When Apollo comes into view, the mode of proceeding is very different from that of the deities of invention. Apollo and Diana at once destroy the children of Niobe, to avenge the insult she had offered to their mother: and this case is the more worthy of note, because Jupiter, at a later stage, participates in and extends the vengeance[151]. But the most conspicuous instance of the independent retributive action of Apollo is in the Plague of the First Book; since here he wastes the army of the Greeks, to the great peril of the enterprise promoted by so many powerful divinities, on account of what he esteemed a moral offence, and an outrage to his priest Chryses. Now it is to be remembered that the damsel had suffered no peculiar wrongs: the whole offence consisted in this, that, being the daughter of a priest of Apollo, at a place apparently insignificant, she had not been on that account exempted from the common lot of women, but had been treated just as she would have been treated had she been a king’s daughter. Nor must we forget, in appreciating this act, that the families of priests had no priestly privilege: and that Maron paid to Ulysses (Od. ix. 201–5) a very handsome price for his own life, together with that of his wife and child.
It is less easy to bring out the application of the rule now before us in the case of Minerva, from the paucity of clear instances in the poems where she personally has received offence.
There is one important case, where her wrath appears; and it is there described as μῆνις ὀλοὴ, and as δεινὸς χόλος[152]. Her name, and her interest in this affair, are to some extent mixed with those of Jupiter. The Poet tells us, that Jupiter designed for the Greeks a calamitous Return, ‘since they were not all upright, whereupon many of them miserably perished through the inexorable wrath of Minerva.’ And then the order is inverted: Agamemnon, we are told, projected the offerings, that he might appease the anger of Minerva, and thereupon dissension arose, for Jupiter suspended calamity over the host. It is clear that, so far as Minerva is to be regarded as having received separate and personal offence in this proceeding, there is no sign of her referring to Jupiter for aid, or for permission to punish the offenders. But the case rather appears to be one in which the Poet is describing the Providential Government of the world, and in which the intermixture of the names of Jupiter and of his daughter belongs to their system of concurrent action, under which she shares with Apollo the office of acting as his habitual organ in administering retributive justice to mankind. In one clear instance, however, we find it stated, that when the Greeks offended Minerva, she punished them by a storm (Od. v. 108).
They use special attributes of Jupiter.
7. Apollo and Minerva carry this among other notes, that we find them administering mythological or natural powers, which are otherwise the special property of Jupiter.
No other Olympian deity, but Juno, stands invested with a similar honour. We sometimes find the aerial powers of Jupiter wielded by her hand. But, with the exception of the sort of precedence accorded to her on Olympus, in virtue of which the gods rise from their seats when she enters their company, there is no one of the gifts that she exercises, which would not appear to lie within the range of the offices of Minerva, if not also of Apollo. In the remarkable case where she thunders in honour of Agamemnon just after he has armed, it is recorded that this was the joint act of the two divinities, of whom, on this occasion, Minerva takes precedence[153]:
ἐπὶ δ’ ἐγδούπησαν Ἀθηναίη τε καὶ Ἥρη,
τιμῶσαι βασιλῆα πολυχρύσοιο Μυκήνης.
This association is to be observed in another passage, where these goddesses jointly communicate courage to a warrior. But when we find them associated in administering the powers of atmospheric phenomena, it is obvious that we must resort to different sources for the means of explaining the respective agencies. Juno, mythologically related to Jupiter as a wife, in that capacity may, without exciting surprise, take in hand what belongs, so to speak, to the ménage. Minerva, as a daughter, has no such claim; and her possession of a standing ground which enables her to use these powers can only be explained by a prior and more profound affinity of traditional character, which makes her the organ of the supreme deity.
But while, in the highest marks of power adhering to Juno, Minerva seems everywhere to vie with her, there are others, and those among the most strictly characteristic of the head of Olympus, in which both Minerva and Apollo share, but which are not in any manner imparted to Juno.