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Greek & Roman Mythology
« on: August 04, 2019, 04:25:23 PM »
https://archive.org/details/mythologyofallra11gray_0/page/n10


THE MYTHOLOGY OF ALL RACES

Volume I
GREEK AND ROMAN





PLATE I

Aphrodite the Mother

On Aphrodite's left arm originally rested an infant,
the fingers of whose little hand may still be seen on the
drapery of its mother's bosom. The goddess is look-
ing straight before her, not, however, with her vision
concentrated on a definite object, but rather abstract-
edly, as if serenely proud of her motherhood. She
seems to represent here that special development of
the earth goddess who typified the kindly, fostering
care of the soil, and reminds one of certain Asiatic
images of the divine mother and child. From a
marble statue of the fourth or third century b.c.^
found on the Greek mainland, and now in the Royal
Ontario Museum of Archaeology, Toronto (photo-
graph). See pp. 196^.




THE MYTHOLOGY
OF ALL RACES

IN THIRTEEN VOLUMES

LOUIS HERBERT GRAY, A.M., PH.D., Editor
tSEORGE FOOT MOORE, A.M., D.D.y LL.D., Consulting Editor

GREEK AND ROMAN

BY

WILLIAM SHERWOOD FOX, A.M., PH.D.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF CLASSICS
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

VOLUME I




BOSTON

MARSHALL JONES COMPANY

M DCCCC XVI



Copyright, 1916
Bt Marshall Jones Company



Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
AU rights reserved

Printed June, 1916



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OV AlfESICA BT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

B0X7ND BY THE BOSTON BOOKBINDING COMPANY



 



 



TO THE MEMORY

OF

HARRY LANGFORD WILSON

SCHOLAR • TEACHER • FRIEND



 



 



 



 



CONSULTING EDITOR'S PREFACE

THERE are many good books on the mythology of par-
ticular peoples or races, ancient and modern, and much
material accessible in books of travel and works on ethnology
and religion; for classical antiquity excellent dictionaries of
mythology exist. There are also books of narrower or wider
range on comparative mythology, besides many in which
myth and custom have been pressed into the service of theories
of society, civilization, and religion, or are adduced for the
illustration of art and archaeology. But a comprehensive
collection by competent scholars of myths from all quarters
of the earth and all ages has not hitherto been attempted;
for several important parts of the field, no satisfactory works
exist in English, while in some there is none in any language.
On the value of an undertaking like the Mythology of All
Races J therefore, no words need be spent.

The intrinsic interest of the subject is very great; for better
than almost anything else myths reveal men's first notions
about their world and the powers at work in it, and the rela-
tions between men and those powers. They show what things
in their surroundings early engaged men's attention; what
things seemed to them to need explanation; and how they
explained them.

For a myth is commonly an explanation of something, in
the form of a story — what happened once upon a time, or
what repeats itself from day to day — and in natural myths,
as distinct from the invented myths of philosophers and poets,
the story is not the artificial vesture of an idea but its spon-
taneous expression, not a fiction but a self-evident fact. The
student of the mind of man in its uniformity and its varia-



 



 



viii CONSULTING EDITOR'S PREFACE

tions therefore finds in mythology a great fund of instructive
material. A comprehensive collection like the present lends
itself also to comparative study of single myths or systems of
myth among different and widely remote peoples, and this
use of the volumes will be facilitated by a suitable analytical
index.

It is one of the merits of this collection that it is made for
its own sake, with no theory to maintain or illustrate. The
contributors have been given free hand to treat their subjects
by such methods as may be best adapted to the nature of the
sources and the peculiarities of the mythology itself, without
any attempt to impose upon either the material or the writers
a schematic plan.

The names of the contributors are a sufficient guarantee of
the thoroughness and trustworthiness of their work, while the
general editor is himself a scholar of wide attainments in this
field. The volumes will be amply illustrated, not for the sake
of making picture books, but for the legitimate purposes of
illustration — a feature which will add much to the useful-
ness as well as to the attractiveness of the series. Taken all in
all, therefore, the Mythology of All Races may safely be pro-
nounced one of the most important enterprises of this age of
co-operative scholarship,

GEORGE FOOT MOORE.

Harvard UinvERsmr
March 20, 1916.



 



 



EDITOR'S PREFACE

THE theme of mythology is of perennial interest, and,
more than this, it possesses a value that is very real. It
is a document and a record — existing not merely in the dim
past, but in the living present — of man's thought, of his
ceaseless endeavour to attain that very real happiness which,
as Vergil tells us, arises from "knowledge of the causes of
things.*' Even in his most primitive stages of development
man finds himself dwelling in a world filled with phenomena
that to him are strange, sometimes friendly, often hostile.
Why are these things so? Rightly mankind perceives that a
phenomenon is not a Thing in Itself, an Absolute, but that it
is an effect, the result of a cause. Now, the immediate cause
may often be found; but then it will be seen that this cause is
itself only a result of an anterior cause; and so, step by step,
the search for ultimate Cause proceeds. Thus mythology is
a very real phase — perhaps the most important primitive
phase — of that eternal quest of Truth which ever drives us
on, though we know that in its full beauty it may never be
revealed to mortal eye nor heard by ear of man — that quest
more precious than meat or raiment — that quest which we
may not abandon if we will still be men.

Mythology is not, then, a thing of mere academic interest;
its value is real — real to you and to me. It is the history of
the thought of early man, and of primitive man today. In it
we may find much to tell us how he lived, and how he had
lived in the ages of which his myths recount. As affording us
materials for a history of civilization mythology is of inestim-
able value. We know now that history is something more than



 



 



X EDITOR'S PREFACE

a matter of dates and events. "Magna Charta was signed by
King John at Runnimede in 121 5." What of it, if that be all?
The exact words of the document, the particular monarch who
signed it, the precise spot, the specific date are of no worth
in themselves. The real historical question is — What were the
causes which led the English Barons, at a certain point in the
development of the British Nation, to compel the King to sanc-
tion a document abridging the Royal prerogatives; and what
have been the consequences, not merely to the subsequent evo-
lution of the British Constitution, but to all States and Colonies
thereby affected? So, too, we read mythology, not only for
its specific statements — its legends of gods and of heroes, its
theories of the world, and its attempts to solve the mystery of
the destiny of each and every individual — but also, with a
wider purview, for the light which it sheds upon the infancy
and the childhood of the race to which we — you who read
and I who write — belong.

Science; has mythology aught to do with that? Assuredly,
yes. Mythology is science in its infancy. Does the geologist
seek to determine how the earth came into being, how the
mountains and the lakes were formed; does the astronomer
essay to know the stars and their natures; do the zoologist and
the botanist endeavour to explain why animals and trees are
as they are — the maker of myth does even the same. The
scientist today is the lineal descendant of the myth-maker of
olden days. To say this is to honour both alike — both, with
all the light at their command, have sought, and ever seek,
the Truth. The hypotheses of the myths, do they differ in
principle from the hypotheses of science? We think not.
There is no real scientist who does not know that the hypotheses
with which he needs must work and which seem thus far in-
fallible in providing explanations for all phenomena in his field
may some day be modified or even utterly destroyed by new
discoveries. The Ptolemaic Theory is gone, the Atomic Theory
is questioned. But no sane man will for that reason condemn



 



 



EDITOR'S PREFACE xi

hypotheses in totOy neither will he despise those who, in their
day, held hypotheses then deemed irrefutable.

The connexion of mythology with religion is obvious, yet a
word of caution is needed here. Mythology is not synony-
mous with religion, but only a part of it. Religion consists
of at least three parts — the attitude of soul, which is religion
par excellence; the outward act of worship, which is ritual;
and the scientific explanation, which — in the very highest and
noblest sense of the term — is myth; and these three — which
we may call the attitude of soul, body, and mind — go to-
gether to make religion. Throughout our study of mythology
we must bear constantly in mind that we are dealing with
only one feature of religion — its causal aspect. We must
not take the part for the whole, else we shall be one-sided and
unjust in our appreciation of religion as a whole.

One attitude of mind is absolutely essential in reading my-
thology — sympathy — and almost as important a requisite
is that, while reading it, its premisses must be granted.
If we approach mythology with the preconception that it is
false or nonsensical or trivial, it will be but waste of time to
read it; indeed it will be better never to have read it, for read-
ing in such a spirit will only embitter. It is, perhaps, not
suflBciently recognized how important a factor one's attitude
of sympathy is, not merely in regard to religion or psychology
or philosophy, or any other "mental and moral science," but
also toward the "exact sciences." If, for example, I make up
my mind that spectral analysis is utterly impossible, the dis-
covery of a new element in the gaseous emanation of a distant
planet by such analysis will be to me nothing but folly. If,
again, I reject the mathematical concept of infinity, which
I have never seen, and which cannot be weighed or measured,
then I shall of course deny that parallel lines meet in infinity;
you cannot give me the precise location of infinity, and, be-
sides, all parallel lines that I have ever seen are equidistant at
all points from each other. This is a reductio ad ahsurdum of



 



 



xii EDITOR'S PREFACE

an attitude which is far too common in regard to mythology
and religion. This does not, of course, mean that we must
implicitly believe all that we read; but it does mean that we
should approach with kindly hearts. With reverence, then,
and with love we take up myths. We may smile, at times, at
their naivete; but we shall never sneer at them. Unblushing,
sometimes, we shall find them, and cruel; but it is the un-
modesty and the cruelty of the child. Myths may be moral
or un-moral; they are not immoral, and only a morbid mind
will see uncleanness in them.

No attempt has hitherto been made to collect the myths
of the entire human race into a single series. Yet this is not
so strange as it might appear at first. Scattered in many
volumes both old and new, and in periodicals of many kinds
and languages, it is an impossible task for one man to know
all myths, or to master more than one or two specific mythol-
ogies or a few special themes in mythology as a whole. It is
quite true that countless volumes have been written on the
myths of individual peoples and on special mythic themes,
but their assemblage into a single unit has not thus far been
accomplished. This is the purpose of the present series of the
Mythology of All RaceSj and this the reason for its being.
Herein it differs from all other collections of mythologies in
that the mythology of each race is not merely given a special
volume or half-volume of its own; but, since the series is an
organic entity — not a chance collection of monographs —
the mythology of an individual race is seen to form a coherent
part of mythology. Moreover, the mythology of one people
will not infrequently be found to cast light upon problems con-
nected with the mythic system of quite another people, whence
an accurate and a thorough understanding of any individual
mythology whatever demands an acquaintance with the mythic
systems of mankind as a whole. On the other hand, by thus
taking a broad survey, and by considering primarily the simple
facts — as presented chiefly by travellers, missionaries, and



 



 



EDITOR'S PREFACE xiii

anthropologists — we may hope to escape some of the pecu-
liar dangers which beset the study of mythology, especially
preconceived theories and prejudices, and the risk of taking
for aboriginal what is really borrowed and vice versa. We shall
advance no special theory of mythology which shall seek to
solve each and every problem by one and the same formula;
we shall aim to present the facts in the case — and the theories
may safely be trusted to take care of themselves, being then
wisely built on solid foundations.

We have not attempted to make an encyclopaedia of myth-
<^ogy, nor have we planned a mere reference book, which would
have been, in many ways, an easier task. We have had con-
stantly in mind not only the technical student — though he,
too, if the editor's own experience be any criterion, will learn
much — but the more general reader who desires breadth of
understanding, and who would know what the childhood of
our race has thought of the mysteries of nature and of life,
and how it has endeavoured to resolve them. We have sought
to be scientific — in the best sense of the term — but we have
also sought to present a book that shall be eminently readable,
that shall set forth myths as living entities, and that — because
each writer knows and loves the mythology of which he treats
— will fill the reader with enthusiasm for them.

Much of the material here given appears for the first time
in the English language — Slavic and Finno-Ugric, Oceanic,
Armenian, and African. No survey of American mythology
as a whole has hitherto been written. Even where — as in
Indian, Teutonic, and Semitic — English monographs exist,
new points of view are presented. Taking our stand on the
best modern scholarship, we venture to hope that many cur-
rent misconceptions of mythology may be brought to an end.
Thus, within recent years, the science of Greek mythology
has been revolutionized by the discovery of the very simple
fact that Homer is not its ultimate authority, that, indeed,
he represents a comparatively late stage in its development;



 



 



xiv EDITOR'S PREFACE

80 that we must give full consideration to the non-Homeric
myths and see that here, too, there is the same underlying
primitive stratum common to all the race of man. This mod-
ern scientific treatment of Classical mythology has its initial
English presentation in our series. Perhaps, at first blush,
we shall seem to lose much both here and elsewhere; we may,
perchance, be disappointed when we find that the vaunted
wisdom of Egyptians and of Druids was not so very profound;
but if we must part with some false, though pretty, ideas,
we shall find ample compensation in knowing Egyptians and
Druids as they were. After all, which do we prefer — a fanciful
picture of our friend, or his actual portrait.^

Mythology may be written in either of two ways — pres-
entational or comparative. In the former the myths of each
people are presented separately; in the latter some special
theme — the deluge-legend, the afterworld, or the like —
is considered as it appears in myth throughout the world.

The utmost care has been taken in the choice of collabora-
tors, and it is believed that to scholars their names will be in
themselves sufficient warrant that the volumes will possess
distinct scientific value. The ample bibliographies and ref-
erences appended to the pertinent sections will enhance the
technical worth of our series. In addition, we propose to give
in our index volume not merely the names and subjects dis-
cussed in the various volumes, but also a topical arrangement
by which the variant myths and mythic themes of the differ-
ent peoples upon a given subject may be found readily and
accurately.

The selection of illustrations will, it is hoped, meet with
general favour. It would have been a very easy matter to
present fancy pictures or to reproduce paintings of great
modem artists. Instead of that, we have deemed it more in
harmony with the purpose of the series to choose for each
section pictures of the deities or of mythic incidents as delin-
eated by the people who themselves believed in those deities



 



 



CONTENTS

PAGE

Consulting Editor's Preface vii

Editor's Preface ix

Author's Preface xxi

Introduction to the Greek Myths xli

Sources for the Greek Myths Ix

Sources for the Roman Myths Ixi

Part I. Myths of the Beginning, the Heroes, and the

Afterworld I

Chapter I. Myths of the Beginning 3

The Creation of the World 4

The Regime of Ouranos 6

The Regime of Kronos 7

Establishment of the Regime of Zeus; the Titans ... 8

Typhon (or Typhoeus); the Giants 8

The Creation of Man 10

Prometheus 12

Pandora 14

Origins of Certain Animals and Plants 15

Beginnings of Civilization 16

The Ages of the World 17

The Great Flood 18

Chapter II. Myths of the Peloponnesos 20

I Arkadia:

Pelasgos 20

Lykaon 20

Kallisto 21

Arkas, Aleos, Auge 21

The Plague at Teuthis . .* 22



 



 



xxvi coNTE^^^s

PAGE

II Lakonia and Messene:

Lelez and his Descendants 23

Hyakinthos 23

The Family of Perieres 24

Tyndareos, Helen, Kastor and Polydeukes .... 24

Idas and Marpessa 27

III Argos:

Inachos, lo 28

The Families of Danaos and Aigyptos 30

Proitos and his Daughters 32

Akrisios, Danae, and Perseus 33

IV Corinth:

The Divine Patrons of Corinth 36

Sisyphos 37

Glaukos 38

Bellerophon 39

Chapter III. Myths of the Northern Mainland. . . 42
I Boiotia and Euboia:

The First Inhabitants of Boiotia 42

Amphion and Zethos 43

Kadmos 44

The Daughters of Kadmos:

Semele 45

Ino 46

Autonoe 46

Agave 47

The Sorrows of the House of Labdakos; Oidipous . 48

The Sons of Oidipous, and the Seven against Thebes 5 1

The Epigonoi 54

Alkmaion 54

II Aitolia:

The Founding of Aitolia 55

Meleagros and Atalante 56

Chapter IV. Myths of Crete and Attike 60

I Crete:

Europe 60

Myths of Minos and his Sons; Minos 61



 

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Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #1 on: August 04, 2019, 04:26:26 PM »

 



CONTENTS xxvii

PAGE

Androgeos 62

Glaukos 62

KLatreus 63

Deukalion 63

The Character and Achievements of Minos ... 63

Daidalos 64

II Attike:

Kekrops 66

Erichthonios 67

Boutes and Erechtheus 67

The Sons of Pandion; The War with Minos ... 68

The Daughters of Kekrops 69

The Daughters of Pandion 70

The Daughters of Erechtheus:

Kreousa 71

Prokris 71

Oreithyia 73

Chapter V. Herakles 75

The Birth of Herakles 76

Childhood and Youth of Herakles 79

Early Manhood of Herakles 79

The Madness of Herakles 80

The Twelve Labours of Herakles:

First Labour 80

Second Labour 81

Third Labour 81

Fourth Labour 82

Fifth Labour 82

Sixth Labour 84

Seventh Labour 84

Eighth Labour 84

Ninth Labour 85

Tenth Labour 86

Eleventh Labour 87

Twelfth Labour 88

The Later Adventures of Herakles:

In Euboia 89



 



 



xxviii CONTENTS

PAGE

In Lydia 90

At Troy 91

In the Pdoponncsos 91

In Aitolia and the Mountains 93

The Descendants of Herakles 95

Chapter VI. Theseus 96

Birth and Childhood 97

The Labours of Theseus:

First Labour 98

Second Labour 98

Third Labour. 98

Fourth Labour 99

Fifth Labour 99

Sixth Labour 99

Theseus in Athens 99

Theseus in Crete 100

Theseus and the Bull of Marathon 102

Theseus as King and Statesman 103

The Later Adventures of Theseus:

The Amazons 103

Theseus and Hippolytos 104

Friendship with Peirithoos 104

Death of Theseus 105

Chapter VII. The Voyage of the Argo 106

The Descendants of Aiolos:

Salmoneus, Pelias 106

Admetos and Alkestis 107

Athamas, Phrixos, and Helle 107

The Return of lason 108

The Voyage of the Argo 109

The Death of Pelias 114

lason and Medeia in Corinth 115

Medeia in Athens 115

Chapter VIII. The Tale of Troy 117

The House of Dardanos 117

The House of Tantalos 119



 



 



coNTE^^^s xxix

PAGE

The House of Aiakos 121

Diomedes and Odysseus 123

The Jry/>ntf; Traditional Causes of the War 124

The Iliad 126

The -<^i/Aio/>i>; The Death of Achilles 130

The Little Iliad and the Ilioupersis; The Fall of Troy . 131

The Nostoi ("Returns") 133

Menelaos and Helen 133

Agamemnon 134

The Other Heroes (except Odysseus) 135

The Odyssey 136

The Telegonia 139

Chapter IX. The Afterworld 141

The Greek View of the Soul and of Death 141

Entrances to, and Rivers of, the Underworld 143

The Judges 143

The Punishments of Hades 144

Visits of the Living to Hades 144

Elysion, The Islands of the Blest 147

Part IL The Greek Gods 149

Chapter L The Greater Gods — Zeus and Hera . . 151
Zeus:

The Original Significance of Zeus 152

The Zeus of Homer 153

The Birth and Death of Zeus 154

The Marriages of Zeus 156

The Offspring of Zeus 157

The Functions of Zeus; As Supreme God 157

Zeus as God of the Heavens 159

Zeus as God of Fertility 160

Zeus in his Political and Ethical Aspects 160

Zeus as Prophet, Fate, Healer, and Helper 162

Zeus as a Chthonic Divinity 163

Zeus in Art . 163

Hera:

The Origin and the Name of Hera 163

Hera in Homer 164



 



 



XXX CONTENTS

PAGB

Hera as the Wife of Zeus 165

The Functions of Hera 166

Hera in Art 168

Chapter II. The Greater Gods — Athene 169

The Origin and the Name of Athene 169

Athene in Homer 169

The Birth of Athene 170

The Functions of Athene 171

Athene in Art 173

Chapter III. The Greater Gods — Leto, Apollo, Ar-
temis, Hekate 174

Leto:

The Birth of Apollo and Artemis 174

Leto and Tityos; Leto and Niobe 175

Apollo:

The Origin and the Name of Apollo 175

Apollo in Homer 176

Apollo in Delphoi 177

The Functions of Apollo 178

Apollo in Art 182

Artemis:

The Origin and the Name of Artemis 182

Artemis in Homer 183

The Functions of Artemis 183

Artemis in Art 186

Hekate 186

Chapter IV. The Greater Gods — Ares 189

The Origin and the Name of Ares 189

Ares in Homer 189

Ares outside of Homer 190

Ares in Art 190

Chapter V. The Greater Gods — Hermes 191

The Origin and the Name of Hermes 191

Hermes in Homer 191

Myths of the Birth and Boyhood of Hermes 192

Hermes Argeiphontes igj



 



 



CONTENTS XXXI

PAGE

The Functions of Hermes 194

Hermes in Art 195

Chapter VI. The Greater Gods — Aphrodite and

Eros 196

Aphrodite:

The Origin and the Name of Aphrodite 196

Aphrodite in Homer 197

Birth and Family Relationship 197

Aphrodite as the Goddess of Love 198

In the Plant World 198

Among Men 199

Aphrodite in Art 202

Eros 203

Chapter VII. The Greater Gods — Hephaistos and

Hestia 205

Hephaistos:

The Origin and the Name of Hephaistos 205

Hephaistos in Homer 205

The Character and Functions of Hephaistos .... 206

Hephaistos in Art 208

Hestia:

The Origin and the Name of Hestia 208

The Genealogy and Functions of Hestia 208

Chapter VIII. The Greater Gods — Poseidon and

Amphitrite 210

Poseidon:

The Origin and the Name of Poseidon 210

Poseidon in Homer 210

The Family Relationships of Poseidon 211

The Functions of Poseidon 211

Poseidon in Art 213

Amphitrite 214

Chapter IX. The Greater Gods — Dionysos 215

The Origin and the Name of Diony SOS 215

Dionysos in Homer 217

The Birth of Dionysos 217



 



 



xxxii CONTENTS

PAGE

The Functions and the Cult of Dionysos 218

Dionysos in Art 222

Myths of Alexander the Great 223

Chapter X. The Greater Gods — Demeter, Kore,

Hades 225

Demeter and Kore (Persephone) :

The Origin and the Name of Demeter 225

Demeter in Homer 226

Demeter as the Goddess of the Soil 226

Demeter and Kore (Persephone) 227

Demeter and Triptolemos 230

The Nature of Persephone 230

The Mysteries of Eleusis 231

Demeter and Kore in Art 232

Hades:

Hades in Art 234

Chapter XI. The Lesser Gods — Of the Circle of

Zeus, of Light, and of Heat 236

Of the Circle of Zeus:

Eurynome 236

Charites ("Graces") 236

Themis 237

Horai ("Hours") 237

Mnemosyne; The Muses 238

Ganymedes 240

Hebe 240

Of the Greater Luminaries:

Helios ("Sun") 241

Phaethon 243

Selene 244

Of Phases of Light:

Eos 245

Helen and the Dioskouroi 246

Of Single Stars and Constellations:

Astraios, Phosphoros, Eosphoros 247

Hesperos 247

Pleiades and Hyades 248



 



 



CONTENTS xxxiii

PAGE

Orion ' 249

Ursa Major, or Great Bear; Bootes 251

Of Midsummer Heat:

Aristaiosy Sirius, Aktaion 251

Linos 252

Lityerses 253

Chapter XII. The Lesser Gods — Of Water, Wind,

AND Wild 255

Of the Water:

Okeanos and the Okeanides 255

Rivers 256

Springs (Nymphs) 257

The Sea 259

Triton 259

Nereus 260

Proteus 261

Glaukos 261

Ino (Leukothea) 261

Seirenes (Sirens) 262

Skylla and Charybdis 263

Of Winds and Storms:

Boreas, Euros, Notos, and Zephyros 265

Aiolos 266

Harpies 266

Typhon and the Kyklopes 267

Of the Wild:

Pan, Silenoi, and Satyroi (Satyrs) 267

Maenads and Bacchantes 269

Dryads and Hamadryads 270

Kentauroi (Centaurs) 270

Chapter XIII. The Lesser Gods — Of the Earth . . 272

I Gaia (Ge) *. 272

II Rhea-Kybele (Great Mother) 273

III Lesser Divinities of the Underworld:

Erinyes 276

Eumenides, Semnai Theai, Maniai 277

Miscellaneous 278

1—3



 



 



xxxiv CONTENTS

PAGE

Chapter XIV. The Lesser Gods — Asklepios, Ab-
stract Divinities 279

I Asklepios:

The Origin and the Name of Asklepios 279

Myths of Asklepios 279

Asklepios in Art 281

II Abstract Divinities 282

III The Element of Chance:

Tyche 283

Moira, Moirai, Ananke, Adrasteia 283

Nemesis 284

Part III. The Mythology of Ancient Italy 285

Introduction 287

I Etruscan Mythology 289

II Native Italic Gods:

(a) Nature-Gods: Of the Sky, Atmosphere, and

Time:

luppiter 289

Mater Matuta 290

(b) Nature-Gods: Of Human Life, Earth, Agri-

culture, and Herding:

Genius; luno 291

Ceres 291

Tellus Mater 291

Liber 292

Satumus 292

Consus and Ops 292

Mars 293

Faunus 293

Silvanus 293

Diana 294

Venus 294

Flora 294

Fortuna 295

(c) Nature Gods: Of the Water:

Neptunus 295



 



 



CONTENTS XXXV

PAGE

(d) Nature-Gods: Of Fire, of the Underworld, and

of Disease:

Vulcanus 296

Vediovis 296

Febris 296

(e) Gods of Human Society:

lanus 297

Vesta 298

Di Penates; Lares 298

Minerva 299

(/) Abstract Gods 299

ig) Momentary and Departmental Gods .... 300
III Gods of Foreign Origin:

Apollo 300

Aesculapius 301

Mercurius 301

Castor and Pollux 301

Hercules 302

Dis Pater 303

Magna Mater 303

rV Myths of the Early Days of Rome:

The Aeneid of Vergil 304

Events subsequent to those of the Aeneid .... 306

Appendix 311

Notes 323

Bibliography 335



 



 



 



 



ILLUSTRATIONS

FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATE FACING PAGE

I Aphrodite the Mother — Photogravure . . Frontispiece

II I. Zeus and Typhon xlii

2. Medousa Beheaded

III Dionysos and a Maenad xlvi

IV I. Plouton 1

2. Apollo and Marsyas

3. Head of Alexander

4. Persephone

5. Zeus and Dione

6. Pan

V Zephyros liv

VI Silenoi and Maenads Ix

VII Hera 2

VIII Gods and Giants — Coloured 8

IX Athene Parthenos 14

X I. Helen and Paris 20

2. Asklepios

XI The Contest for Marpessa — Coloured 24

XII loandArgos 28

XIII Perseus — Coloured 32

XIV I. Endymion 36

2. Perseus and Andromeda

XV Dirke Bound to the Bull 42

XVI The Death of Pentheus 48

XVII The Departure of Amphiaraos 54

XVIII Europe and the Bull 60

XIX The Birth of Erichthonios — Coloured 66

XX Eos and Kephalos — Coloured 72

XXI Herakles and the Lion of Nemea 76



 



 



xxxviii ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATE FACING PAGE

XXII HcraUes and the Hydra 82

XXIII I. Herakles and Nercus 88

2. Herakles and the Cretan Bull

3. Herakles and Apollo

XXIV Amazons in Battle 92

XXV Theseus and Amphitrite — Coloured 96

XXVI Lapiths and Centaurs — Coloured 100

XXVII The Argonauts — Coloured 106

XXVIII Medeia at Corinth no

XXIX I. Priam before Achilles 116

2. Peleus and Thetis

XXX The Sacrifice of Iphigeneia 120

XXXI Hektor Taking Leave of Andromache 124

XXXII Achilles and Thersites 128

XXXIII TheDeathofAigisthos — Coloured 132

XXXIV Odysseus Slaying the Suitors — Coloured .... 136
XXXV Charon 142

XXXVI Ixion on the Wheel 146

XXXVII Zeus 152

XXXVIII Zeus and the Kouretes 158

XXXIX Hera 164

XL Athene 170

XLI The Apollo Belvedere 176

XLII Artemis 182

XLIII An Attic Hekataion 188

XLIV Hermes and the Infant Dionysos 194

XLV Eros 200

XLVI The Return of Hephaistos to Olympos — Coloured 206

XLVil Poseidon 212

XLVIII The Enthroned Dionysos 218

XLIX I. Dionysos in the Ship 224

2. Kastor and Polydeukes at Home

3. Mystic Rite at Eleusis

L Mystic Rite at Eleusis 230

LI I. Helios 236

2. The Horai

LII Ganymedes and the Eagle 242



 



 



ILLUSTRATIONS xxxiz

¥LAIE FACENO PAGE

LIII The Death of Aktaion — Coloured 248

LIV Linos Slain by Herakles — Coloured 254

LV Odysseus and the Sirens 260

LVI Oreithyia and Boreas — Coloured 266

LVII A Maenad — Coloured 272

LVIII Hypnos 278

LIX Nike — Coloured 284

LX Genius and Lares 290

LXI I. Arethousa 294

2. lanus Bifrons

LXII Magna Mater 300

LXIII Romulus and Remus 306

ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT

nCTTRE PAGE

1 Poseidon 6

2 Creation of Pandora 14

3A The Erymanthian Boar at Mykenai 83

3B The Flight of Eurystheus 83

4 Theseus and the Minotaur 102

5 The Death of Penthesilea 131

6 The Death of Aias (Ajax) 146

7 Apollo and Tityos 176

8 Triptolemos 229

9 Mnemosyne and Kalliope 239

10 Satyrs at Play 269

11 Marriage of I uno and Hercules 302



 



 



 



 



INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS

TO proceed immediately to the narration and discussion of
the myths of Greece would be much like an attempt to
construct a high road without a survey. We must first of all
make certain that we know what a myth is, and such an en-
deavour to give sharp definition to our theme will naturally
lead to an investigation of the special conditions which, like
soil and weather to a plant, favour the germination and growth
of myth. Then, granting that myth has some connexion with
religion, we must inform -ourselves as to the peculiar nature of
the religion and the gods of Greece. By such a course we may
perhaps be so fortunate as to reach a point of vantage from
which we can gain a clear and comprehensive view of the
unique character of the Greek myths. Once this has been
gained, a series of pertinent questions will present themselves,
and these we shall enumerate and discuss in their proper place
and order.

J. What is Myth? — We wish it were possible to define myth
satisfactorily by an epigram; to say with Marett, for instance,
that it is "Animatism grown picturesque." But, unhappily,
epigram is a definition only for those who know, and this
circumstance limits us to the use of cold analysis.

For the purpose of ascertaining the elements of myth let us
regard it from the points of view of (a) form, (b) time, (c)
subject-matter, and (d) relation to fact.

(a) It is commonly stated that a myth, in order to be a
myth, must be cast in narrative form. A little reflection, how-
ever, will show that to make this a hard and fast rule is tanta-
mount to rejecting not only the epithets applied to the gods by
their worshippers, but also the attributes accorded them by



 



 



xlii INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS

poet, priest, and artist. This we cannot consistently do (and,
moreover, no writer on mythology ever does it, in spite of his
insistence on literal narrative form) ; for an epithet, as a state-
ment compressed into one word, and an attribute, as a symbol
of a statement, are, after all, substantially narratives. The
difference under debate is really one of length, and not one of
essential quality. Where can we draw the line? The thunder-
weapon put into the hands of Zeus by an artist is in kind, then,
as much a myth as the whole elaborate tale of Prometheus.

(b) The statements of myth have a direct reference to the
past or to the universal present; only so far as the universal
present implies the probable continuity of a condition have
they any reference to the future. That Hephaistos limped and
that Hermes flew were, to the Greek, facts true for all time.
Why the simple present was excluded from the temporal refer-
ence of the myths will be clear after we have examined the
nature of their subject-matter.

(c) No reader of myth can have failed to notice that its
themes are invariably drawn from the realm of the unverifiable,
or at least from that which was incapable of demonstration
at the time of the creation of the myth. The war of Troy was
fought at so remote a period that none could debate or deny
the allegations of myth that a quarrel over a woman was the
cause of it; and the impossibility of refutation in this and other
like instances was eagerly accepted as a proof of fact. More-
over, why spoil a good story by being too inquisitive and by
applying to it the tests of workaday life? Typhon rebelled
against Zeus, and Zeus punished him by heaping upon him the
great mass of Aetna. Since nobody could explain the origin of
the volcano from the known experience of mankind, why was
it absurd to attribute it to the acts of beings greater than
man? Apollo was invisible to the eye of flesh, according to the
myths, yet he could both cause and heal the bodily ills of
men and could inspire his priestesses to utter prophecies which
the ears of men could hear. The sickness and the healing and



 



 



 



 



PLATE II



Zbus and Tyfhon

Zeus is approaching swiftly from the left and with
raised right hand is about to hurl a thunderbolt at a
monster with a bearded human head and a winged
trunk terminating in two long serpent-like coils.
The creature, probably Typhon, looks at the King of
the Gods in great alarm and madly lashes about with
his scaly body in a vain endeavour to escape from the
doom awaiting him. From a Chalkidian hyJria of
about 650 B.C., in Munich (Furtwangler-Reichhold,
Griicbiscbi VasinmaUniy No. 32). See pp. xii, 8-9.



Mbdousa Beheaded

The unique feature of this vase-painting is that it
represents the three Gorgons after the flight of Perseus
with Medousa's head. The two immortal sisters are
apparently just setting out in pursuit of the slayer, as
their spread wings, bent knees, and swinging hands
vividly indicate. The body of Medousa is about to
fall inertly to the ground. From a black-figured sky-
pbos of the late sixth century b.c, in Athens {Catabgue
des vasis piints du musei national (TAthiniSy Supplement
par Georges Nicole^ Plate XI). See p. 34.



 



 





 



 



 



 



INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS xliii

the prophesying were facts, and none could prove that any
other than Apollo was responsible for them. To believe that
he actually was responsible fed the fancy, and without fancy
there was no zest in life. The souls of the departed were said
to be gathered together in a dark realm beneath the eartJi.
For to what other place could they have disappeared after
burial or cremation? No god or hero was represented by a
myth-maker as initiating any movement simultaneous with
the narration of the myth. The reason for this is now obvious;
such a statement would be so open to the scrutiny of contem-
poraries that criticism and the fear of criticism would destroy
the illusion and the charm which the story might otherwise
possess.

(d) The most generally recognized characteristic of myth is
the fact that it is a product of the imagination, and so, popu-
larly though erroneously, the mythical is regarded as the exact
equivalent of the imaginary. Nevertheless, since the special
function of the imagination is to create, it is not to be expected
that all its creations must conform to the attested experience
of mankind or to what we may estimate as probable. It is for
this reason that most of the details of the myths relate to the
improbable, but the probable and improbable alike were held
to be true by the people among whom the legends had cur-
rency.

Offline PrometheusTopic starter

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Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #2 on: August 04, 2019, 04:31:49 PM »

We may now sum up the results of our analysis with a work-
ing definition:

A myth is a statement^ or a virtual statement as implied in
a symbolj an attribute^ or an epithet, accepted as true by its
original maker and his hearers, and referring to the eternal na-
ture and past acts of beings greater than man, and frequently to
circumstances which are to us improbable or impossible.

2. The Origin of Myth. — It is no more possible to detail
one and all the impulses, singly or in classes, which have given
rise to myth than it is to discover and give the full tale of all
the fountain-heads of a great river. Yet we find that we can



 



 



xliv INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS

account for the origin of a river in a way which serves all prac-
tical purposes. Is it not within our power to explain the be-
ginnings of myth to the same extent, even though the ad-
mission must be made that the task is infinitely more difficult,
involving, as it does, all the subtleties of human nature and
an almost inextricable tangle of theories?

The statement that the mainspring of all myth is personi-
fication and metaphor has too much of the weakness of epi-
gram; it explains only after one has learned why personification
and myth have any power at all. To say that every myth
is an answer to a question of primitive man regarding some
phenomenon of the universe gives a more satisfactory reason
in that it implies a certain intellectual attitude in man. But
even this does not go to the bottom of the matter, for it fails
to show why the answers are cast as they are. It remained
for the modem evolutionary biologist to supply a broad and
fundamental explanation. Just as each human being between
conception and maturity passes successively through all the
stages of the biological development of the race, so all human
minds at the same stage of racial progress act in virtually the
same way, the slight variations which occur being due in large
part to differences in external environment. It must be frankly
confessed that this statement, like that of the theory of uni-
versal evolution, is not susceptible of proof in every instance;
nevertheless, it stands as the best working hypothesis which
the modern student of the folk-ways has been able to secure.
No one ventures to assert that it is final.

How, then, does primitive man tend to think of the world .^
Investigators tell us that he cannot distinguish between life
and no life. Knowing his own power to bring things to pass by
means of calculation and will, he attributes these same facul-
ties in varying degrees to everything in nature outside of him-
self. In other words, he endows everything with personality.
To him the beast is the peer of man in astuteness and purpose-
fulness, and tree, mountain, and sea are sentient beings.



 



 



INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS xlv

Here metaphor plays its part. For example, the simple poetic
statement, "The sun drives his car across the heavens," can
under stress of emotion be stripped of its similitude and be
cast in the categorical form, "The sun is a driver and he rides
in a car across the heavens"; and belief in it as a truth can be
engendered and fostered by allusions to that effect in art and
ritual. From this illustration it may be gathered that the
primitive mind demands objectivity in the expression of its
thought. This is indeed true, and will explain the lack of ab-
stractions in myth except when they are presented as concrete
personalities.

Another characteristic of man in this immature stage is
that he is unable to see the inherent connexion of things. He
is, therefore, likely to be unduly sensitive to the startling
phenomena of nature and to the unusual incidents of his social
life; while his fancy, exaggerating these beyond all warrant,
contrives impossible explanationjs of their origin along the same
lines as his theories of the beginnings of the commonplaces of
his existence. Here lies the reason for the mythic prominence
of the lightning, the earthquake, beasts of prey, monsters of
the sea, wars, tyrants, the rise and fall of dynasties, and the
like.

In some quarters the belief now prevails that most myths
have arisen from the misunderstanding of rituals, of worship
and magic alike, whose first meanings have been forgotten;
and it is asserted that a sincere attempt to clothe them with a
definite import for the worshipper has been the immediate
cause of myth. This is undoubtedly true in many instances.
The stories of the Kouretes' defence of the infant Zeus and of
Skiron's murder of travellers seem to belong to this class of
legends. Akin to them are those which have obviously grown
out of the misinterpretation of the cult-titles of divinities.

To avoid confusion we have thus far assumed that all myths
are the spontaneous issue of the primitive mind. Unfortunately
this is a theory which we cannot verify, although we are prob-



 



 



xlvi INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS

ably safe in saying that at least the germ of every true myth
is of this order. On the other hand, we are unable thus to
account for all the details with which the germs have gradually
become encrusted. It is impossible to disbelieve that many a
myth has been deliberately reshaped at some time or other
to satisfy an exacting aesthetic or moral sense, or to secure the
semblance of a religious sanction for a definite cause or for a
course of action. It has been suggested that, for instance, the
story of the dreadful end of the inquisitive sisters of Pandrosos
was a priestly fabrication to frighten worshippers into sub-
mission to a rule of ritual; and one can scarcely doubt that the
cycle of the Theseus myths contains many conscious additions,
if not inventions. In this class we do not include the manipu-
lations of myths in the hands of the poets, for in the popular
view the work of these divinely inspired men enhanced rather
than invalidated the truth of the stories.

If one would gain an insight into the sudden birth of myth
from a mere nothing at times of high spiritual tension in a
community, let him turn to the pages of Thais where Anatole
France describes the weaving of the tissue of tales about the
person of Paphnuce after he has become a holy man and taken
his place upon the pillar, or to the lines in Noyes's epic, Drake,
in which the great admiral, on learning of the sailing of the
Armada, unconcernedly picks up a piece of wood and whittles
away at it with his knife:

"So great and calm a master of the world
Seemed Drake that as he whittled and the chips
Fluttered into the blackness o'er the quay,
Men said that in this hour of England's need
Each tiny flake turned to a battle-ship."

J. Sanction and Persistence of Myth. — Were we able to
explain just why a fashion, a catchword, or a phrase of slang
becomes popular, we should likewise be able to account for the
initial acceptance of a myth. All that we can say concerning
such things is that they supply a need, or answer a craving, or



 



 



 



 



PLATE III

DiONYSOS AND A MaENAD

Dionysos is shown reclining on a very elaborate
couch. In his right hand he holds a kantharos in a
very fastidious manner, and in his left, a thyrsos. The
long flowing ringlets of his hair, the curves of his
arms and body, and the soft texture of his drapery
combine to give the god a decidedly effeminate appear-
ance. A Maenad is extending a tray of viands toward
him from the right, and an Eros flies down from the
left to crown him with a wreath of leaves. At the
extreme left a tympanon and a thyrsos^ in the hands of
a second Maenad, are barely visible. From a red-
figured krater of the late fifth century B.C., in Athens
(^Catalogue da vases peints du musee national d*Jthenes^
Supplement par Getrges Nicole^ Plate XX). See pp.
215 ff.



 



 




 



 



 



 



INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS xlvii

arouse the interest of the majority of a social group. But this
really explains nothing. An established myth has all of these
qualifications — and something more. That something is its
religious appeal, and its strength lies in the fact that any
religion embraces for the people who profess it the sum total
of their highest interests. It is not hard, then, to conceive
that certain circumstances should arise in which a story of
powerful eternal beings suddenly engages the attention of a
community and is received as though it were a confirmed truth.
Once the acceptance of it has been granted, the path to the
explanation of its persistence is clear and open.

In the first place, the mere fact that it has been accepted
becomes to the social mind a reason why it should continue
to be accepted. "Everybody believes it" is as valid a reason
for the conformist in religion as "Everybody wears it" is for
the devotee of a fashion. The social psychologist says the
same thing in other words: the mores have the authority of
facts.^ In the next place, sheer habit and the difficulty of in-
venting new myths will often cause the retention of a legend
long after it has lost its touch with the community'^ mode of
life and thought — a phenomenon which is by no means con-
fined to the ignorant stratum of a population. Again, conscious
respect for the convictions and opinions of former generations
plays an important part. In its ideal form this deference be-
comes a belief in a Golden Age in the past, a period not merely
of ease and bliss, but one in which the wonders of legend were
normal occurrences. Then man was close to the hearts and
minds of the divinities and had thereby a special knowledge
of their will and power. To deny the traditions which these
enlightened souls have handed down is to brand them as liars.
The spirit of the trite excuse of the orthodox, "My grand-
father's religion was good enough for him, and is therefore
good enough for me," has served as a valid reason for the per-
severance of many ever since traditional faiths began to be.
Finally, the ipse dixit of a priest, the pronouncement of an



 



 



xlviii INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS

oracle, the words of a hymn or even of a secular poem, the al-
lusion of a ceremonial formula, or the suggestion of a sacred
symbol may give such an apparent confirmation of a myth
in part or whole as to strengthen faith in its essential verity.

4,. The Nature of the Greek Religion. — The Greek religion,
so far as we can truthfully predicate anything at all of religious
origins, had its roots in the pre-animistic stratum of thought.
The primitive Greek, like the early Roman, as we shall see,
worshipped natural objects and phenomena for their own sake,
although his attitude toward them shifted according as they
furthered or hindered his welfare. Proceeding a little further,
he seems to have become convinced of the existence within
them, yet inseparable from them, of a sort of potency or life-
power (anima). He was now in the animistic stage. Finally,
he observed that while in the main their powers manifested
themselves in a uniform manner, yet they showed a remark-
able tendency to vary, the only satisfactory explanation being
that they must be due to agents as free in initiative as are
human beings. Accepting this theory, he endowed the powers
in his habits of thought with will, and, little by little, with
the other attributes of personality. They had at last become
gods.* The assignment of names to them and the localization
of their cults' strengthened the popular conviction in their
personal nature. The history of one god in epitome may serve
as an illustration. Zeus was first the sky; next the power within
the sky; and, lastly, the divine person with whom the sky-
power was identified.' We can now perceive the otherwise
obscure truth of the statement that "The god himself [i. e.
any Greek god], when conceived, was not the reality but only
a symbol to help toward conceiving the reality.'* *

It is not to be inferred, however, that the several steps from
potency to deity were as clearly marked as the necessity of
gaining a compact view has forced us to represent them;
nor must we think that when a god rose from one stage to
the next he left behind him all traces of his lower estate. As



 



 



INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS xlix

a matter of fact, to practically every god at the very highest
point of his spiritual career clung some disfiguring stains of
the earth of the pit out of which he had been digged. This was
due to the intense spirit of freedom of each community, its
desire to worship the god as it saw fit and according to its own
local needs. If the community was marked by a high degree
of civilization, its gods were of the nobler type; if on a low stage
of development, its gods were of a coarser grade; and further,
if the community was open to influence from the outside, the
traits of its gods were of a mixed character. This, together
with a certain though sluggish tendency toward a change of
the conceptions of the god within the independent commu-
nity, will account in large part for the bewildering multiplicity
of the Greek divinities and their attributes. The greatest
difficulty that confronts the modem student is to determine
which forms and which attributes of the developed god were
the original ones; and it is almost humiliating to have to con-
fess that the instances in which we can be even reasonably
certain are very few.

The intimate relation of the gods to the life-interests of men
gave the Greek religion its distinctive stamp; it brought the
gods down to earth in the likeness and with the passions of
men, so that in time of need the worshipper had but to reach
out his hand to touch his divine helper. This constant sense
of nearness lifted from his heart the leaden awe imposed by the
worship of distant deities and filled it with a wholesome joy of
life and a buoyant spirit of confidence. Yet the Greek cults
were not individualistic nor marked by missionary zeal; the
selfish interests of the clan, the tribe, and the state were alto-
gether too imperious.

5. The Unique Character of Greek Myth. — It is probable
that to the majority of readers the most striking feature of the
Greek myths is the variety observable in all phases of their
composition. The number of their themes falls little short of
the sum total of the activities of Greek life, private and social,
1—4



 



 



PLATE IV

I. Plouton

Plouton (Hades), with a lofty kalathos on his head, is seated on a
throne, grasping a sceptre in his left hand, and letting his right rest
on one of the heads of Kerberos. On either side of him are Kastor
and Polydeukes, each standing beside his horse. From a convex sar-
donyx (A. Furtwangler, Antike Gemmen^ i, Plate XLIV, Fig. 4). See
pp. i42-43> 233 ff-

2. Apollo and Marsyas

Apollo with a pUktron in one hand and a lyre in the other is stand-
ing at his ease to the right. Seated beside him on the skin of a lion
or a panther, and bound with his back to a bare tree, is Marsyas, bear-
ing all the marks of his semi-bestial nature. A flute-case hangs from
a branch on the tree. Kneeling at the feet of Apollo the boy Olympos
(who does not figure in the myth as narrated in the text) seems to be
pleading with the god to spare the Satyr's life. From a cut camelian
in Naples (A. Furtwangler, Antike Gemmen^ i, Plate XLII, Fig. 28).
See p. 181.

3. Head of Alexander

A diadem, knotted behind the head, can be seen binding the thick
wavy hair. Just over the ear is the horn of Ammon. From a coin
of Lysimachos, 335-280 b.c. (P. Gardiner, The Types of Greek Coinsj
Plate XII, No. 16). See pp. 223-24.

4. Persephone

The head of the goddess seems to be bound by a thin band of
wheat-straw. The dolphins indicate not only that Syracuse is situated
on the sea, but also that she is the mistress of it. From a coin of
Syracuse, 385-280 b.c (P. Gardiner, The Types 0/ Greek Coins^ Plate

XI, No. 29). See pp. 227 fF.

5. Zeus and Dione

Zeus is here depicted with the earth goddess Dione, his wife at
Dodona in Epeiros, the site of his oracular oak. From a coin of
Epeiros, 280-146 b.c. (P. Gardiner, The Types of Greek CoinSj Plate

XII, No. 44). See p. 156.

6. Pan

Pan, in the guise of a young hunter, is seated on a rocky ledge of
a mountain holding a lagobolon (hunting-club) in his right hand. At
his feet lies his syrinx^ the so-called pipes of Pan. From an Arka-
dian coin, 431-371 b.c (P.Gardiner, The Types of Greek C^/Vij, Plate
VIII, No. 32). See pp. 267-68.



 



 









 



 



 



 



INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS li

negative term. The appended list is given merely by way of
suggestion.

A. According to external elements.

(i) Myths of the various periods of tribal or national
development.

(2) Myths of racial stocks.

(3) Local myths (i. e. of shrines, towns, cities, states,
districts, islands, etc.).

(4) Popular and official myths.

(5) Poetical and prose myths.

B. According to contents,
(i) Myths of the gods.

(2) Nature-myths.

(3) Myths of origins (i. e. of the world, gods, men, arts,
stars, political and social organizations, etc.).

(4) Philosophical myths.

(5) Allegorical myths.

(6) Myths of the hereafter.

7. What we may Learn from Myths. — Naturally, most of the
facts registered by a body of myths concern religion. Yet
one must not expect to find in them more than a partial ac-
count of the particular religion to which they belong. Being
concrete and pictorial in character, myths can set forth only
those features which are susceptible of concrete and pictorial
treatment. Sacred symbols and clear-cut attributes of the
gods they can portray almost photographically; the figures of
the gods they can sketch with fairly bold outlines; the histories
of the gods and some of their subtle attributes they can sug-
gest. On the other hand, they can tell us practically nothing
about specific rituals and the exact attitude of the worshipper
at the moment of worship; were they to become formal
registers of such things, they would cease to be myths. One
must, therefore, complement his knowledge of religion, as
gleaned from myths, with the available records of cult.



 



 


Offline PrometheusTopic starter

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Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #3 on: August 04, 2019, 04:32:56 PM »


Ill INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS

If it is true, and we believe it is, that "religious expression
moves along with the general progress of thought," • then the
myths ought to yield us certain facts of primitive life outside
the domain of religion proper. For example, the Greek myths
confirm our suspicions that the early Hellenes were addicted
to magic. Again and again we are told of curses being invoked
and of their terrible effects upon their victims; we need point
merely to the curse of Alkmaion and the curse of Laios. The
union of Demeter and lasion in the thrice-ploughed field re-
fers to a magic device to bring fertility to the soil, and the wild
and noisy dance of the Kouretes undoubtedly represents a
method of averting evil spirits by magic. Myths tell us, too,
though by accident, the things of deepest interest to the
people among whom the legends circulated. The frequent men-
tion of flocks and herds, tillage, forest, and grazing land would
be pointless to a nation of miners or manufacturers. The social
organization of the Olympians would have no appeal were it
not a replica of the society of men. The allusion to the bronze
armour of Diomedes would not be understood if bronze were
an unknown metal. From the stories of the winds one can
gather in part the meteorological conditions of ancient Greece.
By making deductions of this kind many facts of history may
be recovered; they are detached, to be sure, but nevertheless of
considerable value. Incidentally, some of them are useful in
the determination of dates. Just as we can calculate the period
before which Milton cannot have written Paradise Lost because
of his attribution of the invention of cannon to Satan, so
we can be reasonably sure that those myths which speak of
an intimacy between Athens and Troizen cannot have been
given the form in which we now know them prior to a certain
historical alliance between Athens and a group of Argolid cities
which included Troizen.

Here, as everywhere, the argument from silence is to be
used with the utmost discretion. Greek myth is lacking in
allusion to sidereal cults, and from this fact the inference is



 



 



INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS liii

drawn that the Greeks were originally a northern people —
a theory which is probably safe, since it conforms to the results
of investigations among other peoples. In all such instances,
however, one must demand an abundance of verified parallels
before accepting conclusions.

8. Myth and Ethics. — Ever since the Greek myths began to
be studied critically the conduct of their personages has been
a serious ethical problem. Practically every evil deed forbidden
by society and religion was committed by the gods and heroes,
and generally with startling impunity. The common opinion
of today that the myths are unsafe reading for the young
was shared by Plato, '^ who, for this very reason, proposed to
debar Homer as a text-book from his ideal state. In the
Hippolytos of Euripides ' the amours of Zeus and Semele and
of Kephalos and Eos give the nurse a precedent for the illicit
satisfaction of love which she suggests to Phaidra; thus the
poet practically asserts that the acts of the gods, as narrated
in myth, had a direct influence on the behaviour of the common
people. In many passages in his treatise on ethics Aristotle
castigates the moral standards of the legends in reference to
certain acts. Certainly, a bad case is made out against the
myths, and the question is, can any defence or mitigating ex-
planation be offered in their behalf?

It might be well to learn, if we can, just why the myths con-
tain such immoral elements. In the first place, one must re-
member that they are survivals of an earlier age when men were
governed by inferior ethical ideals to which the gods and heroes
were bpund to conform, since the myth-maker knew no higher.
Even had he fashioned higher motives for them out of his own
mind, every act of god and hero would have been beyond the
ordinary understanding, and the myth, no matter how beauti-
ful to our thinking, would, like an undiscovered flower, have
wasted its fragrance on the desert air. To the contemporaries
of the myth-maker the behaviour of the divinities, however
wrong it may appear now, was right, and an appreciation of



 



 



liv INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS

this will render the immorality of the myths innocuous to the
modem reader. Another fact — doubtless startling to many —
must be emphasized here: that is, there is no obligatory con-
nexion between every religion and morality. Christianity is
almost unique in that it insists upon the inseparable union of
the two, but we must not read this requirement into other
faiths as a matter of fact. If, then, to the Greek religion was
one function of man and morality another, there was no neces-
sary conflict between the myth as a vehicle of religious thought
and the ethical character of its details. Any positive moral
elements discoverable in myth were largely accidental. They
came in despite a certain contempt, common to most religions,
for mere ethics. Moreover, the bard's task was not to preach;
it was to present divine truths in an attractive and cogent form.
Again, many primitive peoples allow for two ethical standards,
one for themselves and the other for outsiders. It may be that
the Greek tolerated the iniquity of his gods because, though
like men, they were essentially a different folk. Lastly, we
must be on our guard against counting as immoral or obscene
what was in origin not of this character. For instance, it seems
probable that the frequent attribution of the creation of cer-
tain things in the world to the sexual relations of divinities is
due primarily to the inability of the Hellene to explain abso-
lute beginnings in any other way.

But why did the later and more morally sensitive genera-
tions of Greeks not purge the myths of this evil.^ One reason
is that it was conventional to accept the myths intact, and con-
ventionality, like charity, covereth a multitude of sins. In-
stinctively we tolerate today the reading of certain passages of
the Bible before mixed congregations because the Bible, like
some secular thing, has come under the authority of conven-
tionality. Doubtless the attitude of many high-minded Greeks
was much the same toward the recital of their myths. Another
reason lies in the nature of the Greek religion. It was not a
revivalistic religion in any sense of the term, and especially



 



 



 



 



PLATE V

Zephyros

Zephyros, suggestively characterized as a winged
youth of mild and kindly countenance and of soft
bodily contours, is leisurely flying from the west bear-
ing a generous burden of flowers in a fold of his gar-
ment. From a relief on the Tower of Andronikos
(so-called Tower of the Winds) in Athens (Brunn-
Bruckmann, Denkmaler griechischer undrdmscher Sculp-
tur^ No. 30). See p. 266.



 



 




 



 



 



 



INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS Iv

not in the connotation which implies a conscious cutting away
from the past. Changes there were in the myths, of course, but
through acquisition and not through any spiritual refining.
The new wine was put into the old bottles, and in the end the
bottles burst and perished.

The evil of myths, like that of men, lives after them, but is
that a warrant for interring the good that may be in them?
Though their positive moral elements are, along with their
general fabric, incidental survivals, they require due recogni-
tion. We must not forget the staunch moral character of Apollo,
of the nobler Zeus, and of the Erinyes. In the punishment
of certain sins they were relentless. Over against the frequent
flouting of the law of conjugal fidelity by the gods and heroes
we must hold the beautiful pictures of the faithful Penelope
and of Prokris and Kephalos. There is a tone of censure run-
ning through the myths that tell of the adultery of Klytai-
mestra and Aigisthos. Diomedes' rejection of his wife on the
discovery of her infidelity can mean nothing else than that the
people among whom the myth was almost gospel truth insisted
at least on a code of morals for wives. Alkinoos showed his
respect for the social sanctity of marriage vows when he re-
fused to part lason and Medeia if they were already man and
wife. Moreover, mere chastity had a value set upon it. Kal-
listo and Auge were certainly not held up in myths as models
of what maidens should be, and Hippolytos, Bellerophon, and
Peleus, though to some extent regarded as prigs, stood, never-
theless, as worthy examples of self-restraint. The enormity of
taking human life, especially that of kindred and of friends, is
emphasized In many myths. Orestes' fulfilment of a religious
obligation by slaying his mother did not absolve him from the
stain of shedding family blood. Herakles had to pay dearly
for the murder of his children, and, later, for that of his trust-
ing friend, Iphitos. Assaults upon the honour of women were
recognized as distinctly immoral. For his attack upon Alkippe,
Halirrhothios, though the son of a god, was haled before Are-



 



 



Ivi INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS

opagos. The story of Athene's wrath against the lesser Aias
attests the inviolability of suppliants as an article in the primi-
tive moral code. Lastly, but by no means the least important,
is the fact that several cycles of myth recognize a moral taint
that clings to certain families from generation to generation.
The statement that curses rested on the houses of Tantalos
and Laios was the mythic manner of recording the definite
moral bent of these families and the inevitable consequences
of their sins. To explain the phenomenon with our modem
biologists as one of heredity, does not strip it of its moral
significance.

p. Myth and Art. — Throughout the ages there has been a
close afiinity between religion and art — art in the broadest
sense. The poet, the sculptor, and the painter have always
been among the chief interpreters of the religion of their day
and generation. Who can prove that they have not been more
convincing and commanding than the priest? Certainly the
products of their eflForts have been more enduring, for when the
faiths of which they were the exponents have long since ceased
to stir the hearts of men they have still about them certain
elements whose appeal is everlasting. Olympianism is dead,
but the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer still live on. What is this
vital spirit? It is seen in the difference between ritual and art.
Ritual is religion in action, and as such it need not be reflec-
tive; indeed, it generally is not. Art, on the other hand, is the
sincere endeavour of a human soul, momentarily detached from
the activities of life and ritual and under the domination of a
clarifying emotion, to find for itself and to reveal to others a
vision of the highest social ideals of the time. Ritual appeals
to the initiate, to the sect; art with its beauty and subtlety of
suggestion appeals to a universal instinct. The measure of a
work of art is the strength of its claim on all mankind. By
this standard we can compare the worth of Hesiod and Homer,
of an archaic Apollo and the Apollo Belvedere. Respective
degrees of workmanship and finish are of value only so far



 



 



INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS Ivii

as they conform, or fail to conform, to the exactions of the
ideal toward which the artist strives.

We have dwelt thus long on the nature and function of art
in order the more clearly to reveal the relation of Greek myth
to Greek religion. The religious material of most of the myths
which have come down to us was simply crass superstition,
but, taken over by devout and inspired bards, it was passed at
the white heat of emotion through the refining pot of their
spirits and came out transformed as poetry. Later Homer ap-
peared.* With his superior gifts he fused this poetry and a
number of crude superstitions into the noble epics that are
attributed to his name. This gave the needed impulse to a
long succession of lesser poets. The gods and heroes of Homer
were common property and had a remoteness from the life-
interests of the bards' own local communities which gave
them, as it were, a licence for moulding them as they could
not mould their local gods and heroes. The painter and the
sculptor followed in their steps. Imitating, as they did, ideal-
izing and relatively refined models, they could not themselves
but represent the ideal and the refined. This is the reason why
the gross elements of the myths and popular superstitions rarely
thrust themselves into the higher sculpture, and with but little
more frequency into vase-painting, the least noble of the Greek
arts.

10. Methods of Interpreting Myth. — A citation of the most
important methods of interpreting myths, with brief comment,
is sufficient for the purposes of this volume.

1. The natural method. Followers of this system would
trace practically every legend back to a primitive account of
some natural phenomenon or group of phenomena. According
to them myths are solar, lunar, or astral; or are to be referred
to light, the winds, clouds, rain, vegetation, and so forth.

2. The philological method. The leading exponent of this
school of interpretation was F. Max MuUer. Its practice is
to account for myths as the sequelae of "disease of language";



 



 



Iviii INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS

in other words, as confusions resulting from a misunderstand-
ing of terms that have persisted in speech after their original
meaning has been lost. The weakness of this method, now
abandoned in its extreme form, is that it does not square with
our present knowledge of the primitive mind; further, the
etymologies on which it bases its conclusions are generally
uncertain and often false.

3. The rationalizing (euhemeristic) method. The first to
apply this method systematically was Euhemeros, a Greek of
the third century b.c. The deification of the victorious Alex-
ander forced many to the conclusion that the great gods of
tradition were human beings who had been exalted to the
sky for their benefactions to humanity. Euhemeros took over
the idea and used it in his historical romance of Alexander.
This school, therefore, regards myths as nothing more than
perverted history.

4. The allegorical method. W^th the inability to accept the
old legends attempts were made even long before our era to
read higher meanings into them, and from them was evolved
a science of allegory. Needless to say, the good doctrinal
matter thus elicited from the myths was only in the rarest in-
stances intended by their authors. Moreover, this method is
too mechanical and leaves no room for the play of fancy.

5. The poetical method. A few scholars follow Ovid in
candidly proclaiming their belief that myths are purely the
figments of poetical imagination.

"I prate of ancient poets' monstrous lies
Ne'er seen or now or then by human eyes,"

sings Ovid. ^^ His only faith in the legends was that which he
had in any other work of art.

6. The ritual method. Many myths (but assuredly not all)
can be classified as explanations of rituals whose original sig-
nificance has been lost in the past. To this class belong the
majority of the aetiological tales.



 



 



INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS lix

7^ The anthropological or comparative method. This method
is based on the hypothesis that peoples at the same levels of
primitive development invent the same kind of stories. It leads
the investigator, "when an apparently irrational and anomalous
custom is found in any country to look for a country where
a similar practice is found, and where the practice is no longer
irrational and anomalous, but in harmony with the manners
and ideas of the people among whom it prevails.'^ ^^ The re-
sults of this theory are often invalidated by the tacit assump-
tion that its basic hypothesis is a fact. To be of service the
method must be historical.

II. The Object and the Method of the Present Treatise. — The
author's purpose in writing this volume is to present the myths
of Greece and Rome as vehicles of religious thought. He for-
bears to call them records (though after a manner they are
such), lest any reader be misled into believing that they bear
the stamp of the deliberation and the finality which are gen-
erally ascribed to records. That they enable us to view only
a part of the faiths of the Greeks and Romans, as from a single
angle, is not merely admitted but insisted upon as fundamental
to their interpretation. Inasmuch as art is psychologically
posterior to religion, just as, economically, luxury is to wealth,
the artistic worth and influence of the myths are here to be
regarded as of secondary interest.

The system of interpretation to be followed is at base the
comparative method. The entire stress, however, will not be
laid upon the similarities of parallel instances; much emphasis
will be placed upon diflFerences. Moreover, the method will
not be applied except to verify traces in the myths of their
origin and meaning, or when all eflForts to discover such signs
have failed. In handling the legends singly the following fea-
tures will be noted: the peculiar cast of the conception, the
names and epithets of the gods and heroes and the several
forms of their symbols, the variant versions of the myth, and
the traditional interpretation of antiquity; but the utmost



 



 



Ix INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS

caution will be taken to avoid basing a conclusion on any one
of these features in isolation from the others. Finally, it will
constantly be borne in mind that a myth is, after all, a process
and not a finished product.

12. The Sources of Myth. — It is to be regretted that there
is no single work containing without comment a detailed com-
pilation of the literary sources from which we draw our knowl-
edge of Greek and Roman myths. The value of such a work
to a student of religion and of literature and the advantage of
being able to refer to it on the present occasion are obvious.
So widely scattered, both among authors and in individual
works, are the allusions to myths that we can here do no more
than name the few outstanding classic writers to whom we
are most indebted and the general departments of literature
from which myths are most likely to be recovered.

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SOURCES FOR THE GREEK MYTHS

Poetry: Homer, and the so-called Homeric Hymns to the
gods; the fragments and summaries of the heroic epics — the
Kypria^ the Aithiopis, the Little Iliady the Nostoiy the Tele-
gonia; Hesiod; the lyric poets, especially Pindar; the extant
plays and fragments of the great dramatists of Athens; the
bucolic poets Theokritos, Bion, and Moschos; the fragments of
the Aitia ("Causes*') of Kallimachos; ApoUonios of Rhodes;
Quintos of Smyrna; Nonnos and Mousaios.

Much information concerning Greek myths is given us by
certain Roman poets, notably the elegists Catullus, Propertius,
and Tibullus; Vergil; Ovid; Horace; Valerius Flaccus; Seneca;
Statins; Ausonius; and Claudian.

Prose: Herodotos; fragments of the logographers and his-
torians; Plato; Apollodoros and the other mythographers;
Pausanias; Lucian; the Christian apologists; the scholia (in-
terpretative marginal notes) of Homer and the dramatists; the
lexicographers. The Latin works attributed, probably wrongly.



 



 



 



 



PLATE VI

SiLENoi AND Maenads

Two nude and bearded Silenoi with horses' tails are
each carrying a Maenad on their shoulders. One
Maenad holds in her lap the fawn which is to be torn
asunder in the ritual, while the other is beating a pair
of rattles. The heads of both women are bound with
garlands of ivy-leaves, which, together with the long
sinuous stem dividing the two groups of figures, are
among the emblems of Dionysos. From a black-
figured amphora of about 475 B.C., found at Gela
{Monumenti Jntichi^ xvii, Plate XXXVII). See pp,
267-70.



 



 




 



 



 



 



INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS ' Ixi

to Hyginus, may be included here, as well as the mythological
treatises of Fulgentius and of the Vatican Mythographer.



SOURCES FOR THE ROMAN MYTHS

The existing sources of the Roman myths are of the same
meagre proportions as the bulk of the legends themselves.
The most important are Vergil; Livy; Dionysios of Halikar-
nassos in his History of Early Rome; Ovid; Varro; the antiqua-
rian Verrius Flaccus; and Saint Augustine.

In the field of art outside of literature we can sometimes find
new versions of mythic tales and can very often see the old
forms from fresh points of view. It is the vase-paintings and
sculpture which yield the most substantial results. The arti-
sans who executed the former belonged to the ranks of the
<x)mmon people; consequently we may infer that those mytho-
logical themes which they pictured represent versions cur-
rent in their own stratum of society and perhaps detached
from literary traditions. For about two centuries, beginning
approximately 700 B.C., it was the common practice to use such
themes and to identify the personages portrayed by means of
symbols or inscribed names. Through the combined effect of a
number of hampering conditions — the limited space avail-
able for the picture on the vases, the artist's undeveloped skill,
and the religious conceptions of his times and of his social
class — it was impossible for the painter to impart to his
figures the finer lineaments of individuality and character.

Sculptures in relief, especially those belonging to temple
friezes, are more useful to us as sources of the details of myth
than as interpretations, for a tendency to allegorize their
themes obscures their primary, and even their contemporary,
significance. It is to sculpture in the round that we must turn
for the noblest and strongest interpretations of the god of
myth and worship. The temple statue tells no story; that is
not its function. On the contrary, it stands as a summary,



 



 



Ixii INTRODUCTION TO THE GREEK MYTHS

sublimated to an ideal by the alchemy of the artist's genius, of
all the highest attributes accorded the god in the thought of the
majority of his worshippers. The trained and discerning eye
can read the individual attributes in the summary. As com-
pared with the temple image, the decorative statue does tell
a story. The very purpose for which it is designed gives the
artist an opportunity of choosing a situation, to use a term of
dramatic criticism, in which to set his god; and situation im-
plies narrative. Moreover, the sculptor has much more free-
dom in making his selection of attributes. The other forms of
art to which the student of myth may refer are the wall-paint-
ings of Pompeii, coins, metal-work, and cut gems. The wall-
paintings generally deal with myths which are already known
through literature; they are useful mainly as illustrations and
verifications. Coin types not infrequently portray the leading
cult statues of the state issuing the coin; like their models,
then, they tell no story. The mythological scenes represented
in relief or by means of incised lines on mirrors, bowls, and
other objects of domestic use rank as sources in substantially
the same class as the earlier vase-paintings. From cut gem^
we learn relatively little.



 



 



GREEK AND ROMAN
MYTHOLOGY

PART I

MYTHS OF THE BEGINNING, THE HEROES,
AND THE AFTERWORLD



 



 



It may be thou hast followed

Through the islands some divine bard,

By age taught many things,

Age and the Muses ;

And heard him delighting

The chiefs and people

In the banquet, and leam'd his songs,

Of Gods and Heroes,

Of war and arts.

And peopled cities.

Inland, or built

By the grey sea. — If so, then hail!

I honour and welcome thee.

Matthew Arnold, The Strayed Reveller.



 



 



 



 



PLATE VII

Hera

The regal decoration of the diadem, the fine and
noble features, and the matronly bearing of the head,
are convincing proofe that this is a portrait of the
queen of Olympos and the divine patroness of wed-
lock. There does not exist in sculpture or in painting
a revelation of her character superior to this. From
an original marble, probably of the late fifth century
B.C., in the Uffizi, Florence (Brunn-Bruckmann,
DenkmUler griechischer und rdmischer Sculptur^ No.
547). Seepp. 7fF., i63fF.



 



 





 



 



 



i



 



GREEK AND ROMAN
MYTHOLOGY

CHAPTER I
MYTHS OF THE BEGINNING

THE early Greek looked out upon the world of men and
things and asked himself the far from simple question,
How and by whom was this great complex created? In an-
swering the question he was bound, of course, to remain
within the limits of his own personal experience — to explain
the unknown in terms of the known or of what seemed to be
known. Lacking the classified data of our modem sciences of
geology, astronomy, and biology, he was as incapable of form-
ing even a vague idea of the structure of the universe as he
was of measuring the distance between the sun and the moon.
Yet he possessed certain fundamental facts, and these com-
posed his meagre body of science. Moreover, observation had
taught him that the world was the theatre of the ceaseless
operation of unseen powers that were certainly superior to
man. Following his instincts, he personified these powers,
called them gods, and did them worship; this constituted his
religion. Since among most primitive peoples science and re-
ligion tend to be inextricably interwoven with each other,
it was inevitable that the Greek should draw on these two
sources of his funded experience in answering his question as
to the beginning of things.

Broadly speaking, the fundamental facts known to the Greek
are as follows. In all departments of her activity Nature
steadily proceeds from disorder toward order. The great move-
ments generally take place in regular cycles, such as days,
1 — 5



 



 



4 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

months, seasons, and years; while the unforeseen and calami-
tous phenomena, like volcanic eruptions, whirlwind, and flood,
are really less frequent and less potent than the normal oper-
ations. Like tends to beget like; life arises only from life.
The great tree comes from a small seed, the bird from a fragile
cgg> aiid man grows to maturity from a helpless infant. What
could be more natural for the Greek than to conclude, as he
did, that the world and the races of men and of gods came into
being in the same way? Once he could account for their crea-
tion, he could easily explain their subsequent growth and de-
velopment through the ordinary visible processes of nature.
For the supremacy of gods and men with their ideas of order
and justice he could find an obvious reason in the superiority
of the great regular forces over the irregular. In this method of
thought he was unwittingly paying a great tribute to himself.
The lower savage accredits some animal with the creation of
the world; the more advanced savage might go as high in the
scale as man himself in his search for the first maker; but to
be able to point with conviction to personal creative forces
immeasurably beyond man demands an extraordinary degree
of intellectual advancement.

The Creation of the World. — Among the Greeks there was
no single generally accepted account of the Creation, for the
people were divided as to which of the several records was the
most ancient and therefore likely to be the most authoritative.
The view that prevailed in Athens during the fifth and fourth
centuries B.C. was that the oldest was contained in a poem
which passed as the composition of the inspired Orpheus. The
many other so-called Orphic poems current at the time were
frankly counted as forgeries, but, nevertheless, were believed
to contain the same tradition of the Beginning as that found in
the Iliad.

According to the Orphic story, uncreated Nyx ("Night")
existed first, and was regarded as a great black-winged bird
hovering over a vast darkness "without form and void."



 



 



MYTHS OF THE BEGINNING 5

Though unmated, she laid an egg whence golden-winged Eros
("Love") flew forth, while from the two parts of the shell Oura-
nos and Gaia ("Heaven" and "Earth") were created. They
became the first pair of parents and brought into the world
Okeanos (" Ocean ") and Tethys (" Nurse ") . These in their turn
became a parental pair, begetting Kronos, Rhea, Phorkys, and
the other Titans; and, similarly, Kronos and Rhea were united
and begat Zeus and Hera. Now Kronos was warned that his
reign would cease when Hera should bear a son to Zeus. To
forestall such an evil he sought to kill her, but she was saved
by her mother, who secretly brought her to the realm of
Okeanos and Tethys, where, unknown to her father, she was
wedded to Zeus. The Moirai ("Fates") led the bride to her
husband, and Eros drew the bridal car, while in honour of the
nuptials Gaia gave Okeanos permission to fashion the beau-
tiful gardens of the Hesperides. The Orphic poet held this
union of Zeus and Hera before the Greeks as the model of con-
jugal relations.

The Hesiodic story is different in many points and is much
less satisfactory as a philosophical explanation of beginnings.
First there was Chaos,

"... the vast immeasurable abyss,
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild." *

Then came Gaia, gloomy Tartaros (the dark "Underworld"),
and Eros as the moving force within and about all things.
Chaos brought into being Erebos ("Lower Darkness") and
Njrx, and these in their turn begat Aither ("Heavenly Light")
and Hemera ("Earthly Light," i. e. "Day"). Mother Earth
bore Ouranos (star-sown "Heaven") to be a helpmeet to herself
and at the same time a secure dwelling-place for the blessed
gods. Now appeared the rugged mountains and the wild
stretches of the sea. In their relation of husband and wife
Ouranos and Gaia became the founders of what one might call
the first royal house of the gods.



 



 



6 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

The Regime of Ouranos. — The children of Ouranos and Gaia
were many. First, there were bom the Titans,* such as Okeanos,
Krios, Hyperion, lapetos, Themis (" Justice ")> Mnemosyne
(" Memory ")> and, last of all, Kronos. Besides these there
were the Kyklopes, "the powers of the air" — Brontes ("Thun-
der-Roar"), Steropes ("Lightning"), Arges ("Thunderbolt")
— each of whom had one huge eye in the middle of his
forehead. In addition to these monsters were the giants
Kottos, Briareos, and Gyes, each with fifty heads and a hun-
dred hands springing from his shoulders. So terrible were they
that Ouranos, their father, was afraid of them and thrust them
back into the bosom whence they had come. At this Gaia
was sorely offended, and calling her children together she laid
before them a plan of putting an end to the violence of their
sire. Only Kronos was fearless enough to carry it out. With
a sickle given him by Gaia he attacked his father and terribly
mutilated him, but Gaia caught the blood from the wound,
and from it in the process of time were bom the Erinyes
("Furies"), the armed Giants, and the Melian Nymphs, while
the contact of the severed flesh with the sea produced Aphro-
dite, the goddess of love. With this attack the rule of Ouranos
came to an end.

The Regime of Kronos. — By virtue of his strength and
boldness Kronos assumed the kingship over the gods, whose
number was now large, for during the rule of Ouranos, Nyx,
Pontos (barren "Sea"), and the elder Titans had begotten
many children, among these being Thanatos ("Death"), his
brother Hypnos ("Sleep"), "the whole tribe of dreams,"
Nemesis, Friendship, Old Age, and Strife, who herself had
brought forth "wars and rumours of war." Following the ex-
ample of Gaia in wedding Ouranos, Rhea became the sister-
spouse of Kronos, and the fruits of their wedlock were Hera,
Aides ("Hades"), Poseidon, and Zeus, "the sire of gods and
men." Kronos, remembering how he had displaced his father,
became fearful that one of his children might overthrow him,



 



 



MYTHS OF THE BEGINNING 7

and, accordingly, as soon as they were bom he swallowed them
as the easiest way of getting rid of them. Only Zeus escaped,
and that because Rhea contrived and executed a plan that
he should be bom in Crete and hidden in a cave on Mount




gigl^lMM*/^!



FkG. I. Poseidon

Poseidon holding a dolphin in his right hand to indicate that the sea is his abode,
and in his left hand a trident (originally a lightnlngbolt, but here a fish-spear) as a
S3rmbol of his sovereignty over the deep. From a red-figured Ukythos of the fifth
century b.c., found at Gela, Sicily (Monumenti Antichi, xvii, Plate XV).

Aigaion. Instead of a child she gave Kronos a stone which he
swallowed in ignorance of the deception, whereupon Gaia
caused him to disgorge what he had eaten and, naturally, the
stone came first and the children last. On reaching manhood
Zeus emerged from his hiding-place and after putting an end



 



 



8 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

to the unjust rule of his father he wedded Hera and himself
took the throne. Afterward he deposited the stone in Delphoi.
Centuries later a certain meteor worshipped in Roman Africa
was identified by mythologists as this same stone.*

Establishment of the Regime of Zeus; the Titans. — Many
children were born to Zeus and Hera, and they were the first
to be properly called gods. They established themselves on
Mount Olympos, which stood directly opposite Mount Othrys,
the seat of the Titans, who, being the older race (with the
exception of Mnemosyne, Themis, and Prometheus), quite
naturally regarded Zeus and his family as upstarts and usurp-
ers. Bitter rivalry and strife arose between the two settle-
ments, and for ten years they fought with no decisive results.
A peace-parley held at the end of this period seemed only to
add heat to the conflict, so that at length Zeus freed the three
hundred-handed Giants whom Kronos had left bound deep
down within the earth, and enlisted them in his ranks , deciding
now to reveal his full strength and to bring the tedious strife
to a sudden end. With their many hands the Giants hurled
huge rocks at the foe until the sky was darkened, while Zeus
cast thunderbolt after thunderbolt with their long tongues of
flame:

"... dire was the noise
Of conflict; overhead the dismal hiss
Of fiery darts in flaming volleys flew.
And, flying, vaulted either host with fire."*

By this deadly assault the Titans were overwhelmed and driven
into the depths of the earth. Down, down they went, a
journey of nine days and nine nights, until they were as far
from the plains of earth as the plains of earth are beneath
the heaven. There a brazen wall with brazen gates was built
about them, and the three Giants were placed on guard to
prevent them from escaping.

Typhon (or Typhoeus); the Giants. — The sway of Zeus was
not yet secure, for Gaia had borne to Tartaros a monstrous son



 



 



 



 



PLATE VIII
Gods and Giants

1. Ge rises from the earth as if to implore Poseidon
to stay his hand as he thrusts his trident into the breast
of her son, Polybotes.

2. In the centre of the picture Apollo, grasping his
unstrung bow in his left hand, with his right hand
drives his sword at Ephialtes, who defends himself
with a spear. At the left, the armed Ares is pressing
a spear-head ioto the breast of the falling Mimon,
while at the right Hera endeavours to transfix Phoitos,
who, though tottering backward, boldly continues
fighting.

3. In the outer group at the right Athene is de-
picted trying to turn Enkelados to stone by holding be-
fore him the gorgoneion of her aegis, while at the same
time she aims a lance at his breast. In the opposite
group, Artemis appears in the act of burning Gaion
with blazing torches, and in the centre, Zeus, marked
by his sceptre, and Porphyrion are engaged in mutual
combat, the one hurling a thunderbolt and the other
a stone. From a red-figured Jfylix of the early fifth
century b.c, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
(Furtwangler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei^ No.
127). See pp. 8-9.



 



 




 



 



 



 



MYTHS OF THE BEGINNING 9

named Typhon, the daemon of the whirlwind. Upon his shoul-
ders he carried a hundred serpent-heads; his voice was like
those of all formidable beasts in one; from his eyes there flashed
out fire. In his might he assailed Zeus, and would have wrested
the sovereignty from him had not the lord of the gods leaped
down from on high and felled the monster with a thunderbolt.
Upon Typhon Mount Aetna was set, and from its peak the
smoke and fire of his laboured breathing rise to this very day.

Even yet the lordship of Zeus was challenged, this time by
the Giants who had been bom of Gaia by the blood of Ouranos,
and whom some believed to be the forefathers of the human
race. Among these mighty beings were Enkelados, Hyperbios,
Ephialtes, and Polybotes. They were a haughty and warlike
folk, and under their king, Eurymedon, they lived, some said,
in the island of Kerkyra (Corfu), or as others preferred, in
Spain or even in Chalkidike. For their insolence and hostility
the gods, led by Zeus and Athene, overthrew them; in punish-
ment volcanoes were piled on their prostrate bodies, and their
groans and convulsions of pain can be perceived even today.

Offline PrometheusTopic starter

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Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #5 on: August 04, 2019, 04:34:29 PM »

This myth is a restatement or a poetic imitation of the battle
of the Titans, but it contains several features just as old as the
body of the other story. It was a very popular theme in poetry
and art throughout the Hellenic world. We find it employed
in a vase-painting which dates at least as early as the sixth
century b.c, in the eastern metopes of the Parthenon, and in
the frieze of the great altar of Zeus at Pergamon.

Although the elements of these stories of the beginnings of
things are varied and confused, their central meaning is clear.
They reveal the belief of the early Greeks that their established
social order never could have existed had not the cosmic forces
previously been reduced to order by some power or powers.
Moreover, they may be regarded as a gauge of the growing
Hellenic faculty which apprehended these potencies at first
as few and mutually overlapping in function, and later as
many and distinct from one another. In the ascendancy of



 



 



lo GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

Kronos over Ouranos and of Zeus over Kronos we see an in-
creasing appreciation of the worth of intellect over mere brute
strength and cunning. In short, the whole fabric of the stories
sets forth in pattern the conviction that the world moves
steadily toward better things.

The Creation of Man. — The Greeks, unlike the Hebrews
and their religious successors, had no one orthodox account of
the creation of man. On the contrary, there were almost as
many traditions as there were city-states, and the multiplicity
of both was due to the same cause, the isolating character of
the Greek highlands. What more natural for the Greek local
patriot than to believe that the first man was created in his
own community? When one understands the spirit of the
divisions in Greece, he cannot wonder that the attempts of
Hesiod and the earlier logographers to construct a harmony
of the conflicting local myths never proved to be eminently
successful. In the legends that we are about to examine each
act of the creation of man follows one of three processes : the
man simply originates out of the elemental powers or objects
of the earth; or he is begotten by one of the Olympians; or he
is moulded out of lifeless matter by the hand of some divine
or semi-divine artisan.

The first process is not as strange as it appears to be at first
glance, for it is very easy to infer that that power which can
produce the crops of the field and the mysterious second-growth
of timber on the burnt lands, and can make sudden revelations
of life in the wilderness, can also produce man. The Athenians
believed that the first man was Kekrops, who sprang to life
from the soil of Athens. Those Boiotians who lived near Lake
Kopais held that the first man, Alalkomeneus, was bom of the
waters of the lake after the manner of fish. To the people of
Arkadia the first man was their own earth-sprung Pelasgos.
In Theban story men germinated from the dragon's teeth
sown broadcast on the earth. Aiakos, the king of Aigina, had
a country without a people until, at the conmiand of Zeus,



 



 



MYTHS OF THE BEGINNING ii

the ants on the island assumed human shape and became his
subjects. Among those Hellenic stocks which inhabited dis-
tricts of hill and forest the prevailing myths derived men from
rocks and trees.

Zeus was accredited with being the great forefather of more
families and stocks than was any other Olympian, and his title,
"Father of gods and men," was therefore no idle appellation.
He begat Hellen through his union with Pyrrha ("Ruddy
Earth"), who was thus made the foremother of the Hellenes;
by Dia ("Divine Earth"), he became the father of Peirithoos;
Aiakos was his son by Aigina, the nymph of the island of the
same name; Lakedaimon, the ancestor of the Lakedaimonians,
was borne to him by Taygete, the nymph of the mountain of
that region; Perseus was the issue of his approach to Danae in
the form of a shower of gold; and nearly all kings proudly traced
their descent to Zeus. Yet the other gods were not wholly
without such honours. Poseidon was represented as the great
ancestor of the Aiolic stock, and Kronos became the father of
Cheiron through his amour with Philyra ("Linden-Tree").
One meets but rarely with myths which attribute the origin
of a race to the union of a goddess with a mortal man.

It is rather surprising that in most of their cosmogpnic myths
the Greeks succeeded merely in setting forth a plausible se-
quence of events, but failed to make really serious attempts
at a real solution of the causes. The stories which we have
just noted were not such as to satisfy a truly inquisitive mind.
The Greeks themselves early came to a realization of this, and
the simple conception rapidly gained ground that the first
human being must have been, so to speak, a manufactured
product. The maker (or makers, according to the variations of
the story) was a god who formed man by a definite act of will,
by means of a well-known process, and out of some tangible
material. The method which is generally detailed is the very
old and simple one of moulding the figure out of the dust of
the earth, a concept which appeals to the imagination of the



 



 



12 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLCXJY

modem as well as of the ancient. In the myths of Prometheus
and of Pandora we shall see it most attractively brought out -
' Prometheus. — "Prometheus is ... . the type of the highest
perfection of moral and intellectual nature, impelled by the
purest and the truest motives, to the best and noblest ends.*'
These words of the poet Shelley* give us a clear view of
Prometheus in his relation to the thought and religion of the
Greeks. He was a paradoxical character. In his one person he
was both less than god and "more than god, being wise and
kind."? His figure was clear where it represented the moral
aspirations of the Hellenes, obscure where it touched their
formal religion; it had just those lines which their imagination
could not resist and which made it an inexhaustible literary
theme.

Prometheus ("Forethinker") was generally held to be the
son of the Titan lapetos and Gaia (or Themis), and was
the brother of Atlas and Epimetheus ("Afterthinker")- The
legends are by no means in agreement as to the name of his
wife, who is variously called Kelaino, Pandora, Pyrrha, Asia,
and Hesione, all of which, it is worth noting, are epithets of
the Earth Goddess. His marriage was fruitful, and among his
children were sometimes counted Deukalion, Chimaireus, Ait-
naios, lo, and Thebe. In many of the myths Prometheus and
Hephaistos are curiously allied in their relations to human
culture.

Although a Titan, Prometheus had espoused the cause of
Zeus, thus'manifesting his native sympathy for law and order;
but as he was essentially a nobler type than Zeus himself,
he could not long maintain the allegiance^y When the chief
Olympian found mankind hopelessly faulty and planned to
create a new race in its place, Prometheus broke with him and
defiantly became sponsor of the human cause. This generous
devotion is the source of his power in myth.

In Hesiod^s Theogony the story runs that a conference of
gods and men was held at Sikyon to determine the homage



 



 



MYTHS OF THE BEGINNING 13

owed by men to the gods. Acting as priest, Prometheus sacri-
ficed an ox and divided it into two parts, one of which con-
sisted of flesh and other edible portions enveloped in the
skin of the animal, while the second was composed of bones
and entrails alluringly garnished with strips of rich fat. It
was the hope of Prometheus that Zeus would be misled by ap-
pearances and choose the poorer part, but to the Olympian
the deceit was too plain, and, in order that he might have an
excuse for punishing men, he deliberately took the bones and
entrails, and withheld the gift of fire from men.^jMoved with
pity, Prometheus stole some embers and brought them to
mankind hidden in a hollow stalk.^ In some myths it is said
that he took the fire from the very hearth of Zeus; in others,
from the workshop of Hephaistos and Athene on Lemnos; in
still others, from the fiery chariot of the sun. Through this
sublime theft men were enabled to lift the ban of Zeus, to begin
life anew, and little by little to evolve the arts and crafts. '

But Prometheus paid the penalty for his trespass on the
divine rights of Zeus to the exclusive control of fire. Zeus had
him chained to a crag (or pillar) in the range of Caucasus and
appointed an eagle to gnaw at his vitals, consuming each day
what had been restored during the night just past. Despite
his many sufferings the spirit of Prometheus was unquenched,
for he was comforted with the foreknowledge that some day
he would be released and that Zeus would be overthrown even
as Ouranos and Kronos had fallen. In due time his shackles
were broken by Herakles and he was brought back to Olympos
to serve his fellow-gods with his gift of prophecy. In one odd
version of the story the rocks sank with Prometheus into the
gloomy depths of Tartaros.

The notion that man was shaped from clay was relatively
late. By the fifth century B.C. the belief in this process was
general, and by the fourth it was the rule to identify Prometheus
as the artist, 'rrom clay he fashioned both men and beasts
and into them passed emanations of the divine fire which



 



 



H



GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY



became their souls. The human-like boulders at Panopeus in
Phokis were pointed out as material left over by him in the
process of making men^
"rhe myth of Prometheus teaches that the Greeks regarded
all natural fire as originally divine, that it was at once the
strongest and the subtlest of the forces of nature and the most
potent factor in the advance of humanity. In the legend can
be detected a plea for the dignity of perseverance and toil and




Fig. 2. Creation of Pandora

In the centre of the upper band the newly-created Pandora stands stiffly like a
figure of wood or clay. To her right appear in order Athene (who holds a wreath toward
her), Poseidon, Zeus, and Iris, while to her left are shown the armed Ares, Hermes,
and Hera. The lower band represents a comic dance of Satyrs. From a red-figured
kraUr found at Altemira and now in the British Museum (JHS xi, Plate XI).

the promise that they will bring their own reward in the form
of increased efficiency. The picture of the noble suffering of
Prometheus is testimony that very early the Greeks had a clear
idea of self-sacrificey

Pandora. — By accepting the stolen fire men were legally
party to the offence, and to punish them Zeus condemned
them to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow,
besides doing them irreparable harm by bringing evil into their
lives. At his bidding Hephaistos shaped an image of clay and
endowed it with human faculties. In appearance the figure was
like one of the Olympian goddesses — a beautiful maiden to
whom all the Olympians contributed of their several qualities.



 



 



 



 



PLATE IX

Athene Parthenos

This statue of Athene, the maiden protectress of
Athens, is one of a number of copies of the famous
chryselephantine image made by Pheidias for the
Parthenon, and many of its peculiar features betray
its metallic original. In her right hand the goddess
holds erect a long lance and allows her left hand to
rest on a shield standing on edge at her side. On her
head is a helmet on the top of which sits a sphinx,
and over her shoulders and breast hangs the aegis.
Her face is strong, dignified, just, and unemotional —
in short, suggests all those ideal traits of character
which the noblest myths have attributed to her.
From a marble of the age of Hadrian, in the Prado,
Madrid (Brunn-Bruckmann, Denkm&ler griechischer
und rSmischer Sculptur^ No. 511). See pp. 169 fF.



 



 




 



 



 



 



MYTHS OF THE BEGINNING 15

The Graces and the Hours decked her out in charming apparel
and bright flowers so that desire awoke in the hearts of men,
and as the gift of all the gods to the human race she was
named Pandora.' Hermes brought her to Epimetheus, who re-
ceived her in spite of Prometheus's warning to accept nothing
from the gods, for, unhappily, it was the nature of Epimetheus
to see no evil until it had come upon him. Pandora, curious to
know what was stored in a large jar standing near her (fancy-
is free to conjecture the origin of the vessel), lifted the lid, and
before she could replace it all sorts of evils and diseases flew
out and covered land and sea. Only Hope was left, not buoy-
ant, reassuring hope, but that kind which is

"... to much mortal woe
So sweet that none may turn from it nor go." •

Such, in the main, is the story of Hesiod. In the late poets the
jar is said to have contained every good as well as every evil;
the former flew away and were lost, while the latter were scat-
tered among men.

The substance of this tale and that of the phrase chetchez
lafemme are the same — through woman came and still comes
evil into the world. While the advent of the first man was ex-
plained in many ways, the first woman was always believed to
be the handiwork of the gods.

Origins of Certain Animals and Plants. — We can here men-
tion only a few of the many passages in the myths which de-
scribe the metamorphoses of human beings into animals and
plants. When Keyx, a son of Hesperos, perished by shipwreck,
his broken-hearted wife, Alkyone, threw herself into the sea and
was drowned. The gods changed them both into kingfishers,
which were said by the ancients to make their nests on the sur-
face of the sea in winter during a short period of calm which
sailors called the alcyon (or halcyon) days. Asteria, the Titan's
daughter who spumed an amour with Zeus, was transformed
by him into a quail; at the death of Meleagros his lamenting



 



 



i6 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

sisters were changed into shrill-voiced guinea-fowl; in the Attic
group of myths Tereus became the hoopoe, Philomele the night-
ingale, and Prokne the swallow, while Nisos of Megara was
transformed into the sea-eagle.

Some instances are recorded in which human beings took
the forms of quadrupeds. The impious Lykaon became a
prowling wolf, Kallisto a bear, and Psamathe, a wife of Aiakos,
a seal.

The origins of certain trees were sometimes traced back to
a human or a divine personage. For instance, when Philyra
first saw her monstrous son, the Centaur Cheiron, she was so
filled with horror that she begged to be given a new form, and
Zeus bestowed upon her that of the linden-tree. In pity for the
innocently incestuous Smyrna, Aphrodite allowed her to be-
come the myrrh-tree with its sweet aroma. The grieving sisters
of Phaethon were turned into tremulous poplars, and Daphne,
as we shall see later, became the laurel.

Beginnings of Civilization. — By means of myth the Greeks
endeavoured to explain the origins of the various features of
civilization as they did other beginnings equally obscure. The
Argives alleged that their Phoroneus was the first to teach men
to abandon a solitary manner of life and to gather together into
communities. It was he, and not Prometheus, according to
their patriotic claim, who was the discoverer of fire. Among
the Arkadians Pelasgos was believed to have been the first to
contrive huts, to fashion garments from the skins of beasts,
and to instruct men to cease eating leaves and grass like the
brutes of the field and to adopt a more distinctively human
diet. From Arkas, the Arkadians' eponymous ancestor, men
learned how to make bread, spin thread, and weave garments.
To the people of Eleusis Triptolemos was the pioneer in the
cultivation of the staple grains, while the reading of the will of
the gods in the flight of birds was first practised by Parnassos,
and Deukalion was credited with having been the founder of
religion.



 



 



MYTHS OF THE BEGINNING 17

The Ages of the World. — The Greeks and Romans, like most
other peoples, believed that the world had passed through a
series of ages, although the several theories as to the nature
of these aeons are in many respects discrepant. The cyclic
theory, the theories of both earlier and later mystics, and the
theories of the Stoics and Cynics, while owing much of their
fabric to mythology, belong more properly to philosophy, and
hence, even though a great part of their teaching is presented in
the form of myth, they can justly be ignored in this account.

Hesiod relates that in the beginning the Olympians under
Kronos created the race of the Men of Gold. In those days men
lived like gods in unalloyed happiness. They did not toil with
their hands, for earth brought forth her fruits without their
aid. They did not know the sorrows of old age, and death was
to them like passing away in a calm sleep. After they had gone
hence, their spirits were appointed to dwell above the earth,
guarding and helping the living.

The gods next created the Men of Silver, but they could not
be compared in virtue and happiness with the men of "the
elder age of golden peace.'* For many years they remained mere
children, and as soon as they came to the full strength and
stature of manhood they refused to do homage to the gods and
fell to slaying one another. After death they became the good
spirits who live within the earth.

The Men of Bronze followed, springing from ash-trees and
having hearts which were hard and jealous, so that with them
"lust and strife began to gnaw the world." All the works of
their hands were wrought in bronze. Through their own in-
ventions they fell from their high estate and from the light they
passed away to the dark realm of King Hades unhonoured and
unremembered.

Zeus then placed upon earth the race of the Heroes who
fought at Thebes and Troy, and when they came to the end of
life the Olympian sent them to happy abodes at the very limits
of the earth.



 



 



Offline PrometheusTopic starter

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Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #6 on: August 04, 2019, 04:35:24 PM »

i8 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

After the Heroes came the Men of Iron — "the race of these
wild latter days." Our lot is labour and vexation of spirit by-
day and by night, nor will this cease until the race ends, which
will be when the order of nature has been reversed and human
affection turned to hatred.

It is only too plain that this version is marked by an incon-
sistent development, and the insertion of the Age of Heroes
between the Age of Bronze and the Age of Iron is exceedingly
clumsy. Ovid shows much more skill in the joinery of his
material. In his narrative the four ages of the metals pass with-
out interruption, and for their wickedness the men of the Iron
Age are destroyed, the only survivors, Deukalion and Pyrrha,
becoming the parents of a new race — the race to which we
belong.

The basic idea of these two forms of the myth is that man
was created pure and faultless and fell by degrees to his pres-
ent unworthy condition, this being borne out by the descent
of the metals. The legend points, perhaps accidentally, to an
advance in human responsibility through the series of ages,
although its transition from age to age is far from clear. From
the point of view of modem ethics the story contradicts itself,
but this must not be emphasized too strongly, since the original
motif was apparently not ethical. The countless descriptions
of the Golden Age in the literatures of Greece and Rome had
a powerful influence over the early Christian delineations of
Heaven.

The Great Flood. — The Greeks shared with almost all other
peoples the belief in a great flood, but the event — if it actually
occurred — was so enshrouded in the haze of a remote past that
all the accounts of it which have come down to us are plainly
the products of the fertile imagination of the Greeks. They even
attempted to fix dates for it. The flood of Deukalion and Pyrrha
was synchronized by some with the reigns of Kranaos of Athens
and of Nyktimos of Arkadia. This particular deluge is the one
of which the best myths treat, and in describing it we shall



 



 



MYTHS OF THE BEGINNING 19

give in substance the account of ApoUodoros, as being simpler
and better proportioned than that of Ovid.

When Zeus would destroy the men of the Race of Bronze for
their sin, Deukalion fashioned a great chest at the bidding of
his father Prometheus. Into this he put all manner of food and
drink, and himself entered it with his wife Pyrrha (daughter of
Epimetheus and Pandora). Zeus then opened the sluices of
heaven and caused a great rain to fall upon the earth, a rain
which flooded well-nigh all Hellas and spared only a mere hand-
ful of men who had fled to the neighbouring hills. Deukalion
and Pyrrha were borne in the chest across the waters for nine
days and nine nights until they touched Mount Parnassos,
on which, when at length the rain had ceased, Deukalion dis-
embarked and offered sacrifice to Zeus Phyxios. Through
Hermes Zeus bade him choose whatsoever he wished, and he
chose that there be a human race. Picking up some stones from
the ground at the command of Zeus, he threw them over his
head and they became men, while the stones which Pyrrha cast
in like manner became women. Hence from Xaa9, "a stone,"
men were called Xaotj " people.'* ^® In his version Nonnos
localizes the flood in Thessaly.

Besides the foregoing, there are other flood-myths. Megaros,
the founder of Megara, was said to have been rescued from a
deluge by following the guiding cry of a flock of cranes; Dar-
danos escaped from a Samothracian flood by drifting to the
Asiatic shore on a boat of skins; and the separation of Europe
and Asia, it was related, was due to an unprecedented flow of
water.

Most scholars of comparative mythology now agree that
the flood stories of the various peoples are germinally of local
origin, and in most instances consist of genuine tradition of a
wide-reaching inundation mingled with pure myth.



1—6



 



 



CHAPTER II

MYTHS OF THE PEL0P0NNES08

I. ARKADIA

nELJSGOS. — The first man in Arkadia was Pelasgos, after
-^ whom the land was named Pelasgia, and a fragment of
Asios says that "the black earth bore godlike Pelasgos on the
wooded hills that there might be a race of men." Elsewhere he
is called the son of Zeus and the Argive Niobe, and if Niobe
was really an earth goddess, as we have reason to suspect, these
two genealogies are in fact but one. Besides being the founder
of human civilization, he was the first Arkadian king and
temple builder. He was wedded to the sea-nymph Meliboia
(or Kyllene, or Deianeira), by whom he begat a son Lykaon.

Lykaon. — Lykaon, too, was a founder who built the city of
Lykosoura, established the worship of Zeus on Mount Lykaios,
and erected the temple of Hermes of Kyllene. He married
many wives, who bore him fifty sons, but they and their father
manifested such impiety and arrogance before both gods and
men that they became an oflFence in the eyes of Zeus. In order
to make trial of them Zeus came to Lykaon's palace in the dis-
guising garb of a poor day-labourer. The king received him
kindly, but on the advice of one of his sons mingled the vitals
of a boy with the meat of the sacrifices and set them on the
table before the god. With divine intuition Zeus detected the
trick. Rising in anger he overturned the table, destroyed the
house of Lykaon with a thunderbolt, changed the king into a
wolf, and proceeded to slay his sons. When one only, Nyktimos,
was left, Ge (i. e. Gaia) stayed the hand of Zeus. This son suo-



 



 



 



 



PLATE X

I
Helen and Paris

Aphrodite rests her right hand and arm across the
shoulders of Helen, a young woman of attractive but
irresolute manner, and looks earnestly into her fiice as
if she were entreating an answer to a question.
Opposite to them stands Eros, who seems to be
endeavouring to persuade Alexandros (Paris) to come
to a decision in a matter which greatly perplexes him.
From a marble relief in Naples (Brunn-Bruckmann,
Denkm&ler griichischer und romscher Sculptur^ No.
439). See p. 125.



ASKLEPIOS

Since the myths failed to endow Asklepios with
distinctive physical traits, artists, impressed by the
nobility of his character and activities, habitually
likened him to the sublime figure of Zeus, and cer-
tainly this representation of him cannot but remind
one of the statuette of Zeus reproduced on Plate
XXXVII. His face and outstretched left hand
promise a gracious welcome to those who seek his
aid. From a marble relief, perhaps copied from the
temple-statue by Thrasymedes (fourth century B.C.),
discovered at Epidauros and now in Athens (Brunn-
Bruckmann, Denkm&lir griichiscber undromischir Sculps
tury No. 3). See pp. 279 ff.



 



 





 



 



 



 



MYTHS OF THE PELOPONNESOS 21

ceeded his father on the throne and during his reign came the
great flood which Zeus sent to destroy mankind.

In this story Lykaon may represent an old Pelasgic god or
king whom immigrating Greeks found established in the land.
The resemblance between the Greek word \vko^, "wolf,"
and the initial syllable of the name Lykaon may perhaps in
part have given rise to the myth of Lykaon's change intx) a
wolf, while in the impious offering to Zeus one can see a record
of human sacrifice^ in an ancient Zeus-ritual.

Kallisto. — In addition to his fifty wicked sons Lykaon had
another child, a daughter named Kallisto ("Fairest"), who was
sometimes spoken of simply as a nymph, a circumstance which
probably points to her original independence of Lykaon. She
was a companion of Artemis, the "huntress-goddess chaste and
fair," who exacted of her followers a purity equal to her own.
But Zeus deceived Kallisto and took advantage of her. When
she was about to bear a child to him, Hera discovered her con-
dition, and, turning her into a bear, persuaded Artemis to kill
her with an arrow as she would any other beast of the wood-
land. At the behest of Zeus, Hermes took her unborn child to
his mother Maia on Mount Kyllene, where he was reared under
the name of Arkas, but the slain Kallisto Zeus placed among
the constellations as the Bear, which, never setting, ceaselessly
revolves about the pole-star, for Tethys, obeying the command
of Hera, will not allow the evil thing to bathe in the pure waters
of Okeanos.

This myth, too, can be traced to a religious origin. In Ar-
kadia the bear was an animal sacred to Artemis, one of whose
cult-titles was Kalliste, a name which could readily be worked
over into Kallisto. Kallisto, then, both maiden and bear, was
none other than Artemis herself. Moreover, the similarity in
sound between Arkas and "Ap/cro^ ("bear") was a great aid to
the development of the story without being its cause.

Arkas, AleoSy Auge. — Arkas, though generally considered
to be the son of Kallisto and Zeus, was sometimes designated



 



 



22 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

as the twin brother of Pan, the native god of Arkadia. One
tale even makes him the child whose flesh Lykaon served to
Zeus, but in this instance Zeus put the severed members to-
gether and breathed into them once more the breath of life.
The child was then reared to manhood in Aitolia and later
followed his uncle Nyktimos as king, the country being named
Arkadia after him. Arkas wedded the nymph Erato, by whom
he became the father of three sons who had many descendants,
and even in our era his grave was pointed out to travellers near
Mantineia.

The three sons of Arkas divided the rule among themselves,
and one of his grandsons, Aleos, founded the city of Tegea,
where he established the cult of Athene Alea. His daughter
Auge ("Sunlight") had an intrigue with Herakles when he
visited her city, and afterward secretly bore a son whom she
concealed in the sacred precincts of Athene. About this time a
dreadful plague came upon the land, and on consulting the
oracle as to the cause of it, Aleos was warned that the house
of the goddess was harbouring an impure thing. After a search
he found the child and learned of his daughter's sin. Enclosing
mother and son together in a chest, he cast them adrift upon
the sea, and by the waves they were borne at length to the shores
of Mysia, whence they were led to the court of King Teuthras
who made Auge his queen and accepted her son, now called
Telephos, as his own. In a variation of the tale we read that
Aleos exposed Telephos on the mountain-side where he was
suckled by a doe and afterward found by hunters or by herds-
men. Auge was given to Nauplios to be killed, but her life
was spared, and she and her son ultimately found their way
to Mysia. We shall meet with Telephos later on in the story
of the Trojan war.

The Plague at Teuthis. — The people of the Arkadian vil-
lage of Teuthis told an interesting myth which purported to
account for a visitation of sterility on their soil. The villagers
had sent a certain Teuthis (or Omytos) to command a con-



 



 



MYTHS OF THE PELOPONNESOS 23

tingent of Arkadians in the war against Troy, but when the
Greeks were held back at Aulis by head winds, Teuthis quar-
relled with Agamemnon and threatened to lead his men back
home. In the guise of a man Athene appeared to him and tried
to dissuade him from his purpose, but in a fit of rage he pierced
her in the thigh with his spear and withdrew to Greece. At
Teuthis the goddess came before him with a wound in her
thigh and a wasting disease fell upon him, while his country-
was stricken with a failure of the crops. The oracle of Zeus
at Dodona instructed the people that if they desired to ap-
pease the goddess they must, among other things, make a
statue of her with a wound in its thigh, and Pausanias*
naively adds, "I saw this image myself, with a purple bandage
wrapt round its thigh."

II. LAKONIA AND MESSENE

Lelex and his Descendants. — The first man and first king of
Lakonia was Lelex, who, like Pelasgos, was autochthonous,
i. e. the offspring of the soil. From him the country derived its
name of Lelegia, and he had two sons, one of whom, Myles,
succeeded him in the sovereignty, while the other, Polykaon,
became the ruler of the kingdom of Messenia. At his death
Myles' dominion passed into the hands of Eurotas, the largest
river of the land, whose daughter, Sparta, became the bride of
Lakedaimon; Amyklas, one of the issue of this union, begetting
a famous son, Hyakipthos.

Hyakinthos. — This Hyakinthos was one of the chief per-
sonages in Lakonian worship and myth. A model of youthful
beauty, he was much loved by Apollo, and Zephyros, the mild
West Wind, also loved him, but since his devotion was unre-
quited, in an outburst of jealousy he permitted a discus thrown
by Apollo in a friendly contest to swerve aside and kill Hyakin-
thos. From the youth's blood caught by the earth sprang up
the deep-red hyacinth flower,' whose foliage is marked with



 



 



24 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

the letters AI, which signified to the Greeks "lamentation."
Long did Apollo grieve for his friend unhappily slain by his
hand. The body was buried at Amyklai where in the temple
of Apollo his grave was for long years visible to passers-by,
and from the mourning of Apollo was developed the great
Lakonian festival, the Hyakinthia, the first days of which
were devoted to a demonstration of grief, while the last day
was one long outburst of joy. These two kinds of celebration
marked respectively the alternating dying and revival of vege-
tation as typified mainly by the hyacinth. The festival was
probably pre-Dorian in origin.

The Family ofPerieres. — According to one of the genealogies,
Amyklas had a grandson Perieres (or Pieres) who held the
throne of Messene. By his queen Gorgophone, the daughter
of Perseus, he begat four sons, Tyndareos, Aphareus, Ikarios,
and Leukippos, all of whom hold prominent places in myth
through the fame of their children. Ikarios became the father
of Penelope, the faithful wife of Odysseus; Aphareus, of Idas
and Lynkeus; Tyndareos, of Helen, Klytaimestra (old spelling
Klytemnestra), Kastor, Polydeukes, and others; and Leukip-
pos, of Hilaeira and Phoebe.

Tyndareos, Heletty Kastor and Polydeukes. — Tyndareos was
expelled from Sparta by his brothers, and, until restored to
his kingdom by Herakles, he took refuge with Thestios, king
of the Aitolians, whose daughter, Leda, he married.

The story of the birth of his daughter, Helen, is variously
told. The version most widely known is that which depicts
Leda as a human being approached by Zeus in the guise of a
swan, Helen, the offspring of this union, being therefore Leda's
own child. A late version, on the other hand, represents her
as the daughter of Nemesis. It seems that Nemesis, after
taking various other forms in order to elude the amorous pur-
suit of Zeus, finally assumed that of a swan, but by appearing
in the same shape Zeus deceived her. After the manner of
birds she laid an egg which was found by a peasant (or by



 



 



 



 



PLATE XI

The Contest for Marpbssa

On the right the tall, athletic man drawing his bow
is Idas, and before him stands Marpessa, a figure re-
plete with feminine graces, who casts a look of quiet
submission upon her lover. Balancing Idas in the
composition is Apollo, a lithe and relatively immature
young man, making ready to place an arrow on the
string; and beside him is his huntress-sister, Artemis,
carrying a quiver and wearing a fawn-skin on her
shoulders. The man striding between the two groups
as if to part them, must be Evenos, Marpessa's father,
and not Zeus. From a red-figured vase, apparently
of the school of Douris (about 500 B.C.), found at
Girgenti, and now in Munich (Furtwangler-Reich-
hold, Griechische Vasenmalerei^ No. 16). See pp. 27-
28.



 



 




 



 



 



 



MYTHS OF THE PELOPONNESOS 25

Tyndareos) and taken to Leda. In due time Helen emerged
from the egg and was cherished by Leda as of her own flesh
and blood. When she was nearing womanhood her parents sent
her to Delphoi to inquire of the oracle concerning her mar-
riage. One day, while the response was being awaited, she hap-
pened to be dancing in the temple of Artemis at Sparta, when
Theseus of Athens and his friend Peirithoos suddenly appeared
and seized her. The two drew lots for her possession, and she
'was given to Theseus, who carried her off to Attike and left
her in charge of his mother Aithra in the mountain village of
Aphidnai. Helen's brothers, Kastor and Polydeukes, thinking
that she was at Athens, went thither and demanded her re-
lease, only to meet with refusal. Not long afterward, however,
"when Theseus departed for a distant country, the brothers
learned of the place of Helen's concealment and by a sudden
attack succeeded in carrying her home along with her custo-
dian Aithra. The citizens of Athens, alarmed at the military
demonstration of Kastor and Polydeukes, admitted them into
their city and thereafter accorded them divine honours. This
myth we can probably put down as a fiction to account both
for an early clash between Athens and Sparta and for the in-
troduction of the worship of Kastor and Polydeukes into the
city first named.

On returning to her home after this, the earliest of her many
adventures with men, Helen and her parents (particularly the
latter, as we may readily surmise) were much perplexed by the
importunity of a multitude of suitors for her hand. It was
decided that the matter be settled by lot, but before the lots
were cast Tyndareos, fearing trouble from those of the suitors
who would be doomed to disappointment, shrewdly persuaded
them to consent to swear that they would one and all defend
Helen and the successful suitor in the event of her being
wronged in the future. They took their oaths over the severed
pieces of a horse, and the oaths were "bound," as magic terms
it, by the burial of the pieces. By the lots Helen became the



 



 


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Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
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26 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

wife of Menelaos of Argos. Her later adventures belong to
the story of the great Trojan War.

Helen's twin brothers, Kastor and Polydeukes, were known
jointly as the Dioskouroi, "sons of Zeus," although it was
popularly believed that only Polydeukes was in fact the son
of the god, Tyndareos being the father of the other. These
brothers were conspicuous figures in Spartan cult and myth,
and were regarded by the ancient Greeks in general as the
outstanding exponents of heroic virtue and valour. So faithful
and deep was their affection for one another that their two per-
sonalities were blended as into one, and thus they stood as the
divine guardians of friendship. They excelled in athletic sports
and feats of arms, Kastor being the type of expert horseman
and Polydeukes that of the skilful boxer, while to the accom-
paniment of Athene's flute they are said to have invented the
Spartan military dance. Their altar stood at the entrance to
the hippodrome at Olympia, and they appeared frequently on
the heroic stage. They participated in the voyage of the Ar-
gonauts and in the great hunt at Kalydon, and at Sparta they
fought against Enarsphoros, the son of Hippokoon, but their
chief military exploit was their sanguinary encounter with
their cousins Idas and Lynkeus, the sons of Aphareus.

This story is told in two distinct forms. In one, the two pairs
of brothers were making raids on the cattle of Arkadia. Idas
and Lynkeus were driving a captured herd into Messenia when
they almost fell into an ambuscade laid for them by Kastor
and Polydeukes. These latter had hidden themselves in a
hollow oak, but they could not elude the keen eyes of Lyn-
keus, who was able to see through the hearts of trees and
beneath the surface of the earth. Lynkeus attacked Kastor
and killed him, but Polydeukes swiftly pursued his brother's
slayer and struck him down as he was about to roll upon him
the image of Hades which stood on Aphareus's tomb. Sud-
denly Zeus intervened and smote Idas with a thunderbolt
which consumed the bodies of the slain brothers together,



 



 



MYTHS OF THE PELOPONNESOS 27

whereupon Polydeukes prayed Zeus to be reunited with Kas-
tor, obtaining an answer in the divine permission ever after-
ward to live with him alternately on Olympos and in the
underworld.

In its other form the story depicts the brothers of each family
as rivals for the hands of their two cousins, the daughters
of Leukippos. The sons of Tyndareos seized the maidens
and carried them off, pursued by the sons of Aphareus who
kept taunting them with having violated the custom of the
country by withholding marriage presents from the brides'
parents. In reprisal Kastor and Polydeukes appropriated their
pursuers* cattle and gave them to Leukippos, the consequence
being a double duel in which Kastor killed Lynkeus, and then
Idas slew Kastor for his insults to the dead, and lastly Poly-
deukes killed Idas. After this the sons of Tyndareos were
vouchsafed immortality, as in the first version of the myth.
Their significance in cult, together with that of Helen, will be
explained in our consideration of the divinities of light. Idas
and Lynkeus are to be regarded as the Messenian doubles of
the Dioskouroi.

Idas and Marpessa. — Evenos, the uncle of Leda, had a
daughter Marpessa. Both Apollo and Idas, enamoured of her
beauty, became her suitors, and the latter in his passionate
love seized her and bore her away in a winged chariot, the gift
of Poseidon. Eluding the pursuit of Evenos, he brought her to
Messene, where Apollo attempted to wrest her from him and
would have worked his will had not Zeus interrupted the quar-
rel and bidden the maiden choose between the rivals. Marpessa,
fearing that the fickleness of Apollo in the past was a poor
promise of fidelity in the future, chose the mortal suitor Idas.

"*If I live with Idas, then we two
On the low earth shall prosper hand in hand
In odours of the open field, and live
In peaceful noises of the farm, and watch
The pastoral fields burned by the setting sun.



 



 



28 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

And he shall give me passionate children, not
Some radiant god that will despise me quite.
But clambering limbs and little hearts that err.'

When she had spoken, Idas with one cry
Held her, and there was silence; while the god
In anger disappeared. Then slowly they,
He looking downward, and she gazing up.
Into the evening green wandered away." *



III. ARGOS

The land of Argolis was so situated in relation to the main
highways of navigation in the Mediterranean as to invite a
great variety of foreign connexions. In this one may find an
explanation of the motley fabric of Argive myth, and a careful
study of its composition makes it possible to state with some
degree of assurance the sources of its sundry elements. Natur-
ally, it is outside the scope of this work to tag each constituent
tale of the narrative with its national origin. Suffice it to say
that we find a nucleus of native Argive myth overlaid in an
irregular fashion with legends of Cretan, Euboian, Boiotian,
Milesian, Corinthian, Megarian, and Aitolian provenance,*
which, regardless of the question of their origin, are nearly all
fraught with interest for the student of comparative religion
and custom.

InachoSj lo. — The first figure in the purely Argive part of
the complex of myths is that of Inachos, the principal river and
river-god of the Argolid. In the developed genealogy he is the
offspring of Okeanos and Tethys, and by a marriage with an
Okeanid he begat two sons, Phoroneus and Aigialeus, the first
of whom, also said to be an autochthon, we have already seen
as one of the pioneers of human culture, Aigialeus, especially
prominent among the people of Sikyon, was the personification
of the southern shores of the Gulf of Corinth. Phoroneus had
two children — Apis, after whom the Peloponnesos was called



 



 



 



 



PLATE XII

lo AND ArGOS

lo, who can be identified by the mere point of a
horn protruding from her hair, is seated on a stone
and looks appealingly at her guardian. Argos stands
with one foot on a stone and rests his right hand on a
crag in the background, as he gazes straight in front
of him with wide staring eyes. It is easily seen that
the painter has entirely forgotten or ignored the orig-
inal religious meaning of the myth. From a Pompeian
wall-painting (Hermann-Bruckmann, Denkm'Aler der
Malerei des Jltertums^ No. 53). See pp. 28-30.



 



 




 



 



 



 



MYTHS OF THE PELOPONNESOS 29

Apia; and Niobe, by whom Zeus became the father of Pelasgos
and Arg08. One of the descendants of Argos of the third or
fourth generation was Argos Panoptes ("All-Seeing"), a monster
whose body was covered with eyes. He slew the bull which
was ravaging Arkadia, flayed it, and used its skin as a garment,
and he is also said to have killed Satyros as he was raiding the
herds of the Arkadians, and to have trapped Echidna, the
hideous issue of Tartaros and Gaia.

lo, the chief personage in this group of myths, was counted
either as the daughter of Inachos (or of Peiren, perhaps a double
of Inachos), or as a comparatively late descendant. An exact
genealogy is not essential to her story. She was the priestess
of the temple of Hera, the divine patroness of Argos, and her
charms drew upon her the attentions of Zeus, who corrupted
her, but who denied the deed when charged with it by his
wife. Like a coward he changed into a white heifer the maiden
whom he had wronged and surrendered her to Hera, who put her
in care of the vigilant Argos Panoptes. By him she was teth-
ered to an olive-tree in the grove of Mykenai, but at the com-
mand of Zeus, Hermes slew Argos, thereby earning for himself
the title of Argeiphontes (" Argos-Slayer" •), and set lo free,
whereupon, animated by a merciless spite, Hera sent a gad-fly
to pursue her from land to land. She was driven first of all
to the gulf whose name, Ionian, even today commemorates
her visit, and thence across lUyrikon and Thrace, whence she
made her way to Asia over the straits which from that day
were called the Bosporos ("Ox-Ford"^). Through Caucasus,
Skythia, and Kimmeria (Crimea), even across the Euxine, she
was goaded by the fly until at length she reached Egypt, where
she was given rest and restored by Zeus to her human form.
On the banks of the Nile she bore a son Epaphos ("Touch")
to the god, but the presence of the babe was offensive to the
jealous spirit of Hera, and through her machinations Epaphos
was taken from his mother and hidden in a far land. Again
the distressed lo was compelled to wander on the face of the



 



 



30 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

earth, until, after a long search, she found her son in Syria
and brought him back to Egypt, where he became the fore-
father of several great peoples.

The suggestions put forth to account for the myth of lo are
many and varied. Most of them try to identify both her and
Argos with celestial phenomena. For instance, lo is the moon
with its horned crescent wandering across the sky, and her guar-
dian, Argos, is the starry heavens. Such suggestions as these,
however, fail to satisfy the profounder student of folk-lore,
since they do not even attempt to give a reason for the senti-
ment, almost akin to reverence, with which the Argives regarded
the person of lo. The Heraion, the temple of Hera near Argos,
was doubtless the source of the earliest form of the myth, and
probably lo was none other than Hera herself, who elsewhere is
said to have assumed the form of a cow. At all events, the cow
was sacred in the cult of Hera. The tale of lo's wanderings is
apparently a late addition brought in from outside when the
original theme assumed new forms among the alien tribes and
cities which had dealings with Argos.

The Families of Danaos and Aigyptos. — Belos, a grandson
of Epaphos, ruled over Egypt, and by a daughter of the Nile
had four sons, in only two of whom, Danaos and Aigyptos, we
are interested at present. The latter was appointed king of
Arabia by his father, but by conquest he added to his realm
the country of the Melampodes ("Black Feet") which he
named Aigyptos* ("Egypt") after himself. He had a family of
fifty sons, and his brother Danaos, the sovereign of Libya, the
same number of daughters. The two brothers became involved
in a political quarrel, and Danaos with his daughters fled
by ship to Argos, whose king, Gelanor, yielded the crown to
him, thus restoring it to the line of lo. As it happened, the
land had been without sufiicient water since the time when
Poseidon had dried up the springs and streams to punish
Inachos for his award of the divine supremacy of Argos to
Hera, but one of Danaos's daughters, Amymone, gained the



 



 



MYTHS OF THE PELOPONNESOS 31

love of Poseidon and through him received knowledge of the
abundant springs of Leme, which thenceforth were a perpetual
blessing to the land and to the people. Presently the fifty
sons of Aigyptos appeared in Argos and demanded their fifty
cousins in marriage. Though distrusting them, Danaos ac-
quiesced in their demand, but secretly he gave to each daughter
a weapon with which she was to slay her husband at the earliest
opportunity, and on their wedding-night all except Hyper-
mnestra stabbed their bridegrooms to death in bed. For her dis-
obedience Danaos imprisoned Hypermnestra, but later, relent-
ing, allowed her to live with her husband, Lynkeus, while her
sisters buried their husbands' heads in the spring of Leme
and interred the bodies before the city. In compliance with the
behest of Zeus, Athene and Hermes cleansed them of the guilt
of bloodshed, after which Danaos held a series of athletic con-
tests, to the winners of which he gave his widowed daughters
in marriage. In an older form of the myth than that which
we have just outlined, Lynkeus inmiediately avenged the mur-
der of his brothers by killing not only the guilty daughters,
but Danaos as well. In Hades these women were condemned
to the endless task of filling a bottomless jar with water drawn
in leaky vessels.

This myth is a strange conglomerate of primitive magic and
cult. It seems to be, in part, of an aetiological character, and
to purport to reveal the origin of the ritual of a rain-charm
which had somehow become associated with the cult of the
dead. In this ritual a bottomless jar would be placed over the
grave of one who had died young or unmarried, and the liquids
poured into the vessel passed forthwith into the ground and
to the souls of the dead, the BavaoC^ "thirsty ones," who
would put an end to the drought as soon as their own thirst
should be satisfied. In all probability Hypermnestra was a
priestess of Hera in her capacity of goddess of wedlock, and
thus constitutes a link binding this myth with those emanating
at an earlier period, and more directly, from the Heraion.*



 



 



32 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

The connexion of Amymone and the springs of Leme with the
myth of the Danaids cannot be original.

Proitos and his Daughters. — On the death of Danaos his
son-in-law Lynkeus became king. He had two grandsons,
Akrisios and Proitos, who were said to have fought with one
another even before birth, so early did a quarrel ov6r the suc-
cession arise between them. When they became men, Akrisios
got the upper hand and exiled his brother who went to Lykia,
in Asia Minor, where he was hospitably received by King lo-
bates and was given the princess Anteia (or Stheneboia) in
marriage. With the aid of a Lykian army he returned to the
Peloponnesos, captured Tiryns in spite of its strong fortifica-
tions, and there established his rule. His wife bore him three
daughters, who in young womanhood were stricken with mad-
ness, either for refusing the rites of Dionysos, or for treating
an image of Hera with contempt. Raving wildly, they roamed
throughout the land until Melampous ("Black Foot," i. c.
Egyptian) of Pylos, a seer skilled in the use of healing drugs,
promised to cure them on condition that Proitos surrender to
him one third of the kingdom. This Proitos refused to do, but
meanwhile the evil grew, for the other women of the country
were becoming infected with the madness. The seer renewed
his promise of healing, this time with the added condition that
a second third of the kingdom go to his brother Bias. At
last Proitos yielded, and his daughters were made whole by
means of Bacchic rites. Bias wedded one of the two younger
maidens, and Melampous the other, by whom he became the
founder of a family of seers.

The instructive feature of this myth is its revelation of two
strata of cults in primitive Argos, the earlier that of Hera, the
later that of Dionysos. The alleged impious acts of the daugh-
ters of Proitos seem to serve as explanation for certain wanton
words and rites in the worship of these two gods in historical
times." With this story we may compare a Boiotian legend
which records the madness of the daughters of Minyas.



 



 



 



 



PLATE XIII

Perseus

Although unaccompanied by an inscription this
figure can be definitely identified as Perseus. In his
right hand he holds the harpi^ or sickle-sword, the gift
of Hermes, on his shoulders hangs the pouch which
he received from the Nymphs, and on his feet are the
winged sandals which bear him swiftly through the
air. His head-gear seems to be not the dog-skin cap
of Hades, but a special form of the pttasos^ or travelling
hat. From a red-figured amphora of about 500 B.C.,
in Munich (Furtwangler-Reichhold, Griechiscbi Vaseti"
malerei^ No. 134). See pp. 32fF.



 



 




 



 



 



 



MYTHS OF THE PELOPONNESOS 33

AkrisioSy Danaij and Perseus. — Akrisios, who continued to
hold sway over Argos, was told by an oracle that his daughter's
son would kill him. To circumvent the prophecy he enclosed
his daughter Danae in a brazen chamber, thinking thereby to
cut her off from all human intercourse; but he failed in his pur-
pose; for, as some say, the maiden was corrupted by her uncle
Proitos, or, as others claim, by Zeus, who won his way to her
in the form of a shower of gold falling through an aperture in
the roof of her prison. When she had given birth to a son whom
she called Perseus, Akrisios put them both in a chest and sent
them adrift on the waters of the Aegean. By wind and wave
the chest was carried to Seriphos, where it was dragged ashore
by Diktys, the brother of Polydektes, the king of the island,
who released Danae and her child and gave them a home.
After a number of years Polydektes made love to Danae but
was rejected. Fearing to take her by force, since Perseus was by
this time quite capable of defending his mother, he devised a
plan to get her son out of the way. To all his friends he sent
invitations to a wedding-feast, and Perseus, with the extrava-
gant asseveration of youth, replied that he would not fail to
be present even if he had to bring the Gorgon's head. When
the guests had assembled and it was discovered that all of them
except Perseus had brought horses as presents, Polydektes dis-
missed him until he should have fulfilled his promise to the
letter, warning him, moreover, that in event of failure his
mother would be wedded by force. Sadly Perseus withdrew to
a lonely spot; but in the midst of his perplexity Hermes and
Athene appeared and led him to the Graiai, the ancient daugh-
ters of Phorkys and Keto. These had been grey from birth
and had amongst them only one eye and one tooth, which
they used in turns. By getting possession of these indispen-
sable members and by threatening to keep them, Perseus com-
pelled the Graiai to tell him the way to the dwelling-place of
the nymphs who guarded the dog-skin cap of Hades, the winged
sandals, and the magic pouch. Following the directions given



 



 

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Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #8 on: August 04, 2019, 04:37:08 PM »


34 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

him, he made his way to the nymphs and secured the objects
which he so much desired. With the sandals he flew through
the air to the land of the Gorgons near distant Okeanos, where
he found the three monstrous sisters asleep. Their heads were
covered with the homy scales of reptiles, their teeth were like
the tusks of swine, and they had hands of brass and wings of
gold. Their most formidable endowment, however, was their
power to turn to stone those who looked upon them. Aware
of this, Perseus with averted face approached Medousa, the
only one of the three who was mortal, and, guiding himself
by the reflection of her image in his shield, he struck off
her head with a single blow of the scimitar which Hermes
had given him, dropping the precious trophy in his pouch.
From Medousa's severed neck leaped forth Pegasos, the
winged horse, which flew aloft to the house of Zeus to be-
come the bearer of the thunderbolt and lightning; and from
the wound also sprang Chrysaor who was to be the father
of the three-bodied Geryoneus. It is said that Athene was
witness of the Gorgon's death and on the spot invented the
flute on which she imitated the dying monster's shrieks
and groans. As Perseus flew across Libya after his success-
ful exploit drops of blood dripped from the pouch upon the
land and became the germs of a breed of poisonous serpents,
this being the reason why there are so many of these reptiles
in this part of Africa. Medousa's sisters on waking were un-
able to pursue Perseus since the cap of Hades rendered him
invisible.

On his return flight Perseus found the land of Aithiopia
suffering from the ravages of a great monster sent by Poseidon
to punish the boast of Queen Kassiepeia that she was more
beautiful than the sea-nymphs. In an endeavour to appease
the monster in a manner counselled by an oracle, Kepheus,
the king, bound his daughter Andromeda to a rock beside the
sea, and just as Perseus came the monster was about to devour
her. Moved to pity and love at the sight of her as she cowered



 



 



MYTHS OF THE PELOPONNESOS 35

before the great creature, Perseus without delay forced from
her father the promise that she should become his bride if he
could succeed in releasing her. Approaching the monster,
Perseus drew from his pouch the Gorgon's head ^ and turned
him to stone, and later, when his claim to the freed Andromeda
was disputed by her uncle Phineus, to whom she had been
betrothed, he treated him, too, in the same fashion. After his
marriage he lingered many months in Aithiopia and begat by
Andromeda a son Perses who was destined to become the
parent of the Persian people. On coming back to Seriphos,
Perseus found Polydektes on the point of offering violence to
his mother, whereupon, summoning him and his courtiers to
his presence, he turned them to stone and made Diktys king
in place of his brother. The winged sandals, the pouch,
and the cap he restored to their original guardians and gave
Medousa's head to Athene, who attached it to her shield.

After an absence of many years Perseus returned to his
native Argos with his mother and his wife. Akrisios, apprehend-
ing that the oracle might yet be fulfilled, fled to Thessaly, and
while there chanced to be present at certain funeral games in
which Perseus was a contestant. Purely by accident the young
man threw a discus so that it struck and killed his grandfather,
whereupon, through remorse for his deed, he refused to go
back to Argos and took the kingdom of Tiryns in exchange.
From Tiryns he founded the cities of Mideia and Mykenai,
and in the latter place Andromeda bore to him many illustri-
ous sons and one daughter, Gorgophone, whose name com-
memorated her father's most famous exploit.

Another story is told of Perseus which has all the marks of
great age. Dionysos came to Argos and when bidden to de-
part refused to go. Thereupon Hera, in the form of Melampous,
prompted Perseus and the Argives to give battle to him and
his host of Maenads and satyrs. Grasping his scimitar in one
hand and the Gorgon's head in the other, Perseus flew aloft
with the winged sandals and tried to attack the god from
1 — 7



 



 



36 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

above, but Dionysos foiled him by increasing his stature until
he touched heaven. At the sight of Medousa's head Ariadne,
the wife of Dionysos, became an image of stone, and this so
filled her husband's heart with rage that he would have de-
stroyed Perseus and all the cities of his realm, with Hera as
well, had not Hermes checked him by force. On becoming
calm the god recognized that the attack had been inspired by
Hera, and he accordingly absolved Perseus from all blame,
whereupon the Argives instituted rites in honour of both
Dionysos and Perseus. Later generations, it was said, were
able to locate the graves of the Maenads who fell in the
struggle, as well as the hiding-place of Medousa's head.

It has been suggested by one school of scholars, who have the
foible of tracing almost every deity back to a Cretan or Philis-
tine origin, that Perseus sprang from a Cretan oflFshoot of the
sun-worship of Gaza, and that the story was borne from Crete
to Thronion of the Lokrians, where Perseus was identified with
Hermes and assimilated many of his attributes. A much more
plausible theory holds, however, that Perseus was a pre-Dorian
hero of the Peloponnesos whose cult was so wide-spread as to
make it necessary for the Dorian conquerors to connect them-
selves with him genealogically in order to maintain their su-
premacy among the people. The story of Perseus impresses
one as being an ancient folk-tale."

Historically, the account of the birth of Herakles should be
included among the Argive myths, but we shall prefix it to the
narrative of the hero's career to which it logically belongs.

IV. CORINTH

Thf Divine Patrons of Corinth. — The great patron deity of
Corinth was Poseidon who gave prosperity to her mariners and
traders. Yet he did not have this high place from the beginning,
for when he made his claim, Helios, the sun, disputed it. Both
disputants submitted their respective cases to Briareos of the



 



 



 



 



PLATE XIV



Endymion



Endymion has fallen asleep on a ledge of rock on
the steep face of Mount Latmos. Across his left
shoulder rests the spear with which he defends his
flocks against the wild beasts. Just above him his
dog, tied by a leash, is looking upward and baying,
perhaps at the Moon, his master's lover. From a
marble relief in the Capitoline Museum, Rome (Brunn-
Bruckmann, Denkmaler griechischer und romischer Sculp-
tur^ No. 440). See p. 245.



Perseus and Andromeda

This relief seems to represent a moment just after
the death of the monster. Perseus, wearing the winged
sandals, extends his right hand to Andromeda to help
her descend from the rocks to which she has been
bound, while he holds his left hand behind his back as
if to hide the Gorgon's head, one glance at which
would turn Andromeda into stone. The sea-monster's
head, apparently severed from the body, or, perhaps,
as the symbol of the entire body, is lying at the foot
of the rocks. From a marble relief in the Capito-
line Museum, Rome (Brunn-Bruckmann, Denkmaler
griechischer und romischer Sculptur^ No. 440). See pp.

34-35-



 



 





 



 



 



 



MYTHS OF THE PELOPONNESOS 37

hundred arms, and he awarded the Isthmus to Poseidon, and
Akrokorinthos, the citadel, to Helios.

Sisyphos. — The eldest son of Deukalion and Pyrrha was
Hellen whose destiny it was to have his name perpetuated in
that of the Hellenic race. One of his sons, Aiolos, the ruler of
certain districts in Thessaly, had a large family of sons and
daughters, the most important of whom, in the opinion of the
people of Corinth, was Sisyphos, reputed to be the "craftiest
of men" in so real a sense that he was even "as wise as a god."
His gift of wisdom was at once his profit and his bane. He is
said to have founded Corinth, then called Ephyra, "in a corner
of horse-breeding Argos," and to have seized the citadel as a
base of operations for piracy and brigandage; although, on the
other hand, the statement is also made that he was merely
the royal successor of Korinthos, or of Medeia after her flight
to Athens. His skill and astuteness are reflected in the person
of Odysseus, whose father he became, if we are to believe one
legend, through his violence to Antikleia before her marriage
to Laertes, Odysseus's traditional father. Sisyphos was credited
by some with having established the Isthmian games in honour
of Melikertes, his nephew, whose drowned body had been
cast by the waves on the shore of the Isthmus.

The account of his punishment in the underworld is two-
fold. In the less known form it is alleged that it was inflicted
on him for an unnatural act against the daughter of his brother
Salmoneus. The better known form has more of the character-
istics of a genuine folk-tale. Zeus, conceiving an illicit pas-
sion for Aigina, the daughter of Asopos, had seized her and
hidden her from her father. Knowing the great wisdom of
Sisyphos, Asopos came to him and promised that he would pro-
vide the lofty hill of Akrokorinthos with a spring of pure water,
if he would tell him where Aigina was to be found. Sisyphos
promptly disclosed her hiding-place as the island of Oinone
(thereafter known as Aigina), but Zeus, learning of this deed
of Sisyphos, in a rage consigned him to Hades and bound Death



 



 



38 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

about his neck. The wily Corinthian, however, turned the
tables on Death and shackled him so effectively that no mortal
on earth could die. In the meantime Merope, the wife of Sisy-
phos, was withholding from the dead the libations customarily
offered to them, and thus finally forced Hades to release her
husband and to permit him to ascend to the upper world.
It was Hades* hope that the husband and wife would confer
concerning the renewal of the libations; but he was destined
to be sadly disappointed, for Sisyphos forgot to return below
and remained in Corinth pursuing his former round of toils
and pleasures. Hades did not gain possession of him until
he was carried off by sheer old age, and to prevent a recur-
rence of his trickery Hades imposed on him the task at which
Odysseus saw him toiling. "Yea, and I beheld Sisyphos in
strong torment," said Odysseus to the Phaiakians, "grasping a
monstrous stone with both his hands. He was pressing thereat
with hands and feet and trying to roll the stone upward toward
the brow of the hill. But oft as he was about to hurl it over the
top, the weight would drive him back, so once again to the
plain rolled the stone, the shameless thing. And he once more
kept heaving and straining, and the sweat the while was pour-
ing down his limbs, and the dust rose upward from his head.'' ^

Many explanations of the derivation of the name Sisyphos
have been offered, but none has any claim to reliability, the
most popular being one that makes it a reduplication of the
base of o-o^rf? ("wise'*)-" The significance of the personality
of Sisyphos is just as obscure; he has been shown to be now
the restless tide, now a god of light, now a personification of
craftiness; while the stone is allegorically interpreted as a
symbol of the futility of human endeavour.

Glaukos. — Glaukos of Potniai, a town of southern Boiotia,
was said to be the son of Sisyphos or of Poseidon. He became
king of Corinth and was famous for the swiftness of his horses
in the chariot-races. In one type of the legend which concerns
him it is related that his steeds, becoming mad as he was driv-



 



 



MYTHS OF THE PELOPONNESOS 39

ing them in the funeral games of Pelias, turned on him and tore
him to pieces. Causes of their madness are variously given —
the deliberate act of Aphrodite, their drinking from a sacred
spring, or their eating of a magic herb or of human flesh. In
later years when horses became frightened while racing during
the Isthmian games, people said it was because of the spirit
of Glaukos which haunted the course. Another type of the
legend says that he met his death in a collision of chariots at
Olympia. Doubtless this Glaukos is a transplantation of the
Glaukos of Anthedon in Boiotia.

Bellerophon. — By his wife, Eurymede (or Eurynome), Glau-
kos begat a son Bellerophon, who, having shed the blood
of a kinsman, though unintentionally, fled from his homeland
to the court of Proitos in Argos. There Queen Stheneboia was
taken with a shameful passion and made advances to him, but
Bellerophon utterly spumed her, whereupon, full of resentment,
she slandered him before her husband, representing that she
was the one sinned against rather than the sinner.^ Proitos
believed her story and sent Bellerophon away to the land of
Lykia across the Aegean Sea, giving him a letter to King lo-
bates, the father of Stheneboia, requesting the monarch to
devise some means of putting Bellerophon out of the way.
Accordingly lobates commissioned him to go forth and kill
the Chimaira, the issue of Typhon and Echidna, a dire creature
part lion, part dragon, and part goat, which was devastating
the land and with her breath of fire was consuming all those
who ventured to attack her. Undaunted by the danger, Belle-
rophon mounted Pegasos, the winged horse, flew high above the
monster, and shooting down upon her laid her low, after which
he returned unhurt to lobates. Still determined to carry out
his plan, the king sent him out again, first against the Solymoi,
and later against the Amazons, but once more Bellerophon
came back unharmed, having not only accomplished his tasks
but also having slain a band of young Lykians who had laid
in wait for him. Disarmed by admiration, lobates now ceased



 



 



40 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTH0LCX5Y

his plotting against Bellerophon's life, and, revealing to him
the contents of Proitos's letter, asked him to take up his abode
in Lykia, which he gladly did. Later he wedded the princess
Philonoe, and on lobates' death came to the throne. Elated
by his successes, it is said, he essayed to ride Pegasos to heaven,
but fell from his mount at a great height and was killed.

The Chimaira seems to have been a storm-divinity who
acquired her development in the primitive belief that wind-
storms originate about volcanic heights.

Of the birth of Pegasos we have already spoken. The credu-
lous Hesiod tells us that he derived his name from having
been bom near the springs {mjyai^) of Okeanos. It was
through a miracle that he came into the hands of Bellerophon,
for in a dream Athene appeared to the young man and gave
him a bridle which he found at his side when he awoke. In
gratitude he erected an altar to the goddess and then ap-
proached Pegasos, over whom the bridle seemed to cast such
a spell that the horse was easily subdued. Another story de-
scribes Bellerophon as finding Pegasos drinking at the spring of
Peirene on the Akrokorinthos, and as catching and mounting
him by main strength. After the death of his rider, the horse,
being of divine descent, flew upward to the ancient stables of
Zeus where he was harnessed to the thunder-car. Once he re-
turned to earth, the poets say, and on Helikon, the Boiotian
mountain of the Muses, created the spring of Hippoukrene
("Horse's Fount") with a blow of his hoof. Since then he has
been associated with the Muses and their arts.

The development of Pegasos as a mythological figure is one
of the most interesting, and is comparatively easy to trace.
In the Homeric epic Bellerophon achieved his exploits without
him, but by the time of Hesiod the two were inseparably
linked, Pegasos having by that time a general and not merely
a local import in myth. Not until Pindar do we find any demon-
strable evidence of his being endowed with wings. A theory
has been advanced to the effect that his mythological growth



 



 



MYTHS OF THE PELOPONNESOS 41

was due to the influences of the winged horses of Assyrian art
which reached the Hellenes through the medium of the Phoini-
kians, in which event the rule that art types tend to take their
forms from myths would be reversed. Perhaps Pegasos origi-
nally stood for the rain-bearing clouds which rise to heavea
and bring the lightning and the thunder.

The Corinthians had other tales to explain the genesis of
their famous springs. Peirene was at first a woman who was
changed into the spring through the tears which she shed for
her son accidentally slain by the arrows of Artemis; and the
spring into which Glauke threw herself to quench the flames
caused by Medeia's drugs was afterward known by her name.



 



 



CHAPTER III

MYTHS OF THE NORTHERN MAINLAND

I. BOIOTIA AND EUBOIA

NEXT tx> Argolis Bolotia supplied the largest body of lo-
cally developed myths ; and when we say Boiotia we must
understand the inclusion of Euboia, for mythologically the two
are not severed by the Strait of Euripos. It must be borne in
mind, however, that the legends of the island never attained
to that degree of literary organization which has immortalized
the stories centring, for instance, about Thebes. The oldest
cults and myths of both Euboia and Boiotia can be traced
back to Crete, principally through the formation of doubles of
the personages of Cretan legend, so that, for instance, the Eu-
boian Arethousa was a copy of a Cretan model; Europe appears
in Boiotia as To, and Glaukos of Anthedon duplicates the son
of Minos. The extent to which these Cretan importations were
changed by Phoinikian and other allied Oriental influences is
one of the many unsettled points of Greek mythology, but the
decline of the old Boiotian states and the rise of Argos were
admittedly responsible for a large measure of modification.

The First Inhabitants of Boiotia. — After the flood of Deu-
kalion, Zeus, uniting with lodama ("Healer of the People"),
a form of Europe, became the father of Thebe, a spring-nymph
of Boiotia, whom he gave in marriage to Ogygos, the autoch-
thonous king of the Ektenes, said to be the first inhabitants
of the land. When the entire people of the Ektenes perished
by a plague, their country was occupied by the Hyantes and
the Aonians, who called it Aonia. Later, however, the name
was changed to Boiotia after Boiotos, the son of Poseidon, or,



Offline PrometheusTopic starter

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Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #9 on: August 04, 2019, 04:38:16 PM »


PLATE XV

DiRKE Bound to the Bull

The artists of this group (popularly known as the
Farnese Bull) have followed the text of the myth in
laying the scene of the episode on Mount Kithairon,
which they have not merely indicated by the depiction
of rocks and crags, but also personified in the small
human figure in the right foreground. Amphion
(identified by his lyre) is striving with all his strength
to subdue a powerful bull so that his brother Zethos
can pass a rope, attached to the struggling creature's
horns, around the body of Dirke. Their mother,
Antiope, a complacent spectator, sunds lance in hand
in the right background. From a Greco-Roman
marble group by ApoUonios and Tauriskos (end of
second century B.C.), in Naples (Brunn-Bruckmann,
DenkmaUr griechischer und romischer Sculptur^ No.
367). See pp. 43-44.



 



 




 



 



 



 



MYTHS OF THE NORTHERN MAINLAND 43

as some allege, after the cow (ySofc) which Kadmos followed to
the site of Thebes. With certain allowances, the latter deriva-
tion is probably nearer the truth than the other.

Amphion and Zethos. — The story of Amphion and Zethos,
though woven into that of Kadmos, is in origin independent of
it and is therefore better told separately. Antiope, the mother
of these heroes, was reputed to be the daughter of Asopos, the
river-god, or of Nykteus (" Night '0- Charmed by the atten-
tions of Zeus, she yielded herself to him, but when her father
became aware of her condition she fled to Sikyon, where she
became the wife of a certain Epopeus. Nykteus, overwhelmed
with the disgrace which his daughter had brought upon him,
took his own life after first requesting his brother Lykos
("Light") to punish Antiope and her husband. When some
time had elapsed Lykos proceeded to Sikyon, slew Epopeus,
and brought his niece a captive to Thebes. On the homeward
journey, however, she gave birth to twin sons, whom she ex-
posed on the mountain-side where they were afterward found
by a shepherd who reared them to manhood, one of them,
Zethos, becoming a herdsman and hunter, and the other,
Amphion, a skilled player on the lyre. In the meantime Lykos
and his wife Dirke cruelly maltreated Antiope, but by a des-
perate effort she succeeded in escaping from Thebes and
made her way to the fastnesses of Mount Kithairon, where
she was hospitably received by her own sons, who, of course,
failed to recognize her. By chance Dirke, coming to the moun-
tain to perform some rites to Dionysos, discovered Antiope
and in vindictive fury commanded the shepherds to tie her to
a mad bull which, when loosed, would carry her to a horrible
death. Just in time Amphion and Zethos learned that the
unhappy woman was their mother. Catching the bull, they re-
leased Antiope and bound Dirke by the hair in her place, after-
ward picking up the mangled body and casting it into a spring
which has borne Dirke's name ever since. The young men
then went to Thebes, killed Lykos, took the chief authority,



 



 



44 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

and built the walls of the city, Amphion charming the stones
into their places by means of the sweet strains of his lyre, the
gift of the Muses.

According to one account, Zethos married Thebe, from whom
the city got its name; but according to another, his wife was
Aedon, who bore him a son Itylos, whom, by a mere chance,
she killed. Overcome by grief, Zethos pined away and died,
while Aedon was given the form of the nightingale and endowed
with those plaintive notes with which she may yet be heard
mourning for her son's untimely death. Amphion became the
husband of Niobe, the daughter of Tantalos, and a family of
many sons and daughters blessed their union. In her maternal
pride Niobe boasted that she, a mortal, had brought into the
world more children than Leto, and this so incensed Leto's
children, Apollo and Artemis, that Apollo slew the sons of
Niobe as they were hunting on Kithairon, while Artemis killed
the daughters beneath their mother's roof. Niobe fled from
Thebes to her father in Asia Minor, and there

"... for her sons* death wept out life and breath
And, dry with grief, was turned into a stone." ^

What is said to be her form is still to be seen on the cliffs of
Mount Sipylos.

Kadmos. — Agenor, a great-grandson of lo, established him-
self in Phoinikia, where he had a daughter named Europe, whom
Zeus one day carried away to Crete by force. On her disap-
pearance Agenor sent his wife and sons throughout the neigh-
bouring lands in quest of her and ordered them not to return
without her, but all failed in their errand, and, fearful of
Agenor's anger, they resolved never to go back home, Phoinix
settling in a district of Phoinikia, Kiliz in Kilikia, and Thasos,
Kadmos, and their mother Telephassa in Thrace. After the
death of Telephassa, Kadmos felt free to continue his search
for Europe, and going to Delphoi he inquired of the oracle
concerning her. The god commanded him to cease worrying



 



 



MYTHS OF THE NORTHERN MAINLAND 45

over his sister and to turn his thoughts into another channel,
bidding him to follow a heifer which he would find outside the
shrine and to establish a city on the spot where she would first
lie down to rest. In obedience to the divine command Kadmos
journeyed after the animal across Phokis until at length she
sought repose beside a hill in the heart of Boiotia, and there
he founded Thebes.

Desiring to sacrifice the cow to Athene, Kadmos dispatched
a number of his men to draw water for the rites from the spring
Areia, but most of them were killed by the dragon, the issue of
Ares, which guarded the water, whereupon Kadmos himself
slew the beast and at the suggestion of Athene scattered the
teeth broadcast over the earth as a farmer strews his grain.
From the teeth sprang a host of armed men who were called
Spartoi (" Scattered '0 ivom the strange manner of their birth.
At the sight of these warriors suddenly gathering about him,
Kadmos was stricken with fear and began to hurl stones at
them; and they, thinking that the missiles were thrown by
their fellows, murderously set upon one another until only
five of them were left alive. For his part in this tragedy Kad-
mos was bound in servitude to Ares for eight years, but at the
end of this period Athene bestowed the kingship upon him and
with the surviving Spartoi he began to build up the city of
Thebes. Zeus gave him in marriage Harmonia, the daughter
of Ares and Aphrodite, and all the gods came down from
Olympos to attend the nuptials and brought with them rare
and costly gifts, Kadmos's own presents to his bride being a
robe and the necklace, wrought originally by Hephaistos, which
Zeus had formerly given to Europe. To Kadmos and Harmonia
were bom a son, Poiydoros, and four daughters, Semele, Ino,
Agave, and Autonoe.

The Daughters of Kadmos; Semele. — Having won the favour
and love of Zeus, Semele secured from him a promise that he
would grant her whatever she might ask, and prompted by
Hera who appeared before her in the guise of her nurse, she



 



 



46 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTH0LCX5Y

requested that her lover would show himself to her in the form
in which he had paid court to Hera. Bound by his promise,
the Olympian entered her chamber in a chariot amid the
flashing of lightning and the roaring of thunder, but, being a
mortal, Semele could not endure this terrible wooing and died.
From her body Zeus took their unborn child and sewed it in
his thigh, where it remained for three months, at the end of
which time he loosed the stitches and brought it forth to the
light. The child, who was none other than the god Dionysos,
was entrusted to Ino and her husband Athamas, a son of Aiolos,
to be reared. For their care of him the vindictive Hera visited
on them a plague of madness, but Zeus saved Dionysos by
changing him into a kid and secretly conveying him to the
nymphs of Mount Nysa in Asia, who in after years were re-
warded with a place among the constellations under the name
of the Hyades.

Ino. — When the madness came upon Athamas he imagined
that his elder son Learchos was a deer and killed him, while
Ino, with their younger son Melikertes in her arms, leaped
from the Molourian rocks into the waters of the Gulf of Megara.
The body of the child was washed ashore at the Isthmus, and
the Isthmian games were instituted in his honour by Sisyphos.
After their death both mother and son used to give aid to those
endangered by storms at sea, and sailors knew the one as
Leukothea, the "White Sea-Spirit," and the other as Palaimon,
the "Storm-Lord."

Autonoi. — Autonoe was married to Aristaios and bore him
a son Aktaion ("Gleaming One") who, under the training of
Cheiron, the Centaur, became an ardent huntsman. One day
when engaged in the chase on Kithairon he chanced to see the
goddess Artemis bathing in the spring Parthenios ("Maiden-
hood"), but as soon as the goddess discovered his presence
she changed him into a stag and instilling madness into his
fifty hounds sent them in hot pursuit of him. They caught him
and rent him in pieces. Then, not knowing what they had done,



 



 



MYTHS OF THE NORTHERN MAINLAND 47

they wandered over hill and dale searching for their master
and found satisfaction only when they saw his portrait before
the cave of Cheiron.

Agaoe. — The remaining daughter of Kadmos, Agave, be-
came the wife of Echion, one of the Spartoi, and bore to him a
son Pentheus, who in the course of time received the kingship
of Thebes. During his reign Dionysos returned to Thebes after
a long period of wandering in many lands of the east whither
he had been driven by a frenzy which Hera had inflicted on him
for his discovery of the vine, and so great a power over the
women of Thebes did the god come to possess that they all
left their homes and betook themselves to Kithairon to cele-
brate his rites. Pentheus treated this "barbarous dissonance
of Bacchus and his revellers" with the utmost contempt, until,
rashly approaching the women votaries, he got a glimpse of
his mother performing some secret ceremony, whereupon, with
vision distorted by a sort of divine frenzy, she mistook him
for a deer, and, rushing upon him, tore him asunder.

Sorrowing over the evils which had befallen their family,
Kadmos and Harmonia abdicated the throne and withdrew to
the land of the lUyrians. By force of arms they ruled among
these people for a time and were then sent by 2feus to live for-
ever in the Elysian Fields, while their son Polydoros remained
at Thebes wielding his father's sceptre.

The chief import of the legend of Amphion and Zethos is
that it affords evidence of the great antiquity of Thebes.
Even at the remotely early time of the legend's creation men
had utterly forgotten the circumstances of the building of the
city's defences, else this would never have been explained by
the miraculous power of a lyre. That the story of Kadmos con-
tains anything of genuine historical value is far from receiving
general assent. Some read in it the substantially true account
of the actual settlement of Thebes by Phoinikians who came
thither direct from Phoinikia. Others maintain that, on the
contrary, no sea-faring folk would have founded a city situated



 



 



48 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

as far inland as was Thebes; moreover, they point out that the
Phoinikian theory was unknown in Greek literature before the
fifth century bx. Those who occupy a middle ground are
probably closer to the actual facts; they believe that at some
very early date Thebes had extensive connexions with Phoi-
nikians, but they cannot accept them as primitive.* The
legend of Melikertes seems to have grown up about the cult
of the drowned, but the interpretation of others of this group
of myths will be more appropriately discussed elsewhere.*

The Sorrows of the House of Labdakos; Oidipous. — When
Polydoros died, he left a son Labdakos who was killed shortly
after he became king, some people believing him to have been
slain by a god for much the same kind of sin as that of which
Pentheus had been guilty. His son Laios was banished from
the realm by Amphion, but on Amphion's death he returned to
assume his inherited rights. Dreadful calamities awaited him
and his descendants, for he was under a curse — and to the
ancients curses were as inevitable as the decrees of Fate.
During his exile he had carried oflF Chrysippos, the son of Pelops,
and Pelops had solemnly cursed him with childlessness, or,
should he have a child, with death at the child's hand. As
ruler of Thebes he married lokaste (Epikaste), the daughter of
Menoikeus, who brought him a son, thus foiling the first al-
ternative of Pelops's curse. In order to avert the second the
parents pierced the babe's ankles and gave him to a herdsman
to be exposed in the wilds of Kithairon, but it happened that
he was found by a shepherd of King Polybos of Corinth who
took him to the queen, Periboia.

The child, who was called Oidipous ("Swollen Foot") from
the swollen condition of his ankles, grew to manhood in the
court of Corinth, where he was the strongest and most ath-
letic of the youths of his circle and aroused the envy of many,
who thus found occasion to taunt him with his uncertain birth.
The innuendoes perplexed him, and being unable to induce
Periboia to throw any light on the matter of his parentage,



 



 



 



 



PLATE XVI

The Death of Pentheus

The artist has been true to the Theban myth in
making the rocky summit of Kithairon the theatre of
this tragedy. Pentheus, nude and defenceless, is being
beaten to the ground by the onslaught of three wild
votaries of Dionysos, evidently the surviving daughters
of Kadmos — Agave, Ino, and Autonoe. The fiercest
of the three who attacks Pentheus with a ihyrsos and
tears out his hair, is probably Agave, his unnatural
mother, but the other two cannot be definitely dis-
tinguished by name. In the upper comers of the
background are two Maenads brandishing whips and
torches. From a wall-painting in the House of the
Vettii, Pompeii (Hermann-Bruckmann, DenkmaUr der
Malerei des AlUrtumSy No. 42). See p. 47.



 



 




 



 



 



 



MYTHS OF THE NORTHERN MAINLAND 49

he repaired to Delphoi and made inquiry of the oracle, which
warned him never to enter his native country, else he would
kill his father and marry his mother. Instead, therefore, of
returning to Corinth and to his supposed parents, Oidipous
harnessed his car and drove eastward through Phokis. On a
narrow road he met Laios, his real father, to whom the royal
herald bade him yield place. For his refusal one of his horses
was cut down, and in retaliation Oidipous killed Laios and the
herald, after which he proceeded on his way to Thebes.

When the news of the death of Laios came to the city,
Kreon, the brother of lokaste, was appointed king. During his
reign a great disaster came upon Thebes, for Hera sent the
Sphinx, another of the horrible issue of Typhon and Echidna,
to destroy the citizens. This monster had the face of a woman,
the body and feet and tail of a lion, and the wings of a bird;
and her strange weapon of destruction was a riddle which she
would put to passers-by, devouring those who failed to give
the right answer. The riddle was this: "What is it which, hav-
ing but one voice, is first four-footed, then two-footed, and is
at the last three-footed?" After many had perished in their
unfortunate attempts to solve the riddle, Kreon proclaimed that
the wife and the kingdom of Laios would be given to the one
who should succeed. To the question of the Sphinx Oidipous
replied: "The creature is man, for in infancy he crawls on all
fours, in mature years he walks upright on two feet, and in
old age goes as it were on three by the aid of a cane." When
she heard these words, the Sphinx cast herself down from the
cliflFs, and Oidipous received the promised rewards. At last he
had fulfilled the two conditions of the oracle.

For many years the life and reign of Oidipous were happy,
and through his marriage with lokaste he had two sons, Poly-
neikes and Et6okles, and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene.
At length, however, pestilence and famine wasted both land
and people, and when the oracles were consulted, their answers
revealed his blood relationship to his queen. Though their sin



 



 



50 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

had been committed in ignorance, lokaste hanged herself, in
the anguish of remorse, and Oidipous put out his own eyes.
The Thebans banished him from their city, and as he departed
his sons made no efFort either to help him or to defend him.
For this base ingratitude he called down bitter curses on their
heads from which they were thenceforward to suffer; for the
curses of parents on children were the direst of all. With the
faithful Antigone he went to Kolonos in Attike, where he be-
came a suppliant at the shrine of the Eumenides, the avenging
spirits of the dead. Theseus of Athens welcomed him and af-
forded him a home in which to end his days in peace. After a
number of days Ismene joined the two exiles. When Oidipous
knew that his end was near, he called his daughters to his side
to perform for him the last rites for the dying, and, taking them
tenderly in his arms, he said:

"My children, on this day ye cease to have
A father. All my days are spent and gone,
And ye no more shall lead your wretched life,
Caring for me. Hard was it, that I know.
My children! Yet one word is strong to loose,
Although alone, the burden of these toils.
For love in larger store ye could not have
From any than from him who standcth here,
Of whom bereaved ye now shall live your life." *

After uttering these words he passed away, another victim of
the far-reaching curse of Pelops.

The friends of Oidipous desired to bury his body in Thebes,
but the Thebans, remembering the sufferings, brought upon
them by the much-cursed dynasty of Laios, forbade them to
do so. They interred it, however, in another place in Boiotia,
but when this, too, became afflicted with calamities, its citi-
zens ordered the removal of the corpse. Taking it to Eteonos,
the friends ignorantly laid it in a shrine of Demeter. When
the people of the locality discovered this, they inquired of the
goddess what they should do, and received the reply: "Remove
not the suppliant of the god." So they left the bones of Oidi-



 



 



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Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #10 on: August 04, 2019, 04:39:00 PM »

MYTHS OF THE NORTHERN MAINLAND 51

pous where they were and ^ave the shrine the new name of
Oidipodeion, a name which distinguished it for centuries.

The Sons of OidipouSy and the Seven against Thebes. — After
the banishment of Oidipous Kreon became regent for the youth-
ful princes, Polyneikes and Eteokles. As soon as they took the
power into their own hands, they determined on an arrangement
by which they would rule singly in alternate years, but this
agreement, like all of its kind, was not proof against the great
weakness of the human heart, the lust for autocratic dominion.
Eteokles, it is said, refused to relinquish his authority at the
end of a term, and a bitter feud resulted, the consequence being
that Polyneikes was exiled and went to Argos, taking with him
the wedding-robe and necklace of Harmonia, which had ap-
parently become the symbols of the kingship in Thebes. In
Argos he met Tydeus of Aitolia, also an exile from his native
land, and, impelled by the combative spirit which marked the
family of Laios, engaged him in a duel. Adrastos, the king of
Argos, hearing the noise of the conflict came out of his palace
to learn what it might mean, and seeing that the shield of one
of the combatants bore the device of a boar's head while that
of the other was marked with a lion, he recognized the fulfil-
ment of a prophecy which had said that he would marry his
two daughters to a boar and a lion. So he made Polyneikes
and Tydeus his sons-in-law and pledged them his aid in restor-
ing them to their kingdoms. One form of the story relates that
Polyneikes had left Thebes of his own free will in order to avoid
the consequences of his father's curses, and that he returned
later at Eteokles' request when word of the death of Oidipous
reached Thebes. It was then, this version states, that the
quarrel began which resulted in the expulsion of Polyneikes
and in his affiliation with Adrastos.

Adrastos, planning first of all to restore Polyneikes to hb
rights, called the chieftains and warriors of the land to his
colours. Among those summoned was Amphiaraos ("Doubly
Holy"), but, inasmuch as he was a seer, he foresaw the ultimate

1 — 8



 



 



52 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

failure of the expedition and the death of all its leaders, and
refused to go. Polyneikes, however, had learned of a pact
between him and Adrastos to decide all their mutual differences
by an appeal to Eriphyle, the wife of Amphiaraos, and taking
advantage of the feminine love of personal adornment he gave
her the necklace of Harmonia and beguiled her to decide in
favour of her husband's adherence to the cause of Adrastos.
Full of resentment at being thus forced to join the expedition,
Amphiaraos before his departure enjoined his sons to slay their
mother and avenge his inevitable death.

The army set out under Adrastos and seven generals, one of
whom was Polyneikes. On their way they halted at Nemea to
obtain water, and there Hypsipyle, a slave woman of King
Lykourgos, left the ruler's infant son whom she was tending
and led them to a spring. While she was gone a serpent killed
the child, and Amphiaraos declared that this portended how the
army would fare. Burying the infant's body, the Argives in-
stituted the Nemean games at his grave, and ever afterward
"the solemn funereal origin of the games was kept before the
mind by the dun-colored raiment worn by the umpires and em-
phasized by the cypress grove which in antiquity surrounded
the temple." ^

Marching to the walls of Thebes, Adrastos sent a herald to
demand that Eteokles hand over the kingdom to his brother
according to their agreement. Meeting with refusal, he divided
his host into seven parts under the seven leaders and stationed
each before one of the seven great gates of the city, within
which the Theban army was similarly arranged. Before giving
battle Eteokles inquired of the blind seer, Teiresias, what the
fortunes of war would be, and when the answer was given that
if Kreon's son, Menoikeus, were to sacrifice himself to Ares,
the Theban arms would be victorious, the young man, with
noble devotion, killed himself before the city. Nevertheless,
victory did not come immediately to the Thebans, since they
were compelled to retire before the enemy within the forti-



 



 



MYTHS OF THE NORTHERN MAINLAND 53

fications. One of the Argive leaders, Kapaneus, in the ardour
of pursuit attempted to scale the walls by means of a ladder,
but for his temerity Zeus struck him down with a thunderbolt.
This was the beginning of the Argive rout and slaughter.
When many had been slain, both sides agreed that the fate of
the city should be determined by a duel between Polyneikes
and Eteokles. They fought, but since they killed one another,
they left the city's future still uncertain. After this the fight-
ing became irregular and promiscuous, fortune steadily going
against the Argives until, at last, of all their commanders Ad-
rastos alone survived, he owing his escape not to his skill but
to the speed of his divinely bom horse Areion. Amphiaraos
had been pursued by one of the enemy, but before a missile
could strike him he had been swallowed up in the earth, chariot,
horses, driver, and all, and was granted immortality, while on
the spot where he disappeared the city of Harma ("Chariot")
was founded.

With the death of Eteokles ICreon assumed the powers of
king, and from his palace he sent out a decree that the bodies
of the fallen foes of Thebes should be left without due funeral
rites. This placed Antigone, the sister of Polyneikes, in a griev-
ous dilemma. To forego the rites would mean that her brother's
soul would forever suffer in unrest and would haunt the places
and persons it had known in life; on the other hand, to perform
these ceremonies would be disloyalty to the state. Guided by
the law of the gods, she defied the law of the king, and gave
rest to her brother's soul. Kreon had her seized and sealed alive
in a cavern, despite the pleadings of her betrothed lover, his
own son Haimon. Under the denunciations of Teiresias, the
king repented of his deed, but it was too late! When the cavern
was opened, Antigone was already dead, and at the entrance
lay the body of Haimon, slain by his own hand. At the news of
the tragedy Eurydike, the queen, hanged herself, and Kreon
was left alone in life, a victim partly of his own obstinacy and
partly of the curse of Pelops.



 



 



54 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

Adrastos, too, felt the same burden of duty to his dead that
weighed upon Antigone. Unable to secure the bodies of the
Argives owing to Kreon's mandate, he called Theseus of
Athens to his aid, and an Athenian army, capturing Thebes,
secured the Argive dead. As the body of Kapaneus lay on the
pyre, his wife Evadne threw herself into the flames and was
consumed with her husband.

The Epigonoi. — After ten years the sons of the seven Argive
generals marshalled another host against Thebes to avenge
the death of their fathers. They were known in story as the
Epigonoi, or "Later-Bom," and the oracle of Apollo foretold
that victory would rest with them if they could obtain Alk-
maion, the son of Amphiaraos, as leader. Thersandros, the
son of Polyneikes, repeated his father's strategy, and by means
of Harmonia's robe bribed Eriphyle to enlist her son's aid.
Under Alkmaion the army marched to Thebes, sacked the sur*
rounding villages, and drove the city's defenders back behind
their walls. Counselled by Teiresias that defence was fruitless,
the Thebans evacuated the city with their wives and children,
and founded the new city of Hestiaia, while the conquering
Argives entered the gates, razed the walls, and collecting the
booty gave the best portion of it to the Delphian Apollo, the
patron of their victory.

Alkmaion. — Alkmaion was now free to carry out his father's
last request, but hesitating to do so horrible a deed he sought
the advice of Apollo, who bade him not to stay his hand.
Feeling that he had right on his side, he slew Eriphyle, his
mother, perhaps with the aid of his brother Amphilochos, but
forthwith an avenging Erinys, or Fury, began to hound him
and soon drove him mad, so that he wandered from place to
place until at last he came to the home of Phegeus in Psophis,
by whom he was purified of the guilt of shedding kindred blood.
Later on he received Phegeus's daughter Arsinoe in marriage,
giving her the fatal robe and necklace of Harmonia, but it
turned out that his purification was not complete, for his



 



 



 



 



PLATE XVII

The Departure of Amphiaraos

Amphiaraos, fully armed, is reluctantly mounting
his chariot beside his driver. Baton, who stands reins
in hand ready to urge his four horses forward. Around
the chariot and the horses the kinsfolk and friends
of the seer are gathered to bid him farewell. By the
outside column of the palace facade to the left stands
Eriphyle holding the fatal necklace. The boy seated
on the shoulders of the woman in front of her and
the other boy close to Amphiaraos are probably Alk-
maion and Amphilochos, who later avenged their
father's untimely death. From a Corinthian krater of
about 600 B.C., in Berlin (Furtwangler-Reichhold,
Griichische Vasenmalerei^ No. 121). See pp. 51-52.



 



 




 



 



 



 



MYTHS OF THE NORTHERN MAINLAND 55

presence brought sterility to the soil of Psophis. Banished from
there, he roamed about until he reached the sources of the river
Acheloos, where he was cleansed once and for all and wedded
to Kalliroe, the daughter of Acheloos. After some years of
marriage his wife refused to live longer with him unless he
would get for her the famous robe and necklace, and to gratify
her whim he set out to secure them by craft from his former
wife, but was waylaid and killed by her brothers. His death
was soon avenged, for his and Kalliroes' sons, Amphoteros and
Akaman, came to Psophis, slew Phegeus and his family, and
after depositing the wedding-gifts with the god of Delphoi,
proceeded westward and founded the country to be known
after one of them as Akarnania.

The collective substance of this series of myths concerning
the house of Labdakos apparently points to a historic fact that
the early period of Thebes' existence was marked by a number
of disturbances and calamities in the ruling families. The
interpretations of the sundry details are so numerous and con-
flicting that one cannot treat of them adequately here. Suffice
it to say that the most modem school tends more and more to
explain them as based on fact. For instance, this school would
say that the Sphinx stands for a league of pirates and brigands
who harassed Thebes and threatened its very existence until
crushed by some Theban leader; and it would also take Pau-
sanias at his word when he says that he saw all seven of the
ancient gates, although he describes only three of them.*

II. AITOLIA

The Founding of Aitolia. — Endymion, the grandson of
Aiolos, led the Aiolians from Thessaly and established them in
the land of Elis on the western side of the Peloponnesos. Wed-
ding a nymph Iphianassa, he had a son Aitolos who killed Apis,
the Argive, and fled across the Gulf of Corinth to the moun-
tainous country of the Kouretes, where he continued his mur-



 



 



56 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

derous career, and, killing his hosts, took possession of their
land and named it Aitolia. In the course of time he had two
sons, Pleuron and Kalydon, who gave their names to the two
chief cities of Aitolia, and their children and their children's
children intermarried until finally two cousins, Oineus and
Thestios, were supreme in the country's councils.

Meleagros and AtalanU. — Oineus ruled over Kalydon and
took Althaia, the daughter of Thestios, as his wife. Their union
was blessed by a son Meleagros, and although some said that
his true father was Ares, they probably judged his parentage
from his exploits with the spear. When Meleagros was only
seven days old, the Moirai prophesied that he would meet his
death as soon as the brand on the hearth should be consumed.
Thereupon, to prevent her child's untimely end, Althaia took
the faggot then blazing on the hearth, extinguished it, and hid
it away in a chest. Many years afterward at harvest-time
Oineus, while offering sacrifices of the first-fruits, in some way
overlooked Artemis, who, embittered at the slight, sent a huge
boar to ravage the tilled land and to destroy the men and herds
of Aitolia. Of themselves the Aitolians were unable to kill the
beast, and Oineus accordingly summoned the mightiest spear-
men of the Greeks to engage in a great hunt, promising the
skin of the boar as a reward to the one who should succeed in
slaying it. From all parts of Hellas the warriors came — Kastor
and Polydeukes, Idas and Lynkeus from Lakonia and Mes-
senia; Theseus from Athens; Admetos, lason, and Peleus from
Thessaly; Meleagros and the four sons of Thestios from Ai-
tolia; and, most conspicuous of all, the huntress Atalante of
Arkadia.

This Atalante was of doubtful parentage, if the conflicting
statements of the myths mean anything, but she was generally
said to be the daughter of lasos and Klymene. So great had
been her father's disappointment that she was not a boy that
he exposed her in the forest shortly after her birth, and there
she was nursed by a bear until she was discovered by some



 



 



MYTHS OF THE NORTHERN MAINLAND 57

huntsmen who brought her up and trained her in the chase.
When she became a woman she spent her time hunting amid
the hills and valleys of Arkadia, and kept her life as chaste as
that of Artemis herself. With her bow she had slain two Cen-
taurs who had made a lustful attack on her, and at the funeral
games of Pelias she had shown her skill and strength by
throwing Peleus in wrestling. Made confident by these ex-
ploits, she appeared among the heroes as a contestant for the
great boar's skin.

For nine days Oineus entertained the assembled huntsmen in
Kalydon, and on the tenth the hunt began. In a short time the
boar had mangled and killed a number of his pursuers. The
first blow he had received was from the spear of Atalante, but
it did little more than graze him, and the mortal thrust was
reserved for the weapon of Meleagros. When at last the beast
had fallen, Meleagros flayed it and took the skin as his prize;
but his uncles, the sons of Thestios, who in the contest repre-
sented the Kouretes, or old Aitolian stock living in Pleuron,
grudged him his lawful gain and stirred up a quarrel with
him, which resulted in pitched war between the people of
Kalydon and the people of Pleuron. Meleagros showed him-
self to be as great a warrior as he was a hunter, and among his
many enemies whom he killed was one of his uncles. Appalled
at the act, Althaia imprecated curses on his head, and sullenly
Meleagros retired from the strife to his wife Kleopatra, allow-
ing his people to fight their battle alone. In the appeal of
Phoinix to the angry Achilles in the Iliad this part of the story
is forcefully told.

"Now was the din of foemen about their gates quickly
risen, and a noise of battering of towers; and the elders of the
Aitolians sent the best of the gods' priests and besought him
[i. e. Meleagros] to come forth and save them, with promise of
a mighty gift; to wit, they bade him, where the plain of lovely
Kalydon was fattest, to choose him out a fair demesne of fifty
plough-gates, the half thereof vine-land and the half open



 



 



S8 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

plough-land, to be cut from out the plain. And old knightly
Oineus prayed him instantly, and stood upon the threshold of
his high-roofed chamber, and shook the morticed doors to
beseech his son; him too his sisters and his lady mother prayed
instantly — but he denied them yet more — instantly too his
comrades prayed, that were nearest him and dearest of all
men. Yet even so persuaded they not his heart within his
breast, until his chamber was now hotly battered and the
Kouretes were climbing upon the towers and firing the great
city. Then did his fair-girdled wife pray Meleagros with
lamentation, and told him all the woes that come on men whose
city is taken; the warriors are slain, and the city is wasted of
fire, and the children and the deep-girdled women are led cap-
tive of strangers. And his soul was stirred to hear the grievous
tale, and he went his way and donned his glittering armour.
So he saved the Aitolians from the evil day, obeying his own
will; but they paid him not now the gifts many and gracious;
yet nevertheless he drave away destruction." ^ In this fray he
slew the remaining three sons of Thestios and then himself
was killed. At his death his mother and his wife hanged them-
selves, and his sisters as they mourned over his body were
changed into guinea-fowl.

There is another and later version of the sequel of the boar-
hunt. In this, Meleagros, fascinated by the charms of Ata-
lante, gave the skin to her, though his uncles openly resented
its bestowal on a woman, especially on one outside the pale of
their own family. Finally they seized Atalante and wrested
her prize from her, but in chivalrous anger Meleagros set upon
them and made them pay the penalty with their lives. Grieving
for the loss of her brothers, Althaia took the charred brand
from the chest and burned it, and Meleagros died immediately
after.

The Kalydonian hunt was not the last of the exploits of
Atalante. According to one story, she joined the heroes in
the voyage of the Argo, and in one of their battles she was



 



 



MYTHS OF THE NORTHERN MAINLAND 59

wounded, but was healed by Medeia. Another legend relates
that she desired to go on the voyage, but was restrained by
lason. After a number of years Atalante found her father,
but when he rather abruptly tried to exercise a parent's pre-
rogative in marrying her to a suitor, she fled from him to a
refuge of her own choosing. This place aflForded a straight
level stretch of ground of about the same length as a stadium,
and thither she invited her wooers to repair. One by one she
challenged them to a race, stipulating that the man whom she
should overtake would be killed and that the one overtaking
her should wed her. All those who ventured to match their
speed with hers lost their lives, until a certain Melanion came
to the course. Very astutely he had brought with him golden
apples of Aphrodite, and as he ran he cast them behind him.
In stooping to pick them up Atalante lost so much time that
Melanion won the race and a bride. Once they were wedded
they went away toward Boiotia to share the joys and freedom
of the hunt together, but their happiness was short-lived,
for in the flush of success Melanion had forgotten to thank
Aphrodite for her help. So, as they rested in a grotto near a
temple of Kybele, the goddess threw a spell upon them both
by which they became lions and were forbidden to know the
joys of mutual love.

All the outstanding characteristics of Atalante, her skill
with the bow and in the chase, her chastity, and her swiftness
of foot, together with her early association with the bear, go
to reveal her as Artemis in human form.

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Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #11 on: August 04, 2019, 10:25:05 PM »




CHAPTER IV
MYTHS OF CRETE AND ATTIKE

I. CRETE

77UR0PE. — Europe, as we have already seen in the first
-^-^ part of the legend of Kadmos, was the daughter of
Agenor (or, by some accounts, of Phoinix). One day, when she
was plucking flowers with her friends in a beautiful meadow of
Phoinikia, Zeus spied her from afar and became so enamoured
of her that, in order to deceive the watchful Hera, he took the
form of a grazing bull and approached the happy group of
maidens. Drawing close to Europe, he cast a charm over her
by his gentle manner, so that she fearlessly stroked and petted
him and led her comrades in playing merry pranks with him.
Further emboldened, she climbed upon his back, endeavouring
to lure some of her companions after her, but before they could
come near, the bull with a bound leaped into the sea and swam
away with her. In answer to her tearful pleadings Zeus at
length revealed himself and his love. Continuing westward
across the deep, he brought her to the island of Crete, where
he wedded her and begat the heroes Minos, Rhadamanthys,
and Sarpedon, while in the meantime the vain search for
Europe prosecuted by her mother and brothers resulted in the
final dispersal of the family of Agenor into various parts of the
Mediterranean and Aegean.

In jJie course of a few years the love of Zeus waned and he
abandoned Europe to Asterios, king of the Cretans, who reared
her children as his own. After the sons had reached adult years,
they quarrelled amongst themselves over a beautiful youth
named Miletos, and when Minos triumphed over Sarpedon,



 



 



 



 



PLATE XVIII

Europe and the Bull

The painter has as it were photographed Europe
and her companions caressing the bull at the moment
just before the creature leaped into the sea. The
group of figures is shown against a rocky and partly
wooded hillside, and not in a meadow, as the myth
would lead one to expect. The round column in the
centre is apparently sacred in character, while the
square pillar and the water-jar at the right may mark
a fountain at which the maidens have been drawing
water. A narrow strip of pale blue along the lower
edge of the picture symbolizes the proximity of the
sea. From a Pompeian wall-painting (Hermann-
Bruckmann, DenkmUler ier MaUrei des Jltertums^
No. 68). See p. 60.



 



 




 



 



 



 



MYTHS OF CRETE AND ATTIKE 6i

they all fled from the kingdom. Miletos took up a permanent
abode in Asia Minor and founded the city which bore his name;
Sarpedon attacked Lykia and won its throne, and Zeus gave
him the boon of a life three generations long; Rhadamanthys,
who had enjoyed sovereignty over the islands of the sea, left
his dominions and took refuge in Boiotia, where he became the
husband of Alkmene; Minos remained in Crete and drew up a
code of laws by which he was to gain immortal renown. The
commonly accepted story relates that he married Pasiphae,
the daughter of Helios, although another states that his wife
was Crete, the daughter of his step-father Asterios. A large
family was born to him, the most famous of his sons being An-
drogeos, Glaukos, and Katreus, and of his daughters, Ariadne
and Phaidra.

Myths of Minos and his Sons; Minos. — When Asterios died,
Minos claimed the crown, but was thwarted in his eflForts to
secure it, until, as a last resort, he asserted that it was his by
divine right and promised to demonstrate this by eliciting the
open approval of the gods. Offering a sacrifice to Poseidon, he
prayed that the god would send up from the depths of the sea
a bull as a sign of his sovereignty, adding the promise that he
would forthwith make the bull a victim on the altar of Posei-
don as a thank-offering. The deity hearkened to the petition,
but so beautiful was the beast which he thrust upward from
the waters that Minos became greedy for it, and thinking to
deceive the god sacrificed another in its place. He gained
the kingdom which he so much coveted, and, besides, the
undisputed command of the Great Sea and its islands, but
punishment was in store for him. Poseidon, remembering the
attempted deception, sowed in the heart of Pasiphae an unnat-
ural love for the bull, and drove her to consummate her desire
with the help of the skilled craftsman Daidalos; but her sin
became known when she brought into the world a hideous
monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull — the
Minotaur.* Advised by an oracle, Minos shut the creature in



 



 



62 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

the labyrinth which Daidalos had constructed for him, this
building consisting of so intricate a tangle of passages that it
was impossible for one to find his way out of it. There the
Minotaur remained feeding on the prey brought to him from
all parts of Crete until the day when he was killed by Theseus
of Athens. This story, however, is best told in connexion with
the career of Theseus.

Androgeos. — The experiences of the sons of Minos were a
medley of tragedy and miracle. Androgeos heard that the sea-
bom bull which Herakles had taken to Argolis had escaped from
that territory and was ravaging the lands about Marathon.
Apparently thinking that a Cretan arm was more skilled to do
battle with a Cretan beast, he took ship and sailed to Attike
in the hope of killing the bull. As it happened the animal killed
him, but from this incident developed the circumstances which
led, later on, to Theseus's voyage to Crete.

Glaukos. — The legend of Glaukos relates that, when a small
child, he was once pursuing a mouse and fell into a jar of
honey in which he was smothered to death. Minos sought for
the child everywhere, but without success, and at last he ap-
pealed to the soothsayers, who answered him in the form of a
riddle: "In thy fields grazeth a calf whose body changeth hue
thrice in the space of each day. It is first white, then red, and
at the last black. He who can unravel the meaning of this riddle
will restore thy child to thee alive." After Polyidos the seer
had divined that the enigma alluded to the mulberry, he found
the body of Glaukos in the honey-jar, and Minos enclosed him
in a chamber with the corpse, bidding him bring it back to
life. While wondering what to do, Polyidos chanced to see a
snake crawl across the floor to the child's body, and he killed it
with a stone. Soon afterward he observed a second serpent
come near to the body of the first, and, covering it with grass,
revive it. Inspired by this example, the seer did the same thing
to the body of Glaukos, and to his unbounded delight beheld it
slowly come to life. Minos gladly received his son back from



 



 



MYTHS OF CRETE AND ATTIKE 63

the dead, but, in the hope of learning the method of the res-
toration, he ungratefully refused to allow Polyidos to return
to his home in Argos until he should reveal the secret to Glau-
kos. Under compulsion the seer yielded, but when about to
sail away he spat suddenly in the boy's mouth and all remem-
brance of the manner of his recall to life was erased from his
mind.

Katreus. — The story of Katreus, like that of Oidipous,
clearly reveals the conviction of the ancient Greeks that it was
impossible to escape from the mandates of Fate. Katreus had
one son Althaimenes, who, an oracle declared, was destined to
kill his father. To avoid so monstrous a deed he fled to Rhodes,
but as the years went by Katreus felt the disabilities of age
creeping upon him and longed for his son that he might en-
trust to him the responsibilities of the government. Despairing
of the young man's voluntary return, he went himself to Rhodes
in search of him, but when disembarking on the shore, he was
met by Althaimenes, who, mistaking him for a robber, killed
him. On discovering that he had fulfilled the oracle in spite
of himself, the son prayed for the ground to open and swallow
him up. His entreaty was heard, and the earth suddenly took
him away from his companions.

Deukalion. — Deukalion, a fourth son of Minos, became king
on his father's death, and his son Idomeneus led a contingent
of Cretans against Troy.

The Character and Achievements of Minos. — It remains to
say more of Minos himself, on the interpretation of whose life
and person much thought and ingenuity have been expended.
He has been explained as a pre-Hellenic god of Crete, a double
of Zeus, as a sun-god in conjunction with the moon-goddess
Europe, as a human representative of the Phoinikian Ba*al
Melqart, or as of the same primitive origin as the Indian
Manu. Yet the farther the Cretan excavations are carried,
the stronger grows the conviction of scholarship that in the
single person of Minos mythology has compounded the chief



 



 



64 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

characteristics of the powerful race of sea-kings who ruled over
Crete in the days which preceded the dominion of the Argives.
In a certain sense, then, the tradition is correct which places
him three generations before the Trojan war; he is not far from
being a historical character.

Minos is chiefly known as a ruler of powerful initiative in
many fields. He founded numerous cities in Crete, the most
notable being his capital, Knossos; to facilitate the adminis-
tration of government he divided the island into three districts
with Knossos, Phaistos, and Kydonia as head cities; and he
extended his sway far out over the islands and the coasts of
the mainland, and many settlements were named after him.
He divided the Cretan burghers into two main classes, farmers
and soldiers — producers and defenders; with the assistance
of the people of Karia he is said to have cleared the sea of
pirates; and to enable his citizens to develop their maritime com-
merce he invented a type of small coasting vessel. The code of
laws which he established among the Cretans he received in
the first place from Zeus, and, in order to obtain advice with
reference to such modifications of it as should be necessary from
time to time, he went to Mount Ida every ninth year and con-
ferred with Zeus. In his administration of the law his brother
Rhadamanthys assisted him in the cities, and Talos, the man
of bronze, in the country, but Rhadamanthys succeeded only
too well, so that he incurred the jealousy of Minos and was
banished to a remote part of the island. As a warrior Minos
showed himself cruel and harsh and in conflict with his character
as a just and mild ruler, although this side of his portrait is,
no doubt, coloured by Athenian prejudice. His career in arms
will be narrated in the myths of Attike.

Daidalos. — Though a native of Athens, Daidalos is more
closely connected with the legends of Crete than with those
of Attike. At Athens he killed his nephew in a fit of jealousy
and fled to Crete, where Minos received him in his court and
encouraged his inventive genius. Among the many wonderful



 



 



MYTHS OF CRETE AND ATTIKE 65

things which he created for the king was the labyrinth of
Knossos which we have already described; but he prostituted
his ability by aiding Pasiphae in her intrigue with the bull of
Poseidon, and with his son Ikaros he was thrown into prison
by Minos. By means of cleverly contrived wings the two man-
aged to escape from their confinement, the father enjoining
Ikaros not to fly too low, lest the wings dip in the sea and
the glue which held them together be softened, nor too high,
lest the heat of the sun have the same effect. Ikaros disobeyed,
sought too lofty a flight, and fell headlong into that part of
the Mediterranean which since that day has been known as
the Ikarian Sea, whereas the more cautious Daidalos flew safely
to the Sicilian city of Kamikos, whose king, Kokalos, secretly
gave him protection. Thither Minos followed by ship, and re-
sorted to a shrewd device to find out if Daidalos were really
there. Showing Kokalos a snail-shell, he told him that a great
reward would be bestowed upon the man who could put a linen
thread through its coils, whereupon Kokalos gave the shell to
Daidalos, who pierced it, tied a thread to an ant, and sent it
through the hole drawing the thread behind it. Minos, know-
' ing that only Daidalos could have done this, demanded that
Kokalos surrender him, but this the Sicilian king would not
do, though he consented to entertain Minos in his palace*
One day when the Cretan ruler was bathing, the daughters of
Kokalos suddenly appeared and killed him by pouring boiling
pitch over him. His followers buried his body and erected a
monument over the grave, founding the city of Minoa in the
vicinity.

Daidalos is probably to be regarded as the representative of
the artists and artisans of the later Minoan or Mykenaian age.
One of the highly prized relics preserved in the temple of
Athene Polias on the Athenian Acropolis was a folding chair said
to have been fashioned by his hands. Of images attributed to
him Pausanias says that they " are somewhat uncouth to tHfe
eye, but there is a touch of the divine in them for all that." ^



 



 



66 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

II. ATTIKE

The body of Attic myths is a relatively late creation. Careful
study of it shows that its component parts were drawn from
many different local Hellenic sources and that the process of
weaving them together was long; but just what this process
(or processes, it may be) was, will probably never be more than
the object of conjecture. It is enough to say that the evi-
dences point to an abundance of both conscious and unconscious
imitation of other bodies of myth at various periods, to a de-
liberate fabrication of genealogies, and to the naive issuance
of stories to account for rituals whose meanings had been lost
in a dark past; but it is difficult to cite with certainty even a
few instances of these, for there is a great gulf, as yet only pre-
cariously bridged, between the historical cults of Attike and
the earliest period of which we have any religious remains.

Kekrops. — The early genealogies were, even to the ancients,
a weird tangle, containing as they did many acknowledged
double appearances, not a few dummy personages, and patent
inversions of time relationships. Kekrops, who was commonly
accepted as the great original ancestor of the Athenians, was
reputed to have been bom of the soil, and was regarded as
being part man and part serpent. The most recent scholarship
regards him as a form of Poseidon, the sea-god, imported from
the east and later identified with the native agricultural divin-
ity Erichthonios. Kekrops became the first ruler of Attike
and changed its name from Akte ("Seaboard") to Kekropia.
During his reign Poseidon came to Athens and with his trident
struck a spot on the summit of the Acropolis whence gushed
forth a spring of salt water afterward sacred to Poseidon and
known as the " Sea." Poseidon was now the supreme divinity
of the kingdom, but Athene soon came and wrested the su-
premacy from him. To bear legal witness to her conquest she
summoned Kekrops, or, as some say, the citizenry of Athens,
or the circle of the Olympians; and as material evidence of her



 



 



 



 



PLATE XIX

The Birth of Erichthonios

Ge, emerging from the ground, entrusts the in&nt
Erichthonios to Athene, this being a mythological
way of saying that Athene herself is an earth goddess.
The tall manly figure, who looks paternally on the
scene before him, is Hephaistos. On both sides of this
group are the Erotes (" Loves ") who presided over
the union of the god and goddess. From a red-figured
stamnos of about 500 B.C., in Munich (Furtwangler-
Reichhold, Griechische Fasenmalerei^ No. 137). See
p. 67.



 



 




 



 



 



 



MYTHS OF CRETE AND ATTIKE 67

contention she planted on the Acropolis near the salt spring the
long-lived olive which was to be the mother-tree of the Attic
orchards. The witnesses awarded the dominion to Athene,
whereupon Poseidon, angry at being dispossessed, covered the
fertile plain of Attike with a flood. Kekrops now wedded
Agraulos, the daughter of Aktaios, to whom some mythogra-
phers assigned the first kingship; and they had three daughters,
Agraulos (Aglauros), Herse ("Dew,'* or "Offspring"), and
Pandrosos ("All-Bedewing"), and a son Erysichthon, "a sha-
dowy personality" who died childless.

Ericfuhonios. — On the death of Kekrops, Elranaos, another
son of the soil and the most powerful of the native chieftains,
became king, and when Atthis, one of his daughters, died,
he attached the name of Attike to the country as a memorial
to her. In his reign the flood of Deukalion occurred, and then
came a series of dynastic changes. Kranaos was driven from the
throne by Amphiktyon, also a son of the soil, and Amphiktyon
was expelled in his turn by Erichthonios, whose father was
Hephaistos and whose mother was either Athene, Earth, or
Atthis. The legend which makes him the son of Athene
relates that without the knowledge of the other gods she
placed him as an infant in a chest, which she entrusted to Pan-
drosos with the injunction that on no account was it to be
opened. Feminine curiosity, however, got the better of the
sisters of Pandrosos and they opened the chest, out of which
sprang a serpent that killed them, or, as some said, drove them
mad so that they leaped to their death from the cliffs of the
Acropolis.* Athene then took the child into her own care and
reared him in her shrine; and when he had grown up, he ex-
pelled Amphiktyon, erected a wooden statue of his mother
on the sacred hill, and established the Panathenaic festival.
After his death his body was buried in the precinct of Athene,
and his kingdom was left to his son Pandion.

BouUs and Erechtheus. — Pandion is simply a link in a

chain of genealogy. He was the father of the unhappy women,
1—9



 


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Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #12 on: August 04, 2019, 10:26:05 PM »


68 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

Prokne and Philomele, and of two sons, Boutes and Ere-
chtheus, who divided the royal duties between them on their
father's death, the first taking the joint priesthood of Athene
and Poseidon, the second the administration of the govern-
ment. Boutes became the founder of a priestly family which
continued down to historical times. Erechtheus was really a
double of Erichthonios, as is indicated by his name, which is
only an abbreviated form of Erichthonios, and thus, after a
fashion, Erechtheus also was a ward of Athene. It was said
that he had snake^like feet and that to hide them as he went
about among his people he invented the chariot and thus
avoided walking, although in some sources he is described as
entirely of human form. As secular leader of the Athenians
he conducted an expedition against the people of Eleusis, and
in accordance with the behest of an oracle he sacrificed his
youngest daughter to bring victory to the Athenian arms.
His success was indeed tragic, for though he slew Eumolpos,
the commander of the Eleusinians, his other daughters took
their own lives on learning of the offering of their sister, and
he himself was killed by Poseidon, the father of Eumolpos.
Of his daughters Kreousa, Prokris, and Oreithyia became fa-
mous names in Attic myth. He was followed in order by a son
and a grandson, Kekrops and Pandion, the second of whom
was dispossessed of his throne by his usurping cousins, the
sons of Metion. Taking refuge in Megara, he there brought
up a family of four valiant sons, Aigeus, Pallas, Nisos, and
Lykos. These, to avenge their father's wrong, invaded Attike,
evicted the usurpers, and partitioned the realm amongst them-
selves, allowing Aigeus, however, the chief authority. The
legends of the marriages and the early reign of Aigeus belong
more properly to the account of the life of his son Theseus.

The Sons of Pandion; The War with Minos. — After return-
ing from a sojourn in Troizen, Aigeus celebrated the Panath-
enaic festival. It happened that Androgeos, the son of Minos
of Crete, was the victor in all the athletic contests, and as



 



 



MYTHS OF CRETE AND ATTIKE 69

a supreme test of the young man's skill and swiftness of foot
Aigeus sent him against the bull of Marathon, but Androgeos
lost his life in the undertaking. On the other hand, the authors
of certain accounts state that on his way to the funeral games
of Pelias he was killed by jealous rivals who had lost to him
in Athens. In either event Minos held Athens as blameworthy
for his son's death and to punish her led a great army and fleet
against her, taking Megara by storm and making Nisos pris-
oner. Now Nisos had growing in his head a purple hair, and
an oracle had declared that as long as he retained it his kingdom
would stand; but his daughter Skylla, falling in love with
Minos, plucked the hair in order to win favour, and brought
about her father's fall. When Minos sailed away she asked to
be taken with him, but meeting with a refusal on account of
her treachery, she threw herself into the sea and became a
fish, while Nisos, in pursuit of her, was changed into a sea-
eagle. Lykos, a third son of Pandion, was credited by some
Athenians with having founded the famous Lykeion in Athens.

Athens herself held out against all the assaults of Minos,
until, finally, he appealed to Zens to visit vengeance upon the
city, and the god sent famine and pestilence to do what human
efforts could not avail. The Athenians sacrificed four maidens
over the grave of Geraistios, but still their troubles did not
abate, and at last they yielded and accepted the terms of
Minos, who cruelly exacted that each year Athens was to send
to Crete seven unarmed youths and maidens to be the prey
of the Minotaur. From this dreadful tribute the Athenians
suffered until released years afterward by Theseus.

The Daughters of Kekrops. — Agraulos, one of the three
daughters of Kekrops, became the wife of Ares and by him the
mother of a daughter, Alkippe, who, while still a mere girl,
was shamefully attacked by Halirrhothios, a son of Poseidon.
Ares promptly killed the offender, and, on the appeal of Posei-
don, was tried before a tribunal of the gods on a rocky emi-
nence at the foot of the Acropolis, being acquitted, as it were.



 



 



70 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

on the strength of the "unwritten law." After this the Athe-
nians, essaying to follow the divine example, established a
criminal court on the same spot and designated it Areopagos,
"Hill of Ares."* The two sisters of Agraulos, Herse and
Pandrosos, were both united in wedlock to Hermes, by whom
the one became tJie mother of the beautiful Kephalos and the
other bore Keryx, the forefather of a great Athenian family.

The Daughters of Pandion. — When war broke out between
Athens and Thebes over the question of the marchlands,
Pandion asked Tereus, son of Ares, to come from Thrace to
help him. By means of his assistance he won the war and as a
reward gave him his daughter Prokne, but after a few years of
married life the love of Tereus cooled and a passion for his
wife's sister, Philomele, mastered him. He told his sister-in-
law that Prokne was dead and professed so warm a love for
her that she consented to become his wife. But it was not
long before she discovered his trickery, wherefore, lest she tell
her story to the world, Tereus cut out her tongue and con-
fined her in a solitary place. Notwithstanding his precautions,
she wove a message into a garment and sent it to her sister.
After a long search Prokne found Philomele, and together they
devised a revolting revenge on Tereus, in pursuance of which
Prokne, inviting him to a banquet, set before him the flesh of
their own son Itys. The sisters then made haste to fly from the
land, but Tereus overtook them in Phokis, and as they pite-
ously prayed the gods for escape from their ruthless pursuer,
they were all changed into birds, Prokne becoming a nightin-
gale, Philomele, a swallow, and Tereus a hoopoe. The ancient
Athenians, accordingly, used to say that the sweet plaintive
song of the nightingale was the wail of Prokne for her un-
happy Itys. The resemblance between this story and that of
the Boiotian Aedon and Itylos needs no pointing out. In refer-
ence to a similar story Pausanias*^ remarks, with the naivete
of a child: "That a man should be turned into a bird is to
me incredible."



 



 



MYTHS OF CRETE AND ATTIKE 71

The Daughters ofErechtheus; Kreousa. — ^Kreousa found favour
in the eyes of Apollo and bore him a son named Ion, but, keep-
ing her secret to herself, she abandoned the child and married
Xouthos, an Athenian soldier of fortune. As it happened, Ion
was found and was placed in the temple of Apollo at Delphoi
as an attendant. Together Kreousa and her husband went to
Delphoi to seek the advice of the oracle in reference to off-
spring, and received a response which Xouthos interpreted
to mean that Ion, whom they met in the temple, was their
child. In a fit of jealousy at the readiness of her husband to
adopt one whom she secretly felt could not be his offspring,
she made an attempt to poison Ion, who was saved by a mere
accident. Roused to revenge he formed a plan to murder
her, but his intention was happily frustrated by the Pythian
priestess, who, in the nick of time, produced the trinkets and
clothing that had been found with him, and Kreousa, recog-
nizing by these that he was the son whom she had borne to
Apollo, took him into her home. Afterward she and Xouthos
were blessed with a son, Achaios. If we are to accept a dif-
ferent account from the foregoing. Ion, and not Kekrops, suc-
ceeded Erechtheus as king of Attike and became the founder
of the Ionian stock, Achaios and his descendants being later
overshadowed by the family of Ion because Achaios was not
of divine blood.

Prokris. — At the time when Prokris and Kephalos became
husband and wife they pledged themselves to conjugal fidelity
with more than ordinary solemnity. Now Kephalos was a
hunter by occupation, and of comely countenance and form.
Early one morning, when he was scouring the Attic hills for
game, Eos ("Dawn") spied him, and, drawn by his charms,
asked of him that he would give her his love. Bound by the
ties of affection and of his oath, Kephalos refused her, but the
passion of the divinity was not to be denied. Slyly insinuat-
ing that under like circumstances Prokris would be less scrupu-
lous than he, she gave him the appearance of a stranger, and



 



 



72 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

then, bestowing on him lovely gifts such as please the heart of
woman, suggested that he make trial of his wife's fidelity. To
his surprise Prokris weakened at the sight of the gifts, but
when he resumed his real form she became ashamed and fled
away to Crete. There she wished to follow Artemis in the
hunt, but the goddess would have none of her in her chaste
company. Breaking into tears, Prokris told Artemis of the
wicked deceit practised on her, and in pity the divinity gave
her a never-erring hunting-spear, and a dog, Lailaps, which
never missed its quarry. Disguising herself as a youth, Prokris
returned to Attike, and, winning the attention of Kephalos
through her prowess with the gifts of Artemis, promised him
that she would give them to him in return for his affection,
saying that neither gold nor silver could buy them from her,
but only love. At that he granted her desire, and forthwith
she became her own old self and their former relations were
resumed. Prokris was still fearful of the wiles of Eos, how-
ever, and one day she hid in a thicket near her husband as
he was hunting in order to spy on her beautiful rival. Kephalos,
seeing a movement of twigs and thinking that it was caused by
some beast, hurled his javelin, which, according to its nature,
flew straight to its mark, but, to his dismay, he discovered that
the quarry he had slain was his own dear wife.

A second form of the story differs from this in several de-
tails. Bribed by the glitter of a golden crown, Prokris sur-
rendered herself to one Pteleon, and, when detected by her
husband in her sin, took refuge at the court of Minos. Minos,
too, made love to her, for Pasiphae had so bewitched him with
a certain drug that he could not escape a passion for every
woman whom he met, a passion which was bound to work
evil for both lovers alike. By the use of a magic antidote
Prokris freed him from this spell, and in gratitude Minos gave
her the spear and the dog. Nevertheless, apprehensive of some
evil design on the part of Pasiphae, she made her way to Attike
and patched up her former alliance with Kephalos. One day,



 



 



 



 



PLATE XX

Eos AND KepHALOS

Eos, suddenly approaching Kephalos from behind,
has laid her left arm across his shoulders, and with
her right hand has grasped him firmly by the wrist,
thus endeavouring to check his flight as he starts away
in fear; at the same time she spreads her wings, and
with an upward glance indicates whither she wishes to
convey him. From a red-figured kylix signed by
Hieron (early fifth century B.C.), in the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston {photograph). See pp. 71-73.



 



 




 



 



 



 



MYTHS OF CRETE AND ATTIKE 73

as they were hunting together, he slew her by mistake with
her own javelin, whereupon, appearing before the court of
Areopagos, he was adjudged guilty and banished for life from
the bounds of Attike. His exile coincided in time with his
receipt of a request from Amphitryon that he go to Thebes
with his unerring hound, and rid the country of the she^fox
that was ravaging the crops and people. This animal's life
seemed to have been protected by a charm so that none could
take her, and each month the Thebans used to send a youth
to her for her to devour. Kephalos, bribed by the offer of a
portion of Taphian booty, went to Thebes and put his dog on
the trail of the ravenous beast; but the dog never overtook
her, for in the midst of the pursuit Zeus changed them both to
stone. Kephalos was given his reward, however, and withdrew to
a western island thenceforth to be known as Kephallenia, where,
brooding over his unhappy love, he committed suicide by
throwing himself from the white cliffs of the island. The chief
figure in the original story seems to have been only Kephalos,
Prokris being a later addition. The legend arose from the very
ancient expiatory ritual in which a human being bore the burden
of sin to be expiated, and, leaping into the sea, was drowned.
Oreitkyia. — Oreithyia, the remaining daughter of Ere-
chtheus, was once playing with her companions on the bank of
the Ilisos, or, as one source of the myth states, was on her
way to the Acropolis to sacrifice to Athene, when Boreas, the
north wind, suddenly seized her and carried her off to his home
in Thrace. There he forced her to wed him, and she bore to
him two winged sons, Zttts and Kalais, who afterward sailed
on the Argo and were killed in the pursuit of the Harpies.
The substance of this legend was not originally a product of
the Attic fancy; rather, it is an embellishment of a wide-
spread belief that in the turmoil of the storm the passionate
wind-god seeks his bride. Perhaps to the Athenians Oreithyia
represented the morning mist of the valley-lands driven away
by the strong clear winds of day.



 



 



74 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

Boreas and Oreithyia also had two daughters, Kleopatra and
Chione ("Snow-White"). The former married Phineus, to
whom she bore two sons, but her husband grew tired of her
and formed an alliance with Idaia of Troy, by whose heartless
wiles he was persuaded to put out his children's eyes. This
crime was never forgotten throughout Hellas, and with the
help of Boreas the Argonauts visited on Phineus a dreadful
punishment. Chione became closely associated with Attike
through her descendants. After a clandestine amour with
Poseidon she gave birth to a son Eumolpos ("Sweet Singer"),
whom she cast into the sea in fear of her father; but Poseidon
rescued him and had him cared for in Aithiopia until he had
attained manhood. For a foul crime against hospitality
Eumolpos was forced to leave this country and with his son,
Ismaros, was received into the home of a Thracian king, where,
too, he showed himself ungrateful for kindness, and plotted
against his host. Leaving Thrace, he came at last to Eleusis,
and in the war against Athens he led the Eleusinian army
and fell by the sword of Erechtheus. This latter myth contains
several features which incline one to believe that Eumolpos
was a figure deliberately created by the Eumolpidai, the
priestly order of Eleusis, for the purpose of winning the re-
spect which would readily come to religious orders of admit-
tedly ancient descent. The Thracian connexion of Eumolpos
linked him geographically with Dionysos and increased his
prestige at Eleusis.



 



 



CHAPTER V
HERAKLES

HERAKLES is a bewildering compound of god and hero.
While he may property be called the most heroic of the
Grecian gods, he cannot with equal propriety be termed the
most divine of the heroes. Indeed, so far is he from possessing
that dignity which becomes a god that some writers have argued
his claim to divinity to be merely an inference from his ex-
ploits. But whether god or hero, or both god and hero, Hera-
kles represents the Greek idealization of mere bigness. Every-
thing about him is big — his person, his weapon, his journeys,
his enemies, his philanthropy, his sins, and his sense of humour.
To explain him as a degenerate Zeus, as some do, may account
for his origin, but it will not give the reason for more than
his initial popularity. His hold on the people through many
centuries was due to his colossal humanity; in him men could
see their ideal for every moment of the day and the consum-
mation of every aspiration, whether good or bad. Now and
again Zeus or Apollo would stoop to the level of a weak
humanity, but an apology, open or tacit, generally followed.
For Herakles, on the contrary, no apology was forthcoming.
Men took him as he was, and ignored his flouting of moral
laws as a necessary accompaniment to the achievement of
big things. He was "big business" personified, and the petty
restrictions that hampered lesser beings were impertinent as
regarding him. Thus he represented a phase of Greek idealism
which rebelled against the cold and soaring idealism of the
thinkers, and embodied the frank confession of all classes of
the Hellenic populace that the more spiritual elements of their



 



 



76 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

advanced civilization were not as yet perfect instruments
for securing and maintaining the welfare of human society.
The story of Herakles' rejection of Aphrodite and his choice
of Athene at the parting of the ways makes a very pretty
apologue, but it does not reveal to us the Herakles whom the
Greeks knew; rather he is here put on exhibition as a sort of
reformed "character" by those who know and fear the effects
of his moral example.

At the earliest point to which he can be traced Herakles
seems to have been a hero of Tiryns in Argolis, but his exploits
were narrated in Rhodian sagas and carried by the ubiquitous
Rhodian sailors to many ports of the Mediterranean. In
various places the sagas were modified and enlarged by foisting
stories of purely local origin on Herakles, until, as his fame
spread, some poet was inspired to assemble the many sagas
under one title and to give to the world the first version of the
Labours. Herakles was apparently not at first the possession
of all the Dorians, but became their hero par excellence through
the influence of the Delphic oracle, perhaps not later than 700

B.C.*

The Birth of Herakles. — When Perseus died, he left behind
him in Mykenai four sons, Alkaios, Sthenelos, Mestor, and
Elektryon, the descendants of all of whom enter in some way
or other into the story of Herakles. Alkaios had a son Amphit-
ryon; Elektryon, a daughter Alkmene, and, besides lawful
sons, a natural son Likymnios; Sthenelos, a son Eurystheus;
and Mestor, a daughter who bore to Poseidon a son, Taphios,
the colonizer of the island of Taphos. During the reign of
Elektryon in Mykenai, Pterelaos, a son of Taphios, came thither
with his people and demanded a share of Mestor*s kingdom,
but, failing ignominiously in their errand, they attacked the
sons of Elektryon and slaughtered all except Likymnios.
When the battle was over their fellow Taphians sailed away
to Elis with Elektryon's cattle, although not long afterward
Amphitryon redeemed them and brought them back to My-



 



 



 



 

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Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #13 on: August 04, 2019, 10:26:50 PM »


PLATE XXI

Herakles and the Lion of Nemea

Herakles is leaning forward, his knees almost touch-
ing the ground, and is throwing the weight of his body
on the lion's head and shoulders; at the same time with
his right hand he seizes the beast by a hind quarter and
powerfully draws it toward himself, while his left arm,
passing under the lion's throat, is choking him to death.
The hero's quiver and sheathed sword are suspended in
the background. Athene, partly armed, stands at the
left eagerly watching the fray. From a black-iigured
amphora of about 500 B.C., found at Gela (^Monumenti
Jntichiy xvii, Plate XL). See pp. 80-81.



 



 




 



 



 



 



HERAKLES 77

kenai. Elektryon, bound on exacting vengeance for the out-
rage, assigned the affairs of state to Amphitryon and betrothed
his daughter Aikmene to him on the condition that the mar-
riage be deferred until the outcome of the expedition should
be known; but after making these arrangements, and when
about to take back his cattle, a missile from the hand of Am-
phitryon, probably wholly by accident, struck him and killed
him. With the stain of family blood upon him, Amphitryon
fled with his betrothed to Thebes and allowed the power to
fall into the hands of Sthenelos, but in their new home Aik-
mene promised him she would ignore the strict letter of the
terms of their betrothal and would wed him should he avenge
the murder of her brothers at the hands of their Taphian
kinsmen. He met the promise by leading a well-equipped army
of Thebans and their allies against Taphos. Although he was
successful in his numerous raids, he was unable to secure a
decisive victory as long as Pterelaos was alive, for this man,
not unlike Nisos of Megara, had growing in his head a golden
hair, on the continued possession of which hung the fate of
himself and of his kingdom. Crazed with love for Amphitryon,
Pterelaos's daughter plucked the hair from her father^s head
and by that act surrendered her country to its enemies, but,
filled with contempt for her treason, the victor killed her and
took to Thebes the booty of Taphos.

Now in Amphitryon's absence Aikmene had been visited
by Zeus in the guise of her husband and by him had become
with child, so that when the real Amphitryon returned, he
and his wife were confronted with a perplexing domestic rid-
dle which was not satisfactorily solved till more than a year
had passed. Just before Aikmene gave birth to her child, a
scene was enacted on Olympos which had a profound influence
on the child's career. The event is well described in the words
of Agamemn6n in the Iliad.^

"Yea even Zeus was blinded upon a time, he who they say
18 greatest among gods and men; yet even him Hera with



 



 



78 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

female wile deceived, on the day when Alkmene in fair-crowned
Thebes was tx) bring forth the strength of Herakles. For then
proclaimed he solemnly among all the gods: *Hear me ye all,
both gods and goddesses, while I utter the counsel of my soul
within my heart. This day shall Eileithyia, the help of tra-
vailing women, bring to the light a man who shall be lord over
all that dwell round about, among the race of men who are
sprung of me by blood/ And to him in subtlety queen Hera
spake: *Thou wilt play the cheat and not accomplish thy word.
Come now, Olympian, swear me a firm oath that verily and
indeed shall that man be lord over all that dwell round about,
who this day shall fall between a woman's feet, even he among
all men who are of the lineage of thy blood/ So spake she, and
Zeus no wise perceived her subtlety, but sware a mighty oath,
and therewith was he sore blinded. For Hera darted from
Olympos' peak, and came swiftly to Achaian Argos, where she
knew was the stately wife of Sthenelos the son of Perseus, who
also was great with child, and her seventh month was come.
Her son Hera brought to the light, though his tale of months
was untold, but she stayed Alkmene's bearing and kept the
Eileithyiai from her aid. Then she brought the tidings herself
and to Kronos' son Zeus she spake: * Father Zeus of the bright
lightning, a word will I speak to thee for thy heed. To-day is
born a man of valour who shall rule among the Argives, Eurys-
theus, son of Sthenelos the son of Perseus, of thy lineage;
not unmeet is it that he be lord among Argives.' She said, but
sharp pain smote him in the depths of his soul, and straight-
way he seized Ate by her bright-haired head in the anger of his
soul, and sware a mighty oath that never again to Olympos
and the starry heaven should Ate come who blindeth all
alike. He said, and whirling her in his hand flung her from the
starry heaven, and quickly came she down among the works
of men. Yet ever he groaned against her when he beheld his
beloved son in cruel travail at Eurystheus' hest." When at
length Alkmene's full time had come, she gave birth to Herakles



 



 



HERAKLES 79

and Iphikles j the one the son of the deceiving Zeus and the other
bom of Amphitryon.

Childhood and Youth of Herakles. — When Herakles was
only eight months old, Hera sent two great serpents to his bed
to destroy him; but a measure of the strength of mature years
had come to him and he rose and strangled them unaided. There
is a version of this story to the effect that Amphitryon, in order
to determine which of the two boys was really his son, put the
serpents into the bed containing the children, the flight of
Iphikles proving him to be the offspring of a mortal.

Under the instruction of a number of the famous heroes,
Herakles was taught the accomplishments becoming a man,
chariot-driving, wrestling, archery, fighting in armour, and
music. His teacher on the zither was Linos, the brother of
Orpheus, but in this branch he was less apt than in the others,
so that once, when Linos had occasion to punish him for his
lack of diligence, Herakles hurled his zither at him and killed
him. After trial for murder, he was acquitted through his
clever quotation of a law of Rhadamanthys, but his father,
fearing another outburst of violence, sent him to the glades as
a herder and there he grew in strength and stature and in skill
with the lance and the bow. His height was now four cubits,
and his eye flashed fire like that of a true son of Zeus.

Early Manhood of Herakles. — About the time when Hera-
kles was on the verge of manhood, he determined to kill a
lion which was ravaging his flocks and herds on the slopes of
Kithairon. By using Thespiai as a base of operations, he at
length achieved his task, and flaying the beast he took its
skin as a cloak. As he was on his homeward journey, he met
heralds of Erginos, king of the Minyans, going to Thebes to
get the annual tribute of the city. Herakles seized them,
lopped off their ears and noses, bound their hands to their
necks, and sent them back thus to their own land. Erginos
dispatched an army against Thebes, but in the battle which
ensued he was killed by Herakles, and the Minyans had from



 



 



8o GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

that day to pay to Thebes double the tribute which Thebes
had formeriy rendered to them. As a compensation for his
efforts in arms Herakles was given Megara, Kreon's daughter,
as his wife, who in the course of time bore him three children.

The Madness of Herakles. — Herakles* successes heated the
jealous wrath of Hera and she visited a terrible madness upon
the hero, who, not knowing what he did, killed his own chil-
dren and those of his brother Iphikles, some with his bow, some
by fire, and some with his sword. When he came to himself,
overwhelmed with remorse he left Thebes and went to Thespiai,
where he was ceremonially purified of his sin. He departed
thence for Delphoi, where, in Apollo's shrine, the priestess
uttered this prophecy: "From this day forth thy name shall
no more be Alkeides but Herakles. In Tiryns thou shalt make
thine abode, and there, serving Eurystheus, shalt thou accom-
plish thy labours. When this shall be, thou shalt become one
of the immortals." With the words ringing in his ears, Hera-
kles set out for Tiryns wearing a robe, the gift of Athene, and
carrying the arms which the gods had given him — the sword of
Hermes, the bow of Apollo, the bronze breastplate of Hephais-
tos, and a great club which he had himself cut in Nemea.

The Twelve Labours of Herakles;^ First Labour. — The
first labour which Eurystheus enjoined on Herakles was to
kill the lion of Nemea, the seed of Typhon, and to bring its
skin to Tiryns, although no man had been able as yet even to
wound the beast. Going to Nemea, Herakles found its trail,
which he followed until it led him to a cavern with two mouths,
one of which he blocked up, and, entering by the other, grappled
with the lion and choked him to death. From Nemea to My-
kenai he carried the body on his shoulders. Eurystheus stood
aghast at the sight of the monstrous creature and at these
proofs of Herakles' superhuman strength, and in his fear he
' prepared a storage-jar in which to hide, forbidding Herakles
ever to enter his gates again, and henceforth issuing his orders
through heralds. As for Herakles, he turned this his first labour



 



 



HERAKLES 8i

to good account, for from that day he wore the lion's skin,
which no weapon could penetrate, at once as a cloak and a
shield.

Second Labour. — In the springs and swamps of Leme
dwelt a huge hydra which used to lay waste the lands round
about, and to ensure his death Herakles was sent against this
creature, from whose enormous body grew nine heads, the
middle one being immortal. The monster had defied all at-
tempts to capture or to kill it, and had brought many strong
men low; but finding the creature crouching sullenly in its
lair, the hero forced it out by means of flaming missiles and
grasped it at the same instant that it seized him. Stoutly swing-
ing his club, he knocked off the hydra's heads one by one, but
to his alarm two heads grew in the place of each one that he
destroyed, while a huge crab came to the aid of the hydra and
gripped its assailant by the foot. This crab Herakles easily
killed and then, with the assistance of his nephew lolaos,
burned away the hydra's newly sprouting heads. At last he cut
off the deathless head and placed it under a heavy stone, lest
it rise to life again, and in the monster's gall he dipped all his
arrowheads. The achievement of killing the hydra Eurystheus
quibblingly disallowed on the ground that Herakles had not
performed it alone.

Third Labour. — Herakles was next ordered to proceed to
a mountain range in the north of the Peloponnesos and to
carry away alive the Keryneian doe, which had golden horns
and was sacred to Artemis. So swift of foot was it that it led
the hero a weary chase for a whole year, but finally its strength
flagged and it fled across the mountain of Artemision to the
banks of the river Ladon, where Herakles took it alive. Apollo
and Artemis, however, disputed his rights to his prize, and
Artemis even accused him of trying to kill her sacred animal,
but by adroitly laying the blame on another, Herakles was at
length allowed to bear the doe on his broad shoulders to
Mykenai.



 



 



82 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

Fourth Labour. — Still another beast of the wild was he com-
manded to capture alive — the fierce boar that came forth
from the ridges of Erymanthos and wasted the town of Psophis.
Herakles went to the mountain and was entertained by Pholos,
a Centaur, who, yielding to his guest's importunate request
for wine to give zest to their repast of meats, opened a jar
taken from the Centaurs' common store. The other Centaurs
of the neighbourhood sniffed the aroma of the wine and in a
belligerent mood gathered about the dwelling of Pholos, where-
upon Herakles attacked them, killing some and routing the
others, so that they took refuge with the wise Centaur, Chei-
ron. Unfortunately, an arrow shot at them chanced to hit
Cheiron, inflicting a wound which Herakles would have
healed, had not the pain of it driven the Centaur to exchange
his immortality for the mortality of Prometheus and thus
voluntarily to die. After this, by another unhappy accident,
Pholos was killed by dropping one of Herakles' poisoned ar-
rows on his foot. When the hero had buried his friend, he pur-
sued the boar high up the slopes of Erymanthos to the deep
snow and snared it; and on his arrival at Mykenai with the
huge creature Eurystheus hid in the great jar.

Fifth Labour. — Angelas, King of Elis, had so many herds of
cows and goats that the offal from them had accumulated until
all tillage was stopped. Eurystheus ordered Herakles to clean
away the nuisance, and, going to Angelas, the hero offered to
perform the task on the stipulation that he should receive one
tenth of the flocks and herds, to which the king hesitatingly
agreed. Without delay Herakles broke down a large part of
the foundations of the stables and through the breach thus
made diverted the united waters of the rivers Alpheios and
Peneios, thus flushing the filth entirely away. Angelas, with
the scrupulosity of an Eurystheus, now withheld the prom-
ised reward on the ground that Herakles was acting at the
command of another and not of his own free will. "But," he
added, "I will submit the question to arbitration." His sincer-



 



 



 



 



PLATE XXII
Herakles and the Hydra

Herakles, wearing the protecting lion-skin, in his
left hand grasps one of the hydra's many heads and is
about to cut it off with the sword held in his right
hand. On the opposite side of the monster the hel-
meted lolaos is imitating his master's manner of attack.
With its free heads the hydra is biting fiercely at its
assailants. Behind Herakles stand Athene, identified
by the branch of olive in her hand, and Hermes. The
identity of the three women next lolaos is unknown.
From a black-figured Eretrian amphora of the sixth
century B.C., in Athens {Catalogue des vases pesnts du
musee national d^ Athenes^ Supplement par Georges Nicole^
Plate IX). See p. 8 1.



 



 




 



 



 



 



HERAKLES



83




llllliilMllllillK



^A^A^iA



Fio. 3A. l^B Ertiiamtbian Boar at Mtksnai

Henklety lifdng the struggling boar by the hind quarters, forces the creature for-
ward on his fore legs only. Ilie hero's lion'^kin, quiver, and sheathed sword are shown
suspended in the background, while his great club leans obliquely in the bwer left-
hand comer.




?iiiilllilll



Fig. 3B. The Fugbt of Eurtsthsus

Eurystheus with garments flying in the wind hastens to hide himself in the great
piikos, or storage-jar. The female figure facing him may be Hera. From a black-
figured amphora of the sixth century b.c, found at Gela (MonumaUi Antichi^ xvii,
PUte IX).



ID



 



 



84 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

ity was soon put to the test, for when his own son reproved
him for his ingratitude, he turned both son and benefactor
out of the country. This labour, too, Euiystheus refused to
place to the credit of Herakles for the technical reason that
he had bargained for a reward. The story seems to be an
old folk-tale.

Sixth Labour. — Herakles* next errand was to clear the
marshes of Arkadian Stymphalos of the man-eating birds which
used to congregate there, and which, owing to the dense
growth of underbrush and trees bordering on the marshes,
were difficult of access. But Athene came to the help of
Herakles and gave him some brazen cymbals by the clashing
of which he compelled the birds to take to the air; and as they
circled above his head, he shot them down one by one with
his unerring arrows. It is probable that these birds typified
a pestilence that arose from the areas of stagnant water.

Seventh Labour. — With this labour Herakles began his ac-
tivities outside the Peloponnesos, being sent by his task-
master to Crete to lead thence to the mainland the beautiful
bull which Poseidon had caused to be bom from the sea for
the sacrifice of Minos. Mastering the powerful creature, he
rode it through the sea to Tiryns and from there drove it over-
land to Mykenai, where it was loosed; but instead of remaining
here, it roamed all over the land, mangling men and women
as it went, until it was slain in Marathon by Theseus.

Eighth Labour. — It was to the northern land of Thrace
that Herakles was next dispatched, his task being to subdue
and catch the man-eating horses of Diomedes, the son of
Ares and the king of the Bistonians. By main strength he
seized them and dragged them to the sea, but at this point the
Bistonians harassed him to such a degree that he gave the
steeds to his companion Abderos to guard. While he was en-
gaged in routing the foe, the horses killed Abderos, who was
buried by Herakles with the customary rites, and beside whose
tomb the city of Abdera was founded by the hero. On re-



 



 



HERAKLES 85

ceiving the horses, Eurystheus immediately loosed them as he
had the bull, and they, rushing oflF to the highlands, were har-
ried to death by the wild beasts.

Ninth Labour. — Prior to this labour the strength of Hera-
kles had been pitted against beasts and men only, but now
Eurystheus directed him to match it against the warrior-
women, the Amazons, who lived in a remote district of Asia
Minor near the shores of the Euxine. Their chief interest
was war and only indirectly that of motherhood, and of all
the children to whom they gave birth they reared the females
only, whose right breasts they cut oflF so as not to interfere with
proper handling of the bow. Their queen was Hippolyte, a
favourite of Ares, who had given her a beautiful girdle as a
token of her prowess in arms, and to win this cincture was the
errand of Herakles.

Sailing from Greece with a group of companions, the hero
touched at Paros and warred on the sons of Minos. Thence he
proceeded to King Lykos of Mysia, whose territories he in-
creased by the conquest of neighbouring tribes, and at last
he reached the port of Themiskyra, where Hippolyte visited
him to learn the object of his mission. To his surprise she prom-
ised to surrender her girdle without a struggle, but Hera, in
the guise of an Amazon, stirred up the women against him and
Herakles, suspecting a plot in the ready promise, summarily
slew their queen and sailed homeward with the prize.

His route led him past Troy, and, landing there, he found the
city in the throes of a dreadful calamity. Years before Apollo
and Poseidon had jointly built the walls of the town for its
king Laomedon on condition of receiving a certain recompense.
This, however, had never been given to them, wherefore, in
anger, Apollo afflicted Troy with a plague and Poseidon sent
a monster to devour the people as they went about the plain.
Just before the hero's arrival, Laomedon, in order to spare
his citizens, had bound his daughter Hesione to the sea-
rocks as a prey for the monster, and Herakles pledged him-



 



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Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #14 on: August 04, 2019, 10:30:02 PM »



86 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

self to slay it and save Hesione should the horses which. Zeus
had given Laomedon for the theft of Ganymedes be surrendered
to him. He performed his part of the contract by leaping down
into the monster's throat and cutting his way out through its
belly, but the Trojans failed to fulfil theirs, whereupon, breath-
ing out threats of a later punishment, Herakles embarked in
his ship and sailed to Mykenai with his prize. Many scholars
are now inclined to think that the original models of the
Amazons were the Hittites, whose strange customs and ap-
parel seemed to the Hellenes to be strikingly feminine.*

Tenth Labour. — Near the distant river of Okeanos was an
island called Erytheia, where lived Geryoneus, son of Chry-
saor and the nymph Kalliroe. He was a human monster with
three bodies instead of one, and he was known all over the
world for his herd of red cattle which were guarded by Eury-
tion and the two-headed dog Orthos, a brother of the hell-
hound Kerberos. Herakles was assigned the task of driving this
herd to Mykenai. Crossing Europe, he came to the straits
between that continent and Africa and set up two pillars
as memorials of his journey. Here Helios beat so hotly upon
his head that he shot an arrow at him, and in admiration for
his attempt of the impossible Helios gave him a golden cup in
which he crossed Okeanos and reached Erytheia. With his
club he easily put the warders of the herd out of the way, but
it was only after a long struggle that he killed Geryoneus
himself with an arrow. Gathering the cattle into the cup of
Helios, he transported them to Europe and drove rfiem east-
ward overland in successive stages. At Rhegion a bull broke
loose, and, swimming the straits to Sicily, mingled with the
herds of King Eryx, and when Eryx resisted an attempt to
regain the animal, Herakles wrestled with him and threw
him to his death. From the toe of Italy to the extremity of the
Adriatic the cattle were driven, and thence to the Hellespont,
but many of them, maddened by a gad-fly sent by Hera, wan-
dered away from the main herd and were lost in the wild lands



 



 



HERAKLES 87

of Thrace. When Herakles arrived at Mykenai, he sacrificed
the rest of the herd to Hera.

Eleventh Labour. — The ten labours had consumed eight
years and one month, but the end was not yet, for, owing to
the quibbling of Eurystheus, the ten counted as only eight.
To complete the prescribed number Eurystheus enjoined two
more, in the first of which Herakles was required to bring back
the Golden Apples of the Hesperides ("Daughters of the Even-
ing-Land"). These apples were very precious, having once
been the wedding-gift of Zeus to Hera, and to obtain them
was perhaps the most difiicult of all the labours of Herakles,
for they were guarded not only by the Hesperides but also by
a deathless dragon of one hundred heads, besides all which
the hero did not yet know in just what part of the world
they were to be found. Setting out at random in the hope of
chancing upon his goal, Herakles came to the river Echedoros
where, in a contest of strength, he would have slain Ares'
son Kyknos had Zeus not separated them by a thunderbolt.
Happening to find Nereus, the Ancient of the Sea, asleep on
the banks of the Eridanos, the great river of the north, he
seized him, and, in spite of his power to change into many
forms, did not release him until he told where the Golden
Apples were to be found. On learning this, he turned south to
Libya, in which ruled Poseidon's son Antaios, who used to
compel all strangers passing that way to wrestle with him.
They were invariably killed in the struggle, but in Herakles
he met more than his equal, for the hero lifted him aloft as
though he had been nothing and dashed him to pieces on the
ground. From Libya Herakles passed on to Egypt, the king-
dom of Bousiris, another son of Poseidon, who, too, was unkind
to strangers, making a practice of sacrificing them to Zeus, alleg-
ing that he was thus obeying an oracle. His attendants bound
Herakles to the altar, but with a single eflFort the hero burst
the bonds and stained the shrine with the king's own blood.
From Egypt he went on through Asia to the island of Rhodes,



 



 



88 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

where he is said to have stolen a team of oxen and to have
sacrificed them, notwithstanding the imprecations of their
owner. From that time onward it was customary to utter im-
precations when sacrificing to Herakles. Wandering across
Arabia and Lydia, he chanced to come to the place where the
unhappy Prometheus was chained. Moved with pity, he shot
the bird that was tormenting him, unbound his fetters, and with
the permission of Zeus gave him Cheiron's eternal immunity
from death. At last he reached the end of his weary journey,
the land of the Hyperboreians where Atlas stood bearing the
heavens on his shoulders. With little more ado Herakles killed
the dragon, plucked the apples, and conveyed them to Eurys-
thcus, but as they were too divine for mortal keeping, they were
later restored to the Hesperides. Another version of this
legend, in which Atlas is beguiled to accomplish the theft, is
inconsistent with the character of the traditional Herakles.

Twelfth Labour. — One realm of nature was as yet uncon-
quered by Herakles — the underworld — and thither he was
sent on his last mission to fetch Kerbcros, the hell-hound with
three heads and the tail of a serpent, and out of whose body
grew a writhing tangle of snakes. On his way to Tainaron in
Lakonia, the most spacious entry to the lower world, Herakles
halted at Eleusis, and, as soon as Eumolpos had purified him
of the blood of the Centaurs, he was initiated into the mys-
teries. Once at the cave of Tainaron, he descended and found
among the shades those of many whom he had known in the
world above. Though the place was entirely strange to him,
he could not be daunted from continuing his deeds of chivalry.
He released Theseus from the bonds which Hades had thrown
upon him, overpowered Menoites, the herdsman of Hades* kine,
until Persephone had to beg for him to be spared, and, kill-
ing one of the cattle, he shed its blood to gratify the gibbering
shades. Kerberos he found on guard at the entrance to Acheron.
Protected by his breastplate and impenetrable lion's skin, he
cautiously approached the beast, and, suddenly grasping him



 



 



 



 



PLATE XXIII

I. Herakles and Nereus
Just to the right of the centre of the composition Herakles may
be distinguished by the lion-skin which he wears on his head and the
front of his body; above his shoulders can be seen the rim of a quiver
and the end of an unstrung bow. He stands with his feet wide apart
so as to brace himself against the struggles of Nereus, whom he holds
tightly in his arms. The sea-god is shown with human head and
shoulders, while his body, which he lashes wildly about in his en-
deavours to escape, is that of a fish. At the left of the picture
Hermes, with the caduceus (herald's wand), sandals, chlamys (a sort of
cape), and petasos (travelling hat), draws near to the combat. The
two frightened women on either side may be Nereids. From a bUck-
figured lekythos of the late sixth century B.C., found at Gela (Monu-
mend Antichi^ xvii, Plate XXV). See p. 87.

2. Herakles and the Cretan Bull
Herakles, a sinewy and beardless young man, is running beside the
bull and endeavouring to retard its speed by pulling back on its right
horn. In his right hand he is swinging his knotted club preparatory
to dealing the creature a heavy blow. He is lightly clad for his stren-
uous task, wearing only a short, sleeveless chiton. On his head is a
peculiar cap, with, a conical crown and a projecting peak, such as is
often worn by Hermes and Perseus. At his left side appears the hilt
of a sword. From a black-figured lekythos with a white ground, found
at Gela and apparently of the early fifth century B.C. {Monumenti
Jntichi^ xvii, Plate XXVIII). See p. 84.

3. Herakles and Apollo
Herakles can be very easily identified by his club, lion-skin (the
legs of which are knotted across his chest), and the quiver, out of
which five shafts are protruding. In his left hand he grasps one of
the legs of the Delphic tripod which he is trying to wrest from Apollo,
a lithe, boyish figure bearing a laden quiver on his back. Directly in
the path of Herakles and with her face toward him stands Athene,
fully armed, and, behind her, Hermes with his characteristic attributes.
The women who witness the contest cannot be identified. From a
black-figured lekythos of the early fifth century b.c, found at Gela
(^Monument! Jntichi^ xvii, Plate XXIIl). See pp. 89-90.



 



 



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HERAKLES 89

by the head and neck, forced him to submit to being led
away. He made his ascent by way of the grotto at Troizen,
and when he had shown the dog to Eurystheus as indisputable
proof of his success, he took him back to Hades.

The Later Adventures of Herakles; In Euboia. — On his re-
lease from his servitude to Eurystheus, Herakles returned to
his home city of Thebes, where his first act was to get rid of
his wife without proper cause by heartlessly handing her over
to lolaos like a mere chattel. In casting about him for another
spouse, he learned that Eurytos, lord of the Euboian city of
Oichalia, had offered his daughter lole to the man who should
excel himself and his sons in archery. Herakles took up this
very general challenge and won, but his fair prize was with-
held from him on the ground that his madness might return
and drive him to repeat the murderous deeds of his earlier
years. Not long after this episode the wily Autolykos stole
some of Eurytos's cattle, but their owner attributed the theft
to Herakles as an act of revenge. It chanced that Iphitos, one
of Eurytos's sons, when searching for the lost animals, fell
in with Herakles, whom he engaged to join him in his errand;
but suddenly, in the midst of their peaceful intercourse at
Tiryns, a fit of madness came over Herakles, and, grasping his
friend in his powerful arms, he dashed him to destruction from
the summit of the city walls. Now in the eyes of the Greeks
an act of violence against a friend was one of the most repre-
hensible of sins, so that a dreadful disease which came upon
Herakles was regarded by all as a just retribution for his evil-
doing. He sought purification at the hands of Nereus (Neleus),
but was ignominiously turned away as an oflFender for whom
there was no pardon. Later, at Amyklai, he received it from
the more tender-hearted Deiphobos, but this removed only his
pollution, and in order to find a cure for his disease he went
to Delphoi, where the priestess refused to dispense to him the
healing wisdom of the oracle. Overmastered by rage, Herakles
proceeded to sack the shrine, scattering its furnishings about



 



 



90 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

as would an angry child, and, laying hold of the sacred tripod,
he was on the point of setting up his own independent oracle
when Apollo resisted him with force. In the midst of their
struggle they were unexpectedly separated by a thunderbolt of
Zeus, whereupon the oracle revealed to Herakles that he would
obtain relief from his malady and would make proper amends
for his crime only when he had been sold into slavery and had
served three years in bondage.

In Lydia. — Hermes sold Herakles to Omphale, the widow of
Tmolos, a former king of Lydia, and Eurytos, to whom the
money realized from the sale was oflFered, refused it with a
much more genuine scrupulousness than that which marks the
actions of most characters of myth. This period in Herakles'
life was relieved by many episodes which had a mirthful as
well as a serious side. During a part of his servitude Omphale,
possessed of a saving sense of humour, made this most mas-
culine of all the heroes wear woman's garb and engage in the
narrow round of domestic duties, while she herself went about
wearing the lion's skin and wielding the huge club. Yet Hera-
kles was given enough freedom to allow him to go from land
to land accomplishing great exploits. Near Ephesos there were
two men called Kerkopes who made a practice of waylaying
travellers, and one day, when Herakles waked from a nap by
the roadside, he saw them standing over him wearing his
armour and brandishing his weapons. Relying on his strength
alone, he seized them, tied their feet together, and, hanging
them head downward, one on each end of a great stick of
timber, he proceeded to carry them oflF, but soon, won over
by their irrepressible pleasantries, let them go. In Aulis lived
a certain Syleus who used to force passers-by to till his vine-
yards; but Herakles was not to be thus treated. Uprooting
all the vines in the vineyard and piling them into a heap,
he placed Syleus and his daughter on the top and kindled it;
although in one form of the tale he gorged himself at Syleus's
larder and then washed away the entire plantation by divert-



 



 



HERAKLES 91

ing the waters of a river across it. During his slavery he was
of service to Lydia in crushing her enemies, and he also made
a second expedition against the Amazons and with the other
heroes sailed on the Argo in the quest of the Golden Fleece.
One of his many thoughtful acts was to bury the body of the
bold but unfortunate Ikaros, which he found cast by the waves
on the seashore, and in gratitude Daidalos erected a statue of
him at Olympia.

At Troy. — On attaining his liberty, Herakles promptly
carried out his threat against Troy for her perfidy. Accom-
panied by many of the nobles from all parts of Greece, he went
against the city with a fleet and an army, and having eflFected
a landing and repulsed an attack of the Trojans he drove them
back and besieged them. Through a breach made in the
walls the Greeks finally entered the city, but at the expense
of an altercation between Herakles and Telamon, one of his
generals, who, Herakles pettily urged, had inconsiderately de-
prived his leader of the honour of being the first to set foot
in the conquered city. Their quarrel was patched up, how-
ever, and Telamon was given the princess Hesione as a prize
of war. Herakles slew the ungrateful Laomedon, but granted
life to his son Podarkes ("Swift Foot")> who was afterward
to be called Priamos. As the victors were sailing away to the
west, Hera caught Zeus napping and sent violent storms upon
them, but the Olympian punished her for her deceit by sus-
pending her from heaven. Touching at Kos, Herakles engaged
in a battle with Eurypylos, king of the island, slew him, and,
when himself wounded, was mysteriously removed to safety by
his divine father Zeus. On reaching home he was summoned to
support the cause of the gods against the rebellious Titans.

In the Peloponnesos. — As Herakles had repaid Laomedon
for his failure to keep a pledge, so was he to have revenge on
Angelas. Assembling a host of volunteers, he invaded Elis
and met with a powerful resistance. Falling ill, he succeeded
in making a truce with the enemy, but they, on learning the



 



 



92 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

reason of it and thinking to take him oflF his guard, attacked
him treacherously. Herakles, however, was a master of re-
taliation, for when he subsequently caught them in an ambus-
cade, he put Augeias and his sons to death, captured the city
of Elis, and gave the kingdom to another. "Then the valiant
son of Zeus assembled in Pisa all his hosts and all the spoils
of war, and measured oflF the boundaries of a precinct which
he made sacred to his mighty sire. In the midst of the plain
did he set aside a level space, the Altis, and fenced it round
about. The land without this space did he ordain to be a place
for feasting and for rest. Then to Alpheios' stream he sacrificed
and to the twelve sovereign gods." ^ In the space which he
had consecrated Herakles celebrated the first Olympian games.

From Pisa he went against the city of Pylos, which fell
before his arms, and here he encountered Periklymenos, one
of the sons of Nereus, who tried to escape his fate by resorting
to the powers of transformation which Poseidon had given
him. He could change himself into a lion, a snake, a bee, or
even so small an insect as a gnat, but when he had taken the
form of this last and was about to escape, Herakles* vision was
miraculously cleared so that he detected and caught him,
and slew him along with all the rest of his family except his
brother Nestor. In this struggle Hades fought on the side of
the Pylians and was grievously wounded by Herakles.

Among the allies of Nereus had been the sons of Hippokoon
of Sparta, against whom Herakles organized an expedition for
their opposition to him and for their wanton murder of one of
his kinsmen, as well as for a grudge against the Spartans who
had withheld cleansing from him after the death of Iphitos.
After much persuasion he enlisted on his side King Kepheus
of Tegea, and to save Tegea from capture during the absence
of its defenders he left with Kepheus's daughter a lock of the
Gorgon's hair enclosed in a bronze water-jar. In the war that
ensued Iphikles and the men of Tegea were killed, but in spite
of this loss Herakles was able in the end to overcome his foes



 



 



 



 



PLATE XXIV

Amazons in Battle

To the left of the centre of the picture an Amazon,
wearing a turban-like helmet and mounted on a horse,
thrusts with a lance at a fallen Greek warrior, behind
whom one of his fellows battles with another Amazon
attacking with an axe. Both of the warrior-women
are clad in tight-fitting garments conspicuous by
reason of their peculiar chequered and zigzag patterns.
From a red-figured volute krater of the latter half of
the fifth century B.C., in the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York {photograph). See pp. 85, 103-04.



 



 




 



 



 



 



HERAKLES 93

and gain their city, which he restored to its rightful king,
Tyndareos (or, perhaps, to his sons), who had been driven out
by the sons of Hippokoon. It was just after this occasion that
Herakles met Auge in Tegea.