and Rhadamanthus, who has his happy dwelling on the Elysian plain, are
approximative examples of deification.
It would be hazardous to build any opinion exclusively on the two
verses Il. ii. 550, 551, relating to the worship of Erechtheus: but
they are not altogether at variance with what we see elsewhere.
~_Growth of material for its extension._~
Such is the rather slender list of personages in Homer, who approximate
in any degree to what was afterwards the order of deified Heroes.
There are, however, some other indications, that belong immediately
to the living, and that point the same way. Such is the promise to
Menelaus[587], that instead of dying he should be translated to
Elysium, because he was the son-in-law of Jupiter. And this suggests
other notes of preparation already found in Homer. Ulysses[588]
promises Nausicaa that, when he has reached his own country, he will
continue to invoke her all his life long, _like a god_. The invocation
of the Dead was common. It was not practised only in illustrious
cases like that of Patroclus. After their battle with the Cicones,
Ulysses[589] and his crews thrice invoked their slaughtered comrades.
A system of divine parentage was the fit, one might almost say the
certain preparation for a scheme of divine honours after death; and of
such parentage many of Homer’s heroes could boast. Again, Peleus was
married to a goddess, and the gods in mass attended the wedding. By
thus bringing the inhabitants of Olympus down to the earth, Homer laid
the ground for bringing the denizens of earth into Olympus.
[587] Od. iv. 561.
[588] Od. viii. 467.
[589] Od. ix. 65.
There is yet a further sign, which, though perhaps the least palpable,
is, when well considered, the most striking of all. It is this; that
sacrifice is offered, in the Odyssey, to the Shades of the departed.
It is not indeed animal sacrifice that is actually offered. The gift
consists of honey and milk, with wine, water, and flour[590]: but
Ulysses distinctly promises that, on his return to Ithaca, he will
supply this defect by offering a heifer in their honour, and a sheep
all black to Tiresias in particular. Moreover, he distinctly recognises
the idea of worshipping them[591];
[590] Od. xi. 26.
[591] Od. xi. 29.
πολλὰ δὲ γουνούμην νεκύων ἀμενηνὰ κάρηνα.
It does not destroy the force of this proceeding, that they were
supposed to need or to enjoy the thing sacrificed; for the Immortals
of Olympus did the latter at least, and there are even traces of the
former. Together with the mixed offering above described, and the
promise of a regular sacrifice on his return home, Ulysses permitted
the Shades to drink of the blood of the sheep which he immolated on
the spot to Aidoneus and Persephone, after he had fulfilled the main
purpose of his visit by consulting Tiresias[592].
[592] Od. xi. 153, 230.
The dead then have consciousness and activity. They are invoked by
man. They can appear to him. They are capable of having sacrifices
offered to them. They can confer benefit on the living. Here, gathered
out of different cases, were the materials of full deification. All
that was yet wanting was, that they should be put together according to
rule.
~_The kindred of the gods._~
We have now, lastly, to consider the kindred of the gods, or races
intermediate between deity and humanity, which Homer has introduced in
the Odyssey exclusively.
These are certainly three, perhaps four;
1. The Cyclopes.
2. The Læstrygonians.
3. The Phæacians.
It may also be probable that we should add
4. Æolus Hippotades and his family.
Among them all, the Cyclopes, children of Neptune, offer, as a work of
art, by far the most successful and satisfactory result. In every point
they are placed at the greatest possible distance from human society
and its conventions. Man is small, the Cyclops huge. Man is weak, the
Cyclops powerful. Man is gregarious, the Cyclops is isolated. Man, for
Homer, is refined; the Cyclops is a cannibal. Man inquires, searches,
designs, constructs, advances, in a word, is progressive: the Cyclops
simply uses the shelter and the food that nature finds for him, and is
thoroughly stationary. Yet, while man is subject to death, the Cyclops
lives on, or vegetates at least, and transmits the privileges of his
race by virtue of its high original. The relaxed morality of the divine
seed, as compared with man, is traceable even in their slight customs.
They are polygamous:
θεμιστεύει δὲ ἕκαστος
παίδων ἠδ’ ἀλόχων[593].
[593] Od. ix. 115.
From their personal characters the moral element has been entirely
dismissed. Polyphemus is a huge mass of force, seasoned perhaps with
cunning, certainly with falseness. This union of a superhuman life with
the brutal, that dwells in solitude, and has none of its angles rubbed
down by the mutual contact between members of a race, produces a mixed
result of extreme ferocity, childishness, and a kind of horrible glee,
which as a work of art is most striking and successful. We may justly
think much of Caliban: but Caliban cannot for a moment be compared to
Polyphemus. It is equitable, however, to remember that contrast with
Ariel, which must have been a governing condition in the creation of
Shakespeare, required a nature which should be fatuous and grovelling,
as well as coarse.
To feed Polyphemus, what lies nearest him, namely, the Læstrygonian
adventure, has, perhaps, been starved. Again we are introduced to cruel
Giants and to cannibalism, but with a great scantiness of detail. Their
individuality is scarcely established. Their only marked qualities they
hold in common with the Cyclopes, except as to a single point, namely,
that they live gregariously. We see their city, and are introduced
to their king, their queen, and their princess[594]. But a too great
likeness to the Cyclops still suggests itself; and it is probable that
in both the one and the other Homer set before him, among the materials
of his work, that old tradition of powerful beings, allied to the
deity, and yet rebellious against him, which meets us in so many forms,
dispersed about the Homeric poems, and which the later tradition, by
further multiplication and variety, resolved into a living chaos.
[594] Od. x. 105-15.
The Phæacians appear to stand quite in another category. While the
Cyclops has no trace of deity but in superhuman force, the Phæacians
have no pretensions of this kind. They are not even immortal, nor
are they wholly removed from man, for they are accustomed to carry
passengers by sea; they seem really to be meant in a measure to
represent the θεοὶ ῥεῖα ζώοντες. We must not look too rigidly in them
for notes of the divine character, but rather for the abundance,
opulence, ease, and refinement of the divine condition. Hence Homer
lavishes all the simple wealth of his imagination upon the palace and
garden of Alcinous, which far exceeds any possessions he has assigned
to ordinary men. This additional splendour of itself proves, if proof
were wanted, that the picture is ideal. The same amount of ornament
assigned to the palace of Menelaus would, from the contrast with fact,
probably have been frigid to his hearers.
From the games and athletic exercises of this people all the ruder and
more violent sports are excluded. Navigation, to others so formidable,
for them is conducted by a spontaneous force and intelligence residing
in their ships; which annihilates distance, and at last excites even
the jealousy of Neptune (Od. viii. 555-69). We find in the island and
in its history no poverty, no grief, no care, no want; all is fair to
see and to enjoy. But we feel thankful to Homer that he has not here,
as in the case of the Cyclops, made kin with the gods entail a marked
moral or intellectual inferiority upon the sons of men; no purer or
more graceful piece of humanity is to be found among the creations of
the human brain, than his picture of Nausicaa. She combines in herself
all that earth could suggest of bright, and pure, and fair. Still it
cannot be denied that levity and vanity are rather conspicuous in the
Phæacian men. They shew off, among other sports, their boxing and
wrestling, before they know what Ulysses is made of. When they know
it, Alcinous informs him in an off-hand way that they do not pretend
to excellence in that class of sports[595]. After the dancers have
performed, Ulysses with great tact at once passes a high compliment
upon them. Alcinous, delighted with the praise, cries aloud, ‘Phæacian
chiefs! this stranger appears to me to be an extremely sensible
man[596].’
[595] Od. viii. 102. 246.
[596] Ibid. 378-88.
It appears, however, most likely that, besides the mythical element
in two of them, Homer may have had some basis of maritime report, and
thus of presumed fact, for his delineations of all these three races;
that, with an unlimited license of embellishment, he, nevertheless,
may have intended in each case to keep unbroken the tie between
his own tale, and the voyages of Ulysses, founded upon Phœnician
geography, as reported in his time. I form this opinion partly from
some singularities in the Phæacian character, which, as they are not
in keeping with any poetic idea, may probably have had an historic
aim, though I cannot be persuaded that they afford a foundation broad
enough for the full theory of Mure[597], if he conceives the Phæacians
of the Odyssey to be strictly a portrait of the Phœnicians. Partly I
draw the inference from the want of clear severance in the ideals, on
which the characters of the Cyclops and the Læstrygones are severally
founded. The remarkable natural characteristic of Læstrygonia which he
has given us, its perpetual day, supports the same hypothesis. What
would otherwise amount to poverty in the imagery is sufficiently
accounted for, if we assume that he meant to describe two savage
tribes, that inhabited the latitudes with which he was dealing; and
that, feeling himself bound to brutality in each case, he has, under
these unfavourable circumstances, varied it as much as he could. Unless
it had been to preserve an historical or mythological tradition, the
Læstrygonian adventure might hardly have deserved introduction into the
Odyssey. Plainly, on the other hand, he is not to be held responsible
for all that he has put down while he believed himself to be conforming
to narratives of fact, in the same manner and degree as if he had been
presenting us with a picture in which his fancy had only to work at
will.
[597] Lit. Greece, vol. i. p. 510.
The remaining case is slight, and may speedily be dismissed. Æolus
is φίλος ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσι, and is intrusted with the charge of the
winds; and his six sons are married to his six daughters, as αἰδοίαι
ἄλοχοι[598]. The word φίλος may bear the sense of relationship:
immortality seems to be of necessity involved in the charge over
the winds, who are themselves in the Iliad (in this point varying
poetically from the Odyssey) invested with deity[599]: and the marriage
of the sons to the daughters affords another absolute proof: for this,
which would have been incest, μέγα ἔργον, among men, is evidently set
down as in their case a legitimate connection. The great example in the
Kronid family would give it full sanction for the Immortals.
[598] Od. x. 2, 21, 11.
[599] Nägelsbach, Hom. Theol. II. 12, holds the opposite opinion.
The character of Æolus, if he be human, is one kindly to his
fellow-men; and he inquires carefully respecting the fate of the Greeks
and their chieftains. But it is very difficult to understand his place
in the poem, and the reasons of it. The gift of Zephyr, and the folly
of the crew in letting out the whole pack of winds, end only in the
return of Ulysses to Æolia, and in his being dismissed from thence as
one hateful to the gods, which he was not. This Æolus neither seems
to be required for, nor to contribute to, the general purpose of the
poem: nor to represent any ancient tradition: nor can we in any manner
connect him with Æolus, the great national personage whose descendants
were so illustrious, for that Æolus was clearly taken to be the son or
immediate descendant of Jupiter; so that he could not have been called
the son of Hippotas. Perhaps the origin of his place in the Odyssey
was to be found in some Phœnician report about storms in the northern
seas, where Æolia is evidently placed in complete isolation, figured
by the sheer and steep rock of the coast, and by the metal wall which
runs round it. It may have a partial prototype in Stromboli misplaced,
the appearance of which from a distance entirely accords with this
particular of inaccessibility. The whole picture, representing as it
does, first, the ferocity of the winds, and, secondly, the existence
of an efficient control over them, evidently embodies two features
which could not but enter variously and prominently into the tales
of Phœnician mariners; first, the fierceness of the gales prevailing
in those outer latitudes, to deter others from attempting them; and
secondly, their successful contest with the difficulty thus created in
order to glorify themselves.
SECT. V.
_The Olympian Community and its Members, considered in themselves._
The substitution of polytheism for the monotheistic principle not
only brought down deity in the measure of its attributes or faculties
towards man, but created a necessity for a divine economy or polity,
which should regulate the relations of the Immortals. This polity could
be no other than human, and no other, as it seems, than a somewhat
deteriorated copy from its earthly original.
~_The family order in Olympus._~
Accordingly, the Olympian Immortals of Homer are combined in a
society. They are not a mere aggregate of beings, classed together by
the mind in virtue of the possession of common properties, but they
live in twofold relations: first, those of the family, or at least of
descent and consanguinity; secondly, those established by a political
organization, which is modelled according to the forms of the Greek
polities subsisting in the Homeric age.
The government of Olympus is, though the use of the word may at first
excite a smile, in principle constitutional. Jupiter is its head. Its
ordinary council or aristocracy is represented by the body of such
deities as have palaces there, constructed for them by Vulcan, who
exercises in the community the double function at once of architect and
artificer[600].
[600] Il. i. 606-8.
The immediate relationship of nearly all these divinities to Jupiter is
recorded.
As his brothers, we have Neptune, and Aidoneus, or Pluto.
As his wives, we have Juno, the chief; Latona, Dione, and probably
Demeter, secondary.
As his children, we have Minerva, Apollo and Diana, Mars and Vulcan,
Venus, Mercury, Hebe.
Of the Nineteen Deities who appear to be certainly Olympian, there are
only four that do not fall at once into the family order: they are
Themis, Ἠέλιος, Iris, and Paieon. There may have been a relationship
credited in these cases also, though it is not recorded. It should be
observed, that Jupiter is expressly invested with the title of Father
of the gods. And perhaps the idea intended to be conveyed is that of
a family which has grown into a sept or clan, having this for its
distinctive character, that all the members of it, great and small,
have either a nearer or a more remote relationship to the head. Of the
minor deities, in various cases it is recorded, that they are daughters
of Jupiter; such as the Muses, the Prayers, and the Nymphs of most
orders. But these have the appearance of belonging to Homer’s poetry,
more than to his mythology. Among male deities, the sons of Jupiter are
all in Olympus: those of Neptune take lower rank.
Whatever be its relation to the family _nucleus_, the community of
Olympus is fully formed. Besides Jupiter the head, and the ordinary
assembly, its Council or Court, which answers to the βουλὴ of the
Greeks, it has its Agorè, a greater Assembly or Parliament called
together upon crises of extraordinary solemnity, such as the decision
by main force of the fate of Troy.
But as we have no example, except the factious and utterly odious
Thersites, of any one of the commonalty who takes an actual part in
debate among men, so the minor deities, too, are mute in heaven.
Nay, the resemblance is even closer than this. The Greek βουλὴ, and
also the ἀγορὴ, have their speaking or leading personages, and they
likewise have each their silent members. The leaders are Agamemnon,
Nestor, Ulysses, and Diomed; the last-named chieftain always with
modesty, as a person lately come to full age. Achilles doubtless would
have had to be added, if the action of the poem had permitted him
to appear throughout its debates. But we never hear of the Ajaxes,
Idomeneus, or chiefs like Eurypylus, as taking any active share in the
proceedings. Even so the discussions of Olympus appear to be conducted
commonly by Jupiter, Juno, Neptune[601], Minerva, and Apollo[602]. Once
Vulcan interposes, in his mother’s interest: possibly he may have been
suggested to the Poet by Thersites[603] as a terrestrial counterpart.
The Sun appeals to the Assembly in the Odyssey, as a party in his own
cause: but neither he nor Venus, nor Mars, nor Mercury, nor any other
subordinate deity, ever appears as taking part in a discussion.
[601] Il. vii. 445.
[602] Il. xxiv. 33.
[603] Il. i. 571.
The term ἀγορὴ, or assembly, is used in Homer for the meetings of the
deities only on certain occasions: namely, at the openings of the
Eighth and Twentieth Books[604]. The other, or ordinary meetings, have
no distinctive name. We may know them by their not depending on any
summons or introduction, and by the frequent mention, either of the
banquet as proceeding, or of the cup as in the hands of the deities.
They were standing assemblages of the deities, the law of whose life
was leisure, with prolonged though not intemperate feasting; and its
ordinary scene Olympus. Their correspondence with the βουλὴ must not
be pressed too far, for they do not, like the Greek βουλὴ, commonly
precede an Assembly. It is to be remembered, that the βουλὴ was an
Hellenic institution, and that the gods were not exclusively Hellenic,
though Olympus was essentially national.
[604] Il. viii. 2. and xx. 4.
~_The political order in Olympus._~
The analogy between the divine and the human ἀγοραὶ is established in
a pointed form by the Poet himself; who makes Themis the pursuivant or
Summoner[605] for the former; and also says of her, with respect to the
latter,
[605] Il. xx. 4.
ἥτ’ ἀνδρῶν ἀγορὰς ἠμὲν λύει, ἠδὲ καθίζει[606].
[606] Od. ii. 69.
The acknowledgment of a rule of right, extrinsic and superior to
ourselves, is general in the Assemblies of men in Homer, when meeting
for business. This there could not be in the Assemblies of the Olympian
gods. Neither does respect for authority and for tradition well
harmonize with the idea of beings, who are possessed of unbounded,
or at the least of greatly extended intelligence. Thus, like the
individual deities, the divine Assemblies, and the entire Polity, are
deprived of the greatest moral safeguards of their counterparts on
earth. The consequence is, that their ethical tone is much lower. Force
is the only effective sanction of authority among the Immortals. This
is curiously exhibited in the Theomachy: for that battle takes place
when the fate of Troy, which formed the matter in dispute, has already
been long ago decided. Whenever a difficulty arises, which will bear
that mode of treatment, Jupiter resorts to the threat of using it, even
against divinities so dignified and powerful as Minerva, Neptune, and
Juno. Sometimes, indeed, he parades it by anticipation, even when no
symptom of disaffection has yet been exhibited.[607] So, on the other
hand, fraud is the resource of the weak, as violence is of the strong.
Juno, unable to organize a combination against her husband, devises a
trick.
[607] Il. viii. 10.
The deities, then, are not under any effective ethical restraint; and
the only instances in which the highly moral sentiment of αἰδὼς is
mentioned as governing them in their reciprocal conduct are cases of
the two great traditive divinities, Minerva and Apollo, with reference
to their uncle Neptune, and of Jupiter, in whose case it is a sentiment
of politeness rather than of duty, with reference to Thetis[608].
[608] Il. xxiv. 111.
But, although moral principle and religious reverence are absent, two
principles of considerable value and utility remain. One of them is a
certain courtesy or comity, which prevails in the absence of strong
countervailing causes. Secondly, the power of intelligence is very
visible in the working of their polity. It is not the mere wish of
Jupiter, it is his counsel, which is fulfilled in the Trojan war. And
again, it is not his individual counsel, but it is the decision which
he adopts in compliance with the general sentiment of the gods[609]. He
could be well content to let Troy stand, because of the abundance of
its offerings; but he sees that if he attempts to give effect to such
a plan as he would personally prefer, he must encounter the stubborn
resistance of the three strongest deities, Neptune, Juno, and Minerva.
Perhaps this difference of opinion might issue in the shape of a
war in heaven, and that war might follow the same course as the one
happily arrested by Briareus: therefore he avoids the issue, makes the
concession without letting himself seem to make it, and thus preserves
his general position at the head of the Olympian body.
[609] Il. iv. 43.
~_Courtesy and Intelligence among the Immortals._~
Speaking of mythological deity as such, the difference of celestial
from human intelligence is a difference of degree rather than of kind.
The process of deliberation in the mind of a mortal, and the state of
suspense before decision, are frequent subjects of Homeric description.
And he sometimes places individual deities before us with the same,
or nearly the same, detail, as in cases occurring among men, of doubt
preceding determination. The essence and foundation of the process
are similar, as we see in the case of Juno, and again in the instance
of Jupiter himself. She ponders the question how she shall delude
Jupiter[610]:
[610] Il. xiv. 159-61.
μερμήριξε δ’ ἔπειτα βοῶπις πότνια Ἥρη
ὅππως ἐξαπάφοιτο Διὸς νόον αἰγιόχοιο.
And then she decides;
ἥδε δέ οἱ κατὰ θυμὸν ἀρίστη φαίνετο βουλὴ, κ.τ.λ.
So he[611], in his turn, considers long, before determining that
Patroclus shall carry the war from the ships to the walls. Again, for
the great decrees which are to have an extensive influence on human
destiny, to argue and consider seem to be a moral necessity among the
gods, as much as important subjects require public debate among men.
[611] Il. xvi. 646-55.
The method of reflecting Earth in the Olympian life is sometimes
carried by the Poet down to the details of social intercourse. Thus
it is a terrestrial custom of the heroic age, that strangers are
entertained before they are called upon to give an account of their
business[612]. And this hospitable practice extends even to the
treatment of those who are charged with important communications; so
that Bellerophon is entertained for nine full days by the king of
Lycia, while he has in his pocket the roll containing a request for
him to be put to death[613]. In exact conformity with this manner of
proceeding, Mercury[614] is feasted by Calypso in Ogygia, before he
delivers the weighty message, with which he had been intrusted by
Jupiter in the name of the whole Olympian court.
[612] Od. iii. 69.
[613] Il. vi. 174.
[614] Od. v. 91-6.