CHAPTER II.
Recent Treatment of the Greek Myths.
The newer histories 28
Not justifiable without particular reasons 28
Max Duncker 28
Not suited to English readers 29
Busolt and Holm 29
Return to Grote 30
Holm's postulate 30
The modern attitude 31
Pure invention a rare occurrence 31
Plausible fiction therefore not an adequate cause 32
Cases of deliberate invention, at Pergamum, which breed general suspicion of marvellous stories 32
Example of a trustworthy legend from Roman history 33
Niebuhr, Arnold, Mommsen 34
The _rex sacrorum_ at Rome 34
The king-archon at Athens 35
Legends of foreign immigrants 35
Corroborative evidence of art, but not of language 35
Corroboration of legends in architecture 37
Explanation of myths by the solar theory 37
The analogy of Indian and Persian mythology, expounded by Professor Max Müller, founded on very wide learning 38 long since shown inadequate, because it implies sentimental savages, which is contrary to our experience 39
K. O. Müller's contribution 40
The transference of myths 41
Old anecdotes doing fresh duty 41
Example from the Trojan legend 41 but not therefore false 42
The contribution of Dr. Schliemann 42
History not an exact science 43
Historical value of the Homeric poems 44
Mycenæ preserved in legend only 44
General teaching of the epic poems 44
Social life in Greece 45
Alleged artificiality of the poems 45
Examples from the _Iliad_ 45 not corroborated by recent discoveries 46
Fick's account of the Homeric dialect 46
Difficulties in the theory 47
Analogies in its favour 48
Its application to the present argument 48
Illustration from English poetry 49
The use of stock epithets 49
High excellence incompatible with artificiality 50
The Homeric poems therefore mainly natural 50 but only generally true 51 and therefore variously judged by various minds 52