All this is in conformity with what we gather from the poems of Homer: but those poems have spared us many of the confused and perplexing phenomena, which are presented by the later mythology.
One side of the divided Messianic tradition, its purity, is best represented in Diana, through her severe and spotless chastity. Its force and scope are much more largely developed in Apollo. But this high purity, and the double aspect of the ministry of Death, appear to be of themselves sufficient to stamp her beyond mistake with a traditionary origin. Small resemblances, too, as well as great ones, are traceable in Homer between her and Apollo, such as her golden throne and golden distaff, which may be compared to his golden sword, the sword of primeval light: and even these minor correspondences may in their own degree bear witness to the original and integral shape of the tradition.
If she is thus clothed in a sort of lunar light, and is in the main a reflection of Apollo upon earth, such we may probably consider Persephone in the Shades[251].
Let us, however, consider what can be gathered from Homer as to the attributes of Diana.
This deity would appear to have been, according to him, a deity of universal worship. We may perhaps safely infer thus much from the single fact of her ministry of Death. She is also represented as extending her agency to Troy, where she taught Scamandrius to hunt[252]; probably to Crete, in the case of the daughters of Pandareos; she is invoked in Ithaca by Penelope, puts Ariadne to death in Dia, exercises a similar function for the women in Συρίη, sends the Calydonian boar for a defect of homage in Ætolia, and is familiarly mentioned in connection with the Greeks generally, while her place in the Theomachy may suffice to mark her as also a Pelasgian goddess. In most points, however, she partakes largely, as might be expected, of the characteristics of the ordinary deities of invention. Had she repeated all the chief notes of Apollo, and with any thing like an equal force, the question of traditional origin would perhaps have been more doubtful than it now is.
When she is invoked by Penelope, it is in connection with her share of the special ministry of death[253]. She is nowhere else made the object of prayer.
It is her deep resentment at the omission of sacrifice which provokes her to send the Calydonian boar[254]. In the Fifth Iliad, she and her mother Latona appear as deities purely subsidiary to Apollo. He deposits Æneas in his temple: there, not in a temple of their own, Latona and Diana attend upon and heal him[255].
In the Theomachy, she is treated with the same ignominy as Mars and Venus, but by Juno instead of Minerva. Her railing address to Apollo is conceived in the lower and not in the higher spirit (Il. xxi. 472–7).
She never assumes a general power, either over man in mind or body, or over outward nature.
She has no share in the general movement of either poem, and is introduced in the great majority of instances by way of allusion only.