[981] There is here a change as compared with my first edition; I had inserted here some remarks on the allegorical theory of interpretation, as compared with the semi-historical. An able article on my work (in the Edinburgh Review, October 1846), pointed out that those remarks required modification, and that the idea of allegory in reference to the construction of the mythes was altogether inadmissible.

[982] Juvenal, Sat. x. 174:—

[983] Colonel Sleeman observes, respecting the Hindoo historical mind—“History to this people is all a fairy tale.” (Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official, vol. i. ch. ix. p. 70.) And again, “The popular poem of the Ramaen describes the abduction of the heroine by the monster king of Ceylon, Rawun; and her recovery by means of the monkey general, Hunnooman. Every word of this poem, the people assured me was written, if not by the hand of the Deity himself, at least by his inspiration, which was the same thing—and it must consequently be true. Ninety-nine out of a hundred, among the Hindoos, implicitly believe, not only every word of the poem, but every word of every poem that has ever been written in Sanscrit. If you ask a man whether he really believes any very egregious absurdity quoted from these books, he replies, with the greatest naïveté in the world, Is it not written in the book; and how should it be there written, if not true? The Hindoo religion reposes upon an entire prostration of mind,—that continual and habitual surrender of the reasoning faculties, which we are accustomed to make occasionally, while engaged at the theatre, or in the perusal of works of fiction. We allow the scenes, characters, and incidents, to pass before our mind’s eye, and move our feelings—without stopping a moment to ask whether they are real or true. There is only this difference—that with people of education among us, even in such short intervals of illusion or abandon, any extravagance in the acting, or flagrant improbability in the fiction, destroys the charm, breaks the spell by which we have been so mysteriously bound, and restores us to reason and the realities of ordinary life. With the Hindoos, on the contrary, the greater the improbability, the more monstrous and preposterous the fiction—the greater is the charm it has over their minds; and the greater their learning in the Sanscrit, the more are they under the influence of this charm. Believing all to be written by the Deity, or under his inspirations, and the men and things of former days to have been very different from men and things of the present day, and the heroes of these fables to have been demigods, or people endowed with powers far superior to those of the ordinary men of their own day—the analogies of nature are never for a moment considered; nor do questions of probability, or possibility, according to those analogies, ever obtrude to dispel the charm with which they are so pleasingly bound. They go on through life reading and talking of these monstrous fictions, which shock the taste and understanding of other nations, without ever questioning the truth of one single incident, or hearing it questioned. There was a time, and that not far distant, when it was the same in England, and in every other European nation; and there are, I am afraid, some parts of Europe where it is so still. But the Hindoo faith, so far as religious questions are concerned, is not more capacious or absurd than that of the Greeks or Romans in the days of Socrates or Cicero: the only difference is, that among the Hindoos a greater number of the questions which interest mankind are brought under the head of religion.” (Sleeman, Rambles, etc., vol. i. ch. xxvi. p. 227: compare vol. ii. ch. v. p. 51; viii. p. 97.)

[984] Lord Lyttleton, in commenting on the tales of the Irish bards, in his History of Henry II., has the following just remarks (book iv. vol. iii. p. 13, quarto): “One may reasonably suppose that in MSS. written since the Irish received the Roman letters from St. Patrick, some traditional truths recorded before by the bards in their unwritten poems may have been preserved to our times. Yet these cannot be so separated from many fabulous stories derived from the same sources, as to obtain a firm credit; it not being sufficient to establish the authority of suspected traditions, that they can be shown not to be so improbable or absurd as others with which they are mixed—since there may be specious as well as senseless fictions. Nor can a poet or bard, who lived in the sixth or seventh century after Christ, if his poem is still extant, be any voucher for facts supposed to have happened before the incarnation; though his evidence (allowing for poetical license) may be received on such matters as come within his own time, or the remembrance of old men with whom he conversed. The most judicious historians pay no regard to the Welsh or British traditions delivered by Geoffrey of Monmouth, though it is not impossible but that some of these may be true.”

One definition of a mythe given by Plutarch coincides exactly with a specious fiction: Ὁ μῦθος εἶναι βούλεται λόγος ψευδὴς ἐοικὼς ἀληθινῷ (Plutarch, Bellone an pace clariores fuerunt Athenienses, p. 348).

“Der Grund-Trieb des Mythus (Creuzer justly expresses it) das Gedachte in ein Geschehenes umzusetzen.” (Symbolik der Alten Welt, sect. 43. p. 99.)

[985] In reference to the loose statements of the Highlanders, Dr. Johnson observes, “He that goes into the Highlands with a mind naturally acquiescent, and a credulity eager for wonders, may perhaps come back with an opinion very different from mine; for the inhabitants, knowing the ignorance of all strangers in their language and antiquities, are perhaps not very scrupulous adherents to truth; yet I do not say that they deliberately speak studied falsehood, or have a settled purpose to deceive. They have acquired and considered little, and do not always feel their own ignorance. They are not much accustomed to be interrogated by others, and seem never to have thought of interrogating themselves; so that if they do not know what they tell to be true, they likewise do not distinctly perceive it to be false. Mr. Boswell was very diligent in his inquiries, and the result of his investigations was, that the answer to the second question was commonly such as nullified the answer to the first.” (Journey to the Western Islands, p. 272, 1st edit., 1775).

[986] I considered this position more at large in an article in the “Westminster Review” for May, 1843, on Niebuhr’s Greek Legends, with which article much in the present chapter will be found to coincide.

[987] For this general character of the Grecian mysteries, with their concealed treasure of doctrine, see Warburton, Divine Legation of Moses, book ii. sect. 4.

Payne Knight, On the Symbolical Language of ancient Art and Mythology, sect. 6, 10, 11, 40, etc.

Saint Croix, Recherches sur les Mystères du Paganisme, sect. 3, p. 106; sect. 4, p. 404, etc.

Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie der Alten Völker, sect. 2, 3, 23, 39, 42, etc. Meiners and Heeren adopt generally the same view, though there are many divergences of opinion between these different authors, on a subject essentially obscure. Warburton maintained that the interior doctrine communicated in the mysteries was the existence of one Supreme Divinity, combined with the Euemeristic creed, that the pagan gods had been mere men.

See Clemens Alex. Strom. v. p. 582, Sylb.

The view taken by Hermann of the ancient Greek mythology is in many points similar to that of Creuzer, though with some considerable difference. He thinks that it is an aggregate of doctrine—philosophical, theological, physical, and moral—expressed under a scheme of systematic personifications, each person being called by a name significant of the function personified: this doctrine was imported from the East into Greece, where the poets, retaining or translating the names, but forgetting their meaning and connection, distorted the primitive stories, the sense of which came to be retained only in the ancient mysteries. That true sense, however, (he thinks,) may be recovered by a careful analysis of the significant names: and his two dissertations (De Mythologiâ Græcorum Antiquissimâ, in the Opuscula, vol. ii.) exhibit a specimen of this systematic expansion of etymology into narrative. The dissent from Creuzer is set forth in their published correspondence, especially in his concluding “Brief an Creuzer über das Wesen und die Behandlung der Mythologie,” Leipzig, 1819. The following citation from his Latin dissertation sets forth his general doctrine:—

Hermann, De Mythologiâ Græcorum Antiquissimâ, p. 4 (Opuscula, vol. ii. p. 171): “Videmus rerum divinarum humanarumque scientiam ex Asiâ per Lyciam migrantem in Europam: videmus fabulosos poëtas peregrinam doctrinam, monstruoso tumore orientis sive exutam, sive nondum indutam, quasi de integro Græcâ specie procreantes; videmus poëtas, illos, quorum omnium vera nomina nominibus—ab arte, quâ clarebant, petitis—obliterata sunt, diu in Thraciâ hærentes, raroque tandem etiam cum aliis Græciæ partibus commercio junctos: qualis Pamphus, non ipse Atheniensis, Atheniensibus hymnos Deorum fecit. Videmus denique retrusam paulatim in mysteriorum secretam illam sapientum doctrinam, vitiatam religionum perturbatione, corruptam inscitiâ interpretum, obscuratam levitate amœniora sectantium—adeo ut eam ne illi quidem intelligerent, qui hæreditariam a prioribus poësin colentes, quum ingenii præstantiâ omnes præstinguerent, tantâ illos oblivione merserunt, ut ipsi sint primi auctores omnis eruditionis habiti.”

Hermann thinks, however, that by pursuing the suggestions of etymology, vestiges may still be discovered, and something like a history compiled, of Grecian belief as it stood anterior to Homer and Hesiod: “Est autem in hac omni ratione judicio maxime opus, quia non testibus res agitur, sed ad interpretandi solertiam omnia revocanda sunt” (p. 172). To the same general purpose the French work of M. Emérie David, Recherches sur le Dieu Jupiter—reviewed by O. Müller: see the Kleine Schriften of the latter, vol. ii. p. 82.

Mr. Bryant has also employed a profusion of learning, and numerous etymological conjectures, to resolve the Greek mythes into mistakes, perversions, and mutilations, of the exploits and doctrines of oriental tribes long-lost and by-gone,—Amonians, Cuthites, Arkites, etc. “It was Noah (he thinks) who was represented under the different names of Thoth, Hermês, Menês, Osiris, Zeuth, Atlas, Phorôneus, Promêtheus, to which list a farther number of great extent might be added: the Νοῦς of Anaxagoras was in reality the patriarch Noah” (Ant. Mythol. vol. ii. pp. 253, 272). “The Cuthites or Amonians, descendants of Noah, settled in Greece from the east, celebrated for their skill in building and the arts” (ib. i. p. 502; ii. p. 187). “The greatest part of the Grecian theology arose from misconception and blunders, the stories concerning their gods and heroes were founded on terms misinterpreted or abused” (ib. i. p. 452). “The number of different actions ascribed to the various Grecian gods or heroes all relate to one people or family, and are at bottom one and the same history” (ib. ii. p. 57). “The fables of Promêtheus and Tityus were taken from ancient Amonian temples, from hieroglyphics misunderstood and badly explained” (i. p. 426): see especially vol. ii. p. 160.

[988] The Anti-Symbolik of Voss, and still more the Aglaophamus of Lobeck, are full of instruction on the subject of this supposed interior doctrine, and on the ancient mysteries in general: the latter treatise, especially, is not less distinguished for its judicious and circumspect criticism than for its copious learning.

Mr. Halhed (Preface to the Gentoo Code of Laws, pp. xiii.-xiv.) has good observations on the vanity of all attempts to allegorize the Hindu mythology: he observes, with perfect truth, “The vulgar and illiterate have always understood the mythology of their country in its literal sense; and there was a time to every nation, when the highest rank in it was equally vulgar and illiterate with the lowest.... A Hindu esteems the astonishing miracles attributed to a Brima, or a Kishen, as facts of the most indubitable authenticity, and the relation of them as most strictly historical.”

Compare also Gibbon’s remarks on the allegorizing tendencies of the later Platonists (Hist. Decl. and Fall, vol. iv. p. 71).

[989] Varro, ap. Augustin. De Civ. Dei, iv. 27; vi. 5-6. “Dicis fabulosos Deos accommodatos esse ad theatrum, naturales ad mundum, civiles ad urbem.” “Varro, de religionibus loquens, multa esse vera dixit, quæ non modo vulgo scire non sit utile, sed etiam tametsi falsa sint, aliter existimare populum expediat: et ideo Græcos teletas et mysteria taciturnitate parietibusque clausisse” (ibid. iv. 31). See Villoison, De Triplici Theologiâ Commentatio, p. 8; and Lactantius, De Origin. Error. ii. 3. The doctrine of the Stoic Chrysippus, ap. Etymologicon Magn. v. Τελεταί—Χρύσιππος δέ φησι, τοὺς περὶ τῶν θείων λόγους εἰκότως καλεῖσθαι τελετὰς, χρῆναι γὰρ τούτους τελευταίους καὶ ἐπὶ πᾶσι διδάσκεσθαι, τῆς ψυχῆς ἐχούσης ἕρμα καὶ κεκρατημένης, καὶ πρὸς τοὺς ἀμυήτους σιωπᾷν δυναμένης· μέγα γὰρ εἶναι τὸ ἆθλον ὑπὲρ θεῶν ἀκοῦσαί τε ὀρθὰ, καὶ ἐγκρατεῖς γενέσθαι αὐτῶν.

The triple division of Varro is reproduced in Plutarch, Amatorius, p. 763. τὰ μὲν μύθῳ, τὰ δὲ νόμῳ, τὰ δὲ λόγῳ, πίστιν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἔσχηκε· τῆς δ᾽ οὖν περὶ θεῶν δόξης καὶ παντάπασιν ἡγεμόνες καὶ διδάσκαλοι γεγόνασιν ἡμῖν οἵ τε ποιηταὶ, καὶ οἱ νομοθέται, καὶ τρίτον, οἱ φιλόσοφοι.

[990] Plato, Phædr. c. 7. p. 229:—

Phædrus. Εἶπέ μοι, ὦ Σώκρατες, σὺ τοῦτο τὸ μυθολόγημα πείθει ἀληθὲς εἶναι;

Socrates. Ἀλλ᾽ εἰ ἀπιστοίην, ὥσπερ οἱ σοφοὶ, οὐκ ἂν ἄτοπος εἴην, εἶτα σοφιζόμενος φαίην αὐτὴν πνεῦμα Βορέου κατὰ τῶν πλησίον πετρῶν σὺν φαρμακείᾳ παίζουσαν ὦσαι, καὶ οὕτω δὴ τελευτήσασαν λεχθῆναι ὑπὸ τοῦ Βορέου ἀναρπαστὸν γεγονέναι.... Ἐγὼ δὲ, ὦ Φαῖδρε, ἄλλως μὲν τὰ τοιαῦτα χαρίεντα ἡγοῦμαι, λίαν δὲ δεινοῦ καὶ ἐπιπόνου καὶ οὐ πάνυ εὐτυχοῦς ἀνδρὸς, κατ᾽ ἄλλο μὲν οὐδὲν, ὅτι δ᾽ αὐτῷ ἀνάγκη μετὰ τοῦτο τὸ τῶν Ἱπποκενταύρων εἶδος ἐπανορθοῦσθαι, καὶ αὖθις τὸ τῆς Χιμαίρας. Καὶ ἐπιῤῥεῖ δὲ ὄχλος τοιούτων Γοργόνων καὶ Πηγάσων, καὶ ἄλλων ἀμηχάνων πλήθη τε καὶ ἀτοπίαι τερατολόγων τινῶν φύσεων· αἷς εἴ τις ἀπιστῶν προσβιβᾷ κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς ἕκαστον, ἅτε ἀγροίκῳ τινὶ σοφίᾳ χρώμενος, πολλῆς αὐτῷ σχολῆς δεήσει. Ἐμοὶ δὲ πρὸς ταῦτα οὐδαμῶς ἐστι σχολή.... Ὅθεν δὴ χαίρειν ἐάσας ταῦτα, πειθόμενος δὲ τῷ νομιζομένῳ περὶ αὐτῶν, ὃ νῦν δὴ ἔλεγον, σκοπῶ οὐ ταῦτα ἀλλ᾽ ἐμαυτὸν, etc.

[991] Plato, Repub. iii. 5. p. 391. The perfect ignorance of all men respecting the gods, rendered the task of fiction easy (Plato, Kritias, p. 107).

[992] Plato, Repub. ii. 16. p. 377. Λόγων δὲ διττὸν εἶδος, τὸ μὲν ἀληθὲς, ψεῦδος δ᾽ ἕτερον; Ναί. Παιδευτέον δ᾽ ἐν ἀμφοτέροις, πρότερον δ᾽ ἐν τοῖς ψεύδεσιν· ... Οὐ μανθάνεις, ὅτι πρῶτον τοῖς παιδίοις μύθους λέγομεν· τοῦτο δέ που ὡς τὸ ὅλον εἰπεῖν ψεῦδος, ἔνι δὲ καὶ ἀληθῆ.... Πρῶτον ἡμῖν ἐπιστατητέον τοῖς μυθοποιοῖς, καὶ ὃν μὲν ἂν καλὸν μῦθον ποιήσωσιν, ἐγκριτέον, ὃν δ᾽ ἂν μὴ, ἀποκριτέον ... ὧν δὲ νῦν λέγουσι, τοὺς πολλοὺς ἐκβλητέον ... οὓς Ἡσίοδος καὶ Ὅμηρος ἡμῖν ἐλεγέτην, καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι ποιηταί. Οὗτοι γάρ που μύθους τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ψευδεῖς συντιθέντες ἔλεγόν τε καὶ λέγουσι. Ποίους δὴ, ἦ δ᾽ ὅς, καὶ τί αὐτῶν μεμφόμενος λέγεις; Ὅπερ, ἦν δ᾽ ἐγὼ, χρὴ καὶ πρῶτον καὶ μάλιστα μέμφεσθαι, ἄλλως τε καὶ ἐάν τις μὴ καλῶς ψεύδηται. Τί τοῦτο; Ὅταν τις εἰκάζῃ κακῶς τῷ λόγῳ περὶ θεῶν τε καὶ ἡρώων, οἷοί εἰσιν, ὥσπερ γραφεὺς μηδὲν ἐοικότα γράφων οἷς ἂν ὅμοια βουληθῇ γράψαι.

The same train of thought, and the precepts founded upon it, are followed up through chaps. 17, 18, and 19; compare De Legg. xii. p. 941.

Instead of recognizing the popular or dramatic theology as something distinct from the civil (as Varro did), Plato suppresses the former as a separate department and merges it in the latter.

[993] Plato, Repub. ii. c. 21. p. 382. Τὸ ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ψεῦδος πότε καὶ τί χρήσιμον, ὥστε μὴ ἄξιον εἶναι μίσους; Ἆρ᾽ οὐ πρός τε τοὺς πολεμίους καὶ τῶν καλουμένων φίλων, ὅταν διὰ μανίαν ἤ τινα ἄνοιαν κακόν τι ἐπιχειρῶσι πράττειν, τότε ἀποτροπῆς ἕνεκα ὡς φάρμακον χρήσιμον γίγνεται; Καὶ ἐν αἷς νῦν δὴ ἐλέγομεν ταῖς μυθολογίαις, διὰ τὸ μὴ εἰδέναι ὅπῃ τἀληθὲς ἔχει περὶ τῶν παλαιῶν, ἀφομοιοῦντες τῷ ἀληθεῖ τὸ ψεῦδος, ὅτι μάλιστα, οὕτω χρήσιμον ποιοῦμεν;

[994] The censure which Xenophanês pronounced upon the Homeric legends has already been noticed: Herakleitus (Diogen. Laërt. ix. 1) and Metrodôrus, the companion and follower of Epicurus, were not less profuse in their invectives, ἐν γράμμασι τοσούτοις τῷ ποιητῇ λελοιδόρηται (Plutarch, Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, p. 1086). He even advised persons not to be ashamed to confess their utter ignorance of Homer, to the extent of not knowing whether Hectôr was a Greek or a Trojan (Plut. ib. p. 1094).

[995] Plato, Republic iii. 4-5. p. 391; De Legg. iii. 1. p. 677.

[996] For a description of similar tendencies in the Asiatic religions, see Mövers, Die Phönizier, ch. v. p. 153 (Bonn, 1841): he points out the same phænomena as in the Greek,—coalescence between the ideas of ancestry and worship,—confusion between gods and men in the past,—increasing tendency to Euêmerize (pp. 156-157).

[997] According to that which Aristotle seems to recognize (Histor. Animal. vii. 6), Hêraklês was father of seventy-two sons, but of only one daughter—he was essentially ἀῤῥενόγονος, illustrating one of the physical peculiarities noticed by Aristotle. Euripidês, however, mentions daughters of Hêraklês in the plural number (Euripid. Herakleid. 45).

[998] Hippocratês was twentieth in descent from Hêraklês, and nineteenth from Asklêpius (Vita Hippocr. by Soranus, ap. Westermann, Scriptor. Biographic. viii. 1); about Aristotle, see Diogen. Laërt. v. 1. Xenophôn, the physician of the emperor Claudius, was also an Asklêpiad (Tacit. Ann. xii. 61).

In Rhodes, the neighboring island to Kôs, was the gens Ἁλιάδαι, or sons of Hêlios, specially distinguished from the Ἁλιασταὶ of mere associated worshippers of Hêlios, τὸ κοινὸν τῶν Ἁλιαδῶν καὶ τῶν Ἁλιαστῶν (see the Inscription in Boeckh’s Collection, No. 2525, with Boeckh’s comment).

[999] Herodot. ii. 144. Ἑκαταίῳ δὲ γενεηλογήσαντι ἑωϋτὸν, καὶ ἀναδήσαντι ἐς ἑκκαιδέκατον θεὸν, ἀντεγενεηλόγησαν ἐπὶ τῇ ἀριθμήσει, οὐ δεκόμενοι παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ, ἀπὸ θεοῦ γένεσθαι ἄνθρωπον· ἀντεγενεηλόγησαν δὲ ὧδε, etc.

[1000] Herod. ii. 143-145. Καὶ ταῦτα Αἰγύπτιοι ἀτρεκέως φασὶν ἐπίστασθαι, αἰεί τε λογιζόμενοι καὶ αἰεὶ ἀπογραφόμενοι τὰ ἔτεα.

[1001] Herod. iv. 94-96. After having related the Euemeristic version given by the Hellespontic Greeks, he concludes with his characteristic frankness and simplicity—Ἐγὼ δὲ, περὶ μὲν τούτου καὶ τοῦ καταγαίου οἰκήματος, οὔτε ἀπιστέω, οὔτε ὦν πιστεύω τι λίην, δοκέω δὲ πολλοῖσι ἔτεσι πρότερον τὸν Ζάλμοξιν τοῦτον γενέσθαι Πυθαγόρεω. Εἴτε δὲ ἐγένετό τις Ζάλμοξις ἄνθρωπος, εἴτ᾽ ἐστὶ δαίμων τις Γέτησι οὗτος ἐπιχώριος, χαιρέτω. So Plutarch (Numa c. 19) will not undertake to determine whether Janus was a god or a king εἴτε δαίμων, εἴτε βασιλεὺς γενόμενος, etc.

Herakleitus the philosopher said that men were θεοὶ θνητοὶ, and the gods were ἄνθρωποι ἀθάνατοι (Lucian, Vitar. Auctio. c. 13. vol. i. p. 303, Tauch.: compare the same author, Dialog. Mortuor. iii. vol. i. p. 182, ed. Tauchn).

[1002] Iliad, v. 127:—

Of this undistinguishable confusion between gods and men, striking illustrations are to be found both in the third book of Cicero de Naturâ Deorum (16-21), and in the long disquisition of Strabo (x. pp. 467-474) respecting the Kabeiri, the Korybantes, the Dactyls of Ida; the more so, as he cites the statements of Pherekydês, Akusilaus, Dêmêtrius of Skêpsis, and others. Under the Roman empire, the lands in Greece belonging to the immortal gods were exempted from tribute. The Roman tax-collectors refused to recognize as immortal gods any persons who had once been men; but this rule could not be clearly applied (Cicero, Nat. Deor. iii. 20). See the remarks of Pausanias (ii. 26, 7) about Asklêpius: Galen, too, is doubtful about Asklêpius and Dionysus—Ἀσκληπιός γέ τοι καὶ Διόνυσος, εἶτ᾽ ἄνθρωποι πρότερον ἤστην, εἴτε καὶ ἀρχῆθεν θεοί (Galen in Protreptic. 9. tom. i. p. 22, ed. Kühn). Xenophôn (De Venat. c. i.) considers Cheirôn as the brother of Zeus.

The ridicule of Lucian (Deorum Concilium, t. iii. p 527-538, Hems.) brings out still more forcibly the confusion here indicated.

[1003] Ovid, Fasti, vi. 6-20:—

[1004] The fourth Eclogue of Virgil, under the form of a prophecy, gives a faithful picture of the heroic and divine past, to which the legends of Troy and the Argonauts belonged:—

[1005] Lucian, Pseudol. c. 4. Παρακλητέος ἡμῖν τῶν Μενάνδρου προλόγων εἷς, ὁ Ἔλεγχος, φίλος ἀληθείᾳ καὶ παῤῥησίᾳ θεὸς, οὐχ ὁ ἀσημότατος τῶν ἐπὶ τὴν σκήνην ἀναβαινόντων. (See Meineke ad Menandr. p. 284.)

[1006] The following passage from Dr. Ferguson’s Essay on Civil Society (part ii. sect. i. p. 126) bears well on the subject before us:—

“If conjectures and opinions formed at a distance have not a sufficient authority in the history of mankind, the domestic antiquities of every nation must for this very reason be received with caution. They are, for the most part, the mere conjectures or the fictions of subsequent ages; and even where at first they contained some resemblance of truth, they still vary with the imagination of those by whom they were transmitted, and in every generation receive a different form. They are made to bear the stamp of the times through which they have passed in the form of tradition, not of the ages to which their pretended descriptions relate.... When traditionary fables are rehearsed by the vulgar, they bear the marks of a national character, and though mixed with absurdities, often raise the imagination and move the heart: when made the materials of poetry, and adorned by the skill and the eloquence of an ardent and superior mind, they instruct the understanding as well as engage the passions. It is only in the management of mere antiquaries, or stript of the ornaments which the laws of history forbid them to wear, that they become unfit even to amuse the fancy or to serve any purpose whatever.

“It were absurd to quote the fable of the Iliad or the Odyssey, the legend of Hercules, Theseus, and Œdipus, as authorities in matters of fact relating to the history of mankind; but they may, with great justice, be cited to ascertain what were the conceptions and sentiments of the age in which they were composed, or to characterize the genius of that people with whose imaginations they were blended, and by whom they were fondly rehearsed and admired. In this manner, fiction may be admitted to vouch for the genius of nations, while history has nothing to offer worthy of credit.”

To the same purpose, M. Paulin Paris (in his Lettre à M. H. de Monmerqué, prefixed to the Roman de Berte aux Grans Piés, Paris, 1836), respecting the “romans” of the Middle Ages: “Pour bien connaître l’histoire du moyen âge, non pas celle des faits, mais celle des mœurs qui rendent les faits vraisemblables, il faut l’avoir étudiée dans les romans, et voilà pourquoi l’Histoire de France n’est pas encore faite.” (p. xxi.)

[1007] A curious evidence of the undiminished popularity of the Grecian mythes to the exclusion even of recent history, is preserved by Vopiscus at the beginning of his Life of Aurelian.

The præfect of the city of Rome, Junius Tiberianus, took Vopiscus into his carriage on the festival-day of the Hilaria; he was connected by the ties of relationship with Aurelian, who had died about a generation before—and as the carriage passed by the splendid Temple of the Sun, which Aurelian had consecrated, he asked Vopiscus, what author had written the life of that emperor? To which Vopiscus replied, that he had read some Greek works which touched upon Aurelian, but nothing in Latin. Whereat the venerable præfect was profoundly grieved: “Dolorem gemitûs sui vir sanctus per hæc verba profudit: Ergo Thersitem, Sinonem, cæteraque illa prodigia vetustatis, et nos bene scimus, et posteri frequentabunt: divum Aurelianum, clarissimum principem, severissimum Imperatorem, per quem totus Romano nomini orbis est restitutus, posteri nescient? Deus avertat hanc amentiam! Et tamen, si bene memini, ephemeridas illius viri scriptas habemus,” etc. (Historiæ August. Scriptt. p. 209, ed. Salmas.)

This impressive remonstrance produced the Life of Aurelian by Vopiscus. The materials seem to have been ample and authentic; it is to be regretted that they did not fall into the hands of an author qualified to turn them to better account.

[1008] Thucyd. vi. 56.

[1009] Pausan. i. 3, 3. Λέγεται μὲν δὴ καὶ ἄλλα οὐκ ἀληθῆ παρὰ τοῖς πολλοῖς, οἷα ἱστορίας ἀνηκόοις οὖσι, καὶ ὅποσα ἤκουον εὐθὺς ἐκ παιδῶν ἔν τε χόροις καὶ τραγῳδίαις πιστὰ ἡγουμένοις, etc. The treatise of Lucian, De Saltatione, is a curious proof how much these mythes were in every one’s memory, and how large the range of knowledge of them was which a good dancer possessed (see particularly c. 76-79. t. ii. p. 308-310, Hemst).

Antiphanês ap. Athenæ. vi. p. 223:—

The first pages of the eleventh Oration of Dio Chrysostom contain some striking passages both as to the universal acquaintance with the mythes, and as to their extreme popularity (Or. xi. p. 307-312, Reisk). See also the commencement of Heraklidês, De Allegoriâ Homericâ (ap. Scriptt. Myth. ed. Gale, p. 408), about the familiarity with Homer.

The Lydê of the poet Antimachus was composed for his own consolation under sorrow, by enumerating the ἡρωϊκὰς συμφοράς (Plutarch, Consolat. ad Apollôn. c. 9. p. 106: compare Æschines cont. Ktesiph. c. 48): a sepulchral inscription in Thêra, on the untimely death of Admêtus, a youth of the heroic gens Ægidae, makes a touching allusion to his ancestors Pêleus and Pherês (Boeckh, C. I. t. ii. p. 1087).

A curious passage of Aristotle is preserved by Dêmêtrius Phalereus (Περὶ Ἑρμηνείας, c. 144),—Ὅσῳ γὰρ αὐτίτης καὶ μονώτης εἰμὶ, φιλομυθότερος γέγονα (compare the passage in the Nikomachean Ethics, i. 9, μονώτης καὶ ἄτεκνος). Stahr refers this to a letter of Aristotle written in his old age, the mythes being the consolation of his solitude (Aristotelia, i. p. 201).

For the employment of the mythical names and incidents as topics of pleasing and familiar comparison, see Menander, Περὶ Ἐπιδεικτῖκ. § iv. capp. 9 and 11, ap. Walz. Coll. Rhett. t. ix. pp. 283-294. The degree in which they passed into the ordinary songs of women is illustrated by a touching epigram contained among the Chian Inscriptions published in Boeckh’s Collection (No. 2236):—

These two poor women were not afraid to boast of their family descent. They probably belonged to some noble gens which traced its origin to a god or a hero. About the songs of women, see also Agathias, i. 7. p. 29, ed. Bonn.

In the family of the wealthy Athenian Dêmocratês was a legend, that his primitive ancestor (son of Zeus by the daughter of the Archêgetês of the dême Aixôneis, to which he belonged) had received Hêraklês at his table: this legend was so rife that the old women sung it,—ἅπερ αἱ γραῖαι ᾄδουσι (Plato, Lysis, p. 205). Compare also a legend of the dême Ἀναγυροῦς, mentioned in Suidas ad voc.

“Who is this virgin?” asks Orestês from Pyladês in the Iphigeneia in Tauris of Euripidês (662), respecting his sister Iphigeneia, whom he does not know as priestess of Artemis in a foreign land:—

[1010] Plato, Phædo, c. 2.

[1011] The Philopseudes of Lucian (t. iii. p. 31, Hemst. cap. 2, 3, 4) shows not only the pride which the general public of Athens and Thêbes took in their old mythes (Triptolemus, Boreas, and Oreithyia, the Sparti, etc.), but the way in which they treated every man who called the stories in question as a fool or as an atheist. He remarks, that if the guides who showed the antiquities had been restrained to tell nothing but what was true, they would have died of hunger; for the visiting strangers would not care to hear plain truth, even if they could have got it for nothing (μηδὲ ἀμισθὶ τῶν ξένων ἀληθὲς ἀκούειν ἐθελησάντων).

[1012] Herodot. viii. 134.

[1013] Herodot. v. 67.

[1014] Euripid. Hippolyt. 1424; Pausan. ii. 32, 1; Lucian, De Deâ Syriâ, c. 60. vol. iv. p. 287, Tauch.

It is curious to see in the account of Pausanias how all the petty peculiarities of the objects around became connected with explanatory details growing out of this affecting legend. Compare Pausan. i. 22, 2.

[1015] Pausan. ix. 40, 6.

[1016] Plutarch, Marcell. c. 20; Pausan. iii. 3, 6.

[1017] Pausan. viii. 46, 1; Diogen. Laër. viii. 5; Strabo, vi. p. 263; Appian, Bell. Mithridat. c. 77; Æschyl. Eumen. 380.

Wachsmuth has collected the numerous citations out of Pausanias on this subject (Hellenische Alterthumskunde, part ii. sect. 115. p. 111).

[1018] Herodot. ii. 182; Plutarch, Pyrrh. c. 32; Schol. Apoll. Rhod iv. 1217; Diodôr. iv. 56.

[1019] Ἡμιθέων ἀρεταῖς, the subjects of the works of Polygnotus at Athens (Melanthius ap. Plutarch. Cimôn. c. 4): compare Theocrit. xv. 138.

[1020] The Centauromachia and the Amazonomachia are constantly associated together in the ancient Grecian reliefs (see the Expedition Scientifique de Morée, t. ii. p. 16, in the explanation of the temple of Apollo Epikureius at Phigaleia).

[1021] Pausan. ii. 29, 6.

[1022] Ernst Curtius, Die Akropolis von Athen, Berlin, 1844, p. 18. Arnobius adv. Gentes, vi. p. 203, ed. Elmenhorst.

[1023] See the case of the Æginêtans lending the Æakids for a time to the Thebans (Herodot. v. 80), who soon, however, returned them: likewise sending the Æakids to the battle of Salamis (viii. 64-80). The Spartans, when they decreed that only one of their two kings should be out on military service, decreed at the same time that only one of the Tyndarids should go out with them (v. 75): they once lent the Tyndarids as aids to the envoys of Epizephyrian Locri, who prepared for them a couch on board their ship (Diodôr. Excerpt. xvi. p. 15, Dindorf). The Thebans grant their hero Melanippus to Kleisthenês of Sikyôn (v. 68). What was sent, must probably have been a consecrated copy of the genuine statue.

Respecting the solemnities practised towards the statues, see Plutarch, Alkibiad. 34; Kallimach. Hymn. ad Lavacr. Palladis, init. with the note of Spanheim; K. O. Müller, Archæologie der Kunst, § 69; compare Plutarch, Quæstion. Romaic. § 61. p. 279; and Tacit. Mor. Germ. c. 40; Diodôr. xvii. 49.

The manner in which the real presence of a hero was identified with his statue (τὸν δίκαιον δεῖ θεὸν οἴκοι μένειν σώζοντα ροὺς ἱδρυμένους.—Menander, Fragm. Ἡνίοχος, p. 71, Meineke), consecrated ground, and oracle, is nowhere more powerfully attested than in the Heroïca of Philostratus (capp. 2-20. pp. 674-692; also De Vit Apollôn. Tyan. iv. 11), respecting Prôtesilaus at Elæus, Ajax at the Aianteium, and Hectôr at Ilium: Prôtesilaus appeared exactly in the equipment of his statue,—χλαμύδα ἐνῆπται, ξένε, τὸν Θετταλικὸν τρόπον, ὥσπερ καὶ τὸ ἄγαλμα τοῦτο (p. 674). The presence and sympathy of the hero Lykus is essential to the satisfaction of the Athenian dikasts (Aristophan. Vesp. 389-820): the fragment of Lucilius, quoted by Lactantius, De Falsâ Religione (i. 22), is curious.—Τοῖς ἥρωσι τοῖς κατὰ τὴν πόλιν καὶ τὴν χώραν ἱδρυμένοις (Lycurgus cont. Leocrat. c. 1).

[1024] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 12; Strabo, vi. p. 264. Theophrastus treats the perspiration as a natural phænomenon in the statues made of cedar-wood (Histor. Plant. v. 10). Plutarch discusses the credibility of this sort of miracles in his Life of Coriolanus, c. 37-38.

[1025] Herodot. vii. 189. Compare the gratitude of the Megalopolitans to Boreas for having preserved them from the attack of the Lacedæmonian king Agis (Pausan. viii. 27, 4.—viii. 36, 4). When the Ten Thousand Greeks were on their retreat through the cold mountains of Armenia, Boreas blew in their faces, “parching and freezing intolerably.” One of the prophets recommended that a sacrifice should be offered to him, which was done, “and the painful effect of the wind appeared to every one forthwith to cease in a marked manner;” (καὶ πᾶσι δὴ περιφανῶς ἔδοξε λῆξαι τὸ χαλεπὸν τοῦ πνεύματος.—Xenoph. Anab. iv. 5, 3.)