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LEGENDARY GREECE.

LEGENDS RESPECTING THE GODS.

LEGENDS RELATING TO HEROES AND MEN.

Races of men as they appear in the Hesiodic "Works and Days."--The Golden.--The Silver.--The Brazen.--The Heroic.--The Iron.--Different both from the Theogony and from Homer.--Explanation of this difference.--Ethical vein of sentiment.--Intersected by the mythical.--The "Works and Days," earliest didactic poem.--First Introduction of daemons.--Changes in the idea of daemons.--Employed in attacks on the pagan faith.--Functions of the Hesiodic daemons.--Personal feeling which pervades the "Works and Days."--Probable age of the poem. 64-73

LEGEND OF THE IAPETIDS.

Iapetids in Hesiod.--Prom?theus and Epim?theus.--Counter-manoeuvring of Prom?theus and Zeus.--Pand?ra.--Pand?ra in the Theogony.--General feeling of the poet.--Man wretched, but Zeus not to blame.--Mischiefs arising from women.--Punishment of Prom?theus.--The Prom?theus of AEschylus.--Locality in which Prom?theus was confined. 73-80

HEROIC LEGENDS.--GENEALOGY OF ARGUS.

Structure and purposes of Grecian genealogies.--To connect the Grecian community with their common god.--Lower members of the genealogy historical--higher members non-historical.--The non-historical portion equally believed, and most valued by the Greeks.--Number of such genealogies--pervading every fraction of Greeks.--Argeian genealogy.--Inachus.--Phor?neus.--Argos Panopt?s.--I?.--Romance of I? historicized by Persians and Phoenicians.--Legendary abductions of heroines adapted to the feelings prevalent during the Persian war.--Danaos and the Dana?des.--Acrisios and Proetos.--The Proetides cured of frenzy by Melampus.--Acrisios, Dana?, and Zeus.--Perseus and the Gorgons.--Foundation of Myc?nae--commencement of Perseid dynasty.--Amphitry?n, Alkm?n?, Sthenelos.--Zeus and Alkm?n?.--Birth of H?rakl?s.--Homeric legend of his birth: its expository value.--The H?rakleids expelled.--Their recovery of Peloponn?sus and establishment in Argos, Sparta, and Mess?nia. 80-95

DEUKALION, HELLEN, AND SONS OF HELLEN.

Deukali?n, son of Prom?theus.--Phthi?tis: his permanent seat.--General deluge.--Salvation of Deukali?n and Pyrrha.--Belief in this deluge throughout Greece.--Hell?n and Amphikty?n.--Sons of Hell?n: D?rus, Xuthus, AEolus.--Amphiktyonic assembly.--Common solemnities and games.--Division of Hellas: AEolians, D?rians, I?nians.--Large extent of D?ris implied in this genealogy.--This form of the legend harmonizes with the great establishments of the historical D?rians.--Achaeus--purpose which his name serves in the legend.--Genealogical diversities. 96-105

THE AEOLIDS, OR SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF AEOLUS.

THE PELOPIDS.

Misfortunes and celebrity of the Pelopids.--Pelops--eponym of Peloponn?sus.--Deduction of the sceptre of Pelops.--Kingly attributes of the family.--Homeric Pelops.--Lydia, Pisa, etc., post-Homeric additions.--Tantalus.--Niob?.--Pelops and OEnomaus, king of Pisa.--Chariot victory of Pelops--his principality at Pisa.--Atreus, Thyest?s, Chrysippus.--Family horrors among the Pelopids.--Agamemn?n and Menelaus.--Orest?s.--The goddess H?r? and Myk?nae.--Legendary importance of Myk?nae.--Its decline coincident with the rise of Argos and Sparta.--Agamemn?n and Orest?s transferred to Sparta. 153-167

LACONIAN AND MESSENIAN GENEALOGIES.

Lelex--autochthonous in Lac?nia.--Tyndareus and L?da.--Offspring of L?da.--1. Cast?r, Timandra, Klytaemn?stra, 2. Pollux, Helen.--Cast?r and Pollux.--Legend of the Attic Dekeleia.--Idas and Lynkeus.--Great functions and power of the Dioskuri.--Mess?nian genealogy.--Peri?r?s--Idas and Marp?ssa. 168-173

ARCADIAN GENEALOGY.

Pelasgus.--Lyka?n and his fifty sons.--Legend of Lyka?n--ferocity punished by the gods.--Deep religious faith of Pausanias.--His view of past and present world.--Kallist? and Arkas.--Azan, Apheidas, Elatus.--Aleus, Aug?, Telephus.--Ancaeus.--Echemus.--Echemus kills Hyllus.--H?rakleids repelled from Peloponn?sus.--Kor?nis and Askl?pius.--Extended worship of Askl?pius--numerous legends.--Macha?n and Podaleirius.--Numerous Askl?piads, or descendants from Askl?pius.--Temples of Askl?pius--sick persons healed there. 173-183

AEAKUS AND HIS DESCENDANTS.--AEGINA, SALAMIS, AND PHTHIA.

AEakus--son of Zeus and AEgina.--Offspring of AEakus--P?leus, Telam?n, Ph?kus.--Prayers of AEakus--procure relief for Greece--Ph?kus killed by P?leus and Telam?n.--Telam?n, banished, goes to Salamis.--P?leus--goes to Phthia--his marriage with Thetis.--Neoptolemus.--Ajax, his son Philaeus the eponymous hero of a d?me in Attica.--Teukrus banished, settles in Cyprus.--Diffusion of the AEakid genealogy. 184-190

ATTIC LEGENDS AND GENEALOGIES.

Erechtheus--autochthonous.--Attic legends--originally from different roots--each d?me had its own.--Little noticed by the old epic poets.--Kekrops.--Kranaus--Pandi?n.--Daughters of Pandi?n--Prokn?, Philom?la.--Legend of T?reus.--Daughters of Erechtheus--Prokris.--Kre?sa.--Oreithyia, the wife of Boreas.--Prayers of the Athenians to Boreas--his gracious help in their danger.--Erechtheus and Eumolpus.--Voluntary self-sacrifice of the three daughters of Erechtheus.--Kre?sa and I?n.--Sons of Pandi?n--AEgeus, etc.--Th?seus.--His legendary character refined.--Plutarch--his way of handling the matter of legend.--Legend of the Amazons.--Its antiquity and prevalence.--Glorious achievements of the Amazons.--Their ubiquity.--Universally received as a portion of the Greek past.--Amazons produced as present by the historians of Alexander.--Conflict of faith and reason in the historical critics. 191-217

KRETAN LEGENDS.--MINOS AND HIS FAMILY.

Min?s and Rhadamanthus, sons of Zeus.--Europ?.--Pasipha? and the Min?taur.--Scylla and Nisus.--Death of Androgeos, and anger of Min?s against Athens.--Athenian victims for the Min?taur.--Self-devotion of Th?seus--he kills the Min?taur.--Athenian commemorative ceremonies.--Family of Min?s.--Min?s and Daedalus--flight of the latter to Sicily.--Min?s goes to retake him, but is killed.--Semi-Kr?tan settlements elsewhere--connected with this voyage of Min?s.--Sufferings of the Kr?tans afterwards from the wrath of Min?s.--Portrait of Min?s--how varied.--Affinity between Kr?te and Asia Minor. 218-230

ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION.

Ship Arg? in the Odyssey.--In Hesiod and Eum?lus.--Jas?n and his heroic companions.--L?mnos.--Adventures at Kyzikus, in Bithynia, etc.--H?rakl?s and Hylas.--Phineus.--Dangers of the Sympl?gades.--Arrival at Kolchis.--Conditions imposed by AE?t?s as the price of the golden fleece.--Perfidy of AE?t?s--flight of the Argonauts and M?dea with the fleece.--Pursuit of AE?t?s--the Argonauts saved by M?dea.--Return of the Argonauts--circuitous and perilous.--Numerous and wide-spread monuments referring to the voyage.--Argonautic legend generally.--Fabulous geography--gradually modified as real geographical knowledge increased.--Transposition of epical localities.--How and when the Argonautic voyage became attached to Kolchis.--AE?t?s and Circ?.--Return of the Argonauts--different versions.--Continued faith in the voyage--basis of truth determined by Strabo. 231-256

LEGENDS OF THEBES.

Abundant legends of Th?bes.--Amphi?n and Zethus, Homeric founders of Kadmus and Boe?tus--both distinct legends.--Th?bes.--How Th?bes was founded by Kadmus.--Five primitive families at Th?bes called Sparti.--The four daughters of Kadmus: 1. In?; 2. Semel?; 3. Autono? and her son Actae?n; 4. Agav? and her son Pentheus.--He resists the god Dionysus--his miserable end.--Labdakus, Antiop?, Amphi?n, and Z?thus.--Laius--OEdipus--Legendary celebrity of OEdipus and his family.--The Sphinx.--Eteokl?s and Polynik?s.--Old epic poems on the sieges of Th?bes. 256-269

SIEGES OF THEBES.

Curse pronounced by the devoted Oedipus upon his sons.--Novelties introduced by Sophokl?s.--Death of Oedipus--quarrel of Eteokl?s and Polynik?s for the sceptre.--Polynik?s retires to Argos--aid given to him by Adrastus.--Amphiar?us and Eriphyl?.--Seven chiefs of the army against Th?bes.--Defeat of the Th?bans in the field--heroic devotion of Menoekus.--Single combat of Eteokl?s and Polynik?s, in which both perish.--Repulse and destruction of the Argeian chiefs--all except Adrastus--Amphiar?us is swallowed up in the earth.--Kre?n, king of Th?bes, forbids the burial of Polynik?s and the other fallen Argeian chiefs.--Devotion and death of Antigon?.--The Athenians interfere to procure the interment of the fallen chiefs.--Second siege of Th?bes by Adrastus with the Epigoni, or sons of those slain in the first.--Victory of the Epigoni--capture of Th?bes.--Worship of Adrastus at Siky?n--how abrogated by Kleisthen?s.--Alkmae?n--his matricide and punishment.--Fatal necklace of Eriphyl?. 269-284

LEGEND OF TROY.

Great extent and variety of the tale of Troy.--Dardanus, son of Zeus.--Ilus, founder of Ilium.--Walls of Ilium built by Poseid?n.--Capture of Ilium by H?rakl?s.--Priam and his offspring.--Paris--his judgment on the three goddesses.--Carries off Helen from Sparta.--Expedition of the Greeks to recover her.--Heroes from all parts of Greece combined under Agamemn?n.--Achilles and Odysseus.--The Grecian host mistakes Teuthrania for Troy--Telephus.--Detention of the Greeks at Aulis--Agamemnon and Iphigeneia.--First success of the Greeks on landing near Troy.--Bris?is awarded to Achilles.--Palam?d?s--his genius, and treacherous death.--Epic chronology--historicized.--Period of the Homeric Iliad.--Hect?r killed by Achilles.--New allies of Troy--Penthesileia.--Memn?n--killed by Achilles.--Death of Achilles.--Funeral games celebrated in honor of him.--Quarrel about his panoply.--Odysseus prevails and Ajax kills himself.--Philokt?t?s and Neoptolemus.--Capture of the Palladium.--The wooden horse.--Destruction of Troy.--Distribution of the captives among the victors.--Helen restored to Menelaus--lives in dignity at Sparta--passes to a happy immortality.--Blindness and cure of the poet Stesichorus--alteration of the legend about Helen.--Egyptian tale about Helen--tendency to historicize.--Return of the Greeks from Troy.--Their sufferings--anger of the gods.--Wanderings of the heroes in all directions.--Memorials of them throughout the Grecian world.--Odysseus--his final adventures and death.--AEneas and his descendants.--Different stories about AEneas.--AEneadae at Sk?psis.--Ubiquity of AEneas.--Anten?r.--Tale of Troy--its magnitude and discrepancies.--Trojan war--essentially legendary--its importance as an item in Grecian national faith.--Basis of history for it--possible, and nothing more.--Historicizing innovations--Dio Chrysostom.--Historical Ilium.--Generally received and visited as the town of Priam.--Respect shown to it by Alexander.--Successors of Alexander--foundation of Alexandreia Tr?as.--The Romans--treat Ilium with marked respect.--Mythical legitimacy of Ilium--first called in question by D?m?trius of Sk?psis and Hestiaea.--Supposed Old Ilium, or real Troy, distinguished from New Ilium.--Strabo alone believes in Old Ilium as the real Troy--other authors continue in the old faith--the moderns follow Strabo.--The mythical faith not shaken by topographical impossibilities.--Historical Tr?as and the Teukrians.--AEolic Greeks in the Tr?ad--the whole territory gradually AEolized.--Old date, and long prevalence of the worship of Apollo Sminthius.--Asiatic customs and religion--blended with Hellenic.--Sibylline prophecies.--Settlements from Mil?tus, Mityl?n?, and Athens. 284-340

GRECIAN MYTHES, AS UNDERSTOOD, FELT, AND INTERPRETED BY THE GREEKS THEMSELVES.

THE GRECIAN MYTHICAL VEIN COMPARED WITH THAT OF MODERN EUROPE.

HISTORY OF GREECE.

LEGENDARY GREECE.

LEGENDS RESPECTING THE GODS.

The mythical world of the Greeks opens with the gods, anterior as well as superior to man: it gradually descends, first to heroes, and next to the human race. Along with the gods are found various monstrous natures, ultra-human and extra-human, who cannot with propriety be called gods, but who partake with gods and men in the attributes of free-will, conscious agency, and susceptibility of pleasure and pain,--such as the Harpies, the Gorgons, the Graeae, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, Echidna, Sphinx, Chimaera, Chrysaor, Pegasus, the Cycl?pes, the Centaurs, etc. The first acts of what may be termed the great mythical cycle describe the proceedings of these gigantic agents--the crash and collision of certain terrific and overboiling forces, which are ultimately reduced to obedience, or chained up, or extinguished, under the more orderly government of Zeus, who supplants his less capable predecessors, and acquires precedence and supremacy over gods and men--subject, however to certain social restraints from the chief gods and goddesses around him, as well as to the custom of occasionally convoking and consulting the divine agora.

I recount these events briefly, but literally, treating them simply as mythes springing from the same creative imagination, addressing themselves to analogous tastes and feelings, and depending upon the same authority, as the legends of Thebes and Troy. It is the inspired voice of the Muse which reveals and authenticates both, and from which Homer and Hesiod alike derive their knowledge--the one, of the heroic, the other, of the divine, foretime. I maintain, moreover, fully, the character of these great divine agents as Persons, which is the light in which they presented themselves to the Homeric or Hesiodic audience. Uranos, Nyx, Hypnos and Oneiros , are Persons, just as much as Zeus and Apollo. To resolve them into mere allegories, is unsafe and unprofitable: we then depart from the point of view of the original hearers, without acquiring any consistent or philosophical point of view of our own. For although some of the attributes and actions ascribed to these persons are often explicable by allegory the whole series and system of them never are so: the theorist who adopts this course of explanation finds that, after one or two simple and obvious steps, the path is no longer open, and he is forced to clear a way for himself by gratuitous refinements and conjectures. The allegorical persons and attributes are always found mingled with other persons and attributes not allegorical; but the two classes cannot be severed without breaking up the whole march of the mythical events, nor can any explanation which drives us to such a necessity be considered as admissible. To suppose indeed that these legends could be all traced by means of allegory into a coherent body of physical doctrine, would be inconsistent with all reasonable presumptions respecting the age or society in which they arose. Where the allegorical mark is clearly set upon any particular character, or attribute, or event, to that extent we may recognize it; but we can rarely venture to divine further, still less to alter the legends themselves on the faith of any such surmises. The theogony of the Greeks contains some cosmogonic ideas; but it cannot be considered as a system of cosmogony, or translated into a string of elementary, planetary, or physical changes.

It is sufficient, here, to state this position briefly: more will be said respecting the allegorizing interpretation in a future chapter.

In the order of legendary chronology, Zeus comes after Kronos and Uranos; but in the order of Grecian conception, Zeus is the prominent person, and Kronos and Uranos are inferior and introductory precursors, set up in order to be overthrown and to serve as mementos of the prowess of their conqueror. To Homer and Hesiod, as well as to the Greeks universally, Zeus is the great and predominant god, "the father of gods and men," whose power none of the other gods can hope to resist, or even deliberately think of questioning. All the other gods have their specific potency and peculiar sphere of action and duty, with which Zeus does not usually interfere; but it is he who maintains the lineaments of a providential superintendence, as well over the phaenomena of Olympus as over those of earth. Zeus and his brothers Poseid?n and Had?s have made a division of power: he has reserved the aether and the atmosphere to himself--Poseid?n has obtained the sea--and Had?s the under-world or infernal regions; while earth, and the events which pass upon earth, are common to all of them, together with free access to Olympus.

See Iliad, viii. 405, 463; xv. 20, 130, 185. Hesiod, Theog. 885.

This unquestioned supremacy is the general representation of Zeus: at the same time the conspiracy of H?r?, Poseid?n, and Ath?n? against him, suppressed by the unexpected apparition of Briareus as his ally, is among the exceptions. Zeus is at one time vanquished by Titan, but rescued by Herm?s. .

Zeus, then, with his brethren and colleagues, constitute the present gods, whom Homer and Hesiod recognize as in full dignity and efficiency. The inmates of this divine world are conceived upon the model, but not upon the scale, of the human. They are actuated by the full play and variety of those appetites, sympathies, passions and affections, which divide the soul of man; invested with a far larger and indeterminate measure of power, and an exemption as well from death as from suffering and infirmity. The rich and diverse types thus conceived, full of energetic movement and contrast, each in his own province, and soaring confessedly above the limits of experience, were of all themes the most suitable for adventure and narrative, and operated with irresistible force upon the Grecian fancy. All nature was then conceived as moving and working through a number of personal agents, amongst whom the gods of Olympus were the most conspicuous; the reverential belief in Zeus and Apollo being only one branch of this omnipresent personifying faith. The attributes of all these agents had a tendency to expand themselves into illustrative legends--especially those of the gods, who were constantly invoked in the public worship. Out of this same mental source sprang both the divine and heroic mythes--the former being often the more extravagant and abnormous in their incidents, in proportion as the general type of the gods was more vast and awful than that of the heroes.

As the gods have houses and wives like men, so the present dynasty of gods must have a past to repose upon; and the curious and imaginative Greek, whenever he does not find a recorded past ready to his hand, is uneasy until he has created one. Thus the Hesiodic theogony explains, with a certain degree of system and coherence, first the antecedent circumstances under which Zeus acquired the divine empire, next the number of his colleagues and descendants.

Arist. Polit. i. 1. ????? ?? ??? ?? ???? ??????? ??????????? ????????, ????? ??? ???? ?????, ??? ????.

First in order of time came Chaos; next Gaea, the broad, firm, and flat Earth, with deep and dark Tartarus at her base. Er?s , the subduer of gods as well as men, came immediately afterwards.

Hesiod, Theog. 116. Apollod?rus begins with Uranos and Gaea ; he does not recognize Er?s, Nyx, or Erebos.

From Chaos sprung Erebos and Nyx; from these latter AEth?r and H?mera. Gaea also gave birth to Uranos, equal in breadth to herself, in order to serve both as an overarching vault to her, and as a residence for the immortal gods; she further produced the mountains, habitations of the divine nymphs, and Pontus, the barren and billowy sea.

Then Gaea intermarried with Uranos, and from this union came a numerous offspring--twelve Titans and Titanides, three Cycl?pes, and three Hekatoncheires or beings with a hundred hands each. The Titans were Oceanus, Koeos, Krios, Hyperi?n, Iapetos, and Kronos: the Titanides, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mn?mosyn?, Phoeb?, and T?thys. The Cycl?pes were Bront?s, Sterop?s, and Arg?s,--formidable persons, equally distinguished for strength and for manual craft, so that they made the thunder which afterwards formed the irresistible artillery of Zeus. The Hekatoncheires were Kottos, Briareus, and Gyg?s, of prodigious bodily force.

Uranos contemplated this powerful brood with fear and horror; as fast as any of them were born, he concealed them in cavities of the earth, and would not permit them to come out. Gaea could find no room for them, and groaned under the pressure: she produced iron, made a sickle, and implored her sons to avenge both her and themselves against the oppressive treatment of their father. But none of them, except Kronos, had courage to undertake the deed: he, the youngest and the most daring, was armed with the sickle and placed in suitable ambush by the contrivance of Gaea. Presently night arrived, and Uranos descended to the embraces of Gaea: Kronos then emerged from his concealment, cut off the genitals of his father, and cast the bleeding member behind him far away into the sea. Much of the blood was spilt upon the earth, and Gaea in consequence gave birth to the irresistible Erinnys, the vast and muscular Gigantes, and the Melian nymphs. Out of the genitals themselves, as they swam and foamed upon the sea, emerged the goddess Aphrodit?, deriving her name from the foam out of which she had sprung. She first landed at Kyth?ra, and then went to Cyprus: the island felt her benign influence, and the green herb started up under her soft and delicate tread. Er?s immediately joined her, and partook with her the function of suggesting and directing the amorous impulses both of gods and men.

Hesiod, Theog. 160, 182. Apollod. i. 1, 4.

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