It would be well to hesitate however before assuming that the gods of Tacitus' time were treated in the same way. His account shows that Teutonic theology had then passed beyond the purely tribal stage, and that certain deities were worshipped by a number of peoples, if not universally. But it does not suggest the existence of a highly anthropomorphic conception of the gods. Further we have to bear in mind that Tacitus is separated only by a century and a half from Caesar. The account of German religion given by the latter (B. Gall. VI 21) is difficult to account for by any explanation. But unless we are to believe that Caesar was thoroughly imposed upon we must conclude that nothing in the nature of a developed polytheism can have existed in his day. To the theology of the Heroic Age his account of the Gaulish gods (ib. VI 17) would be far more applicable than what he says regarding the worship of the Germans.
The question we have been discussing appears to throw some light upon the rapidity with which most of the Teutonic peoples accepted Christianity. The facts which we know with regard to the conversion are as follows: (1) that it almost invariably began in the king's court; (2) that violent opposition was offered only in kingless communities, as among the Old Saxons, or in defiance of the king's authority, as in Norway; (3) that after the conversion the gods (in general) disappear at once and for good; (4) that magical practices and the belief in spirits and even in certain female agricultural deities ('Erce,' Holda, Berhta, etc.) lasted among the country people for many centuries. From (4) we may probably infer that the religion of the country people was chiefly animistic—similar no doubt to what we find in Iceland, with the exception that we have little evidence for the cult of the thunder-god. Again, the explanation of (3) hangs together with (1); for the statements of ecclesiastical writers render it clear that the religion of the courts was essentially theistic. But it is plain from the discussion in the Northumbrian council recorded by Bede (H. E. II 13)—the only discussion of this kind of which we have any detailed account—that here at least this religion retained little vital force[614]. This fact is fully explained if, as I have endeavoured to point out, theology had largely passed from the realm of dogma into that of poetry.
The conclusion then to which we are brought is that Teutonic religion, at all events in the courts, underwent a profound change in the course of the Heroic Age. It is to be observed that in the earlier part of that age—as in the earlier part of the Viking Age—we find, especially among the more northern peoples, a fanatical devotion to warfare for its own sake, accompanied by lust for destruction and apparently also by a vivid conception of a life hereafter. In the latter part of the Heroic Age these phenomena disappear, except among the Heruli who, according to Procopius, differed from all the rest of mankind. The ideal which the princes of the later period set before themselves may be gathered both from Beowulf and from Roman authorities; it was to enjoy wealth and splendour in this life and to have their fame celebrated by future generations. For their attitude towards a future life the speech of the Northumbrian councillor recorded by Bede (l.c.) may probably be regarded as typical[615].
In a work such as this it is scarcely necessary to give even a brief summary of the characteristics of Greek religion, since the main outlines of the subject are probably much more familiar than those of even the later religion of the North. At the same time the amount of information which has been preserved is so great and the unsolved problems presented by the subject so numerous that it is clearly better left in the hands of experts. I shall attempt no more therefore than to call attention to the salient points in which the religion of the Homeric poems differs from that of later times and to the chief characteristics in which the former resembles or differs from the religion of the Teutonic Heroic Age and the Viking Age.
The various objects of worship recognised in Greece belong in general to much the same categories as those which we have noticed above. They may be classified roughly as gods, genii locorum and manes. In the last class we may perhaps include the 'heroes,' though the position occupied by them is somewhat peculiar. They were for the most part characters of the Heroic Age, and sometimes we find the cult of the same hero recognised in a number of different states. In general the worship of the gods took a different form from that paid to the manes and heroes, though occasionally the cult of a deity seems to have been associated with, or superimposed upon, that of a hero.
In the Homeric poems the gods figure much more prominently than the other classes. The most frequently mentioned of them are Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Athene, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaistos, Aphrodite, Ares and Hermes. Zeus, as head of the divine community, corresponds to Othin (Woden); but in other respects there is little resemblance between the two. As god of the thunder his affinities are rather with Thor. Hera, as wife of the chief god, may be compared with Frigg, while Poseidon, as god of the sea, has an element in common with Niörðr; but he is also an earthquake god, which the latter is not. His characterisation also is much more clearly marked. Apollo and Artemis, as a pair of young deities, brother and sister, with certain characteristics in common, bear some resemblance to Frey and Freyia; but the sexual element, so prominent in the Northern deities, is wanting in the Homeric poems. On the whole the translator of the Icelandic New Testament seems to have been happily inspired in rendering Diana (Artemis) by Gefion[616], while Freyia's true counterpart is rather to be found in Aphrodite[617]. Hephaistos, the smith of the divine community, has no Northern god corresponding to him; as the maker of heroes' armour and other metal objects he plays the same part as Weland. Ares, as god of war, has an element in common with Týr. The Homeric Hermes bears no resemblance to Othin; his duties are to a certain extent discharged by the valkyries in Northern mythology. Athene is a character totally foreign to Northern theology.
All the above deities, together with a number of others less important, form a regularly organised community, like the Aesir. Their home is located on Mount Olympos in the north of Thessaly—a conception probably more primitive than Ásgarðr, which is never represented as a place known to the human race. But, though Olympos is the home of the gods collectively, most of them (like the Northern deities) have also one or more dwelling-places of their own, often in distant localities. Thus Poseidon's home is at Aigai and Apollo's at Delphoi, though he is also connected with several localities on the eastern side of the Aegean—Chryse, Cille, Tenedos, etc. Athene has a home at Athens, while Hephaistos is connected with Lemnos, Ares with Thrace and Aphrodite with Paphos in Cyprus. Zeus himself, apart from Olympos, has abodes at Dodona and Ida.
The belief that the gods had homes of their own in various localities is clearly to be taken in connection with the fact that they are said to have sanctuaries in the same places. Thus Aigai is mentioned, together with Helice, as a place where sacrifices were offered to Poseidon (Il. VIII 203 f.). Zeus' home at Dodona is his sanctuary (ib., XVI 233 ff.), and it is to her sanctuary at Paphos that Aphrodite goes (Od. VIII 362 f.). We need not doubt therefore that, as in later times, the cults of the various deities were largely of a local character. It is a different question of course whether the cults—or rather the deities themselves—were of local or tribal origin; but in certain cases such an explanation appears to be by no means improbable. Many scholars believe that Ares was originally a Thracian deity; and the fact that he is represented as the father of Boeotian heroes can scarcely be regarded as conclusive evidence to the contrary. In Il. IV 51 f. Hera states that three cities, Argos, Mycenae and Sparta, are specially dear to her; and there is little evidence that her cult was ever prominent in any other part of the Greek mainland. If the same explanation is true of such deities as Apollo and Aphrodite we must suppose either that their cults have spread from one locality to another or that deities belonging to different localities have been identified. The local origin of river gods, such as Spercheios and Scamandros, is of course clear enough; but these are little more than genii locorum.