The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 1 of 2

1. Having considered the worship of those deities which either wholly or partially owed their origin to the Dorians, we must now, in order to complete our account of the religion of that race, point out the various worships which they adopted from other nations.

To begin then with Zeus. It is remarkable that there was no great establishment of the worship of this god (except the Phrygian in Crete) in any Doric country, but wherever it occurred was connected with and subordinate to that of some other deity. The worship at Olympia1643 appears to have been established [pg 395] by the Achæans, who in other places (e.g., at Ægium) consecrated temples to Zeus alone: the worship of Zeus Hellanius at Ægina was introduced by the Hellenes of Thessaly. But the whole of Argolis and also Corinth were, from early times, under the protection of Here, the character of whose worship resembled that of Zeus, although it was more pronounced. The chief temple was twelve stadia from Mycenæ, and forty from Argos, beyond the district of Prosymna;1644 its service was performed by the most distinguished priestesses, and celebrated by the first festivals and games, being also one of the earliest nurseries of the art of sculpture. It appears that Argos was the original seat of the worship of Here, and that there it first received its peculiar form and character: for the worship of the Samian Here, as well as that at Sparta,1645 was supposed to have been derived from Argos, which statement is confirmed by the resemblance in the ceremonies; and the same is true of the worship of the same goddess at Epidaurus,1646 Ægina, and Byzantium. [pg 396] In the early mythology of Argos her name constantly occurs; and the traditions concerning Io, so far as they were native, are only fabulous expressions for the ideas and feelings excited by this religion. Thus also the Corinthian fables of Medea refer to the indigenous worship of Here Acræa.1647 Hence the Corinthians introduced into their colony of Corcyra, together with the religion of Here,1648 the mythology and worship of Medea.1649 The peculiarities of the worship of Here must partly be looked for in the symbolical traditions respecting Io and Medea, and other mythological personages of the same description, and partly in the various rites of the Samian festival. It was doubtless founded on some elementary religion, as may be plainly seen from the tradition that Zeus had on mount Thornax in southern Argolis seduced Here in the shape of a cuckoo (whose song was considered in Greece as the prognostic of fertile rains in the spring). The marriage with Zeus (called ἱερὸς γάμος) is always a prominent feature in the worship of Here; she was represented veiled, like a bride; and was carried, like a bride, on a car, with other similar allusions.1650 At Samos it was related that the statue of the goddess had been once entirely covered with branches; and this, as it appears, was also represented at festivals.1651 The Argive festival of Λέχερνα, i.e., of the “bed of twigs,” had the same meaning.1652

2. In Argolis also the worship of Athene was of great antiquity, and enjoyed almost equal honours with that of Here; her temple was on the height of Larissa: and doubtless she had the same character and origin as the Athene Chalciœcus of Sparta.1653 Their names were in both places nearly the same, as at Sparta she was called Ὀπτιλέτις,1654 and in Argolis Ὀξυδέρκης, the quick-sighted;1655 and though in both places the names were explained from historical events, it seems more accurate to compare them with the title of Athene at Athens and Sigeum, Γλαυκῶπις, and others of the same kind. At Argos a large part of the heroic mythology is associated with the worship of Athene: for Acrisius was fabled to have been buried in her temple on the citadel;1656 and since Ἀκρία was a title of the goddess herself,1657 it appears to me that the name Ἀκρίσιος may be satisfactorily explained in this manner: especially as it is plain from an analysis of the mythology of Acrisius, Perseus, and the Gorgons, that it is entirely founded on symbols of Athene. Corinth also had a part in these fables, as is clearly shown by the figures of Pegasus, of the head of Medusa and Athene herself upon the coins of this state and of its colonies Leucadia, Anactorium, and Amphilochian Argos.1658

There is also another branch of the worship of Athene in the Doric states, viz., that which extended from Lindus in Rhodes to Gela in Sicily, and from thence to Agrigentum and Camarina.1659 In all these places Athene was the protectress of the citadel and the town, and was associated with Zeus Polieus (also with Zeus Atabyrius.1660) As to the ceremonies with which she was honoured, we only know from Pindar that at Rhodes they offered fireless sacrifices to her, and that the ancient sculpture of Rhodes was connected with her worship. That of Hierapytna in Crete (the coins of which city have the Athenian symbols of Athene) more resembled the Rhodian worship, if what the envoys from Præsus stated at Rhodes was correct, viz., that at Hierapytna the Corybantes were called the offspring of the sun and of Athene.1661

3. Although the worship of these deities, and of Here in particular, had probably been more prevalent before than after the Doric invasion, the religion of Demeter was still more depressed. This worship was nearly extirpated by the Dorians, a fact which we know from Herodotus, who, in speaking of some rites of Demeter Thesmophoria which were supposed to have been founded by the daughters of Danaus, states that when the Peloponnesians were driven out by the Dorians, these rites were discontinued, and were only [pg 399] kept up by those Peloponnesians who remained behind, and by the Arcadians.1662 Consequently we meet with few traces of the worship of Demeter in the chief cities of the Doric name.1663 Thus it appears that in Argos the ceremonies in honour of this goddess were on one side driven into the marshes of Lerna, and on the other to the eastern extremity of the peninsula, inhabited by the Dryopes. In the former of these two places some mystical rites were long performed, and in the latter the chief worship was that of the deities of the earth and the infernal regions (χθόνιοι θεοί). Some inscriptions found at Hermione, which besides Demeter and Cora mention the name of Clymenus,1664 an epithet of Pluto, agree well with the beginning of the hymn which Lasus the Hermionean addressed to the deities of his native city: “I sing of Demeter and the Melibœan Cora, the wife of Clymenus, sounding the deep-toned Æolic harmony of hymns.”1665 And that the Hermioneans considered the temple of the earthly Demeter (which was connected with the entrance of the infernal regions supposed to be at Hermione) as the first in the city, is also evident from the fact that the Asinæans, expelled from Argolis and resident in Messenia, sent sacrifices and sacred missions from thence to their national goddess at Hermione.1666

In ancient times also a worship was prevalent at [pg 400] Argos which we will designate by the name of the Triopian Demeter.1667 All the fables concerning Triopas and his son Erysichthon (from ἐρυσίβη, robigo) belong to an agricultural religion, which at the same time refers to the infernal regions. The places where this religion existed in ancient times are the Thessalian plains of Dotium, Argos, and likewise Attica;1668 and from the first-mentioned place it was transmitted to the south-western coast of Asia Minor by an early national connexion which is indicated in the account of an ancient Pelasgic colony from Dotium to Cnidos, Rhodes, and Syme;1669 and here it formed the basis of the Triopian worship, on which were afterwards founded the federative festivals of the six Doric cities. In front of Triopium is the small island of Telos, whence a single family joined the Lindian colony that founded Gela in Sicily, and earned with it the sacra Triopia. A member of this family named Telines advanced this private worship of the infernal gods so greatly that it was incorporated in the national religion, and he was appointed to administer it as Hierophant; it was from this person that Hiero the king of Syracuse was descended.1670

4. By this history of the colonial connexions, well attested from without, and having great internal probability, we have ascertained the origin of one of the branches of the worship of Demeter in Sicily. Another [pg 401] was probably introduced by the clan of the Emmenidæ,1671 which being originally of Theban origin came into Sicily with the colony of Gela: for it was probably owing to the traditions of this family alone that Agrigentum, as well as ancient Thebes, was called “a gift from Zeus to Persephone at their nuptial festival.”1672

But from neither of these two sources can the celebrated worship of Demeter at Syracuse and its colony Enna (which in the eyes both of the inhabitants and of the Romans had made Sicily the native country of Ceres) be derived, since it differed in certain respects from both the above-named worships.1673 From its importance we may infer that it was one of the most ancient religions of Syracuse, and established at the first foundation of that town; and since of these some came from Olympia,1674 but the larger part from Corinth, and there is no reason for supposing that it was derived from the former place, it must have been brought over from the parent state. Now it is true that there was at Corinth a temple of Demeter and Cora, the priestesses of which also prophesied by means of dreams;1675 but the worship of those goddesses was there [pg 402] of far less importance than in Sicily, where its preponderance may perhaps be accounted for by the fertility of the soil, which enabled it to produce wheat, while the Greeks had in their own country been accustomed to eat barley, and therefore stimulated the colonists to be especially thankful to the goddess of corn. When, however, it is remembered that Megara also had a large share in the colonising of Syracuse, it will hardly be doubted that this state was the real source from which the worship in question originated, since Demeter was there an ancient national deity, and was not disturbed in her sanctuary on the citadel of Caria even by the Doric invaders.1676

In Laconia also the worship of Demeter had been preserved from ancient times, although it could not have been much respected by the Dorians in Sparta. For the Eleusinia of that country were chiefly celebrated by the inhabitants of the ancient town of Helos, who on certain days carried a wooden statue of Cora to the Eleusinium on the heights of Taygetus.1677 The Lacedæmonians had also adopted the worship of Demeter under the title of χθονία, or earthly, from the Hermioneans, some of whose kinsmen had settled in Messenia.1678

5. Poseidon was not originally a god of the Doric race, but was suited rather to the character of [pg 403] the Ionians, who, from dwelling near the sea, had acquired a love for foreign communication and a great spirit of enterprise. We therefore find it only in a few places, for example, at Tænarum1679 (whence it was carried to Tarentum), at Cyrene,1680 in Ægina,1681 and particularly on the Corinthian isthmus; also at Trœzen and Calauria, which places (as has been already shown) were among the ancient settlements of the Ionians on the Saronic gulf,1682 to which the legends concerning Theseus chiefly refer.1683 From Trœzen the worship of Poseidon was transmitted to Posidonia in Magna Græcia, and also to Halicarnassus, chiefly by the family of the Antheadæ.

6. The worship of Dionysus did not enjoy equal honours among all the Dorians. It had indeed penetrated as far as Sparta, where it had driven even the Lacedæmonian women to phrensy;1684 and the Delphic oracle itself had ordered the institution of a race of Bacchanalian virgins.1685 But nothing is known of any sumptuous or regular ceremonies in honour of Dionysus; and we might indeed have supposed à priori that the austere and rigid notions of the Spartans would have been very averse to that deity. The same is probably true of Argos, which had for a long time wholly abstained from the worship of Dionysus, but [pg 404] afterwards dedicated to him a festival called τύρβη (turba).1686 The conduct of Corinth and Sicyon was in this respect altogether different. The former city had received from Phlius1687 the worship of this god under the title of βακχεῖος, i.e., “exciting to phrensy;” and also under that of λύσιος, the “appeasing” or “soothing,” from Thebes, whence it was said to have come at the time of the Doric invasion,1688 and where it was celebrated with festivals, of which we have very ample accounts.1689 In early times some rude beginnings of tragedy had been formed from the dithyrambic choruses1690 there performed, as the tradition of Epigenes informs us; though these were not regular dramas; there were likewise the tragic choruses transferred from Bacchus to some of the heroes, and Adrastus had been made the subject of these songs before the tyranny of Cleisthenes.1691 The worship of this god had also produced a native kind of comic and ludicrous entertainment, the Phallophori.1692 In the neighbouring city of Corinth, the same worship, with its musical and poetical accompaniments, prevailed;1693 and it was in this town that, [pg 405] according to Pindar,1694 the dithyramb was first established, although indeed under the direction of a foreigner (Arion). In the Doric colonies of Magna Græcia this worship preserved the same character of irregularity and excess; the whole town of Tarentum was (as Plato says) drunk at the festival of Bacchus. The painted vases give a perfect representation of the antics and masques of this ancient carnival.

7. In Corinth, however, and Sicyon, the worship of Aphrodite as well as of Dionysus was established. It seems probable that the worship of that deity had indeed a native origin in Greece, but that it had been extended and modified by Phœnician settlers in some of the maritime towns. The institution of the “hospitable damsels,”1695 whom the goddess their mistress herself ordered to be at the disposal of strangers,1696 was undoubtedly of Asiatic origin, and unknown to the ancient Greeks.1697 Sicyon, however, appears to have derived the worship of these two deities from Corinth, the coins of which city generally have a dove,1698 and frequently also a head of Aphrodite of ancient workmanship; and the native poetess Praxilla (452 B.C.) addressed Aphrodite as the mother of Dionysus,1699 and sang of the joys and woes of the Phœnician [pg 406] Adonis.1700 While again the Dorians of these maritime cities had a certain susceptibility, flexibleness, and softness of character, the very contrary of all these qualities distinguished the Spartans. For although that state came into connexion with a Phœnician establishment of the worship of Aphrodite in the island of Cythera, they transformed it while they adopted it, and had their own armed Aphrodite, and the chained and veiled goddess of marriage.1701 From the same island also they received the god Adonis under the name of Ciris.1702 Aphrodite, however, enjoyed greater honours in the Spartan colony of Cnidos, whence she went to Halicarnassus under the title of Acræa, and from thence to the mother city Trœzen.1703 The worship of Aphrodite at Selinus in the west of Sicily1704 was doubtless derived from the neighbouring town of Eryx, and was consequently also Phœnician; and the temple was probably one of the wealthiest of that once flourishing city.1705

The worship of Hermes does not appear to have prevailed in any Doric state; in one respect he was superseded by Apollo Agyieus. The same may nearly be said of Hephæstus and Ares, the latter of whom [pg 407] was worshipped by the Spartans under the names of Theritas and Enyalius. Of the worship of Æsculapius it has been already1706 mentioned that it was derived to Cos, Cnidos, and Rhodes, from Epidaurus, which state again had in ancient times received it through the Phlegyans from Tricca.1707 From Epidaurus, according to Pausanias,1708 also came the worship of Sicyon, and the Cyrenæan at Balagræ,1709 with which, as at Cos, an ancient school of physicians was connected.1710

8. We will just notice the worship of the Charites established in Crete and Sparta; first, as a fresh proof of the early religious connexion between those two countries,1711 and as a sign of that hilarity and gladness which was the most beautiful feature of the religion of the Greeks. These goddesses were at Sparta called Cleta and Phaënna; their temple was on the road from the city to Amyclæ, on the river Tiasa.1712 Allied to this was the worship of Eros, as practised by the Cretans and Spartans, with whom, before every battle, the most beautiful men assembled and sacrificed to that god:1713 not as the great uniter of heaven and earth, but as awaking mutual esteem and affection, which produce that fear of the disapprobation of friends which is the noblest source of valour.1714

The most obscure, perhaps, of all the branches of religion whose origin we have to investigate is the [pg 408] worship of the Dioscuri, or the sons of Zeus. It appears probable that it had a double source, viz., the heroic honours of the human Tyndaridæ, and the ancient Peloponnesian worship of the great gods or Cabiri; and in process of time the attributes of the latter seem by poetry and tradition to have been transferred to the former, viz., the name of the sons of Zeus, the birth from an egg, and the egg-shaped caps, the alternation of life and death, the dominion over the winds and the waves. As belonging to their worship at Sparta I may mention the ancient images called δόκανα, two upright beams with two others laid across them transversely;1715 the custom in military expeditions of taking either one or both of the statues of the Dioscuri according as one or both kings went with the army;1716 which places the Tyndaridæ in the light of gods of war; and the belief that they often appeared as assistants in time of need, or even merely as friendly guests,1717 which distinguishes them from most other heroes. Upon the whole we know that the Dorians found the worship and mythology of the Tyndaridæ established at Amyclæ, Therapne, Pephnos, and other places; and they adopted it, without caring to preserve its original form and meaning; rather, indeed, [pg 409] attempting to give to the worship of the sons of Tyndareus a military and political reference.

9. Before we proceed to consider the heroic mythology of the Dorians, which is chiefly confined to Hercules, we will first attempt to sketch the principal features of the religious character of the Dorians, as seen in the several worships already enumerated. Both in the development of modes of religion peculiar to that race, and in the adoption and alteration of those of other nations, an ideal tendency may be perceived, which considered the deity not so much in reference to the works or objects of nature, as of the actions and thoughts of men. Consequently their religion had little of mysticism, which belongs rather to elementary worships; but the gods assume a more human and heroic form, although not so much as in the epic poetry. Hence the piety of the Doric race had a peculiarly energetic character, as their notions of the gods were clear, distinct, and personal; and it was probably connected with a certain degree of cheerfulness and confidence, equally removed from the exuberance of enthusiasm and the gloominess of superstition. Funeral ceremonies and festivals with violent lamentations, as well as enthusiastic orgies, were not suited to the character of the Dorians; although their reverence for antiquity often induced them to adopt such rites when already established. On the other hand, we see displayed in their festivals and religious usages a brightness and hilarity, which made them think that the most pleasing sacrifice which they could offer to their gods was to rejoice in their sight, and use the various methods which the arts afforded them of expressing their joy. With all this, their worship bears the stamp of the greatest [pg 410] simplicity, and at the same time of warmth of heart. The Spartans prayed the gods “to give them what was honourable and good;”1718 and although they did not lead out any splendid processions, and were even accused of offering scanty sacrifices, still Zeus Ammon declared that the “calm solemnity of the prayers of the Spartans was dearer to him than all the sacrifices of the Greeks.”1719 They likewise showed the most faithful adherence to the usages handed down to them from their ancestors, and hence they were little inclined to the adoption of foreign ceremonies;1720 although in commercial towns, as, for instance, at Corinth, such rites were willingly admitted, from a regard for strangers of other races and nations.1721

1. In the following attempt to unravel the complicated mythology of Hercules, we will begin with [pg 411] those fables in which this hero appears evidently as the progenitor of the Doric Heraclidæ,1722 as representative of the heroes of the Hyllean tribe, the highest order in the Doric nation.

We will first direct our attention to the locality described in the beginning of the first book, the ancient country of the Dorians in the most mountainous part of Thessaly, where this nation was continually at enmity with its immediate neighbours, the Lapithæ. In this war Hercules appears as the hero of the Hyllean tribe, according to the epic poem Ægimius, and gained for them a third part of the conquered territory. With this contest is, as it appears, also connected the celebrated conquest of Œchalia, the subject of an epic poem called Οἰχαλίας ἅλωσις, which was ascribed to Homer or Creophylus.1723 In this poem it was related how Eurytus of Œchalia, the skilful archer, who was said to have surpassed Hercules himself in this mode of fighting, and who dared to engage with Apollo,1724 promised his daughter Iole as a prize to the person who should excel himself and his sons in archery; but Hercules having accepted the challenge, Eurytus refused to perform his engagement: upon which Hercules collected an army, conquered Œchalia, killed Eurytus and his sons, carried away Iole prisoner, and gave her in marriage to his son Hyllus.1725

The situation of this “well-fortified”1726 Œchalia is an ancient subject of controversy. There were three places of this name; one on the banks of the Peneus in Thessaly, in the ancient country of the Lapithæ, between Pelinna to the east and Tricca to the west, not far from Ithome:1727 another in the island of Eubœa, in the district of Eretria.1728 The third was a town in Messenia, which in latter times was called Carnasium, upon the boundary of Arcadia;1729 in which region there was also a town named Ithome; and, as it is stated, another named Tricca; so that we must suppose that there was some early connexion between the inhabitants of this district and the tribes near the Peneus. Now it may be presumed that each of these Œchalias was considered by the respective inhabitants as the celebrated town of the great Eurytus; whence among the early poets there was a difference of statement on the subject. For the Messenian Œchalia is called the city of Eurytus in the Homeric catalogue,1730 and in the Odyssey,1731 which statement was followed by Pherecydes;1732 the Eubœan city was selected by the writer [pg 413] of the poem called the Taking of Œchalia;1733 as also probably in the Ægimius,1734 and afterwards by Hecatæus of Miletus;1735 the Thessalian, in another passage in the catalogue of the ships, apparently of considerable antiquity.1736 Since, then, this question cannot be settled by authority, we can only infer (but with great probability) from the connexion of the traditions that the last-mentioned Œchalia was the city of the original fable. The contest for this city is evidently closely connected with the war with the Lapithæ; Eurytus, as well as the Lapithæ, was hated by Apollo. If Œchalia is placed on the banks of the Peneus, the conquest of it naturally falls in with the other tradition; if not, it stands isolated and unconnected. Again; Hercules, according to all traditions, conquers Iole for his son Hyllus; now Hyllus never occurs in mythology except in connexion with the Dorians; consequently the place of the battle must be looked for in the vicinity of the Doric territory.

Even before the time of this war (according to the common narration) Hercules had embroiled himself with the Œchalians by killing Iphitus, the son of Eurytus, who demanded of him the restitution of some plundered cattle or horses. In the common version of this story, Peloponnesus was the scene of the encounter; for Hercules is said to have hurled him from the walls of Tiryns.1737 But to expiate this murder, and [pg 414] the violation of the rights of hospitality, Hercules became a slave; and, in order to release himself from the guilt, he was compelled to pay to the father of Iphitus his own ransom.

2. The meaning of this servitude cannot be rightly explained without observing the remarkable coincidence between some parts of the mythology of Hercules and Apollo, which we will here shortly elucidate. As Eurytus is represented sometimes as killed by Apollo, sometimes by Hercules, so in the poem of the Shield of Hercules1738 this hero punishes Cycnus for profaning the Pagasæan temple; thus, in another tradition, he slays Phylas and Laogoras, princes of the Dryopes, for violating the shrine of Delphi and other temples;1739 and consecrates the whole nation to the Pythian Apollo.1740 Nor do I believe that Euripides invented the fable of the restoration of Alcestis, and the contest between Hercules and death.1741 It is also perhaps fair to infer, from the legends of epic poets, in which Hercules is represented as a hero in brazen armour, who defended the sacred roads with his sword, and overthrew the violent sons of Ares that waylaid the sacrificial processions in the narrow passes and defiles, that in ancient fables he was considered not only as the defender of the Doric race, but also of the Doric worship.

We may now proceed to consider the sale and servitude of Hercules; a point of primary importance in [pg 415] the various forms which the legends concerning this hero assume. In the present instance this degradation originated from the killing of Iphitus. Here also the parallel with the servitude of Apollo at Pheræ cannot fail to strike every one. The god and the hero were chosen, as examples, to impress the people in early times with a strong sense of the sacred character, and necessity of expiation for homicide.1742 By whom Hercules was supposed to have been purchased in the original legend of northern Thessaly we know not; at a later period Omphale was called his mistress, who (according to Pherecydes)1743 bought him for three talents.

3. We will now proceed to the second settlements of the Dorians, which comprehend the towns between the ridges of Œta and Parnassus; viz., Erineus, Cytinium, Bœum, and Pindus.1744

The neighbours of the Dorians in these settlements were, as has been already stated, the Dryopes, the Melians of Trachis, and the Ætolians. The first were hostile to the Dorians; the other two were for the most part friendly to them. These facts again are expressed with much clearness in the mythology of Hercules. [pg 416] Of the relation between the Dorians and Dryopians, and the manner in which it is expressed in the fables of Hercules, we have already given an account.1745 Ceyx, the Trachinian, was a faithful friend of Hercules, and of his descendants; in one account, indeed, he is called the nephew of Hercules,1746 who is said to have founded for him his town of Trachis.1747 In this place was shown a grave of Deianira,1748 the daughter of Œneus, whose marriage with Hercules is evidently a mythological expression for the league which existed between the Ætolian and Dorian nations before the invasion of Peloponnesus.1749 For Deianira was an inhabitant of Calydon;1750 and the Calydonians had the principal share in this expedition. To this marriage is annexed a series of connected Ætolian fables concerning Hercules. For the peculiarity of this part of the heroic mythology is, that they readily passed from one nation to another; and wherever they obtained a firm ground, formed a large mass of traditions. Among these is the conquest of the bull Achelous,1751 and the adventure at the ford of the Euenus,1752 which afterwards occasioned the death of Hercules. It is also probable that the residence of Hercules at Olenus, in the house of Dexamenus, was connected with the Ætolian adventures; although even Hesiod does not in this legend mention the ancient Ætolian town Olenus in the neighbourhood of Calydon, [pg 417] but the Achæan city of the same name on the banks of the Pirus.1753 Now Dexamenus is frequently placed in connexion with the Calydonian family of Œneus;1754 the wife of Œneus came from Olenus, and was of the same family. The ancient legend represented him as a hospitable hero: which quality is also expressed in his name (Δεξαμενὸς, from δεξάμενος); in return for which, Hercules released him from his brutal guests, the Centaurs;1755 to which fable the ancient battle of the Centaurs in the mythology of Hercules probably annexed itself. Lastly, Hercules is said to have led the Ætolians against the Thesprotians of Ephyra. This expedition was perhaps as much celebrated in ancient lays as the taking of Œchalia. Ephyra, which is here spoken of, is an ancient city of Thesprotia,1756 situated on the spot where the Acherusian lake flows into the sea through the river Selleeis (Acheron). In later times the name of this city was Cichyrus; but even at the present day remains of the original Cyclopian style of building, not unlike those of Tiryns, are extant.1757 The whole district is celebrated in fables as the dwelling-place of Aidoneus: as the seat of an oracle where departed spirits were questioned, it was always regarded by the inhabitants with an awe, which was further increased [pg 418] by a belief that the natives were very skilful in the preparation of poison.1758 This city Hercules is said to have attacked as an ally of the Ætolians; whence it appears probable that this circumstance gave occasion for introducing his contest with Hades, and his adventures in the infernal regions, such as the carrying away of Cerberus, the liberation of other heroes,1759 &c. It must not, however, be thought, that in the style of Euhemerus, I suppose a king Aidoneus to have really once reigned in this district, who had a dog, or rather a general, named Cerberus, whom Hercules overcame in a battle, &c. The following appears to be a more probable method of accounting for the origin of this fable. The gloomy religious rites on the banks of the Acheron, which had always deterred the neighbouring nations from a participation in them, were at an early period contrasted with the free and active habits of the heroic tribes; the awe inspired by the presence of the unearthly spectres with the proud spirit and bold thoughts of a military life. If now the people themselves came into collision with each other, their gods necessarily did the same; the result of which was traditions of contest and war between themselves. On the other hand, it must not be thought that the fable has a purely symbolical meaning; and that Hercules was worshipped, together with [pg 419] Hades, merely as an enemy of Death, as a deity alleviating and removing the terrors of the infernal regions.

4. The rest of this fable, however, entirely loses its symbolical character; viz., the manner in which the birth of several Doric heroes is connected with the taking of Ephyra; who, though out of the confines of history, are nevertheless to be considered as real individuals. In the first place, Hercules is stated to have begotten Tlepolemus on Astyocheia, whom, according to Homer, he carried away from Ephyra, on the river Sellecis, after having destroyed many cities;1760 Antiphus and Pheidippus also were said to have come from Ephyra in Thesprotia, the sons of Thessalus, and grandsons of Hercules, to whom the noblest families of Thessaly, as well as the Heraclidæ of Cos, referred their origin;1761 the latter, however, according to another and later tradition, sprang from the union of Hercules and the daughter of Eurypylus in Cos itself.1762 The origin of this intricate fable appears to be as follows: There were in the ancient country of the Dorians some noble families which referred their origin to the conquest of Ephyra; and these were designated by the names of Tlepolemus, Antiphus, and Pheidippus; those families went with the other Dorians to Peloponnesus, and passed through Argos and Epidaurus to Rhodes and Cos, where they partly new-modelled their original family legends. Now it was always admitted [pg 420] that the Thessalian people came also from Ephyra and Thesprotia; and when it settled among the Greeks, and sought to participate in their traditions, it was natural that Hercules, the conqueror of Ephyra, should be placed at the head of its genealogies.

5. To the combat of Hercules and Pluto at Ephyra we will now annex the legend of Geryoneus. The cattle of Geryoneus and Pluto grazed together in the island of Erytheia;1763 but they were supposed to belong to the Sun,1764 and therefore were of a bright red colour. Now Erytheia was anciently believed to be near the kingdom of Hades. For the statement of Hecatæus, that Erytheia and Geryoneus belonged to Epirus and the region of Ambracia,1765 could not have been owing to an attempt to give to mythology an appearance of reality: but he seems to have availed himself of some real tradition. This is certain, from the datum of Scylax, who would never have laid down Erytheia in his Periplus1766 on the authority of a logographer. According to this writer it is situated between the territory of the Atintanes and the Ceraunian mountains, north of Epirus, on the borders of Greece, at no great distance from the earliest seats of the Dorians. Now [pg 421] it is a remarkable fact, that, even in historical times, there were in the same country, viz., near the Aous, a river running from mount Lacmon, herds sacred to the Sun, which were guarded in the daytime on the banks of that river, and in the night in a cave of the mountain, by men whom the inhabitants of the Greek city of Apollonia intrusted with this office as a particular honour.1767 It is not probable that the Corinthians, who founded Apollonia, should have been the first to introduce this usage, although there are traces of an ancient worship of the Sun in the territory of Corinth;1768 but we may fairly assume that the colonists merely retained a native custom. This hypothesis clears away all difficulty. The empire of Hades on this earth was conterminous with a district in which the worship of the Sun prevailed, and which contained innumerable herds of cattle, under the protection of the god; but the Greek hero, little caring for their sanctity, had driven them away, and devoted them to his own gods. Epirus was always distinguished for its excellent breed of cattle, which were said to have sprung from the herds of Geryoneus, which Hercules offered to the Dodonæan Zeus.1769

6. We were led to these considerations by the Ætolian legends respecting Hercules, from which we [pg 422] will now return to the Dorians, who possessed the mountainous tract along mount Œta towards Thermopylæ. There was perhaps no region in the whole of Greece which abounded more in local fables of Hercules. It was in the pass of Thermopylæ that he caught those strange monsters the Cercopes;1770 here it was that Athene caused a hot spring to issue for him from the ground;1771 on the top of mount Œta, on the Phrygian rock,1772 was raised the fatal pile, which the brook of Dyras in vain strove to extinguish;1773 and many adjacent cities claimed a connexion with his exploits:1774 even the Ænianes (who at a later period settled in this district) attempted to appropriate to themselves these traditions;1775 and Heraclea Trachinia, not founded till the Peloponnesian war, and the neighbouring Cylicrani, were referred to the mythology of Hercules.1776 It is certain that local traditions of this kind must have originated with the inhabitants of this district. Is it at least probable that the natives of Argos would [pg 423] have placed the death of their deified hero in a foreign region, if they had been the original inventors of this fiction? The career of the Doric hero doubtless closed on the funeral pile of Œta; and this adventure ended a series of fables, of which there are now extant only some fragments. In this point of view we may perceive a connexion between many of the legends detailed above.

7. We will next consider the Theban legends of Hercules; and will, for the sake of clearness, first state the propositions which the following discussion is intended to establish.

To prove that Hercules has no connexion with the Cadmean gods, temples, and princes, it is only necessary to refer to a genealogical table of the Theban mythology, and a plan of Thebes sketched after [pg 424] Pausanias. From the former we perceive that Hercules (whose father is represented as having arrived as a fugitive from Mycenæ) is not made the relation either by blood or marriage of the Cadmeans, Creon (κρέων, the ruler), his supposed father-in-law, being only a fictitious personage, invented to fill up a chasm in the pedigree;1777 from the latter, that the temples of Hercules were not only not in the citadel (like those of Cadmus, Harmonia, and Semele), or within the walls of the city, but were all without the gates. This fact is of great importance as to the antiquity of any worship in a city. The ancient and original deities, which enjoyed the honours of founders, possessed the citadel as their birthright; while all gods afterwards introduced enjoyed a less honourable abode in the suburbs of the town. Now it is known that the house of Amphitryon and the Gymnasium of Hercules stood in front of the gate of Electra, opposite the Ismenium;1778 and to this we may add the account of Pherecydes1779 respecting a village near that same gate, which the Heraclidæ had founded before their invasion of Peloponnesus, and where there was a statue of Hercules in the market-place. What can be clearer than that these Heraclidæ established the worship of their hero at Thebes? Near this place (it should be observed) was the Ismenian sanctuary of Apollo. Opposite to this [pg 425] temple Hercules was said to have been educated; and at a festival of Apollo to have carried the laurel before the chorus of virgins; and afterwards to have consecrated a tripod in the temple, as was the general custom in later times. This tripod is represented on the famous relief of the Argive apotheosis of Hercules, with the inscription Ἀμφιτρύων ὑπὲρ Ἀλκαίου τριπόδ Ἀπόλλωνι.1780

With this is evidently connected the story of the robbery of the Delphian tripod, of which the common version is as follows: Hercules was visited with a severe illness, as a punishment for the murder of Iphitus; and, in consequence, he had recourse for relief to Delphi; but as the Pythian priestess refused to answer the questions of one guilty of homicide, he threatened to plunder the temple, and carry off the tripod. Apollo accordingly pursued him, till Zeus separated the combat of his two sons by lightning.1781 The fable went on to say that a new consecration of the Delphian tripod took place, and a reconciliation of the god and hero: of this part we are only informed by works of art, these being indeed of tolerable antiquity.1782 But it [pg 426] is manifest that this is not the genuine, ancient, and sacred tradition. How could this hero, who in other respects was entirely dependent on the mandates of the oracle, and who in so many ways protected and promoted the worship of Apollo,1783 suddenly become a sacrilegious violator of his most holy and ancient temple? This carrying away of the tripod appears from other traditions to signify nothing else than a propagation of the worship of Apollo.1784 Whither, then, is this tripod stated to have been first moved? By the Arcadians Hercules was said to have brought it to Pheneus, but was compelled again to restore it to Apollo.1785 The hero, on his journey to Elis, is said to have built a temple to the Pythian Apollo;1786 which, however, can scarcely be more ancient than the Doric migration. The foundation of this temple, as dependent on the Delphic oracle, was therefore by the tradition expressed under this image of the transportation of the tripod, the bearer of it being Hercules. But it is more important to our present purpose that, according to the Bœotian account,1787 Hercules was supposed to have brought the tripod to Thebes, that is probably to the Ismenium. This fable therefore shows the connexion [pg 427] between the Ismenium and the great sanctuary of Apollo; and represents Hercules as the intermediate link between these two temples.

8. Several other traditions current in Bœotia are connected with the above explanation of this tradition. The Cretan colony, which, setting out from Cirrha, established the Tilphosian temple at Ocalea in Bœotia, was represented under the person of Rhadamanthus.1788 Rhadamanthus is said to have there dwelt with Alcmene, and to have instructed the youthful hero in the Cretan art of archery.1789 For this reason also Zeus raised Alcmene from the dead, and conducted her to the islands of the blest as the wife of Rhadamanthus. A stone remained in her tomb, which was set up in her sacred grove at Thebes.1790

9. The Theban traditions of Hercules are not all equally significant; but some, such as those just mentioned, had a religious, some a political1791 import, and others only express the bodily strength of that hero. The education of Hercules is confided to certain fabulous personages, most of whom were supposed to reside in Bœotia.1792 His most remarkable instructor is the minstrel Linus, whom (probably in execution of the will of Apollo) he put to death,1793 justifying himself [pg 428] by the law of Rhadamanthus. The destruction of the lion of Cithæron is an imitation of the legend of Nemea, of which we shall speak hereafter.1794 After this adventure he went to Thespiæ, to the house of Thestius, where he deflowers in one or in fifty-seven nights the fifty daughters of his host, a fable which has perhaps an astronomical reference.1795

With respect to the singular legend of Hercules murdering his children by Megara by throwing them into the fire,1796 it cannot be denied that this had some symbolical meaning, derived from an ancient elementary religion. In general, however, this temporary fury is merely an exaggerated picture of that heroic mind whose courage and endurance had carried Hercules through so many dangers and difficulties for the good of mankind.1797 According to the Bœotian version, it was a melancholy madness, in which Hercules, regardless even of all that was most dear to him, murdered his children, and was even on the point of slaying his father.1798 Upon this the hero, oppressed with a deep melancholy, turned for relief to the atoning Apollo; and either to the god of the Ismenium1799 or of Pytho.1800 The oracle commands him to serve as a [pg 429] slave, in the same manner as Apollo himself had served after the destruction of the Python. In the broken narrative of Apollodorus a remarkable trace has been preserved as to the time during which, according to the Bœotian tradition, the slavery of Hercules lasted, viz., eight years and one month.1801 This cannot be considered as an accidental number; but it is probable that the Ennaëteris is signified, which was a period of eight years and three intercalary months; of which only the last month is here mentioned, because the two inserted in the middle were less conspicuous. Hercules, therefore, like Apollo at Pheræ, was supposed to have served for an ἀΐδιος ἐνιαυτὸς, for the octennial period of mythology and ancient astronomy.1802

10. We will here add some observations on the Attic worship of Hercules, which was celebrated chiefly at Marathon in the Tetrapolis,1803 in the three villages of Melite, Diomea, and Collytus,1804 which lay close to one another in the vicinity of Athens; at Cynosarges1805 in particular, which belonged to the demus [pg 430] of Diomea; at Acharnæ1806 and Hephæstia,1807 and in the city itself; and likewise near the sea in the Tetracomæ, or “Four Hamlets.”1808 The circumstance that those temples which were not situated in the vicinity of the city were all in the northern part of Attica, seems to prove that the worship was derived from the northern frontiers; and it was attributed to the presence of the Heraclidæ in Attica, though the fable of the great assistance which Athens lent to the Heraclidæ was peculiar to the Athenians.1809 It is probable, however, that at some early period a division of the Doric people passed through Attica, and there founded that worship which, by the supremacy of the Dorians and their various connexions with other nations, increased in character and importance. If the Lacedæmonians really spared the Tetrapolis in the Peloponnesian war,1810 their forbearance must be attributed to the respect which they showed to their national hero. There is a tradition worthy of notice, that Theseus consecrated to Hercules all the temples which had been dedicated to himself;1811 whence it may be inferred that the worship of the former demigod was thus transferred at some early period; only not, it should be observed, at the time of Theseus himself. That the worship of Hercules was only half-nationalized may (as it appears) be inferred from the custom of the Parasiti of that hero at Cynosarges being always [pg 431] Athenians, of whose parents one only was a citizen; a symbolical allusion to the half-foreign origin of their worship.

Of the same description are the traditions which were peculiar to the villages of Aphidna, Decelea, and Titacidæ (likewise situated in the north of Attica), respecting the expedition of the Tyndaridæ; who were said to have conquered Aphidna with the aid of Decelus and Titacus.1812 From this plunder, according to a Spartan legend, the very ancient temple of Pallas Chalciœcus at Sparta was built. In this instance, likewise, the tradition was recognised as real history; for the Lacedæmonians always kept up a friendly intercourse with Decelea; nor was it, we may be assured, without some particular reason that in the Messenian war at the command of the oracle they called to their aid Tyrtæus, the man of Aphidna. But as the Tyndaridæ, i.e., their images (as was mentioned above),1813 accompanied every Spartan army on its marches, it is probable that these stories originated in some Doric expedition into the northern parts of Attica, which left behind it these permanent traces and recollections.