One conclusion may safely be drawn from the Northern evidence discussed in the last chapter: we must definitely dismiss the argument that the Homeric heroes cannot have been men of flesh and blood because they are brought into contact with the gods. No one will be so hardy as to suggest that King Haakon or his namesake, the famous earl of Lade, were products of myth or poetic imagination. Yet Göndul is as much responsible for the death of King Haakon as Athene is for that of Hector. There is certainly this difference between the two cases, that we have no historical evidence for the existence of the Homeric heroes. But the fact that deities participate in their destruction does not in itself prove that they are themselves products of myth or fiction.
There was a time, not so very long ago, when most of the characters of the Greek Heroic Age were believed to owe their origin to nature-myth—personifications of light, darkness and so forth. At the present time however it is only in some few cases that this view is generally maintained. Its chief stronghold is the case of Achilles; and here we are invariably referred for proof to the story of Sigurðr. The two characters have of course a good deal in common. Both are more or less idealised types of youthful strength and valour, and both die prematurely. But it would be pure folly to regard these features as in themselves proofs of mythical origin. In order to prove this it is necessary to point to features which can only be mythical, and to show that such features formed an original element in the stories.
Now we have seen (p. [140] ff.) that the current explanation with regard to Sigurðr is open to the most serious—in my opinion fatal—objections. On the other hand there certainly was a tendency for myth to grow up in later times round this hero. As an instance we may take his invulnerability, a feature which is peculiar to the German version of the story. Achilles possesses the same characteristic—but not in the Iliad or Odyssey. It is as much unknown in the Homeric account of Achilles as in the Norse account of Sigurðr. Indeed the only essentially mythical feature which the poems themselves record in the case of Achilles—and it is by no means peculiar to his case—is that he is the son of a deity[401]. But divine descent was claimed also by many Teutonic princes, though the heroes of our stories are usually separated from their divine ancestors by two or three generations[402]. Whatever may be the explanation of this phenomenon it is doubtless to be connected with the stories of conjugal relations between human and divine beings which we find both in Greece and in northern Europe. This is a subject to which we shall have to return in a later chapter. Above all, however, we have to take account of the influence of folk-tales[403] and popular beliefs, which, as we have seen from the Teutonic evidence, may make itself felt even in the description of very recent events.
The story of the abduction of Helen is another case for which many scholars still claim a mythical origin. It is perfectly true that stories of (e.g.) the abduction of the sun or the incontinence of the moon[404] do occur, though examples of this type are by no means so common or widespread as many writers have assumed[405]. But what is apt to be overlooked is that these stories arise from a personification of the sun or moon, and that it is in consequence of this personification that the heavenly bodies are believed to be exposed to perils and passions such as affect human beings. It is surely nothing less than an inversion of the natural order of things to suppose that the numerous class of folk-tales which deal with the abduction of a girl or wife originated in the type—a comparatively rare type—in which this motif is applied to the sun. There can be no reasonable doubt that the prevalence of such folk-tales is due to the innumerable occurrences of abduction in real life. But the theory we are discussing involves not merely the personification of heavenly bodies and natural phenomena but their complete anthropomorphisation[406]—a very doubtful process in the best of cases—whereas the story which it seeks to explain bears no trace even of derivation from a folk-tale. In other words we are asked to assume a most complex and precarious hypothesis in order to account for a story for which parallels are to be found very frequently in almost all stages of human society.
Of course I do not mean to say that the story of Helen is entirely devoid of mythical elements. On the contrary, it is a most instructive example of the growth of myth, and as such it furnishes an interesting parallel to the history of similar stories in the north of Europe. In the Iliad Helen possesses no mythical characteristics, except that she is the offspring of a divine father. In the Cypria she had apparently also acquired a divine mother (Nemesis). By the seventh century we find her figuring in quite a different story of abduction—a story which seems to have been treated by Alcman and Stesichoros, as well as on the 'Chest of Cypselos.' This time she is carried off by Theseus, with the help of Peirithoos, and rescued by her brothers, the Dioscoroi[407]. Somewhat later we find a new version of the story of her abduction by Paris. Now it is said to be only her εἴδωλον which is carried off by Paris; Helen herself is taken by Hermes to Egypt[408]. There seems to be little reason for doubting that the εἴδωλον was a deliberate invention of Stesichoros, though in other respects this version of the story may well have been influenced by the Egyptian version, recorded by Herodotus (II 112 ff.). The latter again comes in all probability from Greek settlers in Egypt, who connected the narrative of Helen's sojourn in Egypt, related in the Odyssey (IV 125 ff., 351 ff.), with a cult which they found existing in that country. This version of the story then should perhaps be regarded as a product of fiction rather than myth. The other story however—that of Theseus, Peirithoos and the Dioscoroi—is doubtless of popular origin. It is important to notice that both these pairs of heroes are connected with other stories of abduction[409]. Moreover in both cases these stories have certain elements in common with that of Persephone. There can be little doubt therefore that we have to deal with a folk-tale. The introduction of Helen into the story may be due partly to her kinship with the Dioscoroi and partly to the influence of the story of her abduction by Paris.
At the present time it appears to be the more general opinion that the Homeric heroes originated mainly not in personifications of natural phenomena, but in tribal divinities or personified conceptions of peoples ('hypostasierte Volksindividualitäten'). Now we have seen (p. [131] f.) that in Teutonic heroic poetry we occasionally meet with the mythical eponymous ancestors of families, though such persons are referred to the past and not introduced into the main action of the stories. Similar characters are to be found in the Homeric poems. Perhaps the best example occurs in a speech of Aineias (Il. XX 200 ff.), where the names Δάρδανος, Τρῶς, and Ἶλος are included in the hero's genealogy. The Cadmos of Od. V 333 is probably to be regarded, in some sense or other, as the eponymous ancestor of the Cadmeioi, though he is not mentioned in connection with Thebes. Again, in Od. XVII 207 we have a reference to eponymous heroes of places, Ithacos and Neritos. They are perhaps creatures of the poet's own imagination, i.e. fictitious rather than mythical beings; but it is probable that they were modelled upon existing types. Other examples of both types may be found elsewhere in the poems[410]. Yet it cannot be said that they are common. In Greece, as in northern Europe, the true home of eponymous ancestors (Hellen, Doros, Achaios, etc.[411]) is to be found in post-heroic, or at least non-heroic, literature.
In recent years however several scholars have put forward the theory that the characters who figure in the main action of the Iliad are tribal heroes in disguise. For a simple example of this theory we may refer to the interpretation put upon Il. V 43 ff., where the Cretan leader Idomeneus is represented as slaying a man named Phaistos (Φαῖστος). Now there was in Crete a well-known city called Phaistos (Φαιστός). According to Prof. E. Bethe (Neue Jahrbücher, VII 669) it cannot be disputed that the man Phaistos is the 'eponym' of the city and that we have here the remains of an ancient Cretan heroic lay. But the origin of the man is stated explicitly enough in the poem (l.c.): he is the son of Boros the Maeonian and had come from a place called Tarne. Before we can assume that he was the 'eponym' of a Cretan city we must surely ask how he came to be represented as a Maeonian (Lydian). Is it inconceivable that a name identical with that of a city should be borne by anyone except the eponymous hero of the city?
This is not the only case of the kind which has been brought forward. In Il. V 706 we hear of an Aetolian named Trechos slain by Hector and in Il. XX 455 of a Trojan named Dryops slain by Achilles. Here we are said to have 'eponyms' of Trachis and the Dryopes. In England during the centuries immediately following the Heroic Age we find mention in historical documents of princes or ecclesiastics called Walh, Cumbra, Seaxa, Dene, Fronca, etc. Are we to suppose that these persons are the eponymous heroes of the Welsh or Cymry, the Saxons, Danes and Franks? But national names of this type seem to have been just as frequently used by the Greeks, at least in historical times. We may mention Achaios of Eretria, Ion of Chios and Dorieus the brother of Leonidas. Is there any reason for denying their use in earlier times[412]?
The evidence of these names has been brought forward in support of a far-reaching theory—that the conflicts which we find described in the Iliad are echoes of tribal struggles which once took place in Greece, and that the warriors, Trojans as well as Greeks, are in reality mythical heroes in whom the various contending tribes have become personified. If this theory is sound it will be obvious that the resemblance between Greek and Teutonic heroic poetry must be merely superficial—that the two groups of poems spring from essentially different sources. It will be well then to examine somewhat carefully the evidence on which the theory is based.