Historical scepticism, which has come of late years into possession of the ground, has not redressed, as affecting Homer, the wrong that had been done by historical credulity. We once exalted into history the general mass of traditions relating to the ages which next preceded those of continuous historic records; we now again decline the labour of discrimination, and reduce them all alike into legend. The name of Mr. Grote must carry great weight in any question of Greek research: but it may be doubted whether the force and aptitude of his powerful mind have been as successfully applied to the Homeric as to the later periods. He presents us, indeed, with even more goodly and copious catalogues than historians are wont of Æolids, of Pelopids, of ruling families in every corner of Greece, and from the earliest times; but he, too, fixes a chronological point for the commencement of history, namely, the first recorded Olympiad[101]. He seems to think that the trustworthy chronology of Greece begins before its real history. He declines to take his start from disinterred Pelasgi[102]; he conceives that we have no other authority for the existence of Troy than we have for the theogonic revolutions[103]; the immense array of early names that he presents are offered as names purely legendary. He will not attempt to determine how much or how little of history these legends may contain; he will not exhibit a picture from behind the curtain, because, as he forcibly says, the curtain is the picture, and cannot by any ingenuity be withdrawn[104]. He deals in the main alike with Homer, Hesiod, the tragedians and minor Greek poets, the scattered notices of the historians, of the antiquarian writers near the Christian era, and of the Scholiasts. Of course, therefore, he cannot be expected to rectify the fault, if such there has been, in regard to the appreciation of the poems of Homer.
I may, however, observe that in this, as in other cases, extremes appear to meet. Attempts to winnow the legendary lore, and to separate the historic or primitive kernel from the husk, were clearing the stage of a multitude of mythical personages unknown to the earliest tradition; all of whom now are ushered in once more; they are, indeed, labelled as unhistorical; but they are again mixed up wholesale with those, from whose company critical observation had expelled them. In thus reimparting a promiscuous character to the first scenes of Grecian history, we seem to effect a retrogressive and not a progressive operation. At any rate it should be understood that the issue raised embraces the question, whether the personality of Achilles and Agamemnon has no better root in history than that of Pelasgus, of Prometheus, or of Hellen. And again, whether all these, being equal to one another, are likewise equal, and no more than equal, in credit to Ceres, Bacchus, or Apollo. As to all alike, what proportion of truth there may be in the legend, or whether any, ‘it is impossible to ascertain, and useless to inquire[105];’ all alike belong to a region, essentially mythical, neither approachable by the critic, nor measurable by the chronologer.
If the opinions which have been here expressed are in any degree correct, we must endeavour to recover as substantial personages, and to bring within the grasp of flesh and blood some of those pictures, and even of those persons, whom Mr. Grote has dismissed to the land of Shadow and of Dream.
In this view, the earliest Greek history should be founded on the text of Homer, and not merely on its surface, but on its depths. Not only its more broad and obvious statements should be registered, but we should search and ransack all those slighter indications, suggestions, and sources of inference, in which it is so extraordinarily rich; and compel it, as it were, to yield up its treasures. We cannot, indeed, like the zoologist, say the very words, Give me the bone, and I will disinter the animal; yet so accurately was the mind of Homer constructed, that we may come nearer to this certainty in dealing with him, than with any other child of man. The later and inferior evidence should be differently handled, and should not be viewed as intrinsically authoritative. But that portion of it, which fills up the gaps or confirms the suggestions of Homer, becomes thereby entitled to something of historic rank. Again, widely extended and uniformly continued traditions may amount to proof of notoriety, and may, not by their individual credit, but by their concurrence, supply us with standing ground of tolerable firmness. Beyond all this we may proceed, and may present to view, where for any cause it seems desirable, even ill-supported legends, but always as such, with fair notice of any circumstances which may tend to fix their credit or discredit, and with a line sufficiently marked between these and the recitals which rest upon Homeric authority. Thus, the general rule would be to begin with Homer: a Jove principium. We should plant his statements each in their place, as so many foundation stones. While he leads us by the hand, we should tread with comparative confidence; when we quit his guidance, we should proceed with caution, with mistrust, with a tone no higher than that of speculation and avowed conjecture.
In many instances, the application of these principles will require the rudiments of early Greek history to be recast. In illustration of this statement, I will refer to a legend, which has heretofore been popularly assumed as in a great degree the ethnological starting point of Greek history.
The current ideas respecting the distribution of the Greek races are founded upon the supposition that there was a certain Hellen, and that he had three sons, Dorus, Æolus, and Xuthus, the last of whom died and left behind him two sons, Ion and Achæus. This Hellen was (so runs the story) the son of Deucalion, and Deucalion was the son of Prometheus, and the husband of Pyrrha, who again was the daughter of Epimetheus and of Pandora, the first-made woman. From the agency of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the human race took a new commencement after the Deluge. The nation at large were called Hellenes, after Hellen; and from his two surviving sons, and his grandsons Ion and Achæus, were named the four great branches of the common stem. Such is the legend as it stands in Apollodorus[106]; and that part of it which describes Hellen and his three sons, but no more, is found in a fragment of Hesiod, quoted by Tzetzes on Lycophron[107].
It is obvious that any one, setting about the invention of a story with the compound purpose, first, of uniting the Greeks in a common bond of race; secondly, of referring them to a common country as their cradle; and, thirdly, of carrying up their origin to an extreme antiquity, could hardly have done better than invent this tale. And that, which might have been done at a stroke by an individual mind, was done no less effectually by the common thought and wish of the Greek people moulding itself by degrees into tradition. The tale has a symmetry about it, most suggestive of design and invention. How clearly it connects all the celebrated families or groups of the Greek nation; with what accuracy it fixes their relation to the common stem; and with how much impartial consideration for the self-love of every one among them, and for their several shares of fame.
Not only in general, but even in detail, we may watch the gradual formation of this tradition adapting itself to the state of Greece. In Homer we find no Hellenes greatly distinguished, except Æolids and Achæans. This is the first stage. But when the Dorians attain to power[108], they claim a share in the past answerable to their predominance in the present: and they receive accordingly the first place in the genealogy as it stands in Hesiod, where Dorus is the first-named among the three sons of Hellen. The Achæans, now in depression, do not appear as Hellenes at all. But with the lapse of time the Ionians of Athens, becoming powerful, desire to be also famous: therefore room must be made for them: and the Achæans too by their local intermixture with the same race, and their political sympathy with Athens, once more come to be entitled to notice: Xuthus accordingly, in the final form of the tradition is provided with two sons. Ion and Achæus, and now all the four branches have each their respective place.
This tradition, however, is neither in whole nor in part sustained by Homer, and can by no effort be made to fit into Homer; to say nothing of its containing within itself much incongruity. If we exclude Xuthus, as a mere mute, it gives us five persons as the eponymists of five races, the four last included in the first. But of the five persons thus placed upon the stage, Homer gives us but one; that one, Æolus, has no race or tribe, but only two or three lines of descendants named after him. Again, the two or three children of Æolus in Homer become five in Hesiod, twelve in Apollodorus, and by additions from other writers reach a respectable total of seventeen[109]. Thus as to persons, Homer has indeed an Æolus, but he has no Hellen, no Dorus, no Ion, no Achæus. Now as to races. He mentions, without doubt, Hellenes, Achæans, Dorians, Ionians; but affords hardly any means of identifying Dorians with Hellenes, and as to Ionians, supplies pretty strong presumptions that they were not Hellenic[110]. Nor does he establish any relation whatever between any of the four races and any common ancestor or eponymist. Again, the Deucalion of this legend is two generations before its Æolus; but the Deucalion of Homer, who may be reckoned as three generations before the fall of Troy, is also three generations later than his Æolus. In fact, this legend of Hellen and his family is like an ugly and flimsy, but formal, modern house, built by the sacrilegious collection of the fragments of a noble ruin.
It may be thought dangerous, however, in setting up the authority of Homer, to pull down that of Hesiod, who comes nearest to him. But, firstly, Hesiod is only responsible for so much of the legend as connects two persons named Æolus and Dorus with Hellen as their source; which is at any rate no more than a poetical dress given to an hypothesis substantially not in conflict with the Homeric traditions. Secondly, as respects literal truth, the name Hellen at once bears the strongest evidence against its own pretensions to an historical character such as that assigned to it, because its etymology refers it to the territorial name Ἑλλὰς, and through this to the national name Ἕλλοι[111]. Lastly, the essential difference in point of authority lies between Homer and Hesiod, not between Homer together with Hesiod on the one side, and those who came after Hesiod on the other. Homer was fully within the sphere and spirit of the heroic age; Hesiod was as plainly outside it. He is apparently separated from the mighty master by a considerable term, even as measured in years. That term it would be difficult to define by any given number; but it is easy to see that even when defined it would convey an utterly inadequate idea of the interval of poetic and personal difference, and of moral and social change, between Hesiod and Homer. It is not to be found in this or that variation, for it belongs to the whole order of ideas; all the elements of thought, the whole tone of the picture, the atmosphere in which persons and objects are seen, are essentially modified.