Chapter VI: Part 6

It will have appeared from this general account of the traditive characters of Apollo and Minerva, that the former represented the tradition of a person, and the latter of an idea. Accordingly, the original character of Apollo, which he bore during the infancy of the mythical system, is in many points the more significantly marked; as for example, by his share in the War with the Giants, and by his mysterious relation to Death.

But it was natural that, in the course of time, as tradition in general grew weaker with the increasing distance from its source, and as the inventive system enlarged its development, those particular traditions, which were self-explained by having their root in an intelligible idea, should hold their ground much better than such as had become mythical and arbitrary by having lost their key. The traditional Minerva had an anchorage in the great function of Wisdom; the traditional Apollo had no support equal to this in breadth and depth; and his attributes, the band of revelation being removed, lost their harmony and could ill be held together.

Accordingly we find that in the later ages of the mythology Apollo had lost much of what was transcendant in his importance, but that Minerva retained her full rank. One and the same Ode of Horace supplies the proof of both. He places Apollo on a level not only with Diana, but with Bacchus[248]:

[248] Hor. Od. I. xii. 21.

Prœliis audax, neque te silebo,
Liber: et sævis inimica virgo
Belluis; nec te mutuende certâ,
Phœbe, sagittâ.

But, after having described the supreme and transcendant dignity of Jupiter, he at once proceeds to place Pallas before every other deity without exception[249]:

[249] Ibid. 17. Compare the passages cited by Nägelsbach, Hom. Theol. I. ii. 21. Hesiod Theog. 896. Callim. Lav. Pall. 132. Plutarch. Sympos. ii. p. 617. C. Pind. Fragm. xi. 9. and the Orphic Poet in Düntzer, p. 9.

Unde nîl majus generatur ipso:
Nec viget quicquam simile aut secundum;
Proximos illi tamen occupavit
Pallas honores.

I will now pass on to consider the remaining vestiges of original tradition perceivable in Homer.

~_The Diana of Homer._~

Like the Moon to the Sun, an analogy maintained by their respective assumption of the two characters in the later mythology, Diana is a reflection, and in most respects a faint reflection, of Apollo.

She was worshipped, says Müller[250], in the character of ‘as it were a part of the same deity.’ He collects and reviews, from the whole circle of Greek history and mythology, the points of coincidence between them: and notices particularly, that like him she is both λυκεία and οὐλία, both the destroyer and the preserver; that she administers her office as angel of Death, sometimes in wrath and sometimes without it; and that her name Artemis, meaning, as he conceives, healthy and uninjured, is in close correspondence with those of Phœbus Apollo.

[250] Dorians, ii. ch. 9.

All this is in conformity with what we gather from the poems of Homer: but those poems have spared us many of the confused and perplexing phenomena, which are presented by the later mythology.

One side of the divided Messianic tradition, its purity, is best represented in Diana, through her severe and spotless chastity. Its force and scope are much more largely developed in Apollo. But this high purity, and the double aspect of the ministry of Death, appear to be of themselves sufficient to stamp her beyond mistake with a traditionary origin. Small resemblances, too, as well as great ones, are traceable in Homer between her and Apollo, such as her golden throne and golden distaff, which may be compared to his golden sword, the sword of primeval light: and even these minor correspondences may in their own degree bear witness to the original and integral shape of the tradition.

If she is thus clothed in a sort of lunar light, and is in the main a reflection of Apollo upon earth, such we may probably consider Persephone in the Shades[251].

[251] See ‘Persephone’ in section iii.

Let us, however, consider what can be gathered from Homer as to the attributes of Diana.

This deity would appear to have been, according to him, a deity of universal worship. We may perhaps safely infer thus much from the single fact of her ministry of Death. She is also represented as extending her agency to Troy, where she taught Scamandrius to hunt[252]; probably to Crete, in the case of the daughters of Pandareos; she is invoked in Ithaca by Penelope, puts Ariadne to death in Dia, exercises a similar function for the women in Συρίη, sends the Calydonian boar for a defect of homage in Ætolia, and is familiarly mentioned in connection with the Greeks generally, while her place in the Theomachy may suffice to mark her as also a Pelasgian goddess. In most points, however, she partakes largely, as might be expected, of the characteristics of the ordinary deities of invention. Had she repeated all the chief notes of Apollo, and with any thing like an equal force, the question of traditional origin would perhaps have been more doubtful than it now is.

[252] Il. v. 49-52.

When she is invoked by Penelope, it is in connection with her share of the special ministry of death[253]. She is nowhere else made the object of prayer.

[253] Od. xx. 61.

It is her deep resentment at the omission of sacrifice which provokes her to send the Calydonian boar[254]. In the Fifth Iliad, she and her mother Latona appear as deities purely subsidiary to Apollo. He deposits Æneas in his temple: there, not in a temple of their own, Latona and Diana attend upon and heal him[255].

[254] Il. ix. 533-7.

[255] Il. v. 444-7.

In the Theomachy, she is treated with the same ignominy as Mars and Venus, but by Juno instead of Minerva. Her railing address to Apollo is conceived in the lower and not in the higher spirit (Il. xxi. 472-7).

She never assumes a general power, either over man in mind or body, or over outward nature.

She has no share in the general movement of either poem, and is introduced in the great majority of instances by way of allusion only.

Her near relation to Apollo gives a certain grandeur to her position: but the inventive elements of the representation greatly obscure and even partially overbear the traditional.

Her side in the Trojan war is to be explained by her relation to Apollo. In all other points she seems to be a goddess of associations more properly Greek, perhaps in consequence of their greater addiction to hunting.

In treating the Homeric Diana as a personage principally ancillary to Apollo, and equipped with reflections, or stray fragments, of prerogatives chiefly belonging to him, I do not attempt to foreclose the question what may have been the origin of her name, or whether she may be connected with any mythological original in the religions of the East or of Egypt.

Döllinger conceives that the union of Diana with Apollo was Greek, and that they were not originally in relation with one another; while he justly observes, that this deity, like Apollo, has a great and inexplicable diversity of function. She, like other deities of Greece, has been thought to represent the Astarte of the Syrians. Again, Herodotus[256] has given us most curious information respecting the gods of the Scythians, whom we have found to be related to the Pelasgi. They worship, he states, the Celestial Venus under the name of Artimpasa. This name, it has been ingeniously conjectured[257], is composed (1) of the name Mitra, which the Persians gave to Venus[258], and which reversed becomes Artim, and (2) of the Sanscrit _Bhas_, meaning _shine_, and thus corresponding with the Φοῖβος of Apollo, and the Γλαυκῶπις of Pallas: all of them being, as it were, shreds of the tradition fully represented in the Shechinah of the Jews, and the ‘Light’ of Saint John. This also corresponds with the cluster of golden epithets, the χρυσηλάκατος, χρυσήνιος, and χρυσόθρονος, which Homer applies to Diana: and the very feebleness of Diana in the Theomachy suggests that the Eastern prototype of Venus, the Mitra of the Persians, was originally no more than a degenerate derivation from a higher tradition, which found a more natural, but still only a partial, expression in the majestic and chaste, as well as beautiful, Artemis.

[256] Herod, iv. 59.

[257] Welsford on the English Language, chap. iii. p. 78.

[258] Herod, i. 131.

~_The Latona of Homer._~

We have next to consider the Homeric delineation of Latona, the mother of Apollo and of Diana.

It is scarcely possible to avoid being struck, on turning to this portraiture, with the contrast between the slightness of the outline and the real dignity of the features and position. This contrast, like the greater one relating to Apollo, seems to have its key in the traditional origin of the representation: and there is no one Homeric deity, whose case, when fully considered, can afford a more marked testimony to the hypothesis of a strong element of traditive theology in the religious system of the Poems.

Why has she a position so different from that of any other wife or concubine of Jupiter: such, for example, as Dione or Demeter?

Why is it so much elevated above that of any among them, except only Juno?

How comes she to have a son so incomparably superior in rank, in power, and in the affections of his father, to any child of Juno herself, the πρεσβὰ θεά?

Why, being thus great, is she wholly unfurnished with attributes or functions, either general or specific?

Why, on the other hand, does so much obscurity hang about her origin, and what are we to say as to her divinity, in answer to the question, whether it was original or acquired?

The name of Latona appears to have been a perpetual puzzle to the expounders of Greek mythology. It is taken to mean Night, which, combined with Day, produces the Sun[259]; or ‘obscure,’ or ‘concealed,’ as that from which issues the visible deity, the Sun in heaven. But surely these explanations can have no bearing upon the Homeric mythology, where it is matter of question even whether Apollo and the Sun have any mutual relations at all, and where it is quite clear that the personality of Apollo is far older and riper, as well as far higher and more comprehensive; which implies of necessity, that Latona must have been known, and must have held her place, quite apart from any relation to the Sun. An explanation of this kind is simply an indication, that the problem has not yet been solved.

[259] Döllinger Heid. u. Jud. p. 71. Smith’s Dict. art. Leto.

But now, if we presume Apollo to be the representative of the Messianic tradition, that the Seed of the woman should crush the serpent’s head, the state of the case is entirely changed. And the explanation of the name in particular, instead of being hopeless, becomes easy, and even auxiliary to the general hypothesis. For now Latona stands in the tradition as a person anterior to the whole Olympian mythology: a person for whose extraction that mythology does not and ought not to account. Its Jupiter and Juno are referred to a parentage, that of Κρόνος and Ῥέα, and through these perhaps afresh to Oceanus and Tethys as their ultimate source. Everything, again, that is connected with the genesis of the Olympian system, properly so called, is made to conform to anthropomorphous ideas: but here are two of its deities, one of them among its very greatest, who have a mother that forms part of the earliest known tradition respecting them, while that mother is herself without an origin. What could be more natural, than that a name should fasten itself upon her, simply importing that, illustrious as was her motherhood, the fountain-head of her own life and destiny was lost in oblivion? For it lay beyond the point from which all mythical knowledge was held to spring. A certain motherhood was known of her, and that was all.

Again, the mother of the Deliverer was to be a woman. But in the Greek mythology it could not be, that a woman should stand as the giver of life to one of its most august divinities. Yet the woman of the tradition could not be transferred from the tradition as a great substantive personage into the Greek mythology, because in the tradition she stood an unembellished figure, wholly without attributes. Hence invention would, on taking over the tradition, be at fault; and could not but present to us an ambiguous and inconsistent picture, such as now stands before us in the Latona of Homer.

Let us next set forth the facts regarding Latona, as they stand in the poems.

In the first place, then, her divinity is beyond all doubt; for she is one of those deities who take part in the war[260], and this although, almost alone among them, she has no office whatever to associate her with it, and no part to play in the conduct of it. She ranges herself on the side of the Trojans; apparently, like Diana, drawn in that direction by Apollo, the central and really important figure of the group. While Venus, who appears in the first enumeration, is omitted in the array[261] of deities for action, Latona has Mercury assigned to her for an antagonist. And, when the crisis comes, we observe in her case a marked instance of that care, with which Homer preserves her, like the greater traditive deities, from anything like discredit. Mercury declines the combat, on the ground that it is hard to fight against the wives of Jupiter; and tells her she is at liberty to announce that she has vanquished him. Whence has this pale and colourless figure such very high honour so jealously asserted for her[262]?

[260] Il. xx. 40.

[261] Ibid. 72.

[262] Il. xx. 497-501.

When Niobe, proud of her numerous offspring, taunts Latona as the mother of only two children, summary and awful punishment follows: the children are slain, the unhappy mother is turned to stone. Yet she herself takes no part in the vengeance, a fact remarkably in harmony with her place as defined by the primitive tradition of Holy Scripture. Of the three or four suffering figures in the Shades, only one has the cause of his punishment stated, and it is much the severest of all. It is Tityus, whose entrails are continually devoured by vultures, because he offered violence to Latona as she was going to the Pythian temple of her son.

When, in the Fourteenth Iliad, Jupiter recites the mothers of certain of his offspring, beginning with women and ending with goddesses, Latona appears in the latter category, after Ceres and before Juno: and, as the scale is an ascending one, she must clearly rank before the first and next to the last named deity.

There are, however, various indications that this had not always been so: but that, according to original tradition, she had been of the human order, and had undergone a sort of translation into the ranks of the Immortals.

The first of these is the taunt of Niobe. The boast of richer fecundity is natural in a human mother’s mouth, as against another mother reputed to be human[263]; but entirely strange and absurd, if we suppose it directed against a deity. Dione and Demeter have but one child each. Nor is there a marked difference in this respect between the Latona and the Juno of Homer; for Juno’s children are but two, or at most three[264].

[263] Il. xxiv. 608.

[264] I do not reckon the Εἰλιθυῖαι, who appear to be purely poetical and figurative daughters of Juno, like the Muses of Jupiter; and as Terror is the son of Mars. Il. xi. 270. 1. ii. 491. xiii. 299.

Next, we can account for the origin and parentage of all the great Olympian deities of Homer, with the single exception of Latona. She is no one’s daughter, no one’s sister: but is a wife (that also equivocally), and a mother only. When, indeed, we part company with Homer, the scene changes, and a father is found for her in the Hymns: she is the daughter, according to one reading, of Saturn,

κυδίστη θύγατερ μεγάλοιο Κρόνοιο[265].

[265] Hymn. ad Apoll. 62.

In Hesiod she is the daughter of a Titan: but even here she retains this mark of a most ancient tradition, that she is said to have been married to Jupiter before the great Juno[266]: though she comes after Metis, or Wisdom, the oldest of all his consorts; an order not at variance with the traditional ideas.

[266] Theogon. 918-21.

~_Her anomalous position in mythology._~

But there must have been some cause or process that brought her into the Homeric Olympus, an anomaly alike among mortals and Immortals. What could it have been, except an illustrious maternity, to account for her elevation, and at the same time her original womanhood to account for the blank in the descent and consanguinity, and for her total want of attributes?

It must be granted that there is a certain degree of resemblance between Latona and Dione: turning mainly upon this, that Dione seems to be in Olympus without either dignity or power, and simply as the vehicle, through which her daughter Venus was brought into existence. But then the want of basis is in her case immediately made evident by results. Even in Homer she is not among the gods of the Theomachy; nor is she named among the mothers in the Fourteenth Book; and Hesiod, though she is invoked in the suspected Proem of his Theogony, entirely passes her over in the body of it, and furnishes Venus with another origin. She remains all but a cipher ever after.

Again, the epithets attached to Latona are such as to leave her, and her alone among all deities of such dignity, wholly functionless, and also wholly inactive. I distinguish the two, because Juno has only a limited function, but she has power, and an immense activity. Latona has beauty and majesty, qualities which appertain to every goddess as such: she is καλλιπάρῃος, εὐπλόκαμος, καλλιπλόκαμος, χρυσοπλόκαμος, ἠΰκομος, κυδρὴ, πότνια, and ἐρικύδης: and we may observe in the more personal portion of these epithets how Homer, with his usual skill, has avoided placing her in any kind of rivalry with Juno, who is usually praised for her eyes and arms, not her cheeks and hair. But they all leave her void of purpose; and she must stand as a sheer anomaly, unless there is some better explanation of her being and place in mythology, than mythology itself can supply.

~_Her relation to primitive Tradition._~

Even in the later tradition, Latona never gains a definite office: she remains all along without any meaning or purpose intrinsic to herself: she shines only in the reflected glory of her offspring, and is commonly worshipped only in union with them[267]. If therefore it has been shown, that the mythological character of Apollo is clearly the vehicle of the ancient tradition, known to us in the Book of Genesis, respecting the Seed of the woman, it seems plain that in Latona is represented the woman from whom that Seed was to spring.

[267] Smith’s Dict., art. Leto.

I do not presume to enter into the question whether we ought to consider that the Latona of Homer represents the Blessed Virgin, who was divinely elected to be the actual mother of our Lord; or rather our ancient mother Eve, whose seed He was also in a peculiar sense to be.

So far as personal application is concerned, the same arguments might be used upon the subject, as upon the interpretation of the original promise recorded in Scripture: and the question is one rather of the interpretation of Scripture, than of Homer. The relation which appears to me to be proved from the text of the poems, is between the deity called Latona and the fifteenth verse of the third chapter of Genesis. As to all beyond this, I should suppose it perhaps more just to regard her as a typical person, exhibiting through womanhood the truth of our Blessed Lord’s humanity, than as the mere representative of any individual personage.

Backward as is the position of Latona in the practical religion of Homer, the universal recognition of the deity is sufficiently established: on the one hand by her place among the deities of the Trojan party; on the other, by the punishment of Niobe for an offence against her either in Greece, or at the least in a recognised Greek legend; by the punishment of Tityus; and by her inclusion in the Catalogue of the Fourteenth Iliad.

~_Her slightness of action._~

To this very remarkable deity no utterance of any kind is ever ascribed by Homer, and with, I think, three small exceptions, nothing of personal and individual action. Even when she takes her place among the deities in the array of battle, it is not said that she stood up against Mercury, but simply that Mercury stood up against her[268].

[268] Il. xx. 72.

The three cases are as follows. First, when he makes over to her the victory in waiving the fight, she offers no reply; but simply picks up her daughter Diana’s bow and arrows, and goes after her, apparently with the intention of offering her comfort. The next action[269] attributed to her is this: that when Apollo[270] has carried the bruised and stunned Æneas into his temple on Pergamus, Latona and Diana tend him there. Thus both of these actions exhibit her in strict ideal subordination, so to speak, to one of her children, as though by tradition she existed only for them. But the second is especially remarkable, and alike illustrative of the traditional basis of the Mother and of the Son.

[269] Il. xxi. 496-504.

[270] Il. v. 445. _et seqq._

In the first place, as it appears to me, there can hardly be a circumstance more singular, according to the principles of the Greek mythology, than that any one deity should be introduced as acting, not in her own temple, but in the temple of another. Such however is here the case with Latona and Diana in the temple of Apollo.

Next, they are acting as purely ministerial to him. They do not enter into the fray: it is he who has been there, and who, having deposited Æneas, immediately prosecutes the affairs of the battle-field, while they, as his satellites, give effect to his purpose in setting about the restoration of the disabled warrior.

Lastly, the significance of this action is raised to the highest point, when we recollect that this is a mother executing the design of her son. Latona’s action in the Twenty-first Book, like that of Dione with Venus, can be accounted for by her maternal character. But there is no case in the Homeric poems besides this, where we see a parent-god thus acting ministerially in the execution of the plans of his or her offspring. The primeval tradition, once admitted as the basis of the mythological group, furnishes us with the key to what would otherwise be another great anomaly.

The third case is in entire harmony with the other two. Tityus, the son of Earth, is tortured in the nether world for having offered violence to Latona, and the crime was committed when she was on her way through Panopeus to Delphi. This was probably the route from Delos to that place: so that again the poet seems to represent Latona in close but subordinate connection with her son, by making her travel between the seats of his two already famous oracles.

Apollo, then, with Latona and Diana, forms a group; and the origin of the combination is to be sought in primitive tradition. It is not necessary to show that the personages thus associated maintained their association in all the religions of the East. I admit that we are not to suppose, that the idea of this combination passed direct from the patriarchs into Greece. The most natural place in which to seek for traces of it would be, in the religion of the Persians, anterior to the time of Homer. Unfortunately we have no accounts of it at any such date. But our failing to find these three deities in a company, or to find any germ which might have been developed into that company, in accounts later by probably five or six centuries at least, raises no presumption whatever against the hypothesis that we may owe the representation, as it stands in Homer, to historical derivation through the forefathers of the Hellic tribes, from some such period as that when, for example, Abraham dwelt in Ur of the Chaldees[271].

[271] Gen. xi. 31. Acts vii. 2.

~_The Iris of Homer._~

Iris, the messenger goddess, the last, and also by much the least important of the personages to whom I ascribe a traditive origin, is perhaps not the least clear in her title to it.

Her title to rank as one of the deities of the ordinary Olympian assemblage is not subject to doubt. It depends partly on the fact that she is always at hand there. But it is established more distinctly still by the passage, which represents her as carrying to the palace of Zephyr the prayer of Achilles. She finds the Winds engaged in a banquet, and they eagerly solicit her to sit and feast with them. She answers them, like one desirous to escape from second-rate into first-rate company, to the effect that she has not time: the Ethiopians are just about supplying the greater gods with a banquet from their hecatombs; and she must repair to that quarter accordingly, as otherwise she will lose her share of the offerings[272].

[272] Il. xxiii. 198-212.

With respect to her position generally, we have no mark of her being foreign; and all the traditive deities, it may be observed, are sufficiently, though not exclusively national. Again, we have no mark of her being recent; on the contrary, she is without parents, and this, though not conclusive, is a sign to the opposite effect.

Iris has no original action whatever, but is simply a willing servant of other deities; nor does she disdain spontaneously to officiate on behalf of a distinguished human object of their favour, like Achilles[273]. Only once have we an account of her bringing an order without the name of the sender: it is when she appears to Helen, and exhorts her to repair to the Wall[274]. She is not, however, said even in this place to act on her own account; and we ought probably to understand that, according to the general rule, she comes from Jupiter. It is added, that she inspired Helen with a longing sentiment towards her former husband and country, but this, as is most likely, is meant simply to describe the effect of her words in the ordinary manner of their operation on the understanding. This ancillary character of Iris is exactly what she would bear, if her origin really lay in the primitive tradition of the rainbow.

[273] Il. xxiii. 198-212.

[274] Il. iii. 121.

But what seems decisively to establish her relation to that tradition is, that she is firmly connected in Homer with two things that have in themselves no connection whatever, and between which that ancient tradition is the only link.

In the first place, her identity of name is the witness to her original connection with the rainbow[275]: which, however, as a standing and ordinary phenomenon of nature, did not bear, apart from positive appointment, in any manner the character of a messenger: and hence we find that by disintegration the two ideas had been entirely separated before the time of Homer, and the name itself is the only remaining witness in the poems to their having been at some former period associated. The function of the messenger was kept in action by the occasions of the Olympian family and polity. In this manner, as the stronger of the two ideas, it held its ground, and took possession of the personal Iris, while the rainbow, though still conceived of as a sign to mortals[276], appears to have been regarded as separate.

[275] Il. xi. 27.

[276] Il. xi. 29.

Of the character of the messenger we find that Iris had so completely become the model, that her name, only modified into Iros, is given to Arnæus, the ribald and burly beggar of the Odyssey, only because he was a go-between, or errand-carrier:

οὕνεκ’ ἀπαγγέλλεσκε κιὼν, ὅτε πού τις ἀνώγοι[277].

[277] Od. xviii. 7.

The hypothesis, then, of traditional origin is the key, and the only key, to the position of the Homeric Iris.

~_The Atè of Homer._~

Before quitting the precinct of the primeval tradition discoverable in Homer, we have yet one very remarkable group of impersonations to consider, that in which the goddess Ἄτη is the leading figure. Commonly regarded as meaning Mischief, the word is not capable of being fully rendered in English: but Guile is its primary idea, in the train of which come the sister notions of Folly and Calamity.

Ἄτη both wishes and suggests all ill to mortals; but she does not seem in Homer to have any power of injuring them, except through channels, which have been wholly or partially opened to her by their own volition.

The Ἄτη of the later Greeks is Calamity simply, with a shadow of Destiny hanging in the distance; as in the magnificent figure of the lion’s cub in Æschylus[278]. But the word never bears in Homer the sense of calamity coming simply from without. This is evident even from the large and general description, where she appears in company with the Λιταί[279]. Vigorous and nimble, she ranges over the whole earth for mischief. After her, slowly lag the Prayers or Λιταὶ, honoured however in being, like her, daughters of Jupiter. These are limping, decrepit, and unable to see straight before them. The leading idea of Ἄτη is not force, but cunning. She is the power that tempts and misleads men to their own cost or ruin, as they afterwards find out. Nay, she tempts the deity also: for she beguiles even Jupiter himself[280] when Hercules is about to be born, and induces him thoughtlessly to promise what will, through Juno’s craft, overturn his own dearly cherished plans. For this excess of daring, however, she herself suffers. Jupiter seizes her by the hair, and hurls her from Olympus, apparently her native seat. Thenceforward she can only exercise her function among men; who, when they have yielded to the seduction, and tasted the ashes under the golden fruit, at length set about repentance or prayer:

[278] Æsch. Agam. 696-715.

[279] Il. ix. 499-514.

[280] Il. xix. 95 seqq.

All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost![281]

[281] Tempest, I. 1.

Now though the impersonation of Atè in Homer is one of the indeterminate class, it is surely a mistake to treat it as representing the mere poetical incorporation of an abstract idea. On the contrary, we seem to find in it the old tradition of the Evil One as the Tempter; and it may be said that the word Temptress would best represent the Homeric idea of Ἄτη. In this sense it will supply a consistent meaning to the fine passage in the speech of Phœnix: for we are swift, so says the Poet, to fall into temptation, and to offend, ingenious only in not seeing our fault, and covering it with excuses: but slow, and like the half-hearted, decrepit Λιταί, when we have to make our entreaties for pardon, and to think of restitution and amendment. Yet as even the gods listen to their entreaties, ‘so,’ says Phœnix, ‘shouldst thou, O Achilles: and if thou dost not, then mayest yet thyself fall.’ But if Ἄτη meant only misfortune, the passage loses all its harmony, and even becomes absurd; for surely none will say that men are slow to discern adversity, or to offer petitions, wherever they have a prospect of being heard, for relief from it.

There is no passage which appears to me more characteristic of the true distinctive character of the Homeric Ἄτη, than that in which Dolon confesses his folly[282]:

[282] Il. x. 390.

πολλῇσίν μ’ ἄτῃσι παρὲκ νόον ἤγαγεν Ἕκτωρ.

Here we have Hector, the tempter: ἄται, the temptation: νόος, the sound mind, from which temptation diverted the self-duped simpleton: ἤγαγεν, expressive of the medium, namely, through volition, and not by force.

The elements combined in the idea of the Homeric Ἄτη, and the conditions of her action, may be presented together as follows:

1. She takes the reins of the understanding and conduct of a man.

2. She effects this not by force from without, but through the medium of his own will and inward consent, whether unconscious or express.

3. Under her dominion he commits offences against the moral law, or the law of prudence.

4. These offences are followed by his retributive sufferings.

The function of the Tempter is here represented with great precision; but two essential variations have come to be perceptible in the idea taken as a whole.

The first, that this Ἄτη is herself sometimes prompted or sent by others, as by Ἐρίνυς, (Od. xv. 234,) or by her with Ζεὺς and Μοῖρα, as in Il. xix. 87. And accordingly she too is a daughter, nay, the eldest daughter, of Jupiter himself[283].

[283] Il. xix. 91.

The second variation is this: that offences against the mere law of prudence find their way into precisely the same category with sins; or, in other words, the true idea of sin had been lost. Ἄτη the person, and ἄτη the effect, are, moreover, frequently blended by the Poet.

Among the principal Ἄται of Homer are those,

1. Of Jupiter, Il. xix. 91-129.

2. Of Dolon, Il. x. 391; leading him to accept the proposal of Hector.

3. Of Melampus, Od. xv. 233, 4, causing him to undertake an enterprise beyond his means on account of the daughter of Neleus.

All of which are against the law of prudence and forethought.

4. Of Agamemnon, Il. xix. 88, 134-8.

5. Of Paris, Il. vi. 356, xxiv. 28.

6. Of Helen, Od. iv. 261. xxiii. 223.

7. Of manslaughter, Il. xxiv. 480.

8. Of the drunken centaur Eurytion, who had his ears and nose cut off for his excesses, Od. xxi. 296-302.

In one place only of Homer, ἄτη seems to mean calamity not imputable to the sufferer’s fault, further than by some slight want of vigilance. This is the ἄτη charged upon Ulysses, when his companions destroy the oxen of the Sun, Od. xii. 372. At least he had no further share in that matter than that, by going to sleep, he left his comrades to act for themselves.

The long continued misconduct of the Suitors is never described as their ἄτη: probably because the word properly signifies a particular temptation followed by a particular act, rather than a continued course of action.

This, again, serves the more closely to associate Ἄτη with the primitive tradition of the Fall of Man.

The higher form of human wickedness, which is attended with deliberate and obstinate persistence in wrong, is not ἄτη but ἀτασθαλίη. Such is the wickedness of Ægisthus and of the Suitors; such also that of the Giants. The same phrase is applied to the crew of Ulysses, who devoured the oxen of the Sun[284]: and this appears to conform to the view taken of their offence in the poems, however anomalous that view itself may be.

[284] Od. i. 7.

~_Other traditions of the Evil One._~

I will now gather into one view the dispersed fragments of tradition concerning the Evil One which seem to be discernible in Homer.

1. Ἄτη is the first, and the one which comes nearest to presenting a general outline.

2. A second is found in Κρόνος[285], who aims at the destruction of Godhead in its supreme representatives, and is thrust down to Tartarus by Jupiter. And we may here observe an important distinction.

[285] Il. xiv. 203. viii. 478. where Iapetus is joined with Κρόνος. Of him we have no other mention in Homer.

Some persons, like Tityus, offend against a particular person who had taken a place in the Olympian Court; or else, apparently like Orion, offend the gods in general by their presumption. They are punished in the Shades. But those who have aimed at the dethronement or destruction of Godhead itself are in the far deeper darkness of Tartarus[286]. I suggest this as a possible explanation of the double place of punishment; which is otherwise apparently a gross solecism in the Homeric system.

[286] Il. viii. 13-18.

3. To the latter class of offenders belong the Titans, who most pointedly represent the element of Force in the ancient traditions, while Ἄτη embodies that of Guile.

These are the θεοὶ ὑποταρτάρεοι, or the ἐνέρτεροι, or ἔνερθε θεοὶ, who form the infernal court of Κρόνος; Κρόνον ἄμφις ἐόντες (Il. xiv. 274, 9. xv. 225). They are evidently themselves in a state of penal suffering; but they must also have the power of inflicting the severest punishment on some other offenders; for they, and not Aides or Persephone, seem to be the persons called to be witnesses of the solemn oath for the avoidance of perjury, taken by Juno in the Fourteenth Book[287].

[287] Il. xiv. 273, 278.

4. Of these Titans two are apparently named in the persons of Otus and Ephialtes, children of Neptune.

5. To the same class, in all probability, belong the Giants, led by Eurymedon, and born of the same mythological father. Od. vii. 58.

6. It is likely that Typhoeus may have been of the same company; for although he is not stated to be in Tartarus, yet his position corresponds with it in the essential feature of being under the earth. (Il. ii. 782. viii. 14). Homer does not indeed expressly say, that Otus and Ephialtes were Titans, nor that Eurymedon was of the same band; nor yet that the Titans were rebels against heaven. But his images are so combined round certain points as to make this matter of safe and clear inference.

For the Titans are in Tartarus, and are with and attached to Κρόνος, whom Jupiter thrust down thither. And the giants under Eurymedon, for their mad audacity, are driven to perdition[288]. Lastly, Otus and Ephialtes, who made war upon heaven, and whom Apollo quelled, not appearing, like their mother Iphimedea, in the Shades of the Eleventh Odyssey, can only be in Tartarus[289].

[288] Od. vii. 60.

[289] Od. xi. 305-20.

From the scattered traditions we may collect and combine the essential points. In Otus and Ephialtes the rebellion is clearly stated, and in Eurymedon it is manifestly implied. In the Titans, who are called θεοὶ, and in their association with Κρόνος, as also in the high parentage of the others, we have the celestial origin of the rebels. In the hurling down of Κρόνος to Tartarus, we have the punishment which they all are enduring, immediately associated with an act of supreme retribution.

7. Elsewhere will be found a notice of the singular relation, which may be traced between Neptune and the tradition of the Evil One. This relation is mythological in its basis: but it seems to proceed upon the tradition, that the Evil One was next to the Highest.

8. A more recent form of the tradition concerning the great war in heaven seems to be found in the revolt of the Immortals of Olympus, headed by Juno, Neptune, and Minerva, against Jupiter, which was put down by Briareus or Ægæon of the hundred hands.

Who this Ægæon was, we can only conjecture: he is nowhere else named in Homer. From his having a double name, one in use among gods, and the other among mortals, it might be conjectured that the immediate source of this tradition was either Egypt, or some other country having like Egypt an hieratic and also a demotic tongue. In its substance, it can hardly be other than a separate and dislocated form of the same idea, according to which we see Apollo handed down as the deliverer of Olympus from rebellion. The expression that _all_ men (Il. i. 403.) call him Ægæon, tends to universalize him, and thus to connect him with Apollo. He is also (v. 403.) a son of Jupiter, avowedly superior to him in strength:

ὁ γὰρ αὖτε βίῃ οὗ πατρὸς ἀμείνων.

~_Citations from Holy Scripture._~

It is perhaps worth while to notice the coincidence between the language of Homer as to the Giants, and that of the Books of the Ancient Scriptures. Homer says of Eurymedon[290],

[290] Od. vii. 59.

ὅς ποθ’ ὑπερθύμοισι Γιγάντεσσιν βασίλευεν·
ἀλλ’ ὁ μὲν ὤλεσε λαὸν ἀτάσθαλον, ὤλετο δ’ αὐτός.

Either the rebellion, or the punishment in hell, of a wicked gang under the name of Giants is referred to in the following passages of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha. The allusion is not made evident, as to the former set of passages, in the Authorized Version; I therefore quote from the Septuagint or the Vulgate.

1. Job xxvi. 5. _Ecce gigantes gemunt sub aquis, et qui habitant cum eis._ Vulgate. μὴ γίγαντες μαιωθήσονται ὑποκάτωθεν ὕδατος καὶ τῶν γειτόνων αὐτοῦ; LXX.

2. Prov. ii. 18. ἔθετο γὰρ παρὰ τῷ θανάτῳ τὸν οἶκον αὐτῆς, καὶ παρὰ τῷ ἅδῃ μετὰ τῶν γηγένων τοὺς ἄξονας αὐτῆς. LXX.

3. Prov. xxi. 16. _Vir, qui erraverit a viâ doctrinæ, in cœtu gigantum commorabitur._ Vulg. ἀνὴρ πλανώμενος ἐξ ὅδου δικαιοσύνης ἐν συναγωγῇ γιγάντων ἀναπαύσεται. LXX.

See Gen. vi. 4, 5: in which we perhaps see the original link between the Giants, and the rebellion of the fallen angels described by St. Jude, ver. 6: ‘And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.’

We have also the corresponding declaration of St. Peter: ‘God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; and spared not the old world[291].’

[291] St. Pet. ii. 2. 4. 5.

Again, in the Apocryphal Books.

1. Wisdom xiv. 6. ‘In the old time also, when the proud giants perished, the hope of the world, governed by thy hand, escaped in a weak vessel.’ Auth. Version.

2. Ecclus. xvi. 7. ‘He was not pacified toward the old giants, who fell away in the strength of their foolishness.’ Auth. Version.

3. Baruch iii. 26, 8. ‘There were giants famous from the beginning.... But they were destroyed, because they had no wisdom, and perished through their own foolishness.’ Auth. Version.

We thus appear to find in Homer many displaced fragments of the old traditions of the Bible with respect to the Evil One. In the later Greek and the Roman literature, the traditions on the same subject had almost entirely lost their likeness to their original. The figure of Ἄτη, and the idea of spiritual danger to man through guile tempting him extrinsically but inwardly, entirely disappears. There remains only the recollection of a contest waged by brute force, and a solitary remnant of forgotten truth in the fame still adhering to Apollo, that he had been the deliverer and conqueror, who in the critical hour vindicated the supremacy of heaven. In the time of Horace even this recollection had become darkened and confused.

From the Homeric traditions of the Evil One and the fallen angels, we may properly pass to those of a future state, which involves, partially at least, the idea of retribution.

~_The Future State in Homer._~

The representations of the future state in Homer are perhaps the more interesting, because it may be doubted whether they are, logically, quite consistent with one another. For this want of consistency becomes of itself a negative argument in support of the belief that, as they are not capable of being referred to any one generative idea or system, they may be distorted copies or misunderstood portions of primitive truth.

Another reason for referring them to this origin appears to be found in their gradual deterioration after the time of Homer. In his theology, future retribution appears as a real sanction of the moral law. In the later history, and generally in the philosophy of Paganism, it has lost this place: practically, a phantasmagoria was substituted for what had been at least a subjective reality: and the most sincere and penetrating minds thought it absurd to associate anything of substance with the condition of the dead[292]. The moral ideas connected with it appear before us in descending series; and thus they point backwards to the remotest period for their origin and their integrity.

[292] Arist. Eth. I. 10, 11.

Lastly, it would appear that the traditions themselves present to us features of the unseen world, such, in a certain degree, as Divine Revelation describes.

That world appears to us, in Homer, in three divisions.

First there is the Elysian plain, apparently under the government of Rhadamanthus, at which Menelaus, as the favoured son-in-law of Jupiter, is to arrive. It is, physically at least, furnished with all the conditions of repose and happiness.

Next there is the region of Aides or Aidoneus, the ordinary receptacle even of the illustrious dead, such as Achilles, Agamemnon, and the older Greek heroes of divine extraction. Hither, if we may trust the Twenty-fourth Odyssey, are carried the Suitors; and here is found the insignificant Elpenor (Od. xi. 51).

Thirdly, there is the region of Tartarus, where Κρόνος and Ἰάπετος reign. This is as far below Aides, as the heaven is upwards from the earth[293].

[293] Il. viii. 16, 479.

There appears to be some want of clearness in the division between the second region and the third as to their respective offices, and between the second and the first as to their respective tenants.

The realm of Aides is, in general, not a place of punishment, but of desolation and of gloom[294]. The shade of Agamemnon weeps aloud with emotion and desire to clasp Ulysses: and Ulysses in vain attempts to console Achilles, for having quitted ‘the warm precincts of the cheerful day.’ But though their state is one of sadness, neither they nor the dead who are named there are in general under any judicial infliction. It is stated, indeed, that Minos[295] administers justice among them; but we are not told whether, as seems most probable, this is in determining decisively the fate of each, or whether he merely disposes, as he might have done on earth, of such cases as chanced to arise between any of them for adjudication.

[294] Od. xi. 391, 488.

[295] V. 569.

The only cases of decided penal infliction in the realm of Aides are those of Tityus, Sisyphus, and Tantalus. Castor and Pollux, who appear here, are evident objects of the favour of the gods[296]. Hercules, like Helen of the later tradition, is curiously disintegrated.

[296] Od. xi. 302-4.

His εἴδωλον meets Ulysses, and speaks as if possessed of his identity: but he himself (αὐτὸς) is enjoying reward among the Immortals. The latter of these images represents the laborious and philanthropic side of the character attributed to him, the former the reckless and brutal one. Again it might be thought that the reason for the advancement of Menelaus to Elysium, while Castor and Pollux belong to the under-world, was the very virtuous character of that prince. He is, however, not promoted thither for his virtues, but for being the son-in-law of Jupiter by his marriage with Helen. And thus again, the son-in-law of Jupiter is, as such, placed higher than his sons.

The proper and main business of Tartarus is to serve as a place of punishment for deposed and condemned Immortals. There were Iapetos and Κρόνος, there the Titans[297]: there probably Otus and Ephialtes, who not only wounded Mars but assaulted Olympus[298]: there too, were Eurymedon and the Giants, who perished by their ἀτασθάλιαι. Thither it is that Jupiter threatens to hurl down offensive and refractory divinities[299]. Direct rebellion against heaven seems to be the specific offence which draws down the sentence of relegation to Tartarus. Still in the Third Iliad Agamemnon invokes certain deities, as the avengers of perjury upon man[300];

[297] Il. xiv. 274, 9.

[298] Il. v. Od. xi. 313.

[299] Il. v. 897, 8. viii. 10-17. 401-6.

[300] Il. iii. 278. cf. xiv. 274, 9.

καὶ οἱ ὑπένερθε καμόντας
ἀνθρώπους τίνυσθον, ὅτις κ’ ἐπίορκον ὀμόσσῃ.

It is not clear whether this passage implies that all perjurors are punished in Tartarus; or whether Aidoneus, Persephone, and the Erinues are the subterraneous deities here intended: but as the Titans are elsewhere only mentioned in express connection with Tartarus, and from the description of the Erinues in Il. xix. 259, I incline to the latter opinion.

On the whole, then, there is some confusion between these compartments, so to speak, of the invisible world. The realm of Aidoneus seems to partake, in part, of the character both of Tartarus and of the Elysian plain. In common with the former, it includes persons who were objects of especial divine favour. In common with Tartarus, it is for some few, at least, a scene of positive punishment.

Still, if we take the three according to their leading idea, they are in substantial correspondence with divine revelation. There is the place of bliss, the final destination of the good. There is the place of torment, occupied by the Evil One and his rebellious companions: and there is an intermediate state, the receptacle of the dead. Here, as might be expected, the resemblance terminates; for as there is no selection for entrance into the kingdom of Aides, so there is no passage onwards from it. We need the less wonder at the too comprehensive place it occupies, relatively to the places of reward and punishment proper, in the Homeric scheme, when we remember what a tendency to develop itself beyond all bounds, the simple primitive doctrine of the intermediate state has been made to exhibit, in a portion of the Christian Church.

A further element of indistinctness attaches to the invisible world of Homer, if we take into view the admission of favoured mortals to Olympus; a process of which he gives us instances, as in Ganymedes and Hercules. In a work of pure invention it is unlikely that Heaven, Elysium, and the under-world would all have been represented as receptacles of souls in favour with the Deity. But some primitive tradition of the translation of Enoch may account for what would otherwise stand as an additional anomaly.

Upon the whole, the Homeric pictures of the prolongation of our individual existence beyond the grave; the continuance in the nether world of the habits and propensities acquired or confirmed in this; and the administration in the infernal regions of penalties for sin; all these things, though vaguely conceived, stand in marked contrast with the far more shadowy, impersonal, and, above all, morally neutral pictures of the invisible and future world, which alone were admitted into the practical belief of the best among the Greek philosophers. We are left to presume that the superior picture owed its superiority to the fact that it was not of man’s devising, as it thus so far exceeded what his best efforts could produce.

~_Sacrificial tradition in Homer._~

The nature, prevalence, and uniformity of sacrifice, should be regarded as another portion of the primeval inheritance, which, from various causes, was perhaps the best preserved of all its parts among nations that had broken the link of connection with the source.

Of the sabbatical institution, which the Holy Scripture appears to fix at the creation of man, we find no trace in Homer. But it is easy to perceive that this highly spiritual ordinance was one little likely to survive the rude shocks and necessities of earthly life, while it could not, like sacrifice, derive a sustaining force from appearing to confer upon the gods an absolute gift, profitable to them, and likely to draw down their favour in return.

Those who feel inclined to wonder at this disappearance of the sabbath from the record may do well to remember, that on the shield of Achilles, which represents the standing occasions of life in all its departments, there is no one scene which represents any observances simply religious. The religious element, though corrupted, was far from being expelled out of common life; on the contrary, the whole tissue of it was pervaded by that element; but it was in a combined, not in a separate, and therefore not in a sabbatical form.

And again, in order to appreciate the unlikelihood that such a tradition as that of the sabbath would long survive the severance from Divine Revelation in this wintry world, we have only to consider how rapidly it is forgotten, in our own time, by Christians in heathen lands, or by those Christian settlers who are severed for the time at least from civilization, and whose energies are absorbed in a ceaseless conflict with the yet untamed powers of nature.

SECT. III.

_The inventive Element of the Homeric Theo-mythology._

I come now to that mass of Homeric deities, who are either wholly mythological, or so loaded with mythological features, that their traditive character is depressed, and of secondary importance.

_Jupiter._