Appendix II. Genealogy of Hellen.
There is a particular tendency which may be traced throughout all the accounts that have come down to us of early Grecian history, viz., of reducing everything to a genealogical form. It was much encouraged by the opinion of the later historians, that every town and valley had received its name from some ancient prince or hero; thus even Pausanias meets with persons who explained everything by means of genealogies;[2138] who, for example, out of the Pythian temple at Delphi made a son of Delphus Pythis, a prince of early times. This tendency, however, is manifestly founded on the genuine ancient language of mythology. With the inventors of these fabulous narratives, nations, cities, mountains, rivers, and gods became real persons, who stood to one another in the relation of human beings, were arranged in families, and joined to one another in marriage. Now although such fictions are in many cases easily seen through, and the meaning of the connexion may be readily deciphered, yet these genealogies, as there was nothing of arbitrary and fanciful invention in them, in after-times passed for real history; and were, both by early and late historians, with full confidence in their general accuracy, made use of for the establishment of a sort of chronology. On these principles, then, the genealogies which were formed in the age of the later epic poets, and perhaps even of the early historians, cannot be considered as pure invention; these too must have been founded on certain arguments and facts, which were generally believed at that time. We will endeavour to point this out in the famous genealogy of the [pg 490] chief races of the Greeks, which was taken from the Ἠοῖαι of Hesiod.[2139]
[Transcriber's Note: Here are the relationships shown in the table:
Prometheus and Pandora had Deucalion.
Deucalion and Pyrrha had Hellen.
Hellen had Dorus, Xuthus, and Æolus.
Xuthus had Achæus and Ion.]
Now the passage of Hesiod only mentions the three brothers, Dorus, Xuthus, and Æolus, without naming the sons of Xuthus; but it is evident that in this series Xuthus must also represent some race or races; and since no tribe ever bore the title of Xuthi, this name must have been used by Hesiod to signify the Ionians and Achaæns, as in Apollodorus, and other writers.[2140] According to another tradition, perhaps of equal antiquity, Zeus, the father of gods and men, was, instead of Deucalion, the husband of Pyrrha.[2141]
It is evident that the above genealogy was intended to represent the chief races of the Hellenes, or Greeks, as belonging to one nation; and consequently could not have been made before the name Hellenes was applied to the whole nation; which in the Iliad[2142] is only the name of a small tribe in Phthia.[2143] The more extended use of the name falls in the period of the poems which went under the name of Hesiod:[2144] it is first thus used in the “Works and [pg 491] Days” of the real Hesiod,[2145] before which time, therefore, the above genealogy cannot have been formed. But that the author of it did not make an arbitrary fiction is evident from the circumstance that he put Xuthus instead of Achæus and Ion; by which he greatly deranged the symmetry of his genealogy. It is clear that he thought himself bound to respect the tradition, that Achæus and Ion were the sons of Xuthus; which prevented him from making Hellen their father. As yet, therefore, the other brothers were not recognised in tradition as having any fathers; and some obscure legends, such as that of Dorus, the son of Apollo,[2146] had not obtained a general belief. There can be no doubt that Hellen was recognised in the most ancient tradition. Now in the fictions of mythology the invention was bound by a sort of fanciful regularity; and in a fabulous genealogy the part was deduced from the whole, the species from the genus, as an inferior and subordinate being: thus in the Theogony the hills are the children of the earth, and the sun and the moon of light.[2147] Accordingly the poet (or whoever was his authority) sang of Æolus, Dorus, and Xuthus, the progenitors of nations, being the sons of Hellen, the son of Zeus, or grandson of Prometheus. It is possible that before this entire genealogy others had been invented, e.g., that Dorus was a son of Hellen; since, as early as the time of Lycurgus, the Spartans were commanded by the Pythian oracle to worship Zeus Hellanius and Athene Hellania;[2148] and since both the judges in the Spartan army[2149] and the judges of the Olympic games were called Hellanodicæ. And when I consider the celebrated oracle just quoted, and the close connexion of Sparta and Olympia with Delphi, the sacred families of the Delphians (the ὅσιοι), who referred their origin to Deucalion,[2150] and on [pg 492] the other hand remember that a Bœotian poem, composed in the neighbourhood of the Pythian oracle, first uses the word “Hellenes” in this extended sense; I cannot help conjecturing that this national sanctuary of the Hellenic name had a large share in the formation of that really beautiful legend; by which all the different races of Greece, separated for so many centuries by violent and unceasing contention, were united into the peaceable fellowship of brotherly affection and concord.