with respect to certain divine personages, whether they are Olympian
or not, yet in principle the line is clearly drawn, which marks off
the superiority of the members of the Olympian Court. We find it in
the express declaration of Calypso[615]. We find it perhaps yet more
clearly noted in the comparison between Venus and Thetis: for we have
seen, as to the former of these deities, her extreme feebleness and
incapacity in everything, except as regards the particular impulse that
she represents. Thetis, on the other hand, is full of activity and
intelligence; and is gifted with bodily powers sufficient to fly like
a hawk from Olympus, when carrying the celestial arms (whose inherent
buoyancy, however, must not be forgotten[616]). Yet, doubtless because
not Olympian, she yields the palm to Venus: for Apollo says to Æneas of
Achilles[617];
[615] Od. v. 169, 70.
[616] Il. xix. 386.
[617] Il. xx. 105.
καὶ δέ σέ φασι Διὸς κούρης Ἀφροδίτης
ἐκγεγάμεν· κεῖνος δὲ χερείονος ἐκ θεοῦ ἐστίν.
~_Their unity imperfect._~
Though the body of θεοὶ serve as an unity to point a moral in the
abstract, there is practically a wonderful want of unity and of common
or corporate feeling among them. This is figured in the Judgment
of Paris: in the love of Neptune for the Cyclops, who renounce the
authority of Jupiter: again in his aversion to the Phæacians, who are
so beloved by the gods in general, that they appear in their proper
shape at the religious festivals of those favoured islanders[618].
[618] Od. vii. 201-3.
But notwithstanding this want of the genuine corporate spirit, and
notwithstanding the prevalence of essentially selfish appetite as the
rule of life with the greater part, at any rate, of the Immortals,
it would not be just to say that the principle of unity in the
Divine Government is wholly destroyed by the Homeric polytheism. The
superiority of Jupiter, though it does not amount to supremacy in the
stricter sense[619], is yet sufficiently decided to place him far above
any other single deity in sheer power. Therefore, when considered
as the executive of the Olympian system, he is upon the whole equal
to his work. He may be deceived, and so baffled for a moment, as by
Juno in the Fourteenth Iliad; but it is for a moment only. Or the
insubordination of some particular divinity may approach to resistance,
like that of Neptune in the Fifteenth: but, upon admonition, conscious
inferiority soon brings the matter to a close. So much for the
execution of divine behests. As to the legislative process, however,
heaven strictly follows earth, with only such exceptions as are
accounted for by the difference in the constituent elements.
[619] Nägelsbach carries it even to this point. Hom. Theol. Abschn. II.
17.
The influence or even the menaces of a powerful leader, the moral force
of persuasion, the comparison of the means of coercive action on this
side and on that, and again the composition of wills and opinions
to obtain a joint result, all these, the leading processes by which
free institutions work on earth, with substantial identity, though
with more awkwardness of form and less of genial freedom, as might be
expected in transplanted ideas, are also the processes by which supreme
and providential decrees are arrived at. Of the degree to which this
principle of free polity prevails, we can have no better criterion than
in the fate of Troy. It fell, not merely from the personal prudence of
Jupiter, but because acting as a βασιλεὺς in heaven, like Agamemnon
upon earth, he yielded to the preponderating influence of that
section in Olympus, which was indeed apparently less numerous, but of
commanding strength, influence, and activity.
Nor would it be just to Homer and his Olympus to forget, that in
yielding to the powerful party led by Juno, Neptune, and Minerva,
Jupiter was also yielding up the vicious, and sealing the triumph of
the virtuous cause.
Thus, then, while we see the spirit of anthropophuism breaking down the
principle of the Unity of God, from its being too feeble and too blind
to maintain the pure traditions in which it was conveyed, it is still
curious to the last degree to observe the order and symmetry of the
Greek mind, even in its destructive processes. For, as we have found,
it arranges its groups of deities around a centre, by the principle
that creates a Family: and then gives them community of counsel, and
unity of action, by the principle that maintains a State. What is this,
but to bring in the resources and expedients, which our human state
supplied, to repair, after a sort, the havock which it had made in the
Divine Idea?
~_The system not uniform._~
But although symmetry was thus far, if not studied, yet spontaneously
produced, we have ample proof that Homer neither inherited nor invented
for his gods any uniform and consistent code of rules, intellectual,
moral, or political. Neither, again, in the region of sense did he
make any general provision to determine the conditions of divine being
and action for his gods as an order, or even for particular classes
of them. The want of such consistency is, indeed, among the striking
proofs of the profound dualism of origin in his Theo-mythology. All
that we can do is to observe his prevailing modes of treatment, and
collect a general meaning from them. Proceeding thus, we shall find
that the class of Immortals enjoys in various ways a marked superiority
to man; but the degrees of this superiority, as they are nowhere
precisely defined, so they vary greatly in the cases of the different
deities: and when, striking off all the particular characteristics of
individual members of the system, we attempt to embody what is common
to them all, we leave but a slight and jejune residuum.
Nor is the classification of the differences a regular one. If we
compare his delineations of some lower with some higher deities,
we must be struck with finding considerable appearances of want of
analogy between them. Some inferior persons of the same order, as we
shall see, may excel in particular gifts, even those who are on the
whole their superiors. Thus Circe, and even the Sirens, have powers
greater apparently than, in the same subject-matter, Mercury or Vulcan.
Heterogeneous origin, and imperfect assimilation, afford the true
explanation of these phenomena.
It may be laid down as a general rule, that the divine life of Olympus,
wherever it reproduces the human, reproduces it in a degraded form.
Enjoyment and indulgence, when carried from earth to heaven, lose that
limit of honourable relation to labour as necessary restoratives, which
alone makes them respectable on earth.
In general, the chief note of deity with Homer is emancipation from
the restraints of the moral law. Though the Homeric gods have not
yet ceased to be the vindicators of morality upon earth, they have
personally ceased to observe its rules either for or among themselves.
As compared with men in conduct, they are generally characterised by
superior force and intellect, but by inferior morality.
They do not appear to have been governed in their relations towards
one another by any motives drawn either from the law of right and
justice, or from that of affection: unless--an exception which confirms
the rule--where the attachment belonging to the human relation of
parent and child is faintly reflected among the Immortals, as when
Jupiter calls Minerva or Diana φίλον τέκος[620], and Venus τέκνον
ἐμόν[621]: again, in the care taken of Venus after she is wounded by
her mother Dione[622], and, more slightly indicated, in that of Diana
by Latona[623]. In the conduct of Mars on the death of Ascalaphus,
the impulse is momentary, and it has a strong animal tinge which
seems to overpower, like a fit of drunkenness, the little reason that
he possesses. The grief of Jupiter for Sarpedon is the only case
of an intense affection among the Immortals. And it is remarkable,
that this is felt towards, not a brother or sister divinity, but a
mortal; towards one of those Lycians, whom Homer regards with such
extraordinary and unvarying favour.
[620] Il. viii. 39. xxi. 509.
[621] Il. v. 428.
[622] Ibid. 370.
[623] Il. xxi. 504.
~_Force and fraud their chief instruments._~
The general principles of government, then, among the Immortals
themselves are simply those of force and terror, on the one hand, or
fraud and wheedling on the other. For example, Terror subdues the
adverse will of Juno[624] in the First Book, of Juno and Minerva in the
Eighth[625], and of Neptune, not without much reluctance on his part,
in the Fifteenth. Thetis wheedles Jupiter in the First Book[626]; Juno
entirely beguiles him, besides outwitting Venus, in the Fourteenth;
Minerva entraps Apollo in the Seventh into the plan of a single combat,
which saves the Greeks from an impending defeat. And the difference
of opinion respecting Troy in the divine Assembly does not at the
last come to effect without a contest of main strength, although the
virtual decision of the Olympian body had long ago been taken. Nay,
these principles of force and fraud are the real principles of action,
even when not altogether on the surface. When Mercury declines battle
with Latona, it is because he fears the consequences of a contest with
a wife of Jupiter[627]. In a manner still more curious, when Apollo
has declined battle with Neptune, professedly on the ground that it is
not worth the while of deities to fight about the affairs of wretched
mortals, the Poet explains his conduct by a sentiment partly of
deference arising out of a relationship recognised among men:
[624] Il. i. 568.
[625] Il. viii. 457.
[626] Il. i. 501.
[627] Il. xxi. 499.
αἴδετο γάρ ῥα
πατροκασιγνήτοιο μιγήμεναι ἐν παλάμῃσιν[628].
[628] Ibid. 468.
But here there may possibly have been some mixture of fear, because, as
he withdraws, he is reproached bitterly by Diana, called a baby for his
cowardice, and reminded, that he had himself volunteered the boast in
heaven, that he was ready to fight against Neptune.
As these moral elements had been almost wholly eliminated from the
general principles which govern the Homeric gods in their relations to
one another, so likewise we look almost in vain for the traces of them
in their individual conduct. They observe, when acting for themselves,
neither courage, justice, nor prudence; but it is in regard to moral
temperance or self-control, that they fall furthest below the standard
even of human virtue. The Mahometan heaven of men was the heaven of
the Homeric gods. Their standing employment, except when troubled by
human affairs, is simply in perpetual, though not drunken or brutal,
feasting; sometimes in grosser indulgences. If, says Vulcan to his
mother, you quarrel about mortals, it will be a pestilent business,
for there will be no pleasure in our banquets[629]. If Neptune in the
Odyssey is gone among the Ethiopians[630], it is for a hecatomb of
bulls and lambs. If Jupiter and all the gods make a journey to the same
quarter in the Iliad, it is for a feast[631], which apparently was to
last for eleven days. If Hercules has earned the reward of his labours
by being taken up to heaven, his life there is described as a life
entitling him to enjoy banquets among the Immortals[632]. If Ganymede
is received into their company, it is that he may discharge for Jupiter
the duty of cup-bearer[633], in which it would appear that both Vulcan
and Hebe were likewise employed. Of all the phrases characteristic of
the Homeric gods and their life, there is none that sits better than
the θεοὶ ῥεῖα ζώοντες.
[629] Il. i. 573-6.
[630] Od. i. 22.
[631] Il. i. 423.
[632] Od. xi. 602.
[633] Il. xx. 234.
~_Their dominant selfishness._~
Deeper, even than their collective devotion to mere enjoyment, lies
their intense and profound selfishness. We cannot fail to note the
absence of those sentiments of justice and self-sacrifice, and those
high enthusiastic emotions, which do so much to ennoble the human life
of the heroic age. There is truth in the assertion that they establish
and administer a one-sided law:
ὣς γὰρ ἐπεκλώσαντο θεοὶ δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσι,
ζώειν ἀχνυμένοις· αὐτοὶ δέ τ’ ἀκηδέες εἰσίν[634].
[634] Il. xxiv. 525.
But beyond this, there lies a deep meaning in the sentiment of an
Italian poet, Guarini[635]:
[635] Pastor Fido.
Guarda, che nel disumanarti
Non divenga una fera, anzi che un Dio.
The Greek mythology, departing from the very basis of the Divine idea
in the conception of its gods, converts them, by a moral necessity, not
into man, but into something which is morally beneath man. There is not
among all the deities what we can call one full unbroken development of
noble character. They are, as a general rule, except so far as they are
modified by the traditive element, Titanic creations of intellect or
power, or both, without virtue. Even where, as in the cases of Minerva
and Diana, they are pure, their purity does not inspire or impress
the Poet with half the force and fire which he must have felt when
he drew the matron Andromache, or the maid Nausicaa. But this is not
the common case. With great reservation indeed as to the traditional,
in comparison with the mythical divinities, and likewise as to the
female deities, in comparison with the gods, we must admit that, as a
general rule, the Immortals of Homer, when brought to the bar of a
cool inquiry, are in their own personal conduct impure voluptuaries,
and that the laws, which formed the basis of family life, and which in
Homer’s time still kept human society from total corruption, for them
had no restraining power, indeed no recognised existence.
There is no sense of shame accompanying the excesses of the gods, such
as Homer has marked, not without tenderness, in regard to the trespass
of Astyoche[636];
[636] Il. ii. 514.
παρθένος αἰδοίη, ὑπερώϊον εἰσαναβᾶσα.
On the contrary, Jupiter refers with marked self-satisfaction to his
affairs of this kind in the Fourteenth Iliad; and shows the very
temper, described by Saint Paul as that of the most advanced depravity,
which not only yields to temptation, but seals its own offence with
habitual and deliberate approval[637]: Οὐ μόνον αὐτὰ ποιοῦσιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ
συνευδοκοῦσι τοῖς πράσσουσιν.
[637] Rom. i. 32.
~_Cruelty of Calypso in her love._~
We may take Calypso as no unfair specimen of the ethics of the
Immortals. In the hope of sensual pleasure, she keeps Ulysses a
prisoner in her far island. She sees him pining in wretchedness for his
home and family from day to day; and well knows the distress that his
absence must cause to a virtuous wife and son, as well as the public
evils, sure to arise from the prolonged absence of a wise and able
sovereign. Yet she never relents, but still in her odorous cavern she
sings to the movement of her golden distaff. (Od. v. 59.) When Hermes
makes known to her the decree that she cannot resist for his return,
she complains of the cruelty of the upper gods, but adds, ‘as I cannot
help myself, let him perish if Zeus will.’ She promises, however, to
send him off in safety, and keeps her word; but it is when she has
been well warned by Mercury of the consequences of disobedience, and
firmly bound by Ulysses with the oath which was terrible even to the
Immortals. (Od. v. 146, 184.)
The sentiment of envy, which they had begun to entertain towards men,
appears also to have been felt towards members of the divine order. It
was envy with which the gods viewed the happiness enjoyed by Aurora
in her union with Orion, till it ended with his death; and that moved
Jupiter to destroy Iasion, the object of the choice of Demeter[638].
But this (so says Calypso) was envy of the male towards the female
deities. There is no reciprocal sentiment: and it is curious here to
observe the inequality of the sexes, together with so many other signs
and beginnings of corruption, established among the Immortals in a
manner unknown to human society at the time.
[638] Od. v. 118-29.
Calypso may or may not be justified in the charge she makes against the
gods; but, at least, it seems clear that, though they have some regard
to the prevalence of moral laws as between one man and another, they
by no means impute any moral guilt to her in her cruel detention of
Ulysses, even while they rectify a wrong by their decree.
The inferiority of the moral standard, which marks the order of gods,
is likewise traceable in the various races which are described by
Homer as claiming a special relationship to them; the Cyclopes, the
Læstrygonians, and even perhaps the Phæacians. Against the last of
these we can certainly charge no more than an epicurean and inglorious
ease: but the two former not only do not forfeit, they even prove,
their relationship to the gods by being at once more strong and more
vicious than common men.
And, as it affects the kindred of the Immortals in common with
themselves, so also does it extend from the sphere of morals into that
of manners. While Hephæstus was ministering to them the festal cup,
they laughed ungovernably at his personal deformity[639]. Now, the
Greeks laugh at Thersites[640] when he has been beaten, but it is in
immediate connection with his misconduct, and it has nothing whatever
to do with his ugliness. Laughter at mere deformity is nowhere found in
Homer: and would entirely jar with the tone of feeling that pervades
Homeric manners. The action that offers the nearest approach to it
confirms the spirit of this observation. It is the hurling of the stool
by the Suitor Antinous[641] at the apparently decrepit Ulysses; which
is sternly registered, along with the other outrages of that depraved
company, for the coming day of retribution.
[639] Il. i. 599.
[640] Il. ii. 270-7.
[641] Od. xvii. 465.
~_Olympian as compared with heroic life._~
In a word, still setting aside in some considerable degree the deities
of traditive origin, who enter little into the general picture, but
have their own portraiture apart, there are to be found in Olympus,
as well as in the lower earth, the relations of degree in power and
intelligence; and the gods with whom it is peopled, on the whole,
possess it in large measure; but the law and purpose of their life
is summed up in self-will and self-indulgence. They do not debate
their own duties, or even those of men, to one another: rarely, if
ever, those of men even towards themselves, except with reference to
the quantity of libation poured out, of flesh offered, and of steam
reeking from the altars. There is a mixture in their enjoyments: some
are refined, others sensual, but both are alike selfish, and the latter
are wholly unrestrained. It is said by Heyne, and with much of literal
truth, that the description of the day’s employment in Olympus, which
the first Iliad supplies, is a transcript of hero-life[642]; but it
is of one part of hero-life only; it is of hero-life in its moments
of indulgence and relaxation, which exhibit to us its lower and less
noble side, without any view of its great sentiments and great duties,
its sense of honour, its fine feeling, its reciprocal affections
as developed in the relations of consanguinity and affinity, of
friendship, of guestship, of sovereign and subject, and even of master
and serf. What a wretched spectacle would Hector, Achilles, Diomed,
Nestor, Ulysses, and the rest present to us, were their existence
devoted simply to quaffing goblets and scenting or devouring the
flesh of slain animals, even though with this there were present the
mitigating refinement of perpetual harp and song. And yet such is the
picture offered by the Homeric mythology.
[642] Heyne on Il. i. 603.
Upon the whole, while it remains true that the deification of heroes,
or their promotion to a happy immortality, in Homer’s time, depended
upon virtue and merit; those who thus obtained admission to Olympus
really found themselves introduced to a new and far lower law of life,
upon taking their places there, than that to which they had been
accustomed upon earth. Thus, for example, it is with Hercules; he has
indeed a reward beyond the grave; but it consists simply in a life
divested of the virtues of patience, obedience, valour, and struggle
by which it had itself been earned.
The superiority, however, of the intellectual over the material
element, except in the matter of self-indulgence, is, as we might
have expected, decisively maintained in the Grecian mythology. It
is exhibited most clearly, perhaps, in the triumph of Jupiter and
Olympus over the brute might of the Titans. It is also palpable, when
we find that the strength of Mars, who represents nothing except
fighting force, does not always insure his victory, even in contests
of mere strength, but that he is overthrown by Minerva in the battle
of the gods, corrected at will by her on all other occasions[643], and
wounded, with her aid, by the hero Diomed beneath the walls of Troy.
But when we speak of intellect as opposed to matter, the case stands so
differently with respect to different deities, that it is necessary to
attempt a stricter appreciation than we have yet aimed at obtaining, of
their common character.
[643] Il. x. 765. 6.
~_Their exemption from Death uniform._~
The great and perhaps only essential property by which the Homeric gods
are distinguished, is that expressed in their very common appellation
of ἀθάνατος: they are immortal.
There is something curious in the question, why it is that they are
endowed uniformly and absolutely with this gift, but not with others;
why the limitation of Death is removed from them, and yet other
limitations are allowed in so many respects to remain.
It seems as if we had here an independent and impartial testimony to
the truth of the representation conveyed in Holy Writ, that death has
been the specific punishment ordained for sin: and that therefore in
passing beyond the human order we, as a matter of course, pass beyond
its range.
Had the preternatural system of the Poet exhibited to us only such
divinities as are the representatives of primeval tradition, it would
have been easy to account for the attribute of immortality. But here
are a multitude of deities, the creatures of human invention; why
was this gift bestowed on them, when others were withheld? It may
be, again, because that which came last into man’s condition should,
in the logical and moral order, go first out of it: that in framing
the conception of an existence higher than that of man, the first
step properly was, before dealing with the more positive faults or
imperfections inherent in his nature, to set aside that which did not
belong to it, but had been set upon it as a note of shame for a special
cause, like letters branded on a deserter or a slave.
In Homer it appears that every deity, great and small alike, is exempt
from death. A Fragment of Hesiod[644] proceeds on a basis abstractedly
different, and by an ingenious multiplication, from the term assigned
to man upwards, ascribes to the Nymphs a life of 291,600 years. In
all likelihood the meaning of this passage may be not to curtail
immortality, but to enlarge the practical conception of it, by carrying
life up to a number which would impress the minds of a generation
rude in arithmetic far more, than a merely abstract assertion of
immortality: just as to us the sand of the sea, or even the hairs of
the head, may more impressively convey the idea of unlimited numbers
than does the phrase innumerable, although in reality the effect of
either figure is to limit them.
[644] Fragm. 50. ap. Plut. ii. 415 C.
Calypso is of the lower and of the most earthy order of the Homeric
divinities. She recognises in plain terms her inferiority to the
Olympian gods, by stating that she will send with Ulysses a favourable
breeze, which will carry him safely home, provided _they_ permit it,
who are so far her superiors, both in planning, and in executing what
they plan[645]:
[645] Od. v. 169, 70.
αἴ κε θεοί γ’ ἐθέλωσι, τοὶ οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἔχουσιν,
οἵ μευ φέρτεροί εἰσι νοῆσαί τε κρῆναί τε.
Yet she distinctly contrasts herself with Penelope, in the very point
that she is immortal: and the reply of Ulysses recognises this as the
essential difference[646];
[646] Od. v. 213, 218.
ἡ μὲν γὰρ βροτός ἐστι, σὺ δ’ ἀθάνατος καὶ ἀγήρως.
The only cases, perhaps, in which Homer glances at the possibility
of putting a period to the existence of a god, are two, in which the
semi-brutal Mars is concerned. When Otus and Ephialtes put him in
chains, it seems that, but for Eeriboia, he would have perished[647]:
the expressions are,
[647] Il. v. 388.
καί νύ κεν ἔνθ’ ἀπόλοιτο Ἄρης ἆτος πολέμοιο.