Prevalent belief concerning them.
The deities of Homer, thus measured, are susceptible of various forms of sentiment in contemplating the fortunes and deeds of men.
1. In general, they regard virtue and obedience with approbation.
2. They regard crime with dissatisfaction and a disposition to punish it.
3. But they also observe any excess, or marked continuity, of good fortune in the virtuous man with a kind of envy: as if they could not permit the human race, on any conditions, to attain to a prosperity or abundance which should have any semblance of rivalling their own.
As respects the first, it is indeed a pale and feeble sentiment; but still it exists. They listen readily to those who obey them[734]. Prayer appeases them, as well as sacrifice[735]. They love not perverse deeds like those of the Suitors, but they honour justice and righteousness[736]. Upon the whole it may be observed, that much more just and elevated sentiments are predicated of the gods as a body, than when they appear as individuals. For it is as a body that they still retain a certain relation to true Godhead.
As respects the second proposition, they wander in disguise to examine the conduct of men[737]. A man who is hardly used may become to his oppressor a θεῶν μήνιμα, an occasion of divine vengeance. They view iniquity with a sentiment sometimes called by Homer ὄπις, an after-regard that remembers and avenges it. For this ὄπις the wicked do not care[738], and such indifference is a chief sign of their depravity. Especially they watch, backed by the Ἐρινύες, over wrongs done to the poor[739]; and Jupiter interferes by storm and flood to testify his displeasure at unrighteous governors, who administer crooked judgments[740]. Ægisthus is warned and punished by them. It is Minerva who plans the vengeance upon the Suitors[741]. At the same time, revenge for affronts is a much more powerful and common motive with them, than zeal for the administration of justice. The latter is lazy and doubtful; but their sentiments in regard to the former are of keen edge, and have an irrepressible promptitude and activity.
As respects the third point, the gods grudged to Ulysses and Penelope an unbroken continuance of the blessings of their domestic life[742]. It is in like manner, as it would seem, that, after a long course of prosperity, the gallant and good Bellerophon became odious, on account of his good fortune only, to the gods[743]. And this same idea is perhaps the groundwork of the alternative destinies of Achilles, either a long life without great glory, or transcendent glory and a short career[744].
While in the later stages of heathen religion the former and nobler ideas gradually lost ground, this less worthy one became more and more pronounced; and Solon, in Herodotus, describes himself as knowing τὸ θεῖον πᾶν ἐὸν φθονερόν τε καὶ ταραχῶδες[745].