Now, "masses of tradition" certainly grew up through many centuries, before and after Homer's time; but the Iliad is not merely "a mass of tradition." It is a splendid work of art, fashioned, in our view, by a great poet, out of masses of tradition, while what we know of the Cypria is a compilation, partly from hints in the Iliad and Odyssey, with popular tales or Märchen thrown in; and is animated by a distinct tendenz, a partisan desire to debase the favourite heroes of Homer, and to exalt a hero, Palamedes, who, to myself, seems intended to represent the Ionian share in the Trojan war, neglected as it is by Homer. To justify these criticisms as most probable on the evidence, it is necessary to offer an analysis of the Cypria, as far as its contents are known to us from fragments and epitomes.
The Cypria opened thus: Zeus takes counsel on the problem of over-population. He "resolves to relieve of her burden Earth that nourishes all, by raising the great strife of the Ilian war, that death may lighten the weight: the heroes were slain in Troyland, but the Will of Zeus was accomplished."[13]
The following account of the early part of the Cypria is given by the Scholiast in the famous "Venice A" manuscript of the Iliad. He enters here into more details than Proclus in his epitome of the work. "They say that Earth, burdened by the abundance of men, all impious as they were, prayed to Zeus to be relieved. Zeus then caused the Theban war, whereby he destroyed many. Later again he called Momus (Mockery) into council, 'the counsel of Zeus,' Homer styles it, though he might have destroyed the human race altogether by deluges and thunderbolts. But Momus prevented this, and suggested to Zeus the marriage of Thetis with a mortal, and the begetting of a beautiful daughter from these two causes arose war involving both Hellenes and barbarians, from which time Earth was lightened of her burden, so many men were slain. The narrative is by Stasinus, the author of the Cypria..."[14]
In this version Themis is not mentioned as the adviser of Zeus; perhaps she suggested the Theban, and Momus the Trojan war.
In the epitome of Proclus, Eris (Strife) comes among the Gods at the bridal feast of Peleus and Thetis. Of this feast one detail remains in a fragment of the Cypria, which the Scholiast gives in prose. Cheiron the Centaur cut an ash-tree for a spear, as a wedding present to Peleus. Athene polished it, and Hephaestus forged the point. This spear, which Achilles alone could wield, is mentioned as the gift of Cheiron to Achilles in the Iliad (xvi. 143, 144, and xix. 389-90). If, then, we find in the Cypria decisive proof that there it is later than the Iliad, we may suppose the author to borrow here from our Homer, and to add the previous division of labour in the spear-making. As a bronze-smith Hephaestus only makes the metal point of the weapon. At the bridal feast, Eris rouses a dispute between Aphrodite, Athene, and Hera as to superiority in beauty.
To return to the Epitome of Proclus. The three contending goddesses are led by Hermes to Mount Ida, and Paris pronounces Aphrodite to be the most beautiful; he has been won by her promise of Helen as his wife. This is suggested by Iliad, xxiv. 29, 30, where the passage, according to some, suggests that all three goddesses wooed Paris, and that he preferred Aphrodite. But this is wholly out of keeping with the Greek conception of Hera and Athene; and the lines in Iliad, xxiv., must refer to the cause of the ferocity with which these two slighted goddesses persecute Troy, though Athene was its patron. No other cause has been adduced.
The counsel of Zeus could not have caused the Trojan war merely by making the goddesses quarrel. It was necessary to beget "the beautiful daughter," whom Aphrodite was to offer as a bride to Paris. According to the Cypria, this fairest of women, Helen, wife of Menelaus, was not the daughter of Zeus and Leda, but of Zeus and Nemesis; in Homer, Nemesis is little more than the emotion of virtuous indignation, she is not, as in the Cypria, a chaste and pretty nymph, "fair-tressed Nemesis." Her does Zeus pursue and, says the inept author of the Cypria, "the feelings of Nemesis were torn by shame and nemesis" (indignation). Mr. Murray devotes eight pages to the ethical meaning of Αὶδώς (shame) and of Νέμεσις (righteous indignation).[15] Surely we must recognise a great difference in manner between Homer, to whom nemesis means "righteous indignation," and the author of the Cypria, to whom Nemesis is a fair-tressed nymph? Homer, it is true, knows themis as customary law, and Themis, a goddess. But she is not a fair-tressed being who flees from her lover in a series of animal disguises.
Later Greeks, puzzled by the contending versions of our Homer and of the Cypria, declared that Nemesis was, indeed, the mother of Helen, but that Leda, wife of Tyndareus, was her foster-mother and brought her up.[16] Meanwhile Nemesis, in the Cypria, is not a mere personification of the sentiment of nemesis, or righteous indignation, but is, as we know, "a concrete figure of ancient Attic tradition," "a primitive goddess of Rhamnus," in Attica, associated with, or a local form of, "the wild Artemis" of pre-Achaean religion, "with deep roots in local worship." Nemesis had a famous statue at Rhamnus, attributed by Pausanias to Pheidias; a fragment of the face, in the British Museum, proves that it was at least of the school of Pheidias. She held in her hand a spray of the apple-tree, an attribute of Aphrodite, and the stag of Artemis was an ornament of her crown. She was also "a queen over death and the dead," a chthonic characteristic.[17] The Nemesis of Rhamnus was thus like the very primitive Artemis of Brauron in Attica. At Smyrna, where the population was very mixed, Pausanias mentions two Nemeses.[18]
We see that all this of Nemesis, in the Cypria, is at once apart as the poles from the Nemesis of Homer, virtuous indignation personified, and is also an Ionian celebration of an Attic goddess of the pre-Achaean faith.