We have perhaps been accustomed to contemplate the Trojans too
exclusively, either as enemies of the Greeks, or else as constituting,
together with them, one homogeneous chapter of antiquity, which we
might be content to examine as a whole, without taking notice of
specific differences. Let us now endeavour to inquire what were the
relations, other than those of mere antagonism in the war, between the
two nations; what points they embraced, and what affinities or discords
they disclose. The direct signs of kindred between Troy and Greece have
already been considered; but the examination into points of contrast
and resemblance as respects religion, polity, and character, will
assist us in judging how far a key to those affinities and discords is
to be found in the different interfusion and proportion, in the two
cases, of ethnical elements which they possessed in common.
We have seen in another place[280] that the Greeks, or Achæans, and the
Trojans, were akin by the Hellic element, which appears to establish
a connection chiefly as regarded the royal house, and other ruling
houses, of Troy. On the other hand it has seemed clear, from many
sources, that the main affinity between the bulk of the two nations
was Pelasgian. As respects the ethnological question, the supposition
most consonant to the evidence as a whole appears to me to be, that
in Troas we find Hellic families, possessed of dominion over a
Pelasgian people: in Greece we find Hellic tribes, placed in dominant
juxtaposition with Pelasgic tribes, of prior occupancy; constituting,
as is probable, whole classes of the community, and mingling with and
powerfully modifying the aggregate composition so as to produce a
mixed result; while in Troy, though the ruling houses are probably a
different order, and there may be found here and there the tokens of
this influence, yet the general face of society, and the substance of
manners and institutions, are Pelasgian. It will be recollected, that
even in Greece we trace two forms of Hellic diffusion. Sometimes the
descendants of the Helli appear as single families, like the Æolids;
sometimes as races, like the Achæans. The state of facts here supposed
as to Troy is in accordance with the former class of indications within
Greece itself.
[280] Achæis, or Ethnology, sect. ix. p. 496.
Upon the footing supplied by these assumptions, I shall treat the
comparison of the two countries as to religion, policy, social usages,
and moral ideas and practice.
We have already been obliged, in considering the respective shares of
the Hellenic and Pelasgian factors in the compound Greek character, to
anticipate in some degree the conclusions with regard to the religion
of the Trojans in its general character, which I will now proceed more
fully to explain and illustrate.
We have found three conspicuous deities, of worship apparently supreme
and universal: Jupiter, Minerva, and Apollo. After these comes Neptune,
of a more doubtful position when we pass out of the Hellenic and
Phœnician circles; and Latona with Diana, who, doubtless from the
vantage ground of early tradition, take rank alike with an Hellenic and
a Pelasgian people. We have also supposed Ceres to be of immemorial
standing as a deity of the Pelasgians; and Venus to have made great way
among them.
~_Greek names of deities found also in Troas._~
Passing on from the consideration of Pelasgian religion at large, it
will now be requisite to show, with particular reference to Troy, how
far we find the names of the Greek divinities recognised there; nor
must we omit to consider, in what degree identity of name implies
identity of person and function.
1. Jupiter had a τέμενος, or portion of consecrated land, on Mount
Gargarus; and there Onetor was his priest[281]. He is, with the
Trojans as with the Greeks, the first and greatest of the gods[282].
He himself attests their abundant liberality in sacrifices offered
to himself[283]. The Greek Jupiter is Olympian; the Trojan Jupiter
is Jupiter of Ida. Except as to abode, there is no difference to be
discerned between the features of the two.
[281] Il. viii. 47, 8.
[282] Il. iii. 298.
[283] Il. iv. 48.
2. We have no direct indication, in the Iliad, of the worship of
Neptune by the Trojans. But the legend of his employment under Laomedon
must be taken to imply that his divinity was acknowledged in that
country: confirmed as it is by his sharing with Jupiter and Apollo the
destruction of the Greek rampart after the conclusion of the war[284].
[284] Il. xxi. 442 seqq. vii. 459. xii. 17.
3. In the case of Juno, I have elsewhere noticed[285] the three
passages, which alone appear to establish a faint connection between
her and the Trojans.
[285] Olympus, sect. iii. p. 197.
4. Minerva had a temple on Pergamus; and was served there by a
priestess, Theano; who, as the wife of Antenor, was of the very
next rank to Priam and his house. The goddess is addressed, on the
occasion of the procession of the Sixth Book, in a strain which seems
to acknowledge her possession of supreme power[286]: the defender of
cities, excellent among goddesses, she is entreated to have pity on
Troy, to break the lance of Diomed, and to grant that he himself may
fall.
[286] Il. vi. 298-300. 305-10.
5. Apollo would appear to be the favourite among the great deities
of the country. He, like Minerva, has a temple in the citadel[287].
Chryses is his priest at Chryse, and there too he has a temple. He is
the special protector of Cilla and of Tenedos[288]. With Minerva, he
is indicated as the recipient of supreme honour[289]. The Lycian name,
so prevalent in Troas, establishes a special connection with him. In
the Iliad, he seems to be the ordinary and immediate Providence to the
Trojan chiefs, as Minerva is to the Greek ones. At the same time, he
carries no sign of exclusive nationalism; he bears no hatred to the
Greeks; but, after the restitution and propitiation, he at once accepts
the prayer, and stays the pestilence[290].
[287] Il. v. 446.
[288] Il i. 37-9.
[289] Il. vii. 540. xiii. 827.
[290] Il. i. 457.
6. Latona must have been known among the Trojans; because Homer has
represented her as contending on the Trojan side in the war of the
gods, and as engaged in tending the wounded Æneas within the temple of
Apollo on Pergamus.
7. The same reasons apply also to Diana: and we moreover find, that she
instructed the Trojan Scamandrius in the huntsman’s art[291].
[291] Il. v. 49.
8. Venus is eminently Trojan. Her relation to this people is marked
by her favour towards Paris: her passion for Anchises: her sending a
personal ornament as a marriage gift to Andromache; her ministerial
charge over the body of Hector (Il. xxiii. 184-7); her being chosen
as the model to which Trojan beauties are compared, while Diana is
the favourite standard for the Greek woman. It is also marked by
her zealous, though feeble, partizanship in favour of Troy among
the Immortals: and by the biting taunts of Pallas, of Helen, and of
Diomed[292].
[292] Il. v. 421-5. 348-51. iii. 405-9.
9. Vulcan is not only known, but has a _cult_ in Troy: for Dares is his
priest, and is a person of great wealth and consideration; one of whose
sons he delivers from death in battle, to comfort the old man in his
decline[293].
[293] Il. v. 9. and 20-4.
10. Mars. Of this deity it would seem, that he has been given by
Homer to the Pelasgians, mainly because of his so strongly marked
Thracian character, and his want of recognition among the Hellenes,
who had a higher deity of war in Minerva. I have touched elsewhere
upon his equivocal position as between the two parties to the war. It
corresponds with that of the Thracians, who appear to form a point of
intersection, so to speak, for the Hellic and Pelasgian races. Those of
the plain of Adrianople are, like the Pelasgi, horse-breeders, dwelling
in a fertile country: the ruder portion are among the mountains to the
north and west.
11. Mercury. One sign only of the ordinary agency of this deity in
Troas is exhibited; he gives abundant increase to the flocks of
Phorbas[294].
[294] Il. xiv. 490.
12. Earth (Γαῖα) would appear to have been recognised as an object of
distinct worship in Troas: for when Menelaus proposes the Pact, he
invites the Trojans to sacrifice a black lamb to her, and a white one
to the Sun; while the Greeks will on their part offer up a lamb to
Jupiter. The proposal is at once accepted; and the heralds are sent by
Hector to the city for the lambs[295], which seems to be conclusive as
to the acknowledgment of these two deities in Troy.
[295] Il. iii. 103. 116.
13. The Sun. Besides that the passage last quoted for Earth is also
conclusive for the Sun, we have another token of his relation to Troy,
in the unwillingness with which he closes the day, when with his
setting is to end the glory of Hector and of his country[296].
[296] Il. xviii. 239.
We have thus gone through the list of the greater Greek deities,
and have found them all acknowledged in Troas, with the following
exceptions: 1. of Ceres, whom we may however suspect, from her
Pelasgian character, to have been worshipped there under some name or
form; 2. of Aidoneus; and 3. of Persephone. These exceptions will be
further noticed.
Again, among the thirteen who have been identified as objects of Trojan
worship, we find one, namely, Γαῖα, of whom we can hardly say that she
was worshipped in Greece; though she was invoked, as by Agamemnon in
the Nineteenth Book, and by Althea in the Ninth, to add a more solemn
sanction to oaths.
14. Together with her, we may take notice of a fourteenth deity,
apparently of great consideration in Troy, namely, the River Scamander.
He bears a marked sign of ancient worship, in having a divine
appellation, Xanthus, as well as his terrestrial one, Scamander. He
had an ἀρήτηρ, by name Dolopion. To him, according to the speech
of Achilles, the Trojans sacrificed live horses. He enters into
the division of parties among the gods about the war, and fights
vigorously against Achilles, until he is at length put down by
Hephæstus, or Vulcan. As a purely local deity, however, he has of
course no place in the Greek mythology.
15. Though we have no direct mention of the translation of Tithonus
by Ἠὼς, or Aurora, yet, as Homer gives Tithonus a place both in the
genealogy of the Dardanidæ, and likewise by the side of Aurora, we may
consider that, by thus recognising the translation, he also points out
Aurora as an acknowledged member of the supernatural order in Troas.
Several among these names call for more particular notice: especially
those of Vulcan, Earth, and Scamander.
~_Worship of Vulcan in Troas._~
The case of Vulcan, and his place in Troy, may serve to remind us of
a proposition somewhat general in its application; this namely, that,
in classifying the Trojan divinities, Homer need not have intended
to imply that the same name must in all cases carry exactly the same
attributes. We must here bear in mind, that probably all, certainly
almost all, of the properly Olympian gods, were Greek copies modified
from Oriental or from traditive originals. But as these conceptions
were propagated in different quarters, each country would probably add
or take away, or otherwise alter, in conformity with its own ruling
tendencies. Hence when we find a Vulcan in Greece, and a Vulcan in
Troas, it by no means follows, that each of them presented the same
features and attributes. If Homer believed them to be derived from a
common original in Egypt or elsewhere, that would be a good and valid
reason for his describing them by the same name, though the Trojan
Vulcan might not present all the Hellenic traits, nor _vice versâ_.
In some cases, such as those of Jupiter, Apollo, Minerva, Diana, and
Venus, there is such a correspondence of attributes entering into the
portraiture of the respective deities in the two countries, that their
identity, at least so far as the evidence goes, seems quite unimpaired
and unequivocal. But we have no means of showing from the poems, that
the Trojan Hephæstus corresponded with the Greek one. Indeed when we
find no mention of his being actually worshipped in Greece, and at the
same time learn that he had a priest in Troas, the presumption arises,
that different conceptions of him prevailed in the two countries.
Again, there is nowhere assigned to him as a Greek deity any such
exercise of power, as that by which he saves Idæus, a son of his priest
Dares, from imminent death on the field of battle.
These general considerations, which tend to show that the identity
of name in a Trojan and a Greek deity may be compatible with much
of dissimilarity in the popular development of the functions, will
relieve us from difficulties, which we should otherwise have had to
meet, in accounting for the place of some of the Olympian divinities
in Trojan worship. We have found reason to suppose, that Vulcan may
have come into Greece through Phœnicia. But the Trojans appear to
have had very little connection with Phœnicia. The precious κειμήλιον
of Priam, the cup that he carried to Achilles, was not Phœnician but
Thracian[297]. The only token of intercourse mentioned is, that Paris
brought textile fabrics from Sidon[298]. Again, Vulcan was especially
worshipped in Lemnos, and had his terrestrial abode there. But this
goes more naturally to account for the works of metal in Thrace, than
for the position of Vulcan in Troas; higher as it was, apparently,
than in Greece. Again, it is worth notice, that the Vulcan of the
Romans was, like their Mars, one of the old gods of Etruria, a country
stamped with many Pelasgian characteristics. It may be, that we ought
to look back to Egypt for the origin of all these Vulcans. In the time
of Herodotus[299], the Egyptian priests claimed him as their own: and
Phtah, the principal deity of Memphis, was held by the later Greeks
to correspond with their Ἥφαιστος. Even the two names carry tokens of
relationship. From that fountain-head might be propagated diverging
copies of the deity: and, as far as we can judge, the Vulcan worshipped
in Troy was much more like the common ancestor, than the highly
idealized artificer of Olympus, upon whom the Poet has worked out all
his will[300].
[297] Il. xxiv. 234-5.
[298] Il. vi. 289-92.
[299] Herod. ii. 50.
[300] Döllinger Heid. u. Jud. VI. iii. p. 411.
~_Worship of Juno and Gaia in Troas._~
There is another of its points of contact with the Olympian system, in
which this list of Trojan deities is remarkable. While investigating
the Greek mythology, we have found reason to suppose that Juno, Ceres,
and Gaia are but three different forms of the same original tradition
of a divine _feminine_: of whom Ceres is the Pelasgian copy, Juno
the vivid and powerful Hellenic development, and Gaia the original
skeleton, retaining nothing of the old character, but having acquired
the function of gaol-keeper for perjurors when sent to the other
world[301]. In the retention however of all three within the circle of
religion, we see both the receptiveness and the universalism of the
Greek mythology. Now, in Troy, where there was less of imaginative
power, the case stands very differently. Of Ceres, who represents
the Pelasgian impression of the old earth-worshipping tradition, we
hear nothing in Troas. Probably she was not there, because Gaia, her
original, was still a real divinity for the Trojans. But how are we
to explain the fact that Gaia and Juno are both there? I venture to
suggest, that it is because these are different names, the foreign and
the domestic one, for the same thing. When Hector swears to Dolon, it
is by Jupiter, ‘the loud-thundering husband of Here:’ which almost
appears as if Juno held, in the Trojan oath, a place more or less
resembling the place occupied in the Greek oaths (where Juno does not
appear at all) by Gaia.
[301] Rhea (ἔρα) shows us the fourth and cosmogonic side of the same
conception.
Again, it is obvious that, if this relation exists between Gaia and
Juno, it explains the fact that we do not find both, so to speak,
thriving together. In Troas Gaia is worshipped, but Juno scarcely
appears. In Greece Juno is highly exalted, but Gaia has lost all body,
and has dwindled to a spectral phantasm. It is the want of imagination
in the Trojan mythology, which makes it a more faithful keeper of
traditions, stereotyped in the forms in which they were had from their
inventors.
~_Worship of Mercury in Troas._~
Next, as to Mercury. I have already adverted to the fact that
Priam[302], notwithstanding his obligations to Mercury in the
Twenty-fourth Iliad, takes no notice of his divinity. I think that
a close examination of the narrative tends to show, that the Greek
Mercury was not worshipped in Troy; and leaves us to conclude that
Homer uses a merely poetical mode of speech in saying that this god
gave increase to the flocks of Phorbas[303]: even as when he makes
Priam call Iris an _Olympian_ messenger[304].
[302] Olympus, sect. iii. p. 234.
[303] Il. xiv. 490.
[304] Il. xxiv. 194.
He appears before Priam and his companion Idæus, when they are on
their way to the Greek camp, in the semblance of a young and noble
Myrmidon. There were, we know[305], certain visible signs, by which
deities could in general be recognised or, at least, guessed as
such. Both Idæus, however, and Priam himself, saw nothing of this
character in Mercury, and simply took him for a Greek enemy[306].
Mercury, after some genial conversation, conducts his chariot to
the quarters of Achilles, and then, before quitting him, announces
himself. Not, however, like Apollo to Hector (Il. xv. 256), and Minerva
to Ulysses (Od. xiii. 299), simply by giving his name: but he also
declares himself to be an Immortal, θεὸς ἄμβροτος (460). This unusual
circumstance raises a presumption, that he was not already known as a
divinity to Priam; and the presumption seems to become irrefragable,
when we find that Priam, though given to the observances of religion,
uses no act or expression of reverence or even recognition to his
benefactor, either on his first declaration and departure (460, 7), or
upon his second nocturnal appearance (682), followed by a second and
final flight to Olympus (694).
[305] Olympus, sect. v.
[306] Il. xxiv. 347, 355, 358-60.
The case of Scamander will require particular notice: because it is
immediately connected with the question, whether the Trojans partook of
that tendency to a large imaginative development of religion, which so
eminently distinguishes the Grecian supernaturalism.
We will therefore consider carefully the facts relating to this deity,
and such other kindred facts as Homer suggests.
He speaks of Dolopion as follows[307];
[307] Il. v. 77.
ὑπερθύμου Δολοπίονος, ὅς ῥα Σκαμάνδρου
ἀρητὴρ ἐτέτυκτο, θεὸς δ’ ὣς τίετο δήμῳ.
This is entirely in keeping, as to particulars, with the Pelasgian
and Trojan institutions. The ἀρητὴρ of Homer is apparently always the
priest. Dolopion was a man in very high station and honour, like the
priests of Rome, and of early Ætolia[308]; but not like those of later
Greece. And he had been ‘made’ or ‘appointed’ priest; as Theano was
chosen to be priestess by the people. The priesthood of the Homeric age
never appears as a caste in these latitudes. The only approximation to
caste is in the gift of the μάντις, which, as we find from the Odyssey,
was hereditary in the family of Melampus[309]. Thus far, then, the
evidence respecting Scamander certainly would appear to belong to the
category of Homer’s historical statements.
[308] Il. ix. 575.
[309] Od. xv. 223 and seqq.
Beyond this, everything assumes a figurative stamp. Scamander fights
as a deity with Achilles, and his waters are so powerful that they can
only be subdued by the immediate action of the god of fire. The hero,
too, is aided by the powerful blasts of Zephyr and of Notus, whom Juno
rouses up to scorch the Trojans[310]. As we can hardly doubt, that
the plague in the First Book represents some form of marsh-fever, so
here it appears likely that the Poet takes very skilful advantage of a
flood, caused by summer rains, which had annoyed the Greeks, and which
had been followed by the subsidence of the waters upon the return of
hot weather.
[310] Il. xxi. 331 and seqq.
Scamander is very great in the Iliad, but with a purely local
greatness. As a person, he speaks both to men and to gods. He addresses
Simois as his beloved brother; but it is entirely on the affair of the
deluge and the heat. Though he takes part in the war, the distinction
is not awarded to him of being a member of the smaller and select
Olympian community: he merely stands included by presumption in the
general category of Rivers[311].
[311] Il. xx. 7.
~_Worship of Scamander._~
We have a description from the mouth of Achilles of certain sacrifices,
as belonging to the worship of Scamander[312]:
[312] Il. xxi. 130-2.
οὐδ’ ὑμῖν ποταμός περ ἐΰῤῥοος ἀργυροδίνης
ἀρκέσει, ᾧ δὴ δηθὰ πολέας ἱερεύετε ταύρους,
ζωοὺς δ’ ἐν δίνῃσι καθίετε μώνυχας ἵππους.
This offering of live horses is peculiar, and unlike anything else
represented to us in the Homeric poems. Not only the youths, but even
the dogs, whom Achilles offers to the Shade of Patroclus, are slain
before they are cast into the fire. The same thing is not mentioned
with respect to the four horses, who are also among the victims; but
it is probably, even from the physical necessities of the case, to be
presumed.
It may, perhaps, be argued, that this speech of Achilles partakes
of the nature of a sarcasm. The fine Trojan horses were reared and
pastured on the river banks; taunts often pass between the warriors of
the two sides: the δὴ δηθὰ may have had the force of _forsooth_. Some
doubt may attach to the evidence, which the passage gives, on this
ground; and also from the singularity of the practice that is imputed.
It is, on the whole, however, safest to assume that it is trustworthy.
The case will then stand thus; that we have apparently one single case
in Troy of a pure local impersonation of a power belonging to external
nature. Now this might happen under peculiar circumstances, and yet a
very broad distinction might subsist between the religion of the two
nations as to imaginative development.
Scamander was indeed a great power for the Trojans; it was the great
river of the country, the μέγας ποταμὸς βαθυδίνης. The child of the
great Hector was named by him Scamandrius, while Simoeisius[313]
was the son of a very insignificant person. Another Scamandrius was
a distinguished huntsman, taught by Diana, in a country where the
accomplishment was rare[314]. His floods, however useful in time of
war, would in time of peace do fearful damage. It is possibly the
true explanation of the last among the lines quoted from the speech
of Achilles, that he carried away, in sudden _spates_, many of the
horses that were pastured on his banks. The Trojans, then, may have had
strong motives for deifying Scamander, and particularly for providing
him with a priest, who might beseech him to keep down his waters. And
it will be remembered, from the case of Gaia, that the Trojan religion
was, without doubt, favourable to the idea of purely elemental deities:
what lacked was the vivid force of fancy, that revelled in profuse
multiplication.
[313] Il. iv. 474, 488.
[314] Il. v. 49.
~_Different view of Rivers in Troas._~
For we cannot fail to perceive, that the idea of a river-god did not
enter into the Trojan as it did into the Greek life. Ulysses, when in
difficulty, at once invokes the aid of the Scherian river[315], at
whose mouth he lands. Now the Trojans are driven in masses into the
Scamander by the terrible pursuit of Achilles, and they hide and sculk,
or come forth and fight, about its banks and waters. Yet no one of
them invokes the River, although that River was a deity contending on
their side. So entirely was he without place in their consciousness as
a power able to help, even though he may have been publicly worshipped
in deprecation of a calamity, which he was known to be able to inflict.
[315] Od. v. 445.
With this remarkable silence we may compare, besides the prayer and
thanksgiving of Ulysses, the invocation of Achilles to Spercheius[316].
On his leaving home, his father Peleus had dedicated his hair as an
offering to be made to the River on his return, and to be accompanied
by a hecatomb. This would have been a thank-offering; and as such, in
accordance with the prayer of Ulysses, it implies the power of the
River deity to confer benefits. Nor is that power rendered doubtful
by the fact, that in the particular case the prayer is not fulfilled,
and that the hair is therefore devoted to the remains of Patroclus. We
may remark, again, the sacrifice offered, apparently almost as matter
of course, by the Pylian army to Alpheus, on their merely reaching
his banks[317]. And, as a whole, the multitudinous impersonations of
natural objects in the Greek mythology are, both with Homer and in the
later writers, of a benign and genial character. This bright and sunny
aspect is in contrast with the formidable character of Scamander, and
of the worship offered to him.
[316] Il. xxiii. 144.
[317] Il. xi. 728.
There is, perhaps, enough of resemblance between the Scamander of the
Trojan mythology, and the Spercheus or Alpheus of the Greek, to suggest
the question, whether the deification of this river may possibly have
been due to the Hellic influences, which resided in the royal houses
of the country. There are not wanting signs, that the family of Priam
was closely connected with the river and its banks. The name given
to Hector’s child is one such token; and we know that the mares of
Erichthonius were fed upon the marshes near Scamander[318]. It is also
worth observation that the Priest of Scamander was called Dolopion,
while Dolops was the name of a son of Lampus, a Trojan of the highest
rank, brother to Priam, and one of the δημογέροντες of Troy[319].
[318] Il. xx. 221.
[319] Il. iii. 147-9. xv. 525-7.
But though there may be a special relation between the worship
of Scamander, and the influence of the royal family, I think the
explanation is chiefly to be sought in the specific differences which
separate it from River-worship, as generally conceived in the Olympian
system.
There is another aspect of River-worship in Greece, with which it
seems to have more affinity. There is the terrible adjuration of Styx,
which implies its vindictive agency[320]. This river is represented on
earth by a branch from itself, called Titaresius, near the Perrhæbian
Dodona[321]. The Rivers are expressly invoked, in this character, by
Agamemnon in the adjuration of the Pact: and are associated with the
deities that punish perjury after death. Moreover, it is curious that,
when Agamemnon makes an adjuration before Greeks alone, he omits the
appeal to the Rivers, whom he had named when he was acting for the two
peoples jointly[322]. This seems to show that the invocation of Rivers,
or of some class of Rivers, in a retributive capacity, was familiar,
and may have been peculiar, to the Trojans.
[320] Il. xiv. 271. xv. 37.
[321] Il. 2. 751-5.
[322] Compare Il. iii. 276. xix. 258.
~_True aspect of Trojan River-worship._~
In effect, then, the grand distinction seems to be this. The worship of
Scamander in Troas belonged to the elemental system and earth-worship,
which the Greeks, for the purposes of their Olympus, had refined away
into a poetical vivifying Power, replete with more bland influences:
retaining it, more or less, for the purpose of adjuration, in the
darker and sterner sense. Accordingly, while Scamander, who is also
called Xanthus, has, as a god, a mark of antiquity in the double
name[323], he shows none of the Greek anthropophuistic ingredients.
Even for speech and action, he does not take the human form; but he is,
simply and strictly, the element alive.
[323] Il. xx. 74.
The species of deification, implied in earth-worship, scarcely lifted
the objects of it in any degree out of the sphere of purely material
conceptions. Thus, while Scamander, from his superior power, is no
more than Nature put in action, all the other Rivers of Troas exhibit
to us Nature purely passive, a blind instrument in the hand of deity.
The total silence and inaction of Simois[324], after the appeal of
Scamander, makes his impersonality more conspicuous, than if he had
not been addressed. Again, when the Greeks have quitted the country,
Apollo takes up the streams of the eight rivers that descend from Ida,
including great Scamander, like so many firemen’s hose, and turns them
upon the rampart to destroy it. We have no example in Homer of this
mechanical mode of handling Greek rivers.
[324] Il. xxi. 308.
The distinction of treatment seems to be due to a difference in the
mythology of the two countries as its probable source. And I find an
analogous method of proceeding with reference to the Winds. In the
Iliad they are deities, addressed in prayer, and capable of receiving
offerings. In the Odyssey they are mere senseless instruments of
nature, under the control of Æolus. But then in the Iliad Homer deals
with them for a Greek purpose (for I do not except the impersonation
of Boreas, Il. xx. 203, where the Dardanid family is concerned): it is
Achilles who prays to them: it is the Greek war-horse that they beget.
In the Odyssey he introduces them amidst a system of foreign, that is
to say, of Phœnician traditions.
Turning now to other objects, let us next see whether further inquiry
will confirm the suggestions, which I have founded on the cases of Gaia
and of Scamander.
At the head of Scamander are two fountains, and hard by them are the
cisterns, which the women of the city frequent for washing clothes.
Thus the spot is one of great notoriety; yet there is not a word
of any deity connected with these fountains. This is in remarkable
contrast with what we meet in Homer’s Greek topography. Ulysses[325],
immediately on being aware that he has been disembarked in Ithaca,
prays to the Nymphs of the grotto, which was dedicated to them. There
they had their bowls and vases, and their distaffs of stone, with which
they spun yarn of sea-purple[326]. And the harbour, in which he was
landed, was the harbour of Phorcys, the old man of the sea[327]. So
again at the fountain, where the people of the town drew water, there
was an altar of the Nymphs that presided over it, upon which all the
passers-by habitually made offerings[328]. Nor could this be wonderful,
as all groves, all fountains, all meadows, and probably all mountains,
had their proper indwelling Nymphs according to the Greek mythology;
while the Rivers were impersonated as deities, and the sea too teemed
at every point with preternatural life.
[325] Od. xiii. 356.
[326] Od. xiii. 103.
[327] Ibid. 96.
[328] Od. xvii. 208-11.
~_Trojan impersonations from Nature rare._~
Homer has named many, besides Scamander, of the rivers of Mount
Ida; but to none, not even to Simois, nor again to Ida or Gargarus
themselves, does he assign any of these local inhabitants.
There are, however, three curious cases of Nymphs assigned by him
to Troas. The νύμφη νηῒς, called Abarbaree, bears two sons to
Bucolion[329], a spurious child of Laomedon; and another nymph of
the same class bears Satnius to Enops[330]. A third similar case is
recorded in the Twentieth Book[331]. These would appear to be simple
cases of spurious births, and to have no proper connection with
mythology. For the mother of Satnius is called ἀμύμων; a name never
applied by Homer to the Immortals. If, however, the Nymphs be deities,
they mark another difference between Greece and Troy: for Homer never
attributes lusts to the Nymphs of the Greek Olympus.
[329] Il. vi. 21.
[330] Il. xiv. 444.
[331] Il. xx. 384.
Amidst the whole detail of the Iliad, in one instance only have we
Trojan Nymphs conceived after the Greek fashion: it is when those of
the mountains, according to the speech of Andromache, planted elms
round about the fresh-made tomb of her father Eetion.
As a general rule, no Trojan refers in speech either to any legend,
or to any intermediate order, of supernatural beings. Destiny, named
by Hecuba, is, as we have seen, a metaphysical idea, rather than a
person[332].
[332] Il. xxii. 435. xxiv. 209.
The very name of Olympus itself is a symbol of nationality; and around
it are grouped the forms, which either the popular belief, or the
imagination of the Poet, incorporated into the company of objects
for worship. They form a body wonderfully brilliant and diversified.
They pervade the Greek mind in such a way, as to appear alike in its
didactic, and its most deeply pathetic moods. The speech of Phœnix
gives us the Parable of Ἄτη and the Λιταί: then the episode of
Meleager, which is founded on the wrath of Diana: but into this legend
itself, inserted into the speech, is again interpolated the separate
legend of Apollo and Alcyone[333]. The speech of Agamemnon, in the
Nineteenth Book, affords us another example[334]. The case is the same
in the most pathetic strains. Achilles, in the interview with Priam,
exhorts him to take food by the example of Niobe, and appends her
tale[335]: Penelope, praying to Diana in the extremity of her grief,
recites the tale of the daughters of Pandareus[336]. Even the Suitor
Antinous points his address to Ulysses with the semi-divine legend of
the Centaurs and Lapithæ[337]. Everywhere, and from all the receptacles
of thought, mythology overflows. But in Troy the case is quite
different. There the human mind never seems to resort to it, either
for food or in sport. We find deities, priests, prophets, ceremonial,
all apparently in abundance: in all of these, except the first, the
Greeks are much poorer; but each of them, in and for himself, is in
contact with an entire supernatural world, the creation of luxuriant
and energetic fancy, which ranges alike over the spheres of sense and
of metaphysics. Andromache, virtuous and sincere as Penelope, has no
such mental wealth; her thoughts, and those of Hecuba and Priam, both
ordinarily and also on the death of Hector, are limited to topics the
most obvious and primitive, with which society, however undeveloped, is
familiar. From this limitation, and from the nature of those legends
respecting deities, of which the scene is laid in Troas, it seems
reasonable to believe that the mythological dress is of purely Hellenic
origin.
[333] Il. ix. 559.
[334] Il. xix. 90-133.
[335] Il. xxiv. 602-17.
[336] Od. xx. 66.
[337] Od. xxi. 295-304.
The dedication to Jupiter of the lofty and beautiful chestnut-tree[338]
near Troy, is in correspondence with the oak of Dodona, and indicates
quite a different train of thought from those which conceived the
Greek Olympus. It is probably both a fragment of nature-worship in
its Oriental form, and likewise a portion of the external and ritual
development, in which the religion of Troy was evidently prolific
enough. And in this case the negative evidence of Homer is especially
strong; because the great number of the particular spots on the plain
of Troy, which he has had occasion to commemorate, constitute a much
more minute topography there, than he has given us on any other scene,
not even excepting Ithaca: so that he could hardly have avoided showing
us, had it been the fact, that the religion of Troy entered largely
into what Mr. Grote has so well called ‘the religious and personal
interpretation of nature.’
[338] Il. v. 697, and vii. 60.
Next as to those divine persons of the second order, who are so
abundantly presented to us by Homer in relations with the Greeks. Iris
visits the Trojans thrice. First, she repairs to their Assembly in the
form of Polites. Secondly, she appears to Helen, as her sister-in-law
Laodice. She delivers her message to Priam in the Twenty-fourth Book
without disguise; perhaps because it was necessary[339] that he should
have the assistance of a deity seen and heard, in order to embolden
him for a seemingly desperate enterprise. But there is nothing in his
account of the interview, which requires us to suppose that the person
Iris was known to Priam. The expression he uses is[340]
[339] Il. xxiv. 220.
[340] Il. xxiv. 223, 194.
αὐτὸς γὰρ ἄκουσα θεοῦ καὶ ἐσέδρακον ἄντην.
And again, he calls her an Olympian messenger[341] from Jupiter.
Another passage carries the argument a point further, by showing us
that the appearance of this benignant deity was alarming, doubtless
because it was strange, to him. When she arrives, she addresses him
very softly τυτθὸν φθεγξαμένη (170): but he is seized with dread;
[341] Sup. p. 155.
τὸν δὲ τρόμος ἔλλαβε γυῖα·
an emotion, which I do not remember to have found recorded on any
apparition of a divinity to a Greek hero.
~_Poverty of Trojan Mythology._~
Thus far then it would appear probable, that in the Trojan mythology
the list of major deities was more contracted than in Greece, and that
the minor deities were almost unknown. But perhaps the most marked
difference between the two systems is in the copious development on the
Greek side of the doctrine of a future state, compared with the jejune
and shadowy character of that belief among the Trojans.
~_Jejune doctrine of a Future State._~
In the narrative of the sack of Hypoplacian Thebes, and again in her
first lament over Hector, Andromache does indeed speak of her husband,
father, and brothers, respectively, as having entered the dwellings of
Aides[342]. But these references are slight, and it may almost be said
perfunctory. Not another word is said either in the Twenty-second Book,
or in the whole of the Twenty-fourth, about the shade of Hector.
[342] Il. vi. 422. xxii. 482.