Jobs Worldwide & Bottom prices, cheaper then Amazon & FB
( 17.905.982 jobs/vacatures worldwide) Beat the recession - crisis, order from country of origin, at bottom prices! Cheaper then from Amazon and from FB ads!
Become Careerjet affiliate

AuthorTopic: Greek & Roman Mythology  (Read 13312 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline PrometheusTopic starter

  • BeautifullDisgrace
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2009
  • Posts: 1516
  • Country: nl
  • Location: Tholen
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Sign: Libra
Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #15 on: August 04, 2019, 10:31:26 PM »

In Aitolia and the Mountains. — Herakles crossed the Gulf
of Corinth to Aitolia and became a suitor for the hand of
Deianeira, the daughter of Oineus of Kalydon, although in so
doing he became a rival of the powerful river-god Acheloos.
While wrestling with the divinity, who had taken the form of a
bull, the hero broke and retained one of his horns, which was
so precious to its owner that for its restoration he allowed
Herakles to possess Deianeira, and, besides, to take the won-
derful Horn of Plenty, which would give to him who held it as
much food or drink as he should wish for. For many days
Herakles was entertained by Oineus, and even helped him in
a war of conquest along the coast of the Adriatic, but, as usual,
his bulk and strength got him into trouble in spite of himself.
One day he chanced to kill a lad who was related to the king,
and though forgiven by the lad^s father, he went into volun-
tary exile, as the custom of the country required, and set out
with Deianeira to take up his abode with Keyx of Trachis,
a city on the other side of the mountains. Arriving at the
river Evenos, over which Nessos the Centaur used to ferry
on his back those who travelled afoot, Herakles crossed alone,
leaving his wife in the care of Nessos. As soon as the husband
was a little distance away, the Centaur made a vicious attack
upon the woman, but at her outcry Herakles turned and with
a well-aimed shaft pierced her assailant through the heart.
When Nessos had crawled out on the river's bank to die, he
called Deianeira to his side and gave her a mixture of his
blood which, he promised, would serve as a love-philtre to
revive her husband's affection for her should it wane at any
time.

As Herakles passed through the country of the Dryopians,
he found himself in need of food. He had apparently forgotten



 



 



94 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTH0L(X5Y

the boundless capacity of his magic Horn of Plenty, so that,
when none would give him food, he seized an ox and prepared
a meal from it. The inhospitality of the Dryopians he never
forgot, and later he punished them with a devastating war,
killing their king as he was impiously feasting in a shrine of
Apollo. Not long afterward he went to the aid of Aigimios,
king of the Dorians, who was being beleaguered by the Lapi-
thai, and drove the besiegers away. In this district there was
a place well adapted for an ambuscade which the votaries of
Apollo had to pass on their southward journey to Delphoi,
and there Kyknos, a son of Ares, used to lie in wait and attack
them as they went by; but when he met with Herakles he was
overpowered and slain, and thenceforth the pilgrims were un-
molested.

At last the moment arrived for Herakles to punish the faith-
lessness of Eurytos. Going against Oichalia, he slew the king
and his sons and many of their allies, and then sacked the city
and took lole captive. When the news of this seizure reached
the ears of Deianeira, her heart was aflame with jealousy, and
she prepared to make use of the gift of Nessos. It happened
that Herakles sent a messenger to her from Oichalia to bring
back to him a ceremonial vestment for a solemn sacrifice.
Choosing a robe, she poured over it some of the magic liquid,
but her trust in Nessos turned out to have been too hasty, for
it was no philtre that he had given her, but a fiery liquid which
wrapped the body of Herakles in deadly flames as soon as he
donned the garment. Recognizing that his end was near, the
hero ascended Mount Oita above Trachis and had a great
pyre of wood built. Upon this he lay down and ordered those
about him to kindle it, but none had the boldness of heart
to take their master's life. At length a passer-by, Poias (or
perhaps Poias's son, Philoktetes) was induced to do the deed
by the gift of Herakles' bow and arrows. As the flames rose
and consumed the hero, a cloud from which thunder proceeded
was seen to gather over him and to take him into its bosom,



 



 



HERAKLES 95

and in heaven he was given the boon of immortality and
wedded Hebe, the daughter of Hera. With Hera herself he was
at last reconciled, while Deianeira, when she contemplated the
result of her awful deed, hanged herself.

The Descendants of Herakles. — The sons of Herakles, the
issue of his many amours at home and abroad, were in number
as the sands of the sea. Of them all Herakles' favourite was
Hyllos, a son of Deianeira, and to him the hero gave the king-
ship of the Dorians, thus establishing the traditional bond
between his line and the Dorian stock. On his father's death
Hyllos married lole. The children of Herakles, now fearing
Eurystheus, fled to Trachis, and thence, still menaced, to va-
rious parts of Hellas. In the course of their wanderings they
came to Athens, begging for protection, and the Athenians, by
giving them an army, did better for them than the fugitives
had dared to hope, for the united forces routed the foe, and
Hyllos, pursuing Eurystheus as far as the Skironian rocks,
slew him. The Heraklids then overran the Peloponnesos, but
on the advent of a plague they obeyed the injunction of an
oracle and withdrew to Marathon, where they established a
colony. Some time later Hyllos again sought the advice of
an oracle and received the response that he and his brothers
would come into their own "at the end of the third harvest."
Interpreting this literally, as was natural, they made several
unsuccessful attempts against the Peloponnesos, in an early
one of which Hyllos lost his life in a duel with Echemos of
Tegea. Finally the god made known to the remaining brothers
that the "three harvests" referred to three human genera-
tions, and thus, patientiy awaiting the end of this period,
they achieved their desire and divided the Peloponnesos into
three parts, Argos, Lakedaimon, and Messene, each part being
assigned to a branch of the family.



 



 



CHAPTER VI
THESEUS

IN the story of his life as it now stands Theseus is frankly
an imitation of Herakles, although this does not mean that
his figure owes its entire existence to its model. Apparently,
legends of a certain Theseus were very early brought from
Crete to the coasts of the Argolid about Troizen, and through
long years of repetition they became so familiar to the people
as to be regarded as of local origin and thus as fit themes for
local poets. By means of poetry and cult the name of Theseus
was spread throughout Greece, but in Athens it won especial
recognition because of friendly relations between Athens and
Troizen and her neighbour cities, thus supplying a foundation
for the conscious manufacture of new myths and the com-
pounding of old ones. When the Athenians reached the stage
of possessing a political consciousness, they found themselves
very different from their older neighbours in that they were
without an organized body of myth extolling their descent and
detailing the glorious exploits of a great hero-forefather. Just
like upstart wealth in a modem democracy concocting its aris-
tocratic coat of arms, the Athenians resolved to set up a na-
tional hero and to drape his figure in the narrative of his al-
leged exploits. Theseus was ready at hand, partly Athenian,
partly outsider. As an Athenian he could easily win local affec-
tion; as an outsider he was in a position to square with the
people's political aspirations by breaking with the aristocracy
and introducing a new order of things. The Athenians, there-
fore, took him as he was, and, for the sake of fixing him still
more definitely in their locality, added a number of stories of



 



 



 



 



PLATE XXV

Thbccs avo AifPEimrrE

, a skndcr joodi with loog foir hiir, stands
on the apcnmed hands of Tmoo before Amphhrkc, cn-
thraoed in her palaoe in the depths of the sea. With
her right hand the Queen of the Waters extends a
greeting to the bd, while in her left she holds against
her bteut the cnnm which she will place on his head
as a sign thtt he is the ton of Poseidon, Between her
and Theseus stands the noble and anasiiaUj human
figure of Athene. From a red-figured ij&r by Euphro-
nios Tearhr fifth centurr bx.), in the Louvre (Fuit-
wangler-ReidihoId, Griubiubt VasaammUreu, No, 5).
See p. ici.



 



 




 



 



 



 



THESEUS 97

long-established local currency to the stock of tales already
gathered about him. So keenly aware were they of the calcu-
lated deliberation of the process that to them Theseus, of all
the heroes, was in a class by himself, a personage almost across
the threshold of history.

Birth and Childhood. — King Aigeus of Athens, though twice
married, was not blessed with children, and in his disappoint-
ment he sought the counsel of the oracle, receiving a riddling
answer which only served to perplex him the more. Going to
Troizen, he made known his trouble and the answer of the
oracle to King Pittheus, who quickly perceived the drift of
the response and just as quickly devised a scheme by which to
fulfil it. Plying Aigeus with wine until his wits deserted him,
Pittheus left him overnight in the company of his daughter
Aithra, and when morning dawned and Aigeus came to him-
self, he bade Aithra to rear the son she was destined to bear,
and not to disclose his paternity to him until the proper time
should come, which would be, he said, when their boy should
be able to roll away a certain stone under which Aigeus had
hidden a set of armour and weapons, and a pair of sandals.
In due time the child was bom, and was immediately, as most
agree, given the name of Theseus. His grandfather Pittheus
diligently circulated the story that he was the son of Poseidon,
the tutelary deity of Troizen, but his mother held her peace.
Even as a mere child Theseus showed himself fearless, for
once, when Herakles, his kinsman, visited Troizen, he gazed
without flinching at the dreadful lion-skin. At sixteen years
of age he was fully grown, and as was the custom of young
men went to Delphoi and presented to the god a clipped lock
of his hair as a token of surrender of his life to the divine will.
Then his mother took him to the stone, and when he had lifted
it and donned the armour revealed to him the mystery of his
birth and sent him to his father in Athens.

The young man, confident in his strength and impelled by
the desire to rival Herakles, decided to take the long and



 



 



98 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

dangerous land-route instead of the short and easy voyage
across the gulf. Nothing could dissuade him from his purpose,
not even the stories which Pittheus told him of the cruel rob-
bers infesting the highway; indeed, these only whetted his ap-
petite for adventure. With the intention merely of defending
himself should need arise and of wantonly harming none, he
set out from Troizen on a journey that was fated to involve
him in six great labours.

The Labours of Theseus; First Labour. — As Theseus passed
through Epidauros going northward, he was confronted by the
robber Periphetes, a son of .Hephaistos and Antikleia, who, in-
heriting his father's lameness, used an enormous club as an aid
in walking. Standing across Theseus's path, he forbade him
to proceed, but the hero, too quick and strong for him, pounced
on him, killed him, and took his club both as a memento of the
exploit and as an invincible weapon for the future.

Second Labour. — At the Isthmus of Corinth lived Sinis, a
giant son of Poseidon, who made a practice of seizing travellers
on the Isthmian highway and of binding them to one or more
resilient saplings that had been bent to the ground, the release
of the trees allowing them to spring back to an upright posi-
tion and in so doing to tear asunder the bodies of the victims.
This heartless wretch Theseus hoisted with his own petard,
even forcing him to lend a hand in bending down the tree to
which he was to be tied On the death of Sinis his daughter
fled to a bed of tall asparagus and implored the plants to
hide her, but when reassured by Theseus that no harm would
befall her, she came out of her hiding-place and consorted with
him, afterward bearing a son Melanippos whose descendants
worshipped the asparagus plant. This story may be a mythical
version of a ritual of a Poseidon-cult in the Isthmian groves.

Third Labour. — To the right of the road, just as one left
the Isthmus, was the town of Krommyon. About this place
roamed an unusually ferocious wild sow to which the terrified
neighbourhood had given the name of Phaia. Though person-



 



 



THESEUS 99

ally unprovoked by the beast, Theseus turned aside from his
path, and, to show his valour and fearlessness, attacked and
slew her single-handed. Some of the ancient writers, rational-
izing this myth, suggested that Phaia was really a licentious
murderess who was called a sow from her evil habits. This
and the preceding theme seem to be of Isthmian origin.

Fourth Labour. — A little distance to the west of the city of
Megara were some lofty limestone cliffs on the edge of which
ran the road from the Isthmus. Here was the station of the
robber Skiron, who would compel passers-by to stop and wash
his feet, and, as they stooped before him, would kick them over
the precipice at the foot of which a huge turtle devoured their
mangled bodies. Turning the tables, Theseus threw him over.
Some of the Megarians, in an endeavour to avoid speaking evil
of a fellow-countryman, claimed that, in reality, Skiron was
a suppressor of brigandage on this important highway. Be
that as it may, it now seems probable that the story arose
from a misunderstanding of a primitive ritual in which a human
victim was thrown over the cliffs to remove pollution from the
land and thus to ensure good crops.

Fifth Labour. — At Eleusis Theseus engaged Kerkyon of
Arkadia in a wrestling bout and killed him with a violent
throw.

Sixth Labour. — The road between Eleusis and Athens was
beset by a cruel brigand known as Damastes ("Subduer"),
or Prokroustes ("Stretcher'*), who took travellers captive and
fitted them perforce to his bed. If they were too tall, he would
mercilessly lop off their extremities, and, if too short, he would
stretch them to his own length, invariably killing them by either
process; but at Theseus's hands he met death by the treatment
which he gave to others. Probably in Damastes we are to see
the god of death, and in the bed the democratic seven feet of
sod to which we must all come sooner or later.

Theseus in Athens. — Theseus had now reached the borders

of Athens, but he did not cross them until he had been purified
I — II



 



 



loo GREEK AND ROMAN MYTH0LCX5Y

of the blood of Sinis, who was a kinsman of his own through
their joint relationship with Poseidon. As he went across
the city clad in a long flowing robe, he passed a temple on the
roof of which the builders were still at work. These, noticing
his peculiar garb, began to make sport of him and asked him
why a proper young lady like himself was out walking unes-
corted, whereupon, without a word, Theseus unyoked a team
of oxen standing by and tossed them higher than the peak of
the building.

The household of Aigeus he found to be in a desperate
state, for the king had become old and the people had grown
restless under his feeble sceptre, but as there was no heir he
still clung tenaciously to the throne. Medeia, who was now
his wife, with the vision of a witch recognized Theseus as soon
as he appeared, but she kept her discovery to herself and
plotted to take his life by poisoning him at a feast. Theseus,
however, detected her design and at a timely moment revealed
himself to his father by drawing his sword as if to cut the meat
on the table. Aigeus and the populace received him with
great joy and acknowledged him as the prince of the realm.

But the cousins of Theseus, the sons of Pallas, were very
angry, for his arrival had spoiled their chances of succeeding
jointly to the throne. Declaring that Aigeus was only an
adopted brother of Pallas, and that Theseus was an unknown
outlander, they proclaimed war against him and plotted to
entrap him, but a traitor revealed their plans, and Theseus
retained the supremacy.

Theseus in Crete. — It was not long before Theseus had the
opportunity of doing his greatest deed for Athens, for the time
arrived when the Athenians must make their third payment of
tribute of Attic youths to Minos, and the populace began to
find fault with Aigeus on the ground that he had taken no
steps to rid them of this periodic calamity. To still their chid-
ing Theseus offered himself as one of the victims of the Mino-
taur, while all the others were chosen by lot, although one



 



 



 



 



PLATE XXVI

Lapiths and Centaurs

In this scene three separate combats are being en-
acted. In that on the right, a Centaur is wielding a
tall tripod against a Lapith and parrying the blow of a
dagger. The Centaur of the central group is with one
hand forcibly drawing his antagonist toward himself
and with the other hand clenched is beating him in
the face. At the left a Lapith and a Centaur are
battling, the one with a double-axe, and the other
with the neck of a broken jar. From a red-figured
kylix by Aristophanes (late fifth century B.C.), in the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Furtwanglcr-Rcich-
hold, Griechische Vasenmalereiy No. 129). See pp.
104-05.



 



 




 



 



 



 



THESEUS loi

account of the legend states that Minos selected them all,
naming Theseus first. Before going on board the ship Theseus
secretly assured his father that he would succeed in killing the
Minotaur and thus free his people from their bondage; and since
the tribute-boat ordinarily carried a black sail to betoken the
hopelessness of its passengers, Aigeus gave the helmsman a
white one to be hoisted far out at sea on the voyage home if
Theseus were returning safe and sound.

It was probably after the arrival of the Attic youths in Crete
that Minos expressed his doubts that Poseidon was the father
of Theseus, and to make a test of his parentage he threw a
ring into the sea. Theseus plunged in after it and was borne
by a dolphin or a Triton to the thrones of Poseidon and Am-
phitrite. There Poseidon granted him the fulfilment of three
wishes that he might make in the future, while Amphitrite
gave him a garland, and then, bearing the latter as an emblem
of his divine birth, he emerged from the water bringing the
ring to Minos.

Offline PrometheusTopic starter

  • BeautifullDisgrace
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2009
  • Posts: 1516
  • Country: nl
  • Location: Tholen
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Sign: Libra
Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #16 on: August 04, 2019, 10:31:59 PM »

Before the captives were enclosed in the labyrinth, Ariadne,
a daughter of Minos, fell in love with Theseus and promised to
help him find his way out of the prison, if he would bind him-
self to take her to Athens and make her his wife. Theseus
promptly gave this easy pledge, and at the suggestion of Dai-
dalos Ariadne then presented him with a skein of linen thread
which he was to unwind as he advanced to the innermost re-
cess of the labyrinth. Once there he easily slew the Minotaur
with his fists, and by following the thread made his way back
to the light. Embarking on his ship with Ariadne, he fled from
Crete and touched at the island of Naxos, but as to just what
happened here the sources are not agreed. One has it that
Theseus, tiring of his bride, deserted her, and that she in
despair hanged herself; another, that Dionysos, enamoured
of her, conveyed her to Lemnos and forced her to wed him;
and still another, that, driven by a storm on the shores of
Cyprus, Ariadne died from exposure and Theseus instituted



 



 



I02 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

regular sacrifices at her tx>mb. At all events, Theseus reached
home without her, but as the ship drew near to Athens, the
helmsman in his great joy forgot to hoist the white sail, and
Aigeus, seeing the black one, threw himself over the cliffs on
which he stood and was dashed to pieces. On landing Theseus
buried his father's remains and paid his vows to Apollo.




Fig. 4. Theseus and the Minotauk

Theseus, an athletic young man, with his left hand seizes the Minotaur by a horn,
while with his right hand he is about to thrust at the monster with a short sword.
Compare this manner of killing with that mentioned in the text. The two spectators
of the struggle may be Minos and Ariadne. From a red-figured kraUr of the fifth
century B.C., found at Gela {Monumenti Jntichi, xvii, Plate XXX).

Theseus and the Bull of Marathon. — The story of Theseus
and the bull of Marathon is really a continuation of that of
his Cretan adventures. It will be remembered that the beast
had killed Androgeos, the son of Minos, and after this it con-
tinued, unchecked, its ravages among both men and crops.
Assigning himself the task of subduing it, Theseus went to
Marathon, grappled with the bull, and by sheer strength of
muscle forced it to submit to his will, after which he drove it
across country and through the streets of Athens, at last sacri-
ficing it on the altar of Apollo.



 



 



THESEUS 103

Thesevj as King and Statesman. — When, on the death of
his father, Theseus became the head of the state, he soon per-
ceived that the lack of proper political association among the
scattered townships of Attike was a great source of weak-
ness for his country, and in order to secure co-operation among
them in the works of peace and war alike he persuaded the
various communities to unite in the formation of a common-
wealth. He then appointed central places for meeting and
conference, instituted a national festival, drew up laws, and
issued a state currency; he divided the populace into three
classes, nobles, farmers, and artisans, giving each class its
special political function; he invited outsiders to settle in
Athens and enjoy the rights of citizenship; he annexed Megara,
and in emulation of Herakles founded games on the Isthmus
in honour of Poseidon. In order to appear democratic he pro-
posed to the people that he be known, not as king, but as com-
mander-in-chief of the army and defender of the laws, yet,
despite all this, he was always regarded as king.

The Later Adventures of Theseus; the Amazons. — Like
Herakles, Theseus had what we may call his supernumerary
adventures, the first of which is generally accounted to have
been his expedition against the Amazons. Whether this was
purely his own venture, or whether he was merely the comrade
of Herakles, is by no means clearly determined, but in either
instance, he won Antiope as the prize of his efforts and took
her back to Athens. For her seizure the Amazons declared
war against Athens and besieged the Acropolis, encamping
on an eminence at its foot, and since they were the daugh-
ters of Ares, this height was from that time known as Are-
opagos (for another legendary explanation of the name, see
above, p. 70). The siege lasted four months and was broken
only through the intercession of Theseus^s Amazon wife,
although some authorities, on the contrary, assert that she
fought against her own race and died at her husband's side,
pierced by a javelin. Many of the slain Amazons were buried



 



 



104 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

in the vicinity of Athens, and their graves were objects of
interest to travellers for many centuries. This mythical con-
flict foreshadowed the later wars of history in which Athens
was to be the leader of the Greeks against invading barba-
rians.

Theseus and Hippolytos. — If we are to discredit the story
of Antiope^s noble death, we must accept another in which
she was set aside by the fickle Theseus in favour of Phaidra,
a sister of the deserted Ariadne. According to this version,
her rejection gave her a pretext for leading the Amazons to
prosecute a war against Athens, but by Theseus she left a son
Hippolytos who turned out to be "a somewhat intractable
compound of a Jehu and a Joseph." As a youth he was de-
voted to the hunt and was a diligent worshipper of the chaste
Artemis, while Aphrodite and all her works he hated with a
holy hatred. For this Aphrodite punished him, causing his
step-mother Phaidra to bum with love for him and to make
evil advances, but when he haughtily rejected these, she
slandered him before his father, who banished him and be-
sought Poseidon to visit destruction upon him as the fulfil-
ment of one of the three wishes he was to grant. Poseidon
heard the prayer and raised up from the sea an enormous bull
which so frightened the horses of Hippolytos that they ran
away and killed him. When it was too late, the truth of the
matter was revealed to the remorseful Theseus, while the guilty
Phaidra took her own life by hanging.

Friendship with Peirithoos. — Peirithoos had heard of the
great strength of Theseus, and, in order to test it, drove some
of Theseus's cattle from the plain of Marathon. Theseus pur-
sued the raider, but, when they came face to face, they found
themselves unexpectedly attracted to one another. Peirithoos
promptly offered to pay whatever damages Theseus might
claim, but all that the latter would accept was a pledge of
friendship, and thenceforth they were inseparable. Theseus
was present at the wedding of Peirithoos to Deidameia in the



 



 



THESEUS los

country of the Lapithai, when some Thessalian Centaurs, who
were also guests, became heated with wine and attacked the
Lapith women; but, led by Theseus, the men fought them off,
slew some, and drove others from the land.

When Theseus was about fifty years old, the two friends
kidnapped Helen of Sparta and held her for a while in Attic
territory, this constituting an adventure with whose details
we have already become acquainted. During her detention
Theseus accompanied Peirithoos to the home of Hades to
seize Persephone and make her the bride of Peirithoos, but the
task was not like that of capturing the partly mortal Helen,
for Hades had the two abductors overpowered and bound with
serpents to the Seat of Lethe ("Forgetfulness")* Herakles
later set Theseus free, but even his great strength was insuf-
ficient to enable him to loose Peirithoos.

Death of Theseus. — On returning to Athens Theseus learned
that Helen's brothers had stormed the fortress where she had
been held captive and had taken her back to Sparta, and, along
with her, his own mother Aithra, while, to increase his troubles,
another political party was in the ascendancy and was in-
stigating the people against him. Finding the opposition too
great, he solemnly cursed the Athenians and with his family
withdrew to the rocky island of Skyros, where, it is said, at
the command of the king of the island he was pushed over
the sea-cliffs and killed. After the fall of Troy his children
returned to Athens and reigned. Nevertheless, the spirit of
Theseus was not dead, for at Marathon he fought on the
side of the Athenians and turned the tide of battle in their
favour. At the close of the Persian wars his bones were brought
to Athens from Skyros in obedience to an oracle, and buried
with great pomp in a tomb in the heart of the city.



 



 



CHAPTER VII
THE VOYAGE OF THE ARGO

THE voyage of the Argo is the great culminating episode
in the vicissitudes of certain branches of the family of
Aiolos, and it will, therefore, be necessary to review the lives
of the most important personages of this family.

The Descendants of Aiolos; SalmoneuSj Pelias. — Salmoneus,
a son of Aiolos who had settled in Elis, drew upon himself the
divine anger for having attempted to usurp some of the pre-
rogatives of Zeus, for he made a practice of imitating the
thunder and the lightning of a rain-storm and was killed by a
real bolt from the hand of Zeus. From this description of him
we are to infer that he was of the class of rain-making magi-
cians still to be found in some primitive communities. His
daughter Tyro was forced to yield to the embraces of Posei-
don and bore twin sons, Nereus (Neleus) and Pelias, who were
exposed in infancy, but were found and reared in another
family than their own. Nereus and his children were slain by
Herakles at Pylos, but Pelias took up his abode somewhere
in Thessaly, married, and had, among other children, a son
Akastos and a daughter Alkestis who was destined to become
one of the most famous of women. For an impious act of his
youth Hera visited on Pelias a curse which was to follow him
through life. Tyro, after the abandonment of her children,
was legally wedded to Kretheus, her father's brother, and be-
came the mother of three more children, Amythaon, Aison,
and Pheres, who lived together in the Thessalian city of
lolkos which Kretheus had founded, until Pheres, with laud-
able enterprise, built the new city of Pherai, on an inland site



 



 



 



 



PLATE XXVII
The Argonauts

The interpretation of this scene is by no means
certain. It has been explained as depicting a band of
Athenian warriors about to give battle to the Persians
in the presence of the gods and heroes of old.
Generally, however, it is thought to represent a group
of the Argonauts, without reference to any particular
episode. If this interpretation is correct, one can
easily perceive the appropriate appearance of Athene,
the divine patroness of the Argo, of Herakles, with
club and lion-skin, and of one of the Dioskouroi, with
his horse. Any attempt to identify the other figures
would be purely fanciful. From a red-figured krater of
the end of the fifth century B.C., in the Louvre (Furt-
wangler-Reichhold, GnVf Awe A^ Vasenmalereiy^o. io8).



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE VOYAGE OF THE ARGO 107

not many leagues away, and became its king. In his old age
Pheres gave up the throne to his son Admetos.

Admetos and Alkestis. — The story of the courtship and
wedded life of Admetos is the theme of the Alkestis of Euripi-
des. The beginning of the story goes back to Apollo's slay-
ing of the Kyklopes in revenge for the death of his son Asklep-
ios, and for this murder he was punished by Zeus, being sent
to serve as a slave to a mortal man. That man chanced to be
Admetos, who treated the god with the kindest hospitality
and was rewarded by a great increase in his flocks and herds.
Seeking in marriage Alkestis, the daughter of his kinsman
Pelias, he went to lolkos and paid her court, but her father
had promised that he would give her only to the man who
should succeed in yoking to a car a lion and a wild boar.
When it seemed to Admetos as if this impossible condition
would compel him to forego his love, Apollo yoked the animals,
and helped him win his bride. At the wedding-sacrifice, how-
ever, Admetos forgot to give victims to Artemis, who, to
requite him, filled his bridal chamber with serpents, but
Apollo bade him offer suitable propitiation and obtained for
him from the Fates the boon that, when about to pass away,
he should be spared the actual terrors of dissolution through
the death of a voluntary substitute. At last Admetos's fated
day came, and of all his friends and kin none but his dear
wife Alkestis was willing to die for him. He became well again
while she sickened and died and was buried; but by chance
Herakles passed through Pherai bound for Thrace, and learn-
ing the cause of the mourning in the house he entered the tomb,
defeated Death, and amid general rejoicing brought Alkestis
back to her husband.

AthamaSy Phrixos, and Helle, — Athamas, another son of
Aiolos, had two children, a son Phrixos and a daughter Helle,
by an earlier marriage than that with Ino, who was very jealous
of them and plotted to destroy them. Secretly advising the
women of the country to roast the corn before sowing, she



 



 



io8 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

brought about a failure of the crops, and when Athamas sent
messengers to the oracle to inquire how to remove this condi-
tion, Ino suborned them, and they brought back a false re-
port, announcing that the land would again bear fruit if
Phrixos were sacrificed to Zeus. As the lad stood by the altar
to be slain, his mother Nephele suddenly led out a ram with
a golden fleece, the offspring of Poseidon and Theophane, and
placing Phrixos and Helle on the animal she drove it away.
Swiftly it went eastward overland to the straits between Europe
and Asia, but as it was swimming these Helle fell off its back
into the water and was drowned, whence, ever afterward, the
Greeks knew the straits as the Hellespont ("Helle's Sea^O*
Phrixos, on the other hand, was borne by the ram to the farther
end of the Euxine, where was the land of Kolchis, over which
King Aietes ruled. There, as one story says, he grew to man-
hood and afterward returned to his old home in the west;
although, according to a variant legend, he was killed by Aietes,
and the ram was sacrificed to Zeus, while its golden fleece was
hung on a mighty oak in the grove of Ares and guarded by a
dragon.

The Return of lason. — The narrative now returns to lolkos.
When Kretheus died, his son Aison was dispossessed of his king-
dom by his half-brother Pelias, but he still lived on in lolkos
and offered no resistance to the usurper. To prepare, however,
for a day of vengeance he craftily announced that his son
lason was dead, whereas, in reality, he had sent him away to
Cheiron to be educated, while to Pelias he made the prophecy
that some day he, Pelias, would die at the hands of an Aiolid
or by an incurable poison. Years after this lason returned to
lolkos, and with many others was invited by Pelias to a feast of
Poseidon, but in crossing a swollen stream on the way he
chanced to lose his left sandal in the mire. As he approached
with only his right foot shod, Pelias observed him, and when
he learned who he was called to mind with a great shock that
this was the mark of the man by whom he was doomed to die.



 



 



THE VOYAGE OF THE ARGO 109

After a conference of several days with his father and other
kinsfolk, lason, appearing before Pelias, boldly asked him to
surrender the throne and sceptre, and the usurper weakly
assented, but begged him to have pity on his old age. Would
he not first of all, he asked, recover the Golden Fleece, and by
thus appeasing the soul of Phrixos bring peace to the line of
Aiolos ? On this condition Pelias was willing to step down from
the throne without a struggle. lason accepted the task, but,
suspecting a ruse against his life, engaged Akastos, Pelias's
son, to share the dangers of the adventure with him.

The Voyage of the Argo. — Summoning Argos, a son of
Phrixos, lason bade him build a fifty-oared ship, and with
the help of Athene Argos fashioned "the most excellent of all
ships that have made trial of the sea with oars," ^ and named
it the Argo. Into its prow Athene fitted a piece of the talking
oak of Zeus at Dodona, and when it was completed lason
sent heralds throughout Greece announcing his expedition.
From all parts men hastened to enroll themselves as his com-
panions. Their number was too great for us to catalogue them
here, but we may say that all of them were real "heroes, the
crown of men, like gods in fight," many of whom we have met
in the myths already recorded. Bidding farewell to the people
of lolkos, the company withdrew to the seashore, and beside
the ship held a council in which with one accord they elected
lason their leader. After a sacrifice to Apollo in which they
found the omens favourable, they launched the Argo and sailed
away through the Gulf of Pagasai to the open Aegean, "and
their arms shone in the sun like flames as the ship sped on." *
Skirting the coast, they held first a northward and later an
eastward course, until they came to Lemnos, where lived a
race of women, ruled by Hypsipyle, who out of jealousy
had killed off all their husbands, but who, by this time weary
of single existence, joyfully welcomed the Argons crew and
tempted them to delay among them for a season. With the
weakness of true sailors the men yielded to their beguilements



 



 



no GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

and lingered many days; and perhaps they would utterly have
forgotten their goal had not Herakles vigorously brought them
to their senses. Embarking once more, they sailed north to
Samothrace, where they accepted initiation into the sacred
mysteries in order to ensure themselves a safe return, and
thence they passed through the Hellespont, "dark-gleaming
with eddies,'* to the island of Kyzikos, the land of the Doliones.
Here they obtained stores and information, and had to ward
off an attack of the six-armed Earth-bom men, many of whom
fell before the bow of Herakles. After proceeding only a short
distance eastward, they were buffeted by head winds and
driven back to another part of the island. The same Doliones
who had given them food saw them land but were unable
to recognize them owing to the distance, and taking them for
pirates they set upon them, only to bring destruction upon
themselves. For twelve days and twelve nights the Argonauts
were detained here by reason of storms, which abated, how-
ever, after a sacrifice to Hera. When they had rowed to a point
on the coast of Mysia, Herakles and Hylas, his favourite youth,
went ashore and made their way into the forest, the one to get
wood and the other to draw water; but as Hylas stooped over
a spring, the water-nymphs, won by his beauty, reached up and
drew him under. One who heard him cry out ran and told
Herakles, thinking that a beast had slain him, and in vain the
hero wandered back and forth through the forest searching for
the lad, being away so long that his friends on the Argo forgot
him and put to sea without him.

Offline PrometheusTopic starter

  • BeautifullDisgrace
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2009
  • Posts: 1516
  • Country: nl
  • Location: Tholen
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Sign: Libra
Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #17 on: August 04, 2019, 10:33:20 PM »

Coming next to the country of the Bebrykians, the Argo-
nauts were challenged by King Amykos to choose one of
their number to contend with him in boxing, and Polydeukes,
brother of Kastor, offered himself. Fighting, each with his box-
ing gauntlets on, they smote one another with such blows
"as when shipwrights with their hammers smite ships* tim-
bers," ' until at last Polydeukes placed a blow squarely on
Amykos's head, and he fell to the ground with his skull crushed



 



 



 



 



PLATE XXVIII
Medeia at Corinth

(Lowest panel.) Beginning at the left the sculptor
has depicted serially the last scenes in Medeia's life at
Corinth. In the first, she dismisses her two children |

with the fatal gifts for Glauke. In the second, the |

princess, wrapped in the burning robe and with her
hair aflame, is writhing in agony, while Kreon, her
father, stands near her, visibly tortured by the thought |

that he is unable to help her. Meanwhile the children,
terrified at the havoc which they have wrought, hasten .

to find their mother. In the last scene Medeia is |

stepping into the chariot, drawn by winged dragons,
opportunely sent to her by her grandsire, Helios. |

From a sarcophagus in Berlin (Brunn-Bruckmann,
Denkm&ler griechischer und romischer Sculptur^ No. j

490). See p. 115.



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE VOYAGE OF THE ARGO iii

in. At that moment the Bebrykian people assailed the slayer
of their king, but his companions repelled them and overran
the land, taking much booty.

On the following day they passed through the Bosporos and
touched at the home of the blind old seer Phineus, whom the
gods had not only punished with blindness, but had doomed
never to taste of food from his own board. Whenever viands
were placed before him, the Harpies would pounce upon them
and carry them off, leaving an overpowering stench. Phineus
asked the Argonauts, Zetes and Kalais, to fulfil a certain proph-
ecy and free him from these pests, and, accordingly, when the
Harpies came to seize the next meal, the winged heroes fled
aloft and pursued them so far out to sea that Iris took pity
on them and pledged that their depredations would cease.
The Argo's crew then spread a bountiful feast for Phineus to
celebrate the breaking of his long fast, and heard from his lips
a prophecy outlining their journey and foretelling their suc-
cess as far as Kolchis. The rest of their future he veiled in
silence.

Leaving the Bosporos, they were safely guided by Athene
through the dangerous Symplegades, two great moving rocks
which cleaved the waves more swiftly than the tempest, and
coming to the open Euxine they turned their prow to the east
and pressed on to the island of Thynias, and thence to the
mouth of the river Acheron, where several of them were killed.
Though discouraged, they sailed to Sinope, past the mouth
of the river Halys and the country of the Amazons, to the
Chalybes (the nation of iron-workers) and to the Mossynoikoi
(the people of topsy-turvy morals), and halted at the Isle of
Ares, where the sea-birds dropped sharp, feathered shafts upon
them. Here they found four sons of Phrixos who had been
shipwrecked in sailing away from Kolchis, and who endeavoured
to dissuade lason from pursuing his errand further, but to no
purpose, for lason all the more eagerly urged his companions
on. At last they came to the river Phasis, on one bank of which



 



 



112 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

stood the city and palace of Aietes, while on the other was the
grove sheltering the Golden Fleece.

The gods now began to intrigue in favour of the Argonauts.
Hera and Athene beguiled Aphrodite to instil a passion for
lason in the heart of Medeia, one of the daughters of Aietes.
This was of supreme moment for the Argonaut leader, since
without her assistance he would have been helpless before
the task which Aietes demanded that he accomplish as the
price of the fleece, this requirement being to plough a field
with a yoke of bulls with brazen feet and flaming breath, to
sow it with dragon's teeth, and then to slay the armed men
that should spring up from this strange seed. Now, since
Medeia was a sorceress and a priestess of Hekate, she com-
pounded a drug which would render one anointed with it im-
mune from fire and iron for one day, and secretly meeting
lason she gave it to him. After telling one another of their
love, they parted, and at dawn lason, with his body and ar-
mour anointed with Medeia's charm, faced the ferocious bulls.
Throwing them with ease, he forced them to submit to the
yoke and to plough the field, and when the warriors had
sprung up from the dragon's teeth scattered broadcast, he
hurled a stone into their midst, as Kadmos had done at Thebes,
and set them to killing one another. He had now completed
his task unharmed, and Aietes was filled with dismay.

As soon as Medeia realized the full meaning of what she had
done, she fled secretly to lason and promised to help him win
the Golden Fleece if he would pledge his word to take her
with him to Hellas and make her his bride. Accepting this
condition, lason was led by her to the oak on which the fleece
was hung, and while she cast a spell on the dragon, he snatched
the prize and fled with her to the Argo. They were soon well
out to sea, hotly pursued by Aietes, but when Medeia saw her
father drawing nearer, she resorted to a cruel device to check
him. Killing her brother Apsyrtos, whom she had taken with
her, she scattered his severed members over the water, thus



 



 



THE VOYAGE OF THE ARGO 113

forcing Aietes, through his sense of piety, to collect them and
to go ashore and give them proper burial. In the meantime the
Argo had out-distanced him and safely reached the delta of the
Danube, and although a few Kolchians came up a little later,
they were beaten off.

Somehow (in defiance of the geography of the region as it
is known today) the Argonauts made their way by water to
the head of the Adriatic Sea, and thence went southward to the
island of Kerkyra (Corfu). With human voice the Argo now
spoke to them solemn words of warning, declaring that for
the murder of Apsyrtos their home-coming would be delayed
by Zeus until they should reach Ausonia and be purged of their
sin by Kirke. In search of this strange land they sailed to the
river Eridanos and to the Rhodanos (Rhone), but, warned by
Hera, avoided the Rhine. At length they found their goal,
and, being purified, with joyful hearts turned their prow toward
Hellas under the safe guidance of the Nereids.

The Argonauts* route led them past Anthemoessa, the island
of the Sirens, whose blandishments, however, did not over-
come them, for the song of their companion Orpheus drowned
the alluring voices. They fared past Skylla and Charybdis and
the island of Thrinakia, with its herds of the cattle of the Sun,
and came to the land of the Phaiakians. In this place they
were met by a band of Kolchians who demanded the restora-
tion of Medeia, but the Phaiakian king intervened as arbiter,
and said that she would be surrendered only on condition
that she were yet unwedded to lason, whereupon the pair
made haste to become man and wife and foiled the Kol-
chians' plans. After a sojourn of many days among the hos-
pitable Phaiakians, the men of the Argo resumed their jour-
ney, but when they were just in sight of the Peloponnesos they
were driven by a northerly gale across the sea to Libya, and
were held by the shoals of the Syrtes. As lason was wondering
how to extricate his ship from these dangerous waters, he had
a fortunate dream, being told in vision that he would see a



 



 



114 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

horse emerge from the deep and that the Argonauts, taking
their vessel on their shoulders, were to follow the steed whither-
soever it might lead. The prediction came true, and for twelve
days and twelve nights they were guided overland by a horse
to the Tritonian Lake, near which they found the Hesperides,
who informed them that Herakles had been there only the day
before in quest of the Golden Apples. Desirous of seeing
their former comrade, they searched the wild country round-
about, but with no more result than to discover that they
were hopelessly lost in a strange land, until, in their despair,
Triton appeared to them and showed them the way to the Sea
of Minos.

Reaching the sea, they sailed to Crete, but when they at-
tempted to land they were beaten off by the Cretan coast-
patrol, Talos.* Now this man was one of the Race of Bronze,
and from his neck to each of his ankles ran a great vein, the
lower end of which was stopped by a bronze stud, which was
his vulnerable spot. Putting Talos under a spell, Medeia
drew out a stud and let him bleed to death. After a delay in
Crete of only one day the heroes hastened past Aigina and
Euboia and soon entered their home port of Pagasai from which
they had set out four months before.

The Death of Pelias. — The end of the voyage is not the end
of the story. So far was the perfidious Pelias from yielding his
kingdom now that his conditions had been fulfilled that he
even plotted against lason and his family. Aison and his
wife were driven to take their own lives, and lason, for safety's
sake, withdrew to Corinth, where he dedicated the Argo to
Poseidon and from where he never ceased sending messages to
Medeia, encouraging her to devise some means of removing
Pelias. According to another form of the story, Medeia by her
magic arts restored both lason and his father to youth, thus
arousing in the hearts of the daughters of Pelias so keen a desire
that their father, too, should be rejuvenated that the sorceress
professed to give them a recipe for this transformation and a



 



 



THE VOYAGE OF THE ARGO 115

demonstration of its working. Cutting up the body of an old
goat, she boiled the pieces with some herbs in a cauldron, and
at the conclusion of the process a kid emerged from the magic
stew. Just as the wily Medeia had calculated, the loving daugh-
ters of Pelias submitted their father to a similar process and
brought about his death. For her part in this murder Medeia
was exiled from lolkos along with lason.

lason and Medeia in Corinth. — The exiles took refuge in
Corinth. For about ten years they lived happily together, but
at length the differences between the Greek and the barbarian
temperaments became painfully apparent, and a domestic
clash ensued, so that finally lason set Medeia and her two
children aside, and took the Corinthian princess, Glauke, as his
wife. lason ought to have known his revengeful Medeia too
well to have followed such a course, for through her children
she sent a poisoned robe and garland to Glauke, who, when she
put them on, was burned to death. After her children had re-
turned from their errand, Medeia pierced them with a sword
and fled to Athens in a chariot drawn by winged dragons which
had been sent to her by her grandsire, Helios.

Medeia in Athens. — In Athens Medeia became the wife of
Aigeus and bore him a son Medos, but when she plotted to
take the life of Theseus, she and her son were banished from
the kingdom. Medos conquered the barbarians of the east
and called the country Media, while his mother returned in
disguise to her native land, expelled her uncle Perses, who had
usurped the throne, and restored her father Aietes to his
rights.

Some students of myth interpret the incidents gathering
about the life and death of Pelias as originating in a nature-
myth, but it seems much more in harmony with the known
processes of the growth of myth to infer that the story is an
epic development of an early historical incident, or of a group
of related incidents. Pelias appears to have been the hero of an
agricultural people of southern Thessaly who were led with



 



 



ii6 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

great reluctance to abandon agriculture as their chief means of
subsistence and to take to sea-faring instead. The adventures
of the Argonauts are, therefore, wild exaggerations of the
yams of sailors, who in very early times penetrated the strange
lands of the Mediterranean basin, interwoven with many
genuine folk-tales.



 



 



 



 



PLATE XXIX



Priam before Achilles

Achilles, a beardless young man, half-reclining on
a couch beside a table laden with viands, holds in his
left hand a piece of meat while with his right hand he
raises a dagger or a knife to his lips. He seems to be
giving orders to a slave in utter disregard of the pres-
ence of Priam, who stands before him at the head of
a group of slaves bearing a variety of gifts. The
body of Hektor lies limply at full length beneath the
couch. In the background can be seen Achilles'
shield with its gorgoneionj Corinthian helmet, quiver, and
some garments. From a red-figured skyphos^ apparently
by Brygos (early fifth century B.C.), in Vienna (Furt-
wangler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei^ No. 84).
See p. 130.

2

Peleus and Thetis

This scene, in which the artist has boldly violated
the law of the unity of time, depicts the attempts of
Thetis to escape from the embraces of Peleus. In the
background the goddess appears in human shape, while
her assumption of the form of a dolphin is suggested
by the dolphin which she holds in her right hand. The
lion-fish between her and Peleus, the flame on the altar,
and the serpent above it, similarly suggest other of her
transformations. The woman hurrying away to the
right may be a sea-nymph. From a black-figured leky^
thos (fifth century B.C.) with a white ground, found at
Gela {Monumenti Antichi^ xvii, Plate XIII). See
p. 122.



 



 





 



 



 



 



^ CHAPTER VIII
THE TALE OF TROY

THE tale of Troy, like that of the Argonauts, is in its com-
plete form a tissue of many stories woven at sundry times
about a single great incident. Some of the legends deal with
secular facts directly pertinent to the incident, the war for Troy
and the command of the Dardanelles. Some are plainly folk-
tales of a variety of origins, dragged in, so to speak, as em-
bellishments to an interesting theme. Some, not wholly to
be differentiated from the preceding class, are myths drawn
from certain cults and rituals, and others must be purely con-
scious inventions. The tale of Troy is not a drama, but rather
a great treasury of dramas, and most of its personages, both
human and divine, have been made known to us in scenes al-
ready portrayed. We must now marshal the human personages
by families and sketch those parts of their histories which, in
combination, led up to the great war.

The House of Dardanos. — Dardanos, a son of Zeus, lived in
the island of Samothrace with his brother lasion, who was
struck dead by a thunderbolt for a shameful crime, while
Dardanos, in grief, left his home and established a new one on
the Asiatic mainland near the mouth of the Hellespont. Find-
ing favour with Teukros, the king of the land, he was given a
tract in which he built a city called after himself, and later
he inherited the sovereignty and changed the name of the
entire country to Dardania. After him the throne was occupied
successively by a son Erichthonios, and by a grandson Tros, who
saw fit to call the country Troia. This Tros had three sons,
Ganymedes, Assarakos, and Ilos. The first, while still a youth.



 



 



ii8 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

was loved by Zeus for his beauty and was carried away by an
eagle to Olympos, where he became the cup-bearer of the king
of the gods. Assarakos is known chiefly through his descend-
ants; a grandson, Anchises, became by Aphrodite the father
of the great Aineias. In a wrestling contest in Phrygia Ilos won
as a prize fifty youths and fifty maidens, and received from the
king of the country a spotted heifer which he was directed to
follow until it should lie down; on that spot he was to estab-
lish a city. In accordance with these directions he founded
Ilion, and after praying for a sign of the approval of Zeus, he
discovered standing before his tent the palladion, an image of
Pallas Athene of almost human size. Building a shrine, he
placed the statue within it as a symbol of his city's life, and at
his death the chief authority was left in the hands of his son
Laomedon, whom Herakles afterward killed for his failure to
keep his word.

With Ilos's son Podarkes, later known as Priamos (Priam),
begins the important part of the history of Ilion or Troy.
Priam first wedded Arisbe, and afterward Hekabe (in Latin,
Hecuba), the daughter of Kisseus (or Dymas, or Sangarios).
The first child that Hekabe gave him was the mighty Hektor,
but when she was about to bring another infant into the world,
she dreamed that she had given birth to a flaming torch which
fired and consumed Ilion, and this vision a reader of dreams
interpreted to mean that the babe would destroy his native
city. Priam, in fear of the sign, had him exposed immediately
after birth on the slopes of Mount Ida, but, as the Fates would
have it, he was first nourished by a she-bear, and was then found
by a herdsman, who reared him till he had attained the years
of manhood. The name first given to him was Paris, but for
his success in warding off robbers from the folds and for his
beauty it was changed to Alexandros ("Defender of Men*').
It happened that a favourite bullock of his herd was sent to
Priam as a victim for a sacrifice which the king was to oflFer
for the very son whom he had exposed, but Paris followed the



 



 



THE TALE OF TROY 119

beast to Ilion and in a series of contests overcame a number
of his brothers. Just as Deiphobos, one of them, was about to
thrust him through with a sword, Kassandra, his sister, with
her divine vision recognized him and led him to Priam, who
gave him a place in his rightful home. Later on he married the
prophetess Oinone.

The House of Tantalos. — Tantalos, who was a son of Zeus
and the nymph Plouto, and lived on Mount Sipylos near the
Lydian city of Sardeis, was so wise that Zeus confided to him
his secret thoughts and even admitted him to the banquets of
the gods. At one of these feasts he placed before the gods the
severed members of his son Pelops, but only Demeter took a
portion, whereas the others, observing that the flesh was
human, united in restoring the boy to life. Instead of the
shoulder which she had eaten Demeter inserted a piece of
ivory which remained with him all his days and became so
much a natural part of him that each of his descendants in-
herited an ivory shoulder. For his sin against the gods Tan-
talos received special punishments in the underworld.

Offline PrometheusTopic starter

  • BeautifullDisgrace
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2009
  • Posts: 1516
  • Country: nl
  • Location: Tholen
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Sign: Libra
Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #18 on: August 04, 2019, 10:34:04 PM »

The restored Pelops was endowed with such beauty that
Poseidon gave him a chariot which would fly over land and
sea, and confident in his charms he presented himself as a
suitor of Hippodameia, the daughter of Oinomaos, king of
Pisa in Elis. The maiden reciprocated his love, but he was
unable to wed her because of the strange conditions imposed
by her father, who had been told by an oracle that he would be
murdered by the man who should wed his daughter. Resolved
to defeat the oracle by having no son-in-law, he challenged
each of his daughter's suitors to a chariot-race, stipulating
that if the suitor won he was to receive Hippodameia, but that
if he lost he was to be killed. Carried by his horses, which were
swifter than the north wind, Oinomaos had always overtaken
the suitors, as a row of heads before his palace eloquently
testified, but Pelops knew all this and bribed Myrtilos, the
king's charioteer, to draw the linchpins of his master's car,



 



 



I20 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

8o that in the race with Pelops Oinomaos was thrown, and,
caught in the reins, was dragged to his death. With Hippo-
dameia Pelops sailed to his home in Argos, where there
were afterward bom to them, among other sons, Atreus and
Thyestes.

For the sins of Tantalos an inevitable curse of family strife
and bloodshed followed all the generations of his house.
Unknown to Atreus, his wife yielded herself and her affections
to Thyestes. Now Atreus had promised to sacrifice to Artemis
the most beautiful animal that should be found among his
flocks, but when one of his ewes gave birth to a golden lamb,^
he greedily coveted the precious creature, and strangling it
hid its body in a chest that the goddess might not see it.
Besides himself, only his wife knew of this lamb, which he
seemed to regard as the emblem of the kingship at Mykenai,
and she privily gave it to Thyestes, who thereby secured the
throne. Prompted by Zeus, Atreus made a pact with his
brother that if the sun should be seen to reverse its usual
course, the kingship was to revert to himself. One morning
the sun chanced to be in total eclipse. Interpreting this as
the setting of the sun in the east, Thyestes yielded to Atreus,
and then, when all his iniquity was revealed, was expelled
from the country. Some time afterward, under the guise of a
reconciliation, Atreus recalled him, but actually it was in
order to wreak a most revolting revenge, for he killed Thyestes'
children and served their cooked flesh to their parent, and in
the midst of the meal, with ghoulish satisfaction, made known
to the father the nature of the food. Thyestes fled, plotting
revenge in his turn, and an oracle declared to him that his
desire would be realized through a son whom he should beget
by his own daughter. His spirit rebelling at the thought, he
endeavoured by all possible means to avoid bringing the oracle
to fulfilment, even though he should lose his kingdom. Destiny
was against him, however, for Aigisthos, a son of unwitting
incest, restored him to Mykenai, where he ruled until driven



 



 



 



 



PLATE XXX

The Sacrifice of Iphigeneia

Diomedes and Odysseus, a strongly built, bearded
man, are carrying Iphigeneia to the altar faintly visible
at the right of the scene. The maiden raises her
hands toward her father, Agamemnon, the veiled per-
sonage to the left, in a last appeal for help. Between
her and the altar towers the foreboding figure of Kal-
chas, clad in his ceremonial robes and meditatively
holding the sacrificial knife in his raised right hand.
High in a background of cloud a nymph is leading a
deer to Artemis, whose image, flanked by hunting-
dogs, stands on the column beside Agamemnon.
From a Pompeian wall-painting ( Herman n-Bruck-
mann, Denkmdler der Malerei ie$ Altertums^ No. 15).
See pp. 1 25-26.



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE TALE OF TROY 121

out by Atreus's sons, Agamemnon and Menelaos, aided by
Tyndareos of Sparta. These two sons married daughters of
Tyndareos; the former took KJytaimestra and ruled at My-
kenai, and the latter wedded Helen and succeeded his father-
in-law on the throne of Sparta.

The House of Aiakos. — After her removal to the island of
Oinone, as we have read in the tales of Corinth, the nymph
Aigina bore to Zeus a son named Aiakos. Noticing that he
was without companions, his father, turning the ants of the
island iiito human beings, made Aiakos their king, and by a
play on the Greek word for ant (/av^m^?? ) these ant-men were
known as Myrmidons. By a first marriage Aiakos had two
sons, Peleus and Telamon, and by a second, another son,
Phokos. Of all men of that age Aiakos was the most devoted
to the worship of the gods, and so dear was he to them on that
account that when a famine came upon Hellas, they removed it
in answer to his supplication alone, while after death he was
accorded a high place in the kingdom of Hades.

Spurred on by jealousy, Peleus and Telamon killed their
brother Phokos and for their crime were sent into exile.
Telamon took refuge in the island of Salamis, where later he
became king and married into the line of Pelops, the fruit of
this union being the hero Aias (Ajax). Afterward Telamon
accompanied Herakles on his expedition against Troy, and as
a reward for his services received Hesione, by whom he became
the father of Teukros.

Peleus made his way to Phthia in Thessaly and there won
the king's daughter and a portion of land. Accidentally killing
his father-in-law, he hastened to lolkos, where Akastos purged
him of his pollution, and where, too, Akastos's wife made the
same charge against him that Proitos's wife had alleged against
Bellerophon. Akastos believed the tale, as was only too nat-
ural, but fearing to take Peleus's life openly resorted to many
underhanded plots, although in the end Peleus was saved by
the Centaur Cheiron, and from that day these two were fast



 



 



122 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

friends. Becoming enamoured of the sea-nymph Thetis, the
daughter of Nereus, and finding himself bafiled by her power
to assume any shape she wished, he was counselled by the
wise Cheiron to seize her and defy her elusiveness. This he did,
and though she became now fire, now water, and now beast, he
clung to her until, resuming her normal form, she consented
to marriage, and they were wedded on Mount Pelion in the
presence of all the gods, who gave them many priceless gifts.

In due time a son was bom to Peleus and Thetis, and to
cleanse him of his inheritance of mortality his mother would
bathe him in ambrosia by day and pass him through fire by
night, but Peleus protested at the harshness of the treatment,
and Thetis, offended, retired to her home in the sea. Peleus
placed the infant in the care of Cheiron, who fed him on the
flesh and marrow of wild beasts, and gave him the name of
Achilles because his lips had not touched a mother's breast
(by a false etymology with i-, "not," and X€Z\o9, "lip"),
training him, too, in the hunt and in those sports that develop
the peculiar strength and beauty of a man. When the boy was
nine years old, ELalchas, the prophet, foretold that, if he went
with the Greeks against Troy, he should surely die there; and
yet, he said, the Hellenes could not conquer the city without
him. Through a strange infatuation Thetis hoped to evade the
prophecy and sent Achilles, dressed as a girl, to the court of
Lykomedes, king of Skyros, where he remained for six years.
At the end of this time Odysseus was deputed by the Greeks
to go to Skyros and bring Achilles to Troy, but the young man's
disguise safely concealed him for a while. At length the wily
Odysseus had his men blow a loud alarm of trumpets, when
out into the main hall of the palace rushed Achilles, who
thinking an enemy was upon them threw off his feminine
garb and donned his armour. Now that his identity was es-
tablished, he was easily persuaded by Odysseus to espouse
the cause of the Greeks, and with his bosom friend Patroklos
he joined the host at Aulis.



 



 



THE TALE OF TROY 123

Diomedes and Odysseus. — Of all the other heroes who
fought about Troy the most conspicuous are Diomedes and
Odysseus, the first of whom was the son of that Tydeus who
fell before Thebes. A warrior from his youth, he took part in
the capture of Thebes by the Epigonoi and led to Troy eighty
ships from the Argolid and outlying islands. He was valiant
in battle, resourceful in plotting, and wise in the councils of
his peers. Frequently associated with him, especially when
trickery was to be employed, was Odysseus. This man gen-
erally passed as the son of Antikleia, a daughter of Autolykos,
and of Laertes, though some gossipy myths will have it that
he was in reality the son of Sisyphos, his craftiness and ver-
satility being thus explained as inheritances from both sides
of the house. Once during his youth, when on a visit to his
grandfather Autolykos near Mount Pamassos, he was wounded
on the knee by a boar, and in healing, the wound left a scar by
which he was recognized years afterward by his old nurse.
Another time, when Laertes sent him to the mainland to
demand restitution from certain Messenians who had carried
off some of their sheep from Ithake, he met Iphitos and re-
ceived from him the bow which only Odysseus could draw.
He won as his bride Penelope, the daughter of Ikarios of Lake-
daimon, one of whose acts, soon after their marriage, fore-
shadowed the unswerving fidelity of her later years. It is said
that when Odysseus refused to make his home in Lakedaimon,
Ikarios, like a fond parent, persistently besought his daughter
to remain behind her husband, until at last Odysseus, losing
patience, bade her choose between himself and her father,
whereupon, without a word, she drew down her veil and fol-
lowed her husband. In Ithake she bore him a son Telemachos,
but while the child was still in arms, Menelaos came with
Palamedes to Odysseus to entreat his aid against Troy.
Being averse to war, he feigned madness, but Palamedes saw
through the ruse, and taking Telemachos from his mother
made as if to run him through with a sword. At this Odysseus



 



 



124 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

admitted his pretence, but though he consented to their re-
quest he ever after bore a grudge against Palamedes.

The Kypria; Traditional Causes of the War. — "There was
a time when thousands upon thousands of men cumbered the
broad bosom of earth. Having pity on them, Zeus in his great
wisdom resolved to lighten earth's burden. So he caused the
strife at Ilion to the end that through death he might make a
void in the race of men; and the heroes perished, thus bringing
to pass the will of Zeus." In these words the late epic known
as the Kypria,* with an almost modern political casuistry,
traces the cause of the war back to overpopulation. Instead
of solving the problem by thunderbolt and flood, Zeus decided
to use a much less direct method. First of all he brought about
the marriage of Thetis with the mortal Peleus, and then he
begat a daughter Helen, who was so beautiful that it could
be said of her:

''She snareth strong men's eyes; she snareth tall
Cities; and fire from out her eateth up
Houses. Such magic hath she, as a cup
Of death." »

In brief, she was a trouble-maker by birth. Into the midst of
the gods, gathered at the wedding of Peleus, Zeus sent Eris,
who stirred up a quarrelsome debate among Hera, Athene, and
Aphrodite, as to which of them was the most beautiful; and
Zeus, knowing that, woman-like, they could never settle the
question of themselves, had them appear on Mount Ida before
Paris as arbiter.

"... And this Paris judged beneath the trees
Three Crowns of Life, three diverse Goddesses.
The gift of Pallas was of War, to lead
His East in conquering battles, and make bleed
The hearths of Hellas. Hera held a Throne —
If majesties he craved — to reign alone
From Phrygia to the last realm of the West.
And Cypris, if he deemed her loveliest,



 



 



 



 



PLATE XXXI

Hektor Taking Leave of Andromache

Owing to its lack of feeling this scene is an inade-
quate illustration of the famous episode in the sixth
book of the Iliad. The central figures are, of course,
Hektor and Andromache. Behind the former his
driver Kebriones is mounted on one of the two chariot
horses, while behind the latter stand Paris and Helen.
The figures approaching from the sides are not named.
From a Chalkidian krater of about 550 B.C., in
Wurzburg (Furtwangler-Reichhold, Griichische Vasin^
malerei^ No. 1 01). Se^ p. 120.



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE TALE OF TROY 125

Beyond all heaven, made dreams about my face

And for her grace gave me [i. e, Helen]. And, lo! her grace

Was judged the fairest, and she stood above

Those twain." *

Paris then awarded Aphrodite the apple inscribed with the
legend, "To the most beautiful.'*

At the suggestion of the goddess whom he had honoured
Paris built a ship and with fair omens went to Sparta, where
he was courteously entertained. During an absence of Mene-
laos, however, he threw the laws of hospitality to the winds,
made love to Helen, and at last, with her full consent, carried
her away in his ship along with her jewels and handmaidens,
landing her in Troy after a devious and stormy voyage.
When Menelaos demanded her return and was refused, he
remembered the oath sworn by his fellow-suitors and resolved
to invoke their aid in a war of punishment; wherefore, with
his brother Agamemnon of Mykenai, he gathered together
the chieftains of the Greeks and set sail from Aulis. They
landed first on the coast of Teuthrania, which they attacked
under the impression that it was Troy, and here it was that
Telephos, the son of Auge and Herakles, was sorely wounded
by the spear of Achilles. When the Greeks endeavoured to
sail thence to their proper destination, they were caught by
a storm and driven back to their home coasts. Again Menelaos
marshalled them at Aulis, but this time he took the precau-
tion of securing some one to guide them straight to their goal,
and such a leader was present in the person of Telephos, who,
out of gratitude for having his wound healed by the same spear
with which it had been caused, consented to serve the Greeks.
At Aulis Agamemnon killed a sacred hind of Artemis and the
goddess in anger sent "on that great host storms and despair
of sailing,"* whereupon Kalchas consulted the omens and
made known to Agamemnon that he could not obtain fair
winds until his daughter Iphigeneia should be sacrificed on the
altar of Artemis. Shrinking from the task of taking the maiden



 



 



126 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

from her mother, Agamemnon deputed it to Odysseus, who,
shamelessly representing that she was to become the bride of
Achilles, led her away from Mykenai. Just as her blood was
about to be spilt on the altar, however, Artemis put a deer in
her place and bore her away unseen to the land of the barba-
rous Tauri, where she became a priestess in her service. Then
the seas became calm, and the fleet set sail.

On their way the Greeks touched at Tenedos, where Philo-
ktetes, the possessor of the bow of Herakles, received on the
foot a serpent's bite which developed into so loathsome a sore
that he had to be removed from Lemnos. At length the army
came to the shores of Troy and found their landing disputed
by the Trojans. Desirous to acquire the fame of being the
first to land, although it meant certain death, Protesilaos, one
of the younger heroes, leaped ashore and fell then and there
before the spear of Hektor. When the tidings of his untimely
death reached his young bride Laodameia, she besought the
gods that for three hours her husband be restored to her.
They heard her prayer, but so great was her grief at the hour
of his final departure to Hades that in despair she made an
image of him, and finding no comfort in it took her own
life. Unable to assail Troy directly with any chances of suc-
cess, the Greeks sacked many of the Trojans' supply cities and
captured much booty. After one of these raids Achilles re-
ceived as his prize a maiden, Briseis, and Agamemnon another
maiden, Chryseis, a daughter of Chryses, a priest of Apollo;
and it was through the presence of these maidens in the camp
that the great wrath of Achilles was kindled with such momen-
tous consequences for the Greeks.

The Iliad, — The poet of the Kypria gathered up the legends
describing the events of the war prior to the action of the Iliad
of Homer. The theme of the Iliad^ on the contrary, is one epi-
sode alone, the Wrath of Achilles, though it has been so
treated that by skilful allusions it gives glimpses of earlier
happenings of the war; and in this way the recital of the poem



 



 



THE TALE OF TROY 127

is devoid of the monotony that would otherwise result from its
failure to touch on raids on the outlying territories of Troy
during the twenty-eight days allotted to the action of the
epic. ,

Books I-VI. — A plague fell upon the Greek host, smiting
man and beast so grievously that "the pyres of the dead burnt
continually in multitude," • and when Kalchas explained this
as the visitation of Apollo's anger for the seizure of Chryseis,
Agamenmon, with bitter reluctance, restored her to her father,
and the plague was stayed. In his thoughtless selfishness,
however, Agamemnon took Achilles' Brisels in her place,
whereupon, maddened with anger, Achilles swore that from
that day he would withhold his strength and skill from the
Greeks even though many of them should fall by the hand
of Hektor; and in her sea-home Thetis heard her son's com-
plaint and won from Zeus the promise that victory would be
denied the Greeks until they should do honour to Achilles.
Prompted by Zeus in a dream, Agamemnon mustered the army
for an assault on Troy, but at the sight of the Trojans' prepara-
tions for resistance he weakened in his purpose and like a
craven suggested to the Greeks that they abandon the war
as hopeless. The stubborn Odysseus opposed him, however,
and forced him to change his will and do battle with the foe.
Long the tide of strife swung uncertainly this way and that,
until at length Hektor, impatient for a decision, and weary of
the shameless Helen, proposed that Paris and Menelaos fight
a duel and that to the victor Helen and her wealth be finally
surrendered. By an oath and a sacrifice the opposing leaders
ratified their willingness to stand by the outcome of the duel,
and Paris and Menelaos then came forth and fought. At one
moment, when Menelaos had Paris at his mercy and the end
of the war seemed to be in sight, to the unspeakable despair of
the Greeks Aphrodite veiled Paris in a cloud and hurried him
away to safety behind the walls. The gods, taking sides,
willed that the strife continue uncertain, and inspired the com-



 



 



Offline PrometheusTopic starter

  • BeautifullDisgrace
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2009
  • Posts: 1516
  • Country: nl
  • Location: Tholen
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Sign: Libra
Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #19 on: August 04, 2019, 10:36:46 PM »

128 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

batants to mingled deeds of bravery and recklessness. Pandaros
the Trojan lightly wounded Menelaos, and later the valiant
Diomedes as he stormed across the plain, and Diomedes, in
his turn, stung to rage by his pain, struck both Aphrodite and
Ares until their divine blood flowed from gaping wounds,
while Apollo, resentful at the insolence of a mortal, roused the
Trojans to still greater resistance. This climax of human
ferocity, however, was relieved by scenes of tenderness and
affection more characteristic of peace than of war, for when
Glaukos and Diomedes were about to join in combat they dis-
covered that their fathers had been associated in friendship
years before. Forthwith they exchanged armour and vowed
to avoid one another thenceforth in the field of battle, and
though Glaukos gave gold armour for bronze, for friendship's
sake he kept hidden within his heart any regret he might have
felt. Hektor, returning to the battle, took a brave soldier's
farewell of his wife Andromache and of his child Astyanax in
words that none can ever forget: "Dear one, I pray thee be not
of over-sorrowful heart; no man against my fate shall hurl
me to Hades; only destiny, I ween, no man hath escaped, be
he coward or be he valiant, when once he hath been bom." ^
Books Vll-Xn. — Even the gods grew weary of this fruit-
less melee and seeking to end it they caused Hektor and Aias
to fight in single combat until a truce was established for the
two armies. During the armistice the Trojans urged Paris
to give Helen up, but he would consent only to a compromise,
the surrender of her wealth with the addition of some of his
own. An offer to this effect the Greeks scornfully rejected and
prepared to carry the war to the bitter end, so that on the
next day the battle began afresh, and so threatening were the
assaults of the Trojans that Agamemnon, fearful of his cause,
sent an embassy to Achilles bearing a confession of wrong and
promises of amends. But^ neither confessions nor promises
moved the wrathful man, who even hardened his heart the
more. The hopes of the Greeks fell, only to be revived that



 



 



 



 



PLATE XXXII
Achilles and Thersites

The most conspicuous features of this rather de-
tailed composition depict a scene from the Jitbiopis.
Achilles, uunted by Thersites for being touched with
pity for the fallen Penthesilea, has drawn his sword and
beheaded his annoyer, whose mutilated body is seen
lying in the lower foreground. The elderly Phoinix,
perplexed at the occurrence, stands near Achilles in
the facade. Above their heads hang various accoutre-
ments of war, and before them on the ground near
Thersites* body are several overturned utensils, em-
blematic of a scene of violence. From a large South
Italian amphora of the fourth century B.C., in the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (photograph). See
p. 130.



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE TALE OF TROY 129

very night by a successful raid of Diomedes and Odysseus within
the Trojan lines. On the morrow, however, fortune went once
more against them, for Agamemnon, Diomedes, and Odysseus
were all wounded, and the Greeks without their aid were forced
to retreat to the line of their ships.

Books XIII-XVIIL — When Agamemnon was on the point
of ordering his followers to launch the ships and withdraw
home, Poseidon came to his help and breathed strength and
valour into the hearts of Aias, the son of Telamon, and Aias,
the son of Oileus. At the head of the Greeks these two
wounded Hektor and routed his fellow-warriors; but their
glory was brief, for Hektor was revived by Apollo and led his
men in a counter-attack which brought them once more to
the ships. Thereupon Patroklos tried to persuade Achilles
to forego his anger and rally the Greeks, and failing in this
he borrowed Achilles' armour and impetuously rushed into the
battle himself, scattering the foe before him until he fell a
victim to the weapons of Hektor and the guile of Apollo.
Hektor despoiled him of his famous armour, but the Greeks
after a long struggle obtained possession of his body. Achilles'
grief kindled within him a hatred of the Trojans great enough
to quench his wrath at Agamemnon, and unburdening his
heart to Thetis she brought him a marvellous set of armour
newly made for him in the forges of Hephaistos, at the sight of
which the spirit of vengeance came upon him.

Books XIX-XXIV. — The next morning Achilles appeared
before the Greeks, saying: "I will now stay my anger. It
beseems me not ever implacably to be wroth: but come rouse
speedily to the fight the flowing-haired Achaians, that I may
go forth against the men of Troy and put them again to the
proof." ® With these words he sallied out to battle, slaying
many of the Trojan heroes and pursuing many others into the
waters of the river Skamandros, which, when it turned on
him, he quelled with the fires of Hephaistos. The Trojan cause
seemed lost, and to save it, Hektor, despite Priam's entreaties,



 



 



130 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

stepped forth from the city gates face to face with the vic-
torious Achilles. Struck suddenly with fear, however, the
Trojan hero turned and fled, while Achilles pursued him, once,
twice, and thrice around the walls, and then brought him to
the ground, dead, after which he mutilated the body, and
binding it to his chariot dragged it in the dust while Priam
and Andromache looked down from the walls of Troy. On his
return to the camp he duly burned the body of Patroklos and
held funeral games, and moved by the tender appeal of Thetis,
he yielded the body of Hektor to Priam, besides allowing the
Trojans a truce of twelve days in which to perform the burial
rites of their noble defender.

The Aithiopis; • The Death of Achilles. — Arktinos of Mile-
tos, the oldest Greek epic poet definitely known, wrote the
Aithiopis as a chronicle of the events of the war from the death
of Hektor to the death of Achilles. Achilles himself, broadly
treated, and not one of his moods, was the theme of the poem,
and consequently the scenes were rather mechanically strung
together without essential unity.

At the beginning of the epic the Amazon, Penthesilea, was
represented as coming to the support of the Trojans. Achilles
battled with her as though she had been a man and killed her,
but the sight of her beauty as she lay fallen "before him awakened
his remorse. Thersites observed it and mocked him for his
weakness, but with a thrust of his sword Achilles smote him
dead, while the Greeks, divided among themselves as to the
justice of the deed, became involved in a dissension that was
not healed until Achilles was ritually washed of his sin in
Lesbos. Another ally now joined the defenders of Troy —
Memnon, a nephew of Priam and the son of Eos and Tithonos,
who came from Aithiopia. Like Achilles, he wore armour
curiously fashioned by Hephaistos, but he was inferior to the
Greek in head and hand and fell before him, although, at the
supplication of Eos, Zeus granted him immortality. Achilles,
just as he was about to follow up his victory with the rout of



 



 



THE TALE OF TROY



131



the foe, was slain by an arrow guided by Apollo from the bow
of Paris, but in the melee which ensued Aias, the son of Tela-
mon, carried the body away to the Greek ships, and over it
Thetis, her sister nymphs, and the Muses made piteous lam-
entation. When at last it lay burning on the pyre, Thetis, un-
seen, snatched it from
the flames and bore it
away to the White Isle
in the friendless waters
of the Euzine Sea,
where Achilles was re-
stored to life and lived
with Helen as his wife,
although some said that
the Greeks mingled his
ashes with those of his
friend Patroklos, and
that after death he con-
sorted with Medeia in
the Islands of the Blest.

The Little Iliad and
the Ilioupersis;^^ The
Fall of Troy. — In the
Little Iliad Lesches of
Lesbos recounted the
events of the siege from
the death of Achilles to
the entrance of the
wooden horse into Troy, these events being so set forth as to
centre about the person of Odysseus. As its name implies, the
Ilioupersis ("Sack of Ilion") of Arktinos deals with the over-
throw of the city.

Aias, the son of Telamon, demanded that as a kinsman of

Achilles he should be given the dead warrior's arms, but since

Odysseus made a counter-claim, the sons of Atreus instituted a
I— 13




Fig. 5. The Death of PEinvEsaEA

The Amazon, mortally wounded by Achilles, has
fallen to the ground, and Odysseus (right) and Dio-
medes (left) are trying to help her to stand; but
their efforts are in vain, for her head droops help-
lessly forward and her arms hang limply in the
hands that support them. From the design incised
on the back of an Etruscan mirror (Gerhard and
Korte, Elrvjkisch^ Spiegel, v, Tafel CXUI).



 



 



132 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

contest to decide the future ownership of the weapons. With
the help of Athene Odysseus won them, and so sore a wound
was this to the pride of Aias that he became a raving madman
and slew himself. By means of an ambuscade Odysseus cap-
tured Helenos, a son of Priam who was gifted with prophecy,
and obliged him to forecast the outcome of the war. When
his answer was that Troy would fall before the bow of Herakles,
Diomedes went to Lemnos and by blandishments and wiles
brought back with him Philoktetes, who had the bow, and
after Philoktetes' wound had been healed by Machaon, he
strode out to the battle. With an arrow from the great bow
Paris fell mortally wounded. Only Oinone, his former wife,
was in a position to aid him, but she took advantage of this
opportunity for revenge and let him die; and after Menelaos
had spitefully abused the body, the Trojans gave it burial.
Neoptolemos (or Pyrrhos), the son of Achilles, was now
brought from his home in Skyros to buttress the Greek cause,
and through his valour the enemy were sealed within their
walls. Craftily Odysseus made his way within the city and
after slaying several Trojans returned safely with the sacred
palladion on which the Trojans' fortunes hung. Now Epeios,
instructed by Athene, had made a huge hollow horse of wood,
in which were hidden fifty of the most valiant of the Greek
warriors, while the rest were ordered to withdraw to Tenedos,
leaving the horse before the gates of Troy. When they were
gone, the citizens, thinking that their troubles were ended,
emerged from their gates and gathered about the horse, but
were much puzzled by the inscription which it bore: "A thank-
offering from the Hellenes to Athene for their home-return.'^
Was this true, or was it only a ruse? Those who believed it to
be a trick spoke for destroying the horse. Laokoon, a priest,
thrust a spear into its side, and at the hollow sound given back
pronounced it Greek guile, but shortly afterward two ser-
pents came out of the sea and crushed him and his two sons
to death. Helen walked about the horse imitating the voices



 



 



- -HI'

7*t



it^y



 



 



PLATE XXXIII
The Death of Aigisthos

The personages of this tragic episode are identified
by the names inscribed beside them. Orestes, the
young man in the centre, thrusts his sword into the
body of Aigisthos and looks back half-fearfully, half-
defiantly at his mother Klytaimestra, who (in a panel
on the opposite side of the vase) endeavours to wrest
from Talthybios a double-axe with which to defend
her paramour. The terrified maiden is Chrysothemis,
a sister of Orestes, who is but little known in legend.
From a red-figured pelike of the style of Euthymides
(early fifth century B.C.), in Vienna (Furtwangler-
Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei^ No. 72). See
P- 135-



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE TALE OF TROY 133

of the Greek leaders* wives, and Antikles, one of the men within
it, would have answered had not Odysseus stopped his mouth.
Nevertheless, those who accepted the inscription as innocent
prevailed, and the horse was drawn into the city through a
breach in the walls, after which the citizens gave themselves
over to revelry until they were overcome by the heavy sleep
of exhaustion. Creeping out from their lair, and led by Sinon,
a Trojan traitor, the Greeks now took the citadel by surprise,
and afterward proceeded to ravage the city, butchering the
sleeping populace like helpless cattle. In their fury they dis-
regarded all the restraints of religion. Neoptolemos slew Priam,
though a suppliant at the altar of Zeus; Aias, the son of Oileus,
dragged Kassandra from the altar of Athene; Odysseus threw
Hektor's son Astyanax from the walls "for fear this babe some
day might raise again his fallen land.'*" Together the Greeks
set fire to the city and in the sight of its flame and smoke
sacrificed Polyxena, Priam's youngest daughter, at the tomb
of Achilles. Neoptolemos carried oflF Andromache, and Odys-
seus Hekabe, as prizes of war; Menelaos slew Helen's new hus-
band, Deiphobos, and conveyed Helen herself to his ships.
Now that the object of the war was attained, the Greeks with
the utmost joy prepared to sail away to their distant homes.
But alas! They had not counted on the wrath of Athene, who,
roused by the offence of the son of Oileus at her shrine, almost
implacably condemned them to "an homecoming that striveth
ever more and cometh to no home." "

The Nostoi {''Returns'' "). — In addition to Homer's Odys-
seyy which describes the devious return of Odysseus, there were
five epic books of "Returns" written by Agias of Troizen,
and dealing with the wanderings of the other heroes, especially
those of the two sons of Atreus. These books are now lost, our
knowledge of their contents being derived from a single brief
summary, from a few casual references, and from some of the
dramas of the fifth century.

Menelaos and Helen. — Naturally one's first interest is to



 



 



134 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

leam the fate of Menelaos and Helen. As the fleet was about
to depart for Hellas, Athene provoked a quarrel between the
sons of Atreus, and to appease the goddess Agamemnon re-
mained at Troy for a space, while Menelaos sailed away with
his newly-recovered wife, the first point of Greek soil on
which they set foot being Sounion, the extremity of the Attic
peninsula. After a delay caused by the death of the pilot they
set forth again, but ere they could round the point of the
Peloponnesos the vessels were scattered by a storm. With
only five sail left Menelaos made the island of Crete, whence,
vainly attempting to steer homeward, he was driven to Cyprus,
Phoinikia, Aithiopia, Libya, and, last of all, Egypt. Again
head winds long detained him, but these ceased when, heeding
the advice of Proteus, he sacrificed to the gods of the Nile,
after which he and Helen were carried swiftly to Sparta, where
they lived together for many years, until, the time coming at
last for them to end this life, they were given inmiortality in
the Islands of the Blest, by virtue of their divine descent.
Many centuries later the tomb which held the body of Helen
was shown to visitors in Sparta as one of the important sights
of the city.

Agamemnon. — While Agamemnon was pressing toward Hellas
with Kassandra the shade of Achilles appeared to him, and
warning him of an unhappy home-coming endeavoured to turn
him aside from his course. During his absence Aigisthos, by rea-
son of the old family feud, had fomented trouble in his kingdom
and had induced Klytaimestra, who was very unlike the faith-
ful Penelope, to live with him in adultery. On Agamemnon's
return to Mykenai (or to Argos) " Aigisthos, with the conniv-
ance of Klytaimestra, killed Kassandra, and then, inviting Aga-
memnon to a feast, treacherously murdered him too, although
in another form of the narrative, it was Agamemnon who fell
first, slain in the bath by the hand of his wife, ostensibly to
punish him for the sacrifice of Iphigeneia ten years before.
Aigisthos and Klytaimestra now reigned as king and queen.



 



 



THE TALE OF TROY 135

A sure, though slow, vengeance was advancing upon the
wrongdoers. Orestes, the youngest son of the murdered king,
was secretly conveyed by his sister Elektra to the home of
Strophios, a friend, who brought him up with his own son
Pylades, and through long years of companionship the two
boys became devoted friends, whom nothing but death could
part. Knowing his mother^s unspeakable crime, Orestes har-
boured revenge in his heart, and urged on by the Delphic
oracle he went to Mykenai, where, by representing himself as
a stranger bearing tidings of the death of Orestes, he was ac-
corded the hospitality of the palace. Later Pylades, carrying
an urn which he alleged to contain the bones of Orestes, was
also received, and having thus insinuated themselves into the
privacy of the royal home, at a favourable opportunity they
killed both Klytaimestra and Aigisthos.

From the moment in which Orestes stained his hand in his
mother^s blood he was "hunted by shapes of pain" and through
Hellas was "lashed like a burning wheel," ^ for the avenging
Furies of his mother were upon him. Pursued by them to
Athens, he was tried on Areopagos and acquitted, after which,
appealing to the oracle, he was told that to remove his blood-
guiltiness he must first carry away from the land of the Tauroi
the sacred image of Artemis which had fallen from heaven.
Going thither with Pylades, he found that the priestess of the
goddess was his own sister Iphigenieia, and after succeeding, by
means of a cunning plot, in evading the watchful Taurians,
he sailed away with the image and his sister, some say, to
Rhodes, where he was at last given rest from the Furies.

The Other Heroes {except Odysseus). — On leaving Troy,
Neoptolemos went across Thrace and conquered the country
of the Molossians, but later he seized Hermione, the wife of
Orestes, and for this act was killed by her husband at Delphoi.
The lesser Aias, for his impiety against Athene, was cast up
on the coast of Euboia and would have been saved had he not
boasted of his ability to rescue himself without the aid of the



 



Offline PrometheusTopic starter

  • BeautifullDisgrace
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2009
  • Posts: 1516
  • Country: nl
  • Location: Tholen
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Sign: Libra
Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #20 on: August 04, 2019, 10:37:44 PM »

 



136 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

gods. After escaping many dangers, Diomedes reached his
home in Argos, but, finding that his wife was living in adul-
tery, he immediately departed for Aitolia. When making an
attempt, some time afterward, to return to his home, he was
shipwrecked on the shores of Italy, and, being saved, lived
there until his death. Demophon, the son of Theseus, on his
way back to Athens visited the BisaltianThracians and married
Phyllis, a princess of the land. When he expressed to his wife
a wish to return to his native country, she gave him a chest
which he was not to open until he should despair of seeing her
again, but once out of her sight he sailed to Cyprus instead of
Athens, and there took up his permanent abode. Phyllis at
last, utterly weary of waiting longer, invoked a curse on him
and killed Herself. At about the same time Demophon opened
the chest, but something he saw within it inspired him with
fear, and hastily mounting to ride away he was thrown on
the point of his sword by the fall of his horse and instantly
killed.

The Odyssey. — In order to recount the adventures of the
homeward journey of Odysseus in their proper sequence one
must begin with the hero's own narrative in the middle of the
Odyssey and later return to the first and succeeding parts.

Books IX-XII. — A fair wind bore Odysseus from Ilion to
Ismaros, which he sacked, and then held his course for Cape
Malea, although, before he could round it, Zeus swept him
southward past Kythera to the land of the Lotos-Eaters,
where men ate of the spicy bloom of the lotus and became for-
ever oblivious of their old home. Apprehensive lest his com-
panions, too, be minded

"In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like gods together, careless of mankind," "


Odysseus led them to the ships against their will and sailed
to the country of the Kyklopes, a race of giants each with a
single eye in the middle of his forehead. One of them, Poly-



 



 



 



 



PLATE XXXIV

Odysseus Slaying the Suitors

The groups on either side of the central ornament
constitute a single scene. Odysseus, standing with
drawn bow in front of two frightened maid-servants,
is about to shoot at the suitors opposite him. One or
them, already pierced by an arrow, is attempting to
escape by climbing over a couch on which a com-
panion is frantically defending himself against the
missiles by means of a garment hung over his arm ; a
third suitor, crouching on the floor, holds a table be-
fore him as though it were a shield. From a red-
figured skyphos of the first part of the fifth century B.C.,
in Berlin (Furtwangler-Reichhold, Griechische Fasen-
maleret^ No. 138). Sec p. 139.



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE TALE OF TROY 137

phemos by name, entrapped Odysseus in his cave, but the cun-
ning man of Ithake put out his eye and escaped with a remnant
of his men. He now made for the island of Aiolos, the master
of the winds, and as he set sail thence after a sojourn of many
days, his host gave him a bag in which were enclosed all the
winds except that one which would speed him on his way to
Ithake. His companions, however, suspecting that some treas-
ures were concealed in the bag, opened it while their leader
slept, and the winds, rushing forth, beat the vessel back to the
island which they had just left, but where Aiolos refused them
further hospitality and sent them away from his coasts.
They came next to the land of the cruel Laistrygonians, who
destroyed all of their ships but one, on which they had the good
fortune to reach the island of the sorceress-goddess Kirke, a
daughter of Helios. By means of a charm she changed Odys-
seus's men into swine, but the hero himself she took as her
lover into her home. Nevertheless, the call of home was upon
him, and he could endure the sweet bondage for no longer
than a year, so that at length he persuaded Kirke to aid him
in an attempt to return to Ithake. As a first step she coun-
selled him to make the descent to Hades, where he saw the
shades of his mother and of many of the heroes, and learned
from Teiresias, the Theban seer, the route which he should
pursue to reach his home. Launching his ship once more, he
sailed safely past the Sirens, having his men bind him tightly
to the mast and himself stopping their ears with wax. On
he pressed through the Clashing Rocks, and past Skylla and
Charybdis, to the island of Thrinakia, where further disaster
befell him, for his men, unable to be restrained, slew some of
the sacred cattle of the Sun and caused a storm to break upon
their ship so that all were lost save Odysseus himself. During
ten days he was tossed about on a raft and then left by the
waves on the shore of the island of the goddess Kalypso, with
whom he lived for the space of eight years.

Books I-VIII. — At the end of this time Zeus hearkened to



 



 



138 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

the request of Athene and gave permission for Odysseus to be
restored to his native soil. In the meantime, Athene, in the
guise of Mentor, had visited Telemachos, Odysseus's son, in
Ithake, and had bidden him send his mother's many wooers to
their homes and to go in search of his father; but the suitors
would not listen to the youth's words, even though they were
accompanied by a prophetic warning of a dreadful doom that
awaited them should they persist in their course. Unknown
to them, Telemachos went to Nestor in Pylos, and thence to
the court of Menelaos and Helen in Sparta, and although the
only tidings which he could glean of his father were vague and
far from recent, nevertheless, they encouraged him to hope.

Through Hermes Zeus commanded Kalypso to release Odys-
seus. Reluctantly she helped him build a raft and after twelve
days of labour on it saw him depart from her island. Twenty
days later he was washed up on the shore of Scheria, the
island-country of the Phaiakians, whose king was Alkinoos.
The princess Nausikaa chanced to find him in his distress and
led him to the palace, where he told the long story of his still
longer wanderings, and received from the king the promise of
a safe convoy to Ithake.

Books XIII-XXIV. — The next day a magic ship of the
Phaiakians bore Odysseus away and left him on the shore of
his home-land in a deep sleep, but when he awoke, he was
unable to recognize the place until Athene cleared his bewil-
dered vision. Disguising himself as a beggar in obedience to
her word, he made his way to the hut of the swineherd Eu-
maios who had remained loyal to his long absent master, and
without revealing his identity, he learned from his old servant
many things concerning the suitors. Just at this time Tele-
machos chanced to return from Sparta, safely eluding an am-
buscade prepared for him by his enemies, and on landing
he went to the hut of Eumaios and sent the swineherd to the
palace with a message for his mother. In the interval he and
Odysseus were left alone together, and at this supreme moment



 



 



THE TALE OF TROY 139

Athene brought about a recognition of father and son, who
jointly plotted the destruction of the importunate wooers.

On the following day Odysseus entered the palace. Though
still disguised, he was recognized by his old dog Argos, which
died of sheer delight; yet of all the people in the palace, Includ-
ing even Penelope, only Eurykleia, his nurse, knew him. As
it happened, it was on that very day that Penelope announced
to her suitors that when the next sun had risen she would
definitely settle the question which had brought them all to
Ithake. During all the months of their wooing she had put
them off with the promise that as soon as she should com-
plete a fabric then on her loom she would make her selection
from among them; but the day of the choice never came, for
each night, it was said, she unravelled what she had woven the
day before. At last, however, she now declared that she
would accept that man who with Odysseus's bow could send
an arrow through the holes of twelve axe-blades arranged in
a row, but when the trial of strength and skill came, not one
of the suitors was able even to bend the bow. Though much
derided, Odysseus then stepped forward and to the consterna-
tion of all sent the arrow through the appointed mark, after
which, turning quickly on the suitors, he shot them one by
one. Yet so changed was he through the many hardships
which he had suffered as well as through the mere lapse of
years that it was long before Penelope could believe he was
really her own Odysseus. At length convinced, she welcomed
him back to the home and to the place which she had kept
sacred for him in her affection, and thenceforward they lived
together at Ithake, as they had lived before, happy in their
mutual love, and save for an unsuccessful attack of the dead
suitors* friends at peace with all mankind.

The Telegonia}'' — The later adventures of Odysseus and
his sons are detailed in the sixth century epic, the TeUgonia,
the work of Eugammon of Kyrene, which completed the
Trojan cycle of myths.



 



 



140 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

After the burial of the suitors by their kinsmen, Odysseus
sailed across to Elis to inspect his herds. Returning to Ithakc
for a brief time only, he went to the land of the Thesprotians
and wedded their queen Kallidike, for, some allege, he had dis-
missed Penelope on account of her wavering affections. On
the death of Kallidike their son took the crown of Thesprotia,
and Odysseus went back to Ithake about the same time that
Telegonos, the son whom Kirke had borne to him, set out to
find his father. Chancing to land on Ithake, he proceeded to
plunder the country, and, defying a band of Ithakans whom
Odysseus led against him, he killed his father in the conflict,
in utter ignorance of what he was doing, but when the import
of his act was made known to him, accompanied by Penelope
and Telemachos, he bore the body of Odysseus back to Kirke.



 



 



CHAPTER IX

THE AFTERWORLD

CJptlE Greek View of the Soul and of Death. — To compre-
-* hendy even in part, the Greek stories of the afterworid one
must keep before him the fact that they are all based on the
conception that the soul has a life apart from the body. This
the Greeks held to be as certain as anything could be in the
realm of the inscrutable, and all the phenomena of life seemed
to point to its truth. When, however, they came to state their
belief as to what the soul really was, they frankly argued from
probability. The soul could not well be very unlike the living
man; therefore, it was his shade, or airy double. This shade
either comprised or was identical with all that was character-
istic of the man — his personality, we say — for this is what
vanished at death, while the inert body remained. Moreover,
like the man himself, the shade was able to think, feel the drive
of desire, and move about from place to place. On the other
hand, the soul could not be very like the man, for the condi-
tions of concrete existence could not surround it, and, more-
over, it must be of a very tenuous substance, for it seemed to
leave the body through a wound or with the passing of the
invisible breath, and untrammelled by the body it was free to
go about, as on wings, whithersoever it would, like the birds of
heaven. Yet all its thoughts and desires were faint and futile,
for it utterly lacked the material means of gratifying them, so
that the existence of the disembodied soul was joyless and the
end of all that men esteem worth while. The words of Hekabe
to Andromache well sum up the attitude of the Greek toward
death:



 



 



142 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

"Death cannot be what life is, Child, the cup
Of Death is empty, and Life hath always hope." ^

But the Greeks strangely contradicted themselves. Though
affirming the immateriality of souls, they were unable to
conceive of their conscious existence without at least some of
the accessories of the material. After death a man^s shade pur-
sued the same occupations which it had followed in life and
cherished the same characteristic passions. Orion still hunted
the wild beasts of the woodland; Aias still harboured his anger
against Achilles; Aiakos and Rhadamanthys still sat on the
tribunals of judgement; Teiresias still dispensed his prophecies.
This bondage to the material extended even to the punish-
ments of the arch-criminals: Ixion was bound to a real wheel,
and Sisyphos struggled with a real stone.

When the Greeks came to localize the abode of the assembled
shades, they not unnaturally, like many other peoples, believed
it to be under the earth, an idea which probably sprang from
the primitive custom of burial; and after the belief had once
been established, it was easy to think of those souls that had
been banished from their bodies by cremation as going to the
same place. In this underworld were gathered the souls of all
except a special few, souls that were thenceforth like to

*^. . . pale flocks fallen as leaves,
Folds of dead people, and alien from the sun." '

It was a spacious democratic realm in which they abode, a
realm in which there was no fear of overcrowding. Its bound-
aries were impassable, and rarely did a soul return from it
to the upper light, even for a brief season. It was a kingdom
organized like a kingdom of earth; Hades and Persephone sat
on its two thrones as king and queen; and it had its several
benches of judges. Hermes mustered the immigrants bound
for its shores, and Charon, the grim, grey ferryman, trans-
ported them at the established tariff of an obol a head,' while
Kerberos,* the three-headed hound, stood guard at its main



 



 



 



 



PLATE XXXV

Charon

This design is sketched with coarse yellowish lines
of glaze on a white background. Charon, a ull and
rather ungainly bearded man of a not unkindly counte-
nance, stands at the stern of his boat and looks straight
before him at a tiny winged soul descending toward
him from the right. He is clad in a short, belted
chiton without sleeves, and has his petasos hanging by
a cord at the back of his head. He leans with his
left hand on a long pole, the lower end of which rests
in the water, while with his right hand he steadies
himself on the up-curving stern of his boat, behind
which a clump of reeds is growing. From a white
Ukythos of the fifth century B.C., in Karlsruhe (A.
Fairbanks, Athenian White Lekythoiy ii, Plate XIV, Fig.
4). See pp. 89-90.



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE AFTERWORLD 143

entrance. Its area was delimited into various precincts deter-
mined by natural boundaries, and its population was divided
into classes, the ordinary rank and file of the departed on the
one hand, and the sinners extraordinary on the other. The
lower realm was indeed a world in itself.

Entrances tOy and Rivers of, the Underworld. — Although some
were sceptical enough to say that "no roads lead under-
ground,"^ yet the average Greek entertained no other opinion
than that such paths did exist. In a number of places the in-
habitants pointed to local caves whence the ways ran down-
ward; for instance, at Tainaron in Lakonia, at Troizen in
Argolis, at Ephyra in Thesprotia, and at Herakleia in Pontos,
while Hermione in Argolis offered so short a route that those
who travelled along it were exempted from the payment of the
usual obol. Often white rocks by the banks of streams were
held to mark the proximity of the lower world, or, again, the
channels through which springs or streams disappeared be-
neath the ground passed as entrances to Hades. Indeed, it
seems probable that the Styx and the Acheron, the oldest of
the rivers of Hades, were originally just such streams. In
time the imagination of the Greeks gave them almost wholly
an infernal existence and developed from them three others
— Kokytos, Pyriphlegethon, and Lethe. The relations of all
these to one another, that is, whether they were main streams
or tributaries, were by no means uniform; nevertheless, each
had its own distinct significance in literature: the Styx was
the river of hate; Acheron, with its chill, stagnant water, the
river of mourning; Kokytos, the river of lamentation; Lethe,
the river of forgetfulness; and Pyriphlegethon, the river of
flame.

The Judges. — The better and earlier tradition recognizes
three judges in Hades — Aiakos, king of Aigina, and Rhada-
manthys and Minos, the sons of Zeus and Europe; the later
and Attic tradition adds Triptolemos as a fourth. The first
three were endowed with distinct individualities. Aiakos, by



 



 



144 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

virtue of his being the "wisest in deed and in counsel" among
mortals, was given the principal place among the judges, and
to his care, moreover, were entrusted the keys of Hades' house.
To him the souls from Europe came to be judged, while his
brother Rhadamanthys, seated at the crossways where one road
led to the Happy Isles and the other to Tartaros, judged the
souls from Asia. Souls whose origin was in doubt appeared
before Minos, who, wielding a golden sceptre, exercised both
civil and judicial power, as he had done on earth.

The Punishments of Hades. — Only that class of the inhabit-
ants of Hades whom we have called the sinners extraordinary
suffered special punishments. Their sins had been against the
gods. For disclosing to men the counsel of Zeus and for his
horrible banquet Tantalos was condemned to stand in a pool
that ever receded from his thirsty lips, while near him hung
branches laden with fruit that always sprang away from his
hungry grasp, and over his head was poised a stone that con-
tinually threatened to fall but never did. Tityos had in his
lifetime attempted violence on Leto, and for this, his huge body
was stretched out supine on the soil of Hades and two vultures
never ceased gnawing at his vitals. Ixion forgot his debt of
gratitude to Zeus and made a foul attack on Hera, so that in
Hades he was lashed to a wheel and whirled around forever,
his fate being a perpetual warning to ingrates. For their
sacrilegious attempt to scale heaven by piling up mountains
into a grand staircase Otos and Ephialtes were bound by ser-
pents to two great columns. Of the punishments of Sisyphos
and of the daughters of Danaos enough has already been said.

Fisits of the Living to Hades. — Consistent with the belief
in roads leading to the lower world is the tradition that cer-
tain human beings of almost divinely rare endowments, or
through some interposition of the gods, had been able to
follow these paths to their end and again to see the light of
day. Protesilaos returned to life for a few short hours only,
but Alkestis and Glaukos, the son of Minos, for many years.



 


Offline PrometheusTopic starter

  • BeautifullDisgrace
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2009
  • Posts: 1516
  • Country: nl
  • Location: Tholen
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Sign: Libra
Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #21 on: August 04, 2019, 10:40:30 PM »


THE AFTERWORLD 145

Herakles descended by Tainaron and came back by Trolzen,
bringing Kerbcros with him, and Theseus accompanied Pei-
rithoos below in his foolhardy mission to rob Hades of Per-
sephone, although his safe return was due only to the superior
strength of Herakles. The most famous descents were those
of Odysseus and Orpheus, that of the former furnishing in-
spiration to Vergil and Dante in their treatment of similar
themes, and to those modem poets who have depicted Christ
in Hades.

At the word of Kirke Odysseus approached the underworld
by way of the land of the Kimmerians, a people who dwelt
amid clouds and gloom and never looked upon the face of the
sun. Here he dug a trench and poured into it the blood of
black victims, and soon the gibbering ghosts began to gather
about the trench, clamouring for the blood, which, for a time,
Odysseus would not permit them to touch. First there appeared
to him the restless shade of his former shipmate Elpenor, beg-
ging him to accomplish the due rites over his unburied body,
and at length there came the ghost of Teiresias, the blind seer
of Thebes. When Odysseus allowed him and the other shades to
taste of the .blood, memories of the upper world and the power
of speech returned to them, and from Teiresias he learned
the vicissitudes that were to mark the remainder of his life
down to the day of his death. Then he saw his mother Anti-
kleia, who, though now merely a phantom, had not lost the
tenderness of a mother for him, recounting to him what had
happened in Ithake during his long absence, just those things
that only a mother thinks of telling, the little happenings about
the home that make or mar the life within it. After her he
saw a host of the famous wives and mothers of the gods and
heroes, both the chaste and the unchaste, and when the
shades of the women folk were scattered by Persephone, the
ghosts of the men crowded about, and drinking of the blood
told Odysseus, one by one, the sorry tales of their last days,
and with grief or delight listened to the tidings which he had



 



 



146



GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY



brought them of the kinsfolk whom they had left behind.
First came Agamemnon, surrounded by the shades of those
who had died with him at Aigisthos's fatal banquet; and then

Achilles, proud to learn of the
glory of Neoptolemos among
the living; Aias, still brooding
over his imagined dishonour;
Minos, wielding his golden
sceptre and dealing out dooms
to the dead; and Orion, hunt-
ing across the asphodel mead-
ows the ghosts of the animals
which he had slain in life. Last
of all Odysseus beheld the great
sufferers of Hades, — Tantalos,
Tityos, Sisyphos, Ixion,* and
the rest, and would have seen
more of the renowned heroes
had not the increasing throng
and clamour of the shades filled
his breast with fear and caused
him to fly to his ship and sail
away down the stream of Oke-
anos. From the account of this
visit of Odysseus to Hades, as




Fig. 6. The Death of A1A8 (Ajax)

This design depicts an unusual variant
of the story that tells of the death of Aias,
the son of Telamon. Aias, brooding over
his defeat by Odysseus in the contest for
the arms of Achilles, has tried in vain to



kill himself. Athene now appears before it Stands in the OdySSey itself,
him and points out to him a vulnerable



spot in which to plunge his sword. From
an mcised design on an Etruscan bronze
mirror of the third century B.C., now in the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.



more can be learned of the pre-
vailing Greek conception of
the state of the dead than from
any other single source.
The story of the descent of Orpheus is of a very different
character. Eurydike, the young wife of Orpheus, the sweet
singer of Thrace/ was bitten by a serpent, and, dying, her
soul passed within the pale of Hades' realm. Orpheus resolved
to win her back, and as he entered the abode of the shades with



 



 



 



 



PLATE XXXVI

IxioN ON THE Wheel

Ixion is bound by several thongs to an eight-spoked
wheel. His ^^ running" attitude and the wings on
the wheel, after the manner of archaic art denote
rapid revolution. The flower beside Ixion's right foot
serves only to fill up the space between the spokes.
From an Etruscan bronze mirror of the fourth or third
century B.C., in the British Museum (A. B. Cook,
Zeus, i, Plate XVII). See p. 144.



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE AFTERWORLD 147

a song on his lips, 'Hhe pallid souls burst into weeping, Tanta-
los ceased to pursue the retreating water, Ixion and his wheel
stood still, the vultures abandoned their torment of Tityos,
the daughters of Danaos deserted their jars, and Sisyphos sat
down upon the rock. Down the cheeks of the Erinyes flowed
moist tears, and the king and queen of Tartaros yielded to his
plea" * that they set his dear wife free. One condition, how-
ever, was imposed, that as Eurydike followed her husband on
the way out, he was on no account to turn around and look
upon her; but, in the ecstasy of his joy at his recovery of her,
he violated the condition, and Eurydike was recalled to Hades,
never more to return to earth.

Elysiofiy The Islands of the Blest. — The domain of Hades
was not, however, the only abode of those who had come
to the end of this life, for there was, besides this, a land of
eternal happiness with broad flowery fields known now as
Elysion, and now as the Islands of the Blest. The Greeks
naturally thought of this land as lying in the distant west,
some even identifying it with the island of the Phaiakians,
or again with Leuke ("White Isle") at the western end of
the Euxine. According to Pindar, only those mortals were
translated thither who had come through a triple test in life
and had remained good and brave and true, although from
other literary sources one gathers that the common belief
was that the land was reserved for those in whose veins
flowed the blood of the gods. It was indeed for this reason
alone, and not for any special piety, that Menelaos and
Helen were admitted into its bliss, though Peleus, Achilles,
Kadmos, and many others of the heroes were there who by
virtue of passing either test could have entered this land,
whose charm can be best conveyed by the words of Proteus
to Menelaos: "But thou, Menelaus, son of Zeus, art not
ordained to die and meet thy fate in Argos, the pasture-
land of horses, but the deathless gods will convey thee to the
Elysian plain and the world's end, where is Rhadamanthys
I— 14



 



 



148 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

of the fair hair, where life is easiest for men. No snow is
there, nor yet great storm, nor any rain; but always Ocean
sendeth forth the breeze of the shrill west to blow cool on
men: yea, for thou hast Helen to wife, and thereby they deem
thee to be the son of Zeus." •



 



 



PART II
THE GREEK GODS



 



 



 



 



CHAPTER I
THE GREATER GODS — ZEUS AND HERA

ALMOST all the gods who are considered in this and the
next few chapters are universally regarded as the greater
personages of the Greek pantheon, although a few who are
confessedly not of this rank have been given a place here
because of the difliculty and impropriety of dealing with
them apart from their more distinguished fellows with whom
they are inseparably associated. For instance, Hekate is the
natural companion of Artemis, Eros of Aphrodite, and Per-
sephone and Hades of Demeter. We have obtained our list
of greater gods by combining the Homeric, Athenian, and
Olympian systems, though from the last named we have
omitted Kronos, Rhea, Alpheios, and the Charites.

ZEUS

Between the Zeus of the historical period and the Zeus of
the primitive Greeks there is a great gulf fixed. ^ It is not, how-
ever, entirely unspanned, for the diligent research of many
years has succeeded in throwing over it bridges of inference
and deduction, which, while slender, afford the hope that they
may serve as the foundations for stronger structures in the
future. Any statements that we may make, therefore, in
reference to this void we give with reserve, even though we
may not preface each individual statement with a specific
word of caution. It must be remembered that our present
endeavour is to trace the transformation of the Zeus, not of
a single locality, but of all Hellenic localities, to sketch the



 



 



152 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

lineaments, as it were, of a great composite Zeus who would be
recognized at first glance by all Hellenes as the chief god of
their cults and myths.

The Original Significance of Zeus. — Zeus was the great
aboriginal god not only of all the Hellenic stocks, but of the
so-called Indo-European race, nor does the predominating im-
portance of his celestial functions in ritual, myth, and epithet
permit of any other inference than that he was a personifica-
tion of the bright sky.* The coincidence of these activities
with those of the great sky-god of cognate name of other Indo-
European peoples points in the same direction, and, more-
over, his name alone is a proof of his origin, for it is a develop-
ment of the base deya^ "to shine,'* probably passing through
the stages of pronunciation — if not of orthography —
*At?j/r9, *AAi;i59, *At€V9, Zev?, while in the invocation ZeS irdrep
("Father Zeus") we can readily perceive a parallel to the
Latin luppiter (Diespiter), and in the Indian Rig Veda the
phrase dyau pitar ("Father Sky") occurs in several pas-
sages. In most instances the non-celestial functions of Zeus
can be shown to be more or less natural efflorescences, so to
speak, of his celestial activities, although sometimes they may
be suspected of being the results of contamination with the
worship of other divinities.*

In dealing with the personality of Zeus OT^e must avoid being
misled by his mere name, which was occasionally applied to
other beings than the chief Olympian. Thus Hades, or Plou-
ton, was sometimes spoken of as Zeus, but it was through
metaphor, for was not Hades the Zeus of the underworld?
Rain-making fetishes in various districts were at times ad-
dressed as Zeus by local votaries; and through haste and
ignorance Hellenic travellers would often designate as Zeus
the leading male divinity of a strange community, this iden-
tity being presumed most frequently of all when they were
journeying in distinctly barbarian countries. It is the genuine
Zeus, the sky-god, with whom we are concerned.



 



 



 



 



PLATE XXXVII

Zeus

This beautiful statuette (only 4^ inches high) of
the seated Zeus, although of Roman execution, is re^
markable for its fidelity to the Greek type. In his
right hand, which rests on his knee, the god grasps a
thunderbolt, while bis left hand, raised to the height
of his head, is supported by, rather than supports, a
sceptre. The treatment of the face, beard, and hair
is similar to that of the Zeus of Otricoli. The slight
forward thrust of the head, and the much less formal
grasp of the sceptre, together with certain other feat-
ures, differentiate this type from that of the Olympian
Zeus of Pheidias. From a Roman bronze copy of a
fourth century Greek type, in the Metropolitan Mu-
seum of Art, New York (photograph).



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — ZEUS 153

The Zeus of Homer. — In the Iliad and the Odyssey Zeus
no longer appears as the sole divine arbiter of the sky and the
supreme lord of the weather, for both Hera and Poseidon
stir up wind and wave against those who have incurred their
anger, apparently with only little less freedom of initiative
than has Zeus himself.'* Yet when the Greeks set sail home-
ward from Troy, we learn in the Odyssey, it was Zeus who
scattered the ships; and after Odysseus's companions perfidi-
ously slew the Cattle of the Sun in Thrinakia, it was Zeus who
brought the disaster of shipwreck upon them. Despite the
encroachments upon his power, he still remained the undis-
puted master of the thunder and the lightning, so that when,
on the morning before the slaughter of the suitors, Odysseus
heard the roar of thunder, he knew it to be a sign from Zeus
that he would not thwart his plans. This sort of omen could,
however, be interpreted as unfavourable or even as doubtful,
as when, on one occasion, thunder which lasted all night long
set both the Greek and Trojan armies to wondering what
Zeus had in store for them, and made all the warriors turn
pale with fear.

Although in Homer the original character of 2^us had be-
come dim, whether in reality or by contrast, one side of his
nature was very clearly illumined: he was potentially the ruler
of the universe. The other gods had their departmental
functions in nature, but 2^us could usurp them if only he chose
to do so, and in the last analysis his will was supreme, being
limited by nothing, for it was itself Fate. He was not merely
an Olympian; he was the Olympian; * nor was he the petty god
of a tribe or nation, for all the peoples of whom Homer had
cognizance acknowledged his supremacy as "Father of gods
and men," although the title "Father" conveyed not so much
the idea that he was of necessity a physical father or the
creator of men and things (on the contrary, Okeanos was the
great creative source of all things in Homer) as that he exer-
cised over the great family of beings, human and divine.



 



 



154 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

that kind of rule which we call paternalistic. To men he dis-
pensed joys or ills, as he pleased; he determined for them the
issues of their battles in arms until they became mere puppets;
and according to his whim he warned or deluded by omens.
Unlike the other gods, he observed a strict neutrality in
the Trojan War, save when it suited his purposes to lean
toward this side or toward that, and he became gravely
ethical on occasion, as when he rebuked Ares as a lover of
contention, or when he ordered concord among the Ithakans;
though at other times, open-eyed, he flung ethics to the winds,
as he did when he devised means for breaking the solemn
truce between the Trojans and the Achaians. He wielded,
Roman-like, a patria poUstas over the universe, for he weighed
the Fates of Hektor and Achilles in the scales and assented
to Hektor's death. This paternalistic attitude showed most
clearly in the circle of the gods, whom he convened in the dic-
tatorial manner of a feudal chieftain, and who espoused one or
the other cause before Troy simply because he said they
might. His ipse dixit, conveyed by Hermes, forced Kalypso
to release Odysseus against her heart and will; he bestowed
boons upon the other gods, but only as he was convinced of the
real need for them in each instance, or as he was forced through
guile. At times he stepped down from his throne to mingle with
his fellows on the conunon floor of Olympos, but he never lost
consciousness of his superiority. In all this we are to see not
the absolute political ideal of the Homeric period, but, rather,
the refined portrayal of the conditions of state to which the
Greeks of that time had advanced.

The Birth and Death of Zeus. — When Pausanias frankly
admits that he found it hard to enumerate all the Greek
localities which claimed to be the birthplace of Zeus, the dif-
ficulty and folly of our attempting at this late date to draw up
anything like a complete catalogue of them is very apparent.
In Messenia and Arkadia alone he records no less than five
such places, among them Mount Ithome, the acropolis of the



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — ZEUS 155

city of Messene. The account makes no mention of the parent-
age of Zeus, which leads one to think that the traditional legend
of the Hesiodic story is to be assumed. Born, then, of Kronos
and Rhea, Zeus was hurried away by the Kouretes, an order of
priests, to Mount Ithome for fear of the evil designs of his
father, and there was placed in the care of two local nymphs,
Neda and Ithome, who washed him in the waters of a spring
on the slopes of the mountain, Neda giving her name to the
near-by river and Ithome hers to the mountain, while in a most
childish fashion the theft of the child and his bath in the
water of the fountain were combined to attach to the spring
the name Klepsydra, "Stolen Water," The god was also said
to have been bom on Mount Aigaion in Arkadia, where he was
suckled by a goat, although Mount Lykaion of the same dis-
trict and a mountain near Lydian Sardeis were likewise claimed
for this honour. The most famous of all the birthplaces, how-
ever, was the island of Crete, the legends variously pointing to
Mounts Dikte, Ida, and Lyktos as the exact locality of the
birth. In the most widely prevailing version Rhea succeeded
in escaping from Kronos just in time to bear Zeus in a cave in
one of these mountains, and in answer to the rapacious de-
mands of the new father gave him a wrapped stone to swallow
instead of the child. The infant was cared for by Amaltheia,
a goat, or by local nymphs, who, one story runs, hung him in
a cradle on a tree to elude the keen searches of Kronos, while,
in order to add to the deception, the Kouretes were appointed
to take up their post close by and to make a great din by
clashing their arms and brazen shields together, thus drowning
the child's cries. Other legends say that it was a cow or a
sow which nursed the infant. On the death of Kronos Zeus
assumed the dominion over the world.

While the fully developed pan-Hellenic Zeus was truly one
of the immortal gods who feasted on ambrosia and nectar, yet
several local forms of Zeus were said to die, and an epigram
attributed to Pythagoras* marked a spot in Crete where re-



 



 



156 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

posed the remains of Zeus: "Here lieth in death Zan, whom
men call Zeus/* This conflict between immortality and death
is easily explained if the fact is borne in mind that in some
districts of Crete he was, like Hyakinthos in Lakonia, a god
of vegetation who alternately lived and died; while in Phrygia
his descriptive title of "Summer-God" carried substantially
the same significance.

The Marriages of Zeus. — Zeus is represented as the most
uxorious of all the gods. Of his almost countless unions with
goddesses and women many were accepted by the Greeks with
that absence of conunent which, as. a rule, is the sanction of
legitimacy, but they looked askance at a number of others in a
way which made them, to say the least, the objects of social
suspicion.^

Offline PrometheusTopic starter

  • BeautifullDisgrace
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2009
  • Posts: 1516
  • Country: nl
  • Location: Tholen
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Sign: Libra
Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #22 on: August 04, 2019, 10:41:18 PM »

In the Hesiodic tradition the first marriage of Zeus was
with Metis and his last with Hera, while in that of the older
epic Hera was his first and only legitimate wife. At all events,
Hera became his canonical wife in Greek, and later, as luno,
in Roman myth; but the portrayal of their conjugal relation-
ship we shall postpone to our discussion of the personality of
Hera. His marriages with Metis, Themis, Mnemosyne, and
Eurynome were probably simply poetical, and through the
influence of suggestion added to the conception of his dignity
and power. The symbolism is evident in itself. On receiving
a warning that a son of Metis ("Constructive Thought")
would be more powerful than his father Zeus, he swallowed
her and assimilated her into his own being; Themis ("Justice")
he married after the defeat of the Titans and incorporated her
personality into his regime; Mnemosyne ("Memory") he
made his wife as a constant reminder (to others, of course)
of his great might; and his affiliation with Eurynome ("Wide
Rule") emphasized the extent of his dominions. Besides the
foregoing, the most important goddesses with whom he was
united were Dione, who may have been his spouse in Pelasgic
times; Demeter, the mother of Persephone; Leto, the mother



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — ZEUS 157

of Apollo and Artemis; and Maia, the mother of Hermes;
while Pyrrha and Dia, who also became his wives, are probably
two aspects of the earth goddess. The chief nymphs with whom
he was associated were Taygete of the Lakedaimonian moun-
tain; Aigina, of the island which bears her name; and Plouto
of Lydia. Of his wives among women of purely human or of
partly divine descent we can mention only lo, Leda, Danae,
Europe, lodama, Antiope, Semele, and Alkmene.

The Offspring of Zeus. — No children of any other god but
Zeus ever attained to places in the divine circle. Poseidon,
Hera, and Hades were of the same Titanic parentage as Zeus
himself, but Athene, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, He-
phaistos, Hermes, Dionysos, Herakles, Persephone, and the
Dioskouroi were all his children. Of the race of the heroes
many claimed him as father, notably Hellen, the founder of the
Hellenic stock; Minos, and his brothers Sarpedon and Rhada-
manthys; Dardanos, Tantalos, and Aiakos, heads of the fami-
lies chiefly concerned in the war of Troy; Lakedaimon, the
first of the Lakedaimonian strain; Perseus, the demi-god of
the Argolid; and Amphion, Zethos, and Thebe, who were
concerned with the beginnings of Thebes.

The Functions of Zeus; As Supreme God. — In Zeus's sphere
of action as the supreme god we must distinguish the Zeus of
pure myth from the Zeus of serious religious import. In the
former his supremacy is very often encroached upon by the
caprices of other divinities, with the result that it is logically
annulled; it Is the same thing as limiting the absolute. In
serious cult, on the contrary, Zeus was the one god; not the
only god, but the one god among many subservient gods.
This is henotheism as opposed to monotheism, but since much
of this aspect has invaded the field of myth, it is precisely
this which we must endeavour to note. From Homer to the
dramatic poets the unqualified use of ©cJ?, "god,'' invariably
refers to Zeus, who was the "Father of gods and men," chiefly
in a spiritual and moral sense, in which last capacity it Is



 



 



IS8 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

natural to see in him the ultimate court of appeal for oflFences
against the gods and the higher law, and the final arbiter of
punishments. With the Great Flood he punished mankind for
their impiety; to Lykaon's sons he meted out death for their
wickedness, and Lykaon himself he changed into a wolf for
having essayed to hoodwink a deity. After he had condemned
men to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, none else
could alter the decree. Because Tantalos and Sisyphos abused
their endowment of knowledge almost divine he imposed on
them terrible penalties in Hades, while Prometheus suffered
untold agonies for trespassing on the divine prerogative to
fire and for his gratuitous enlightenment of the race of men.
For brazen insolence in attempting to scale the walls of Thebes,
which his son Amphion had built, Zeus laid Kapaneus low with
a bolt, and he smote Salmoneus in a like manner for invading
the divine right of rain-making. He retarded the home-com-
ing of the Argonauts for their part in the murder of Apsyrtos,
the brother of Medeia, and, finally, so comprehensive was his
power, he lessened the population of the earth by making men
slaughter one another in the great War of Troy. On the other
hand, as the spiritual head of the universe, what better judge
could there be than Zeus of the right of heroes or of men to
immortality and allied blessings? So it was he who bestowed a
special form of immortality on Polydeukes, who sent Kadmos
and Harmonia to Elysion, and who uttered the word permit-
ting Prometheus and Cheiron to exchange mortality and im-
mortality as Glaukos and Diomedes exchanged bronze and
golden armour; and it was he, too, who granted Sarpedon a
lifetime three generations long. In his power to confer various
forms upon men, as he did, for instance, in making Lykaon a
wolf, Philyra a linden, and lo a heifer, and in giving the pro-
tection of invisibility to his favourites, as he did to the wounded
Herakles in Kos, he is not especially differentiated from the
other Olympians; such acts predicate no moral or spiritual
power.



 



 



 



 



PLATE XXXVIII

ZfiUS AND THE KoURETES

The chief significance of this scene in low relief is
that it it the earliest certain representation of Zeus,
and scarcely less important is the transparent Euphra-
tean style of its composition and execution. Flanked
by winged, male figures the god stands like an Assyrian
divinity on a bull, and, after the manner of the Babylo-
nian epic hero Gilgamesh, as depicted on the seal
cylinders, with both hands swings a lion over his head.
This conception of Zeus as a man in the prime of
life rather than as an infant is true to an ancient
Cretan myth recently recovered. The winged figures,
each beating a pair of tympana^ are evidently Kouretes.
From a design on a Kouretiq bronze tympanon of the
ninth or eighth century b.c, discovered in the sacred
cave of Zeus on Mount Ida in Crete (A. B. Cook,
Ziusy i, Plate XXXV). See pp. 154-55.



 



 









-A



 



 



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — ZEUS 159

Zeus as God of the Heavens. — Although the name Zeus
perhaps originally denoted "sky/' it is only very rarely,
notably in a few local cults in Crete, that we find this god
brought into connexion with any of the celestial luminaries.
At first he was probably regarded as the source of all light,
that of the heavenly bodies included, and in this circumstance
we can find the reason why there was no well-developed native
cult of the sun, the moon, and the stars among the Greeks.
It is quite possible that those rare Cretan cults in which Zeus
seems to be a sun-god are distant offshoots of a Mesopotamian
sun-cult.

It is in his meteorological functions that Zeus is pre-eminent
in the sky. The rain descends from the sky; therefore, it is
Zeus the "cloud-gatherer" who dispenses it, and Theokritos
mentions' "the rain of Zeus," while Zc^ va ("Zeus rains")
was a popular saying. It was quite natural, then, for the
demon of the magic rain-stones of primitive conmiunities to
be confused and even identified with Zeus, and the story of
the stone which Rhea gave Kronos to swallow was doubtless
derived from some magic rain-making ritual, while if Zeus was
thus the supreme rain-maker, the essential nature of the sin
of Salmoneus is manifest. Now in order to influence the great
weather spirit with an immediate directness one must get as
close to him as possible; and what could be nearer to him than
the highlands? Hence, the frequency with which we find the
cults of Zeus on mountain-peaks — on Dikte and Ida in Crete,
on Olympos in Thessaly, on Lykaios in Arkadia, or on Kithai-
ron in Boiotia, while such general epithets as^TTraro? ("High-
est"), Kopv^w ("of the peaks"), and *Ajcpalo9 ("of the
summits") point to his association with great elevations in
general. Yet he is god of the thunder and lightning as well
as of the rain. At Mantineia and Olympia he was the lightning
itself and not the directing agent, and with the poets he is the
"Mighty Thunderer" and the "Hurler of Lightning." The
lightning and the thunderbolts forged by his smiths, the



 



 



i6o GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

Kyklopes, were the weapons with which he overthrew the
Titans, while Pegasos drew the thunder-car for him from the
ancient stables of heaven, and with the lightning he separated
the battling Herakles and Apollo, and visited sudden death
on those who incurred his displeasure. Zeus was also held
to be the sender of the dew, which in times of drought was so
essential to the welfare of the crops and pasturage.

Zeus as God of Fertility. — It was but an easy step for the
god of the rain and the dew to become the god of the fertility
produced by these forms of moisture. It seemed to the Greek
that with these some fertilizing substance or vital principle
fell upon the receptive soil, and who but Zeus was the giver
of it? It entered into plants from the soil and into animals and
men from plants, so that the whole cycle of life was dependent
on Zeus, who was the great "Begetter.*' • The native Zeus of
Attike was originally a deity of agriculture, as is clearly seen
in the ritual of the Bouphonia, while such epithets as "In-
creaser of Fruits," "Giver of Fruitage," and "Husbandman"
reveal him as a god of harvest.

Zeus in his Political and Ethical Aspects. — From the Aris-
totelian point of view these two aspects cannot be scanned
separately, for ethical standards are nothing else than the
crystallized experience of organized society. In both myth
and cult Zeus was the ideal statesman of the Greeks, having
had that serenity of judgment which awakens the confidence
of the governed. His lordship over himself inspired self-con-
trol in those who looked up to him, and the very stains upon
his dignity which the myths often revealed gave the legends
an air of convincing reality. Yet in spite of his generally ac-
cepted high political estate, we rarely meet with the cult of
Zeus Panhellenios — the Zeus of the United States of Greece,
so to speak — for the Greeks' keen sense of local independence
never allowed them to realize this ideal in politics. He fre-
quently appeared, however, as the guardian of the family
property, of boundaries, of wealth, of the domestic and state



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — ZEUS i6i

hearths severally, and of tribal and family kin; and he was
also the patron of the higher social interests collectively and
separately, of freedom, of the centralized union of tribes and
brotherhoods, and of concord among the people. While he
was sometimes qualified by epithets like "War-Lord" and
"Bearer of Victory,'' yet he was seldom known purely as a
god of war — a testimony to the advanced character of the
Greek religion.

To such an extent was Zeus the most ethical of all the gods
of the pantheon that he almost shrank the Greek polytheism
into monotheism, and it was this fact which enabled the
Greeks to withstand the inroads of Christianity for so long a
time, even though it was the very feature which in the end
facilitated the acceptance of the new faith. While Zeus was
the bringer of evil as well as of good into the life of men,
occasionally the Greeks rose to the noble idea that he was
above all that was evil. He was •T-f^ioro? ("Most High'*),
and doubtless later generations erroneously read this same
ethical meaning into "Twaro^. Being such a god, he was logi-
cally at enmity with iniquity, and was driven by an inevitable
necessity to chastise it, whence his punishments were not the
results of caprice, although their suddenness might often lead
one to think that they were. Herakles murdered a friend;
his slavery to Omphale was a natural retribution visited on
him by the god of friendship. Tantalos took the life of his own
son Pelops; his punishment in Hades was a measure of his
crime against the guardian of blood kinship. To violations of
pledges and of oaths taken in his name Zeus could give only
short shrift. Before the eyes of the spectators at Olympia stood
a row of bronze images of Zeus called, in the dialect of Elis,
Zanes ("Zeuses'')> which had been made with the fines im-
posed on those who had broken the rules governing the great
games, and which, in their conspicuous position, were na-
tional reminders that Zeus was ever watchful of the fidelity of
men in the works of organized society.



 



 



1 62 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTH0LCX5Y

Zeus as Prophet^ FaUj Healer, and Helper. — At Dodona in
Epeiros stxxxl the talking oak of Zeus, which delivered to
men messages concerning the future, and a piece of which, we
recall, was built into the prow of the Argo and with human voice
spoke to the heroes. It was believed that the tree gave utterance
to the thought of Zeus through the whisperings of its foliage,
and these were interpreted by skilled priests who made the
meanings known to consultants by inscribing them on small
plaques of lead. Just why the oak of all the trees was chosen
as the vehicle of Zeus's communication we may never know;
but perhaps Sir J. G. Frazer is as near to the truth as is
any one when he claims the oak as the special tree of Zeus
because it is more often struck by lightning than any other
tree of the forest. The power of Zeus to foretell at least the
immediate future by means of the thunder and the lightning
we have already pointed out in our consideration of the Zeus
of Homer, but he could also reveal his will through the flight
of birds across the sky, especially through that of the eagle,
which was pre-eminently his bird.

In a certain sense Zeus as Fate exercised a prophetic func-
tion; he could foretell because he predestined. In Homer it
was he alone who foreordained, and Moira ("Fate'') was, as
it were, an impersonal decree issuing from him; but in the fifth
century the idea rapidly gained currency that there was
a power preforming the future to which Zeus himself must
bow. In Aischylos, accordingly, it is the three Fates who
limit his dominion, but in spite of this the Homeric belief never
wholly died out.

One need not seek far for the source of the strength of Zeus
as a healer and helper of a weak and feeble humanity, for a
god of his broad general powers could do anything in particular,
so that we are not surprised to find attached to his name such
epithets as "Defender from 111," "Bestower of Inmiunity,"
"Healer,'* "Saviour," and even "Averter of Flies," one of his
titles at Olympia. Some scholars claim that the stories of the



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — HERA 163

birth of Dionysos from the thigh of Zeus and of the springing
of Athene from his head hark back to an eariy function of his
as a god of child-birth.

Zeus as a Chthonic Divinity. — The few instances where
Zeus appears as a chthonic divinity, or deity of the underworld,
were probably the result of a mistaken identification, or of
an extension of function. The Zeus Chthonios of Corinth was
a counterpart of Hades, while Zeus Meilichios of Attike be-
came a chthonic god through the character of Zeus as a deity
of agriculture, and Aiakos of Aigina, a son of Zeus in the
legend, seems to have been in origin a local Aiginetan chthonic
Zeus.

Zeus in Art. — The maturer periods of Greek art represented
Zeus as a fully developed man standing or seated in an atti-
tude suggestive of serene dignity and undisputed power. As
a rule he holds the thunderbolt in his hand, but sometimes a
ruler's staff or an image of Victory, and occasionally an eagle
can be observed at his side.



HERA

The Origin and the Name of Hera. — The original significance
of the person and of the name of Hera is lost in the obscurity
of a remote past, but inasmuch as at all periods she mani-
fested surprisingly few traces of Oriental influences, we are
probably not to look to the East for her introduction into
Greece. She was certainly very early a pan-Hellenic divinity,
though none can say whether she came to the land with the
invaders from the north or was a native goddess already
established. Her acknowledged antiquity in Argos has led
some to suspect that she was there a Pelasgic earth goddess
whom the invaders adopted as their own under the new name
of Hera; *® yet this explanation is puzzling in the light of the
paucity of Hera's earth-functions, for in the historical period

she was certainly not of the earth, earthy. Moreover, why was
1— IS



 



 



i64 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

she so implacable a foe of Dionysos? Why did she dispense no
oracles ? Why, too, had her children. Ares and Hephaistos, no
chthonic functions? The hypothesis that she was originally a
moon-goddess may be summarily dismissed on the ground that
it deals with an admittedly late conception. The name Hera
seems to have had some connexion with that of Herakles and
perhaps with rjpw ("hero"), but the statement that it signi-
fies "the strong one" is based without warrant on assumed re-
lations of Hera with a goddess of Phoinikia.

Hera in Homer. — As in the Theogony of Hesiod, Hera is the
daughter of Kronos and Rhea, and sister-spouse of Zeus.
Indeed, she and Zeus are the only married pair on Olympos,
but their conjugal life is anything but smooth, for Hera is far
from being a model wife like Andromache or Penelope; rather,
she is a sort of divine Xanthippe. She often nags her hus-
band until his Olympian patience is exhausted, and fear of
such nagging many a time deters him from pursuing courses
which his judgement has decided are right and proper; and she
has the bad habit of taking the off side of any question which
he may favour. She envelops the Trojans in a mist to detain
them when Zeus has willed that they advance; against the
wish of Zeus she hastens the sun westward; and by her guile
the birth of Herakles is retarded so that her favourite Eurys-
theus may gain the upper hand. So persistent is her inter-
ference with the actions of Zeus that, humanly speaking, there
is no reason for surprise when he cruelly punishes her by
hanging her head down from the heights of heaven.

Yet, despite all this, she is "the noblest of the goddesses,"
and when she moves on her throne, tremors are felt through-
out Olympos, while sometimes she even wields the thunder-
bolt, and like her husband sends storm and cloud. She is the
beautiful divinity of the white arms (XevKcaiKevoi) and lives
in a "great luxurious calm," and she is, too, a helpful goddess
of child-birth, under whose direction her daughters, the Eilei-
thyiai, control the births of Herakles and Eurystheus.



 



 

Offline PrometheusTopic starter

  • BeautifullDisgrace
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2009
  • Posts: 1516
  • Country: nl
  • Location: Tholen
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Sign: Libra
Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #23 on: August 04, 2019, 10:42:53 PM »



PLATE XXXIX
Hera

This statuesque and majestic figure represents Hera
as the queen of the immortals. On her head she wears
a chastely ornamented golden diadem, from beneath
which her hair falls over her breast and shoulders in
long full tresses. Her chitm^ of a delicately patterned,
gauzy linen, drops to her ankles which are faintly
visible through it, and over this hangs a cloak of some
heavy, closely woven fabric with a middle band and
borders of purple. Her right hand is concealed, but in
her exposed left she holds upright a long sceptre studded
with gold from top to bottom. From a kylix with a
white ground (about 475 B.C.), in Munich (Furt-
wangler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmaleni^ No. 65).



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — HERA 165

Hera as the Wife oj Zeus. — The *€/509 7a/tM)9, or holy union,
of Zeus and Hera, which we have described in our chapter
on Beginnings, was to all the Greeks the ideal of married
existence, and although the Homeric character of Hera as
wife persisted in mythology down to a late period, yet her mar-
riage was always popularly held to have been a happy one.
This savours, however, more of courtesy than of truth, inas-
much as the Greeks must have felt that with a faulty model
before them the stability of their social life was imperilled.
The union itself is variously explained. Some are tempted to
see in it an affiliation of natural forces, so that where meteoro-
logical elements are concerned, the domestic strife of Zeus
and Hera would be interpreted as an allegorical representation
of the conflicts of air-currents. Yet this cannot hold if Hera
derived her few celestial functions from her long and intimate
contact with Zeus. One extremely ingenious theory " outiines
a very different origin of the union. It points out that as the
&/509 7£f/tM)9 was most celebrated in the chief Pelasgic centres
like Euboia, Boiotia, Argolis, and Samos, it was probably
generally accepted in Pelasgic times. In Dodona, however,
the oldest Pelasgic centre of the cult of Zeus, the wife of
Zeus was not Hera but Dione, whence his marriage with Hera
must have originated in the same Pelasgic period. But how
was it brought about without a fatal wrench of religious senti-
ment? The myth-makers had a way. If, by means of a myth,
Dionysos could be foisted on Zeus as a son, it was surely just
as easy to explain away one wife and give him another. The
necessity for so doing arose, this theory holds, with the inter-
mingling of two racial stocks one of which was matrilinear and
worshipped Hera as its chief divinity, and the other of which
was patrilinear and followed the cult of Zeus. To unite the
two divinities in a sacred wedlock would be to secure a religious
sanction for the connubial and political fusion of the two
strains of blood, and, accordingly, Hera was torn from the
embrace of her lawful husband, Herakles, and thrown into



 



 



i66 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

the arms of a divorced Zeus, the separation being so carefully
hushed up, however, that only scanty traces of it are left.

The children of Hera and Zeus were Hephaistos, Ares, Hebe,
and the Eileithyiai, but they exhibit few traits which reveal
their maternity. Hephaistos takes his mother's part when
Zeus punishes her for her interference, and Zeus himself apolo-
gizes for Ares' warlike disposition in that he inherits it from
his mother. Hebe is a sort of personification of the well-pre-
served beauty of her mother, and in one legend she has no
relationship at all with Zeus, Hera bearing her after a most
mysterious impregnation by a leaf of lettuce. The Eileithyiai
reflect their mother's care for women in childbed.

The Functions of Hera. — Whether or not Hera was origi-
nally a goddess of the weather and fertility, she occasionally
appears as such in the myths, and, less often, in her cults.
The gale which bore Agamemnon to his home shores after the
fall of Ilion was of Hera's making, and she it was, too, who
caused the mist to enshroud the Trojans. The cuckoo, often
regarded as a rain-bird, was sacred to her, and Polykleitos
represented it perched on her sceptre, while in one brief legend
Zeus assumed the form of the cuckoo to win her love. In
times of drought processions of her worshippers would march
to the mountain-tops and there invoke her aid, and the luxu-
riant growth of bloom which appeared after a dry period had
been broken sprang, people said, from Hera's bridal bed. She
was, moreover, protectress of such staple plants as the pome-
granate and the vine, the full development of which depends
so directly upon the volume of rainfall.

Hera's power to cause insanity was notorious. Herakles
and Athamas and Ino she impelled in their madness to take
the lives of their own offspring; lo she drove mad with a gad-
fly; and she made the daughters of Proitos roam wildly over
the Peloponnesos. Nor did the gods entirely escape, for she
cast a spell of frenzy on Dionysos for his introduction of the
vine, and under its influence he wandered hither and thither



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — HERA 167

in both the nearer and the farther east. There is a wide-spread
primitive belief that lightning brings madness, and perhaps
this, in conjunction with Hera's association with the phenomena
of the weather, may have given rise to her special power over
lunacy.

Throughout the Hellenic peoples Hera was the chief pro-
tectress of women, having surveillance over their part of the
conjugal relationships and acting as their helper in the hour of
travail, while, by a logical projection of these functions, she
was thought to have especial care for the well-being of chil-
dren. She encouraged matrimony and discouraged celibacy.
The great crime of the forty-nine daughters of Danaos lay not
in the murder of their husbands but in their stubborn will to
remain single, and the punishment meted out to them in Hades
was that imposed on celibates after death, according to certain
of the mysteries. Hypermnestra, who spared her husband,
seems to have been in origin a priestess of the Argive Heraion.

Hera's contact with the higher interests of corporate society
was slight. Nowhere outside of Argos, and perhaps Samos,
were her political functions conspicuous, and nowhere, ex-
cept in Argos, did she have much to do with the arts of civi-
lized existence. Hephaistos, the artisan-god, was her son, to
be sure, but his gifts defied the laws of heredity. Though the
queen of all Olympian goddesses, she possessed much less
ethical force than Athene, and contrary to our expectation
it was not she but the Erinyes who punished violations of the
marriage vow. All this tends to convince one that her person-
ality was not the ideal of the Greek wife, but was a reflection
of the restricted conditions of life surrounding the Hellenic
matron.

Herodotos's story of the death of Kleobis and Biton Is not
only effectively told, but shows the Argive faith in Hera as
the final judge of what constitutes the summum bonunij that
is, as an ethical deity. The "father of history'' tells how a
certain woman of the city of Argos planned to ride in her ox-



 



 



i68 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

cart to the Heraion, some forty furlongs distant, and when the
oxen did not appear, her sons Kleobis and Biton put the yoke
across their necks and drew her to the temple. Filled with
pride at the many felicitations which she received on having
such sons, the mother stood before the image of Hera and
prayed that she would bestow upon Kleobis and Biton the
greatest boon that men could have. After sacrificing and feast-
ing, the young men lay down and slept in the precinct of the
goddess, and never woke.

It is not a pleasantry based on her matrimonial quarrels
when we state that there are some evidences that Hera was
regarded as a goddess of war. Traditions to that effect seem to
underlie some of the cults, although the only tangible hint of
this in myth is found in the story of Herakles, since Alkmene's
name indicates that she was primitively a divinity of war, and
her close association with Hera through her son may mean
that she was actually Hera herself.

Hera in Art. — The Hera of art lacks the clear-cut attri-
butes of personality belonging to the Hera of myth and cult.
She has no sure tag of identification about her representations,
such as Artemis has in her bow and Athene in her aegis, al-
though at a late period she occasionally had a peacock beside
her. In her great statue in the Argive Heraion, the work of
Polykleitos, she was shown holding a pomegranate in one hand,
and on the top of her staff, held in the other hand, perched a
cuckoo. She generally appeared as a beautiful mature woman,
with or without a veil, seated on a throne.



 



 



CHAPTER II
THE GREATER GODS — ATHENE

r'HE Origin and the Name of Athene. — The most that one
can say of the origin of Athene is that she belonged to the
so-called Achaian period and was worshipped by Dorian and
Ionian alike, while her cult was diffused uniformly over the
entire Greek world. No observable traces of a Pelasgic descent
cling to her person, although she may have been Pelasgic.
Equally lacking are marks of her importation from the Orient;
this we confidently assert in the face of apparently well-sup-
ported statements that she, along with Hera, was an offshoot
of the Philistine goddess 'Assah of Gaza; and her identification
at Corinth with the Syro-Arabian goddess Allat was a mere
accident. The main lines of her character and the forms of
her worship observed, for instance, in Tegea, Sparta, Kyrene,
Rhodes, and Athens were all developed primarily in Argos,
but of all these places Athens alone added new traits and
stimulated the logical unfolding of old ones, so that, for this
reason, it is in Athens that we can study Athene to the greatest
advantage. As for the meaning of her name, here again we
must confess to ignorance, although one suggested etymology
is at least worth consideration. This derives her appellation
from iirdriviov ("without mother's milk") and interprets it either
passively or actively, the reference in the former sense being
to Athene's unmothered birth from Zeus and in the latter to her
sexless character, which is much like that of the Amazons.^

Athene in Homer. — Homer constantly depicts Athene as
the beloved daughter of Zeus, but nowhere does he allude to
her birth from his head. She is more like the chief Olympian



 



 



I70 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

than is any one of the other divinities, male or female, not
only resembling him in the wide range and directness of her
activities as well as in the high type of her mentality, but also
possessing a large measure of her father's spontaneous re-
sourcefulness in crises. By reason of her ready wit she has a
natural affinity for Odysseus, and, on the principle that "God
helps those who help themselves," stands ready at all times to
assist him. She is the patroness and model worker of all those
arts of life which demand ingenuity and dexterity; she is
skilled in the smithing of gold, in weaving and other domestic
accomplishments. She. endowed Penelope and the daughters of
Pandareos with their skill in all handiwork, and she it was,
too, who gave deftness to the thought and hand of Epeios in
fashioning the wooden horse, the instrument of Troy's fall.
While she frequently takes sides in the actual strife before
Troy, she does so rather as a great strategist than as one who
delights in carnage and havoc.

The Birth of Athene. — In the Theogony of Hesiod we are
told that Ouranos and Gaia warned Zeus that his wife, Metis,
then pregnant with Pallas, would bear a son who would be-
come the king of gods and men. Keeping his counsel to him-
self, Zeus approached Metis and craftily persuaded her to
assume the form of some very small animal (a late legend says
that she became a fly), whereupon he promptly swallowed her,
and, after a time, Pallas Athene leaped forth from his head in a
panoply of gold. "And mighty Olympos shook dreadfully
beneath the fearful bright-eyed goddess, and round about
earth loudly re-echoed; the sea was moved, being stirred with
purple waves; suddenly the spray was thrown aloft and the
glorious son of Hyperion halted his swift steeds till such time
as the maiden Pallas Athene had removed her divine armour
from her immortal shoulders. And all-counselling Zeus re-
joiced." * In a variant form of this myth Brontes, one of the
Kyklopes, begat Athene by Metis, who was swallowed by
Zeus before she could bring her offspring into the world; and



 



 



 



 



PLATE XL
Athene

To understand this statue fully one must restore to
the right of it the remainder of the group to which it
seems to have belonged ; i. e. Marsyas drawing back
from a pair of flutes lying on the ground before him.
The goddess, a self-possessed and thoroughly maidenly
figure, glancing indifferently toward the instruments,
is about to turn away to the left as though instinctively
aware of her native superiority to the half-bestial
creature near her. The Corinthian helmet, the crest
of which is lost, here serves only as a means of iden-
tification. This statue is apparently a replica of the
first century B.C. or a.d. of a bronze original by
Myron (latter part of the fifth century B.C.), and is
now in Frankfort {JHAI x\\^ Plate II).



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — ATHENE 171

in other stories she is the daughter of Pallas, or of a sea-
nymph, Koryphe, by either Zeus or Poseidon. The canonical
myth of her birth seems to have been invented very early to
account for her already established traits of wisdom and moral
sense, while the legend in which Koryphe mothers her is ap-
parently an outgrowth of a cult-title, such as Kopv<f>a{ay which
commemorated her birth from the head of Zeus. It is not
impossible that in the first place Metis was Athene herself.

The Functions of Athene. — The Athene of myth and worship
alike was a goddess of practical and not of speculative life.
None but a utilitarian philosophy could spring from contem-
plation of her being, and there was very little symbolism in
her rites. She neither personified nor controlled any special
department of nature, although, as occasion required, she
could work in a number of them. In her mature develop-
ment she was the social deity par excellence^ unmarred by many
of the primitive crudities which still clung to the distinctively
nature-gods.

Athene was the inventress and craftswoman among the
Olympians, and in that capacity was associated with Hephai-
stos and Prometheus. It was she who contributed the soul to
the fashioning of Pandora, and she invented the plough, and
first contrived spinning, weaving, and working in metal. To
artisans she gave speciar thought. Phereklos, the builder of
the ships of Paris, she loved above all men, and she herself
assisted in the building of the Argo. It was said that she in-
vented the flute and with it imitated the wails of the two sur-
viving Gorgons as they lamented over the body of their
sister Medousa; and although this story seems to be a fiction
to account for only a certain motif on the flute, yet elsewhere
Athene was credited with the invention of flute music in gen-
eral. The honours of having contrived the Pyrrhic dance were
indefinitely divided between Athene and the Kouretes; some
claimed that she originated it to celebrate the victory over the
Titans. She was the first to subdue horses to human use,



 



 



172 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTH0LCX5Y

and for their control devised the bit and bridle, while from
her hands Bellerophon received the bridle with which he guided
Pegasos. It was as a divinity of skill rather than of the sea
that she exercised a patronage over seamanship and gave
success to the Athenian marine, and she it was who safely
steered the Argo past the perilous Symplegades.

In Attike, Athene was active in another practical field —
that of agriculture. She was especially associated with the
olive, and it was in Salamis

"... where first from the earth
The grey-gleaming fruit of the maiden
Athena had birth." «

After creating the olive, she revealed its uses to mankind.
She and Poseidon contested the ownership of Attike, and a
decision was promised by arbiters to that one of the two who
would confer the greatest benefit upon the citizens, whereupon
Poseidon, with a stroke of his trident, produced the salt spring
and Athene planted the olive-tree, both on the Acropolis.
The land was awarded to Athene, and from her gift were grown
the olive orchards of the Attic plain. Her associations with
agriculture, in general, seem not to have been original, but, as
it were, a legacy of an earlier agricultural divinity whom she
displaced. The serpent in the Erechtheion and the obscene
fertility rites hinted at in the story of Erichthonios's birth
from Athene apparently go back to such a divinity.

As a war-goddess Athene was much the same outside of
Homer as within, and her attitude was that of a defender
rather than that of a provoker of war. She took her part in
the just defence of Zeus from the attack of the Titans, her
special antagonist in this conflict being Enkelados; and she
directed particular attention to the development of efficiency
in the cavalry and to difficult siege operations. A branch of her
olive was an emblem of peace won by arms.

Although Athene provoked the storm that scattered the



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — ATHENE 173

Achaians departing from Ilion, although she shattered the
ship of Aias with a lightning-bolt and aided Odysseus time
and again with favourable changes of wind and weather,
she cannot be regarded as decidedly a weather-goddess, her
activities in this sphere doubtless coming from her intimate
relationship to Zeus.

Most of Athene's social aspects have been brought out in-
cidentally in the foregoing discussion of her attributes. Oc-
casionally, however, she appeared as the patroness of the de-
liberative and executive branches of the state, and as Athene
Polias in Athens she was the divine mainstay of the entire
body politic. Her outstanding moral characteristic is her un-
impeachable chastity, so that on Tegea she brought a plague
because Augers babe, born out of wedlock, had been concealed
in her precinct, while her anger against the son of Oileus was
aroused more by his offence against a general moral law pro-
tecting suppliants than by the desecration of her shrine in
particular.

Athene in Art. — There are two outstanding types of repre-
sentations of Athene. In the first, which is the more common,
she is shown standing with lance and shield, wearing a helmet,
and carrying the aegis with the Gorgoneion, or Gorgon's head;
in the other type she is seated and unarmed; in both the owl
and the snake sometimes appear as distinctive attributes.



 



 



Offline PrometheusTopic starter

  • BeautifullDisgrace
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2009
  • Posts: 1516
  • Country: nl
  • Location: Tholen
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Sign: Libra
Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #24 on: August 04, 2019, 10:44:50 PM »

CHAPTER III

THE GREATER GODS — LETO, APOLLO,
ARTEMIS, HEKATE

LETO

LETO (Latin Latona) was the daughter of the Titans Koios
and Phoibe. In Homer she was already held to be the
mother of Apollo and Artemis, and, in more than a transient
sense, the spouse of Zeus. When Aineias was wounded, she
assisted in caring for him, but her act is not to be regarded as
significant of a religious function, for her chief importance lies
in her motherhood of Apollo and Artemis.

The Birth of Apollo and Artemis. — The story of the birth
of Apollo and Artemis can be made complete by piecing to-
gether a portion of a Homeric Hymn to Apollo* and several
supplementary myths. The statement in one of the latter
that Artemis was bom the day before Apollo must be held in
mind as an explanation of her presence at her brother's birth.

Being great with child by Zeus, Leto wandered from land
to land about the Aegean searching for a place in which to
bring her son to the light; but everywhere the people feared
his predestined power, and she was turned cruelly away.
At last she reached the island of Rheneia, and at her own re-
quest was taken from there to Delos, which she earnestly begged
to afford her the refuge that she so much needed. After long
hesitation the island consented to receive her on condition
that she would swear a solemn oath that her son's first shrine
would be erected there, and that he would abundantly honour
and not despise this unproductive tract of rock. Leto swore
by the Styx (the most awful of all oaths), and was forthwith



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — APOLLO 175

received. Then her birth-pangs began, enduring for nine days
and nine nights, but with no result, although she was helped
by Artemis, Themis, Amphitrite, and other divinities, until
finally these sent for Eileithyia, who, hastening to Delos, soon
consummated the birth. The attending goddesses cared for
the infant Apollo, wrapping him in fine linen, and Themis
gave him nectar and ambrosia. As soon as the divine food
put strength into him, up he leaped, burst his bands, suddenly
attained the stature of a man, and taking the zither and the
bow and arrows into his hands strode to the summit of Mount
Kynthos, while the whole island gleamed with a golden light.

The union of Leto and Apollo as thus set forth seems to
have been founded on some local cult-association of the two
divinities; and that between Leto and Artemis probably devel-
oped from a similarity in function as helpers of women in
travail and as protectresses of children, the wandering of Leto
being symbolic of this so far as it depicts her as retarding or
as advancing birth at will.

Leto and Tityos; Leto and Niobe. — Travellers on their way
to Apollo's shrine at Delphoi were often waylaid by a brutal
giant named Tityos, and when Leto was once bound thither,
he attempted lustful violence upon her. Both to avenge his
mother and to aid peaceful pilgrims Apollo slew Tityos, who
was condemned in the underworld to pay a horrible penalty
for his crimes. For her insolence in boasting that her mortal
children were superior to the immortal oflFspring of Leto,
Niobe was changed into a figure of stone, and her children were
slain by the arrows of Apollo and Artemis.

APOLLO

The Origin and the Name of Apollo. — Apollo, the brightest
and the most complex creation of polytheism, seems to have
been originally the leading god of a people who migrated into
Greece from the north in prehistoric times, his northern origin



 



 



176 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

being apparently reflected in the fixed routes followed by the
sacred processions to his two chief shrines. The one way,
which, we may note, Apollo himself followed, according to the
longer Homeric Hymn in his honour, ran southward from
Tempe through lolkos and Thebes to Delphoi; and the other
led the pilgrims bearing the Hyperboreian fruits overiand




Fig. 7. Apollo and Tmros

Apollo, shown as an effeminate youth with long hair, is striding forward with a
double axe in his right hand. The backward look, the bent knees, and the swinging
arms of Tityos together indicate the giant's great fear and rapid flight. From a red-
figured Attic amphora of the Nolan type found at Gela (MonunuiUi Antichi, xviii,
Plate X).

along the coast of the Adriatic to Dodona, thence eastward
to the Gulf of Euboia, and from that point by ship to Delos.
Apollo's initial function is by no means certain, nor has any
satisfactory explanation of the source and meaning of his
name yet been oflFered.

Apollo in Homer. — In Homer Apollo is already the son of
Zeus and the brother of Artemis, but, although his chief physi-
cal traits and the leading features of his character are fixed,



 



 



 



 



PLATE XLI

The Apollo Belvedere

The position of the god, standing as be is with his
feet well apart and extending one hand forward while
the other drops almost to his side, suggests that he has
just shot an arrow from his bow and with his eye is
following its distant flight. This interpretation is
certainly in harmony with other representations of
him, although here he seems to be playing the riU of
archer before a throng of admirers rather than to be
engaged in the serious business of hitting a living
mark, and although, too, alnnost all of his individual
characteristics have been idealized away. From a
marble (a copy of a Hellenistic bronze) in the Belve-
dere of the Vatican (Brunn-Bruckmann, DenkmaUr
griichischir und rdmiscber Sculptur^ No. 419).



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — APOLLO 177

he has yet to evolve the complex personality by which he is to
be known to the Greeks after the fifth century bx. He has to
do with light, but is not convincingly identified with Helios.
He is a god of healing, but not yet the god of healing, so
that he revives Hektor after he has been wounded in conflict.
With the power of healing must be assumed its opposite, the
ability to inflict harm, whence it was Apollo who, in consequence
of a slight, sent the pestilence upon the men and beasts of the
Achaian camp. He is himself the expert archer of the Olym-
pians and confers on Pandaros and Teukros skill in the use of
the bow, but, though he wields the bow and occasionally takes
part in the strife as a violent partisan of the Trojans, he is
only accidentally a god of war. He is associated with prophecy
in that seers, like Kalchas, draw their inspiration from him.
Descriptions of him always represent him as in the prime of
young manhood, with flowing locks of golden hair.

Apollo in Delphoi. — Python, the huge dragon-offspring of
Earth, learned that he was doomed to die at the hands of a
son whom Leto should bear, and to forestall the future he
sought to kill her, but was frustrated by Zeus, who removed
her to a place of safety until her children were born. Soon
after his birth Apollo took from Hephaistos a quiver of arrows
and with them slew his mother^s foe at Delphoi, thereby earn-
ing for himself the title Pythios, and, burying the body of
the Python in the temple, he instituted over it funeral games
which were thereafter known as the Pythian Games. Closely
allied with this legend is the account which, in the Homeric
Hymn dedicated to the god, tells of his founding of his own
shrine. Leaving Olympos, Apollo pressed southward, pass-
ing through lolkos, Euboia, and Thebes, and at last came
to Delphoi, on the slopes of Mount Pamassos overlooking
the Gulf of Corinth, where he built a beautiful temple from
which to deliver oracles, he himself laying the foundation
but entrusting the rest of the work to human hands. Hard by
the fane was a spring where lurked Typhon, a destructive



 



 



178 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

monster, unlike both gods and men, which Hera begot without
Zeus in answer to her prayer that Earth grant her a son who
would overthrow her husband. With one of his sharp shafts
Apollo laid Typhon low, and because he left the carcass upon
the ground to rot, the deity was called Pythios,* if a play upon
words can convince any one. In these two narratives we may
perceive indications that the Earth Goddess had a mantic
seat at Delphoi before the cult and oracle of Apollo were es-
tablished there, this being partially verified by the story that
Earth, jealous of Apollo's usurpation, sent dream-oracles
to visitors at the fane to thwart the ApoUine method of re-
vealing the future, whereupon the god appealed to Zeus, who
ordered that no more prophecies of this type be dispensed
in the shrine. When Apollo had completed his temple, the
Homeric Hymn continues, he cast about for suitable priests
to serve him, and, spying a company of Cretans in a ship
bound for Pylos, he leaped into the sea in the form of a dol-
phin and thence into the hollow of the vessel. None durst
touch or disturb him, and, as long as he lay there, the sailors
lost all control of their helm, so that, in spite of themselves,
they were carried past their goal and eastward up the Gulf of
Corinth until they came to Krisa, the port of Delphoi. There
Apollo, in the form of a beautiful youth, revealed himself to
them, and, appointing them the holy servitors of his temple,
bade them worship him thenceforth under the title Delphinios
(" Dolphin-Like ")> the site of the shrine, formerly called
Pytho, being now given the name of Delphoi. This legend ap-
parently records a historical fact that the Delphinian Apollo,
who was widely regarded as a saviour from shipwreck, was of
Cretan provenance.'

The Functions of Apollo. — Undoubtedly the best known
power of Apollo was that of prophecy. As has already been
clearly intimated, his chief prophetic shrine was Delphoi,
although other centres, probably oflFshoots of Delphoi, like
Branchidai, were found in various places. His foreknowledge



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — APOLLO 179

was consulted in all sorts of matters. Aigeus and later Kreousa
and Xouthos sought it in reference to oflFspring; Herakles,
regarding a cure for the dreadful malady which afflicted him;
Kadmos, in order to find the lost Europe. The Epigonoi were
assured through it of the ultimate victory of their cause against
Thebes, and Alkmaion used it as a sanction for the murder of
his mother Eriphyle. In historical times the oracle was con-
sulted time and again/ and although many of the more en-
lightened Greeks, Thoukydides for instance, frankly held the
popular confidence in the oracle to be pure superstition, they
did not question the value of Delphoi as essential to the
maintenance of Greek political and moral unity. The story
of Kassandra reflects the oracular powers of Apollo. It seems
that Apollo desired her to yield him her love, but she refused,
although he promised to endow her in return with the gift of
foreseeing the future, whereupon, to punish the obstinate
maiden, he gave her the promised boon, but added to it the
penalty that her prophecies would never be believed.

Inasmuch as the oracle was most commonly consulted con-
cerning the healing of disease, it was easy for Apollo to be-
come a god of healing. If he was aboriginally a divinity of
light, this function becomes more readily understood, for the
ancients were well aware of the purifying nature of light, and
moreover the physician has always been regarded as a sort of
compound of seer and healer. As healer, Apollo was known
under many names, notably that of Paian, and it is probable
that the purpose of the Paian hymn sung before battle and
after victory was to invoke healing for the wounds of conflict.

Apollo was the divine guardian of navigation, a function
which seems to have had its root, not in any special lordship
over the sea, but in the wide diffusion of his cult in all Hellenic
settlements. He exercised control not so much over the sea as
over those elements and physiographical features which make
for the convenience and safety of voyages — tradewinds, har-
bours, estuaries, and the like. From the highways of the ocean
I— 16



 



 



i8o GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

his supervision was naturally extended to the highways of the
land, and he became the protector of wayfarers, whence the
presence of his images in the streets before housedoors.

The roU of Apollo as the divine founder of colonies is doubt-
less as early as the period of the immigration which brought
him into the Hellenic world. As the years went by, this part
was greatly enlarged through the frequency with which pro-
spective colonists appealed to his oracle to throw light on
the destiny of their settlements abroad, and epithets like
" Founder'* point to this. He was even said to guide emigrants
to their new homes in the form of some bird, especially of a
sea-bird, such as the diver or the gull, and he came himself, in
one account, to Delphoi from the land of the Hjrperboreians
in a chariot drawn by swans. In just such a car he conveyed
Kyrene to Africa, and we have already noted how, as a dolphin,
he led his ministers to his shrine in Delphoi. Owing to this
intimate connexion with the establishing of new states his
name easily became woven into the genealogies of their human
founders, so that, for instance, as Patroos he was literally
known in Athens as the flesh-and-blood father of Ion by the
Athenian maiden ELreousa. Now it was logical to expect the
founder to continue his favour past the initial stages of set-
tlement and to ensure the well-being of the established com-
munity, whence we find Apollo as the protector and ideal of
youth, i. e. of the citizens to be, in which connexion it will
be remembered that Herakles dedicated to him a lock of his
hair on attaining to manhood. We see him, too, protecting all
useful plants as well as herds. As Smintheus, he saves the crops
from the ravages of mice; the Karneian Apollo of Lakedaimon
was a god of horned cattle; and Apollo himself herded the
flocks of Admetos for a season. Of the trees the laurel, apple,
and tamarisk were sacred to him. His relation to the laurel
is dimly pictured in the story that Apollo loved Daphne, the
daughter of the river Peneios and Earth, but, evading his em-
brace, the maiden besought her mother to save her. Earth,



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — APOLLO i8i

hearkening to the prayer, allowed her to sink partly from sight
and changed her into the laurel-tree, whereupon, breaking oflF a
branch, Apollo crowned his head with it.

Although Hermes was credited with the invention of the
lyre, Apollo was the skilled performer upon it. In myth he is
but rarely represented as employing the flute, a pictorial manner
of saying that the wailing notes of this instrument were not in
harmony with the ApoUine ritual, and the superiority of the
lyre is the substance of the story of the contest between Apollo
and Marsyas. Athene, it is said, invented the flute out of a
deer's horn and played before the gods, but her grimaces created
such ridicule that in disgust she threw the instrument away and
cursed with torture whosoever would pick it up. Marsyas the
satyr found it and having, by dint of much practice, attained
great proficiency, he boastfully challenged Apollo to a contest
in which the muses, as judges, awarded the palm to the god,
who, in fulfilment of Athene's curse, proceeded to flay his de-
feated adversary alive. Besides being a performer on the lyre
and the flute, Apollo was a singer, and, in short, he was the
god of all music and of the allied art of poetry. Bards drew their
inspiration from him, and it was he who impelled the priests
and priestesses of the oracles to cast their utterances into
measured language having the form, if not always the spirit,
of poetry. Before the assemblies of the gods he led the chorus
of the Muses, and in certain late philosophical beliefs the har-
mony not only of the movements of the sun but also of the
universe was attributed to him. No straining of the fancy is
required to follow him as he advances from this exalted posi-
tion of abstract thought to the lordship of all social harmony.

The recognition of Apollo as Helios was early but not original,
and may have arisen from Oriental influences;^ and from this,
perhaps, came the conception of his long fair hair, while either
here or in his affiliation with Artemis lies the origin of his
arrows.

In spite of his dexterity with the bow, he was never tech-



 



 



i82 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

nically a god of war, being, on the contrary, consistently just
as he was represented on the western pediment of the temple
of Zeus at Olympia, the exponent of peace and civilization as
opposed to the ceaseless strife of barbarism.

Apollo in Art. — In representing Apollo archaic art borrowed
from the epic the feature of the unshorn hair, and added it
to the rough fetishistic images of the god in order to produce
bodily reality. From this was easily evolved the type of the
best period, a type which we must forbear from reading into
the epic. Here Apollo was depicted as a young man in his
prime, nude or lightly clad, standing or striding. Sometimes
he wears a long flowing cloak or a tunic, and the bow, the zither,
and the twig of laurel in the hair are almost constant attributes,
singly or jointly.

ARTEMIS

The Origin and the Name of Artemis. — Artemis may have
originated among the Greeks, or, on the other hand, among
Phrygians or other barbarians, and later have received a
Greek name. Conjectures as to her primeval functions are
sharply divided, the two aspects selected by opposing schools
as the oldest being, first, that in which she interests herself
in the life of the wild, and, secondly, that in which she appears
as a destroyer of life. Her cult-title Meleagros ("Hunter of
Members") is thought to describe her as the demon of a dis-
ease, perhaps of leprosy, which slowly devours the members of
the body. By a very natural converse manner of reasoning
the one who could destroy could also arrest the process of
destruction and could heal. Yet for Artemis to acquire from
these functions her dominion over the wild, we must admit,
taxes the fancy and reason, so that it seems much more prob-
able that a divinity who has oversight, among other things, of
wild plants with medicinal properties, would become a divinity
of healing, and that, once the capacity of curing disease was
established, the converse process of argument would explain



 



 



 



 



PLATE XLII

Artemis

No inscription is needed to mark this statue as that
of the " Lady of the Beasts." On her bead rests an
elaborate crown on the top of which is a perforated
border of animal figures, while the band passing ob-
liquely over her breast is ornamented with a some-
what similar design in relief. As the goddess steps
slowly forward she allows a playful fawn to suck the
fingers of her right hand. From a Roman copy of a
Greek type of the fifth century B.C., in Munich
(Brunn-Bruckmann, DenkmaUr griechischer und rom^
ischir Sculpt ur^ No. 562).



 



 




 

Offline PrometheusTopic starter

  • BeautifullDisgrace
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2009
  • Posts: 1516
  • Country: nl
  • Location: Tholen
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Sign: Libra
Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #25 on: August 04, 2019, 10:45:45 PM »


THE GREATER GODS — ARTEMIS 183

a capacity for destruction. At any rate, her cult must be very
old, exhibiting, as it does, remnants -of totemism in the ritual
eating of the goddess in the flesh of a quail or of a bear, as well
as traces of human sacrifice in the slaughter of strangers in
the land of the Taurians. Although Artemis enjoyed a pan-
Hellenic cult, the oldest Hellenic conception of her was Boio-
tian; yet her matured personality is not purely Hellenic, for
her alien characteristics are many. The Artemis of Ephesos,
for instance, is a hybrid of the Great Mother, the maternal
principle of nature, and the original Greek goddess; and she
not only acquired traits from the Cretan Rhea, but was
identified with the barbarian Diktynna, Britomartis, Bendis,
Anaitis, Astarte, and Atargatis. The source of her association
with Apollo is unknown, though some accidental local con-
tact may be suspected. Her appellation appears to be con-
nected with the root of the name Arkadia, but we are fn the
dark as to its meaning.

Artemis in Homer. — Artemis takes next to no part in the
action of the Homeric poems, most mentions of her being
merely allusions to her activities in the various localities in
Hellas prior to the Trojan War. Her personality is marked by
three outstanding features: she is a huntress and the mistress of
wild life, a bringer of sudden death, and the virgin sister of
Apollo. Through instruction received from her the Trojan
Skamandros learned to hunt the beasts of hill and woodland,
and she herself was said to roam the ranges of Taygetos and
Erymanthos "delighting in the wild boars and swift hinds."
She was the slayer of Orion, of a daughter of Bellerophon,
and of the daughters of Niobe; and when women died a sudden
but peaceful death, people said that they were the victims of her
swift arrows.

The Functions of Artemis. — The traits which have just
been mentioned, with others added, still cling to Artemis in
the field of myth beyond Homer, while her relation to the vast
tracts beyond the settlements of men can be observed in her



 



 



i84 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

almost certain identity with Kallisto, Atalante, the mountain-
nymph Taygete, and Kyrene, under whose name she became
the mother of Aristaios by Apollo. The Keryneian doe, which
Herakles captured alive, was sacred to her, and for killing
another of her sacred hinds Agamemnon was sorely punished
and his fleet was detained at Aulis by head winds, while it
was she who placed a hind on the Aulid altar in lieu of the in-
nocent Iphigeneia. Kallisto in the form of a bear fell before
her bow, and the unerring spear and dog were given to Prokris
through her good will, if we follow a particular version of the
legend. One of her shrines, we are told, was surrounded by a
veritable zoological garden, and in her capacity as protectress
of such collections may perhaps be found the origin of her
common epithet "Lady of the Beasts." Of the birds the quail,
the partridge, the guinea-fowl, and the swallow were intimately
related to her cult, but only rarely did domestic animals, like
the horse, the ox, and the sheep, come within the scope of
her supervision, although in this connexion we may call to
mind the failure of Atreus to keep his promise to sacrifice to
her the golden lamb. With all beasts her protecting func-
tions come first and the destroying second. As a huntress and
in her general oversight of wild nature she contracted aflilia-
tions with Dionysos and the Maenads and was thought to be
the same as the Cretan Diktynna, while in the old Boiotian
culture she was held to be the hunting partner of Orion,
together with whom she shot her sharp arrows at man and
beast alike. Not unnaturally she was a goddess of plant life,
primarily that of the untilled lands, the trees of the forest, for
instance, being sacred to her; yet she must also have had an
interest in the plants of tillage, else the stories of her pique at
the harvest-home sacrifices of Oineus and Admetos have no
point.

As the goddess-physician, Artemis had broad functions, and
no hard and fast line can be drawn about the kinds of ailments
under her control. Malarial chills, leprosy, rabies, gout, epi-



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — ARTEMIS 185

lepsy, phthisis, and mental diseases are all mentioned as com-
ing within the range of her activities, and she even undertook
to heal snake bites. Her methods of treatment savour strangely
of magic, particularly of that branch known as homoeopathic,
a circumstance which may be counted as good proof of her
antiquity as a healer. The quail, partridge, guinea-fowl, goat,
swine, and the fabulous hippocamp were included in her materia
medica; and, among plants, the juniper, and the white and
the black hellebore, the healing property in all these being
Artemis herself, who, counteracting the power of Artemis
the cause of the disease, effected a cure by virtue of the
famous principle (here to be interpreted, of course, in a
magical sense) of similia similibus curantur ("like is cured by
like"). Bathing in certain lakes and streams near her shrines,
as in the Alpheios of Elis, was supposed to remove some dis-
eases, the process to be understood obviously being that of
magical ablution. It was apparently through her contact with
magic that she entered into connexion with Hekate.

One of the oldest powers of Artemis was that of expediting
the delivery of women in child-birth, and by a contradictory
manner of reasoning no longer strange to us, she was also
regarded as both bringing and healing puerperal fever. In
her exercise of these functions one can see why she was so
closely bound to Leto.

The icy chastity of Artemis has long been proverbial, yet
it is a fact that only in myth was she endowed with this trait,
for no traces of it are to be found in her public cults. The
myths which record her puritanical rejection of the almost
innocently unchaste Prokris, her inordinate punishment of the
peeping Aktaion, and her well-nigh Pharisaic patronage of the
precocious Hippolytos have the air of being comparatively
late attempts to cloak an originally unmoral character with
moral attributes — to make a virtue out of an accident; but
her chastity is inconsistent with her great interest in maternity
and with her impersonation by Atalante and others.



 



 



i86 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

Artemis had a number of miscellaneous attributes which
we can only mention here. On rare occasions she appears as a
water-goddess, being invoked, for instance, in the search for
springs, while as a protectress of travellers and emigrants
she seems to have absorbed some of the duties of Apollo.
In the story of Iphigeneia at Aulis she exercised control over
the conditions of the weather, and although she was not equated
with the moon until a comparatively late period, this identi-
fication has become one of her ineradicable marks in poetry.
The links binding her to the higher intellectual and social life
are slender, yet they exist.*

Artemis in Art. — One of the two oldest types of Artemis
delineates her with spreading wings and as holding a lion in her
hand, while the other shows her between two lions, both of
these forms exhibiting Asiatic influence. The fully developed
Artemis of art is a huntress, just emerging from maiden-
hood into womanhood, equipped with bow and quiver, and
followed by one or more dogs.

HEKATE

The greater prevalence of the cults of Hekate in the northern
districts of Greece, her resemblance to the goddess Bendis of
Thrace, and certain other features point convergently toward
some northern land as her first home. If she were actually of
Hellenic origin, her cult must have died out and after a long
period have been revived at the very threshold of the histor-
ical era. Her name may be a Greek equivalent of some title
borne by her in her native habitat; it appears to be connected
with €K(k ("far'*) and may be a short form of heart) fidxiai^
designating her as the "Far-Shooter" or as "the one who comes
from afar."

Hekate was grudged free entry into the domain of myth
and was denied an established pedigree — facts which cast
suspicion on her alleged Greek nativity. In Hesiod she was the



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — HEKATE 187

daughter of the Titan Perses and Asteria, and in Mousaios,
the daughter of Zeus and Asteria. A Thessalian myth speaks
of Admetos and a woman of Pherai as her parents, although
elsewhere her mother was said to be Night or Leto. Strangely,
no stock looks back to her as its divine foremother, and Homer
seems to have been ignorant of her, for otherwise her strong
connexion with the underworld would have necessitated a men-
tion of her in the description of the descent of Odysseus to
Hades. In one account of the war of the gods and giants,
however, Hekate kills the giant Klytios with burning brands.

In the Theogony of Hesiod Hekate is already a fully formed
and fully endowed divinity exercising control equally over
heaven, earth, and sea; but the very extravagance of the attri-
butions brands the passage as almost certainly an interpola-
tion, composed by a defender of her cult when it was yet new
in Boiotia. Her most conspicuous, and, perhaps, her original,
function was chthonic. Among the goddesses she stands in
substantially the same relation to sorcery and necromancy as
does Hermes among the gods, and in myth Medeia is one of
her priestesses.''

To modern readers Hekate is best known as the original
"Diana of the Crossways," and she was supposed to drive evil
influences away from crossways, doors, and gates. To retain
her favour, or to placate her anger and that of the hordes of
revenants which trooped after her, people used to make offer-
ings to her (conmionly known as "Hekate's suppers") at the
forks of roads, her special haunts, these being given at night
under a new moon, and consisting of foods prepared according
to a ritual bill of fare. .

Not until the middle of the fifth century B.C. was Hekate
established as the moon-goddess, an identity which she doubt-
less acquired and maintained through the insecure position of
Selene (the lunar divinity proper) in popular belief. This fea-
ture and her connexion with child-birth she held in common
with Artemis.



 



 



i88 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

The most widely disseminated type of Hekate in art is one
that goes back to the image made for her shrine at the entrance
to the Athenian Acropolis, over which she had surveillance.
This portrays her as having three bodies, all back to back,
one facing forward and the other two to the left and right
respectively. In the outer hands of the side figures are held a
pitcher and a deep sacrificial saucer, while each of the remain-
ing four hands grasps a torch. It was probably in this form,
capable of looking three ways at once, that she was popularly
conceived as the divine protectress of cross-roads.



 



 



 



 



PLATE XLIII
An Attic Hekataion

The central feature of this attractive group is the
tall plain column, a primitive symbol of Artemis-
Hekate. With their backs to this as at the three
points of an equilateral triangle stand three similar
figures, stiffly architectural in character, of Hekate
Phosphoros. Each is crowned with a lofty poUs and
holds two torches bolt upright at her sides. Around
this group, in marked contrast in style as well as in
stature, is a ring of three Charites, all alike, dancing
lightly and gracefully hand in hand. From a small
marble of the late fifth or early fourth century b.c.,
in the collection of Heinrich Graf Lemberg of Austria-
Hungary {JHAIxm, Plate IV).



 



 




 



 



 



 



CHAPTER IV

THE GREATER GODS — ARES

CT^E Origin and the Name of Ares. — So obscure is the origin
-^ of Ares that we are scarcely in a position even to entertain
a suspicion as to whether he came from within or from without
Hellas. Certainly his cult was most deeply rooted in Boiotia
and farther north, yet this cannot be taken as an indication of
origin, since we cannot prove that he had been established here
longer than elsewhere. His name has a Hellenic cast, but it
cannot be satisfactorily derived, although it appeals strongly
to the imagination to connect it with hpdy "a curse." By
that token war, the province of Ares, would be the curse par
excellence.

Ares in Homer. — Throughout Homer Ares is the only god
whose one thought and task it is to wage war, yet it is not
the strategic element for which he stands, but rather, as one
writer aptly puts it, the blind berserker-rage of battle. Beat-
ing wildly about him with his blade, he achieves but little glory
before Troy, although, unlike any other god, he does succeed
in slaying some mortals with his own hand. He is sorely
wounded by the hero Diomedes, and in his great pain bellows
like an army ten thousand strong, while Homer says that Otos
and Ephialtes, the stalwart sons of Aloeus, once bound him in
a bronze vessel for thirteen months,^ and in a conflict among
the gods he is overthrown by Athene. He is as fickle as he is
blustering, one moment favouring the Greeks and the next in-
stant lending aid to the Trojans. He is the son of Zeus and
Hera, and his father takes pains, perhaps facetiously, to let
it be known that his love of brawling is purely a maternal
inheritance. His brother is Eris ("Strife"), and Deimos



 



 



I90 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

("Panic") and Phobos ("Fear") are his steeds. Soldiers ^are
known as his servants and the bolder heroes as his sons;. and
by metonymy his name often stands for war or the spirit of
strife in arms. Homer records that he was detected in an in-
trigue with Aphrodite.

Ares outside of Homer. — Although Ares generally passed as
the son of Zeus and Hera, one account, apparently of ancient
origin, made him the unfathered offspring of Hera alone after
she had become impregnated by plucking a certain flower
(the parallel instance of the conception of Hebe will naturally
occur to us here). We have already seen how, in the Attic cycle
of myths. Ares became associated with Areopagos through
Alkippe, his daughter by Aglauros, and through the group of
his professionally belligerent daughters, the Amazons. All of
his children reflect his character in some way: Enyeus, the
king of Skyros, was his son by Ariadne; Lykourgos, who drove
the votaries of Dionysos into the sea, Kyknos the wrestler,
and the Bistonian Diomedes were other offspring; Harmonia,
the unhappy mother of a strife-rent family, was borne to him
by Aphrodite; and the Theban dragon slain by Kadmos was
also his issue. Prior to the great assault against the city of
Thebes, the Seven Generals of the Argive host took the oath
binding them to a united cause by dipping their hands in bull's
blood caught in the hollow of a shield as they pronounced the
names of Ares, Enyo, and Phobos. The ethical influence of
Ares was negative and therefore slight, and depended entirely
on the inference that his scant popularity must indicate general
disapproval of his works and character.

Ares in Art. — An ideal type of Ares in art was apparently
never definitely established. In the earlier period he is generally
shown on vases as a fully armed and bearded warrior; there
are several types in extant statuary bearing the influence of
the later period, the best known being the so-called Borghese
Ares of the Louvre, where he is a nude youth wearing a helmet
and gazing dreamingly before him.



 



 



CHAPTER V

THE GREATER GODS — HERMES

CTTIE Origin and the Name of Hermes. — Hermes was found
-^ in all Hellenic communities, but the part which he played
was relatively inferior. Only in two or three localities had his
cult any deep foundation in the history and thought of the
people, and in Arkadia alone was he accounted a divine an-
cestor. Although his name seems. to be Greek in eictemal
form, it has not yielded to investigators any radical connexion
with the Greek language, and, a fortiori, any meaning consistent
with the character of Hermes. Scholars are practically unani-
mous in their belief that the deity is not Hellenic, and most of
the theories which they venture to make point to the east, a
very recent theory,^ supported, as it is, by the tangible evi-
dence of the monuments, making it almost certain that Hermes
and his distinctive attribute, the caduceus, came to Hellas, ap-
parently by a circuitous path, from the Mesopotamian valley.

Hermes in Homer. — Homer alludes to Hermes as the son
of Maia, but fails to state the name of his father. The god is
already endowed with the individuality that marks him in
later centuries. He is the herald and messenger of the god's;
it is he who communicates to Kalypso the command of Zeus
to free Odysseus and who bears the sceptre from Zeus to Pelops;
and by him Priam is safely escorted to the encampment of the
Greeks. His conduct of the slain suitors to the halls of Hades
is the only instance in Homer of his function as the marshal
of departed souls. The converse of this aspect is seen in the
assistance which he gives to Herakles to return from the lower
to the upper world. As the patron of thieves he confers on



 



 



192 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

Autolykos, the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, the allied
gifts of thievery and falsehood, and he is, moreover, the special
divinity of servants and the giver of wealth.

Myths of the Birth and Boyhood of Hermes. — A summary of
the Homeric Hymn to Hermes will give us the best conspectus
of the later Greek ideas of Hermes. After dalliance with Zeus
"in love not quite legitimate,'* the nymph Maia bore Hermes
in a cavern on Mount Kyllene in Arkadia. Even for a god the
child was eictraordinarily precocious, for, during the morning
of the very day of his birth, he walked unaided out of the grotto,
inquisitive to see what the world was like. Immediately he
espied a tortoise, and, with divine intuition, perceiving in it
possibilities as yet undreamed of, he killed the creature, re-
moved its shell, and fitted it with a bridge and seven taut
strings of sheep-gut. Thus he created the lyre.

"When he had wrought the lovely instrument,
He tried the chords, and made diversion meet
Preluding with the plectrum, and there went
Up from beneath his hand a tumult sweet
Of mighty sounds, as from his lips he sent
A strain of unpremeditated wit
Joyous and wild and wanton — such you may
Hear among revellers on a holiday." *

Offline PrometheusTopic starter

  • BeautifullDisgrace
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2009
  • Posts: 1516
  • Country: nl
  • Location: Tholen
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Sign: Libra
Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #26 on: August 04, 2019, 10:46:18 PM »

At the end of his song a strange desire for fresh meat tickled
his infant palate, and descending quickly from Kyllene he
came to the lands where the cattle of Apollo were grazing.
Picking out fifty heifers, he cunningly reversed their hoofs,
and, himself walking backward, drove them away through the
night to the banks of the river Alpheios, where he invented the
art of making fire by rubbing two sticks of laurel-wood together,
after which he slew two of the heifers and offered a burnt sacri-
fice. At dawn he stealthily returned home, and wrapping
his swaddling-clothes about him lay down in his cradle like a
babe utterly innocent of all guile. Nevertheless, he could
not deceive Maia, who was as watchful as any human mother,
and at her words of rebuke he confessed his wrong-doing, but



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — HERMES 193

announced that it was only the first of a programme of acts
which he had planned to cany out in order to achieve a place
of distinction among the immortals. Soon afterward Apollo
appeared, having traced, though with difficulty, the reversed
footsteps to the cavern; but when he charged Hermes with the
theft of the cattle, the infant blandly denied it.

^'An ox-8tealer should be both tall and strong,

And I am but a little newborn thing,
Who, yet at least, can think of nothing wrong:

My business is to suck, and sleep, and fling
The cradle-clothes about me all day long,

Or, half asleep, hear my sweet mother sing.
And to be washed in water clean and warm.

And hushed and kissed and kept secure from harm." '

His denial availed him nothing, however, for Apollo haled him
away to the judgement-seat of Zeus on Olympos, where the king
of the gods patiently listened to their statements, and highly
amused at Hermes' transparent lies dismissed them both with
the advice "to compose the affair by arbitration.'* Departing
from Olympos, they came to the scene of Hermes' sacrifice.
The evidences of the slaughter of fiis beasts enraged Apollo,
but he was soon appeased by the unwonted strains of music
which Hermes drew from the lyre. Thereupon they compacted
an eternal friendship and sealed it with mutual gifts, Hermes
presenting the lyre to Apollo and Apollo in his turn bestowing
on Hermes the golden wand of wealth and a lash with which
to exercise dominion over the flocks and herds of the field.

"Hermes with Gods and men even from that day
Mingled, and wrought the latter much annoy.
And little profit, going far astray
Through the dun night." *

Hermes Argeiphontes. — When Hermes was bidden to re-
lease the tethered lo, he approached her guardian Argos, and,
after putting him to sleep with the music of the lyre, cut
out his many eyes with his curved sword, earning for himself
by this deed, it was popularly said, the title of Argeiphontes



 



 



PLATE XLIV

Hermes and the Infant Dionysos

This famous statue apparently refers to the Theban
legend which relates that Dionysos, just after his birth
from the thigh of Zeus and prior to his sojourn with
the nymphs of Mount Nysa, was put in the safe-
keeping of Hermes. Praxiteles has seized on this
brief period as the supreme moment in the career of
Hermes for revealing him as the ideal protector of
boys and youths. In looking upon this highly spirit-
ualized creation one forgets that this god was the
divine prince of knaves and liars. From the original
marble of Praxiteles (fourth century b.c), discovered
in the Heraion at Olympia (Brunn-Bruckmann, Deni-
maler griecbischer und romischer Sculptur^ No. 466).



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — HERMES 195

accorded a special protection to the itinerant trader and mer-
chant. As, however, these folk were not noted, to say the least,
for their straight dealing, it was not strange that their patron
should acquire a reputation akin to theirs, or that the craft
and cunning required for driving a profitable one-sided bargain,
combined with Hermes' gift of flitting swiftly and safely here
and there, should easily exalt him to the infamous position of
divine prince of thieves and cutpurses, while it is equally in-
telligible that the invention, as well as the abuse, of weights
and measures should have been assigned to him.

As a pastoral god Hermes became in Arkadian myth the
father of Pan, and his peculiar alliance with Aphrodite and
certain phallic features of his cult stamp him as the producer
of fertility in males. The source of his association with luck
may be traceable to his traditional success in the lists of love.
Many tales connect him with instrumental music, although his
role in this sphere is subordinate to that of Apollo. An account
of the invention of the lyre unlike the one already related repre-
sents him as changing Chelone into a tortoise-shell and then
into a lyre because she refused to come to the nuptials of
Zeus and Hera. Finally, Hermes was the patron god of the
palaestra and gymnasium and of all kinds of athletic contests,
and was, moreover, to the young men the model of physical
strength and agility, just as Apollo was their ideal of high in-
tellectual attainment.^

Hermes in Art. — The herm, or developed fetish-form of

Hermes, consists of a tall square column with stumps of arms

and a phallos, and is surmounted by a bearded head, but we

know next to nothing of the ideal Hermes of the fifth century,

though he was sometimes shown as a well-matured young

man with a short beard and clad in a chlamys. Not until the

time of Praxiteles do we see him as a youth, nude or scantily

garbed, shod with the winged sandals. The herald's staff is a

constant emblem, other attributes being the chlamys and the

travelling hat.
I— 17



 



 



CHAPTER VI

THE GREATER GODS — APHRODITE
AND EROS

APHRODITE

CT^HE Origin and the Name of Aphrodite. — It is almost im-
-^ possible to doubt that Aphrodite was a gift of the Semitic
world to the Hellenic, so that the opinion, now entertained by
a scant few, that the recent excavations in Crete show her to
have been initially a purely Aegean creation is unfounded,
since the discoveries prove no more than the great antiquity
of a divinity who strongly resembled her; they do not at all
remove the possibility of her having come at some incalculably
early period to the Aegean isles as an emigrant from the
Phoinikian coast. Many conceptions of Aphrodite bear marks
of her Oriental nativity, and we may point out a few of them
by way of example. Her main functions were the same as those
of the great Astarte, or Ishtar, and substantially the same ob-
jects in nature were sacred to them both, while each was repre-
sented in the heavens by the planet Venus, and Aphrodite's
epithet Ourania ("Heavenly") seems to be an echo of the East-
em Queen of the Heavens. Further, the allusions in art and
literature to Aphrodite's birth from a mussel-shell cannot
but remind one that Astarte was the patroness of the industry
which produced the famous purple. In her relations to the
sea and to mariners Aphrodite bears a striking resemblance to
the goddess of the Philistine city of Joppa, and her principal
cult-centres, Cyprus, Crete, and Kythera, had direct communi-
cation with the eastern coasts through their situation on the
main sea-highways. In Thebes alone of Greek cities, a place



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — APHRODITE 197

peculiarly connected with the East in legend, was she vener-
ated as ancestress. Unhappily, the name of Aphrodite tells us
nothing concerning her origin. The first half is surely con-
nected with the Greek o^/x^, "foam,'* but as to the meaning
of the second we must admit ignorance, although, in con-
formity with certain legends of her birth, the name was popu-
larly interpreted as "Foam-Born.**^

Aphrodite in Homer. — Homer accepts Aphrodite as the
daughter of Zeus and Dione (the earth goddess of Dodona),
and numbers her among the Olympians. She is the wedded
wife of Hephaistos, but is notoriously unfaithful to her vows.
In an amour with Ares she was caught flagrante delicto by her
husband, whose wits were not as halting as his feet; and by
another affaire du cceur^ with Anchises, she became the mother
of Aineias. She is the golden goddess who smiles bewitchingly
on both mortals and immortals, and her loveliness is the ideal
of all beauty. She is the supreme divinity of love and as such
is not suited for strife, yet she essays to take a small part in
the great war. Since it was she who had put it into the heart
of Helen to leave her husband and go with Paris to Troy,
she favours the arms of the Trojans for the sake of being con-
sistent, and snatches both Paris and Aineias from the sword-
point of the enemy, although in saving her son she is wounded
by the hand of Diomedes.

Birth and Family Relationships. — In Hesiod, Aphrodite is
said to have sprung into being from the contact of the severed
sexual parts of Ouranos with the sea and to have been after-
ward washed ashore on Cyprus, the evident purpose of this
myth being to account in one breath, as it were, for her simul-
taneous relation to the life of the sexes and to the sea. Even
after Homer she was considered as the wife of Hephaistos, and
pne old story alludes to Eros and Hermes as the issue of the
union, although Harmonia and Aineias were, at all periods of
myth, the most famous of her children. She had a close
affinity with the Horai ("Seasons," "Hours") and the Charites



 



 



198 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

("Graces").* Ariadne, Leukothea, Galateia, and even her
daughter Harmonia, as well as certain other women of myth,
are to be regarded as her doubles.

Aphrodite as the Goddess of Love. — While Demeter and Dio-
nysos were associated with the productive potencies of nature,
Aphrodite was concerned with, in fact was embodied in, the
reproductive powers. She was the divine personality who
brought together in procreating love not only human beings
but the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and, more-
over, was responsible for the appearance of fresh growths and
new generations of plants.*

In the Plant World. — It is in the story of Adonis, which the
Greeks borrowed from the East (the name Adonis being only
a Greek adaptation of the Semitic form of address adhonl
"lord'Oj that Aphrodite most clearly appears as the force
which promotes vegetation. A certain Assyrian king, the tale
runs, had a daughter named Smyrna (or Myrrha), whom, be-
cause of her continued disdain for Aphrodite, the goddess in
anger drove to commit a dreadful sin upon her father. When
he learned of her wickedness, he drew a sword and pursued
her, and would have thrust her through had not the gods
changed her into a myrrh-tree, whose bark burst open nine
months later, revealing the infant Adonis. Aphrodite hid him
in a chest and entrusted him to Persephone, but when the latter
had beheld his beauty, she refused to surrender him, whereupon
the two goddesses laid their dispute before Zeus, who decreed
that Persephone was to possess the youth for one third of the
year and Aphrodite a second third; during the remaining four
months Adonis was to be free to do as he would, but as soon
as he heard of the verdict, he gave this period of freedom
to Aphrodite and became her favourite. While yet in the flower
of youth he was slain in the chase by a wild boar, and when
Aphrodite grieved beyond consoling, from his blood grew
the blossom of the red anemone. This graphic portrayal of
the cycle of conditions through which vegetation passes in the



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — APHRODITE 199

course of a year was the theme of certain dramatic acts in
the worship of Aphrodite.

Among Men. — Aphrodite would brook no disobedience to
her commands to love. We have just seen how she punished
Smyrna, and it was through spuming her that Hippolytos
was sent to his death. So imperiously did she sway Medeia,
Hippodameia, and Ariadne that they abandoned or betrayed
their parents to cleave to their lovers, and with alluring prom-
ises she bribed the allegiance of the hesitating Paris, paying the
bribe with Helen and her gold, while even the frigid heart of
Atalante was melted to love at the glitter of Aphrodite's golden
apples. The stories of others who yielded to her spell must
now engage our attention.

The author of the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite relates how
the goddess was taken with a great desire for the mortal An-
chises of Troy. Entering her temple-home in Cyprian Paphos,
she donned a robe more glittering than the flame of fire and,
bedecking herself with her loveliest jewels, she set out for
Mount Ida, the very sight of her subduing to love the hearts
of even the fiercest beasts of the wild as she made her way
up the green slopes. She found Anchises alone in the sheep-
folds and through the eloquence of her beauty quickly won his
affection, Aineias being the offspring of their union. For many
years Anchises observed the injunction of Aphrodite to tell
no man of their son's divine descent, but one day, in his cups,
he made the secret known to his companions and was stricken
dead by a bolt of Zeus. Certain others say that he slew himself
with his own hand, while Vergil, as we shall see, has still an-
other tale to tell. Beside this story of Aineias it is interesting
to place one of Aphrodite's cult-titles, viz., Aineias, a term
whose meaning is lost to us. It may perhaps be an allusion
to the hero, and, further, the original Aineias may have been
a priest of Aphrodite whose long and tiresome journeying from
land to land as he spread the cult of his goddess finally became
crystallized into a great myth.



 



 



200 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

The legend of Pygmalion and Galateia belongs to the cycle
of Aphrodite. Pygmalion, a sculptor of Cyprus, failing to
see any good in women, vowed himself to lifelong celibacy.
Yet, like most misogynists, he still cherished in his heart a
high ideal of womanhood, and to embody this in physical form
he fashioned a beautiful statue of ivory which fell short of
perfection only in its lack of spiritual traits. By constant gazing
on the work of his heart and hands he at last fell in love with
it and would fain believe it was actually of flesh and blood, and
when the festival of Aphrodite came around, offering the cus-
tomary sacrifices to the goddess and standing by her altar, he
raised a prayer: —

^^O Aphrodite, kind and fair.

That what thou wilt canst give,
Oh, listen to a sculptor's prayer,

And bid my image live!
For mc the ivory and gold

That clothe her cedar frame
Are beautiful, indeed, but cold;

Oh, touch them with thy flame!*'*

At these words Aphrodite made the flame of the incense shoot
aloft in three tongues — an omen of her good will, and when,
after the sacrifice, Pygmalion returned to his house, he found
his image endowed with the endearing charms of a living
woman. She was given the name of Galateia, and with the
favour of Aphrodite was wedded to the man whose loving heart
had conceived her, their marriage being afterward blessed
with a son Paphos, after whom the famous city of Cyprus was
named.

This cycle also includes the story of Phaon, who used to
ferry travellers back and forth between the islands of Lesbos
and Chios. One day Aphrodite, in the guise of an old woman,
entreated of him to give her in her poverty a free passage, and
so ungrudgingly did he comply with the request that she
bestowed a magic philtre upon him. Anointing himself with
this, he became a beautiful youth who wakened love in the



 



 



 



 



PLATE XLV

Eros

^^He is springing forward, lightly poised on the
toes of his right foot. The left arm is extended for-
ward and holds the socket of a torch; the right is
lowered and held obliquely from the body with fingers
extended. He is nude and winged, the feathers of
the wings being indicated on the front side by incised
lines. His hair is curly and short, except for one
tuft which is gathered about the centre of the head
and braided.

^^This famous statue is one of the finest repre-
sentations of Eros known. The artist has admirably
succeeded in conveying the lightness and grace asso-
ciated in our minds with the conception of Eros.
Everything in the figure suggests rapid forward
motion; but this is attained without sacrificing the
perfect balance of all parts, so that the impression
made is at the same time one of buoyancy and of
restraint. The childlike character of the figure is
brought out in the lithe, rounded limbs and the smil-
ing, happy face" (Miss G. M. A. Richter, Greeks
Etruscan and Roman Bronzes in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art^ pp. 85-86). From a Hellenistic
bronze in the Metropolitan Museum of An, New
York {photograph). See pp. 203-04.



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — APHRODITE 201

hearts of all the women of Lesbos, and to him, legend says,
Sappho addressed some of her tenderest and most beautiful
songs.

The Eastern tale of Pyramos and Thisbe, borrowed by the
Greeks, also reveals the old belief in the invincible power of
Aphrodite. Pyramos was the most handsome youth in the
kingdom of Semiramis, and Thisbe the most beautiful maiden,
and their families lived in houses separated only by a party-
wall. Aphrodite put a mutual love in their hearts, but their
parents forbade their marriage, and, what is more, even tried
to prevent them from conversing with one another. Their
passion, however, would brook no obstacle, and, discovering a
crack in the wall between the two houses, unknown to their
parents they spoke sweet messages through it, until at length,
filled with resolve to wed at all costs, they arranged that they
should each slip out of their homes and meet that evening at
a certain trysting-place. Thisbe came first, but while she was
awaiting her lover, a great lioness, her jaws dripping with
fresh blood, suddenly approached to drink from a neighbour-
ing spring. In fear Thisbe turned and fled, dropping her veil,
which the lioness tore and left smeared with blood. Reaching
the spot a few minutes later, Pyramos recognized the blood-
stained veil as Thisbe's and, thinking that it was a token of
her death, he drew his sword and pierced himself through
the heart, while the blood from his wound sank into the ground
and passing upward to the white berries of a near-by mulberry-
tree turned them to a deep red. As Pyramos writhed on the
ground in the throes of death, Thisbe returned, the sight of
her veil and her lover^s empty scabbard at once telling the
reason of the dreadful deed. Drawing the sword from his heart,
she plunged it into her own and passed away at his side; and
ever since the fruit of the mulberry has been of the hue of blood.

The story of the love of Hero and Leandros (Leander)
belongb to a late period when the making of myths was a more
conscious and arbitrary process than formerly and was less



 



 



Offline PrometheusTopic starter

  • BeautifullDisgrace
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2009
  • Posts: 1516
  • Country: nl
  • Location: Tholen
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Sign: Libra
Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #27 on: August 04, 2019, 10:46:51 PM »


202 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

closely connected with religious thought; yet it deserves con-
sideration here by reason of its implied association with
Aphrodite and its fame in literature. In Sestos, on the Helles-
pont, lived a beautiful maiden called Hero, who used to tend
the sacred birds in Aphrodite's shrine; and in Abydos, on the
opposite shore of the strait, dwelt a handsome youth named
Leandros. When the time came for celebrating the festival
of the goddess of love, Leandros crossed to Sestos to take part
in it. In the midst of the rites it chanced that he and Hero
came face to face, and at the first glance each became enam-
oured of the other; but the modest maiden would allow no
more than words to pass between them, for she had vowed to
go through life unwedded. Love, however, is always stronger
than discretion, and Hero's resolution at last weakened so
far that she allowed her lover to meet her regularly at an ap-
pointed place. By night she would stand on an eminence and
hold a torch aloft to guide Leandros as he swam across the
Hellespont. But one evening a tempest arose, and though
the youth plunged into the water as usual, undaunted by the
high seas, his strength gave out before he could reach the
other side and he was drowned. His body was flung by the
waves upon the shore before the eyes of Hero, who in the frenzy
of her sorrow threw herself upon his lifeless frame and died of
a broken heart.

Two of the cult-epithets of Aphrodite in Athens were Ourania
and Pandemos, the first apparently marking a transplantation
of the worship of the Semitic Queen of the Heavens, while the
second was probably a manner of recording the worship of
Aphrodite by the united townships of Attike, although as
early as Solon it was understood to designate the goddess as
the one who presided over popular love.^

Aphrodite in Art. — Through three or four centuries the
Greeks were slowly evolving an ideal type of Aphrodite.
In archaic art she appears fully clothed, generally with a veil
and head-cloth, and with one hand either outstretched or



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — EROS 203

pressed on her bosom and holding some attribute — the apple,
pomegranate, flower, or dove — while the other hand either
falls at her side or grasps a fold of her garment. Up to the
middle of the fourth century the full clothing of her figure pre-
dominates, although even as soon as the later half of the fiftl\
century parts of her body were bared. At this period she is
depicted as without passion, though capable of it; but it was
only in the hands of the Hellenistic sculptors that she lost her
dignity of pure womanhood and became sensuous and con-
scious of her charms.

EROS

Eros, the frequent companion of Aphrodite, and known to
the Romans as Cupido (Cupid), does not appear at all in
Homer. This, however, is not to be taken as an indication that
he was a later creation, for his prominence in the theogonic
literature, notably that of Hesiod, points to his existence in
the old daemonic stratum of religious thought. His parentage is
variously given: he is the issue of Chaos, or is hatched from the
egg of Night; he is the son, now of Ouranos and Gaia, now of
Hermes and Artemis, now of Iris and Zephyros; again, he was
begotten by Kronos, or bom of Aphrodite. As far back as
Hesiod he was the intimate associate of the goddess of love,
and he is said to have been the lover of the ocean-nymph
Rhodope.

Both in worship and in the popular mind Eros, whose oppo-
site was Anteros, was the god of sexual love, and in several
places his nature became coarsened through the influence of
the cult of Priapos. He was attributed, especially in the later
period, with the power of firing men with the passion of love
by means of his sharp shafts and stinging tongues of flame,
but his personality remained practically unchanged for many
centuries, except in the field of philosophy, where he was held
to be the cosmic force of attraction. Although Apuleius^s story
of Cupid and Psyche was based on a developed form of an



 



 



204 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

old Greek folk-tale possessing a religious significance, its ex-
cessive literary elaboration excludes it from our pages.

Eros is generally shown by the artists as a winged boy bear-
ing bow and quiver; and among his conmionest attributes
are the dolphin, the swan, the lyre, and the mussel-shell.



 



 



CHAPTER VII

THE GREATER GODS — HEPH AISTOS
AND HESTIA

HEPHAISTOS

cr*HE Origin and the Name of Hephaistos. — Whatever may
-^ have been the precise initial conception of Hephaistos, he
was certainly held by the Greeks at the period of which we have
clear records to be the god of fire, and as such we purpose to
classify him here, his connexion with the manual arts being
apparently derived from the many uses which they made of
fire. Whether he was Hellenic or not in origin, we cannot ven-
ture to say, but the most plausible explanation of his name
tentatively links it with the bases fo^ and ai0y which would
yield the meaning "quivering flame."

Hephaistos in Homer. — Homer knows Hephaistos only as
the son of Zeus and Hera, and iti the epics he is unequivocally
the god of fire, and at times, by a figure of speech, is fire itself,
while partly as an instrument in the hands of Achilles and
partly as a free agent he consumes the waters of the raging
Skamandros. In one passage he is married to one of the
Graces, but in another he is the husband of the amorous
Aphrodite, who openly manifests her preference for the more
human Ares. Two of his characteristics stand out above all
the others — his physical appearance and his trade. He is
everywhere the lame god, and his limp is a constant source of
laughter among his fellows on Olympos. Homer is aware of
two accounts concerning the cause of this disability, one of
which he puts into the mouth of Hephaistos himself. "Once,"
he says wamingly to Hera, "he [i. e. Zeus] caught me by the



 



 



2o6 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

foot and hurled me from the heavenly threshold; all day I
flew, and at the set of sun I fell in Lemnos, and little life was in
me. There did the Sintian folk tend me for my fall/* ^ The
other version is that which will be given under the next heading.
Hephaistos has the distinction of being the only craftsman on
Olympos, and the works of his hands are many and wonderful.
The greatest of these was, perhaps, the aegis of Zeus, although
he also built the houses of the gods and wrought in his forges
the sceptre of Agamemnon, the armour of Diomedes and of
Achilles, and the golden tripods, which, unguided and unsup-
ported, could enter and depart from the hall of Zeus. Through
a combination of disposition and disability he takes but little
part in the strife of the Greek and the Trojan.

The Character and Functions of Hephaistos. — Mythology
makes a much larger contribution to our mosaic portrait of
Hephaistos than does cult, for the bold outlines of his physical
appearance and the concrete nature of his activities made him
a ready theme for the myth-maker and myth-monger, although
these same characteristics debarred him from those phases of
worship which demanded some measure of abstract thought,
so that he was, in fact, the least abstract and the most con-
crete of all the gods.

In a myth which seems to belong to a very old stratum
Hephaistos had no blood-relationship at all to Zeus; instead,
like Typhon, he was merely the son of the unpaired Hera, but
after she had borne him, she observed that he was a weakling
and cast him down from Olympos, the fall making him lame
ever after. Below he took refuge with Thetis and Eurynome
in their sea-home and spent his time in training his hand in
the cunning of the crafts. Harbouring a grudge against his
mother for her cruelty, he fashioned and sent to her a golden
chair fitted with invisible snares, so that when she sat in it she
was held so fast that not even the strength of the gods could
release her. Ares went to Hephaistos to beg him to come and
loosen the snares, but Hephaistos drove him back home with



 



 



ash
h

ira

Till

i
p

of

f

J

1



 



 



PLATE XLVI

The Return of Hefhaistos to Olympos

Hephaistos, crowned with the festive ivy and hold-
ing a pair of smithes tongs, rides unsteadily on a
spirited mule. In front of him walks Dionysos
carrying his special emblems, the thyrsos and the kan-
tharos. The short and merry procession is led by a
Satyr with a horse's tail and pointed ears, who as he
goes along seems to be dancing to the accompaniment
of his own lyre. From a red-figured krater of about
440 B.C., in Munich (Furtwangler-Reichhold, Griech-
ische Vasinmalereiy No. 7). See pp. 206-07.



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — HEPHAISTOS 207

fire-brands, although after a time Dionysos put Hephaistos
under the spell of wine, and bringing him to Olympos had
him free his mother, frorii whom, in the end, he received full
forgiveness. His lameness (humorously contrary to the modern
theories of heredity) was inherited by his sons Periphetes and
Talos, and is observable in his doubles, Typhon and Anchises.
Some students see the origin of the lameness in the unsteady
movements of flame, although it has recently been suggested
that a brotherhood of warriors who needed a smith-god as
patron accepted Hephaistos in this capacity and made him
lame to prevent him from running away.*

To such an extent was Hephaistos the chief god of fire that
when the hearth-fire crackled, men said, "Hephaistos laughs,*^
just as they said of a shower, "Zeus rains." He was concerned
principally with terrestrial fire, the lightning being outside his
province and the conception of him as the god of the sun's
heat, who rides on a glowing car by day and falls to earth at
evening, was by no means general. He manifested his power
in volcanoes, burning gases, and hot springs. In his relation to
artificial fire he is associated with Prometheus, and the torch-race
at Athens was dedicated to these two gods in conjunction with
Athene. His chief volcanic centre was the island of Lemnos.

In his almost primeval role as worker in metal Hephaistos,
along with Athene, was the instructor of the Kyklopes in their
trade. He himself was the maker of the golden maidens en-
dowed with life and human faculties, the brazen giant Talos,
Europe's brazen dog, the brazen-footed bulls with which lason
ploughed, and the gold and silver dogs that guarded the house
of Alkinoos, while of inanimate objects he wrought the arms
of Memnon, the sickle of Demeter, the arrows of Apollo and
Artemis, the curved sword of Perseus, the cup of Helios, and
many other things. It may be that Hephaistos was very early
identified with the demon of magical powers supposed by most
primitive peoples to reside in metals both before and after
forging.



 



 



2o8 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

Apparently from the idea made current by certain physical
philosophers that fire was the substance out of which life was
produced, Hephaistos came to be conceived as the creator of
men. Pandora, we remember, was moulded by his hand out of
clay, and a hint of this function may also be read in the ac-
count of his strange fathering of Erichthonios in union with
Athene. Invocations supported by magical rites were often
addressed to him to bring fertility to barren women,

Hephaistos in Art. — The artists consistently represented
Hephaistos as a smith holding a hanmier. Many statues of
the sixth century grossly caricatured his lameness, but others
merely hinted at it or almost entirely suppressed it. In the
late period he became a rare theme of art, and where he was
represented at all it was as the serious artisan.

HESTIA

The Origin and the Name of Hestia. — Hestia undoubtedly
belonged to an old stratum of Greek life, and unlike most of
the other gods she was herself the object for which her name
stood — the hearth — for that she was not the fire, nor the
spirit of the fire burning on the hearth, is clear from the lack
of daemonic characteristics in her person. As the hearth itself
she was originally a product of the preanimistic stage of
thought, and from this stage she never advanced far, a circum-
stance which was due to her static nature. The other gods could
exercise their activities over broad ranges of territory and
peoples, but her virtue would have vanished with movement,
and, like home-keeping youths, she had homely wits. Her im-
portance rested on the imperative need of fire in the primitive
home and in the immense difficulty of procuring it in event of
sudden demand.

The Genealogy and Functions of Hestia. — The earliest state-
ment of Hestia^s parentage is to be found in Hesiod, where she
is the eldest daughter of Kronos and Rhea, although not a word



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — HESTIA 209

is said of her duties as a goddess. In a Homeric Hymn * ad-
dressed to her we find merely the remark that she dwells in
Apollo's sacred house at Delphoi, and it is to the Homeric
Hymn to Aphrodite^ that we must look for the fullest delinea-
tion. There her inviolate purity is enhanced by contrast with
the easy abandon of the goddess of love, for the works of
Aphrodite, says the hymn in substance, are displeasing to
Hestia, the modest daughter of Kronos whom both Poseidon
and Apollo wooed in vain. With a mighty oath sworn on the
head of Zeus she declared that she would remain a virgin all
her days, wherefore her father granted her a gift instead of
marriage, and she took her place in the midst of the dwelling
and was accorded high honour in the temples of the gods, and
from mortals received the greatest homage. Pindar sings of
her as the divine guardian of the integrity of the state.

These few myths are transparent views of the functions of
Hestia, who was the divine symbol of the purity of the home.
As the hearth-fire burned unceasingly, so was she the protect-
ress of the continuity of the family life; but while Hera stood
for the government of the household, Hestia typified rather
the intimate daily relations of its members. Oaths sworn upon
the hearth and suppliants beside the hearth were sacred to her,
and all liturgical acts in both public and private life were pref-
aced by a special recognition of her, while there are some rea-
sons for thinking that they were also thus closed. Nevertheless,
despite her formal importance, Hestia never showed a strong
directing hand in the moulding of the social organization.

In art Hestia appears as a sedate matron without distin-
guishing attributes, the flowers and fruit with which she was
sometimes shown having apparently been added solely as
ornaments.



 



 



CHAPTER VIII

THE GREATER GODS — POSEIDON
AND AMPHITRITE

POSEIDON

cr^HE Origin and the Name of Poseidon. — If we consult only
^ the geographical register of the distribution of Poseidon's
cult, we shall incline to classify him as a god of northern
origin introduced into Hellas by immigrating Greeks. If, on
the contrary, we have regard principally for his chief cult-
centres, such as Corinth and Boiotia, and accept a recent dem-
onstration that his inseparable emblem, the trident, was in
origin the lightningbolt of a Mesopotamian divinity, we cannot
well help believing that he, too, came from the east,^ in which
event his cult would first have reached Crete and thence have
been spread by sailors to Hellenic ports on the Aegean and
Mediterranean. Whatever his initial functions may have been,
he became among the Greeks the supreme master of the sea;
and to explain his name as connected with wdo-w ("lord'*)
and "Iravo^ or "Irai/o?, a name of Crete, makes the suggestion
as to his Eastern origin very plausible.

Poseidon in Homer. — Homer knows Poseidon as the son
of Kronos and Rhea. When the new kingdom was divided,
the dominion of the sea was put into his hands, while earth
and Olympos were set aside as common territory for all the
gods. His home is understood to be in the sea somewhere
near Aigai. In the war at Ilion he displays no great partisan-
ship, although his sympathies incline toward the cause of the
Greeks, yet he saves Aineias from Achilles because the hour of



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — POSEIDON 211

the formers doom has not yet struck. He was the father of
Polyphemos, for whose death he viciously harassed Odysseus
by raising storm-winds and billows in his ship's path; and be-
cause the lesser Aias boasted of his power to escape the perils
of the sea, he brought him to a watery grave. He is the an-
cestor of Alkinoos, king of the Phaiakians, and turns one of
his ships to stone in midsea. He is the mighty supporter of the
earth, which he causes to quake by rocking the waters which
bear it up; and the trident, apparently by this time conceived
as a fish-spear, is uniformly the emblem of his power. In ap-
pearance he is grim, and his head is covered with heavy locks
of sea-green hair; in disposition he is moody and imperious,
and resents those commands of his elder brother, Zeus, which
seem to encroach on his sphere of authority. The horse and
horsemanship come under his special patronage.

Tfu Family Relationships of Poseidon. — Poseidon is every-
where accorded the honour of being the son of Kronos, and he
fought with Zeus against his kinsfolk, the Titans, wielding the
trident which the Kyklopes had forged for him. His wedded
wife was Amphitrite, but he had scant regard for the moral
obligations of marriage, for his intrigues with women both
divine and mortal almost defy counting, among them being
those with Tyro, Amymone, Chione, and Libye. His offspring
were still more numerous, and practically all of them were
in some way associated with the sea, Aiolos, Nereus, Pelias,
Glaukos of Potniai, Sinis, Bousiris, Antaios, Boiotos, Poly-
phemos, and, if we may credit one account, Theseus, all being
his sons by many mothers. Not a few of his offspring were
of a monstrous nature, for instance, the terrible creatures
which he raised up from the sea to harass Aithiopia and
Troy, the dragon of Thebes, the ram of the Golden Fleece,
the bull of Marathon, and the bull which maddened the
horses of Hippolytos.

The Functions of Poseidon. — In myth and cult alike Posei-
don was pre-eminently the god of the sea, though all significant
I— 18



 



 



Offline PrometheusTopic starter

  • BeautifullDisgrace
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2009
  • Posts: 1516
  • Country: nl
  • Location: Tholen
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Sign: Libra
Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #28 on: August 04, 2019, 10:47:32 PM »


212 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

bodies of fresh water also came under his sway. The greater
number of his epithets record his sundry relations with the sea
and with things pertaining to the sea; nor, indeed, can it be
doubted that whenever he was invoked in worship by the
average Greek, his association with the sea was present before
the mind, no matter how many other aspects he bore. Inland
lakes or springs of brackish water were held to be of his creat-
ing; for instance, the so-called Sea on the Acropolis of Athens;
and he was the chief deity of sea-faring communities like lol-
kos, Troizen, and Corinth, While he gave no specific encour-
agement to the building of ships and to the technicalities of
navigation, he was looked up to as the most reliable protector
of ships and sailors amid the perils of voyage. No wonder
that his shrines were very frequently located in harbours — he
could calm or trouble the sea as he would.* A certain myth
represents the award of the Isthmus of Corinth to Poseidon by
Briareos as the source of his patronage of that region, and it
was here that lason so suitably dedicated to Poseidon the ship
of ships, the Argo. Finally, the doubles of Poseidon reflect his
marine character; Aigeus, Theseus, Peleus, and Achilles all
stand in some distinctive relation to the sea.

Inasmuch as the sea appeared to hold up the land, it was
natural to attribute the otherwise inexplicable phenomena
emanating from the depths of the earth to the activities of the
powerful god of the ocean. It was he who caused the great up-
heaval which in some remote geological age drained the plains
of Thessaly through the Vale of Tempe and left the face of
nature scarred and wrinkled; and some of the Greeks even went
so far as to say that the shocks of earthquakes were due to
Demeter's resistance to the embraces of Poseidon, just as a
turbulent sea was attributed to a similar brawl between Thetis
and Peleus, a duplicate of Poseidon. The roaring and rum-
blings of earthquake and billow were explained as proceeding
from prodigious raging bulls or horses living in the deep hol-
lows of earth and sea, these creatures being understood now



 



 



 



 



PLATE XLVII

POSEIDOH

Tilts coiicq)Cioii of Potddon is infiniteljr nobler
chao that af^iearing on p. 6, akbough the two por-
traits endow him with the same attributes. Here the
god seems to have just emerged from his home beneath
the waves, and now, standing as on an eminence and
surveying his vast domains, is about to cry out to the
elements to obey his will. From a late Hellenistic
marble (second or first century B.C.), found in Melos
and now in Athens (Brunn-Bruckmann, DtnkmmUr
griecbUcber und romiscber Sadptur^ No. 550).



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — POSEIDON 213

as animate emblems of Poseidon, now as identical with the god
himself.'

By striking his trident on a Thessalian rock, Poseidon is
said to have produced the first horse, and he it was who gave
to Pelops the chariot that could fly over land and sea drawn by
the immortal horses Balios and Xanthos. Moreover, he him-
self drove swiftly over the waves in his own chariot, nor do we
need to be reminded that he was the father of the winged
Pegasos and of Areion, the horse of Adrastos. The sacrifice
of a horse in connexion with his cult distinguished his ritual
from that of the other divinities, and at Corinth he even
went by the title Hippios ("Equestrian"). That the horse-god
should become the deity of horse-racing, and finally of the
breeding and breaking of horses, involves a very easy process
of thought.

The god who operated in the unseen depths of the earth
was very naturally held to be the giver of springs and spring-
fed streams and lakes, the famous fount of Hippoukrene being
created with a stroke of the hoof of Poseidon's Pegasos. The
springs of Leme were revealed by Poseidon to Amymone, and
prior to the arrival of the family of Danaos in Argolis he had
withheld water from the fountains and rivers so that the land
had become parched and barren. So far, then, as water from
these sources promotes the growth of plant life, Poseidon is
rightly to be designated a god of fertility.

Poseidon uniformly appears in myth as a god of little in-
tellectual and still less ethical character.

Poseidon in Art. — Art received its model of Poseidon from
Homer. From the best period onward he appears as a well-
matured man not unlike the type of Zeus, but distinguishable
from it by his heavier musculature and his less lordly manner.
Ordinarily he is nude or lightly clad, either standing on a dol-
phin or a rock, or in the act of taking a step forward, and his
frame stoops slightly, as if peering into the distance. He is
shown bearded and with the hair of the head variously long or



 



 



214 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

short and very often dishevelled. He generally holds a trident
in his hand, but if this and the dolphin are absent, identification
is often difficult.

AMPHITRITE

Amphitrite does not strictly belong to the circle of the great
gods, but owing to her formal association with Poseidon she
may not improperly be brought to our attention here. As
the wife of Poseidon she received many of the honours accorded
as a matter of course to the superior divinities. In myth she
was the Queen of the Sea, and in reality she seems to have been
the sea itself in its aspect as the vast flood of waters which
envelops the earth. As to the meaning of her name, we can
merely divine, rather than prove, that it refers to this feature
of her nature. In the Iliad she is scarcely more than an alle-
gorical figure, while in the Odyssey she has become invested
with at least the pattern of a personality, being here regarded
as the divine being who sends the monsters of the sea and
drives waves against the rocks.

Amphitrite was either one of the many daughters of Okeanos
or the daughter of Nereus and Doris. Poseidon first saw her,
runs the myth, in the company of her sister-nymphs in Naxos.
Of all those fair ones she was the fairest, and powerless to
resist her charms he seized her and bore her away to be his
wife. In the sea she sat upon a throne at Poseidon's side and
with Thetis led the chorus of sea-nymphs in their dances. In
art she is depicted as a Nereid of queenly mien with moist,
flowing hair bound in a net.



 



 



CHAPTER IX

THE GREATER GODS — DIONYSOS

nTHE Origin and the Name of Dionysos. — We need only
-^ direct evidence to demonstrate visually that the home of
Dionysos was outside of Hellas, for the circumstantial evidence
favours that contention as strongly as arguments of this kind
can support one side or another of a problem of religious ori-
gins. The orgiastic character of the rites of Dionysos was as-
suredly un-Greek, and the early legends which depict hostility
to him in various parts of Hellas must embody the historical
fact — if they contain any history at all — that certain com-
munities resisted the introduction of his worship. Perseus
fought against Dionysos; the daughters of Proitos were driven
mad for their contempt of his rites, although it was these very
ceremonies by which they were finally healed; the daughters
of Minyas were likewise afflicted with madness for the same
sin; and Pentheus of Thebes was killed for his resistance.
Lykourgos, the king of the Edonians, also paid dearly for his
foolish attack on the god. Homer ^ puts the story into the
mouth of Diomedes: — "Dryas' son, mighty Lykourgos, was
not for long when he strove with heavenly gods, he that erst
chased through the goodly land of Nysa the nursing-mothers
of the frenzied Dionysos; and they all cast their wands upon
the ground, smitten with murderous Lykourgos' ox-goad.
Then Dionysos fled and plunged beneath the salt-sea wave,
and Thetis took him to her bosom, aflFrighted, for a mighty
trembling had seized him at his foes' rebuke. But with Ly-
kourgos the gods that live at ease were wroth, and Kronos'



 



 



2i6 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

son made him blind, and he was not for long, because he was
hated of the immortal gods."

Yet the evidence does more than point away from Hellas;
it indicates Thrace with some degree of definiteness. Many-
Greeks of the historical period were firmly convinced of Dio-
nysos's Thracian origin, and, moreover, what little we know
of the old Thracian religion shows that it had characteristics
very similar to those of the cult of Dionysos, while, further,
the scene of action and the mad votaries of Dionysos in the
Lykourgos-myth are Thracian.

The route of Dionysos's approach to Greece presents more
difficulties than the question of his nativity. Few believe that
he came directly from Thrace, at least at first, although one
must admit the possibility of a late current of his cult sweep-
ing into Greece through a straight channel. The prevailing
opinion is that Dionysos was first carried by Thracian inmii-
grants to Phrygia, where his nature as a god of fertility bound
him intimately with the earth goddess of the region, who seems
to have been known as Zemelo, a name strikingly similar to
that of Semele, the mother of Dionysos in Theban legend.
From Phrygia the god made his way to Crete, and thence to
those parts of Greece which were in close marine contact
with Crete, notably Argos and the Boiotian coast. The myths
of these places involving Dionysos show that here were sit-
uated his oldest establishments in Greece. He seems to have
reached Athens under the kings by way of the Marathonian
tetrapolis, and his advent is celebrated in a legend which
probably goes back to the eighth century, the period of the
Boioto-Euboian influence. This alleges that Dionysos came to
Ikarios, who dwelt on the northern borders of Attike, giving
him a shoot of the vine and instructing him in its culture.
Washing to bestow a boon upon men, Ikarios gave some un-
mixed wine to a band of shepherds, but they, having par-
taken of it too freely, became drunk, and believing that they
had been poisoned set upon Ikarios and killed him. Later,



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — DIONYSOS 217

coming to their senses, they buried his body, but Erigone,
his daughter, with the aid of her dog, found his grave and
hanged herself on a tree which overhung it. As a penalty
for the death of Ikarios Dionysos sent upon the people an
epidemic which was appeased only when they had publicly
oflFered him the phallic emblem; and to make amends for the
death of Erigone the Attic maidens began hanging themselves,
the baneful practice being carried to such an extent that for
it was substituted a festival in which the young giris swung
from trees. This last feature of the story probably arose when
the original purpose of this ritual swinging, the excitement
of sexual passion, had been forgotten. Another cult-practice*
seems to embody as an historical fact a second and later in-
troduction of Dionysos into Attike by way of the town of
Eleutherai.

The word "Dionysos" is divisible into two parts, the first
originally Ai09- (cf. Zw), while the second is of unknown
signification, although perhaps connected with the name of
the Mount Nysa which figures in the story of Lykourgos.

Dionysos in Homer. — Dionysos plays a very subordinate
role in Homer, for he is not yet exalted to the circle of the
Olympians. The poet regards him as the son of 2feus and
Semole and is acquainted with the tale of his persecution by
Lykourgos, besides making him the witness of Theseus's de-
parture from Crete with Ariadne, and recording that it was
he who gave to Thetis the golden jar, the handiwork of He-
phaistos, in which she placed the ashes of Achilles.

The Birth of Dionysos. — After the birth of Dionysos, of
which we have read in an earlier passage, shoots of twining
ivy sprang from the ground to give a protecting shade to the
infant god, and remained to deck the shrine of his mother
Semele, which was afterward erected on the spot where she
died, its roof being supported by pillars which fell from heaven
with the bolts of lightning by which she was slain. When
Dionysos had been reborn from the thigh of Zeus, Hermes en-



 



 



2i8 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

trusted him to the nymphs of Mount Nysa, who fed him on
the food of the gods and made him immortal.

The Functions and the Cult of Dionysos. — The ecstatic or-
gies of the Dionysiac rituals and the prominence of the vine in
myths relating to Dionysos are altogether responsible for the
very common notion that he was primarily the god of wine,
although, on the contrary, he was in reality the deity who
embodied in his single being the sum total of all those unseen
powers which produce all kinds of plant life. Naturally he
was given most consideration in his relation as producer of
those plants on which human life most depended, and the vine,
as one of these, readily became his popular symbol. Dionysos's
character as a divinity of vegetation is revealed in a number of
myths where, like the Lakonian Hyakinthos, he appears as
alternately dying and coming to life, this being apparently the
signification of his fall with Semele and of his subsequent re-
birth. Under the title of Zagreus he was thought to be torn
asunder and revived, and the idea is also present in that part
of the Homeric story of Lykourgos which we have reviewed.
Lykourgos represents those elements which at a certain season
cause the death of all vegetation, but since these factors cannot
always prevail, Lykourgos is subdued and Dionysos lives on to
enjoy immortality. The continuation of this legend beyond the
point to which Homer carries it is in the same vein. Dionysos,
it recounts, smote Lykourgos with madness, and while in this
condition the king, in an attempt to cut 'the trunk of a vine
with an axe, accidentally killed his own son. Still out of his
senses, he foully mutilated the boy's body, but the land then
withheld its fruits, and an oracle declared to the people that
this state of things would continue until they had brought about
the death of Lykourgos. Thereupon the Edonians seized him
and bore him oflF to Mount Pangaion, where he was drawn
asunder by horses,' thus satisfying Dionysos, who caused the
land to bear.

It was in the character of producer of those forms of vegeta-



 



 



 



 



PLATE XLVIII
The Enthroned Diohysos

Dionysos is seated on an elaborate marble or ivory
throne, studded with jewels, and behind him rises a
sacred pillar. The god, with his emblems (garland,
thyrsosj and kantharos) is depicted as a bibulous-
looking celebrant of his own rites. On the ground at
his right is a tympanon supported in an oblique posi-
tion, and at his left a panther, highly suggestive of the
Oriental associations of the Dionysiac cult. The
painting is remarkable for its blending of soft flesh-
tints, dainty blues of the drapery, and the delicate
white of the throne, against an unrelieved background
of rich red. From a wall-painting in the Casa del
Naviglio, Pompeii (Hermann-Bruckmann, Denkm&ler
der Malerei dis Altertums^ No. i).



 



 




 



 



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — DIONYSOS 219

tion useful tx) men that Dionysos and his worship were spread
abroad not only within Greece, as the story of Ikarios demon-
strates, but also without. A Homeric Hymn to Dionysos *
consists entirely of the narrative of his introduction to a sea-
faring folk of the west. Once as he was standing in the guise of
a youth in his prime on a promontory overlooking the sea,
some Tyrrhenian sea-rovers espied him, and capturing him
took him into their vessel, where they bound him with fetters.
When with the utmost ease he burst his bonds asunder, the
pilot perceived that he was a god and warned his fellows
against doing him any evil; but since they would have none of
his words and trimmed their sails to make haste to the high
sea, Dionysos began to show his might. First he caused wine
to pour into the ship's hold, and next he made a vine laden with
clusters of grapes to clamber over the sail and an ivy plant to
ascend to the peak of the mast. In their fear at these wonders
the sailors tried to put to shore, but Dionysos, becoming a
lion, seized their captain and forced them to leap into the sea,
where they were changed into dolphins, only the pilot who had
recognized his divinity being spared.^ Of much the same order
is the account of Dionysos's wanderings after the jealous
Hera had made him mad because of his discovery of the uses
of the vine. From one land of the East to another he went
triumphantly spreading his cult and his gift of wine, until at
last he reached distant India; • but in the end he returned to
Greece and took up his abode in Thebes, where he became the
idol of a horde of women votaries. He is again seen as a wine-
god in the person of his duplicate, Oineus of Kalydon, whose
name is obviously connected with oliw ("wine")> and, more-
over, in one source it was Dionysos, not Oineus, who was the
wife of Althaia ("Nourishing Earth")-

It is, therefore, not at all surprising that this god entered into
certain affiliations with Demeter,' the earth goddess of Eleu-
sis, the Thracian origin of Eumolpos, the founder, according
to legend, of the Eleusinian priesthood, adding plausibility to



 



 



220 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

the union, while lakchos, whose name is etymologically akin to
Bakchos, one of the divine personages of the mysteries, was
a form of Dionyw>s. That feature of the rites in which Per-
sephone, Demeter's daughter, was redeemed from Hades as the
personal representative of the initiates, was such as to attract
Dionysos in his capacity as releaser from Hades, a function
which he derived, perhaps, from the power of wine to release
the mind from care and worry, and myth records that he
liberated both Ariadne and Semele from the eternal bondage
of the underworld.

Although the fountain-nymphs are often said in legend to
be his ministrants, this is not to be taken to imply that he was
a water-god. If the easiest interpretation is to be followed, it
means, rather, that the Greeks regarded the watercourses as
aiding him in the production of an abundant growth.^

To count the god of fertility as the deity of wealth is an easy
transit for the imaginative mind, and a late, and uncanonical
myth, as we may term it, depicts him in this guise. After
Midas, the Mygdonian king, had been given the ears of an ass
for having preferred the music of Marsyas to that of Apollo,
Dionysos chanced to pass through the kingdom on his way to
India. Entertaining him liberally, Midas gave him a guide for
his journey, and in gratitude Dionysos bestowed upon the
king the power of turning to gold whatever he touched. This
boon, however, proved to be only a bane, for even the food which
Midas would convey to his lips became gold, so that he was
in a fair way to starve to death. At last he begged to be de-
livered from his ruthless gift, wherefore Dionysos bade him
wash himself in the river Paktolos, whose waters took on the
tinge of gold as soon as his body touched the stream.

Offline PrometheusTopic starter

  • BeautifullDisgrace
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Join Date: Feb 2009
  • Posts: 1516
  • Country: nl
  • Location: Tholen
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Sign: Libra
Re: Greek & Roman Mythology
« Reply #29 on: August 04, 2019, 10:48:17 PM »

The relation between Dionysos and the Muses goes back to
the Thracian period of his worship. From the earliest times in
Hellas his special rituals consisted of songs and dances de-
signed magically to stimulate the growth of useful plant life
and to avert such influences as threatened it. At first these



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — DIONYSOS 221

performances were merely crude, spontaneous outbursts of
religious emotion, but in time the orderly mind and the crea-
tive fancy of the Greek moulded them, as it were, out of the
dust of the earth into those sublime figures of literary and
musical art, the dithyramb (or independent choral song),
tragedy, and comedy. The divine mission of Dionysos "to
mingle the music of the flute and to bring surcease to care" •
is transparent through the text of any of the works of the great
dramatists.

Space allows us to draw attention only to the more important
festivals of Dionysos. In Sikyon, Corinth, and Attike these
were made special occasions for musical performances, but only
in the last of these three places did they attain to monu-
mental distinction. Here they were four in number, begin-
ning, if we follow the order of our months, in January with
the Lenaia, the feast of wild women (Aijpcu). The Anthesteria,
combining ceremonies attendant on the opening of the new
wine with a primitive "all souls'" festival, came next in Feb-
ruary, and in connexion with this there took place a symbolic
marriage of the wife of the king Archon to Dionysos. In
March followed the Greater, or City, Dionysia, at the begin-
ning of which the introduction of Dionysos into Attike by way
of Eleutherai was processionally represented; and finally, in
December, the people of the country districts celebrated lo-
cally the uncouth and unrestrained Rural Dionysia. The con-
nexions established between Dionysos and professional actors
and musicians in the organized festivals led to his adoption
as the patron deity of the brotherhoods or the guilds of these
performers, societies which continued to thrive until a late
date.

Sufficient remark has already been made on the general
significance of the Dionysiac rituals, but it remains to speak of
the ecstasy of the votaries. This was not induced wholly by
the use of wine, as is almost universally supposed, for it arose
in the first place through the potent suggestiveness of the mere



 



 



222 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

idea that it was possible for the individual mortal, by the ob-
servance of certain forms, to become spiritually one with the
inmiortal god, the potency of the concept being inmieasurably
increased when it possessed a company of people of like mind,
even though they remained static. With the aid of dancing,
music, drinking, shouting, and participation in the raw flesh
and blood of victims in which the god was thought to dwell, the
idea threw the votaries into an uncontrollable frenzy akin to
madness in its external demonstration, whence the madness of
the daughters of Proitos and Minyas, and of Dionysos him-
self.

To the field of morals Dionysos made no new contribu-
tions, nor, contrary to the common belief, with all the seem-
ing licence of his rites did he add to general inunorality. His
gift was mainly religious, although it had a salutary social re-
action. To countless thousands whose individualities had been
submerged in the primacy of state interests he brought a stim-
ulating hope and a buoyant faith in the possibility of attaining
to an immortal existence, as free from worldly care as was
the divine ecstasy of his ritual.

Dionysos in Art. — After Dionysos came to be represented
in fully iconic form, two distinct types were developed. In
the first, seen on Attic vases of the sixth century, he is gen-
erally shown as a bearded man becomingly clothed, and to dis-
tinguish him from a similar type of Hermes, a branch of vine
or of ivy is put into his hand. In the second aspect, doubt-
less given vogue through Pheidias, he appears as a youthful
god of inspiration. The kantharos, a kind of drinking vessel,
the thyrsos, sl ceremonial wand, and a fawn-skin are his most
common emblems. He is sometimes surrounded by Maenads,
and his whole bearing is one of ecstasy, so that occasionally he
is even shown as intoxicated; it is not, however, until after the
fourth century B.C. that excessive sensuality and effeminacy
were attributed to him so frequently as to be regarded as
essential features.



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — DIONYSOS 223

Myths of Alexander the Great. — Alexander the Great was
variously said to have been a direct descendant of Dionysos,
a reincarnation of Herakles, and a son of Ammon. After his
victorious march to the Orient the story of the wanderings
of Dionysos acquired many new features and a new meaning,
although the best known myths of Alexander relate him to
Ammon. It is said that the last of the native kings of Egypt,
Nektanebos, fled in disguise from Egypt to Pella and there
became an astrologer in the court of Philip. As it hap-
pened, Olympias, the queen, came to him for a reading of
her future, and he told her that by the god Ammon she
would conceive a son who would rule the world and avenge
her on the king for his cruelty. Just as he said, the god ap-
proached her in the form of a serpent, and in due time she
became the mother of a son whose birth was accompanied
by earthquake, lightning, and thunder — signs which proved
him to be divine. Moreover, his very appearance and manner
marked him as one not of the common order of kings, for his
right eye was as black as night, and his left was as blue as
the heavens, while his hair and teeth, and likewise his spirit,
resembled those of a lion. Although he bore no resemblance
to Philip, yet the latter accepted him as his son and was pleased
to account for his divinity by tracing his own descent back to
Okeanos and Thetis and that of Olympias to Kronos and
Poseidon.

On the death of Philip, Alexander marshalled a great army
and at its head marched through many lands. Through
Thrace he went, through Italy and Sicily, Carthage and Libya,
until he came to the shrine of the great Ammon, where he
oflFered due homage and left a votive inscription bearing the
words: "Alexander to his father, the god Anmion." Thence
he passed on through Egypt, Syria, Persia, and the lands
about the Euxine, and at last reached Greece. At the shrine of
Delphoi he demanded an oracle concerning his destiny, but
the priestess refused him, whereupon, burning with anger.



 



 



224 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

like Herakles before him, Alexander seized the sacred tripod
and threatened to carry it away. The priestess then made
haste to speak, calling him Herakles Alexander and prophesy-
ing that he would be greater than all mortals. Emboldened by
these words, Alexander marched to the conquest of the golden
East, where, one after another, the great kings and kingdoms
fell before him — Persia, Media, Baktria, India — until there
were no more lands to conquer. On his homeward march he
fell ill and died, and took his rightful place in heaven among
the gods.



 



 



 



 



PLATE XLIX



DiONYSOS IN THE ShIP

Dionysos, crowned with ivy, leans back at his ease
in the middle of his ship. Springing from beside him,
two stout vine-stalks clamber up the mast, at the
peak of which they send out spreading branches bden
with grapes and leaves. The dolphins indicate that
the ship is afloat in the sea, but the painter gives no
hint whether they represent the transformed pirates
of the literary myth. From a black-figured kyUx by
Exekias (latter part of the sixth century B.C.), in
Munich (Furtwangler-Reichhold, Griecbiscbe Fasiti"
malerei^ No. 42). See p. 219.



Kastor and Polydeukes at Home

The figures in this composition can be identified
by means of the inscriptions. They represent all the
family of Tyndareos, excepting Helen, in their Spartan
home; proceeding from right to left they are Tyn-
dareos himself, a boy slave, Kastor, Leda, and Poly-
deukes. The whole scene is eloquent of a domestic
harmony which includes even the animals of the
household. From a black-figured ampbcra by Exekias
(latter part of the sixth century B.C.), in the Vat-
ican (Furtwangler-Reichhold, Griecbiscbe VasenmaUreiy
No. 132). See pp. 24 fF.



 



 




 



 



 



 



CHAPTER X

THE GREATER GODS — DEMETER,
KORE, HADES

DEMETER AND KORE (PERSEPHONE)

CJTTIE Origin and the Name of Demeter. — The goddess Deme-
-^ ter, the daughter of Rhea and Kronos, is an exceedingly-
important figure in the history of religions on account of the
numerous phases of her character in cult and myth, and also
because of the powerful influence which she exerted on the
whole Greek world after a certain period. It is impossible
to say more in reference to her origin than that, when we
go back as far as we can, she still seems to be a Hellenic
divinity. Parallels to her cult found among barbarians re-
main parallels and nothing more, and the fact that she was
acknowledged as the chief divinity of the northern Amphik-
tyony is proof positive of her very ancient establishment as
a goddess common to many Hellenic tribes. While she is
obviously a form of Gaia (Ge), she was in function the soil
goddess rather than the broadly generalized earth goddess.
In the light of her character it is very attractive to interpret
her name AfjfMjrrfp as a dialectic variant of ytf-f^iiTrfpy but the
suggestion will not stand etymologically. A more novel way,
and one which conforms to known caprices of folk-speech, is
to explain the name as an alliterative form, invented half de-
liberately, half unconsciously, to correspond to the antithetical
Aieif^ iranipy thus giving the co-operating divine pair. Mother
Earth and Father Sky; and still another interpretation which
is worth considering makes the name signify "Barley Mother,"
a meaning quite consonant with the scope of her operations.



 



 



226 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

Demeter in Homer. — Demeter is more of a symbol in Homer
than a personality. She is the divinity of the corn, and Thes-
salian Pyrasos is known as her sacred field, owing, no doubt,
to its productivity. She has no place as yet in the group of
the Olympians, nor has she any part to play in the action of
either Iliad or Odyssey. Homer is not acquainted with her
as the mother of Persephone, and the story of her amour with
lasion as related in the epic will be referred to under the next
heading.

Demeter as the Goddess of the Soil. — The nature of Demeter
is brought out by an admittedly ancient myth found both in
Homer and in Hesiod, the latter's account ^ being richer in
details. "Demeter, divine one of goddesses, mingling in love
with the hero lasion in a thrice-ploughed fallow field in the
fat land of Crete, bore Ploutos, a goodly son who goeth every-
where upon earth and upon the broad ridges of the sea. What-
soever man he meeteth and into whose hands he cometh doth
he make rich, and to him doth he vouchsafe abundant happi-
ness." Homer adds that when 2Ieus learned of the deed of
lasion, he smote him dead with a thunderbolt. This myth,
although not cast in the form of an explanation, seems to be
in reality an attempt to solve the origin of, and to supply a
divine sanction for, the performance of rites involving the ac-
tual or symbolic cohabitation of a man and a woman in a field
about to be sown, these ceremonies fertilizing the earth so
that she would bring forth her increase and confer wealth and
happiness upon mankind.* Though the bounty of Demeter
comprehended every product of the soil which was of use to
men, the cereal fruits came to be regarded as the special ob-
jects of her care. All operations on the farm, all parts of the
farm, such as barn and field and so forth, which had to do with
the cultivation of the grain, the crops in all stages of their
growth, the cut grain in the sheaf and on the threshing-floor,
all these things too came under her surveillance. The first
loaf of the newly harvested crop was dedicated to her, and all



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — DEMETER, KORE 227

of her festivals, no matter at what time of the year they
occurred, were cereal celebrations suitable for the season.

It has been very happily suggested that from Demeter's
role as producer of wealth was directly evolved her peculiar
character as Sea-fMxfHipo^y the maintainer of political and social
stability. If this be so, Demeter is here simply the personified
recognition of the fact, so strongly emphasized by modem
economists, that the real prosperity of a country varies di-
rectly with its agricultural conditions. If Demeter was propi-
tious, social relations were not disturbed, but if unpropitious,
the altered ability to sell, purchase, or barter eflFected a
general upheaval. Under this same appellative Oecr/io^Jpo?,
Demeter had also an intimate relation to the institution of
marriage and thereby to the family, this being a consequence
of the natural evolution of the central idea contained in the
field-rites. Children were therefore just as much her gifts as
were the fruits of agriculture, and on the assurance of a steady
birth-rate depended proportionately the continuity of the social
order.*

Demeter and Kore (Persephone). — It will be easier to under-
stand the mystic meaning of the bond between Demeter and
Persephone when we have reviewed in its entirety the legend
which constitutes the theme of the so-called Homeric Hymn
to Demeter. This Eleusinian story,* doubtless through its
superior artistic presentation, ultimately overshadowed every
other local tradition of the two divinities and came to be the
canonical version for all the Greeks. Persephone, the daughter
of Demeter by 2^us, was playing in the meadows of Mysia with
nymphs of the sea and plucking the wild flowers of the spring-
time — roses, crocuses, irises, violets, and hyacinths — when
she spied an especially beautiful and fragrant stalk of nar-
cissus and hastened to pick it. Alas! this was a snare devised
by 2Ieus and Earth to entrap her, for just as her fingers closed
on the stem, the ground opened beneath her, and Hades, leaping

forth in his golden chariot, seized her and bore her swiftly
1—19



 



 



228 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

away. Only the Sun and Hekate, the moon-goddess, saw her
capture, but her mother heard her cries and instantly rushed
forth to seek her, going about the earth for nine days and nine
nights, without tasting food or drink, and bearing in her
hands blazing torches to light up the darkest recesses. During
this time neither the gods who had been witnesses of Per-
sephone's seizure nor any omen came to the mother's aid with
a word of information, but on the tenth day Hekate led her
to the Sun, who told her where the maiden was. Again the
distracted mother betook herself to wandering, and having
passed unrecognized through many lands in the guise of an
old woman, she came at last to Eleusis in Attike, where she
sat down by the public well, known as the Fountain of Maiden-
hood. Hither came the four daughters of Keleos, the king of
the country, to draw water. Won by their gracious willingness
to listen to her, Demeter told them a fictitious tale of her
escape from pirates who had enslaved her, and then asked
them to obtain for her a place as nurse in some family, where-
upon they took her to their own home, putting their infant
brother Demophon in her care. By day Demeter anointed the
child with ambrosia and by night bathed him in fire, as Thetis
did with Achilles, and he was like to become immortal when his
mother Metaneira discovered the performance of the magic
rites and snatched him away. Instantly the goddess threw aside
her disguise and, revealing herself in all her divine freshness and
beauty, she announced her name and bade the people of Eleu-
sis build her a temple in which she would teach them the cere-
monial of her worship. Keleos did as she had conmianded, and
in the temple she took up her abode; but so great was her
grief for her daughter that she withheld her blessings from the
soil, so that men began to die for need of food, and the altars of
the gods lacked sacrifices. At length Zeus sent Iris and the
other gods one after another to plead with her to relent, but
she would not hear of it until her daughter should be given
back to her, wherefore Zeus dispatched Hermes to the under-



 



 



THE GREATER GODS — DEMETER, KORE 229

world to bid Hades release Persephone. Unable to resist the
command of his elder brother, Hades yielded, but before letting
Persephone go shrewdly gave her a pomegranate seed to eat,



BlBipiolololBlpiialtalialfalialr^




Fig. 8. Triptolemos



Triptolemos is setting forth on his mission to bring the cereal fruits and the knowl-
edge of agriculture to mankind. In the version followed by the painter the car is not
drawn by dragons, but flies through space on winged wheels. Perhaps the wheel was
originally the sun's disk. From a red-figured lekythos of the fifth century B.C., found at
Gela {MonunufUi AtUichi, xvii, Plate XIX).

and by tasting of it she magically bound herself to return to
Hades after a time spent above. In the golden chariot she was
conveyed to Eleusis, where her mother welcomed her with
an outburst of joy, and when a message from 2Ieus came to
Demeter announcing that Persephone could thenceforth re-



 



 



230 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY

main with her during two parts of the year, spending only
the third part below, she forgot her sorrow and consented to
rejoin the gods on Olympos. Moreover, summoning the rulers
of the land, Triptolemos, Eumolpos, Diokles, and Keleos, she
made them the ministers of her worship and revealed to them
the manner of performing her secret holy rites, rites which
would confer upon initiates a peculiar blessedness in the after-
life beneath the earth.

Demeter and Triptolemos. — The story explaining the signifi-
cance of Demeter in agricultural pursuits may be reconstructed
by combining several sources. Triptolemos was the son, accord-
ing to the variant versions, now of Okeanos and Ge, now of
Eleusis, and now of Keleos, ranking, as son of this last named,
either as the oldest, or as the youngest whom Demeter nursed
on her coming to Eleusis. In her affection for him she taught
him to yoke oxen and to till the soil, and gave him the first
com to sow. In the rich plains about Eleusis he reaped the
first harvest of grain ever grown, and there, too, he built the
earliest threshing-floor. In a car given him by Demeter and
drawn by winged dragons, he flew from land to land, scattering
seed for the use of men, and for this Keleos ordered his death,
but Demeter, hearing of the intention, removed the king and
gave the throne to Triptolemos. It is said that when he found
that a pig had rooted up his first sowing, he took the animal
to the altar of his benefactress, and, placing grains of com on
its head, slew it as an offering, whence, ever afterward, the pig
was sacrificed in this same manner in the worship of Demeter.