[844] The mental analogy between the early stages of human civilization and the childhood of the individual is forcibly and frequently set forth in the works of Vico. That eminently original thinker dwells upon the poetical and religious susceptibilities as the first to develop themselves in the human mind, and as furnishing not merely connecting threads for the explanation of sensible phænomena, but also aliment for the hopes and fears, and means of socializing influence to men of genius, at a time when reason was yet asleep. He points out the personifying instinct (“istinto d’ animazione”) as the spontaneous philosophy of man, “to make himself the rule of the universe,” and to suppose everywhere a quasi-human agency as the determining cause. He remarks that in an age of fancy and feeling, the conceptions and language of poetry coincide with those of reality and common life, instead of standing apart as a separate vein. These views are repeated frequently (and with some variations of opinion as he grew older) in his Latin work De Uno Universi Juris Principio, as well as in the two successive rédactions of his great Italian work, Scienza Nuova (it must be added that Vico as an expositor is prolix, and does not do justice to his own powers of original thought): I select the following from the second edition of the latter treatise, published by himself in 1744, Della Metafisica Poetica (see vol. v. p. 189 of Ferrari’s edition of his Works, Milan, 1836): “Adunque la sapienza poetica, che fu la prima sapienza della Gentilità, dovette incominciare da una Metafisica, non ragionata ed astratta, qual è questa or degli addottrinati, ma sentita ed immaginata, quale dovett’ essere di tai primi uomini, siccome quelli ch’ erano di niun raziocinio, e tutti robusti sensi e vigorosissime fantasie, come è stato nelle degnità (the Axioms) stabilito. Questa fu la loro propria poesia, la qual in essi fu una facultà loro connaturale, perchè erano di tali sensi e di si fatte fantasie naturalmente forniti, nata da ignoranza di cagioni—la qual fu loro madre di maraviglia di tutte le cose, che quelli ignoranti di tutte le cose fortemente ammiravano. Tal poesia incominciò in essi divina: perchè nello stesso tempo ch’essi immaginavano le cagioni delle cose, che sentivano ed ammiravano, essere Dei, come ora il confermiamo con gli Americani, i quali tutte le cose che superano la loro picciol capacità, dicono esser Dei ... nello stesso tempo, diciamo, alle cose ammirate davano l’essere di sostanze dalla propria lor idea: ch’è appunto la natura dei fanciulli, che osserviamo prendere tra mani cose inanimate, e transtullarsi e favellarvi, come fussero quelle persone vive. In cotal guisa i primi uomini delle nazioni gentili, come fanciulli del nascente gener umano, dalla lor idea creavan essi le cose ... per la loro robusta ignoranza, il facevano in forza d’una corpolentissima fantasia, e perch’ era corpolentissima, il facevano con una maravigliosa sublimità, tal e tanta, che perturbava all’eccesso essi medesimi, che fingendo le si creavano.... Di questa natura di cose umane restò eterna proprietà spiegata con nobil espressione da Tacito, che vanamente gli uomini spaventati fingunt simul creduntque.”

After describing the condition of rude men, terrified with thunder and other vast atmospheric phænomena, Vico proceeds (ib. p. 172)—“In tal caso la natura della mente umana porta ch’ella attribuisca all’effetto la sua natura: e la natura loro era in tale stato d’uomini tutti robuste forze di corpo, che urlando, brontolando, spiegavano le loro violentissime passioni, si finsero il cielo esser un gran corpo animato, che per tal aspetto chiamavano Giove, che col fischio dei fulmini e col fragore dei tuoni volesse lor dire qualche cosa.... E si fanno di tutta la natura un vasto corpo animato, che senta passioni ed affetti.”

Now the contrast with modern habits of thought:—

“Ma siccome ora per la natura delle nostre umane menti troppo ritirata dai sensi nel medesimo volgo—con le tante astrazioni, di quante sono piene le lingue—con tanti vocaboli astratti—e di troppo assottigliata con l’arti dello scrivere, e quasi spiritualezzata con la practica dei numeri—ci e naturalmente niegato di poter formare la vasta imagine di cotal donna che dicono Natura simpatetica, che mentre con la bocca dicono, non hanno nulla in lor mente, perocchè la lor mente è dentro il falso, che è nulla; nè sono soccorsi dalla fantasia a poterne formare una falsa vastissima imagine. Così ora ci è naturalmente niegato di poter entrare nella vasta immaginativa di quei primi uomini, le menti dei quali di nulla erano assottigliate, di nulla astratte, di nulla spiritualezzate.... Onde dicemmo sopra ch’ora appena intender si può, affatto immaginar non sì può, come pensassero i primi uomini che fondarono la umanità gentilesca.”

In this citation (already almost too long for a note) I have omitted several sentences not essential to the general meaning. It places these early divine fables and theological poets (so Vico calls them) in their true point of view, and assigns to them their proper place in the ascending movement of human society: it refers the mythes to an early religious and poetical age, in which feeling and fancy composed the whole fund of the human mind, over and above the powers of sense: the great mental change which has since taken place has robbed us of the power, not merely of believing them as they were originally believed, but even of conceiving completely that which their first inventors intended to express.

The views here given from this distinguished Italian (the precursor of F. A. Wolf in regard to the Homeric poems, as well as of Niebuhr in regard to the Roman history) appear to me no less correct than profound; and the obvious inference from them is, that attempts to explain (as it is commonly called) the mythes (i. e. to translate them into some physical, moral or historical statements, suitable to our order of thought) are, even as guesses, essentially unpromising. Nevertheless Vico, inconsistently with his own general view, bestows great labor and ingenuity in attempting to discover internal meaning symbolized under many of the mythes; and even lays down the position, “che i primi uomini della Gentilità essendo stati semplicissimi, quanto i fanciulli, i quali per natura son veritieri: le prime favole non poterono finger nulla di falso: per lo che dovettero necessariamente essere vere narrazioni.” (See vol. v. p. 194; compare also p. 99, Axiom xvi.) If this position be meant simply to exclude the idea of designed imposture, it may for the most part be admitted; but Vico evidently intends something more. He thinks that there lies hid under the fables a basis of matter of fact—not literal but symbolized—which he draws out and exhibits under the form of a civil history of the divine and heroic times: a confusion of doctrine the more remarkable, since he distinctly tells us (in perfect conformity with the long passage above transcribed from him) that the special matter of these early mythes is “impossibility accredited as truth,”—“che la di lei propria materia è l’impossibile credibile” (p. 176, and still more fully in the first rédaction of the Scienza Nuova, b. iii. c. 4; vol. iv. p. 187 of his Works).

When we read the Canones Mythologici of Vico (De Constantia Philologiæ, Pars Posterior, c. xxx.; vol. iii. p. 363), and his explanation of the legends of the Olympic gods, Hercules, Thêseus, Kadmus, etc., we see clearly that the meaning which he professes to bring out is one previously put in by himself.

There are some just remarks to the same purpose in Karl Ritter’s Vorhalle Europäischer Volkergeschichten, Abschn. ii. p. 150 seq. (Berlin, 1820). He too points out how much the faith of the old world (der Glaube der Vorwelt) has become foreign to our minds, since the recent advances of “Politik und Kritik,” and how impossible it is for us to elicit history from their conceptions by our analysis, in cases where they have not distinctly laid it out for us. The great length of this note prevents me from citing the passage: and he seems to me also (like Vico) to pursue his own particular investigations in forgetfulness of the principle laid down by himself.

[845] O. Müller, in his Prolegomena zu einer wissenschaftlichen Mythologie (cap. iv. p. 108), has pointed out the mistake of supposing that there existed originally some nucleus of pure reality as the starting-point of the mythes, and that upon this nucleus fiction was superinduced afterwards: he maintains that the real and the ideal were blended together in the primitive conception of the mythes. Respecting the general state of mind out of which the mythes grew, see especially pages 78 and 110 of that work, which is everywhere full of instruction on the subject of the Grecian mythes, and is eminently suggestive, even where the positions of the author are not completely made out.

The short Heldensage der Griechen by Nitzsch (Kiel, 1842, t. v.) contains more of just and original thought on the subject of the Grecian mythes than any work with which I am acquainted. I embrace completely the subjective point of view in which he regards them; and although I have profited much from reading his short tract, I may mention that before I ever saw it, I had enforced the same reasonings on the subject in an article in the Westminster Review, May 1843, on the Heroen-Geschichten of Niebuhr.

Jacob Grimm, in the preface to his Deutsche Mythologie (p. 1, 1st edit. Gött. 1835), pointedly insists on the distinction between “Sage” and history, as well as upon the fact that the former has its chief root in religious belief “Legend and history (he says) are powers each by itself, adjoining indeed on the confines, but having each its own separate and exclusive ground;” also p. xxvii. of the same introduction.

A view substantially similar is adopted by William Grimm, the other of the two distinguished brothers whose labors have so much elucidated Teutonic philology and antiquities. He examines the extent to which either historical matter of fact or historical names can be traced in the Deutsche Heldensage; and he comes to the conclusion that the former is next to nothing, the latter not considerable. He draws particular attention to the fact, that the audience for whom these poems were intended had not learned to distinguish history from poetry (W. Grimm, Deutsche Heldensage, pp. 8, 337, 342, 345, 399, Gött. 1829).

[846] Hesiod, Theogon. 32.—

Odyss. xxii. 347; viii. 63, 73, 481, 489. Δημόδοκ᾽ ... ἢ σέ γε Μοῦσ᾽ ἐδίδαξε, Διὸς παῖς, ἢ σέγ᾽ Ἀπόλλων: that is, Demodocus has either been inspired as a poet by the Muse, or as a prophet by Apollo: for the Homeric Apollo is not the god of song. Kalchas the prophet receives his inspiration from Apollo, who confers upon him the same knowledge both of past and future as the Muses give to Hesiod (Iliad, i. 69):—

Also Iliad, ii. 485.

Both the μάντις and the ἀοιδὸς are standing, recognized professions (Odyss. xvii. 383), like the physician and the carpenter, δημιόεργοι.

[847] Iliad, ii. 599.

[848] In this later sense it stands pointedly opposed to ἱστορία, history, which seems originally to have designated matter of fact, present and seen by the describer, or the result of his personal inquiries (see Herodot. i. 1; Verrius Flacc. ap. Aul. Gell. v. 18; Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iii. 12; and the observations of Dr. Jortin, Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 59).

The original use of the word λόγος was the same as that of μῦθος—a current tale, true or false, as the case might be; and the term designating a person much conversant with the old legends (λόγιος) is derived from it (Herod. i. 1; ii. 3). Hekatæus and Herodotus both use λόγος in this sense. Herodotus calls both Æsop and Hekatæus λογοποιοί (ii. 134-143).

Aristotle (Metaphys. i. p. 8, ed. Brandis) seems to use μῦθος in this sense, where he says—διὸ καὶ φιλόμυθος ὁ φιλόσοφος πώς ἐστιν· ὁ γὰρ μῦθος συγκεῖται ἐκ θαυμασίων, etc. In the same treatise (xi. p. 254), he uses it to signify fabulous amplification and transformation of a doctrine true in the main.

[849] M. Ampère, in his Histoire Littéraire de la France (ch. viii. v. i. p. 310) distinguishes the Saga (which corresponds as nearly as possible with the Greek μῦθος, λόγος, ἐπιχώριος λόγος), as a special product of the intellect, not capable of being correctly designated either as history, or as fiction, or as philosophy:—

“Il est un pays, la Scandinavie, où la tradition racontée s’est développée plus complètement qu’ailleurs, où ses produits ont été plus soigneusement recueillis et mieux conservés: dans ce pays, ils ont reçu un nom particulier, dont l’équivalent exact ne se trouve pas hors des langues Germaniques: c’est le mot Saga, Sage, ce qu’on dit, ce qu’on raconte,—la tradition orale. Si l’on prend ce mot non dans une acception restreinte, mais dans le sens général où le prenait Niebuhr quand il l’appliquoit, par exemple, aux traditions populaires qui ont pu fournir à Tite Live une portion de son histoire, la Saga doit être comptée parmi les produits spontanés de l’imagination humaine. La Saga a son existence propre comme la poësie, comme l’histoire, comme le roman. Elle n’est pas la poësie, parcequ’elle n’est pas chantée, mais parlée; elle n’est pas l’histoire, parcequ’elle est denuée de critique; elle n’est pas le roman, parcequ’elle est sincère, parcequ’elle a foi à ce qu’elle raconte. Elle n’invente pas, mais répète: elle peut se tromper, mais elle ne ment jamais. Ce récit souvent merveilleux, que personne ne fabrique sciemment, et que tout le monde altère et falsifie sans le vouloir, qui se perpétue à la manière des chants primitifs et populaires,—ce récit, quand il se rapporte non à un héros, mais à un saint, s’appelle une légende.”

[850] Herodot. ii. 53.

[851] See Plutarch, Perikl. capp. 5, 32, 38; Cicero, De Republ. i. 15-16, ed. Maii.

The phytologist Theophrastus, in his valuable collection of facts respecting vegetable organization, is often under the necessity of opposing his scientific interpretation of curious incidents in the vegetable world to the religious interpretation of them which he found current. Anomalous phænomena in the growth or decay of trees were construed as signs from the gods, and submitted to a prophet for explanation (see Histor. Plantar. ii. 3, iv. 16; v. 3).

We may remark, however, that the old faith had still a certain hold over his mind. In commenting on the story of the willow-tree at Philippi, and the venerable old plane-tree at Antandros (more than sixty feet high, and requiring four men to grasp it round in the girth), having been blown down by a high wind, and afterwards spontaneously resuming their erect posture, he offers some explanations how such a phænomenon might have happened, but he admits, at the end, that there may be something extra-natural in the case, Ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν ἴσως ἔξω φυσικῆς αἰτίας ἔστιν, etc. (De Caus. Plant. v. 4): see a similar miracle in reference to the cedar-tree of Vespasian (Tacit. Hist. ii. 78).

Euripidês, in his lost tragedy called Μελανίππη Σοφὴ, placed in the month of Melanippê a formal discussion and confutation of the whole doctrine of τέρατα, or supernatural indications (Dionys. Halicar. Ars Rhetoric. p. 300-356, Reisk). Compare the Fables of Phædrus, iii. 3; Plutarch, Sept. Sap. Conviv. ch. 3. p. 149; and the curious philosophical explanation by which the learned men of Alexandria tranquillized the alarms of the vulgar, on occasion of the serpent said to have been seen entwined round the head of the crucified Kleomenês (Plutarch, Kleomen. c. 39).

It is one part of the duty of an able physician, according to the Hippocratic treatise called Prognosticon (c. 1. t. ii. p. 112, ed. Littré), when he visits his patient, to examine whether there is anything divine in the malady, ἅμα δὲ καὶ εἴ τι θεῖον ἔνεστιν ἐν τῇσι νούσοισι: this, however, does not agree with the memorable doctrine laid down in the treatise, De Aëre, Locis et Aquis (c. 22. p. 78, ed. Littré), and cited hereafter, in this chapter. Nor does Galen seem to have regarded it as harmonizing with the general views of Hippocratês. In the excellent Prolegomena of M. Littré to his edition of Hippocratês (t. i. p. 76) will be found an inedited scholium, wherein the opinion of Baccheius and other physicians is given, that the affections of the plague were to be looked upon as divine, inasmuch as the disease came from God; and also the opinion of Xenophôn, the friend of Praxagoras, that the “genus of days of crisis” in fever was divine; “For (said Xenophôn) just as the Dioskuri, being gods, appear to the mariner in the storm and bring him salvation, so also do the days of crisis, when they arrive, in fever.” Galen, in commenting upon this doctrine of Xenophôn, says that the author “has expressed his own individual feeling, but has no way set forth the opinion of Hippocratês:” Ὁ δὲ τῶν κρισίμων γένος ἡμερῶν εἰπὼν εἶναι θεῖον, ἑαυτοῦ τι πάθος ὡμολόγησεν· οὐ μὴν Ἱπποκράτους γε τὴν γνώμην ἔδειξεν (Galen, Opp. t. v. p. 120, ed. Basil).

The comparison of the Dioskuri appealed to by Xenophôn is a precise reproduction of their function as described in the Homeric Hymn (Hymn xxxiii. 10): his personification of the “days of crisis” introduces the old religious agency to fill up a gap in his medical science.

I annex an illustration from the Hindoo vein of thought:—“It is a rule with the Hindoos to bury, and not to burn, the bodies of those who die of the small pox: for (say they) the small pox is not only caused by the goddess Davey, but is, in fact, Davey herself; and to burn the body of a person affected with this disease, is, in reality, neither more nor less than to burn the goddess.” (Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections, etc., vol. i. ch. xxv. p. 221.)

[852] Horat. de Art. Poet. 79:—

Compare Epist. i. 19, 23, and Epod. vi. 12; Aristot. Rhetor. iii. 8, 7, and Poetic. c. 4—also Synesius de Somniis—ὥσπερ Ἀλκαῖος καὶ Ἀρχίλοχος, οἳ δεδαπανήκασι τὴν εὐστομίαν εἰς τὸν οἰκεῖον βίον ἑκάτερος (Alcæi Fragment. Halle, 1810, p. 205). Quintilian speaks in striking language of the power of expression manifested by Archilochus (x. 1, 60).

[853] Simonidês of Amorgus touches briefly, but in a tone of contempt upon the Trojan war—γυναικὸς οὕνεκ᾽ ἀμφιδηριωμένους (Simonid. Fragm. 8. p. 36. v. 118); he seems to think it absurd that so destructive a struggle should have taken place “pro unâ mulierculâ,” to use the phrase of Mr. Payne Knight.

[854] See Quintilian, x. 1, 63. Horat. Od. i. 32; ii. 13. Aristot. Polit. iii. 10, 4. Dionys. Halic. observes (Vett. Scriptt. Censur. v. p. 421) respecting Alkæus—πολλαχοῦ γοῦν τὸ μέτρον εἴ τις περιέλοι, ῥητορικὴν ἂν εὕροι πολιτείαν; and Strabo (xiii. p. 617), τὰ στασιωτικὰ καλούμενα τοῦ Ἀλκαίου ποιήματα.

There was a large dash of sarcasm and homely banter aimed at neighbors and contemporaries in the poetry of Sapphô, apart from her impassioned love-songs—ἄλλως σκώπτει τὸν ἄγροικον νύμφιον καὶ τὸν θυρωρὸν τὸν ἐν τοῖς γάμοις, εὐτελέστατα καὶ ἐν πέζοις ὀνόμασι μᾶλλον ἢ ἐν ποιητικοῖς. Ὥστε αὐτῆς μᾶλλόν ἐστι τὰ ποιήματα ταῦτα διαλέγεσθαι ἢ ἄδειν· οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἅρμοσαι πρὸς τὸν χόρον ἢ πρὸς τὴν λύραν, εἰ μή τις εἴη χόρος διαλεκτικός (Dêmêtr. Phaler, De Interpret. c. 167).

Compare also Herodot. ii. 135, who mentions the satirical talent of Sapphô, employed against her brother for an extravagance about the courtezan Rhodôpis.

[855] Solôn, Fragm. iv. 1, ed. Schneidewin:—

See Brandis, Handbuch der Griechischen Philosophie, sect. xxiv.-xxv. Plato states that Solôn, in his old age, engaged in the composition of an epic poem, which he left unfinished, on the subject of the supposed island of Atlantis and Attica (Plato, Timæus, p. 21, and Kritias, p. 113). Plutarch, Solôn, c. 31.

[856] Homer, Hymn. ad Apollin. 155; Thucydid. iii. 104.

[857] Herodot. i. 163.

[858] Herodot. iv. 36. γελῶ δὲ ὁρέων Γῆς περιόδους γράψαντας πολλοὺς ἤδη, καὶ οὐδένα νόον ἔχοντας ἐξηγησάμενον· οἳ Ὠκέανόν τε ῥέοντα γράφουσι πέριξ τὴν γῆν, ἐοῦσαν κυκλοτερέα ὡς ἀπὸ τόρνου, etc., a remark probably directed against Hekatæus.

Respecting the map of Anaximander, Strabo, i. p. 7; Diogen. Laërt. ii. 1; Agathemer ap. Geograph. Minor. i. 1. πρῶτος ἐτόλμησε τὴν οἰκουμένην ἐν πίνακι γράψαι.

Aristagoras of Milêtus, who visited Sparta to solicit aid for the revolted Ionians against Darius, brought with him a brazen tablet or map, by means of which he exhibited the relative position of places in the Persian empire (Herodot. v. 49).

[859] Xanthus ap. Strabo. i. p. 50; xii. p. 579. Compare Creuzer, Fragmenta Xanthi, p. 162.

[860] Xenophan. ap. Sext. Empiric. adv. Mathemat. ix. 193. Fragm. 1. Poet. Græc. ed. Schneidewin. Diogen. Laërt. ix. 18.

[861] Hesiod, Opp. Di. 122; Homer, Hymn. ad Vener. 260.

[862] A defence of the primitive faith, on this ground, is found in Plutarch, Quæstion. Sympos. vii. 4, 4, p. 703.

[863] Aristotel. Metaphys. i. 3.

[864] Plutarch, Placit. Philos. ii. 1; also Stobæus, Eclog. Physic. i. 22, where the difference between the Homeric expressions and those of the subsequent philosophers is seen. Damm, Lexic. Homeric. v. Φύσις; Alexander von Humboldt, Kosmos, p. 76, the note 9 on page 62 of that admirable work.

The title of the treatises of the early philosophers (Melissus, Dêmokritus, Parmenidês, Empedoclês, Alkmæôn, etc.) was frequently Περὶ Φύσεως (Galen. Opp. tom. i. p. 56, ed. Basil).

[865] Xenophan. ap. Sext. Empiric. vii. 50; viii. 326.—

Compare Aristotel. De Xenophane, Zenone, et Georgiâ, capp. 1-2.

[866] See the treatise of M. Auguste Comte (Cours de Philosophie Positive), and his doctrine of the three successive stages of the human mind in reference to scientific study—the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive;—a doctrine laid down generally in his first lecture (vol. i. p. 4-12), and largely applied and illustrated throughout his instructive work. It is also re-stated and elucidated by Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, vol. ii. p. 610.

[867] “Human wisdom (ἀνθρωπίνη σοφία), as contrasted with the primitive theology (οἱ ἀρχαῖοι καὶ διατρίβοντες περὶ τὰς θεολογίας),” to take the words of Aristotle (Meteorolog. ii. 1. pp. 41-42, ed. Tauchnitz).

[868] Xenoph. Memor. i. 1, 6-9. Τὰ μὲν ἀναγκαῖα (Σωκράτης) συνεβούλευε καὶ πράττειν, ὡς ἐνόμιζεν ἄριστ᾽ ἂν πραχθῆναι· περὶ δὲ τῶν ἀδήλων ὅπως ἀποβήσοιτο, μαντευσομένους ἔπεμπεν, εἰ ποιητέα. Καὶ τοὺς μέλλοντας οἴκους τε καὶ πόλεις καλῶς οἰκήσειν μαντικῆς ἔφη προσδεῖσθαι· τεκτονικὸν μὲν γὰρ ἢ χαλκευτικὸν ἢ γεωργικὸν ἢ ἀνθρώπων ἀρχικὸν, ἢ τῶν τοιούτων ἔργων ἐξεταστικὸν, ἢ λογιστικὸν, ἢ οἰκονομικὸν, ἢ στρατηγικὸν γενέσθαι, πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα, μαθήματα καὶ ἀνθρώπου γνώμῃ αἱρετέα, ἐνόμιζεν εἶναι· τὰ δὲ μέγιστα τῶν ἐν τούτοις ἔφη τοὺς θεοὺς ἑαυτοῖς καταλείπεσθαι, ὧν οὐδὲν δῆλον εἶναι τοῖς ἀνθρώποις.... Τοὺς δὲ μηδὲν τῶν τοιούτων οἰομένους εἶναι δαιμόνιον, ἀλλὰ πάντα τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης γνώμης, δαιμονᾷν ἔφη· δαιμονᾷν δὲ καὶ τοὺς μαντευομένους ἃ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἔδωκαν οἱ θεοὶ μαθοῦσι διακρίνειν.... Ἔφη δὲ δεῖν, ἃ μὲν μαθόντας ποιεῖν ἔδωκαν οἱ θεοὶ, μανθάνειν· ἃ δὲ μὴ δῆλα τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἔστι, πειρᾶσθαι διὰ μαντικῆς παρὰ τῶν θεῶν πυνθάνεσθαι· τοὺς θεοὺς γὰρ, οἷς ἂν ὦσιν ἵλεῳ, σημαίνειν. Compare also Memorab. iv. 7. 7; and Cyropæd. i. 6, 3, 23-46.

Physical and astronomical phænomena are classified by Socratês among the divine class, interdicted to human study (Memor. i. 1,13): τὰ θεῖα or δαιμόνια as supposed to τἀνθρώπεια. Plato (Phileb. c. 16; Legg. x. p. 886-889; xii. p. 967) held the sun and stars to be gods, each animated with its special soul: he allowed astronomical investigation to the extent necessary for avoiding blasphemy respecting these beings—μέχρι τοῦ μὴ βλασφημεῖν περὶ αὐτά (vii. 821).

[869] Hippocratês, De Aëre, Locis et Aquis, c. 22 (p. 78, ed. Littré, sect. 106 ed. Petersen): Ἔτι τε πρὸς τουτέοισι εὐνούχιαι γίγνονται οἱ πλεῖστοι ἐν Σκύθῃσι, καὶ γυναικηΐα ἐργάζονται καὶ ὡς αἱ γυναῖκες διαλέγονταί τε ὁμοίως· καλεῦνταί τε οἱ τοιοῦτοι ἀνανδριεῖς. Οἱ μὲν οὖν ἐπιχώριοι τὴν αἰτίην προστιθέασι θεῷ καὶ σέβονται τουτέους τοὺς ἀνθρώπους καὶ προσκυνέουσι, δεδοικότες περὶ ἑωϋτέων ἕκαστοι. Ἐμοὶ δὲ καὶ αὐτέῳ δοκέει ταῦτα τὰ πάθεα θεῖα εἶναι, καὶ τἄλλα πάντα, καὶ οὐδὲν ἕτερον ἑτέρου θειότερον οὐδὲ ἀνθρωπινώτερον, ἀλλὰ πάντα θεῖα· ἕκαστον δὲ ἔχει φύσιν τῶν τοιουτέων, καὶ οὐδὲν ἄνευ φύσιος γίγνεται. Καὶ τοῦτο τὸ πάθος, ὥς μοι δοκέει γίγνεσθαι, φράσω, etc.

Again, sect. 112. Ἀλλὰ γὰρ, ὥσπερ καὶ πρότερον ἔλεξα, θεῖα μὲν καὶ ταῦτά ἐστι ὁμοίως τοῖσι ἄλλοισι, γίγνεται δὲ κατὰ φύσιν ἕκαστα.

Compare the remarkable treatise of Hippocratês, De Morbo Sacro, capp. 1 and 18, vol. vi. p. 352-394, ed. Littré. See this opinion of Hippocratês illustrated by the doctrines of some physical philosophers stated in Aristotle, Physic. ii. 8. ὥσπερ ὕει ὁ Ζεὺς, οὐχ ὅπως τὸν σῖτον αὐξήσῃ, ἀλλ᾽ ἐξ ἀνάγκης, etc. Some valuable observations on the method of Hippocratês are also found in Plato, Phædr. p. 270.

[870] See the graphic picture in Plato, Phædon. p. 97-98 (cap. 46-47): compare Plato, Legg. xii. p. 967; Aristotel. Metaphysic. i. p. 13-14 (ed. Brandis); Plutarch, Defect. Oracul. p. 435.

Simplicius, Commentar. in Aristotel. Physic. p. 38. καὶ ὅπερ δὲ ὁ ἐν Φαίδωνι Σωκράτης ἐγκαλεῖ τῷ Ἀναξαγόρᾳ, τὸ ἐν ταῖς τῶν κατὰ μέρος αἰτιολογίαις μὴ τῷ νῷ κεχρῆσθαι, ἀλλὰ ταῖς ὑλικαῖς ἀποδόσεσιν, οἰκεῖον ἦν τῇ φυσιολογίᾳ. Anaxagoras thought that the superior intelligence of men, as compared with other animals, arose from his possession of hands (Aristot. de Part. Animal. iv. 10. p. 687, ed. Bekk.).

[871] Xenophôn, Memorab. iv. 7. Socratês said, καὶ παραφρονῆσαι τὸν ταῦτα μεριμνῶντα οὐδὲν ἧττον ἢ Ἀναξαγόρας παρεφρόνησεν, ὁ μέγιστον φρονήσας ἐπὶ τῷ τὰς τῶν θεῶν μηχανὰς ἐξηγεῖσθαι, etc. Compare Schaubach, Anaxagoræ Fragment. p. 50-141; Plutarch, Nikias, 23, and Periklês, 6-32; Diogen. Laërt. ii. 10-14.

The Ionic philosophy, from which Anaxagoras receded more in language than in spirit, seems to have been the least popular of all the schools, though some of the commentators treat it as conformable to vulgar opinion, because it confined itself for the most part to phænomenal explanations, and did not recognize the noumena of Plato, or the τὸ ἓν νοητὸν of Parmenidês,—“qualis fuit Ionicorum, quæ tum dominabatur, ratio, vulgari opinione et communi sensu comprobata” (Karsten, Parmenidis Fragment, De Parmenidis Philosophiâ, p. 154). This is a mistake: the Ionic philosophers, who constantly searched for and insisted upon physical laws, came more directly into conflict with the sentiment of the multitude than the Eleatic school.

The larger atmospheric phænomena were connected in the most intimate manner with Grecian religious feeling and uneasiness (see Demokritus ap. Sect. Empiric. ix. sect. 19-24. p. 552-554, Fabric.): the attempts of Anaxagoras and Demokritus to explain them were more displeasing to the public than the Platonic speculations (Demokritus ap. Aristot. Meteorol. ii. 7; Stobæus, Eclog. Physic. p. 594: compare Mullach, Democriti Fragmenta, lib. iv. p. 394).

[872] Xenophôn, Memorab. i. 1.

[873] It is curious to see that some of the most recondite doctrines of the Pythagorean philosophy were actually brought before the general Syracusan public in the comedies of Epicharmus: “In comœdiis suis personas sæpe ita colloqui fecit, ut sententias Pythagoricas et in universum sublimia vitæ præcepta immisceret” (Grysar, De Doriensium Comœdiâ, p. 111, Col. 1828). The fragments preserved in Diogen. Laërt. (iii. 9-17) present both criticisms upon the Hesiodic doctrine of a primæval chaos, and an exposition of the archetypal and immutable ideas (as opposed to the fluctuating phænomena of sense) which Plato afterwards adopted and systematized.

Epicharmus seems to have combined with this abstruse philosophy a strong vein of comic shrewdness and some turn to scepticism (Cicero, Epistol. ad Attic. i. 19): “ut crebro mihi vafer ille Siculus Epicharmus insusurret cantilenam suam.” Clemens Alex. Strom. v. p. 258. Νᾶφε καὶ μέμνασ᾽ ἀπιστεῖν· ἄρθρα ταῦτα τῶν φρενῶν. Ζῶμεν ἀριθμῷ καὶ λογισμῷ· ταῦτα γὰρ σώζει βροτοὺς. Also his contemptuous ridicule of the prophetesses of his time who cheated foolish women out of their money, pretending to universal knowledge, καὶ πάντα γιγνώσκοντι τῷ τηνᾶν λόγῳ (ap Polluc. ix. 81). See, about Epicharmus. O. Müller, Dorians, iv. 7, 4.

These dramas seem to have been exhibited at Syracuse between 480-460 B. C., anterior even to Chionidês and Magnês at Athens (Aristot. Poet. c. 3): he says πολλῷ πρότερος, which can hardly be literally exact. The critics of the Horatian age looked upon Epicharmus as the prototype of Plautus (Hor. Epistol. ii. 1. 58).

[874] The third book of the republic of Plato is particularly striking in reference to the use of the poets in education: see also his treatise De Legg. vii. p. 810-811. Some teachers made their pupils learn whole poets by heart (ὅλους ποιητὰς ἐκμανθάνων), others preferred extracts and selections.

[875] Pindar, Nem. vi. 1. Compare Simonidês, Fragm. 1 (Gaisford).

[876] Pindar, Olymp. i. 30-55; ix. 32-45.

[877] Pyth. iii. 25. See the allusions to Semelê, Alkmêna, and Danaê, Pyth. iii. 98; Nem. x. 10. Compare also supra, chap. ix. p. 245.

[878] Pindar, Nem. vii. 20-30; viii. 23-31. Isthm. iii. 50-60.

It seems to be sympathy for Ajax, in odes addressed to noble Æginetan victors, which induces him thus to depreciate Odysseus; for he eulogizes Sisyphus, specially on account of his cunning and resources (Olymp. xiii. 50) in the ode addressed to Xenophôn the Corinthian.

[879] Olymp. i. 28; Nem. viii. 20; Pyth. i. 93; Olymp. vii. 55; Nem. vi. 43. φάντι δ᾽ ἀνθρώπων παλαιαὶ ῥήσιες, etc.

[880] Pyth. x. 49. Compare Pyth. xii. 11-22.

[881] Pyth. i. 17; iii. 4-7; iv. 12; viii. 16. Nem. iv. 27-32; v. 89. Isthm. v. 31; vi. 44-48. Olymp. iii. 17; viii. 63; xiii. 61-87.

[882] Nem. iii. 39; v. 40. συγγενὴς εὐδοξία—πότμος συγγενής; v. 8. Olymp. ix. 103. Pindar seems to introduce φύᾳ in cases where Homer would have mentioned the divine assistance.

[883] Nem. x. 37-51. Compare the family legend of the Athenian Dêmocrates, in Plato, Lysis, p. 295.

[884] Nem. v. 12-16.

[885] See above, chap. xiv. p. 368. on the Legend of the Siege of Thêbes.

[886] The curse of Œdipus is the determining force in the Sept. ad Thêb., Ἀρά τ᾽, Ἐριννὺς πατρὸς ἡ μεγασθενής (v. 70); it reappears several times in the course of the drama, with particular solemnity in the mouth of Eteoklês (695-709, 725, 785, etc.); he yields to it as an irresistible force, as carrying the family to ruin:—

So again at the opening of the Agamemnôn, the μνάμων μῆνις τεκνόποινος (v. 155) and the sacrifice of Iphigeneia are dwelt upon as leaving behind them an avenging doom upon Agamemnôn, though he took precautions for gagging her mouth during the sacrifice and thus preventing her from giving utterance to imprecations—Φθόγγον ἀραῖον οἴκοις, Βίᾳ χαλινῶν τ᾽ ἀναύδῳ μένει (κατασχεῖν), v. 346. The Erinnys awaits Agamemnôn even at the moment of his victorious consummation at Troy (467; compare 762-990, 1336-1433): she is most to be dreaded after great good fortune: she enforces the curse which ancestral crimes have brought upon the house of Atreus—πρώταρχος ἄτη—παλαιαὶ ἁμαρτίαι δόμων (1185-1197, Choëph. 692)—the curse imprecated by the outraged Thyestês (1601). In the Choëphoræ, Apollo menaces Orestês with the wrath of his deceased father, and all the direful visitations of the Erinnyes, unless he undertakes to revenge the murder (271-296). Αἶσα and Ἐριννὺς bring on blood for blood (647). But the moment that Orestês, placed between these conflicting obligations (925), has achieved it, he becomes himself the victim of the Erinnyes, who drive him mad even at the end of the Choëphoræ (ἕως δ᾽ ἔτ᾽ ἔμφρων εἰμὶ, 1026), and who make their appearance bodily, and pursue him throughout the third drama of this fearful trilogy. The Eidôlon of Klytæmnêstra impels them to vengeance (Eumenid. 96) and even spurs them on when they appear to relax. Apollo conveys Orestês to Athens, whither the Erinnyes pursue him, and prosecute him before the judgment-seat of the goddess Athênê, to whom they submit the award; Apollo appearing as his defender. The debate between “the daughters of Night” and the god, accusing and defending, is eminently curious (576-730): the Erinnyes are deeply mortified at the humiliation put upon them when Orestês is acquitted, but Athênê at length reconciles them, and a covenant is made whereby they become protectresses of Attica, accepting of a permanent abode and solemn worship (1006): Orestês returns to Argos, and promises that even in his tomb he will watch that none of his descendants shall ever injure the land of Attica (770). The solemn trial and acquittal of Orestês formed the consecrating legend of the Hill and Judicature of Areiopagus.

This is the only complete trilogy of Æschylus which we possess, and the avenging Erinnyes (416) are the movers throughout the whole—unseen in the first two dramas, visible and appalling in the third. And the appearance of Cassandra under the actual prophetic fever in the first, contributes still farther to impart to it a coloring different from common humanity.

The general view of the movement of the Oresteia given in Welcker (Æschyl. Trilogie, p. 445) appears to me more conformable to Hellenic ideas than that of Klausen (Theologumena Æschyli, pp. 157-169), whose valuable collection and comparison of passages is too much affected, both here and elsewhere, by the desire to bring the agencies of the Greek mythical world into harmony with what a religious mind of the present day would approve. Moreover, he sinks the personality of Athênê too much in the supreme authority of Zeus (p. 158-168).

[887] Eumenidês, 150.—

The same metaphor again, v. 731. Æschylus seems to delight in contrasting the young and the old gods: compare 70-162, 882.

The Erinnyes tell Apollo that he assumes functions which do not belong to him, and will thus desecrate those which do belong to him (715-754):—

The refusal of the king Pelasgos, in the Supplices, to undertake what he feels to be the sacred duty of protecting the suppliant Danaïdes, without first submitting the matter to his people and obtaining their expressed consent, and the fear which he expresses of their blame (κατ᾽ ἀρχὰς γὰρ φιλαίτιος λέως), are more forcibly set forth than an old epic poet would probably have thought necessary (see Supplices, 369, 397, 485, 519). The solemn wish to exclude both anarchy and despotism from Athens bears still more the mark of political feeling of the time—μήτ᾽ ἄναρχον μήτε δεσποτουμένον (Eumenid. 527-696).