In the full Olympian Assembly, or Great Chapter of the Immortals, we find a collection of deities, who are respectively the representatives, in the main, of Elemental Powers, of Human Passions or Ideas, and of Historical Traditions, either single or intermixed. Among the simple examples, we may cite the Rivers and Nymphs for the first, Mars and Venus for the second, the goddess Themis for the third, Latona and Iris for the last. In Jupiter, the chief of all, these elements are blended together.
But we must also consider those who do not appear in Olympus, and why they are excluded. If, as is perhaps the case, Aidoneus and Persephone are not there, it is because of the separateness of their work, and the remoteness of their kingdom. They had servants, guards, and a judge, in short, a sort of polity of their own. Atlas, Proteus, Calypso, Circe, and the other purely local deities, so far as we know, are not there; probably because they do not enter into the national religion, but are little more than convenient symbols[515] of geographical points known or conceived through maritime, that is, without doubt, through Phœnician report. Again, we do not hear in Olympus of Destiny, Sleep, Night, Dream, Terror, Panic, Uproar, and the rest; probably because these had not attained to practical impersonation in the religion of the people, but were merely objects of the poetical faculty. So likewise with respect to the Winds, who stand as receivers of worship and sacrifice in Il. xxiii. 195. The different treatment which they receive in the Iliad and Odyssey, like their non-appearance in the Great Chapter[516] of Olympus, unless referable to the peculiarities of the Outer Geography, shows that they had not a developed and established godhead, but might be dealt with by the Poet at his will. In these imperfect impersonations, it has been well observed, sometimes the mere elemental power, sometimes the superinduced personality prevails. Again, Ἄτη the temptress, and Ἐρινύες the avengers, might stand excluded, both on the same ground of inadequate impersonation, and on other grounds. Nereus and the purely elemental deities of the sea are not summoned to the Assembly, apparently because he too had his own submarine palace. It answered to Olympus; and here he sat in state amidst his numerous Court of Nymphs. Even Thetis was fetched from thence to attend the last Assembly of the gods in the Twenty-Fourth Iliad. Κρόνος and Ῥέα are not in the divine meetings, firstly, because he, probably with her as his reflected image, is penally confined in Tartarus; but secondly, because, the first representing Time, and the second Matter, they are the primary ideas in the metaphysical order, which comprehended all others, and from which all others were derivative. And as they stood in the metaphysical nexus of ideas, so stood Oceanus and his feminine, Tethys, in the terrestrial order; where Oceanus was the all-inclosing, all-containing; the Form, within which every terrestrial existence was cast, and beyond which even Thought could not pass. Hence the curious and marked exception of him from the summons of Themis to the Great Assembly of the Twentieth Book[517].
He is the father of the rivers, and the feeder of the Sea. Even of the gods he is the ‘Genesis,’ perhaps as their physical source, or as affording material for their formation; perhaps as the outer band of that world to which they belong, as much as we do, and outside of which there was no attempt to conceive them as existing. Lastly, it is perhaps because Homer meant to assign to Oceanus and Tethys the actual first parentage of the gods. This supposition is favoured by the fact that Juno applies the name μήτηρ[518] to Tethys, in a connection which may make it equivalent to ‘our Mother Tethys.’
It is clearly on a principle that Oceanus is not summoned to Olympus, and not from mere defect or immaturity of personality. For in conjunction with his wife Tethys, he took over the infant Juno from Rhea, at the time when there was trouble between Jupiter and his father; and afterwards he reared the child in his own domain. He can be lulled into slumber by Ὕπνος like any other deity: he has a daughter, Eurynome[519]: and he is capable of conjugal quarrels[520].
Again, Ocean is water, and Oceanus is the father of all the Rivers: but yet he was not included in the great lottery which divided the world between the Kronid brothers. This shows us afresh, that he is outside and independent of their rule: he forms the framework of the visible creation, while they are parts of the picture that is within the framework.
The same thing is true of Κρόνος and Ῥέα in the metaphysical order. They represent anterior conditions of thought and of existence to all other Beings, human and divine. Their personality is established; but it is, even more than that of Oceanus, in abeyance: for Oceanus is at least ever-flowing, while Time, and Space, or Matter, are with Homer wholly passionless, mute, and still. When once the Kronid family has been brought into existence, and the attempt of Time to impose the law of death on Deity has been put down by Jupiter, then the impersonations are virtually withdrawn from him and his partner, and they relapse into the torpid state of purely abstract ideas.
The Elemental Powers have nowhere what may be called a strong position in Homer, except in the invocations of solemn swearing; where they give force to the Oath, because they are the avengers of perjury. Thus their connection is not with deity in general, but with that nether world, which the ideas of mankind have always associated with the lower parts of the Earth[521].
Even on grounds larger than those derived from a particular phrase, it may be probable, that we ought to consider Oceanus as the Homeric parent of all the deities, Κρόνος and Ῥέα included. To a state of the human mind not yet familiar with abstractions, Time and Place, imperfectly conceived, might be more limited, less comprehensive, than the great all-infolding Ocean, which encircled and wrapped in the world. And in this conception there may lie hid the embryo of what afterwards grew into the aquarian cosmogony, a system which appears not to be without support from other passages of the poem, especially from the very curious verse (Il. vii. 99),
If, however, this idea was really in the mind of the Poet, still we should consider it as having been with him an instinct rather than a theory.
The Olympian deities of Pagan antiquity are commonly represented as twelve in number; and the names are
But Homer knows nothing of this number or arrangement of the gods; or of the distinction between Dii majores and Dii minores. Nor does he enable us with precision to substitute any other number for it. He gives us, however, his idea, at least by approximation, of the number of the Olympian gods. For when Thetis visits Vulcan, to obtain new armour for Achilles, she finds the deity at work upon twenty τρίποδες[522], to stand round the wall of the well-built hall, which he is carefully fitting with wheels, in order that they may automatically take their places in the assembly of the gods. Whatever these τρίποδες be, the number is probably meant to correspond with that of the ordinary Olympian meeting for festivity or deliberation. They are commonly supposed to be bowls or vessels for wine set on three-legged stands; but there are two reasons, suggested by the language of the passage, which seem to recommend our understanding the word to mean seats, such as that of the priestess of Apollo at Delphi: one is, their being intended to stand around the apartment, along the wall: and the other is, that they were to place themselves for the divine assembly[523];
This idea of the great bowls placing themselves, one apparently for each deity to draw from, does not correspond with the classical representation of the cupbearer filling the cup of each, as he moves from the left towards the right. Nor does the word ἄγων seem to be suitable for a merely convivial meeting: and we ought, I presume, to consider the meetings on Olympus as in theory political councils for the government of the world, only relieved by meat and drink. If we take τρίποδες as signifying the seats, it has of course a reference to the number of gods who constituted the ordinary Olympian family; a reference which indeed it may probably have, even if the other signification be preferred.
And the text of the poems affords sufficient evidence, that twenty was about the number of the Olympian gods of Jupiter.
Of the Olympian twelve recognised in later times, all, except Vesta and Ceres, must at once and indubitably be pronounced Olympian in Homer. For all take part in the Trojan war, and likewise make their appearance in Olympus. Thus we have ten Olympian deities of Homer already ascertained. And there are several others whom we can have no doubt in adding to the list. These we will proceed to consider:
1. Latona is clearly Olympian; from her great dignity as an unquestioned wife of Jupiter (ἄλοχος Διὸς, Il. xxi. 499); and from the fact that her position entitled her to take a side in the Trojan war, where none but Olympian deities were engaged, with the single exception of the formidable local power, Xanthus or Scamander. Another reason is, because the title of Dione, as we shall see, is clear; who is a deity in some respects similar, but decidedly inferior, to Latona.
2. Dione the mother of Venus is in the same order. For she receives her child, when she repairs wounded to Olympus, and in her speech of consolation distinctly describes herself as one of the Ὀλύμπια δώματ’ ἔχοντες, Il. v. 383. She is called in this passage δῖα θεάων: a title twice given to Minerva, but also, sometimes, to very secondary deities, such as Calypso and Circe. Either as insignificant, or possibly as being foreign and not sufficiently naturalized, she finds no place in the Catalogue of Mothers in the Fourteenth Iliad.
3. Iris, the messenger-goddess. The grounds of her title may be found among the remarks upon this deity[524].
4. Themis, although not a party in the war, has the office of Pursuivant or Summoner to the Olympian Assembly: and her ordinary presence there is distinctly proved by the Fifteenth Iliad, where she is the first to welcome Juno on her entrance into the circle.
5. It will be seen from a brief statement elsewhere relating to Aidoneus or Aides, that he is clearly of Olympian rank and character.
6. Next to Aidoneus, we may take the claim of Hebe. She is not indeed an important, nor a very prominent, person in the poems: but there is no room for doubt as to her Olympian dignity. We find her officiating as cupbearer in the Olympian Court of the Fourth Iliad. Her connection with Olympus is further established by her assisting Juno in the preparation of her chariot: and by her assisting Mars in the bath, when that deity has betaken himself into the presence of Jupiter, to complain of his wound. Again, her personality is quite clear. Nor can her divinity be questioned. She is pronounced in the Eleventh Odyssey to be the daughter of Jupiter and Here. The verse is suspected; but the suspicion itself may be suspected in its turn. Further, the case rests not on the particular account given of her parentage, but, in connection with the context, on her appearing as the wife of Hercules at all. Nor is she anywhere connected with the idea of a mortal origin[525].
7. A second divinity of somewhat similar rank is Paieon. On two occasions, he heals in Olympus the wounds of deities; first of Aidoneus, then of Mars. He is summoned to the exercise of his function as a person within call, and habitually present there. After the rebuke of Jupiter to Mars, the line that follows is[526],
There is no doubt therefore either of his personal, or of his Olympian character; and none but divine persons are capable of bearing the Olympian offices. Ganymede, for instance, though carried up to dwell among the Immortals in order to pour out wine, has no function assigned to him in the poems. The Egyptians, indeed, are stated to be of the race of Paieon[527]; but we must probably understand this with respect to their royal family, just as the same thing is said of the Phæacians with respect to Neptune, because their kingly house had sprung from him[528]. In the later mythology he appears to be absorbed, like the Sun, in Apollo; but in the Homeric poems there is no confusion, or approach to confusion, of the persons. Paieon has the relation to Apollo with respect to surgery or medicine, which Vulcan has to Minerva with respect to manual art: and, apparently by a mixture of distinct traditions, he is also connected with Apollo, by being the synonyme for the hymn of victory, of which Apollo is doubtless supposed to be in a peculiar manner the giver.
To all these deities the poems appear to give a title to seats in Olympus, unquestionable as well as direct. By a somewhat less clear and simple process, we may, I think, arrive at a similar conclusion as to the views of Homer regarding two other deities.
8. The first of these is Demeter, or Ceres, whose Olympian rank is considered, and I think established, in the remarks elsewhere upon her individual divinity[529].
9. The second is Ἠέλιος, the Sun. His share in the episode of Mars and Venus[530] does not indeed absolutely imply his residing on Olympus. But this is clearly involved in the account of his receiving the intelligence, that his oxen had been consumed by the companions of Ulysses. For, upon hearing it, he instantly proceeds to address the company of the Immortals assembled there[531], and is answered by Jupiter. He must therefore unquestionably stand as one of the Olympian gods of Homer.
There are but three other personages named in Homer, with respect to whom there is room for the supposition, that he may have intended them to rank as Olympian deities. They are Dionysus, Persephone, and Eris. For Histie, or Vesta, is so entirely wanting in personality, that she cannot possibly belong to that order. She is invoked indeed in company with Jupiter; but with these two is likewise combined the ξενίη τράπεζα, the table of hospitality. In the hymn to Venus[532] she has become fully personified, and is celebrated as the eldest of the daughters of Κρόνος. But this imagery probably belongs to a different stage of Greek society and Greek poetry.
1. 2. The case of Dionysus and that of Persephone, very different, but both on this point doubtful, have been stated elsewhere[533].
3. The case of Eris is different. She is the sister and also the mistress of Mars[534]. And in the fierce battle of the Eleventh Book, Eris alone is present to enjoy it, while all the other deities, inhibited from action by Jupiter, have betaken themselves to their several abodes on Olympus.
Again, Jupiter sends her down to the camp at the beginning of the Eleventh Iliad, where she stands on the ship of Ulysses, and raises a mighty shout to stir up the Greeks for the contest[535]. The word is, indeed, the common and established word for strife in Homer, and it is applied even to the conflict of the gods[536], θεῶν ἔριδι ξυνιόντων. But this use of it is probably to be compared with that of Ἄρης for a spear, and of Ἀφροδίτη (in later Greek) for the sensual function of that deity. She is, on the whole, less a figure than a person, though standing upon the border between the two respectively; and though, as she never actually performs what may be called a personal action, she is only by a few degrees removed from the family of Terror, Din, Panic, and the rest. The first of these, Φόβος, as he is the son of Mars[537], and attends him in fight against the Ephyri, is as distinctly personified as Eris in one passage; but the effect of it is neutralized by others, where he passes into sheer figure. She rejoices in seeing the slaughter[538] wrought in battle: and an intense eagerness is imputed to her[539], of course meaning an eagerness for blood.
But another form of this deity is probably exhibited to us under another name, that of the πτολίπορθος Ἐνύω. Enuo is mentioned together with Pallas as being a warlike deity, in contrast with the effeminate Venus[540]: and she leads the Trojans to the fight in concert with Mars: but while he has a huge spear in his hands, she holds or leads, instead, another form more shadowy than her own, that of Κύδοιμος or Tumult. Yet the mode in which she is joined with Pallas proves her impersonation. The fundamental identity of her name with Ἐνυάλιος, the second name of Mars, and her joining him in leading on the Trojans, place her in some very close relation to him: and that close relation cannot well be other than the twofold one of sister and mistress, which had been assigned to Ἔρις.
When it is said, that ‘she alone of the gods was present, as the others had retired to their respective mansions on Olympus,’ the most natural inference certainly is, that she too is meant to be described as belonging to the Olympian Court.
Upon the whole, it seems pretty clear, that if the Poet intended to limit absolutely the number of the Olympian Court or Minor Assembly to the exact figure twenty, then the choice for the twentieth place will more justly fall on his Eris, than either his Dionysus, or even his Persephone. It appears to me, however, that so strict a numerical precision is not in the manner of Homer; that he intended the twenty tripods to be a general indication of the number of the Court, and that with this indication the facts of the poems substantially, though indeterminately, agree.
Such is the composition of the Olympian Court, or smaller Assembly.
The Deities who, in virtue of belonging to that Court, may be most properly called Olympian, may be divided into the following classes:
I. Deities having their basis, and the general outline of their attributes and character, from tradition.
II. Deities of traditional basis, but with development principally mythological or inventive.
III. Deities of invention, or mythology proper.
Those three names, which are marked with an asterisk, appear to have only a more or less disputable title to a seat in Olympus.
Outside, so to speak, of Olympus and its Court, we may classify the superhuman intelligences of Homer as follows: observing, however, that the minor deities who represent natural powers, if thoroughly personified, give their attendance in Olympus on high occasions, and help to form its great Chapter or Parliament.
They may be thrown into the six following classes:
1. The greater impersonations of natural powers, and of ideas; with their reflections, where such have been formed, in the feminine. These are
Oceanus and Tethys.
Κρόνος and Ῥέα.
Ouranos and Gaia (not Earth, but rather Land).
Nereus and Amphitrite.
We are not authorized by Homer to associate either of these last couples as husband and wife. We have to add:
Destiny, (which also has a place in the fifth class,) Dream, Sleep, Death, Terror, Panic, Rumour, Din, Uproar.
The process of impersonation is with some of these fully developed, with others scarcely begun, and wholly poetical; therefore as yet in no degree mythological. In one place, Il. xiii. 299, Φόβος is the son of Mars, in another Φόβος and Δεῖμος are his horses (xiii. 119.); and in a third they appear along with Ἔρις, in a shape hovering between personality and allegory. Ἔρις herself, at times fully personified, in one passage is simply a figure on the Ægis of Minerva, perhaps, however, as an animated work of art, Il. v. 740. In all these cases we see the work of poetical fabrication actually going on.
Perhaps the best example of a merely poetical, as distinguished from a religious or practical impersonation, is to be found in Æschylus, who makes Dust the brother of Mud[541].
This class was greatly augmented in the later Theogonies, beginning with Hesiod.
2. The minor impersonations of natural powers, such as
3. I place in a different class all those deities, who appear in Homer as the subjects of foreign fable not fully naturalized. These are they who dwell in the Outer sphere of the marvellous Geography in the Odyssey, and with whom Menelaus and Ulysses are brought into contact. They are wholly exterior to the system of Homer, and we cannot safely give them a position implying any defined relation to it. But there are certain links supplied by the Poet himself, as when he makes Circe child of the Sun, and Mercury presumptively nephew of Calypso: by these he shows us the connection of the Greek mythology with Eastern sources, and the partial assimilation of the materials they supplied.
These deities are:
4. Those impersonations which represent, each in its several part, or its peculiar aspect, the tradition of the Evil One, have been considered along with the deities of tradition.
5. Of ministers of doom or justice, real or reputed, and less than divine, yet belonging to the metaphysical or moral order, we have in Homer:
1. The Fates, Κῆρες, who fall within the range of ideas described by his Αἶσα and his Μοῖρα.
2. The Ἁρπυῖαι.
3. The Ἐρινύες.
6. Besides all these, we have yet another class with subdivisions of its own, composed of beings who stand within the interval between Deity and Humanity.
There are some observations to be made on several of these classes.
It is much easier to obtain a just perception of the manner in which Homer handles the subject of Destiny or Fate, than to represent it in a system. The conflict which it involves, either of ideas, or at least of the words denoting them, was certain to give occasion to argument and difference of opinion in a case where a poet is of necessity called to take his trial at the bar of philosophy[543].
Besides the θέσφατον, on which I shall make a remark hereafter, there are five forms of speech which are employed by Homer to express the idea of Destiny; they are, Κατακλῶθες, Κήρ, Μοῖρα, Μόρος, and Αἶσα: the two last in the singular number only, the two preceding it in the singular or plural, and the Κατακλῶθες only in the plural.
Of these, the Κῆρες and the Κατακλῶθες have undergone the most effective process of personification; but, brought more distinctly into the sphere of life and action, these phrases have a much less profound root in the order of ideas, and scarcely touch the great questions, whether destiny is a power separate from the human will, separate from the Divine will, and superior to either or to both.
The fundamental idea both of Μοῖρα and Αἶσα, traced from their original source, is not a part merely, but rather a portion or share allotted according to some rule or law. But, though of similar origin, some distinctions obtain between the uses of the two words. And first as to Αἶσα.
We have in Il. xviii. 327, ληΐδος αἶσα; in Od. xix. 24, ἐλπίδος αἶσα; in Il. ix. 378, τίω δέ μιν ἐν καρὸς αἴσῃ. In all these cases it is plain, that the word means not a mere part, but a part assigned upon some given principle. Hence it comes to mean either the whole share or lot assigned to a man, or the law according to which it is assigned, that is, the law under which the moral government of human life, and the distribution of good and evil, are conducted. Accordingly, we have these several senses in which it is employed.
1. The αἶσα, as the entire destiny, of an individual man, Il. i. 416. Ἐπεί νύ τοι αἶσα μίνυνθά περ, οὔτι μάλα δήν.
2. A notable part of that destiny, as his death: Τῷ οἱ ἀπεμνήσαντο καὶ ἐν θανάτοιό περ αἴσῃ. Il. xxiv. 428.
3. The moral law for the government of conduct, as in Ἕκτορ, ἐπεί με κατ’ αἶσαν ἐνίπαπες, οὐδ’ ὑπὲρ αἶσαν. Il. iii. 59.
4. That moral law as it is supposed to proceed from Jupiter; the Διὸς αἶσα, or dispensation of Jupiter; the δαίμονος αἶσα, or dispensation of Providence.
5. That same law, as it is supposed to proceed from some other source, or to speak more correctly, for Homer, as the power which administers it is separately personified. This we have in the passage ἅσσα οἱ Αἶσα γεινομένῳ ἐπένησε λίνῳ, ὅτε μιν τέκε Μήτηρ, Il. xx. 127; or, again, as in Od. vii. 197; where Αἶσα is assisted in the spinning process by the Κατακλῶθες βαρεῖαι, as if it was felt that she was not strong enough to make a Destiny.
Upon the whole it appears to me that there is in the word Αἶσα only the minutest savour of the proper idea of Fate. For Fate involves these things: 1. a power dominant over man: 2. a power independent of the divinity: and 3. a power standing ideally apart from right.
Now αἶσα does not fully answer even to the first of these conceptions, since αἶσα, even when it is backed by the gods, may be overcome by the energies of man. Jupiter in the Iliad[544] ordained glory to Hector and success to the Trojans until the sunset of the day when the battle of the ships was fought: yet just before the death of Patroclus the Greeks prevailed, Il. xvi. 780.
The only instances in which we find αἶσα endowed with any thing in the nature of an inexorable force are such as that quoted from Il. xx. 127. In this passage it is said by Juno, ‘We will give Achilles glory; thereafter let him suffer what αἶσα has appointed for him.’ Now this refers not to a course of life that he was to pass through, but simply to the crisis of his death. In Od. vii, the speaker is Alcinous; and his sentiment is, ‘Let us carry our guest safe home and then leave him to whatever αἶσα and the κατακλῶθες have ordained for him.’ Probably this is only an euphemism, and means death, as Juno meant it; but, in any case, proceeding from another mortal, it is a mere form of speech perfectly compatible in itself with the idea that the gods are superior to αἶσα, nay, that man may upon occasion surmount it. In the other case it is not so; we must understand Juno to recognise the αἶσα or dispensation as absolute; but then it is the dispensation of death; and it is, I think, the clear doctrine of the poems that that dispensation cannot be cancelled or averted from mortals, though there are various modes in which it may be escaped or baffled: one of them, that of postponement, which is temporary: another, that of translation out of the mortal state, as in the case of Ganymede: and a third, that of revival, as in the cases of Castor and Pollux. To Minerva alone is ascribed a power over death: and this seems to be a power of subsequent rescue, and not one of absolute exemption. Euryclea comforts Penelope with the exhortation to pray to Minerva about Ulysses[545], as she can afterwards deliver him;
The stress is evidently to be laid upon the word ἔπειτα.
Another passage, which may at first sight present a different appearance, will, I think, on examination, be found to harmonize completely with what has been said. When in the Sixteenth Iliad, Jupiter perceives that his cherished son Sarpedon is about to meet his death by encountering Patroclus, he laments that it should be the destiny of one to him the dearest of men, to be slain by that warrior. Then he proceeds to consider whether he shall remove him from the scene of danger, though he was fated to die, or whether he shall subdue him by the hands of Patroclus[546],
Thus, in the space of a few lines, 1. he seems to recognise destiny as a power superior to his own will; then, 2. he debates whether he shall overrule this superior power; and lastly, 3. he treats the execution of its decree as the act of that very will of his. And on this course, advised by Juno, he finally decides.
He desists from executing this plan, not because it is impossible, but apparently for two reasons: the first, that it may cause discontent and spleen among the gods; the second, that by similar interferences, on behalf each of his own child, they too may trouble the order of nature. His power, therefore, to execute the scheme is clearly implied. But what scheme? Not one for repealing the law of death, so far as Sarpedon is concerned[547]; but simply for adjourning the evil by removing him to his home, and so putting him far beyond the reach of the chances of the war.
When Vulcan is asked by Thetis to provide arms for Achilles, he replies, Would that I could hide him from his fated hour, even as I can and will provide him with arms! Here, indeed, the expression is not to save, but to hide him; yet even this is beyond his power:
Vulcan indeed is a deity of limited powers; but in this case he seems to express a general law.
The death, therefore, at some time within a given space, of every person remaining in the state of a mortal man, was a point settled and immovable, and so was accordingly the αἶσα of death: but it was that the αἶσα was fixed, because death was fixed, and not that death was fixed, because αἶσα ordained it. We must distinguish between a single incident of a mortal career, an order which nothing can infringe, unchangeable but uncaused, and the supposition of a power, which causes that, and likewise all other parts of it, irrespective of personal will, whether in the gods or in men.
It appears, I think, on the whole, that αἶσα has but a limited and equivocal connection with the idea of fate; it seems never to mean more than the fate of a single individual, never to signify the large-handed destiny that grasps nations and the world. It may be overridden, as by the Greeks, after the battle of the ships. And the reason of this seems to be that its meaning has so strong a bias to the side of a moral law, as opposed to a mere force. This comes out clearly in the sense of the word αἴσιμος: αἴσιμα εἴδειν is little less or more, than to be a good man. Its predominating sense is the ordained law of right; and as such, it is a law very liable to be broken.
It is in the Μοῖρα, if anywhere, that we must seek for destiny, in the sense which approximates to fatalistic ideas. Here, far differently from αἶσα, the moral idea is subordinate in nearly all cases, and in some it is wholly suppressed.
Like αἶσα, μοῖρα, properly means a portion or share, a part accruing to some one under a law. Thus we have οὐδ’ αἰδοῦς μοῖραν ἔχουσιν Od. xx. 171; and παρώχηκεν δὲ πλέων νὺξ τῶν δύο μοιράων, τριτάτη δ’ ἔτι μοῖρα λέλειπται (Il. x. 252). Thus it appears to pass into the following senses, which may be usefully compared with those of αἶσα.
The scope of its meaning is far wider: it hardly stoops to signify the destiny of a single man; Homer could not well have said (see Il. i. 416.) ἐπεί νύ τοι μοῖρα μίνυνθά περ: although he can make μοῖρα as a power, appoint a destiny for a man, (Il. xxiv. 209.) it is not the μοῖρα of a man. But it is
1. The appointing power as separate from any thing else. It hovers between the state of an abstraction and of a person: and it comes nearer to the latter than αἶσα. Not only have we μοῖρα κραταιὴ γεινομένῳ ἐπένησε λίνῳ, (Il. xxiv. 209.) but especially,
A passage by which, unless its effect were modified from elsewhere, the μοῖραι seem in principle to take the whole administration of moral government into their hands, by fixing dispositions as well as outward actions.
2. Besides being thus personal, μοῖρα reaches to mankind at large, and expresses a general law, in the passage last quoted.
This may be a law of good fortune, as in Od. xx. 76[550]: