As his children, we have Minerva, Apollo and Diana, Mars and Vulcan, Venus, Mercury, Hebe.
Of the Nineteen Deities who appear to be certainly Olympian, there are only four that do not fall at once into the family order: they are Themis, Ἠέλιος, Iris, and Paieon. There may have been a relationship credited in these cases also, though it is not recorded. It should be observed, that Jupiter is expressly invested with the title of Father of the gods. And perhaps the idea intended to be conveyed is that of a family which has grown into a sept or clan, having this for its distinctive character, that all the members of it, great and small, have either a nearer or a more remote relationship to the head. Of the minor deities, in various cases it is recorded, that they are daughters of Jupiter; such as the Muses, the Prayers, and the Nymphs of most orders. But these have the appearance of belonging to Homer’s poetry, more than to his mythology. Among male deities, the sons of Jupiter are all in Olympus: those of Neptune take lower rank.
Whatever be its relation to the family nucleus, the community of Olympus is fully formed. Besides Jupiter the head, and the ordinary assembly, its Council or Court, which answers to the βουλὴ of the Greeks, it has its Agorè, a greater Assembly or Parliament called together upon crises of extraordinary solemnity, such as the decision by main force of the fate of Troy.
But as we have no example, except the factious and utterly odious Thersites, of any one of the commonalty who takes an actual part in debate among men, so the minor deities, too, are mute in heaven.
Nay, the resemblance is even closer than this. The Greek βουλὴ, and also the ἀγορὴ, have their speaking or leading personages, and they likewise have each their silent members. The leaders are Agamemnon, Nestor, Ulysses, and Diomed; the last-named chieftain always with modesty, as a person lately come to full age. Achilles doubtless would have had to be added, if the action of the poem had permitted him to appear throughout its debates. But we never hear of the Ajaxes, Idomeneus, or chiefs like Eurypylus, as taking any active share in the proceedings. Even so the discussions of Olympus appear to be conducted commonly by Jupiter, Juno, Neptune[601], Minerva, and Apollo[602]. Once Vulcan interposes, in his mother’s interest: possibly he may have been suggested to the Poet by Thersites[603] as a terrestrial counterpart. The Sun appeals to the Assembly in the Odyssey, as a party in his own cause: but neither he nor Venus, nor Mars, nor Mercury, nor any other subordinate deity, ever appears as taking part in a discussion.
The term ἀγορὴ, or assembly, is used in Homer for the meetings of the deities only on certain occasions: namely, at the openings of the Eighth and Twentieth Books[604]. The other, or ordinary meetings, have no distinctive name. We may know them by their not depending on any summons or introduction, and by the frequent mention, either of the banquet as proceeding, or of the cup as in the hands of the deities. They were standing assemblages of the deities, the law of whose life was leisure, with prolonged though not intemperate feasting; and its ordinary scene Olympus. Their correspondence with the βουλὴ must not be pressed too far, for they do not, like the Greek βουλὴ, commonly precede an Assembly. It is to be remembered, that the βουλὴ was an Hellenic institution, and that the gods were not exclusively Hellenic, though Olympus was essentially national.
The political order in Olympus.
The analogy between the divine and the human ἀγοραὶ is established in a pointed form by the Poet himself; who makes Themis the pursuivant or Summoner[605] for the former; and also says of her, with respect to the latter,
ἥτ’ ἀνδρῶν ἀγορὰς ἠμὲν λύει, ἠδὲ καθίζει[606].
The acknowledgment of a rule of right, extrinsic and superior to ourselves, is general in the Assemblies of men in Homer, when meeting for business. This there could not be in the Assemblies of the Olympian gods. Neither does respect for authority and for tradition well harmonize with the idea of beings, who are possessed of unbounded, or at the least of greatly extended intelligence. Thus, like the individual deities, the divine Assemblies, and the entire Polity, are deprived of the greatest moral safeguards of their counterparts on earth. The consequence is, that their ethical tone is much lower. Force is the only effective sanction of authority among the Immortals. This is curiously exhibited in the Theomachy: for that battle takes place when the fate of Troy, which formed the matter in dispute, has already been long ago decided. Whenever a difficulty arises, which will bear that mode of treatment, Jupiter resorts to the threat of using it, even against divinities so dignified and powerful as Minerva, Neptune, and Juno. Sometimes, indeed, he parades it by anticipation, even when no symptom of disaffection has yet been exhibited.[607] So, on the other hand, fraud is the resource of the weak, as violence is of the strong. Juno, unable to organize a combination against her husband, devises a trick.