1. Latona is clearly Olympian; from her great dignity as an unquestioned wife of Jupiter (ἄλοχος Διὸς, Il. xxi. 499); and from the fact that her position entitled her to take a side in the Trojan war, where none but Olympian deities were engaged, with the single exception of the formidable local power, Xanthus or Scamander. Another reason is, because the title of Dione, as we shall see, is clear; who is a deity in some respects similar, but decidedly inferior, to Latona.
2. Dione the mother of Venus is in the same order. For she receives her child, when she repairs wounded to Olympus, and in her speech of consolation distinctly describes herself as one of the Ὀλύμπια δώματ’ ἔχοντες, Il. v. 383. She is called in this passage δῖα θεάων: a title twice given to Minerva, but also, sometimes, to very secondary deities, such as Calypso and Circe. Either as insignificant, or possibly as being foreign and not sufficiently naturalized, she finds no place in the Catalogue of Mothers in the Fourteenth Iliad.
3. Iris, the messenger-goddess. The grounds of her title may be found among the remarks upon this deity[524].
4. Themis, although not a party in the war, has the office of Pursuivant or Summoner to the Olympian Assembly: and her ordinary presence there is distinctly proved by the Fifteenth Iliad, where she is the first to welcome Juno on her entrance into the circle.
5. It will be seen from a brief statement elsewhere relating to Aidoneus or Aides, that he is clearly of Olympian rank and character.
6. Next to Aidoneus, we may take the claim of Hebe. She is not indeed an important, nor a very prominent, person in the poems: but there is no room for doubt as to her Olympian dignity. We find her officiating as cupbearer in the Olympian Court of the Fourth Iliad. Her connection with Olympus is further established by her assisting Juno in the preparation of her chariot: and by her assisting Mars in the bath, when that deity has betaken himself into the presence of Jupiter, to complain of his wound. Again, her personality is quite clear. Nor can her divinity be questioned. She is pronounced in the Eleventh Odyssey to be the daughter of Jupiter and Here. The verse is suspected; but the suspicion itself may be suspected in its turn. Further, the case rests not on the particular account given of her parentage, but, in connection with the context, on her appearing as the wife of Hercules at all. Nor is she anywhere connected with the idea of a mortal origin[525].
7. A second divinity of somewhat similar rank is Paieon. On two occasions, he heals in Olympus the wounds of deities; first of Aidoneus, then of Mars. He is summoned to the exercise of his function as a person within call, and habitually present there. After the rebuke of Jupiter to Mars, the line that follows is[526],
ὣς φάτο, καὶ Παιήον’ ἀνώγει ἰήσασθαι.
There is no doubt therefore either of his personal, or of his Olympian character; and none but divine persons are capable of bearing the Olympian offices. Ganymede, for instance, though carried up to dwell among the Immortals in order to pour out wine, has no function assigned to him in the poems. The Egyptians, indeed, are stated to be of the race of Paieon[527]; but we must probably understand this with respect to their royal family, just as the same thing is said of the Phæacians with respect to Neptune, because their kingly house had sprung from him[528]. In the later mythology he appears to be absorbed, like the Sun, in Apollo; but in the Homeric poems there is no confusion, or approach to confusion, of the persons. Paieon has the relation to Apollo with respect to surgery or medicine, which Vulcan has to Minerva with respect to manual art: and, apparently by a mixture of distinct traditions, he is also connected with Apollo, by being the synonyme for the hymn of victory, of which Apollo is doubtless supposed to be in a peculiar manner the giver.
To all these deities the poems appear to give a title to seats in Olympus, unquestionable as well as direct. By a somewhat less clear and simple process, we may, I think, arrive at a similar conclusion as to the views of Homer regarding two other deities.