Note 23 — Chapter IV · HEROES

“Half-gods,” ἡμίθεοι. The name does not, as is sometimes declared, imply that the Heroes were spirits who thus constituted a class of intermediate beings between gods and men. The Heroes were not called ἡμίθεοι; the name was really applied to the kings and champions of the legendary age, more especially those who fought at Troy or Thebes (Hes., Op., 160; Hom. M 23; h. Hom., 31, 19; 32, 19. Callin., fr. i, 19, and often later). It applies to them, however, as living men not as glorified spirits (thus Pla., Ap. 41 A; cf. D.H. 7, 32, 13, ἡμιθέων γενομένων [on earth] αἱ ψυχαί).—The ἡμίθεοι are a species of men not of spirits or daimones; they are those οἳ πρότερόν ποτ’ ἐπέλοντο, θεῶν δ’ ἐξ ἀνάκτων ἐγένονθ’ υἷες ἡμίθεοι (Simon., fr. 36; cf. Pla., Crat. 398 D), the sons of gods and mortal women and then their companions as well (a potiori so named). Even the idea that the great men of the past, thus called ἡμίθεοι, were naturally made “Heroes” after their death as a consequence of their half-divine nature which might give them special privileges even then—this idea has no very ancient authority. Cicero, ND. iii, 45, seems to be the first to suggest such a view. That the Greeks of the best period ever regarded semi-divine origin as a qualification for becoming a Hero is refuted by the simple fact that for the great majority of the “Heroes” descent from a god was not claimed. Of course, poetry was always ready to give a Hero a divine father in order to enhance his value, cf. Paus. 6, 11, 2; but this was never a condition of being made a Hero (rather of being raised from Hero to god).