[840] P. A. Müller observes justly, in his Saga-Bibliothek, in reference to the Icelandic mythes, “In dem Mythischen wird das Leben der Vorzeit dargestellt, wie es wirklich dem kindlichen Verstande, der jugendlichen Einbildungskraft, und dem vollen Herzen, erscheint.”
(Lange’s Untersuchungen über die Nordische und Deutsche Heldensage, translated from P. A. Müller, Introd. p. 1.)
[841] Titus visited the temple of the Paphian Venus in Cyprus, “spectatâ opulentiâ donisque regum, quæque alia lætum antiquitatibus Græcorum genus incertæ vetustati adfingit, de navigatione primum consuluit” (Tacit. Hist. ii. 4-5).
[842] Aristotel. Problem. xix. 48. Οἱ δὲ ἡγεμόνες τῶν ἀρχαίων μόνοι ἦσαν ἥρωες· οἱ δὲ λαοὶ ἄνθρωποι. Istros followed this opinion also: but the more common view seems to have considered all who combated at Troy as heroes (see Schol. Iliad, ii. 110; xv. 231), and so Hesiod treats them (Opp. Di. 158).
In reference to the Trojan war, Aristotle says—καθάπερ ἐν τοῖς Ἡρωϊκοῖς περὶ Πριάμου μυθεύεται (Ethic. Nicom. i. 9; compare vii. 1).
[843] Generation by a god is treated in the old poems as an act entirely human and physical (ἐμιγη—παρελέξατο); and this was the common opinion in the days of Plato (Plato, Apolog. Socrat. c. 15. p. 15); the hero Astrabakus is father of the Lacedæmonian king Demaratus (Herod. vi. 66). [Herodotus does not believe the story told him at Babylon respecting Belus (i. 182).] Euripidês sometimes expresses disapprobation of the idea (Ion. 350), but Plato passed among a large portion of his admirers for the actual son of Apollo, and his reputed father Aristo on marrying was admonished in a dream to respect the person of his wife Periktionê, then pregnant by Apollo, until after the birth of the child Plato (Plutarch, Quæst. Sympos. p. 717. viii. 1; Diogen. Laërt. iii. 2; Origen, cont. Cels. i. p. 29). Plutarch (in Life of Numa, c. 4; compare Life of Thêseus, 2) discusses the subject, and is inclined to disallow everything beyond mental sympathy and tenderness in a god: Pausanias deals timidly with it, and is not always consistent with himself; while the later rhetors spiritualize it altogether. Meander, περὶ Ἐπιδεικτικῶν, (towards the end of the third century B. C.) prescribes rules for praising a king: you are to praise him for the gens to which he belongs: perhaps you may be able to make out that he really is the son of some god; for many who seem to be from men, are really sent down by God and are emanations from the Supreme Potency—πολλοὶ τὸ μὲν δοκεῖν ἐξ ἀνθρώπων εἰσὶ, τῇ δ᾽ ἀληθείᾳ παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ καταπέμπονται καὶ εἰσιν ἀπόῤῥοιαι ὄντως τοῦ κρείττονος· καὶ γὰρ Ἡρακλῆς ἐνομίζετο μὲν Ἀμφιτρύωνος, τῇ δὲ ἀληθείᾳ ἦν Διός. Οὕτω καὶ βασιλεὺς ὁ ἡμέτερος το μὲν δοκεῖν ἐξ ἀνθρώπων, τῇ δὲ ἀληθείᾳ τὴν καταβολὴν οὐράνοθεν ἔχει, etc. (Menander ap. Walz. Collect. Rhetor. t. ix. c. i. p. 218). Again—περὶ Σμινθιακῶν—Ζεὺς γένεσιν παιδῶν δημιουργεῖν ἐνενόησε—Ἀπόλλων τὴν Ἀσκληπιοῦ γένεσιν ἐδημιούργησε, p. 322-327; compare Hermogenês, about the story of Apollo and Daphnê, Progymnasm. c. 4; and Julian. Orat. vii. p. 220.
The contrast of the pagan phraseology of this age (Menander had himself composed a hymn of invocation to Apollo—περὶ Ἐγκωμίων, c. 3. t. ix. p. 136, Walz.) with that of Homer is very worthy of notice. In the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women much was said respecting the marriages and amours of the gods, so as to furnish many suggestions, like the love-songs of Sapphô, to the composers of Epithalamic Odes (Menand. ib. sect. iv. c. 6. p. 268).
Menander gives a specimen of a prose hymn fit to be addressed to the Sminthian Apollo (p. 320); the spiritual character of which hymn forms the most pointed contrast with the Homeric hymn to the same god.
We may remark an analogous case in which the Homeric hymn to Apollo is modified by Plutarch. To provide for the establishment of his temple at Delphi, Apollo was described as having himself, in the shape of a dolphin, swam before a Krêtan vessel and guided it to Krissa, where he directed the terrified crew to open the Delphian temple. But Plutarch says that this old statement was not correct: the god had not himself appeared in the shape of a dolphin—he had sent a dolphin expressly to guide the vessel (Plutarch. de Solertiâ Animal. p. 983). See also a contrast between the Homeric Zeus, and the genuine Zeus, (ἀληθινὸς) brought out in Plutarch, Defect. Oracul. c 30. p. 426.
Illicit amours seem in these later times to be ascribed to the δαίμονες: see the singular controversy started among the fictitious pleadings of the ancient rhetors—Νόμου ὄντος, παρθένους καὶ καθαρὰς εἶναι τὰς ἱερείας, ἱερεία τις εὑρέθη ἀτόκιον φέρουσα, καὶ κρίνεται.... Ἀλλ᾽ ἐρεῖ, φασὶ, διὰ τὰς τῶν δαιμόνων ἐπιφοιτήσεις καὶ ἐπιβουλὰς περιτεθεῖσθαι. Καὶ πῶς οὐκ ἀνόητον κομιδῆ τὸ τοιοῦτον; ἔδει γὰρ πρὸς τὸ μὴ ἀφαιρεθῆναι τὴν παρθενίαν φορεῖν τι ἀποτρόπαιον, οὐ μὴν πρὸς τὸ τεκεῖν (Anonymi Scholia ad Hermogen. Στάσεις, ap. Walz. Coll. Rh. t. vii. p. 162).