Note 30 — Chapter II

Pausanias merely says that the Greeks in general believed Pyrrhus to be his father. We have no doubt, from the context, that the hero is the person meant, though the passage has been otherwise interpreted. The practice of deifying eminent men prevailed in Greece at an early period, though apparently not in the age of Hesiod and Homer. Homer is fond indeed of dwelling on the superiority of the past; a superiority referred to the celestial descent of the heroes who then flourished; but he gives us no reason to think that divine honours were paid them. In later times, a patron hero was as necessary to a Grecian, as a patron saint formerly to a European city: and there are few names of eminence in the heroic age, in honour of which temples have not been built, and sacred rites instituted. The twelve Athenian tribes had each its protecting hero: Æacus and his descendants were believed to preside over Ægina and Salamis. It is needless to multiply examples.