with them as to many distinct impersonations: or at least we must not
follow out that idea to its consequences. And for this reason; they
were not in contact with the popular mind, and formed no part of the
public religion: they were formations of the Poet for his own purposes,
whom he might make and unmake at his will, and the conditions of whose
existence he might modify, without being bound to any further degree
of consistency than might for the occasion answer the purpose of his
art. We must not, then, ask him whether he really means his Muse to be
one or many, and if many, how many (it is, indeed, only in the second
νεκυΐα that he mentions them as nine[69]), but must simply take them as
a poetical, rather than mythological, impersonation of Vocal Music.
[69] Od. xxiv. 60.
And here we at once perceive both the ground of their plurality, and
their ministerial relation to Apollo. The former, probably, lay in the
nature of harmony, or simultaneous combination of tones, requiring,
of course, a combination of different voices, to effect what on the
instrument is done by different strings. And if it did not spring from,
it was at least suited to, that succession of alternate parts, which
was, as we know, used in Israel even more anciently than in Homer’s
time, and which may, though I do not, for one, feel certain that it
must, have been signified by the term ἀμειβόμεναι, a name clearly
relating to part-singing in one sense or another. Their subordinate
relation to Apollo is represented in the combination[70] of the voice
with the instrument. He, as the Original, remains in possession of
the indivisible gift: they assist him in one which is essentially
distributive. And as they share in his music, so also in his knowledge:
but only in that which relates to the past: with the future they have
no concern[71]. But as either Minerva or Vulcan can teach a smith, so
either Apollo or the Muse can inspire a bard[72].
[70] Il. i. 604.
[71] Il. ii. 485.
[72] Od. viii. 488.
~_Argument from the Secondaries._~
Such then are the Olympian Secondaries. None of them, it will be
observed, are properly derivative beings. All of them represent, in
some sense, traditions, or imaginations, distinct from those respecting
their principal deity: nor are they in the same kind of subservience to
them as the Eilithuiæ to Juno, who have no worship paid them, and are
of doubtful personality; or as the metal handmaids to Vulcan himself.
But they are deities, each of whom singly in a particular province
administers a function, which also belongs to a deity of higher
dignity. And though a difference is clearly discernible in the form of
the possession and administration, yet there still remains a clear and
manifest duplication, a lapping over of divinities, which is entirely
at variance with the symmetry that we might reckon upon finding in an
homogeneous conception of the Greeks.
This irregular duplication is kept in some degree out of view, if
we set out with the determination to refer the Homeric deities to a
single origin, to make a regular division of duties among them, and to
pare down this, or enlarge that, till we have brought them and their
supposed gifts into the requisite order. But as it stands in Homer,
free from later admixtures, and from prepossessions of ours, it is
a most curious and significant fact, and raises at once a serious
inquiry as to its cause.
I submit that it may be referred to the joint operation of two
circumstances. First, to the particular form of the early traditions
that were incorporated into the invented or Olympian system. Secondly,
to the principle of economy, or family and social order, reflected back
from the human community upon the divine.
If the primitive tradition, even when disfigured by the lapse of
time, yet on its arrival in Greece still visibly appropriated to one
sublime person, distinguishable from the supreme God, and femininely
conceived, the attributes of sovereign wisdom, strength, and skill;
and to another, in the form of man, the gifts of knowledge, reaching
before and after, and identified in early times with that of Song, as
well as that of healing or deliverance from pain and death; then we
can understand why it is that, when these great personages take their
places as of right in the popular mythology, they continue to keep hold
on certain great functions, in which their attributes are primarily
developed.
~_Picture of human society in Olympus._~
But on the other hand, the divine society must be cast into the form of
the human; and this especially must take effect in three great organic
particulars. First, by means of the family, which brings the members
of the body into being: secondly, by political association, involving
the necessity of a head, and of a deliberative organ: thirdly, by the
existence of certain professions, which by the use of intellectual
gifts provide for the exigencies of the community. The merely labouring
classes, in whose place and idea there is nothing of the governing
function, are naturally without representation, in the configuration of
the divine community, as to the forms of their particular employments:
though the people at large bear a rude analogy to the mass of inferior
deities not included in the ordinary meeting of the gods, yet summoned
to the great Chapter or Parliament. Olympus must, in short, have its
δημιόεργοι.
Who these were for an ordinary Greek community like that of Ithaca, we
learn from the speech of Eumæus[73].
[73] Od. xvii. 383.
τῶν οἳ δημιοεργοὶ ἔασιν,
μάντιν, ἢ ἰητῆρα κακῶν, ἢ τέκτονα δούρων,
ἢ καὶ θέσπιν ἀοιδόν.
Here, indeed, there is no representation of the principle of gain
or commerce, which does not appear as yet to have formed a class in
Greece, though the Ithacans habitually sacrificed to Mercury[74].
But that formation was on the way; for the class was already known,
doubtless as a Phœnician one, under the name of πρηκτῆρες, men of
business, apt to degenerate into τρωκταὶ, or sharpers. Nor was
there a class of soldiers; but every citizen became a soldier upon
occasion. With these additions, it is curious to observe how faithfully
the Olympian copy is modelled upon the human original. The five
professions, or demioergic functions, are,
[74] Od. xiv. 435, and xvi. 471.
1. μάντις, the seer.
2. ἰήτηρ κακῶν, the surgeon.
3. τέκτων δούρων, the skilled artificer.
4. ἀοιδὸς, the bard.
5. πρήκτηρ, the man of business or merchant.
Now all these were actually represented in Apollo and Minerva; the
first, second, and fourth by Apollo, the third and fifth by Minerva,
who was also the highest type of war. But this union of several
human professions in one divine person would have been fatal to
the fidelity and effectiveness of the Olympian picture, to which a
division of labour, analogous to the division existing in actual
society, was essential. Therefore the accumulation was to be reduced.
And in order to make this practicable, there were distinct traditions
ready, on which could be laid the superfluous or most easily separable
attributes of Apollo and Minerva. So Apollo keeps unimpaired his gift
of foreknowledge, and Minerva hers of sublime wisdom. With these no one
is permitted to interfere. But the ἰήτηρ is represented in Paieon: the
τέκτων (into Olympus however no inferior material enters, and all work
is evidently in metal, of which the celestial Smith[75] constructs the
buildings themselves, that on earth would be made of wood) is exhibited
in Vulcan: the ἀοιδὸς in the Muses, the πρήκτηρ in Mercury, and the man
of war in Mars.
[75] Il. xv. 309.
~_Dignity and precedence of Minerva._~
3. Though Minerva cannot contest with Juno the honour of mere
precedence in the Olympian court, yet, as regards substantial dignity,
she by no means yields even to the queen of heaven. Sometimes,
undoubtedly, when she moves in the interest of the Greeks, it is upon
the suggestion of Juno made to herself, as in Il. i. 195; or through
Jupiter, as in Il. iv. 64. But it is probable that this should be
referred, not to greater eminence or authority, but simply to the more
intensely and more narrowly Hellenized character of Juno. There are, at
any rate, beyond all doubt, some arrangements adopted by the poet, with
the special intent, to all appearance, of indicating a full equality,
if not an actual pre-eminence, for Minerva. Twice the two goddesses
descend together from Olympus to the field of battle. Both times it
is in the chariot of Juno. Now Iris, as on one occasion, at least,
she acts at Juno’s bidding, and as on another we find her unyoking the
chariot of Mars, might with propriety have been employed to discharge
this function at a moment when the two greatest goddesses are about
to set out together. It is not so, however. Juno herself yokes the
horses, and also plays the part of driver, while Minerva mounts as the
warrior beside her[76]. To be the charioteer is generally, though not
quite invariably, the note of the inferior. But irrespectively of this
official distinction, Minerva with her Ægis is the conspicuous, and
Juno evidently the subordinate figure in the group.
[76] Il. v. 745-8.
In the Odyssey, again, we have a most striking indication of the
essential superiority of Minerva to the great and powerful Neptune.
Attending, in the disguise of a human form, the sacrifice of Nestor at
Pylos to his divine ancestor, she does not scruple, on the invitation
of the young prince Pisistratus, to offer prayer to that deity, in the
capacity of a courteous guest and a religious Greek. Her petitions
are for Nestor, for his family, for his subjects, and for the errand
on which she, with Telemachus, was engaged. All are included in the
general words with which she concludes[77]:
[77] Od. iii. 55-62. Vide Nitzsch in loc.
μηδὲ μεγήρῃς
ἡμῖν εὐχομένοισι τελευτῆσαι τάδε ἔργα.
But at the close the poet goes on to declare that what she thus sought
in prayer from her uncle Neptune, she forthwith accomplished herself:
ὣς ἄρ’ ἔπειτ’ ἠρᾶτο, καὶ αὐτὴ πάντα τελεύτα.
Yet once more. The same train of ideas, which explains how Olympus
is fitted with a set of Secondaries, also shows to us why these
Secondaries have only the lower or subsidiary form of their several
gifts. It is because these gifts were already in the possession
of higher personages, before the introduction of the more recent
traditions represented by the Secondaries: traditions, of which the
whole, (except that of Paieon, who is not worshipped at all, and exists
only in and for Olympus,) bear upon them, as received in Greece, the
marks of modernism[78]. They naturally submit to the conditions,
anterior to themselves, of the hierarchy into which they are
introduced. But, on the one hand, their existence, together with the
peculiar relation of their work and attributes, rather than themselves,
to the great deities of tradition, Apollo and Minerva, constitutes
of itself a strong argument for the separate and more ancient origin
of those divinities. On the other hand, they bear powerful testimony
to the force of that principle, which reflected on the Achæan heaven
the experience of earth. For there is not a single dignified and
intellectual occupation known to and in use among the Hellenic tribes,
properly so called, which has not, as far as may be, counterpart on
Olympus. Not even the priesthood is a real exception; especially if
I am right in believing it to be Pelasgian, and not yet to have been
adopted in the time of Homer as one of the Hellenic institutions. But,
even if it had been so adopted, it could not, from the nature of the
case, have been carried into the Olympian system, since there were no
beings above themselves to whom the gods could offer sacrifice, and
since, according to the depraved idea of it which had begun to prevail,
in offering it they would have parted with something that was of value
to themselves.
[78] See the accounts of the several deities, in Sect. iii.
We do not hear a great deal respecting mere ceremonial among the
Olympian divinities. To Jupiter, however, and to Juno, is awarded the
conspicuous honour, that, when either of them enters the assembled
Court, all the other deities rise up[79]. It is plain that Homer
included in the picture before his mental eye ideas relating to that
external order which we term precedence: and it may be shown, that
Minerva had the precedence over the other gods, or what we should term
the seat of honour; that place which was occupied, in the human family,
by the eldest son. Juno we must presume, as the reflection of Jupiter,
would occupy the place of the mother.
[79] Il. i. 533. xv. 85.
When Thetis is summoned to Olympus in the Twenty-fourth Iliad, she
receives on her arrival the honours of a guest, in which is included
this distinguished place beside the chief person, and it is Minerva who
yields it up to her;
ἡ δ’ ἄρα πὰρ Διῒ πατρὶ καθέζετο, εἶξε δ’ Ἀθήνη[80].
[80] Il. xxiv. 100.
An exactly similar proceeding is recorded in the Third Odyssey. When
Telemachus and the pseudo-Mentor approach the banquet of Nestor,
Pisistratus, the youngest son, first goes to greet them, and then
places them in the seat of honour, between his father and his eldest
brother[81],
[81] Od. iii. 39.
πάρ τε κασιγνήτῳ Θρασυμήδεϊ καὶ πατέρι ᾧ·
that is, by the side of Nestor; Thrasymedes giving way to make room
for them, and remaining on the other side of them, like Minerva in the
Twenty-Fourth Iliad.
~_Of Apollo._~
Homer has left no express record on this particular point with
reference to Apollo. In the ancient Hymn, however, a part of which
is quoted by Thucydides, this honour is distinctly assigned to that
divinity in these fine lines[82]:
[82] Hymn. ad Apoll. 2-4.
ὅν τε θεοὶ κατὰ δῶμα Διὸς τρομέουσιν ἰόντα·
καί ῥάτ’ ἀναΐσσουσιν ἐπισχέδον ἐρχομένοιο
πάντες ἀφ’ ἑδράων, ὅτε φαίδιμα τόξα τιταίνει.
~_Intimacy of their relations with Jupiter._~
4. More remarkable and important, however, than this precedence of
Minerva in the Olympian Court, are the relations of will and affection
between Jupiter and these two, as compared with his other children.
To these, and these only, does he ever use any term of positive
endearment. Minerva is twice called φίλον τέκος, and Apollo is twice
addressed in the vocative as φίλε Φοῖβε[83]. This is the more worthy of
note, because it might have been expected that other divinities rather
than these, for example, Mercury on account of his youth, or Venus for
her beauty and blandishments, would have been the preferable objects of
these phrases. But there is nothing of the sort in the case of Mercury,
and in that of Venus, the nearest approach is τέκνον ἐμόν (Il. v. 428).
She is only addressed as φίλον τέκος by Juno, who was not her mother,
and this at a moment when it was convenient to pass a gross deception
upon her[84].
[83] Il. viii. 40. xxii. 183. and Il. xv. 221. xvi. 667.
[84] Il. xiv.
Minerva is, indeed, sufficiently forward to place herself in opposition
to Jupiter for purposes of her own: she does not exhibit the principle
of full obedience, but then she is strong in the self-consciousness
of right as well as in power. She goes all lengths in thwarting
Jupiter in the Iliad, excites his wrath, and draws down on herself
his menaces[85]. But her general aim is to give effect to a design
so unequivocally approved in Olympus, that Jupiter himself has been
constrained to give way to it; namely, the vindication of justice by
the fall of Troy. And consequently, upon the slightest indication from
her of a conciliatory disposition, Jupiter shows himself appeased, and
seems to regret his own rigour[86].
[85] Il. viii. 401-6 and 454-6.
[86] Il. viii. 30-40.
The case of Apollo stands alone as an exhibition of entire harmony with
the will of Jupiter. On no single occasion does he act or speak in a
different sense from that of his parent. In the Olympian Council of the
Twenty-Fourth Iliad, having to make a strong remonstrance respecting
the dishonoured condition of the body of Hector, he is careful to
address it not to Jupiter, but to the body of gods present[87];
[87] Il. xxiv. 33.
σχέτλιοί ἐστε, θεοὶ, δηλήμονες.
And consequently, when Juno follows with a sharp invective aimed at
him, Jupiter immediately checks her[88], and gives effect to the
counsel of Apollo. Generally throughout the poem he is the organ
of Jupiter for all that is about to be effected on behalf of Troy,
but never for any purpose which is to prove abortive. When, under
the divine decree, Hector is about to be slain by Achilles, Apollo
withdraws from the doomed warrior, and Minerva joins the favoured one.
[88] Ibid. 65.
This union of the will of Apollo with that of Jupiter must not be
lightly passed by. It is in truth one of the very strongest arguments
to show the presence of traditionary elements in this great conception.
For wide as is the prevalence of the law of discord upon earth, that
evil is hardly less rife in Olympus. Not only do menaces form the
supreme sanction by which in many cases its government is carried
on, but every kind of personal grudge and quarrel abounds, as well
as a general tendency to intrigue and insubordination. So that it
does not sound strange to us, when Jupiter uses to his son Mars what
nevertheless upon examination we must allow to be an astonishing
expression;
ἔχθιστος δέ μοί ἐσσι θεῶν, οἳ Ὄλυμπον ἔχουσιν[89].
[89] Il. v. 890.
Among all the rest of the prominent divinities, there is no single
instance of a positive harmony of will pervading the whole course of
action, either as between any one of them and Jupiter, or as among
themselves. I therefore take it as a very strong indication that
materials were brought for this tradition, so different in kind from
what Olympus yielded, out of a source higher than Olympus.
5. In the point next to be stated Apollo is chiefly concerned.
~_Apollo the deliverer of heaven._~
It is the remarkable tradition, which makes that god the defender and
deliverer of heaven and the other Immortals.
Otus and Ephialtes, twin grandchildren of Neptune, and the most huge
in stature of all beings reared on earth, as also the most beautiful
after Orion, threaten even in their boyhood war against heaven, and
propose to scale it by piling the mountains. And this they would have
accomplished, had they attained to their proper age and full size
(ἥβη): but Apollo destroyed them first[90].
[90] Od. xi. 307-20.
This is a tradition which cannot properly belong to Greek invention:
for what has Apollo to do, when so regarded, either with the wielding
of vast physical force, or with laying it prostrate? Neither as
physician, harper, poet, prophet, archer, nor angel of Death, does
he appear to have been the person who would have been chosen for
this purpose. The thunderbolt of Jupiter is the weapon we should
have expected to be employed in preference, or the mighty spear and
terrifying Ægis of Minerva, or even the brute bulk of Mars. The gentle
death, which it was Apollo’s mythological office to bring about, is
totally unsuited to the subject.
It is only when we expand that mild conception into the character
of the Avenger, partially exhibited in the First Iliad, that Apollo
becomes the fitting destroyer of Otus and Ephialtes. This tradition in
aftertimes was apparently combined with a larger one relating to the
Giants, at which Homer darkly glances[91].
[91] Od. vii. 56, 60.
Ovid makes Jupiter his own defender[92]: a fine passage in Horace
introduces many divine combatants, but retains a rather prominent place
for Apollo, while it gives another to Minerva; and these two with
Jupiter appear to bear the brunt of the battle[93].
[92] Ov. Met. i. 151.
[93] Hor. Od. III. iv. 42-64.
It admits of but one satisfactory explanation, namely that, coming from
a source higher than the mythology, it does not, so to speak, wear the
livery of that system: and that this performance is assigned to Apollo,
either because he represented the Person to whom all power was to
belong in heaven and earth both for destruction and for deliverance, or
else because tradition actually assigned to that same Person the glory
of having already overcome a rebellion of powerful beings against the
Most High.
There is no precise parallel supplied by Homer, in the case of
Minerva, to the tradition which makes Apollo the destroyer of the
rebels. But though not the defender of the divine order at large, she
is the champion of Hercules, the favourite son of Jupiter, under
circumstances when apparently, but for her, his divinity would have
been at fault. ‘What!’ says Minerva, when thwarted by her parent in
the Eighth Iliad, ‘has he forgotten how many times I saved his son in
the labours imposed upon him by Eurystheus? Had I, at the time when
Hercules was sent by him to fetch Cerberus out of the under-world,
known how he would behave now, never should he have escaped the dread
streams of Styx[94].’ We are left to infer from this curious legend
that Minerva had a power, available in the world below, which tradition
did not assign to Jupiter, and that he found her use of it on this
occasion absolutely indispensable for the fulfilment of his wishes,
even in regard to a favourite son.
[94] Il. viii. 362-9; and also Od. xi. 623-6.
Each of these functions, assigned to Apollo and Minerva respectively,
recalls to memory those Jewish traditions, which set forth the direct
and especial power of the Messiah over the fallen angels and over the
grave.
~_These deities are never foiled by others._~
6. The last characteristic of the two peculiarly traditive deities
which will be mentioned under this head is, that they are never foiled,
defeated, or outwitted by any other of the gods. In no single case has
Minerva, where she is in action, to encounter any one of these forms
of dishonour: nor has Apollo, in any instance except only when he is
pitted against Minerva. Of this class there are two cases: one, when
the Greeks are losing ground[95], and he is made to arrange with her
for stopping the general conflict, by prompting the personal challenge
from Hector in its stead: a matter which was certain to end to the
credit of the Greeks. The other is in the Doloneia[96], when he causes
an alarm just in time to find that Diomed and Ulysses, guided by
Minerva, have accomplished the bloody purpose of their errand. Among
men, as among gods, Minerva touches nothing except what is destined to
triumph. She is not, therefore, invoked by the doomed Patroclus: and
she renders him no aid.
[95] Id. vii. 20.
[96] Il. x. 515.
To appreciate the importance of this consideration, we must bear in
mind that there is no one of the purely invented deities, who is not
at one time or another subject in some form to disparagement. Mars is
worsted by Minerva, through Diomed, as well as directly subject to her
control; Vulcan is laughed at by the gods in general; Mercury dares not
encounter Latona; Ceres sees her lover slain by Jupiter; Venus is not
only smitten to the ground by Minerva, but beaten by Diomed without his
having any divine aid to strengthen him, and befooled by Juno; Juno
outwits Jupiter himself; but Juno also, together with Aides, is wounded
sorely by Hercules; and it is also recorded of her, that she had been
subjected by her husband to the ignominious punishment of hanging in
chains, with an anvil at each foot[97].
[97] Il. xv. 18.
Neptune is no where subjected to personal ignominy; but he is baffled
by Laomedon, and is also unable to avenge effectually the mutilation
of his son Polyphemus. Nay, Jupiter himself, besides being deceived by
Juno, was menaced by a formidable combination, who were about to put
him in fetters, when Briareus came to his aid[98].
[98] Il. i. 398-406.