Chapter 7

ἡ δ’ ἄρα πὰρ Διῒ πατρὶ καθέζετο, εἶξε δ’ Ἀθήνη[80].An exactly similar proceeding is recorded in the Third Odyssey. When Telemachus and the pseudo-Mentor approach the banquet of Nestor, Pisistratus, the youngest son, first goes to greet them, and then places them in the seat of honour, between his father and his eldest brother[81],πάρ τε κασιγνήτῳ Θρασυμήδεϊ καὶ πατέρι ᾧ·that is, by the side of Nestor; Thrasymedes giving way to make room for them, and remaining on the other side of them, like Minerva in the Twenty-Fourth Iliad.Of Apollo.Homer has left no express record on this particular point with reference to Apollo. In the ancient Hymn,however, a part of which is quoted by Thucydides, this honour is distinctly assigned to that divinity in these fine lines[82]:ὅν τε θεοὶ κατὰ δῶμα Διὸς τρομέουσιν ἰόντα·καί ῥάτ’ ἀναΐσσουσιν ἐπισχέδον ἐρχομένοιοπάντες ἀφ’ ἑδράων, ὅτε φαίδιμα τόξα τιταίνει.Intimacy of their relations with Jupiter.4. More remarkable and important, however, than this precedence of Minerva in the Olympian Court, are the relations of will and affection between Jupiter and these two, as compared with his other children.To these, and these only, does he ever use any term of positive endearment. Minerva is twice calledφίλον τέκος, and Apollo is twice addressed in the vocative asφίλε Φοῖβε[83]. This is the more worthy of note, because it might have been expected that other divinities rather than these, for example, Mercury on account of his youth, or Venus for her beauty and blandishments, would have been the preferable objects of these phrases. But there is nothing of the sort in the case of Mercury, and in that of Venus, the nearest approach isτέκνον ἐμόν(Il. v. 428). She is only addressed asφίλον τέκοςby Juno, who was not her mother, and this at a moment when it was convenient to pass a gross deception upon her[84].Minerva is, indeed, sufficiently forward to place herself in opposition to Jupiter for purposes of her own: she does not exhibit the principle of full obedience, but then she is strong in the self-consciousness of right as well as in power. She goes all lengths in thwarting Jupiter in the Iliad, excites his wrath, and draws down on herself his menaces[85]. But her general aim is to give effect toa design so unequivocally approved in Olympus, that Jupiter himself has been constrained to give way to it; namely, the vindication of justice by the fall of Troy. And consequently, upon the slightest indication from her of a conciliatory disposition, Jupiter shows himself appeased, and seems to regret his own rigour[86].The case of Apollo stands alone as an exhibition of entire harmony with the will of Jupiter. On no single occasion does he act or speak in a different sense from that of his parent. In the Olympian Council of the Twenty-Fourth Iliad, having to make a strong remonstrance respecting the dishonoured condition of the body of Hector, he is careful to address it not to Jupiter, but to the body of gods present[87];σχέτλιοί ἐστε, θεοὶ, δηλήμονες.And consequently, when Juno follows with a sharp invective aimed at him, Jupiter immediately checks her[88], and gives effect to the counsel of Apollo. Generally throughout the poem he is the organ of Jupiter for all that is about to be effected on behalf of Troy, but never for any purpose which is to prove abortive. When, under the divine decree, Hector is about to be slain by Achilles, Apollo withdraws from the doomed warrior, and Minerva joins the favoured one.This union of the will of Apollo with that of Jupiter must not be lightly passed by. It is in truth one of the very strongest arguments to show the presence of traditionary elements in this great conception. For wide as is the prevalence of the law of discord upon earth, that evil is hardly less rife in Olympus. Not only do menaces form the supreme sanction by which in many cases its government is carried on, but everykind of personal grudge and quarrel abounds, as well as a general tendency to intrigue and insubordination. So that it does not sound strange to us, when Jupiter uses to his son Mars what nevertheless upon examination we must allow to be an astonishing expression;ἔχθιστος δέ μοί ἐσσι θεῶν, οἳ Ὄλυμπον ἔχουσιν[89].Among all the rest of the prominent divinities, there is no single instance of a positive harmony of will pervading the whole course of action, either as between any one of them and Jupiter, or as among themselves. I therefore take it as a very strong indication that materials were brought for this tradition, so different in kind from what Olympus yielded, out of a source higher than Olympus.5. In the point next to be stated Apollo is chiefly concerned.Apollo the deliverer of heaven.It is the remarkable tradition, which makes that god the defender and deliverer of heaven and the other Immortals.Otus and Ephialtes, twin grandchildren of Neptune, and the most huge in stature of all beings reared on earth, as also the most beautiful after Orion, threaten even in their boyhood war against heaven, and propose to scale it by piling the mountains. And this they would have accomplished, had they attained to their proper age and full size (ἥβη): but Apollo destroyed them first[90].This is a tradition which cannot properly belong to Greek invention: for what has Apollo to do, when so regarded, either with the wielding of vast physical force, or with laying it prostrate? Neither as physician, harper, poet, prophet, archer, nor angel of Death, does he appear to have been the person who would have been chosen for this purpose. The thunderbolt ofJupiter is the weapon we should have expected to be employed in preference, or the mighty spear and terrifying Ægis of Minerva, or even the brute bulk of Mars. The gentle death, which it was Apollo’s mythological office to bring about, is totally unsuited to the subject.It is only when we expand that mild conception into the character of the Avenger, partially exhibited in the First Iliad, that Apollo becomes the fitting destroyer of Otus and Ephialtes. This tradition in aftertimes was apparently combined with a larger one relating to the Giants, at which Homer darkly glances[91].Ovid makes Jupiter his own defender[92]: a fine passage in Horace introduces many divine combatants, but retains a rather prominent place for Apollo, while it gives another to Minerva; and these two with Jupiter appear to bear the brunt of the battle[93].It admits of but one satisfactory explanation, namely that, coming from a source higher than the mythology, it does not, so to speak, wear the livery of that system: and that this performance is assigned to Apollo, either because he represented the Person to whom all power was to belong in heaven and earth both for destruction and for deliverance, or else because tradition actually assigned to that same Person the glory of having already overcome a rebellion of powerful beings against the Most High.There is no precise parallel supplied by Homer, in the case of Minerva, to the tradition which makes Apollo the destroyer of the rebels. But though not the defender of the divine order at large, she is the champion of Hercules, the favourite son of Jupiter,under circumstances when apparently, but for her, his divinity would have been at fault. ‘What!’ says Minerva, when thwarted by her parent in the Eighth Iliad, ‘has he forgotten how many times I saved his son in the labours imposed upon him by Eurystheus? Had I, at the time when Hercules was sent by him to fetch Cerberus out of the under-world, known how he would behave now, never should he have escaped the dread streams of Styx[94].’ We are left to infer from this curious legend that Minerva had a power, available in the world below, which tradition did not assign to Jupiter, and that he found her use of it on this occasion absolutely indispensable for the fulfilment of his wishes, even in regard to a favourite son.Each of these functions, assigned to Apollo and Minerva respectively, recalls to memory those Jewish traditions, which set forth the direct and especial power of the Messiah over the fallen angels and over the grave.These deities are never foiled by others.6. The last characteristic of the two peculiarly traditive deities which will be mentioned under this head is, that they are never foiled, defeated, or outwitted by any other of the gods. In no single case has Minerva, where she is in action, to encounter any one of these forms of dishonour: nor has Apollo, in any instance except only when he is pitted against Minerva. Of this class there are two cases: one, when the Greeks are losing ground[95], and he is made to arrange with her for stopping the general conflict, by prompting the personal challenge from Hector in its stead: a matter which was certain to end to the credit of the Greeks. The other is in the Doloneia[96], when he causes an alarm just in timeto find that Diomed and Ulysses, guided by Minerva, have accomplished the bloody purpose of their errand. Among men, as among gods, Minerva touches nothing except what is destined to triumph. She is not, therefore, invoked by the doomed Patroclus: and she renders him no aid.To appreciate the importance of this consideration, we must bear in mind that there is no one of the purely invented deities, who is not at one time or another subject in some form to disparagement. Mars is worsted by Minerva, through Diomed, as well as directly subject to her control; Vulcan is laughed at by the gods in general; Mercury dares not encounter Latona; Ceres sees her lover slain by Jupiter; Venus is not only smitten to the ground by Minerva, but beaten by Diomed without his having any divine aid to strengthen him, and befooled by Juno; Juno outwits Jupiter himself; but Juno also, together with Aides, is wounded sorely by Hercules; and it is also recorded of her, that she had been subjected by her husband to the ignominious punishment of hanging in chains, with an anvil at each foot[97].Neptune is no where subjected to personal ignominy; but he is baffled by Laomedon, and is also unable to avenge effectually the mutilation of his son Polyphemus. Nay, Jupiter himself, besides being deceived by Juno, was menaced by a formidable combination, who were about to put him in fetters, when Briareus came to his aid[98].On the other hand, Apollo arrests with sudden shock the victorious career of Diomed[99], and again of Patroclus[100]. And in the destinies of Ulysses, Minerva, whoprotects him, effectually, though after a struggle, prevails against Neptune, who does his uttermost against him. In order, however, justly to estimate the weight of this consideration, we must not omit to notice, that it has cost Homer an elaborate, and what we might otherwise call a far-fetched contrivance[101], to save Apollo from dishonour in the Theomachy. He is there matched against Neptune, a deity of rank equal to that of Jupiter, and in force inferior to his elder brother alone. It was therefore inadmissible that such a god should be subjected to defeat. But if Apollo were no more than one of the ordinary deities of invention, no similar reason could apply to him. He was junior: he was a son of Jupiter, like Mars or Mercury: he was on the losing side, that of the Trojans: why should he not, like Mars, be well thrashed by his antagonist? It could only be, I think, in consequence of some broad line of demarcation between them: some severance which determines their characters and positions as radically and fundamentally, and not by mere accident, divided.If we consider the mere birth of these two deities according to the Olympian order, every consideration derived from that source would tend to assign to Mars a higher place than Apollo. His function was more commanding: for in an age of turbulence, and among a people given alike to freebooting and to open war, what pacific office could compete, abstractedly, with that of the god of arms? Again, Mars is the son of Juno, who is the eldest daughter of Saturn, the original and principal wife of Jupiter, the acknowledged queen of Olympus: the coequal in birth of the great trine brotherhood,and second in power to none but Jupiter himself. Why should the child of Latona be placed so far above the child of one so much his superior in birth, according to the mythological order? Why is his position so different from that enjoyed by the child of Dione, or the child of Ceres?But so studiously does Homer cherish the dignity of Apollo, that he does not even throw on him the burden of taking the initiative in proposing the plan by which it is to be saved. This is managed with great care and art. ‘Let us two fight,’ says Neptune, ‘but do you begin, as I am the older, and know better.’ And then, by bringing up their common grudge against Laomedon, he proceeds to show of what absurdity Apollo would be guilty if he were to follow the ironical advice, and thus makes it easy, indeed inevitable, for him to echo the sentiment, and say, let us leave them, hapless mortals, to themselves.With this we may compare two other arrangements conceived in the same spirit. In the Fifteenth Iliad, Jupiter takes care that the mission of Apollo to assist the Trojans shall only begin when Neptune, the formidable friend of the Greeks, has already quitted the field of battle[102]. And in the Fifth Odyssey, it is contrived that only when Neptune withdraws from the persecution of Ulysses, then at length Minerva shall instantly appear to resume her charge over him[103].When we come to discuss the position of Latona, both generally and in the Theomachy, further force will, I think, be added to the foregoing considerations. On the other hand, I admit that the legend of Apollo with Laomedon, which represents that he and Neptune were deceived by that king, is not, so far as I see, explained inany manner which should place it in entire harmony with the general rule we have been considering, unless we may consider that he had his revenge in the opportunity afforded him by the Theomachy of refusing to fight for Troy. But this is a case of treatment by a mortal, not by a god; and it belongs to a different order.I now proceed to touch upon the pre-eminence of Minerva and Apollo in points connected with their terrestrial relations, and with what may be termed the physical conditions of their existence.1. It is quite clear from Homer, that these two deities received from men a special and peculiar honour: though it may be open to question, whether this retained only the indeterminate form of a sentiment, or whether it was embodied in some fact or usage.Pallas and Apollo have the exclusive distinction of being invoked in conjunction with Jupiter, in the remarkable lineΑἲ γὰρ, Ζεῦ τε πάτερ καὶ Ἀθηναίη καὶ Ἄπολλον.This verse meets us, not upon occasions having reference to any peculiar rite or function, but simply when the speaker desires to give utterance with a peculiar solemnity or emphasis to some strong and paramount desire. Thus Agamemnon wishes, with this adjuration, that he had ten such counsellors as Nestor[104]: and again, that all his warriors had the same activity of spirit as the two Ajaxes[105]. Nestor with these words wishes himself young again[106]: as does old Laertes[107]. Achilles prays in this form, when exasperated, for the destruction of Greeks and Trojans alike[108]: Menelaus for the appearance of Ulysses among the Suitors[109]; Alcinous thus expresses the wish that Ulysses couldbe the husband of Nausicaa[110]: and lastly, Telemachus, that the Suitors were in a worse condition than the disabled Irus[111].The Trine Invocation.The expression never is heard from the mouth of any Trojan; for Homer, on whatever account, rarely allows them the use of the same formulæ with the Greeks. But the whole substance of it is contained, and in a shape even more restrictive, in the line twice spoken by Hector,Τιοίμην δ’, ὡς τιέτ’ Ἀθηναίη καὶ Απόλλων.This language is indeed so pointed, that it suggests the question, whether there must not have been some peculiar form of external honour, which in the Heroic age was rendered to these deities, and not to others.And, singularly enough, of the temples of the Homeric poems, all that we can point out as unequivocally named, and in existence, are temples either to Apollo or to Pallas. But the phrases may also have pointed towards others of their very numerous distinctions. I do not, accordingly, venture to assert that this actually was the exclusive honour of the two deities; but there is nothing absurd in the supposition that it may have been so. It would not have been inconsistent with a belief in Jupiter as the highest god, that those, who were believed to be in a peculiar sense his ministers and organs for the government of the world, should either have received at the hands of mankind a larger share of the substantial tributes of worship than he did, or should have enjoyed it under a peculiar form and conditions.Their worship universal.2. It would appear to be indubitable, that Apollo and Minerva were objects not of partial but of universal worship, within the sphere of the knowledge of Homer.Even without examination of details, the proof of this proposition might rest upon their relative positions in regard to the two parties of Greeks and Trojans. Minerva, the great Hellenizing deity, is the object of the supplicatory procession of Trojan women in the Sixth Book. She is the peculiar patroness at once of the highly Pelasgian Attica[112], and of the characteristic type of Hellenic character represented in Ulysses. On the other hand, Apollo, the one really effective champion of the Trojans, is acknowledged by every Greek chieftain, except Agamemnon, at the very outset of the poem[113]. Agamemnon himself has only been misled by his own avarice and passion, and he shortly sends a solemn mission to appease the offended divinity[114].Setting aside the case of Jupiter, who stands on a different level, there is nothing attaching to the other deities of the War, which at all resembles the position of command enjoyed in common by these two, both among their friends, and with those against whom they are contending. There is not even a difference of degree to be traced between the reverence paid them on the one side, and on the other.When we turn to particulars, we find that Minerva has a temple in Troy, a temple in Athens, a sacred grove in Scheria. She is worshipped by Nestor on the sea-shore at Pylos, and, near the Minyeius; by Telemachus in Ithaca; by Ulysses and Diomed in the Greek camp. She accompanies Ulysses every where, while he is within the circle of the Greek traditions; only refrains of her own free will from going beyond it; and rejoins him when, near Scheria, he has at length again touched upon the outermost border of the Greek world.There is no deity, without excepting even Jupiter, with respect to whom we have such ample evidence in the poems of the development of his worship in positive and permanent institutions, as is given in the case of Apollo. He has a priest at Chryse, a temple in Troy, a priest and grove at Ismarus in Thrace, a grove and festivals in Ithaca, oracles at Delos and at Delphi.Besides these positive institutions, there are in Homer innumerable marks of his influence. He worked for Laomedon, he is worshipped at Cille; the name of Lycia seems to have been probably derived from him and his attributes; the Seers, whom he endows with vision, are found in Peloponnesus, and even among the Cyclops; he feeds the horses of Admetus either in Pieria or in Pheræ, claims the services of Alcyone, the daughter of Marpessa, in Ætolia, and slays the children of Niobe near mount Sipylus. So far as the Homeric signs go, they would lead us to suppose that he was regarded by the Poet as a deity no less universal than that Scourge of Death, to which he stands in such a close and solemn relation.With the exception of Jupiter, there is no other deity of whom we can so confidently assert that he receives an universal worship: and Neptune is the only other, with Minerva, in regard to whom the indications of the poems render it probable. Of him we may infer it, from his appearing to be known or to act at places so widely separated by distance; on the Solyman mountains, in Troas under Laomedon, in Greece near the Enipeus, in the land of the Cyclops, in the sea far north of Phæacia. But this is entirely owing to the wide extent of theθάλασσα, his portion of the great kingdom of external Nature, which, being as broad as the Phœnician traditions of the Odyssey, at once gives hima place in them. It is clearly not due to any thing more divine in the conception of him, for he carries many chief notes of limitation in common with the divinities of pure invention.The wide extension of the class of Seers may of itself be taken as a proof of the equally wide recognition of the influence of Apollo: for he it was who made Polypheides[115]to be first of that order, on the death of Amphiaraus. Now these Seers appear to have been found every where, under the form either of theμάντις, or of theοἰωνίστης. Not in Greece only and in Troas proper; but in Percote, among the Mysians, and even among the Cyclops in the Outer Zone[116].Not localized as to abode.3. The next distinction I shall note in the traditive deities is, that they are confined to no one spot or region for their abode; a limitation, which is imposed, either more or less, upon every other prominent deity except Jupiter only.With respect to some of them, this is made quite clear by positive signs. Except when in Olympus, or else when abroad on a special occasion, Mars does not quit Thrace, nor Vulcan Lemnos, nor Venus Paphos. But even upon higher and older deities there are signs of some kind of local limitation. The rigidly Argeian character of Juno, though it does not express, yet implies it. Demeter would appear to have a local abode, probably in Crete. Aidoneus and Persephone are ordinarily confined to the Shades, where their proper business lies. Neptune himself, when dismissed from the battle-field, is desired to repair either to the sea or to Olympus. His regular worship among the Greeks was, as appears from a speech of Juno, at Helice and Ægæin Ægialos; which it is not easy to account for, except upon the supposition that he resided peculiarly at these places[117]. Now it is expressly declared that his palace was in Ægæ: from thence he sets out for the plain of Troy, and thither he repairs when he desists from the persecution of Ulysses. The name Ægæ is not mentioned in the Catalogue, and Helice, as it is calledεὐρεῖα, was evidently a district; thus it may have been the district in which Ægæ stood, perhaps as its seaport[118]. Before the time of Strabo Ægæ[119]had disappeared.Now Minerva has a peculiar relation to Athens, and is once mentioned as betaking herself thither[120]. Again, the epithetΛυκηγένης, rarely given to Apollo, has suggested a connection with Lycia. If, however we form our judgment from Homer, Lycia may derive its name from Apollo, but not Apollo from Lycia.But it is plain from the poems that the influence, the activity, and the virtual, if not positive presence of Apollo and Minerva pervade the whole Homeric world. This is shown partly by their universal action; in Troas, in Lycia[121], in Thrace, in Scheria, and all over Greece. It is also demonstrated by the manner in which prayer is addressed to them: and neither the one nor the other is ever represented either as having a palace or residence in any particular spot, or as showing, like Juno, an exclusive partiality to any particular race or city.4. Although invocation of divinities is frequent in the poems of Homer, it does not seem to have been sufficiently observed, that the Olympian personages, to whom it is ordinarily addressed, are very few in number.In the Twentieth Odyssey, Penelope beseeches Diana to put a period to her mournful existence. I presume that she is here invoked, not on account of her superiority as a traditive deity, but because the subject is connected with her especial office in regard to Death.Neptune again is occasionally addressed by mortals; as by his descendant Nestor on the sea-shore at Pylus, and in like manner by his son Polyphemus, on the beach of the country of the Cyclops. So also he is invoked by the Envoys on their way to the encampment of Achilles: here again their course lies along the sea-shore. I will assume accordingly, though with a good deal of doubt, that any Olympian deity might be made the object of supplication under given circumstances of time, place, or person. But it is manifest from the poems that the general rule is the other way. They are ordinarily not made the subjects of invocation, even in connection with their own peculiar gifts. There is no invocation addressed in Homer to Venus, Mars, Mercury, or Vulcan; nor even, which is more remarkable, to Juno.Prayer however is very usual in the poems: but it is confined to three divinities only.Objects of habitual prayer.Jupiter, Apollo, and Pallas are addressed by persons in difficulty, not with reference to any peculiar gift or office that they fill, but quite independently of peculiar rites, and local or personal relations. Thus Ulysses andDiomed in the Doloneia invoke Minerva[122]. Menelaus, when about to attack Euphorbus, prays first to Jupiter[123]. Nestor, too, addresses Jupiter, and not his own ancestor Neptune[124], in the great straits of the Greek army. Glaucus beseeches Apollo to heal his wound[125]; and if this address be thought to belong to his medical function, it is still very remarkable from its containing a direct assertion, that he is able both to hear and to act at whatever distance. The same may be said of the prayer of Pandarus[126]. His priest Chryses offers prayer to him from the plain of Troas (Il. i. 37): but this may be incidental to the office. The cases of prayer to Jupiter and Minerva are purely private petitions, without notice, suggested by the circumstances of the moment: and they show that though Homer had perhaps no abstract idea of omnipresence, he assigned to these deities its essential characteristic, that is to say, the possession of powers not limited by space.The evidence that Apollo was invoked independently of bodily presence at a particular spot, and for the general purpose of help and protection, not simply in the exercise of particular mythological functions, if it be less diversified is still, I think, not less conclusive. It is, in the first place, supplied by the trine invocation repeatedly addressed to him together with Jupiter and Minerva[127]:αἲ γὰρ, Ζεῦ τε πάτερ, καὶ Ἀθηναίη, καὶ Ἄπολλον.But the general capacity of Apollo, like Minerva, to receive prayer, is demonstrated by the language of Diomed to Hector in the Eleventh Book, when Apollo was not on the battlefield (363, 4); ‘for this time,Phœbus Apollo has delivered you: and doubtless you took care to pray to him, when you ventured within the clang of spears:’νῦν αὖτέ σ’ ἐρύσσατο Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων,ᾧ μέλλεις εὔχεσθαι, ἰὼν ἐς δοῦπον ἀκόντων.5. We may now pass on to another head of special prerogatives.Exempt from appetite and limitations.Both Minerva and Apollo are generally exempt from the physical limitations, and from the dominion of appetite, to which the deities of invention are as generally subject. Though, when a certain necessity is predicated of the gods in general, they may be literally included within it, we do not find that the Poet had them in his eye apart from the rest, and the particular liabilities and imperfections are never imputed to either of them individually. What is said of them inclusively with others, is in reality not said of them at all, but only of the prevailing disposition of the body to which they belong: just as we are told in the Iliad (xi. 78), that all the gods were incensed with Jupiter because of his bias towards the Trojans, when we know that it was in reality only some among them, of the greatest weight and power. Neither Apollo nor Minerva eats, or drinks, or sleeps, or is wearied, or is wounded, or suffers pain, or is swayed by passion. Neither of them is ever outwitted or deluded by any deity of invention, as Venus is, and even as Jupiter is, by Juno in the Fourteenth Iliad. When Minerva, in the shape of Mentor, receives the cup in the Pylian festivities, she passes it on to Telemachus, but it is not stated that she drinks of it[128]. With this compare the meal of Mercury on the island of Calypso[129], the invitation to Iris to join in the banquet of the Winds, and her ownfear lest she should lose her share of the Ethiopian hecatombs[130].Their relations to animal sacrifice are different from those of the other, at least of the inventive, gods. Apollo, indeed, is charged by Juno with having attended at the marriage of Thetis together with the rest of the gods, where they all banqueted[131];ἐν δὲ σὺ τοῖσινδαίνυ’ ἔχων φόρμιγγα·and in the Third Odyssey Minerva comes to attend the gracious sacrifice of Nestor offered in her honour[132],ἦλθε δ’ Ἀθήνηἱρῶν ἀντιόωσα.Chryses pleads the performance of the sacrificial rites, as one ground of favour with the god[133]: in which, however, he is, after all, only showing that he has not failed to discharge the positive obligations of his office. And of course these two were the objects of sacrifice like other deities. Had they not been so, the fact would have been in conflict with their traditional origin, instead of sustaining it. They stand in the same category with the rest of the Olympian company, in that sacrifice is acceptable to them all: but first, it is plain that they are never said to take a sensual pleasure in it; and secondly, it does not appear that their favour to individuals either was founded upon it, or when lost could be recovered by it. It is restitution, and not sacrifice, which is sought and demanded in the case of Chryses. The moral character of the whole of those proceedings is emphatically and authoritatively declared by Calchas[134],οὔτ’ ἄρ’ ὅγ’ εὐχωλῆς ἐπιμέμφεται, οὔθ’ ἑκατόμβης·So Diomed and Ulysses have the closest personal relations with Minerva; but are nowhere said to have acquired their place in her good-will by sacrifices: though both Apollo for Hector, and Minerva for Ulysses, plead in the Olympian court, before the other gods, the sacrificial bounty of those heroes respectively[135]. Nor do we here rest wholly upon negative evidence. In the First Book, the sacrifice of the Greeks to Apollo, by the hands of Chryses, is described in the fullest detail: and the Poet tells us what it was that the god did take delight in; it was the refined pleasure of the mind and ear, afforded to him by the songs they chanted before him all the day in his honour:ὁ δὲ φρένα τέρπετ’ ἀκούων[136]. Further, the contrast may be drawn not with divinities of their own generation only, but with the long journeys of Neptune[137]for a feast, and with the marked and apparently unvarying language of Jupiter himself.They receive sacrifice with a dignity, which does not belong to the other deities. When prayer and offerings are presented to Jupiter by the Greeks, and he means to refuse the prayer, it is added, that he notwithstanding took the sacrifices[138]:ἀλλ’ ὅγε δέκτο μὲν ἱρὰ, πόνον δ’ ἀμέγαρτον ὄφελλεν.In the nearly parallel case of Minerva (Il. vii. 311.), it is simply stated that she refused the prayer of the Trojans, while no notice is taken of their promised offerings. Again, when Minerva had been offended by the Greeks, and Agamemnon sought to appease her with hecatombs, it is described as a proof of his folly that he could entertain such an idea[139]:οὐ γάρ τ’ αἶψα θεῶν τρέπεται νόος αἰὲν ἐόντων.With this we may contrast the case of Neptune, who had threatened to overwhelm the city of the Phæacians with a mountain; but who is apparently diverted from his purpose simply by the sacrifice which, under the advice of Alcinous, they offer to him[140].Mere attributes of bulk stand at the bottom of the scale of even human excellence; and it is so that Homer treats them, giving them in the greatest abundance to his Otus, his Ephialtes, and his Mars. Minerva has them but indirectly assigned to her; and when arming for war, Apollo never receives them at all. When his might is described, it is always described in the loftiest manner, that is to say, in its effects; and effort or exertion is never attributed to either of them.Even so with respect to locomotion. The highest picture by far is that which is most negative. In general, Apollo and Minerva move without the use of means or instruments, such as wings, chariots, or otherwise. While Neptune steps, and Juno’s horses spring, so many miles at each pace, the journeys of Apollo and Minerva are usually undescribed, undistributed. Minerva is going from Olympus to Ithaca; when she has departed, then she has arrived:

ἡ δ’ ἄρα πὰρ Διῒ πατρὶ καθέζετο, εἶξε δ’ Ἀθήνη[80].

An exactly similar proceeding is recorded in the Third Odyssey. When Telemachus and the pseudo-Mentor approach the banquet of Nestor, Pisistratus, the youngest son, first goes to greet them, and then places them in the seat of honour, between his father and his eldest brother[81],

πάρ τε κασιγνήτῳ Θρασυμήδεϊ καὶ πατέρι ᾧ·

that is, by the side of Nestor; Thrasymedes giving way to make room for them, and remaining on the other side of them, like Minerva in the Twenty-Fourth Iliad.

Of Apollo.

Homer has left no express record on this particular point with reference to Apollo. In the ancient Hymn,however, a part of which is quoted by Thucydides, this honour is distinctly assigned to that divinity in these fine lines[82]:

ὅν τε θεοὶ κατὰ δῶμα Διὸς τρομέουσιν ἰόντα·καί ῥάτ’ ἀναΐσσουσιν ἐπισχέδον ἐρχομένοιοπάντες ἀφ’ ἑδράων, ὅτε φαίδιμα τόξα τιταίνει.

ὅν τε θεοὶ κατὰ δῶμα Διὸς τρομέουσιν ἰόντα·

καί ῥάτ’ ἀναΐσσουσιν ἐπισχέδον ἐρχομένοιο

πάντες ἀφ’ ἑδράων, ὅτε φαίδιμα τόξα τιταίνει.

Intimacy of their relations with Jupiter.

4. More remarkable and important, however, than this precedence of Minerva in the Olympian Court, are the relations of will and affection between Jupiter and these two, as compared with his other children.

To these, and these only, does he ever use any term of positive endearment. Minerva is twice calledφίλον τέκος, and Apollo is twice addressed in the vocative asφίλε Φοῖβε[83]. This is the more worthy of note, because it might have been expected that other divinities rather than these, for example, Mercury on account of his youth, or Venus for her beauty and blandishments, would have been the preferable objects of these phrases. But there is nothing of the sort in the case of Mercury, and in that of Venus, the nearest approach isτέκνον ἐμόν(Il. v. 428). She is only addressed asφίλον τέκοςby Juno, who was not her mother, and this at a moment when it was convenient to pass a gross deception upon her[84].

Minerva is, indeed, sufficiently forward to place herself in opposition to Jupiter for purposes of her own: she does not exhibit the principle of full obedience, but then she is strong in the self-consciousness of right as well as in power. She goes all lengths in thwarting Jupiter in the Iliad, excites his wrath, and draws down on herself his menaces[85]. But her general aim is to give effect toa design so unequivocally approved in Olympus, that Jupiter himself has been constrained to give way to it; namely, the vindication of justice by the fall of Troy. And consequently, upon the slightest indication from her of a conciliatory disposition, Jupiter shows himself appeased, and seems to regret his own rigour[86].

The case of Apollo stands alone as an exhibition of entire harmony with the will of Jupiter. On no single occasion does he act or speak in a different sense from that of his parent. In the Olympian Council of the Twenty-Fourth Iliad, having to make a strong remonstrance respecting the dishonoured condition of the body of Hector, he is careful to address it not to Jupiter, but to the body of gods present[87];

σχέτλιοί ἐστε, θεοὶ, δηλήμονες.

And consequently, when Juno follows with a sharp invective aimed at him, Jupiter immediately checks her[88], and gives effect to the counsel of Apollo. Generally throughout the poem he is the organ of Jupiter for all that is about to be effected on behalf of Troy, but never for any purpose which is to prove abortive. When, under the divine decree, Hector is about to be slain by Achilles, Apollo withdraws from the doomed warrior, and Minerva joins the favoured one.

This union of the will of Apollo with that of Jupiter must not be lightly passed by. It is in truth one of the very strongest arguments to show the presence of traditionary elements in this great conception. For wide as is the prevalence of the law of discord upon earth, that evil is hardly less rife in Olympus. Not only do menaces form the supreme sanction by which in many cases its government is carried on, but everykind of personal grudge and quarrel abounds, as well as a general tendency to intrigue and insubordination. So that it does not sound strange to us, when Jupiter uses to his son Mars what nevertheless upon examination we must allow to be an astonishing expression;

ἔχθιστος δέ μοί ἐσσι θεῶν, οἳ Ὄλυμπον ἔχουσιν[89].

Among all the rest of the prominent divinities, there is no single instance of a positive harmony of will pervading the whole course of action, either as between any one of them and Jupiter, or as among themselves. I therefore take it as a very strong indication that materials were brought for this tradition, so different in kind from what Olympus yielded, out of a source higher than Olympus.

5. In the point next to be stated Apollo is chiefly concerned.

Apollo the deliverer of heaven.

It is the remarkable tradition, which makes that god the defender and deliverer of heaven and the other Immortals.

Otus and Ephialtes, twin grandchildren of Neptune, and the most huge in stature of all beings reared on earth, as also the most beautiful after Orion, threaten even in their boyhood war against heaven, and propose to scale it by piling the mountains. And this they would have accomplished, had they attained to their proper age and full size (ἥβη): but Apollo destroyed them first[90].

This is a tradition which cannot properly belong to Greek invention: for what has Apollo to do, when so regarded, either with the wielding of vast physical force, or with laying it prostrate? Neither as physician, harper, poet, prophet, archer, nor angel of Death, does he appear to have been the person who would have been chosen for this purpose. The thunderbolt ofJupiter is the weapon we should have expected to be employed in preference, or the mighty spear and terrifying Ægis of Minerva, or even the brute bulk of Mars. The gentle death, which it was Apollo’s mythological office to bring about, is totally unsuited to the subject.

It is only when we expand that mild conception into the character of the Avenger, partially exhibited in the First Iliad, that Apollo becomes the fitting destroyer of Otus and Ephialtes. This tradition in aftertimes was apparently combined with a larger one relating to the Giants, at which Homer darkly glances[91].

Ovid makes Jupiter his own defender[92]: a fine passage in Horace introduces many divine combatants, but retains a rather prominent place for Apollo, while it gives another to Minerva; and these two with Jupiter appear to bear the brunt of the battle[93].

It admits of but one satisfactory explanation, namely that, coming from a source higher than the mythology, it does not, so to speak, wear the livery of that system: and that this performance is assigned to Apollo, either because he represented the Person to whom all power was to belong in heaven and earth both for destruction and for deliverance, or else because tradition actually assigned to that same Person the glory of having already overcome a rebellion of powerful beings against the Most High.

There is no precise parallel supplied by Homer, in the case of Minerva, to the tradition which makes Apollo the destroyer of the rebels. But though not the defender of the divine order at large, she is the champion of Hercules, the favourite son of Jupiter,under circumstances when apparently, but for her, his divinity would have been at fault. ‘What!’ says Minerva, when thwarted by her parent in the Eighth Iliad, ‘has he forgotten how many times I saved his son in the labours imposed upon him by Eurystheus? Had I, at the time when Hercules was sent by him to fetch Cerberus out of the under-world, known how he would behave now, never should he have escaped the dread streams of Styx[94].’ We are left to infer from this curious legend that Minerva had a power, available in the world below, which tradition did not assign to Jupiter, and that he found her use of it on this occasion absolutely indispensable for the fulfilment of his wishes, even in regard to a favourite son.

Each of these functions, assigned to Apollo and Minerva respectively, recalls to memory those Jewish traditions, which set forth the direct and especial power of the Messiah over the fallen angels and over the grave.

These deities are never foiled by others.

6. The last characteristic of the two peculiarly traditive deities which will be mentioned under this head is, that they are never foiled, defeated, or outwitted by any other of the gods. In no single case has Minerva, where she is in action, to encounter any one of these forms of dishonour: nor has Apollo, in any instance except only when he is pitted against Minerva. Of this class there are two cases: one, when the Greeks are losing ground[95], and he is made to arrange with her for stopping the general conflict, by prompting the personal challenge from Hector in its stead: a matter which was certain to end to the credit of the Greeks. The other is in the Doloneia[96], when he causes an alarm just in timeto find that Diomed and Ulysses, guided by Minerva, have accomplished the bloody purpose of their errand. Among men, as among gods, Minerva touches nothing except what is destined to triumph. She is not, therefore, invoked by the doomed Patroclus: and she renders him no aid.

To appreciate the importance of this consideration, we must bear in mind that there is no one of the purely invented deities, who is not at one time or another subject in some form to disparagement. Mars is worsted by Minerva, through Diomed, as well as directly subject to her control; Vulcan is laughed at by the gods in general; Mercury dares not encounter Latona; Ceres sees her lover slain by Jupiter; Venus is not only smitten to the ground by Minerva, but beaten by Diomed without his having any divine aid to strengthen him, and befooled by Juno; Juno outwits Jupiter himself; but Juno also, together with Aides, is wounded sorely by Hercules; and it is also recorded of her, that she had been subjected by her husband to the ignominious punishment of hanging in chains, with an anvil at each foot[97].

Neptune is no where subjected to personal ignominy; but he is baffled by Laomedon, and is also unable to avenge effectually the mutilation of his son Polyphemus. Nay, Jupiter himself, besides being deceived by Juno, was menaced by a formidable combination, who were about to put him in fetters, when Briareus came to his aid[98].

On the other hand, Apollo arrests with sudden shock the victorious career of Diomed[99], and again of Patroclus[100]. And in the destinies of Ulysses, Minerva, whoprotects him, effectually, though after a struggle, prevails against Neptune, who does his uttermost against him. In order, however, justly to estimate the weight of this consideration, we must not omit to notice, that it has cost Homer an elaborate, and what we might otherwise call a far-fetched contrivance[101], to save Apollo from dishonour in the Theomachy. He is there matched against Neptune, a deity of rank equal to that of Jupiter, and in force inferior to his elder brother alone. It was therefore inadmissible that such a god should be subjected to defeat. But if Apollo were no more than one of the ordinary deities of invention, no similar reason could apply to him. He was junior: he was a son of Jupiter, like Mars or Mercury: he was on the losing side, that of the Trojans: why should he not, like Mars, be well thrashed by his antagonist? It could only be, I think, in consequence of some broad line of demarcation between them: some severance which determines their characters and positions as radically and fundamentally, and not by mere accident, divided.

If we consider the mere birth of these two deities according to the Olympian order, every consideration derived from that source would tend to assign to Mars a higher place than Apollo. His function was more commanding: for in an age of turbulence, and among a people given alike to freebooting and to open war, what pacific office could compete, abstractedly, with that of the god of arms? Again, Mars is the son of Juno, who is the eldest daughter of Saturn, the original and principal wife of Jupiter, the acknowledged queen of Olympus: the coequal in birth of the great trine brotherhood,and second in power to none but Jupiter himself. Why should the child of Latona be placed so far above the child of one so much his superior in birth, according to the mythological order? Why is his position so different from that enjoyed by the child of Dione, or the child of Ceres?

But so studiously does Homer cherish the dignity of Apollo, that he does not even throw on him the burden of taking the initiative in proposing the plan by which it is to be saved. This is managed with great care and art. ‘Let us two fight,’ says Neptune, ‘but do you begin, as I am the older, and know better.’ And then, by bringing up their common grudge against Laomedon, he proceeds to show of what absurdity Apollo would be guilty if he were to follow the ironical advice, and thus makes it easy, indeed inevitable, for him to echo the sentiment, and say, let us leave them, hapless mortals, to themselves.

With this we may compare two other arrangements conceived in the same spirit. In the Fifteenth Iliad, Jupiter takes care that the mission of Apollo to assist the Trojans shall only begin when Neptune, the formidable friend of the Greeks, has already quitted the field of battle[102]. And in the Fifth Odyssey, it is contrived that only when Neptune withdraws from the persecution of Ulysses, then at length Minerva shall instantly appear to resume her charge over him[103].

When we come to discuss the position of Latona, both generally and in the Theomachy, further force will, I think, be added to the foregoing considerations. On the other hand, I admit that the legend of Apollo with Laomedon, which represents that he and Neptune were deceived by that king, is not, so far as I see, explained inany manner which should place it in entire harmony with the general rule we have been considering, unless we may consider that he had his revenge in the opportunity afforded him by the Theomachy of refusing to fight for Troy. But this is a case of treatment by a mortal, not by a god; and it belongs to a different order.

I now proceed to touch upon the pre-eminence of Minerva and Apollo in points connected with their terrestrial relations, and with what may be termed the physical conditions of their existence.

1. It is quite clear from Homer, that these two deities received from men a special and peculiar honour: though it may be open to question, whether this retained only the indeterminate form of a sentiment, or whether it was embodied in some fact or usage.

Pallas and Apollo have the exclusive distinction of being invoked in conjunction with Jupiter, in the remarkable line

Αἲ γὰρ, Ζεῦ τε πάτερ καὶ Ἀθηναίη καὶ Ἄπολλον.

This verse meets us, not upon occasions having reference to any peculiar rite or function, but simply when the speaker desires to give utterance with a peculiar solemnity or emphasis to some strong and paramount desire. Thus Agamemnon wishes, with this adjuration, that he had ten such counsellors as Nestor[104]: and again, that all his warriors had the same activity of spirit as the two Ajaxes[105]. Nestor with these words wishes himself young again[106]: as does old Laertes[107]. Achilles prays in this form, when exasperated, for the destruction of Greeks and Trojans alike[108]: Menelaus for the appearance of Ulysses among the Suitors[109]; Alcinous thus expresses the wish that Ulysses couldbe the husband of Nausicaa[110]: and lastly, Telemachus, that the Suitors were in a worse condition than the disabled Irus[111].

The Trine Invocation.

The expression never is heard from the mouth of any Trojan; for Homer, on whatever account, rarely allows them the use of the same formulæ with the Greeks. But the whole substance of it is contained, and in a shape even more restrictive, in the line twice spoken by Hector,

Τιοίμην δ’, ὡς τιέτ’ Ἀθηναίη καὶ Απόλλων.

This language is indeed so pointed, that it suggests the question, whether there must not have been some peculiar form of external honour, which in the Heroic age was rendered to these deities, and not to others.

And, singularly enough, of the temples of the Homeric poems, all that we can point out as unequivocally named, and in existence, are temples either to Apollo or to Pallas. But the phrases may also have pointed towards others of their very numerous distinctions. I do not, accordingly, venture to assert that this actually was the exclusive honour of the two deities; but there is nothing absurd in the supposition that it may have been so. It would not have been inconsistent with a belief in Jupiter as the highest god, that those, who were believed to be in a peculiar sense his ministers and organs for the government of the world, should either have received at the hands of mankind a larger share of the substantial tributes of worship than he did, or should have enjoyed it under a peculiar form and conditions.

Their worship universal.

2. It would appear to be indubitable, that Apollo and Minerva were objects not of partial but of universal worship, within the sphere of the knowledge of Homer.

Even without examination of details, the proof of this proposition might rest upon their relative positions in regard to the two parties of Greeks and Trojans. Minerva, the great Hellenizing deity, is the object of the supplicatory procession of Trojan women in the Sixth Book. She is the peculiar patroness at once of the highly Pelasgian Attica[112], and of the characteristic type of Hellenic character represented in Ulysses. On the other hand, Apollo, the one really effective champion of the Trojans, is acknowledged by every Greek chieftain, except Agamemnon, at the very outset of the poem[113]. Agamemnon himself has only been misled by his own avarice and passion, and he shortly sends a solemn mission to appease the offended divinity[114].

Setting aside the case of Jupiter, who stands on a different level, there is nothing attaching to the other deities of the War, which at all resembles the position of command enjoyed in common by these two, both among their friends, and with those against whom they are contending. There is not even a difference of degree to be traced between the reverence paid them on the one side, and on the other.

When we turn to particulars, we find that Minerva has a temple in Troy, a temple in Athens, a sacred grove in Scheria. She is worshipped by Nestor on the sea-shore at Pylos, and, near the Minyeius; by Telemachus in Ithaca; by Ulysses and Diomed in the Greek camp. She accompanies Ulysses every where, while he is within the circle of the Greek traditions; only refrains of her own free will from going beyond it; and rejoins him when, near Scheria, he has at length again touched upon the outermost border of the Greek world.

There is no deity, without excepting even Jupiter, with respect to whom we have such ample evidence in the poems of the development of his worship in positive and permanent institutions, as is given in the case of Apollo. He has a priest at Chryse, a temple in Troy, a priest and grove at Ismarus in Thrace, a grove and festivals in Ithaca, oracles at Delos and at Delphi.

Besides these positive institutions, there are in Homer innumerable marks of his influence. He worked for Laomedon, he is worshipped at Cille; the name of Lycia seems to have been probably derived from him and his attributes; the Seers, whom he endows with vision, are found in Peloponnesus, and even among the Cyclops; he feeds the horses of Admetus either in Pieria or in Pheræ, claims the services of Alcyone, the daughter of Marpessa, in Ætolia, and slays the children of Niobe near mount Sipylus. So far as the Homeric signs go, they would lead us to suppose that he was regarded by the Poet as a deity no less universal than that Scourge of Death, to which he stands in such a close and solemn relation.

With the exception of Jupiter, there is no other deity of whom we can so confidently assert that he receives an universal worship: and Neptune is the only other, with Minerva, in regard to whom the indications of the poems render it probable. Of him we may infer it, from his appearing to be known or to act at places so widely separated by distance; on the Solyman mountains, in Troas under Laomedon, in Greece near the Enipeus, in the land of the Cyclops, in the sea far north of Phæacia. But this is entirely owing to the wide extent of theθάλασσα, his portion of the great kingdom of external Nature, which, being as broad as the Phœnician traditions of the Odyssey, at once gives hima place in them. It is clearly not due to any thing more divine in the conception of him, for he carries many chief notes of limitation in common with the divinities of pure invention.

The wide extension of the class of Seers may of itself be taken as a proof of the equally wide recognition of the influence of Apollo: for he it was who made Polypheides[115]to be first of that order, on the death of Amphiaraus. Now these Seers appear to have been found every where, under the form either of theμάντις, or of theοἰωνίστης. Not in Greece only and in Troas proper; but in Percote, among the Mysians, and even among the Cyclops in the Outer Zone[116].

Not localized as to abode.

3. The next distinction I shall note in the traditive deities is, that they are confined to no one spot or region for their abode; a limitation, which is imposed, either more or less, upon every other prominent deity except Jupiter only.

With respect to some of them, this is made quite clear by positive signs. Except when in Olympus, or else when abroad on a special occasion, Mars does not quit Thrace, nor Vulcan Lemnos, nor Venus Paphos. But even upon higher and older deities there are signs of some kind of local limitation. The rigidly Argeian character of Juno, though it does not express, yet implies it. Demeter would appear to have a local abode, probably in Crete. Aidoneus and Persephone are ordinarily confined to the Shades, where their proper business lies. Neptune himself, when dismissed from the battle-field, is desired to repair either to the sea or to Olympus. His regular worship among the Greeks was, as appears from a speech of Juno, at Helice and Ægæin Ægialos; which it is not easy to account for, except upon the supposition that he resided peculiarly at these places[117]. Now it is expressly declared that his palace was in Ægæ: from thence he sets out for the plain of Troy, and thither he repairs when he desists from the persecution of Ulysses. The name Ægæ is not mentioned in the Catalogue, and Helice, as it is calledεὐρεῖα, was evidently a district; thus it may have been the district in which Ægæ stood, perhaps as its seaport[118]. Before the time of Strabo Ægæ[119]had disappeared.

Now Minerva has a peculiar relation to Athens, and is once mentioned as betaking herself thither[120]. Again, the epithetΛυκηγένης, rarely given to Apollo, has suggested a connection with Lycia. If, however we form our judgment from Homer, Lycia may derive its name from Apollo, but not Apollo from Lycia.

But it is plain from the poems that the influence, the activity, and the virtual, if not positive presence of Apollo and Minerva pervade the whole Homeric world. This is shown partly by their universal action; in Troas, in Lycia[121], in Thrace, in Scheria, and all over Greece. It is also demonstrated by the manner in which prayer is addressed to them: and neither the one nor the other is ever represented either as having a palace or residence in any particular spot, or as showing, like Juno, an exclusive partiality to any particular race or city.

4. Although invocation of divinities is frequent in the poems of Homer, it does not seem to have been sufficiently observed, that the Olympian personages, to whom it is ordinarily addressed, are very few in number.

In the Twentieth Odyssey, Penelope beseeches Diana to put a period to her mournful existence. I presume that she is here invoked, not on account of her superiority as a traditive deity, but because the subject is connected with her especial office in regard to Death.

Neptune again is occasionally addressed by mortals; as by his descendant Nestor on the sea-shore at Pylus, and in like manner by his son Polyphemus, on the beach of the country of the Cyclops. So also he is invoked by the Envoys on their way to the encampment of Achilles: here again their course lies along the sea-shore. I will assume accordingly, though with a good deal of doubt, that any Olympian deity might be made the object of supplication under given circumstances of time, place, or person. But it is manifest from the poems that the general rule is the other way. They are ordinarily not made the subjects of invocation, even in connection with their own peculiar gifts. There is no invocation addressed in Homer to Venus, Mars, Mercury, or Vulcan; nor even, which is more remarkable, to Juno.

Prayer however is very usual in the poems: but it is confined to three divinities only.

Objects of habitual prayer.

Jupiter, Apollo, and Pallas are addressed by persons in difficulty, not with reference to any peculiar gift or office that they fill, but quite independently of peculiar rites, and local or personal relations. Thus Ulysses andDiomed in the Doloneia invoke Minerva[122]. Menelaus, when about to attack Euphorbus, prays first to Jupiter[123]. Nestor, too, addresses Jupiter, and not his own ancestor Neptune[124], in the great straits of the Greek army. Glaucus beseeches Apollo to heal his wound[125]; and if this address be thought to belong to his medical function, it is still very remarkable from its containing a direct assertion, that he is able both to hear and to act at whatever distance. The same may be said of the prayer of Pandarus[126]. His priest Chryses offers prayer to him from the plain of Troas (Il. i. 37): but this may be incidental to the office. The cases of prayer to Jupiter and Minerva are purely private petitions, without notice, suggested by the circumstances of the moment: and they show that though Homer had perhaps no abstract idea of omnipresence, he assigned to these deities its essential characteristic, that is to say, the possession of powers not limited by space.

The evidence that Apollo was invoked independently of bodily presence at a particular spot, and for the general purpose of help and protection, not simply in the exercise of particular mythological functions, if it be less diversified is still, I think, not less conclusive. It is, in the first place, supplied by the trine invocation repeatedly addressed to him together with Jupiter and Minerva[127]:

αἲ γὰρ, Ζεῦ τε πάτερ, καὶ Ἀθηναίη, καὶ Ἄπολλον.

But the general capacity of Apollo, like Minerva, to receive prayer, is demonstrated by the language of Diomed to Hector in the Eleventh Book, when Apollo was not on the battlefield (363, 4); ‘for this time,Phœbus Apollo has delivered you: and doubtless you took care to pray to him, when you ventured within the clang of spears:’

νῦν αὖτέ σ’ ἐρύσσατο Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων,ᾧ μέλλεις εὔχεσθαι, ἰὼν ἐς δοῦπον ἀκόντων.

νῦν αὖτέ σ’ ἐρύσσατο Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων,

ᾧ μέλλεις εὔχεσθαι, ἰὼν ἐς δοῦπον ἀκόντων.

5. We may now pass on to another head of special prerogatives.

Exempt from appetite and limitations.

Both Minerva and Apollo are generally exempt from the physical limitations, and from the dominion of appetite, to which the deities of invention are as generally subject. Though, when a certain necessity is predicated of the gods in general, they may be literally included within it, we do not find that the Poet had them in his eye apart from the rest, and the particular liabilities and imperfections are never imputed to either of them individually. What is said of them inclusively with others, is in reality not said of them at all, but only of the prevailing disposition of the body to which they belong: just as we are told in the Iliad (xi. 78), that all the gods were incensed with Jupiter because of his bias towards the Trojans, when we know that it was in reality only some among them, of the greatest weight and power. Neither Apollo nor Minerva eats, or drinks, or sleeps, or is wearied, or is wounded, or suffers pain, or is swayed by passion. Neither of them is ever outwitted or deluded by any deity of invention, as Venus is, and even as Jupiter is, by Juno in the Fourteenth Iliad. When Minerva, in the shape of Mentor, receives the cup in the Pylian festivities, she passes it on to Telemachus, but it is not stated that she drinks of it[128]. With this compare the meal of Mercury on the island of Calypso[129], the invitation to Iris to join in the banquet of the Winds, and her ownfear lest she should lose her share of the Ethiopian hecatombs[130].

Their relations to animal sacrifice are different from those of the other, at least of the inventive, gods. Apollo, indeed, is charged by Juno with having attended at the marriage of Thetis together with the rest of the gods, where they all banqueted[131];

ἐν δὲ σὺ τοῖσινδαίνυ’ ἔχων φόρμιγγα·

ἐν δὲ σὺ τοῖσιν

δαίνυ’ ἔχων φόρμιγγα·

and in the Third Odyssey Minerva comes to attend the gracious sacrifice of Nestor offered in her honour[132],

ἦλθε δ’ Ἀθήνηἱρῶν ἀντιόωσα.

ἦλθε δ’ Ἀθήνη

ἱρῶν ἀντιόωσα.

Chryses pleads the performance of the sacrificial rites, as one ground of favour with the god[133]: in which, however, he is, after all, only showing that he has not failed to discharge the positive obligations of his office. And of course these two were the objects of sacrifice like other deities. Had they not been so, the fact would have been in conflict with their traditional origin, instead of sustaining it. They stand in the same category with the rest of the Olympian company, in that sacrifice is acceptable to them all: but first, it is plain that they are never said to take a sensual pleasure in it; and secondly, it does not appear that their favour to individuals either was founded upon it, or when lost could be recovered by it. It is restitution, and not sacrifice, which is sought and demanded in the case of Chryses. The moral character of the whole of those proceedings is emphatically and authoritatively declared by Calchas[134],

οὔτ’ ἄρ’ ὅγ’ εὐχωλῆς ἐπιμέμφεται, οὔθ’ ἑκατόμβης·

So Diomed and Ulysses have the closest personal relations with Minerva; but are nowhere said to have acquired their place in her good-will by sacrifices: though both Apollo for Hector, and Minerva for Ulysses, plead in the Olympian court, before the other gods, the sacrificial bounty of those heroes respectively[135]. Nor do we here rest wholly upon negative evidence. In the First Book, the sacrifice of the Greeks to Apollo, by the hands of Chryses, is described in the fullest detail: and the Poet tells us what it was that the god did take delight in; it was the refined pleasure of the mind and ear, afforded to him by the songs they chanted before him all the day in his honour:ὁ δὲ φρένα τέρπετ’ ἀκούων[136]. Further, the contrast may be drawn not with divinities of their own generation only, but with the long journeys of Neptune[137]for a feast, and with the marked and apparently unvarying language of Jupiter himself.

They receive sacrifice with a dignity, which does not belong to the other deities. When prayer and offerings are presented to Jupiter by the Greeks, and he means to refuse the prayer, it is added, that he notwithstanding took the sacrifices[138]:

ἀλλ’ ὅγε δέκτο μὲν ἱρὰ, πόνον δ’ ἀμέγαρτον ὄφελλεν.

In the nearly parallel case of Minerva (Il. vii. 311.), it is simply stated that she refused the prayer of the Trojans, while no notice is taken of their promised offerings. Again, when Minerva had been offended by the Greeks, and Agamemnon sought to appease her with hecatombs, it is described as a proof of his folly that he could entertain such an idea[139]:

οὐ γάρ τ’ αἶψα θεῶν τρέπεται νόος αἰὲν ἐόντων.

With this we may contrast the case of Neptune, who had threatened to overwhelm the city of the Phæacians with a mountain; but who is apparently diverted from his purpose simply by the sacrifice which, under the advice of Alcinous, they offer to him[140].

Mere attributes of bulk stand at the bottom of the scale of even human excellence; and it is so that Homer treats them, giving them in the greatest abundance to his Otus, his Ephialtes, and his Mars. Minerva has them but indirectly assigned to her; and when arming for war, Apollo never receives them at all. When his might is described, it is always described in the loftiest manner, that is to say, in its effects; and effort or exertion is never attributed to either of them.

Even so with respect to locomotion. The highest picture by far is that which is most negative. In general, Apollo and Minerva move without the use of means or instruments, such as wings, chariots, or otherwise. While Neptune steps, and Juno’s horses spring, so many miles at each pace, the journeys of Apollo and Minerva are usually undescribed, undistributed. Minerva is going from Olympus to Ithaca; when she has departed, then she has arrived:

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