In later times Mercury at Athens was, according to Müller[64], a Secondary also to Apollo, charged with the exoteric and material parts of several among his functions. And in Homer it seems probable, that his office with respect to the dead ought to be viewed as ministerial to that of Apollo.
In the next of her great offices, as goddess of war, Mars is a Secondary to Minerva; and he is absolutely nothing more. It may be enough in this place to refer to what will be said of him in the next Section.
The Minerva of polity, the λαοσσόος, ἀγελείη, and ἐρυσιπτόλις, is represented by Themis as a Secondary: whose name betokens her character as a simple personification of the idea of political and social rights, reflected from earth upon the Olympian life.
In the last of the four functions, Vulcan is her Secondary. It is true that the traditions do not exactly square. He is something more, because he is the element of fire, as well as the workman who operates by it: and he is also something less, because he has no concern with tissues, which fire has no share in creating, and which in Greece, but not in Egypt[65], were exclusively the business of women. But the relation between the two is indisputable: nor is it less plain that in that relation he fills, taken generally, the place of Olympian workman, she of a presiding mind operating upon man. And again, she is the goddess of construction; he has relations only with one particular department of it.
The Secondaries of Apollo.
Next for Apollo, in his characters, first, of the Healer, and secondly, of the Bard, with that of the Seer or Prophet.
In the first of these he is, so to speak, assisted by a pure Secondary, Paieon; who disappears from the later and less refined Greek mythology, and is replaced by an Æsculapius, reflected from the purely human Asclepius of Homer. Paieon is a simply executive officer, and exercises his gift, or as we should now say practises, exclusively, as does Vulcan, except on special occasions, for the benefit of the Olympian community; while the original possession of the gift, and the power of distributing it, is with Apollo.
There is a further and more subtle relation between this deity and Apollo, indicated by the use of the name παιήων for the hymn of victory[66]. Whatever be the ground of this usage, it supplies another point, in which Paieon reflects Apollo the god of help, and so far tends to exhibit Apollo as also the god of victory. Paieon heals by the use of his hands, like an ordinary surgeon; Apollo without personal presence, and without the use of second causes, in answer to prayer[67].
In the second of his great offices, the Muses are the derivative deities, who conjointly form a Secondary divinity to Apollo.