But although symmetry was thus far, if not studied, yet spontaneously produced, we have ample proof that Homer neither inherited nor invented for his gods any uniform and consistent code of rules, intellectual, moral, or political. Neither, again, in the region of sense did he make any general provision to determine the conditions of divine being and action for his gods as an order, or even for particular classes of them. The want of such consistency is, indeed, among the striking proofs of the profound dualism of origin in his Theo-mythology. All that we can do is to observe his prevailing modes of treatment, and collect a general meaning from them. Proceeding thus, we shall find that the class of Immortals enjoys in various ways a marked superiority to man; but the degrees of this superiority, as they are nowhere precisely defined, so they vary greatly in the cases of the different deities: and when, striking off all the particular characteristics of individual members of the system, we attempt to embody what is common to them all, we leave but a slight and jejune residuum.
Nor is the classification of the differences a regular one. If we compare his delineations of some lower with some higher deities, we must be struck with finding considerable appearances of want of analogy between them. Some inferior persons of the same order, as we shall see, may excel in particular gifts, even those who are on the whole their superiors. Thus Circe, and even the Sirens, have powers greater apparently than, in the same subject-matter, Mercury or Vulcan. Heterogeneous origin, and imperfect assimilation, afford the true explanation of these phenomena.
It may be laid down as a general rule, that the divine life of Olympus, wherever it reproduces the human, reproduces it in a degraded form. Enjoyment and indulgence, when carried from earth to heaven, lose that limit of honourable relation to labour as necessary restoratives, which alone makes them respectable on earth.
In general, the chief note of deity with Homer is emancipation from the restraints of the moral law. Though the Homeric gods have not yet ceased to be the vindicators of morality upon earth, they have personally ceased to observe its rules either for or among themselves.
As compared with men in conduct, they are generally characterised by superior force and intellect, but by inferior morality.
They do not appear to have been governed in their relations towards one another by any motives drawn either from the law of right and justice, or from that of affection: unless—an exception which confirms the rule—where the attachment belonging to the human relation of parent and child is faintly reflected among the Immortals, as when Jupiter calls Minerva or Diana φίλον τέκος[620], and Venus τέκνον ἐμόν[621]: again, in the care taken of Venus after she is wounded by her mother Dione[622], and, more slightly indicated, in that of Diana by Latona[623]. In the conduct of Mars on the death of Ascalaphus, the impulse is momentary, and it has a strong animal tinge which seems to overpower, like a fit of drunkenness, the little reason that he possesses. The grief of Jupiter for Sarpedon is the only case of an intense affection among the Immortals. And it is remarkable, that this is felt towards, not a brother or sister divinity, but a mortal; towards one of those Lycians, whom Homer regards with such extraordinary and unvarying favour.
Force and fraud their chief instruments.
The general principles of government, then, among the Immortals themselves are simply those of force and terror, on the one hand, or fraud and wheedling on the other. For example, Terror subdues the adverse will of Juno[624] in the First Book, of Juno and Minerva in the Eighth[625], and of Neptune, not without much reluctance on his part, in the Fifteenth. Thetis wheedles Jupiter in the First Book[626]; Juno entirely beguiles him, besides outwitting Venus, in the Fourteenth; Minerva entraps Apollo in the Seventh into the plan of a single combat, which saves the Greeks from an impending defeat. And the difference of opinion respecting Troy in the divine Assembly does not at the last come to effect without a contest of main strength, although the virtual decision of the Olympian body had long ago been taken. Nay, these principles of force and fraud are the real principles of action, even when not altogether on the surface. When Mercury declines battle with Latona, it is because he fears the consequences of a contest with a wife of Jupiter[627]. In a manner still more curious, when Apollo has declined battle with Neptune, professedly on the ground that it is not worth the while of deities to fight about the affairs of wretched mortals, the Poet explains his conduct by a sentiment partly of deference arising out of a relationship recognised among men:
αἴδετο γάρ ῥα