Chapter XVI (3)

The refusal of the king Pelasgos, in the Supplices, to undertake
what he feels to be the sacred duty of protecting the suppliant
Danaïdes, without first submitting the matter to his people
and obtaining their expressed consent, and the fear which he
expresses of their blame (κατ᾽ ἀρχὰς γὰρ φιλαίτιος λέως), are
more forcibly set forth than an old epic poet would probably have
thought necessary (see Supplices, 369, 397, 485, 519). The solemn
wish to exclude both anarchy and despotism from Athens bears
still more the mark of political feeling of the time—μήτ᾽ ἄναρχον
μήτε δεσποτουμένον (Eumenid. 527-696).

[888] Promêtheus, 35, 151, 170, 309, 524, 910, 940, 956.

It is commonly understood that Æschylus disapproved of the march of democracy at Athens during his later years, and that the Eumenidês is intended as an indirect manifestation in favor of the senate of Areiopagus. Without inquiring at present whether such a special purpose can be distinctly made out, we may plainly see that the poet introduces, into the relations of the gods with each other, a feeling of political justice, arising out of the times in which he lived and the debates of which he was a witness. But though Æschylus incurred reproaches of impiety from Plato, and seemingly also from the Athenian public, for particular speeches and incidents in his tragedies,[889] and though he does not adhere to the received vein of religious tradition with the same strictness as Sophoklês—yet the ascendency and interference of the gods is never out of sight, and the solemnity with which they are represented, set off by a bold, 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 gods, in close contact with Zeus, in whom the divine blood has not yet had time to degenerate:”[890] his individuals are taken, not from the iron race whom Hesiod acknowledges with shame as his contemporaries, but from the extinct heroic race which had fought at Troy and Thêbes. It is to them that his conceptions aspire, and he is even chargeable with frequent straining, beyond the limits of poetical taste, to realize his picture. If he does not consistently succeed in it, the reason 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 involuntarily, and the lineaments of the man are thus seen even under a dress which promises superhuman proportions.

[889] Plato, Republ. ii. 381-383; compare Æschyl. Fragment. 159,
ed. Dindorf. He was charged also with having divulged in some of
his plays secret matters of the mysteries of Dêmêtêr, but is said
to have excused himself by alleging ignorance: he was not aware
that what he had said was comprised in the mysteries (Aristot.
Ethic. Nicom. iii. 2; Clemens Alex. Strom. ii. p. 387); the story
is different again in Ælian, V. H. v. 19.

How little can be made out distinctly respecting this last
accusation may be seen in Lobeck, Aglaopham. p. 81.

Cicero (Tusc. Dis. ii. 10) calls Æschylus “almost a Pythagorean:”
upon what the epithet is founded we do not know.

There is no evidence to prove to us that the Promêtheus Vinctus
was considered as impious by the public before whom it was
represented; but its obvious meaning has been so regarded by
modern critics, who resort to many different explanations of it,
in order to prove that when properly construed it is not impious.
But if we wish to ascertain what Æschylus 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 preceded him. The explanations given by 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 perspective,
and give far-fetched interpretations of the meaning, of this
striking drama, which conveys an impression directly contrary
(see Welcker, Trilogie, Æsch. p. 90-117, with the explanation
of Dissen there given; Klausen, Theologum. Æsch. p. 140-154;
Schömann, in his recent translation of the play, and the
criticism on that Translation in the Wiener Jahrbücher, vol. cix.
1845, p. 245, by F. Ritter). On the other hand, Schutz (Excurs.
ad Prom. Vinct. p. 149) thinks that Æschylus 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 harmony with their own religious
ideas.

Without presuming to determine whether Æschylus proposed to
himself any special purpose, if we look at the Æschylean
Promêtheus in reference only to ancient ideas, it will be found
to borrow both its characters and all its main circumstances
from the legend in the Hesiodic Theogony. Zeus acquires his
supremacy only by overthrowing Kronos and the Titans; the Titan
god Promêtheus is the pronounced champion of helpless man, and
negotiates with Zeus on their behalf: Zeus wishes to withhold
from them the most essential blessings, which Promêtheus employs
deceit and theft to procure for them, and ultimately with
success; undergoing, however, severe punishment for so doing from
the superior force of Zeus. These are the main features of the
Æschylean Promêtheus, and they are all derived from the legend
as it stands in the Theogony. As for the human race, they are
depicted as abject and helpless in an extreme degree, in Æschylus
even more than in Hesiod: they appear as a race of aboriginal
savages, having the god Promêtheus for their protector.

Æschylus has worked up the old legend, homely and unimpressive as
we read it in Hesiod, into a sublime ideal. We are not to forget
that Promêtheus is not a man, but a god,—the equal of Zeus in
race, though his inferior in power, and belonging to a family of
gods who were once superior to Zeus: he has moreover deserted his
own kindred, and lent all his aid and superior sagacity to Zeus,
whereby chiefly the latter was able to acquire supremacy (this
_last_ circumstance is an addition by Æschylus himself to the
Hesiodic legend). In spite of such essential service, Zeus had
doomed him to cruel punishment, for no other reason than because
he conferred upon helpless man the prime means of continuance and
improvement, thus thwarting the intention of Zeus to extinguish
the race.

Now Zeus, though superior to all the other gods and exercising
general control, was never considered, either in Grecian legend
or in Grecian religious belief, to be superior in so immeasurable
a degree as to supersede all free action and sentiment on the
part of gods less powerful. There were many old legends of
dissension among the gods, and several of disobedience against
Zeus: when a poet chose to dramatize one of these, he might
so turn his composition as to sympathize either with Zeus or
with the inferior god, without in either case shocking the
general religious feeling of the country. And if there ever
was an instance in which preference of the inferior god would
be admissible, it is that of Promêtheus, whose proceedings are
such as to call forth the maximum of human sympathy,—superior
intelligence pitted against superior force, and resolutely
encountering foreknown suffering, for the sole purpose of
rendering inestimable and gratuitous service to mortals.

Of the Promêtheus Solutus, which formed a sequel to the
Promêtheus 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 objections which
the Promêth. Vinctus presents against the justice of Zeus were
in the Promêth. Solutus removed. Hermann, in his _Dissertatio
de Æschyli Prometheo 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
respecting individual gods, they always described the Godhead in
the abstract as holy and faultless.” ...

“Immo illud admirari oportet, quod quum de singulis Diis
indignissima quæque crederent, tamen ubi sine certo nomine Deum
dicebant, immunem ab omni vitio, summâque sanctitate præditum
intelligebant. Illam igitur Jovis sævitiam ut excusent defensores
Trilogiæ, et jure punitum volunt Prometheum—et in sequente fabulâ
reconciliato Jove, restitutam arbitrantur divinam justitiam. Quo
invento, vereor ne non optime dignitati consuluerint supremi
Deorum, quem decuerat potius non sævire omnino, quam placari eâ
lege, ut alius Promethei vice lueret.”

[890] Æschyl. Fragment. 146, Dindorf; ap. Plato. Repub. iii. p.
391; compare Strabo, xii. p. 580.—

... οἱ θεῶν ἀγχίσποροι
Οἱ Ζηνὸς ἐγγὺς, οἷς ἐν Ἰδαίῳ πάγῳ
Διὸς πατρῴου βωμός ἐστ᾽ ἐν αἰθέρι,
Κοὔπω σφιν ἐξίτηλον αἷμα δαιμόνων.

There is one real exception to this statement—the Persæ—which
is founded upon an event of recent occurrence; and one apparent
exception—the Promêtheus Vinctus. But in that drama no individual
mortal is made to appear; we can hardly consider Iô as an
ἐφήμερος (253).

Sophoklês, the most illustrious ornament of Grecian tragedy, dwells upon the same heroic characters, and maintains their grandeur, on the whole, with little abatement, combining with it a far better dramatic structure, and a wider appeal to human sympathies. Even in Sophoklês, 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 effusions[891] of rhetoric, as well as of didactic prolixity, may also be detected. It is Æschylus, not Sophoklês, who forms the marked antithesis to Euripidês; it is Æschylus, not Sophoklês, to whom Aristophanês 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 Aphroditê, which beseem the comrades of Agamemnôn and Adrastus.[892]

[891] For the characteristics of Æschylus see Aristophan. Ran.
755, _ad fin. passim_. The competition between Æschylus and
Euripidês turns upon γνῶμαι ἀγαθαὶ, 1497; the weight and majesty
of the words, 1362; πρῶτος τῶν Ἑλλήνων πυργώσας ῥήματα σεμνά,
1001, 921, 930 (“sublimis et gravis et grandiloquus sæpe usque ad
vitium,” Quintil. x. 1); the imposing appearance of his heroes,
such as Memnôn and Cycnus, 961; their reserve in speech, 908; his
dramas “full of Arês” and his lion-hearted chiefs, inspiring the
auditors with fearless spirit in defence of their country,—1014,
1019, 1040; his contempt of feminine tenderness, 1042.—

ÆSCH. Οὐδ᾽ οἶδ᾽ οὐδεὶς ἥντιν᾽ ἐρῶσαν πώποτ᾽ ἐποίησα γυναῖκα.
EURIP. Μὰ Δί᾽, οὐδὲ γὰρ ἦν τῆς Ἀφροδίτης οὐδέν σοι.
ÆSCH. μηδέ γ᾽ ἐπείη·
Ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ σοί τοι καὶ τοῖς σοῖσιν πολλὴ πολλοῦ ᾽πικάθοιτο.

To the same general purpose Nubes (1347-1356), composed so many
years earlier. The weight and majesty of the Æschylean heroes
(βάρος, τὸ μεγαλοπρεπὲς) is dwelt upon in the life of Æschylus,
and Sophoklês is said to have derided it—Ὥσπερ γὰρ ὁ Σοφοκλῆς
ἔλεγε, τὸν Αἰσχύλου διαπεπαιχὼς ~ὄγκον~, etc. (Plutarch, De
Profect. in Virt. Sent. c. 7), unless we are to understand this
as a mistake of Plutarch quoting Sophoklês instead of Euripidês,
as he speaks in the Frogs of Aristophanês, which is the opinion
both of Lessing in his Life of Sophoklês and of Welcker (Æschyl.
Trilogie, p. 525).

[892] See above, Chapters xiv. and xv.

Æschylus seems to have been a greater innovator as to the matter
of the mythes than either Sophoklês or Euripidês (Dionys. Halic.
Judic. de Vett. Script. p. 422, Reisk.). For the close adherence
of Sophoklês to the Homeric epic, see Athena, vii. p. 277;
Diogen. Laërt. iv. 20; Suidas, v. Πολέμων. Æschylus puts into
the mouth of the Eumenidês a serious argument derived from the
behavior of Zeus in chaining his father Kronos (Eumen. 640).

How deeply this feeling, of the heroic character of the mythical world, possessed the Athenian mind, may be judged by the bitter criticisms made on Euripidês, 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.[893] While Aristophanês assails Euripidês as the representative of this “young Athens,” with the utmost keenness of sarcasm,—other critics also concur in designating him as having vulgarized the mythical heroes, and transformed them into mere characters of common life,—loquacious, subtle, and savoring of the market-place.[894] In some of his plays, sceptical expressions 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 Æthêr 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.[895] His thoughts, his words, and the rhythm of his choric songs, were all accused of being deficient in dignity and elevation. The mean attire and miserable attitude in which he exhibited Œneus, Têlephus, Thyestês, Inô, and other heroic characters, were unmercifully derided,[896] though it seems that their position and circumstances had always been painfully melancholy; but the effeminate pathos which Euripidês brought so nakedly into the foreground, was accounted unworthy of the majesty of a legendary hero. And he incurred still greater obloquy on another point, on which he is allowed even by his enemies to have only reproduced in substance the preëxisting tales,—the illicit and fatal passion depicted in several of his female characters, such as Phædra and Sthenobœa. 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 sensitive ethical criticism of his age.[897] The marriage of the six daughters to the six sons of Æolus is of Homeric origin, and stands now, though briefly stated, in the Odyssey: but the incestuous passion of Macareus and Canacê, embodied by Euripidês[898] in the lost tragedy called _Æolus_, drew upon 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, which carried no sense of awful compulsion: thus the considerations by which the Euripidean Alkmæôn was reduced to the necessity of killing his mother appeared to Aristotle ridiculous.[899] 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, etc.: 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.[900]

[893] See Valckenaer, Diatribe in Euripid. Fragm. capp. 5 and 6.

The fourth and fifth lectures among the _Dramatische Vorlesungen_
of August Wilhelm Schlegel depict both justly and eloquently the
difference between Æschylus, Sophoklês and Euripidês, especially
on this point of the gradual sinking of the mythical colossus
into an ordinary man; about Euripidês especially in lecture 5,
vol. i. p. 206, ed. Heidelberg 1809.

[894] Aristot. Poetic. c. 46. Οἷον καὶ Σοφοκλῆς ἔφη, αὐτὸς μὲν
οἵους δεῖ ποιεῖν, Εὐριπίδης δὲ, οἷοί εἰσι.

The Ranæ and Acharneis of Aristophanês exhibit fully the
reproaches urged against Euripidês: the language put into
the mouth of Euripidês in the former play (vv. 935-977)
illustrates specially the point here laid down. Plutarch (De
Gloriâ Atheniens. c. 5) contrasts ἡ Εὐριπίδου σοφία καὶ ἡ
Σοφοκλεοῦς λογιότης. Sophoklês either adhered to the old mythes
or introduced alterations into them in a spirit comformable to
their original character, while Euripidês refined upon them. The
comment of Dêmêtrius Phalereus connects τὸ λόγιον expressly with
the maintenance of the dignity of the tales. Ἄρξομαι δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦ
μεγαλοπρεποῦς, ὅπερ νῦν ~λόγιον~ ὀνομάζουσιν (c. 38).

[895] Aristophan. Ran. 770, 887, 1066.

Euripidês says to Æschylus, in regard to the language employed by
both of them,—

Ἦν οὖν σὺ λέγῃς Λυκαβήττους
Καὶ Παρνάσσων ἡμῖν μεγέθη, τοῦτ᾽ ἐστὶ τὸ χρηστὰ διδάσκειν,
Ὃν χρὴ φράζειν ἀνθρωπείως;

Æschylus replies,—

Ἀλλ᾽, ὦ κακόδαιμον, ἀνάγκη
Μεγάλων γνωμῶν καὶ διανοιῶν ἴσα καὶ τὰ ῥήματα τίκτειν.
Κἄλλως εἰκὸς τοὺς ~ἡμιθέους~ τοῖς ῥήμασι μείζοσι χρῆσθαι·
Καὶ γὰρ τοῖς ἱματίοις ἡμῶν χρῶνται πολὺ σεμνοτέροισι.
Ἃ ᾽μοῦ χρηστῶς καταδείξαντος διελυμήνω συ.
EURIP. Τί δράσας;
ÆSCH. Πρῶτον μὲν τοὺς βασιλεύοντας ῥάκι᾽ ἀμπίσχων, ἵν᾽ ἐλεινοὶ
Τοῖς ἀνθρώποις φαίνοιντ᾽ εἶναι.

For the character of the language and measures of Euripidês,
as represented by Æschylus, see also v. 1297, and Pac. 527.
Philosophical discussion was introduced by Euripidês (Dionys.
Hal. Ars Rhetor. viii. 10-ix. 11) about the Melanippê, where
the doctrine of prodigies (τέρας) appears to have been argued.
Quintilian (x. 1) remarks that to young beginners in judicial
pleading, the study of Euripidês was much more specially
profitable than that of Sophoklês: compare Dio Chrysostom, Orat.
xviii. vol. i. p. 477, Reisk.

In Euripidês the heroes themselves sometimes delivered
moralizing discourses:—εἰσάγων τὸν Βελλεροφόντην γνωμολογοῦντα
(Welcker, Griechisch. Tragöd. Eurip. Stheneb. p. 782). Compare
the fragments of his Bellerophôn (15-25, Matthiæ), and of his
Chrysippus (7, _ib._). A striking story is found in Seneca,
Epistol. 115; and Plutarch, de Audiend. Poetis, c. 4. t. i. p.
70, Wytt.

[896] Aristophan. Ran. 840.—

ὦ στωμυλιοσυλλεκτάδη
Καὶ πτωχοποιὲ καὶ ῥακιοσυῤῥαπτάδη·

See also Aristophan. Acharn. 385-422. For an unfavorable
criticism upon such proceeding, see Aristot. Poet. 27.

[897] Aristophan. Ran. 1050.—

EURIP. Πότερον δ᾽ ~οὐκ ὄντα λόγον~ τοῦτον περὶ τῆς Φαίδρας ξυνέθηκα;

ÆSCH. Μὰ Δί᾽, ἀλλ᾽ ὄντ᾽· ἀλλ᾽ ἀποκρύπτειν χρὴ τὸ πονηρὸν τόν γε ποιητὴν,
Καὶ μὴ παράγειν μηδὲ διδάσκειν.

In the Hercules Furens, Euripidês puts in relief and even
exaggerates the worst elements of the ancient mythes: the
implacable hatred of Hêrê towards Hêraklês is pushed so far as to
deprive him of his reason (by sending down Iris and the unwilling
Λύσσα), and thus intentionally to drive him to slay his wife and
children with his own hands.

[898] Aristoph. Ran. 849, 1041, 1080; Thesmophor. 547; Nubes,
1354. Grauert, De Mediâ Græcorum Comœdiâ in Rheinisch. Museum,
2nd Jahrs. 1 Heft, p. 51. It suited the plan of the drama of
Æolus, as composed by Euripidês, to place in the mouth of
Macareus a formal recommendation of incestuous marriages:
probably this contributed much to offend the Athenian public. See
Dionys. Hal. Rhetor. ix. p. 355.

About the liberty of intermarriage among relatives, indicated in
Homer, parents and children being alone excepted, see Terpstra,
Antiquitas Homerica, cap. xiii. p. 104.

Ovid, whose poetical tendencies led him chiefly to copy
Euripidês, observes (Trist. ii. 1, 380)—

“Omne genus scripti gravitate Tragœdia vincit,
Hæc quoque materiam semper amoris habet.
Nam quid in Hippolyto nisi cæcæ flamma novercæ?
Nobilis est Canace fratris amore sui.”

This is the reverse of the truth in regard to Æschylus and
Sophoklês, and only very partially true in respect to Euripidês.

[899] Aristot. Ethic. Nicom. iii. 1, 8. καὶ γὰρ τὸν Εὐριπίδου
Ἀλκμαίωνα γελοῖα φαίνεται τὰ ἀναγκάσαντα μητροκτονῆσαι (In the
lost tragedy called Ἀλκμαίων ὁ διὰ Ψωφῖδος).

[900] Aristot. Poetic. 26-27. And in his Problemata also, in
giving the reason why the Hypo-Dorian and Hypo-Phrygian musical
modes were never assigned to the Chorus, he says—

Ταῦτα δὲ ἄμφω χόρῳ μὲν ἀναρμοστὰ, τοῖς δὲ ἀπὸ σκηνῆς οἰκειότερα.
Ἐκεῖνοι μὲν γὰρ ἡρώων μίμηται· οἱ δὲ ἡγεμόνες τῶν ἀρχαίων μόνοι
ἦσαν ἥρωες, οἱ δὲ λαοὶ ἄνθρωποι, ὧν ἐστὶν ὁ χόρος. Διὸ καὶ
ἁρμόζει αὐτῷ τὸ γοερὸν καὶ ἡσύχιον ἦθος καὶ μέλος· ἀνθρωπικὰ γάρ.

The tendency then of Athenian tragedy—powerfully manifested in Æschylus, and never wholly lost—was to uphold an unquestioning faith and a reverential estimate of the general mythical world and its personages, but to treat the particular narratives rather as matter for the emotions than as recitals 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 narratives; 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. Pherekydês, Akusilaus and Hellanikus[901] 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 phænomena 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 ultimately 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.[902]

[901] See Müller, Prolegom. zu einer wissenschaftlichen
Mythologie, c. iii. p. 93.

[902] Hellanic. Fragment. 143, ed. Didot.

Hekatæus of Milêtus (500 B. C.), anterior to Pherekydês and Hellanikus, is the earliest writer in whom we can detect any disposition to disallow the prerogative and specialty of the mythes, and to soften down their characteristic prodigies, some of which however still find favor in his eyes, as in the case of the speaking ram who carried Phryxus over the Hellespont. He pronounced the Grecian fables to be “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 Hadês, into a serpent inhabiting a cavern on Cape Tænarus—and Geryôn of Erytheia into a king of Epirus rich in herds of oxen.[903] Hekatæus traced the genealogy of himself and the gens to which he belonged through a line of fifteen progenitors up to an initial god,[904]—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.

[903] Hekatæi Fragm. ed. Didot. 332, 346, 349; Schol. Apollôn.
Rhod. 1. 256; Athenæ. ii. p. 133; Skylax, c. 26.

Perhaps Hekatæus was induced to look for Erytheia in Epirus by
the brick-red color of the earth there in many places, noticed
by Pouqueville and other travellers (Voyage dans la Grèce,
vol. ii. 248: see Klausen, Æneas und die Penaten, vol. i. p.
222). Ἑκαταῖος ὁ Μιλήσιος—λόγον εὖρεν εἰκότα, Pausan. iii. 25,
4. He seems to have written expressly concerning the fabulous
Hyperboreans, and to have upheld the common faith against doubts
which had begun to rise in his time: the derisory notice of
Hyperboreans in Herodotus is probably directed against Hekatæus,
iv. 36; Schol. Apollôn. Rhod. ii. 675; Diodôr. ii. 47.

It is maintained by Mr. Clinton (Fast. Hell. ii. p. 480) and
others (see not. ad Fragment. Hecatæi, p. 30, ed. Didot), that
the work on the Hyperboreans was written by Hekatæus of Abdêra, a
literary Greek of the age of Ptolemy Philadelphus—not by Hekatæus
of Milêtus. I do not concur in this opinion. I think it much more
probable that the earlier Hekatæus was the author spoken of.

The distinguished position held by Hekatæus at Milêtus is marked
not only by the notice which Herodotus takes of his opinions on
public matters, but also by his negotiation with the Persian
satrap Artaphernes on behalf of his countrymen (Diodôr. Excerpt.
xlvii. p. 41, ed. Dindorf).

[904] Herodot. ii. 143.

We have next to consider the historians, especially Herodotus and Thucydidês. Like Hekatæus, Thucydidês belonged to a gens which traced its descent from Ajax, and through Ajax to Æakus and Zeus.[905] Herodotus modestly implies that he himself had no such privilege to boast of.[906] Their curiosity respecting the past had no other materials to work upon except the mythes; but these they found already cast by the logographers into a continuous series, and presented as an aggregate of antecedent history, chronologically deduced from the times of the gods. In common with the body of the Greeks, both Herodotus and Thucydidês 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 acquaint themselves with the genuine details of this foretime, was an inquiry highly interesting to them: but the increased 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 intrinsic tests of historical credibility and probability, they found the particular narratives of the poets and logographers, inadmissible as a whole even in the eyes of Hekatæus, 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.

[905] Marcellin. Vit. Thucyd. init.

[906] Herodot. ii. 143.

Each of them however performed the process in his own way. Herodotus is a man of deep and anxious religious feeling; he often recognizes the special judgments of the gods as determining historical events: his piety is also partly tinged with that mystical vein which the last two centuries 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. Sometimes he will not even mention the name of a god, though he generally thinks himself authorized to do so, the names being matter of public notoriety.[907] 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.

[907] Herodot. ii. 3, 51, 61, 65, 170. He alludes briefly (c.
51) to an ἱρὸς λόγος which was communicated in the Samothracian
mysteries, but he does not mention what it was: also about the
Thesmophoria, or τελετὴ of Dêmêtêr (c. 171).

Καὶ περὶ μὲν τούτων τοσαῦτα ἡμῖν εἰποῦσι, καὶ παρὰ τῶν θεῶν καὶ
ἡρώων εὐμένεια εἴη (c. 45).

Compare similar scruples on the part of Pausanias (viii. 25 and
37).

The passage of Herodotus (ii. 3) is equivocal, and has been
understood in more ways than one (see Lobeck, Aglaopham. p. 1287).

The aversion of Dionysius of Halikarnassus to reveal the divine
secrets is not less powerful (see A. R. i. 67, 68), and Pausanias
_passim_.

Herodotus expressly distinguishes, in the comparison of Polykratês with Minôs, the human race to which the former belonged, from the divine or heroic race which comprised the latter.[908] But he has a firm belief in the authentic personality and parentage of all the names in the mythes, divine, heroic and human, as well as in the trustworthiness of their chronology computed by generations. He counts back 1600 years from his own day to that of Semelê, mother of Dionysus; 900 years to Hêraklês, and 800 years to Penelopê, the Trojan war being a little earlier in date.[909] Indeed even the longest of these periods must have seemed to him comparatively 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 Hêraklês, and 15,000 years from their god Osiris or Dionysus, down to their king Amasis[910] (550 B. C.) So much was his imagination familiarized 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.[911]

[908] Herod. iii. 122.

[909] Herod. ii. 145.

[910] Herodot. ii. 43-145. Καὶ ταῦτα Αἰγύπτιοι ἀτρεκέως φασὶ
ἐπίστασθαι, ἀεί τε λογιζόμενοι καὶ ἀεὶ ἀπογραφόμενοι τὰ ἔτεα.

[911] Herodot, ii. 53. μέχρι οὗ πρωήν τε καὶ χθὲς, ὡς εἰπεῖν
λόγῳ. Ἡσίοδον γὰρ καὶ Ὅμηρον ἡλικίην τετρακοσίοισι ἔτεσι δοκέω
μευ πρεσβυτέρους γενέσθαι, καὶ οὐ πλέοσι.

Herodotus had been profoundly impressed with what he saw and heard in Egypt. The wonderful monuments, the evident antiquity, and the peculiar civilization of that country, acquired such preponderance in his mind over his own native legends, that he is disposed to trace even the oldest religious names or institutions of Greece to Egyptian or Phœnician original, setting aside in favor of this hypothesis the Grecian legends of Dionysus and Pan.[912] The oldest Grecian mythical genealogies are thus made ultimately to lose themselves in Egyptian or Phœnician antiquity, and in the full extent of these genealogies Herodotus 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, or as gods. The eponyms of cities, dêmes and tribes, are all comprehended in this affirmative category; the supposition of fictitious personages being apparently never entertained. Deukaliôn, Hellên, Dôrus,[913]—Iôn, with his four sons, the eponyms of the old Athenian tribes,[914]—the autochthonous Titakus and Dekelus,[915]—Danaus, Lynkeus, Perseus, Amphitryôn, Alkmêna, and Hêraklês,[916]—Talthybius, the heroic progenitor of the privileged heraldic gens at Sparta,—the Tyndarids and Helena,[917]—Agamemnôn, Menelaus, and Orestes,[918]—Nestôr and his son Peisistratus,—Asôpus, Thêbê, and Ægina,—Inachus and Iô, Æêtês and Mêdea,[919]—Melanippus, Adrastus, and Amphiaräus, as well as Jasôn and the Argô,[920]—all these are occupants of the real past time, and predecessors of himself and his contemporaries. In the veins of the Lacedæmonian kings flowed the blood both of Kadmus and of Danaus, their splendid pedigree being traceable to both of these great mythical names: Herodotus carries the lineage up through Hêraklês first to Perseus and Danaê, then through Danaê to Akrisios and the Egyptian Danaus; but he drops the paternal lineage when he comes to Perseus (inasmuch as Perseus is the son of Zeus by Danaê, without any reputed human father, such as Amphitryôn was to Hêraklês), and then follow the higher members of the series through Danaê alone.[921] He also pursues the same regal genealogy, through the mother of Eurysthenês and Proclês, up to Polynikês, Œdipus, Laius, Labdakus, Polydôrus and Kadmus; and he assigns various ancient inscriptions which he saw in the temple of the Ismenian Apollo at Thêbes, to the ages of Laius and Œdipus.[922] Moreover, the sieges of Thêbes 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,[923]—the death of Mêkisteus and Tydeus before Thêbes by the hands of Melanippus, and the touching calamities of Adrastus and Amphiaräus connected with the same enterprise,—the sailing of Kastôr and Pollux in the Argô,[924]—the abductions of Iô, Eurôpa, Mêdea and Helena,—the emigration of Kadmus in quest of Eurôpa, and his coming to Bœôtia, as well as the attack of the Greeks upon Troy to recover Helen,[925]—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 Mykalê.

[912] Herodot. ii. 146.

[913] Herod. i. 56.

[914] Herod. v. 66.

[915] Herod. ix. 73.

[916] Herod. ii, 43-44, 91-98, 171-182 (the Egyptians admitted
the truth of the Greek legend, that Perseus had come to Libya to
fetch the Gorgon’s head).

[917] Herod. ii. 113-120; iv. 145; vii. 134.

[918] Herod. i. 67-68; ii. 113. vii. 159.

[919] Herod. i. 1, 2, 4; v. 81, 65.

[920] Herod. i. 52; iv. 145; v. 67; vii. 193.

[921] Herod. vi. 52-53.

[922] Herod. iv. 147; v. 59-61.

[923] Herod. v. 61; ix. 27-28.

[924] Herod. i. 52; iv. 145; v. 67.

[925] Herod. i. 1-4; ii. 49, 113: iv. 147; v. 94.

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 facts taken separately, we find him applying to them stricter tests of historical credibility, and often disposed to reject as well the miraculous as the extravagant. Thus even with respect to Hêraklês, 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 Hêraklês, being, as he was, according to the statement of the Greeks, _a man_, 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.[926]

[926] Herod. ii. 45. Λέγουσι δὲ πολλὰ καὶ ἄλλα ἀνεπισκέπτως
οἱ Ἕλληνες· εὐήθης δὲ αὐτέων καὶ ὅδε ὁ μῦθός ἐστι, τὸν περὶ
τοῦ Ἡρακλέος λέγουσι.... Ἔτι δὲ ἕνα ἐόντα τὸν Ἡρακλέα, καὶ ἔτι
ἄνθρωπον ὡς δή φασι, ~κῶς φύσιν ἔχει~ πολλὰς μυριάδας φονεῦσαι;
Καὶ περὶ μὲν τούτων τοσαῦτα ἡμῖν εἰποῦσι, καὶ παρὰ τῶν θεῶν καὶ
παρὰ τῶν ἡρώων εὐμένεια εἴη.

We may also notice the manner in which the historian criticizes
the stratagem whereby Peisistratus established himself as despot
at Athens—by dressing up the stately Athenian woman Phyê in the
costume of the goddess Athênê, and passing off her injunctions
as the commands of the goddess; the Athenians accepted her with
unsuspecting faith, and received Peisistratus at her command.
Herodotus treats the whole affair as a piece of extravagant
silliness, πρᾶγμα εὐηθέστατον μακρῷ (i. 60).

Another striking instance of the disposition of Herodotus to rationalize the miraculous narratives of the current mythes, is to be found in his account of the oracle of Dôdôna and its alleged Egyptian origin. Here, if in any case, a miracle 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 priestesses and from the Dodonæans generally, that two black doves had started at the same time from Thêbes 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 Dôdôna, 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.[927]

[927] Herod. ii. 55. Δωδωναίων δὲ αἱ ἱρηΐαι ... ἔλεγον ταῦτα,
συνωμολόγεον δέ σφι καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι Δωδωναῖοι οἱ περὶ τὸ ἱρόν.

The miracle sometimes takes another form; the oak at Dôdôna was
itself once endued with speech (Dionys. Hal. Ars. Rhetoric. i. 6;
Strabo).

Such was the tale related and believed at Dôdôna. But Herodotus had also heard, from the priests at Thêbes 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 Thêbes by some Phœnician merchants and sold, the one in Greece, the other in Libya. The Theban priests boldly assured Herodotus that much pains had been taken to discover 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.[928]

[928] Herod. ii. 54.

The historian of Halicarnassus cannot for a moment think of admitting the miracle which harmonized so well with the feelings of the priestesses and the Dodonæans.[929] “How (he asks) could a dove speak with human voice?” But the narrative of the priests at Thêbes, 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 Dodonæan legend into a figurative representation, or rather a misrepresentation, of the supposed true story told by the Theban priests. According to his interpretation, the woman who came from Thêbes to Dôdôna 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 color.

[929] Herod. ii. 57. Ἐπεὶ τέῳ ἂν τρόπῳ πελειάς γε ἀνθρωπηΐῃ φωνῇ
φθέγξαιτο;

According to one statement, the word Πελειὰς in the Thessalian
dialect meant both a dove and a prophetess (Scriptor. Rer.
Mythicarum, ed. Bode, i. 96). Had there been any truth in this,
Herodotus could hardly have failed to notice it, inasmuch as it
would exactly have helped him out of the difficulty which he felt.

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 man, who had acquired for himself the art of prophecy;” and had procured through Kadmus much information about the religious rites and customs of Egypt, many of which he introduced into Greece[930]—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.”[931] Though the name of Melampus is here maintained, the character described[932] 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 Amphiaräus.[933] 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 Solôn, in the preceding century, in whose view even inferior arts come from the gods, while Zeus or Apollo bestows the power of prophesying.[934] 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 explanation of phenomena among more visible and determinate agencies.

[930] Herod. ii. 49. Ἐγὼ μὲν νύν φημι Μελάμποδα γενόμενον ἄνδρα
σοφὸν, μαντικήν τε ἑωυτῷ συστῆσαι, καὶ πυθόμενον ἀπ᾽ Αἰγύπτου,
ἄλλα τε πολλὰ ἐσηγήσασθαι Ἕλλησι, καὶ τὰ περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον, ὀλίγα
αὐτῶν παραλλάξαντα.

[931] Herod. ii. 49. Ἀτρεκέως μὲν οὐ πάντα συλλαβὼν τὸν λόγον
ἔφῃνε· (Melampus) ἀλλ᾽ οἱ ἐπιγενόμενοι τούτῳ ~σοφισταὶ~ μεζόνως
ἐξέφῃναν.

[932] Compare Herod. iv. 95; ii. 81. Ἑλλήνων οὐ τῷ ἀσθενεστάτῳ
~σοφιστῇ~ Πυθαγόρᾳ.

[933] Homer, Odyss. xi. 290; xv. 225. Apollodôr. i. 9, 11-12.
Hesiod, Eoiai, Fragm. 55, ed. Düntzer (p. 43)—

Ἀλκὴν μὲν γὰρ ἔδωκεν Ὀλύμπιος Αἰακίδησι,
~Νοῦν δ᾽ Ἀμυθαονίδαις~, πλοῦτον δ᾽ ἔπορ᾽ Ἀτρείδησι.

also Frag. 34 (p. 38), and Frag. 65 (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 Prœtus. In the Hesiodic Eoiai
(Fr. 16, Düntz.; Apollod. ii. 2) the distemper of the Prœtid
females was ascribed to their having repudiated the rites and
worship of Dionysus (Akusilaus, indeed, assigned a different
cause), which shows that the old fable recognized a connection
between Melampus and these rites.

[934] 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 permanent gift
and _status_ of a prophet (compare Odyss. i. 202; xvii. 383).
Solôn, Fragm. xi. 48-53, Schneidewin:—

Ἄλλον μάντιν ἔθηκεν ἄναξ ἑκάεργος Ἀπολλὼν,
Ἔγνω δ᾽ ἀνδρὶ κακὸν τηλόθεν ἐρχόμενον,
Ὧι συνομαρτήσωσι θεοὶ....

Herodotus himself reproduces the old belief in the special gift
of prophetic power by Zeus and Apollo, in the story of Euenius of
Apollônia (ix. 94).

See the fine ode of Pindar, describing 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, Sophoc. Œd. Tyr. 283-410. Neither Nestôr nor
Odysseus possesses the gift of prophecy.

We may make a similar remark on the dictum of the historian respecting the narrow defile of Tempê, forming the embouchure of the Pêneus and the efflux of all the waters from the Thessalian basin. The Thessalians alleged that this whole basin of Thessaly had once been a lake, but that Poseidôn had split the chain of mountains and opened the efflux;[935] upon which primitive belief, thoroughly conformable to the genius of Homer and Hesiod, Herodotus comments as follows: “The Thessalian statement is reasonable. For whoever thinks that Poseidôn shakes the earth, and that the rifts of an earthquake are the work of that god, will, on seeing the defile in question, say that Poseidôn has caused it. For the rift of the mountains is, as appeared to me (when I saw it), the work of an earthquake.” Herodotus admits the reference to Poseidôn, when pointed out to him, but it stands only in the background: what is present to his mind is the phænomenon of the earthquake, not as a special act, but as part of a system of habitual operations.[936]

[935] More than one tale is found elsewhere, similar to this,
about the defile of Tempê:—

“A tradition exists that this part of the country was once a
lake, and that Solomon commanded two deeves, or genii, named
Ard and Beel, 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 Fe di Bogota, in South America,
that it was once under water, until Bochica cleft the mountains
and opened a channel of egress (Humboldt, Vues des Cordillères,
p. 87-88); and about the plateau of Kashmir (Humboldt, Asie
Centrale, vol. i. p. 102), drained in a like miraculous manner
by the saint Kâsyapa. The manner in which conjectures, derived
from local configuration or peculiarities, are often made to
assume the form of _traditions_, is well remarked by the same
illustrious traveller: “Ce qui se présente comme une tradition,
n’est souvent que le reflet de l’impression que laisse l’aspect
des lieux. Des bancs de coquilles à demi-fossiles, répandues
dans les isthmes ou sur des plateaux, font naître même chez les
hommes les moins avancés dans la culture intellectuelle, l’idée
de grandes inondations, d’anciennes communications entre des
bassins limitrophes. Des opinions, que l’on pourroit appeler
systématiques, se trouvent dans les forêts de l’Orénoque comme
dans les îles de la Mer du Sud. Dans l’une et dans l’autre de
ces contrées, elles ont pris la forme des traditions.” (A. von
Humboldt, Asie Centrale, vol. ii. p. 147.) Compare a similar
remark in the same work and volume, p. 286-294.

[936] Herodot. vii. 129. (Poseidôn was worshipped as Πετραῖος
in Thessaly, in commemoration of this geological interference:
Schol. Pindar. Pyth. iv. 245.) Τὸ δὲ παλαιὸν λέγεται, οὐκ ἐόντος
κω τοῦ αὐλῶνος καὶ διεκρόου τούτου, τοὺς ποτάμους τούτους ...
ῥέοντας ποιεῖν τὴν Θεσσαλίην πᾶσαν πέλαγος. Αὐτοὶ μέν νυν
Θέσσαλοι λέγουσι Ποσειδέωνα ποιῆσαι τὸν αὐλῶνα, δι᾽ οὗ ῥέει ὁ
Πηνειὸς, οἰκότα λέγοντες. Ὅστις γὰρ νομίζει Ποσειδέωνα τὴν γῆν
σείειν, καὶ τὰ διεστεῶτα ὑπὸ σεισμοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ τούτου ἔργα εἶναι,
καὶ ἂν ἐκεῖνο ἰδὼν φαίη Ποσειδέωνα ποιῆσαι. Ἐστὶ γὰρ σεισμοῦ
ἔργον, ὡς ἐμοὶ ἐφαίνετο εἶναι, ἡ διάστασις τῶν οὐρέων. In another
case (viii. 129), Herodotus believes that Poseidôn produced a
preternaturally high tide, in order to punish the Persians, who
had insulted his temple near Potidæa: here was a special motive
for the god to exert his power.

This remark of Herodotus illustrates the hostile ridicule cast
by Aristophanês (in the Nubes) upon Socratês, on the score of
alleged impiety, because he belonged to a school of philosophers
(though in point of fact he discountenanced 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 Socratês, _Who rains? Who thunders?_ To which Socratês
replies, “_Not Zeus_, but the Nephelæ, _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 onward?
is it not Zeus?” Socratês—“Not at all; it is æthereal rotation.”
Strepsiades—“Rotation? that had escaped me: Zeus then no longer
exists, and Rotation reigns in his place.”

STREPS. Ὁ δ᾽ ἀναγκάζων ἐστὶ τίς αὐτὰς (Νεφέλας), οὐχ ὁ Ζεὺς,
ὥστε φέρεσθαι;
SOCRAT. Ἥκιστ᾽, ἀλλ᾽ αἰθέριος δῖνος.
STREPS. Δῖνος; τουτί μ᾽ ἐλελήθει—
Ὁ Ζεὺς οὐκ ὢν, ἀλλ᾽ ἀντ᾽ αὐτοῦ Δῖνος νυνὶ βασιλεύων.

To the same effect v. 1454, Δῖνος βασιλεύει τὸν Δί᾽
ἐξεληλακώς—“Rotation has driven out Zeus, and reigns in his
place.”

If Aristophanês had had as strong a wish to turn the public
antipathies against Herodotus as against Socratês and Euripidês,
the explanation here given would have afforded him a plausible
show of truth for doing so; and it is highly probable that the
Thessalians would have been sufficiently displeased with the view
of Herodotus to sympathize in the poet’s attack upon him. The
point would have been made (waiving metrical considerations)—

~Σεισμὸς~ βασιλεύει, τὸν ~Ποσειδῶν᾽~ ἐξεληλακώς.

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 Tempê to
Hêraklês (Diodôr. iv. 18).

Respecting the ancient Grecian faith, which recognized the
displeasure of Poseidôn as the cause of earthquakes, see Xenoph.
Hellen. iii. 3, 2; Thucydid. i. 127; Strabo, xii. p. 579; Diodôr.
xv. 48-49. It ceased to give universal satisfaction even so early
as the time of Thalês and Anaximenês (see Aristot. Meteorolog.
ii. 7-8; Plutarch, Placit. Philos. iii. 15; Seneca, Natural.
Quæst. vi. 6-23); and that philosopher, as well as Anaxagoras,
Democritus and others, suggested different physical explanations
of the fact. Notwithstanding a dissentient minority, however,
the old doctrine still continued to be generally received: and
Diodôrus, in describing the terrible earthquake in 373 B. C.,
by which Helikê and Bura were destroyed, while he notices those
philosophers (probably Kallisthenês, Senec. Nat. Quæst. vi. 23)
who substituted physical causes and laws in place of the divine
agency, rejects their views, and ranks himself with the religious
public, who traced this formidable phænomenon to the wrath of
Poseidôn (xv. 48-49).

The Romans recognized many different gods as producers of
earthquakes; an unfortunate creed, since it exposed them to the
danger of addressing their prayers to the wrong god: “Unde in
ritualibus et pontificiis observatur, obtemperantibus sacerdotiis
caute, ne alio Deo pro alio nominato, cum quis eorum terram
concutiat, piacula committantur.” (Ammian. Marcell. xvii. 7.)

Herodotus adopts the Egyptian version of the legend of Troy, founded on that capital variation which seems to have originated with Stesichorus, and according to which Helen never left Sparta at all—her _eidôlon_ had been taken to Troy in her place. Upon 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 Prôteus, the king of the country, until Menelaus came to reclaim her after his triumph. The Egyptian priests, with their usual boldness of assertion, professed to have heard the whole story from Menelaus himself—the Greeks had beseiged 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 judgment 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 had 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.[937]

[937] Herod. ii. 116. δοκέει δέ μοι καὶ Ὅμηρος τὸν λόγον τοῦτον
πυθέσθαι· ἀλλ᾽ οὐ γὰρ ὁμοίως εὐπρεπὴς ἐς τὴν ἐποποιΐην ἦν τῷ
ἑτέρῳ τῷ περ ἐχρήσατο· ἑς ὃ μετῆκε αὐτὸν, δηλώσας ὡς καὶ τοῦτον
ἐπισταῖτο τὸν λόγον.

Herodotus then produces a passage from the Iliad, with a view to
prove that Homer knew of the voyage of Paris and Helen to Egypt;
but the passage proves nothing at all to the point.

Again (c. 120), his slender confidence in the epic poets breaks
out—εἰ χρή τι τοῖσι ἐποποιοῖσι χρεώμενον λέγειν.

It is remarkable that Herodotus is disposed to identify Helen
with the ξείνη Ἀφροδίτη whose temple he saw at Memphis (c. 112).

Enough has been said to show how wide is the difference 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, Herodotus 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 ancient epic poems belonging to the Trojan cycle, and is indeed, under the gods, the great and present moving force throughout.