career of Diomed[99], and again of Patroclus[100]. And in the destinies
of Ulysses, Minerva, who protects him, effectually, though after a
struggle, prevails against Neptune, who does his uttermost against him.
In order, however, justly to estimate the weight of this consideration,
we must not omit to notice, that it has cost Homer an elaborate, and
what we might otherwise call a far-fetched contrivance[101], to save
Apollo from dishonour in the Theomachy. He is there matched against
Neptune, a deity of rank equal to that of Jupiter, and in force
inferior to his elder brother alone. It was therefore inadmissible
that such a god should be subjected to defeat. But if Apollo were no
more than one of the ordinary deities of invention, no similar reason
could apply to him. He was junior: he was a son of Jupiter, like Mars
or Mercury: he was on the losing side, that of the Trojans: why should
he not, like Mars, be well thrashed by his antagonist? It could only
be, I think, in consequence of some broad line of demarcation between
them: some severance which determines their characters and positions as
radically and fundamentally, and not by mere accident, divided.
[99] Il. v. 440.
[100] Il. xvi. 707.
[101] Il. xxi. 435.
If we consider the mere birth of these two deities according to the
Olympian order, every consideration derived from that source would tend
to assign to Mars a higher place than Apollo. His function was more
commanding: for in an age of turbulence, and among a people given alike
to freebooting and to open war, what pacific office could compete,
abstractedly, with that of the god of arms? Again, Mars is the son of
Juno, who is the eldest daughter of Saturn, the original and principal
wife of Jupiter, the acknowledged queen of Olympus: the coequal in
birth of the great trine brotherhood, and second in power to none
but Jupiter himself. Why should the child of Latona be placed so far
above the child of one so much his superior in birth, according to the
mythological order? Why is his position so different from that enjoyed
by the child of Dione, or the child of Ceres?
But so studiously does Homer cherish the dignity of Apollo, that he
does not even throw on him the burden of taking the initiative in
proposing the plan by which it is to be saved. This is managed with
great care and art. ‘Let us two fight,’ says Neptune, ‘but do you
begin, as I am the older, and know better.’ And then, by bringing up
their common grudge against Laomedon, he proceeds to show of what
absurdity Apollo would be guilty if he were to follow the ironical
advice, and thus makes it easy, indeed inevitable, for him to echo the
sentiment, and say, let us leave them, hapless mortals, to themselves.
With this we may compare two other arrangements conceived in the same
spirit. In the Fifteenth Iliad, Jupiter takes care that the mission
of Apollo to assist the Trojans shall only begin when Neptune, the
formidable friend of the Greeks, has already quitted the field of
battle[102]. And in the Fifth Odyssey, it is contrived that only when
Neptune withdraws from the persecution of Ulysses, then at length
Minerva shall instantly appear to resume her charge over him[103].
[102] Il. xv. 218-20.
[103] Od. v. 380-2.
When we come to discuss the position of Latona, both generally and in
the Theomachy, further force will, I think, be added to the foregoing
considerations. On the other hand, I admit that the legend of Apollo
with Laomedon, which represents that he and Neptune were deceived by
that king, is not, so far as I see, explained in any manner which
should place it in entire harmony with the general rule we have been
considering, unless we may consider that he had his revenge in the
opportunity afforded him by the Theomachy of refusing to fight for
Troy. But this is a case of treatment by a mortal, not by a god; and it
belongs to a different order.
I now proceed to touch upon the pre-eminence of Minerva and Apollo in
points connected with their terrestrial relations, and with what may be
termed the physical conditions of their existence.
1. It is quite clear from Homer, that these two deities received from
men a special and peculiar honour: though it may be open to question,
whether this retained only the indeterminate form of a sentiment, or
whether it was embodied in some fact or usage.
Pallas and Apollo have the exclusive distinction of being invoked in
conjunction with Jupiter, in the remarkable line
Αἲ γὰρ, Ζεῦ τε πάτερ καὶ Ἀθηναίη καὶ Ἄπολλον.
This verse meets us, not upon occasions having reference to any
peculiar rite or function, but simply when the speaker desires to
give utterance with a peculiar solemnity or emphasis to some strong
and paramount desire. Thus Agamemnon wishes, with this adjuration,
that he had ten such counsellors as Nestor[104]: and again, that all
his warriors had the same activity of spirit as the two Ajaxes[105].
Nestor with these words wishes himself young again[106]: as does old
Laertes[107]. Achilles prays in this form, when exasperated, for
the destruction of Greeks and Trojans alike[108]: Menelaus for the
appearance of Ulysses among the Suitors[109]; Alcinous thus expresses
the wish that Ulysses could be the husband of Nausicaa[110]: and
lastly, Telemachus, that the Suitors were in a worse condition than the
disabled Irus[111].
[104] Il. ii. 371.
[105] iv. 288.
[106] vii. 132.
[107] Od. xxiv. 376.
[108] Il. xvi. 97.
[109] Od. iv. 341, and xvii. 132.
[110] Od. vii. 311.
[111] Od. xviii. 235.
~_The Trine Invocation._~
The expression never is heard from the mouth of any Trojan; for Homer,
on whatever account, rarely allows them the use of the same formulæ
with the Greeks. But the whole substance of it is contained, and in a
shape even more restrictive, in the line twice spoken by Hector,
Τιοίμην δ’, ὡς τιέτ’ Ἀθηναίη καὶ Απόλλων.
This language is indeed so pointed, that it suggests the question,
whether there must not have been some peculiar form of external honour,
which in the Heroic age was rendered to these deities, and not to
others.
And, singularly enough, of the temples of the Homeric poems, all
that we can point out as unequivocally named, and in existence, are
temples either to Apollo or to Pallas. But the phrases may also
have pointed towards others of their very numerous distinctions. I
do not, accordingly, venture to assert that this actually was the
exclusive honour of the two deities; but there is nothing absurd in
the supposition that it may have been so. It would not have been
inconsistent with a belief in Jupiter as the highest god, that those,
who were believed to be in a peculiar sense his ministers and organs
for the government of the world, should either have received at the
hands of mankind a larger share of the substantial tributes of worship
than he did, or should have enjoyed it under a peculiar form and
conditions.
~_Their worship universal._~
2. It would appear to be indubitable, that Apollo and Minerva were
objects not of partial but of universal worship, within the sphere of
the knowledge of Homer.
Even without examination of details, the proof of this proposition
might rest upon their relative positions in regard to the two parties
of Greeks and Trojans. Minerva, the great Hellenizing deity, is the
object of the supplicatory procession of Trojan women in the Sixth
Book. She is the peculiar patroness at once of the highly Pelasgian
Attica[112], and of the characteristic type of Hellenic character
represented in Ulysses. On the other hand, Apollo, the one really
effective champion of the Trojans, is acknowledged by every Greek
chieftain, except Agamemnon, at the very outset of the poem[113].
Agamemnon himself has only been misled by his own avarice and passion,
and he shortly sends a solemn mission to appease the offended
divinity[114].
[112] Il. ii. 546.
[113] Il. i. 22.
[114] Ibid. iv. 30.
Setting aside the case of Jupiter, who stands on a different level,
there is nothing attaching to the other deities of the War, which
at all resembles the position of command enjoyed in common by these
two, both among their friends, and with those against whom they are
contending. There is not even a difference of degree to be traced
between the reverence paid them on the one side, and on the other.
When we turn to particulars, we find that Minerva has a temple in Troy,
a temple in Athens, a sacred grove in Scheria. She is worshipped by
Nestor on the sea-shore at Pylos, and, near the Minyeius; by Telemachus
in Ithaca; by Ulysses and Diomed in the Greek camp. She accompanies
Ulysses every where, while he is within the circle of the Greek
traditions; only refrains of her own free will from going beyond it;
and rejoins him when, near Scheria, he has at length again touched upon
the outermost border of the Greek world.
There is no deity, without excepting even Jupiter, with respect to whom
we have such ample evidence in the poems of the development of his
worship in positive and permanent institutions, as is given in the case
of Apollo. He has a priest at Chryse, a temple in Troy, a priest and
grove at Ismarus in Thrace, a grove and festivals in Ithaca, oracles at
Delos and at Delphi.
Besides these positive institutions, there are in Homer innumerable
marks of his influence. He worked for Laomedon, he is worshipped at
Cille; the name of Lycia seems to have been probably derived from him
and his attributes; the Seers, whom he endows with vision, are found
in Peloponnesus, and even among the Cyclops; he feeds the horses of
Admetus either in Pieria or in Pheræ, claims the services of Alcyone,
the daughter of Marpessa, in Ætolia, and slays the children of Niobe
near mount Sipylus. So far as the Homeric signs go, they would lead
us to suppose that he was regarded by the Poet as a deity no less
universal than that Scourge of Death, to which he stands in such a
close and solemn relation.
With the exception of Jupiter, there is no other deity of whom we
can so confidently assert that he receives an universal worship:
and Neptune is the only other, with Minerva, in regard to whom the
indications of the poems render it probable. Of him we may infer it,
from his appearing to be known or to act at places so widely separated
by distance; on the Solyman mountains, in Troas under Laomedon, in
Greece near the Enipeus, in the land of the Cyclops, in the sea far
north of Phæacia. But this is entirely owing to the wide extent of the
θάλασσα, his portion of the great kingdom of external Nature, which,
being as broad as the Phœnician traditions of the Odyssey, at once
gives him a place in them. It is clearly not due to any thing more
divine in the conception of him, for he carries many chief notes of
limitation in common with the divinities of pure invention.
The wide extension of the class of Seers may of itself be taken as a
proof of the equally wide recognition of the influence of Apollo: for
he it was who made Polypheides[115] to be first of that order, on the
death of Amphiaraus. Now these Seers appear to have been found every
where, under the form either of the μάντις, or of the οἰωνίστης. Not in
Greece only and in Troas proper; but in Percote, among the Mysians, and
even among the Cyclops in the Outer Zone[116].
[115] Od. xv. 252.
[116] Il. ii. 831, 859. and Od. ix. 508.
~_Not localized as to abode._~
3. The next distinction I shall note in the traditive deities is,
that they are confined to no one spot or region for their abode; a
limitation, which is imposed, either more or less, upon every other
prominent deity except Jupiter only.
With respect to some of them, this is made quite clear by positive
signs. Except when in Olympus, or else when abroad on a special
occasion, Mars does not quit Thrace, nor Vulcan Lemnos, nor Venus
Paphos. But even upon higher and older deities there are signs of
some kind of local limitation. The rigidly Argeian character of Juno,
though it does not express, yet implies it. Demeter would appear to
have a local abode, probably in Crete. Aidoneus and Persephone are
ordinarily confined to the Shades, where their proper business lies.
Neptune himself, when dismissed from the battle-field, is desired to
repair either to the sea or to Olympus. His regular worship among
the Greeks was, as appears from a speech of Juno, at Helice and Ægæ
in Ægialos; which it is not easy to account for, except upon the
supposition that he resided peculiarly at these places[117]. Now it is
expressly declared that his palace was in Ægæ: from thence he sets out
for the plain of Troy, and thither he repairs when he desists from the
persecution of Ulysses. The name Ægæ is not mentioned in the Catalogue,
and Helice, as it is called εὐρεῖα, was evidently a district; thus
it may have been the district in which Ægæ stood, perhaps as its
seaport[118]. Before the time of Strabo Ægæ[119] had disappeared.
[117] Il. viii. 203.
[118] Il. ii. 575. xiii. 20. Od. v. 381. Strabo, p. 387.
[119] In accordance with the prevailing opinion, I take this to be the
Ægæ of Ægialus, not of Eubœa.
Now Minerva has a peculiar relation to Athens, and is once mentioned
as betaking herself thither[120]. Again, the epithet Λυκηγένης, rarely
given to Apollo, has suggested a connection with Lycia. If, however we
form our judgment from Homer, Lycia may derive its name from Apollo,
but not Apollo from Lycia.
[120] Od. iii. 78-81. I may state, that were I not so fearful of
offending on the side of license, I should be inclined to suspect the
hand of the diaskeuast in this passage more than in almost any other of
the Poems.
But it is plain from the poems that the influence, the activity, and
the virtual, if not positive presence of Apollo and Minerva pervade the
whole Homeric world. This is shown partly by their universal action; in
Troas, in Lycia[121], in Thrace, in Scheria, and all over Greece. It is
also demonstrated by the manner in which prayer is addressed to them:
and neither the one nor the other is ever represented either as having
a palace or residence in any particular spot, or as showing, like Juno,
an exclusive partiality to any particular race or city.
[121] Il. v. 105.
4. Although invocation of divinities is frequent in the poems of
Homer, it does not seem to have been sufficiently observed, that the
Olympian personages, to whom it is ordinarily addressed, are very few
in number.
In the Twentieth Odyssey, Penelope beseeches Diana to put a period
to her mournful existence. I presume that she is here invoked, not
on account of her superiority as a traditive deity, but because the
subject is connected with her especial office in regard to Death.
Neptune again is occasionally addressed by mortals; as by his
descendant Nestor on the sea-shore at Pylus, and in like manner by his
son Polyphemus, on the beach of the country of the Cyclops. So also he
is invoked by the Envoys on their way to the encampment of Achilles:
here again their course lies along the sea-shore. I will assume
accordingly, though with a good deal of doubt, that any Olympian deity
might be made the object of supplication under given circumstances
of time, place, or person. But it is manifest from the poems that
the general rule is the other way. They are ordinarily not made the
subjects of invocation, even in connection with their own peculiar
gifts. There is no invocation addressed in Homer to Venus, Mars,
Mercury, or Vulcan; nor even, which is more remarkable, to Juno.
Prayer however is very usual in the poems: but it is confined to three
divinities only.
~_Objects of habitual prayer._~
Jupiter, Apollo, and Pallas are addressed by persons in difficulty,
not with reference to any peculiar gift or office that they fill, but
quite independently of peculiar rites, and local or personal relations.
Thus Ulysses and Diomed in the Doloneia invoke Minerva[122]. Menelaus,
when about to attack Euphorbus, prays first to Jupiter[123]. Nestor,
too, addresses Jupiter, and not his own ancestor Neptune[124], in
the great straits of the Greek army. Glaucus beseeches Apollo to
heal his wound[125]; and if this address be thought to belong to his
medical function, it is still very remarkable from its containing a
direct assertion, that he is able both to hear and to act at whatever
distance. The same may be said of the prayer of Pandarus[126]. His
priest Chryses offers prayer to him from the plain of Troas (Il. i.
37): but this may be incidental to the office. The cases of prayer
to Jupiter and Minerva are purely private petitions, without notice,
suggested by the circumstances of the moment: and they show that
though Homer had perhaps no abstract idea of omnipresence, he assigned
to these deities its essential characteristic, that is to say, the
possession of powers not limited by space.
[122] Il. x. 278, 284, 462. Comp. 507.
[123] Il. xvii. 19.
[124] Il. iv. 119.
[125] Il. xvi. 514.
[126] Il. iv. 119.
The evidence that Apollo was invoked independently of bodily presence
at a particular spot, and for the general purpose of help and
protection, not simply in the exercise of particular mythological
functions, if it be less diversified is still, I think, not less
conclusive. It is, in the first place, supplied by the trine invocation
repeatedly addressed to him together with Jupiter and Minerva[127]:
[127] Il. ii. 371, _et alibi_.
αἲ γὰρ, Ζεῦ τε πάτερ, καὶ Ἀθηναίη, καὶ Ἄπολλον.
But the general capacity of Apollo, like Minerva, to receive prayer,
is demonstrated by the language of Diomed to Hector in the Eleventh
Book, when Apollo was not on the battlefield (363, 4); ‘for this time,
Phœbus Apollo has delivered you: and doubtless you took care to pray to
him, when you ventured within the clang of spears:’
νῦν αὖτέ σ’ ἐρύσσατο Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων,
ᾧ μέλλεις εὔχεσθαι, ἰὼν ἐς δοῦπον ἀκόντων.
5. We may now pass on to another head of special prerogatives.
~_Exempt from appetite and limitations._~
Both Minerva and Apollo are generally exempt from the physical
limitations, and from the dominion of appetite, to which the deities of
invention are as generally subject. Though, when a certain necessity
is predicated of the gods in general, they may be literally included
within it, we do not find that the Poet had them in his eye apart
from the rest, and the particular liabilities and imperfections are
never imputed to either of them individually. What is said of them
inclusively with others, is in reality not said of them at all, but
only of the prevailing disposition of the body to which they belong:
just as we are told in the Iliad (xi. 78), that all the gods were
incensed with Jupiter because of his bias towards the Trojans, when
we know that it was in reality only some among them, of the greatest
weight and power. Neither Apollo nor Minerva eats, or drinks, or
sleeps, or is wearied, or is wounded, or suffers pain, or is swayed
by passion. Neither of them is ever outwitted or deluded by any deity
of invention, as Venus is, and even as Jupiter is, by Juno in the
Fourteenth Iliad. When Minerva, in the shape of Mentor, receives the
cup in the Pylian festivities, she passes it on to Telemachus, but it
is not stated that she drinks of it[128]. With this compare the meal of
Mercury on the island of Calypso[129], the invitation to Iris to join
in the banquet of the Winds, and her own fear lest she should lose her
share of the Ethiopian hecatombs[130].
[128] Od. iii. 51, 62.
[129] Od. v. 92-6.
[130] Il. xxiii. 207.
Their relations to animal sacrifice are different from those of the
other, at least of the inventive, gods. Apollo, indeed, is charged by
Juno with having attended at the marriage of Thetis together with the
rest of the gods, where they all banqueted[131];
[131] Il. xxiv. 63.
ἐν δὲ σὺ τοῖσιν
δαίνυ’ ἔχων φόρμιγγα·
and in the Third Odyssey Minerva comes to attend the gracious sacrifice
of Nestor offered in her honour[132],
[132] Od. iii. 435.
ἦλθε δ’ Ἀθήνη
ἱρῶν ἀντιόωσα.
Chryses pleads the performance of the sacrificial rites, as one ground
of favour with the god[133]: in which, however, he is, after all, only
showing that he has not failed to discharge the positive obligations
of his office. And of course these two were the objects of sacrifice
like other deities. Had they not been so, the fact would have been in
conflict with their traditional origin, instead of sustaining it. They
stand in the same category with the rest of the Olympian company, in
that sacrifice is acceptable to them all: but first, it is plain that
they are never said to take a sensual pleasure in it; and secondly, it
does not appear that their favour to individuals either was founded
upon it, or when lost could be recovered by it. It is restitution, and
not sacrifice, which is sought and demanded in the case of Chryses. The
moral character of the whole of those proceedings is emphatically and
authoritatively declared by Calchas[134],
[133] Il. i. 40.
[134] Il. i. 93.
οὔτ’ ἄρ’ ὅγ’ εὐχωλῆς ἐπιμέμφεται, οὔθ’ ἑκατόμβης·
So Diomed and Ulysses have the closest personal relations with
Minerva; but are nowhere said to have acquired their place in her
good-will by sacrifices: though both Apollo for Hector, and Minerva
for Ulysses, plead in the Olympian court, before the other gods, the
sacrificial bounty of those heroes respectively[135]. Nor do we here
rest wholly upon negative evidence. In the First Book, the sacrifice
of the Greeks to Apollo, by the hands of Chryses, is described in the
fullest detail: and the Poet tells us what it was that the god did
take delight in; it was the refined pleasure of the mind and ear,
afforded to him by the songs they chanted before him all the day in
his honour: ὁ δὲ φρένα τέρπετ’ ἀκούων[136]. Further, the contrast may
be drawn not with divinities of their own generation only, but with
the long journeys of Neptune[137] for a feast, and with the marked and
apparently unvarying language of Jupiter himself.
[135] Il. xxiv. 33. and Od. i. 60.
[136] Il. i. 472-4.
[137] Od. i. 22-5.
They receive sacrifice with a dignity, which does not belong to the
other deities. When prayer and offerings are presented to Jupiter by
the Greeks, and he means to refuse the prayer, it is added, that he
notwithstanding took the sacrifices[138]:
[138] Il. ii. 420.
ἀλλ’ ὅγε δέκτο μὲν ἱρὰ, πόνον δ’ ἀμέγαρτον ὄφελλεν.
In the nearly parallel case of Minerva (Il. vii. 311.), it is simply
stated that she refused the prayer of the Trojans, while no notice
is taken of their promised offerings. Again, when Minerva had been
offended by the Greeks, and Agamemnon sought to appease her with
hecatombs, it is described as a proof of his folly that he could
entertain such an idea[139]:
[139] Od. iii. 143-6.
οὐ γάρ τ’ αἶψα θεῶν τρέπεται νόος αἰὲν ἐόντων.
With this we may contrast the case of Neptune, who had threatened
to overwhelm the city of the Phæacians with a mountain; but who is
apparently diverted from his purpose simply by the sacrifice which,
under the advice of Alcinous, they offer to him[140].
[140] Od. xiii. 167-83.
Mere attributes of bulk stand at the bottom of the scale of even human
excellence; and it is so that Homer treats them, giving them in the
greatest abundance to his Otus, his Ephialtes, and his Mars. Minerva
has them but indirectly assigned to her; and when arming for war,
Apollo never receives them at all. When his might is described, it
is always described in the loftiest manner, that is to say, in its
effects; and effort or exertion is never attributed to either of them.
Even so with respect to locomotion. The highest picture by far is that
which is most negative. In general, Apollo and Minerva move without the
use of means or instruments, such as wings, chariots, or otherwise.
While Neptune steps, and Juno’s horses spring, so many miles at each
pace, the journeys of Apollo and Minerva are usually undescribed,
undistributed. Minerva is going from Olympus to Ithaca; when she has
departed, then she has arrived:
βῆ δὲ κατ’ Οὐλύμποιο καρήνων ἀΐξασα·
στῆ δ’ Ἰθάκης ἐνὶ δήμῳ, ἐπὶ προθύροις Ὀδυσῆος[141].
[141] Od. i. 102, 3.
Only within the last few years have the triumphs of natural philosophy
supplied us with an approximative illustration of these movements over
space, in the more than lightning speed of the electric telegraph.
So Apollo, too, has by personal dignity what the messenger gods have by
office. It is said of him and Iris, when in company, that their journey
began; and that it ended:
τὼ δ’ ἀΐξαντε πετέσθην·
Ἴδην δ’ ἵκανον πολυπίδακα[142].
[142] Il. xv. 150.
On one occasion, however, Minerva is represented, even when unattended
by any other deity, as employing the foot-wings which Mercury commonly
used, and they are said to carry her[143]:
[143] Od. i. 97.
τά μιν φέρον, ἠμὲν ἐφ’ ὑγρὴν
ἠδ’ ἐπ’ ἀπείρονα γαῖαν, ἅμα πνοίῃς ἀνέμοιο.
But there are no stages or intermediate points either here or elsewhere
in her journey.
With the movements of Apollo and Minerva, thus conceived by the Poet,
we may do well to compare those of Mercury (Od. v. 50-8), Neptune (Il.
xiii. 17-31), and Juno (Il. xiv. 225-30).
~_Their independent power of punishment._~