though Welcker (Der
ii. 2, 2). Episch. Cyol. p. 29) thinks this
Sisyphus even overreached Per- does not belong to the historian
sephone, and made his escape from Theopompus. Epimenides also
the under-world (Theognis, 702). followed the story of Eumelus in
1 Pausan. ii. 1, 1 ; 3, 10. Schol. ad making .aSetes a Corinthian (Schol.
Pindar. 01. xiii. 74. Schol. Lycoph. ad Apoll. Rhod. iii. 242).
174—1024. Schol. Ap. Eh. iv. 1212.

120 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet I.
divine or heroic, in conjunction with Here Akrsea,* and
this was sufficient to give to Medea a prominent place in
the genealogy composed by a Corinthian poet, accustomed
to blend together gods, heroes, and men in the antiquities
of his native city. According to the legend of Eumelus,
Jason became (through Medea) Icing of Corinth; but she
concealed the children of their marriage in the temple of
Here, trusting that the goddess would render them immortal.
Jason, discovering her proceedings, left her and retired in
disgust to Iolkos; Medea also, being disappointed in her
scheme, quitted the place, leaving the throne in the hands
of Sisyphus, to whom, according to the story of Theopompus,
she had become attached. 2 Other legends recounted, that
Zeus had contracted a passion for Medea, but that she had
rejected his suit from fear of the displeasure of Here; who,
as a recompense for such fidelity, rendered her children
immortal:3 moreover Medea had erected, by special command
Coaies- °f Here, the celebrated temple of Aphrodite at
cence of Corinth. The tenor of these fables manifests
le'end"1' their connexion with the temple of Here: and
about we may consider the legend of Medea as having
s1syphus.d k?en originally quite independent of that of
Sisyphus, but fitted on to it, in seeming chro
nological sequence, so as to satisfy the feelings of those
iEolids of Corinth who passed for his descendants.
Sisyphus had for his sons Glaukos and Ornytion. Erom
Glaukos sprang Bellerophon, whose romantic adventures
commence with the Iliad, and are further expanded by
subsequent poets : according to some accounts he was really
the son of Poseidon, the prominent deity of the iEolid
family. 4 The youth and beauty of Bellerophon rendered
Beiiero- him the object of a strong passion on the part of
phon. Anteia, wife of Prcetos king of Argos. Einding
her advances rejected, she contracted a violent hatred
* IUpl^Ss •!% sic Kopivdov US-col- and Pausan. ii. 3, 6. BothAlkman
T.r,(jE(0;, Icruc extIGstcu k1 'EXXdt- and Hesiod represented Medea as
viy.04- Sti 8s fisfkalXeuxs -rij« KoptvBou a goddess (Athenagoras, Legatio
7] Mr|8si«, EiSu.7)Xo<; loTopet xai 2i- pro Christianis, p. 64, ed. Oxon.).
uumISt)?' 8-i 8s xai a9av«T05 vjv rj * Pausan. ii. 3, 10 ; Schol. Pindar.
MrjSsict, MouuaToc evTui itspt 'IoBuAuw Olymp. xiii. 74.
toTopei, SRctxaiTtsplTdJvTfjc'Axpctia,; " Schol. Pindar. Olymp. xiii 32-
"Hpas soproiv exTi6si5 (Schol, Eurip. 74; Plutarch, De Herodot. Malign.
Med. 10). Compare also v. 1370, of p. 871.
'he play itself, with the Scholia « Pindar, Olymp. xiii. 98, and

Chap. VI. BF.LLER0PH6N— ATHAMAS. 121
towards him, and endeavoured by false accusations to
prevail upon her husband to kill him. Prcetos refused to
commit the deed under his own roof, but despatched him
to his son-in-law the king of Lykia in Asia Minor, putting
into his hands a folded tablet full of destructive symbols.
Conformably to these suggestions, the most perilous under
takings were imposed upon Bellerophon. He was directed
to attack the monster Chimeera and to' conquer the warlike
Solymi as well as the Amazons: as he returned victorious
from these enterprises, an ambuscade was laid for him by
the bravest Lykian warriors, all of whom he slew. At
length the Lykian king recognised him "as the genuine son
of a god," and gave him his daughter in marriage together
with half of his kingdom. The grard-children of Bellero
phon, Glaukos and Sarpedon, — the latter a son of his
daughter Laodameia by Zeus, — combat as allies of Troy
against the host of Agamemnon. *
"We now pass from Sisyphus and the Corinthian fables
to another son of iEolus, Athamas, whose family pourth
history is not less replete with mournful and -Sioiidiine
tragical incidents, abundantly diversified by the — amas-
poets. Athamas, we are told, was king of Orchomenos;
his wife Nephele was a goddess, and he had by her two
children, Phryxus and Helle. After a certain time he
neglected Nephele, and took to himself as a new wife Ino,
the daughter of Kadmus, by whom he had two sons,
Learchus and Melikertes. Ino, looking upon Phryxus
with the hatred of a stepmother, laid a snare for his life.
She persuaded the women to roast the seed-wheat, which,
when sown in this condition, yielded no crop, so that famine
overspread the land. Athamas, sending to Delphi to
Schol. ad 1; Schol. ad Iliad, vi. together all that can be divined
155 ; this seems to be the sense of respecting the two plays of Euri-
Iliad, vi. 191. pides.
The lost drama called Iobates of Volcker seeks to make out that
Sophokles, and the two by Euri- Belleropbdn is identical with
pides called Sthenebcea and Bellero- Poseid&nHippios,— a separate per
son, handled the adventures of sonification of one of the attributes
this hero. See the collection of the of the god Poseidon. For this
fewfragmentsremaininginDindorf, conjecture he gives some plausible
Fragm. Sophoc. 280 ; Fragm. Eurip. grounds (Mythologie des J apetisch.
p. 87—108; and Hygin. fab. 67. Geschlechts, p. 129 seq.).
Welcker (Griechische Tragod. ii. ' Iliad, vi. 155—210.
p. 777—800) has ingeniously put

122 HISTORY OF GREECE. Part I.
implore counsel and a remedy, received for answer through
the machinations of Ino with the oracle, that the barren
ness of the fields could not be alleviated except by offering
Phryxus as a sacrifice to Zeus. The distress of the people
compelled him to execute this injunction, and Phryxus
was led as a victim to the altar. But the power of
his mother Nephele snatched him from destruction, and
procured for him from Hermes a ram with a fleece of gold,
Phryxus upon which he and his sister Helle mounted and
and Heiie. were carried across the sea. The ram took the
direction of the Euxine sea and Kolchis: when they were
crossing the Hellespont, Helle fell off into the narrow
strait, which took its name from that incident. Upon this,
the ram, who was endued with speech, consoled the terrified
Phryxus, and ultimately carried him safe to Kolchis : iEetes,
king of Kolchis, son of the god Helios and brother of
Circe, received Phryxus kindly, and gave him his daughter
Chalkiope in marriage. Phryxus sacrificed the ram to
Zeus Phyxios, suspending the golden fleece in the sacred
grove of Ares.
Athamas — according to some both Athamas and Ino
— were afterwards driven mad by the anger of the goddess
Here; insomuch that the father shot his own son Learchus,
and would also have put to death his other son Melikertes,
in& and ^ ^rL° ka(l n0* snatched him away. She fled with
Paiam6n.— the boy across the Megarian territory and Mount
Iamesian Geraneia, to the rock Moluris, overhanging the
Saronic Gulf: Athamas pursued her, and in or
der to escape him she leaped into the sea. She became a
sea-goddess under the title of Leukothea ; while the body
of Melikertes was cast ashore on the neighbouring territory
of Schcenus, and buried by his uncle Sisyphus, who was
directed by the Nereids to pay to him heroic honours un
der the name of Palsemon. The Isthmian games, one of
the great periodical festivals of Greece, were celebrated
injhonour of the god Poseidon, in conjunction with Palae-
mon as a hero. Athamas abandoned his territory, and
became the first settler of a neighbouring region called
from him Athamantia, or the Athamantian plain, i
1 Eurip. Med. 1250, with the AAjiocp viv e?etieu.')is Stoiiitcov aXfl.
Scholia, according to which story Compare Valckenaer, Diatribe in
In6 killed both her children:— Eurip. ; Apolloddr. i. 9, 1— 2; Schol.
"Ivu> uavsioav ex 9e<I)v, W it Aio? ad Pindar. Argum. ad Isthm. p.

Chap. VI.

ATHAMAS AND PHRYXUS.

123

The legend of Athamas connects itself with some
sanguinary religious rites and very peculiar L l
family customs, which prevailed at Alos, in 0f the
Achaia Phthiotis, down to a time* later than ^§f**a°f
the historian Herodotus, and of which some
remnant existed at Orchomenos even in the days of Plu
tarch. Athamas was worshipped at Alos as a hero, having
both a chapel and a consecrated grove, attached to the
temple of Zeus Laphystios. On the family of which he
was the heroic progenitor, a special curse and disability
stood affixed. The eldest of the race was forbidden to
enter the prytaneion or government-house : if he was found
within the doors of the building, the other citizens laid

180. The many varieties of the
fable of Athamas and his family
may be seen in Hygin. fab. 1—5 ;
Philostephanus ap. Schol. Iliad.
vii. 86 : it was a favourite subject
with the tragedians, and was hand
led by .ZEschylus, Sophokl&s and
Euripidtis in more than one drama
(see Welcker, G-riechische Tragod.
vol. i. p. 312—332; vol. ii. p. 612).
Heyne says that the proper reading
of the name is Phrixus, not Phry-
scuSj— incorrectly, I think: 0pu£o<;
connects the name both with the
story of roasting the wheat^p-jyiiv),
and also with the country <S>pvfit)Lt
of which it was pretended that
Phryxus was the Eponymus. InQ,
or Leukothea, was worshipped as
a heroine at Megara as well as at
Corinth (Pausan. i. 42, 3): the
celebrity of the Isthmian games
carried her worship, as well as
that of Palsem&n, throughout most
parts of Greece (Cicero, De Nat.
Deor. iii. 16). She is the only
personage of this family noticed
either in the Iliad or Odyssey: in
the latter poem she is a sea-goddess,
who has once been a mortal,
daughter of Kadmus ; she saves
Odysseus from imminent danger
at sea by presenting to him her
xp^8eu-vov (Odyss. v. 433; see the
refinements of AristidSs, Orat. iii.

p. 27). The voyage of Phryxus
and HellS to Kolchis was related
in the Hesiodic Eoiai: we find the
names of the children of Phryxus
by the daughter of MH&s quoted
from that poem (Schol. ad Apollon.
Ehod. ii. 1123) : hoth Hesiod and
PherekydSs mentioned the golden
fleece of the ram (Eratosthen.
Catasterism. 19; Pherekyd. 3?ragm.
53, Didot).
Hekatams preserved the romance
of the speaking ram (Schol. Apoll.
Ehod. i. 256); but Hellanikus
dropped the story ofHellS having
fallen into the sea: according to
him she died at Paktyg in the
Chersonesus (Schol. Apoll. Ehod.
ii. 1144).
The poet Asius seems to have
given the genealogy of Athamas
by Themistd much in the same
manner as we find it in Apollo-
d6rus (Pausan. ix. 23, 3).
According to the ingenious
refinements of DionyBius and Palaa-
phatus (tichol. ad Apoll. Ehod. ii.
1144; Palsephat. de Incred. c. 31),
the ram of Phryxus was after all
a, man named Krios, a faithful
attendant who aided in his escape:
others imagined a ship with a
ram's head at the bow.
1 Plutarch, Qusest. G-rsec. c. 38,
p. 299. Schol. Apoll. Ehod. ii. 655.

124 HISTOHT OE GKEECE. Pabt I.
hold of him on his going out, surrounded him with gar
lands, and led him in solemn procession to be sacrificed as
a victim at the altar of Zeus Laphystios. The prohibition
carried with it an exclusion from all the public meetings
and ceremonies, political as well as rehgious, and from the
sacred fire of the state: many of the individuals marked
out had therefore been bold enough to transgress it. Some
had been seized on quitting the building and actually
sacrificed; others had fled the country for a long time to
avoid a similar fate.
The guides who conductedXerxes andhis army through
southern Thessaly detailed to him this existing practice,
coupled with the local legend, that Athamas, together with
Ino, had sought to compass the death of Phryxus, who
however had escaped to Kolchis; that the Achseans had
been enjoined by an oracle to offer up Athamas himself as
an expiatory sacrifice to release the country from the anger
of the gods ; but that Kytissoros, son of Phryxus, coming
back from Kolchis, had intercepted the sacrifice of Atha
mas, i whereby the anger of the gods remained still unap-
peased, and an undying curse rested upon the family.2
That such human sacrifices continued to a greater or
less extent, even down to a period later than Herodotus,
among the family who worshipped Athamas as their heroic
ancestor, appears certain: mention is also made of similar
customs in parts of Arcadia, and of Thessaly, in honour of
Peleus and Cheiron.3 But we may reasonably presume,
1 Of the Athamas of Sophokles, 'A0du.avTOS Exyovoi, otac Quoia^ 8oou-
turning upon this intended but not oiv/EXXnve? ovtec As a testimony
consummated sacrifice, little is to the fact still existing or believed
known, except from a passage of to exist, this dialogue is quite
Aristophanes and the Scholia upon sufficient, though not the work of
it (Nubes, 258)— Plato.
iitl ti cTEipavov; oiu.01, 2<bxpcreei;, Movi^o? 8' iotopsi, ev -cf) tujv
wanep [is tov JA9au.av6' Stico; QaUfjiaalujv auvaYcnyfl £v IIeXX^ ttjs
|M) fiuoETE. ©STTaHa? 'Ayaiov avBpumov ilr)XEi
Athamas was introduced in this xai XEtpcovi MTaBoEaSai. (Clemens
drama with a garland on his head, Alexand. Admon. ad Gent. p. 27,
on the point of being sacrificed as Sylb.) Respecting the sacrifices at
an expiation for the death of his the temple of Zeus Lykrcus in
son Phryxus, when Herakles inter- Arcadia, see Plato, Eepubl. viii.
poses and rescues him. p. 665. Pausanias (viii. 38, 5) seems
2 Herodot. vii. 197. Plato, Minds, to have shrunk, when he was upon
P- 315- the spot, even from inquiring what
3 Plato, Min6s, c. 6. Kat oi too they were— a striking proof of the

Chj.*. VI. TEACES OF HUMAN SACRIFICE. 125
that in the period of greater humanity which Herodotus
witnessed, actual sacrifice had become very rare. The
curse and the legend still remained, but were not called
into practical working, except during periods of intense
national suffering or , apprehension, during which the re
ligious sensibilities were always greatly aggravated. We
cannot at all doubt, that during the alarm created by the
presence of the Persian king with his immense and ill-
disciplined host, the minds of the Thessalians must have
been keenly alive to all that was terrific in their national
stories, and all that was expiatory in their rehgious so
lemnities. Moreover, the mind of Xerxes himself was so
awe-struck by the tale, that he reverenced the
dwelling-place consecrated to Athamas. The ancient hu-
guides who recounted to him the romantic le- ™an saori-
gend, gave it as the historical and generating
cause of the existing rule and practice : a critical inquirer
is forced (as has been remarked before) to reverse the or
der of precedence, and to treat the practice as having been
the suggesting cause of its own explanatory legend.
The family history of Athamas, and the worship of
Zeus Laphystios, are expressly connected by Herodotus
with Alos in Achasa Phthiotis — one of the towns enume
rated in the Hiad as under the command of Achilles. But
there was also a mountain called Laphystion, and a temple
and worship of Zeus Laphystios between Orchomenos and
Koroneia, in the northern portion of the territory known
in the historical ages as Boeotia. Here too the family story
fearful idea which he had conceived idque sacrificiumposteris tradidit:
of them. Plutarch (De Defectu quod est nuperHadrianoimperante
Oracul. c. 14) speaks of rb-c, rcaXai sublatum."
Ttoiouu-evas av9p(OTCO0ooi^?. The Respecting human sacrifices in
Schol, ad Iiycophr. 229, gives a historical Greece, consult a good
story of children being sacrificed to section in K. F. Hermann's Got-
Melikertes at Tenedos; and Apollo- tesdienstliche Alterthiimer der
dorus (ad Porphyr. de Abstinentia, Griechen (sect. 27). Such sacrifices
ii. 55, see Apollod. Fragm. 20, ed. had been a portion of primitive
.- Didot) said that theLacedsemonians Grecian religion, but had gradually
had sacrificed a man to Ares— xal become obsolete everywhere— ex-
Aax£Saiu.oviou<; <p7]aiv 6 'ATcoXXoStopoc cept in one or two solitary cases,
T(|> "Apsi 8ueiv avSpojTiov. About which were spoken of with horror.
Salamis in Cyprus, see Lactantius, Evenin these cases, too, the reality
De Falsa Regione, i. c. 21. "Apud of the fact, in later times, is not
Cypri Salaminem, humanam ho- beyond suspicion.
stiam Jovi Teucrus immolavit,

126 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
of Athamas is localised, and Athamas is presented to us as
king of the districts of Koroneia, Haliartus and Mount
. Laphystion : he is thus interwoven with the Or-
the dTstrict chomenian genealogy. * Andreus (we are tbld),
near Orcho- SOn of the river Peneios, was the first person
who settled in the region: from him it received
the name Andreis. Athamas, coming subsequently to An
dreus, received from him the territory of Koroneia and
Haliartus with Mount Laphystion: he gave in marriage to
Andreus Euippe, daughter of his son Leucon, and the issue
of this marriage was Eteokles, said to be the son of the
river Kephisos. Koronos and Haliartus, grandsons of the
Corinthian Sisyphus, were adopted by Athamas, as he had
lost all his children. But when his grandson Presbon, son
of Phryxus, returned to him from Kolchis, he divided, his
territory in such manner that Koronos and Haliartus be
came the founders of the towns which bore their names.
Almon, the son of Sisyphus, also received from Eteokles
a portion of territory, where he established the village
Almones. 2
With Eteokles began, according to a statement in one
of the Hesiodic poems, the worship of the Charites or
Graces, so long and so solemnly continued at Orchomenos
in the periodical festival of the Charitesia, to which many
Eteokles— neighbouring towns and districts seem to have
festival of contributed.3 He also distributed the inhabit-
Jj£ia0hari" ants into two tribes — Eteokleia and Kephisias.
He died childless, and was succeeded by Almos,
who had only two daughters, Chryse and Chrysogeneia. The
son of Chryse by the god Ares was Phlegyas, the father
and founder of the warlike and predatory Phlegyse, who
despoiled every one within their reach, and assaulted not
only the pilgrims on their road to Delphi, but even the
treasures of the temple itself. The offended god punished
them by continued thunder, by earthquakes, and by pesti
lence, which extinguished all this impious race, except a
scanty remnant who fled into Phokis.
Chrysogeneia, the other daughter of Almos, had for
issue, by the god Poseidon, Minyas: the son of Minyas was
Orchomenos. From these two was derived the name both
' -Pausan. >*• 34, 4. » Ephorus, Fragm. 68, Marx.
11 Pausan. ix. 34, 6.

Ciiap. VI. ETEOKLES.— TROPHONIUS AND AGAMEDES. 127
ofMinyee for the people, and of Orchomenos for the town.1
During the reign of Orchomenos, Hyettus came to him
from Argos, having become an exile in consequence of the
death of Molyros: Orchomenos assigned to him a portion
of land, where he founded the village called Hyettus.2
Orchomenos, having no issue, was succeeded by Klymenos,
son of Presbon, of the house of Athamas: Klymenos was
slain by some Thebans during the festival of Poseid&n at
Onchestos ; and his eldest son, Erginus, to avenge his death,
attacked the Thebans with his utmost force; — an attack,
in which he was so successful, that the latter were forced
to submit, and to pay him an annual tribute.
The Orchomenian power was now at its height: both
Minyas and Orchomenos had been princes of _,
surpassing wealth, and the former had built a and great-
spacious and durable edifice which he had filled ne83 of 0r-
with gold and silver. But the success of Erginus m nos'
against Thebes was soon terminated and reversed by the
hand of the irresistible Herakles, who rejected _
with disdain the claim of tribute, and even mu- byHerakies
tilated the envoys sent to demand it: he not only JS5.dbthe
emancipated Thebes, but broke down and impo
verished Orchomenos.3 Erginus in his old age married a
young wife, from which match sprang the illustrious heroes,
or gods, Trophonius and Agamedes; though Tr0pn0Iliu3
many (amongst whom is Pausanias himself) be- and Aga-
lieved Trophonius to be the son of Apollo.4 m6dSs-
Trophonius, one of the most memorable persons in Grecian
mythology, was worshipped as a god in various places, but
with especial sanctity as Zeus Trophonius as Lebadeia: in
his temple at this town, the prophetic manifestations out
lasted those of Delphi itself.5 Trophonius and Agamedes,
1 Pausan. ix. 36, 1 — 3. See also slain. Klymene is among the wives
a legend, about the three daughters and daughters of 'the heroes seen
of Minyas, which was treated by by Odysseus in Hades; she is
the Tanagrasan poetess Korinna, termed by the Schol. daughter of
the contemporary of Pindar (An- Minyas (Odyss. xi. 326).
tonin. Liberalis. Narr. x.). 4 Pausan. ix. 37, 1—3. AeysTai
2 This exile of Hyettus was re- Se 6 Tpoadmos 'A7i6XX(Ovo<; Eivai,
counted in the Eoiai. Hesiod. xai oox 'EpYivou* :xai iyw te iteiSo-
Fragm. 148, Markt. u.at, xai Sari? itapa Tpocpibviov ^X8s
1 Pausan. ix. 37, 2. Apollod. ii. 87) u.avTEuaou.svoc;.
4, 11. Diod6r. iv. 10 The two s Plutarch, De Defectu Oracul.
latter tell us that Erginus was c. 5, p. 411. Strabo, ix. p. 414. The

128 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
enjoying matchless renown as architects, built1 the temple
of Delphi, the thalamus of Amphitryon at Thebes, and also
the inaccessible vault of Hyrieus at Ifyria, in which they
are said to have left one stone removeable at pleasure so
as to reserve for themselves a secret entrance. They
entered so frequently, ,and stole so much gold and silver,
that Hyrieus, astonished at his losses, at length spread a
fine net, in which Agamedes was inextricably caught: Tro
phonius cut off his brother's head and carried it away, so
that the body, which alone remained, was insufficient to
identify the thief. Like Amphiaraos, whom he resembles
in more than one respect, Troph&nius was swallowed up
by the earth near Lebadeia. 2
Erom Trophonius and Agamedes the Orchomenian
Askaiaphos genealogy passes to Askalaphos and Ialmenos,
and laime- the sons of Ares by Astyoche, who are named
noa- in the Catalogue of the Iliad as leaders of the
thirty ships from Orchomenos against Troy. Azeus, the
grandfather of Astyoche in the Iliad, is introduced as the
brother of Erginus 2 by Pausanias, who does not carry the
pedigree lqwer.
The genealogy here given out of Pausanias is deserving
of the more attention, because it seems to have been copied
from the special history of Orchomenos by the Corinthian
Kallippus, who again borrowed from the native Orcho
menian poet, Chersias: the works of the latter had never
come into the hands of Pausanias. It illustrates forcibly
the principle upon which these mythical genealogies were
mention of the honeyed cakes, both amplified, is told by Herodotus
in Aristophanes (Nub. 608) and (ii. 121), respecting the treasury-
Pausanias (ix. 39, 5), indicates that vault of Rhampsinitus, king of
the curious preliminary ceremonies, Egypt. Charax (ap. Schol. Aristoph.
for those who consulted the oracle Nub. 508) gives the same tale, but
of TrophdniuB, remained the same places the scene in the treasury-
after a lapse of 650 years. Pausa- vault of Augeas, king of Elis,
nias consulted it himself. There which he says was built by Tro-
had been at one time an oracle of ph&nius, to whom he assigns a
Teiresias at Orchomenos : but it totally different genealogy. The
had become silent at an early romantic adventures of the tale
period (Plutarch, Defect. Oracul. rendered it eminently fit to be
c. 44, p. 434). interwoven at some point or an-
1 Homer, Hymn. Apoll. 296. other of legendary history, in any
Pausan. ix. 11, 1. country.
- Pausan. ix. 37, 3. A similar * Pausan. ix. 38, 6 ; 29, 1.
story, but far more romantic and

Chap. VI. ORCHOMENIAN GENEALOGY. 129
framed, for almost every personage in the series is an Epo
nymus. Andreus gave his name to the country, Athamas
to the Athamantian plain; Minyas, Orchomenos, Koronus,
Haliartus, Almos, and Hyettos, are each in like manner con
nected with some name of people, tribe, town, or village;
while Chryse and Chrysogeneia have their origin in the
reputed ancient wealth of Orchomenos. Abund- Discrepan-
ant discrepancies are found, however, in respect Jj63.111 the
to this old genealogy, if we look to other menian
accounts. According to one statement, Orcho- genealogy.
menus was the son of Zeus, bylsione, daughter of Danaus;
Minyas was the son of Orchomenos (or rather Poseidon)
by Hermippe, daughter of Boeotos; the sons of Minyas
were Presbon, Orchomenos, Athamas, and Diochthondas. i
Others represented Minyas as son of Poseidon by Kallir-
rhoe, an Oceanic nymph,2 while Dionysius called him son
of Ares, and Aristodemus, son of Aleas; lastly, there were
not wanting authors who termed both Minyas and Orcho
menos sons of Eteokles.3 Nor do we find in any one of
these genealogies the name of Amphion the son of Iasus,
who figures so prominently in the Odyssey as king of
Orchomenos, and whose beautiful daughter Chloris is
married to Neieus. Pausanias mentions him, but not as
king, which is the denomination given to him in Homer. 4
The discrepancies here cited are hardly necessary in
order to prove that these Orchomenian genealogies possess
no historical value. Yet some probable inferences appear
deducible from the general tenor of the legends, whether
the facts and persons of which they are composed be real
or fictitious. Throughout all the historical age, Orchomenos is a
member of the Boeotian confederation. But the „
Boeotians are said to have been immigrants into inferences
the territory which bore their name from Thes- as t0 tha
saly; and prior to the time of their immigration, historical
Orchomenos and the surrounding territory appear Orcno-
as possessed bytheMinyse, who are recognised
in that locality both in the Iliad and in the Odyssey,5 and
from whom the constantly recurring Eponymus, king
1 Schol. Apolldn. Rhod. i. 230. Other discrepancies in Schol. Vett.
Compare Schol. ad Lycophron. '873. ad Iliad, ii. Catalog. 18.
2 Schol. Pindar, Olymp. xiv. 5. " Odyss. xi. 283. Pausan. ix. 36, 3.
3 Schol. Pindar. Isthm. i. 79. 5 Iliad, ii. 6, 11. Odyss. xi. 283.
VOL. I. K

130 HISTORY OF GREECE. Past I.
Minyas, is borrowed by the genealogists. Poetical legend
connects the Orchomenian Minyae on the one side, with
Pylos and Triphylia in Peloponnesus; on the other side,
with Phthiotis and the town of Iolkos in Thessaly; also
with Corinth, i through Sisyphus and his sons. Pherekydes
represented Neieus, king of Pylos, as having also been king
af Orchomenos. 2 In the region of Triphylia, near to or
3oincident with Pylos, a Minyeian river is mentioned by
Homer; and we find traces of- residents called Minyee even
in the historical times, though, the account given by Hero
dotus of the way in which they came thither is strange and
unsatisfactory.3 Before the great changes which took place in the
inhabitants of Greece from the immigration of the Thespro-
tians into Thessaly, of the Boeotians into Boeotia, and of the
Dorians and^Etolians into Peloponnesus, at a date which we
have no means of determining, the Minyse and tribes fratern
ally connected with them seem to have occupied a large
portion of the surface of Greece, from Iolkos in Thessaly to
Pylos in the Peloponnesus. The wealth of Orchomenos is re
nowned evenin thelliad ; 4 and when we study its topography
in detail, we are furnished with a probable explanation
both of its prosperity and its decay. Orchomenos was
its early situated on the northern bank of the lake K6pai's,
wealth and which receives not only the river Kephisos from
in us ry. ^g valleys of Phokis, but also other rivers from
Parnassus and Helicon. The waters of the lake find more
than one subterranean egress — partly through natural rifts
Hesiod, Fragm. Eoiai, 27, Diintz. 'IcoXxov oi Mlvuai cpxouv, tuc cprjiji
"I£ey8' "Op/oo-Evov MivUTj'iov. Pindar, 2iu.o>vt8n<; ev SuupLtxToic; also Eu-
Olymp. xiv. 4. ITaXaiYovtov Mivuav stath. ad Iliad, ii. 512. Steph. Byz»
E7:laxo7coi. Herodot. i. 146. Pausa- v. Mivua. Orchomenos and Pylos
nias calls them Minym even in their run together in the mind of the
dealings with Sylla (ix. 30, 1)- poet of the Odyssey, xi. 458.
But tinann, in his Dissertation (uber * Pherekyd. Fragm. 56, Didot.
die Minyse der altesten Zeit, in We see by the 56th Fragment of
the Mythologus, Diss. xxi. p. 218), the same author, that he extended
doubts whether the name Minyss the genealogy of Phryxos to Pheroe
was ever a real name ; but all the in Thessaly.
passages make against his opinion. 3 Herodot. iv. 145. Strabo, viii.
» Schol. Apoll. Rhod. ii. 1186. i. 337—347. Horn. Iliad, xi. 721. Pau-
290.Zx7j$ioc U Ar)|xV)Tpo<; 97)111 too* san. v. 1, 7, jiotju.6v Mivojj'iov, near
TtEpi t/]v 'ItoXxov otxouvras Mtvuas Elis.
xaXEiaSai; and i. 703. Tjjv y&P * Iliad, ix. 381.

Chap. VI. ORCHOMENIAN GENEALOGY. 131
and cavities in the limestone mountains, partly through a
tunnel pierced artificially more than a mile in length — into
the plain on the north-eastern side, from whence they flow
into the Euboean sea near Larymna. J And it appears that,
so long as these channels were diligently watched, and kept-
clear, a large portion of the lake was in the condition of
alluvial land, preeminently rich and fertile. But when the
channels came to be either neglected, or designedly choked
up by an enemy, the water accumulated to such a degree,
as to occupy the soil of more than one ancient town, to
endanger the position of Kopse, and to occasion the change
of the site of Orchomenos itself from the plain to the
declivity of Mount Hyphanteion. An engineer, Krates,
began the clearance of the obstructed water-courses in the
reign of Alexander the Great, and by his com- Emissaries
mission — the destroyer of Thebes being anxious of the lake
to re-establish the extinct prosperity of Orcho- K6Pais-
menos. He succeeded so far as partially to drain and
diminish the lake, whereby the site of more than one ancient
city was rendered visible: but the revival of Thebes by
Kassander, after the decease of Alexander, arrested the
progress of the undertaking, and the lake soon regained
its former dimensions, to contract which no farther attempt
was made.2 According to the Theban legend,3 Herakles, after his
defeat of Erginus, had blocked up the exit of the waters,
and converted the Orchomenian plain into a lake. The
spreading of these waters is thus connected with the
1 See the description of these tioned. He also gives a plan of
channels or Katabothra in Colonel the Lake Kdpais with the sur-
Leake's Travels inNorthern Greece, rounding region.
vol. ii. c. 15, p. 281—293, and still * We owe this interesting fact
more elaborately in Fiedler, Reise to Strabo, who is however both
durch alle Theile des Konigreichs concise and unsatisfactory, viii.
Griechenland, Leipzig, 1840. He p. 406—407. It was affirmed that
traced fifteen perpendicular shafts there had been two ancient towns,
sunk for the purpose af admitting named Eleusis and Atkenae, origi-
air into the tunnel, the first sepa- nally founded by CecrGps, situated
rated from the last by about 5900 on the lake, and thus overflowed
feet; they are now ofcourse over- (Steph. Byz. v. 'Afloat. Diogen.
grown and stopped up (vol. i. p. Laert. iv. 23. Pausan. ix. 24, 2).
116). For the plain or marsh near Orcho-
Forchhammer states the length menos, see Plutarch. Sylla, c. 20— 22.
of this tunnel as considerably 3Diod6r. iv. 18. Pausan. ix. 38, 5.
greater than what is here men-

k2

132 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
humiliation of the Minyse; and there can be little hesitation
in ascribing to these ancient tenants of Orchomenos, before
it became boeotised, the enlargement and preservation of
theprotective channels. Nor could such an object have been
accomplished, without combined action and acknowledged
ascendancy on the part of that city over its neighbours,
extending even to the sea at Larymna, where the river
Kephisos discharges itself. Of its extended influence, as
well as of its maritime activity, we find a remarkable
evidence in the ancient and venerated Amphiktyony at
oidAmphik- Kalauria. The little island so named, near the
tyony at harbour of Troezen, in Peloponnesus, was sacred
a auna. ^ pogej^5n) aruj an aSyluni of inviolable sanc
tity. At the temple of Poseidon, in Kalauria, there had
existed,from unknown date, a periodical sacrifice, celebrated
by seven cities in common — Hermione, Epidaurus, -<Egina,
Athens, Prasias, Nauplia, and the Minyeian Orchomenos.
This ancient religious combination dates from the time
when Nauplia was independent of Argos, and Prasias of
Sparta: Argos and Sparta, according to the usual practice
in Greece, continued to fulfil the obligation each on the
part of its respective dependent, i Six out of the seven
states are at once sea-towns, and near enough to Kalauria
to account for their participation in this Amphiktyony.
But the junction of Orchomenos, from its comparative
remoteness, becomes inexplicable, except on the supposition
that its territory reached the sea, and 'that it enjoyed a
considerable maritime traffic — a fact which helps to eluci
date both its legendary connexion with Iolkos, and its
partnership in what is called the Ionic emigration. 2
The great power of Orchomenos was broken down and
the city reduced to a secondary and half-dependent position
Orcho- ty tne Boeotians of Thebes; at what time and
menos and under what circumstances, history has not pre-
iMbes. served. The story that the Theban hero, He
rakles, rescued his native city from servitude and tribute
to Orchomenos, since it comes from a Kadmeian and not
from an Orchomenian legend, and since the details of it
• Strabo viii. p. 374. THv 8s xal x6u.svo= 6 Mivoeioc. 'T^p uev om
Au'-pixTOovla tic itepl to ispov tooto, tcSv Nau-Xisuw 'Apreloi, OTiep Ilpa-
ETtTa *6Xeu)v at (leTStvov T7Jc eoclac- ,Um 8e AaxsScuu-ovioi, SovetsXouv.
rjoav Se Epu.tiov, 'EitlSaopoc, Ai'fiva, = Pausan. ix. 17, 1-26 1.
'A9iivai, IIpaaisTc, NaoxXistc, 'Op-

Chap. VI. AMPHIKTYONY AT KALAURIA. 133
were favourite subjects of commemoration in the Th&ban
temples,1 affords a presumption that Thebes was really
once dependent on Orchomenos. Moreover the savage
mutilations inflicted by the hero on the tribute-seeking
envoys, so faithfully portrayed in his surname Bhinoko-
loustes, infuse into the mythe a portion of that bitter
feeling which so long prevailed between Thebes and Orcho
menos, and which led the Thebans, as soon as the battle
of Leuktra had placed supremacy in their hands, to destroy
and depopulate their rival.3 The ensuing generation saw
the same fate retorted upon Thebes, combined with the
restoration of Orchomenos. The legendary grandeur of
this city continued, long after it had ceased to be dis
tinguished for wealth and power, imperishably recorded
both in the minds of the nobler citizens and in the compo
sitions of the poets: the emphatic language of Pausanias
shows how much he found concerning it in the old epic.3
Section H. — Daughters op JEoltjs.
With several of the daughters of .ZEolus memorable
mythical pedigrees andnarratives are connected. Aikyone
Alkyone married Keyx, the son of Eosphoros, and K3yx.
but both she and her husband displayed in a high degree
the overweening insolence common in the jEolic race. The
wife called her husband Zeus, while he addressed her as
Here, for which presumptuous act Zeus punished them by
changing both into birds.4
1 Herod, i. 146. Pausan. vii. 2, 2. 3 Pausan. ix. 34, 5. See also the
2 Theocrit. xvi. 104 — fourteenth Olympic Ode of Pindar,
TQ 'EteoxXeioi SuyaTpse 8Eai, at addressed to the Orchomenian
Mivueiov Asopikus. The learned and in-
'Op^op-svov cptXeoiffat, dicsX86p.ev6v structive work of K. O. Miiller,
Tcoxa 9^(3aic.. Orchomenos und die Minyer, embo-
The Scholiast gives a sense to dies everythingwhichcanbeknown
these words much narrower than respecting this once-memorable
they really bear. See Diod&r. xv. city; indeed the contents of the
79; Pausan. ix. 15. In the oration workv extend much further than
which Isokrates places in the mouth its title promises.
of a Plataian, complaining of the 4 Apolloddr. i. 7, 4. Keyx, — king
oppressions ofThebes, the ancient of Trachin,— the friend ofHerakles
servitudeandtributetoOrchomenos and protector of the Herakleids to
are cast in the teeth of the Thebans the extent of his power (Hesiod.
(Isokrat. Orat. Plataic. vol. iii. p. Scut. Hercul. 355—473; Apolloddr.
32, Auger). ii. 7, 5 ; Hekatss. Fragm. 353, Didot).

134 HISTORY OF GREECE. Fakt 1
Canace had by the god Poseidfin several children,
amongst whom wereEpopeus and Aloeus. >- Aloeus married
Canace- Iphimedea; who became enamoured of the god
the Aieids. Poseidon, and boasted of her intimacy with him.
She had by him two sons, Otos and Ephialtes, the huge
and formidable AlSids, — Titanic beings, nine fathoms in
height and nine cubits in breadth, even in their boyhood,
before they had attained their full strength. These Aloids
defied and insulted the gods in Olympus. They paid their
court to Here and Artemis; moreover they even seized
and bound Ares, confining him in a brazen chamber for
thirteen months. No one knew where he was, and the
intolerable chain would have worn him to death, had not
Eribcea, the jealous stepmother of the Aloids, revealed
the place of his detention to Hermes, who carried him
surreptitiously away when at the last extremity. Ares
could obtain no atonement for such an indignity. Otos and
Ephialtes even prepared to assault the gods in heaven,
piling up Ossa on Olympus and Pelion on Ossa, in order
to reach them. And this they would have accomplished
had they been allowed to grow to their full maturity; but
the arrows of Apollo put a timely end to their short-lived
career.2 1 Canace, daughter of .ZEolus, is daughters, and marries the former
a subject of deep tragical interest to the latter (Odyss. x. 7), The
both in Euripides and Ovid. The two persons called .ZEolus are
eleventh Heroic Epistle of the brought into connexion genealogi-
latter, founded mainly on the lost cally (see Schol. ad Odyss. 1. c,
tragedy of the former called iEolus, and Diod&r. iv. 67), but it seems
purports to be from Canace to probable that Euripides was the
Macareus, and contains apathetic first to place the names ofMacareus
description of the ill-fated passion and Canace in that relation which
between a brother and sister: see confers upon them their poetical
the Fragments of the JEolus in celebrity. Sostratus (ap. Stobsmm,
Dindorf's collection. In the tale t. 614, p. 404) can hardly be con-
of Kaunos and Byblis, both child- sidered to have borrowed from
ren of Mil&tos, the results of an any older source than Euripides.
incestuous passion are different, Welcker (Griech. Tragod. vol. ii.
but hardly less melancholy (Par- p. 860) puts together all that can
thenios, Narr. xi.). be known respecting the structure
Makar, the son of JEoTus, is the of the lost drama of Euripid&s.
primitive settler of the island of 2 Iliad, v. 386; Odyss. xi. 306;
Lesbos (Horn. Hymn. Apoll. 37): Apolloddr. i. 7, 4. So TyphSeus in
¦moreover, in the Odyssey, .Siolus, the Hesiodic Theogony, the last
-.son of Hippotes, the dispenser of enemy of the gods, is killed befora
the winds, has six sons and six he comes to maturity (Theog. 837).

Chap. VI. THE GIGANTIC ALOIDS-ELEIAN GENEALOGY. 135

Kalyke—Elis and
iEtolia-Eleian genealogy,

The genealogy assigned to Kalyke, another daughter
of JEolus, conducts us from Thessaly to Elis
and JEtolia. She married Aethlius (the son of
Zeus by Protogeneia, daughter of Deukalion
and sister of Hellen), who conducted a colony
out of Thessaly, and settled in the territory of
Elis. He had for his son Endymion, respecting whom the
Hesiodic Catalogue and the Eoiai related several wonder
ful things. Zeus granted him the privilege of determining
the hour of his own death, and even translated him into
heaven, which he forfeited by daring to pay court to Here:
his vision in this criminal attempt was cheated by a cloud,
and he was cast out into the underworld.1 According to
other stories, his great beauty caused the goddess Selene

3?or the different turns given to
this ancient Homeric legend, see
Heyne, ad ApollodOr. 1. c, and
Hyginus, f. 28. The AlOids were
noticed in the Hesiodic poems (ap.
Schol. Apoll.Ehod.i. 482). Odysseus
does not see them in Hades, as
Heyne by mistake says; he sees
their mother Iphim§dea. Virgil
(iEn. vi. 582) assigns to them a
place among the sufferers of punish
ment in Tartarus.
Eumelus, the Corinthian poet,
designated AlSeus as son of the
god Hglios and brother of iEStes,
the father of Medea (EumSl. 3?ragm.
2, Markt scheff el). The scene of
their death was subsequently laid
in Naxos (Pindar, Pyth. iv. 88):
their tombs were seen at AnthSd&n
in Bceotia (Pausan. ix. 22, 4). The
very curious legend alluded toby
Pausanias from Hegisinoos, the
author of an Atthis, — to the effect
that Otos and Ephialtgs were the
first to establish the worship of the
Muses in Helik&n, and that they
founded Askra along with CE6klos,
the son of Poseiddn, — is one which
we have no means of tracing farther
(Pausan. ix. 29, 1).
The story of the Aldids, as
DiodSrus gives it (v. 51, 52),
diverges on almost every point :

it is evidently borrowed from some
Naxian archaiologist, and the only
information which we collectfromit
is, that Otos and EphialtSs received
heroic honours atNaxos. The views
of O. Miiller (Orchomenos, p. 387)
appear to me unusually vague and
fanciful. Ephialtes takes part in the combat
of the giants against the gods
(Apollod6r. i. 6, 2), where Heyne
remarks, as in so many other cases,
"Ephialtes hie non confundendus
cum altero Aloei filio." An obser
vation just indeed, if we are sup
posed to he dealing with personages
and adventures historically real —
but altogether misleading in regard
to these legendary characters. For
here the general conception of
Ephialtes and his attributes is in
both cases the same : hut the parti
cular adventures ascribed to him
cannot be made to consist, as facts,
one with the other.
1 Hesiod, Akusilaus and Phere-
kydSs, ap. Schol. Apollon. Ehod.
iv. 57. "Iv 8' auT<Ji> Gavixou xa^'ir,^.
The Scholium is veryfull of matter,
and exhibits many of the diversities
in the tale ofEndymidn: see also
ApollodOr. i. 7, 5 ; Pausan. v. 1, 2 ;
Condn, Narr. 14.

1;J6 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet J,
to hecome enamoured of him, and to visit him by night
during his sleep:— the sleep of Endymion became a pro
verbial expression for enviable, undisturbed, and deathless
repose, i Endymion had for issue (Pausanias gives us three
different accounts, and Apollodorus a fourth, of the name
of his -wife), Epeios, JEtolus, Paeon, and a daughter Eury-
kyde. He caused his three sons to run a race on the sta
dium at Olympia, and Epeios, being victorious, was re
warded by becoming his successor in the kingdom : it was
after him that the people were denominated Epeians.
Epeios had no male issue, and was succeeded by his
nephew Eleios, son of Eurykyde by the god Poseidon: the
name of the people was then changed from Epeians to
Eleians. JEtolus, the brother of Epeios, having slain Apis,
son of Phoroneus, was compelled to flee from the country:
he crossed the Corinthian gulf and settled in the territory
then called Kuretis, but to which he gave the name of
^Etolia.2 The son of Eleios, — or, according to other accounts, of
the god Helios, of Poseidon, or of Phorbas,3 — is
Augeas, whom we find mentioned in the Iliad as
king of the Epeians or Eleians. Augeas was rich in all sorts
of rural wealth, and possessed herds of cattle so numerous,
that the dung of the animals accumulated in the stable or
cattle-enclosures beyond all power of endurance. Eurys
theus, as an insult to Herakles, imposed upon him the
obligation of cleansing this stable : the hero, disdaining to
carry off the dung upon his shoulders, turned the course
of the river Alpheios through the building, and thus swept
the encumbrance away.4 But Augeas, in spite of so signal
1 Theocrit. iii. 49; n. 35; where, with Helios. Theokritns (rr. 65)
however, Endymidn is connected designates him as the son of the
with Latmos in Karia^(see Schol. god Helios, through whose favour
ad loc). his cattle are made to prosper and
2 Pausan. v. 1. 3 — 6; Apollod6r. multiply with such astonishing
i. 7, 6. success (xx. 117).
' Apollod6r. ii. 5, 6; Schol. Apol. 4 Diodor. iv. 13). TPp*u>c Sygxev
Shod, i. 172. In all probability, Eupuaflsos ¦KpoairaC.s xa(japai- 6 8=
the old legend made Augeas the 'HpaxMjs to u.ev xoit; &u.oi<; e£svsY-
son of the god Helios: Helios, xsiv aOT.7]v GCTisSoxip-aasv, sxxXi.7u>vT7]v
AugeaB and Agamedg are a triple ex tt]s SPpstos aloxov7]V, &c. (Pausan.
series parallel to the Corinthian v. 1, 7; Apollodor. ii. 5, 5.)
genealogy, Helios, -2Setes and It may not be improper to re-
Medea; not to mention that the mark that this fable indicates a
etymology of Augeas connects him purely pastoral condition, or at

Chap. VI. ELEIAN GENEALOGY. 137
a service, refused to Herakles the promised reward, though
his son Phyleus protested against such treachery, and
when he found that he could not induce his father to keep
faith, retired in sorrow and wrath to the island of Du-
lichion. i To avenge the deceit practised upon him, He
rakles invaded Elis; but Augeas had powerful auxiliaries,
especially his nephews, the two Molionids (sons Tlie Mo_
of Poseidon by Holione, the wife of Aktor), lionid
Eurytos and Kteatos. These two miraculous brothers-
brothers, of transcendant force, grew together, — having
one body, but two heads and four arms. 2 Such was their
irresistible might, that Herakles was defeated and repelled
from Elis: but presently the Eleians sent the two Molionid
brothers as Theori (sacred envoys) to the Isthmian games,
and Herakles, placing himself in ambush at Kleonse, sur
prised and killed them as they passed through. For this
murderous act the Eleians in vain endeavoured to obtain
redress both at Corinth and at Argos; which is assigned
as the reason for the self-ordained exclusion, prevalent
throughout all the historical age, that no Eleian athlete
would ever present himself as a competitor at the Isthmian
games.3 The Holionids being thus removed, Herakles
least a singularly rude state of digs his vineyard diligently (xx,
agriculture ; and the way in which 20 — 32).
Pausanias recounts it goes even * The wrath and retirement of
beyond the genuine story : tbs xai Phyleus is mentioned in the Iliad
•uct rcoAAa ttji; ythpas abrip ^07] oict- (ii. 633), but not the cause of it.
teaeiv apya ov-ra 6-0 twv i?oaxT]p.ct- 2 These singular properties were
Ttov tyj<; xoTupoo. The slaves of ascribed to them both in the
Odysseus however know what use H'esiodic poems and by Phere-
to make of the dung heaped before kydes (Schol. Ven. ad II. xi. 715 —
his outer fence (Odyss. xvii. 299) ; 750, et ad II. xxiii. 638), but not
not so the purely carnivorous and in the Iliad. The poet Ibykus
pastoral Cycidps (Odyss. ix. 329). (Fragm. 11, Schneid. ap. Athenoe. ii,
The stabling, into which the cattle 57) calls them a).ixa<; IcjoxsoaXous,
go from their pasture, is called eviyoious, ' Au.<poxepoos YsyawTon; ev
xorcpos in Homer, — 'EaQoogck ss ibscu apyupetp.
xoirpov, E7i7jv Pgt«v7J<; xopsjuivTat There were temples and divine
(Odyss. x. 411): compare Iliad, honours to Zeus Moli6n(Lactantius,
xviii. 575.— M'JX7]9|i.ui 8' ino x6npou de Falsa Eeligione, i. 22).
E^sajsoovTO tusoovSs. * Pausan. v. 2, 4. The inscription
The Augeas of Theocritus has cited by Pausanias proves that
abundance of wheat-land and vine- this was the reason assigned by
yard, as well as cattle : he ploughs the Eleian athletes themselves for
his land three or four times, and the exclusion ; but there wero
several different stories.

138 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pabt I.
again invaded Elis, and killed Augeas along with his
children, — all except Phyleus, whom he brought over from
Dulichion, and put in possession of his father's kingdom.
According to the more gentle narrative which Pausanias
adopts, Augeas was not killed, but pardoned at the request
of Phyleus. i He was worshipped as a hero2 even down to
the time of that author.
It was on occasion of this conquest of Elis, according
to the old mythe which Pindar has ennobled in a magni
ficent ode, that Herakles first consecrated the ground of
Olympia and established the Olympic games. Such at least
was one of the many fables respecting the origin of that
memorable institution. 3
It has already been mentioned that iEtolus, son of
.ffiitoiian Endymi6n, quitted Peloponnesus in consequence
genealogy. 0f having slain Apis.4 The country on the north
of the Corinthian gulf, between the rivers Euenus and
Achelous, received from him the name of _2Ctolia, instead
of that of Kuretis : he acquired possession of it after having
slain Dorus, Laodokus, and Polypcetes, .sons of Apollo and
Phthia, by whom he had been well received. He had by
his wife Pronoe (the daughter of Phorbas) two sons, Pleu-
ron and Kalydon, and from them the two chief towns in
jEtolia were named.5 PleuronmarriedXanthippe, daughter
1 Apolloddr. ii. 7, 2. DiodSr. iv. « Ephorus said that -Sit&lus had
33. Pausan. v. 2, 2 ; 3, 2. It seems been expelled by SalmSneus king
evident from these accounts that of the Epeians and Pisatffi (ap.
the genuine legend represented Strab., viii. p. 357) : he must have
Herakles as having been defeated had before him a different story
by the Molionids; the unBkilful and different genealogy from that
evasions both of Apollod&rus and which is given in the text.
Diodflrus betray this. Pindar . 5 Apollodflr. i. 7, 6. D8rus, son
(Olymp. xi. 25—50) gives the story of Apollo and Phthia, killed by
without any flattery to Herakles. .ajtolus, after having hospitably
* Pausan. v. 4, 1. received him, is here mentioned.
3 The Armenian copy of Eusebius Nothing at all is known of this;
gives a different genealogy re- but the conjunction of names is
specting Elis and Pisa: Aethlius, such as to render it probable that
Epeius, Endymion, Alexinus ; next there was some legend connected
Olnomaus and Pelops, then Hera- with them: possibly the assistance
klSs. Some counted ten genera- given by Apollo to the KurStes
tions, others three, between HS- against the -Sltolians, and the death
rakles and Iphitus, who renewed of Meleager by the hand of Apollo,
the discontinued Olympic games related both in the Eoiai and the
(see Armen. Euseb. copy. c. xxxii. Minyas (Pausan. x. 31, 2), may
v^ 140)- have been grounded upon it. The,

Chap. VI. ALTH.ZEA AND MELEAGER. 139
6f Dorus, and had for his son Agenor, from whom
sprang Portheus, or Portha6n, andDemonike: Euenos and
Thestius were children of the latter by the god Ares. 4
Portheus had three sons, Agrius, Melas and OEneus:
among the offspring of Thestius were Althsea osneus
and Leda,2 — names which bring us to a period Meleager,
of interest in the legendary history. Leda mar- y eus'
ries Tyndareus and becomes mother of Helena and the
Dioskuri: Althaea marries (Eneus, and has, among other
children, Meleager and Deianeira; the latter being begotten
by the god Dionysus, and the former by Ares.3 Tydeus
also is his son, the father of Diomedes : war Uke eminence
goes hand in hand with tragic calamity among the mem
bers of this-memorable family.
¥e are fortunate enough to find the legend of Althaea
and Meleager set forth at considerable length Legend of
in the Iliad, in the speech addressed by Phoenix Meleager in
to appease the wrath of Achilles. (Eneus, king omer"
of Kalydon, in the vintage sacrifices which he offered to
the gods, omitted to include Artemis: the misguided man
either forgot her or cared not for her;4 and the goddess,
provoked by such an insult, sent against the vineyards of
(Eneus a wild boar of vast size and strength, who tore up
the trees by the root, and laid prostrate all their fruit.
So terrible was this boar, that nothing less than a numerous
body of men could venture to attack him: Meleager, the
son of (Eneus, however, having got together a considerable
story connects itself with what is matters upon which these old ge-
stated by Apollod&rus about Dorus nealogical poems dwelt.
son of Hellen. 3 Apollodar. i. 8, 1; Euripides,
1 According to the ancient ge- Meleager, Fragm. 1. The three
nealogical poet Asius, Thestius sons of Portheus are named in the
was son of Agen&r the son of Iliad (xiv. 116) as living at Pleurbn
PleurCn' (Asii Fragm. 6, p. 413 ed. and Kalyddn. The name CEneus
Marktsch.). . Compare the gene- doubtless brings Dionysus into
alogy of iEt&lia and the general the legend.
remarks upon it, in Brandstater, 4 "H XAQet', ri o&x evo7]ffsv aaa-
Geschichten des .ZEtol. Landes,&c, aa?o 8e niya Sufioj (Iliad, ix. 533).
Berlin, 1844, p. 23, seq. The destructive influence of Ate
2 Respecting Leda, seethe state- is mentioned before, v. 502. The
ments of Ibykus, PherekydSs, piety of Xenoph&n reproduces this
Hellanikus, &c. (Schol. Apolldn. ancient circumstance, — Oiveux; 3'
Rhod. i. 146). The reference to ev ffjpa e7ci).o:9o|j.=vou ttjc Oeoo, &c.
the Corinthiaca of Eumelus is (De Venat. v. 1.)
curious : it is a specimen of the

140 HISTORY OF GREECE. PAET I.
number of companions, partly from the Kuretes of Pleu-
ron, at length slew him. But the anger of Artemis was
not yet appeased. She raised a dispute among the com
batants respecting the possession of the boar's head and
hide— the trophies of victory. In this dispute Meleager
slew the brother of his mother Althaea, prince of the Ku
retes of Pleur6n: these Kuretes attacked the uEtolians of
Kalydon in order to avenge their chief. So long as Me
leager contended in the field the JStolians had the supe
riority. But he presently refused to come forth, indignant
at the curses imprecated upon him by his mother. For
Althaea, wrung with sorrow for the death of her brother,
flung herself upon the ground in tears, beat the earth
violently with her hands, and implored Hades and Perse
phone to inflict death upon Meleager, — a prayer which the
unrelenting Erinnyes in Erebus heard but too well. So
keenly did the hero resent this behaviour of his mother,
that he kept aloof from the war. Accordingly the Ku
retes not only drove the JEtolians from the field, but as
sailed the walls and gates of Kalydon, and were on the
point of overwhelming its dismayed inhabitants. There
was no hope of safety except in the arm of Meleager; but
Meleager lay in his chamber by the side of his beautiful
wife Kleopatra, the daughter of Idas, and heeded not the
necessity. While the shouts of expected victory were
heard from the assailants at the gates, the ancient men of
.ZEtolia and the priests of the gods earnestly besought Me
leager to come forth, * offering him his choice of the fattest
land in the plain of Kalydon. His dearest friends, his
father (Eneus, his sisters, and even his mother herself,
added their supplications — but he remained inflexible. At
length the Kuretes penetrated into the town and began to
burn it : at this last moment, Kleopatra his wife addressed
to him her pathetic appeal, to avert from her and from his
family the desperate horrors impending over them all.
Meleager could no longer resist: he put on his armour,
went forth from his chamber, and repelled the enemy. But
when the danger was over, his countrymen withheld from
him the splendid presents which they had promised, be
cause he had rejected their prayers, and had come forth
only when his own haughty caprice dictated.2
¦These priests formed the Chorus (Schol. ad Iliad, ix. 575),
ia the Meleager of SophokleB * Iliad, ix. 525—595.

Chap. VL MELEAGER. 141
Such is the legend of Meleager in the Iliad: a verse in
the second book mentions simply the death of Meleager,
without farther details, as a reason why Thoas appeared
in command of the JEtolians before Troy, i
Later poets both enlarged and altered the fable. The
Hesiodic Eoiai, as well as the old poem called the Minyas,
represented Meleager as having been slain by Apollo, who
aided the Kuretes in the war; and the incident of the
burning brand, though quite at variance with Homer, is
at least as old as the tragic poet Phrynichus, „
earlier than ZEschylus.2 The Mcerae, or Pates, altered by
presenting themselves to Althaea shortly after P°etB aftel
the birth of Meleager, predicted that the child
would die so soon as the brand then burning on the fire near
at hand should be consumed. Althaea snatched Althaea and
it from the flames and extinguished it, preser- the burning
ving it with the utmost care, until she became brand-
incensed against Meleager for the death of her brother.
She then cast it into the fire, and as soon as it was con
sumed the life of Meleager was brought to a close.
We know from the censure of Pliny, that Sophokles
heightened the pathos of this subject by his account of the
mournful death of Meleager's sisters, who perished from
excess of grief. They were changed into the birds called
Meleagrides, and their neverceasing tears ran together
into amber.3 But in the hands of Euripides — whether
originally through him or not,4 we cannot tell — Atalanta
became the prominent figure and motive of the piece, while
the party convened to hunt the Kalydonian boar was made
to comprise all the distinguished heroes from every quarter
of Greece. In fact, as Heyne justly remarks, this event is
one of the four aggregate dramas of Grecian heroic life,s
along with the Argonautic expedition, the siege of Thebes,
and the Trojan war.
To accomplish the destruction of the terrific animal
which Artemis in her wrath had sent forth, Meleager
1 Iliad, ii. 642. Fragm. ix. p. 18).
2 Pausan. x. 31, 2. The IIXeu- Of the more recent dramatic
pumcu,alost tragedy of Phrynichus. writers, several selected Atalanta
3 Plin. H. N. xxxvii. 2, 11. as their subject (see Brandstater,
4 There was a tragedy of Sischy- Geschichten .23toliens, p. 65).
lus called 'ArctXavrT], of which 5 There was apoem of Stesichorus,
nothing remains (Bothe, iEschyli 2uo87)pai(Stesichor.Fragm.l5,p.72).

142 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
assembled not merely the choice youth among the Kuretes
„ . andJEt61ians(aswefindintheIliad),butanillus-
Kaiydonian trious troop, including Kastor and Pollux, Idas
At"?"1?*"" an(^ lynkeus, Peleus and Telamon, Theseus
a an "" and Peirithous, Ankaeus and Kepheus, Jason,
Amphiaraus, Admetus, Eurytion and others. Nestor and
Phoenix, who appear as old men before the walls of Troy,
exhibited their early prowess as auxiliaries to the suffering
Kalydonians. ! Conspicuous amidst them all stood the
virgin Atalanta, daughter of the Arcadian Schoeneus;
beautiful and matchless for swiftness of foot, but living in
the forest as a huntress and unacceptable to Aphrodite. 2
Several of the heroes were slain by the boar; others
escaped, by various stratagems : at length Atalanta fir^t
shot him hi the back, next Amphiaraus in the eye, and,
lastly, Meleager killed him. Enamoured of the beauty of
Atalanta, Meleager made over to her the chief spoils of
the animal, on the. plea that she had inflicted the first
wound. But his uncles, the brothers of Thestius, took
them away from her, asserting their rights as next of kin,3
if Meleager declined to keep the prize for himself: the
latter, exasperated at this behaviour, slew them. Althaea,
in deep sorrow for her brothers and wrath against her
son, is impelled to produce the fatal brand which she had
so long treasured up, and consign it to the flames.4 The
tragedy concludes with the voluntary death both of Althaea
and Kleopatra.
1 The catalogue of these heroes pretation (seeEph. Fr. 9, ed. Di^.).
is in ApollodOr. i. 8, 2; Ovid, 2 Euripid. Meleag. Fragm. vi.
Metamorph. viii. 300 ; Hygin. fab. Matth.—
173. EuripidSs, in his play of K6irpi8o; 8= (ilirjo.', 'Apxoi; ' Kr'J.-
Meleager, gave an enumeration Xgevttj, x'jvas
and description of the heroes (see Kai to$' gyouaa, &c.
Fragm. 6 of that play, ed. Matth.). There was' a drama "Meleager"
Nest6r, in this picture of Ovid, both of Sophokles and Euripides:
however, does not appear quite so of the former hardly any fragments
invincible as in his own speeches remain,— a few more of the latter.
in the Iliad. The mythographers » Hyginus, fab. 229.
thought it necessary to assign a « DiodOr. iv. 34. ApollodGrus (i.
reason why Herakles was not 8, 2—4) gives first the usual narra-
present at the KalydSnian ad- tive, including Atalanta ; next, the
venture : he was just at that time Homeric narrative with some ad-
in servitude with OmphalS in Lydia ditional circumstances, but not
(Apollod. ii. 6, 3). This seems to including either Atalanta or the
have been the idea of Ephorus, fire-brand on which Meleager's
audit is much in his style of inter- life depended.

Chap. VI. , KALYDONIAN BOAR— ATALANTA. 143
Interesting as the Arcadian huntress, Atalanta, is in
herself, she is an intrusion, and not a very convenient in
trusion, into the Homeric story of the Kalydonian boar-
hunt, wherein another female, Kleopatra, already occupied
the fore-ground. But the more recent version became ac
credited throughout Greece, and was sustained by evidence
which few persons in those days felt any inclination to
controvert. Eor Atalanta carried away with her the spoils
and head of the boar into Arcadia; and there for successive
centuries hung the identical hide and the gigantic tusks, of
three feet in length, in the temple of Athene Alea at Tegea.
Kallimachus mentions them as being there pre- Roiics of
served, in the third century before the Christian *he boar
sera;1 but the extraordinary value set upon servecTat
them is best proved by the fact that the emperor Tegea.
Augustus took away the tusks from Tegea, along with the
great statue of Athene Alea, and conveyed them to Home,
to be there preserved among the public curiosities. Even
a century and a half afterwards, when Pausanias visited
Greece, the skin worn out with age was shown to him,
while the robbery of the tusks had not been forgotten.
Nor were these relics of the boar the only memento pre
served at Tegea of the heroic enterprise. On the pediment
of the temple of Athene Alea, unparalleled in Pelopon
nesus for beauty and grandeur, the illustrious statuary
Skopas had executed one of his most finished reliefs,
representing the Kalydonian hunt. Atalanta and Meleager
were placed in the front rank of the assailants; while
Ankaeus, one of the Tegean heroes, to whom the tusks of
the boar had proved fatal,2 was represented as sinking
under his death-wound into the arms of his brother
Epochos. And Pausanias observes, that the Tegeans, while
they had manifested the same honourable forwardness as
other Arcadian communities in the conquest of Troy, the
repulse of Xerxes, and the battle ofDipaea against Sparta
— might fairly claim to themselves, through Ankaeus and
Atalanta, that they alone amongst all Arcadians had pra-
ticipated in the glory of the Kalydonian boar-hunt.3 So
1 Kallimachus, Hymn, ad Dian. 'Apxa8t7]v slaijXQev, tzyel o' ETt
217. — 07]p6<; 686vTas.
Oii u-tv stcixX7]toI KaXuSaivioi 2 See Pherekyd. Fragm. 81, ed.
aypsuTijpEs Didot.
Meu-cdov-ugu xdiupoio' to: yctp c7]u.^'£a "Pausan. viii. 45, 4; 46, 1 — 3j
vix7]s

144 HISTORY OF GREECE. ( Pira I,
entire and unsuspecting is the faith both of the Tegeans
and of Pausanias in the past historical reality of this
romantic adventure. Strabo indeed tries to transform the
romance into something which has the outward semblance
of history, by remarking that the quarrel respecting the
boar's head and hide cannot have been the real cause of war
between the Kuretes and the JEtolians ; the true ground
of dispute (he contends) was probably the possession of a
portion of territory. l His remarks on this head are analo
gous to those of Thucydides and other critics, when they
ascribe the Trojan war, not to the rape of Helen, but to
views of conquest or political apprehensions. But he treats
the general fact of the battle between the Kuretes and the
.53t61ians, mentioned in the Iliad, as something unques
tionably real and historical — recapitulating at the same
time a variety of discrepancies on the part of different
authors, but not giving any decision of his own respecting
their truth or falsehood.
In the same manner as Atalanta was intruded into the
Kalydonian hunt, so also she seems to have been intro
duced into the memorable funeral games celebrated after
the decease of Pelias at Iolkos, in which she had no place
at the time when the works on the chest ofKypselus were
executed. 2 But her native and genuine locality is Arcadia ;
where her race-course, near to the town of Methydrion,
was shown even in the days of Pausanias. 3 This race-course
47, 2. Lucian, adv. Indootum, c. 14, * Strabo, x. p. 466. IToXeu.oo 8'
t. iii. p. Ill, Reiz. eu.7cec6vtos tou; Oso-naSai? izpb%
The officers placed in charge of 0'he« xai MEXeoypov, 6 \i.it Iloi7]T7)s,
the public curiosities or wonders ap.<pl coos XEipaX^j xal OEp|iuXTi, xaxa
at Rome (ot ehI tois 9a6u.acriv) t»)v -irspl tou xaTrpoo u.u9oXoylar lie
affirmed that one of the tusks had 8e to sixos, 7ispl uipooc rr^ yibpas,
been accidentally broken in the &a. This remark is also similar
voyage from Greece: the other was to Mr. Payne Knight's criticism
kept in the temple of Bachus in the on the true causes of the Trojan
Imperial Gardens. war, which were (he tells us) of
It is numbered among the a political character, independent
memorable exploits of Theseus that of Helen and her abduction (Pro-
he vanquished and killed a formi- legom. ad Homer, c. 53).
dable and gigantic sow, in the 2 Compare Apolloddr. iii. 9, 2,
territoryofKrommyfinnearCorinth. and Pausan. v. 17, 4. Sheismade
According to some criticB, this to wrestle with Peleus at these
Krommy6nian sow was the mother funeral games, whioh seems foreign
of the Kalydonian boar (Strabo, to her character.
viii. p. 380). » Pausan. viii. 35, 8.

Chap. VI.

ATALANTA.

145

had been the scene of destruction for more than one unsuc
cessful suitor. For Atalanta, averse to marriage.
had proclaimed that her hand should only be vanquished
won by the competitor who would surpass her ^ the race
in running : all who tried and failed were con- gem.trata"
demned to die, and many were the persons to
whom her beauty and swiftness, alike unparalleled, had
proved fatal. At length Meilanion, who had vainly tried
to win her affections by assiduous services in her hunting
excursions, ventured to enter the perilous lists. Aware
that he could not hope to outrun her except by stratagem,
he had obtained, by the kindness of Aphrodite, three golden
apples from the garden of the Hesperides, which he suc
cessively let fall near to her while engaged in the race.
The maiden could not resist the temptation of picking
them up, and was thus overcome: she became the wife of
Meilanion, and the mother of the Arcadian Parthenopseus,
one of the seven chiefs who perished in the siege of Thebes.1

1 Respecting the varieties in this
interesting story, see Apollod. iii.
9, 2; Hygin. f. 185; Ovid. Metam.
x. 560— 700 ; Propert. i. 1,20; JElian
V. H. xiii. i. MstXavluivos aujtppovs-
ff-Epoi;. Aristophan. Lysistrat. 786
and Schol. In the ancient repre
sentation on the chest of Kypselus
{Paus. v. 19, 1), Meilani&n was ex-
hihited standing near Atalanta,
who was holding a fawn : no match
or comp etition in running was
indicated. There is great discrepancy in
the naming and patronymic de
scription of the parties in the
story. Three different persons
are announced as fathers of Ata
lanta, Schceneus, Jasus and Msena-
los ; the successful lover in Ovid
(and seemingly in Euripidfia also)
is called Hippomenes, not Mei-
lanidn. In the Hesiodic poems' Ata
lanta was daughter of Schosneus j
Hellanikus called her daughter of
Jasus. See Apolloddr. 1. c. ; Kalli-
mach. Hymn to Dian. 214, with
the note of Spanheim ; Schol.
Eurip. Phceniss. 150 \ Schol. Theocr.
VOL. I.

Idyll, iii. 40 ; also the ample com
mentary of Bachet de Meziriac,
sur les Epitres d'Ovide, vol. i. p.
366. Servius (ad Virg. Eclog. vi.
61; ^neid, iii. 113) calls Atalanta
a native of Skyros.
Both the ancient scholiasts (see
Schol. Apoll. Rhod, i. 769) and the
modern commentators, Spanheim
and Heyne, seek to escape this
difficulty hy supposing two Ata-
lantas, — an Arcadian and aBcedtian:
assuming the principle of their
conjecture to he admissible, they
ought to suppose at least three.
Certainly, if personages of the
Grecian mythes are to be treated
as historically real, and their ad
ventures as so many exaggerated
or miscoloured facts, it will he
necessary to repeat the process of
multiplying entities to an infinite
extent. And this is one among
the many reasons for rejecting the
fundamental supposition.
But when we consider these
personages as purely legendary, so
that an historical basis can neither
he affirmed nor denied respecting

146

HISTOEY OF GEEECE.

Pabt T,

Deianeira.

We have yet another female in the family of (Eneus,
whose name the legend has immortalised. His
daughter Deianeira was sought in marriage by
the river Achel6us, who presented himself in various shapes,
first as a serpent and afterwards as a bull. From the im
portunity of this hateful suitor she was rescued by the
arrival of Herakles, who encountered Achelous, vanquished
him and broke off one of his horns, which Achelous ran
somed by surrendering to hinrthe horn of Amaltheia, endued
with the miraculous property of supplying the possessor
with abundance of any food and drink which he desired.
Herakles being rewarded for his prowess by the possession
of Deianeira, made over the horn of Amaltheia as his mar-.
riage-present to (Eneus. * Compelled to leave the residence
of (Eneus, in consequence of having in a fit of anger struck
the youthful attendant Eunomus, and involuntarily killed
him, 2 Herakles retired to Trachin, crossing the river Euenus
at the place where the Centaur Nessus was accustomed to
carry over passengers for hire. Nessus carried over Deia-

them, we escape the necessity of
such inconvenient stratagems. The
test of identity is then to be sought
in the attributes, not in the legal
description, — in the predicates, not
in the subject. Atalanta, "Whether
born of one father or another,
whether belonging to one place or
another, is beautiful, cold, repul
sive, daring, swift of foot and
skilful with the bow, — these attri
butes constitute her identity. The
Scholiast on Theocritus (iii. 40),
in vindicating his supposition that
there were two Atalantas, draws
a distinction founded upon this
very principle : he says that the
Bcedtian Atalanta was to£otic, and
the Arcadian Atalanta Spouata.
But this seems an over-refinement:
both the shooting and the running
go to constitute an accomplished
huntress. In respect to Parthenopseus,
called by Euripides and by so
many others the son of Atalanta,
it is of some importance to add,
that Apollodorus, Aristarchus, and

Antimachus, the author of the
Thebaid, assigned to him a pedigree
entirely different, — ma king him an
Argeian, the son of Talaos and
Lysimache, and brother of Adrastus.
(Apollodor. i. 9, 13 ; Aristarch. ap.
Schol. Soph. 03d. Col. 1320; Anti
machus ap. Schol. .ffilschyl. Sep.
Theb. 532; and Schol. Supplem.
ad Eurip. Phceniss. t. viii. p. 461,
ed. Matth. Apollod6rus is in fact
inconsistent with himself in another
passage.) 1 Sophokl. Trachin. 7. The horn
of Amaltheia was described by
Eberekydes (Apollod. ii. 7, 6) : see
also Strabo, x. p. 468, and Diodor.
iv. 35, who cites an interpretation
of the fables (ot sixaCovTsc e£ aoruiv
rilrfiie,) to the effect that it was
symbolical of an embankment of
the unruly river by Herakles, and
consequent recovery of very fertile
land. 1 Hellanikus (ap. Athen. ix. p.
410) mentioning this incident, in
two different works, called the
attendant by two different names.

Cuav. VI.

(ENEUS.— DEIANEIRA.

147

neira, but when he had arrived on the other side, began
to treat her with rudeness, upon which Herakles slew him
with an arrow tinged by the poison of the Lernsean hydra.
The dying Centaur advised Deianeira to preserve the
poisoned blood which flowed from his wound, telling her
that it would operate as a philtre to regain for her the
affections of Herakles, in case she should ever be threatened
by a rival. Some time afterwards the hero saw and loved
the beautiful Iole, daughter of Eurytos, king of (Echalia :
he stormed the town, killed Eurytos, and made Iole* his
captive. The misguided Deianeira now had recourse to
her supposed philtre: she sent as a present to Herakles a
splendid tunic, imbued secretly with the poisoned blood
of the Centaur. Herakles adorned himself with Death of
the tunic on the occasion of offering a solemn HsrakHs.
sacrifice to Zeus on the promontory of Kenseon inEubcea:
but the fatal garment, when once put on, clung to him indis-
solubly, burnt his skin and flesh, and occasioned an agony
of pain from which he was only relieved by death. Deia
neira slew herself in despair at this disastrous catastrophe, i

1 The beautiful drama of the
Trachiniae has rendered this story
familiar: compare Apollod. ii. 7,
7. Hygin. f. 36. Diod6r. iv. 36—37.
The capture of OJichalia (Ol^aXias
£Xu>3iO was celebrated in a very
ancient epic poem, by Kreophylos,
of the Homeric and not of the
Hesiodic character; it passed with
many as the work of Homer himself.
(See Diintzer, Fragm. Epic. Grsecor.
p. 8. Welcker, Der Epische Cyclus,
p. 229.) The same subject was also
treated in the Hesiodic Catalogue,
or in the Eoiai (see Hesiod, Fragm.
129, ed. Marktsch.): the number of
the children of EurytoB was there
enumerated. This exploit seems constantly
mentioned as the last performed
by Herakles, and as immediately
preceding his death or apotheosis
on Mount OKta : but whether the
legend of Deianeira and the poi
soned tunic be very old, we cannot
tell.

The tale of the death of Iphitos,
son of Eurytos, byHeraklSs, is as
ancient as the Odyssey (xxi. 19 —
40) : hut it is there stated, that
Eurytos dying left his memorable
bow to his son Iphitos (the how is
given afterwards by Iphitos to
Odysseus, and is the weapon so
fatal to the suitors), — a statement
not very consistent with the story
that OEchaliawas taken and Eurytos
slain by H§rakl3s. It is plain
that these were distinct and con
tradictory legends. Compare Soph.
Trachin. 260—285 (where Iphitos
dies before Eurytos), not only
with the passage just cited from
the Odyssey, but also with Phere-
kydSs, Fragm. 34, Didot.
Hyginus (f. 33) differs altogether
in the parentage of Deianeira: he
calls her daughter of Dexamenos :
his account of her marriage with
HSraklSs is in every respect at
variance with Apollodorus. In the
latter, Mnfisimache" is the daughter
L 2

148 HISTOBY OF GEEECE. Past I.
We have not yet exhausted the eventful career of
Tydeus- (Eneus and his family— ennobled among the
old age of JStolians especially, both by rehgious worship
CEneus- and by poetical eulogy. — and favourite themes
not merely in some of the Hesiodic poems, but also in other
ancient epic productions, the Alkmseonis and the Cyclic
Thebais.1 By another marriage, (Eneus had for his son
Tydeus, whose poetical celebrity is attested by the many
different accounts given both of the name and condition
of his mother. Tydeus, having slain his cousins, the sons
of Melas, who were conspiring against (Eneus, was forced
to become an exile, and took refuge at Argos with Adrastus,
whose daughter Deipyle he married. The issue of this
marriage was Diomedes, whose brilliant exploits in the siege
of Troy were not less celebrated than those of his father
at the siege of Thebes. After the departure of Tydeus,
(Eneus was deposed by the sons of Agrios. He fell into
extreme poverty and wretchedness, from which he was only
rescued by his grandson Diomedes, after the conquest of
Troy.2 The sufferings of this ancient warrior, and the
final restoration and revenge by Diomedes, were the subject
of a lost tragedy of Euripides, which even the ridicule of
Aristophanes demonstrates to have been eminently pathetic. 3
Though the genealogy just given of CEneus is in part
Discrepant Homeric, and seems to have been followed gener-
genea- ally by the mythographers, yet we find another
logies. totally at variance with it in Hekatseus, which
he doubtless borrowed from some of the old poets: the
simplicity of the story annexed to it seems to attest its
antiquity. Orestheus, son of Deukalion, first passed into
-JDtolia, and acquired the kingdom: he was father of Phytios,
who was father of (Eneus. iEtolus was son of (Eneus.*
of Dexamenos; Herakles rescues the making of wine (oTvot;): com
ber from the importunities of the pare Hygin. f. 129, and Servius ad
Centaur Euryti6n (ii. 6, 5). Virgil. Georgic. i. 9.
1 See the references in Apollod. 3SeeWelcker(Griechisch. TragBd.
i. 8, 4—5. Pindar, Isthm. iv. 32. ii. p. 583) on the lost tragedy
MeXstoiv 8e aoipiarale, Aloi; exa-ci called CEneus.
TupooPalov oePii;6(isvoi 'Ev u.evAItiu- « Timokles, Comic ap. Athenae.
Xd)v Oualtuoi cpaEvvKis OlvEiSai xpa- vii. p. 223. —
TEpol, &c. Tsptuv tis cxtuysT; Tta-rdfAaQsv tov
2 Hekat. l?ragm. '341, Diodot. In Otvea.
this story CEneus is connected with Ovid. Heroid. ix. 153.—
the first discovery of the vine and

Chap, VI. JETOMANS AND ELEIANS. 149
The original migration of JEt&lus from Elis to JEtolia
—and the subsequent establishment in Ehs of Oxylus, his
descendant in the tenth generation, along with the Dorian
invaders of Peloponnesus — were commemorated by two
inscriptions, one in the agora of Ehs; the other in that of
the^jtohan chief town, Thermum, engraved upon the statues
of ^tolus and Oxylus1 respectively.
uHeu! devota domust Solio sedet * Ephor. Fragm. 29, Didot, ap.
Agrios alto : Strah. x.
CEnea desertum nuda senecta
premit,"

150 HISTORY OE GEEECE. Pabt X.

CHAPTER VII.
THE PELOPIDS.
Among the ancient legendary genealogies there was none
Misfor- which figured with greater splendour, or which
tunes and attracted to itself a higher degree of poetical
?he6Peioy-°f interest and pathos, than that of the Pelopids
pids. — Tantalus, Pelops, Atreus and Thyestes, Aga-
memnSn and Menelaus and JSgisthus, Helen and Klyteem-
nestra, Orestes and Elektra and Hermione. Each of these
characters is a star of the first magnitude in the Grecian
hemisphere: eachname suggests the idea of some interesting
romance or some harrowing tragedy: the curse, which taints
the family from the beginning, inflicts multiplied wounds,
at every successive generation. So, at least, the story of
the Pelopids presents itself, after it had been successively
expanded and decorated by epic, lyric, and tragic poets.
It will be sufficient to touch briefly upon events with which
every reader of Grecian poetry is more or less familiar,
and to offer some remarks upon the way in which they
were coloured and modified by different Grecian authors.
Pelops is the eponym or name-giver of the Peloponne
sus: to find an eponym for every conspicuous
eponym"of local name was the invariable turn of Grecian
Peiopon- retrospective fancy. The name Peloponnesus
is not to be found either in the Hiad or the
Odyssey, nor any other denomination which can be attached
distinctly and specially to the entire peninsula. But we
meet with the name in one of the most ancient post-Homeric
poems of which any fragments have been preserved — the
Cyprian Verses — a poem which many (seemingly most
persons) even of the contemporaries of Herodotus ascribed
to the author of the Iliad, though Herodotus contradicts
the opinion. ' The attributes by which the Pelopid Aga-
1 Hesiod. ii. 117. Fragment. Epicc. Grrajc. Diintzer, ix. KOTtpioc, 8.—
Atya te Auyxeus
Tauf etov rcpoaePaiiie it oalv Ta^seoat Tteiroi.9(bs,

Chap. VII. THE PELOPIDS. 151
memnon and his house are marked out and distinguished
from the other heroes of the Hiad, are precisely those
which Grecian imagination would naturally seek in an
eponymus — superiorwealth, power, splendour, and regality.
Not only Agamemnon himself, but his brother Henelaus,
is "more of a king" even than Nestor or Diomedes. The
gods have not given to the king of the "much-golden"
Mykente greater courage, or strength, or ability, than to
various other chiefs ; but they have conferred upon him a
marked superiority in riches, power, and dignity, and
have thus singled him out as the appropriate leader of the
forces.1 He enjoys this pre-eminence as belonging to a
privileged family and as inheriting the heaven-descended
sceptre of Pelops, the transmission of which is described
by Homer in a very remarkable way. The sceptre was
made "by Hephsestos, who presented it to Zeus; Zeus gave
it to Hermes, Hermes to the charioteer Pelops; _ .
Pelops gave it to Atreus, the ruler of men; 0f the
Atreus at his death left it to Thyestes, the rich sceptre of
cattle-owner; Thy/sstes in his turn left it to his e °pa'
nephew Agamemnon to carry, that he might hold dominion
over many islands and over all Argos." 2
"We have here the unrivalled wealth and power of the
' Av.poTaTov 5' avapas 8is8spx£TO * ArpEiST), 06 p.sv apyz' ab yap fi a-
v7]aov a-7jav ciXeotgct6s eaai.
TavTaXlSeuj UzXo-izo%. And this attribute attaches to
Also the. Homeric Hymn. Apoll. Menelaus as well as to his brother.
419, 430, and Tyrtaeus, Fragm. 1. — For when Diomedgs is about to
(E ovo jxi a)— Eopslav ITiXo^o*; v7J- choose his companion for the night
ctov atstxou.s9a. expedition into the Trojan camp,
The Schol. ad Iliad, ix. 246, inti- Agamemn6n thus addresses him
mates that the name IIs\oTC6vvTr|ao« (x. 232) —
occurred in one or more of _the Tov u.sv 8tj Exapov y* aipijasai, ov
Hesiodic epics. %' e9sX7]cj9a
1 Iliad, ix. 37. Compare ii. 580. OatvopLEvov 'tov pptaTov, e-sl u.e-
Diomedes addresses Agamemndn — udaoi ys xoXXoi'
Sol 8s Sidvoiva Bonce Kpovoo TzaTi; M'/]8ect6 y 'alSousvoi; a^ai opEai, -6v
dyxoXou-^TEor u-sv dpslco
2x^nTp<o uiv Tot 8d)xe TEttu.^ff6ai KaXXsiitsiv, ab 8e yEipov bizaaazan
^Ept Tudvccor alSoT s'itcwv,
'AXx^vS' 00 toi Sojxev, 3,ts xpd-ro? ' Es ysvs7]v opotov, sixal PaaiXso-
eoVi fXEytarov. TEpoi; effTtv.
A similar contrast is drawn by tQi z<pa.r , ISSeioe 8s rcsoi <iav0<p
Nestdr (II. i. 280) between Aga- MsvsXiip.
memndn and Achilles. Nest&r says s Iliad, ii. 101,
to Agamemndn (II. ix. 69) —

152 HISTORY OF GREECE. Fart I,
"king of men, Agamemnon," traced up to his descent from
Pelops, and accounted for, in harmony with the recognised
epical agencies, by the present of the special sceptre of
Zeus through the hands of Hermes; the latter being the
wealth-giving god, whose blessing is most efficacious in
furthering the process of acquisition, whether by theft or
by accelerated multiplication of flocks and herds.1 The
wealth and princely character of the Atreids were prover-
Kin i t ^ial among the ancient epic poets. Paris not
tributes of only carries away Helen, but much property
the family. aiong ^th her:2 the house of Menelaus, when
Telemachus visits it in the Odyssey, is so resplendent with
gold and silver and rare ornament,3 as to strike the behold
er with astonishment and admiration. The attributes
assigned to Tantalus, the father of Pelops, are in confor
mity with the general idea of the family — superhuman
abundance and enjoyments, and intimate converse with
the gods, to such a degree that his head is turned, and he
commits inexpiable sin. But though Tantalus himself is
mentioned, in one of the most suspicious passages of the
Odyssey (as suffering punishment in the under-world), he
is not announced, nor is any one else announced, as father
of Pelops, unless we are to construe the lines in the Iliad
as implying that the latter was son of Hermes. In the
conception of the author of the Iliad, the Pelopids are, if
not of divine origin, at least a mortal breed specially
favoured and ennobled, by thegods — beginning with Pelops,
and localised at Mykense. No allusion is made to any
connexion of Pelops either with Pisa or with Lydia.
The legend which connected Tantalus and Pelops with
Mount Sipylus may probably have grown out of the JEolic
settlements at Magnesia and Kyme. Both the Lydian
Homeric origin and th'ePisatic sovereignty of Pelops are
Pelops. adapted to times later than the Iliad, when the
Olympic games had acquired to themselves the general
1 Iliad, xiv. 491. Hesiod, Theog. 'A).xr|v uev yip ISioxev ' OXopmioc
444. Homer, Hymn. Mercur. 526— AiaxlS^aiv,
568, "OXpou xai tuXoutoo Sujooo nEpi- NoOv 8' 'AuueaovlSati;, rcXouTOv 8'
xdXXea pdBSov. Compare Eustath. ETiop' ' ArpslSTjcii.
ad Iliad, xvi. 182. Again, Tyrtieus, Fragm. 9, 4.—
1 Iliad, iii. 72; vii. 363. In the OM' si TavTaXiSElO ITeXotco? (Jaol-
Hesiodic Eoiai was the following XsUTEpos efij, &c.
couplet (Fragm.56, p. 43,Dttntzer):— • Odyss. iv. 45—71.

CnAP. VII. TANTALUS, 153
reverence of Greece, and had come to serve as the religious
and recreative centre of the Peloponnesus — and when the
Lydian and Phrygian heroic names, Midas and Gyg£s, were
the types of wealth and luxury, as well as of chariot-driving,
in the imagination of a Greek. The inconsiderable villages
of the Pisatid derived their whole importance from the
vicinity of Olympia: they are not deemed worthy of notice
in the Catalogue of Homer. Nor could the genealogy
which connected the eponym of the entire peninsula with
Pisa have obtained currency in Greece unless it had been
sustained by pre-established veneration for the locality of
Olympia. But if the sovereign of the humble Pisa was to
be recognised as forerunner of the thrice-wealthy princes
of Mykense, it became necessary to assign some _
explanatory cause of his riches. Hence the &c., post- '
supposition of his being an immigrant, son of a ^j^™?"0
wealthy Lydian named Tantalus, who was the
offspring of Zeus and Plouto. Lydian wealth and Lydian
chariot-driving rendered Pelops a fit person to occupy his
place in the legend, both as ruler of Pisa and progenitor
of the Mykenasan Atreids. Even with the admission of
these two circumstances there is considerable difficulty, for
those who wish to read the legends as consecutive history,
in making the Pelopids pass smoothly and plausibly from
Pisa to Mykenee.
I shall briefly recount the legends of this great heroic
family as they came to stand in their full and ultimate
growth, after the localisation of Pelops at Pisa had been
tacked on as a preface to Homer's version of the Pelopid
genealogy. Tantalus, residing near Mount Sipylus in Lydia, had
two' children, Pelops and Niobe. He was a man of im
mense possessions and pre-eminent happiness, above the
lot of humanity: the gods communicated with him freely,
received him at their banquets, and accepted of his
hospitality in return. Intoxicated with such prosperity,
Tantalus became guilty of gross wickedness. He stole
nectar and ambrosia from the table of the gods, and re
vealed their secrets to mankind: he killed and ,
served up to them at a feast his own son Pelops.
The gods were horror-struck when they discovered the
meal prepared for them: Zeus restored the mangled
youth to hfe, and as Demeter, then absorbed in grief for

154 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pabt I.
the loss of her daughter Persephone, had eaten a portion
of the shoulder, he supplied an ivory shoulder in place of
it. Tantalus expiated his guilt by exemplary punishment.
He was placed in the under-world, with fruit and water
seemingly close to him, yet eluding his touch as often as
he tried to grasp them, and leaving his hunger and thirst
incessant and unappeased.1 Pindar, in a very remarkable
passage, finds this old legend revolting to his feelings: he
rejects the tale of the flesh of Pelops having been served
up and eaten, as altogether unworthy of the gods.2
Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus, was married to Am-
phion, and had a numerous and flourishing off
spring of seven sons and seven daughters. Though
accepted as the intimate friend and companion of Leto,
the mother of Apollo and Artemis,3 she was presumptuous
enough to triumph over that goddess, and to place herself
on a footing of higher dignity, on account of the superior
number of her children. Apollo and Artemis avenged this
insult by killing all the sons and all the daughters : Niobe,
thus left a childless and disconsolate mother, wept herself
to death, and was turned into a rock, which the later
Greeks continued always to identify on Mount Sipylus.4
Some authors represented Pelops as not being a Ly
dian, but a king of Paphlagonia; by others it was said that
Tantalus, having become detested from his impieties, had
been expelled from Asia by Ilus the king of Troy, — an
incident which served the double purpose of explaining
the transit of Pelops to Greece, and of imparting to the
siege of Troy by Agamemnon the character of retribution
for wrongs done to his ancestors "When Pelops came over
to Greece, he found (Bnomaus, son of the god Ares and
1 Dioddr. iv. 77. Horn. Odyss. Gell. N. A. iv. A. xx. 7) ; Hesiod
xi. 582. Pindar gives a different gave twenty ; Homer twelve (Apol-
version of the punishment inflicted lod. iii. 5).
on Tantalus: a vast stone was The Lydian historian Xanthus
perpetually impending over his gave a totally different version
head, and threatening to fall hoth of the genealogy and of the
(Olymp. i. 56 ; Isth. vii. 20). misfortunes of Niobe (Parthen.
1 Pindar, Olymp. i. 45. Compare Narr. 33).
the sentiment of Iphigeneia in « Ovid, Metam. vi. 164—311
Euripides, Iph. Taur. 387. Pausan. i. 21, 6; viii. 2 3
» Sapphd (Fragm. 82, Schneide- s Apolldn. Rhod. ii. 368, and
win),— Avrw xai Nio^a uaXa aiv Schol.; Ister, Fragment. 59, Dindorf:
iplXai fjaa-i eratpai. Sapphd assigned Dioddr. iv. 74.
to Niobe eighteen children (Aul.

Chap. VII. PELOPS AND CENOMAUS. 155
Harpinna, in possession of the principality of Pisa, im
mediately bordering on the district of Olympia. pel and
(Enomaus, having been apprised by an oracle cEnomaus,
that death would overtake him if he permitted |ln8 of
his daughter Hippodameia to marry, refused to
give her in marriage except to some suitor who should
beat him in a chariot-race from Olympia to the isthmus
of Corinth:1 the ground here selected for the legendary
victory of Pelops deserves attention, inasmuch as it is a
line drawn from the assumed centre of Peloponnesus to
its extremity, and thus comprises the whole territory with .
which Pelops is connected as eponym. Any suitor over
matched in the race was doomed to forfeit his life; and the
fleetness of the Pisan horses, combined with the skill of
the charioteer Myrtilus, had already caused thirteen
unsuccessful competitors to perish by the lance of (Eno
maus.2 Pelops entered the fists as a suitor: his prayers
moved the god Poseidon to supply him with a golden
chariot and winged horses; or according to another story,
he captivated the affections of Hippodameia herself, who
persuaded the charioteer Myrtilus to loosen the wheels of
(Enomaus before he started, so that the latter was over
turned and perished in the race. Having thus won the
hand of Hippodameia, Pelops became prince of Pisa.3 He
put to death the charioteer Myrtilus, either from indignation
at his treachery to (Enomaus,4 or from jealousy on the score
of Hippodameia; but Myrtilus was the son of Hermes, and
though Pelops erected a temple in the vain attempt to
propitiate that god, he left a curse upon his race which
future calamities were destined painfully to work out.'

1 Dioddr. iv. 74. no mules were ever bred in the
2 Pausanias (vi. 21, 7) had read Eleian territory; an Eleian who
their names in the Hesiodic Eoiai. wished to breed a mule sent his
3 Pindar, Olymp. i. 140. The mare for the time out of the region.
chariot race of Pelops and CEno- The Eleians themselves ascribed
maus was represented on the this phenomenon to a disability
chest of Kypselus at Olympia: the brought on the land by a curso
horses of the former were given from' the lips of CEnomaus (He-
as having wings (Pausan. v. 17, 4). rod. iv. 30; Plutarch, Qusest. Grtec.
Pherekydds gave the same story p. 303).
(ap. Schol. ad Soph. Elect. 504). ' Paus. v. 1, 1; Sophok. Elektr.
4 It is noticed by Herodotus and 508; Eurip. Orest. 985, with Schol. j
others as a remarkable fact, that Plato, Kratyl. p. 395.

156 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet L
Pelops had a numerous issue by Hippodameia: Pit-
theus, Troezen and Epidaurus, the eponyms of
victorv of *ne *wo Argolic cities so called, are said to have
Pelops— his been among them: Atreus and Thyestes were
principality a]s0 jjjg s6ns and his daughter Nikippe married
at Pisa. n-nyriA i i Si n
iSthenelus of Mykense and became the mother
of Eurystheus.1 We hear nothing of the principality of
Pisa afterwards: the Pisatid villages become absorbed into
the larger aggregate of Elis, after a vain struggle to main
tain their separate right of presidency over the Olympic
festival. But the legend ran that Pelops left his name to-
the whole peninsula: according to Thucydides, he was
enabled to do this because of the great wealth which he
had brought with him from Lydia into a poor territory.
The historian leaves out all the romantic interest of the
genuine legends — preserving only this one circumstance,
which, without being better attested than the rest, carries
with it, from its common-place and prosaic character, a
pretended historical plausibility.2
Besides his numerous issue by Hippodameia, Pelops
Atreus, had an illegitimate son named Chrysippus, of
Thyestes, singular grace and beauty, towards whom he
Chrysippus. displayed so much affection as to excite the
jealousy of Hippodameia and her sons. Atreus and Thyestes
conspired together to put Chrysippus to death, for which
they were banished by Pelops and retired to Mykense,3 —
an event which brings us into the track of the Homeric
legend. For Thucydides, ^having found in the death of
Chrysippus a suitable ground for the secession of Atreus
from Pelops, conducts him at once to Mykense, and shows
a train of plausible circumstances to account for his having
mounted the throne. Eurystheus, king of Mykense, was
the maternal nephew of Atreus: when he engaged in any
foreign expedition, he naturally entrusted the regency to
hi3 uncle; the people of Mykense thus became accustomed
to be governed by him, and he on his part made efforts to
conciliate them, so that when Eurystheus was defeated and
1 Apollod. ii. 4, 5. Pausan. ii. which the lost drama of Euripi-
30, 8; 26, 3; v. 8, 1. Hesiod. ap. dds called Chrysippus turned (see
Schol. ad Iliad, xx. 116. Welcker, Griech. Tragodien, ii. n.
» Thucyd. i. 6. 536), and hia death by the hanfl3
'We find two distinct legends of his half-brothers. Hyginus (f. 86)
respecting Chrysippus: his abduc- blends the two together.
tion by Laius king of Thebes, on

Chap. VII. ATREUS AND THYESTES. 157
slain in Attica, the Mykensean people, apprehensive of an
invasion from the Herakleids, chose Atreus as at once the
most powerful andmost acceptable person for his successor. *
Such was the tale which Thucydides derived "from those
who had learnt ancient Peloponnesian matters most clearly
frdin their forefathers." The introduction of so much sober
and quasi-political history, unfortunately unauthenticated,
contrasts strikingly with the highly poetical legends of
Pelops and Atreus, which precede and follow it.
Atreus and Thyestes are known in the Iliad only as
successive possessors of the sceptre of Zeus, _ ..
which Thyestes at his death bequeathes to horror's
Agamemnon. The family dissensions among among the
this fated race commence, in the Odyssey, with pl
Agamemnon the son of Atreus, and .ZEgisthus the son of
Thyestes. But subsequent poets dwelt upon an implacable
quarrel between the two fathers. The cause of the bitter
ness was differently represented: some alleged that Thyestes
had intrigued with the Kretan Aerope, the wife of his
brother ; other narratives mentioned that Thyestes procured
for himself surreptitiously the possession of a lamb with
a golden fleece, which had been designedly introduced
among the flocks of Atreus by the anger of Hermes, as a
cause of enmity and ruin to the whole family.2 Atreus,
after a violent burst of indignation, pretended to be recon
ciled, and invited Thyestes to a banquet, in which he served
up to him the limbs of his own son. The father ignorantly
partook of the fatal meal. Even the all-seeing Helios is
said to have turned back his chariot to the east in order
that he might escape the shocking spectacle of this
Thyestean banquet: yet the tale of Thyestean revenge —
the murder of Atreus perpetrated by iEgisthus, the
incestuous offspring of Thyestes by his daughter Pelopia
— is no less replete with horrors.3
1 Thucyd. i. 9. XEyooai 8s oiTa ITe- into conformity with Homer. The
XoTCovvncricO',1 aatpECTTaxa u-v'^uTg rcapd circumstantial genealogy given in
tuJv 7up6tspov 8s5Eyuivoi. According Schol. ad Eurip. Orest. 5 , makes
to Hellanikus , Atreus the elder Atreus and Thyestds reside during
son returns to Pisa after the death their banishment at Makestus in
of Pelops with a great army, and Triphylia : it is given without any
makes himselfmaster of his father's special authority, but may perhaps
principality (Hellanik. ap. Schol. come from Hellanikus.
ad Iliad, ii. 105). Hellanikus does s iEschyl. Agamem. 1204, 1253,
not seem to have been so solicitous 1608; Hygin. 86; Attii Fragm. 19.
as ThucydidSs to bring the story 3 Hygin. fab. 87—88.

158 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
Homeric legend is never thus revolting. Agamemnon
and Menelaus are known to us chiefly with their
ndTand" Homeric attributes, which have not been so
Menelaus. darkly overlaid by subsequent poets as those of
Atreus and Thyestes. Agamemnon and Menelaus are
affectionate brothers; they marry two sisters, the daughters
of Tyndareus king of Sparta, Klytsemnestra and Helen;
for Helen, the real offspring of Zeus, passes as the daughter
of Tyndareus.1 The "king of men" reigns at Mykense;
Menelaus succeds Tyndareus at Sparta. Of the rape of
Helen, and the siege of Troy consequent upon, it, I shall
speak elsewhere : I now touch only upon the family legends
of the Atreids. Menelaus, on his return from Troy with
the recovered Helen, is driven by storms far away to the
distant regions of Phoenicia and Egypt, and is exposed to
a thousand dangers and hardships before he again sets foot
in Peloponnesus. But at length he reaches Sparta, resumes
his kingdom, and passes the rest of his days in uninter
rupted happiness and splendour: being moreover husband
of the godlike Helen and son-in-law of Zeus, he is even
spared the pangs of death. "When the fulness of his days
is past, he is transported to the Elysian fields, there to
dwell along with "the golden-haired Bhadamanthus" in a
delicious climate and in undisturbed repose.2
Ear different is the fate of the king of men, Agamem
non. During his absence, the unwarlike .5Dgisthus, son of
Thyestes, had seduced his wife Klytsemnestra, in spite of
the special warning of the gods, who, watchful over this
privileged family, had sent their messenger Hermes express
ly to deter him from the attempt. 3 A venerable bard had
been left by Agamemnon as the companion and monitor of
his wife, arid so long as that guardian was at hand, -SCgisthus
pressed his suit in vain. But he got rid of the bard by
sending him to perish in a desert island, and then won
without difficulty the undefended Klytsemnestra. Ignorant
of what had passed, Agamemnon returned from Troy
victorious and full of hope to his native country; but he
had scarcely landed when JSgisthus invited him to a ban
quet, and there, with the aid of the treacherous Klytsem-
1 So we must say in conformity 2 Horn. Odyss. 280 — 300 ; iv. 83
to the ideas of antiquity: compare — 660.
Homer, Iliad, xvi. 176; and He- * Odyss. i. 38; iii. 310.— ivdXxiSo*
rodot. vi. 53. AlyWGoio.

CrtAP. VII. AGAMEMNON AND MENELAUS.-ORESTES. 159
nestra, in the. very hall of festivity and congratulation,
slaughtered him and his companions "like oxen tied to the
manger"- His concubine Kassandra, the prophetic daughter
of Priam, perished along with him by the hand of Klytsem
nestra herself, i The boy Orestes, the only male offspring
of Agamemnon, was stolen away by his nurse, and placed
in safety at the residence of the Phokian Strophius.
For seven years JEgisthus and Klytsemnestra reigned
in tranquillity at Mykense on the throne of the
murdered Agamemnon. But in the eighth year
the retribution announced by the gods overtook them:
Orestes, grown to manhood, returned and avenged his
father, by killing JEgisthus, according to Homer; subse
quent poets add, his mother also. He recovered the king
dom of Mykense, and succeeded Menelaus in that of Sparta.
Hermione, the only daughter of Menelaus and Helen, was
sent into the realm of the Myrmidons in Thessaly, as the
bride of Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, according to the
promise made by her father during the siege of Troy. 2
Here ends the Homeric legend of the Pelopids, the
final act of Orestes being cited as one of unexampled glory. 3
Later poets made many additions: they dwelt upon his
remorse and hardly-earned pardon for the murder of his
mother, and upon his devoted friendship for Pylades; they
wove many interesting tales, too, respecting his sisters
Iphigeneia and Elektra and his cousin Hermione, — names
which have become naturalised in every climate and incor
porated with every form of poetry.
These poets did not at all scruple to depart from Homer,
and to give other genealogies of their own, with respect to
the chief persons of the Pelopid family. In the Iliad and
Odyssey, Agamemnon is son of Atreus: in the Hesiodic
Eoiai and in Stesichorus, he is son of Pleisthenes the son
of Atreus.4 In Homer he is specially marked as reigning
1 Odyss. iii. 260 — 275; iv. 512 — Diintzer; Stesichor. Fragm. 44,
537; xi. 408. Deinias, in his Argo- Kleine. The Scholiast ad Soph.
lica, and other historians of that Elektr. 539, in reference to another
territory, fixed the precise day of discrepancy between Homer and
the murder of Agamemndn, — the the Hesiodic poems about the
thirteenth of the month GameliOn children of Helen, remarks that
(Schol. ad Sophocl. Elektr. 275). we ought not to divert our atten-
2 Odyss. iii. 306 ; iv. 9. tion from that which is moral and
3 Odyss. i. 299. salutary to ourselves in the poets
4 Hesiod. Fragm. 60, p. 44, ed. (-ud r)9ixot xai /p^fftp.* 7]uTv tois ev-

160 HISTORY OF GREECE. PaistI.
at Mykense; but Stesichorus, Simonides and Pindar1 repre
sented him as having both resided and perished at Sparta or
atAmyklse. According to the ancient Cyprian Verses,Helen
was represented as the daughter of Zeus and Nemesis: in
one of the Hesiodic poems she was introduced as an Oceanic
nymph, daughter of Oceanus andTethys. 2 The genealogical
discrepancies, even as to the persons of the principal heroes
and heroines, are far too numerous to be cited, nor is it
necessary to advert to them, except as they bear upon the
unavailing attempt to convert such legendary parentage
into a basis of historical record or chronological calculation.
The Homeric poems probably represent that form of
the legend, respecting Agamemnon and Orestes, which was
current and popular among the -/Eolic colonists. Orestes
was the great heroic chief of the ./Eolic emigration; he, or
his sons, or his descendants, are supposed to have conducted
the Achseans to seek a new home, when they were no longer
able to make head against the invading Dorians : the great
families at Tenedos and other jEolic cities, even during the
historical sera, gloried in tracing back their pedigrees to
.this illustrious source.3 The legends connected with the
heroic worship of .these mythical ancestors form the basis
of the character and attributes of Agamemnon and his
family, as depicted in Homer, in which Mykense appears as
the first place in Peloponnesus, and Sparta only as the
second: the former the special residence of "the king of
men;" the latter that of his younger and inferior brother,
yet still the seat of a member of the princely Pelopids, and
moreover the birth-place of the divine Helen. Sparta,
Argos, and Mykense are all three designated in the Hiad
by the goddess Here as her favourite cities;4 yet the
Toyvdvoom) , in order to cavil at a still more ancient lyric Oresteia
their genealogical contradictions, by Xanthus : compare Athen. xii.
Welcker in vain endeavours to p. 513, and .ZElian, V. H. iv. 26.
show that Pleistbenes was origi- * Hesiod. ap. Schol. ad Pindar.
nally introduced as the father of Nem. ^.. 150.
Atreus, not as his son (Griech. s See the ode of Pindar addressed
Tragod. p. 678). to Aristagoras of Tenedos (Nem.
' Schol. ad Eurip. Orest. 46. xi. 35 ; Strabo, xiii. p. 682). There
"Ou.?)po<; i-i Muxijvan ovjal xd Baai- were Penthilids at MityldnS, from
XzXa too 'AyajiEiivovoi;- 2rr)a\.yopK Penthilus, son of Orestes (Aristot.
5s xal 2iu.io,ior,i;, it AaxeSaiuovla. Poly. v. 8, 13, Schneid.).
Pindar, Pyth. xi. 31 ; Nem. viii. 21. ' Iliad, iv. 52. Compare Euripid.
Stesichorus had composed an 'Ope- Hdrakleid. 350. .
oTEia, copied in many points from

Chap. VII. MYKENiG AND THffi HEEffiOiJ. 101
connexion of Mykense with Argos, though the tow towns
were only ten miles distant, is far less intimate than the con
nexion of Mykense with Sparta. "When we reflect The goddeBS
upon the very peculiar manner in which Homer Herd and
identifies Here with the Grecian host and its Myk6mo-
leader, — for she watches over the Greeks with the active
solicitude of a mother, and her antipathy against the Tro
jans is implacable to a degree which Zeus cannot compre
hend, * — and when we combine this with the ancient and
venerated Herseon, or temple of Here, near Mykense, we
may partly explain to ourselves the pre-eminence conferred
upon Mykense in the Iliad and Odyssey. The Herseon was
situated between Argos and Mykense; in later times its
priestesses were named and its affairs administered by the
Argeians: but as it was much nearer to Mykense than to
Argos, we may with probability conclude that it originally
belonged to the former, and that the increasingpower of the
latter enabled them to usurp to themselves a religious privi
lege which was always an obj ect of envy and contention among
the Grecian communities. The jEolic colonists doubtless
took out with them in their emigration the divine and heroic
legends, as well as the worship and ceremonial rites, of the
Herseon; and in those legends the most exalted rank would
be assigned to the close-adjoining and administering city.
Mykense maintained its independence even down to the
Persian invasion. Eighty of its heavy-armed Legendary
citizens, in the ranks of Leonidas at Thermopylse, importance
and a number not inferior at Platsea, upheld the of ykSniB-
splendid heroic celebrity of their city during a season of
peril, when the more powerful Argos disgraced itself by a
treacherous neutrality. Very shortly afterwards Mykense
was enslaved and its inhabitants expelled by the Argeians.
Though this city so long maintained a separate existence,
its importance had latterly sunk to nothing, while that of
1 Iliad, iv. 31. Zeus says to Tsivsa p.axpd,
Hive,— 'fluiv (?sPpd)9oi; IIplau.ov Hpidu.016
Aaiu.0717], tI v6 c£ ITpiap-o^, lipid- te TtaiSas,
p-oio te rcalSss "AXXous te Tpibai;, tqte xsv y6Xov
Toaaa xaxd peCssxov ot' aanzpykt; e£axsaaio.
p.svsaLvEL!; Again, xviii. 358,— .
'IXlou t^aXdrcafjai euxtiu-evov r.ro- ^ pd vo asio
XU9pov; 'Eij auT7)<; syivovTO xap7ixop.6<ovTSc
El 8s a6 y', sioeXSooaa rcuXas xal 'Ayaioi.
VOL. I. M

162 HISTORY OF GREECE. Part i,
the Dorian Argos was augmented very much, and that of
the Dorian Sparta still more.
The name of Mykense is imperishably enthroned in
the Iliad and Odyssey; but all the subsequent fluctuations
of the legend tend to exalt the glory of other cities at its
expense. The recognition of the Olympic games as the
grand religious festival of Peloponnesus gave vogue to that
genealogy which connected Pelops with Pisa or Ehs and
withdrew him from Mykense. Moreover, in the poems of
the great Athenian tragedians, Mykense is constantly con
founded and treated as one with Argos. If any one of the
citizens of the former, expelled at the time of its final sub
jugation by the Argeians, had witnessed at Athens a drama
of JEschylus, Sophokles, or Euripides, or the recital of an
ode of Pindar, he would, have heard with grief and indig
nation the city of his oppressors made a partner in the
heroic glories of his own. i But the great political
its decline ascendency acquired by Sparta contributed still
with the farther to degrade Mykense, by disposing sub-
rise of sequent poets to treat the chief of the Grecian
Sparta.an armament against Troy as havingbeen aSpartan.
It has been already mentioned that Stesichorus,
Simonides and Pindar adopted this version of the legend.
We know that Zeus Agamemnon, as well as the hero
Menelaus, was worshipped at the Dorian Sparta;2 and the
feeling of intimate identity, as well as of patriotic pride,
which had grown up in the minds of the Spartans connected
with the name of Agamemnon, is forcibly evinced by the
reply of the Spartan Syagrus to Gelon of Syracuse at the
time of the Persian invasion of Greece. Gelon was soli
cited to lend his aid in the imminent danger of Greece
before the battle of Salamis: he offered to furnish an
immense auxiliary force, on condition that the supreme
command should be allotted to him. "Loudly indeed would
the Pelopid Agamemnon cry out (exclaimed Syagrus in
rejecting this application), if he were to learn that the
Spartans had been deprived of the headship by Gelon and
the Syracusans."3 Nearly a century before this event, in
1 See the preface of Dissen to Xoc loTopst. See also CEnomaus ap.
the tenth Nem. of Pindar. Euseb. Prseparat. Evangel, v. 28.
2 Clemens Alexandr. Admonit. • Herodot. vii. 159. TH xs uiyi
ad Gent. p. 24. 'Ayaui(ivova youv o!u.d>£sisM 6 IIeXotiIBi],; 'Ayau,su.vu>i,
nva Ala ev Sjtap-fj TifidaOat 2Td(po- j!o66u.evos 27tapTi^ra? dxapatprjii9ai

Chap. VII. MYKENJE AND THE HERSEON. 163
obedience to the injunctions of the Delphian oracle, the
Spartans had brought back from Tegea to Sparta the
bones of "the Laconian Orestes," as Pindar denominates
him : i the recovery of thes e bones was announced Agamem-
to them as the means of reversing a course of "*n and
ill-fortune, and of procuring victory in their war transferred
against Tegea.2 The value which they set upon t0 Sparta.
this acquisition, and the decisive results ascribed to it,
exhibit a precise analogy with the recovery of the bones of
Theseus from Skyros by the Athenian Kimon shortly after
the Persian invasion.3 The remains sought were those of
a hero properly belonging to their own soil, hut who had
died in a foreign land, and of whose protection and assist
ance they were for that reason deprived. And the super
human magnitude of the bones, which were contained in a
coffin seven cubits long, is well-suited to the legendary
grandeur of the son of Agamemnon.
tt]v 7)ysu-ovlav bub rsXu>v6<; ts xal Judaico, iii. 8, 4. TH usydXa y' 5v
tujv Supaxoualcov: compare Homer, aTsvd£siav oi rtdxpioi vou.01, &c.
Iliad, vii. 125. See what appears A Pindar, Pyth. xi. 16.
to be an imitation of the same 2 Herodot. i. 68.
passage in Josephus, De Bello 3 Plutarch, Theseus, c. 36, Cimdn,
c. 8 ; Pausan. iii. 3, 6.

h2

164 HISTORY OF GREECE. Past I.

CHAPTEK VIIL
LACONIAN AND MESSENIAN GENEALOGIES.
The earliest names in Laconian genealogy are, an indige-
_ nous Lelex and a Naiad nymph Kleochareia.
autoch- From this pair sprung a son EurStas, and from
thonous in ^m a daughter Sparta, who became the wife of
Lacdnia. Laoedsem6n, son of Zeus and Taygete, daughter
of Atlas. Amyklas, son of Lacedsemon, had two sons,
Kynortas and Hyakinthus — the latter a beautiful youth,
the favourite of Apollo, by whose hand he was accidentally
killed while playing at quoits: the festival of theHyakinthia,
which the Lacedsemonians generally, and the Amyklseans
with special solemnity, celebratedthroughout thehistorical
ages, was traced back to this legend. Kynortas was suc
ceeded by his son Perieres, who married Gorgophone,
daughter of Perseus, and had a numerous issue — Tyndareus,
Ikarius, Aphareus, Leukippus, and Hippokoon. Some
authors gave the genealogy differently, making Perieres,
son of ./Eolus, to be the father of Kynortas, and (Ebalus
son of Kynortas, from whom sprung Tyndareus, Ikarius
and Hippokoon. *
Both Tyndareus and Ikarius, expelled by their brother
Tyndareus Hippokoon, were forced to seek shelter at the
and Ldda. residence of Thestius, king of Kalydon, whose
daughter, Leda, Tyndareus espoused. It is numbered
among the exploits of the omnipresent Herakles, that he
slew Hippokoon and his sons, and restored Tyndareus to
his kingdom, thus creating for the subsequent Herakleidan
kings a mythical title to the throne. Tyndareus, as well
as his brothers, are persons of interest in legendary narra
tive : he is the father of Kastor — of Timandra, married to
Echemus, the hero of Tegea2 — and of Klytsemnestra, mar
ried to Agamemnon. Pollux and the ever-memorable Helen
' Compare Apollod. iii. 10, 4. * Hesiod, ap. Schol. Pindar,
Pausan. iii. 1, 4. Olymp. xi. 79.

Chap. VIII. EASTOB AND POLLUX. 165
are the offspring of Leda by Zeus. Ikarius is the father
of Penelope, wife of Odysseus: the contrast offs
between her behaviour and that of Klytsemnes- Ldda— s
tra and Helen became the more striking in i;.Ka8t*f>
consequence of their being so nearly related. Kiytsemne's-
Aphareus is the father of Idas and Lynkeus, tra-
while Leukippus has for- his daughters, Phoebe ^ Pollux.,
and Haeira. According to one of the Hesiodic
poems, Kastor and Pollux were both sons of Zeus by Leda,
while Helen was neither daughter of Zeus nor of Tynda
reus, but of Oceanus and Tethys. i
The brothers Kastor and (Polydeukes, or) Pollux are
no less celebrated for their fraternal affection than for their
great bodily accomplishments: Kastor, thegreatcharioteer
and horse-master; Pollux, the first of pugilists. They are
enrolled both among the hunters of the Kalydonian boar
and among the heroes of the Argonautic expedition, in
which Pollux represses the insolence of Amykus, Kastor and
king of the Bebrykes, on the coast of Asiatic Pollux.
Thrace — the latter, a gigantic pugilist, from whom no rival
has ever escaped, challenges Pollux, but is vanquished and
killed in the fight. 2
The two brothers also undertook an expedition into
Attica for the purpose of recovering their sister Helen,
who had been carried off by Theseus in her early youth,
and deposited by him at Aphidna, while he accompanied
Peirithous to the under-world, in order to assist his friend
in carrying off Persephone. The force of Kastor and Pollux
was irresistible, and when they re-demanded their sister,-
the people of Attica were anxious to restore her: but no
one knew where Theseus had deposited his prize. The
invaders, not believing in the sincerity of this denial, pro
ceeded to ravage the country, which would have been utterly
ruined, had not Dekelus, the eponymus of Dekeleia, been
'Hesiod, ap. Schol. Pindar, Nem. Apolloddrus, Amykus is slain in
x. 150. Eragm. Hesiod. Diintzer. the contest : in that of Theokritus
58, p. 44. Tyndareus was wor- he is only conquered and forced
shipped as a god at Lacedgemdn to give in, with a promise to re-
(Varro ap. Serv. ad Virgil. iEneid. nounce for the future his brutal con-
viii. 275). duct: there were several different
2 Apolldn. Rhod. ii. 1 — 96. Apoll. narratives. See Schol. Apolldn.
i. 9, 20. Theokrit. xxii. 26—133. Ehod. ii. 106.
In the account of Apolldnius and

166 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet I.
able to indicate Aphidna as the place of concealment. The
indigenous Titakus betrayed Aphidna to Kastor and Pollux,
Legend of an(^ Helen was recovered: the brothers, in eva-
the Attic cuatingAttica, carried away into captivity JSthra,
Dekeieia. fae u^her of Theseus. In after-days, when
Kastor and Pollux, under the title of the Dioskuri, had
come to be worshipped as powerful gods, and when the
Athenians were greatly ashamed of this act of Theseus —
the revelation made by Dekelus was considered as entitling
him to the lasting gratitude of his country, as well as to the
favourable remembrance of the Lacedsemonians, who main
tained the Dekeleians in the constant enjoyment of certain
honorary privileges at Sparta,1 and even spared that deme
in all their invasions of Attica. It is not improbable that
the existence of this legend had some weight in determining
the Lacedsemonians to select Dekeieia as the place of their
occupation during the Peloponnesian war.
The fatal combat between Kastor and Polydeukes on
the one side, and Idas and Lynkeus on the other, for the
possession of the daughters of Leukippus, was celebrated
by more than one ancient poet, and forms the subject of
one of the yet remaining Idylls of 'Theokritus. Leukippus
had formally betrothed his daughters to Idas and Lynkeus;
Idas and but the Tyndarids, becoming enamoured of them,
Lynkeus. outbid their rivals in the value of the customary
nuptial gifts, persuaded the father to violate his promise,
and carried off Phoebe and Ilaeira as their brides. Idas
and Lynkeus pursued them and remonstrated against the
injustice : according to Theokritus, this was the cause of
the combat. But there was another tale, which seems the
older, and which assigns a different cause to the quarrel.
The four had jointly made a predatory incursion into
Arcadia, and had driven off some cattle, but did not agree
1 Dioddr. iv. 63. Herod, ix. 73. versions of this tale by Attic
AexsXeuw Se tujv tots EpyaoapLEviuv writers, framed with the view of
Spyov xpii<"fMv 4? tov r.dvTa ypovov, exonerating Thdseus). Thereco-
U)i;au-oi'A97)vaioiXsyoocii. According very of Helen and the captivity
to other authors, it was Akademus of .Bthra were represented on the
who made the revelation, and the ancient chest of Kypselus, with
spot called Akaddmia, near Athens, the followingcurlousinscription :—
which the Lacedsmdnians spared Tov8apl8oc 'EXevav tp-psTOv, AI8p<n
in consideration of this service 6' 'AOs'iaQsv
(Plutarch, Thdseus, 31, 32, 33, "EXxetom.
where he gives several different Pausan. ,. 19, 1„

CnAp. VIII. IDAS AND LYNKEUS. 167
about the partition of the booty — Idas carried off into
Messenia a portion of it which the Tyndarids claimed as
their own. To revenge and reimburse themselves, the
Tyndarids invaded Messenia, placing themselves in ambush
in the hollow of an ancient oak. But Lynkeus, endued
with preternatural powers of vision, mounted to the top of
Taygetus, from whence, as he could see over the whole
Peloponnesus, he detected them in their chosen place of
concealment. Such was the narrative of the ancient Cyprian
Verses. Kastor perished by the hand of Idas, Lynkeus by
that of Pollux. Idas, seizing a stone pillar from the tomb
of his father Aphareus, hurled it at Pollux, knocked him
down and stunned him; but Zeus, interposing at the critical
moment for the protection of his son, killed Idas with a
thunderbolt. Zeus would have conferrred upon Pollux the
gift of immortality, but the latter could not endure existence
without his brother: he entreated permission to share the
gift with Kastor, and both were accordingly permitted to
live, but only on every other day.1
The Dioskuri, or sons of Zeus, — as the two Spartan
heroes, Kastor and Pollux, were denominated, — were recog
nised in thehistorical days of Greece as gods, and received
divine honours. This is even noticed in a passage of the
Odyssey, which is at any rate a very old inter- Great func-
polation, as well as in one of the Homeric hymns. tion3 an<?
What is yet more remarkable is, that they were theVio's-
invoked during storms at sea, as the special and kuii-
all-powerful protectors of the endangered mariner, although
their attributes and their celebrity seem to be of a character
so dissimilar. They were worshipped throughout most
parts of Greece, but with pre-eminent sanctity at Sparta.
Kastor and Pollux being removed, the Spartan gene
alogy passes from Tyndareus to Menelaus, and from him
to Orestes. Originally it appears that Messene was a name for the
western portion of Laconia, bordering on what is called
1 Cypria Carm. Fragm. 8. p. 13, The combat thus ends more
Diintzer. Lykophrdn, 538 — 566 with favourably to the Tyndarids ; but
Schol. Apollod. iii. 11, 1. Pindar, probably the account .least favour-
Nem. x. 55 — 90. ET£pr,uspov d9aja- able to them is the oldest, since
clav : also Homer, Odyss. xi. 302, their dignity went on continually
with the Commentary of Nitzsch, increasing, until at last they be-
vol. iii. p. 245. came great deities.

168 HISTORY OF GREECE. Part I.
Pylos: it is so represented in the Odyssey, and Ephorus
seems to have included it amongst the possessions of Orestes
and his descendants. 1 Throughout the whole duration of
the Messenico-Dorian kingdom, there never was any town
calledMessene; the town was first founded by Epamein&ndas,
after the battle of Leuctra. The heroic genealogy of
Messdnian Messenia starts from the same name as that
genealogy. 0f Laconia — from the indigenous Lelex: his
younger son Polykaon, marries Messene, daughter of the
Argeian Triopas, and settles the country. Pausanias tells
us that the posterity of this pair occupied the country for
five generations; but he in vain searched the ancient gene
alogical poems to find the, names of their descendants.2
To them succeeded Perieres, son of JEolus; and Aphareus
and Leukippus, according to Pausanias, were sons of
Perieres. Aphareus, after the death of his sons, founded the
town of Arene, and made over most part of his dominions
to his kinsman Neieus, with whom we pass into the Pylian
genealogy. i
1 Odyss. xxi. 15. Dioddr. xv. C6. » Pausan. iv. 2, 1.

CnAP. IX. ARCADIAN GENEALOGY. 1C9

CHAPTER IX.

ARCADIAN GENEALOGY.

The Arcadian divine or heroic pedigree begins with
Pelasgus, whom both Hesiod and Asius con
sidered as an indigenous man, though Akusilaus
the Argeian represented him as brother of Argos, the, son
of Zeus by Niobe, daughter of Phoroneus. Akusilaus
wished to establish a community of origin between the
Argeians and the Arcadians.
Lykaon, son of Pelasgus and king of Arcadia, had, by
different wives, fifty sons, the most savage, Lykadn
impious and wicked of mankind: Msenalus was and his
the eldest of them. Zeus, in order that he flfty sons-
might himself become a witness of their misdeeds, presented
himself to them in disguise. They killed a child and served
it up to him for a meal; but the god overturned the table
and struck dead with thunder Lykaon and all his fifty sons,
with the single exception of Nyktimus, the youngest, whom
he spared at the earnest intercession of the goddess Gsea
(the Earth). The town near which the table was over
turned received the name of Trapezus (Tabletown).
This singular legend (framed on the same etymological
type as that of the ants in -JSgina, recounted Tje„e:ad o£
elsewhere) seems ancient, and may probably Lykadn—
belong to the Hesiodic Catalogue. But Pausanias i™iJn^d
tells us a story in many respects different, which by the
was represented to him in Arcadia as the Gods-
primitive local account, and which becomes the more
interesting, as he tells us that he himself fully believes it.
Both tales indeed go to illustrate the same point — the
ferocity of Lykaon's character, as well as the cruel rites
which he practised. Lykaon was the first who established
the worship and solemn games of Zeus Lykseus: he offered
up a child to Zeus, and made Ubations with the blood upon

170 HISTORY OF GREECE, Padt I.
the altar. Immediately after having perpetrated this act,
he was changed into a wolf. J
"Of the truth of this narrative (observes Pausanias)
I feel persuaded: it has been repeated by the
gioeus faith Arcadians from old times, and it carries prob-
of Pausa- ability along with it. Eor the men of that day,
! ' from their justice and piety, were guests and
-companions at table with the gods, who manifested towards
them approbation when they were good, and anger if they
behaved ill in a palpable manner: indeed at that time there
were some, who having once been men, became gods, and
who yet retain their privileges as such — Aristseus, the
Kretan Britomartis, Herakles son of Alkmena, Amphiaraus
the son of Oikles, and Pollux and Kastor besides. We
may therefore believe that Lykaon became a wild beast,
and that Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus, became a stone.
But in my time, wickedness having enormously increased,
so as to overrun the whole earth and all the cities in it,
there are no farther examples of men exalted into gods,
except by mere title and from adulation towards the
powerful: moreover the anger of the gods falls tardily upon
the wicked, and is reserved for them after their departure
from hence."
Pausanias then proceeds to censure those who, by
. . . multiplying false miracles in more recent times,
past and tended to rob the old and genuine miracles of
present their legitimate credit and esteem. The passage
illustrates forcibly the views which a rehgious
and instructed pagan took of his past time — how insepar-
1 Apolloddr. iii. 8, 1. Hygin. 104; Nem. x. 46): Xenias the Ar-
fab. 176. Eratosthen. Catasterism. cadian, one of the generals in the
8. Pausan. viii. 2, 2 — 3. A different army of Cyrus the younger, cele-
story respecting the immolation of brated the solemnity with great
the child is in Nikolaus Damask, magnificence in the march through
Fragm. p. 41, Orelli. Lykadn is Asia Minor (Xen. Anab. i. 2, 10).
mentioned as the first founder of But the fable of the human sacri-
the temple of Zeus Lykseus in fice, and the subsequent trans-
Schol. Eurip. Orest. 1662; but mutation of the person who had
nothing is there said about the eaten human food, into a wolf,
human sacrifice or its consequences, continued to be told in connexion
In the historical times, the festival with them (Plato, de Republic.
and solemnities of the Lyksea do viii. c. 15, p. 417). Compare Pliny,
notseem to have been distinguished H. N. viii. 34. This passage of
materially from the other agdnes Plato seems to afford distinct
of Greece (Pindar, Olymp. xiii. indication that the practice of

Chap. IX. ARCADIAN GENEALOGY. 171
ably he blended together in it gods and men, and how little
he either recognised or expected to find in it the naked
phsenomena and historical laws of connexion which belonged
to the world before him. He treats the past as the province
of legend, the present as that of history ; and in doing this
he is more sceptical than the persons with whom he con
versed, who believed not only in the ancient, but even in
the recent and falsely reported miracles. It is true that
Pausanias does not always proceed consistently with this
position: he often rationahses the stories of the past, as if
he expected to find historical threads of connexion; and
sometimes, though more rarely, accepts the miracles of the
present. But in the present instance he draws a broad
line of distinction between present and past, or rather
between what is recent and what is ancient. His criticism
is, in the main, analogous to that of Arrian in regard to
the Amazons — denying their existence during times of
recorded history, but admitting it during the early and
unrecorded ages.
In the narrative of Pausanias, the sons of Lykaon,
instead of perishing by thunder from Zeus, become the
founders of the various towns in Arcadia. And as that
region was subdivided into a great number of small and
independent townships, each having its own eponym, so the
Arcadian heroic genealogy appears broken up and sub
divided. Pallas, Orestheus, Phigalus, Trapezeus, Msenalus,
Mantineus, and Tegeates, are all numbered among the sons
of Lykaon, and are all eponyms of various Arcadian towns. 1
The legend respecting Kallisto and Arkas, the eponym
of Arcadia generally, seems to have been origin- Kallisto
ally quite independent of and distinct from that and -Arkas.
of Lykaon. Eumelus, indeed, and some other poets made
Kallisto daughter of Lykaon: but neither Hesiod nor Asius,
nor Pherekydes, acknowledged any relationship between
them. 2 The beautiful Kallisto, companion of Artemis in
the chase, had bound herself by a vow of chastity: Zeus,
either by persuasion or by force, obtained a violation of
the vow, to the grievous displeasure both of Here and
offering human victims at the altar or invalidates the authority of the
of the Lyksean Zeus was neither Pseudo-Platonic dialogue, Minos,
prevalent nor recent, but at most v. 5.
only traditional and antiquated ; 1 Paus. viii. 3. Hygin. fab. 177.
and it therefore limits the sense 2 Apollod. iii. 8, 2.

172 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pabt I.
Artemis. The former changed Kallisto into a bear, the
latter, when she was in that shape, killed her with an
arrow. Zeus gave to the unfortunate Kallisto a place
among the stars, as the constellation of the Bear: he also
preserved the child Arkas, of which she was pregnant by
Mm, and gave it to the Atlantid nymph Maia to bring up. •
Arkas, when he became king, obtained from Tripto-
Azan lemus and communicated to his people the first
Apheldas, rudiments of agriculture; he also taught them
Elatus. t0 mate bread, to spin, and to weave. He had
three sons — Azan, Apheidas, and Elatus: the first was the
eponym of Azania, the northern region of Arcadia; the
second was one of the heroes of Tegea; the third was father
of Ischys (rival of Apollo for the affections of Koronis),
as well as of iEpytus and Kyllen: the name of iEpytus
among the heroes of Arcadia is as old as the Catalogue
in the Iliad. 2
Aleus, son of Apheidas and king of Tegea, was the
Aieus founder of the celebrated temple and worship
Augd.'Tdie- of Athene Alea in that town. Lykurgus and
phus. Kepheus were his sons, Auge his daughter, who
was seduced by Herakles, and secretly bore to him a child:
the father, discovering what had happened, sent Auge to
Nauplius to be sold into slavery: Teuthras, king of Mysia
in Asia Minor, purchased her and made her his wife: her
tomb was shown at Pergamus on the river Kaikus even in
the time of Pausanias.3
1 Pausan. viii. 3, 2. Apollod. iii. A separate legend respecting
8, 2. Hesiod. apudEratosthen. Catas- Augd and the birth of Tdlephus
terism. 1. Fragm. 182, Marktsch. was current at Tegea, attached
Hygin. f. 177. to the temple, statue, and cognomen
1 Homer, Iliad, ii. 604. Pind. of Eileithyia in the Tegeatic agora
Olymp. vi. 44—63. (Pausan. viii. 48, 5).
The tomb of -Sipytus, mentioned Hekatseus seems to have narrated
in the ,Iliad, was shown to Pau- -in detail the adventures of Augd
sanias between Pheneus and Stym- (Pausan. viii. 4, 4; 47, 3. Hekatoe.
phalus (Pausan. viii. 16, 2). iEpy- Fragm. 345, Didot).
tus was a cognomen of Hermds Euripidds followed a different
(Pausan. viii. 47, 3). story about Augd and the birth of
The hero Arkas was worshipped Telephus in his lost tragedy called
at Mantineia, under the special Augd. (See Strabo, xiii. p. 615.)
injunction of the Delphian oracle Respecting the Musol of JEschylus,
(Pausan. viii. 9, 2). and the two lost dramas, 'AXsaBai
3 Pausan. viii. 4, 6. Apollod. iii. and Muool of Sophoklds, little can
9, 1. Dioddr. iv. 33.

Chap. IX. ALE US AND AUGE. 173
From Lykurgus,1 the son of Aleus and brother of Auge,
we pass to his son Ankseus, numbered among the Argo
nauts, finally killed in the chase of the Kalydonian boar,
and father of Agapenor, who leads the Arcadian contingent
against Troy, — (the adventures of his niece the Tegeatic
huntress Atalanta, have already been touched upon) — then
to Echemus, son of Aeropus andgrandsonof thebrother of
Lykurgus, Kepheus. Echemus is the chief heroic ornament
of Tegea. "When Hyllus, the son of Herakles, Ankaus—
conducted the Herakleids on their first expedi- Echemus.
tion againstPeloponnesus, Echemus commanded the Tegean
troops who assembled along with the other Peloponnesians
at the isthmus of Corinth, to repelthe invasion: it was
agreed that the dispute should be determined by single
combat, and Echenms, as the champion of Peloponnesus,
encountered and killed Hyllus. Pursuant to the stipulation
by which they had bound themselves, the Herakleids retired,
and abstained for three generations from pressing their
claim upon Peloponnesus. This valorous exploit of their
great martial hero was cited and appealed to by the Tege-
ates before the battle of Platsea, as the principal evidence
of their claim to the second post in the combined army,
next in point of honour to that of the Lacedsemonians, and
superior to that of the Athenians: the latter replied to
them by producing as counter-evidence the splendid heroic
deeds of Athens, — the protections of the Herakleids against
Eurystheus, the victory over the Kadmeians of _
Thebes, and the complete defeat of the Amazons kills Hyi-
in Attica.2 Nor can there be any doubt that ^T"-?,6"
these legendary glories were both recited by the peiied from
speakers, and heard by the listeners, with pro- £ei°p on-
found and undoubting faith, as well as with
heart-stirring admiration.
One other person there is — Ischys, son of Elatus and
grandson of Arkas — in the fabulous genealogy of Arcadia
be made out. (See Welcker, described by Pindar (01. xi. 69) as
Griechisch. Tragod. p. 53, 408 — 414.) gaining the prize of wrestling in
1 There were other local gene- the fabulous Olympic games, on
'alogies of Tegea deduced from their first establishment by Hd-
Lykurgus : Bdtachus, eponym of rakles. He also found a place in
the ddme Bdtachidse at that place, the Hesiodic Catalogue as hus-
was his grandson (Nicolaus ap. hand of Timandra, the sister of
Steph. Byz. v. Bu)Tay_i5at). Helen and Klytajmndstra (Hesiod,
2 Herodot. ix. 27. Echemus is Fragm. 105, p. 318, Marktscheff.).

174 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet I.
whom it would be improper to pass over, inasmuch as his
name and adventures are connected with the genesis of the
memorable god or hero _5Csculapius, or Asklepius. Koronis,
Kordnis daughter ofPhlegyas, and resident near the lake
and As- Boebeis in Thessaly, was beloved by Apollo and
kidpms. became pregnant by him: unfaithful to the god,
she listened to the propositions of Ischys son of Elatus,
and consented to wed him: a raven brought to Apollo the
fatal news, which so incensed him that he changed the
colour of the bird from white, as it previously had been,
into black.1 Artemis, to avenge the wounded dignity of
her brother, put Koronis to death; but Apollo preserved
the male child, of which she was about to be delivered, and
consigned it to the Centaur Cheiron to be brought up. The
child was named Asklepius or ^sculapius, and acquired,
partly from the teaching of the beneficent leech Cheir6n,
partly from inborn and superhuman aptitude, a knowledge
of the virtues of herbs and a mastery of medicine and sur
gery, such as had never before been witnessed. He not
only cured the sick, the wounded, and the dying, but even
restored the dead to life. Kapaneus, Eriphyle, Hippolytus,
Tyndareus and Glaukus were all affirmed by different poets
and logographers to have been endued by him with a new
life.2 But Zeus now found himself under the necessity of
1 Apolloddr. iii. 10, 3 ; Hesiod, iv. 71 ; Apolloddr. iii. 10, 3 ; Pindar,
Fragment 141—142. Marktscheff. ; Pyth. iii. 59 ; Sexius Empiric, adv.
Strab. ix. p. 442 ; Pherekydds, Fr. Grammatic. i. 12, p. 271. Stdsichorus
8; Akusilaus, Fragm. 25. Didot. named Eriphyle — the Naupaktian
Tcp [ib ap' ayys).o« ^X6s xopa£, verses, Hippolytus— (compare Ser-
ispf|5 arco SaiTOs vius ad Virgil, .ffiheid. vii. 761)
Ilu8d> zc, 7jyaQs7]v, xai p sapaasv Panyasis, Tyndareus; a proof of
Spy' dtSrjXa the popularity of this tale among
4>Cil[)c|> axspasxoufl, ori 'Iayi ? /vjpiE the poets. Pindar says that .ffils-
Kopcoviv culapius was "tempted by gold"
E!XaTi67]«, OXsyoao SioyvrjTOio 96- to raise a man from the dead, and
y«pa. Plato (Legg. iii. p. 408) copies him:
(Hesiod, Fr.) this seems intended to afford some
The change of the colour of the colour for the subsequent punish-
crow is noticed both in Ovid. ment. "Mercede id captum (ob-
Metamorph. ii. 632, in Antonin. serves Boeckh ad Pindar. 1. c.)
Liberal, c. 20, , and in Servius ad .SJsculapium fecisse recentior est
Virgil, .ffiineid. vii. 761, though the Actio ; Pindari fortasse ipsius,
name "Coruo custode ejus" is there quem tragici secuti sunt: baud
printed with a capital letter, as dubie a medicorum avaris moribus
if it were a man named Oorvus. profecta, qui Grajcorum medicis
* Schol. Eurip. Alkdst. 1; Dioddr. nostrisque communes sunt." The

Chap. IX. ASKLEPIUS. 175
taking precautions lest mankind, thus unexpectedly pro
tected against sickness and death, should no longer stand
in need of the immortal gods: he smote Asklepius with
thunder and killed him. Apollo was so exasperated by
this slaughter of his highly-gifted son, that he killed the
Cyclopes who had fabricated the thunder, and Zeus was
about to condemn him to Tartarus for doing so; but on the
intercession of Latona he relented, and was satisfied with
imposing upon him a temporary servitude in the house of
Admetus at Pherse.
Asklepius was worshipped with very great solemnity
at Trikka, at Kos, atKnidus, and in many different
parts of Greece, but especially at Epidaurus, so worship6 of
that more than one legend had grown up respect- Askidpius
ing the details of his birth and adventures : in wends.0"3
particular, his mother was by some calledArsinoe.
But a formal application had been made on this subject (so-
the Epidaurians told Pausanias) to the oracle of Delphi,.
and the god in reply acknowledged that Asklepius was his
son by Koronis. ! The tale above recounted seems to have
been both the oldest and the most current. It is adorned
by Pindar in a noble ode, wherein however he omits all
mention of the raven as messenger — not specifying who or
what the spy was from whom Apollo learnt the infidelity
ofKoronis. Bymany this was considered as an improvement
in respect of poetical effect, but it illustrates the mode in
which the characteristic details and simplicity of the old
fables2 came to be exchanged for dignified generalities,.
adapted to the altered taste of society.
rapacity of the physicians (granting Homer, Hymn, ad iEsculap. 2-
it to be ever so well-founded, both The tale briefly alluded to in the
then and now) appears to me less Homeric Hymn, ad Apollin. 209.
likely to have operated upon the is evidently different : Ischys is
mind of Pindar, than the dis- there the companion of Apollo,.
position to extenuate the cruelty and Kordnis is an Arcadian damsel.
of Zeus, by imputing guilty and Aristidds, the fervent worshipper-
sordid views to Askidpius. Com- of Askidpius, adopted the story
pare the citation from Diksearchus, of Kordnis, and composed hymns
infra, p. 177. on the yapiov KopuwlSoc xal yEvsaiv
1 Pausan. ii. 26, where several too 6eoO (Orat. 23, p. 463, Dind.).
distinct stories are mentioned, 2 See Pindar, Pyth. iii. The
each springing up at some one or Scholiast puts a construction upon
other of the sanctuaries of the god : Pindar's words which is at any
quite enough to justify the idea of rate far-fetched, if indeed it be at.
three iEsculapii (Cicero, N. D. all admissible: he supposes that
iii. 22). Apollo knew the fact from his own,

176 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet I.
Machaon and Podaleirius, the two sons of Asklepius,
Machadn command the contingent from Trikka, in the
and Poda- north-west region of Thessaly, at the siege of
leirms. Troy by Agamemnon.1 They are the leeches
of the Grecian army, highly prized and consulted by all
the wounded chiefs. Their medical renown was further
prolonged in the subsequent poem of Arktinus, the Iliu-
Persis, wherein the one was represented as unrivalled in
surgical operations, the other as sagacious in detecting and
appreciating morbid symptoms. It was Podaleirius who
first noticed the glaring eyes and disturbed deportment
which preceded the suicide of Ajax. 2
Galen appears uncertain whether Asklepius (as well
as Dionysus) was originally a god, or whether
Aswlpiads, ne was ^st a man and then became afterwards
or descend- a god;3 but Apollodorus professed to fix the
Askidpius. exact date of his apotheosis.4 Throughout all
the historical ages the descendants of Asklepius
were numerous and widely diffused. The many families or
gentes called Asklepiads, who devoted themselves to the
study and practice of medicine, and who principally dwelt
near the temples of Asklepius, whither sick and suffering
men came to obtain relief — all recognised the god, not
merely as the object of their common worship, but also as
their actual progenitor. Like Solon, who reckoned Neieus
and Poseidon as his ancestors, or the Milesian Hekatseus,
who traced his origin through fifteen successive links to
omniscience, without any infor- 3 ' AoxXrjTtioc ys toi xal Aiovoaoc,
mant, and he praises Pindar for eit' avQpumoi TipoTspov 7]tjT7)v eits
having thus transformed the old xal ap-/_7J9sv 8sol (Galen, Protreptic.
fable. But the w-ords 06S' sXafis 9. t. 1. p. 22 , Kuhn). Pausanias
oxonov seem certainly to imply some considers him as Qsoi; e£ apx7]<; (ii.
informant : to suppose that oxoxov 26, 7). In the important temple at
means the god's own mind, is a Smyrna he was worshipped as
strained interpretation. Zsu? ' A<jxX7]m6c (Aristidds, Or. 6.
1 Iliad, ii. 730. The Messdnians p. 64; Or. 23. p. 456, Dind.).
laid claim to the sons of Asklepius ' Apolloddr. ap. Clem. Alex.
as their heroes, and tried to justify Strom, i. p. 381; see Heyne, Frag-
the pretension by a forced con- ment. Apolloddr. p. 410. Accord-
struction of Homer (Paus. iii. i, 2). ing to Apolloddrus, the apotheo-
2 Arktinus, Epicc. Graeo. Fragm. sis of Herakles and of JEsculapius
2. p. 22, Diintzer. The Ilias Minor took place at the same time, thirty
mentioned the death of Machadn eight years after Hdraklds began
by Eurypylus, son of Tdlephus to reign at Argos.
(Fragm. 5, p. 19, Diintzer).

ClTAP. IX.

ASKLEPIUS.

a god — like the privileged gens at Pelion in Thessaly,1
who considered the wise Centaur Gheiron as their progenitor,
and who inherited from him theirprecious secrets respecting
the medicinal herbs of which their neighbourhood was full,
— Asklepiads, even of the later times, numbered and speci
fied all the intermediate links which separated them from
their primitive divine parent. One of these genealogies
has been preserved to us, and we may be sure that there
were many such, as the Asklepiads were found in many
different places.2 Among them were enrolled highly in
structed and accomplished men, such as the great Hippocrates
and the historian Ktesias, who prided themselves on the
divine origin of themselves and their gens3 — so much did

1 About Hekatseus , Her. ii. 143;
about Soldn, Diog. D. Vit. Plat. in.
A curious fragment, preserved
from the lost works of Diktearchus,
tells us of the descendants of the
Centaur Cheirfin at the town of
Pelion, or perhaps at the neigh
bouring town of DemStrias, — it is
not quite certain which, perhaps
at both (see Dikaearch. Fragment.
ed. Fuhr, p. 408). TaoTTjv 8s ttjv
56vtx{j.tv iv tu>v -oXitu)v otSs fevoe,
6 §7} XEysxai Xeipcovot; (Ztioyovov eivott*
TrapaSlStOfft 8s xal Ssixvuai rcotTTjp
uicji, xal oStcos 7} 86vajju<; tpuXdcjaeTaij
a><; o-jOsU aXXot; oT6s tu>v TCoXittJor
o'W oaiov S= TG'jc; i7itOTau.£vou? toe
rpapjiaxa p-taQou toi? xau-vouoi p07)-
0=tv, aXXa Tipolxa.
Plato, de Bepubl. iii. 4 (p. 391).
'A/iXXeus 67:6 t<£ ffoatordTOj Xsipum
T=9po:fj:p.svO!;. Comp.Xen. DeVen. c. 1.
2 See the genealogy at length in
Le Clerc, Hist, de la M6d. lib. ii. c.
2. p. 78. also p. 287; alsoLittre,In-
trod. aux (Euvres Completes d'Hip-
pocrate, t. i. p. 34. Hippokratds was
the seventeenth from iBsculapius.
Theopompus the historian went
at considerable length into the
pedigree of the Asklepiads of K6s
and Knidus , tracing them up to
Podaleirius and his first settle
ment at Syrnus in Karia (see Theo-
pomp. Fragm. Ill, Didot): Polyan-
VOL. I.

thus of KyrSnS composed a special
treatise nepi zt}z tujv 'Affy.X7]itia8u>v
YsvEGSo)!; (Sextus Empiric, adv.
G-rammat. i. 12. p. 271); see Ste-
phan. Byz. v. Kux;, and especially
Aristidgs , Orat. vii. Asclepiadce.
The Asklepiads were even reckoned
among the'Ap^TjYExai of Rhodes,
jointly with the Herakleids (Aristi-
dSs, Or. 44, ad Ehod. p. 839, Dind.).
In the extensive sacred enclosure
at Epidaurus stood the statues of
Asklepius and his wife EpionS
(Pausan. ii. 29, 1) : two daughter?
are coupled with him by Aristo
phanes , and he was considered
especially eu^ait; (Plutus , 654);
Jaso , Panakeia and Hygieia are
named by Aristides.
3 Plato, Protagor. c. 6. (p. 311).
1 iTCTtOXpaTT] TOV KlI>QV, TOV TU)V 'Aff-
xX7)tuc(Su>v; also Phsedr. c. 121 (p.
270). About KtSsias, Galen, Opp.
t. v. p. 662, Basil.; and Bahrt,
Fragm. KtSsiae, p. 20. Aristotle
(see Stahr, Ariatotelia, i. p. 32)
and Xenophdn, the physician of
the emperor Claudius, were both
Asklepiads (Tacit. Annal. xii. 61).
Plato, de Bepubl. iii. 405, calls
them TO'je xojx'j'Q'x ' AaxXTj^iASa?.
Pausanias, a distinguished phy
sician at Gela in Sicily, and con
temporary of the philosopher Em-
pedokUs, was also an Askiepiad:
N

178

niSTORT OF GREECE.

Part I,

Temples of
Asklepius
— sick per
sons healed
there.

the legendary element pervade even the most philosophical
and positive minds of historical Greece. Nor can
there be any doubt that their means of medical
observation must have been largely extended by
their vicinity to a temple so much frequented
by the sick, who came in confident hopes of
divine relief, and who, whilst they offered up sacrifice and
prayer to ^Bsculapius, and slept in his temple in order to
be favoured with healing suggestions in their dreams, might,
in case the god withheld his supernatural aid, consult his
living descendants. i The sick visitors at Kos, or Trikka,
or Epidaurus, were numerous and constant, and the tablets
usually hung up to record the particulars of their maladies,
the remedies resorted to, and the cures operated by the
god, formed both an interesting decoration of the sacred
ground and an instructive memorial to the Asklepiads.3
The genealogical descent of Hippocrates and the other
Asklepiads from the god Asklepius is not only analogous
to that of Hekatseus and Solon from their respective ances-
toral gods, but also to that of the Lacedaemonian kings
from Herakles, upon the basis of which the whole supposed
chronology of the ante-historical times has been built, from
Eratosthenes and Apollodorus down to the chronologers
of the present century.3 I shall revert to this hereafter.

see the verses of Empedoklds upon
him, Diogen. Laert. viii. 61.
1 Strabo, viii. p. 374; Aristophan.
Vesp. 122; Plutus, 635—760; where
the visit to the temple of .SIscu-
lapius is described in great detail,
though with a broad farcical co
louring. During the last illness of Ale
xander the Great, several of his
principal officers slept in the
temple of Serapis, in the hope
that remedies would be suggested
to them in their dreams (Arrian,
vii. 26).
Pausanias, in describing the va
rious temples of Askidpius which
he saw, announces as a fact quite
notorious and well understood,
"Here cures are wrought by the
god" (ii. 36, 1; iii. 26, 7; vii. 27,
4): see Suidas v. 'AploTapyo?. The

orations of Aristidds, especially
the 6th and 7th, Asklepius and the
Asclepiadce, are the most striking
manifestations of faith and thanks
giving towards .SEsculapius,. as
well as attestations of his exten
sive working throughout the Gre
cian world; also Or.23and25,'Ispu>ii
Aoifo?, 1, 3; and Or. 45 (De Rhet.
p._22, Dind.), a." t' sv 'AcxVi]7tioo
T(I)v del SicrrpiflovTioY ayeXoil, Ac.
2 Pausan. ii. 27, 3; 36, 1. Tau-
tcci? eyYSYp!xu.[i.eva ecjtI xai dvSpuw
xal yuvguxojv 6v6(iCCTd AxEaOsvTUM
bicb toD 'AaxXi)iuou, jtpOtrsxi 84 xal
viir»iu,i, 8,Ti Sxatrro? ivoariaz, xal
Situn liB-rj, — the cures are wrought
by the god himself.
* "Apollodorus setatem Herculis
pro cardine chronologise habuit"
(Heyne, ad Apollod. ]?r. p. 410).

Chap. X. .33AKTJS AND HIS DESCENDANTS. 179

CHAPTER X.
MAKUS AND HIS DESCENDANTS— ^GINA, SALAMIS,
AND PHTHIA.
The memorable heroic genealogy of the iEakids establishes
a fabulous connexion between JEgina, Salamis, and Phthia,
which we can only recognise as a fact, without being able
to trace its origin.
-Eakus was the son of Zeus, born of JEgina, daughter
of Asopus, whom the god had carried off and ^a]l;us_
brought into the island to which he gave her son of Zeus
name: she was afterwards, married to Aktor, and and ¦assma-
had by him Mencetius, father of Patroclus. As there were
two rivers named Asopus, one between Phlius and Sikyon,
and another between Thebes and Platsea — so the jEginetan
heroic genealogy was connected both with that of Thebes
and with that of Phlius; and this behef led to practical
consequences in the minds of those who accepted the
legends as genuine history. Eor when the Thebans, in the
68th Olympiad, were hard-pressed in war by Athens, they
were directed by the Delphian oracle to ask assistance of
their next of kin. Recollecting that Thebe and -5Cgina had
been sisters, common daughters of Asopus, they were in
duced to apply to the .^Eginetans as their next of kin, and
the JEginetans gave them aid, first by sending to them their
common heroes, the iEakids, next by actual armed force. *
Pindar dwells emphatically on the heroic brotherhood
between Thebes, his native city, and ^Egina.2
-3]akus was alone in iEgina: to relieve him from this
solitude, Zeus changed all the ants in the island
into men, and thus provided him with a numerous ^jjfjj^f of
population, who, from their origin, were called Pdieus,
Myrmidons.3 By his wife Endeis, daughter of ^5^*°'
Cheiron, jUakas had for his sons Peleus and
1 Herodot. v. 81. formation of the ants into men, is
2 Nem. iv. 22. Isth. vii. 16. as old as the Hesiodic Catalogue
1 This tale, respecting the trans- of "Women. See Diintzer, Fragm.
N 2

180 HISTORY OF GREECE. Past I.
Telamon: by the Nereid Psamathe, he had Phokus. A
monstrous crime had then recently been committed by
Pelops,-in killing the Arcadian prince, Stymphalus, under
a simulation of friendship and hospitality: for this the gods
had smitten all Greece with famine and barrenness. The
oracles affirmed that nothing could relieve Greece from
this intolerable misery except the prayers of JEakus, the
most pious of mankind. Accordingly envoys from all
quarters flocked to iEgina, to prevail upon ^Eakus to put
up prayers for them: on his supplications the gods relented,
and the suffering immediately ceased. The grateful Greeks
established in iEgina the temple and worship of Zeus
Panhellenius, one of the lasting monuments and institutions
of the island, on the spot where .SCakus had offered up his
prayer. The statues of the envoys who had
Siakua— °f come *° solicit him were yet to be seen in the
procure ^Eakeion, or sacred edifice of JEakus, in the time
Greece*0' of Pausanias: and the Athenian Isokrates, in his
eulogy of Evagoras, the despot of Salamis in
Cyprus (who traced his descent through Teukrus to iEakus),
enlarges upon this signal miracle, recounted and believed
by other Greeks as well as by the -SDginetans, as a proof
both of the great qualities and of the divine favour and
patronage displayed in the career of the ^Eakids. l JEakus
was also employed to aid Poseidon and Apollo in building
the walls of Troy. 2
Epicc. 21, p. 34; evidently an Admon. ad Gent. p. 25, Sylb.).
etymological tale from the name 1 Apollod. iii. 12, 6. Isokrat.
Myrmidones. Pausanias throws Evag. E..com. vol. ii. p. 278, Auger.
aside both the etymology and the Pausan. i. 44, 13; ii. 29, 6. Schol.
details of the miracle: he says that Aristoph. Equit. 1253.
Zeus raised men from the earth, So in the 106th Psalm, respecting
at the prayer of iEakus (ii. 29, 2): the Israelites and Phinees, v. 29,
other authors retained the etymo- "They provoked the Lord to anger
logy of Myrmidons from o.6p|j.7jxsq, by their inventions, and theplague
but gave a different explanation was great among them;" "Then
(Kallimachus, Fragm. 114, Diintzer). stood up Phinees and prayed, and
Mupu.i66vu)v Eicrijvcc (Strabo, viii. p. so the plague ceased ;" "And that
375). 'Eaovjv, 6 otxumj? Hygin. was counted unto him for righ-
fabi 62>- teousness, among all posterities
According to the .Thessalian for evermore."
legend, Myrmiddn was the son of ». Pindar. Olymp. viii. 41, with
Zeus by Eurymedusa, daughter of the Scholia. Didymus did not find
Kletdr; Zeus having assumed the this story in any other poet older
disguise of an ant (Clemens. Alex, than Pindar.

CnAr. X. PELEUS AND TELAMON. 181
Peleus and Telamon, the sons of -^Eakus, contracting
a jealousy of their bastard brother, Phokus, in
consequence of his eminent skill in gymnastic killed by
contests, conspired to put him to death. Tela- mSjeu8a and
mon flung his quoit at him while they were
playing together, and Peleus despatched him by a blow
with his hatchet in the back. They then concealed the
dead body in a wood, but iEakus, having discovered both
the act and the agents, banished the brothers from the
island. ' Eor both of them eminent destinies were in store.
While we notice the indifference to the moral quality
of actions implied in the old Hesiodic legend, when it
imputes distinctly and nakedly this proceeding to two of
the most admired persons of the heroic world — it is not
less instructive to witness the change of feeling which had
taken place in the age of Pindar. That warm eulogist of
the great JEakid race hangs down his head with shame, and
declines to recount, though he is obliged darkly to glance
at, the cause which forced the pious JEakus to banish his
sons from ^Egina. It appears that Kallimachus, if we may
judge by a short fragment, manifested the same repugnance
to mention it. 2
Telamon retired to Salamis, then ruled by Kychreus,
the son ofPoseidonandSalamis, whohadrecently
rescued the island from the plague of a terrible banished'
serpent. This animal, expelled from Salamis, |°5>s *?
retired to Eleusis in Attica, where it was recei
ved and harboured by the goddess Demeter in her sacred
domicile.3 Kychreus dying childless left his dominion to
1 Apollod. iii. 12, 6, who relates amongst many of the tendency to
the tale Bomewhat differently ; but soften down and moralise the
the old epic poem AlkmEeonis gave ancient tales.
the details (ap. Schol. Eurip. An- Pindar, however, seems to forget
dromach. 685) — this incident when he speaks in
*Ev8a fisy av-ifhos TsXaaaJv Tpo- other places of the general cha-
y/.siSs'i otcjxoj racter of Pdleus (Olymp. ii. 75-86.
IlX7]6s xapTj* li7]Xs'j(; 8= 8ou)i; dva Isthm. vii. 40).
yzipa ravbaous 3 Apollod. iii. 12,7. Euphoridn,
'ASIvtjy su/aXxov iTzzitXi}-(zi u.£t« Fragm. 5, Diintzer, p. 43, Epicc.
vujtk. Grsec. There may have been a
2 Pindar, Nem. v. 15, with Scholia, tutelary serpent in the temple at
and Kallimach. Frag. 136. Apol- Eleusis, as there was in that of
ldnius Rhodius represents the fra- Athdnd Polias at Athens (Herodot.
tricide as inadvertent and unin- viii. 41, Photius, v. OlxoOpov ocpiv.
tentional (i. 92) ; one instance Arist. Lysistr. 759, with the Schol.)

182 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
Telamon, who, marrying Peribcea, daughter of Alkathoos,
and granddaughter of Pelops, had for his son the celebrated
Ajax. Telamon took part both in the chase of the Kaly
donian boar and in the Argonautic expedition: he was also
the intimate friend and companion of Herakles, whom he
accompanied in his enterprise against the Am,azons, and in
the attack made with only six ships upon Laomedon, Icing
of Troy. This last enterprise having proved completely
successful, Telamon was rewarded by Herakles with the
possession of the daughter of Laomedon, Hesione — who
bore to him Teukros, the most distinguished archer amidst
the host of Agamemnon, and the founder of Salamis in
Cyprus, i
Peleus went to Phthia, where he married the daughter
of Eurytion, son of Aktor, and received from him the third
Pdieus— part of his dominions. Taking part in the Kali-
p0e£-t0 h- Ionian boar-hunt, he unintentionally killed his
marriage ™ father-in-law Eurytion, and was obliged to flee
with Thetis, to Iolkos, where he received purification from
Akastus, son of Pelias: the danger to which he became
exposed, by the calumnious accusations of the enamoured
wife of Akastus, has alreadybeentouchedupon in a previous
section. Peleus also was among the Argonauts ; the most
memorable event in his life however was his marriage with
the sea-goddess Thetis. Zeus and Poseidon had both
conceived a violent passion for Thetis. But the former
having been forewarned by Prometheus that Thetis was
destined to give birth to a son more powerful than his
father, compelled her, much against her own will, to marry
Peleus; who, instructed by the intimations of the wise
Cheiron, was enabled to seize her on the coast called Sepias
in the southern region of Thessaly. She changed her form
several times, but Peleus held her fast until she resumed
her original appearance, and she was then no longer able
to resist. All the gods were present, and brought splendid
gifts to these memorable nuptials: Apollo sang with his
harp, Poseidon gave to Peleus the immortal horses Xanthus
1 Apollod. iii, 12, 7. Hesiod. ap. which appeared in response to his
Strab. ix. p. 393. words, was detailed in the He-
ThfTlibation and prayer of Hd- siodic Eoiai, and is celebrated by
raklds, prior to the birth of Ajax, Pindar (Isthm. v. 30-54). See also
and his fixing the name of the yet the Scholia.
unborn child, from an eagle («Utos)

Chap. X. PELEUS— NEOPTOLEMUS. 183
and Balius, and Cheiron presented a formidable spear; cut
from an.ash-tree on Mount Pelion. "We shall have reason
hereafter to recognise the value of both these gifts in the
exploits of Achilles. *
The prominent part assigned to Thetis in the Iliad is
well known, and the post-Homeric poets of the Legend of
Troy introduced her as actively concurring first to promote
the glory, finally to bewail the death, of her distinguished
son.2 Peleus having survived both his son Achilles and
his grandson Neoptolemus, is ultimately directed to place
himself on the very spot where he had originally seized
Thetis, and thither the goddess comes herself to fetch him
away, in order that he may exchange the desertion and
decrepitude of age for a hfe of immortality along with the
Nereids.3 The spot was indicated to Xerxes when he
marched into Greece by the Ionians who accompanied him,
and his magi offered solemn sacrifices to her as well as to
the other Nereids, as the presiding goddesses and mistres
ses of the coast.4
Neoptolemus or Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, too
young to engage in the commencement of the Neoptoie-
siegeofTroy, comes on the stage after the death mus-
of his father as the indispensable and prominent agent in
the final capture of the city. He returns victor from Troy,
not to Phthia, but to Epirus, bringing with him the captive
Andromache, widow of Hector, by whom Molossus is born
to him. He himself perishes in the full vigour of life at
1 Apolloddr. iii. 13, 5. Homer, been carried by Pdlens to both
Iliad, xviii. 434; xxiv. 62. Pindar, these places: probably it grew up
Nem. iv. 50 — 68 ; Isthm. vii. 27 — 50. round a temple and sanctuary of
Herodot. vii. 192. Catullus, Carm. this goddess (Pherekyd. Frag. 16,
64. Epithal. Pel. et Thetidos, with Didot ; Hellanik. ap. Steph. Byz.
the prefatory remarks of Dcering. QiaTiSsTov).
The nuptials of Peleus and Thetis 2 See the arguments of the lost
were much celebrated in the He- poems, the Cypriaandthe-ZGthiopis,
siodic Catalogue, or perhaps in as given by Proclus, in Diintzer,
the Eoiai (Diintzer, Epic. Grsec. Fragm. Epic. Gr. p. 11 — 16 ; also
Frag. '36, p. 39), and .ZEgimius— Schol. ad Hiad. xvi. 140 ; and tho
see Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. iv. extract from the lost tyoyoaraam
869— where there is a curious at- of .ZEschylus, ap. Plat, de Re-
tempt of Staphylus to rationalize public, ii. c. 21 (p. 382, St.)
the marriage of Pdleus and Thetis. 3 Eurip. Androm. -1242 — 1260:
There was a town, seemingly Pindar, Olymp. ii. 86.
near Pharsalus in Thessaly, called 4 Herodot. vii. 188.
Thetideium. Thetis is said to have

184 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet 1.
Delphi by the machinations of Orestes, son of Agamemnon.
But his son Molossus — like Eleance, the son of Banquo, in
Macbeth — becomes the father of the powerful race of Mo-
lossian kings, who played so conspicuous a part during the
declining vigour of the Grecian cities, and to whom the
title and parentage of ^Eakids was a source of peculiar
pride, identifying them by community of heroic origin with
genuine and undisputed Hellenes. l
The glories of Ajax, the second grandson of JEakus,
Ajax— his hefore Troy, are surpassed only by those of
sonPhiiieus Achilles. He perishes by his own hand, the
mousPhero" victim °f an insupportable feehng of humiliation,
of a ddme because a less worthy claimant is allowed to
m Attica. carry off from him the arms of the departed
Achilles. His son Philaeus receives the citizenship of
Athens, and the gens or deme called Philaidse traced up
to him its name and its origin: moreover the distinguished
Athenians, Miltiades and Thucydides, were regarded as
members of this heroic progeny.2
Teukrus escaped from the perils of the siege of Troy
_ as well as from those of the voyage homeward,
banished, and reached Salamis in safety. But his father Te-
setties in lamon, indignant at his having returned without
j prus. Ajax, refused to receive him, and compelled him
to expatriate. He conducted his followers to Cyprus,
where he founded the city of Salamis: his descendant Eva-
goras was recognisedasaTeukrid and as an JEakid even in
the time of Isokrates.3
1 Plutarch, Pyrrh. 1; Justin, xi. tarch, I. c.) : the Megarians accused
3; Eurip. Androni. 1253; Arrian, Peisistratus of having interpolated
Exp. Alexand. i. 11. a line into the Catalogue in the
2 Pherekydds and Hellanikus ap. Iliad (Strabo, ix. p. 394).
Marcellin. Vit. Thucydid. init. ; ' Herodot. vii. 90 ; Isokrat. Enc.
Pausan. ii. 29, 4; Plutarch, Soldn, Evag. ut sup. ; Sophokl. Ajftx, 984—
10. According to Apolloddrus, 395 ; Vellei. Patercul. i. 1 ; ^ischyl.
however, Pherekydds said that Pers. 891, and Schol. The return
Telamdn was only the friend of from Troy of Teukrus, his banish-
Pdleus, not his brother,— not the ment by Telamdn, and his settle-
son of iBakus (iii. 1-2, 7) : this ment in Cyprus, formed the subject
seems an ineonsistency. There of the Tsoxpo? of Sopboklds, and
was however a warm dispute he- of a tragedy under a similar title
tween the Athenians and the Mo- by Pacuvius (Cicero de Orat. i. 58;
garians respecting the title to tlio ii. 46) ; Sophokl, Ajax, 892 ; Pacuvii
hero Ajax, who was claimed by Fragm. Teucr. 15. 
hoth (see Pausan, i. 42, 4; Plu-

Chap. X. ACHILLES AND AJAX. 185
Such was the splendid heroic genealogy of the Jllakids,
• — a family renowned for military excellence. The iEakeion
at _#jgina, in which prayer and sacrifice were offered to
-iEakus, remained jn undiminished dignity down to the time
of Pausanias.1 This genealogy connects together Diffusionof
various eminent gentes in Achaia Phthiotis, in the iEakid
^Egina, in Salamis, in Cyprus, and amongst the seileal°gy-
Epirotic Molossians. Whether we are entitled to infer
from it that the island of-33gina was originally peopled by
Myrmidon es from Achaia Phthiotis, as 0. Miiller imagines,2
I will not pretend to affirm. These mythical pedigrees
seem to unite together special clans or gentes, rather than
the bulk of any community — just as we know that the
Athenians generally had no part in the -iEakid genealogy,
though certain particular Athenian families laid claim to
it. The intimate friendship between Achilles and the
Opuntian hero Patroklus — and the community of name and
frequent conjunction between the Lokrian Ajax, son of
O'ileus, and Ajax, son of Telamon — connect the JSakids
with Opus and the Opuntian Lokrians, in a maimer which
we have no farther means of explaining. Pindar too repre
sents Menoetius, father of Patroklus, as soh of Aktor and
JEgina, and therefore maternal brother of iEakus.3
"Te repudio, nee recipio, natum Nouv 6° ' Au-u9aovt8an;, tcXoutov 5*
abdico, eVop' 'A-piiST/al.
Facesse." Polyb. v. 2.—
The legend of Teukros was con- AlaxiSjs, 7coXep-.(p xev«p7]6Tas tjuts
nected in Attic archaeology with 8aixl.
the peculiar functions and for- * See his iEginetica, p. 14, his
malities of the judicature, ev earliest work.
•Dpsaruol (Pausan. i. 28, 12 ; ii. 3 Pindar, Olymp. ix. 74. The
29, 7). hero Ajax, son of O'ileus, was
1 Hesiod. Fragm. Diintz. Eoiai, especially worshipped at Opus ;
55, p. 43. — solemn festivals and games were
'AXxt]v p.ev yap £8tox£v 'OX6u.tcio<; celebrated in his honour.
Aicmoaiai,

156 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paiit I.

CHAPTER XI.
ATTIC LEGENDS AND GENEALOGIES.
The most ancient name in Attic "archaeology, as far as oui
Erechtheus means °? information reach, is that of Erechtheus,
—auto- who is mentioned both in the Catalogue of the
chthonous. jliad and in a brief aiiusion 0f the Odyssey.
Born of the Earth, he is brought up by the goddess Athene,
adopted by her as her ward, and installed in her temple at
Athens, where the Athenians offer to him annual sacrifices.
The Athenians are styled in the Iliad, "the people of
Erechtheus."1 This is the most ancient testimony con
cerning Erechtheus, exhibiting him as a divine or heroic,
certainly a superhuman person, and identifying him with
the primitive germination (if I may use a term, the Grecian
equivalent of which would have pleased an Athenian ear)
of Attic man. And he was recognised in this same character,
even at the close of the fourth century before the Christian
sera, by the Butadss, one of the most ancient and important
Gentes at Athens, who boasted of him as their original
ancestor: the genealogy of the great Athenian orator
Lykurgus, a member of this family, drawn up by his son
Abron, and painted on a public tablet in the Erechtheion,
contained as its first and highest name, Erechtheus, son
of Hephsestos and the Earth. In the Erechtheion, Erech
theus was worshipped conjointly with Athene: he was
identified with the god Poseidon, and bore the denomina
tion of Poseidon Erechtheus: one of the family of the
Butadse, chosen among themselves by lot, 'enjoyed the
privilege and performed the functions of hereditary priest.2
1 n„ia*' „ii- 648\ 0iJSB- vil- sl-~ 'EvOdSs aiv Taupoin r.al apisiois
0! 5' ap' 'AGy)va<; etyov. . . . iXAovrai
Arjuov 'Epsv8ijo« usraXvj-repos, Sv Roupoi ' AOijvotiojv, mpirzXXop.hwi
hot' 'A8r)v7i eviauTUJv.
Ope'r^Aio? 9uY<xTV]p, t=xs8I (UiSco- 2 See the Life of Lykurgus, in
,P°! J,Ap.0Up,a Plutarch's (I call it by that name,
K&S 8' sv^ 'ASijvigd' elsev eij> hi as it is always printed with his
uiovi vrjqi, works) Lives of the Ten Orators,

Chap. XI. ERECHTHEUS. 187
Herodotus also assigns the same earth-born origin to
Erechtheus:1 but Pindar, the old poem called the Danais,
Euripides, and Apollodorus — all name Erichthonius, son
of Hephsestos and the Earth, as the being who was thus
adopted and made the temple-companion of Athene, while
Apollodorus in another place identifies Erichthonius with
Poseidon.2 The Homeric scholiast treated Erechtheus
and Erichthonius as the same person under two names:3
and since, in regard to such mythical persons, there exists
no other test of identity of the subject except perfect
similarity of the attributes, this seems the reasonable con
clusion. "We may presume, from the testimony of Homer, that
the first and oldest conception of Athens and
its sacred acropolis places it under the special ™ac8l?"
protection, and represents it as the settlement originally
and favourite abode of Athene, jointly with ^n^roots—
Poseidon; the latter being the inferior, though each ddmo
the chosen companion of the former, and there- ^Blta
fore exchanging his divine appellation for the
cognomen of Erechtheus. But the country called Attica,
which, during the historical ages, forms one social and
political aggregate with Athens, was originally distributed
into many independent demes or cantons, and included,
besides, various religious clans or hereditary sects (if the
expression may be permitted); that is, a multitude of
persons not necessarily living together in the same locality,
but bound together by an hereditary communion of sacred
torn. iv. p. 382 — 384, "Wytt. Ka-7]Yov 2 Harpokration, v. A-jToyfiuiv.
o= to yiio; diio tciotojv xai 'Eps/Qicot; l0 8= I7iv8apo-<; xal 6 ttjv Aavatoa
too Ttjz xai 'H'-pccicJTOU . . . xai ejt'u 7:S7toi7jxu>; cpaaiv, 'Epi/fJoviov s;
gcijtt] r] xaTayurp) too ysvou? tujv 'H'-paiarou xal Y-qs oft.'^ni. Euri-
t=paaa/jL£va)v too Iloffsiouivo^, &c. pidds, Ion, 21. Apollod. iii. 14,
"0? ttjv iEpujff'Jvrjv IToaEiouivos'EpE/- 6; 15, 1. Compare Plato, Timxus,
Bras st-/_E (pp. 382, 383). Erechtheus c. 6.
Ilapsopos of Athdnd — Aristides, 3 Schol. ad Iliad, ii. 546, where
Panathenaic. p. 184. with the he cites also Kallimachus for tho
Scholia of Frommel. story of Erichthonius. Etymolo-
Butds, the eponymus of the Bu- gicon Magn. 'EpsyBsos. Plato
tada;, is the first priest of Posei- (Kritias, c. 4) employs vague and
ddn Erichthonius : Apollod. iii. 15, general language to describe the
1. So Kallias (Xenoph. Sympos- agency of Hdphaistos and Athdnd,
viii. 40), iEpsi)? 9sd>v tujv dit' 'Eps- which the old fable in Apolloddrus
v9eoj<;. (iii. 14, 6) details in coarser terms.
* Herodot. viii. 65. See O^id, Metam. ii. 757.

188 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paut I.
rites, and claiming privileges as well as performing obliga
tions, founded upon the traditional authority of divine
persons for whom they had a common veneration. Even
down to the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, the demots
of the various Attic demes, though long since embodied in
the larger political union of Attica, and having no wish
for separation, still retained the recollection of their
original political autonomy. They lived in their own
separate localities, resorted habitually to their own temples,
and visited Athens only occasionally for private or political
business, or for the great public festivals. Each of these
aggregates, political as well as religious, had its own
eponymous god or hero, with a genealogy more or less
extended, and a train of mythical incidents more or less
copious, attached to his name, according to the fancy of the
local exegetes and poets. The eponymous heroes Marathon,
Dekelus, Kolonus, or Phlyus, had each their own title to
worship, and their own position as themes of legendary
narrative, independent of Erechtheus, or Poseidon, or
Athene, the patrons of the acropolis common to all of them.
But neither the archseology of Attica, nor that of its
Little no- vari°us component fractions, was much dwelt
ticedbythe upon by the ancient epic poets of Greece.
°o<etsPi° Theseus is noticed both in the Iliad and Odyssey
as having carried off from Krete Ariadne, the
daughter of Minos — thus commencing that connexion
between the Kretan and Athenian legends which we after
wards find so largely amplified — and the sons of Theseus
take part in the Trojan war.1 The chief collectors and ,
narrators of the Attic mythes were, the prose logographers,
authors of the many compositions called Atthides, or works
on Attic archaeology. These writers— Hellanikus, the con
temporary of Herodotus, is the earliest composer of an
Atthis expressly named, though Pherekydes also touched
upon the Attic fables— these writers, I say, interwove into
one chronological series the legends which either greatly
occupied their own fancy, or commanded the most general
reverence among their countrymen. In this way the
religious and political legends of Eleusis, a town originally
independent of Athens, but incorporated with it before the
historical age, were worked into one continuous sequence
> iEthra, mother of Thdseus, is also mentioned (Homer, Iliad, iii. 144).

Chap. XI. LEGENDS OF THE ATTIC DEMES AND GENTES. 189
along with those of the Erechtheids. In this way, too,
Kekrops, the eponymous hero of the portion of Attica
called Kekropia, came to be placed in the mythical chro
nology at a higher point even than the primitive god or
hero Erechtheus.
Ogyges is said to have reigned in Attica1 1020 years
before the first Olympiad, or 1796 years b.c. In
his time happened the deluge of Deukalion,
which destroyed most of the inhabitants of the country.
After a long interval, Kekrops, an indigenous person, half
man and half serpent, is given to us by Apollodorus as the
first king of the country; he bestowed upon the land, which
had before been called Akte, the name of Kekropia. In
his day there ensued a dispute between Athene and Posei
don respecting the possession of the acropolis at Athens,
which each of them coveted. Eirst, Poseidon struck the
rock with his trident, and produced the well of salt water
which existed in it, called the Erechtheis : next came Athene,
who planted the sacred olive-tree ever afterwards seen
and venerated in the portion of the Erechtheion called the
cell of Pandrosus. The twelve gods decided the dispute ;
and Kekrops having testified before them that Athene had
rendered this inestimable service, they adjudged the spot
to her in preference to Poseidon. Both the ancient olive-
tree and the well produced by Poseidon were seen on the
acropolis, in the temple consecrated jointly to Athene and
Erechtheus, throughout the historical ages. Poseidon, as
a mark of his wrath for the preference given to Athene,
inundated the Thriasian. plain with water.2
During the reign of Kekrops, Attica was laid waste
by Karian pirates on the coast, and by invasions of the
Aonian inhabitants from Bceotia. Kekrops distributed
the inhabitants of Attica into twelve local sections — Ke
kropia, Tetrapolis, Epakria, Dekeieia, Eleusis, Aphidna,
Thorikus, Brauron, Kytherus, Sphettus, Kephisius, Pha-
lerus. "Wishing to ascertain the number of inhabitants, he
1 Hellanikus, Fragm. 62 ; Philo- 2 Apollod. iii. 14, 1 ; Herodot.
chor. Fragm. 8, ap. Euseb. Prap. viii. 55; Ovid. Metam. vi. 72. The
Evang. x. 19, p. 489. Larcher impression of Poseidon's trident is
(Chronologie d'Herodote, ch. ix. still shown on the rocky floor of
s. 1, p. 278) treats both the his- the Erechtheum at Athens. The
torical personality and the date of story current among the Athenians
Ogygds as perfectly well authen- represented Kekrops as the judge
ticatcd.

190 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
commanded each man to cast a single stone into a general
heap : the number of stones was counted, and it was found
that there were twenty thousand. l
Kekrops married the daughter of Aktseus, who (accord
ing to Pausanias's version) had been king of the country
before him, and had called it by the name of Aktsea. 2 By
her he had three daughters, Aglaurus, Erse and Pandrosus,
and a son, Erysichthon.
Erysichthon died without issue, andKranaus succeeded
him, — another indigenous person and another eponymus,
— for the name Kranai was an old denomination of the
Kranaus— inhabitants of Attica. 3 Kranaus was dethroned
Pandidn. 'by Amphiktyon, by some called an indigenous
man; by others, a son of Deukalion: Amphiktyon in his
turn was expelled by Erichthonius, son of Hephsestos and
the Earth, — the same person apparently as Erechtheus. but
inserted by Apollodorus at this point of the series. Erich
thonius, the pupil and favoured companion of Athene, placed
in the acropolis the original Palladium or wooden statue
of that goddess, said to have dropped from heaven: he was
moreover the first to celebrate the festival of the Pana-
thensea. He married the nymph Pasithea, and had for his
son and successor Pandion. 4 Erichthonius was the first
person who taught the art of breaking in horses to the
yoke, and who drove a chariot and four.5
In the time of Pandion, who succeeded to Erichthonius,
Daughters Dionysus and Demeter both came into Attica;
of Pandidn the latter was received by Keleos at Eleusis.6
PhUomdia. Pandion married the nymph Zeuxippe, and had
Legend of twin sons, Erechtheus and Butes, and two
rdreus. daughters, Prokne and Philomela. The two lat
ter are the subjects of a memorable and well-known legend.
Pandion having received aid in repelling the Thebans from
Tereus, king of Thrace, gave him his daughter Prokne in
of this controversy (Xenoph.Memor. * Apollod. iii. 14, 6. Pausan. i.
iii. 6, 10). 6, 27.
1 Philochor. ap. Strab. ix. p. s Virgil, Georgic. iii. 114.
S97- 6 The mythe of the visit of Dd-
1 The Parian chronological marble mdtdr to Eleusis, on which occa-
designatcsAktams as an indigenous sion she vouchsafed to teach her
person. Marmor Parium, Epoch, holy riteB to the leading Eleusi-
3. Pausan. i. 2, 6. nians, is more fully touched upon
3 Herod, viii. 44. Kpavattl 'A9^vai, in my first chapter.
Pindar.

Chap. XI. PANDION.— PROKNE.— TEREUS. 191
marriage, by whom he had a son, Itys. The beautiful
Philomela, going to visit her sister, inspired the barbarous
Thracian with an irresistible passion; he violated her per
son, confined her in a distant pastoral hut, and pretended
that she was dead, cutting out her tongue to prevent her
from revealing the truth. After a long interval, Philomela
found means to inform her sister of the cruel deed which
had been perpetrated; she wove into a garment words
describing her melancholy condition, and despatched it by
a trusty messenger. Prokne, overwhelmed with sorrow
and anger, took advantage of the free egress enjoyed by
women during the Bacchanalian festival to go and release
her sister: the two sisters then revenged themselves upon
Tereus by killing the boy Itys, and serving him up for his
father to eat; after the meal had been finished, the horrid
truth was revealed to him. Tereus snatched a hatchet to
put Prokne to death: she fled, along with Philomela, and
all the three were changed into birds — Prokne became a
swallow, Philomela a nightingale, and Tereus an hoopoe.1
This tale, so popular with the poets, and so illustrative of
the general character of Grecian legend, is not less remark
able in another point of view — that the great historian
Thucydides seems to allude to it as an historical fact, 2 not
however directly mentioning the final metamorphosis.
1 Apollod. iii. 14, 8 ; .Esch. Sup- it as a real incident : he founds
plic. 61; Soph. Elektr. 107; Ovid, upon it several moral reflections
Metamorph. vi. 425—670. Hyginus (i. 5, 4 ; x. 4, 5) : the author of the
gives the fable with some addi- Aoyoc 'EiriTdcpios, ascribed to De-
tional circumstances, fab. 45. An- mosthends, treats it in the same
tonius Liberalis (Nar. 11), or Boeus, manner, as a fact ennobling the
from whom he copies , has com- tribe Pandionis, of which Pandidn
posed a new narrative by com- was the eponymus. The same
bining together the names of Pan- author, in touching upon Kekrops,
dareos and Aeddn, as given in the the eponymus of the Kekropis
Odyssey, xix. 523, and the adven- tribe, cannot believe literally the
tures of the old Attic fable. The story of his being half man and
hoopoe Btill continued the habit half serpent: he rationalises it, by
of chasing the nightingale: it was saying that Kekrops was so called
to the Athenians a present fact, because in wisdom he was like a
See Schol. Aristoph. Aves, 212. man, in strength like a serpent
2 Thucyd. ii. 29. He makes ex- (Demosth. p. 1397, 1398, Reiske).
press mention of the nightingale Hesiod glances at the fable (Opp.
in connexion with the story, though Di. 536), bpQpofo-r) IlavSiovU u>pTO
not of the metamorphosis. See be- ye).i8u>v; see also JElian, V. H. xii.
low, chap. xvi. So also does Pau- 20. The subject was handled by
sanias mention and reason upon Sophoklds in his lost Tdreus.

192 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pabt I.
After the death of Pandion, Erechtheus succeeded to
the kingdom, and his brother, Butes, became priest of
Poseidon Erichthonius; a function which his descendants
ever afterwards exercised, the Butadse or Eteobutadse.
Erechtheus seems to appear in three characters in the
fabulous history of Athens— as a god, Poseidon Erech
theus1 — as a hero, Erechtheus, son of the Earth — and now,
as a king, son of Pandi6n: so much did the ideas of divine
and human rule become confounded and blended together in
the imagination of the Greeks in reviewing their early times.
The daughters of Erechtheus were not less celebrated
in Athenian legend than those of Pandion.
ofaifr"6rs Prokris, one of them, is among the heroines
chtheus— Seen by Odysseus in Hades: she became the wife
Prokris. of Kgphaiu^ son 0f Deiones, and lived in the
Attic deme of Thorikus.
Kreiisa, another daughter of Erechtheus, seduced by
Apollo, becomes the mother of Ion, whom she
Oreithyia, exposes immediately after his birth, in the cave
the wife of north of the acropolis, concealing the fact from
'' every one. Apollo prevails upon Hermes to
convey the new-born child to Delphi, where he is brought
up as a servant of the temple, without knowing his parents.
Kreiisa marries Xuthus, son of JEolus, but continuing
childless, she goes with Xuthus to the Delphian oracle to
inquire for a remedy. The god presents to them Ion, and
desires them to adopt him as their son: their son Achaeus is
afterwards born to them, and Ion and Achseus become the
eponyms of the Ionians and Achseans.2
Oreithyia, the third daughter of Erechtheus, was stolen
away by the god Boreas while amusing herself on the banks
of the Ilissus, and carried to his residence in Thrace. The
two sons of this marriage, Zetes and Kalais, were born with
wings: they took part in the Argonautic expedition, and
engaged in the pursuit of the harpies : they were slain at
1 Poseiddn is sometimes spoken himself; but to represent Idn as
of under the name of Erechtheus son of Apollo , not of Xuthus,
simply (Lycophrdn, 168). See He- seems a genuine Attic legend.
sychius, v. 'Eps/Bsd;. Respecting this drama, see 0.
2 Upon this story of Idn is found- Miiller, Hist, of Dorians, ii, 2,
ed the tragedy of Euripidds which 13—15. I doubt however the dis-
bears that name. I conceive many tinction which he draws between
of the points of that tragedy to the Ionians and the other popula
te of the invention of Euripidds tion of Attica.

CnAP. XI. ATTIC LEGENDS AND GENEALOGIES,

193

Tenos by Herakles. Kleopatra, the daughter of Boreas
and Oreithyia, was married to Phineus, and had two sons,
Plexippus and Pandion; but Phineus afterwards espoused
a second wife, Idsea, the daughter of Dardanus, who, detest
ing the two sons of the former bed, accused them falsely of
attempting her chastity, and persuadedPhineus in his wrath
to put out the eyes of both. Por this cruel proceeding
¦he was punished by the Argonauts in the course of their
.voyage. *
On more than one occasion the Athenians derived, or
at least believed themselves to have derived, Prayers of
important benefits from this marriage of Boreas t]}e Athe-
with the daughter of their primaeval hero: one Boreas— his
inestimable service, rendered at a juncture highly gracious
critical for Grecian independence, deserves to be their in
specified. 2 At the time of the invasion of Greece danger.
by Xerxes, the Grecian fleet was assembled at Chalkis and
Artemision in Euboea, awaiting the approach of the Persian
force, so overwhelming in its numbers as well by sea as on
land. The Persian fleet had reached the coast of Magnesia
and the south-eastern corner of Thessaly without any mate
rial damage, when the Athenians were instructed by an
oracle "to invoke the aid of their son-in-law." .Understanding
the advice to point to Boreas, they supplicated his aid and
that of Oreithyia most earnestly, as well by prayer as by
sacrifice,3 and the event corresponded to their wishes.

1 Apolloddr. iii. 15, 2; Plato,
Phsedr. c. 3; Sophok. Arrtig. 984;
also the copious Scholion on Apol-
l&n. Ehod. i. 212.
The tale of Phiaeus is told very
differently in the Argonautic ex
pedition as given by Apoll&nius
Rhodius, ii. 180. From Sophokles
we learn that this was the Attic
version. The two winged sons of Boreas
and their chase" of the Harpies
were noticed in the Hesiodic Cata
logue (see Schol. Apolldn. Rhod.
ii. 296). But whether the Attic
legend of Oreithyia was recognised
in the Hesiodic poems seems not
certain. Both JKschylus and Sophokles
VOL. I.

composed dramas on the subject
of Oreithyia (Longin. de Sublimit.
c. 3). "Orithyia Atheniensis, filia
Terrigenae, et aBorea in Tbi-aciam
rapta" (Servius ad Virg. iEneid.
xii. 83). Terrigena is the yt)Y£"
V7)<; 'Ep=y_9i'j^. Philochorus (Fragm.
30) rationalised the story , and
said that it alluded to the effects
of a violent wind.
- Herodot. vii. 189. Oi 8= u>v
' A9'/]vaT&i tjoi li'(o'Jii Po7j9rjcravT7. tov
Bop/jv TtpoTspov, y.at tots exiiva
v.HTip'faaaaGcu* xal ipov a7t=X06vT£q
Bopsio top'isavTO 7C«pO ¦KO~Cf.[XO-i
"iXiaaov. 3 Herodot. 1. c. 'AQ^vaTot tov
Bopyjv ex OsoTCporciou eTcsxaXsciavTO,
eXGovxo; dtp1 «^ou XP7)(rr7JP'0u> T°v
O

l'J4 HISTOEY OE GEEECE. Part I.
A furious north-easterly wind immediately arose, and con
tinued for three days to afflict the Persian fleet as it lay
on an unprotected coast: the number of ships driven ashore,
hoth vessels of war and of provision, was immense, and the
injury done to the armament was never thoroughly re
paired. Such was the powerful succour which the Atheni
ans derived, at a time of their utmost need, from their
son-in-law Boreas ; and their gratitude was shown by con
secrating to him a new temple on the hanks of the JQissus.
The three remaining daughters of Erechtheus — he had
Erechtheus six *n ^ — were iQ Athenian legend yet more
and Eumoi- venerated than their sisters, on account of having
pus- voluntarily devoted themselves to death for the
safety of their country. Eumolpus of Eleusis was the son
of Poseidon and the eponymous hero of the sacred gens
called the Eumolpids, in whom the principal functions,
appertaining to the mysterious rites of Demeter at Eleusis,
were vested by hereditary privilege. He made war upon
Erechtheus and the Athenians, with the aid of a body of
Thracian allies; indeed it appears that the legends of
Athens, originally foreign and unfriendly to those of
Eleusis, represented him as having been himself a Thracian
born and an immigrant into Attica. 2 Respecting Eumolpus
however and his parentage, the discrepancies much exceed
even the measure of license usual in the legendary genealo-
yau-Ppov sitixoupov xaXeaaaQoti. BopTJi; ad Soph. 03d. Col. 10t8, gives
8s, xara tov 'EXX^vwv Xiyov iyzi valuable citations from Ister,
yuvaixa 'Attixtjv, 'Q.pstflul7]v tt]-j Akestod6rus and Androtidn: we
'Epey^os. Kara 87] to x7jBo<; touto, see that the inquirers of antiquity
01 'A97)vaioL, auu.paXXe6p.svoi ocpi tov found it difficult to explain how
Bopijv Yaf*Ppov etvai, &c. the Eumolpids could have acquired
1 Suidas and Photius, v. ITip- their ascendant privileges in the
Bsvoi: Protogcneia and Panddra management of the Eleusinia,
are given as the names of two of seeing that Eumolpus himself was
them. The sacrifice of Pand6ra, a foreigner, — ZyjTeiTsu, ti 8^tcot£ ot
in the Iambi of HippOnax (Hip_ EunoXjiiSai tujv teXetu>v E^apyoucn,
pOnact. Fragm. xxi. Welck. ap. $ivoi ovte?. Thucydides does not
Athen. ix. p. 370), seems to allude call Eumolpus a Thracian: Straho's
to this daughter of Erechtheus. language is very large and vague
1 Apollod6r. iii. 15, 3 ; Thucyd. (vii. p. 321) : Isokrates Bays that
ii. 15 ; Isokrates (Panegyr. t. i. p. he assailed Athens in order to
206; Panathenaic. t. ii. p. 560, vindicate the rights of his father
Auger), Lykurgus, cont. Leocrat. Poseid6n to the sovereign patro-
p. 201, Eeiske; Pausan. i. 38, 3; nage of the city. Hyginus copies
Euripid. Erechth. I"r. The Schol- this (fab. 46).

Chap. XI. LEGENDS AND GENEALOGIES OE ELEUSIS. 195
gies, and some critics, both ancient and modern, have sought
to reconcile these contradictions, by the usual stratagem
of supposing two or three different persons of the same
name. Even Pausanias, so familiar with this class of un
sworn witnesses, complains of the want of native Eleusinian
genealogists,1 and of the extreme license of fiction in which
other authors had indulged.
In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the most ancient
testimony before us, — composed, to all appearance, earlier
than the complete incorporation of Eleusis with Athens,
— Eumolpus appears (to repeat briefly what has been stated
in a previous chapter) as one of the native chiefs or princes
of Eleusis, along with Triptolemus, Diokles, Polyxeinus
and Dolichus; Keleos is the king, or principal among these
chiefs, the son or lineal descendant of the eponymous Eleusis
himself. To these chiefs, and to the three daughters of
Keleos, the goddess Demeter comes in her sorrow for the
loss of her daughter Persephone : being hospitably enter
tained by Keleos she reveals her true character, commands
that a temple shall be built to her at Eleusis, and prescribes
to them the rites according to which they are to worship
her.2 Such seems to have been the ancient story of the
Eleusinians respecting their own religious antiquities:
Keleos, with Metaneira his wife, and the other chiefs here
1 Pausan. i. 38, 3. 'EXsuoi'uoi re busque poetarum et mythographo-
dpx«ioi, 5te ou rcpoaovTcov ' acpio-i rum narratiunculis, antiques fames
ysveaXoyuiv, aXXa te TuXdaae&ai 6e8u>- formam et quasi lineamenta re-
xaai xai u-aXiara ei; -a yevr] Tthv cognosci posse sperant."
7jpu>u>v. See Heyne ad Apolloddr. 2 Homer, Hymn, ad Cerer. 473 —
iii. 15, 4. "Eumolpi nomen modo 475. —
communicatum plnrihus, modo . . . 'H 8s xiouaa SeukjtotcoXois
plurium hominum res et facta cu- PacjiXEuai
mulata in unum. Is ad quem Her- Asl£sv TpiitToXEu-tu te, AioxXei te
cules venisse dicitur, serior aetate ^Xr)^i7i7t(p,
fuit: antiquior est is de quo hoc Euu-oXttou te ptrj, KeXe({> 8' 7)YrjT0pi
loco agitur .... antecessisse tamen Xatuv,
hunc debet alius, qui cum Tripto- Ap7]au.o<iuvT]v tEpu>v.
lemo vixit," Ac. See the learned Also v. 105. —
and valuable comments of Lobeck Ttjv 8s ioov KeXeoio 'EXEuatvi8o:o
in his Aglaophamus, torn. i. p. 206 Qbyarpzt;.
— 213: in regard to the discrepan- The hero Eleusis is mentioned in
cies of this narrative he observes, Pausanias, i. 38, 7 ; some said that
I think, with great justice (p. 211), he was the son of Hermes, others
"quo uno exemplo ex innumera- that he was the son of Ogyges.
bilibus delecto, arguitur eorum Compare Hygin. f. 147.
temeritas, qui ex variis discordi-
02

196

HISTOEY OE GEEECE.

Paet I.

mentioned, were worshipped at Eleusis, and from thence
transferred, to Athens as local gods or heroes.1 Eleusis
became incorporated with Athens, apparently not very long
before the time of Solon; and the Eleusinian worship of
Demeter was then received into .the great religious solem
nities of the Athenian state, to which it owes its remarkable
subsequent extension and commanding influence. In the
Atticised worship of the Eleusinian Demeter, theEumolpids
and the Kerykes were the principal hereditary function
aries: Eumolpus, the eponym of this great family, came
thus to play the principal part in the Athenian legendary
version of the war between Athens and Eleusis. An oracle
had pronounced that Athens could only he rescued from
his attack by the death of the three daughters of
Erechtheus; their generous patriotism consented
to the sacrifice, and their father put them to
death. He then went forth confidently to the
battle, totally vanquished the enemy, and killed
Eumolpus with his own hand.2 Erechtheus was
worshipped as a god, and his daughters as goddesses, at
Athens.3 Their names and their exalted devotion were

Voluntary self-sacri
fice of the
three d aughters
of Erech
theus.

1 Keleos and Metaneira were
worshipped by the Athenians with
divine honours (Athenagoras, Le-
gat. p. 53, ed. Oxon.) : perhaps
he confounds divine and heroic
honours, as the Christian contro
versialists against Paganismwere
disposed to do. Triptolemvts had
a temple at Eleusis (Paus. i. 38, 6).
2 Apolloddr. iii. 15,4. Some said
that Immaradus, son of Eumolpus,
had been killed by Erechtheus
(Pausan. i. 5, 2); others, that both
Eumolpus and his son had ex
perienced this fate (Schol. ad
Eurip. Phceniss. 854). But we learn
from Pausanias himself what the
story in the interior of the Erech
theion was, — that Erechtheus killed
Eumolpus (i. 27, 3).
3 Cicero, Nat. Deor. iii. 19 ; Philo-
chor. ap. Schol. (Edip. Col. 100.
Three daughters of Erechtheus
perished, and three daughters were
worshipped (Apollodor. iii. 15, 4 ;

Hesychius, ZsuYos TpntapQsvov
Eurip. Erechtheus, Eragm. 3, Din-
dorf) ; but both Euripides and
Apolloddrus said that Erechtheus
was only required to sacrifice, and
only did sacrifice, one, — the other
two slew themselves voluntarily,
from affection for their sister.
I cannot but think (in spite of the
opinion of "Welcker to the con
trary, Griechisch. Tragod. ii. p.
722) that the genuine legend re
presented Erechtheus as having
sacrificed all three, as appears in
the I6n of Euripides (276) :—
I6u. Uar-qp 'Eoe;(8eu<; aae £8uoe
OUYYOVOU5 ;
Cbeusa. "EtXvj icpo Y"«? c<paYia
7uapf)Evou<;. xTavEiv.
I6n. 2o 8' E^EucbQrjt; TtujcxaCTiYvy)-
tu>v uovrj ;
Cbeusa. Bpimoi vioyvov urjTpo?
TJv sv (ZYXaXat^.
Compare with this passage, De-'
mosthen. Aoyo? 'Enrico, p. 1397

Chap. XI. EEECHTHEUS.-KEETJsA AND ION. 197
cited along with those of the warriors of Marathon, in the
public assembly of Athens, by orators who sought to arouse
the languid patriot, or to denounce the cowardly deserter ;
and the people listened both to one and the other with
analogous feelings of grateful veneration, as well as with
equally unsuspecting faith in the matter of fact. 1
Though Erechtheus gained the victory over Eumolpus,
yet the story represents Poseidon as having put an end to
the life and reign of Erechtheus, who was (it seems) slain
in the battle. He was succeeded by his son Kekrops II.,
and the latter again by his son Pandion IL, 2 — two names
unmarked by any incidents, and which appear to be mere
duplication of the former Kekrops and Pandion, placed
there by the genealogisers for the purpose of filling up what
seemed to them a chronological chasm.
Apollodorus passes at once from Erechtheus to his son
Kekrops H., then to Pandion II., next to the four sons of
the latter, .ZEgeus, Pallas, Nisus and Lykus. But the tra
gedians here insert the story of Xuthus, Kreiisa, and Ion;
the latter being the son of Kreiisa by Apollo, Kreiisa and
but given by the god to Xuthus, and adopted by Ifln-
the latter as his own. Ion becomes the successor of Erech
theus, and his sons (Teleon, Hoples, Argades, andAigikores)
become the eponyms of the four ancient tribes of Athens,
which subsisted until the revolution of Kleisthenes. Ion
himself is the eponym of the Ionic race both in Asia, in
Eeisk. Just before, the death of to soften, dilute, and to compli-
the three daughters of Kekrops, cate, in proportion as the feelings
for infringing the commands of of the public become milder and
Athene, had been mentioned. Euri- more humane; sometimes however
pides modified this in his Erech- the later poets add new horrors.
theus, for he there introduced the l See the striking evidence con-
mother Praxithea consenting to tained in the oration of Lykurgus
the immolation of one dangther, against Leocrates (p. 201 — 204
for the rescue of the country from Eeiske ; Demosthen. Aoy- 'EjiiTacp.
a foreign invader: to propose to a, 1. c. ; and Xenoph&n. Memor. iii.
mother the immolation of three 5, 9) : from the two latter passages
daughters at once, would have we see that the Athenian story
been too revolting. In most in- represented the invasion under
stances we find the strongly mark- Eumolpus as a combined assault
ed features, the distinct and * from the western continent.
glaring incidents as well as the 2 Apollod6r. iii. 15, 5 ; Eurip.
dark contrasts, belong to the He- I6n, 282; Erechth. Fragm.. 20, Din-
Biodic or old post-Homeric legend ; dorf.
the changes made afterwards go

198 HISTOEY OE GEEECE. Paet I.
Europe, and in the Mgean islands: Dorus and Achaeus are
the sons of Kreusa by Xuthus, so that Ion is distinguished
from both of them by being of divine parentage. * Accord
ing to the story given by Philochorus, Ion rendered such
essential service in rescuing the Athenians from the attack
of the Thracians under Eumolpus, that he was afterwards
made king of the country, and distributed all the inhabitants
into four tribes or castes, corresponding to different modes
of life, — soldiers, husbandmen, goatherds, and artisans.2
And it seems that the legend explanatory of the origin of
the festival Boedromia, originally important enough to
furnish a name to one of the Athenian months, was attached
to the aid thus rendered by Ion. 3
¥e pass from Ion to persons of far greater mythical
dignity and interest, — ^Egeus and his son Theseus.
Pandion had four sons, ^Egeus, Nisus, Lykus, and
Sons of Pallas, between whom he divided his dominions.
Pandion— Nisus received the territory of Megaris, which
aigeus, &c. ^ keen un(jer ^he sway of Pandion, and there
founded the seaport of Nissea. Lykus was made king of
the eastern coast, but a dispute afterwards ensued, and he
quitted the country altogether, to establish himself on the
southern coast of Asia Minor, among the Termilas, to whom
he gave the name of Lykians.4 .ZEgeus, as the eldest of
the four, became king of Athens; but Pallas received a
portion both of the south-western coast and the interior,
and he as well as his children appear as frequent enemies
both to .5Ugeus and to Theseus. Pallas is the eponym of
the deme Pallene, and the stories respecting him and his
sons seem to be connected with old and standing feuds
among the different demes of Attica, originally independent
communities. These feuds penetrated into the legend.
They explain the story which we find that .Jjlgeus and
Theseus were not genuine Erechtheids, the former being
denominated a supposititious child to Pandion.5
'Eurip. I6n, 1570—1695. The rToY]Bpd>ia; Strabo, viii. p. 383.
Kreusa of Sophokles, a lost tra- 3 Philoohor. ap. Harpocrat. v.
gedy, seems to have related to Bo7]8popiia.
the same subject. « Sophokl. ap. Strab. ix. p. 392;
Pausanias (vii. 1, 2) tells us that Herodot. i. 173 ; Strabo, xii. p. 673.
Xuthus was chosen to arbitrate 5 Plutarch, Theseus, c. 13. Alyzbs
between the contending claims of 8et6c yev6ulevo« IlavSLovi, xai u.7j8ev
•the sons of Erechtheus. toT? 'EpE/8Et8ais rcpoovjxiov. Apol-
•» Philochor. ap. Harpocrat. v. lod&r. iii. 16, 6.

Chap. XI. THESEUS AND HIS ADVENTURES. 199
JEgeus i has little importance in the mythical history
except as the father of Theseus: it may even be doubted
whether his name is anything more than a mere cognomen
of the god Poseidon, who was (as we are told)
the real father of this great Attic Herakles.
As I pretend only to give a very brief outline of the general
territory of Grecian legend, I cannot permit myself to
recount in detail the chivalrous career of Theseus, who is
found both in the Kalydonian boar-hunt and in the Argo
nautic expedition — his personal and victorious encounters
with the robbers Sinnis, Prokrustes, Periphetes, Skiron,
and others — his valuable service in ridding his country of
the Krommyonian sow and the Marathonian bull — his con
quest of the Minotaur in Krete, and his escape, from the
dangers of the labyrinth by the aid of Ariadne, whom he
subsequently carries off and abandons — his many amorous
adventures, and his expeditions both against the Amazons
and into the under-world along with Peirithous.2
Thucydides delineates the character of Theseus as a
man who combined sagacity with political power, and who
conferred upon his country the inestimable benefit of
uniting all the separate and selfgoverning demes of Attica
into one common political society.3 From the well-earned
¦ Mge-as had by MSdea (who took Munus opusque tuum est. Tellus
refuge at Athens after her flight Epidauria per te
from Cbrinth) a son named Medus, Clavigeram viditVulcani occum-
who passed into Asia, and was here prolem:
considered as the eponymus and Vidit et immanem Cephisias ora
progenitor of the Median people. Procrustem.
Datis, the general, who command- Cercyonis letum vidit Cerealis
ed the invading Persian army at Eleusin.
the battle of Marathdn, sent a Occidit ille Sinis," &c.
formal communication to the Athe- Eespecting the amours of The-
nians announcing himself as the sens, Ister especially seems to
descendant of Medus, and requiring have entered into great details ;
to be admitted as king of Attica: but some of them were noticed
such is the statement of DiodOrus hoth in the HeBiodic poems and
(Exc. Vatic, vii.-x. 48: see also by Kekrops, not to mention Phe-
Schol. Aristophan. Pac. 289). rekydes (Athen. xiii. p. 557). Pei-
2 Ovid. Metamorph. vii. 433. — rithous , the intimate friend and
 "Te, maxime Theseu, companion of Theseus, is the epo-
Mirata est Marathon Cretan san- nymous hero of the Attic deme
guine Tauri: or gens Perithoidaj (Ephorus ap.
Quodque Suis securus arat Cro- Photium v. IiEpi8oi6c<0.
myona colonus, ' Thucyd. ii. 15. 'Emv87) Si Bt)-

200 HISTORY OE GEEECE. Part I,
reverence attached to the assertion of "Thucydides, it has
been customary to reason upon this assertion as historically
authentic, and to treat the romantic attributes which we
find in Plutarch and Diodorus as if they were fiction super
induced upon this basis of fact. Such a view of the case
is in my judgement erroneous. The athletic and amorous
knight-errant is the old version of the character — the
profound and long-sighted politician is a subsequent cor
rection, introduced indeed by men of superior mind, but
destitute of historical warranty, and arising out of their
desire to find reasons of their own for concurring in the
His legend- veneration which the general public paid more
ary charac- easily and heartily to their national hero. The-
ter refined. geug> jn ^jje Iliad and Odyssey, fights with the
Lapithse against the Centaurs: Theseus, in the Hesiodic
poems, is misguided by his passion for the beautiful JEgle,
daughter of Panopeus:1 and the Theseus described in
Plutarch's biography is in great part a continuation and
expansion of these same or similar attributes, mingled with
many local legends, explaining, like the Fasti of Ovid, or
the lost Aitia of Kallimachus, the original genesis of pre
valent religious and social customs. 2 Plutarch has doubtless
greatly softened down and modified the adventures which
he found in the Attic logographers, as well as in the
poetical epics called Theseis. For in his preface to the
life of Theseus, after having emphatically declared that he
is about to transcend the boundary both of the known and
the knowable, but that the temptation of comparing the
founder of Athens with the founder of Rome is irresistible,
he concludes with the following remarkable words: "I pray
that this fabulous matter may be so far obedient to my
endeavours as to receive, when purified by reason, the
aspect of history: in those cases where it haughtily scorns
plausibility and will admit no alliance with what is prob
able, I shall beg for indulgent hearers, willing to receive
osus EPaotXsuaE, y£vou-svo<: u=toc tou I do not notice the suspected line,
£uvstou xal 8uvaTO<;, Ta te aXXa 5is- Odyss. xi. 630.
x6ffjj.T]ffE tyjv ywpav, xal xaraXusas 2 Diod&rus also, from his dispo-
Ttbv aXXcov 7t6Xeu)v tA te PouXsuT^pia sition to assimilate Theseus to
xal rat; apy&s, Et; ttjv vuv tcoXiv . . . . Herakles, has given us his chival-
{juvipxio-s rcavras. rous as well as his political attri-
' Iliad, i. 2C5; Odyss. xi. 321. butes (iv. 61).

CnAr. XT. THESEUS AND HIS ADVENTURES. 201
antique narrative in a mild spirit."1 "We here see that
Plutarch sat down, not to recount the old fables piutarch—
as he found them, but to purify them by reason J118 way of
and to impart to them the aspect of history. "We the1 matter
have to thank him for having retained, after °f legend.
this purification, so much of what is romantic and marvel
lous; but we may be sure that the sources from which he
borrowed were more romantic and marvellous still. It was
the tendency of the enlightened men of Athens, from the
days of Solon downwards, to refine and politicise the
character ofTheseus:2 even Peisistratus expunged from one
of the Hesiodic poems the line which described the violent
passion of the hero for the fair jEgle:3 and the tragic poets
found it more congenial to the feelings of their audience
to exhibit him as a dignified and liberal sovereign, rather
than as an adventurous single-handed fighter. But the
logographers and the Alexandrine poets remained more
faithful to the old fables. The story of Hekale, the hospit
able old woman who received and blessed Theseus when
he went against the Marathonian bull, and whom he found
dead when he came back to recount the news of his success,
was treated by Kallimachus:4 and Virgil must have had
his mind full of the unrefined legends, when he numbered this
Attic Herakles among the unhappy sufferers condemned
to endless penance in the under-world.5
Two however among the Theseian fables cannot be
1 Plutarch, Theseus, i. Eir] u.ev xv. ed. Brunck. and Kallimach.
ouv riiy.lt, exxaBaipousvov X6yo> to Erag. 40.
u.u86j8e<; 6-axoucrai xai XoPeTv igto- 'Ael8el 8 (Kallimachus) 'ExdXTjs
pias o'iiv. Stuou 8' av auQaoux; too te oiXo^eivolo xaXiTjv,
iziQavoO TTEpi'fpov^, xal utj 8s/7]Tai Kal Oyjsei Mapa9u)v ou^ etcs8t]xe
ttjv Jrpot; to slxoi; ui£iv, e-jyvio- tcovou;.
jjlovujv dxpoaTtbv 8ET]a6|j:£8a,xal -paoj? Some beautiful lines are pre-
tt-jV dp^aioXoYiav TipocrOEyouivcm. served by Suidas, v. 'ETcauXia, xspt
2 See Isokrates, Panathenaic. (t. 'ExdXY]< 8avoua7]s (probably spoken
ii. p. 510—512, Auger) ; Xenoph. by Theseus himself, see Plutarch,
Memor. iii. 5, 10. In the Helena) Theseus, u. 14).
Encomium, Isokrates enlarges 'I81, TiprjEia yutaixibt.
more upon the personal exploits Ttjv 686v, r\t dvi«i SuuccXyes^ 06
of Theseus in conjunction with his TiEpouxjiv
great political merits (t. ii. p. 342 IloXXaxi gel', u> u.ala, cpiXocjsivoio
—350, Auger). v.uXir)r
' Plutarch, Theseus, 20. Mv7)a6u.E9a- Suvov yap E7ca0).iov
4 See the epigram of Krinagoras, 'iaxzt aizoai.
Antholog. Pal. vol. ii. p. 144; ep. ' Virgil, .23neid, vi. 617. "Sedet

202 HISTORY. OP GREECE. Paet I.
dismissed without some special notice, — the w ar against
the Amazons, and the expedition against Krete. The former
strikingly illustrates the facility as well as the tenacity of
Grecian legendary faith; the latter embraces the story of
Dsedalus andMinos, two of the most eminent among Grecian
ante-historical personages.
The Amazons, daughters of Ares and Harmonia, i are
Legend of both early creations, and frequent reproductions,
the Am- of the ancient epic — which was indeed, we may
,as generally remark, largely occupied both with the
exploits and sufferings of women, or heroines, the wives
and daughters of the Grecian heroes — and which recognised
in Pallas Athene the finished type of an irresistible female
warrior. A nation of courageous, hardy and indefatigable
women, dwelling apart from men, permitting only a short
temporary intercourse for the purpose of renovating their
numbers, and burning out their right breast with a view
of enabling themselves to draw the bow freely, — this was
at once a general type stimulating to the fancy of the poets,
and a theme eminently popular with his hearers. Nor was
it at all repugnant to the faith of the latter, who had no
recorded facts to guide them, and no other standard of
credibility as to the past except such poetical narratives
themselves — to conceive communities of Amazons as having
actually existed in anterior time. Accordingly we find
these warlike females constantly reappearing in the ancient
poems, and universally accepted as past realities. In the
Iliad, when Priam wishes to illustrate emphatically the
its anti- most numerous host in which he ever found
quity and himself included, he tells us that it was assem-
p- n bled in Phrygia, on the banks of the Sangarius,
for the purpose of resisting the formidable Amazons. When
Bellerophon is to be employed on a deadly and perilous
undertaking,2 by those who indirectly wish to prp cure his
death, he is despatched against the Amazons. In the
^Ethiopis of Arktinus, describing the post-Homeric war of
Troy, Penthesileia, queen of the Amazons, appears as the
most effective ally of the besieged city, and as the most
formidable enemy of the Greeks, succumbing only to the
invincible might of Achilles.3 The Argonautic heroes find
teternumque sedebit Infelix TM- = Iliad, iii. 186 ; vi. 152.
seus." » See Proclus's Argument of the
> Pherekyd. Eragm. 25, Didot. lost .ffithiopis (Eragm. Epicor.

Chap. XI,

LEGEND OF THE AMAZONS.

203

the Amazons on the river Thermodon, in their expedition
along the southern coast of the Euxine. To the same spot
Herakles goes to attack them, in the performance of the
ninth labour imposed upon him by Eurystheus, for the
purpose of precuring the girdle of the Amazonian queen
Hippolyte;1 and we are told that they had not Glorious
yet recovered from the losses sustained in this achieye-
severe aggression when Theseus also assaulted the Ama-
and defeated them, carrying off their queen An- zona-
tiope.2 This injury they avenged by invading Attica, — an
undertaking (as Plutarch justly observes) "neither trifling
nor feminine," especially if, according to the statement of
Hellanikus, they crossed the Cimmerian Bosphorus on the
winter ice, beginning their march from the Asiatic side of
taires sur Ovide, t, i. p. 317.)
Welcker (Der Epische Cyclus,
p. 313) supposes that the ancient
epic poem, called by Suidas 'AfL«-
£6vlqc, related to the invasion of
Attica by the Amazons, and that
this poem is the same, under
another title, as the 'At0U of
Hegesinous cited by Pausanias: I
cannot say that he establishes this
conjecture satisfactorily, but the
chapter is well worth consulting.
The epic Theseis seems to have
given a version of the Amazonian
contest in many respects different
from that which Plutarch has put
together out of the logographers
(see Plut. Thes. 28): it contained
a narrative of many unconnected
exploits belonging to Theseus, and
Aristotle censures it on that ac
count as ill-constructed (Poetic.
c. 17),
The 'Au-a^ovU °r 'AfiaCovixa of
Onasus can hardly have been (as
Heyne supposes, ad Apollod, ii.
6, 9) an epic poem: we may infer
from the rationalising tendency of
the citation from it (Schol. ad
Theocrit. xiii. 46, and Schol. Apol-
ldn. Ehod. i. 1207) that it was a
work in prose. There was an
'Ap-aCovli; by Possis of Magn&sia
(AtheriBeus, vii. p. 296).

Grsecor. ed. Diintzer, p. 16). "We
are reduced to the first book of
Quintus Smyrnxus for some idea
of the valour of Penthesileia: it
is supposed to be copied more or
less closely from the .ZEthiopis.
See Tychsen's Dissertation pre
fixed to his edition of .Quintus,
sections 5 and 12. Compare Dio
Chrysostom. Or. xi. p. 350, Keisk.
Philostratus (Heroica, c. 19, p. 751)
gives a strange transformation of
this old epical narrative into a
descent of Amazons upon the
island sacred to Achilles.
1 Apoll6n. Rhod. ii. 966, 1004;
Apollod. ii. 5 — 9; Dioddr. ii. 46;
iv. 16. The Amazons were supposed
to speak the Thracian language
<Schol. Apoll. ilhod. ii. 953), though
some authors asserted them to be
natives of Libya, others of -Ethio
pia (ib. 965).
Hellanikus (Fragm. 33, ap. Schol.
Pindar. Nem. iii. G5) said that all
the Argonauts had assisted Hfi-
rakles in this expedition : the
fragment of the old epic poem (per
haps the 'Au.aC<Jvia) there quoted
mentions Telamdn specially.
2 The many diversities in the
story .respecting ThSseus and the
Amazon Antiope are well set forth
in Bachet de Meziriac (Commeii-

204 HISTOEY OE GEEEC3. Paet J.
the Palus Meeotis.1 They overcame all the resistances
and difficulties of this prodigious march, and penetrated
even into Athens itself: where the final battle, hard-fought
and at one time doubtful, by which Theseus crushed them,
was fought — in the very heart of the city. Attic antiqua
ries confidently pointed out the exact position of the two
contending armies : the left wing of the Amazons rested
upon the spot occupied by the commemorative monument
called the Amazoneion; the right wing touched the Pnyx,
the place in which the public assemblies of the Athenian
democracy were afterwards held. The details and fluc
tuations of the combat, as well as the final triumph and
consequent truce^ were recounted by these authors with as
complete faith and as much circumstantiality as those of
the feattle of Platasa by Herodotus. The sepulchral edifice
called the Amazoneion, the tomb or pillar of Antiope near
the western gate of the city — the spot called the Horko-
mosion near the temple of Theseus — even the hill of
Areiopagus itself, and the sacrifices which it was customary
to offer to the Amazons at the periodical festival of the
Theseia — were all so many religious mementos of this
victory;2 which was moreover a favourite subject of art
both with the sculptor and the painter, at Athens as well
as in other parts of Greece.
No portion of the ante-historical epic appears to have
been more deeply worked into the national mind of Greece
than this invasion and defeat of the Amazons. It was not
only a constant theme of the logographers, but was also
familiarly appealed to by the popular orators along with
Marathon and Salamis, among those antique exploits of
which their fellow-citizens might justly he proud. It formed
a part of the retrospective faith of Herodotus, Lysias, Plato
and Isokrates,3 and the exact date of the event was settled
•Plutarch, Theseus, 27. Pindar the citadel from the Areiopagus:—
(Olymp. xiii. 84) represents the Uiyat r "Apsiov tovo' , 'Au-aOSviov
Amazons as having come from the gopav
extreme north, when Bellerophon 2x7)vet<; t', St ^X9om Svjosu); xa-coc
conquers them. coBovov
2 Plutarch, Theseus, 27-28; 2Tp<iiTT,X<xTou<n[i,xal7ioXivvs6itToXw
Pausan. i. 2, 4; Plato, Axiochus, Tr,v6' u^Uupyov AvTSTtupYuisivitorE.
c. 2; Harpocratifln, v. ' A|iat;ovEiov ; ' Herodot. ix. 27. Lysias (Epi-
Aristophan. Lysistrat. 078, with taph. u. 3) represents the Amazons
the Scholia, .ffischyl. (Eumenid. 685) as SpXouci<H ctXXum iSvdiv: the
says that the Amazons assaulted whole "race, according to him, was

Cuap. XI,

AMAZONS IN ASIA.

205

by the chronologists. i Nor did the Athenians stand alone
in such a belief. Throughout many other regions of Greece,
both European and Asiatic, traditions and memorials of the
Amazons were found. At Megara, at Troezen, in La'conia
near Cape Tsenarus, at Chseroneia in Boeotia, and in more
than one part of Thessaly, sepulchres or monuments of the
Amazons were preserved. The warlike women (it was
said), on their way to Attica, had not traversed those coun
tries without leaving some evidences of their passage.2
Amongst the Asiatic Greeks the supposed traces of
the Amazons were yet more numerous. Their Their
proper territory was asserted to be the town and ubiquity.
plain of Themiskyra, near the Grecian colony of Amisus,
on the river Thermodon, a region called after their name
by Roman historians and geographers.3 But they were
believed to have conquered and occupied in earlier times
a much wider range of territory, extending even to the
coast of Ionia and &61is. Ephesus, Smyrna, Kynie, Myrina,

nearly extinguished in their un
successful and calamitous invasion
of Attica. Isokrates (Panegyric.
t. i. p. 206, Auger) says the same:
also PanathSnaic. t. iii. p. 560,
Auger; Demosth. Epitaph, p. 1391,
Reisk. Pausanias quotes Pindar's
notice of the invasion, and with
the fullest belief of its historical
reality (vii. 2, 4). Plato mentions
the invasion of Attica by th.9
Amazons in the Menexenus (c. 9),
but the passage in the treatise De
Legg. c. ii. p. 804,— axoutov y«P 8rj
u,u0ou<; TtczXat'j'lx; 7t£-=i.(tu.cu, &c. — is
even a stronger evidence of his
own belief. AndXenoph6n, in the
Anabasis, when he compares the
quiver and the hatchet of his
barbarous enemies to "those which
the Amazons carry," evidently
nelieved himself to be speaking of
real persons, though he could have
seen only the costumes and arma
ture of thoBe painted by Mik&n
and others (Anabas. iv. 4, 10 ;
compare .aSschyl. Supplic. 293, and
Aristophan. Lysistr. 678 5 Lucian,
knachars. u. 34, v. iii. p. 318),

How copiously the tale was en
larged upon by the authors of the
Atthides, we see in Plutarch,
Theseus, 27—28.
Hekatseus (ap. Steph. Byz. 'AjxaXo-
vsiov; also Fragm. 350, 351, 352,
Didot) and Xanthus (ap. Hesy-
chium, v. Boul&'juT)) both treated
of the Amazons : the latter passage
ought to be added to the collection
of the -Fragments of Xanthus by
Didot. 1 Clemens Alexandr. Stromat. i.
p. 336 ; Marmor Parium, Epoch. 21.
a Plutarch, Thes. 27—28. Steph.
Byz. v. ' A(iaC,ovsiov. Pausan. ii. 32,
8 ; iii. 25, 2.
3 Pherekyd6s_ap. Schol. Apollon.
Eh. ii. 373—992; Justin, ii. 4;
Strabo, xii. p. 547. 0£fjii.a-/'Jpav, to
tujv ' A^aCovcov olxv-jT'/jpiov : Diodfir.
ii. 45—46; Sallust ap. Serv. ad
Virgil. .ZEneid. xi. 659; Pompon.
Mela, i. 19; Plin. H. N. vi. 4. The
geography of Quintus Curtius (vi,
4) and of Philostratu3 (Heroic, c.
19) is on this point indefinite, and
even inconsistent.

206

HISTORY OE GREECE.

Paet I

Paphos and Sinope were affirmed to have been founded and
denominated by them. ' Some authors placed them inLibya
or Ethiopia; and when the Pontic Greeks on the north
western shore of the Euxine had become acquainted with
the hardy and daring character of the Sarmatian maidens,
— who were obliged to have slain each an enemy in* battle
as the condition of obtaining a husband, and who artificially
prevented the growth of the right breast during childhood,
— they could imagine no more satisfactory mode of account
ing for such attributes than by deducing the Sarmatians
from a colony of vagrant Amazons, expelled by the Grecian
heroes from their territory on the Thermodon. 2 Pindar
ascribed the first establishment of the memorable temple
of Artemis at Ephesus to the Amazons. And Pausanias
explains in part the pre-eminence which this temple enjoyed
over every other in Greece by the widely diffused renown
of its female founders,3 respecting whom he observes (with
perfect truth, if we admit the historical character of the
old epic), that women possess an unparalleled force of
resolution in resisting adverse events, since the Amazons,

1 Ephor. .Fragm. 87, Didot. Strabo,
xi. p. 605 ; xii. p. 573 ; xiii. p. 622.
Pausan. iv. 31, 6 ; vii. 2, 4. Tacit.
Ann. iii. 61. Schol. Apollon. Rhod,
ii. 965.
The derivation of the name
Sinope from an Amazon was given
by Hekatasus (Eragm. 352). Themis-
kyra also had one of the Amazons
for its eponymus (Appian, Bell.
Mithridat. 78).
Some of the most venerated re
ligious legends at Sinope were at
tached to the expedition of He
rakles against the Amazons : Auto
lykus, the oracle-giving hero, -wor
shipped with great solemnity even
at the time when the town was
besieged by Lucullus, was the
companion of Herakles (Appian,
ib. c. 83). Even a small mountain
village in the territory of Ephesus,
called Latoreia, derived its name
from one of the Amazons (Athense.
i. p. 31).
a Herodot. iv. 108—117, where he

gives the long tale imagined by
the Pontic Greeks, of the origin
of the Sarmatian nation. Compare
Hippokrates, De Aere, Locis et
Aquis, c. 17 ; Ephorus, Eragm. 103 ;
Skymn. Chius, v. 102; Plato, Legg.
vii. p. 804; DiodOr. ii. 34.
The testimony of Hippokrates
certifies the practice of the Sarma
tian women to check the growth
of the right breast : Tov 8s"\ov 8s
fJLOttlov oix iyouait. ITaiStoifft Tap
eouaiv e'ti vTjTc'oiaiv at p.7]Tsps<; xa^*
xsiov T£TEy_vrj|j.£vov en:' aursijj tout<jj
8L(X7CUp0V TCOlEOUffCU, T.pbt; TOV U.at"QV
Ti0saot tov 8e£iov" xai ETUxalsTai,
warz rrjt au^ffiv <p8EipEtr9ai, ii 8=
tov Se£iov uJ(xov xal Ppa/lova naoav
T7|v ta-jruv *¦" T0 iXJjOos sx8i86vai.
Ktesias also compares a warlike
Sakian woman to the Amazons
(Eragm. Persic, ii. pp. 221, 449,
Ba.hr). 3 Pansan. iv. 31, 6; vii. 2, 4.
Dionys. Perieget. 828.

Chap. XI. LEGEND OE THE AMAZONS. 207
after having been first roughly handled by Herakles, and
then completely defeated by Theseus, could yet find courage
to play so conspicuous a part in the defence of Troy against
the Grecian besiegers, i
It is thus that in what is called early Grecian history,
as the Greeks themselves looked back upon it, UniTer.
the Amazons were among the most prominent sally re-
and undisputed personages. Nor will the circum- p^tion"^^
stance appear wonderful if we reflect, that the the Greek
belief in them was first established at a time when past-
the Grecian mind was fed with nothing else but religious
legend and epic poetry, and that the incidents of the sup
posed past, as received from these sources, were addressed
to their faith and feelings, without being required to adapt
themselves to any canons of credibility drawn from present
experience. But the time came when the historians of
Alexander the Great audaciously abused this ancient
credence. Amongst other tales calculated to exalt the
dignity of that monarch, they affirmed thatafter his conquest
and subjugation of the Persian empire, he had been visited
inHyrcania by Thalestris, queen of the Amazons, .
, J ¦, . . J , . ti - Amazons
who, admiring nis warlike prowess, was anxious produced
to be enabled to return into her own country in ?3 present
a condition to produce offspring of a breed so hfstorians
invincible. 2 But the Greeks had now been accus- °f Aiexan-
tomed for a century and a half to historical and
philosophical criticism — and that uninquiring faith, which
was readily accorded to the wonders of the past, could no
longer be invoked for them when tendered as present reality.
For the fable of the Amazons was here reproduced in its
naked simplicity, without being rationalised or painted
over with historical colours.
Some literary men indeed, among whom were Deme
trius of Skepsis, and the Mitylenaean Theophanes, the com
panion of Pompey in his expeditions, still continued their
belief both in Amazons present and Amazons past; and
when it became notorious that at least there were none
such on the banks of the Thermodon, these authors sup
posed them to have migrated from their original locality,
1 Pausan. i. 15, 2. hemius on the above passage of
2 Arrian, Exped. Alex. vii. 13; Quintus Curti us is full of valuable
compare iv. 15 ; Quint. Curt. vi. 4 ; references on the subject of the
Justin, xiii. 4. The note of Ereins- Amazons.

208

HISTORY OF GREECE,

Paut I.

and to have settled in the unvisited regions north of Mount
Caucasus. 1 Strabo, on the contrary, feehng that the grounds
of disbelief applied with equal force to the ancient stories
and to the modern, rejected both the one and the other.
But he remarks at the same time, not without some sur
prise, that it was usual with most persons to adopt a middle
course, — to retain the Amazons as historical phgenomena
of the remote past, but to disallow them as realities of the
present, and to maintain that the breed had died out. 2 The
accomplished intellect of Julius Caesar did not scruple to
acknowledge them as having once conquered and held in
dominion a large portion of Asia.3 And the compromise

1 Straho, xi. p. 503— 50±; Appian,
Bell. Mithridat. c. 103; Plutarch,
Pompeius, c. 35. Plin. N. H. vi. 7.
Plutarch still retains the old
description of Amazons from the
mountains near the Therm6d6n :
Appian keeps clear of this geo
graphical error, prohahly copying
more exactly the language of
TheophanSs, who must have heen
¦well aware that when Lucullus
"besieged Themiskyra, he did not
find it defended hy the Amazons
(see Appian, Bell. Mithridat. c.
78). Ptolemy (v. 9) places the
Amazons in the imperfectly known
regions of Asiatic Sarmatia, north
of the Caspian and near the river
Rha (Volga). "This fahulous
community of women (observes
Eorbiger, Handbuch der alten
Geographie, ii. 77, p. 457) was a
phenomenon much too interesting
for the geographers easily to re
linquish." 2 Straho. xi. p. 505. vI3iov 8s ti
ao^i^r\v.z Tip Xoy^j Ttspi tu)v 'Afjta-
£6vU)'J. Oi [lev Y«p &XX01 to p.»j6u)6ec;
xai. to ioTopixov oitopiafjisvov £/ouof
xct yap rcaXaid xai '^eu5^ xai TEpa-
TibSrj, jjlBOoi xaXouvTar [Note. Strabo
does not always speak of the pujQoi
in this disrespectful tone; he is
sometimes much displeased with
those who dispute the existence
of an historical kernel in the inside,

especially with regard to Homer.]
7) 8' ioTopia pouXsxai TaX^se, avxs
7taXaiov, oI-jts vsov xai to T£paTcI>8ss
7\ oux e'ysij 7) oTtaviov. ¦ Ilspl 8e tiiin
'AjJia^ovojv toc aOTa Xiyz-zai xal -vu^
xal TtaXal, TspaTOjSrj t' ovTa, xai
TlitJTEUK Ttoppto. Tl<; yap KV TCltJTEU-
crsisv, u><; yuvaixtbv aTpdioq, r) 7u6Xi^j
r) e9voc, ouaTKiTj Sv 7e6ts /copi? dv-
§pu>v; xai oi p.6vov audioi?], dXXd
xai scpoSous TiotigtjaiTo s-l ttjv dX-
XoTpiav, xal xpaTTjtjsisv ot> TuV/eyyuc
jjlovov, ujots xal [AE/pi tt}(; vuv'Iuma?
TcposXfielv, dXXd xai SiaTuovTiov ctteU
XaiTO orpaxlav p-iy^pi ttj<; 'Attix^i;;
'AXXd [j.7]v TauTa ys aura xai vOv
XsyETai 7t£pi aixibv ehitsUsi 8e
ttjv ISioTTjTaxai TO jrHJT£(lES-
9 a i Td TcaXaid p. aX Xov r) t«
v u v. There are however other
passages in which he speaks of
the Amazons as realities.
Justin (ii. 4) recognises the great
power and extensive conquests of
the Amazons in very early times,
but says that they gradually de
clined down to the reign of Ale
xander, in whose time there were
just a feiv remaining ; the queen
with these few visited Alexander,
hut shortly afterwards the whole
breed became extinct. This hypo
thesis has the merit of convenience,,
perhaps of ingenuity.
3 Suetonius, Jul. Caesar, c. 22.
"In Syria quoque regnasse Semi-

Chap. XI. LEGEND AS CONCEITED BY AKKIAJT. 209
between early, traditional, and religious faith on the one
hand, and established habits of critical research conflict of
on the other, adopted by the historian Arrian, faith an.d
deserves to be transcribed in his own words, the Mstori-
as illustrating strikingly the powerful sway of the cal cities.
old legends even over the most positive-minded Greeks : —
"Neither Aristobulus nor Ptolemy (he observes), nor any
other competent witness, thas recounted this (visit of the
Amazons and their queen to Alexander): nor does it seem
to me that the race of the Amazons was preserved down
to that time, nor have they been noticed either by any one
before Alexander, or by Xenophon, though he mentions
both the Phasians and the Kolchians, and the other bar
barous nations which the Greeks saw both before and after
their arrival at Trapezus, in which marches they must have
met with the Amazons, if the latter had been still in exis
tence. Yet it is incredible to me that this race of women,
celebrated as they have been by authors so many and so
commanding, should never have existed at all. The story
tells of Herakles, that he set out from Greece and brought
back with him the girdle of their queen Hippolyte; also of
Theseus and the Athenians, that they were the first who
defeated in battle and repelled these women in their inva
sion of Europe; and the combat of the Athenians with the
Amazons has been painted by Mikon, not less than that
between the Athenians and the Persians. Moreover Hero
dotus has spoken in many places of these women, and those
Athenian orators who have pronounced panegyrics on the
citizens slain in battle, have dwelt upon the victory over
the Amazons as among the most memorable of Athenian
exploits. If the satrap of Media sent any equestrian women
at all to Alexander, I think that they must have come from
some of the neighbouring barbarous tribes, practised in
riding and equipped in the costume generally called Ama
zonian."1
ramin (Julius Csesar said this), prisoners; the official placard
magnamque Asise partem Amazonas carried along with them announced
tenuisse quondam." them as Amazons (Vopiscus Aurel.
In the splendid triumph of the in Histor. August. Scrip, p. 260,
emperor Aurelian at Rome after ed. Paris).
the defeat of Zenobia, a few Gothic * Arrian, Expedit. Alexand.
women who had been taken in vii. 13.
arms were exhibited among the p
VOL. I.

210 HISTOBY OF GEEECE. Pakt X.
There cannot be a more striking evidence of the indel
ible force with which these ancient legends were worked
into the national faith and feelings of the Greeks, than these
remarks of a judicious historian upon the fable of the
Amazons. Probably if any plausible mode of rationalising
it, and of transforming it into a quasi-political event, had
been offered to Arrian, he would have been better pleased
to adopt such a middle term, and would have rested com
fortably in the supposition that he believed the legend in
its true meaning, while his less inquiring countrymen were
imposed upon by the exaggerations of poets. But as the
story was presented to him plain and unvarnished, either
for acceptance or rejection, his feelings as a patriot and a
religious man prevented him from applying to the past such
tests of credibility as his untrammeled reason acknow
ledged to be paramount in regard to the present. When
we see moreover how much his belief was strengthened,
and all tendency to scepticism shut out, by the familiarity
of his eye and memory with sculptured or painted Amazons '
— we may calculate the irresistible force of this sensible
demonstration on the convictions of the unlettered public,
at once more deeply retentive of passive impressions, and
unaccustomed to the countervailing habit of rational in
vestigation into evidence. Had the march of an army of
warlike women, from the Thermodon or the Tanais into
the heart of Attica, been recounted to Arrian as an incident
belonging to the time of Alexander the Great, he would
have rejected it no less emphatically thanStrabo ; but cast
back as it was into an undefined past, it took rank among
the hallowed traditions of divine or heroic antiquity, —
gratifying to extol by rhetoric, but repulsive to scrutinise
in argument. 2
1 Ktesias described as real ani- verit." Admitting the wisdom of
mals, existing in wild and distant this counsel (and I think it in-
regions, the heterogeneous and disputable), why are we required
fantastic combinations which he to presume, in the absence of all
saw sculptured in the East (see proof, an historical basis for each
this stated and illustrated in Bahr, of those other narratives, such as
Preface to the Fragm. of Ktesias, the Kaled6nian boar-hunt, the Ar-
pp. 58, 59). gonautic expedition, or the siege
2 Heyne observes (Apollod6r. ii. of Troy, which go to make up,
5, 9) with respect to the fable of along with the story of the Ama-
the Amazons, "In his historiarum zons, the aggregate matter of
fidem aut vestigia nemo qusesi- Grecian legendary faith? If the

Chap. XI. LEGEND AS CONCEIVED BY AREIAN.

21]

tale of the Amazons could gain
currency without any such support,
why not other portions of the
ancient epic?
An author of easy belief, Dr.
F. Nagel, vindicates the historical
reality of the Amazons (Geschichte
der Amazonen, Stuttgart, 18^8). I
subjoin here a different explanation
of the Amazonian tale, proceeding
from another author who rejects
the historical basis, and contained
in a work of learning and value
(Guhl, Ephesiaca, Berlin, 1843, p.
132) :—
"Id tantum monendum videtur,
Amazonas nequaquam historice
accipiendas esse, sed e contrario
totas ad mythologiam pertinere.
Earum enim fabulas quum ex fre
quent ium hierodularum gregibus
in cultibus et sacris Asiaticis ortas
esse ingeniose ostenderit Tolken,
jam inter o-mnes mythologies peritos
constat, Amazonibus nihil fere nisi
peregrin! cujusdam cultus notio-
nem expressam esse, ejusque cum
Graecorum. religione certamen fre-
quentibus istis pugnis designatum
esse, quas cum Amazonibus tot

Groecorum heroes habuisse crede-
bantur, Hercules, Bellerophon,
Theseus, Achilles, et vel ipse,
quem Ephesi cultum fuisB© supra
ostendimus, Dionysus. Quse Ama-
zonum notio primaria, quum pau-
latim Euemeristica (ut ita dicam)
ratione ita traus form are tur, ut
Amazones pro vero feminarum
populo haberentur, necesse quoque
erat, ut omnibus fere locis, ubi
ejusmodi religionum certamina
locum habuerunt, Amazones habi-
tasse, vel eo usque processisse,
crederentur. Quod cum nusquam
manifestius fuerit, quam in Asia,
minore, et potissimum in ea parte
quas Grteciaro. versus vergit, haud
mirandum est omnes fere ejus orce
urbes ab Amazonibus conditas
putari." I do not know the evidence upon
which this conjectural interpreta
tion rests, but the statement of it,
though it boasts so many sup
porters amoDg mythological critics,
carries no appearance of probabi
lity to my mind. !Priam fights
against the Amazons as well r.a
the Grecian heroe3.

p2

212 HISTOEY OF GEEECE. Paei I.

CHAPTER XH.
KKETAN LEGENDS.— MINOS AND HIS FAMILY.
To understand the adventures of Theseus in Krete, it will
be necessary to touch briefly upon Minos and the Kretan
heroic genealogy. Minos and Rhadamanthus, according to
Khadaman- Homer, are sons of Zeus, by Europe,1 daughter
thus, sons 0f the widely-celebrated Phoenix, born in Krete.
Minos is the father of Deukalion, whose son
Idomeneus, in conjunction with Meriones, conducts the
Kretan troops to the host of Agamemnon before Troy.
Minos is ruler of Knossus, and familiar companion of the
great Zeus. He is spoken of as holding guardianship in
Krete- — not necessarily meaning the whole of the island:
he is farther decorated with a golden sceptre, and con
stituted judge over the dead in the under-world to settle
their disputes, in which function Odysseus finds him — this
however by a passage of comparatively late interpolation
into the Odyssey. He also had a daughter named Ariadne,
for whom the artist Daedalus fabricated in the town of
Knossus the representation of a complicated dance, and
who was ultimately carried off by Theseus: she died in the
island of Dia, deserted by Theseus and betrayed by Diony
sos to the fatal wrath of Artemis. Rhadamanthus seems
to approach to Minos both in judicial functions and
posthumous dignity. He is conveyed expressly to Eubcea,
by the semi-divine sea-carriers the Phseacians, to inspect
the gigantic corpse of the earth-born Tityus — the longest
voyage they ever undertook. He is moreover after death
> Europe was worshipped with a fountain at Gortyn in Krete, in
very peculiar solemnity in the the time of Theophrastus : it was
island of Krete (see Dictys Ore- said to be the only plane-tree in
tensis, De Bello Trojano, i. c. 2). the neighbourhood which never
The venerable plane-tree, under cast its leaves (Theophrast. Hist.
which Zeus and Europe had Plant, i. 9).
reposed, was still shown, hard by

Chap. XII. KEETAN LEGENDS. 213
promoted to an abode of undisturbed bliss in the Elysian
plain at the extremity of the earth, i
According to poets later than Homer, Europe is
brought over by Zeus from Phoenicia to Krete,
where she bears to him three sons, Minos, Pha- urop
damanthus and Sarpedon. The latter leaves Krete and
settles in Lykia, the population of which, as well as that of
many other portions of Asia Minor, is connected by various
mythical genealogies with Krete, though the Sarpedon of
the Iliad has no connexion with Krete, and is not the son
of Europe. Sarpedon, having become king of Lykia, was
favoured by his father, Zeus, with permission to live for
three generations.2 At the same time the youthful Miletus,
a favourite of Sarpedon, quitted Krete, and established the
city which bore his name on the coast of Asia Minor.
Rhadamanthus became sovereign of and lawgiver among
the islands in the Jllgean: he subsequently went to Bceotia,
where he married the widowed Alkmene, mother of He
rakles. Europe finds in Krete a king Asterius, who marries
her and adopts her children by Zeus ; this Asterius is the
son of Kres, the eponym of the island, or (according to
another genealogy by which it was attempted to be made
out that Minos was of Dorian race) he was a son of the
daughter of Kres by Tektamus, the son of Dorus, who had
migrated into the island from Greece.
1 Homer, Iliad, xiii. 249. 450 ; tially illustrated in Heyne's Ex-
xiv. 321. Odyss. xi. 322 — 568; xix. cursus xi. to the sixth book of the
179 ; iv. 664— vii. 321. J5Eneid of Virgil.
The Homeric Min&s in the under- 2 Apollodor. iii. 1, 2. K«l ctu-rij)
world is not a judge of the pre- SISujctl Zzbt; ercl TpsTc ysvsocs i^v.
vious lives of the dead, so as to This circumstance is evidently
determine whether they deserve imagined by the logographers to
reward or punishment for their account,, for the appearance of
conduct on earth: such functions Sarpedon in the Trojan war, fight-
are not assigned to him earlier ing against Idomeneus, the grand-
than the time of Plato. He ad- son ofMinfts. Nisus is the epony-
ministers justice among the dead, mus of Nissea, the port of the
who are conceived as a sort of town of Megara: his tomb was
society, requiring some presiding shown at Athens (Pausan. i. 19, 5).
judge : 8E|jn(jTs6ovTa vexuecai, with Min6s is the eponym of the island
regard to Min6s, is said very much of Minoa (opposite the port of
like (Odyss. xi. 484) vov 6' ocoxs Nissea), where it was affirmed that
u.sYa xparssis visual with regard the fleet of MindB was stationed
to Achilles. See this matter par- (Pausan. i. 44, 5).

2] 4 EISTOEY OF GEEECE. Paet I.
Minos married Pasiphae, daughter of the god Helios
Pasiphae an^ Perseisj by whom he had Katreus, Deuka-
and the lion, Glaukus, Androgeos, — names marked in
Min&taur. the legendary narrative, — together with several
daughters, among whom were Ariadne and Phaedra. He
offended Poseidon by neglecting to fulfil a solemnly-made
vow, and the displeased god afflicted his wife Pasiphae with
a monstrous passion for a bull. The great artist Daedalus,
son of Eupalamus, a fugitive from Athens, became the
confidant of this amour, from which sprang the Min&taur,
a creature half-man and half-bull.1 This Minotaur was
imprisoned by Minos in the labyrinth, an inextricable
enclosure constructed by Daedalus for that express purpose
by order of Minos.
Minos acquired great nautical power, and expelled the
Scylla and Karian inhabitants from many of the islands of
Nisus. thg _53gean, which he placed under the govern
ment of his sons on the footing of tributaries. He under
took several expeditions against various places on the coast
— one against Nisus, the son of Pandion, king of Megara,
who had amongst the hair of his head one peculiar lock of
a purple colour: an oracle had pronounced that his life
and reign would never be iii danger so long as he preserved
this precious lock. The city would have remained inex
pugnable, if Skylla, the daughter of Nisus, had not con
ceived a violent passion for Minos. While her father was
asleep, she cut off the lock on which his safety hung, so
that the Kretan king soon became victorious. Instead uf
performing his promise to carry Skylla away with him to
Krete, he cast her from the stern of his vessel into the
sea:2 both Skylla and Nisus were changed into birds.
Androgeos, son of Minos, having displayed such rare
Death of qualities as vo vanquish all his competitors at
Androgeos, the Panatfaenaie festival in Athens, was sent by
of Min?" -^Egeus the Athenian king to contend against
against the bull of Marathon, — an enterprise in which
Athens. jje perished, and Minos made war upon Athens
to avenge his death. He was for a long time unable to
¦ Apolloddr. iii. 1, 2. Hippol. 1200. Propertius (iii. 19,
* Apollodor. iii. 15, 8. See the 21) gives the features of the story
Ciris of Virgil, a juvenile poem with tolerable fidelity ; Ovid takes
on the subject of this fable ; also considerable liberties with it (Me-
Hyginus, f. 198 ; Schol. Eurip. tarn. viii. 5 — 150).

Chap. XII. MINOS AND HIS FAMILY. 215
take the city: at length he prayed to his father Zeus to
aid him in obtaining redress from the Athenians, and Zeus
sent upon them pestilence and famine. In vain did they
endeavour to avert these calamities by offering up as
propitiatory sacrifices the four daughters of Hyakinthus.
Their sufferings still continued and the oracle directed
them to submit to any terms which Minos might exact. He
required that they should send to Krete a tribute of seven
youths and seven maidens, periodically, to be devoured by
the Minotaur,i — offered to him in a labyrinth constructed
by Daedalus, including countless different passages, out of
which no person could escape.
Every ninth year this offering was to be despatched.
The more common story was, that the youths , .
and maidens thus destined to destruction were victims' for
selected by lot — but the logographer Hellanikus the Mino-
said that Minos came to Athens and chose them
himself.2 The third period for despatching the victims
had arrived, and Athens was plunged in the deepest afflic
tion, when Theseus determined to devote himself as one
of them, and either to terminate the sanguinary tribute or
to perish. He prayed to Poseidon for help, while the
Delphian god assured him that Aphrodite would sustain
and extricate him. On arriving at Knossus he was for
tunate enough to captivate the affections of geif-devo-
Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, who supplied tion of
him with a sword and a clue of thread. "With ^e'tcms tiie
the former he contrived to kill the Minotaur, Min6taur.
the latter served to guide his footsteps in esca- Ariadl1*-
ping from the labyrinth. Having accomplished this triumph,
he left Krete with his ship and companions unhurt, carry
ing off Ariadne, whom however he soon abandoned on the
island of Naxos. On his way home to Athens, he stopped
at Delos, where he offered a grateful sacrifice to Apollo
for his escape, and danced, along with the young men and
maidens whom he had rescued from the Minotaur, a dance
called the Geranus, imitated from the twists and convolutions
1 Apolloddr. iii. 15, 8. tribute of these human victims
2 See, on the subject of Theseus paid by Athens to MinSs is an
and the Min&taur, Eckermann, historical fact. Upon what this
Lehrbuch der Ecligions-Geschichte belief is grounded, I confess I do
und Mythologie, vol. ii. ch. xiii. not see.
p. 133. He maintains that the

216 HISTOEY OF GEEEOE. Paet I,
of the Kretan labyrinth. It had been concerted with his
father JEgeus, that if he succeeded in his' enterprise
against the Minotaur, he should on his return hoist white
sails in his ship in place of the black canvass which she
habitually carried when employed on this mournful embassy.
But Theseus forgot to make the change of sails; so that
iEgeus, seeing the ship return with her equipment of
mourning unaltered, was impressed with the sorrowful con
viction that his son had perished, and cast himself into the
sea. The ship which made this voyage was preserved by
the Athenians with careful solicitude, being constantly
repaired with new timbers, down to the time of the Pha-
lerian Demetrius : every year she was sent from Athens to
Delos with a solemn sacrifice and specially-nominated
envoys. The priest of Apollo decked her stern with gar
lands before she quitted the port, and during
commemo- the time which elapsed until her return, the city
rative cere- was understood to abstain from all acts carrying
with them public impurity, so that it was un
lawful to put to death any person even under formal
sentence by the dikastery. This accidental circumstance
becomes especially memorable, from its having postponed
for thirty days the death of the lamented Sokrates. i
The legend respecting Theseus, and his heroic rescue
of the seven noble youths and maidens from the jaws of
the Minotaur, was thus both commemorated and certified
to the Athenian public, by the annual holy ceremony and
by the unquestioned identity of the vessel employed in it.
There were indeed many varieties in the mode of narrating
the incident; and some of the Attic logographers tried to
rationalise the fable by transforming the Minotaur into a
general or a powerful athlete, named Taurus, whom Theseus
vanquished in Krete.2 But this altered version never
1 Plato, Phsedon, c. 2, 3; Xenoph. 2 For the general narrative and
Memor. iv. 8, 2. Plato especially its discrepancies, see Plutarch,
noticed to-js 5U znry. sv-ti-jout;, the Thes. v. 15—19; Diodnr. iv. 60—62;
seven youths and seven maidens Pausan. i. 17, 3; Ovid, Epist. Ariadn.
whom Theseus convoyed to Krete Thes. 104. In that other portion of
and brought back safely; this the work of Diodorus which relates
number seems an old and constant more especially to Krete, and is
feature in the legend, maintained borrowed from Kretan logogra-
by Sappho and Bacchylidds , as phers and historians (v. 64—80), ho
well as by Euripides (Here. Fur. mentions nothing at all respecting
1318). See Servius ad Virg. JEncid. the war of MinOs with Athens.
vi. 21. In the drama of Euripides called

CrtAP. XII. THESEUS AND THE MINOTAUR. 217
overbore the old fanciful character of the tale as maintained
by thepoets. A great number of other religious ceremonies
and customs, as well as several chapels or sacred enclosures
in honour of different heroes, were connected with different
acts and special ordinances of Theseus. To every Athenian
who took part in the festivals of the Oschophoria, the
Pyanepsia, or the Kybernesia, the name of this great hero
was familiar; while the motives for offering to him solemn
worship at his own special festival of the Theseia, became
evident and impressive.
The same Athenian legends which ennobled and deco
rated the character of Theseus, painted in repulsive colours
the attributes of Minos; and the traits of the old Homeric
comrade of Zeus were buried under those of the conqueror
and oppressor of Athens. His history, like that of the other
legendary personages of Greece, consists almost entirely
of a string of family romances and tragedies. His Family of
son Katreus, father of Aerope, wife of Atreus, Min&s.
was apprised by an oracle that he would perish by the
hand of one of his own children: he accordingly sent them
out of the island, and Althaemenes, his son, established
himself in Rhodes. Katreus having become old, and fancy
ing that he had outlived the warning of the oracle, went
over to Rhodes to see Althaemenes. In an accidental dispute
which arose between his attendants and the islanders, Al
thaemenes inadvertently took part and slew his father
without knowing him. Glaukus, the youngest son of Minos,
pursuing a mouse, fell into a reservoir of honey and was
drowned. No one knew what had become of him, and his
father was inconsolable; at length the Argeian Polyeidus,
Theseus, the genuine story of the the legend— one of the many amo-
youths and maidens about to be rous (compare Theognis, 1232) ad-
offered as food to the Min&taur ventures of Theseus ; the rest is
was introduced (Schol. ad Aristoph. added by post-Homeric poets.
Vesp. 312). The respect of Aristotle for Mi-
Ariadne figures in the Odyssey n&s induces him to adopt the hy-
alon" with Theseus : she is the pothesis that the Athenian youths
daughter of Min&s, carried off by and maidens were not put to death
Theseus from Krete, and killed in Krete, but grew old in servi-
by Artemis in the way home : there tude. (Aristot. Fragm. Bo"iaio>v
is no allusion to Min&taur, or tri- IToXitsm, p. 106, ed. Neumann, of
hute or self-devotion of Theseus the Fragments of the treatise Ilspi
(Odyss. xi. 324). This is probably IIoXitsiujv, Plutarch, Qucest. Grcec.
the oldest and simplest form of p. 298).

"218 niSTOEY OF GEEEOE. Pabt I.
a prophet wonderfully endowed by the gods, both discovered
the boy and restored him to life, to the exceeding joy of
Minos.1 The latter at last found his death in an eager attempt
to overtake and punish Daedalus. This great
Dadaius^ artist, the eponymous hero of the Attic gens or
flight of deme called the Daedalidae, and the descendant
toVicii" of Erechtheus through Metion, had been tried
at the tribunal of Areiopagus and banished for
killing his nephew Talos, whose rapidly improving skill
excited his envy.2 He took refuge in Krete, where he
acquired the confidence of Minos, and was employed (as
has been already mentioned) in constructing the labyrinth;
subsequentlyhowever he fell under the displeasure of Minos,
and was confined as a close prisoner in the inextricable
windings of his own edifice. His unrivalled skill and re
source however did not forsake him. He manufactured
wings both for himself and for his son Ikarus, with which
they flew over the sea. The father arrived safely in Sicily
at Kamikus, the residence of the Sikanian king Kokalus;
but the son, disdaining paternal example and admonition,
flew so high that his wings were melted by the sun and he
fell into the sea, which from him was called the Ikarian sea.3
Daedalus remained for some time in Sicily, leaving in
„,. , various parts of the island manv prodigious
jVTmos cross -¦ ¦¦ t/j.o
to retake evidences of mechanical and architectural skill.4
k^n' d"1* " ^ length Minos, bent upon regaining possession
of his person, undertook an expedition against
Kokalus with a numerous fleet and army. Kokalus, affecting
readiness to deliver up the fugitive, and receiving Minos
with apparent friendship, ordered a bath to be prepared for
him by his three daughters, who, eager to protect Daedalus
at any price, drowned the Kretan king in the bath with hot
water.5 Many of the Kretans who had accompanied him
1 Apollod&r. iii. cap. 2—3. was the point of commencement
1 Pherekyd. Fr. 105 ; Hellanik. for the Sicilian historians.
Fr. 82 (Didot) ; Pausan. vii. 4, 5. " Diod6r. iv. 80.
3 Diod&r. iv. 79; Ovid, Meta- s Pausan. vii. 4, 6 ; Schol. Pindar.
morph. viii. 181. Both Ephorus and Nem. iv. 95 ; Hygin. fab. 44 ; Conon,
Philistus mentioned the coming Narr. 25; Ovid, Ibis, 291.—
of Dtedalus to Kokalus in Sicily "Vel tua maturet, sicut Minoia
(Ephor. Fr. 99; Philist. Fr. 1, Di- fata,
dot); probably Antiochus noticed Per caput infusse fervidus
it also (Diod&r. xii. 71). Kokalus humor aqua;."

Chap. XII.

DEATH OF MINOS IN SICIIiY.

219

remained in Sicily and founded the town of Minoa, which
they denominated after him. But not long afterwards
Zeus instigated all the inhabitants of Krete
(except the towns of Polichna and Praesus) to l^an
undertake with one accord an expedition against settlements
Kamikus for the purpose of avenging the death connected"
of Minos. They besieged Kamikus in vain for with this
five years, until at last famine compelled them J^inosf °f
to return. On their way along the coast of Italy,
in the Gulf of Tarentum, a terrible storm destroyed their
fleet and obliged them to settle permanently in the country:
they founded Hyria with other cities, and became Messapian
Iapygians. Other settlers, for the most part Greeks, im
migrated into Krete to the spots which this movement had
left vacant. In the second generation after Minos, occurred
the Trojan war. The departed Minos was exceedingly
offended with the Kretans for co-operating in avenging the
injury to Menelaus, since the Greeks generally had lent no
aid to the Kretans in their expedition against the town of
Kamikus. He sent upon Krete, after the return of Idome-
neus from Troy, such terrible visitations of famine and
pestilence, that the population again died out or expatriated,
and was again renovated by fresh immigrations.
The intolerable suffering i thus brought upon the
Kretans by the anger of Minos, for having co
operated in the general Grecian aid to Menelaus,
was urged by them to the Greeks as the reason
why they could take no j>art in resisting the
invasion of Xerxes; and it is even pretended that they were
advised and encouraged to adopt this ground of excuse by
the Delphian oracle. 2

Sufferingsof the
Kretans afterwardsfrom the
wrath of
Min&s.

This story formed the subject of a
lost drama of Sophokles Kau.i7.101
or Mivojs; it was also told by
Kallimachus, it Aitioic, as well as
by Pliilostephanus (Schol. Iliad.
ii.'146). 1 This curious and very character
istic narrative is given by Herodot.
vii. 169—171.
2 Herodot. vii. 169. The answer
ascribed to the Delphian oracle,
on the question being put by the
Kretan envoys whether it would
te better for them to aid the

Greeks against Xerxes or not, is
highly emphatic and poetical:
TQ trtKirji, in\.u.iu.'jzaHz oaa bu.lt z%
tujv MsvsXeuj Tip.cop>]u.aT(nv Mivo>;
ZTZt[j.'\iz |jL7]vi(Dv 6axp6(j.o;Ta, Sri ot
U.EV oy ^yvs^ETtpr^ctvTO a'.roj TOV it
Ka[Aixo) Qavaro-J Y£''6fjL*vov, ufjisis 5s
7.iitoiai tt]v ex 27t<ipT7)<; ap~ayj}zioat
br.' dvSpos PapfiapO'J Y'j''cuy.cc.
If sucli an answer was ever re
turned at all, I cannot but think
that it must have been from some
oracle in Krete itself, not from
Delphi. The- Delphian oracle could

220 HISTOEY OF GEEEOE. Pakt I.
Such is the Minos of the poets and logographers, with:
Portrait of ^is legendary an<i romantic attributes : the fami-
Min&s— liar comrade of the greatZeus, — the judge among
how varied, ^e dea(i in Hades — the husband of Pasiphae,
daughter of the god Helios, — the father of the goddess
Ariadne, as well as of Androgeos, who perishes and is
worshipped at Athens,1 and of the boy Glaukus, who is
miraculously restored to life by a prophet, — the person
beloved by Skylla, and the amorous pursuer of the nymph
or goddess Britomartis, 2 — the proprietor of the Labyrinth
and of the Minotaur, and the exactor of a periodical tribute
of youths and maidens from Athens as food for this mon
ster, — lastly, the follower of the fugitive artist Daedalus to
Kamikus, and the victim of the three ill-disposed daughters
of Kokalus in a bath. With this strongly-marked portrait,
the Minos of Thucydides and Aristotle has scarcely any
thing in common except the name. He is the first to acquire
Thalassokraty, or command of the ./Egean sea: he expels
the Karian inhabitants from the Cyclades islands, and sends .
thither fresh colonists under his own sons; heputsdown
piracy, in order that he may receive his tribute regularly;.
lastly, he attempts to conquer Sicily, but fails in the enter
prise and perishes.3 Here we have conjectures, derived
from the analogy of the Athenian maritime empire in the
never have so far forgotten its T7)s <X'jt&s tu>v itXetoTOjv v[itzro,
obligations to the general cause Kapas e^sXaaas xai toos sauxoiJTuai-
of Greece, at that critical moment, 6as r)Y=p.°v0:s iyxaTaaT^jas' to te.
which involved moreover the safety Xttjgtixgv, the eixos, xaO^pEt ex ttjs
of all its own treasures, as to deter 8aXaa<j7]c, k'p1 rjaot tjSuvccto, too tk<;
the Kretans from giving assistance. TrpocoSout; fxciXXov Uvcci auTtu. See
1 Hesiod. Thegon. 949; Pausan. also c. 8.
•• 1, 4. Aristot. Polit. ii. 7, 2. Aoxsi 6'
= Kallimach. Hymn, ad Dian. 189. rj vvjaoe xai itpb? tjj-j ip/.^v TVj'i
Strabo (x. p. 476) dwells also upon 'EXXtivixtjv nscpuxsvat xat "xsToDea
the strange contradiction of the xaXuj; . . . Sic xal ttjv ttj<; flaXacjcn;!;
legends concerning Min&s: I agree 6.py:qt xarsa/sv 6 Mwco;, xai ii5
with Hoeckh (Kreta, ii. p. 93) that „fyjou<: ras aiv sysipibaaTo, -it Se
SnapJiXo-fo-, in this passage refers ciretaE- xsXoc 6' stuBer-svo.; Tfl StxsXia
to the tribute exacted from Athens t'jv plon steXeutyjcsv exet TiEpl Kapu-
for the Min&taur. XOVt
8 Thucyd. i. 4. Mivu><; yap, r.a.Xrji- Ephorus (ap. Skymn. Chi. 542)
Taros iht axo^j ta[j.Ev, vaimxov sx-rr repeated the same statement: he
<za.ro, xai rr]e. vuv 'EXX'/jvtx^ OaXaj- mentioned also ^the indigenous
o-tjs ETtt ^Xsicjtov ExpaTr,a£, xai t(I>v king Kres.
KuxXdStov ti]awt rtp\i rz xai oixta-

Ciiap.XII. CHAEACTER OF MINOS IN LEGEND.' 221
historical times, substituted in place of the fabulous inci
dents, and attached to the name of Minos.
In the fable a tribute of seven youths and seven
maidens is paid to him periodically by the Athenians ; in
the historicised narrative this character of a tribute-col
lector is preserved, but the tribute is money collected from
dependent islands ;i and Aristotle points out to us how
conveniently Krete is situated to exercise empire over the
iEgean. The expedition against Kamikus, instead of being
directed to the recovery of the fugitive Daedalus, is an
attempt on the part of the great thalassokrat to conquer
Sicily. Herodotus gives us generally the same view of the
character of Minos as a great maritime king, but his notice
of the expedition against Kamikus includes the mention of
Daedalus as the intended object of it. 2 Ephorus, while he
described Minos as a commanding and comprehensive law
giver imposing his commands under the sanction of Zeus,
represented him as the imitator of an earlier lawgiver
named Rhadamanthus, and also as an immigrant into Krete
from the .^Eolic Mount Ida, along with the priests or sacred
companions of Zeus called the Idaei Dactyli. Aristotle too
points him out as the author of the Syssitia, or public
meals common in Krete as well as atSparta, — other diver
gences in a new direction from the spirit of the old fables.3
The contradictory attributes ascribed to Minos, to
gether with the perplexities experienced by those who
1 It is curious that Herodotus u.evov ec 2txavi7]v, tt]v vov 2txsXl?]v
expressly denies this, and in xaXouuiv7)v, aTioQavstv Ptaicp Savdrtu.
language which shows thathe had 'Avct Se ypovov KpiJTai;, 9eo0 oipi
made special inquiries about it: e-OTp'JvovTO<;, &c.
he says that the Karians or Le- * Aristot. Polit. ii. 7, 1; vii. 9, 2.
leges in the islands (who were, Ephorus, Fragm. 63, 04, 65. He
according to Thucydides, expelled set aside altogether the Homeric
by Min&s) paid no tribute to genealogy of Min&s, which makes
Min&s, but manned his navy, i. e. him brother of Ehadamanthus and
they stood to Min&s much in the born in Krete.
same relation as Chios and Lesbos Straho, in pointing out the many
stood to Athens (Herodot. i. 171). contradictions respecting Min6s,
One may trace here the influence remarks: "Eon 8s xai aXXos Xoyos
of those discussions which must oby_ bu.oXo-[obp.zto<; , Tthv |tsv Esvov
have been prevalent at that time Tr)? Yqaot] tov Mivto Xey^tujv, tujv
respecting the maritime empire of 8e ETtixtnptov. By the former he
Athens. doubtless means Ephorus, though
* Herodot. vii. 170. A^rai lap ne haB not here 3Peoified flim (x-
Mivtu xaTa t^TTjatv AatoaXou antxo- p. 477).

2?2 HISTOEY OF GEEECE. Part I,
wished to introduce a regular chronological arrangement
into these legendary events,have led both in ancient and in
modern times to the supposition of two kings named Minos,
one the grandson of the other, — Minos I., the son of Zeus,
lawgiver and judge, — Minos DI., the thalassokrat, — a
gratuitous conjecture, which, without solving the prob
lem required, only adds one to the numerous artifices
employed for imparting the semblance of history to the
disparate matter of legend. The Kretans were at all times,
from Homer downward, expert and practised seamen. But
that they were ever united under one government, or ever
exercised maritime dominion in the -3Dgean is a fact which
we are neither able to affirm nor to deny. The Odyssey, _
in so far as it justifies any inference at all, points against
such a supposition, since it recognises a great diversity
both of inhabitants and of languages in the island, and
designates Minos as king specially of Knossus : it refutes
still more positively the idea that Minos put down piracy,
which the Homeric Kretans as well as others continue to
practise without scruple.
Herodotus, though' he in some places speaks of Minos
as a person historically cognisable, yet in one passage severs
him pointedly from the generation of man. The Samian
despot "Polykrates (he tells us) was the first person who
aspired to nautical dominion, excepting Min6s of Knossus,
and others before him (if any such there ever were) who
may have ruled the sea; but Polykrates is the first of that
which is called the generation of man who aspired with
much chance of success to govern Ionia and the islands of
the -iEgean." i Here we find it manifestly intimated that
Minos did not belong to the generation of man, and the
tale given by the historian respecting the tremendous
calamities which the wrath of the departed Minos inflicted
on Krete confirms the impression. The king of Knossus
is a god or a hero, but not a man; he belongs to legend,
not to history. He is the son as well as the familiar com-
1 Herodot. iii. 122. rioXuxpaTT)? 'Ia)vl7|c te xai v^auw apEsiv.
Yap EaTi 7tpu)T0<; tujv 7)(jleT(; tS[i.EvlEX- The expression exactly corres-
X^vuiv, ot; 9aXaaooxpaT£Etv e7cE707)9t], ponds to that of Pausanias, ix. 5,
itapiE Mivud? te too Kvuxjalau , xal 1, im tu>v xaXoouivwv l Hpuxnv, for
1 1 615 ti? aXXoc itpoTEpo? toutou 7JpEe the age preceding the dv9pu>it7,iy]
r^?9aXdTTri<;- ttj? 8 s & v9pu>7c7) t tj - f evet, ; also viii. 2, 1, e? rd avoJTSpu)
\zTou.it7ii jsvtij( IIoXuxpdTr,? too dv9ptuj;u)v fitouc,.
iari xptnTo? eX7ti8a<; TtoXXds e^ojv

Chap. XII. MINOS AND HIS FAMILY. 22$
pardon of Zeus ; he marries the daughter of Helios, and
Ariadne is numbered among his offspring. To this super
human person are ascribed the oldest and most revered
institutions of the island, religious and political, together
with a period of supposed antehistorical dominion. That
there is much of Kretan religious ideas and practice embo
died in the fables concerning Minos can hardly be doubted;
nor is it improbable that the tale of the youths and maidens
sent from Athens may be based in some expiatory offerings
rendered to a Kretan divinity. The orgiastic worship of
Zeus, solemnized by the armed priests with impassioned
motions and violent excitement, was of ancient date in that
island, as well as the connexion with the worship of Apollo
both at Delphi and at Delos. To analyse the fables and
to elicit from them any trustworthy particular facts, appears
to me a fruitless attempt. The religious recollections, the
romantic invention, and the items of matter of fact, if any
such there be, must for ever remain indissolubly amal
gamated as the poet originally blended them, for the
amusement or edification of his auditors. Hoeckh, in his
instructive and learned collections of facts respecting
ancient Krete, construes the mythical genealogy of Minos to
denote a combination of the orgiastic worship of Zeus,
indigenous among the Eteokretes, with the worship of the
moon imported from Phoenicia, and signified by the names
Europe, Pasiphae and Ariadne, i This is specious as a
conjecture, but I do not venture to speak of it in terms of
greater confidence.
Erom the connexion of religious worship and legendary
tales between Krete and various parts of Asia Affinit
Minor, — the Troad, the coast of Miletus and between
Lykia, especially between Mount Ida in Krete, JstaMin'or
and Mount Ida in iEolis, — it seems reasonable
to infer an ethnographical kindred or relationship between
the inhabitants anterior to the period of Hellenic occupa
tion. The tales of Kretan settlement at Minoa and Engy on
on-the south-western coast of Sicily, and in Iapygia on the
Gulf of Tarentum, conduct us to a similar presumption,
though the want of evidence forbids our tracing it farther,
' Hoeckh, Kreta, vol. ii. pp. 56 legends, but he explains them in
—67. K. O. Miiller also (Dorier. a manner totally different from
ii. 2, 14) puts a religious inter- Hoeckh.
pretation upon these Kreto-Attic

224 SISTOEY OF GEEECE. Pakt 1.
In the time of Herodotus, the Eteokretes, or aboriginal
inhabitants of the island, were confined to Polichna and
Praesus ; but in earlier times, prior to the encroachments
of the Hellenes, they had occupied the larger portion, if
not the whole of the island. Minos was originally their
hero, subsequently adopted by the immigrant Hellenes, —
at leastHerodotus considers him as barbarian, notHellenic. 1
1 Herodot. i. 173.

Chap. XIII. AKGONAUTIC EXPEDITION. 225

CHAPTER XIII.
ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION.
The ship Argo was the theme of many songs during the
oldest periods of the Grecian epic, even earlier Shlp Arg6
than the Odyssey. The king JEetes, from whom in the
she is departing, the hero Jason, who commands dyssey-
her, and the goddess Here, who watches over him, enabling
the Argo to traverse distances and to escape dangers which
no ship had ever before encountered, are all circumstances
briefly glanced at by Odysseus in his narrative to Alkinous.
Moreover Euneus, the son of Jason and Hypsipyle, governs
Lemnos during the siege of Troy by Agamemnon, and
carries on a friendly traffic with the Grecian camp, purch
asing from them their Trojan prisoners. l
The legend of Halus in Achaia Phthiotis, respecting
the religious solemnities connected with the family of
Athamas and Phryxus (related in a previous chapter) is
also interwoven with the voyage of the Argonauts; and
both the legend and the solemnities seem evidently of great
antiquity. "We know further, that the adventures of the
Argo were narrated not only by Hesiod and in In Hesiod
the Hesiodic poems, but also by Eumelus and and Eume-
the author of the Naupaktian verses — by the ua'
latter seemingly at considerable length.2 But these poems
1 Odyss. xii. 69. — Schol. ad Apoll&n. Ehod. i. 45 ; ii.
Oil) 8r)XEivr)Ysii«ps*Xsi7tovTosi:opo<; 178—297, 1126; iv. 254— 284. .Other
v7Ju<;, poetical sources —
'ApYd) Tzaaiu-iXouaa, Ttap1 Ai^Tao The old epic poem Mgimius,
liXzooaa- Frag. 5, p. 57, Diintz.
Kai vj xe ttjv sv9' (Lxa pdXsv ptE- Kincethon in the Herakleia touch-
YaXas 7uoti nETpas, ed upon the death of Hylas near
'AXX' "Hp-ij ~.apzT.zp.'hzt, E7ici cpiXos Kius in Mysia (Schol. Apoll&n.
Tjsv ' Irjaojv. Ehod. i. 1357).
See also Iliad, vii. 470. The epic poem Naupaktia, Frag.
2 See Hesiod , Fragm. Catalog. 1 to 6, Diintz. p. 61.
Fr. 6, p. 33, Diintz.; Eoiai, Fr. 36, Eumelus, Frag. 2, 3, 5, p. 65,
p. 39; Frag. 72, p. 47. Compare Diintz.
VOL. I. <J

226 HISTOEY OF GEEECE. JPabt I.
are unfortunately lost, nor have we any means of deter
mining what the original story was ; for the narrative, as
we have it, borrowed from later sources, is enlarged by
local tales from the subsequent Greek colonies — Kyzikus,
Herakleia, Sinope, and others.
Jason, commanded by Pelias to depart in quest of the
. . . golden fleece belonging to the speaking ram
his heroic which had carried away Phryxus and Helle, was
com- encouraged by the oracle to invite the noblest
11 youth of Greece to his aid, and fifty of the most
distinguished amongst them obeyed the call. Herakles,
Theseus, Telamon and Peleus, Kastor and Pollux, Idas
and Lynkeus — Zetes and Kalais, the winged sons of Boreas
— Meleager, Amphiaraus, Kepheus, Laertes, Autolykus,
Mencetius, Aktor, Erginus, Euphemus, Ankaeus, Pcaas,
Periklymenus, Augeas, Eurytus, Admetus, Akastus, Kse-
neus, Euryalus, Peneleos and Leitus, Askalaphus and
Ialmenus, were among them. Argus the son of Phryxus,
directed by the promptings of Athene, built the ship, in
serting in the prow a piece of timber, from the celebrated
oak of Dodona, which was endued with the faculty of
speech:1 Tiphys was the steersman, Idmon (the son of
Apollo) and Mopsus accompanied them as prophets, while
Orpheus came to amuse their weariness, and reconcile their
quarrels, with his harp,3
Epimenides, the Kretan prophet 2tes Stuck, p. 61) contains an in-
and poet, composed a poem in structiveDissertationby Groddeck,
6500 lines, 'ApYoiis vauTC7)Yiav te, Ueber die Argonautica, a summary
xai ' Iaaovos sis KoXvouc diroTtXoOv of the various authorities respect-
(Diogen. Laer. i. 10, 5) , which is ing this expedition.
noticed more than once in the * Apoll&n. Ehod. i. 525 ; iv. 580.
Scholia on Apoll&nius, on subjects Apollod&r. i. 9, 16. Valerius Flac-
connected with the poem (ii. 1125 ; cus (i. 300) softens down the speech
iii. 42). See Mimnerm. Frag. 10, of the ship Arg& into a dream of
Schneidewin, p. 15. JasOn. Alexander Polyhistor ex-
Antimachus, in his poem Lyde, plained what wood was used (Plin.
touched upon the Argonautic ex- H. N. xiii. 22).
pedition, and has been partially 2 Apoll&nius Ehodius, Apollo-
copied by Apoll&nius Ehod. (Schol. d&rus, Valerius Flaccus, the Orphic
Ap. Eh. i. 1290; ii. 296; iii. 410; Argonautica, and Hyginus, have
iv. 1153). all given Catalogues of the Argo-
The logographers Pherekydes and nautic heroes (there was one also
Hekatseus seem to have related the in the lost tragedy called Ar;pnat
expedition at considerable length, of Sophokles, see Welcker, Gr.
The Bibliothek der alten Lite- Trag. i. 327) : the discrepancies
ratur und Kunst (Gottingen, 1786, among them are numerous and

Chap. XIII.

ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION.

227

First they touched at the island of Lemnos, in which
at that time there were no men; for the women,
infuriated by jealousy and ill-treatment, had put
to death their fathers, husbands, and brothers. The Ar
gonauts, after some difficulty, were received with friendship,
and even admitted into the greatest intimacy. They staid
some months, and the subsequent population of the island
was the fruit of their visit. Hypsipyle, the queen of the
island, bore to Jason two sons, i
They then proceeded onward along the coast of Thrace,

irreconcileable. Burmann, in the
Gatalogus Argonautarum, prefixed
to his edition of Valerius Placcus,
has discussed them copiously. I
transcribe one or two of the re
marks of this conscientious and
laborious critic, out of many of a
similar tenor, on the impractic
ability of a fabulous chronology.
Immediately before the first article,
Acastus— "Neque enim in setatibus
Argonautarum ullam rationem
temporum constare, neque in stirpe
et stemmate deducenda ordinem
ipsum naturse congruere videbam.
Nam et huic militiEe adscribi vide-
ham Heroas, qui per naturee leges
et ordinem fati eo usque vitam
extrahere non potuere, ut aliis ab
hac expeditione remotis Heroum
militiis nomina dedisse narrari
deberent a Poetis et Mythologis.
In idem etiam tempus avos et
nepotes conjici, consanguineos
getate longe inferiores prioribus ut
ssquales adjungi, concoquere vix
posse videtur."— Art. Ancceus :
"Scio objici posse, si seriem illam
majorem respiciamus, hunc An-
caeum simul cum proavo suo Talao
in eandem profectum fuisse ex-
peditionem. Sed similia exempla
in aliis occurrent, et in fabulis
rationem temporum non semper
accuratam licet deducere."— Art.
Jason ; "Herculi enim jam provecta
cetate adhsesit Theseus juvenis, et
in Amazonia, expeditione socius

fuit, interfuit huic expeditioni,
Tenatui apri Oalydonii, et rapuit
Helenam, quee circa Trojanum hel
ium maxime floruit: quae omnia
si Theseus tot temporum inter-
vallis distincta egit, secula duo
vel tria vixisse debuit. Certe Ja
son Hypsipylem neptem Ariadnea,
nee videre, nee Lemni cognoscere
potuit." — Art. Meleager : "Unum
est quod alicui longum ordinem
majorum recensenti scrupulum
movere possit: nimis longum in-
ter vallum inter JEolum et Melea-
grum intercedere, ut potuerit in-
terfuisse huic expeditioni : cum
nonus fere numeretur ab .23olo, et
plurimi ut Jason, Argus, et alii
tertilu tantum abiEolo generatione
distent. Sed ssepe jam notavimus,
frustra temporum concordiam in
fabulis quaeri."
Kead also the articles Gastdr and
Pollux, Nestor, Peleus, Staphylus,
&c. We may stand excused for keep
ing clear of a chronology which
is fertile only in difficulties, and
ends in nothing but illusions.
1 Apolloddr. i. 9, 17; Apoll&n.
Rhod. i. 609—915; Herodot. iv. 145.
Theokritus (Idyll, xiii. 29) omits
all mention of Lemnos, and re
presents the Argd as arriving on
the third day from I61kos at the
Hellespont. DiodOrus (iv. 41) also
leaves out Lemnos. Q 2

228

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Paet £

up the Hellespont, to the southern coast of the Propontis,
inhabited by the Doliones and their king Kyzikus. Here
they were kindly entertained, but after their departure
were driven back to the same spot by a storm; and as they
Ad entu landed in the dark, the inhabitants did not know
at Kyzikus, them. A battle took place, in which the chief,
^nBi*yniai Kyzikus, was killed by Jason; whereby much
kUs and grief was occasioned as soon as the real fa,cts
Hyias. Phi- became known. After Kyzikus had been interred
with every demonstration of mourning and
solemnity, the Argonauts proceeded along the coast of
Mysia. * In this part of the voyage, they left Herakles
behind. For Hyias, his favourite youthful companion, had
been stolen away by the nymphs of a fountain, and Hera
kles, wandering about in search of him, neglected to return.
At last he sorrowfully retired, exacting hostages from the
inhabitants of the neighbouring town of Kius that they
would persist in the search. 2
They next stopped in the country of the Bebrykians,
where the boxing contest took place between the king
Amykus and the Argonaut Pollux : 3 they then proceeded

1 Apoll&n. Rhod. 940— 1020; Apol-
lod&r. i. 9, 18.
2 Apollod&r. i. 9, 19. This was
the religious legend, explanatory
of a ceremony performed for many
centuries by the people of Prusa:
they ran round the lake Askanius
shouting and clamouring for Hyias
— "ut littus Hyla, Hyla omne so-
naret." (Virgil, Eclog,) .... "in
cujus memoriam adhuc solemni
cursatione lacum populus circuit
et Hylam voce clamat," Solinus,
c. 42.
There is endless discrepancy as
to the concern of Herakles with
the Argonautic expedition. A story
is alluded to in Aristotle (Politic.
iii. 9) that the ship Arg& herself
refused to take him on board,
because he was so much superior
in stature and power to all the
other heroes — ou yap eOsXsiif <x6tov
otysiv *T7]V 'ApfU) U-STGC tujm aXXcov,
aj<; u-spPaXXovxoc ttoXo tujv 7pA.o)t^-
ptov. This was the story of Phere-

kydes (Fr. 67, Didot) as well as of
Antimachus (Schol. Apoll. Rhod.
i. 1290) : it is probably a very an
cient portion of the legend, inas
much as it ascribes to the ship
sentient powers, in consonance
with her other miraculous proper
ties. The etymology of Apheta
in Thessaly was connected with
the tale of Hgrakles having there
been put on shore from the Argo
(Herodot. vii. 193) : Ephorus said
that he staid away voluntarily
from fondness for Omphal& (Frag.
9, Didot). The old epic poet
.Kinteth&n said that Herakles had
placed theKian hostages at Trachin,
and that theKians ever afterwards
maintained a respectful correspon
dence with that place (Schol. Ap.
Rb. i. 1357). This is the explana
tory legend connected with some
existing custom, which we are
unable further to unravel.
3 See above, chap. viii.

OnAP.XIII. PHINETJS AND THE HAEPIES. 229
onward to Bithynia, the residence of the blind prophet
Phineus. His blindness had been inflicted by Poseidon as
a punishment for having communicated to Phryxus the way
to Kolchis. The choice had been allowed to him between
death and blindness, and he had preferred the latter, i He
was also tormented by the harpies, winged monsters who
came down from the clouds whenever his table was set,
snatched the food from his lips and imparted to it a foul
and unapproachable odour. In the midst of this misery,
he hailed the Argonauts as his deliverers — his prophetic
powers having enabled him to foresee their coming. The
meal being prepared for him, the harpies approached as
usual, but Zetes and Kalais, the winged sons of Boreas,
drove them away and pursued them. They put forth all
their speed, and prayed to Zeus to be enabled to overtake
the monsters ; when Hermes appeared and directed them
to desist, the harpies being forbidden further to molest
Phineus, 2 and retiring again to their native cavern inKrete. 3
Phineus, grateful for the relief afforded to him by the
Argonauts, forewarned them of the dangers of their voyage
and of the precautions necessary for their safety; and
through his suggestions they were enabled to pass through
the terrific rocks called Symplegades. These were two
rocks which alternately opened and shut, with a Dangers 0f
swift and violent collision, so that it was difficult the Sym-
even for a bird to fly through during the short p ga
interval. When the Argo arrived at the dangerous spot,
Euphemus. let loose a dove, which flew through and just
escaped with the loss of a few feathers of her tail. _ This
was a signal to the Argonauts, according to the prediction
of Phineus, that they might attempt the passage with con
fidence. Accordingly they rowed with all their might, and
J Such was the old narrative of cumstances.
the Hesiodic Catalogue and Eoiai. 3 Such was the fate of the har-
See Schol. Apollon. Ehod. ii. 181 pies as given in the old Naupak-
 296. tian Verses. (See Eragm. Ep. Griec.
2 This again was the old He- Diintzer, Naupakt. Er. 2, p. 61.)
siodic story (Schol. Apoll. Ehod. The adventure of the Argonauts
ii. 296), — with Phineus is given hy DiodSrus
yEv9' otv' suyeffQov Alvrjiip b'li- in a manner totally different
(ie6ovti. (Dioddr. iv. U): he seems to follow
Apolloddrus (i. 9, 21), Apolldnius Dionysius of MitylenS (see Schol.
(178—300), and Valerius Elacc. (iv. ApollSn. Ehod. ii. 207).
428 — 530) agree in most of the cir-

230 HISTOEY OE GEEECE. Paet I.
passed safely through: the closing rocks, held for a moment
asunder by the powerful arms of Athene, just crushed the
ornaments at the stern of their vessel. It had been decreed
by the gods, that so soon as any ship once got through, the
passage should for ever afterwards be safe and easy to all.
The rocks became fixed in their separate places, and never
again closed, i
After again halting on the coast of the Mariandynians,
where their steersman Tiphys died, as well as in the country
of the Amazons, and after picking up the sons of Phryxus,
who had been cast away by Poseidon in their attempt to
return from Kolchis to Greece, they arrived in safety at the
river Phasis and the residence of 2Eetes. In passing by
Mount Caucasus, they saw the eagle which gnawed the liver
of Prometheus nailed to the rock, and heard the groans of
the sufferer himself. The sons of Phryxus were cordially
Arrival at welcomed by their mother Chalkiope.2 Appli-
Koichis. cation was made to JEetes, that he would grant
to the Argonauts, heroes of divine parentage and sent forth
by the mandate of the gods, possession of the golden fleece:
their aid in return was proffered to him against any or all
of his enemies. But the king was wroth, and peremptorily
refused, except upon conditions which seemed impracticable. 3
Hephsestos had given him two ferocious and untameable
bulls, with brazen feet, whichbreathed fire from their nostrils:
Jason was invited, as a proof both of his illustrious descent
and of the sanction of the gods to his voyage, to harness these
animals to the yoke, so as to plough a large field and sow
it with dragon's teeth.4 Perilous as the conditio'n was, each
one of the heroes volunteered to make the attempt. Idm6n
especially encouraged Jason to undertake it, s and the god-
Conditions desses Here and Aphrodite made straight the
imposed hy way for him.6 Medea, the daughter of JEetes
thfpriceTof aDd Eidyia, having seen the youthful hero in his
the golden interview with her father, had conceived towards
him a passion which disposed her to employ
1 Apolloddr. i. 9, 22. Apolldn. paktian Verses (Schol. Apolldn.
Ehod. ii. 310— 61B. Ehod. iii. 515—526): Apolldnius
1 Apolloddr. i. 9, 23. Apolldn. and others altered it. Idmdn,
Ehod. ii. 850—1257. according to them, died in the
8 Apolldn. Ehod. iii. 320—385. voyage before the arrival at Kolchis.
4 Apolldn. Ehod. iii. 410. Apol- 6 Apolldn. Ehod. iii. 50—200.
loddr. i. 0, 23. Valer. Elacc. vi. 440—480. Hygin.
5 This was the story of the Nau- fab. 22.

Chap. XIII. EETUEN OE THE AEGONAUTS. 231
every means for his salvation and success. She had received
from Hekate pre-eminent magical powers, and she prepared
for Jason the powerful Prometheian unguent, extracted
from a herb which had grown where the blood of Prometheus
dropped. The body of Jason having been thus pre-medi-
cated, became invulnerable1 either by fire or by warlike
weapons. He undertook the enterprise, yoked the bulls
without suffering injury, and ploughed the field: when he
had sown the dragon's teeth, armed men sprung out of the
furrows. But he had been forewarned by Medea to cast a
vast rock into the midst of them, upon which they began
to fight with each other, so that he was easily enabled to
subdue them all.2
The task prescribed had thus been triumphantly per
formed. Yet JEetes not only refused to hand Perfld .
over the golden fleece, but even took measures iEetes—
for secretlydestroyingtheArgonautsandburning flight of the
their vessel. He designed to murder them during and Medea
the night after a festal banquet; but Aphrodite, ^it]l the
watchful for the safety of Jason,3 inspired the
Kolchian king at the critical moment with an irresistible
inclination for his nuptial bed. While he slept, the wise
Idmon counselled the Argonauts to make their escape, and
Medea agreed to accompany them.4 She lulled to sleep by
a magic potion the dragon who guarded the golden fleece,
placed that much-desired prize on board the vessel, and
accompanied Jason with his companions in their flight,
carrying along with her the young Apsyrtus, her brother.5
JEetes, profoundly exasperated at the flight of the
Argonauts with his daughter, assembled his
forces forthwith, andput to sea in pursuit of them. ^rt™-the
So energetic were his efforts that he shortly Argonauts
overtook the retreating vessel, when the Argo- Medea.by
nauts again owed their safety to the stratagem
1 Apolldn. Ehod. iii. 835. Apol- p. 61), ap. Schol. Apolldn. Ehod.
loddr. i. 9, 23. Valer. Elacc. vii. iv. 59—86.
356. Ovid. Epist. xii. 15. 4 Such was the story of the
"Isset anhelatos non prsemedi- Naupaktian Verses. (See Eragm.
catus in ignes 6, p. 61. Diintzer ap. Schol. Apolldn.
Immemor JEsonides, oraque Ehod. iv. 59, 86, 87.)
adunca bourn." 5 Apolloddr. i. 9, 23. Apolldn.
a Apolldn. Ehod. iii. 1230—1400. Ehod. iv. 220.
8 The Naupaktian Verses stated Pherekydes said that Jasdn killed
this (see the Eragm, 6, ed. Diintzer, the dragon (Er. 74, Did,).

232

HISTORY OJT GREECE.

Part I,

of Medea. She killed her brother Apsyrtus, cut his
body in pieces and strewed the limbs round about in tho
sea. JEetes on reaching the spot found these sorrowful
traces of his murdered son; but while he tarried to collect
the scattered fragments, and bestow upon the body an
honourable interment, the Argonauts escaped. * The spot
on which the unfortunate Apsyrtus was cut up received
the name of Tomi.2 This fratricide of Medea, however, so
deeply provoked the indignation of Zeus, that he con
demned the Argo and her crew to a trying voyage, full of
hardship and privation, before she was permitted to reach
home. The returning heroes traversed an im
measurable length both of sea and of river: first
up the river Phasis into the ocean which flows
round the earth — then following the course of
that circumfluous stream until its junction with
the Nile,3 they came down the Nile into Egypt, from

Return of
the Argo
nauts—cir cuitous and
perilous.

1 This is the story of Apollo
ddrus (i. 9, 24), who seems to
follow Pherekydes (Fr. 73, Didot).
Apoll6nius (iv. 225—480) and Va
lerius Ulaccus (viii. 262 seq.) give
totally different circumstances re
specting the death of Apsyrtus :
but the narrative of PherekydSs
seems the oldest : so revolting a
story as that of the cutting up of
the little hoy cannot have been
imagined in later times.
Sophokles composed two trage
dies on the adventures of Jasfin
and Medea, hoth lost— the KoXyi-
5ec, and the 2x68oti. In the former
he represented the murder of the
child Apsyrtus as having taken
place in the house of .ZEet&s: in
the latter he introduced the miti
gating circumstance, thatApsyrtus
was the son of J3E§t6s by a dif
ferent mother from Medea (Schol.
Apoll6n. Rhod. iv. 223).
2 Apollod&r. i. 9, 24, tov totiov
irpooyiyopsuffs Tou-O'Jt;. Ovid. Trist.
iii. 9. The story that Apsyrtus
was cut in pieces, is the etymo
logical legend explanatory of the
name Tomi.

There was however a place called
Apsarus, on the southern coast of
the Euxine, west of Trapezus,
where the tomb of Apsyitus was
shown, and where it was affirmed
that he had been put to death.
He was the eponymus of the town,
which was said to have been once
called Apsyrtus, and only cor
rupted by a barbarian pronuncia
tion. (Arrian. Periplus Euxin. p.
6; G-eogr. Min. v. 1). Compare
Procop. Bell. Goth. iv. 2.
Strabo connects the death of
Apsyrtus with the Apsyrtides, is
lands of the coast of Illyria, in
the Adriatic (vii. p. 315.)
3 The original narrative was,
that the Argo returned by navi
gating the circumfluous ocean.
This would be almost certain,
even without positive testimony,
from the early ideas entertained
by the Greeks respecting geogra
phy ; hut we know further that it
was the representation of the He
siodic poems, as well as of Mim-
nermus, HekatEeus and Pindar, and
even of Antimachus. Schol. Pari-
sin, Ap. Rhod. iv. 254. 'ExaTaTo*;

Chap. XIII. AERONAUTS AT KRETE. 233
whence they carried the Argo on their shoulders by a
fatiguing land-journey to the lake Tritonis in Libya. Here
they were rescued from the extremity of want and exhaustion
by the kindness of the local god Triton, who treated them
hospitably, and even presented to Euphemus a clod of
earth, as a symbolical promise that his descendants should
one day found a city on the Libyan shore. The promise
was amply redeemed by the flourishing and powerful city
of Kyrene, i whose princes the Battiads boasted themselves
as lineal descendants of Euphemus.
Refreshed by the hospitality of Triton, the Argonauts
found themselves again on the waters of the Mediterranean
in their way homeward. But before they arrived at Iolkos
they visited Circe, at the island of JEsea, where Medea was
purified for the murder of Apsyrtus: they also stopped at
Korkyra, then called Drepane, where Alkinous received
and protected them. The cave in that island where the
marriage of Medea with Jason was consummated, was still
shown in the time of the historian Timseus, as well as the
altars to Apollo which she had erected, and the rites and
sacrifices which she had first instituted.2 After leaving
Korkyra, the Argo was overtaken by a perilous storm near
the island of Thera. The heroes were saved from imminent
peril by the supernatural aid of Apollo, who, shooting from
his golden bow an arrow which pierced the waves like a
track of light, caused a new island suddenly to spring up
in their track and present to them a port of refuge. The
island was called Anaphe; and the grateful Argonauts
8e 6 MiX-qaios 8ia too <Ddai8o<;dvsX- Diod. iv, 56: hut the legend con-
9elv <pr]clv ait-coos zit; tov 'QxEavov' necting the Argonauts with the
ota 6s too 'Qxecivoo xaTsX9eiv sic tov lake Trit&nis in Libya, is given
NsTXov sx 8e too NslXou eU T7]v with some considerable differences
xa9' 7)|aS« 9dXaaijav. 'Hchgoo? Be in Herodotus, iv. 179.
xal IlLvSapos ev IIuQiovixatc xal 2 Apollon. Ehod. iv. 1153—1217.
'AvTifAayoi; ev A-jSfl Sid too 'Qxsa- Timseus, Fr. 7—8, Didot. Tiuaios
voij cpafflv eXQeiv abxobc; els T7]v ev Kspxupa Xiymt YsvE<j9ai tous ya-
Aipoyp: Eira [3aaTdjavTac r-qt 'Apyu) p-out;, xal xspl T7JS Ouoias laTOpeT,
sU to 7ju.ETEpov d<pixEa9ai r.iXayoc,. eti xal vov XEytov a^EffQai aoT7]v xar'
Compare the Schol. Edit, ad iv. eviaur'.v, MvjSslas xpunov QuoaaTj!; ev
259. Tip too ] AtuoXXujvo^ Uptfi. Kal Pu>-
1 See the fourth Pythian ode of uoOs 8e <p7]fft fiv7]u.sia tu)v yap-iov
Pindar, and Apoll6n. Ehod. iv. I8p6<jaa9ai aotzyybs usv T7)<; 9aXda-
1551 — 1756. cr|5, oil u-axpdv 8s T7J.; tzoXzwc;. ' Ovo-
The tripod of Jas&n was pre- u-dCoooi 8s tov n.Ev, Nuu-^uiv' tov 8=,
served by the Euesperitae in Libya, Nvgpqtjtoy.

234 IIISTOET OF GREECE. Paet I.
established upon it an altar and sacrifices in honour of
ApolloJSgletes, which were ever afterwards continued, and
tracedback bythe inhabitants to this originating adventure.*
On approaching the coast of Krete, the Argonauts
were prevented from landing by Talos, a man of brass,
fabricated by Hephsestos, and presented by him to Minos
for the protection of the island.2 This vigilant sentinel
hurled against the approaching vessel fragments of rock,
and menaced the heroes with destruction. But Medea
deceived him by a stratagem and killed him; detecting and
assailing the one vulnerable point in his body. The Argo
nauts were thus enabled to land and refresh themselves.
They next proceeded onward to iEgina, where however
they again experienced resistance before they could obtain
water — then along the coast of Eubcsa and Lokris back to
Iolkos in the gulf of Pagasse, the place from whence they
had started. The proceedings of Pelias during their
absence, and the signal revenge taken upon him by Medea
after their return, have already been narrated in a preceding
section. 3 The ship Argo herself, in which the chosen heroes
of Greece had performed so long a voyage and braved so
many dangers, was consecrated by Jason to Poseidon at
the isthmus of Corinth. According to another account, she
was translated to the stars by Athene, and became a con
stellation.4 Traces of. the presence of the Argonauts were found
not onlyin the regions which laybetweenlolkos andKolchis,
Numerous but also in the western portion of the Grecian
and wide- world — distributed more or less over all the
mmmtire- spots visited by Grecian mariners or settled by
ferring to Grecian colonists, and scarcely less numerous
the voyage. ^an ^e wan(jeringS 0f the dispersed Greeks- and
Trojans after the capture of Troy. The number of Jasonia,
or temples for the heroic worship of Jason, was very great,
from Abdera in Thrace, » eastward along the coast of the
Euxine, to Armenia and Media. The Argonauts had left
their anchoring-stone on the coast ofBebrykia, near Kyzikus,
and there it was preserved during the historical ages in the
1 Apollodor. i. 9, 25. Apoll6n. » Apolloddr. i. 9, 26. Apollon.
Ehod. iv. 1700—1725. Ehod. vi. 1038.
2 Some called Tal5s a remnant 4 Diodor. iv. 63. Erastoth. Ca-
of the brazen race of men (Schol. tast°rism. c. 35.
Apoll. Ehod. iv. 1041). * Strabo, xi. p. 526—531,

Chap. XIII. MEMORIALS LEET BY THE AEGONATJTS. 235
«temple of the Jasonian Athene, i They had founded the
great temple of the Ideean mother on the mountain Dindymon,
near Kyzikus, and the Hieron of Zeus TJrios on the Asiatic
point at the mouth of the Euxinp, near which was also the
harbour of Phryxus. 2 Idmon, the prophet of the expedition,
who was believed to have died of a wound by a wild boar
on the Mariandynian coast, was worshippedby the inhabitants
of the Pontic Herakleia with great solemnity, as their Heros
Poliuchus, and that too by the special direction of the
Delphian god. Autolykus, another companion of Jason,
was worshipped as (Ekist by the inhabitants of Sinope.
Moreover, the historians of Herakleia pointed out a temple
of Hekate in the neighbouring country of Paphlagonia, first
erected by Medea;3 and the important town of Pantikapseon,
on the European side of the Cimmerian Bosporus, ascribed
its first settlement to a son of ^Eetes.4 When the return
ing ten thousand Greeks sailed along the coast, called the
Jasonian shore, from Sinope to Herakleia, they were told
that the grandson of JEetes was reigning king of the ter
ritory at the mouth of the Phasis, and the anchoring-places
where the Argo had stopped were specially pointed out to.
them.5 In the lofty regions of the Moschi, near Kolchis,
stood the temple of Leukothea, founded by Phryxus, which
remained both rich and respected down to the times of the
kings of Pontus, and where it was an inviolable rule not to
offer up a ram. 6 The town of Dioskurias, north of the river
1 Apoll6n. Ehod. i. 955—960, and of Dindymon. Apoll6n. Ehod. ii.
the Scholia. 532 , and the citations from Ti-
There was in Kyzikus a temple mosthenes and Herod6rus in the
of Apollo under different smxXr)- Scholia. See also Appian, Syriac.
oen;,- some called it the temple of u. 63.
the Jasonian Apollo. 3 See the Historians of Hera-
Another anchor however was pre- kleia, Nymphis and Promathidas,
served in the temple of Ehea on Eragm. Orelli , pp. 99 , 100—104.
the banks of the Phasis, which Schol. ad Apolldn. Ehod. iv. 247.
was affirmed to he the anchor of Strabo, xii. p. 546. Autolykus,
the ship Arg6. Arrian saw it there, whom he calls companion of Jason,
but seems to have doubted its was, according to another legend,
authenticity (PeriplusEuxin. Pont, comrade of Herakles in his ex-
p. 9. Geogr. Min. v. 1). pedition against the Amazons.
2 Neanthes ap. Strab. i. p. 45. 4 Stephan. Byz. v. UavTixa-aTov,
Apoll&n. Ehod. i. 1125, and Schol. Eustath. ad Dionys. Perieget. 811.
Steph. Byz. v. <J>pi;os. 5 Xenoph&n, Anabas. vi. 2, 1; v.
Apollflnius mentions the foun- 7, 37.
tain called Jasonea:, on the hill 6 Strabo, xi. p. 499.

236

HISTORY OF GREECE.

J?A.El! I,

Phasis, was believed to have been hallowed by the presence*
of Kastor and Pollux in the Argo, and to have received
from them its appellation.1 Even the interior of Media
and Armenia was full of memorials of Jason and Medea,
and their son Medus, or of Armenus the son of Jason, from
whom the Greeks deduced not only the name and foundation
of the Medes and Armenians, but also the great operation
of cutting a channel through the mountains for the efflux
of the river Araxes, which they compared to that of the
Peneius in Thessaly. 2 And the Boman general Pompey,
after having completed the conquest and expulsion of
Mithridates, made long marches through Kolchis into the
regions of Caucasus, for the express purpose of contem
plating the spots which had been ennobled by the exploits
of the Argonauts, the Dioskuri and Herakles. 3
In the west, memorials either of the Argonauts or of
the pursuing Kolchians were pointed out in Korkyra, in
Krete, in Epirus near the Akrokeraunian mountains, in
the islands called Apsyrtides near the Illyrian coast, at

1 Appian, Mitliridatic. c. 101.
„ 2 Strabo, xi. p. 499, 503, 526,531;
i. p. 45—48. Justin, xiii. 3, whose
statements illustrate the way in
which men found a present home
and application for the old fables,
— "Jason, primus humanorum post
Herculem et Liberum, qui reges
Orientis fuisse traduntur, earn cceli
plagam domuisse dicitur. Cum
Albania fcedus peroussit, qui Her
culem ex Italia abAlbano monte,
cum, Geryone extincto, armenta
ejus per Italiam duceret, secuti
dicuntur; quique, memores Italics?
originis, exercitum Cn. Pompeii
hello Mithridatico fratres consa-
lutavere. Itaque Jasoni totus fere
Oriens, ut conditori, divinos ho-
nores templaque constituit; qure
Parmenio, dux Alexandri Magni,
post multos annos dirui jussit, ne
cujusquam nomen in Oriente ve-
nerabilius quam Alexandri esset."
The Thessalian companions of
Alexander the Great, placed by
his victories in possession of rich
acquisitions in these regions,

pleased themselves by vivifying
and multiplying all these old
fables, proving an ancient kindred
between the Medes and Thessa-
lians. See Strabo, xi. p. 530. The
temples of Jasdn were TijAtbfjLsva
trcpoopa 6ti6 tujv papfidptDv (ib. p.
526). The able and inquisitive geo
grapher Eratosthenes was among
those who fully believed that Ja-
s6n had left his ships in the Phasis,
and had undertaken a land ex
pedition into the interior country,
in which he had conquered Media
and Armenia (Strabo, i. p. 48).
a Appian, Mithridatic. 103: rob?
K6X)rouc en^&i, xaB' toTOpiav tr}q
'ApyovaUTUJM ¦xal Aioaxoupuiv xal
'HpaxXsous etuStjijlUs, xal p^aXnjTa
to 7ia9o(; I5slv eQsXtov, 5 IIpou-7]9ei
cpctol ysvsaGai Tuspi. to Kauxaaov opo?.
The lofty crag of Caucasus called
Strobilus, , to which Prometheus
had been attached, was pointed
out to Arrian himself in his Peri-
plus (p. 12. Geogr. Minor, vol. i.).

Chap. XIII. ARGONAUTIC LEGEND GENERALLY. 237
the bay of Caieta as well as at Poseidonia on the southern
coast of Italy, in the island of ^Ethalia or Elba, and in
Libya, i
Such is a brief outline of the Argonautic expedition,
one of the most celebrated and widely-diffused Argonautic
among the ancient tales of Greece. Since so legend
many able men have treated it as an undisputed senera y.
reality, and even made it the pivot of systematic chrono
logical calculations, I may here repeat the opinion long ago
expressed by Heyne, and even indicated byBurmann, that
the process of dissecting the story in search of a basis of
fact, is one altogether fruitless.2 Not only are we unable
to assign the date, or identify the crew, or decipher the
log-book, of the AJrgo, but we have no means of settling
even the preliminary question, whether the voyage be
matter of fact badly reported, or legend from the beginning.
The widely-distant spots in which the monuments of the
voyage were shown, no less than the incidents of the voyage
itself, suggest no other parentage than epical fancy. The
supernatural and the romantic not only constitute an in
separable portion of the narrative, but even embrace all the
1 Strabo, i. pp. 21, 45, 46; v. 224 and whether they were the same
— 252. Pompon. Mel. ii. 3. Dioddr. as those who said that Perseus
iv. 56. Apoll&n. Rhod. iv. 656. was an Assyrian by birth, and had
Lycophron, 1273. — become a Greek, vi. 54), joined
Tupaiv jiaxsovdi; dj*.ai Kipxaiou together the abductions of 16 and
vd^a<; of Europe, ofMedea and ofHelen,
'Apyouq ts xXsivov opjiov AWjTip as pairs of connected proceedings,
uiyav. the second injury being a retalia-
2 Heyne, Observ. ad Apolloddr. tion for the first, — they drew up
i. 9, 16. p. 72. "Mirum in modum a debtor and creditor account of
fallitur, qui in his commentis cer- abductions between Asia and
turn fundum historicum vel geo- Europe. The Kolchian king (they
graphicum aut exquirere studet, said) had sent a herald to Greece
aut se reperisse, atque historicam to ask for his satisfaction for the
vel geographieam aliquam doctri- wrong done to him by Jaa6n and
nam, systema nos dicimus, inde to re-demand his daughter Medea;
procudi posse, putat," &c. but he was told, in reply. that the
See also the observations inter- Greeks had received no satisfac-
spersed in Burmann'B Catalogus tion for the previous rape of 16.
Argonautarum, prefixed to his There was some ingenuity in
edition of Valerius Flaccus. thus binding together the old
The Persian antiquarians whom fables, so as to represent the in-
Herodotus cites at the beginning vasions of Greece by Darius and
of his history (i. 2 — 4 — it is much Xerxes as retaliations for the un
to be regretted that Herodotus expiated destruction wrought by
did not inform us who they were3 Agamemnon,

238 HISTOET OF GKEECE. Pakt I.
prominent and characteristic features; if they do not com
prise the whole, and if there be intermingled along with
them any sprinkling of historical or geographical fact, — a
question to us indeterminable, — there is at least no solvent
by which it can be disengaged, and no test by which it
can be recognised. Wherever the Grecian mariner sailed,
he carried his religious and patriotic mythes along with
him. His fancy and his faith were alike full of the long
wanderings of Jas6n, Odysseus, Perseus, Herakles, Diony
sus, Triptolemus or 16 ; it was pleasing to him in success,
and consoling to him in difficulty, to believe that their
journeys had brought them over the ground which he was
himself traversing. There was no tale amidst the wide
range of the Grecian epic more calculated to be popular
with the seaman, than the history of the primaeval ship
Argo, and her distinguished crew, comprising heroes from
all parts of Greece, and especially the Tyndarids Kastor
and Pollux, the heavenly protectors invoked during storm
and peril. He localised the legend anew wherever he went,
often with some fresh circumstances suggested either by
his own adventures or by the scene before him. He took
a sort of religious possession of the spot, connecting it by
a bond of faith with his native land, and erecting in it a
temple or an altar with appropriate commemorative solem
nities. The Jasonium thus established, and indeed every
visible object called after the name of the hero, not only
served to keep alive the legend of the Argo in the minds
of future comers or inhabitants, but was accepted as an
obvious and satisfactory proof that this marvellous vessel
had actually touched there in her voyage.
The epic poets, building both on the general love of
Fahuious fabulous incident and on the easy faith of the
—gradually People> dealt with distant and unknown space
modified as in the same manner as with past and unrecorded
graphical time- They created a mythical geography for
knowledge the former, and a mythical history for the latter.
increased. j}ut there was this material difference between
the two: that while the unrecorded time was beyond the
reach of verification, the unknown space gradually became
trodden and examined. In proportion as authentic local
knowledge was enlarged, it became necessary to modify
the geography, or shift the scene of action, of the old
mythes; and this perplexing problem was undertaken by

Chap. XIII.

FABULOUS LOCALITIES.

239

some of the ablest historians and geographers of antiquity,
— for it was painful to them to abandon any portion of the
old epic, as if it were destitute of an ascertainable basis
of truth. Many of these fabulous localities are to be found in
Homer and Hesiod, and the other Greek poets and logo
graphers, — Erytheia, the garden of the Hesperides, the
garden of Phoebus, * to which Boreas transported the Attic
maiden Oreithyia, the delicious country of the Hyperboreans,
theElysian plain,2 the floating island of JEolus, Thrinakia,
the country of the -^Ethiopians, the Laestrygones, the
Kyklopes, the Lotophagi, the Sirens, the Cimmerians and
the Gorgons,3 &c. These are places which (to use the
expression of Pindar respecting the Hyperboreans) you
cannot approach either by sea or by land:4 the wings of
the poet alone can carry you thither. They were not in
troduced into the Greek mind by incorrect geographical
reports, but, ,pn the contrary, had their origin in the legend,
and passed from thence into the realities of geography,5

1 Sophokl. ap. Strab., vii. p. 295. —
*T:i£p te; tiovtov Ttctvr' etc iaya'za
/f)ovo^,
Nuxt6<; ii -fifcL^ o'jps-^oo t' dtva-
xTuyja^,
Ootpou ts TiaXaiov %r)-Vi.
1 Odyss. iv. 562. The islands of
the blessed , in Hesiod , are near
the ocean (Opp. Di. 169).
* Hesiod. Theogon.275— 290. Ho
mer, Iliad, i. 423. Odyss. i.23; ix.
86—206 ; x. 4 — 83 ; xii. 135. Mimnerm.
Fragm. 13, Schneidewin.
< Pindar, Pyth. x. 29.—
Notucl 5' outs Tx.iX.oc, Ubv 5v e5pois
'Es'TTcsppopsuJv aywva 9au|xaT«M
636v.
Ilap' oTs tcqte IIsp<is>jr; e5alcraT0
XotYstdt;, &c.
Hesiod, and the old epic poem
called the Epigoni, both mentioned
the Hyperboreans (Herod, iv. 32
-34). 5 This idea is well stated and
sustained by Volcker (Mythische
Geographic der Griechen und Ho
mer, cap. i. p. H), and by Nitzsch
in his Comments on the Odyssey—

Introduct. Remarks to b. ix. p.
xii.— xxxiii. The twelfth and thir
teenth chapters of the History of
Orchomenos, by 0. Miiller, are also
full of good remarks on the geo
graphy of the Argonautic voyage
(pp. 274—299).
The most striking evidence of
this disposition of the Greeks is
to be found in the legendary dis
coveries of Alexander and his com
panions, when they marched over
the untrodden regions in the east
of the Persian empire (see Arrian,
Hist. Al. v. 3: compare Lucian,
Dialog. Mortuor. xiv. vol. i. p. 212,
Tauch.), because these ideas were
first broached at a time when geo
graphical science was sufficiently
advanced to canvass and criticise
them. The early settlers in Italy,
Sicily, and the Euxine, indulged
their fanciful vision without the
fear of any such monitor: there
was no such thing as a map before
the days of Anaximander, the dis
ciple of Thales.

240 HISTOEY OI? GEEECE. Part I.
which they contributed much to pervert and confuse. For
the navigator or emigrant, starting with an unsuspicious
faith in their real existence, looked out for them in his
distant voyages, and constantly fancied that he had seen or
heard of them, so as to be able to identify their exact
situation.. The most contradictory accounts indeed, as
might be expected, were often given respecting the latitude
and longitude of such fanciful spots, but this did not put
an end to the general belief in their real existence.
In the present advanced state of geographical know
ledge, the story of that man who after reading Gulliver's
Travels went to look in his map for Lilliput, appears an
absurdity. But those who fixed the exact locality of the
floating island of ^Eolus or the rocks of the Sirens did
much the same;1 and, with their ignorance of geography
and imperfect appreciation of historical evidence, the error
was hardly to be avoided. The ancient belief which fixed
the Sirens on the islands of Sirenusse off the coast of Naples
— the Kyklopes, Erytheia, and the Laestrygones in Sicily —
the Lotophagi on the island ofMeninx2 near' the Lesser
Syrtis — the Pheeakians at Korkyra — and the goddess Circe
at the promontory of Circeium — took its rise at a time when
these regions were first Hellenised and comparatively little
visited. Once embodied in the local legends, and attested
by visible monuments and ceremonies, it continued for a
long time unassailed; and Thucydides seems to adopt it,
in reference to Korkyra and Sicily before the Hellenic
colonisation, as matter of fact generally unquestionable,3
though little avouched as to details. But when geographi
cal knowledge became extended, and the criticism upon the
1 See Mr. Payne Knight, Prolegg. Trinakria. The Scholiast ad Apoll.
ad Homer, u. 49. Compare Spohn — (1. c.) speaks of Trinax king of
"de extrema Odysseae parte"— Sicily. Compare iv. 291 with the
p. 97. - Scholia.
2 Straho, xvii. p. 834. An altar 3 Thucyd. i. 25— vi. 2. These
of Odysseus was shown upon this local legends appear in the eyes
island, as well as some other evi- of Strabo convincing evidence (i.
dences (aOfifioXa) of his visit to p. 23— 26),— the tomb of the siren
the place. Parthenope at Naples, the stories
Apollbnius Ehodius copies the at Cumse and Dikasarchia about
OdyBsey in speaking of the island the vExuouavrsTov of Avernus, and
of Thrinakia and the cattle of the existence of places named after
Helios (iv. 965, with Schol.). He Baius and Misenus, the companions
conceives Sicily as Thrinakia, a 0f Odysseus, &o.
name afterwards exchanged for

Chap. XIII. PERVERSION OP GEOGRAPHY BT LEGEND.

241

ancient epic was more or less systematised by the literary
men of Alexandria and Pergamus, it appeared to many of
them impossible that Odysseus could have seen so many
wonders or undergone such monstrous dangers, within
limits so narrow, and in the familiar track between the
Nile and the Tiber. The scene of his weather-driven course
was then shifted farther westward. Many convincing evi
dences were discovered, especially by Asklepiades of Myr-
lea, of his having visited various places in Iberia: * several
critics imagined that he had wandered about in the Atlantic

1 Straho, iii. p. 150—157. 06 yap
jjlovov ot xctxa ttjv 'IxaXlav x<u 2lxe-
Xiav totuol xai aXXoi tivsc tu)v toiou-
tu>v <j7)u.eToc u-oypacpouaLv, dXXa xal
ev ifi 'iprjpia 'OSuacEta ttoXk; Seixvo-
T«t, xai JA97jva? ispov, xal aXXa
jj.'jpia tyvTj ttj<; exsivou irXavr^, xai
aXXov xu>v ex too Tpoj'ixoo TcoXsaou
7u=pf)fsvo[jLEvu)v (I adopt Grosskurd's
correction of the text from y, evg^sviov
to itspiysvouivtov, in the note to
his German translation of Strabo).
Asklepiades (of Myrlea in Bi-
thynia, about 170 b.c.) resided
sometime in Turditania, the south
western region of Spain along the
Guadalquivir, as a teacher of Greek
literature (7rau5sucra<; Ta fpapifj-aTixa),
and composed a periegesis of thelbe-
rian tribes, which unfortunately has
notbeenpreserved. Heraadevarious
discoveries in archaeology, and suc
cessfully connected his old legends
with several portions of the terri
tory before him. His discoveries
were,— 1. In the temple of AthenS,
at this Iberian town of Odysseia,
there were shields and heaks of
ships affixed to the walls, monu
ments of the visit of Odysseus
himself. 2. Among tbe Kallajki,
in the northern part of Portugal,
several of the companions of
Teukros had settled and left
descendants : there were in that
region two Grecian cities, one
called Hellenes, the other called
VOL. I.

Amphilochi ; for Amphilochus also,
the son of Amphiaraus, had died
in Iberia, and many of his soldiers
had taken up their permanent re
sidence in the interior. 3. Many
new inhabitants had come into
Iberia with the expedition of He-
raklfis ; some also after the con
quest of Messene' by the Lacedse-
m6nians. 4. In Cantahria, on the
north coast of Spain, there was a
town and region of Lacedaemonian
colonists. 5. In the same portion
of the country there was the town
of Opsikella, founded by Opsi-
kellas, one of the companions of
Antenor in his emigration from
Troy (Strabo, iii. p. 157).
This is a specimen of the manner
in which the seeds of Grecian
my thus came to be distributed
over so large a surface. To an
ordinary Greek reader, these le
gendary discoveries of Asklepiadds
would probably be more interest
ing than the positive facts which
he communicated respecting the
Iberian tribes 5 and his Turditanian
auditors would he delighted to
hear — while he was reciting and
explaining to them the animated
passage of the Iliad, in which
Agamemndn extols the inestimable
value of the bow of Teukros (viii.
281)— that the heroic archer and
his companions had actually set
foot in the Iberian peninsula. R

242 HISTOET OF GBEECE. Pakt I.
Ocean outside of the Strait of Gibraltar, i and they recog-
_ . nised a section of Lotophagi on the coast of
tiorTof081" Mauritania, over and above those who dwelt on
epical -the is]an(j 0f Meninx.2 On the other hand, Era
tosthenes and Apollodorus treated the places
visited by Odysseus as altogether unreal, for which scepti
cism they incurred much reproach.3
The fabulous island of Erytheia, — the residence of the
three-headed Geryon with his magnificent herd of oxen,
under the custody of the two-headed dog Orthrus, described
by Hesiod, like the garden of the Hesperides, as extra
terrestrial, on the farther side of the circumfluous ocean, —
this island was supposed, by the interpreters of Stesichorus
the poet, to be named by him off the southwestern region
of Spain called Tartessus, and in the immediate vicinity of
Gades. But the historian Hekatseus, in his anxiety to
historicise the old fable, took upon himself to remove
Erytheia from Spain nearer home to Epirus. He thought
it incredible that Herakles should have traversed Europe
from east to west, for the purpose of bringing the cattle of
Geryon to Eurystheus at Mykense, and he pronounced
Geryon to have been a king of Epirus, near the Gulf of
Ambrakia. The oxen reared in that neighbourhood were
proverbially magnificent, and to get them even from thence
and bring them to Mykense (he contended) was no incon
siderable task. Arrian, who cites this passage from Heka
tseus, concurs in the same view, — an illustration of the
licence with which ancient authors fitted on their fabulous
geographical names to the real earth, and brought down
the ethereal matter of legend to the lower atmosphere of
history. 4
1 This was the opinion ofKrates Krates affirmed that he had cir-
of Mallus, one of the most dis- rumnavigated the southern ex
tinguished of the critics on Homer: tremity of Africa and gone to
it was the subject of an animated India : the critic Aristonikus, ,
controversy between him and Aris- Straho's contemporary, enumerated
tarchus (Aulus Gellius, N. A. xiv. all the different opinions (Strabo,
6; Strabo, iii. p. 157). See the in- i. p. 38).
Btructive treatise of Lehrs, De 2 Strabo, iii. p. 157.
Aristarchi Studiis, c. v. §. 4. p. 3 Strabo, i. p. 22—44; vii. p 290.
251. Much controversy also took ' Stesichori Fragm. ed. Kleine;
place among the critics respecting Geryonis Fr. 5. p. 60; ap. Strab^,
the ground which Menelaus went iii. p. 148 ; Herodot. iv. 8. It seems
over in his wanderings (Odyss. iv.). very doubtful whether Stesichorus

Chap. XIII.

^ETES.— CIRCE.— ^JA.

243

Both the track and the terminus of the Argonautic
voyage appear in the most ancient epic as little within the
conditions of reality, as the speaking timbers or the semi-
divine crew of the vessel. In the Odyssey, -JEetes and Circe
(Hesiod names Medea also) are brother and sister, offspring
of Helios. The JEsean island, adjoining the circumfluous
ocean, "where the house and dancing-ground of Eos are
situated, and where Helios rises," is both the residence of
Circe and of -^Eetes, inasmuch as Odysseus, in
returning from the former, follows the same ^henttie
course as the Argo had previously taken in Argonautic
returning from the latter, i Even in the con- lament-*6"
ception of Mimnermus, about 600 b.c, -ZEa still tached to
retained its fabulous attributes in conjunction ° chis*
with the ocean and Helios, without having been yet iden
tified with any known portion of the solid earth;2 and it
was justly remarked by Demetrius of Skepsis in antiquity3

meant to indicate any neighbour
ing island as Erytheia, if we com
pare Fragm. 10. p. 67 of the Ge-
ryonis, and the passages of Athe-
nEeus and Eustathius there cited.
He seems to have adhered to the
old fable, placing Erytheia on the
opposite side of the ocean-stream,
for H§rakles crosses the ocean to
get to it.
Hekatieus , ap. Arrian. Histor.
Alex. ii. 16. Skylax places Ery
theia, "whither Gerydn is said to
have come to feed his oxen," in
the Kastid territory near the Greek
city of ApollOnia on the Ionic
Gulf, northward of the Keraunian
mountains. There were splendid
cattle consecrated to H&lios near
Apollonia, watched by the citizens
of the place with great care (He
rodot. ix. 93; Skylax, c. 26).
About Erytheia, Cellarius ob
serves (Geogr. Ant. ii. 1, 127), "In
sula Erytheia, quam veteres ad-
juDgunt Gadibus, vel demerea est3
vel in scopulis quierenda, vel pars
est ipsarum Galium, neque hodie
ejus formse aliqua, uti descripta
est, fertur superesse." To make

the disjunctive catalogue complete,
he ought to have added, "or it
never really existed," — not the
least probable supposition of all.
1 Hesiod, Theogon. 956 — 992;
Homer, Odyss. xii. 3—69 
Nrjaov ev Alabjv, 36i x 'Hous
Oixia xai x°Pot £^ > xai avxoXcd
TJsXloiO.
2 Mimnerm. Er. 10—11, Schneide-
win ; Athense. vii. p. 277.—
O'jos xot' av jisya xd)a<; avqYaysv
a&TO<; 'I^otov
'E£ Ait]<; TsXsdac dXYtv6sa<rav
686v,
^Tpplo-tfl IUXtfl teXecdv )raXeni)pec
aeSXovj
O08' av £7u' 'QxeavoO xaXov
ixovto poov.
******
A'i7|*rao tcoXiv , toQi t' ibxsoq 'He-
Xioio
'Axtivsc yjoaiip xeiaxai ev 8a-
Xa(jtij>,
'QxsavoO 7iapa yziXza'j 7vJ Siys.no
Qsio? 'Iipiov.
8 Strabo, i. p. 45—46. ATJix-rvrpnx;
6 2xTj'ko<; . . . xpoq NsavST] tov Ku-
Cixtjvov 9tXoTi(jt,0T£poj? dvtiXe-
R 2

244 HISTORY OV GKEECE, Pabt I.
(though Strabo vainly tries to refute him), that neither
Homer nor Mimnermus designates Kolchis either as the
residence of .iEetes, or as the terminus of the Argonautic
voyage. Hesiod carried the returning Argonauts through
the river Phasis into the ocean. But some of the poems
ascribed to Eumelus were the first which mentioned ^Eetes
andKolchis, and interwove both of them into the Corinthian
mythical genealogy. * These poems seem to have been com
posed subsequent to the foundation of Sinope, and to the
commencement of Grecian settlement on the Borysthenes,
between the years 600 and 500 b.c. The Greek mariners
who explored and colonised the southern coast of the
Euxine, found at the extremity of their voyage the river
Phasis and its barbarous inhabitants : it was the eastern
most point which Grecian navigation (previous to the time
of Alexander the Great) ever attained, and it was within
sight of the impassable barrier of Caucasus. 2 They believed,
not unnaturally, that they had here found "the house of
Eos (the morning) and the rising-place of the sun," and that
the river Phasis, if they could fallow it to its unknown
beginning, would conduct them to the circumfluous ocean.
They gave to the spot the name of JEa, and the fabulous
and real title gradually became associated together into
one compound appellation, — the Kolchian -<Ea, or -33a of
Kolchis.3 While Kolchis was thus entered on the map as
a fit representative for the Homeric "house of the morning,"
the narrow strait of the Thracian Bosphorus attracted to
itself the poetical fancy of the Symplegades, or colliding
rocks, through which the heaven-protected AJrgo had been
the first to pass. The powerful Greek cities of Kyzikus,
Herakleia, and Sinope, each fertile in local legends, still
farther contributed to give this direction to the voyage;
fcov, EiTCovra, Sti ot ' Apyotabrai. contention between the small town
hXeovts<; el<; ®5cjiv t&v Oa' lOu.^pou Skepsis and its powerful neigh-
xal rtht aXXtov bu.rjXoyouu.ztot tcXouv, bour Kyzikus , respecting points
iSpusovTo ii t))5 'ISaiac u.t]rpb<; ispcc of comparative archa;ology.
iitl Kottxov . . . & py-i) v tp.7]oi |xt) 5 ' ' Eumelus, Fragm. EOpumta 7,
slSivat T>)v el? Oiin K?co6r|- Kopivfliaxi 2-5. pp. 63— 68, Diintzer,
u.iat tou 'IAaovos "0 p. T) p o v. » Arrian, Periplus Pont. Euxih.
Again, p. 46, 7iapo!Xci()ujv p-ip-rupa p. 12; ap. Geogr. Minor, vol. i.
Mlp.vspp.ov, o« it tu> 'Qxsava> xoiij- He saw the Caucasus from Bios-
aar, o'i'xtjoiv AIt^tou, &c. kurias.
The adverb cpiXoxiptoxEpu)? reveals 'Herodot. i. 2; vii, 193—197.
to us the municipal rivalry and Eurip. Med. 2. Valer. Place, v. 61.

Chap. XIII. CIRCE IN THE WEST. 245
so that in the time of Hekatseus it had become the estab
lished belief that the Argo had started from Iolkos and
gone to Kolchis.
JEetes thus received his home from the legendary faith
and fancy of the eastern Greek navigators: his A&tes and
sister Circe, originally his fellow-resident, was Circs.
localised by the western. The Hesiodic and other poems,
giving expression to the imaginative impulses of the in
habitants of Cumse and other early Grecian settlers in Italy
and Sicily, J had referred the wanderings of Odysseus to the
western or Tyrrhenian sea, and had planted the Cyclopes,
the Lsestrigones, the floating island of JEolus, the Loto-
phagi, the Phseacians, &c, about the coast of Sicily, Italy,
Libya, and Korkyra. In this way the _<Egean island — the
residence of Circe, and the extreme point of the wanderings
of Odysseus, from whence he passes only to the ocean and
¦ into Hades — came to be placed in the far west, while the
-33a of ^etes was in the far east—- not unlike our East
and West Indies. The homeric brother and sister were
separated and sent to opposite extremities of the Grecian
terrestrial horizon. 2
The track from Iolkos to Kolchis, however, though
1 Straho, i. p. 23. Volcker (Ueher the one and the other in the ex-
Homerische Geographic, v. 66) is terior ocean (truYYEV£',ctS T£ ercXaas
instructive upon this point, as xtbv outuj 8iu)xiau.evwv, xai e£coxeix-
upon the geography of the Greek vicu-ov dpicpoiv, i. p. 20) ; perhaps
poets generally. He recognises also Jas&n might have wandered
the purely mythical character of as far as Italy, as evidences (ci7]|j.etdc
.ZEa in Homer and HeBiod, hut he T-iva) are shown that he did (ib.).
tries to prove— unsuccessfully in But the idea that Homer con-
my judgement — that Homer places ceived iEgt&s in the extreme east
2E6t§s in the east, while Circe is and Circ§ in the extreme west, is
in the west, and that Homer re- notreconcileahle with the Odyssey.
fers the Argonautic voyage to the The supposition of Straho is alike
Euxine Sea. violent and unsatisfactory.
2 Straho (or Polyhius, whom he Circe" was worshipped as a god-
has just heen citing) contends that dess at Circeii (Cicero, Nat. Deor.
Homer knew the existence of iii. 19). Hesiod, in the Theogony,
iE£t£s in Kolchis, and of Circg at represents the two sons of Circ§
Circeium, as historical persons, as hy Odysseus as reigning over all
well as the voyage of Jas6n to the warlike Tyrrhenians (Theog.
.ZEa as an historical fact. Upon 1012), an undefined western, so-
this he (Homer) huilt a super- vereignty. The great Mamilian gens
structure of fiction (TcpotrjxuQsufia) : at Tusculum traced their descent
he invented the "brotherhood to Odysseus and Circe" (Dionys.
between them, and he placed hoth Hal. iv. 46).

246 HISTOET OF GEEECE. Paet t.
plausihle as far as it went, did not realize all the conditions;
of the genuine fabulous voyage: it did not explain the
evidences of the visit of these maritime heroes which were
to be found in Libya, in Krete, in Anaphe, in Korkyra, in
Return of the Adriatic Gulf, in Italy, and in iEthalia. It
the ^rgo- became necessary to devise another route for
ferent ver- them in their return, and the Hesiodic narrative
sions. was (as I have before observed), that they came
back by the circumfluous ocean: first going up the river
Phasis into the circumflous ocean; then following that deep
and gentle stream until they entered the Nile, and came
down its course to the coast of Libya. This seems also to
have been the belief of Hekatseus. * But presently several
Greeks (and Herodotus among them) began to discard the
idea of a circumfluous ocean-stream, which had pervaded
their old geographical and astronomical fables, and which
explained the supposed easy communication between one
extremity of the earth and another. Another idea was
then started for the returning voyage of the Argonauts,
It was supposed that the river Ister, or Danube, flowing
from the Ithipsean mountains in the north-west of Europe,
divided itself into two branches, one of which fell into the
Euxine Sea, and the other into the Adriatic.
The Argonauts, fleeing from the pursuit of JEetes, had
been obliged to abandon their regular course homeward,
and had gone from the Euxine sea up the Ister; then pas
sing down the other branch of that river, they had entered
into the Adriatic, the Kolchian pursuers following them.
Such is the story given by Apollonius Rhodius from Tima-
getus, and accepted even by so able a geographer as
Eratosthenes — who preceded him by one generation, and
1 There is an opinion cited from flowed all round the earth, and
HekatEeus in Schol. Apoll. Rhod. was the source of all the principal
iv. 284, contrary to this, which is rivers which flowed into the great
given by the same scholiast on iv. internal sea, or Mediterranean (see
269. But, in spite of the remarks HekatEeus, Fr. 349; Klausen, ap.
of Clausen (ad Fragment. HekatEei, Arrian. ii. 16, where he speaks of
187. p. 98), I think that the Schol. the Mediterranean as the u-sYttT]
ad iv. 284 has made a mistake in S&Xaoja). Retaining this old idea
citing HekatEeus ; the more so, as of the ocean-stream, HekatEeus
the scholiast, as printed from the would naturally believe that the
Codex Parisinus, cites the same Phasis joined it : nor can I agree
opinion without mentioning He- with Klausen (ad Fr. 187) that this
katceus. According to the old implies a degree of ignorance too
Homeric idea, the ocean-stream gross to impute to him.

Ciiap. XIII. ARGONAUTIC LEGEND MODIFIED. 247
who, though sceptical in regard to the localities visited by
Odysseus, seems to have been a firm believer in the reality
of the Argonautic voyage. ' Other historians again, among
whom was Timseus, though they considered the ocean as
an outer sea, and ho longer admitted the existence of the
old Homeric ocean-stream, yet imagined a story for the
return-voyage of the Argonauts somewhat resembling the
old tale of Hesiod and Hekateeus. They alleged that the
Argo, after entering into the Palus Mceotis, had followed
the upward course of the river Tanais; that she had then
been carried overland and launched in a river which had
its mouth in the ocean or great outer sea. When in the
ocean, she had coasted along the north and west of Europe
until she reached Gades and the strait of Gibraltar, where
she entered into the Mediterranean, and there visited the
many places specified in the fable. Of this long voyage,
in the outer sea to the north and west of Europe, many
traces were affirmed to exist along the coast of the ocean. 2
There was again a third version, according to which the
Argonauts came back as they went, through the Thracian
Bosphorus and the Hellespont. In this way geographical
plausibility was indeed maintained, but a large portion of
the fabulous matter was thrown overboard.3
Such were the various attempts made to reconcile the
1 Apoll6n. Rhod. iv. 287 ; Schol. 53 Goller. Skymnus the geogra-
ad iv. 284; Pindar, Pyth. iv. 447, pher also adopted this opinion
with Schol.; Strabo, i. p. 46—57; (Schol. Apoll. Rhod. 284— 287). The
Aristot. Mirabil. Auscult. c. 105. pseudo-Orpheus in the poem called
Altars were shown in the Adriatic, Argonautica seems to give ajumble
which had been erected both by of all the different stories.
Jason and by Medea (ib.). 3 Diod6r. iv. 49. This was the
Aristotle believed in the forked tale both of Sophokles and of
course of the Ister, with one em- Kallimachus (Schol. Apoll. Rhod.
bouchure in the Euxine and an- iv. 284).
other in the Adriatic : he notices See the Dissertation of Ukert,
certain fishes called rpiyiai, who Beylage iv. vol. i. part 2, p. 320
entered the river (like the Argo- of his Geographic der Griechen
nauts) from the Euxine, went up und Romer, which treats of the
it as far as the point of bifurcation Argonautic voyage at some length ;
and descended into the Adriatic also J. H. Voss, Alte Weltkunde
(Histor. Animal, viii. 15). Compare iiberdieGestalt derErde, published
Ukert, Geographie der Griechen in the second volume of the Kri-
und Romer, vol. iii. p. 145—147, tische Blatter, pp. 1C2, 314—326 ;
about the supposed course of the and Forbiger, Handbuch der Alten
Ister. Geographie, Einleitung, p. 8.
1 Dioddr. iv. 56; Timceus, Fragm.

248 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet I„
Ar'gorjautic legend with enlarged geographical knowledge
and improved historical criticism. The problem remained
unsolved, but the faith in the legend did not the less con
tinue. It was a faith originally generated at a time when
the unassisted narrative of the inspired poet sufficed for
the conviction of his hearers ; it consecrated one among the
capital exploits of that heroic and super-human race, whom
the Greek was accustomed at once to look back upon as
his ancestors and to worship conjointly with his gods : it lay
too deep in his mind either to require historical evidence
for his support, or to be overthrown by geographical diffi
culties as they were then appreciated. Supposed traces
_ .. , of the past event, either preserved in the names
Continued . . r i j • j ¦ i. t r ¦
faith in the oi places, or embodied in standing religious
voyage— customs with their explanatory comments, ser-
truth deter- ved as sufficient authentication in the eyes of
mined by the curious inquirer. And even men trained in
a more severe school of criticism contented them
selves with eliminating the palpable contradictions and
softening down the supernatural and romantic events, so
as to produce an Argonautic expedition of their own in
vention as the true and accredited history. Strabo, though
he can neither overlook nor explain the geographical im
possibilities of the narrative, supposes himself to have
discovered the basis of actual fact, which the original poets
had embellished or exaggerated. The golden fleece was
typical of the great wealth of Kolchis, arising from gold-
dust washed down by the rivers ; and the voyage of Jason
was in reality an expedition at the head of a considerable
army, with which he plundered this wealthy country and
made extensive conquests in the interior.1 Strabo has
nowhere laid down what he supposes to have been the
exact measure and direction of Jason's march, but he must
1 Strabo, i. p. 46. He speaks here tjjv <DplSoo. Compare also Justin,
of the voyage of Phryxus, as well xiii. 2—3; Tacit: Annal. vi. 34.
as that of Jasdn, as having been Strabo cannot speak of the' old
a military undertaking (oTpaTsia): fables with literal fidelity : he un-
so again, iii. p. 149, he speaks of consciously transforms them into
the military expedition of Odys- quasi-historical incidents of his
sens— r] too 'OSuaosoje; Gxpa-cU, and own imagination. Diod6rus gives
r) 'HpoaXeou? ataxia (ib.). Again, a narrative of the same kind, with
xi. p. 498. Ot fi.u9ot, etlviTTifisvoi decent substitutes for the fabulou i
ttjv 'Iaaovos aTpaTStav rcposX86vTO« elements (iv. 40 — 47—56).
a-s^pi xal MrjSiav ett Se rrpitepov

Chap. XIII. ARGONAUTIC LEGEND MODIFIED. ', . 249
have regarded it as very long, since he classes Jason with
Dionysus and Herakles, and emphatically characterises all
the three as having traversed wider spaces of ground than
any moderns could equal. ' Such was the compromise which
a mind like that of Strabo made with the ancient legends.
He shaped or cut them down to the level of his own cre
dence, and in this waste of historical criticism, without any
positive evidence, he took to himself the credit of greater
penetration than the literal believers, while he escaped the
necessity of breaking formally with the bygone heroic
world. 1 Strabo, i. p. 48. The far-extend- his followers perilous and trying
ing expeditions undertaken in the marches, from anxiety to equal or
eastern regions hy Dionysus and surpass the alleged exploits of
Herakles were constantly present Semiramis, Cyrus, Perseus, and
to the mind of Alexander the HSrakles. (Arrian, v. 2, 3 ; vi. 24,
Great as subjects of comparison 3; vii. 10, 12. Strabo, iii. p. 171;
with himself: he imposed upon xv. p. 686; xvii. p. 81.)

250 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet L

CHAPTER XIV.
LEGENDS OE THEBES.
The Boeotians generally, throughout the historical age,
Abundant though well endowed with bodily strength and
legends of courage,1 are represented as proverbially de-
lha li3S" ficient in intelligence, taste, and fancy. But the
legendary population of Thebes, the Kadmeians, are rich
in mythical antiquities, divine as well as heroic. Both
Dionysus and Herakles recognise Thebes as their natal city.
Moreover, the two sieges of Thebes by Adrastus, even taken
apart from Kadmus, Antiope, Amphion and Zethus, &c,
are the most prominent and most characteristic exploits,
next to the siege of Troy, of that pre-existing race of heroes
who lived in the imagination of the historical Hellenes.
It is not Kadmus, but the brothers Amphion and
Zethus, who are given to us in the Odyssey as the first
founders of Thebes and the first builders of its celebrated
AmpWon walls. They are the sons of Zeus by Antiope,
and Zethus daughter of Asopus. The scholiasts, who desire
founders of *° reconcile this tale with the more current ac-
Thebes. count of the foundation of Thebes by Kadmus,
andBreotus te^ us tnat after ^he death of Amphion and
—both Zethus, Eurymachus, the warlike king of the
legends. Hilegyse, invaded and ruined the newly-settled
town, so that Kadmus on arriving was obliged
1 The eponym Boeatus is son of The Tanagrsean poetess Korinna
Poseid6n and Arne (Euphorion ap. (the rival of Pindar, whose com-
Eustath. ad Iliad, ii. 507). It was positions in the BoeStian dialect
from Ami in Thessaly that the are unfortunately lost) appears to
Boe6tians were said to have come, have dwelt upon this native Bce6-
when they invaded and occupied tian genealogy: she derived the
BcBdtia. Euripides made him son Ogygian gates of ThSbes from Ogy-
of Poseid6n and Melanippe. Ano- gus, son of Boe&tus (Schol. Apollon.
ther legend recited Boeotus and Rhod. iii. 1178), also the Fragments
Hellen as sons of Poseid6n and of Korinna in Schneidewin's edi-
Antiope (Hygin. f. 167—186). tion, fr. 2, p. 432.

Chap. XIV^ LEGENDS OF THEBES. 251
to re-found it. i But Apollodorus, and seemingly the older
logographers before him, placed Kadmus at the top, and
inserted the two brothers at a lower point in the series.
According to them, Belus and Agenor were the sons of
Epaphus (son of the Argeian 16) by Libya. Agenor went
to Phoenicia and there became king: he had for his offspring
Kadmus, Phcenix, Kilix, and a daughter Europa; though
in the Iliad Europa is called daughter of Phcenix.2 Zeus
fell in love with Europa, and assuming the shape of a bull,
carried her across the sea upon his back from Egypt to
Crete, where she bore to him Minos, Phadamanthus, and
Sarpedon. Two out of the three sons sent out by Agenor
in search of their lost sister, wearied out by a long-protracted
as well as fruitless voyage, abandoned the idea of returning
home: Kilix settled in Kilikia, and Kadmus in Thrace.3
Thasus, the brother or nephew of Kadmus, who had ac
companied them in the voyage, settled and gave name to
the island of Thasus.
Both Herodotus and Euripides represent Kadmus as
an emigrant from Phoenicia, conducting a body of followers
in quest of Europa. The account of Apollodorus describes
him as having come originally from Libya or Egypt to
Phoenicia: we may presume that this was also the statement
of the earlier logographers Pherekydes and Hellanikus.
Conon, who historicises and politicises the whole legend,
seems to have found two different accounts; one connecting
Kadmus with Egypt, another bringing him from Phoenicia.
He tries to melt down the two into one, by representing
that the Phoenicians, who sent out Kadmus, had acquired
great power in Egypt — that the seat of their kingdom was
1 Homer, Odyss. xi. 262, and 338. Pherekydes expressly men-
Fustath. ad loc. Compare Schol. tioned Kilix (Apollod. ib.). Be
ad Iliad, xii. 301. sides the Eupu)7usia of Stesichorus
2 Iliad , xiv. 321. Id is xzpbzaaa (see Stesichor. Fragm. xv. p. 73,
xpou.aru>p of the Thebans. Eurip. ed. Kleine) , there were several
Phceniss. 247 — 676. other ancient poems on the ad-
3 Apollod6r. ii. 1, 3; iii. 1, 8. In ventures of Eur6pa: one in parti-
the Hesiodic poems (ap. Schol. cular by Eumelus (Schol. ad Iliad.
Apoll. Bbod. ii. 178) Phrenix was vi.138), which, however, can hardly
recognised as son of Agen6r. Phe- be the same as the ra eVq to. els
rekydSs also described both Phce- Eopd>Tt7]v alluded to by Pausanias
nix and Kadmus as sons of AgenSr (ix. 5, 4). See "Wullner de Cyclo
(rherekyd. Fragm. 40, Didot). Com- Epico, p. 57 (Munster, 1825).
pare Servius ad Virgil. iEneid. i.

252 HISTORY OF GREECE, EiM I.
the Egyptian Thebes — that Kadmus was despatched, under
pretence indeed of finding his lost sister, but really on a
project of conquest — and that the name Thebes, which he
gave to his new establishment in Bceotia, was borrowed
from Thebes in Egypt, his ancestorial seat, i
Kadmus went from Phoenicia to Thrace, and from
Thrace to Delphi to procure information respecting his
sister Europa, but the god directed him to take no further
trouble about her ; he was to follow the guidance of a cow,
and to found a city on the spot where the animal should
h w The ^e down. The condition was realised on the site
bes was " of Thebes. The neighbouring fountain Areia
b°UKddd was guarded by a fierce dragon, the offspring of
y a mus. ^rgg^ wj1Q <jestr0yed allthe persons sent to fetch
water. Kadmus killed the dragon, and at the suggestion
of Athene sowed the dragon's teeth in the earth:2 there
sprang up at once the armed men called the Sparti, among
whom he flung stones, and they immediately began to assault
each other until all were slain except five. Ares, indignant
at this slaughter, was about to kill Kadmus; hut Zeus ap
peased him, condemning Kadmus to an expiatory servitude
of eight years, after which he married Harmonia, the
daughter of Ares and Aphrodite — presenting to her the
splendid necklace fabricated by the hand of Hephsestos,
which had been given by Zeus to Europa,3 All the gods
came to the Kadmeia, the citadel of Thebes, to present
1 Condn, Narrat. 37. Perhaps the a Apollodor. iii. 4, 1 — 3. Phere-
most remarkable thing of all is kydes gave this account of the
the tone of unbounded self-conn- necklace, which seems to imply
dence with which Con&n winds up that Kadmus must have found his
this tissue of uncertified supposi- sister Europa. The narrative here
tions— TiEpl u.zt KiSpiou -mi 8r]P<I» given is from Hellanikus; that of
oixideio? outo« 6 aX»)(% X6yo<;- to Pherekydes differed from it in
8e aXXo p-u9o« xai yo7]teicc axoTji;. some respects ; compare Hellanik.
1 Stesichor. (Eragm. 16; Kleine) Fragm. 8 and 9, and Pherekyd.
ap. Schol. Eurip. Phosniss. 680. Frag. 44. The resemblance of this
The place where the heifer had story with that of Jasftn and .ffietes
lain down was still shown in.the (see above, chap, xiii.) will strike
time of Pausanias (ix. 12, 1). every one. It is curious to observe
Lysimachus, a lost author who how the old logographer Phereky-
wrote Thebaica, mentioned Europa des explained this analogy in his
as having come with Kadmus to narrative ; he said that Athene had
Thebes, and told the story in given half the dragon's teeth to
many other respects very differently Kadmus and half to .ffietes (sea
(Schol. Apoll. Rhod. iii. 1179). Schol. Pindar. Isthm. vi. 13).

Chap. XIV. LEGENDS OF THfiBES. 253
congratulations and gifts at these nuptials, which seem to
have been hardly less celebrated in the mythical world than
those of Peleus and Thetis. The issue of the marriage was
one son,Polyd6rus,and four daughters, Autonoe, Ino, Semele
and Agave. l
Prom the five who alone survived of the warriors sprung
from the dragon's teeth, arose five great families Five primi.
or gentes in Thebes;- the oldest and noblest of its tive fami-
inhabitants, coeval with the foundation of the town. Jj^l^g
They were called Sparti, and their name seems to oaiied '
have given rise,not only to the fable of the sowing ssaltl-
of the teeth, but also to other etymological narratives.5
All the four daughters of Kadmus are illustrious in
fabulous history. Ino, wife of Athamas, the son The four
of -3Colus, has already been included among the daughters
legends of the iEolids. Semele became the mus—
mistress of Zeus, and inspiredHere with jealousy. a- In6-
Misguided by the malicious suggestions of that goddess, she
solicited Zeus to visit her with all the solemnity and terrors
which surrounded him when he approached Here herself.
The god unwillingly consented, and came in his chariot in
the midst of thunder and Ughtning, under which awful
accompaniments the mortal frame of Semele
perished. Zeus, taking from herthe child of which
she was pregnant, sewed it into his own thigh: after the
proper interval the child was brought out and born, and
became the great god Dionysus or Bacchus. Hermes took
him to Ino and Athamas to receive their protection. After
wards, however, Zeus having transformed him into a kid to
conceal him from the persecution of Here, the nymphs of
the mountain Nysa became his nurses.3
Autonoe, the third daughter of Kadmus, married the
pastoral hero or god Aristaeus, and was mother 3- Autonos
of Aktseon, a devoted hunter and a favourite and her son
companion of the goddess Artemis. She however Aktffidn-
1 Hesiod, Theogon. 976. Leuko- Phceniss. 1. c).
thea, the sea-goddess, daughter of Even in the days of Plutarch
Kadmus, ia mentioned in the Odys- there were persons living who
sey, v. 334; Diod&r. iv. 2. traced their descent to the Sparti
2 Eurip. Phosniss. 680, with the of Thebes (Plutarch, Ser. Num.
Scholia; Pherekydes, Fragm. 44; Vindict. p. 563).
Andrdtion, ap. Schol. Pindar. s Apollod6r. iii. 4, 2 — 9; Diod6r.
Isthm. vi. 13. Dionysius (?) called iv. 2.
the Sparti an s9-;os Boico-i?.; (Schol.

254

HISTOBT OF GREECE.

Paet I,

became displeased with him — either because he looked
into a fountain while she was bathing and saw her naked
— or, according to the legend set forth by the poet Stesi
chorus, because he loved and courted Semele — or according
to Euripides, because he presumptuously vaunted himself
Nas her superior in the chase. She transformed him into a
stag, so that his own dogs set upon and devoured him. The
rock upon which Aktseon used to sleep when fatigued with
the chase, and the spring whose transparent waters had too
clearly revealed the form of the. goddess, were shown to
Pausanias near Platsea, on the road to Megara. *
Agave, the remaining daughter of Kadmus, married
4 Agave- Echion, one of the Sparti. The issue of these
and her son nuptials was Pentheus, who, when Kadmus
Pentheus. became old, succeeded him as king of Thebes.
In his reign Dionysus appeared as a god, the author or
discoverer of the vine with all its blessings. He had
wandered over Asia, India and Thrace, at the head of an
excited troop of female enthusiasts — communicating and
. inculcating every-where the Bacchic ceremonies, and rou-

1 See Apolloddr, iii. 4, 3; Ste-
siclior. Fragm. xvii. Kleine ; Pau
san. ix. 2, 3; Eurip. Bacch. 337;
DiodOr. iv. 81. The old logogra-
pher Akusilaus copied Stesichorus.
Upon this well-known story it
is unnecessary to multiply refer
ences. I shall however briefly
notice the remarks made upon it
by DiodOrus and by Pausanias, as
an illustration of the manner in
which the literary Greeks of a
later day dealt with, their old
national legends.
Both of them appear implicitly
to believe the fact, that AktaeOn
was devoured by his own dogs,
but they differ materially in the
explanation of it.
DiodOrus accepts and vindicates
the miraculous interposition of the
displeased goddess to punish
AktseOn, who, according to one
story, had boasted of his superiority
in the chase to Artemis, — accord
ing to another Btory, had presumed
to solicit the goddess in marriage,

emboldened by the great numbers
of the feet of animals slain in the
chase which he had hung up as
offerings in her temple. "It is not
improbable (observes DiodOrus)
that the goddess was angry on
both these accounts. For whether
AktseOn abused these hunting
presents so far as to make them
the meanB of gratifying his own
desires towards one unapproach
able in wedlock, or whether he
presumed to call himself an abler
hunter than her with whom the
gods themselves will not compete
in this department, — in either case
the wrath of the goddess against
him was just and legitimate (6jjlo-
, Xoyouu.ev7]v "xctt Sixatav 6pyT)v £ff/s
7tp6; gc&tov 7) 9eo<;)- With perfect
propriety therefore (Ka96Xou 8s
7el8gcv<i>!;) was he transformed into
an animal such as those he had
hunted, and torn to pieces by the
very dogs who had killed them,"
\Diod. iv. 80.)
Pausanias, a man of exemplary

Chap. XIV. DIONYSUS AT THEBES. 255
sing in the mindsi of women that impassioned religious
emotion which led them to ramble in solitary mountains
at particular seasons, there to give vent to violent fanatical
excitement, apart from the men, clothed in fawnskins and
armed with the thyrsus. The obtrusion of a male spectator
upon these solemnities was esteemed sacrilegious. Though
the rites had heen rapidly disseminated and fervently
welcomed in many parts of Thrace, yet there were some
places in which they had heen obstinately resisted and their
votaries treated with rudeness; especially hy Lykurgus,
king of the Edonian Thracians, upon whom a sharp and
exemplary punishment was inflicted hy Dionysus.
Thebes was the first city of Greece to which Dionysus
came, at the head of his Asiatic troop of females, He resists
to obtain divine honours, and to establish his *e sod ^
peculiar rites in his native city. The venerable his mis^
Kadmus, together with his daughters and the "able end-
prophet Teiresias, at once acknowledged the divinity of
the new god, and began to offer their worship and praise
to him, along with the solemnities which he enjoined. But
Pentheus vehemently opposed the new ceremonies, repro
ving and maltreating the god who introduced them: nor was
his unbelief at all softened by the miracles which Dionysus
wrought for his own protection and for that of his followers.
His mother Agave, with her sisters and a large body of
other women from Thebes, had gone out from Thebes to
Mount Kithseron to celebrate their solemnities under the
influence of the Bacchic frenzy. Thither Pentheus followed
to watch them, and there the punishment due to his impiety
overtook him. The avenging touch of the god having
robbed him of his senses, he climbed a tall pine for the
purpose of overlooking the feminine multitude, who detected
him in this position, pulled down the tree, and tore him in
piety, and generally less inclined mad, without the interference of
to scepticism than Diod6rus, thinks the goddess : in this state of
the occasion unsuitable for a madness they would have torn in
miracle or special interference, pieces without distinction any
Having alluded to the two causes one whom they met (Paus. ix. 2, 3.
assigned for the displeasure of iyw di xai avsu Oeoo 7uei9of/.ai voaoy
Artemis (they are the two first- Xutrdccv E7tiPa>.=Iv tou 'Axxaiurioc
mentioned in my text, and distinct robe; xuvaO-" He retains the truth
from the two noticed by Diodorus), of the final catastrophe, but ra-
he proceeds to say, "But I believe tionalises it, excluding the special
that the dogs of Aktason weut intervention of Artemis.

256

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Past I,

in pieces. Agave, mad and bereft of consciousness, made
herself the foremost in this assault, and carried back in tri
umph to Thebes the head of her slaughtered son. The
aged Kadmus, with his wife Harmonia, retired among the
Illyrians, and at the end of their lives were changed into
serpents, Zeus permitting them to be transferred to the
Elysian fields. 1
Polydorus and Labdakus successively became kings
of Thebes : the latter at his death left an infant
Antiope^8' son, Laius, who was deprived of his throne by
-A-nipJ110^1) Lykus. Ajid here we approach the legend of
an us' Antiope, Zethus and Amphion, whom the fabu
lists insert at this point of the Theban series. Antiope is
here the daughter of Nykteus, the brother of Lykus. She
is deflowered by Zeus, and then, while pregnant, flies to
Epopeus, king of Sikyon: Nykteus dying entreats his

1 Apollod. iii. 5, 3—4; Theocrit.
Idyll, xxvi. Eurip. Bacch. passim.
Such is the tragical plot of this
memorable drama. It is a striking
proof of the deep-seated reverence
of the people of Athens for the
sanctity of the Bacchic ceremonies,
that they could have borne the
spectacle of AgavS on the stage
with her dead son's head, and the
expressions of triumphant sympa
thy in her action on the part of
the Chorus (1168), Maxatp' 'hYabr} I
This drama, written near the close
of the life of Euripides, and ex
hibited by his son after his death
{Schol. Aristoph. Ran. 67), con
tains passages strongly inculcating
the necessity of implicit deference
to ancestorial authority in matters
of religion, and favourably con
trasting the uninquiring faith of
the vulgar with the dissenting and
inquisitive tendencies of superior
minds: see v. 196; compare vv.
339 and 422.—
068sj aooiC6[Asa8a xotai Ssijjlocuv.
[Icftpious Tiapa8oy_a<;, as 8' bix.r)-
Xixa<; xpovoj
Kexr^u.sQ , oftSeU ai>ia xaiapaXEi
Xoyoc,

0u6' r/v 6V axpiuv to ffotpbv supTjtat
tppsvtov.
Such reproofs "insanientis sapien-
tiae" certainly do not fall in with
the plot of the drama itself, in
which Pentheus appears as a Con
servative, resisting the introduction
of the new religious rites. Taken
in conjunction with the emphatic
and submissive piety which reigns
through the drama, they counten
ance the supposition of Tyrwhitt,
that Euripides was anxious to repel
the imputations, so often made
against him. of commerce with
the philosophers, and participation
in sundry heretical opinions.
Pacuvius in his Pentheus seems
to have closely copied Euripides;
see Servius ad Virg. JEneid. iv.
469. The old Thespis had composed
a tragedy on the subject of Pen
theus : Suidas, Qeutuu, ; also ZEschy
lus ; compare his Eumenides, 25.
According to ApollodOrus (iii. 5,
5), Labdakus also perished in a
similar way to Pentheus, and from
the like impiety, — exelvtjJ tppovfjcfv
TCBpaTvXrjtjia.

brother to avenge the injury, andLykus accordingly invades
Sikyon, defeats and kills Ep op eus, and brings back Antiope
prisoner to Thebes. In her way thither, in a cave near
Eleutherse, which was shown to Pausanias, 1 she is delivered
of the twin sons of Zeus — Amphion and Zethus — who,
exposed to perish, are taken up and nourished by a shepherd,
and pass their youth amidst herdsmen, ignorant of their
lofty descent.
Antiope is conveyed to Thebes, where, after under
going a long persecution from Lykus and his cruel wife
Dirke, she at length escapes, and takes refuge in the pas
toral dwelling of her sons, now grown to manhood. Dirke
pursues and requires her to be delivered up; but the sons
recognise and protecttheir mother, taking an ample revenge
upon her persecutors. Lykus is slain, and Dirke is dragged
to death, tied to the horns of a bull.2 Amphion and Zethus,
having banished Laius, become kings of Thebes. The
former, taught by Hermes, and possessing exquisite skill
on the lyre, employs it in fortifying the city, the stones of
the walls arranging themselves spontaneously in obedience
to the rhythm of his song. 3

1 Pausan. i. 38, 9.
2 Eor the adventures of Antiope
and her sons, see ApollodOr. iii. 5 ;
Pausan. ii. 6, 2; ix. 5, 2.
The narrative given respecting
EpOpeus in the ancient Cyprian
verses seems to have been very
different from this, as far as we
can judge from the brief notice in
Proclus's Argument, — ujc; ' VL-ixnzzuc,
tpOslpai; ttjv Auxoopfou (AOxou) fu-
vaixa Ec=~opfJrj87] : it approaches
more nearly to the story given in
the seventh fable of Hyginus, and
followed by Propertius (iii. 15);
tho eighth fable of Hyginus con
tains the tale of Antiope" as given
by Euripides and Ennius. The
story of Pausanias differs from
both. The Scholiast ad Apoll&n. Rhod.
i. 735, says that there were two per
sons named AntiopS; one, daughter
of AsOpus, the other, daughter of
Nykteus. Pausanias is content
VOL. I.

with supposing one only, really
the daughter of Nykteus, but there
was a (p7)fjt.7i that she was daughter
of AsOpus (ii. 6, 2). Asius made
Antiope daughter of AsOpus, and
mother (both by Zeus and by EpO
peus: such a junction of divine
and human paternity is of common
occurrence in the Greek legends)
of Zethus and AmphiOn (ap. Paus.
1. c).
The contradictory versions of
the story are brought together,
though not very perfectly , in
Rterk's Essay, De Labdacidarum
Historia, p. 38—43 (Leyden, 1829).
3 This story about the lyre of
AmphiOn is not noticed in Homer,
but it was narrated in the ancient
£717] is EOpcbTTTjv which Pausanias
had read: the wild beasts as well
as the stones were obedient to his
strains (Paus. ix. 5, 4). Pherekydes
also recounted it (Pherekyd. Eragm.
102, Didot). The tablet of inscrip-
S

253 HISTOBT or GEBECE. Part I.
Zethus marries Aedon, who, in the dark and under a
fatal mistake, kills her son Itylus : she is transformed into a
nightingale, while Zethus dies of grief, i Amphion becomes
the husband, of Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, and the father
of a numerous offspring, the complete extinction of which
by the hands of Apollo and Artemis has already been
recounted in these pages.
Here ends the legend of the beautiful Antiope and
her twin sons — the rude and unpolished, but energetic,
Zethus — and the refined and amiable, but dreamy, Amphion.
For so Euripides, in the drama of Antiope unfortunately
lost, presented the two brothers, in affectionate union as
well as in striking contrast.2 It is evident that the whole
story stood originally quite apart from the Kadmeian family,
and so the rudiments of it yet stand in the Odyssey; hut
the logographers, by their ordinary connecting artifices,
have opened a vacant place for it in the descending series
of Theban mythes. And they have here proceeded in a
manner not usual with them. For whereas they are ge
nerally fond of multiplying entities, and supposing different
historical personages of the same name, in order to introduce
an apparent smoothness in the chronology — they have here
blended into one person Amphion the son of Antiope and
Amphion the father of Ohloris, who seem clearly dis
tinguished from each other in the Odyssey. They have fur
ther assigned to the same person all the circumstances of the
tion (' Atatpa'^i]) at Sikydn recog- the two former extended the settle-
nised Amphidn as the first com- ment to the lower city (ix. 5, 1—3).
poser of poetry and harp-music a See Valckenaer, Diatribe in
(Plutarch, de Musica, c. 3, p. 1182). Eurip. Eeliq. cap. 7, p. 58 ; Wel-
1 The tale of the wife and son eker, Griechisch. Tragod. ii. p. 811.
of Zethus is as old as the Odyssey There is a striking resemblance
(xix. 626). Pausanias adds the between the Antiope of Euripides
statement that Zethus died of grief and the TyrO of Sophokles in many
(ix. 6, 6; Pherekydes, Eragm. 102, points.
Did.). Pausanias, however, as well Plato in his Gorgias has pre-
as Apolloddrus, tells us that Ze- served a few fragments, and a
thus married Thebe , from whom tolerably clear general idea of the
the name Thebes was given to the characters of Zethus and Amphion
city. To reconcile the conflicting (Gorg. 00—02) ; see also Horat.
pretensions of Zethus and Amphidn Epist. i. 18, 42.
with those of Kadmus, as founders Both Livius and Pacuvius had
of Thebes, Pausanias supposes that tragedies on the scheme of this of
the latter was the original settler Euripides , the former seemingly
of the hill of the Kadmeia, while a translation.

legend of Niobe, which seems to have been originally framed
quite apart from the sons of Antiope\
Amphion and Zethus being removed, Laius became
king of Thebes. With him commences the ever-celebrated
series of adventures of CEdipus and his family. Laius_
Laius, forewarned by the oracle that any son asdipus—
whom he might beget would kill him, caused Legendary
CEdipus as soon as he was born to be exposed 0f ffidipus
on Mount Kithaeron. Here the herdsmen of and his
Polybus king of Corinth accidentally found him m
and conveyed him to their master, who brought him up as
his own child. In spite of the kindest treatment, however,
CEdipus when he grew up found himself exposed to taunts
on the score of his unknown parentage, and went to Delphi
to inquire of the god the name of his real father. He
received for answer an admonition not to go back to his
country; if he did so, it was his destiny to kill his father
and become the husband of his mother. Knowing no other
country but Corinth, he accordingly determined to keep
away from that city, and quitted Delphi by the road towards
Boeotia and Phokis. At the exact spot where the roads
leading to these two countries forkedj he met Laius in a
chariot drawn by mules, when the insolence of one of the
attendants brought on an angry quarrel, in which CEdipus
killed Laius, not knowing him to be his father, i
On the death of Laius, Kreon, the brother of Jokasta,
succeeded to the kingdom of Thebes. At this time the
1 The spot called u^iot7] 65b<; towards the east. Travellers going
(the Divided Way) where this eastward from Delphi must always
event happened was memorable in have been stopped at this place
the eyes of all literary Greeks, by the precipices of Helikon, and
and is specially noticed by the must have turned either to the
traveller Pausanias, who still saw right or to the left. If to the
there (x. 5, 2) the tombs of Laius right, they would descend to the
and his attendant. It is moreover Gulf, or they might take their
in itself a very marked place, way into Bcedtia by the southern
where the valley which runs north passes, as Kleombrotus did before
and south, from Daulis to Ambry- the battle of Leuktra : if to the
sus and Antikyra, is met half way left, they would turn the south-
from the westward at right angles, east angle of Parnassus, and make
but not crossed, by the ravine, their way by Daulis to the valley
which ascends from the Krissffian of Chseroneia and Elateia. Com
plain, passes under Delphi, reaches pare the description in K. 0. Miil-
its highest point at Arakhova ler, Orchomenos, c. i. p. 37.
above Delphi, and then descends
s2

2G0 HISTORY OF GEEECE. Paet L
country was under the displeasure of the gods, and was
vexed by a terrible monster, with the face of a woman, the
wings of a bird, and the tail of a lion, called the
p mx. gpjjjjjj-i — gen£ jjy the wrath of Here, and oc
cupying the neighbouring mountain of Phikium. The
Sphinx had learned from the Muses a riddle, which she
proposed to the Thebans to resolve; on every occasion of
failure she took away one of the citizens and ate him up.
Still no person could solve the riddle; and so great was
the suffering occasioned, that Kreon was obliged to offer
both the crown and the nuptials of his sister Jokasta to
any one who could achieve the salvation of the city. At
this juncture CEdipus arrived and solved the riddle: upon
which the Sphinx immediately threw herself from the
acropolis and disappeared. As a recompense for this
service, CEdipus was made king of Thebes, and married
Jokasta, not aware that she was his mother.
These main tragical circumstances — that CEdipus had
ignorantly killed his father and married his mother — belong
to the oldest form of the legend as it stands in the Odyssey.
The gods (it is added in that poem) quickly made the facts
known to mankind. Epikasta (so Jokasta is here called)
in an agony of sorrow hanged herself: CEdipus remained
king of the Kadmeians, but underwent many and great
miseries, such as the Erinnyes, who avenge an injured
mother, inflict. 2 A passage in the Iliad implies that he
died at Thebes, since it mentions the funeral games which
were celebrated there in honour of him. His misfortunes
were recounted by Nestor, in the old Cyprian verses, among
« Apolloddr. iii. 6, 8. An author r7]u.auiv7i a uist- 6 8' ov -arip'
named Lykus, in his work entitled e^vaot^n;*
Thebaica, ascribed this visitation Fr]u.zf ' aoap 6' olvAotsto! 9sol
to the anger of Dionysos (Schol. 8£aav dvjpcbiroitji.
Hesiod, Theogon. 326). The Sphinx 'AXX' 4 u.zt iv 6i)Pn 7roXu7]piT<u
(or Phix, from the Bmdtian Mount ak-fza naaywt
Phikium) is as old as the Hesiodic K*6|j.st(ov 7JvaoM, 9su)v bXoac. 8ii
Theogony,— d)ix' 6X01)11 tsxs, Kao- ()ou).o«-
p-sioioiv oXeOpov (Theog. 320). <H 8' gp-xj eie'Aloio mUprm %oz-
2 Odyss. xi. 270. Odysseus, de- xspoTo
scribing what lie saw in the under- ' Aicuivr) flpoyov otlituv io' 6-jiijXoio
world, says,- [isXABpou,
Ur,rzpa r' OiSiTtoSao I8ov, xkXtjv tQ ajreii ayou.ifq- tcu 8" aXvea xi\-
•Z%17.au-.rit, Xitu: OTiiacju)
•HiieToiIpTovSpsEsvo-iopstiiBiviloio, IIoXXA uAX', 5W ts p.i)7P6? 'Epiv-
vusi; sxtsXeouchv.

Chap. XIV. ETEOKLES AND POLYNIKES. 261
the stories of aforetime, i A fatal curse hung both upon
himself and upon his children, Eteokles, Polynikes, Antigone
and Ismene. According to that narrative which the Attic
tragedians have rendered universally current, they were
his children by Jokasta, the disclosure of her true rela
tionship to him having been very long deferred. But the
ancient epic called CEdipodia, treading more closely in the
footsteps of Homer, represented him as having after her
death married a second wife, Euryganeia, by whom the
four children were born to him: and the painter Onatas
adopted this story in preference to that of Sophokles.2
The disputes of Eteokles and Polynikes for the throne
of their father gave occasion not only to a series uteokUs
of tragical family incidents, but also to one of and
the great quasi-historical events of legendary ° ynl 8°
Greece — the two sieges of Thebes by Adrastus, king of
Argos. The two ancient epic poems called the Thebais
and the Epigoni (if indeed both were not parts of one very
comprehensive poem) detailed these events at great length,
and as it appears, with distinguished poetical merit; for
Pausanias pronounces the Cychc Thebais (so it was called
hy the subsequent critics to distinguish it from the more
modern Thebais of Antimachus) inferior only to the Iliad
and Odyssey; the ancient elegiac poet Kallinus treated it
as an Homeric composition.3 Of this once-valued'poem we
1 Iliad, xxiii. 680, witb/the scho- and the Minyas (this must refer to
liast who cites Hesiod. Proclus, incidents in the old poems which
Argum. ad Cypria, ap. Diintzer. we cannot now recover); then the
Fragm. Epic. Graic. p. 10. Nzotcoo four celebrated children by Eury-
8= ev irotpsr-PAasi Siij-fiiTai . . . xal ganeia ; lastly, that he married a
ra Ttspi OiSlrcouv, &c. third wife, Astymedusa. Apollo-
2 Pausan. ix. 5, 5. Compare the ddrus follows the narrative of the
narrative from Peisander in Schol. tragedians, but alludes to the dif-
ad Eurip. Phceniss. 1773 ; where, ferent version about Euryganeia,
however, the blindness of CEdipus — ziai 8' oi oaait, &c. (iii. 5, 8).
seems to be unconsciously inter- Hellanikus (ap. Schol. Eurip.
polated out of the tragedians. In Phceniss. 50) mentioned the self-
the old narrative of the Cyclic inflicted blindness of CEdipus ; but
Thebais, CEdipus does not seem it seems doubtful whether this
to be represented as blind (Leutsch, circumstance was included in the
Thebaidis Oyclici Reliquiae, Got- narrative of Pherekydes.
ting. 1830, p. 42). 3 Pausan. ix. 9, 3. 'EitoiijSij 84
PherekydSs (ap. Schol. Eurip. it tov 7i6Xe|jiov toutov xal zr.rj, 6i|-
Phoeniss. 52) tells us that CEdipus Pat;' t« 6i stztj lauxa KaXXivoc,
had three children by Jokasta, A'pixopisvO"; abrtbt i.% v.tr]U.'f)t, 'ifriazt
who were all killed by Erginus "Op.-/)pov tov uonjaavTa Eivai. KaX-

262 HISTOET Or GREECE. Paet I.
unfortunately possess nothing but a few scanty fragments.
The leading points of the legend are briefly glanced at in
the Iliad; but our knowledge of the details is chiefly derived
from the Attic tragedians, who transformed the narratives
of their predecessors at pleasure, and whose popularity
constantly eclipsed and obliterated the ancient version.
Antimachus of Kolophon, contemporary with Euripides,
in his long epic, probably took no less liberties with the
old narrative. His Thebaid never became generally popular,
but it exhibited marks of study and elaboration which
recommended it to the esteem of the Alexandrine critics,
and probably contributed to discredit in their eyes the old
cyclic poem.
The logographers, who gave a continuous history of
0,. . this siege of Thebes, had at least three pre-exist-
poems on ing epic poems — the Thebais, the CEdipodia, and
' f6Th!b eS *^e Alkniseonis, — from which they could borrow.
The subject was also handled in some of the
Hesiodic poems, but we do not know to what extent. ' The
Thebais was composed more in honour of Argos than of
Thebes, as the first line of it, one of the few fragments still
preserved, betokens. 2

SIEGES OF THEBES.
The legend, about to recount fraternal dissension of
the most implacable kind, comprehending in its results not
only the immediate relations of the infuriated brothers, but
many chosen companions of the heroic race along with them,
takes its start from the paternal curse of CEdipus, which
overhangs and determines all the gloomy sequel.
Xlvtp 8s 7C0XX01 ts xal aEjtoi Xoyou alluded to in the pseudo-Herodo-
xaxA Tauxa syvcoaav syu) 8s ttjv tean life of Homer, seems to be
7coii)olv TauxT)v jjlstA y£ 'IXiASa'xat the description of a special passage
•tA £7i7] tA e; 'OSuaasa STiaivd) p.A- in this Thebais.
XitrTa. The name in the text of * Hesiod, ap. Schol. Iliad, xxiii.
Pausanias stands KaXatvos, an un- 680, which passage does not seem
known person : most of the critics to me so much at variance with
recognise the propriety of substi- the incidents stated in other poets
tuting KaXXTvotj and Leutsoh and as Leutsch imagines.
Welcker have given very sufficient 2 "Ap-ps AsiSs, 9sA, noXuSl-jiiov,
reasons for doing so. SvBsv 4v«xts<; (see Leutsch, ib. c. 4.
The 'A|A<piApsu> sSeXaaia it, 0jjPa?, p. 29).

Chap. XIV. ETEOKLES AND POLYNIKES. 263
CEdipus, though king of Thebes and father of four
children by Euryganeia (according to the CEdi- 0urae _
podia), has become the devoted victim of the nounced by
Erinnyes, in consequence of the self-inflicted t(£ed?euv°ted
death of his mother, which he had unconsciously upon his
caused, as well as of his unintentional parricide. BOns-
Though he had long forsworn the use of all the ornaments
and luxuries which his father had inherited from his kingly
progenitors, yet when through age he had come to be de
pendent upon his two sons, Polynikes one day broke through
this interdict, and set before him the silver table and the
splendid wine-cup of Kadmus, which Laius had always been
accustomed to employ. The old king had no sooner seen
these precious appendages of the regal life of his father,
than his mind was overrun by a calamitous phrenzy, and he
imprecated terrible curses on his sons, predicting that there
would be bitter and endless warfare between them. The
goddess Erinnys heard and heeded him; and he repeated
the curse again on another occasion, when his sons, who
had always been accustomed to send to him the shoulder
of the victims sacrificed on the altar, caused the buttock to
be served to him in place of it. i He resented this as an
insult, and prayed the gods that they might perish each by
the hand of the other. Throughout the tragedians as well
1 Fragm. of the Thebais, ap. Eisv 8' Ap/poTspoii; alsl TtoXeuol ts
Athens!, xii. p. 465. oti atjTUJ Traps- o.ayay. rz.
t)i)xav ey.7rtbp.aTa a ATiriyopsuxsi, Xs- See Leutsch, Thebaid. Cycl.
•fwt O'Jtojs' Eeliq. p. 38.
AuTap 6 8ioysv7)<; i"pUK SavBos Flo- The other fragment from the
X'Jvslx7](; same Thebais is cited by the Schol.
ITpa>Ta p.svOiSl~o8i xa).7]v TtapsQrjXS ad Soph. CEdip. Colon. 1378. —
TpAxs^av 'layiot ux; svor/ae, yau-ai PAXev,
'Apyupsrjv KABfioio 6so(povos' aij-Ap stirs ts uiiBov.
srcsita Q pLot iytb, TcaiSss poi ovslSsiovtss
Xpoasov epTcXi)<JSv xaXov SsTcac. ^o=oc s'rcsp'^av.
oi'vou- Euxto Ait paaiXfji xai AXXoli; A9a-
A&TAp oY ti); ffipaa8l] Tcapaxsiusva vAxotai,
Tca-rpot; eoio Xspau biz' AXX7)Xa>v xaTaPr)p.svat
Ttp7jsvTa yspa, piya oi xaxov Ip.- "Airior; sioto.
Tistje Qupuj. TA 8s Kypa-\r)aia rep sTroTroitTj xal
Ai'|a 8s Tcaioiv ioicrt usx' Apcflore- ATctvuXo; it -.o\q "ErcTa stiI 07)paq.
poimv inapA? In spite of the protest of Schiitz,
'ApyaXsa; i)paTo- 8sov 8' ou XAv- in his note, I think that the scho-
0av' 'Eptvvuv liast has understood the words
'Q; od oi T.r/.rpifa f evl yiXoxrjTi irMorot TpcpA? (Sept. ad Theb.
oAoaivTO, 787) in their plain and just meaning.

264 HISTORY OF GREECE. Part I.
as in the old epic, the paternal curse, springing immediately
from the misguided CEdipus himself, but remotely from the
parricide and incest with which he has tainted his breed,
is seen to domineer over the course of events — the Erinnys
who executes that curse being the irresistible, though con
cealed, agent. JEschylus not only preserves the fatal
efficiency of the paternal curse, but even briefly glances at
the causes assigned for it in the Thebais , without super
adding any new motives. In the judgement of Sophokles,
Novelties or of his audience, the conception of a father
introduced cursing his sons upon such apparently trifling
kfes.°P °" grounds was odious; and that great poet intro
duced many aggravating circumstances, describing the old
blind father as having been barbarously turned out of doors
by his sons to wander abroad in exile and poverty. Though
by this change he rendered his poem more coherent and
self-justifying, yet he departed from the spirit of the old
legend, according to which CEdipus has contracted by his
unconscious misdeeds an incurable taint destined to pass
onward to his progeny. His mind is alienated, and he curses
them, not because he has suifered seriously by their guilt,-
but because he is made the blind instrument of an avenging
Erinnys for the ruin of the house of Laius. i
After the death of CEdipus and the celebration of his
_ funeral games, at which, amongst others, Argeia,
ffidipus— daughter of Adrastus (afterwards the wife of
quarrel of Polvnikes), was present,2 his two sons soon
Eteokles J -,, ,¦" ,? ,-. ' „,
and Poly- quarrelledrespectmgthe succession. Thecircum-
nikes for stances are differently related; but it appears
e seep re. ^^ according to the original narrative, the
1 The curses of CEdipus are very by the ancient Thebais for the
frequently and emphatically dwelt curse vented by CEdipus as trivial
upon both, by ZEschylus and So- and ludicrous.
phokles (Sept. ad Theb. 70— 68G, The JEgeids at Sparta, who-
655—697, &c. ; CEdip. Colon. 1293— traced their descent to Kadmus,
1378). The former continues the suffered from terrible maladies
same point of view as the Thebais, which destroyed the lives of their
when he mentions — children ; an oracle directed them
. . . TAs 7tspi9op.o'Jc to appease the Erinnyes of Laius
KaxApas pXa'.pltppovG<; Ol6i7c68a and CEdipus by erecting a temple,
(727) ; upon which the maladies speedily
or, Xoyou r avoia xal cppsvtbv 'Epiv- ceased (Herodot. iv.).
viis (Soph.\Antig. 584). s Hesiod, ap. Schol. Iliad, xxiii.
The Scholiast on Sophokles (CEd. 680.
Col. 1378) treats the cause assigned

CnAi-. XIV. ADRASTUS OE ARGOS. 265
wrong and injustice was on the side of Polynikes; who,
however, was obliged to leave Thebes and to seek shelter
with Adrastus, king of Argos. Here he met Tydeus, a
fugitive, at the same time, from ^Etolia: it was dark when
they arrived, and a broil ensued between the two exiles,
but Adrastus came out and parted them. He had been
enjoined by an oracle to give his two daughters in marriage
to a lion and a boar, and he thought that this p0iynikes
occasion had now arrived, inasmuch as one of retires to
the combatants carried on his shield a lion, the givse0n870aid
other a boar. He accordingly gave IDeipyle in him by
marriage to Tydeus, and Argeia to Polynikes: AdrastU8-
moreover he resolved to restore by armed assistance both
his sons-in-law to their respective countries. J
On proposing the expedition to the Argeian chiefs
around him, he found most of them willing aux- Amphi-
iliaries; but Amphiaraus — formerly his bitter araiis and
opponent, though now reconciled to him, and Enphyle.
husband of his sister Eriphyle — strongly opposed him, 2
denouncing the enterprise as unjust and contrary to the
will of the gods. Again being of a prophetic stock, des
cended from Melampus, he foretold the certain death both
of himself and of the principal leaders, should they involve
themselves as accomplices in the mad violence of Tydeus,
or the criminal ambition of Polynikes. Amphiaraus, already
distinguished both in the Kalydonian boarhunt and in the
funeral games of Pelias, was in the Theban war the most
conspicuous of all the heroes, and absolutely indispensable
to its success. But his reluctance to engage in it was
invincible, nor was it possible to prevail upon him except
through the influence of his wife Eriphyle. Polynikes,
having brought with him from Thebes the splendid robe
and necklace given by the gods to Harmonia on her mar
riage with Kadmus, offered it as a bribe to Eriphyle, on
condition that she would influence the determination of
1 Apolloddr. iii. 5, 9 ; Hygin. f. old Thebais compared Tydeus and
69 ; .ZEschyl. Sept. ad Theb. 573. Polynikes to a lion and a boar, on
Hyginus says that Polynikes came account of their courage and
clothed in the skin of a lion, and fierceness; a simile quite in the
Tydeus in that of a boar; perhaps Homeric character. Mnaseas gave
after Antimachus, who said that the words of the oracle (ap. Schol.
Tydeus had been brought up by Eurip. Phceniss. 411).
swineherds (Antimach. Eragm. 27, 2 See Pindar, Nem. ix. 30, with
ed. Diintzer; ap. Schol. Iliad, iv. the instructive Scholium,
400). Very probably, however, the

266 HISTORY OP GREECE. Paet I.
Amphiaraiis. The sordid wife, seduced by so matchless a
present, betrayed the lurking place of her husband, and
involved, him in the fatal expedition. * Amphiaraus, reluc
tantly dragged forth, and foreknowing the disastrous issue
of the expedition both to himself and to his associates,
addressed his last injunctions, at the moment of mounting
his chariot, to his sons Alkmseon and Amphilochus, com
manding Alkmsson to avenge his approaching death by
killing the venal Eriphyle, and by undertaking a second
expedition against Thebes.
The Attic dramatists describe this expedition as having
Seven been conducted by seven chiefs, one to each of
theearmf ^e seven celebrated gates of Thebes. But the
against Cyclic Thebais gave to it a much more com-
Thebes. prehensive character, mentioning auxiliaries from
Arcadia, Messene,andvariousparts of Peloponnesus:2and the
application of Tydeus and Polynikes at Mykense in the course
of their circuit made to collect allies, is mentioned inthelliad.
They were well received at Mykense; but the warning
signals given by the gods were so terrible that no Mykensean
xould venture to accompany them.3 The seven principal
chiefs howeverwereAdrastus, Amphiaraus, Kapaneus, Hip-
pomedon, Parthenopseus, Tydeus and Polynikes.4
The Kadmeians, assisted by their allies the Phokians
Defeat of an<^ the ^h^gy®) marched out to resist the
theThebans invaders, and fought a battle near the Ismenian
-hteroici6ld hill.> in wnic]tl they were defeated and forced to
devotion of retire within the walls. The prophet Teiresias
MencBkeus. acquainted them that if Mencekeus, son of Kreon,
would offer himself as a victim to Ares, victory would be
assured to Thebes. The generous youth, as soon as he
1 Apollod6r. iii. 6, 2. The 3 Iliad, iv. 876.
treachery of "the hateful Eriphyle" ' There are differences in respect
is noticed in the Odyssey, xi. 327: to the names of the seven; .ffischy-
Odysseus sees her in the under- lus (Sept. ad Theb. 461) leaves out
world along with the many wives Adrastus as one of the seven, and
and daughters of the heroes. includes Eteoklus instead of him;
2 Pausan. ii. 20, 4 ; ix. 9, 1. His others left out Tydeus and Poly-
testimony to this, as he had read nikes, and inserted Eteoklus and
and admired the Cyclic Thebais, Mekisteus (Apollod&r. iii. 6, 3).
seems quite sufficient, in spite of Antimachus, in his poetical The-
the opinion of "Welcker to the bais, called Parthenopaus an Ar-
contrary (.ffiischyleische Trilogie, geian, not an Arcadian (Schol. ad
V- 375> -ffischyl. Sept. ad Theb. 532).

Chap. XIV. MARCH 03? ADRASTUS AGAINST THEBES.

267

learnt that his life was to be the price of safety to his
country, went and slew himself before the gates. The heroes
along with Adrastus now commenced a vigorous attack upon
the town, each of the seven selecting one of the gates to
assault. The contest was long and strenuously maintained ;
but the devotion of Mencekeus had procured for the The
bans the protection of the gods. Parthenopseus was killed
with a stone by Periklymenus; and when the furious Kapa-
neus, having planted a scaling-ladder, had mounted the
walls, he was smitten by a thunderbolt from Zeus, and cast
down dead upon the earth. This event struck terror into
the Argeians, and Adrastus called back his troops from the
attack. The Thebans now sallied forth to pursue them,
when Eteokles, arresting the battle, proposed to decide the
controversy by single combat with-his brother. The chal
lenge, eagerly accepted by Polynikes, was agreed to by
Adrastus: a single combat ensued between the „.
two brothers, in which both were exasperated bat of
to fury, and both ultimately slain by each other's Bleokies
hand. This equal termination left the result of nikes,°in~
the general contest still undetermined, and the 'which both
bulk of the two armies renewed the fight. In p
the sanguinary struggle which ensued, the sons of Astakus
on the Theban side displayed the most conspicuous and
successful valour. One of them,i Melanippus, ,
mortally wounded Tydeus — while two others, and de-
Leades and Amphidikus, killed Eteoklus and Btfr,J£*i(,n
Hippomedon. Amphiaraus avenged Tydeus by Argeian
killing Melanippus ; but unable to arrest the rout chief s— ail
of the army, he fled with the rest, closely pur
sued by Periklymenus. The latter was about to
pierce him with his spear, when the beneficence
of Zeus rescued him from this disgrace — mira
culously opening the earth under him, so that
Amphiaraus with his chariot and horses was received

exceptAdrastus.
Amphiaraiis is
swallowed
up in the
earth.

1 The story recounted that the
head of Melanippus was brought
to Tydeus as he was about to ex
pire of his wound, and that he
gnawed it with his teeth, a story
touched upon by Sophokles (apud
Herodian. in Rhetor. Gra^c. t. viii.
p. 601, Walz.).
The lyric poet Bacchylides (ap.

Schol. Aristoph. Aves, 1535) seems
to have handled the story even
earlier than Sophokles.
We find the same allegation
embodied in charges against real
historical men: the invective of
Montanus against Aquilius Regu-
lus, at the beginning of the reign
of Vespasian, affirmed, "datam

208

HISTORY OE GREECE.

PAUT I,

unscathed into her bosom. * The exact spot where this
memorable incident happened was indicated by a sepulchral
building, and shown by the Thebans down to the days of
Pausanias — its sanctity being attested by the fact, that no
animal would consent to touch the herbage which grew
within the sacred inclosure. Amphiaraus, rendered immor
tal by Zeus, was worshipped as a god at Argos, at Thebes,
and at Oropus — and for many centuries gave answers at his
oracle to the questions of the pious applicant. 2
, Adrastus, thus deprived of the prophet and warriof
whom he regarded as "the eye of his army," and having
seen the other chiefs killed in the disastrous fight, was
forced to take flight singly, and was preserved by the
matchless swiftness of his horse Areion, the offspring of
Poseidon. He reached Argos on his return, bringing with

interfectori Pisonis pecuniam a
Reguloj appetitumque morsu Pi-
sonis caput" (Tacit. Hist. iv. 42).
1 Apolloddr. iii. 6, 8. Pindar,
Olymp. vi. 11 ; Mem. ix. 13—27.
Pausan. ix. 8, 2; 18, 2—4.
Euripides, in the Phoenissse(1122
seqq.), describes the battle ge
nerally: see also Much. S. Th. 392.
It appears by Pausanias that the
Thebans had poems or legends of
their own, relative to this war:
they dissented in various points
from the Cyclic Thebais (ix. 18, 4).
The Thgba'is said that Periklyme
nus had killed Parthenopseus : the
Thebans assigned this exploit
to Asphodikus, a warrior not
commemorated by any of the poets
known to us.
The village of Harma, between
Tanagra and Mykal&ssus, was
affirmed by some to have been the
spot where Amphiaraus closed his
life (Strabo, ix. p. 404) ; Sophokles
placed the scene at the Amphia-
rieium near Ordpus (ap. Strabon.
ix. p. 399).
2 Pindar, Olymp. vi. 16. "Etutw
6' £~£tTa xupciv vexptov tsXectOsvtiov
TaXaicrvlSa.; Eitesv ev 0f)paiai toiou-
tqv ii stco<;' n&Qsu) JTpaTia<; 6cp9aX-

u.6v ipac, 'AficpoTspov, u-dvxiv x' dfa-
86v xai Soupi fid^EaQau
The scholiast affirms that these-
last expressions are borrowed by
Pindar from the Cyclic ThSbai's.
The temple of Amphiaraus (Pau
san. ii. 23, 2), his oracle, seems to
have been equal in estimation to
every other except that of Delphi
(Herodot. i. 52; Pausan. i. 34; Ci
cero, Divin. i. 40). Crcesus sent a
rich present to Amphiaraus, tcu06-
U-SVK ttUTOU TT-JV TS dpET7]V XOll TTJV'
izafir^ (Herod. 1. c.) ; a striking
proof how these interesting legends
were recounted and believed as
genuine historical facts. Other ad
ventures of Amphiaraus in the
expedition against Thebes were
commemorated in the carvings on
the Thronus at Amyklse (Pausan.
iii. 18, 4).
^schylus (Sept. Theb. 611) seems
to enter into the TbSban view,
doubtless highly respectful towards
Amphiaraiis, when he places in
the mouth of the Kadmeian king
Eteokles such high encomiums on
Amphiaraus, and so marked a
contrast with the other chiefs from
Argos.

Chap. XIV. DEATH OF THE SEVEN AKGEIAN CHIEFS. 269
him nothing except "his garment of woe and his black-maned
steed."i Kreon, father of the heroic youth Menoekeus, succeed
ing to the administration of Thebes after the death of the
two hostile brothers and the repulse of Adrastus, caused
Eteokles to be buried with distinguished honour, but cast
out ignominiously the body of Polynikes as a traitor to his
country, forbidding every one on pain of death Kreon kin_
to consign it to the tomb. He likewise refused of ThsheB,
permission to Adrastus to inter the bodies of his ^Ta^o*?6
fallen comrades. This proceeding, so offensive Polynikes
to Grecian feeling, gave rise to two further tales ; other fallen
one of them at least of the highest pathos and Argeian
interest. Antigone, the sister of Polynikes, heard chlefs-
with indignation the revolting edict consigning her brother's
body to the dogs and vultures, and depriving it of those
rites which were considered essential to the repose of the
dead. Unmoved by the dissuading counsel of an affection
ate but timid sister, and unable to procure assistance, she
determined to brave the hazard, and to bury the body with
her own hands. She was detected in the act; Devotion
and Kreon, though forewarned by Teiresias of and death of
the consequences, gave orders that she should Antis0IlS-
be buried alive, as having deliberately set at naught the
solemn edict of the city. His son Hsemon, to whom she
was engaged to be married, in vain interceded for her life.
In an agony of despair he slew himself in the sepulchre to
which the living Antigone had been consigned; and his
mother Eurydike, the wife of Kreon, inconsolable for his
death, perished by her own hand. And thus the new Hght
which seemed to be springing up over the last remaining
scion of the devoted family of CEdipus, is extinguished
1 Pausan. viii. 25, 5. from the name Pausanias will not corn-
Cyclic Thebais, Eifiaro Xufpa <pipcuv municate, except to the initiated
abt ' Apstovt xuavoxai"^] ; also Apol- (7Js to ovop.ct es azzXicroos Xsfsiv
loddr. iii. 6, 8. 06 vo[iiCoUffi, 1. c), A different
The celebrity of the horse Areidn story is in the Schol. Iliad, xxiii.
was extolled in the Iliad (xxiii. 34G; and in Antimachus, who
340), in the Cyclic Thebais, and affirmed that "G-ffia herself had
also in the Thebais of Antimachus produced him as a wonder to mor-
(Pausan. 1. c.) : by the Arcadians tal men" (see Antimach. Frag. 16,
of Thelpusia he was said to he p. 102 ; Epic. Grsec. Frag. ed.
the offspring of Demeter by Po- Diintzer).
seiddn, — he, and a daughter whose

270 HISTOKY OF GKEECE. Pabt I.
amidst gloom and horrors — which overshadowed also the
house and dynasty of Kreon. '
The other tale stands more apart from the original
legend, and seems to have had its origin in the patriotic
pride of the Athenians. Adrastus, unable to obtain per
mission from the Thebans to inter the fallen chieftains,
presented himself in suppliant guise, accompanied by their
disconsolate mothers, to Theseus at Eleusis. He implored
the Athenian warrior to extort from the per-
nians inter- verse Thebans that last melancholy privilege
fere *? Pf°- which no decent or pious Greeks ever thought
terment of" of withholding, and thus to stand forth as the
the fallen champion of Grecian public morahty in one of
its most essential points, not less than of the
rights of the subterranean gods. The Thebans obstinately
persisting in their refusal, Theseus undertook an expedition
. against their city, vanquished them in the field, and com
pelled them by force of arms to permit the sepulture of
their fallen enemies. This chivalrous interposition, cele
brated in one of the preserved dramas of Euripides, formed
a subject of glorious recollection to the Athenians through
out the historical age. Their orators dwelt upon it in terms
of animated panegyric; and it seems to have been accepted
as a real fact of the past time, with not less implicit con
viction than the battle of Marathon. 2 But the Thebans,
though equally persuaded of the truth of the main story,
dissented from the Athenian version of it, maintaining that
they had given up the bodies for sepulture voluntarily and
of their own accord. The tomb of the chieftains was shown
near Eleusis even in the days of Pausanias.3
The defeat of the seven chiefs before Thebes was amply
avenged by their sons, again under the guidance of Adras
tus: — ^gialeus son of Adrastus, Thersander son of Polyni-
1 Sophokl. Antigon. 581. Nuv his translation of the AntigonS, c.
yap iayarrxs bizzp 'PiCas eTsxaTO <pcto<; x. p. 140) : see Apolloddr. iii. 7, 1.
zt OlStTcou 86|xoi<;, &c. .ZEschylus also touches upon the
The pathetic tale here briefly heroism of Antigone (Sep. Theb.
recounted forms the subject of 984).
this beautiful tragedy of Sophokles,1 2 Apolloddr. iii. 7, 1; Eurip.
the argument of which is supposed Supp. passim; Herodot. ix. 27;
by Boeckh to have been borrowed Plato, Menexen. c. 9; Lysias,
in its primary rudiments from the Epitaph, c. 4; Isokrat. Orat.
Cyclic Thebais or the 03d podia Panegyr. p. 190, Auger.
(Boeckh, Dissertation appended to 3 Pausan. i. 39, 2.

Chap. XIV. SECOND EXPEDITION.— THE EPIGONI. 27 1
kes, Alkmseon and Amphilochus, sons of Amphi- geoond
araiis, Diomedes, son of Tydeus, Sthenelus son siege of
of Kapaneus, Promachus son of Parthenopseus, Akastus37
and Euryalus son of Mekistheus, joined in this with the
expedition. Though all these youthful warriors, f^1*""1' or
called the Epigoni, took part in the expedition, those slain
the grand and prominent place appears to have in the first-
been occupied by Alkmseon, son of Amphiaraus. Assistance-
was given to them from Corinth and Megara, as well as
from Messene and Arcadia; while Zeus manifested his-
favourable dispositions by signals not to be mistaken, i At
the river Glisas the Epigoni were met by the Thebans in
arms, and a battle took place in which the latter were-
completely defeated. Laodamas, son of Eteokles, killed
-3Cgialeus, son of Adrastus; but he and his army were routed
and driven within the walls by the valour and energy of
Alkmseon. The defeated Kadmeians consulted the prophet
Teiresias, who informed them that the gods had declared
for their enemies, and that there was no longer any hope-
of successful resistance. By his advice they sent a herald
to the assailants offering to surrender the town, while they
themselves conveyed away their wives and children, and
fled under the command of Laodamas to the Illyrians,*
upon which the Epigoni entered Thebes, and established
Thersander, son of Polynikes, on the throne.
Adrastus, who in the former expedition had been the
single survivor amongst so many fallen com- .
panions, now found himself the only exception to theCEpi^oni
the general triumph and joy of the conquerors: ~c?ft,ure
he had lost his son -ZEgialeus, and the violent
sorrow arising from the event prematurely cut short his
life. His soft voice and persuasive eloquence were pro
verbial in the ancient epic.3 He was worshipped as a hero
'Homer, Iliad, iv. 406. Sthene- rTsiGofxevot Tspaeoci Qeejv xaiZ7)voc
lus, the companion of Diomedgs apioyrj.
and one of the Epigoni, says to Au-ol 8s atperiprjaii rkraaQaXirtaiv.
dn, — Qovto.

'HfjisTs -oi xaTSpcov u-sy' djxstvovsi; 2 Apolloddr. iii. 7, 4. Herodot-
£u^6u.e9' sivai. V. 67 — 61. Pausan. ix. 5, 7; 9, 2..
*Hu.zl<; xai 07]P"/j? I6o? eiXoftsv E7rra- Dioddr. iv. 65 — 68.
716X010, Pindar represents Adrastus as
Tlaopbrzpot Xabt ayciyovB' Cmo rzi- concerned in the second expedition
yps "Apsiov, against Thebes (Pyth. viii. 40—58)..
¦ rX(Lffaav t' ' ASp^jTOU u.z0.iyo-[rt-

272 HISTOBT OF GREECE. Past I.
both at Argos and at Sikyon, but with especial solemnity
in the last-mentioned place, where his Heroum stood in the
public agora, and where his exploits as well as his sufferings
were celebrated periodically in lyric tragedies. Melanippus,
son of Astakus, the brave defender of Thebes, who had
slain both Tydeus and Mekistheus, was worshipped with
no less solemnity by the Thebans.1 The enmity of these
two heroes rendered it impossible for both of them to be
worshipped close upon the same spot. Accordingly it came
to pass during the historical period, shortly after the time
of the Solonian legislation at Athens, that Kleisthenes,
despot of Sikyon, wishing to banish the hero Adrastus and
_ , . . abolish the religious solemnities celebrated in
^A' orsnin of
Adrastus at honour of the latter by the Sikyonians, first
Sikyan— applied to the Delphian oracle for permission
gated by to carry this banishment into effect directly and
thleia" forcibly. That permission being refused, he
next sent to Thebes an intimation that he was
anxious to introduce their hero Melanippus into Sikyon.
The Thebans willingly consented, and he assigned to the
new hero a consecrated spot in the strongest and most
commanding portion of the Sikyonian prytaneium. He
did this (says the historian) "knowing that Adrastus would
forthwith go away of his own accord; since Melanippus
was of all persons the most odious to him, as having slain
both his son-in-law and his brother." Kleisthenes moreover
diverted the festivals and sacrifices which had been offered
to Adrastus, to the newly-established hero Melanippus;
and the lyric tragedies from the worship of Adrastus to
that of Dionysus. But his dynasty did not long continue
after his decease, and the Sikyonians then re-established
their ancient solemnities.2
pov iyoi (TyrtEeus, Eleg. 9, 7, a*iEX9u>v otcIoio (Kleisthen&s, to-
Schneidewin) ; compare Plato, turning from Delphi) e'rpovTiCs u.7]-
Phaedr. u. 118. "Adrasti pallentis vavrjv t ^j abrbt; b 'ASprjoTOc
imago" meets the eye of JEneas an aXXa r\z ra i. lQ$ 8s oi E^eop^oQat
in the nnder-world (iEn. vi. 480). eSoxes, 7-£u.'J/a<; es Qrfia^ Tcti; Boiio-
1 About Melanippus, see Pindar, Tta<;, ear) OeXeiv ETrayaYsj&ai. MeXgcvi-i-
Nem. x. 36. His sepulchre was nov tov 'AoTaxoti' oi Ss QrjRoiot I8o-
sliown near the Prcetid gates of oav. 'ETcTjvdyExo 8e tov MeXavt-r-iov
Thebes (Pausan. ix. 18, 1). 6 KXeio9evT|c, xai yap touto Set aity)-
2 This very curious and illustrative 7r)aaaQai, d><; IyQio-tov EovTa 'ASprjff-
story is contained in Herodot. v. Tip* os tov te d5s).<psov MrjxiaTsa
€7. 'Eixsl Se 6 Qsoe; touto 06 napESiSou, dxsxTdvee, xai tov. yaptppov TuSsa.

Chap. XI"v

ALKMJEON,

273

Near the Prcetid gate of Thebes were seen the tombs
of two combatants who had hated each other during life
even more tlian Adrastus and Melanippus — the two brothers
Eteokles and Polynikes. Even as heroes and objects of
worship, they still continued to manifest their inextinguish
able hostility: those who offered sacrifices to them observed
that the flame and the smoke from the two adjoining altars
abhorred all communion, and flew off in directions exactly
opposite. The Theban exegetes assured Pausanias of this
fact. And though he did not himself witness it, yet having
seen with his own eyes a miracle not very dissimilar at
Pionise in Mysia, he had no difficulty in crediting their
assertion.1 Amphiaraus, when forced into the first attack of
Thebes — against his own foreknowledge and against the
warnings of the gods — had enjoined his sons Alkmseon
and Amphilochus not only to avenge his death upon the
Thebans, but also to punish the treachery of their mother,
""Eriphyle, the destroyer of her husband."2 In obedience
to this command, and having obtained the sanction of the
Delphian oracle, Alkmseon slew his mother;3 but the awful

The Sikyonians (Herodotus says)
Ta ts 87) a)Aa etI|j.ujv tov Aopr^TOv,
xal zpoc; Tot Ttaflsa otuT^O tp^ymoXai
yopoiji syipaipov tov p.zv Aiovuaov
Ol> TL[JL£lOvT£;, TOV 6s "AopTjSTOV-
Adrastus was -worshipped as a
hero at JMegara as well as at SikySn:
the Megarians affirmed that he
had died there on hia way back
from Thebes (Pausan. i. 43, 1 ;
Dieucbidas, ap. Schol. ad Pindar.
Nem. ix. 31). His house at Argos
was still shown when Pausanias
visited the town (ii. 23, 2).
1 Pausan. ix. IS, 3. Ta sir' butoTi;
SpobjjLEva O'j 0eaad!fj:Evo<; tticttoc Sfiox;
6itEiX7]<pa slvau Compare Hygin. f. 68.
"Et nova fratemo veniet Con
cordia fumo,
Quem vetus accensa separat
ira pyra." (Ovid, Ibis, 35.)
The tale was copied by Ovid from
Kallimachus (Trist. v. 5, 38).
VOL. I.

2 'A'vSpoSafj.ccvT' EpiauVqv (Pindar.
Nem. ix. 16). A poem Eriphyle was
included among the mythical com
positions of Stesichorus: he men
tioned in it that Asklepius had
restored Kapaneus to life, and
that he was for that reason struck
dead by thunder from Zeus (Ste-
sichor. Fragm. Kleine, 18, p. 74).
Two tragedies of Sophokles once
existed, Epigoni and Alkmmdn
(Welcker, G-riecbiscb.- Tragod. i.
p. 2C9): a few fragments also re
main of the Latin Epigoni and
Alphesibcea of Attius: ISnnius and
Attius both composed or translated
from the Greek a Latin Alkmceon
(Poet. Scenic. Latin, ed. Both, pp.
33, 16*, 198).
3 Hyginus gives the fable briefly
(f. 73; see also AsklepiadSs, ap.
Schol. Odyss. xi. 326). In like
manner, in the case of the matri
cide of Orestes, Apollo not only
sanctions, but enjoins the deed;

27-i HISTOBY OF GKEECE. Paki I.
Erinnys, the avenger of matricide, inflicted on him a long
Aikm;e6n— and terrible punishment, depriving him of his
Hs matri- reason, and chasing him about from place to
punis™ place without the possibility of repose or peace
ment. 0f mind. He craved protection and cure from
the god at Delphi, who required him to dedicate at the
temple, as an offering, the precious necklace of Kadmus,
that irresistible bribe which had originally corrupted
Eriphyle. l He further intimated to the unhappy sufferer,
that though the whole earth was tainted with his crime,
and had become uninhabitable for him, yet there was a
spot of ground which was not under the eye of the sun at
the time when the matricide was committed, and where
therefore Alkmseon yet might find a tranquil shelter. The
promise was realised at the mouth of the river Achelous,
whose turbid stream was perpetually depositing new earth
and forming additional islands. Upon one of these, near
(Eniadse, Alkmeeon settled, permanently and in peace: he
became the primitive hero of Akarnania, to which his son
Akarnan gave name.2 The necklace was found among the
treasures of Delphi (together with that which had been
given by Aphrodite to Helen), by the Phokian plunderers
who stripped the temple in the time of Philip of Maced6n.
The Phokian women quarrelled about these valuable orna
ments. "We are told that the necklace of Eriphyle was
allotted to a woman of gloomy and malignant disposition,
who ended by putting her husband to death; that of Helen
to a beautiful but volatile wife, who abandoned her husband
from preference for a young Epirot.3
There were several other legends respecting the dis-
but his protection against the ignorantly and without being
avenging Erinnyes is very tardy, aware who she was (Aristot. Poetic.
not taking effect until after Orestes c. 27). The murder of Eriphyle by
had heen long persecuted and tor- her son was one of the TzapzuX^u.-
mented hy them (see .aSschyl. [jlevoi u.u9oi which could not he-
Euraen. 76, 197, 462). departed from; hut interpretations
In the Alkmce6n of the later tragic and qualifications were resorted
writer TheodektSs , a distinction to , in order to prevent it from
was drawn: the gods had decreed shocking the softened feelings of
that Eriphyle should die, hut not the spectators : see the criticism
that Alkms&n should kill her of Aristotle on the Alkmceon of
(Aristot. Khetoric. ii. 24). Asty- Euripides (Ethic. Nicom. iii. 1, 8).
damas altered the story still more ' Ephorus ap. Athenss. vi. p. 232.
in his tragedy, and introduced * Thuoyd. ii. 6S— 102.
Alkmteun as killing his mother * Athenas. 1. c.

Chap. XIV.

SIEGES 03? THEBES.

275

tracted Alkmaeon, either appropriated or invented by the
Attic tragedians. He went to Phegeus, king of Psophis
in Arcadia, whose daughter Arsinoe he married, giving as
a nuptial present the necklace of Eriphyle. Being however
unable to remain there, in consequence of the unremitting
persecutions of the maternal Erinnys, he sought shelter at
the residence of king Achelous, whose daughter Kallirhoe
he made his wife, and on whose soil he obtained repose. 1
But Kallirhoe would not be satisfied without patal neo]l.
the possession of the necklace of Eriphyle, and lace of
Alkmaeon went back to Psophis to fetch it, where H Ilp y '
Phegeus and his sons slew him. He had left twin sons,
infants, with Kallirhoe, who prayed fervently to Zeus that
they might be preternaturally invested with immediate
manhood, in order to revenge the murder of their father.
Her prayer was granted, and her sons Amphoterus and
Akarnan, having instantaneously sprung up to manhood,
proceeded into Arcadia, slew the murderers of their father,
and brought away the necklace of Eriphyle, which they
carried to Delphi. 2

1 Apolloddr. iii. 7, 5 — 6 ; Pausan.
viii. 24, 4. These two authors have
preserved the story of the Akar-
nanians and the old form, of the
legend, representing AlkmaSn as
having found shelter at the abode
of the person or king Acheldus,
and married his daughter: Thucy
dides omits the personality of
Acheldus, and merely announces
the wanderer as having settled
on certain new islands deposited
by the river.
I may remark that this is a sin
gularly happy adaptation of a le
gend to an existing topographical
fact. G-enerally speaking, before
any such adaptation can be ren
dered plausible, the legend is of
necessity much transformed; here
it is taken exactly as it stands,
and still fits on with great precision.
Ephorus recounted the whole
sequence of events as so much
political history, divesting it alto
gether of the legendary character.

Alkmaedn and DiomSdSs , after
having taken ThSbes with the
other Epigoni, jointly undertook
an expedition into .ZEtdlia and
Akarnania : they first punished
the enemies of the old CEneus,
grandfather of Diomedes, and estab
lished the latter as king in Kaly-
d6n; next they conquered Akar
nania for Alkmsedn. Alkmsedn,
though invited by Agamemndn to
join in the Trojan war, would not
consent to do so (Ephor. ap. Strab.
vii. p. 326; x. p. 462).
2 Apolloddr. iii. 7, 7; Pausan. viii.
24, 3—4. His remarks upon the
mischievous longing of Kallirhoe"
for the necklace are curious: he
ushers them in by saying, that
"many men, and still more women,
are given to fall into absurd de
sires," &c. He recounts it with
all the bonne foi which belongs
to the most assured matter of fact.
A short allusion is in Ovid's
Metamorphoses (ix. 412).
T 2

276 HISTOEY OE1 GEEECE. Part I,
Euripides deviated still more widely from the ancient
epic, by making Alkmseon the husband of Manto, daughter
of Teiresias, and the father of Amphilochus. According
to the Cyclic Thebais, Manto was consigned by the victorious
Epigoni as a special offering to theDelphian god; and Amphi
lochus was son of Amphiaraus, not son of Alkmseon. * He
was the eponymous hero of the town called the Amphilochian
Argos, in Akarnania, on the shore of the Gulf of Ambrakia.
Thucydides tells us that he went thither on his return from
the Trojan war, being dissatisfied with the state of affairs
which he found at the Peloponnesian Argos.2 The Akar-
nanians were remarkable for the numerous prophets which
they supplied to the rest of Greece: their heroes were
naturally drawn from the great prophetic race of the Me-
lampodids. Thus ends the legend of the two sieges of Thebes; the
greatest event, except the siege of Troy, in the ancient epic;
the greatest enterprise of war, between Greeks and Greeks,
during the time of those who are called the Heroes.
1 Thebaid, Cycl. Reliqu. p. 70. IIooMtioSo; uoi, tsxvov, zyaii toot,
Leutsch; Schol. Apollon. Ehod. i. 'A|j.cpiXox' ?]puKj
408. , The following lines, cited in Toicuv i(aapu.6t,ou , tojy av xctTa
Athenseus (yii. p. 317) are sup- S^jjiov "%7]ai.
posed by Boeckh, with probable There were two tragedies corn-
reason, to be taken from the Cyclic posed by EuripidSs, under the
Thebai'8 ; a portion of the advice title of ' AXxftalcov, e 6ia ^Fajcplo'oc,
of Amphiaraus to his sons at the and ' AXxo-aiwv , 6 8ict KopivQou
time of setting out on his last (Dindorf, Fragm. Eurip. p. 77).
expedition, — 2 Apollodor. iii. 7, 7; Thucyd.
ii. 08.

Cha*. XV. LEGEND OF TEOT. 277

CHAPTER XV.
LEGEND OP TEOY.
We now arrive at the capital and culminating point of the
Grecian epic, — the two sieges and captures of Troy, with
the destinies of the dispersed heroes, Trojan as well as
Grecian, after the second and most celebrated capture and
destruction of the city.
It would require a large volume to convey any tolerable
idea of the vast extent and expansion of this Great ex-
interesting fable, first handled by so many poets, ten': *n<i
epic, lyric, and tragic, with their endless additions, ZTth/uia
transformations and contradictions, — then purged of Tr°y-
and recast by historical inquirers, who, under colour of
setting aside the exaggerations of the poets, introduced a
new vein of prosaic invention, — lastly, moralised and allego
rised by philosophers. In the present brief outline of the
general field of Grecian legend, or of that which the Greeks
believed to be their antiquities, the Trojan war can be
regarded as only one among a large number of incidents
upon which Hekatseus and Herodotus looked back as con
stituting their fore-time. Taken as a special legendary event,
it is indeed of wider and larger interest than any other,
but it is a mistake to single it out from the rest as if it rested
upon a different and more trustworthy basis. I must there
fore confine myself to an abridged narrative of the current
and leading facts; and amidst the numerous contradictory
statements which are to be found respecting every one of
them, I know no better ground of preference than com
parative antiquity, though even the oldest tales which we
possess — thiSse contained inthelhad — evidently presuppose
others of prior date.
The primitive ancestor of the Trojan line of kings is
Dardanus, son of Zeus, founder and eponymus uardanus,
of Dardania:1 in the account of later authors, aonofZeus.
1 Iliad, xx. 213.

278 HISTOEY OB" GEEECE. Paet I.
Dardanus was called the son of Zeus by Elektra, daughter
of Atlas, and was further said to have come fromSamothrace,
or from Arcadia, or from Italy ; » but of this Homer mentions
nothing. The first Dardanian town founded by him was
in a lofty position on the descent of Mount Ida; for he was
not yet strong enough to establish himself on the plain.
But his son Erichthonius, by the favour of Zeus, became
the wealthiest of mankind. His flocks and herds having
multiplied, he had in his pastures three thousand mares,
the offspring of some of whom, by Boreas, produced horses
of preternatural swiftness. Tros, the son of Erichthonius,
and the eponym of the Trojans, had three sons — Ilus,
Assaracus, and the beautiful Ganymedes, whom Zeus stole
away to become his cup-bearer in Olympus, giving to his
father Tros, as the price of the youth, a team of immortal
horses.2 Prom Hus and Assaracus the Trojan and Dardanian
n lines diverge ; the former passing from Hus to
founder of Laomedon, Priam and Hector; the latter from
ilium. Assaracus to Capys, Anchises and JEneas. Ilus
founded in the plain of Troy the holy city of Ilium; Assa
racus and his descendants remained sovereigns of Dardania.3
It was under the proud Laomedon, son of Ilus, that
Wails of Poseidon and Apollo underwent, by command
byUpose'i- °f Zeus, a temporary servitude ; the former build-
dsn. ing the walls of the town, the latter tending the
flocks and herds. When their task was completed and the
penal period had expired, they claimed the stipulated re
ward; but Laomedon angrily repudiated their demand, and
even threatened to cut off their ears, to tie them hand and
foot, and to sell them in some distant island as slaves.4 He
was punished for this treachery by a sea-monster, whom
Poseidon sent to ravage his fields and to destroy his subjects.
Laomedon publicly offered the immortal horses given by
Zeus to his father Tros, as a reward to any one who would
destroy the monster. But an oracle declared that a virgin
of noble blood must be surrendered to him, and the lot fell
'Hellanik. Eragm. 129, Didot; * Iliad, v. 265; Hellanik. Er. 140 J
Dionys. Hal. i. 50—61; Apollodfir. Apollod. ii. ?. 9.
iii. 12. 1; Schol. Iliad, xviii. 486; 3 Iliad, xx. 236.
Varro, ap. Servium ad Virgil. 4 Iliad, vii. 451 ; xxi. 456. Hesiod,
.^5neid. iii. 167 ; Kephalon. Gergi- ap. Schol. Lycophr. 393.
ihius ap. Steph. Byz. v. '¦' Apia^r\.

Chap. XV.

LAOMEDON".'

279

upon Hesione, daughter of Laomedon himself. Herakles,
arriving at this critical moment, killed the monster by the
aid of a fort built for him by Athene and the Trojans,1 so
as to rescue both the exposed maiden and the people; but
Laomedon, by a second act of perfidy, gave him mortal
horses in place of the matchless animals which had been
promised. Thus defrauded of his due, Herakles capture of
equipped six ships, attacked and captured Troy ilium by
and killed Laomedon, 2 giving Hesione to his H6rakl6B-
friend and auxiliary Telamon, to whom she bore the cele
brated archer Teukros.3 A painful sense of this expedition
was preserved among the inhabitants of the historical town
of Ilium, who offered no worship to Herakles.4
Among all the sons of Laomedon, Priam5 was the only
one who had remonstrated against the refusal priam and
of the well-earned guerdon of Herakles; forwhich his off-
the hero recompensed him by placing him on the sprlng'
throne. Manyand distinguished were his sons and daughters,
as well by his wife Hekabe, daughter of Kisseus, as by
other women. 6 Among the sons were Hector,7 Paris,

1 Iliad, xx. 145 ; Dionys. i. 52.
2 Iliad, t. 640. Menekles (ap,
Schol. Venet. ad loc.) affirmed that
this expedition of Hgrakles was a
fiction; but Diksearchus gave, be
sides, other exploits of the hero
in the same neighbourhood, at
Theb§> Hypoplakie (Schol. Iliad.
vi. 396).
3 Diod6r. iv. 32—49. Compare
Venet. Schol. ad Iliad, viii. 284.
4 Strabo, xiii. p. 596.
5 As Dardanus, Tr6s and Ilus
are respectively eponyms of Dar-
dania, Troy and Ilium, so Priam
is eponym of the acropolis Per-
gamum. ITpiscpLos is in the iEolic
dialect Ilsppauoc (Hesychius): upon
which Ahrens remarks, "Cseterum
ex hac -3ijolic& nominis forma ap-
paret, Priamum non minus arcis
rispydp-cov eponymum esse, quam
Hum urbis, Troem populi; Ilspya-
(ta enim a UzpWp.ru natum est, l in
y niutato." (Ahrens, De Dialecto
.ZEolica, 8, 7, p. 56 ; compare ibid.

28, 8. p. 150. TcEpp' dTctxXtO.)*
6 Iliad, vi. 248; xxiv. 495.
T Hect6r was affirmed, both by
StSsichorus and Ibykus, to be the
son of Apollo (Stesichorus, ap.
Schol. Ven. ad Iliad, xxiv. 259;
Ibyci Fragm. xiv. ed. Schneidewin):
both EuphoriOn (Fr. 125, Meineke)
and Alexander iEtdlus follow the
same idea. Stesichorus further
stated, that after the siege Apollo
had carried Hekabe away into
Lykia to rescue her from captivity
(Pausanias, v. 27, 1) : according to
Euripides, Apollo had promised
that she should die in Troy (Troad.
427^. By Sapph6, Hectflr was given as
a surname of Zeus, Zso? "Exxiup
(Hesychius, v. "Exxops<0 ; a prince
belonging to the regal family of
Chios, anterior to the Ionic settle
ment, as mentioned by the Chian
poet Ifln (Pausan. vii. 3, 3), was
so called.

280 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
Deiphobus, Helenus, Troilus, Polites, Polydorus; among
the daughters Laodike, Kreusa, Polyxena, and Kassandra.
The birth of Paris was preceded by formidable presage ;
. for Hekabe dreamt that she was dehvered of a
judgement firebrand, and Priam, on consulting the sooth-
on the three sayers, was informed that the son about to be
born would prove fatal to him. Accordingly
he directed the child to be exposed on Mount Ida; but the
inauspicious kindness of the* gods preserved him; and he
grew up amidst the flocks and herds, active and beautiful,
fair of hair and symmetrical in person, and the special
favourite of Aphrodite. 1
It was to this youth, in his solitary shepherd's walk
on Mount Ida, that the three goddesses Here, Athene and
Aphrodite were conducted, in order that he might determine
the dispute respecting their comparative beauty, which had
arisen at the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis, — a dispute
brought about in pursuance of the arrangement, and in
accomplishment of the deep-laid designs, of Zeus. For
Zeus, remarking with pain the immoderate numbers of the
then existing heroic race, pitied the earth for the overwhelm
ing burden which she was compelled to bear, and determined
to lighten it by exciting a destructive and long-continued
war.2 Paris awarded the palm of beauty to Aphrodite,
who promised him in recompense the possession of Helena,
wife of the Spartan Menelaus, — the daughter of Zeus and
the fairest of living women. At the instance of Aphrodite,
ships were built for him, and he embarked on the enterprise
so fraught with eventual disaster to his native city, in spite
1 Iliad, iii. 45—55 ; Schol. Iliad. 'PiTUsas noXzu.ov u-zyaX-qt Ipw
iii. 325; Hygin. fab. 91; Apollodor. 'IXictxoTo,
iii. 12, 5. "Oopa xevojg-siev Qkvkt^j p<ipov oE
2 This was the motive assigned 5' evI Tpoifl
to Zeus by the old epic poem, the "Hpu)Es xtsivovto, Aios B' stsXeisto
Cyprian Verses (Eragm. 1, Diintz. ^ouXi).
p. 12; ap. Schol. ad Iliad. I. 4): — The same motive is touched
'H Se idxopta Ttapa S-caatvej rib Ta upon by Eurip. Orest. 1G35 ; Helen.
Kurcpia xEnonr-toTi sitcovti oorisi^' 38; and seriously maintained, as
THv ote (j.6pta cpoXa xa-ca yJ36va it seems, by Chrysippus, ap. Plu-
^Xa^ou-Eva . . . tarch. Stoic. Rep. p. 1049 : but the
 Papuo-uepvou nX&rot: aXrjr. poets do not commonly go back
Zeos 8e iSujv cXey]<t£, xai ev ituxi- further than the passion of Paris
vous 7rpa7tioEaai for Helen (Theognis, 1232; Sirao-
26v9eto xoucpiaai avApibrccov rcap.- nid. Amorg. Fragm. 6, 118).
P<biopa Y<"av, The judgement of Paris was one

Chap. XV. PARIS AND HELEN. 2S1
of the menacing prophecies of his brother Helenus, and the
always neglected warnings of Kassandra. i
Paris, on arriving atSparta, was hospitably entertained
byMenelaus as well as by Kastor and Pollux, and Carries off
was enabled to present the rich gifts which he Helen from
had brought to Helen. 2 Menelaus then departed sParta-
to Krete, leaving Helen to entertain his Trojan guest — a
favourable moment which was employed by Aphrodite to
bring about the intrigue and the elopement. Paris carried
away with him both Helen and a large sum of money be
longing to Menelaus — made a prosperous voyage to Troy
— and arrived there safely with his prize on the third day. 3
Menelaus, informed by Iris in Krete of the perfidious
return made by Paris for his hospitality, hastened home in
grief and indignation to consult with his brother Agamem
non, as well as with the venerable Nestor, on the means of
avenging the outrage. They made known the event to the
Greek chiefs around them, among whom they found univer
sal sympathy: Nestor, Palamedes and others went round
to solicit aid in a contemplated attack of Troy, under the
command of Agamemnon, to whom each chief promised
hoth obedience and unwearied exertion until Helen should
be recovered.4 Ten years were spent in equipping the
of the scenes represented on the 3 Herodot. ii. 117. He gives
ancient chest of Kypselus at distinctly the assertion of the Cy-
Olympia (Pausan. v. 19, 1). prian Verses which contradicts the
1 Argument of the "E-7] K&Trpia argument of the poem as it appears
(ap. Diintzer, p. 10). These warn- in Proclus (Fragm. 1, 1), according
ings of Kassandra form the sub- to which latter Paris is driven out
ject of the obscure and affected of his course hy a storm and cap-
poem of Lycophr&n. tures the city of Siddn. Homer
2 According to the Cyprian Ver- (Iliad, vi. 293) seems, however, to
ses, Helena was daughter of Zeus countenance the statement in the
by Nemesis, who had in vain tried argument.
to evade the connexion (Athenai. That Paris was guilty of robbery,
viii. 334). Hesiod (Schol. Pindar, as well as of the abduction of
Nem. x. 150) represented her as Helen, is several times mentioned
daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, in the Iliad (iii. 144 ; vii. 350—363),
an oceanic nymph: Sapphd (Fragm. also in the argument of the Cy-
17, Sohneidewin), Pausanias (i. 33, prian Verses (see ^Eschyl. Agam.
7), Apolloddrus (iii. 10, 7), and 534).
Isokrates (Encom. Helen, v. ii. p. « The ancient epic (Sehol. ad II.
366, Auger) reconcile the preten- ii. 280—339) does not recognise the
sions of Leda and Nemesis to a story of the numerous suitors of
sort of joint maternity (see Hein- Helen, and the oath by which
richsen. De Carminibus Cypriis, Tyndareus bound them all before
p. 45—46). he made the selection among them

282 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.

expedition. The goddesses Here and Athene, incensed at
the preference given by Paris to Aphrodite,
ofthe 1 10U and animated by steady attachment to Argos,
Creeks to Sparta, and Mykense, took an active part in the
cause; and the horses of Here were fatigued
with her repeated visits to the different parts of Greece.1
By such efforts a force was at length assembled at
Aulis2 in Bceotia, consisting of 1186 ships and
from ail more than 100,000 men, — a force outnumbering
parts of 'by more than ten to one anything that the Tro-
combined jans themselves could oppose, and superior to
under Aga- the defenders of Troy even with all her allies
m mn n. included.3 It comprised heroes with their fol
lowers from the extreme points of Greece — from the north
western portions of Thessaly under Mount Olympus, as
well as the western islands of Dulichium and Ithaca, and
the eastern islands of Krete and Rhodes. Agamemnon
himself contributed 100 ships manned with the subjects of
his kingdom Mykense, besides furnishing 60 ships to the
Arcadians, who possessed none of their own. Menelaus
brought with him 60 ships, Nestor from Pylus 90, Idome-
neus from Krete and Diomedes from Argos, 80 each. Forty
ships were manned by the Eleians, under four different
that each should swear not only legend. Two years' preparation
to acquiesce, but even to aid in — in Dictys Cret. i. 16.
maintaining undisturbed posses- a The Spartan king Agesilaus,
Bion to the husband whom she when about to start from Greece
should choose. This story seems on his expedition into Asia Minor
to have been first told by Stesi- (396 B.C.), went to Aulis personally,
chorus (see Fragm. 20, ed. Kleine; in order that he too might sacrifice
Apollod. iii. 10, 8). Yet it was on the spot where Agamemnon
evidently one of the prominent had sacrificed when he sailed for
features of the current legend in Troy (Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 4, 4).
the time of Thucydides (i. 9, Euri- Skylax (c. CO) notices the ispbv
pid. Iph. Aul. 51 — 80; Soph. Ajax, at Aulis, and nothing else: it
1100). seems to have been like the ad-
The exact spot in which Tyn- joining Delium, a temple with a
dareus exacted this oath from the small village grown up around it.
suitors, near Sparta, was pointed Aulis is recognised as the port
out even in the time of Pausanias from which the expedition started,
(iii. 20, 9). in the Hesiodic Works and Days
1 Iliad, iv. 27 — 55; xxiv. 765, (v. 650).
Argument. Carm. Cypri. The point 3 Iliad, ii. 128. TJschold (Ge-
is emphatically touched upon by schichte des Trojanischen Kriegs,
Dio Chrysostom (Orat. xi. p. 336— p. 9, Stuttgart, 1836) makes the
336) in his assault upon the old total 135,000 men.

Chap. XV. GRECIAN ARMAMENT AGAINST TROY. 283
chiefs; the like number under Meges from Dulichium and
the Echinades, and under Thoas from Kalydon and the
other JUtolian towns. Odysseus from Ithaca, and Ajax
from Salamis, brought 1 2 ships each. The Abantes from
Eubcea, under Elephenor, filled 40 vessels; the Boeotians,
under Peneleos and Leitus, 50; the inhabitants of Orcho-
menus and Aspledon, 30; the light-armed Lokrians, under
Ajax son of Oileus,i 40; the Phokians as many. The
Athenians, under Menestheus, a chief distinguished for his
skill in marshalling an army, mustered 50 ships; the Myr
midons from Phthia and Hellas, under Achilles, assembled
in 50 ships; Protesilaus from Phylake and Pyrasus, and
Eurypylus from Ormenium, each came with 40 ships;
Machaon and Podaleirius, from Trikka, with 30; Eumelus,
from Pherse and the lake Bcebeis, with 1 1 ; and Philoktetes
from Melibosa with 7 ; the Lapithse, under Polypcetes, son
of Peirithous, filled 40 vessels; the jEnianes and Perrhse-
bians, under Guneus,2 22; and the Magnetes, under Pro-
thous, 40 ; these last two were from the northernmost parts
of Thessaly, near the mountains Pelion and Olympus. Erom
Rhodes, under Tlepolemus, son of Herakles, appeared 9
ships; from Syme, under the comely but effeminate Nireus,
3; from Kos, Krapathus and the neighbouring islands, 30,
under the orders of Pheidippus and Antiphus, sons of
Thessalus and grandsons of Herakles.3
Among this band of heroes were included the dis
tinguished warriors Ajax and Diomedes, and the A . .,,
sagacious Nestor; while Agamemnon himself, and
scarcely inferior to either of them in prowess, 0dysseus.
brought with him a high reputation for prudence in
1 The Hesiodic Catalogue notices allies of Troy is specially noticed
Oileus, or Ileus, with a singular in the Argument of Proclus (p. 12.
etymology of his name (Fragm. Diintzer).
136, ed. Marktscheffel). Euripides (Iphig. Aul. 165—300)
2 Toutzbs is the Heros Eponymus devotes one of the songs of the
of the town of Gonnus in Thessaly: Chorus to a partial Catalogue of
the duplication of the consonant the chief heroes.
and shortening of the vowel belong According to Dictys CretenBis,
to the -Slolie dialect (Ahrens, De all the principal heroes engaged
Dialect. ^!olio. 50, 4, p. 220). in the expedition were kinsmen,
3 See the Catalogue in the second all Pelopids (i. 14) : they take an
took of the Iliad. There must oath not to lay down their arms
probably have heen a Catalogue until Helen shall have been re-
of the Greeks also in the Cyprian covered, and they receive from
Verses; for a Catalogue of the AgamemnSn a large sum of gold.

284 HISTORY OF GREECE. Part I.
command. But the most marked and conspicuous of all were
Achilles and Odysseus ; the former a beautiful youth born
of a divine mother, swift in the race, of fierce temper and
irresistible might; the latter not less efficient as an ally,
from his eloquence, his untiring endurance, his inexhaust
ible resources under difficulty, and the mixture of daring
courage with deep-laid cunning which never deserted him:1
the blood of the arch-deceiver Sisyphus, through an illicit
connexion with his mother Antikleia, was said to flow in
his veins,2 and he was especially patronised and protected
by the goddess Athene. Odysseus, unwilling at first to take
part in the expedition, had even simulated insanity; but
Palamedes, sent to Ithaca to invite him, tested the reality
of his madness by placing in the furrow where Odysseus
was ploughing, his infant son Telemachus. Thus detected,
Odysseus could not refuse to join the Achsean host, but the
prophet Halitherses predicted to him that twenty years
would elapse before he revisited his native land.3 To
Achilles the gods had promised the full effulgence of
heroic glory before the walls of Troy; nor could the place
be taken without both his co-operation and that of his son
after him. But they had forewarned him that this brilliant
career would be rapidly brought to a close; and that if he
desired a long life, he must remain tranquil and inglorious
in his native land. In spite of the reluctance of his mother
Thetis, he preferred few years with bright renown, and
joined the Achsean host.4 "When Nestor and Odysseus
came to Phthia to invite him, both he and his intimate friend
Patroklus eagerly obeyed the call.5
Agamemnon and his powerful host set sail from Aulis ;
1 For the character of Odysseus, sen, De Carmin. Cypr. p. 23 (the
Iliad, iii. 202—220 ; x. 247. Odyss. sentence is left out in Diintzer,
xiii. 205. p. 11).
The Philoktetes of Sophokles A lost tragedy of Sophokles,
carries out very justly the character 'OSuoo-eu!; Matvop-Evos, handled this
of the Homeric Odysseus (see v. subject.
1035)— more exactly than the Ajax Other Greek chiefs were not less
of the same poet depicts it. reluctant than Odysseus to take
2 Sophokl. Philoktet. 417, and part in the expedition; see the
Schol. — also Schol. ad Soph. Ajac. tale of Posmandrus, forming a part
190. of the temple legend of the Achil-
3 Homer, Odyss. xxiv. 115 ; leium at Tanagra in Bceotia (Plu-
iEschyl. Agam. S41 ; Sophokl. Phi- tarch. Qurest. Graec. p. 299).
loktet. 1011, with the Schol. Ar- « Iliad, i. 352 ; ix. 411.
gument of the Cypria in Heinrich- » Iliad, xi. 782.

Chap. XV.

AOHItiLES AND TELEPHUS.

285

but being ignorant of the locality and the direction, they
landed by mistake in Teuthrania, a part of Mysia near
the river Kaikus, and began to ravage the country under
the persuasion that it was the neighbourhood of Troy.
Telephus, the king of the country,1 opposed and repelled
them, but was ultimately defeated and severely wounded
by Achilles. The Greeks, now discovering their TheGrecian
mistake, retired; but their fleet was dispersed by host mis-
a storm and driven back to Greece. Achilles thraniaTor
attacked and took Skyrus, and there married Troy—
Deidamia, the daughter of Lycomeds.2 Tele- T61epkua-
phus, suffering from his wounds, was directed by the oracle
to come to Greece and present himself to Achilles to be
healed, by applying the scrapings of the spear with which
the wound had been given: thus restored, he became the
guide of the Greeks when they were prepared to renew
their expedition.3
The armament was again assembled at Aulis, but the

1 Telephus was the son of Auge,
daughter of king Aleus of Tegea
in Arcadia, byHeraklSs : respecting
her romantic adventures, see the
previous chapter on Arcadian
legends— Straho's faith in the story
(xii. p. 572).
The spot called the harbour of
the Achjeans, near Gryneium, was
stated to be the place where Aga
memndn and the chiefs took coun
sel whether they should attack
Telephus or not (Skylax, c. 97;
compare Strabo, xiv. p. C22).
2 Iliad, xi. 664; Argum. Gypr. p,
11, Diintzer; Diktys Cret. ii. 3—4.
3 Euripicl. Telephus, Fragm. 26,
Dindorf; Hygin. f. 101; Diktys, ii.
10. Euripides had treated the ad
venture of Telephus in this lost
tragedy : he gave the miraculous
cure with the dust of the spear,
¦rcpiato'iai Aoypjt; GsXysTcu pivrjU-aai.
Diktys softens down the prodigy:
"Achilles cum Machaone et Poda-
lirio adhibentes curam vulneri,"
&c. Pliny (xxxiv. 15) gives to the
rust of brass or iron a place in
the list of genuine remedies.

"Longe omnino a Tiberi ad
Caicum: quo in loco etiam Aga
memnon errasset, nisi ducem Te-
lephum invenisset" (Cicero, Pro
L. Tlacco, c. 29). The portions of
the Trojan legend treated in the
lost epics and the tragedians, seem
to have been just as familiar to
Cicero as those noticed in the
Iliad. Strabo pays comparatively little
attention to any portion of the
Trojan war except what appears
in Homer. He even goes so far
as to give a reason why the Ama
zons did not come to the aid of
Priam: they were at enmity with
him, because Priam had aided the
Phrygians against them (Iliad, iii.
188: in Strabo, to^ 'Ituaiy must be
a mistake for -zoic, Op-^tv). Strabo
can hardly have read, and never
alludes to, Arktinus, in whose
poem the brave and beautiful
Penthesileia, at the head of her
Amazons, forms a marked epoch
and incident of the war (Strabo,
xii. 552).

286

HISTORY OE GREECE.

Pabt T.

Detention
of the
Greeks at
Aulis—Agamemndn and
Iphigeneia.

goddess Artemis, displeased with the boastful language
of Agamemnon, prolonged the duration of ad
verse winds, and the offending chief was com
pelled to appease her by the well-known
sacrifice of his daughter Iphigeneia. * They then
proceeded to Tenedos, from whence Odysseus
and Menelaus were despatched as envoys to Troy,
to redemand Helen and the stolen property. In spite of the
prudent counsels of Antenor, who received the two Grecian
chiefs with friendly hospitality, the Trojans rejected the
demand, and the attack was resolved upon. It was fore
doomed by the gods that the Greek who first landed should
perish: Protesilaus was generous enough to put himself
upon this forlorn hope, and accordingly fell by the hand
of Hector. Meanwhile the Trojans had assembled a large body
of allies from various parts of Asia Minor and
Thrace : Dardanians under ^Eneas, Lykians under
Sarpedon, Mysians, Karians, Maeonians, Alizoni-
ans, 2 Phrygians, Thracians andPseonians.3 But
vain was the attempt to oppose the landing of
the Greeks: the Trojans were routed, and even
the invulnerable Kyknus,4 son of Poseidon, one of the great
bulwarks of the defence, was slain by Achilles. Having
driven the Trojans within their walls Achilles attacked
and stormed Lyrn£ssus, Pedasus, Lesbos and other places
in the neighbourhood, twelve towns on the sea-coast, and
eleven in the interior: he drove off the oxen of JEneas and
pursued the hero himself, who narrowly escaped with his
life: he surprised and killed the youthful Troilus, son of

Eirst suc
cess of the
Greeks on
landing
near Troy.
Briseis awarded to
Achilles.*

1 Nothing occurs in Hornet re
specting the sacrifice of Iphigeneia
(see Schol. Ven. ad II. ix. 145).
2 No portion of the Homeric Ca
talogue gave more trouble to De
metrius of Skgpsis and the other
expositors than these Alizonians
(Strabo, xii. p. 649; xiii. p. 603):
a fictitious place called Alizonium,
in the region of Ida, was got up
to meet the difficulty (six 'AUCuj-
VIO'Jj TOUT 7)87] TCS7T. Xcta \i-i vov r.phc,
tyjv T(I)v 'AXi^oJvtov UnoOeaiv, &C,
Strabo, 1. a).

3 See the Catalogue of the Tro
jans (Iliad, ii. 815—877).
4 Kyknus was said by later
writers to be king of Kol&na; in
the Troad (Strabo, xiii. p. 589 —
603; Aristotel. Rhetoric, ii. 23).
iEschylus introduced upon the
Attic stage both Kyknus and
Memnftn in terrific equipments
(Aristophan. Ran. 957. Oyo' IH'
tcXtjttov aoTO'j<; Koxvout; ctytuv xai
MdjjL^ovas xu>8(Dvo<pa}.apo7iojXou?).
Compare Welcker, .ZEscbyl. Tri-
logie, p. 433,

Chap. XV. MURDER OF PALAMEDES. 287
Priam, and captured several of the other sons, whom he
sold as prisoners into the islandsof the iEgean. ' He ac
quired as his captive the fair Briseis, while Chryseis was
awarded to Agamemnon: he was moreover eager to seethe
divine Helen, the prize and stimulus of this memorahle
struggle; and Aphrodite and Thetis contrived to bring
about an interview between them.2
At this period of the war the Grecian army was de
prived of Palamedes, one of its ablest chiefs. Odysseus
had not forgiven the artifice by which Pala- paiainades
medes had detected his simulated insanity, nor —Mb genius.
was he without jealousy of a rival clever and cherous
cunning in a degree equal, if not superior, to death-
himself; one who had enriched the Greeks with the inven
tion of letters, of dice for amusement, of night-watches, as
well as with other useful suggestions. According to the
old Cyprian epic, Palamedes was drowned while fishing,.
by the hands of Odysseus and Diomedes.3 Neither in the
Iliad nor the Odyssey does the name of Palamedes occur;.
the lofty position which Odysseus occupies in both those
poems — noticed with some degree of displeasure even by
Pindar, who described Palamedes as the wiser man of the
two — is sufficient to explain the omission.* But in the
1 Iliad, xxiv. 752; Argument of p. 564; Virgil, .33neid, i. 474 f
the Cypria, pp. 11, 12, Diintzer. Lycophr&n, 307).
These desultory exploits of Achil- 2 Argument. Cypr. p. 11, Diintzer..
les furnished much interesting Keel u.zra taoTcc ' AyiXXzbs 'EXevtjv
romance to the later Greek poets ir.ifiuu.zl Ekacr7.a9ai, y.at autr]ya-{ot
(see Purthenius, Narrat. 21). See abrob^ sit; m abrb ' AtppoSi-n) xai
the neat summary of the principal Qznt;. A scene which would have-
events of the war in Quintus been highly interesting in the-
Smyrn. xiv. 125—140 ; Dio Chrysost. hands of Homer.
Or. xi. p. 338 — 342. 3 Argum. Cypr. 1, 1; Pausan. x.
Troilus is only once named in 31. The concluding portion of the
the Iliad (xxiv. 253) ; he was Cypria seems to have passed under
mentioned also in the Cypria ; but the title of ITaXa|X7)8eta (see Fragm^
his youth, beauty, and untimely 16 and 18, p. 15, Diintzer ; Welcker,
end made him an object of great Der Episch. Cycl. p. 459; Eustath.
interest with the subsequent poets, ad Horn. Odyss. i. 107).
Sophokles had a tragedy called The allusion of Quintus Smyr-
Troilus (Welcker, Griechische nasus (v. 197) seems rather to point
Tragod. i. p. 124); Tov dv6pd7coi8a to the story in the Cypria, which
b'zaTzbzritaKwXzaa,OTie of the Fragm. Strabo (viii. p. 368) appears not to
Even earlier than Sophokles, his have read.
beauty was celebrated by the tra- 4 Pindar, Nem. vii. 21 ; Aristidesr
gedian Phrynichus (Athena?, xiii. Orat. 46, p. 260.

288 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pabt i.
more advanced period of the Greek mind, when intellectual
superiority came to acquire a higher place in the public
esteem as compared with military prowess, the character
of Palamedes, combined with his unhappy fate, rendered
him one of the most interesting personages in the Trojan
legend. ^Eschylus, Sophokles and Euripides each con
secrated to him a special tragedy; but the mode of his
death as described in the old epic was not suitable to
Athenian ideas, and accordingly he was represented as
having been falsely accused of treason by Odysseus, who
caused gold to be buried in his tent, and persuaded Aga
memnon and the Grecian chiefs that Palamedes had received
it from the Trojans, i He thus forfeited his life, a victim
to the calumny of Odysseus and to the delusion of the
leading Greeks. The philosopher Sokrates, in the last
speech made to his Athenian judges, alludes with solemnity
and fellow-feeling to the unjust condemnation of Palamedes,
as analogous to that which he himself was about to suffer;
and his companions seem to have dwelt with satisfaction
on the comparison. Palamedes passed for an instance of
the slanderous enmity and misfortune which so often wait
upon superior genius. 2
In these expeditions the Grecian army consumed nine
years, during which the subdued Trojans dared not give
battle without their walls for fear of Achilles. Ten years
was the fixed epical duration of the siege of Troy, just as
five years was the duration of the siege of Kamikus by the
1 See the Fragments of the three well, and then cast stones upon
tragedians ITaXaf^ST]!;— Aristeides, him (ii. 15).
Or. xlvi. p. 260 ; Philostrat. Heroic. Xenophon (De Venatione, v. 1)
*.. ; Hygin. fab. 95—105. Discour- evidently recognises the story in
ses for and against Palamedes, one the Cypria, that Odysseus and
by Alkidamas, and one under the Diomedes caused the death of
name of Gorgias, are printed in Palamedes: but he cannot believe
Beiske's Orr. Grwc. t. viii. pp. 64, that two such exemplary men were
102; Virgil, JEneid, ii. 82, with the really guilty of so ininuitous an
ample commentary of Servius— act— xctxol 5s s-p7.£o:v to spyov.
Polysen. Proce. p. 6. The marked eminence overtopping
Welcker (GriecMsch. Tragod. v. Napoli still bears the name of
i. p. 130, vol. ii. p. 600) has evol- Palamidhi.
ved with ingenuity the remaining = Plato, Apolog. Socr. c. 32;
fragments of the lost tragedies. Xenoph. Apol. Socr. 20; Memor.
According to Diktys, Odysseus iv. 2, 33; Liban. pro Socr. p. 242,
and Diomedes prevail upon Pala- ed. Morell. ; Lucian. Dial. Mort. 20.
medes to be let down into a deep

Chai\ XV. ANGER OF ACHILLES. 289
Kretan armament which came to avengethe death of Minos ;i
ten years of preparation, ten years of siege, and ten years
of wandering for Odysseus, were periods suited to the rough
chronological dashes of the ancient epic, and suggesting
no doubts nor difficulties with the original hearers. Epic chro-
But it was otherwise when the same events came noiogy hia-
to be contemplated by the historicising Greeks,
who could not be satisfied without either finding or invent
ing satisfactory bonds of coherence between the separate
events. Thucydides tells us that the Greeks were less
numerous than the poets have represented, and that being
moreover very poor, they were unable to procure adequate
and constant provisions: hence they were compelled to dis
perse their army, and to employ a part of it in cultivating
the Chersonese — a part in marauding expeditions over the
neighbourhood. Could the whole army have been employed .
against Troy at once (he says), the siege would have been
much more speedily and easily concluded. 2 If the great
historian could permit himself thus to amend the legend in
so many points, we might have imagined that a simpler
course would have been to include the duration of the siege
among the list of poetical exaggerations, and to affirm that
the real siege had lasted only one year instead of ten. But
it seems that the ten years' duration was so capital a feature
in the ancient tale, that no critic ventured to meddle with it.
A period of comparative intermission however was
now at hand for the Trojans. The gods brought about
the memorable fit of anger of Achilles, under the influence
of which he refused to put on his armour, and kept his
Myrmidons in camp. According to the Cypria, this was
the behest of Zeus, who had compassion on the Trojans :
according to the Iliad, Apollo was the originating cause,3
from anxiety to avenge the injury which his priest Chryses
had endured from Agamemnon. For a consider- p .
able time, the combats of the Greeks against 0f the
Troy were conducted without their best warrior, Homeric
and severe indeed was the humiliation which Hector
they underwent in consequence. How the re- wiled by
maining Grecian chiefs vainly strove to make
1 Herodot. vii. 170. Ten years is Theogon. 636). Compare 8sx&t<»
a proper mythical period for a i-nocuTu) (Horn. Odyss. xvi. 17).
great war to last: the war between 2 Thucyd. i. 1.
the Olympic gods and the Titan ' Homer, Iliad, i. 21.
gods lasts ten years (Hesiod,
VOL. I. TT

290 HISTORY OF GREECE. Past I.
amends for his absence — how Hector and the Trojans
defeated and drove them to their ships — how the actual
blaze of the destroying flame, applied by Hect6r to the
ship of Protesilaus, roused up the anxious and sympathizing
Patroklus, and extorted a reluctant consent from Achilles,
to allow his friend and his followers to go forth and avert
the last extremity of ruin — how Achilles, when Patroklus
had been killed by Hector, forgetting his anger in grief
for the death of his friend, re-entered the fight, drove the
Trojans within their walls with immense slaughter, and
satiated his revenge both upon the living and the dead
Hector — all these events have been chronicled, together
with those divine dispensations on which most of them are
made to depend, in the immortal verse of the Iliad.
Homer breaks off with the burial of Hector, whose
body has just been ransomed by the disconsolate Priam ;
while the lost poem ol Arktinus, entitled the JEthiopis, so
far as we can judge from the argument still remaining of
it, handled only the subsequent events of the siege. The
poem of Quintus Smyrnseus, composed about the fourth
century of the Christian sera, seems in its first books to
coincide with the JEthiopis, in the subsequent books partly
with the Bias Minor of Lesches. i
The Trojans, dismayed by the death of Hector, were
again animated with hope by the appearance of the warlike
and beautiful queen of the Amazons, Penthesileia, daughter
of Ares, hitherto invincible in the field, who came to their
assistance from Thrace at the head of a band of her country
women. She again led the besieged without the walls to
encounter the Greeks in the open field; and under her
auspices the latter were at first driven back, until she too
was slain by the invincible arm of Achilles. The victor,
New alii on taking off the helmet of his fair enemy as she
of Troy— lay on the ground, was profoundly affected and
fiieia6" captivated by her charms, for which he was scorn
fully taunted by Thersites : exasperated by this
rash insult, he killed Thersites on the spot with a blow of
his fist. A violent dispute among the Grecian chiefs was
the result, for Diomedes, the kinsman of Thersites, warmly
resented the proceeding; and Achilles was obliged to go
1 Tychsen, Commentat.de Quinto tinus and by Lesches: with the
Smyrnteo, § iii. c. 6—7. The 'IXlou latter it formed a part of the Ilias
ILipaic was treated both bv Ark- Minor.

Chap. XV. DEATH OF ACHILLES. 29l
to Lesbos, where he was purified from the act of homicide
by Odysseus, i
Next arrived Memnon, son of Tithonus and Bos, the
most stately of living men, with a powerful band Memnon—
of black Ethiopians, to the assistance of Troy, killed by
Sallying forth against the Greeks, he made great olu eB-
havoc among them: the brave and popular Antilochus
perished by his hand, a victim to filial devotion in defence
of Nestor. 2 Achilles at length attacked him, and for a long
time the combat was doubtful between them: the prowess
of Achilles and the supplication of Thetis with Zeus finally
prevailed; whilst Eos obtained for her vanquished son the
consoling gift of immortality. His tomb, however,3 was
shown near the Propontis, within a few miles of the mouth
of the river JEsepus, and was visited annually by the birds
called Memnonides, who swept it and bedewed it with water
from the stream. So the traveller Pausanias was told, even
in the second century after the Christian sera, by the Hel-
lespontine Greeks.
But the fate of Achilles himself was now at hand.
After routing the Trojans, and chasing them into Death of ;
the town, he was slain near the Skaean gate by Achilles.
an arrow from the quiver of Paris, directed under the
1 Argument of the .asthiopis, p. Phrygians pointed out the road
16, Diintzer; Quint. Smyrn. lib. i. ; along which he had marched.
Diktys Cret, iv. 2 — 3. 3 Argum. Mth. ut sup. : Quint.
In the Philoktetes of Sophokles, Smyrn. ii. 396—560: Pausan. x. 31,
Thersites survives Achilles (Soph. 1. Pindar, in praising Achilles,
P.hil. 358 — 445). dwells much on his triumphs over
a Odyss. xi. 522. Kelvov 87] xaX- Hector, Telephus, Memndn, and
Uqtov tSov, u.zra MejAvova Siov: see Kyknus, but never notices Pen-
llso Odyss. iv. 187; Pindar, Pyth. thesileia (Olymp. ii. 90. Nem. iii.
vi. 31. iEschylus (ap. Strab. xv. 60 ; vi. 52. Isthm. v. 43).
p. 728) conceives Memn6n as a .ffischylus, in the *Jruvo<iT«jlo!,
Persian starting from Susa. introduced Thetis and E8s, each
Ktesias gave in his history full in an attitude of supplication for
details respecting the expedition her son, and Zeus weighing in
of Memn8n, sent by the king of his golden scales the souls of
Assyria to the relief of his depen- Achilles and Memn6n (Schol. Ven.
dent, Priam of Troy ; all this was ad Iliad, viii. 70 ; Pollux, iv. 130 ;
said to be recorded in the royal Plutarch, De Audiend. Poet. p. 17).
archives. The Egyptians affirmed In the combat between Achilles
that Memndn had come from Egypt and MemnSn, represented on the
(Diodor. ii. 22; compare iv. 77): chest of Kypselus at Olympia,
the two stories are blended to- Thetis and E8s were given each
gether in Pausanias, x. 31, 2. The as aiding her son (Pausan. v. 19, 1).

292

HISTOEY OT GREECE*

Past I.

unerring auspices of Apollo, i The greatest efforts were
made by tie Trojans to possess themselves of the body,
which was however rescued and borne off to the Grecian
camp by the valour of Ajax and Odysseus. Bitter was the
grief of Thetis for the loss of her son: she came into the
camp with the Muses and the Nereids to mourn over him;
and when a magnificent funeral-pile had been prepared by
the Greeks to burn him with every mark of honour, she
stole away the body and conveyed it to a renewed and im
mortal life in the island of Leuke in the Euxine Sea. Ac-
cordingto some accounts he was there blest with the nuptials
and company of Helen.2
Thetis celebrated splendid funeral games in honour
of her son, and offered the unrivalled panoply,
which Hephaestos had forged and wrought for
him, as a prize to the most distinguished warrior
in the Grecian army. Odysseus and Ajax became
rivals for the distinction, when Athene, together
with some Trojanprisoners, who were asked from
which of the two their country had sustained
greatest injury, decided in favour of the former.
The gallant Ajax lost his senses with grief and
humiliation: in a fit of phrenzy he slew some
sheep, mistaking them for the men who had wronged him,
and then fell upon his own sword.3

Funeralgames cele
biated in
honour of
him —
Quarrel about his
panoply- Odysseus
prevailsand Ajax
kills
himself.

1 Iliad, xxii. 360; Sophokl. Phi-
lokt. 334; Virgil, ^Jneid, vi. 56.
2 Argum.iEthiop. utsup.; Quint.
Smyrn. 151—583 ; Homer, Odyss. v.
310; Ovid, Metam. xiii. 284; Eurip.
Aridrom. 1262; Pausan. iii. 19, 13.
According to Diktys (iv. 11), Paris
and Deiphobus entrap Achilles by
the promise of an interview with
Polyxena and kill him.
A minute and curious description
of the island Leuk§, or 'A^iXXeaK
VTJao<;, is given in Arrian (Periplus
Pont. Euxin. p. 21; ap. G-eogr. Min.
t. 1).
The heroic or divine empire of
Achilles in Scythia was recognised
by Alkceus the poet (Alcaai Eragm.
Schneidew. Fr.46), 'A^tXXsu, ikyas
2xu6ixa<; uiSsi^. Eustathius (ad
Dionys. Perieget. 307) gives the

story of his having followed Iphi
geneia thither : compare Antonin.
Liberal. 27.
Ibykus represented Achilles as
having espoused Bledea in the
Elysian Eield (Ibyc. Eragm. 18,
Schneidewin). Simonides followed
this story (ap. Schol. Apoll. Ehod.
iv. 815).
3 Argumentof iEthiopis andllias
Minor, and Eragm. 2 of the latter,
pp. 17, 18, Diintz. ; Quint. Smyrn.
v. 120 — 482 ; Horn. Odyss. xi. 550 ;
Pindar, Nem. vii. 26. The Ajax of
SophoklSs, and the contending
speeches between Ajax and IJlys-
ses in the beginning of the thir
teenth book of Ovid's Metamor
phoses, are too well known to
need special reference.
The suicide of Ajax seems to

Chap. XV. DEATH OE AJAX.-PHILOKTETllS.

293

Odysseus now learnt from Helenus son of Priam, whom
he had captured in an ambuscade,1 that Troy could not be
taken unless both Philoktetes and Neoptolemus, son of
Achilles, could be prevailed upon to join the besiegers.
The former, having been stung in the foot by a serpent,
and becoming insupportable to the Greeks from the stench
of his wound, had been left at Lemnus in the commencement
of the expedition, and had spent ten years2 in misery on
that desolate island: but he still possessed the phiioktetes
peerless bow and arrows of Herakles, which and Neo-
were said to be essential to the capture of Troy. Ptolemus-
Diomedes fetched Philoktetes from Lemnus to the Grecian
camp, where he was healed by the skill of Machaon,3 and
took an active part against the Trojans — engaging in single
combat with Paris, and killing him with one of the Herak
leian arrows. The Trojans were allowed to carry away
for burial the body of this prince, the fatal cause of all
their sufferings; but not until it had been mangled by the
hand of Menelaus.4 Odysseus went to the island of Skyrus

have been described in detail in
the iEthiopis : compare Pindar,
Isthm. iii. 51, and the Scholia ad
loc., which show the attention paid
by Pindar to the minute circum
stances of the old epic. See Eragm.
2 of the *IUou rispcjK; of Arktinus,
in Diintz. p. 22, which would seem
more properly to belong to the
iEthiopis. Diktys relates the suicide
of Ajax, as a consequence of his
unsuccessful competition with
Odysseus, not about the arms of
Achilles, but about the Palladium,
after the taking of the city (v. 14).
There were, however, many
different accounts of the manner
in which Ajax had died, some of
which are enumerated in the ar
gument to the drama of SophoklSs.
Ajax is never wounded in the
Iliad : jEschylus made him invul
nerable except under the armpits
(see Schol. ad Sophoc. Ajac. 833) ;
the Trojans pelted him with mud
— £l TZUiC, PcrpTjOEl'fl &7UQ TOU TZ7)X'jU.
(Schol. Iliad, xiv. 404.)
* Soph. Philokt. 604.

2 Soph. Philokt. 703. TQ fxsXsa
tyuy,&l "Os (XTjS' olvO/OTOU TUOfJLOtTOi;
Ho87) OSXSTT] ^pOVOV, &C
In the narrative of Diktys (ii.
47), Philoktetes returns from
Lemnus to Troy much earlier in
the war, before the death of Achil
les, and without any assigned
cause. 8 According to Sophokles, He
rakles sends Asklepius to Troy to
heal Philoktetes (Soph. Philokt.
1415). The story of Philoktetes formed
the subject of a tragedy by JEschy-
lus and of another by Euripides
(both lost) as well as by Sophokles.
4 Argument. Iliad. Minor. Diintz.
1. u. Kcti tov vsxpov 6 it 6 MeveXaoti
-/.aTai.xi.a9evTa avsXoftsvot Qdicrci'jcnv
oi Tpujss, See Quint. Smyrn. x.
240: he differs here in many re
spects from the arguments of the
old poems, as given by Proclus,
both as to the incidents and as to
their order in time (Diktys, iv. 20).
The woundeu Paris flees to 03n6ne>
whom he had deserted in order to

294 HISTORY OE GREECE. Paet I.
to invite Neoptolemus to the army. The untried but
impetuous youth, gladly obeying the call, received from
Odysseus his father's armour; while on the other hand,
.Eurypylus, son of Telephus, came from Mysia as auxihary
to the Trojans and rendered to them valuable service —
turning the tide of fortune for a time against the Greeks,
and killing some of their bravest chiefs, amongst whom were
numbered Penele6s, and the unrivalled leech Machaon.1
The exploits of Neoptolemus were numerous, worthy of the
glory of his race and the renown of his father. He encoun
tered and slew Eurypylus, together with numbers of the
Mysian warriors: he routed the Trojans and drove them
within their walls, from whence they never again emerged
to give battle: and he was not less distinguished for good
sense and persuasive diction than for forward energy in the
field. 2
Troy however was still impregnable so long as the
Capture of Palladium, a statue given by Zeus himself to
the Eana,- Dardanus, remained in the citadel; and great
•wooden care had been taken by the Trojans not only to
horse. conceal this valuable present, but to construct
other statues so like it as to mislead any intruding robber.
Nevertheless the enterprising Odysseus, having disguised
his person with miserable clothing and self-inflicted inju
ries, found means to penetrate into the city and to convey
the Palladium by stealth away. Helen alone recognised
follow Helen, and entreats her to Eurypylus, -was the local hero and
cure him by her skill in simples : mythical king of Teutnrania, in
she refuses, and permits him to which Pergamus was situated. In
die; she is afterwards stung with the hymns there sung, the poem
remorse, and hangs herself (Quint, and the invocation were addressed
Smyrn. s. 285—331; Apollodor. iii. to Telephus; but nothing was said
12, 6; Con6n, Narrat. 23; see in them about Eurypylus, nor was
Bachet de Meziriac, Comment, but it permitted even to mention his
les Epitres d'Ovide, t. i. p. 456). name in the temple, — "they knew
The story of Qin&ne is as old as him to he slayer of Machadn:"
Hellanikus and Kephal6n of Gergis ctpyovxai u.kt a-nb 1r]Xi<sou ribt
(see Hellan. Eragm. 126, Didot). Buvcov, xpooioouoi Si obbzt e? to\p
1 To mark the way in which EupOTcuXov, o&oe apyr\t it tuj vaw
these legendary events pervaded QsXouaiv ovopLaiUiv abrbt, oTa eTUUTa-
and became embodied in the local usvoi tpovea btra Maydovoe; (Pausan.
worship, I may mention the re- iii. 26, 7).
ceived practice in the great temple z Argument. Iliad. Minor, p. 18,
of Asklepius (father of Macha6n) Diintzer. Homer, Odyss. xi. 510 —
at Pergamus, even in the time of 520. Pausan. iii. 26, 7. Quint.
Pausanias. Telephus, father of Smyrn. vii. 653; viii. 201.

Chai. XV. NEOPTOLEMUS.— CAPTURE OE TROT. 295
him; but she was now anxious to return to Greece, and
even assisted Odysseus in concerting means for the capture
of the town. *
To accomplish this object, one final stratagem was
resorted to. By the hands of Epeius of Panopeus, and at
the suggestion of Athene, a capacious hollow wooden horse
was constructed, capable of containing one hundred men.
In the inside of this horse, the ilite of the Grecian heroes,
Neoptolemus, Odysseus, Menelaus and others, concealed
themselves while the entire Grecian army sailed away to
Tenedos, burning their tents and pretending to have aban
doned the siege. The Trojans, overjoyed to find themselves
free, issued from the city and contemplated with astonish
ment the fabric which their enemies had left behind. They
long doubted what should be done with it; and the anxious
heroes from within heard the surrounding consultations, as
well as the voice of Helen when she pronounced their
names and counterfeited the accents of their wives.2 Many
of the Trojans were anxious to dedicate it to the gods in
the city as a token of gratitude for their deliverance; but
the more cautious spirits inculcated distrust of an enemy's
legacy. Laocoon, the priest of Poseidon, manifested his
aversion by striking the side of the horse with his spear.
The sound revealed that the horse was hollow, but the
Trojans heeded not this warning of possible fraud. The
unfortunate Laocoon, a victim to his own sagacity and
patriotism, miserably perished before the eyes of his
countrymen, together with one of his sons : two serpents
being sent expressly by the gods out of the sea to destroy
him. By this terrific spectacle, together with the perfidious
counsels of Sinon — a traitor whom the Greeks had left
behind for the special purpose of giving false information
-^the Trojans were induced to make a breach in their own
walls, and to drag the fatal fabric with triumph and exul
tation into their city. 3
1 Argument. Iliad. Minor, p. 18, * Odyss. iv. 275; Virgil, iBneid,
Diintz. ; Arktinus ap. Dionys. Hal. ii. 14; Heyne, Excurs. 3. ad jEneid.
i. 69; Homer, Odyss. iv. 2*6; Quint, ii. Stesichorus, in his ' IXiou ITsp-
Smyrn. x. 354; Virg., JBn.,ii.l64. and 115, gave the number of heroes in
theSHhExc. of Heyne on that book, the wooden horse as one hundred
Compare, with this legend about (Stesichor. Eragm. 26, ed. Kleine •
the Palladium, the Roman legend compare Athena, xiii. p. 610>
respecting the Ancylia (Ovid, Easti, « Odyss. viii. 492; xi. 522 Arsu-
iii. 381.) B

29G

HISTORY OF GREECE.

PAHT I„

The destruction of Troy, according to the decree of
Destruction the gods, was now irrevocably sealed. While
of Troy. the Trojans indulged in a night of riotous festi
vity, Sinon kindled the firesignal to the Greeks at Tenedos,
loosening the bolts of the wooden horse, from out of which
the enclosed heroes descended. The city, assailed both
from within and from without, was thoroughly sacked and
destroyed; with the slaughter or captivity of the larger
portion of its heroes as well as its people. The venerable
Priam perished by the hand of Neoptolemus, having in vain
sought shelter at the domestic altar of Zeus Herkeios. But
his son Deiphobus, who since the death of Paris had become
the husband of Helen, defended his house desperately
against Odysseus and Menelaus, and sold his Hfe dearly.
After he was slain, his body was fearfully mutilated by the-
latter. *

ment of the 'IXtou ITepat<; of Ark
tinus, p. 21. Diintz. Hygin. f. 108—
135. Bacehylidgs and Euphorion
ap. Servium ad Virgil. iEneid. ii,
201. Both Sinon and LaocoOn came
originally from the old epic poem.
of Arktinus, though Virgil may
perhaps have immediately borrow
ed both them, and other matters
in his second book, from a poem
passing under the name of Pisan-
der. (See Macrob. Satur. v. 2;
Heyne, Excurs. 1. ad Mn. ii. ;
"Welcker, Der Episch. Cyklus, p.
97.) "We cannot give credit either
to Arktinus or Pisander for the
masterly specimen of oratory
which is put into the mouth of
Sinon in the iEneid.
In Quintus Smyrneeus (Xii. 366),
the Trojans torture and mutilate
Sinon to extort from him the
truth : his endurance, sustained by
the inspiration of Here, is proof
against the extremity of suffering,
and he adheres to his false tale.
This is probably an incident of the
old epic, though the delicate tasto
of Virgil, and his sympathy with
the Trojans, has induced him to

omit it. Euphorion ascribed the
proceedings of Sinon to Odysseus:
he also gave a different cause for
the death of Laocodn (Er. 35—36.
p. 55, ed. Diintz., in the Fragments
of Epic Poets after Alexander the
Great). Sinon is s~ccTpo<; 'QSuaaeox;
in Pausan. x. 27, 1.
1 Odyss. viii. 515; Argument of
Arktinus, ut sup.\ Euripid. Hecub.
903; Virg. -33n. vi. 497; Quint.
Smyrn. xiii. 35—229; Lesches ap.
Pausan. x. 27, 2 ; Diktys, v. 12.
Ibykus and Simonides also re
presented Deiphobus as the avts-
paciT7]<; 'EXivTjs (Schol. Horn. Iliad.
xiii. 517).
The night battle in the interior
of Troy was described with all its
fearful details both by Lesches
and Arktinus: the 'IXtou Ilspim; of
the latter seems to have been a
separate poem, that of the former
constituted a portion of the Ilias
Minor (see Welcker, Der Epische
Cyklus, p. 215): the 'IXiou ITspffK;
by the lyric poets Sakadas and
Stesichorus probably added many
new incidents. Polygn6tus had
painted a succession of the various
calamitous scenes, drawn from the

Chap. XV. CAPTTTKE OE TEOT.

297

Thus was Troy utterly destroyed— the city, the altars
and temples, J and the population. .(Eneas and Antenor
-.vere permitted to escape, with their families, having been
always more favourably regarded hy the Greeks than the
remaining Trojans. According to one version of the story,
they had betrayed the city to the Greeks: a panther's skin
had been hung over the door of Antenor's house as a signal
for the victorious besiegers to spare it in general plunder. a
In the distribution of the principal captives, Distrihu-
Astyanax, the infant son of Hector, was cast *ia°]£i°*Bthe
from the top of the wall and killed, by Odysseus among the
or Neoptolemus: Polyxena, the daughter of victors.
Priam, was immolated on the tomb of Achilles, in com
pliance with a requisition made by the shade of the deceased
hero to his countrymen;3 while her sister Kassandra was
presented as a prize to Agamemnon. She had sought
sanctuary at the altar of Athene, where Ajax, the son of
Oileus, making a guilty attempt to seize her, had drawn
both upon himself and upon the army the serious wrath of
the goddess, insomuch that the Greeks could hardly be
restrained from stoning him to death.4 Andromache and
Helenus were hoth given to Neoptolemus, who, according
to the Ilias Minor, carried away also .JSneas as his captive.5
Helen gladly resumed her union with Menelaus: she
poem of Lesches, on the walls tys respecting the passion of Achil-
of the leschg at Delphi, with the les for Polyxena (iii. 2).
name written over each figure * Odyss. xi. 422. Arktinus, Argum.
(Pausan. x. 25—26). p. 21, Diintz. Theognis, 1232. Pau-
Hellanikus fixed the precise day san. i. 15,2; x. 26, 3; 31, 1. As an
of the month on which the capture expiation of this sin of their na-
took place (Hellan. Fr. 143—144), tional hero, the Lokrians sent to
the twelfth day of Thargeli6n. Ilium periodically some of their
1 iEsehyl. Agamemn. 527. — maidens, to do menial service in
Bu)(JloI 8' a'ioToi xai 9su>v t8pu- the temple of Athene (Plutarch,
u.ara, Ser. ftumin. Vindict. p. 557, with
Kai aTcspu-a Tzi.tsr\c. E^auoXXuxai the citation from Euphorion or
^9ov6c;. Kallimachus, Diintzer, Epicc. Vet.
2 This symhol of treachery also p. 118).
figured in the picture of Poly- 5 Lesches, Fr. 7, Diintz. ; ap.
gnfltus. A different story appears Schol. Lycophr. 1263. Compare
in Schol. Iliad, iii. 206. Schol. ad 1232, for the respectful
3 Euripid. Hecub. 38 — 114, and recollection of AndromachS, among
Troad. 716 ; Lesches ap. Pausan. x. the traditions of the Molossian
25, 9 ; Virgil, iEneid, iii. 322, and kings, as their heroic mother, and
Servius ad loc. Strabo, xiii. p. 594.
A romantic tale is found in Dik-

298

HISTOBY OE GREECE.

Paet I.

accompanied him back to Sparta, and lived with him there
many years in comfort and dignity, * passing afterwards to
a happy immortality in the Elysian fields. She was wor
shipped as a goddess with her brothers the
Dioskuri and her husband, having her temple,
statue and altar at Therapnae and elsewhere.
Various examples of her miraculous intervention
were cited among the Greeks.2 The lyric poet
Stesichorus had ventured to denounce her, con
jointly with her sister Klytsemnestra, in a tone
of rude and plain-spoken severity, resembling that of Euri
pides and Lykophron afterwards, but strikingly opposite
to the delicacy and respect with which she is always handled
by Homer, who never admits reproaches against her except
from her own lips.3 He was smitten with blindness, and
made sensible of his impiety; but having repented and

Helen re
stored to
Menelaus— lives in
dignity at
Sparta-
passes to a
happy im
mortality.

x Such is the story of the old
epic (see Odyss. iv. 260, and the
fourth hook generally; Argument
of Ilias Minor, p. 20, Diintz.).
PolygnOtus, in the paintings above
alluded to, followed the same tale
<Pausan. x. 25, 3).
The anger of the Greeks against
Helen, and the statement that
Menelaus after the capture of Troy
approached her with revengeful
purposes, hut was so mollified by
her surpassing beauty as to cast
away his uplifted sword, belong
to the age of the tragedians
(iEschyl. Agamem. 685-1455 ; Eurip.
Androm. 600—629; Helen. 75—120;
Troad. 890—1057 ; compare also
the fine lines in the .ZEneid, ii.
567—588). 2 See the description in Herodot.
vi. 61, of the prayers offered to
her, and of the miracle which she
wrought, to remove the repulsive
ugliness of a little Spartan girl
of high family. Compare also
Pindar, Olymp. iii. 2, and the
Scholia at the beginning of the
ode; Eurip. Helen. 1662, and OreBt.
1652—1706; Isokrat. Encom. Helen.
ii. p. 383, Auger; Dio Chrysost.

Or. xi. p. 311. Geo? evojaUQ?) r^apa.
toT<; "EXXtjui: Theodekt§s ap. Aris-
-tot. Pol. i. 2, 19. 0siu)v arc' a^ooTv
l/CYOVOV pt^U3(J-aTO)V.
3 Euripid. Troad. 982 seq.; Lyco-
phr&n ap. Steph. Byz. v. Alv&c;
Stesichorus ap. Schol. Eurip. Orest:
239 ; Eragm. 9 and 10 of the 'IXtou
IlEpoti;, Schneidewin : —
Ouvsxec TuvSdpsu)? pKt&v anac
Qeol? fuS? XaflsT' T)Tti.o6u>pou
KtapiSo?* xeivcc 8s TuvSdpsto xo6-
paiai voXaxiauivx
Aiyctfj-oix; TpiydfJL0U<; Ti97)ot
Kal XiTtEadvopcK; 
Further . . . cE\£\it} exouo' aTTTjps, &c.
He -had probably contrasted her
with other females carried away
by force.
StSsichorus also affirmed that
Iphigeneia was the daughter of
Helen by Theseus, born at Argos
before her marriage with Menelaus
and made over to Klytsemnestra;
this tale was perpetuated by the
temple of Eileithyia at Argos,
which the Argeians affirmed to
have been erected by Helen (Pau
san. ii. 22, 7). The ages ascribed
by Hellanikus and other logo-

Chap. XV.

LEGENDS ABOUT HELEN.

299

composed a special poem formally retracting the calumny,
was permitted to recover his sight. In his poem of recan
tation (the famous palinode now unfortunately lost) he
pointedly contradicted the Homeric narrative, affirming
that Helen had never been at Troy at all, and that the
Trojans had carried thither nothing but her image or
eiddlon.1 It is, probably, to the excited religious feelings
of Stesichorus that we owe the first idea of this glaring
deviation from the old legend, which could never have
been recommended by any considerations of poetical
interest.

graphers (Hellan. Fr. 74) to The
seus and Helen— he fifty years of
age and she a child of seven—
when he carried her off to Aphidnffi,
can never have been the original
form of any poetical legend. These
ages were probably imagined in
order to make the mythical chrono
logy run smoothly ; for Theseus
belongs to the generation before
the Trojan war. But we ought
always to recollect that Helen
never grows old (ttjv yap ©cetk;
Ijj.[jLev' a yVj pa>— Quint. Smyr. x. 312),
and that her chronology consists
only with an immortal being.
Servius observes (ad iEneid. ii.
601)— "Helenam immortalem fuisse
indicat tempus. Nam constat fra-
tres ejus cum Argonautis fuisse.
Argonautarum filii cum Thebanis
(Thebano Eteoclis et Polynicis
bello) dimicaverunt. Item illorum
filii contra Trojambella gesserunt.
Ergo, si immortalis Helena non
fuisset, tot sine dubio seculis
durare non posset." So Senophon,
after enumerating many heroes of
different ages, all pupils of Chei-
r5n, says that the life of Cheiron
suffices for all, he being brother
of Zeus (De Venatione, c. 1).
The daughters of Tyndareus are
Klytsem nostra, Helen, and Timan
dra, all open to the charge ad
vanced by Stesichorus : see about
Timandra, wife of the Tegeate

Echemus, the new fragment of
the Hesiodic Catalogue, recently
restored by Geel (Gottling, Pref.
Hesiod. p. lxi.).
It is curious to read, in Bayle's
article Helene, his critical discus
sion of the adventures ascribed to
her — as if they were genuine matter
of history, more or less correctly
reported. 1 Plato, Kepublic. ix. p. 587. c.
10. tuaTtsp to *ri)<; 1EXeV/)? £i6u>Xov
2-7]aivopo<; (prjai TEsptu.otjr/jTov y£~
vsaSai ev Tpolig, ayvoia too dX'/jSou?.
Isokrat. Encom. Helen, t. ii. p.
370, Auger; Plato, Phaedr. c. 44,
p. 243—244; Max. Tyr. Diss. xi. p.
320, Davis; Condn, Narr. 18; Dio
Chrysost. Or. xi. p. 323. Tov [aev
2x7)ai/opov ev t^j uaxEpov tbS^j Xeysiv,
(be to itapotTcav ooSs tuXeuqsiev
7} 'EXs v7) ou5ifjt.offE. Horace,
Od. i. 17; Epod. xvii. 42.—
"Infamis Helense Castor offensus
vice,
Fraterque magni Castoris, victi
prece,
Adempta vati reddidere lumina."
Pausan. iii. 19, 5. Virgil, survey
ing the war from the point of view
of the Trojans, had no motive to
look upon Helen with particular
tenderness: Deiphobus imputes to
her the basest treachery (iEneid,
vi. 511, C{scelus exitiale Lacana!;>>
compare ii. 567).

300

HISTOET OF GREECE.

paet r.

Other versions were afterwards started, forming a sort
Blindness of compromise between Homer and Stesichorus,.
and cure of admitting that Helen had never really been at
ste'sichorus Tr oy, without altogether denying her elop ement-
—altera- Such is the story of her having been detained
legend1 *h° iQ Egypt during the whole term of the siege.
about Paris, on his departure from Sparta, had been
B ' ' driven thither by storms, and the Egyptian king
Proteus, hearing of the grievous wrong which he had com
mitted towards Menelaus, had sent him away from the
country with severe menaces, detaining Helen until her
lawful husband should come to seek her. When the Greeks
reclaimed Helen from Troy, the Trojans assured them
solemnly, that she neither was nor ever had been, in the
town; but the Greeks, treating this allegation.as fraudulent,
prosecuted the siege until their ultimate success confirmed
the correctness of the statement. Menelaus did not recover
Helen until, on his return from Troy, he visited Egypt. i
Such was the story told by the Egyptian priests to Hero
dotus, and it appeared satisfactory to his historicising mind.
"For if Helen had really been at Troy (he argues) she
would certainly have been given up, even had she been
mistress of Priam himself instead of Paris: the Trojan king,
with all his family and all his subjects, would never know
ingly have incurred utter and irretrievable destruction
Egyptian forthe purpose of retaining her : their misfortune
was, that while they did not possess, and there
fore could not restore her, they yet found it
impossible to convince the Greeks that such was
the fact." Assuming the historical character of the war of

tale about
Helen—
tendencyto hisioricise.

1 Herodot. ii. 120. ou ^ctp 5t] oQtoj
yz (ppzto$Xa$riz r)t 6 IlpiafjLos, oo8'
oi ttXXoi Ttpoai^xovTSi; aoxuj, &c. The
passage is too long to cite, but is
highly curious: not the least re
markable part is the religious
colouring which he gives to the
new version of the story which he
is adopting, — "the Trojans, though
they had not got Helen, yet could
not persuade the Greeks that this
¦was the fact ; for it was the divine
will that they should he destroyed
root and branch, in order to make
it plain to mankind that upon

great crimes the gods inflict great
punishments." Dio Chrysostom (Or. xi. p. 333)
reasons in the same way as Hero
dotus against the credibility of
the received narrative. On the
other hand, Isokrates, in extolling
Helen, dwells on the calamities
of the Trojan war as a test of the
peerless value of the prize (Encom.
Hel. p. 360, Aug.) : in the view of
Pindar (Olymp. xiii. 56) as well
as in that of Hesiod (Opp. Di.
165), Helen is the one prize con
tended for.

Chap. XV. RETURN OP THE GRECIAN HEROES. 301
Troy, the remark of Herodotus admits of no reply; nor can
we greatly wonder that he acquiesced in the tale of Helen's
Egyptian detention, as a substitute for the "incredible
insanity" which the genuine legend imputes to Priam and
the Trojans. Pausanias, upon the same ground and by the
same mode of reasoning, pronounced that the Trojan horse
must have been in point of fact a battering-engine, because
to admit the literal narrative would be to impute utter1
childishness to the defenders of the city. And Mr. Payne
Knight rejects Helen altogether as the real cause of the
Trojan war, though she may have been the pretext of it; for
he thinks that neither the Greeks nor the Trojans coud have
been so mad and silly as to endure calamities of such magnitude
"for one little woman."1 Mr. Knight suggests various political
causes as substitutes; these might deserve consideration,
either if any evidence couldbeproduced to countenance them,
or if the subject on which they are brought to bear could
be shown to belong to the domain of history.
The return of the Grecian chiefs from Troy furnished
matter to the ancient epic hardly less copious Eeturn of
than the siege itself, and the more susceptible the Greeks
of indefinite diversity, inasmuch as those who roy'
had before acted in concert were now dispersed and isolated.
Moreover the stormy voyages and compulsory wanderings
of the heroes exactly fell in with the common aspirations
after an heroic founder, and enabled even the most remote
Hellenic settlers to connect the origin of their town with
this prominent event of their ante-historical and semi-divine
world. And an absence of ten years afforded room for the
supposition of many domestic changes in their native abode,
and many family misfortunes and misdeeds during the
interval. One of these heroic "Returns," that of Odysseus,
has been immortalised by the verse of Homer. The hero,
after a series of long-protracted suffering and expatriation,
inflicted on him by the anger of Poseidon, at last reaches
Euripides, in his tragedy of cap. 2, p. 35 (Leyden, 1S43).
Helen, recognises the detention L PauBan. i. 23, 8; Payne Knight,
of Helen in Egypt and the pre- Prolegg. ad Homer, c. 53. Eupho-
sence of her eiScoXov at Troy, but rion construed the wooden horse
he follows Stesichorus in denying into a Grecian ship called °Iti7co?,
her elopement altogether,— Hermes "The Horse" (Euphorion, Eragm.
had carried her to Egypt in a cloud 34, ap. Diintzer, Eragm. Epico;
(Helen 35—45, 706): compare Von Grieo. p. 55).
Hoff, De Mytho Helenas Euripidese, See Thucyd. i. 12 ; vi. 2.

302 HISTORY OE GREECE. Past I.
his native island, but finds his wife beset, his youthful son
insulted, and his substance plundered, by a troop of in
solent suitors; he is forced to appear as a wretched beggar,
and to endure in his own person their scornful treatment;
but finally, by the interference of Athene*coming in aid of
his own courage and stratagem, he is enabled to overwhelm
his enemies, to resume his family position, and to recover
his property. The return of several other Grecian chiefs
was the subject of an epic poem by Hagias, which is now
lost, but of which a brief abstract or argument still remains :
there were in antiquity various other poems of similar title
and analogous matter. 1
As usual with the ancient epic, the multiplied sufferings
of this back-voyage are traced to divine wrath, justly pro
voked by the sins of the Greeks ; who, in the fierce exultation
of a victory purchased by so many hardships, had neither
respected nor even2 spared the altars of the gods in Troy.
Athene, who had been their most zealous ally during the
Thei f- siege, was so incensed by their final recklessness,
ferings— more especially by the outrage of Ajax, son of
anger of O'ileus, that she actively harassed and embittered
ie go s. their return, in spite of every effort to appease
her. The chiefs began to quarrel among themselves: their
formal assembly 'became a scene of drunkenness; even Aga
memnon and Menelaus lost their fraternal harmony, and
each man acted on his own separate resolution.3 Never
theless, according to the Odyssey, Nestor, Diomedes,
Neoptolemus, Idomeneus and Philoktetes, reached home
speedily and safely; Agamemnon also arrived in Pelopon
nesus, to perish by the hand of a treacherous wife; but
Menelaus was condemned to long wanderings and to the
severest privations in Egypt, Cyprus and elsewhere, before
he could set foot in his native land. The Lokrian Ajax
perished on the Gyrsean rock.4 Though exposed to a
terrible storm, he had already reached this place of safety,
when he indulged in the rash boast of having escaped in
1 Suidas, v.N6<jto?. WUllner, De 3 Odyss. iii. 130—161; iEschyl.
Cyclo Epico, p. 93. Also a poem Agamemn. 650 — 662.
'AxpsiBtbv y.dBoSos (Athense. vii. p. 4 Odyss. iii. 188—196; iv. 6—87.
281). The Egyptian city of Kanppus, at
* Upon this the turn of fortune the mouth of the Nile, was be-
in Grecian affairs depends (-ffiischyl. lieved to have taken its name from
Agamemn. 338; Odyss. iii. 130; the pilot of Menelaus, who had
Euripid. Troad. 69-95). died and was buried there (Strabo,

Chap. XV. MEMORIALS OE THE DISPERSED HEROES. 303-
defiance of the gods. No sooner did Poseidon hear this
language, than he struck with his trident the rock which
Ajax was grasping and precipitated both into the sea.1
Kalchas the soothsayer, together with Leonteus and Poly-
pcetes, proceeded by land from Troy to Kolophon.2
In respect however to these and other Grecian heroes,
tales were told different from those in the Odyssey, Wander-
assigning to them a long expatriation and a £j!j;Je°f JjJ1*
distant home. Nestor went to Italy, where he aii direc-
foundedMetapontum, Pisa and Herakleia:3 Phi- tions-
loktetes* also went to Italy, founded Petilia and Krimisa,
and sent settlers to Egesta in Sicily. Neoptolemus, under
the advice of Thetis, marched by land across Thrace, met
with Odysseus, who had come by sea, at Maroneia, and
then pursued his journey to Epirus, where he became king
of the Molossians.5 Idomeneus came to Italy, and founded
TJria in the Salentine peninsula. Diomedes, after wander
ing far and wide, went along the Itahan coast into the
innermost Adriatic gulf, and finally settled in Daunia,
founding the cities of Argyrippa, Beneventum, Atria and
Diomedeia: by the favour of Athene he became immortal,
and was worshipped as a god in many different places.6
The Lokrian followers of Ajax founded the Epizephyrian

xvii. p. 801 ; Tacit. Ann. ii. 60). Vellei. Paterc. 1. 1 ; Servius act
MsveXaioi; vonos, so called after iEn. x. 179. He had huilt a temple
Menelaus (Dio Chrysost. xi. p. 361). to Athene in the island of Keus
1 Odyss. iv. 500. The epic Nootoi (Strabo, x. p. 487).
of Hagias placed this adventure 4 Strabo, vi. pp. 254, 272 ; Virgil.
of Ajax on the rocks ofKaphareus, -33n. iii. 401, and Servius ad loc;
a southern promontory of Eubcea Lycophr&n, 912.
(Argum. Nootoi, p. 23, Duntzer). Both the tomb of 'Philoktetes
Deceptive lights were kindled on and the arrows of Herakles which
the dangerous rocks hy Nauplius, he had used against Troy, were-
the father of Palamedgs, in re- for a long time shown at Thurium
venge for the death of his son (Justin, xx. 1).
(Sophokles, Ngcj-Xioc iTup-zas-^, a 5 Argument. Nootoi, p. 23, Diintz.;
lost tragedy ; Hygin. f. 116; Senec. Pindar, Nem. iv. 51. According to
Agamemn. 567). Pindar, however, Neoptolemus
2 Argument, Nootoi, ut sup. comes from Troy hy sea, misses
There were monuments of Kalchas the island of Skyrus, and sails
near Sipontum in Italy also round to the Epeirotic Ephyra
(Strabo, vi. p. 284), as well as at (Nem. vii. 37).
Selge in Pisidia (Strabo, xii. p. • Pindar, Nem. x. 7, with the
670). Scholia. Strabo, iii. p. 160; v. p.
•Straho, v. p. 222; vi. p. 264. 214— 215; vi. p. 284. Stephan. Byz.

304 HISTORY OE GREECE. Paiit I.
Lokri on the southernmost corner of Italy, « besides another
settlement in Libya. I have spoken in another place of
the compulsory exile of Teukros, who besides founding the
city of Salamis in Cyprus, is said to have established some
settlements in the Iberian peninsula.2 Menestheus the
Athenian did the like, and also founded both Elsea in
Mysia and Skylletium in Italy.3 The Arcadian chief Aga-
penor founded Paphus in Cyprus.4 Epeius, of Panopeus
in Phokis, the constructor of the Trojan horse with the aid
of the goddess Athene, settled at Lagaria near Syharis on
the coast of Italy ; and the very tools which he had employed
in that remarkable fabric were shown down to a late date
in the temple of Athene atMetapontum.5 Temples, altars
and towns were also pointed out in Asia Minor, in Samos
and in Krete, the foundation of Agamemnon or of his
followers. 6 The inhabitants of the Grecian town of Skione,
in the Thracian peninsula called Pallene orPellene, account
ed themselves the offspring of the Pellenians from Achaea in
Peloponnesus, who had served under Agamemnon before
Troy, and who on their return from the siege had been
driven on the spot by a storm and there settled.7 The
Pamphylians, on the southern coast of Asia Minor, deduced
their origin from the wanderings of Amphilochus and
'Apyupinita, Aiop.7)Oeia. Aristotle re- Teukros), atOlbeinKilikia (Strabo,
cognises him as buried in the Dio- xiv. p. 672). Teukros carried with
medean islands in the Adriatic him his Trojan captives to Cyprus
(Anthol. Gr. Brunck. i. p. 178). (Athenffi. vi. p. 256).
The identical tripod which had -3 Strabo, iii. p. 140 — 150; vi. p.
heen gained by Diomedes, as victor 261; xiii. p. 622. See the epitaphs
in the chariot-race at the funeral on Teukros and Agapendr by
games ofPatrokluB, was shown at Aristotle (Antholog. Gr. ed.Brunck.
Delphi in the time of Phanias, at- i. p. 179—180).
tested by an inscription, as well ' Strabo, xiv. p. 683; Pausan.
as the dagger which had been viii. 5, 2.
worn by Helikaon, son of Anten6r 5 Strabo, vi. p. 263; Justin, xx.
(Athena;, vi. p. 232). 2; Aristot. Mirab. Ausc. c. 108.
1 Virgil, iEneid, iii. 399 ; xi. 265 ; Also the epigram of the Rhodian
and Servius, ibid. Ajax, the son Sinrmias called IIeX.exu< (Antholog.
of O'ileus, was worshipped there Gr. ed. Brunck. i. p. 210).
as a hero (Con6n. Narr. 18). e Vellei. Patercul. i. 1. Stephan.
2 Strabo, iii. p. 157; Isokrates, Byz. v. A4u.itj]. Straho, xiii. p.
Evagor. Encom. p. 192; Justin. 605; xiv. p. 639. Theopompus
xliv. 3. Ajax, the son of Teukros, (Eragm. Ill, Didot) recounted that
established a temple of Zeus, and Agamemndn and his followers had
an hereditary priesthood always possessed themselves of the larger
held by his descendants (who portion of Cyprus.
mostly bore the name of Ajax or ' Thucyd. iv. 120.

!hat>. XV. MEMORIALS OE THE DISPERSED HEROES.

305

lalchas after the siege of Troy: the inhabitants of the
Amphilochian Argos on the Gulf of Ambralda revered the
:ame Amphilochus as their founder. > The Orchomenians
mder Ialmenus, on quitting the conquered city, wandered
ir were driven to the eastern extremity of the Euxine Sea;
ind the barbarous Achseans under Mount Caucasus were
upposed to have derived their first establishment from this
ource.2 Meriones with his Kretan followers settled at
ilngyion in Sicily, along with the preceding Kretans who
tad remained there after the invasion of Minos. The Ely-
aians in Sicily also were composed of Trojans Memorials
nd Greeks separately driven to the spot, who, ?^,thei?
orgetting their previous differences, united in the Grecian
he joint settlements of Eryx and Egesta.3 "We world.
tear of Podaleirius both in Italy and on the coast of Karia;4
if Akamas, son of Theseus, at Amphipolis in Thrace, at
Soli in Cyprus, and at Synnada in Phrygia5; of Guneus,
?rothous and Eurypylus, in Krete as well as in Libya.6
Che obscure poem of Lycophron enumerates many of these
lispersed and expatriated heroes, whose conquest of Troy
ras indeed a Kadmeian victory (according to the proverbial
ihrase of the Greeks), wherein the sufferings of the victor
rere little inferior to those of the vanquished7. It was
>articularly among the Italian Greeks, where they were
worshipped with very special solemnity, that their presence
,s wanderers from Troy was reported and believed.8
I pass over the numerous other tales which circulated

1 Herodot. vii. 91; Thucyd. ii. 68.
.ccording to the old elegiac poet
^allinos, Kalchas himself had died
t Klarus near KolophOn, after his
arch from Troy, but Mopsus, his
val in the prophetic function,
id conducted his followers into
imphilia and Kilikia (Strabo, xii.
570; xiv. p. 668). The oracle
' Amphilochus at Mallus in Ki-
kia bore the highest character
r exactness and truth-telling in
e time of Pausanias, u.a.TEiov
'EuSsotcitov tujv etc' iu.ou (Paus.
34. 2). Another story recognised
sontius and Polypoetes as the
unders of Aspendus in Kilikia
lustath. ad Iliad, ii. 138).
VOL. I.

1 Strabo, ix. p. 416.
3 Diod9r. iv. 79; Thucyd. vi. 2.
4 Stephan. Byz. v. Sopvcc; Lyco-
phr&n, 1047.
s .aischines, De Ealsa Legat. o.
14; Strabo, xiv. p. 683; Stephan.
Byz. v. Suwnoa.
' Lycophr6n, 877— 902, with Scho
lia; Apollod6r. Eragm. p. 386,
Heyne. There is also a long
enumeration of these returning
wanderers and founders of new
settlements in Solinus (Polyhist.
t. 2).
7 Strabo, iii* p. 150.
8 Aristot. Mirabil. Ausoult. 78,
106, 107, 109, 111.

306 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
among the ancients, illustrating the ubiquity of the Grecian
and Trojan heroes as well as that of the Argonauts, — one
of the most striking features in the Hellenic legendary
world. 1 Amongst them all, the most interesting, individu
ally, is Odysseus, whose romantic adventures in fabulous
places and among fabulous persons have beenmade familiarly
oa _ known by Homer. The goddesses Kalypso and
his final Circe ; the semi-divine mariners ofPhseacia, whose
addedtUthS snrPs are endowed with consciousness and obey
without a steersman; the one-eyed Cyclopes, the
gigantic Lsestrygones, and the wind-ruler JEolos ; the Sirens
who" ensnare by their song, as the Lotophagi fascinate by
their food — allthesepictures formed integral and interesting
portions of the old epic. Homer leaves Odysseus re-estab
lished in his house and family. But so marked a personage
could never be permitted to remain in the tameness of
domestic life: the epic poem called the Telegonia ascribed
to him a subsequent series of adventures. Telegonus, his
son by Circe, coming to Ithaka in search of his father,
ravaged the island and killed Odysseus without knowing
who he was. Bitter repentance overtook the son for his
undesigned parricide : at his prayer and by the intervention
of his mother Circe, both Penelope and Telemachus were
made immortal: Telegonus married Penelope, and Tele
machus married Circe.2
We see by this poem that Odysseus was represented
as the mythical ancestor of the Thesprotian kings, ju%t as
Neoptolemus was of the Molossian.
It has already been mentioned that Antenor and JBneas
stand distinguished from the other Trojans by a dissatis
faction with Priam and a sympathy with the Greeks, which
1 Strabo, i. p. 48. After dwelling tu.r]aatrat; i-i ).7joTEiav rpaniafyat.
emphatically on the long voyages bia rat; omopias, xai iroXXtp u-aXXov
of Dionysus, Herakles, Jasdn, to''j<; 7jTTT|9evTas xai TcEpiyevOfiivoos;
Odysseus, and Menelaus, he says, ex too vtoXenou. Kal 87] xai 7i<5Xeis
Alvsiav 8s xai 3AvTT)vopa xai 'Eve- bizb t'outiov XTioHTjvai Xsyov-
to'Js, xai otcXuj? robs ex tou Tpuuxou Tat itn« izaaat ttjv eSco ttjs
rcoXsu-OU TcXavrjQsvTas st<; tc a aav rrjt 'EXXaSoc 7ca paXlav, son 8' Stio'J
oIxouusvtjv, afjiov (j.7] tu)v 7iaXatd>v xai tt)v u.za6faiat.
&v9pu>Tccov vonioai; 2uve{3tj yap 87] 2 The Telegonia, composed by
rot? tote "EXXrjaiv, ojiolco? xai toi? Eugammbn of Kyrene, is lost, but
flappdpois, 5t dc tov ttji; oxpatEia<; the Argument of it has been pre-
Xpovov, aitoPaXsTv Ta te iv oixoj xal served by Proclus (p. 25, Diintzer ;
ry OTpaTEia Tcopio9evxa" coots jxETa Diktys, vi. 15).
ttjv Too 'IXiou xaTaoTpotprjv TOO? TE

Chap. XV,

EETTJEN OF ODYSSEUS.

307

is by Sophokles and others construed as treacherous col
lusion, * — a suspicion indirectly glanced at, though empha
tically repelled, by the -<Eneas of Virgil.2 In the old epic
of Arktinus, next in age to the Iliad and Odyssey, -ZEneas
abandons Troy and retires to Mount Ida, in terror jEneas and
at the miraculous death of Laocoon, before the hisdescend-
entry of the Greeks into the town and the last an s'
night-battle: yet Lesches, in another of the ancient epic
poems, represented him as having been carried away captive
by Neoptolemus.3 In a remarkable passage of the Iliad,
Poseidon describes the family of Priam as having incurred
the hatred of Zeus, and predicts that JEneas and his'des-
cendants shall reign over the Trojans : the race of Dardanus,
beloved by Zeus more than all his other sons, would thus
be preserved, since iEneas belonged to it. Accordingly,
when Mne&s is in imminent peril from the hands of Achilles,
Poseidon specially interferes to rescue him, and even the
implacable miso-Trojan goddess Here assents to the pro
ceeding.4 These passages have been construed by various
able critics to refer to a family of philo-Hellenic or semi-
Hellenic iEneadse, known even in the time of the early

1 Dionys. Hal. i. 46— 48; Sophokl.
ap. Strab. xiii. p. 608; Livy, i. 1;
Xenophon, Venat. i. 15.
2 Mn. ii. 433.
3 Argument of 'IXtou IIspou;;
3?ragm. 7, ofLesch§s, in Dtintzer's
Collection, p. 19—21.
Hellanikus seems to have adopted
thisiBBprement of -ZEneas to the
strorrgBst parts of Mount Ida, but
to have reconciled it with the sto
ries of the migration of ZEneas,
by saying that he only remained
in Ida a little time, and then
quitted the country altogether by
virtue of a convention concluded
¦with the Greeks (Dionys. Hal. i.
47—48). Among the infinite va
riety of stories respecting this
hero, one was, that after having
effected his settlement in Italy,
he had returned to Troy and re
sumed the sceptre, bequeathing it
at his death to Ascanius (Dionys.
Hal. i. 53) : this was a comprehen

sive scheme for apparently recon
ciling all the legends.
4 Iliad, xx. 300. Poseiddn speaks,
respecting JEneas —
'AXX' a^eS', i)psic nip [wv 6tc' etc
9ava*cou o:ygcyu)[Jl£v,
Mtjimi)*; xai Kpovl67]<; xsjfoXtboSTai,
oux=y ' AyiXkzbs
To-joe y.o.iv.v.'zzviTy . u,6pLfjt.ov 8e oi
ecc KXiaaQai,
"Ocppa [i7j aoTuepjxo? yeve^ xai ficpav-
TO< SX.T)T(H
A«p6«vou, av Kpovi§7]<; Ttepl 7uocvtu)v
cpiXato 7cai8iov,
Ol s8ev ifeyiwrtQj yuvaixdV; ts
9v7]7au>v.
"HS-/) y&p IIpni(A0O YeveTjv TJX^flP2
Kpovitov*
Nuv Se 8?) Alvelao ptT] Tptbsafjtv
ava£ei,
Kai 7uol8tov iiaiSe?, toI xev (jletq-
tclcQs Ysvtovxat.
Again, v. 339, Poseidfin tells iEneas
that he has nothing to dread from
any other Greek than Achilles.
X2

308 HISTOET OF GEBBCB. Past I.
singers of the Hiad as masters of some territory in or near
the Troad, and professing to be descended from, as well as
worshipping, JEneas. In the town of Skepsis, situated in
the mountainous range of Ida, about thirty miles eastward
of Ilium, there existed two noble and priestly families who
professed to be descended, the one from Hector, the other
Different from JEneas. The Skepsian critic Demetrius
stories (in whose time both these families were still to
2Eneas.— be. found) informs us that Skamandrius son of
JEnea.axi at Hector, and Ascanius son of -32neas, were the
*pslB- archegets or heroic founders of his native city,
which had been originally situated on one of the highest
ranges of Ida, and was subsequently transferred by them
to the less lofty spot on which it stood in his time. * In
Arisbe and Grentinus there seem to have been families
professing the same descent, since the same archegets were
acknowledged. 2 In Ophrynium, Hector had his consecrated
edifice, while in Ilium both he and JEneas were worshipped
as gods:3 and it was the remarkable statement of the Les
bian Menekrates, that JEneas, "having been wronged by
Paris and stripped of the sacred privileges which belonged
to him, avenged himself by betraying the city, and then
became one of the Greeks." *
One tale thus among many respecting JEneas, and that
too the most ancient of all, preserved among natives of the
Troad, who worshipped him as their heroic ancestor, was,
that after the capture of Troy he continued in the country
1 See O. Miiller, on the causes ' Strabo, xiii. p. 595; Iiycophron,
of the mythe of iEneas and his 1208, and Sen. ; Athenagoi^jj^klje-

rcophroi od^fcLi CwRce

voyage to Italy, in Classical Jour- gat. 1. Inscription in Crarke's
nal, vol. xxvi. p. 308; Klausen, Travels, vol. ii. p. 86, Oi 'IXieTc
.apneas und die Fenaten, vol. i. p. tov Ttdtpiov 6s6v Alvetav. Lucian.
*3— 52. Deor. Concil. c. 12. i. 111. p. 534,
Demetrius Skeps. ap. Strab. xiii. Hemst.
p. 607 ; Nicolaus ap. Steph. Byz. 4 Menekrat. ap. Dionys. Hal. i.
v. 'Aaxcvla. DemStrius conjectured 48. ' AvaioiK 8s avi7] zlyz (after the
that Sk§psis had been the regal burial) xai sSoxeov rr)s arpanr]t; ttjv
seat of JEneas: there was a village xstpaWjv cCT^payQai. "Op-ux; 8e ratpot
called JEneia near to it (Strabo, abrtb SaiuavTSc, etioXsreov ffl r.aarj,
xiii. p. 603). &XPls "IXios iaXw, AlveUu) evSovtos.
2 Steph. Byz. v. 'Apiafhj, rsvTivo;. Aivsirj? yip &titos idiv bub ' AXztat-
Ascanius is king of Ida after the Spou, xii anb yspsojv Lspiiv JSsipYo-
departure of the Greeks (ConOn, uevo?, AvErpE'^s IIpw|iov, EpYauane-
Narr. 41; Mela, i. 18). Ascanius vos 8e Tauxa, si? 'A/stiuM eyeyovei.
portus between Phoktea and Kym6

Chap. XV. WOBSHIP OF HECTOE AND iENEAS. 309
as king of the remaining Trojans, on friendly terms with
the Greeks. But there were other tales respecting him,
alike numerous and irreconcileable : the hand of destiny
marked him as a wanderer (fato profugusj and trbiciuity of
his ubiquity is not exceeded even by that of ¦aineas-
Odysseus. "We hear of him at iEnus in Thrace, in Pallene,
at iEneia in the Thermaic Gulf, in Delus, at Orchomenus
and Mantineia in Arcadia, in the islands of Kythera and
Zakynthus, in Leukas and Ambralda, at JButhrotum in
Epirus, on the Salentine peninsula and various other places
in the southern region of Italy ; at Drepana and Segesta in
Sicily, at Carthage, at Cape Palinurus, Cumse, Misenum,
Caieta, and finally in Latium, where he lays the first humble
foundation of the mighty Rome and her empire.1 And
the reason why his wanderings were not continued still
further was, that the oracles and the pronounced will of
the gods directed him to settle in Latium.2 In each of
these numerous places his visit was commemorated and
certified by local monuments or special legends, particularly
by temples and permanent ceremonies in honour of his
mother Aphrodite, whose worship accompanied him every
where : there were also many temples and many different
tombs of -Slneas himself.3 The vast ascendency acquired
by Rome, the ardour with which all the literary Romans
espoused the idea of a Trojan origin, and the fact that the
Julian family recognised JEneas as their gentile primary
ancestor, — all contributed to give to the Roman version of
this legend the preponderance over every other. The
various other places, in which monuments of iEneas were
1 Dionys. Halic. A. E. i. 48—54; ing the death of AnchisSs (Heyne,
Heyne , Excurs. 1 ad iEneid. iii. : Excurs. 17 ad Mn. iii.) : Segesta in
De JEnese Erroribus, and Excurs. Sicily founded by iEneas (Cicero,
1 ad iEneid. v.; Con&n, Narr. 46; Verr. iv. 33).
Livy, xl. 4; Stephan. Byz. Aivsia. 2 Too 6s u.7)*ETt npoawripu) ttjs
The inhabitants of iEneia in the E&pojtctjs tcXeucto:i tov Tponxov <jto-
Thermaic Gulf worshipped him Xov, oi te vpTJcru-ot ifitotro ciitioi, Ac.
with great solemnity as their (Dionys. Hal. i. 55.)
heroic founder (Pausan. iii. 22, 4; * Dionys. Hal. i. 54. Among other
viii. 12, 4). The tomb of AnchisSs places, his tomb was shown at
was shown on the confines of the Berecynthia, in Phrygia (Festus
Arcadian Orchomenus and Manti- v. Romam , p. 224, ed. Miiller): a
neia (compare Stephan. Byz. v. curious article, which contains an
Kacpuai), under the mountain called assemblage of the most contra-
Anchisia, near a temple of Aphro- dictory statements respecting both
dite : on the discrepancies respect- iEneas and Latinus.

310 HISTOET OP GREECE. 2akt I.
found, came thus to be represented as places where he had
halted for a time on his way from Troy to Latium. But
though the legendary pretensions of these places were thus
eclipsed in the eyes of those who constituted the literary
public, the local belief was not extinguished; they claimed
the hero as their permanent property, and his tomb was
to them a proof that he had lived and died among them.
Antenor, who shares with ./Eneas the favourable sym-
. pathy of the Greeks, is said by Pindar to have
gone from Troy along with Menelaus and Helen
into the region of Kyrene in Libya.1 But according to the
more current narrative, he placed himself at the head of a
body of Eneti or Veneti from Paphlagonia, who had come
as allies of Troy, and went by sea into the inner part of
the Adriatic Gulf, where he conquered the neighbouring
barbarians and founded the town ofPatavium (the modern
Padua) ; the Veneti in this region were said to owe their
origin to his immigration. 2 We learn further from Strabo,
that Opsikellas, one of the companions of Antenor, had
continued his wanderings even into Iberia, and that he had
there established a settlement bearing his name.3
Thus endeth the Trojan war, together with its sequel,
the dispersion of the heroes, victors as well as vanquished.
The account here given of it has been unavoidably brief
and imperfect; for in a work intended to follow consecu
tively the real history of the Greeks, no greater space can
be allotted even to the most splendid gem of their legendary
period. Indeed, although it would be easy to fill a large
volume with the separate incidents which have been intro
duced into the "Trojan cycle," the misfortune is that they
are for the most part so contradictory as to exclude all
possibility of weaving them into one connected narrative.
We are compelled to select one out of the number, generally
without any solid ground of preference, and then to note the
Tale of variations'of the rest. No one who has not studied
ma° nitude *^e original documents can imagine the extent
and discre- to which this discrepancy proceeds: it covers
pancies. almost every portion and fragment of the tale.4
' Pindar, Pyth. v., and the cita- * Livy, i. 1. Servius ad iEneid.
tion from the N60T01 of Lysimachus i. 242. Strabo, i. 48; v. 212. Ovid,
in the Scholia; given still more Fasti, iv. 75.
fully in the Scholia ad Lycophron. • Strabo, iii. p. 157.
875. There was a Xocpoc 'AvTrjvopi- * These diversities are well set
<5u>v at KyrenS. forth in the useful Dissertation of

C=ap. XV. TKOJAN WAE ESSENTIALLY LEGENDAEY. 311
But though much may have been thus omitted of what
the reader might expect to find in an account of the Trojan
war, its genuine character has been studiously preserved,
without either exaggeration or abatement. The real Tro
jan war is that which was recounted by Homer and the old
epic poets, and continued by all the lyric and tragic com
posers. For the latter, though they took great liberties
with the particular incidents, and introduced to some extent
a new moral tone, yet worked more or less faithfully on
the Homeric scale; and even Euripides, who departed the
most widely from the feelings of the old legend, never
lowered down his matter to the analogy of contemporary
life. They preserved its well defined, object, at once
righteous and romantic, the recovery of the daughter of
Zeus and sister of the Dioskuri — its mixed agencies, divine,
heroic and human — the colossal force and deeds of its chief
actors — its vast magnitude and long duration, as well as
the toils which the conquerors underwent, and the Nemesis
which followed upon their success. And these were the
circumstances which, set forth in the full blaze _ .
of epic and tragic poetry, bestowed upon the Je°8Jsen-War
legend its powerful and imperishable influence Waliy le-_
over the Hellenic mind. The enterprise was ftTimpor-
one comprehending all the members of the Hel- *anoe .as> an
lenic body, of which each individually might be Grecian
proud, and in which, nevertheless, those feelings national
of jealous and narrow patriotism, so lamentably
prevalent in many of the towns, were as much as possible
excluded. It supplied them with a grand and inexhaustible
object of common sympathy, common faith, and common
admiration; and when occasions arose for bringing together
a Pan-Hellenic force against the barbarians, the precedent
of the Homeric expedition was one upon which the elevated
minds of Greece could dwell with the certainty of rousing
an unanimous impulse, if not always of counterworking
sinister by-motives, among their audience. And the inci
dents comprised in the Trojan cycle were familiarised, not
only to the public mind, but also to the public eye, by
Fuchs, De Varietate Eabularum may be formed from the fourth,
Troicarum (Cologne, 1830). fifth and sixth chapters of Ptolemy
Of the number of romantic state- Hephasstion (apud Westermann,
ments put forth respecting Helen Scriptt. Mythograph. p. 188, &c).
and Achilles especially, some idea

312 HISTOEY OE GEEECE, Part I.
innumerable representations both of the sculptor and the
painter, — those which were romantic and chivalrous being
better adapted for this purpose, and therefore more con
stantly employed, than any other.
Of such events the genuine Trojan war of the old epic
was for the most part composed. Though literally believed,
Basis of reverentially cherished, and numbered among
history for the gigantic phaenomena of the past, by the
sib"ie°and Grecian public, it is in the eyes of modern
nothing inquiry essentially a legend and nothing more.
more. jf we are ag^gd whether it be not a legend
embodying portions of historical matter, and raised upon
a basis of truth, — whether there may not really have
occurred at the foot of the hill of Ilium a war purely
human and political, without gods, without heroes, without
Helen, without Amazons, without Ethiopians under the
beautiful son of Eos, without the wooden horse, without
the characteristic and expressive features of the old epical
war, — like the mutilated trunk of Deiphobus in the under
world; if we are asked whether there was not really some
such historical Trojan war as this, our answer must be,
that as the possibility of it cannot be denied, so neither
can the reality of it be affirmed. We possess nothing but
the ancient epic itself without any independent evidence:
had it been an age of records indeed, the Homeric epic in
its exquisite and unsuspecting simplicity would probably
never have come into existence. Whoever therefore ven
tures to dissect Homer, Arktinus, and Lesches, and to pick
out certain portions as matters of fact, while he sets aside
the rest as fiction, must do so in full reliance on his own
powers of historical divination, without any means either
of proving or verifying his conclusions. Among many
attempts, ancient as well as modern, to identify real objects
in this historical darkness, that of Dio Chrysostom deserves
attention for its extraordinary boldness. In his oration
addressed to the inhabitants of Ilium, and intended to
demonstrate that the Trojans were not only blameless as
to the origin of the war, but victorious in its issue — he
Histori- overthrows all the leading points of the Homeric
tltioSnT-°~ narrativeJ an(i re-writes nearly the whole from
Dio Chry- beginning to end: Paris is the lawful husband
iostom. of Helen, Achilles is slain by Hect6r, and the
Grreeks retire without taking Troy, disgraced as well as

Chap. XV. HISTORICAL ILIUM. 313
baffled. Having shown without difficulty, that the Iliad,
if it.be looked at as a history, is full of gaps, incongruities
and absurdities, he proceeds to compose a more plausible
narrative of his own, which he tenders as so much authentic
matter of fact. The most important point, however, which
his Oration brings to view is, the literal and confiding
belief with which the Homeric narrative was regarded, as
if it were actual history, not only by the inhabitants of
Ilium, but also by the general Grecian public. *
The small town of Ilium, inhabited by ^Eolic Greeks,*
and raised into importance only by the legendary Historical
reverence attached to it, stood upon an elevated IIlum-
ridge forming a spur from Mount Ida, rather more than
three miles from the town and promontony of Sigeium, and
about twelve stadia, or less than two miles, from the sea
at its nearest point. From Sigeium and the neighbouring
town of Achilleium (with its monument and temple of
Achilles), to the town of Rhceteium on a hill higher up the
Hellespont (with its monument and chapel of Ajax called
the Aianteium),3 was a distance of sixty stadia, or about
seven English miles in the straight course hy sea: in the
intermediate space was a bay and an adjoining plain, com
prehending the embouchure of the Scamander, and extend
ing to the base of the ridge on which Ilium stood. This
plain was the celebrated plain of Troy, in which the great
Homeric battles were believed to have taken place: the
portion of the bay near to Sigeium went by the name of the
"Naustathmon of the Achaeans (i. e. the spot where they
dragged their ships ashore), and was accounted to have been
the camp of Agamemnon and his vast army.4
1 Dio Chrysost. Or. xi. p. 310—322. affirmed that after the .hipwreck of
1 Herodot. v. 122. Pausan. v. 8. Odysseus , the arms of Achilles,
3 ; viii. 12, 4. AIoXeo? ix otXeok which he was carrying away with
Tptyaboc, the title proclaimed at him, were washed up by the sea
the' Olympic games: like AloXeu? againstthe tomb of Ajax. Pliny gives
aizb Moupivac, from Myrina in the the distance at thirty stadia: modern
more southerly region of -Slolis, travellers make it something more
as we find in the list of victors at than Pliny, but considerably lesa
the Charitesia, at Orchomenos in than Strabo.
BoeStia (Corp. Inscrip. Boeckh. No. ' Strabo, xiii. p. 596—588. Strabo
1583). distinguishes the 'Aycuujv N«6ot«6-
3 See Pausanias, i. 35, 3, for the |iov, which was near to Sigeium,
legends current at Ilium respect- from the 'Ax«iujv Xiu.ijv which was
ing the vast size of the bones of more towards the middle of the.
Ajax in his tomb. The inhabitants bay between Sigeium and Bh<e-

314

HISTOET OF GREECE,

Pabt I.

Historical Ilium was founded, according to the ques
tionable statement of Strabo, during the last dynasty of
the Lydian kings, i that is, at some period later than 720 b.c.
Until after the days of Alexander the Great — indeed until
the period of Roman preponderance — it always remained
a place of inconsiderable power and importance, as we learn
not only from the assertion of the geographer, but also from
the fact that Achilleium, Sigeium and Rhceteium were all
independent of it.2 But inconsiderable as it might be, it
was the only place which ever bore the venerable name
immortalized by Homer. Like the Homeric Ilium, it had
its temple of Athene,3 wherein she was worshipped as the
presiding goddess of the town: the inhabitants
received7 affirmed that Agamemn6n had not altogether
and visited destroyed the town, but that it had been re
ef PriamTn occupied after his departure, and had never
ceased to exist.* Their acropolis was called
Pergamum, and in it was shown the house of Priam and
the altar of Zeus Herkeius where that unhappy old man
had been slain. Moreover there were exhibited, in the
temples, panoplies which had been worn by the Homeric
heroes,5 and doubtless many other relics appreciated by
admirers of the Iliad.

teium ; but we gather from his
language that this distinction was
not universally recognised. Alex
ander landed at the 'A/atoiv XtfiTjv
(Arrian, i. 11).
1 Strabo, xiii. p. 593.
2 Herodot. v. 95 (his account of
the war between the Athenians and
Mitylenseaus about Sigeium and
Achilleium) ; Strabo, xiii. p. 593.
T^ 8s Ttbv 'iXietuv rcoXiv ttjv vOv
teujs [j.ev y-tDfjLOTcoXtv elvat cpacu, to
Ispov Ijroucra-v rfj<; ' AOTjvat; [Aixpov xal
eOTsXes. 'AX^avSpov Se dvapctvTa
(XETtt T7]V S7ll FpaviXlp vlxTJV, dva07)-
jjLGtat ts Koay/qaaLi to iepov xal rcpoa-
ayopsuaat ttoXiv, &c.
Again, Keel to "IXiov, & vuv eotI,
xa>(Ju57coXl<; xt? 7Jv ote irpajtov 'Pa>-
fiaXoi tt)<; 'Aala<; kizifiriam.
3 Besides Ath§n&, the Inscriptions
(authenticate Zso<; IToXisui; at Ilium
Corp. Insurip. Boeckh. No. 3599),

4 Strabo, xiii. p. 600. Aeyouoi 5'
ol muv 'iXisTt; xal touto, <hc, ou8s ts-
Xeox auvepatvsv fypavloOai T7]v Tt6Xiv
xaTa ttjv aXtoatv oteq tiuv 'AjrcuuJv,
068' e^TjXeitpST) ouSsttote.
The situation of Ilium (or as it
is commonly, but erroneously,
termed, New Hium) appears to be
pretty well ascertained, about two
miles from the sea (Rennell, On
the Topography of Troy, p. 41-71 ;
Dr. Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p.
102). 5 Xerxes passing by Adramyt-
tium, and leaving the range of
Mount Ida on his left hand, tJis H
ttjv 'IXidSa ytjv . . . 'Arcixopivou 8s
too orpaxog stei tov 2xdftav8pov ....
e<; to npLapiou ITspyaiJiov dvepT],
tfXEpov s'xiov QevjcraaQai.. 0E7]tjd(iEvo?
8e, xal 7c u 0 6(i.e v o t; x ei v a>v Ix acr-
Ta, x^ 'AQTjval^ T7J ' IXidoVgOuaa
po0$ xi^a^' X°*s &b oi (xdyot xoituv

Chap. XV. EBLICS AND MEMOKIALS AT ILIUM. 315
These were testimonies which few persons in those
ages were inchned to question, when combined with the
identity of name and general locality ; nor does it seem that
any one did question them until the time of Demetrius of
Skepsis. Hellanikus expressly described this Ilium as being
the Ilium of Homer, for which assertion Strabo (or probably
Demetrius, from whom the narrative seems to be copied)
imputes to him very gratuitously an undue partiality to
wards the inhabitants of the town, -¦ Herodotus relates, that
Xerxes in his march into Greece visited the place, went up
to the Pergamum of Priam, inquired with much interest
into the details of the Homeric siege, made Ubations to the
fallen heroes, and offered to the Athene of Ilium his magni
ficent sacrifice of a thousand oxen: he probably represented
and believed himself to be attacking Greece as the avenger
of thePriamid family. The Lacedaemonian admiral Mindarus,
while his fleet lay at Abydus, went personally to Ilium to
offer sacrifice to Athene, and saw from that elevated spot
the battle fought between the squadron ofDorieus and the
Athenians, off the shore near Rhceteium.2 During the
interval between the Peloponnesian war and the Macedonian
invasion of Persia, Ilium was always garrisoned as a strong
position : but its domain was still narrow, and did not extend
even to the sea which was so near to it.3 Alexander, on
TJpinotv iyiatro . . . "Ajxa 7]p.sp"fl hi Chandler, in his History of Ilium,
enopsOETo, it dpiaTEp^ [liv aTcsp-fcov ch. xxii. p. 89, seems to think that
'Poiteiov 7-6X1V xai '0<ppuvEiov xal the place called by Herodotus the
AdpSavov, 7\%zp 87] 'A^uSco Su-oupos Pergamum of Priam is different
eaTiv ev 8s£i^ 8e, rEpY*.6a<* Tsuxpo6*; from the historical Ilium. But
(Herod, vii. 43). the mention of the Iliean AthSne"
Eespecting Alexander (Arrian, identifies them as the same.
i. 11), 'AvE>.86vTa Se e<* "IXiov, t^j 1 Strabo, xiii. p. 602. 'EXXdvixo:
'AQvjva 8o<"ai T7J 'IX-dSi, xai ttjv 8e */apiC6p.Evoc- toi<* 'IXisuchv, 0I0-; 6
TcavoiuXiav T7JV aoTou dvaQEivat eI? sxslvoo u.uQo<;, auvTJYopEi Ttji ttjv
tov vaov, xal xaBsXfiiv dvTi TaUTTje; abrrjt zitai xoXiv rr\t vuv T7j t6te.
tujv ispujv Tiva StcXcdv eti ex too Hellanikus had written a work
Tpunxou spYou GCot.6u.sva* xai TaoTa called IpuSixa.
Xeyodcj-v 8ti ot 6*raj-iicTTal eipEpov 2 Xenoph. Hellen. i. 1, 10. Sky-
icpo aoTOu it; te* u.ayjxt;. 8oaai 8e lax places Ilium twenty-five sta-
auTov e-11 too Piojjloo too Aioc; tou dia, or about three miles from the
"EpxEtou X6*fo<; xaTE-/si, u.7jviv lipid- sea (c. 94). But I do' not under
go -rapaiToupisvov Tip Neot-.toXeu.oo stand how he can call Skepsis and
Yevsi, 8 87] e-; a&TOv xaQ^xs. Kebren -roXsit; ini 0aXdaaT*j.
The inhabitants of Hium also a See Xenoph. Hellen. iii. i. 16 ;
showed the lyre which had be- and the description of the seizure
longed to Paris (Plut., Alex. c. 15).

316 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pabt I,
crossing the Hellespont, sent his army from Sestus to
Abydus, under Parmenio, and sailed personally from Elaeeus
in the Chersonese, after having solemnly sacrificed at the
Elseuntian shrine of Protesilaus, to the Harbour of the
Achseans between Sigeium and Ehceteium. He then as-
_ cended to Ilium, sacrificed to the Iliean Athene,
shown to and consecrated in her temple his own panoply,
^,by , in exchange for which he took some of the sacred
arms there suspended, which were said to have
been preserved from the time of the Trojan war. These
arms were carried before him when he went to battle by
his armour-bearers. It is a fact still more curious, and
illustrative of the strong working of the old legend on an
impressible and eminently religious mind, that he also
sacrificedto Priam himself on the very altar of Zeus Herkeius
from which the old king was believed to have been torn by
Neoptolemus. As that fierce warrior was his heroic ancestor
by the maternal side, he desired to avert from himself the
anger of Priam against the Achilleid race. -¦
Alexander made to the inhabitants of Ilium many
Successors munificent promises, which he probably would
of Aiexan- have executed, had he not been prevented by
dation of " untimely death. One of his successors Antigonus, 2
Aiexan- founded the city of Alexandreia in the Troad, be-
reia r as. ^ween gigejUm and the more southerly promon-
of Ilium, along with Skepsis and The same may be said respecting
Kebren, by the chief of mercenaries, the author of the tenth epistle as-
Charidemus , in Demosthen. cont. cribed to the orator ^Sschines (p.
Aristocrat, c. 38, p. 671: compare 737), in which his visit of curiosity
aineasPol. c.24, and Polysen. iii. 14. to Ilium is described— as well as
1 Arrian, 1. c. Diksearchus com- about Apoll&nius of Tyana, or the
posed a separate work respecting writer who describes his life and
this sacrifice of Alexander, 7-ept his visit to the Tr&ad ; it is evident.
T7J<; ev 'IXicpGucriai; (Ath. xiii. p. 603 ; that he did not distrust the dp-
Dikajarch. Ft. p. 114, ed. Ifuhr). -/aioXoyia of the Ilieans , who af-
Theophrastus, . in noticing old firmed their town to be the real
and venerable trees, mentions the Troy (Philostr. Vit. Apol. Tyan-
tpofoi (Quercus mseulus) on the iv. 11).
tomb of Ilus at Ilium, without any The goddess Athene" of Ilium.
doubt of the authenticity of the was reported to have rendered va-
place (Do Plant, iv. 14); and his luable assistance to the inhabitants
contemporary, the harper Strato- of Kyzikus , when they were be-
nikos, intimates the same feeling, sieged by Mithridatgs', commemo-
in his jest on the visit of a bad rated byinscriptionsset upinllium
sophist to Ilium during the festival (Plutarch, Lucull. 10).
of the Ilieia (Athens, viii. p. 351). -> Strabo, xiii. p. 603---607.

¦Chap. XV. KELICS AND MEMORIALS AT ILIUM.

317

tory of Lektum; compressing into it the inhabitants of many
of the neighbouring ^Eolic towns in the region of Ida, —
Skepsis, Kebren, Hamaxitus,Kolonse, andNeandria, though
the inhabitants of Skepsis were subsequently permitted
by Lysimachus to resume their own city and autonomous
government. Ilium however remained without any special
mark of favour until the arrival of the Romans in Asia and
their triumph over Antiochus (about 190 b. a). Though
it retained its walls and its defensible position, Demetrius
of Skepsis, who visited it shortly before that event, described
it as being then in a state of neglect and poverty, many of
the houses not even having tiled roofs. * In this dilapidated

1 Livy sixv. 43; xxxvii. 9. Po-
lyb. v. 78—111 (passages which
prove that Ilium, was fortified, and
defensible about b.c. 218). Strabo,
xiii. p. 594. Kotl to "IXiqv 8", o vuv
sari, xu>jj.6xo).i.<; ti? -Jjv, 8te Tuptbrov
*Pu>(JLaToi ttJ? 'Aaiat; ETEEp-rjaav xal
sEeftaXov 'Avtio/ov t.6v [JLEyav ex T7Js
evto<; tou Tctupou. <D'/]cri Tfouv ^7]-
jjLTjTpio? 6 Sxr/iio-;, (xstpaxiov etciS^-
(j.T]crav el<; ttjv -rcoXtv xaV exeivoui;
to6<; xatpouc-i outuj-; wXiyiDpTjuivTlv
ISsTv tt)v xaTOixiav, (jjste u.7]8e xe-
pajjLiDToci; £y_siv to<; (ttsyck;. 'Hy/]-
aiavaS 8e, touc TaXaTai; 7U£pa«i)9sv-
Tct<; ex T7J(; EopibuT]*;, dvapTJvcti (j.ev
Et? T7]V ItdXlV OEOfJLSvOOi; Ep6u,GtT0?)
nipiypT]^ 8' exXtiESiv 8ia to aTsl-
vlotov* 5aTepov 8* £7Lav6p8a>5iv Eoy_e
tuoXXtjv. EIt' Exctxujcrav gc6tt]v icaXiv
ol (xstoc OijjLpplou, &c.
Here is a very clear and precise
statement, attested by an eye
witness. But it is thoroughly incon
sistent with the statement made
by Strabo in the previous chapter,
a dozen. lines before, as the text
now stands; for he there informs
us that Lysimachus, after the death
of Alexander, paid great attention
to Ilium, surrounded it with a wall
of forty stadia in circumference,
erected a temple, and aggregated
to Ilium the ancient cities around,
which were in a state of decay.
We know from Livy that the ag

gregation of G-ergis and Rhosteium
to Ilium was effected, not by Ly
simachus , but by the Romans
(Livy, xxxviii. 37); so that the
first statement of Strabo is not
only inconsistent with his second,
but is contradicted by an inde
pendent authority.
I cannot but think that this
contradiction arises from a con
fusion of the text in Straho's first
passage, and that in that passage
Strabo really meant to speak only
of the improvements brought about
by Lysimachus in Alexandreia
Troas; that he never meant to as
cribe to Lysimachus any improve
ments in Ilium: but, on the con
trary, to assign the remarkable at
tention paid by Lysimachus to
Alexandreia Trdas, as the reason
why he had neglected to fulfil the
promises held out by Alexander
to Ilium. The series of Straho's
allegations runs thus: — 1. Ilium
is nothing better than a xtb[j.7] at
the landing of Alexander ; 2. Alex
ander promises great additions,
but never returns from Persia to
accomplish them ; 3. Lysimachus
is absorbed in Alexandreia Trfias,
into which he aggregates several
of the adjoining old towns, and
which flourishes under his hands;
4. Hence Ilium remained a xu>jjt,7]
when the Romans entered Asia,

318 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pabt I;
condition, however,itwas still mythically recognised bothhy
Antiochus and by the Roman consul Livius, who went up
thither to sacrifice to the Iliean Athene. The
maltreat Romans, proud of their origin from Troy and
ilium with JEneas, treated Ilium with signal munificence;
respect. n°t onty granting to it immunity from tribute,
but also adding to its domain the neighbouring
territories of Gergis, Rhceteium and Sigeium — and making
the Ilieans masters of the whole coast1 from the Persea (or
continental possessions) of Tenedos (southward of Sigeium)
to the boundaries of Dardanus, which had its own title to
legendary reverence as the special sovereignty of .-Eneas.
The inhabitants of Sigeium made such resistance to this
loss of autonomy, that their city was destroyed by the
Ilieans. The dignity and power of Ilium being thus prodigiously
enhanced, we cannot doubt that the inhabitants assumed
to themselves exaggerated importance as the recognised
parents of all-conquering Rome. Partly, we may naturally
suppose, from the jealousies thus aroused on the part of
their neighbours at Skepsis and Alexandreia Troas — partly
from the pronounced tendency of the age (in which Krates
atPergamus and Aristarchus at Alexandria dividedbetween
them the palm of literary celebrity) towards criticism and
as it bad been when Alexander x6xXqj "toXe--; apyaiat;, 7187] xExaxoj-
entered. (xe'va*;. Kal 8tj xal auveu.Eivs . . . tco-
Tbis alteration in the text of Xetnv. If this reading be adopted,
Strabo might be effected by the the words beginning that which
simple transposition of the words stands in Tzschucke's edition as
as they now stand, and by omitting sect. 27, and which immediately
Zrz xai, *J)8t] st-eu.eXtjStj, without follow the last word tc6Xsu>v, will
introducing a single new or con- read quite suitably and coherently
jectural word, so that the passage — Kai to "IXiov 8', 5 vuv iari, xcd-
would read thus : — Msxa 8s ttjv "jlo-toXU ra; tjv, 8te irpauov 'Pu>u.aIo-
exstvou (Alexander's) tsXsuttjv Au- ttjc; 'Aalae; t-cEpTjaav, &c. , whereas
aiu.ayoz u-dXiaTa ttj<- ' AXsSlavBpEiae- with the present reading of the
4-ieu.eX7)8--) , oovoi)xi<-|j.svti? u.sv 7)8t) passage they show a contradiction,
bit' 'Avti-j-ovou, xal -ipoa-/)-(op-!up.svr|<- and the whole passage is entirely
'AvTlYovia'; , [XETaPaXooaTjc 8s too- confused.
vop.a- (.BoU yap eu-"e|3e-; Eivai Tobc; ' Livy, xxxviii. 39; Strabo, xiii.
'AXsWvSpov 8ia8E$au.svooc; exeivou p. 600. KaTEoxai-Tai. 8e xal t6 21-
7-pOTEpOV XTI^EIV E7m)VUU.OUc;' T.6Xz\<;, y^'OV 6lt6 TlI>V 'IXlElOV 8lA TTJV aitEl-
eI9' lauTiiv) xal veojv xaTe<-XE6ac-s Gsiav- on' exeIvoi? yap tjv 5ciTEpov tj
xal TElpt; itspisflaXETo ooov 40 oTa- 7-apaXla -tac-a tj u,Expi AapSavou, xai
Sltov ffOvt(>xt(je 8e eU outtjv xa-i vuv bit' Exsivoi-; ian.

Ciiap. XV. RESPECT SHOWN TO ILIUM. 319
illustration of the old poets — a blow was now aimed at the
mythical legitimacy of Ilium. Demetrius of Mythical
Skepsis, one of the most laborious of theHomeric legitimacy
critics, had composed thirty books of comment flr6t '"aned
upon the Catalogue in the Iliad: Hestisea, an in question
authoress of Alexandreia Tr6as, had written on tr^„s ^ '
the same subject: both of them, well-acquainted Skepsis and
with the locality, remarked that the vast battles eatl!Ea-
described in the Iliad could not be packed into the narrow
space between Ilium and the Naustathmon of the Greeks;
the more so, as that space, too small even as it then stood,
had been considerably enlarged since the date of the Iliad
by deposits at the mouth of the Skamander. i They found
no difficulty in pointing out topographical incongruities
and impossibilities as to the incidents in the Iliad, which
they professed to remove by the startling theory that the
Homeric Ilium had not occupied the site of the city so
called. There was a village, called the village of the Ilieans,
situated rather less than four miles from the city in the
direction of Mount Ida, and further removed from the sea;
here, they affirmed, the "holy Troy" had stood.
No positive proof was produced to sustain the con
clusion, for Strabo expressly states that not a
vestige of the ancient city remained at the Village oidPnium
of the Ilieans.2 But the fundamental supposition or real
was backed by a second accessory supposition, tinguished
to explain how it happened that all such vestiges from New
had disappeared. Nevertheless Strabo adopts mm'
the unsupported hypothesis of Demetrius as if it were an
authenticated fact — distinguishing pointedly between Old
and New Ilium, and even censuring Hellanikus for having
1 Strabo, xiii. 509. IIapaTi97]at of Strabo, but they seem to me-
8e 6 ATjarjTpios xal T7jv ' AXE^avSplvTjv necessary to make the sense com-
'Ea'laiav fxapTupa, ttjv aoyypa'ltaaat plete.
7tEpi ttjs 'Ou-Tjpou 'IXiaSos, nuvQavo- Hestieea is cited more than once-
u-svtjv , si zspl T7jv vuv itbXit 6 tioXe- in the Homeric Scholia (Schol.
u.os GUv£aT7], xai to Tpuuxov 7Cs5tov Venet. ad Iliad, iii. 64; Eustath..
tcou eutiv, o p-ETa^o T7js tcoXsojs xai ad Iliad, ii. 538).
tj}<; 6aXaaaTj? 6 xoitjttji; (ppd^Ei- to 2 Strabo, xiii. p. 699. Ou8ev 6"
uiv yap itpo Tijq vuv tioXeou; 6pui- i-/vo« ouXetgi Ttj« apy_ata« noXeux —
p.Evov, irp6v_u>u.a slvai tujv KOTapiiJov, e'ixotou? ¦ Ste yap ExiteicopSTjuiviov
uJTspov YEyovo?. tujv xuxXip itoXeiov , oi TsXeux 84
The words tioo etmv are intro- xaTEci7tatJU,e ,<nv, oi XI801 xAvts? Eli
duced conjecturally by Grosskurd, ttjv exewov ivaXTJ'Jiiv u.zr7\tiyj>7)<"i.v.
the excellent German translator

320

HISTORY OF GREECE.

PAJ3T X,

maintained the received local faith. But I cannot find that
Demetrius and Hestiasa have been followed in this respect
by any other writer of ancient times excepting Strabo.
Ilium still continued to he talked of and treated by every
one as the genuine Homeric Troy: the cruel jests of the
Roman rebel Fimbria, when he sacked the town and mas
sacred the inhabitants — the compensation made by Sylla,
and the pronounced favour of Julius Caesar and Augustus,
— all prove this continued recognition of identity, i Arrian,
though a native of Nicomedia, holding a high appointment
in Asia Minor, and remarkable for the exactness of his
topographical notices, describes the visit of Alexander to
Ilium, without any suspicion that the place with all its
relics was a mere counterfeit: Aristides, Dio Chrysostom,
Pausanias, Appian, and Plutarch hold the same
language.2 But modern writers seem for the most
part to have taken up the supposition from
Strabo as implicitly as hetook it from Demetrius.
They call Ilium by the disrespectful appellation
of Nem Ilium — while the traveller in the Troad
looks for Old Ilium as if it were the unquestion
able spot where Priam had lived and moved ; the
name is even formally enrolled on the best
maps recently prepared of the ancient Troad.3

Straboalone be
lieves in
Old Ilium
as the real
Troy- other
authors
-continue in the old
faith — the
moderns
follow Strabo.

' Appian, Mithridat. c. 53; Strabo,
xiii. p. 594; Plutarch, Sertorius, c.
1; Velleius' Paterc. ii. 23.
The inscriptions attest Panathe-
naic games celebrated at Ilium in
honour of Athene by the Ilieans
conjointly with various other
neighbouring cities (see Corp.
Inscr. Boekh. no. 3601—3602, with
Boeckh's observations). The va
luable inscription no. 3595 attests
the liberality of Antiochus Soter
towards the Ilian Athene as early
as 278 B.C.
2 Arrian, i. 11 ; Appian ut sup. ;
also Aristides, Or. 43, Rhodiaca,
p.-820 (Dindorf, p. 369). The curious
Oratio xi. of Dio Chrysostom, in
which he writes his new version
of the Trojan war, is addressed to
the inhabitants of Ilium.
3 The controversy, now half a

century old, respecting Troy and
the Trojan war — between Bryant
and his varius opponents; Morritt,
Gilbert Wakefield, the British Cri-
tic, Ac, seems now nearly forgot
ten and I cannot think that the
pamphlets on either side would
be considered as displaying much
ability if published at the present
day. The discussion wasfirst raised
by the publication of Le Cheva
lier's account of the plain of Troy,
in which the author professed to
have discovered the true site of
Old Ilium (the supjosed Homeric
Troy), about twelve miles from the
sea near Bounarbashi. Upon this
account Bryant published some
animadversions followed up by a
second Treatise, in which he de
nied the historical reality of the
Trojan war, and advanced the

Chap. XV. HYPOTHESIS OE OLD AND NEW ILIUM. 321
Strabo has here converted into geographical matter of
fact an hypothesis purely gratuitous, with a view of saving

hypothesis that the tale was of
Egyptian origin(Dissertation on the
War of Troy, and the expedition
of the Grecians as described hy
Homer, showing that no snch ex
pedition was ever undertaken, and
that no such city of Phrygia ex
isted, by Jacob Bryant; seemingly
1797, though there is no date in
the title-page: Morritt's reply was
published in 1798). A reply from
Mr. Bryant and a rejoinder from
Mr.Morritt, as well as a pamphlet
from G. Wakefield, appeared in
1799 and 1800, besides an Expostu
lation hy the former addressed to
tbte British Critic.
Bryant, having dwelt both on
-the incredibilities and the incon
sistencies of the Trojan war, as it
is recounted in Grecian legend ge
nerally, nevertheless admitted that
Homer had a groundwork for his
fitory , and maintained that that
groundwork was Egyptian. Ho
mer (he thinks) was an Ithacan,
descended from a family originally
emigrant from Egypt: the war of
of Troy was originally an Egyp
tian war, _ which explains how
Memn6n the Ethiopian came to
take part in it: "upon this history,
which was originally Egyptian,
Homer founded the scheme of his
two principal poems , adapting
things to Greece and Phrygia hy
an ingenious transposition 1" he
derived information from priests
of Memphis or Thebes (Bryant,
pp. 102, 108, 126). The "Hpioq Al-
Yutctloc, mentioned in the second
book of the Odyssey (15), is the
Egyptian hero, who affords (in his
view), an evidence that the popu
lation of that island was in part de
rived from Egypt. No one since Mr.
Bryant, I apprehend, has ever con
strued the passage in the same sense.
VOL. I*

Bryant's Egyptian hypothesis is
of no value ; but the negative por
tion of his argument, summing up
the particulars of the Trojan le
gend , and contending against its
historical credibility, is not so
easily put aside. Eew persons will
share in the zealous conviction by
which Morritt tries to make it ap
pear that the 1100 ships, the ten
years of war, the large confederacy
of princes from all parts of Greece;
&c, have nothing but what is con
sonant with historical probability ;
difficulties being occasionally eli
minated by the plea of our igno
rance of the time and of the subject
(Morritt, p. 7—21). Gilbert Wake
field, who maintains the historical
reality of the siege with the utmost
intensity, and even compares Bry
ant to Tom Payne (W. p. 17) , is
still more displeased with those
who propound doubts, and tells
us that "grave disputation in the
midst of such darkness and uncer
tainty is a conflict with chimEeras"
(W. p. H).
The most plausible line of ar
gument taken by Morritt and
Wakefield is, where they enforce
the positions taken by Strabo
and so many other authors, an
cient as well as modern, that a
superstructure of fiction is to be
distinguished from a basis of truth,
and that the latter is to be main
tained while the former is rejected
(Morritt, p. 5; Wake. p. 7—8). To
this Bryant replies, that "if we
leave out every absurdity, we can
make anything plausible : that a
fable may be made consistent, and
we have many romances that are
very regular in the assortment of
characters and circumstances : this
may be seen in plays, memoirs,
and novels. But this regularity

322

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Paet I.

the accuracy of the Homeric topography; though in all
probability the locality of the pretended old Ilium would
nave been found open to difficulties not less serious than
those which it was introduced to obviate.1 It maybe true
that Demetrius and he were justified in their negative
argument, so as to show that the battles described in the
Iliad could not possibly have taken place if the city of Priam
The mythi- nao^ stood on the hill inhabited by the Ilieans.
cai faith not But the legendary faith subsisted before, and
topograph!- continued without abatement afterwards, not-
cai impos- withstanding such topographical impossibilities.
sihiiities. Hellanikus, Herodotus, Mindarus, the guides
of Xerxes, and Alexander, had not been shocked by them:

and correspondence alone will not
ascertain the truth." (Expostula
tion, pp. 8, 12, 13.) "That there
are a great many other fables be
sides that of Troy, regular and
consistent among themselves, be
lieved and chronologised hy the
Greeks, and even looked up to by
them in a religious view (p. 13),
which yet no one now thinks of
admitting as history.1'
Morritt , having urged the uni
versal belief of antiquity as evi
dence that the Trojan war was
historically real, is met by Bryant,
who reminds him that the same
persons believed in centaurs, sa
tyrs, nymphs, augury, aruspicy ;
Homer maintaining that horses
could speak, &c. To which Morritt
replies, "What has religiouB belief
to do with historical facts? Is not
the evidence on which our faith
rests in matters of religion totally
different in all its parts from that
on which we ground our belief
in history ?" (Addit. Remarks,
p. 47).
The separation between the
grounds of religious and historical
belief is by no means so complete
as Mr. Morritt supposes, even in
regard to modern times ; and when
we apply his position to the an
cient Greeks , rt will be found

completely the reverse of the truth.
The contemporaries of Herodotus
and Thucydid§s conceived their
early history in the most intimate
conjunction with their religion.
1 For example, adopting his own
line of argument (not to mention
those battles in which the pursuit
and the flight reaches from the
city to the ships and back again),
it might have been urged to him,
that by supposing the Homeric
Troy to be four miles further off
from the sea , heaggravated the-
difficulty of rolling the Trojan
horse into the town ; it was al
ready sufficiently hard to prop el this
vast wooden animal full of heroes
from the Greek Naustathmon to-
the town of Ilium.
The Tro>n horse, with its ac
companiments Sinon and Laokoonr
is one of the capital and indis
pensable events in the epic : Ho-.
mer, Arktinus , Leschgs , Virgil,.
and Quintus Smymasus, all dwell
upon it emphatically as the proxi
mate cause of the capture.
The difficulties and inconsisten
cies of the movements ascribed to
Greeks and Trojans in the Iliad,
when applied to real topography
are well set forth in Spohn, D&
Agro Trojano, Leipsic, 1814 ; ana
Mr. Maclaren has shown (Disserta-

Chap. XV,

MYTHICAL FAITH IN ILIUM.

323

the case of the latter is the strongest of all, because he had
received the best education of his time under Aristotle —
he was a passionate admirer and constant reader of the
Iliad — he was moreover personally familiar with the move
ments of armies, and lived at a time when maps, which began
with Anaximander, the disciple of Thales, were at least
known to all who sought instruction. Now if, notwithstand
ing such advantages, Alexander fully believed in the identity
of Ilium, unconscious of these many and glaring topogra
phical difficulties, much less would Homer himself, or the
Homeric auditors, be likely to pay attention to them, at a
period, five centuries earlier, of comparative rudeness and
ignorance, when prose records as well as geographical maps
were totally unknown. 1 The inspired poet might describe,
and his hearers would listen with delight to the tale, how
Hector, pursued by Achilles, ran thrice round the city of
Troy, while the trembling Trojans were all huddled into
the city, not one daring to come out even at this last ex
tremity of their beloved prince — and while the Grecian
army looked on, restraining unwillingly their uplifted spears

tion on the Topography of the
Trojan War, Edinburgh, 1822) that
these difficulties are nowise ob
viated by removing Ilium a few
miles further from the sea.
'Major Rennell argues differently
from the visit of Alexander, em
ploying it to confute the hypothe
sis of Chevalier, who had placed
the Homeric Troy at Bounarbashi,
the site supposed to have been
indicated by DSmStrius and Strabo:
"Alexander is said to have been
a passionate admirer of the Iliad,
and he had an opportunity of deci
ding on the spot how far the topo
graphy was consistent with the
narrative. Had he been shown the
site of Bounarbashi for that of
Troy, he would probably have
questioned the fidelity either of
the historical part of the poem or
his guides. It is not within cre
dibility, that a person of so cor
rect a judgement as Alexander
could have admired a poem, which
contained a long history of mili

tary details, and other transactions
that could not physically have had
an existence. What pleasure could
he receive, in contemplating as
subjects of history, events which
could not have happened? Yet he
did admire the poem, and there
fore must have found the topo
graphy consistent : that is, Bounar
bashi, surely, was not shown to
him for Troy." (Rennell, Obser
vations on the Plain of Troy, p.
128). Major Rennell here supposes in
Alexander a spirit of topographi
cal criticism quite foreign to his
real character. We have no reason
to believe that the site of Bounar
bashi was shown to Alexander as
the Homeric Troy, or that any site
was shown to him except Ilium^
or what Strabo calls New Ilium.
Still less reason have we to be
lieve that any scepticism crossed
his mind, or that his deepseated
faith required to be confirmed by
measurement of distances.
y2

324 HISTORY OF GREECE. Past I.
at the nod of Achilles, in order that Hector might perish
by no other hand than his; nor were they, while absorbed
by this impressive recital, disposed to measure distances or
calculate topographical possibilities with reference to the
site of the real Ilium. ' The mistake consists in applying
to Homer and to the Homeric siege of Troy, criticisms
which would be perfectly just if brought to bear on the
Athenian siege of Syracuse, as described by Thucydides, 2
in the Peloponnesian war3 — but which are not more applic
able to the epic narrative than they would be to the exploits
of Amadis or Orlando..
There is every reason for presuming that the Ilium
visited by Xerxes and Alexander was really the "holy Ilium"
present to the mind of Homer; and if so, it must have been
inhabited, either by Greeks or by some anterior population,
at a period earlier than that which Strabo assigns. History
recognises neither Troy the city, nor Trojans, as actually
existing; but the extensive region called Troas, or the
Tr6ad (more properly Troi'as), is known both to Hero
dotus and to Thucydides: it seems to include the terri
tory westward of an imaginary line drawn from the
1 Straho, xiii. p. 599, 068' tj too that gross faults are committed in
"ExTOpos 8s rcepi8po|jL7] 7) 7cspl ttjv it, when looked at from the point
izoXit zyzi ti euXoyov oo Y^P ivri of view of a general (see an inter-
xzpih'pou.ot; tj vov, 8ia T7]v auveyTj esting article by Mr. G. C. Lewis,
payzt' T) 8s naXaia zyzi TCsptSpou^v. in the Classical Museum, vol. i.
2 Mannert (Geographie der Grie- p. 205, "Napoleon on the Capture
Chen und Romer. Th. 6. Heft. 3. b. of Troy").
8. cap. 8) is confused in his ac- Having cited this criticism from
count of Old and New Ilium : he the highest authority on the art of
represents that Alexander raised war, we may find a suitable paral-
up a new spot to the dignity of lei in the works of distinguish-
having been the Homeric Ilium, ed publicists. The attack of
which is not the fact : Alexander Odysseus on the Ciconians (des-
adhered to the received local be- cribed in Homer, Odyss. ix. 39 — 61)
lief. Indeed, as far as our evi- is cited both by Grotius (De Jure
dence goes, no one but Demetrius, Bell, et Pac. iii. 3, 10) and by
Hestiffia, and Strabo appears ever Vattel (Droit des Gens, iii. 202)
to have departed from it. as a case in point in international
3 There can hardly he a more law. Odysseus is considered to
singular example of this same con- have sinned against the rules of
fusion, than to find elaborate mili- international law by attacking
tary criticisms from the Emperor them as allies of the Trojans,
Napoleon, upon the description of without a formal declaration of
the taking of Troy in the second war.
book of the Mneidi. He shows

Chap. XV. .330LIC GREEKS IN THE TROAD. 325
north-east corner of the Adramyttian gulf to the Propontis
at Parium, since both Antandrus, Kol6nse, and the district
immediately round Ilium, are regarded as belonging to the
Troad. i Herodotus further notices theTeukrians of Gergis 2
(a township conterminous with Hium, and lying H;stoli(,al
to the eastward of the road from Ilium to Tr&as and
Abydus), considering them as the remnant of a ^?a^gU"
larger Teukrian population which once resided
in the country, and which had in very early times under
taken a vast migration from Asia into Europe.3 To that
Teukrian population he thinks that the Homeric Trojans
belonged:4 and by later writers, especially by Virgil and
the other Romans, the names Teukrians and Trojans are
employed as equivalents. As the name Trojans is not
mentioned in any contemporary historical monument, so
the name Teukrians never once occurs in the old Epic.
It appears to have been first noticed by the elegiac poet
Kallinus, about 660 B.C., who connected it with an alleged
immigration of Teukrians from Krete into the region round
about Ida. Others again denied this, asserting that the
primitive ancestor, Teukrus, had come into the country
from Attica,5 and that he was of indigenous origin, born
from Skamander and the nymph Idsea — all various mani
festations of that eager thirst after an , eponymous hero
which never deserted the Greeks. Gergithians occur in
more than one spot in JEolis, even so far southward as the
neighbourhood ofKyme:6 the name has no place in Homer,
but he mentions Gorgythion and Kebriones as illegitimate
sons of Priam, thus giving a sort of epical recognition both
to Gergis and Kebren. As Herodotus calls the old epical
Trojans by the name Teukrians, so the Attic tragedians
call them Phrygians; though the Homerichymnto Aphrodite
represents Phrygians and Trojans as completely distinct,
1 Compare Herodot. 24—122 ; on the Strym6n, called themselves
Thucyd. i. 131. The 'IXioc; -[t\ is a their descendants.
part of the Tr6ad. ' Herodot. ii. 118; v. 13.
2 Herodot. vii. 43. » Strabo, xiii. p. 604 ; Apollodflr.
3 Herodot. v. 122. eTXs u.ev Alo- iii. 12, 4.
Xiat; natrat;, oaoi ttjv 'IXiaBa yyjv Kephal6n of Gergis called Teu-
ve.u.ovT<u, zlXz o= TspYiQat;, to'X aito- krus a Kretan (Stephan. Byz. v.
XEKpGsvrcts tujv dp^aiiov Tzbxpwt. ' Api<3$r\).
Fot the migration of the Ten- ff*Clearchus ap. Athena?, vi. p.
krians and Mysians into Europe, 256 j Strabo, xiii. p. 589—616.
see Herodot. vii. 20 j the Pteonians,

326 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pabt I.
specially noting the diversity of language ; l and in the Iliad
the Phrygians are simply numbered among the allies of
Troy from the far Ascania, without indication of any more
intimate relationship. 2 Nor do the tales which connect
Dardanus with Samothrace and Arcadia find countenance
in the Homeric poems, wherein Dardanus is the son of
Zeus, having no root anywhere except inDardania.3 The
mysterious solemnities of Samothrace, afterwards so highly
venerated throughout the Grecian world, date from a period
much later than Homer; and the religious affinities of that
island as well as of Krete with the territories of Phrygia
and JEolis, were certain, according to the established
tendency of the Grecian mind, to beget stories of a common
genealogy. To pass from this legendary world, — an aggregate of
streams distinct and heterogeneous, which do not willingly
come into confluence, and cannot be forced to intermix, —
Molic into the clearer vision afforded by Herodotus, we
Greeks in learn from him that in the year 500 b.c. the whole
th" whY- coast-region from Dardanus southward to the
territory promontory of Lektum (including the town of
gradually Ilium), and from Lektum eastward to Adra-
myttium, had been -ZEolised, or was occupied by
-33olic Greeks — likewise the inland towns of Skepsis4 and
Kebren. So that if we draw a line northward from Adra-
myttium to Kyzikus on the Propontis — throughout the
whole territory westward from that line, to the Hellespont
and the JSgean Sea, all the considerable towns would be
Hellenic. "With the exception of Gergis and the Teukrian
population around it, all the towns worthy of note were
1 Homer, Hymn, in Vener. 116. Arisbe also, near Abydus, seems
2 Iliad, ii. 863. Asius, the brother to have heen settled from Mity-
of Hekabe, lives in Phrygia on lone (Eustath. ad Iliad, xii. 97).
the hanks of the Sangarius (Iliad, The extraordinary fertility and
xvi. 717). rich black mould of the plain
3 See Hellanik. Eragm. 129, 130, around Ilium is noticed by modern
ed. Didot; and Kephalfln Gergi- travellers (see Franklin, Remarks
thius ap. Steph. Byz. v. ' Apiafiri. and Observations on the Plain of
' Skepsis received some colonists Troy, London, 1800, p. 44) : it is
from the Ionic Miletus (Anaxime- also easily worked: "a couple of
n§s apud Strabo, xiv. p. 636) ; but buffaloes or oxen were sufficient
the coins of the place prove that to draw the plough, whereas near
its dialect was .ZEolic. See Klau- Constantinople it takes twelve or
sen, JEneas und die Penaten, torn, fourteen."
i. note 180.

CnAr. XV. HOMERIC AND HISTORICAL TROAD.

327

either Ionic or iEolic. A century earlier, the Teukrian
population would have embraced a wider range — perhaps
Skepsis and Kebren, the latter of which places was colonised
by Greeks from Kyme:1 a century afterwards, during the
satrapy of Pharnabazus, it appears that Gergis had become
Hellenised as well as the rest. The four towns, Ilium,
Gergis, Kebren and Skepsis, all in lofty and strong positions,
were distinguished each by a solemn worship and temple
of Athene, and by the recognition of that goddess as their
special patroness.2
The author of the Iliad conceived the whole of this
region as occupied by people not Greek, — Trojans, Dar-
danians, Lykians, Lelegians, Pelasgians, and Kilikians. He
recognises a temple and worship of Athene in Ilium, though
the goddess is bitterly hostile to the Trojans: and Arktinus
described the Palladium as the capital protection of the
city. But perhaps the most remarkable feature of identity
between the Homeric and the historical ^Eolis, is the solemn
and diffused worship of the Sminthian Apollo.
Chryse, Killa and Tenedos, and more than one and long
place called Sminthium, maintain the surname prevalence
and invoke the protection of that god during worship o°
later times, just as they are emphaticallv des- £-p?110.
cribed to do by Homer.3 Smmthms.

1 Ephorus ap. Harpocrat. v. Ke-
2 Xenoph. Hellen. i. 1, 10 ; iii.
1, 10-15.
One of the great motives of Dio
in setting aside the Homeric nar
rative of the Trojan war, is to
vindicate Ath§ne from the charge
of having unjustly destroyed her
own city of Ilium (Orat. xi. p. 310 :
jj.aXi.aTa Bia ttjj 'AB7]vav Zizme, u.7]
8oxfl oSixuj? SiafpOsTpai crjv eauT7Js
TtdXiv). 3 Strabo, x. p. 473, xiii. p. 604—
605. Polemon. Fragm. 31, p. 63,
ed. Preller.
Polemon was a native of Ilium,
and had written a periegesis of
the place (about 200 B.C., therefore
earlier than Dgmetrius of Skepsis):
he may have witnessed the im
provement in its condition effected

by the Eomans. He noticed the-
identical stone upon which Pala
medes had taught the Greeks to
play at dice.
The Sminthian Apollo appears
inscribed on the coins ofAlexan-
dreiaTrfias'; and the temple of the
god was memorable even down
to the time of the emperor Julian
(Ammian. Mareellin. xxii. 8). Com
pare Menander (the Ehetor) xspl
'EtuSeixtixujv, iv. 14; apud Walz.
Collect. Ehetor. t. ix. p. 304; also
TUEpi 2fuv6iaxd>v, iv. 17.
2a-iv9ot;, both in the Kretan' and
the ^Jolic dialect, meant a field-
mouse: the region seems to have
been greatly plagued by these
little animals.
Polemon could not have accepted
the theory of Demetrius, that Ilium
was not the genuine Troy: his

328 HISTORY OP GREECE. Pakt I.
When it is said that the Post-Homeric Greeks gradu
ally Hellenised this entire region, we are not to understand
that the whole previous population either retired or was
destroyed. The Greeks settled in the leading and con
siderable towns, which enabled them both to protect one
another and to gratify their predominant tastes. Partly
by force — but greatly also by that superior activity, and
power of assimilating foreign ways of thought to their own,
which distinguished them from the beginning — they in
vested all the public features and management of the town
with an Hellenic air, distributed all about it their gods,
their heroes and their legends, and rendered their language
the medium of public administration, religious songs and
addresses to the gods, and generally for communications
wherein any number of persons were concerned. But two
remarks are here to be made: first, in doing this they could
not avoid taking to themselves more or less of that which
belonged to the parties with whom they fraternised, so that
the result was not pure Hellenism; next, that even this was
done only in the towns, without being fully extended to the
territorial domain around; or to those smaller townships
which stood to the town in a dependent relation. The
jEolic and Ionic Greeks borrowed, from the Asiatics whom
they had Hellenised, musical instruments and new laws of
rhythm and melody, which they knew how to turn to
account: they further adopted more or less of those violent
and maddening religious rites, manifested occasionally in
self-inflicted suffering and mutilation, which were indigenous
Asiatic cus- ^n Asia Minor in the worship of the Great
toms and Mother. The religion of the Greeks in the region
bie'nded- °^ ^a aa we^ as a^ Kyzikus was more orgiastic
with than the native worship of Greece Proper, just
Hellenic. ag y^t 0f Lampsacus, Priapus, and Parium was
more licentious. Prom the Teukrian region of Gergis, and
from the Gergithes near Kyme, sprang the original Sibyl
line prophecies, and the legendary Sibyll who plays so
important a part in the tale of -<Eneas. The mythe of the
Sibyll, whose prophecies are supposed to be heard in the
"hollow blast bursting out from obscure caverns and aper
tures in the rocks, \ was indigenous among the Gergithian
Periegesis, describing the localities l Virgil, iEneid, vi. 42: —
and relics of Ilium, implied the Excisum Euboica} latus ingena
legitimacy of the place as a mat- rupis in antrum,
ter of course.

Chap. XV. SETTLEMENTS FROM MILETUS. 329
Teukrians, and passed from the Kymseans in ^Eolis, along
with theother circumstances of thetaleof JEneas, sibylline
to their brethren the inhabitants of Cumse in prophecies.
Italy. The date of the Gergithian Sibyll, or rather of
the circulation of her supposed prophecies, is placed during
the reign of Croesus, a period when Gergis was thoroughly
Teukrian. Her prophecies, though embodied in Greek
verses, had their root in a Teukrian soil and feelings; and
the promises of future empire which they so liberally make
to the fugitive hero escaping from the flames of Troy into
Italy, become interesting from the remarkable way in which
they were realised by Rome. i
At what time Ilium and Dardanus became -Slolised we
have no information. We find the Mitylenaeans in posses
sion of Sigeium in the time of the poet Alkseus, about
600 bc. ; and the Athenians, during the reign of Peisistratus,
having wrested it from them and trying to main- Settlements
tain their possession, vindicate the proceeding ^om ™:
by saying that they had as much right to it as ien§^ anV"
the Mitylenaeans, "for the latter had no more Athens.
claim to it than any of the other Greeks who had aided
Menelaus in avenging the abduction of Helen." 2 This is
a very remarkable incident, as attesting the celebrity of
the legend of Troy, and the value of a mythical title in
Quo lati ducunt aditus centum, u.e-iov T7]<; 'IXidSo;; ywprfi, r) 06 xai
ostia centum: atpi xo:l Toiat aXXomi, oaot 'EXX7|va>v
TJnde ruunt totidem voces, re- Qutz^zr.pr^atro NUviXstp tok; 'EXsvtjs
sponsa Sibylla?. apnaia.tr,. In JEschylus (Eumenid.
1 Pausanias, x. 12, 8 ; Lactantius, 402) the goddess Athene" claims the
i. 6, 12; Steph. Byz. ?. Mcpu-rjaaos ; land about the Skamander, as
Schol. Plat. Phsedr. p. 315, Bekker. having heen presented to the sons
The date of this Gergithian Si- of Theseus by the general vote of
byll, or of the prophecies passing the Grecian chiefs:—
under her name, is stated by H3- ' Aizb 2xctu.ayopou fr]t xgcTacpQa-uou-
rakleidSs of Pontus, and there u-itri,
seems no reason for calling it in "Hv 5^ r' 'Ayraiiin axropit; re xai
question. itpbu.oi
¦"Klausen (-ffineas und die Pena.- Td>v atYjinXuiTCDv ypriu.aru>t Xaypt;
ten, hook ii. p. 205) has worked u-zra,
out copiously the circulation and *Ktziu.at aUTOTrpsu-vov el.; to rcav
legendary import of the Sibylline iu.oi,
prophecies. 'Eijcups-iOv 8u>py)u.ot B^asu)? toxoh.
2 Herodot. v. 94. Slysiov .... to In the days of Peisistratus, it
eTXs ilcicjioTpaTos <*iyu-ll itapa Mito- seems, Athens was not bold enough
).T]vata)v .... 'AQtjmocToi, aitohzixtbt- or powerful enough to advance
tk Xoytp o6Bsv u.aXXot AtoXeuat this vast pretension.

330 niSTORT OP GREECE. Pam I.
international disputes — yet seemingly implying that the
establishment of the Mityleneeans on that spot must have
been sufficiently recent. The country near the junction of
the Hellespont and the Propontis is represented as origi
nally held * by Eebrykian Thracians, while Abydus was first
occupied by Milesian colonists in the reign and by the per
mission of the Lydian king Gyges 2 — to whom the whole
Troad and the neighbouring territory belonged, and upon
whom therefore the Teukrians of Ida must have been
dependent. This must have been about 700 B.C., a period
considerably earlier than the Mitylensean occupation of
Sigeium. Lampsacus and Passus, on the neighbouring
shores of the Propontis, were also Milesian colonies, though
we do not know their date: Parium was jointly settled from
Miletus, Erythrae and Parus.
1 Chardn of Lampsacus ap. Schol. an extent of Lydian rule at that
Apollon. Rhod. ii. 2; Bernhardy time seems not easy to reconcile
ad Dionys. PeriegSt. 805, p. 747. with the proceedings of the sub-
2 Such at least is the statement sequent Lydian kings.
of Strabo (xii. p. 590) ; though such

Chap. XVI. REMARKS ON MYTHICAL NARRATIVE. 331

CHAPTER XVI.
GRECIAN MYTHES, AS UNDERSTOOD, PELT AND
INTERPRETED BY THE GREEKS THEMSELVES.
The preceding sections have been intended to exhibit a
sketch of that narrative matter, so abundant, so charac
teristic, and so interesting, out of which early Grecian
history and chronology have been extracted. Raised ori
ginally by hands unseen and from data unassignable, it
existed first in the shape of floating talk among the people,
from whence a large portion of it passed into the song of
the poets, who multiplied, transformed and adorned it in a
thousand various ways.
These mythes or current stories, the spontaneous and
earliest growth of the Grecian mind, constituted Tke mythes
at the same time the entire intellectual stock of formed the
the age to which they belonged. They are the tai^stock^of
common root of all those different ramifications the early
into which the mental activity of the Greeks Greeks-
subsequently diverged; containing, as it were, the preface
and germ of the positive history and philosophy, the dog
matic theology and the professed romance, which we shall
hereafter trace each in its separate development. They
furnished aliment to the curiosity, and solution to the
vague doubts and aspirations of the age ; they explained the
origin of those customs and standing peculiarities with
which men were familiar; they impressed moral lessons,
awakened patriotic sympathies, and exhibited in detail the
shadowy, but anxious, presentiments of the vulgar as to
the agency of the gods: moreover they satisfied that craving
for adventure and appetite for the marvellous, which has
in modern times become the province of fiction proper.
It is difficult, we may say impossible, for a man of
mature age to carry back his mind to his conceptions such
as they stood when he was a child, growing naturally out
of his imagination and feelings, working upon a scanty

332 HISTORY 03T GREECE. ' Paut I.
stock of materials, and borrowing from authorities whom
he blindly followed but imperfectly apprehended. A similar
difficulty occurs when we attempt to place ourselves in the
historical and quasi-philosophical point of view which the
ancient mythes present to us. We can follow perfectly the
imagination and feeling which dictated these tales, and we
can admire and sympathise with them as animated, sublime,
and affecting poetry; but we are too much accustomed to
matter of fact and philosophy of a positive kind to be able
to conceive a time when these beautiful fancies were con
strued literally and accepted as serious reality.
Nevertheless it is obvious that Grecian mythes cannot
„, f be either understood or appreciated except with
mind out reference to the system of conceptions and belief
of which 0f tne ages in which they arose. We must sup
pose a public not reading and writing, but seeing,
hearing and telling — destitute of all records, and careless
as well as ignorant of positive history with its indispensable
tests, yet at the same time curious and full of eagerness for
new or impressive incidents — strangers even to the rudi
ments of positive philosophy and to the idea of invariable
sequences of nature either in the physical or moral world,
yet requiring some connecting theory to interpret and
regularise the phsenomena before them. Such a theory
was supplied by the spontaneous inspirations of an early
fancy, which supposed the habitual agency of beings intel
ligent and voluntary like themselves, but superior in extent
_ . of power, and different in peculiarity of attri-
to universal butes. In the geographical ideas of the Homeric
personifica- period, the earth was flat and round, with the
deep and gentle ocean-stream flowing around and
returning into itself: chronology, or means of measuring
past time, there existed none. Nevertheless, unobserved
regions might be described, the forgotten past unfolded,
and the unknown future predicted — through particular
men specially inspired by the gods, or endowed by them
with that peculiar vision wjiich detected and interpreted
passing signs and omens.
If even the rudiments of scientific geography and
physics, now so universally diffused and so invaluable as
a security against error and delusion, were wanting in this
' early stage of society, their place was abundantly supplied
by vivacity of imagination and by personifying sympathy.

Chap. XVI. REMARKS ON MYTHICAL NARRATIVES.

333

The unbounded tendency of the Homeric Greeks to mul
tiply fictitiouspersons, and to construe interesting Ab86noe of
or formidable phenomena into manifestations positive
of design, is above all things here to be noticed, knowledge
because the form of personal narrative, univer- by per-
sal in their mythes, is one of its many conse- sonifying
quences. Their polytheism (comprising some
elements of an original fetichism, in which particular objects
had themselves been supposed to be endued with life,
volition, and design) recognised agencies of unseen beings
identified and confounded with the different locahties and
departments of the physical world. Of such beings there
were numerous varieties, and many gradations both in
power and attributes; there were differences of age, sex,
and local residence, relations both conjugal and filial be
tween them, and tendencies sympathetic as well as repugnant.
The gods formed a sort of political community of their
own, which had its hierarchy, its distribution of ranks and
duties, its contentions for power and occasional revolutions,
its public meetings in the agora of Olympus, and its mul
titudinous banquets or festivals. * The great Olympic gods
were in fact only the most exalted amongst an aggregate
of quasi-human or ultra-human personages, — daemons,
heroes, nymphs, eponymous (or name giving) genii, iden
tified with each river, mountain,2 cape, town, village, or

1 Homer, Iliad, i. 603 ; xx. 7.
Hesiod. Theogon. 802."
2 "We read in the Iliad that
Asteropasus was grandson of the
beautiful river Axius, and Achil
les, after having slain him, admits
the dignity of this parentage, but
boasts that his own descent from
Zeus was much greater, since even
the great river Achelfius and
Oceanus himself is inferior to
Zeus (xxi. 157 — 191). Skamander
fights with Achilles, calling his
brother Simoiis to his aid (213-308).
Tyr6, the daughter of Salmoneus,
falls in love with Enipeus, the
most beautiful of rivers (Odyss.
xi. 237). Acheldus appears as
a suitor of Deianira (Sophokl.
Trach. 9).
There cannot be a better illu

stration of this feeling than what
is told of the New Zealanders at
the present time. The chief Heu-
Heu appeals to his ancestor, the
great mountain Tonga Riro : "I
am the Heu-Heu, and rule over
you all, just as my ancestor, Tonga
Riro, the mountain of snow, stands
above all this land." (E. J. Wake
field, Adventures in New Zealand,
vol. i. ch. 17, p. 465.) Heu-Heu
refused permission to any one to
ascend the mountain, on the
ground that it was his tipuna, or
ancestor : t!he constantly identified
himself with the mountain and
called it his sacred ancestor" (vol.
ii. c. 4, p. 113). The mountains in
New Zealand are accounted by the
natives masculine and feminine :
Tonga Riro, and Taranaki, two

334

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Pabt I.

known circumscription of territory, — besides horses, bulls,
and dogs, of immortal breed and peculiar attributes, and
Multitude monsters of strange lineaments and combinations,
and variety "Q-orgons and Harpies and Chimseras dire." As
human per- there were in every gens or family special gentile
sonages. deities and foregone ancestors who watched over
its members, forming in each the characteristic symbol and
recognised guarantee of their union, so there seem to have

male mountains, quarrelled about
the affections of a Bmall volcanic
female mountain in the neighbour
hood (ibid. ii. c 4, p. 97).
The religious imagination of the
Hindoos also (as described by
Colonel Sleeman in his excellent
work, Rambles and Recollections
"of an Indian Official), affords a
remarkable parallel to that of the
early Greeks. Colonel Sleeman
says,— "I asked some of the Hindoos
about us why they called the river
Mother Nerbudda, if she was really
never married. Her majesty (said
they with great respect) would
really never consent to be married
after the indignity she suffered
from her affianced bridegroom the
Sohun : and we call her mother
because she blesses us all, and we
are anxious to accost her by the
name which we consider to be the
most respectful and endearing.
"Any Englishman can easily con
ceive a poet in his highest calen
ture of the brain, addressing the
Ocean as a steed that knows his
rider, and patting the crested bil
low as his flowing mane. But
he must come to India to under
stand how every individual of a
whole community of many millions
can address a fine river as aliving
being - a sovereign princess who
hears and ttnderstands all they say,
and exercises a Icind of local superin
tendence over their affairs, with
out a single temple in which her
image is worshipped, or a single

priest to pro„flt by the delusion.
As in the case of the Ganges, it
is the river itself to whom they ad
dress themselves, and not to any
deity residing in it, presiding over
it— the . stream itself is the deity
which fills their imaginations, and
receives their homage." (Rambles
and Recollections of an Indian
Official, ch. iii. p. 20.) Compare
also; the remarks in the same work
on the sanctity of Mother Nerbudda
(chapter xxvii. p. 261) ; also of
the holy personality of the earth.
—"The land is considered as the
mothbb of the prince or chief
who holds it, the great parent
from whom he derives all that
maintains him, his family, and
his etablishments. If well-treated,
she yields this in abundance to
her son ; but if he presumes to
look upon her with the eye of
desire, she ceases to be fruitful;
or the Deity sends down hail or
blight1 to destroy all that she
yields. The measuring the surface
of the fields, and the frequently
inspecting the crops by the chief
himself or his immediate agents,
were considered by people in this
light— either it should not be done
at all or the duty should be dele
gated to inferior agents, whose
close inspection of the great parent
could not be so displeasing to the
Deity" (ch. xxii. p. 248).
See also about the Gods who
are believed to reside in trees —
the Peepul-tree, the cotton-tree,
&c. (ch. ix. p. 112), and the descrip-

Chap. XVI. PERSONIFYING IMAGINATION. 335
been in each guild or trade peculiar beings whose vocation
it was to co-operate or to impede in various stages of the
business. *
The extensive and multiform personifications, here
faintly sketched, pervaded in every direction the mental
system of the Greeks, and were.identified intimately both
with their conception and with their description of pheno
mena, present as well as past. That which to us is inter
esting as the mere creation of an exuberant fancy, was to
the Greek genuine and venerated reality. The earth and
the sohd heaven (Geea and TJranos) were both conceived and
spoken of by him as endowed with appetite, feeling, sex,
and most of the various attributes, of humanity. Instead
of a sun such as we now see, subject to astronomical laws,
and forming the centre of a system the changes of which
we can ascertain and foreknow, he saw the great god Helios,
mounting his chariot in the morning in the east, reaching
at midday the height of the sohd heaven, and arriving in
the evening at the western horizon, with horses fatigued
and desirous of repose. Helios, having favourite spots
wherein his beautiful cattle grazed, took pleasure in con
templating them during the course of his journey, and was
sorely displeased if any man slew or injured them: he had
moreover sons and daughters on earth, and as his all-seeing
eye penetrated everywhere, he was sometimes in a situation
to reveal secrets even to the gods themselves — while on
other occasions he was constrained to turn aside in order
tion of the annual marriage cele- tHm 8' ex' avat8s&7]v Tpscp0EVTSs
brated between the sacred pebble, <^su8fj SpTrjaQs,
or pebble-god, Saligram, and the SoYxaXeoj Stj 'jisitcc xau.iv<p SijXr)-
sacred shrub Toolsea, celebrated TTJpat;'
at great expense and with a nu- SovxpiP' Sums, ^{laparot rz, xal
merous procession (chap. xix. p. "Anfterov, i]8s SaPaxr/jv,
158; xxiii. p. 185).. 'Qu.6hau.6t 6', "ot, T^8s rzytTj xaxk
1 See the song to the potters, in icoXXa itopV,zt, &c.
the Homeric Epigrams (1*);— A certain kindred between men
Ei o-sv hwazxz juaOov, aziow, uj and serpents (ffoyYsvsiav tiva izpbti
xzpau.r)zt!' robs ocpsiO was recognised in. the
Asop' ay' 'AQtjvccivj, xai 67:etpe^e peculiar gens of the btpiofztzTs near
yzlpa xau.itou. Parlon, who possessed the gift of
Eu hi u.eXatQzizt xotuXoi, xai healing by their touches the bite
navra xavacrrpa of the serpent : the original hero
<!>poyfir]tai ts xaXlo?, xal tiu.?j<; of this gens was said to have been
ujvov apsaGai. transformed from a serpent into &
. • • • man (Strabo, xiii. p. 688).

33G

HISTORY OP GREECE.

Paet I.

to avoid contemplating scenes of abomination. * To us
these now appear puerile, though pleasing fancies, but to
an Homeric Greek they seemed perfectly natural and
plausible. In his view, the description of the sun, as given
in a modern astronomical treatise, would have appeared
"What we not merely absurd, but repulsive and impious.
Even in later times, when the positive spirit of
inquiry had made considerable progress, Anaxa-
goras and other astronomers incurred the charge
of blasphemy for dispersonifying Helios, and
trying to assign invariable laws to the solar

read as
poeticalfancies,were to the
Greeks
serious
realities.

1 Odyss. ii. 388 ; viii. 270 ; xii. 4,
128, 416; xxiii. 362. Iliad, xiv. 344.
The Homeric Hymn to Demeter
expresses it neatly (63)—
'HsXlov 6' ixovto, 9ed)v oxqtcov rfik
xal avSpcbv.
Also the remarkable story of
Euenius of Apolldnia, his neglect
of the sacred cattle of Helios, and
the awful consequences of it
(Herodot. ix. 93: compare Theocr.
Idyll, xxv. 130).
I know no passage in which this
conception of the heavenly bodies
as Persons is more strikingly set
forth than in the words of the
German chief Boioclus, pleading
the cause of himself and his tribe
the Ansibarii before the Roman
legate Avitus. This tribe, expelled
by other tribes from its native
possessions, had sat down upon
some of that wide extent of lands
on the Lower Rhine which the
Roman government reserved for
the use of its soldiers, but which
remained desert, because the sol
diers had neither the means nor
the inclination to occupy them.
The old chief, pleading his cause
before Avitus, who had issued an
order to him to evacuate the lands,
first dwelt upon his fidelity of
fifty years to the Roman cause,
and next touched upon the enor
mity of retaining so large an area
in a state of waste (Tacit. Ann.

xiii. 55) : "Quotam partem campi
jacere, in quam pecoraet armenta
militum aliquando transmitteren-
tur? Servarent sane receptos gre-
gibus, interhominum famam ; modo
ne vastitatem et solitudinem mal-
lent, quam amicos populos. Cha-
mavorum quondam ea arva, mox
Tubantum, et post Usipiorum
fuisse. Sicuti ccelum Diis, ita terras
generi mortalium datas : quaeque
vacuas, eas publicas esse. Solem
deinde respiciens, et ccetera sidera
vocans, quasi coram interrogabat —
vellentne contueri inane solum ?
potius mare super f under ent ad-
versus terrarum ereptores. Com-
motus his Avitus," &c. The legate
refused the request, but privately
offered to Boiocalus lands for
himself apart from the tribe, which
that chief indignantly spurned.
He tried to maintain himself in
the lands, but was expelled by the
Roman arms, and forced to seek
a home among the other German
tribes, all of whom refused it.
After much wandering and pri
vation, the whole tribe of the An
sibarii was annihilated : its war
riors were all slain, its women
and children sold as slaves.
I notice this afflicting sequel,
in order to show that the brave
old chief was pleading before
Avitus a matter of life and death
both to himself and his tribe, and

KJhap. XVI.

GMA, URANOS, HELIOS, ETC.

337

phsenomena. * Personifying fiction was in this way blended
by the Homeric Greeks with their conception of the phy
sical phenomena before them, not simply in the way of
poetical ornament, but as a genuine portion of their every
day belief. The gods and heroes of the land and the tribe belonged,
in the conception of a Greek, alike to the present and to
the past: he worshipped in their groves and at their festi
vals; he invoked their protection, and believed in their
superintending guardianship, even in his own day: but
their more special, intimate, and sympathising, agency was

that the occasion was one least
of all suited for a mere rhetorical
prosopopoeia. His appeal is one
sincere and heartfelt to the per
sonal feelings and sympathies of
Helios. Tacitus, in reporting the speech,
accompanies it with the gloss
¦"quasi coram," to mark that the
speaker here passes into a different
order of ideas from that to which
himself or his readers were ac
customed. If Boiocalus could
have heard, and reported to his
tribe, an astronomical lecture, he
would have introduced some ex
planation, in OTder to facilitate
to his tribe the comprehension of
HSlios under a point of view so
new to them. While Tacitus finds
it necessary to illustrate by a
comment the personification of the
sun, Boiocalus would have had
some trouble to make his tribe
comprehend the reification of the
god Helios.
1 Physical astronomy was both
¦new and accounted impious in the
time of the Peloponnesian war:
see Plutarch, in his reference to
that eclipse which proved so fatal'
to the Athenian army at Syracuse,
in consequence of the religious
feelings of Nikias : 06 YGpTjVEiyovTo
tou<; cpuoixobs xal u.eT£CjpoXeaya<;
tote xaXou|JL£Vou<;, u)<; el? alxicti; «X6-
you- xai Suvau-sn; ct7tpovo7]TOU<; xal
VOL. I.

xatTjvayxaaaiva tu&St] SioTplpovTa? to
GeTov (Plutarch, Nikias, c. 23, and
Perikles, c. 32; DiodOr. xii. 39;
D&mStr, Phaler. ap. Diogen. Laert.
ix. 9, 1).
"Ton strange man, Meletus,"
said Sokiatls, on his trial, to his
accuser, "are you seriously affirm
ing that I do not think H§lios
and Selene to be gods, as the rest
of mankind think?" "Certainly
not, men of the Dikastery; (this
is the reply of Meletus), Sokrat&s
says that the sun is a stone, and
the moon earth." "Why, my dear
MelStus, you think you are pre
ferring an accusation against
Anaxagoras I You account these
Dikasts so contemptibly ignorant
as not to know that the hooks of
Anaxagoras are full of Buch
doctrines I Is it from me that the
youth acquire such teaching, when
they may buy the books for a
drachma in the theatre, and may
thus laugh me to scorn if I pre
tended to announce such views as
my own— not to mention that they
are in themselves so extravagant?"
— (aXXto? te xal outoj? otTOTia ov-ra,
Plato, Apolog. Socrat. c. 14, p. 26.)
The divinity of Helios and Se
lene is emphatically set forth by
Plato, Legg. x. p. 886, 889. He
permits physical astronomy only
under great restrictions and to a
limited extent. Compare Xenoph.
2

338

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Part T.

cast back into the unrecorded past.i To give suitable
utterance to this general sentiment — to furnish body and
The eods movement and detail to these divine and heroic
and heroes pre-exist en ces, which were conceived only in
~*^ir shadowy outline, — to lighten up the dreams of
agence cast what the past must have been,2 in the minds of
theVta* d ^ose who knew not what it really had been —
embodied11 such was the spontaneous aim and inspiration of
in the productive genius in the community, and such
were the purposes which the Grecian mythes
pre-eminently accomplished.
The love of antiquities, which Tacitus notices as so
prevalent among the Greeks of his day, 3 was one of the
earliest, the most durable, and the most widely diffused of
the national propensities. But the antiquities of every

Memor. iv. 7, 7; Diogen. Laert. ii.
8 ; Plutarch, De Stoicor. Repugnant.
c. 40. p. 1053; and Schaubach ad
Anaxagoras Eragmenta, p. 6.
1 Hesiod, Catalog. Eragm. 76, p.
48, ed. Diintzer: —
Suval Y^-p ToTS'SatTSs Eaav £uyol
te 66coxoi,
' AQavaTOii; te Qsoifft xotTaQv^TOK
t' avOptbrcoK;.
Both the Theogonia and the
Works and Days bear testimony
to the same general feeling. Even
the heroes of Homer suppose a
preceding age, the inmates of
which were in nearer contact with
the gods than they themselves
(Qdyss. viii. 223; Iliad, v. 304; xii.
382). Compare Catullus, Carm. 64;
Epithalam. Peleos et Thetidos, v.
382—408. Menander the Rhetor (following
generally the steps of Dionys. Hal.
Art. Rhetor, cap. 1 — 8) suggests to
his fellow- citizens at Alexandria
Tr6as, proper and complimentary
forms to invite a great man to
visit their festival of the Smin-
thia:— tuoTiEp yap 'AitoXXcova 7roXXa-
xl? eSeyeto t\ teoXk TOlq 2|xiv8ioi^,
¦jjvixa ec;t]v 8eoi)<; 7t po cpa v to ?
£ te 1 5 7) p. e i v tol? dv0pd)Tcot<;,

oStoj xal as r\ x6Xi<; vov itpoohiyz'zv.i
(Ttspl 'EtuSeixtix. s. iv. c. 14, ap.
Walz. Coll. Rhetor, t. ix. p. 304).
Menander seems to have been a
native of Alexandria Trdas, though
Suidas calls him a Laodicean (see
"Walz. "Prrof. ad t. ix. p. xv. — xx. ;
and 7:Epl 2|xiv9iaxu>v, sect. iv. c. 17).
The festival of the Sminthia lasted
down to his time, embracing the
whole duration of paganism from
Homer downwards.
2 P. A. Miiller observes justly
in his Saga-BibliotheTc, in reference
to the Icelandic mythes, "In dem
Mythischen wird das Lehen dpr
Vorzeit dargestellt, wie es wirk-
lich dem kindlichen Verstande,
der jugendlichenEinbildungskraft,
und dem vollenHerzen erscheint."
(Lange's TJntersuchungen iibcr
die Nordische und Deutsche Hel-
densage, translated from P. A.
Miiller, Introd. p. 1.)
3 Titus visited the temple of the
Paphian Venus in Cyprus, "spe-
ctata opulentia doniaque regum>
quffique alia Icetum antiquitatibus
GrEecorum genus incertce vetustati
adfingit, de navigatione primuin
consuluit." (Tacit. Hist, ii.4— 5.)

Chap. XVI. GODS AND MEN IN COMMUNION. 339
state were divine and heroic, reproducing the lineaments,
but disregarding the measure, and limits, of ordinary huma
nity. The gods formed the starting-point, beyond, which
no man thought of looking, though some gods were more
ancient than others: their progeny, the heroes, many of
them sprung from human mothers, constitute an inter
mediate link between god and man. The ancient epic
usually recognises the presence of a multitude of nameless
men, but they are introduced chiefly for the purpose of
filling the scene, and of executing the orders, celebrating
the valour, and bringing out the personality, of a few divine
or heroic characters, i It was the glory of bards and story
tellers to he able to satisfy those religious and patriotic
predispositions of the public which caused the primary
demand for their tales, and which were of a nature emi
nently inviting and expansive. For Grecian rehgion was
many-sided and many-coloured; it comprised a great multi
plicity of persons, together with much diversity Marked and
in the types of character; it divinised every vein ™anlfolfdth
and attribute of humanity, the lofty as well as Homeric
the mean — the tender as well as the warlike — sods-
the self-devoting and adventurous as well as the laughter-
loving and sensual. We shall hereafter reach a time when
philosophers protested against such identification of the
gods with the more vulgar appetites and enjoyments,
believing that nothing except the spiritual attributes of
man could properly be transferred to superhuman beings,
and drawing their predicates respecting the gods exclu
sively from what was awful, majestic, and terror-striking, in
human affairs. Such restrictions on the religious fancy were
continually on the increase, and the mystic and didactic
stamp which marked the last century of paganism in the
days of Julian and Libanius, contrasts forcibly with the
concrete and vivacious forms, full of vigorous impulse and
alive to all the capricious gusts of the human temperament,
which people the Homeric Olympus. 2 At present, however,
1 Aristotel. Problem, xix. 48. 01 ii. 110 j xv. 231), and so Hesiod
8s r^zu-otzt; tu)v dp^aitov u.6voi r]aat treats them (Opp. Di. 158).
r]puiz$- oi hi Xaoi ccv0pu>7coi. Istros In reference to tbe Trojan war,
followed this opinion also : but Aristotle says— xafltxjcep it -rot?
the more common view seems to 'Hpco'ixoT? mpl IIpiau.ou u-oBsuerai.
have considered all who combated (Ethic. Nicom. i. 9 ; compare vii. 1.)
at Troy as heroes (see Schol. Iliad. 2 Generation by a god is
z 2

340

HISTORY OP GREECE.

Paet I.

we have only to consider the early, or Homeric and Hesiodic
paganism, and its operations in the genesis of the mythical
gt. , narratives. We cannot doubt that it supplied
which they the most powerful stimulus, and the only one
afforded to wnicn the times admitted, to the creative faculty
poeic^fa- °" of the people; as well from the sociability, the
cuity. gradations, and the mutual action and reaction

treated in the old poems as an act
entirely human and physical (21x177)
— 7tapEXs£aTo) ; and this was the
common opinion in the days of
Plato (Plato, Apolog. Socrat. c.
15, p. 15) ; the hero Astrabakus is
father of the Lacedaemonian king
Demaratus (Herod, vi. 66). [Hero
dotus does not believe the story
told him at Babylon respecting
Belus (i. 182).] Euripides some
times expresses disapprobation of
the idea (Ion, 350), but Plato pas
sed among a large portion of his
admirers for the actual son of
Apollo, and his reputed father
Aristo on marrying was admon
ished in a dream to respect the
person of his wife Periktiong, then
pregnant by Apollo , until after
the birth of the child Plato (Plu
tarch, Qusest. Sympos. p. 717. viii. 1 ;
Diogen. Laert. iii. 2; Origen, cont.
Cels. i. p. 29). Plutarch (in Life
of Numa, c. 4; compare Life of
ThSseus, 2) discusses the subject,
and is inclined to disallow every
thing beyond mental sympathy
and tenderness in a, god: Pausa
nias deals timidly with it , and is
not always consistent with him
self; while the later rhetors spiri
tualise it altogether. Menander,
7EEprE7n5sixTixu)v (towards the end
of the third century B.C.), pres
cribes rules for praising a king^
you are to praise him for the gens
to which he belongs: perhaps you
may be able to make out that he
really is the son of some god; for
many who seem to be from men,
are really sent down by God and

are emanations from the Supreme
Potency — tcoXXoA to [jlev Soxslv e£
avQpihicuiv siffi, Tfl 6' dX7]9sia Trapa
too 0sou xaTaitsp-TuovTat xai eIoiv
dzoppoiai Svtu)? tou xpeiTTovo?* xal
Yap 'HpaxXTj? £vo|m!Uto H-sv 'Au.cpi-
Tp6a>vo<;, t^ 8e aXTjSsia 7jv Aide. 05tu>
xal PaatlEUr; 6 7jjj.STspo<; to u-ev 80-
xeTv e£ dv9ptb7cu)v , Tfl 8s dX7j9£ta
T7]v xaTapoX^jv oupavoQsv s'vst , &c.
(Menander ap. Walz. collect. Rhe
tor, t. ix. c. i. p. 218). Again—
Ttspl, 2jj,iv0i.axu)v — Zsu<; ysvectlv
7tai6u)v 57](jLtoupYEiv evsvotjce —
' AttqXXcov ttjv ' ActxX^thou ysveoiv
E8r)[i.ioupY7)ae,p. 322—327 ; com
pare Hermogengs, about the story
of Apollo and DaphnS, Progym-
nasm. c. 4 ; and Julian. Orat. vii.
p. 220.
The contrast of the pagan phra
seology of this age (Menander had
himself composed a hymn of in
vocation to Apollo — Tcspl 'Eyxid-
|j.Uijv, c. 3, t. ix. p. 136, Walz.) with
that of Homer is very worthy of
notice. In the Hesiodic Catalogue
of Women much was said respect
ing the marriages and amours of
the gods , so as to furnish many
suggestions , like the love-songs
of Sapphd , to the composers of
Epithalamic Odes (Menand. ib. sect.
iv. c. 6, p. 268).
Menander gives a specimen of a
prose hymn fit to be addressed to
the Sminthian Apollo (p. 320) ; the
spiritual character of which hymn
forms the most pointed contrast
with the Homeric hymn to th0
same god.

Chap. XVI. GRECIAN IMAGINATION AND SENTIMENTS. 341
of its gods and heroes, as from the amplitude, the variety,
and the purely human cast, of its fundamental tyjpes.
Though we may thus explain the mythopoeic fertility
of the Greeks, I am far from pretending that we can render
any sufficient account of the supreme beauty of their chief
epic and artistical productions. There is something in the
first-rate productions of individual genius which lies beyond
the compass of philosophical theory: the special breath of
the Muse (to speak the language of ancient Greece) must
be present in order to give them being. Even among her
votaries, many are called, but few are chosen; and the peculi
arities of those few remain as yet her own secret.
We shall not however forget that Grecian language
was also an indispensable requisite to the growth andbeauty
of Grecian mythes — its richness, its flexibility and capacity
of new combinations, its vocalic abundance and metrical
pronunciation; and many even among its proper names, by
their analogy to words really significant, gave direct occa
sion to explanatory or illustrative stories. Etymological
mythes are found in sensible proportion among the whole
number. To understand properly then the Grecian mythes, we
must try to identify ourselves with the state of mind of
the original mythopoeic age; a process not very easy, since
it requires us to adopt a string of poetical fancies not simply
as realities, but as the governing realities of the mental
system : 1 yet aprocess which would only reproduce something
1 The mental analogy between d'animazione) as the spontaneous
the early stages of human civili- philosophy of man, "to make him-
sation and the childhood of the self the rule of the universe," and
individual is forcibly and fre- to suppose everywhere a quasi-
quently set forth in the works of human agency as the determining
Vico. That eminently original cause. He remarks that in an age
thinker dwells upon the poetic of fancy and feeling , the concep-
and religious susceptibilities as tions and language of poetry co-
the first to develop© themselves incide with those of reality and
in the human mind, and as fur- common life, instead of standing
nishing not merely connecting apart as a separate vein. These
threads for the explanation of sen- views are repeated frequently (and
sible phenomena, but also aliment with some variations of opinion
for the hopes and fears, and means as he grew older) in his Latin
of socialising influence to men of work De TJno Universi Juris Prin-
genius, at a time when reason was cipio , as well as in the two sue-
yet asleep. He points out the cessive redactions of his gr^eat
personifying instinct ("istinto Italian work, Scienza Nuova (ii

342

HISTORY OE GREECE.

Paiit I,

analogous to our own childhood. The age was one destitute
both of recorded history and of positive science, but full of

must be added that Vico as an
expositor is prolix, and does not
do justice to his own powers of
original thought) : I select the
following from the second edition
of the latter treatise, published by
himself in 1744, Delia Metafisica
Poetica (see vol. v. p. 189 of Eer-
rari's edition of his Works, Milan,
1836): "Adunque la sapienza poe
tica, che fu la primasapienza della
Gentilita, dovette incominciarede
una Metafisica, non ragionata ed
astratta, qual e questa or degli
addottrinati, ma sentita ed imma-
ginata, quale dovett' essere di tai
primi uomini, siccome quelli che
erano di niun raziocinio , e tutti
robusti sensi e vigorosissimefan-
tasie, come e stato nelle degnita
(the Axioms) stabilito. Questa fu
la loro propria poesia, la qual in
essi fu una faculta loro conna-
turale, perche erano di tali sensi e
di si fatte fantasie naturalmente f or-
niti, nata da ignoranza di cagioni-
la qual fu loro madredi maraviglia
di tutte le cose, che quelli igno-
ranti di tutte le cose fortemente
ammiravano. Tal poesia incomincid
in essi divina : perche nello stesso
tempo ch' essi immaginavano le
cagioni delle cose, che sentivano
ed ammiravano, essere Lei, come
ora il confermiamo con gli Ame-
ricani, i quali tutte le cose che
superano la loro picciol capacita,
dicono esser Dei .... nello stesso
tempo, diciamo, alle cose ammirate
davano 1' essere di sostanze dalla
propria lor idea: ch' e appunto la
natura deifanciulli, che osserviamo
prendere tra mani cose inanimate,
e trastullarsi e favellarvi, come
fussero quelle persone vive. In
cotal guisa i primi uomini delle
nazioni gentili, come fanciulli del
nascente gener umano , della lor

idea creavan essi le cose .... per
la loro robusta ignoranza, il face
vano in forza d' una corpulentis-
sima fantasia, e perch' era corpo-
lentissima, il facevano con una
maravigliosasublimita, tal etanta,
che perturbava all? eccesso essi
medesimi, che fingendo le si crea-
vano . . . . Di questa natura di cose
umane restd eterna proprieta spie-
gata con nobil espressione da
Tacito, che vanamente gli uomini
spaventati fingunt simul credunt-
que.>> After describing the condition of
rude men, terrified with thunder
and other vast atmospheric phe
nomena, Vico proceeds (ib. p. 172)
— "In tal caso la, natura della
mente umana porta ch5 ella attri-
buisca all' effetto la sua natura :
e la natura loro era in tale stato
d1 uomini tutti robuste forze di
corpo, che urlando, brontolando,
spiegavano le loro violentissime
passioni, si finsero il cielo esser
un gran corpo animato, che per
tal aspetto chiamavano Giove, che
col fischio dei fulmini e col fra-
gore dei tuoni volesse lor dire
qualche cosa ... E si fanno di
tutta la natura un vasto corpo
animato , che senta passioni ed
affetti." Now the contrast with modern
habits of thought: —
"Ma siccome ora per la natura
delle nostre umane menti troppo
ritirata dai sensi nel medesimo
volgo — con le tante astrazioni, di
quante sono piene le lingue —
con tanti vocaboli astratti — e di
troppo assottigliata con V arti
dello scrivere, e quasi spiritualez-
zata con la pratica dei numeri —
oi d naturalmente niegato di poter
formare la vasta imagine di cotal
donna che dicono Natura simpa-

Chap. XVI. GRECIAN IMAGINATION AND SENTIMENT.

343

imagination and sentiment and rehgious impressibility.
From these sources sprung that multitude of supposed
persons around whom all combinations of sensible pheno
mena were grouped, and towards whom curiosity, sympathies
and reverence were earnestly directed. The adventures
of such persons were the only aliment suited at once both
to the appetites and to the comprehension of an early
Greek; and the mythes which detailed them, while power
fully interesting his emotions, furnished to him at the same
time a quasi-history and quasi-philosophy. They filled up
the vacuum of the unrecorded past, and explained many
of the puzzling incognita of the present, i Nor
need we wonder that the same plausibility which
captivated his imagination and his feelings, was
sufficient to engender spontaneous behef; or
rather that no question, as to truth or falsehood
of the narrative, suggested itself to his mind. His faith

Easy faith
in popular
and plau
sible sto-

tetica, che mentre con la bocca
dicono, non hanno nulla in lor
mente , perocche la lor mente e
dentro il falso, che e nulla; ne
sono soccorsi dalla fantasia a po-
terne formare una falsa vastissima
imagine. Cosi ora ci e natural
mente nie gatodi poter entrare nella
vasta immaginativa di quei primi
uomini, le menti dei qualidi nulla
erano assottigliate , di nulla as-
tratte , di nulla spiritualezzate
.... Onde dicemmo sopra che
ora appena intender si pud, affatto
immaginar non si pud, come pen-
sassero i primi uomini che fon-
darono la umanita gentilesca."
1 0. Miiller, in his Prolegomena
su einer wissenschaftlichen Mytho
logie (cap. iv. p. 108), has pointed
out the mistake of supposing that
there existed originally some nu
cleus of pure reality as the start
ing-point of the mythes, and that
upon this nucleus fiction was su
perinduced afterwards : he main
tains that the real and the ideal
were blended together in the pri
mitive conception of the mythes.
Respecting the general state of

mind out of which the mythes
grew, see especially pages 78 and
110 of that work, which is every
where full of instruction on the
subject of the Grecian mythes, and
is eminently suggestive , even
where the positions of the author
are not completely made out.
The short Heldensage der Grie
chen by Nitzsch (Kiel, 1842, t. v.)
contains more of just and original
thought on the subject of the
Grecian mythes than any work
with which I am acquainted. I
embrace completely the subjective
point of view in which he regards
them ; and although I have profi
ted much from reading his short
tract, I may mention that, before
I ever saw it, I had enforced the
same reasonings on tne subject in
an article in the Westminster Re
view, May, 1843, on the Eeroen-
Geschichten of Niebuhr.
Jacob Grimm, in the preface to
his Deutsche Mythologie (p. 1, 1st
edit. Gott. 1835), pointedly insists
on the distinction between "Sage"
and history, as well as upon the
fact that the former has its chief

344

HISTORY OE GREECE.

Part I.

is ready, literal and uninquiring, apart from all thought of
discriminating fact from fiction, or of detecting hidden and
symbolised meaning; it is enough that what he hears be-
intrinsically plausible and seductive, and that there be no
special cause to provoke doubt. And if indeed there were^
the poet overrules such doubts by the holy and all-sufficient
authority of the Muse, whose omniscience is the warrant
for his recital, as her inspiration is the cause of his success.
The state of mind, and the relation of speaker to
hearers, thus depicted, stand clearly marked in the terms
and tenor of the ancient epic, if we only put a plain meaning
upon what we read. The poet — like the prophet, whom
he so much resembles — sings under heavenly guidance,
inspired by the goddess to whom he has prayed
for her assisting impulse. She puts the word
into his mouth and the incidents into his mind:
he is a privileged man, chosen as her organ and
speaking from her revelations.1 As the Muse
grants the gift of song to whom she will, so she

Poets— re
ceive their
matterfrom the divine
inspirationof the
Muse.

root in religious belief. "Legend
and history (he says) are powers
each by itself, adjoining indeed
on the confines , but having each
its own separate and exclusive
ground ;" also p. xxvii. of the same
introduction. A view substantially similar is
adopted by William Grimm , the
other of the two distinguished
brothers whose labours have so
much elucidatedTeutonic philology
and antiquities. He examines the
extent to which either historical
matter of fact or historical names
can be traced in the Deutsche
Seldensage ; and he comes to the
conclusion that the former is next
to nothing , the latter not consi
derable. He draws particular at
tention to the fact that the audi
ence for whom these poems were
intended had not learned to dis
tinguish history from poetry (W.
Grimm, Deutsche Heldensage, pp.
8, 337, 342, 345, 399, Gott. 1829).
1 Hesiod, Theogou. 32.—

.... evETtvsuuav 8e (the Muses)
(jloi auSrjv
0£i7]v, ibs xXsloiu-t tot' eaooii-eva^
xpo t' eovtce,
Kai |xs xsXovQ' fcu-vstv u-ctxaptuv
Yevos atsv EO'JTUJV, &c.
Odyss. xxii. 347; viii. 63, 73, 481,
489. ^ AtjjjuSSox1 . . . . t) as ye Mogar'
iSiSa^s, Atoc icaT?, r) csy " Ait&XXtov:
that is, Demodokus has either been
inspired as a poet by the Muse,
or as a prophet by Apollo : for
the Homeric Apollo is not the
god of song. Kalchas the pro-?
phet receives his inspiration from
Apollo, who confers upon him the
same knowledge both of past
and future as the Muses give to
Hesiod (Iliad, i, 69) : —
KaXva<; 0£axopi.6 '/]<;, oio>vCnt6Xu)v oy'
apitrtos
Oc :q6t] ta x* sivTa, t& t' eaao-
p.£va, 7tp6 x1 eovxa
Hv Side fxavxoaovTjv, xi]v ol nop?
Ootfloc; ' AicoXXaiv.
Also Iliad, ii. 485.
Both the juxvtk; and the dioiSos

Chap. XVI. EARLY GBEEK POETS. 345 :
sometimes in her anger snatches it away, and the most
consummate human genius is then left silent and helpless. '
It is true that these expressions, of the Muse inspiring and
the poet singing a tale of past times, have passed from the
ancient epic to compositions produced under very different
circumstances, ajid have now degenerated into unmeaning
forms of speech; but they gained currency originally in
their genuine and literal acceptation. If poets had from
the beginning written or recited, the predicate of singing
would never have been ascribed to them; nor would it ever
have become customary to employ the name of the Muse
as a die to be stamped on licensed fiction, unless the practice
had begun when her agency was invoked and hailed in
perfect good faith. Behef, the fruit of deliberate inquiry
and a rational scrutiny of evidence, is in such an age un
known. The simple faith of the time slides in unconsciously,
when the imagination and feehng are exalted; and inspired
authority is at once understood, easily admitted, and im
plicitly confided in.
The word mythe (|j.09os, fdbula, story), in its original'
meaning, signified simply a statement or current
narrative, without any connotative implication toward"
either of truth or falsehood. Subsequently the mythe—
meaning of the word (in Latin and English as aiteica.-
well as in Greek) changed, and came to carry
with it the idea of an old personal narrative, always uncerti
fied, sometimes untrue or avowedly fictitious.2 And this
are standing, recognised profes- jauDos — a current tale true or false,
sions (Odyss. xvii. 383), like the as the case might be ; and the term
physician and the carpenter, Sv)- designating a person much con-
fiiOipyoi. versant with the old legends
1 Iliad, ii. 599. (Xoyios) is derived from it (Herod.
2 In this later sense it stands i. 1; ii. 3). Hekataeus and Hero-
pointedly opposed to taxopU, dotus both use Xoyoi; in this sense.
history, which seems originally Herodotus calls both JEsop and
to have designated matter of fact, Hekatasus XoyoTtoioi (ii. 134 — 143).
present and seen by the describer, Aristotle (Metaphys. i. p. 8, ed.
or the result of h;s personal in- Brandis) seems to usen.u8o<; in this
quiries (see Herodot. i. 1; Verrius sense, where he says— hib xaltpiXo-
Elacc. ap. Aul. Gell. v. 18; Eu- u.u8os 6 cptX6jo©6« ittiie; iarvr 6 y«P.
sebius, Hist. Eeoles. iii. 12 ; and jjlOQos auyxEi-cai ix 9aun.aaliov, #c.
the observations of Dr. Jortin, In the same treatise (xi. p. 254),
Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, he uses it to signify fabulous am-
vol. i. p. £9). plification and transformation of
The original use of the word a doctrine true in the main.
X670S was the same as that of

346 HISTOEY OF GEEECE. Paet I.
change was the result of a silent alteration in the mental
state of the society, — of a transition on the part of the
superior minds (and more or less on the part of all) to a
stricter and more elevated canon of credibility, in con
sequence of familiarity with recorded history and its
essential tests, affirmative as well as negative. Among the
original hearers of the mythes, all such tests were unknown:
they had not yet learned the lesson of critical disbelief: the
mythe passed unquestioned from the mere fact of its
currency, and from its harmony with existing sentiments
and preconceptions. The very circumstances which con
tributed to rob it of literal belief in after-time, strengthened
its hold upon the mind of the Homeric man. He looked
for wonders and unusual combinations in the past; he
expected to hear of gods, heroes and men, moving and
operating together upon earth; he pictured to himself the
fore-time as a theatre in which the gods interfered directly,
obviously, and frequently, for the protection of their
favourites and the punishment of their foes. The rational
conception, then only dawning in his mind, of a systematic
course of nature, was absorbed by this fervent and lively
faith. And if he could have been supplied with as perfect
and philosophical a history of his own real past time, as
we are now enabled to furnish with regard, to the last
century of England or Erance, faithfully recording all the
successive events, and accounting for them by known positive
Matter of laws, but introducing no special interventions of
actual Zeus and Apollo — such a history would have
unin'terest- aPPeared to him not merely unholy and unini-
ing to early pressive, but destitute of all plausibility or title
Greeks. £0 cre(Jence- J± would have provoked in him
the same feeling of incredulous aversion as a description
of the sun (to repeat the previous illustration) in a modern
book on scientific astronomy.
To us these mythes are interesting fictions; to the
Homeric and Hesiodic audience they were "rerum divina-
rum et humanarum scientia," — an aggregate of religious,
physical, and historical revelations, rendered more captiva
ting, but not less true and real, by the bright colouring and
fantastic shapes in which they were presented. Throughout
the whole of "mythe-bearing Hellas"1 they formed the
1 M. Ampere, in his Sistoire v. i. p. 310), distinguishes the Saga
titUraire de la France (ch. viii. (which corresponds as nearly as

Chap. XVI. NO OTHBE TiEAKNING EXCEPT THE MYTHES. 347
staple of the uninstructed Greek mind, upon which history
and philosophy were by so slow degrees superinduced; and
they continued to be the aliment of ordinary thought and
conversation, even after history and philosophy had partially
supplanted the mythical faith among the leading men, and
disturbed it more or less in the ideas of all. The men,
the women, and the children of the remote demes and
villages of Greece, to whom Thucydides, Hippokrates,
Aristotle, or Hipparchus were unknown, still continued to
dwell upon the local fables which formed their religious
and patriotic antiquity. And Pausanias, even in his time,
heard everywhere divine or heroic legends yet alive, pre
cisely of the type of the old epic; he found the conceptions
of religious and mythical faith co-existent with those of
positive science, and contending against them at more or
less of odds, according to the temper of the individual.
Now it is the remarkable characteristic of the Mythical
Homeric age, that no such co-existence or con- fa^h .and
tention had yet begun. The religious and mythi- point 0/
cai point of view covers, for the most part, all view—
ji -1 i r j_ x.m xi L- paramount
the phsenomena 01 nature ; while the conception fn the Ho
of invariable sequence exists only in the back- meric age.

possible with the Greek u,u9oc, \q-
foc,) kniy&pios >.6yoO, as a special
product of the intellect, not capable
of being correctly designated either
as history, or as fiction, or as
philosophy :—
"II est un pays, la Scandinavie,
ou la tradition racontee s'est
developpSe plus completement
qu'ailleurs, oil ses produits ont
<He plus soigneusement recueillis
et mieux conserves: dans ce pays,
ils ont recu un nom particulier,
dont l'equivalent exact ne se
trouve pas hors des langues Ger-
maniques : c'est le mot Saga, Sage,
ce quPon dit, ce qu'on raconte, — la
tradition orale. Si l'on prend ce
mot non dans une acception re-
streinte, mais dans le sens general
ou le prenait Niebuhr quand il
l'appliquoit, par exemple, aux
traditions populaires qui ont pu
fournir a Tite Live une portion

de son Mstoire, la Saga doit Stre
comptee parmi les produits spon
tanea de l'imagination humaine.
La Saga a son existence propre
comme la poesie, comme l'histoire,
comme le roman. Elle n'est pas
la poesie, parce qu'elle n'est pas
chantee, maia parl6e ; elle n'est
pas l'histoire, parce ' qix'elle est
denu6e de critique; elle n'est pas
leroman, parce qu'elle est sincere,
parce qu'elle a foi a ce qu'elle
raconte. Elle n'invente pas, mais
repete : elle peut se tromper, mais
elle ne ment jamais. Ce recit
souventmerveilleux, que personne
ne fabrique sciemm£nt, et que
tout le monde altere et falsifie
sans le rouloir, qui se perpetue a
la maniere des chants primitifs et
populaires, — ce rdcit, quand il se
rapporte, non a un heros, mais a
un saint, s'appelle une legende."

348 HISTOET OE GEEECE. Pabi I.
ground, itself personified under the name of the Mcerse, or
Pates, and produced generally as an exception to the omni
potence of Zeus for all ordinary purposes. Voluntary
agents, visible and invisible, impel and govern everything.
Moreover this point of view is universal throughout the
community, — adopted with equal fervour, and carried out
with equal consistency, by the loftiest minds and by the
lowest. The great man of that day is he who, penetrated
like others with the general faith, and never once imagining
any other system of nature than the agency of these
voluntary Beings, can clothe them in suitable circumstances
and details, and exhibit in living body and action those
types which his hearers dimly prefigure.
History, philosophy, &c, properly so called and con
forming to our ideas (of which the subsequent Greeks were
the first creators), never belonged to more than a compara
tively small number of thinking men, though their influence
indirectly affected more or less the whole national mind.
But when positive science and criticism, and the idea of an
invariable sequence of events, came to supplant in the more
Gradual de- vigorous intellects the old mythical creed of ran-
veiopment nipresent personification, an inevitable scission
entific SC1" was produced between the instructed few and the
point of remaining community. The opposition between
opposition ^e scientific and the religious point of view was
to the notslowinmanifestingitself:ingenerallanguage,
religious, indeed, both might seem to stand together, but
in every particular case the admission of one involved, the
rejection of the other. According to the theory which then
became predominant, the course of nature was held to move
invariably on, by powers and attributes of its own, unless
the gods chose to interfere and reverse it ; but they had
the power of interfering as often and to as great an extent
as they thought fit. Here the question was at once opened,
respecting a great variety of particular phsenomena, whe
ther they were to be regarded as natural or miraculous.
No constant or discernible test could be suggested to dis
criminate the two : every man was called upon to settle the
doubt for himself, and each settled it according to the
extent of his knowledge, the force of his logic, the state of
his health, his hopes, his fears, and many other considera
tions affecting his separate conclusion. In a question thus
perpetually arising, and full of practical consequences,

Chap. XVI. EXPANSION OE GBEEK INTELLECT.

349

instructed minds, like Perikles, Thucydides, and Euripides;
tended more and more to the scientific point of view, * in
cases where the general public were constantly gravitating
towards the religious.

1 See Plutarch, Perikl. capp. 5,
32, 38; Cicero, De Bepubl. i. 15-16
ed. Maii.
The phytologist Theophrastus,
in his valuable collection of facts
respecting vegetable organisation,
is often under the necessity of
opposing his scientific interpre
tation of curious incidents in the
vegetable world to the religious
interpretation of them which he
found current. Anomalous phe
nomena in the growth or decay of
trees were construed as signs from
the gods, and submitted to a pro
phet for explanation (see Histor.
Plantar, ii. 3; iv. 16; v. 3),
We may remark, however, that
the old faith had still a certain
hold over his mind. In comment
ing on the story of the willow-
tree at Philippi, and the venerable
old plane-tree at Antandros (more
than sixty feet high, and requir
ing four men to grasp it round in
the girth), having been blown down
by a high wind, and afterwards
spontaneously resuming their erect
posture, he offers some explanation
how such a phsenomenon might
have happened, but he admits, at
the end, that there may be some
thing extra-natural in the case,
*AXXa tocotqc fjLev iaa>s e£u) cpuaix7j<;
ai/iiac ecttiv &c. (De Caus. Plant, v.
4): see a similar miracle inreference
to the cedar- tree ofVespasian(Tacit.
Hist. ii. 78).
Euripidgs, in his lost tragedy
called NUXaviTC!r7] 2o©7j, placed in
the mouth of MelanippS a formal
discussion and confutation of the
whole doctrine of xspaTot, of
supernatural indications (Dionys.
Halicar. Ars Bhetor. p, 300 — 356,
Beisk.). Compare the Eables of

Phsedrus, iii. 3 ; Plutarch, Sept.
Sap. Conviv. ch. 3, p. 149 ; and the
curious philosophical explanation
by which the learned men of
Alexandria tranquillised the alarms
of the vulgar, on occasion of the
serpent said to have been entwined
round the head of the crucified
Kleomenes (Plutarch, Kleomen.
u. 39).
It is one part of the duty of an
able physician, according to the
Hippokratic treatise called Pro-
gnosticon (c. 1, t. 2, p. 112, ed.
Littre), when he visits his patient,
to examine whether there is any
thing divine in the malady, #fj.a
8s xai ei ti Gstov evsuxiv ev TTJai
¦yo6ffoi.cn : this, however, does not
agree with the memorable doctrine
laid down in the treatise, De
Aere, Locis et Aquis (c. 5ft, p. 78.
ed. Littre), and cited hereafter, in
this chapter. Nor does Galen
seem to have regarded it as har
monising with the general views
of Hippocrates. In the excellent
Prolegomena of M. Little to his
edition of Hippokratgs (t. i. p. 76)
will be found an inedited scholium,
wherein the opinion of Baccheius
and other physicians is given, that
the affections of the plague were
to be looked upon as divine, inas
much as the disease came from
God; and also the opinion of
Xenophdn, the friend of Praxa-
goras, that the "genus of days of
crisis" in fever was divine; "Eor
(said Xenoph6n) just as the Dios-
kuri, being gods, appear to the
mariner in the storm and bring
him salvation, so also do the days
of crisis, when they arrive, in fever."
Galen, in commenting upon this
doctrine of XenophSn, says that

350 HISTOET OF GBBECE. Paet I.
The age immediately prior to this unsettled condition
of thought is the really mythopoeic age; in which the creative
faculties of the society know no other employment, and the
Mythopceic mass of the society no other mental demand.
anterior -^e Perfect expression of such a period, in its
to this dis- full peculiarity and grandeur, is to be found in
sent. the Iliad and Odyssey, — poems of which we can
not determine the exact date, but which seem both to have
existed prior to the first Olympiad, 776 b.c, our earliest
trustworthy mark of Grecian time. For some time after
that event, the mythopoaic tendencies continued in vigour
(Arktinus, Lesches, .Eumelus, and seemingly most of the
Hesiodic poems, fall within or shortly after the first cen
tury of recorded Olympiads); but from and after this first
century, we may trace the operation of causes which gradu
ally enfeebled and narrowed them, altering the point of
view from which the mythes were looked at. What these
causes were, it will be necessary briefly to intimate.
The foremost and most general of all is, the expansive
„ . force of Grecian intellect itself, — a quality in
force of which this remarkable people stand distinguished
?re°'an from all their neighbours and contemporaries.
Most, if not all nations have had mythes, but no
nation except the Greeks have imparted to them immortal
charm and universalinterest; and the same mental capacities,
which raised the great., men of the poetic age to this
exalted level, also pushed forward their successors to out-
growthe early faith in which the mythes had been generated
and accredited.
the author "has expressed Ms own to -fill up » gap in his medical
individual feeling, but has no -way science.
set forth the opinion of Hippo- I annex an illustration from the
krates :" *0 Se tu>v xpial(j.u>v fitoz Hindoo vein of thought: — "It is a
T)fjLep(I)v Ei7cuiv eivai BsTov, scuxou ti rule with the Hindoos to hury,
rcaQos wu-oXbyriazr ob jj-tjv l litnoxpa- and not to hurn, the hodies of
rout; ye rfy 7twy.rit e8£t^=v (Galen, those -who die of the small pox :
Opp. t. v. p. 120, ed. Basil). for (say they) the small pox is not
The comparison of the Dioskuri only caused hy the goddess Davey,
appealed to by Xenoph6n is a but is, in fact, Davey herself; and
precise reproduction of their func- to burn the body of a person
tion as described in the Homeric affected with this disease, is, in
Hymn (Hymn xxxiii. 10) : his per- reality, neither more nor less than
sonification of the "days of crisis" to bum the goddess." (Sleeman,
introduces the old religious agency ¦ Rambles and Recollections, &c,
vol. i. ch. xxt. p. 221.)

Chap. XVI. INCREASED ATTENTION TO PRESENT FACTS. 351
One great mark, as well as means, of such intellectual
expansion, was the habit of attending to, recording, and
combining, positive and present facts, both domestic and
foreign. In the genuine Grecian epic, the theme was an
unknown and aoristic past; but even as early as the "Works
and Days of Hesiod, the present begins to figure. The
man who tills the earth appears in his own solitary naked
ness, apart from gods and heroes — bound indeed by serious
obligations to the gods, but contending against many
difficulties which are not to be removed by simple reliance
on their help. The poet denounces his age in the strongest
terms, as miserable, degraded, and profligate. He looks
back with reverential envy to the extinct heroic races who
fought at Troy and Thebes. Yet bad as the present time
is, the Muse condescends to look at it along with him, and
to prescribe rules for human Hfe — with the assurance that
if a man be industrious, frugal, provident, just and friendly
in his dealings, the gods will recompense him with affluence-
and security. Nor does the Muse disdain, while Transition
holding out such promise, to cast herself into towards
the most homely details of present existence, andV/esent
and to give advice thoroughly practical and cai- faot-
culating. Men whose minds were full of. the heroes of
Homer, called Hesiod in contempt the poet of the Helots.
The contrast between the two is certainly a remarkable
proof of the tendency of Greek poetry towards the present
and the positive.
Other manifestations of the same tendency become
visible in the age of Archilochus (b. c. 680-660). In an age
when metrical composition and the living voice are the only
means whereby the productive minds of a community make
themselves felt, the invention of a new metre, new forms
of song and recitation, or diversified accompaniments,
constitute an epoch. The iambic, elegiac, choric, and lyric
poetry, from Archilochus downwards, all indicate purposes
in the poet, and impressibilities of the hearers, very different
from those of the ancient epic. In all of them the personal
feeling of the poet and the specialties of present
time and place, arebrought prominently forward; becomes
while in the Homeric hexameter the poet is a the organ
mere nameless organ of the historical Muse — the time* in.™*
hearers are content to learn, believe, and feel, the atead ot
incidents of a foregone world — and the tale is past'

352 HISTORY OI? GREECE. Jam I.
hardly less suitable to one time and place than to another.
The iambic metre (we are told) was first suggested to
Archilochus bythe bitterness of his own private antipathies;
and the mortal wounds inflicted by his lampoons, upon the
individuals against whom they were directed, still remain
attested, though the verses themselves have perished. It
¦ was the metre (according to the well-known judgement of
Aristotle) most nearly approaching to common speech, and
well-suited both to the coarse vein of sentiment, and to the
smart and emphatic diction of its inventor. * Simonides of
Amorgus, the younger contemporary of Archilochus, em
ployed the same metre, with less bitterness, but with an
anti-heroic tendency not less decided. His remaining
fragments present a mixture of teaching and sarcasm,
having a distinct bearing upon actual life,2 and carrying
out the spirit which partially appears in the Hesiodic
Works and Days. Of Alkaeus and Sappho, though unfor
tunately we are compelled to speak of them upon hearsay
only, we know enough to satisfy us that their own personal
sentiments and sufferings, their relations private or public
with the contemporary world, constituted the soul of those
short effusions which gave them so much celebrity. 3 Again
1 Horat. de Art. Poet. 79 :— Od. i. 32 ; ii. 13. Aristot. Polit. iii.
"Archilochum proprio rabies 10, 4. Dionys. Halic. observes
armavit Iambo," &c. (Vett. Scriptt. Censnr. v. p. 421)
Compare Epist. i. 19, 23, and Epod. respecting Alkseus — itoXXayou youv
vi. 12 ; Aristot. Rhetor, iii. 8, 7, to uiTpov ei! tk TuspisXoi, p7)Topix7)v
and Poetic, u. 4— also Synesius de <xv sQpoi TioXiTEiav ; and Strabo (xiii.
Somniis — waitzp 'AXxaTos xal 'Ap- p. 617), Ta aTaaiumxa xaXoupieva
yiXoyoz, ol 8s5a7tav^xacri rr\t too 'AXxaiou no\7)U.ara.
zbarouXat el<; tov olxsiov piov Exa- There was a large da"sh of sar-
Tepo;. (Alcaei Fragment, Halle, casm and homely banter aimed at
1810, p. 205). Quintilian speaks in neighbours and contemporaries in
. striking language of the power of the poetry of Sapphd, apart from
expression manifested by Archi- herimpassionedlove-songs— aXXox;
lochus (x. 1. 60). oxd)7cxEi tov aypoixGv vufi/piov xal
2 Simonides of Amorgus touches t6v fiupujpov tov ev tois y^M-01^
briefly, but in atone of contempt, EUTsXEciTaTa xal sv 7isColi; btou.aai
upon the Trojan war— yu vat xb <; jjlgcXXov r\ it tioi7]tixoTs. "Qote abrr]t;
ouvex dn.cpi87]piu>|j.S'Jous (Simonid. u.aXX6v egti Ta 7toi^a.aTa TauTa 8ia-
Fragm. 8, p. 36. v. 118); he seems XryeaQai r) aSsiv* 008' av dpa-oaai
to think it absurd that so destruc- npbt; tov yopot r) icpqs ttjv Xupav, eI
tive a struggle should have taken (jlij ti? eitj yjtpot; oiaXExTixoc (De-
place "pro und muliercula," to use metr. Phaler. De Interpret, c. 167).
the phrase of Mr. Payne Knight. Compare also Herodot. ii. 135,
3 See Quintilian, x. 1, 63. Horat. who mentions the satirical talent

Chap. XVI. FORMATION OF AN HISTORICAL SENSE. 353
in the few remains of the elegiac poets preserved to us —
Kallinus, Mimnermus, Tyrtseus — the impulse of iambic,eie-
some present motive or circumstance is no less gia?, and
conspicuous. The same may also be said of yno poe s-
Solon, Theognis and Phokylides, who preach, encourage,
censure, or complain, but do not recount — and in whom a
profound ethical sensibility, unknown to the Homeric poems,
manifests itself. The form of poetry (to use the words of
Solon himself) is made the'substitute for the public speaking
of the agora. *
Doubtless all these poets made abundant use of the
ancient mythes, but it was by turning them to present
account, in the way of illustration, or flattery, or contrast,
— a tendency which we may usually detect even in the
compositions of Pindar, in spite of the lofty and heroic strain
which they breathe throughout. That narrative or legend
ary poetry still continued to be composed during the
seventh and sixth centuries before the Christian sera, is a
fact not to be questioned. But it exhibited the old epical
character without the old epical genius; both the inspira
tion of the composer and the sympathies of the audience
had become more deeply enlisted in the world before them,
and disposed to fasten on incidents of their own actual
experience. Prom Solon and Theognis we pass to the
abandonment of all metrical restrictions and to the intro
duction of prose writing, — a fact, the importance of which
it is needless to dwell upon, — marking as well the increased
familiarity with written records, as the commencement of
a separate branch of literature for the intellect, apart from
the imagination and emotions wherein the old legends had
their exclusive root.
Egypt was first unreservedly opened to the Greeks
during the reign of Psammetichus, about b.c. 660 ; gradually
of Sapphd, employed against her chischen Philosophic, sect. xxiv.
brother for an extravagance about — xxv. Plato states that Solon, in
the courtezan RhodGpis. his old age, engaged in the com-
1 SolOn, Fragm. iv. 1, ed. Schnei- position of an epic poem, which
dowin:— he left unfinished, on the subject
Autos xijpu£ '^X6ov— dtp' iu.zprrjs of the supposed island of Atlantis
SaXajiivoc and Attica (Plato, Tima?us, p. 21,
Koojiov i-iwi cjJStjv dvr dYOp^c and Kritias, p. 113). Plutarch,
Mu.tto<;, &c. Sol6n, c. 31.
See Brandis, Handbuch der Grie-
VOL. I. 2 A

354 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
it became much frequented by them for military or com-
influenceof mercial purposes, or for simple curiosity. It
the opening enlarged the range of their thoughts and obser-'
G-rfcfan" t0 vations, while it also imparted to them that vein
commerce, of mysticism, which overgrew the primitive sim-
b. o. 660. plicity of the Homeric religion, and of which I
have spoken in a former chapter. They found in it a long-
established civilisation, colossal wonders of architecture,
and a certain knowledge of astronomy and geometry,
elementary indeed, but in advance of their own. Moreover
it was a portion of their present world and it contributed
to form in them an interest for noting and describing the
actual realities before them. A sensible progress is made in
the Greek mind during the two centuries from
.rro cress— ¦
historical, b. o. 700 to b. c. 500, in the record and arrange-
geograph- meiit of historical facts : an historical sense arises
—from that in the superior intellects, and some idea of evi-
peri°finoto dence as a discriminating test between fact and
fiction. And this progressive tendency was
further stimulated by increased communication and by more
settled and peaceful social relations between the various
members of the Hellenic world; to which may be added
material improvements, purchased at the expense of a
period of turbulence and revolution, in the internal admi
nistration of each separate state. The Olympic, Pythian,
Nemean, and Isthmian games became frequented by visitors
from the most distant parts of Greece: the great periodical
festival in the island of Delos brought together the citizens
of every Ionic community, with their wives and children,
and an ample display of wealth and ornaments. J Numerous
and flourishing colonies were founded in Sicily, the south
of Italy, the coasts of Epirus, and of the Euxine Sea: the
Phokseans explored the whole of the Adriatic, established
Massalia, and penetrated even as far as the south of Iberia,
with which they carried on a lucrative commerce.2 The
geographical ideas of the Greeks were thus both expanded
and rectified: the first preparation of a map, by Anaximan-
der the disciple of Thales, is an epoch in the history of
science. We may note the ridicule bestowed by Herodotus
both upon the supposed people called Hyperboreans and
upon the idea of a circumfluous ocean-stream, as demon-
1 Homer, Hymn, ad Apollin 1E5; 2 Herodot. i. 163.
Thucyd. iii. 104.

Chap. XVI. FORMATION OF AN HISTORICAL SENSE. 355
strating the progress of the age in this department of
inquiry. * And even earlier than Herodotus — Xanthus and
Xenophanes had noticed the occurrence of fossil marine
productions in the interior of Asia Minor and elsewhere,
which led them to reflections on the changes of the earth's
surface with respect to land and water.2
If then we look down the three centuries and a half
which elapsed between the commencement of Altered
the Olympic sera and the age of Herodotus and standard of
Thucydides, we shall discern a striking advance ^fo6,™""'^
in the Greeks, — ethical, social, and intellectual, intellec-
Positive history and chronology has not only tua1-
been created, but in the case of Thucydides, the qualities
necessary to the historiographer, in their application to
recent events, have been developed with a degree of per
fection never since surpassed. Men's minds have assumed
a gentler as well as a juster cast; and acts come to be
criticised with reference to their bearing on the internal
happiness of a well-regulated community, as well as upon
the standing harmony of fraternal states. While Thucydides
treats the habitual and licensed piracy, so coolly alluded
to in the Homeric poems, as an obsolete enormity — many
of the acts described in the old heroic and Theogonic
legends were found not less repugnant to this improved
tone of feeling. The battles of the gods with the Giants
and Titans,— the castration of Uranus by his son Kronus,
— the cruelty, deceit and licentiousness, often supposed both
in the gods and heroes, provoked strong disapprobation.
And the language of the philosopher Xenophanes, who
composed both elegiac and iambic poems for the express
purpose of denouncing such tales, is as vehement and
1 Herodot. iv. 36. fzXw 8= opstov ttjv oixouuivrjv it rcivaxt Ypd'j'ai.
Trjs itzptohout; YP^r^v^ itoXXobt; Aristagoras of Miletus, who
7J87], xal ouosva voov zyotrat; estjy*/]- visited Sparta to solicit aid for
adu-Evov ol 'Qxsavov te psovTa Ypd- the revolted Ionians against Da-
tpouai T.zpti] T7]v Y^jv, Eouuav -zuxXo- rius, brought with him a brazen
TEpsa ujs a-r.b Tdpvoo, <&c, a remark tablet or map, by means of which
probably directed against Heka- he exhibited the relative position
tanzs. of places in the Persian empire
Respecting the map of Anaxi- (Herodot. v. 49).
mander, Strabo, i. p. 7; Diogen. » Xanthus ap. Strab. i. p. 60;
Laert. ii. 1 ; Agathemer. ap. Geo- xii. p. 579. Compare Creuzer,
graph. Minor, i. 1. itpwrot; st*SX|ji7]os Fragmenta Xanthi, p. 162.
2 a2

356 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
unsparing as that of the Christian writers, who, eight cen
turies afterwards, attacked the whole scheme of paganism, i
It was not merely as an ethical and social critic that
Xenophanes stood distinguished. He was one
,n0entmo?Ce" of a great and eminent triad— Thales and Pytha-
physicai goras being the others — who, in the sixth century
Thaws) Xe- before the Christian sera, first opened up those
nophanes, veins of speculative philosophy which occupied
Pythagoras. afterwar(js s0 large a portion of Grecian intellec
tual energy. Of the material differences between the three I
do not here speak; I regard them only in reference to the
Homeric and Hesiodic philosophy which preceded them,
and from which all three deviated by a step, perhaps the
most remarkable in all the history of philosophy.
They were the first who attempted to disenthral the
philosophic intellect from all-personifying religious faith,
and to constitute a method of interpreting nature
natureScon- distinct from the spontaneous inspirations of
ceived as untaught minds. It is in them that we first find
ofs'tudy! the idea of Person tacitly set aside or limited,
and an impersonal Nature conceived as the ob
ject of study. The divine husband and wife, Oceanus
and Tethys, parents of many gods and of the Oceanic
nymphs, together with the avenging goddess Styx, are
translated into the material substance water, or, as we
ought rather to say, the Fluid: and Thales set himself to
prove that water was the primitive element, out of which
all the different natural substances had been formed. 2 He,
as well as Xenophanes and Pythagoras, started the problem
of physical philosophy, with its objective character and
invariable laws, to be discoverable by a proper and method
ical application of the human intellect. The Greek word
Ouoic, denoting nature, and its derivatives physics and
physiology, unknown in that large sense to Homer or Hesiod,
as well as the word Kosmos to denote the mundane system,
first appears with these philosophers.3 The elemental
1 Xenophan. ap. Sext. Empiric. Homeric expressions and those of
adv. Mathemat. ix. 193. Fragm. 1. the subsequent philosophers is
Poet. Grsec. ed. Schneidewin. Dio- seen. Damm, JJexic. Homeric, v.
gen. Laert. ix. 18. 06mc; Alexander von Humboldt,
2 Aristotel. Metaphys. i. 3. Kosmos, p. 76, the note 9 on page
3 Plutarch, Placit. Philos. ii. 1; 62 of that admirable work.
also Stobseus, Eclog. Physic, i. 22, The title of the treatises of the
where the difference between the early philosophers (Melissus, De-

Chap. XVI. STUDY OF IMPERSONAL NATURE. '357
analysis of Thales — the one unchangeable cosmic substance,
varying only in appearance, but not in reality, as suggested
by Xenophanes, — and the geometrical combinations of
Pythagoras, — all these were different ways of approaching
the explanation of physical phsenomena, and each gave rise
to a distinct school or succession of philosophers. But
they all agreed in departing from the primitive method,
and in recognising determinate properties, a material sub
stratum, and objective truth, in nature — either independent
of willing or designing agents, or serving to these latter at
once as an indispensable subject-matter and as a limiting
condition. Xenophanes disclaimed openly all knowledge
respecting the gods, and pronounced that no man could
have any means of ascertaining when he was right and
when he was wrong, in affirmations respecting them : 1 while
Pythagoras represents in part the scientific tendencies of
his age, in part also the spirit of mysticism and of special
fraternities for rehgious and ascetic observance, which
became diffused throughout Greece in the sixth century
before the Christian sera. This was another point which
placed him in antipathy with the simple, unconscious, and
demonstrative faith of the old poets, as well as with the
current legend.
If these distinguished men, when they ceased to follow
the primitive instinct of tracing the phsenomena of nature
to personal and designing agents, passed over, not at once
to induction and observation, but to a misemployment of
abstract words substituting metaphysical eidola in the
place of polytheism, and to an exaggerated application of
certain narrow physical theories — we must remember that
nothing else could be expected from the scanty stock of
facts then accessible, and that the most profound study of
the human mind points out such transition as an inevitable
law of intellectual progress. 2 At present we have to com-
mokrituSjParmenideSjEmpedokles, El yap xal Ta n-dXio"ua rbyot
Alkmsedn, &c.) was frequently teteXeu/xevov eItcuiv,
IUpl (Docjeuk (Galen, Opp, torn. j. A6t6? o|xio? oux oiBs, 8oxo? 8' iizl
p. 56, ed. Basil). Tcaot TeTUxTai.
1 Xenophon. ap. Sext. Empiric. Compare Aristotel. DeXenophane,
vii. 50; viii. 326.— Zenone, et Gorgia, capp. 1—2.
Kal to nii oov craass 0OT15 dvTjp 2 See the treatise of M. Auguste
Ihz-t, oilre tU eotiv Comte (Cours de Philosophic Posi-
EI80J5 au-'fi 6euiv ts xai aooa tive), and his doctrine of the three
Xeyoj itspl rcdvTUV successive stages of the human mind

358 HISTORY Off GREECE. Pam I.
pare them only with that state of the Greek mind » which
they partially superseded, and with which they were in
decided opposition. The rudiments of physical science
Opposition were conceived and developed among superior
between men; but the religious feeling of the mass was
method*0 averse to them; and the aversion, though gradu-
and the ally mitigated, never wholly died away. Some
feeiingUof or" tne philosophers were not backward in
the muiti- charging others with irreligion, while the multi-
tttd6, tude seems to have felt the same sentiment more
or less towards all — or towards that postulate of constant
sequences, with determinate conditions of occurrence, which
scientific study implies, and which they could not reconcile
with their belief in the agency of the gods, to whom they
were constantly praying for special succour and blessings.
The discrepancy between the scientific and the reli-
K . gious point of view was dealt with differently by
withbydif- different philosophers. Thus Sokrates openly
ferent pM- admitted it, and assigned to each a distinct and
osop ers independent province. He distributed phseno
mena into two classes: one wherein the connexion of ante
cedent and consequent was invariable and ascertainable by
human study, and therefore future results accessible to a
well-instructed foresight; the other, and those, too, the most
comprehensive and important, which the gods had reserved
for themselves and their own unconditional agency, wherein
therewasno invariable orascertainablesequence,
and where the result could only be foreknown
by some omen, prophecy, or other special inspired com
munication from themselves. Each of these classes was
essentially distinct, and required to be looked at and dealt
with in a manner radically incompatible with the other.
Sokrates held it wrong to apply the scientific interpre
tation to the latter, or the theological interpretation
to the former. Physics and astronomy, in his opinion,
in reference to scientific study— Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductivo,
the theological, the metaphysical vol. ii. p. 610.
and the positive ;— a doctrine laid • "Human wisdom (dv6pu)Tclvr|
down generally in his first lecture aotpla), as contrasted with the
(vol. i. p. 4—12), and largely ap- primitive theology (oi dpxatoi xal
plied and illustrated throughout SiarplflovTEi; rcspl xd<; QsoXoYlas)," t0
his instructive work. It is also take the words of Aristotle (Me
re-stated and elucidated by Mr. teorolog. ii. 1. pp. 41-42, ed.
John Stuart Mill in his System of Tauchnitz).

Chap. XVI.

SOKRATES.

359

belonged to the divine class of phsenomena, in which human
research was insane, fruitless, and impious.1
On the other hand, Hippokrates, the contemporary of
Sokrates, denied the discrepancy, and merged Hippo-
into one those two classes of phsenomena, — the Urates.
divine and the scientifically determinable, — which the latter
had put asunder. Hippokrates treated all phsenomena as
at once both divine and scientifically determinable. In
discussing certain peculiar bodily disorders found among
the Scythians, he observes, "The Scythians themselves as
cribe the cause of this to God, and reverence and bow
down to such sufferers, each man fearing that he may suffer
the like: and I myself think too that these affections, as
well as all others, are divine: no one among them is either
more divine or more human than another, but all are on
the same footing, and all divine; nevertheless each of them
has its own physical conditions, and not one occurs without
such physical conditions."2

1 Xenoph. Memor. i. 1, 6—9. Ta
|aev dvayxaia (2ujxpaT7]s) auvsjSouXsue
xal E-patTsiVj uj<; evojjli^ev fipioT' av
7cpay(J7Jvar Ttspl 5s tujv dS'/jXtov 871(05
aTCOpVjCJQiTQ, fJL?.V7£U<J0|JLSVQU5 STS-SftTESV,
sl 7COl7}TEa. Kctl TO'!)? fjLsXXovxa^
olxou? te xai. itoXsi? xaXu)5 olxTjasiv
(j-avc ix7J? £<?¦*] TipoffOEiaQai" textgvixgv
jj-ev Yap v? jraXxsu-txctv 7) Y£0JPYl'X0V
77 dv9puJ7:u)7 apyix.ov, v) tujv toiO'Jtujv
epytov £:z-aj-t7.6v, 7) Xoy^tly-Ov, 7]
oixovofjLixovj y) ffTpat'/jy-ixv/ y^ixQai,
uavt-a Ta TOtauTa, u-aQ^pLa-ta xal
dv9pd)7tou Y'^P-TJ a'p^"Ea, evopuiUv
stvat- to 8s [Aiyta-a tujv ev toutqk
s-f7) too; Osoue eciutok xi-a-
X e 1 7i e U 0 a i, ujv ouSiv B7JX0V elvai
7015 dv8p(bitoi?  Too? 8g
JJL7]5sV TUJV TOLOOTUJV 010U.SV0U5 elvai
8atu.<mov, dXXd rcdvTa T7J5 dvQptorci-
vt]5 Y^f*-7)^) 5cau.ovav e©7]' Saipiovav
8= xal T0'J5 JJ.aVTEUOfJ.SVOU 5 a TQ15
dv9pd)7:oi5 sScoxav ot 0soi p-aOoutji

xpi-

JL97]

a piEv

u.a96vTa<; ttoieTv ISujy.av ot Oioi, jxav-
Odvsiv a 8s u.7] 07JXa T0T5 d^Jpuj-oi;
Sfjxi, 7iiipaCT9=i Sid [/.avxixrji; Ttapd
tujv 8sujv Tc'JvQdvsffOai" to>j? Qsgu?
yap, 0I5 av ujulv iXscjj, a1r3jLta1vs.1v.

Compare also Memorab. iv. 7, 7}
and Cyropffid. i. 6, 3, 23—46.
Physical and astronomical phe
nomena are classified by SokratSs
among the divine class, inderdict-
ed to human study (Memor. i. 1,
13) : Td Beta or 8aip.6vta as opposed
to Tdv8puJ7usia. Plato (Phileb. c. 16;
Legg. x. p. 886—889; xii.. p. 967)
held the sun and stars to be gods,
each animated, with its special
soul : he allowed astronomical
investigation to the extent neces
sary for avoiding blasphemy re
specting these beings — (J-sypt 70 u
fj-7) pXao(p-/]p.sTv Tispi aura (vii. 821).
2 Hippokrat6s, De Aere, Locis
et Aquis, c. 22 (p. 78, edit. LittrS,
sect. 103j ed. Petersen) : "Eti te
•rcpoi; TouTSoiai suvouytai yiy^oyzan. oi
tcXsictoi ev Sxufi^ai, xai yuvaixr/ia
lpY«^ovT«i xal lbs at yuvaixs5 SiaXs-
yovxai ts 6u.oiu>5' xaXsovxai ts oi
TOIOUTQL dvavSpLEL?. Oi U.EV OUV E7TI-
yjbpi'jf. ttjv aiTir].v TCpooTiQiaat 0£ip
xal ffspovxat to'jtsou? too? dvQpib-
teou? xal xpotrxuveooji, 6i5oix6ts5
icspi suj'jtscov exaaioi. 'Ejaoi 8e xai
auTEtp 5oxeei TaOTa xd 7td0sa 0sia

360 HISTOET OF GEEECE. Paet T.
A third distinguished philosopher of the same day,
Anaxa- Anaxagoras, allegorising Zeus and the other
goras. personal gods, proclaimed the doctrine of one
common pervading Mind, as having first originated move
ment in the primaeval Chaos, the heterogeneous constituents
of which were so confused, together that none of them
could manifest themselves, each was neutralised hy the
rest, and all remained in rest and nullity. The movement
originatedhyMinddisengaged them from this imprisonment,
so that each kind of particle was enabled to manifest its
properties with some degree of distinctness. This general
doctrine obtained much admiration from Plato and Aristotle ;
but they at the same time remarked with surprise, that
Anaxagoras never made any use at all of his own general
doctrine for the explanation of the phsenomena of nature,
— that he looked for nothing hut physical causes and con
necting laws, ' — so that in fact the spirit of his particular
researches was not materially different from those of De-
mokritus or Leukippus, whatever might be the difference
in their general theories. His investigations in meteorology
and astronomy, treating the heavenly bodies as subjects
for calculation, have been already noticed as offensive, not
only to the general public of Greece, but even to Sokrates
himself among them. He was tried at Athens, and seems
to have escaped condemnation only by voluntary exile.2
elvai, xai TaXXa ttdvTa, xal obhzt on the method of Hippokrates are
STEpov etspou 9sioTspov O'jSe dv9pu>- also found in Plato, Phasdr. p. 270.
xivtbTSpov, aXXa xnvxa Qsia- sxaaTov 1 See the graphic picture in Plato,
8e zyzt tpbait tujv toio'Jteujv, xai PhKdon. p. 97—89 (cap. 46—47):
ou8ev ctvs'j tpbatoz YiyveTai. Kai compare Plato. Legg. xii. p. 967,-
tooto to 7rdGoc, ux; fj.oi 5oxeei yiy- Aristotel. Metaphysic. i. p. 13 — 14
vegScci, tppaou), &c. (ed. Brandis) ; Plutarch. Defect.
Again, sect. 112. 'AXXaY«Pi uWEp Oracul. p. 435.
xal TrpoTcpov £Xscja, 0£ia u.zt xal Simplicius, Commentar. in Aris-
TauTa EdTi 6p.oluK toTch aXXoitst, totel. Physic, p. 38. xal orcEp Si 6
fiyvETal hi xcnra <p6alv ExacTa. £v fllalStovi 2u)xpaTT)« EyxaXsT Tai
Compare the remarkable treatise 'Ava£aYopa, to ev toek tujv xata
of Hippokrates, De Morbo Sacro, [iip°« aiTioXoYlai? [xtj rip vijj xzypjja-
capp. 1 & 18, vol. vi. p. 352— 304, 8ai, dXXA Tat; bXixals BTtoBoireoiv,
ed. Littre. See this opinion of oIxeTov ^v Tfl (Jjuo-ioXoyI*'. Anax-
Hippokrates illustrated by the agoras thought that the' superior
doctrines of some physical philo- intelligence of man, compared with
sophers^stated^in Aristotle, Physic, other animals, arose from his pos-
ii. 8. uWsp 8ei 6 Zzbc, oby Situj? session of hands (Aristot. de Part.
tov o-Itov ai^oij), aXX' e? itiyxrit, Animal, iv. 10, p. 687, ed. Bekk.).
&e. Some valuable observations * Xenophon, Memorab. iv. 7. So-

Chap. XVI.

GRECIAN RELIGIOUS BELIEF.

361

The three eminent • men just named, all essentially
different from each other, may be taken as illustrations of
the philosophical mind of Greece during the last half of
the fifth century b.c. Scientific pursuits had acquired a
powerful hold, and adjusted themselves in various ways
with the prevalent religious feelings of the age. Both
Hippokrates and Anaxagoras modified their ideas of the
divine agency,so as to suit their thirst for scientific research.
According to the former, the gods were the really efficient
agents in the production of all phsenomena, — the mean and
indifferent not less than the terrific or tutelary. Being
thus alike connected with all phsenomena, they were
specially associated with none — and the proper task of the
inquirer was, to find out those rules and conditions by
which (he assumed) their agency was always determined,
and according to which it, might be foretold. Now such
a view of the divine agency could never be re-
conciledwiththereligiousfeelings of theordinary witll G-re_
Grecian believer, even as they stood in the time cian re-
of Anaxagoras: still less could it have been ^fiief.3
reconciled with those of the Homeric man, more
than three centuries earlier. By him Zeus and Athene
were conceived as definite Persons, objects of special

kratfis said, xal Ttapacppovijaai tov
TauTO fJLEpiU.VU)VTa o68=V 7JTTQV t)
>Ava£aY6pa<; TCap=cpp6v»]a=v, 6 u-syiotov
opovqcra? sVi ti[j to? tujv Qsujv pLT]-
)ravds e$7]Y£ic0at , &c. Compare
Schaubach, Anaxagorse Fragment.
p. 60—141; Plutarch, Nikias , 23,
and Perikl&s, 6—32 ; Diogen. Laert.
ii. 10— H.
The Ionic philosophy, from which
Anaxagoras receded more in lan
guage than in spirit, seems to have
been the least popular of all the
schools , though some of the com
mentators treat it as conformable
to vulgar opinion, because it con
fined itself for the most part to
phenomenal explanations, and did
not recognise the noumenaof Plato,
or the to ev votjtov of ParmenidSs,
— "qualis fuit lonicorum, quce
turn dominabatur, ratio, vulgari
opinione et communi sensu com-

probata" (Karsten, Parmenidis
Fragment., De Parmeaidis Philo
sophic, p. 154). This is a mistake:
the Ionic philosophers, who con
stantly searched for and insisted
upon physical laws, came more
directly into conflict with the sen
timent of the multitude than the
Eleatic school.
The larger atmospheric phseno
mena were connected in the most
intimate manner with Grecian re
ligious feeling and uneasiness (see
Demokritus ap. Sext. Empiric, ix,
sect. 19-24, p. 552—554, Fabric);
the attempts of Anaxagoras and
Demokritus to explain them were
more displeasing to the public
than the Platonic speculations
(Demokritus ap. AriBtot. MeteoroL
ii. 7; Stobseus , Eclog. Physic, p.
594 ; compare Mullach, Democriti
Fragmenta, lib. iv. p. 394).

362 HISTOKT Or GBEBCK Pabt I.
reverence, hopes and fears, and animated with peculiar
feelings, sometimes of favour, sometimes of wrath, towards
himself *r his family or country. They were propitiated
by his prayers, and prevailed upon to. lend him succour in
danger — but offended and disposed to bring evil upon him
if tie omitted to render thanks or sacrifice. This sense of
individual communion with them, and dependence upon
them, was the essence of his faith. "While he prayed with
sincerity for special blessings or protection from the gods,
he could not acquiesce itfthe doctrine of Hippokrates, that
their agency was governed by constant laws and physical
conditions. That radical discord between the mental impulses of
„ science and religion, which manifests itself so
Treatment 1 . . . n . ° ,, , -i,- , -, c
of Sokrates ' decisively during the most cultivated ages oi
by the Greece, and which harassed more or less so many
'of the philosophers, produced its most afflicting
result in the condemnation of Sokrates by the Athenians.
According to the remarkable passage recently cited from
Xenophon, it will appear that Sokrates agreed with his
countrymen in denouncing physical speculations as impious,
• — that he recognised the religious process of discovery as
a peculiar branch, co-ordinate with the scientific, — and that
he laid down a theory, of which the basis was, the confessed
divergence of these two processes from the beginning
— thereby seemingly satisfying the exigences of religious
hopes and fears on the one hand, and those of reason, in
her ardour for ascertaining the invariable laws of phsenomena,
on the other. We may remark that the theory of this
religious and extra-scientific process of discovery was at
that time sufficiently complete; for Sokrates could point
out, that those anomalous phsenomena which the gods had
reserved for themselves, and into which science was forbid
den to pry, were yet accessible to theseekings of the pious
man, through oracles, omens, and other exceptional means
of communication which divine benevolence vouchsafed to
keep open.
Now the scission thus produced between the superior
minds and the multitude, in consequence of the development
of science and the scientific point of view, is a fact of great
moment in the history of Greek progress, and forms an im
portant contrast between the age of Homer and Hesiod and
that of Thucydides: though.inpoint of fact, even the multi-

Csap. XVI. ALTERED FEELINGS TOWAEDS THE MYTHES. 363
tude, during this later age, were partially modified by those
very scientific views which they regarded with g . .
disfavour. And we must keep in view the pri- between
mitive religious faith, once universal and unob- t^e suPe_
structed, but subsequently disturbed by the and the
intrusions of science; we must follow the great multitude
change, as wellin respectto enlarged intelligence tan? in^-e-
as to refinement of social and ethical feeling, ferenceto
among the Greeks, from the Hesiodic times ie my
•downward, in order to render some account of the altered
manner in which the ancient mythes came to be dealt with.
These mythes, the spontaneous growth of a creative and
personifying interpretation of nature, had struck root in
Grecian associations at a time when the national faith
required no support from what we call evidence. They
were now submitted not simply to a feeling, imagining,
¦and believing public, but also to special classes of instructed
men, — philosophers, historians, ethical teachers, and critics,
— and to a public partially modified by their ideas1 as weil
.as improved by a wider practical experience. They were
not intended for such an audience; they had ceased to be

1 It is curious to see that some
of the most recondite doctrines of
the Pythagorean philosophy were
actually brought before the gene
ral Syracusan public in the come
dies of Epicharmus : "In comcediis
suis personas saepe ita colloqui
fecit , ut sententias Pythagoricas
et in universum r ablimia vitas
praecepta immiseerot." (Grysar, De
Doriensium Comcedia, p. 111^ Col.
1828.) The fragments preserved in
Diogen. Lae'rt. (iii. 9—17) present
both criticisms upon the Hesiodic
doctrine of a primeval chaos, and
an exposition of the archetypal
and immutable ideas (as opposed
to the fluctuating phsenomena of
sense) which Plato afterwards
adopted and systematised.
Epicharmus seems to have com
bined with this abstruse philosophy
a strong vein of comic shrewdness
and some turn to scepticism (Ci
cero, Epistol. ad Attic, i. 19) : «ufc

crebro mihi vafer ille Siculus Epi
charmus insusurret cantilenam
suam." Clemens Alex. Strom, v.
p. 258. Na©£ -xal u-su-vaa' Atckt-eiv'*
apOpa TauTa tujv (ppEvuJv. Zuju-ev
dpiSutp xai XoYiau.(p- TauTa yap
adjust f)poT/o6t;. Also his contemp
tuous ridicule of the prophetesses
of his time who cheated foolish
women out of their money, pre
tending to universal knowledge,
xal TtdvTa yiYvibvxovzi Tip T7)vav
X6ytu (ap. Polluc. ix. 81). See, about
Epicharmus, 0. Miiller, Dorians,
iv. 7, 4.
These dramas aeem to have been
exhibited at Syracuse between
480—460 B.C., anterior even to Chio-
nides and'Magnes at Athens (Aris
tot. Poet, c. 3) : he says * o X X ui
•rcpoTEpoi;, which can hardly be li
terally exact. The critics of the
Horatian age looked upon Epi
charmus as the prototype of Plau
tus (Hor. Epistol. ii. 1. 58).

364 HISTORY OF GREECE. Part r„
in complete harmony even with the lower strata of intellect
and sentiment, — much more so with the higher. But they
were the cherished inheritance of a past time; they were
interwoven in a thousand ways with the religious faith,.
the patriotic retrospect, and the national worship, of every
Grecian community; the general type of the mythe was
the ancient, familiar and universal form of Grecian thought,
which even the most cultivated men had imbibed in their
childhood from the poets,1 and by which they were to a
certain degree unconsciously enslaved. Taken as a whole
the mythes had acquired prescriptive and ineffaceable
possession. To attack, call in question, or repudiate them,
was a task painful even to undertake, and far beyond the
power of any one to accomplish.
For these reasons, the anti-mythic vein of criticism
The mythes was °f httle effect as a destroying force. But
accommo- nevertheless its dissolving, decomposing and
newtoneof transforming influence was very considerable.
feeling and To accommodate the ancient mythes to an im-
judgement. prove^ tone of sentiment and a newly created
canon of credibility, was a function which even the wisest
Greeks did not disdain, and which occupied no small pro
portion of the whole intellectual activity of the nation.
The mythes were looked at from a point of view completely
foreign to the reverential curiosity and literal imaginative
faith of the Homeric man. They were broken up and
recast in order to force them into new moulds such as their
authors had never conceived. We may distinguish four
distinct classes of minds, in the literary age now under
examination, as having taken them in hand — the poets, the
logographers, the philosophers, and the historians.
With the poets and logographers, the mythical persons
The poets are rea^ predecessors, and. the mythical world
and logo- an antecedent fact. But it is divine and heroic
grapherB. reality, not human; the present is only half-
brother of the past (to borrow2 an illustration from Pindar
in his allusion to gods and men) remotely and generically,
1 The third book of the Republic whole poets by heart (SXous itotri-
of Plato is particularly striking in rat; ixu.atQat(nt) , others preferred
reference to the use of the poets extracts and selections.
in education: see also his treatise m * Pindar, Nem. vi. 1. Compare
De Legg. vii. p. 810—811. Some Simonides, Fragm. 1 (Gaisford).
teachers made their pupils learn

€hap. xvi. pindae. 365
but not closely and specifically, analogous to it. As a
general habit, the old feelings and the old unconscious faith,
apart from all proof or evidence, still remain in their minds ;
but recent feelings have grown up, which compel\ them to
omit, to alter, sometimes even to reject and condemn, par
ticular narratives.
Pindar repudiates some stories and transforms others,
because they are inconsistent with his concep- p.
tions of the gods. Thus he formally protests
against the tale that Pelops had been killed and served
up at table by his father, for the immortal gods to eat.
Pindar shrinks from the idea of imputing to them so horrid
an appetite; he pronounces the tale to have been originally
fabricated by a slanderous neighbour. Nor can he bring
himself to recount the quarrels between different gods.1
The amours of Zeus and Apollo are noway displeasing to
him; but he occasionally suppresses some of the simple
details of the old mythe, as deficient in dignity. Thus,
according to the Hesiodic narrative, Apollo was informed
by a raven of the infidelity of the nymph Koronis : but the
mention of the raven did not appear to Pindar consistent
with the majesty of the god, and he therefore wraps up the
mode of detection in vague and mysterious language.2 He
feels considerable repugnance to the character of Odysseus,
and intimates more than once that Homer has unduly
exalted him, by force ofpoeticalartifi.ee. With the character
of the .3Dakid Ajax, on the other hand, he has the deepest
sympathy, as well as with his untimely and inglorious death,
occasioned by the undeserved preference of a less worthy
rival.3 He appeals for his authority usually to the Muse,
but sometimes to "ancient sayings of men," accompanied
with a general allusion to story-tellers and bards, — admit
ting however that these stories present great discrepancy,
and sometimes that they are false.4 Yet the marvellous
1 Pindar , Olymp. i. 30 — 55 ; ix. in odes adressed to noble iEgi-
32 — 45. netan victors, which induces him
2 Pyth. iii. 25. See the allusions thus to depreciate Odysseus ; for
to Semele , Alkmena, and Danae, he eulogises Sisyphus , specially
Pyth. iii. 98; Nem. x. 10. Compare on account of his cunning and
also supra, chap. ix. resources (Olymp. xiii. 60), in the
3 Pindar, Nem. vii. 20—30 ; viii. ode addressed to Xenoph&n the
23—31. Isthm. iii. 50— CO. Corinthian.
It seems to be sympathy for Ajax, l Olymp. i. 23; Nem. viii. 20;

366 HISTORY OF GREECE. Part I.
and the supernatural afford no ground whatever for reject
ing a story: Pindar makes an express declaration to this
effect in reference to the romantic adventures of Perseus
and the Gorgon's head, i He treats even those mythical
characters, which conflict the most palpably with positive
experience, as connected by a real genealogical thread with
the world before him. Not merely the heroes of Troy and
Thebes, and the demigod seamen of Jason in the ship Argo,
but also the Centaur Cheiron, the hundred headed Typhos,
the giant Alkyoneus, Antaeus, Bellerophon and Pegasus,
the Chimaera, the Amazons and the Hyperboreans — all
appear painted on the same canvas, and touched with the
same colours, as the men of thejrecent and recorded past,
Phalaris and Krossus: only they are thrown back to a
greater distance in the perspective.2 The heroic ancestors
of those great jSlginetan, Thessalian, Theban, Argeian, &c.
families, whose present members the poet celebrates for
their agonistic victories, sympathise with the exploits and
second the efforts of their descendants : the inestimable
value of a privileged breed, and of the stamp of nature, is
powerfully contrasted with the impotence of unassisted
teaching and practice.3 The power and skill of the Argeian
Theseus and his relatives as wrestlers, are ascribed partly
to the fact that their ancestor Pamphaes in aforetime had
hospitably entertained the Tyndarids Kastor and Pollux.4
Perhaps however the strongest proof of the sincerity of
Pindar's mythical faith is afforded when he notices a guilty
incident with shame and repugnance, but with an unwilling
confession of its truth, as in the case of the fratricide
committed on Phokus by his brothers Peleus and Telamon.5
ZEschylus and Sophokles exhibit the same spontaneous
Tragic and uninquiring faith as Pindar in the legendary
poets. antiquities of Greece, taken as a whole; but they
allow themselves greater license as to the details. It was
I'yth. i. 93; Olymp. vii. 55; Nem. zbho£ia — n6ru.oz auyyztrit;; v. 8.
vi. 43. cpavxL 8' av8pujTCU)v rcaXaiai Olymp. ix. 103. Pindar seems to
plates, &c. introduce <pfca in cases where Ho-
1 Pyth. x. 49. Compare Pyth. xii. mer would have mentioned the
11 — 22. . divine assistance.
1 Pyth. i. 17; iii. 4—7; iv. 12; ' Nem. x. 37-51. Compare the
viii. 16. Nem. iv. 27—32; v. 89. family legend of the Athenian De-
Isthm. v. 31; vi. 44—48. Olymp. mokrates, in Plato, Lysis, p. 205.
iii. 17 ; viii. 63 ; xiii. 61—87. s Nem. v. 12  16.
3 Nem. iii. 39; v. 40. auyfzrqt;

Chat. XVI. JESCHYLTJS. 36T
indispensable to the success of their compositions that they
should recast and group anew the legendary events, pre
serving the names and general understood relation of those
characters whom they introduced. The demand for novelty
of combination increased with the multiplication of tragic
spectacles at Athens: moreover the feelings of the Athe
nians, ethical as well as political, had become too critical
to tolerate the literal reproduction of many among the
ancient stories.
Both of these poets exalted rather than lowered the
dignity of the mythical world, as something jj,^^,
divine and heroic rather than human. The and Sopho-
Prometheus of JEschylus is a far more exalted klSs#
conception than his keen-witted namesake in Hesiod, and
the more homely details of the ancient Thebais and CEdipo-
dia were modified in the like spirit by Sophokles. 1 The
religious agencies of the old epic are constantly kept pro
minent by both. The paternal curse, — the wrath of deceased
persons against those from whom they have sustained
wrong, — the judgements of the Erinnys against guilty or
foredoomed persons, sometimes inflicted directly, some
times brought about through dementation of the sufferer
himself (like the Homeric Ate), — are frequent in their
tragedies.2 1 See above, chap. xiv. on the 5v]poI<; axXabtjioi.^ of/.|A«oiv itpoai-
Degend of the Siege of Thebes. £ivsi, &c.
2 The curse of CEdipus is the So again at the opening of the-
determining force in the Sept. ad Agamemndn, the u.tau.wt u.rjti$.
Theb., 'Apft r\ 'Epirus r.arpbt; t) Tsxvorcoivos (v. 155) and the sacrifice
u.zyaaQztri<; (v. 70) ; it reappears se- of Iphigenia are dwelt upon as
veral times in the course of the leaving behind them an avenging
drama, with particular solemnity doom upon Agamemndn, though
in the mouth of Eteokles (695 — he took precautious for gagging
709, 725, 785, %.) ; he yields to it her mouth during the sacrifice and
as an irresistible force, as carrying thus preventing her from giving-
the family to ruin:— utterance to imprecations — 086y-
'E-sl to npayu.a xctpx' iiz\aizipyz\. yov apatov oixoie; Bia y_aXivu>v t'
(koe, atabhoi u.ztzi (xaraayzlt), v. 246.
*Ito> xbt' oupov, xbu.a KuwJTdti The Erinnys awaits Agamemndn
Xaybt, even at the moment of his vic-
<&otp(|J aruyrj^it rcav to Aatou torious consummation at Troy
¦fsyo;. (467 ; compare 762 — 990, 1336—1433) :
***** she is most to be dreaded after
$lXou yap iyQpa [JLOi narpbz TeXei' great good fortune: sho enforces.
Spct the curse which ancestral crimes
have brought upon the house of

3G8

HISTORY OF GREECE.

PahtI,

^schylus in two of his remaining pieces brings forward
the gods as the chief personages. Far from sharing the
objection of Pindar to dwell upon dissensions of the gods,
he introduces Prometheus and Zeus in the one, Apollo and
the Eumenides in the other, in marked opposition. The
dialogue, first superinduced by him upon the primitive
chorus, gradually became the most important portion of
the drama, and is more elaborated in Sophokles than in
ZEschylus. Even in Sophokles, however, it still generally

Atreus — Ttptb-uapyo^ &T7] — 7caXaial
nuptial 86jjlo>v (1187 — 1197, Choeph.
692)— the curse imprecated hy the
outraged Thyestes (1601). In the
Choephorse, Apollo menaces Orestes
with the wrath of his deceased
father, and all the direful visita
tions of the Erinnys, unless he
undertakes to revenge the murder
(271—296). Aura and ' EpivviK bring
on blood for blood (647). But the
moment that Orestes, placed be
tween these conflicting obligations
(925), has achieved it, he becomes
himself the victim of the Erinnyes,
who drive him mad even at the
end of the Choephorae (sio? 8° It'
ififptuv ^If^i, 1026), and who make
their appearance bodily, and pursue
him throughout the third drama of
this fearful trilogy. The Eidolon
of KlytEemnestra impels them to
vengeance (Eumenid. 96), and even
spurs them on when they appear
to relax. Apollo conveys Orest&s
to Athens, whither the Erinnyes
pursue him, and prosecute him
before the judgement-seat of the
goddess Ath&ng, to whom they
submit the award; Apollo ap
pearing as his defender. The debate
between "the daughters ofNight"
and the god, accusing and defend
ing, is eminently curious (576 —
730) : the Erinnyes are deeply
mortified at the humiliation put
upon them when Orestes is ac
quitted, but Athene at length
reconciles them, and a covenant is
made whereby they become pro

tectresses of Attica, accepting of
» permanent abode and solemn
worship (1003): OrestSs returns to
Argos, and promises that even in
his tomb he will watch that none
of his descendants shall ever injure
the land of Attica (770). The
solemn trial and acquittal of
OrestSs formed the consecrating
legend of the Hill and Judicature
of Areiopagus.
This is the only complete trilogy
of .ZEschylus which we possess,
and the avenging Erinnyes (416)
are the movers throughout the
whole — unseen in the first two
dramas, visible and appalling in
the third. And the appearance of
Kassandra under the actual pro
phetic fever in the first, contributes
still farther to impart to it a
colouring different from common
humanity. The general view of the move
ment of the Oresteia given In
Welcker (iEschyl, Trilogie, p.
445) appears to me more confor
mable to Hellenic ideas than that
ofKlausen(Theologumena2Eschyli,
pp. 157— 1G9), whose valuable col
lection and comparison of passages
is too much affected, both here
and elsewhere, by the desire to
bring the agencies of the Greek
mythical world into harmony with
what a religious mind of the
present day would approve. More
over he sinks the personality of
Ath§n& too much in the supremo
authority of Zeus (p. 168—168).

CnAr. XVI.

J23SCHYLTTS.

369

Tetains its ideal majesty as contrasted with the rhetorical
and forensic tone which afterwards crept in : it grows out
of the piece, and addresses itself to the emotions more than
to the reason of the audience. Nevertheless, the effect of
Athenian political discussion and democratical feeling is
visible in both these dramatists. The idea of rights and
legitimate privileges as opposed to usurping force, is
applied by JEschylus even to the society of the Tendenciea
gods. The Eumenides accuse Apollo of having, of iBschy-
with the insolence of youthful ambition, "ridden ^gard to
down" their old prerogatives l — while the Titan the old
Prometheus, the champion of suffering humanity legends-
against the unfriendly dispositions of Zeus, ventures to
depict the latter as a recent usurper reigning only by his
superior strength, exalted by one successful revolution, and
destined at some future time to be overthrown by another,
— a fate which cannot be averted except through warnings
communicable only by Prometheus himself.2
Though -ZEschylus incurred reproaches of impiety from
Plato, and seemingly also from the Athenian public, for
particular speeches and incidents in his tragedies,3 and

1 Eumenid&s, 150. —
'lib Tcoti Aio<;, i-ix).rj-.o$ tceXsi,
Nso? 8s Ypoia<; oai.p.ovac xocOite-
The same metaphor again, v.
731. .ZEschylus seems to delight in
contrasting the young and the old
gods: compare 70—162, 882.
The Erinnyes tell Apollo that
he assumes functions which do not
belong to him, and will thus
desecrate those which do belong to
him (715—754) :—
'A XX' aiu.<XT7]pa ^paYa-a-', ou Xa-
)tu)v, ctePeic,
MavTsTa 8' oux 19' ayva u-C/teugei
[JLEVCOV.
The refusal of the king Pelasgos,
in the Supplices, to undertake
what he feels to be sacred duty of
protecting the suppliant Dana'ides.,
without first submitting the matter
to his people and obtaining theic
expressed consent, and the fear
which he expresses of their blame
VOL. I.

(xar' Ap^ae yap (piXamoe Xsioq),
are more forcibly set forth than
an old epic poem would probably
have thought necessary (see Sup
plices, 369, 397, 485, 619). The
solemn wish to exclude both
anarchy and despotism from Athens
hears still more the mark of
political feeling of the time—
[J.7jt' Svcp^OV (JLl^TE SECTTOTOUfjlEVOV
(Eumenid. 527—696).
2 Prometheus, 35, 151, 170, 309,
524, 910, 940, 956.
3 Plato, Republ. ii. 381—383 ;
compare JEschyl. fragment. 159,
ed. Dindorf. He was charged also
with having divulged in some of
his plays secret matters of the
mysteries of D§m§t6r, but is said
to have excused himself by alle
ging ignorance: he was not aware
that what he had said was com
prised in the mysteries (Aristot.
Ethic. Nicom. iii. 2 ; Clemens Alex.
Strom, ii. p. 387); the story is
2 B

370

HISTORY OE GREECE.

Part I.

though he does not adhere to the received vein of religious
tradition with the same strictness as Sophokles — yet the

different again in iElian, V. H. v. 19.
How little can be made out
distinctly respecting this last ac
cusation may be seen in Lobeck,
Aglaopham. p. 81.
Cicero (Tusc. Dis. ii. 10) calls
.ZEschylus "almost aPythagorean:"
upon what the epithet is founded
we do not know.
There is no evidence to prove to
us that the Prometheus Vinctus
was considered as impious by the
public before whom it was re
presented ; but its obvious meaning
has been so regarded by modern
critics, who resort to many dif
ferent explanations of it, in order
to prove that when properly con
strued it is not impious. But if we
wish to ascertain what .ZEschy
lus really meant, we ought not
to consult the religious ideas of
modern times ; we have no test
except what we know of the poet's
own time and that which had pre
ceded him. The explanations given
hy the ablest critics seem generally
to exhibit a predetermination to
bring out Zeus, as a just, wise,
merciful, and all-powerful Being;
and all, in one way or another,
distort the figures, alter the per
spective, and give far-fetched inter
pretations of the meaning of this
striking drama, which conveys an
impression directly contrary (see
Welcker, iEsch. Trilogie p. 90 —
117, with the explanation of Dissen
there given; Klausen, Theologum.
JEsch. p. 140—154; Schomann, in
his recent translation of the play,
and the criticism of that transla
tion in the "Wiener Jahrbucher,
vol. cix. 1845, p. 245. by P. Ritter).
On the other hand, Schiitz (Ex
curs. ad Prom. Vinct. p. 149) thinks
that ZEschylus wished by means of
this drama to enforce upon his

countrymen the hatred of a despot.
Though I do not agree in this
interpretation, it appears to me
less wide of the truth than the
forcible methods employed by
others to bring the poet into har
mony with their own religious ideas.
Of the PromStheus Solutus, which
formed a sequel to the Prometheus
Vinctus (the entire trilogy is not
certainly known), the fragments
preserved are very scanty, and
the guesses of critics as to its
plot have little base to proceed
upon. They contend that, in one
way or other, the apparent objec
tions which the Promgth. Vinctus
presents against the justice of
Zeus were in thePrometh. Solutus
removed. Hermann, in his Dis-
sertatio de Mschyli Prometlieo
Soluto (Opuscula, vol. iv. p. 256),
calls this position in question:
I transcribe from his Dissertation
one passage, because it contains
an important remark in reference
to the manner in which the Greek
poets handled their religious
legends: "while they recounted
and believed many enormities re
specting individual gods, they
always described the Godhead in
the. abstract as holy and fault
less." . . .
"Immo illud admirari oportet,
quod quum de singulis Diis in-
dignissima quseque crederent,
tamen ubi sine certo nomine Deum
dicebant, immunem ab omni vitio,
summaque sanctitate prasditum
intelligebant. Illam igitur J"ovis
sEevitiam ut excusent defensores
Trilogise, et jure punitum volunt
Prometheum— et in sequentefabuld,
reconciliato Jove, restitutam ar->
hitrantur divinam justitiam. Quo
invento, vereor ne non optima
dignitati consuluerint supremi

Chap. XVI. SOPHOKLES. 371
ascendency and interference of the gods are never out of
sight, and the solemnity with which they are represented,
set off by a hold, figurative, and elliptical style of expression
(often but imperfectly intelligible to modern readers),
reaches its maximum in his tragedies. As he throws round
the gods a kind of airy grandeur, so neither do his men or
heroes appear like tenants of the common earth. The
mythical world from which he borrows his characters, is
peopled only with "the immediate seed of the H
gods, in close contact with Zeus, in whom the taina undi-
divine blood has notyet had time to degenerate:" i minished
his individuals are taken, not from the iron race deur of the
whom Hesiod acknowledges with shame as his mythical
contemporaries, but from the extinct heroic race wor
which had fought at Troy and Thebes. It is to them that
his conceptions aspire, and he is even chargeable with
frequent straining, beyond the limits of poetical taste, to
realise his picture. If he does not consistently succeed in
it, the xeason is because consistency in such a matter is
unattainable, since, after all, the analogies of common
humanity, the only materials which the most creative
imagination has to work upon, obtrude themselves invo
luntarily, and the lineaments ofthemanare thus seen even
under a dress which promises superhuman proportions.
Sophokles, the most illustrious ornament of Grecian
tragedy, dwells upon the same heroic characters,
and maintains their grandeur, on the whole, with °B ° s'
little abatement; combining with it a far better dramatic
structure, and a wider appeal to human sympathies. Even
in Sophokles, however, we find indications that an altered
ethical feeling, and a more predominant sense of artistic
perfection, are allowed to modify the harsher religious
agencies of the old epic. Occasional misplaced effusions2
Deorum, quem decuerat potius There is one real exception to
non ssevire omnino, quam placari this statement— the PerSEOcr-which
ea lege, ut alius Promethei vice is founded upon an event of recent
lueret." occurrence ; and one apparent ex-
> .ffilschyl. Fragment. Uc, Din- ception— the Prometheus Vinctus.
dorf; ap. Plato, Bepub. iii. p. 391; But in that drama no individual
compare Strabo, xii. p. 680.— mortal is made to appear; we
....... oi isim dYX'™p°l can hardly consider 10 as an byj)-
Oi Zyjvos zyybc., ols it 'Ihaioi ;uay(fl) uepos (253).
iio<; OTtptpou Pujuo; zzr' ev otlBept, 2 For the characteristics of
Kouttw stpiv E^lTrjXov aly-a haiy.6iwt. ZEschylus see Aristophan. Ban.
2b2

372

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Part I,

of rhetoric, as well as of didactic prolixity, may also be
detected. It is JEschylus, not Sophokles, who forms the
marked antithesis to Euripides; it is JEschylus, not Sopho
kles, to whom Aristophanes awards the prize of tragedy, as
the poet who assigns most perfectly to the heroes of the
past those weighty words, imposing equipments, simplicity
of great deeds with little talk, and masculine energy superior
to the corruptions of Aphrodite, which beseem the comrades
of Agamemnon and Adrastus. *
How deeply this feeling, of the heroic character of the-
Euripidgs mythical world, possessed the Athenian mindj '
may be judged by the bitter criticisms made on
Euripides, whose compositions were pervaded,
partly by ideas of physical philosophy learnt
under Anaxagoras, partly by the altered tone of
education and the wide diffusion . of practical eloquence
forensic as well as-political at Athens.2 While Aristophanes
dwelt upon inthe life of .ZEschylus,
and Sophokles is said to have
derided it— "Qanzp yap 6 SouoxXtJ;;

— accused
of vulgar
ising the
mythical
heroes.

755, ad fin. passim. The compe
tition between .ZEschylus and
Euripides turns upon yvu>u.ai aya-
flotl, 1497; the weight and majesty
of the words, 1362; 7ip<I)Tov tu>v
*EXX^vu>v ivjpy<&<jo.c, p^jj-otxa cTEpivd,
1001, 921, 930 ("sublimis et gravis
et grandiloquus ssepe usque ad
vitium," Quintil. x. 1) ; the im
posing appearance of his heroes,
such as Meranfln and Kyknus, 961;
their reserve in speech, 908 ; his
dramas "full of ArSs," and. his
lion-hearted chiefs, inspiring the
auditors with fearless spirit in
defence of their country,— 1014,
1019, 1040 ; his contempt of femin
ine tenderness, 1042. —
-ZEsch. 068' oTS' oftSaig ^-jtiv' £pu>-
crav ¦xth'XQx' kizoiritja. yuvalxa.
Etjeip, Mot Ai', ouSs yap ™ zvk
'AopoSiTY]!; ou8sv cot.
ZESCH. fjL7]8s y' S7US17).'
'AXX' 67il aoi. tol xal toi?
crotaiv tcoXXtj ~oXXou 'nixot-
8olto.
To the same general purpose
Nubes (1347—1356), composed so
many years earlier. The weight
and majesty of the iEschylean
heroes (pdpoc, to u-EyaXoTrpsTCsi;) is

eXsys, tov AloyuXou Bia7iETTaiY/i>G
oyxov, &c. (Plutarch, De Profect.
in Virt. Sent. c. 7), unless we are
to understand this as a mistake of
Plutarch quoting Sophokles in
stead of Euripides as he speaks
in the Erogs of Aristophanes,
which is the opinion both ofLessing
in ]r a Life of Sophokles and of
Welcker (iEschyl. Trilogie, p. 525).
1 See above. Chapters xiv. and
xv. .ZEschylus seems to have been a
greater innovator as to the matter
of the mythes than either Sopho
kles or Euripides (Dionys. Halic.
Judic. de Vet. Script, p. 422. Reisk.)*
Eor the close adherence of So
phokles to the Homeric epic see
Athenee. vii. p. 277; Diogen. Laert.
iv.20; Suidas, v. noXijjunv. -ZEschy
lus puts into the mouth of the
Eumenides a serious argument
derived from the behaviour of
Zeus in chaining his father Kronos
(Eumen. 640).
2 See Valckenaer, Diatribe in
Euripid. Fragm. capp. 5 and 6.

Chap. XVI.

ALTERED TONE OF EURIPIDES.

373

assails Euripides as the representative of this "young
Athens," with the utmost keenness of sarcasm,' — other
critics also concur in designating him as having vulgarised
the mythical heroes, and transformed them into mere
characters of common life, — loquacious, subtle, and savour
ing of the market-place.1 In some of his plays-, sceptical ex
pressions and sentiments were introduced, derived from his
philosophical studies, sometimes confounding two or three
distinct gods into one, sometimes translating the personal
Zeus into a substantial iEther with determinate attributes.
He put into the mouths of some of his unprincipled dramatic
characters, apologetic speeches which were denounced as
ostentatious sophistry, and as setting out a triumphant case
for the criminal.2- His thoughts, his words, and the rhythm

The fourth and fifth lectures
among the Dramatische Vor-
lesungen of August Wilhelm
Schlegel depict both justly and
eloquently the difference between
.ZEschylus, Sophokles and Euri
pides, especially on this point of
the gradual sinking of the mythi
cal colossus into an ordinary
man ; about Euripides especially
in lecture 5, vol. i. p. 206, ed.
Heidelberg, 1809.
1 Aristot. Poetic. «. 46. Olov xai
SgooxXtj? eV/), gcuto? fj.lv oiou? 8sT
r:oi£iv, E&pi7n87]t; 8s, oloi eioi.
The Ranee and Acharneis of
Aristophanes exhibit fully the re
proaches urged against Euripides :
the language put into the mouth
of Euripides in the former play
(w. 935—977) illustrates specially
the point here laid down. Plu
tarch (De Gloria Atheniens. c. 5)
contrasts 7] EupixlSou aocpia xal t\
2ocpoxXioo<; XoyiaTT];;. Sophokles
either adhered to the old mythes
or introduced alterations into them
in a spirit conformable to their
original character, while Euripides
refined upon them. The comment
of Demetrius Phalereus connects
to Xoyiov expressly with the main
tenance of the dignity of the tales.

Ap£ou.cu 8s drco too fjLEyaXoTtpsicoOf;,
oVsp vuv Xiyiov ovou-dCooaiv (c. 38).
2 Aristophan. Ran. 770, 887, 1066.
Euripides says to iBschylus, in
regard to the language employed
by hoth of them, —
THv ouv au Xsyiflc; Auxap^TTOu?
Kal Ilapvdffffojv 7jfj.lv (isyeSyj, tout*
egtI to ypTjaxa 8i8dax£iv,
°Ov ypr\ tppafUiv avQpujTcsluK ;
.ZEschylus replies, —
'AXX', to xaxoSaijiov, avdyxT)
MsydXtov yvtup-cbv xai Siavoitbv 'iaa
xal xd p7^(J.aTa tixtsiv.
KaXXco? eixoc too? 7]u.i8eou?
¦zoic, p7j(J-at:i u.Ei£oai ypTJaflai*
Kai yap toTc; iu-4ti<hg vjuiuv ^pd)v-
T«l TIOXu ffEjXVOTEpOlOl.
*A *p.oo yp7]<TTu>c xataSel^avTo? Sls-
Xuu-tjvu) ab.
Eueip. Ti Bpaav.<; ;
iEsOH. IIpu)TOV |asv too: paaiXeurjv-
Ta? pdxt' dpLTiiaytov, "v1
eXetvol
ToT? dvOpajTLOi^tpaivoivT'elvat.
For the character of the language
and measures of Euripides, as re
presented by iEschylus, see also
v. 1297, andPac.527. Philosophical
discussion was introduced hy Eu
ripides (Dionys. Hal. Ars Rhetor.
viii. 10— ix. 11) in the Melanippe,
where the doctrine of prodigiea

374 HISTORY OE GREECE. Paet I.
of his choric songs, were all accused of being deficient in
dignity and elevation. The mean attire -and miserable
attitude in which he exhibited CEneus, Telephus, Thyestes,
Ino, and other heroic characters, were unmercifully derided,'
though it seems that their position and circumstances had
always been painfully melancholy ; but the effemi-
fntroducing nate pathos which Euripides brought so nakedly
exaggera- into the foreground, was accounted unworthy of
refinement' the majesty of a legendaryhero. And he incurred
and rhe- stiU greater obloquy on another point, on which
he is allowed even by his enemies to have only
reproduced in substance the pre-existing tales, — the illicit
and fatal passion depicted in several of his female characters,
such as Phsedra and Sthenohosa. His opponents admitted
that these stories were true, but, contended that they ought
to be kept back, and not produced upon the stage, — a proof
both of the continued mythical faith and of the more sen
sitive ethical criticism of his age. 2 The marriage of the
six daughters to the six sons of JEolus is of Homeric origin,
and stands now, though briefly, stated, in the Odyssey; but
the incestuous passion of Makareus and Kanake, embodied
by Euripides3 in the lost tragedy called Molus, drew upon
(TepaO appears to have been argue^. 422. Eor an unfavourable criticism
Quintilian (x. 1) remarks that to upon such preceeding, see Aristot.
young beginners in judicial plead- Poet. 27.
ing, the study of Euripides was » Aristoplian. Ban. 1050. —
much more specially profitable Er/nip. IIoTepov 8' obx ovtoc X6-
than that of Sophokles : compare fov toutov irspi ttj<; <Dal5pas
Dio Chrysostom, Orat. xviii. vol. t\otz§r\xa.;
p. 477, Reisk. JEsCH. Ma At1 aXV ovt'- aXX' aito-
In Euripides the heroes them- xpOTixsiv yp-q to jiovTjpov tov ys
selves sometimes delivered mo- 7ioit)tyjv,
ralising discourses, — siaaymv tov Kal u.rj izapayzit u-r^hi hihaaxzit.
BsXXEpocp6vx7)v yvoj^oXoyouvTa (Wei- In the Hercules Eurens, Euri-
cker, Griechische Tragod. Eurip. pidgs puts in relief and even
Stheneb. p. 782). Compare the exaggerates the worst elements of
fragments of his Bellerophon (15 the ancient mythes : the implacable
—25, Matthia;), and of his Chry- hatred of Here towards HuraklSs
sippus (7, ib.). A striking story is pushed so far as to deprive him
is found in Seneca, Epistol. 115 ; of his reason (by sending down
and Plutarch, de Audiend. Poetis, Iris and the unwilling Abaaa), and
c. i, t. i. p. 70, Wytt. thus intentionally to drive him to
1 Aristoplian. Ran. 840.— slay his wife and children with
u> OTu)(jLuXioauXXETtTa87] his own hands.
Ka't7tT(nx07t(n4xal paxwau'ppaitrahri. 3 Aristoph. Ran. 849, 1041, 1080 ;
See also Aristophan. Acharn. 335— Thesmophor. 547 ; Nubes, 1354.

Chap. XVI. PHEREKYDES, HEKATJGUS, ETC. 375
him severe censure. Moreover he often disconnected the
horrors of the old legends with those religious agencies
by which they had been originally forced on, prefacing them
by motives of a more refined character, such as carried no
sense of awful compulsion. Thus the considerations by
which the Euripidean Alkmseon was reduced to the neces
sity of killing his mother, appeared to Aristotle ridiculous. l
After the time of this great poet, his successors seem to
have followed him in breathing into their characters the
spirit of common life. But the names and plot were still
borrowed from the stricken mythical families of Tantalus,
Kadmus, &c: and the heroic exaltation of all the individual
personages introduced, as contrasted with the purely human
character of the Chorus, is still numbered by Aristotle
among the essential points of the theory of tragedy. 2
The tendency then of Athenian tragedy — powerfully
manifested in .^Eschylus, and never wholly lost
— was to uphold an unquestioning faith and a graphers—
reverential estimate of the general mythical world ??er|ky"
and its personages, but to treat the particular '
narratives rather as matter for the emotions than as recitals
Grauert, De Media Grsecorum Co- ^obilis estCauace fratris amoro
rncedia in Rheiniscb. Museum. 2nd sui."
JahTg. 1. Heft, p. 51. It suited the This is the reverse of the truth
plan of the drama of iEolus, as in regard to ZEschylus and So-
composed by Euripides, to place phokles, and only very partially
in the mouth of Makareua a formal true in respect to Euripides.
recommendation of incestuous J Aristot. Ethic. Nicom. iii. 1, 8.
marriages : probably this contri- xal yap t6v E*!>pt.itloci<j 'AXx|j,7iiova
buted much to offend the Athenian yeXoTa ©wtvsTai ia avay/otaavta u.y\-
public. See Dionys. Hal. Rhetor. TpoxTov/jaau (In the lost tragedy
ix. p. 355. called 'AXxu.7.1ujv 6 8ia ^tos'ioos.)
About the liberty of intermar- 2 Aristot. Poetic. 26—27. And
riage among relatives, indicated in his Problemata also, in giving
in Homer, parents and children the reason why the Hypo-Dorian
being alone excepted, see Terpstra, and Hypo-Pbrygian musical modes
Antiquitas Homerica, cap. xiii. p. were never assigned to the Chorus,
104. he says —
Ovid, whose poetical tendencies TqcOtgc 6s #|ji<pu) yopip p.ev avap-
led him chie0y to copy Euripides, u,ooTa, -zoic, 5s axo ax7jv7]<; olxsiixsp*.
observes (Trist. ii. 1, 380)— 'ExeTvol uiv yap Tjpuxov (j,lp.7)T«t* oi
"Omne genus scripti gravitate 8e 7]yEu.6vs<; tujv dpyaUov jjlovoi 'Tjaav
Tragcedia vincit, TJpcosc, ot Se Xaoi oiv8p(unot, <I)V
Hsec quoque materiam semper katvt 6 yopoc,. Alo xal ap|A6C,si
amoris habet. auxtij to yospov xal 7ja6jriov tj&oc xai
Kam quid in Hippolyto nisi uiXo<;- AvSpajrixa yap.
cascce flamma novercEe?

376 HISTORY OF GREECE. Part I.
of actual fact. The logographers worked along with them
to the first of these two ends, but not to the second. Their
grand object was, to cast the mythes into a continuous
readable series, and they were in consequence compelled to
make selection between inconsistent or contradictory nar
ratives;, to reject some narratives as false, and to receive
others as true. But their preference was determined more
by their sentiments as to what was appropriate, than by
any pretended historical test. Pherekydes, Akusilaus, and
Hellanikus » did not seek to banish miraculous or fantastic
incidents from the mythical world. They regarded it as
peopled with loftier beings, and expected to find in it phse
nomena not paralleled in their own degenerate days. They
reproduced the fables as they found them in the poets,
rejecting little except the discrepancies, and producing ul
timately what they believed to be not only a continuous,
but an exact and trustworthy, history of the past — wherein
they carry indeed their precision to such a length, that
Hellanikus gives the year, and even the day, of the capture
of Troy. 2
Hekatseus of Miletus (500 B.C.), anterior to Pherekydes
„ , . and Hellanikus, is the earliest writer in whom
Heir, at ecus
—the we can detect any disposition to- disallow the
mythes ra- prerogative and specialty of the mythes, and to
soften down their characteristic prodigies, some
of which however still find favour in his eyes, as in the
case of the speaking ram who carried Phryxus over the
Hellespont. He pronounced the Grecian fables to he "many
and ridiculous;" whether from their discrepancies or from
their intrinsic improbabilities we do not know. And we
owe to him the first attempt to force them within the limits
of historical credibility; as where he transforms the three-
headed Cerberus, the dog of Hades, into a serpent inhabiting
a cavern on Cape Tsenarus — and Geryon of Erytheia into
a king of Epirus rich in herds of oxen.3 Hekataeus traced
1 See Miiller, Prolegom. zu einer Perhaps Hekatffius was induced
wissenschaftlichen Mythologie, «. to look for Erytheia in Epirus hy
iii. p. 93. the hrick-red colour of the earth
2 Hellanic. Fragment. 143, ed. there in many places, noticed hy
Didot. Pouqueville and other travellers
3 Hekatsei Fragm. ed. Didot, (Voyage dans la Grece, vol. ii.
332, 346, 349 ; Schol. Apolldn. Rhod. 248 ; see Klausen, jEneas und die
i. 256 ; Athena, ii. p. 133 ; Skylax, Penaten, vol. i. p. 222). 'Exot-
c,26. tguoc 6 MiX^ato?— X6yov supsv slxoxa,

Chap. XVI. HERODOTUS, THUCYDIDES, ETC. 377
the genealogy of himself and the gens to which he belonged
through a fine of fifteen progenitors up to an initial god,1
— the clearest proof both of his profound faith in the reality
of the mythical world, and of his religious attachment to it
as the point of junction between the human and the divine
personality. "We have next to consider the historians, especially
Herodotus and Thucydides. Like Hekateeus, Tue nia.
Thucydides belonged to a gens which traced its torians—
descent from Ajax, and through Ajax to Makaa Herodotus-
and Zeus.2 Herodotus modestly implies that he himself
had no such privilege to boast of.3 The curiosity of these
two historians respecting the past had no other materials
to work upon except the mythes, which they found already
cast by the logographers into a continuous series, and
presented as an aggregate of antecedent history, chronologi
cally deduced from the times of the gods. In common
with the body of the Greeks, both Herodotus and Thucy
dides had imbibed that complete and unsuspecting belief
in the general reality of mythical antiquity, which was
interwoven with the religion and the patriotism, and all
the public demonstrations, of the Hellenic world. To
acquaintthemselves with the genuine details of this foretime,
was an inquiry highly interesting to them. But the in
creased positive tendencies of their age, as well as their own
habits of personal investigation, had created in them an
historical sense in regard to the past as well as to the
present. Having acquired a habit of appreciating the
Pausan. iii. 25, 4. He seems to Philadelphus— not hy HekatEeus of
have written expressly concerning Miletus. I do not concur in this
the fahulous Hyperhoreans, and opinion. I think it much more
to have upheld the common faith probable that the earlier Hekatams-
against doubts which had begun was the author spoken of.
to rise in his time : the derisory The distinguished position held
notice of Hyperboreans in Hero- hy Hekatseus at Miletus is marked
dotus is prohably directed against not only by the notice which
Hekatseus, iv. 36; Schol. Apoll6n. Herodotus takes of his opinions.
Rhod. ii. 675 ; Dioddr. ii. 47. on public matters, but also by
It is maintained hy Mr. Clinton his negotiation with the Persian
(Fast. Hell. ii. p. 480) and others satrap Artaphernes on behalf of
(see not. ad Fragment. Hecataei, his countrymen (Diod6r. Excerpt.
p. 30, ed. Didot), that the work xlvii. p. 41, ed. Dindorf).
on the Hyperhoreans was written l Herodot. ii. 143.
"by Hekatseus of Abdera, a literary 2 Marcellin. Vit. Thucyd. init.
Greek of the age of Ptolemy ' Herodot. ii. 143.

378 HISTORY OF GREECE. Past I.
intrinsic tests of historical credibility and probability, they
found the particular narratives of the poets and logo
graphers, inadmissible as a whole even in the eyes of He
katseus, still more at variance with their stricter canons of
criticism. And we thus observe in them the constant
struggle, as well as the resulting compromise, between
these two opposite tendencies; on one hand a firm belief in
the reality of the mythical world, on the other hand an
inability to accept the details which their only witnesses,
the poets and logographers, told them respecting it.
Each of them however performed the process in his
Earnest own way. Herodotus is a man of deep and an-
piety of xious religious feeling. He often recognises the
—his °tUB special judgements of the gods as determining
mystic historical events: his piety is also partly tinged
reserve. -ynth. that mystical vein which the last two cen
turies had gradually infused into the religion of the Greeks
— for he is apprehensive of giving offence to the gods by
reciting publicly what he has heard respecting them. He
frequently stops short in his narrative, and intimates that
there is a sacred legend, but that he will not tell it. In
other cases, where he feels compelled to speak out,he entreats
forgiveness for doing so from the gods and heroes. Some
times he will not even mention the name of a god, though
he generally thinks himself authorised to do so, the names
being matter of public notoriety.1 Such pious reserve,
which the open-hearted Herodotus avowedly proclaims as
chaining up his tongue, affords a striking contrast with the
plain-spoken and unsuspecting tone of the ancient epic, as
well as of the popular legends, wherein the gods and their
proceedings were the familiar and interesting subjects of
common talk as well as of common sympathy, without
ceasing to inspire both fear and reverence.
Herodotus expressly distinguishes, in the comparison
'Herodot. ii. 3, 51, 61, 65, 170. Compare similar scruples on the
He alludes briefly (c. 51) to an part of Pausanias (viii. 25 and 37).
ipbs Xbyot; which was communicated The passage of Herodotus (ii. 3)
in the Samothracian mysteries, is equivocal, and has been under-
but he does not mention what it stood in more ways than one (see
was: also about the Thesmophoria, Lobeck, Aglaopham. p. 1287).
or rzXzrri of DSmSter (c. 171). The aversion of Dionysius of
Kcd nspi |j.sv robrwt to<j«ut« 7)|juv Halikarnassus to reveal the divine
eItcoucti, xai napit. tujv 6su>v xai secrets is not less powerful (see
f,pd)inv sujiivsm efj) (c. 64.) A. R. i. 67, 68).

Ch. XVI. BELIEF OF HERODOTUS IN MYTHICAL PERSONS. 379
of Polykrates with Minos, the human race to which the
former belonged, from the divine or heroic race _..
1 xiis views
which comprised the latter. ' But he has a firm of the
behef in the authentic personality and parentage mythical
of all the names in the mythes, divine, heroic
and human, as well as in the trustworthiness of their chro
nology computed by generations. He counts back 1600
years from his own day to that of Semele, mother of Dio
nysus; 900 years to Herakles, and 800 years to Penelope,
the Trojan war being a little earlier in date.2 Indeed even
the longest of these periods must have seemed to him com
paratively short, seeing that he apparently accepts the
prodigious series of years which the Egyptians professed
to draw from a recorded chronology — 17,000 years from
their god Herakles, and 15,000 years from their god Osiris
or Dionysus, down to their king Amasis3 (550 b.c). So
much was his imagination familiarised with these long
chronological computations barren of events, that he treats
Homer and Hesiod as "men of yesterday," though separated
from his own age by an interval which he reckons as four
hundred years.4
Herodotus had been profoundly impressed with what
he saw and heard in Egypt. The wonderful His defe-
monuments, the evident antiquity, and the pecu- *enoe for
liar civilization of that country, acquired such Egyptian
preponderance in his mind over his own native statements.
legends, that he is disposed to trace even the oldest reli
gious names or institutions of Greece to Egyptian or
Phoenician original, setting aside in favour of this hypo
thesis the Grecian legends of Dionysus and Pan.5 The
oldest Grecian mythical genealogies are thus made ulti
mately to lose themselves in Egyptian or Phosnician an
tiquity, and in the full extent of these genealogies Hero
dotus firmly believes. It does not seem that any doubt
had ever crossed his mind as to the real personality of
those who were named or described in the popular mythes:
all of them have once had reality, either as men, as heroes,
1 Herod, iii. 122. * Herodot. ii. 63. \i.zypi ob itpcmji
2 Herod, ii. 145. ts xal yjiit;, d>? eiicetv Xoyip. 'Hoio-
3 Herodot. ii. 43—145. Kai TauTa 5ov Y«P y.a.i °Ou.7]pov 7)Xixiy]v T^Tpa-
AlyJTCTioi arpzxiuis tpaai £7iiaTao9ai, xoaioiai irza1h07.iwu.zu itpza^uripou^
(Ssi ts XoyiZ.6u.ztoi. xai del &Ttoypatp6- Ysv^at) y.v.i ou xXeoat.
u-evoi t& Its«. 5 Herodot. ii. 146,

380 HISTORY OF GREECE. Past I.
or as gods. The eponyms of cities, demes and tribes, are
all comprehended in this affirmative category; the suppo
sition of fictitious personages being apparently never enter
tained. Deukalion, Hellen, Dorus,1 — Ion, with his four
sons, the eponyms of the old Athenian tribes, 2 — the autoch
thonous Titakus and Dekelus,3 — Danaus, Lynkeus, Perseus,
Amphitryon, Alkmena, and Herakles4 — Talthybius, the
heroic progenitor of the privileged heraldic gens at Sparta,
— the Tyndarids and Helena,5 — Agamemnon, Menelaus,
and Orestes, 6— Nestor and his son Peisistratus, — Asopus,
Thebe, and JEgina, — Inachus and 16, JEetes and Medea,7
— Melanippus, Adrastus, and Amphiaraus, as well as Jason
and the Argo8 — all these are occupants of the real past
time, and predecessors of himself and his contemporaries.
In the veins of the Lacedaemonian kings flowed the blood
both of Kadmus and of Danaus, their splendid pedigree
being traceable to both of these great mythical names:
His general Herodotus carries the lineage up through He-
faith in the rakles first to Perseus and Danae, then through
heroe's and Danae to Akrisius and the Egyptian Danaus;
eponyms, but he drops the paternal lineage when he comes
to Perseus (inasmuch as Perseus is the son of Zeus by
Danae, without any reputed human father, such as Am
phitryon was to Herakles), and then follow the higher
members of the series through Danae alone.9 He also
pursues the same regal genealogy, through the mother of
Eurysthenes and Proldes, up to Polynikes, CEdipus, Laius,
Labdakus, Polydorus and Kadmus: and he assigns various
ancient inscriptions which he saw in the temple of the
Ismenian Apollo at Thebes, to the ages of Laius and CEdi
pus.10 Moreover the sieges of Thebes and Troy, — the
Argonautic expedition, — the invasion of Attica by the
Amazons, — the protection of the Herakleids, and the defeat
and death of Eurystheus, by the Athenians,11- — the death
] Herod, i. 66. « Herod, i. 67 — 68 ; ii. 113; vii.
2 Herod, v. 66. 159.
3 Herod, ix. 73. t Herod, i. 1, 2, 4; v. 81, 65.
4 Herod, ii. 4?— 44, 91—98, 171— e Herod, i. 52; iv. 146; v. 67 j
182 (the Egyptians admitted the vii. 193.
truth of the Greek legend, that » Herod, vi. 52—53.
Perseus had come to Libya to fetch 10 Herod, iv. 147; v. 59  61.
the Gorgon's head). n Herod, v. 61 ; ix. 27  28.
5 Herod, ii. 113—120 ; iv. 146 ; vii.
134.

CH. XVI. BELIEF OF HERODOTUS IN MYTHICAL PERSONS. 381
of Mekisteus and Tydeus before Thebes by the hands of
Melanippus, and the touching calamities of Adrastus and
Amphiaraus connected with the same enterprise, — the
sailing of Kastor and Pollux in the Argo,1 — the abductions
of 16, Europa, Medea and Helena, — the emigration of
Kadmus in quest of Europa, and his coming to Bceotia, as
well as the attack of the Greeks upon Troy to recover
Helen,2 — all these events seem to him portions of past
history, not less unquestionably certain, though more clouded
over by distance and misrepresentation, than the battles of
Salamis and Mykale.
But though Herodotus is thus easy of faith in regard
both to the persons and to the general facts of Grecian
mythes, yet when he comes to discuss particular —yet corn-
facts taken separately, we find him applying to" Dlned. ^lth
them stricter tests of historical credibility, and as to mat-
often disposed to reject as well the miraculous tels of faot-
as the extravagant. Thus even with respect to Herakles,
he censures the levity of the Greeks in ascribing to him
absurd and incredible exploits. He tries their assertion
by the philosophical standard of nature, or of determinate
powers and conditions governing the course of events.
"How is it consonant to nature (he asks), that Herakles,
being, as he was, according to the statement of the Greeks,
still a man (i. e. having not yet been received among the
gods), should kill many thousand persons? I pray that
indulgence may be shown to me both by gods and heroes
for saying so much as this." The religious feelings of
Herodotus here told him that he was trenching upon the
utmost limits of admissible scepticism.3
1 Herod, i. 52 ; iv. 145 ; v. 67. in which the historian criticises
2 Heroa. i. 1—4; ii. 49, 113; iv. the stratagem whereby Peisistratus
147 ; v. 94. established himself as despot at
3 Herod, ii. 45. As-routji 6s r.oXXk Athens— hy dressing up the stately
xal aXXa d'/S7rLax£7.TUj<; oi "EXXtjves* Athenian woman Phye in the cos-
zb:f^7\c, hi abriwt xal Zoz b u.u96i; tume of the goddess Athene, and
iar\ , tov izzpX too ' HpaxXso? Xi- passing off her injunctions as the
youot . . . vEti hi eta eovta tov commands of the goddess : the
'HpxxXsa, xai £ti avGpajTrov tbt; hrj Athenians accepted her with un-
tpaat, xu><; tpbait ev_ei itoXXai; p.u- suspecting faith, and received
ptahae; tpovsoaai ; Kai rcspl u.zt rob- Peisistratus at her command. He-
tcov ToaauTa rju.it eiizobat, xai itapa rodotus treats the whole affair as
tuiv Qecov xal ?uapa tujv rjpcbcnv zb- a piece of extravagant silliness,
u.itzta el'Y). itpayu.a eu7]8EiTaTOv p.axp<ji (i- 60).
"We may also notice the manner

382 HISTORY OF GREECE. Part I.
Another striking instance of the disposition of Hero-
„ , dotus to rationalise the miraculous narratives
His remarks «,, , ,1 - a t_ rr j • !_•
upon the of the current mythes, is to be tound in his
miraculous account of the oracle of Dodona and its alleged
foundation -r-, ,. - . -n- •/, • . ° -,
of the Egyptian origin. Here, it m any case, a miracle
oracle at was not only in full . keeping, but apparently
indispensable to satisfy the exigences of the
religious sentiment; anything less than a miracle would
have appeared tame and unimpressive to the visitors of so
revered, a spot, much more to the residents themselves.
Accordingly, Herodotus heard both from the three priest
esses and from the Dodonasans generally, that two black
doves had started at the same time from Thebes in Egypt:
one of them went to Libya, where it directed the Libyans
to establish the oracle of Zeus Ammon; the other came to
the grove of Dodona, and perched on one of the venerable
oaks, proclaiming with a human voice that an oracle of
Zeus must be founded on that very spot. The injunction
of the speaking dove was respectfully obeyed. *
Such was the tale related and believed at Dodona. But
Herodotus had also heard, from the priests at Thebes in
Egypt, a different tale, ascribing the origin of -all the
prophetic establishments, in Greece as well as in Libya, to
two sacerdotal women, who had been carried away from
Thebes by some Phoenician merchants and sold, the one in
Greece, the other in Libya. The Theban priests boldly
assured Herodotus that much pains had been taken to dis
cover what had become of these women so exported, and
that the fact of their having been taken to Greece and
Libya had been accordingly verified.2
The historian of Halicarnassus cannot for a moment
think of admitting the miracle which harmonised so well
with the feelings of the priestesses and the Dodonseans.3
1 Herod, ii. 55. AojScovaiojv hi at at izzXzi.at; ye avQpmirntfl tpwty^ tp9sy-
[pTj'iai . . . eXsyov rabra, autwu.oX6- £aiTO;
yzot hi atpL xai oi aXXoi Aiooujvaiot According to one statement, the
oi xspi to ipov. word IlsXsias in the Thessalian
The miracle sometimes takes dialect meant both a dove and a
another form ; the oak at D6d0na prophetess (Scriptor. Rer. Mythi-
was itself once endued with speech oarum, ed. Bode, i. 96). Had there
(Dionys. Hal. Ars Rhetoric, i. 6 ; been any truth in this, Herodotus
Strabo). could hardly have failed to notice
2 Herod, ii. 54. it , inasmuch as it would exactly
» Herod, ii. 57. 'Enel riti, Tpoitip have helped him out of the diffi
culty which he felt.

Chap. XVI. HERODOTUS AND THE MIRACLE OF DODONA. 383
"How (he asks) could a dove speak with human voice?"
But the narrative of the priests at Thebes, though its
prodigious improbability hardly requires to be stated, yet
involved no positive departure from the laws of nature and
possibility, and therefore Herodotus makes no difficulty in
accepting it. The curious circumstance is, that he turns
the native Dodoneean legend into a figurative representa
tion, or rather a misrepresentation, of the supposed true
story told by the Theban priests. According to his inter
pretation, the woman who came from Thebes to Dodonr.
was called a dove, and affirmed to utter sounds like a bird
because she was non-Hellenic and spoke a foreign tongue
when she learned to speak the language of the country, it
was then said that the dove spoke with a human voice.
And the dove was moreover called black, because of the
woman's Egyptian colour.
That Herodotus should thus bluntly reject a miracle,
recounted to him by the prophetic women themselves as
the prime circumstance in the origines of this holy place,
is a proof of the hold which habits of dealing with historical
evidence had acquired over his mind; and the awkwardness
of his explanatory mediation between the dove and the
woman, marks not less his anxiety, while discarding the
legend, to let it softly down into a story quasi-historical
and not intrinsically incredible.
We may observe another example of the unconscious.
tendency of Herodotus to eliminate from the mythes the
idea of special aid from the gods, in his remarks upon
Melampus. He designates Melampus "as a clever Hi8 re_
man, who had acquired for himself the art of marks upon.
prophecy;" and had procured through Kadmus ^a™plls
much information about the religious rites and prophetic
customs of Egypt, many of which he introduced P°wers-
into Greece1 — especially the name, the sacrifices, and the
phallic processions of Dionysus: he adds, "that Melampus
himself did not accurately comprehend or bring out the
whole doctrine, but wise men who came after him made the
necessary additions." 2 Though the name of Melampus is
1 Herod, ii. 49. 'Eyib u.it v&v (prjui tov Aidvuoov, 6Xiya abrwt itapaX-
MsXdpLTcoSa yevofXEvov avopa oo.tpov, Xa£avTa.
uavTixijv ts lujuTcp aucrrijaai, xai xu- 2 Herod, ii. 49. ' Arpexscoe; u.it oi
96(isvov ax' Alyoicrtou, aXXa re itoXXa izatra auXXapibv tov Xoyov e'lpflve.
iariyr]aaaua<. "EXXflai, xal toc nspl (Melampus)- aXX' ol s!tiyevi|isvot

384

HISTORY OE GKREECE.

Part I.

here maintained, the character described i is something in
the vein of Pythagoras — totally different from the great
seer and leech of the old epic mythes — the founder of the
gifted family of the Amythaonids, and the grandfather of
Amphiaraiis.2 But that which is most of all at variance
with the genuine legendary spirit, is the opinion expressed
by Herodotus (and delivered with some emphasis as his
own), that Melampus "was a clever man who had acquired
for himself prophetic powers." Such a supposition would
have appeared inadmissible to Homer or Hesiod, or indeed
to Solon in the preceding century, in whose view even
inferior arts come from the gods, while Zeus or Apollo
bestows the power of prophesying.3 The intimation of
such an opinion by Herodotus, himself a thoroughly pious
man, marks the sensibly diminished omnipresence of the
gods, and the increasing tendency to look for the explana
tion of phsenomena among more visible and determinate
agencies.

cjocp i at

jxe^ovcoc; e£s

TOUTlp
<f>Tf)V<XV. 1 Compare Herod, iv. 95; ii. 81.
'EXXtjvujv ou T(p KaSsveaTaxcjj a o -
<p i cjt ij Il'jQayopa.
-Homer, Odyss. xi. 290; xv.
225. Apollodor. a. 9, 11—12. He
siod, Eoiai, Eragm. 55, ed. Diintzer
(P. 43).-
'AX7.7JV [xiv yap eSioxev 'OX6|j.7Uoc
AiaxiS'/]ui,
Nouv 8''Afj.u9aovi5aic, tcXou-
xov 8' ETtop' 'A-zpiifrqai.
also Erag. 34 (p. 38), and Erag.
ti5(p.45); Schol.Apoll.Rhod. i.118.
Herodotus notices the celebrated
mythical narrative of Melampus
healing the deranged Argive women
(ix. 34) ; according to the original
legend, the daughters of Proetus.
In the Hesiodic Eoiai (Fr. 16,
Diintz.; Apollod. ii. 2) the dis
temper of the Pnetid females was
ascribed to their having repudiated
the rites and worship ofDionysus
(Akusilaus indeed assigned a dif
ferent cause) , which shows that
the old fable recognised a con
nexion between Melampus and

these rites.
3 Homer, Iliad, i. 72—87; xv. 412.
Odyss. xv. 245—252; iv. 233. Some
times the gods inspired prophecy
for the special occasion, without
conferring upon the party the per
manent gift and status of a prophet
(compare Odyss. i. 202; xvii. 383).
Sol6n, Eragm. xi. 48—53, Schnei-
dewin, : —
"AXXov [j-avTiv ^8t]xsv #va£ sxaspyo?
'ArcoXXtuv,
"EyviD 8 AySpi xaxov t7]X69ev
EpyOfiEVOV,
Qi tjuvo[jLapTrjffU){ii 6soi ....
Herodotus himself reproduces
the old belief in the special gift
of prophetic power by Zeus and
Apollo, in the story of Euenius
of Apoll6nia (ix. 94).
See the fine ode of Pindar de
scribing the birth and inspiration
of Jamus, eponymous father of
the great prophetic family in Elis
called the Jamids (Herodot. ix.
33), Pindar, Olymp. vi. 40—75.
About Teiresias, Sophoo. CEd. Tyr.
283—410. Neither Nestdr nor Odys
seus possesses the gift of prophecy.

Chap. XVI. ELIMINATION OF MYTHICAL NARRATIVE.

385

We may make a similar remark on the dictum of the
historian respecting the narrow defile of Teinpe, His remarks
forming the embouchure of the P eneus and the J*Pon ^?
efflux of all the waters from the Thessalian basin, legend of
The Thessalians alleged that this whole basin of Tempg.
Thessaly had once been a lake, but that Poseidon had split
the chain of mountains and opened the efflux; * upon which
primitive belief, thoroughly conformable to the genius of
Homer and Hesiod, Herodotus comments as follows: The
Thessalian statement is reasonable. For whoeverthinks that
Poseidon shakes the earth, and that the rifts of an earth
quake are the work of that god, will, on seeing the defile
in question, say that Poseidon has caused it. Por the rift
of the mountains is, as appeared to me (when I saw it), the
work of an earthquake." Herodotus admits the reference
to Poseidon, when pointed out to him, but it stands only
in the background: what is present to his mind is, the
phgenomenon of the earthquake, not as a special act, but
as part of a system of habitual operations.2

1 More than one tale is found
elsewhere, similar to this about
the defile of Tempe:—
<(A tradition exists that this part
of the country was once a lake,
and that Salomon commanded two
deeves or genii, named Ard and
Reel, to turn off the water into
the Caspian, which they effected
by cutting a passage through the
mountains; and a city, erected in
the newly-formed plain, was named
after them Ard-u-beel." (Sketches
on the shores of the Caspian, by
W. R. Holmes.)
Also about the plain of Santa
Ee di Rogota, in South America,
that it was once under water, until
Bochica cleft the mountains and
opened a channel of egress (Hum
boldt, Vues des Cordilleres, p. 87
—88) ; and about the plateau of
Kashmir (Humboldt, Asie Cen-
trale, vol. i. p. 102), drained in a
like miraculous manner by the
saint Kasyapa. The manner in
which conjectures, derived from
local configuration or peculiarities,
VOL. I.

are often made to assume the form
of traditions, is well-remarked by
the same illustrious traveller : —
uCe qui se presente comme une
tradition, n'est souvent que le
reflet de 1'impression que laisse
1'aspect des lieux. Des bancs de
coquilles a demi-fossiles, rfipan-
dues dans lea isthmes ou sur des
plateaux, font naitre, mSme chez
les homines les moins avancfis
dans la culture intellectuelle,
l'idee de grandes inondations,
d'anciennes communications entre
des bassins limitrophes. Des opi
nions, que l'on pourroit appeler
systematiques, se trouvent dans
les for&ts de l'Orenoque comme
dans les lies de la Mer du Sud.
Dans l'une et dans l'autre de ces
contrfies, elles ont pris la forme
des traditions," (A. v. Humboldt,
AsieCentrale, vol. ii. p. 147.) Com
pare a similar remark in the same
work and volume, p. 286 — 294.
2 Herodot. vii. 129. (Poseidon
was worshipped as IIsTpaTo? in
Thessaly, in commemoration of
2c

386

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Paet I,

Herodotus adopts the Egyptian version of the legend
u tie of Troy, founded on that capital variation which

legend of
Troy.

seems to have originated with Stesichorus, and
according to which Helen never left Sparta at
all — her eidolon had been taken to Troy in her place. "Upon
no longer exists, and Rotation

this geological interference : Schol.
Pindar. Pyth. iv. 245.) To 8s not-
Xatov XEysxai, oux eovtos xui toui
aOXu>vo? xal Sisxpiou toutou, tous
tcqto|xou<; tq6tous . . . pEOvta? TtoteTv
ttjv 0£aaaXi7]v 7uasav ndXayo?. A&xol
ptsv vuv BitjaaXoi XEyouoi IIoaEtSeiova
7i:oi7)ciai tov aOXuJva, 8i' ou peet 6
Il7jV£i6«, oixdxa XsyovTEQ. "Oaxtc yap
vofiUsL rioosiSstova ttjv yJjv asUiv,
¦xal Ta 8i=a~£U)Ta 6716 crsiffftou too
fleou toutou epya Etvai, xal Sv exeivo
I8u>v ^alT) Iloasiostova TcoiTJuat. 'Eatl
yap oEtiifioO epyov, (1)5 ejxol E<palvsTo
etvai, 7) SiaaTacic tu>v oupsiDV- In
another case (viii. 129), Herodotus
believes that Poseid.dn "produced
a preternaturally high tide in order
to punish the Persians, who had
insulted his temple near Potidsea:
here was a special motive for the
god to exert his power.
This remark of Herodotus il
lustrates the hostile ridicule cast
by AristophanSs (in the Nubes)
upon SokratSs, on the score of
alleged impiety, because he be
longed to a school of philosophers
(though in point of fact he dis
countenanced that line of study)
who introduced physical laws and
forces in place of the personal
agency of the gods. The old man
Strepsiades inquires from Sokra-
tgs, Who rains? Who thunders?
To which SokratSs replies, Not
Zeus, but the Nephelae, i. e. the
clouds: you never saw rain without
clouds. Strepsiades then proceeds
to inquire— "But who is it that
compels the clouds to move on
ward? is it not Zeus?" SokratSs
— "Not at all ; it is aether eal ro
tation." Strepsiades — "Rotation?
that had escaped me; Zeus then

reigns in his place."
Steeps. '0 8* avayxaCuw eittI tIc
auT«i; (NscpsXaO) ou/ &
Z-i'jc, uxtte (pspsaGai;
Sokbat. "Hxiot', AXX' aiBepio? Sivog.
Steeps. Aivoc; toutI jx* eXsXtjQei —
*0 Zeu<; oux u>v, AXX' avV
auxou Aivo; vuvl pact-
Xsuojv.
To the same effect v. 1454, Aivoc
pasiXcusi tov At' e^EXTjXaxu)^ — "Ro
tation has driven out Zeus, and
reigns in his place."
If Aristophanes had had as strong
a wish to turn the public anti
pathies against Herodotus as
against Sokratgs and Euripides,
the explanation here given would
have afforded him a plausible show
of truth for doing so; and it is
highly probable that the Thessa-
lians would have been sufficiently
displeased with the view of He
rodotus to sympathise in the poet's
attack upon him. The point would
have been made (waiving metrical
considerations) —
SsiCTfioc PamXsuei, tov Ilotjei-
B tb v * E^EXrjXaxd)?.
The comment of Herodotus upon
the Thessalian view seems almost
as if it were intended to guard
against this very inference.
Other accounts ascribed the
cutting of the defile of TempS to
Herakles (Dioddr. iv. 18).
Respecting the ancient Grecian
faith which recognised the dis
pleasure of Poseidon as the causa
of earthquakes, see Xenoph. Hel
len. iii. 3, 2; Thucydid. i. 127 j
Strabo, xii. p. 579 ; Dioddr. xv. 43
—49. It ceased to give universal
satisfaction even so early as the

Chap. XVL HELEN WOT TAKEN TO TKOT. 387
this basis a new story had been framed, midway between
Homer and Stesichorus, representing Paris to have really
carried off Helen from Sparta, but to have been driven by
storms to Egypt, where she remained during the whole siege
of Troy, having been detained by Proteus, the king of the
country, until Menelaus came to reclaim her alter his
triumph. The Egyptian priests, with their usual boldness
of assertion, professed to have heard the whole story from
Menelaus himself — the Greeks had besieged Troy, in the
full persuasion that Helen and the stolen treasures were
within the walls, nor would they ever believe the repeated
denials of the Trojans as to the fact of her presence. In
intimating his preference for the Egyptian narrative,
Herodotus betrays at once his perfect and unsuspecting
confidence that he is dealing with genuine matter of history,
and his entire distrust of the epic poets, even including
Homer, upon whose authority that supposed history rested.
His reason for rejecting the Homeric version is, that it
teems with historical improbabilities. If Helen had been
really in Troy (he says), Priam and the Trojans would never
have been so insane as to retain her to their own utter ruin ;
but it was the divine judgement which drove them into the
miserable alternative of neither being able to surrender
Helen nor to satisfy the Greeks of the real fact that they
never had possession of her — in order that mankind.might
plainly read, in the utter destruction of Troy, the great
punishments with which the gods visit great misdeeds.
Homer (Herodotus thinks) had heard this story, but
designedly departed from it, because it was not so suitable
a subject for epic poetry. i
time of Thales and Anaximenes philosophers (probably Kallisthe-

(see Aristot. Meteorolog. ii. 7 — 8
Plutarch, Placit. Philos. iii. 15
Seneca, Natural. QuEest. vi. 6 — 23)

nes, Senec. Nat. Qusest. vi. 23)
who substituted physical causes
and laws in place of the divine

and that philosopher, as well as agency, rejects their views and
Anaxagoras, Democritus, and ranks himself with the religious
others, suggested different physical public who traced this formidable
explanations of the fact. Notwith- phaenomenon to the wrath of Po-
standing a dissentient minority, seid&n (xv. 48  49).
however, the old doctrine still * Herod, ii. 116. hoxzzi hi noi
continued to be generally received: xal "0(«)po(; tov Xofov toutov iuo8rb-
and Diod6rus, in describing the Oai- aXX' ob fip opioid)? ebnpeizrie.
terrible earthquake in 373 B.C., by i? rrjt iitojioitr]v ^v i<ji iripy tqi itep
which Helike and Bura were E)rp^<jc(TO- £5 0 v.zrr]xz abrbt, hriXw-
destroyed, while he notices those uatio? xal toutov iitiaralrorbtXbyot.
2 C2

388 HISTOEY OF GREECE. Paet I.
Enough has been said to show, how wide is the dif
ference between Herodotus and the logographers with their
literal transcript of the ancient legends. Though he agrees
with them in admitting the full series of persons and
generations, he tries the circumstances narrated by a new
standard. Scruples have arisen in his mind respecting
violations of the laws of nature: the poets are unworthy of
trust, and their narratives must be brought into conformity
with historical and ethical conditions, before they can be
admitted as truth. To accomplish this conformity, Hero
dotus is willing to mutilate the old legend in one of its
most vital points. He sacrifices the personal presence of
Helena in Troy, which ran through every one of the an
cient epic poems belonging to the Trojan cycle, and is
indeed, under the gods, the great and present moving force
throughout. Thucydides places himself generally in the same point
of view as Herodotus with regard to mythical antiquity;
yet with some considerable differences. Though manifesting
no belief in present miracles or prodigies, * he seems to
accept without reserve the preexistent reality of all the
persons mentioned in the mythes, and of the long series of
generations extending back through so many supposed
centuries. In this category, too, are included the epony-
Herodotus then produces a pas- specie, apud Regium Lepidum
sage from the Iliad, with a view celebri vico consedisse, incolse
to prove that Homer knew of the memorant ; nee deinde ccetu ho-
voyage of Paris and Helen to minum aut circumvolitantium ali-
Egypt: but the passage proves turn, territam pulsamque, donee
nothing at all to the point. Otho se ipse interficeret: turn ab-
Again (c. 120), his slender con- latum ex oculis : et tempora re-
ftdence in the epic poets breaks putantibus,initiutn finemque mira-
out — si ypr] ti roXat ETi07iOioTffi yjzw- culicum Othpnisexitucompetisse."
p-evov Xiyztt. Suetonius (Vesp. 5) recounts a
It is remarkable that Herodotus different miracle, in which three
is disposed to identify Helen with eagles appear.
the £sIvt] ' Atppohirri whose temple This passage of Tacitus occurs
he saw at Memphis (c. 112). immediately after his magnificent
' "Ut conquirere fabulosa (says description of the suicide of the
Tacitus, Hist. ii. 50, a worthy emperor Otho, a deed which he con-
parallel of Thucydides) et fictis templates with the most fervent
ohlectarelegentiumanimos, procul admiration. His feelings were
gravitate coapti operis crediderim, evidently so wrought up, that he
ita vulgatis traditisque domere was content to relay the canons of
fidem non ausim. Die, quo Be- historical credibility.
b.riaci certabatur, avem inusitata

Chai\ XVI. THUCYDIDES ON THE WAR OE TROY. 389
mous personages, Hellen, Kekrops, Eumolpus, Pandion,
Amphilochus the son of Amphiaraus, and Akarnan. But
on the other hand, we find no trace of that distinction
between a human and an heroic ante-human race, which
Herodotus still admitted, — nor any respect for Egyptian
legends. Thucydides, regarding the personages of the
mythes as men of the same breed and stature with his own
contemporaries, not only tests the acts imputed to them by
the same limits of credibility, but presumes in them the
same political views and feelings as he was accustomed to
trace in the proceedings of Peisistratus or Perikles. He
treats the Trojan war as a great political enterprise, under
taken by all Greece ; brought into combination through the
imposing power of Agamemnon, not (according to the
legendary narrative) through the influence of the oath
exacted by Tyndareus. Then he explains how the prede
cessors of Agamemnon arrived at so vast a dominion —
beginning with Pelops, who came over (as he says) from
Asia with great wealth among the poor Peloponnesians,
and by means of this wealth so aggrandised himself, though
a foreigner, as to become the eponym of the peninsula.
Next followed his son Atreus, who acquired after the death
of Eurystheus the dominion of Mykense, which had before
been possessed by the descendants of Perseus: here the old
legendary tale, which described A4r«us as having been
banished by his father Pelops in consequence of the murder
of his elder brother Chrysippus, is invested with a political
bearing, as explaining the reason why Atreus retired to
Mykense. Another legendary tale — the defeat and death
of Eurystheus by the fugitive Herakleids in Attica, so
celebrated in Attic tragedy as having given occasion to the
generous protecting intervention of Athens — is also intro
duced as furnishing the cause why Atreus succeeded to the
deceased Eurystheus : "for Atreus, the maternal uncle of
Eurystheus, had been entrusted by the latter with his
government during the expedition into Attica, and had
effectually courted the people, who were moreover in great
fear of being attacked by the Herakleids." Thus the Pelo
pids acquired the supremacy in Peloponnesus, and Aga
memnon was enabled to get together his 1200 ships and
100,000 men for the expedition against Troy. Considering
that contingents were furnished from every portion of
Greece, Thucydides regards this as a small number, treating

300 HISTORY OP GREECE. PAET I.
the Homeric Catalogue as an authentic muster-roll, perhaps
rather exaggerated than otherwise. He then proceeds to
tell us why the armament was not larger. Many more men
could have been furnished, but there was not sufficient
money to purchase provisions for their subsistence: hence
they were compelled, after landing and gaining a victory,
to fortify their camp, to divide their army, and to send
away one portion for the purpose of cultivating the Cher
sonese, and another portion to sack the adjacent towns.
This was the grand reason why the siege lasted so long as
ten years. For if it had been possible to keep the whole
army together, and to act with an undivided force, Troy
would have been taken both earlier and at smaller cost.1
Such is the general sketch of the war of Troy, as given
by Thucydides. So different is it from the genuine epical
narrative, that we seem hardly to be reading a description
of the same event; still less should we imagine that the
event was known, to him as well as to us, only through the
epic poets themselves. The men, the numbers, and the
duration of the siege, do indeed remain the same ; but the
cast and juncture of events, the determining forces, and
the characteristic features, are altogether heterogeneous.
But, like Herodotus, and still more than Herodotus, Thucy
dides was under the pressure of two conflicting impulses.
He shared the general faith in the mythical antiquity, yet
at the same time he could not believe in any facts which
contradicted the laws of historical credibility or probability.
He was thus under the necessity of torturing the matter of
the old mythes into conformity with the subjective exigen
ces of his own mind. He left out, altered, recombined, and
supplied new connecting principles and supposed purposes,
until the story became such as no one could have any posi
tive reason for calling in question. Though it lost the
impressive mixture of religion, romance and individual
adventure, which constituted its original charm, it acquired
a smoothness and plausibility, and a political ensemble,
which the critics were satisfied to accept as historical truth.
And historical truth it would doubtless have been, if any
independent evidence could have been found to sustain it.
Had Thucydides been able to produce such new testimony,
we should have been pleased to satisfy ourselves that the
Thucyd. i. 9—12.

Chap. XVI. MYTHICAL NOTICES IN THUCYDIDES. 391
war of Troy, as he recounted it, was the real event; of which
the war of Troy, as sung by the epic poets, was a misre-
ported, exaggerated, and ornamented recital. But in this
case the poets are the only real witnesses, and the narrative
of Thucydides is a mere extract and distillation from their
incredibilities. A few other instances may be mentioned to illustrate
the views of Thucydides respecting various mythical inci
dents. 1 . He treats the residence of the Homeric Phseakians
at Korkyra as an undisputed fact, and employs it partly to
explain the efficiency of the Korkyrean navy in times pre
ceding the Peloponnesian war.1 2. He notices with equal
confidence the story of Tereus and Prokne, daughter of
Pandion, and the murder of the child Itys hy Prokne his
mother and Philomela; and he produces this ancient mythe
with especial reference to the alliance between the Atheni
ans and Teres, king of the Odrysian Thracians, during the
time of the Peloponnesian war,intimating that the Odrysian
Teres was neither of the same familynor of the same country
as Tereus the husband of Prokne. 2 The conduct of Pan
dion, in giving his daughter Prokne in marriage to Tereus,
is in his view dictated by political motives and interests.
3. He mentions the Strait of Messina as the place through
which Odysseus is said to have sailed.3 4. The Cyclopes
and the Lsestrygones (he says) were the most ancient
1 Thucyd. i. 25. regarded the event as historical/
2 Thucyd. ii. 29. Kal xb Epyov What would he have said respect-
to TtEpl rbt "Ituv ai -fuvaixE^ £v T^j jng the marriage of Oreithyia,
yij rabrrj S7cpa£av* itoXXolt; hi xal daughter of Erechtheus, with
Tti)v r.oirirwt ev a7]56yos u-t^u-yi Boreas, and the prodigious dis-
AxuXiasT] bpttt; zitwt6u.aarat. Elxo<; tance which she is reported to
8= xal to XT]5o<; IlavSiova Jjuva-^aaQai have been carried by her husband ?
rr]t; QuyaTpos Sta Toaooro'j, etc' ujcos- lTizip te tuovtov Tuavx', itt eayara yjio-
).Eia ryi 7tpo<; aXXr^Xout;, uaX).ov r\ tbt;, Ac. (Sophokles ap. Strabo. vii.
5ta itoXXwt riu.zpwt is 'Oopoaas p. 295).
o5oij. The first of these sentences Erora the way in which Thucy-
would lead us to infer, if it came dides introduces the mention of
from any other pen than that of this event, we see that he intend-
Thucydides, that the writer be- ed to correct the misapprehension
lieved the metamorphosis of Phi- of his countrymen, who having
lomela into a nightingale: see just made an alliance with the
above, ch. xi. Odrysian Teres, were led by that
The observation respecting the circumstance to think Of the old
convenience of neighbourhood for mythical TSreus, and to regard
the marriage is remarkable, and him as the ancestor of Teres.
shows how completely Thucydides • Thucyd. iv. 24.

392

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Part I,

reported inhabitants of Sicily; but he cannot tell to what
race they belonged, nor whence they came. l 5. Italy derived
its name from Italus king of the Sikels. 6. Eryx and Egesta.
in Sicily were founded by fugitive Trojans after the capture
of Troy; also Skione, in the Thracian peninsula of Pallene,
by Greeks from the Achsean town of Pellene, stopping
thither in their return from the siege of Troy : the Amphi
lochian Argos in the Gulf of Ambrakia was in like manner
founded by Amphilochus son of Amphiaraiis, in his return
from the same enterprise.. The remorse and mental derange
ment of the matricidal Alkmseon, son of Amphiaraus, is also
mentioned by Thucydides,2 as well as the settlement of his
son Akarnan in the country called after him Akarnania.3

* Thucyd. vi. 2.
2 Thucyd. ii. 68—102; vi. 2. An
tiochus of Syracuse, the contem
porary of Thucydides, also men
tioned Italus as the eponymous
king of Italy: he farther named
SikeluB, who came to Morges, son
of Italus, after having been ban
ished from Borne. He talks about
Italus, just as ThucydidSs talks
about Theseus, as a wise and
powerful king, who first acquired
a great dominion (Dionys. H. A,
R. i. 12, 35, 73). Aristotle also
mentioned Italus in the same
general terms (Polit. vii. 9, 2).
3 We may here notice some
particulars respecting Isokrates.
He manifests entire confidence in
the authenticity of the mythical
genealogies and chronology; but
while he treats the mythical per
sonages as historically real, he
regards them at the same time not
as human, but as half-gods, superior
to humanity. About Helena, Thd
seus, SarpSd6n, Kyknus, ULemnon,
Achilles, &c, see En com. Helen.
Or. x. pp. 282, 292, 295, Bek. Helena
was worshipped in his time as a
goddess at Therapnte (ib. p. 295).
He recites the settlements of Da
naus, Kadmus and Pelops in Greece,
as undoubted historical facts (p.
297). In his discourse called Bu3i-

ris, he accuses Polykratgs the so
phist of a gross anachronism in
having placed Busiris subsequent
in point of date to Orpheus and
JEolus (Or. xi. p. 301, Bek.), and he
adds that the tale of Busiris having
been slain by Herakl§s was chro
nologically impossible (p. 309). Of
the long Athenian genealogy from
Kekrops to Theseus, he speaks
with perfect historical confidence
(Panathenaic. p. 349, Bek.) ; not
less so of the adventures of He
rakles and his mythical contem
poraries, which he places in the
mouth of Archidamus cs a justi
fication of the Spartan title to
Messenia (Or. vi. Archidamus, p.
156, Bek.; compare Or. v. Philip-
pus, pp. 114, 138), cpdaiv, oU itspi
T<I)v TtaXaitov TuaTsuou-sv. Ac. He
condemns the poets in strong
language for the wicked and dis
solute tales which they circulated
respecting the gods: many of them
(he says) had been punished for
such blasphemies by blindness^
poverty, exile and other misfor
tunes (Or. xi. p. 309, Bek.).
In general it may be said, that
Isokratgs applies no principles of
historical criticism to the mythes;
he rejects such as appear to him
discreditable or unworthy, and
believes the rest.

Chap. XVI. MYTHICAL NOTICES IN THUCTDIDES.

393

Such are the special allusions made by this illustrious
author in the course of his history to mythical events.
Prom the tenor of his language we may see that he ac
counted all that could be known about them to be uncertain
and unsatisfactory; but he has it much at heart to show,
that even the greatest were inferior in magnitude and im
portance to the Peloponnesian war. i In this respect his

1 Thucyd. i. 21—22.
The first two volumes of this
History have been noticed in an
able article of the QuarterlyReview
for October 1S46; as well as in
the Heidelberger Jahrbucher der
Literatur (1816, No. 41, pp. 641—
655) by Professor Kortum.
While expressing, on several
points, approbation of my work,
by which I feel much flattered —
both my English and my German
critic take partial objection to the
views respecting Grecian legend*
The Quarterly Reviewer contends
that the mythopoeic faculty of the
human mind, though essentially
loose and untrustworthy, is never
creative, but requires some basis
of fact to work upon. Kortum
thinks that I have not done justice
to Thucydides, as regards his way
of dealing with legend ; that I do
not allow sufficient weight to the
authority of an historian so cir
cumspect and so cold-blooded
(den kaltbliitigsten und be-
sonnensten Historiker des Alter-
thums, p. 653) as a satisfactory
voucher for the early facts of
Grecian history in his preface
(Herr G. fehlt also, wenn er das
anerkannt kritische Procemium als
Gewahrsmann verschmaht, p. 654).
No man feels more powerfully
than I do the merits of Thucydides
as an historian, or the value of the
example which he set in mul
tiplying critical inquiries respect
ing matters recent and verifiable.
But the ablest judge or advocate,
in investigating specific facts, can

proceed no further than he finds
witnesses having the means of
knowledge and willing more or
less to tell truth. In reference to
facts prior to 776 B.C., ThucydidSs
had nothing before him except the
legendary poets, whose credibility
is not at all enhanced by the cir
cumstance that he accepted them
as witnesses, applying himself
only to cut down and modify their
allegations. His credibility in
regard to the specific facts of
these early times depends alto
gether upon theirs. Now we in our
day are in a better position for
appreciating their credibility than
he was in his, since the foundations
of historical evidence are so much
more fully understood, and good
or bad materials for history are
open to comparison in such large
extent and variety. Instead of
wondering that he shared the
general faith in such delusive
guides— we ought rathej to give
him credit for the reserve with
which he qualified that faith, and
for the sound idea of historical
possibility to which he held fast
as the limit of his confidence. But
it is impossible to consider Thu
cydides as a satisfactory guarantee
(Gewahrsmann) for matters of fact
which he derives only from such
sources. Professor Kortum considers that
I am inconsistent with myself in
refusing to discriminate particulai
matters of historical fact among
the legends— and yet in accepting
these legends (in my chap, xx.) as

394

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Part I.

opinion seems to have been at variance with that which was
popular among his contemporaries.
To touch a little upon the later historians by whom
these mythes were handled, we find that Anaximenes of
JJampsacus composed a consecutive history of events, be
ginning from the Theogony down to the battle of Mantineia. J
But Ephorus professed to omit all the mythical narratives
which are referred to times anterior to the return of the
Herakleids (such restriction would of course have banished
"the siege of Troy), and even reproved those who introduced
mythes into historical writing; adding, that everywhere

gaving a faithful mirror of the gene
ral state of early Grecian society (p.
653). It appears to me that this is
no inconsistency, but a real and im
portant distinction. Whether Hg-
raklgs, Agamemnon, Odysseus, &c.
were real persons, and performed
all, or a part, of the possible ac
tions ascribed to them— I profess
myself unable to determine. But
even assuming both the persons
and their exploits to be fictions,
these very fictions will have been
conceived and put together in
conformity to the general social
phgcnomena among which the des-
•criber and his hearers lived — and
will thus serve as illustrations of
the manners then prevalent. In
fact the real value of the Preface
¦of Thucydid6s, upon which Pro
fessor Kcrtum bestows such just
praise, consists, not in the par
ticular facts which he brings out
by altering the legends, but in the
rational general views which he
sets forth respecting early Grecian
society, and respecting the stepB
as well as the causes whereby it
attained its actual position as he
¦saw it.
Professor Kortum also affirms
that the mythes contain "real
matter of fact along with mere
conceptions:" which affirmation is
the same as that of the Quarterly
Reviewerj when he says that the

mythopoeic faculty is not creative.
Taking the mythes in a mass, I
doubt not that this is true, nor
have I anywhere denied it. Taking
them one by one, I neither affirm
nor deny it. My position is, that
whether there be matter of fact or
not, we have no test whereby it
can be singled out, identified and
severed from the accompanying fic
tion. And it lies upon those, who
proclaim the practicability of such
severance, to exhibit some means
of verification better than any
which has been yet pointed out.
If ThucydidSs has failed in doing
this, it is certain that none of the
many authors who have made the
same attempt after him have been
more successfnl.
It cannot surely be denied that
the mythopoeic faculty is creative,
when we have before us so many
divine legends not merely in
Greece, but in other countries
also. To suppose that these re
ligious legends are mere exag
gerations, &c, of some basis of
actual fact — that the gods of
polytheism were merely divinised
men with qualities distorted or
feigned— would be to embrace
in substance the theory of Eug-
merus. 1 Diod6r. xv. 89. He was a
contemporary of Alexander the
Great.

Chaf. XYI. EPHORUS, THEOPOMPUS, XENOPHON, ETC.

395

truth was the object to be aimed at.1 Yet in practice he
seems often to have departed from his own rule.2 Theo
pompus, on the other hand, openly proclaimed that he could
narrate fables in his history better than Herodotus, or
Ktesias, or Hellanicus.3 The fragments which remain to
us exhibit some proof that this promise was performed as
to quantity;* though as to his style of narration, the judge
ment ofDionysius is unfavourable. Xenophon ennobled his
favourite amusement of the chase by numerous examples
chosen from the heroic world, tracing their portraits with
all the simplicity of an undiminished faith. Kallisthenes,
like Ephorus, professed to omit all mythes which referred
to a time anterior to the return of the Herakleids; yet we
know that he devoted a separate book or portion of his
history to the Trojan war,5 Philistus introduced some
mythes in the earlier portions of his Sicilian history; but
Timseus was distinguished above all others by the copious
and indiscriminate way in which he collected and repeated
such legends.6 Some of these writers employed their

1 Diod6r. iv, 1. Strabo, ix. p.
422, ETti-ci^cra? toTi; <piXou.u9ouaiv
2 Ephorus recounted the princi
pal adventures of HgraklSs (Eragm,
8, 9, ed. Marx.), the tales of Kad
mus and Harmonia (Eragm. 12),
the banishment of iEtdlus from
Elis (Eragm. 15 ; Strabo, viii. p.
357); he drew inferences from the
chronology of the Trojan and
Theban wars (Eragm. 28) ; he re
lated the coming of Daedalus to
the Sikan king Kokalus, and the
expedition of the Amazons (Eragm.
39—103). He was particularly copious
in his information about 7.tictsi<;,
ttTCoixUci and auYYsvsiai (Polyb.
ix. 1).
3 Strabo, i. p. 74.
4 Dionys. Halic. de Vett. Scriptt.
Judic. p. 428, Reisk. ; Lilian, V.
H. iii. 18, 8s6-ou-tio<; . . • 8eivo<; ftu-
OoXoyo;. Theopompus affirmed, that the
dodies of those who went into the

forbidden precinct (to ctparov) of
Zeus in Arcadia gave no shadow
(Polyb. xvi. 12). He recounted the
story of Midas and SilSnus (Eragm.
74, 75, 76, ed. Wichers) : he said a
good deal about the heroes of
Troy; and he seems to have as
signed the misfortunes of the Noa-
xot to an historical cause— the
rottenness of the Grecian ships
from the length of the siege, while
the genuine epic ascribes it to
the anger of Ath&nS (Eragm. 112,
113, 114; Schol. Homer. Iliad. i;.
135); he narrated an alleged ex
pulsion of Kinyras from Cyprus
by Agamemndn (Fr. Ill); he gave
the genealogy of the Macedonian
queen Olympias up to Achilles
and .aSakus (Fragm. 232).
s Cicero, Epist. ad Familiar, v.
12; Xenophdn de Venation, c. 1.
fi Philistus, Fragm. 1 (Goller),
Daedalus and Kokalus ; about Liber
and Juno (Fragm. 57); about the
migration of the Sikels into Sicily

396 HISTOEY OF GEEECE. Pabt I.
ingenuity in transforming the mythical circumstances into
plausible matter of history: Ephorus in particular con
verted the serpent Pytho, slain hy Apollo, into a tyran
nical king, i
But the author who pushed this transmutation of
legend into history to the greatest length, was the Messenian
Euemerus, contemporary of Kassander of Macedon. He
melted down in this way the divine persons and legends,
as well as the heroic — representing hoth gods and heroes
as having been mere earthhorn men, though superior to the
ordinary level in respect of force and capacity, and deified
or heroified after death as a recompense for services or
striking exploits. In the course of a voyage into the Indian
sea, undertaken hy command of Kassander, Euemerus
professed to have discovered a fabulous country called
Panchaia, in which was a temple of the Triphylian Zeus:
he there described a golden column with an inscription
purporting to have been put up by Zeus himself, and de
tailing his exploits while on earth.2 Some eminent men,
among whom may be numbered Polybius, followed the
views of Euemerus, and the Roman poet Ennius 3 translated
his Historia Sacra: but on the whole he never acquired
favour, and the unblushing inventions which he put into
circulation were of themselves sufficient to disgrace both
the author and his opinions. The doctrine that all the gods
had once existed as mere men offended the religious pagans,
and drew upon Euemerus the imputation of atheism; but,
on the other hand, it came to be warmly espoused by several
of the Christian assailants of paganism, — by Minucius Eelix,
Lactantius, and St. Augustin, who found the ground ready
prepared for them in their efforts to strip Zeus and the
eighty yeai-B after the Trojan war of genuine epical agencies by
(ap. Dionys. Hal. i. 3). an historian ; also about Diomedes
Timrous (Eragm. 50, 61, 62, 63, and the Daunians ; Phaethdn and
Goller) related many fables re- the river Uridanus; the combats
specting Jas6n, Medea, and the of the Gigantes in the Phlegrcean
Argonauts generally. The mis- plains (Eragm. 97, 99, 102).
carriage of the Athenian armament 1 Strabo, is. p. 422.
under Hildas before Syracuse is 2 Compare Diod6r. v. 44—40'
imputed to the anger of Herakles and Lactantius, De EalsSk Eelig.
against the Athenians because i. 11.
they came to assist the Egestans, " Cicero, De Naturfk Deor. i. 42;
descendants of Troy (Plutarch, Varro, De Be Bust. i. 48.
Nikias, 1),— a naked reproduction

Chap. XVI. ETJEMEKUS. 391
other pagan gods of the attributes of deity. They believed
not only in the main theory, but also in the copious details
of Euemerus ; and the same man whom Strabo casts aside
as almost a proverb for mendacity, was extolled by them as
an excellent specimen of careful historical inquiry.1
But though the pagan world repudiated that "lowering
tone of explanation" which effaced the superhuman per
sonality of Zeus and the great gods of Olympus — the
mythical persons and narratives generally came to be
surveyed more and more from the point of view of history,
and subjected to such alterations as might make them look
more like plausible matter of fact. Polybius, Strabo, -
Diodorus, and Pausanias, cast the mythes into historical
statements — with more or less of transformation, as the
case may require, assuming always that there is a basis of
truth, which may be discovered by removing poetical exag
gerations and allowing for mistakes. Strabo, in particular,
lays down that principle broadly and unequivocally in his
remarks upon Homer. To give pure fiction, without any
foundation of fact, was in his judgement utterly unworthy
of so great a genius ; and he comments with considerable
1 Strabo, ii. p. 102. 06 xoXb ouv Historia Sacra of Euemerus.
XsItietgh Tauia tujv IT68eu> xal E6i]u.spo?, 6 £mxAi]9eU SOeo?,
Ebriu.ipooxaVAtritpatout;'\izuau.arwt ; Sextus Empiricus, adv. Physicos^
compare also i. p. 47, and ii. p. ix. §. 17—61. Compare Cicero, De
104. Nat. Deor. i. 42; Plutarch, De
St. Augustin, on the contrary, Iside et Osiride, c. 23, torn. ii. p.
tells us (Civitat. Dei, vi. 7), "Quid 476, ed. Wytt.
de ipso Jove senserunt, qui nu- Nitzsch assumes (Heldensage
tricem ejus inCapitolio posuerunt? der Griechen, sect. 7, p. 84) that
Nonne attestati sunt omnes Eue- the voyage of Euemerus to Pan-
mero, qui nonfabulosa garrulitate, chaia was intended only as an
sed historicd diligentia, homines amusing romance, and that Strabo,
fuisse mortalesque conscripsit ?" Polybius, Eratosthenes and Plu-
And Minucius Eelix (Octav. 20-21), tarch were mistaken in construing
"Euemerus exsequitur Deorum na- it as a serious recital. Bottiger,
tales: patrias, sepulcra, dinumerat, in his Kunst-Mythologie der Grie-
ct per provincias monstrat, Dictffii chen (Absch. ii. s. 6, p. 190), takes
Jovis, et Apollinis Delphici, et the same view. But not the least
Pharia3 Isidis, et Cereris Eleu- reason is given for adopting this
sinise." Compare Augustin, Civit. opinion, and it seems to me far-
Dei, xviii. 8—14; and Clemens fetched and improbable; Lobeck
Alexand. Cohort, ad Gent. pp. 15 — (Aglopham. p. 989), though Nitzsch
18, Sylb. alludes to him as holding it,
Lactantius (De Ealsa Belig. c. manifests no such tendency, as far
13, 14, 16) gives copious citations as I can observe.
from Ennius's translation of the

398 HISTOET OE GREECE. Pakt I.>
acrimony on the geographer Eratosthenes, who maintains
the opposite opinion. Again, Polybius tells us that the
Homeric .ZEolus, the dispenser of the winds by appointment
from Zeus, was in reality a man eminently skilled in navi
gation, and exact in predicting the weather ; that the Cy
clopes and Lsestrygones were wild and savage real men in
Sicily; and that Scylla and Oharybdis were a figurative
representation of dangers arising from pirates in the Strait
of Messina. Strabo speaks of the amazing expeditions of
Dionysus and Herakles, and of the long wanderings of
Jason, Menelaus, and Odysseus, in the same category with
the extended commercial range of the Phoenician merchant-
ships. He explains the report of Theseus and Peirithous
having descended to Hades, by their dangerous earthly
pilgrimages, — and the invocation of the Dioskuri as the
protectors of the imperiled mariner, by the celebrity which
they had acquired as real men and navigators.
Diodorus gave at considerable length versions of the
current fables respecting the most illustrious names in the
Grecian mythical world, compiled confusedly out of distinct
and incongruous authors. Sometimes the mythe is repro
duced in its primitive simplicity, but for the most part it
is partially and sometimes wholly, historicised. Amidst
this jumble of dissentient authorities, we can trace little of
a systematic view, except the general conviction that there
was at the bottom of the mythes a real chronological
sequence of persons, and real matter of fact, historical or
ultra-historical. Nevertheless there are some few occasions
on which Diodorus brings us back a step nearer to the
point of view of the old logographers. For, in reference
to Herakles, he protests against the scheme of cutting down
the mythes to the level of present reality. He contends
that a special standard of ultra-historical credibility ought
to be constituted, so as to include the mythe in its native
dimensions, and do fitting honour to the grand, beneficent,
and superhuman personality of Herakles and other heroes
or demigods. To apply to such persons the common mea
sure of humanity (he says), and to cavil at the glorious
picture which grateful man has drawn of them, is at once
ungracious and irrational. All nice criticism into the truth
of the legendary narratives is out of place: we show our
reverence to the god by acquiescing in the incredibilities
of his history, and we must be content with the best guesses

Chap. XVI. DIODOrVUS.— PAUSANIAS. 399>
which we can make, amidst the inextricable confusion and
numberless discrepancies which they present, i Yet though
Diod6rus here exhibits a preponderance of the religious.
sentiment over the purely historical point of view, and thus
reminds us of a period earlier than Thucydides — he in
another place inserts a series of stories which seem to be
derived from Euemerus, and in which Uranus, Kronus and
Zeus appear reduced to the character of human kings cele--
brated for their exploits and benefactions.2 Many of the
authors, whom Diodorus copies, have so entangled together
Grecian, Asiatic, Egyptian and Libyan fables, that it
becomes impossible to ascertain how much of this hetero
geneous mass can be considered as at all connected with
the genuine Hellenic mind.
Pausanias is far more strictly Hellenic in his view of
the Grecian mythes than Diodorus : his sincere piety makes
him inchned to faith generally with regard to the mythical
narratives, but subject nevertheless to the frequent neces
sity of historicising or allegorising them. His belief in the
general reality of the mythical history and chronology is-
complete, in spite of the many discrepancies which he finds-
in it, and which he is unable to reconcile.
* Diod6r. ix. 1 — 8. "Evloi yap tujv tojvok; i£riu.zpwaai ttjv ol-/ouuiv7)vr
dvayiv(uffx6vTU>v, oo Sixala ypwu.etoi robs 8' dvQpuJTcous, STCiXa9ou.svGUs T7]<
xplasi, raxptfizt; eitiC7Jtouciv ev Tais xotvTJt; eoepyeaias , au xo<p avTeiv-
dpyatais u-uBoXoylaiG, iitiartt; rolt; tov iizi toi<; xaXXiarois epyois e'Tuai-
Koarrou-itoit; it Tip xa9' Tju.as ypbtoi, vov, &c.
xal Ta SiaTaC6u.sva tujv Ipyujv Sid This is a remarkable passages
to u.eye9o<;, ex tou xa9' abrobs fllo'-J first, inasmuch as it sets forth the-
TExp.aip6u.eypi, ttjv 'Hpax).E0Us hbta- total inapplicability of analogies
[Uv ex ttjs da9svsia<; tujv vuv dvGpib- drawn from the historical past as
tcujv Bsujpoucnv, ujtjTS 5id ttjv uxEp- narratives about Herakles ; next^
fJoVrjv too u.Eye9oue; tujv Ipytov drcicj- inasmuch as it suspends the em-
T£ia9ai ttjv ypacpTjv. KaBoXo'J yap ev ployment of critical and scientific-
ralt; dpyalai? u.u9o)>oylais oux ix tests, and invokes an acquiescence-
TuavTO? TpoTuou it i x p w <; ttjv d X 7} - interwoven and identified with the
Beiav E^eTaffTEOv. Kal yap ev feelings, as the proper mode of
toii; 9sdTpoi? Tceiteiau-Evoi (j.tjts evincing pious reverence for the
KevTaupouc oicpuets e£- sTspo- god Herakles. It aims at repro-
yEvtbv ouju-dTUJv UTidpSai, u-tjts Ttj- ducing exactly that state of mind
puovTjv TptaujjjLaTov, Su-ios itpoo- to which the mythes were addres-
8ey_6u.e9a ra$ rotabrat; u.u9o- sed, and with which alone they
Xoyiac, xal Ttti? ini a r\ jxa ala i s could ever be in thorough har-
ofu v a6 £ou.ev ttjvtou 9eoo ti- mony.
u.tjv. Kal yap aTOTtov, 'HpaxXea u.ev 2 Diodor. iii. 45—60; 44— 46.
4'ti xaT' dvQpuJrcous SvTa rolt; ihioit;

400 HISTOET OE GEEECE. Paet I.
Another author who seems to have conceived clearly,
and applied consistently, the semi-historical theory of the
Grecian mythes, isPalsephatus, of whose work what appears
to be a short abstract has been preserved.1 In the short
preface of this treatise "concerning Incredible Tales," he
remarks, that some men, from want of instruction, believe
all the current narratives; while others, more searching
and cautious, disbelieve them altogether. Each of these
extremes he is anxious to avoid. On the one hand, he thinks
that no narrative could ever have acquired credence unless
it had been founded in truth; on the other, it is impossible
for him to accept so much of the existing narratives as
conflicts with the analogies of present natural phsenomena.
If such things ever had been^ they would still continue to
be — but they never have so occurred: and the extra-analo
gical features of the stories are to be ascribed to the licence
of the poets. Palaephatus wishes to adopt a middle course,
neither accepting all nor rejecting all; accordingly, he had
taken great pains to separate the true from the false in
many of the narratives; he had visited the localities wherein
they had taken place, and made careful inquiries from old
men and others.2 The results of his researches are pre-
1 The work of Palaephatus, pro- Tal xal Xoyoypdaoi 7tapETpE'J»av eU to
bably this original, is alluded to dTUcrroTEpov xal 9auu.affiuJT£pov too
in the Ciris of Virgil (88): 9auu.d1Uiv EvExaToi)<;dv9pib7uou<;. 'Eytu
Docta Palsephatia testatur voce BiytvuJoxuj, otiou 66vaTai TaToiauTa
papyrus." slvaioiaxai XEyETai- touto OExal 8iel-
The date of Palaephatus is un- Xrj<pa, oriel jjltj ey£vETO,oux av eXeyeto.
known— indeed this passage of the The main assumptionof the semi-
Ciris seems the only ground that historical theory is here shortly
exists for inference respecting it. and clearly stated.
That Which we now possess is One of the early Christian writers,
probably an extract from a larger Minucius Eelix, is astonished at
work — an extract made by an ex- the easy belief of his pagan fore-
cerptor at some later time: see fathers in miracles. If ever such
Vossius de Historicis Graecis, p. things had been done in former
478, ed. Westermann. times (he affirms), they would
* Palffiphat. init. ap. Script. My- continue to be done now; as they
thogr. ed. Westermann, p. 268. Tii-j cannot be done now, we may be
dv9pd>Ttu>v ol |i.iv TielSovTai 7taai toi? sure that they never were really
¦Xeyouivois, un dvou.lXT)Toi soola? xal done formerly (Minucius Felix,
E7UIUTTJU.TJ5— -ot8iituxv6TepoiTT]v<p6aiv Octav. c. 20): "Majoribus enim
xal itoXuTtpdyjiovsc ditio-Touai to 71a- nostris tarn facilis in mendaciis
paitat utjSev ysvEi9at to6tojv. 'EjjloI fides fuit, ut temere crediderint
hi Soxei yEv£d9at TidvTa Ta Xsyo- etiam alia monstruosa mira mira-
u.Eva- . . . . y£v6jj.£va 8e Tiva ol Ttoirj- cula, Scyllam multiplicem, Chi-

Chap. XVI. PAL.3LPHATUS. 401
sented in a new version of fifty legends, among the most
celebrated and the most fabulous, comprising the Centaurs,
Pasiphae, Aktseon, Kadmus and the Sparti, the Sphinx,
Cycnus, Daedalus, the Trojan horse, iEolus, Scylla, Gery6n,
Bellerophon, &c.
It must be confessed that Palsephatus has performed
his promise of transforming the "incredibilia" into narra
tives in themselves plausible and unobjectionable, and that
in doing so he always follows some thread of analogy, real
or verbal. The Centaurs (he tells us) were a body of young
men from the village of Nephele in Thessaly, who first
trained and mounted horses for the purpose of repelling a
herd of bulls belonging to Ixion king of the Lapithee, which
had run wild and done great damage: they pursued these
wild bulls on horseback, and pierced them with their spears,
thus acquiring both the name oi Prickers (xevTopes) and the
imputed attribute of joint body with the horse. Aktseon
was an Arcadian, who neglected the cultivation of his land
for the pleasures of hunting, and was thus eaten up by the
expense of his hounds. The dragon whom Kadmus killed
at Thebes, was in reality Drako king of Thebes; and the
dragon's teeth which he was said to have sown, and from
whence sprung a crop of armed men, were in point of fact
elephants' teeth, which Kadmus as a rich Phoenician had
brought over with him: the sons of Drako sold these ele
phants' teeth and employed the proceeds to levy troops
against Kadmus. Daedalus, instead of flying across the sea
on wings, had escaped from Krete in a swift sailing-boat
under a violent storm: Kottus, Briareus and Gyges were
not persons with one hundred hands, but inhabitants of the
village ofHekatoncheiria in Upper Macedonia, who warred
with the inhabitants of Mount Olympus against the Titans:
Scylla, whom Odysseus so narrowly escaped, was a fast-
sailing piratical vessel, as was also Pegasus, the alleged
winged horse of Bellerophon.1
maeram multiformem, Hydram, et the same subject as this of Palav
Centauros. Quid illas aniles fa- phatus are printed along with it
bulas — de hominibus aves, et feras both in the collection of Gale and
homines, et de hominibus arbores of Westermann ; the one HeracHti
atque fiores ? Quce, si essent facta, de Incredibilibus, the other Ano-
fierent; quia fieri non possunt , ideo nymi de Incredibilibus. They both
nee facta sunt." profess to interpret some of the
1 Pala?phat. Narrat. 1, 3, 6, 13, extraordinary or miraculous my-
20, 21, 29. Two short treatises on thes, and proceed in a track not
VOL. I. 2d

402

HISTORY OP GREECE.

Part I.

By such ingenious conjectures, Palsephatus eliminates
all the incredible circumstances, and leaves to us a string*
of tales perfectly credible and commonplace, which we
should readily believe, provided a very moderate amount
of testimony could be produced in their favour. If his
treatment not only disenchants the original mythes, but
even effaces their generic and essential character, we ought
to remember that this is not more than what is done by
Thucydides in his sketch of the Trojan war. Palsephatus
handles the mythes consistently, according to the semi- '
historical theory, and his results exhibit the maximum
which that theory can ever present, * By aid of conjecture

unlike that of Palsephatus. Scylla
was a beautiful courtezan, sur
rounded with abominable para
sites : she ensnared and ruined the
companions of Odysseus, though
he himself was prudent enough to
escape her (Heraclit. u. 2. p. 313,
WeBt.) Atlas was a great astro
nomer; Pasipha§ fell in love with
a youthnamed Taurus ; the monster
called the Chimsera was in reality
a ferocious queen, who had two
brothers called Leo and Drako ;
the ram which carried Phryxus
and Helle across the JEgean was
a boatman named' Krius (Heraclit.
u. 2, 6, 15, 24).
A great number of similar ex
planations are scattered throughout
the Scholia on Homer and the
Commentary of Eustathius, without
specification of their authors.
The6n consideis such resolution
of fable into plausible history as
a proof of surpassing ingenuity
(Progymnasmata, cap. 6, ap.Walz.
Coll. Rhett. Graic. i. p. 219). Others
among the Rhetors, too, exercised
their talents sometimes in vindi
cating, sometimes in controverting,
the probability of the ancient my
thes. See the Progymnasmata of
Nicolaus— KcccccaxEU7] oti elxoTcc ii
xgcto: Nl6P7]v, AvaaxEU7) Sxi oux
aixoxa toc xaxa Ni6p7]v (ap. Walz.
Coll. Rhetor, i. p. 284—318), where

there are many specimens of this
fanciful mode of handling.
Plutarch, however, in one of
his treatises, accepts Minotaurs,
Sphinxes, Centaurs, Ac, as rea
lities ; he treats them as products
of the monstrous, incestuous, and
ungovernable lusts of man, which
he contrasts with the simple and
moderate passions of animals
(Plutarch, Gryllus, p. 990).
1 The learned Mr. Jacob Bryant
regards the explanations of Pala3-
phatus as if they were founded
upon real fact. He admits , for
example, the city NephelS alleged
by that author in his exposition
of the fable of the Centaurs. More
over, he speaks with much com
mendation of Palsephatus gene
rally : "He (Palsephatus) wrote
early , and seems to have been a
serious and sensible person; one
who saw the absurdity of the
fables upon which the theology
of his country was founded."
(Ancient Mythology , vol. i. p.
411—435.) So also Sir Thomas Browne
(Enquiry into Vulgar Errors, Book
I. chap. vi. p. 221, od. 1835) allu
des to Palsephatus as having in-
contestably pointed out the real
basis of the fables. "And surely
the fabulous inclination of those
days was greater than any since j

Chap. XVI. ALLEGORISING TENDENCY. 403
we get out of the impossible, and arrive at matters intrinsi
cally plausible, but totally uncertified; beyond this point
we cannot penetrate, without the light of extrinsic evidence,
since there is no intrinsic mark to distinguish truth from
plausible fiction.
It remains that we should notice the manner in which
the ancient mythes were received and dealt with by the
philosophers. The earliest expression which we hear, on
the part of philosophy, is the severe censure bestowed upon
them on ethical grounds by Xenophanes of Kolophon, and
seemingly by some others of his contemporaries. ' It was
apparently in reply to such charges, which did not admit
of being directly rebutted, that Theagenes of Phegium
(about 520 b.c.) first started the idea of a double meaning
in the Homeric and Hesiodic narratives, — an interior sense,
different from thatwhich the words in their obvious meaning
bore, yet to a certain extent analogous, and discoverable by
sagacious divination. Upon this principle he allegorised
especially the battle of the gods in the Iliad. 2 In the suc
ceeding century, Anaxagoras and Metrodorus carried out
the allegorical explanation more comprehensively and
systematically; the former representing the mythical per
sonages as mere mental conceptions invested with name
and gender, and illustrative of ethical precepts, — the latter
which swarmed so with fables, and See a curious comparison of the
from such slend-er grounds took Grecian and Roman theology in
hints for fictions, poisoning the Dionys. Halicarn. Ant. Bom.
world ever after: wherein how far ii. 20.
they succeeded, maybe exemplified 2 Schol. Iliad, xx. 67; Tatian.
from Palsephatus, in his Book of adv. Grsec. c. 48. Herakleitus in-
Fabulous Narrations." dignantly repelled the impudent
1 Xenophan. ap. Sext. Empir. atheists who found fault with the
adv. Mathemat. ix. 193. He also divine mythes of the Iliad, ignorant
disapproved of the rites, accom- -Of their true allegorical meaning:
panied hy mourning and wailing, 7] tujv z7r.1tpuou.itwt T(p 'Ou^pw r6Xu.a
with which the Eleates worshipped -roOs "Hpott; Ssauous aiTiaTai , xal
Leukothea: he told them, ei uiv vonli^ouciiv uXy]t Tiva8a'j»iXfj tt}<; a'Geou
Qeov bnoXau.$atouai , u.7) 9pi]vsTv el itpbt; "Ou,7]pov iyzit fiaviac; raura —
hi avQpanrov, u-7] Ousiv (Aristotel. TH ob u.iu-tr> Zrt x' ixpzy.w b'^ohzt,
Illiet. ii. 23). &c. XsXtjQs 8' abrobz oti robroiz rolt;
Xenophanes pronounced the eTusatv ixretieoXbyrirai 7j too itatrbt;
battles of the Titans, Gigantes and yitztsit;, xal to. auvs/a>^ ah6u.zta ria-
Centaurs to he "fictions of our aapa arotyela tootiov tujv aTiyujv
predecessors," ~Xaau.ara tujv 7rpo- sot'l tA£ic (Schol. ad Horn. Iliad.
Tspujv (Xenophan. Fragm. 1. p. 42, xv. 18).
ed. Schneidewin).
2 d 2

404

HISTORY OP GREECE.

Part I.

connecting them with physical principles and phsenomena.
Metrodorus resolved not only the persons of Zeus, Here
and Athene, but also those of Agamemnon, Achilles and
Hector, into various elemental combinations and physical
agencies, and treated the adventures ascribed to them as
natural facts concealed under the veil of allegory.1 Empe-
dokles, Prodikus, Antisthenes, Parmenides, Herakleides of
Pontus, and in a later age, Chrysippus and the Stoic philo
sophers generally,2 followed more or less the same principle
of treating the popular gods as allegorical personages;
while the expositors of Homer (such as Stesimbrotus, Glau-
kon and others, even down to the Alexandrine age), though
none of them proceeded to the same extreme length as
Metrodorus, employed allegory amongst other media of
explanation for the purpose of solving difficulties, or eluding
reproaches against the poet.

1 Diogen. Laert. ii. 11; Tatian.
adv. Grsec. v. 37 ; Hesychius, v.
'Ay^IJ-eh-vovh. See the ethical turn
given to the stories of Circe, the
Syrens and Scylla, in Xenoph.
Memorab. i. 3, 7; ii. 6, 11—31. Syn-
cellus, Chronic, p. 149. lEpu.T]vEt!)oueu
Be o& 'Ava^aYopsioi xous jjluQioSei?
Qsous, voov jj-ev x6v Ala, xtjv 8s
'AOt^MOCV TS'/V7]V, &c.
TTschold and other modern Ger
man authors seem to have adopted
in its full extent the principle of
interpretation proposed hy Metro-
d&rus — treating Odysseus and Pe
nelope as personifications of the
Sun and Moon, &c. See Helbig,
Die Sittlichen Zustande des Grie-
chischen Helden-Alters, Einlei-
tung. p. xxix. (Leipzig, 1839).
Corrections of the Homeric text
were also resorted to, in order to
escape the necessity of imputing
falsehood to Zeus (Aristotel. De
Sophist. Elench. c. 4).
2 Sextus Empiric, ix. 18; Diogen.
viii. 76; Plutarch, De Placit. Phi-
losopb. i. 3 — 6; De Poesi Home-
rica, 92—126 ; De Stoicor. Repugn,
p. 1050; Menander, De Encomiis,
c. 5.

Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i. 14, 15,
16,41; ii. 24—25. "Physica ratio
non inelegans inclusa in impias
fabulas." In the Bacchos of Euripides, Pen
theus is made to deride the tale
of the motherless infant Dionysus
having heen sewn into the thigh
of Zeus. Teiresias, while reproving
him. for his impiety, explains the
story away in a sort of allegory:
the \L7)ph$ Aio; (he says) was a
mistaken statement in place of
the aI07]p yQova Eyxux}.o6(j.svos(Bacch.
235—290)." Lucretius (iii. 995 — 1036) allego
rises the conspicuous sufferers in
Had§s, — Tantalus, Sisyphus, Ti-
tyus, and the Dana'idSj as well as
the ministers of penal infliction,
Cerberus and the Euries. The first
four are emblematic descriptions
of various defective or vicious
characters in human nature, — the
deisidajmonic, the ambitious, the
amorous, or the insatiate and
querulous man; the two last re
present the mental terrors of the
wicked.

Chap. XVI. ALLEGORISING TENDENCY. 405
In the days of Plato and Xenophon, this allegorising
interpretation was one of the received methods of Allegorical
softening down the obnoxious mythes — though !"terPfeJ?"
Plato himself treated it as an insufficient defence, mythes -
seeing that the bulk of youthful hearers could more and
not see through the allegory, but embraced the teemed and
story literally as it was set forth, ' Pausanias applied.
tells us, that when he first began to write his work, he
treated many of the Greek legends as silly and undeserving
of serious attention; but as he proceeded he gradually
arrived at the full conviction, that the ancient sages had
designedly spoken in enigmatical language, and that there
was valuable truth wrapped up in their narratives: it was
the duty of a pious man, therefore, to study and interpret,
but not to reject, stories current and accredited respecting
the gods. 2 And others, — arguing from the analogy of the
rehgious mysteries, which could not be divulged without
impiety to any except such as had been specially admitted
and. initiated, — maintained that it would be a profanation
to reveal directly to the vulgar, the genuine scheme of
nature and the divine administration: the ancient poets and
philosophers had taken the only proper course, of talking
to the many in types and parables, and reserving the naked
1 01 viiv icEpl "0u.ripot hzttoi — so Tcapa jxev tujv apyalojv, u.zra noir)-
Plato calls these interpreters (Kra- azws EiuxpuirTou-Evtov robs itoXXabs,
tylus, p. 407); see also Xenoph. &c. ; also Protagor. c. 20, p. 316.
Sympos. iii. 6; Plato, Ion, p. 530; "Modo Stoicum Homerum fa-
Plutarch, De Audiend. Poet. p. 19. ciunt, — modo Epicureum, — modo
(iTCovoia was the original word, Peripateticum, — modo Academi-
afterwards succeeded hy etXX7]yopia. cum. Apparet nihil horum esse in
"Hpa<; os hzau.obt; yal 'H'-paiaTou illo, quia omnia sunt." (Seneca,
ptosis bitb TtaTpot;, u.iXXotrot; r-Q Ep. 88.) Compare Plutarch, De
(jLV}-rpl ruizrou.itrj au.btzit, xal 9eo- Defectu Oracul. c. 11 — 12. t. ii. p.
u.ayia$ oaat; vOu.7]pot; tistcoitjxsv, od 702, Wytt., and Julian, Orat. vii.
TiapaOEXTEov eU ttjv tcoXiv, out' ev p. 216.
bizo toiai< Ttzito i'/]y.zt at;, ob r' a Pausan. viii. 8, 2. To the same
Sveu Otto vot ujv. 'O yap tiot; o'jy_ purpose (Straho, x. p. 474), alle-
oioi; ts xpiveiv, S,ti te brtotoia xal gory is admitted to a certain ex-
6 u-tj, aXX' a av T7]XtxotJToq ojv Xap7] tent in the fables by Dionys. Halic.
ev TaT^ ho^ait;, hoaixtiizra re xai Ant. Horn. ii. 20. The fragment of
d(AETaaTaTa tpiXzl -pTvstjQai (Plato, the lost treatise- of Plutarch, on
Eepubl. ii. 17. p. 378). the Platrean festival of the Daidala,
The idea of an interior sense is very instructive respecting Gre-
and concealed purpose in the an- cian allegory (Fragm. ix. t. 5,' p.
cient poets occurs several times 754—763, ed. Wyt. ; ap. Euseb.
in Plato (Thesetet. u. 93. p. 180) : Prsepar. Evang. iii. 1).

406

HISTORY OE GREECE.

Part I.

truth for privileged and qualified intelligences.1 The alle
gorical mode of explaining the ancient fables2 became more

1 This doctrine is set forth in
Macrobius (i. 2). He distinguishes
between fabula, and fdbulosa nar-
ratio : the former is fiction pure,
intended either to amuse or to
instruct — the latter is founded upon
truth, either respecting human or
respecting divine agency. The
gods did not like to be publicly
talked of (according to his view)
except under the respectful veil
of a fable (the same feeling as that
of Herodotus, which led him to
refrain from inserting the Upoi
Xiyoi in his history). The supreme
God, the xayaBbv, the Tipuj-rov cutiov,
could not be talked of in fables;
but the other gods, the aerial or
eethereal powers, and the soul,
might be, and ought to be, talked
of in that manner alone. Only
superior intellects ought to he
admitted to a knowledge of the
secret reality. "De Diis cseteris,
et de anim&j non frustra se, nee
ut oblectent, ad fabulosa con-
vertunt ; sed quia sciunt inimicam
esse naturce apertam nudamque ex-
positionem sui: quee sicut vulga-
ribus senBibus hominum intellec-
tum sui, vario rerum tegmine
operimentoque, subtraxit ; ita ;>,
prudentibus arcana sua voluit per
fabulosa tractari  Adeo
semper ita se et sciri et coli nu-
mina maluerunt, qualiter in vul-
gus antiquitas fabulata est ....
Secundum hsec Pythagoras ipse
atque Empedocles, Parmenides
quoque et Heraclides, de Diis fa-
bulati sunt: nee secus Timseus."
Compare also Maximus Tyrius,
dissert, x. and xxii. Arnobius ex
poses the allegorical interpretation
as mere evasion, and holds the
Pagans to literal historical fact
(Adv. Gentes, v. p. 185, ed. Elm.).
Respecting the allegorical inter

pretation applied to the Greek
fables, B6ttiger(DieKunst-Mytho-
logie der Griechen, Abschn. ii. p.
176); Nitzsch (Heldensage der
Griech. sect. 6, p. 78) ; Lobeck
(Aglaopham. p. 133—165).
2 According to the anonymous
writer, ap. "Westermann (Script,
Myth. p. 228), every personal or
denominated god may be construed
in three different ways : either
TCpaYu.aTi'xuk (historically, as having
been a king or a man) — or tyvyixCbs,
in which theory Here" signifies the
soul; Athene, -prudence ; Aphrodite,
desire; Zeus, mind, &c. — or cttoi-
y£iav.u)^, in which system Apollo
signifies the sun; Poseid6n, the
sea; Here, the upper stratum of
the air, or cether; Athene, the
lower or denser stratum ; Zeus,
the upper hemisphere ; Kronus, the
lower, &c. This writer thinks that
all the three principles of con
struction may be resorted to, each
on its proper occasion, and that
neither of them excludes the others.
It will be seen that the first is
pure Euemerism ; the two latter
are modes of allegory.
The allegorical construction of
the gods and of the divine mythes
is copiously applied in the trea
tises, both of Phurnutus and Sal-
lustius, in Gale's collection of
mythological writers. Sallustius
treats the mythes as of divine
origin, and the chief poets as in
spired (9e6X7]7ctoi) : the gods were
propitious to those who recounted
worthy and creditable mythes re
specting them, and Sallustius
prays that they will accept with
favour his own remarks (cap. 3
and 4, pp. 246—251, Gale). He
distributes mythes into five clas
ses: theological, physical, spi
ritual, material, and mixed. He

Chap. XVI.

LATER PLATONIC PHILOSOPHERS.

407

and more popular in the third and fourth centuries after
the Christian sera, especially among the new Platonic phi
losophers; heing both congenial to their orientalised turn
of thought, and useful as a shield against the attacks of
the Christians. It was from the same strong necessity, of accommo
dating the old mythes to a new standard both of Divine
belief and of appreciation, that both the historical legends
and the allegorical schemes of transforming them Heroic'36 ¦
arose; the literal narrative being decomposed legendsWs-
for the purpose of arriving at a base either of tonoise ¦
particular matter of fact, or of general physical or moral

defends the practice of speaking
of the gods nnder the veil of
allegory, much in the same way as
Macrohius (in the preceding note) :
he finds, moreover, a good excuse
even for those mythes which impu
ted to the gods theft, adultery,
outrages towards a father, and
other enormities: such tales (he
aays) were eminently suitable,
since the mind must at once see
thM the facts as told are not to
be taken as being themselves the
Teal truth, but simply as a veil
disguising some interior truth
<P- 247).
Besides the life of Homer ascribed
to Plutarch (see Gale, p. 325—332),
Heraclides (not Heraclides of Pon
tus) carries out the process of al
legorising the Homeric mythes
most earnestly and most syste
matically. The application of the
allegorising theory is, in his view,
the only way of rescuing Homer
from the charge of scandalous
impiety— k a vz-q yitp 7jffspTjoev, si
jjl7]8ev 7]XXT)Yop7]a£v (HSrac. in init.
p. 407, Gale). He proves at length,
that the destructive arrows of
Apollo, in the first book of the
Iliad, mean nothing at the bottom
except a contagious plague, caused
by the heat of the summer sun in
marshy ground (pp. 416—424).
Athene, who darts down from

Olympus at the moment when
Achilles is about to draw his
sword on Agamemndn, and seizes
him by the hair, is a personification
of repentant prudence (p. 435).
The conspiracy against Zeus, which
Homer (Iliad, i. 400) relates to
have been formed by the Olympic
gods, and defeated by the timely
aid of Thetis and Briareus— the
chains and suspension imposed
upon HSre — the casting of He
phsestos by Zeus out of Olympus,
and his fall in Lemnus — the de
struction of the Grecian wall hy
Poseiddn, after the departure of
the Greeks — the amorous scene
between Zeus and Here" on mount
Gargarus— the distribution of the
universe between Zeus, Poseidon,
and Had§s — all these he resolves
into peculiar manifestations and
conflicts of the elemental sub
stances in nature. To the much-
decried battle of the gods he gives
a turn partly physical, partly
ethical (p. 481). In like manner
he transforms and vindicates the
adventures of the gods in the
Odyssey: the wanderings of Odys
seus, together with the Lotophagi,
the Cycl6ps, CircS, the Sirens,
iEolus, Scylla, &c, he resolves
into a series of temptations, im
posed as a trial upon a man of wis
dom and virtue, and emblematic

408 HISTOET OF GREECE. Paet I.
truth. Instructed men were commonly disposed to histori-
cise only the heroic legends, and to allegorise more or less
of the divine legends: the attempt of Euemerus to histori-
cise the latter was for the most part denounced as irreli
gious, while that of Metrodorus to allegorise the former
met with no success. In allegorising moreover even the
divine legends, it was usual to apply the scheme of allegory
only to the inferior gods, though some of the great Stoic
philosophers carried it farther and allegorised all the sepa
rate personal gods, leaving only an all-pervading cosmic
Mind, i essential as a co-efficient along with Matter, yet not
separable from Matter. But many pious pagans seem to
have perceived that allegory pushed to this extent was
fatal to all living religious faith,2 inasmuch as it divested
the gods of their character of Persons, sympathising with
mankind and modifiable in their dispositions according to
L. the conduct and prayers of the believer: and
this inter- hence they permitted themselves to employ
preting allegorical interpretation only to some of the
i" '-"''¦" obnoxious legends connected with the superior
gods, leaving the personality of the latter unimpeached.
One novelty however, introduced seemingly by the
philosopher Empedokles and afterwards expanded by others,
deserves notice, inasmuch as it modified considerably the
old religious creed by drawing a pointed contrast between
gods and daemons, — a distinction hardly at all manifested
in Homer, but recognised in the "Works and Days of Hesiod.3
Empedokles widened the gap between the two, and founded
of human life (p. 496). The story s Plutarch, de Isid. et Osirid. c.
of Ares, Aphrodite and He- 66, p. 377; c. 70, p. 379. Compare
phsestos, in the eighth hook of on this subject 0. Miiller, Prolegom.
the Odyssey, seems to perplex him Mythol. p. 59 seq., and Eckermann,
more than any other: he offers Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte,
two explanations, neither of which vol. i. sect. ii. p. 46.
seems satisfactory even to him- 8 Hesiod, Opp. et Di. 122 : to
self (p. 494). the same effect Pythagoras and
1 See Hitter, Geschichte der ThalSs (Diogen. Lagrt. viii. 32;
Philosophie, 2nd edit, part 3, hook and Plutarch, Placit. Philos. i. 8).
11, chap. 4, p. 692; Varro ap. The Hesiodic daemons are all
Augustin. Civitat. Dei, vi. 5, ix. 6.; good: Athenagoras (Legat. Chr.
Cicero, Nat. Deor. ii. 24—28. p. 8) says that Thales admitted a
Chrysippus admitted the most distinction between good and bad
important distinction between daemons, which seems very doubt-
Zeus and the other gods (Plutarch, ful.
de Stoicor. Eepugnant. p. 1052),

Chap. XVI.

CHARACTER OP THE DJEMONS.

4oa

upon it important consequences. The gods were good,
immortal and powerful agents, having volition Distinction
and intelligence, but without appetite, passion be*weond
or infirmity ; the daemons were of a mixed nature dsemon's—
betweengods and men, ministers and interpreters altered and
from the former to the latter, but invested also Empedo- 7
with an agency and dispositions of their own. kl6s-
Though not immortal, they were still long lived, and subject
to the passions and propensities of men, so that there were
among them beneficent and maleficent daemons with every
shade of intermediate difference. * It had been the mistake

1 The distinction between 6sol
and Aaiu,ovE<; is especially set forth
in the treatise of Plutarch, De
Defectu Oraculorum, capp. 10, 12,
13, 15, &c. He seems to suppose
it traceable to the doctrine of
Zoroaster or the Orphic mysteries,
and he represents it as relieving
the philosopher from great per
plexities ; for it was difficult to
know where to draw the line in
admitting or rejecting Providence:
errors were committed sometimes
in affirming God to be the cause
of everything, at other times in
supposing him to be the cause of
nothing. 'Etce'i to Sioplsai T.ibci
Xp7]0TE0V xai uixpi TtvU>V t^j Trpovola,
vaXsTtov, oi jj-sv ouSsjo? aT-'kOx; ton
6eov, ot Se ojjloo ti xocvtojv ai-ciov
TtoioovTss, aa-zoyouai too u,ETpiou -xal
iupS7u0VT0i;. Eu uiv oov Xsyouaiv oi
XeyovTe*;, 8ti IlXaTtov to Tal? -fsvva>-
[ASVaii; TCOlOTrjfftV UTiOXElfJlSVOV OTOl-
^eiov Efjsupibv, o vuv uXtjv xai ©ujiv
xaXoodiv, TtoXXibv drcVjXXa^E xal u.e-
YaXtov aTtopiojv too? cpiXocjotpous*
e[xoi 8s Soxoucn itXeiova^ Xuaae xai
(A£iCova<; aTropta? oi to tujv Saijxovtov
ysvos ev (jlect({J 9eu>v xai dv9pu>-
itu>v, xai Tpoicov Tivd T7]v zoivcoviav
vju.u)v civayov si? touto xai ouvaTc-
tov, e^supovTs? (c. 10). *H Saip.6vu)v
oOat? E^ouaa xai 7td9o<; 9v7]tou xal
Bsou Suvapuv (c. 13).
Etal yap, &$ ev dv9pu)TC0t?, xai
Salu,Q(jiv &psT/j<; Siatpopai, xai too

luaQvjTixou xal dXoyou toi? (jusv da-
0svs<; xai dpiaupov exi Xsl'l'avov, uiff-
TUSp TtepiTTtofxa, tou; 6s ttoXu xai
SuaxaTacrPsoTov sveotiv, d>v ivv7] xai
cua-PoXa xoXXa^oo 9uatat xal tsXe-
Tal xal pLuSoXofiat atb^oum xai Sia-
ouXaTTOuaiv evoi=j7cap|j.sva (ib.) :
compare Plutarch, de Isid. et Osir.
25, p. 3G0.
Kal pL7]v oaa<; ev te fj. u 9 o i ? xal
5|xvoi? XEyouai xal aSouai,
touto u-sv dpTcaYdc, touto Se 7uXdva<;
Beujvj xpii'jiEK; te xal cpuyd? xai Xa-
Tpsia<;, ou Gstbv s'talv dXXd 8aiu.6vu)v
-rcaQ-qu.aTa, &c. (c. 15) also c. 23 ;
also de Isid. et Osir. c. 25, p. 36C.
Human sacrifices and other ob
jectionable rites are excused, as
necessary for the purpose of
averting the anger of bad daemons
(c. U-15).
EmpedoklSs is represented as
the first author of the doctrine
which imputed vicious and abo
minable disposition to many of
the daemons (c. 15, 16, 17, 20), tou;
Elo-aYOU-evou? 6tt6 'Eu-TtsSoxXioui; Sal- '
u,ova<; ; expelled from heaven by
the gods, Ge^Xotoi xai oupavo*£T£U
(Plutarch, De Vitand. Aer. Alien.
p. 830); followed by Plato, Xeno-
Icratgs and Chrysippus, c. 17: com
pare Plato (Apolog. Socrat. p. 27;
Politic, p. 721; Symposion, c. 28.
p. 203), though he seems to treat
the 8ai.jj.ovs; as defective and mu
table beings, rather than actively

410 HISTOET OF GBBECB. Past I.
(according to these philosophers) of the old mythes to
ascribe to the gods proceedings really belonging to the
daemons, who were always the immediate communicants
with mortal nature, inspiring prophetic power to the
priestesses of the oracles, sending dreams and omens, and
perpetually interfering either for good or for evil. The
"wicked and violent daemons, having committed many enor
mities, had thus sometimes incurred punishment from the
gods: besides which, their bad dispositions had imposed
upon men the necessity of appeasing them by religious
ceremonies of a kind acceptable to such beings ; hence the
human sacrifices, the violent, cruel, and obscene exhibitions,
the wailings and fastings, the tearing and eating of raw
flesh, which it had become customary to practise on various
consecrated occasions, and especially in the Dionysiac solem
nities. Moreover, the discreditable actions imputed to the
gods, — the terrific combats, the Typhonic and Titanic con
vulsions, the rapes, abductions, flight, servitude, and con
cealment, — all these were really the doings and sufferings
of bad daemons, placed far below the sovereign agency —
equable, undisturbed, and unpolluted — of the immortal
gods. The action of such daemons upon mankind was fitful
and intermittent: they sometimes perished or changed their
local abode, so that oracles which had once been inspired
hecame after a time forsaken and disfranchised. 1
This distinction between gods and daemons appeared
Adm. . to save in a great degree both the truth of the
•of demons old legends and the dignity of the gods: it ob-
as partially viated the necessity of pronouncinsr either that
evil beings ,, , ¦> ,, r . &
—effect of the gods were unworthy, or the legends untrue.
such ad- Yet although devised for the purpose of satis
fying a more scrupulous religious sensibility, it
maleficent. Xenokrates represents xai Tuyx^vouaai TC P ° s o69sv
some of them both as wicked and otXXo xe'Pov xpETrovxai (Plu-
powerful in a high degree :— Bevo- tarch, De Isid. et Osir. c. 26, p.
xpiri]t; xal tujv 7]uep<I)v ii? Atto- 361 ; Quajstion. Bom. p. 283) ; com-
<ppa8as, xcl tujv 4opTu>v Saai r.Xriyat; pare Stobaius, Eclog. Phys. i. p.
Tivas f) xo-zrobn, r) vT|OTslac, r) hua- 62.
<p7]u.ia<;, r) slffxpoXoflav sx°oaiv, oil-re ' Plutarch, De Defect. Orac. c.
«suMTi|j.ai«oili:s8!n(j.6vu>'<oisTcu7tpoij- IB. p. 418. Chrysippus admitted,
TjWiv xp7|ciT<OY, AXX' zltat tpbaeis it among the various conceivable
•rip TtspiEjrovri uEyaXa; u-it xal iayy- causes to account for the existence
pat;, hoarpoitoos 8s xal oxu8pa)7tai;, of evil, the supposition of some
a! yaipouat tots toiootoi?, negligent and reckless dosmons,

Chap. XVI. INT E TIP BETA TION OF THE MYTHES.

411

was found inconvenient afterwards when assailants arose
against paganism generally. For while it abandoned as
indefensible a large p6rtion of what had once been genuine
faith, it still retained the same word daemons with an
entirely altered signification. The Christian writers in
their controversies found ample warrant among the earlier
pagan authors * for treating all the gods "as daemons — and
not less ample warrant among the later pagans for de
nouncing the daemons generally as evil beings.2
Such were the different modes in which the ancient
mythes were treated, during the literary life of Greece, by
the four classes above named — poets, logographers, histori
ans and philosophers.
Literal acceptance, and unconscious, uninquiring faith,
such as they had obtained from the original auditors to
whom they were addressed, they now found only among
the multitude — alike retentive of traditional feeling3 and

¦Suifj-ovia oauXa ev oi? t<jj Svti ylvov-
Tat xal EyxXirjTEai ajj-sXtiai (Plu
tarch, De Stoicor. Repugnant, p.
1051). A distinction, which I do
not fully understand, between Qsol
and Satjiovs?, was also adopted
among the Lokrians at Opus: 8al-
jjliuv with them seems to have heen
equivalent to ^pto? (Plutarch,
Qusestion. Gtjcc. c. 6. p. 292): see
the note above.
1 Tatian. adv. Grfflcos, c. 20 ;
Clemens Alexandrin. Adnionit. ad
Gentes, pp. 26—29, Sylb. ; Minuc.
Felix. Octav. c. 26. "Isti igitur
impuri spiritus, ut ostensum a
Magis, a philosophis, a Platone,
Sub statuis et imaginibus consecrati
delitescunt, et afnatu suo quasi
auctoritatem prsesentis numinis
cons equun tur," Ac. This, like so
many other of the aggressive ar
guments of the Christians against
paganism, was taken from the
pagan philosophers themselves.
Lactantius, DeYera Philosophic,
iv. 28. "Ergo iidem sunt Dasmones,
quos fatentur execrandos esse :
iidem Dii, quibus supplicant. Si
nobis credendum esse non putant,

credant Homero ; qui summum
ilium Jovem Daemonibus aggre-
gavit,'' Ac.
2 See above, Chapter II., the
remarks on the Hesiodic Theogony,
3 A destructive inundation took
place at Pheneus in Arcadia, seem
ingly in the time of Plutarch :
the subterranean outlet (pdpccQpov)
of the river had become blocked
up, and the inhabitants ascribed
the stoppage to the anger of Apol
lo, who had been provoked by the
stealing of the Pythian tripod by
HSraklSs : the latter had carried
the tripod to Pheneus and deposited
it there. Ap1 ouv oux dTOTccbrspoc
too-cov 6 ]A7r6XXiov, el <PsveaTa<;
aTtoXXucn too*; vuv, EfJuppdEa? to fla-
pa9pov, xal xuTaxXuffas tttjv ^tupav
otTcaaav a6T(I)v, 8ti Ttpo ^iXicov £tcI>v,
uj<; cpacuv, 6 'HpaxXijc dvatTTCaaai; tov
Tpi7i:o8a tov jxavTixov el? Osveov
dTCTiveYxe ; (Plutarch, de Sera Numin.
Vindicta, p. 557; compare Pausan.
viii. 14, 1). The expression of
Plutarch that the abstraction of
the tripod by Herakles had taken
place 1000 years before, is that of
the critic, who thinks it needful to

412

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Part I.

fearful of criticising the proceedings of the gods.i But
with instructed men they became rather subjects of respect
ful and curious analysis — all agreeing that the Word as
tendered to them was inadmissible, yet all equally convinced
thatit contained important meaning, though hidden yet not
undiscoverable. A very large proportion of the force of
Grecian intellect was engaged in searching after this un
known base, by guesses, in which sometimes the principle
of semi-historical interpretation was assumed, sometimes
that of allegorical, without any collateral evidence in either
case, and without possibility of verification. Out of the
one assumption grew a string of allegorised phaenomenal
truths, out of the other a long series of seeming historical
events and chronological persons, — both elicited from the
transformed mythes and from nothing else.
The utmost which we accomplish by means of the
semi-historical theory even in its most successful
applications, is, that after leaving out from the
mythical narrative all that is miraculous or high-
coloured or extravagant, we arrive at a series of
credible incidents — incidents which may, perhaps, have

Semi -his
torical in
terpre-tation.

historicise and chronologise the
genuine legend ; which, to an
inhabitant of Pheneus at the time
of the inundation, was doubtless
as little questioned as if the theft
of Hgrakles had been laid in the
preceding generation.
Agathocles of Syracuse com
mitted depredations on the coasts
of Ithaca and Korkyra : the excuse
which he offered was, that Odys
seus had come to Sicily and blinded
Polyphemus, and that on his return
he had been kindly received by
the Phceakians (Plutarch, ib.).
This is doubtless a jest, either
made by Agathocles, or more
probably invented for him ; but it is
founded upon a popular belief.
1 "Sanctiusque et reverentius
visum, de actis Deorum credere
quam scire." (Tacit. German, c. 34.)
AristidSs however represents the
Homeric theology (whether he
would have included the Hesiodic

we do not know) as believed quite
literally among the multitude in
his time, the second century after
Christianity (Aristid. Orat. iii. p.
25). 'Arcopu), otct) tcots ypi\ jis. 8ta-
QscrQai jjle8' ou.d)v, rcoxspa tbi; toic
tiqXXou; BoxsT xal 'Oji^pw 8e cuvSoxet,
Qeu>v TcaQVjjttxTa auu.7r.eiff9yjvai xat
7]\lB.c,, olov 'Apsos Seajj-a xal 'AttoX-
Xojvo? 07)Teias xal 'HcpaloTou ^L'Jssig
el? QdXaaaav, outid 8e xal 'Ivouc
&y7\ xal cpuf^S Tiva<;. Compare
Lucjan, Zsoi; TpaYiuSoi;, c, 20, and
De Luctu, c. 2 ; Dionys. Halicar.
A. R. ii. p. 90, Sylb.
Kallimachus (Hymn, ad Jov. 9)
distinctly denied the statement of
the Kretans that they possessed in
Krete the tomb of Zeus, and
treated it as an instance of Kretan
mendacity; while Celsus did not
deny it, but explained it in some
figurative manner — alviTTou-svo? Tpo-
ttixck; OTcovolai; (Origen. cont. Cel-
sum, iii. p. 137).

Ch. xvi. teuth undistinguishable from fiction. 413
really occurred, and against which no intrinsic presumption
can be raised. This is exactly the character of a well-
written modern novel (as, for example, several among the
compositions of Defoe), the whole story of which is such as
may well have occurred in real life: it is plausible fiction
and nothing beyond. To raise plausible fiction up to the
superior dignity of truth, some positive testimony or posi
tive ground of inference must be shown; even the highest
measure of intrinsic probability is not alone sufficient. A
man who tells us that on the day of the battle of Platsea,
rain fell on the spot of ground where the city of New York
now stands, will neither deserve nor obtain credit, because
he can have had no means of positive knowledge; though
the statement is not in the slightest degree improbable.
On the other hand, statements in themselves very impro
bable may well deserve belief, provided they be supported
by sufficient positive evidence. Thus the canal dug by
order of Xerxes across the promontory of Mount Athos, and
the sailing of the Persian fleet through it, is a fact which
I believe, because it is well-attested — notwithstanding its
remarkable improbability, which so far misled Juvenal as
to induce him to single out the narrative as a glaring
example of Grecian mendacity. * Again, many critics have
observed that the general tale of the Trojan war (apart
from the superhuman agencies) is not more improbable than
that of the crusades, which every one admits to be an
historical fact. But (even if we grant this position, which
is only true to a small extent), it is not sufficient to show
an analogy between the two cases in respect to negative
presumptions alone ; the analogy ought to be shown to hold
between them in respect to positive certificate also. The
crusades are a curious phsenomenon in history, but we
accept them nevertheless as an unquestionable fact, because
the antecedent improbability is surmounted by adequate
contemporary testimony. When the like testimony, both
in amount and kind, is produced to establish the historical
reahty of the Trojan war, we shall not hesitate to deal
with the two events on the same footing.
1 Juvenal, Sat. x. 174:— "Oreditur olim
Velificatus Athos, et quantum Grsecia mendaz
Audet in historia," tfcc.

414

HISTORY OE GREECE.

Pakt I.

tive certifL
cate indis
pensable as
a consti
tuent of
historical proof-
mere popu
lar faith

In applying the semi-historical theory to Grecian
Some posi- mythical narrative, it has been often forgotten
that a certain strength of testimony, or positive
ground of belief, must first be tendered, before
we can be called upon to discuss the antecedent
probability or improbability of the incidents
alleged. The belief of the Greeks themselves,
without the smallest aid of special or contem-
insufficient. porary witnesses, has been tacitly assumed as
sufficient to support the case, provided only sufficient deduc
tion be made from the mythical narratives to remove all
antecedent improbabilities. It has been taken for granted
that the faith of the people must have rested originally
upon some particular historical event, involving the iden
tical persons, things and places which the original mythes
exhibit, or at least the most prominent among them. But
when we examine the psychagogic influences predominant
in the society among whom this belief originally grew up,
we shall see that their belief is of little or no evidentiary
value, and that the growth and diffusion of it may be satis
factorily explained without supposing any special basis of
matters of fact. The popular faith, so far as it counts for
anything, testifies in favours of the entire and literal mythes,
which are now universally r ej ected as incredible. * We have

1 Colonel Sleeman observes re
specting the Hiudoo historical
mind — "History to this people is
all a fairy tale" (Rambles and
Recollections of an Indian Official,
vol. i. ch. ix, p. 70). And again,
"The popular poem of the Ramaen
describes the abduction of the
heroine by the monster king of
Ceylon, Rawun ; and her recovery
by means of the monkey general
Hunnooman. Every word of this
poem the people assured me was
written, if not by the hand of the
Deity himself, at least by his in
spiration, which was the same
thing— and it must consequently
be true. Ninety-nine out of a
hundred, among the Hindoos, im
plicitly believe, not only every
word of the poem, but every word
of every poem that has ever heen

written in Sanscrit. If you ask a
man whether he really believes
any very egregious absurdity
quoted from these hooks, he re
plies, with the greatest na'ivetS in
the world, Is it not written in
-the book, and how should it be
there written, if not true? The
Hindoo religion reposes upon an
entire prostration of mind, — that
continual and habitual surrender
of the reasoning faculties, which
we are accustomed to make oc
casionally, while engaged at the
theatre, or in the perusal of works
of fiction. "We allow the scenes,
characters, and incidents, to pass
before our mind's eye, and move
our feelings — without stopping a
moment to ask whether they are
real or true. There is only this
difference— that with people of

Chap. XVI.

SEMI-HISTORICAL THEORY.

415>

thus the very minimum of positive proof, and the maximum
of negative presumption: we may diminish the latter by
conjectural omissions and interpolations, but we cannot by
any artifice increase the former: the narrative ceases to be
incredible, but it still remains uncertified, — a mere com
mon-place possibility. Nor is fiction always, or essentially,
extravagant and incredible. It is often not only plausible
and coherent, but even more like truth (if a paradoxical
phrase may be allowed) than truth itself. Nor can we, in
the absence of any extrinsic test, reckon upon any intrinsic
mark to discriminate the one from the other. 1

education among ns, even in such
short intervals of illusion or
abandon, any extravagance in the
acting, or flagrant improbability
in the fiction, destroys the charm,
breaks the spell by which we have
been so mysteriously hound, and
restores us to reason and the
realities of ordinary life. With
the Hindoos, on the contrary, the
greater the improbability, the more
monstrous and preposterous the
fiction — the greater is the charm
it has over their minds ; and the
greater their learning in the San
scrit, the more are they under the
influence of this charm. Believing
all to be written hy the Deity, or
under his inspirations, and the
men and things of former days to
have been very different from men
and things of the present day, and
the heroes of these fables to have
been demigods, or people endowed
with powers far superior to thoBe
of the ordinary men of their own
day— the analogies of nature are
never for a moment considered;
nor do questions of probability,
or possibility, according to those
analogies, ever obtrude to dispel
the charm with which they are so
pleasingly bound. They go on
through life reading and talking
of these monstrous fictions, which
shock the taste and understanding
of other nations, without ever

questioning the truth of one single-
incident, or hearing it questioned-
There wars a time, and that not
far distant, when it was the same-
in England, and in every other
European nation; and there are,
I am afraid, some parts of Europe
where it is so still. But the Hin
doo faith, so far as religious
questions are concerned, is not
more capacious or absurd than
that of the Greeks or Romans in
the days of Socrates or Cicero ;
the only difference is, that among^
the Hindoos a greater number of
the questions which interest man
kind are brought under the head
of religion." (Sleeman, Rambles,.
&c, vol. i. ch. xxvi. p. 227: com
pare vol. ii. ch. v. p. 51; viii. p..
97). 1 Lord Littelton, in commenting-
on the tales of the Irish bards, in
his History of Henry II., has the
following just remarks (book iv.
vol. iii. p. 13, quarto) : "One may
reasonably suppose that in MSS.
written since the Irish received
the Roman letters from St. Patrick,.
some traditional truths recorded
before by the bards in their un
written poems may have been pre
served to our times. Yet these
cannot be so separated from many
fabulous stories derived from the
same sources, as to obtain a firm
credit; it not being sufficient to>

416 HISTORY OJF GREECE. Taut I.
In the semi-historical theory respecting Grecian mythi-
Mistake of cai narrative, the critic unconsciously transports
ascribing to jnt0 the Homeric age those habits of classifica-
cprding'age tion and distinction, and that standard of accep-
the histori- tance or rejection, which he finds current in his
modemSe°f own. Amongst us the distinction between histo-
times. rical fact and fiction is highly valued as well as
familiarly unterstood: we have a long history of the past,
deduced from a study of contemporary evidences; and we
have a body of fictitious literature, stamped with its own
mark and interesting in its own way. But this historical
sense, now so deeply rooted in the modern mind that we
find a difficulty in conceiving any people to be without it,
is the fruit of records and inquiries, first applied to the
present, and then preserved and studied by subsequent
generations; while in a society which has not yet formed
the habit of recording its present, the real facts of the past
can never be known; the difference between attested matter
of fact and plausible fiction — between truth and that which
is like truth — can neither be discerned nor sought for. Yet
it is precisely upon the supposition that this distinction is
present to men's habitual thoughts, that the semi-historical
theory of the mythes is grounded.
It is perfectly true, as has often been stated, that the
Matter of Grecian epic contains what are called traditions
tradition respecting the past — the larger portion of it
from the indeed consists of nothing else. But what are
beginning, these traditions ? They are the matter of those
establish the authority of suspected judicious historians pay no regard
traditions, that they can be shown to the Welch or British traditions
not to be so improbable or absurd delivered by Geoffrey of Mon-
as others with which they are mouth, though it is not impossible
mixed^since there may be specious but thatsome of these may betrue."
as well as senseless fictions. Nor One definition of a mythe given
can a poet or bard, who lived in by Plutarch coincides exactly with
the sixth or seventh century after a specious fiction: '0 u.ij9oe; sivcci
Christ, if his poem is still extant, fiobXerai Xoyo? 41=00% eomib? aXrj-
be any voucher for facts supposed Bivcji (Plutarch, Bellone an. pace
to have happened before the in- clariores fuerunt Athenienses, p.
carnation; though his -evidence 348).
(allowing for poetical licence) "Der Grund-Trieb des Mythus
may be received on such matters (Creuzer justly expresses it) das
as come within his own time, or Gedaohte in ein Geschehenes um-
the remembrance of old men with zusetzen." (Symbolik der Alten
whom he conversed. The most Welt, sect. 43. p. 99.)

Cuap. XVI. SEMI-HISTORICAI, THEORY. 417
songs and stories which have acquired hold on the public
mind; they are the creations of the poets and storytellers
themselves, each of whom finds some pre-existing, and adds
others of his own, new and previously untold, under the
impulse and authority of the inspiring Muse. Homer doubt
less found many songs and stories current with respect to
the siege of Troy ; he received and transmitted some of these
traditions, re-cast and transformed others, and enlarged the
whole mass by new creations of his own. To the subsequent
poets, such as Arktinus and Lesches, these Homeric crea
tions formed portions of pre-existing tradition, with which
they dealt in the same manner; so that the whole mass of
traditions constituting the tale of Troy became larger and
larger with each successive contributor. To assume a
generic difference between the older and the newer strata
of tradition — to treat the former as morsels of history, and
the latter as appendages of fiction — is an hypothesis gra
tuitous at the least, not to say inadmissible. !Por the farther
we travel back into the past, the more do we recede from
the clear day of positive history, and the deeper do we
plunge into the unsteady twilight and gorgeous clouds of
fancy and feeling. It was one of the agreeable dreams of
the Grecian epic, that the man who travelled far enough
northward beyond the Bkipaean mountains, would in time
reach the delicious country and. genial climate of the vir
tuous Hyperboreans — the votaries and favourites of Apollo,
who dwelt in the extreme north beyond the chilling blasts
of Boreas. Now the hope that we may, by carrying our
researches up the stream of time, exhaust the limits of
fiction, and land ultimately upon some points of solid truth,
appears to me no less illusory than this northward journey
in quest of the Hyperborean elysium.
The general disposition to adopt the semi-historical
theory as to the genesis of Grecian mythes, arises _. ...
in part from reluctance in critics to impute to matter of
the mythopoeic ages extreme credulity or fraud; tradition
together with the usual presumption, that where imply fraud
much is believed some portion of it must be true. °r imp°s-
There would be some weight in these grounds
of reasoning, if the ages under discussion had been supplied
with records and accustomed to critical inquiry. But
amongst a people unprovided with the former and strangers
to the latter, credulity is naturally at its maximum, as well
VOL. I. 2 E

418 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
in the narrator himself as in his hearers. The idea of
deliberate fraud is moreover inapplicable,1 for if the
hearers are disposed to accept what is related to them
as a revelation from the Muse, the oestrus of composition i3
quite sufficient to impart a similar persuasion to the poet
whose mind is penetrated with it. The belief of that day
can hardly be said to stand apart by itself as an act of
reason. It becomes confounded with vivacious imagination
and earnest emotion; and in every case where these mental
excitabilities are powerfully acted upon, faith ensues uncon
sciously and as a matter of course. How active and pro
minent such tendencies were among the early Greeks, the
extraordinary beauty and originality of their epic poetry
' may teach us.
It is, besides, a presumption far too largely and indis
criminately applied, even in our own advanced age, that
where much is believed, something must necessarily be true
— that accredited fiction is always traceable to some basii;.
of historical truth.2 The influence of imagination and
feeling is not confined simply to the process of retouching,
transforming, or magnifying narratives originally founded
on fact; it will often create new narratives of its own,
without any such preliminary basis. "Where there is any
general body of sentiment pervading men living in society,
whether it be religious or political — love, admiration or
antipathy — all incidents tending to illustrate that sentiment
1 In reference to the loose state- seem never to have thought of
ments of the Highlanders, Dr. interrogating themselves; so that
Johnson observes^"He that goes if they do not know what they tell
into the Highlands with a mind to be true, they likewise do not
naturally acquiescent, and a ere- distinctly perceive it to be false. Mr.
dulity eager for wonders, may per- Boswell was very diligent in his
haps come back with an opinion inquiries, and the result of his
very different from mine ; for the investigations was, that the answer
inhabitants, knowing the ignorance to the second question was com-
of all strangers in their language monly such as nullified the answer
and antiquities, are perhaps not to the first." (Journey to the
very scrupulous adherents to Western Islands, p. 272, 1st edit.
truth: yet I do not say that they 1775.)
deliberately speak studied false- ' » I considered this position more
hood, or have a settled purpose at large in an article in the "West-
to deceive. They have acquired minster Beview" for May, 1843,
and considered little, and do not on Niebuhr's Greek Legends, with
always feel their own ignorance, which article muoh in the present
They are not much accustomed to chapter will be found to coincide.
be interrogated by others, and

Chap. XVI. PLAUSIBLE FICTION HOW GENERATED. v 419
are eagerly welcomed, rapidly circulated and (as a general
rule) easily accredited. If real incidents are not at hand,
impressive fictions will be provided to satisfy the Plausible
demand. The perfect harmony of such fictions fiction of-
with the prevalent feehng stands in the place of *®n j[e5Bra"
certifying testimony, and causes men to hear accredited
them not merely with credence, but even with ^ *he mere
delight. To call them in question and require strong and
proof, is a task which cannot be undertaken common
without incurring obloquy. Of such tendencies even in '
in the human mind abundant evidence is fur- *imes ot.
.,-,-.,-,. tt t . t n instruction.
nished by the innumerable religious legends
which have acquired currency in various parts of the world,
and of which no country was more fertile than Greece —
legends which derived their origin, not from special facts
misreported and exaggerated, but from pious feelings per
vading the society, and translated into narrative by forward
and imaginative minds — legends, in which not merely the
incidents, but often even the personages are unreal, yet in
which the generating sentiment is conspicuously discernible,
providing its own matter as well as its own form. Other
sentiments also, as well as the rehgious, provided they be
fervent and widely diffused, will find expression in current
narrative, and become portions of the general public belief.
Every celebrated and notorious character is the source of
a thousand fictions exemplifying his peculiarities. And
if it be true, as I think present observation may show us,
that such creative agencies are even now visible and effec
tive, when the materials of genuine history are copious and
critically studied — much more are we warranted in con
cluding that in ages destitute of records, strangers to histo
rical testimony, and full of belief in divine inspiration both
as to the future and as to the past, narratives purely ficti
tious will acquire ready and uninquiring credence, provided
only they be plausible and in harmony with the preconcep
tions of the auditors.
The allegorical interpretation of the mythes has been
by several learned investigators, especially by Allegorical
Creuzer, connected with the hypothesis of an theory of
ancient and highly instructed body of priests, —traced by
having their origin either in Egypt or in the some u.p t0
East, and communicating to the rude and bar- pHes'tiy n
barous Greeks religious, physical and historical oaste-
2 b 2

420 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
knowledge under the veil of symbols. At a time (we are
told) when language was yet in its infancy, visible symbols
were the most vivid means of acting upon the minds of
ignorant hearers : the next step was to pass to symbolical
language and expressions — for a plain and literal exposition,
even if understood at all, would at least have been listened
to with indifference, as not corresponding with any mental
demand. In such allegorising way, then, the early priests
set forth their doctrines respecting God, nature and huma
nity — a refined monotheism and a theological philosophy —
and to this purpose the earliest mythes were turned. But
another class of mythes, more popular and more captivating,
grew up under the hands of the poets — mythes purely epical,
and descriptive of real or supposed past events. The alle
gorical mythes, being taken up by the poets, insensibly
became confounded in the same category with the purely
narrative mythes — the matter symbolised was no longer
thought of, while the symbolising words came to be con
strued in their own literal meaning — and the basis of the
early allegory, thus lost among the general public, was only
preserved as a secret among various religious fraternities,
composed of members allied together byinitiation in certain
mystical ceremonies, and administered by hereditary fami
lies of presiding priests. In the Orphic and Bacchic sects,
in the Eleusinian andSamothracian mysteries, was thus trea
sured up the secret doctrine of the old theological and
philosophical mythes, which had once constituted the primi
tive legendary stock of Greece, in the hands of the original
Reaiimport priesthood and in ages anterior to Homer. Per-
of the sons wno had g0ne through the preliminary cere-
supposed to monies of initiation, were permitted at length to
be preser- hear, though under strict obligation of secrecy,
religious this ancient religious and cosmogonic doctrine,
mysteries, revealing the destination of men and the cer
tainty of posthumous rewards and punishments — all disen
gaged from the corruptions of poets, as well as from the
symbols and allegories under which they still remained
buried in the eyes of the vulgar. The mysteries of Greece
were thus traced up to the earliest ages, and represented
as the only faithful depositary channels of that purer theo
logy and physics which had originally been communicated,
though under the unavoidable inconvenience of a symbolical

Ciiap. XYI.

REAL IMPORT OF THE MYTHES.

421

expression, by an enlightened pi'iesthood coming from
abroad to the then rude barbarians of the country. *

1 For this general character of
the Grecian mysteries with their
concealed treasure of doctrine, see
Warburton, Divine Legation of
Moses, book ii. sect. 4.
Payne Knight, On the symbolical
Lauguage of ancient Art and My
thology, sect. 6, 10, 11, 40, &c.
Saint Croix, Recherches sur les
Mysteres du Paganisme, sect. 3, p.
106; sect. 4, p. 404, &c.
Creuzer, Symholik und Mytho
logie der Alten Volker, sect. 2, 3,
23, 39, 42, &c. Meiners and Heeren
adopt generally the same view,
though there are many divergencies
of opinion between these different
authors, on a subject essentially
obscure. "Warhurton maintained
that the interior doctrine com
municated in the mysteries was
the existence of one Supreme Di
vinity, combined with the Bueme-
ristic creed, that the pagan gods
had heen mere men.
See Clemens Alex. Strom, v. p.
592, Sylb.
The view taken by Hermann of
the ancient Grecian mythology is
in many points similar to that of
Creuzer, though with some con
siderable difference. He thinks
that it is an aggregate of doctrine
— philosophical, theological, phy
sical, and moral— expressed under
a scheme of systematic personifi
cations, each person being called
by a name significant of the func
tion personified: this doctrine was
imported from the East into
Greece, where the poets, retaining
or translating the names, but for
getting their meaning and con
nexion, distorted the primitive
stories, the sense of which came
to be retained only in the ancient
mysteries. That true sense, how
ever (he thinks), may be recovered

by a careful analysis of the signi
ficant names : and his two dis
sertations (De Mythologia Grseco-
rum Antiquissima, in the Opuscula,
vol. ii.) exhibit a specimen of this
systematic expansion of etymology
into narrative. The dissent from
Creuzer is set forth in their pub
lished correspondence , especially
in his concluding "Brief an Creuzer
iiber das "Wesen und die Behand-
lung der Mythologie," Leipzig,
1819. The following citation from
his Latin dissertation sets forth his
general doctrine :
Hermann , De Mythologia Grae-
corum Antiquissima, p. 4. (Opus
cula, vol. ii. p. 171) :— "Videmus
.rerum divinarum humanarumque
scientiam ex Asia- per Lyciam
migrantem in Europam : videmus
fabulosos poetas peregrinam doc-
trinam, monstruosotumore orientis
sive exutam, sivenondumindutam,
quasi de integro Graeca specie
procreantes ; videmus poetas illos,
quorum omnium vera nomina nomi-
nibus— ab arte, qua clarebant, peti-
tis— obliterata sunt, diuin Thracia
hterentes, raroque tandem etiam
cum aliis Grsecise partibus com-
mercio junctos: qualis Pamphus,
non ipse Atheniensis, Athenien-
sibus hymnos Deorum fecit.
Videmus denique retrusam pau-
latim in mysteriorum secretam
illam sapientum doctrinam, vitia-
tam religionum perturb atione, cor-
ruptam inscitia interpretum, ob-
scuratam levitate amceniora sectan-
tium— adeo ut earn ne illi quidem
intelligerent, qui hsereditariam a
prioribus poesin colentes, quum
ingenii preestantia omnes pne-
stinguerent, tanta illos oblivione
merserunt, ut ipsi sint primi auc-
tores omnis eruditionis habiti."
Hermann thinks, however, that

422

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Paet I.

But this theory, though advocated by several learned
men, has been shown to be unsupported and erroneous. It
implies a mistaken view both of the antiquity and the pur
port of the mysteries, which cannot be safely carried up
even to the age ofHesiod> and which, though imposing and
venerable as religious ceremonies, included no recondite
or esoteric teaching. *

by pursuing the suggestions of ety
mology, vestiges may still be dis
covered , and something like a
history compiled, of Grecian belief
as it stood anterior to Homer and
Hesiod: — "est autem in hac omni
ratione judicio maxime opus, qiiia
non testibus res agitur, sed ad
interpretandi solertiam omnia re-
vocanda sunt" (p. 172). To the
same general purpose the French
work ofM. Emeric David, Re cher-
ches sur le Dieu Jupiter — reviewed
by 0. Miiller: Bee the Kleine Schrif-
ten of the latter, vol. ii. p. 82.
Mr. Bryant has also employed a
profusion of learning, and numer
ous etymological conjectures, to
resolve the Greek mythes into
mistakes, perversions , and muti
lations , of the exploits and doc
trines of oriental tribes long-lost
and by-gone, — Amonians, Cuthites,
Arkites, &c. "It was Noah (he
thinks) who was represented under
the different names of Thoth, Her
mes, Menes, Osiris, Zeuth, Atlas,
Phorfineus, Prometheus, to which
list a farther numb er of great
extent might be added: the Nou?
of Anaxagoras was in reality the
patriarch Noah" (Ant. Mythol. vol.
ii. p.' 253. 272). "The Cuthites or
Amonians , descendants of Noah,
settled in Greece from the east,
celebrated for their skill in build
ing and the arts" (ib. i. p. 502; ii.
p. 187). "The greatest part of the
Grecian theology arose from mis
conception and blunders, the stories
concerning their gods and heroes
were founded on terms misinter
preted or abused" (ib. i. p, 462),

"The number of different actions
ascribed to the various Grecian
gods or heroes all relate to one
people or family, and are at bot
tom one and the same history"
(ib. ii. p. 57). "The fables of Pro
metheus and Tityus were taken
from ancient Amonian temples,
from hieroglyphics misunderstood
and badly explained" (i. p. 426) :
see especially vol. ii. p. 160.
1 The Anti-Symbolik of Voss,
and still more the Aglaophamus
of Lobeck, are full of instruction
on the subject of this supposed
interior doctrine, and on the an
cient mysteries in general: the
latter treatise especially is not
less distinguished for its judicious
and circumspect criticism than for
its copious learning.
Mr. Halhed (Preface to the Gen-
too Code of Laws, p. xiii. -xiv.)
has good observations on the va
nity of all attempts to allegorise
the Hindu mythology : he observes,
with perfect truth, "The vulgar and
illiterate have always understood
the mythology of their country
in its literal sense : and there
was a time to every nation, when
the highest rank in it was equally
vulgar and illiterate with the lowest
.... A Hindu esteems the aston
ishing miracles attributed to a
Brima , or a Kishen , as facts of
the most indubitable authenticity,
and the relation of them as most
strictly historical."
Compare also Gibbon's remarks
on the allegorising tendencies of
the later Platonists (Hist. Decl.
and Fall, vol. iv. p. 71).

Chap. XVI. TEIPLE THEOLOGY OF PAGANISM. 423
The doctrine supposed to have been originally sym
bolised and subsequently overclouded, in the „ osed
Greek mythes, was in reality first intruded into ancient
them by the unconscious fancies of later inter- meaning is
preters. It was one of the various roads which modem in-
instructed men took to escape from the literal *eJ;?re"
admission of the ancient mythes, and to arrive
at some new form of belief, more consonant with their ideas
of what the attributes and character of the gods ought to
be. It was one of the ways of constituting, by help of the
mysteries, a philosophical religion apart from the general
public, and of connecting that distinction with the earliest
periods of Grecian society. Such a distinction was both
avowed and justified among the superior men of
the later pagan world. Varro and Scsevola dis- lJgy of the
tributedtheology into three distinct departments, pagan
— the mythical or fabulous, the civil, and the
physical. The first had its place in the theatre, and was
left without any interference to the poets; the second be
longed to the city or political community as such, — it
comprised the regulation of all the public worship and
rehgious rites, and was consigned altogether to the direction
of the magistrate; the third was the privilege of philo
sophers, but was reserved altogether for private discussion
in the schools apart from the general public, i As a mem
ber of the city, the philosopher sympathised with the
audience in the theatre, and took a devout share in the
established ceremonies, nor was he justified in trying what
1 Varro, ap Augustin. De Civ. v. TzXerai—Xpbaixitoz hi otjol, robt;
Dei, iv. 27; vi. 5—6. "Dicis fabu- xzpi xd)v Ssiiov XoyotK elxorwt; xa-
losos Deos accommodatos esse XsIaQcci rzXzrat;, yprjtai yap toutou?
ad theatrum, naturales ad mundum, tsXsutguoui; xal ziti itaat hibaaxeoQat,
civiles ad urbem." "Varro, de r-qt; 'huyyjt; iyobarit; Epu.cc xal xzxparr^-
religionibus loquens, multa esse u.zt-f\c,, xai itpbt; robe, djxu^Tous aiw-
vera dixit, quffi non modo vulgo izat hutau.itrjt;' us-fa yap etvai to
scire non sit utile, sed etiam utiXot bizzp fisujv dxouoal re 6p9d,
tametsi falsa sint, aliter existimare xal iyxparzlt; ysysaQai abrwt.
populum expediat: e* ideo Grsecos The triple division of Varro is
teletas et mysteria taciturnitate reproduced in Plutarch, Amatorius,
parietibusque clausisse" (ibid. iv. p. 763. tk u-sv u.u9uj, to: hi t6u.ui,
31). See Villoison, De Triplici Ta 6s Xoytp, tucttiv e£ apyrjs 'iay'fjxz
Theologia Commentatio, p. 8; and rrjs h' oov r.epi Qstov ho^-ne; xal Tiav-
Lactantius, De Origin. Error, ii. TCtTiacnv riyeu.6tz% xal otSdaxaXoi ye-
3. The doctrine of the Stoic Chry- yivaaiv rju.lt oi ts 7ioi7]Tal, xal oi
sippus, ad Etymologicon 3Magn. vou.o9sTai, xal Tpirov, ol cpiXococpoi.

424 HISTORY OF GEEECE. Part I.
he heard in the one or saw in the other by his own ethical
standard. But in the private assemblies of instructed or
inquisitive men, he enjoyed the fullest liberty of canvassing
every received tenet, and of broaching his own theories
unreservedly, respecting the existence and nature of the
gods. By these discussions the activity of the philosophical
mind was maintained and truth elicited; but it was such
truth as the body of the people ought not to hear, lest
their faith in their own established religious worship should
be overthrown. In thus distinguishing the civil theology
from the fabulous, Varro was enabled to cast upon the
poets all the blame of the objectionable points in the po
pular theology, and to avoid the necessity of pronouncing
censure on the magistrates; who (he contended) had made
as good a compromise with the settled prejudices of the
public as the case permitted.
The same conflicting sentiments which led the philo
sophers to decompose the divine mythes into allegory,
impelled the historians to melt down the heroic mythes
into something hke continuous political history, with a
long series of chronology calculated upon the heroic
pedigrees. The one process as well as the other was inter
pretative guesswork, proceeding upon unauthorised as
sumptions, and without any verifying test or evidence.
"While it frittered away the characteristic beauty of the
mythe into something essentially anti-mythical, it sought
to arrive both at history and philosophy by impracticable
roads. That the superior men of antiquity should have
striven hard to save the dignity of legends which consti
tuted the charm of their literature as well as the substance
of the popular religion, we cannot be at all surprised; but
it is gratifying to find Plato discussing the subject in a
more philosophical spirit. The Platonic Sokrates being
asked whether he believes the current Attic fable respecting
the abduction of Oreithyia (daughter of Erechtheus) by
Boreas, replies, in substance, — "It would not be strange if
I disbelieved it, as the clever men do; I might then show
my cleverness by saying that a gust of Boreas blew her
down from the rocks above while she was at play, and that
having been killed in this manner she was reported to have
been carried off by Boreas. Such speculations are amusing
enough, but they belong to men ingenious and busy-minded
over-much, and not greatly to be envied, if it be only for

Chap. XVI. OPINION OP PLATO. 425
this reason, that after having set right one fable, they are
under the necessity of applying the same process to a host
of others — Hippocentaurs, Chimeeras, Gorgons, Pegasus,
and numberless other monsters and incredibilities. A man,
who, disbelieving these stories, shall try to find a probable
basis for each of them, will display an ill-placed acuteness
and take upon himself an endless burden, for which I at
least have no leisure: accordingly I forego such researches,
and believe in the current version of the stories."!
These remarks of Plato are valuable, not simply be
cause they point out the uselessness of digging for a
supposed basis of truth in the mythes, but because they at
the same time suggest the true reason for mistrusting all
such tentatives. The mythes form a class apart, abundant
as well as peculiar. To remove any individual mythe from
its own class into that of history or philosophy, by simple
conjecture and without any collateral evidence, is of no
advantage, unless you can perform a similar process on the
remainder. If the process be trustworthy, it ought to be
applied to all; and e converso, if it be not applicable to all,
it is not trustworthy as applied to any one specially; al
ways assuming no special evidence to be accessible. To
detach any individual mythe from the class to which it
belongs, is to present it in an erroneous point of view: we
have no choice except to admit them as they stand, by
putting ourselves approximatively into the frame of mind
of those for whom they were destined and to whom they
appeared worthy of credit.
If Plato thus discountenances all attempts to transform
the mythes by interpretation into history or philosophy,
1 Plato, Phaedr. c. 7. p. 229. ou8=v, ori 8' auT(7j dvdyx7] usTa
PH-ffiDRXJS. Eitts u.oi, w SuJxpaTes, touto to tujv llTtTioxEVTa6pujv slhat;
ab touto to uu9oX6y7]u.a 7isi9ei aXt]- E7.avop9oua9ai, xal au9i<; to Trjs
Bec sivai ; Xiu-atpas. Kal ETiippsi hi oyXos
Sokrates. 'AXX' el d7iKJTOi7]v, ToioUTiov ropyiWlov xal Tlriyaawt,
waizep oi aoooi, oux ay octotcos zrot, xal dXXujv du.7]y_dvu)v fi:Xv}0y| Te xal
eiTa aot3i^,6u.ztoz <pair)v auT7]v Tivsupia aTo~lai TepaToXoyujv tivujv tpbazwr
Bopsou xaTa tujv tcXtjcjiov rceTpibv als ei tis drciffTuJv iupoaPi(5a xaTa
out cpappuxxsia ?:ai^ouaav (Laai, xal to elxos exaaTov, aTs dypolxoj Tivl
o'JTio 87] TeXeuTTjcraaav Xe^9y]vai bizb aotpia ^pibuevo?, itoXXr)s aUTijj ayoXrjt;
too Bopsou dvapTiaaTOv yeyovevai . . . hz-qazu 'Eu-ol Se rcpos TauTa obhau.ibc,
*Eyu> hi, a> OatSps, aXXtns uev td ectti ayoXr) . . . "09sv 87) /alpsiv
ToiauTa yapUvTa i}yobu.ai, >.lav 0= iaaas TauTa, Tcei9d|xevos 8s r(b vop.1-
Seivou xal etu^ovou xal ou Tidvu 1/ju.zttp mpl auTUJv, 0 vuv 67] e'Xeyov,
zbruyout, athpbt;, xar' dXXo u.it axoizw ob TauTa dXX' ku.aurbt &c.

426 HISTORY OE GREECE. Paet I.
indirectly recognising the generic difference between
Treatment them — we find substantially the same view per-
thd USth°f va(iing the elaborate precepts in his treatise on
according68 the Republic. He there regards the mythes,
to Plato. not as embodying either matter of fact or philo
sophical principle, but as portions of religious and patriotic
faith, and instruments of ethical tuition. Instead of allow
ing the poets to frame them according to the impulses of
their own genius and with a view to immediate popularity,
he directs the legislator to provide types of his own for
the characters of the gods and heroes, and to suppress all
such divine and heroic legends as are not in harmony with
these pre-established canons. In the Platonic system, the
mythes are not to be matters of history, nor yet of spon
taneous or casual fiction, but of prescribed faith : he sup-
p oses that the people will believe, as a thing of course, what
the poets circulate, and he therefore directs that the latter
shall circulate nothing which does not tend to ennoble and
improve the feelings. He conceives the mythes as stories
composed to illustrate the general sentiments of the poets
and the community, respecting the character and attributes
of the gods and heroes, or respecting the social relations,
and ethical duties as well as motives of mankind: hence the
obligation upon the legislator to prescribe beforehand the
types of character which shall be illustrated, and to restrain
the poets from following out any opposing fancies. "Let
us neither believe ourselves (he exclaims), nor permit any
one to circulate, that Theseus son of Poseidon, and Pei-
rithous son of Zeus, or any other hero or son of a god,
could ever have brought themselves to commit abductions
or other enormities such as are now falsely ascribed to
them. "We must compel the poets to say, either that such
persons were not the sons of gods, or that they were not
the perpetrators of such misdeeds." l
Most of the mythes which the youth hear and repeat
His views (according to Plato) are false, but some of them
aLl° **^ are true: the great and prominent mythes which
necessity . -— a n r- , j #
and use of appear m Homer and Hesiod are no less fictions
fiction. ^ than the rest. But fiction constitutes one of
the indispensable instruments of mental training as well as
1 Plato, Repub. iii. 6. p. 391. task of fiction easy (Plato, Kritias.
The perfect ignorance of all men p. 107).
respecting the gods rendered the

Chap. XVI.

OPINION OF PLATO.

427

truth; only the legislator must take care that the fictions
so employed shall be beneficent and not mischievous.1 As
the mischievous fictions (he says) take their rise from
wrong preconceptions respecting the character of the gods
and heroes, so the way to correct them is to enforce, by
authorised compositions, the adoption of a more correct
standard. 2
The comments which Plato has delivered with so much
force in his Republic, and the enactments which he deduces
from them, are in the main an expansion of that sentiment
of condemnation, which he shared with so many other
philosophers, towards a large portion of the Homeric and
Hesiodic stories.3 But the manner in which he has set
forth this opinion unfolds to us more clearly the real
character of the mythical narrative. They are He dealg
creations of the productive minds in the com- with the
munity, deduced from the supposed attributes J^fJ1®^^
of the gods and heroes: so Plato views them, and onfelnng
in such character he proposed to amend them. an<*. imagi-
The legislator would cause to be prepared a

1 Plato, Eepub. ii. 16. p. 377.
Aoyuiv 8= Bittov eZ8o?, to u-sv aX7)8s?,
'^eu8o<; 8' stspov ; Nat. IlaLSsOTEOv
6' EV &(JL!pOT£pOl<;j TCpOTEpOV 8 ev Til?
•{jsiiSsair .... 06 jjt.av9dvEi?, Sti
jtoidtov toi? TratSlot.? lu)9ou? XeyoLLSv
touto 8£ tioo io? to 8Xov eIttsTv
'^suSo?, svi Be xal dX7]8yj. . . . IIp<b-
TOV 7](JLIV STClOTaTTJTeOV toT? u-uGoitoiot?,
xal av [jlsv av xaXov jj.u6ov itor/jaojtnv,
SyXplTEOV, ov 8' av U.7], aTTOXpiTSOV ....
<ov 8= vuv Xsyouai, tou? ttoXXou?
expXTjTsov .... oo? 'HaloSo? xal
"0|A7]po? 7jfi.iv eXsyET7]v, xai oi aXXoi
r.ot'/yzc/X. Outoi yap tiou jjluGou? toi?
avOpiOTcoi? '\izvozl$ o"Uvti.8evt£? sXsyiv
xe xal Xsyouui. IIoi.ou? 87), 7] 8' 5?,
xal ti auTtuv |j.e[j!.cp6u.svo? Xsyei?;
"Orcep, 7Jv 8' eytb, /p7j xal TrptLvrov
xal fxaXtuTa |j:=picp£a9at,, aXXto? te
xai edv ti? lutj xaXtl)? 'I>=u87jTai. Ti
touto; "OTav tl? elxdCfl xaxtb? tuj
Xoytp Tuspl 9su)v ts xal rjpuxov, oiot
slaty, a)C7rep ypacpeo? fiTjoiv £OixoT,a
ypdtpiov ot? av ojAoia PouXrjTai ypd'jjai.
The same train of thought, and
the precepts founded upon it, are

followed up through chap.~17, 18.
and 19 ; compare De Legg. xii.
p. 941.
Instead of recognising the po
pular or dramatic theology as
something distinct from the civil
(as Varro did), Plato suppresses
the former as a separate department
and merges it in the latter.
2 Plato, Eepub. ii. c. 21. p. 382.
To ev toT? Xoyot? <psu5o? t;6te xai ti
XpTjOlU-OV, tOUTE fJLT] afjtov sivat [itoou?;
TAp' 06 Ttpo? ts Toy? TcoXsjxlou? xal
TU>V XaXoUfAEVtOV ffltXtDVj Stov 8 id
u-avlav 7} Tiva avotav xaxiv ti s7ei-
yZipGiGl TCpCtTTStV, T6"S aTtOTpOirf)?
evsxa cu?(pap[jLaxov ypr)ai\).ov ytyvsTai;
Kal ev at? vuv 87] sXeyojAsv
Tal? jiuQoXoyiaie, 8 1 d to [lt\
e 1 8 e v a 1 27crjTaX7]9e? £ X e L
7rspiTU)v ti a X a iu> v, dipo(jLoiouv-
TE? T(jj dXlj(*Sl TO 'i^eOSo?, OTL
|j.dXioTa, out to xprjaijAov rcoioufiLSv ;
3 The censure which Xenophanes
pronounced upon the Homeric le-
' gends has already heen noticed :
Herakleitus (Diogen. Laert. ix. 1)

428 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet I.
better and truer picture of the foretime, hecause he would
start from truer (that is to say more creditable) conceptions
of the gods and heroes. Por Plato rejects the mythes
respecting Zeus and Here, or Theseus and Peirithous, not
from any want of evidence, hut hecause they are unworthy
of gods and heroes: he proposes to call forth new mythes,
which, though he admits them at the outset to be fiction,
he knows will soon he received as true, and supply more
valuable lessons of conduct.
"We may consider then that Plato disapproves of the
attempt to identify the old mythes either with exaggerated
history or with disguised philosophy. He shares in the
current faith, without any suspicion or criticism, as to
Orpheus, Palamedes, Daedalus, Amphion, Theseus, Achilles,
Cheiron, and other mythical personages ; 1 but what chiefly
fills his mind is, the inherited sentiment of deep reverence
for these superhuman characters and for the age to which
they belonged, — a sentiment sufficiently strong to render
him not only an unbeliever in such legends as conflict with
it, hut also a deliberate creator of new legends for the
purpose of expanding and gratifying it. The more we
examine this sentiment, hoth in the mind of Plato as well
as in that of the Greeks generally, the more shall we be
convinced that it formed essentially and inseparably a por-
— sustained tion of Hellenic religious faith. The mythe both
by reli- presupposes, and springs out of, a settled basis
Kious faith, x i i ¦ e e T ¦ • i
and not by and a strong expansive force oi religious, social,
any posi- and patriotic feeling, operatingupon a past which
tive basis. jg ]j^e 'better than a blank as to positive know
ledge. It resembles history, in so far as its form is narra
tive: it resembles philosophy, in so far as it is occasion
ally illustrative-, but in its essence and substance, in the
mental tendencies by which it is created as well as in those
by which it is judged and upheld, it is a popularised ex
pression of the divine and heroic faith of the people.
Grecian antiquity cannot be at all understood except
in connection with Grecian religion. It begins with gods
and Metrod8rus, the companion and not to be ashamed to confess their
follower of Epicurus, were not utter ignorance of Homer, to the
less profuse in their invectives, extent of not knowing whether
ei YP'W*" ™<70'1toi5 to) itoii)T7J Hect6r was a Greek or a Trojan
XzXothop-qrai (Plutarch, Non posse (Plut. ib. p. 1094).
suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, ' Plato, Republic, iii. 4—5. p. 391 ;
p. 1086). He even advised persons De Legg. iii. 1. p. 677.

Chap. XVI. MYTHICAL GENEALOGIES. 429
and it ends with historical men, the former being recognised
not simply as gods, but as primitive ancestors, and con
nected with the latter hy a long mythical genealogy, partly
heroic and partly human. Now the whole value of such
genealogies arises from their being taken entire: the god
or hero at the top is in point of fact the most important
member of the whole;* for the length and continuity of
the series arises from anxiety on the part of historical
men to join themselves by a thread of descent Grecian
with the being whom they worshipped in their antiquity
gentile sacrifices. "Without the ancestorial god, »8 "ugious
the whole pedigree would have become not only conception.
acephalous, but worthless and uninteresting. The pride
of the Herakleids, Asklepiads, JEakids, Neleids, Dsedalids,
&c. was attached to the primitive eponymous hero and to
the god from whom they sprung, not to the line of names,
generally long and barren, through which the divine or
heroic dignity gradually dwindled down into common man
hood. Indeed the length of the genealogy (as I have he-
fore remarked) was an evidence of the humility of the his
torical man, which led him to place himself at a respectful
distance from the gods or heroes; for Hekatseus of Miletus,
who ranked himself as the fifteenth descendant of a god,
might perhaps have accounted it an overweening impiety
in any living man to claim a god for his immediate father,
The whole chronology of Greece, anterior to 776 b. c,
consists of calculations founded upon these Appiica-
mythical genealogies, especially upon that of the a°n °f.
Spartan kings and their descent from Herakles, gicaicaicu-
- — thirty years being commonly taken as the lation di-
equivalent of a generation, or about three gene- this
rations to a century. This process of computa- character.
tion was altogether illusory, as applying historical and
chronological conditions to a case on which they had no
bearing. Though the domain of history was seemingly
enlarged, the religious element was tacitly set aside : when
the heroes and gods were chronologised, they became in
sensibly approximated to the limits of humanity, and the
1 For a description of similar Greek,— coalescence between the
tendencies in the Asiatic religions, ideas of ancestry and worship, —
see Movers, Die Phonizier, ch. v. confusion between gods and men
p. 153 (Bonn, 1841) : he points out in the past, — increasing tendency
the same phenomena as in the to Euemerise (p. 156 — 157).

430 HISTORY OF GREECE. Paet I.
process indirectly gave encouragement to the theory of
Euemerus. Personages originally legendary and poetical
were erected into definite landmarks formeasuring the dura
tion of the foretime, thus gaining in respect to historical
distinctness, but not without loss on the score of religious
association. Both Euemerus and the subsequent Christian
writers, who denied the original and inherent divinity of
the pagan gods, had a great advantage in carrying their
chronological researches strictly and consistently upwards
— for all chronology fails as soon as we suppose a race
superior to common humanity.
Moreover it is to be remarked that the pedigree of the
Mythical Spartan kings, which Apollodorus and Eratos-
geneaio- thenes selected as the basis of their estimate of
one class, time, is nowise superior in credibility and trust-
ai* aei i°n worthiness to the thousand other gentile and
respect to family pedigrees with which Greece abounded;
evidence. jt is rather indeed to he numbered among the
most incredible of all, seeing that Herakles as a progenitor
is placed at the head of perhaps more pedigrees than any
other Grecian god or hero. 1 The descent of the Spartan
king Leonidas from Herakles rests upon no better evidence
than that of Aristotle or Hippokrates from Asklepius,2 —
of Evagoras or Thucydides from ^Eakus, — of Sokrates from
Daedalus, — of the Spartan heraldic family from Talthybius,
— of the prophetic Iamid family in Elis from Tamus, — of
the root-gatherers in Pelion from Cheiron, — and of Heka
tseus and his gens from some god in the sixteenth ascend
ing line of the series. There is little exaggeration in say
ing, indeed, that no permanent combination of men in
1 According to that which Aris- Scriptor.Biographic. viii. 1) ; about
totle seems to recognise (Histor. Aristotle, see Diogen. Laert. v. 1.
Animal, vii. 6), Herakles was Xenophon, the physician of the
father of seventy-two sons, but emperor Claudius, was also an
of only one daughter— he was Asklepiad (Tacit. Ann. xii. 61).
essentially dfipsvOYOvoi;, illustrating In Rhodes, the neighbouring is-
one of the physical peculiarities land to K8s, was the gens 'AXiiBai,
noticed by Aristotle. Euripides or sons of Helios, specially dis-
however mentions daughters of tinguished from the ¦AXiaoTal of
HSrakles in the plural number mere associated worshippers of
(Eurip. Herakleid. 46). Helios, to xotvov T<bv 'AXiocoiov xal
1 Hippokrates was twentieth in tiuv 'AXiaoTuw (see the Inscription
descent from Herakles, and nine- in Boeckh's Collection, No. 2625,
teenth from Asklepius (Vita Hip- with Boeckh's comment).
pocr. by Soranus, ap. Westermann,

Chap. XVI. CONFUSION BETWEEN GODS AND MEN. 431
Greece, religious, social, or professional, was without a
similar pedigree; all arising out of the same exigencies of
the feehngs and imagination, to personify as well as to
sanctify the bond of union among the members. Every
one of these gentes began with a rehgious and ended with
an historical person. At some point or other in the up
ward series, entities of history were exchanged for entities
of rehgion; but where that point is to be found we are un
able to say, nor had the wisest of the ancient Greeks any
means of determining. Thus much however we know, that
the series, taken as a whole, though dear and precious to
the believing Greek, possesses no value as chronological
evidence to the historian.
"When Hekatseus visited Thebes in Egypt, hementioned
to the Egyptian priests, doubtless with a feeling of satis
faction and pride, the imposing pedigree of the gens to
which he belonged, — with fifteen ancestors in ascending
line, and a god as the initial progenitor. But he found
himself immeasurably outdone by the priests "who ge-
nealogised against him." l They showed to him three hun
dred and forty-one wooden cplossal statues, representing
the succession of chief priests in the temple in uninterrupted
series from father to son, through a space of 11,300 years.
Prior to the commencement of this long period (they said),
the gods dwelling along with men, had exercised sway in
Egypt; but they repudiated altogether the idea of men be
gotten by gods or of heroes.2
Both these counter-genealogies are, in respect to
trustworthiness and evidence, on the same foot- _
ing. Each represents partly the religious faith, and Egyp-
partly the retrospective imagination of the per- *ial? sea
sons from whom it emanated. In each the lower
members of the series (to what an extent we cannot tell)
are real, the upper members fabulous; but in each also the
series derived all its interest and all its imposing effect from
being conceived unbroken and entire. Herodotus is much
perplexed by the capital discrepancy between the Grecian
1 Herodot. ii. 144. 'ExaTalw hi u>5s, &a.
yetzrjXoyr]aatrt kwurbt, xal atahr)- 2 Herod, ii. 143 — 145. Kal t«ut«
cavTi it; ixxathixarot 8sbv, i/TS- Aiybitrtot aTpexeuj? ipaalv STtlcjTaaflxi,
YeveXoYiaaM. sVi ryi apifljiijssi, oil atel ts Xo7it°u.evoi xal alsl dnoYpa-
ozvjju.z/t.1 nap' aGTou, duo 9eoo ylvso- <pou.svot t« Ite«.
Btci atipwitof atrzyeizr]X6yriaat hi

432 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pabt I.
and Egyptian chronologies, and vainly employs his ingenuity
„ , . in reconciling them. There is no standard of
each purely objective evidence by which either the one or
subjective, the other of them can be tried. Each has its
m reference - . .. -. . . .. .,, ,.
to the faith own subjective value, m conjunction with the
of the faith and feelings of Egyptian and Greeks, and
each presupposes in the believer certain mental
prepossessions which are not to be found beyond its own
local limits. Nor is the greater or less extent of duration
at all important, when we once pass the limits of evidence
and verifiable reality. One century of recorded time, ad
equately studded with authentic and orderly events, pre
sents a greater mass and a greater difficulty of transition
to the imagination than a hundred centuries of barren ge
nealogy. Herodotus, in discussing the age of Homer and
Hesiod, treats an anterior point of 400 years as if it were
only yesterday; the reign of Henry VI. is separated from
us by an equal interval, and the reader will not require to
be reminded how long that interval now appears.
The mythical age was peopled with a mingled aggre-
Gods and Sa*e °f g°&s> heroes, and men, so confounded
men undis- together that it was often impossible to distin-
abie^n11" guish to which class any individual name be-
Grecian longed. In regard to the Thracian god Zalmoxis,
antiquity, the Hellespontic Greeks interpreted his character
and attributes according to the scheme of Euemerism. They
affirmed that he had been a man, the slave of the philo
sopher Pythagoras at Samos, and that he had by abilities
and artifice established a religious ascendency over the
minds of the Thracians, and obtained from them divine
honours. Herodotus cannot bring himself to believe this
story, but he frankly avows his inability to determine
whether Zalmoxis was a god or a man, i nor can he extricate
1 Herod, iv. 94 — 96. After having iari ha.iu.wi tis reTTjai outos stu-
related the Euemeristic version yibpios, )raipsTOJ. So Plutarch
given by the Hellespontic Greeks, (Numa, c. 19) will not undertake
he concludes, with his character- to determine whether Janus was
istic frankness and simplicity— a god or a king, efe oaluwv, sits
'Eyd> hi, itspl u.zt to6tou xal too [JasiXsuc YEv6u.evoc, &c.
xaTayalou oixriptarot;, outs aictarzw, Herakleitus the philopher said
oiiTe <ov ittarzbw ti Xiv)'). hoxiw hi that men were Osol Bvt)toI, and the
TioXXoitii steoi Tcporspov tov ZdX|j.o$iv gods were SvBpuraoi aflavaToi (Lu-
toutov YsvsaOai IIuOaYopsu). Eits ok cian, Vitar. Auctio. c. 13. vol. i. p.
iyiterb ti? ZaXuof n av8p tono;, sit' 303. Tauch. : compare the same

Chap. XVI. CONFUSION BETWEEN GODS AND MEN.

433

himself from a similar embarrassment in respect to Dio
nysus and Pan. Amidst the confusion of the Homeric fight,
the goddess Athene confers upon Diomedes the miraculous
favour of dispelling the mist from his eyes, so as to enable
him to discriminate gods from men; and nothing less than
a similar miracle could enable a critical reader of the
mythical narratives to draw an ascertained boundary-line
between the two. • But the original hearers of the mythes
felt neither surprise nor displeasure from this confusion of
the divine with the human individual. They looked at the
past with a film of faith over their eyes — neither knowing
the value, nor desiring the attainment of an unclouded
vision. The intimate companionship, and the occasional
mistake of identity between gods and men, were in full
harmony with their reverential retrospect. And we ac
cordingly see the poet Ovid in his Fasti, when he under
takes the task of unfolding the legendary antiquities of
early Home, re-acquiring, by the inspiration of Juno, the
power of seeing gods and men in immediate vicinity and
conjunct action, such as it existed before the development
of the critical and historical sense. 2

author, Dialog. Mortuor. iii. vol.
i. p. 182, ed. Tauchn).
1 Iliad, v. 127:—
'AyXuv S' au tol an Gtp9aXu.u>v
sXoV, 7\ TUplV eTC7]£V,
'O'fp' EU YlfvUiCTXTr^ 7j(as; Gsov, 7)8s
xal avopa.
Of this undistinguishable con
fusion between gods and men,
striking illustrations are to he
found both in the third book of
Cicero de Natura Deorum (16 — 21),
and in the long disquisition of
Strabo (x. pp. 467—474) respecting
the Kabeiri, the Korybantes, the
Daktyls of Ida; the more so as
he cites the statements of Phere
kydes, Akusilaus, Demetrius of
Skepsis and others. Under the
Soman empire the lands in Greece
belonging to the immortal gods
were exempted from tribute. The
Eoman tax-collectors Tefused to
recognise as immortal gods any
persons who had once heen men;
VOL. I.

but this rule could not be clearly
applied (Cicero, Nat. Deor. iii. 20).
See the remarks of Pausanias (ii.
26, 7) about Asklepius : Galen, too,
is doubtful about Asklepius and
Dionysus — ' Kz%\t\tz\.6c, ye toi xal
Ai6vU<to<;, sit' av8pu)7iot 7cp6xspov
tJjtyjv, site xal apyyjQsv Qsoi. (Galen
in Protreptic. 9. torn. i. p. 22, ed.
Kiihn). Xenoph&n (De Venat. c.
i.) considers Cheirdn as the brother
of Zeus.
The ridicule of Lucian (Deorum
Concilium, t. iii. p. 527— 538, Hems.)
brings out still more forcibly the
confusion here indicated.
2 Ovid. Fasti, vi. 6—20:—
"Fas mihi preecipue vultus vi-
disse Deorum,
Vel quia sum vates, vel quia
sacra cano . . .
. . . Ecce^Deas vidi . . ,
Horrueram, tacitoque animum
pallore fatebar: 2 F

434 HISTORY OE GREECE. Paet I.
To resume, in brief, what has been laid down in this
General and the preceding chapters respectingthe Grecian
recapitu- mythes : —
latl0n- 1. They are a special product of the imagi
nation and feehngs, radically distinct both from history and
philosophy: they cannot be broken down and decomposed
into the one, nor allegorised into the other. There are in
deed some particular and even assignable mythes, which
raise intrinsic presumption of an allegorising tendency;
and there are doubtless some others, though not specially
assignable, which contain portions of matter of fact, or
names of real persons, embodied in them. But such
matter of fact cannot he verified by any intrinsic mark,
nor are we entitled to presume its existence in any
given case unless some collateral evidence can he pro
duced. 2. We are not warranted in applying to the mythical
world the rules either of historical credibility or chrono
logical sequence. Its personages are gods, heroes, and
men, in constant juxtaposition and reciprocal sympathy;
men too, of whom we know a large proportion to be ficti
tious, and of whom we can never ascertain how many may
have been real. No series of such personages can serve
as materials for chronological calculation.
3. The mythes were originally produced in an age which
had no records, no philosophy, no criticism, no canon of be
lief, and scarcely any tincture either of astronomy or geo
graphy, — but which, on the other hand, was full of rehgious
faith, distinguished for quick and susceptible imagination,
seeing personal agents where we' look only for objects and
connecting laws; — an age moreover eager for new narrative,
accepting with the unconscious impressibility of children
(the question of truth or falsehood being never formally
raised) all which ran in harmony with its pre-existing feel
ings, and penetrable by inspired prophets and poets in the
same proportion that it was indifferent to positive evidence.
To such hearers did the primitive poet or story-teller
Cum Dea, quos fecit, sustulit Jus tibi fecisti numen ecelesto
ipsa metus. videndi,
Namque ait — O vates, Roman! Cum placuit numeris condere
condftor anni, festa tuis'"
Ause per exiguos magna referre
modoa:

Chap. XVI. GENERAL RECAPITULATION. 435
address himself. It was the glory of his productive genius
to provide suitable narrative expression for the faith and
emotions which he shared in common with them, and the
rich stock of Grecian mythes attests how admirably he per
formed his task. As the gods and the heroes formed the
conspicuous object of national reverence, so the mythes
were partly divine, partly heroic, partly both in one. ' The
adventures of Achilles, Helen, and Diomedes, of CEdipus
and Adrastus, of Meleager and Altheea, of Jason and the
Argo, were recounted by the same tongues and accepted
with the same unsuspecting confidence, as those of Apollo
and Artemis, of Ares and Aphrodite, of Poseidon and
Herakles. 4. The time however came when this plausibility ceased
to be complete. The Grecian mind made an important
advance, socially, ethically, and intellectually. Philosophy
and history were constituted, prose writing and chronolo
gical records became familiar; a canon of belief more or less
critical came to be tacitly recognised. Moreover superior
men profited more largely by the stimulus, and contracted
habits of judging different from the vulgar: the god Elen-
chus2 (to use a personification of Menander) the giver and
prover of truth, descended into their minds. Into the new
intellectual medium, thus altered in its elements and no
longer uniform in its quality, the mythes descended by
inheritance; but they were found, to a certain extent, out
of harmony even with the feelings of the people, and alto
gether dissonant with those of instructed men. Yet the
most superior Greek was still a Greek, cherishing the
common reverential sentiment towards the foretime of his
country. Though he could neither believe nor respect the
mythes as they stood, he was under an imperious mental
necessity to transform them into a state worthy of his belief
1 The fourth Eclogue of Virgil, Delectos heroas : erunt etiam
under the form of a prophecy, altera bella,
gives a faithful picture of the Atque iterum ad Trojam magnus
heroic and divine past, to which mittetur Achilles."
the legends of Troy and the Ar- a Lucian, Pseudol. c. 4. Ilapa-
gonauts belonged: — xXtjtso*; 7]u.Iv tu>v MsvdcvSpou 7cpoX6-
"IlleDeum vitam accipiet, Divis- yiov etc., 6 '%keyyo$, (piXoc aX'/jQela
que videbit xai nahpr\aia 9so<;, oby 6 a<T7]u.6T<XTO<;
Permixtos heroas," &c. Ttbv ini ttjv 0X7]vT)v avaPaivdvriDv.
"Alter erit tumTiphys et altera (See Meineke ad Mcnandr. p. 284.)

quai vehat Argo

2 p 2

43G

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Past I.

and respect. "Whilst the literal mythe still continued to
float among the poets and the people, critical men inter
preted, altered, decomposed and added, until they found
something "which satisfied their minds as a supposed real
basis. They manufactured some dogmas of supposed ori
ginal philosophy, and a long series of fancied history and
chronology, retaining the mythical names and generations,
even when they were obliged to discard or recast the mythi
cal events. The interpreted mythe was thus promoted
into a reality, while the literal mythe was degraded into a
fiction.1

1 The following passage from
Dr. Ferguson's Esaay on Civil
Society (part ii. sect. i. p. 126)
bears well on the subject before
us:— "If conjectures and opinions
formed at a distance have not a
sufficient authority in the history
of mankind, the domestic antiqui
ties of every nation must for this
very reason be received with
caution. They are for the most
part the mere conjectures or the
fictions of subsequent ages; and
even where at first they contained
some resemblance of truth, they
still vary with the imagination of
those by whom they were trans
mitted, and in every generation
receive a different form. They are
made to bear the stamp of the
times through which they have
passed in the form of tradition,
not of the ages to which their
pretended descriptions relate ....
When traditionary fables are
rehearsed by the vulgar, they bear
the marks of a national character,
and though mixed with absurdities,
often raise the imagination and
move the heart : when made the
materials of poetry, and adorned
by the skill and the eloquence of
an ardent and superior mind, they
instruct the understanding as well
as engage the passions. It is only
in the management of mere anti

quaries, or stript of the ornaments
which the laws of history forbid
them to wear, that they become '
unfit even to amuse the fancy or
to serve any purpose whatever.
"Ifc were absurd to quote the
fable of the Iliad or the Odyssey,
the legends of Hercules, Theseus
and CEdipus, as authorities in mat
ters of fact relating to the history
of mankind; but they may, with
great justice, be cited to ascertain
what were the conceptions and
sentiments of the age in which
they were composed, or to cha
racterise the genius of that people
with whose imaginations they were
blended, and by whom they were
fondly rehearsed and .admired. In
this manner fiction may be ad
mitted to vouch for the genius of
nations, while history has nothing
to offer worthy of credit."
To the same purpose M. Paulin
Paris (in his Lettre a M. H. de
Monmerque, prefixed to the Ro
man de Berte aux Grans Pies,
Paris, 1836), respecting the 'romans*
of the middle Ages:— "Pour bien
connaitre l'histoire du moyen age,
non pas celle des faits, mais celle
des mceurs qui rendent les faits
vraisemblables, il faut l'avoir
etudiee dans les romans, et voila
pourquoi l'Histoire de France
n'est pas encore faite." (p. xxi.)

CnAP. XVI. POPULARITY OE GRECIAN MYTHES. 437
The habit of distinguishing the interpreted from the
literal mythe has passed from the literary men of antiquity
to those of the modern world, who have for the most part
construed the divine mythes as allegorised philosophy, and
the heroic mythes as exaggerated, adorned, and over-
coloured history. The early ages of Greece have thus been
peopled with quasi-historical persons and quasi-historical
events, all extracted from the mythes after making certain
allowances for poetical ornament. But we must not treat
this extracted product as if it were the original substance.
We cannot properly understand it except by viewing it in
connexion with the literal mythes out of which it was
obtained, in their primitive age and appropriate medium,
before the superior minds had yet outgrown the common
faith in an all-personified Nature, and learned to restrict
the divine free-agency by the supposition of invariable
physical laws. It is in this point of view that the mythes
are important for any one who would correctly appreciate
the general tone of Grecian thought and feeling; for they
were the universal mental stock of the Hellenic world —
common to men and women, rich and poor, instructed and
ignorant; they were in every one's memory and in every
one's mouth, i while science and history were confined to
1 A curious evidence of the gemitus sui vir sanctus per hsec
undiminished popularity of the verba profudit :— Ergo Thersitem,
Grecian mythes, to the exclusion Sinonem, ca-teraque ilia prodigia
even of recent history, is preserved vetustatis, et nos bene scimus,
by Vopiscus at the beginning of et posteri freguentdbunt : divum
his Life of Aurelian. Aurelianum, clarissimum prin-
The praefect of the city of Borne, cipem, severissimum Imperatorera,
Junius Tiberianus, took Vopiscus per quem totus Romano nomini
into his carriage on the festival- orbis est restitutus, posteri nescient?
day of the Hilaria; he was con- Deus avertat hanc amentiam! Et
nected by the ties of relationship tamen, si benememini, ephemeridas
with Aurelian, who had died about illius viri scriptas habemus,'' &c.
a generation before— and as the (Historic August. Scrptt. p. 209,
carriage passed by the splendid ed. Salmas.)
temple of the Sun, which Aurelian This impressive remonstrance
had consecrated, he asked Vopiscus, produced the Life of Aurelian by
what author had written the life Vopiscus. The materials seem to
of that emperor? To which Vopis- have been ample and authentic: it
cus replied, that he had read some is to be regretted that they did not
Greek works which touched upon fall into the hands of an author
Aurelian, but nothing in Latin, qualified to turn them to better
Whereat the venerable prefect account.
was profoundly grieved : "Dolorem

438

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Paiit 1.

comparatively few. We know from Thucydides how erro
neously and carelessly the Athenian public of his day
retained the history of Peisistratus, only one century past; *
but the adventures of the gods and heroes, the numberless
explanatory legends attached to visible objects
and periodical ceremonies, were the theme of
general talk, and any man unacquainted with
them would have found himself partially ex
cluded from the sympathy of his neighbours.
The theatrical representation, exhibited to the
entire city population and listened to with en
thusiastic interest, both presupposed and perpe
tuated acquaintance with the great lines of heroic fable.
Indeed in later times even the pantomimic dancers embraced
in their representation the whole field of mythical incident,
and their immense success proves at once how popular and
how well-known such subjects were. The names and attri
butes of the heroes were incessantly alluded to in the way
of illustration, to point out a consoling, admonitory, or
repressive moral : the simple mention of any of them sufficed
to call up in every one's mind the principal events of his
life, and the poet or rhapsode could thus calculate on
touching chords not less familiar than susceptible. 2

General
public of
Greece —
familiar with their
local my
thes, care
less of
recent his
tory.

1 Thucyd. vi. 56.
2 Pausan. i. 3, 3. Aiyztai u-sv 8tj
xal aXXa oux &X7]8tj 7iapd toT? tzoX-
XoT?) ola EaTopias dv's]x6oi? oooi, xal
07103a tjxouov eu9'J<; sx rcaiSibv £v te
Xopoi? xal TpaY^BLaie TuaTa 7)Y0U"
u-svok, &o. The treatise of Lucian,
De Saltatione, is a curious- proof
how much these mythes were in
everyone's memory, and how large
the range of knowledge of them
was which a good dancer posses
sed (see particularly c. 76—79. t.
ii. p. 308—310, Hemst.).
Antiphanes ap. Athenas. vi. p.
223:— Maxdpt6v e<mv 7] TpaytjjSia
7toi7]fJ-a xa*ca 7tctvT', e't ye. TEpujtov
ot X6foi
0x6 TdViJ 9s«tu)v s'uiv EYvtopitTjjLsvot
npU xai tiv1 e'tscsiv* ii><; 67iou.v7Ja«i
(J.QV0V

8sT tov tcoitjt^v. OUlnouv y&P &m
Ta 6' aXXa TidvT toaui-,' 6 7iaT7jp
A dio?,
^TTjp 'IoxdarT], 6uYaT£p£<;, TialSs?
TIVEV
tI tueicteQ' o5ro$, ti tcstcoI^xsv. "Am
7udXiv
zt-KT) ti? 'AXxu-atcuva, xal xa TtaiSia
7udrc' eiJQu? e^P7JX1) ^tl jaccvsU
d^EXTOVS
ttjv ti'/jTEp1* aYavaxTibv S' 'ASpaaTo?
euQiiDi;
7]EeI, TldXlV 8' aTTELOlV, &c.
The first pages of the eleventh
Oration of Dio Chrysostom contain
some striking passages both as to
the universal acquaintance with
the mythes, and as to their ex
treme popularity (Or. xi. p. 307—
312, Reisk.). See also the com
mencement of Heraklides, De Al
legoric Homerica (ap. Scriptt.

OHAr. XVI. CONNEXION OE MYTHES WITH RELIGION.

439

A similar effect was produced by the multiplied reli
gious festivals and processions, as well as by the oracles
and prophecies which circulated in every city. The annual
departure of the Theoric ship from Athens to Keiigious
the sacred island of Delos, kept alive in the festivals-
minds of Athenians generally, the legend of memorab*
TheseusandhisadventurousenterpriseinKrete:1 tive in-
and in like manner most of the other public flueilce-
Myth. ed. Gale, p. 408), about the
familiarity with Homer.
The Lyde of the poet Antimachus
was composed for his own con

solation under sorrow, by enume
rating the Tjpunxdt; erupLOopdi; (Plu
tarch Consolat. ad Apoll6n. c. 93
p. 106: compare .ZEschines cont.
Ctesiph. c. 48). A sepulchral in
scription in Thera, on the un
timely death of Admetus, a youth
of the heroic gens -33gidae, makes
a touching allusionto his ancestors
Peleus andPheres (Boeckh, C. I. t,
ii. p. 1087).
A curious passage of Aristotle is
preserved by Demetrius Phalereus
(lisp! lEp|jL7]v$ict<;, c. 144), — "OfftjJ
Yap <xut!t7]s xal u.ov(I>tt]<; elfil, tpiXo-
auOoTspoe Y^Tova (compare the pas
sage in the Nikomachean Ethics,
i. 9", u.ovu)T7]<; xal axaxvoO- Stahr
refers this to a letter of Aristotle
written in his old age, the mythes
being the consolation of his solitude
(Aristotelia, i. p. 201).
Eor the employment of the
mythical names and incidents as
topics of pleasing and familiar
comparison, see Menander, lisp!
'EitiSstXTtx. § iv. capp. 9 and 11,
ap. Walz. Coll. Rhett. t. ix. p.
283—294. The degree in which'they
passed into the ordinary songs of
women is illustrated by a touching
epigram contained among the
Chian Inscriptions published in
Boeckh's Collection (No. 2236):^
Bittu) xal OaivUj 9 1X7) 7\\xip7\ (?)
at tjUvspi9oi,
Aiitsvixpat, Ypaiaij'CTjS' exX19t]u.ev
OfJLOU.

'AfjupoTEpai Kthai, rcpuiTai yivo%—
u> yXuxbz op9po<;,
IIp6<; Xuyvov (£ u.u9ou$ 7j5o|xsv
7)|m9eu>v.
These two poor women were not
afraid to boast of their family
descent. They probably belonged
so some noble gens which traced
its origin to a god or a hero.
About the songs of women, see
also Agathias, i. 7, 29, ed. Bonn.
In the family of the wealthy
Athenian Demokrates was a legend,
that his primitive ancestor (son of
Zeus by the daughter of the Ar-
chegetes of the deme Aix&neis, to
which he belonged) had received
Herakles at his table : this legend
was so rife that the old women
sung it, — #7csp ai YPa^aL aSoucri
(Plato, Lysis, p. 205). Compare
also a legend of the deme 'Avo-
Yupout;, mentioned in Suidas ad
voc. "Who is this maiden?" asks
Orestes from Pylades in the Iphi
geneia in Tauris of Euripides (662),
respecting his sister Iphigeneia,
whom he does not know as
priestess of Artemis in a foreign
land :—
Tic eutiv 7) vsavu;; 105 'EX-
X7]vixo)<;
*Av7)ps9' tju-Si; tou<; t' £v 'IXltp
rcdvoue
Nootov t' A)r<«ti>v, tov t' ev ottu-
vol? ao'fov
KdXyjxvT1, 'AxiXXeuii; t1 o&vo[i', Ac.
.... eotiv 7) £s-jt] y^vo?
'Ex£t9sv. 'ApYsia ""<:» &c.
* Plato, Phaado, «. 2.

440 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
rites and ceremonies were of a commemorative character,
deduced from some mythical person or incident familiarly
known to natives, and forming to strangers a portion of
the curiosities, of the place. l During the period of Grecian
subjection under the Romans, these curiosities, together
with their works of art and their legends, were especially
clung to as a set-off against present degradation. The
Theban citizen who found himself restrained from the
liberty enjoyed by all other Greeks, of consulting Amphia
raiis as a prophet, though the sanctuary and chapel of the
hero stood in his own city — could not be satisfied, without
a knowledge of the story which explained the origin of
such prohibition,2 and which conducted him back to the
originally hostile relations between Amphiaraus and Thebes.
Nor can we suppose among the citizens of Sikyon anything
less than a perfect and reverential conception of the legend
of Thebes, when we read the account given by Herodotus
of the conduct of the despot Kleisthenes in regard to
Adrastus and Melanippus.3 The Troezenian youths and
maidens,4 who universally, when on the eve of marriage,
consecrated an offering of their hair at the Heroon of
Hippolytus, maintained a lively recollection of the legend
of that unhappy recusant whom Aphrodite had so cruelly
punished. Abundant relics preserved in many Grecian
cities and temples served both as mementos and attestations
of other legendary events; and the tombs of the heroes
counted among the most powerful stimulants of mythical
reminiscence. The sceptre of Pelops and Agamemnon,
1 The Philopseudes of Lucian (t. haTe got it for nothing (u.7]8£ dfuaOi
iii, p. 31. Hemst. cap. 2, 3, 4) xuVj fjevcov T<iX7]9ss c(Xo6siv e9s).T]ffdv-
shows not only the pride which tiov).
the general public of Athens and 2 Herodot. -viii. 134.
Thebes took in their old mythes 8 Herodot. v. 67.
(Triptolemus, Boreas and Orei- 4 Euripid. Hippolyt. 1424; Pau-
thyia, the Sparti, &c.), but the san. ii. 32, 1 ; Lucian, De DeS.
way in which they treated every Syria, u. 60, vol. iv. p. 287.
man who called the stories in Tauch.
question as a fool or as an atheist. It is curious to see in the ac-
He remarks that if the guides count of Pausanias how all the
who showed the antiquities had petty peculiarities of the objects
been restrained to tell nothing but around became connected with
what was true, they would have explanatory details growing out
died of hunger ; for the visiting of this affecting legend. Comparo
strangers would not care to hear Pausan. i. 22, 2.
plain truth, even if they could

Chap. XVI. CONNEXION OI" MYTHES WITH RELIGION. 441
still preserved in the days of Pausanias at Chseroneia in
Boeotia, was the work of the god Hephaestos. "While many
other alleged productions of the same divine hand were
preserved in different cities of Greece, this is the only one
which Pausanias himself believed to be genuine: it had
been carried by Elektra, daughter of Agamemnon, to Phokis,
and received divine honours from the citizens variety and
of Chseroneia.1 The spears of Meriones and un.i.ver"
Odysseus were treasured up at Engyium in mytMcai
Sicily, that of Achilles atPhaselis; the sword of "lies.
Memnon adorned the temple of Asklepius at Nicomedia4
and Pausanias, with unsuspecting confidence, adduces the
two latter as proofs that the arms of the heroes were made
of brass.2 The hide of the Kalydonian boar was guarded
and shown by the Tegeates as a precious possession; the
shield of Euphorbus was in like manner suspended in the
temple of Branchidee near Miletus, as well as in the
temple of Here in Argos. Yisible relics of Epeius and
Philoktetes were not wanting; moreover Strabo raises his
voice with indignation against the numerous Palladia which
were shown in different cities, each pretending to be the
genuine image from Troy.3 It would be impossible to
specify the number of chapels, sanctuaries, solemnities,
foundations of one sort or another, said to have been first
commenced by heroic or mythical personages, — by He
rakles, Jason, Medea, Alkmeeon, Diomedes, Odysseus,
Danaus and his daughters,4 &c. Perhaps in some of these
cases particular critics might raise objections, but the
great bulk of the people entertained a firm and undoubted
belief in the current legend.
If we analyse the intellectual acquisitions of a common
Grecian townsman, from the rude communities of Arcadia
or Phokis even up to'the enlightened Athens, we shall find
that, over and above the rules of art or capacities requisite
for his daily wants, they consisted chiefly of the various
my thes connected with his gens, his city, his religious festivals
1 Pausan. ix. 40, 6. numerous citations out of Pau-
2 Plutarch, MarceH. v. 20; Pau- sanias ou this subject (Hellenische
san. iii. 3, 6. Alterthumskunde, part ii. sect. 115,
3 Pausan. viii. 46, 1 ; Diogen. p. 111).
Laer. viii. 5; Strabo, vi. p. 263; 4 Herodot. ii. 182; Plutarch,
Appian, Bell. Mithridat. c. 77; Pyrrh. c. ?2; Schol. Apoll. Rhod.
JEschyl. Eumen. 380. iv. 1217; DiodOr. iv. 66.
Waohsmuth has collected the

442 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pam I.
and the mysteries in which he might have chosen to initiate
himself, as well as with the works of art and the more
striking natural objects which he might see around him —
thewholeset offanddecoratedby some knowledge of the epic
and dramatic poets. Such was the intellectual and imagi
native reach of an ordinary Greek, considered apart from
the instructed few: it was an aggregate of religion, of social
and patriotic retrospect, and of romantic fancy, blended
into one indivisible faith. And thus the subjective value
of the mythes, looking at them purely as elements of Grecian
thought and feeling, will appear indisputably great, how
ever little there may be of objective reality, either histo
rical or philosophical, discoverable under them.
"We must not omit the incalculable importance of the
_,, ., mythes as stimulants to the imagination of the
The mythes nJ . .... , , . . s, .
in their Urecian artist m sculpture, mpainting,incarvmg
bearing on an(j jn architecture. Prom the divine and heroic
txrecian art. , .. 1 -. -in
legends and. personages were borrowed those
paintings, statues, and reliefs, which rendered the temples,
porticos, and public buildings, at Athens and elsewhere,
objects of surpassing admiration. Such visible reproduction
contributed again to fix the types of the gods and heroes
familiarly and indelibly on the public mind. l The figures
delineated on cups and vases as well as on the walls of
private houses were chiefly drawn from the same source —
the mythes being the great storehouse of artistic scenes
and composition.
To enlarge on the characteristic excellence of Grecian
art would here be out of place: I regard it only in so far
as, having originally drawn its materials from the mythes,
it reacted upon the mythical faith and imagination — the
reaction imparting strength to the former as well as dis
tinctness to the latter. To one who saw constantly before
him representations of the battles of the Centaurs or the
Amazons,2 of the exploits performed by Perseus and Belle
rophon, of the incidents composing the Trojan war or the
Kalydonian boar-hunt — the process of belief, even in the
1 'H[u6scuv dpsxali;, the subjects associated together in the ancient
of the works of Polygnotus at Grecian reliefs (see the Expedition
Athens (Melanthius, ap. Plutarch. Scientifique de Moree, t. ii. p. 16,
Cim6n. c. 4) : compare Theocrit. in the explanation of the temple
XT- 138- of Apollo Epikureius at Phiga-
2 The Centauromachia and the leia).
Amazonomachia are constantly

Chap. XVI. MYTHES STIMULANTS TO GRECIAN ART.

443

of works of
art to in
tensify the
mythical faith.

more fantastic of these conceptions, became easy in pro
portion as the conception was familiarised. And Tenaency
if any J>erson had been slow to believe in the
efficacy of the prayers of iEakus, whereby that
devout hero once obtained special relief from
Zeus, at a moment when Greece was perishing
from long-continued sterility — his doubts would probably
vanish, when, on visiting the JEakeium at ^Egina, there
were exhibited to him the statues of the very envoys who
had come on the behalf of the distressed Greeks to solicit
that JEakus would pray for them.* A Grecian temple2
was not simply a place of worship, but the actual dwelling-
place of a god, who was believed to be introduced by the
solemn dedicatory ceremony, and whom the imagination of
the people identified in the most intimate manner with his
statue. The presence or removal of the statue was con
ceived as identical with that of the being represented —
and while the statue was solemnly washed, dressed, and
tended with all the respectful solicitude which would have
been bestowed upon a real person,3 miraculous tales were

1 Pausan. ii. 29, 6.
2 Ernst Curtius, Die Akropolis
von Athen, Berlin, 1844, p. 18.
Arnobius adv. Gentes, vi. p. 203,
ed. Elmenhorst.
3 See the case of the iEginetans
lending theJEakids for a time to
the Thebans (Herodot. v. 80), who
soon however returned them :
likewise sending the iEakids to
the battle of Salamis (viii. 64 — 80).
The Spartans, when they decreed
that only one of their two kings
should be out on military service,
decreed at the same time that only
one of the Tyndarids should go
out with them (v. 75): they once
lent the Tyndarids as aids to the
envoys of Epizephyrian Locri,
who prepared for them a couch on
board their ship (Dioddr. Excerpt,
xvi. p. 15. Dindorf.). The Thebans
grant their hero Melanippus to
Kleisthenes of Sikydn (v. 68).
What was sent must probably have
been » consecrated copy of the
genuine statue.

Respecting the solemnities prac
tised towards the statues, see
Plutarch, Alkibiad. 34; Kalliraach.
Hymn, ad Lavacr. Palladis, init.
with the note of Spanheim; K. O.
Miiller, Archaeologie der Kunst,
§ 69; compare Plutarch, Question.
Romaic. § 61, p. 279; and Tacit.
Mor. Germ. c. 40; Dioddr, xvii. 49.
The manner in which the real
presence of a hero was identified
with his statue (tov Blxaiov fist
0=ov OTxot jjlevsiv oujCovtoc too?
i5pup.£vou<;. — Menander, Fragm,
'Hvtoyos, p. 71, Meineke), con
secrated ground, and oracle, is
nowhere more powerfully attested
than in the Hero'ica of Phllostratus
(capp. 2 — 20, p. 674-692; also De
Vit. Apoll6n. Tyan. iv. 11), ^re-
specting Prdtesilaus at Elaeus,
Ajax at the Aianteium, and Hect6r
at Ilium : Prdtesilaus appeared
exactly in the equipment of his
statue, — y>.a[j.u5a EvijxTfft, £evs, tov
0ETTa).lXOV TpiTtOV, (iXTTtSp Xal TO
$.ya\)}.% touto (p. 674). The pre-

444 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
often rife respectingthe manifestation of real internal feeling
in the wood and the marble. At perilous or critical mo
ments, the statue was affirmed to have sweated, to have
wept, to have closed its eyes, or brandished the spear in its
hands, in token of sympathy or indignation. ' Such legends,
springing up usually in times of suffering and danger, and
finding few men bold enough openly to contradict them,
ran in complete harmony with the general mythical faith,
and tended to strengthen it in all its various ramifications.
The renewed activity of the god or hero both brought to
mind and accredited the pre-existing mythes connected
with his name. "When Boreas, during the invasion of Greece
by XerxSs and in compliance with the fervent prayer of the
Athenians, had sent forth a providential storm to the
irreparable damage of the Persian armada,2 the sceptical
minority (alluded to by Plato) who doubted the mythe of
Boreas and Oreithyia, and his close connexion thus acquired
with Erechtheus and the Erechtheids generally, must for
the time have been reduced to absolute silence.
sence and sympathy of the hero gratitude of the Megalopolitans to
Lykus is essential to the satis- Boreas for having preserved them-
faction of the Athenian dikasts from, the attack of the Lacedee-
(Aristophan. Vesp. 389 820) : the monian king Agis (Pausan. viii.
fragment of Lucilius quoted by 27, 4— viii. 36, 4). When the Ten
Jjactantius, De Falsa Religione (i. Thousand Greeks "were on their
22), is curious. — Toi? r)pwat rolt; retreat through the cold moun-
xatot ttjv zoXiv xai tt]v ywpa.t 1 8 p u- tains of Armenia, Boreas blew in
u-svok; (Lykurgus cont'. Leokrat. their faces "parching and freezing
c. 1). intolerably." One of the prophets
1 Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 12; recommended that a sacrifice
Straho, vi. p. 264. Theophrastus should be offered to him, which
treats the perspiration as a natural was done, "and the painful effect
phsenomenon in the statues made of the wind appeared to every one
of cedar-wood (Histor. Plant, v. forthwith to cease in a marked man-
10). Plutarch discusses the ere- ner" (xal Tiacn 8yj TrspiaaviLc zho^z
dibility of this sort of miracles in Xr)E,ai rb y^aXzitbt rob ittzbu-arot;.—
his Life of Coriolanus, u. 37 — 38. Xenoph. Anab. iv. 6, 3).
1 Herodot. vii. 189. Compare the

Chap. XVII. ANCIENT AND MODERN MYTHICAL VEIN. 445

CHAP TEE XVII. ,
THE GRECIAN MYTHICAL VEIN COMPARED WITH
THAT OF MODERN EUROPE.
I have already remarked that the existence of that popular
narrative talk, which the Germans express by M.„
the significant word Sage or Volks-Sage, in a t>ageX*,n
greater or less degree of perfection or develop- universal
0 . - „i j. -i i -n manifesta-
ment, is a phsenomenon common to almost all tion of the
stages of society and to almost all quarters of human
the globe. It is the natural effusion of the min
unlettered, imaginative and believing man, and its maxi
mum of influence belongs to an early state of the human
mind: for the multiplication of recorded facts, the diffusion
of positive science, and the formation of a critical standard
of behef, tend to discredit its dignity and to repress its
easy and abundant flow. It supplies to the poet both
materials to recombine and adorn, and a basis as well as a
stimulus for further inventions of his own; and this at a
time when the poet is rehgious teacher, historian, and
philosopher, all in one — not, as he becomes at a more
advanced period, the mere purveyor of avowed, though
interesting, fiction.
Such popular stories, and such historical songs (mean
ing by historical simply that which is accepted as history)
arefoundinmost quarters of the globe, and especiallyamong
the Teutonic and Celtic populations of early Europe. The
old Gothic songs were cast into a continuous history by
the historian Ablavius;1 and the poems of the Germans
respecting Tuisto the earth-born god, his sonMannus, and
his descendants the eponyms of the various German tribes,2
1 Jornandes, De Reb. Geticis, originem gentis conditoresque.
capp. 4 — 6. Quidam licentia vetustatis, plures
2 Tacit. Mor. German, c. 2. "Ce- Deo ortos, pluresque gentis ap-
lebrant carminibus antiquis, quod pellationes, Marsos f Gambrivios,
unura apud eos memorize et anna- Suevos, Vandaliosque affirmant:
lium genus est, Tuistonem Deum eaque vera et antiqua nomina."
terra editum, et filium Mannum,

446 HISTORY OI? GREECE. Paet I.
as they are briefly described by Tacitus, remind us of
Hesiod, or Eumelus, or the Homeric Hymns. Jacob Grimm,
in his learned and valuable Deutsche Mythologie, has ex-
Anaiogy of hibited copious evidence of the great fundamental
the Ger- analogy, along with many special differences,
Celts with between the German, Scandinavian and Grecian
the Greeks, mythical world; and theDissertation ofMr.Price
(prefixed to his edition of Warton's History of English
Poetry) sustains and illustrates Grimm's view. The same
personifying imagination — the same ever-present concep
tion of the will, sympathies, and antipathies of the gods as
the producing causes of phsenomena, and as distinguished
from a course of nature with its invariable sequence — the
same relations between gods, heroes and men, with the
like difficulty of discriminating the one from the other in
many individual names — a similar wholesale transfer of
human attributes to the gods, with the absence of human
limits and liabilities — a like behef in Nymphs, Giants, and
other beings neither gods nor men — the same coalescence
of the religious with the patriotic feeling and faith — these
are positive features common to the early Greeks with the
early Germans : and the negative conditions of the two are
not less analogous — the absence of prose writing, positive
records, and scientific culture. The preliminary basis and
encouragements for the mythopoeic faculty were thus ex
tremely similar.
But though the prolific forces were the same in kind,
the results were very different in degree, and the developing
circumstances were more different still.
First, the abundance, the beauty, and the long con-
Differences tiimance of earlv Grecian poetry, in the purely
between poetical age, is a phsenomenon which has no
Gr'ecia parallel elsewhere.
poetry Secondly, the transition of the Greek mind
Grecian92- ^rom **s Poetical to its comparatively positive
progress state was self-operated, accomplished by its own
ratedP6" inherent and expansive force — aided indeed, but
by no means either impressed or provoked, from
without. Erom the poetry of Homer, to the history of
Thucydides and the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, was
a prodigicras step, but it was the native growth of the
Hellenic youth into an Hellenic man; and what is of still
greater moment, it was brought about without breaking

Chap. XVII. EARLY GERMAN GENEALOGIES TO ODIN. 447
the thread either of religious orpatriotic tradition — without
any coercive innovation or violent change in the mental
feehngs. The legendary world, though the ethical judge
ments and rational criticisms of superior men had outgrown
it, still retained its hold upon their feehngs as an object
of affectionate and reverential retrospect.
Ear different from this was the development of the early
Germans. "We know little about their early poetry, but
we shall run no risk of error in affirming that they had
nothing to compare with either Iliad or Odyssey. Whether,
if left to themselves, they would have possessed sufficient
progressive power to make a step similar to that of the
Greeks, is a question which we cannot answer. Their con
dition, mental as well as political, was violently changed by
a foreign action from without. The influence of German
the Roman empire introduced artificially among Progr^sts
them new institutions, new opinions, habits and abou? by
luxuries, and, above all, a new religion; the violent in-
Romanised Germans becoming themselves sue- fr0m
cessively the instruments of this revolution ¦without.
with regard to such of their brethren as still remained
heathens. It was a revolution often brought about by
penal and coercive means: the old gods Thor and Woden
were formally deposed and renounced, their images were
crumbled into dust, and the sacred oaks of worship and
prophecy hewn down. But even where conversion was the
fruit of preaching and persuasion, it did not the less break
up all the associations of a German with respect to that
mythical world which he called his past, and of which the
ancient gods constituted both the charm and the sanctity:
he had now only the alternative of treating them either as
men or as dsemons.1 That mixed rehgious and patriotic
1 On the hostile influence exer- A similar observation has been
cised by the change of religion on made with respect to the old my
the old Scandinavian poetry, see thes of the pagan Russians by
an interesting article of Jacob Eichhoff: — "L'etablissement du
Grimm in the Gbttinger Gelehrte Christianisme, ce gage du bonheur
Anzeigen, Feb. 1830, p. 268 — 273; des nations, fut vivement appreciS
a review of Olaf Tryggvson's Saga, par lea Russes, qui dans leur juste
The article Helden in his Deutsche reconnaissance, le personnifierent
Mythologie is also full of in- dans un heros. Vladimir le Grand,
struction on the same subject : see ami des arts, protecteur de la re-
also the Einleitung to the book, ligion qu'il protegea, et dont les
p. 12, 2nd edition. fruits firent oubliex les fautes,.

44y HISTORY OF GREECE. Pakt I.
retrospect, formed by the coalescence of piety with ances
tral feeling, which constituted the appropriate sentiment
both of Greeks and of Germans towards their unrecorded
antiquity, was among the latter banished by Christianity:
and while the root of the old mythes was thus cankered,
the commemorative ceremonies and customs with which
they were connected, either lost their consecrated character
or disappeared altogether. Moreover new influences of
Operation great importance were at the same time brought
of the to bear. The Latin language, together with some
civiifz'a.tion tinge of Latin literature — the habit of writing
and of and 0f recording present events — the idea of a
ity'up'on' systematic law and pacific adjudication of dis- '
the primi- putes, — all these formed a part of the general
min my- working of Roman civilization, even after the
thes. decline of the Roman empire, upon the Teutonic
and Celtic tribes. A class of specially-educated men was
formed upon a Latin basis and upon Christian principles,
consisting almost entirely of priests, who were opposed,
as well by motives of rivalry as by religious feeling, to the
ancient bards and storytellers of the community. The
"lettered men"1 were constituted apart from "the men of
story," and Latin literature contributed along with religion
to sink the mythes of untaught heathenism. Charlemagne
indeed, at the same time that he employed aggressive and
violent proceedings to introduce Christianity among the
Saxons, also took special care to commit to writing and
preserve the old heathen songs. But there can be little
doubt that this step was the suggestion of a large and en
lightened understanding peculiar to himself. The dis
position general among lettered Christians of that age is
more accurately represented by his sonLouis leDebonnaire,
who, having learnt these songs as a boy, came to abhor
dovint l'Arthus et le Charlemagne ballades nationales, et vivent en-
de la Russie, et sea hauts faits core dans de na'ifs recits." (Eich-
furent un mythe national qui hoff, Histoire de la Langue et Lit-
domina tous ceux du paganisme. terature des Slaves, Paris, 18^9, part
Autour de lui se grouperent ces iii. ch. 2. p. 190).
guerriers aux formes athletiques, 2 This distinction is curiously
au cosur genereux, dont la poesie brought to view by Saxo Gram-
aime a entourer le berceau mys- maticus, where he says of an
terieuxdes peuples : etles exploits Englishman named Lucas, that he
du vaillant Dobrinia, de Rogdai, was "literis quidem tenuiter in-
d'Hia, de Curilo, animerent les structus, sed historiarum scientia

Chap. XVII. EARLY GERMAN GENEALOGIES TO ODIN.

449

them when he arrived at mature years, and could never be
induced either to repeat or tolerate them.*
According to the old heathen faith, the pedigree of
the Saxon, Anglian, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish kings,
— probably also those of the German and Scandinavian
kings generally, — was traced to Odin, or to some of his im
mediate companions or heroic sons.2 I have already ob
served that the value of these genealogies consisted not so
much in their length, as in the reverence attached to the
name serving as primitive source.. After the Ait6rati011
worship attached to Odin had been extinguished, in the my
the genealogical line was lengthen ed up to Japhet ^ Sogfes—
or Noah — and Odin, no longer accounted worthy Odin and
to stand at the top, was degraded into one of the *^ds°ther
simple human members of it.3 And we find this degraded
alteration of the original mythical genealogies int0 men'
to have taken place even among the Scandinavians, although

apprime eruditus" (p. 330, apud
Dahlmann's Hist oris che Forschun-
gen, toI. i. p. 176).
1 "Barbara et antiquissima car-
mina (says Eginhart in his Life
of Charlemagne), quibus veterum
regum actus et bella canebantur,
conscripsit." Theganus says of Louis le De-
bonnaire, "Poetica carmina gen-
tilia, qua in juventute didicerat,
respuit, nee legere, nee audire,
nee docere, voluit." (De Gestis
Ludovici Imperatoris ap. PithOBum,
p. 304. c. xix.)
2 See Grimm's Deutsche Mytho
logie, art. Relden, p. 356, 2nd edit.
Heugist and Horsa -were fourth
in descent from Odin (Venerable
Bede, Hist. i. 15). Thiodolff, the
Scald of Harold Haarfager king
of Norway, traced the pedigree of
bis sovereign through thirty ge
nerations to Yngarfrey, the son
of Niord companion of Odin at
TTpsal; the kings of Upsal were
called Ynglinger, and the son of
Thiodolff, Ynglingatal (Dahlmann,
Histor.Forschung. i.p.379).Eyvind,
anotherScald a century afterwards,
VOL. I.

deduced the pedigree of Jarl Ha con
from Saming son of Tngwifrey (p.
381). Are Frode, the Icelandic
historian, carried up his own ge
nealogy through thirty-six gene
rations to Tngwe; a genealogy
which Torfseus accepts as trust
worthy, opposing it to the line of
kings given by Saxo Grammaticus
(p. 352). Torfseus makes Harold
Haarfager a descendant from Odin
through twenty-seven generations;
Alfred of England through twenty-
three generations; Offa of Mercia
through fifteen (p. 362). See also
the translation by Lange of P. A.
Miiller's Saga Bibliothek, Introd.
p. xxviii. and the genealogical
tables prefixed to Snorro Sturle-
son's Edda.
Mr. Sharon Turner conceives the
human existence of Odin to he
distinctly proved, seemingly upon
the same evidence as Eugmerus
believed in the human existence
of Zeus (History of the Anglo-
Saxons, Appendix to b. ii. ch. 3.
p. 219, 5th edit.).
3 Dahlmann, Histor. Forschung.
t. i. p. 390. There is a valuable
2 G

450

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Part I.

the introduction of Christianity was in those parts both
longer deferred, so as to leave time for a more ample de
velopment of the heathen poetical vein — and seems to have
created a less decided feeling of antipathy (especially in
Iceland) towards the extinct faith.1 The poems and tales
composing the Edda, though first committed to writing
after the period of Christianity, do not present the ancient
gods in a point of view intentionally odious or degrading.
The transposition above alluded to, of the genealogical
root from Odin to Noah, is the more worthy of notice, as it
illustrates the genuine character'of these genealogies, and
shows that they sprung, not from any erroneous historical
data, but from the turn of the religious feeling; also that
their true value is derived from their being taken entire,
as connecting the existing race of men with a divine original.
If we could imagine that Grecian paganism had been super-

article on this subject in the Zeit-
Bchiift fur Geschichts-WissenBChaft
(Berlin, vol. i. p. 237—282) hy
Stuhr, "Heber einige Hauptfragen
des Nordischen Alterthums,"
wherein the writer illustrates both
the strong motive and the effective
tendency, on the part of the
Christian clergy who had to deal
with these newly-converted Teu
tonic pagans, to Euemerise the
old gods, and to represent a ge
nealogy, which they were unable
to efface from men's minds, as if
it consisted only of mere men.
Mr. John Kerable (Ueber die
Stammtafel der Westsachsen, ap.
Stuhr. p. 254) remarks, that "no-
bilitas" among that people con
sisted in descent from Odin and
the other gods.
Colonel Sleeman also deals in
the same manner with the religious
legends of the Hindoos—so natural
is the proceeding of Euemerus,
towards any religion in which a
critic does not believe—
"They (the Hindoos) of course
think that the incarnations of
their three great divinities were
beings infinitely superior "to pro

phets, being in all their attributes
and prerogatives equal to the
divinities themselves. But we are
disposed to think that these incar
nations were nothing more tha n
great men whom their flatterers
and poets have exalted into gods —
this was the way in which men
made their gods in ancient Greece
and Egypt.— All that the poets
have sung of the actions of these
men is now received as revelation
from heaven: though nothing can
be more monstrous than the actions
ascribed to the best incarnation,
Krishna, of the best of the gods,
Vishnoo." (Sleeman, Rambles and
Recollections of an Indian Official,
vol. i. ch. viii. p. 61.)
1 See P. E. Miiller, TJeber den
Ursprung und Verfall der Islan-
dischen Hietoriographie, p. 63,
In the Leitfaden zur Nordischen
Alterthumskunde, pp. 4 — 5 (Copen
hagen, 1837), is an instructive
summary of the different schemes
of interpretation applied to the
northern mythes: 1. thehistorical;
2. the geographical ; 3. the astro
nomical; 4. the physical; 6. tho
allegorical.

Chap. XVII. EARLY GERMAN GENEALOGIES. 451
seded by Christianity in the year 500 b. c, the great and
venerated gentile genealogies of Greece would have under
gone the hke modification; the Herakleids, Pelopids,
iEakids, Asklepiads, &c. would have been merged in some
larger aggregate branching out from the archaeology of the
Old Testament. The old heroic legends connected with
these ancestral names would either have been forgotten,
or so transformed as to suit the new vein of thought; for the
altered worship, ceremonies, and customs would have been
altogether at variance with them, and the mythical feeling
would have ceased to dwell upon those to whom prayers
were no longer offered. If the oak of Dodona had Greo-anPa.
been cut down, or the Theoric ship had ceased ganisn£-
to be sent from Athens to Delos, the mythes of what would
Theseus and of the two black doves would have thJ oase,nif
lost their pertinence, and died away. As it was, u had bee"
the change from Homer to Thucydides and Aris- byPChria-
totle took place internally, gradually, and im- tianity in
perceptibly. Philosophy and history were super
induced in the minds of the superior few, but the feelings
of the general public continued unshaken — the sacred ob
jects remained the same both to the eye and to the heart
— and the worship of the ancient gods was even adorned
by new architects and sculptors who greatly strengthened
its imposing effect.
While then in Greece the mythopoeic stream continued
in the same course, only with abated current and influence,
in modern Europe its ancient bed was blocked up and it
was turned into new and divided channels. The old religion,
— though as an ascendent faith, unanimously and publicly
manifested, it became extinct, — still continued in detached
scraps and fragments, and under various alterations of
name and form. The heathen gods and goddesses, deprived
as they were of divinity, did not pass out of the recollection
and fears of their former worshippers, but were sometimes
represented (on principles like those of Euemerus) as
havingbeen eminent and glorious men — sometimes degraded
into daamons, magicians, elfs, fairies and other supernatural
agents, of an inferior grade and generally mischievous cast.
Christian writers such as Saxo Grammaticus and Snorro
Sturleson committed to writing the ancient oral songs of
the Scandinavian Scalds, and digested the events contained
in them into continuous narrative — performing in this
2 o 2

452

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Paut I.

respect a task similar to that of the Grecian logographers
Pherekydes and Hellanikus, in reference to Hesiod and
the Cyclic poets. But while Pherekydes and
Hellanikus compiled under the influence of
feelings substantially the same as those of the
poets on whom they bestowed their care, the
Christian logographers felt it their duty to point
out the Odin and Thor of the old Scalds as evil
dgemons, or cunning enchanters who had fas
cinated the minds of men into a false belief in their divinity. *
In some cases the heathen recitals and ideas were modified

Saxo Grram-
maticusand Snorro
Sturleson
contrasted¦with Phere
kydds and
Hellanikus.

1 "Interea tamen homines Chris
tian! in numina non credant ethnica,
necaliterfidem narrationibus hisce
adstruereveladhiberedebent, quam
in libri hujus procemio monitum
est de causis et occasionibus cur
et quomodo genus hum a num. a
vera fide aberraverit." (Extract
from the Prose Edda, p. 75, in the
Lexion Mythologicum ad calcem
Eddse Ssemund. vol. iii. p. £57,
Copenhag. edit.)
A similar warning is to be found
in another passage cited by P. E,
Miiller, Ueber den Ursprung und
Verfall der Islandischen Historio-
graphie, p. 138, Copenhagen, 1813:
compare the Prologue to the Prose
Edda, p. 6, andMallet,Introduction
a l'Histoire de: Danemarc, ch. vii.
p. 411—132.
Saxo Grammaticus represents
Odin sometimes as a magician,
sometimes as an evil dsemon, some
times as a highpriest, or pontiff of
heathenism, who imposed so paw-
erfully upon the people around
him as to receive divine honours.
Thor also is. treated as having been
an evil daemon, (See Lexion Mytho
logie. ut supra, pp. 567, 915.)
Respecting the function of Snorro
as logographer, see Prsefat. ad Ed-
dam, ut supra, p. xi. He is much
more faithful, and less unfriendly
to the old religion, tban the other
logographers of the ancient Scan

dinavian Sagas. (Leitfaden der
Nordischen Alterthumer, p. 14, by
the Antiquarian Society of Copen
hagen, 1837.)
By a singular transformation,
dependent upon the same tone of
mind, the authors of the French
Chansons de G-eBte in the twelfth
century turned Apollo into an evil
dsemon, patron of the Mussulmans
(see the Roman of Garinle Loherain,
par M. Paulin Paris, 1833, p. 31):
— "Car mieux vaut Dieux que ne
fait Apollis." M, Paris observes,
"Cet ancien Dieu des beaux arts
est l'un des demons le plus souvent
d6signes dans nos poemes, comme
patron des Musulmans."
The prophet Mahomet, too,
anathematised the old Persian epic
anterior to his religion. "C'est a
l'occasion de Naser Ibn al-Hareth,
qui avait apporte de Perse l'His
toire de Rustem et d'Isfendiar, et
la faisait reciter par des chanteuses
dans les assemblies des Ko-
reischites, que Mahomet prononca
le verB suivant (of the Koran) : II
y a des hommes qui achetent des
contes frivoles, pour detourner
par-la les hommes de la voie de
Dieu, d'une mauiere insens6e, et
pour la livrer a la risee : mais
leur punition les couvrira de honte."
(Mohl, Preface au Livre des Roia
de Eerdousi, p. xiii.)

Chap. XVII. LEGENDS OF THE SAINTS. 453
so as to suit Christian feehng. But when preserved without
such a change, they exhibited themselves palpably, and
were designated by their compilers, as at variance with the
religious belief of the people, and as associated either with
imposture or with evil spirits.
A new vein of sentiment had arisen in Europe, unsuit
able indeed to the old mythes, yet leaving still Mythopoeic
in force the demand for mythical narrative ge- tendencies
nerally. And this demand was satisfied, speaking Europe6"1
generally, by two classes of narratives, — the s^m. sub-
legends of the Catholic Saints and the Romances forced1 'into
of Chivalry, corresponding to two types of a new
character, both perfectly accommodated to the 1, slintiy
feelings of the time, — the saintly ideal and the ideal ; ,
l_ • i • i i J 2. Chival-
chivalrous ideal. rous ideal.
Both these two classes of narrative correspond, in
character as well as in general purpose, to the Grecian
mythes, — being stories accepted as realities, from their full
conformity with the predispositions and deep-seated faith
ofan uncritical audience, and prepared beforehand by their
authors, not with any reference to the conditions of histo
rical proof, but for the purpose of calling forth sympathy,
emotion, or reverence. The type of the saintly character
belongs to Christianity, being the history of Jesus Christ
as described in the Gospels, and that of the prophets in
the Old Testament; whilst the lives of holy men, who
acquired a religious reputation from the fourth to the
fourteenth century of the Christian sera, were invested
with attributes, and illustrated with ample details, tending
to assimilate them to this revered model. The numerous
miracles, the cure of diseases, the expulsion of daemons,
the temptations and sufferings, the teaching and commands,
with which the biography of Catholic saints Legends of
abounds, grew chiefly out of this pious feehng, the saints.
common to the writer and to his readers. Many of the
other incidents, recounted in the same performances, take
their rise from misinterpreted allegories, from ceremonies
and customs of which it was pleasing to find a consecrated
origin, or from the disposition to convert the etymology
of a name into matter of history: many have also been
suggested by local peculiarities, and by the desire of
stimulating or justifying the devotional emotions of pilgrims
who visited some consecrated chapel or image. The dove

454

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Part I.

was connected, in the faith of the age, with the Holy Ghost,
the serpent with Satan; lions, wolves, stags, unicorns, &c.
were the subjects of other emblematic associations; and
such modes of belief found expression for themselves in
many narratives which brought the saints into conflict or
conjoint action with these various animals. Legends of
this kind, indefinitely multiplied and pre-eminently popular
and affecting, in the middle ages, are not exaggerations of
particular matters of fact, but emanations in detail of some
current faith or feeling, which they served to satisfy, and
by which they were in turn amply sustained and accredited. *

1 The legends of the Saints have
been touched upon by M. Guizot
(Couts d'Histoire Moderne, lecon
xvii.) and by M. Ampere (Histoire
Litteraire de la Franee, t. ii. cap.
H, 15, 16) ; but a far more copious
and elaborate account of them,
coupled with much just criticism,
is to be found in the valuable
Essai sur les Legendes Pieuses
du Moyen Age, par L, E. Alfred
Maury, Paris, 1843.
M. Guizot scarcely adverts at
all to the more or less of matter
of fact contained in these bio
graphies: he regards them alto
gether as they grew out of and
answered to the predominant emo
tions and mental exigences of the
age: "Au milieu d'un deluge de
fables absurdes, la morale eclate
avec un grand empire" (p. 159, ed.
1829). "Les legendes ont ete pour
les Chretiens de ce temps (qu'on
me perroette cette comparaison
purement litteraire) ce que sont
pour les Orientaux ces longs re-
cits, ces histoires si brillantes et
si varices, dont les Mille et une
Nuits nous donnent un echantillon.
C'etait la que l'imagination po-
pulaire errait librement dans un
mondeinconnu, merveilleux, plein
de mouvement et de poesie" (p.
175, ibid.).
M, Guizot takes his comparison
with the tales of the Arabian

Nights, as heard by an Oriental
with uninquiring and unsuspicious
credence. Viewed with reference
to an instructed European, who
reads these narratives as pleasing
but recognised fiction, the com
parison would not he just ; for no
one in that age dreamt of question
ing the truth of the biographies.
All the remarks of M. Guizot as
sume this implicit faith in them
as literal histories : perhaps in
estimating the feelings to which
they owed their extraordinary po
pularity, he allows too little pre
dominance to the religious feeling,
and too much influence to other
mental exigences which then went
along with it; more especially as
he remarks in the preceding lec
ture (p. 116), "Le caractere general
de IMpoque est la concentration
du dfiveloppement intellectuel dans
la sphere religieuse."
How this absorbing religious
sentiment operated in generating
and accrediting new matter of
narrative, is shown with great
fulness of detail in the work of
M. Maury : — "Tous les ecrits du
moyen age nous apportent la
preuve de cette preoccupation ex
clusive des esprits vers l'Histoire
Sainte et les prodiges qui avaient
signale l'avenement du Chris-
tianisme. Tous nous montrent la
pensee de Dieu et du Ciel, do-

Chap. XVII.

LEGENDS OE THE SAINTS.

455

Readers of Pausanias will recognise the great general
analogy between the stories recounted to him at the temples
which he visited, and these legends of the middle ages.
Though the type of character which the latter illustrate is
indeed materially different, yet the source as well as the
circulation, the generating as well as the sustaining forces,
were' in both cases the same. Such legends were the
natural growth of a religious faith earnest, unexamining,
and interwoven with the feelings at a time when the reason
does not need to be cheated. The lives of the Their ana-
Saints bring us even back to the simple and lo^J witn
ever- operative theology of the Homeric age; so meric*0
constantly is the hand of God exhibited even in theology.
the minutest details, for the succour of a favoured indivi
dual, — so completely is the scientific point of view, respect
ing the phsenomena of nature, absorbed into the religious. J
During the intellectual vigour of Greece and Borne, a
sense of the invariable course of nature and of the scientific

minant les moindres ceuvres de
cette fipoque de naive et de cr6-
dule simplicity. D'ailleurSjn'etait-
ce pas le moine, le clerc, qui con-
stituaient alors les seuls ecrivains?
Qu'y a-t-il d'etonnant que le sujet
habituel de leurs meditations, de
leurs etudes, se refletat sans cesse
dans leurs ouvrages ? Partout re-
paraissait a l'imagination Jesus et
ses Saints: cette image, 1' esprit
l'accueillait avec soumission et
obeissance : il n'osait pas encore
envisager ces celestes pensees avec
l'ceil de la critique, armfi de de
fiance et de donte ; au contraire,
l'intelligence les acceptait toutes
indistinctement et s'en nourrissait
avec avidite. Ainsi s'accreditaient
tous les jours de nouvelles fables.
Une foi vive veut sans cesse de
nouveaux faits qu'elle puisse croire,
comme la charite veut de nouveaux
bienfaits pour s'exercer" (p. 48).
The remarks on the History of
St. Christopher, whose personality
was allegorised by Luther and
Melanchthon, are curious (p. 57).
1 "Dans les prodiges que l'on

admettait avoir du nficessairement
s'operer au tombeau du saint
nouvellement canonise, l'expres-
sion, *C£eci visum, claudi gressum,
muti loquelam, surdi auditum,
paralytici debitum membrorumoffi-
cium, recuperabant,1 etait devenue
plutot une formule d'usage que
la relation litt6rale du fait."
(Maury, Essai sur les Legendes
Pieuses du Moyen Age, p. 5),
To the same purpose M. Ampere,
ch. Ii. p. 361 : "II y a un certain
nombre de faits que l'agiographie
reproduit constamment, quelque
soit son heros: ordinairement ce
personnage a eu dans sa jeunesse
une vision qui lui a revel 6 son
avenir: ou bien, une prophetic lui
a annonce" ce qu'il serait un jour.
Plus tard, il opere un certain
nombre de miracles, toujours les
mSmes; il exorcise des possedes,
ressuscite des morts, il est averti
de sa fin par un songe. Puis sur
son tombeau s'accomplissent d'au-
tres merveilles a-peu-pres sem-
blables."

456

HISTORY OP GREECE.

Paet I.

explanation of phsenomena had been created among the
superior minds, and through them indirectly among the
remaining community; thus limiting to a certain extent the
ground open to be occupied by a religious legend. "With
the decline of the pagan literature and philosophy, before
the sixth century of the Christian sera, this scientific con
ception gradually passed out of sight, and left the 'mind
free to a religious interpretation of nature not less simple
and naifthsm that which had prevailed under the Homeric
paganism. * The great religious movement of the Refor-

1 A few words from M. AmpSre
to illustrate this: "C'est done au
sixieme siecle qne la legende se
constitue: c'estalors qu'elle prend
completement le caractere na'if qui
lui appartient: qu'elle est elle-
meme, qu'elle se separe de toute
influence etrangere. En memo
temps, l'ignorance devient de plus
en plus grossiSre, et par suite la
credulite s'accroit: les calamites
du temps sont plus lourdes, et l'on
a un plus grand besoin de remede
et de consolation .... Les recits
miraculeux se substituent aux ar-
gumens de la theologie. Les
miracles sont devenus la meilleure
demonstration du Christianisme :
e'est la seule que puissent com-
prendre les esprits grossiers des
barbares" (c. 15. p. 373).
Again, c. 17. p. 401: "Un des
caracteres de la legende est de
meler constamment le pufiril au
grand : il faut l'avouer, elle d6-
figure parfois un peu ces hommes
d'une trempe si forte, en mettant
Bur leur compte des anecdotes dont
le caractere n'est pas toujours se-
rieux; elle en a use ainsi pour St.
Columban, dont nous verrons tout
a l'heure le r&le vis-a-vis de
Brunehaut et des chefs Merovin-
giens. La legende auroit pu se
dispenser de nous apprendre, com
ment un jour, il se fit rapporter
par un oorbeau les gants qu'il
avait perdus: comment, un autre
jour, il empecha la Mere de couler

d'un tonneau perce, et diverses
merveilles, certainement indignes
de sa memoire."
The miracle by which St. Co
lumban employed the raven to
fetch back his lost gloves is
exactly in the character of the
Homeric and Hesiodic age : the
earnest faith, as well as the re
verential sympathy, between the
Homeric man and Zeus or Athene,
is indicated by the invocation of
their aid for his own sufferings of
detail and in his own need and
danger. The criticism of M. Am
pere, on the other hand, is ana
logous to that of the later pagans,
after the conception of a course
of nature had become established
in men's minds, so far as that ex
ceptional interference by the gods
was understood to be, compara
tively speaking, rare, and only
supposable upon what were called
great emergencies.
In the old Hesiodic legend (see
above, ch. ix.), Apollo is apprised
by a raven of the infidelity of the
nymph Kordnis to him — Tip p.sy
ap' ayyO.oti t^XQe -t.opv.%, Ac. (the
raven appears elsewhere as com
panion of Apollo, Plutarch, de
Isid. et Os. p. 379, Herod, iv. 15.)
Pindar in his version of the legend
eliminated the raven, without
specifying how Apollo got his
knowledge of the circumstance.
The Scholiasts praise Pindar much
for having rejected the puerile

Chap. XVII.

LEGENDS OF THE SAINTS.

457

mation, and the gradual formation of critical and philo
sophical habits in the modern mind, have caused these

version of the story — ercaivsT t6v
IltvSapov 6 'ApTSfjuuv 8ti 7uapccxpou-
o«u.£vo? ttjv ii=pi tov xopaxa iaToplav,
aoxov 81' ^aUToii eyvto-xE-jai o^ai tov
'AtcAXXu) . . . ^aipsiv ouv siaac t<p
toiouti}) u.i9(p tsXsux; OVTL X1/]-
pibSei, &c. — compare also the cri
ticisms of the Schol. ad Soph.
JBdip. Col. 1378, on the old epic
Thebais ; and the remarks of Ar
rian (Exp. Al. iii. 4) on the divine
interference by which Alexander
and his army were enabled to find
their way across the sand of the
desert to the temple of Ammon.
In the eyes of M. Ampere, the
recital of the biographer of St.
Columban appears puerile (outiu>
fgov u)6s 8so0? ivitcavSa (piXeovxai;,
Odyss. iii. 221): in the eyes of
that biographer, the criticism of
M. Ampere would have appeared
impious. When it is once con
ceded that phaenomena are distri
butable under two denominations,
the natural and the miraculous,
it must be left to the feelings of
each individual to determine what
is and what is not, a suitable
occasion of a miracle. Diod&rus
and Pausanias differed in opinion
(as stated in a previous chapter)
about the death of Actseon by his
own hounds — the former maintain
ing that the case was one fit for
the special intervention of the
goddess Artemis; the latter that
it was not so. The question is
one determinable only hy the re
ligious feeliugs and conscience of
the two dissentients: no common
standard of judgement can be im
posed upon them: for no reason
ings derived from science or phi
losophy are available, inasmuch
as in this case the very point in
dispute is, whether the scientific
point of view be admissible. Those

who are disposed to adopt the
supernatural belief, will find in
every case the language open to
them wherewith Dionysius of Ha-
likarnassus (in recounting a mi
racle wrought by Vesta in the
early times of Roman history for
the purpose of rescuing an un
justly accused virgin) reproves the
sceptics of his time: "It is well
worth while (he observes) to re
count the special manifestation
(sTCttpavsiocv) which the goddess
showed to these unjustly accused
virgins. For these circumstances,
extraordinary as they are, have
heen held worthy of belief by the
Romans, and historians have talked
much about them. Those persons
indeed who adopt the atheistical
schemes of philosophy (if indeed
we must call them philosophy),
pulling in pieces as they do all
the special manifestations (a^asa?
SiaoupovTis tcc<; ercupavsia^ tujv Ostuv)
of the gods which have taken place
among Greeks or barbarians, will
of course turn these stories also
into ridicule, ascribing them to
the van talk of men, as if none
of the gods cared at all for man
kind. But those who, having
pushed their researches farther,
believe the gods not to be indif
ferent to human affairs, but fa
vourable to good men and hostile
to bad— will not treat these special
manifestations as more incredible
than others." (Dionys. Halic. ii.
68 — 69.) Plutarch, after noticing
the great number of miraculous
statements in circulation, expresses
his anxiety to draw aline between
the true and the false, hut cannot
find where: "excess both of cre
dulity and of incredulity (he tells
us) in such matters is dangerous;
caution, and nothing too much, is

458 HISTORY OE GKEECE. Pakt I.
legends of the Saints, — once the charm and cherished creed
of a numerous public, J — to pass altogetherout of credit,
•without even being regarded, among Protestants at least,
as worthy of a formal scrutiny into the evidence — a proof
of the transitory value of public behef, however sincere
and fervent, as a certificate of historical truth, if it be
blended with religious predispositions.
The same mythopoeic vein, and the same susceptibility
and facility of belief, which had created both supply and
demand for the legends of the Saints, also provided the
abundant stock of romantic narrative poetry, in amplifica-
chivairous tion and illustration of the chivalrous ideal.
ideal— Bo- What the legends of Troy, of Thebes, of the
ChaTe! °f Kalydonian boar, of CEdipus, Theseus, &c. were
magne and to an early Greek, the tales of Arthur, of Charle-
Arttmr. magne, of the Niebelungen, were to an English
man, or Frenchman, or German, of the twelfth or thirteenth
century. They were neither recognised fiction nor authen
ticated history ; they were history, as it is felt and welcomed
by minds unaccustomed to investigate evidence and uncon
scious of the necessity of doing so. That the Chronicle of
Turpin, a mere compilation of poetical legends respecting
Charlemagne, was accepted as genuine history, and even
pronounced to be such by papal authority, is well known;
and the authors of the Romances announce themselves, not
less than those of the old Grecian epic, as being about to
recount real matter of fact.2 It is certain that Charlemagne
the best course." (Camillus, u. 6.) those volumes, and exhibits the
Polybius is for granting permis- lives of 1472 saints. Had the col-
sion to historians to recount a lection run over the entire year,
sufficient number of miracles to the total number of such biogra-
keep up a feeling of piety in the phies could hardly have been less
multitude, but not more ; to mea- than 25,000, and might have been
sure out the proper quantity (he even greater (see Guizot, Cours
observes) is difficult, but not im- d'Histoire Moderne, lecon xvii. p.
possible (huaxapaypa'pas kartt 7] 157).
tcogott)^, ob (J.7]v <7.TiapaYpacp6<; ysj 2 See "Warton's History of Eng-
xvi. 12). lish Poetry, vol. i. dissert, i. p.
1 The great Bollandist collection xvii. Again , in sect. iii. p. 140 :
of the Lives of the Saints, intended "Vincent de Beauvais, who lived
to comprise the whole year, did under Louis IX. of France (about
not extend beyond the nine months 1260), and who, on account of his
from January to October, which extraordinary erudition , was ap-
occupy fifty-three large volumes, pointed preceptor to that king's
The month of April fills three of sons., very gravely classes Arch-

Chap. XVII.

LEGENDS OF CHI VALET.

459

is a great historical name, and it is possible, though not
certain, that the name of Arthur may be historical also.
Eut the Charlemagne of history, and the Charlemagne of
romance, have little except the name in common; nor could
we ever determine except by independent evidence (which
in this case we happen to possess), whether Charlemagne
was a real or a fictitious person, i That illustrious name,

bishop Turpin's Charlemagne
among the real histories , and
places it on a level with Sueto
nius and Cfflsar. He was himself
an historian, and has left a large
history of the world, fraught with
a variety of reading , and of high
repute in the middle ages ; hut
edifying and entertaining as this
work might have been to his con
temporaries, at present it serves
only to record their prejudices and
to characterise their credulity."
About the full belief in Arthur
and the Tales of the .Round Table
during the fourteenth century, and
about the strange historical mis
takes of the poet Grower in the
fifteenth, see the same work, sect.
7, vol. ii. p. 33; sect. 19, vol. ii.
p. 239.
"L'auteur de la Chronique de
Turpin (says M. Sismondi, Lit
erature du Midi, vol. i. ch. 7, p.
289) n'avait point l'intention de
hriller aux yeux du public par une
invention heureuse, ni d'amuser
les oisifs par des contes merveil-
leux qu'ils reconnoltroient pour
tels: il presentait aux Francois
tous ces faits etranges comme de
l'histoire , et la lecture des le
gendes fabuleuses avait accoutumfi
a croire a de plus grandes mer-
veilles encore; aussi plusieurs de
ces fables furent-elles reproduites
dans la Chronique de St. Denis."
Again, ib. p. 290: "Souvent les
anciens romanciers, lorsqu'ils
entreprennent un recit de la cour
de Charlemagne, prennent un ton
plus eleve: ce ne sont point des

fables qu'ils vont conter, c'est de
l'histoire nationale, — c'est la
gloire de leurs ancetres qu'ils
veulent cglebrer, et ils ont droit
alors a demander qu'on les ecoute
avec respect."
The Chronicle of Turpin was
inserted, even so late as the year
1566, in the collection printed by
Scardius at Frankfort of early
German historians (Ginguenfi, His-
toire Litteraire d'ltalie , vol. iv.
part ii. ch. 3, p. 167).
To the same point— that these
romances were listened to as real
stories— see Sir Walter Scott's
Preface to Sir Tristram , p. lxvii-
The authors of the Legends of the
Saints are not less explicit in their
assertions that everything which
they recount is true and well-at
tested (Ampere, c. 14, p. 358).
» The series of articles by M.
Fauriel, published in the Revue
des deux Mondes, vol. xiii., are
full of instruction respecting the
origin, tenor, and influence of the
Romances of Chivalry. Though the
name of Charlemagne appears, the
romancers are really unable to
distinguish himfrom Charles Martel
or from Charles the Bald (pp. 537
— 539). They ascribe to him an
expedition to the Holy Land, in
which he conquered Jerusalem from
the Saracens, obtained possession
of the relics of the passion of
Christ, the crown of thorns, &c.
These precious relics he carried to
Rome , from whence they were
taken to Spain by a Saracen emir
named Balan at the head of an

460

HISTORT OF GREECE.

as well as the more problematical Arthur, is taken up by
the romancers, not with a view to celebrate realities previ
ously verified, but for the purpose of setting forth or am
plifying an ideal of their own, in such manner as both to
rouse the feelings and captivate the faith of their hearers.
To inquire which of the personages of the Carlovingian
epic were real and which were fictitious, — to examine
whether the expedition ascribed to Charlemagne against
Jerusalem had ever taken place or not, — to separate truth
from exaggeration in the exploits of the Knights of the
E,ound table, — these were problems which an audience of
that day had neither disposition to undertake nor means
to resolve. They accepted the narrative as they heard it,
without suspicion or reserve: the incidents related, as well
as the connecting links between them, were in full harmony
with their feelings, and gratifying as well to their sympa
thies as to their curiosity: nor was anything farther wanting
to induce them to believe it, though the historical basis
might be ever so slight or even non-existent. 1

army. The expedition of Charle
magne against the Saracens in
Spain was undertaken for the pur
pose of recovering the relips :—
"Ces divers romans peuvent etre
regardes comme la suite , comme
le developpement, de la fiction de
la conquete de Jerusalem par Char
lemagne." Respecting the Romance of Ri-
naldo of Montauban(describingthe
struggles of a feudal lord against ,
the emperor) M. Fauriel observes,
"II n'y a,je crois, aucun fondement
historique : c'est, selon toute ap-
parence, la pure expression po§-
tique du fait general, " &c. (p. 542).
1 Among the 'formules consa-
cr6es' (observes M. Fauriel) of the
romancers of the Carlovingian epic,
are asseverations of their own ve
racity, and of the accuracy of what
they are about to relate— specifi
cation of witnesses whom they
have consulted - appeals to pre
tended chronicles :— "Que ces ci
tations , ces indications , soient
parfois serieuses et sinceres, cela

peut Stre ; mais c'est une exception
et une exception rare. De telles
allegations de la part des roman-
ciers, sont en general un pur et
simple mensonge, mais non toute-
fois un mensonge gratuit. C'est
un mensonge qui a sa raison et sa
convenance: il tient au desir et au
besoin de satisfaire une opinion
accoutumee a supposer et a cher-
cher du vrai dans les fictions du
genre de celles ou 1'on allegue
ces prfitendues autorites. La ma-
niere dont les auteurs de ces fic
tions les qualifient souvent eux-
memes, est une consequence na-
turelle de leur pretention d'y avoir
suivi des documens venerables.
lis les qualifient de chansons de
vieille histoire , de haute histoire,
de bonne geste, de grande baronnie :
et ce n'est pas pour se vanter
qu'ils parlent ainsi : la vanite
d'auteur n'est rien chez eux, en
comparaison du besoin qu'ils ont
d'etre cms , de passer pour de
simples traducteurs , de simples
r6petiteurs de legendes ou d'his-

Chap. XVII. CHIVALRT ACCEPTED AS HISTORT.

401

The romances of chivalry represented, to those who
heard them, real deeds of the foretime — "glories of the fore-

toire consacr^e. Ces protestations
de veracite , qui, plus ou moins
expresses , sont de rigueur dans
les romans Carlovingiens , y sont
aussi frgquemment accompagnees
de protestations accessoires contre
les romanciers , qui , ayant deja
traits un sujet donne, sont ac
cuses d'y avoir fausse la vSrite."
(Fauriel, Orig. de 1'Epopee Che-
valeresque, in the Revue des Deux
Mondes, vol. xiii. p. 554.)
About the Cycle of the Round
Table, see the same series of
articles (Rev. D. M. t. xiv. p. 170—
184). The Chevaliers of the Saint
Graal were a sort of ideal of the
Knights Templars : "Une race de
princes hero'iques, originates de
l'Asie, fut predestinee par le ciel
me me a la garde du. Saint Graal.
Perille fut le premier de cette race,
qui s'etant converti au Chris-
tianisme, passa en Europe sous
l'Empereur Vespasien," <£c. ; then
follows a string of fabulous in
cidents : the epical agency is
similar to that of Homer — Ato? 8'
etsXsUto PouWj.
M. Paulin Paris, in his Prefaces
to the Romans des Douze Pairs de
France, has controverted many of
the positions of M. Fauriel, and
with success, so far as regards the
Provencal origin of the Chansons
de Geste, asserted by the latter.
In regard to the Romances of the
Round Table, he agrees substan
tially with M. Fauriel ; but he tries
to assign a greater historical value
to the poems of the Carlovingian
epic— very unsuccessfully in my
opinion. But his own analysis of
the old poem of Garin le Loherain
bears out the very opinion which
he is confuting: "Nous sommes au
regne de Charles Martel, et nous
reconnaissons sous d'autres noms

les details exacts de la fameuse
defaite d'Attila dans les champs
Catalauniques. Saint Loup et Saint
Nicaise, glorieux prelats du qua-
trieme siecle, reviennent figurer
autour du p&re de Pepin le Bref:
enfin pour completer la confusion,
Charles Martel meurt sur le champ
de bataille, a la place du roi des
Visigoths, Theodorio .... Toutes
les parties de la narration sont
vraies: seulement toutes s'y trouvent
diplacees. En g6neral, les peuplos
n'entendent rien a la chronologie:
les evenemens restent : les indi-
vidus, lex lieux et les epoques,
ne laissent aucune trace : c'est,
pour ainsi dire, une decoration
scfinique que l'on applique in-
difTeremment a des remits souvent
contraires." (Preface to the Ro
man de Garin le Loherain, pp. xvi-
xx.: Paris, 1833.) Compare also
his Lettre a M. Monmerqu6, prefixed
to the Roman de Berthe aux Grans
Pies, Paris, 1836.
To say that all the parts of the
narrative are true, is contrary to
M. Paris' s own showing: some
part's may be true, separately
taken, but these fragments of truth
are melted down with a large mass
of fiction, and cannot be discri
minated unless we possess some
independent test. The poet who
picks out one incident from the
fourth century, another from the
fifth, and a few more from the
eighth, and then blends them all
into a continuous tale, along with
many additions of his own, shows
that he takes the items of fact
because they suit the purposes of
his narrative, not because they
happen to be attested by historical
evidence. His hearers are not
critical: they desire to have their
imaginations and feelings affected.

462 HISTORY OF GKEECE. Part I.
gone men,'' to use the Hesiodic expression ' at the same
, , time that they embodied and filled up the details
Accepted as - , .4,, , .11 u
realities of of an heroic ideal, such as that age could con-
the fore- ceive and admire — a fervent piety, combined with
strength, bravery, and the love of adventurous
aggression directed sometimes against infidels, sometimes
against enchanters or monsters, sometimes in defence of the
fair sex. Such characteristics were naturally popular, in
a century of feudal struggles and universal insecurity, when
the grand subjects of common respect and interest were
the church and the crusades, and when the latter especially
were embraced with an enthusiasm truly astonishing.
The long German poem of the Niebelungen Lied, as
. well as the Yolsunga Saga and a portion of the
and Scan- songs of the Edda, relate to a common fund of
dinarian mythical, superhuman personages, and of fabu-
anaiogy lous adventure, identified with the earliest anti-
with the quity of the Teutonic and Scandinavian race, and
(jrecia,n .
representing their primitive sentiment towards
ancestors of divine origin. Sigurd, Brynhilde, Gudrun,
and Atle, are mythical characters celebrated as well by the
Scandinavian Scalds as by the German epic poets, but with
many varieties and separate additions to distinguish the
one from the other. The German epic, later and more
elaborated, includes various persons not known to the songs
in the Edda, in particular the prominent name of Dieterich
of Bern — presenting moreover the principal characters and
circumstances as Christian, while in the Edda there is no
trace of anything but heathenism. There is indeed, in this
the old and heathen version, a remarkable analogy with
many points of Grecian mythical narrative. As in the
case of the short life of Achilles, and of the miserable
Labdakids of Thebes — so in the family of the Yolsungs,
though sprung from and protected by the gods — a curse of
destiny hangs upon them and brings on their ruin, in spite
and they are content to accept Minstrels, whose matters are foT
without question whatever ac- the most part stories of old time,
complisheB this end. as the Tale of Sir Topaze, the
1 Hesiod, Theogon. 100— xXia Eeportes of Bevis of Southampton,
itporipwt AvOpoJjcojv. Puttenham Adam Bell, Clymme of the Clough,
talks of the remnant of hards and such other old Romances or
existing in his time (1689): "Blind Historical Bhymes." (Arte of Eng-
Harpers, or such like Taverne lish Poesie, book ii. cap. 9.)

CHAT. XVII.

NIEBELTJNGEN" LIED.-EDDA.

4G3

of preeminent personal qualities, * The more thoroughly
this old Teutonic story has been traced and compared, in
its various transformations and accompaniments, the less
can any well-established connexion be made out for it with
authentic historical names or events. We must acquiesce

* Respecting the Volsunga Saga
and the Niebelungen Lied, the
work of Lange — Untersuchungen
iiber die Geschichte und das Ver-
haltniss der Nordischen und Deut-
schen Heldensage— is a valuable
translation from the Danish Saga-
Bibliothek of P. E. Miiller.
P. E. Miiller maintains indeed
the historical basis of the tales
respecting the Volsungs (see p.
102 — 107)— upon arguments very
unsatisfactory ; though the genuine
Scandinavian origin of the tale is
perfectly made out. The chapter
added by Lange himself at the
close (see p. 432, &c.) contains
juster views as to the character of
the primitive mythology, though
he too advances some positions
respecting a something "reinsym-
bolisches" in the background,
which I find it difficult to follow
(see p. 477, &c). — There are very
ancient epical ballads still sung
by the people in the Faro islands,
many of them relating to Sigurd
and his adventures (p. 412).
Jacob Grimm, in his Deutsche
Mythologie, maintains the purely
mythical character, as opposed to
the historical, of Siegfried and
Dieterich (Art. Helden, pp. 344—
346). So, too, in the great Persian
epic of Eerdousi, the principal
characters are religious and my
thical. M. Mohl observes,— "Les
caracteres des personnages princi-
paux de l'aneienne histoire de
Perse se retrouvent dans le livre
des Eois (de Ferdousi) tels que
les indiquent les parties des livres
de Zoroaster que nous possedons

encore. Kaioumors, Djemschid,
Eeridoun, Gushtasp, Isfendiar, Ac,
jouent dans le poeme epique le
meme r&le que dans les Livres
sacres:' a cela pres, que dans les
derniers ils nous apparaissent a
travers une atmosphere mythologi-
que qui grandit tous leurs traits :
mais cette difference est preci-
s6ment celle qu'on devait s'atten-
dre a trouver entre la tradition
religieuse et la tradition epique."
Mohl, Livre desEois, par Eerdousi,
Preface, p. 1.
The Persian historians subse
quent to Ferdousi have all taken
his poem as the basis of their his
tories, and have even copied him
faithfully and literally (Mohl, p.
53). Many of his heroes became
the subjects of long epical bio
graphies, written and recited with
out any art or grace, often hy
writers whose names are unknown
(ib. p. 54 — 70). Mr. Morier tells us
that "the Shah Nameh is still be
lieved by the present Persians
to contain their ancient history"
(Adventures of Hadgi Baba, c.
32). As the Christian romancers
transformed Apollo into the patron
of Mussulmans, so Ferdousi makes
Alexander the Great a Christian:
"La critique historique (observes
M. Mohl) 6tait du temps de Fer
dousi chose presqu'inconnue." (ib.
p. xlviii.) About the "^absence not
only of all historiography, but
also of all idea of it or taste for
it, among the early Indians, Per
sians, Arabians, &c, see the learn
ed book of Nork, Die G'otter Sy-
riens, Preface, p. viii. seqq, (Stutt
gart, 1842).

464

HISTORY OE GREECE.

Part I.

in its personages as distinct in original conception from
common humanity, and as belonging to the subjective
mythical world of the race by whom they were sung.
Such were the compositions which not only interested
the emotions, but also satisfied the undistinguishing histo
rical curiosity, of the ordinary public in the middle ages.
The exploits of many of these romantic heroes resemble
in several points those of the Grecian: the adventures, of
Perseus, Achilles, Odysseus, Atalanta, Bellerophon, Jason,
and the Trojan war or Argonautic expedition generally,
would have fitted in perfectly to the Carlovingian or other
epics of the period, i That of the middle ages, like the
Grecian, was eminently expansive in its nature. New stories
were successively attached to the names and
companions of Charlemagne and Arthur, just as
the legend of Troy was enlarged by Arktinus,
Lesches, and Stesichorus — that of Thebes by
fresh miseries entailed on the fated head of
(Edipus, — and that of the Kalydonian boar by
the addition of Atalanta. Altogether, the state of mind
of the hearers seems in both cases to have been much the

Heroic cha
racter and
self- ex
pandingsubjectcommonto both.

1 Several of the heroes of the
ancient world were indeed them
selves popular subjects with the
romancers of the middle ages,
Thiseus, JasSn, &c. ; Alexander
the Great more so than any of
them. Dr. Warton observes respecting
the Argonautic expedition, "Few
stories of antiquity have more the
cast of one of the old romances
than this of Jas6n. An expedition
of a new kind is made into a
strange and distant country, at
tended with infinite dangers and
difficulties* The king's daughter
of the new country is an enchan
tress ; she falls in love with the
young prince , who is the chief
adventurer. The prize which he
seeks is guarded by brazenfooted
bulls, who- breathe fire, and by a
hideous dragon who never sleeps.
The princess lendshim the assistance
of her charms and incantations to
conquer these obstacles ; she gives

him possession of the prize, leaves
her father's court, and follows him
into his native country." ("Warton,
Observations on Spencer, vol. i,
p. 178.)
To the same purpose M. Ginguene":
"Le premier modele des Eees
n'est-il pas dans Circfi, dans Ca
lypso, dans Medee? Celui des
geans, dans Polypheme, dans
Cacus, et dans les g6ans, ou les
Titans, cette race ennemio de
Jupiter? Les serpens et les dra
gons des romans ne sont-ils pas
des successeurs du dragon des
Hesperides et de celui de la Toi-
son d'or? Les Magiciens I la
Thessalie en etoit pleine. Les
armes enchantees et impenetra-
bl es ! elles sont de la meme trempe,
et l'on peut les croire forgoes au
memo fourneau que celles d' Achille
et d'Enee." (Ginguene, Histoire
Litteraire d'ltalie, vol. iv. partii.
ch. 3, p. 151).

Chap. XVII. EARLY HISTORY OE ENGLAND. 465
same— eager for emotion and sympathy, and receiving any
narrative attuned to their feeling, not merely with hearty
welcome, but also with unsuspecting behef.
Nevertheless there were distinctionsdeserving of notice,
which render the foregoing proposition more _
absolutely exact with regard to Greece than with distinction
regard to the middle ages. The tales of the between
epic, and the mythes in their most popular and epic^fThe
extended signification, were the only intellectual middle ages
nourishment with which the Grecian public was stood^so
supplied, until the sixth century before the Chris- completely
tian sera: there was no prose writing, no history, wafso"01
no philosophy. But such was not exactly the closely in
case at the time when the epic of the middle wfth°7ei?-
ages appeared. At that time, a portion of so- gion, as the
ciety possessed the Latin language, the habit of Breoian-
writing, and some tinge both of history and philosophy:
there were a series of chronicles, scanty indeed and imper
fect, but referring to contemporary events and preventing
the real history of the past from passing into oblivion:
there were even individual scholars, in the twelfth century,
whose acquaintance with Latin literature was sufficiently
considerable to enlarge their minds and to improve their
judgments. Moreover the epic of the middle ages, though
deeply imbued with religious ideas, was not directly amal
gamated with the rehgion of the people, and did not always
find favour with the clergy; while the heroes of the Grecian
epic were not only linked in a thousand ways with existing
worship, practices, and sacred localities, but Homer and
Hesiod pass with Herodotus for the constructors of Grecian
theology. We thus see that the ancient epic was both
exempt from certain distracting influences by which that
of the middle ages was surrounded, and more closely iden
tified with the veins of thought and feeling prevalent in
the Grecian public. Yet these counteracting influences
did not prevent Pope Calixtus LT. from declaring the
Chronicle of Turpin to be a genuine history.
If we take the history of our own country as it was
conceived and written from the twelfth to the seventeenth
century by Hardyng, Fabyan, Grafton, Hollinshed, and
others, we shall find that it was supposed to begin with
Brute the Trojan, and was carried down from thence, for
many ages and through a long succession of kings, to the
VOL. i 2 H

466

HISTORY OP GREECE.

Paet I.

England-
how con
ceived downto the
seventeenth cen
tury-began with
Brute the
Trojan.

times of Julius Csesar. A similar belief of descent from
History of Troy, arising seemingly from a reverential imi-
'"""'' ' tation of the Romans and of their Trojan origin,
was cherished in the fancy of other European
nations. "With regard to the English, the chief
circulator of it was Geoffrey of Monmouth. It
passed with little resistance or dispute into the
national faith — the kings from Brute downward
being enrolled in regular chronological series
with their respective dates annexed. In a dispute which
took place during the reign of Edward I. (a. d. 1301)
between England and Scotland, the descent of the kings of
England from Brute the Trojan was solemnly embodied in
a document put forth to sustain the rights of the crown of
England, as an argument bearing on the case then in dis
cussion: and it passed without attack from the opposing
party,1 — an incident which reminds us of the appeal made
by JEschines, in the contention between the Athenians and
Philip of Macedon respecting Amphipolis, to the primitive
dotal rights of Akamas son of Theseus — and also of the
defence urged by the Athenians to sustain their conquest
of Sigeium, against the reclamations of the Mityleneans,
wherein the former alleged that they had as much right to
the place as any of the other Greeks who had formed part
of the victorious armament of Agamemnon.2
The tenacity with which this early series of British
kings was defended, is no less remarkable than
teMcfiouT the facility with which it was admitted. The
faith mani- chroniclers at the beginning of the seventeenth
the defence century warmly protested against the intrusive
of this early scepticism which would cashier so many vener
able sovereigns and efface so many noble deeds.
1 See "Warton's History of Eng
lish Poetry, sect. iii. p. 131, note.
"No man before the sixteenth cen
tury presumed to douht that the
Francs derived their origin from
Erancus son of Hector ; that the
Spaniards were descended from

Japhet, the Britons from Brutus,
and the Scotch from Eergus." (Ibid.
p. 140.)
According to the Prologue of the
prose Edda, Odin was the supreme
king of Troy in Asia, "in ea terra

quam nos Turciam appellamus ....
Hinc omnes Borealis plagffi ma
gnates vel primores genealogias
suas referunt , atque principes il-
lius urbis inter numina locant :
sed in primis ipsum Priamum pro
Odeno ponunt," &c. They also
identified Tros with Thor. (See
Lexicon Mythologicum ad calcem
Eddie Sffimund. p. 552, vol. iii.)
2See above, ch, xv. ; also -33schi-
nes , De Falsa Legatione, c. 14;
Herodot. v. 94. The Herakleids

Chap. XVII. MILTON'S VIEW OE OLD ENGLISH POETRY. 467
They appealed to the patriotic feelings of their hearers,
represented the enormity of thus setting up a presump
tuous criticism against the belief of ages, and insisted on
the danger of the precedent as regarded history generally, i
How this controversy stood, at the time and in the view of
the illustrious author of Paradise Lost, I shall give in his
own words as they appear in the second page of his His
tory of England. After having briefly touched upon the
stories of Samothes son of Japhet, Albion son of Neptune,
&c, he proceeds, —
"But now of Brutus and his line, with the whole pro
geny of kings to the entrance of Julius Csesar, judgement
we cannot so easily be discharged: descents of of Milton.
ancestry long continued, law and exploits not plainly seem
ing to be borrowed or devised, which on the common belief
have wrought no small impression: defended by many, denied
utterly by few. For what though Brutus and the whole
Trojan pretence were yielded up, seeing they, who first
devised to bring us some noble ancestor, were content at
first with Brutus the Consul, till better invention, though
not willing to forego the name, taught them to remove it
higher into a more fabulous age, and by the same remove
lighting on the Trojan tales, in affectation to make the
Briton of one original with the Soman, pitched there : Yet
those old and inborn kings, never any to have been real per
sons, or done in their lives at least some part of what so
long hath been remembered, cannot be thought without too
strict incredulity. For these, and those causes above-men
tioned, that which hath received approbation from so many,
I have chosen not to omit. Certain or uncertain, be that
pretended a right to the territory character of English monarchy,
in Sicily near Mount Eryx, in deduces it from Brute the Tro-
consequence of the victory gained jan: — "Concerning the different
by their progenitor Herakles over powers whichkings claim over their
Eryx, the eponymous hero of the subjects, I am firmly of opinion
place (Herodot v. 43). that it arises solely from the dif-
1 The remarks in Speed's Chro- ferent nature of their original in-
nicle (hook v. u. 3, sect. 11—12), stitution. So the kingdom of Eng-
and the preface to Howes's Con- land had its original from Brute
tinuation of Stow's Chronicle, and the Trojans, who attended him
published in 1631 , are curious as from Italy and Greece, and became
illustrating this earnest feeling, a mixt kind of government, com.
The Chancellor Eortescue, in im- pounded of the regal and the po-
pressing upon his royal pupil, the litical." (Hallam, Hist. Mid. Ages,
son of Henry VI. , the limited ch. viii. P. 3, page 230.)
2 h2

4GS . HISTORY OE GREECE. PAet I.
upon the credit of those whom I must follow: so far as
keeps aloof from impossible or absurd, attested by ancient
writers from books more ancient, I refuse not as the due
and proper subject of story." i
Yet in spite of the general belief of so many centuries
— in spite of the concurrent persuasion of historians and
poets — in spite of the declaration of Milton, extorted from
his feelings rather than from his reason, that this long line
of quasi -historical lungs and exploits could not be all
unworthy of belief — in spite of so large a body of authority
and precedent, the historians of the nineteenth century
begin the history of England with Julius Caesar. They
do not attempt either to settle the date of king Bladud's
accession, or to determine what may be the basis of truth
standard of in the affecting narrative of Lear. 2 The standard
historical of historical credibility, especially with regard
raueT °n— *° mo(lern events, has indeed been greatly and
regard to sensibly raised within the last hundred years.
England— j^ jn regar(j to ancient Grecian history,
the rules of evidence still continue relaxed. The dictum
-not raised of Milton, regarding the ante-Csesarian history
in regard to of England, still represents pretty exactly the
Greece. feeling now prevalent respecting the mythical
history of Greece: — "Yet those old and inborn kings (Aga
memnon, Achilles, Odysseus, Jason, Adrastus, Amphiaraus,
Meleager, &c), never any to have been real persons, or
done in their lives at least some part of what so long has
1 "Antiquitas enim recepit fabu- via, Cscsnr's daughter. See Eanccii
las fictas etiam nonnunquam in- Chronologia, p. 94."
condite : haic setas autem jam ex- Such a supposed chronological
culta, prcesertim eludens omne discrepancy wouldhardly be point-
quod fieri non potest, respuit," &c. ed out in any commentary now
(Cicero, De Republics. , ii. 10, p. written.
147, ed. Maii.) The introduction prefixed by Mr.
2 Dr. Zachary Grey has the fol- Giles to his recent translation of
lowing observations in his Notes Geoffrey of Monmouth (1842) gives
on Shakespeare (London, 1754, vol. a just view hoth of the use which
i. p. 112). In commenting on the our old poets made of his tales,
passage in King Lear Nero is an and of the general credence so
angler in the lake of darkness, he long and so unsuspectingly ac-
says, "This is one of Shakespeare's corded to them. The list of old
most remarkable anachronisms. British kings given by Mr. Giles
King Lear succeeded his father also deserves attention, as a pa-
Bladud anno mundi 3105 ; and Nero, rallel to the Grecian genealogies
anno mundi 4017, was sixteen anterior to the Olympiads.
years old, when he married Octa-

Chap. XVII. MILTON'S VIEW OF OLD ENGLISH POETRY. 469

been remembered, cannot be thought without too strict
incredulity." Amidst much fiction (we are still told), there
must be some truth: but how is such truth to be singled
out? Milton does not even attempt to make the severance:
he contents himself with "keeping aloof from the impossible
and the absurd," and ends in a narrative which has indeed
the merit of being sober-coloured, but which he never for
a moment tbinks of recommending to his readers as true.
So in regard to the legends of Greece,— Troy, Thebes, the
Argonauts, the Boar of Kalydon, Herakles, Theseus, CEdi
pus, — the conviction still holds in men's minds, that there
must be something true at the bottom; and many readers
of this work may be displeased, I fear, not to see conjured
up before them the Eidolon of an authentic history, even
though the vital spark of evidence be altogether wanting. *

1 The following passage from the
Preface of Mr. Price to Warton's
History of English Poetry is alike
just and forcibly characterised ;
the whole Preface is indeed full
of philosophical reflection on po
pular fables generally. Mr. Price
observes (p. 79),—
"The great evil with which this
long-contested question appears to
be threatened at the present day,
is an extreme equally dangerous
with the incredulity of Mr. Ritson,
—a disposition to receive as au
thentic history, under a slightly
fabulous colouring, every incident
recorded in the British Chronicle.
An allegorical interpretation is
now inflicted upon all the mar
vellous circumstances ; » forced
construction imposed upon the less
glaring deviations from probabi
lity ; and the usual subterfuge of
baffled research, — erroneous read
ings and etymological sophistry,
—is made to reduce every stub
born and intractable text to some
thing like the consistency re
quired. It might have been ex
pected that the notorious failures
of Dionysius and Plutarch in Ro
man history would have prevented
the repetition of an error , which

neither learning nor ingenuity can
render palatable ; and that the
havoc and deadly ruin effected by
these ancient writers (in other
respects so valuable) in one of
the most beautiful and interesting
monuments of traditional story,
would have acted as sufficient cor
rective on all future aspirants.
The favourers of this system might
at least have been instructed by
the philosophic example of Livy,
—if it be lawful to ascribe to
philosophy aline of conduct which
perhaps was prompted by a pow
erful sense of poetic beauty,—
that traditional record can only gain
in the hands of the future histo
rian by one attractive aid, — the
grandeur and lofty graces of that
incomparable style in which the
first decade is written ; and that
the best duty towards antiquity,
and the most agreeable one to
wards posterity, is to transmit the
narrative received as an unsophis
ticated tradition, in all the ple
nitude of its marvels and the aw
ful dignity of its supernatural
agency. For however largely we
may concede that real events have
supplied the substance of any tra-
ditive story, yet the amount of ab-

170

HISTORY OF GREECE.

Paht I.

Milton's way of
dealing with the
British fa
bulous his
tory objec
tionable.

I presume to think that our great poet has proceeded
upon mistaken views with respect to the old
British fables, not less in that which he leaves
out than in that which he retains. To omit the
miraculous and the fantastic, (it is that which he
really means by "the impossible and the absurd,")
is to suck the life-blood out of these once popular
narratives — to divest them at once both of their genuine
distinguishing mark, and of the charm by which they acted
on the feelings of believers. Still less ought we to consent
to break up and disenchant in a similar manner the mythes
of ancient Greece — partly because they possess the mythical
beauties and characteristics in far higher perfection, partly
because they sank deeper into the mind of a Greek, and
pervaded both the public and private sentiment of the
country to a much greater degree than the British fables
in England.

solute facts , and the manner of
those facts, the period of their
occurrence, the names of the agents,
and the locality given to the scene,
are all combined upon principles
so wholly beyond our knowledge,
that it becomes impossible to fix
with certainty upon any single
point better authenticated than
its fellow. Probability in such de
cisions will often prove the most
fallacious guide we can follow ;
for, independently of the acknow
ledged historical axiom, that 'le
vrai n'est pas toujours le vrai-
semblable,' innumerable instances
might be adduced, where tradition
has had recourse to this very pro
bability to confer a plausible sanc
tion upon her most fictitious and
romantic incidents. It will be a
much more useful labour, wherever
it can be effected, to trace the
progress of this traditional story
in the country where it has be
come located, by a reference to
those natural or artificial monu
ments which are tbe unvarying
sources of fictitious events; and,

by a strict comparison of its de
tails with the analogous memo
rials of other nations, to separate
those elements which are obviously
of a native growth, from the oc
currences bearing the impress of
a foreign origin. We shall gain
little, perhaps, by such a course for
the history of human events ; but
it will be an important accession
to our stock of knowledge on the
history of the human mind. It will
infallibly display , as in the ana
lysis of every similar record, the
operations of that refining prin
ciple which is ever obliterating the
monotonous deeds of violence, that
fill the chronicle of a nation's early
career, and exhibit the brightest
attribute in the catalogue of man's
intellectual endowments, — a glow
ing and vigorous imagination,—
bestowing upon all the impulses
of the mind a splendour and vir
tuous dignity, which, however fal
lacious historically considered, are
never without a powerfully redeem
ing good, the ethical tendency of
all their lessons."

Chap. XVII. SUBJECTIVE VIEW OF THE MYTHES. 471
Two courses, and two only, are open; either to pass
over the mythes altogether, which is the way in two ways
which modern historians treat the old British Sp^ninof
fables — or else to give an account of them as withthe
mythes; to recognise and respect their specific Grecian
nature, and to abstain from confounding them "'to1 omit
with ordinary and certifiable history. There are tnem : or!
good reasons for pursuing this second method in oountlhem
reference to the Grecian mythes ; and when so as mythes.
considered, they constitute an important chap- preferring0'
ter in the history of the Grecian mind, and indeed tne latter.
in that of the human race generally. The historical faith
of the Greeks, as well as that of other people, in reference
to early and unrecorded times, is as much subjective and
peculiar to themselves as their religious faith: among the
Greeks, especially, the two are confounded with an intimacy
which nothing less than great violence can disjoin. Gods,
heroes and men — religion and patriotism — matters divine,
heroic and human — were all woven together by the Greeks
into one indivisible web, in which the threads of truth and
reality, whatever they might originally have been, were
neither intended to be, nor were actually, distinguishable.
Composed of such materials, and animated by the electric
spark of genius, the mythical antiquities of Greece formed
a whole at once trustworthy and captivating to the faith
and feelings of the people; but neither trustworthy nor
captivating, when we sever it from these subjective condi
tions, and expose its naked elements to the scrutiny of an
objective criticism. Moreover the separate portions of
Grecian mythical foretime ought to be considered with
reference to that aggregate of which they form a part: to
detach the divine from the heroic legends, or some one of
the heroic legends from the remainder, as if there were an
essential and generic difference between them, is to present
the whole under an erroneous point of view. The mythes
of Troy and Thebes are no more to be handled objectively,
with a view to detect an historical base, than those of Zeus
in Krete, of Apollo and Artemis in Delos, of Hermes, or
of Prometheus. To single out the siege of Troy from the
other mythes, as if it were entitled to pre-eminence as an
ascertained historical and chronological event, is a pro
ceeding which destroys the true character and coherence
of the mythical world : we only transfer the story (as has

472 HISTOET OF GEEECE. Pam I.
been remarked in the preceding chapter) from a class with
which it is connected by every tie both of common origin
and fraternal affinity, to another with which it has no rela
tionship, except such as violent and gratuitous criticism
may enforce.
By drawing this marked distinction between the myth
ical and the historical world, — between matter appropriate
only for "subjective history, and matter in which objective
evidence is attainable, — we shall only carry out to its proper
length the just and well-known position long ago laid down
T • i ^y Varro. That learned man recognised three
tit!oneofai> distinguishable periods in the time preceding
past time nis own age ; "First, the time from the beginning
y arro. ^ mankind down to the first deluge; a time
wholly unknown. Secondly, the period from the first deluge
clown to the first Olympiad, which is called the mythical
period, because many fabulous things are recounted in it.
Thirdly, the time from the first Olympiad down to ourselves,
which is called the historical period, because the things done
in it are comprised in true histories." 1
Taking the commencement of true or objective history
at the point indicated by Varro, I still consider the mythical
and historical periods to be separated by a wider gap than
he would have admitted. To select any one year as an
absolute point of commencement, is of course not to be
understood literally: but in point of fact, this is of every
little importance in reference to the present question,
seeing that the great mythical events — the sieges of Thebes
and Troy, the Argonautic expedition, the Kalydonian boar-
hunt, the return of the Herakleids, &c. — are all placed long
anterior to the first Olympiad, by those who have applied
1 Varro ap. Censorin. de Die Tertium a prima Olympiade ad
Natali; Varronis Fragm. p. 219, ed, nos; quod dicitur Historicon, quia
Scaliger, 1623. "Varro tria dis- res. in eo gestee veris historiis
crimina temporum esse tradit. continentur."
Primum ah hominum principio To the same same purpose Afri-
usque ad cataclysmum priorem, canus, ap. Eusehium, Prasp. Ev.
quod propter ignorantiam vocatur xx. p. 487 t Mevpi u.it 'OXuu.iti.ihwt,
ahr{kot. Secundum, a cataclysmo obhit axpifiit; iarbprirat rol^EXXriai,
priore ad Olympiadem primam, tiexvtcdv auyxsyuu.itwt, icol xaTa
qxiod, quia in eo multa fahulosa [A.7]5ev abrolt; rwt itpo too auucptov-
referuntur, Mythicon nominatur. oovtojv, &o.

Chap. XVII. PARTITION OF PAST TIME BY VAEEO. 473
chronological boundaries to the mythical narratives. The
period immediately preceding the first Olympiad is one
exceedingly barren of events; the received chronology
recognises 400 years, and Herodotus admitted 500 years
from that date back to the Trojan war.

END of vol. L

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