It is hard to find even approximations to such a picture in the later heathen literature, particularly after Æschylus: and in Homer no function of this kind is ever attributed to an ordinary deity; nor even to Jupiter, whose place in the government of mankind, if estimated morally, is lower than that of Minerva. I shall have occasion shortly to glance further at this subject.
The higher powers attaching to the character of the great Deliverer of man, besides being more or less obscured in each case, are by the disintegration, with which we may now have become familiar, divided between Apollo and Minerva; so that while in some, and indeed in most, points of view, it is a common character which distinguishes and severs them from the deities of mere invention, in others we must combine the gifts of one with those of the other, in order to get at the entire outline of the ancient tradition.
Thus we have seen, that Minerva exercises higher functions in Providential government, and in the administration of the general laws of our nature, than are wielded even by the Homeric Jupiter. We have also partially considered why it is, that she thus attains a superiority which, undoubtedly, no pristine tradition could while unaltered accord to her. At present I proceed to observe, that we may find a counterpart to this paramount prerogative of Minerva in the gift of fore and after knowledge, possessed most peculiarly and largely by Apollo.
Calchas, Seer of the Greek army, knew what was, what had been, and what was to be, by the gift which Phœbus Apollo had conferred on him[224]. It is the business of this order, who are ministers of Apollo, to interpret all signs and presages to men in virtue of the prerogative of that deity. In the Fifteenth Book, indeed, Apollo inquires of Hector the cause of his evil plight: but he has not yet put off his incognito, as we see from the reply of Hector;
τίς δὲ σύ ἐσσι, φέριστε θεῶν[225];
And, while Jupiter has the single and remote oak of Dodona for the delivery of oracles to men, Apollo has already his Pythian temple in the very heart of Greece, and hard by the great highway across the Corinthian gulf, and has likewise a shrine at Delos for that purpose; for we must presume that, when Ulysses[226] stopped to visit Delos on his way home, it was in order to obtain information as to his fate. Thus Apollo appears to stand first of the gods in regard to knowledge of events, as Minerva does with respect to the ordinary government of mankind. Nor does Homer scruple to call this favourite divinity the first of the gods; an expression, however, which he employs with latitude, and which must not be too rigidly construed[227]:
θεῶν ὤριστος, ὃν ἠΰκομος τέκε Λητώ.
I have already observed that the abstract words θεὸς and θεοὶ, which are generally used by Homer to convey the idea of Providence, are when so used commonly referable in the main to Jupiter, so far as we can connect them at all with any of the Olympian personages. Sometimes, however, they are determined by the sense of the passage to signify Minerva or Apollo; but I think they never, when they relate to Providential action, mean any other divinity.
It is by no means from any merely national, or even personal predilection, but it is mainly from the lofty standing ground of a Providence, that Minerva follows Ulysses: it is in the same general character that Apollo is made a party in the final crisis of the Odyssey through the introduction of his festival, and of the Bow.
In the Olympian assemblage, it is Minerva who really represents the element of mind and its inborn supremacy over all other forces. She proceeds upon principles, when Juno acts upon partial attachments; and her superiority is so great, as to be wholly inexplicable under the hypothesis which would represent the characters and attributes of all alike as the mere products of invention.