[770]. Next in importance to Zeus as representative of Greek religious thought stands Apollo. The meaning of the name and the original seat of the god are obscure; he appears to have been a Pan-Hellenic deity; he was definitely shaped by the whole mass of Hellenic thought. Originally, perhaps, the local deity of some hunting and pastoral region, and possessing the quasi-universal attributes of such deities, the wide diffusion of his cult (through conditions not known to us) brought him into relation with many sides of life. While he shares this many-sidedness with several other gods, the Greek genius of theographic organization assigned him special headship in certain distinctively Hellenic conceptions. Zeus embodied the theocratic idea, and Apollo the ideas of Pan-Hellenic civic unity, artistic feeling, and the more intimate ethical and religious experience. He became the patron of the Amphictyonic assembly and of literature and art, and, especially in connection with the Delphic oracle, the fosterer of ethical conceptions of ritual and of sin. How it came to pass that these particular departments were assigned him it is not possible to say. Such specialization was natural to the Greeks, but the determining conditions in particular cases have not been recorded, and can only be surmised. His growth kept pace with that of the Hellenic people—in the Iliad he is a partisan, and his words and deeds do not always command our respect, but in the later theological constructions he throws off his crudeness. His connection with the sun was a natural consequence of his rise to eminence; he is not a sun-god in the earliest literary remains.
[771]. Poseidon, second only to Zeus in power, is also of obscure origin.[1323] His specific marine character is certain, though as a great god he had many relations and functions.[1324] Possibly he was originally the local deity of some marine region, and by reason of the importance of his native place, or simply through the intimate relationship between the Greek communities, and in accordance with the Greek spirit of organization, came to be generally recognized as the god of the ocean.[1325] Though he was widely revered he remained largely a nature god—he never attained the majesty and moral supremacy of Zeus, never, indeed, represented specifically any refined moral or religious conception. Whether this ethical and religious meagerness was a consequence of the vagueness of the relation between the sea and human life, or of some other fact, is a point that can hardly be determined.
[772]. Hermes, to judge from his history, was the creation of some pastoral community, an ideal of rustic excellence: fleet of foot, a leader in popular amusements, skilled in simple music, eminent in an art much valued in early times—the art of stealing cattle. When he was taken into the circle of Greek theological thought his swiftness recommended him to the position of messenger of the gods,[1326] and his function as psychopompos, the guide of souls to the other world, would then follow naturally; from this function it cannot, however, be inferred that he was originally a chthonic deity—a character that does not accord with the early portraitures of him. Like other gods he grew morally, but he never reached ethical distinction. Skill in theft was in early times often regarded as a virtue,[1327] and in general he who got the better of his fellows was esteemed a master of good luck and prosperity; and a bestower of outward prosperity Hermes came to be.[1328] His main quality was cleverness, in contrast with the intellectual power of Apollo.
[773]. On the other hand, another rustic figure, the Arcadian herd-god Pan,[1329] never developed into a great Hellenic god. His worship was widely diffused; he appears often in artistic representations, and Pindar thought him worthy of a hymn (of which, unfortunately, only fragments survive), but in general he remained uncouth and half savage, a goatlike figure, the companion of satyrs, or (as the Homeric hymn depicts him) a merrymaker. He seems to have been an embodiment of the lower rustic pleasures, a local god, probably not a divinized goat.[1330]
[774]. His name, however, taken to mean 'all,' gave occasion to fanciful interpretations. He was so called, it was said, because he gave delight to all the Immortals;[1331] or his person and his musical and other instruments were supposed to represent universal nature—his horns the rays of the sun and the horns of the moon, his spotted fawnskin the stars, his pipe of seven reeds the harmony of the heavens, his crook the year, which returns on itself, and so on.[1332] The Stoics and the Orphic writers made him Universal God, the creator of the world.[1333] In the popular cult, however, he remained the merry patron of herds. The most satisfactory explanation of his name is that which derives it from the stem pa, 'feed'—he is then "the goatherd."[1334] The story told by Plutarch, of a voice heard crying on the coast of Epirus, "Great Pan is dead," arose from some misapprehension, but no precise explanation of its origin has been given.[1335] Poets like Pindar and Vergil, disposed to preserve and dignify the old traditions, treat Pan respectfully and sympathetically, but such constructions are nonpopular.[1336]
[775]. Ares seems to be the creation of a war-loving tribe; in the Iliad he is a fierce warrior, armed cap-a-pie, delighting in battle and slaughter. Through the machinations of Hera and Athene he is overcome by human heroes, the poet's feeling being, possibly, contempt for the mere savage fighter; in fact, Ares in the Iliad is, from our point of view, hardly a respectable character—he violates his promise, and when wounded cries out like a hurt child. But as war-god he was widely revered in Greece; in Thebes especially he was honored as one of the great gods. Hesiod makes him the son of Zeus and Hera,[1337] but he never attains moral or other dignity; in the popular cult he remained, probably, merely the patron of war. In the later artistic representations he is the ideal of warlike vigor and grace. In the Homeric hymn (which may be of Orphic origin) he is transformed into a lover of peace and a source of all pure and lofty aspirations—a violent procedure, induced by the poet's unwillingness that an Olympian should represent anything but what was morally good.
[776]. The process of development of a god's character is illustrated with special clearness by the history of Dionysus. It is generally agreed that he was of foreign origin, an importation from Thrace. The features of his earliest cult known to us are marked by bald savagery. His worshipers indulged in wild orgies, probably excited by intoxicating drinks, tore to pieces a goat (as in Thrace) or a bull (as in Crete) and ate the flesh raw;[1338] and the evidence goes to show that they practiced human sacrifice. All these procedures have parallels in known savage cults. Omophagic orgies are described by Nilus (among the Saracens), and such customs are reported as existing or having existed in the Fiji Islands and elsewhere.[1339] Among many tribes intoxication is a common preparation for the work of the shaman; and human sacrifice has been practiced in all parts of the world. There is nothing peculiar in the office of soothsayer that accompanied the Dionysiac cult; mantic persons and procedures have formed a prominent part of the constitution of the lower peoples everywhere.
[777]. Dionysus, in a word, was originally the local god of a savage community; the data are not sufficient to fix precisely his original place and the original conception of him. His mantic function does not necessarily show that he was a ghost. It is true that the dead were often consulted (and necromancy long survived among civilized peoples), but any spirit or god might take possession of a worshiper and make him the vehicle of revelation. Nor is the phallus-cult peculiar to Dionysus; this cult is widely diffused, and its origin is to be referred not specifically to the recognition of the general generative power of nature, but to the mystery of human life.[1340] In his original home Dionysus seems to have represented everything that touched the life of his people. When, at a certain time, he passed into Hellas (carried, doubtless, by immigrants), he took on the character necessitated by his new surroundings—a process of transformation began. Exact chronological data are lacking, but as in the Iliad[1341] he is the son of Zeus, he must have been adopted by the Greeks very early. In his new home he became the patron of the vine.[1342] In a vine-growing region any prominent deity may become a wine-god;[1343] but the special connection of Dionysus with wine in Greece suggests that in his earlier home he was somehow identified with intoxicating drinks. With vegetation in general also he may have been connected in Thrace—such a relation would be natural for a clan god—and in that case his Hellenic rôle as god of vegetation would follow as a matter of course; or, if he advanced from the vine to the whole of vegetable nature, the development is intelligible.
[778]. When and on what grounds he was accepted as one of the Olympians is not clear;[1344] perhaps it was on account of the importance of vine culture, perhaps from the mysterious character of his cult, the enthusiasm of divine inspiration reflected in the frenzy of the worshipers, or from these causes combined; his later name, Bacchus, which seems to refer to cultic orgiastic shouting, would appear to indicate this element of the cult as a main source of his popularity. Once established as a great god he was credited with various functions. The Greek drama arose in connection with his worship, and at Eleusis the old element of seizure by the god was transformed by the higher thought of the time into the conception of ethical union with the deity. Thus the old savage god came to stand for man's highest aspirations.
[779]. As among other peoples, so among the Greeks the government of the Underworld was gradually organized, and a head thereof appointed.[1345] Already in the Iliad and in Hesiod[1346] the universe is divided into three parts under the rule of the Kronids Zeus, Poseidon, and Aïdes respectively; the earth, however, and Olympos, says Poseidon, are the common property of them all—there was no complete governmental separation between the Underworld and the Upperworld. The Greeks, with their joy in the present, gave comparatively little prominence to the future (being herein sharply contrasted with the Egyptians).