The full idea of her mind is in fact contained in the union of great astuteness with her self-command, force, and courage: which, in effect, makes it the reflection of the genius of the Greeks when deprived of its moral element: and places it in very near correspondence with that of the Phœnicians, who are like Greeks, somewhat seriously maimed in that one great department. This full idea is exhibited on two great occasions. Once when she outwits Jupiter, by fastening him with an oath to his promise, and then, hastening one birth, and by her command over the Eilithuiæ retarding another, proceeds to make Eurystheus the recipient of what Jupiter had intended for another less remote descendant of his own. Again, in the Fourteenth Iliad, by a daring combination, she hoaxes Venus to obtain her capital charm, induces Sleep by a bribe to undertake an almost desperate enterprise, and then, though on account of his sentiments towards Troy she felt disgust (Il. xiv. 158) as she looked upon Jupiter, enslaves him for the time through a passion of which she is not herself the slave, but which she uses as her instrument for a great end of policy. She is, in short, a great, fervid, unscrupulous, and most able Greek patriot, exhibiting little of divine ingredients, but gifted with a marked and powerful human individuality.
It may be worth while to observe in passing, an indication as to the limited powers of locomotion which Homer ascribed to his deities. The horses of Juno, when she drives, cover at each step a space as great as the human eye can command looking along the sea. But when she has the two operations to perform on the same day, one upon the mother of Eurystheus, and the other on the mother of Hercules, she attends to the first in her own person, and apparently manages the other by command given to the Eilithuiæ (Il. xix. 119). If so, then she was evidently in the Poet’s mind subject to the laws of space and corporal presence: and his figure of the horse’s spring was one on which he would not rely for the management of an important piece of business.
There are three places, and three only, in the poems, which could connect Juno with the Trojans. One is the Judgment of Paris (Il. xxiv. 29). The others are no more than verbal only. Hector swears by Jupiter “the loud thundering husband of Here[360].” And again, he wishes he had as certainly Jupiter for his father, and Juno for his mother[361], as he is certain that the day will bring disaster to the Greeks. We cannot, then, say that she was absolutely unknown to the Trojans in her Hellenic form, while they may have been more familiar with her eastern prototypes[362]. It does not, however, follow, that she was a deity of established worship among them. There is no notice of any institution or act of religion on the one side, or of care on the other, between her and any member of their race. In the mention of her among the Trojans, we may perhaps have an instance of the very common tendency of the heathen nations to adopt, by sympathy as it were, deities from one another; independently of all positive causes, such as migration, or ethnical or political connection.
Her mythological origin.
The origin of Juno, which would thus on many grounds appear to have been Hellenic, appears to be referable to the principle, which I have called œconomy, and under which the relations of deities were thrown into the known forms of the human family. This process, according to the symmetrical and logical turn of the Greek mind, began when it was needed for its purpose, and stopped when it had done its work. Gods, that were to generate or rear other gods, were coupled; and partners were supplied by simple reflection of the character of the male, where there was no Idea or Power ready for impersonation that would serve the turn. Thus, Ῥέα, Earth or Matter, found a suitable mate for Κρόνος, or Time. But to make a match for Oceanus, his own mere reflected image, or feminine, was called into being under the name of Tethys. Such was, but only after the time of Homer, Amphitrite for Neptune, and Proserpine for Hades. In Homer the latter is more, and the former less than this. It was by nothing less than an entire metamorphosis, that the Greek Juno was educed from, or substituted for, some old deification of the Earth. She is much more a creation than an adaptation. What she really represents in Olympus, is supernatural wifehood; of which the common mark is, the want of positive and distinct attributes in the goddess. With this may be combined a negative sign not less pregnant with evidence; namely, the derivation and secondary handling of the prerogatives of the husband. The case of Juno is clear and strong under both heads. Her grandeur arises from her being clothed in the reflected rays of her husband’s supremacy, like Achilles in the flash of the Ægis. But positive divine function she has none whatever, except the slender one of presiding over maternity by her own agency, and by that of her figurative daughters, the Eilithuiæ. She is, when we contemplate her critically, the goddess of motherhood and of nothing else. And in truth, as the fire made Vulcan, and war made Mars, her mythological children, so motherhood made Juno, and is her type in actual nature. She became a goddess, to give effect to the principle of œconomy, to bring the children of Jupiter into the world, to enable man, in short, to construct that Olympian order, which he was to worship. Having been thus conceived, she assumed high powers and dignities in right of her husband, whose sister she was fabled to be, upon becoming also his wife, because either logical instinct, or the ancient traditions of our race rendered it a necessity for the Greeks to derive the divine, as well as the human, family from a single pair.
However strictly Hellenic may have been the position of Juno, we must reckon her as the sister of Jupiter to have been worshipped, in Homer’s time, from beyond the memory of man. For she carries upon her no token, which can entitle us to assign to her a recent origin. Recent, I mean, in her Hellenic form: apart from the fact that she was not conceived by the Greeks, so to speak, out of nothing; and that she, in common with many other deities, represents the Greek remodelling, in this case peculiarly searching and complete, of eastern traditions. The representation in theology of the female principle was eastern, and, as we have seen, even Jewish. Had Juno been simply adopted, she would probably have been an elemental power, corresponding with Earth in the visible creation. In lieu of this she became Queen of Olympus, and, in relation to men, goddess of Greece. Earth remains, in Homer, almost unvivified in consequence. But it may have been on account of this affinity, as well as of her relation to Jupiter, that she has been so liberally endowed with power over nature.
Neptune.
The Neptune of Homer.
Neptune is one of three sons of Κρόνος and Ῥέα, and comes next to Jupiter in order of birth. In the Fifteenth Iliad he claims an equality of rank, and avers that the distribution of sovereignties among the three brothers was made by lot. The Sea is his, the Shades are subject to Aides, Jupiter has the Heaven and Air; Earth and Olympus are common to them all. Wherefore, says Neptune, I am no mere satellite of Jupiter: great as he is, let him rest content with his own share; and if he wants somebody to command, let him command his own sons and daughters. Perhaps there may here be conveyed a taunt at Jupiter with respect to the independent and adverse policy of Minerva. This very curious speech is delivered by Neptune in reply to the command of Jupiter, that he should leave the field of battle before Troy, which was backed by threats. Iris, the messenger, who hears him, in her reply founds the superiority of Jupiter on his seniority only. To this Neptune yields: but reserves his right of resentment if Jupiter should spare Troy[363]. Nor does Jupiter send down Apollo to encourage the Trojans, until Neptune has actually retired: he then expresses great satisfaction at the withdrawal of Neptune without a battle between them, which would have been heard and felt in Tartarus; possibly implying that Neptune would have been hurled into it[364], but referring distinctly to the certain difficulty of the affair;