Note 971 — Chapter XVI · GRECIAN MYTHES, AS UNDERSTOOD, FELT AND INTERPRETED BY THE GREEKS THEMSELVES. (continued 2)

According to the anonymous writer ap. Westermann (Script. Myth. p. 328), every personal or denominated god may be construed in three different ways: either πραγματικῶς (historically, as having been a king or a man)—or ψυχικῶς, in which theory Hêrê signifies the soul; Athênê, prudence; Aphroditê, desire; Zeus, mind, etc.—or στοιχειακῶς, in which system Apollo signifies the sun; Poseidôn, the sea; Hêrê, the upper stratum of the air, or æther; Athênê, the lower or denser stratum; Zeus, the upper hemisphere; Kronus, the lower, etc. This writer thinks that all the three principles of construction may be resorted to, each on its proper occasion, and that neither of them excludes the others. It will be seen that the first is pure Euêmerism; the two latter are modes of allegory.

The allegorical construction of the gods and of the divine mythes is copiously applied in the treatises, both of Phurnutus and Sallustius, in Gale’s collection of mythological writers. Sallustius treats the mythes as of divine origin, and the chief poets as inspired (θεόληπτοι): the gods were propitious to those who recounted worthy and creditable mythes respecting them, and Sallustius prays that they will accept with favor his own remarks (cap. 3 and 4. pp. 245-251, Gale). He distributes mythes into five classes; theological, physical, spiritual, material, and mixed. He defends the practice of speaking of the gods under the veil of allegory, much in the same way as Macrobius (in the preceding note): he finds, moreover, a good excuse even for those mythes which imputed to the gods theft, adultery, outrages towards a father, and other enormities: such tales (he says) were eminently suitable, since the mind must at once see that the facts as told are not to be taken as being themselves the real truth, but simply as a veil, disguising some interior truth (p. 247).

Besides the Life of Homer ascribed to Plutarch (see Gale, p. 325-332), Hêraclidês (not Hêraclidês of Pontus) carries out the process of allegorizing the Homeric mythes most earnestly and most systematically. The application of the allegorizing theory is, in his view, the only way of rescuing Homer from the charge of scandalous impiety—πάντῃ γὰρ ἠσέβησεν, εἰ μηδὲν ἠλληγόρησεν (Hêrac. in init. p. 407, Gale). He proves at length, that the destructive arrows of Apollo, in the first book of the Iliad, mean nothing at the bottom except a contagious plague, caused by the heat of the summer sun in marshy ground (pp. 416-424). Athênê, who darts down from Olympus at the moment when Achilles is about to draw his sword on Agamemnôn, and seizes him by the hair, is a personification of repentant prudence (p. 435). The conspiracy against Zeus, which Homer (Iliad, i. 400) relates to have been formed by the Olympic gods, and defeated by the timely aid of Thetis and Briareus—the chains and suspension imposed upon Hêrê—the casting of Hêphæstos by Zeus out of Olympus, and his fall in Lêmnus—the destruction of the Grecian wall by Poseidôn, after the departure of the Greeks—the amorous scene between Zeus and Hêrê on Mount Gargarus—the distribution of the universe between Zeus, Poseidôn, and Hadês—all these he resolves into peculiar manifestations and conflicts of the elemental substances in nature. To the much-decried battle of the gods, he gives a turn partly physical, partly ethical (p. 481). In like manner, he transforms and vindicates the adventures of the gods in the Odyssey: the wanderings of Odysseus, together with the Lotophagi, the Cyclôps, Circê, the Sirens, Æolus, Scylla, etc., he resolves into a series of temptations, imposed as a trial upon a man of wisdom and virtue, and emblematic of human life (p. 496). The story of Arês, Aphroditê, and Hêphæstos, in the eighth book of the Odyssey, seems to perplex him more than any other: he offers two explanations, neither of which seems satisfactory even to himself (p. 494).

An anonymous writer in the collection of Westermann (pp. 329-344) has discussed the wanderings of Odysseus upon the same ethical scheme of interpretation as Hêraclidês: he entitles his treatise “A short essay on the Wanderings of Odysseus in Homer, worked out in conjunction with ethical reflections, and rectifying what is rotten in the story, as well as may be, for the benefit of readers.” (τὸ μύθου σαθρὸν θεραπεύουσα.) The author resolves the adventures of Odysseus into narratives emblematic of different situations and trials of human life. Scylla and Charybdis, for example (c. 8. p. 338), represent, the one, the infirmities and temptations arising out of the body, the other, those springing from the mind, between which man is called upon to steer. The adventure of Odysseus with Æolus, shows how little good a virtuous man does himself by seeking, in case of distress, aid from conjurors and evil enchanters; the assistance of such allies, however it may at first promise well, ultimately deceives the person who accepts it, and renders him worse off than he was before (c. 3. p. 332). By such illustrations does the author sustain his general position, that there is a great body of valuable ethical teaching wrapped up in the poetry of Homer.

Proclus is full of similar allegorization, both of Homer and Hesiod: the third Excursus of Heyne ad Iliad. xxiii. (vol. viii. p. 563), De Allegoriâ Homericâ, contains a valuable summary of the general subject.

The treatise De Astrologiâ, printed among the works of Lucian, contains specimens of astrological explanations applied to many of the Grecian μῦθοι, which the author as a pious man cannot accept in their literal meaning. “How does it consist with holiness (he asks) to believe that Æneas was son of Aphroditê, Minôs of Zeus, or Askalaphus of Mars? No; these were men born under the favorable influences of the planets Venus, Jupiter, and Mars.” He considers the principle of astrological explanation peculiarly fit to be applied to the mythes of Homer and Hesiod (Lucian, De Astrologiâ, c. 21-22).