of a high supremacy. He is habitually denominated the Father of gods
and men. He is much more frequently identified with the general
government of the world, than is any other deity. He is universally
the ταμίης πολέμοιο. He governs the issue of all human toil, and gives
or withholds success. It is on his floor that the caskets rest, which
contain the varying, but, in the main, sorrowful incidents of human
destiny[302]. He has also this one marked and paramount distinction,
that he does not descend to earth to execute his own behests, but in
general either sends other deities as his organs, to give effect to his
will, or else himself operates from afar, by his power as god of air.
If however he is more identified with the general idea of Providence
than are Apollo and Minerva, it is plain, on the other hand, that his
agency is more external, abstract, and remote; theirs more inward and
personal: especially, the function of moral discipline seems, as we
have already found, to belong to Minerva.
[302] Il. v. 91. xix. 223. iv. 34. i. 353, 408.
Nägelsbach[303] considers that Jupiter alone can act from a distance:
but the prayer of Glaucus to Apollo, followed immediately by the
healing of his wounds, seems to prove the reverse conclusively. Again,
Minerva reminds Telemachus that the deity can save even when at a
distance (Od. iii. 231): we have no authority for absolutely confining
this to Jupiter, and none for affixing a limit to the space within
which Apollo or Minerva can act. That Jupiter always acts from far,
may be due in part to his representing the tradition of the one God;
but the argument is also in some degree incidental to the nature of
his special and mythological gifts, as god of the atmosphere and its
phenomena.
[303] Hom. Theol. Abschn. ii.
Upon the whole, the marks of affinity to ancient tradition are stronger
in the Homeric Minerva and Apollo than in Jupiter. He is the ordinary
Providence, but this is an external Providence. He undoubtedly excels
them in force, and in the majesty which accompanies it. But the highest
of the divine prerogatives, of which we have but glimpses indeed in any
of them, are hung more abundantly around these his favoured children,
than around himself. The secret government of the minds of men, the
invisible supremacy over natural laws, the power of unravelling the
future (except perhaps as to the destinies of states), the faculty
of controlling death, are scarcely to be discovered in Jupiter, but
are oftener made clearly legible in Apollo or Minerva. Indeed Minerva
appears always to have latent claims, which Homer himself could not
fully understand or describe, to the very first place. It is only by
supposing the existence of vague traditions to this effect, that we can
explain such passages as that in which she delights, that Menelaus had
prayed to her in preference to any other deity[304];
[304] Il. xvii. 567.
ὣς φάτο· γήθησεν δὲ θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη,
ὅττι ῥά οἱ πάμπρωτα θεῶν ἠρήσατο πάντων.
This sentiment may be accounted for in two ways. It may be due to
the vulgar vanity of a merely mythological divinity scuffling for
precedence. It may be a remnant of the tradition of a wisdom that knew
no superior. The former cause would be scarcely suitable even to the
deities of invention in Homer. The latter seems wholly in keeping with
the character and position of his Minerva.
It may be asked, in which of the two capacities does Jupiter chiefly
influence the government of the world? is it as the Supreme Deity,
acting in the main by his own will and power? or is it as the head of
the Olympian community, to whose deliberate decisions he, in a species
of executive capacity, gives effect?
I think there can be no doubt that the activity of Jupiter is
principally made available in the latter capacity. Not that the Poet
had defined for himself the distinction. But there were two processes,
each of which had been actively advancing: the breaking up of Godhead
into fragments, which diminished the relative distance between Jupiter
and the other Immortals: and the reflection of human ideas of polity
upon Olympus, which gave a growing prominence to the element of
aristocracy.
Upon the whole, then, I should say that the traditive ideas of
monotheism, and of a personal Providence represented in the Homeric
Jupiter, are on almost all occasions things of the past. They are like
the old jewels of a family, beautiful and imposing for occasions of
state: but they scarcely enter into his everyday life. Indeed, their
chief effect is the negative one of withdrawing him, on the score of
dignity, from immediate contact with mortals and with their concerns;
and, were it not for his atmospheric prerogatives, this isolated
supremacy would carry him into insignificance as compared with a deity
like Minerva, who is ever in the view of man, and ever making herself
felt both in his mind and in his affairs.
There are occasions, but they are not very numerous, when, under
the influence of an unwonted zeal, we find Jupiter himself taking a
part in the detailed action of the Iliad; his interferences being
usually confined to the greater crises or indications, such as the one
mentioned in Il. ii. 353, and such as the occasions when the τάλαντα
are produced. As examples of minor interposition, I may cite his
inspiring Ajax with fear, his launching a thunderbolt in the path of
Diomed, his breaking the bow-string of Teucer, and his advising Hector
to avoid an encounter with Agamemnon[305].
[305] Il. xi. 544. viii. 133-6. xv. 463. xi. 181-94.
~_Jupiter as Lord of Air._~
But the position assigned to him in the mythology of Olympus, which
provides him with the second of his characters, is chosen with great
skill. Although at first sight Sea may appear a more substantive and
awful power than Air, and Earth a more solid and worthy foundation of
dominion than either, yet consideration must readily show, that as
the king of the atmosphere, Jupiter is possessed of far more prompt,
effective, and above all, universal means of acting upon mankind, than
he would have been had the lottery been so arranged as to give him
either of those other provinces.
The tradition of a Trinity in the Godhead evidently leaves its traces
on the Greek mythology in the curious fable of the three Kronid
brothers. For the lottery of the universe, in which they draw on equal
terms, is not founded upon, but is at variance with, Greek ideas. Those
ideas embodied the system, more or less defined, of primogeniture:
and therefore, had the Olympian system been wholly inventive, the very
least it could have assigned to Jupiter would have been a priority
of choice among the different portions of the universe. This lottery
is evidently founded upon the idea of an essential equality in those
who draw. Happily the result is such as to coincide with the order
of natural precedence: and the value and weight of the three charges
is graduated according to the standing of the brothers, though their
abstract equality is so rigidly asserted by Neptune, who declares
himself ἰσόμορον καὶ ὁμῇ πεπρωμένον αἴσῃ (Il. xv. 209).
The exclusion of Earth from the lottery is singular: but it appears
to have a double justification. In the first place, we must bear in
mind the regularity of its operations, combined with the fact that it
sensibly acts on nothing, but is passive under other agencies, such as
those of Sun, Wind, and Sea. This would have rendered the conception
of it as a deity comparatively feeble in the Greek mind. In the second
place, it is probable that when the Olympian mythology took its shape,
that province was preoccupied: that the Eastern religions, observing
its jointly passive and productive character, had personified it as
feminine. But even this did not content the Greek imagination. The
conception of the bride of the chief deity was disengaged from brute
matter, and uplifted into a divinity having for its office the care and
government of a civilized and associated people. The Homeric Juno may
almost be defined as the goddess of Greece. There rose up in her place,
like a low mist of evening, from the ground, the comparatively obscure
Homeric Γαῖα, who has no life or function, except in connection with
the idea of vengeance to be executed upon the wicked; and this she
probably derives from the belief, that the rebel spirits were punished
in the subterranean prisons, of which she was as it were, by physical
laws, the necessary keeper.
As Lord of the air, Jupiter came to be endowed with a multitude of
active powers the most palpable, and the most replete with at least
outward influence for man. The years are his years, the thunder and
lightning his thunder and lightning, the rain his rain; the rivers, or
the most illustrious among them, the Διϊπετεῖς ποταμοὶ, are his: the
clouds and tempests obey his compelling, the winds blow at his command.
The hail and snow come from him[306]: he impels the falling star[307],
and, when he desires a more effective weapon or a more solemn lesson
than usual, he launches the scathing thunderbolt[308]. All signs and
portents whatever, that appear in air, belong primarily to him; as does
the genial sign of the rainbow,
[306] Il. x. 5.
[307] Il. xiii. 242.
[308] Od. xii. 415-17. xxiv. 539.
ἅστε Κρονίων
ἐν νέφεϊ στήριξε, τέρας μερόπων ἀνθρώπων[309].
[309] Il. xi. 27.
And when these or any of them are used by other deities, it is only by
such as have a peculiar relationship, either traditive or mythological,
to him.
But as the tradition of the lottery adorns and strengthens, so
in another view it circumscribes him. His sway is unknown in the
regions of the dead, where his brother holds the sceptre, as the Ζεὺς
καταχθόνιος[310]. Accordingly, when Hercules is sent to fetch Cerberus,
Jupiter obtains for him the aid of Minerva. The more traditive deity
escapes the circumscriptions of the less; the daughter eclipses the
sire.
[310] Il. ix. 457.
Much of the higher power exerted by Juno is in fact her use of the
atmospheric prerogatives of her husband.
~_Jupiter as Head of Olympus._~
But the most considerable and characteristic manifestation of the
Homeric Jupiter is that, in which he appears as Head of the Olympian
Family and Polity. Of this let us now consider so much, as is not more
immediately connected with the subject of the divine Polity.
He is carefully marked out as supreme in the mythological prerogatives,
which are for Olympus as the Crown and Sword of State on Earth. He
is the original owner of the Ægis. To him the gods rise up at their
meetings[311]. He is not tied to swear by Styx[312], and invokes no
infernal power to be the sanction of his word, but condescends only to
use the symbol of a nod.
[311] Il. i. 533.
[312] Il. i. 524-30. See however xix. 113.
Of omnipotence, as we understand the word, it would not appear that
Homer had any idea. He had however the idea of a being superior in
force to all other gods separately, or perhaps even when combined. This
being was Jupiter. But the conception in his mind was a wavering one,
so that, though it was present to him, we cannot say that he embraced
it as a truth. If by some parts of the poems it is supported, by others
it is brought into question or overthrown. As respects Briareus, who
was not a god, his superiority in mere force to Jupiter is expressly
declared (Il. i. 404).
In the Assembly of the Eighth Book, Jupiter loudly proclaims his
personal superiority in strength to all the other gods and goddesses
combined; and boasts that, while by a golden chain they could not
unitedly drag him down to earth, he could drag them all, with earth and
sea to boot behind them.
Again, when in the same Book Juno[313] suggests to Neptune the plan of
a combination among all the Hellenizing gods to restrain Jupiter, and
to assist the Greeks in despite of him, Neptune replies that he at
least will have nothing to say to such a proceeding, for Jupiter is far
too strong[314].
[313] viii. 201.
[314] Il. i. 209-11.
But in the First Book we learn that a rebellion headed by Juno,
Neptune, and Minerva, was too much for him. It is, however, clear that
he had not actually been put in chains by these deities; but they were
about to do it, when Briareus came to the rescue, and by his mere
appearance reestablished Jupiter in secure supremacy. This legend has a
mark of antiquity in the fact that Briareus has two names; he is known
as Briareus among the gods, and as Ægæon among all mankind[315].
[315] Il. i. 397-405.
When, in the Fifteenth Book, Jupiter apprehends a stubborn resistance
from Neptune, and the necessity of his personally undertaking the
execution of his own commands, he is far from easy. With the aid of
Juno, his brother can, he thinks, easily be managed[316]. When he finds
Neptune has retired, he frankly owns it is much better for them both;
as to have put him down by force[317] would have been a tough business
(οὔ κεν ἀνιδρωτί γ’ ἐτελέσθη).
[316] Il. xv. 49-52.
[317] Il. xv. 228.
Juno and Minerva, single or combined, he threatens freely, and the
first of these he had once severely punished: but Neptune was stronger,
though in mind inferior; and we have no direct evidence that he was
present in the Assembly of the Eighth Book, when Jupiter bragged of
his being stronger than them all together. Neither he nor Juno obeyed
the command of Jupiter, to observe neutrality until his purpose of
glorifying Hector should have been accomplished.
On the whole, the superiority of Jupiter to any one god is clear,
though not immeasurable. His superiority to the whole is doubtful. The
point in his favour is, that he never was actually coerced. The point
against him is, that his will seems to give place, and this too on
very great occasions, to the sentiments of the weightiest part of the
Olympian Court.
In his government of the other gods, the moral element disappears. He
does not appeal to their sense of right, nor profess to be ruled in his
own proceedings towards them by impartial justice. On the contrary, he
desires the wounded Mars not to sit whining by his side; and, before
ordering Paieon to heal his hurts, makes a distinct declaration,
that had he been the son of any deity other than himself, he should
have been ejected from heaven into a lower place, apparently meaning
the dark and dismal Tartarus, on account of his love of quarrels. A
profound attachment to ease and self-enjoyment lies at the root of his
character. He never disturbs the established order; and he is averse
to movement and innovation, come from whence it may. The spirit of
Juno[318], so restless on behalf of Greece, is vexatious to him in
the highest degree: and his love of Troy, if it has reference to any
thing beyond liberality in sacrifices and the descent of Dardanus,
may perhaps be referred to its representing the stereotyped form of
society. It is probably on account of this indolence of temperament
that, when he has brought Hector and the Trojans as far as the
Ships, he feels he has had enough for the moment of the spectacle of
blood; and accordingly he turns his eyes over Thrace and the country
of the Mysians, the Hippemolgians, and the righteous and therefore
presumably peaceful Abii[319]. Wearied with the perpetual din, he finds
satisfaction in a change of prospect; but at another time, refreshed
as we may suppose, he coolly states that he shall enjoy a sight of the
battle:
[318] Il. v. 892.
[319] Il. xiii. 1-6.
ἔνθ’ ὁρόων φρένα τέρψομαι[320].
[320] Il. xx. 23.
~_His political spirit._~
The political element of Jupiter’s character, reflected more narrowly
and turbulently in Juno, is, however, that which deserves the greatest
attention.
It was so deeply implanted in him, that it entered into his personal
conduct even when he was not in immediate contact with the Olympian
body. For example, in the Sixteenth Iliad, Jupiter debates with himself
whether he shall save Sarpedon from death by the hand of Patroclus.
Juno, to whom he had made a sort of appeal for approval, protests
according to the Olympian formula,
ἔρδ’· ἀτὰρ οὔ τοι πάντες ἐπαινέομεν θεοὶ ἄλλοι.
She suggests in preference a prompt rescue and disposal of the dead
body. Jupiter is not here in actual contact with any one but Juno. She,
however, menaces him with the spleen of the Immortals, and he, averse
to trouble, and fearful of shaking his own seat, acquiesces, though at
the cost of the utmost pain[321].
[321] Il. xvi. 431-61.
Over and above the mere insignia of sovereignty, Jupiter holds some of
his best prerogatives, both terrestrial and Olympian, in the capacity
of head of the community of Immortals.
Hence it is that he is the steward of sovereignty, and the champion of
social rights. All princes and rulers hold from him, and administer
justice under his authority. He gave their sceptre to the family of
Pelops: even the heralds are his agents, Διὸς ἄγγελοι, and act in his
name.
On Olympus it falls to him in this capacity, not only to conduct and
superintend the proceedings of the whole body of Immortals, as a
body, but to exercise a very large influence over their relations
individually with men, and with one another. The Sun carries to Jupiter
in full court, as head of the body, his complaint against the crew
of Ulysses, and Jupiter at once undertakes to avenge it[322]. Juno,
again, appeals to him on the conduct of Mars[323], and he permits her
to let loose Minerva on him. Mars, when wounded, goes to Jupiter with
his complaint[324], and Diana also, when requested, makes him privy to
hers, after she has taken her seat upon his knee[325]. When any two
deities are in any manner at issue or in collision, or when any of the
more dependent gods have a quarrel with men, then Jupiter finds his
place as the natural arbiter, and from this source he obtains great
support for his power. The surest of all its guarantees is indeed found
in the skill with which, by making the will of Olympus his own, he
makes his own will irresistible.
[322] Od. xii. 377.
[323] Il. v. 753.
[324] Il. v. 872.
[325] Il. xxi. 505.
Thus then the Jupiter of Homer has varied elements of grandeur,
traditional, physical, and political. Something also accrues to him
by the sheer necessity of the metaphysical order. Wherever the mind
demands a personal origin or cause, he alone can offer to supply
its want. He still continues to represent, in a certain degree, the
principle of unity; and he derives strength from that principle. Nor
does the solid might of Destiny interfere with his claims to the same
extent in Homer, as it does in the later Greek poetry.
Thus equipped with august prerogatives, the Jupiter of Homer is
evidently, to the popular view, the most sublime object in the Olympian
mythology. His breadth and grandeur of dimension commended him to the
admiring favour of the Greek artist, who made it his supreme effort
to embody the conception of the Sovereign of Olympus: and we may judge
of his elevation in the public apprehension over all other deities, by
the greater sublimity of the material forms, in which the idea of his
divinity has been enshrined.
But the figure of Jupiter, as it is the principal, so it is also the
most anomalous, in the whole Homeric assemblage. Although he is, and
even because he is, the depository of so many among the most primitive
and venerable ideas, he becomes also the butt alike of the infirmity,
and the wantonness, and insolence of human thought, in the alterative
operations which it continually prosecutes upon the ancient and pure
idea of Godhead. Hence not only in his character, as in other cases,
does the inventive power everywhere sap, corrode, invade, and curtail
the ancient traditionary conception of divine truths, but it is in
him that we find both systems culminating at once, both exhibiting
in him, raised to the highest power, their separate and discordant
characteristics.
From one point of view Jupiter is the most sublime of all the deities
of Homer, because he is the first personal source and origin of life,
the father of gods and men, the supreme manifestation of Power and
knowledge, the principal, though imperfect living representation of a
Providence and Governor of the world.
Regarded from another point of view, as we see disclosed the large
intrusion of the human and carnal element into the ethereal sphere, the
character of Jupiter becomes the most repulsive in the whole circle of
Olympian life[326]. The emancipation from truth, the self-abandonment
to gross passion, the constant breach of the laws he administers, are
more conspicuous in the chief god than in any of the subordinate gods,
and are more offensive in proportion to the majesty with which they are
unnaturally associated.
[326] Il. ii. 2, 12-15. xiv. 294-6, _et alibi_.
~_Jupiter as the type of animalism._~
The ungovernable self-indulgence, which even so early as in the time of
Homer has begun to taint through and through the whole human conception
of the Immortals, rises to its climax, as was to be expected, in
Jupiter. The idea of the Supreme, or at least by far the First being
of the universe, had not yet, indeed, descended so low as it did
in after-times, when it was even associated with lusts contrary to
nature. Of these there is no trace in Homer. But the law which governs
the relation of sex, as it exists among men, was utterly relaxed and
disorganized for him. In the first place, monogamy, established for all
Greeks, for the chief god of Greece became polygamy; and in the second,
marriage was no bar against incessant adultery.
A certain distinction between the wives, and the mere paramours, of
Jupiter is clearly traceable in Homer. Latona, for instance, is a wife,
an ἄλοχος of Jupiter. Mercury says of her[327]--
[327] Od. xi. 580. Il. xxi. 498.
ἀργαλέον δὲ
πληκτίζεσθ’ ἀλόχοισι Διὸς νεφεληγερέταο.
But the intrigues with the wife of Ixion, or with the daughter of
Phœnix, who bore to him the great Minos, mark mere adultery, and
involve no kind of permanent relation between Jupiter and this class
of the mothers of his children. Hence we do not find any such person
possessed of an interest in him, like that which led him to take part
in the vengeance inflicted on Niobe and her family by the children of
Latona[328]. Again, as he is not a personal providence, and does not
take charge of the destiny or guide the conduct of individuals, nor
ever touches the depths of human nature, so he has at once the largest
share of the passions and the smallest stock of the sympathies of man.
[328] Il. xxiv. 611.
From an intermediate point between the grandeur and the vileness of
Jupiter, we may observe how unequal the human mind had already proved
to sustain its own idea. He ought to be supreme in knowledge; but he is
thrice deluded by the cunning of Juno[329], who not only outwits him,
but sends Iris down to earth without his knowledge, just as Neptune
moves (λάθρη) on the plain of Troy unseen by him[330]. He ought to be
supreme in force, and he boasts that he could drag with ease all the
deities of Olympus, whom he addressed, but he is, notwithstanding, on
the point of being overpowered by a combination of inferior deities,
when he is saved by the timely arrival of Briareus with the hundred
hands. His faculty of vision does not seem to be limited by space when
he chooses to employ it[331], but it is subject to interruption, both
voluntary and involuntary, from sleep[332].
[329] Il. xiv. xix. 97. xviii. 168.
[330] Il. xiii. 352, 6.
[331] Il. xiii. 1-7.
[332] Il. i. 611. xiv. 352.
Although there is great scenic grandeur in the part which he plays in
the Iliad, in the Odyssey he is until nearly the close practically a
mute, and does little more than assent to the plans and representations
of Minerva.
In the action, however, of the Iliad, the only glimpse of a personal
attachment is to Hector; and this is founded simply on the abundance of
his sacrifices. Jupiter is the great propounder of the animal view of
that subject: and accordingly in the Odyssey[333], Minerva pleads the
case of Ulysses very much on this ground before Jupiter, though, in all
her intercourse with that chief, there is no sign of her valuing the
offerings on her own account. In every point of sensual susceptibility,
Jupiter leads the way for the Immortals.
[333] Od. i. 66.
~_Qualified by his parental instincts._~