emotions argues that when a man feels the belief and the command as
something coming from without, superior, authoritative, of infinite
import, it is because religion is the work of the tribe and, as such,
superior to the individual. The voice of God is the imagined voice of
the whole tribe, heard or imagined by him who is going to break its
laws. I have some difficulty about the psychology implied in this
doctrine: surely the apparent externality of the religious command seems
to belong to a fairly common type of experience, in which the
personality is divided, so that first one part of it and then another
emerges into consciousness. If you forget an engagement, sometimes
your peace is disturbed for quite a long time by a vague external
annoyance or condemnation, which at last grows to be a distinct
judgement--'Heavens! I ought to be at the Committee on So-and-so.' But
apart from this criticism, there is obviously much historical truth in
Professor Durkheim's theory, and it is not so different as it seems at
first sight from the ordinary beliefs of religious men. The tribe to
primitive man is not a mere group of human beings. It is his whole
world. The savage who is breaking the laws of his tribe has all his
world--totems, tabus, earth, sky and all--against him. He cannot be at
peace with God.
The position of the hero or martyr who defies his tribe for the sake of
what he thinks the truth or the right can easily be thought out on these
lines. He defies this false temporary Cosmos in loyalty to the true and
permanent Cosmos.
See Durkheim, 'Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse', in
_Travaux de l'Année Sociologique_, 1912; or G. Davy, 'La Sociologie de
M. Durkheim', in _Rev. Philosophique_, xxxvi, pp. 42-71 and 160-85.
[8:1] I suspect that most reforms pass through this stage. A man somehow
feels clear that some new course is, for him, right, though he cannot
marshal the arguments convincingly in favour of it, and may even admit
that the weight of obvious evidence is on the other side. We read of
judges in the seventeenth century who believed that witches ought to be
burned and that the persons before them were witches, and yet would not
burn them--evidently under the influence of vague half-realized
feelings. I know a vegetarian who thinks that, as far as he can see,
carnivorous habits are not bad for human health and actually tend to
increase the happiness of the species of animals eaten--as the adoption
of Swift's _Modest Proposal_ would doubtless relieve the economic
troubles of the human race, and yet feels clear that for him the
ordinary flesh meal (or 'feasting on corpses') would 'partake of the
nature of sin'. The path of progress is paved with inconsistencies,
though it would be an error to imagine that the people who habitually
reject any higher promptings that come to them are really any more
consistent.
[9:1] _Transactions of the Third International Congress of Religions_,
Oxford, 1908, pp. 26-7.
[10:1] _The Buddhist Dharma_, by Mrs. Rhys Davids.
[10:2] See _Die Mutaziliten, oder die Freidenker im Islam_, von H.
Steiner, 1865. This Arab was clearly under the influence of Plotinus or
some other Neo-Platonist.
[11:1] Cf. E. Reisch, _Entstehung und Wandel griechischer
Göttergestalten_. Vienna, 1909.
[12:1] Parm. Fr. 8, 3-7 (Diels{2}).
[12:2] Xen. Fr. 24 (Diels{2}).
[12:3] Xen. Fr. 15.
[12:4] Aesch. _Cho._ 60; Eur. _Hel._ 560; Bac. 284; Soph. _O.T._ 871.
Cf. also ἡ φρόνησις ἁγαθὴ θεὸς μέγας. Soph. Fr. 836, 2 (Nauck).
ὁ πλοῦτος, ἀνθρωπίσκε, τοῖς σοφοῖς θεός. Eur. _Cycl._ 316.
ὁ νοῦς γὰρ ἡμῶν ἐστιν ἐν ἑκάστῳ θεός. Eur. Fr. 1018.
φθόνος κάκιστος κάδικώτατος θεός. Hippothoön. Fr. 2.
A certain moment of time: ἀρχὴ καὶ θεὸς ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἱδρυμένη σῴζει πάντα. Pl. Leg.
775 E.
τὰ μῶρα γὰρ πάντ' ἐστὶν Ἀφροδίτη βροτοῖς. Eur. _Tro._ 989.
ἧλθεν δὲ δαὶς θάλεια πρεσβίστη θεῶν. Soph. Fr. 548.
[14:1] See J. E. Harrison, _Prolegomena_, i, ii, iv; Mommsen, _Feste der
Stadt Athen_, 1898, pp. 308-22 (Thesmophoria), 384-404 (Anthesteria);
421-6 (Diasia). See also Pauly Wissowa, s.v.
[14:2] _Prolegomena_, p. 15 f.
[15:1] Luc. _Icaro-Menippos_ 24 schol. ad loc.
[16:1] Frequently dual, τὼ Θεσμοφόρω, under the influence of the 'Mother
and Maiden' idea; Dittenberger _Inscr. Sylloge_ 628, Ar. _Thesm._ 84,
296 _et passim_. The plural αἱ Θεσμοφόροι used in late Greek is not, as
one might imagine, a projection from the whole band of worshippers; it
is merely due to the disappearance of the dual from Greek. I accept
provisionally the derivation of these θεσμοί from θεσ- in θέσσασθαι,
θέσφατος, θέσκελος, πολύθεστος, ἀπόθεστος, &c.: cf. A. W. Verrall in _J.
H. S._ xx, p. 114; and _Prolegomena_, pp. 48 ff., 136 f. But, whatever
the derivation, the Thesmoi were the objects carried.
[16:2] Frazer, _Golden Bough_, ii. 44 ff.; A. B. Cook, _J. H. S._ xiv,
pp. 153-4; J. E. Harrison, _Themis_, p. 5. See also A. Lang, _Homeric
Hymns_, 1899, p. 63.
[17:1] _Feste der Stadt Athen_, p. 390 f. On Seed Jars, Wine Jars and
Funeral Jars, see _Themis_, pp. 276-88, and Warde Fowler, 'Mundus
Patet,' in _Journ. Roman Studies_, ii, pp. 25 ff. Cf. below, p. 28 f.
[17:2] Dieterich, _Muttererde_, 1905, p. 48 f.
[18:1] Dr. Frazer, _The Magic Art_, ii. 137, thinks it not certain that
the γάμος took place during the Anthesteria, at the same time as the
oath of the γεραιραί. Without the γάμος, however, it is hard to see what
the βασίλιννα and γεραιραί had to do in the festival; and this is the
view of Mommsen, _Feste der Stadt Athen_, pp. 391-3; Gruppe in Iwan
Müller, _Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte_, i. 33; Farnell, _Cults_,
v. 217.
[18:2] One might perhaps say, in all three. Ἀνθίστηρος τοῦ Πυθοχρηστοῦ
κοινόν is the name of a society of worshippers in the island of Thera,
_I. G. I._ iii. 329. This gives a god Anthister, who is clearly
identified with Dionysus, and seems to be a projection of a feast
Anthisteria = Anthesteria. The inscription is of the second century B.
C. and it seems likely that Anthister-Anthisteria, with their clear
derivation from ἀνθίζειν, are corruptions of the earlier and difficult
forms Ἀνθέστηρ-Ἀνθεστήρια. It is noteworthy that Thera, an island lying
rather outside the main channels of civilization, kept up throughout its
history a tendency to treat the 'epithet' as a full person. Hikesios and
Koures come very early; also Polieus and Stoichaios without the name
Zeus; Delphinios, Karneios, Aiglatas, and Aguieus without Apollo.
See Hiller von Gaertringen in the _Festschrift für O. Benndorff_, p.
228. Also Nilsson, _Griechische Feste_, 1906, p. 267, n. 5.
[20:1] Miss Harrison, 'Bird and Pillar Worship in relation to Ouranian
Divinities', _Transactions of the Third International Congress for the
History of Religion_, Oxford, 1908, vol. ii, p. 154; Farnell, _Greece
and Babylon_, 1911, pp. 66 ff.
[20:2] First published by R. Paribeni, 'Il Sarcofago dipinto di Hagia
Triada', in _Monumenti antichi della R. Accademia dei Lincei_, xix,
1908, p. 6, T. i-iii. See also _Themis_, pp. 158 ff.
[20:3] Ar. _Equites_, 82-4--or possibly of apotheosis. See _Themis_, p.
154, n. 2.
[21:1] _Themis_, p. 145, fig. 25; and p. 152, fig. 28 b.
[21:2] O. Kern, _Inschriften v. Magnesia_, No. 98, discussed by O. Kern,
_Arch. Anz._ 1894, p. 78, and Nilsson, _Griechische Feste_, p. 23.
[21:3] _Religion of the Semites_, 1901, p. 338; Reuterskiold, in _Archiv
f. Relig._ xv. 1-23.
[21:4] _Nili Opera_, _Narrat._ iii. 28.
[22:1] See Aristophanes' _Birds_, e. g. 685-736: cf. the practice of
augury from birds, and the art-types of Winged Kêres, Victories and
Angels.
[23:1] Romans, i. 25; viii. 20-3.
[23:2] Lang, _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, 1906, ii. 284; ibid., 130;
Moret, _Caractère religieux de la Monarchie Égyptienne_; Dieterich,
_Mithrasliturgie_, 1903.
[24:1] A. B. Cook in _J. H. S._ 1894, 'Animal Worship in the Mycenaean
Age'. See also Hogarth on the 'Zakro Sealings', _J. H. S._ 1902; these
seals show a riot of fancy in the way of mixed monsters, starting in all
probability from the simpler form. See the quotation from Robertson
Smith in Hogarth, p. 91.
[24:2] _Feste der Stadt Athen_, p. 416.
[24:3] _Anthropology and the Classics_, 1908, pp. 77, 78.
[25:1] A. B. Cook, _Class. Rev._ xvii, pp. 275 ff.; A. J. Reinach, _Rev.
de l'Hist. des Religions_, lx, p. 178; S. Reinach, _Cultes, Mythes,
&c._, ii. 160-6.
[25:2] One may suggest in passing that this explains the enormous
families attributed to many sacred kings of Greek legend: why Priam or
Danaus have their fifty children, and Heracles, most prolific of all,
his several hundred. The particular numbers chosen, however, are
probably due to other causes, e. g. the fifty moon-months of the
Penteteris.
[26:1] See _Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals_, by F. M. Davenport.
New York, 1906.
[27:1] E. Doutté, _Magie et religion dans l'Afrique du Nord_, 1909, p.
601.
[27:2] Cicero, _de Nat. Deorum_, ii. 2; iii. 5, 6; Florus, ii. 12.
[27:3] Plut. _Theseus_, 35; Paus. i. 32. 5. Herodotus only mentions a
bearded and gigantic figure who struck Epizelos blind (vi. 117).
[27:4] Eusebius, _Vit. Constant._, l. i, cc. 28, 29, 30; _Nazarius inter
Panegyr. Vet._ x. 14. 15.
[28:1] Aesch. _Suppl._ 1, cf. 478 Ζεὺς ἱκτήρ. _Rise of the Greek
Epic_{3}, p. 275 n. Adjectival phrases like Ζεὺς Ἱκεσιος, Ἱκετήςιος,
Ἱκταῖος are common and call for no remark.
[28:2] Hymn of the Kouretes, _Themis_, passim.
[29:1] See in general I. King, _The Development of Religion_, 1910; E.
J. Payne, _History of the New World_, 1892, p. 414. Also Dieterich,
_Muttererde_, esp. pp. 37-58.
[29:2] See Dieterich, _Muttererde_, J. E. Harrison, _Prolegomena_, chap.
vi, 'The Making of a Goddess'; _Themis_, chap. vi, 'The Spring
Drômenon'. As to the prehistoric art-type of this goddess technically
called 'steatopygous', I cannot refrain from suggesting that it may be
derived from a mountain Δ turned into a human figure, as the palladion
or figure-8 type came from two round shields. See p. 52.
[30:1] _Hymn Orph._ 8, 10 ὡροτρόφε κοῦρε.
[30:2] For the order in which men generally proceed in worship, turning
their attention to (1) the momentary incidents of weather, rain,
sunshine, thunder, &c.; (2) the Moon; (3) the Sun and stars, see Payne,
_History of the New World called America_, vol. i, p. 474, cited by Miss
Harrison, _Themis_, p. 390.
[31:1] On the subject of Initiations see Webster, _Primitive Secret
Societies_, New York, 1908; Schurtz, _Altersklassen und Männerbunde_,
Berlin, 1902; Van Gennep, _Rites de Passage_, Paris, 1909; Nilsson,
_Grundlage des Spartanischen Lebens_ in Klio xii (1912), pp. 308-40;
Themis, p. 337, n. 1. Since the above, Rivers, _Social Organization_,
1924.
[31:2] Cf. Dr. Rivers on _mate_, 'Primitive Conception of Death',
_Hibbert Journal_, January 1912, p. 393.
[31:3] Cf. Cardinal Virtues, Pindar, _Nem._ iii. 72:
ἐν παισὶ νέοισι παῖς, ἐν ἀνδράσιν ἀνήρ, τρίτον
ἐν παλαιτέροισι μέρος, ἕκαστον οἶον ἔχομεν
βρότεον ἔθνος. ἐλᾶ δὲ καὶ τέσσαρας ἀρετὰς
ὁ θνατὸς αἰών,
also Pindar, _Pyth._ iv. 281.
[32:1] See Woodward in _B. S. A._ xiv, 83. Nikagoras won four
(successive?) victories as μικκιχιζόμενος, πρόπαις, παῖς, and μελλείρην,
i. e. from his tenth to fifteenth year. He would then at 14 or 15 become
an _iran_. Plut. _Lyc._ 17 gives the age of an _iran_ as 20. This agrees
with the age of an ἔφηβος at Athens as '15-20', '14-21', 'about 16'; see
authorities in Stephanus s. v. ἔφηβος. Such variations in the date of
'puberty ceremonies' are common.
[32:2] See _Rise of the Greek Epic_, Appendix on Hym. Dem.; and W. R.
Halliday, _C. R._ xxv, 8. Nilsson's valuable article has appeared since
the above was written (see note 1, p. 31).
[33:1] Anaximander apud Simplic. phys. 24, 13; Diels, _Fragmente der
Vorsokratiker_, i. 13. See especially F. M. Cornford, _From Religion to
Philosophy_ (Cambridge, 1912), i; also my article on English and Greek
Tragedy in _Essays of the Oxford English School_, 1912. This explanation
of the τρίτος σωτήρ is my conjecture.
[33:2] 1 Cor. xv. 36; Rom. vi. generally, 3-11.
[34:1] _Il._ M. 326 f. μυρίαι, ἃς οὐκ ἔστι φυγεῖν, βροτὸν οὐδ' ὑπαλύξαι.
[34:2] Frg. Ap. Plut. _Consol. ad Apoll._ xxvi . . . ὅτι "πλείη μὲν γαῖα
κακῶν πλείη δὲ θάλασσα" καὶ "τοιάδε θνητοῖσι κακὰ κακῶν ἀμφί τε κῆρες
εἰλεῦνται, κενεὴ δ' εἴσδυσις οὐδ' ἀθέρι" (MS. αἰθέρι).
[35:1] Frazer, _Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship_, 267; F.
Cumont, 'Les Actes de S. Dasius', in _Analecta Bollandiana_, xvi. 5-16:
cf. especially what St. Augustine says about the disreputable hordes of
would-be martyrs called _Circumcelliones_. See Index to Augustine, vol.
xi in Migne: some passages collected in Seeck, _Gesch. d. Untergangs der
antiken Welt_, vol. iii, Anhang, pp. 503 ff.
II
THE OLYMPIAN CONQUEST
I. _Origin of the Olympians_
The historian of early Greece must find himself often on the watch for a
particular cardinal moment, generally impossible to date in time and
sometimes hard even to define in terms of development, when the clear
outline that we call Classical Greece begins to take shape out of the
mist. It is the moment when, as Herodotus puts it, 'the Hellenic race
was marked off from the barbarian, as more intelligent and more
emancipated from silly nonsense'.[39:1] In the eighth century B. C., for
instance, so far as our remains indicate, there cannot have been much to
show that the inhabitants of Attica and Boeotia and the Peloponnese were
markedly superior to those of, say, Lycia or Phrygia, or even Epirus. By
the middle of the fifth century the difference is enormous. On the one
side is Hellas, on the other the motley tribes of 'barbaroi'.
When the change does come and is consciously felt we may notice a
significant fact about it. It does not announce itself as what it was, a
new thing in the world. It professes to be a revival, or rather an
emphatic realization, of something very old. The new spirit of classical
Greece, with all its humanity, its intellectual life, its genius for
poetry and art, describes itself merely as being 'Hellenic'--like the
Hellenes. And the Hellenes were simply, as far as we can make out, much
the same as the Achaioi, one of the many tribes of predatory Northmen
who had swept down on the Aegean kingdoms in the dawn of Greek
history.[40:1]
This claim of a new thing to be old is, in varying degrees, a common
characteristic of great movements. The Reformation professed to be a
return to the Bible, the Evangelical movement in England a return to the
Gospels, the High Church movement a return to the early Church. A large
element even in the French Revolution, the greatest of all breaches with
the past, had for its ideal a return to Roman republican virtue or to
the simplicity of the natural man.[40:2] I noticed quite lately a speech
of an American Progressive leader claiming that his principles were
simply those of Abraham Lincoln. The tendency is due in part to the
almost insuperable difficulty of really inventing a new word to denote a
new thing. It is so much easier to take an existing word, especially a
famous word with fine associations, and twist it into a new sense. In
part, no doubt, it comes from mankind's natural love for these old
associations, and the fact that nearly all people who are worth much
have in them some instinctive spirit of reverence. Even when striking
out a new path they like to feel that they are following at least the
spirit of one greater than themselves.
The Hellenism of the sixth and fifth centuries was to a great extent
what the Hellenism of later ages was almost entirely, an ideal and a
standard of culture. The classical Greeks were not, strictly speaking,
pure Hellenes by blood. Herodotus, and Thucydides[41:1] are quite clear
about that. The original Hellenes were a particular conquering tribe of
great prestige, which attracted the surrounding tribes to follow it,
imitate it, and call themselves by its name. The Spartans were, to
Herodotus, Hellenic; the Athenians on the other hand were not. They were
Pelasgian, but by a certain time 'changed into Hellenes and learnt the
language'. In historical times we cannot really find any tribe of pure
Hellenes in existence, though the name clings faintly to a particular
district, not otherwise important, in South Thessaly. Had there been any
undoubted Hellenes with incontrovertible pedigrees still going, very
likely the ideal would have taken quite a different name. But where no
one's ancestry would bear much inspection, the only way to show you were
a true Hellene was to behave as such: that is, to approximate to some
constantly rising ideal of what the true Hellene should be. In all
probability if a Greek of the fifth century, like Aeschylus or even
Pindar, had met a group of the real Hellenes or Achaioi of the
Migrations, he would have set them down as so many obvious and flaming
barbarians.
We do not know whether the old Hellenes had any general word to denote
the surrounding peoples ('Pelasgians and divers other barbarous
tribes'[42:1]) whom they conquered or accepted as allies.[42:2] In any
case by the time of the Persian Wars (say 500 B. C.) all these tribes
together considered themselves Hellenized, bore the name of 'Hellenes',
and formed a kind of unity against hordes of 'barbaroi' surrounding them
on every side and threatening them especially from the east.
Let us consider for a moment the dates. In political history this
self-realization of the Greek tribes as Hellenes against barbarians
seems to have been first felt in the Ionian settlements on the coast of
Asia Minor, where the 'sons of Javan' (Yawan = Ἰάων) clashed as
invaders against the native Hittite and Semite. It was emphasized by a
similar clash in the further colonies in Pontus and in the West. If we
wish for a central moment as representing this self-realization of
Greece, I should be inclined to find it in the reign of Pisistratus
(560-527 B. C.) when that monarch made, as it were, the first sketch of
an Athenian empire based on alliances and took over to Athens the
leadership of the Ionian race.
In literature the decisive moment is clear. It came when, in Mr.
Mackail's phrase, 'Homer came to Hellas'.[42:3] The date is apparently
the same, and the influences at work are the same. It seems to have
been under Pisistratus that the Homeric Poems, in some form or other,
came from Ionia to be recited in a fixed order at the Panathenaic
Festival, and to find a canonical form and a central home in Athens till
the end of the classical period. Athens is the centre from which Homeric
influence radiates over the mainland of Greece. Its effect upon
literature was of course enormous. It can be traced in various ways. By
the content of the literature, which now begins to be filled with the
heroic saga. By a change of style which emerges in, say, Pindar and
Aeschylus when compared with what we know of Corinna or Thespis. More
objectively and definitely it can be traced in a remarkable change of
dialect. The old Attic poets, like Solon, were comparatively little
affected by the epic influence; the later elegists, like Ion, Euenus,
and Plato, were steeped in it.[43:1]
In religion the cardinal moment is the same. It consists in the coming
of Homer's 'Olympian Gods', and that is to be the subject of the present
essay. I am not, of course, going to describe the cults and characters
of the various Olympians. For that inquiry the reader will naturally go
to the five learned volumes of my colleague, Dr. Farnell. I wish merely
to face certain difficult and, I think, hitherto unsolved problems
affecting the meaning and origin and history of the Olympians as a
whole.
Herodotus in a famous passage tells us that Homer and Hesiod 'made the
generations of the Gods for the Greeks and gave them their names and
distinguished their offices and crafts and portrayed their shapes' (2.
53). The date of this wholesale proceeding was, he thinks, perhaps as
much as four hundred years before his own day (_c._ 430 B. C.) but not
more. Before that time the Pelasgians--i. e. the primitive inhabitants
of Greece as opposed to the Hellenes--were worshipping gods in
indefinite numbers, with no particular names; many of them appear as
figures carved emblematically with sex-emblems to represent the powers
of fertility and generation, like the Athenian 'Herms'. The whole
account bristles with points for discussion, but in general it suits
very well with the picture drawn in the first of these essays, with its
Earth Maidens and Mothers and its projected Kouroi. The background is
the pre-Hellenic 'Urdummheit'; the new shape impressed upon it is the
great anthropomorphic Olympian family, as defined in the Homeric epos
and, more timidly, in Hesiod. But of Hesiod we must speak later.
* * * * *
Now who are these Olympian Gods and where do they come from? Homer did
not 'make' them out of nothing. But the understanding of them is beset
with problems.
In the first place why are they called 'Olympian'? Are they the Gods of
Mount Olympus, the old sacred mountain of Homer's Achaioi, or do they
belong to the great sanctuary of Olympia in which Zeus, the lord of the
Olympians, had his greatest festival? The two are at opposite ends of
Greece, Olympus in North Thessaly in the north-east, Olympia in Elis in
the south-west. From which do the Olympians come? On the one hand it is
clear in Homer that they dwell on Mount Olympus; they have 'Olympian
houses' beyond human sight, on the top of the sacred mountain, which in
the _Odyssey_ is identified with heaven. On the other hand, when
Pisistratus introduced the worship of Olympian Zeus on a great scale
into Athens and built the Olympieum, he seems to have brought him
straight from Olympia in Elis. For he introduced the special Elean
complex of gods, Zeus, Rhea, Kronos, and Gê Olympia.[45:1]
Fortunately this puzzle can be solved. The Olympians belong to both
places. It is merely a case of tribal migration. History, confirmed by
the study of the Greek dialects, seems to show that these northern
Achaioi came down across central Greece and the Gulf of Corinth and
settled in Elis.[45:2] They brought with them their Zeus, who was
already called 'Olympian', and established him as superior to the
existing god, Kronos. The Games became Olympian and the sanctuary by
which they were performed 'Olympia'.[45:3]
As soon as this point is clear, we understand also why there is more
than one Mount Olympus. We can all think of two, one in Thessaly and one
across the Aegean in Mysia. But there are many more; some twenty-odd, if
I mistake not, in the whole Greek region. It is a pre-Greek word applied
to mountains; and it seems clear that the 'Olympian' gods, wherever
their worshippers moved, tended to dwell in the highest mountain in the
neighbourhood, and the mountain thereby became Olympus.
The name, then, explains itself. The Olympians are the mountain gods of
the old invading Northmen, the chieftains and princes, each with his
_comitatus_ or loose following of retainers and minor chieftains, who
broke in upon the ordered splendours of the Aegean palaces and, still
more important, on the ordered simplicity of tribal life in the
pre-Hellenic villages of the mainland. Now, it is a canon of religious
study that all gods reflect the social state, past or present, of their
worshippers. From this point of view what appearance do the Olympians of
Homer make? What are they there for? What do they do, and what are their
relations one to another?
The gods of most nations claim to have created the world. The Olympians
make no such claim. The most they ever did was to conquer it. Zeus and
his _comitatus_ conquered Cronos and his; conquered and expelled
them--sent them migrating beyond the horizon, Heaven knows where. Zeus
took the chief dominion and remained a permanent overlord, but he
apportioned large kingdoms to his brothers Hades and Poseidon, and
confirmed various of his children and followers in lesser fiefs. Apollo
went off on his own adventure and conquered Delphi. Athena conquered the
Giants. She gained Athens by a conquest over Poseidon, a point of which
we will speak later.
And when they have conquered their kingdoms, what do they do? Do they
attend to the government? Do they promote agriculture? Do they practise
trades and industries? Not a bit of it. Why should they do any honest
work? They find it easier to live on the revenues and blast with
thunderbolts the people who do not pay. They are conquering chieftains,
royal buccaneers. They fight, and feast, and play, and make music; they
drink deep, and roar with laughter at the lame smith who waits on them.
They are never afraid, except of their own king. They never tell lies,
except in love and war.