Chapter XVI (6)

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, Palamêdês, Dædalus, Amphiôn, Thêseus, Achilles, Cheirôn, and other mythical personages;[995] 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, but also a deliberate creator of new legends for the purpose of expanding and gratifying it. The more we examine this sentiment, both 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 portion of Hellenic religious faith. The mythe both presupposes, and springs out of, a settled basis, and a strong expansive force of religious, social, and patriotic feeling, operating upon a past which is little better than a blank as to positive knowledge. It resembles history, in so far as its form is narrative; it resembles philosophy, in so far as it is occasionally 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 popularized expression of the divine and heroic faith of the people.

[995] Plato, Republic iii. 4-5. p. 391; De Legg. iii. 1. p. 677.

Grecian antiquity cannot be at all understood except in connection with Grecian religion. It begins with gods and it ends with historical men, the former being recognized not simply as gods, but as primitive ancestors, and connected with the latter by 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;[996] 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 with the being whom they worshipped in their gentile sacrifices. Without the ancestorial god, the whole pedigree would have become not only acephalous, but worthless and uninteresting. The pride of the Herakleids, Asklêpiads, Æakids, Nêleids, Dædalids, etc. 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 manhood. Indeed, the length of the genealogy (as I have before remarked) was an evidence of the humility of the historical man, which led him to place himself at a respectful distance from the gods or heroes; for Hekatæus of Milêtus, 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.

[996] For a description of similar tendencies in the Asiatic
religions, see Mövers, Die Phönizier, ch. v. p. 153 (Bonn, 1841):
he points out the same phænomena as in the Greek,—coalescence
between the ideas of ancestry and worship,—confusion between
gods and men in the past,—increasing tendency to Euêmerize (pp.
156-157).

The whole chronology of Greece, anterior to 776 B. C., consists of calculations founded upon these mythical genealogies, especially upon that of the Spartan kings and their descent from Hêraklês,—thirty years being commonly taken as the equivalent of a generation, or about three generations to a century. This process of computation 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 chronologized, they became insensibly approximated to the limits of humanity, and the process indirectly gave encouragement to the theory of Euêmerus. Personages originally legendary and poetical were erected into definite landmarks for measuring the duration of the foretime, thus gaining in respect to historical distinctness, but not without loss on the score of religious association. Both Euêmerus 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 Spartan kings, which Apollodôrus and Eratosthenês selected as the basis of their estimate of time, is nowise superior in credibility and trustworthiness to the thousand other gentile and family pedigrees with which Greece abounded; it is rather indeed to be numbered among the most incredible of all, seeing that Hêraklês as a progenitor is placed at the head of perhaps more pedigrees than any other Grecian god or hero.[997] The descent of the Spartan king Leonidas from Hêraklês rests upon no better evidence than that of Aristotle or Hippocratês from Asklêpius,[998]—of Evagoras or Thucydidês from Æakus,—of Socratês from Dædalus,—of the Spartan heraldic family from Talthybius,—of the prophetic Iamid family in Elis from Iamus,—of the root-gatherers in Pêlion from Cheirôn,—and of Hekatæus and his gens from some god in the sixteenth ascending line of the series. There is little exaggeration in saying, indeed, that no permanent combination of men in Greece, religious, social, or professional, was without a similar pedigree; all arising out of the same exigences of the feelings and imagination, to personify as well as to sanctify the bond of union among the members. Every one of these _gentes_ began with a religious and ended with an historical person. At some point or other in the upward series, entities of history were exchanged for entities of religion; but where that point is to be found we are unable 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.

[997] According to that which Aristotle seems to recognize
(Histor. Animal. vii. 6), Hêraklês was father of seventy-two
sons, but of only one daughter—he was essentially ἀῤῥενόγονος,
illustrating one of the physical peculiarities noticed by
Aristotle. Euripidês, however, mentions daughters of Hêraklês in
the plural number (Euripid. Herakleid. 45).

[998] Hippocratês was twentieth in descent from Hêraklês,
and nineteenth from Asklêpius (Vita Hippocr. by Soranus, ap.
Westermann, Scriptor. Biographic. viii. 1); about Aristotle,
see Diogen. Laërt. v. 1. Xenophôn, the physician of the emperor
Claudius, was also an Asklêpiad (Tacit. Ann. xii. 61).

In Rhodes, the neighboring island to Kôs, was the gens Ἁλιάδαι,
or sons of Hêlios, specially distinguished from the Ἁλιασταὶ of
mere associated worshippers of Hêlios, τὸ κοινὸν τῶν Ἁλιαδῶν καὶ
τῶν Ἁλιαστῶν (see the Inscription in Boeckh’s Collection, No.
2525, with Boeckh’s comment).

When Hekatæus visited Thêbes in Egypt, he mentioned to the Egyptian priests, doubtless with a feeling of satisfaction 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 overdone by the priests “who genealogized against him.”[999] They showed to him three hundred and forty-one wooden colossal 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 begotten by gods or of heroes.[1000]

[999] Herodot. ii. 144. Ἑκαταίῳ δὲ γενεηλογήσαντι ἑωϋτὸν,
καὶ ἀναδήσαντι ἐς ἑκκαιδέκατον θεὸν, ἀντεγενεηλόγησαν ἐπὶ τῇ
ἀριθμήσει, οὐ δεκόμενοι παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ, ἀπὸ θεοῦ γένεσθαι ἄνθρωπον·
ἀντεγενεηλόγησαν δὲ ὧδε, etc.

[1000] Herod. ii. 143-145. Καὶ ταῦτα Αἰγύπτιοι ἀτρεκέως φασὶν
ἐπίστασθαι, αἰεί τε λογιζόμενοι καὶ αἰεὶ ἀπογραφόμενοι τὰ ἔτεα.

But these counter-genealogies, are, in respect to trustworthiness and evidence, on the same footing. Each represents partly the religious faith, partly the retrospective imagination, of the persons from whom it emanated; in each, the lower members of the series (to what 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 and Egyptian chronologies, and vainly employs his ingenuity in reconciling them. There is no standard of objective evidence by which either the one or the other of them can be tried: each has its own subjective value, in conjunction with the faith and feelings of Egyptians 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, adequately studded with authentic and orderly events, presents a greater mass and a greater difficulty of transition to the imagination than a hundred centuries of barren genealogy. 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 aggregate of gods, heroes, and men, so confounded together that it was often impossible to distinguish to which class any individual name belonged. In regard to the Thracian god Zalmoxis, the Hellespontic Greeks interpreted his character and attributes according to the scheme of Euêmerism. They affirmed that he had been a man, the slave of the philosopher 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 honors. Herodotus cannot bring himself to believe this story, but he frankly avows his inability to determine whether Zalmoxis was a god or a man,[1001] nor can he extricate himself from a similar embarrassment in respect to Dionysus and Pan. Amidst the confusion of the Homeric fight, the goddess Athênê confers upon Diomêdês the miraculous favor 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.[1002] 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, accordingly, see the poet Ovid in his Fasti, when he undertakes the task of unfolding the legendary antiquities of early Rome, 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.[1003]

[1001] Herod. iv. 94-96. After having related the Euemeristic
version given by the Hellespontic Greeks, he concludes with his
characteristic frankness and simplicity—Ἐγὼ δὲ, περὶ μὲν τούτου
καὶ τοῦ καταγαίου οἰκήματος, οὔτε ἀπιστέω, οὔτε ὦν πιστεύω τι
λίην, δοκέω δὲ πολλοῖσι ἔτεσι πρότερον τὸν Ζάλμοξιν τοῦτον
γενέσθαι Πυθαγόρεω. Εἴτε δὲ ἐγένετό τις Ζάλμοξις ἄνθρωπος, εἴτ᾽
ἐστὶ δαίμων τις Γέτησι οὗτος ἐπιχώριος, χαιρέτω. So Plutarch
(Numa c. 19) will not undertake to determine whether Janus was a
god or a king εἴτε δαίμων, εἴτε βασιλεὺς γενόμενος, etc.

Herakleitus the philosopher said that men were θεοὶ θνητοὶ, and
the gods were ἄνθρωποι ἀθάνατοι (Lucian, Vitar. Auctio. c. 13.
vol. i. p. 303, Tauch.: compare the same author, Dialog. Mortuor.
iii. vol. i. p. 182, ed. Tauchn).

[1002] Iliad, v. 127:—

Ἀχλὺν δ᾽ αὖ τοι ἀπ᾽ ὀφθαλμῶν ἕλον, ἣ πρὶν ἐπῆεν,
Ὄφρ᾽ εὖ γιγνώσκῃς ἠμὲν θεὸν, ἠδὲ καὶ ἄνδρα.

Of this undistinguishable confusion between gods and men,
striking illustrations are to be found both in the third book of
Cicero de Naturâ Deorum (16-21), and in the long disquisition of
Strabo (x. pp. 467-474) respecting the Kabeiri, the Korybantes,
the Dactyls of Ida; the more so, as he cites the statements of
Pherekydês, Akusilaus, Dêmêtrius of Skêpsis, and others. Under
the Roman empire, the lands in Greece belonging to the immortal
gods were exempted from tribute. The Roman tax-collectors
refused to recognize as immortal gods any persons who had once
been men; but this rule could not be clearly applied (Cicero,
Nat. Deor. iii. 20). See the remarks of Pausanias (ii. 26, 7)
about Asklêpius: Galen, too, is doubtful about Asklêpius and
Dionysus—Ἀσκληπιός γέ τοι καὶ Διόνυσος, εἶτ᾽ ἄνθρωποι πρότερον
ἤστην, εἴτε καὶ ἀρχῆθεν θεοί (Galen in Protreptic. 9. tom. i. p.
22, ed. Kühn). Xenophôn (De Venat. c. i.) considers Cheirôn 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.

[1003] Ovid, Fasti, vi. 6-20:—

“Fas mihi præcipue vultus vidisse Deorum,
Vel quia sum vates, vel quia sacra cano ...
... Ecce Deas vidi....
Horrueram, tacitoque animum pallore fatebar:
Cum Dea, quos fecit, sustulit ipsa metus.
Namque ait—O vates, Romani conditor anni,
Ause per exiguos magna referre modos;
Jus tibi fecisti numen cœleste videndi,
Cum placuit numeris condere festa tuis.”

To resume, in brief, what has been laid down in this and the preceding chapters respecting the Grecian mythes:—

1. They are a special product of the imagination and feelings, radically distinct both from history and philosophy: they cannot be broken down and decomposed into the one, nor allegorized into the other. There are indeed some particular and even assignable mythes, which raise intrinsic presumption of an allegorizing 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 be verified by any intrinsic mark, nor we are entitled to presume its existence in any given case unless some collateral evidence can be produced.

2. We are not warranted in applying to the mythical world the rules either of historical credibility or chronological 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 fictitious, 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 belief, and scarcely any tincture either of astronomy or geography—but which, on the other hand, was full of religious 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 feelings, 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 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 performed 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.[1004] The adventures of Achilles, Helen, and Diomêdês, of Œdipus and Adrastus, of Meleager and Athæa, of Jasôn and the Argô, were recounted by the same tongues, and accepted with the same unsuspecting confidence, as those of Apollo and Artemis, of Arês and Aphroditê, of Poseidôn and Hêraklês.

[1004] The fourth Eclogue of Virgil, under the form of a
prophecy, gives a faithful picture of the heroic and divine past,
to which the legends of Troy and the Argonauts belonged:—

“Ille Deûm vitam accipiet, Divisque videbit
Permixtos heroas,” etc.

“Alter erit tum Tiphys et altera quæ vehat Argo
Delectos heroas: erunt etiam altera bella,
Atque iterum ad Trojam magnus mittetur Achilles.”

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 chronological records became familiar; a canon of belief more or less critical came to be tacitly recognized. Moreover, superior men profited more largely by the stimulus, and contracted habits of judging different from the vulgar: the god Elenchus[1005] (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 altogether dissonant with those of instructed men. But the most superior Greek was still a Greek, and cherished 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 and respect. Whilst the literal mythe still continued to float among the poets and the people, critical men interpreted, altered, decomposed, and added, until they found something which satisfied their minds as a supposed real basis. They manufactured some dogmas of supposed original 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 mythical events. The interpreted mythe was thus promoted into a reality, while the literal mythe was degraded into a fiction.[1006]

[1005] Lucian, Pseudol. c. 4. Παρακλητέος ἡμῖν τῶν Μενάνδρου
προλόγων εἷς, ὁ Ἔλεγχος, φίλος ἀληθείᾳ καὶ παῤῥησίᾳ θεὸς, οὐχ
ὁ ἀσημότατος τῶν ἐπὶ τὴν σκήνην ἀναβαινόντων. (See Meineke ad
Menandr. p. 284.)

[1006] The following passage from Dr. Ferguson’s Essay 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
antiquities 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 transmitted, 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 antiquaries, 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_.

“It were absurd to quote the fable of the Iliad or the Odyssey,
the legend of Hercules, Theseus, and Œdipus, as authorities
in matters 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 characterize 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 admitted
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 à M. H. de
Monmerqué, prefixed to the Roman de Berte aux Grans Piés, Paris,
1836), respecting the “romans” of the Middle Ages: “Pour bien
connaître l’histoire du moyen âge, non pas celle des faits, mais
celle des mœurs qui rendent les faits vraisemblables, il faut
l’avoir étudiée dans les romans, et voilà pourquoi l’Histoire de
France n’est pas encore faite.” (p. xxi.)

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 allegorized philosophy, and the heroic mythes as exaggerated, adorned, and over-colored 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 connection 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,[1007] while science and history were confined to comparatively few. We know from Thucydidês how erroneously and carelessly the Athenian public of his day retained the history of Peisistratus, only one century past;[1008] 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 excluded from the sympathy of his neighbors. The theatrical representations, exhibited to the entire city population, and listened to with enthusiastic interest, both presupposed and perpetuated acquaintance with the great lines of heroic fable: indeed, in later times even the pantomimic dancers embraced in their representations 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 attributes 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.[1009]

[1007] A curious evidence of the undiminished popularity of
the Grecian mythes to the exclusion even of recent history, is
preserved by Vopiscus at the beginning of his Life of Aurelian.

The præfect of the city of Rome, Junius Tiberianus, took Vopiscus
into his carriage on the festival-day of the Hilaria; he was
connected by the ties of relationship with Aurelian, who had
died about a generation before—and as the carriage passed by the
splendid Temple of the Sun, which Aurelian had consecrated, he
asked Vopiscus, what author had written the life of that emperor?
To which Vopiscus replied, that he had read some Greek works
which touched upon Aurelian, but nothing in Latin. Whereat the
venerable præfect was profoundly grieved: “Dolorem gemitûs sui
vir sanctus per hæc verba profudit: Ergo _Thersitem, Sinonem,
cæteraque illa prodigia vetustatis, et nos bene scimus, et
posteri frequentabunt_: divum Aurelianum, clarissimum principem,
severissimum Imperatorem, per quem totus Romano nomini orbis est
restitutus, posteri nescient? Deus avertat hanc amentiam! Et
tamen, si bene memini, ephemeridas illius viri scriptas habemus,”
etc. (Historiæ August. Scriptt. p. 209, ed. Salmas.)

This impressive remonstrance produced the Life of Aurelian by
Vopiscus. The materials seem to have been ample and authentic; it
is to be regretted that they did not fall into the hands of an
author qualified to turn them to better account.

[1008] Thucyd. vi. 56.

[1009] Pausan. i. 3, 3. Λέγεται μὲν δὴ καὶ ἄλλα οὐκ ἀληθῆ παρὰ
τοῖς πολλοῖς, οἷα ἱστορίας ἀνηκόοις οὖσι, καὶ ὅποσα ἤκουον εὐθὺς
ἐκ παιδῶν ἔν τε χόροις καὶ τραγῳδίαις πιστὰ ἡγουμένοις, etc.
The treatise of Lucian, De Saltatione, is a curious proof how
much these mythes were in every one’s memory, and how large the
range of knowledge of them was which a good dancer possessed (see
particularly c. 76-79. t. ii. p. 308-310, Hemst).

Antiphanês ap. Athenæ. vi. p. 223:—

Μακάριόν ἐστιν ἡ τραγῳδία
ποίημα κατὰ πάντ᾽, εἴ γε πρῶτον οἱ λόγοι
ὑπὸ τῶν θεατῶν εἰσιν ἐγνωρίσμενοι
πρὶν καί τιν᾽ εἰπεῖν· ὡς ὑπομνῆσαι μόνον
δεῖ τὸν ποιητήν. Οἰδίπουν γὰρ ἂν γε φῶ,
τὰ δ᾽ ἄλλα πάντ᾽ ἴσασιν· ὁ πατὴρ Λάϊος,
μήτηρ Ἰοκάστη, θυγατέρες, παῖδες τίνες·
τί πείσεθ᾽ οὗτος, τί πεποίηκεν. Ἂν πάλιν
εἴπῃ τις Ἀλκμαίωνα, καὶ τὰ παιδία
πάντ᾽ εὐθὺς εἴρηχ᾽, ὅτι μανεὶς ἀπέκτονε
τὴν μήτερ᾽· ἀγανακτῶν δ᾽ Ἄδραστος εὐθέως
ἥξει, πάλιν δ᾽ ἄπεισιν, etc.

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 extreme popularity (Or. xi. p.
307-312, Reisk). See also the commencement of Heraklidês, De
Allegoriâ Homericâ (ap. Scriptt. Myth. ed. Gale, p. 408), about
the familiarity with Homer.

The Lydê of the poet Antimachus was composed for his own
consolation under sorrow, by enumerating the ἡρωϊκὰς συμφοράς
(Plutarch, Consolat. ad Apollôn. c. 9. p. 106: compare Æschines
cont. Ktesiph. c. 48): a sepulchral inscription in Thêra, on the
untimely death of Admêtus, a youth of the heroic gens Ægidae,
makes a touching allusion to his ancestors Pêleus and Pherês
(Boeckh, C. I. t. ii. p. 1087).

A curious passage of Aristotle is preserved by Dêmêtrius
Phalereus (Περὶ Ἑρμηνείας, c. 144),—Ὅσῳ γὰρ αὐτίτης καὶ
μονώτης εἰμὶ, φιλομυθότερος γέγονα (compare the passage in the
Nikomachean Ethics, i. 9, μονώτης καὶ ἄτεκνος). 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).

For the employment of the mythical names and incidents as
topics of pleasing and familiar comparison, see Menander, Περὶ
Ἐπιδεικτῖκ. § iv. capp. 9 and 11, ap. Walz. Coll. Rhett. t. ix.
pp. 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):—

Βιττὼ καὶ Φαινὶς, φίλη ἡμέρη (?), αἱ συνέριθοι,
Αἱ πενιχραὶ, γραῖαι, τῆδ᾽ ἐκλίθημεν ὁμοῦ.
Ἀμφότεραι Κώαι, πρῶται γένος—ὦ γλυκὺς ὄρθρος,
Πρὸς λύχνον ᾧ μύθους ᾔδομεν ἡμιθέων.

These two poor women were not afraid to boast of their family
descent. They probably belonged to some noble gens which traced
its origin to a god or a hero. About the songs of women, see also
Agathias, i. 7. p. 29, ed. Bonn.

In the family of the wealthy Athenian Dêmocratês was a legend,
that his primitive ancestor (son of Zeus by the daughter of
the Archêgetês of the dême Aixôneis, to which he belonged) had
received Hêraklês at his table: this legend was so rife that the
old women sung it,—ἅπερ αἱ γραῖαι ᾄδουσι (Plato, Lysis, p. 205).
Compare also a legend of the dême Ἀναγυροῦς, mentioned in Suidas
_ad voc._

“Who is this virgin?” asks Orestês from Pyladês in the Iphigeneia
in Tauris of Euripidês (662), respecting his sister Iphigeneia,
whom he does not know as priestess of Artemis in a foreign land:—

Τίς ἐστιν ἡ νεᾶνις; ὡς ~Ἑλληνικῶς~
Ἀνήρεθ᾽ ἡμᾶς τούς τ᾽ ἐν Ἰλίῳ πόνους
Νόστον τ᾽ Ἀχαιῶν τόν τ᾽ ἐν οἰωνοῖς σοφὸν
Κάλχαντ᾽, Ἀχιλλέως τ᾽ οὔνομ᾽, etc.
... ἐστὶν ἡ ξένη γένος
Ἐκεῖθεν. Ἀργεία τις, etc.

A similar effect was produced by the multiplied religious festivals and processions, as well as by the oracles and prophecies which circulated in every city. The annual departure of the Theôric ship from Athens to the sacred island of Dêlos, kept alive, in the minds of Athenians generally, the legend of Thêseus and his adventurous enterprise in Krete;[1010] and in like manner most of the other public 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.[1011] 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 Thêban citizen who found himself restrained from the liberty enjoyed by all other Greeks, of consulting Amphiaräus 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,[1012] and which conducted him back to the originally hostile relations between Amphiaräus and Thêbes. Nor can we suppose among the citizens of Sikyôn anything less than a perfect and reverential conception of the legend of Thêbes, when we read the account given by Herodotus of the conduct of the despot Kleisthenês in regard to Adrastus and Melanippus.[1013] The Trœzenian youths and maidens,[1014] who universally, when on the eve of marriage, consecrated an offering of their hair at the Herôon of Hippolytus, maintained a lively recollection of the legend of that unhappy recusant whom Aphroditê 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 Agamemnôn, still preserved in the days of Pausanias at Chæroneia in Bœôtia, was the work of the god Hêphæstos. 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 Agamemnôn to Phôkis, and received divine honors from the citizens of Chæroneia.[1015] The spears of Mêrionês and Odysseus were treasured up at Engyium in Sicily, that of Achilles at Phasêlis; the sword of Memnôn adorned the temple of Asklêpius at Nicomêdia; and Pausanias, with unsuspecting confidence, adduces the two latter as proofs that the arms of the heroes were made of brass.[1016] The hide of the Kalydônian 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 Branchidæ near Milêtus, as well as in the temple of Hêrê in Argos. Visible relics of Epeius and Philoktêtês were not wanting, while 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.[1017] 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 Hêraklês, Jasôn, Mêdea, Alkmæôn, Diomêdês, Odysseus, Danaus, and his daughters,[1018] etc. 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.

[1010] Plato, Phædo, c. 2.

[1011] The Philopseudes of Lucian (t. iii. p. 31, Hemst. cap.
2, 3, 4) shows not only the pride which the general public of
Athens and Thêbes took in their old mythes (Triptolemus, Boreas,
and Oreithyia, the Sparti, etc.), but the way in which they
treated every man who called the stories in question as a fool
or as an atheist. He remarks, that if the guides who showed the
antiquities had been restrained to tell nothing but what was
true, they would have died of hunger; for the visiting strangers
would not care to hear plain truth, even if they could have got
it for nothing (μηδὲ ἀμισθὶ τῶν ξένων ἀληθὲς ἀκούειν ἐθελησάντων).

[1012] Herodot. viii. 134.

[1013] Herodot. v. 67.

[1014] Euripid. Hippolyt. 1424; Pausan. ii. 32, 1; Lucian, De Deâ
Syriâ, c. 60. vol. iv. p. 287, Tauch.

It is curious to see in the account of Pausanias how all the
petty peculiarities of the objects around became connected with
explanatory details growing out of this affecting legend. Compare
Pausan. i. 22, 2.

[1015] Pausan. ix. 40, 6.

[1016] Plutarch, Marcell. c. 20; Pausan. iii. 3, 6.

[1017] Pausan. viii. 46, 1; Diogen. Laër. viii. 5; Strabo, vi. p.
263; Appian, Bell. Mithridat. c. 77; Æschyl. Eumen. 380.

Wachsmuth has collected the numerous citations out of Pausanias
on this subject (Hellenische Alterthumskunde, part ii. sect. 115.
p. 111).

[1018] Herodot. ii. 182; Plutarch, Pyrrh. c. 32; Schol. Apoll.
Rhod iv. 1217; Diodôr. iv. 56.

If we analyze the intellectual acquisitions of a common Grecian townsman, from the rude communities of Arcadia or Phôkis even up to the enlightened Athens, we shall find that, over and above the rules of art or capacities requisite for his daily wants, it consisted chiefly of the various mythes connected with his gens, his city, his religious festivals, 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,—the whole set off and decorated by some knowledge of the epic and dramatic poets. Such was the intellectual and imaginative 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, however little there may be of objective reality, either historical or philosophical, discoverable under them.

Nor must we omit the incalculable importance of the mythes as stimulants to the imagination of the Grecian artist in sculpture, in painting, in carving, and in architecture. From the divine and heroic 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; and such visible reproduction contributed again to fix the types of the gods and heroes familiarly and indelibly on the public mind.[1019] 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.

[1019] Ἡμιθέων ἀρεταῖς, the subjects of the works of Polygnotus
at Athens (Melanthius ap. Plutarch. Cimôn. c. 4): compare
Theocrit. xv. 138.

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 distinctness to the latter. To one who saw constantly before him representations of the battles of the Centaurs or the Amazons,[1020] of the exploits performed by Perseus and Bellerophôn, of the incidents composing the Trojan war or the Kalydônian boar-hunt—the process of belief, even in the more fantastic of these conceptions, became easy in proportion as the conception was familiarized. And if any person had been slow to believe in the efficacy of the prayers of Æakus, whereby that devout hero once obtained special relief from Zeus, at a moment when Greece was perishing with long-continued sterility, his doubts would probably vanish when, on visiting the Æakeion at Ægina, there were exhibited to him the statues of the very envoys who had come on the behalf of the distressed Greeks to solicit that Æakus would pray for them.[1021] A Grecian temple[1022] 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 conceived 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,[1023] miraculous tales were often rife respecting the manifestation of real internal feeling in the wood and the marble. At perilous or critical moments, 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.[1024] 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 preëxisting mythes connected with his name. When Boreas, during the invasion of Greece by Xerxês, and in compliance with the fervent prayers of the Athenians, had sent forth a providential storm, to the irreparable damage of the Persian armada,[1025] the sceptical minority (alluded to by Plato), who doubted the mythe of Boreas and Oreithyia, and his close connection thus acquired with Erechtheus, and the Erechtheids generally, must for the time have been reduced to absolute silence.

[1020] The Centauromachia and the Amazonomachia are constantly
associated together in the ancient Grecian reliefs (see
the Expedition Scientifique de Morée, t. ii. p. 16, in the
explanation of the temple of Apollo Epikureius at Phigaleia).

[1021] Pausan. ii. 29, 6.

[1022] Ernst Curtius, Die Akropolis von Athen, Berlin, 1844, p.
18. Arnobius adv. Gentes, vi. p. 203, ed. Elmenhorst.

[1023] See the case of the Æginêtans lending the Æakids for a
time to the Thebans (Herodot. v. 80), who soon, however, returned
them: likewise sending the Æakids 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 (Diodôr. Excerpt. xvi. p. 15, Dindorf). The Thebans grant
their hero Melanippus to Kleisthenês of Sikyôn (v. 68). What was
sent, must probably have been a consecrated copy of the genuine
statue.

Respecting the solemnities practised towards the statues, see
Plutarch, Alkibiad. 34; Kallimach. Hymn. ad Lavacr. Palladis,
init. with the note of Spanheim; K. O. Müller, Archæologie der
Kunst, § 69; compare Plutarch, Quæstion. Romaic. § 61. p. 279;
and Tacit. Mor. Germ. c. 40; Diodôr. xvii. 49.

The manner in which the real presence of a hero was identified
with his statue (τὸν δίκαιον δεῖ θεὸν οἴκοι μένειν σώζοντα
ροὺς ἱδρυμένους.—Menander, Fragm. Ἡνίοχος, p. 71, Meineke),
consecrated ground, and oracle, is nowhere more powerfully
attested than in the Heroïca of Philostratus (capp. 2-20.
pp. 674-692; also De Vit Apollôn. Tyan. iv. 11), respecting
Prôtesilaus at Elæus, Ajax at the Aianteium, and Hectôr at
Ilium: Prôtesilaus appeared exactly in the equipment of his
statue,—χλαμύδα ἐνῆπται, ξένε, τὸν Θετταλικὸν τρόπον, ὥσπερ καὶ
τὸ ἄγαλμα τοῦτο (p. 674). The presence and sympathy of the hero
Lykus is essential to the satisfaction of the Athenian dikasts
(Aristophan. Vesp. 389-820): the fragment of Lucilius, quoted by
Lactantius, De Falsâ Religione (i. 22), is curious.—Τοῖς ἥρωσι
τοῖς κατὰ τὴν πόλιν καὶ τὴν χώραν ~ἱδρυμένοις~ (Lycurgus cont.
Leocrat. c. 1).

[1024] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 12; Strabo, vi. p. 264.
Theophrastus treats the perspiration as a natural phænomenon in
the statues made of cedar-wood (Histor. Plant. v. 10). Plutarch
discusses the credibility of this sort of miracles in his Life of
Coriolanus, c. 37-38.

[1025] Herodot. vii. 189. Compare the gratitude of the
Megalopolitans to Boreas for having preserved them from the
attack of the Lacedæmonian king Agis (Pausan. viii. 27, 4.—viii.
36, 4). When the Ten Thousand Greeks were on their retreat
through the cold mountains of Armenia, Boreas blew in their
faces, “parching and freezing intolerably.” One of the prophets
recommended that a sacrifice should be offered to him, which was
done, “and the painful effect of the wind appeared to every one
forthwith to cease in a marked manner;” (καὶ πᾶσι δὴ περιφανῶς
ἔδοξε λῆξαι τὸ χαλεπὸν τοῦ πνεύματος.—Xenoph. Anab. iv. 5, 3.)