The character of Æolus, if he be human, is one kindly to his fellow-men; and he inquires carefully respecting the fate of the Greeks and their chieftains. But it is very difficult to understand his place in the poem, and the reasons of it. The gift of Zephyr, and the folly of the crew in letting out the whole pack of winds, end only in the return of Ulysses to Æolia, and in his being dismissed from thence as one hateful to the gods, which he was not. This Æolus neither seems to be required for, nor to contribute to, the general purpose of the poem: nor to represent any ancient tradition: nor can we in any manner connect him with Æolus, the great national personage whose descendants were so illustrious, for that Æolus was clearly taken to be the son or immediate descendant of Jupiter; so that he could not have been called the son of Hippotas. Perhaps the origin of his place in the Odyssey was to be found in some Phœnician report about storms in the northern seas, where Æolia is evidently placed in complete isolation, figured by the sheer and steep rock of the coast, and by the metal wall which runs round it. It may have a partial prototype in Stromboli misplaced, the appearance of which from a distance entirely accords with this particular of inaccessibility. The whole picture, representing as it does, first, the ferocity of the winds, and, secondly, the existence of an efficient control over them, evidently embodies two features which could not but enter variously and prominently into the tales of Phœnician mariners; first, the fierceness of the gales prevailing in those outer latitudes, to deter others from attempting them; and secondly, their successful contest with the difficulty thus created in order to glorify themselves.
SECT. V.
The Olympian Community and its Members, considered in themselves.
The substitution of polytheism for the monotheistic principle not only brought down deity in the measure of its attributes or faculties towards man, but created a necessity for a divine economy or polity, which should regulate the relations of the Immortals. This polity could be no other than human, and no other, as it seems, than a somewhat deteriorated copy from its earthly original.
The family order in Olympus.
Accordingly, the Olympian Immortals of Homer are combined in a society. They are not a mere aggregate of beings, classed together by the mind in virtue of the possession of common properties, but they live in twofold relations: first, those of the family, or at least of descent and consanguinity; secondly, those established by a political organization, which is modelled according to the forms of the Greek polities subsisting in the Homeric age.
The government of Olympus is, though the use of the word may at first excite a smile, in principle constitutional. Jupiter is its head. Its ordinary council or aristocracy is represented by the body of such deities as have palaces there, constructed for them by Vulcan, who exercises in the community the double function at once of architect and artificer[600].
The immediate relationship of nearly all these divinities to Jupiter is recorded.
As his brothers, we have Neptune, and Aidoneus, or Pluto.
As his wives, we have Juno, the chief; Latona, Dione, and probably Demeter, secondary.