v. For proof that there is no inconsistency at all, see "The Great

Discrepancies."

We must be very anxious to find "late" things in Homer, if we say that the passage about Dionysus in _Iliad_, vi., "dates from the very last part of the Epic period," namely, perhaps, from the seventh century B.C. It may be true that "the great religious movement" connected with Dionysus "spread over Greece apparently in the seventh century."[13] But it is more probable that the "movement" was especially taken up by literature, Orphic poetry, at that period, for I am unaware that we have any historical evidence, as in Herodotus, for the religious furies and homicidal ferocities of the women in the seventh century. These, all the stories of the sanguinary frenzy of the sex, their endeavours to "interview" kings, and tear them to tatters, are thrown back into legendary times. Nobody can tell how ancient the legends are, but it seems to be generally admitted that Dionysus and his rites are of "Indo-European" but not of Greek origin. His mother was Semele, and Kretschmer would connect Semele "with a Phrygian root, _zemel_," which occurs on Phrygian tombstones in curses directed against any one who should violate the tombs. The word Kretschmer interprets as meaning "earth." So Semele would be the earth goddess.[14]

Be it so, Phrygian _Zemel_, the earth, is Greek Semele, the earth-mother of the son of the sky, Zeus. But "Dionysus in Greek mythology is closely connected with Thrace," and Lycurgus, the enemy of Dionysus in _Iliad_, vi., is a Thracian king. Now "the result of recent philological inquiries is to show a close connection between the Thracian and Phrygian tongues, which are found to be both Aryan."[15] Again, Attica, if ever her legends deviate into truth, was closely connected with Thrace; and Homer himself treats the Thracian Chersonese as an ally of Troy,[16] and Rhesus brings in his levies.[17]

There is no reason in the world why so great a sennachie as Homer, who knew as many tales from all quarters as Widsith in the Anglo-Saxon poem, should not know a Thracian tale about Lycurgus and Dionysus and his mother, Earth.[18] Nothing prevented Homer from knowing a myth of a people whom he knew--the Thracians--very long before the seventh century.

Homer has not a good word for the cowardly Dionysus. Still, Zeus patronises him; he is a god, though he never appears among Homer's Olympians. To his mysteries, as to those of Eleusis (is it not in Attica?) Homer does not allude. He mentions no mysteries, no initiations, no hocus-pocus; these things were for Attica, and for historic Greece.

The ethical _religion_ of Homer apart from his mythology is excellent, a good faith to live and die in. His gods, when religiously regarded, sanction all that is best in Achaean morals, and disapprove of all that is evil in human conduct, as a general rule. But Homeric _mythology_ is manifestly another thing: in the stories told of the gods, they practise most of the sins which they punish in mankind. Mythology would cease to be _mythology_ if it became consistent, but religion can never fail to be consistent while it expresses the highest and purest ethical ideas associated with a sense of their approval by a being or beings more than mortal. This note is again and again struck by Homer; and it can never fail to awaken a responsive thrill in all who feel, or have ever felt, the ethico-religious emotion.

Let me here give but one example. It is impossible for men to understand the mystery of an omnipotent and loving Being in a world of pain and ruin. Homer is as conscious of the insoluble problem as we are--and Zeus is conscious of it. In the great assembly of all gods, from Apollo and Athene to the nymphs of rivers, well-heads, and grassy water-meadows, at the moment when the final strife is set between Hector and Achilles, Zeus says, "Even in their perishing have I regard unto them."[19] The Father pities but he cannot save--there is some insuperable obstacle between his omnipotence and the end which he desires.

Such is the _religious_ thought of Homer, while in his _mythical_ thought Zeus is a humorous hot-tempered father of a family, who delights to tease, and finds as much diversion as Mr. Bennett did in the absurdities of his wife and children.

The Achaean mind, like the mind of any savage who recognises an All Father, has brooded over the sacred beings of religion in every mood, the most serious and the most frivolous; every conceivable reflection of every age, early or later, has entered into a conglomerate of yearning desire for the gods, of fear of the gods' wrath, of absurd legends concerning the gods, of broadly humorous glances at them as members of a great whimsical family; and there are guesses at the enjoyments of divine people, so powerful, so irresponsible, and so far from spiritual; for the gods are not spirits, but beings compact of a subtler matter than our perishable flesh and blood and bone.

Thus the gods, in moments of human seriousness, are the guardians of Homer's highest ethical ideals; while for purposes of romance and diverting narrative they are examples of all the vices which he most detests and despises, and of a score of human foibles which he never illustrates in the persons of his heroic men and women. His mortal ladies never cuff and scold, like the village women whom he once glances at, shrieking forth their quarrel in the centre of the village street. But it is in public that Hera and Athene scold or cuff. The nearest approach to this treatment of sacred beings may perhaps be found in the broad waggeries of our late English mystery plays, like those of Cain and of the Shepherds of Bethlehem. An even better example is the ancient carol, _The Bitter Withy_, with the cruel cunning and crime attributed to Jesus Christ, and the story of His whipping by "Mary mild." Achaean humour is never so free as in its treatment of things which are also handled, in another mood, with the highest religious regard. Nobody, perhaps, has seriously credited Homer with "a purpose," the purpose of enforcing the serious things of ethics touched with religion, and, at the same time, of laughing popular mythology away. The notion seems far too modern and too subtle; yet if Homer had entertained that inconceivable purpose, he could hardly have written otherwise than he did write,--to the extreme perplexity of Greek and later "educationists."[20]

It is not necessary to discuss the chronique scandaleuse of Olympus; the stories of the amours of Zeus, the intrigues of Aphrodite, the jealousy of Hera, the domestic misfortunes of Hephaestus. Nor is this the place to show how this mythological element inevitably crystalised round a great figure like that of Zeus the father of men. But it seems well to point out that while, in playful moods, the Achaean genius wove a cycle of gross fabliaux around the Olympians, in serious moments men regarded them not sceptically but with perfect seriousness and devoutness. Though men or women conscious of a fault will say that Atê infatuated them, or that Aphrodite thrust them into temptation, nevertheless the gods work for righteousness. Men in the Epics have the strongest sense of dependence on them. They are the givers of good and evil. "Though thou be very strong, yet that, I ween, is a gift to thee of God," says Agamemnon to Achilles. The oath of truce, in Iliad, iii., which, when broken, seals the fate of Troy, is sanctioned by Zeus, the Sun, Rivers, Earth, and they that "in the underworld punish men dead, whosoever sweareth falsely."[21] In a later oath[22] "they" are the Erinnyes, who also punish sins within the family. We hear of no such posthumous punishments in Hades, when Odysseus goes thither in _Odyssey_, Book xi. The men whom he sees being punished, Tityus, Tantalus, and Sisyphus, have all offended the gods _in person_;[23] and manifestly to call gods as witnesses to an oath, and then to be forsworn, is to insult the gods, whether this be the explanation of the threatened posthumous punishment or not.[24] The promise of Zeus is an example to men, it can never be broken (_Iliad_, i. 526-527). "Father Zeus will be no helper of liars," and Achilles "hates a lie like the gates of Hades."

Penitence for wrongs done is recognised, "prayers of penitence are daughters of great Zeus, halting and wrinkled and of eyes askance, that have their task to go in the steps of Sin" (Atê). When the injured man will not listen to the penitence of him who did the wrong, the prayers of the penitent return to Zeus, and beseech him that the hard man "may fall, and pay the price."[25] It was because Achilles refused to accept the penitence of Agamemnon that _he_ "paid the price," the death of Patroclus.

In the _Odyssey_ the ethical aspect of the gods is perhaps more conspicuous, because their passions are no longer stirred by the great war. In the opening lines they discountenance adultery (Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra). They are equally offended by the use of poisoned arrow-heads.[26] "All men yearn after the gods.". It is they who give happiness in married life.[27] It is Zeus who protects suppliants.[28] The just man is god-fearing.[29] The gods love righteousness and compassion.[30] Throughout the whole poem, notably in the case of the pious Eumaeus, a deep sense of dependence on the gods, and resignation to their will, is depicted. Yet Zeus permits Poseidon to wreak his grudge on Odysseus, and even on the Phaeacians who brought him home; while in the song of Demodocus, a divine adultery is matter of mirth to all Olympus.

Thus the religion of Homer is, ethically, a very good religion. Homeric religion is already national, that is, all Achaeans believe in the same Olympian consistory, with Zeus as the Over Lord. None the less many of the cities have each their favourite divine being, a special patron, just as cities had in the Middle Ages. All believed in the Deity, but Orleans had a special patron in St. Aignan; and "the guarded mount" in St. Michael. Athene was no less the patroness of Troy than of Athens. The Gods are all national, though they have their preferences. We may go further and say that, to Homer's mind, the Gods are universal.

To Homer, Zeus is anything but a "tribal" god: he is not even merely a national god; all peoples known to Homer acknowledge his supremacy. This was the tolerant view of historic Hellas: all nations had the same gods named by different names in different languages. There were not many Zeuses, but one Zeus, though various local names were given to the god, Dodonaean Zeus, Idaean Zeus, Pelasgian Zeus, or, again, Delian Apollo, Pythian Apollo, Smirithian Apollo, and so forth. The god is in no way restricted to a given place, Dodona, Ida, Delos, Delphi; these titles are his because he possesses a temple or Oracle in each district. Men may call to the gods or to a god wherever they find themselves, abroad or at home, on the sea or "in fairy lands forlorn," and everywhere they may sacrifice. To the devout mind, despite the local associations of the gods in mythology, the divine is omnipresent; can hear and help everywhere.[31] As for the local titles of gods, we know the same mediaeval usage in respect to the Saints. The Scot who, when at home, had a devotion to St. Catherine of Bothwell, in France sought the aid of St. Catherine of Fierbois.[32] The gods, or at least Zeus and Apollo, are omniscient, yet they need, in myth, to be told about events remote or future, or need to make special observations from selected places, such as the crest of Ida. These are the inevitable and universal contradictions which beset all early and much late theological speculation.

When Ionia became speculative as to all things physical or divine, the mythological aspects of the gods in Homer were, what to the philosophers they remained, a stumbling-block. But philosophy could not cure Greece, or do away with her heritage of barbarism and savagery. Yet, in some incomprehensible way, the Achaeans, as represented by Homer, had an infinitely cleaner religion and ritual than the mother cities of the philosophers.

In the religion of historic Greece, from the Ionian age to the establishment of Christianity, the most active, and, so to say, practical element is, we repeat, that of hero-worship, worship of dead men. The great temples of the gods of Greece in general, especially of the oracular Apollo, and of Athene in Athens, Artemis in Ephesus, Artemis Orthia at Sparta, and so on, were maintained in splendour and enriched with treasures of gold-work, silver, and bronze. The god or goddess and the shrines were centres of pilgrimages, and pilgrimages were good for trade. By them were the cities nourished, as the maker of silver shrines at Ephesus declared. Miracles were wrought, the blind saw, the lame walked. The local deity was of as great economic service to a city of Greece as the bones of the Apostle were to St. Andrews, and the relics of St. Thomas to Canterbury.

But for practical purposes of securing supernormal aid in war or famine, the dead heroes were to each town or village what St. Aignan was to Orleans, a very present help in trouble. For near a thousand years St. Aignan routed the foes of the good city, and his image was adored and carried in processions in 1429. Thus "to Lycurgus, after he was dead, the Spartans erected a temple, and paid him great worship."[33] "So that, as might be supposed ... they straightway shot up and became prosperous." The Spartans, therefore, determined to annex Arcadia, but were defeated by the forces of Tegea. Later, in the sixth century, during the time of Croesus, the Spartans asked the Delphic Oracle to direct their choice of a patron god. They were bidden to bring home the bones of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, which were in hostile Tegea. In Tegea, Lichas found the coffin which contained the bones, seven cubits long (half a cubit longer than Goliath), of Orestes, and carried them to Sparta. Thenceforth the Spartans were victorious. The bones were not in a cairn, for a blacksmith of Tegea first found the coffin when he was digging a well.[34] He would not dig for water in a tumulus or cairn.

We need not multiply examples of hero-worship and relic-snatching, and of such tricks of ghost-scaring as Cleisthenes played when, unable to cast the hero Adrastus bodily out of Sicyon, he drove him away by introducing the worship of the deadly foe of Adrastus, Melanippus.[35] Colonists carried the worship of Achilles into the coasts and isles of the Euxine, and even to Tarentum; while, according to Clemens Alexandrinus, the Spartans worshipped Zeus Agamemnon.[36] All this saint-worship and care for relics is, of course, absolutely un-Homeric.

The _Odyssey_[37] gives the perhaps Phoenician case of Ino, daughter of Cadmus, once a mortal, now a sea-goddess. But to Homer a dead man, be he Achilles or Aias, is merely a dead man. The cairn covers his bones; he has no chapel, no sacrifice; no men covet the possession of his relics; he can neither help nor harm; his spirit is in Hades, with the powerless peoples of the Dead. Trojans would leap and boast on the cairn of Menelaus if he fell at Troy _(Iliad_, iv. 174-182). Historic Greeks would have made offerings at the tomb. No such rites were in the belief of the society for which Homer sang. Had they been worshippers of the dead, the epic poet could not play the heresiarch, and tell them that their faith and hope were void and vain. No poet, no set of poets, who lived by pleasing could afford to horrify their hearers by such impiety. No poets could ignore the existence of normal rites that were familiar in practice to all. The most advanced modern novelist cannot ignore the Christian rites of marriage and burial, however much he may despise and detest them. It is, then, an historical fact that the society for which Homer sang did not adore and do sacrifice to dead men, did not make gods of them and do them sacrifice, did not scramble for their relics, as was the practice of proto-historic and historic Greece down to the time of Pausanias at least.

[1] Frazer, _Pausanias_, vol. iii. p. 105.

[2] Helbig in Roscher, _s.v_. Minos, ii. 2. 3000. On this matter there is much controversy.

[3] See several examples in Evans, "Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Worship." _J. H. S_., vol. xxi.

[4] _Ibid._ p. 108.

[5] Frazer, _Pausanias_, vol. iii. p. 121.

[6] Evans, _ut sup_. p. 108.

[7] _Pausanias_, iv. 33.

[8] Evans, p. 164, fig. 44.

[9] See "The Asiatic or Winged Artemis." by M. S. Thompson. _J. H. S._, vol. xxix. pt. ii. pp. 286-308.

[10] Cults of the Greek States, vol. ii. p. 427.

[11] Iliad, xiv. p. 203.

[12] _Iliad_, ii. 550, 551.

[13] Leaf, _Iliad_, vi. 130.

[14] Frazer, Pausanias, vol. iii.

[15] _Ibid. ut supra_.

[16] Catalogue, Book ii. 844-850.

[17] _Iliad_, x. 434-441.

[18] Strabo, x. 3. 470; fragment 25. Miss Harrison, _Prolegomena_, p. 375.

[19] _Iliad_, xx. 21.

[20] The distinction here made between "religion" and "mythology" is made merely for the sake of convenience. We may readily be told that the belief in a good God is as mythical as the tales about bad gods. But the belief in a just, wise, and loving heavenly Father, the source and sanction of ethics, represents one mood, and leads to one set of results in conduct; while the belief in wicked and buffooning gods represents another aspect of human thought, and leads to very different results, mainly to the bewilderment of late historic Greek thinkers.

[21] _Iliad_, iii. 279, 280.

[22] xix. 259, 260.

[23] _Iliad_, ix. 502-512.

[24] For a variety of theories, see Leaf, Notes to _Iliad_, iii. 278, xix. 262. Quite possibly the formula of the oath is a survival from a stage of belief more archaic than the ordinary Homeric conception of Hades.

[25] _Odyssey_, i. 263.

[26] iii. 48.

[27] vi. 180-185.

[28] vii. 165.

[29] xiii. 202.

[30] _Odyssey_, xiv. 82-84.

[31] _Iliad_, xvi. 516. Prayer of Glaucus to Apollo.

[32] Cf. _Miracles de Madame de Sainte Catherine de Fierbois_, a chapel register of miracles in the Hundred Years' War.

[33] Hdt. i. 66.

[34] i. 67.

[35] v. 67.

[36] See _R. G. E_. p. 128, note 3; and, for other instances, pp. 180-190.

[37] v. 333-335.