divinities, in regard to the conduct they pursue when offended by
mortals. In general, this is one of the points that prominently
exhibits the sovereignty of Jupiter; for the common course is to appeal
to him, and to obtain retribution either with his permission or by his
agency. Not from greater self-will or a spirit of rebellion, but from
higher dignity and a certain substantiveness of character and position,
Apollo and Minerva always appear as acting for and from themselves, in
vindication of their offended prerogatives.
Even Neptune, when he is incensed at the erection of the unconsecrated
rampart of the Greek camp, and fearful that it will eclipse the renown
of his own handiwork, the wall of Troy, appeals to Jupiter on the
subject, and receives from him the permissive suggestion, that he
should himself destroy it so soon as the war is over[144]. He pursues
a similar course, when he is anxious to chastise the over-boldness
and maritime success of the Phæacians[145]. Venus, wounded by Diomed,
does not even by appeal attempt to obtain redress[146]. Mars, in the
same condition, makes his complaint, both of Diomed and of Minerva,
to Jupiter. It is true that afterwards, on the death of his son, he
proposes to appear on the field of battle: but then he is in a state of
fury[147], and is aware that the act would be one of rebellion against
Jupiter: accordingly, it is rudely stopped by Minerva. Again, when
Dionysus and his nurses are attacked by Lycoorgus, it is Jupiter that
strikes the offender blind, and his life is short because he was become
hateful to the gods[148]. Dionysus had made no appeal; but Jupiter
avenged the insult to his order. The Sun, after his oxen have been
eaten by the companions of Ulysses, lodges his appeal with Jupiter and
the Olympian Council: and in this case Jupiter himself undertakes to
give effect to the wishes of the offended luminary for vengeance[149].
When Aides, or Pluto, repaired to Olympus after the wound he had
received from Hercules, the presumption perhaps arises, that it may
have been not simply to obtain the healing hand of Paieon, but also to
move Jupiter for redress.
[144] Il. vii. 445.
[145] Od. xiii. 125-64.
[146] V. 352. ibid. 871.
[147] Il. xv. 113.
[148] Il. vi. 135-40.
[149] Od. xii. 377 and 387.
There are indeed a certain set of cases in which the rule is probably
different, that is to say, when a deity is thwarted or offended in the
exercise of his or her own special function. Thus Neptune, though he
would not touch the rampart without leave, yet of his own mere motion
destroys Ajax when he is at sea. Venus threatens Helen with her summary
vengeance, in case of prolonged resistance to the expressed command
that she should repair to the chamber of Paris. The Muses, offended by
Thamyris[150], proceed to maim him, probably in voice or hand, the
organs connected with his profession. This power to punish within each
particular province appears to form an exception to the general rule.
It is probably under this exceptional arrangement, that Diana proceeds
towards the Curetes, in the Legend of the Ninth Iliad: but some doubt
may hang over her case on account of the fact, that she partakes
radically of the traditional, as well as of the mythological character.
[150] Il. ii. 594-600. It is common to render πηρὸς blind: but it would
be strange that this should be meant, since blindness is associated in
the case of Demodocus with conferring the gift of song, which here is
taken away (Od. vii. 64). Apollodorus (i. 3. 3.) reports that the Muses
had the power of blinding him by a previous agreement between him and
them. The more natural construction of the passage seems to be such as
I have ventured to point at in the text. For blindness did not maim
Bards, who neither wrote nor read their compositions.
Offended by the omission to include her in the hecatombs offered to
the Immortals, she sends a wild boar to desolate the country. She puts
Ariadne to death on the application of Dionysus, without any notice of
an appeal to Jupiter. In both these cases she may be acting in virtue
of her particular powers. But when she is matched with Juno in the
Theomachy, she appears as utterly unequal to her great antagonist.
When Apollo comes into view, the mode of proceeding is very different
from that of the deities of invention. Apollo and Diana at once destroy
the children of Niobe, to avenge the insult she had offered to their
mother: and this case is the more worthy of note, because Jupiter, at
a later stage, participates in and extends the vengeance[151]. But
the most conspicuous instance of the independent retributive action
of Apollo is in the Plague of the First Book; since here he wastes
the army of the Greeks, to the great peril of the enterprise promoted
by so many powerful divinities, on account of what he esteemed a
moral offence, and an outrage to his priest Chryses. Now it is to be
remembered that the damsel had suffered no peculiar wrongs: the whole
offence consisted in this, that, being the daughter of a priest of
Apollo, at a place apparently insignificant, she had not been on that
account exempted from the common lot of women, but had been treated
just as she would have been treated had she been a king’s daughter. Nor
must we forget, in appreciating this act, that the families of priests
had no priestly privilege: and that Maron paid to Ulysses (Od. ix.
201-5) a very handsome price for his own life, together with that of
his wife and child.
[151] Il. xxiv. 605-9.
It is less easy to bring out the application of the rule now before
us in the case of Minerva, from the paucity of clear instances in the
poems where she personally has received offence.
There is one important case, where her wrath appears; and it is there
described as μῆνις ὀλοὴ, and as δεινὸς χόλος[152]. Her name, and
her interest in this affair, are to some extent mixed with those of
Jupiter. The Poet tells us, that Jupiter designed for the Greeks a
calamitous Return, ‘since they were not all upright, whereupon many
of them miserably perished through the inexorable wrath of Minerva.’
And then the order is inverted: Agamemnon, we are told, projected the
offerings, that he might appease the anger of Minerva, and thereupon
dissension arose, for Jupiter suspended calamity over the host. It is
clear that, so far as Minerva is to be regarded as having received
separate and personal offence in this proceeding, there is no sign
of her referring to Jupiter for aid, or for permission to punish the
offenders. But the case rather appears to be one in which the Poet is
describing the Providential Government of the world, and in which the
intermixture of the names of Jupiter and of his daughter belongs to
their system of concurrent action, under which she shares with Apollo
the office of acting as his habitual organ in administering retributive
justice to mankind. In one clear instance, however, we find it stated,
that when the Greeks offended Minerva, she punished them by a storm
(Od. v. 108).
[152] Od. iii. 135, 145.
~_They use special attributes of Jupiter._~
7. Apollo and Minerva carry this among other notes, that we find them
administering mythological or natural powers, which are otherwise the
special property of Jupiter.
No other Olympian deity, but Juno, stands invested with a similar
honour. We sometimes find the aerial powers of Jupiter wielded by her
hand. But, with the exception of the sort of precedence accorded to her
on Olympus, in virtue of which the gods rise from their seats when she
enters their company, there is no one of the gifts that she exercises,
which would not appear to lie within the range of the offices of
Minerva, if not also of Apollo. In the remarkable case where she
thunders in honour of Agamemnon just after he has armed, it is recorded
that this was the joint act of the two divinities, of whom, on this
occasion, Minerva takes precedence[153]:
[153] Il. xi. 45.
ἐπὶ δ’ ἐγδούπησαν Ἀθηναίη τε καὶ Ἥρη,
τιμῶσαι βασιλῆα πολυχρύσοιο Μυκήνης.
This association is to be observed in another passage, where these
goddesses jointly communicate courage to a warrior. But when we find
them associated in administering the powers of atmospheric phenomena,
it is obvious that we must resort to different sources for the means
of explaining the respective agencies. Juno, mythologically related to
Jupiter as a wife, in that capacity may, without exciting surprise,
take in hand what belongs, so to speak, to the _ménage_. Minerva, as a
daughter, has no such claim; and her possession of a standing ground
which enables her to use these powers can only be explained by a prior
and more profound affinity of traditional character, which makes her
the organ of the supreme deity.
But while, in the highest marks of power adhering to Juno, Minerva
seems everywhere to vie with her, there are others, and those among
the most strictly characteristic of the head of Olympus, in which both
Minerva and Apollo share, but which are not in any manner imparted to
Juno.
One of the high characteristic epithets of Jupiter is αἰγίοχος. And
we never hear of the Ægis out of the hands of Jupiter, except it be
in those of Minerva, or of Apollo. The Ægis is the peculiar arm of
Minerva; apparently, it _belongs_ to her; and from the description
of it in the Fifth Iliad, it appears to be the counterpart, on her
side, of the chariot on the side of Juno[154]. The tunic she puts on,
however, is the tunic of Jupiter, and the Gorgon head upon it is his
sign: while the shield she carries is not to be assailed even by his
thunderbolt[155]:
[154] Il. v. 735-42.
[155] Il. xxi. 401.
ἣν οὐδὲ Διὸς δάμνησι κεραυνός.
Again, the Fifteenth Book of the Iliad, Jupiter intrusts Apollo with
his own Ægis, that he may wave it on the field of battle to intimidate
the Greeks[156].
[156] Il. xv. 229.
Partly in the relation of Minerva to Mars, whom she punishes or
controls, but more peculiarly in the use of the magnificent symbol of
the Ægis by Minerva and Apollo, we appear to find that development of
the martial character which has been mentioned above as included among
the Jewish ascriptions to the Messiah.
Proximate to, but extending beyond, the last named distinction,
there is a function mythologically confined to Jupiter throughout
the poems, with two exceptions only. The function is that of giving
indications, palpable to men, of coming events, by the flight of birds
in many instances, but likewise by atmospheric signs. This power is
distinguished, by its connection with the future, from a mere power
over nature.
The exceptions are Apollo and Minerva. The former deity is in general
more largely endowed than Minerva in regard to the future, though a
less conspicuous figure in the direction of the present. Still she
partakes, with him and with Jupiter, of this peculiar honour.
On the return of Telemachus to Ithaca there appears to him the bird
called the wheeling falcon[157],
[157] Od. xv. 526.
κίρκος, Ἀπόλλωνος ταχὺς ἄγγελος,
sent by Apollo as an omen of success to himself, and of confusion to
the Suitors.
In the final crisis of the Odyssey, which is doubtless meant to exhibit
a normal example of Providential retribution, it seems to have been
the object of the Poet to divide the theurgic action between Minerva
and Apollo, as joint administrators of the general government of the
world. To Minerva, as the goddess of wisdom, falls what may be called
the intellectual share[158], the actual instruction and guidance of
Ulysses, Penelope, and Telemachus, as well as the bewildering and
hardening operations on the minds of the Suitors. Special arrangements
appear, however, to have been introduced, so as to make a corresponding
place for Apollo. Hence it is that Theoclymenus, as the representative
of a great prophetic family, is brought into the company of Telemachus,
that he may become the organ of Apollo in the remaining part of the
drama. This is the more remarkable, because Theoclymenus does not repay
the friendly aid he had received by taking part in the final struggle
on the side of Telemachus; so that his share in the proceeding stands
out the more conspicuously as one altogether theurgic. In cooperation
with this arrangement, it is provided that the crisis shall come to
pass on the festival of the god, and that the manner of trial, by the
Bow, shall place it especially under his auspices.
[158] She has also minor interpositions: see Od. xxii. 205, 256, 273,
297.
In the magnificent passage of the Twentieth Book[159], which describes
the phantasmagoria in the palace of Ulysses, immediately before the
trial of the Bow, there are two parts. First, the minds of the Suitors
are befooled (παρέπλαγξεν δὲ νόημα). Secondly, the hall is filled
with sensible portents: preternatural night envelopes the company,
the walls and beams are blood-bespattered, phantoms glide along with
downward movement, as on their way to Erebus, the very meat they eat is
gory, their eyes are charged with involuntary tears, their lips with
unnatural smiles. Of all this the announcement is made by Theoclymenus,
a trait which I interpret as referring the array of the phenomena to
his master Apollo. To him is thus given that part of the operation
which lies within the domain of sense: while the purely intellectual
one, that of stupefying the Suitors, is expressly assigned to Minerva.
[159] Od. xx. 345-71.
But Minerva has likewise the power over signs, which is enjoyed by
Jupiter and Apollo. As Diomed and Ulysses are setting out on their
nocturnal expedition in the Tenth Iliad, Minerva sends the apparition
of a heron to cheer them[160]: they do not see it, on account of the
darkness; but they hear the flapping of its wings.
[160] Il. x. 274. Minerva’s patronage of the heron was probably
connected with her martial character: for it appears that in Sanscrit
the word _Scandha_ signifies both war and also the heron. (Welsford on
the English Language, p 152.)
It has accordingly attracted the attention of Nägelsbach[161], that
the power of exhibiting signs is confined to Jupiter, Juno, Apollo,
and Minerva: though he has not proceeded to combine this with other
distinctions, at least equally remarkable, enjoyed by the two latter
divinities.
[161] Hom. Theol. iv. 16, p. 147.
I have not, it will be observed, reckoned as a τέρας, or sign of the
future, the case in which Juno endows the horses of Achilles with
the gift of speech: because it appears that the prediction of their
master’s death is their own; and that she only removes the barrier to
its expression[162]. She stands, therefore, in a different position to
that of Apollo and Minerva.
[162] Il. xix. 404-7. See inf. Sect. iii. on Juno.
~_Their dominion over Nature._~
9. This command, however, over natural portents may be viewed as
part of a general dominion over nature, of which the most varied
manifestation is in Minerva.
It is true that, in common with most of the Olympian deities, she does
not extend her action from the inner, or Greek, into the general range
of the outer, or Phœnician world. Nor does Apollo. But we have clear
proof that this was by a poetical arrangement, and not from a lack
of divine power: since (1) she does act in Scheria, and assists in
bringing Ulysses to the shore of that island: (2) the class of μάντεις
are found among the Cyclops: (3) Calypso is amenable to the command of
the Olympian court, and speaks of herself as belonging to the same wide
class of deities with Aurora and Ceres. (4) Minerva assigns a special
reason, namely, regard towards her uncle Neptune, for not having
accompanied Ulysses all along his voyage (Od. xiii. 341).
The power of Minerva over nature seems to be universal in kind as well
as in place.
1. She and Apollo assume the human form in common with other deities:
but I do not find that the gods in general become visible to one person
without being visible to all. Minerva in the First Iliad (198) reveals
herself only to Achilles. It seems as if, in Il. xvii. 321-34, Homer
meant that Apollo did the same to Æneas. The recognition of Venus by
Helen, I take as most probably a sign of nothing more than that the
case was one of disguise, rather than of transformation[163].
[163] Il. iii. 396.
2. Apollo frames an εἴδωλον, or image of a man, which moves and
fights[164], representing Æneas on the battle field: and Minerva frames
an εἴδωλον of Iphthime, to appear in a dream to her sister Penelope,
and to convey to her a revelation of Minerva’s will[165]. This power is
exercised by the two divinities exclusively.
[164] Il. v. 449.
[165] Od. iv. 796, 826.
3. Minerva on many occasions assumes the shape of a bird[166]:
sometimes in common with Apollo[167]. Ino Leucothee, the marine
goddess, becomes a water-bird, and Ὕπνος takes the form of the bird
Chalcis, when he has to act upon Jupiter. Both these operations may
probably be considered as belonging to the special functions of these
agents: with Apollo and Minerva, the power appears to belong to a
general supremacy over nature, which the other Olympian deities do not
share.
[166] Il. xix. 351. Od. i. 320. _et alibi_.
[167] Il. vii. 59.
4. The transformations and retransformations of Ulysses in Ithaca by
Minerva, appear to indicate some organic power over matter and life. It
is not the appearance but the reality of his person that is stated to
be changed. Not only is the skin wrinkled and the eye darkened, but the
hairs are destroyed. They are afterwards restored, and his stature is
increased. In like manner she gives increased height to Penelope, and
again to Laertes[168].
[168] Od. xiii. 429-38. xvi. 172, 455. xviii. 69, and xxii. 156-62; Od.
xviii. 195. xxiv. 369.
As respects power over inanimate nature, we have seen Minerva joined
with Juno in the act of thundering. She can order out a rattling
zephyr (κελάδοντα), or simply a toward breeze, or again a stiff Boreas
(κραιπνὸν), to speed her friend across the main[169]: and, as Juno
accelerated the setting of the sun before Troy, so Minerva forbids the
dawn to appear in Ithaca, until, when she thinks the proper time has
come, she withdraws the prohibition[170].
[169] Od. ii. 420. xv. 292. v. 385.
[170] Od. xxiii. 243-6.
Nor is the power of Minerva over nature for purposes of wrath less
clear than for purposes of favour: since Mercury tells Calypso that,
inasmuch as the Greeks had offended her, she sent a storm upon
them[171],
[171] Od. v. 108.
Ἀθηναίην ἀλίτοντο,
ἥ σφιν ἐπῶρσ’ ἄνεμόν τε κακὸν καὶ κύματα μακρά.
On the other hand, when Ulysses and his companions have propitiated
Apollo on behalf of the Greek army, then he sends them a toward breeze
for their return to the camp[172]. But we have a still more notable
instance of miraculous power over nature ascribed to Apollo, over and
above the sublime portents of the Twentieth Odyssey, in the conversion
of the mouths of the eight Idæan rivers for nine whole days to efface
the Greek rampart[173]. To Neptune is left the task of restoring them
to their channels: perhaps on the same principle as the treatment
of Juno, relatively to Minerva, in the preparation and use of the
chariot[174].
[172] Il. i. 479.
[173] Il. xii. 24, 32.
[174] Il. v. 7.
We have not yet, however, done with the subject of powers exercised
over nature.
~_Relation of Apollo together with Diana to Death._~
The most prominent and pointed characteristic of Apollo is one shared
with his sister Diana. It is the mysterious relation which these two
deities hold in common to death.
The Messianic tradition, first divided between Apollo and the great
Minerva, is now subdivided between him and his sister Diana, who forms
a kind of supplement to his divinity. The bow and arrows, the symbol
which they bear in common, marks the original union in character, out
of which their twin peculiarities had grown.
Apollo, indeed, as we see in the first Book of the Iliad, could himself
become, like his sister, the immediate agent in the destruction of
animals: but his principal function is with men. Hence the terrible
slaughter of the Plague: hence his extraordinary and otherwise
unsatisfactory participation in the death of Patroclus: hence, above
all, though he is not the patron of Ulysses, and has no special
connection with him, yet the slaughter of the Suitors in the Odyssey
is appointed to take place on his festival, and therefore, as well as
because it is effected by the Bow, under his auspices. But again; his
office is not of a single aspect: he is a saviour from death, as well
as a destroyer. Hence it is he, and not Venus, who saves Æneas[175]:
it is he who carries Hector out of danger[176]. Yet a third, and very
peculiar form of his office do we discover, common to him and to his
sister. She is upon occasion strong enough to exercise the office of
destruction properly so called[177], for sometimes she slays in wrath.
But more usually, as he does for men, so she more especially exercises
for women the mysterious function of administering painless and gentle
death.
[175] Il. v. 445.
[176] Il. xv. 262.
[177] Il. vi. 205, 428. xxi. 484. Od. xi. 324. xv. 478.
This singular and solemn relation of Apollo and Diana to death appears
to have an entirely exclusive character attaching to it. There is a
clear distinction between death inflicted by the symbolical arrows of
these twin deities, which are the symbols of an invisible Power, and
death resulting from physical or any other palpable causes, whether
it be violent, or what we term natural. I do not now speak of the
agency of Apollo the destroyer in (what we call) the Plague, nor of
his slaying Eurytus on account of a personal insult (Od. viii. 227),
but of the much more distinctive and prominent office assigned to him
and to Diana, that of (so to speak) taking the sting from Death. Death
by disease, Death by a broken heart[178], Death by shipwreck, or by
the lightning of heaven[179], or by the fury of Scamander, whirling
warriors to the sea, and burying them in the sand and shingle[180], are
matters altogether distinct from this. Death through second causes,
even man can bring about: Death without second causes is palpably
Divine; and this it is that is assigned to Apollo and Diana only among
the Homeric gods. There is no instance, if I remember rightly, in which
any other among them brings about the death of a mortal, otherwise than
by means of second causes. And there is one curious passage, from which
it would appear that some other deities had to apply to them in order
to set in motion this Divine prerogative. For when Theseus was carrying
Ariadne to Athens, she did not reach her journey’s end:
[178] Od. xi. 198-203.
[179] Od. v. 127.
[180] Il. xxi. 318-21.
πάρος δέ μιν Ἄρτεμις ἔκτα
Δίῃ ἐν ἀμφιρύτῃ, Διονύσου μαρτυρίῃσιν[181].
[181] Od. xi. 324.
A period was put to her life in the island of Dia, by the goddess
Artemis, at the instance of Dionysus. As if the tradition bore, that
Dionysus or Bacchus, desiring her death, and having at his command no
natural agency of mortal effect, was obliged to apply to Artemis or
Diana to bring about this purpose.
The great enemy and scourge of mankind, under the treatment of the twin
deities, is stripped of his terrors; and the very verse of Homer, ever
responsive to his thought, changes to an easy and flowing movement as
he describes this mode of passage from the world[182]:
[182] Cf. Il. xix. 59. Od. xviii. 201. xx. 61.
τὴν δ’ Ἄρτεμις ἰοχέαιρα
οἷς ἀγανοῖς βελέεσσιν ἐποιχομένη κατέπεφνεν.
Nor is the expression casual; it is one of the regular Homeric
_formulæ_. Sometimes she discharges this office in actual concurrence
with Apollo. The happy island, where Eumæus passed his childhood, knew
neither famine nor disease: but when its people reached the term of
their old age, then[183]
[183] Od. xv. 407-11.
ἐλθὼν ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων Ἀρτέμιδι ξὺν
οἷς ἀγανοῖς βελέεσσιν ἐποιχόμενος κατέπεφνεν.
Again, when the corpse of Hector is by preternatural agency restored,
after the lacerations it had undergone, to integrity and freshness,
it is said to have become like to the body of him upon whom Apollo
has come, and put him to death with his tender darts[184]. The god
has a sword, indeed, which must appertain to his destroying office.
But his sword, and his only, among all we hear of, is formed of gold,
χρυσάορος. The epithet has probably been chosen from its affinity to
Light.
[184] Il. xxiv. 753.