I.—INTRODUCTORY.
On passing to heroic mythology, a world still more rich in marvels than that with which we have already become acquainted presents itself to our view. The greater extent of this department of mythic lore is easily comprehensible, if we take into consideration the multitude of separate existences into which Greek life was split up, even from the earliest times. Each of the numberless countries, islands, cities, and towns endeavoured to trace back its peculiar institutions to mythical founders and ancestors; and as these were always described either as the sons or as the favourites of the gods, there accordingly sprang up, in course of time, a vast number of local heroic legends. These fabulous founders of states, however, were not the only heroes of Greek mythology. The attempt to pierce the clouds of obscurity which enveloped the early history of mankind, and the desire of a more enlightened age to bridge over the intervening gulf, and fill it with beings who should form a connecting link between the sublime forms of the great inhabitants of Olympus and the puny race of mortals, naturally gave rise to a whole series of heroic legends. These were partly the property of entire nationalities, or even of the whole Hellenic race, and partly of a local or provincial character. Moreover, as the gods collectively were divided into gods proper and dæmones—that is to say, spirits resembling the gods, but inferior to them in wisdom and power, whose workings men saw in air and earth and sea—even so the race of mortals was divided into heroes and men, between whom a similar difference subsisted. The latter are, in their nature, not different from the former—both are alike mortal, and must at length fall a prey to inexorable death. But the heroes are endowed with a degree of physical strength and dexterity, courage and endurance under difficulties, such as never fall to the lot of ordinary men. It was not, however, by any means all who lived in this early mythical period who were accounted heroes; but, just as in Genesis vi. 2 a distinction is made between the “sons of God” and the “daughters of men,” so in the present instance the heroes were the mighty ones—the ruling spirits of the age—those whose marvellous exploits contributed to remove the obstacles to civilisation and culture, who delivered countries from cruel robbers and savage beasts, who drained marshes, made roads through untrodden forests, and regulated the course of rivers. By their actions they proved themselves men of no ordinary powers, endowed with divine strength, and, therefore, apparently of divine origin. It appeared, at least, that such beings must have had an origin different from that of ordinary men, who were made out of clay, or sprang from trees or stones. Some of these heroes may perhaps have had a real existence, having probably been the ancestors of the later dominant races, to whom a dim tradition reached. Others were undoubtedly a product of the imagination. To these may be added a third class, and this is by far the most numerous, including those who were originally personifications of various natural phenomena, and, as such, deified and venerated in local forms of worship, but who were later, in consequence of the birth of new political communities, expelled from their place in public worship, and only continued to exist in the popular faith in the inferior character of heroes. Many such heroes were afterwards again promoted to the rank of gods, though with an altered meaning (e.g., Heracles).
Any real veneration of heroes by prayers and sacrifices can scarcely be said to have existed before the migration of the Heraclidæ—at least there is no mention of it in Homer. Even later, except in the case of those heroes who were raised to the rank of gods for their great deeds, and who were, therefore, worshipped in temples of their own, the worship of heroes is scarcely to be distinguished from that of the dead. Homer makes no distinction between the fate of heroes after death and that of ordinary mortals, all being doomed alike to the gloomy realms of Hades. As we have already observed, it was only certain special favourites, or sons of Zeus, who were excepted from this gloomy lot, and were transported in their bodily shape to the Isles of the Blest. Hesiod, on the other hand, says that all heroes—whom he, in the first instance, terms demigods—were transported to the Isles of the Blest, where Cronus ruled over them. Here, for the first time, the idea of a just retribution in the other world takes a definite shape; for Hesiod obviously conceives a residence in Elysium to be the reward of meritorious actions performed in the upper world. This idea was subsequently more fully developed, especially in the mysteries, and men were gradually elevated to a belief in the immortality of the soul. The spirits of the dead were believed, even after they were in their graves, to exert continually a mysterious influence; on which account men strove to gain their favour by means of offerings, thereby removing every real distinction between the worship of heroes and that of the dead.
Amid the multitude of legends of this kind, we shall only dwell upon those which occupy a prominent position either in poetry or in art. We shall begin with those which relate to the creation and early civilisation of mankind, after which we shall pass to the most celebrated provincial legends, and conclude with those that refer to the more important of the common undertakings of the later heroic age.